From the Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO – Two mysteries surround a huge herd of sea lions that were hanging out on a pier in San Francisco Bay: Why did so many show up, and why did so many leave at once?

Just last month, Pier 39 , famous in San Francisco for its sea lions and the throngs of tourists they attract, was groaning under the weight of more than 1,500 of the animals. The record number delighted tourists and baffled experts.

Marine experts suspect the sea lions came and stayed for the food, then left largely for the same reason.

“Most likely, they left chasing a food source,” said Jeff Boehm, executive director of the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, which runs an information center and gift shop at Pier 39. “It’s probably what kept them here in the first place.”

The animals began leaving in droves the day after Thanksgiving, almost as if someone had issued an order. But Boehm said the fact that so many sea lions stayed for so long is even stranger than their disappearance.

“They do move off,” Boehm said, adding that in the fall, older sea lions head to breeding colonies in the Channel Islands , off the coast of Southern California along the Santa Barbara Channel . Younger sea lions, he said, “don’t mind those rules and tend to travel far and wide.”

On Tuesday, 10 sea lions lounged and swam and dove from the docks, spreading themselves out where the animals were stacked three and four deep just a month ago. The bulk of the herd probably followed their favorite foods, sardines and anchovies, Boehm said.

The younger ones still sticking around Pier 39 were enough to satisfy hordes of visitors huddled against the wind to watch them. The sea lions huddled together, dove off the docks, and honked and barked.

“We’re happy with what we see,” said Carmen Fernandez of Miami Beach, Fla ., who was watching the sea lions with her husband Carlos.

Despite the sea lions’ abrupt disappearance, Boehm said the Marine Mammal Center is not concerned that they have departed for good. While more than the usual number have left — usually about 40 remain — it is very unlikely, Boehm said, that they won’t come back. By spring, the herd will probably be back, as usual, he said.

From The Associated Press

WASHINGTON – The Christmas Day attack on a jetliner over Detroit, combined with technological improvements to protect people’s sense of modesty, could lead to dramatically wider use of full-body scanners that can see through travelers’ clothing.

Dutch officials said Wednesday they will immediately begin using the machines at Amsterdam’s airport, where the Nigerian accused of trying to blow up the Northwest Airlines plane began his flight.

And a key European lawmaker also called for greater use of the scanners, which are designed to spot explosives and other non-metallic objects that a metal detector would miss.

In the U.S., the Transportation Security Administration has not said whether it will accelerate its plans to roll out the machines. TSA already operates 40 of them in U.S. airports, has bought an additional 150 and plans to buy 300 more.

That covers only a small slice of the 2,100 security lanes at the nation’s 450 airports. But TSA could find the climate more favorable for an expansion.

At least one congressman who has pushed for restrictions on full-body scanners said he would moderate his stance if the technology could better respect privacy. According to several companies that make full-body scanners, software — rather than human screeners — eventually could be capable of detecting suspicious objects on travelers’ bodies as they pass through the machines.

“This is a solution everyone can live with,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who sponsored a measure that would prohibit the use of whole-body imaging for “primary” screening, in place of metal detectors. The House approved the measure 310-118, and it is pending in the Senate. “The goal should be to be more effective, but less invasive.”

Body scanners that peer through clothing have been available for years, but their introduction has been slowed by objections from privacy advocates such as the American Civil Liberties Union, which has denounced the machines as a “virtual strip search” because they display the body’s contours on a computer screen with great clarity.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the passenger who authorities say concealed explosives in his underwear and tried to ignite them as his plane was coming in for a landing in Detroit, did not go through such a scan at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. The European Parliament voted last year against using such machines.

New software, however, can protect travelers’ privacy by producing a stylized image of the body instead of a more detailed picture.

In announcing the government’s change in policy, Dutch Interior Minister Guusje Ter Horst said full-body scanners probably would have spotted the explosives on Abdulmutallab.

“Our view now is that the use of millimeter wave scanners would certainly have helped detect that he had something on his body, but you can never give 100 percent guarantees,” she said.

Fifteen full-body scanners with privacy-protecting software will be used at the Amsterdam airport to screen passengers boarding flights to the U.S., authorities said.

