From The Associated Press

LAUDERHILL, Fla. – Look, over there. Under that blue tarp in a suburban driveway. That thing that’s the size of a Smart car?

It’s Joel Waul’s rubber band ball.

Waul has spent the last six years carefully wrapping and linking and stretching rubber bands of various sizes into the ball shape. The Guinness Book of World Records declared it the world’s largest rubber band ball in 2008.

On Thursday, Waul will say goodbye to his creation. A team from Ripley’s Believe it or Not will come to his driveway with a crane and haul the 6-foot, 7-inch tall, 9,032-pound behemoth away. The ball will eventually be displayed in a far-off museum yet to be determined, so folks can marvel at Waul’s obsession.

Waul got the idea six years ago, when he saw a Ripley’s television special that showed the then-largest rubber band ball being dropped into the desert from an airplane.

“I just thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen,” said Waul, a 28-year-old who works nights restocking a Gap clothing store.

The idea of setting a world record always appealed to Waul; he recalls that as a 7-year-old in Jamaica he pored over his father’s Guinness Book of World Records.

Creating a ball was easy. He got a few hair bands together. Then some larger bands. The ball grew to the size of a boulder, and his family took notice.

“When it started getting bigger, they knew I was pretty serious,” he said.

The ball eventually got its own Web site. It got too big — and smelly — to keep in the house, so he rolled it outside.

There have been a few casualties: at 400 pounds, it rolled over his hand and sprained it. It busted his big toe. Rubber bands breaking ripped two pairs of cargo pants and broke three pairs of sunglasses.

Eventually, he wrote to companies that manufacture giant rubber bands for physical therapy, and they sent him free shipments.

The ball grew and grew. Neighborhood kids climbed on top of it. Dogs sniffed it.

“That’s his masterpiece,” said his neighbor, 25-year-old Andre Gregg. “I’m just amazed at how he did it.”

Waul and the ball have several followers on their Myspace page, but no one’s been mesmerized by the creation more than Edward Meyer, vice president of exhibits and archives at the Orlando-based Ripley’s.

“We already have the largest string and barbed wire balls,” Meyer said. “This is now my holy trinity, I guess.”

Meyer won’t say how much Ripley’s paid for the ball, which, at 25 feet in diameter, he estimates to be twice as large as the previous record holder.

People like Waul “don’t do it for money,” Meyer said. “They don’t really get rich. They decide they want to do something, and they get possessed. It’s very much Andy Warhol, 15 minutes of fame. It is the desire to be the best at something.”

Now that Waul has set the rubber bands record, he’s focused on the next challenge.

“Human torch,” he says, grinning.

From The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES – For a group of Hollywood-obsessed teens, entertainment news on the Internet offered more than a glimpse into the lives of stars. It helped them break into celebrities’ homes.

The teens tracked the movements of stars such as Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton and broke into their houses, making off with millions of dollars in stolen possessions in a spree that lasted almost a year.

With a few clicks on the Internet, police say, the suspects developed a wish list of designer clothes and jewelry, then raided the homes while celebrities were away.

“They thought it was fun, kind of an adrenaline rush,” Los Angeles police officer Brett Goodkin said. “They would go in and steal the celebrity’s clothes and possessions, things they could never afford on their own.”

Police last week arrested four young women and two men on suspicion of burglarizing 10 homes in the Hollywood Hills. In addition to Lohan and Hilton, other victims included “The Hills” star Audrina Patridge, Orlando Bloom, Megan Fox, Brian Austin Green, Ashley Tisdale and Rachel Bilson.

Police said the teens scoured celebrity blogs and Web sites, looking for valuables, and then used the Internet to find where the stars lived.

After watching a home, they would break into poorly protected properties through doors, windows and, in one case, a doggy door. The burglaries lasted from October 2008 until September.

Items stolen “run the gamut of high-end designer clothing,” Goodkin said. “You could pick a designer, and they would be among what was taken.”

