From The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA – Pennsylvania’s governor and Philadelphia’s mayor announced Saturday that the city transit system’s largest union had agreed not to go on strike as contract talks continued hours before the start of Game 3 of the World Series.

Gov. Ed Rendell and Mayor Michael Nutter told reporters told reporters late Saturday afternoon that a 6 p.m. strike deadline would pass with no walkout by the union representing more than 5,000 bus drivers, subway and trolley operators and mechanics of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority.

Rendell said there had been “substantial progress,” and that although no agreement had yet been reached, he hoped one could be concluded quickly.

“We expect a contract very soon,” agreed Willie Brown, president of the Transport Workers Union Local 234.

Nutter said union and transit system negotiators would stay at the table until a new contract is reached, and a walkout was “off the table.”

“The system is up and running,” he said. “Use it, today, tomorrow, the next day and the day after that while we’re in the midst of this negotiation.”

The union — which represents more than 5,000 bus drivers, subway and trolley operators and mechanics — had threatened to strike just after midnight Friday if there was no accord, but agreed to Rendell’s request to keep talking on Saturday. The last contract expired last spring and members voted Oct. 25 to authorize a strike.

The Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees are scheduled to play the third, fourth and fifth games of the Series on Saturday, Sunday and Monday in Philadelphia. Most of the system’s 810,000 riders use buses, subway lines and trolleys to get to work, but SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney said about 8,000 people typically take transit to the baseball stadium for games.

Union workers, who earn an average $52,000 a year, are seeking an annual 4 percent wage hike and want to keep the current 1 percent contribution they make toward the cost of their health care coverage. SEPTA is offering no raises in the first two years and 2 percent raises in the final two years of a four-year contract and wants to raise the health care contribution to 4 percent.

A 2005 SEPTA strike lasted seven days, while a 1998 strike hampered the transit system for 40 days.

From The Associated Press

ATLANTA – The Rev. Bernice King embraced the legacy and leadership of her parents on Friday as she became the first woman to head the civil rights organization co-founded by her father.

The youngest child of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King vowed to be a bridge between the civil rights generation and the hip-hop generation as the eighth president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

“I stand before you as a daughter of the civil rights movement calling forth the daughters and sons of the next generation of social change,” King said Friday at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where her father preached from 1960 until his death in 1968. “I am a King, yet I am mindful that I am not the only one.”

Interim President Byron Clay announced the decision of the board of directors and notified King of the results of the election on Friday.

“She is excited,” Clay told reporters. “I am excited. The nation will be excited.”

King, who becomes the third in her family to serve as SCLC president, said she plans to work closely with The King Center and will reconnect people with her father’s philosophy of nonviolence. She said a key part of the organization’s success going forward will be recruiting and engaging younger members.

“Young people are ready,” King said. “They just need direction. Any movement of change always happens with young people.”

Women will also play a key role, she said.

“It is critical to the success of the next generation of social change to have the full and active commitment and participation of girls and women of all ages,” King said. “After all, as my mother would remind me, a woman’s place is in the struggle. We must be the soul of a nation.”

Chairman Raleigh Trammell of Dayton, Ohio, called King a “dynamite person with a great personality and a great heart.”

Martin Luther King Jr. was the SCLC’s first president, serving from 1957 until his assassination in 1968. His eldest son, Martin Luther King III, was president from 1998 to 2003.

Bernice King inherits an SCLC much changed from the days of her father’s leadership. And she will have to work to rebuild the organization while she heals deep rifts within her own family.

Internal bickering has overshadowed signs of progress for SCLC that included paying off millions in debt and opening a $3 million headquarters in Atlanta. A former state director in Florida accused several national leaders of financial mismanagement and the president of the Los Angeles chapter last fall clashed with leadership over his support for gay marriage in California.

Bernice King and her brother Martin spent much of the past year in a legal battle with their brother, Dexter King, over control of their father’s estate. Earlier this month, the siblings agreed to appoint a temporary custodian to handle the affairs of King, Inc., while the three of them focused on mending their relationship.

“She can hearken back to her father’s legacy, but she’s going to have to redefine it,” said Emory University political science professor Andra Gillespie. “She now, as his child, is going to have to figure out a way to push that legacy forward so we don’t perpetuate a stagnant, chauvinistic civil rights agenda.”

The Rev. Eric Lee, the Los Angeles chapter president, said in a statement Friday that he hopes King will follow her parents’ example with respect to the rights of lesbians, gays and transgender people.

