BUFFALO, N.Y. - Buffalo lay all but paralyzed Friday after a record-breaking early snowstorm whited-out the brilliant colors of fall, buried pumpkins and apples and caught this city world-famous for its wintry weather flat-flooted. At least three deaths were blamed on the storm.

The heavy, wet snow snapped tree limbs all over western New York, leaving some 350,000 homes and businesses without power.

A state of emergency was in effect across the region, banning all nonessential travel. Branches and power lines lay draped across cars and houses, and normally busy downtown streets were still, blanketed by up to two feet of snow.

"I thought it was kind of pretty but eerie," said Ann Goff, who walked to her job at a Buffalo supermarket in the middle of the night. "It was scary listening to the cracking of the branches."

The snow, delivered in a fury of thunder and lightning, blanketed Buffalo and surrounding areas Thursday night and early Friday. A 105-mile stretch of the New York State Thruway was closed for hours, and food and water had to be delivered by snowmobile to stranded motorists.

Many municipal trucks were still working to remove leaves on Thursday and did not have plows attached when the surprise storm hit.

As a crew of workers sawed and hoisted fallen tree limbs full of autumn color, Bitsy Kosovac, 68, of Point Richmond, Calif., tried to trudge out from her Buffalo hotel for her morning walk in ankle-length boots and a light jacket. A foot of slushy snow and the howling wind stopped her before she could get out of the parking lot.

"If I had better shoes, I would," the Texas native said, trying to turn the storm into an another adventure in her group's fall foliage tour of Mark Twain historic sites.

Erie County authorities said two people died in traffic accidents, and one person died after being hit by a falling tree limb while shoveling snow.

Ambulance crews brought oxygen to the elderly and drove patients to dialysis treatments.

On Thursday, 8.6 inches of snow fell - the snowiest October day in Buffalo in the 137-year history of the weather service. The record lasted for all of one day, as a foot of snow fell early Friday. The old record was 6 inches, set on Oct. 31, 1917.

The snow began melting as bright sunshine emerged and temperatures warmed into the 40s. But the wind continued to howl, raising fears more trees would topple.

"My yard looks like pick-up sticks with the trees," said Rep. Thomas Reynolds, a Republican congressman from suburban Clarence.

Schoolchildren who began the week with a summerlike Columbus Day holiday ended it with a snow day.

"It's pretty cool because we get to build snow forts," said 10-year-old Christopher Platek. "We get to bury ourselves in the snow!"

The storm buried pumpkins and apples just before a busy picking weekend, but the quickly melting snow is not expected to cause damage, New York Farm Bureau spokesman Peter Gregg said.

At the Seven Seas Sailing School on Lake Erie, boats were encrusted in ice.

In some of the city's Victorian-era neighborhoods, oaks, maples, magnolias - some of which have withstood a century of the harshest elements - were bowed or broken.

"Our street looked like it was hit by a hurricane. It looks like the apocalypse. It's unreal," said Matthew Colken. "One hundred-year-old trees are down."

- Associated Press Writers Michael Gormley and John Wawrow in Buffalo and Jessica Pasko and Valerie Bauman in Albany contributed to this report.

Body of missing Vermont college student found; Police identify main suspect

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) - The body of a University of Vermont student was found along a rural road Friday, and police said they were questioning a man who lent her his cell phone on the night she vanished nearly a week ago. - Michelle Gardner-Quinn's body was discovered east of downtown near a popular swimming spot in the town of Richmond, Burlington Police Chief Thomas Tremblay said.

The 21-year-old senior had become separated from her friends when she borrowed Brian Rooney's phone to call them as she walked up heavily traveled Main Street, which runs between downtown and the campus.

Rooney, 36, of Richmond, has been the focus of the investigation since he was recorded on a jewelry store surveillance camera with her at about 2:30 a.m., Tremblay said.

Rooney has not been charged in connection with Gardner-Quinn's case, Tremblay said. He was arrested to face charges of sexual assault and lewd and lascivious conduct with a child in Caledonia County, about 80 miles east of Burlington, Tremblay said.

The police chief described the investigation as a kidnapping probe and he repeated authorities' plea for help. He said an autopsy was scheduled.

Gardner-Quinn was reported missing Saturday after she failed to show up for a planned meeting with her parents, who had been in town for parents' weekend.

Tommy Lang, 21, a University of Vermont senior who grew up with Gardner-Quinn in Virginia, said Friday that nothing seemed amiss when she called him from the man's cell phone just before her disappearance.

"She sounded completely fine and normal and exactly the way she did when she left us," Lang said. "There wasn't anything that made me worry or made me suspicious that anything was going on."

Lang said he called the number Gardner-Quinn had used and spoke to a man.

"He really didn't tell me a whole lot. He basically said he saw her walking up the hill toward the dorms and that's about it," Lang said.

As Vermont State Police searched the Huntington Gorge swimming hole, authorities had cordoned off at least half a block in a residential Burlington neighborhood several blocks south of where Gardner-Quinn was last seen. They were concentrating on a stately, three-story, red brick home, where there has been construction on an addition.

So gauche: Runaway Bride tale is a story full of etiquette breaches

NEW YORK (AP) - Now she wants the shower gifts back, too?

Experts in wedding protocol are tut-tutting - albeit sympathetically - over the latest turn in the case of the Runaway Bride, a story rife with breaches of etiquette.

"I really feel for her," said Rachel Safier, author of "There Goes the Bride," a guidebook for brides who get cold feet. "But unfortunately, I can't think of anything that was done right here."

Virtually everyone knows the early part of the story: Jennifer Wilbanks ran off four days before her lavish wedding in 2005. The reluctant bride, then 32, turned up in Albuquerque, N.M., claiming she had been abducted and sexually assaulted.

She later recanted and pleaded no contest to telling police a phony story. She was sentenced to two years' probation and performed community service. The couple finally broke up in May.

This week came the denouement, or maybe it was just Part 2: Details emerged about a lawsuit, filed by Wilbanks in September against her ex-fiance, John C. Mason. And then Mason countersued on Friday for emotional distress.

