NASSAU, Bahamas - The lawyer-turned-partner of Anna Nicole Smith dropped his bid Monday to block the release of DNA test results that could reveal the father of her baby daughter when it appeared a Bahamas court was going to reject his appeal.

An attorney for Howard K. Stern withdrew the challenge in the face of skeptical questioning by the three-judge Court of Appeal.

All three judges noted that Stern had filed his challenge too late and should have raised his objections before the Supreme Court ordered DNA testing in the paternity challenge filed by Larry Birkhead, a former boyfriend of Smith who claims to be the father of the infant, Dannielynn.

Justice Emmanuel E. Osadebay noted that Stern himself had agreed to DNA testing and waited until a week after the sample was taken to file the challenge.

Stern is listed on the birth certificate as the father of Dannielynn, who was born in the Bahamas in September. The child's DNA was tested on March 21 but the results have not been revealed.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hold a hearing in the paternity case but the lawyers and officials are prohibited by Bahamian legal rules from discussing the case, even to reveal the nature of the hearing.

The baby, whose full name is Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern, could inherit millions from the estate of Smith's late husband, J. Howard Marshall

Smith had been fighting the Texas oil tycoon's family over his estimated $500 million fortune since his death in 1995.

Aide who witnessed Hitler's last days in bunker, dies at 93

BERLIN (AP) - Baron Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven, a witness to Adolf Hitler's final days who described the last throes of a despairing Nazi leadership trapped in a Berlin bunker, has died, his publisher said Monday. He was 93.

Von Loringhoven died in February of natural causes in his home city of Munich, said Wolf Jobst Siedler Jr., who published the German-language version of his book, "In the Bunker with Hitler." Siedler did not have an exact date.

In an interview for the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, von Loringhoven recalled the despair among the two dozen top Nazis and their entourage in the bunker as the Soviet army converged on it in 1945.

"They talked about whether they should shoot themselves or take poison," von Loringhoven told the Los Angeles Times. "And they talked about whether, if they shot themselves, they should put the gun in their mouths, or put it to their temples."

On April 29, the day before Hitler and his new bride Eva Braun killed themselves, von Loringhoven was given his way out.

As a regular army major whose duty was to assemble military intelligence dispatches for Hitler, he found himself out of a job when the advancing Soviet army knocked out the radio transmitter the army used to send him information.

"I had no intention of being killed there, like a rat, in the corridor," he told the Los Angeles Times. "I asked to be given a chance either to go and find the fighting troops, or else to be given a chance to get out of Berlin."

He remembered Hitler reacting with enthusiasm, rather than condemnation, to the news that he and two comrades were going to flee.

"I had the feeling when we talked to him that he had already decided to end his life and that he, as a physical wreck, was envious of three strong young men who still had the chance of getting through."

The three managed to elude the Soviets and then allowed themselves to be captured by the Western Allies.

After two-years as a British prisoner of war, von Loringhoven was released and reunited with his family.

Von Loringhoven was born Jan. 24, 1914 in Arensburg in what is today Estonia to an aristocratic family. The family moved to eastern Germany to escape the post-World War I turmoil of the region.

Von Loringhoven considered a career as an attorney, but once the Nazis came to power in 1933 and party membership became a requirement for the profession, he instead turned to the military.

"I had studied law but the profession was being taken over by the Nazis," he told The Observer newspaper in 2005. "The Wehrmacht seemed an honorable career."

During World War II, von Loringhoven served as a tank company commander, among other roles, before being promoted to the rank of major and assigned to Gen. Heinz Guderian - the general credited with helping develop the blitzkrieg, or lightning-war, tank tactics that led to Germany's early victories. After Guderian's dismissal, von Loringhoven continued his liaison role under Gen. Hans Krebs until his escape from the bunker the month later.

After the war, von Loringhoven joined the West German army in 1956, later serving for three years in Washington as part of NATO's Standing Group. After a long career, he retired in 1973 with the rank of lieutenant general.

His memoirs were published in English last year.

Even 60 years after the war, von Loringhoven retained some of his contempt for the Nazi leadership, which was often at odds with the army's prewar officer corps.