Police displayed an evidence photograph Wednesday depicting approximately $2 million in stolen jewelry that was recovered and returned to Hilton. The thieves snatched dozens of items of flashy, gem-encrusted jewelry, then made off with it in the socialite’s Louis Vuitton bag.

The suspects include 18-year-olds Rachel Lee, Courtney Ames and Alexis Neiers, and Diana Tamayo, 19.

Several of the group graduated two years ago from the “continuation campus” at Indian Hills High School in suburban Agoura Hills, said Donald Zimring, superintendent of the Las Virgenes Unified School District.

Such campuses are for students struggling to attain good grades in regular schools, but Zimring could not comment on their academic records.

Additionally, 18-year-old Nicholas Prugo was arrested last month in the same case on suspicion of breaking into the homes of Lohan and Patridge. A sixth suspect, 27-year-old Ray Lopez Jr., was also arrested.

Police also sought Jonathan Ajar, also 27, for a variety of offenses, including receiving stolen property and possession of a firearm.

Prosecutors have filed felony residential burglary charges against Neiers, Ames, Tamayo and Lopez Jr. They declined to file charges against Lee, pending further investigation, and additional charges will be filed against Prugo, who had already been charged with burglaries at Lohan and Patridge’s homes.

Police recovered three guns and a large amount of drugs as they served search warrants in the case. They did not specify where they searched.

The robberies were driven by “celebrity infatuation and greed,” Goodkin said.

Neiers had been the subject of a reality-TV pilot episode that the Los Angeles Times said was about aspiring actresses.

The cable network E! would not confirm that, but network officials issued a brief statement they “are concerned by recent events, awaiting further details and will be monitoring the situation closely.” The statement said shooting began recently and would continue.

In a short interview on E!’s Web site, Neiers said she was eager to put the matter behind her.

“I just learned my lesson that I need to make some better friends and some better decisions as far as my friends go,” she said.

An attorney representing some of the victims said the crimes highlight the growing risks faced by celebrities in a world of unending media attention. Blair Berk worried this was putting a “bull’s-eye on the forehead of celebrities.”

“You cannot on a weekly basis publish pictures of the back entrance to someone’s house and do stories on their collection of cars and jewelry without increasing that person’s vulnerability to theft and harm,” Berk said. “It’s a celebrity envy thing.

“It’s the new sociopath generation of ‘I really like those Chanel boots.’ Instead of going out and buying them, they just steal them.”

Lee appeared to be the “driving force” behind the burglaries, Goodkin said. Attempts to reach her, Lopez and Ames were unsuccessful. A man who answered the phone at a number registered to Tamayo declined to comment or to say whether she had an attorney.

Court records show Lee and Tamayo were convicted of petty theft earlier this year.

Neiers’ attorney, Jeffrey K. Rubenstein, released a short statement saying his client “was at the wrong place at the wrong time” and is “not the party responsible for the events that led to her arrest.”

Prugo’s attorney, Sean Erenstoft, downplayed his client’s role in the burglaries. He declined to elaborate, but said Prugo was pleased that others had been caught.

Erenstoft said he had not yet reviewed any evidence in the case, which includes video surveillance from some celebrity homes.

Publicists for Lohan and Bloom did not immediately respond to e-mails seeking comment. Patridge’s publicist declined to comment.

Paris Hilton retrieved stolen belongings, including most of her missing jewelry, from police, but did not get everything she lost, her publicist said.

From The Associated Press

John Legend is going to the World Series.

Major League Baseball says the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter will perform the national anthem before Game Two at Yankee Stadium Thursday.

New York natives Jay-Z and Alicia Keys will warm up the audience with their single “Empire State of Mind” before Legend sings.

The league says Thursday’s World Series matchup between the New York Yankees and the defending champion Philadelphia Phillies will be dedicated to “the legacy of Roberto Clemente and the spirit of community service.”

