LOS ANGELES - For most celebrities, getting smacked with a DUI is an instant image crisis. For Paris Hilton, it could be a career boost.

"Paris Hilton being arrested just makes her more famous," said veteran publicist Michael Levine. "She has devoted her entire adult life to appearing to be the princess of parties."

Hilton's publicist, Elliot Mintz, confirmed the star's festive nature Thursday: "She's been known to have a drink or two."

Hilton was arrested by Los Angeles police officers in Hollywood early Thursday on suspicion of driving under the influence. During the arrest she was briefly handcuffed. Hilton was booked at LAPD's Hollywood station at 1:43 a.m. and released shortly afterward, said Nick Velasquez, a spokesman for the city attorney's office.

This is Hilton's first drunken-driving arrest, Mintz said, adding that he doesn't expect the incident to hurt her image.

"The people who enjoy Paris as a comedian or actress on TV or as a singer on her CD, a woman who seems to have captured the imagination of so many people, I don't know if this is going to have any impact on them one way or another," he said. "But, of course, she regrets what took place."

Hours after her release, Hilton defended herself to radio host Ryan Seacrest during his Thursday morning show on local station KIIS-FM.

"It was nothing," said Hilton, 25.

The singer, actress, handbag designer and heiress to the Hilton hotel fortune said she was "starving because I had not ate all day" and possibly "speeding a little bit" in her Mercedes-Benz SLR on her way to grab a bite.

"I was just really hungry and I wanted to have an In-N-Out burger," said the one-time pitchwoman for Carl's Jr.

Hilton, who made her singing debut last week with the release of her eponymous CD, said she spent Wednesday filming a music video and going out for dinner with her sister, Nicky, and some friends before heading to a charity event sponsored by rocker Dave Navarro.

Hilton said she had "one margarita" at the event.

Just last month, she told the Los Angeles Times that she "doesn't like the taste of alcohol."

"It grosses me out," she said.

Hilton told Seacrest that police stopped her for speeding. An LAPD spokeswoman said Hilton was driving erratically.

"Officers observed the vehicle driving in an erratic manner so they pulled the car over," officer Marjan Mobasser said Thursday.

Hilton's blood-alcohol level was .08 percent - the minimum to warrant an arrest, Mintz said.

According to a national research study, a 137-pound woman would need to consume three alcoholic drinks in one hour on an empty stomach to reach a .08 blood-alcohol level. The 5'8" and fashionably slender Hilton likely weighs much less than 137 pounds.

She described the arresting officers as "really nice."

"There was a lot of paparazzi around so I think they were trying to make a statement," she told Seacrest. "Everything I do is blown out of proportion and it really hurts my feelings."

The city attorney's office will receive Hilton's case "in the next few days" and will determine whether to file charges against her, Velasquez said.

If charged, Hilton is expected to be arraigned Sept. 28, he said. Penalties for a first drunken-driving offense typically include a fine, probation, an alcohol-rehabilitation program, license suspension and "other DUI-related conditions" such as community service, he said.

LAPD officials said they will not release Hilton's arrest report or her mug shot.

The maximum penalty for a first misdemeanor DUI offense is a $1,000 fine and six months in jail.

Mintz said Hilton had no plans to alter her calendar, including a scheduled appearance at a Hollywood nightclub Thursday to promote her straight-to-DVD movie, "Bottoms Up." In it, Hilton plays "a rich girl with a heart of gold," according to the trailer. The party was to feature Sleepy Brown performing his new single, "Margarita."

Thursday's arrest isn't the first legal problem for the blonde heiress.

In February, a Superior Court judge ordered Hilton to stay away from event producer Brian Quintana after he claimed she shoved him on at least three occasions and badmouthed him.

A month earlier, actress and diamond heiress Zeta Graff filed a multimillion dollar lawsuit against Hilton claiming that Hilton spewed "vicious lies" to the New York Post about an altercation the two had in a London nightclub.

In November, Hilton was a passenger in a silver Bentley that a companion drove into the back of a large commercial truck, scratching the hood of the car. The mishap was captured on videotape. Cameras were also rolling when Hilton's Range Rover backed into a car in a parking garage in June.

Hilton was just a pretty party girl and everyday heiress until a sex-tape she made with an ex-boyfriend surfaced in late 2003. That made her a cyberspace novelty and instant tabloid favorite. Hilton's reality TV series "The Simple Life" debuted shortly afterward.

In 2004, Hilton released her book, "Confessions of an Heiress: A Tongue-in-Chic Peek Behind the Pose." She appeared in episodes of television's "The O.C." and "Veronica Mars" and had a role in the 2005 horror flick "House of Wax."

Hilton released a perfume bearing her name in 2004. Earlier this year, Hilton unveiled her cell-phone video game, "Diamondquest." She'll follow that with a line of Paris Hilton purses and cosmetics.

Hilton's string of boyfriends has also kept her in the news. She was engaged for several months to Greek shipping heir Paris Latsis before dating another Greek shipping heir, Stavros Niarchos III. She has also been linked to former University of Southern California football star Matt Leinert, who recently signed with the NFL's Arizona Cardinals.

Recently, Hilton announced she had taken a vow of sexual abstinence.

A private funeral for Steve Irwin to be held within 7 days, father says

BEERWAH, Australia (AP) - The family of "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin has decided on a private funeral to be held within a week, and a public memorial service will be held within two weeks, with thousands expected. - The 44-year-old Irwin was killed Monday by a stingray while filming a documentary on the Great Barrier Reef.

In a short statement Thursday, Irwin's father, Bob, said the family and "closest friends" would attend the private service, confirming that the "generous government offer" of a state funeral had been turned down.

No details were given on the possible location for a public memorial to the boisterous TV star, although the Irwin family's 60-acre Australia Zoo and a 52,000-seat sports stadium in the nearby state capital of Brisbane have been mentioned.

The elder Irwin said his son would not have wanted a formal state funeral because "he's an ordinary guy, and he wants to be remembered as an ordinary bloke."

Prime Minister John Howard had said a state funeral would be appropriate for Irwin because he was so well-loved and because of his services to Australia as an unofficial tourism ambassador.

Since his death, several hundred thousand dollars in online donations from the United States alone have poured in to one of Irwin's wildlife charities. But the head of one of Irwin's conservation groups, Wildlife Warriors, said he is worried what will happen to the charitable organization after the interest surrounding Irwin's death recedes.

"But it's not just about the dollars," Wildlife Warriors head Michael Hornby told The Associated Press. "They represent the number of people who are now getting involved. That was a big thing for Steve. He wanted to get the ordinary person, everyday people, involved … it is coming to fruition."

Even with the donations pouring in, Hornby admitted he wasn't sure how the group would cope following Irwin's death.

"I have to say Wildlife Warriors has never had this much exposure (as) … through this incident. I think it probably is a groundswell now. The challenge for us is to keep the momentum going," he said.

Mourners have left flowers, flags, candles, cartoons drawn by children at Australia Zoo, the reptile theme park that Bob Irwin started in 1970 and his son built into an international tourist attraction. In lieu of a condolence book, many well-wishers have signed their names on dozens of khaki shirts, one of Steve Irwin's trademarks.