Wilbanks' lawsuit sought $250,000 - half of the proceeds from the sale of their story - which the suit said Mason used to buy a house in his name only. Wilbanks is also seeking another $250,000 in punitive damages, accusing her boyfriend of abusing his power of attorney while she was in the hospital, on medication. Perhaps most interesting, letters attached to the lawsuit detail a back-and-forth over a panoply of personal items: a vacuum cleaner, a sofa, a ladder, a comforter set on the master bed.

And this: "Jennifer would also like to have returned to her the wedding shower and wedding gifts given to her by her family and friends," said a letter from her attorney.

That part caught the attention of etiquette experts.

"The proper etiquette, when you cancel a wedding, is to return all the gifts," said Theresa DiMasi, editor-in-chief of Brides.com. "You also need to send a note - in writing and soon: `The gift is most appreciated but the wedding is canceled.' Especially if you have a lot of gifts, it really looks improper to keep them."

Safier agreed. Maybe, she offered hopefully, Wilbanks wanted the gifts back so she could return them (a year later)? Shower gifts should go back, she said, "unless of course they're used. You can make the gesture, but no one wants a used frying pan."

Mason did agree in July, according to the letters, to give back many items - a washer-dryer, entertainment center, furniture, the comforter and the ladder. (It was not clear which, if any, of those items were shower gifts.) "John is anxious to close this very unfortunate chapter of his life," wrote his lawyer, James Watkins, noting the "humiliation, embarrassment and aggravation" caused by Wilbanks' "rather bizarre behavior."

It is that behavior, of course, that was the first major etiquette breach. "Lots of people back out," DiMasi noted. But "there's no need to actually flee the state. And then to lie about it, and have all those police officers looking for you, and then to sell your story - her personal issue became a public issue. That's a violation of ANY etiquette."

Mason said in his countersuit Friday that Wilbanks' actions "were intentional, malicious and fraudulent." He charged that she "made plans for her disappearance well in advance" of her wedding day.

And what does Dear Abby think of all this? The advice columnist said it's not up to any of us to judge.

"I'd think," she said in an interview, "that when a romance fails, you'd want to get rid of reminders and move on. But not everybody thinks the way we do."

As for the disputed property items, trivial as they may seem, "these items may have assumed a meaning that we don't understand," said Abby, whose real name is Jeanne Phillips. "A vacuum cleaner may symbolize home. There may be something about Daddy's ladder - you don't want it in the home of a stranger."

But, she said, one thing is clear. Those wedding and shower gifts? "The rule is they must be returned to the givers."

TV host defends Karr interview: 'We're on the side of the angels'

NEW YORK (AP) - Talk-show host Keith Ablow said Friday that he's "on the side of the angels," protecting children from possible sexual predators by televising an hour-long interview with John Mark Karr next week.

Portions of the TV psychiatrist's interview with Karr were aired Friday on NBC's "Today" show with more to come in the next few days. Karr, briefly a suspect in the death of child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, was freed from a California jail earlier this month when a child pornography case against him fell apart.

Karr's creepy celebrity made him a wanted man in the ratings-obsessed television world. He chose to give his first extended interview to Ablow, a therapist and self-help book author in the first year of a show designed to compete with "Dr. Phil." It is scheduled to air on Tuesday.

"I am baffled as to why anybody would consider this anything other than a public health or communications victory for the American people and for parents everywhere," Ablow told The Associated Press.

It's a rare chance to see what's inside the mind of someone who has expressed a desire to have sexual contact with little girls, he said.

During the first three-quarters of a four-hour taping, Karr appeared completely normal, he said. "The face that emerges after three hours is somebody who makes your skin crawl," said Ablow.

It appeared last week that ABC's "Good Morning America" had landed the first Karr interview. A day after he was released from jail Oct. 5, he was with ABC producers in a limousine as they drove by a San Francisco school where he used to work as a teacher's aide. Karr suddenly left the limo and approached the school, attracting police attention.

An ABC spokesman, Jeffrey Schneider, said that Karr's behavior "gave us serious pause and ABC decided not to proceed with the interview."

With "GMA" out of the picture, "Today" decided to jump in and feature Karr. On Friday, Matt Lauer interviewed Ablow and showed clips of the interview, and it is scheduled to be featured on "Today" again on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday.

"I'm not a psychiatrist," Lauer said after watching one clip. "My take on him is this guy is more than a little off."

The "Today" executive producer, Jim Bell, was not available Friday to talk about why the show was doing four segments on Karr, a spokeswoman said.

Karr was not paid for the interview, said Laura Mandel, a spokeswoman for Telepictures, Ablow's producers. Telepictures did pay to fly Karr to New York and for his lodging and meals - standard in the talk show world, she said.

Ablow denied a report in The New York Post that Karr was given alcohol before his interview. Karr asked for white wine and was given white grape juice instead, he said. He was "stone cold sober" and answered questions with no words slurred, Ablow said.

While he personally found the idea of a Karr interview "vulgar" and dismissed the idea it had educational value, New York psychiatrist Alvin Rosenfeld said he saw nothing ethically wrong with it. And he said that if he had his own talk show, he'd probably do the same thing given the pressure for ratings.

Ablow's syndicated show has been on for a month and its ratings are roughly 25 percent lower than what was airing in its time slots a year earlier, said Bill Carroll, a syndication market expert for Katz Television. Those are the kind of numbers that put a show's survival in doubt - unless it gets a jolt of attention, he said.

Ablow said he's willing to debate anyone at any time about the propriety of giving Karr and his views a platform. The more people who know about Karr and what he thinks, the better, he said. To have the chance and not do it, his show "would have been complicit in any abuse suffered by a young girl in the future at his hands," he added.

"I believe that there's karma in the world and when you do the right thing you're rewarded for it and when you do the wrong thing you have to pay for it," he said. "We're on the side of the angels on this one."

German entrepreneur proposes airborne refuge for smoking travelers

BERLIN - A German entrepreneur wants to create a nostalgic smokers' haven above the clouds by starting a nicotine-friendly airline offering Cuban cigars, caviar and flight attendants in designer uniforms - as well as smoking allowed in every seat.

Alexander Schoppmann, a 55-year-old former stockbroker, has come up with a business plan for Smoker's International Airways, or Smintair, which he says will offer flights between his home town of Duesseldorf in western Germany and Tokyo.

