LOS ANGELES - Dubbed "style-free and fashion deprived," Britney Spears and Paris Hilton tied for the No. 1 spot on Mr. Blackwell's 47th annual "Worst Dressed" list released Tuesday.

"Two peas in an overexposed pod," Blackwell said of the skimpy attire worn by the two celebutantes he called the "Screamgirls."

Some of Blackwell's nastiest words were reserved for Camilla Parker-Bowles, a member of the British royal family, who finished No. 2 on the list.

"The Duchess of Dowdy strikes again," wrote Blackwell. "In feathered hats that were once the rage, she resembles a petrified parakeet from the Jurassic age. A royal wreck."

Blackwell, no longer an active designer but still an acid-tongued critic of celebrity fashion, aimed his poison pen at Hollywood, with young entertainers dominating the list.

At No. 3 was actress Lindsay Lohan, scolded by Blackwell for turning "from adorable to deplorable."

Christina Aguilera was also in Blackwell's fashion hall of shame. He called her a "dazzling singer" but added that she "puts good taste through the wardrobe wringer. All crass and no class."

He referred to Mariah Carey as "Mariah the fashion pariah … the queen of catastrophic kitsch," and "American Idol" judge Paula Abdul as "a fallen fashion idol."

He said actress Sharon Stone resembles "an over-the-hill Cruella DeVille," and Tori Spelling embodies "down and out in Beverly Hills."

"Grey's Anatomy" star Sandra Oh was faulted for too many beads and bangles. "She's layered lunacy from head to toe," Blackwell said.

Meryl Streep, who starred in the fashion-themed movie, "The Devil Wears Prada," came in at No. 10 on the annual dis-list.

"From Streep you could weep," Blackwell said. "Her beauty of a career cannot be denied, but that beast of a wardrobe is pure mother of the bride."

On a kinder note, Blackwell offered his 10 "fabulous fashion independents" - actresses Kate Winslet, Angelina Jolie and Helen Mirren, singers Barbra Streisand and Beyonce, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Princess Charlotte of Monaco, model Heidi Klum and actresses Katie Holmes and Marcia Cross.

James Brown's body remains unburied as issues about his estate remain up in the air

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - The body of soul singer James Brown has yet to be buried as attorneys and his children work to settle issues surrounding his estate, including where he will be laid to rest. - For now, his body lies in his home on Beech Island, said Charles Reid, manager of the C.A. Reid Funeral Home in Augusta, Ga., which handled the services.

Brown died of heart failure Dec. 25 at age 73. His will has yet to be filed, said Buddy Dallas, an attorney for the singer.

The room where Brown's body lies is being kept at a controlled temperature, and security guards keep watch, Reid said.

Brown's home has been locked since hours after his death to protect his memorabilia, furnishing, clothes and other personal items, Dallas said.

"Just imagine what would have happened," Dallas said. "Items of James Brown would have left there like items off the shelves of Macy's in an after-Christmas sale."

The trustees for his will, along with Brown's children, will determine the burial site, Dallas said.

Tomi Rae Hynie, Brown's partner, said shortly after his death that she encountered locked gates as she tried to get into the home she says she shared with the singer and their 5-year-old son.

She wouldn't discuss the incident Tuesday, but her lawyer said Hynie should be granted access to the home, although he would not talk about whether Hynie might take legal action.

"The hope is that all parties can sit down and figure out what the problem is and what the challenges are," attorney Thornton Morris said. "And once we figure out what the challenges are we'll see if we can't resolve something that's a win for everybody."

Meanwhile, a woman who claims Brown raped her nearly 20 years ago said Tuesday she will continue her lawsuit.

Jacque Hollander has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear her sexual harassment suit, which a lower court ruled last year she had waited too long to file. A Supreme Court decision on whether to hear the case is pending.

She argues that the two-year statute of limitations in such cases does not provide equal protection to women.

"This has been a long road that ended tragically Christmas morning," Hollander said in a phone interview with the Associated Press.

"As a rape victim, I will never get to face him in court, and it hurts," she said. "But we are moving forward. We filed against his organization, as well as him. So now his organization stands in front of him."

In her lawsuit, Hollander said Brown raped her at gunpoint in 1988 while she was his publicist. She seeks $106 million in damages.

A federal appeals court tossed out Hollander's lawsuit in August.

"There was nothing to it 20 years ago and nothing to it 20 years later," Dallas said.

Angelina Jolie says she wouldn't have adopted baby from Malawi, like Madonna

PARIS (AP) - Angelina Jolie says she was horrified by attacks on Madonna about her adoption of a toddler from Malawi, but suggested the pop singer took a risk because of the African country's adoption laws, a French magazine reported. - "Madonna knew the situation in Malawi, where he was born," the 31-year-old actress was quoted as saying in this week's edition of Gala, a gossip magazine. "In that country, there isn't really a legal framework for adopting. Personally, I prefer to stay on the side of the law."

Jolie and Brad Pitt, 43, have three children: 5-year-old Maddox, adopted from Cambodia; 2-year-old Zahara, adopted from Ethiopia; and another daughter, Shiloh, who was born to the couple in May.

Madonna, 48, and her 38-year-old filmmaker/husband Guy Ritchie are adopting a 1-year-old Malawian boy, David Banda. He joined her two children, Lourdes, 9, and Rocco, 6, in Britain in October.

Human rights groups in Malawi have said they are concerned the government cut legal corners to fast-track the adoption and that they want adoption laws there clarified. A November court ruling allowed a coalition of rights groups to monitor the process.

Man's wallet returned 62 years later

MEXICO, Mo. (AP) - Ray Heilwagen has his wallet back - 62 years after he lost it in France during World War II.

Late last year, he received a call from Stephen Breitenstein of Palatine, Ill.

"He said, 'Did you lose a billfold?' and I remembered I did," Heilwagen said. "Then he said, 'I found it and will send it to you.' I could hardly believe it."

Breitenstein's father, who also served in France during World War II, recently died. Digging through his father's possessions - ironically on Veteran's Day - his son found the old wallet. He figured his dad found it during the war and brought it home, but couldn't locate Heilwagen.

Using the Internet, Breitenstein tracked down Heilwagen. After their phone conversation, he mailed the wallet to him. It included some francs, pictures and some receipts.

Heilwagen served with the Army's 79th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army and he was in combat in France from its arrival in July 1944 until he was hospitalized that November with leg wounds. He received a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.

"I was impressed that a stranger would go to such trouble to locate me and return my wallet," Heilwagen said.

Warm December pushes 2006 to record year

WASHINGTON (AP) - Last year was the warmest on record for the United States, with readings pushed over higher than normal by the unusual and unseasonably warm weather during the last half of December.

Preliminary data from the National Climatic Data Center listed the average temperature for the 48 contiguous states last year as 55 degrees Fahrenheit. That's 2.2 degrees warmer than average and 0.07 degree warmer than 1998, the previous warmest year on record.

Worldwide, the agency said, it was the sixth warmest year on record.

In December the Center had predicted that 2006 would be the United States' third warmest year, but unusual readings later that month pushed the year into first place.

The Center said it is not clear how much of the warming is a result of greenhouse-gas induced climate change and how much resulted from the current El Nino warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean.