“We know that her mother, Coretta Scott King, was supportive of LGBT equality, and we believe that Dr. King would have been as well,” Lee said. “My hope is that her election is a sign that SCLC is returning to its spirit of equality for all people.”

By a vote of 23 to 15, King defeated Judge Wendell Griffen of Little Rock, Ark, for the position. Griffen was the first black attorney to work for a major Arkansas law firm and is an ordained minister and pastor of New Millennium Church.

The SCLC has roughly 10,000 members and nearly 80 chapters in 17 states from Georgia to California.

From The Associated Press

From the Associated Press by

LONDON – British authorities say the fossilized skull of a giant sea monster has been found off England’s southern coast.

The fossil came from a pliosaur, a ferocious predator that lived in the oceans 150 million years ago.

The skull was discovered in Dorset by a collector and measures 2.4 meters (8 feet) in length. The discovery was announced Tuesday.

Scientists believe the creature would have been about 16 meters (52 feet) long.

David Martill, a paleontologist from the University of Portsmouth, says pliosaurs had short necks and huge, crocodile-like heads with powerful jaws and a set of razor-sharp teeth.

He said they used paddle-like limbs to propel their bodies through the water and were generally carnivores.

The skull will be put on display in a Dorset museum.

From The Associated Press

DALLAS – A 1970s-era Texas law that allows parents to show “harmful material” to their children has come under fire after a prosecutor said he couldn’t file charges against a man accused of forcing his 8- and 9-year-old daughters to watch hardcore online pornography.

Randall County District Attorney James Farren has asked the Texas attorney general’s office to review his decision not to pursue charges in the case, which has prompted at least one lawmaker to vow to change the state’s public indecency law.

“Our hands are tied. It’s not our fault. I have to follow the law,” Farren said Thursday. “The mother of the victims in this case was less than happy with this decision, which I understand. We were less than happy with the statute.”

The law apparently was meant to protect the privacy of parents who wanted to teach children about sex education, but it states clearly that parents can’t be prosecuted for showing “harmful material” to their children.

Farren said police reported the incident to his office after one of the girls told a counselor in June that her father made them watch adults having group sex and various other acts at his home in Amarillo. The parents of the girls, and their 7-year-old sister, are divorced and share custody.

The girls’ mother, Crystal Buckner, wants her ex-husband to be jailed. She said she was stunned to hear from prosecutors and police that nothing can be done.

“I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’ There’s no way. This can’t be right,” said Buckner, a 30-year-old stay-at-home mother.

The Associated Press typically does not publish the names of parents if it could identify children who might have been abused, but Buckner is seeking publicity about the case. She has printed out copies of the penal code, which she hands out to everyone she meets.

“I want people to know about this. I want parents to be mad and say, ‘No!’” she said. “I understand in the ’70s everybody wanted the government to stay out of their homes. I don’t want to stop parents from having that right to teach sex education, but there’s a big difference and there’s a line you should not cross when teaching.”

The case caught the attention of state Sen. Bob Deuell, a Republican from Greenville who said he’s planning to push for a change in the law in the next legislative session in 2011.

The Texas attorney general’s office said Thursday that it would be months before an opinion’s issued and declined further comment.

Farren said he thinks the law is clear and that the attorney general will agree.

“I don’t think that’s what the legislators intended, but it’s the result,” he said. “If our interpretation is wrong, that’d be great. It’s fine, we’d love to go ahead and prosecute.”

Farren noted that the law does not mention intent. According to the Texas penal code passage, “harmful material” such as pornography is considered defensible from prosecution if “the sale, distribution, or exhibition to a minor who was accompanied by a consenting parent, adult, or spouse.”

“It just says it’s a defense. Period,” said Farren, who also hopes the case will force the Legislature to revisit the issue.

As for the girls, they still go to their father’s house once a month, but those visits now must be supervised.

A call placed to the home of the girls’ father, who is not charged with a crime, was not immediately returned Thursday.

From the Associated Press by Binaj Gurubacharya

KATMANDU, Nepal – The world’s tiger population is declining fast despite efforts to save them, and new strategies are urgently needed to keep the species from dying out, international wildlife experts said Tuesday.

“We are assembled here to save tigers that are at the verge of extinction,” Nepal’s secretary of forest and soil conservation, Yuvaraj Bhusal, told a conference of tiger experts from 20 countries, including the 13 where wild tigers are still found.