Terri Irwin, Steve Irwin's American-born wife, and two children, Bindi, 8, and Bob, 2, remained secluded at their home near the zoo.

After security officials roped off the area, Bob Irwin and other members of his family took a brief, private tour of the makeshift memorial on Thursday, reading notes from well-wishers, who continued to come to the site.

Terri Irwin has not commented since her husband's death. Her mother, Julia Raines of Eugene, Ore., told the television newsmagazine show "Inside Edition" that Terri said she might have trouble coming to grips with being a single parent.

"Terri says it's going to be hard being the only parent because you depend on the other person more than you realize, and she's having a hard time with that," said Raines. "She told me, 'I'm very concerned about raising the children by myself,' but I know she'll do well."

Rains pound Tucson, Ariz., flooding streets and possibly causing 1 death in rushing river

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - Heavy rains pounded the Tucson area on Thursday, flooding numerous streets and strangling traffic. - A man's body washed up from a river, and officials said he may have fallen into rushing water upstream.

A record 1.14 inches of rain was reported at Tucson International Airport, and up to 2 inches of rain fell in other parts of the area before 7 a.m. The rains stopped mid- to late-morning and remained cloudy the rest of the day.

Forecasters anticipated more rain and thunderstorms through the weekend, before the region begins to dry out early next week.

Through Thursday morning, 9.83 inches of rain was recorded in Tucson since monsoonal rains began June 15, the eighth-highest total rainfall ever, said Jim Meyer, a senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Tucson.

The record of 13.84 inches was recorded in 1964.

Authorities also reported numerous collisions and stranded vehicles.

The body washed up from the Santa Cruz River on the city's northwest side, after a man was reported to have fallen into a south-side wash.

Witnesses reported that the man was floating downstream face down after possibly hitting his head in the water, Fire Capt. Paul McDonough said.

Speeding coverup backfires

MANCHESTER, England (AP) - His driving was swift, but his thinking wasn't.

A 28-year-old man who blew up a speed-trap camera, hoping to destroy evidence of his transgression, was sentenced to prison for four months on Wednesday.

Craig Moore, 28, from Doncaster, said he had seen a flash of light from the camera, indicating that it had detected him speeding on Aug. 14, 2005.

He claimed he feared his driver's license would be suspended, making him unable to work to support his family.

So, he drove back to the site and employed materials that he uses in his work as a welder to melt the camera's metal body in an explosive fire.

That backfired because images of his speeding survived the explosion, and so did images of him returning to attack the camera. He pleaded guilty to a charge of damaging property.

"The defendant accepts that he has created a mountain out of a molehill by behaving stupidly. He finds himself in a great deal of trouble rather than the little deal of trouble he would have been in," said defense lawyer Andrew Bailey.

In fact, he would have been in no trouble.

Officials confirmed that the camera that Moore sped past was only to monitor traffic patterns and was designed to deter speeders, not catch them. It flashed only as a warning.

Macadamia nuts used in undercover police work

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) - Police have found a new use for macadamia nuts: undercover work.

Officers used chopped macadamia nuts to resemble rocks of crack cocaine during a drug sting Friday and Saturday on a street corner near downtown that has been the subject of repeated complaints about illegal drug activity.

"Our operation was two-sided to attack both the supply side and the demand side," Chief Phillip Garrett said.

As part of the sting, police searched two houses on State Street and arrested six people on charges of distribution of a controlled substance. Police seized crack cocaine, prescription pain medication, and more than $4,000 in cash at one location, Johnson said.

Police said the two-day crackdown resulted in a total of 21 arrests.

The people caught buying fake crack were charged with a misdemeanor, attempting to possess a controlled substance. Hill said word of the arrests would ripple through the neighborhood and have an impact on drug dealing.

"We want to make it as uncomfortable as possible for the buyers to buy and the sellers to sell," he said.

Patriotic squirrel lines nest with pilfered flags

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (AP) - Groundskeepers at Forest Hill Cemetery thought it was kids who were stealing dozens of American flags. That is, until one found a giant squirrel's nest.

"I was mowing, looked up out into the distance, and something caught my eye," said Dave Ender, a groundskeeper employed by the Eau Claire Parks and Recreation Department.

He drove his riding lawnmower to a nearby street intersection and looked up a tree.

"Low and behold, I found the missing flags," Ender said.

They were ripped and serving as the foundation of a giant squirrel nest.

"I never seen anything like that before," he said.

No one at the cemetery had ever seen a squirrel with a flag in its mouth, either.

"They must have done it at night, or very early in the morning," Ender said.

"Those little rascals, they're just amazing," he said.

Beer can collectors headed to CANvention

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Beer cans of all shapes and sizes, signs from long-defunct brands and even business cards from microbreweries were among the items collectors sought as they gathered this week for an event dubbed the CANvention.

They come from across the country and the world, including Japan, Germany, South America and New Zealand. Some ship their cans in advance, packing hotel elevators as they haul boxes to their rooms and the exhibition space at the Hyatt Regency Crown Center just south Kansas City.

Each is hoping to fill different gaps in their collections. Some are seeking one beer can from each country in the world. Others specialize in memorabilia from brewers from specific cities or eras.

The group's membership peaked at about 10,500 later that decade and has since shrunk to under 3,000. Many members are nearing or well into retirement. Only 24 are under 30.

"It's the nature of our society," said Rich La Susa, of Gold Canyon, Ariz. "Young people don't collect."

Authorities arrest 19 in phony marriage scheme

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) - Authorities arrested 19 people Thursday after uncovering a scheme that arranged as many as 1,000 phony marriages in northern Virginia between U.S. citizens seeking cash and illegal immigrants seeking green cards.

Many of those who were married never met until they showed up at the courthouse to apply for their marriage license, said U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg.

"We don't normally take an opinion on matters of the heart, but it's safe to say in this case that we do not believe in love at first sight," Rosenberg said.

The arrests came after a three-year investigation. In all, 22 people were charged, and 19 have so far been arrested, authorities said.

Among those charged were "facilitators" who brokered the marriages for fees ranging from $2,500 to $6,000, illegal immigrants who wanted a marriage as a way to obtain permanent residency, and U.S. citizens who received initial payments of $500 plus monthly installments totaling up to $3,600 for participating, authorities said.

Most of those involved in the scheme were from Ghana, Rosenberg said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Gregory Cichetti said in an affidavit that the loosely affiliated enterprise resulted in at least 500 phony marriages, going back as far as 2002, but the number was more likely about 1,000.

In their investigation, authorities said, they found that the facilitators coached couples on the questions customs agents might ask to verify the marriage's legitimacy, such as what side of the bed each slept on. The facilitators would also help immigrants obtain bank records and utility bills to convince customs agents of a bona fide marriage.

The charges include immigration fraud and marriage fraud, punishable by 10 years and 5 years in prison, respectively. Additional charges are likely, Rosenberg said.

New Orleans radio host charged in shooting death of estranged wife after police examine tapes

METAIRIE, La. (AP) - A popular radio talk-show host was charged Thursday with killing his estranged wife in an attack once thought to be a robbery gone bad, the sheriff said.

