INDIANAPOLIS - A man shot and wounded four co-workers Thursday at a factory that employs disabled people, telling police he did it "over respect," authorities said.

Two men and two women were taken to hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries, Lt. Douglas Scheffel said.

Jason Burnam, 24, was arrested inside the company cafeteria, where he was standing with a .380-caliber handgun next to a vending machine, Police Chief Michael Spears said. Burnam told officers he targeted the victims and said "it was over respect," Scheffel said. Police did not elaborate.

"There was some type of confrontation that was brewing all week and it just came to a head and he got fed up and started shooting people," Scheffel said.

Burnam was charged with four counts of attempted murder and one count of carrying a handgun without a license.

Burnam's mother, Judy Burnam, said her son was taking medication for depression and seemed fine when she dropped him off for work in the morning.

"I had no idea, none whatsoever, something was wrong," she said.

Crossroads Industrial Services, a division of an Easter Seals program, has about 100 employees who do light manufacturing, such as making identification tags for military vehicles under a contract with the Army, said Candy Morrison, director of marketing.

About 85 percent of Crossroads workers have physical or mental disabilities, Morrison said.

The victims were identified as Howard Mallory, 53; Jermaine Ealy, 29; Cammie Duncan, 38; and Anita Frazen, 52. All were shot at least once in the leg or arm. Ealy was shot twice.

Easter Seals is a nonprofit group that assists more than 1 million people with physical and mental disabilities a year.

Defense: Duke accuser changes account, says 1 lacrosse player charged didn't assault her

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) - The accuser in the Duke lacrosse sexual assault case told prosecutors in December that one of the three players charged did not commit any sex act on her during the alleged attack, according to papers filed Thursday by the defense.

Reade Seligmann was repeatedly urged to take part in the alleged attack, the accuser told an investigator, but he said he could not because he was getting married, the papers said.

"The accuser's most recent recollection of events demonstrates clearly that she cannot accurately recall and describe her attackers and that any identification made by her is necessarily unreliable," the defense said.

Lawyers have said Seligmann, 20, has a girlfriend, but there has been no indication that he was engaged or married.

The description of Seligmann's role in the alleged assault was one of several changes the accuser made in her account during a Dec. 21 interview with an investigator from the district attorney's office, the defense said.

In that same interview, the accuser also said she was no longer certain she had been penetrated vaginally by a penis, a necessary element of rape charges in North Carolina.

That led District Attorney Mike Nifong to dismiss rape charges against Seligmann and defendants Dave Evans and Collin Finnerty. The players, who have insisted they are innocent, remain charged with sexual offense and kidnapping.

While the accuser now says Seligmann did not commit a sex act, he can still be charged with the other crimes if there is evidence he assisted in the assault, said Ronald Sullivan Jr., a criminal law professor at Yale University. In her latest statement, the accuser said Seligmann helped Evans and Finnerty drag her into a bathroom where the assault allegedly took place.

Neither Nifong nor James P. Cooney III, an attorney for Seligmann, returned calls seeking comment Thursday.

During the Dec. 21 interview, the accuser also said the attack occurred earlier in the evening - between 11:35 p.m. and midnight - than she had first reported. The initial police report on the case suggested the alleged attack took place about midnight.

The new timeline would put the attack outside of the apparent alibi window established by Seligmann's attorneys, based on records that include ATM receipts and cell phone records.

But the defense motion said the accuser's cell phone records show that she was on her phone during part of the time she now says she was attacked. Records also show Seligmann received a call on his cell phone during that period, the defense said.

The filing came a day after the judge overseeing the case ordered a paternity test to determine the father of a child recently born to the woman. Nifong has said the pregnancy was almost certainly unrelated to the team party, and both sides agreed the test should be conducted to silence any doubts.

Texas-based pizza chain under fire for letting customers pay with pesos

DALLAS (AP) - A pizza chain has been hit with death threats and hate mail after offering to accept Mexican pesos, becoming another flashpoint in the nation's debate over immigrants.

"This is the United States of America, not the United States of Mexico," one e-mail read. "Quit catering to the damn illegal Mexicans," demanded another.

