Scores on the four-part ACT test, taken this year by more than 1.2 million U.S. students, ranged from only 27 percent passing in biology to 69 percent in English, the company reported. A total of 21 percent met the benchmark in all four subject areas, including algebra and social science, it said.

The nationwide average total score on the ACT test rose the fastest in 20 years, yet the overall performance remains unacceptable, U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said.

"The ACT findings clearly point to the need for high schools to require a rigorous, four-year core curriculum and to offer advanced placement classes so that our graduates are prepared to compete and succeed in both college and the workforce,'' Spellings said in a statement.

The ACT tests, based on curriculum surveys of high school and college instructors, serve as a competitor to the SAT test administered by the New York-based College Board. ACT's benchmark for passing is designed to indicate a 50 percent chance of obtaining a grade of "B'' or higher in the college-level course.

More than 40 percent of U.S. high school graduates took the ACT tests this year, said Richard Ferguson, chief executive of the Iowa City, Iowa-based company. Yet the low pass rate suggests that many college students will "struggle or need some remediation along the way,'' Ferguson said.

"We have a lot of work ahead of us to ensure that all students graduate from high school with the skills they need to succeed at the next level of education,'' he said in a briefing on the results.

For years, the U.S. government has been saying it ultimately intends to unleash ICANN from its control. It has operated the Net addressing system under an agreement with U.S. authorities since 1998. At a recent public hearing, John Kneuer, the department's acting assistant secretary for communications and information, said the agency remained "committed" to that transition but gave no indication of when that may happen.

The contract awarded this week covers only technical tasks performed by ICANN, such as allocating DNS numbers and performing certain responsibilities related to managing the Internet root zone. Also set to expire on Sept. 30, but not yet addressed formally by the Commerce Department, is a separate agreement known as a "memorandum of understanding," which has been repeatedly amended and renewed.

The MoU, designed to pave the way for an eventual shift away from U.S. oversight, outlines more specific obligations for ICANN, such as procedures for establishing new top-level domain names, for keeping tabs on "Whois" registry information, and for fostering greater transparency in the organization's dealings. A Commerce Department spokesman told CNET News.com on Wednesday that he had "no idea" how the agency would proceed with that agreement.

Over the years, controversy has plagued ICANN, which grew out of a clandestine meeting in Cambridge, Mass. Critics in the past have accused it of lacking transparency in its operations and moving sluggishly to approve new top-level domain names. More recently, Capitol Hill politicians and advocacy groups have criticized the organization for agreeing to what amounts to a perpetual contract with VeriSign to run the .com registry, which some say would result in unnecessary price hikes and a veritable monopoly.

Some organizations, such as domain name registrar GoDaddy.com and the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Democracy and Technology, charged at the recent hearing that the administrative body hasn't yet proven it's ready to function on its own.

Despite that "rough start," ICANN has "come a long way over the past couple of years," said Will Rodger, public policy director for the Computer & Communications Industry Association, whose members include Google, Microsoft, Verizon Communications and Yahoo.

U.S. authorities should let the contract lapse after two years, Rodger suggested, adding that "ICANN should have earned its independence by then."

Meanwhile, suspicion of the United States' cozy relationship with ICANN appears to persist. During a public comment period, a large number of people sent a two-paragraph form letter urging the United States to "work cooperatively with all stakeholders to complete the transition to a domain name system independent of U.S. governmental control."

Representing about a dozen countries--including Australia, Canada, Germany, Luxembourg, Morocco, Nigeria, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United States--they wrote, "No single government should have a pre-eminent role in Internet governance."

Finally, the connection ended. "The line is now dead," one dispatcher said. "Oh my lord," said the operator.

Doi, a 32-year-old financial manager, died in the World Trade Center's south tower on Sept. 11. On Wednesday, her voice was heard as the city released new tapes of hundreds of heart-wrenching phone calls, along with other emergency transcripts.

The tapes recorded rescuers complaining about chaos in the twin towers. But they also evoked the firefighters' powerful sense of duty, with some struggling to evacuate the towers and others begging dispatchers to send them to the scene. A total of 343 firefighters died in the disaster.

"We're in a state of confusion," Battalion Chief Dennis Devlin said, standing inside a command post at the trade center as the towers burned above. "We have no cell phone service anywhere because of the disaster. ... Bring all the additional handy talkies."