"Hitler's only military experience had been as a corporal during the First World War," he told The Observer. "He knew only one thing - the fanatical resistance - and I can still hear him say the words. Blitzkrieg was not devised by him but only by military strategists whom he later sidelined."

"As soon as we suffered the first setbacks he became deaf to calls to switch to modern, mobile defense techniques," von Loringhoven said. "He saw them as defeatist since they sometimes required giving up territory."

Tsunami devastates western Solomon Islands; 13 killed, toll expected to rise

HONIARA, Solomon Islands (AP) - Tsunami waves churned by an undersea earthquake crashed ashore in the Solomon Islands on Monday, wiping away entire villages and triggering alerts from Australia to Hawaii, officials said. At least 13 people were killed, and the prime minister warned that the toll would likely grow.

In the South Pacific nation's west, where the devastation appeared centered, there were reports of people being swept away as waves plowed up to a half-mile inland. The magnitude-8 quake that created the tsunami was followed by more than two dozen aftershocks, including at least four of magnitude-6 or stronger.

"It was just a noise like an underground explosion," said Dorothy Parkinson, a resident of Gizo, where a wall of water swept through the streets. "The wave came almost instantaneously. Everything that was standing is flattened."

Some residents described a wave up to 16 feet tall.

"We ran for our lives, away from the waves," Arnold Pidakere, a schoolteacher in Gizo, told the British Broadcasting Corp. "When we looked back, we saw our house being destroyed."

Pidakere was among thousands of residents of the town of 7,000 who fled to a nearby hill.

"There wasn't any warning - the warning was the earth tremors," Alex Lokopio, premier of Western Province, told New Zealand's National Radio. "It shook us very, very strongly and we were frightened, and all of a sudden the sea was rising up."

Along the coast "all of the property was washed away to the open sea," he said. At least three islands near Gizo also reported widespread destruction, although the number of people affected was unclear.

In a televised address, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare warned that the number of dead was likely to rise: "I think we are expecting more".

"This is a very trying time for our nation and I would urge leaders at all levels in the affected areas to make it our utmost priority to ensure that our people receive the maximum comfort they need," he said.

Julian Makaa, spokesman for the Solomons National Disaster Management Office, said extensive destruction was reported in the South Pacific nation's west. But details remained sketchy because communications were reduced in many cases to scratchy two-way radio lines, and emergency officials struggled to reach outlying areas.

Alfred Maesulia, the information director in Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare's office, said late Monday that 13 people were killed and an unknown number remained missing.

"Some people were seen floating on the sea during the big waves but it was very difficult to go near them," Maesulia told The Associated Press.

The magnitude-8 quake struck shortly after 7:39 a.m. six miles beneath the sea floor, about 215 miles northwest of the Solomons capital, Honiara, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

Within five minutes, waves 10-16 feet tall roared ashore and went up to half a mile inland, inundating buildings and sending thousands fleeing for higher ground, witnesses said.

The Pacific region went on high alert for several hours after the quake struck between the islands of Bougainville and New Georgia, with Sydney's famous Bondi among beaches closed more than 1,250 miles away in Australia.

Warnings from the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center were lifted within hours for areas outside the Solomons, but Australian officials closed beaches along the length of the country's east coast, stopped ferry services in Sydney and warned fishing boats to return to port in precautionary measures that were lifted by the end of the day.

"We just feel it's best to err on the side of caution," said Warren Young, the chief lifeguard on Australia's Gold Coast, about 1,370 miles from the quake's epicenter.

In Gizo, the capital of Solomons' Western Province, Judith Kennedy said water "right up to your head" swept through the town. Her father, dive shop owner Danny Kennedy, said the surge carried detritus.

"There are boats in the middle of the road, buildings have completely collapsed and fallen down," he said by mobile phone as he toured Gizo.

Maesulia said residents of Simbo, Choiseul and Ranunga islands near Gizo also reported deaths and widespread destruction.

"There are reports that some villages were completely washed away," he said. "Sasamungga village is quite a big village. … It was reported that 300 houses were completely destroyed in that village alone."

