The Daily Blog

WASHINGTON — U.S. Park Police ticketed Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia after a four-car fender-bender Tuesday along the George Washington Parkway. No one was injured in the accident, police said.

Scalia, 75, was driving his car to work at the time of the accident, court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said. He was on the bench when the court’s morning session began about 10 a.m. EDT.

Police said Scalia was driving south on the parkway just before 9 a.m. when his car collided with a vehicle in front of him, triggering a chain reaction. The justice’s car was towed from the scene.

Park Police Sgt. David Schlosser said Scalia received a ticket for following too closely, The Washington Post reported. The justice can pay the $70 fine and $20 special assessment or contest the ticket in court, Schlosser said.

An extended federal government shutdown could devastate the U.S. economy by dealing a blow to Americans’ confidence, experts said Tuesday.

If lawmakers cannot reach agreement on a bill to fund the government by April 8, a broad array of federal programs will come to a halt. Although most shutdown plans remain classified, during the last major federal government shutdown in 1995, certain health services were shut down. Court cases were delayed. And federal workers were furloughed. This time around, some fear low-income families will miss crucial government payments. But there is another consequence that could make all of those challenges far worse: The economy could slip back into recession.

Already, Americans face a host of economic woes. The unemployment rate remains high. Home prices are still falling, aggravating a widespread foreclosure crisis. Oil prices are rising, pushing transportation costs steadily higher and tearing precious resources from the economy.

In this context, a prolonged federal shutdown would drain Americans’ confidence in their government, hobbling spending, borrowing and investment — and pushing the economy toward recession, said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics.

“Confidence is already very, very fragile,” said Zandi, who has been an economic adviser to both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. “A very short shutdown would be manageable, but the damage that it would do to the confidence in the economy would quickly mount with each passing day.”

After about two weeks, that loss of confidence would “be fodder for a new recession,” Zandi wrote in a report last month. On Tuesday, he said that report remains as applicable as ever.

Republican lawmakers have warned that, if the government does not rein in federal spending, it could incite a crisis of confidence among investors in U.S. debt, which could make financing U.S. debt much more expensive. But economists say public confidence could fast wither if Congress fails to pass a budget for the remainder of the fiscal year, wounding the economy from the inside.

Economic strains at home, the conflict in Libya, and the continuing crisis in Japan have already made Americans worried. Both major indices of consumer psychology plummeted this month: On Friday, Reuters and University of Michigan said their consumer sentiment index fell in late March to its lowest level since November 2009, down from February’s three-year high. On Monday, the Conference Board said its index of consumer confidence fell sharply in March, reversing two months of strong gains.

Confidence has far-reaching economic implications. It affects consumer spending, which drives about two-thirds of U.S. economic activity. Confidence also influences whether an entrepreneur will take out a loan to expand a business, or whether an investor will provide a fledgling company with capital. In the stock market, where trillions of dollars are at stake, investors’ decisions are often influenced by a feeling of confidence.

“Even though the actual direct effects of a two-week government shutdown may not seem like such a big deal, it could trigger a mass panic or sell-off, or other types of market dynamics that could be really hard to predict or control,” said Andrew Lo, professor of finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

He added that Americans might “start wondering whether or not government works at all.”

On a short-term basis, the strain from a government shutdown would occur on a micro level, as struggling families would go without payments, and workers would be forced to stay home. But these issues would most likely have little broader impact on the economy during the first few days of a shutdown, said Alec Phillips, an economist at Goldman Sachs.

And not all aspects of government would be affected. Functions deemed “essential,” such as national security, would continue.

Some economists are skeptical that a shutdown would affect the broader economy.

“In many respects it’s the bureaucracy that shuts down — the statistical agencies that collect and report on the state of the economy and commerce, various kinds of permitting and approvals,” said Brian Bethune, chief financial economist for North America at IHS Global Insight. “These shutdowns have happened before, and they really haven’t had that big of an impact on the economy.”

During the last major government shutdown, under President Bill Clinton, confidence dipped. The freeze began in December 1995 and lasted through January. During that period, consumer confidence dropped 10.8 points, which at the time was its biggest monthly fall in nearly four years, according to the Conference Board’s records.

The economic consequences, at that point, were minimal. The Standard and Poor’s 500 stock index, after falling in January 1996, soon rebounded.

But this time around, a shutdown would occur during a period of historic weakness.

“It could be a nonevent, in which case everybody takes a two-week vacation, and they’re back to normal afterward,” Lo said. “Or it could turn into something much more ugly.”

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Nine Alabama hospital patients who were treated with intravenous feeding bags contaminated with bacteria have died and the maker has pulled the product off the market, state health officials said Tuesday.

Ten others who got the nutrient treatments that are delivered directly from the plastic bags into the bloodstream through IV tubes also were sickened by the outbreak of serratia marcescens bacteria, health officials said. All the patients were critically ill before receiving the IVs and officials have not definitively tied the deaths to the outbreak at six hospitals, State Health Officer Donald Williamson said.

“There is nothing to suggest the deaths were directly related to the bacterial infection,” said Williamson who declined to give details on the patients including their ages and illnesses.On March 16, two hospitals reported increased cases of serratia marcescens to the Alabama Department of Public Health. Officials linked the infection to TPN, a common nutritional supplement delivered through IVs.

A single pharmacy, Birmingham-based Meds IV, made the bags. Williamson said the company has notified its customers of the contamination, has discontinued production and was being very cooperative.”We wouldn’t be nearly as far along as we are without them,” said Williamson.

Calls to Meds IV and its owner seeking comment were not returned.

Meds IV is registered to Edward Cingoranelli, who appears to have been involved in at least three other medical supply companies, according to the Alabama Secretary of State’s office. Meds IV was incorporated two weeks after one of the other firms.

When Select Specialty Hospital in Birmingham learned one of its suppliers may have distributed bags containing the bacteria, it started investigating and stopped using Meds IV products, said the hospital’s chief executive officer. Other hospitals also immediately stopped using the products.

“We are committed to high-quality patient care and are fully cooperating with government officials in their ongoing investigation of the supplier,” said Jeffrey Denney.

Hospitals have very strict infection control for TPN. The supplement compound of several different nutrients, including electrolytes, is delivered daily in bags that are pre-mixed, not done in the hospital. The supplement is administered into a central line intravenously, going directly into the patients’ blood stream. Patients are monitored carefully for symptoms of septic shock.

Serratia marcescens bacteria grow in moist areas and can settle in hospital patients’ respiratory and urinary tracts. The bacteria is common and easily treatable if detected early. Patients with serratia sepsis may have fever, chills, shock, and respiratory distress.Besides Select Specialty, other hospitals hit with the outbreak were Baptist Princeton, Baptist Shelby, Medical West and Cooper Green in the Birmingham area and Baptist Prattville, north of Montgomery.

The state health department, Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, and the Food and Drug Administration are investigating.

Williamson said the risk of more patients being exposed to the bacteria has ended.

“There are no outstanding cases of this infection. It is contained and closed,” says Williamson.

The CDC in 2005 identified the bacteria as causing blood stream infections in about a dozen patients in New Jersey and California that were treated with contaminated salt solutions administered through IVs from similar bags.

Foxy Brown, a rapper who has run into trouble in the past, including an arrest last summer for violating a restraining order, has run into problems again, this time on a Royal Caribbean cruise, TMZ.com reports.

Brown, a passenger on radio host Tom Joyner’s annual listener cruise on the Voyager of the Seas, went ballistic after she was three hours late for a manicure appointment and was unable to be accommodated by salon staff.

According to reports, Brown was escorted out of the salon by security and was kept in her room under supervision. Two days later, Brown was kicked off the cruise when it docked in Grand Cayman and was taken to the airport.

According to MTV.com, Joyner, a popular radio host, told his audience last week: “We put Foxy off the cruise. Let’s just say she got put off. You had to really act a fool to get put off.”

In a statement to AOL Travel News, a Royal Caribbean spokesperson said: Ms. Foxy Brown sailed aboard Royal Caribbean International’s Voyager of the Seas during last week’s seven-night sailing. She was participating in the Tom Joyner Cruise. During the sailing it is reported that Ms. Brown had an appointment in the Voyager of the Seas Day Spa. Ms. Brown disembarked the ship at Georgetown, Grand Cayman, early on March 23 as originally scheduled.

Reps for Foxy Brown have yet to comment.

Considering how unsurprising the first elimination on Season 12 of ‘Dancing With the Stars’ was (sorry, “Psycho” Mike Catherwood), the top story of the night was that the producers actually allowed troubled singer Chris Brown to perform live — and he didn’t lose his cool (at least not in front of the cameras).

Despite reports that host Tom Bergeron wanted to confront Brown about his violent meltdown last week, there was no run-in between the two … because there was no post-performance interview. Brown just did his thing onstage and kept his mouth shut otherwise.While it’s hard to separate Brown from his 2009 assault conviction involving then-girlfriend Rihanna and recent ‘Good Morning America’ freak-out, he proved he’s still a dazzling entertainer with a highly polished performance of his recent single ‘Yeah 3X’ and a “re-interpretation” of his 2008 hit ‘Forever.’

In what might be a sign that he’s realized he needs to clean up his image once again, Brown went back to his natural hair color and traded in baggy jeans for flashy suits. He was probably hoping his snazzy look would make fans forget all about the bleached blond ‘do and tattooed torso he flaunted after his latest window-smashing debacle.Despite the physical changes, though, he oddly incorporated some karate-punch choreography into the middle of ‘Yeah 3X,’ which could be filed under the “too soon” (if ever) category. Should someone convicted of assaulting a woman really be enthusiastically throwing punches with a smile on his face? It seemed like a step in the wrong direction in a performance that had the live studio audience on its feet. Still, overall, he walked away the unexpected winner of the night.The same couldn’t be said for ‘Dancing’ loser Catherwood. When it came to the elimination results, the bottom three was very predictable: Wendy Williams, Sugar Ray Leonard and Catherwood. Unlike seasons past, there was no shocker here (ahem, David Hasselhoff).

Since there was no elimination last week, all 11 contestants got the chance to dance two weeks in a row. Then, last week’s viewer votes and judges’ scores were combined with this week’s in order to decide who got the boot. While the judges praised Catherwood after his second performance for bettering his footwork, his testosterone-fueled jive and comic quips weren’t enough to get viewers to vote for him.

No one ever wants to be the first to go home, but Catherwood took the news with a smile and only had good things to say about his experience on the show. Could his positive spin have something to do with the fact that he got to spend the last few weeks with sexy partner Lacey Schwimmer? Hm …

Chris Brown is set to perform on ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Tuesday night, and show insiders are very worried that the hotheaded performer may get booed on live television.

“It’s a family friendly show that wants to keep its tone upbeat and happy,” a show insider tells me. “The last thing they want to happen is for Chris to not get a very warm welcome and ruin the whole atmosphere for the entire evening.”
Even the show’s super friendly host Tom Bergeron warned that there might be trouble if he gets the chance to interview Brown.

“I did say to the producers that it might be to their advantage to not have me interview him, because my natural tendency would be to say something,” Tom told Ryan Seacrest. But Tom has nothing to worry about as Chris will only be performing this evening and not talking.

Chris recently freaked out backstage at ‘Good Morning America’ after being asked a question about assaulting his then-girlfriend, Rihanna, back in 2009.

“We are prepared to cut right to commercial after Chris performs,” an insider tells me. “If anyone boos you wont get to hear it on TV. The only thing that we are worried about is if the audience doesn’t react well before the performance. The sound guy will do his best to pump up the music and drown out the sound from the crowd.”

Late-season snow has been fairly common from the western mountains to parts of the East Coast this year, and a persistent weather pattern of cooler-than-average temperatures and an active storm track means that more of the same is likely in the coming weeks.

In other words, it might be April snow — not showers — that brings May flowers for some of us.

A couple of late-season snow producers will be on the weather map this week alone, with the greatest threat being in interior parts of the mid-Atlantic and Northeast from Thursday night through Friday. A storm moving northward through this region has the potential to produce heavy, wet snow from West Virginia northward into parts of New York state and interior New England.This storm will follow on the heels of a storm that will track from western Kansas today to offshore of the mid-Atlantic region Wednesday night. It will be chilly enough for a little snow along the northern fringe of the storm; however, snow amounts will not be as impressive as they were with a weekend storm that took a similar track.

To the south of this initial storm, dangerous thunderstorms will once again be a danger today and tonight, with thunderstorms capable of producing large hail, damaging winds and isolated tornadoes in eastern Texas, Louisiana and southern Mississippi.Regardless of the amount of snow that these next two storms produce, the overall weather pattern will remain favorable for late-season snow through at least the first week of April.

The Climate Prediction Center is forecasting cooler-than-average temperatures across the entire northern tier of the country into at least the second week of April, with the likelihood of more precipitation than normal in the Pacific Northwest and northern Plains, as well as from the Ohio Valley to the Northeast, including the mid-Atlantic region.

April and even May snowfall is far from unprecedented across the northern tier of the country, including the mid-Atlantic region and Northeast.

In Pittsburgh, the latest accumulating snow (3.1 inches) occurred on May 3, 1966. In Albany, N.Y, a trace of snow has occurred as late as May 28 (1902), and the April snowfall record is 17.3 inches, on April 6, 1982.

The overall weather pattern of chilly storms tracking across the northern half of the country is fairly typical of a spring with an on-going La Nina. The La Nina is a cooling of the water in the equatorial Pacific, which, in turn, influences global weather patterns. Across the United States, one the primary effects is a more active than normal northern storm track, which often persists into spring.

The current La Nina has begun to weaken in recent weeks, and government experts expect it to dissipate by June.

