All stories by The Associated Press


Ohio wrestler gets 32 years in HIV assault case

CINCINNATI — A former professional wrestler was sentenced Monday to 32 years in prison for having sex with women without telling them he had tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS.
Andre Davis, 29, was sentenced in Hamilton County Common Pleas on 14 counts of felonious assault. Davis, who wrestled using stage names including Gangsta of Love and Sweet Sexy Sensation, was convicted in November.
Prosecutors said Davis violated state law by not telling a dozen sex partners about his HIV status or lying to them.
Davis told the judge Monday that he was a “sex addict” and that his addiction grew worse when he lost his dream of becoming a professional wrestler after getting the HIV test results.
He said sex addiction is probably the worst addiction anyone could have.
“Drugs and alcohol are terrible, but sex is something everybody wants,” he said.
Davis, who said he didn’t disclose his HIV test results because he didn’t want his family to know, said he never intended to hurt anyone.
“I am not a monster,” he said.
Assistant prosecutor Amy Tranter had argued during trial that Davis should go to prison for a long time, saying the case was about his responsibility to tell the women his test results.
Davis’ attorney, Greg Cohen, argued that the state law regarding HIV and felonious assault is poorly written because it doesn’t require proof that there has been harm or an attempt to commit harm.
Cohen said Monday that his client was sorry for what he had done and that the women Davis slept with also had some responsibility for choosing to have unprotected sex.
The judge, citing medical privacy laws, had prohibited attorneys from bringing up whether any of the women was infected with the virus, which can be transmitted through unprotected sex.
The Cincinnati Enquirer has reported that World Wrestling Entertainment told Davis in July 2009 that it wouldn’t hire him because he failed his physical and tested positive for HIV.
Cohen had noted during the trial that a company, not a doctor, told Davis that he was HIV-positive and that he did not think prosecutors could prove that Davis has HIV. But the state law requires those who test positive for HIV to inform their sex partners of that status and it was not necessary to prove that Davis is HIV-positive, Tranter said.
Tranter and Cohen didn’t immediately return calls for additional comment Monday.
Davis, who could have received over 100 years in prison, faces similar charges in Warren County, north of Cincinnati.


Posada to announce retirement Tuesday
NEW YORK — The New York Yankees say Jorge Posada is going to announce his retirement Tuesday at Yankee Stadium.
The 40-year-old five-time All-Star catcher will end his 17-year big league career with the team that drafted him rather than pursue another team. Posada became a free agent after a trying season in New York, the final year of a four-year, $52 million contract.
The Yankees announced Posada’s decision in a statement Monday. Sports radio station WFAN first reported his plans two weeks ago.
The clubhouse leader helped the Yankees win five World Series titles. For his career, Posada hit .273 with 275 home runs and 1,065 RBIs. But he lost his catching job this year and his playing time diminished.


