Around the Nation

ALABAMA

Arubans to outline teen’s disappearance

MONTGOMERY — Aruban authorities, under pressure because of the unsolved disappearance of an Alabama teenager, will meet with officials in Washington to provide a detailed review of the investigation, a congressman said yesterday.

The meetings will be held later this week in the case of Natalee Holloway, said Rep. Spencer Bachus, Alabama Republican.

Mr. Bachus did not specify which officials from the Dutch Caribbean island will visit and said only that they would meet with him and “criminal justice and law-enforcement officials.”

Miss Holloway, who was on a class trip to Aruba, was last seen on May 30, leaving a bar with a young Dutch national and two Surinamese brothers. They were arrested in June but were released after a court ruled there was insufficient evidence to hold them, drawing criticism from the Holloway family.

CALIFORNIA

False positives prompt new HIV test rules

SAN FRANCISCO — Federal health authorities plan to issue new guidelines on the use of an oral HIV test after testing centers in New York and San Francisco began reporting an unusual number of false positives in recent months.

Approved by the Food and Drug Administration in March 2004, the OraQuick Advance test shows results within 20 minutes using fluids swabbed from the mouth, a breakthrough in easy-to-use HIV testing that is being considered for over-the-counter sales to consumers.

However, public health clinics in San Francisco have recorded at least 49 instances since May in which clients tested positive on the oral HIV test, but subsequent confirmation tests showed they were negative, the San Francisco Chronicle reports in a story distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.

In New York City, clinics encountered a sudden increase in false positives with the oral test — recording 10 in October and 30 in November, a San Francisco health official said.

Dr. Bernard Branson, associate director for laboratory diagnostics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said the federal agency will issue an advisory that clinics offer patients who test positive on the oral test an immediate rapid retest using a droplet of blood.

ILLINOIS

Cancer rates down among tea drinkers

CHICAGO — Drinking two or more cups of tea per day may dramatically cut the risk of ovarian cancer, said a Swedish study of more than 61,000 women.

The findings by researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm were based on a look back at the habits and long-term health of the women, said the report, published yesterday in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Of the women recruited for the study, which began in 1987, two-thirds reported drinking tea. When the study concluded at the end of 2004, 301 participants had developed ovarian cancer, a particularly deadly form of the disease.

“We observed a 46 percent lower risk of ovarian cancer in women who drank two or more cups of tea per day compared with nondrinkers,” study authors Susanna Larsson and Alicja Wolk wrote.

Black and green teas are thought to contain antioxidants that help ward off the cell mutation that leads to cancer.

NEBRASKA

Workers, customers foil robber’s getaway

LINCOLN — A man who tried to rob a grocery store might have gotten away with it had it not been for those meddling employees and customers.

The 40-year-old suspect left Russ’ Market after stealing a cash drawer Saturday. Several customers and three managers followed him out the door and surrounded his pickup.

The man never brandished a weapon, Lincoln police Capt. Brian Jackson said.

“They were telling him, ’Put the cash drawer down. We’ve got your license number. You’re not going anywhere,’” Capt. Jackson said.

The suspect got out of the vehicle and fled to a bank parking lot, where he tried unsuccessfully to steal a car. The suspect fled again, but Russ employees continued to follow him. The man tried to hide behind a house, but employees told police his whereabouts when they arrived and arrested him on suspicion of robbery.

NEVADA

Coroner’s gift shop offers morbid humor

LAS VEGAS — Looking for off-the-wall Christmas gift ideas? The Clark County coroner’s office can help.

Tucked away in the office is a gift shop with items that walk a fine line between humor and morbidity. There’s a coffee mug with the inscription “Playing for Keeps,” a $10 fake jawbone that holds business cards and a T-shirt that reads “Coroner … Cashed Out in Las Vegas.”

Styled after a gift shop at the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, the year-old Nevada store primarily benefits a coroner’s youth program.

NEW JERSEY

Muslim cleared of harassment

WAYNE — A Muslim student-employee at William Paterson University in New Jersey has been cleared of sexual harassment charges the state institution brought against him after he expressed his religious opinion of homosexuality in a private e-mail to a female professor.

In June, Jihad Daniel, 63, received a letter of reprimand in his permanent file, several months after he sent an e-mail to professor Arlene Holpp Scala, in which he described homosexual relationships as “perversions.” His reply was in response to a mass e-mail Miss Scala had sent out promoting a viewing and discussion of a film she described as a “lesbian relationship story.”

Mr. Daniel appealed his punishment, saying it violated his free speech. But university officials countered that he was guilty of violating state discrimination and harassment regulations through his “derogatory” and “demeaning” e-mail.

He complained to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which publicized his plight. He also appealed his punishment through a union grievance process and had a hearing on Nov. 16.

PENNSYLVANIA

Trooper fatally shot during traffic stop

PITTSBURGH — The body of a state trooper was found dead near his cruiser after he pulled over a car early yesterday, police said.

Cpl. Joseph Pokorny was found by a Carnegie borough police officer about 2 a.m. near an exit off Interstate 279 about five miles southwest of the city, officials said.

Cpl. Pokorny, 45, who had been a trooper for more than 22 years, had called in information on a black 2001 Mercury sedan minutes earlier, and police were reviewing tapes of the call to determine why he had pulled it over.

Police also were looking for the sedan, while officers from several departments joined in a manhunt in woods near the shooting, authorities said.

RHODE ISLAND

May 1 trial set in nightclub fire

PROVIDENCE — A judge set a May 1 trial date for one of three men charged in a 2003 nightclub fire that killed 100 persons.

Daniel Biechele, the former tour manager for the rock band Great White, faces 200 counts of involuntary manslaughter. He lighted the pyrotechnics display that ignited flammable foam lining the ceiling and walls of the Station nightclub in West Warwick.

Mr. Biechele is being tried separately from club owners Jeffrey and Michael Derderian, each of whom is charged with 200 counts of manslaughter.

No trial date has been set for the brothers.

WYOMING

Tornado victim fund grows to $400,000

GILLETTE — A fund for victims of last summer’s tornado in Wright has grown to more than $400,000, and about a quarter of the money has been distributed, town officials said.

Donations poured in after the Aug. 12 disaster, which damaged about a third of the town’s homes and killed two residents.

From wire dispatches and staff reports