The Pinwheel galaxy, otherwise known as Messier 101, sports bright reddish edges in this new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Research from Spitzer has revealed that this outer red zone lacks organic molecules present in the rest of the galaxy and linked to the formation of life.

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CRESSON — A worker fell 40 feet into a narrow storage hole at a natural gas drilling site Tuesday and was trapped for three hours before being rescued, officials said.

The man was hospitalized with scrapes and bruises and was expected to be held overnight at a hospital, said Julie Wilson, a spokeswoman for Chesapeake Energy Corp., manager of the site.

The site was being prepared for the drilling of a well when the man fell into a hole designed to store pipes, Wilson said.

The hole is about 3 feet wide at ground level and narrows as it descends to about 75 feet, Wilson said. The man lodged in the hole about 40 feet down, she said.

The man was an employee of Koda Rathole, an oil-field services company, Wilson said. A company official said the incident was being investigated.

ELDORADO — A Texas grand jury indicted polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs and four of his followers Tuesday on charges of felony sexual assault of a child. Another was indicted on a charge of failing to report child abuse.

Attorney General Greg Abbott said the five men are charged with one count of sexually assaulting girls under age 17. One of them, but not the 52-year-old Jeffs, faces an additional charge of bigamy.

Abbott said a sixth member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is charged with three counts of failure to report child abuse.

Jeffs, already convicted of being accomplice to rape in Utah and awaiting trial in Arizona on other charges related to underage marriages, is accused of assaulting a girl in Texas in January 2005, according to the indictment issued Tuesday.

The identities of the Jeffs' followers who were indicted in addition to him were not released Tuesday because the indictments remain sealed until authorities can arrest the men.

BLOOMINGTON — A Minnesota high school teacher lasted 20 hours on a carnival ride to win the Ride the Tide Challenge at the Mall of America.

Forty-year-old Jim Salava, of Oakdale, was declared the winner at the Nickelodeon Universe theme park when his final opponent stepped down at 2:35 a.m. Tuesday.

Salava was among 10 riders who boarded the Avatar Airbender at 6:30 a.m. Monday. The pool dwindled to three riders just three hours into the competition.

The Avatar Airbender averages 43 mph and reaches heights of 70 feet. Other than bathroom and meal breaks, contestants remained on the ride at all times — even to sleep.

The top prize includes a family cruise, $1,000 spending cash and a lifetime pass to the theme park.

HAMMOND — An enclosed walkway being attached to a floating casino on Lake Michigan slipped Tuesday as it was being attached, sending seven construction workers into the water, authorities said.

After the workers fell, nine other workers jumped into the water to help them, including two men who were briefly trapped inside the fallen walkway, said Kevin Margraf, chief fire inspector for the Hammond Fire Department.

One of the workers was taken to a hospital complaining of shoulder pain and was later released, and several of the 15 others were treated at the scene for minor injuries, he said.

Margraf said the barge shifted beneath the structure, causing the walkway to fall. The collapse hurled the two workers inside the walkway 12 to 15 feet into the lake while the five workers below jumped or fell into the water.

Horseshoe is nearly finished building the $485 million casino boat just across the state line from Chicago. The walkway that fell is one of three that will connect the casino to the site's pavilion.

DECATUR — Officials in Georgia say Kid Rock was sentenced to a year's probation and fined $1,000 for his role in a fight at a suburban Atlanta Waffle House last fall.

The DeKalb County Solicitor's Office says the 37-year-old singer was also sentenced Monday to six hours of anger-management counseling and 80 hours of community service.

The entertainer, whose real name is Robert J. Ritchie, pleaded no contest to one count of simple battery. Four counts of battery were dropped.

Ritchie's tour bus stopped at the Waffle House about 5 a.m. on Oct. 21 after a performance in downtown Atlanta. An exchange of words with a customer escalated into a fight that spilled from the restaurant into the parking lot.

LOS ANGELES — Estelle Getty, the diminutive actress who spent 40 years struggling for success before landing a role of a lifetime in 1985 as the sarcastic octogenarian Sophia on TV's "The Golden Girls," died Tuesday. She was 84.

Getty, who suffered from advanced dementia, died at about 5:30 a.m. at her Hollywood Boulevard home, said her son, Carl Gettleman of Santa Monica.

"Estelle always wanted to be an actress, and she achieved that goal beyond her dreams," former "Golden Girls" co-star Rue McClanahan told The Associated Press. "Don't feel sad about her passing. She will always be with us in her crowning achievement, Sophia."

"The Golden Girls," featuring four female retirees sharing a house in Miami, grew out of NBC programming chief Brandon Tartikoff's belief that television was ignoring its older viewers.

Three of its stars had already appeared in previous series: Bea Arthur in "Maude," Betty White in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and McClanahan in "Mama's Family." The last character to be cast was Sophia Petrillo, the feisty 80-something mother of Arthur's character.

SAN FRANCISCO — Officials reported progress Tuesday with California's remaining 33 blazes — down from more than 2,000 in the past month — although fire danger remained high in some rural areas.

In Trinity County, about 170 miles northwest of Sacramento, the outlying neighborhoods of Junction City are still under evacuation orders with a large wildfire less than a mile away from the town of about 800, said Mike Johnson, a spokesman for the National Park Service. That fire in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest was about 60 percent contained after burning 93 square miles.

Flames around Northern California have led to a handful of evacuations and are contributing to air quality problems. Dense smoke has been creating unhealthy air that will likely turn hazardous in Trinity, Humboldt and Siskiyou counties this week, said Dimitri Stanich, spokesman for the California Air Resources Board.

Wildfires burning since June 21 have scorched 1,528 square miles across the state and destroyed 122 homes.

In many parts of the state, lower temperatures and higher humidity have aided firefighters, including those in Los Padres National Forest near the coast, where a widespread blaze was 72 percent contained Tuesday. The fire has blackened 216 square miles and burned 26 homes around Big Sur.

MIAMI — U.S. Customs and Border Protection authorities returned four seized pre-Columbian artifacts originally from Ecuador to the government of the South American nation.

A bowl and a vessel, both ceramic, a stone ax and a stone ball used as a fishing weight were discovered by a Customs and Border Protection officer at Miami International Airport in February 2006. They were handed over to Ecuadorean officials Tuesday.

Officials said the return was delayed by requirements such as having experts examine the materials.

Authorities say the ceramic pieces were made between 900 B.C. and 300 B.C. and the stone artifacts between 500 A.D. and 1550 A.D.