$1.1 Million Question: Who Won Slot-Machine Jackpot?

STUART, Fla. - Nothing like a $1.1 million slot-machine jackpot to come between the best of friends.

For six years, Muvaffak Atamer and Frank Sevakis dined together every Thursday night and took gambling trips together with their wives to Las Vegas and Biloxi, Miss.

That changed two weeks ago when one of the well-to-do Vero Beach retirees won $1.1 million on a Carnival Cruise Lines voyage.

The question is: Which one won?

Atamer, 73, filed a lawsuit Thursday, claiming he borrowed $3 from his friend, dropped three $1 coins in a slot machine and pulled the lever.

But Sevakis, 79, says he bought the coins and put them in the slot machine before Atamer pulled the lever. Sevakis says he was even congratulated with a champagne party aboard the ship.

Carnival has withheld the jackpot, to be paid in 20 annual installments of more than $56,000, until a court can declare the winner.

Atamer claims he was sitting at the winning machine but began experiencing chest pains and walked away from his seat.

"As he got out of his seat, Mr. Sevakis moved into that seat and proclaimed to be the winner," said Jack Scarola, Atamer's attorney.

Too many people volunteer to help tornado victims

ST. PAUL - With a flood of people offering to help clean up tornado-stricken south-central Minnesota this weekend, state officials took the unusual step yesterday of telling volunteers to stay home.

"It's really overwhelming," said Linda Bernin, who coordinates volunteers for the state Division of Emergency Management. "Last year, with the floods, there was a need throughout Minnesota, and there were a lot of places volunteers could go. This year, it's in a relatively confined space, and we can't accommodate all the people who want to go."

The tornadoes that tore through the area caused two deaths and injured 38. Hardest hit were the cities of St. Peter, Comfrey and Le Center. Officials are still trying to tally a precise damage estimate, but 400 homes were destroyed and 611 sustained major damage.

"There are so many busloads of people down there that they need to be put in a holding area until they can be put to work," said Erin Petersen, a spokeswoman for the American Red Cross of Minnesota. "That's a wonderful response, but if these efforts aren't coordinated, you have people waiting a long time before they can help."

$11.3 million settlement reached over toxic injections

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - The federal government has agreed to pay $11.3 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the families of nine newborns who were allegedly injected with a toxic painkiller at an Air Force nursery.

Many of the babies stopped breathing, and some suffered permanent damage, including impaired speech and motor skills, gastrointestinal illness and forms of paralysis.

In 1996, a federal judge ruled the Air Force acted negligently when it allowed ex-Airman Michael Beckelic - described in court records as "mentally unstable" - to work in the hospital nursery at Maxwell in the mid-1980s.

Beckelic denied doing anything improper and was never charged criminally. A prosecutor has said there was not enough evidence to bring a case.

Under the proposed deal, the girl who suffered the most, Asia Sharpe, will immediately receive $2.15 million, with $3.5 million to be placed in annuities. She is guaranteed to receive at least $10 million and could get as much as $22 million depending on how long she lives.

Man accused of fake suicide in '94 is charged with murder

LAS VEGAS - A man arrested for sexually assaulting his teenage daughters and another girl after allegedly faking his own death was charged yesterday with murder in connection with the apparent suicide.

Las Vegas police have not been able to identify the badly burned body that was found in Arthur Bennett's torched trailer near Lake Mead in 1994. They originally believed Bennett had committed suicide.

Bennett, 44, disappeared in January 1994, while awaiting court-martial on charges of raping a fellow Marine's 13-year-old daughter and at least three young women in Okinawa.

Authorities believe Bennett faked his own death and then collected insurance proceeds over the succeeding years. Bennett moved to Hurricane, Utah, with his former wife and three young daughters, where he assumed the name of Joseph Benson. He was captured last year.

Teacher accused of drawing on boy's eyelids is sued

OAKLAND, Calif. - A teacher who allegedly "dotted" the eyes of an 11-year-old boy - literally drawing on his eyelids as a reminder to write correctly - has been named in a $1 million civil-rights lawsuit.

Attorney Taylor Culver said yesterday that teacher Marilyn Fong went too far to make a point about "dotting i's and crossing t's" on homework assignments.

"She dotted his eyes with a marker, and then she indicated that if he did not remember to cross his 't's, she would write on his face again," Culver alleged.

"That would never have happened if this child were not black," he said.

The suit, filed in Alameda County Superior Court on Thursday, also accused school-district officials of not taking appropriate action against Fong after the alleged incident took place last October.

Culver said the boy had been removed from the school in the Oakland suburb of San Leandro and was receiving psychological counseling after being mocked and ridiculed by his fifth-grade class.