An estimated 3,500 to 4,000 tigers now roam the world’s forests, down from the more than 100,000 estimated at the beginning of the 20th century. All the remaining tigers are in Asia.

Participants at the conference, which also includes the World Bank, the World Wildlife Fund and other groups, plan to discuss strategies for tiger conservation, as well as challenges such as poaching, the trade of tiger parts and conflicts between tigers and local populations.

In a recent case, a Sumatran tiger died after being caught in a pig snare last week in Indonesia, the country’s news agency, Antara, reported Monday. The report said the tiger died as it was being prepared for surgery Monday. Only about 250 Sumatran tigers remain in the wild.

“Despite our efforts in the last three decades, tigers still face threats of survival. The primary threat is from poaching and habitat loss,” Nepal’s prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal told the conference.

He said extreme poverty has also challenged efforts.

“Global and regional solidarity and corrective measures are more necessary now than ever to face these challenges,” the prime minister said.

Bhusal, the forest secretary, said participants hope to make high-level policy makers in their countries more aware of the animal’s possible extinction.

The 13 countries where wild tigers are still found include Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The conference continues through Friday.

From The Associated Press

MOSCOW – Russia should build a new nuclear-powered spaceship for prospective manned missions to Mars and other planets, the nation’s space chief said Thursday.

Anatoly Perminov first proposed building the ship at a government meeting Wednesday but didn’t explain its purpose. President Dmitry Medvedev backed the project and urged the government to find the money.

In remarks posted Thursday on his agency’s Web site, Perminov said the nuclear spaceship should be used for human flights to Mars and other planets. He said the project is challenging technologically, but could capitalize on the Soviet and Russian experience in the field.

Perminov said the preliminary design could be ready by 2012, and then it would take nine more years and cost 17 billion rubles (about $600 million, or euro400 million) to build the ship.

“The project is aimed at implementing large-scale space exploration programs, including a manned mission to Mars, interplanetary travel, the creation and operation of planetary outposts,” Perminov’s Web statement said.

The ambitious plans contrast with Russia’s slow progress on building a replacement to its mainstay spacecraft — the Soyuz.

Russia is using Soyuz booster rockets and capsules, developed 40 years ago, to send crews to the International Space Station. The development of a replacement rocket and a prospective spaceship with a conventional propellant has dragged on with no end in sight.

Despite its continuing reliance on the old technology, Russia stands to take a greater role in space exploration in the coming years. NASA’s plan to retire its shuttle fleet next year will force the United States and other nations to rely on the Russian spacecraft to ferry their astronauts to and from the International Space Station until NASA’s new manned ship becomes available.

Perminov said the new nuclear-powered ship should have a megawatt-class nuclear reactor, as opposed to small nuclear reactors that powered some Soviet military satellites. The Cold War-era Soviet spy satellites had reactors that produced just a few kilowatts of power and had a life span of about a year.

Igor Lisov, a Moscow-based expert on Russian space program, said the prospective ship would use a nuclear reactor to run an electric rocket engine.

“It will be quite efficient for flight to Mars,” he told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Lisov said Soviet work on a nuclear-powered electric rocket engine dates back to the 1960s when Soviet engineers began developing plans for a manned flight to Mars.

He said Russia’s experience in building nuclear-powered satellites would also help develop the new spaceship. “It will require a significantly more powerful nuclear reactor, but the task is quite realistic,” Lisov said.

Stanley Borowski, a senior engineer at NASA specializing in nuclear rocket engines, said they have many advantages for deep space missions, such as to take astronauts and gear to Mars. In deep space, nuclear rockets are twice as fuel-efficient as conventional rockets, he said.

NASA has used small amounts of plutonium in deep space probes, including those to Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto and heading out of the solar system.

The only planetary mission currently considered by Russia is a plan to send a probe to one of Mars’ twin moons, Phobos. It was set to launch this year, but was delayed.

From The Associated Press

ELDORADO, Texas – A 38-year-old man from a polygamist sect sexually assaulted a teenager less than half his age at the Yearning For Zion Ranch, a prosecutor charged Wednesday to open the first criminal trial since the ranch was raided.

An attorney for defendant Raymond Jessop disputed the allegation, telling jurors there is no evidence Jessop sexually assaulted the girl in Schleicher County. The location is critical, since prosecutors must prove they have the jurisdiction to prosecute the alleged crimes.

