MEYERS, Calif. — A growing army of firefighters launched an aggressive attack Monday to corral a forest fire that had destroyed more than 200 buildings in less than a day and forced about 1,000 people to flee neighborhoods near the southern edge of Lake Tahoe.

State officials declared a state of emergency in the area Monday, the first step in requesting emergency federal assistance to fight the blaze, which rained ash on the pristine lake and darkened the sky over the high Sierra.

"The circumstances of this wildfire, by reason of their magnitude, are beyond the control of the services, personnel, equipment and facilities of any single county," said Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, who signed the declaration while Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was in Europe.

The fire, believed to be caused by human activity, had charred nearly 2,500 acres — nearly 4 square miles — since it started Sunday afternoon. No injuries were reported. The state Office of Emergency Services said 165 houses and 75 outbuildings had been destroyed.

The blaze was less than 10 percent contained Monday, said Lt. Kevin House of the El Dorado County Sheriff's Department.

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Officer appears in Ohio court in death of girlfriend, fetus

CANTON, Ohio — A police officer accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend and her nearly full-term fetus made his first court appearance Monday and was ordered held on $5 million bond.

Bobby Cutts Jr., 30, was expressionless as a judge reviewed his case. He stood behind a window separating him from the courtroom, with his girlfriend's family seated a few feet away.

Jessie Davis, 26, was missing for about a week before her body was found Saturday in a park. Cutts is the father of her 2-year-old son, and Davis' relatives have said he is the father of the baby girl she was due to deliver July 3 and planned to name Chloe.

Davis' mother, Patricia Porter, stood in the front row of the courtroom and stared at Cutts as he surveyed the audience.

"I'm not sitting down when I see Bobby Cutts," Porter said later. "I wanted to make sure he knew I was there."

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Ex-EPA chief confronts critics over safe-air statements after 9/11

WASHINGTON — Ex-EPA chief Christie Whitman was bombarded by boos and a host of accusations Monday at a hearing into her assurances that it had been safe to breathe the air around the fallen World Trade Center.

The confrontation between the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency and her critics grew heated at times. Some members of the audience shouted in anger, only to be gaveled down by Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., who chaired the hearing.

For three hours Whitman faced charges from Nadler and others that the Environmental Protection Agency's public statements after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks gave people a false sense of safety.

Whitman maintained the government warned those working on the toxic debris pile to use respirators, while elsewhere in lower Manhattan the air was safe to the general public.

"There are indeed people to blame. They are the terrorists who attacked the United States, not the men and women at all levels of government who worked heroically to protect and defend this country," Whitman said.

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Prisoner kills officer at Utah medical center with lawman's gun

SALT LAKE CITY — An inmate with tattoos covering his face and head stole a gun from a corrections officer and shot him to death Monday when the prisoner was at a doctor's appointment, authorities said.

Curtis Allgier fled the University of Utah medical center on foot, carjacked a Ford Explorer and was captured miles away at an Arby's restaurant after a high-speed chase.

Allgier, who has a swastika and the words "skin head" tattooed on his forehead, was in an examination room at the campus orthopedic center around 7:45 a.m., university Police Chief Scott Folsom said.

"There was some sort of altercation. The inmate got hold of the weapon and shot the officer," he said.

Stephen Anderson, 60, a 22-year-veteran, was shot in the head, authorities said.

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Judge rules in favor of dry cleaner in multimillion-dollar suit

WASHINGTON — A judge ruled Monday that no pair of pants is worth $54 million, rejecting a lawsuit that took a dry cleaner's promise of "Satisfaction Guaranteed" to its most litigious extreme.

Roy L. Pearson became a worldwide symbol of legal abuse by seeking jackpot justice from a simple complaint — that a neighborhood dry cleaners lost the pants from a new suit and tried to give him a pair that were not his.

His claim, reduced from $67 million, was based on a strict interpretation of the city's consumer protection law — which imposes fines of $1,500 per violation, per day — as well as damages for inconvenience, mental anguish and attorney's fees for representing himself.

But District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff ruled that the owners of Custom Cleaners did not violate the consumer protection law by failing to live up to Pearson's expectations of the "Satisfaction Guaranteed" sign once displayed in the store window.

"A reasonable consumer would not interpret 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer's unreasonable demands," the judge wrote.

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Giant penguins may have roamed prehistoric Peru, scientists say

WASHINGTON — Giant penguins as tall as 5 feet roamed what is now Peru more than 40 million years ago, much earlier than scientists thought the flightless birds had spread to warmer climes. Known mostly for their presence in Antarctica, penguins today live in many islands in the Southern Hemisphere, some even near the equator.

But scientists thought they hadn't reached warm areas until about 10 million years ago

Now, researchers report in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they have found remains of two types of penguin in Peru that date to 40 million years ago.

One of them was a 5-foot giant with a long sharp beak.

Paleontologist Julia Clarke, assistant professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences at North Carolina State University, said she was surprised at the new find.

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Rosie O'Donnell says she's out of running to replace Bob Barker

NEW YORK — Rosie O'Donnell says she's out of the running to replace Bob Barker as host of "The Price Is Right." O'Donnell, a superfan of the CBS game show, said on her blog Friday that she had a "nice lunch" with the show's producers.

Barker, 83, retired earlier this month after 35 years with the show, which is filmed in Los Angeles.

Although O'Donnell has said she would love to fill Barker's shoes, the 45-year-old comedian has changed her mind.

"Well, here's the thing: I don't really need a job," O'Donnell says in a video posted Sunday on her Web site. "I'm in a weird position. I don't need the money."