El Nino conditions occur every few years in the Pacific and can affect climate around the world, including producing warmer conditions in the United States.

The average U.S. and global temperature are both about 1 degree warmer than at the start of the 20th century, a change many scientists attribute to gases released into the atmosphere by industrial processes.

The temperature data was collected from a network of more than 1,200 stations across the country.

The climate center said the unusual warmth in early winter reduced residential energy needs by 13.5 percent compared to average conditions for the season.

While December started cold, spring-like conditions reigned in the eastern states during the last half of the month, making it the nation's fourth warmest December. Five states had their warmest December on record - Minnesota, New York, Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire. No state was colder than average in December.

On the Net:

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: http://www.noaa.gov

National Climatic Data Center: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov

Takamoto, creator of Scooby-Doo, dies at 81

LOS ANGELES (AP) - In a career that spanned more than six decades, Iwao Takamoto assisted in the designs of some of the biggest animated features and television shows, including "Cinderella," "Peter Pan," "Lady and the Tramp" and "The Flintstones."

But it was Takamoto's creation of Scooby-Doo, the cowardly dog with an adventurous heart, that captivated audiences and endured for generations.

Takamoto died Monday of heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Warner Bros. spokesman Gary Miereanu said. He was 81.

Born in Los Angeles to parents who had emigrated from Japan, Takamoto graduated high school when World War II began. He and his family were sent to the Manzanar internment camp in the California desert, where he learned the art of illustration from fellow internees.

Despite a lack of formal training, he landed an interview with Walt Disney Studios when he returned to Los Angeles and was hired as an apprentice.

Takamoto worked under the tutelage of Disney's "nine old men," the studio's team of legendary animators responsible for its biggest full-length films before moving to Hanna-Barbera Studios in 1961. There he worked on cartoons for television, including "Josie and the Pussy Cats," "The Great Grape Ape Show," "Harlem Globe Trotters" and "The Secret Squirrel Show."

Takamoto said he created Scooby-Doo after talking with a Great Dane breeder, and named him after Frank Sinatra's final phrase in "Strangers in the Night."

The breeder "showed me some pictures and talked about the important points of a Great Dane, like a straight back, straight legs, small chin and such," Takamoto said in a recent talk at Cartoon Network Studios.

"I decided to go the opposite and gave him a hump back, bowed legs, big chin and such. Even his color is wrong."

Takamoto also created other famous cartoon dogs such as Astro from "The Jetsons" and Muttley, the mixed-breed that appeared in several Hanna-Barbera animations. He also directed the 1973 feature "Charlotte's Web."

Takamoto was survived by his wife, Barbara, son Michael and stepdaughter Leslie.

Funeral arrangements were pending.

Neighboring states share smell, deny blame

NEW YORK (AP) - It's what New Yorkers like to say when they get a whiff of something funky: "Must be New Jersey."

They said it again this week when a mysterious gas-like odor wafted across Manhattan and New Jersey. To which some indignant New Jerseyans said it's the New Yorkers who are smelling up the joint.

The source of the stink remained a mystery Tuesday, as well as a rich source of juvenile jokes about New Jersey - and New York, too.

"You know what you call New York with a bad smell? New Jersey," Jay Leno wisecracked. And Conan O'Brien killed with this: "Apparently, New Yorkers knew something was wrong because it smelled bad when they got OUT of their taxis.

Charles Sturcken, a spokesman for the city Department of Environmental Protection, said initial complaints about the sulfurous, rotten-egg smell indicated that it emanated from south and west of the city. That would place it in - surprise! - New Jersey.

But Garden State officials, tired of Jersey-bashing and industrial waste jokes, were quick to charge New Yorkers with prematurely blaming their long-time neighbors for the Monday morning stench that produced scores of 911 calls, disrupted transit service and sent a dozen people to the hospital.

"It looks an awful lot like jumping to conclusions," said Lisa Jackson, New Jersey commissioner for environmental protection.

In an industrial section of Kearny, N.J., diner manager Milton Tzoumas agreed.

"No one should point fingers until they find out where it came from," Tzoumas said. "What are we, little kids?"

It sometimes appears that way between the nation's largest city and the most densely populated state. They have feuded over ownership of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, the New York Giants and Jets (who play in New Jersey), and the New Jersey Nets (who are coming to Brooklyn).

But neither side on this two-century-old border war is claiming ownership of the funky smell.

New York investigators considered three possible theories for what a front-page New York Post headline dubbed "THE BIG STINK."

The first was a New Jersey chemical plant, although it was later ruled an unlikely source, Sturcken said. Next was a natural process, such as decaying vegetable matter related to the recent warm weather. And last was a build-up of sewer gases in both New York and New Jersey, tied to Tuesday's wet weather.

In the initial moments of the craze over the smell, officials in New Jersey indicated that the odor was coming from a leak in Greenwich Village. But they later said they were investigating the possibility of a natural gas pipeline problem in their state.

Wherever the stink came from, Mayor Michael Bloomberg stressed there was never any danger to the public.

"It was good theater," the mayor told reporters, "for you and for Jay Leno."

Doughnuts dropped from jail's menu

LUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Doughnuts will no longer be served to Franklin County jail inmates.

County Commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy put a $55,000 annual contract for the doughnuts on hold last month over questions about their nutritional value and trans-fat content.

"It was not a frequent food item to begin with," said Chief Deputy Sheriff Mark Barrett, the jail administrator.

Prisoners at the county's two correctional centers were served doughnuts every few weeks on a menu developed by a dietitian under contract with the county.

Sheriff's officials have now dropped a request asking commissioners to approve a contract that would have supplied glazed and jelly doughnuts, as well as crullers, at $4 a dozen.

Butter sculpturer goes metallic

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - The woman who created sculptures of cows out of butter for the Iowa State Fair for decades has switched materials.

Norma "Duffy" Lyon, 77, has cast a cow in bronze for the Iowa State University Dairy Farm.

Her life-size metallic cow called "Jersey Jewel," which took six months to complete, began with clay around a metal frame and was shipped to New York where it was cast in bronze.

Lyon earned an animal science degree from Iowa State in 1951. Her career as a sculptor kicked into high gear when she took two courses from artist Christian Petersen.

Doug Kenealy, a dairy science professor at Iowa State, says the university wanted to make a statement at the entrance of its new dairy farm, which will open later his year.

"Duffy is the internationally known Iowan in the area of sculpting butter cows," he said. "We thought, what better thing to do than to hire an Iowan who is talented, studied with Christian Petersen and is known internationally?"

University of Sioux Falls offers course on dating

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) - Even college students might need a lesson or two about dating.

Beginning in February, the University of Sioux Falls will offer a one-credit dating course called "Finding Dates Worth Keeping."

Laurie Chaplin, a relationships counselor and licensed therapist who's been married 28 years, will be the instructor.

The course is being offered through the USF Learning Institute, the same agency that offers seminars on wellness, job hunting and business communication.

"Some people may think it's a slack course, but I think they'll come out with something that changes their lives," Chaplin said. "We go to college and get an education. But our love relationships impact us more than anything else."

