Boone's Ferry Primary School fourth-graders, from left, Shelby Nielsen, 9, Morgan Miller, 10, and Christine Caulk, 10, examine some ladybugs during an educational outing for children in West Linn, Ore. The Coalition of Environmentally Conscious Growers and local farmers organized the event.

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SCHOFIELD BARRACKS — The Army says it is ready to begin destroying a stockpile of old chemical weapons found during cleanup of a training range on the island of Oahu.

The Army calls it the largest concentration of unexploded chemical weapons ever found in the U.S.

Most of the artillery shells and other weapons contain the choking agent phosgene and one holds an agent that causes a reaction like tear gas.

The Army says the weapons were produced beginning in World War I and were stockpiled at the Schofield Barracks military base through World War II.

Army officials say a system called a Transportable Detonation Chamber will contain the weapons while they are destroyed one at a time with explosives.

SANTA MONICA — It won't come with the ocean views, but you can still catch some thrills from riding your very own Ferris wheel, straight off the Santa Monica Pier.

The nine-story wheel that's been at Pacific Park since 1996 was put up for sale Tuesday on eBay.

The wheel overlooking the Pacific has 20 gondolas and is outlined in 5,392 light bulbs. It has provided some 3 million rides and has been seen in movies, on television and in numerous photos.

Next month, however, the Pacific Wheel will be replaced by a $1.5 million modern model.

The auction will last 10 days and the minimum price is $50,000. Half the winning bid — minus fees — will be donated to the Special Olympics.

A support base for the wheel costs another $135,000, said amusement park spokesman Cameron Andrews.

And, the buyer must handle shipping costs for the 122,000-pound wheel.

LOS ANGELES — Ollie Johnston, the last of the "Nine Old Men" who animated "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," "Fantasia," "Bambi" and other classic Walt Disney films, died Monday. He was 95.

Johnston died of natural causes at a long-term care facility in Sequim, Wash., Walt Disney Studios Vice President Howard E. Green said Tuesday.

"Ollie was part of an amazing generation of artists, one of the real pioneers of our art, one of the major participants in the blossoming of animation into the art form we know today," Roy E. Disney, nephew of Walt Disney and director emeritus of the Walt Disney Co., said in a statement.

SANTA ANA — The scandal-plagued Orange County Sheriff's Department is investigating whether jail staffers used a Taser stun gun on a cat that was found dead on facility grounds.

The investigation comes after a scathing grand jury report last week that found deputies at Theo Lacy Jail sent personal text messages and watched TV while inmates beat a fellow inmate to death.

Sheriff's spokesman John McDonald says a tipster told the department Monday that jail personnel used a Taser on the cat. The animal was later found dead on the jail grounds, between two fences.

It had been dead several weeks and a necropsy is pending. McDonald declined to say who reported the allegations.

CHICAGO — Chicago police say an officer has killed a 150-pound cougar in a residential area on the city's North Side.

Police say several residents reported seeing the cat early Monday and the officer shot the animal in an alley.

Authorities say the cougar will be checked for any markings, chips or tags that would show if it was someone's pet rather than a wild animal.

Confirmed sightings of cougars, also known as mountain lions or pumas, are rare in Illinois, but authorities in the Chicago suburb of Wilmette say they received several reports of cougar sightings during the weekend.

CHICAGO — Up to 100 passengers were evacuated from a subway tunnel Tuesday after a single train stalled and officials shut down all service on a major route between downtown and O'Hare International Airport.

Four people were taken to hospitals, but none of their injuries was considered life-threatening, Chicago Transit Authority President Ron Huberman said.

One eight-car train stalled shortly after 8 a.m. inside a tunnel near the station at Clark and Lake streets in Chicago's Loop and some passengers jumped off, Huberman said.

CTA employees attempted to get those passengers back on the train, but because some refused, the authority shut down power to the whole Blue Line to make sure no one touched the electrified third rail.

