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A man was shot in the neck after a dispute at Club Rodeo early this morning, authorities said.

The shooting was reported at 1:48 a.m. at the nightclub, 10001 E. Kellogg, a Sedgwick County dispatch supervisor said.

Police were already monitoring the club's parking lot and heard the gunshot, Capt. Brent Allred said. A witness gave police a description of the car the suspect got into, and officers pulled the car over in the 200 block of South Hillside a short time after the shooting.

Four people were detained for questioning, Allred said, but two were released. One of the others was booked into jail on an outstanding warrant and a 22-year-old man was arrested in connection with the club shooting.

The shooting victim, who is in his 20s, was treated and released from Wesley Medical Center.

Of the 450 families of St. Joseph Catholic Church, only about 75 have children who attend the parish school.

Were it not for a commitment by the entire church, the parish school would probably not be able to remain open, according to the church's pastor.

"It's the mission of our parish to rally for Catholic education," said the Rev. Ken Van Haverbeke. "That's the major mission for our parish."

Diocesan leaders say that mission is shared at the other schools in the Catholic Diocese of Wichita. And that support is one reason why the diocese was cited as a success story in a report this week by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.

The report, "Who Will Save America's Urban Catholic Schools?" found that more than 1,300 schools have closed -- and displaced about 300,000 students -- since 1990. Most were urban.

A policy adopted Thursday bans all weapons from the state's six university campuses and requires criminal background checks for university employees.

The move by the state Board of Regents was prompted in part by the shooting massacre at Virginia Tech university one year ago Wednesday, board president Reginald Robinson said.

The weapons policy formalizes statewide what the universities already are doing.

Wichita State University has had a policy barring weapons on campus for more than a decade, said Ted Ayres, university vice president and general counsel.

The universities also posted signs last year preventing people from bringing a gun into campus buildings, in the wake of a state law that allows people to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

The license of another Wichita day care provider has been suspended -- this time for letting a registered sex offender and a man with a violent record be at the day care home, a state agency said Thursday.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment, which regulates day care homes, issued an emergency order Thursday suspending the license of Pitter Patters Day Care Home.

The agency said the home in the 2000 block of South Lori Lane, near Rock Road and Pawnee, is operated by Jennifer Dawn Converse.

She received a day care home license on April 1, allowing her to care for up to 10 children.

A woman who answered the door at the address KDHE listed in its emergency order declined to comment Thursday.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius on Thursday vetoed a second bill allowing two coal-fired power plants in southwest Kansas and accused its supporters of being unwilling to compromise.

But House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, who supported the measure, said the Democratic governor is preventing the state from having a comprehensive energy policy.

Sebelius' action was expected. The measure was similar to one Sebelius vetoed last month.

Both cleared the way for Sunflower Electric Power Corp. to build two plants outside Holcomb, in Finney County. Both also stripped the secretary of health and environment of some power, a responseto Secretary Rod Bremby's decision in October to deny an air-quality permit for Sunflower's $3.6 billion project.

"I'm not at all surprised that the governor did this," said Sunflower spokesman Steve Miller. "It's regrettable, but I'm not going to offer up any angry letters or angry words."

A top-to-bottom restructuring of two Wichita middle schools is almost complete, say district officials, and about half the teachers will not return to those schools next fall.

Also, representatives with America's Choice, a for-profit school turnaround company, were in Wichita this week to visit seven schools they will help redesign.

"It all went about as smoothly as we could expect," said Kathy Busch, assistant superintendent of middle schools.

"The re-interviewing process is complete, and the teachers have been notified about who's staying and who will be placed in other schools," she said.

Last month, employees at Marshall and Mead middle schools had to reapply to district administrators for their jobs as part of a start-from-scratch restructuring required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The schools had failed to meet test-score targets for six years.

By several measures, the flu season that's ending was more like the "moderately severe" 2003-04 season than the mild seasons of the past three years, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday:

• Doctors and hospitals reported that nearly 6 percent of their patients had flu symptoms. That compares with 3.2 to 5.4 percent in the previous three years.

• The percentage of deaths reported each week that were attributed to influenza and related pneumonia peaked at 9.1 percent, up from 7.7 to 8.9 percent in earlier years.

• Forty-nine states had "widespread" flu activity at once. That's a measure of how many parts of a state are reporting patients with flu, rather than a count of how many people are sick. In previous years, the number ranged from 41 to 49 states.