Lokopio said up to 4,000 people who fled to a hill behind the town may need of emergency shelter and other supplies. He said most of the town's government offices were badly damaged, along with police stations and at least one hospital.

Strong aftershocks continued throughout the day.

Solomon Islands deputy police commissioner Peter Marshall said three military helicopters would fly to the stricken region on Tuesday with supplies for the homeless. He said a national state of emergency has been declared.

The Solomon Islands is an impoverished archipelago of more than 200 islands northeast of Australia, with a population of about 552,000 people, that lies on the Pacific Basin's so-called "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanos and fault lines where quakes frequently happen.

In 2004, a magnitude-9 quake sent tsunami waves slamming into the coastlines of a dozen countries around the Indian Ocean's rim, killing about 230,000 people.

Ohio prison officials say inmate in hospital overpowers guard, escapes with weapon

HILLIARD, Ohio (AP) - Police surrounded a house where a prison inmate was believed to be holed up Monday after overpowering an armed guard in a hospital and fleeing with a weapon and a guard's uniform. - Billy Jack Fitzmorris, 34, was believed to have escaped on foot from St. Elizabeth Hospital Medical Center in Youngstown, according to Corrections Corporation of America. The company runs the Northeast Ohio Correction Center in Youngstown, where Fitzmorris had been held since February for the U.S. Marshals Service.

Two nurses and several prison workers were briefly held in a hospital room during the escape, authorities said.

A few hours later, police surrounded a house in Hilliard, about 150 miles southwest of Youngstown, where Fitzmorris was believed to be hiding, police Lt. Everet Lambert said.

Television footage showed a man breaking into the house after abandoning a car nearby. A woman later climbed out a second story window and dropped to the ground as police arrived.

Corrections Corporation called Fitzmorris a pretrial inmate but did not provide details about why he was being held.

It also gave no details on why he was taken to the hospital on Saturday or how he overpowered the guard. He had been under observation in his room Monday morning when the confrontation occurred, the company said.

A call to the U.S. Marshals Service was not immediately returned.

"It's been a scary day for us here," hospital spokeswoman Tina Creighton told CNN.

She said she couldn't discuss why the inmate was at the hospital beyond saying that he was there for treatment.

"He overcame the guard; there was a corrections guard from the prison. He took the uniform and the weapon and made his escape," Creighton said.

Chicago Police superintendent announces retirement amid scandals over officer violence

CHICAGO (AP) - Chicago's police superintendent announced Monday he was retiring early as his department tries to deal with two highly publicized videotaped beatings involving off-duty police officers.

Last month, prosecutors filed felony charges against one officer accused of beating a female bartender, and six other officers were removed from street duty after they were accused of assaulting four businessmen in a bar.

Superintendent Philip J. Cline said in announcing his retirement that he would stay on until the city found a replacement. He said he told Mayor Richard M. Daley of his intention Monday morning.

"Mayor Daley has given me a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to lead the best police department in the country, and I thank him for that," said Cline, 57.

To the city's police officers, he said: "I encourage all of them to rise above any controversy and stay focused on the mission."

Cline, a Chicago native, began his police career as a cadet in 1968. He took over as superintendent in November 2003 and had been expected to retire later this year.

After the two videotapes surfaced, Cline said he would change the way the department responds to allegations of misconduct, including moving faster to get officers accused of misconduct off the street. His early retirement announcement came as a surprise.

The department was internationally vilified after the bar surveillance footage of an off-duty officer pummeling a female bartender half his size was broadcast worldwide through 24-hour news channels and on YouTube.

The footage showed Anthony Abbate, a 12-year veteran of the force, punching, kicking and throwing 24-year-old bartender Karolina Obrycka to the floor after she reportedly refused to continue serving him drinks. Obrycka suffered bruises to her head, neck, back and lower body, according to her attorney, Terry Ekl.

Police have not released the footage from the other confrontation involving the four businessmen on Dec. 15.

Police had been called to the scene, but a sergeant who was among the officers involved in the fight waved them off, Cline said. He announced last week that the six officers accused of assaulting the men had been taken off street duty.

Cline, a Chicago native, began his police career as a cadet in 1968. He took over as superintendent on Nov. 5, 2003. He had been expected to retire later this year.