Vince Marinello, 69, surrendered to authorities and was booked into jail on second-degree murder charges, said Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee.

Donald Foret, Marinello's lawyer, had no comment as he escorted the broadcaster into jail.

Mary Elizabeth Marinello, a 45-year-old respiratory therapist, died Sept. 1, a day after she was shot twice in the face as she stood in a parking lot. The attack was first described as a botched robbery, but Lee said Wednesday night that it is was being treated as a "hit" based on surveillance tapes.

Deputies searched Vince Marinello's storm-damaged house, the FEMA trailer where he is living. Lee said Thursday that a handwritten checklist of the alleged plans for the attack - describing the bicycle, costume and gun - was found.

Marinello disguised himself as a scruffy man and rode a bicycle to the parking lot of a building where he knew his wife had an appointment, Lee said. After shooting his wife, Lee said he rode to an area behind an elementary school.

Initially, Marinello said he was in Jackson, Miss., at the time of the shooting, but Lee said his alibi unraveled when witnesses came forward.

The sheriff has said the Marinellos were in the middle of a contentious divorce and that Mary Marinello had been arrested last month on charges of domestic abuse battery.

The New Orleans area has struggled with crime and violence since Hurricane Katrina hit just over a year ago. The city's post-Katrina population dropped by about half to 220,000, yet New Orleans' murder toll hit 93 after a deadly Labor Day weekend. There has also been a spike in violence in the suburbs. Jefferson Parish had counted 40 murders by Tuesday, compared to 26 at the same time last year.

Marinello, a former television sportscaster, most recently has been hosting talk shows on WWL radio dealing with the recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

Police arrest man in 2 sexual assaults linked to Phoenix-area 'Baseline Killer' case

PHOENIX (AP) - Police arrested a man in two sexual assaults blamed on the city's elusive Baseline Killer. But they stopped well short of saying Thursday that they have caught the predator who has been spreading fear across the Phoenix area.

Mark Goudeau, a 42-year-old construction worker, was arrested Wednesday and accused of attacking two sisters, ages 21 and 23, in September 2005 while they were walking in a park at night.

Police said forensic evidence tied him to the two crimes, but they would not elaborate, and did not say exactly how the women were assaulted.

The Baseline Killer, so-named because his earliest crimes occurred along Phoenix's Baseline Road, has been linked to 23 crimes in the Phoenix metropolitan area dating to August 2005, including eight killings, 11 sexual assaults of women and girls, and several robberies. Investigators said they connected the crimes through either forensic evidence or similarities in the way they were committed.

"This suspect has been arrested for the sexual assault of two victims in one case only and is not connected to any of the other offenses in this series at this time," Police Chief Jack Harris said.

He said there may be other people who committed crimes that are part of the Baseline Killer investigation who have not yet been caught.

Goudeau made an initial appearance in court Thursday, looking fatigued and a bit shellshocked as he was asked by a judge to state his name and birthdate. He was booked for investigation of aggravated assault, kidnapping, sexual abuse and sexual assault and was ordered held without bail.

His lawyer, Corwin Townsend, said he would plead not guilty.

"My husband is innocent," Goudeau's wife, Wendy Carr, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "This is a huge miscarriage of justice. And they have an innocent man in prison. This is all a mistake. He shouldn't be in prison for something he didn't do."

Police Cmdr. Kim Humphrey said Goudeau resembles a widely circulated police sketch depicting the Baseline Killer as a man with dreadlocks. But neighbors of Goudeau told reporters he does not look like the man in the sketch.

According to investigators, the sexual assaults blamed on the Baseline Killer range from fondling to rape. In many cases, victims had conversations with the man before they were attacked. He appeared to have a gun, and often threatened to shoot and kill victims. The Baseline Killer is also thought to wear disguises, strikes in the dark, and generally targets people who are alone.

The case is one of two serial killer cases that have shaken the Phoenix area over the past year.

In the other, dubbed the Serial Shooter investigation, police arrested Dale S. Hausner, 33, and Samuel Dieteman, 30, last month. The roommates are charged with murder and attempted murder in 16 shootings, two of them fatal.

Police believe Hausner and Dieteman took turns shooting victims at random. Police are investigating a total of 37 random shootings that killed seven people and wounded 17 since May 2005.

Three white students removed from La. school; were accused of putting nooses in tree

JENA, La. (AP) - Three white high school students have been removed from school for allegedly putting a pair of hangman's nooses in a tree on campus, allegedly after black students suggested they wanted to sit beneath it, too.

The students were removed from Jena High School after last week's incident and are attending an alternative school for suspended students, LaSalle Parish Schools Superintendent Roy Breithaupt said. He would not disclose their ages or grades on Thursday, and said disciplinary hearings for the three were being held Thursday.

Principal Scott Windham has recommended expulsion for all three, Breithaupt said.

The nooses were hung Friday at the campus in the central Louisiana town apparently after some white students became angry over an exchange during an assembly, according to Tracy Bowens, who helped organize a community meeting.

During the assembly, Bowens said, black students asked if they could sit under a tree with white students who usually eat there, and Windham told them they could sit wherever they wanted. The nooses appeared later that week.

Milwaukee police say 11-year-old girl sexually assaulted by as many as 20 boys

MILWAUKEE (AP) - An 11-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by as many as 20 boys as a 16-year-old girl watched and told her what sex acts to perform, authorities say in the latest mob attack to rock Milwaukee and set off another round of civic soul-searching.

"It almost leaves me speechless. It is just senseless acts of violence. It is inhumane. It is embarrassing to the city of Milwaukee and its people. … There should be outrage," Barbara Nuell-Moore, director of the neighborhood-improvement group Project Respect.

The 16-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy have been charged in juvenile court in the alleged attack, which authorities say took place Monday in a house on the city's north side. A 40-year-old man said in court papers to have confessed to having sex with the child may also be charged, authorities said.

As for the others, "we're dealing with a lot of nicknames so we're trying to track down these people," said prosecutor Matthew Torbeson.

Numerous violent crimes have shocked the city this summer, starting with a Memorial Day weekend in which 28 people were shot. Homicides overall are down this year, but two other categories of violent crime are up from 2005 - assaults by 22 percent and robberies by 36 percent, Police Chief Nan Hegerty told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Hegerty's spokeswoman said the chief had no comment on the alleged gang rape.

According to court papers, the 11-year-old girl told police she was interested romantically in the 16-year-old girl, who looked and dressed like a boy.

The alleged victim and two friends went to the 16-year-old's house, where the child performed oral sex on three teenage boys, according to court papers. The 40-year-old uncle of the 16-year-old admitted he also had sex with the 11-year-old and told police that the 16-year-old was directing the child, the papers said.

The 11-year-old then went to the basement, where there were about 15 males and she told police she "began to choose who she wanted to perform oral sex on," court papers said.

The 16-year-old told police that the 11-year-old had told her she wanted to perform oral sex on the boys in the house. The 16-year-old denied encouraging her.

The 16-year-old girl and the 15-year-old boy were charged with being a party to sexual assault. Torbeson said he will probably seek to have them tried as adults.

