He'd Better Hope He Doesn't Get Sick

Jun 3, 2004 8:57 am ET 

LONDON  - A British man with a fetish for medical items has become the first person to be banned from every hospital in England and Wales, the government said on Wednesday.

Unemployed Norman Hutchins, 53, has harassed and abused medical staff more than 40 times since January in his quest for surgical masks and gowns, a court in the northern city of York was told.

The court banned him from all private and state-run National Health Service hospitals and doctors' and dentists' offices.

Hutchins tried to obtain medical items by feigning illness, or claiming to need them for a fancy dress run or an amateur play, the Times newspaper reported.

"(He has) caused harassment, alarm and distress to NHS staff when attempting to obtain gowns and surgical masks in person or on the phone," an NHS spokesman said in a statement.

More than 30 local health organizations banned him with civil injunctions, but Hutchins kept moving to new areas.

Hutchins' lawyer Harry Bayman said his client "was not a well man," but accepted the court's decision.

If he needs medical treatment, Hutchins will be allowed to visit hospitals or doctors under strictly controlled conditions or with prior written consent. 

U.S. Election: the Video Game

Jun 3, 8:58 am ET 

By Ben Berkowitz

LOS ANGELES  - The typical video game calls for shooting aliens, racing cars and beating enemies into submission, but publisher Ubi Soft Entertainment has decided gamers may also enjoy stumping for votes at a nursing home somewhere in Ohio.

The company said on Wednesday it has signed a deal to publish "The Political Machine," a new game for PCs that puts players in control of the 2004 presidential campaigns of either incumbent President Bush or Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry.

Players will also have the option of creating their own Republican or Democratic candidate or managing the campaign of a historical figure like Ronald Reagan or Franklin Roosevelt.

The game will allow players to raise funds, barnstorm for votes and join candidate debates.

"We figured it would be kind of fun to be able to go around the country and try to take out ads, debate on the issues that are out there ... and see how different candidates played up against each other," Brad Wardell, the game's designer told The News Source.

Taking turns against the computer or another live player, budding "campaign managers" will have to manage a budget, coordinate strategy and give interviews on spoof political TV shows like "60 Seconds" and the "O'Maley Factor."

Most of the game's demographic data is gathered from the U.S. Census, and candidates rise in the polls by appealing to states on the issues judged most important to them.

That will require players to finesse their message to gain the backing of special interest groups and get the most states possible on board with their candidate, Wardell said.

"A player who's not a political junkie quickly learns why real-world candidates seemingly flip-flop on the issues," Wardell said.

The game is expected to be released sometime this summer, between the Democratic convention in July and the Republican convention in August.

Wardell said the public seemed to be more evenly split between the two parties and the candidates than in the past, which made the game potentially more interesting.

"We wanted to do this before the 2000 election but our models said Al Gore was going to win, so we decided not to do it," he said.

And while the game is clearly fallible as a predictive tool, Wardell said it offered some insight into real life politics.

"According to our model, Kerry should pick Gephardt as his VP," he said, referring to Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt, who he said could deliver states like Iowa and Missouri.

So what about the outcome in November? "Right now, according to the model, Bush is going to lose by quite a bit," Wardell said. 

Models Allege Price-Fixing by N.Y. Cos. 

Wed Jun 2,10:03 PM ET 
Add U.S. National - 

By LARRY NEUMEISTER, News Source Writer 

NEW YORK - Modeling companies conspired for three decades to set the same high fees for young women seeking work, a lawyer charged Wednesday at the opening of the price-fixing trial of Click Model Management. 

But the attorney representing Click scoffed at the notion of a conspiracy, saying the industry was so "full of hatred," companies would have never been able to conspire. 

In opening statements, lawyer Merrill Davidoff said aspiring models as young as 14 signed contracts for a shot at fame and fortune. "They're trusting, naive and vulnerable," he said. 

Davidoff is seeking millions in damages against Click. Other modeling companies have either settled or been severed from the trial. The trial is expected to last three weeks. 

Davidoff said modeling companies require all but a few elite models to pay a 20 percent fee. 

Aaron Richard Golub, a lawyer for Click, said the plaintiffs "can't get a penny because they can't prove an ounce of conspiracy against Click." 

"This is a business so full of hatred, there's no way they ever could have conspired," he said. 

Golub said modeling management companies rely on models who go from job to job - and that everybody in the industry knows what everybody else is making. He claimed the lawsuit was brought by malcontent models who thought they had been given a "raw deal." 

"You're not going to meet Cindy Crawford or Naomi Campbell," he added. 

Carolyn Fears, 34, who signed with Ford Models when she was 19, testified that although she was told of the standard rate, "I didn't really read the rest of the contract." 

"They said they'd like to sign me. That was very exciting," she said. 

As her career developed, she said she once asked an employee why she was charged $1,500 as a fee each year her picture was recycled in Ford's catalogue of models. She said Ford co-founder Eileen Ford, standing behind her, snapped: "Who do you think you are? You're not on the cover of Vogue. If you don't like it, you can get out." 

"I ran into the bathroom in tears," Fears said. 

Ford Chief Executive Officer Katie Ford said the company had reached an amicable settlement of the lawsuit. 

As for the comments about Eileen Ford, she said: "Eileen let Carolyn stay in her house for free, eat for free and Carolyn made, I believe, well over a million dollars modeling. So I don't think that's so bad." 

Mexico's Sad Clown Says 'Adios' to Morning TV

Jun 2, 1:18 pm ET 

By Lorraine Orlandi

MEXICO CITY  - Brozo, a foul-mouthed clown with a green wig and a shiny red nose who was one of Mexico's hottest newscasters, bowed out of morning television on Wednesday with the usual cheap laughs and a touch of tragedy.

"El Mananero," a daily morning romp on the Televisa network that has influenced Mexican politics at the highest level, was aired for the last time after Brozo this week decided to end the program after the death of his wife.

A parade of well-wishers including President Vicente Fox, former President Carlos Salinas, the nation's attorney general, lawmakers, journalists and entertainers bid farewell in on-air phone calls and cards.

Actor Victor Trujillo created Brozo, the "gloomy clown," for a cabaret act decades ago and hit the big time with the Televisa slot in 2002.

For Mexicans accustomed to groomed, tailored and stiff newscasters, Brozo's irreverent approach was refreshing and the show was seen as serious news commentary despite its antics.

"Brozo understood the psychology of Mexicans -- in order not to cry we tell jokes," said columnist Guadalupe Loaeza.

Like many funny men, Brozo was tinged with sadness. His wife, Carolina Padilla, the show's producer, died last month after a long illness.

At the close of the final broadcast, Trujillo removed his wig and nose and, flanked by his daughters and co-workers, paid homage to "Carolina, my wife, my companion, my accomplice."

The program, featuring plenty of bathroom humor and a curvaceous news assistant, offered a fresh and often cynical take on power and politics and quickly became a cultural phenomenon.

Its name, El Mananero, is Mexican slang for quick morning sex.

Brozo proved his political influence this year when he brought a leading leftist lawmaker on the show and aired a secret videotape showing the politician taking stacks of money from a city contractor.

The ensuing uproar fed a corruption scandal around popular Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a leftist favored in the 2006 presidential race.

Last year, first lady Marta Sahagun, who is also seen as a presidential contender, went on the show to defend herself against a biographer's portrayal of her as an ambitious schemer and devotee of witchcraft.

The end of "El Mananero" does not mean Brozo will hang up the wig: he's due to cover the Summer Olympics for Televisa. 

Euthanasia Campaigner Writes Guide to a Good Death

Jun 2, 11:06 am ET 

LONDON  - Inspired by guidebooks for the discerning consumer, a right-to-die campaigner has compiled a "Good Euthanasia Guide," listing organizations that help people end their lives and the relevant laws around the world.

Euthanasia has been a topic of hot debate in Britain after a handful of high-profile cases last year when ill Britons traveled abroad to be helped to commit suicide.

"I was in a pub and I was eating dinner and they had a bookshelf full of guides -- the 'Good Hotel Guide', the 'Good Restaurant Guide' and so on -- and I thought, that's what we need," Derek Humphry said in an interview.

"It's a book of information for intelligent people who want to make an informed decision about their death," said Humphry, a former Sunday Times journalist who founded a pressure group called the Hemlock Society in 1980.

Humphry has written several books on euthanasia, including his 1991 guide detailing how to end your own life called "Final Exit," which has sold over a million copies and includes chapters on self-starvation and "Bizarre Ways to Die."

Switzerland, the Netherlands and Belgium all have assisted dying or euthanasia laws. Assisted suicide has been allowed in the US state of Oregon since 1998. 

You SURE We're Only Going 50?

Jun 2, 10:58 am ET 

DETROIT  - Honda Motor Co. Ltd. is recalling nearly 8,200 model year 2004 motorcycles because of a computer glitch that could prompt their drivers to go too fast, federal safety regulators said on Tuesday.

The program error causes the digital speedometer on some of the motorcycles to understate actual vehicle speed by about 25 percent, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said.

"This condition can result in the vehicle being driven at an illegal or unsafe speed," NHTSA said in an advisory on its Web site.

It did not elaborate, but state police may already have noticed a disproportionate number of people breaking speed limits lately on late-model Honda motorcycles. 

Climate Change Faster Than Expected 28-May-2004 On the weekend of the opening of The Day After Tomorrow, researcher James Lovelock says climate change may be proceeding much more quickly than previously thought. This report comes at a time when the main criticism of the film is that everything happens much faster than it will in reality.

In the Independent, Michael McCarthy writes that Lovelock's conclusion is due to two recent climatic events: the increasingly rapid melting of the Arctic ice-sheet covering Greenland, which will raise global sea levels, and the extreme heat wave in Europe last summer, which caused 20,000 deaths of mostly elderly people in France.

"There's no question in any reasonable scientist's mind that [the heat wave] was the first real bad event of global warming," says Lovelock. "But the media picked it up only as a story about the wickedness of the French in not looking after their old people." He is just as alarmed about the Greenland ice sheet, which is "melting far faster than we expected.

"I think in the past we thought more in terms of, it would get hotter, things would change, you might be able to grow Mediterranean plants in Britain and things like that, it didn't seem at all too bad; you knew there'd be some places that wouldn't be fine, but others would be nicer than they were. Now there's a growing awareness that global warming is far more serious than we ever realized, that it is proceeding more quickly, and that it poses a threat to future generations and even to civilization itself." 

Alien Caught on Film? 28-May-2004 Scott Corrales quotes Chilean civil engineer Germ�n Pereira as saying, "On May 10 this year, I decided to take some photos at Parque Forestal, taking 10 shots which I downloaded to my PC the following day." When he looked at them, he was surprised to see the image of an alien.

"I thought it would be interesting to photograph a group of Carabineros (state police) on horseback patrolling the sector... It was a cloudy day and the sun was hidden, for which reason my digital camera (Kodak DX6490) adjusted to low speed (1/10 seg.)," he says. "...This is the reason why the photo shows motion...I employed the camera's optical zoom (10x) which added to the blurred result." The white spot in the middle of the photo may have been caused by the streetlights, which began to turn on and off in sequence (the way they often do for UFO Experiencers).

He says, "The fact is that I am very impressed by this image. I attest to the fact that it is not a fraud nor anything similar. For this reason I have made it public and I contacted the staff of CIFAE Chile. I would like to know the true nature of the image that appears in it and if anyone has ever caught anything similar in a photo."

The photo cannot be analyzed effectively because the blurring of the low-resolution image makes it impossible to tell whether or not the figure was digitally inserted.

It could be that this is a child whose appearance has been distorted by the shaking of the camera. The fact that the small being is more blurred than the horses would be explained by the idea that the child is running across the path and the horses are moving slowly.

Unfortunately, there is no way to draw a final conclusion about this image. It is provocative, but not proof positive. 

Hybrid Savings: It Depends on How You Drive 27-May-2004 Some owners of new hybrid cars can't figure out why they don't get the 55 or higher miles per gallon they've been promised. It turns out you won't save much on gas unless you drive the right way. Honda spokesman Chris Naughton tells Civic Hybrid owners not to drive too fast or brake too hard, and says, "Be mindful that (fuel-efficiency) can vary."

John Gartner writes in wired.com that Toyota Prius drivers have reported lifetime fuel-efficiency from 36 to 58 mpg, while Honda Civic Hybrid owners claim to get between 32 and 56 mpg. But some drivers report getting 40 miles per gallon or less.

Toyota engineer Dave Hermance says weather, driving conditions and driver habits can cut fuel-efficiency by up to 30%. How you stop is important: Drivers who roll through intersections using "California stops," instead of actually stopping, are decreasing their mileage. He says, "If you don't stop, you don't get the free energy of regenerative braking." But braking too hard can also cause you to lose some of the benefits of regenerative braking, which captures energy from slowing the car to charge the battery. If the battery's charge falls below a certain level, then the car will rely more heavily on the gas engine than the electric motor.

The weather plays a part as well. According to Toyota, cold weather can reduce fuel-efficiency by up to 35%, especially if you don't allow the car to warm up before driving it.

How you accelerate also counts. Prius owner Bill Gausman says, "If you use long, slow acceleration, your mileage sucks." But the easiest way to reduce fuel-efficiency is to speed. He says, "If I'm doing more than 70, then I'll definitely get less than 50 mpg."

Secret of the Blue Rose 18-May-2004 Roses come in a wide variety of colors, but that's not enough for some folks-they're determined to create a blue rose. There are plenty of blue flowers in the world, but no one has yet been able to persuade a rose bush to produce blue flowers. But now, using an enzyme found in the human liver, they may be able to genetically engineer one. Flowers which are naturally blue have a pigment called delphinidin. Exactly the right balance of acidity is needed inside the cells of the plant to create the right shade of blue. "The rose is not easy to work with," says rose geneticist David Byrne. "It has no blue pigments and it can't seem to go through the transformation process."

In 1986 an Australian biotech company called Florigene decided to create a blue rose. They've come close, with a lavender-like color, but still haven't succeeded. "It depends on how you describe blue," says researcher John Mason. "This is a very sensitive topic for us and unfortunately I cannot comment further."

Biochemist Peter Guengerich, who is studying the human liver, says, "When we moved the enzyme into bacteria, the bacteria turned blue. It was a complete surprise."

The technique of inserting the liver gene into a rose to create a blue bloom hasn't been perfected yet. "The first time we tried we got blue spots on the stems," Guengerich says. "Those probably aren't going to be too marketable."

Music Teachers Going Deaf 26-May-2004 A new study shows that music teachers are routinely exposed to noise levels that could result in hearing loss. Researcher Hans Kunov says, "The hair cells of the inner ear simply crumble under the load, and they don't grow back again."

According to Canadian law, noise levels on the job should not exceed 90 decibels, which is the equivalent of a power lawn mower being run over eight hours in a 24-hour period.

Researcher Willy Wong measured the noise exposure of 18 music teachers at 15 high schools in Toronto and found that the peak noise level exceeded 85 decibels for 78% of them. During an average eight-hour day, 39% of them experienced harmful noise levels.

Part of the problem is that most classrooms are constructed with concrete blocks and linoleum, providing a highly reflective sound surface. "The world is louder than we think," says Wong. "Schools might consider protective measures such as sound baffling and carpet and teachers might... consider [getting] periodic hearing checks."

When the world gets too loud, the rest of us can wear earplugs, but teachers-especially music teachers-can't.

Warning: Your Computer May be Tapped 17-May-2004 You know your phone can be tapped, but you probably think you have complete privacy when typing on your computer keyboard. However, spies can eavesdrop on what you're writing by listening to the sounds of your keystrokes.

