HARTFORD, Conn. - Two armed thugs tried to rob a line of people waiting for the new PlayStation 3 game system to go on sale early Friday and shot one man who refused to give up his money, authorities said.

In Sullivan, Ind., a man was in critical condition after emergency surgery for a stab wound after he and a friend tried to rob two men of consoles they waited 36 hours in line to buy, police said.

Nationwide, short supplies of the PS3 and strong demand led to long lines of buyers, some waiting for days outside stores. Once the doors opened Friday, they pushed and shoved their way to the shelves in several cities to get at the limited supply. Two people were arrested in Fresno, Calif., after a crowd trampled people in a parking lot.

It was about 3 a.m. when the two gunmen in Putnam, a town of about 9,000 residents in northeast Connecticut, confronted 15 to 20 people standing outside a Wal-Mart store and demanded money, said State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance.

"One of the patrons resisted. That patron was shot," Vance said.

Vance said the two gunmen fled after shooting Michael Penkala, 21, of Webster, Mass., in the chest and shoulder. Penkala was in stable condition at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester, Mass., with injuries not believed to be life-threatening, Vance said.

Police were searching for the suspects, both believed to be in their teens, Vance said. He said one was wearing a ski mask and brandishing a handgun, and the other had what appeared to be a shotgun.

About 30 miles away, another shopper was beaten and robbed of his new PlayStation 3 just minutes after he bought it at a store in Manchester, police said.

The shopper told police five men surrounded and beat him as he left the Shoppes at Buckland Hills.

Police Sgt. Chris Davis said the attackers pushed one of their cohorts out of the car as they drove away. That man, a 17-year-old from Windsor, was charged with robbery, larceny, assault and breach of peace.

Andrew Templeton, 20, and David Wiggins, 28, of Sullivan, Ind., were assaulted by two teens after waiting for 36 hours at a Super Wal-Mart, police said.

They were unloading their PlayStation 3s from their car when two teens approached them carrying a chain and a tire iron and demanding their consoles, said Sullivan Police Chief David Story.

A fight broke out. Wiggins' nose was broken, and he stabbed one of the attackers, Dylan Moss, 19, police said. Moss was in critical condition after surgery, officials said.

Sullivan County Prosecutor Bob Springer said he plans to charge Moss and accomplice Dustin Fagg, 19, with felony robbery.

Elsewhere, two men wearing black ski masks and sunglasses made off with five consoles after holding two employees at gunpoint at an Englewood, Ohio, video game store Thursday night, police said.

A Pennsylvania teenager was also robbed of his new PlayStation by a man who tapped on his car window with a handgun in Allentown, police said.

In Lexington, Ky., someone fired BB pellets from a passing vehicle at people waiting outside a Best Buy store, according to WKYT, whose own reporter said she was among four people grazed while she interviewed buyers in line.

Police fired a talcum powder ball at the ground outside a Target store in Henrico, Va., to get the attention of an unruly crowd of about 350 people who were waiting to buy one of the shop's eight consoles, police said.

In McLean, Va., police fired pepper pellets Friday morning to subdue a rowdy crowd of about 200 people outside a Circuit City store at Tysons Corner Center mall. One person complained of shortness of breath after the pellets were fired and was taken to the hospital, authorities said.

A Best Buy store in Boston, aware it had only 140 of the consoles, got smart about the big sale - its employees gave out tickets to the first 140 people in line so everyone could go home until the store opened.

Storms that killed 12 sweep through Northeast with heavy rain; hundreds rescued from flooding

RIEGELWOOD, N.C. (AP) - Survivors picked through the rubble of their flattened homes Friday after a tornado killed eight people in this riverside town, the area hardest hit by a devastating storm system that later swept through the Northeast. - Gov. Mike Easley toured the devastated area as disaster assessment teams surveyed what was left of a mobile home park and several brick homes that were flattened by the storm.

More than half of the 20 people injured when the tornado struck Riegelwood remained hospitalized Friday, including four children Easley said were in "very, very critical condition."

The governor declared a state disaster in Columbus County, allowing those affected by the storm to apply for state aid. He said it didn't appear the damage in North Carolina would reach the $8.9 million threshold for federal aid, but he assured locals he would find state funds to help them if it didn't.

The deadly storms left a three-day path of destruction from Louisiana to Maine, killing 12 people, knocking out power and flooding streets.

Hundreds of people in New York and dozens in Maryland had to be rescued Thursday from homes and cars caught in flash flooding. Most of Maine was still under a flood watch Friday.

Columbus County Sheriff Chris Batten said authorities ended their search for bodies Thursday night and had accounted for everyone. A precautionary dive into a nearby pond on Friday turned up no bodies.

Survivors, meanwhile, began retrieving whatever valuables they could salvage from devastated homes.

Darryl McNair had been sleeping when the tornado picked up his mobile home and tossed it across the street into his neighbor's yard.

"You could feel the house moving," McNair, 34, said during a break from picking through rubble Friday.

"My whole life was in that house," he said, crying. "Everything that was me was in that house. How could you lose everything in so short a time? I struggled to get that stuff and now it's all out in the road like it was nothing."

As the storms moved northward with heavy rain, officials in Broome County, N.Y., near the Pennsylvania line, rescued more than 200 residents from cars caught in flooding and from homes as water approached front doors and poured into basements.

One man clung to a tree as his car was swept away by flood water, county spokeswoman Darcy Fauci said.

A mudslide on Interstate 88 east of Binghamton caused a 20-vehicle pileup that left several people injured. One of two eastbound lanes remained closed late Friday as crews worked to remove mud, rock and debris.

Fauci said the flooding caused an estimated $21 million worth of damage to roads, bridges, culverts and municipal buildings in Broome County, and that doesn't include damage to private homes.

The area had already seen widespread flooding after a four-day deluge in June, when Binghamton resident Rosemary White lost her car and her greenhouse.

"Now, my Subaru that I drive now is probably gone. It was in the garage, and there was water in that, and I have to replace everything again. It's frustrating," White said.

Binghamton roads remained washed out or impassable Friday, but the situation was improving because the rain had stopped, said Lt. John Shea of the Binghamton Police Department.

Dozens of schools in Broome and neighboring Chenango and Delaware counties were closed Friday, many because of impassable roads.

Three freight cars derailed in Bowie, Md., and investigators were trying to determine whether the storm caused the wreck, CSX Corp. spokesman Gary Sease said. The empty coal hoppers jumped off tracks shared with Amtrak trains, bringing down some power lines. No one was injured.