TOKYO — Japan’s leader insisted Tuesday that the country was on “maximum alert” to bring its nuclear crisis under control, but the spread of radiation raised concerns about the ability of experts to stabilize the crippled reactor complex.Wan but resolute, Prime Minister Naoto Kan told parliament that Japan was grappling with its worst problems since World War II.

“This quake, tsunami and the nuclear accident are the biggest crises for Japan” in decades, Kan said, dressed in one of the blue work jackets that have become ubiquitous among bureaucrats since the tsunami. He said the crises remained unpredictable, but added: “From now on, we will continue to handle it in a state of maximum alert.”

The magnitude-9.0 offshore earthquake on March 11 triggered a tsunami that slammed minutes later into Japan’s northeast, wiping out towns and knocking out power and backup systems at the coastal Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.

Police said more than 11,000 bodies have been recovered, but the final death toll is expected to exceed 18,000. Hundreds of thousands remain homeless, their homes and livelihoods destroyed. Damage could amount to $310 billion - the most expensive natural disaster on record, the government said.

Against the backdrop of the humanitarian disaster, the drama at the power plant has continued to develop, with workers fighting fires, explosions, radiation scares and miscalculations in the frantic bid to prevent a complete meltdown.

The plant has been leaking radiation that has made its way into vegetables, raw milk and tap water as far as Tokyo. Residents within 12 miles (20 kilometers) of the plant were ordered to leave and some nations banned the imports of food products from the Fukushima region.

Highly toxic plutonium was the latest contaminant found seeping into the soil outside the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.

Safety officials said the amounts did not pose a risk to humans, but they said the finding supports suspicions that dangerously radioactive water is leaking from damaged nuclear fuel rods.

“The situation is very grave,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters Tuesday. “We are doing our utmost to contain the damage.”

A series of missteps and accidents, meanwhile, have raised questions about the handling of the disaster, with the government revealing growing frustration with TEPCO.

The Yomiuri daily newspaper reported that the government was considering temporarily nationalizing the troubled nuclear plant operator, but Edano and TEPCO officials denied holding any such discussions.

Kan, meanwhile, faced stinging criticism from opposition lawmakers over the handling of a nuclear disaster stretching into a third week.

“We cannot let you handle the crisis,” lawmaker Yosuke Isozaki said in parliament. “We cannot let you be in charge of Japan’s crisis management.”

The urgent mission to stabilize the Fukushima plant has been fraught with setbacks.

Workers succeeded last week in reconnecting some parts of the plant to the power grid. But as they pumped water into units to cool the reactors down, they discovered pools of contaminated water in numerous spots, including the basements of several buildings and in tunnels outside them.

The contaminated water has been emitting radiation exposures more than four times the amount the government considers safe for workers and must be pumped out before electricity can be restored to the cooling system.

That has left officials struggling with two crucial but sometimes-contradictory efforts: pumping in water to keep the fuel rods cool and pumping out contaminated water and safely storing it.

Nuclear safety official Hidehiko Nishiyama called it “delicate work.” He acknowledged that cooling the reactors had taken precedence over concerns about leakage.

“The removal of the contaminated water is the most urgent task now, and hopefully we can adjust the amount of cooling water going in,” he said, adding that workers were building sandbag dikes to keep contaminated water from seeping into the soil outside.

The discovery of plutonium, released from fuel rods only when temperatures are extremely high, confirms the severity of the damage, Nishiyama said.When plutonium decays, it emits what is known as an alpha particle, a relatively big particle that carries a lot of energy. When an alpha particle hits body tissue, it can damage the DNA of a cell and lead to a cancer-causing mutation.

Plutonium also breaks down very slowly, so it remains dangerously radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years.

“If you inhale it, it’s there and it stays there forever,” said Alan Lockwood, a professor of Neurology and Nuclear Medicine at the University at Buffalo and a member of the board of directors of Physicians for Social Responsibility, an advocacy group.

LONDON — International leaders were gathering in London on Tuesday seeking to plot out an endgame for Moammar Gadhafi’s tottering regime and to strike agreement on plans for Libya’s future.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Arab League and as many as 40 global foreign ministers were joining the talks - seeking to ratchet up pressure on Gadhafi to quit.

Italy’s Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said several nations planned to table a joint deal aimed at swiftly ending the conflict, setting out proposals for a cease-fire, exile for Gadhafi and a framework for talks on Libya’s future between tribal leaders and opposition figures.

Britain and the United States signaled ahead of the talks that they could accept a plan under which Gadhafi quickly leaves Libya and in return escapes a war crimes trial, despite a previous insistence that he must face the International Criminal Court.

“There are some African countries that could offer him hospitality. I hope that the African Union can come up with a valid proposal,” Frattini said Monday.

African Union chairman Jean Ping will attend the talks at London’s Lancaster House alongside delegates who include Qatar’s emir Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani and foreign ministers from Morocco, the UAE, Jordan and Iraq.

Gadhafi “must understand that it would be a gesture of courage on his part to say ‘I am leaving’,” Frattini said.

Turkey, which has offered to attempt to mediate a permanent cease-fire, also said the talks would gauge international support for scenarios under which Gadhafi could retreat into exile.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague, who was hosting the summit, said Tuesday that - while the U.K. hoped Gadhafi would face international justice - it was down to Libyans to decide his fate.

“Of course where he goes, if he goes, is up to him and the people of Libya to determine and we will not necessarily be in control of that,” Hague told BBC radio.

International allies were “not going to choose Col. Gadhafi’s retirement home,” he added.

Britain’s ambassador to the U.S., Nigel Sheinwald, said Libyan opposition envoy Mahmoud Jibril would meet Tuesday with ministers and officials in London, but won’t attend the main conference. Jibril was also holding separate talks with Clinton.

A senior U.S. administration official said the U.S. would also soon send diplomat Chris Stevens to Benghazi to meet with rebel leaders.

In a joint statement, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Jibril’s Interim National Transitional Council could play a key role in deciding Libya’s future following Gadhafi’s potential ouster.

The leaders said that the transitional council and “civil society leaders, as well as all those prepared to join the process of transition to democracy,” should begin work to decide how Libya moves toward democratic elections. They said Gadhafi loyalists were facing a final chance to ditch support for the dictator and side with those seeking political reform.

Sarkozy and Cameron discussed the meeting late Monday in a video conference with President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In a speech Monday night at the National Defense University at Fort McNair, Obama said the London talks would decide on what political effort would be needed - alongside military action - to increase pressure on Gadhafi.

“While our military mission is narrowly focused on saving lives, we continue to pursue the broader goal of a Libya that belongs not to a dictator, but to its people,” Obama said.

Spain’s foreign minister Trinidad Jimenez was quoted Tuesday as telling El Pais newspaper that said she believed a cease-fire and mediation over exile for Gadhafi was a likely scenario.

“Obama put it very well, (the fall of) Gadhafi is not the military objective, but it is a political one. Each country must go along with that process but the protagonists have to be the Libyan people themselves,” she added.

Libya’s deputy foreign minister Khaled Kaim told a news conference in Tripoli that foreign leaders had no right to attempt to impose a new political system on the country.

“Libya is an independent country with full sovereignty,” he told reporters. “The Libyan people are the only ones that have the right decide the country’s future, and planting division of Libya or imposing a foreign political system is not accepted.”

Kaim called on nations attending the London talks to agree on a peace deal.

“We call upon Obama and the Western leaders to be peacemakers not war mongers, and not to push Libyans towards a civil war and more death and destruction,” he said.

The London meeting - which will also be attended by NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen - was also expected to discuss disputes over the scope of NATO-led coalition airstrikes, and to more clearly define the extent of cooperation between Libya’s rebel groups and international military commanders.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov - who will not attend the talks - has said the international air campaign which began March 19 has breached the terms of the U.N. resolution which authorized the enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya.

Cameron insisted that the coalition had not gone beyond its remit, but acknowledged the impact had been to force Gadhafi’s military into a retreat from a number of key towns.

“We should do everything we can to protect people and actually - as a result - that is actually driving back the Gadhafi regime,” Cameron said.

Sarkozy and Cameron said in their joint statement that the military action would end only when civilians were free from the threat of attack.

An anti-abortion group behind a controversial New York billboard targeting African Americans is now taking its message to the South Side of Chicago, in a billboard targeting supporters of President Obama.

Life Always is expected to unveil billboards featuring Obama’s face and the words “Every 21 minutes, our next possible leader is aborted” on Tuesday at 11 a.m. The first billboard will be near an empty lot at 5812 S. State Street, according to a press release from Life Always.”Our future leaders are being aborted at an alarming rate,” Life Always Board Member Reverend Derek McCoy said in a statement. “These are babies who could grow to be the future Presidents of the United States, or the next Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington or Maya Angelou.”

The group’s New York billboard, which read “The most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb,” was taken down after Soho residents and members of the black community voiced their outrage.

Civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton said the New York billboard “depicted black women in an unfair way,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times. He praised Lamar Advertising’s decision to remove it.

The billboard is part of a growing trend in the anti-abortion community that accuses abortion providers of “black genocide” via abortions. 

Planned Parenthood issued a statement calling the New York billboard “an offensive and condescending effort to stigmatize and shame African-American women, while attempting to discredit the work of Planned Parenthood.”

According to Life Always, 30 billboards featuring President Obama and the anti-choice message will be placed on the South Side of Chicago in coming weeks. Some local black leaders will be on hand Tuesday for the first billboard’s unveiling, including former 2nd Congressional district GOP candidate Rev. Isaac Hayes, Rev. Ceasar LeFlore, Rev. Derek A. McCoy and Pastor Stephen Broden, an anti-abortion activist who ran for office as a Republican in Texas last year. 

While most state employees are facing layoffs and reduced benefits, seven New York government workers have just come into millions — but not because of the generosity of their employer. The technology workers in the state’s Homes and Community Renewal agency in Albany pooled their resources to buy several Quick Pick tickets for the Mega Millions lottery drawing, and hit the $319 million jackpot.

This brings office camaraderie and co-worker cooperation to a whole new level. They have the option of splitting the total prize in payments over 25 years, or take a one-time lump sum payment of $202.9 million before taxes. If they choose the latter, the seven winners would split $134 million, or $19.1 million each, after taxes. Welcome to a brand-new life.

It’s still unknown as to what their choice will be — they haven’t even come forward to claim their prize yet. But they have an entire year to do so, and few winners take that long. Odds are that none of them will continue their work for the state once they collect, thus opening up positions for others more in need of a full-time job. A representative for the union they belong to says the union is thrilled.

TV and radio personality DJ Megatron was shot and killed Sunday, according to Billboard.

The occasional BET host was reportedly killed while walking to the store near his home in Staten Island, New York in the early hours of Sunday morning. The NYPD says it was a gunshot wound to the chest, and no arrests have been made yet.

His manager, Justin Kirkland, said that he had no idea why someone would kill the affable father-of-three. “He probably had one of the best personalities around … super-positive, happy all the time,” Kirkland said.

 DJ Megatron (born Corey McGriff) first made his name in radio and was famous on hip-hop stations in New York and Boston before moving into TV and movies. He appeared in 2005’s ‘State Property 2’ and hosted the ‘What’s Good’ segment on BET’s music countdown series ‘106 & Park.’

He also did some on-camera work for ‘106 & Park’ and BET’s website, including ‘What’s Good’ spots that took him onto the streets to ask bystanders about topics ranging from sports to “The Five Elements of Hip-Hop.” In a statement, a BET spokesman said “He will truly be missed,” and extended condolences to his family.

KINGSPORT, Tenn. - Harry Wesley Coover Jr., known as the inventor of Super Glue, has died at his home in Kingsport, Tenn. He was 94.

Coover was working for Tennessee Eastman Company when an accident resulted in Super Glue, according to his grandson, Adam Paul of South Carolina. An assistant was distressed that some brand new refractometer prisms were ruined when they were glued together, marking the invention of the popular adhesive.

President Barack Obama honored Coover in 2010 with the National Medal of Science.

Coover was born in Newark, Del. He received a degree in chemistry from Hobart College in New York before getting a master’s degree and Ph.D., from Cornell.He worked his way up to vice president of the chemical division for development for Eastman Kodak. Coover and the team of chemists he worked with became prolific patent holders, achieving more than 460. The work included polymers, organophosphate chemistry, the gasification of coal and of course, cyanoacrylate, better known as Super Glue.

Coover also had a part in early television history, appearing with Garry Moore for “I’ve got a Secret.” Moore, the show’s host, and Coover were hung in the air on bars that were stuck to metal supports with a single drop of his glue during a live television broadcast.

The Industrial Research Institute, for which he served as president in 1982, honored Coover with a gold medal and the U.S. Patent Office inducted him into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio in 2004.

Hamlett-Dobson Funeral Home in Kingsport, Tenn., is handling the arrangements. Paul says a family memorial is planned for May at Allendale Mansion in Kingsport, Tenn.

Green Bay Packers DE Johnny Jolly didn’t learn much from his 2008 arrest and subsequent 2010 indefinite suspension by the NFL for felony drug charges. According to CBSHoustonTX.com, Jolly was arrested a second time for possession of codeine in Houston on Friday morning.

The website reports police pulled over Jolly for a traffic violation at 12:45 a.m., but after they learned he was driving with a suspended license, they searched his sport utility vehicle and found 600 grams of codeine — enough to be charged with a felony —- along with another unidentifiable substance.

It has yet to be determined if there were enough substances found in Jolly’s SUV for his possession charge to be heightened to intent to distribute.

Jolly, who starred in high school at Houston, played at Texas A&M before the Packers drafted him in the sixth round in 2006.