IBM research scientist Dmitri Asonov says that every key on computer keyboards, telephones and even ATM machines makes a unique sound as it's pressed and released. All you need to listen is $200 worth of microphones and sound processing software. Asonov says he can decipher keystrokes with 80% accuracy.

The sounds are made because keyboards and keypads all have a rubber membrane underneath the keys. Asonov says, "This membrane acts like a drum, and each key hits the drum in a different location and produces a unique frequency or sound that the neural networking software can decipher."

Thank China for Spam 20-May-2004 We get many low cost imports from China, and one of these is computer spam. When internet researchers tracked spam messages, they found that 71% of them come from China.

Gideon Mantel, who tracks e-mail traffic, says most of those messages telling you how to increase your penis size or get a discount mortgage are linked to websites based in China. "We're talking now about 350,000 to 400,000 unique spam attacks a day," he says. "Since Jan. 1, we've seen probably a 30% to 40% increase" in spam traffic. Each "unique spam attack" goes to at least 50,000 recipients. "The numbers are amazing," says Mantel. "When we saw them, I was so shocked, we checked and rechecked the numbers three times."

It's not hard to identify an IP address as Chinese, since they all have about 10 digits and the first two or three identify the country. While the Chinese internet is heavily censored, it's inexpensive to host a website there.

This doesn't mean that the spammers themselves are Chinese, only that they're using Chinese websites. Mantel says, "Maybe the host computer in China is sending [user traffic] to Korea, or somewhere else, to confuse law enforcement."

Pesticides Inside our Bodies 18-May-2004 Most of us have unhealthy levels of pesticides inside our bodies, from yards (or own and others) and the food we eat, as well as air and water. There's no way to avoid being exposed to them.

When the Pesticide Action Network looked for levels of 23 different pesticides in data on over 2,500 people, they found that the average person had at least 13 of them in their blood and urine. Margaret Reeves of PAN says, "A growing body of research suggests that even at very low levels, the combination of these chemicals can be harmful to our health."

Children between the ages of 6 and 11 are exposed to the nerve-damaging pesticide chlorpyrifos at four times the acceptable level. Chlorpyrifos kills insects by disrupting their nervous system.

Dow is the largest pesticide manufacturer in the country. Spokesman Garry Hamlin says, "Chlorpyrifos is widely used, and studies by the Centers for Disease Control suggest that people are exposed to chlorpyrifos at very tiny levels...When people are exposed, the product breaks down readily and is eliminated from the body in a matter of days."

The PAN report shows that women carry "significantly" higher levels of three pesticides called organochlorines, which can reduce birth weight and disrupt brain development in infants. It also found that Mexican Americans carry higher levels of the insecticides lindane, DDT and methyl parthion than other ethnic groups. 

Girls Pushing for Modest Fashion Options 

Wed Jun 2, 6:51 PM ET 
By KRISTEN GELINEAU, News Source Writer 

REDMOND, Wash. - During a recent shopping trip to Nordstrom, 11-year-old Ella Gunderson became frustrated with all the low-cut hip-huggers and 
skintight tops. So she wrote to the Seattle-based chain's executives to complain. The industry has been getting the message: A more modest look is in, 
fashion experts say. 

The shy, bespectacled redhead has since become an instant media darling, appearing on national television over the past two weeks to promote modest 
fashions instead of the saucy looks popularized by the likes of Britney Spears. 

"We like to call this new girl Miss Modesty," said Gigi Solif Schanen, fashion editor at Seventeen magazine. "It's such a different feeling but still very 
pretty and feminine and sexy. It's just a little more covered up." 

Shoppers are starting to see higher waistlines and lower hemlines, and tweeds, fitted blazers and layers are expected to be big this fall, Schanen said. 

"It's kind of like a sexy take on a librarian," she said. "I think people are tired of seeing so much skin and want to leave a little more to the imagination." 

The Web sites ModestApparelUSA.com and ModestByDesign.com - where the slogan is "Clothing your father would be proud of" - report that sales 
have skyrocketed over the past 18 months. 

Many youngsters are frustrated by the profusion of racy teenage clothing, according to Buzz Marketing, a New Jersey-based firm that compiles feedback 
from teen advisers. 

"There is just sensory overload. Kids are going to say enough already," said Buzz's 24-year-old chief executive, Tina Wells. "The next big trend I see is 
kids are going to look like monks." 

In 2002, a group of Arizona teens submitted a petition to the Phoenix division of the Dillard's department store chain asking for more modest clothes. The 
chain began carrying more conservative styles. 

Nordstrom spokeswoman Deniz Anders said the company has been hearing for about two years from customers who want more modest looks, and 
Nordstrom tries to carry a broad array of styles in its stores. 

The arrival of the modest look is good news for Ella, who last week participated in a sold-out "Pure Fashion" show in Bellevue with 37 other girls 
belonging to a Roman Catholic youth organization. 

Ella, who paraded down the catwalk in a long-sleeved pink top and a shiny pink skirt, hopes the fashion show - and her letter - will prompt some 
change. 

"There can be more than one look," the Redmond youngster said in an interview while wearing a loose Pure Fashion T-shirt, jeans and hot pink flip-flops. 
"Everybody should have lots of choices." 
___ 

On the Net: 

Wholesome Wear: http://www.wholesomewear.com 

ModestApparelUSA: http://www.modestapparelusa.com 

Modest By Design: http://www.modestbydesign.com 

Nordstrom: http://www.nordstrom.com 

Clinton Filmmaker Defends Documentary 

Wed Jun 2, 2:24 PM ET

By DAVID HAMMER, News Source Writer 

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - A film that claims to expose "the 10-year campaign to destroy Bill Clinton (news - web sites)" is scheduled for its first public screening June 15 in Little Rock. 

"The Hunting of the President," a 90-minute documentary that re-creates interviews for the New York Times best-selling book by the same name, has already played at four film festivals and will premiere by invitation only in New York on June 11. The movie's general release date is June 23. 

But the first public showing, at $50 a ticket, will be at a 1,500-seat ballroom at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock, a short walk from where Clinton celebrated his two presidential election victories. 

Director Harry Thomason, who is from Hampton, Ark., profiled Clinton in a glowing light in "The Man from Hope" for the then-Arkansas governor's 1992 presidential campaign. He says the latest piece about his old friend seeks journalistic impartiality, acknowledging that some people would likely dismiss the film as more Clinton propaganda. 

"Of course, the fact that I'm a friend of the Clintons will make a lot of people skeptical," Thomason said in a telephone interview from his Los Angeles home Tuesday. "I knew we would have no validity if we didn't tell about some of the president's indiscretions, his lapses. And so we never intended to let him off the hook. We stuck to the facts." 

The film purports to uncover a right-wing manipulation of the media, which Thomason says began with President Nixon's call to counter liberal messages in the 1970s. Thomason said the impact of Clinton's ties to Hollywood pales in comparison to the reach of conservative radio. 

"I may be wrong but I don't think the film will get everyone riled up," he said. "I hope conservatives will see it and say, 'Those people have a point.' Everyone in this country needs to speak to each other in softer tones." 

Thomason said he went to great pains to avoid discussing the film's progress with Clinton, even though the two talk frequently. Clinton called Thomason frequently for advice or editing input for his 900-page memoir, due out later this month. 

Thomason will attend the Little Rock premiere and is to be joined by the authors of the book, journalists Gene Lyons and Joe Conason, as well as some of those interviewed in the film, including Whitewater figure Susan McDougal. 

Oscar-nominated actor Morgan Freeman (news) is the film's narrator.

Russia sacks top TV journalist after Chechnya interview

Thu Jun 3, 9:40 AM ET  - Chicago Tribune 

By Alex Rodriguez Tribune foreign correspondent 

Leonid Parfyonov, a leading Russian television journalist, has never been the kind of reporter to be cowed by his government's manhandling of the media. 

In 2002, he rankled the Kremlin when he hired a lip reader to decipher what Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) was telling an official on soundless videotape after a Chechen rebel takeover of a Moscow theater. Last year, he planned a segment on a Kremlin reporter's tell-all book that painted an unflattering portrait of Putin. NTV, the state-controlled network he worked for, squelched the report. 

Parfyonov's recent decision to air an interview with the widow of a Chechen separatist leader against the wishes of Russia's intelligence community appeared to be the last straw. NTV said this week that it had fired Parfyonov and shut down his top-rated newsmagazine program, Namedni. 

Denounced by Moscow journalists and liberals as censorship, Parfyonov's dismissal was the latest in a long line of episodes that signal a steady erosion of media freedoms in Russia. 

Every national television network is now state-owned or state-controlled. Coverage of the country's recent parliamentary and presidential campaigns was heavily slanted in favor of Putin and his party, United Russia, and all but ignored their opponents. 

At the center of the debate over media freedom in Russia has been NTV, once an independent network that drew the Kremlin's ire for its probing coverage of Putin's attempts to crush the separatist rebellion in Chechnya (news - web sites). 

In 2001, Russia's state-controlled energy monopoly, Gazprom, wrested control of NTV. Its owner, Vladimir Gusinsky, fled the country in the face of fraud charges most observers said were meant as political punishment for NTV's sharp-edged coverage. 

Since then, NTV has softened its tone. Parfyonov was an exception. He freely criticized Putin and the Kremlin, even going as far as using a Harry Potter (news - web sites) character called Dobby the house elf to caricature the Russian leader. An estimated 110 million Russians regularly tuned in to Namedni, which is Russian for "The Other Day." 

"Russian authorities can no longer stand even splinters of free speech on television," said Igor Yakovenko, secretary general for the Russian Union of Journalists. "This dismissal is absolutely political." 

The segment that led to Parfyonov's firing featured an interview with Malika Yandarbiyeva, the widow of a former Chechen president, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev. 

One of the leaders of a separatist insurgency to break Chechnya away from Russia, Yandarbiyev fled to Qatar in 1999. He was killed by a car bomb in February that Qatari officials allege was planted by two Russian intelligence agents. Those agents are now on trial in Doha, Qatar's capital. 

The five-minute interview was far from controversial, according to text published in the Russian newspaper Kommersant. The wife spoke of her family's grief, read her husband's poetry and described her thoughts when she saw the Russian agents in court. 

Nevertheless, several days before its scheduled airing, Russia's security services asked NTV management to delay its broadcast because the trial was ongoing, according to Kommersant. 

On Sunday, Parfyonov went on the air with the segment. It appeared in Russia's time zones east of the Ural Mountains but, at the request of a top NTV executive, was removed from the show's broadcast in Moscow and the rest of western Russia. 

Parfyonov's superiors at NTV were angered when an internal memo that they gave to Parfyonov about the interview appeared in Kommersant. NTV officials did not respond to a request for an interview Wednesday. A news release issued by the network stated that the 44-year-old newsman was fired for "violating the labor agreement under which he was obliged to support the policy of NTV management." 

"Leonid Parfyonov is certainly one of the most talented journalists on the modern Russian television," the release said. "However, it is not the first time such an incident has happened. Therefore, we had no choice other than to make this decision." 

Parfyonov could not be reached for comment Wednesday. In an interview published Tuesday in the Russian newspaper Izvestia, Parfyonov said he doubted that the segment's airing could have influenced the trial in any way. "I don't think that decisions in Qatar are made after watching Namedni reports," he said. 

Parfyonov's firing caused an outcry from Russian liberals. 

"Parfyonov was the last source of good information on Russian television," Yakovenko said. "There will be major consequences as a result of this. Journalists will now realize that if they want to stay on television, they must remain loyal to authorities. And self-censorship will become more pervasive." 

Many Russians would welcome such censorship, polls suggest. A survey conducted by the Romir organization last year indicated that 76 percent of Russians believe the media should be censored. That same poll asked Russians what public institutions they trust. Nine percent said the country's mass media; 50 percent said Putin. 

Earthquake Changed Yellowstone 02-Jun-2004 An 7.9 earthquake in Alaska in 2002 set off 200 smaller earthquakes 2,000 miles away in Yellowstone National Park. Now scientists have discovered that it also changed the schedule of some of Yellowstone's geysers and hot springs, which are near where most of the quakes occurred.

Seismologist Robert B. Smith says, "We did not expect to see these prolonged changes in the hydrothermal system... Several small hot springs, not known to have geysered before, suddenly surged into a heavy boil with eruptions as high as [39 inches]. The temperature at one of these springs increased rapidly from [about 108 to 199 degrees Fahrenheit] and became much less acidic than normal. In the same area, another hot spring that was usually clear showed muddy, turbid water."

Yellowstone has more than 10,000 geysers, and scientists monitored how often 22 of them erupted after the quake. They found that 8 of them "displayed notable changes in their eruption intervals." Smith believes the quake's waves affected the geysers by the changing water pressure underground that feeds them.

Could a earthquake closer to Yellowstone trigger huge explosions? Steam-and-hot water explosions occurred there in prehistoric times and blasted out a hole that now is Mary's Bay on Yellowstone Lake. One such explosion has occurred about every 1,000 years since the glaciers receded from Yellowstone 14,000 years ago, and another one is overdue. Smith says there is no evidence that prehistoric quakes triggered those blasts, so their origin is still a mystery. 

What Gorillas Watch on TV 02-Jun-2004 The five western lowland gorillas in the Dallas Zoo are being kept away from the public, since one escaped on March 18 and injured three people before being killed by police. The remaining gorillas are stressed from being kept indoors, and zoo officials are trying to ease this with television. The gorillas each have their favorite shows.

The Dallas Morning News reports that fourteen-year-old Patrick likes cartoons, public television, and National Geographic specials, but sports bore him. Keeper Cindy McCaleb says, "We tried to put on sports, even though we were concerned it might generate aggressive behavior, but he really wasn't interested."

All the gorillas like Disney cartoons, and "The Little Mermaid," "The Lion King" and "Beauty and the Beast" are their favorites. "They don't follow the story, of course," says McCaleb. "They like the music, the color and the movement." Patrick watches more TV than the older gorillas.

Some gorillas prefer radio to TV. "I tend to go classical," McCaleb says. "It tends to mellow them out." 

Report: al-Qaida Ranks Swelling Worldwide

1 hour, 34 minutes ago

By BARRY RENFREW, News Source Writer 

LONDON - Far from being crippled by the U.S.-led war on terror, al-Qaida has more than 18,000 potential terrorists scattered around the world and the war in Iraq (news - web sites) is swelling its ranks, a report said Tuesday. 

 

Al-Qaida is probably working on plans for major attacks on the United States and Europe, and it may be seeking weapons of mass destruction in its desire to inflict as many casualties as possible, the International Institute of Strategic Studies said in its annual survey of world affairs. 

Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s network appears to be operating in more than 60 nations, often in concert with local allies, the study by the independent think tank said. 

Although about half of al-Qaida's top 30 leaders have been killed or captured, it has an effective leadership, with bin Laden apparently still playing a key role, it said. 

"Al-Qaida must be expected to keep trying to develop more promising plans for terrorist operations in North America and Europe, potentially involving weapons of mass destruction," IISS director Dr. John Chipman told a press conference releasing "Strategic Survey 2003/4." 

At the same time it will likely continue attacking "soft targets encompassing Americans, Europeans and Israelis, and aiding the insurgency in Iraq," he added. 

The report suggested that the two military centerpieces of the U.S.-led war on terror the wars in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Iraq may have boosted al-Qaida. 

Driving the terror network out of Afghanistan in late 2001 appears to have benefited the group, which dispersed to many countries, making it almost invisible and hard to combat, the story said. 

And the Iraq conflict "has arguably focused the energies and resources of al-Qaida and its followers while diluting those of the global counterterrorism coalition that appeared so formidable" after the Afghan intervention, the survey said. 

The U.S. occupation of Iraq brought al-Qaida recruits from across Islamic nations, the study said. Up to 1,000 foreign Islamic fighters have infiltrated Iraqi territory, where they are cooperating with Iraqi insurgents, the survey said. 