The victims in the Riegelwood tornado included two boys, ages 6 and 11. Most of the dead were found within 200 yards of where the tornado touched down, Batten said.

The community on the Cape Fear River, about 20 miles west of Wilmington, has no tornado sirens.

Three tornadoes also touched down in western North Carolina, destroying about a dozen homes and toppling trees in Lincoln, Iredell and Gaston counties, the National Weather Service said Friday. Officials said five people were injured.

In Louisiana, a man died Wednesday when a tornado struck his home. In South Carolina, a utility worker checking power lines Thursday during the storm was electrocuted. Two people died in car crashes in North Carolina as heavy rain pounded the state.

- Associated Press writer Mike Baker in Raleigh contributed to this report.

Wedding fever spiking in medieval Italian town preparing for TomKat 'wedding of the year'

BRACCIANO, Italy (AP) - This lakeside town was busy Friday sprucing up its medieval facade with a touch of Hollywood flair on the eve of Tom Cruise's wedding to Katie Holmes, naming restaurant menus after the actors' most famous movies and filling shop windows with well-wishing messages.

Streets were cleaned, the grass cut and weeds pulled. Road signs outside Bracciano warned drivers that the center of town would be closed to traffic all of Saturday to free the area around the 15th-century Odescalchi Castle - the likely venue for the celebrity wedding.

By early afternoon, town workers began setting up barriers on the street leading to one of the castle's entrances. The historic town's narrow streets teemed with journalists and camera crews, while locals made their own preparations.

"We are all participating a little in this wedding," said Simona Palazzini, a restaurant owner in the square next to the castle. "And we are quite happy to do so."

At the Il Ristorantino dining spot Palazzini offered a "Top Gun" menu that included fettuccine with seafood called "Mission Impossible" and apple pie with cream and hot chocolate named after Suri, the couple's daughter. At the nearby Trattoria del Castello, guests could order a "Tom e Kat" - a basket of parmesan cheese with truffles and mushrooms.

"Wishing you love and happiness," read one well-wishing sign written in English and taped to the window of a coffee shop.

"Congratulations Tom and Katie," said a sticker on the window of a clothing store, whose two other windows sported a wedding dress with a photograph of the couple, and a "Top Gun" theme with aviation outfits and jackets, and a poster of Cruise as Maverick, the pilot he played in the movie.

Nearby, a store had an arch of white balloons over its doorway, except for one red one shaped like a heart. A picture of the couple and a postcard of Bracciano hung from the red balloon.

"This is good for the town. It's a beautiful thing that will make Bracciano known to the whole world," said Iolanda Barbarani, who owns a hardware store.

Lidia Sabbatini, who owns a flower shop, said residents were besides themselves with excitement.

"Everybody is so enthusiastic. … it's not an everyday thing to have a Hollywood star as a guest," Sabbatini said. "That's all anyone is talking about. Wherever you go, they're talking about it. People aren't even taking the time to buy bread!"

On Friday evening, Cruise and Holmes left the Hassler hotel where they have been staying in Rome to take part in a reception at a villa on a hill overlooking the Italian capital.

On Thursday, Bracciano Mayor Patrizia Riccioni said the celebrity couple would likely wed Saturday in a Scientology ceremony at the castle, 43 kilometers (27 miles) north of Rome.

While she stopped short of confirming the actual date of the wedding, the town's Web site had a picture of Cruise and Holmes under the headline, "The wedding of the year in Bracciano, Saturday, 18 November 2006."

Riccioni, who met with the couple Wednesday at an undisclosed location and gave them a gift, said Friday she had received a large bouquet of white flowers, including roses, from the couple.

"These beautiful flowers arrived from both of them with a thank you note," Riccioni told The Associated Press, adding that she was "almost moved" by the gesture.

Riccioni described her meeting with Cruise and Holmes and baby Suri, who was born April 18, as "intimate," saying that "they seemed to be a couple in love who is ready to take the big step of getting married."

She said that her office had not received any request to celebrate a civil wedding as of late Friday morning, and that she believed the ceremony in Bracciano would be a Scientology rite. She has not been invited to the ceremony, she said.

Scientology ceremonies contain many elements of traditional weddings - rings, procession, vows, etc. But they also include certain Scientology fundamentals, including vowing to never to go to bed without communicating about any differences. They also stress the Scientology tenet known as ARC - A for affinity, the closeness between a couple; R for reality, what a couple agrees on; C for communication, the exchange of ideas and thoughts.

A spokesman for the Church of Scientology for Rome, Fabrizio D'Agostino, said an exchange of vows with a Scientology rite was not legally recognized in Italy, and would have to be preceded or followed by a civil union.

The medieval castle - with its frescoed library and a loggia looking out on a lake - and the town that surround it have seen celebrity weddings before. CNN foreign correspondent Christiane Amanpour and U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin married there in 1998.

The same year, Italian pop star Eros Ramazzotti and his bride, TV personality Michelle Hunzicker, had their reception at the castle, gathering a crowd of TV celebrities and pop stars, including Tina Turner.

Cruise and Holmes have been staying this week at the luxury hotel near the Spanish Steps in Rome. They dined out Thursday night with about 50 guests at a small, nearby restaurants.

Those spotted coming and going into the restaurant included "Mission Impossible III" director, J.J. Abrams, Brooke Shields and Jennifer Lopez and Lopez's husband, singer Marc Anthony.

Meanwhile, more VIP guests flew into Rome on Friday. Will Smith arrived at the city's small Ciampino airport in the late morning, and soccer star David Beckham and his pop-star wife, Victoria, arrived in the afternoon.

Cruise and Holmes were first photographed together in Rome in April 2005. They became engaged in June 2005.

Scientology wedding rites co-star of TomKat nuptials

ATHENS, Greece (AP) - Some marital advice Tom Cruise and his bride-to-be could receive Saturday: Never go to bed angry at each other. Or they may be told that newlywed "girls" expect "frills" and maybe a cat, and young men are prone to "forget" their promises. - It's part of the guidance that Cruise and fiancee Katie Holmes may get from a Church of Scientology minister at their planned wedding in Italy - a ceremony that's drawn attention to the marriage rituals of the church that counts the groom as one of its most famous and ardent followers.

Scientology nuptials have many familiar elements - such as a bridal procession, rings and a presiding minister - while also adding the promise to clear the air before bed. The most traditional vows include "poetic" insights into men and women, including the frills and forgetfulness, that are meant to signify the need to "stand by each other," said a church minister who has performed weddings for 30 years.