Just three days after Chris Brown’s notorious window-smashing blowup at ABC’s ‘Good Morning America,’ the network reportedly wants to book him for a sit-down interview together with ex-girlfriend Rihanna.

In a surprising twist of events, a source close to ABC News told E! the network wants to “milk this event for everything it’s worth,” adding, “It’s all about the ratings…at all other costs.”

On Tuesday, Brown had a violent outburst following an interview with GMA’s Robin Roberts, because she asked him a question about his 2009 assault on Rihanna. The singer kept his composure during the interview, then “terrified” employees backstage as he broke a window in his dressing room, tore off his shirt and stormed out of the studio without performing his second scheduled song for the live broadcast.

Now, the network may be capitalizing on the headlines, working on getting Chris Brown to appear with the girlfriend he beat up the night before the 2009 Grammys. Perhaps ABC hopes they can pull it off now that Rihanna’s restraining order against Brown was just lifted.
Another unofficial rumor is that ABC may offer Brown a reality series, however that scenario was slammed by the E! source, who said, “No, that would never happen here.”

The source added, “What’s far more likely is orchestrating Chris Brown talking to Rihanna for the first time.”

And even though Diane Sawyer famously got Rihanna to open up about the physical abuse she suffered at Brown’s hands, E! says its ABC source denies that Sawyer would get involved this time: “She would never do it….it would be Robin [Roberts].”

The network decided not to press charges against Brown this week, and he’s still scheduled to appear on next week’s ‘Dancing with the Stars.’

Everything seems to be working out for Brown so far, with the exception of his representation: The singer’s publicist quit after her client’s ‘Good Morning America’ tantrum.

The teenager who has identified himself as the boyfriend of Kathryn Filiberti, the 18-year-old New York college student who was found dead last week, told AOL News via Facebook that people should not believe what they are reading in the news about the case.

“Don’t believe what’s in the news and newspapers,” Mike Delarm wrote. “[Their] sources aren’t from the police or people who [knew] Katie.”Earlier this week, Delarm, 19, told the Poughkeepsie Journal that he was the last person to see Filiberti alive. The Dutchess Community College student’s body was found on March 19 near Greentree Park in the Dutchess County town of Hyde Park, about 75 miles north of New York City.

Delarm told the Journal that he had been at a party with her on the night of March 18, just hours before her body was found some five miles away. Delarm said that Filiberti was upset because someone she did not like had been at the party. “They argued, and she walked away from him, he thought to go cool off,” the newspaper reported.In a Facebook message to AOL News, Delarm said he wanted to clarify that he did not get into an argument with Filiberti before she disappeared.

“We didn’t get into a fight,” he wrote. “She was aggravated because of a couple of people at the [party] she didn’t like.”

An autopsy on Filiberti was completed March 20, and her death is listed as a homicide, but authorities have declined to elaborate. “The cause and manner of death is pending,” Dr. Kari Reiber, the county’s chief medical examiner, told AOL News.

Authorities have yet to confirm local media reports that Filiberti had been stabbed multiple times in the face and the chest.

Delarm and two other men were arrested in Poughkeepsie in January in connection with an alleged gang assault, according to the Mid-Hudson News Network. The men were charged with second-degree assault and remanded to jail in lieu of $10,000 bail, the newspaper reported.

Repeated calls to the Dutchess County District Attorney’s Office have not been returned, so the disposition of the case remains unclear. According to Delarm, he was not charged.

“[I was not] charged with anything … it was not a gang assault and … the kid in the hospital didn’t almost die at all. He had minor injuries,” Delarm said.

Earlier this week, Filiberti’s best friend, Lindsay McGarril, described Delarm to the Journal as Filiberti’s “on-again, off-again” boyfriend. In a separate interview with AOL News, McGarril said that Filiberti often put her friends and Delarm first.

McGarril declined to go into detail about the case today. She said that Delarm had deleted his Facebook page because he was “being harassed.” She said Filiberti’s family had asked her not to speak with the media anymore.

“I’m listening to their wishes,” she told AOL News. “I’ve told you about her and as much as I could about the case, and that’s all I can say.”

Delarm was also hesitant to go into many details about the case.”I could jeopardize the investigation by saying too much, but I can say that everyone loved Katie [and] no one hated her.”

Delarm added, “I love her and I wish I could switch positions with her. When she was murdered, so was I. I’m never gonna be normal again without my Katie Kat.”

Further comment from Delarm will have to wait until the individual responsible for her death has been caught, he said.

“When they catch the guy, I’d love to have an interview with [AOL News], but it’s just too risky until then. I’m sure [you] understand.”

The pastor and seven members of a small church in central Wisconsin have been charged with using wooden rods to spank infants as young as 2 months old for “being emotional, grumpy or crying,” the Dane County Sheriff’s office said.

The Aleitheia Bible Church, in the town of Black Earth, was started in 2006 with a donation in the range of $500,000-$600,000 from Bob and Lori Wick of nearby Mazomanie, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office.

Lori Wick is the author of almost three dozen historical Christian novels with more than five million books in print, according to her Amazon profile. Reached by AOL News today by telephone at their home, Bob Wick said they “have no comment” on the case.

Publicists at Lori Wick’s publisher, Harvest House Publishers, did not immediately respond to emails from AOL News today for comment.The investigation into the Aleitheia Bible Church began last November, when former members contacted authorities with concerns about how children were being treated, according to the sheriff’s office.

Six church members pleaded innocent to charges of child abuse during an appearance Thursday in Dane County Circuit Court. They were booked and released.Pastor Philip Caminiti, 53, and his brother, John Caminiti, 45, were charged with a dozen counts of child abuse last week and also pleaded innocent.

The victims included 12 children ranging in age from infancy to 6 years old, according to the sheriff’s office.

“During interviews with detectives, Phil expressed his belief that the Bible dictates the use of a rod over a hand to punish children. He stated that children only a few months old are ‘worthy’ of the rod and that by ‘one and a half months,’ a child is old enough to be spanked,” according to the sheriff’s office release.

“Throughout the investigation, the church members were open with detectives about their ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child’ philosophy. They described using wooden dowels and wooden spoons on the bare skin of children, starting as young as 2 months old,” the sheriff’s office said.

“If you spank early and it is done right, then kids will be happy and obedient,” Philip Caminiti said, according to the criminal complaint.

According to the sheriff’s office, the dowels were described as being 12-18 inches long with a diameter about the size of a quarter. The parents told detectives that “redness and bruising” were the “common effects of the spankings.”

“One person described the children being emotional, grumpy or crying as behaviors that would constitute a spanking with a dowel,” according to the sheriff’s office.

Three sets of parents are among the six others charged, including two of Philip Caminiti’s children and their spouses: Matthew Caminiti, 27, and his wife, Alina, 24; and Maria J. Stephenson, 29, and her husband, Timothy, 28. Also charged are Andrea L. Wick, 26, and Timothy J. Wick, 27.

The children often were punished when they cried or failed to sit still during church services, a former church member told authorities. “Phil was very strict about children being quiet during church,” the complaint states.John Caminiti told investigators in November that he does not allow his family to communicate with people outside his religious beliefs and has punished his wife and son by confining them to their rooms until they corrected their disobedience, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.

Attorney Jeffrey W. Nichols, who represents Alina Caminiti, described his client as a “caring mother who loves her children,” according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

“I believe it is important to note that the children have never been removed from her or her husband’s care despite these allegations and despite some unfair characterizations of her,” he said.

All the children of the parents charged are remaining in their homes and the fami
lies are working with social workers from Dane County Human Services, the sheriff’s office said.

TRIPOLI, Libya — A distraught Libyan woman stormed into a Tripoli hotel Saturday to tell foreign reporters that government troops raped her, setting off a brawl when hotel staff and government minders tried to detain her.

Iman al-Obeidi was tackled by waitresses and government minders as she sat telling her story to journalists after she rushed into the restaurant at the Rixos hotel where a number of foreign journalists were eating breakfast.

She claimed loudly that troops had detained her a checkpoint, tied her up, abused her, then led her away to be gang raped.

Her story could not be independently verified, but the dramatic scene provided a rare firsthand glimpse of the brutal crackdown on public dissent by Moammar Gadhafi’s regime as the Libyan leader fights a rebellion against his rule that began last month.

The regime has been keeping up a drumbeat of propaganda in the Tripoli-centered west of the country under its control even as it faces a weeklong international air campaign against the Libyan military.

At a hastily arranged press conference after the incident, government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said investigators had told him the woman was drunk and possibly mentally challenged.

Before she was dragged out of the hotel, al-Obeidi managed to tell journalists that she was detained by a number of troops at a Tripoli checkpoint on Wednesday. She said they were drinking whiskey and handcuffed her. She said 15 men later raped her.

“They tied me up … they even defecated and urinated on me,” she said, her face streaming with tears. “The Gadhafi militiamen violated my honor.”

The woman, who appeared in her 30’s, wore a black robe and a floral scarf around her neck and identified herself. She had scratches on her face and she pulled up her black robe to reveal a bloodied thigh. She said neighbors in the area where she was detained helped her escape.

The Associated Press only identifies rape victims who volunteer their names.

As al-Obeidi spoke, a hotel waitress brandished a butter knife, a government minder reached for his handgun and another waitress pulled a jacket tightly over her head.

Al-Obeidi said she was targeted by the troops because she’s from the eastern city of Benghazi, a rebel stronghold.

The waiters called her a traitor and told her to shut up. She retorted: “Easterners – we’re all Libyan brothers, we are supposed to be treated the same, but this is what the Gadhafi militiamen did to me, they violated my honor.”

It soon turned into a scene of chaos with journalists attempting to protect the woman from government minders who physically attacked and intimidated her.

Journalists who tried to intervene were pushed out of the way by the minders. A British television reporter was punched, and CNN’s camera was smashed on the ground and ripped to pieces by the government minders.

Eventually the minders overpowered the woman and led her outside, shoving her into a car that sped away. Al-Obeidi kept crying that she was certain she would be thrown in jail. She begged photographers to take her picture, raising her robe to show them her bruised body. A minder tried to cover her mouth with his hand to keep her from talking.

“Look at what happens – Gadhafi’s militiamen kidnap women at gunpoint, and rape them … they rape them,” al-Obeidi screamed.

She said she wanted to be taken to see the leader himself.

“I want to see Moammar Gadhafi. Didn’t he say that every victim will have justice? I want my rights,” she said.

The government spokesman said the woman was under investigation.

“The investigators did phone me and told me the lady is drunk and that she seems to be suffering mentally,” Ibrahim said. “They are checking on her health condition, her mental condition, whether she was really abused or if these were fantasies.”

Gadhafi’s crackdown has been the region’s most violent against the wave of anti-government protests sweeping the Middle East. Tensions have been rising between foreign reporters in the Libyan capital and the government minders who have sought to tightly control what they see and whom they talk to. Most of the international press corps is being housed at the Rixos hotel.

Geraldine Ferraro, a Democrat and the first major female vice presidential candidate, passed away on Saturday, according to multiple reports on a statement released by her family.

Jeff Zeleny at the New York Times reports that at the age of 75, Ferraro died of complications from blood cancer at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Ferraro was the first woman and first Italian-American to run on a major party national ticket. According to a statement released by her family, she died surrounded by her loved ones after battling multiple myeloma for twelve years. Her family said of the loss.

“Geraldine Anne Ferraro Zaccaro was widely known as a leader, a fighter for justice, and a tireless advocate for those without a voice. To us, she was a wife, mother, grandmother and aunt, a woman devoted to and deeply loved by her family. Her courage and generosity of spirit throughout her life waging battles big and small, public and personal, will never be forgotten and will be sorely missed.”

After first being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1978, she went on to serve New York’s ninth congressional district for three terms. Ferraro ran as Walter Mondale’s running mate in the 1984 presidential election.

Delegates in San Francisco erupted in cheers at the first line of her speech accepting the vice-presidential nomination.

“My name is Geraldine Ferraro,” she declared. “I stand before you to proclaim tonight: America is the land where dreams can come true for all of us.”

Her acceptance speech launched eight minutes of cheers, foot-stamping and tears.

Ferraro sometimes overshadowed Mondale on the campaign trail, often drawing larger crowds and more media attention than the presidential candidate.

“No one asks anymore if women can raise the money, if women can take the heat, if women have the stamina for the toughest political campaigns in this country,” Judy Goldsmith, then-president of the National Organization for Women told People Magazine in December, 1984. “Geraldine Ferraro did them all.”

But controversy accompanied her acclaim. Frequent, vociferous protests of her favorable view of abortion rights marked the campaign.

Ferraro’s run also was beset by ethical questions, first about her campaign finances and tax returns, then about the business dealings of her husband, John Zaccaro. Ferraro attributed much of the controversy to bias against Italian-Americans.

Mondale said he selected Ferraro as a bold stroke to counter his poor showing in polls against President Reagan and because he felt America lagged far behind other democracies in elevating women to top leadership roles.

“The time had come to eliminate the barriers to women of America and to reap the benefits of drawing talents from all Americans, including women,” Mondale said.

Ferraro joined Mondale’s ticket against incumbents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Ultimately, Reagan won 49 of the 50 states, the largest landslide since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first re-election, in 1936 over Alf Landon.

In the years after the race, Ferraro told interviewers that she would have not have accepted the nomination had she known how it would focus criticism on her family.

“You don’t deliberately submit people you love to something like that,” she told presidential historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. in an interview in Ladies Home Journal. “I don’t think I’d run again for vice-president,” she said, then paused, laughed and said, “Next time I’d run for president.”

