Around the Nation

MAINE

Church marks yearsince arsenic poisonings

NEW SWEDEN — Parishioners at a Lutheran church yesterday observed two minutes of silence to honor a church member who died and 15 others who were hospitalized last year when their coffees were spiked with arsenic at a church meeting.

About 50 people attended the 90-minute service at Gustaf Adolph Lutheran Church, where the Rev. Peter Drever asked people to listen to God’s “voice” during the time of silence.

Erich Margeson, who at 31 was the youngest of the victims, said after the service he has stopped dwelling on the past. “A year later, we’re all doing well,” he said.

Police have said the incident was the result of petty church politics and personal grudges. No one has been charged.

OREGON

Norton announcesconservation deal

PORTLAND — A section of the country’s largest dairy farm will be set aside for conservation for four rare prairie species under a federal agreement, Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton announced Saturday.

The agreement with the Threemile Canyon Ranch, a sprawling cattle and potato operation in the high desert east of Boardman, will protect the burrowing Washington ground squirrel, which has lost most of its sagebrush and clump-grass habitat to agriculture.

Three species of birds, the loggerhead shrike, the ferruginous hawk and the sage sparrow, also will be protected.

Under the agreement, Threemile Canyon Farm, owned by R.D. Offutt Co., the Fargo, N.D., agricultural-development giant and world’s largest potato producer, will pay the Nature Conservancy $130,000 annually to monitor the protected land.

ALASKA

6 correctly guess time of ice thaw

ANCHORAGE — Mother Nature picked the winning numbers for the 88th Nenana Ice Classic on Saturday, melting the ice on the Tanana River enough to move it downstream.

Organizers of the popular yearly game of chance said there were six correct guesses for the winning time of 2:16 p.m. Each $2.50 ticket is worth a sixth of a $301,000 jackpot — $50,166.66, or $36,120 once federal taxes are paid.

A tripod erected on the ice is connected by wire to a clock on shore to detect the ice movement in Nenana, a community of 500 about 55 miles south of Fairbanks.

Organizers did not release the names of winners, but said they bought tickets in Anchorage, Juneau, North Pole and the Fairbanks area.

ARKANSAS

Search continues for missing child

HUNTSVILLE — Divers joined the search yesterday for a 2-year-old boy missing in a creek since a pickup driven by his mother was swept off a bridge by a flash flood.

The body of the boy’s 3-year-old sister was found after the accident Saturday near Huntsville. The mother and another child survived.

Rural roads were flooded in many counties as a slowly moving storm system drenched Arkansas.

More than 6 inches of rain fell in the Mountain Home area Thursday night, and the storms continued Friday and Saturday, the National Weather Service said.

CALIFORNIA

Farm worker infected with TB jailed

SANTA BARBARA — A man thought to have infected 56 persons with tuberculosis was jailed for refusing an order to be quarantined.

Feliciano Morelos, 19, a farm worker from Oaxaca state in Mexico, was being held in a jail cell equipped with special air filters so that other inmates do not breathe the same air, the District Attorney’s Office said.

Tuberculosis, which is deadly if not diagnosed early and treated, is caused by bacteria and transmitted through droplets spread by coughing and sneezing.

Mr. Morelos is thought to be the first person jailed in Santa Barbara County for disobeying an isolation order from a public health officer and endangering public safety, officials said.

FLORIDA

Radio station fined for call to Castro

MIAMI — A radio station that called Cuban President Fidel Castro as part of a prank and broadcast the recording should be fined $4,000, the Federal Communications Commission said.

The Spanish-speaking hosts of “The Morning High Jinks” used snippets of an earlier prank involving Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to move the call from a receptionist up the chain to Mr. Castro in a five-minute broadcast June 17.

The hosts of the show on WXDJ-FM, Joe Ferrero and Enrique Santos, fed pleasantries to Mr. Castro before breaking in and calling him an assassin. The conversation ended after Mr. Castro let forth a stream of vulgarities at the callers.

The FCC concluded Friday that the station should be fined for the broadcast.

MASSACHUSETTS

Scaffolding’s fall injures concertgoers

BOSTON — A gust of wind knocked over scaffolding at an Earth Day concert during the weekend, injuring nine persons, police said.

Just as the band Third Eye Blind was scheduled to take the stage at the band shell on the Charles River, witnesses said, wind caught a banner attached to the sound tower, knocking it into the VIP section of the audience.

The concert resumed after the injured were taken to a hospital. Police said none of the injuries was life-threatening.

MICHIGAN

Police chief erred in use of siren

ANN ARBOR — The city’s police chief said he erred when he ordered an officer to use a patrol car’s lights and sirens to help speed a trip to the airport.