The 15 scanners will not be enough to handle all such passengers, so some people will need to be patted down. Schiphol is waiting for a government directive on whether to buy more machines, airport spokeswoman Kathelijn Vermeulen said. Full-body scanners can cost between $130,000 and $200,000.

The broader European opposition to such decisions seemed to be fading Wednesday as Peter van Dalen, vice chairman of the European Parliament’s transport committee, said a demonstration of the newer technology showed the scanners do not violate travelers’ privacy. He urged the installation of the equipment across the 27-nation bloc.

TSA wouldn’t comment on whether it plans to adopt something like the software that Amsterdam officials praised.

However, some manufacturers, including Rapiscan Systems and L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., already offer privacy enhancements such as blurred faces or bodily images that look like chalk outlines. TSA just bought 150 machines from Rapiscan, and L-3 makes scanners used in Amsterdam and the U.S.

Under TSA rules in effect in the U.S., images produced by full-body scans are viewed in a location not visible to the public. The security officer assisting the passenger cannot view the image and the officer who sees the image never sees the passenger.

With such measures in place, TSA has been running 40 full-body scanners at 19 U.S. airports with apparently few complaints from the public. Most of the machines are used for secondary screenings of passengers after they pass through a metal detector. But at checkpoints in six airports, they are being used instead of metal detectors: Albuquerque, N.M.; Las Vegas; Miami; San Francisco; Salt Lake City; and Tulsa, Okla.

In Salt Lake, fewer than 1 percent of passengers who were in a security line with the scanner have opted out and asked for a pat-down search instead, according to Dwayne Baird, a TSA spokesman.

In fact, around the country, many passengers have no objections to the machines and consider them less intrusive than a pat-down.

“I’d rather be safe than be embarrassed,” said George Hyde of Birmingham, Ala., who was flying out of Salt Lake with his wife on Wednesday. “We’re very modest people, but we’d be willing to go through that for security.”

“Anything to avoid a bomb — anything,” said Ellen Massar, said at the Miami airport after arriving from Amsterdam. “If they would ask me to undress totally” — and other passengers had to do so as well — “I would do it.”

Her husband, Willem Massar, added: “It’s the world we live in. Hopefully it gets better.”

From The Associated Press

DENVER – A Colorado woman says a Christmas miracle brought her and her newborn son back from the brink of death after her heart stopped beating during childbirth and the baby was delivered showing no signs of life.

“I got a second chance in life,” Tracy Hermanstorfer said.

Hermanstorfer, 33, was being prepped for childbirth at Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs Thursday morning. Her 37-year-old husband was by her side when she began to feel sleepy and lay back in her bed.

“She literally stopped breathing and her heart stopped,” her husband, Mike, told The Associated Press. Pandemonium erupted as doctors and nurses tried to revive her with chest compressions and a breathing tube, but nothing worked.

“I was holding her hand when we realized she was gone,” Mike Hermanstorfer said. “My entire life just rolled out.”

Doctors told him, “We’re going to take your son out now. We have been unable to revive her and we’re going to take your son out,” he recalled.

After the Cesarean section, some of the team rushed his wife to the operating room while the others attended to Coltyn. They handed him to Mike Hermanstorfer, who said the baby was “absolutely lifeless.”

“My legs went out from underneath me,” Hermanstorfer said. “I had everything in the world taken from me, and in an hour and a half I had everything given to me.”

The doctors went to work on Coltyn as Hermanstorfer held him, and soon he began to breath.

“His life began in my hands,” Hermanstorfer said. “That’s a feeling like none other. Life actually began in the palm of my hands.”

Stephanie Martin, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at the hospital, said Tracy Hermanstorfer’s pulse returned even before she was wheeled out of the room and into surgery. She estimates Hermanstorfer had no heartbeat for about four minutes.

“She had no signs of life. No heartbeat, no blood pressure, she wasn’t breathing,” said Martin, who had rushed to Hermanstorfer’s room to help. “The baby was, it was basically limp, with a very slow heart rate.”

After their stunning recovery, both mother and the baby, named Coltyn, appear healthy with no signs of problems, Martin said.

She said she cannot explain the mother’s cardiac arrest or the recovery.