"It is a poetic way of elaborating on the typical 'for better or worse' clause," said the Rev. Janet Kenyon Laveau.

There has been no official confirmation of what type of ceremony has been chosen by the couple, who celebrity watchers believe will tie the knot at a 15th century castle overlooking Lake Bracciano, northwest of Rome. Italy's ANSA news agency reported Thursday that the ceremony would be performed by a U.S.-based member of the church, founded more than 50 years ago by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.

Laveau said the ceremony has many common aspects with other Western denominations, such as traditional wedding dresses and tuxedos, music, flowers and guests tossing rice at the new couple.

"The same brides' magazines are being used," said Laveau, a Canadian who now lives in Britain.

The minister typically wears a clerical collar - but in some cases dons formal robes - and displays the church's "eight-pointed cross" that represents the eight parts, or "dynamics," of existence.

Marriage is part of the second dynamic of "creativity," which includes raising children and family life. The first dynamic is "self" and personal growth. The others go in ever-expanding steps from "group survival" to "infinity."

Laveau said there are "no issues" about marriage between a church member and a nonmember. The 27-year-old Holmes was raised Roman Catholic, but Cruise in an April interview on ABC's "Primetime" suggested she switched to Scientology. Cruise also said the couple's daughter Suri - who was born shortly after the interview - would not have a Catholic baptism.

"We are also no strangers to interfaith weddings," wrote Laveau in response to questions posed by The Associated Press.

There are five different possible ceremonies, each with different wording and length: the traditional ceremony, the informal; the single ring; double ring, and concise double ring.

The traditional ceremony includes passages in which the groom is told that "girls" have needs such as "frills" and "a pan, a comb, perhaps a cat." The bride is told that "young men are free" and can stray from their promises.

The concise double ring uses a more "modern" tone, Laveau said.

Some couples choose to fashion rings with the church's ARC triangle, referring to affinity, reality and communication, she said.

There are specific marriage vows for the couple, but it's possible to substitute a personal text. The actual marriage rite takes about 15 minutes, Laveau said, but the entire ceremony can take longer because of musical selections and other portions added by the couple.

The vows include a pledge never to go to sleep angry or upset with one's spouse, said Laveau.

The ceremony begins with a request from the minister about whether any guest has reason to oppose the marriage. But, near the end, the guests are asked to "acknowledge" the newlyweds. The minister says: "And I will ask these witnesses present to join me in blessing this ceremony with the postulate that the trust and love of the present shall become ever stronger with each passing year."

Laveau said "they can respond with a `yes' or applause."

But if the future turns rocky for the couple, the church offers marriage counseling and the assistance of a chaplain.

"If at the end of the counseling the couple decides to divorce, they would follow the same legal procedure as anyone else and the church recognizes a legal divorce," Laveau wrote.

A Scientology Web site on marriage offers some suggestions on finding martial bliss. But, indirectly, it also summed up the staggering media build up for the so-called TomKat nuptials:

"Perhaps no two words in our language have apparently fueled more hysteria, general hubbub and all-round pandemonium as these two "I do."'

Sergio downgraded to tropical storm

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Hurricane Sergio weakened to a tropical storm Friday, soaking areas of Mexico's Pacific coast with rain.

Sergio, which had been the 10th hurricane of the year in the eastern Pacific, had maximum sustained winds of 65 mph and was centered about 350 miles southeast of the port city of Manzanillo, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

Sergio was moving north at about 3 mph but was expected to make a gradual turn out to sea. While the tropical storm itself was not a direct threat to land, it was producing rainfall of up to 6 inches on Mexico's Pacific coast.

The hurricane had become a Category 2 storm Wednesday with maximum high winds of 110 mph before weakening Thursday.

Tropical storms become hurricanes when wind speeds reach 74 mph. Category 2 hurricanes have minimum wind speeds of 96 mph.

Violence breaks out at annual Greek protest march; 10 hurt, dozens detained

ATHENS, Greece (AP) - Police fired tear gas and clashed with demonstrators Friday as violence erupted during a rally marking the anniversary of a 1973 student uprising. At least 10 people were injured and dozens detained. - Rioters hurled flares and rocks at police near the prime minister's official residence as others marched around the U.S. Embassy, authorities said.

Up to 7,500 police were deployed, most along the traditional route that takes demonstrators from the Athens Polytechnic campus to the U.S. Embassy.

Some 15,000 demonstrators participated in the march, joined by trade union members who had staged strikes this year for higher pay, including a six-week walkout by state primary school teachers.

This year marks the 33rd anniversary of the uprising, when several students lost their lives after the military junta then ruling Greece used tanks against them. The events that night are generally considered to mark the beginning of the end of the junta that ruled Greece from 1967-1974.

In recent years, however, commemoration of the event has been overshadowed by riots instigated by self-styled anarchists.

Public Order Minister Vyron Polydoras said police took a tougher line with violent protesters than in previous years. More than 50 people were detained, police said.

Tight security also was in place in Thessaloniki, where a group of youths damaged a sports museum Thursday by throwing stones and smoke bombs. About 8,000 people joined a march in the city, where youths also clashed with police outside the city's university.

Mexican conservatives weigh constitutional challenge to capital's gay-union law

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico's ruling conservative party is considering filing a legal challenge to Mexico City's new law recognizing gay civil unions, saying it violates a clause in the country's constitution protecting the family, legislators said Friday.

The law was published in the city's official gazette on Thursday, making it the first such law in the history of the conservative, predominantly Roman Catholic country. It will take effect 120 days from that date.

City assemblyman Miguel Angel Errasti said his National Action Party - the party of President Vicente Fox and President-elect Felipe Calderon - is determining whether the new law can be challenged on constitutional grounds.

Article 4 of Mexico's Constitution covers the rights of spouses, children and the family, and states that "men and women are equal before the law. This will protect the organization and development of the family." Errasti argues that the new Mexico City law is unconstitutional because the article mentions only men and women in relation to marriage.

City legal counsel Maria Estela Rios, however, called the argument "absurd" because the law guarantees legal rights for same-sex couples, but does not legalize gay marriage.

"There is no attack against the concept of the family," Rios said. The law "just involves recognizing that there are other forms of unions that have existed for many years."

Errasti did not say when his party would decide on whether to file the constitutional challenge - the only legal avenue to overturn the law.

The law allows same-sex couples living in Mexico City to register civil unions with authorities, granting them inheritance rights and other benefits typically given to spouses.

