Alabama parish quits national Episcopal church

Montgomery, Ala. — For the second time in less than six months, a Montgomery Episcopal congregation has left the national denomination over consecration of an openly gay bishop and recognition of same-sex unions within its “common life.”

Nearly 80 percent of the Church of the Ascension’s 1,600 members and two of its three priests decided Sunday to leave and form “Christchurch,” which will identify with the international Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church is the recognized U.S. branch of the global Communion.

In January, the Rev. Doug McCurry resigned from Christ the Redeemer Episcopal Church over the gay issue and nearly 90 percent of the congregation left.

Florida

Search continues for missing teenager

Scores of people searching Friday for a missing 13-year-old girl were also asked to watch for empty bottles of Budweiser or Bud Light — the type of beer a sex offender allegedly snatched from the girl’s home about the time she disappeared.

About 175 law enforcement officials and 200 volunteers have been looking for Sarah Michelle Lunde, including the fathers of two previously slain girls.

Sarah, who has a history of running away, hasn’t been seen in a week, shortly after she returned home from a church trip.

The beer bottles came to attention after Sarah’s 17-year-old brother said David Onstott, a registered sex offender who once dated Sarah’s mother, had grabbed a half-empty bottle of beer off her family’s kitchen table and left after arriving there unexpectedly before dawn Sunday.

Onstott, 36, was arrested Tuesday on an unrelated charge. Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee has declined to call him a suspect in the girl’s disappearance but said “he certainly has our attention.”

Washington, D.C.

Conservative lawmaker: DeLay should step aside

One of Congress’ most conservative members on Friday became the second House Republican to urge Majority Leader Tom DeLay to step aside because of the ethics scrutiny he’s facing.

“If the majority leader were to temporarily step aside so that these trumped-up charges can be dealt with in a less hostile environment, as they have proven to be an unnecessary distraction, it may be a productive move,” said Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.

Tancredo’s comments come after Connecticut Rep. Chris Shays, a moderate Republican, urged DeLay to resign from his leadership position at the beginning of the week.

DeLay has been dogged by questions for months about his overseas travel, corporate fund raising in 2002 for Texas legislative campaigns, campaign payments to family members and his connections to a lobbyist now under federal investigation.

Pennsylvania

Friends, relatives gather for Schiavo memorial

Two weeks after the death of Terri Schiavo, friends and relatives gathered for a memorial service Friday evening at the suburban Philadelphia church that she attended as a child and where she was married in 1984.

About 150 people clustered in small groups, visiting and reminiscing, before the start of the service at Our Lady of Good Counsel in Southampton, where Schiavo’s parents, brother and sister were to take part in the service.

It is the fourth service that the parents have held for Schiavo.

Michael Schiavo also plans a memorial service for his wife in Pennsylvania, but he has not said when. He is under court order to notify the parents of his plans.

Schiavo had his wife cremated and said her ashes would be buried at a family plot in Pennsylvania. Schiavo’s parents had opposed her cremation and hoped to bury her in their adopted state of Florida.

Washington, D.C.

Study finds greenhouse gas limits affordable

Mandatory limits on all U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse” gases would not significantly affect average economic growth rates across the country through 2025, the government says.

That finding by the Energy Information Administration, an independent arm of the Energy Department, runs counter to President Bush’s repeated pronouncements that limits on carbon dioxide and other gases that warm the atmosphere like a greenhouse would seriously harm the U.S. economy.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., asked the EIA to study the possible effects of a proposal by the National Commission on Energy Policy, a nongovernment panel created and funded by several U.S. philanthropic foundations.

The commission proposed capping how much carbon dioxide, methane and other gases that factories, mines and power plants can emit. Beginning in 2010, businesses that pollute more than their allotment would have to pay up to $7 a ton to those that pollute less. The buying and selling of such pollution would slow growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 2.4 percent a year, the commission said.

Massachusetts

Suspect charged in fashion writer’s death

A garbage man with a long rap sheet was charged Friday with murder and rape in the stabbing death of a fashion writer whose mysterious slaying turned a spotlight on a small Cape Cod town and inspired a best-selling book.

Christopher M. McCowen pleaded not guilty and was ordered held without bail in the 2002 death of Christa Worthington, who was found lying in a bloody pool on the kitchen floor of her secluded home in Truro.