Tears, joy as woman sets Antarctic crossing record 
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — British adventurer Felicity Aston became the first woman to ski alone across Antarctica on Monday, hauling two sledges around crevasses and over mountains into endless headwinds, past the South Pole and onward to the coastal ice shelf, persevering for 59 days in near-total solitude.
She made it to her destination ahead of schedule, using nothing but her own strength to cover 1,084 miles (1,744 kilometers) from her starting point on the Leverett Glacier on Nov. 25 to Hercules Inlet.
The most surprising thing about her journey, she said, was how emotional it proved to be, from the moment she was dropped off alone, through every victory and defeat along the way.
“I’m not a particularly weepy person, and yet anyone who has been following my tweets can see me bursting into tears,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday while waiting for a plane to pick her up.
“When I saw the coastal mountains that marked my end point for the first time, I literally just stopped in my tracks and bawled my eyes out,” she added. “All these days I thought there was no chance I was going to make it in time to make that last flight off Antarctica, and yet here I am with three days to spare.”
Aston also set another record: the first human to ski solo, across Antarctica, using only her own muscles. A male-female team earlier skied across Antarctica without kites or machines, but Aston is the first to do this alone.
Aston, 34, grew up in Kent, England, and studied physics and meteorology. A veteran of expeditions in subzero environments, she worked for the British weather service at a base in Antarctica and has led teams on ski trips in the Antarctic, the Arctic and Greenland.
But this was the first time she traveled so far, so alone, and she said the solitude posed her biggest challenge. In such an extreme environment, the smallest mistakes can prove treacherous. Alone with one’s thoughts, the mind can play tricks. Polar adventurers usually take care to watch their teammates for signs of hypothermia, which is easier to diagnose in others than yourself, she said.
She thought she was done for when her two butane lighters failed high in the Transantarctic Mountains, where it got “really very cold.”
“Suddenly I realized that without a lighter working, I can’t light my stove, I can’t melt snow to make water, and I won’t have any water to drink, and that becomes a very serious problem,” she said. “It’s quite stressful. It was just a matter of every single day, looking at my kit, and thinking what could go wrong here and what can I do to prevent it?”
She did have a small box of safety matches, and counted and re-counted every one until the lighters started working again at lower altitude, she said.
This Antarctic summer has seen the centennial of Roald Amundsen’s conquest of the South Pole, where Britons still lament that R.F. Scott’s team arrived for England days later, demoralized to see Norway’s flag. Scott and his entire team then died on their way out, and some of their bodies weren’t found for eight months.
Aston had modern technology in her favor: She kept family and supporters updated and received their responses via Twitter and Facebook, and broadcast daily phone reports online. She carried two satellite phones to communicate with a support team, and a GPS device that reported her location throughout. She also had two supply drops — one at the pole and one part way to her finish line — so that she could travel with a lighter load. Otherwise, her feat was unassisted.
While others have traveled farther using kites, sails, machinery or dogs (now banned for fear of infecting wildlife with canine diseases), she did it on her own strength.
“She’s pretty average really, stands about 5-foot-6 I suppose, with an athletic build, but nothing outstanding,” said Brian Dorsett-Bailey, a trustee with the British Antarctic Monument Trust. “It’s only when you talk to her that she stands out. ... Whatever she wants to do, she’ll do. She’s a very determined lady.”
Aston, whose journey also helped raise money for monuments to the 29 Britons killed on Antarctica since Scott, had to fight near-constant headwinds across the vast central plateau to the pole. Then she turned toward Hercules Inlet, pushing through thick, fresh snow, until she reached her goal on the Ronne Ice Shelf, a spot within a small plane’s reach of a base camp on Union Glacier where the Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions company provides logistical support to each summer’s expeditions.
With skies clearing Monday, Aston tweeted that she’s been promised red wine and a hot shower after she gets picked up. “A very long, very hot shower,” she emphasized. “It’s something I haven’t had in quite a long time now!”
From there, she’ll join dozens of other Antarctic adventurers on the last flight out, a huge Russian cargo plane that will take her to Chile. Then she will fly home next week to Kent, in southeast England.
There, after two months of little but freeze-dried food, she can look forward to chicken pie, her mother said.
“I think there will be lots of cuddles, lots of hugs, it will be quite emotional,” said Jackie Aston, 61.
Felicity Aston, pondering her last hours of solitude Monday, told the AP she felt both joy and overwhelming sadness at finishing.
“I’m still reeling from the shock of it that I’ve made it this far. I honestly didn’t think I’d be getting here,” she said.
What remains, she hopes, will be a message about perseverance.
“If you can just find a way to keep going, either metaphorically or literally, whether you’re running a marathon or facing financial problems or have bad news to deliver or it’s tough at work or whatever, if you can just find a way to keep going, then you will discover that you have potential within yourself that you never never realized,” she said.
“Keeping going is the important thing, persevering, no matter how messy that gets. I mean, for me, sometimes I’ll be sitting in my tent in the morning bawling my eyes out, having tantrums. It’s not been pretty. But I’ve kept going, and that is the important thing because at some point in the future you’ll look back and just be amazed at how far you’ve come.”