NEW WILDFIRE ERUPTS NORTH OF LOS ANGELES

New wildfire eruptsnorth of Los Angeles
ACTON, Calif. -- A wildfire in northern Los Angeles County prompted the evacuation of 175 homes as it spread rapidly through desert brush toward stands of dead trees.
The fire burned out of control across more than 5,000 acres after erupting Tuesday, even as California firefighters gained the upper hand on two other large wildfires.
The fire in northern Los Angeles County destroyed a mobile home, an abandoned house and a bridge, said county fire Inspector Mike McCormick. No injuries were reported.
Winds gusting up to 25 mph pushed flames past ranch homes in Acton but the blaze moved overnight toward houses in the Little Rock, Bell Springs and Juniper Hills areas, McCormick said.
Elsewhere, a 6,000-acre fire near Santa Clarita was 81 percent contained and a 17,418-acre fire near Lake Hughes was 95 percent contained after it destroyed three homes and a dozen outbuildings.
Voters in Detroit suburbOK Islamic call to prayer
HAMTRAMCK, Mich. -- Residents of this once-predominantly Polish city upheld Tuesday an amendment to the city's noise ordinance, a victory for those in favor of allowing mosques to issue the call to prayer over loudspeakers.
The vote, which supporters of the prayer calls acknowledged was merely symbolic, was 1,462 to 1,200, or 55 percent to 45 percent.
The city council unanimously passed the amendment to the noise ordinance in April after a mosque asked for permission to begin broadcasting the Arabic chants, traditionally issued five times a day.
The ordinance regulates the volume and timing of the amplified call. Without the law, city officials said there would be nothing to prohibit the broadcasting of the call to prayer itself.
The vote was widely viewed as a choice between allowing the call to prayer or prohibiting it by repealing the amendment.
Robert Zwolak, one of the organizers of the petition drive that put the question the ballot, said he has no plans to fight the call to prayer in court. "The only other recourse we have is to change the political faces we have in city hall right now," he said.
Mother sentenced
CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. -- A woman who killed two of her newborns and encased their bodies in concrete was sentenced Tuesday to 30 years to life in prison.
Stacy DeBeer, 30, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder two weeks ago in exchange for two consecutive sentences of 15 years to life in prison -- meaning she will serve 30 years before she can seek parole.
"My babies deserved more," DeBeer, weeping and shaking, said at her sentencing. "I will live with this every day."
Before dawn on May 11, 2003 -- Mother's Day and her 29th birthday -- DeBeer said she gave birth on her living-room couch, placed the infant girl in a garbage bag and hid the body. She told police she killed another newborn, also a girl, five years earlier.
Rescue effort at coal mine
RODINSKOYE, Ukraine -- Emergency workers battled a raging fire in a shaft at a coal mine in eastern Ukraine today, a day after an explosion killed 31 miners and left five missing.
Rescuers did not expect to find alive any of the miners who were missing following the massive methane gas and coal dust explosion 3,200 feet below the surface, said an emergency official at the Krasnolimanskaya mine.
"They are all presumed dead, no one could survive that inferno," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Air rage in reverse
MOSCOW -- Drunken passengers often give air crews trouble, but Russia's leading airline reported a new twist: intoxicated flight attendants beating up a passenger.
Two crew members on a domestic Aeroflot flight beat a passenger who had complained that the flight attendants were drunk, airline spokeswoman Irina Dannenberg said on Tuesday.
The passenger, identified only as A. Chernopup, was aboard a recent flight from Moscow to the Siberian city of Nizhnevartovsk, Dannenberg said. She said the crew belonged to another airline, Aviaenergo.
Seeing that the crew were intoxicated and were not fulfilling their duties, Chernopup asked to be served by a sober and competent flight attendant, Dannenberg said. Chernopup was then beaten up by crew members.
The male flight attendants were so intoxicated that they "behaved improperly" and only began catering to passengers 1 1/2 hours into the four-hour trip, Dannenberg said.
According to the passenger, Chernopup left the plane with a black eye and was promptly sent to a doctor. Izvestia said a criminal case was opened by police.
Associated Press