Kidnapped girl kept her wits, Calif. police say

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The 9-year-old girl abducted from home helped win her release by telling her kidnapper she was sick -- and then helped authorities make a quick arrest by memorizing his cell phone number, police said.

New details of the girl's two-day captivity emerged Wednesday as prosecutors pressed their case against the alleged abductor, who awaited arraignment on charges including rape, sexual assault and burglary.

Enrique Sosa Alvarez, 23, awaited assignment of a lawyer. He has declined requests for comment, a jail spokesman said.

Authorities marveled at moves the girl made to save herself after being kidnapped as she returned home from school Friday. They said she kept her head as she talked to her abductor, telling him she was ailing.

"It's as if she established some type of relationship with him so that he saw her as a person," deputy chief Rob Davis said. "To the extent that you can humanize yourself, you can create an opportunity to escape."

Growth in health care costs dips slightly

NEW YORK -- Health care spending growth slowed in 2002 for the first time in five years, but experts say the news doesn't signal any future dramatic decline.

Spending on privately insured Americans grew 9.6 percent, down from 10 percent in 2001, according to a study released Wednesday by the Center for Studying Health System Change, a Washington-based policy research organization.

Researchers said the slowdown was caused by less spending on prescription drugs and a shifting of more costs to consumers.

"It is possible that there may be a future fall, but it won't be that much," said Paul Ginsburg, the study's co-author. "Costs are still high when you consider our ability to pay for them."

Spending surged in 2001, when managed care organizations loosened restrictions that had contained costs. Ginsburg sees a reluctance among insurers and employers to return to the more restrictive policies despised by workers, which probably means no substantial decline in spending growth.

Former students gather to mark 1963 showdown

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Black alumni of the University of Alabama gathered Wednesday to honor 40 years of school integration at the campus where then-Gov. George Wallace made his infamous "stand in the schoolhouse door."

A candlelight vigil and forums on racial issues were among programs marking the anniversary of Wallace's June 11, 1963, act of segregationist defiance. Largely political stagecraft, it did not stop the mostly peaceful start of blacks into the state school.

Wallace's stand failed to keep two 20-year-old blacks -- Vivian Malone and James Hood -- from enrolling that day, and many others followed. With about 19,600 students, Alabama's student body is now 13 percent black.

Despite the numbers, the black alumni on Wednesday said there's still much work to be done.

--From wire reports