Several mob attacks have taken place in Milwaukee's inner city in recent years. In 2002, more than a dozen people, mostly boys, chased a man through the streets and beat him to death with shovel handles, rakes and tree limbs.

A mentally ill man died after being beaten and robbed by a group in 2004. Four days after that attack, a 14-year-old boy was kicked, punched and hit on the head with a piece of lumber after he exchanged words with a girl. He was in a coma for two weeks. Also that summer, four brothers were beaten by a group armed with bats, bottles, sticks and socks stuffed with canned food.

On Thursday, Alderman Mike McGee Jr. walked through the neighborhood where the alleged sexual assault happened and talked to residents. He later declared there is a crisis in the city's neighborhoods.

"We have to have the community held responsible, parents held responsible. That's the bottom line," he said.

Willie Brown, 26, who lives in the area, said Thursday that neighbors are outraged.

"If all those brains couldn't get together and figure out that was a baby?" he said, adding he has a 3-year-old daughter. "I don't have no respect or no love for people who do that." He added: "Whatever they get, they got it coming."

Conjoined twins doing well but face long recovery

WASHINGTON (AP) - Separated conjoined twin boys were doing well Thursday but still face a long recovery, and doctors questioned whether one will able to walk.

"We've climbed Mount Everest," said the chief surgeon who separated the twins, Dr. Robert Keating. "We're at the top. It's a great view, it's very exhilarating and everyone's very excited, but we have to come down. And we have many, many roads ahead of us - many medical issues to be dealt with."

Chief among them, Keating said, was spina bifida.

"We're not out of the woods," he said at a news conference at Children's National Medical Center.

Mateo Asher Shaw and McHale Twain Shaw, 4-month-old sons of Angie Benzschawel, 25, and Ryan Shaw, 28, of Sheboygan, Wis., were in critical but stable condition a day after spending about 19 hours in surgery.

The twins were born May 10 joined at the lower back with conjoined spinal cords.

"Everything went according to plan," Keating said. "The biggest surprise was there were no surprises."

The boys' father said he thought before the surgery there was a chance he might not see the boys alive again.

Added their mother: "Leaving them is the worst feeling you could ever imagine." But after the surgery, "It's just an amazing feeling to see them separated."

Asked what he would do when he got home, Shaw deadpanned, "I think relax." He acknowledged a challenging recovery even then.

"The road doesn't end. It just becomes a little clearer for us," he said.

Keating said he hoped the boys could go home to Sheboygan in a few weeks, but a lot depended on possible complications.

In an interview later, Keating said doctors expect that Mateo will have an easier time walking and getting around than McHale, who has a more pronounced case of spina bifida than his brother.

"Do we expect them to be able to have lives, and go to school and have jobs and potentially families? Yeah," Keating said. "But this is a lifelong medical condition that will require lifelong care."

Keating said he was optimistic that Mateo will be able to walk.

"McHale - it's still open-ended as far as how he will do after all of this," Keating said. "He has a much more involved neurological issue."

More than 65 people worked on the operation Wednesday, including doctors, nurses and staff.

Conjoined twins occur about once in every 50,000 to 100,000 births. Only about 20 percent survive to become viable candidates for separation.

The twins' family has set up a fund for the boys, the Mateo and McHale Shaw Fund, in care of the Kohler Credit Union, 850 Woodlake Road, Kohler, Wis., 53044.

On The Net:

Children's National Medical Center: www.dcchildrens.com

Brooke Astor's son denies abusing the 104-year-old philanthropist and grande dame

NEW YORK (AP) - The son of 104-year-old philanthropist Brooke Astor denied in court papers filed Thursday that he let the frail society grande dame live in squalor while he looted her multimillion-dollar estate.

Anthony D. Marshall, 82, a Broadway producer who has been accused of elder abuse and negligence and who has been removed as her guardian, said in the court filings that he is worried about his mother's health.

Marshall's son, Philip, claimed in court filings that his ailing grandmother had been reduced to sleeping in a tattered gown on a filthy couch to escape a cold bedroom, and was subsisting on pureed peas and oatmeal. He also accused his father of cutting back on Astor's medicines.

The elder Marshall asked a judge to restore his power to make decisions for her. he said his son was "angry and disgruntled" and had filed a "hateful" petition that was "false and misleading."

He said the medicine that he has been accused of discontinuing was in fact stopped by his mother's doctor. The "smelly couch" is actually "quite lovely and definitely without any odor," court papers say. The filings also included photos of several of Astor's nightgowns, none apparently tattered.

Marshall's papers also say he handled his mother's finances very well, increasing her personal assets from about $19 million in 1980 to about $82 million currently. And this was after spending about $2.5 million each year on Astor's care, the papers say.

Conservative Jewish leader expects ban on gay rabbis to be lifted

NEW YORK (AP) - A key Conservative Jewish leader is organizing talks nationwide to tell synagogues that the movement will likely roll back its ban on ordaining openly gay rabbis by year's end.

He and two religious law experts joining him at the meetings are trying to help congregations prepare for the confusion and discomfort to follow.

Rabbi Jerome Epstein, executive vice president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, says a committee of scholars who interpret Jewish law for the movement will likely loosen the prohibition when they vote in December.

At the same time, Epstein expects the scholars will endorse a policy aiming to keep more traditional congregations within the fold. Synagogues that believe Jewish law bars same-sex relationships still will be able to hire rabbis who share their view.

The vote by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards will test what Conservative leaders call their "big umbrella" - allowing diverse practices within one movement. It will also signal to the wider community how far the Conservative branch will go to reinterpret Jewish law.

"The committee might accept - will accept, I think - two or more" policies, Epstein said at an Aug. 24 meeting of New York Conservative Jewish leaders. "One that actually reaffirms the current position and at least one that will liberalize it."

The effect of the contradictory actions will be that local Jewish communities have more freedom. Conservative seminaries, along with the movement's estimated 750 synagogues and more than 1,000 North American rabbis, will get to decide which policy to follow.

"It could cause confusion, it could cause tremendous angst, it could cause tremendous tension, it could cause tremendous disagreement," Epstein said.

The vote comes as the movement is trying to hold on to a shrinking middle ground between innovation and strict tradition in American Judaism. The Conservative branch follows Jewish law, while allowing limited change for modern circumstances.

It's been a hard road to follow. Many Conservative Jews have joined the more liberal Reform stream, which has recently surpassed the Conservative branch as the largest in America. The Reform movement ordains gays and is more accepting of interfaith couples.

For Conservative Jews seeking more rigorous observance, the Orthodox branch has become a popular choice. The Orthodox strictly adhere to traditional interpretations of Jewish law, prohibiting women and gays from becoming rabbis.

Rabbi Joel Roth, a leading religious scholar and a member of the Conservative Law Committee, questioned whether people with traditional Jewish views on sexuality will stay, even if the panel allows synagogues leeway to accept or reject gay relationships. Roth said he has been "demonized" for saying that he interprets religious law as barring same-gender sex.

"I know the law as it stands causes pain," he said. "But pain is not to be equated with immorality."

