Around the Nation

CALIFORNIA

Catholics protest gay ’marriage’

SAN FRANCISCO — Two bishops led about 1,000 sign-carrying Roman Catholics on a five-block march through North Beach on Saturday to protest same-sex “marriages” in San Francisco.

“We need to speak out, with civility,” Archbishop William Levada said on the steps of Sts. Peter and Paul Church before leading the procession of the faithful. “We must keep society on the right track.”

Many in the crowd clutched rosary beads and signs proclaiming “Love and Tolerance — Yes; Same Sex Marriage — No.”

NEW JERSEY

Several injured in campus fight

MADISON — One student was shot in a fight during a campus dance at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and several other people were injured, officials said yesterday.

At least one of the injured was stabbed, a law-enforcement official said. Police would not say whether anyone had been arrested.

At least six persons were taken to hospitals after the fight started during a dance held by the Association of Black Collegians, officials said.

FLORIDA

Teen fatally shot in domestic dispute

FORT LAUDERDALE — A 19-year-old woman was fatally shot yesterday by a friend during a domestic argument.

Elizabeth Cedeno got caught in the middle of a violent argument between Ernestine Davison, 35, and her husband, Marion Davison, 42, about 5:35 a.m. yesterday at the Davisons’ apartment, police said.

Mrs. Davison told detectives she fired one shot from a handgun, intending to hit her husband as he was walking away, but hit Miss Cendeno in the upper chest instead, Police Sgt. Alfred Lewers told the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel.

Miss Cedeno died at the scene. Police charged Mrs. Davison with murder.

GEORGIA

Officials probe killing of suspect

ROME — State officials are investigating a police officer’s killing of a teenage burglary suspect.

Rome police Sgt. Carla Pearson is at the center of a Georgia Bureau of Investigation probe after she fatally shot Craig “Echo” Jawayne Elkins, 16.

Sgt. Pearson and two other officers had responded to a burglary report at a residence where the teenager was shot.

Police officials told the Rome News-Tribune it was the first fatal shooting by a city officer in 20 years. Sgt. Pearson was placed on administrative leave while the GBI investigates the shooting.

INDIANA

YMCA will ban sex offenders

KOKOMO — The Kokomo YMCA is expected to begin banning sex offenders May 1 and revoke the membership of those who are on Indiana’s Sex and Violent Offender Registry.

Dave Dubois, executive director, said there haven’t been specific problems at the YMCA but that the organization has a duty to protect its members.

“It’s something YMCAs around the state are starting to do,” Mr. Dubois said.

The Kokomo branch will check the names of its members and applicants against the state list and ban anyone on it, Mr. Dubois said.

Many YMCAs have policies against hiring people on the Indiana Sex and Violent Offender Registry. Mr. Dubois said the new policy to ban them from the club was a natural extension of the hiring rules.

The Kokomo YMCA has mailed letters to its more than 4,000 members. Mr. Dubois said most people thanked his organization for the ban.

Each YMCA is self-governing, but the national organization supported measures to identify and exclude sex offenders, said Julie Mulzoff, a spokeswoman for the national YMCA.

KENTUCKY

Missing baby recovered alive

LOUISVILLE — A newborn baby was reunited with her parents Friday, about six hours after police say the infant girl was kidnapped by a hospital nurse’s aide.

Grayci Jade Barrows was found unharmed in Bowling Green, about six hours after she was taken from her mother’s room at Fort Logan Hospital in Stanford. A woman walking her dog found the baby in an alley, brought her home to change her diaper and warm her up, and then took her to Bowling Green Medical Center, authorities said.

Grayci was reunited with her parents — Samantha Luttrell, 18, and Corey Barrows, 17 — later that day at Kosair Children’s Hospital in Louisville. On Saturday, she was in fair condition in the hospital’s neonatal intensive-care unit, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported.

Tanya Dionne Shelton, 24, of Lexington, was jailed on charges of kidnapping a minor and third-degree burglary. Miss Shelton, an on-call nurse’s aide at the 25-bed Fort Logan Hospital, surrendered after learning she was being sought by police.

Authorities said they are investigating whether Miss Shelton had faked being pregnant and planned to keep the baby as her own.

LOUISIANA

Police say boy raped 2-year-old

MONROE — A 12-year-old boy was charged with aggravated rape of a 2-year-old girl, Ouachita Parish sheriff’s deputies said.

The boy was arrested Friday and taken to Green Oaks Detention Center. Sheriff’s investigators said the incident took place on Thursday evening in the Tanglewood subdivision.

“The mother of the victim thought the child was playing in the park. In reality, the child had gone to a neighbor’s residence, where the 12-year-old raped her,” said Maj. Royce Toney, head of investigations.

Maj. Toney said the girl was treated at a hospital and released.

MICHIGAN

Shooting after party kills 3, wounds 1

DETROIT — Shots were fired at a carload of partygoers early yesterday on Detroit’s west side, killing three persons and wounding one, police said.

It was the second multiple slaying in the city within a week. On Thursday, a woman and her four children were found dead in their home. The woman’s boyfriend was charged with murder.

The victims of yesterday’s shooting had just left a party and were followed by another vehicle, said Officer Glen Woods. Someone in the second vehicle opened fire and drove off.

Office Woods said a 22-year-old man, a 22-year old woman and a 21-year-old woman died. The survivor, a 21-year-old woman, was listed in serious condition at a hospital.