Today's young adults are "working harder to get smarter about their mates" and want lifelong relationships, she said.

In class they'll learn about infatuation and when it's best to break up.

"Sometimes it's much more loving and smart to break up," she said.

Judge tosses lawsuit over Hughes will

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Utah man who insists Howard Hughes left him millions in a handwritten will after he rescued the reclusive billionaire from a Nevada ditch.

U.S. District Judge Bruce Jenkins said the dispute over the will was "fully and fairly litigated" in Las Vegas in 1978. The jury said the document was bogus.

Melvin Dummar is "attempting to circumvent the Nevada court's final judgment and to, either directly or indirectly, relitigate his entitlement to a portion of Hughes' estate," Jenkins said Monday without ruling on the merit of the claims.

Dummar's attorneys said they will refile the case in Nevada.

Dummar, a 61-year-old frozen-meat delivery man, insists he rescued a bloodied Hughes from a ditch in the Nevada desert in 1967 and was left with $156 million in the handwritten will.

Dummar tried to reopen the case based on new evidence and a new witness, a pilot who says he routinely flew Hughes to brothels in rural Nevada and confirmed parts of the improbable story.

"Melvin had no idea I was with Hughes that night," said Guido Roberto Deiro, who was director of aviation facilities for Hughes Tool Co.

Deiro said he delivered Hughes to the Cottontail Ranch during the same holiday week that Dummar says he found Hughes six miles away.

Deiro said he feel asleep at the brothel, then woke to find Hughes had left. He flew back to Las Vegas in a Cessna four-seater expecting to be fired but was promoted instead.

"I don't have a dog in this hunt, but I wish Melvin good luck. I think his reputation has been restored," said Deiro, a 68-year-old Las Vegas businessman who came forward with his story three years ago, breaking a confidentiality pact.

Dummar wasn't immediately available Tuesday for comment. His wife, Bonnie, said they planned to take the case to federal court in Las Vegas, where Jenkins suggested it belonged in the first place.

The judge told Dummar's attorneys at a Nov. 2 hearing they should be "rapping at the door" of Nevada federal court with allegations of fraud from the 1978 trial.

"It's not over," Bonnie Dummar said. "We've only just begun. This time we know we're right."

Dummar's attorney, Stuart Stein, asserted Hughes associates had orchestrated the "perfect fraud" by getting witnesses to testify Hughes never left the Desert Inn between 1966 and 1970.

Witnesses at the Las Vegas trial said Hughes couldn't have been in the desert when Dummar claims he saved the tycoon's life.

Dummar sued Hughes cousin William Lummis, a major beneficiary of the Hughes estate, and Frank Gay, who was chief operating officer of Summa Corp., which controlled Hughes' major assets. Both are retired and living in Texas.

Jenkins dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning it can't be brought in Utah again, but left the door open for Dummar to try again in Nevada.

"He's giving me a fork in the road, and we're going to take it," Stein said.

Stein filed the case in Utah because Dummar lives in Brigham City, where the handwritten will mysteriously surfaced, delivered by a man who claimed to be Hughes' personal messenger.

Dummar and his lawyers also assert that Hughes associates destroyed flight logs to conceal trips away from the Desert Inn, waived the casino debts of the jury foreman and bribed or coerced handwriting experts to not testify for Dummar.

"We are certain of the fraud. We know Melvin was telling the truth and the other side didn't speak the truth and hid the truth from us," Stein said.

Attorneys for Lummis and Gay didn't immediately return calls from The Associated Press.

Howard Stern gets $82.9 million stock bonus after Sirius beats subscriber acquisition targets

NEW YORK (AP) - Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. paid Howard Stern an $82.9 million stock bonus Tuesday after the company beat a subscriber target set two years ago when it lured the star shock jock away from terrestrial radio.

The bonus came one year after Stern started broadcasting his hugely popular and racy programming on satellite radio. The stock bonus is on top of Stern's five-year, $500 million pay package that he signed in October 2004.

Sirius said in a statement that it paid Stern slightly more than 22 million shares of stock after exceeding a year-end subscriber goal for 2006 by more than two million.

Sirius ended last year with just over 6 million subscribers, compared with projections of about 3.5 million from Wall Street analysts when the company signed Stern's employment agreement.

Stern could stand to gain other stock bonuses in the future if the company meets annual subscriber targets, but these would have to be beat by a far greater amount, Sirius said in a statement.

Sirius said the shares issued in Stern's bonus as well as any others likely to be issued to him would not increase its share count since other share warrants are likely to expire in the meantime.

Sirius and its main competitor, XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., have posted significant financial losses as they spend heavily on talent like Stern, sports programming and other stars and on acquiring subscribers. Both said they turned profitable on an operating basis in the fourth quarter.

The shares of both companies, once favorites among investors, fell more than 45 percent last year on various concerns, including softer retail sales of the radio units.

Investors have recently focused on the possibility that the two companies could attempt to merge, although analysts caution that such a combination would face serious regulatory hurdles.

Sirius' shares slipped 5 cents, or 1.33 percent, to close at $3.71 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, where they have traded from $3.50 to $6.76 over the past 52 weeks.

Hunter's fiancee says he killed Hmong immigrant in self-defense

WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) - A man suspected of killing a hunter stabbed the victim in self-defense after being shot once in each hand, the suspect's fiancee told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Dacia James said she was the first person James Nichols of Peshtigo talked to after the 30-year-old Hmong immigrant was killed late Friday afternoon in a public hunting area.

James, 20, said Nichols, 28, told her a man appeared near him in the woods and shot him while the two were squirrel hunting.

"There was a verbal confrontation first," James said in a phone interview from her home in Marinette. "Jim told me that he had stabbed the guy."

Nichols has not been charged in the killing but was jailed on a probation violation as a felon in possession of a firearm related to the punishment for some 1997 convictions for burglary. He was arrested after he showed up Saturday at a medical center in Marinette and helped investigators look for Cha Vang's body, James said.

Nichols didn't immediately report the incident to police because he panicked and was frightened because he was on probation, James said.

Vang's body was found later Saturday in the Peshtigo Harbor Wildlife Area. His wife has said he spoke no English and could not have provoked an attack.

Marinette County Sheriff Jim Kanikula on Monday confirmed that Vang had been killed and that the death occurred after an "accidental meeting" with another hunter. He declined to specify the cause of death.

Authorities have not confirmed the circumstances of the confrontation, including whether Nichols was shot in the hands.

Kanikula did not immediately return a telephone message Tuesday. No one answered the phone at Vang's home late Tuesday afternoon.

James said she doesn't know whether Nichols fired at Vang with his 12-gauge shotgun, but said that she was told there was a fight and that Vang was stabbed with the knife Nichols uses to remove squirrels' tails.

Nichols' father, Daniel Nichols of Florence, said he has been unable to talk to his son since he was jailed. He described him as a "likable kid" who loved hunting and fishing and worked as a logger and in sawmills for a time.

"They talk about him like he was trash on the news," he said. "Everybody liked him. He would always say 'Hi' to you. He always respected his parents and elders."

The Marinette County public defender's office said Tuesday that Nichols does not have a lawyer but that it will represent him when he is charged.