One big difference from the 2003-04 season: There was plenty of vaccine this time.

The aftershocks that rippled around this city and other parts of the Midwest on Friday were not only seismic but stupefying: That shaking and swaying in the predawn hours Friday morning, Chicagoans asked one another, was that really an earthquake? Here, of all places?

It was. An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.2 hit southern Illinois at 4:36 a.m., said Gary Patterson, a geologist at the University of Memphis Center for Earthquake Research and Information in Tennessee.

The quake shook an area of about 120,000 square miles from northern Michigan south to Memphis, Tenn., and from Kansas City, Mo., east to Nashville, Tenn. At the epicenter, near West Salem, Ill., just west of the Indiana border, buildings suffered minor structural damage.

No one was killed, and only minor injuries were reported. Farther out, skyscrapers wiggled, at least one chimney collapsed, and nerves were rattled for many people who awoke in a sleepy fog, not sure why their headboards were clanking against the wall.

Reactions in Chicago

Middle Eastern oil-producing nations are behind today's record high oil prices, but not for the reason you might think. Taken together, oil-rich nations represent a bloc of fast-growing economies that are now sucking up new energy supplies almost as fast as they're coming to market.

Together, the six nations that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council are now consuming about as much oil as China, whose thirst for oil frequently gets the blame for tight global supplies.

These GCC countries -- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates -- have grown at a 7 percent annual clip since 2002. They boast a per-citizen income -- $19,000 -- that is three times China's. Demand for oil in the Middle East has risen by almost 6 percent annually since 2004.

Here's what that means for Americans: The Bush administration has leaned on the Saudi Arabian monarchy to step up oil production, but much of the output will stay in the Persian Gulf region to power newly dynamic economies. That means global demand for oil will continue to strain supply. Oil prices are likely to stay high.

For the past three summers, Americans have paid more at the gas pump in part because of this spike in Middle Eastern demand for oil. These increasingly affluent nations have seen enormous summer spikes in demand for air conditioning. A full third of electricity generation in the region comes from oil-fired power plants.

You can tell that the odds are in our favor that we've seen the last frost of spring: Garden centers are having their annual flat and geranium sales this weekend, and waves of color are starting to wash over Wichita.

"I'm ready to get going," Carolyn Marshall said as she slid a plastic flat of locally grown purple alyssum into the back seat of her car at the Plant Kingdom greenhouse outlet at 3105 N. Hillside.

While perennials can handle being planted in below-freezing temperatures, annual flowers generally resent a frost, and that makes sense, considering they die every winter and have to be replaced.

Annuals that are included in flat sales are like the landscape version of generic food: cheaper and without the brand name.

"They are more standard flowers," said Eric Denneler of Tree Top Nursery. You won't find new varieties in flat sales, and you generally won't even know what variety the flower is.

Russell Barrett said he knew trouble was coming last June when some gang members tried to force their way into the Half-Time Sports Bar at 3120 E. Harry.

He said it started when a man who'd been kicked out tried to come back in.

"He walked back in the bar and it was total mayhem," Barrett told a Sedgwick County district judge Wednesday. "It was just total chaos. Bars and chairs and glass busting.... I had no idea who was fighting who."

Barrett's testimony came during a preliminary hearing for Donovan Thompson, 21, who was ordered to stand trial on charges of first-degree murder in the shooting death of bar owner Teresa Hastings.

Barrett, who described himself as a close friend of Hastings, testified that when the fight began, Hastings and some of her employees pushed the fighting patrons outside.

A Sedgwick County judge has dismissed a racial profiling claim filed by a Wichita man whose case became the first test of the state's 2005 profiling law.

District Judge David Kaufman said Wichita police were engaging in valid law enforcement practices when they stopped and searched Aaron Patterson on Aug. 24, 2005, at 21st and Minnesota. Patterson was cited for failing to use a turn signal, but the charge was later dropped.

The Kansas Human Rights Commission ruled in April 2006 that Patterson was the victim of profiling. That ruling, under the new law, gave him the right to sue the city for damages.

Although Kaufman's ruling dismissed Patterson's lawsuit, both sides said they expected the case to end up before the Kansas Court of Appeals.

City Attorney Gary Rebenstorf said Kaufman's ruling came as welcome news for police.

Many Wichita-area students will pay more for school lunches and breakfasts next year as school districts cope with the same higher food prices as other consumers.