School district violated student's rights by banning fliers about Jesus, judge says

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) - A school district violated a fourth-grader's constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection by refusing to allow her to distribute "personal statement" fliers carrying a religious message, a federal judge has ruled.

The Liverpool Central School District in upstate New York based its restrictions on "fear or apprehension of disturbance, which is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression," Chief U.S. District Judge Norman Mordue wrote in a 46-page decision Friday.

"School officials had no right to silence Michaela's personal Christian testimony," attorney Mat Staver said Monday.

Staver is executive director of Liberty Counsel, the Orlando, Fla.-based conservative legal group that represented Michaela Bloodgood and her mother, Nicole.

School district officials did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

According to the family's 2004 lawsuit, Nicole Bloodgood tried three times to get permission for Michaela to pass out the homemade fliers to other students at Nate Perry Elementary School. The flier, about the size of a greeting card, started out: "Hi! My name is Michaela and I would like to tell you about my life and how Jesus Christ gave me a new one."

Bloodgood's requests to school officials said that her daughter, now a sixth-grader, would hand them out only during "non-instructional time," such as on the bus, before school, lunch, recess and after school.

The lawsuit noted that Michaela had received literature from other students at school, including materials for a YMCA basketball camp, a Syracuse Children's Theater promotion and Camp Fire USA's summer camps.

Liverpool officials said at the time there was "a substantial probability" that other parents and students might misunderstand and presume the district endorsed the religious statements in the flier, according to the lawsuit.

"The court cannot say the danger that children would misperceive the endorsement of religion is any greater than the danger that they would perceive a hostility toward religion as a result of the district's denial," Mordue wrote.

Nicole Bloodgood said Mordue's decision vindicated her daughter and set a strong precedent for protecting students' free speech rights.

"It's taken 2.5 years to get justice … but our prayers were answered," Bloodgood said.

On the Web:

Liberty Counsel: http://www.lc.org

NYC identifies 2 more victims from earlier 9/11 remains, but identities not released

NEW YORK (AP) - The city said Monday it has positively identified two more Sept. 11 victims from thousands of unidentified human remains that have been retested in recent months.

The new identifications were made in the past week, said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for Dr. Charles Hirsch, the chief medical examiner. The identified remains are from the "initial recovery effort" of victims' remains in the first year after the 2001 terrorist attacks, not from a renewed search at ground zero, she said.

Borakove would not say how many remains were identified or exactly when and where they were recovered. The names of the newly identified victims also were not released.

The city has been storing more than 10,000 unidentified human remains, including more than 1,200 found since 2005.

The new identifications mean that 1,146 of the World Trade Center's 2,749 victims have yet to be positively identified. The city returned remains to three more victims in November, two months after Hirsch announced in a letter to families that "new identifications will be forthcoming" because of advances in DNA technology.

"Hopefully there'll be more to come," Borakove said Monday.

Family members who have been following the renewed search for remains have been frustrated by the recent search, and skeptical about how few new identifications have been announced since the recent finds in and around ground zero since last fall.

"It just seems very hard to believe that they haven't been able to make any sort of identifications from any of those pieces" found in recent months, said Kurt Horning, father of a trade center victim and a leading critic of the city's search.

New schoolhouse ready for Amish students who survived deadly rampage 6 months ago

NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) - Amish children carrying lunch pails arrived at a new one-room schoolhouse Monday morning, marking a fresh beginning for students who survived the shooting that killed five classmates last fall.

The New Hope Amish School sits a few hundred yards from the spot where the killings took place. Built by the entire community, the school is protected by more sophisticated locks on its doors and is reachable only by a private drive.

"For an Amish one-room schoolhouse, this one is spectacular," said Bart Township zoning officer John Coldiron.

It replaces the West Nickel Mines Amish School, which was torn down Oct. 12. Ten days earlier, milk truck driver Charles Carl Roberts IV shot 10 girls inside the school and then committed suicide as police closed in.

Retired teacher Dan Baughman said students were excited about the new school. They had been attending class in a garage-type building since the shooting.