Rabbi Elliot Dorff, vice chairman of the Law Committee and also a respected scholar, supports ordaining gays, saying "it is simply not natural" to demand that they remain celibate.

"We have to interpret God's will in our time," Dorff said.

Dorff and Roth are traveling with Epstein, with more stops scheduled for Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. The trio also spoke last month in Toronto.

The debate focuses on the significance of Leviticus 18:22, which states "Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman," and 20:13, which says such an act is punishable by death.

The last major Law Committee vote on gay relationships came in 1992, when the panel decided overwhelmingly to maintain the ban on openly gay rabbis.

In the latest discussion, the 25-member committee is considering legal opinions called "teshuvot," for and against change. A policy needs six votes to be accepted. Although it occurs rarely, more than one opinion can be endorsed, leaving local leaders to decide which to follow. That is the result Epstein expects.

Arnold Eisen, incoming chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, the flagship school for Conservative Judaism, personally supports ordaining gays. But he plans to discuss the issue with faculty and students before any admissions rules are changed.

The University of Judaism in Los Angeles, which also trains Conservative rabbis, says only that it will follow whatever policy the committee adopts. However, Dorff is the school's rector and many expect the seminary, if permitted, will admit openly gay students.

The conflict over homosexuality mirrors the battles over the issue in mainline Protestant groups including The Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Dozens of individual churches are leaving the Christian denominations because of the disputes.

Roth says many Conservative Jewish synagogues already know their position on the issue, but others will be conflicted after the committee votes.

"The Committee on Jewish Laws and Standards," he says, "is debating the future of the entire movement. Nothing less."

On the Net:

Law Committee:

http://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/law/contemporary-halakhah.html

12,000 evacuated outside of Berlin as American WWII bomb defused

POTSDAM, Germany (AP) - About 12,000 people were evacuated Thursday from Potsdam as explosives experts removed an unexploded World War II bomb from the Brandenburg state capital.

The city center, including the main train station and Brandenburg state government offices, was sealed off for about 4.5 hours as the 550-pound American bomb was defused and removed.

The bomb was found Tuesday on a construction site in the city, the former residence of Prussian kings just outside Berlin.

It is not unusual for crews to find unexploded bombs, relics of Soviet and Allied bombardments before Germany's official surrender in May 1945.

Potsdam had escaped the war relatively unscathed until an Allied bombing raid on April 14, 1945, destroyed much of the city.

The bomb was the fourth found in the vicinity in the past two years.

Fire breaks out in Siberian gold mine; more than 30 still underground

MOSCOW (AP) - A fire broke out Thursday in a gold and metals mine in Siberia, leaving more than 30 miners underground fighting the blaze or struggling to escape through long underground tunnels, officials said.

The blaze broke out around shortly after noon at a depth between 280 and 430 feet in the Darasun mine in the Chita region, about 3,000 miles east of Moscow, said Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Yulia Stadnikova.

Of the 64 miners working in the shaft at the time of the blaze, 31 were evacuated, said Gennady Savelyev, a spokesman for the ministry's regional branch.

Thirty-three were still underground - 13 working to extinguish the blaze and 20 who were being evacuated along a 3-mile tunnel, he said.

Savelyev said the miners' fate remained unknown as dawn approached Friday.

Deputy head of the Chita region emergency situation ministry branch, Mikhail Stukov, said the fire had been contained but not extinguished.

Mine deputy director Andrei Sirotin said smoke was slowing rescue efforts, NTV said.

Emergency workers said they were pumping fresh air into the mine in the hope that the workers would have room to breathe in horizontal tunnels where there was less smoke, NTV said.

Authorities believe the fire was caused by negligence during welding work, Stukov said.

The mine is operated by London-listed Highland Gold Mining PLC. According to Dow Jones Newswires, the mine has been plagued with operational problems for over a year, badly delaying the schedule for raising output and being one of the causes of Highland's net loss last year.

Accidents are common in the mining industry in the former Soviet Union, where mine operators often lack funds to invest in safety equipment and technical upgrades.

Oleg Mitvol, deputy head of the environmental protection agency Rosprirodnadzor, said the fire had been caused by "non-observance of technical regulations" - a cause commonly named by Russian officials for mine accidents. l

Putin in Morocco for talks on Middle East, energy cooperation

CASABLANCA, Morocco (AP) - Russia's state-owned nuclear power company said Thursday it was seeking to build Morocco's first nuclear plant, as Russian President Vladimir Putin signed cooperation deals with the Moroccan king as part of an economic mission to expand Russia's African reach.

The Russian company, Atomstroiexport, said it would bid for a contract to build Morocco's first nuclear plant, ITAR-TASS reported.

Bidding has not yet opened for the plant, expected to go on line in 2016-2017.

Officials of Morocco's National Electricity office, which sent a delegation to Moscow for talks with Atomstroiexport last week, could not be reached for comment.

Putin - the first Russian leader to visit Morocco - was welcomed by King Mohammed VI, Moroccan dignitaries and foreign ambassadors at a ceremony under the baking sun before the royal palace in Casablanca, with a military band piping and minarets towering in the background beyond a screen of pine trees.

Russian and Moroccan delegations signed documents on extradition, tourism, fishing, medicine and sports, palace spokesman Chakib Laroussi told The Associated Press.

Putin departed Morocco on Thursday afternoon following lunch with the king.

The one-day trip wraps up an Africa tour aimed at spreading Russia's influence beyond its traditional Soviet-era partners. Putin arrived from South Africa, where he pushed for a greater Russian business presence.

Landslide kills 10 people, mostly children, in northern Mexico

MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) - A landslide triggered by heavy rains killed 10 people and injured three others in northern Mexico, authorities said Thursday.

The bodies of two adults and eight children were recovered after the landslide buried five homes Wednesday night in the remote indigenous village of Chalchihuitillo, in Durango state, some 450 miles (725 kilometers) northwest of Mexico City, Serenia Moreno, a spokeswoman with local authorities said by telephone.

Five members of one family, including a man, his wife and three children, ages 5 to 9, were killed after an avalanche of mud and rocks buried the houses. Five children, ages 5 months to 7 years, were killed in the other four homes, she said.

A 24-year-old woman, a 16-year-old girl and an 8-month-old boy were injured and taken to a hospital, Moreno said.

Moreno said authorities didn't know how many people were in the homes and rescue crews were still digging through the mud in search of more possible victims.

"At the moment we don't know if there are more people buried there," Moreno said.

The homes were built at the foot of a mountain that gave way after rain storms pounded the area.

Woman's photos of funeral ground stirs anger over Zoroastrian rites

MUMBAI, India (AP) - For centuries, the Zoroastrian dead have been wrapped in white muslin and left at a leafy funeral ground on downtown Mumbai's Malabar Hill, where they are devoured by vultures. Only then, according to the tenets of the ancient religion, can the soul be freed.

But with just a handful of the endangered birds remaining in the city, and with solar panels installed to speed up decomposition working poorly during the monsoon rains, some Zoroastrians are demanding a change.

Pictures of rotting corpses piled at the funeral grounds, secretly snapped by a mourning woman, have sparked a furor over the ancient rituals.