Dallas-based Pizza Patron said it was not trying to inject itself into a larger political debate about illegal immigration when it posted signs this week saying "Aceptamos pesos" - or "We accept pesos" - at its 59 stores across Texas, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada and California.

Pizza Patron spokesman Andy Gamm said the company was just trying to sell more pizza to its customers, 60 percent of whom are Hispanic.

Wal-Mart, H-E-B supermarkets and other American businesses in towns along the Mexican border accept pesos. And some busineses in New York and Minnesota communities along the northern border accept Canadian dollars.

The difference here is that many of the pizza joints are far from the border, in places like Dallas, more than 400 miles away, and Denver, more than 700 miles.

"If people would understand that the majority of our customers are Hispanic, then it might make more sense for a company to sell pizza for pesos," Gamm said. "It doesn't make sense in Connecticut. And it doesn't make sense in North Dakota or in Maine. But it makes perfect sense here in Dallas, in Phoenix, in Denver - areas far from the border that have significant Hispanic populations."

The company said it has received hundreds of e-mails, some supportive, most critical.

While praising the pesos plan as an innovative way to appeal to Hispanics, a partner in the nation's largest Hispanic public relations firm said a backlash was inevitable.

"Right now there's a lot of anti-immigrant rhetoric going around that could make them a lightning rod," said Patricia Perez, a partner at Valencia, Perez & Echeveste in Los Angeles.

Pizza Patron proclaims on its Web site that "to serve the Hispanic community is our passion." Its restaurants are in mostly Hispanic neighborhoods, and each manager must be bilingual and live nearby, said Pizza Patron founder Antonio Swad, who is part-Italian, part-Lebanese.

The take-home menus are in both English and Spanish, and the dishes include the La Mexicana pizza, with spicy chorizo sausage; La Barbacoa pizza, topped with spicy pulled pork; and chicken wings flavored with lime, peppers and garlic con queso.

Many Pizza Patron customers have pesos "sitting in their sock drawers or in their wallets," Gamm said. "We're talking small amounts, where it would be inconvenient to stop and exchange on the way back - maybe 10 or 20 dollars' worth of pesos."

The promotion will run through the end of February and then be re-evaluated, Swad said.

In the first week, payments in pesos have accounted for about 10 percent of business at the five restaurants operated by the corporation, Pizza Patron said. The others are franchised, and the company will not get reports until the end of the week.

The company has set a conversion rate of 12 pesos per dollar, which is slightly higher than the official rate of about 11 pesos per dollar. Any change is given in U.S. currency.

At a Pizza Patron in Dallas, Veronica Verges bought a pizza Wednesday for her son Nathan's fourth birthday. She paid with pesos her father brought home two weeks ago after a trip to see family in Mexico.

She said she is an occasional Pizza Patron customer, but came that day because she could pay with pesos. Her father wasn't going to use them because he had no plans to go back to Mexico anytime soon.

"I would mostly think a restaurant would do this in a border town," she said. "But it got me over here."

Miners freed after power outage

GREEN RIVER, Wyo. (AP) - Nearly 100 miners spent about 10 hours underground during a power outage that affected two trona mines.

They were brought to the surface late Wednesday, according to Jim Fitzwater, a spokesman for FMC, owner of the Westvaco and Granger mines.

Ninety-nine miners were in the Westvaco mine.

Fitzwater said Thursday that a generator was hooked up and 75 miners got out under the temporary power. Crews from Rocky Mountain Power restored electricity by around 11:15 p.m., he said, and the other 24 miners got out after that.

Four miners were in the smaller Granger mine when the power went out around 1:30 p.m. But Fitzwater said they were able to get out quickly after a generator was hooked up.

An electrical substation failure caused the power outage. No one was injured.

Wyoming is the nation's top trona producing state. The mineral is refined into soda ash, which is used to make glass and detergents.

Actor George Clooney presents previously-unseen footage of his trip to border of Darfur

WASHINGTON (AP) - Previously-unseen footage recorded by actor George Clooney and his journalist father Nick while traveling to the border of the war-ravaged Darfur region of Sudan will be aired Monday.