"They're elated that they have a new school but nevertheless it's going to bring back forcefully that day six months ago," said Baughman, 81, who has lived in the community since the 1960s.

The building does not have electricity or a phone but is bright inside due to skylights and windows, Coldiron said. He said it sits behind a row of non-Amish homes, providing a way to quickly summon help in an emergency. The phone is notable because during the rampage, a teacher had to run to a neighboring farm to call 911.

At the front of the building is a steel door that locks from the inside.

A state police vehicle was parked at the end of the driveway Monday, and no trespassing signs had been posted along the main road.

The new school's construction costs were paid for in part with a portion of more than $4 million in donations to the Nickel Mines Accountability Committee, the primary organization collecting donations on behalf of the victims.

Donations, some sent directly to the school board, have also helped provide care for the five wounded girls who survived.

Four of the five have returned to school. The fifth, a 6-year-old, needs a feeding tube and is not able to communicate, according to Mike Hart of the Bart Township Fire Department, who is also a committee member.

Roberts' widow, Marie, and their three children have moved from their home in the village of Georgetown, about a mile from the shooting, to another community within Lancaster County, according to Hart.

Charles Roberts, apparently tormented by an unconfirmed memory of having molested relatives 20 years earlier, and by the 1997 death of his own infant daughter, shot and killed himself as police reached the school.

Brothers missing since November on Indian reservation found dead, encased in lake ice

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The tiny bodies of two young brothers who disappeared while playing outside their home on the Red Lake Indian Reservation were found encased in ice in nearby First Thunders Lake, four months after the search for them began.

"Our worst fears were confirmed," FBI Special Agent Ralph Boelter said, announcing that the boys had been found about a half-mile from their home.

Police dogs picked up the scent of Tristan Anthony White, 4, and Avery Lee Stately, 2, on Sunday, the first day of organized searching after the weather warmed, Boelter said.

The two boys, both American Indian, disappeared Nov. 22 from their home in a remote area near the Canadian border. Authorities have not determined whether they somehow wandered out onto the lake's thin ice and fell in or if foul play was involved in their deaths.

They might have been trying to reach a beaver dam, which was near where the bodies were found, Boelter said.

Divers had searched First Thunders Lake shortly after the two were reported missing, and hundreds of volunteers and law enforcement officers scoured the area, but they found no sign of the boys. The initial ground search was called off after five days. Boelter said search teams resumed their work on Sunday with the warmer weather.

"There's a lot of mud and weeds down there," Tribal Chairman Floyd (Buck) Jourdain Jr. told the Star-Tribune. "So, it's not unimaginable that they would sink, get entangled or stuck in the mud."

"So many people were hoping for a safe return back to their family," Jourdain said. "Unfortunately, we didn't get the result we were hoping for. It is a sad day."

The boys' mother, Alicia White, and Avery's father, Jeff Stately, had feared the children were abducted.

Authorities plan to conduct autopsies on the bodies in the coming days to help determine what happened.

"I'm grateful that we found the bodies," Boelter said. "Obviously it's very tragic for the families involved as well as the Red Lake Community."

The reservation had faced another tragedy less than two years before the boys' disappearance. On March 21, 2005, 16-year-old Jeff Weise killed his grandfather and the grandfather's girlfriend on the reservation, then went to the high school and killed seven more people, including a teacher and a security guard, before killing himself.

Authorities catch 28 men in online sex sting in Florida; 3 worked for Disney

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - Three Walt Disney Co. employees were among 28 men charged with soliciting sex from a minor amid a weeklong sting operation in the Orlando area, authorities said.

The men, ranging in age from college students to their 40s and 50s, had chatted online with people they believed to be boys and girls, ages 13 and 14, Polk County Sheriff's spokeswoman Donna Wood.

She said several agencies worked together to set up the sting at a Polk County home, where the suspects were arrested through Sunday.

Three of the men worked for Walt Disney Co., one as a 21-year-old intern, another as a 55-year-old part-time instructor at Disney's Animal Kingdom, and the third as a 44-year-old electronics technician, according to the sheriff's office.