Efforts to defeat al-Qaida will take time and might accelerate only if there are political developments that now seem elusive, such as the democratization of Iraq and the resolution of conflict in Israel, it said. 

It could take up to 500,000 U.S. and allied troops to effectively police Iraq and restore political stability, IISS researcher Christopher Langton told the news conference. 

Such a figure appeared impossible to meet, given political disquiet in the United States and Britain and the unwillingness of other nations to send troops, he said. 

The United States is al-Qaida's prime target in a war it sees as a death struggle between civilizations, the report said. An al-Qaida leader has said 4 million Americans will have to be killed "as a prerequisite to any Islamic victory," the survey said. 

"Al-Qaida's complaints have been transformed into religious absolutes and cannot be satisfied through political compromise," the study said. 

The IISS said its estimate of 18,000 al-Qaida fighters was based on intelligence estimates that the group trained at least 20,000 fighters in its camps in Afghanistan before the United States and its allies ousted the Taliban regime. In the ensuing war on terror, some 2,000 al-Qaida fighters have been killed or captured, the survey said. 

Al-Qaida appears to have successfully reconstituted its operations by dispersing its forces into small groups and through working with local allies, such as the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front in Turkey, the report said. 

"Al-Qaida is the common ideological and logistical hub for disparate local affiliates, and bin Laden's charisma, presumed survival and elusiveness enhance the organization's iconic drawing power," it said.

Star Birth Gone Wild in 'Cosmic Hurricane'

Tue May 25, 9:54 AM ET 
Add Science - Space.com 

By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer, SPACE.com 

A shower of hot gas spewed from a galaxy loaded with pockets of intense star formation offers a window to the more violent early universe.

The rapid-fire star birth in M82 was triggered by a collision with another galaxy, and the tremendous activity fuels a "cosmic hurricane is travelling at more than a million miles an hour [447 kilometers per second] into intergalactic space," said Linda Smith of the University College London.

The gas travels in two opposite directions and extends thousands of light-years. Traced back to their sources, the two plumes are revealed to originate in the many separate clumps of star formation and the quick, explosive deaths of massive stars that generate new elements.

"Our goal here is to understand the structure of the wind's plumes, which are key factors in the evolution of this galaxy and the eventual pollution of nearby intergalactic space with new chemical elements," Smith said.

An image of the scene was released Friday. It was created by combining Hubble Space Telescope (news - web sites) observations that detail the inner part of the galaxy with a view from the WIYN Telescope on Kitt Peak in Arizona, which showed the extended winds, explained Mark Westmoquette, also of the University College London.

It is not unusual to see jets or plumes of material escaping along the rotation axis of stars, a black hole or an entire galaxy. But M82 is noted for its "superwinds," as astronomers call the bipolar outflows. 

"The M82 wind is made up of gas jets from multiple chimneys, each of which is relatively distinct," said Jay Gallagher of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, another member of the study team. "We hypothesize that these originate from individual star-forming clumps within M82."

Some of the clusters contain as much mass as a million Suns packed within 30 light-years of space, Gallagher said earlier this month in discussing his group's work at an astronomy meeting at the Space Telescope Science Institute.

M82 is about 10 million light-years away, which is relatively close in space and time. Gallagher said the scene can help astronomers understand what occurred in the early universe, when star birth was rampant. Because primordial galaxies are incredibly far away -- billions of light-years -- detailed examination of their structures is not practical with current telescopes.

Yet astronomers have seen enough to know that there are big differences between early galaxies and most of the mature galaxies closer by.

"Observations of the distant universe have really shown us now -- and we have to confront this -- that star formation in early epochs was really intense," Gallagher said. "The universe has gone from an intense mode of star formation in galaxies to a lazier mode nowadays."

So it is imperative, he said, to understand the mechanics of so-called starburst galaxies like M82.

In particular, Gallagher told SPACE.com, the distinct clumping of star formation in M82 is thought to be similar to how it worked when some of the earliest galaxies were under construction. 

The impetus for star formation in M82 came from a collision with another galaxy, M81, about 300 million years ago, astronomers say. Collisions were common when the universe was younger and smaller, and are thought to have played an important roll in star birth. Here's what happens in a typical collision:

"Huge amounts of gas are funneled into dense regions faster than the galaxy can get rid of it," Gallagher explained. "The galaxy overheats and explodes into stars."

Saint, Peace Seeker, Hero by Turns

Tue Jun 1, 7:55 AM ET

By Paul Watson Times Staff Writer 

HODAL, India - Barreling down a sizzling-hot road, in a cloud of diesel fumes and dust, Ludkan Baba is on a serious roll. 

He lies flat on the ground, turning himself over and over like a runaway log, limbs flailing as he bumps across potholes, splashes through mud puddles and falls deeper into a spiritual trance. 

Like any sadhu, or Hindu ascetic, he undertakes severe penance to liberate his soul from reincarnation's endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth. Stretched out in the middle of the road, rolling hour after hour, mile after mile through crowds and heavy traffic, he is making his trip to eternal bliss. 

But this is no ordinary holy roller. He is also on a mission to bring peace to the world. His devotion, and alms-raising power, has earned him several disciples, many admirers and the title Ludkan Baba - the Rolling Saint. 

He has rolled thousands of miles in the last 19 years, turning round and round so many millions of times that just pondering the thought can make your head spin. 

Yet to the 55-year-old sadhu, the constant turning is refreshing. He says he feels no pain. And except for a few blisters from rolling at high noon along gritty asphalt in 110-degree heat, his taut skin is baby-smooth. 

When he stands, he is barefoot, around 5 feet tall, with a mop of matted black hair and a long black beard flecked with gray. He doesn't look to be carrying more than an ounce of fat on his body. 

When he left the road for a midday break recently, the faithful gathered to be healed with his swishes of a peacock-feather broom and sachets of blessed ashes. The sadhu said he had not suffered a single accident or serious injury in nearly two decades of long-distance rolling. 

"I move during cyclones, during blazing summers and cold winters," he said. "I think of God, I think of Mother Earth, and then I roll and roll and roll. I don't feel dizzy. I don't consume any food, just tea and cigarettes. At night, I eat fruits, roti [bread], whatever I can lay my hands on." 

As a sadhu, the Rolling Baba is a wanderer who survives on alms. In his quest for moksha, or release from the cycle of reincarnation, he must reject the comforts of ordinary life. 

But sometimes even a sadhu can't resist a good gadget. One member of the Rolling Baba's small entourage carries a silver clamshell cellphone. So as long as there's a good signal, the Rolling Baba is never out of touch. 

He believes God's hand propels him. How else, he asks, could a man spin round and round, along unforgiving ground, for months on end and suffer no injuries? 

"All I do is put coconut oil on my hair at night, and even that, only when I feel like it," the Rolling Baba said, between draws on a cigarette. "This is the power of nature, the power of the divine." 

He was born Mohan Singh in the northern Indian town of Dungarpur, and as a barefoot boy of 12, he rubbed the hands of a dying boy and saved his life, the Rolling Baba said. After performing that miracle, he said, he went to a temple, renounced the world and became a sadhu. 

In 1973, he said, he entered a cave and stayed there, surviving on grass and water for 12 years, until a divine voice told him to start rolling for peace. 

His first journey lasted just under 25 miles. On his third trip, in 1994, he rolled about 2,500 miles across India. Today, as he rolls toward Pakistan, the sadhu thinks he might go to Iraq (news - web sites) next. 

A 17-year-old girl, a disciple whom the Rolling Baba and his entourage call the Young Saint, said she joined his holy journey, or yatra, because she believed the example of his strength through suffering would move the world to be more loving. 

"He has so much love within him that even streets - the same streets that we walk on and which we consider one of the worst places to lie down upon - become an object of love," the Young Saint said. 

"Just like a baby rolls on a mother's lap, similarly this man rolls on the streets. So if he can do this, what is it that prevents others from loving each other?" 

This is the Rolling Baba's sixth yatra. He is heading toward the Pakistani city of Lahore, where he hopes to meet President Pervez Musharraf and urge him to reach a lasting peace with India. 

So far, the Rolling Baba doesn't have an appointment. He doesn't have a passport, either, or a visa to cross the border. But those are problems for another day, some 380 miles, several weeks and countless rolls away. 

"To make passports and obtain a visa is the job of the Indian government," he said. "After all, I am not going there for professional reasons or to further any business interests. I am going there as a messenger of peace. If they want peace, then both nations will give me the chance to carry out my yatra." 

The Rolling Baba began his 800-mile journey on Jan. 28 at his home in India's central Madhya Pradesh state. When he reached Hodal, a town 50 miles south of New Delhi, India's capital, on Wednesday, he was roughly halfway to his goal. 

The Rolling Baba travels light. Since becoming a child sadhu, he has worn nothing more than a dhoti, a cloth loosely wrapped around his groin, hips and buttocks. He made an exception to the sadhu's rule of austere dress and wore a beige suit with a Nehru jacket and new shoes during a 1994 visit to London to help promote a documentary film about himself. 

He still travels with pictures of himself - standing - in Piccadilly Circus, outside the gates of Buckingham Palace and at other London landmarks. The snapshots are tucked into a small photo album that is inscribed "Sweet Memories" on the cover, above a heart-shaped window. 

While rolling, the only protection he wears is a blue T-shirt, wristbands and stretch bandages on his upper legs and forearms. He also holds tightly on to both ends of a strip of cloth, to help build up some torque as he spins. 

He rolls right down the middle of the road, through cow dung, rotting garbage and cigarette butts. Two disciples walk in front and kick away the more dangerous bits, such as steel bolts, chunks of glass and sharp stones. 

The Rolling Baba handles most potholes and puddles on his own, but when he nears an especially deep, mucky one, a disciple unfolds a yellow tarp and lays it down to ease the holy man's path. 

He rolls each day from 7 a.m. until noon and then from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., to escape the worst heat, which can reach 120 degrees or more. He takes short breaks, sitting entranced at the roadside, blessing crowds of people who press in to touch his feet and receive the blessing of a gentle swat from his cloth. They drop donations, usually a small coin, in two tin boxes. 

The Rolling Baba clocked his pace at about 6 mph in this farm town, where traffic and well-wishers slowed him down. But when he hits open highway, or the down slope of a good hill, his speed reaches about 15 mph, he said. 

After completing his morning spins and getting the dirt mopped off by a disciple one recent day, the sadhu sat in a steel-framed chair in the shade of a tree at a government high school. The sick and disabled gathered on a red and black striped carpet at his feet. 

More than 60 people came for faith healing, including a blind boy, a boy with a lame leg, an old woman with a headache and a man with piles. 

The Rolling Baba swept them all with his peacock-feather broom. He gently poked a few patients' bellies with a curved, blunt-tipped sword, and made a whooshing sound, as if he had killed whatever ailed them and blown it away. 

After each treatment, he handed out what one of his disciples said were holy ashes. Two men sat at the end of the carpet, spooning the gray powder onto pages torn from a school biology text and neatly folding them into packets. 

"Have a bath with this for three days," the Rolling Baba instructed an old man with heart trouble, who wheezed for each breath. "And don't use soap." 

As they got up to leave, each patient dropped coins or bank notes in the slot of a donation box with a small padlock at the Rolling Baba's dusty feet. 

"Whatever blessings I have earned through my meditation, I distribute amongst the masses," he said. "And it is because of these blessings of the Almighty that they get relief from their various ailments. It is on the strength of my sufferings that they are cured. The blessings that I earn are passed on to them."

U.S. agencies collect, examine personal data on Americans

By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20040528-122605-9267r.htm

Numerous federal government agencies are collecting and sifting 
through massive amounts of personal information, including credit 
reports, credit-card purchases and other financial data, posing new 
privacy concerns, according to the General Accounting Office (GAO). 
The GAO surveyed 128 federal departments and agencies and found that 52 
are using, or planning to implement, 199 data-mining programs, with 131 
already operational.

The Education, Defense, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Health and 
Human Services, Interior, Labor, Justice, and Treasury departments are 
among those that use the contentious new technology to detect criminal 
or terrorist activity; manage human resources; gauge scientific 
research; detect fraud, waste and abuse; and monitor tax compliance. 
The audit released yesterday shows 36 data-mining programs collect and 
analyze personal information that is purchased from the private sector, 
including credit reports and credit-card transactions. Additionally, 46 
federal agencies share personal information that includes student-loan 
application data, bank-account numbers, credit-card information and 
taxpayer-identification numbers. 
The Defense Department is the largest user of data-mining technology, 
followed by the Education Department, which uses private information to 
track the life of student direct loans and to monitor loan repayments. 
"Mining government and private databases containing personal 
information creates a range of privacy concerns," the report said. 
Data-mining technology can sift through massive amounts of information 
to uncover hidden patterns and subtle relationships to make 
predictions. 
The technology "has led to concerns about the government's use of data 
mining to conduct a mass 'dataveillance' - a surveillance of large 
groups of people - to sift through vast amounts of personally 
identifying data to find individuals who might fit a terrorist 
profile," the GAO report said. 
Sen. Daniel K. Akaka, Hawaii Democrat and ranking member of a 
Governmental Affairs financial management, budget and international 
security subcommittee, requested the nearly yearlong audit. 
The most widely reported data-mining project - the Pentagon's Total 
Information Awareness (TIA) program - was shut down by Congress because 
of widespread privacy fears. The project sought to use credit-card, 
medical and travel records to search for terrorists and was dubbed by 
privacy advocates as a "supersnoop" system to spy on Americans. 
"We always knew that the [TIA] program was not the only 
data-surveillance program out there, but it now appears possible that 
such activities are even more widespread than we imagined," said Barry 
Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) 
technology and liberty program. 
Bob Barr, chairman of the American Conservative Union Foundation's 
21st Century Center for Privacy and Freedom and a former congressman 
from Georgia, said the use of data mining to spy on American citizens 
will continue to grow until Congress addresses the issue. 
"Many in Washington cheered when it appeared the Congress killed TIA. 
However, as I said at the time and have repeated since, it is not dead, 
only renamed and resurfaced elsewhere," Mr. Barr said. 
"We cannot rely on this or any other administration to pull back on its 
own. The executive branch likes information on citizens far too much to 
voluntarily stop developing ever more and expanded databases," he said. 
The ACLU said some programs appear to be a "dragnet on the general 
population," including a Homeland Security program that "correlates 
events and people to specific information" and a Defense Intelligence 
Agency data-mining program to "identify foreign terrorists or U.S. 
citizens connected to foreign terrorism activities." 
Data mining is used by the Health and Human Services Department to 
monitor food and drug safety. The department is developing a 
data-mining tool to track and report "adverse incidents" involving 
food, cosmetics, and dietary supplements. 
Homeland Security is developing an "incident data mart," which will 
"look through incident logs for patterns of events." Incident is 
defined as "an event involving law enforcement or government agency for 
which a log was created (e.g. traffic ticket, drug arrest, or firearm 
possession)." The system will "look at crimes in a particular 
geographic location, particular types of arrest, or any type of unusual 
activity." 
The GAO report did not include classified programs, and some agencies 
did not respond to its request for information, including the CIA, 
National Security Agency and the Equal Employment Opportunity 
Commission. 
James Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy & 
Technology, said it is likely that there are data-mining programs not 
listed in the report. 
"More and more agencies are relying on complex data-mining techniques 
and commercial data, a combination that has significant potential to 
threaten civil liberties," Mr. Dempsey said.

Many Wireless Networks Lack Security

Tue Jun 1, 7:13 AM ET

By MATTHEW FORDAHL

SAN JOSE, Calif. - With a laptop perched in the passenger seat of his Toyota 4Runner and a special antenna on the roof, Mike Outmesguine ventured off to sniff out wireless networks between Los Angeles and San Francisco. He got a big whiff of insecurity.

