Funerals begin for victims of recent Illinois tornado

Funerals begin for victimsof recent Illinois tornado
LASALLE, Ill. -- The tornado that tore through a central Illinois town, killing eight people who had sought refuge in a tavern, also damaged its only funeral home, forcing mourners 10 miles away for the first of the funerals.
About 100 people gathered Saturday at a LaSalle church to remember Beverly Wood, 67, who was killed Tuesday in Utica along with her longtime companion.
Betty Hurst, a longtime friend, said Wood was widowed 40 years ago when her husband died in an industrial accident. Soon after, one of their children died suddenly.
"She had a lot of heartache. But you never knew it from her. She was a private person and an upper. She never complained about anything," Hurst said.
Today, many of the same people will mourn Wood's companion of 23 years, Wayne Ball, 63, a retired railroad worker. The two lived in mobile homes that faced one another, not far from Utica's downtown.
County spends $273,000so far on Jackson case
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- Santa Barbara County has spent $273,000 so far to prosecute Michael Jackson on child molestation charges -- and the bill keeps growing.
The amount includes hundreds of court staff hours and overtime for deputy sheriffs, said Jason Stilwell, special projects manager in the county administrator's office.
Some of the money comes from money set aside for trials and district attorney's investigations, but the overtime pay is extra.
Prosecutors have charged the pop star with seven counts of lewd or lascivious acts on a child under the age of 14 and two counts of administering an intoxicating agent, reportedly wine. Jackson has pleaded innocent.
Costs were still being determined for grand jury proceedings that produced an indictment of Jackson on Wednesday. The indictment was ordered sealed until Friday, when the entertainer is scheduled to appear at a pretrial hearing.
The expense of trying Jackson and of dealing with hordes of press and fans is unwelcome in a county already facing an estimated $22 million deficit in the 2004-05 budget.
9 injured at concert
BOSTON -- A gust of wind knocked over scaffolding at an Earth Day concert Saturday, injuring nine people, police said.
Just as the band Third Eye Blind was scheduled to take the stage at the band shell on the Charles River, witnesses said wind caught a banner that was attached to the sound tower, knocking it into the VIP section of the audience.
The concert resumed after all nine people were taken to the hospital. Police said none of the injuries was life-threatening.
Prince's baby baptized
WINDSOR, England -- Lady Louise Windsor, the youngest of Queen Elizabeth II's seven grandchildren, was christened at a service Saturday attended by her royal relatives.
Lady Louise, the first child for Edward and Sophie, the Earl and Countess of Wessex, wore a 163-year-old lace and white satin christening robe for the service in the chapel of Windsor Castle.
The robe has been used to dress generations of royal babies over the years, including the queen, who was among several royal guests at the christening.
Lady Louise, the eighth in the line of succession to the throne, was born Nov. 8. When Edward and Sophie married in 1999, it was announced that any children they had would not bear the title of Royal Highness.
French director dies at 80
GENEVA -- French-born director, screenwriter and author Jose Giovanni, who had a string of crime movie hits featuring stars including Jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon, has died. He was 80.
Giovanni died Saturday of a brain hemorrhage in a clinic in Lausanne, Switzerland, funeral director Jean-Robert Decaillet told The Associated Press by telephone. He had been hospitalized since Wednesday.
Giovanni, from the Mediterranean island of Corsica, was born June 22, 1923. He moved to the Swiss Alpine village of Marecottes in the late 1960s and later was naturalized a citizen of his adopted homeland.
Giovanni -- a member of the French resistance during World War II -- worked as a diver, lumberjack, coal miner and mountain guide. His alleged links with a postwar criminal gang earned him a death sentence, but he was pardoned. He then turned to writing.
Giovanni launched his movie industry career in the late 1950s, scripting "Du rififi chez les femmes" ("The Riff Raff Girls") for director Alex Joffe in 1959.
Giovanni continued writing screenplays until 2001, though his own directing career took off in the early 1970s. He turned his novel "La Scoumoune" ("The Hitman") into a 1972 melodrama starring Belmondo as a 1930s gangster.
Associated Press