Nancy Reagan hospitalized

Nancy Reagan hospitalized

LOS ANGELES — Nancy Reagan suffered a broken pelvis in a fall at her home and will be hospitalized for several days, her spokeswoman said Wednesday.

The 87-year-old former first lady fell last week, spokeswoman Joanne Drake said. She did not seek immediate medical care but decided Monday to get checked out because of persistent pain, Drake said.

Doctors at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center determined she had a fractured pelvis and sacrum, the triangular bone at the base of the spinal column.

Mrs. Reagan was undergoing physical therapy but surgery won’t be required.

Storm batters St. Croix

CHRISTIANSTED, U.S. Virgin Islands — Heavy rains and winds pummeled St. Croix on Wednesday as the outer edge of powerful Hurricane Omar drenched the island, stranding motorists on flooded roads. Hours earlier, workers shut down a giant oil refinery.

Forecasters said Omar grew into a Category 2 hurricane with top winds of 105 mph (170 kph) late Wednesday and was expected to continue strengthening as it barreled toward the U.S. and British Virgin Islands.

One death was reported on Puerto Rico’s tiny island of Culebra. Authorities say a 55-year-old man collapsed from cardiac arrest while trying to install storm shutters on his house.

Frugal holiday planned

HACKENSACK, N.J. — American consumers are planning to be frugal this year and cut back on holiday gifts for family members, according to a survey being released today by the National Retail Federation.

The NRF’s annual Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, which each fall asks shoppers to predict their holiday spending, found that Americans for the first time since the survey began in 2002 said they will spend less for family gifts, $466.13, compared with $469.14 last year.

Consumers forecast their average total spending for the holidays would rise 1.9 percent to $832.36, the smallest predicted increase in the seven years the NRF has conducted the survey. That includes spending on decorations, greeting cards, gifts for co-workers and food.

A reprieve from wildfires

LOS ANGELES — Residents of the San Fernando Valley breathed air free of smoke and ash for the first time in four days Wednesday under brilliant blue skies.

Gone were the convulsive winds that at times reached gale force. Nowhere could Los Angeles police be found using bullhorns to order residents out of homes and away from deadly fires that have blackened more than 34 square miles and destroyed more than 50 homes.

The last evacuation orders for two big fire areas at opposite ends of the valley were lifted, though some locations were open just to residents. Some of those who returned found only rubble.

The winds that helped spread the flames were slack Wednesday, though temperatures were rising and the largest fire, which has consumed more than 20 square miles near Porter Ranch, remained only 20 percent contained.

Governor accused of threat

LAS VEGAS — The accusations of a woman who says Nevada’s governor once threatened to rape her are “simply false,” Gov. Jim Gibbons said Wednesday.

An investigation two years ago that resulted in no criminal charges should speak for itself, the governor said in a statement.

A former Las Vegas waitress now living in California sued Gibbons in federal court Tuesday, accusing him of charges including battery, false imprisonment and second-degree kidnapping. Chrissy Mazzeo, 34, is seeking unspecified damages in excess of $10,000.

Mazzeo alleges that Gibbons pushed her against a wall in a parking garage and propositioned her for sex near a restaurant where they had been drinking with a group the night of Oct. 13, 2006. The lawsuit filed by Las Vegas attorney Robert Kossack quotes Gibbons as telling Mazzeo: “I’m going to rape you.”

Gibbons said two years ago that he merely caught Mazzeo when she tripped in the garage.

Freed after 21 years

BALTIMORE — A man convicted of killing his neighbor was freed Wednesday after serving 21 years in prison because prosecutors said they didn’t have enough evidence to retry him.

James L. Owens, 43, and a co-defendant had been sentenced to life in prison for the 1987 stabbing and strangling death of Colleen Williar, 24. Prosecutors described the crime as a burglary gone awry.

But Owens had his murder and burglary convictions thrown out after a 2006 DNA test found that neither he nor co-defendant James Thompson raped Williar.

Combined dispatches