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By MIKE BAKER, Associated Press Writer

Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 4:45 p.m.

BUXTON, N.C. ?
The last ferry left for the mainland and coastal residents hunkered down at home as Hurricane Earl closed in with 115 mph winds Thursday on North Carolina’s dangerously exposed Outer Banks, the first and potentially most destructive stop on the storm’s projected journey up the Eastern Seaboard.

The first bands of heavy rain hit the long ribbon of barrier islands Thursday night. The downpours started in several bursts as the storm’s so-called rain shield whirled into the southernmost tip of the Outer Banks.

National Weather Service meteorologist Hal Austin said the eye of the hurricane was expected to get as close as 55 miles east of the Outer Banks about 2 a.m. Friday. The coast is expected to be lashed by winds of hurricane strength – more than 74 mph – for a couple of hours.

Heavy surf was already washing over the only highway on Ocracoke Island before sundown but crews were able to keep the road open.

Earl’s arrival could mark the start of at least 24 hours of stormy, windy weather along the East Coast. During its march up the Atlantic, it could snarl travelers’ Labor Day weekend plans and strike a second forceful blow to the vacation homes and cottages on Long Island, Nantucket Island and Cape Cod.

It was unclear exactly how close Earl’s center and its strongest winds would get to land. But Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate said people shouldn’t wait for the next forecast to act.

“This is a day of action. Conditions are going to deteriorate rapidly,” he said.

Shelters were open in inland North Carolina, and officials on Nantucket Island, Mass., planned to set up a shelter at a high school on Friday. North Carolina shut down ferry service between the Outer Banks and the mainland. Boats were being pulled from the water in the Northeast, and lobstermen in Maine set their traps out in deeper water to protect them.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri declared a state of emergency. Similar declarations have also made in North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland.

As of Thursday afternoon, though, the only evacuations ordered were on the Outer Banks, which sticks out into the Atlantic Ocean like the side-view mirror on a car, vulnerable to a sideswiping. About 35,000 tourists and residents were urged to leave.

Earl weakened into a Category 3 storm with 115 mph winds on Thursday. A slow winding down was expected to continue as the storm moved into cooler waters, but forecasters warned the size of the storm’s wind field was increasing, similar to what happened when Hurricane Katrina approached the Gulf Coast five years ago.

“It will be bigger. The storm won’t be as strong, but they spread out as they go north and the rain will be spreading from New England,” National Hurricane Center Director Bill Read said.

The eye of the storm was expected to pass about 50 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C. But even at that distance, Earl could have a punishing effect, since hurricane-force winds of 74 mph or more extended 70 miles from its center and tropical storm-force winds of at least 35 mph reached more than 200 miles out.

The end of an already dilapidated wooden pier in Frisco, one of the villages on Hatteras Island, collapsed after being battered by high surf Thursday. It had been closed to the public because of past storm damage.

Hundreds of the Outer Banks’ more hardy residents gassed up their generators and planned to hunker down at home behind their boarded-up windows, even though officials warned them that it could be three days before they could expect any help and that storm surge could again slice through the islands. It took crews two months to fill the breach and rebuild the only road to the mainland when Hurricane Isabel carved a 2,000-foot-wide channel in 2003.

“It’s kind of nerve-racking, but I’ve been through this before,” said 65-year-old Herma De Gier, who has lived in the village of Avon since 1984. De Gier said she will ride out the storm at a neighbor’s house but wants to be close enough to her own property so she can quickly deal with any damage.

Officials warned once the winds began to pick up, police, firefighters and paramedics probably weren’t going to answer emergency calls.

“Once this storm comes in and becomes serious, once it’s at its worst point, we are not going to put any emergency worker in harm’s way,” North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue said.

Forecasters said that after Earl passes the Outer Banks, a kink in the jetstream over the eastern U.S. should push the storm away from the coast, guiding it like a marble in a groove.

Earl is expected to move north-northeast for much of Friday, staying away from New Jersey and the other mid-Atlantic states, but also passing very close to Long Island, Cape Cod and Nantucket, which could get gusts up to 100 mph. The storm is expected to finally move ashore in Canada sometime Saturday afternoon.

Much of New England should expect strong, gusty winds much like a nor’easter, along with fallen trees and downed power lines, forecasters said.

“This is the strongest hurricane to threaten the Northeast and New England since Hurricane Bob in 1991,” said Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center.

Clayton Smith and his colleagues at a yacht servicing company in New England scrambled to Nantucket to pull boats to safety, hoping to get about 40 vessels out of the water in two days.