“We did a thorough evaluation and can’t find anything that explains why this happened,” she said.

Mike Hermanstorfer credits “the hand of God.”

“We are both believers … but this right here, even a nonbeliever — you explain to me how this happened. There is no other explanation,” he said.

Asked about divine intervention, Martin said, “Wherever I can get the help, I’ll take it.”

From The Associated Press

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – Threats on Facebook, name-calling, security guard escorts — tempers are running high around schools these days in this normally sedate enclave of ostentatious wealth.

The reason: The Beverly Hills school board is preparing to boot out 10 percent of its students as it ends a decades-old practice of allowing out-of-district pupils to attend city schools on “opportunity permits.”

The move has upset many so-called permit parents — mostly middle-class families living in the tonier areas of Los Angeles who are loath to send their children to the beleaguered Los Angeles Unified School District, where more than a quarter of high-schoolers drop out.

“Every family on permit is outraged,” said Simy Levy, a Los Angeles resident whose two daughters attend school in Beverly Hills. “It’s incredibly unfair.”

The plan, which is expected to get final board approval next month, comes as Beverly Hills Unified School District switches to a budget plan financed directly by the city’s well-to-do tax base instead of with state money based on enrollment.

The change results from steep cuts in state education funds that has left several affluent communities across the nation paying more school taxes to the state than they receive.

Beverly Hills is the latest to consider the self-financing model, in which the district would keep its school taxes and forgo the $6,239 the state sends for each nonresident student.

Without the financial incentive of enrolling outsiders, district officials are concerned their taxpayers would be subsidizing nonresidents’ education.

“What is wrong with me saying, ‘We have to save our resources for residents?’” said Beverly Hills school board Vice President Lisa Korbatov. “Our police do not respond to neighboring cities if someone is mugged or assaulted.”

As education dollars dry up, districts across the nation are taking a closer look at nonresident students. In Tonganoxie, Kan., school officials are mulling charging outsiders tuition if state law allows them to do so. Many other districts — including ones in Broward County, Fla., and San Felipe Del Rio in Texas — are aggressively weeding out illegally enrolled outsiders.

The Irvine School District in Orange County, Calif., is in the same situation as Beverly Hills and ended out-of-district enrollment earlier this year.

“It’s a reflection of the decisions districts have to make of economic hard times,” said Dan Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators. “It’s just a major issue across the country.”

Beverly Hills would end outside enrollment next school year. The plan would affect 484 children, most of whom would either have to attend private school or a Los Angeles public school if ousted from the 4,891-pupil district.

They would leave behind schools that have won state and federal recognition for academic excellence. The Beverly Hills district also boasts a rich menu of extracurricular activities ranging from madrigal singers to water polo. Facilities include the renown “swim gym” — an indoor basketball court that retracts to reveal a swimming pool underneath.

Permit parents say their children should at least be allowed to finish their education at Beverly Hills to avoid the instability of disrupting long-term friendships and academic continuity.

“They’re saying, ‘Hey guys, looks like we don’t need you any more for the money. Here’s the door’,” said Steven Wasserman, a permit parent of two children. “My wife is in tears almost nightly over this.”

Both sides have traded barbed rhetoric — nonresidents have been accused of being ingrate freeloaders, while residents have been labeled elitist snobs.

Facebook pages have sprung up on both sides, with police investigating one posting that called for “machine gun machetes” to be used against those who favor ending permits. Disciplinary action against the 12-year-old boy who posted the statement was referred to school administrators, said Sgt. Lincoln Hoshino.

Board meetings have turned unruly with accusations that members were acting like “Hitler.” Korbatov had a security guard escort her to her car after a recent session.

For the next meeting, scheduled for Jan. 12, police are sending officers to stand by.

Board member Myra Lurie, the most vocal member opposing the new policy, said it’s unfair to kick out the students, many of whom have been in Beverly Hills schools for years.

“They’re part of the fabric of the system,” she said. “The human consequences are more important to me than the financial consequences.”

She said a cost analysis showed that the district would save seven teaching positions with the enrollment reduction, saving about 1 percent of its projected $50.2 million budget for next year.