From The Associated Press

TRENTON, N.J. – A Florida man accused of killing his son-in-law in New Jersey is arguing that he was unable to commit the crime because he was too fat. When Edward Ates took the stand in his defense Wednesday to tell jurors he wouldn’t have had the energy needed to climb and descend the staircase where prosecutors say the killer was perched when he shot Paul Duncsak, a 40-year-old pharmaceutical executive, in 2006.

An attorney for Ates claims that in 2006, the 62-year-old who stood 5 feet 8 and tipped the scales at 285 pounds was in such bad physical shape that couldn’t have pulled off the shooting or the fast getaway the killer made.

Ates’ attorney Walter Lesnevich said his client’s weight has caused Ates’ asthma, sleep apnea and other obesity-related ailments.

“You look at Ed and you don’t need to hear it from a doctor,” Lesnevich said.

Houston defense attorney David Berg, author of “The Trial Lawyer: What It Takes To Win,” an analysis of trial tactics and strategies, said that he had never heard of such a defense but that it could work.

“It’s an unusual defense, but it would be a credible defense if the facts really fit in,” Berg said.

“When the battered-wife defense was first used, it was considered abhorrent and bizarre,” Berg said. “Jurors may be open to this in a society that talks about the infirmities that that obesity causes.”

At the time of the killing, Duncsak and Ates’ daughter, Stacey, were involved in a bitter custody dispute after their 2005 divorce.

Prosecutors claim Ates drove from Fort Pierce, Fla., to Duncsak’s $1.1 million home in Ramsey, about 25 miles northwest of Manhattan, in August 2006 and shot him as he came home from work.

Duncsak was talking to his girlfriend on his cell phone when he entered the house and was shot. After hearing a scream from him, followed by a thud, the woman called 911. Police arrived minutes later, but the killer was gone.

Police quickly suspected Ates and found him 24 hours later at his mother’s home in Sibley, La.

According to Lesnevich, the trajectory of the bullets shows that Ates wasn’t physically capable of the shooting.

Duncsak was shot six times as he walked down a hallway. Lesnevich said the shooter first fired from a staircase leading to the basement. That was followed by several shots fired head-on. In order to do that, Lesnevich said, Ates would have had to run up the stairs.

Lesnevich also says it would have been impossible for Ates to clean up all the shell casings and flee the house before police arrived minutes later, let alone to have driven alone 21 hours straight to his mother’s house in Louisiana.

Prosecutors have built their case around cell phone records and computer forensics and have little physical evidence. Still, they say they have a strong case.

During the trial, they have presented evidence to show Ates bought books detailing how to build a gun silencer, did Internet searches on how to pick locks and how to commit the perfect murder.

Duncsak’s mother, Sophia, has said Ates became vengeful toward her son after Paul Duncsak refused to give his father-in-law $250,000 in 2003 to keep Ates’ struggling golf course in Okeechobee, Fla., afloat.

And Ates’ sister testified that she initially told detectives her brother arrived at their mother’s house a day earlier then he did because he asked her to lie.

Ates took the stand Wednesday afternoon and planned to testify about his obesity argument.

While obesity appears to be a rare strategy for a murder trial, the defense was used recently in Ohio by double murderer Richard Cooey, who argued that he was too fat to execute.

He argued that at 5 feet 7 and 267 pounds, his obesity made death by lethal injection inhumane because it would be difficult for prison staff to find suitable veins to deliver the deadly chemicals. There were no such difficulties when he was executed this month.

Possibly hurting Ates’ argument for jurors: He testified Wednesday that he lost 60 pounds while in jail awaiting trial.

“It visually impacts it,” Lesnevich said. “I’m probably the only person in his life that told him not to lose weight.”

From The Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas – A judge on Wednesday dismissed murder charges against two men awaiting retrial in the 1991 slayings of four teens at an Austin yogurt shop, after prosecutors admitted they weren’t ready to take the case to a jury.