Devlin was one of 19 dead firefighters whose voices were captured on the 1,613 previously undisclosed emergency calls. The New York Times and relatives of Sept. 11 victims sued for release of the tapes to learn what happened in the towers and what dispatchers told workers and rescuers.

Most of the calls involved firefighters and dispatchers. The voices of 10 civilians calling from inside the World Trade Center were edited out because of privacy concerns.

A portion of Doi's end of the conversation was played for jurors in April at the trial of Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, but this was the first time the operator's voice was heard.

Within minutes of the first plane hitting at 8:46 a.m., firefighters - some off-duty, some even retired - began calling dispatchers to volunteer their help. Lt. Timothy Higgins, in a typical response, called at 8:52 a.m.

"We're available for the trade center," he volunteered.

"OK, thanks," replied the dispatcher. Higgins, with five other members of his squad, made the trip to Manhattan. All six died.

In the Bronx, Lt. Michael Healey called a dispatcher just before the second plane hit to ask for an assignment in lower Manhattan.

"I was just seeing if he could maybe possibly get us over there, so, just keep us in mind, over into Manhattan," he said.

"OK," the dispatcher said. They responded, with Healey and five other squad members killed.

Devlin, in the lobby of the south tower, provided a glimpse of the problems. Thirty-five floors above, fire Capt. Patrick Brown reported a chaotic scene of civilians - some with burn injuries - going down the stairwell as firefighters headed into the fire.

"Apparently it's above the 75th floor," Brown said in the 24-second exchange barely an hour before the north tower fell. "I don't know if they got there yet. We're still heading up."

The same mix of concern and confusion was evident in other more frantic calls.

"One of the towers just collapsed," said an unidentified fire lieutenant. "Everybody's got to be inside of it. ... There's got to be thousands of the people inside it. One of the towers just came down on top of everybody."

One off-duty worker was in tears when she called in to try to report for duty.

"All those people - what about the EMTs and paramedics and firefighters in there helping people get out?" she asked her supervisor.

"I don't know, sweetie, I really don't know."

"Oh God."

Family members complained their loved ones were betrayed by poor communication that could have steered them outside before the buildings collapsed.

"We're still looking for information for how we can fix what went wrong that day," said Aggie McCaffrey, whose firefighter brother Orio Palmer was killed when the first tower collapsed.

Barbara Hetzel lost her son Thomas, a firefighter. Although she has listened to such tapes before, she said, it does not get easier with time.

"It's even deeper and sadder," said Hetzel, who listened with less than a dozen family members in a midtown Manhattan high-rise.

In March, the city released transcripts of 130 calls from people trapped in the towers, including only the voices of operators and other public employees. The callers' voices were cut out after city attorneys argued that their pleas for help were too emotional and intense to be publicized without their families' consent.

Thousands of pages of emergency workers' oral histories and radio transmissions were released last August. Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta ordered his department to search for additional recordings when another tape turned up shortly after the March release.

Among the issues raised are:

How could the complicity of the US government, or some part of it, in the events of 9/11 be kept a secret? For the most part, this question comes from Americans who believe the government must have been, to some extent, complicit in the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon.

How can we differentiate between the real facts, the 9/11 Commission's reporting of the facts, and "conspiracy theories"?

What about the role of suicide flyers led by M. Atta?

What about the Popular Mechanics article and the TV documentary that debunk the skeptics and support the official explanation of 9/11?

What about the role of the US media in propagandizing Americans with the official explanation instead of examining the explanation, especially with regard to such truncated hatchet-job interviews with 9/11 skeptics such as the hatchet jobs presided over by Donny Deutsch on CNBC and by neocon Tucker Carlson on MSNBC?

Why are so many Americans hostile to holding the Bush regime accountable for its obvious and documented lies, lies that have misled America to war and gratuitously slaughtered and maimed tens of thousands of people, including our own troops?

I will begin by stating what we know to be a solid incontrovertible scientific fact.

We know that it is strictly impossible for any building, much less steel columned buildings, to "pancake" at free fall speed. Therefore, it is a non-controversial fact that the official explanation of the collapse of the WTC buildings is false.

We also know for a fact that the Air Force somehow inexplicably failed to intercept the alleged hijacked airliners despite the fact that the Air Force can launch jet fighters to 29,000 feet in 2.5 minutes. We also know that the two co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission have just written a book that reveals that the US military lied to the Commission about its failure to intercept the hijacked airliners.

