MINEOLA, Texas -- In the windowless front rooms of a former day care center in a tiny Texas community, children as young as 5 were fed powerful painkillers they knew as "silly pills" and forced to perform sex shows for a crowd of adults.

"This really shook this town," said Shirley Chadwick, a longtime resident of Mineola. "This was horrible."

Patrick Kelly, 41, is charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child, tampering with physical evidence and engaging in organized criminal activity.

In all, six adults have been charged in connection with the case, including a parent of the three siblings involved.

Jurors this year deliberated less than five minutes before returning guilty verdicts against the first two defendants, who were accused of grooming the kids for sex shows in "kindergarten" classes and passing off Vicodin as "silly pills" to help the children perform.

Jamie Pittman and Shauntel Mayo were sentenced to life in prison. Kelly also faces a life sentence if convicted, and Smith County prosecutors hope for another swift verdict.

Thad Davidson, Kelly's attorney, said his client passed a lie-detector test proving his innocence and worries about getting a fair trial in Tyler, 25 miles southeast of Mineola, which is in Wood County.

"I think it's impossible to get a fair trial within 80 miles of Smith County," Davidson said.

Mineola, about 80 miles east of Dallas, is a close-knit, conservative bean-processing town of with more than 30 churches. Residents there want to put the scandal behind them as quickly as possible.

GLOUCESTER, Mass. -- School counselors, teachers and families of students the principal said made a pact to get pregnant and have babies together have no information to back the claim, the mayor of Gloucester said Sunday.

Mayor Carolyn Kirk plans to meet Monday with school, health and other local officials after Gloucester High School Principal Joseph Sullivan was quoted by Time magazine saying the girls made such a pact.

The meeting will discuss the alarming rate of teen pregnancy. Seventeen girls in the high school became pregnant this year -- four times the usual number. The girls are all 16 or younger, and nearly all of them sophomores.

Kirk told The Associated Press that Sullivan has told officials in this hard-luck New England fishing town that he can't remember his source of information.

"The high school principal is the one who initially said it, and no one else has said it," Kirk said. "None of the counselors at the school, none of the teachers who know these children and none of the families have spoken about it.

"So, my position is that it has not been confirmed," she said.

NEW YORK -- Veteran news anchor Tom Brokaw has agreed to moderate NBC's "Meet the Press" through the November election to fill the vacancy created by the death of Tim Russert.

Brokaw will start next week, the network announced Sunday. Anchor Brian Williams did the show this week and announced the decision at its end.

Brokaw first talked to NBC News President Steve Capus about what the network would do when the two men rode a train back to New York from Washington following Russert's funeral and memorial service on Wednesday. Brokaw told him Saturday that he would do it, Capus said.

"I'm just thrilled that Tom has agreed to do this," Capus told The Associated Press.

The decision gives NBC a well-known, authoritative presence at the helm of the broadcast in an election year. "Meet the Press" dominated the Sunday morning ratings under Russert, reportedly earning $60 million in revenue, and Brokaw's presence could blunt any effort by ABC's second-place "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos to cut into the edge.

TACOMA, Wash. -- Searchers have found the bodies of three snowboarders missing since early December in a skiing area northeast of Mount Rainier in Washington state.

Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer says friends of the three took advantage of melting snow and searched Saturday in the area where they disappeared.

Law-enforcement officials plan to airlift the bodies from the remote site in the Cascades near Crystal Mountain on Sunday.

The three missing men were 26-year-old Kevin Carter, 29-year-old Devlin Williams, and 41-year-old Phillip Hollins, all of the Seattle area.

Autopsies have not been performed, but searchers theorize the three were killed by an avalanche. Heavy, wet snow caused dozens of avalanches in the area last year.

CHICAGO -- Experts are telling Chicago residents to beware of the birds.

The fiercely territorial behavior of red-winged blackbirds is being blamed on several recent dive-bomb attacks. The birds peck at unsuspecting bicyclists and pedestrians and swipe their hair.

Just ask Holly Grosso. The businesswoman says she was pecked in the head. She calls the incident "so bizarre."

Field Museum ornithologist Doug Stotz says the birds favor parks and vacant lots near ponds and Lake Michigan.

Relief may come in late July, after their nesting season ends.