Zaccaro pleaded guilty in 1985 to a misdemeanor charge of scheming to defraud in connection with obtaining financing for the purchase of five apartment buildings. Two years later he was acquitted of trying to extort a bribe from a cable television company.

Ferraro’s son, John Zaccaro Jr., was convicted in 1988 of selling cocaine to an undercover Vermont state trooper and served three months under house arrest.

Some observers said the legal troubles were a drag on Ferraro’s later political ambitions, which included her unsuccessful bids for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in New York in 1992 and 1998.

Ferraro, a supporter of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, was back in the news in March 2008 when she stirred up a controversy by appearing to suggest that Sen. Barack Obama achieved his status in the presidential race only because he’s black.

She later stepped down from an honorary post in the Clinton campaign, but insisted she meant no slight against Obama.

Ferraro received a law degree from Fordham University in 1960, the same year she married Zaccaro and became a full-time homemaker and mother. She said she kept her maiden name to honor her mother, a widow who had worked long hours as a seamstress.

After years in a private law practice, she took a job as an assistant Queens district attorney in 1974. She headed the office’s special victims’ bureau, which prosecuted sex crimes and the abuse of children and the elderly. In 1978, she won the first of three terms in Congress representing a blue-collar district of Queens.

After losing in 1984, she became a fellow of the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University until an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate nomination in 1992.

She returned to the law after her 1992 Senate run, acting as an advocate for women raped during ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia.

Her advocacy work and support of President Bill Clinton won her the position of ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, where she served in 1994 and 1995.

She co-hosted CNN’s “Crossfire,” in 1996 and 1997 but left to take on Chuck Schumer, then a little-known Brooklyn congressman, in the 1998 Democratic Senate primary. She placed a distant second, declaring her political career finished after she took 26 percent of the vote to Schumer’s 51 percent.

In June 1999, she announced that she was joining a Washington, D.C., area public relations firm to head a group advising clients on women’s issues.

Ferraro revealed two years later that she had been diagnosed with blood cancer. She discussed blood cancer research before a Senate panel that month and said she hoped to live long enough “to attend the inauguration of the first woman president of the United States.”

After a long career of taking risks in music, Dallas Austin is preparing to embark on an entirely new adventure. The legendary producer has announced that he will be one of the world’s first intergalactic tourists.

The music mogul, who has remixed Michael Jackson tunes and crafted pop hits for Madonna, Pink, TLC and Gwen Stefani, has revealed via Twitter, that he will be a passenger aboard one of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic commercial space shuttles.

“Yes!! Just got my confirmation to travel to space in 2013 thanx to Richard Branson!!” tweeted Austin. “I’m gonna see Earth!!”

The seats aboard Branson’s spaceliner carry a hefty $200,000 price tag, and thus far over 400 passengers have reportedly booked tickets.

This space mission is far from Dallas Austin’s first brush with danger. The producer was busted for drug possession in the United Arab Emirates in 2006, and was only released due to the support of a U.S. senator.

Austin recently made an appearance in Chris Brown’s ‘Beautiful People’ video, along with T-Pain, Nelly, Timbaland and many other hip-hop and R&B stars. He also appeared on ‘The Real Housewives of Atlanta’ in 2008, where he attempted to produce a song for the show’s star Kim Zolciak.

SENDAI, Japan — U.S. naval barges loaded with freshwater sped toward Japan’s overheated nuclear plant on Saturday to help workers struggling to stem a worrying rise in radioactivity and remove dangerously contaminated water from the facility.

Workers at the stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi plant have been using seawater in a frantic bid to stabilize reactors overheating since a tsunami knocked out the complex’s crucial cooling system March 11, but fears are mounting about the corrosive nature of the salt in the water.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. is now rushing to inject the reactors with freshwater instead to prevent pipes from clogging and to begin extracting the radioactive water, Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said Saturday.

The situation at the stricken plant remains unpredictable, government spokesman Yukio Edano said Saturday, adding that it would be “a long time” until the crisis is over.”We seem to be keeping the situation from turning worse,” he said. “But we still cannot be optimistic.”

The switch to freshwater was the latest tactic in efforts to gain control of the six-unit nuclear power plant located 140 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo.

The switch was necessary because of concerns that salt and other contaminants in seawater were clogging pipes and coating the surface of reactor vessels and fuel rods, hampering the cooling process, NISA said.

Defense Minister Yoshimi Kitazawa said late Friday that the U.S. government had made “an extremely urgent” request to switch to freshwater. He said the U.S. military was sending water to nearby Onahama Bay and that water injections could begin early next week.

The U.S. 7th Fleet confirmed that barges loaded with 500,000 gallons of freshwater supplies were dispatched to the Fukushima plant.

Radiation has been seeping from the plant since a magnitude-9 earthquake and an ensuing tsunami on March 11, making its way into milk, seawater and 11 kinds of vegetables, including broccoli, cauliflower and turnips.

Tap water in several areas of Japan, including Tokyo, has shown higher-than-normal levels of radiation. In the capital, readings were at one point two times higher than the government safety limit for infants, who are particularly vulnerable to radioactive iodine.But levels have fallen steadily since peaking Wednesday, and Tokyo metropolitan officials said Saturday that tap water was now safe for babies to drink.

Just outside a reactor at the coastal nuclear plant, radioactivity in seawater tested some 1,250 times higher than normal, Nishiyama said. He said the area is not a source of seafood and the contamination posed no immediate threat to human health.

However, tests conducted 18 miles (28 kilometers) offshore found radioactive iodine-131 at levels nearing the regulatory limit set by the Japanese government, the International Atomic Energy Agency said. The tests also detected another radioactive substance, cesium-137, at lower levels.IAEA experts said the ocean will quickly dilute the worst contamination. Radioactive iodine breaks down within weeks but cesium could foul the marine environment for decades.

Nuclear safety officials suspect a breach in one or more of the plant’s units, possibly a crack or hole in the stainless steel chamber around a reactor core containing fuel rods or the concrete wall surrounding a pool where spent fuel rods are stored.Suspicions were aroused when two workers suffered skin burns after unexpectedly encountering water that was 10,000 times more radioactive than levels normally found in the units, NISA said.

Such a breach could mean a much larger release of radioactive contaminants than had been thought. The most likely consequence would be contamination of the groundwater, experts said.

Radioactivity was on the rise in some units, Nishiyama said Saturday.

“It is crucial to figure out how to remove contaminated water while allowing work to continue,” he said, acknowledging that the discovery would set back delicate efforts to get the plant’s cooling system operating again.

Workers have begun pumping radioactive water from one of the units, Masateru Araki, a TEPCO spokesman, said Saturday.

Plant officials and government regulators say they don’t know the source of the radioactive water. It could have come from a leaking reactor core, connecting pipes or a spent fuel pool. Or it may be the result of overfilling the pools with emergency cooling water.

But a breach in the chamber surrounding the reactor core seemed “more likely,” Nishiyama said.

The nuclear crisis has compounded the challenges faced by a nation already overwhelmed by the disaster and devastation wrought by the tsunami.

Japanese soldiers and U.S. Marines were clearing away debris so they could keep searching for bodies and bury the dead. The official death toll was 10,151 Saturday, with more than 17,000 listed as missing, police said. Those lists may overlap, but the final death toll was expected to surpass 18,000.

Hundreds of thousands whose homes were destroyed still have no power, no hot meals and, in many cases, have not showered in two weeks. Those living within a 12-mile (20-kilometer) radius of the plant have been evacuated.

Life was also tough in the ghost towns inside a larger voluntary evacuation zone, with most residents choosing to flee and wary truckers refusing to deliver goods.

In Minamisoma, a city of 71,000 about 20 miles (30 kilometers) north of the nuclear plant, all but one or two shops shut their doors because of a lack of goods and customers, said city official Sadayasu Abe.”Commercial trucks are simply not coming to the city at all due to radiation fears,” he said Saturday.

Military troops and some private companies took up the task of delivering rice, instant noodles, bottled water and canned foods to eight central spots in the city, Abe said.

He said the city was urging the 10,000 or so still holding out to leave since the situation at the plant remains precarious.

“Life is very difficult here,” he told The Associated Press by telephone. “We have electricity, gas and running water, but no food.”

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia —A former Libyan prime minister said Friday that his country is ready to hold talks with opposition rebels and to accept political reforms, possibly including elections.

The announcement came only hours after a top African Union official called for a transition period in Libya that would lead to democratic elections. The AU met Friday with Libyan delegates in Ethiopia’s capital.

Abdul-Ati al-Obeidi, a member of the delegation, said the current violence in Libya is being carried out by “extremists” and foreign intervention.

“We are ready to discuss what the Libyan people want,” he said. “What kind of reform do they want? If it is elections we are willing to discuss about the details. We are willing to negotiate with anyone. These are our people. There is no division between the Libyan people; there is a division between extremists and the Libyan people.”

The AU did not immediately release a statement, so there was no immediate indication of what their policy plan is.

The delegation also said in a statement that Libya’s government is committed to a cease-fire and that it demanded an end to air attacks and a naval blockade carried out by the United States and other Western forces.

The delegation also accused the military action of killings “hundreds” of civilians, though Western powers say there has been no proof of any civilian deaths caused by the international military intervention.

Rebel leaders indicated that they had no representatives at the talks.

African Union commission chairman Jean Ping said in an opening speech that the AU favors an inclusive transitional period that would lead to democratic elections.

Ping stressed the inevitability of political reforms in Libya and called the aspirations of the Libyan people “legitimate.” He said the international community needed to agree on a way forward.The statement calling for a transition toward elections is the strongest Libya-related statement to come out of the AU since the Libya crisis began, and could be seen as a strong rebuke to a leader who has long been well regarded by the continental body.

Although U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had indicated on Thursday that he expected the rebels to be part of the talks, Mustafa Gheriani, a spokesman for the opposition rebels, said he has heard nothing about the meetings.

“The position of the national council has been clear from the beginning - no negotiations,” he said. “All he has to do is stop bombing and leave the country,” Gheriani said, referring to Gadhafi.

Libya is one of the largest donors to the AU, and in 2009 Gadhafi was given the AU’s rotating, one-year chairmanship.

Gadhafi was also instrumental in the formation of the AU in 2002, and used Libya’s oil wealth to fund the transformation of the old Organization of African Unity into the present-day African Union. He often has attended AU summits flanked by a coterie of extravagantly dressed men who call themselves the “traditional kings of Africa” and describe Gadhafi as the lead king.South Africa-based analyst Francis Ikome said if there is one organization Gadhafi might listen to, it’s the AU, but that the group’s declaration was “too much, too late.” He said it’s difficult to talk about elections while a war is going on and in such a tribal environment as Libya.

“Gadhafi has his back against the wall,” said Ikome, who leads the African Conflict Prevention program at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies. “This has the potential of radicalizing him. He knows if he leaves power, his next destination could be (the International Criminal Court at) The Hague. So whatever the AU is saying in terms of democratization, it has come too late.”

NATO expects to commence aerial operations over Libya by Monday, Group Capt. Geoffrey Booth from NATO’s military staff said in Brussels on Friday. If the North Atlantic Council, the alliance’s top body, approves a broader mission by then, the NATO force would then be authorized to both intercept any aircraft and conduct air strikes against ground forces threatening civilians.

The entire operation would then fall under a unified command.Libya’s air force has been effectively neutralized by the international military effort, and the government has taken part of its fight to the airwaves. State television has aired pictures of bodies it said were victims of airstrikes, but a U.S. intelligence report bolstered rebel claims that Gadhafi’s forces had simply taken bodies from a morgue.

The U.N. Security Council authorized the embargo and no-fly zone to protect Libyan civilians after Gadhafi launched attacks against anti-government protesters who demanded that he step down after 42 years in power. But rebel advances have foundered, and the two sides have been at stalemate in key cities such as Misrata and Ajdabiya, the gateway to the opposition’s eastern stronghold.

Ajdabiya has been under siege for more than a week, with the rebels holding the city center but facing relentless shelling from government troops positioned on the outskirts.

If the months were assigned personalities, then March would most likely be labeled emotional and moody. It’s capable of prolonged periods of warmth and tranquility, but a fit of weather rage is just as likely.

A storm moving from the Rockies today to the mid-Atlantic region on Sunday will be fairly representative of a multifaceted spring storm, producing weather ranging from accumulating snow to dangerous thunderstorms to flooding.

New snow accumulations will locally exceed a foot in the mountains of Utah and Colorado today, where, combined with winds in excess of 25 mph, travel will be hampered. Meanwhile, the extremely heavy snow in the California Sierra will begin to wind down, but not before storm totals reach 2 to 4 feet.

Snow will spread into Plains tonight and Saturday, where late-March snow is not as common as in the mountains. And the snow will then likely streak eastward into the eastern Plains and northern Missouri Valley on Saturday, an area with average high temperatures in the lower 50s. Accumulations will not be impressive by winter standards, but a few inches of snow will accumulate on unpaved surfaces.By Saturday night and Sunday, accumulating snow is a possibility as far east as parts of the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia, Maryland and southwestern Pennsylvania, with a chilly rain or perhaps wet snow in the lower elevations, including the cities of Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia.

Thunderstorms are often a greater danger to lives and property with spring storm systems than the snow, and strong thunderstorms are a threat in the Plains and the South today and Saturday.The region most likely to experience hail, damaging winds and isolated tornadoes today is eastern Oklahoma, northeastern Texas, Arkansas and northern Louisiana. The greatest risk for intense thunderstorms will shift eastward to Tennessee, northern Mississippi, northern Alabama and northern Georgia on Saturday.

The rain associated with the storm will generally not be extreme, but it will add to existing flooding problems in parts of the Plains, the mid-Atlantic region and the Deep South, where recent rain and melting snow farther upstream has resulted in rising rivers.