Vang's death came a little more than two years after another hunting incident raised tensions between predominantly white residents of northern Wisconsin and the area's growing community of Hmong, a Southeast Asian ethnic group.

In the 2004 case, a Hmong immigrant killed six white hunters and injured two. He claimed one of them fired in his direction after they shouted racial epithets. He is serving life terms.

Mother charged with smothering baby; police search Pennsylvania landfills for remains

NEW YORK (AP) - A mother taking her premature baby home from the hospital smothered the newborn on the bus with his blanket and put his body in the trash, authorities said Tuesday.

Lucila Rojas, 25, was charged with second-degree murder and other offenses Tuesday in the death of her 2-week-old son, Anthony. She told authorities that he was conceived as a result of a rape in Mexico and that now "the baby will sleep forever."

Police searched two landfills Tuesday in Pennsylvania where New York City's garbage is routinely taken for remains of the boy.

Investigators said the Bronx woman used a blue blanket to suffocate the 2-week-old boy on New Year's Eve day while on a bus to a relative's home. After she got off the bus, she put the naked body in a plastic bag and put it in a trash can on the street, police said.

Police have recovered the infant's blue blanket in a baby carrier.

On Monday, Rojas called police, saying that a man in black had abducted the baby from her at gunpoint. But the details of her story kept changing and eventually she confessed, authorities said.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown called the crime "both heartless and heartbreaking."

Rojas, who also has a 3-year-old daughter who lives with her father, was being held without bail. Rojas could get up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted.

Her attorney did not return a telephone call seeking comment after the evening arraignment.

Oklahoma executes man who killed 4 in execution-style slayings 14 years ago

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) - A convicted killer was put to death Tuesday for the execution-style slayings of four workers at a Tulsa restaurant 14 years ago.

Corey Duane Hamilton, 38, was pronounced dead at 6:14 p.m. at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. The U.S. Supreme Court denied his final appeals Monday.

"I wish everyone could experience the love of God to the degree I have experienced," Hamilton said while strapped to a gurney, intravenous tubes attached to his arms. "I love everybody, and I hope to see you on the other side."

The drugs began to flow at 6:08 p.m., and Hamilton appeared to stop breathing around 6:10 p.m.

He received four death sentences after he and three others were convicted of killing Joseph Gooch, 17; Theodore Kindley, 19; Senaida Lara, 27; and Steven Williams, 24.

The robbers took $2,200 and forced the victims into a walk-in refrigerator at Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken Restaurant on Aug. 17, 1992. They were each shot once in the back of the head.

Three other men were sentenced to life in prison, but Hamilton received the death penalty in part because of testimony that he was the shooter.

"I'll never forget what he did to my family," Janice Ramsey, Williams' mother, said after the execution. "We may try to forgive him in our hearts, but we'll never forget."

Former fire boss accused in colleagues' deaths given drug citation hours after court hearing

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - A former Forest Service crew boss was cited for marijuana possession just hours after appearing in court on involuntary manslaughter charges in the deaths of four firefighters, the Washington State Patrol said.

The citation issued to Ellreese Daniels on Thursday may have violated conditions a judge set for his release pending trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Hopkins said Tuesday. Federal probation officer Scott Morse said he could not comment.

Daniels, 46, was a passenger in a car pulled over hours later on Interstate 90, the patrol said Monday in a statement. He was cited for possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

Daniels' federal public defender, Tina Hunt, said she was surprised the State Patrol issued a statement.

"From the little bit that I have seen, it doesn't look like he was the one in possession of the drugs," she said. "From the looks of it, I'm not too concerned about it."

The 41-year-old driver was arrested for investigation of being under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

Federal prosecutors have charged Daniels with manslaughter and lying to investigators stemming from a 2001 wildfire that killed four Forest Service firefighters.

Prosecutors allege Daniels failed to order the firefighters out of harm's way and then made false statements to Forest Service and Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigators.

The charges carry up to six years in prison.

Two workers dead after commuter train hits maintenance vehicle on tracks in Massachusetts

WOBURN, Mass. (AP) - A commuter train hit a maintenance crew Tuesday, killing two workers and seriously injuring two others, transportation officials said.

The afternoon train was headed from Lowell to Boston with 43 passengers when it struck a piece of track repair equipment near a station in suburban Woburn. Two other workers and about 10 passengers were treated for minor injuries.

One worker was on the equipment and five others were nearby, said Joe Pesaturo, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. The workers were using a piece of equipment called a "speed swing," which uses a hook to lift rail ties.

Earlier trains had been switched to parallel tracks, said Scott Farmelant, a spokesman for the commuter rail system. It was unclear why the train that hit the crew was on the track where the crew was working.

About 10 passengers were taken to hospitals with minor injuries and because they were "shaken up," Pesaturo said.

The workers were employees of Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Co., a consortium hired by the MBTA in 2003 to manage and operate the commuter rail system. MBCR General Counsel Richard A. Davey Jr. said the organization was "stunned and deeply saddened" by the crash.

Seven New Orleans police officers investigated for allegedly beating man in French Quarter

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - In the midst of a crime wave that has included nine killings since New Year's, the Police Department also is investigating seven of its own officers accused of beating a man in the French Quarter.

Two of the officers have been assigned to desk duty pending an investigation and more might be reassigned, Deputy Chief Marlon Defillo said.

Ronald Coleman, 25, a lobbyist for the community group ACORN, said he was beaten Dec. 30 by plainclothes officers who were looking for a pickpocket.

"I didn't know what was going on, they just came up and started hitting me," Coleman said Tuesday.

He said they released him after checking his identification, but by then he had suffered a concussion, facial cuts and bruised ribs.

The department has been dogged by bad publicity since Hurricane Katrina.

Last month, six officers and one former officer were charged with murder in connection with shootings on the Danziger Bridge in the post-Katrina chaos that killed two men and wounded four others. Two other officers, charged in the French Quarter beating of a teacher that was videotaped by The Associated Press, are scheduled for trial March 12.

In the meantime, municipal officials have proposed measures including a citywide curfew to deal with the killings that have plagued the city.

Suburban Pittsburgh high school teacher resigns after underage drinking party in her basement

MORGAN, Pa. (AP) - An English teacher from suburban Pittsburgh who had been a semifinalist for the state's 2007 Teacher of the Year Award has resigned after being charged in connection with an underage drinking party at her home.

Christine Kosik resigned from South Fayette High School on Friday, according to district Superintendent Linda Hippert.

Kosik and her husband, John, were charged with corruption of minors for the Dec. 30 party, which was attended by 40 to 50 teens, South Fayette Township Police Chief Louis Volle said. Police believe someone else brought alcohol to the house but said the Kosiks were responsible because they were home at the time.

Police were called when the party became unruly. About 30 teens, including the Kosiks' 17-year-old son, were cited for underage drinking, police said.

Kosik referred comments to her attorney, Romel L. Nicholas.

Kosik was not aware of drinking at the party, and she did not encourage, sanction or allow it in any way, Nicholas said.

"There is a component in this case of minors sneaking in or bringing in alcohol without her knowledge," Nicholas said Tuesday. He said she was not forced to resign.

