Nation in brief: Florida governor to tie the knot

Gov. Charlie Crist won’t be sleeping alone in the governor’s mansion much longer – he is engaged to a woman he met in New York City last September who quickly captured his heart.

Crist, 51, asked Carole Rome to marry him Thursday at his St. Petersburg apartment, giving her a blue sapphire ring surrounded by diamonds.

“I’m very happy and couldn’t be more pleased. What a great way to celebrate America’s birthday,” said Crist, who has been mentioned as a potential running mate for Republican presidential candidate John McCain. “We’ve been talking about it for quite a while. I asked her while we were looking out over Tampa Bay and I couldn’t think of a better place to do it.”

Rome, 38, is the president of Franco American Novelty Co., her family’s New York-area Halloween costume company, though she stopped managing its daily business when she moved to Fisher Island near Miami in 2006.

Crist was briefly married while in college, but was divorced in less than a year.

Cheyenne, Wyo.

Five arrested during camping trip

About 400 members of the Rainbow Family threw rocks and sticks at 10 federal officers who were trying to arrest a member of the group, the U.S. Forest Service said Friday.

Five members of the group were arrested and one officer was slightly injured.

About 7,000 members of the Rainbow Family are camping this year on Forest Service land near Big Sandy. The Rainbow Family is a loose affiliation of eccentrics, young people and hippie types who choose a forest each year in which to hold a weeklong national gathering.

Ten Forest Service officers were patrolling the main meadow of the Rainbow Family’s camping area Thursday night and apprehended one person described as being uncooperative, the Forest Service said in a statement Friday.