At a premiere of the documentary Wednesday attended by members of Congress and Martin Luther King III, the Clooneys- with George speaking by video conference from California- discussed their film and their concern that governments are not doing enough to stop what the younger Clooney called the first genocide of the 21st century.

"I will remember forever how the people there were hanging from such a thin thread and there were so many ways for them to die and yet they were optimistic," George Clooney told the audience.

Clooney said he was pessimistic that the plight of the refugees would improve in the short term but hoped to increase political pressure for international action.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Nick Clooney said the idea for the trip and the film arose from conversations with his son about newspaper articles on Darfur.

"We couldn't figure out why so few of these stories were on the front page. We were trying to think of ways that we could affect that," he said. "George obviously has this currency of his own- his enormous celebrity- and so he said 'Pop why don't we go over there.' "

The Clooneys say they wanted the details of their journey to reach an audience, who would not otherwise focus on Darfur.

The film, "A Journey to Darfur," which will be broadcast on AmericanLife TV Network on Jan. 15, recounts the trip the two made in April with a photographer and another family member, flying by small plane into Sudan and visiting a village just outside the Darfur border.

There they recorded stories from refugees of the conflict, which has claimed an estimated 200,000 lives and forced 2.5 million people from their homes. The Clooneys then traveled to a refugee camp in Chad, just West of the Darfur border, continuing to interview survivors who witnessed atrocities.

The fighting in Darfur began in February 2003 when the region's ethnic African population revolted against what they saw as decades of neglect and discrimination by the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum. The government launched a counterinsurgency in which the Janjaweed, an Arab militia, committed widespread atrocities.

Nick Clooney said that since returning from the trip he has been affected by the story of a woman he met on the trip. She told him of fleeing an attack on her village by government planes and militias with her three children. She was able to run with her baby in her arms, and her 13-year-old son keeping up and her 6-year-old son behind.

"She said she called to the 6-year-old as she ran, and heard his voice become more and more faint," he recalled. The woman had not seen the child since, he said.

Though the Clooneys had hoped to enter Darfur from Chad, they were prevented from crossing the border by threat of violence, Nick Clooney said.

"Everywhere we went there were trucks with kids with AK-47s. " he said.

Since returning, the Clooneys have campaigned energetically for international action. Nick Clooney has taken his stories to college campuses, while George has argued on two occasions at the United Nations that millions of lives are in danger. In December, he met then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to brief him about a delegation he led to China and Egypt arguing for pressure from those countries on Sudan. He has also made numerous television appearances.

The Clooneys hope they can help move Darfur back onto the front page and higher on the political agenda.

"Darfur is never going to take the place of Iraq or Afghanistan on top of the news," Nick Clooney said. "I want to get politicians' constituents talking about this, to get it to bubble up from underneath and onto their agenda."

Texas teacher accused of taping student wrestlers with inappropriately close-up shots

DALLAS (AP) - A high school teacher was charged under Texas' peeping-tom law with videotaping girls' wrestling matches for his sexual enjoyment.

Police said David Ware, 28, often zoomed in for close-up shots of the girls' crotches.

The first-year speech and drama teacher planned to turn himself in to Grand Prairie police this week on charges of improper visual recording, which carries up to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Ware shot about two hours of videotape at an all-day tournament Saturday but drew suspicion from a coach, Grand Prairie Sgt. John Brimmer said. A police officer reviewed Ware's tape.

"This was more than accidental footage of the genital areas," Brimmer said. "It appeared to be a purposeful act of zooming in."

Ware was charged under a 2001 law meant to protect people from ultra-small cameras that can be used to peek into dressing rooms or up women's skirts. Under the law, filming a person without consent for sexual arousal is a felony.

Ware's school, Garland Lakeview Centennial High School, was not entered the wrestling tournament.

His attorney, Scott Palmer, said Ware was simply interested in wrestling. And the lawyer complained that the law is so broad that could be used to jail Dallas Cowboys fans for taking pictures of the team's sultry cheerleaders from the stands.