The measure has been severely criticized by the Roman Catholic Church and conservative groups in the country, which is 90 percent Catholic. The Mexican Council of Bishops has said the law is the first step toward legalizing gay marriage and adoption by gays, while the conservative National Parents Union called it "aberrant."

While homosexuality is still taboo in many rural parts of Latin America, the region's urban areas are becoming more tolerant. Mexico City joins the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires and the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul in legalizing same-sex civil unions.

At the national level, lawmakers in Costa Rica and Colombia have debated, but not passed, similar measures.

Brazilian city seeks to curb rush hour groping with women-only buses

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) - In an effort to curb rush-hour groping on crowded buses, a major Brazilian city is about to introduce women-only buses in its public transportation system.

The city council of Goiania, capital of the central state of Goias, unanimously approved a bill calling for women-only buses during morning and evening rush hours in the city of 1.1 million residents, councilman Mauricio Beraldo said Friday.

"The beautiful women of Goiania are constantly being sexually harassed on our overcrowded buses by men who seem unable to control themselves," Beraldo, the bill's sponsor, said by telephone from his office 570 miles north of Sao Paulo.

"Over the years I have received countless complaints from irate and nervous women complaining of men who take advantage of crowded bus conditions to fondle their bodies," Beraldo said. "This is why I decided to introduce a bill calling for the introduction of buses that will carry only women."

Mayor Iris Rezende is expected to sign the bill into law by Dec. 15, and the all-female buses should be circulating by mid-2007, Beraldo said.

Details on how the women-only bus system will work will be discussed in the coming weeks, he said. He declined to provide further information until the bill is approved by the mayor, who was not immediately available for comment.

Rio de Janeiro's subway system started using women-only cars in 2006 after several complaints of sexual harassment. The all-female cars circulate all day, while in Mexico City cars are designated for women and children only during rush hours.

In Japan, where groping of women is a long-standing problem, 26 lines operated by 12 companies have introduced women-only cars, mainly in big cities.

In Cairo, at least two cars in the front of every train are reserved for women. However, women and men ride together in buses.

Kiss me Kate? One British retailer is banking on royal nuptials

LONDON (AP) - As far as the world knows, no question has been popped and no ring has been produced, but that hasn't stopped one of Britain's biggest retailers from gearing up for a royal wedding.

Prince William and his longtime girlfriend, Kate Middleton, have not announced an engagement, but in Britain there has been speculation - tinged, perhaps, with hope - that they soon could.

To that end, Woolworths has designed a range of Kate-and-Wills engagement memorabilia ranging from the traditional - mugs, plates, and thimbles - to the unusual, such as mobile telephones and prince-shaped candy.

"This is an exercise in being ready," company spokesman Daniel Himsworth said, "because we felt we weren't ready when Charles and Camilla got married."

"It's no secret they could get married. It's been in the press, on the radio. This is about the mood of the country."

Britain loves a royal wedding, it's true. The marriage of Prince Charles to his longtime love Camilla Parker-Bowles on April 9, 2005, was a relatively low-key affair. Certainly, it was a far cry from the 1981 wedding of Charles to Lady Diana Spencer, when people slept in the streets to catch a glimpse of the bride and about 700 million people around the world watched it on television.

Souvenirs for Charles' second wedding did a brisk business, and those bearing the incorrect date - their nuptials were delayed by one day so the prince could attend Pope John Paul II's funeral - are considered more valuable.

Himsworth said Woolworths estimates the market for memorabilia from a possible union between William and Middleton could top $19 million. By contrast, they estimated the market for Charles-and-Camilla souvenirs at $6 million.

William, who is second in line to the throne after his father, has been dating Middleton since they met at St. Andrew's University, in Scotland, in 2001. The two, who are both 24, were first seen together publicly three years later on a skiing holiday.

Now, paparazzi often snap the pair on evenings out, and a recent picture of the couple smiling broadly at each other as they left one club made the front page of London's Evening Standard, with the headline, "Look of Love."

The accompanying article opined, "Kate smiles at William, and it is a smile of the tenderest affection, a look that says she loves him, admires him and yes, still fancies him something rotten. They are going home together at the end of the evening, and the girl could not be happier."

In March, when the prince and Middleton left London for a Caribbean vacation, some in Britain's media speculated that William was about to propose. Then, as now, the palace had no comment. On Friday morning, bookmaker William Hill put the odds of the couple becoming engaged this year at 5-1; it's even money, though, that they will eventually be married.

Himsworth said that Woolworths hasn't actually manufactured any of the merchandise. The chain has instead stockpiled all the materials they need, commissioned the designs, and when an announcement is made, production would begin.

Despite all the planning, the candy part is still up in the air. The idea is a new one, he said, and the shop isn't certain exactly what form the candy would take.

South Korean's restroom revolution aims to beautify bathrooms, prevent disease

SUWON, South Korea (AP) - Sim Jae-duck was born in a bathroom, which could explain why he is so interested in keeping them clean.

Now, the South Korean politician with those humble roots is leading a movement to beautify the world's toilets in a restroom revolution he insists should not be the target of jokes, but a serious effort that demands global attention - touching on weighty issues from water usage to public health.

Sim is chairman of the World Toilet Association, which plans to hold its inaugural general assembly in Seoul in November 2007, seeking to join representatives of at least 50 nations to discuss the state of their public restrooms.

Koreans once believed that giving birth in bathrooms would mean children would enjoy long lives. When it was time for Sim's mother to deliver, she knew right where to go.

Having faced crowds who laugh at his title, Sim acknowledges people dislike speaking publicly about what they do behind closed bathroom doors.

"Many people realize that this is a serious issue, but I think they are hesitant to talk about it," the 67-year-old said Friday during a "toilet tour" for journalists around his native city of Suwon, which he represents in parliament and also has served as mayor.

Some 2 million people die each year - including 4,500 children a day - from diseases related to a lack of access to clean water, a problem faced by 40 percent of the world's population, the WTA said, citing statistics from the World Health Organization.

People spend an average of three years of their lives in bathrooms, according to the WTA, and half of personal water usage daily takes place there.

South Korea has not been previously known as a paradise for public restrooms. A Korean proverb suggests what mothers-in-law and outhouses have in common: the farther away, the better.

But the country was forced to undergo a toilet transformation before hosting the 1988 Olympics and co-hosting the 2002 World Cup with Japan.

"From very stinking, dirty facilities, the restrooms have become very clean, very hygienic - it's actually become a cultural space," said Kim Woo-tae, public relations chief for the WTA.

South Korea is not resting on its success.