When Dhun Baria learned her mother's corpse would take at least a year to decompose, she slipped into the grounds - a place few Zoroastrians are allowed to enter - and took photographs and video footage that have shocked her community.

Orthodox elders of the religion, whose followers are also known as Parsis, say the funeral system is working fine.

But Baria challenges that with her stack of pictures, a 15-minute video clip and thousands of handbills she has been distributing in the community showing rotting corpses and body parts.

"Would you like to have the bodies of your mother, father, daughter piled up in a horrible state?" asked Baria, whose mother died nine months ago.

"It is a terrible sight, the stench is horrible. It's as if the bodies have been tortured. The dead have no dignity," she said.

Parsis have placed their dead in a "dhokma," or Tower of Silence, to await the vultures at Malabar Hill - now the city's wealthiest neighborhood - since 1673.

Followers of the Bronze Age Persian prophet Zarathustra, Parsis consider fire a symbol of God's spirit, so cremating the dead is a mortal sin, while burial is seen as a contamination of the earth. But the vulture is precious to Parsis who believe it releases the spirits of the dead.

Over the past 15 years, millions of South Asian vultures have died from eating cattle carcasses tainted by a painkiller given to sick cows. Conservationists estimate that more than 90 percent of India's vultures have died, creating havoc for Parsis' funeral rites.

The IUCN-World Conservation Union lists India's three species of vulture - the oriental white-backed, long-billed and slender-billed vultures - as critically endangered, the category for animals closest to extinction. It could not provide exact population figures.

And with three to four Parsis dying daily in Mumbai, a city of 16 million, it is clear that there are nowhere near enough vultures to consume the corpses.

While bodies are coated with lime, scattered complaints are now heard about smells wafting through the affluent neighborhood.

Baria and other reformists are demanding that the Parsi Panchayat, or council governing the community's affairs, permit burial or cremation within the funeral grounds.

She says that to allow bodies to decompose for months is a violation of the tenets of the religion, which says souls join the spirit world four days after death.

"After four days, the bodies of your loved ones should mix with the earth or how will their soul be released?" asked Baria.

But Burjor Antia, a Panchayat trustee, says Baria has committed a religious offense. "Naturally you will find dead bodies there, and not a valley of flowers," he said. "If you open a grave, will you not find worms and a half-eaten body?"

Antia insisted, "We cannot cremate or bury, that is breaching our sacred religious injunction."

Orthodox members are upset that Baria entered the Towers of Silence, amphitheater-like-structures set on pillars amid the lush 55-acre garden cemetery atop Malabar Hill.

Antia admits the solar panels don't work well during the annual rainy season, but said the elders were working out a more advanced system to dehydrate bodies and speed decomposition.

The controversy has stirred a debate in the dwindling Zoroastrian community - about 82,000 of the world's 130,000 practicing Parsis live in India, most in Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay.

"The system has failed miserably and people are getting upset," said Jehangir Patel, editor of Parsiana magazine. "More people are asking questions about bodies lying and rotting and left there."

Patel, like other reformists, wants an alternative - some want to be allowed to pray over the dead within the funeral grounds and then cremate bodies elsewhere.

Many are worried.

"It's not as if death is something you can control," said Homi Mehta, a 32-year-old Parsi architect whose faith in the funeral rites has been shaken by the controversy.

"If someone I loved died during the monsoon, I wouldn't want them to be left hanging there."

Officials: Pakistan's nuclear scientist in hospital for cancer surgery

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) - Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's former top nuclear scientist who confessed to leaking weapons technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya, was admitted Thursday night to a hospital for prostate cancer surgery, officials said.

About half a dozen government security vehicles escorted Khan, 70, to a hospital in Pakistan's largest city, Karachi. Plainclothes officials surrounded the entrance.

Many consider Khan as a hero for making Pakistan the world's first Muslim nuclear power. But he has been living under virtual house arrest in the capital, Islamabad, since admitting in early 2004 that he leaked nuclear weapons technology to the three nations.

Khan was expected to undergo tests Friday and have surgery over the weekend, a government statement said.

Navy says fire aboard Russian nuclear submarine kills 2 crew members, injures 1

MOSCOW (AP) - A short-circuit sparked a fire aboard a Russian nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea, killing two seamen and injuring one other in the latest accident to plague the nation's struggling navy, officials said Thursday.

There was no radiation leak and the vessel, the St. Daniil Moskovsky, also known as B-414, returned safely to its Arctic home base, officials said.

The blaze happened Wednesday night when a control panel in one of its sections caught fire, Russian navy chief Adm. Vladimir Masorin said in televised remarks.

"Regrettably, we lost two seamen in this incident," he said.

The submarine's two nuclear reactors were shut down by an automatic safety system when the fire erupted, and there was no radiation danger, navy officials said. On Thursday, a tugboat brought the submarine to its home base of Vidyayevo on the Kola Peninsula, the navy said.

The submarine was commissioned 16 years ago and was overdue for repairs, Masorin said.

"It was beyond the designated time for repairs, but its service lifetime has been extended in a proper way … and it was in full working order," he said.

A retired Northern Fleet submarine officer, Mikhail Kuznetsov, told NTV television that Shchuka or Victor-III class submarines like the St. Daniil Moskovsky were supposed to undergo repairs after seven years in use.

"That means it has served more than twice its designated service time without repairs," he said.

Masorin said a warrant officer and a sailor died of toxic fumes from the fire apparently because they were unable to put on their oxygen masks quickly enough. "Most likely, the seamen did not have time to use the equipment they had. The fumes are very dangerous: they fell down after two or three breaths," he said.

Both men were still alive when they were carried aboard a rescue ship and given medical assistance, but died shortly afterward, Masorin said.

Another sailor who was helping get the victims out of the smoke-filled section was hospitalized with carbon monoxide poisoning, but his life was not in danger, the admiral said. An official investigation was launched.

Masorin said the authorities did not notify other nations when the fire occurred because Russia had two rescue tugboats near the site that quickly reached the submarine.

Russian news reports said the St. Daniil Moskovsky has a crew of about 100 and was armed with Granat cruise missiles and Shkval and Vodopad torpedoes.

The Northern Fleet has suffered a series of tragic submarine accidents in recent years.

The navy suffered its worst post-Soviet disaster when the Kursk nuclear submarine exploded and sank in the Barents Sea in August 2000, killing its entire crew of 118. In August 2003, nine members of a 10-man crew died when their submarine sank in gale-force winds in the Barents Sea as it was being towed to a scrap yard.

America's yellow school buses get second life in Congo

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) - Ever wonder where America's yellow school buses go to die? Some don't - they find a second life on Central Africa's rutted, traffic-choked roads.

Boxy buses that once carted American children now haul Congo's impoverished people, young and old - and their loads of preserved fish, powdered milk, beans and onions. Charging breakneck around the capital, the yellow buses rattle fiercely as they crash through the potholes peppering Kinshasa's roads. The blinking tail lights that had protected many a child are now either missing or broken.

While many castoff products from rich Western countries find new use in Africa, the ripped T-shirts, faintly treaded shoes and old computers haven't had their original use quite as thoroughly inverted as the yellow school bus: Yellow buses symbolize safety and restraint on American roads. Not here in Congo.