It's all about service, he says - and that includes helping people avoid long hours confined without a cigarette break during a long-haul flight.

"I've been an airline passenger for 50 years," said Schoppmann, perhaps not surprisingly a smoker with a 30-cigarette per day habit. "It made me very angry that the gap between service and price became so big with regular airlines. Especially in the first class and business class, service is at its lowest point ever."

Schoppmann said in an interview he plans to start flying in March with three leased Boeing Co. 747s, two of them plying the route and one as a backup. The idea is to bring back "the luxury of the old days" by using only 138 business- and first-class seats on a plane that has space for more than 400 people.

TVs, DVDs, telephone and Internet access and flight attendants "in uniforms designed by famous couturiers" are just a few of the frills.

Schoppmann has not started selling tickets yet. He says he's got investors willing to provide $81 million to get started - including the $50 million he'll need to get a license from the German government - and sponsors ready to sell luxury goods on board.

"We are on the same price level with Lufthansa, British Airways and other airlines that operate on similar routes," he said. "Frankfurt-Tokyo and back costs $12,500 with Lufthansa for the first class and $8,125 for business class both ways. And those are exactly our prices."

The German entrepreneur said he plans to supplement ticket revenue by selling luxury products in an extra lounge on the upper deck and also put to use the cargo hold. "The cargo rates to Tokyo and back are among the highest in the world," he said.

Schoppmann recalls his flights in the 1950s, 60s and 70s as "a luxurious experience above the clouds," with room to relax and Cuban cigars on offer.

Aviation consultant Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va., expressed skepticism about Schoppmann's chances of getting over regulatory and financial hurdles.

"You can't start flying between two countries just on the basis of a business plan. You have to deal with the regulatory authorities in both countries … arrange for overflight and whatever else," he said.

Schoppmann said applying for an operating license is not as complicated as one might think. "The German Aviation Authority only wants you to prove funds sufficient for a three-months undertaking in case no money comes in," he said. "And that's all available."

Aboulafia also said using jumbo jets "is very ambitious. No other premium airline that I know of has ever started with 747s. … You're betting that you've got enough of a niche customer group to support you."

He said it will be interesting to see whether enough people will opt for Smintair over a carrier like Lufthansa, which has more frequent flights, just because they like to smoke.

Schoppmann said nonsmokers are welcome and would even find the cabin air much more refreshing than on any other flight because the airline will pay the added cost of a system to add outside air to the cabin air conditioning.

He insists that nonsmokers would face no hazards aboard his planes. "Second-hand smoke doesn't exist," he said. "At the most there is something that smells, but perfumes smell, as well."

Dr. Eva Kalbheim, spokeswoman for the nonprofit organization German Cancer Aid, disagrees. "The latest numbers we have from the German Cancer Research Center show that 3,300 people in Germany die every year as a result of passive smoking," she said.

And flight attendants would run substantial health risks, she said.

Asked how certain he is that Smintair will take off as planned in March, Schoppmann said:

"How certain is it that I will be alive by then? That's of course a philosophical question. The way we are positioned right now, it is certain."

Fourth body found after Gulf of Mexico pipeline blast; search on for 2 still missing

CYPREMORT POINT, La. (AP) - Searchers found the body of a fourth victim Friday near the site of a natural gas explosion off the Louisiana coast as they braved choppy waters and the danger of a second blast in attempt to locate two people still missing. - The blast occurred when a tugboat pushing two barges hit the pipeline Thursday in West Cote Blanche Bay, about two miles from shore and 100 miles southwest of New Orleans, the Coast Guard said.

Three bodies were found within hours of the accident. The fourth was pulled from the water about two miles from the site Friday morning, Iberia Parish Sheriff Sid Hebert said.

Gas flow was shut off to the pipeline, but Coast Guard Lt. Rick Foster said there was still concern of another explosion if some gas remained in the line. Divers were to examine the site to determine whether a "spud" from one of the barges - a metal extension used to halt the vessel - might have pinched the pipeline, Foster said. The barge was still in place at the site.

Family members of the missing gathered at a marina at Cypremort Point, a community of shoreline residences and fishing camps.

Choppy waters hampered the search, but the water in the area was only about 5 feet or 6 feet deep, and there was some hope that survivors might have reached one of the many offshore oil and gas platforms that dot the horizon, said Maj. Tim Cossey of the St. Mary Parish Sheriff's Office.

"They can survive for a long time out there," Cossey said.

Authorities were alerted to the explosion Thursday by a man on a nearby beach who saw flames shooting about 100 feet into the sky, said Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Nyx Cangemi.

Coast Guard rescue crews on Thursday found two survivors, one hospitalized with severe burns and the other uninjured, said Coast Guard spokeswoman Veronica Bandrowsky.

Gulfport Energy Corp. said the accident involved two contracted vessels working for the company in a large energy field. The company said all its own employees were accounted for but it was still trying to get information on its contract workers.

"We are deeply concerned for all those involved," Gulfport CEO Jim Palm said in a statement.

Two of the dead were identified Friday morning by the St. Mary Parish Sheriff's Office as Kennith J. Rink, 51, of Berwick, and John J. Mire Jr., 59, of Patterson.

Texas police officer suspended over graphic MySpace page showing dismembered bodies

WICHITA FALLS, Texas (AP) - A police officer whose Web page on MySpace.com included images of dismembered women has been indefinitely suspended, authorities said.

Jeremiah Love's page on the social-networking site contained images and statements that could undermine public confidence in the police department, an internal affairs report said. Love, 26, was suspended Tuesday.

Julia Vasquez, an assistant city attorney, said Love espoused a fondness for violence on the Web page that would hurt his testimony in criminal cases.

"These are comments that would make it difficult if he was trying to defend himself against a complaint regarding excessive force as an officer," Vasquez said. "There may be no evidence of excessive force, but when someone looks at his site, the comments could be used against him in court."

She said Love had not faced disciplinary action in the past.

Love's attorney, Richard Carter, of the Combined Law Enforcement Association of Texas, said the officer would appeal the suspension on the grounds that the punishment is excessive. Carter said the appeal would be heard by an arbitrator.