There are various explanations for this second fact. The military could have lied to cover up complicity or to cover-up its incompetence. However, no investigation has been made to ascertain the true explanation for the failure.

This leaves us with the incontrovertible fact that buildings cannot "pancake" at free fall speeds.

The only explanation known to science for the free fall collapse of a building, especially into its own footprint, is engineered demolition, which removes the supports for each floor of the building at split second intervals so that the debris from above meets no resistance on its fall. To call this explanation a "conspiracy theory" is to display the utmost total ignorance. Any physicist or engineer who maintains that buildings can "pancake" at free fall speed has obviously been bought and paid for or is a total incompetent fool.

The WTC buildings are known to have collapsed at free fall speed into their own footprints.

This fact does not tell us who is responsible or what purpose was served.

Since the damning incontrovertible fact has not been investigated, speculation and "conspiracy theories" have filled the void. Some of the speculation is based on circumstantial evidence and is plausible. Other of the speculation is untenable, and it is used to protect the official explanation by branding all skeptics "conspiracy theorists." I would not be surprised if some of the most far-out "conspiracy theories" consist, in fact, of disinformation put out by elements in the government to discredit all skeptics. But I do not know this to be the case.

How could government complicity be kept a secret? It can be kept a secret, because so many Americans are scientifically ignorant and emotionally weak. They are incapable of realizing the contradiction in the government's claim that the WTC buildings "pancaked" at free fall speed, and they are emotionally incapable of confronting the evil of the Bush regime. Many Christians think that Bush is "a man of God" who is protecting American morality from homosexuals and abortionists. Others who wear their patriotism on their sleeves think Bush is standing up for America and innocent Israel, and that they must not let anti-American anti-war protesters cause America to lose another war and repeat the Vietnam experience. Americans are both ignorant and full of resentments against the left. This makes them easily manipulated by the neoconservatives who dominate the Bush regime and the media.

Also, many anti-war and anti-Bush online sites are scared of being called "crazy conspiracy kooks." They protect their sites by staying away from the 9/11 issue, just as so many Americans are scared to death of being called "anti-semitic" and thereby do not dare criticize Israel no matter the heinous war crimes that state routinely commits. Of all the online subscribers to my column, only vdare.com and NewsMax had the courage to post my column. Realizing that even antiwar sites would serve as de facto gatekeepers for the neocons, I offered the column to ICH, whose editor cannot be intimidated.

The Popular Mechanics article and the TV documentary are obviously false since they both endorse the official explanation that the WTC buildings "pancaked" at free fall speed, an obvious scientific impossibility. Whether the false reporting by Popular Mechanics and television are due to incompetence or to complicity in a government cover-up, I do not know.

We know nothing about alleged suicide flyers led by M. Atta except what the government has told us, a government that has lied to us about everything else, such as Iraq's alleged WMD and alleged links to Osama bin Laden, and Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program, a program for which the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors cannot find evidence.

According to reports, the BBC has found 6 of the alleged suicide hijackers alive and well in their home countries. I do not know if the report is true, but I do know that the report has been ignored and there has been no investigation. Both the US government and the US media have turned a blind eye. We have no way of knowing if Atta and his named accomplices hijacked the planes, or, if they did, whether they were dupes of intelligent services that pretended to be a terrorist cell and organized the cover for the engineered demolition.

The fact that we do not know any of these things, and the fact that the 9/11 Commission co-chairmen now tell us that their report is flawed, are good indications that we have no documented information of who was behind the plot, why it occurred, or how it operated.

With regard to the role of the US media, if it is indeed a media rather than a propaganda ministry, one reader cited remarks by the distinguished investigative reporter, John Pilger, made in an address at Columbia University on 14 April 2006:

"During the Cold War, a group of Russian journalists toured the United States. On the final day of their visit, they were asked by their hosts for their impressions. 'I have to tell you,' said their spokesman, 'that we were astonished to find after reading all the newspapers and watching TV, that all the opinions on all the vital issues were by and large, the same. To get that result in our country, we imprison people, we tear out their fingernails. Here, you don't have that. What's the secret? How do you do it?'"

This quote is probably apocryphal, but it is well used to make a valid point. The answer to the Russian's question is that during the cold war the American public viewed the Soviet Union as a dangerous adversary and were amenable to reports to that effect. The fact that the Soviets were a potentially dangerous adversary made Americans blind to the roles of the US military-industrial complex, which benefitted financially from cultivating the adversary relationship, and the US government, which benefitted politically from cultivating the adversary relationship, in keeping the adversarial relationship alive.