Much of the region with the most widespread, ongoing river flooding — eastern South Dakota, southern Minnesota and much of Iowa — will miss the heaviest precipitation. And the precipitation that falls will be mainly in the form of snow, which will not immediately flow into the rivers.

Rapper and actor Ja Rule, whose real name is Jeffrey Atkins, pleaded guilty Tuesday to failing to pay federal income taxes on more than $3 million earned between 2004 and 2006. He faces up to three years in prison for the charges, as well as penalties.

The plea agreement comes after an investigation into Atkins’ failure to pay taxes from 2004 through 2008. Assuming that Atkins meets the conditions of his plea agreement, the government will drop two additional counts against him for failing to pay taxes in 2007 and 2008.

Atkins’ income in 2007 and 2008 was significantly less than in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Atkins’ income peaked in 2005 after the November 2004 release of Ja Rule’s sixth studio album R.U.L.E, which debuted at No. 7, selling 166,000 copies in its first week of release. The album’s lead single was “Wonderful,” featuring R. Kelly and Ashanti — it peaked on the Billboard Top 100 Singles chart at No. 5.

This isn’t Atkins’ first run-in with the law. In 2003, he allegedly punched a man in Canada; the matter was settled out of court. The following year, Atkins was arrested for driving with a suspended license and possession of marijuana.

In 2007, Atkins was arrested again on drug possession charges, along with fellow rapper Lil Wayne. Police also found a gun at the scene; Atkins eventually pleaded guilty to the weapons charges and received a two-year jail sentence. Atkins has not served time on the weapons charge; his attorney is expected to ask to have the tax evasion sentence served concurrently with the weapons sentence.

Atkins has promised, through his attorney, to pay the delinquent taxes. He’s scheduled to be sentenced June 13 on the three tax evasion charges and faces up to a year in prison and $100,000 in fines on each count.

Atkins’ attorney has said, about the rapper’s problems, “He’s been working on addressing these issues for some time, and he’s taking full responsibility.”

Peruvian authorities say a study of Joran van der Sloot’s laptop shows the Dutch native was lying if, as reported, he said he killed a Peruvian woman because she used the computer to look up information on Natalee Holloway.

Oscar Gonzales, head of the High Technology Crime Division, told The Associated Press that slain Peruvian business student Stephany Flores did not use van der Sloot’s laptop to research the Holloway case.”She didn’t view anything about Holloway. It’s a lie that she tried to ask him about [the case],” Gonzales told the AP.

Van der Sloot is a longtime suspect in the disappearance of the Alabama teen, who was on spring break in Aruba in 2005 when she vanished. He is accused in the 2010 slaying of Flores. Investigators believe she was killed May 30 — exactly five years after Holloway disappeared.

The Dutchman has been charged with first-degree murder and robbery in the Flores case. If convicted, he could face 15 to 35 years in prison.Van der Sloot has also been indicted by U.S. authorities, accused of a plot to extort $250,000 from Holloway’s family in exchange for information on her death and the location of her body.

Earlier this month, van der Sloot’s attorney, Maximo Altez, said he plans to argue temporary insanity in the case, claiming van der Sloot became enraged when he found out that Flores had used his laptop to look up information on Holloway. That explanation, however, may not hold up if Gonzales is correct in his assertion that Florez had conducted no such searches.Peruvian authorities reportedly provided the FBI with a copy of the laptop hard drive last week. The FBI is believed to be searching for information on the disappearance of Holloway and the alleged extortion of money from the Holloway family.Altez told the AP today that Gonzales was wrong, but the attorney admitted that he has yet to see the police report on the laptop.

“We deny the colonel’s claim,” Altez told the AP. “We will be presenting our own expert analysis regarding the laptop.” He did not specify what it might show.

Radio Netherlands Worldwide has reported that Peruvian computer experts discovered that someone using the laptop after Flores’ murder had searched for information on countries that do not have extradition treaties with Latin American nations.

A spokesman for the FBI’s Birmingham, Ala., field office told AOL News that he could neither “confirm nor deny” that it is investigating the contents of the laptop.

San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said PF Tim Duncan, who sprained his left ankle Monday night against the Golden State Warriors, will miss at least four or five games but will be ready when the playoffs begin on April 16.

Initial reports said Duncan would probably miss about two weeks, but Popovich told reporters on Wednesday, “I’m hoping it won’t be that long, A good four or five games for sure. Beyond that, I won’t really know until we get back.”

“Once he gets back on the court in a couple of days, we’ll be able to tell more,” Popovich added, per the San Antonio Express News.

Asked if there’s been any indication Duncan might not be ready when the postseason starts, Popovich said adamantly, “No, no, no.”

The Spurs have a comfortable lead for the top seed in the Western Conference, so if Duncan is back on the court when the playoffs begin, the injury should not have any real impact on San Antonio’s season.

WASHINGTON — NATO agreed to take over command of the newly established no-fly zone over Libya, but the alliance’s new role doesn’t allow the U.S. to make a quick exit from the costly military operation as the Obama administration had wanted.

American sea and airpower remain key parts of the effort to keep forces loyal to Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi from attacking civilians after allies balked at assuming complete command of the campaign that began six days ago. The U.S., along with France and Great Britain, maintains primary responsibility for attacks on Gadhafi’s ground forces and air defense systems, which are the toughest and most controversial parts of the operation.

The Obama administration had sought a clear signal from NATO on the hand over. Instead, it got a mixed message.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen initially announced the agreement in Brussels, saying the alliance could eventually take more responsibility, “but that decision has not been reached yet.” Several NATO members - including Turkey, the alliance’s only Muslim member - had resisted any involvement in ground attacks.

After Rasmussen’s remarks, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton praised NATO for taking over the no-fly zone, even though the U.S. had hoped the alliance would take full control of the operation authorized by the United Nations, including the protection of Libyan civilians and supporting humanitarian aid efforts on the ground.

“We are taking the next step: We have agreed along with our NATO allies to transition command and control for the no-fly zone over Libya to NATO,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said.

“All 28 allies have also now authorized military authorities to develop an operations plan for NATO to take on the broader civilian protection mission,” she added.

Lines of authority were unclear Thursday night, but it appeared the NATO decision sets up dual command centers and opens the door to confusion and finger-pointing. U.S. commanders would presumably be chiefly responsible for ensuring that the NATO protective flights do not conflict with planned combat operations under U.S. command.

Senior administration officials said the agreement came in a four-way telephone call with Clinton and the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Turkey. The four worked out the way forward, which included the immediate transfer of command and control of the no-fly zone over Libya, and by early next week of the rest of the U.N.-mandated mission.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military planning, said the actual handover of the no-fly zone would occur in one or two days. They said NATO would have a final operational plan by over the weekend for how it would assume control over the rest of the protection mission, and that it would be executable by Tuesday’s meeting in London of nations contributing to the military action.

Clinton also praised the United Arab Emirates for becoming the second Arab country after Qatar to send planes to help the mission to protect Libyan civilians, enforce the U.N. arms embargo on the North African country and support humanitarian aid efforts. The U.A.E. will deploy 12 planes.The Pentagon, meanwhile, indicated U.S. warplanes will keep flying strike missions over Libya. Navy Vice Adm. William Gortney, staff director for the military Joint Chiefs, told reporters that the American role will mainly be in support missions such as refueling allied planes and providing aerial surveillance of Libya. But the U.S. will still fly combat missions as needed, Gortney said.

“And I would anticipate that we would continue to provide some of the interdiction strike packages as well, should that be needed by the coalition,” he added, referring to combat missions such as attacks on Libyan mobile air defenses, ammunition depots, air fields and other assets that support Libyan ground forces.

Two airplanes landed at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. yesterday without the ability to make contract with the one air traffic controller on duty, leading federal investigators to open an inquiry into the possibility a controller had fallen asleep. A seasoned pilot calls the incident a “huge deal.”

Around 12:10 a.m., pilots of American Airlines Flight 1012, a Boeing 737 from Dallas, were unable to make contact with the control tower, aborted a landing and circled the airport. The plane had 91 passengers and six crew members onboard.

About 15 minutes later, United Airlines Flight 628, an Airbus A320 from Chicago, with 63 passengers and five crew members onboard, was also unable to reach the tower.

Both flights were able to make contact with controllers at a regional facility about 40 miles away and successfully landed without any local controller assistance.

“The NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) is conducting an investigation and we are doing our own review,” a United spokesman says.

A seasoned commercial airline pilot, who asked not to be named, tells AOL Travel News that landing at uncontrolled airports is not unusual. When no controller is available, aircraft must communicate to surrounding air traffic, describing their actions.

But this was not an ordinary airport.

The pilot says that landing in the Capital City without tower assistance is, “a huge deal being so close to the White House and Pentagon.” Reagan National is located just across the Potomac River from Washington.

The incident has already led the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to start looking nationwide at air control tower staffing issues. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today also directed the FAA to put two air traffic controllers on midnight shift at Reagan National.

“It is not acceptable to have just one controller in the tower managing air traffic in this critical air space,” LaHood says in a statement.

This is not the first time federal investigators have looked at issues regarding air traffic controllers in the Washington area. In August 2010, the Washington Post reported that over the past seven years, air traffic controllers in the area had exceeded the annual number of allowable errors, prompting additional scrutiny from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

UPDATED, 1 p.m.: The FAA says it has suspended the air traffic controller who failed to respond to the planes.

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon discharged some 250 service members under the soon-to-be-defunct “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in fiscal year 2010, according to numbers released Thursday by a group of gay troops and veterans, even though top brass ordered commanders to effectively stop enforcing the ban on openly gay troops during that time.

A total of 261 service members, including 11 in the Coast Guard — which falls under the authority of the Department of Homeland Security — were tossed out in fiscal 2010, a tally by Servicemembers United found. The group said it based its numbers on internal Defense Department statistics that are not routinely released publicly.

The discharges last year represented an all-time annual low since the policy began in 1994. More than 14,000 troops — or 14,316 including National Guard, according to the group’s unofficial count — have been discharged under the policy.

President Barack Obama signed DADT’s repeal into law in December, but the policy remains in effect until he, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, certify that that the Defense Department is ready to implement the change without hurting military readiness or effectiveness. That won’t happen until all the troops have undergone training that is already underway.

But halfway through the fiscal year, long before DADT got the official thumbs-down from Congress, Gates changed the way the policy was implemented. The idea was to make it harder to toss out gay service members who were otherwise doing their job, in part by leaving decisions about discharges to generals or admirals high up in the chain of command.

Yet despite the loosening of restrictions, the equivalent of two Army companies were given their walking papers.

“While this latest official discharge number represents an all-time annual low, it is still unusually high,” Servicemembers United’s executive director, Alexander Nicholson, said. “Despite this law clearly being on its death bed at the time, 261 more careers were terminated and 261 more lives were abruptly turned upside down because of this policy.”

WASHINGTON — Returning home to some messy politics, President Barack Obama is confronting a battery of challenges, from a spending standoff that threatens to shut down the government to congressional angst over the U.S.-led attacks on Libya. Foreign crises rage across Africa and the Middle East, and Americans still want the economy to improve more quickly.The president left behind a wave of goodwill in Latin America as he shored up alliances that the White House said would prove pivotal for years to come. Yet the timing made for political and logistical headaches, as his five-day trip to Brazil, Chile and El Salvador took place just as the U.S. and allies launched a U.N.-sanctioned assault against Moammar Gadhafi’s menacing regime.Now lawmakers are questioning the costs and objective of the military action while voicing growing frustration that Obama didn’t consult with Congress more thoroughly before authorizing the U.S. airstrikes. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, encapsulated much of the GOP sentiment by asking in a tweet, “Is Congress going to assert its constitutional role or be a potted plant?”

No sooner had Obama touched down on U.S. soil late Wednesday afternoon then House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, issued a blistering letter demanding more details about the steps ahead on Libya.

“I and many other members of the House of Representatives are troubled that U.S. military resources were committed to war without clearly defining for the American people, the Congress and our troops what the mission in Libya is and what America’s role is in achieving that mission,” Boehner said.

The criticism comes not just from the right. Liberal Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, has said he intends to offer legislation to block the U.S. from funding military actions in Libya. Moderate Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., an authoritative voice on military issues as a former Navy secretary, said the U.S. strategy lacks clarity and the endpoint is undefined.

Obama, in news conferences from Santiago to San Salvador, has been adamant in saying the main U.S. military role will be limited and front-loaded as allies strive to keep Gadhafi from killing those seeking to oust him. Insisting the U.S. will soon play a supporting role, Obama told Univision, “The exit strategy will be executed this week.”

Obama will have more opportunities in the coming days to speak about the fast-changing Libya conflict, if he chooses. No specific address to the nation is planned.

The military challenge comes as the threat of a government shutdown looms again.

Federal operations are churning along on another temporary spending bill, this one expiring April 8. That means Obama has just over two weeks to help broker a deal to keep the government running for the six months left in the fiscal year. House Republicans don’t want to budge from the $61 billion in steep cuts they’ve approved, but that won’t fly in the Senate and Obama has threatened to veto it, leaving the path to compromise unclear.

“I can’t remember a more action-packed agenda, with two major, urgent items at the top of the list,” said Norman Ornstein, who studies Congress and politics at the American Enterprise Institute. “Libya, of course, but with the added twist of harsh criticism of the president’s failure to bring in Congress. And the budget battle, which I believe is much more likely than not to lead to a shutdown.”

The pressure will be on Obama to intervene in the budget talks.

Also looming is a fight over the federal debt limit, which Democrats cannot increase without some Republican support in both the Senate and House. The administration has warned Congress that failing to raise the debt limit would lead to an unprecedented default on the national debt and wreck the national economic recovery.