Robert Springsteen was sent to death row in 2001 after he was convicted in capital murder slaying of one of the girls. Michael Scott had been convicted in her death previously and sentenced to life in prison.

Both convictions were overturned when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said Springsteen and Scott were unfairly denied the chance to cross-examine each other. They had implicated each other in statements to investigators.

The men were released on personal bond in June after new DNA tests could not match them to the crime scene and revealed the presence of an unknown male.

Judge Mike Lynch had ordered Travis County prosecutors to say Wednesday whether they would be ready to proceed to trial by January.

District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg said the state is still testing the DNA to find a match and admitted prosecutors weren’t ready for a trial. Her office filed the motion for dismissal of all charges, and Lynch approved.

“Make no mistake, this is a difficult decision for me and one I would rather not make,” Lehmberg said after the hearing.

After Lynch ordered the charges dismissed, Springsteen and Scott smiled at each other and silently shook hands. Scott hugged his wife, Jeanine.

“This has been a long time coming,” Scott said. “I’m happy to be here.”

Bob Ayers, the father of 13-year-old victim Amy Ayers, was in the courtroom, but showed no emotion and did not comment to reporters afterward.

The investigation of one of Austin’s most notorious crimes has been bedeviled from the beginning by damage to the crime scene, bungled interviews and prosecution missteps.

Amy Ayers, Eliza Thomas, 17, and sisters Jennifer and Sarah Harbison, ages 17 and 15, were bound, gagged and shot in the head at the “I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt” store where two of the girls worked. The building was then set on fire.

From The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS – Federal officials plan to ban sales of raw oysters harvested from the Gulf of Mexico unless the shellfish are treated to destroy potentially deadly bacteria — a requirement that opponents say could deprive diners of a delicacy cherished for generations.

The plan has also raised concern among oystermen that they could be pushed out of business.

The Gulf region supplies about two-thirds of U.S. oysters, and some people in the $500 million industry argue that the anti-bacterial procedures are too costly. They insist adequate measures are already being taken to battle germs, including increased refrigeration on oyster boats and warnings posted in restaurants.

About 15 people die each year in the United States from raw oysters infected with Vibrio vulnificus, which typically is found in warm coastal waters between April and October. Most of the deaths occur among people with weak immune systems caused by health problems like liver or kidney disease, cancer, diabetes, or AIDS.

“Seldom is the evidence on a food-safety problem and solution so unambiguous,” Michael Taylor, a senior adviser at the Food and Drug Administration, told a shellfish conference in Manchester, N.H., earlier this month in announcing the policy change.

Some oyster sellers say the FDA rule smacks of government meddling. The sales ban would take effect in 2011 for oysters harvested in the Gulf during warm months.

“We have one man who’s 97 years old, and he comes in here every week and gets his oyster fix, no matter what month it is,” said Mark DeFelice, head chef at Pascal’s Manale Restaurant in New Orleans. “There comes a time when we need to be responsible. Government doesn’t need to be involved in this.”

The anti-bacterial process treats oysters with a method similar to pasteurization, using mild heat, freezing temperatures, high pressure and low-dose gamma radiation.

But doing so “kills the taste, the texture,” DeFelice said. “For our local connoisseurs, people who’ve grown up eating oysters all their lives, there’s no comparison” between salty raw oysters and the treated kind.

A Gulf Coast oyster — or better still, a plate of a dozen oysters on the half-shell — is a delicacy savored for its salty, refreshing, slightly slimy taste. Some people add a drop of horseradish, lemon or hot sauce on top for extra zest.

Treated oysters are “not as bright, the texture seems different,” said Donald Link, head chef and owner of the Herbsaint Bar and Restaurant in New Orleans.

“This is an area the government shouldn’t meddle in,” Link said. “What’s next? They’re going to tell us we can’t eat our beef rare?”