Jessop was one of 12 members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints charged after authorities raided the ranch last year and swept 439 children into foster care. The children were later returned to their parents after an appellate court intervened, but documents and DNA seized during the raid resulted in criminal indictments on charges ranging from failure to report child abuse to sexual assault and bigamy.

All the men will be tried separately.

Both sides presented opening statements Wednesday evening in Jessop’s case after 12 jurors — seven men and five women — were culled from a pool of 300, the largest ever called in this tiny county 200 miles northwest of San Antonio.

Assistant Attorney General Eric Nichols said Jessop was 33 when he had sex a 16-year-old girl, who later gave birth to a daughter. Under Texas law, generally, no one under 17 can consent to sex with adult. Nichols did not discuss the relationship between the two in his opening statement, but prosecutors have said in court documents the teen is one of Jessop’s nine wives. Jessop has also been indicted on a bigamy charge that will be tried later.

“You will see evidence that establishes that this offense — the offense of sexual assault of (the teen) — occurred just down the road from this courthouse at the YFZ Ranch,” Nichols told jurors.

Defense attorney Mark Stevens said prosecutors would not be able to show evidence of a crime occurring in Texas, and he urged jurors not to be distracted by the alleged polygamy or the religious beliefs Jessop and the church. Broadcast images of women from the church wearing prairie dresses and distinctive braids were impossible to ignore during the weeklong raid in April 2008.

“We don’t try people because of their hairstyles or their clothes. We don’t try people because of their religious practices,” Stevens said. “We try people based on evidence, facts and proof.”

Testimony in the case is scheduled to begin Thursday. Nichols had previously said the trial would take about two weeks. Prosecutors have prepared to call dozens of witnesses, including law enforcement officials, child welfare workers and church members.

The FLDS is a breakaway sect that is not recognized by the Mormon church. It has historically been based along the Arizona-Utah border, but church members bought a 1,700-acre ranch outside Eldorado about six years ago and began building log cabin-style homes and a four-story limestone temple that is visible from the highway that run’s through the town of about 2,000 people.

Sect Leader Warren Jeffs was arrested in 2006 and convicted as an accomplice to rape in Utah for arranging an underage marriage there. He awaits trial on similar charges in Arizona before he can be tried for sexual assault of a child and bigamy in Texas.

Fearing possible prosecution for underage marriages, Jeffs allegedly advised Jessop not to take the 16 year old to the hospital even though she was struggling for days in child labor. One of Jeffs’ daughters allegedly married Jessop at age 15 and is the focus of the separate bigamy indictment.

The Mormon church, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, renounced polygamy more than a century ago.

From The Associated Press

CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. – Two teenage brothers were home alone in their suburban neighborhood when an argument over loud music spiraled out of control, police said, leaving one brother dead from a knife to the chest and the other accused of killing him.

William Gorzynski, 15, was being held in juvenile custody on suspicion of second-degree murder in the Monday afternoon death of 14-year-old Matthew Gorzynski.

According to police in Coral Springs, about 45 miles north of Miami, Matthew was playing music on a home computer. William was watching television nearby and complained the volume was too loud. He told him to turn it down. Matthew refused. The two yelled at each other, then fought.

Then William went to the kitchen, grabbed a 7-inch knife and stabbed his brother in the upper left chest, Sgt. Joe McHugh said.

William called 911 soon after and told the dispatcher he had just stabbed his brother.

“It’s actually a confession on tape,” McHugh said. “He’s actually describing what occurred. This was definitely not accidental.”

McHugh said the tape won’t be released publicly because it’s considered evidence.

Gorzynski’s attorney, Glenn Roderman, said William is in disbelief.

“I don’t think he even believes it happened,” Roderman told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Roderman did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

“It’s something he can’t even fathom,” Roderman told the newspaper. “This is a very beautiful and wonderful family. They can’t even believe it happened.”

He said they “fought like every other brothers do, but they don’t fight in an unusual way.”

The Florida Department of Children and Families has had “prior involvement” with the family and was reviewing its investigation, but would not comment further, said spokeswoman Elisa Cramer.

According to the police report, officers responded and smelled an “overwhelming odor of marijuana” inside the home. The report said the younger boy was “lying on the floor of the bedroom near a stain of blood that soaked into the carpet.”

The older brother “spontaneously uttered, ‘It was an accident, is he going to be OK?’”