Maize and Goddard schools have already upped the prices of their meals for the 2008-09 year. Derby and Rose Hill are expected to follow suit, and the Wichita school board will probably consider an increase in coming weeks.

Of other area districts contacted, only Andover and the Catholic secondary schools of Wichita said they had no plans to raise prices.

Even charging more for lunches, school food service officials say they'll be hard-pressed to break even, as they try to do with their programs. The increases -- 10 to 15 cents per lunch -- were kept low so as not to deny any student a nutritious meal, but that means they might not keep pace with higher prices for items such as milk, grain and fruits and vegetables.

"We're not a little worried, we're a lot worried," said Greg Kalina, food services director in Goddard. "You can only raise your school lunches so much, and you've still got to meet your nutritional requirements."

Evidence about Justin Thurber's behavior toward young women can be presented by prosecutors during his trial, a judge ruled this week.

Thurber could receive the death penalty if convicted of the abduction, rape and killing of 19-year-old Jodi Sanderholm on Jan. 5, 2007.

Cowley County District Judge Jim Pringle based his ruling on evidence in three pretrial hearings that included the testimony of 13 women of similar size and appearance to Sanderholm. They said Thurber had pursued, stalked or sexually assaulted them in the days, months and years before Sanderholm's killing.

Under Kansas law, such behavior can be used to show a pattern of behavior consistent with that of Sanderholm's attacker, Pringle said in his ruling Monday.

Thurber is scheduled to stand trial this summer, although the defense has asked for more time to prepare and will argue to move the trial out of Cowley County. Those issues will be discussed at a hearing next week in Winfield.

A tight budget year just got tighter for Kansas legislators.

Revenue estimators projected Wednesday that the state would bring in $130 million less than expected over the next two years -- in part because of the federal economic stimulus package. Revenue is expected to increase 3 percent for the next fiscal year and be relatively flat for fiscal 2009.

That's not good news for programs -- including a Wichita doctor training center -- that lawmakers postponed funding until after the revenue projection. Proponents had hoped those programs, which total nearly $140 million in

additional spending, could be funded in an omnibus, or wrap-up, budget when legislators reconvene for several days beginning April 30.

Among the requests is $8.6 million to help train doctors through the Wichita Center for Graduate Medical Education, which would bring the program up to its full $9.6 million request.

Airlines will be required to double the maximum compensation they pay passengers involuntarily bumped from scheduled flights under measures announced Wednesday by the Department of Transportation.

Under the new rule, which takes effect next month, fliers will receive up to $400 if they're rescheduled to reach their destination within two hours of their original arrival time or four hours for international flights. The fee would increase to a maximum of $800 if passengers aren't rerouted within that time frame.

The amount of the payments are in addition to the value of the passenger's ticket, which can be used for alternate transportation or be refunded if unused.

The current limits are $200 and $400.

Airlines sometimes are forced to bump passengers on oversold flights. In announcing the changes in advance of the summer travel season, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said the rule will ensure that fliers "are more fairly reimbursed for their inconvenience."

Pope Benedict XVI focused on the future of his American church Saturday as he marked the third anniversary of his election as pontiff, rallying young people, priests and seminarians and assuring them of his support as they dealt with the damage from the clergy sex abuse scandal.

On a highly personal day, he spoke of his own "spiritual poverty" and said he hoped to be a worthy successor to St. Peter, considered the first pope.

Benedict began the day with a Mass at St. Patrick's cathedral, the landmark Roman Catholic church on Fifth Avenue. The building was packed with cardinals ands bishops, priests and nuns, who cheered him to mark the day he succeeded Pope John Paul II on April 19, 2005.

The German-born pope lamented that what he called "the joy of faith" was often choked by cynicism, greed and violence. Yet he drew an analogy to show how faith can overcome distractions and trials.

"The spires of St. Patrick's Cathedral are dwarfed by the skyscrapers of the Manhattan skyline, yet in the heart of this busy metropolis they are a vivid reminder of the constant yearning of the human spirit to rise to God," he said.

A Garden City middle school teacher is accused of viewing pornography on a school computer and showing it to students.

Police have asked Finney County prosecutors to charge the unidentified 31-year-old teacher at Abe Hubert Middle School with six counts of promoting obscenity and six counts of promoting obscenity to a minor.

The local school district is declining comment, but is cooperating with the investigation.

Former Dodge City police officer Chris Tahah has been found guilty of shooting and killing his ex-girlfriend.

