Around the Nation

COLORADO

Indian tribes file claim for chunk of state

DENVER — Two Indian tribes filed a claim for 27 million acres in Colorado they say is theirs unless they can get 500 acres for a gambling casino.

The Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes submitted their claim with the Interior Department, the Rocky Mountain News reported. They argue the land in northern Colorado is theirs under a 19th-century treaty.

Bill Blind, interim chairman of the tribal business committee, said they would drop the claim if Gov. Bill Owens agrees to grant the 500 acres in Central City to build a $100 million gambling casino.

PENNSYLVANIA

Firefighters sentenced for fraud and arson

PITTSBURGH — Three volunteer firefighters were sent to prison yesterday for torching a department social hall so it could afford to build a new one.

Thomas Baker, former assistant chief of the Isabella Volunteer Fire Department, and Jerry Booker II, former vice president, each got five years for fraud and arson.

Steven Dugan, a third-generation fire chief, was sentenced to nearly three years for fraud and misleading investigators. He was not charged with planning or setting the fires, but federal prosecutors said he tried to cover up the crime.

ALABAMA

State must pay in monument case

MONTGOMERY — Alabama will pay more than $500,000 to lawyers involved in a suit to have a Ten Commandments monument removed from a state building.

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson said Wednesday that the state had 30 days to pay $549,430 in fees and expenses to attorneys for people who sued to have the monument removed from the state Court of the Judiciary.

Judge Thompson also handed down the decision ordering the monument removed, saying it violated the First Amendment’s ban on the establishment of a state religion.

Roy Moore, who since has been ousted as Alabama’s chief justice for ethics violations, had the monument placed in the rotunda and resisted all efforts to have it removed. He has appealed to be reinstated.

ARIZONA

SUVs favored by border smugglers

TEMPE — Sport utility vehicles in Arizona have become the favorite target for thieves because they can be used to smuggle people and drugs from Mexico.

Extended-cab pickups and SUVs can be navigated over rough terrain easily and hold many people or large amounts of drugs, authorities told the Arizona Republic.

Smuggling, analysts think, is responsible for a significant portion of the 57,668 vehicles reported stolen in 2002, the last year for which full statistics are available. They say it also is a major reason Arizona has had the highest per capita auto-theft ranking in the nation for eight years.

Since Oct. 1, the Border Patrol has seized 2,650 vehicles being used in smuggling operations to transport undocumented immigrants from the Arizona border. Of those vehicles, 89 have been destroyed, the report said.

CALIFORNIA

AIDS scare halts porn film industry

LOS ANGELES — California’s multibillion-dollar pornographic movie industry ground to a virtual halt yesterday after a popular star tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS.

Industry advocates called for a 60-day moratorium on filming so that others could be tested.

Actor Darren James tested positive for HIV on Wednesday in screening routinely conducted by the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation. He was the first porn actor to test positive for the virus since 1999, a foundation official said.

COLORADO

Ex-Air Force official backs rape suspect

COLORADO SPRINGS — A former Air Force Academy official fired amid questions about the school’s handling of sexual-abuse accusations defended himself yesterday while testifying in a high-profile rape case, saying politics, not his conduct, led to his ouster.

Robert Eskridge, the former vice commandant of cadets, testified on behalf of cadet Douglas Meester, who is charged with assaulting an 18-year-old woman after a night of drinking tequila at the academy in October 2002.

Mr. Eskridge testified that he viewed the case “as consensual sex in the dorm by people who were underage drinking.”

The woman said she passed out and awoke as Mr. Meester raped her, but defense attorneys say she never told him to stop and did not resist.

The cadet’s attorneys contend that rape charges were filed only because the Air Force wanted to show it was being tough on sexual assault in the midst of a scandal.

CONNECTICUT

Federal probe looks at fuel-cell project

HARTFORD — A $19 million project billed as the largest fuel-cell energy center in the country has come under scrutiny by federal authorities investigating corruption in Gov. John G. Rowland’s administration.

Investigators have subpoenaed records from the state Bond Commission on several projects, including the fuel-cell installation. It was built at a state juvenile prison in Middletown.

State officials familiar with the project, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Peter Ellef, Mr. Rowland’s former chief of staff and a subject of the probe, had stepped in and changed the project from a traditional power system to a fuel-cell plant.

Federal investigators have been looking into Mr. Rowland’s dealings with state contractors, and state legislators have begun an impeachment inquiry. The Republican governor has acknowledged receiving gifts from contractors but has denied doing anything in return.

FLORIDA

Rare whales spotted in Gulf of Mexico

PANAMA CITY BEACH — Scientists have confirmed the first sighting of endangered right whales in the Gulf of Mexico in more than 20 years.

University of Florida student Chris Cramer photographed the two whales off the Florida Panhandle. The photographs were reviewed by whale experts, who recognized the animals as right whales, probably a female and her calf.

With about 300 remaining, right whales are considered the world’s most endangered species of whale. The last right whale sighting in the gulf occurred during the 1970s.

LOUISIANA

Death-row inmate gets new trial

GRETNA — A man sentenced to die when he was a teenager was granted a new trial yesterday based on DNA that defense lawyers said does not match evidence found on the killer’s ski mask.

Defense lawyers have argued for more than a year that DNA on the mask, shirt and glove worn by the gunman matched a man now in prison — not Ryan Matthews.

