CHICAGO -- A new analysis of government data is the first to link low-level arsenic exposure, possibly from drinking water, with Type 2 diabetes, researchers say.

Previous research outside the United States has linked high levels of arsenic in drinking water with diabetes. It's the link at low levels that's new.

The findings appear in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

"The good news is, this is preventable," said lead author Dr. Ana Navas-Acien of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

New safe drinking water standards may be needed if the findings are duplicated in future studies, Navas-Acien said. She said they've begun a new study of 4,000 people.

NAPLES, Fla. -- Tropical Storm Fay rolled ashore in Florida Tuesday short of hurricane strength, but mysteriously gained speed as it headed over land, bringing heavy rain, high wind and tornadoes.

The storm dumped knee-deep water in some streets, downed trees and plunged 58,000 homes and businesses into the dark. A tornado ripped through Brevard County, damaging 51 homes, nine severely. But overall, residents said it wasn't as bad they feared.

"We're still here," said Corey Knapp, resident manager of the Ivey House, a bed and breakfast in Everglades City. Still, forecasters were watching as the storm gathered strength, its top sustained winds increasing by 5 mph to 65 mph at 3 p.m. The development was unusual because the storm was away from its energy source of warm ocean waters.

Tropical storms and hurricanes do occasionally strengthen while over land, said Eric Blake, a specialist at the National Hurricane Center. Forecasters are not certain why it is occurring with Fay, but its pressure was dropping as it made landfall and that usually leads to stronger winds, he said. It also moved over the flat, swampy Everglades, which has ample warm water that storms need for energy.

SAN ANGELO, Texas -- A 14-year-old girl allegedly married to jailed polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs with her parents' blessing at age 12 was ordered back into foster care Thursday by a Texas judge.

District Judge Barbara Walther said that there was "uncontroverted evidence of the underage marriage" and that the girl's mother, Barbara Jessop, refused to guarantee the girl's safety. The girl, shown in photographs submitted to the court kissing Jeffs, must immediately enter foster care.

Her 11-year-old brother, whom Texas child welfare authorities also wanted placed in foster care, will be allowed to stay with his mother but will have to undergo psychological evaluation in the next month.

The girl's case marked the first effort by Child Protective Services to retake custody of a child who lived at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado before the April raid that resulted in 440 children being placed in foster care for six weeks. The Texas Supreme Court later struck down that early custody decision, saying the state failed to show any more than a handful of teenage girls might have been abused.

The children were returned to their parents in June. Since then, the child welfare agency has asked for custody of seven children, including the 14-year-old girl and her brother. It sought the dismissal of cases involving 76 children, including nine who have turned 18. The rest of the cases remain under investigation.

Lawyers reached settlements Tuesday in three of the cases in which state officials had sought custody, according to court filings. The three girls in those cases can stay with their mothers, provided that the women restrict contact with men accused of being involved in underage marriages and comply with other, more routine custody-related court orders.

POINT MARION, Pa. -- An 85-year-old woman boldly went for her gun and busted a would-be burglar inside her home, then forced him to call police while she kept him in her sights, police said.

"I just walked right on past him to the bedroom and got my gun," Leda Smith said.

Smith heard someone break into her home Monday afternoon and grabbed the .22-caliber revolver she had been keeping by her bed since a neighbor's home was burglarized a few weeks ago.

"I said 'What are you doing in my house?' He just kept saying he didn't do it," Smith said.

After the 17-year-old boy called 911, Smith kept holding the gun on him until state police arrived at her home in Springhill Township, about 45 miles south of Pittsburgh.

The boy will be charged with attempted burglary and related offenses in juvenile court, Trooper Christian Lieberum said. He was not identified because of his age.

"It was exciting," Smith said. "I just hope I broke up the (burglary) ring because they have been hitting a lot of places around here."

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Former Vice President Al Gore and civil rights activist Diane Nash were named Tuesday as recipients of the National Civil Rights Museum's annual Freedom Awards.

They will receive the awards at a banquet in Memphis in October. The museum is built around the former Lorraine Motel where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968.

The museum said it chose Gore and Nash because of their "sacrifices, influence and awareness" in working for the common good.

Gore will be honored for helping raise the world's awareness of the dangers of man-made climate change, the museum said in an announcement. Nash will be recognized for her pioneering civil rights work in the 1960s.

McALLEN, Texas -- Flooding receded Tuesday in southern Texas and main highways reopened after a deluge of as much as 13 inches of rain, as the drenching weather shifted to the northern end of the state and Oklahoma.

Torrential rain flooded an estimated 750 homes Monday in Starr County and at least 243 people evacuated, said Natividad Gonzalez of the county sheriff's department. He was not aware of any injuries.

"We still have a lot of water; we still have a lot of flooding," Gene Falcon, county emergency management coordinator, said Tuesday. "We're just hoping we don't get any more rain."

Instead, heavy rain caused flooding in parts of northern Texas and Oklahoma.

Firefighters used boats Tuesday morning to rescue some people from homes and vehicles in El Reno, Okla., just west of Oklahoma City, said Canadian County Emergency Management Director Jerry Smith.

The El Reno area had measured 4.8 inches of rain in three days, and 9.65 inches had fallen in southwest Oklahoma's Jefferson County, officials said. High water blocked more than a dozen Oklahoma roads, but no large-scale evacuations had been ordered.

PICKENS, S.C. -- A convicted sex offender has admitted he strangled a 20-year-old South Carolina college student, leaving her body in her off-campus apartment with her bikini top still wrapped around her neck.

Jerry Buck Inman pleaded guilty Tuesday to kidnapping, raping and murdering Tiffany Marie Souers of Ladue, Mo. The 37-year-old Inman could face the death penalty.

The Clemson University engineering student's body was found in May 2006. Inman's DNA matched samples taken from Souers' apartment and he was arrested near his mother's home in Dandridge, Tenn., about two weeks after her body was found.

Inman spent about 18 years in prison in North Carolina and Florida for rapes committed in those states as a teenager.

PITTSBURGH -- A Pennsylvania medical student told a classmate he was trying to recruit a New Zealand woman and her 4-year-old daughter to start a society of sex slaves that would live on a farm or island, the FBI said.

The FBI said in an affidavit filed Aug. 13 that it began investigating Jeremy Noyes, 30, of Erie, after someone tipped them off about his efforts to recruit the New Zealand woman and girl to come to the United States. They said he also possessed child pornography.

The tipster, using a pseudonym, submitted a complaint on an FBI Web page in June in which she wrote, "Noyes has threatened to kill me and my family ... (and) will not rest until we are dead. All the evidence you need is in his computer and that little girl's mind. Please save her."

Investigators got warrants to search Noyes' two e-mail accounts and found "images of prepubescent minors engaged in sexually explicit activity," the FBI wrote in the affidavit.

The images Noyes is accused of sending and receiving do not depict the New Zealand woman or her daughter. FBI agent William Crowley could not say Tuesday if authorities have determined whether they even exist.

Noyes was in custody Tuesday and faces a hearing before a federal magistrate in Erie on Thursday to determine whether he will remain jailed on the child pornography charges until he stands trial. He is represented by a federal public defender whose office has a policy of not commenting to the media.