A Ford County jury on Thursday convicted Tahah of first-degree murder in the May 5, 2007 slaying of 25-year-old Erin Jones. A sentencing hearing has not been set.

Tahah was arrested May 11 along Interstate 70 in eastern Colorado after being chased in a stolen sport utility vehicle.

He had initially told investigators that he took a .270 caliber rifle to Jones's home after seeing her at a bar dancing with another man. Tahah said he had talked himself out of shooting Jones and that the rifle went off as he lowered it outside the door.

But Tahah took the stand in his own defense Wednesday and denied ever being at Jones' house, claiming that he made the story up.

A Haysville doctor charged with running a "pill mill" that led to 56 deaths told a federal judge in court papers Thursday that he and his wife opposed to the government's request for a gag order in their case.

Federal prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Monti Belot earlier this month to prevent Stephen Schneider and his wife, Linda, from talking to the media.

Prosecutors also asked the judge to extend that gag order to include their attorneys, family members and Siobhan Reynolds, president of the Pain Relief Network, a patient advocacy group that has taken up the Schneiders' cause.

"The government's attempt to restrain contact with the media comes as a result of the media's coverage becoming balanced and raising questions about the government's motivations, its actions, and the results of those actions," according to a defense motion filed Thursday.

Prosecutors told the judge that the defendants and their supporters were attempting to use the media to influence the jury pool. As an alternative to a gag order, the government sought a transfer of the trial, scheduled for February 2009.

A Sedgwick County judge has dismissed a racial profiling claim filed by a Wichita man whose case became the first test of the state's 2005 profiling law.

District Judge David Kaufman said Wichita police were engaging in valid law enforcement practices when they stopped and searched Aaron Patterson on Aug. 24, 2005, at 21st and Minnesota. Patterson was cited for failing to use a turn signal, but the charge was later dropped.

The Kansas Human Rights Commission ruled in April 2006 that Patterson was the victim of profiling. That ruling, under the new law, gave him the right to sue the city for damages.

Although Kaufman's ruling dismissed Patterson's lawsuit, both sides said they expected the case to end up before the Kansas Court of Appeals.

See Friday's Eagle for more on this story.

By several measures, the flu season that's ending was more like the "moderately severe" 2003-04 season than like the mild seasons of the past three years, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said today.

Doctors and hospitals had more patients complaining of flu symptoms, the percentage of deaths attributed to flu or pneumonia was up, and more states reported being affected by flu.

For more on this story, see Friday's Eagle.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius on Thursday vetoed a second bill allowing two coal-fired power plants in southwest Kansas and accused its supporters of being unwilling to compromise.

But House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, an Ingalls Republican who strongly supported the measure, replied that the Democratic governor is preventing the state from having a comprehensive energy policy.

Sebelius' action was expected and came only three days after the Legislature formally presented the bill to her. The measure was similar to one Sebelius vetoed last month.

Both cleared the way for Sunflower Electric Power Corp. to build the two plants outside Holcomb, in Finney County. Both also stripped the secretary of health environment of some power, a response to Secretary Rod Bremby's decision in October to deny an air-quality permit for Sunflower's $3.6 billion project.

"I'm not at all surprised that the governor did this," said Sunflower spokesman Steve Miller. "It's regrettable, but I'm not going to offer up any angry letters or angry words."

A Kansas couple is facing charges after law enforcement officers found unhealthy and dead livestock on property in Dickinson County.

Dickinson County Sheriff Curt Bennett said in a news release that Shawn Keys and Barbara Keys - both 42 - were arrested Tuesday. They were charged with cruelty to animals and improper disposal of carcasses and freed on $50,000 bond each.

Bennett said numerous head of cattle on the property were not being properly fed or cared for. Several dead cattle were also found on the property.

The Keys couple is scheduled to appear in Dickinson County District Court on May 8.

A 17-year-old is charged in a fatal weekend shooting outside a Topeka nightspot.

Prosecutors say Timothy Arterberry is charged with intentional second-degree murder in the slaying early Saturday of 30-year-old Albert Conley outside the Mahogany Lounge. He was booked into the Shawnee County Juvenile Detention Center.

Club owner Mario Wilkerson said Tuesday that Conley was an innocent bystander who was gunned down while trying to break up a fight involving suspected gang figures. Authorities say Conley was shot three times.

Court records show that Conley failed to show for a district court hearing last Thursday on a prosecutor's motion seeking to revoke Conley's house arrest. Conley had pleaded no contest in June 2007 to felony driving under the influence of alcohol.