Matthews was 17 when convicted and sentenced to death in the killing of a suburban New Orleans grocer who was shot four times in a 1997 robbery at his store. Matthews has been on death row since 1999.

KENTUCKY

Police officer indicted in shooting loses job

LOUISVILLE — A police officer indicted on a murder charge in the fatal shooting of a black teenager was fired yesterday.

Police Chief Robert White said McKenzie Mattingly, 31, violated the department’s use-of-force policy when he shot Michael Newby in January. Mr. Mattingly was indicted March 5 by a grand jury on charges of murder and wanton endangerment.

Mr. Mattingly told investigators that he thought Mr. Newby, 19, was carrying a concealed weapon as the two struggled over the officer’s service handgun. Police described the incident as an undercover drug buy gone awry.

The officer, who had been on paid administrative leave since the Jan. 3 shooting outside a western Louisville liquor store, has pleaded not guilty and is free on bond.

NEBRASKA

Student gets reprieve from pig dissection

GRAND ISLAND — A teenager did more than let out a groan when she learned she had to dissect a fetal pig in her freshman biology class. She and her parents objected to school officials.

Morgan Merrick, a vegan who eats no meat, dairy products or eggs, believes it is wrong to dissect frogs and fetal pigs in the name of science.

She and her parents talked with a counselor the day she was scheduled to start the dissection. Morgan and the school worked out a compromise. She could perform a fetal pig dissection on the Internet.

Morgan spent the next four days working independently in the library to complete her virtual dissection. She received a score of 85.

NEW JERSEY

Man killed in crash after wife gives birth

BRICK — A woman gave birth in the back of a car on the way to a hospital, but the vehicle then left the road and struck a utility pole, killing her husband.

The newborn boy was in critical condition yesterday, and the mother, 22-year-old Atara Sasoon, was listed as fair. The car crashed Wednesday about a mile from the hospital in the Jersey Shore town of Brick.

Binyhmin Sasoon, 22, was found slumped over the steering wheel and was pronounced dead at the scene. His wife apparently had been ejected from the car and been able to stop a passing motorist.

The motorist, Patrick Schlagenhaft, found the baby in the car under a coat. The infant wasn’t breathing, so Mr. Schlagenhaft, taking instructions from a 911 dispatcher, cleared the boy’s mouth and nose.

Investigators were looking into what caused the crash, which occurred about an hour before sunrise.

UTAH

Dressing rooms for strippers private

SALT LAKE CITY — Strippers have a right to privacy in their dressing rooms, a federal judge ruled.

U.S. District Judge Dee Benson ruled that police had conducted an invalid search when they burst into a woman’s dressing room at a strip club.

The vice officers say the dancer violated an ordinance requiring that strippers not be completely naked on stage.

MICHIGAN

Leaf fire kills 83-year-old woman

SPRING LAKE TOWNSHIP — An 83-year-old great-grandmother was killed after she lost control of a fire she was using to burn leaves, authorities said.

Firefighters found the body of Louise Reminder in woods near her home Wednesday after putting out the five-acre blaze. She apparently was overcome as she tried to fight the flames.

State officials had issued a ban on leaf burning Tuesday because of strong winds and dry conditions, but the restriction was lifted Wednesday, said Rick Nuvill, fire chief of Spring Lake Township.

An autopsy was scheduled yesterday, but fire officials said Mrs. Reminder’s death appeared to have been accidental.

NORTH CAROLINA

Hit-and-run suspect’s father sought help

RALEIGH — The father of a man accused of going on a deadly hit-and-run rampage said he had warned mental-health officials repeatedly that his son was a danger to himself and others.

Abdullah El-Amin Shareef, 25, is charged with murder, attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon stemming from the hit-and-runs. Five pedestrians were struck. One was killed and another critically injured.

Authorities said Mr. Shareef stole a Fayetteville city-owned van, then a truck, and drove across three counties seeking out pedestrians. Lonel Bearl Bass, 56, of Linden, died after he was hit by the van and pinned.

Mr. Shareef was held without bail and taken to Dorothea Dix Hospital, the state’s mental hospital.

TEXAS

Serial killer agrees to extradition

HUNTSVILLE — Confessed serial killer Coral Eugene Watts has agreed to be extradited to Michigan to face a murder charge.

In a hearing Wednesday, Watts, who was scheduled to be released from a Texas prison in about two years, waived his right to challenge the extradition, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Watts, 50, faces a charge of murder in the 1979 stabbing death of Helen Dutcher in Ferndale, a Detroit suburb. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.

Watts will be transported to Michigan after completion of treatment for a medical condition, a prosecutor said.

WASHINGTON

Poll says residents pray once a day

SEATTLE — The Pacific Northwest is considered the least churchgoing region in the country, but a poll says more than half of Washington state residents pray at least once a day.

The survey released Sunday by the Seattle Times found that 53 percent of residents said they pray at least once a day, and 31 percent prayed several times daily. Nationwide, in a CBS/New York Times poll conducted in February, 36 percent of people said they prayed several times daily.

Seventy-two percent of those polled identified themselves as Christians, 3 percent as agnostic or atheist, 1 percent as Jewish and 1 percent as Muslim. Two percent said they were adherents of other religions, such as Hinduism or Buddhism. The others were unidentified.

The poll of 500 residents was conducted March 19 to 23 and has a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.