Kidnapings

A 7-year-old boy was abducted from a sidewalk about 8 a.m. Friday as he was walking to school, police said. Eduardo Rivera was with three other children near Cole Avenue and Kinnow Lane when one or two men approached him and led him into a waiting car, police said. Police said the boy was driven off in a car and later transferred to a gold Cadillac Escalade with temporary tags that may be from out of state. Riverside Police Lt. Brian Baitx said both of Eduardo's parents are in jail -- one in Orange County and the other in San Bernardino County -- on charges of fraud and identity theft.

An army general said he hoped to rescue three kidnapped Red Cross workers in the southern Philippines. Gunmen on motorcycles intercepted a vehicle carrying the three on their way to the airport on Jolo island, where Abu Sayyaf militants are known to hide. The workers are from Italy, Switzerland and the Philippines. Maj. Gen. Juancho Sabban, head of Jolo's anti-terrorism task force, said their vehicle was found abandoned near the mountain town of Patikul, the scene of many clashes between troops and Abu Sayyaf.

Yemeni tribesmen have abducted a German engineer and two Yemeni workers for a gas firm in the southern Shebwa region, an official at the Yemen LNG company said. A spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry could not confirm the abduction. Tribesmen have often kidnapped Western tourists to demand better living conditions.

Taliban militants kidnapped the top government administrator and six of his guards in Pakistan's northwestern Swat Valley, the group and officials said. Khushal Khan, district coordination officer of Swat, was traveling by car to Mingora when he was abducted, said Syed Mohammad Jawed, commissioner for the Malakand division, which includes Swat. Muslim Khan, the Taliban spokesman in Swat, said the group claimed responsibility. "He is our guest. We have to discuss some issues with him. We will serve him with tea and then free him," Khan said.

A Louisiana woman is accused of trading two young children in her care for a pet cockatoo and $175 cash from a couple who had been trying for years to have their own child, authorities said Thursday. Donna Greenwell, 53, a long-haul trucker from Pitkin, is charged with aggravated kidnapping, along with would-be adoptive parents Paul J. Romero, 46, and Brandy Lynn Romero, 27, of Evangeline Parish. The transaction involving the two children, a 5-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl, was allegedly negotiated by telephone after Greenwell spotted a flier that was posted on a livestock barn advertising a cockatoo for sale for $1,500 and called the Romeros on Feb. 18.

Nine undocumented Chinese immigrants being held for ransom in Monterey Park wrested a gun from their captors early Tuesday and shot one to death before fleeing, authorities said. The immigrants--some of whom had been in captivity for three months--scattered after the confrontation at the three-bedroom bungalow, said Fidel Gonzales, a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman.

An off-duty Los Angeles police officer who had taken his 4-year-old son to visit his girlfriend and her children in Corona was shot in the head Sunday by the woman's estranged husband, who then kidnapped her as the children watched, police said. Late Sunday, police were still searching for Curtis Hemphill, 30, who was last seen forcing the mother of his children, Keri Hemphill, 25, into a red Cadillac outside the apartment complex where she had been living for the past month. Corona Police Sgt.

A Valencia man acquitted of federal bank robbery charges last year was ordered Tuesday to stand trial on assault and kidnaping charges related to the same robberies. Alex Yepes, 26, will be arraigned July 12 in San Fernando Superior Court on 45 counts connected to the 1993 robberies of banks in Northridge and Canyon Country in which bank officials were held captive in their homes the night prior to the robberies. If convicted, Yepes faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

An avowed devil worshiper has been arrested for allegedly making a Mississippi teenager his "slave" and then selling her as a prostitute at truck stops in several states, authorities said. Danny Walter Schertz, 48, who uses the names "Snakeman," "Wizard," and "Triple 6," will appear in federal court here today for a hearing that authorities hope will hasten his return to Mississippi to answer charges of pimping and kidnapping.

A teacher who ran off with a 15-year-old student for two months agreed to a plea bargain, which means he will get no jail time and she does not have to hear her personal life aired in court. The court also is lifting its order that 33-year-old Harlem, N.Y., teacher Glenn Harris stay away from the girl with whom he motel-hopped through seven states, said Assistant Dist. Atty. Lisa Friel. Harris originally was charged with kidnaping but pleaded guilty to custodial interference, a felony.