As many as 100 passengers had to be evacuated from that first train and two others that stopped inside the tunnel when the power was cut, authority spokeswoman Sheila Gregory said.

A federal jury convicted a woman Tuesday of running a prostitution service that catered to members of Washington's political elite.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey, 52, sighed as the verdict was read. She had repeatedly denied the escort service engaged in prostitution, saying that if any of the women engaged in sex acts for money, they did so without her knowledge.

Palfrey caused a sensation last year when she announced that to raise money for her defense, she intended to sell her phone records to any news outlet willing to pay. Palfrey said her defunct business, Pamela Martin & Associates, was "a legal, high-end erotic fantasy service" that serviced elite clients.

She was convicted on all counts she faced: money laundering, using the mail for illegal purposes and racketeering.

Three of Palfrey's clients testified during the weeklong trial in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, explaining how they found the service, how often they called, what they were hoping for and whether they got it during their visits.

ANCHORAGE— A radio station suspended two disc jockeys Tuesday over a derogatory remark about Alaska Native women made on their show, a comment that has Alaskans comparing the shock-jock duo to Don Imus.

The Anchorage DJs, known as Woody and Wilcox, were joking about what makes someone a real Alaskan, when one of them offered a variation on an old saying — offensive to many — that real Alaskans have urinated in the Yukon River and made love to an Alaska Native woman.

What the DJ said, however, switched the verbs, making it far more offensive.

Some Alaska Natives called for sanctions against KBFX-FM, the hard-rock station that features Woody and Wilcox on its morning show.

Natives likened the remarks to those made last spring by Imus, who called the Rutgers University women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos."

CBS Radio fired Imus in April 2007 and pulled the plug on his nationally syndicated show. He returned to the air in December at WABC-AM in New York after a series of public apologies.

NEW YORK — A lawyer for a mentally ill patient accused of hacking a psychotherapist to death with a meat cleaver said Tuesday that his client will offer an insanity defense.

Defense lawyer Bryan Konoski said in Manhattan's state Supreme Court that a psychiatrist he hired to examine murder suspect David Tarloff, 40, found "very strong grounds" for a psychiatric defense.

Konoski's court papers say Tarloff suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, depression, intrusive delusional thoughts of God and Satan, belief he is the Messiah and other mental disorders.

Tarloff, who told police he has been in mental institutions at least 20 times, is charged with first- and second-degree murder in the Feb. 12 death of Kathryn Faughey, 56, in her Upper East Side office.

A deputy sheriff says two people have died as a wildfire burned into the town limits of a southeast Colorado town.

Crowley County deputy Bill Hamilton says he didn't immediately have details on Tuesday's deaths.

All of Ordway's 1,100 residents were told to leave Tuesday evening as the wildfire was being fanned by wind that blew up to 50 mph in the state's southeastern plains.

Authorities also say a small plane crashed while fighting a fire at Fort Carson and the pilot's fate was unknown.

Mike Fergus of the Federal Aviation Administration says the crop-duster-type plane crashed along a highway just east of the Army post. The fire there has burned about 1,000 acres. Much of the state was under a National Weather Service red flag warning Tuesday, signifying high fire danger.

DALLAS — More than 800 employees were suspended or fired for abusing mentally and developmentally disabled people at 13 state institutions in the past four years, officials said Tuesday.

The Department of Aging and Disability Services disclosed the disciplinary actions in response to an open records request from The Associated Press.

Last month, Gov. Rick Perry's office confirmed that there was a federal investigation into alleged abuse and neglect at the Denton State School, the largest such facility.

The state said 239 employees were fired or suspended in fiscal year 2007 for the abuse, neglect or exploitation of residents. There were 200 such disciplinary actions in 2006, 203 in 2005 and 180 in 2004, according to the records.

The 13 state schools and centers combined have about 12,000 full-time employees.

An advocate for the mentally disabled called the number of employees disciplined "stunning."