"This bus is all about speed," says Alfonse Musambu, a 39-year-old pastor of a Kinshasa church called The Chandeliers of Gold, sitting in a bus as it barrels across Kinshasa. "Pedestrians are used to it. They know how to get out of the way."

Speedometers don't work on many of the buses, but they appear to reach speeds of up to 50 mph, fairly fast given Kinshasa's traffic and the condition of its roads.

An American might be horrified at the sight. With traffic so chaotic and roads so rutted, safety seems beside the point, but Congolese cherish the buses as comfortable and sturdy - particularly since the alternative for most is dodgy taxi vans or walking.

Bruce Kingambo is barely able to move, stuffed with more than 100 other people and their baggage in a 60-seater yellow school bus. Squashed between a cane basket of smelly fresh fish and a cardboard carton of milk powder, he's thankful for the ride.

"Transport is a big problem in the city. The yellow buses help regular people get around," said Kingambo, 25, who had taken the bus to Kinshasa's main market, where he has hawked used clothes, every day for the past two years.

Total cost across town: 30 U.S. cents.

The yellow buses first arrived in the early 1980s in what was then called Zaire, run by the corrupt dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, whose government imported the vehicles from America to ferry civil servants to work.

Those vehicles crumbled under the neglect and corruption that characterized life under Mobutu, who took power in a 1965 coup d'etat and ruled for 32 years before fleeing ahead of a rebel advance on Kinshasa and dying in exile in 1997.

Now private entrepreneurs are bringing in the buses.

Most of Congo's new generation of yellow buses come from Virginia or Maryland, according to Jeff Cohen, sales manager at Sonny Merryman Inc., the Rustburg, Va., company that sold the yellow buses to Kinshasa-based Nasser Trans. Cohen's company sells used yellow buses to African and South American enterprises, usually after a decade of service to American schools. The buses cost about $2,000 in Congo; a new one would cost 40 times that.

Cohen said the buses he ships meet U.S. safety standards when they leave, adding that while school districts in Virginia use the buses for 10 or 12 years, others elsewhere in the States keep them running up to 30.

Congo also imports buses from Europe, but mechanics here say the American ones are sturdier.

Nasser Trans owns 200 yellow buses but has shipped only 40 to Congo. The rest are waiting in North Carolina, said John Tokandji, director of finance and administration at the company's Kinshasa office.

"There are political problems in our country now," he said, leafing through a wad of green sales certificates, marked Commonwealth of Virginia, for the 1987-model yellow buses. "Maybe we will bring them after the elections, if things calm down."

A presidential runoff is scheduled in October after a first round ended with gunfights between the top two vote-getters that illustrated the volatility of a nation that has never known democratic rule.

The buses, which can also be seen in other African countries including Nigeria, mostly operate in Congo in the capital. The city of about 8 million has most of the 300 or so miles of paved road in a country the size of America east of the Mississippi.

Spare parts for the buses are a problem, but Nasser Trans chief mechanic Jules Biba addresses it in typical Congolese fashion: improvisation.

"Sometimes we lack a brake pad so we bend some scrap metal and use that," says Biba. "But it's not an ideal solution."

The buses vie for space on the roads with other battered vehicles, including motorcycles, heavy trucks and the smaller minibuses also used to transport Congolese around the city.

In one cramped and crowded yellow bus, Pastor Musambu is suddenly moved by a passage from his tattered Bible. He stands and sings. Fellow passengers erupt like a church choir, filling the bus with sweet music.

Rescuers find bodies of 30 killed in mine accident in eastern India, official says

PATNA, India (AP) - Rescuers found the bodies Thursday of 30 miners killed after an explosion and gas leak in a coal mine in eastern India, an official said.

Rescue workers were searching for 23 other trapped miners, but chances of finding any survivors were bleak, said Partho Bhattacharya, chairman of the state-owned Bharat Coking Coal Ltd., which owns the mine.

The miners were trapped more than 650 feet underground after the explosion Wednesday night and a pocket of natural methane gas began leaking just after the blast, Bhattacharya said.

"Only a miracle can save them," said Arjun Munda, the state's top elected official.

Three people managed to escape and were hospitalized with burns, indicating the possibility of a fire inside the mine, located about 95 miles northeast of Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand state.

"They lost consciousness and were hospitalized and could not be questioned," Press Trust of India news agency quoted Bal Kishan Munda, a local administrator, as saying.

Federal Coal and Mines Minister Shibu Soren ordered a probe into the accident. Two rescue teams managed to enter the mine and reopen air vents, Bhattacharya told The Associated Press.

The state government will pay $2,140 to the families of those trapped in the mine, Munda said. Separately, the federal government promised to give $6,420 to families of those who may have died.

Fires, explosions and floods are common in Indian mines, with hundreds of workers dying each year.

Peru's 'miracle baby' has second operation to fully separate legs

LIMA, Peru (AP) - Peru's "miracle baby" on Thursday underwent a successful second operation to fully separate her legs and allow her to walk unassisted, according to the lead doctor on the eight-person team performing the surgery.

"We have finished with the final part of the thighs. After recovery from this operation, she probably will be able to walk in better conditions," Dr. Luis Rubio said.

Milagros Cerron, whose first name means "miracles" in Spanish, was born with a rare congenital defect known as sirenomelia, or "mermaid syndrome," which left her legs connected from her heels to her groin.

Doctors successfully performed risky surgery in June 2005 to separate her legs to above her knees. Thursday's operation was to separate the remaining four inches of fused tissue just below the groin.

Milagros, now 2 years and 4 months old, waved and blew kisses to well-wishers before her surgery.

Her parents, medical personnel and journalists watched the procedure on a screen in an adjoining room. When the operation ended, Rubio lifted up Milagros to show that her legs were fully separated.

The girl - who is affectionately called "The Little Mermaid" by Peruvians - had developed the ability to stand alone without help and take small assisted steps before Thursday's surgery.

"I expect to be walking the streets of Lima holding her hand in December, which would be a Christmas gift for her family," Rubio said Wednesday night.

According to Rubio, Milagros will need at least 16 more operations in the next decade to reconstruct and repair her digestive, urinary and sexual organs.

He said her own body had corrected one problem - a lack of properly formed sockets for her hip bones that in December appeared to be one of the biggest challenges facing surgeons. Her growing body gradually formed the sockets, without which she would have been unable to maintain stability when standing up, Rubio said.

Rubio has said that Tiffany Yorks, a 17-year-old American, is the only other person known to have undergone successful surgery to correct the rare congenital defect, which occurs in one out of every 70,000 births and is almost always fatal within days of birth.

Pope making homecoming pilgrimage in Germany

VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI, an admittedly reluctant traveler, begins a six-day homecoming pilgrimage to southern Germany on Saturday, retracing his roots in Bavaria.

He will briefly visit Marktl am Inn, the town where he was born and spent the first two years of his life, stop at the graves of his sister and parents, and celebrate an outdoor Mass in Munich, where he served as archbishop. He will also meet with German politicians.

