Texas

100-year-old receives seminary degree

When Eugene Florence wanted to become a preacher in the 1940s, he had to attend seminary at night because black students weren’t allowed to take day classes.

On Friday, 53 years after he graduated with a theology degree, 100-year-old Florence was awarded a master of divinity degree at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Paige Patterson, the seminary’s president, said Florence actually earned the master’s degree in 1951 after taking classes two nights a week for eight years. Patterson said the previous race policy, which barred black students from receiving master’s degrees, was “unbiblical, ungodly and unchristian in every way.”

Above, Eric Lauderdale photographs Florence on Friday as he poses with his degree.

Alaska

Weather hampers work to stem freighter oil spill

High wind gusting across the Bering Sea hampered efforts Friday to stem an oil spill from a broken freighter, and there was still no sign of six crew members lost when a rescue helicopter crashed in the turbulent waters.

Two Coast Guard cutters were standing by the broken halves of the Selendang Ayu, while a third cutter with oil vacuuming equipment was heading for the remote beach on Unalaska Island where the 738-foot vessel ran aground Wednesday, said Petty Officer Amy Thomas.

The six crew members, five from India and one from the Philippines, were plunged into the sea when a rescue helicopter crashed Wednesday while evacuating them from the freighter. Four others, including three Coast Guard personnel, were rescued from the water by a second helicopter that evening and were in good condition.

Washington, D.C.

Fewer teens engaging in sex, study finds

Fewer teens are engaging in sexual activity than in the past, and those that do are more likely to use contraceptives, the government said Friday.

The National Center for Health Statistics said that for girls aged 15 to 17, the percentage who had ever had intercourse declined from 38 percent in 1995 to 30 percent in 2002.

For boys, the agency said, the decline was 43 percent to 31 percent.

In addition, the agency said that when teens do have intercourse, 79 percent reported using contraception in 1991-2002 compared with 61 percent in the 1980s. The agency said the increase in contraception was consistent with a decline in teen pregnancy.

California

Peterson jurors wrap up 2nd day of penalty talks

Jurors deciding whether Scott Peterson should live or die for his crimes wrapped up their second day of deliberations Friday without a verdict.

The jury will be sequestered over the weekend in a hotel until deliberations resume Monday.

Peterson, 32, was convicted Nov. 12 of murder in the deaths of his wife, Laci, and her fetus. Prosecutors say he strangled or smothered his wife on or around Christmas Eve 2002 and dumped the body in the San Francisco Bay. Peterson claims to have been fishing alone that day.

Las Vegas

USDA tickets company behind ‘Siegfried & Roy’

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has ticketed the company responsible for the exotic animals used in the “Siegfried & Roy” show, ending a lengthy investigation into the near-fatal tiger attack on illusionist Roy Horn.

S&R Productions received the citation Dec. 6, more than 14 months after the bloody attack that left Horn partially paralyzed, USDA spokesman Jim Rogers told The Associated Press on Friday.

Rogers declined to discuss why the company received the citation, but said it did not carry any penalties. He described it as a warning and said it concluded the agency’s investigation into the attack.

Dave Kirvin, a Siegfried & Roy spokesman, said Friday the company was not aware of the citation.

Horn, 60, was attacked by a 380-pound tiger named Montecore during a live performance Oct. 3, 2003.

New York

Defense blames wife in slaying of banker

The cheating spouse of a millionaire banker, angry and bitter over her impending divorce, had plenty of time and motive to kill her estranged husband, an attorney for the man accused of the slaying told a jury Friday.

But a prosecutor in the murder trial of Daniel Pelosi argued that the defense theory was implausible and that the right person was accused of murder. Pelosi was having an affair with Theodore Ammon’s wife when Ammon was beaten to death.

“What makes sense is that all the evidence put together points to (Pelosi),” prosecutor Janet Albertson said in her closing argument.

Deliberations were expected to begin today.

New Mexico

Court allows church to use hallucinogenic tea

The U.S. Supreme Court sided Friday with a New Mexico church that wants to use hallucinogenic tea as part of its Christmas services, despite government objections that the tea is illegal and potentially dangerous.

The high court lifted a temporary stay issued last week against using the hoasca tea while it decides whether the Brazil-based O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal is permitted to make it a permanent part of its services.

The legal battle began after federal agents seized 30 gallons of the tea in a 1999 raid on the Santa Fe home of the church’s U.S. president, Jeffrey Bronfman.

