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AP - Police have arrested the mother and two cousins of a pregnant 16-year-old who are accused of forcing the teen to drink turpentine in an attempt to induce an abortion.

Tue Sep 26, 7:31 AM ET LONDON (Reuters) - Jack Neal briefly became the proud owner of a pink convertible car after he managed to buy it for 9,000 pounds ($17,000) on the Internet despite being only three years old. ADVERTISEMENT Jack's mother told the BBC she had left her password for the eBay auction site in her computer and her son used the "buy it now" option to complete the purchase. "Jack's a whizz on the PC and just pressed all the right buttons," Rachel Neal said. The seller of the second-hand car, a dealer from Worcestershire, central England, was amused by the bid and agreed not to force the sale through. "Luckily he saw the funny side and said he would re-advertise," Neal said.

Tue Sep 26, 7:31 AM ET SYDNEY (Reuters) - A plucky Australian schoolboy who asked a former Miss Universe to his school dance, only to be rebuffed, has finally had his dream date over lunch. ADVERTISEMENT Daniel Dibley, 17, needed a partner for the school dance in the Australian country town of Bathurst, west of Sydney, and he decided to aim high. He wrote to Australia's best-known beauty queen, Jennifer Hawkins, to ask her to the dance, and was stunned when the 2004 Miss Universe accepted. But in a decision that would break a schoolboy's heart, Hawkins later pulled out of the date because the overwhelming publicity had overshadowed plans for the end-of-year dance, which is for students in their final year of high school. Instead, the Seven television network said Hawkins visited Dibley's Bathurst High School on Tuesday for a private lunch date with Daniel, and to speak to the school assembly, where she apologized for all the fuss. "I didn't want you guys to think I didn't want to come to Bathurst, or I didn't want come to the formal (dance)," Hawkins, now a television presenter, told the school assembly. "I did. It just became too big. I just wanted a low-key thing."

Tue Sep 26, 5:58 AM ET PARIS (Reuters) - A key Renault executive indicated in quotes cited by newspapers on Tuesday that U.S. carmaker General Motors (NYSE:GM - news) did not share the same sense of urgency as do Renault (RENA.PA) and Nissan (7201.T) to fight rival Toyota. The Wall Street Journal's online edition quoted Patrick Pelata, head of Renault's product and strategic planning, as saying that GM needed to confront the global expansion drive of Toyota Motor Corp. (7203.T). GM and Renault and Nissan have given small teams of executives until October 15 to study the possible merits of a three-way alliance, following up on a suggestion by major GM investor Kirk Kerkorian. Pelata said he had warned GM Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer Frederick Henderson that if GM delayed solving its performance issues, "it is just going to get worse. "Their competitor is Toyota," the Journal quoted Pelata as saying. Toyota has announced plans to sell 9.8 million vehicles globally by 2010, surpassing GM to be the world's top automaker in terms of vehicles sold, the Journal said. A spokeswoman for Renault confirmed that Pelata had talked to a group of U.S. journalists as part of a "Renault Discovery Tour" for reporters new to covering the French car group. "I cannot deny that he made these remarks," she said. The Washington Post quoted Pelata as saying "What are they going to do about Toyota? ... What are we going to do, and what is GM going to do? Are we just going to say they're going to be winners?" A spokesman for GM Europe said the company would not comment on the alliance talks until mid-October. GM WARY The New York Times said GM had raised doubts in its talks with Renault and Nissan Motor that an alliance would yield the benefits that Renault and Nissan insist would result. The newspaper reported that Pelata said his side had made a strong case in favor of a deal but that he was not sure GM was convinced. Pelata said members of GM's negotiating team had said they were wary of Renault's and Nissan's claims because of GM's experience in alliances with global auto companies, the newspaper said. The Renault event took place in the week of the Paris Auto Show, which kicks off on Thursday, and before a Paris meeting between GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner and Carlos Ghosn, head of both Renault and Nissan. The companies are not officially commenting on the talks before that date, but Ghosn has made remarks recently that show his enthusiasm to clinch a deal with a North American partner. Media reports emanating from the United States suggest the talks with GM are stalling, while Ford Motor Co (NYSE:F - news) is more willing to sit around the table with Ghosn. Ghosn told Automotive News in an interview published on Monday that the teams working on the alliance study were "all doing a very good job," but the result was not yet known. He declined comment on whether General Motors was ready to accept the kind of sweeping alliance he has in mind but pointed out that companies with a successful track record for alliances were more open to such deals than those with disappointments. Ghosn said he realized a deal faced internal resistance from some people at GM who saw their interests at risk and that the deal had no chance unless it had support from the top of GM. Renault has a 44.4 percent stake in Nissan, and the Japanese firm in turn holds 15 percent in Renault.