A vision of tomorrow's toilets is on show in Suwon, some 30 miles south of Seoul, where Sim's campaign to revamp restrooms earned him the nickname "Mayor Toilet."

Next to the city's landmark Hwaseong Fortress, a showcase bathroom boasts classical music activated by a ceiling motion sensor, displays of artificial flowers, sitting areas, solar-powered electronic "occupied" indicators on stall doors, and toilets with views of an enclosed garden.

"We want to hear Vivaldi, we want to see Picasso where we're in the restroom," Kim said.

Other public bathrooms in the city have similar features, each with a unique architectural design incorporating its surroundings. For example, a restroom at the Suwon World Cup Stadium is shaped like a giant soccer ball.

"I love coming here, this is part of my routine," said 72-year-old Paik Myo-sook, stepping out of the stall of one of her city's showpiece bathrooms. In her lifetime, she said she had seen bathroom facilities develop from a couple of boards placed over a hole to today's wonders.

Sim said the idea for the worldwide campaign began for him with the country's World Cup bid, but became a passion as he realized that the lowly loo was in need of an international champion.

There is a rival bathroom body - the World Toilet Organization, or WTO - but Sim insists it lacks the backing of governments that he is trying to assemble under the WTA. The South Korean government is a strong supporter of WTA, pumping in some $5 million this year alone.

Ex-chief justice in Conn. suspended 15 days for delaying ruling to help would-be successor

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Former state Chief Justice William Sullivan was suspended for 15 days Friday for delaying the release of a ruling to help a potential successor win confirmation.

The Judicial Review Council found Sullivan violated two canons of the judicial code but did not violate three others he had been accused of breaking.

Sullivan, who retired from the Supreme Court in April but has been hearing cases as a senior judge, could have been suspended for up to a year had he been found guilty of all charges.

Sullivan declined to comment outside the hearing. His attorney, Edward Maum Sheehy, said he has not decided whether to appeal.

"I think it hits him pretty hard. As you all know, he's a man of integrity," Sheehy said, adding that he did not believe there was clear and convincing evidence to support all five of the charges.

Peter Clark, the council's interim executive director, told colleagues on the panel that Sullivan tried to deprive the Legislature of information it needed in evaluating Justice Peter Zarella, the nominee.

Sullivan, 67, acknowledged during the hearing that this year he held up publication of a ruling that keeps certain judicial records secret because he believed it would harm Zarella's chances of confirmation. He told the council last month that he believed he had the authority because he authored the decision, in which Zarella sided with the majority.

Zarella was facing confirmation hearings at the time. Gov. M. Jodi Rell withdrew his name at his request.

State Sen. Andrew McDonald, co-chairman of the legislature's Judiciary Committee, questioned how Sullivan's punishment would be meted out, given that he is a part-time worker who earns about $200 per case. Sullivan also collects an annual pension of about $102,000.

Despite Friday's ruling, McDonald said, the legislature still plans to investigate the matter on its own. "Now it falls on the legislature to vindicate our own separate concerns," he said.

Fired Va. man accused of returning to school shop where he worked and killing ex-boss

Eds: UPDATES thruout with students not affected, suspect held wihtout bail.

MILFORD, Va. (AP) - A man fatally shot his former boss at a maintenance shop behind a primary school a day after he was fired, the sheriff's office said Friday.

Thomas E. Monroe, 66, argued with former boss David Ganoe, 51, before shooting him several times, the Caroline County Sheriff's Office said in a statement. Ganoe was pronounced dead at the scene.

Students at nearby Bowling Green Primary School were not affected by the incident, school officials said.

Monroe assaulted another person during the incident, which ended in Monroe's surrender, the sheriff's office said. It did not give any details about the suspected assault.

Monroe is charged with first-degree murder, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, possession of a firearm while on school grounds and assault and battery. He was being held in jail without bail.

Milford is 34 miles north of Richmond.

Man sentenced to death for killing officer in shooting that wounded 2 others IN emergency room

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (AP) - A drunken-driving suspect who fatally shot a police officer and wounded two other people in an emergency room was sentenced to death Friday.

Robert Flor had pleaded guilty to murdering Newtown officer Brian Gregg at St. Mary Medical Center in suburban Philadelphia, where Flor had been taken for routine blood and urine tests after a drunken-driving arrest in September 2005.

Flor, 39, showed little emotion as the jury announced the sentence, but he lashed out at prosecutor Diane Gibbons as he was being led out of the courtroom.

"Why don't you give me the needle?" he shouted, adding an expletive.

The outburst supported the verdict, Gibbons said.

"That was just a slice and a sliver of what's in this man's soul," she said.

Flor was apprehended at gunpoint when witnesses, including an off-duty police officer, said they saw him driving erratically and smashing his girlfriend's head on the dashboard.

At the hospital, Flor grabbed officer James Warunek's gun and started firing, killing Gregg and wounding Warunek and a hospital technician, Joseph Epp.

Public defender Bradley Bastedo had pushed for a life sentence, arguing that a history of sexual abuse as a child, brain damage, a low IQ and mental health problems left Flor unable to deal with the stress of losing custody of his 3-year-old daughter.

Bastedo said he was amazed that "not one juror found one mitigating circumstance."

Flor pleaded no contest to 30 related charges, including the attempted murders of Warunek and Epp.

Jury sentences Texas teen to life in prison for brutal attack on Hispanic youth

HOUSTON (AP) - A teenager described as a white supremacist was sentenced Friday to life in prison for savagely beating and sodomizing a Hispanic boy at a drug-fueled party.

David Henry Tuck, 18, was convicted Thursday of aggravated sexual assault in the near-fatal attack. Witnesses testified that he hurled racial insults and shouted "white power" while sodomizing the 17-year-old victim with the plastic pole of a patio umbrella.

Prosecutor Mike Trent told the jury that Tuck's history of violence showed he is beyond rehabilitation and would commit more attacks if released.

"He is an evil person, and he is not going to change or get better," Trent said. "We need protection from him. You are the only ones that provide that."

"Even if you give him life in prison, it will be more mercy than he showed to (the victim) that night," Trent said.

The assault took place at a party in the Houston suburbs where several youths had gathered to drink alcohol and take drugs, including marijuana, cocaine and the anti-anxiety medication Xanax.

According to testimony, the attack was triggered by the victim's drunken pass at a 12-year-old girl and his attempt to steal drugs.

Doctors did not initially expect the boy to live. He was hospitalized for more than three months and underwent 20 to 30 surgeries. He testified Wednesday that he remembered nothing of the assault.

