MIAMI – Yadilka Aramboles eyes her three young children playing on the sidewalk and sees college in their future — even though her husband’s modest accountant’s income barely covers the family’s most basic expenses.

“The situation is bad now, but I have faith that this is going to change,” says the 32-year-old from the Dominican Republic. “For me and my children, I aspire to something more.”

Aramboles’ feelings — hopes for tomorrow, tempered by daily doses of financial stress — are a familiar blend for Hispanics in the United States, according to an Associated Press-Univision poll of more than 1,500 Latinos. But the survey of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing minority also shows a resounding diversity, with views and experiences varying between immigrants and the U.S.-born.

The survey was conducted as America’s 47 million Hispanics face acute economic and political pressures.

The recession that erased millions of jobs has taken an especially heavy toll on Latinos, whose average income is lower than many other groups. And the Hispanic community has been jolted by election-season debate over the country’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, a debate that has increased in intensity following Arizona’s enactment of a law that requires police, while enforcing other laws, to question a person’s immigration status if officers have a reasonable suspicion he or she is in the country illegally.

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A former Roman Catholic priest who was part of a $5 million sex abuse settlement in Wisconsin two decades ago was suspended from a volunteer position with Special Olympics Missouri and has admitted some of the abuse.

Mark Musso, president and CEO of Special Olympics Missouri, said the former priest, Tom Ericksen, 62, of Kansas City, was suspended indefinitely last week after the organization learned of the 1989 settlement with the Diocese of Superior, Wis.

Ericksen admitted in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday that he had fondled three boys but denied having contact with a fourth child involved in the settlement. He said the settlement totaled about $5 million.

“I just fondled and stuff like that,” Ericksen said during the interview in the lobby of his Kansas City apartment building.

“But I can’t say I didn’t do inappropriate things. … But I never had sex” with them, he said. Ericksen also said he has not abused any children since leaving the priesthood, including Special Olympians.

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HELSINKI (AFP) – Nokia Siemens Networks is to buy most of the wireless network infrastructure assets from US firm Motorola for 1.2 billion dollars (926 million euros) to bolster its rank as number two in the sector, it said on Monday.

The German-Finnish telecom equipment company said the move would strengthen its position as world number two in the telecom infrastructure segment.

“Nokia Siemens Networks and Motorola today jointly announced that the companies have entered into an agreement under which Nokia Siemens Networks will acquire the majority of Motorola’s wireless network infrastructure assets for 1.2 billion US dollars in cash,” it said in a statement.

It added both firms expected to complete the deal, which still needs to obtain regulatory approvals, by the end of 2010.

Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) said it expected the transaction “to significantly strengthen (its) presence globally, particularly in the United States and Japan.”

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OAKLAND, Calif. – A convicted felon armed with three guns and wearing a bulletproof vest opened fire on California Highway Patrol officers for several minutes during a traffic stop on an Oakland freeway Sunday before he was shot several times and wounded, authorities said.

Byron Christopher Williams, 45, of Groveland was in serious but stable condition Sunday night at Highland Hospital and was expected to survive despite being shot in the arm, side, leg and foot, said CHP Sgt. Trent Cross. Cross described Williams’ condition as serious but stable.

Cross said Williams had an “extensive criminal history,” and another conviction would mean a third strike under California law.

Williams was armed with a high-powered rifle, a shotgun, a handgun and body armor, Cross said. Officers also discovered a suspicious device they could not identify, and a bomb squad was called to the freeway to detonate it, Cross said.

“He was bold enough to take shots at the police, and he was in possession of bullet proof vests and guns,” Cross said. “There is no doubt he was on his way to do something pretty serious.”

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CETINJE, Montenegro – Their nickname comes straight from Peter Sellers and Inspector Clouseau, but there’s nothing bumbling about them.

In heists from London to Paris to Tokyo, the crime ring that Interpol calls the Pink Panthers is thought to have netted a quarter billion dollars in jewelry and luxury watches. Many of its members are said to be from this tiny Balkan country of 600,000 people.

The legend started seven years ago in a jar of face cream.

Milan Jovetic was among a group that robbed the Graff store on London’s exclusive New Bond Street of $30 million worth of diamonds. He was caught a couple days later and Scotland Yard found a $1 million diamond ring that was purportedly his share of the job.

It was stashed in his girlfriend’s face-cream jar, the same hiding place used by the thief in “The Pink Panther,” the 1963 movie that introduced the world to the famously inept Inspector Clouseau.

British newspapers dubbed the robbers the Pink Panthers, and as more robberies followed, enough of a pattern emerged for Interpol to set up “Project Pink Panthers.”

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