While his 800-mile drive confirmed that the number of wireless networks is growing explosively, he also found that only a third used basic encryption - a key security measure. In fact, in nearly 40 percent of the networks not a single change had been made to the gear's wide-open default settings.

"They took it out of the box, powered it up, and it worked. And they left it alone," said Outmesguine, who owns a technical services company. He frequently goes out on such "wardrives" in search of insecure networks. And while Outmesguine says he doesn't try to break in, others aren't so benign.

While Wi-Fi is hot, security is not.

Even the makers of Wi-Fi routers, access points and other gadgets privately say that as many as 80 percent of home users don't bother to enable basic encryption or other protections against connection theft, eavesdropping and network invasion.

Experts say that while Wi-Fi hardware makers have made initial setup easy, the enabling of security is anything but. Meanwhile, average users are no longer tech savvy. The gadgets are mainstream, appearing on the shelves of Wal-Mart and other mass retailers.

During his wardrive, Outmesguine counted 3,600 hot spots, compared with 100 on the same route in 2000. Worldwide, makers of Wi-Fi gear for homes and small offices posted sales of more than $1.3 billion in 2003, a 43 percent jump over 2002, according to Synergy Research Group.

The result? A lot of wide-open networks that offer anyone within range of the Wi-Fi signal free access to a high-speed Internet connection. Any hacking is unlikely to be noticed, while illegal activity would be traceable only to the name on the Internet account.

To make matters worse, users who don't secure their networks are often the very people who don't keep their computers up to date with the latest security patches and antivirus software.

"What we probably really have here is a whole bunch of very vulnerable systems exposed to attack or infection over a network that has no access control," said Al Potter, manager of technical services at the security firm TruSecure's ICSA Labs.

Companies that sell Wi-Fi products want their hardware to be simple and interoperable, especially as more than just computers - wireless TV monitors, digital music receivers, DVD players and game consoles, for example - are wirelessly connecting to home networks.

At the same time, they want to keep support calls and returns low, so they turn off security by default.

"We've been putting friendly front ends in front of technology for a long time," said Peter Evans, vice president of business development at AirDefense Inc., a wireless security firm. "I'm not sure why the industry has not yet made those tools much easier to use."

Yet even knowledgeable consumers find it frustrating to set up security. It can involve punching in dozens of characters as the passphrase for each connected device, and navigating screens filled with a dizzying set of acronyms for encryption and authentication.

Typically, there isn't much explanation about what they are and why they're needed.

Problems grow when consumers try to mix a laptop wireless card from one vendor with a Wi-Fi access point from another. With security turned off, everything works fine. With basic encryption turn on, the headaches begin.

Because his Linksys access point and Gateway notebook used different techniques for generating the "key" to scramble and unscramble the data, Victor Miller of Princeton Junction, N.J., learned he had to twice punch in dozens of characters using the hexadecimal numbering system.

That process is prone to typing errors, which aren't apparent since Windows XP (news - web sites) doesn't display the characters as they're entered. Also, Miller said, the user guides did not say that the computer would require a restart.

Miller, who is a cryptography expert, eventually got it working.

"I'm not sure many people would have the fortitude to actually copy down 26 hex digits twice," he said. "They'd just say, `To hell with it.'"

Some manufacturers are beginning to tout security features as a selling point, just as they market faster speeds and greater signal range. Microsoft Corp., for instance, made the transfer of keys fairly easy by copying the key and other settings to a floppy disk that could then be used to configure wireless laptops. The company, though, announced in May that it was getting out of the Wi-Fi hardware business.

Buffalo Technology Inc. has introduced a one-touch security system that exchanges keys between wireless devices and the wireless access point within a two-minute window after a button is pressed. Critics point out, however, that the system requires the manual entry of keys on non-Buffalo devices. And not all of Buffalo's products support the technology, called AOSS.

Meanwhile, Broadcom Corp., the leading supplier of Wi-Fi chips, has announced a software feature called SecureEZSetup that generates the encryption key based on answers to simple, easy-to-remember questions. Still, any device that's not supported must be manually set up, and only one vendor - Belkin Corp. - has so far publicly committed to using the technology.

The Wi-Fi Alliance, an industry group that certifies Wi-Fi-labeled gear, has posted educational videos on its Web site and recommends that vendors use automated setup tools in their products. But it has stopped short of mandating specific interfaces, said Frank Hanzlik, the group's managing director.

In addition, not all vendors agree there's a major problem.

"Key to our strategy is consumer education," said Darek Connole, media relations manager at D-Link Systems Inc. "If the consumer knows why it's important, why it's easy to do, it becomes something they implement."

That's no excuse for not making setups more simple, objects Potter of TruSecure.

"The right instructions, the right help screens that ask the right question at the right time can go an awfully long way to keep those eyes from glazing over," he said.

___

On the Net:

Wi-Fi Alliance: http://www.wi-fi.org 

Easy-to-Spot Air Security Might Be Easy Target

Mon May 31, 7:55 AM ET 
By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar Times Staff Writer 

WASHINGTON - As they settled into first class on American Airlines Flight 1438 from Chicago to Miami, they were supposed to be the last line of defense against terrorists - two highly trained U.S. air marshals who would sit unnoticed among the ordinary travelers but spring into action at the first sign of trouble. 

Imagine their chagrin when a fellow passenger coming down the aisle suddenly boomed out, "Oh, I see we have air marshals on board!" 

The incident, detailed in an intelligence brief, is an example of something that happens all too often, marshals say. The element of surprise may be crucial to their mission, but it turns out they're "as easy to identify as a uniformed police officer," the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Assn. said in a complaint to Congress. 

The problem is not security leaks. It's the clothes. 

In an era when "dressing down" is the traveler's creed, air marshals must show up in jackets and ties, hair cut short, bodies buffed, shoes shined. 

Jack Webb would be proud, but the marshals say they stand out like shampooed show dogs among the pound pups. 

And the tipoff provided by their appearance is magnified by a set of boarding procedures that make them conspicuous. 

Since they're armed, the marshals can't go through the initial security screening with the rest of the passengers. Instead using the entry points set aside for airport employees, the marshals often must go through the "exit" lanes - marching against the flow of arriving passengers, at times in full view of travelers. 

"They lose the advantage" of being undercover, said John Amat, a spokesman for the marshals within the federal law officers group. 

Officials with the Federal Air Marshal Service, however, defended their sartorial standards. 

"Professional demeanor, attire and attitude gain respect," spokesman David M. Adams said. "If a guy pulls out a gun and he's got a tattoo on his arm and [is wearing] shorts, I'm going to question whether he's a law enforcement officer." 

As for the boarding procedures, Adams said, the agency is working to address the problems. Air marshals "are not undercover like Serpico," he added, referring to the legendary New York detective. "The director refers to them as 'discreet.' " 

The air marshal service has grown from about 30 officers at the time of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to several thousand today, operating under a $600-million annual budget. 

With the expansion has come an infusion of federal law enforcement culture. The director of the air marshals, Thomas D. Quinn, who took over in January 2002, spent 20 years with the Secret Service. 

"Secret Service people are notoriously known for being snappy dressers," said Capt. Steve Luckey, security chairman for the Air Line Pilots Assn. 

And it was after Quinn took over, marshals said, that the strict rules on dress and grooming were instituted, including a ban on beards, long hair and jeans. 

But today's airliner is a come-as-you-are environment. Even "if you go in first class, you see the whole gamut," Luckey said, from people in cut-off jeans to those in suit and tie. "I think you can go overboard with the professionalism.... The mission dictates flexibility and some relaxed dress standards." 

Many marshals interviewed - who requested anonymity because they are not allowed to talk to the media - agree. 

What makes them uneasy is the prospect of being spotted by terrorists and disabled or killed before they could react. 

"This is what I foresee," said one marshal, a two-year veteran. "Two of us get on the plane and we've been under surveillance the whole time. There's a minimum of four bad guys.... My partner goes to the bathroom and they come after me with a sharp pen, stab me in the neck or in the brain and take my weapon," he continued. "When my partner comes out, they shoot him. Then they've got 80 rounds of ammunition and two weapons." 

Adams called such a scenario "highly unlikely." 

Yet a congressional General Accounting Office (news - web sites) study of a two-year period from 2001 to 2003 found an average of about one case a week in which marshals reported their cover was blown. 

The passenger on American Flight 1438 told the marshals "he picked them out because of their attire and the fact that they were on board before the other passengers," an agency report on the Nov. 15, 2003 incident said. The report did not say whether the government took action against the man, although others who have outed air marshals have been prosecuted. 

One marshal with previous military and law enforcement experience said that "a bad guy on a plane can quickly narrow the pool of potential marshals. They're not wearing jeans, they're not wearing cargo pants.... There will not be an air marshal who is unshaven. You eliminate the unknown element." 

Additional clues to their identity can be gleaned by observing airport check-in and boarding, several marshals said. 

At the ticket counter, marshals must present an official leather credential case that is much bigger than a driver's license and looks different than a passport. 

"You can stand 20 feet away from the ticket counter and see it," said the marshal with military experience. Ticket agents sometimes hold it up to the light to study the hologram on the picture, he added. 

After they get their tickets, marshals head for the boarding gate. At their home airports, they can use a special access card to bypass the security checkpoint. But at other airports, they must go through the passenger exit lane. 

"Everybody sees you standing there," one marshal said. "Everybody sees you show your ID. They see you are being escorted through an exit lane, bypassing security." 

At the boarding gate, the marshals must again show their credentials to the airline agent. Then, because marshals have to brief flight crews in person, at least one team member has to board before the other passengers. That often takes place in full view. 

"You see physically fit men in their mid-30s getting on an airplane early, and you know they're not doing that because they need more time to get down the jet way," said Patricia Friend, president of the Assn. of Flight Attendants. 

The marshals have petitioned Congress for help in changing the rules. Several lawmakers are following up on the complaints. Among them is Sen. Herbert H. Kohl (D-Wis.), who talked with Quinn about the boarding procedures. And Rep. Peter DeFazio (news, bio, voting record) (D-Ore.) has asked the General Accounting Office to take another in-depth look at the agency. DeFazio is the ranking Democrat on the House aviation subcommittee. 

Changes would largely be a matter of administrative action, but congressional pressure could force the issue. 

In the meantime, some air marshals have found ways to adapt. The marshal with military experience said he deliberately acts as the more visible member of his team. He walks down the jet way before the passengers. If someone stares at him, he stares back. By becoming the focus of attention, he figures he's helping protect his partner's anonymity. 

"If they come after me first, he might be able to save my bacon," the marshal. "At least one guy may be able to do something to defend the aircraft." 

* 

(Begin Text of Infobox) 

Air marshals 

Gender: 96% male; 4% female. 

Race and ethnicity: 73% white; 13% Latino; 9% African American; 2% Asian American; 1% Native American; 1% other or not reported. 

Age: 22% 30 and younger; 65% 31 to 40; 10% 41 to 50; 4% 51 and older. 

Dress: Suit and tie or sport coat, collared shirt, dress slacks and dress shoes. Equivalent attire is required for female air marshals. 

* 

Sources: General Accounting Office, Los Angeles Times 

* 

Note: Totals may not add to 100% because of rounding. 

* 

Los Angeles Times

Private Rocket Will Try and Reach Space 

Wed Jun 2, 7:48 PM ET

MOJAVE, Calif. - A privately developed manned rocket will attempt to reach space this month, its builders said Wednesday. It would be the first non-governmental flight to leave Earth's atmosphere. 

Missed Tech Tuesday?
Watch this: Tomorrow's TV displays will be flat and portable, your DVR will disappear, and you may even want to use TV to flip through future e-books. 

SpaceShipOne, created by aviation designer Burt Rutan and funded by billionaire Paul Allen, will attempt to reach an altitude of 62 miles on a suborbital flight over the Mojave Desert on June 21. 

The rocket plane reached an altitude of about 40 miles during a test flight May 13. 

Suborbital flights are essentially up and down. The craft does not reach speeds fast enough go into orbit around the Earth. 

If the attempt is successful, SpaceShipOne will compete for the Ansari X Prize, a competition in which $10 million goes to the first reusable rocket able to carry three people into space on a suborbital flight, return them safely to Earth, and repeat the feat within two weeks with the same vehicle. 

A number of other private organizations are also developing contenders for the prize. 

"Every time SpaceShipOne flies we demonstrate that relatively modest amounts of private funding can significantly increase the boundaries of commercial space technology," Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, and founder and chairman of Vulcan Inc., said in a statement. 

The cost of SpaceShipOne has not been revealed. 

SpaceShipOne is carried aloft by a specially designed jet aircraft and then is dropped into a glide at an altitude of about 50,000 feet. The pilot then fires the rocket motor and pulls up into a vertical climb. 

The June attempt will involve an 80-second rocket firing that will accelerate the craft to Mach 3. It will then coast up to the target altitude before falling back to Earth. The pilot will experience weightlessness for more than three minutes. The glide back to the ground will take 15-20 minutes.

AP: Administration Freed Terror Suspect 

32 minutes ago 
Add U.S. National - 

By JOHN SOLOMON, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - Nabil al-Marabh was No. 27 on the FBI (news - web sites)'s list of terror suspects after Sept. 11. He trained in Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s militant camps, sent money to a roommate convicted in a foiled plot to bomb a hotel and boasted to an informant about plans to blow up a fuel truck inside a New York tunnel, FBI documents allege. The Bush administration set him free - to Syria - even though prosecutors had sought to bring criminal cases against him and judges openly expressed concerns about possible terrorist ties. 

Slideshow: September 11 AP: Administration Freed Terror Suspect 
(AP Video)

Al-Marabh served an eight-month jail sentence and was sent in January to his native Syria, which is regarded by the United States as a sponsor of terrorism. The quiet disposition of his case stands in stark contrast to the language FBI agents used to describe the man. 

Al-Marabh "intended to martyr himself in an attack against the United States," an FBI agent wrote in a December 2002 report obtained by The News Source. A footnote in al-Marabh's deportation ruling last year added, "The FBI has been unable to rule out the possibility that al-Marabh has engaged in terrorist activity or will do so if he is not removed from the United States." 

One FBI report summarized a high-level debriefing of a Jordanian informant named Ahmed Y. Ashwas that was personally conducted by the U.S. attorney in Chicago, signifying its importance. The informant alleged al-Marabh told him of specific terrorist plans during their time in prison. 

Even the judge who accepted al-Marabh's plea agreement on minor immigration charges in 2002 balked. "Something about this case just makes me feel uncomfortable," Judge Richard Arcara said in court. The Justice Department (news - web sites) assured the judge that al-Marabh did not have terrorist ties. 

A second judge who ultimately ordered al-Marabh's deportation sided with FBI agents, federal prosecutors and Customs agents in the field who believed al-Marabh was tied to terrorism. 

"The court finds applicant does present a danger to national security," U.S. Immigration Judge Robert D. Newberry ruled, concluding al-Marabh was "credibly linked to elements of terrorism" and had a "propensity to lie." 

Neither the courts nor al-Marabh's lawyers were given access to the most striking allegations provided by the Jordanian informant. 

Asked to explain the decision to free al-Marabh, Justice spokesman Bryan Sierra said the government has concerns about many people with suspected terror ties but cannot effectively try them in court without giving away intelligence sources and methods. 

"If the government cannot prosecute terrorism charges, another option is to remove the individual from the United States via deportation. After careful review, this was determined to be the best option available under the law to protect our national security," he said. 