"How do you draw the line?" Palmer said. "If you go to a Cowboys game and take a close-up shot of their cleavage, are you committing the same offense because you think that has sex appeal?"

School officials said Ware has been placed on paid leave.

Minn. mom complains that are kids are barred from the bus

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - A school bus driver let Rachel Armstrong's three children board the bus Monday morning, but he warned them that he wouldn't give them a ride home that afternoon, nor could they ever ride his route again.

The problem, according to Armstrong: her 10-year-old twin girls and 8-year-old son speak English. She says school administrators told her the route had been designated for non-English speakers only.

Armstrong says she had to leave work early on Wednesday to pick up her stranded kids from Phalen Lake Elementary School.

St. Paul schools spokeswoman Dayna Kennedy acknowledged Thursday that school officials handled the situation poorly, but said language had nothing to do with the incident. The reason Armstrong's children were ineligible to ride the bus was that they lived outside the school's attendance area, she said.

"It is our responsibility to ensure the safety of these kids, and we made a mistake," Kennedy said. "The kids should have gotten home that day."

The bus route was meant to serve a language academy at Phalen Lake for children learning English.

The Armstrongs said they learned that when they moved last year, they landed outside of Phalen's attendance area.

One mom pleads no contest, another pleads not guilty in middle-school brawl in Rhode Island

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - One mother pleaded no contest and another pleaded not guilty on Thursday in a mother-daughter brawl at a middle school.

Authorities said Ana Rivera, 44, who pleaded not guilty on a simple assault charge, drove her suspended 13-year-old daughter to Woonsocket Middle School on Monday so she could fight another 13-year-old girl.

Both students' mothers, two other girls and a teacher were eventually involved in the fracas, police said.

The second mother, 34-year-old Maribel Santiago, pleaded no contest to simple assault.

She said she went to the school to pick up her daughter because of recent threats. Authorities said she hit a school official who tried to break up the fight.

Judge Michael Higgins ordered Santiago to stay out of trouble for a year. If she does, the assault case will be dropped.

"I believe they are making a big deal out of a simple thing," Santiago said outside court. She said that with the plea "at least my record is going to be clean."

Rivera was released on $1,000 bail and ordered to see a public defender.

All four girls were charged with disorderly conduct, and Santiago's daughter was suspended for 10 days.

Police inspecting Italian hospitals find unlicensed nurses, rats and garbage

ROME (AP) - Expired drugs, unlicensed nurses, stray cats and scuttling rats were among the horrors that emerged from police inspections of Italian hospitals that recommended possible investigations against more than 100 people, health officials said Thursday.

Health Minister Livia Turco promised swift action, but insisted that Italians could still trust their health system, noting the problems affected a minority of the country's hospitals.

Special health units from the Carabinieri paramilitary police inspected 321 of Italy's 672 public medical centers this week, reporting shocking instances of poor hygiene, officials said at a news conference at the Health Ministry.

Some 17 percent of hospitals, mostly in southern and central Italy, had problems serious enough to recommend possible judicial investigations against 111 people, the Health Ministry said. Thirty-six percent of hospitals were found to have administrative violations.

The investigation was ordered after a magazine report on one of Rome's largest hospitals showed images of corridors soiled with dog feces and garbage, unguarded radioactive material, abandoned medical records and workers smoking next to patients.

The police inspection found hundreds of expired drugs and reactants for lab tests across Italy. In Calabria, some nurses were unlicensed, while some hospital workers in Sicily used friends or family to punch them in while they moonlighted at other jobs, said Gen. Saverio Cotticelli, head of the unit that made the inspections.

Italian newspapers also reported that police found a colony of stray cats in the basement of Milan's San Carlo hospital, while rats were found in a Naples hospital, where bulldozers had to be called in to remove piles of garbage and medical refuse left in underground corridors.

Cotticelli confirmed the reports but declined to give details. He insisted the problems were limited and didn't affect patient care.

"The problem of stray animals is one that returns periodically, you exterminate and after a month they are back," he said. "We found disorder and lack of maintenance … there are some modest changes to be made, often it's simply an issue of mentality."

