Welcome rains ease water restrictions in Colo.

Welcome rains easewater restrictions in Colo.
DENVER -- Rain and thunderstorms have been a welcome sight in the West, especially Colorado, where restrictions on water use and campfires have been eased.
But the wet weather isn't enough to drown out the threat of a damaging drought.
Lessening limits in Colorado comes amid warnings across the West that the return of hot, dry weather could drop reservoir levels even further and quickly turn green, lush grasses into fuel for wildfires. The region has been stuck in a crippling drought for years.
Nancy Lull, spokeswoman at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, said a series of thunderstorms that began hitting the state last week have helped reduce the threat of wildfires.
Rain has delayed wheat harvests from southern Colorado to eastern Wyoming and flooded highways and basements along the eastern slopes of the Rockies. But it has been welcome virtually everywhere else.
Woman testifies Petersonnever said he was married
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. -- Scott Peterson, on trial for the murder of his pregnant wife, talked incessantly about sex and never mentioned he was married, according to a woman who met him at an agriculture conference and later introduced him to his mistress.
Shawn Sibley testified Wednesday that Peterson told her when they first met that he had "lost" his first love. But most of the conversation that night was about sex.
"We'd be talking about something else and he'd bring up sex," she said. "He did ask me my sexual preferences ... sexual positions ... but he was kind of joking."
Sibley later introduced Peterson to his future girlfriend, massage therapist Amber Frey.
Prosecutors say it was that affair that drove him to kill Laci Peterson.
Sibley said she "freaked" when she learned through an acquaintance that Peterson was married.
She called him and confronted him.
"He kept denying it," Sibley said.
Inappropriate attire
MORRISTOWN, N.J. -- A man accused of job hunting at day care centers while clad in a soiled diaper and pink stretch pants will avoid jail time.
Authorities say William Rhode III, 53, unsuccessfully tried to get work at five different centers in four area communities Feb. 12. He was arrested later that day and had been housed since then in the county jail's psychiatric unit.
Rhode, who now lives in a homeless shelter, had been indicted on seven counts of child endangerment. The county grand jury said his behavior constituted sexual conduct and that children at all five centers saw him.
Rhode was freed Tuesday after pleading guilty to a disorderly persons charge. He was sentenced to five years probation and must undergo a psychiatric evaluation and receive any recommended counseling. He also must stay away from children.
Frozen body found
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Climbers poking around a high-elevation camp on Mount McKinley discovered a human foot sticking out of the snow. Rangers dug out the frozen corpse of a man who died 35 years ago.
Park Service spokeswoman Maureen McLaughlin said the body was that of Gary Cole, 32, of Cody, Wyo., who died of acute mountain sickness June 19, 1969.
Identification was made by his wedding band and a watch with a calendar dated June 1969, the Park Service said.
The grim discovery was made Friday, said Kris Fister, a Denali National Park spokeswoman. While looking for supplies at a storage area at the camp site, climbers noticed what looked like climbing gear in the snow, Fister said.
A closer look revealed it was a foot in a sock.
Marching for democracy
HONG KONG -- Hundreds of thousands of people marched in Hong Kong today to demand the right to elect their own leaders and lashed out at Beijing for clamping down on the territory's democratic aspirations.
Tempers have flared here since China ruled in April that ordinary citizens cannot elect the successor to their unpopular leader, Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa, in 2007 or all lawmakers in 2008.
"We don't want to be subservient to the central government," said Ben Kwok, a 40-year-old factory owner. "We don't want Hong Kong to become like the mainland, where even the news gets censored."
People took to the streets en masse, on the seventh anniversary of the handover from British to Chinese sovereignty.
Protest organizer Jackie Hung, a Roman Catholic activist, told The Associated Press that at least 350,000 people had turned out, but the crowd was still growing in the late afternoon.
Associated Press