The uniformity of the US media has become much more complete since the days of the cold war. During the 1990s, the US government permitted an unconscionable concentration of print and broadcast media that terminated the independence of the media. Today the US media is owned by 5 giant companies in which pro-Zionist Jews have disproportionate influence. More importantly, the values of the conglomerates reside in the broadcast licenses, which are granted by the government, and the corporations are run by corporate executives--not by journalists--whose eyes are on advertising revenues and the avoidance of controversy that might produce boycotts or upset advertisers and subscribers. Americans who rely on the totally corrupt corporate media have no idea what is happening anywhere on earth, much less at home.

Despite the dark days in which we live, some readers find optimism in recent polls that show more than one-third of the US public now disbelieve the official account of 9/11 despite the Bush regime's propaganda faithfully trumpeted by the US media. Bush's own rock-bottom polls show that Americans, like the Russians of the Soviet era, can read between the lines of the propagandistic US media. Many Americans can still spot a liar and a cheat when they see one.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

Sandia's chemical engineers had feared worse, especially for a stadium in the heart of an industrial neighborhood with Interstate 880 next-door. Enough ambient odors and chemicalscould swamp or confuse detectors tuned to sniff out sarin and VX gas at concentrations down to the parts per trillion. As molecules, garden pesticides are near twins to deadly poisons.

"We were very pleased with the background at the coliseum," said Ben Wu, project manager for Sandia's "rapidly deployable chemical detection system."

"It was very clean based on what we were expecting."

He led a half-dozen Sandians who set up shop inside the stadium's control center from late June into early July and put out a network of eight sensor boxes, each containing eight different chemical detectors with a surveillance camera keeping watch from a pole overhead.

The scientists tried a similar system at San Francisco International two years ago. Indoor spaces can concentrate smells and chemicals, such as floor waxes and cleansers.

But Homeland Security officials were keen to learn about open-air venues, especially those used for national security "special events" such as the Super Bowl and the Olympics. In a few years, they want to hone the system into a network of chemical sensors that require no more attention than a home smoke detector but could sniff an industrial toxin or nerve gas in time to evacuate thousands of spectators.

Dave Rinetti was happy to oblige.

"It was something to help them better their systems, so I was all for it," said Rinetti, the club's vice president for stadium operations.

The scientists moved in just as the Arizona Diamondbacks came to town and the A's fortunes sagged - three losses in a row. Rinetti looked over at the scientists and threatened to revoke their invitation.

The scientists kept their heads down, and the A's recovered, trouncing the Tigers and Angels to take over the lead in the American League West.

"They weren't a complete jinx," Rinetti conceded.

Wu and the Sandians found that A's fans carry a zoo of chemicals, but all fleeting and innocuous. The scientists successfully trained a computer to ignore them.

"When they pop up, I can't tell you whether it's Chanel No. 5 or Old Spice," said Wu, who, incidentally, became an A's fan during the assignment.

So what does the homeland security experiment say about A's ticketholders?

"There's nothing out of the ordinary about our fans," Rinetti suggested.

Tougher venues await the scientists. Next week, their sensor network will be tested against live chemical poisons at the Nevada Test Site, in an outdoor release. Details, according to Wu, are classified.

The Sandians also want to sniff around a few rock concerts in the neighboring arena and perhaps a few Raiders games.

"Speculatively, I don't see too much different," he said. "But I don't know what they have in all that make-up."

Since 1985, there have been more than 350 accidental discharges by LAPD officers. There also have been more than a dozen so-called friendly fire incidents.

Though the resulting wounds tended to be less serious than in gun battles with suspects, scores of officers and more than two dozen suspects and bystanders have been injured in incidents that department officials blame on careless handling of firearms.

"Any officer being shot for any reason is an unacceptable number," said Police Commission Vice President Alan Skobin, who is one of two commissioners assigned to review accidental discharges of guns. "Unfortunately, when you have a large number of people who frequently handle weapons, there will be accidents. You just hope that there aren't serious consequences."

Last month offered up a sad example: The 3-year-old son of an LAPD officer got hold of his father's 9-millimeter service handgun as they sat in a pickup truck at a traffic light in Anaheim. When the child pulled the trigger, a bullet passed through the officer and left him paralyzed from the waist down.

Officials say that kind of tragedy is rare, but department records don't track accidental shootings not committed by an officer.