Florida

Body of county official found beneath house

The body of a former county commissioner who vanished a day before he was to be sentenced on corruption charges was found beneath the home of a man who once worked for him.

The body of Escambia County Commissioner Willie Junior was found in a crawl space.

An autopsy revealed no obvious signs of foul play.

Junior, 62, disappeared Nov. 9 before he was to be sentenced on bribery, extortion and theft charges.

Washington, D.C.

Battery shipments banned from airlines

Regulators are banning shipments of lithium batteries from the cargo holds of passenger airplanes, saying shipments of the batteries used in electronic devices such as laptop computers and digital cameras are a fire hazard.

The Research and Special Projects Administration’s decision to ban the shipments of nonrechargeable lithium batteries followed two incidents in which they burst into flames.

In 1999, a shipment ignited after it was unloaded from a passenger jet at Los Angeles International Airport, according to Rebecca Trexler, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, which will enforce the ban.

In August, a shipment erupted into flames in Memphis when it was being loaded onto a plane bound for Paris, Trexler said.

Washington, D.C.

Ford Escape, CR-V rate well in side crash tests

The 2005 Ford Escape got the highest rating in side crash tests performed by the insurance industry, but only when it was tested with its optional side air bags, according to results released Friday.

The 2005 Honda CR-V, with standard side air bags, also got the highest rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

The Ford Escape got a “poor,” the institute’s lowest rating, when it was tested without its side air bags. The side air bags are a $595 option on the vehicle, according to Ford’s Web site. The rating also applies to the Escape’s corporate twins, the Mercury Mariner and the Mazda Tribute, the institute said.

Pakistan

A bomb hits army truck in market; at least 11 die

Assailants set off a powerful time bomb next to an army truck parked in a teeming outdoor market in southwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 11 people — mostly civilians — and injuring more than two dozen others, police and hospital officials said.

The bomb, which was hidden on a bicycle, blew out windows, shredded the truck’s canvas cover and left bloodstained debris over a wide area of the market in Quetta, the main city in Baluchistan province, said police chief Rehmat Ullah.

The dead included one soldier and 10 vendors and passers-by, senior police official Pervez Bhatti told Pakistan’s private Geo television. Several of the 27 injured people were in critical condition, he said.

Venezuela

Sixteen killed in crash of military plane

A Venezuelan military plane crashed in a mountainous area near Caracas on Friday, killing all 16 people — including two high-ranking military officers — on board, officials said.

Rescuers hurried to the crash site about 15 northwest of Caracas near the town of El Junquito, but they found no survivors in the wreckage on a steep slope, said firefighter Juan Carlos Rodriguez.

The dead included the inspector general of the National Guard, division Gen. Rafael Dubron Torres, and Brig. Gen. Jose Blondet Serfati. The other victims were seven soldiers and officers and seven civilians, including a 4-year-old boy, Information Minister Andres Izarra said.

Zimbabwe

Bar group says Mugabe should face justice

The International Bar Assn. accused Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe on Friday of conducting a reign of terror and said he should not be allowed to elude international justice.

In some of the harshest criticism of Mugabe to date, the association said there was staggering and well-documented evidence that his government has committed murder, rape, abduction and enslavement.

Mark Ellis, the bar association’s executive director, also said there had been a “woeful response to Mugabe’s crimes” by many African countries that he said had tried to prop up Mugabe’s government and deflect criticism of its human rights record.

Tunisia

U.S. Embassy: Message threatens attacks

An American company received an e-mail message last week threatening terrorist attacks against U.S. interests in Turkey, Pakistan and 10 North African and Middle Eastern countries, a U.S. Embassy official said Friday.

The unsigned warning, received Dec. 2, threatened attacks in Algeria, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia, as well as Turkey and Pakistan, the official told The Associated Press.

The letter suggested an attack on a U.S. target in Tunisia could take place “in the weeks to come,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official did not identify the company that received the message and said authorities were working to verify the threat.

Sudan

African Union reports cease-fire violations

Sudanese government troops launched a new assault in strife-torn Darfur that sparked fighting with rebels on the eve of renewed peace talks to end the crisis this week, the African Union said Friday, condemning the military for the attack.

The troops conducted the sweep to “clear roads of lawless elements” near the towns of Bilel and Isham on Wednesday, prompting battles with rebels, said Alpha Oumar Konare, chairman of the AU commission.

Konara condemned the “serious and unacceptable” violation of the cease-fire agreement between the government and the rebels — particularly because it came a day before peace talks began in Abuja, Nigeria.