The Web page, which has been removed from MySpace.com, was listed under the name Leatherface. Graphic images on the page included a woman with the word "loath" carved into her flesh. Love listed his occupation as "super hero/serial killer."

According to the internal affairs report, Love designed his site in the genre of horror movies. He told investigators the site was meant to be humorous, according to the report.

Bruce Martin, a defense lawyer, said he discovered Love's MySpace page shortly after Love arrested one of his clients last month. Martin, who said he alerted prosecutors to the Web site, said he has evidence Love used excessive force on his client.

"I think all of the arrests, all of the searches and all of the seizures he's made have come into question," Martin said. "In any case of abuse or alleged abuse perpetrated by Officer Love, this Web site can be used to test his credibility."

Police Chief Dennis Bachman wouldn't comment on Love's case but said the public "always tends to hold their officers and firemen to a higher standard whether right or wrong."

McBride lives up to her name

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. (AP) - Shawnta McBride is apparently more than living up to her name.

McBride, 31, has married five men without divorcing her first husband, according to warrants issued by Gwinnett County Police detectives. She is charged with five counts of bigamy and false swearing.

Police are searching for McBride, whose last known address was in Decatur.

McBride wed Robert K. Konaido in September 2004, according to court records. The arrest warrants say she has since married five other men at the county courthouse.

Police said her case is similar to those of two men arrested in the suburban Atlanta county in September. Police suspect the men married half a dozen or more women each to help them gain American citizenship.

Four of McBride's grooms were born in Ghana, one was from Morocco and one was a London native, said Lorraine Stafford, the Probate Court administrator.

Security guards protecting Jolie punch, threaten photographer

PUNE, India (AP) - An Associated Press freelance photographer says security guards protecting a movie set where Angelina Jolie is shooting her latest film punched and threatened him at gunpoint Friday, in the second run-in between the star's security and the news media this week.

Jolie is in the western Indian city of Pune to film scenes for "A Mighty Heart," a movie about the life of slain journalist Daniel Pearl.

Most of the scenes are being filmed inside a spacious bungalow in the Pune suburb of Aundh, chosen because the area resembles Karachi, Pakistan, where Pearl and his wife Mariane spent time.

The bungalow is located inside a gated community that has been largely closed to the media.

The photographer representing the AP, Guautum Singh, said he gained legitimate entry to the area and was accosted by security guards after giving Jolie his business card.

Singh said he was down the road from the bungalow when he spotted Jolie in the back of a taxi while filming a scene from the movie. When the filming paused, he said, he put down his cameras and approached Jolie to give her his card, which she accepted through the window of the taxi before it drove off.

At that point, he said he was approached by one American security guard and two Indian guards, all of whom verbally abused him. One of the Indian guards punched him in the face and he swung back, also hitting the guard in the face, Singh said.

Then, he said, the other Indian guard "grabbed me and the first guard punched me again."

Singh said the first Indian guard then drew a gun and said he would be shot if he did not leave. The American guard did not take part in the scuffle, but witnessed the incident, the photographer said.

Singh said he was then let go, and he collected his equipment and departed. Jolie did not witness the incident, he said, adding that his face was bruised under his right eye but he was otherwise uninjured.

The altercation was not the first that Jolie's security has had with a photographer since she and Brad Pitt arrived late last week in Pune, where hordes of photographers, television cameramen and reporters have followed their every move.

On Oct 8., as the couple was leaving the Le Meridian hotel where they are staying, one of their security guards manhandled a British photographer trying to take their photo, grabbing the man by his neck and verbally abusing him.

Video of the incident was broadcast on India's CNN-IBN news channel, and the Hindustan Times newspaper identified the photographer as Sam Relph of Barcroft Media. The newspaper reported the security guard had shouted at photographers to stop shooting the couple and grabbed Relph when he refused to put down his camera.

The couple's children - Maddox, 5, Zahara, 18 months, and 4-month-old Shiloh Nouvel - have accompanied them on the trip to Pune, about 100 miles south of Mumbai, India's financial and entertainment hub.

Dan Futterman portrays Daniel Pearl in the movie that will be co-produced by Plan B, a production company founded by Pitt and his ex-wife, actress Jennifer Aniston.

The movie is based on an adaptation of Mariane Pearl's book, "A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Danny Pearl."

The Wall Street Journal reporter, Pearl, was abducted and murdered in Pakistan in 2002 while researching a story on Islamic militancy.

Alabama coal mine inspector killed by falling rocks while working underground

BROOKWOOD, Ala. (AP) - Rocks falling from a coal mine roof struck and killed a worker inspecting an isolated section of a large, underground mine, officials said.

Jerry McKinney, 56, of Tuscaloosa was found dead by a mine rescue team Thursday, said Dennis Hall, a spokesman for Jim Walter Resources Inc., which operates the mine in Tuscaloosa County.

The accident at the No. 7 mine was believed to have occurred Wednesday night, but the exact time was unclear.

Hall said McKinney, an area manager for special projects, was by himself in a "non-producing area of the mine that one travels" when a section of roof collapsed. While as many as 120 people were on the property, other workers didn't immediately realize what had happened, he said. He said the mine covers 15 to 18 square miles.

Investigators from the Mine Safety and Health Administration will try to determine the cause of the accident.

In April, a miner died after being injured by falling rock at the company's No. 4 mine.

Four people, including 2 children, found shot to death along Florida highway

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. (AP) - Police on Friday found what appeared to be a family of four gunned down overnight along an isolated stretch of highway: a woman clutching two children in a forlorn effort to protect them, with a man's body nearby.

Investigators believe the victims' vehicle had pulled to the side of Florida's Turnpike before someone else in the vehicle shot them and drove away sometime between 1:30 and 3 a.m., Sheriff Ken Mascara said.

The sheriff would not say whether investigators knew of a motive or had any suspects.

A passer-by spotted the bodies around 8 a.m. in Port St. Lucie, about 100 miles north of Miami, and alerted the Florida Highway Patrol. The bodies were in a grassy area near a golf club, several miles from the nearest rest stop.

Janis Rich, a 67-year-old retired bookkeeper, said she her husband were asleep in their golf club home, a quarter-mile from the scene, when they awoke to a loud "pop-pop-pop-pop" sound from the direction of the turnpike just before 2:30 a.m.