The Treasury Department estimates the government will hit the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling sometime between April 15 and May 31. But Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has warned that GOP senators would not vote to increase the federal debt limit unless Obama agreed to significant long-term budget savings that could include cost curbs for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Republican leaders also are pounding on Obama’s policies at the one-year anniversary of his signature health care law, which also occurred just as he returned home. The law divides the nation just as much as it did a year ago.

The administration and its allies celebrated the anniversary, but it came and went without comment from the president.

Obama is operating in a shrinking window of governing until the politics of his 2012 re-election essentially halt cooperation in Washington.

Obama will try to pick up with his domestic agenda of cutting spending but redirecting funding to make the country competitive in the longer term. He spent much of March emphasizing education, and that’s about to resume: He will conduct a Univision-sponsored televised town hall about education at a District of Columbia high school on Monday.

Although Libya dominated news coverage during the president’s absence, it is a broader revolt in the Arab world that keeps bearing down on him. Support for Yemen’s U.S.-backed president is crumbling among political allies. Tensions remain high in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th fleet. The White House now finds itself routinely condemning violent crackdowns on protests.

And there’s this: It won’t be long before Obama is overseas again.

In two months, he’ll be pushing the U.S. agenda on a trip to England, Ireland, Poland and France.

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. — A U.S. soldier was sentenced to 24 years in prison Wednesday after saying “the plan was to kill people” in a conspiracy with four fellow soldiers to kill unarmed Afghan civilians.

Military judge Lt. Col. Kwasi Hawks said he initially intended to sentence Spc. Jeremy Morlock to life in prison with possibility of parole but was bound by the plea deal. Morlock will receive 352 days off of his sentence for time served.His sentencing came after he pleaded guilty to three counts of murder, and one count each of conspiracy, obstructing justice and illegal drug use at his court-martial at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, south of Seattle.

The 22-year-old soldier is a key figure in a war crimes probe that implicates a dozen members of his platoon and has raised some of the most serious criminal allegations to come from the war in Afghanistan.He was accused of taking a lead role in the killings of three unarmed Afghan men in Kandahar province in January, February and May 2010.

Asked by the judge whether the plan was to shoot at people to scare them, or to shoot to kill, Morlock replied, “The plan was to kill people.”

Morlock was the first of five soldiers from the 5th Stryker Brigade to be court-martialed - something his lawyer Geoffrey Nathan characterized as an advantage. Under the plea deal, Morlock agreed to testify against his co-defendants.

“The first up gets the best deal,” Nathan said by phone Tuesday, noting that under the maximum sentence, Morlock would serve no more than eight years before becoming eligible for parole.

Morlock told the judge that he and the other soldiers first began plotting to murder unarmed Afghans in late 2009, several weeks before the first killing took place. To make the killings appear justified, the soldiers planned to plant weapons near the bodies of the victims, he said.

Morlock’s lawyers previously indicated they would argue that a lack of leadership in the unit contributed to the killings.

“There was a lack of supervision, a lack of command control, the environment was terrible,” Nathan said Tuesday. “In his mind, he had no choice.”

During questioning by the judge Wednesday, Morlock said he had second thoughts about the murder plot while home on leave in March 2010, after the first two killings took place.

“It was really hard to come back,” he told Hawks, adding that he no longer wanted to “engage or be part of anything” like the killings that already had occurred.

Morlock said he didn’t voice his doubts to his fellow soldiers, however, and he went on to participate in the third killing in May.

Morlock also admitted to smoking hashish while stationed in Afghanistan, though he said he was not under the influence of the drug at the time of the killings. In addition, he admitted to being one of six soldiers who assaulted a fellow platoon member after that man reported the drug use going on in the platoon.

Morlock, his voice shaking at times, told the judge has had a lot of time to reflect on his actions in Afghanistan and ask himself “how I could become so insensitive and how I lost my moral compass.”

“I don’t know if I will ever be able to answer those questions,” he said, adding that he believes he “wasn’t fully prepared for the reality of war as it was being fought in Afghanistan.”

Earlier this week, the German news magazine Der Spiegel published three graphic photos showing Morlock and other soldiers posing with dead Afghans. One image features Morlock grinning as he lifts the head of a corpse by its hair.After the January killing, platoon member Spc. Adam Winfield sent Facebook messages to his parents saying that his fellow soldiers had murdered a civilian and were planning to kill more. Winfield said his colleagues warned him not to tell anyone.

Winfield’s father alerted a staff sergeant at Lewis-McChord but no action was taken until May, when a witness in a drug investigation in the unit reported the deaths.

Winfield is accused of participating in the final murder. He admitted in a videotaped interview that he took part and said he feared the others might kill him if he didn’t.

Also charged in the murders are Pvt. 1st Class Andrew Holmes and Spc. Michael Wagnon II.

Seven other soldiers in the platoon were charged with lesser crimes, including assaulting.

Screen legend Elizabeth Taylor has died of congestive heart failure at the age of 79, reports ABC News. “She was surrounded by her children: Michael Wilding, Christopher Wilding, Liza Todd, and Maria Burton,” a rep tells ABC. Taylor died “peacefully today in Cedars-Sinai Hospital,” where she was admitted six weeks ago.

Pittsburgh Steelers backup quarterback Charlie Batch has other things to worry about besides the labor battle with NFL owners.

Brian Bowling of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported on Wednesday that Batch, who filed for bankruptcy in December, could have his Super Bowl rings seized along with several other items of personal property.

U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Jeffery A. Deller lifted an automatic stay on Friday, giving Primerock Real Estate Fund LP the choice to collect on its $820,000 claim against Batch by seizing property he put up as collateral to secure the debt.

The property reportedly includes the two rings, two Super Bowl trophies, his interest in a Munhall house, a 2006 Kawasaki personal watercraft and other sports memorabilia.

The lawyer for New England Patriots Pro Bowl safety Brandon Meriweather says he can prove that his client didn’t shoot anyone and has been falsely accused of being a suspect in a crime.

Lawyer Adam Swickle has delivered witness statements to police investigators that he says corroborate that the NFL player didn’t shoot two men in the head during a violent episode in Apopka, Fla.

“We have confirmed that Brandon was nothing but a peace-keeper,” Swickle told the Orlando Sentinel. “All of the witnesses confirmed that at no point did Brandon have a gun, or threaten to shoot, and did not shoot anyone.”

Per the report, Swickle said his investigator found that another man was threatening people with a gun at the scene before the shooting.

Meriweather’s high school coach recently criticized Meriweather for putting his safety and reputation at risk in a high-crime area.

Meriweather has declined to comment on the incident.

NEW CITY, N.Y. — The teenage girl at the center of the sex-crimes case against football great Lawrence Taylor made a surprise appearance at his sentencing Tuesday, eager to declare that he should be behind bars.

She was denied the chance to speak in court, and Taylor was sentenced to six years’ probation, as agreed when he pleaded guilty in January to sexual misconduct and patronizing an underage prostitute.

The former New York Giants linebacker must register as a sex offender, but a hearing on exactly how that will affect him was postponed to April 12.

The girl arrived with celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred, who described her as “a sex-trafficking victim.” The girl, now 17, has been identified in court and by Allred only by the initials C.F.

Allred stood beside the girl at a news conference but later refused to reveal her name. She would not say whether the girl plans a lawsuit against Taylor but said, “We look forward to representing her as she continues her fight for justice.”

She said Taylor “should be in the hall of shame, not the Hall of Fame.”

The girl was 16 – under the age of consent – when she met Taylor last May.

Speaking outside the Rockland County Courthouse, she denied she was a prostitute and said another man, whom she called Rasheed, forced her to go into Taylor’s Montebello hotel room by punching her in the face.

She said Taylor should have been able to tell she had been beaten and that she was underage.

“I believe Mr. Taylor could see my face and how young I was,” she said. “I did what he told me to do because I was afraid what would happen if I didn’t.”

She added, her voice breaking, “I am upset that he will not go to jail for what he did to me.”

The other man has been identified in a separate federal prosecution in Manhattan as Rasheed Davis, who is accused of acting as the girl’s pimp and who allegedly assaulted her and brought her to Taylor’s room at the Holiday Inn. Prosecutors have credited Taylor with helping them in that case.

Taylor said when he pleaded guilty that the girl told him she was 19. His attorney, Arthur Aidala, said Tuesday that Taylor “did not intend to patronize a prostitute who was under legal age.”

He apologized on Taylor’s behalf to Taylor’s wife, family and fans.

Aidala criticized Allred for exposing the girl to the public eye, saying, “This young woman is being victimized once again.”

The girl had hoped to read her statement in court, but Taylor’s lawyer objected and state Supreme Court Justice William Kelly said victims are entitled to speak only at felony sentencings. Taylor’s crimes were misdemeanors.

Taylor was arrested after the girl’s uncle contacted New York City police. The ex-athlete was originally charged with third-degree rape.

When he pleaded guilty to the lesser charges, Taylor admitting having intercourse with the girl, who turned out to be a Bronx runaway. He said he paid her $300.

Taylor led the Giants to Super Bowl titles in 1987 and 1991. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the NFL’s 75th Anniversary All-Time Team.

In 2009, he competed in ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars.” He had also been a spokesman for the weight-loss company NutriSystem, but he was dropped after his arrest.

After the hearing in April, the judge will decide whether to classify Taylor as a Level 1, 2 or 3 sex offender – low, medium or high risk. It appeared in court that Aidala will argue for Level 1 while prosecutors are suggesting Level 2.

John Caher, spokesman for the state Criminal Justice Services Division, said Level 1 offenders aren’t posted on a public website, but anyone who calls the division can find out if a person is a sex offender.

All sex offenders have to report their addresses annually and report changes within 10 days.

Aidala persuaded the judge to modify some of the probation restrictions generally imposed on sex offenders. For example, the judge said Taylor would be allowed to bring his young son to school or to a park. He also agreed to a 1 a.m. curfew for Taylor instead of 11 p.m.

In addition, Taylor will be permitted to serve his probation in Broward County, Fla., where he lives.

Kelly offered Taylor a chance to speak in court before the sentencing but Taylor declined, saying, “I’m fine, judge.”

WASHINGTON -The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday it will halt imports of dairy products and produce from the area of Japan where a nuclear reactor is leaking radiation.

The FDA said those foods will be detained at entry and will not be sold to the public. The agency previously said it would just step up screening of those foods.

Other foods imported from Japan, including seafood, still will be sold to the public but screened first for radiation.

Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex has been leaking radiation after it was damaged in a devastating earthquake and tsunami earlier this month. The sea near the nuclear plant has also shown elevated levels of radioactive iodine and cesium, prompting the government to test seafood.

Japanese foods make up less than 4 percent of all U.S. imports, and the FDA said it expects no risk to the U.S. food supply from radiation. Officials and health experts say the doses are low and not a threat to human health unless the tainted products are consumed in abnormally excessive quantities.

Still, the World Health Organization said this week that Japan should act quickly to ensure that no contaminated foods are sold. The most common imports from Japan to the United States are seafood, snack foods, and processed fruits and vegetables.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House subcommittee that controls FDA spending, wrote agency officials Tuesday questioning how they could say with certainty that there is no threat to the U.S. food supply from Japanese radiation. She noted that the FDA is not always able to track where food production facilities are located in other countries.

Food safety advocates long have expressed concern over the agency’s lack of money for reliable inspections abroad. A food safety overhaul bill signed into law by President Barack Obama earlier this year would increase inspections of foreign food facilities that export to the United States.

David Acheson, a former FDA associate commissioner of foods, acknowledged concerns about the safety of imported foods and the lack of agency resources. But he said the agency prioritizes risky situations like the one in Japan.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The four-day air assault in Libya will soon achieve the objectives of establishing a no-fly zone and averting a massacre of civilians by Moammar Gadhafi’s troops, President Barack Obama said Tuesday, adding that despite squabbling among allies, the United States will hand off control of the operation to other countries within days.

“When this transition takes place, it is not going to be our planes that are maintaining the no-fly zone,” the president said at a news conference in El Salvador as he neared the end of a Latin American trip overshadowed by events in Libya. “It is not going to be our ships that are necessarily enforcing the arms embargo. That’s precisely what the other nations are going to do.”Obama said he has “absolutely no doubt” that a non-U.S. command entity can run the operation, although perhaps the most obvious candidate - the NATO military alliance - has yet to sort out a political agreement to do so. The president said NATO was meeting to “work out some of the mechanisms.”Despite the cost - not only in effort, resources and potential casualties, but also in taxpayer dollars - Obama said he believes the American public is supportive of such a mission.

“This is something that we can build into our budget. And we’re confident that not only can the goals be achieved, but at the end of the day the American people are going to feel satisfied that lives were saved and people were helped,” he said.

Obama spoke as one senior American military official said the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar was expected to start flying air patrols over Libya by this weekend, becoming the first member of the Arab League to participate directly in the military mission. Obama and NATO had insisted from the start on Arab support.

The president also suggested the administration would not need to request funding from Congress for the air operations but would pay for them out of money already approved.

Administration officials briefed lawmakers during the day about costs and other details to date.

Domestic criticism of the operation has been muted so far, with the president out of the country, but is likely to increase once he flies home on Wednesday - a few hours earlier than had been scheduled.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, meanwhile, said the administration is getting reports - of questionable credibility - that some in Gadhafi’s inner circle may be looking for a way out of the crisis. She said some of them, allegedly acting on the Libyan leader’s behalf, have reached out to people in Europe and elsewhere to ask, in effect, “How do we get out of this?”“Some of it is theater,” Clinton said in an interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer. “Some of it is, you know, kind of, shall we say game playing.” She added: “A lot of it is just the way he behaves. It’s somewhat unpredictable. But some of it we think is exploring. You know, ‘What are my options? Where could I go? What could I do?’ And we would encourage that.”