“Complacency is a bad thing,” Smith said. “It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

But many people in Nantucket weren’t too worried about Earl. Arno’s Main Street Grill plans to stay open Friday as long as possible said owner Chris Morris. The hurricane might even be good for business.

“There’s not much else to do during a hurricane besides eat and drink,” he said. “I mean, there’s only so many times you can visit the whaling museum.”

The storm is likely to disrupt travel as people try to squeeze in a few more days of summer vacation over Labor Day. Continental Airlines canceled 50 departures from Newark on its Continental Connection and Continental Express routes along the East Coast, beginning Thursday night. Other airlines were watching the forecast and waiving fees for changing flights. Amtrak canceled trains to Newport News, near Virginia’s coast, from Richmond, Va., and Washington. Ferry operators across the Northeast warned their service would likely be interrupted.

And the Army Corps of Engineers warned it would have to close the two bridges connecting Cape Cod to the rest of Massachusetts if winds got above 70 mph.

—

Associated Press Writers Christine Armario in Miami; Martha Waggoner, Emery Dalesio and Gary Robertson in Raleigh, N.C.; Tom Breen in Morehead City, N.C.; Bruce Smith in Jacksonville, N.C.; Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, S.C.; David Sharp in Portland, Maine; Mark Pratt in Boston; David Porter in Trenton, N.J.; David Koenig in Dallas; and Frank Eltman in Stony Brook, N.Y., contributed to this report.

By FELICIA FONSECA, Associated Press Writer

Tuesday, August 24, 2010 at 3:15 a.m.

ST. JOHNS, Ariz. ?
Handcuffed face down on the ground, Hugh Murray quickly realized who he had been hanging out with for two days at a remote campsite as he overheard law enforcement officials say that a man detained near him was the last of the three.

His mind raced back to a week earlier, when he scanned a newspaper article about three men who escaped from a prison in northwest Arizona and the woman who helped them flee.

“I clicked on that,” Murray, 67, told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Monday. “It was unbelievable until then, but then it made sense.”

A SWAT team swarmed the campsite, about an hour’s drive from the small community of Springerville, last Thursday after an alert U.S. Forest Service ranger, investigating what appeared to be an unattended campfire, noticed a Nissan Sentra backed suspiciously into the trees.

The ranger called in the license number, essentially ending the three-week manhunt for John McCluskey and Casslyn Welch. McCluskey was the last of three inmates who escaped July 30 from the state prison in Kingman to be captured. Welch, his fiancee and cousin, was arrested at the same time.

Murray said McCluskey and Welch showed no signs of hostility toward him, never brandished the guns that authorities found when they were captured, made no mention of their recent travels – and certainly gave no indication they were two of America’s most wanted fugitives. Instead, the two were quite pleasant, Murray said.

“I hadn’t a clue they had done anything deadly, until that cop mentioned who they were,” Murray said.

McCluskey and Welch have been charged with murder and carjacking in the deaths of an Oklahoma couple in New Mexico, apparently because they were tired of sleeping in a car and coveted Gary and Linda Haas’ trailer, according to a criminal complaint. They also face charges of kidnapping, aggravated assault and armed robbery in Arizona.

According to the complaint, McCluskey told investigators he fired the shots that killed the Haases and wanted to kill two tractor-trailer drivers who the trio kidnapped in Kingman but was outvoted by Welch and a second escapee, Tracy Province who was arrested Aug. 9 in Wyoming.

Authorities said McCluskey expressed regret at not having killed the forest ranger whose tip led to their capture and said he would have shot officers at the campsite if he could have reached his gun in his tent.

Authorities in Apache County said they believed Murray could have been the next victim.

“A wild guess, they might have offed me for my car and some of my equipment,” Murray said. “Good police work. I’m glad they came in when they did.”

Murray first encountered a tough- and grim-looking McCluskey – the kind of appearance he called typical in the mountainous area – while typing up data Wednesday for field work on the Arizona willow, which he studies as a hobby.

“He was backwards rough, but (turned out) fine,” Murray said.

McCluskey asked for a jack handle to help fix a flat on the beat-up Nissan. Murray hesitated, knowing he’d have to dig through a trunk load of stuff to retrieve it, but relented.

McCluskey returned the jack handle with a smile and a thanks, along with an invite to the couple’s campsite for a hamburger. Murray declined the meal but visited with the couple for about half an hour, then returned to his own camp site, about three-fourths of a mile away.