"I want to see again the places where I grew up, the people who touched and shaped my life, I want to thank these people," Benedict said in an interview with German TV networks last month, expressing embarrassment about the fuss.

"I blush when I think of all the preparations that are made for my visit, for everything that people do," he said. "My house was freshly painted, a professional school redid the fence."

It is not quite the return the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had envisioned. When he turned 75 in 2002, the professorial prelate had hoped to pack his books and his bags and join his older brother, a priest in Bavaria, in a quiet retirement.

But Pope John Paul II, already ailing and needing the assistance of top aides, turned down a series of requests by the Vatican's doctrinal chief to step down. Then, his fellow cardinals elected him to the papacy last year following the death of the Polish pope.

It will be Benedict's fourth trip and second to Germany, which he first visited to mark the Church's World Youth Day, but he has indicated his travel will be limited.

"I have to say that I've never felt strong enough to plan many long trips," Benedict said in the TV interview. "But where such a trip allows me to communicate a message or where, shall I say, it's in response to a sincere request, I'd like to go."

Cardinal Avery Dulles, an 88-year-old American theologian, said it was perfectly natural that Benedict is "going back toward his roots. As we get older, we tend to like to do that."

He said the trip would also help to correct "all kinds of images of Prussian military discipline. He's not a Prussian, he's a Bavarian," Dulles said from New York on Wednesday.

As he has grown into his job, Benedict seems more at ease with crowds. During a brief visit to an Italian sanctuary a week ago, he seemed surprised by the turnout, even joking after kissing babies and shaking hundreds of hands that, while the visit was listed as "private," it became quite public.

Beyond the personal side of the Bavaria trip, the pilgrimage may give some indication whether a German pope has given new energy to the Roman Catholic Church in largely secular Germany. One of the chief goals of Benedict's papacy is to battle such secular trends, particularly in Western Europe.

During a weekend visit to Spain in July, Benedict hammered away at traditional family values, challenging a government that has instituted such liberal reforms as gay marriage and fast-track divorce.

Benedict is scheduled to return to Rome on Sept. 14.

Psychiatrist: Austrian teen held 8.5 years in cell needs rest after interviews

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The Austrian teen who survived 8.5 years of captivity in an underground cell is exhausted after giving a flurry of interviews about her ordeal and needs up to 10 days of rest, a psychiatrist treating her said Thursday.

Natascha Kampusch needs "peace and protection" after detailing her kidnapping and eventual escape in a nationally televised interview Wednesday evening and two other interviews with an Austrian newspaper and a magazine, said Max Friedrich, who specializes in treating troubled children and youth.

Kampusch, 18, vividly described the events that led to her dash for freedom on Aug. 23 from Wolfgang Priklopil, the man who abducted her off a street while she was walking to school in March 1998 and imprisoned her in the tiny, windowless cell beneath his garage.

She bolted away while Priklopil, 44, was distracted with a cell phone call. Within hours, he killed himself by jumping in front of a commuter train.

Friedrich, who heads a 10-member team of psychiatrists and psychologists attending to Kampusch, said it would take her years to fully recover, explaining that she "has not adequately lived many phases of her life" and was still grappling with her identity as a free person.

Looking surprisingly poised and collected considering her age and ordeal, Kampusch - wearing a loose, glittery purple blouse and a pink satin scarf over her strawberry blond hair - calmly recalled the day she was taken as a freckle-faced 10-year-old and the horror of being locked into her dark underground cell for the first time.

"I was very distraught and very angry," she told Austrian public broadcaster ORF in her first broadcast interview.

Early in her captivity, Kampusch said she threw water bottles at the wall in frustration and despair and would have "gone crazy" if Priklopil had not occasionally allowed her upstairs, although those trips did not start until six months after her abduction.

She felt claustrophobic in the small space and the wheezing of a ventilator that pumped air into her cell was "unbearable," Kampusch said in the interview - a 40-minute prerecorded account that gave Austrians their first glimpse of the young woman.

The interview, parts of which were rebroadcast worldwide, also captivated many viewers around the globe.

"A country at a standstill, silent, listening to the worst of reality shows," the Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra said Thursday, describing how the case - for years Austria's greatest unsolved criminal mystery - has entranced the alpine republic.

Kampusch said she celebrated her birthday, Christmas and Easter with her captor, whom she referred to during the interview as "Mr. Priklopil." He gave her gifts, she said.

Earlier Wednesday, the weekly magazine News and the mass-circulation daily Kronen Zeitung published separate interviews in which Kampusch said she "thought only of escape" during her entire ordeal.

News said it interviewed Kampusch at Vienna's General Hospital, where a cardiologist examined her for possible heart trouble. She said she had suffered throughout her captivity from heart palpitations that at times made her dizzy and blurred her vision.

Kampusch also said she often did not get enough to eat. She reportedly weighed just 92 pounds at the time of her escape - exactly her weight when she was kidnapped.

During a previous escape attempt, she said she once tried to jump out of Priklopil's car, but he "held me back and then sped away."

High-ranking Chinese military officers punished over deadly accidents

SHANGHAI, China (AP) - China's military has dismissed one high-ranking officer and demoted or otherwise punished 10 others over the crash of a military aircraft that killed 40 people, state media said Thursday.

Seven lower ranking officers were dismissed or given other punishments over a barracks flood that killed 48 people and injured 60, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The announcements reinforce attempts to increase accountability in the 2.5 million-member People's Liberation Army and introduce a degree of transparency.

The June 3 crash in the eastern province of Anhui was the single worst aviation disaster known to have struck the PLA.

Xinhua said the plane - believed to be a prototype early warning aircraft - developed icing on its surface while flying through frigid air, causing it to lose control and crash in a remote mountain area. It was the first official comment on the accident's cause.

The highest ranking officer punished over the crash was Maj. Gen. Jiang Jianzeng, air force commander in the key Nanjing Military Region, who received a serious demerit.

A Nanjing Region regimental commander, Zhang Guangjian, whose rank wasn't given, was dismissed, although the report didn't say whether that was equivalent to a dishonorable discharge. Other officers were given demotions, serious demerits, standard demerits or warnings.

The Nanjing Military Region includes Shanghai and much of eastern China. It is perhaps the most important in the country due to its crucial role in any conflict with Taiwan, the self-governing island off the southeastern coast that China claims as its territory.

Among those killed in the crash were nearly three dozen electronics experts, according to accounts given by two Beijing-backed newspapers in Hong Kong. Their deaths set back China's efforts to become self-sufficient in high-tech armaments, for which it now heavily depends on Russia and other foreign suppliers.

Chinese President Hu Jintao ordered an immediate investigation headed by a top general, a sign of how serious the loss was.

In the barracks flood in the central province of Jiangxi on July 26, one officer, Chen Wei, was dismissed and a criminal case was opened into his responsibility for the accident. Another was demoted and others given lesser penalties.

Such accidents had previously gone unreported by the Chinese media, although the announcement in 2003 of a submarine mishap that killed 70 sailors appeared to mark a step toward greater openness.

The tendency toward secrecy remains strong, however. Three years after the submarine accident, its cause and the exact location where it occurred remain a secret.