The vast majority of accidental shootings the department does monitor are avoidable and generally the result of careless or reckless conduct.

Over the last five years, the number of accidents has declined - as have all types of officer-involved shootings - but such incidents still accounted for about a third of all gunshot injuries sustained by officers.

Some officers have been involved in more than one accidental shooting. However, because the Police Commission this year started withholding the names of officers involved in shootings, it is no longer possible to determine from its public reports whether an officer has a history of negligently handling firearms.

Mishaps commonly occur as officers chase suspects or clean their guns. However, over the years, some accidental gunshots have been highly unusual.

One off-duty officer shot himself in a leg as he sat behind his desk and, according to department records, contemplated "a complex mathematical problem." Another officer inadvertently pulled the trigger when his African gray parrot flew into his face.

One officer accidentally shot his girlfriend in a leg while trying to retrieve a cartridge from his handgun as a "memento" of their date. Yet another officer admitted that he accidentally fired his gun because he was startled by a woman holding a teddy bear. Two officers accidentally discharged their weapons as they handled them at home while watching themselves in mirrors.

Even officers from the department's elite SWAT unit have accidentally fired guns while on duty.

In one case, officers had just completed a highly dangerous operation in which they entered the home of a barricaded suspect. Though they emerged from the house unscathed, one of them errantly fired his shotgun while unloading ammunition from another weapon. Shotgun pellets struck the ground between his feet, with metal fragments ricocheting into his partner's upper leg.

In another case, an officer from the division that studies police behavior and attempts to reduce risk was off duty when he decided to give his fiancee a lesson on the safe handling of guns, according to a department report.

The officer thought he had removed all of the rounds from the cylinder of his .38-caliber weapon when he pointed it at a wall and began to explain "trigger pull pressure." As he pulled the trigger, a round that had been left in the chamber discharged into the wall.

Accidental shootings are not unique to LAPD officers. Statistics from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department show that deputies over the last five years accidentally discharged their weapons at roughly the same rate.

"I don't see it as a problem any more significant than other agencies might have, and maybe, in fact, less significant," LAPD Chief William J. Bratton said.

Police Department records show that 161 officers were injured by gunfire from 1985 to 2005, the last year for which statistics are available.

Ninety officers were shot by suspects, compared to 68 officers who either shot themselves or were shot by other officers. (In three cases it was unknown whether the officer was wounded by a suspect's gun or by friendly fire.)

At the LAPD, accidental gunshots can mean administrative headaches and embarrassment for those involved. Officers are required to report immediately any discharge of a weapon whether it is intentional or not, on duty or off.

All gun discharges are investigated by detectives and then reviewed by the chief and the civilian Police Commission, which makes the final determination on whether a shooting is within departmental guidelines.

Nearly every accidental gunshot results in an "out of policy" finding by the commission and can result in an officer being disciplined. Often, however, they receive minor punishments such as reprimands.

Because of administrative repercussions, police experts suspect that many accidental shootings go unreported, especially if they occur while the officer is off duty, which according to LAPD records is when more than 20% of the accidents happen.

Former LAPD training Officer Hank Cousine admitted that he did not report an accidental discharge by a probationary officer under his supervision because he didn't want to hurt the young officer's career.

Cousine, a 15-year veteran who was fired for participating in an illegal pyramid scheme in 1998, said he believes that many accidental discharges go unnoticed by the department.

"If there's no one around, you're not going to say anything about it," Cousine said. "Why would you lay yourself out? Why would you want to give up money, get yourself in trouble, and take days off and get ridiculed? Why would you do that?"

Over the years, alcohol appeared to play a role in some accidental discharges.

Officer Timothy J. McLaughlin accidentally fired a .38-caliber bullet through his apartment wall and into a neighbor's home after drinking six beers in 1999. He reported the discharge a day later, only after learning that the neighbor took a photo of the bullet hole and talked to his landlord about hiring an attorney.

"A firearm must be handled with extreme care at all times; no one should be more aware of this than a police officer," said Capt. Joseph Curreri, who recommended that McLaughlin be suspended for 15 days. "Only but for the grace of God was no one injured as a result of the accidental discharge."

While drinking for several hours at a bar in Hermosa Beach in 1998, records show, officers Erik Cortes and Jeffrey Ingalls got to talking about guns and police tactics.