China

Report: China detains leader of defiant church

China has detained a prominent minister of an unofficial Protestant church in a crackdown on Christian groups that defy Communist Party control, a U.S.-based group said Friday.

Pastor Zhang Rongliang was taken away Dec. 1 from an apartment in a village near the central city of Zhengzhou, the China Aid Assn. said in a news release.

The communist government allows worship only in state-supervised churches, which claim about 11 million members. Worshippers and clergy in unofficial churches are regularly harassed and detained.

Activists say unregistered “house churches” such as Zhang’s have as many as 100 million members nationwide.

Morocco

Powell promoting reform in Islamic world

Secretary of State Colin Powell said Friday he hoped a meeting of 22 Islamic countries from across North Africa and the Middle East would provide a catalyst for expanding political and economic reform throughout the region.

“This is an exciting long-term initiative. I think it will be something that will gain momentum as we go further,” Powell told reporters as he flew here from the Netherlands for Saturday’s meeting.

Host country Morocco will be joined at the “Forum for the Future” by delegates from 18 Arab countries and four non-Arab Islamic countries, along with major industrialized countries and the Arab League.

Mexico City

Authorities pull 74 U.S. youths from schools

Mexican authorities took custody of 74 American youths who were attending two irregularly operated boarding schools and returned them to the United States on Thursday.

The youths, who were found to be in Mexico without proper travel or residency documents, were handed over to U.S. consular officials and then taken to Los Angeles, the Interior Department, which oversees migratory issues, said in a statement.

The Interior Department said the schools — which it identified as the “The Mission” school in Ensenada, Baja California, and the “Abundant Life Academy” in the town of Chapala in Jalisco state — were raided because they “did not comply with sanitary regulations.”

Paris

Gunman gets 10 years for assassination plot

A French court convicted a man who tried to shoot President Jacques Chirac during a national Bastille Day parade in 2002 and sentenced him Friday to 10 years in prison.

Maxime Brunerie, 27, could have received life imprisonment for the July 14, 2002, assassination attempt on Paris’ famed Champs-Elysees, in which he pulled a rifle out of a guitar case and fired a shot before being subdued.

Atlanta

King’s daughter to join anti-gay marriage rally

The Rev. Bernice King, daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., will join a prominent Atlanta pastor today in a march that opposes same-sex marriage as part of a larger, church-centered empowerment movement. The event has been criticized by gay-rights organizations, which say it betrays the legacy of the slain civil rights leader.

King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, has supported marriage rights for gays and lesbians, as have civil rights figures Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., and Julian Bond, chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The “Reigniting the Legacy” march, to be led by King and Bishop Eddie Long, will begin at the Martin Luther King Center for NonViolent Social Change. Organizers said they expected 100 pastors and 10,000 marchers to participate.

Washington, D.C.

Ailing chief justice plans to swear in president

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, suffering from thyroid cancer and absent from the bench for seven weeks, still plans to preside at President Bush’s inauguration on Jan. 20, a Supreme Court spokeswoman said Friday.

The chief justice normally swears in the president, but it had been unclear if Rehnquist would be well enough. Little information about his condition has been released, though it’s known he is undergoing the kind of treatment often used for the most serious type of thyroid cancer.

Rehnquist’s continued absence from the bench and the dearth of information about his condition fueled speculation the 80-year-old may step aside soon, giving the court its first vacancy in more than a decade, a modern record.

North Carolina

Prisoner abuse case moved to Fort Hood

The case against Pfc. Lynndie England, charged with abusing Iraqi detainees at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison, is being moved to Fort Hood, Texas, the Army said Friday.

England has been stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., since returning from Iraq last spring, and that is where military court hearings in her case have been held.

The move to Texas is being made to bring together several cases stemming from the prisoner abuse scandal, including those of England, Spc. Charles Graner, Sgt. Javal Davis, and Spc. Sabrina Harman, the Army said in a statement.

“Consolidating the cases at Fort Hood will conserve resources and ease logistical constraints for witnesses,” the statement said.

Washington, D.C.

600,000 Durango, Dakota trucks recalled

Bowing to pressure from federal safety regulators, DaimlerChrysler AG said Friday it was recalling 600,000 Dodge Durango SUVs and Dakota pickup trucks because of a defect that could cause their wheels to fall off.