Rich said the couple saw no traffic or anything else in the darkness. "We were trying to hear anyone speaking, anyone crying, but it was total quiet," she said.

The names of the 29-year-old man and 25-year-old woman were withheld until relatives could be notified. The children were believed to be 4 to 6 years old, the sheriff said.

The woman "had both the children clutched in a defensive mode, in an attempt to protect them. It gives the appearance that they were a family traveling," Mascara said.

The vehicle left tire tracks as it pulled away, Mascara said. A turnpike camera was in the area but wasn't recording at the time, he said.

The two adults' last names did not match, but authorities believed the victims were a family.

- Associated Press writer Jennifer Kay in Miami contributed to this report.

Teens to face adult charges in beating of homeless man in Florida last month

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - Charges against four teenagers in an attack on a homeless man were upgraded Friday to attempted murder because of what prosecutors called "extreme callousness and recklessness."

The adult-level charges came a day after the fourth teen was arrested in the Sept. 20 beating and stabbing of William Teeters, 44, who was left bleeding and bruised at a park.

Three 15-year-olds were already in custody. All four had faced juvenile charges of aggravated battery.

Prosecutors said the charges were upgraded after evidence was reviewed.

"The evidence we've collected reveals an extreme callousness and recklessness. It's extremely disturbing," said prosecutor Maria Schneider, who heads the state attorney's juvenile unit.

Authorities identified the three younger teens from a surveillance video that put them within a quarter-mile of the park 10 minutes before the attack, police said. Authorities had said the boys were considered "persons of interest" because they matched Teeters' description of his attackers.

In January, teenagers beat another homeless man to death nearby. Three teens are charged with murder in that case.

Ohio Highway Patrol says trooper involved in crash that killed 3 people was legally drunk

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - A highway patrolman was legally drunk when his cruiser crashed into another vehicle last month, killing him, another trooper and the other driver, officials said Friday.

The State Highway Patrol said a blood test on trooper Joshua Risner showed a blood-alcohol level of 0.08, the level considered drunk under Ohio law.

Neither Risner's passenger, trooper Sgt. Dale Holcomb, nor the driver of the other car, 32-year-old Lori Smith, had been drinking before the crash Sept. 28 near Gallipolis in southeast Ohio, the patrol said in a news release.

Risner, 29, had worked for the patrol for seven years. Holcomb, 45, was a 21-year veteran.

Raggedy Ann and Andy reported missing

AMELIA, Ohio (AP) - Raggedy Ann and Andy smiled and waved to visitors outside a store for two years before vanishing earlier this week.

Their absence Tuesday morning might not have raised many eyebrows, except that this Raggedy Ann and Andy aren't dolls, but two 5-foot tall, 200-pound fiberglass statues.

A police investigator is trying to determine who may have taken the statues, which store owner Dave St. Clair considers landmarks.

"Everybody knows our store by them," St. Clair said. He and his wife own Just 4 Fun, which sells pool tables, game tables, slot machines and other recreational items.

The statues, valued at $1,200 each, were custom-made in the 1960s for a New Jersey amusement park, St. Clair said. Though they might have been stolen as a prank, he said, he and his wife aren't laughing.

St. Paul bans 'loosie' cigarettes

Minn. (AP) - St. Paul is about to lose "loosies."

The City Council voted Wednesday to ban the sale of single - or loose - cigarettes.

The council cited the lack of health warning labels on single smokes and said their cheapness makes them attractive to minors and the poor.

Council President Kathy Lantry proposed the ordinance after getting complaints from neighbors about the sale of loosies, which are found at some convenience stores, gas stations and liquor stores.

"I think it's taking advantage of people," she said. "It really is a way that kids start smoking."

Other Minnesota cities have already banned the loose cigarettes.

Public health experts said the sale of single cigarettes to minors is a big concern.

Research indicates the sale of loosies dates to the 1930s, when Depression-era men and women couldn't afford a full pack of cigarettes.

Anti-smoking activist Jeanne Weigum, who is president of the Association for Nonsmokers-Minnesota, said the most important reason to ban the practice is that buyers need to know that cigarettes are harmful, she said.

"That's federal law. Cigarettes that are sold have to have a warning label," she said.

Kangaroo sighting reported in Austria

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Kangaroo sightings are a bit more common in Australia than Austria, but several people in this Alpine country reported to police that they spotted one hopping along a highway in Tyrol province.

Police said Thursday the marsupial escaped from an enclosure in the village of Volders about two weeks ago. The animal is still at large, they said.

Oddly, the sightings were not the country's first kangaroo-related incident.

In March, a kangaroo led police in southern Austria after it jumped a fence of its cage. A local veterinarian helped capture the animal using a stun gun. That kangaroo belonged to a breeder in Tyrol.

Archives provide insight into future wartime pope, Pius XII

VATICAN CITY (AP) - Historians studying newly opened Vatican archives say the material strengthens views that the future wartime pontiff, Pius XII, was a sometimes indecisive diplomat.

Scholars will have to wait years before the Holy See opens its files on Pius XII, who has been accused of failing to speak out enough against the Holocaust.

But historians who have studied just a fraction of the 30,000 files from the papacy of his predecessor, Pius XI, say the material is providing insights into the man who would become Pius XII.

The files span the 1922-39 pontificate of Pius XI, which ended less than seven months before the outbreak of World War II. The Vatican's top diplomat in the run-up to the war was Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli - the future Pius XII.

Pacelli, who served as Pius XI's secretary of state, was an often indecisive diplomat who sometimes worried about taking strong public stands, said the Rev. Gerald Fogarty, a professor of religious studies and history from the University of Virginia.

Pacelli was "frequently seen as being indecisive because he sees all the nuances," Fogarty said in a telephone interview Thursday. "When I say 'indecisive,' I'm not saying not having a position, but I mean he's always thinking like a diplomat."

He said notes from Vatican meetings that he has found in the archives show Pacelli's dismay over Chicago Cardinal George Mundelein's statement deriding Adolf Hitler as being an inept "paperhanger."