At one point, they went to the restroom together. As Ingalls washed his hands at a sink, Cortes saw Ingalls' gun and removed it from its holster, accidentally shooting his friend's hand. As the bullet shattered on the bathroom floor, a fragment ricocheted into Ingalls' neck.

In a 1992 case, Officer John Duran had a blood alcohol level of 0.232 - nearly three times the legal driving limit - when he accidentally fired his gun, setting off a chain reaction of injuries.

According to police reports, Duran was a passenger in the backseat of a pickup truck when his gun fell out of his waistband. As he picked it up, one of his buddies started play-fighting, slapping the off-duty officer.

The gun went off and the bullet hit the driver in an arm, causing him to lose control and crash into a telephone pole. The collision broke Duran's neck and fractured a leg of another passenger - also an off-duty LAPD officer - in five places.

"People make mistakes," Commissioner Skobin said. "They are human beings. You wish it would never happen, but unfortunately it does."

"She is the face of the movement," said Emma Lozano, executive director of the Chicago immigration-rights group Centro Sin Fronteras, who was at the church with Arellano.

In Phoenix, Martin Manteca of Mi Familia Vota said Hispanic activist groups were organizing a vigil in her support. Lozano said an event also was scheduled in Detroit.

Arellano also has attracted attention from political officials including Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who has voiced his support. And Dolores Huerta, a leader in the effort to organize the nation's farm workers, plans to come to Chicago to show her support, according to Huerta's daughter, Alicia.

A few dozen supporters gathered at the storefront church, sitting in the pews and praying for Arellano. But the doors were not barricaded, and there were no apparent efforts to fortify the church.

Arellano, who is president of United Latino Family, which lobbies for families that could be split by deportation, had been ordered to appear at the immigration office in Chicago at 9 a.m. Tuesday, but instead went to the church, where she is an active member.

She said that if authorities want her, they will have to come and get her.

"My son is a U.S. citizen," she told reporters. "He doesn't want me to go anywhere, so I'm going to stay with him."

Pastor Walter Coleman said his congregation offered Arellano refuge after praying about her plight. Coleman said he does not believe Arellano should have to choose between leaving her son behind or removing him from his home.

"She represents the voice of the undocumented, and we think it's our obligation, our responsibility, to make a stage for that voice to be heard," he said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said there is nothing preventing the U.S. government from arresting her at the church.

"Ms. Arellano willfully violated U.S. immigration laws and is now facing the consequences of her actions by failing to report to immigration authorities," said agency spokeswoman Gail Montenegro. "We will arrest and deport her as required by law at an appropriate time and place."

Legal experts agreed that the traditional doctrine that people are protected from arrest in a church is not recognized under U.S. law.

But Joel Fetzer, associate professor of political science at Pepperdine University in California, said: "If the government comes in, it's going to look very jack-booted fascistic. It would look very bad."

Churches and synagogues also tried to offer sanctuary to illegal immigrants escaping civil war in El Salvador during the 1980s, a civil disobedience activity known as the Sanctuary movement. Susan Gzesh, a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago who assisted the churches and synagogues that offered sanctuary, said she does not believe federal authorities ever went into the churches to make arrests.

Arellano illegally crossed into the United States in 1997 and was deported shortly afterward. She returned within days, living for three years in Oregon before moving to Chicago in 2000. Arrested two years later at O'Hare Airport, where she was working as a cleaning woman, she was convicted of working under a false Social Security number and ordered to appear at the immigration office in Chicago.

Activists said her desire to come here to work and provide a better life for herself and her son illustrates why they believe the nation's immigration laws must be changed.

"She is a leader in the movement who has made the issue of family unity the key issue in the question of the undocumented," her pastor said. "That is the most sympathetic issue there is."

Others are not so sure.

"I don't think the immigration debate should be focused on a woman who ... disregards an order," said Carlina Tapia-Ruano, a Chicago lawyer and president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Tapia-Ruano said she worries that Arellano's story will be used by extremists on both sides of the issue and cited as an example "of how illegals come here to be in flagrant disregard of our laws, and I don't think that's true."

"I was with JonBenet when she died," John Mark Karr told reporters afterward, visibly nervous and stuttering as he spoke. "Her death was an accident."

Asked if he was innocent of the crime, Karr said: "No."

Karr confessed to the killing after his arrest Wednesday at his downtown Bangkok apartment by Thai and American authorities, said Lt. Gen. Suwat Tumrongsiskul, head of Thailand's immigration police.