FBI: Pittsburgh-area professionals targeted by 'hit man' e-mail telling them to pay up

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Dentists, doctors, lawyers and other professionals in the Pittsburgh area have been targeted by a "hit man" e-mail scheme, receiving messages that tell them to pay up to spare their lives, the FBI said.

The e-mail, which was sent to most recipients around Christmas, tells the reader that there is a contract out on his life, generally for $50,000. It says that if the recipient sends the "hit man" more money than that - generally ranging from $80,000 to $150,000 - the hit man will leave him alone.

No one has reportedly lost money or been harmed in the scam, but some recipients were unnerved by the messages, said Special Agent Bill Shore, who supervises the computer crime squad in the Pittsburgh FBI office.

"You think, 'What did I get into? What do I gotta do to get out of this?"' Shore said.

The FBI became aware of the scam when people in Atlanta and New Orleans received similar e-mail in early December, Shore said. The scheme seems to have originated in Russia.

Moderate earthquake shakes southeast Alaska

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - A moderate earthquake jolted Southeast Alaska on Tuesday and was widely felt throughout the Panhandle.

There were no immediate reports of damage, according to the Alaska Earthquake Information Center in Fairbanks.

Judy Erickson of Haines said it was one of the biggest temblors she had felt in a long time.

"I heard it first. It sounded like a big gust of wind hit the window," said Erickson. "Then I started yelling, 'Earthquake!"'

Erickson said the quake caused the family's apartment on the third floor of the Alaska Indian Arts building to sway.

The quake, at 6:49 a.m., had a magnitude of 5.7, according to preliminary estimates, the center said. It was centered 57 miles west of Haines at a depth of five miles.

The earthquake was felt in Haines, Juneau, Sitka and numerous other communities. Haines is about 500 miles southeast of Anchorage.

Mother charged with fatally stabbing her 2 children, injuring their grandfather, arrested

ATLANTA (AP) - A woman charged with stabbing her two young children to death and severely beating her father was arrested in Atlanta early Tuesday, nearly a week after the attack, authorities said.

Police had been looking for Felicia Williams since Wednesday, when officers following a 911 call found the bodies of her children, Elexis Nicole Hill, 9, and James Ross Hill, 4, in her parent's home in Bethlehem, a tiny town in northeast Georgia. Williams' father was found injured in the home, authorities said.

Williams, 26, was charged Friday with murder and aggravated assault.

Atlanta police, following an anonymous tip, arrested her around 1 a.m. Tuesday after finding her hiding in a closet in an Atlanta apartment, police said in a statement.

She was being held Tuesday without bond in the Barrow County Detention Center, said Barrow County Sheriff's Maj. Murray Kogod.

Kogod said Williams had been living with her parents in the home in Bethlehem, about 40 miles northeast of Atlanta, for a short time before the incident.

Williams' children were buried less than 24 hours before her arrest. During the ceremony, the children's grandmother had made an appeal during the funeral for her daughter to turn herself in.

New Kansas attorney general fires prosecutor appointed to target abortion provider

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - The newly elected Kansas attorney general fired a special prosecutor Tuesday whom his predecessor had appointed to prosecute the state's most visible abortion provider.

Don McKinney had been hired to investigate Dr. George Tiller, one of the few doctors in the nation to perform late-term abortions. McKinney has previously protested outside Tiller's clinic. His last day will be Saturday.

"You are further ordered to cease and desist any further activity in this matter," Attorney General Paul Morrison wrote in a letter to McKinney.

McKinney said he had been fired to "protect the abortion clinics."

"Morrison said he would fire me because I was not a 'neutral third party.' That's a smoke screen," McKinney said. "Nobody is neutral about aborting late-term babies. A special prosecutor isn't supposed to be neutral, he's supposed to prosecute the defendant."

He has said Morrison was beholden to the doctor, who helped finance at least $248,000 in advertising in 2002 and 2006 against the previous attorney general, Phill Kline.

Kline obtained patient records from Tiller and other abortion providers after a two-year legal battle, but his attempt to charge Tiller in Sedwick County late last month failed because of a jurisdiction issue.

Kline alleges that Tiller performed 15 illegal late-term abortions in 2003 on patients ages 10 to 22 and failed to properly report the details of the procedures to state health officials.

Tiller's attorneys say the allegations are groundless. Don Monnat, a Wichita attorney representing Tiller, said patient privacy remains a big concern because McKinney has protested against the doctor.

A legal battle over patient records lasted two years, with Kline obtaining edited versions in October.

Kline issued a statement Tuesday saying Morrison "fired an independent prosecutor with a well-respected legal career and terminated a contract that provided that prosecutor with independent authority."

New stamp honors First Lady of Song

WASHINGTON (AP) - Ella Fitzgerald - the First Lady of Song - is being honored on a new postage stamp.

The 39-cent stamp will be released Wednesday at ceremonies at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York, and will be on sale across the country. It's the 30th stamp in the agency's Black Heritage series.

"She would be very honored, very pleased and a little surprised," said Ray Brown Jr., Fitzgerald's son. "She didn't go through life expecting all the accolades that she got. She was just happy to do her thing and be the best that she could be."

People who don't know about her will see the stamp and think: "What makes this person special? And perhaps find out about the person and about the music," he added.

Phoebe Jacobs, executive vice president of The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation and a longtime friend of Fitzgerald, described the singer as "a very private lady, very humble."

Recalling meeting Fitzgerald for coffee at an Automat in 1954, Jacobs said: "She was a star right then, but she was not comfortable thinking of herself as a celebrity."

After Fitzgerald confided in 1961 that she had never had a birthday party, Jacobs was able to gather a star-studded collection of people for the special event.

The party was a secret, so Fitzgerald was told to dress up because there was a television interview.

"When the lights came on she took her pocket book and hit me on the shoulder," Jacobs recalled. "She was like a little kid, she was so happy."

Fitzgerald was a baseball fan and the guests included her favorite player, Yankees slugger Mickey Mantle. They embraced and traded autographs.

Fitzgerald's appearance on a stamp comes less than a year after Mantle was featured among baseball sluggers.

Fitzgerald was never one to stand on formality, Jacobs said. Once the two pulled on raincoats over their pajamas, piled into Fitzgerald's Rolls Royce and went to breakfast at a McDonalds.

In addition to a passion for baseball, Fitzgerald loved watching soap operas and collected cookbooks, Jacobs said. While she didn't actually cook much, she felt you could learn a lot about people through what they ate.

Born in Newport News, Va., in 1917, Ella Jane Fitzgerald moved with her mother to Yonkers, N. Y. as a youngster and began to sing and dance from an early age. She began winning talent competitions in the early 1930s and was hired to sing with Chick Webb's band.

They scored a No. 1 hit in 1938 with "A-Tisket, A-Tasket," a novelty song Fitzgerald co-wrote with Van Alexander based on a child's rope-skipping rhyme.

She later became famous as a scat singer, vocalizing nonsense syllables, and performed with most of the great musicians of the time.

She recorded the song books of such composers as Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, and Johnny Mercer.