The other men included laborers, food service workers and salesmen. One man said he was an IBM consultant; another a vice president for a South Florida real estate company, authorities said.

"We take matters like this very seriously," Disney said in a statement released Monday. "The cast members have been placed on unpaid leave."

Disney would not comment further on whether the employees had routine contact with children. The company said all cast members must pass background checks when they are hired.

Court rejects appeal from woman who claims James Brown raped her

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court on Monday declined to revive a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a woman who claims the late soul singer James Brown raped her nearly 20 years ago.

The justices did not comment on their order.

Jacque Hollander said in her suit that Brown raped her at gunpoint in 1988 while she was his publicist. She sought $106 million in damages.

A federal judge dismissed the suit in 2005, saying Hollander waited too long to file. An appeals court uphold the judge's order last year. Brown died on Dec. 25 at age 73.

The case is Hollander v. Brown, 06-1042.

France's fast train to try to break speed record for rail in run from Paris

PARIS (AP) - One of France's famed fast trains will try to break the world speed record on rails Tuesday, officials said.

The train, made up of three double-decker cars between two engines and outfitted to reach at least 335.5 mph, will whiz down a stretch of a new line linking Paris to eastern France, starting the journey from the French capital. It will try to break the 1990 rail record, also held by a French train, of 320.2 mph.

The TGV, short for "train a grande vitesse," as France's bullet trains are called, has been equipped with larger wheels than the usual TGV to cover more ground with each rotation and a stronger, 25,000-horsepower engine, said Alain Cuccaroni, in charge of the technical aspects of testing.

Adjustments also have been made to the new track, which opens June 10, notably the banking on turns. Rails were also treated for perfect contact, Cuccaroni said. The electrical tension in the overhead cable was beefed up, from 25,000 volts to 31,000.

Japan holds the absolute speed record for a train, with its magnetically levitated Maglev train that skims over a guideway on powerful magnetic fields without ever touching the track. The Maglev set a record of 361 mph in 2003.

"Will the TGV, with what we call a classic wheel-on-rail solution, break the record set by (Japan's) magnetic suspension? We'll know by tomorrow night," said Pierre-Louis Rochet, former international director of the state-run rail company SNCF.

The French train's double-decker cars were transformed into a laboratory for the event so that technicians from SNCF and Alstom, which makes the fast trains, can gather data during the run, expected to reach the approximate speed of a short-distance freight propeller plane.

The goal of the operation is more than "simply breaking a record," Cuccaroni said. Data from the test should help improve the security and comfort of passengers in the future, he said.

Danger is not really an issue, despite the double-decker cars and the high speed, said Rochet, now with the private engineering firm Arcadis.

There is a "very large security margin," he said. "We're far from the (safety) limits. Tomorrow, there will not be safety issues."

Bill and Melinda Gates arrive in Vietnam to boost vaccine research

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, are visiting Vietnam to help promote better children's health, government officials and state media reported Monday.

The world's richest couple agreed in principle to support Vietnam with research on vaccine development for children, said Nguyen Thi Hong Hanh, vice director of Vietnam's National Institute for Hygiene and Epidemiology.

The Gates' visited two clinics on the outskirts of Hanoi on Monday, chatted with new mothers and watched babies being immunized, said Duong Thi Khien, director of the Dong Anh district health center.

They are expected to stay in Vietnam for three days to sign papers for a donation of $240,000, the Cong An Nhan Dan (Public Security) Newspaper reported.

Bill Gates first visited Vietnam a year ago, when thousands of young Vietnamese greeted him like a rock star at a university where he spoke. This trip, however, has been quiet with little information about the visit being released.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was created in 2000. It is the world's largest philanthropic foundation with an endowment of about $33 billion. It concentrates on promoting global health, ending poverty and hunger, and enhancing education.

Tractor-trailer without brakes kills 9 people, damages dozens of buildings in northern Mexico

MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) - A tractor-trailer lost its brakes and killed nine people as it plowed through a residential area in this northern industrial city.

The driver of the rig towing two trailers loaded with 66 tons of steel tubes lost control of the vehicle Sunday on a major avenue of the Monterrey suburb of Santa Catarina and crashed into pedestrians, cars, dozens of buildings, utility poles and traffic lights before coming to a halt, said Jorge Vargas, civil protection director of Santa Catarina, on Multimedios TV.