McCowen was taken into custody at his Hyannis apartment late Thursday after his DNA was matched to semen recovered from Worthington’s body after the rape, prosecutors said.

McCowen was Worthington’s garbage man, collecting trash in front of her home once a week. As the garbage man, McCowen was asked to contribute DNA along with the mail carrier and other people who were regular visitors to her home.

Washington, D.C.

High energy prices on Group of Seven agenda

The world’s economic powers this weekend will explore ways to defend the global economy from any serious damage should oil and gasoline prices climb sharply higher.

Finance ministers and central bank presidents from the Group of Seven industrial countries convene today, and the energy situation is expected to figure prominently in their discussions. The United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada make up the group.

For now, high prices are expected to slow world economic growth only modestly this year. The global economy should grow by a solid 4.3 percent, down from a brisk 5.1 percent in 2004, according International Monetary Fund projections.

While other international finance officials agree with that assessment, they also stress that policy-makers cannot be complacent, saying they must look for ways to curb the world’s appetite for energy and boost spare production capacity.

Washington, D.C.

FDA orders Levitra television ad off the air

The Food and Drug Administration has ordered drug giants Bayer Pharmaceuticals Corp. and GlaxoSmithKline PLC to immediately pull a television ad for impotence drug Levitra, saying the commercial does not adequately state the drug’s potential side effects and it cannot substantiate claims the drug is superior to competitors such as Viagra or that it improves female satisfaction during sexual activity.

The 15-second ad, called “My Man,” which includes the tag line, “Levitra: When it counts,” features an actress asking, “In the mood for something different?” She goes on to say Levitra is “the best way to experience that difference.”

Levitra is the second impotence drug to have one of its television ads pulled. In November, the FDA told Pfizer Inc. to discontinue a Viagra ad that referred to the actor as “wild thing,” saying the company did not state that the drug is for men and failed to mention potential side effects.

California

Wendy’s doubles reward in finger mystery

Struggling with falling sales and a tarnished reputation, Wendy’s doubled its reward to $100,000 Friday for information that can reveal how a finger ended up in a bowl of chili in one of its San Jose restaurants.

The restaurant chain’s president said Wendy’s had to lay off some workers and reduce the hours of others since a Las Vegas woman said her bowl of chili was served with a human finger in it on March 22.

Authorities are still stumped over whose finger it is.

So far, Anna Ayala, a former San Jose resident, has been front and center in the investigation. She’s the woman who said she bit into the chunk of finger in her chili at a Wendy’s. Police served a search warrant at her Las Vegas home earlier this month.

Ayala announced this week she had decided not to go ahead with legal action against Wendy’s.

Boston

State lottery plans virtual horse racing

The Massachusetts State Lottery wants to offer “virtual horse racing,” a proposal that could make it the first state in the nation to allow wagering on the computer-generated races.

Lottery officials announced plans this week to debut the Daily Race Game/Run for the Money in November or December at restaurants and bars. They expect it to eventually draw $150 million in annual revenue.

Details were still being worked out, but lottery officials plan to offer races every 15 minutes, with a minimum bet of $2. Players could bet as much as they would at a traditional racetrack, with a similar wagering structure.

Each animated race would last about a minute and feature 12 numbered horses circling the track as a fast-talking announcer describes the action.

Atlanta

Courthouse shooter returns for hearing

Brian Nichols faced police at every turn Friday as he returned to the courthouse where he is accused of killing a judge and two other people last month.

Security was tight for Nichols’ first appearance at the Fulton County courthouse since the March 11 slayings. Nichols was shackled at the ankles.

His defense lawyers argued they should be allowed to question potential grand jurors who will hear the case about their exposure to media coverage of the shootings and that testimony during the upcoming grand jury proceedings should be recorded.

Prosecutors objected to both requests, arguing that the grand jury proceedings are confidential.

Fuller took the motion under advisement. It was not clear when he would rule.

Nichols, 33, is accused of overpowering a deputy and stealing her gun, then killing Judge Rowland Barnes, who was presiding over Nichols’ rape trial, and his court reporter.

A sheriff’s deputy was killed outside the courthouse, and a federal agent was killed elsewhere before Nichols was taken into custody the day after the rampage.