The Pentagon said two dozen more Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched from U.S. and British submarines late Monday and early Tuesday against Libyan targets, raising the total to 161 aimed at disabling Gadhafi’s air defenses.Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III said Libyan ground troops will be more vulnerable as the coalition grows in size and capability, but he declined to provide details of future targeting. He spoke to reporters at the Pentagon from aboard his command ship in the Mediterranean Sea.

The president and Pentagon officials have stressed since the military campaign began that America would quickly give other countries the lead.

“I think fairly shortly we are going to be able to say that we’ve achieved the objective of a no-fly zone. We will also be able to say that we have averted immediate tragedy,” Obama said.

He told reporters he had spoken earlier with British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in hopes of quickly resolving a dispute over the transition of the military mission.

With congressional critics growing more vocal, the president defended the wisdom of the operation so far.

“It is in America’s national interests to participate … because no one has a bigger stake in making sure that there are basic rules of the road that are observed, that there is some semblance of order and justice, particularly in a volatile region that’s going through great changes,” Obama said

With longtime autocratic governments under pressure elsewhere in the Arab world, the president made clear his decision to dispatch U.S. planes and ships did not automatically signal he would do so everywhere.

“That doesn’t mean we can solve every problem in the world,” he said.

Several members of Congress, including a number from Obama’s own party, were increasingly questioning the wisdom of U.S. involvement.

“We began a military action at the same time that we don’t have a clear diplomatic policy, or a clear foreign policy when it comes to what’s going on in Libya,” said Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., adding that the Obama administration lacks a clear understanding of rebel forces trying to oust Gadhafi, who has ruled for 42 years.

“Do we know what their intentions would be? Would they be able to govern if they were to succeed? And the answer is we don’t really know,” Webb said.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, said he would offer an amendment to the next budget resolution that would prohibit taxpayer dollars from being used to fund U.S. military operations in Libya.

The Marine Corps, meanwhile, offered fresh details of its role in the rescue of an Air Force F-15E pilot who ejected over eastern Libya on Monday. The plane’s weapons system officer, who also ejected and made it safely back to U.S. control, was recovered in a separate operation not involving the Marines.Unconfirmed reports from Libya said a number of civilians were wounded, apparently during the pilot rescue, but the circumstances were murky.

A senior Marine Corps officer at the Pentagon, speaking on condition of anonymity because the F-15E’s crash was still under investigation, said that during the course of the rescue two 500-pound bombs were dropped by Marine AV-8B Harrier jets.

The officer said the bombs were requested by the downed pilot, who reported concern that possibly hostile forces were approaching. The officer said it was unclear what the two bombs hit.

The pilot was picked up by an MV-22 Osprey aircraft that flew - along.

Chris Brown exploded in rage behind the scenes at “Good Morning America” this morning … smashing a window and storming out without a shirt … sources tell TMZ … and it was triggered by on-air questions about the Rihanna incident.ABC sources tell TMZ … Brown performed and was interviewed by Robin Roberts live from the Times Square studio when she began asking about the infamous incident.Brown tried to redirect the questions to focus on his album — but Roberts continued to ask about Brown’s legal issues stemming from the Rihanna incident.We’re told after the interview, Brown freaked out, storming into his dressing room and screaming so loud, the people in hair and makeup became alarmed and called security.

We’re told Brown was out of control, and one source present tells us he smashed a window in his dressing room, and the glass shattered and some shards fell onto 43rd and Broadway. ABC security tells TMZ … the window was shattered with a chair.

We’re told by the time security rushed the area, Brown had ripped off his shirt and left the building, blowing off another performance he was supposed to do for the ABC website.

And sources say … on his way out of the building, Brown confronted a segment producer, got in his face and stared him down. People from the show got in between Chris and the producer to diffuse the situation.

Remember — Brown is on probation for the felony beating and he’s required to obey all laws.

UPDATE 6:49 AM PT: Brown just tweeted, “I’m so over people bringing this past s**t up!!! Yet we praise Charlie sheen and other celebs for there bulls**t.”

UPDATE 6:59 AM PT: Brown has already deleted the previous tweet … and added a new one that reads, “All my fans!!! This album is for you and only you!!! I’m so tired of everyone else!! Honestly!! I love team breezy!!”

UPDATE 7:48 AM PT: Glass workers just showed up to fix Brown’s handiwork

PIERRE, S.D. - South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard signed a law Tuesday requiring women to wait three days after meeting with a doctor to have an abortion, the longest waiting period in the nation.

Abortion rights groups have already said they plan to file a lawsuit challenging the measure, which also requires women to undergo counseling at pregnancy help centers that discourage abortions.

Daugaard, who gave no interviews after signing the bill, said in a written statement that he has conferred with state attorneys who will defend the law in court and a sponsor who has pledged private money to finance the state’s legal costs.”I think everyone agrees with the goal of reducing abortion by encouraging consideration of other alternatives,” the Republican governor said the statement. “I hope that women who are considering an abortion will use this three-day period to make good choices.”

Supporters of the measure say South Dakota’s only abortion clinic, Planned Parenthood in Sioux Falls, gives women little information or counseling before they have abortions done by doctors flown in from out of state. The bill would help make sure women are not being coerced into abortions, they said.

Opponents say the law forces women to go to pregnancy help centers that harass them, rather than providing sound medical advice. They also say the waiting period and the counseling are an undue burden for women who have a constitutional right to have an abortion.

The law, which takes effect July 1, says an abortion can only be scheduled by a doctor who has personally met with a woman and determined she is voluntarily seeking an abortion. The procedure can’t be done until at least 72 hours after that first consultation.Before getting an abortion, a woman also will have to consult with a pregnancy help center to get information about services available to help her give birth and keep a child. The state will publish a list of pregnancy help centers, all of which seek to persuade women to give birth.

About half the states, including South Dakota, now have 24-hour waiting periods, said Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights. No other state requires women to visit pregnancy crisis centers before getting abortions, she said.

The South Dakota Legislature has passed several other measures restricting abortions in the past decade.

Voters rejected statewide ballot measures in 2006 and 2008 that would have banned most abortions in the state. Those measures sought to provoke a court challenge of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion in the United States.

A 2005 law passed by the Legislature already requires that women be told that an abortion will end the life of a human being. That law remains tied up in a court appeal.

A California man who was mistaken for a burglar lost his life last weekend when a victimized homeowner chased him down and hacked him to death with an ax, according to police reports.

The homeowner, 29-year-old Steven Zinda, has been booked into the Sacramento County Jail on a single count of murder. He is being held without bail, and his arraignment is scheduled to take place later today.

According to police documents and interviews, this is how the story unfolded:Early Sunday morning, Zinda returned home and discovered someone trying to rob his home in Rio Linda, a small community in the Sacramento metropolitan area.The burglary suspect fled the house, Zinda said, according to Deputy Jason Ramos.

At the same time that the man was running away on foot, 20-year-old David Valdez, a resident of Elverta, was driving his SUV and got stuck in a ditch down the street from Zinda’s home. When Zinda saw Elverta, he assumed he was the same person who had just attempted to break into his home, police said.

“Zinda confronted him with a weapon, and the man fled on foot,” Ramos told AOL News.

Zinda chased Valdez, eventually catching him about a mile away. In the ensuing confrontation, Zinda attacked Valdez with a “sharp-edged object,” reportedly an ax. He then returned to his home and made a 911 call around 4:30 a.m., police said.

Paramedics found Valdez dead at the scene. According to Ramos, the victim “suffered trauma to his head and upper body.”Authorities confirmed that there was a break-in at Zinda’s residence, but they were unable to establish a connection between Valdez and the attempted robbery.

“Detectives believe there is a likelihood that the victim was killed under Zinda’s mistaken assumption that he was involved somehow in the burglary,” Ramos said.

Valdez’s mother, Maria Nunez, told Sacramento’s KXTV her son had attended a party Saturday night and had called a family member early Sunday to report he was stuck on the side of the road.

“My son was looking for help. He was not trying to do anything bad,” Nunez said.

A daytime landscape without Erica Kane? Say it ain’t so! A source close to ‘All My Children’ has confirmed to TV Squad the series is in jeopardy.

ABC could make an announcement regarding the fate of ‘All My Children’ as soon as today or tomorrow. Despite it being a bigger brand, the soap’s sagging ratings have put ‘AMC’ on the chopping block.

If ‘AMC’ is canceled, ABC could move ‘One Life to Live’ to California.

In recent weeks ‘AMC’ has delivered record lows in Nielsen ratings. According to Deadline, the soap came in last in the key demographic of women 18–49. It was seen by 463,000 viewers in that demo, down 34 percent compared to last year. The series also came in last in total viewers, grabbing 2.32 million. ‘One Life to Live’ had 2.36 million during the week of March 7.

Since its debut 41 years ago, the series has been a launching ground for many stars including Sarah Michelle Gellar and Amanda Seyfried. Recent Oscar-winner Melissa Leo also had a brief stint on the soap.

Viewers will remember Kelly Ripa as Hayley long before she became the co-host of ‘Live! With Regis and Kelly.’ ‘AMC’ has also been home to Susan Lucci as Erica Kane, one of the most familiar faces in TV, for more than 30 years. Lucci is the only original cast member still on the series.

If ‘AMC’ bites the dust, ABC could follow the lead of CBS and replace the long-running soap with a game or talk show. CBS replaced ‘As the World Turns’ with ‘The Talk’ this season, and ‘Guiding Light,’ previously the longest running drama in TV history, with ‘Let’s Make a Deal’ in 2009.

FUKUSHIMA, Japan — Weariness and anxiety percolated Tuesday among people who left their homes near Japan’s radiation-shedding nuclear complex as workers tried urgently to cool an overheated storage pool and methodically to reconnect critical cooling systems.

In another day of progress and setbacks, a pool holding spent nuclear fuel heated up to around the boiling point, a nuclear safety official said. With water bubbling away, there is a risk that more radioactive steam could spew out. “We cannot leave this alone and we must take care of it as quickly as possible,” said the official, Hidehiko Nishiyama.

It wasn’t clear if crews had to retreat to stop work hooking up electrical systems and checking machinery to power up cooling systems.

People at Fukushima city’s main evacuation center waited in long lines for bowls of hot noodle soup. A truck delivered toilet paper and blankets. Many among the 1,400 people living in the crowded gymnasium came from communities near the nuclear plant and worry about radiation and weary of the daily routine of the displaced.

“It was an act of God,” said Yoshihiro Amano, a grocery store owner whose house is 4 miles (6 kilometers) from the reactors. “It won’t help anything to get angry. But we are worried. We don’t know if it will takes days, months or decades to go home. Maybe never. We are just starting to be able to think ahead to that.”

Public sentiment is such that Fukushima’s governor rejected a meeting offered by the president of Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, the utility that runs the nuclear plant.

“What is most important is for TEPCO to end the crisis with maximum effort. So I rejected the offer,” Gov. Yuhei Sato said on national broadcaster NHK. “Considering the anxiety, anger and exasperation being felt by people in Fukushima, there is just no way for me to accept their apology.”

The nuclear crisis has added a broader dimension to the disaster unleashed by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that pulverized the northeast coast, leaving more than 9,000 dead by official count and twice that in police estimates.

Three of Japan’s marquee companies - Sony Corp., Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. - announced halts to production at plants in Japan. The reason is a shortage of parts - a result of so many ruined factories in the disaster area.

Fears about radiation are reaching well beyond those living near Fukushima and the 430,000 displaced by the earthquake and tsunami to encompass large segments of Japan. Traces of radiation are being found in vegetables and raw milk from a swath of farmland, forcing a government ban on sales from those areas.

Seawater near the Fukushima plant is showing elevated levels of radioactive iodine and cesium, prompting the government to test seafood.

SALEM, Mass. — A veteran New Hampshire sports reporter pleaded guilty Friday to running a prostitution business in Massachusetts featuring women who had auditioned for him and to intimidating a witness in an effort to prevent her from testifying against him.

Kevin Provencher was immediately sentenced to state prison on two counts of deriving support from a prostitute, two counts of procuring a person into prostitution, two counts of solicitation for prostitution and one count of witness intimidation, prosecutors said. Each charge carries a penalty ranging from one to 2 1/2 years in prison. The sentences are to be served concurrently.

Provencher was fined $5,000 and placed on probation for one year after his release. He also was ordered to have no contact with the women who worked for him as prostitutes and to forfeit a computer seized by police, according to a statement released by the Essex County District Attorney’s Office.

Assistant District Attorney Melissa Woodard said in court that prosecutors had enough evidence to prove that Provencher, 52, set up a website soliciting women to work for an escort service he had established, claiming it was run by women. Two women who responded had sex with him before he hired them, she said.

Provencher, of Manchester, N.H., advertised prostitution services on Craigslist and other websites, prosecutors said.

He performed background checks on prospective customers to make sure they weren’t police officers, then would rent hotel rooms and provide the women with contact information for the clients. At the end of the day, the women would give Provencher half the money they earned or would deposit it an account he set up, prosecutors said.

The scheme unraveled about a year later after managers at the Marriott Hotel in Andover, Mass., became suspicious and alerted police, prosecutors said.

Provencher was initially arrested in July 2009 on two counts of deriving support from a prostitute. Prosecutors added witness-intimidation and other charges after he told the women who worked for him as prostitutes that his lawyer would “tear them apart” in the media if they spoke to police.