The fugitives warmed up to Murray when he started talking about what he knows best – nature – and recommended hiking trails. In fact, Murray did much of the talking in the few hours they spent together Wednesday and Thursday.

The trio went out Thursday to gather mushrooms that McCluskey sliced up, seasoned and served in wheat tortillas with cheese.

Murray said he never asked for their names, and they didn’t ask for his.

Murray was unsure when the couple arrived at the campground nestled amid spruce trees at the foot of the Mount Baldy Wilderness in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. McCluskey and Welch set up what appeared to be a fairly new tent in an area designated for those with horses or stock animals.

The campground has no amenities, other than a handful of horse corrals and a toilet. A bend in the nearby road made it impossible for Murray, McCluskey or Welch to see authorities approaching the area as Murray boiled water for a vegetable stew.

“It was a real good job,” Murray said. “They came in really quick.”

After about half an hour, Welch quietly apologized to Murray, saying “Sorry about this bust or mess we got you in,” he recalled.

“I think that apology she gave me was really sincere,” he said. “I know she’s facing a hard life.”

By The Associated Press

Thursday, August 19, 2010 at 5:01 p.m.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. ?
After three seasons spent almost entirely on San Francisco’s practice squad, Dominique Zeigler is making his mark for the 49ers.

The undrafted free agent receiver has turned heads in training camp and may have earned a spot on the active roster as the fourth receiver.

“Dominique’s a unique guy,” coach Mike Singletary said. “He doesn’t mind going across the middle, going underneath, doing some of the dirty work. He’s a guy that does everything for us and wears a lot of different hats. He can play any of the receiver positions, gives us some flexibility. And he’s really good on special teams as well.”

Zeigler’s versatility became more important to the 49ers this week after the team released veteran receiver Brandon Jones, San Francisco’s top pickup in 2009 free agency.

The 49ers gave Jones a five-year, $16 million deal last year, but he became expendable by the emergence this summer of Zeigler, who wasn’t drafted in 2007 out of Baylor.

Zeigler made San Francisco’s practice squad that season and since then has seen numerous receivers come and go on the roster while he patiently waited for his opportunity.

With starter Michael Crabtree sidelined with a neck sprain, Zeigler took snaps with San Francisco’s first-unit offense during team drills Wednesday. Zeigler appears to have climbed past veteran Jason Hill as the 49ers’ No. 4 receiver behind Crabtree, Josh Morgan and Ted Ginn.

“I knew my time would come as long as I keep working hard,” Zeigler said. “And when my time comes, I just have to take grab of it with both hands.”

Zeigler worked his way onto the 53-man roster in 2008, then onto the field over the last half of that season when he had five catches for 97 yards and contributed seven tackles on special teams.

Zeigler was in competition to make the final roster last summer before he sustained a high ankle sprain in San Francisco’s final exhibition game. He spent the entire 2009 season on the 49ers’ practice squad.

This summer, Zeigler has been one of the 49ers’ more impressive and consistent performers. He had one catch for 18 yards and returned one punt 11 yards in San Francisco’s 37-17 preseason opener at Indianapolis last week.

“Dominique has had an outstanding camp,” offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye said. “But a year ago I saw the same things. It just didn’t come to fruition because he was injured in the last exhibition game. This time, he’s stayed, he’s been healthy and he’s taken another step. Right now, it’s what you’ve seen in a pretty good performance.”

Zeigler, who carries 185 pounds on his slender 6-foot-3 frame, gives the 49ers a tall target that can play all three wide receiver positions. As he beat defenders for several catches Thursday, Zeigler continued to look like a natural.

“We’ve moved him around a bunch in there and every time he goes in he knows what he’s doing,” Smith said. “All the quarterbacks feel good about throwing him the ball in traffic because he is so strong-handed. He’s a guy that everyone in the huddle feels good about when he steps in. He just continues to do it.”

EXTRA POINTS: LB Travis LaBoy returned to full practice for the first time since sustaining a concussion during the first week of training camp. … Newcomer RB Brian Westbrook was given the morning practice off, his second consecutive veteran courtesy. … OL Tony Wragge continues to get more time at both guard positions with veteran Adam Snyder out due to a concussion. … S Reggie Smith came down with a leaping interception during team drills and continues to impress this summer. The third-year veteran returned an interception 91 yards for a touchdown last week against the Colts. … Sunday’s game will be the first time the Vikings have ever played a preseason game in San Francisco. Singletary will wear a wireless microphone for the “Sunday Night Football” broadcast on NBC.

By The Associated Press

Thursday, August 19, 2010 at 4:49 p.m.

