$3 million diamond theft NEW YORK - A diamond broker, Louis Perlman, 60, lost gems valued at about $3 million retail when a businessman he had dealt with before vanished with them while supposedly showing them to a prospective customer, police said. Police are looking for Victor Hoffman, 46, president of a trading firm, who disappeared with the jewels.

Teen given life term LAURENS, S.C. - A 15-year-old youth, Mark Anthony Crocker of Gray Courth, whose attorney claimed that watching horror movies provoked his client to stab to death a 69-year-old woman pleaded guilty but mentally ill and was sentenced to life in prison. He will be eligible for parole in 20 years.

17 crewmen rescued JUNEAU, Alaska - Seventeen crew members of a burning Japanese fishing boat, the Inari Maru No. 18, escaped injury when they abandoned the vessel and were plucked from the North Pacific by a passing Japanese ship, a Coast Guard spokesman said.

Drunken driver sentenced WASHINGTON - A 42-year-old man, convicted of plowing his car into a bus stop last August and killing seven people, was sentenced to 35 to 105 years for manslaughter plus 90 days for drunken driving. Robert Williams was sentenced in District of Columbia Superior Court by Judge Eugene Hamilton, who called the accident "tragic" for the victims and Williams, who was on parole for a robbery conviction. Among the seven people killed in the accident along the outer brick wall of the Washington Navy Yard was a family of five, including young children.

Firm withdraws cheese RYE BROOK, N.Y. - General Foods Corp. is withdrawing its Liederkranz soft-ripened cheese across the nation because a sample of the product was found to have bacterial contamination. The cheese was produced at the Fisher Cheese Co. plant in Van Wert, Ohio, which manufactures the soft-ripened cheese exclusively for General Foods. "No instance of consumer illness has been reported," General Foods spokesman Trecie Fennell said.

Woman contests pageant TRENTON, N.J. - A New Jersey appeals court has agreed to review a ruling that allowed Toni Georgiana, the reigning Miss New Jersey, to keep her title even though she never lived, worked or attended classes in the state. A two-judge panel of the Appellate Division of the Superior Court agreed to hear arguments brought by Laura Ann Bridges, the runner-up in the pageant. Superior Court Judge Robert Tarleton in Hudson County last month dismissed a lawsuit filed by Bridges, saying Georgiana had complied with the pageant rules.

Threat lingers over leak INSTITUTE, W.Va. - The Union Carbide chemical leak that injured 135 people poses a threat of lingering contamination and residents should not eat anything from their gardens until experts analyze plants and soil. Chemical experts said the pesticide ingredient aldicarb oxime probably settled on the ground after Sunday's leak at the Union Carbide plant here, unlike the methyl isocyanate gas that killed more than 2,000 people in Bhopal , India, last year.