Tue Sep 26, 5:38 AM ET DUBAI (Reuters) - Dubai-based Al Arabiya television on Tuesday quoted a Taliban official as saying al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was alive and in good health. ADVERTISEMENT The Arabic channel said its Pakistan bureau had received a call from the unnamed Taliban official a few days after a leaked French secret document said Saudi intelligence believed bin Laden died last month in Pakistan. "The official said bin Laden was alive and that reports that he is ill are not true," said Bakr Atyani, Al Arabiya's Islamabad correspondent. "The Taliban checked with members who are close to al Qaeda that these reports are baseless." Bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri are believed to be hiding in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was last seen in a video statement aired to coincide with the November 2004 U.S. presidential elections. A report in French regional daily L'Est Republicain last week quoted a document from the DGSE foreign intelligence service, saying the Saudi secret services were convinced bin Laden had died of typhoid. Saudi Arabia said on Sunday it had no evidence that bin Laden was dead. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said that as far as he knew the Saudi-born militant was alive. Bin Laden has issued several audio messages in the past two years, the last one in July 2006 in which he vowed al Qaeda would fight the United States anywhere in the world. The United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to flush out al Qaeda and the government of the hard-line Islamic Taliban movement that supported it after the militant network carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

AP - The founder of the company that produces the "Girls Gone Wild" videos of women appearing in sexual situations pleaded guilty Monday to charges of failing to document the ages of young women engaging in sexual acts in the videos.

Reuters - U.S. researchers said on Tuesday they are starting trials of a new vaccine aimed at wiping out childhood ear and sinus infections and many cases of bronchitis in adults.

By Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondent Mon Sep 25, 11:32 PM ET NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said on Monday he went against the advice of aides to write a memoir that could rile neighbors India and Afghanistan and accuses the United States of threatening to bomb his country "back to the Stone Age." ADVERTISEMENT Musharraf's autobiography, "In the Line of Fire," has already drawn denials from President George W. Bush and raised eyebrows in India. But Musharraf said sensitive security matters were the only topics he shied away from. "Most of the people in fact were against my writing this book at this moment, but like a good military leader, I took the decision against the major part of their advice," he told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. "I have been chastised by associates for being forthright and overly candid, and this is reflected, I think, even in my writing style," he said at the launch of his 335-page memoir. Musharraf's book recounts how he decided it would have been suicidal for Pakistan to go to war against the United States after being threatened by Washington a day after al Qaeda's strikes on September 11. With the United States demanding Pakistan's help to launch attacks on al Qaeda and its Taliban hosts in Afghanistan, Musharraf recalled how the then U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell had telephoned him with an ultimatum: "You are either with us or against us." He also wrote that Powell's deputy, Richard Armitage, warned Lieutenant-General Mehmood Ahmad, the director-general of the Inter-Services Intelligence, that if Pakistan chose the terrorists' side "then we should be prepared to be bombed back to the Stone Age." Armitage, who like Powell has left government, on Monday denied using such a threat, after Musharraf first described the exchanges during an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes" last week. Musharraf's book says he conducted a war game to weigh the option of fighting the United States and found that Pakistan's military would have been wiped out, its economy couldn't be sustained, and the nation lacked the unity needed for such a confrontation. CHIDES KARZAI In New York on Monday, the combative Musharraf echoed his book in dismissing as "ridiculous" frequent allegations from Afghanistan that Taliban leaders are running an insurgency from the city of Quetta in southwest Pakistan. Two days before a key three-way meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Bush, Musharraf chided Karzai, saying he was failing to wean ethnic Pushtuns away from the Islamic militants. "The sooner Mr. President Karzai understands his own country's environment, the easier it will be for him," said Musharraf. He added: "I have always been saying that I believe President Karzai to be the right person to be president of Afghanistan." Musharraf wrote that his best guess is that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is hiding somewhere in Afghanistan's eastern province of Kunar and that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was most likely to be near his original base in southern Afghanistan. The book, published just over a week after Musharraf agreed with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to resume a stalled peace process, described the Pakistani's fears that the Indian leader had fallen under the influence of New Delhi's old guard. "I think the Indian establishment -- the bureaucrats, diplomats, intelligence agencies, and perhaps even the military -- has gotten the better of him," Musharraf added in a passage he said was written in June. The nuclear armed rivals have fought two of their three wars over mostly Muslim Kashmir since independence in 1947, and the Himalayan region remains divided by a cease-fire line. India froze the peace process in reaction to a series of bomb blasts in Mumbai that killed over 180 people on July 11 as suspicions fell on a Pakistan-based group. (Additional reporting by Simon Cameron-Moore and Kamran Haider in ISLAMABAD)

AP - More than 200 police raided a neighborhood Monday in suburban Paris where a band of youths attacked riot police last week and seriously wounded one officer, reviving memories of the violence that raged in poor French suburbs last year.