Until the 1960s, raw oysters were rarely eaten in the summertime. (The old adage was never eat oysters in the months without an R in them.) But changes in harvest patterns and advances in refrigeration and post-harvest treatment have made the industry a year-round business. About three-fifths of the Gulf’s oysters are harvested during the warm months.

The FDA is promoting a ban because high-risk groups are not heeding warnings about raw oysters, and millions of other people may not know they are vulnerable.

If federal officials require post-harvest treatment, they “will be ruining an industry that has been around for centuries,” said Sal Sunseri, co-owner of P&J Oyster Co., a French Quarter oyster wholesaler.

“We’ve been doing this the same way since the 1920s,” said his brother, Al Sunseri, as shuckers in rubber gloves worked their way through piles of raw oysters destined for oyster bars and restaurants. “We’re located in the French Quarter. We’re not going to get the permits we need to do post-harvest processing. We don’t have the space for it.”

In Plaquemines Parish, the Louisiana “boot” that juts into the Gulf south of New Orleans, 49-year-old oyster harvester Peter Vujnovich Jr. said the FDA was “totally out of its mind.”

Croatian-Americans like him have been harvesting oysters for decades in the area’s brackish bays and lakes. He said the ban added insult to injury after he spent tens of thousands of dollars upgrading his boats to meet recent refrigeration regulations.

The FDA contends treating oysters would not affect the taste and would save lives.

“Oysters that undergo post-harvest processing treatment will rarely pose a problem,” Taylor said, “while those left untreated can have deadly consequences.”

The FDA cited California as the best example. In 2003, California banned untreated Gulf Coast oysters and since then “the number of deaths dropped to zero.” By comparison, between 1991 and 2001, 40 people died in California from the infection.

The rule would not affect oysters harvested outside the Gulf. Oysters are harvested up and down the West and East coasts, but the bacteria is not found in such high concentrations there.

Some in the industry, especially the handful of companies that have invested in high-tech treatment technology, praise the FDA plan.

John Tesvich of AmeriPure Processing Co. in Franklin, La., said the industry has “suffered from all the negative publicity” associated with Vibrio vulnificus. He said his oysters, which are treated in a warm bath, taste as good as any others. “We have thousands and thousands of satisfied customers.”

But most of the oyster industry is worried.

Anita Grove, executive director of the Apalachicola Bay Chamber of Commerce in Florida, said a ban would be crushing. She said oyster harvesters, shuckers, truckers and dealers are “the backbone to our economy. It’s always been that way.”

Avery Bates, vice president of the Organized Seafood Association-Alabama, predicted two-thirds of Alabama’s 50 “mom-and-pop oyster shops” would close, mostly because of the cost of treating oysters.

“We see more people die each year from peanuts, chicken, E. coli, beef,” he said. “It’s like singling out a certain section of the food industry.”

From The Associated Press

TAOS, N.M. – Larry Whitten marched into this northern New Mexico town in late July on a mission: resurrect a failing hotel.

The tough-talking former Marine immediately laid down some new rules. Among them, he forbade the Hispanic workers at the run-down, Southwestern adobe-style hotel from speaking Spanish in his presence (he thought they’d be talking about him), and ordered some to Anglicize their names.

No more Martin (Mahr-TEEN). It was plain-old Martin. No more Marcos. Now it would be Mark.

Whitten’s management style had worked for him as he’s turned around other distressed hotels he bought in recent years across the country.

The 63-year-old Texan, however, wasn’t prepared for what followed.

His rules and his firing of several Hispanic employees angered his employees and many in this liberal enclave of 5,000 residents at the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, where the most alternative of lifestyles can find a home and where Spanish language, culture and traditions have a long and revered history.

“I came into this landmine of Anglos versus Spanish versus Mexicans versus Indians versus everybody up here. I’m just doing what I’ve always done,” he says.

Former workers, their relatives and some town residents picketed across the street from the hotel.