In the report last week by L'Espresso weekly, a journalist roamed freely around Rome's Umberto I Polyclinic for a month using a blue cleaner's uniform. The report denounced poor hygiene that exposed patients to an increased risk of hospital infections.

Turco, the health minister, noted that hospital infections affect between 4.5 and 7 percent of those treated in Italian medical centers, in line with European Union averages.

A 2000 report by the World Health Organization ranked Italy's health system as second-best after France. The United States came in 37th out of 191 countries ranked by performance.

"Citizens can trust the Italian health system, there are cases of negligence that must be dealt with firmly, there are problems of neglect that must be solved, but there is a lot of good health work being done," Turco said at the presentation of the inspection's results.

Russian billionaire held as French police crack down on ski resort prostitution ring

GRENOBLE, France (AP) - Mikhail Prokhorov, one of Russia's wealthiest men who made his billions in nickel and gold, was taken into custody by French police in a crackdown on a suspected prostitution ring at a swank Alpine ski resort, officials said Thursday.

The athletic, 6-foot-7 Prokhorov is often described as Russia's most eligible bachelor. Even among Russia's big-spending business elite, he has a reputation for organizing lavish parties.

Investigators suspect Russian call girls were brought to the resort in Courchevel, a favored playground of Russia's rich, to work during the winter holidays, prosecutor Xavier Richaud said. Clients allegedly paid the women with gifts from luxury boutiques.

A total of 26 people were taken in for questioning Tuesday, Richaud said. As of Thursday, 15 - including Prokhorov - were still being held in the southeast city of Lyon, officials close to the investigation said. They spoke on condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to discuss the case.

Among those detained, the officials said, was an Austrian who runs a travel agency and is suspected of helping the Russian women find their way to two luxury hotels at the ski resort.

Some of the 15 could be placed under investigation - a step short of being charged - as early as Friday. They would face counts of "aggravated procuring in an organized band" and "criminal association," the officials said.

Martine Monteil, director of France's judicial police, said earlier that a Russian tycoon was in custody for allegedly offering young women to his guests. She did not identify Prokhorov by name.

Prokhorov, the 41-year-old chief executive of a Russian mining giant, is ranked No. 89 on Forbes magazine's 2006 list of the world's richest people. He is worth $6.4 billion, according to Forbes, largely thanks to his holding in OAO Norilsk Nickel, the world's largest nickel producer, and Polyus Gold, Russia's biggest gold miner.

A keen basketball player, Prokhorov has used his wealth to acquire Euroleague basketball champions CSKA. Skiing, jet skiing and kickboxing are among his favorite sports. He divides his time between Norilsk, Moscow, Saint Tropez on the French Riviera, and Courchevel, where he owns a chalet.

The arrests occurred in several hotels at fashionable Courchevel, which has its own airstrip that can accommodate private jets. Russian tycoons flock to the resort over the New Year and Orthodox Christmas holidays.

Investigators also seized $65,000 at two four-star hotels in Courchevel, an official working on the probe said. The official was not authorized to speak to the media and requested anonymity. No drugs or weapons were found.

Those questioned include seven Russian women about 20 years old, as well as people suspected of helping bring the women to France, the official said. It was unclear whether the women were among those still in custody.

Police suspect the women involved worked only occasionally as prostitutes and that their pay likely came mainly in the form of expensive presents from luxury boutiques in the ski station, the investigating official said.

That practice is also used by some prostitutes in the chic beach resorts of the French Riviera. The official said the giving of gifts could complicate efforts to prove the women were prostitutes and not simply friends.

Police began the investigation last year after noticing suspicious trips by young Russian women heading through Geneva to the French Alps, with tickets booked through Austrian travel agencies, the official said. Investigators were on the lookout for two waves of prostitutes arriving in Courchevel during the 2006-07 holiday season.

Sergei Chernitsyn, head of the press department with Norilsk Nickel, said the company had received no information about Prokhorov's arrest. He called the allegations "absurd."

"We expect him back at work on Monday," Chernitsyn said. The spokesman added that the company was "operating to plan" and would not be affected by Prokhorov's detention.