Germany's Nazi regime officially protested to the Vatican about the remark. Pacelli thought the statement was undiplomatic, Fogarty said, although the prelate went on to defend the American cardinal by arguing that he was exercising the right of bishops to speak freely in their diocese.

Fogarty, a Jesuit, served on a team of Jewish-Catholic scholars which, after studying some documents made available several years ago by the Vatican, concluded that Pius XII was bent on fruitless diplomacy while reports of Nazi atrocities poured into the Vatican.

He has been focusing on U.S.-Vatican dealings during a period when they had not had formal ties for decades.

"By 1931, Pacelli realized that the United States was important" for the Vatican, Fogarty said. He said the Holy See was intrigued that the "U.S. Catholic church was flourishing."

Pacelli pushed for formal U.S.-Vatican relations, using his friendship with the future New York Cardinal Francis Spellman, Fogarty said.

"I know Spellman was instructed to see FDR (President Franklin D. Roosevelt) and he got to see him through Joseph Kennedy," the father of future President John F. Kennedy, Fogarty said.

Full-fledged diplomatic ties were re-established between Washington and the Vatican in 1984.

One delicate matter in the mid-1930s was the case of an American priest, Charles Coughlin, who was using a popular radio program to rail against communists and Roosevelt and in favor of Nazism, Fogarty said.

Notes from Vatican meetings indicate Pacelli was "very upset" about Coughlin, Fogarty said.

Still, Pacelli bowed to advice from U.S. bishops worried about their autonomy and the Vatican's apostolic delegate in Washington against criticizing Coughlin, Fogarty said.

Pacelli was methodical in his note-keeping about Pius XI's meetings, according to the Rev. Sergio Pagano, who heads the archives and is planning to publish the notes.

Pacelli's notes are key because Pius XI apparently kept no diary, Pagano said.

The notes, in "tiny, tiny, not always clear," handwriting rarely offered his own personal opinion, Pagano said. The note-keeping "reflects without a doubt the judgments of the pope. Sometimes he even put down the very words the pope told him."

Asked what Pius might have said in confidence to Pacelli about the horrors of Hitler as war loomed, Pagano said he couldn't answer since he has only had time to study Pacelli's notes from 1930-31.

Early in his pontificate, Pius XI had considered far-right regimes a bulwark against liberal secularism and communism. But as his health worsened in the late 1930s, Pacelli recorded the pope's "spiritual discomfort" with totalitarianism, fascism and Nazism, Pagano said.

By 1930, only a year after a landmark treaty governing relations between the Italian state and the Holy See, "problems were already arising with the fascist regime" of Benito Mussolini and the church, Pagano said.

Mussolini's government often defied the 1929 Lateran Treaty, including by failing to give quick consensus on the pope's selection of Italian bishops, Pagano said.

Pius XI also worried about Italian interference in the formation of Catholic organizations, Pagano said.

"He was already seeing that Mussolini was moving toward complete dictatorship," the Vatican official said.

Italian cardinal, longtime aide to John Paul II, dies at 84

VATICAN CITY (AP) - Cardinal Dino Monduzzi, an Italian prelate who was a longtime aide to Pope John Paul II and three earlier pontiffs, died Friday at the Vatican, where he resided. He was 84.

Monduzzi had served as prefect, or head, of the papal household until 1998.

Pope Benedict XVI in a condolence message to Monduzzi's relatives noted that the prelate had served four popes "rendering generous service with great dedication."

The pontiff also praised his "speed and wisdom" in helping to organize the daily papal audiences and more than 100 pastoral trips that Pope John Paul II made to Italian cities.

He greeted VIPs when they arrived at the Apostolic Palace for papal audiences, including President Ronald Reagan and wife in 1987.

Monduzzi entered Vatican service in the late 1950s, during the pontificate of Pope John XXIII.

John Paul, who died last year, rewarded Monduzzi for his faithful service by elevating him to cardinal in 1998.

The Vatican said Benedict would celebrate Monduzzi's funeral Monday in St. Peter's Basilica.

Ivory Coast Health Ministry says toll from toxic waste dumping scandal rises to 10

By:ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) - The number of people who have died following the dumping of toxic waste around this West African nation's main city has risen to 10, a Health Ministry spokesman said Friday. - That number is up from a previously reported figure of eight dead.

Health Ministry spokesman Simeon N'Da gave no details on when the latest two deaths occurred. N'da said the deaths were believed to have been caused by the toxic waste, but he said medical investigations were still ongoing to determine precisely what caused each fatality.

N'da said 102,806 people have sought treatment since a Dutch commodities trader unloaded its deadly shipment in Abidjan on Aug. 19.

Many of those visiting doctors have complained of nausea, headaches and breathing difficulties that they say were caused by the foul-smelling substance. N'da said 69 other people have been hospitalized, but all have been released.

The waste was shipped to Abidjan by a vessel chartered by Trafigura Beheer BV and dumped illegally across the city, authorities say. The Dutch company hired a local contractor to dispose of the waste. U.N. experts said it contained hydrogen sulfide, which in concentrated doses can kill humans.

The government, which is still investigating, has detained and charged seven people in connection with the scandal.

Paris court drops charges against British photographer of Diana, Dodi Fayed

PARIS (AP) - A court Friday threw out charges against a British photographer accused of invasion of privacy for taking and publishing intimate photos of Princess Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, shortly before they were killed in a 1997 car crash.

Mohammed Al Fayed, Dodi's father, brought the case against photographer Jason Fraser over pictures of the couple on a yacht owned by the Egyptian billionaire off Portofino, Italy.

In a court hearing last month, state prosecutor Alexandre Aubert argued the yacht constituted "a private place in which two people were surprised in their intimacy" - and urged the court to convict Fraser.

The Paris criminal court dropped the charges. Details of the court's reasons were not immediately available, nor whether prosecutors or Al Fayed would appeal.

The photos made headlines across Britain in the last few days of August 1997, helping confirm the public image that Diana and Dodi Fayed were companions.

Diana, Fayed and their driver Henri Paul all died when their car crashed at high speed in the Pont d'Alma tunnel in the French capital on Aug. 31, 1997.