Provencher worked for the New Hampshire Union Leader for 23 years. He no longer works there.

He could not be reached for comment Friday. It was unclear who his legal representation was.

Provencher has won four New Hampshire Sportswriter of the Year awards from the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association.

SAN FRANCISCO— Some loved Barry Bonds so much they can’t be impartial. Others already believe he’s guilty. A mother worried about the effect sports doping would have on her impressionable children. And so the laborious process of selecting a jury began Monday in the criminal case of USA v. Bonds.

More than three years after the all-time home run leader was charged with lying to a grand jury when he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs, his trial got under way in San Francisco federal court. The judge and lawyers were attempting to winnow about 100 prospective jurors into 12 jurors and four alternates for a case that could take up to four weeks.

“It’s hard to make decisions about other people’s lives,” juror No. 9 told U.S. District Judge Susan Illston when asked if he could be impartial.

“It’s the hardest thing we do,” replied the judge, who has sealed the prospective jurors’ names until after the trial concludes.

“I haven’t done too good with (my life),” juror No. 9 concluded before sitting back down. He remained eligible for the jury, but 42 other people in the pool were dismissed from the case before the questioning began Monday.

Illston excused one juror because of a death in a family. A second person was dismissed because of his allegiance to the San Francisco Giants.

“I’m a Barry Bonds fan and I’m a huge SF Giants fan. It’s my life. I don’t know if I could judge Mr. Bonds after providing me with so much entertainment. It’s an intimate relationship,” prospective juror No. 22 wrote on a questionnaire he filled out on Thursday. “I don’t think I could find him guilty.”

No. 22 identified himself as age 35 and working at Target as an “in-stock team member.”

Illston also granted the request of both sides to dismiss 38 prospective jurors with perceived biases.

“My opinion is that steroids is ok to be used since these are the jobs of athletes,” prospective juror No. 29 stated in is questionnaire before being dismissed. “If a player must advance in his/her jobs, supplements should be able to be used.”

Illston said she expects to have just enough people to fill the jury. Most of those who remained told the judge they could stay impartial, though several with strong impressions of the case still remained in the jury pool, taking direct questions from the judge

“I would be reluctant to render a judgment against a great athlete like Bonds,” juror No. 24, a single, 61-year-old man living on disability payments, told Illston. “It would color my judgment.”

The judge thanked the man for his time, and he sat down to await a decision on whether he would remain on the jury.

One of the prospective jurors whom prosecutors want excused wrote on her questionnaire: “He is guilty. He lied. He has suffered enuf. There should have been some sort of settlement.” The prospective juror identified herself as 61 years old and holding a law degree.

Another juror identified herself as an administrative assistant with Google Inc.

“Everyone looks up to these athletes, including young kids and its sad they take drugs to do better. What are kids learning?” the 42-year-old wrote on her questionnaire. “I have young impressionable kids and they do sports. I would be distraught if they felt they had to take drugs to do well in any arena.”

Bonds, who played for San Francisco when he hit 73 homers in a season and when he broke Hank Aaron’s career home-run record, has pleaded not guilty to one count of obstruction and four charges of lying to a grand jury.

When he initially entered his plea in December 2007, he was met by thousands of media, fans and others as television helicopters hovered overhead. Much of that attention was missing on Monday. About a dozen photographers milled outside, but few fans were there to see Bonds walk into the federal courthouse in San Francisco dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and silver tie.

While Bonds sat with his star-studded legal team at the defense table, Jeff Novitzky, the federal agent who led the investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, joined the prosecutors. Bonds is the biggest name to go to trial from the BALCO probe.

FUKUSHIMA, Japan — Gray smoke rose from two reactor units Monday, temporarily stalling critical work to reconnect power lines and restore cooling systems to stabilize Japan’s radiation-leaking nuclear complex.

Workers are racing to bring the nuclear plant under control, but the process is proceeding in fits and starts, stalled by incidents like the smoke and by the need to work methodically to make sure wiring, pumps and other machinery can be safely switched on.What caused the smoke to billow first from Unit 3 at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant and later from Unit 2 is under investigation, nuclear safety agency officials said. Still, in the days since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami wrecked the plant’s cooling systems, both reactors have overheated and seen explosions. Workers were evacuated from the area to buildings nearby, though radiation levels remained steady, the officials said.

Problems set off by the disasters have ranged far beyond the devastated northeast coast and the wrecked nuclear plant, handing the government what it has called Japan’s worst crisis since World War II. Rebuilding the northeast coast may cost as much as $235 billion. Police estimate the death toll will surpass 18,000.

Traces of radiation are tainting vegetables and some water supplies, although in amounts the government and health experts say do not pose a risk to human health in the short-term.”Please do not overreact, and act calmly,” said Chief Cabinet spokesman Yukio Edano in the government’s latest appeal to ease public concerns. “Even if you eat contaminated vegetables several times, it will not harm your health at all.”

Edano said Fukushima’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., would compensate farmers affected by bans on the sale of raw milk, spinach and canola.

The troubles at Fukushima have in some ways overshadowed the natural catastrophe, threatening a wider disaster if the plant spews more concentrated forms of radiation than it has so far.

The nuclear safety agency and Tokyo Electric reported significant progress over the weekend and Monday. Electrical teams, having finished connecting three of the plant’s six units, worked to connect the rest by Tuesday, the utility said.

Once done, however, pumps and other equipment have to be checked — and the reactors cleared of dangerous gas — before the power can be restored. For instance, a motorized pump to inject water into Unit 2’s overheated reactor and spent fuel storage pool needs to be replaced, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, an official at the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

Early Monday, the Health Ministry advised Iitate, a village of 6,000 people about 30 kilometers (19 miles) northwest of the plant, not to drink tap water due to elevated levels of iodine. Ministry spokesman Takayuki Matsuda said iodine three times the normal level was detected there — about one twenty-sixth of the level of a chest X-ray in one liter of water.

The World Bank said in a report Monday that Japan may need five years to rebuild from the disasters, which caused up to $235 billion in damage, saying the cost to private insurers will be up to $33 billion and that the government will spend $12 billion on reconstruction in the current national budget and much more later.

Growing concerns about radiation add to the chain of disasters Japan has struggled with since the 9.0-magnitude quake. The resulting tsunami ravaged the northeastern coast. All told, police estimates show more than about 18,400 died. More than 15,000 deaths are likely in Miyagi, the prefecture that took the full impact of the wave, said a police spokesman.”It is very distressing as we recover more bodies day by day,” said Hitoshi Sugawara, the spokesman.

Police in other parts of the disaster area declined to provide estimates, but confirmed about 3,400 deaths. Nationwide, official figures show the disasters killed more than 8,600 people, and leaving more than 13,200 missing, but those two lists may have some overlap.

The disasters have displaced another 452,000, who are in shelters.

Port-Au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) — Hip-hop singer Wyclef Jean heard “the sound of the boom” and then realized he was “grazed by a bullet” in Port-au-Prince Saturday night, the eve of Haiti’s presidential runoff election, Jean told CNN.

A Haitian national police spokesman said that Jean was treated at a hospital for an injury, but he would not confirm if it was from a bullet or from glass.

The wound was superficial and “he is doing well,” Jean spokeswoman Cindy Tanenbaum said.

Jean said he suffered the wound on his hand soon after stepping out of his car to talk on his phone.

He was treated by a doctor at a hospital and released, Tanenbaum said.Jean would not comment on if he suspected he was targeted by a shooter. “I can’t even speculate,” he said.

The police investigation was stalled by Jean’s refusal to speak to police about the incident, according to Garry Desrosiers, a spokesman for the Haitian national police.

Jean has been helping the presidential campaign of popular musician Michel Martelly, who is on the ballot against former first lady Mirlande Manigat in Sunday’s pivotal presidential runoff election.

“It was nothing,” said Damien Merlo, a spokeman for the Martelly campaign. “He’s fine and out and about getting out the vote for us.” Final results of the runoff will be released on April 16, according to officials.

Jean called Sunday’s vote “historical.”

“This was done, the majority of it, with technology,” he said. “It’s going great because this moment in history is being defined with the technology, Facebook, Twitter, SMS, Livestream.”

Jean, who was born in Haiti, shot to fame in the mid-1990s as a member of the Fugees, a U.S.-based hip-hop and reggae group. He now performs as a solo artist.

He has been an outspoken proponent of Haiti through his Yele Haiti Foundation and was one of the first celebrities to offer aid after the last year’s devastating earthquake.

In September, he officially ended his bid to be president of Haiti a month after election officials ruled that he was ineligible to run.

Jean previously vowed to fight the Haitian electoral council’s ruling that he was not a resident of the country.

His eligibility had been in question after claims that he had not lived in Haiti for five consecutive years prior to the election, a requirement in the nation’s constitution.

TRIPOLI, Libya — A cruise missile blasted Moammar Gadhafi’s residential compound in an attack that carried as much symbolism as military effect, and fighter jets destroyed a line of tanks moving on the rebel capital. The U.S. said the international assault would hit any government forces attacking the opposition.

Oil prices jumped to near $103 a barrel Monday in Asia after the Libyan leader vowed a “long war” amid a second night of allied strikes in the OPEC nation.

It was not known where Gadhafi was when the missile hit near his iconic tent late Sunday, but it seemed to show that while the allies trade nuances over whether the Libyan leader’s fall is a goal of their campaign - he is not safe.Half of the round, three-story administration building was knocked down, smoke was rising from it and pieces of the missile were scattered around, according to Associated Press photographer escorted to the scene by the Libyan government. About 300 Gadhafi supporters were in the compound at the time. It was not known if any were hurt.The U.S. military said the bombardment so far - a rain of Tomahawk cruise missiles and precision bombs from American and European aircraft, including long-range stealth B-2 bombers - had hobbled Gadhafi’s air defenses.

In addition to targeting anti-aircaft sites, U.S., British and French planes also went after tanks headed toward Benghazi, in the opposition-held eastern half of the country. On Sunday, at least seven demolished tanks smoldered in a field 12 miles (20 kilometers) south of Benghazi, many of them with their turrets and treads blown off, alongside charred armored personnel carriers, jeeps and SUVs of the kind used by Gadhafi fighters.

“I feel like in two days max we will destroy Gadhafi,” said Ezzeldin Helwani, 35, a rebel standing next to the smoldering wreckage of an armored personnel carrier, the air thick with smoke and the pungent smell of burning rubber. In a grisly sort of battle trophy, celebrating fighters hung a severed goat’s head with a cigarette in its mouth from the turret of one of the gutted tanks.The strikes that began early Sunday gave respite to Benghazi, which the day before had been under a heavy attack that killed at least 120 people. The calm highlighted the dramatic turnaround that the allied strikes bring to Libya’s month-old upheaval: For the past 10 days, Gadhafi’s forces had been on a triumphant offensive against the rebel-held east, driving opposition fighters back with the overwhelming firepower of tanks, artillery, warplanes and warships.

Now Gadhafi’s forces are potential targets for U.S. and European strikes. The U.N. resolution authorizing international military action in Libya not only sets up a no-fly zone but allows “all necessary measures” to prevent attacks on civilians.

But the U.S. military, for now at the lead of the international campaign, is trying to walk a fine line over the end game of the assault. It is avoiding for now any appearance that it aims to take out Gadhafi or help the rebels oust him, instead limiting its stated goals to protecting civilians.

At the Pentagon, Navy Vice Adm. William E. Gortney underlined that strikes are not specifically targeting the Libyan leader or his residence in Tripoli. He said that any of Gadhafi’s ground forces advancing on the rebels were open targets.

“If they are moving on opposition forces … yes, we will take them under attack,” he told reporters.

“We judge these strikes to have been very effective in significantly degrading the regime’s air defense capability,” Gortney said. “We believe his forces are under significant stress and suffering from both isolation and a good deal of confusion.”

A military official said Air Force B-2 stealth bombers flew 25 hours in a round trip from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and dropped 45 2,000-pound bombs.

What happens if rebel forces eventually go on the offensive against Gadhafi’s troops remains unclear. Gortney would not say whether strikes would hit Libyan troops fighting back against rebel assaults.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said late Sunday that the U.S. expects turn over control of the operation to a coalition headed by France, Britain or NATO “in a matter of days,” reflecting concern that the U.S. military was stretched thin by its current missions. Turkey was blocking NATO action, which requires agreement by all 28 members of the alliance.

Sunday night, heavy anti-aircraft fire erupted repeatedly in the capital, Tripoli, with arcs of red tracer bullets and exploding shells in the dark sky - marking the start of a second night of international strikes. Gadhafi supporters in the streets shot automatic weapons in the air in a show of defiance. It was not immediately known what was being targeted in the new strikes.

Libyan army spokesman Col. Milad al-Fokhi said Libyan army units had been ordered to cease fire at 9 p.m. local time, but the hour passed with no letup in military activity.

Gadhafi vowed to fight on. In a phone call to Libyan state television Sunday, he said he would not let up on Benghazi and said the government had opened up weapons depots to all Libyans, who were now armed with “automatic weapons, mortars and bombs.” State television said Gadhafi’s supporters were converging on airports as human shields.

“We promise you a long war,” he said.

Throughout the day Sunday, Libyan TV showed a stream of what it said were popular demonstrations in support of Gadhafi in Tripoli and other towns and cities. It showed cars with horns blaring, women ululating, young men waving green flags and holding up pictures of the Libyan leader. Women and children chanted, “God, Moammar and Libya, that’s it!”

“Our blood is green, not red,” one unidentified woman told the broadcaster, referring to the signature color of Gadhafi’s regime. “He is our father, we will be with him to the last drop of blood. Our blood is green with our love for him.”