Over the years, Fitzgerald won 13 Grammy Awards and many other honors, including the National Medal of Arts, presented to her in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan. She was one of five artists awarded Kennedy Center Honors in 1979. In 1989, the Society of Singers created an award for lifetime achievement, called it the "Ella," and made her its first recipient. In 2005, Jazz at Lincoln Center inducted Fitzgerald into its Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame.

Fitzgerald, who died in 1996, also is also remembered for her "Is it live or is it Memorex?" commercials of the early 1970s in which she performed a high note to break a wine glass.

On the Net:

U.S. Postal Service: http://www.usps.com

FBI searches for missing boy in Missouri

BEAUFORT, Mo. (AP) - Searchers fanned out in wooded areas Tuesday looking for a 13-year-old boy who disappeared after stepping off his school bus a day earlier. The FBI is investigating, and officials fear the boy may have been kidnapped.

Authorities issued an Amber Alert for William Ownby, who goes by Ben.

A friend who left the bus with him told authorities that after the two parted, he saw a small white pickup with a camper shell speeding away from where Ben had been walking.

Sheriff Gary Toelke said Ben's parents told authorities it would be out of character for him to run away. Teachers said Ben is an "A" student, "the type of student everyone would like to have," Toelke said.

The boy had a black backpack with him, the sheriff said.

The boy's father, William Ownby, said neighbors had spotted the same truck cruising up and down a county road near his wooded subdivision earlier that day.

"We have a tight-knit community here and when there's something out of place, people notice," said Ownby, who was at home with his family and friends.

"The longer this goes on, the more stressful it gets," Ownby said.

Beaufort Fire Chief William Borgmann said searchers were looking for Ben on foot, horseback and ATV in the hilly area about 60 miles southwest of St. Louis.

FBI Special Agent Roland Corvington said stranger abductions are extremely rare, so it's likely Ownby at least met his abductor some time before. Speaking to a pool of television cameras, Corvington urged the abductor to leave Ownby in a safe place.

"We're coming after you," Corvington said.

Two shot at Joshua Tree law firm still critical

JOSHUA TREE (AP) - An attorney and another man who were wounded repeatedly in a shooting at a law firm remained in critical condition Tuesday, while a female victim was released from a hospital, a sheriff's spokeswoman said.

Attorney Bill Weir, 58, and Rocky Favorite, 50, were shot multiple times Monday. A third victim, 25-year-old Dawn Croom, was hospitalized with a wounded leg but later released, said Jodi Miller, a spokeswoman with the San Bernardino County sheriff's office.

Bernard Steppe, 66, was arrested shortly after the 4 p.m. shooting when he drove past the crime scene and was recognized by detectives who were given a description of the gunman and the vehicle by witnesses, Miller said.

Steppe was taken into custody for investigation of attempted murder and was held at Morongo Basin Jail on $500,000 bail. He could be arraigned as early as Wednesday, Miller said.

Steppe lived on the same property as the law firm and may have worked for Weir in the past, she said. Miller had no further information about what may have prompted the shooting or Steppe's relationship to the other two victims.

A Web site for Weir's law firm says he specializes in criminal and family law.

Two wounded in shooting in Las Vegas high school parking lot

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Two students were wounded and an adult gunman was sought off-campus following a shooting Tuesday in a Nevada high school parking lot, authorities said. - Police launched a search for a blue Mustang and a driver seen in a convenience store videotape after a teenage student in a green Pontiac Grand Am was wounded in the ankle and a female student was wounded in the abdomen as she walked through the parking lot before classes at Western High School. Police said it was unclear if the girl was struck by a bullet or a shrapnel fragment.

"It appears to be a road rage incident," police Officer Jose Montoya said of the shooting, reported just before 6:30 a.m. "It's not school-related or gang-related."

The two wounded students were taken to University Medical Center, where the teens were treated for wounds that authorities said did not appear life-threatening.

Montoya said the wounded boy was one of three teens in the Grand Am that nearly collided with the Mustang at a corner convenience store gas station a few blocks from the campus, about three miles west of downtown Las Vegas.

Detectives saw the man in a security video from the store, where words were exchanged between people in the vehicles before the Mustang followed the Grand Am to the school parking lot, Montoya said.

He said the man in the Mustang fired at least five shots at the Grand Am with the teens inside before driving away.

The two teenagers who were in the car but were not wounded provided police with good descriptions of the gunman, who Montoya said was in his late 20s or early 30s, with braided hair.

Students arriving for school found the parking lot blocked by police, but Clark County School District officials did not cancel classes. The campus has an enrollment of 2,423 students.

A Clark County school police officer and another motorist also were hurt in a collision Monday morning while the officer was responding to the shooting call, authorities said.

Police said officer Bryon Grimes, 39, was treated for moderate injuries. Frank Kocka, 46, the driver of the other vehicle, was treated for minor injuries but not hospitalized.

Police said Grimes had the lights and siren activated on his patrol cruiser when it collided in an intersection with Kocka's 2004 Saturn sport utility vehicle.

Long Island man gets 25 years to life in prison for bow-and-arrow killing on neighbor's lawn

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (AP) - A hunter convicted of fatally shooting a man on his neighbor's lawn with a bow and arrow was sentenced Tuesday to the maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison.

Thomas Sirico admitted that he acted carelessly when he pierced Juan Carlos "Angel" Munoz, 27, in the chest with an arrow from a bow on Jan. 8, 2006. But Sirico said he should have been convicted of a lesser charge than murder.

"I am very remorseful," Sirico, 35, said before the sentencing.

Sirico had said that he slipped during an argument with friends and the arrow accidentally flew across the street and hit Munoz.

Prosecutor Denise Merrifield called that account "ridiculous."

"This is a man who was angry and mad," she said. Prosecutors said he had been drinking and when Munoz admitted he made a comment which riled Sirico, the hunter aimed his arrow and fired.

Defense attorney Stephen Scaring said he would appeal the conviction.

European Union rules threaten livelihoods of London's historic boatmen

LONDON (AP) - Since the 16th century, when they ferried King Henry VIII between his riverside palaces, Thames boatmen have plied the waters, fathers passing detailed knowledge of the river to their sons.

Now, a new licensing system designed by the European Union threatens to sweep away centuries of tradition and, the boatmen say, undermine safety.

The system abolishes apprenticeships - completed by generations of London boatmen - which last as long as seven years. In its place comes a license that can be obtained in less than half the time.

"After all these centuries, the government has changed a perfectly good system without asking us," said Gary Hancock, as he maneuvered his 400-seat Thames riverboat "Sarpedon" under an arch of Charing Cross Bridge. "We are very angry."

A burly, avuncular figure who knows every bend and bridge on the river, Hancock, 44, has plied the Thames for 30 years, the sixth generation of his family to work the river since the 1700s. His 16-year-old son James will soon follow him - but the pair fear for the future of their river dynasty.

"Now you're going to get boatmen from other countries coming in and undercutting us - it's just not right," said Hancock, who regales tourists with anecdotes about Queen Elizabeth I and architect Christopher Wren.

The German, Belgian and Dutch governments have negotiated opt-outs from the new system for their boatmen, and the Company of Watermen and Lightermen had hoped the British government would do the same.

But the government says the new regime will harmonize rules nationwide and provide additional safeguards, including a practical assessment for applicants and a reassessment of local knowledge every five years.