Yellowstone will reduce use of howitzer to trigger avalanches

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (AP) - Officials plan to trigger controlled avalanches at Sylvan Pass in Yellowstone National Park this winter by dropping explosives from a helicopter while cutting back on the use of an aging 105 mm howitzer.

Park officials have been trying to reduce the use of the howitzer for years because they say it's unsafe for employees and often shoots shells that do not immediately explode, but could detonate later.

"If this was an easy problem to be solved, it would've been solved a decade ago," said Steve Swanke, acting health and safety manager at Yellowstone. "It's far from that."

The park has contracted with a Bozeman company for the past two years to perform helicopter missions over Sylvan Pass, on the route into the park from Yellowstone's east entrance, to drop explosives that trigger avalanches. The missions prevent snow from building up that could later fall unexpectedly on visitors or workers.

Swanke said the helicopter will be used again this winter. He said the howitzer will be used only in limited cases, such as when bad weather or another emergency keeps the helicopter from flying avalanche missions.

"I think we're going to lean a little heavier on the helicopter this year than we did last year," Swanke said.

Park officials estimate there are as many as 300 unexploded howitzer shells in the hills around Sylvan Pass from years of using the howitzer. The pass was closed for a day last spring after a construction worker found an unexploded shell on the road.

Illness sends some students to hospital, closes Canadian university

SACKVILLE, New Brunswick (AP) - A Canadian university temporarily closed Friday amid fears that a virus known to cause havoc on cruise ships and in nursing homes may be stalking its halls. - An illness believed to be a Norwalk-type virus has sickened at least 100 people on the campus of Mount Allison University in New Brunswick and in the surrounding university town of Sackville.

All activities on campus were suspended until Monday.

Symptoms of Norwalk-like viruses include nausea, vomiting and diarrhea and last up to 48 hours. Such viruses affect 23 million Americans a year and were blamed for a rash of cruise ship illnesses in recent years.

University spokeswoman Sheila Blagrave said about 40 students went to the hospital on Thursday and Friday to be treated for dehydration. But she said no students were admitted for further treatment of the suspected gastrointestinal bug, which can cause serious problems in people with depressed immune systems.

People often describe Norwalk-like illnesses as stomach flu or 24-hour flu, but the viruses have no relationship with the flu, a respiratory virus.

Dr. Denis Allard, a district medical health official in New Brunswick, said public health officials were not ready to say the bug is definitely Norwalk or a Norwalk type. But he said the outbreak bears the distinctive traits of Norwalk.

French railway hit with 1,200 demands for compensation over Nazi deportations

PARIS (AP) - Some 1,200 claims for compensation have been leveled against the French state rail network for its role in helping transport people to Nazi camps during World War II, the railway said Friday.

The rail network, SNCF, contests the claims, saying it was under orders of French authorities at the time and exercised no autonomy under the occupation government.

An SNCF official said the company had received about 1,200 letters since June, some by individual families and others by lawyers representing several people seeking compensation. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, in accordance with company rules.

The families were basing their demands on a successful court challenge by European Parliament member Alain Lipietz and his family. A French court ordered the government and SNCF to pay about $77,600 in damages in June for their role in transporting four of Lipietz's relatives to a Nazi transit camp.

SNCF is appealing that ruling, which was the first of its kind.

The four Lipietz relatives were taken in cattle cars from Toulouse in southern France to a camp in Drancy near Paris in 1944. They remained there for several months before the camp was freed, according to the lawsuit. Drancy was a stopover point for Jews deported to Nazi death camps, including Auschwitz.

Lawyer Avi Bitton said in August that some 200 French, Israeli, American, Belgian and Canadian families planned to send letters to SNCF demanding compensation, and if the railway refused, they would sue.

Russia's Kramnik becomes world chess champion

ELISTA, Russia (AP) - Russia's Vladimir Kramnik on Friday became the first universally recognized world chess champion since 1993, winning a series of timed, tiebreaking games over Bulgaria's Veselin Topalov to take a tournament that reunified the title.

Kramnik secured his victory over Topalov in a fourth tiebreaker of the turbulent, three-week tournament that was fraught with protests and appeals by both sides.

His team erupted in joyful shouting after Kramnik's win gave him an edge of 8.5 to 7.5 points, and he rose to his feet and clutched his hands over his head before shaking hands with Topalov.

Kramnik and Topalov, both 31, will each receive $500,000 for taking part in the tournament, which was arranged to heal a 13-year-old schism in the chess world dating back to World Champion Garry Kasparov's withdrawal from the World Chess Federation.

"We are planning to get drunk with my friends today," said Kramnik, usually a picture of calm and elegance.

Topalov, who is known for aggressive play, won his title of World Chess Champion in October 2005. Kramnik, whom enthusiasts liken to a boa constrictor for his slow but deadly play, has been the classical world champion since 2000, when he defeated Kasparov.

Now the two championships have merged under the aegis of the World Chess Federation, known by its French acronym FIDE.

"Life goes on, I am 31, and I still have a chance to fight for the champion's title," Topalov said.

The tournament had ended at 6 points apiece, setting up the tiebreakers,

The event was close to collapsing after Kramnik failed to show for Game 5, protesting a FIDE decision to lock the players' private bathrooms. The organization insisted that each use a common bathroom for the rest of the tournament.

Topalov's manager had accused Kramnik of taking too many bathroom breaks - apparently suggesting that he was secretly using a computer or some other device to help him with his moves.

A tournament-saving agreement was eventually reached, with FIDE ruling that private bathrooms would be assigned to each player on a permanent basis and inspected by the opposite side before each game.

Prosecutors ask 8- to 20-year sentences for men on trial for U.S. killings in Indonesia

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Prosecutors on Friday demanded that seven men on trial for the slaying of two American teachers at a U.S.-owned gold mine serve sentences of between eight and 20 years in jail, the defendants' lawyer said.

The defendants, all alleged members of a rebel movement in Papua province where the killings took place, walked out of court before the sentence recommendations were read in a protest of what they maintain is an unfair trial, said attorney Johnson Panjaitan.

Prosecutors demanded the alleged ringleader in the killings - 30-year-old Antonius Wamang - serve 20 years for premeditated murder, Panjaitan said. Three others should serve 15 years, while another three should serve eight, prosecutors said, according to Panjaitan.