A home health care provider told police she set up a drug deal for her client -- and then the dealer robbed her patient at gunpoint.

The hold-up occurred at the provider's home in the 400 block of North Spruce shortly after 9 p.m. Wednesday, police said. The 22-year-old health care provider said her 43-year-old client, who is confined to a wheelchair, wanted to buy a large amount of marijuana.

She arranged to have a 20-year-old man deliver it to her house, she told police. But the suspect arrived and robbed the man of a large amount of cash at gunpoint. He forced the woman to get into his car and drove off, firing several shots into the victim's car as he left.

She managed to escape from the suspect unharmed, she told police. The suspect is described as a black male, 5 feet 7 inches tall, 150 pounds, wearing a white tank top, black basketball shorts and a swirl tattoo on one shoulder.

The investigation is continuing, police said.

Overnight sprinkles were a prelude to what forecasters say figures to be a rainy Thursday in Wichita.

Showers are expected after lunch in the metropolitan area, with thunderstorms possible this evening. Temperatures will hover in the upper 50s, forecasters say, with winds shifting from the east to the north and gaining in intensity later tonight.

The National Weather Service reports that the strongest storms are anticipated to develop east of the Kansas Turnpike.

Check Kansas.com for updates.

The Powerball jackpot is set to top $100 million after no one chose the winning combination in Wednesday night's drawing.

The numbers drawn were 11, 16, 18, 21 and 51, with a Powerball of 16. Players were vying for a grand prize of $92 million.

Three tickets matched the first five numbers but not the Powerball, making them worth $200,000 each. They were sold in the District of Columbia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

The new jackpot is projected to be $105 million, with a cash option of $53.7 million.

Two lottery tickets sold in Kansas were worth $10,000 each. One was sold in the northeast part of the state and the other sold in the southeastern sector.

A 21-year-old man was ordered today to stand trail for first-degree murder in the June shooting death of a Wichita bar owner.

Donovan Thompson is charged in the death of Half-Time Sports Bar owner Teresa Hastings and the wounding of one of her employees.

Wichita police said the shooting occurred as Thompson and some fellow gang members were engaged in a disturbance at the bar at 3120 E. Harry.

Twice before, legal delays forced prosecutors to dismiss and refile charges against Thompson. District Judge Ben Burgess tentatively scheduled his trial for June 2.

Two other men have pleaded guilty to less serious charges for their role in the disturbance.

Watching his Heights High School classmates dramatize an alcohol-related car crash Wednesday revived Joshua Hanson's memories of a real accident the 17-year-old survived.

Hanson, a junior at Heights, said he chipped three vertebrae and broke four ribs and an arm about two years ago after the car he was riding in turned in front of a semi in Goodland. The truck clipped the car, he said; the car hit the shoulder of the road and rolled.

He and several friends were on their way to homecoming. They'd been drinking at a pre-party. Hanson said one of his friends remained in intensive care for two months following the accident. Hanson had to undergo a year of physical therapy.

"People think it's a game, but it's not," Hanson said of drinking and driving. "It's not at all. Any of us could have died that night."

Hanson and about 200 Heights juniors and seniors watched the school's peer leadership group perform the skit as part of "Operation Prom Night."

A fire early Wednesday at Inter-Faith Ministries injured two people and forced the evacuation of the shelter in the 800 block of North Broadway.

Ten people were forced from the shelter, and two women were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation, Wichita Fire Marshal Ed Bricknell said.

Police reported that a 32-year-old woman set the drapes in her room on fire and claimed she wanted to kill herself.

"Once the smoke alarm activated, everyone got out," Bricknell said. "Everything worked the way it was supposed to."

One of the women treated for smoke inhalation was in a wheelchair, Bricknell said.

Want to arrange some flowers or spin some tunes as a radio DJ? How about getting your hands dirty as a master chocolatier?

These are some of the jobs up for grabs in a silent auction coordinated by Child Start, which oversees the Head Start educational programs.

The auction is part of the organization's Children's Champion reception, which is set for 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at Oeno Wine Bar, 330 N. Mead. Today is the deadline to purchase tickets, which cost $50 individually or $250 for a table of six.

"I love the whimsy and what they're doing for the event," said Beth Tully of Cocoa Dolce Artisan Chocolates, one of the dream job auction sites.

"It just had a real nice authenticity about it," she said. "I felt like we needed to take part."

