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WASHINGTON — Quick: Cochabamba is the third-largest conurbation in what country?

Your answer might be, "Huh?" But 11-year-old Akshay Rajagopal answered "Bolivia" to clinch the 20th annual National Geographic Bee on Wednesday.

A conurbation is a large, densely populated urban area — and Cochabamba is the third-largest one in the South American country.

Akshay's correct answer capped a two-day event in which he got every question right. The sixth-grader at Lux Middle School in Lincoln, Neb., won a $25,000 scholarship.

WASHINGTON — President Bush signed legislation Wednesday to protect people from losing their jobs or health insurance when genetic testing reveals they are susceptible to costly diseases.

Broadly embraced in Congress, the anti-discrimination measure aims to ensure that advances in DNA testing won't be used against people.

It forbids employers and insurance companies from denying employment, promotions or health coverage to people when genetic tests show they have a predisposition to cancer, heart disease or other ailments.

Contact-lens cleaners face a U.S. safety review next month after similar products were recalled by Advanced Medical Optics Inc. and Bausch & Lomb Inc. because users suffered potentially blinding infections.

The Food and Drug Administration will convene a panel of outside experts June 10 to "discuss general issues" with various lens cleaners and whether new testing or package labeling should be required, according to a notice posted Wednesday on the agency's Web site.

An estimated 35 million Americans wear contact lenses, and safety concerns may jeopardize the $1.7 billion lens- care market. Doctors blame incorrect use of the products for some of the problems.

After people in 35 states were infected with the water-borne acanthamoeba parasite last year, the FDA reiterated advice that people clean contacts and remove them before showering and swimming.

NEW YORK — A coalition of animal welfare groups says it has evidence that Ringling Bros. circus elephants are sometimes chained for days at a time, and the groups asked a judge Wednesday to halt the practice while a lawsuit comes to trial.

In federal court papers filed in Washington, the groups said Ringling Bros.' own train records show that the Asian elephants are chained in box cars for an average of more than 26 straight hours, and often 60 to 70 hours at a time, when the circus travels. In some cases, the elephants have been chained on trains for 90 to 100 hours.

The parent company of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Baily Circus has argued that chaining the elephants during transport is necessary and legal.

McALLEN — Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff clarified that federal border agents would not impede a hurricane evacuation from South Texas by checking fleeing residents' documents, diverting from plans confirmed by Border Patrol officials in the state only days earlier.

Speaking at a hurricane-preparedness gathering Tuesday at FEMA headquarters in Washington, Chertoff said he wanted to "drive a stake through the heart of a misapprehension which is out there."

"In the event of an emergency, and the need for an evacuation, priority No. 1 by a country mile is the safe evacuation of people who are leaving the danger zone," Chertoff said. "Instructions to the Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection are clear. They are to do nothing to impede a safe and speedy evacuation of a danger zone."

Texas officials reacted with concern when patrol officials along the Texas-Mexico line said last week that checkpoints 75 miles north of the border would remain in operation during a hurricane evacuation.

CONCORD — New Hampshire's governor is considering a bill that would outlaw dissolving human remains as an alternative to cremation but provide for studies to allow it again eventually.

The state Senate voted Wednesday to send Gov. John Lynch a bill to reverse a two-year-old law that allows alkaline hydrolysis — a process now used on human cadavers only at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

Alkaline hydrolysis is legal in New Hampshire and Minnesota under cremation statutes.

The process uses lye, heat and pressure to destroy bodies in stainless-steel cylinders like pressure cookers.

NEOSHO — A deputy shot and killed a 50-pound feline — a jaguar or leopard that may have been dumped by its owner — after a woman reported the animal pawing at her door.

The origin of the well-fed, declawed black cat remained a mystery, but authorities said it did not appear to have been living in the wild.

It took repeated shotgun blasts and several bullets from Cpl. Donn Hall's .45-caliber handgun to bring down the cat Monday after it twice charged at him, the Newton County Sheriff's Department said. Hall was not injured.

"He fired on it and wounded it," said Capt. Richard Leavens. "It ran past him … and then came back at him."

OCALA — Wesley Snipes must surrender to prison authorities June 3 if he isn't granted bail to appeal three federal tax convictions, defense lawyers said in a court filing.

Snipes' attorneys plan to argue before the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the trial judge erred in several ways before and after his February conviction. U.S. District Judge William Terrell Hodges last month sentenced Snipes to three years in prison.

To be granted freedom during the appeal, the 45-year-old actor must prove that he has a substantial issue to raise and isn't a flight risk. His attorneys argue that Hodges gave the jury bad instructions and should have granted them an expanded pretrial hearing on their request to move the proceedings.

BOLINGBROOK — Former police Sgt. Drew Peterson turned himself in Wednesday on a weapons charge unrelated to the disappearance of his wife, a high-profile case in which he has been named as a suspect.

Peterson turned himself in at the Bolingbrook Police Department, where he once worked, and was taken to the Will County jail. A son posted 10 percent of a $75,000 bond to secure his release pending trial, Peterson attorney Joel Brodsky said.

Peterson left jail without commenting. The arrest warrant had been issued Tuesday.