Defense attorney Chuck Hinton appealed to the jury's religious faith, saying that Jesus would show Tuck mercy.

"I know that justice has to be done. I know a terrible thing happened. Justice needs to be done, but with mercy," Hinton said.

He also said Tuck had an abusive, absent father and was raised by a single working mother. His only role model, Hinton said, was his older brother, a skinhead who is in jail.

Prosecutors presented a chain of witnesses Friday to describe more than a half-dozen other attacks in which Tuck assaulted people, including a Hispanic man who was punched and kicked at a convenience store by three skinheads.

Linda Cabbell, a special education teacher who taught Tuck in elementary school, said he was violent when he was as young as 9 or 10, recalling how he punched her in the eye and kicked her in the groin. Tuck was later expelled.

The other teen charged in the beating, Keith Robert Turner, 17, is set to go to trial next month.

The Associated Press has not identified the Hispanic teen because he is a juvenile sexual assault victim.

- Associated Press writer Joe Stinebaker contributed to this report.

Airline: Flight attendant disciplined for ordering removal of breast-feeding woman

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) - A commuter airline has disciplined a flight attendant who ordered a passenger off a plane for refusing to cover herself with a blanket while breast-feeding her toddler, the airline said Friday.

Freedom Airlines spokesman Paul Skellon did not specify the discipline in an e-mail announcing the action against the employee who had Emily Gillette, of Santa Fe, N.M., removed from the plane Oct. 13 at Burlington International Airport.

Gillette, 27, said she was breast-feeding her 22-month-old daughter in a window seat in the next-to-last row, with no part of her breast showing and her husband between her and the aisle.

The flight attendant tried to hand her a blanket and told her to cover up, Gillette said. She declined, telling the flight attendant she had a legal right to nurse her daughter. Breast-feeding is protected under state law.

The case received broad news coverage this week, days after Gillette filed a complaint with the Vermont Human Rights Commission. On Wednesday, about 30 parents and their children protested the airline's treatment of Gillette by staging a "nurse-in" at the Burlington airport.

Skellon said that after the flight attendant ordered Gillette off the plane, the captain of the Delta Air Lines flight being operated by Freedom apologized and asked her family to reboard, but they refused.

Gillette, however, said the airline never offered her a chance to get back on board the New York-bound plane. "I would have jumped at the opportunity," she said.

Delta paid for a hotel room and rebooked the family on a different airline the next day.

Museum in Tennessee removes art exhibit that includes deep-fried American flags

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A museum director in this military town removed an art exhibit featuring several deep-fried American flags.

Art student William Gentry said his piece, "The Fat Is in the Fire," was a commentary on obesity in America. "I deep-fried the flag because I'm concerned about America and about America's health," Gentry said.

Customs House Museum executive director Ned Crouch took down the artwork Wednesday less than 18 hours after it went up in this community next to Fort Campbell.

"It's about what the community values," Crouch said. "I'm representing 99 percent of our membership - educators, doctors, lawyers, military families."

He also said the timing of the piece could cause "incendiary reactions."

"Never in the history of the country has the flag been more hated or more loved," Crouch said.

The exhibit featured three U.S. flags imprinted with phrases such as "Poor people are obese because they eat poorly" and more than 40 smaller flags fried in peanut oil, egg batter, flour and black pepper.

Clarksville resident and Navy veteran Bill Larson said the museum shouldn't restrict the free speech of an artist based on public response.

"The museum is obligated to the citizens of the community to present art, and it totally failed in that regard," Larson said.

Gentry, who had to publicly display his work for a senior project at Austin Peay State University, said he hoped people would get past the flag imagery and address the health issue.

"I hope they are upset, but I hope they don't miss the point," he said.

As O.J. Simpson resurfaces, a pressing question: Why now?

NEW YORK (AP) - It may be about more than the money. Experts say that in writing a book about how he hypothetically could have committed murder, O.J. Simpson may be trying to recapture the limelight. Or maybe, just maybe, he is trying to get something off his chest.

Even his own publisher, Judith Regan, has pronounced the book Simpson's confession, saying in a statement Friday that she has been told by experts that killers often confess first in hypothetical fashion before they come clean.

"For many of them," she said, "it is the only way to tell the truth."

The book, "If I Did It," is due out Nov. 30, and Regan will interview the former football star in a two-part, sweeps-month showcase on Fox television Nov. 27 and 29. The interview is billed as a hypothetical discussion of how Simpson might have killed his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman in 1994.

The strangest publishing sensation of the year has raised the question of why: Why would Simpson write such a thing?

Psychologists and criminal justice experts said the reason is almost certainly deeper and more complex than money.

While financial details of the book and interview have not been made public, Regan said she had been told the money would go to Simpson's children. And the victims' families can try to go after the proceeds to help cover the still-unpaid $33.5 million judgment against him in the wrongful-death lawsuit he lost in 1997.

Instead, the experts said, the book may amount to narcissism: A man who dodged tackles in the NFL, dashed through airports in car-rental ads, yukked it up in movies and starred in the trial of the century may be hungry for the attention again.

Whether Simpson committed the murders or not, "he's trying to get back some of the limelight," argued James Alan Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University in Boston. "And this is the only way he can do it."

"It's a tease," Fox added. "In the end, I doubt that he's going to say, `This is how I did it.' It's always a tease. He'll stand behind his facade of innocence. He just wants the crime of the century to span more than one century."

At the same time, experts said, the book could really be the truth - carefully veiled, but the truth nonetheless.

Saul Kassin, a professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said it is true that interrogators trying to coax confessions from suspects sometimes ask them to reconstruct crimes hypothetically.

He said it is possible Simpson is offering a false confession. People in criminal cases, guilty and innocent alike, have been known to confess to things they didn't do, for all sorts of reasons, including coercion or a guilty conscience. Or, Kassin said, Simpson could be offering a true confession, couching it just in case.

"People sometimes do this just to get it off their chest, as a means of release, as a catharsis," Kassin said. "We'll just never know."

The National Enquirer quoted a source familiar with the book as saying Simpson writes of angrily confronting his ex-wife over an alleged affair, blacking out and then coming to with a knife in his hand and the two bodies nearby.

If Simpson's goal was to return to the national conversation, he appears to have achieved it. Word of the project brought down abuse on Simpson and disgust for his publisher.

In a long statement Friday, Regan defended herself, suggesting she was honoring the memories of Simpson's ex-wife and her friend, looking out for his children and seeking "closure" from her own history of being abused.