The men are accused of opening fire on a vehicle carrying Rickey Lynn Spier, 44, of Littleton, Colo., and Leon Edwin Burgon, 71, of Sun River, Ore., in 2002 in the mistaken belief that it was carrying soldiers hired to guard the mine.

An Indonesian teacher traveling in the convoy also was killed in the ambush on an isolated road leading to the mine, which is owned by New Orleans-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold Mine Inc.

Panjaitan said the men are convinced they cannot get a fair trial in Jakarta and are demanding to be tried in Papua.

"Since the beginning, we have said this trial is a sham," he said.

The defendants' lawyers will respond to the sentence recommendations at a hearing next week.

Prosecutors allege the men were members of a small rebel army fighting for a separate state in the resource-rich eastern province.

The attack initially complicated ties between Jakarta and Washington amid suspicions that Indonesian security forces were involved. The FBI, which took part in the arrests of the men last year, has unearthed no evidence to back up those suspicions.

Ex-air traffic controller accused of planting bombs at co-workers' Colo. homes pleads guilty

DENVER (AP) - A former air traffic controller accused of planting homemade bombs in March outside the Grand Junction homes of four co-workers and a Federal Aviation Administration official pleaded guilty Friday to one single count that could put him in prison for more than a decade.

Robert Burke, 54, was arrested in Utah in April. He agreed to plead guilty to a charge of malicious damage to a building used in interstate commerce.

U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn said the charge is punishable by five to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Prosecutors said they will recommended a term of 10 years when Burke is sentenced on Feb. 2.

Burke had worked for Serco Group PLC, a British company that staffs air traffic control towers at airports in Grand Junction and 55 other locations. He was fired in 2004 after working for Serco for four years.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has said the Grand Junction bombs were similar to a device that exploded at Serco offices in Murfreesboro, Tenn., in February.

No one was injured and only minor property damage was reported when three of the bombs in Grand Junction exploded. Two others were defused by bomb technicians.

Colorado's Arapahoe Basin opens U.S. ski season with man-made snow on 1 run, terrain park

DENVER (AP) - Arapahoe Basin let skiers and snowboarders carve turns in man-made snow on a ski run and terrain park Friday, winning the public relations battle to open the nation's ski season.

Loveland ski area, Arapahoe Basin's neighbor along the Continental Divide 70 miles west of Denver, had been the first to open for continuous operation the past six years.

"We have wanted this title for a very long time and we're excited to see it finally come to fruition," said Alan Henceroth, the general manager at A-Basin.

For $43 for an adult lift ticket, snowriders were offered the High Noon Run, which has 1,200 vertical feet and access to the terrain park favored by snowboarders. The area warned of early season conditions and a base of just 18 inches.

"This has been a race up until the very last hour," said Rob Perlman, president of Colorado Ski Country USA, the industry's trade group in the nation's most-visited ski state. The new season was eagerly awaited after Colorado set a record last year with 12.53 million skier visits.

A-Basin, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary, only entered the race to be the first to open in 2002, when it added snowmaking. Last year it lost to Loveland by one day.

Loveland planned to open on Saturday.

On the Net:

http://www.arapahoebasin.com

http://www.coloradoski.com

Comair sues federal government, airport over Lexington, Ky., crash that killed 49

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) - Comair sued the federal government and the Lexington airport Friday over the deadly crash of a commuter plane that mistakenly took off from a too-short runway. Forty-nine people were killed in the accident Aug. 27.

In a statement, the airline said it intends to reach fair settlements with the victims' families but is suing to ensure other parties that bear responsibility pay their fair share.

A week before the crash, an airport repaving project changed the taxi route leading to the 7,000-foot main runway that Comair Flight 5191 should have used.

The plane mistakenly turned onto a 3,500-foot runway in the dark, struggled to get airborne and crashed in a field.

Comair, a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines Inc., operates 850 flights to 108 cities daily. Both airlines filed for bankruptcy protection last year.

Suspect in 1982 beauty queen murder back in Carson City

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - A Trinidad man has been extradited to Nevada to face a murder charge in the 1982 of a Carson City teenage beauty queen. - David Winfield Mitchell flew into Las Vegas under U.S. Marshal escort on Thursday night. He was met by Carson City Sheriff's Lt. Bob White and Detective Dave Legros, who flew with Mitchell to Reno, then drove to the Carson City Jail where Mitchell is being held without bail.

Mitchell, 60, is accused of killing Sheila Jo Harris, who was the then-reigning Miss Douglas County.

A local magistrate ruled Sept. 4 that Mitchell should be extradited.

Lawyers for Mitchell had said they would appeal the ruling, but missed a 15-day deadline, said David West of the attorney general's office in Trinidad.

Investigators said in court documents that DNA evidence found on victim Harris' clothing in 1982 was compared in 2000 to samples of hair and saliva taken from Mitchell in 1986 when he was arrested in the killing but released on lack of evidence. The testing came back a match.

"The DNA evidence developed in this case shows convincingly and conclusively that David Winfield Mitchell and no other suspect was the person who committed the (murder)," Carson City District Attorney Noel Waters said in court records. "He can claim no prejudice from the fact that he has avoided the consequences of this crime for so long; common law rightly recognizes no statute of limitations for murder."

Harris' body was found Jan. 6, 1982, in her Lompa Lane apartment by her mother and the complex manager. An autopsy revealed the teen had been beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled.

"I don't know what I'm feeling today," Harris' mother Linda Bratton told the Nevada Appeal on Thursday. "At least now he's off the street and he's not hurting other people. I don't care what they do with him as long as he's off the street so he can't hurt any other families."

Mitchell, who was the handyman at the apartment complex, told authorities at the time that he had never spoken to Harris except to ask if she wanted her name on her doorbell. He claimed the only time he'd been in her apartment was to clean it before she moved in.

According to the complex's manager, Mitchell had keys to all the apartments. Investigators found no signs of forced entry into Harris' home.

Mitchell has been previously convicted on rape and burglary charges out of California and New York for which he served time in prison. He was deported back to Trinidad in the late 1980s where he's lived peacefully, recently retiring as a nightwatchman for the Ministry of Works.