AP - The sexual assault case against a U.S. Naval Academy football player was dropped Monday, a day before it was to go to trial, but school officials said new charges could be filed.

By Natalie Finn Tue Sep 26, 3:12 PM ET Start spreading the news, David Gest's lawsuit is going away. A New York judge has tossed out the $10 million suit the concert promoter filed against estranged wife Liza Minneli in 2003, saying there was "no triable issue of fact" in the case. Gest sued the Cabaret star a few months after the couple separated, claiming Minneli abused him during her alleged alcoholic rages, causing him headaches and other physical and emotional trauma that required him to be hospitalized. Minneli filed for divorce the next day. State Supreme Court Judge Jane Solomon ruled that Gest's doctor had not been able to refute Minneli's medical expert, who said Gest's headaches were caused by a type of herpes virus. Gest's physician testified, however, that his patient had tested negative for the virus. However, Gest implied two weeks ago that someone must have herpes, because he asked state Supreme Court Judge Harold Beeler, who's handling the divorce proceedings, to set aside his prenuptial agreement, saying he never would have entered into it if he had known Minneli both had the disease and was so darn temperamental. (Or, was "a violent alcoholic with herpes," as an unnamed source recently elaborated to the New York Post's Page Six.) Lorraine Nadel, Gest's attorney, vowed she would appeal Judge Solomon's decision and told reporters her client was "shocked" and "stunned" by the ruling. Gest had alleged in his suit that, during their marriage, Minneli had thrown a lamp at him in a London hotel and then smacked him in the face with her fists when he tried to calm her down. Now, according to Solomon, the only issue left to be decided in her courtroom is Minneli's $2 million countersuit against Gest, in which she maintains her hubby stole money from her. Gest, who is also known among Broadway types for his extensive collection of Judy Garland mementos, has denied Minneli's claim, saying he's owed money for all of the work he put in trying to re-jog her career. The Post was the first to report the content of the couple's most recent court filings, in which Minneli accused Gest of trying to poison her; he said she had kept her condition a secret until after they had had "unprotected sexual relations." "David was wrecked" when she finally told him, Gest's bodyguard Imad Handi, told the Post earlier this month. "It was the beginning of the end of the marriage. He couldn't trust her anymore" and it "turned him off" from having further marital relations. And things had started off so promisingly, too, what with the star-studded nuptials in March 2002, featuring Michael Jackson as best man and all. Gest is Minneli's fourth husband. They cohabitated for 16 months before all of the court filings hit the fan. Next up for the Liza with a Z performer, who took a funny turn as a recurring guest star on Arrested Development in 2004 and 2005, is a three-date concert appearance in Las Vegas

AP - The state's three largest science museums are offering an identical exhibit discussing the scientific view of early stem cell research, just weeks before Missourians vote on a proposal to protect such research in the state.

AP - The state's three largest science museums are offering an identical exhibit discussing the scientific view of early stem cell research, just weeks before Missourians vote on a proposal to protect such research in the state.

Reuters - A transatlantic flight from London to Boston had to make an emergency diversion after one passenger made an unexpected early arrival.

Reuters - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, bristling at allegations his country harbors Taliban rebels, criticized Afghanistan's leader on Monday, saying he was failing to draw people away from the Islamic militants.