Based on Russia's Arctic edge in the Taimyr Peninsula, Norilsk Nickel also has the world's biggest reserves of palladium, and its mines were at one point worked by inmates of Josef Stalin's gulag.

Associated Press writer Alex Nicholson in Moscow and Jean-Pierre Verges in Paris contributed to this report.

Adopt a gargoyle to save Shakespeare's historic church

STRATFORD-UPON-AVON, England (AP) - Adopt a gargoyle. Sponsor a spire.

It could help save the 800-year-old Holy Trinity Church, where William Shakespeare was baptized and where he lies buried with his wife, Anne Hathaway.

Church officials hope fans of the Bard around the world will help raise $6.3 million needed to repair a cracked spire, broken windows and eroding bricks - and address damage from years of dry rot and death watch beetle.

"It's absolutely desperate," said Josephine Walker of the Friends of Shakespeare's Church, which is in charge of fund raising. "It's raining, and as we speak, rain is pouring in through the clerestory windows."

It's a common story in the parishes of England, where hundreds of medieval churches need frequent loving care. The Church of England estimates some $680 million worth of repairs are under way or urgently needed, and few of the crumbling churches have connections to anyone as famous as Shakespeare.

The Friends of Shakespeare's Church already has an American fund raising arm - but church officials are concerned by the drop in Britain's tourist numbers following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as well as the July 7, 2005, suicide assault on London's transit system and more recent terrorism alerts. The number of U.S. tourists fell 13 percent from 2000 to 2005, when 4.2 million Americans visited Britain, according to government figures.

Catherine Penn, one of the trustees of the Friends, said urgent work had been done to repair the crumbling parapet, but donations from tourists have dropped for other repairs at the church, located in Stratford-upon-Avon, 120 miles northwest of London.

She urged supporters to "sponsor a gargoyle" to help the fund.

Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity on April 26, 1564, and the church's burial register lists him as "Gulielimus, filius Johannes Shakspeare," (William, son of John Shakespeare.)

After a career writing and staging his plays in London, Shakespeare retired to Stratford in 1611, and was buried in the chancel - an area near the altar - on April 25, 1616, two days after his death.

Some 100,000 people visit Holy Trinity every year to view his resting place, with its inscription, "Will Shakspeare, Gent." The memorial was erected a few years after his death, and the plump-looking likeness on the gravestone is considered a good one.

"People say he looks like a well-fed pork butcher," said church warden Bill Hicks.

Shakespeare's prominent burial spot was not in honor of his supreme literary skill, but because in 1605 he bought privileges in the church which, among other things, obliged him to keep the chancel in good repair. But within a few years of his death, the structure was in danger of becoming one of the "bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang" mentioned in Shakespeare's Sonnet 73.

Church officials say repairs now are needed to the spire, the chancel, the north and south aisles, and the north and south transepts.

On the north transept, the orange stone buttresses are badly weathered and stained-glass windows are decaying. Stone on the south transept - which is missing a cross - is similarly weathered and shows signs of damp.

"It's a wonderful place with a wonderful heritage," said the Rev. Martin Gorick, the church vicar. "For 800 years this has been a meeting place and we want to keep it that way."

And just in case anyone might think of moving his remains, Shakespeare's gravestone offers a curse, written by the Bard himself.

"Good frend, for Iesus sake, forbeare

To digg the dyst encloased heare

Bleste be ye (the) man (who) spares thes stones

And curst be he (who) moves my bones."

On the Net:

www.shakespeareschurch.org

Jurors ask for lenient sentence for muderer who put victim in acid

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - Two jurors who convicted a former lab assistant of murdering his boss' estranged husband by stuffing his body in a barrel of acid sent letters to the court asking for a lenient sentence, a California judge said Thursday.

James Fagone, 24, was convicted last month of murder and burglary by a Fresno County Superior Court jury but acquitted of kidnapping. He faces a sentence of life without possibility of parole.

Fagone and biochemist Larissa Schuster, 46, were arrested after authorities found the decomposed body of Timothy Schuster in a 55-gallon container in a storage unit rented by his wife in 2003.

