President Bush congratulates 8-year-old Bridget Donahue of Westborough, Mass., daughter of Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer William Donahue, after a T-ball game on the South Lawn of the White House. The game was the 20th and last to be hosted by the administration.

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HITCHCOCK — A retired NASA engineer looking to develop an inexpensive way for people to travel to space might have to go back to the drawing board after one of his experiments exploded Saturday.

Jim Akkerman was working on a spacecraft his firm is developing when his rocket fuel exploded.

No one was injured and no property was damaged in the accident in Hitchcock, about 40 miles southeast of Houston.

Too much methane-oxygen fuel mixture accumulated in the rocket engine when the engine wouldn't fire, causing the explosion, police said.

NEW YORK — JetBlue Airways Corp. is auctioning off more than 300 round-trip flights and six vacation packages this week on eBay, with opening bids set between 5 and 10 cents.

The flights are to more than 20 destinations, including four "mystery" JetBlue Getaways Vacation packages to undisclosed locations.

The three-, five- and seven-day auctions include one- and two-person round-trip, weekend flights in September from cities that include Boston, Chicago, New York, Orlando, Salt Lake City, Fort Lauderdale and Southern California.

Each auction will have a specific range of dates in which customers can travel.

The travel dates, times and flight numbers will be posted when the customers bid.

Those interested in bidding can access the auctions through www.jetblue.com/.

PHILADELPHIA — A longtime Democratic power broker in Pennsylvania politics earned nearly $100,000 a year as a state senator, up to $1 million a year as a rainmaking lawyer and millions more from the sale of a family bank.

But Vincent Fumo faces trial today in federal court on charges alleging he used $3.5 million in what he called "OPM" — other people's money — to keep his political machine well-oiled and fund a lifestyle that included three vacation homes and heated sidewalks outside his 33-room brownstone in Philadelphia.

The trial is expected to last a full three months, after a week of jury selection.

Fumo, 65, is accused of misusing nearly $2 million in Senate funds and of raiding the coffers of a neighborhood charity after using his political clout to steer $27 million in corporate donations to the charity.

LOS ANGELES — Anita Page, an MGM actress who appeared in films with Lon Chaney, Joan Crawford and Buster Keaton during the transition from silent movies to talkies, has died. She was 98.

Page died in her sleep early Saturday morning at her home in Los Angeles, said actor Randal Malone, her longtime friend and companion.

Page's career, which spanned 84 years, began in 1924 when she started as an extra.

Her big break came in 1928 when she won a major role — as the doomed bad girl — in "Our Dancing Daughters," a film that featured a wild Charleston by Crawford and propelled them both to stardom.

It spawned two sequels, "Our Modern Maidens" and "Our Blushing Brides." Page and Crawford were in all three films.

FRESNO — Authorities say they've arrested a man who broke into the home of two California farmworkers, stole money, rubbed one with spices and whacked the other with a sausage before fleeing.

Fresno County sheriff's Lt. Ian Burrimond said Antonio Vasquez, 22, was found hiding in a field wearing only a T-shirt, boxers and socks after the Saturday morning attack.

He said deputies arrested Vasquez after finding a wallet containing his ID in the ransacked house.

The farmworkers told deputies the suspect woke them Saturday morning by rubbing spices on one of them and smacking the other with an 8-inch sausage.

PAYSON — Actor Gary Coleman struck a pedestrian with his truck after arguing with him in a local bowling alley, police said.

Payson police Lt. Bill Wright said Colt Rushton and Coleman got into an argument Saturday over pictures Rushton had taken of Coleman inside the bowling alley.

Coleman hit Rushton and a car as he was backing out of a parking space, he said. Neither man was issued a citation.