You know how you always spill a little gas when you fill up your lawnmower or Weed Eater?

Sedgwick County officials want you to know that thousands of those little spills contribute to the region's air quality problems -- and they want you to cut it out.

So in honor of Earth Day, the county will sponsor a gas can exchange to get some of the old spill-prone containers off the street.

Starting at 9 a.m. Saturday, the first 100 customers at the Household Hazardous Waste Facility at 801 Stilwell will be able to trade in their old gas can for a new "No Spill" can, recycling coordinator Jo Oliver said Wednesday.

On Wednesday, Oliver demonstrated the No-Spill can for county commissioners. It's equipped with a push-button valve to turn the flow on and off and an automatic-stop feature similar to a service station gas pump, she said.

The Kansas Lottery Commission will meet May 19 and 20 in Topeka to hear presentations from all 12 developers seeking to become casino managers under the state's new gambling law.

Presentations of the proposals for Sumner, Ford and Wyandotte counties will be held from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. May 19, and 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. May 20.

The meetings at the Capitol Plaza Hotel, 1717 S.W. Topeka Blvd., are open to the public. A detailed schedule wasn't available Wednesday.

The deadline for the lottery commission to negotiate contracts with developers in Sumner, Ford and Wyandotte counties is May 27. The deadline for the southeast gaming zone, where there is only one applicant, is May 5.

The Lottery will sign contracts with all qualified developers and forward the contracts to a seven-member review board, which will select one developer for each of the four zones.

• Powerball: No one matched all five winning numbers of 11-16-18-21-51and the Powerball 16 in Wednesday's drawing. The Power Play was 10. The estimated prize in tonight's drawing is $105 million.

• Hot Lotto: No one matched all five winning numbers of 19-20-32-36-38 and the Hot ball 3 in Wednesday's drawing. The estimated prize in tonight's drawing is $1.74 million.

• Super Kansas Cash: No one matched all five winning numbers of 5-12-17-24-32 and the Super Cashball 24 Wednesday's drawing. The estimated prize in tonight's drawing is $325,000.

• Pick 3winning numbers: 3-1-6

• 2by2 winning numbers:

• Powerball: No one matched all five winning numbers of 11-16-18-21-51and the Powerball 16 in Wednesday's drawing. The Power Play was 10. The estimated prize in Saturday's drawing is $105 million.

• Hot Lotto: No one matched all five winning numbers of 19-20-32-36-38 and the Hot ball 3 in Wednesday's drawing. The estimated prize in Saturday's drawing is $1.74 million.

• Super Kansas Cash: No one matched all five winning numbers of 5-12-17-24-32 and the Super Cashball 24 Wednesday's drawing. The estimated prize in Saturday's drawing is $325,000.

• Pick 3 winning numbers:9-5-5

• 2by2 winning numbers:

Japan has asked the maker of Crocs to look into changing the design of its footwear after complaints that children wearing the colorful plastic clogs have had their feet injured on escalators.

The Trade Ministry said Friday that it issued the warning after receiving 65 complaints about Crocs and similar products getting stuck in escalators between June and November last year. Most of the cases involved small children.

Similar complaints have come from the United States, too. Crocs is based in Niwot, about 30 miles north of Denver.

The Washington Metro -- one of the nation's largest transit systems -- has even posted ads warning about such shoes on its moving stairways. The ads feature a photo of a crocodile, which is the company logo, though the signs don't mention Crocs by name.

There are reports from Singapore to Virginia of instances in which children have had toenails, and even toes, torn off while wearing Crocs-style shoes on escalators.

This is the tale of the pope and the beaver.

For the 4-foot-long, 40-pound critter, the timing of Pope Benedict's appearance at the United Nations was crucial: The beaver, laboring in the East River, was rescued by a New York Police Department scuba team deployed to patrol the waters near the home of the world's governing body.

Shortly after the pope left the building, divers in the river noticed an unidentified dark object in the East River waters, said commanding officer Lt. John Harkins.

The divers found the beaver on its side, struggling to swim and "breathing heavy," Harkins said. Divers put a life preserver around the beaver, brought it back to a police boat and placed it in a plastic bucket.

Once ashore, the rodent was taken to an animal hospital.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- The son of the Dutch defense chief was killed Friday by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, and the Taliban claimed they deliberately made the young lieutenant a high-profile target.

While the Dutch quickly cast doubt on the Taliban claim, the death underscores the danger high-profile soldiers can face and illustrates a grim reality for families, famous and not, who choose the military life.

