Grace Tang, 4, of Foster City, Calif., throws sand on the stone art at the beach of Spanish Bay in Pebble Beach, Calif., on Wednesday.

Orville Myers / Monterey County Herald

Related articles:

Around the nation Around the nation Around the nation Around the nation Around the nation Around the nation Around the nation Around the nationAround the nation: Wildfire threatens homes near Yosemite Around the nation

General
CORT
WAREHOUSE/DRIVER Education
Assessment Technology, Inc
Social Studies Content Writer General
CORT
Warehouse Supervisor Construction
Komatsu Equipment Co
Mechanic Health Care
Rio Salado College
PA's/Online Instructors

NEWARK — New Jersey health officials say two men have died after contracting Legionnaires' disease in a hospital.

Health Department spokeswoman Marilyn Riley said Wednesday that one died Sept. 12 and the other Monday at St. Peter's University Hospital in the city of New Brunswick.

Four other people at the hospital were found to have Legionnaires' over the past two weeks. All six were admitted with other serious illnesses.

The hospital is treating its water supply with chlorine to kill the bacteria and reviewing records to determine whether other patients might have contracted the disease.

Legionnaires' disease is a type of pneumonia that can be spread through plumbing and air conditioning systems.

SOUTH BURLINGTON — Officials at a Vermont airport say a planned explosion at a rock quarry went awry and showered planes and cars with large rocks.

Burlington International Airport Manager Brian Searles says rocks hit four small airplanes, several vehicles and some buildings Wednesday. No one was hurt, but there was damage costing several hundred thousand dollars.

Some of the rocks were the size of microwave ovens.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a law making it illegal to read or send text messages while driving in California.

The bill imposes a $20 fine for a first offense and $50 for repeat offenders using any electronic devices to read or send messages, starting next year.

Schwarzenegger says the law he signed Wednesday encourages drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road.

California motorists using cell phones have been required to use hands-free devices since July, and drivers under age 18 can't use any electronic devices.

Seven other states and the District of Columbia ban text-messaging or the use of hand-held phones while driving, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

CHINO — A former slaughterhouse worker was sentenced Wednesday to jail and probation after being seen abusing sick and injured cattle in a secretly taped video that prompted the largest beef recall in U.S. history.

Daniel Ugarte Navarro pleaded no contest in June to two felony counts of animal cruelty and two misdemeanor counts of cruelty to downed animals.

The Humane Society of the United States shot the video at Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. in Chino, leading to a federal investigation and the recall of 143 million pounds of beef in February.

The video shows the workers dragging sick cows with metal chains and forklifts, shocking them with electric prods and shooting streams of water in their noses and faces.

HARTFORD — Connecticut Democrats have decided to delay action on a plan to censure Sen. Joe Lieberman and ask him to resign from the party.

The resolution would condemn Lieberman for speaking at the Republican National Convention and backing GOP presidential nominee John McCain.

But the state party's central committee decided Wednesday to get input from town officials and revisit the issue in December.

FORT LAUDERDALE — A Florida man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for his part in three attacks on homeless men in Fort Lauderdale in 2006.

A judge on Wednesday said she was prepared to sentence William Ammons to 20 years in prison. But she said she felt his remorse was genuine and gave him a lighter sentence after he apologized in court.

The 21-year-old man says he drove his friends to the attacks and struck one sleeping man with a plastic sword. He also said he fired a paintball gun at another man, who was beaten to death by Ammons' friend.

Ammons testified last week at the trial of his two friends, who were convicted of second-degree murder. He pleaded guilty to third-degree felony murder and aggravated battery.

CAPE CANAVERAL — NASA is delaying next month's shuttle launch to the Hubble Space Telescope because of problems stemming from Hurricane Ike and replacement parts for the observatory.

Space shuttle Atlantis is now set to blast off late at night on Oct. 14 for the last visit to the orbiting telescope, officials said Wednesday. Liftoff had been scheduled for the wee hours of Oct. 10.

Atlantis' seven astronauts, who wrapped up a practice countdown at the launching site Wednesday, lost a week of training because of Hurricane Ike.

MIAMI — A French art thief who admitted stealing and trying to sell paintings by Claude Monet and other famous artists will serve more than five years in U.S. prison.

A federal judge in Miami imposed term of 62 months Wednesday on Bernard Jean Ternus, 56.

He pleaded guilty in July to conspiracy to steal paintings by Monet, fellow Impressionist George Sisley and 17th-century master Jan Brueghel the Elder.

The FBI cracked the case by having undercover agents pose as potential buyers when Ternus tried to sell the paintings.

LEBANON — Officials in Pennsylvania have revoked a woman's concealed-weapons permit because other parents complained that she was carrying her loaded handgun at her daughter's soccer games.

Meleanie Hain says she's fighting the revocation by the Lebanon County sheriff.

Hain lost the permit and got a warning from local soccer officials after a game on Sept. 11.

Sheriff Michael DeLeo says openly carrying a weapon to a youth soccer match shows a lack of judgment.

Hain told the Lebanon Daily News she's always openly carried a firearm without any problems in the past.

SAN JUAN — Police in Puerto Rico say that an 86-year-old man who suffers from Alzheimer's disease used a wheelchair to kill another resident in a nursing home.

Police say Euricles Rivera Cales used the wheelchair's footrest to hit 79-year-old Gustavo Velez Merced in the face while he slept. Velez was taken to a hospital, where he died.

Authorities say Rivera has not been charged, though the case is still under investigation. The killing occurred early Wednesday at the My Family nursing home.

NEW YORK — Ellis Island is expanding its story of U.S. immigration history, including for the first time Native Americans and African slaves and adding modern arrivals.

A new center being created within the Ellis Island Immigration Museum will tell the history of arrivals both before and after the peak immigration era in the United States of 1892 to 1954, the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation said Wednesday.

The story of the migration to America "goes back to the beginning of the country and comes up to the present. So there were a good number of people whose stories weren't told at Ellis Island," said Stephen Briganti, the foundation's president and chief executive.

Exhibits will include Native Americans, Europeans who landed on the Eastern seaboard from the 1600s through 1892, Africans brought here forcibly by slave traders and today's immigrants from around the globe.

When the Peopling of America Center is completed in 2011,, the full museum will be renamed Ellis Island: The National Museum of Immigration.