SAN FRANCISCO ?
China-based solar cell maker Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. said Thursday that it earned a profit in the second quarter as revenue from sales of its photovoltaic modules jumped.

Yingli earned 217.8 million renminbi ($32.1 million), or 1.46 renminbi (21 cents) per American depositary share in the quarter. That compares with a loss of 393.7 million renminbi, or 3.03 renminbi per ADS, in the same quarter a year earlier.

Analysts expected a profit of 19 cents per share.

Revenue rose to 2.70 billion renminbi ($398.1 million) from 1.50 billion renminbi in the year-ago quarter. Analysts had been looking for $371.1 million.

Yingli saw a large increase in sales of photovoltaic modules – revenue rose to 2.66 renminbi ($391.6 million) from 1.46 billion renminbi in the previous year.

Research and development expenses fell to 38.8 million renminbi ($5.7 million) from 46.1 million renminbi last year but total operating expenses climbed, rising to 339.7 million renminbi ($50.1 million) from 189.5 million renminbi last year. The company said this was due mostly to higher selling expenses that stemmed from its sponsorship of the 2010 FIFA World Cup and higher research and development expenses.

Yingli’s ADS fell 10 cents to $10.87 in after-hours trading, after finishing regular trading down 48 cents, or 4.3 percent, at $10.77.

By The Associated Press

Thursday, August 19, 2010 at 1:16 p.m.

SAN FRANCISCO ?
Cirrus Logic Inc. shares fell Thursday after a Stifel Nicolaus analyst downgraded the chip maker’s stock to “hold” from “buy.”

THE SPARK: In a client note Thursday, Stifel Nicolaus analyst Tore Svanberg cut his rating for Cirrus, saying the company’s non-portable consumer audio segment might encounter obstacles in the second half of this year due to hiccups in the economic recovery and sluggish consumer spending.

THE ANALYSIS: Svanberg said business that Cirrus gets from Apple Inc. still looks strong, but that its non-portable audio business is “more susceptible to consumer spending patterns and tends to be weaker in times of perceived economic uncertainty.”

SHARE ACTION: Cirrus shares fell $1.31, or 7 percent, to $17.54.

VIENNA
? Ignoring a U.S. warning, Arab nations are urging Washington and other powers to end support of Israel’s nuclear secrecy and to push the Jewish state to allow international inspections of its program, diplomats told The Associated Press Sunday.

Islamic nations have long called for Israel ? which is widely believed to have nuclear arms ? to open its program. But the fact that the Arab League has directly approached Washington and other Israeli allies for support at the September meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency is significant, considering that President Barack Obama last month warned against using that forum to single out Israel.

Obama then suggested that such a move would likely kill hopes of breakthrough talks on a Mideast nuclear-free zone, as proposed by the U.N.’s 189-nation Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty conference three months ago.

Over Israeli objections, the planned 2012 talks were backed by the U.S. and other nuclear powers for the first time since Arab nations pushed for such a gathering 15 years ago.

The Arab appeal to pressure Israel to open its nuclear program to inspectors also threatens to deflect attention from Iran, which Washington and its allies now consider a grave nuclear proliferation threat, even though Tehran insists it is not developing nuclear weapons.

The Arab appeal is contained in an Aug. 8 letter signed by Arab League chief Amr Moussa that was shared with The Associated Press. It asks for backing of a resolution that Arab nations will submit to the September assembly of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

An attached draft of the resolution expresses “concern” about Israel’s nuclear program and urges it to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and to open its atomic activities to outside inspection.

A cover note also seen by the AP asks the Belgian Embassy in Cairo to transmit the letter and the draft to Belgian Foreign Minister Steven Vanackere, who now holds the rotating European Union presidency.

Diplomats accredited to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency and familiar with the issue told the AP that the letter also was sent to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the foreign ministers of Russia, China, Britain and France ? the four other permanent U.N. Security Council members.

All the diplomats who agreed to discuss the issue with the AP asked for anonymity because of the confidentiality of their information.

Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed in a statement last month to “work together to oppose efforts to single out Israel” at the 150-nation International Atomic Energy Agency conference.

On the proposed Mideast nuclear-free zone talks, their statement warned that “any efforts to single out Israel will make the prospects of convening such a conference unlikely.”

But the Arab letter says the notion of singling out Israel “is not the case.”

“Singling out a state assumes that there are a number of states in the same position and only one state was singled out,” the letter says. Referring to the Nonproliferation Treaty, it says: “The fact is that all the states in the region have acceded to the NPT except Israel.”