“I do feel he’s a racist, but he’s a racist out of ignorance. He doesn’t know that what he’s doing is wrong,” says protester Juanito Burns Jr., who identified himself as prime minister of an activist group called Los Brown Berets de Nuevo Mexico.

The Virginia-born Whitten had spent 40 years in the hotel business, turning around more than 20 hotels in Texas, Oklahoma, Florida and South Carolina, before moving with his wife to Taos from Abilene, Texas. He had visited Taos before, and liked its beauty. When Whitten saw that the Paragon Inn was up for sale, he jumped at it.

The hotel sits along narrow, two-lane Paseo del Pueblo, where souped-up lowriders radiate a just-waxed gleam in the soft sunshine as they cruise past centuries-old adobe buildings. One recent afternoon, a woman slowly rode her fat-tire bicycle along a cracked sidewalk, oversized purple butterfly wings on her back and a breeze blowing her long, blonde dreadlocks.

The community includes Taos Pueblo, an American Indian dwelling inhabited for over 1,000 years, and an adobe Catholic church made famous in a Georgia O’Keeffe painting.

After he arrived, Whitten met with the employees. He says he immediately noticed that they were hostile to his management style and worried they might start talking about him in Spanish.

“Because of that, I asked the people in my presence to speak only English because I do not understand Spanish,” Whitten says. “I’ve been working 24 years in Texas and we have a lot of Spanish people there. I’ve never had to ask anyone to speak only English in front of me because I’ve never had a reason to.”

Some employees were fired, Whitten says, because they were hostile and insubordinate. He says they called him “a white (N-word).”

Fired hotel manager Kathy Archuleta says the workers initially tried to adjust to his style. “We had already gone through four or five owners before him, so we knew what to expect,” Archuleta says. “I told (the workers) we needed to give him a chance.”

Then Whitten told some employees he was changing their Spanish first names. Whitten says it’s a routine practice at his hotels to change first names of employees who work the front desk phones or deal directly with guests if their names are difficult to understand or pronounce.

“It has nothing to do with racism. I’m not doing it for any reason other than for the satisfaction of my guests, because people calling from all over America don’t know the Spanish accents or the Spanish culture or Spanish anything,” Whitten says.

Martin Gutierrez, another fired employee, says he felt disrespected when he was told to use the unaccented Martin as his name. He says he told Whitten that Spanish was spoken in New Mexico before English. “He told me he didn’t care what I thought because this was his business,” Gutierrez says.

“I don’t have to change my name and language or heritage,” he says. “I’m professional the way I am.”

After the firings, the New Mexico chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, a national civil rights group, sent Whitten a letter, raising concerns about treatment of Hispanic workers. Whitten says he sent them a letter and posted messages on the hotel marquee, alleging that the group referred to him with a racial slur. LULAC denied the charge.

The messages and comments he made in interviews with local media, including referring to townsfolk as “mountain people” and “potheads who escaped society,” further enflamed tensions.

Taos Mayor Darren Cordova says Whitten wasn’t doing anything illegal. But he says Whitten failed to better familiarize himself with the town and its culture before deciding to buy the hotel for $2 million. “Taos is so unique that you would not do anything in Taos that you would do elsewhere,” he says.

Whitten grew subdued as a two-hour interview with The Associated Press progressed. He said he was sorry for the misunderstanding and insisted he has never been against any culture.

“What kind of fool or idiot or poor businessman would I be to orchestrate this whole crazy thing that’s costed me a lot of time, money and aggravation?” Whitten said.

Whitten should have dealt with the situation differently, especially in a majority Hispanic town, said 71-year-old Taos artist Ken O’Neil, while sipping his afternoon coffee on the town’s historic plaza.

“To make demands like he did just seems over the top,” he says. “Nobody won here. It’s not always about winning. Sometimes, it’s about what you learn.”