The boy told police “he accidentally stabbed Matthew and later placed the knife back into the knife block.”

The 14-year-old died about an hour later at a nearby hospital.

Prosecutors said no decision has been made on whether the teen will be charged as a juvenile or adult, and no formal charges have been filed yet.

No one answered the door at the family’s single-story home in a tidy, neatly groomed neighborhood on Wednesday. The boys lived there with their other brother, Timothy, 19, and their single father, Thomas.

“Don’t come up on my property,” a teenager yelled from the home’s front yard.

Outside the home, a makeshift memorial formed of stuffed animals, candles and balloons left by neighbors and friends. William and Matthew were typical brothers, they said. They skateboarded together, rode bikes, played in the neighborhood and attended the same nearby high school.

A.J. Wood, 16, left his skateboard deck at the memorial. He wrote on the board: “Ride the sky, Matt. RIP.”

“But it doesn’t mean rest in peace,” he said, crying, tears streaming down his face. “It means ride in peace, because you know, you never rest when you skate.”

A.J.’s younger brother, 12-year-old Ken, stood by his side, sobbing.

“We skateboarded together, just hung out, had a good time,” Ken Wood said, wiping tears from his cheeks. “I don’t understand.”

Neighbor Ann Dauria, 50, said the boys were just like any other teenage brothers and never caused any problems. Their father is an engineer raising his kids on his own, she said.

“It’s like a father has lost two sons now,” Dauria said, her voice cracking. “I fought with my brother, too. But years ago, we fought with our hands. Times have sure changed since I was growing up.”

From The Associated Press

DENVER – Police on a cold case hunt have finally identified a woman whose nude and battered body was found along a Boulder creek 55 years ago. But it’s not over — they want to name the killer.

She was buried under a headstone that read “Jane Doe” and remained anonymous until a DNA test revealed that she was Dorothy Gay Howard of Phoenix, officials announced Wednesday. Howard had been reported missing in March 1954 when she was 18.

The ID was resolved by the Boulder County Sheriff’s Department, Internet research and the persistence of local historian Silvia Pettem. Sheriff Joe Pelle, whose department renewed efforts five years ago to find out who she was, said a relative provided the genetic sample.

Sheriff’s Cmdr. Rick Brough said it was gratifying to finally know who the woman was. But he added “it’s not closed yet;” the department still wants to find Howard’s killer.

“With her identification, a major piece of the puzzle has been added,” said detective Steve Ainsworth, the lead investigator.

Officials say serial killer Harvey Glatman, executed in 1959 in California, might have murdered Howard. Glatman, who confessed to killing three women, had served time in a Colorado state prison for violent assaults on women.

“I’m confident now that we will be able to find the missing links that will tie this all together,” Ainsworth said.

Sheriff’s officials have credited historian Pettem with encouraging them to renew efforts to identify the woman buried in a Boulder cemetery with a gravestone that reads “Jane Doe — April 1954 — Age About 20 Years.”

Pettem became interested in the woman and her story after visiting the cemetery in the 1990s. She wrote the book “Someone’s Daughter, In Search of Justice for Jane Doe.”

“After 55 years, we can put her name on the grave,” Pettem told The Associated Press.

But there’s still the fact that a young woman’s life ended so tragically, Pettem said. “I have almost been grieving for her,” she said.

The mystery that made headlines across Colorado when the woman’s body was found in 1954 was renewed in 2004 after investigators exhumed the body to extract DNA. A sculpture of her head was made using her reconstructed skull.

Howard’s DNA profile was added to the FBI’s national database of missing persons.

For a while, investigators thought Jane Doe was possibly a Denver woman reporting missing in 1954. They learned through an Internet contact earlier this year that the missing woman was alive and living in Australia.

It was another Internet contact that finally led to Howard’s identity. Pettem said Howard’s great-niece had been following the story on Pettem’s Web site and contacted her, saying the mystery woman might be a relative.

“There was something about this young woman, she just sounded right,” Pettem said. “I urged her to contact the sheriff’s office.”

Howard’s younger sister provided DNA, which was a match with Jane Doe. Police said the relatives don’t want their names or location released and want Howard to remain buried in Boulder.

Pettem hopes they don’t change their minds. Boulder residents raised the money in 1954 to buy her a gravestone and again supported efforts to identify her.

“She’s a part of Boulder. I feel like she belongs,” Pettem said.