Lt. Dennis van Uhm, 23, was one of two Dutch soldiers killed in the explosion seven miles northwest of Camp Holland, the Dutch military base in the restive southern province of Uruzgan.

Van Uhm's father, Gen. Peter van Uhm, was installed only Thursday as the Netherlands' defense chief.

Typhoon in China strands thousands

Making a plea for human rights, Pope Benedict XVI warned diplomats at the United Nations on Friday that international cooperation needed to solve urgent problems is "in crisis" because decisions rest in the hands of a few powerful nations.

The U.N. speech highlighted another active day on Benedict's first papal trip to the United States, one that also included the first visit by the leader of the Roman Catholic Church to an American synagogue.

In his U.N. address, Benedict said that respect for human rights, not violence, was the key to solving many of the world's problems.

While he didn't identify the countries that have a stranglehold on global power, the German pope -- just the third pontiff to address the U.N. General Assembly -- addressed long-standing Vatican concerns about the struggle to achieve world peace and the development of the poorest regions.

On the one hand, he said, collective action by the international community is needed to solve the planet's greatest challenges.

It turns out the golden years really are golden.

Eye-opening new research finds the happiest Americans are the oldest, and older adults are more socially active than the stereotype of the lonely senior suggests. The two go hand-in-hand: Being social can help keep away the blues.

"The good news is that with age comes happiness," said study author Yang Yang, a University of Chicago sociologist. "Life gets better in one's perception as one ages."

A certain amount of distress in old age is inevitable, including aches and pains and the deaths of loved ones and friends. But older people generally have learned to be more content with what they have than younger adults, Yang said.

This is partly because older people have learned to lower their expectations and accept their achievements, said Duke University aging expert Linda George. An older person may realize, "it's fine that I was a schoolteacher and not a Nobel prize winner."

Airport screeners are about to get new security training designed to help them think creatively about possible threats -- including those they have never thought of.

"We have to prepare for attacks that don't fit our procedures," such as the traveler who stuffed a block of cheese wrapped in wire into a checked bag, Transportation Security Administration Kip Hawley told reporters Friday.

The screeners still will be vigilant for someone trying to bring a gun on a plane, but they also want to look for more offbeat threats, he said.

Part of the preparation is a new 12-hour training course that all 43,000 screeners across the country will go through. Currently screeners get four hours of retraining each week. But this new course includes briefings from field intelligence officials who will discuss the latest threats and trends. For example, in a 2006 London airliner plot, the operatives planned to put pornographic magazines in their carry-on luggage to distract the screeners.

Screeners will also learn about new explosive devices and will be shown how they look on the screen of an X-ray machine, as well as what they look like up close.

Sen. John McCain released his 2006 and 2007 income tax returns Friday, showing his total taxable income was $474,104 but disclosing little of his wife's sizable wealth.

McCain, of Arizona, and his wife, Cindy McCain, file separate returns. The senator's campaign said it would not release her return in "the interest of protecting the privacy" of their children.

Cindy McCain, who has a significant stake in a beer distributorship in Phoenix that her late father helped found, is far wealthier than her husband.

The company is valued at $100 million or more, published estimates say.

Polygamists' children to have DNA testing

CD shops sell love songs again. Some women emerge from their homes without veils, and alcohol sellers are coming out of hiding in the southern city of Basra -- where religious vigilantes have long enforced strict Islamic codes.

The changes in recent weeks mark a surprising show of government sway -- at least for now -- after an Iraqi-led military crackdown that was plagued by desertions, ragged planning and ended in a virtual stalemate with Shiite militias in Iraq's second-largest city.

But it's unclear whether the new tone in parts of Basra represents a permanent tilt toward the Iraqi government or just a temporary retreat of Shiite hard-liners challenging the Baghdad leadership.

During five days of heavy fighting last month, Iraqi troops struggled against militiamen, particularly the Mahdi Army loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The military was plagued by desertions and poor organization -- and, in the end, the offensive was inconclusive with Iran helping mediate a truce.

Still, the crackdown appears to have succeeded in giving some sense of government control in Basra.

Pink-slipped teachers wooed by other states

Precious Jackson has two years of teaching under her belt and two Schoolteacher of the Year awards to show for it. She also has a pink slip.

Now Jackson is a prime target for growing school districts across the country hoping to cherry-pick from thousands of California teachers who have been warned they could be laid off because of state budget woes.