From The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO – The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge has been closed indefinitely after a rod installed during last month’s emergency repairs snapped, causing a traffic nightmare for the 280,000 motorists who cross the landmark span every day.

Engineers on Wednesday will evaluate the damage caused when the rod and metal brace fell into the 73-year-old bridge’s westbound lanes during Tuesday evening’s rush hour.

At least two vehicles — a car and a small truck — either were struck by or ran into the fallen rod, said California Highway Patrol Officer Peter Van Eckhardt. No injuries were reported.

The California Department of Transportation said Tuesday that it will remain closed indefinitely.

A spokesman for the Bay Area Rapid Transit District, meanwhile, said extra trains would run during the morning commute.

The rod that fell Tuesday was erected last month during an emergency repair job. It was holding in place a saddle-like cap that had been installed over a cracked link discovered over the Labor Day weekend.

When the rod apparently snapped at about 5:30 p.m., it brought down with it a steel patch roughly 3 feet long, authorities said.

“If you look at the totality of the circumstances — you’ve got the 5:30 commute, you have a 5,000-pound piece of steel falling out of the sky. We are so fortunate that no one was injured or killed,” CHP Sgt. Trent Cross told KTVU-TV.

Officers managed to clear the Oakland-bound traffic from the lower deck of the bridge by 8 p.m. but were still clearing cars from the few remaining open lanes of the upper deck an hour later, he said.

The bridge was closed last month over the holiday weekend for long-planned earthquake safety upgrades. When the crack was discovered, state transportation officials initially feared it would prevent them from reopening the span in time for the start of the work week. But the unexpected work only ended up taking a few extra hours.

California Department of Transportation, or Caltrans, officials had nothing to say Tuesday about what might have caused the failure. The department issued a brief statement saying only that “structural engineers and inspectors are onsite to assess the damage and will make a determination as to how long repairs will take.

“At this time, the bridge is closed until further notice,” the statement said.

Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, a civil engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who has spent 20 years studying the Bay Bridge, called the initial crack a “warning sign” of potentially bigger safety issues with the bridge.

“The repair they were doing was really a Band-Aid,” said Astaneh-Asl, who criticized Caltrans at the time for rushing to reopen the bridge.

Astaneh-Asl said the failure of the repair job demonstrates the need for a longer-term solution. The bridge’s age and design make it susceptible to collapse, especially if commercial tractor-trailers are allowed to continue using it, he said.

“I think Caltrans is putting public relations ahead of public safety,” he said.

From The Associated Press

Eric Clapton has pulled out of this week’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert in New York after undergoing gallstone surgery

Kristen Foster, a publicist for the guitarist, said Tuesday that Clapton was doing well and recuperating with his family in England.

The hall says Jeff Beck will replace the 64-year-old guitarist for Friday night’s show at Madison Square Garden.

Clapton was to perform as part of a two-night celebration in honor of the hall’s 25th anniversary. Beck now joins U2, Aretha Franklin and Metallica for the final night.

The Thursday lineup includes Crosby, Stills and Nash; Stevie Wonder; and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. HBO will air the concerts Nov. 29.

Clapton’s Web site says he remains committed to his 2010 concert schedule.

From The Associated Press

Achtung, baby: U2 will play a free concert in Berlin to help the city celebrate 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Music network MTV said the Irish rockers will perform in front of the Brandenburg Gate on Nov. 5 during the MTV Europe Music Awards

The show will be beamed into the awards ceremony at Berlin’s O2 World arena.

U2 manager Paul McGuinness said it would be exciting to be in Berlin, “20 years almost to the day since the wall came down.”

The wall fell Nov. 9, 1989, ending almost 30 years of separation between east and west.

U2′s 1991 album “Achtung Baby” was partly inspired by the band’s stay in the city.

Tickets for the show are available through the http://www.u2.com and http://www.mtvema.com Web sites from 0800 GMT (4 a.m. EDT) Wednesday.