By MARY FOSTER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 7 minutes ago NEW ORLEANS - As rock bands blasted and tailgate parties served up barbecue and brew, thousands of people poured into the streets Monday night, hoping to forget about Hurricane Katrina during a Mardi Gras-like celebration of the Saints' first home game since the storm. Crowds swamped the area around the Louisiana Superdome in a human sea, creating a huge traffic jam for the team's emotional return and the reopening of the stadium, which underwent $185 million in repairs to erase damage done during and after Katrina. "This is exactly what the city needs," said Saints season ticket holder Clara Donate, 58, who lost her home and all her possessions to Katrina's floodwaters. "We all need something else to think about." The Saints and the Atlanta Falcons were both undefeated at 2-0 early in the NFL season, and the game received Super Bowl buildup. The Goo Goo Dolls played to the crowd outside the dome. Green Day and U2 performed for the crowd of more than 68,000 inside. Harold Johnson couldn't get into the Superdome, but he planned to sit with his neighbors outside his government-issue trailer and watch the game on television. "I don't want to talk about Katrina. I don't want to talk about insurance. I don't want to talk about anything but kicking Falcon butt," Johnson said as he stocked up on beer at a grocery store for the cookout with his neighbors. Even with its gleaming new cover, the Superdome remained a symbol of Katrina's misery. Tens of thousands of storm victims suffered there in withering heat after last summer's hurricane filled the city with stinking floodwaters. The Saints have not played a regular-season home game since 2004. They last played in the Superdome in a 2005 preseason game a few days before Katrina. After the storm, the Saints became the NFL's traveling show, establishing a base in San Antonio and playing every game on the road amid speculation that owner Tom Benson might not bring them back to New Orleans. Even now, a high-rise hotel, an office tower and an upscale shopping center stand empty just a few hundred feet from the stadium, with white boards covering blown-out windows. A few miles away, entire neighborhoods are wastelands of decaying houses. Johnson and his neighbors were holding the party outdoors because none of them had room inside their trailers. Amid the desolation, some residents could not bring themselves to celebrate the team's return. Irma Warner, 71, and her husband, Pascal Warner, 80, live in an apartment in suburban Metairie while working six days a week to restore a home flooded by 7 feet of water in New Orleans' Lakeview neighborhood. "We rode around through the Ninth Ward yesterday," Irma Warner said. "When I saw that, I thought, how can they spend $185 million on the Superdome. What about all these poor people?" But she appeared to be in the minority. Downtown offices and City Hall shut down early in anticipation of crowds at the Superdome. Teachers promised to assign little Monday night homework so students could watch the game on television. Tanyha Brown of Metairie said her husband was leaving work early so they could attend the festivities outside the Superdome. With no tickets to the game, they planned to watch from a nearby bar. "This is the best holiday since Mardi Gras," Brown said.

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent 1 hour, 2 minutes ago WASHINGTON - Retired military officers on Monday bluntly accused Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld of bungling the war in Iraq, saying U.S. troops were sent to fight without the best equipment and that critical facts were hidden from the public. ADVERTISEMENT "I believe that Secretary Rumsfeld and others in the administration did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq," retired Maj. Gen. John R. S. Batiste told a forum conducted by Senate Democrats. A second military leader, retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, assessed Rumsfeld as "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically." "Mr. Rumsfeld and his immediate team must be replaced or we will see two more years of extraordinarily bad decision-making," Eaton added at the forum, held six weeks before the Nov. 7 midterm elections, in which the war is a central issue. Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, a member of the Armed Services Committee, dismissed the Democratic-sponsored event as "an election-year smoke screen aimed at obscuring the Democrats' dismal record on national security." "Today's stunt may rile up the liberal base, but it won't kill a single terrorist or prevent a single attack," Sen. Mitch McConnell (news, bio, voting record), R-Ky., said in a statement. He called Rumsfeld an "excellent secretary of defense." Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, speaking Monday at the National Press Club, said election-season politics may be what's standing in the way of finding a solution to the insurgency in Iraq. "My instinct is, once the election is over, there will be a lot more hard thinking about what to do about Iraq and a lot more candid observations about it," said Specter, R-Pa. The conflict, now in its fourth year, has claimed the lives of more than 2,600 American troops and cost more than $300 billion. Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record), D-N.D., the committee chairman, told reporters last week that he hoped the hearing would shed light on the planning and conduct of the war. He said majority Republicans had failed to conduct hearings on the issue, adding, "if they won't ... we will." Since he spoke, a government-produced National Intelligence Estimate became public that concluded the war has helped create a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Along with several members of the Senate Democratic leadership, one Republican, Rep. Walter Jones (news, bio, voting record) of North Carolina, participated. "The American people have a right to know any time that we make a decision to send Americans to die for this country," said Jones, a conservative whose district includes Camp Lejeune Marine base. It is unusual for retired military officers to criticize the Pentagon while military operations are under way, particularly at a public event likely to draw widespread media attention. And Senate Republicans circulated a statement by four retired generals that said, "(W)e do not believe that it is appropriate for active duty, or retired, senior military officers to publicly criticize U.S. civilian leadership during war." The group included two three-star generals, John Crosby and Thomas McInerny, and a pair of two-star generals, Burton Moore and Paul Vallely. But Batiste, Eaton and retired Col. Thomas X. Hammes were unsparing in remarks that suggested deep anger at the way the military had been treated. All three served in Iraq, and Batiste also was senior military assistant to then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Batiste, who commanded the Army's 1st Infantry Division in Iraq, also blamed Congress for failing to ask "the tough questions." He said Rumsfeld at one point threatened to fire the next person who mentioned the need for a postwar plan in Iraq. Batiste said if full consideration had been given to the requirements for war, it's likely the U.S. would have kept its focus on Afghanistan, "not fueled Islamic fundamentalism across the globe, and not created more enemies than there were insurgents." Hammes said that not providing the best equipment was a "serious moral failure on the part of our leadership." The United States "did not ask our soldiers to invade France in 1944 with the same armor they trained on in 1941. Why are we asking our soldiers and Marines to use the same armor we found was insufficient in 2003?" he asked. Hammes was responsible for establishing bases for the Iraqi armed forces. He served in Iraq in 2004 and is now Marine Senior Military Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, National Defense University. Eaton was responsible for training the Iraqi military and later for rebuilding the Iraqi police force. He said planning for the postwar period was "amateurish at best, incompetent a better descriptor." Public opinion polls show widespread dissatisfaction with the way the Bush administration has conducted the war in Iraq, but division about how quickly to withdraw U.S. troops. Democrats hope to tap into the anger in November, without being damaged by Republican charges they favor a policy of "cut and run." By coincidence, the hearing came a day after public disclosure of the National Intelligence Estimate. The report was completed in April and represented a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government, according to an intelligence official.

