This U.S. territory has begun monitoring the use of cell phones and other electronic devices by emergency workers after grisly pictures appeared on the Internet showing the body of a teenage carnival queen killed in a car wreck. Workers caught using such equipment inappropriately could face a reprimand, suspension or termination, District Police Chief Rodney Querrard said Friday. "This type of technology has no place in the confidential nature of any investigation," he said. Querrard would not provide details about the new policy or how equipment use would be ...

A woman in the U.S. Virgin Islands and another in Dutch St. Maarten have tested positive for swine flu. It is a first for both territories. U.S. Virgin Islands Health Commissioner Julia Sheen says the St. Thomas woman recently returned from a trip abroad and is doing well. St. Maarten's Preventative Health Department says a 22-year-old U.S. student from the American University of the Caribbean also is recuperating. The first person to die of swine flu in the Caribbean was a pregnant, 17-year-old Dominican who also ...

The U.S. Virgin Islands should be penalized for chronic failure to improve conditions at its main jail facility despite 13 years of court orders, inmate advocates told a federal judge Thursday. The islands should be fined for contempt, said Eric Balaban, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who alleged that guards have beaten inmates, left mentally ill prisoners untreated and that weapons and drugs are ubiquitous. Balaban said federal court orders to improve conditions at ...

U.S. Virgin Islands authorities say a blaze has gutted a popular tourist attraction touted as the home of the banana daiquiri. Fire Chief Glen Francis says the 60-year-old Mountain Top souvenir shop and tavern was reduced to rubble early Tuesday on the island of St. Thomas. Francis says the Mountain Top was already engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived and it took crews four hours to douse the wind-whipped blaze. The tavern 1,547 feet ...