Israel is commonly assumed to have nuclear weapons but refuses to discuss the issue.

The latest pressure puts the Jewish state in an uncomfortable position. It wants the international community to take stern action to prevent Iran from obtaining atomic weapons but at the same time brushes off calls to come clean about its own nuclear capabilities.

Passions have grown since September when the International Atomic Energy Agency assembly overrode Western objections to pass a resolution directly criticizing Israel and its atomic program for the first time in 18 years.

The result was a setback not only for Israel but also for the United States and other supporters of the Jewish state.

Because the resolution passed by only a four-vote margin, lobbying by both sides has intensified ahead of next month’s meeting.

Three diplomats from International Atomic Energy Agency member nations said the EU and the U.S. were meeting or planning to meet with possible undecided nations to seek their support of Israel, even as the Arab bloc continues pushing for support for its resolution, entitled “Israeli nuclear capabilities.”

The U.S. and its allies consider Iran the region’s greatest proliferation threat, fearing that Tehran is trying to achieve the capacity to make nuclear weapons despite its assertion that it is only building a civilian program to generate power.

They also say Syria ? which, like Iran is under International Atomic Energy Agency investigation ? ran a clandestine nuclear program, at least until Israeli warplanes destroyed what they describe as a nearly finished plutonium-producing reactor two years ago. Syria denies that.

But Islamic nations insist that Israel is the true danger in the Middle East, saying they fear its nuclear weapons capacity. Israel has never said it has such arms, but is widely believed to possess them.

Even ahead of the General Conference, key International Atomic Energy Agency nations are expected to disagree about Israel’s nuclear activities. The item is to be discussed at the agency’s decision-making board of 35 nations, according to a copy of the restricted provisional agenda of that gathering shared with The AP.

(This version CORRECTS Adds date of the Arab letter, background about Israel, Iran and Syria, corrects Moussa’s first name to Amr, not Amre, and links the AP photo.)

By The Associated Press

Thursday, August 12, 2010 at 8:17 a.m.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. ?
A Florida appeal court has reversed a pregnant woman’s forced hospitalization, though the ruling is moot in her case.

The majority in a 2-1 opinion Thursday says the order by a Tallahassee judge violated Samantha Burton’s right to refuse medical treatment.

The judge issued the order after Burton’s doctor argued she was risking a miscarriage if she didn’t quit smoking immediately and stay on bed rest in the hospital.

The dissenting appellate judge wrote that it’s a moot issue because Burton delivered a stillborn fetus three days later.

The majority, though, decided her situation could be repeated so the issue should be decided to set a precedent for future cases.

By The Associated Press

Thursday, August 5, 2010 at 12:39 p.m.

NEW YORK ?
Hugh Hefner’s Playboy media empire managed to narrow its losses in the most recent quarter. But only because it booked fewer one-time expenses.

Revenue from the company’s flagship magazine and its TV operations continued to erode, a trend that has put Playboy’s future in question.

The company said it continued to cut staff during the quarter. It eliminated 18 jobs, bringing the total down to about 550.

Playboy Enterprises Inc. announced in July that Hefner was proposing to buy the portion of the company he doesn’t already own. FriendFinder Networks Inc., the corporate parent of rival Penthouse magazine, also made a bid to take the company private.

Playboy’s board is considering both offers. But, because Hefner holds about 70 percent of the company’s voting shares, he will make the final call.

Playboy said Hefner has made it clear he doesn’t want to sell.

The second-quarter results released Thursday illustrate Playboy’s struggle to turn a profit as the Web supplants print and TV as a source of adult content.

The company reported a net loss of $5.4 million, or 16 cents per share, for the three months that ended June 30. A year earlier, it lost $8.7 million, or 26 cents per share.

But last year’s quarter included $9.1 million in one-time restructuring costs, largely expenses related to closing its New York offices. The most recent quarter included only $1.6 million in such charges.

Revenue dropped 10 percent to $56 million.

Revenue fell at the U.S. version of Playboy magazine by 38 percent to $10.2 million, in part because it comes out less frequently. Counting international and special editions as well as online operations, revenue at the company’s print/digital segment fell 26 percent to $20.9 million.

TV revenue slipped 5 percent to $22.7 million.

The one upbeat note came from Playboy’s licensing division, which leases out the Playboy name and iconic bunny ears for consumer products. Licensing revenue climbed 23 percent to $12.4 million.

Playboy shares slipped 4 cents to $5.35 in afternoon trading.