The recall affects four-wheel drive vehicles from the 2000-2003 model years. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recommended the recall after a 16-month investigation revealed that the vehicles’ upper ball joints could fail. If that happens, the suspension can collapse and a wheel can fall off.

DaimlerChrysler also is extending the warranty to 10 years or 100,000 miles on the suspension upper ball joints on an additional 400,000 Durango front-wheel sport utility vehicles and Dakota front-wheel pickups from model years 2000 to 2003.

Florida

Orange, grapefruit crops will be smallest in years

Because of hurricane damage, Florida’s grapefruit crop this season will be the smallest since the Depression, and its orange crop the worst in 13 years, Orlando agriculture officials said in a forecast issued Friday.

That raises the prospect of higher prices for orange juice at the supermarket and a shortage of grapefruit juice.

The forecast was even worse than the previous estimate, made in October, because of more fruit dropping from trees in the months since three hurricanes blew through the state’s citrus-growing areas.

This year’s oranges and grapefruits also are smaller, a result of warm and dry weather that preceded the hurricanes.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture lowered Florida’s orange crop forecast for 2004-05 by 8 million boxes to 168 million 90-pound boxes. That would be nearly one-third less than last season’s 242 million boxes.

Ghana

Leader hails democracy in re-election speech

President John Kufuor accepted his re-election as leader of Ghana on Friday, congratulating citizens on the largely peaceful balloting and calling the first sub-Saharan African nation to gain independence a “beacon of democracy.”

“I accept the endorsement of the people of Ghana with thanks and humility and I thank God for being with me and the whole nation of Ghana,” Kufuor said in an acceptance speech broadcast on state radio.

Kufuor, whose election victory in 2000 marked Ghana’s first-ever democratic transfer of power, took 53 percent of the west African nation’s vote Tuesday, electoral officials announced late Thursday.

A few small scuffles aside, the vote came off without major incident and West African election observers certified it as “transparent and in good order.”

Seattle

Judge OKs settlement in sniper lawsuit

A judge has signed off on a $2.5 million settlement between relatives of Washington, D.C.-area sniper victims and a gun shop and weapon maker connected to the shootings.

In the settlement reached in September, Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply of Tacoma agreed to pay $2 million to two survivors and six families related to the victims of snipers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo. Gun manufacturer Bushmaster Firearms of Windham, Maine, agreed to pay the remaining $500,000.

Bushmaster made the weapon used in the shootings, which the pair reportedly stole from Bull’s Eye. The families’ lawsuit alleged that the shop’s owners were negligent in allowing that gun and others to disappear, and that Bushmaster was at fault for shipping the gun to an irresponsible dealer.

Pakistan

Head of Islamic group reportedly captured

Pakistani security forces have arrested the head of a militant Islamic group suspected in the kidnapping of three U.N. workers in Afghanistan in October, a senior Cabinet minister said today.

Syed Akbar Agha, chief of Jaish-al Muslimeen, or Army of Muslims, was captured in the southwestern city of Quetta this week, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told The Associated Press.

He gave no other details.

Armed men seized Annetta Flanigan from Northern Ireland, Philippine diplomat Angelito Nayan and Shqipe Hebibi of Kosovo on Oct. 28. They were freed in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Nov. 23.

Chicago

University dismisses top child psychiatrist

Dr. Bennett Leventhal, a child psychiatrist and autism specialist who helped change how the medical profession and the public viewed mental illness in children, has been removed as the University of Chicago’s chief of child and adolescent psychiatry.

Leventhal, who had been with the school 26 years, also will leave his job as a nontenured professor. He remains as director of the Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School, a university-affiliated program that treats problems in children and teenagers.

University spokesman John Easton would not say why Leventhal was dismissed, and Leventhal said he was not given an explanation.

His lawyer, Howard Emmerman, said Leventhal was not accused of wrongdoing and would contest the dismissal.

Washington, D.C.

Army crews mistook jet before downing it

A Navy fighter jet accidentally shot down during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq had been misidentified by two Army Patriot missile batteries as an incoming Iraqi missile, a military investigation has found.

Soldiers also violated standard procedures involving the launch of the missiles, the investigation determined, but a summary of the inquiry released Friday provided no more detail.

The fighter’s pilot, Lt. Nathan White, 30, of Mesa, Ariz., was killed over Iraq on April 2, 2003, as he flew his F/A-18C Hornet. A summary of the investigation’s findings was posted on U.S. Central Command Web site Friday.

It does not say why the Patriot batteries wrongly identified White’s aircraft.