By Natalie Finn 40 minutes ago Unfortunately, Judy Reyes' latest trip to the ER wasn't as a guest-star. ADVERTISEMENT Reyes, who plays feisty nurse Carla Espinosa on Scrubs, suffered a fractured pelvis last Wednesday after falling down at her home, NBC spokesman David Gardner confirmed to E! Online. "She's going to be fine," the 37-year-old actress' rep, Monique Ward, told People magazine. "She had surgery to repair it on Thursday. She didn't realize it was as bad as it was and still went to work. Once there, she realized she needed medical treatment. She went to a hospital from the set." Reyes, who's also known for her work on HBO's prison drama, Oz, was expected to be released from the hospital Monday. Scrubs' filming schedule has been reworked for the time being to accommodate Reyes' healing process, which is going to include about six weeks of hobbling around on crutches. In the meantime she'll shoot some of her less strenuous scenes. Last season on Scrubs, Carla and her husband, Turk ( Donald Faison), learned that they would be having their first child together and embarked on your usual sitcom pregnancy--an announcement that didn't go according to plan, lots of misunderstandings and insecurities, and many thwarted sexual advances. Season six will pick up with Carla a very uncomfortable nine and a half-months pregnant (so maybe some sitting-down scenes will do both Reyes and her character a world of good). Zach Braff's J.D. will be dealing with his own girlfriend's "I'm pregnant" announcement, while Dr. Cox ( John C. McGinley) and his beloved ex-wife Jordan ( Christa Miller) are expecting baby number two, as well. Although Scrubs was renewed in May for another full season, the Emmy nominee for Outstanding Comedy won't show up on NBC's lineup until 2007, at a date TBA.

By DON MITCHELL, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 7 minutes ago CASTLE ROCK, Colo. - Prosecutors filed murder and kidnapping charges Monday against a man accused in the gruesome dragging death of his 49-year-old girlfriend. ADVERTISEMENT Jose Luis Rubi-Nava, 36, faces charged of first-degree murder after deliberation and second-degree kidnapping. He also faces charges of forging and possessing a government-issued document. He was being held without bail and has not yet entered a plea. The battered and disfigured body of Luz Marie Franco Fierros was found Sept. 18 in a normally quiet subdivision about 20 miles south of Denver. Investigators say Franco Fierros had been dragged behind a vehicle for more than a mile, leaving a bloody trail. Preliminary autopsy results said she suffered fatal head injuries and was strangled as she was dragged. She was identified by matching her fingerprints to Mexican voter registration records. Rubi-Nava could face the death penalty or life in prison if convicted of the murder count, and between one and eight years on each of the lesser charges. Prosecutors have not said what kind of sentence they would seek. Court documents remained sealed in the case, and it was not clear what documents Rubi-Nava was accused of forging. District attorney's spokeswoman Kathleen Walsh declined comment. Public defender Kathleen McGuire did not return a phone message seeking comment. Immigration officials have said they believe Rubi-Nava is an illegal immigrant. A judge scheduled another hearing for Thursday to hear motions in the case.