ROCKFORD, Ill. — Railroad tank cars holding thousands of gallons of highly flammable ethanol derailed and exploded in flames, killing a 41-year-old woman as she tried to run to safety from a car stopped at a crossing.

Three other people from the same car escaped with severe burns. Hundreds of people were evacuated from homes near the explosion.

Eighteen tank cars, all filled with ethanol, or ethyl alcohol, derailed Friday on the edge of Rockford, about 80 miles northwest of Chicago.

The wreckage burned through the night, but the fire was dying down yesterday afternoon as federal investigators began collecting evidence.

CRACKDOWN ON CHILD PORN NABS 14 IN ITALY

ROME — Italian police said yesterday they had arrested 14 people and seized some 150,000 computer files in a major crackdown on online child pornography.

Police in Catania, Sicily, also placed 250 people under investigation across the country, describing the crackdown as the biggest such operation in Italy.

Some of those arrested possessed material that included cruel and graphic images of violence and torture against children, sometimes involving animals, police said. Some of the children involved were a little older than infants, said Marcello La Bella of the Catania Police.

SIGNED EINSTEIN PRINT SELLS FOR $74K

CONCORD, N.H. — One of the original signed prints of Albert Einstein sticking his tongue out at photographers has been sold by a New Hampshire auction house for $74,324.

Bobby Livingston of RRAuction.com said the picture was taken in 1951 after a 72nd birthday celebration for the physicist.

Einstein had nine prints made. He signed the print that was auctioned Thursday and gave it to journalist Howard K. Smith. David Waxman of Great Neck, N.Y., a specialist in important scientific books and autographs, is the new owner.

In his inscription, Einstein said his gesture was aimed at all of humanity. Livingston said it also was aimed at the Red Scare and the McCarthy anti-Communist hearings of the 1950s.

BRITISH LESSON PLANS TO SHED 'I BEFORE E'

LONDON — It's a spelling mantra that generations of schoolchildren have learned — "i before e, except after c."

But new British government guidance tells teachers not to pass on the rule to students, because there are too many exceptions.

The "Support For Spelling" document, which is being sent to thousands of primary schools, says the rule "is not worth teaching" because it doesn't account for words like 'sufficient,' 'veil' and 'their.'

Jack Bovill of the Spelling Society, which advocates simplified spelling, said yesterday he agreed with the decision.

But supporters say the ditty has value because it is one of the few language rules that most people remember.