MISSISSIPPI

City welcomes returning veterans

GULFPORT — A large sign proclaiming “Gulfport Welcomes Home Our Heroes,” along with flags of all branches of the military and patriotic music, set the tone for a city celebration Saturday.

Thirteen units — all deployed and returning home during the past year — of the Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, Army National Guard and Air National Guard were represented and honored, the Biloxi Sun-Herald reported.

Gulfport’s chief administrative officer, Jerry W. Smith, said Mayor Ken Combs, a 43-year military veteran, wanted a ceremony to welcome home those involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom and homeland security missions.

The celebration was personal for retired Brig. Gen. Wallace Farragut, 68, who gave the roll call of those recently deployed. His youngest son, Sgt. Adam Farragut, recently returned from 13 months in Iraq, and his eldest son, Stephen, is serving in Kuwait as a full-time administrative adviser.

NEW YORK

Report criticizes statue decisions

NEW YORK — The Statue of Liberty could have reopened sooner than July if the foundation overseeing the monument’s security upgrades had used its available money instead of raising private funds, a published report said.

Also, the National Park Service, which is responsible for the statue, was slow in pursuing the project and declined to ask Congress for money because the agency was unsure whether it wanted to reopen the statue, the New York Times reported yesterday.

The monument has been closed since the September 11, 2001, attacks. Officials announced earlier this week that visitors would be allowed partial access to the statue in late July, after improvement were made with the money that was raised.

The nonprofit Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, which is overseeing the upgrades, chose to launch a fund-raising campaign rather than dip into its $37.7 million endowment and general fund.

Liberty Island was closed for 100 days after September 11, and airport-type metal detectors were installed to screen visitors. In July, an observation area in the statue’s pedestal will be reopened, but the crown will remain closed because it does not meet local fire, building or safety codes.

OREGON

National Guard rescues climbers

PORTLAND — Oregon National Guard helicopter rescue crews evacuated two injured climbers from Mount Hood’s Reid Glacier during treacherous whiteout conditions Saturday and flew them to hospitals in Portland.

Douglas Adair, 50, of Aurora, suffered scrapes, bruises and a broken leg. Debra A. Marsh, 47, of Salem, suffered an ankle injury. Their injuries were not life-threatening, hospital officials told the Portland Oregonian.

The two were climbing in good weather when they hit a patch of soft snow that gave way.

The Oregon National Guard’s military-rescue team dispatched three Black Hawk helicopters to extract the climbers, said spokesman Maj. Arnold Strong.

The helicopters “landed two crew members who crawled their way over to where the patients were.,” Maj. Strong said.

PENNSYLVANIA

Students protest campus paper’s slur

PITTSBURGH — The editor in chief of Carnegie Mellon University’s student newspaper, the Tartan, said he would suspend operations tomorrow because of public protests over a racial slur in the newspaper’s April Fool’s Day edition.

“The Tartan has committed a grave error, one that threatens our mission, our members and our very existence,” Alex Meseguer said, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Mr. Meseguer has fired cartoonist Bob Rost, who drew the strip in which a goat uses a racial slur to brag to a mouse that he had hit a black person on a bike. Mr. Meseguer said he and Managing Editor Jim Puls, who signed off on that page, are considering resigning. All three are white.

Mr. Meseguer explained to a group of student protesters that the slur had been allowed into print because fatigue had impaired the editors’ judgment.

The April Fool’s Day edition of the Tartan also includes graphic depictions of female genitalia, as well as poems about raping a teacher and mutilating a woman with an ice skate.

TEXAS

Prisons restrict inmates’ mail

AUSTIN — Prison inmates no longer will be able to receive sexually explicit material in the mail, and their letters to news organizations and government officials now can be read by officials.

The Texas Board of Criminal Justice adopted the rules on Friday in the first overhaul of prison-mail regulations in 21 years.

Gary Johnson, executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said the aim is to “strike an appropriate balance between an offender’s privilege to correspond with the outside world” and the prison system’s need to prevent inappropriate mail.

Michelle Lyons, a spokeswoman for the prison system, said some inmates have sent threatening letters to state and county officials, as well as to reporters.

UTAH

Mormons open annual conference

SALT LAKE CITY — The Mormon Church has become a “great international family, living in many nations and speaking many languages,” its president, Gordon B. Hinckley, said Saturday during the opening session of the 174th General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In three sessions Saturday, church authorities and one woman leader offered sermons on topics ranging from the importance of “enduring to the end,” the value of Mormon Scripture and prayer, and the ever-present dangers of worldliness.

Dallin H. Oaks of the church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said “the good, the true and the beautiful are being replaced by the no-good, the ’whatever’ and the valueless fodder of personal whim.”

“Many youths and adults are caught up in pornography, pagan piercing of body parts, self-serving pleasure pursuits, dishonest behavior, revealing attire, foul language and degrading sexual indulgence,” Mr. Oaks said, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

WYOMING

Sprinklers absent, fire marshal reports

POWELL — An automatic sprinkler system probably would have extinguished this week’s dormitory fire at Northwest College and limited damage to one room, Wyoming’s state fire marshal said.

But the building did not have a sprinkler system — nor was it required to — and the entire dorm is considered a total loss after Tuesday’s blaze.

The incident is renewing talk about whether all dormitories in Wyoming’s community colleges should have sprinkler systems, the Gazette of Billings, Mont., reported.

No one died or was seriously injured in Tuesday’s fire in Powell.

Jim Narva, the state fire marshal, said he thinks Wyoming’s college dorms should be retrofitted with sprinkler systems. “They save lives,” Mr. Narva said.