The board has compromised to let seventh-grade permit students finish middle school, and 10th- and 11th-graders graduate high school. The district will also continue permits for 291 children, including low-income minority high schoolers, children whose parents work for the city or schools, and students whose grandparents reside in the city and have an alumni parent.

Parents have the option of appealing a rejection to the Los Angeles County Office of Education. Wasserman said he’s already contacted the county office and is lobbying state legislators and officials.

Families can also move into Beverly Hills, but that tactic is a challenge to some parents.

Levy said she’s been trying to sell her house for a year, but property values have dropped so much, her mortgage now equals the home’s worth. She and her husband are now considering renting out their house and renting an apartment in Beverly Hills.

“That’s how bad I want my kids to stay in the Beverly Hills school district,” Levy said. “I would never move them.”

From the Associated Press

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – Some 125 pilot whales died in New Zealand after stranding on beaches over the weekend — but vacationers and conservation workers managed to coax 43 others back out to sea.

Rescuers monitored the survivors as they swam away from Colville Beach on North Island’s Coromandel peninsula , and by Monday morning they were reported well out to sea.

Department of Conservation workers and hundreds of volunteers helped re-float the 43 whales at high tide. The volunteers covered the stranded mammals in sheets and kept them wet through the day.

“Some 63 pilot whales stranded … but it looks pretty good, we’ve got 43 live ones,” Department of Conservation ranger Steve Bolten said as the pod swam out to sea.

Bolten said one of the whales may have been sick, or their sonar may have led them into the shallow harbor and they couldn’t find their way out again.

Meanwhile on South Island , 105 long-finned pilot whales that stranded died Saturday, conservation officials said Monday.

Golden Bay biodiversity program manager Hans Stoffregen said they were discovered by a tourist plane pilot and only 30 were alive when conservation workers arrived.

“They were in bad shape. By the time we got there two-thirds of them had already died. We had to euthanize the rest,” he said.

The whales had been out of the water for a long time.

“It has been quite hot and they were very distressed. You could see the pain and suffering in their eyes,” he was quoted telling the Southland Times newspaper

Because the site is part of a nature reserve , the 105 whale carcasses were left to decompose where they stranded, Stoffregen said.

Large numbers of whales become stranded on New Zealand’s beaches each summer as they pass by on their way to breeding grounds from Antarctic waters. Scientists so far have been unable to explain why whales become stranded.

From the Associated Press

LAS VEGAS – A two-month capture of about 2,500 wild horses from public and private lands in northern Nevada began Monday amid protests that the roundups are unnecessary and inhumane.

Federal officials said the roundup is needed because the 850 square miles of land is overpopulated and could become unlivable to wildlife and livestock within four years.

Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman JoLynn Worley said the agency began gathering horses Monday in the eastern portion of the Black Rock Range , a stretch of mountains more than 100 miles north of Reno, Nev.

A contractor was using two helicopters under BLM supervision to move the horses to corrals, Worley said. The animals were then being trucked to Fallon, Nev., for immunizations and veterinary care, she said.

Worley said officials won’t know how many horses were captured on Monday until early Tuesday. She said the agency would likely be in the range for one week to 10 days — with a goal of capturing 250 mustangs — before moving on to the next of five areas.

Long-term plans call for the mustangs to be placed for adoption or sent to holding facilities in the Midwest . The agency said a facility in Reno was full of adoptable horses, making it unclear when the animals gathered in the latest capture could be put up for adoption.

Horse defenders say the use of helicopters to drive horses to corrals is inhumane and risks their injury and death. Opponents also contend winter roundups expose horses to the risk of respiratory illness.

Program Director Suzanne Roy of In Defense of Animals said the group questions the timing of the roundup and methods that prevent public monitoring of the roundup.

“It just all smells bad,” she said. The California-based group has had trouble getting White House and other federal officials to work through their complaints during the holidays, she added.

About 30 protesters gathered Sunday at the entrance to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area west of Las Vegas , waving down motorists and holding placards.

The group also planned to demonstrate Wednesday outside the San Francisco office of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein , D-Calif., who protesters hope will sympathize with their calls for a moratorium on wild horse roundups. Other protests were being planned for Wednesday in Chicago and Denver.