"It is a quality training regime for the 21st century - for the first time there will be a nationally recognized qualification," said Martin Garside of the Port of London Authority, which handles more than 50 million tons of oil, coal, cereals and other freight each year, mainly at deeper ports like Tilbury near the river mouth.

He conceded that boatmen from continental Europe would be able to work in Britain - but pointed out that British boatmen would be able to work over there, too. "So it actually improves their prospects."

Opponents of the new system hope lawmakers will scrap it after a parliamentary debate Wednesday. But the governing Labour Party, which supports the new measures, is likely to keep them in place - ending the tradition.

In the 16th century, kings like Henry traveled everywhere on the water when they were in London, commuting between riverside royal residences like Hampton Court and Windsor Castle.

But drunken boatmen tended to get out of hand and in 1555, Parliament established the Company of Watermen and Lightermen to regulate the industry.

Colin Middlemiss, clerk to the Company of Watermen and Lightermen, says the industry is thriving, with 640 licensed watermen, who ferry passengers, and lightermen, who captain freight vessels. Some 120 apprentices were taken on last year.

On the Net:

Company of Watermen and Lightermen, http://www.watermenshall.org/about-us.htm

Tiny 'nation' located off England is for sale

LONDON (AP) - It has its own flag, stamps and passport - a tiny "nation" that's up for sale. But buyers beware: It's only a wartime fort perched on two concrete towers in the North Sea.

The artificial island that looks like an oil rig was created by Britain during World War II, equipped with radar, heavy armaments and about 200 servicemen guarding the approaches to the Thames Estuary, where large and vulnerable convoys of shipping were assembled.

Britain's government abandoned the island after the war, and retired army Maj. Paddy Roy Bates took over and restored the structure, declaring it the principality of Sealand in 1967. He's now known as Prince Roy.

The Bates family made and enforced the laws of Sealand, a 5,920-square-foot platform about eight miles off the eastern England coast. They also survived an attempt by the Royal Navy to evict them a year later.

The Bates' claim of sovereignty and territorial waters was later upheld by courts, and the place - which also has its own national anthem and coins - has been given de facto recognition by some European countries, but not Britain.

Roy, 85, now lives in Spain and his 54-year-old son, Michael, is its current head of state. He told British Broadcasting Corp. radio Monday that his family had been approached by real estate agents with clients "who wanted a bit more than a bit of real estate. They wanted autonomy."

Michael suggested Sealand, which has eight rooms in each of its two towers, could be a base for online gambling or offshore banking if its new owners spruce the place up.

Asked to describe the delights of living on what he described as a cross between a house and a ship, the younger Roy told the BBC: "The neighbors are very quiet. There is a good sea view."

Inmonaranja, a Spanish real estate company, has put a $975 million price tag on Sealand, which includes accommodation, offices, a power generator and a chapel.

On the Net:

http://www.sealandgov.org/history.html

http://www.sealandgov.org/notices/pn03307.html

British lawmakers join protest over use of bear pelts in soldiers' ceremonial hats

LONDON (AP) - British legislators donned faux fur hats outside the Houses of Parliament on Tuesday to protest the use of bear pelts in soldiers' ceremonial head wear.

More than two dozen lawmakers, including actress Glenda Jackson, backed a call by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals for a ban on the use of Canadian black bears to make the foot-high hats worn by royal guards.

The lawmakers rallied outside the Houses of Parliament, wearing fake fur hats emblazoned with the logo "No Fur" and holding a banner urging the army to "Go Fake for the Bears' Sake."

The Ministry of Defense buys 50 to 100 bearskin pelts a year to outfit five regiments - the Grenadier, Welsh, Irish, Scots and Coldstream Guards - who guard Buckingham Palace and other royal sites.

The army has tested faux fur as part of a decade-long search for an alternative, but officials say the results have been unsatisfactory - in warm weather the hats proved to be hot, and in rainy weather the faux fur stuck together. The ministry says it strives to repair rather than replace its hats, which can last for up to 40 years.

Canadian black bears are not an endangered species.

Former UK foreign secretary's tombstone recalls his opposition to Iraq war

LONDON (AP) - Lest anyone forget that former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook opposed the war in Iraq, his family have emblazoned it on his tombstone.

Cook, who died Aug. 6, 2005, at age 59, was the only member of Prime Minister Tony Blair's Cabinet to resign before the invasion because of opposition to the war.

His wife and his two sons by a previous marriage placed this epitaph on Cook's stone in the Grange Cemetery in Edinburgh: "I may not have succeeded in halting the war, but I did secure the right of Parliament to decide on war."

Cook was the first foreign secretary in Blair's government, but was later shifted to the post of leader of the House of Commons - the lower house of parliament.

Blair prevailed in the Commons vote on the war a day after Cook resigned. Lawmakers voted 412 to 149 to use "all means necessary" to disarm Iraq.

Before that, they voted 396 to 217 to defeat an amendment by Labor rebels that declared the case for war "has not yet been established."

Canada's first set of sextuplets born premature face health challenges

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) - A woman has given birth to what is believed to be Canada's first set of sextuplets, and the infants were in listed in fair condition, hospital officials said. - The newborns - each weighing only 1 pound, 6 ounces to 1 pound, 12 ounces and not much bigger than an outstretched hand - were delivered over the weekend at B.C. Women's Hospital and Health Center.

Citing privacy concerns, hospital officials declined to identify the family or give other details about the births, saying only that they were delivered almost three months premature.

"The babies are in fair condition, which means their vital signs are stable and within normal limits," said Dr. Liz Whynot, the hospital's president. She said the parents, who are Jehovah's Witnesses, are "feeling overwhelmed" and "are focusing all their energy on their new family."

The first infant was born about 8:30 p.m. Saturday and the others were born early Sunday, she said.

Hospital officials, contacted by The Associated Press on Tuesday, declined to provide the sex of the infants or other details.

The babies are considered on the borderline of viability and have a roughly 80 percent chance of surviving to leave the hospital, said Dr. Brian Lupton, head of neonatal intensive care at the hospital.

Such an early delivery means all the baby's organs are immature and their underdeveloped immune systems make them more vulnerable to infection.They also face potential neurological and development deficiencies, vision and hearing problems.

"They're certainly in the best possible hands, that's the comfort. But they certainly have a long road ahead of them," said Dr. Timothy Rowe, an obstetrician who heads the division of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at the University of British Columbia. Rowe said naturally conceived sextuplets occur only once in several billion births.

Hospital officials declined to say whether the parents used fertility drugs.

The Dionne quintuplets were Canada's most famous multiple birth. The five identical sisters, born in a small Ontario town in 1934, were hailed as a medical miracle and, at the time, were the only known quintuplets to survive more than a few days.

Their case, however, quickly turned tragic as the Ontario provincial government, which deemed their parents unfit, put them in a specially built hospital where they became a moneymaking tourist attraction during the Depression. The three surviving quints eventually sued the provincial government and received a $2.8 million settlement.

Police force closure of school for migrants in Shanghai

SHANGHAI, China (AP) - For 11 years, Shanghai's Yingjian Hope School offered cheap education to poor migrant children, operating from a tumbledown campus squeezed between evil-smelling chemical factories.