Chief Daniel Oates was heading to the Detroit Metropolitan Airport last week, he said, when he told the officer driving him to activate the emergency lights to get around a traffic jam, the Ann Arbor News reported in Saturday editions.

When he realized that he had forgotten his luggage and had to return to the station, Chief Oates asked the officer to use the lights again.

City Administrator Roger Fraser said any disciplinary action taken will be between him and Chief Oates.

MISSISSIPPI

Officials consider bridge alternatives

VICKSBURG — A commission is reviewing alternatives for a bridge over the Mississippi River and has agreed to develop a list of ideas for the 74-year-old span, which is no longer in use.

The bridge links Mississippi and Louisiana. The bridge carried only local traffic until 1998, when it was closed because of deterioration of the roadbed.

NEBRASKA

Tribe to host Lewis and Clark event

FORT ATKINSON — The Otoe-Missouria Tribe will return to Nebraska as tribal host of the state’s Lewis and Clark bicentennial celebration.

Tribal members were the first American Indians the famed explorers met in their journey up the Missouri River 200 years ago. The Otoe-Missouria are now located in Oklahoma, but about 65 tribal members will revisit Nebraska for the July 31 to Aug. 3 celebration.

NEW JERSEY

State museum to undergo renovation

TRENTON — The New Jersey State Museum will begin a two-year, $14 million renovation next month, the first major improvements to the structure since it opened in 1964.

The main building will be closed to the public, but the planetarium and other galleries will continue to operate. A new Orientation Gallery to New Jersey History is planned.

NEW MEXICO

Agency said to overpay workers

SANTA FE — Children, Youth and Families Department officials say the agency has overpaid child care providers and foster families by more than $1.8 million.

Department Secretary Mary-Dale Bolson said the problem has persisted for years. She said the agency has assigned a task force to correct the system and collect back payments.

NEW YORK

Town cuts Pledge from board meetings

EAST NASSAU — The Pledge of Allegiance didn’t incite arguments over the separation of church and state. It was simply too long.

Officials in this village east of Albany decided to forgo reciting the 31-word pledge before board meetings because it took too much time.

Mayor Robert Henrickson and the trustees told the Troy Record that the omission was not a political protest — they merely felt that the minutes could be better spent working on town problems and projects.

But Raymond Phillip Schwartz, a member of a local Veterans of Foreign Wars post, doesn’t agree and thinks the omission “stinks.”

“We should ship all of them right over there to Iraq,” he said.

PENNSYLVANIA

Partygoers threatened with cell phone

STATE COLLEGE — Put your hands in the air, and put down … your phone?

Derek W. Laubach, a Penn State University student, faces criminal charges, accused of threatening partygoers with his cell phone.

Mr. Laubach, 18, pulled the phone from his belt and waved it in the air after another man at the off-campus party punched Bradley W. Laubach Jr., 20, also a Penn State student. The Laubachs are related, but are not brothers.

Someone at the party called police to report that a man was waving a gun, said Sgt. Dana Leonard.

Mr. Laubach faces charges of disorderly conduct and making terroristic threats.

UTAH

Bakery owners sponsor essay contest

PAYSON — Somebody who has a way with words has a chance at walking away with a sweet deal.

The owners of Roe’s Bake Shoppe on Main Street are sponsoring an essay contest, and the winner gets their business.

Paul Penrod, 39, a former accountant, and wife Lolly bought the 60-year-old bakery with its brick facade, high ceilings and oak floors in 2002 and remodeled it, but the stress of full-time baking “wasn’t what we expected.”

The couple tried to sell the store but didn’t have any luck. That was when they settled on the more unconventional approach.

Aspiring bakery owners have until July 1 to submit an essay of fewer than 300 words explaining “Why I want to own Roe’s Bake Shoppe” with a $100 entry fee. The winner will be chosen by a panel of 25 downtown merchants.

WASHINGTON

Dogs fatally maul 8-year-old boy

VANCOUVER — Two dogs, thought to be bull mastiff German shepherds, fatally attacked an 8-year-old boy, authorities said.

John Streeter was found dead Saturday in the back yard of the dog owners’ home, the Columbian reported yesterday. The mauling occurred in Sifton, a small community northeast of Vancouver.

The boy, who was a neighbor, had been playing with two teenagers who lived in the home with the dogs. Sgt. John Horch estimated that the victim weighed less than 100 pounds, and the dogs weighed about 90 pounds each.

Officials said animal control services seized the dogs. No arrests had been made by late Saturday.