But a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) scoffed at the explanation. "It's hard to believe that the best way to deal with the FBI's 27th most wanted terrorist is to send him back to a terrorist-sponsoring country," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. He said the Justice Department could have used a military tribunal or a classified criminal. "This action certainly raises a lot of questions and demands a lot of answers," Schumer said. 

Internal FBI and Justice Department documents reviewed by AP show prosecutors and FBI agents in several cities gathered evidence that linked al-Marabh to: 

_Raed Hijazi, the Boston cab driver convicted in Jordan for plotting to blow up an American-frequented hotel in Amman during the millennium celebrations of 1999. Al-Marabh and Hijazi were roommates at the Afghan training camps and later in the United States, and al-Marabh sent money to Hijazi. 

_The Detroit apartment where four men were arrested in what became the administration's first major terror prosecution after Sept. 11. Al-Marabh's name was still on the rental unit when agents raided it. The men were found with false IDs and documents describing alleged terror plots. 

_Several large deposits, withdrawals and overseas wire transfers in 1998 and 2000 that were flagged as suspicious by a Boston bank. The Customs Service first identified al-Marabh in 2001 for possible terrorist ties to Hijazi. 

FBI documents said Al-Marabh denied being affiliated with al-Qaida. But he acknowledged receiving "security" training in rifles and rocket-propelled grenades in Afghan mujahedeen camps, sending money to his friend Hijazi, using a fake address to get a truck driving license and buying a phony passport for $4,000 in Canada to sneak into the United States shortly before Sept. 11. 

Al-Marabh's attorney, Mark Kriger, said Wednesday he had never seen the Jordanian informant report and still doesn't believe his client had anything to do with terrorism. He said his client broke ties with Hijazi years ago after a falling out. 

Kriger said he found it unbelievable "that the government, if it believed Ashwas, would have deported Mr. al-Marabh rather than indict him." 

The Justice Department's criminal division chief, Chris Wray, expressed concern to Congress last month that some suspects were being deported to freedom. "It may be more difficult than people would expect" to make a case against a suspect, even when he or she trained at terror camps, he said. 

"We may be able to deport the person under the immigration laws," Wray added. "And while that should give us some comfort, the fact is, if we go that route, the person is removed to another country and turned loose there, and we have no ability to make sure that they're not engaged in further terrorist activity." 

At one point in late 2002, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago drafted an indictment against al-Marabh on multiple counts of making false statements in his interviews with FBI agents. Justice headquarters declined prosecution. Fitzgerald declined through a spokesman to discuss the reasons. 

Fitzgerald then tracked down Ashwas, the Jordanian who because of minor immigration problems had spent time with al-Marabh in a federal detention cell in 2002. Fitzgerald had the man flown to Chicago and oversaw his debriefing along with FBI agents from Chicago and Detroit, documents show. 

Ashwas alleged that during one of his encounters he helped persuade the prison psychiatrist to prescribe al-Marabh an anti-anxiety drug called Claripan and that al-Marabh began talking more freely, the FBI reported. 

The FBI summarized Ashwas' allegations: 

_Al-Marabh said he aided Hijazi's flight from authorities and sent him money, plotted a martyrdom attack in the United States and took instructions from a mystery figure in Chicago known only as "al Mosul," which means "boss" in Arabic. 

_Al Mosul asked al-Marabh to attend a driving school in Detroit with Arabic instructors so he could get a commercial truck driver's license, and arranged for al-Marabh to live in the Detroit apartment later raided by the FBI as a terror cell. 

_Al-Marabh said he and Hijazi planned to steal a fuel truck from a rest stop in New York and New Jersey and detonate it in the heavily traveled Lincoln or Holland tunnels, but the plan was foiled when Hijazi was arrested. 

_Al-Marabh acknowledged he had distributed money - as much as $200,000 a month - to the various training camps in Afghanistan in the early 1990s. 

The FBI and prosecutors confirmed some aspects of Ashwas' account, including that al-Marabh had been at the Detroit apartment, had trained at at least one Afghan camp and had gotten the truck driver's license. 

Fitzgerald wasn't alone in his efforts to try to bring a case against al-Marabh 

Prosecutors and FBI agents in other states sought to get enough evidence to prosecute him. 

In Detroit, prosecutors developed evidence but weren't allowed to bring a case connecting al-Marabh to the terror cell there. 

One of those prosecutors, longtime career Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino, recently sued Ashcroft, alleging the Justice Department improperly interfered with prosecuting terrorists. Justice says Convertino is under investigation for possibly withholding a piece of evidence from defense lawyers in the Detroit terror case. 

When al-Marabh's name surfaced in the Detroit trial in March 2003, an FBI agent said al-Marabh remained under investigation for terrorism but hadn't been charged. 

"Mr. Al-Marabh was listed No. 27 on the FBI Watch List," agent Michael Thomas testified. "He was a known associate, a former roommate of Mr. Raed Hijazi." 

Less than 10 months after Thomas' testimony, al-Marabh was freed from custody and put on a plane to Syria.

Bush May Hire Lawyer in Probe Over CIA Leak

1 hour, 11 minutes ago 
Add Politics 

WASHINGTON  - President Bush (news - web sites) has sought a lawyer to represent him in the criminal probe into who was responsible for a leak that was seen as retaliation against a critic of the Iraq (news - web sites) war, the White House said on Wednesday. 

"The president has had discussions with an outside attorney, and in the event that he needs advice he would retain him," said White House spokesman Allen Abney, naming the lawyer as Jim Sharp. 

A federal grand jury has been hearing testimony since January from administration and government officials in an attempt to establish who leaked the name of CIA (news - web sites) operative Valerie Plame to the media last year. 

Plame is the wife of Joe Wilson, a former ambassador who was asked by the CIA to travel to Niger in February 2002 to check reports that Iraq had tried to buy enriched uranium from the African country. 

Wilson dismissed the reports as unfounded, but Bush nevertheless included a reference to the supposed deal in his State of the Union speech in 2003, citing it as one of the reasons to invade Iraq. 

The CIA later acknowledged that the uranium reports were based on forged documents and the White House said they should not have been mentioned in the State of the Union speech. 

A newspaper columnist disclosed Plame's identity in July last year and Wilson accused the Bush administration of having leaked the information to pay him back for having publicly taken issue with the president's uranium claim. 

It is illegal under U.S. law to disclose the name of a covert agent who has served outside the country in the previous five years. 

Reports that Bush had contacted an attorney were first carried on Wednesday by CBS Evening News.

Study: Dieting Can Weaken Immune System 

Wed Jun 2, 7:14 AM ET 
By KRISTEN GELINEAU, News Source Writer 

SEATTLE - A new study has found that "yo-yo dieting" - repeatedly losing, then regaining weight - may harm a woman's immune system. The study by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center also found that maintaining the same weight over time appears to have a positive effect on a woman's immune system, according to one of the lead researchers. 

Researchers in the study, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, interviewed 114 overweight but otherwise healthy sedentary, older women about their weight-loss history during the past 20 years. The women had to have maintained a stable weight for at least three months before joining the study, which was funded by the National Cancer Institute (news - web sites). 

The study, which found that long-term immune function decreases in proportion to how many times a woman has intentionally lost weight, measured natural killer cell activity in the women's blood. Natural killer cells are an essential part of the immune system, killing viruses and leukemia cells, said Cornelia Ulrich, senior author and an assistant member of the Hutchinson Center's Public Health Sciences Division. 

Low natural killer cell activity has been associated with increased cancer rates and a higher susceptibility to colds and infections, she said. 

"While one weight-loss episode of 10 pounds or more in the previous 20 years was not associated with current natural killer cell activity, more frequent weight-loss episodes" were associated with a significant decrease in such activity, Ulrich said. 

The study found that women who maintained a fairly stable weight over several years had higher levels of such cells than those whose weight frequently fluctuated. 

Those who reported losing weight more than five times had about a third lower natural killer cell function, the study found. Conversely, women who maintained the same weight for at least five years had 40 percent greater natural killer cell activity as compared to those who maintained their weight for fewer than two years. 

Though no men participated in the study and further research is needed, Ulrich said the immune systems of male dieters would likely be affected the same way. 

The findings, while intriguing, are preliminary, cautioned Ulrich, who is also a research assistant professor in epidemiology at the University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine. 

Researchers had to rely on the participants' own reports of their weight loss histories and the analysis was based on blood samples collected at a single point in time, representing a narrow sample. 

A long-term study could provide more conclusive results, said Ulrich, who is planning to collaborate with Canadian researchers who have been working on a similar study. 

Although the study suggests that yo-yo dieting is harmful, Ulrich stopped short of saying that people should stop attempting to lose weight. 

"There's clearly evidence that weight loss is beneficial for your health," she said. "What we're concerned about is this pattern of weight cycling where women go up and down." 

Exercise has been shown to boost immunity and temper some of the negative effects of weight loss on the immune system, Ulrich said. 

Despite its preliminary nature, the study is significant, said Katherine Tallmadge, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association in Washington, D.C. Although dietitians have known for years the negative psychological effects of yo-yo dieting, this appears to be the first study to examine the long-term impact of such dieting on immunity, she said. 

People should avoid popular low-carb and low-fat diets that can produce initial weight loss but rarely work in the long term, Tallmadge said. 

"Study after study shows that more moderate restrictions are more likely to last permanently," Tallmadge said. "That's why we registered dietitians are urging people not to do the fad diets, and just try small changes that they're more likely to be able to live with - even if the weight loss is slower." ___ 

On the Net: 

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center http://www.fhcrc.org/ 

American Dietetic Association: http://www.eatright.org/Public/ 

National Cancer Institute: http://cancer.gov/

Kraft Backs Off Plan to Reduce Portions 

2 hours, 39 minutes ago 
Add Business - 

NORTHFIELD, Ill. - Kraft Foods Inc. has abandoned its plan to reduce some portion sizes, citing consumer research that shows shoppers prefer to have the choice of whether to go with smaller packages. 

The nation's largest food company disclosed the decision in a progress report on the anti-obesity initiatives it announced last July. With the food industry facing growing consumer health concerns and the risk of obesity lawsuits, Kraft had pledged to change some product recipes, reduce portions in some single-serve packages, quit marketing snacks via giveaways at school and encourage healthier lifestyles. 

"When we spoke with consumers about what they wanted with single-serve, what they told us was that they didn't want us to reduce the size because they wanted to have more choice," Kraft spokeswoman Kris Charles said Wednesday. "Different people have different body sizes and activity levels, and it made more sense to provide different portion choices." 

Kraft said it would offer a broad range of portion-size choices, including snacks in small packages such as its new Nabisco 100 Calorie Packs. It also said it will give nutrition information for entire packages, rather than just for individual portions, "so consumers don't have to do the math themselves." 

That move, Kraft said, should support the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites)'s recent call for food companies to enhance labeling on packages in a way that helps consumers make informed choices. 

The company also said it has reduced the fat content and made other changes to about 200 products it sells in North America. That accounts for about 5 percent of its products, and Kraft called it "just a beginning." 

"Our ongoing actions are part of a broader societal response to growing health and wellness concerns, including obesity," CEO Roger Deromedi said. "It's going to take a comprehensive approach that involves many sectors of society to truly accelerate the change that's needed. We're ready, as are many other food companies, to collaborate and cooperate with governments, policy experts, industries and communities around the world." 

Kraft shares rose 15 cents to close at $30.05 on the New York Stock Exchange (news - web sites). 

___ 

On the Net: 

www.kraft.com 

NY Attorney General Sues Glaxo on Paxil

2 hours, 39 minutes ago 
Add Business 

NEW YORK  - N.Y. state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said on Wednesday he sued British pharmaceuticals group GlaxoSmithKline Plc, claiming fraud over its antidepressant drug Paxil. 

The lawsuit alleges that starting in 1998, Glaxo engaged in a concerted effort to withhold negative information about Paxil and misrepresented data concerning its safety and efficacy in children and adolescents. 

The suit claims Glaxo conducted at least five studies on the use of Paxil in children and adolescents but published only one, which had mixed results. It claims the company suppressed negative results from the other studies, which did not show that Paxil worked and may even have suggested an increased risk of suicide. 

Glaxo officials were not immediately available for comment. 

In the suit, filed in N.Y. State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Spitzer asked that Glaxo give up all profits obtained through the claimed misconduct. 

The suit also claims Glaxo misrepresented the results of its research to its sales representatives, saying it had "remarkable efficacy and safety in the treatment of adolescent depression." 

More than 2 million prescriptions for Paxil were written for children and adolescents in the United States in 2002, even though the drug is approved by U.S. regulators only to treat adult depression. Physicians, however, have the ability to prescribe Paxil for children.

Ladies Night' Discount Axed in N.J. Bars 

Wed Jun 2,11:05 AM ET 
Add U.S. National - 

TRENTON, N.J. - The state's top civil rights official has ruled that taverns cannot offer discounts to women on "ladies nights," agreeing with a man who claimed such gender-based promotions discriminated against men.

David R. Gillespie said it was not fair for women to get into the Coastline nightclub for free and receive discounted drinks while men paid a $5 cover charge and full price for drinks. 

In his ruling Tuesday, J. Frank Vespa-Papaleo, director of the state Division on Civil Rights, rejected arguments by the nightclub that ladies nights were a legitimate promotion. Commercial interests do not override the "important social policy objective of eradicating discrimination," he ruled. 

The ruling specifically addressed the weekly ladies nights at the Coastline in Cherry Hill, but it carries the force of a court decision and applies statewide. Vespa-Papaleo said state officials would write formal rules after a public hearing. 

The restaurant's attorney, Colleen Ready, did not immediately return a telephone message left Wednesday by The News Source. 

Courts in other states have issued divergent opinions on such promotions. 

Judges in Pennsylvania and Iowa have said similar events are illegal, but courts in Illinois and Washington state have said that ladies nights are permissible because they do not discriminate against men but rather encourage women to attend.

Stunned Japan Agonizes Over Schoolgirl Stabbing

Wed Jun 2, 8:41 AM ET 
Add World 

By Elaine Lies 

TOKYO  - A stunned Japan was searching for answers on Wednesday after an 11-year-old schoolgirl killed a classmate by slashing her throat, the latest in a string of violent crimes by children. 

Japan, which had long prided itself on being relatively crime-free, has in recent years been confronted by an increasing number of gruesome youth crimes that have prompted it to lower the age of criminal responsibility. 

Teachers and friends said the 11-year-old had shown no sign of trouble and described her as just like any other girl, adding to the shock. 

"It is difficult to imagine how such a very serious incident could come from such an ordinary girl from an ordinary family," said the head of a child welfare center that took custody of the girl. 

Twelve-year-old Satomi Mitarai died from loss of blood after she was attacked by the classmate, said to be her friend, with a knife during the lunch break on Tuesday at their primary school in Sasebo, 980 km (610 miles) west of Tokyo. 

There was no obvious motive for the attack, but Japanese media said the 11-year-old told police that she had been upset at Satomi for posting a message about her on a Web site and that she had intended to kill Satomi over it. 

The Yomiuri Shimbun daily reflected the general bewilderment, asking in an editorial, "What sort of connection did these two have? What set it off? Nothing is known." 

Police said the 11-year-old had called Satomi to a study room where she attacked her and then returned to the classroom with her clothes bloodstained. 

Child welfare workers said the girl repeatedly apologized for the crime, covering her face with her hands as she wept, according to media reports. 

The victim's widowed father, who lived alone with her and her older brother, said he was in shock. 

"That my daughter could no longer be with me is unbelievable. But the unbelievable has happened," Kyoji Mitarai, the local bureau chief of the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper, told reporters. 

"She was like air to me," he said. 

RISING CRIME, TIGHTER LAWS 

The killing appeared especially shocking because of the age of the children involved and the fact that both were girls. 