He said Karr insisted his crime was not first-degree murder but that she died during a kidnapping attempt that went awry.

"He said it was second-degree murder. He said it was unintentional. He said he was in love with the child, she was a pageant queen," Suwat said.

Karr declined to say what his connection was to the Ramsey family. Dressed in a turquoise polo shirt and khaki trousers, he appeared ashen with an expressionless look on his face.

An attorney for the Ramsey family said Wednesday that Karr once lived near the family in Conyers, Ga.

JonBenet was found beaten and strangled in the basement of the family's home in Boulder, Colo., on Dec. 26, 1996.

Wednesday's arrest was a surprise development in one of America's most lurid murder cases, which had left a cloud of suspicion over her family after years went by with no arrests. Some feared the case would never be solved.

Striking video images of the blonde-haired girl in child beauty pageants helped propel the case into one of the highest-profile mysteries in the United States.

A law enforcement source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the AP that Karr had been communicating periodically with somebody in Boulder who had been following the case and cooperating with law enforcement officials.

A University of Colorado spokesman, Barrie Hartman, said journalism professor Michael Tracey communicated with Karr over several months and contacted police. The university spokesman said he didn't know what prompted Tracey to become suspicious of Karr.

Tracey produced a documentary in 2004 called "Who Killed JonBenet?" A woman who answered the phone at a number under his name said he didn't live there anymore; his office phone mailbox was full.

The Ramseys learned that police were investigating Karr at least a month before the June death of JonBenet's mother, Patsy Ramsey, of ovarian cancer, the family said.

In a statement Wednesday, father John Ramsey said that if his wife had lived to see Karr's arrest, she "would no doubt have been as pleased as I am with today's development almost 10 years after our daughter's murder."

Suwat quoted Karr as saying he tried to kidnap JonBenet for a $118,000 ransom but that his plan went awry and he strangled her. Patsy Ramsey reported finding a ransom note in the house demanding $118,000 for her daughter.

Investigators said at one point that JonBenet's parents were under an "umbrella of suspicion" in the slaying, and some news accounts cast suspicion on JonBenet's older brother, Burke. But the Ramseys insisted an intruder killed their daughter, and no one was ever charged.

Over the years, some experts suggested that investigators had botched the case so thoroughly that it might never be solved. The Ramseys moved back to Atlanta after their daughter's slaying.

"It's been a very long 10 years, and I'm just sorry Patsy isn't here for me to hug her neck," said Lin Wood, the family's longtime attorney.

"John and Patsy lived their lives knowing they were innocent, trying to raise a son despite the furor around them," Wood told MSNBC.

Suwat said U.S. authorities informed Thai police on Aug. 11 that an arrest warrant had been issued for Karr on charges of premeditated murder. The warrant was sent to Thai police on Wednesday.

"Through investigation we were able to determine where his residence was and the Thais arrested him," Hurst said. "He did not resist. He did express surprise."

Hurst said Karr has been "very cooperative" with authorities and that he's shown a "variety of emotions."

Suwat said Karr arrived in Bangkok on June 6 from Malaysia to look for a teaching job. It was not clear whether he had gotten a job, the police officer said.

Karr's visa has been revoked as an "undesirable person" given the accusations against him, and U.S. authorities were expected to take him to the United States in the next few days, Suwat said.

Hurst, with the department's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Bangkok, said that Karr had left the United States several years ago and had not returned.

The immigration and customs office had assisted the Boulder County District Attorney's Office and the Royal Thai Police in the investigation.

The suspect, who has been in Thailand five times over the past two years, was being detained by immigration police pending arrival of U.S. officials, Suwat said.

When asked how he could travel for so many years in Asia, and whether he was independently wealthy, Hurst responded, "We're asking the same questions."

Police said Karr had been living in a dormitory-style hotel called The Blooms in a neighborhood of massage parlors and travel agents that cater to expatriate residents and sex tourists. The nine-story hotel offers rooms for as short as three-hour rentals.

The district attorney in Boulder, Mary Lacy, said the arrest followed several months of work.

She said Karr, who had traveled extensively across the world, may also be connected to a prior case in Santa Rosa County, Calif. She did not provide further details.

Sonoma County Chief Deputy District Attorney Joan Risse confirmed the child pornography charges and arrest warrant against a John Mark Karr, though she cautioned that she didn't know if he was the same person held Bangkok. State records show Karr lost his teaching credential in 2002.