Washington, D.C.

PBS chief to step down over ‘Postcards’ cartoon

Pat Mitchell, the Public Broadcasting Service chief under fire for spending public money on a cartoon show that also featured a real-life lesbian couple, will step down when her contract expires in June 2006.

Mitchell, the nonprofit network’s fifth president and chief executive officer, also faced significant fund-raising challenges.

She drew recent criticism for “Postcards From Buster,” in which the title character, an animated bunny named Buster, traveled to Vermont — a state known for recognizing same-sex civil unions. Though the focus was on farm life and maple sugaring, the episode, entitled “Sugartime,” featured an actual lesbian couple.

Newly appointed Education Secretary Margaret Spellings contended that the episode did not fulfill the intent Congress had in mind for programming and said that many parents would not want their children exposed to such lifestyles.

Philadelphia

No contest plea issued for infant’s kidnapping

A woman pleaded no contest Wednesday to charges she kidnapped a baby during a 1997 house fire and raised the girl as her own for six years.

Prosecutors have said that 42-year-old Carolyn Correa, desperate for a baby of her own after suffering a miscarriage, conspired to set the blaze and steal the 10-day-old child from her crib.

Correa pleaded no contest to kidnapping, interfering with parental custody and conspiracy and could get 25 to 50 years in prison.

The baby disappeared after a fire at the Philadelphia home of her mother, Luzaida Cuevas. Fire investigators found no human remains on the torched second floor and concluded the blaze had consumed Delimar Vera in her crib. They also ruled the fire accidental.

For the next six years, Correa raised the girl just 20 miles away in Willingboro, N.J. Correa had named the girl Aaliyah.

Colorado

Eight die in plane crash

A small jet owned by electronics retailer Circuit City crashed in freezing drizzle Wednesday as it approached a southern Colorado airport, killing all eight people aboard, including four company employees.

Two witnesses told investigators they heard loud popping noises from the twin-jet Cessna Citation C-560 shortly before the crash about 9 a.m., Pueblo County Sheriff Dan Corsentino said. The cause of the crash was unknown.

“I don’t have any idea why it went down. It is just an unfortunate thing,” sheriff’s spokesman Steve Bryant said. A National Transportation Safety Board official was at the scene, and a team of investigators was expected to arrive late Wednesday.

FAA spokesman Mike Fergus said the pilot was relying on the plane’s instruments to make the Pueblo airport approach because of poor weather. The National Weather Service reported low clouds, fog and freezing drizzle with visibility of about six miles at the airport at the time. The temperature was 27 degrees.

California

Jackson leaves hospital in ‘good spirits’

Pop star Michael Jackson was released Wednesday from a hospital where he was treated for flu symptoms, which delayed jury selection for his trial on child molestation charges.

The entertainer returned to his Neverland ranch, Jackson spokeswoman Raymone K. Bain told The Associated Press.

She said Jackson’s nausea and other symptoms had subsided enough for him to leave. “He’s still not feeling well, but he’s going to continue his recovery at home,” Bain said.

Jackson left Marian Medical Center shortly after a brief late afternoon press conference in which Dr. Todd Bailey said the 46-year-old entertainer still had “viral symptoms” but was in good spirits.

“Mr. Jackson continues to be in stable condition and remains under observation at this time. He continues to need care for some persistent viral symptoms, but otherwise he’s in good spirits,” the doctor said.

Jackson’s hospitalization Tuesday caused jury selection in his child molestation trial to be delayed for a week, until Tuesday.

Seattle

Partner-delivered meds help STD patients

People with chlamydia or gonorrhea are supposed to tell sexual partners about their diagnosis and urge them to get treatment.

A new study says giving the patients medicine to pass on to their possibly infected sexual partners works even better.

Lead study author Dr. Matthew Golden, acting director of the STD Control Program for Seattle and King County Public Health, tracked 1,860 patients with gonorrhea or chlamydia. The gonorrhea patients who got medication to give to their partners were 73 percent less likely to be infected at their three-month checkup, and chlamydia patients were 15 percent less likely to be infected, compared with the control groups.

The study is published in today’s New England Journal of Medicine.