But the school lost its lease last year and was ruled illegal and unsafe. Education officials interrupted classes last week to declare it closed and police clashed with protesting parents and teachers outside the campus in the city's industrial Putuo district on Monday.

The dispute underscores one of the knottiest problems faced by China's estimated 150 million migrants. While they provide the raw labor driving China's economic dynamo, their children are effectively barred by high fees from schools in the cities to which they have moved from the countryside.

That has driven demand for migrant schools set up by private groups, which operate on the margins of the law and are frequently harassed or summarily closed by local governments. Strong demand for real estate in Shanghai, Beijing and other cities has sharpened such conflicts.

On Tuesday, a shouting match broke out at the school gates between teachers and employees of a nearby chemical plant that owns the school property.

"Our factory is not to be used for an illegal school," said one Huaheng Chemical Industry Corp. employee, who gave only his surname, Zhang.

"We're talking about education here, about children," shouted back Zhen Maohui, Jianying's director of education.

Inside, weatherbeaten desks and other school furniture were piled in the courtyard.

Under China's strict residency rules, children of the country's tens of millions of migrant workers are generally barred from attending local schools unless they pay steep fees that are far beyond the means of most migrants.

Jianying, one of about 300 schools serving the city's approximately six million migrants, was set up in 1996 by Yao Weijian, a county-level government adviser from Anhui province. Zhen said the school had about 80 teachers and more than 2,100 students, about 80 percent of them from Anhui - home to many migrants working in Shanghai.

The school charged about $64 in tuition each year - about one quarter of what it would cost to educate a child in a local school.

Jianying administrators admit their lease expired last April, but say they only wished to finish out the last two weeks of the term. They showed certificates and permits apparently issued by the central government and said they didn't understand why officials were so anxious to move them - and why they used such blunt tactics.

"We're asking the government for help with salaries and our losses and to investigate the violence by police," said Chen Gennong, an English teacher.

Monday's fracas involved more than 300 officers and government officials who blocked parents and ordered students onto buses, according to eyewitnesses and state media reports.

Officers also attacked reporters and teachers filming the scene and attempted to seize their digital cameras, Jianying teachers said.

Yao Zhangzhang, a sixth grade teacher, said he was punched and police grabbed his digital camera to delete the images.

"We just don't know why they were so anxious to move against us," Yao said.

Li Cuilan said she'd been trying to send her granddaughter to school, but was pushed away and shouted at by officers.

"They say this is a harmonious society," she said, a reference to the Communist Party's slogan for reducing social tensions. "How harmonious is that?"

Putuo district police refused to comment.

Putuo District Education Bureau officials who refused to give their names said the school was closed because it lacked a proper license and its lease had expired.

"We closed this school because it is not operated in a proper way. We are still dealing with relevant government departments on the issue," said a woman reached by telephone at the bureau's information office.

For now, Jianying students have been transferred to a branch of the Caoyang Primary School located nearby, although Jianying teachers said many students are simply staying home. A woman who answered the phone at Caoyang's administrative office refused to comment.

"We are obligated to follow the arrangements made by the Education Bureau," said the woman, who refused to give her name.

Indonesia shipwreck survivors prayed, shouted for help as raft was swept across sea

MAKASSAR, Indonesia (AP) - Sigit Hariyanto and the other men on the life raft screamed as the ship got closer, daring to believe that five terrifying days of storms, hunger and ravishing thirst might soon be a memory.

"Help! Help! We are over here!" they shouted, standing and waving their arms.

But agonizingly, the ship turned away; no one on aboard saw the survivors from a sunken ferry floating in the vast expanse of ocean. The men fell silent, turning to dreams of their families or to prayer, the near-rescue only heightening their despair.

"After that I became resigned to my fate," Hariyanto said Tuesday, recounting the lowest point of a nine-day ordeal that ended Sunday when the raft was finally spotted. "God gave me my life. If he wanted to take it back, then I was willing to give it to him."

Although one man died shortly after the rescue, the survival of the 14 others on the raft was a rare piece of good news in Indonesia after a string of disasters, including deadly floods and landslides and the presumed crash of a jetliner.

The men were among nearly 630 people aboard a ferry that went down in the Java Sea during a violent storm Dec. 29. Nearly 400 people are dead or missing.

On the raft, the men endured monstrous seas that almost capsized their flimsy craft and forced them to hold on for hours in terror, shivering as temperatures fell at night and burning during the day in the tropical sun.

They survived on emergency rations stored in the raft, with each man limited to three servings of a fingernail-sized piece of biscuit and a sip of water each day.

After riding out the first three days of rough seas, the men - all Muslims from Indonesia's main island of Java - began performing solat together, the ritual of praying five times a day that is the cornerstone of the Islamic faith.

"It gave us all strength and made us more united," said Hariyanto, a 25-year-old who runs a small computer school on Indonesia's side of Borneo island, the ferry's departure point.

"After the prayers, I felt more relaxed," he said.

Like most survivors, Hariyanto was on an upper deck of the ferry Senopati Nusantara when it began listing just before midnight after being pounded by towering waves for several hours.

As the tilt became more acute, he held onto a railing, while others fell to the deck. One woman, screaming for help, clung to his leg before losing her grip and smashing into a wall now 30 feet below.

The lights went out and the ship sank. Hariyanto fought his way through a broken window into the churning sea. He stayed under water for around a minute, before he was spat up next to the life raft.

He and others who made it onto the raft - among them four crew members - initially thought they would be rescued quickly, but bad weather that hampered the search swept them hundreds of miles.

"After a few days I began to realize we were in deep trouble," said Hariyanto.

He said hunger was less of a problem than thirst, which was especially acute when the skies cleared. Occasional showers provided relief, with the men opening their mouths to the skies.

"When it rained it was like a river in heaven washing over us," he said, as nurses brought him hot sweet tea and bananas. "Just for that moment, our torture was suspended."

Less then 24 hours after being hospitalized on Sulawesi Island, Hariyanto looked thin but well, and he was already walking and smoking. Doctors said none of the survivors appeared to have serious health problems.

Indonesia's tropical waters are generally between 72 and 84 degrees. People have been known to survive days at sea, but only with something to keep them afloat. Hariyanto said that after the near miss on the fifth day, he and others began to doubt they would be rescued.

"People began sobbing to themselves," he said. "It was desperate."

Even as supplies dwindled, the men did not fight among themselves, he said, though there were occasional grumbles about an extra sip of water.

Rescue was sudden when it came.

Hariyanto was sleeping at around 8 p.m. - well after dark - when two men on watch saw the lights of a ship in the distance. "It is getting closer! It is getting closer!" one shouted. "Now it is turning toward us," the other said.

Hariyanto said he only believed he had survived when he heard the voices of ship's crew and the life raft was illuminated by a spotlight. He and the others on board fell to their knees and thanked God, he said.

Once on the ship, Hariyanto had a warm drink and a shower and called his mother, who tearfully told him she had already performed prayers for his soul, believing him dead.

"Allah gave us all a test and pushed us to our limit," he said. "And then he decided to save us."