Vargas said the truck finally stopped as it hit a building and caught fire, leaving behind a 2.5-mile trail of destruction.

"I just heard a roar, sort of like an earthquake," said Ramon Sanchez, who witnessed the wreck, in an interview with Multimedios.

Santa Catarina Mayor Dionisio Herrera said nine people were killed and seven injured.

Herrera said two of the victims were killed after one of two loaded platforms the trailer was hauling came loose and hit a taxi and a pickup truck. A few seconds later the trailer crashed head on against a taxi carrying three people and struck several pedestrians, he said.

Authorities identified two of the bodies as 90-year-old Isidro Flores and 45-year-old Jose Bernal, Herrera said.

The mayor said traffic officer Joel Garcia, 44, helped prevent more deaths by alerting pedestrians with a megaphone to get out of the way after noticing the trailer's driver was in trouble.

"What I wanted was to help our citizens but it was frustrating because I couldn't do more, I couldn't avoid this tragedy," Garcia said.

The driver of the tractor-trailer, which was heading to the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, was being questioned by investigators, Vargas said.

Man cleared of rapes in Buffalo, N.Y., after spending 22 years in prison

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - Rape convictions that placed Anthony Capozzi to prison for the past 22 years were erased Monday because of recently found DNA evidence that tied the crimes to another man. - A prosecutor last week declared Capozzi, 50, exonerated. He is expected to be freed from prison this week.

"There is a big load lifted off," said his lawyer, Thomas D'Agostino.

Capozzi was not in court for the seven-minute hearing when Erie County Judge Shirley Troutman threw out the two 1987 rape convictions. He remains at the Central New York Psychiatric Center in Marcy while authorities arrange for his release.

D'Agostino has said he is prepared to sue the state for wrongful imprisonment as a way to ensure Capozzi is taken care of. Before being sent to prison, Capozzi suffered from schizophrenia.

Capozzi was found guilty of the rapes Feb. 6, 1987, and sentenced to a term of 11 to 35 years. He had been denied parole five times since becoming eligible in 1997.

The break in his case came with the Jan. 15 arrest of Altemio Sanchez, 49, after DNA evidence allegedly identified him as a serial criminal known as the Bike Path Rapist.

After linking Sanchez to three murders and several rapes dating to 1981, investigators questioned whether the 1983 and 1984 attacks for which Capozzi was convicted - which occurred in the same park as two of the rapes linked to Sanchez - might also have been committed by the Bike Path Rapist.

Tests were conducted on DNA evidence collected after those two rapes and recently found at the Erie County Medical Center, and Erie County District Attorney Frank Clark announced last week that the DNA matched Sanchez, not Capozzi.

Capozzi resembled Sanchez at the time of the rapes, and the victims identified him in lineups.

Sanchez has pleaded not guilty to charges of murdering two women in the early 1990s and one woman last fall. He is not charged in any of the rapes because the five-year statute of limitations has expired.

Ohio prisoner arrested after overpowering guard, holing up with hostage, police say

HILLIARD, Ohio (AP) - Police arrested a prison inmate at a house where he holed up Monday with a hostage after overpowering a guard in a hospital and fleeing with the guard's gun and uniform, authorities said.

Billy Jack Fitzmorris came peacefully out of a room in the suburban Columbus home, police said. Authorities did not say who the hostage was, but no one was injured.

Fitzmorris, 34, was believed to have escaped on foot from St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown. Police believe he robbed two banks in central Ohio before going into the house in Hilliard, about 150 miles southwest of Youngstown, Hilliard police Lt. Evert Lambert said.

Two hospital workers, the guard and three other prison officers were held briefly in a hospital room during the escape, but no one was injured, authorities said.

Fitzmorris had been held since February at the Northeast Ohio Correction Center in Youngstown for the U.S. Marshals Service, according to Corrections Corporation of America. The company, which runs the prison, said he was awaiting sentencing on a federal conviction for cocaine possession and intent to distribute cocaine.