Officials said the girl in Tuesday's incident would appear before a family court, which could send her to a special reformatory for children. 

Children under 14 cannot be prosecuted. 

In 1997, a 14-year-old schoolboy horrified the nation by murdering two children and leaving the severed head of one of them outside the gates of a school in Kobe, western Japan. 

That crime prompted calls for harsher penalties against juveniles, and a law was enacted in 2001 lowering the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 14. 

The number of serious crimes by juveniles has continued to rise, however, with the ages of offenders falling. 

Last year, a 12-year-old boy in the city of Nagasaki, which is near Sasebo, confessed to abducting and murdering a four-year-old by pushing him off the roof of a garage. 

According to police figures, the number of minors aged 14 to 19 who committed serious crimes such as murder and robbery rose 11.4 percent to 2,212 in 2003, while the number of offenders under 14 rose 47.2 percent to 212, topping the 200 level for the first time in 16 years. 

There have been eight cases where primary school children have committed or attempted murder in the last 15 years. 

Police have drawn up new guidelines on fighting juvenile crime, but editorials on Wednesday said more fundamental measures may be needed. 

"We must make children understand even more the basic importance of life," the Yomiuri said.

Sasser, Netsky Continue To Dominate Tue Jun 1, 4:06 PM ET Add Technology - NewsFactor 

Erika Morphy, www.enterprise-security-today.com

Authorities may have arrested those responsible for the destructive Sasser and Netsky e-mail worms -- but their effects still linger, according to security firm Sophos.

"Sasser proved to be a major nuisance in May, affecting even more users than even the Netsky worms," said Chris Kraft, senior security analyst. "Requiring no user intervention and taking advantage of a relatively new Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT - news) hole, it sneaked onto unprotected PCs, inundating Internet connections."

Young and Powerful

Sasser, apparently launched by an 18-year-old young man from Germany, wound up disrupting not only countless home users' PCs, but also systems at Delta Airlines and the Coast Guard. Indeed, the story of Sasser is a sorry lesson for all concerned, illustrating that even the slightly skilled now are able to disrupt corporate networks.

At least that is what Panda Software CTO Patrick Hinojosa finds so maddening about Sasser. "It is very simple to write these things," he told NewsFactor, "and with some worms -- e-mail worms in particular -- it takes hardly any skill at all. You can do it from a kit, in fact."

The Sasser worm easily could have been stopped in its tracks from the outset, Hinojosa says, as Microsoft identified the vulnerability and offered a patch for it a few weeks before the worm appeared. "This element of network security is not rocket science -- it is a default configuration."

Keep On Coming

The situation is not getting any better, according to Sophos. "Both Sasser and Netsky may have captured the headlines, but there were many other viruses written this month -- 959 in total," Kraft said. "In the month of May, we saw a considerable increase in cyber-criminal activity, which suggests that even the arrest of Sven Jaschan, the German teenager who has owned up to writing Sasser and Netsky, has done very little to limit the problem."

The 959 new viruses Sophos identified in May represent the highest number of new viruses discovered in a single month since December 2001, the firm said. 

Drunk Students Adrift on Raft at Sea

Jun 1, 10:38 am ET 

AMSTERDAM  - A band of drunk Dutch students taking a break from exams had to be rescued at sea after a raft they built from empty jerrycans went adrift on the North Sea, the Hague police said Friday.

"The students had made a kind of floating island and ventured out to sea under the influence of alcohol. They were carried into the open sea by the current and had to be rescued," a police statement said.

The group of 15 to 20 students was let off with little more than a stern warning from police who accused them of "irresponsible behavior."

Forget Splitting Atoms, Split a Banana for Energy

Jun 1, 9:51 am ET 

SYDNEY  - Australian scientists have discovered what sportsmen and women around the world have known for years: bananas are a great source of instant energy.

A new government-funded study is investigating the possibility of harnessing bruised or spoilt bananas -- deemed not worth selling to consumers -- to provide energy for 500 homes.

"It's not a hoax," Australian Banana Growers' Council Chief Executive Tony Heidrich said on Tuesday.

Reminiscent of the pig-powered town in the futuristic movie Mad Max Thunderdome, bananas would be combined with bacteria to produce methane. Pipes would take the gas to a turbine which could be plugged into the main electricity grid.

"It's like a big stomach. You open the lid, you put the stuff in and seal the lid and...away you go," said Heidrich by telephone from the nation's banana-growing state of Queensland.

"Essentially it's just like a big composting bin. It's a waste product and currently we're not doing anything else with it. This would harness the electrical capacity that it can bring," he said.

However, Heidrich said other fruit-powered homes, such as apricot, pineapple or kiwi-fruit, were unlikely anytime soon.

"Initially I think they'll stick to bananas but potentially you could use other fruit," he said.

Ethanol from sugar cane has already been tested for commercial energy use and the husks of Australia's native Macadamia nuts have been used as fuel to make electricity.

Power Plant Shut -- to Tune Piano

May 28, 10:49 am ET 

OSLO  - One of the Nordic region's biggest power stations shut Friday to let an expert tune a grand piano for a concert undisturbed by the hum of huge hydroelectric generators.

"When you put a big piano in there, you also need to tune it, and that is very difficult if the machines are running," said Tron Engebrethsen, senior vice president at Norwegian power company Statkraft.

The generators will be switched back on after Friday evening's concert which is being staged in an enormous underground hall at the 1,120-megawatt Sima power plant.

The hall, built in a rock cavern inside a mountain in the scenic Hardanger fjord in western Norway, is renowned for its acoustics.

Engebrethsen said a concert was held at the plant about once a year, but it was the first time they had shut down production to tune a piano.

The program includes music from Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" and Stravinsky's "Agon."

The generators, which will be down for nine hours, will be switched back on at 2200 local time.

This Movie Is SO Bad...

May 28, 10:09 am ET 

LOS ANGELES  - It may go down in movie marketing history: "Gigli," a film deemed so bad that one cable television network is trumpeting its poor reviews to sell it to audiences looking for a laugh.

The Starz Encore network is marketing "Gigli," a box office flop starring former lovers Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, as a film that has been so maligned by critics and moviegoers that "you know you want to see it."

In marketing materials sent to reporters, Starz Encore calls "Gigli," "The Most Talked About Movie of the Year," then adds, "(OK, not all of our movies can be award-winning blockbusters).

"Hey, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," said Starz Encore's Steve Belgard, director of programing publicity. "If we promoted it like a good film, our credibility would be shot."

Belgard dreamed up the idea.

Accustomed to seeing ads filled with reviews claiming a movie is "the year's best," Starz offers reporters this from the San Jose Mercury News: "A rigli, rigli bad movie," or this from the San Francisco Examiner: "Viewers (read: victims) will want to talk and comfort each other afterwards."

"Gigli" is pronounced zhee-lee.

In the movie, Affleck plays a thug who falls in love with a gangster, Lopez, who also happens to be a lesbian. It debuted in August 2003, and racked up $6 million at domestic box offices.

In real life, the pair were engaged to be married and their every move was dogged by paparazzi and tabloid press. They have since broken up.

Belgard said it was about time Ben and Jen -- sometimes dubbed Bennifer -- got back together, at least on the screen.

"We've missed them, haven't we?" he asked, rather dryly.

Giant Mushroom Baffles Experts in Congo

May 28, 9:57 am ET 

BRAZZAVILLE  - A giant three-tiered mushroom which measures a meter (yard) across and was found in the tropical forests of the Republic of Congo has left experts in the capital Brazzaville scratching their heads.

"It's the first time we've ever seen a mushroom like this so it's difficult for us to classify. But we are going to determine what it is scientifically," Pierre Botaba, head of Congo's veterinary and zoology center, told reporters on Thursday.

The giant fungi stands 18 inches high and has three tiered caps on top of a broad stem. The bottom cap measures one meter across, the second one 60 cm and the top one is 24 cm wide, Botaba said.

The bizarre-looking mushroom was found in the village of Mvoula about 38 miles from Brazzaville and transported carefully to the capital by the local chief.

Police Weed Out Art Exhibition

May 28, 9:46 am ET 

STOCKHOLM  - A Swedish art exhibit featuring cannabis plants may have to be canceled after police confiscated the plants in a drugs bust.

The exhibition, due to open on Saturday in the university town of Lund and titled "Counterclockwise Circumambulation," was partially destroyed when police cut the plants to take them away as evidence, artist Sture Johannesson said.

The plant is grown in the region for its fibers and Swedish media said Johannesson's hemp was not the type used by smokers. He could replace the plants, but said they had already begun to grow back. "They will have to come back on a regular basis to prune," he said on Friday.

Amorous Swedes to Get Emergency Condom Deliveries

Jun 1, 10:50 am ET 

STOCKHOLM  - A Swedish aid organization will roll out a new line of defense to the country's emergency services next week -- the condom ambulance.

From Friday, June 4, amorous couples can call the telephone number 696969 and a white van featuring a large red condom with wings as a logo will deliver them a packet of 10 prophylactics.

"We need to increase the usage of condoms," said Carl Osvald, marketing manager for the Swedish Organization for Sex Education, the non-governmental organization behind the initiative. "It is 50 percent about pregnancy and 50 percent about sexually transmitted diseases."

The ambulances will operate in Stockholm and the southern cities of Malmo and Gothenberg. The service, aimed at young people, will run until June 25 and be available between four in the afternoon and nine at night.

A packet of 10 condoms will cost 50 crowns ($6.72), less than they cost on average in the shops.

The incidence of sexually transmitted disease is increasing rapidly in Sweden and not enough young people use condoms, Osvald said.

"We need to change attitudes to condoms," he said. "If we need to get out in to the bedrooms to make things better we will do it."

U.S.: Suspect Sought to Blow Up Buildings 

1 hour, 17 minutes ago

By LARRY MARGASAK, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - Jose Padilla, a former Chicago gang member held as a terrorism suspect for two years, sought to blow up hotels and apartment buildings in the United States in addition to planning an attack with a "dirty bomb" radiological device, the government said Tuesday. 

U.S.: Suspect Sought to Blow Up Buildings 
(AP Video) 

The Justice Department (news - web sites), under pressure to explain its indefinite detention of a U.S. citizen as an "enemy combatant," detailed Padilla's alleged al-Qaida training in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and contacts with the most senior members of the terrorist network, his travel back into the United States and preparations to rent apartments and set off explosives. 

Deputy Attorney General James Comey called the chronicle of Padilla's plotting "remarkable for its scope, its clarity and its candor." 

The department released documents, based in part on interviews with Padilla, saying he and an unidentified al-Qaida accomplice planned to find as many as three apartment buildings supplied with natural gas. 

"Padilla and the accomplice were to locate as many as three high-rise apartment buildings which had natural gas supplied to the floors," the government summary of interrogations said. The alleged accomplice is in custody. 

"They would rent two apartments in each building, seal all the openings, turn on the gas, and set timers to detonate the buildings simultaneously at a later time," the papers alleged. 

Comey said Padilla suggested to his handlers that he detonate a nuclear bomb that he thought he could make from instructions on the Internet, or that he set off a dirty bomb that would release deadly radiation in a small area. His handlers did not think either was feasible, Comey said, and wanted him to focus instead on the apartment-building plot. 

Top al-Qaida officials "wanted Padilla to hit targets in New York City, although Florida and Washington, D.C. were discussed as well," the summary said. 

One of Padilla's lawyers, Andrew Patel, characterized Comey's information as "an opening statement without a trial. We are in the same position we've been in for two years, where the government says bad things about Mr. Padilla and there's no forum for him to defend himself." 

The Supreme Court is deciding whether the war on terrorism gives the government power to seize Americans such as Padilla and hold them without charges for as long as it takes to ensure they are not a danger to the nation. Comey denied the timing of the disclosure was an attempt to influence the court. 

Comey said Padilla's partner in the attacks was to be Adnan El Shukrijumah, one of seven suspected al-Qaida operatives who the Justice Department cited last week as planning attacks on the United States. Nicknamed "Jafar the pilot," the Saudi native once lived in Florida and has been sought by federal authorities for more than a year. 

While Comey said the two broke up the partnership because they couldn't get along, the official said the information learned from Padilla and others about Jafar's role makes his capture imperative. 

"We need to find that guy," Comey said. 

Comey said release of the information had no connection to criticism from some members of Congress and some administration officials that Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) overstated the al-Qaida threat. 

Rather, Comey said, he acted "because every place I went to speak, people would say, 'We agree with you with the war on terror but we've got a problem with this Padilla thing. I wish I knew more about it.' And I very much wanted people to know what I knew about Jose Padilla to address those questions." 

Comey told a news conference that when Padilla stepped off a plane in Chicago in May 2002, he was a highly trained and fully equipped "soldier of our enemy" who had accepted his al-Qaida assignment to kill hundreds of innocent people in apartment buildings. 

"We have decided to release this information to help people understand why we are doing what we are doing in the war on terror and to help people understand the nature of the threat we face," he said. 

He asserted that if Padilla had been handled by the usual criminal justice system, he could have stayed silent and "would likely have ended up a free man." 

Padilla was to conduct an Internet search on buildings that had natural gas heating, open a bank account and obtain documents needed to rent an apartment, the government said. The plot called for blowing up 20 buildings simultaneously, but Padilla allegedly said he could not rent multiple apartments under one identity without drawing attention. 

The information was provided in response to a query from Senate Justice Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Comey said it took significant time to compile the information and denied the timing had anything to do with the court case. 

"If it was done sooner it would have been released sooner," he said. 

Comey said there are no plans to file the information as an addendum to the arguments the administration made in the case. And he said there are no plans to use the material to try to seek a criminal indictment against Padilla. 

Comey traced Padilla's alleged transition into a terrorist as beginning in earnest in March 2000, when he joined a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia and met an al-Qaida recruiter. Two months later, he met someone in Yemen who arranged training for him in the Afghan terrorist camps, Comey said. 

He said Padilla signed an application joining al-Qaida in July 2000. During his training, Comey said, Padilla met senior al-Qaida officials including Abu Zubaydah, the network's operations chief in Afghanistan; and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks

NASA Discovers Likely Youngest Planet

1 hour, 21 minutes ago

By MARCIA DUNN, News Source Aerospace Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - One of NASA (news - web sites)'s space telescopes has discovered what scientists believe may be the youngest planet ever spied - a celestial body that at 1 million years old or less is a cosmic toddler.

In its first major findings, announced Thursday, the Spitzer Space Telescope also has shown that protostars, or developing stars, "are as common as the cicadas in the trees here on the East Coast" and that the planetary construction zones around infant stars have considerable ice that could produce future oceans.

"Oh, my goodness, it knocked our socks off," University of Wisconsin astronomer Ed Churchwell said of the trio of discoveries.

Spitzer is an infrared telescope has been orbiting the sun and studying the universe since last summer. It did not actually "see" the toddler planet, but yielded evidence that enabled scientists to infer its existence.

The object is in the constellation Taurus, 420 light-years away - quite close by astronomy standards. It is believed to be on the inner edge of a planet-forming dusty disk that encircles a 1-million-year-old star.

University of Rochester astronomer Dan Watson said a sharply defined hole in the middle of the disk suggests that a planet created the opening. That gaseous planet would have been formed sometime since the star's formation.

By comparison, the Earth and the rest of the solar system are 4.5 billion years old. And up until now, the youngest planets observed around other stars were a few billion years old.

Astronomer Deborah Padgett at the Carnegie Institution of Washington cautioned that instead of a planet, the gap in the dusty disk could be caused by asteroid formation or a smaller unseen stellar companion. She said it is also possible that the heat and light of the star are forming the gap by blowing all the dusty material out.

However, she said that it is "very likely" a planet, and that additional research by Spitzer and future spacecraft should settle the debate.