W. Keith Campbell, a University of Georgia professor of psychology who has studied narcissism extensively, noted the attention Simpson got over the slayings was far from negative.

"He has a lot of supporters," Campbell said. "People were cheering him on the freeway. He's been away from that for a long while. It could be an opportunity to get some more of that."

Fire at electrical shop cuts power to main terminal of St. Louis airport, delays flights

ST. LOUIS (AP) - An electrical shop caught fire Friday near Lambert Airport, cutting power to part of the main terminal and delaying some flights.

The fire began shortly before midday in a power plant building. The flames were brought under control in slightly more than two hours. Officials said they were investigating the cause.

Power was soon restored to much of the terminal using generators. But disruptions kept American Airlines from processing passengers electronically. Long lines of thousands of passengers snaked through the lobby, and airline employees used bullhorns to direct travelers.

At least nine round-trip flights on American were canceled, as well as six flights on other carriers, officials said.

The only injury was suffered by a firefighter who sprained an ankle, Fire Capt. Derrick Phillips said.

The blaze started under the roofline of the electrical shop, the fire department said. About 30 people were evacuated before firefighters arrived.

The east terminal was been affected.

1 dead in fraternity house fire at Nebraska Wesleyan, 3 in critical condition

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - Fire broke out in a fraternity house early Friday, killing one student and critically injuring three others, officials said.

The blaze started around 4 a.m. in a second-story room at the Phi Kappa Tau house at Nebraska Wesleyan University, said Lincoln Fire Chief Dan Wright. At least 39 people were inside.

The fire was under investigation.

Three students who had been in the house said they couldn't recall hearing an alarm, but Wright said somebody had pulled it.

The three, who declined to give their names citing an agreement among the fraternity brothers, described a frantic scene inside the house. At least two students jumped out windows and others put shirts over their mouths as they tried to get everyone out, they said.

"There was a lot of damage done," University spokeswoman Sara Olson said. "It'll be a while before anyone can move back in."

Olson said all four students were members of Phi Kappa Tau. She identified two of the hospitalized students as David Spittler, 20, of Elkhorn and Travis Mann, 22, of Beatrice.

Both suffered smoke inhalation and were in critical condition, said Jan Yaussi, St. Elizabeth Regional Medical Center spokeswoman.

The third student in critical condition was Aaron McGuire, 20, of Sioux Falls, S.D., who also inhaled smoke, Yaussi said.

The student who died was Ryan Stewart, 19, of Ord, she said.

"We are deeply saddened to learn of the tragic death of one of our students," the university said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers are also with three other students who are currently being treated at a local hospital."

Friday morning, crying students hugged one another outside the red brick house, where black burn marks spread up from a second-floor window. The house did not have a sprinkler system, Wright said.

Officials plan to move the Phi Kappa Tau survivors in a vacant section of the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority house on campus until their fraternity house is inhabitable again, Olson said.

Nebraska Wesleyan, a Methodist Church-affiliated liberal arts college, has about 1,800 students.

Helicopter crew finds body, wrecked vehicle hundreds of feet below Grand Canyon rim

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. (AP) - A helicopter crew happened upon the wreckage of a vehicle about 500 feet below the rim of the Grand Canyon, and a body was found nearby, a park spokeswoman said Friday.

The crew was responding to an unrelated medical call on a canyon trail when it spotted the wrecked vehicle late Thursday in an area known as the Abyss, park spokeswoman Maureen Oltrogge said.

The unidentified body was spotted about 150 feet above the wreckage and about four miles west of Grand Canyon Village, the park's main entry point.

Other details, including when the vehicle crashed, were not immediately clear. The body was expected to be retrieved Friday, and the crash was being investigated, Oltrogge said.

Dog snatchers break into Miami Beach pet store, steal 2 Yorkies

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Three burglars broke into a trendy South Beach pet store and snatched two teacup-size Yorkshire terrier puppies, valued at $2,500 each, in a heist caught on video, police said Friday.

Alex Herrero, owner of Pets on South Beach, said the thieves used a concrete block to bash in the front door early Wednesday and appeared to know exactly where to find the puppies.

Police said that was because they had cased the store a few days earlier and were caught on surveillance video during that visit, too.

No immediate arrests were made.

"I feel bad for these puppies, because they are very sensitive," Herrero said Friday. "The people who stole them to make money are not going to worry about how to care for them, which they can easily die."

Surveillance video of the heist showed a white SUV backed up close to the store as two of the men rushed straight to the rear, where the high-priced puppies were in a display window. In a matter of minutes, the men walked away with male and female purebreds.

Herrero showed the police another video of what appeared to be the same men visiting the shop during store hours Monday with their eyes set on the puppies. The video showed one of the men playing with a dog, and a clerk warning the man after he had slipped through the marked "employees-only" door to get a closer look.

"They came a few days ago and cased out the store," police spokesman Bobby Hernandez said. "They figured out where the merchandise was. They found out specifically what room they were in, how to open the cage."

Jury rejects Texas man's claim that RNC stole his design to create W'04 sticker

TEXARKANA, Texas (AP) - The design of the "W'04" bumper sticker prevalent during President Bush's re-election campaign was not stolen from a Texas insurance agent, a federal jury has ruled.

Jurors deliberated for less than an hour Thursday before finding that Jerry Gossett was not entitled to damages from the Republican National Committee or the party's chief campaign supplier.

Gossett had asserted that the sticker derived from a design he copyrighted in 2001, and that he had shopped his version around to high-ranking RNC officials before the campaign's version debuted. In court filings, his attorneys estimated actual damages between $500,000 and $7.5 million.

Gossett, of Wichita Falls, declined to comment after the verdict.

The oval logo used by Bush's campaign features a block-lettered W against a white background. Attached to the right of the W is an American flag, which rests above the '04 lettering.

Gossett's logo also features a flag extending from a W, but the letter is thin and serifed and followed by a period, which the Bush campaign sticker lacks. Instead of '04, Gossett's rectangular sticker includes the number 43 to distinguish Bush from his father, George H.W. Bush, the nation's 41st president.

"Because of the political mood of the country, it was a difficult time to try a case like this," said George McWilliams, a Texarkana attorney representing the RNC. "I'm just glad the jury decided to set aside any political feelings they may have had to arrive at a just verdict."

Virginia TV weatherman fired after someone posts nude photo of him on Myspace.com

ROANOKE, Va. (AP) - A TV weatherman was fired after his nude photo was posted on the Internet.

