American Scene

CONNECTICUT

Craigslist removes global adult services listings

HARTFORD — The state’s attorney general says Craigslist has confirmed that it has removed adult services ads from its global sites.

The online service already had deleted that section on its U.S. sites in September under pressure from officials over whether it was adequately policing illegal ads.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal says Craigslist representatives confirmed to his office Tuesday that it had also removed erotic services listings from hundreds of sites in dozens of other countries.

Representatives of San Francisco-based Craigslist did not return messages Tuesday about when the change went into effect. The removal was first reported on Wired magazine’s website.

FLORIDA

Pedophilia guide author denies book is obscene

BARTOW — A Colorado man who wrote a how-to guide for pedophiles said Tuesday that his book is not obscene.

Phillip Greaves, 47, of Pueblo, Colo., arrived at the Polk County jail in central Florida on Tuesday morning and was due in court Wednesday afternoon, officials said.

He was arrested Monday in Colorado and charged with violating Florida’s obscenity law, a third-degree felony. If convicted, he faces a maximum of five years in state prison.

Speaking to reporters outside the jail Tuesday, Mr. Greaves denied the book is obscene and said he plans to fight the charge.

“I characterize it as a book of showing people who have been improperly represented,” he said. “And also telling people how they can go about to improve their own lives and so that these people that are being incarcerated now can possibly be rehabilitated.”

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd claims jurisdiction because Mr. Greaves sold and mailed the book to undercover deputies who had written him requesting a copy.

Florida’s obscenity law prohibits the “distribution of obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors.”

GEORGIA

Report: U.S. teen birth rate at all-time low

ATLANTA — The U.S. teen birth rate in 2009 fell to its lowest point in almost 70 years of record-keeping — a decline that stunned experts who think it’s partly due to the recession.

The birth rate for teenagers fell to 39 births per 1,000 girls, ages 15 through 19, according to a government report released Tuesday. It was a 6 percent decline from the previous year, and the lowest since health officials started tracking the rate in 1940.

Experts say the recent recession — from December 2007 to June 2009 — was a major factor driving down births overall, and there’s good reason to think it affected would-be teen mothers.

Teenage moms, who account for about 10 percent of the nation’s births, are not unique. The total number of births also has been dropping, as have birth rates among all women except those 40 and older.

MONTANA

Lawsuit threatened to restore wolf ranges

BILLINGS — An environmental group has filed notice that it will sue the federal government to force it to adopt a plan for the recovery of gray wolves across the lower 48 states.

The predators were poisoned and trapped to near-extermination in the U.S. in the past century. But they have bounced back in some wilderness areas over the last few decades.

Biologists with the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity said Tuesday they want to expand that recovery nationwide.

In the notice filed with the Interior Department, the group says it will sue within 60 days if the agency doesn’t act to expand wolf ranges.

About 6,000 wolves live in the U.S. outside Alaska, with most of those in the Great Lakes and Northern Rockies. They are listed as endangered except in Alaska.

NEW YORK

Dismissal of golf ’Fore’ lawsuit upheld

ALBANY — Slices, hooks and other errant shots are a common hazard on the links and a golfer can’t expect to get a warning shout of “Fore!” every time a ball comes his way, New York’s top court ruled Tuesday in dismissing a personal injury lawsuit.

Dr. Anoop Kapoor and Dr. Azad Anand were playing on a nine-hole Long Island course in October 2002 when Dr. Anand was hit in the head while looking for his ball on a fairway, blinding him in one eye. The seven judges on the state Court of Appeals, siding with lower courts, said Dr. Kapoor’s failure to yell in advance of his errant shot from the rough did not amount to intentional or reckless conduct.

The court cited a judge’s finding that Dr. Anand was not in the foreseeable zone of danger and, as a golfer, consented to the inherent risks of the sport.

They also broadly outlined the test under New York case law for determining when another golfer crosses the line and could be sued.

OHIO

Muslim woman reports attack near mosque

COLUMBUS — A 20-year-old Somali immigrant reported being attacked with pepper spray outside an Ohio mosque and that the attacker told her to leave the country, a Muslim group said.

Columbus police Sgt. Richard Weiner said officers interviewed the woman Tuesday morning.

Meanwhile, the FBI said it will likely open a civil rights investigation. FBI spokesman Mike Brooks said the results would be turned over to prosecutors for possible charges.

The Columbus chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said a mosque security camera recorded the assault Monday.

The group says someone followed the woman to the mosque, harassed her and then attacked her with pepper spray. CAIR says the attacker also threatened to kill her and told her to leave the country.

• From wire dispatches and staff reports