The Hubble Space Telescope (news - web sites) previously observed the star - named CoKu Tau 4 - but could not make out such details.

Watson also reported that for the first time, Spitzer has shown without ambiguity all the icy organic materials in the planet-forming disks surrounding infant stars, or those that are only hundreds of thousands of years old. He called these the building blocks of what might end up as a solar system like our own.

As for the proliferation of developing stars, Spitzer revealed more than 300 star formations in one region in the constellation Centaurus, 13,700 light-years away.

"It's kind of blown our minds," Churchwell said.

Anne Kinney, director of NASA's astronomy and physics division, likened the preponderance of protostars to the cicadas.

Scientists compared Spitzer to Smarty Jones, the young horse that next week may become a Triple Crown champion.

"Spitzer has beaten Smarty Jones considerably. It has already won the Triple Crown for 2004 by virtue of having made these three discoveries," said astronomer Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Spitzer is the fourth and final spacecraft in NASA's Great Observatory series, which began with Hubble and continued with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, now gone, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

The 14-year-old Hubble was the only one designed for astronaut repairs, and its future has ignited a fierce debate in and outside NASA. NASA has decided to forgo any more shuttle missions to Hubble, citing post-Columbia safety concerns, and instead may send robots on a life-prolonging mission.

On Thursday, a petition signed by 26 astronauts, most of them retired, was sent to President Bush (news - web sites) by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. The astronauts - "we, the real risk-takers" - urged that the shuttle mission to Hubble be reinstated.

List Linking Smoking to Diseases Expands 

Thu May 27, 9:08 PM ET

By NANCY ZUCKERBROD, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - The list of diseases linked to smoking grew longer Thursday. Add acute myeloid leukemia, cancers of the cervix, kidney, pancreas and stomach, abdominal aortic aneurysms, cataracts, periodontitis and pneumonia. 

"We've known for decades that smoking is bad for your health, but this report shows that it's even worse," said Surgeon General Richard Carmona, announcing his first official assessment of the effects of tobacco. 

The report said current evidence is not conclusive enough to say smoking causes colorectal cancer, liver cancer, prostate cancer or erectile disfunction. Some research has associated those diseases with smoking, but Carmona said more proof is needed. 

The evidence suggests smoking may not cause breast cancer in women but that some women, depending on genetics, may increase their risk of getting it by smoking, the report said. 

Diseases previously linked to smoking include cancer of the bladder, esophagus, larynx, lung and mouth. Also tied to smoking was chronic lung disease, chronic heart and cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, peptic ulcers and reproductive problems. 

About 440,000 Americans die of smoking-related diseases each year. The report said more than 12 million people have died from smoking-related diseases in the 40 years since the first surgeon general's report on smoking and health was released in 1964. 

That report linked smoking to lung and larynx cancer and chronic bronchitis. Subsequent reports, such as the one released Thursday, have expanded the list of diseases linked to smoking. 

Carmona's report said treating smoking-related diseases costs the nation $75 billion annually. The loss of productivity from smoking is estimated to be $82 billion annually. 

On average, the surgeon general said, smokers die 13 years to 14 years before nonsmokers. 

The number of adults who smoke has dropped from about 42 percent in 1965 to about 22 percent in 2002, the last year for which such data is available, according to the surgeon general. 

The government has set a goal of 12 percent by 2010, but is having trouble getting the rate to come down as quickly as sought. The smoking rate is declining by less than one-half of a percentage point annually. 

Cheryl Healton, president of the anti-smoking American Legacy Foundation, said officials have failed to act on recommendations made by a government-appointed scientific panel last year. Among its proposals was raising the federal tax on cigarettes from 39 cents per pack to $2.39. 

The Bush administration did agree with the proposal to establish a national hot line to counsel smokers. That should be set up next year. 

Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-free Kids, said the surgeon general's report demonstrates the need for the Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) to regulate cigarettes. That has been proposed in Congress. 

Carmona said he was briefed on the legislation, which would set strict rules for marketing and manufacturing cigarettes. While he stopped short of endorsing the bill, he said it was "wonderful" that lawmakers were considering it. 

Health and Human Services (news - web sites) Secretary Tommy Thompson has said he thinks tobacco ought to be regulated. 

When President Bush (news - web sites) asked recently if he thinks more regulation of the industry is needed, he reaffirmed his position that the emphasis ought to be on preventing teenagers from smoking. 

The administration recently signed a treaty that would put new restrictions on cigarette manufactures worldwide. Public health officials complain that the administration has not yet submitted the treaty to the Senate for ratification. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Surgeon General: http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/sgoffice.htm

Report: 1 of Every 75 U.S. Men in Prison

1 hour, 18 minutes ago Add U.S. National - 

By CONNIE CASS, News Source Writer

WASHINGTON - America's inmate population grew by 2.9 percent last year, to almost 2.1 million people, with one of every 75 men living in prison or jail.

The inmate population continued its rise despite a fall in the crime rate and many states' efforts to reduce some sentences, especially for low-level drug offenders.

The report issued Thursday by the Justice Department (news - web sites)'s Bureau of Justice Statistics attributes much of the increase to get-tough policies enacted during the 1980s and '90s, such as mandatory drug sentences, "three-strikes-and-you're-out" laws for repeat offenders, and "truth-in-sentencing" laws that restrict early releases.

Whether that's good or bad depends on who is asked.

"The prison system just grows like a weed in the yard," said Vincent Schiraldi, executive director of the Justice Policy Institute, which pushes for a more lenient system.

Without reforms, he said, prison populations will continue to grow "almost as if they are on autopilot, regardless of their high costs and disappointing crime-control impact."

But Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) said the report shows the success of efforts to take hard-core criminals off the streets.

"It is no accident that violent crime is at a 30-year low while prison population is up," Ashcroft said. "Violent and recidivist criminals are getting tough sentences while law-abiding Americans are enjoying unprecedented safety."

There were 715 inmates for every 100,000 U.S. residents at midyear in 2003, up from 703 a year earlier, the report found.

The nation's incarceration rate tops the world, according to The Sentencing Project, another group that promotes alternatives to prison. That compares with a rate of 169 per 100,000 residents in Mexico, 116 in Canada and 143 for England and Wales.

Russia's prison population, which once rivaled the United States', has dropped to 584 per 100,000 because of prisoner amnesties in recent years, the group said.

The U.S. inmate population in 2003 grew at its fastest pace in four years. The number of inmates increased 1.8 percent in state prisons, 7.1 percent in federal prisons and 3.9 percent in local jails.

In 2003, 68 percent of prison and jail inmates were members of racial or ethnic minorities, the government said. An estimated 12 percent of all black men in their 20s were in jails or prisons, as were 3.7 percent of Hispanic men and 1.6 percent of white men in that age group, according to the report.

The report also said:

_The number of women in state and federal prisons grew by 5 percent, compared to a 2.7 percent increase for men. Still, men greatly outnumber women: 1.36 million to 100,102.

_Local jails held 691,301 inmates.

_The inmate population in 10 states increased at least 5 percent. Some of the smallest state prison systems saw the largest increase: Vermont's grew by 12.2 percent, Minnesota was up 9.4 percent and Maine 9.1 percent.

_Only nine states logged a decrease in prison population, led by Rhode Island with a 3.4 percent drop; Arkansas, 2.2 percent; and Montana, 2.1 percent.

___

On the Net:

Bureau of Justice Statistics: www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs 

Student Teaches Robot to Fold Paper 

Mon May 24, 8:15 AM ET

PITTSBURGH - Most people can fold a piece of paper by the time they're in kindergarten, but it's not child's play for a robot, which must use complex mathematical formulas to accomplish the task. 

That's why officials at Carnegie Mellon University are excited about a graduate student who has developed a robot capable of doing origami - the traditional Japanese art of folding paper to make figures or sculptures. 

Matthew Mason, a professor of computer science and robotics, thought building such a robot would be so daunting that he didn't encourage Devin Balkcom's plans to do so in January 2003. But today, Balkcom has a robot that can make paper airplanes and hats and is scheduled to earn his doctorate with the project in August. 

"Origami is way out there - it's like a space shot," Mason said. 

Origami has important research applications because although robots have been taught to manipulate rigid objects such as golf clubs, they struggle when the objects are flexible, like paper or the human tissues that surgical robots must navigate. 

As a result, robot origami help measure a robot's ability to manipulate flexible objects, much as playing chess has become a way of measuring a computer's intelligence and speed, Mason and Balkcom said. 

"To make a swan would be 10 Ph.D.s worth of work," Balkcom said. 

So if a child can learn how to make a folded paper swan, why is it rocket science for a robot? 

Balkcom's robot may look fairly simple - a small robot arm attached to a table that's something like a sheet metal press - but every manipulation of the paper, and even the physical properties of paper itself, must be converted into the only language a robot understands: mathematics. 

For example, paper might appear to be two-dimensional, because it is so thin. But it has thickness that must be expressed mathematically so that the robot can account for what happens when the paper is folded. (Answer: it gets thicker.) 

As a result, the robot must be programmed to "understand" that paper can only be folded so much (about seven times is the limit), and that paper stretches ever so slightly when it is folded. 

And that doesn't even take into account fingers. Robots don't have them, so they don't have the nerves that allow a human to feel the paper. They also don't have the stereoscopic vision allows humans to watch themselves fold the paper. 

As a result, Balkcom's robot does origami in a manner different from that of a typical 8-year-old. It uses a suction cup to pick and move the paper, which is manipulated over a gutter, or rut, on the metal surface. The paper is then pushed down into the gutter using a straightedge ruler attached to the robotic arm, and the gutter closes on the paper to crease it. 

A visiting Japanese professor, Yasumichi Aiyama of Tsukuba University, is working in Mason's robotics lab using two small, fingerlike robots, to see if they might perform origami more like humans do. 

___ 

On the Net: 

http://www.cs.cum.edu/-devin

Entertainment - The News Source

Hollywood Mystery Man 'Rance' Has Internet Abuzz Thu May 27, 2:51 PM ET Add Entertainment 

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES  - He skewers Hollywood and the cult of celebrity on an anonymous Web log that has spawned a cult following. He claims to be an A-list actor, writing under a pseudonym, but admits he may not be believed.

Who, exactly, is "Rance?"

Could he really be, as some believe, Owen Wilson (news), Ben Affleck (news), Jim Carrey (news) or even George Clooney (news)?

The answer may perhaps be found somewhere in the entries on his Weblog -- or "blog" -- which applies a trenchant wit and jaundiced insider's eye in chronicling the life of a Hollywood celebrity. Then again, it could all be a hoax.

Though Rance granted an interview with The News Source, he responded to questions only via email, using pseudonymous dead-end accounts for both himself and the reporter and never offering a glimpse into his real identity.

Asked if he was, in fact, a well-known actor, he responded: "Or a well-known actress perhaps. Just not Donald Trump."

In the blog's first-ever post last December, Rance introduced himself this way: "Suffice it to say I know what its like to see your picture on the magazine rack every now and again when you pay for groceries."

Rance's blog has since spawned a furious guessing game on the Internet and beyond, becoming a regular topic at Hollywood parties.

Xeni Jardin, a writer on the "Boing-Boing" blog, recently told her readers that Rance was rumored to be "Starsky and Hutch" star Owen Wilson, a claim that the actor's publicist has denied.

BEN AFFLECK? GEORGE CLOONEY? JIM CARREY?

The anonymous editor of Hollywood gossip site Defamer suggests it could be Ben Affleck -- a conjecture built around the supposed link between a cryptic quiz on Rance's blog and an Affleck tattoo.

Others have surmised that Rance is Jim Carrey, George Clooney, Benicio Del Toro (news) or Luke Wilson (news), Owen's brother. And one of Rance's readers recently sent him a comment that read simply: "You are, in fact, Matthew Perry (news). Game on?"

Meanwhile, a Defamer reader tried to unmask Rance by researching the term "Captain Hoof," which appears in the Web address. She came to the conclusion that he was a San Francisco man who worked at an ad agency and once ran a Web site with a similar name -- possibly dedicated to an imaginary horse.

The man, who no longer works for the agency, could not be contacted for this story.

For his part, Rance offers the electronic equivalent of a shrug to the endless chatter about his identity, saying that it was never his intention to play hide-and-seek with the world.

"The guessing game distracts from any message I might have," he told The News Source. "Then again, I'm not yet sure I have a message and in any case the amusement makes it all worth it. More than once I've seen items that upon first glance suggested the game might be up and I felt my stomach plummet."

Rance said he set up the Web site on a whim with help from a computer-savvy friend, seeing it as a "really good way to bitch about my job" without suffering any career repercussions. He chose the name "Rance" as a pun on "rants."

The diverse themes of the Web log revolve around pitch meetings and parties, the machinations of Hollywood at work and play and its fascination with sex and celebrity.

Rance loves shrimp and logic puzzles. He's tolerant of paparazzi but tough on gossips. He's bored by Shakespeare and the summer blockbuster "Troy" but admires Joan Rivers.

And through it all he's amused by life in Los Angeles -- the way a birthday party in the suburbs can turn into an unexpected meeting with a dominatrix and a late-night nude dip in the Chateau Marmont pool can be interrupted by an SUV crash on Sunset Boulevard.

"It is tough in L.," Rance says of the city. "The good news is there are Fatburgers."

Though he has received two "serious" proposals from people in publishing to turn his blog into a book, Rance said he has not yet pursued that idea, content for now to communicate to the outside world through the Internet.

"With no disrespect intended, media in general seldom if ever permits a person, be he actor or President, to present himself the way he would like -- and certainly not to the degree a blog does," Rance said.

"Still, there's a megabyte or two's worth of irony in my situation," he said.

'Buffalo Spammer' Sentenced to 3-1/2 to 7 Years 2 hours, 39 minutes ago Add U.S. National 

WASHINGTON  - A New York state man who sent out millions of "spam" e-mails was sentenced to 3-1/2 to seven years in prison, the state attorney general's office said on Thursday.

Howard Carmack, known as the "Buffalo Spammer," received the maximum sentence for 14 counts of identity theft and forgery, a spokesman for New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said.

Carmack sent out 825 million bulk e-mail messages using stolen identities and forged addresses, the court found, and was the first defendant to face charges under the state's new identity-theft statute.

He was found guilty in April.

The forgery conviction fetched the longest sentence, while the other convictions drew shorter sentences of one year to four years. All will be served concurrently, Spitzer spokesman Brad Maione said.

Carmack could be out in 3-1/2 should he behave in prison, Maione said.

Internet provider EarthLink Inc (Nasdaq:ELNK - news). won a $16.5 million judgment against Carmack last year, and EarthLink officials testified in the criminal trial as well.

"We're satisfied that today's sentencing sends a strong message to spammers, and EarthLink will continue to investigate spammers and work with law enforcement," said EarthLink assistant general counsel Karen Cashion in a statement.

Unwanted bulk messages now account for roughly 83 percent of e-mail traffic, according to filtering company Postini Inc.

Many of Carmack's alleged activities are illegal under a national anti-spam law that took effect in January, seven months after he was charged. 

Fla. Man Sues Co. Promoting Atkins Diet

Thu May 27,10:55 AM ET 

By JILL BARTON, News Source Writer

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - A 53-year-old man sued the company that promotes the Atkins Diet and the estate of its founder Dr. Robert Atkins, alleging that following the high-fat meal plan clogged his arteries and threatened his health.

Jody Gorran of Delray Beach said he believes the Atkins diet books and products should contain a warning label that one-third of the population is at risk for developing health problems when they eat meats and other foods endorsed by the diet that are high in saturated fat.

The advocacy group, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which is assisting Gorran, says the suit is the first to recently question the merits of the Atkins diet. The Washington-based group promotes a vegan diet - no meat, fish, dairy or egg products.