The NBC affiliate WSLS-TV fired meteorologist Jamey Singleton on Thursday after a frontal nude shot of him getting out of the shower was posted on someone else's MySpace.com site.

The photo broke the morals code in Singleton's contract, the station's interim general manager, Shane Moreland, said in a statement.

Singleton, 28, who was retained earlier this year after admitting he was a recovering heroin addict, said he didn't blame the station.

"What shocks and what offends - that's really up to them," Singleton told The Roanoke Times. "I can't blame them if … after everything that's happened they said, 'That's the straw that broke the camel's back."'

Singleton said the photo was taken a few months ago by a former friend who posted it Tuesday. He said he notified MySpace when he heard it was posted and the picture was removed within an hour, but it had already been e-mailed to several of his co-workers, including Moreland.

Teen sentenced to 10 years for shooting classmate on school bus after fight

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - A teenager was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison after she pleaded guilty to shooting a classmate on a school bus after the two had a fight.

Camille Alicia Burke, who was 17 at the time of the shooting, admitted shooting Kaliesha Cheatham in the shoulder last November with a handgun.

Broward County Circuit Judge John Murphy ordered to serve 10 years probation after her prison release.

According to Miramar police, Burke and Cheatham were both juniors at Parkway Academy High when they got into a fistfight on the school bus. Burke threatened Cheatham, and the next day boarded the bus, pulled out a handgun and shot her.

Burke pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder and possession of a firearm on school property. She could have faced a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison but pleaded guilty in return for less than the maximum, her attorney said.

Police search for a gunman after 4 adults are shot to death in Kansas City home

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - A woman and three friends were shot to death in her Kansas City home early Friday in a crime police said may have been related to drugs.

The four victims - two men and two women believed to be in their 20s and 30s - were found after another woman who lives in the home heard gunshots around 2 a.m. and saw a man running from the house, police spokesman Darin Snapp said.

"One of the victim's relatives stated that he moved out of the house about six months ago because the drug traffic around the house was out of control," Snapp said.

He said the shooter appeared to have known the victims but no one had been arrested by midday.

Police did not release the names of the victims, saying only that one was a resident of the home and the other three were her friends. Relatives of the slain resident identified her as Tracy Pearson and said she had recently moved into a first-floor apartment in the home.

Her mother, Suzzanne Thurman, lives in an apartment on the second floor, said Vernetta Smith, a friend of Thurman. While Smith talked to reporters outside the house, she yelled up to Thurman, who stood on a second-floor balcony, asking if she wanted to say anything.

"Four people are dead," Thurman said, "that's all they need to know."

Leonard Thurman, 59, of Leavenworth, Kan., an uncle of Pearson, disregarded the talk that drugs might have been involved.

"She's good," he said. "She supports her daughter, who is in college, on one income. Everyone likes her in the community."

"We don't know who this was directed toward," he said. "We think it was just at her house."

Construction crane collapses in Washington state, killing person inside apartment

BELLEVUE, Wash. (AP) - A 210-foot construction crane collapsed and struck three buildings, killing one person inside a top floor apartment that was crushed, authorities said.

The crane was working on a vacant office building in downtown Bellevue, a Seattle suburb, when it toppled Thursday night, fire department Lt. Bruce Kroon said. The operator told rescue personnel he was preparing to shut down for the night when he heard a crack just before the crane plummeted.

The crane operator suffered minor injuries but was able to pull himself out of the cage, which was about 20 to 30 feet above the ground, Kroon said. Firefighters used a ladder to carry him to safety.

Dozens of residents, diners and others were evacuated from the damaged buildings as firefighters went through each building to check for others who might have been hurt.

"If this occurred an hour earlier, it could have been a lot worse," Mayor Grant Degginger said.

The cause of the accident was not immediately known.

The crane had been anchored in a pit about five stories deep, and the wreckage was left hanging over the street while safety investigators from the state Department of Labor and Industries were brought in.

"I heard this rumbling like thunder, getting louder," said Linda Rosario, 42, who was about three feet from a window in the apartment directly below the one where the man was killed. "I guess it wasn't my time."

The crane was initially reported to be owned by Ness Cranes, but a man who answered the phone at the company's Seattle headquarters Friday denied it.

"It's not our crane. We were operating it but it was owned by someone else," he said, refusing to give his name or the name of the company that owned it. Company executives were in meetings and would not be commenting on the accident, he said.

Ness Cranes was involved in a 1994 accident at the old Kingdome in Seattle that killed two construction workers in a 250-foot fall. The company's Web site says it has "made major strides in upgrading our safety program" by designating a safety director and offering workers incentive for meeting safety goals.

Couple sues for $350,000 reward in trooper shooting, claiming they helped locate fugitive

PITTSBURGH (AP) - A couple filed a federal lawsuit to claim a $350,000 reward offered for a former fugitive charged with wounding a trooper and suspected of a deadly police ambush, saying they tipped police to his whereabouts during a massive manhunt.

Jack and Gloria Young, of Warren, reported seeing a suspicious person near their property on Sept. 7, according to the lawsuit filed Wednesday. It said the tip led directly to Ralph "Bucky" Phillips' capture in a western Pennsylvania field the following day - more than five months after he escaped from a jail in Buffalo, N.Y.

"But for my clients' phone call, (police) still would not have found Bucky, or at least not found him that night," Robert C. Greene, an attorney for the Youngs, said Thursday.

The couple sued the Police Benevolent Association of the New York State Troopers Inc., which they say is wrongly withholding the reward.

Dan De Federicis, president of the union, said its attorneys talked with the Youngs before the suit was filed. "We haven't said no. We're going slow here," he said.

De Federicis said it's "just not crystal clear" that the suspicious person the Youngs reported seeing was Phillips, but Elliot J. Segel, another attorney for the couple, said there is "little if any question."

The FBI put up an additional $100,000 reward and Greene said the couple is considering suing the FBI as well.

Phillips, who had been on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List, is charged with attempted murder in the shooting of Trooper Sean Brown near Elmira, N.Y., in June. He has not entered a plea in the case. Phillips is also suspected of fatally shooting Trooper Joseph Longobardo and wounding Trooper Donald Baker Jr. on Aug. 31 in western New York. He has not been charged in those shootings.

Meanwhile, a man accused of failing to tell authorities Phillips had stayed on his property in August and left with a gun pleaded guilty Thursday to hindering his apprehension.

Todd Nelson, 31, of Ludlow, knew Phillips was a wanted felon, prosecutors said. Nelson was sentenced to nine to 23 1/2 months in prison.