HOKLAHOMA STUDENT WINS MISS AMERICA PAGEANT

hOklahoma student winsMiss America pageant
LAS VEGAS -- A 22-year-old aspiring teacher from Oklahoma was crowned Miss America on Saturday night, the first time the storied but struggling pageant was held outside Atlantic City, N.J.
Jennifer Berry, a student at the University of Oklahoma, outlasted 51 other women to become Miss America 2006, earning a $30,000 college scholarship and a yearlong speaking tour in the process. Miss Georgia, Monica Pang, was first runner-up and Miss Alabama, Alexa Jones, second runner-up.
Miss Virginia, Kristi Lauren Glakas, and Miss District of Columbia, Shannon Schambeau, rounded out the top five. Miss Hawaii, Malika Dudley, won Miss Congeniality.
Whale in River Thamesdies during rescue
LONDON -- The lost and distressed whale stranded in the River Thames died Saturday as rescue workers ferried it on a rusting salvage barge in an effort to release it in the open sea, an animal rights group said. The 20-foot-long Northern bottlenose whale had been lifted onto a barge by rescuers and was being taken downriver toward the North Sea when it suffered convulsions and died, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said. The whale struggled with the effects of being out of the water as it was ferried toward the Thames Estuary, officials said.
Former President Fordremains in the hospital
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. -- Former President Gerald Ford underwent further treatment for pneumonia Saturday at a hospital where he was admitted a week earlier.
"His pneumonia continues to improve," Penny Circle, Ford's chief of staff, said in a statement.
A decision about when he will be released is being considered on a day-to-day basis, Circle said. Ford, 92, was admitted to the Eisenhower Medical Center near his desert home Jan. 14.
The nation's 38th chief executive was initially expected to be discharged by Thursday, but doctors decided he needed additional therapy. It was Ford's second hospitalization in five weeks.
He had been admitted to Eisenhower Medical Center in mid-December because of what Circle called "a horrible cold."
Belafonte criticizeshomeland security
NEW YORK -- Entertainer Harry Belafonte, one of the Bush administration's harshest critics, compared the Homeland Security Department to the Nazi Gestapo on Saturday and attacked the president as a liar. "We've come to this dark time in which the new Gestapo of Homeland Security lurks here, where citizens are having their rights suspended," Belafonte said in a speech to the annual meeting of the Arts Presenters Members Conference. "You can be arrested and not charged. You can be arrested and have no right to counsel," said Belafonte. Belafonte's remarks were greeted with a roaring standing ovation from an audience which included singer Peter Yarrow of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, and members of the arts community from several dozen countries.
Death of Kosovo's leaderspurs political uncertainty
PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro -- Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova died of lung cancer Saturday, leaving the province's fractious political scene in disarray just before the start of crucial talks on whether it should gain the independence from Serbia that was his lifelong dream.
His departure leaves a leadership vacuum at the most sensitive time since the Kosovo war ended in 1999.
International leaders appealed for calm and unity in the disputed U.N.-administered province. The Serb government expressed fears that Rugova's successor might not share his commitment to nonviolence.
The much-anticipated talks between ethnic Albanians and Serb officials to determine Kosovo's future had been scheduled to begin Wednesday in Vienna, Austria. But the talks were postponed until February after the death of the man who came to embody ethnic Albanian aspirations for independence.
Associated Press