"Your future is in our classroom," the Fort Worth school district says on a San Diego billboard. It plans to send recruiters to the city next month to dangle $3,000 signing bonuses.

Several Los Angeles-area newspapers are carrying ads for the Clark County, Nev., school district, which hopes to lure teachers to Las Vegas with $2,000 incentives.

At least a couple of times a week, Ernie Kubr gets off the night shift and fires up his computer at his home in Nebraska so that he can watch for illegal immigrants trying to slip across the Arizona desert 1,400 miles away.

Kubr uses his mouse to pan with a video camera across desert trails, and stands ready to report anyone he sees to federal authorities in Arizona. He has spotted people twice since he started doing this in November, and "that makes it all worthwhile," even though none of them got caught.

"Sometimes it can be discouraging, but knowing that I'm attempting to do the federal government's job helps inspire me," said Kubr, who works at a manufacturing business in the Omaha area and belongs to an amateur border-watching group called the TechnoPatriots.

Self-appointed border-watchers are increasingly using remotely operated cameras to help catch people sneaking into the country. The cameras represent a high-tech twist on the usual practice of sitting in lawn chairs or pickups close to the border.

"A lot of folks can't take the time to come down to the border," said TechnoPatriots co-founder Jon Healy, who lives in Arizona. "This gives them an opportunity to not only vent that passion but to have an effect on the outcome, to report to the Border Patrol."

The world has never been more connected, but in some corners, it's developing a real hang-up over the ubiquitous cell phone.

Taking a cue from France's national railway, which offers phone-free "zen zones" on high-speed trains, Austria's second-largest city this week began ordering public transit commuters to keep their phones on silent mode.

The crackdown in the southern city of Graz has triggered a noisy debate between advocates of free speech and people who say they're simply fed up with having to listen to annoying ring tones and intrusive cell phone chatter.

"I know I insulted the cell phone goddess a little," Graz Mayor Siegfried Nagl said.

"But people need to know they don't have the right to be on the telephone permanently and constantly," he told Austrian television. "It's just not healthy to never be able to get any peace and quiet."

A large study offers the strongest evidence yet that a diet the government recommends for lowering blood pressure can save people from heart attack and stroke.

Researchers followed more than 88,000 healthy women for almost 25 years. They examined their food choices and looked at how many had heart attacks and strokes. Those who fared best had eating habits similar to those recommended by the government to stop high blood pressure.

The plan, called the DASH diet, favors fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat milk and plant-based protein over meat.

Women with those eating habits were 24 percent less likely to have a heart attack and 18 percent less likely to have a stroke than women with more typical American diets.

Those are meaningful reductions since these diseases are so common. About two in five U.S. women after age 50 will eventually develop cardiovascular disease, which includes heart attacks and strokes. Women in the study were in their mid-30s to late 50s when the research began in 1980.

After plea negotiations stalled, a federal judge on Friday set a trial date for a former Nebraska teacher accused of fleeing to Mexico with a middle school student.

The case of 26-year-old Kelsey Peterson -- who disappeared with her former student in October after school officials told her they were investigating their relationship -- is scheduled to go to trial July 8.

Her lawyer, James Martin Davis, had hoped to reach a plea deal that would allow her to face state, rather than federal, charges.

Peterson is facing federal charges of crossing the border to have sex with a minor, which carries a minimum sentence of 10 years. Davis argued that's too much time.

"That's totally inappropriate," Davis said after a hearing. "They (prosecutors) want to be judge, jury and executioner."

Farmers and ranchers in Kansas will be financially better off without inexpensive electricity from the planned expansion of a coal-fired power plant, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said Friday.

The plant's owner, Sunflower Electric Power Corp., wants to add two 700-megawatt generators to its existing 360-megawatt station near Holcomb. Kansas Department of Health and Environment Secretary Rod Bremby in October rejected the plant on the grounds that greenhouse-gas emissions from the plant would be a threat to public health.

The plant expansion is needed to prevent electric rate increases, Earl Watkins, Sunflower's president, said in a statement.

Sebelius said the expansion would cost customers over time, because governments are trying to reduce emissions blamed for global warming. President Bush this week proposed cuts in power-plant pollution within 10 to 15 years.

"Right now they say coal is cheap," Sebelius said at a climate-change conference at Yale University. "Well, what happens when you have a carbon tax, or if we do a cap-and-trade program? How much does it cost then?"