At a hearing Thursday, Fresno County Superior Court judge Wayne Ellison said two jurors had written him to ask that Fagone be given a lenient sentence.

One of the letters said some jurors would have preferred to convict Fagone of second-degree murder or manslaughter, but felt forced to find him guilty of murder, Ellison said. A California statute specifies that if a slaying occurs during the commission of another felony, such as a burglary, then the killing is automatically considered first-degree murder, defense attorney Peter Jones said.

After receiving copies of the letters, both of which are under seal, Jones said he filed a motion to gain access to the jurors' names and addresses.

"If they could, they would not have voted the way they did," Jones said. "They wanted to find him guilty of something lesser."

Ellison said he would ask jurors whether they were willing to speak with Jones. If they do, their requests for sentencing become part of the case record and as such could influence the judge's decision at a sentencing hearing scheduled for Jan. 30, Jones said.

Larissa Schuster will be tried later this year on charges of murder, kidnapping and burglary.

Hughes recognized in Nevada town where he wed 50 years ago

RENO, Nev. (AP) - Howard Hughes could have tied the knot with the Hollywood glamour girl anywhere. But the billionaire's obsession with privacy prompted him to marry actress Jean Peters in the remote mining town of Tonopah 50 years ago Friday.

After failing in an effort to save the improbable site of the secret Jan. 12, 1957 wedding - the L&L Motel - a group of Tonopah residents has announced plans to commemorate the event by building a life-size statue of the couple.

The group led by Tonopah businessman Bob Perchetti also is pursuing plans to open a Howard Hughes Museum and Wedding Chapel across the street from the motel that was razed about 18 months ago.

The plans are designed not only to recognize Hughes, but to help draw tourists to the struggling town of 2,800 surrounded by stark mountains and sage brush on U.S. Highway 95 about halfway between Reno and Las Vegas, more than a 200-mile drive in either direction.

"There's a mystique about Howard Hughes, just like there is about Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley," said Perchetti, chairman of the town's mural and monument committee. "People still find him fascinating, and we think our plans would be a natural."

The dilapidated, shuttered L&L was demolished after the town board concluded it would be too expensive to restore in the summer of 2005.

Perchetti had sought to turn the room where the wedding took place and office below into the Hughes museum and wedding chapel. Now, he's eyeing an old brick building across the street as a possible site for the project.

"It's not a lost deal. It's still a dream of mine to open the museum and wedding chapel," said Perchetti, former director of the Tonopah Convention Center and a former member of the Nevada Tourism Commission.

The museum would feature exhibits on the mysterious wedding and Hughes' role in Nevada history.

Hughes and Peters registered for the marriage license under fictitious names and got married at the L&L to avoid publicity.

The couple flew in and out of Tonopah that day from Southern California, with the entire stay lasting about two hours. Only a handful of Hughes' aides knew about it, and the news media didn't learn about it until months later.

"The wedding was very much in character for Hughes," state archivist Guy Rocha said. "The older he got, the less he wanted attention and glamour and the more he wanted to operate behind a veil.

"Tonopah was a wonderful place not to be scrutinized. That's a big event in the history of Tonopah and people in Tonopah still talk about it," Rocha added.

Afterward, Hughes' mental condition deteriorated, and both he and Peters vanished from public view. Except for a brief period, they lived apart.

Peters appeared in 19 films with such stars as Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Ray Milland and Spencer Tracy. She left Hollywood after marrying Hughes, who was 21 years her senior.

In 1970, Peters filed for divorce. It was Hughes' second and final marriage and Peters' second of three marriages. Hughes died in 1976 at age 70, and she died in 2000 at age 73.

While holed up at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas from 1966 to 1970, Hughes bought seven casinos and scores of mines in Nevada. He helped transform Las Vegas from a mob-dominated gambling town to a corporate-owned modern resort destination.

Before becoming the "invisible man" in Nevada, Hughes was a movie producer, record-setting aviator, Trans World Airlines owner and major defense contractor.

