Baptist group elects first woman leader

AMARILLO - The nation's largest Baptist convention elected its first female president yesterday. Retired missionary Joy Fenner was elected president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. She defeated preacher David Lowrie by 60 votes, 900 to 840. The moderate organization is the state's largest Baptist group, with more than 2.3 million members. The moderate organization has distanced itself from some Southern Baptist leaders who have issued declarations that women should not be pastors and that wives should "graciously submit" to their husbands. (AP)

SAN FRANCISCO - A man accused of prematurely torching the Burning Man festival's namesake effigy in August has been arrested on suspicion of trying to set fire to the historic Grace Cathedral, police said yesterday. Paul Addis, a performance artist who was out on bail in the Burning Man case, had an ammunition belt of small explosives strapped around his waist when arrested at the Episcopal church around 11:40 p.m. Sunday, police said. Officers said an anonymous caller reported overhearing Addis talking about a plan to set fire to the local landmark, a French Gothic structure that sits atop the city's Nob Hill. (AP)

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. - Two Indonesian women brought to the United States to work as housekeepers were starved, deprived of sleep, and repeatedly stabbed and beaten by a millionaire couple, prosecutors said yesterday at the couple's trial. Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, 51, and his wife, Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, 45, have pleaded not guilty to a 12-count federal indictment accusing them of conspiracy, involuntary servitude, and other charges. Prosecutors allege that the couple held the women as virtual slaves, subjecting them to serious physical abuse and paying them no wages except for $100 a month sent to relatives abroad. (AP)

NEW YORK - A mobster-turned-informant was recruited by the FBI to help find bodies of slain civil rights workers in Mississippi, the gangster's former girlfriend testified yesterday at the murder trial of a former FBI agent. Linda Schiro testified at the trial of onetime FBI agent R. Lindley DeVecchio, who is accused of secretly aligning himself with mobster Gregory Scarpa Sr., an informant within one of the warring factions of the Colombo crime family. (AP)