Worley said the agency planned to take reporters near the corralling sites on Wednesday and was working through details for public viewing areas as the roundup moves to different areas.

The roundup was to include horses from five federally managed areas in the Calico Mountains complex.

A September count showed more than 3,040 wild horses were living in the area, about three times the land’s capacity, federal officials said.

Without the roundup, the horse population in the area would grow by 20 percent to 27 percent annually, passing 6,000 mustangs within four years, according to BLM. At that point, wildlife and livestock wouldn’t have enough water or forage.

The roundup is part of the Bureau of Land Management ’s overall strategy to remove thousands of mustangs from public lands across the West to protect wild horse herds and the rangelands that support them. The bureau estimates about half of the nearly 37,000 wild mustangs live in Nevada , with others concentrated in Arizona, California, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming .

From The Associated Press

ASPEN, Colo. – A woman who identified herself as the wife of actor Charlie Sheen said in a 911 call to Aspen police that Sheen threatened her with a knife.

Police released the audio of the call on Monday, three days after Sheen was arrested on suspicion of menacing, second-degree assault and criminal mischief.

Authorities haven’t identified the alleged victim, but the woman on the 911 call says her name is Brooke and that her husband is Charlie Sheen. Sheen is married to Brooke Mueller Sheen.

The woman can be heard weeping and sometimes her words are inaudible.

An ambulance was sent to the house but police say no one was taken to the hospital.

The 44-year-old Charlie Sheen is free on $8,500 bond. His lawyer didn’t immediately return calls on Monday.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

ASPEN, Colo. (AP) — Prosecutors say they probably won’t decide until February whether to file charges against actor Charlie Sheen in an alleged domestic violence case in Aspen.

Sheen was arrested Christmas Day on suspicion of menacing, second-degree assault and criminal mischief. Authorities haven’t identified the alleged victim.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Arnold Mordkin said Monday the menacing charge is the most serious, usually carrying a sentence of two to eight years in prison and a fine of $2,000 to $500,000.

Mordkin says Sheen’s next court appearance is Feb. 8, and no decision on whether to prosecute him is expected until shortly before that.

The 44-year-old star of “Two and a Half Men” is free on $8,500 bond. His lawyer didn’t immediately return a call Monday.

MICHAEL MAROT, AP Sports Writer

INDIANAPOLIS (AP)—Little did Rex Ryan know that when he joked about wanting the Indianapolis Colts to rest their starters for this game, that he’d get his wish.

With Peyton Manning(notes) and a handful of other key players standing on the sideline for most of the second half, the New York Jets made their coach’s Christmas wish come true. They ended the Colts’ pursuit of perfection and their NFL-record 23-game winning streak with a 29-15 victory Sunday.

Fans booed lustily, but Manning defended coach Jim Caldwell’s game plan.

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Indianapolis Colts quarterback…

“Until any player in here is the head coach, you follow orders and you follow them with all of your heart,” he said. “That’s what we’ve done as players. We follow orders. Our orders were not to give up a turnover, not to give up a kick return for a touchdown. There’s not many games, under any circumstances, that you win when you have turnovers and give up a kick return for a touchdown.”

The victory was more significant to the Jets (8-7), who took control of their playoff destiny with the victory, and would make the postseason for the first time since 2006 with a win next week at home against AFC North champion Cincinnati.

But for the Colts, it marked the end to a quest they had insisted was not a priority.

Only one other team—the 2007 New England Patriots—had gone 15-0 in the regular season. Only two other teams, the Patriots and 1972 Miami Dolphins had ever gone into the playoffs with a perfect record.

Don Shula’s Dolphins are still the only NFL team to go an entire season undefeated, and he congratulated the Colts on their attempt at a perfect season.

Manning was 14 of 21 for 192 yards, playing long enough to join Brett Favre(notes), Dan Marino and John Elway as the only members of the 50,000-yard club.

Caldwell, players and team president Bill Polian, however, said perfection was never the goal; winning the Super Bowl was. And on Sunday, they showed exactly what they meant.

The first-year coach pulled Manning & Co. with a 15-10 lead and 5:36 left in the third quarter.