While the L&L site is being considered for a new firehouse, Perchetti said, he also hopes to locate the statue there sometime in the next couple of years.

"It'll be a life-size statue of Howard Hughes and Jean Peters looking into each other's eyes and appearing as they did when they got married," Perchetti said. "We think it's finally time to recognize Howard Hughes in Tonopah."

On the Net:

Town of Tonopah: http://www.tonopahnevada.com/

Nevada Commission on Tourism: www.travelnevada.com

Trial set for parents accused of kidnapping daughter before her wedding

PROVO, Utah (AP) - A judge set a summer trial date Thursday for a couple accused of kidnapping their daughter to prevent her from getting married, although their attorney suggested a plea agreement still was possible.

"They want to do everything they can to keep the family together or restore it," Rhome Zabriskie said.

Lemuel Redd, 60, and Julia Redd, 57, of Monticello are charged with second-degree kidnapping, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.

Julianna Redd Myers last month tearfully testified that her parents drove her more than 200 miles to Colorado on the eve of the wedding instead of taking a quick trip to purchase religious undergarments.

At a gas station, Myers said her parents forcibly grabbed her, claiming she was breaking the Old Testament's Fourth Commandment, which says to honor parents. She said they described her fiance as "evil and wicked."

The trio spent a night in a hotel in Grand Junction, Colo., and returned to Utah the next day.

Myers, 21, married Perry Myers on Aug. 8 at the Mormon temple in Salt Lake City, three days later than planned.

A new prosecutor, Curtis Larsen, has been assigned to the case since a judge found probable cause to put the Redds on trial.

"I expect that he and I will be talking real soon," Zabriskie said, referring to a possible plea agreement.

Asked outside court if she wanted to go to trial or make a deal, Julia Redd referred to the lawyers: "It's all in their hands."

Fourth District Judge James Taylor set trial for July 9.

The newlyweds, who are expecting a child in May, did not attend the brief hearing. They are seniors at Brigham Young University.

The Redds appeared this week on ABC's "Good Morning America." Zabriskie, noting that they are barred from contacting their daughter, said the parents wanted to send a message.

They expressed love for the young couple and asked for forgiveness, although Julia Redd still seemed upset.

"I'm the mother. I wanted to share this very important moment with her. If that is selfish, I am so sorry. But she didn't even seem to care," Julia Redd told Diane Sawyer.

Mississippi student-officer scuffle caught on tape, spawns $1M lawsuit and racism allegations

GREENWOOD, Miss. (AP) - A videotaped scuffle between a black teenager and a white police officer who twice pulled his gun in a crowded high school hall has prompted a $1 million lawsuit, accusations of racism and calls for the officer's dismissal.

The Dec. 6 school surveillance tapes that show the officer pointing his gun at the back of the unarmed teenager's head were released Friday as part of discovery in student James Marshall's lawsuit.

Marshall, an 18-year-old senior at Greenwood High School, said that during the scuffle Officer Casey Wiggins "was cursing, saying he was going to kill me."

But the officer's attorney, Mitchell Creel, says the student was "acting up."

"It's clear from the videos my client was doing his job and conducting himself as any security officer would under similar circumstances," Creel said. "It clearly shows Officer Wiggins has done no wrong - absolutely no wrong."

Marshall and his family have filed a criminal affidavit against Wiggins for assault and battery and a civil complaint in state court against the city seeking $1 million in damages. Carlos Moore, the student's attorney, also wants Wiggins fired.

The officer's police report says he saw Marshall and two other students standing in a circle, "looking at something the suspect was holding." The officer claims that when he approached, Marshall became "hostile" and began to struggle.

"I then fell to the ground, he was still grabbing me so I reached and pulled my firearm," Wiggins' report says.

Marshall says he was just showing off his new tattoo - his name on his left forearm - when the officer accosted him.

Wiggins arrested the student for simple assault, but police never filed charges.

Moore said the officer is a "loose cannon" and that race "played a part in the aftermath because the officer was not punished for what he did."

Assistant Chief Huntley Nevels confirmed Thursday that Wiggins still is on the force, but referred other questions to the city attorney, who declined to comment.