Stunned fans didn’t react immediately, but when Curtis Painter(notes), Manning’s replacement, returned to the field for his second series, the boos began. They grew louder when Painter was hit by linebacker Calvin Pace(notes) and lost the ball, with Marques Douglas(notes) recovering and scoring. A 2-point conversion pass from Mark Sanchez(notes) to Dustin Keller(notes) made it 18-15 and put the Colts hopes in jeopardy.

“Indianapolis earned the right to do whatever they want,” Ryan said. “That’s a heck of a football team. We were just going to line up and play, one way or the other. Whoever was in a Colts uniform was who we were going to play against.”

The Jets sealed it with two fourth-quarter scores—Jay Feely’s(notes) 43-yard field goal and Thomas Jones’(notes) 1-yard TD run—and afterward, the fans who stuck around booed loudly again as the players shook hands.

It was an odd response for a team that wrapped up home-field advantage in the playoffs, won more games in this decade than any team in any decade (115), broke the Patriots’ previous record for longest winning streak (21) and had won a franchise-record 13 straight home games.

“I don’t blame them a bit, man,” three-time Pro Bowl center Jeff Saturday(notes) said. “I probably would have booed, too. I don’t blame them. They pay to come see us win games, and we didn’t get it done.”

New York took advantage of the opportunity.

The Colts’ downfall began when Brad Smith(notes) fielded Pat McAfee’s(notes) kick to start the second half 6 yards into the end zone, ran it out, found a seam along the right side and raced down the sidelines. He even managed to stay in bounds after getting hit at about the Colts 20, going 106 yards to give the Jets a 10-9 lead.

It was the longest return in Jets history and tied for the second-longest in NFL history with three others. Only Ellis Hobbs’(notes) 108-yard kickoff return against the Jets in 2007 was longer.

But the Colts came right back. They moved 81 yards, the last coming when Donald Brown(notes) bounced off two Jets defenders and scooted into the end zone to make it 15-10 with 10:13 left in the third quarter. Brown’s conversion run failed.

That was it for Manning, Reggie Wayne(notes), Dallas Clark(notes) and Joseph Addai(notes)—and the Colts’ streak.

“Football logic has to come into play, and that logic is it makes no sense to have guys out there with the potential for injuries,” Polian said. “We played for 16 weeks, sharp as any team in football. The good thing is that none of this mattered in the standings.”

NOTES: Colts owner Jim Irsay honored longtime offensive line coach Howard Mudd before the game. Mudd retired briefly this spring, then returned during the summer and said this would be his final season. … Clark caught four passes for 57 yards to go over 1,000 yards for the season. … Jones ran 23 times for 105 yards, putting him within 12 yards of his career high. … Sanchez was 12 of 19 for 106 yards, but threw no interceptions.

From The Associated Press

From The Associated Press

NEW YORK – Jon Gosselin’s apartment was ransacked by someone who slashed furniture, stole his TV and left a note pinned to his dresser with a butcher knife while he visited his children for Christmas, his lawyer said Sunday.

The reality show star was “devastated” by the destruction he found when he returned Saturday from Pennsylvania, attorney Mark Jay Heller said in a statement.

Gosselin’s clothes, bed and other furniture were cut up, and a family-heirloom vase was shattered, Heller said. His TV, other electronics and his dishes were taken by a “very troubled and sick perpetrator,” Heller said.

He wouldn’t disclose who signed the note or what it said, adding that police were examining it. Police declined to comment.

The burglary marks the latest real-life drama for the 32-year-old Gosselin, who was half of the couple who rose to fame as the prolific parents of TLC’s “Jon & Kate Plus 8” before splitting up this year.

Viewers watched their 10-year marriage disintegrate amid allegations that both had been unfaithful, which they denied. The breakup itself became an entertainment event, announced in an episode watched by more than 10 million people.

They initially planned to go on with the show, but it foundered on scandals, bickering and legal disputes. The last episode aired Nov. 23.

The couple officially divorced Dec. 18, with 34-year-old Kate Gosselin keeping the family home in eastern Pennsylvania and continuing as the primary caretaker of their 9-year-old twins and 5-year-old sextuplets.