Gorran said Thursday he started the diet in May 2001 after his 50th birthday because his weight had increased to 148 from 140, but says it caused him to need heart angioplasty to clear his arteries.

"I came very close to dying and this is from a diet I thought was marvelous. For 2 1/2 years, I extolled the virtues of this diet to anyone who listened because I was losing weight and I felt great," said Gorran, who filed his suit Wednesday seeking $15,000 in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. "But when I started I had no idea I was making a deal with the devil for trying to keep a 32-inch waistline."

Atkins Nutritionals Inc., which responded to Gorran's suit in a statement, questioned the motivation of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. In 1979, a New York jury rejected an elderly, overweight woman's lawsuit claiming that the Atkins Diet caused her heart disease.

"We should not let the real issue, providing people with a scientifically validated nutritional choice in the face of a worldwide obesity and type 2 diabetes epidemic, be manipulated by this extremist animal rights vegan group," the statement said. "As always Atkins stands by the science that has repeatedly reaffirmed the safety and health benefits of the Atkins Nutritional Approach."

Doctors and nutritionists have for years debated the Atkins diet, which allows up to two-thirds of calories from fat, or more than double the usual recommendation. Dr. Atkins argued that carbohydrates generate too much insulin, which makes people hungrier and encourages them to put on fat.

Atkins' best-selling book, "Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution," advocates meat, eggs and cheese and discourages bread, rice and fruit. His books sold 15 million copies and attracted millions of followers. 

Ex-Rite Aid CEO Gets 8-Year Prison Term

32 minutes ago Add Business - 

By MARK SCOLFORO, News Source Writer

HARRISBURG, Pa. - A federal judge sentenced former Rite Aid Corp. chief executive Martin L. Grass to eight years in prison Thursday for conspiring to falsely inflate the company's earnings and cover up the scheme.

Grass, 50, who headed the nation's third-largest pharmacy chain in the late 1990s before being forced out in October 1999 and is the son of the company's founder, also was fined $500,000 and given three years' probation.

Before U.S. District Judge Sylvia H. Rambo handed down the sentence, Grass apologized to Rite Aid, its stockholders and employees.

"For the harm caused to them, I am truly sorry," he said. Grass was indicted by a federal grand jury two years ago but on the eve of trial pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud Rite Aid and its shareholders and conspiracy to obstruct justice, in a deal that required him to cooperate with prosecutors.

At the time of his plea, prosecutors said Grass admitted to a series of illegal activities, from backdating contracts and severance letters to misleading the company and federal investigators about a $2.6 million real-estate deal. They said he also met with employees who were called to testify before the grand jury and encouraged them to lie.

During Martin Grass' time at the head of the Camp Hill-based company founded by his father, Alex Grass, its stock price soared as Rite Aid engaged in an aggressive expansion effort. But the grand jury said the booming years were accomplished by "massive accounting fraud, the deliberate falsification of financial statements, and intentionally false SEC filings."

Less than a year after Grass left the company, the new management team was constrained to retroactively lower reports of the company's net earnings in 1998 and 1999 by $1.6 billion. Rite Aid recently recorded its first profits since the Grass years.

"As it turns out, I tried to do too much, too fast," Grass told Rambo on Thursday.

When the company's finances took a turn for the worse in early 1999, he said, "I did some things to try and hide that fact."

"Those things were wrong. They were illegal," he said. "I did not do them to line my own pockets." 

Feds Indict Former Alabama Gov. Siegelman

42 minutes ago Add U.S. National - 

By JAY REEVES, News Source Writer

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Former Gov. Don Siegelman and two others were indicted in a bid-rigging scheme involving a maternity-care program, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.

The charges accused the Democrat and his former chief of staff, Paul Hamrick, of helping Tuscaloosa physician Phillip Bobo rig the bids while Siegelman was governor.

Siegelman and Hamrick were accused of moving $550,000 from the state education budget to the State Fire College in Tuscaloosa so Bobo could use the money to pay off a competitor for a state contract for maternity care.

Siegelman's attorney, Doug Jones, said he was still trying to learn details of the indictment and had no immediate comment.

Siegelman was narrowly defeated for re-election in 2002 by Republican Bob Riley, who ran on a campaign of ethics in government.

The indictment refers to numerous unindicted coconspirators, who were identified only by their positions, including members of Siegelman's transition team, lobbyists and the acting commissioner at the time of the Alabama Medicaid Agency.

Bobo, Siegelman and Hamrick are each charged with conspiracy, health care fraud and program fraud, which involves theft from a federally funded program. Bobo is also charged with witness tampering, wire fraud, lying to the FBI (news - web sites) and perjury.

The charges stemmed from the same investigation that earlier led to charges against Bobo of committing fraud while trying to secure a contract for providing maternity services to Medicaid recipients. Bobo was convicted of those charges in 2001, but the conviction was later thrown out by a federal appeals court.

Siegelman has claimed the investigation was partisan. U.S. Attorney Alice Martin denied that Thursday.

"We don't ever look to see if there is an R or a D behind anyone's name," said Martin, a Republican appointee.

The Medicaid contracts were part of a $100 million statewide program to provide maternity care for low-income women. 

Snow Red-Faced Over Investment Mistake 

Thu May 27, 4:32 AM ET 


By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, News Source Economics Writer 

WASHINGTON - Oops. A red-faced Treasury Secretary John Snow, who has been going around the country preaching the importance of financial literacy, can now point to himself as a glaring example of what not to do. 

It turns out his investment adviser made a $10.87 million mistake. Snow didn't catch it because he didn't bother to read his financial statements for more than a year. 

Snow had told the adviser to invest the money in U.S. Treasury securities. Instead, the adviser used the money to buy bonds held by the biggest players in the mortgage market: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks. 

These government-sponsored enterprises just happen to be the targets of an intense administration campaign led by Snow to bring them under tighter government regulation. 

"The secretary views this as very regrettable," said Treasury spokesman Robert Nichols. "He is committed to the highest standards of ethical conduct and he is upset." 

Treasury ethics officials uncovered the error on May 10 after Snow asked them to review his annual financial disclosure statement, a document that all top government officials and members of Congress are required to file. 

Snow then ordered the bond holdings in the mortgage companies sold. He incurred a loss of $478,000, Nichols said, even though a Treasury Department (news - web sites) ethics officer ruled that the holdings did not represent a conflict of interest. 

Nichols described the mistake as the result of a misunderstanding between Snow and his investment adviser. 

Snow took the Treasury post last year after heading up railroad giant CSX Corp. and told his adviser to invest in Treasury bonds to avoid any conflict of interest. 

The adviser, however, thought he had the power to invest in the bonds of such companies as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks as well as U.S. Treasury bonds. And so, without Snow's knowledge, he purchased $10.87 million of the corporation's bonds for Snow's portfolio, Nichols said. 

Snow has been receiving periodic financial statements over the past year that showed he owned the mortgage company bonds, but Nichols said he never bothered to open them - conduct that Snow as head of the government's financial literacy campaign would certainly frown upon. 

Treasury ethics officer Kenneth Schmalzbach ruled that Snow's holdings did not constitute a conflict of interest, but he did recommend Snow sell the mortgage bonds to avoid even the appearance of one. 

To be sure, Snow asked the Treasury Department's independent general counsel in a letter to conduct his own review of the holdings to determine if there was any conflict of interest. 

Snow said in the letter released by Treasury that he was making the request to demonstrate "my commitment to the highest standards of ethical conduct for myself and the department." 

Treasury also released Snow's 34-page financial disclosure form. It estimates he was worth between $43 million and $128 million last year. 

This may be something else Snow will want to take up with his financial adviser since these amounts were well below the ranges for the previous year. He had assets worth between $77 million and $295 million, according to his financial disclosure form for 2002. 

Assets only have to be reported in broad ranges. 

According to his latest financial disclosure form, Snow, who led CSX Corp. for 14 years, received CSX-related income of $72.2 million last year, with $33.2 million of that in a special retirement pension. 

Snow relied on an investment adviser to restructure his portfolio to avoid any conflict of interest with his holdings and his new job as treasury secretary, Nichols said. 

Snow succeeded Paul O'Neill, who was fired in December 2002 in a shake-up of the administration's economic team. He promised during his Senate confirmation hearings to sell his extensive stock holdings in CSX and 60 other companies to avoid conflicts of interest in his Cabinet post. 

Nichols said the mix-up had not changed the administration's position on Fannie Mae and the other big mortgage players. 

The administration supports legislation to create a new federal regulatory body to monitor the companies in an effort to increase oversight. But it opposes one portion of a measure that has cleared the Senate Banking Committee because it would allow Congress to overrule a decision by the new regulatory body to take over the companies if they got into serious financial trouble.

Ark. Family Marks Birth of 15th Child

1 hour, 51 minutes ago 

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Michelle Duggar's family says that the mother is all smiles after delivering her 15th child.

Both the baby and mother were doing well, although Michelle was feeling some discomfort because the birth was her second by Caesarean section, said father and former state legislator Jim Bob Duggar's mother, Mary Duggar.

"She's a trooper. She's just all smiles," Mary Duggar said in a telephone interview Monday.

The baby boy, Jackson Levi Duggar, was born at 10:52 a.m. Sunday. He weighed 7 pounds 8 ounces and is 20 inches long.

"She was wanting to do it naturally," Mary Duggar said. But the delivery was by C-section because one of Jackson's shoulders was presenting first.

"I call him Jumping Jack because he would go in a circle," she said.

Home briefly from the hospital later Monday, Jim Bob, 38, sounded a bit tired but happy. He said his wife and new son were doing fine. He said he leaves the decision up to Michelle on whether to have more children.

"I have always left it up to Michelle because she's actually the one that carries them and does all the labor," he said. "But we both love children. Even yesterday, she said she would like to have some more."

Michelle, 37, probably will be in Washington Regional Medical Center for three or four days, said her mother-in-law, who is taking care of the 14 other children.

Michelle, who home schools her children and is helping to build the family's new home in Tontitown from the ground up, started having her babies when she was 21, four years after she and Jim Bob married. He is a real estate businessman and a former state representative.

Their children include two sets of twins, and the parents have stuck to the letter "J" for their names. There is Joshua, 16; Jana and John-David, 14; Jill, 13; Jessa, 11; Jinger, 10; Joseph, 9; Josiah, 7; Joy-Anna, 6; Jeremiah and Jedidiah, 5; Jason, 4; James, 2; and Justin, 1. 

Iraqis Say U.S. Soldiers Steal During House Raids 1 hour, 47 minutes ago  

By Luke Baker

BAGHDAD  - Besides the prisoner-abuse scandal, there is another, more pervasive problem Iraqis say they suffer daily at the hands of U.S. troops -- theft of money and other property during aggressive American raids.

Over the past 14 months of occupation, U.S. forces have carried out literally thousands of raids on homes across the country, routinely seizing money, jewelry and other property from Iraqis suspected of "anti-coalition activities."

Items are generally confiscated on suspicion they could be used to finance attacks against U.S.-led forces, and the U.S. military says it has had some success in cutting off funding for insurgents via the policy.

But Iraqis say the raids often target the wrong people, are carried out in an aggressive, even destructive manner and complain that lifetime savings, precious jewelry and family heirlooms are regularly stolen in the process.

Adel Alami, a lawyer with Iraq (news - web sites)'s Human Rights Organization, says the majority of the cases his group deals with involve Iraqis seeking compensation for lost property and cash.

"It's a huge problem, almost everyone has something to say about gold, money and other valuables going missing and they don't believe they'll ever get them back," he told The News Source.

Last year, Wajiha Daoud, an 80-year-old widow, had her house in a middle-class neighborhood of old Baghdad raided by U.S. troops who said they had "high-level intelligence" that the home was a safe house for Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) loyalists.

During the raid, which lasted around 30 minutes, the woman and her family, who live across the street, were kept outside.

"When we went back in, the house was half-destroyed," said her son Musadaq Younis, an English-speaking computer technician.

"All the furniture was slashed with knives, tables and chairs were broken and the windows smashed. They didn't need to break down the front door -- I told them I had the key."

SAVINGS GONE

But that was not the worst. When Younis' sister arrived she immediately rushed upstairs to a small cabinet and found it empty -- $5,000 in cash, gold and other jewelry, including her wedding ring, were missing. "She went white," said Younis.

The family filed a claim against the U.S. military -- a complex process that took nearly three months to get a reply. In response, the military said the raid was justified and no compensation was owed. The officer who commanded the raid told Younis: "My soldiers aren't thieves."

Being comfortably well-off and employed, the impact of the loss on the family was not too great, but for hundreds, if not thousands of other Iraqi families, raids on their homes can prove devastating, socially and financially.

"Confiscation and theft during raids is rampant," said Stewart Vriesinga, a coordinator for Christian Peacemaker Teams, a non-profit group that documents abuses in Iraq.

"Soldiers don't seem to understand the Iraqi custom of not using banks -- a lot of people keep fairly substantial sums of money at home. A soldier from Kentucky or wherever sees that and thinks the person must be up to no good, so he takes it.

"We sure don't know how much money has been taken from (Iraqis)...but it's enough to have serious socio-economic consequences," he told The News Source.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition said he was aware of Iraqi complaints of theft during raids and said some U.S. soldiers had been disciplined for "inappropriate conduct." But he said the problem was "very rare, extremely rare."

"We're aware of it... But there's also the possibility of Iraqis making malicious claims," said Captain Mark Doggett.

Doggett said when are items are confiscated, a receipt is always given. If the owner is eventually found to be innocent, items can be recovered, he said. But many people who have had property confiscated say no receipts were written.

Vriesinga estimates that in nine out of 10 raids, the home owners raided are innocent, but suffer huge consequences.

"If the husband is hauled off as a suspect, the family has lost its breadwinner and often lost its savings and cash as well," he said, citing a recent Red Cross report which referred to up to 90 percent of Iraqi detainees being innocent.

If Iraqis file complaints, it comes down to a case of the Iraqi suspect's word against the American soldier's, he said.

"If there's any doubt, then it's assumed the Iraqi is lying -- the Americans are creating enemies by the score." 

Iraqis Say U.S. Soldiers Steal During House Raids 1 hour, 47 minutes ago  

By Luke Baker

BAGHDAD  - Besides the prisoner-abuse scandal, there is another, more pervasive problem Iraqis say they suffer daily at the hands of U.S. troops -- theft of money and other property during aggressive American raids.

Over the past 14 months of occupation, U.S. forces have carried out literally thousands of raids on homes across the country, routinely seizing money, jewelry and other property from Iraqis suspected of "anti-coalition activities."

Items are generally confiscated on suspicion they could be used to finance attacks against U.S.-led forces, and the U.S. military says it has had some success in cutting off funding for insurgents via the policy.

But Iraqis say the raids often target the wrong people, are carried out in an aggressive, even destructive manner and complain that lifetime savings, precious jewelry and family heirlooms are regularly stolen in the process.

Adel Alami, a lawyer with Iraq (news - web sites)'s Human Rights Organization, says the majority of the cases his group deals with involve Iraqis seeking compensation for lost property and cash.

"It's a huge problem, almost everyone has something to say about gold, money and other valuables going missing and they don't believe they'll ever get them back," he told The News Source.

Last year, Wajiha Daoud, an 80-year-old widow, had her house in a middle-class neighborhood of old Baghdad raided by U.S. troops who said they had "high-level intelligence" that the home was a safe house for Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) loyalists.

During the raid, which lasted around 30 minutes, the woman and her family, who live across the street, were kept outside.

"When we went back in, the house was half-destroyed," said her son Musadaq Younis, an English-speaking computer technician.

"All the furniture was slashed with knives, tables and chairs were broken and the windows smashed. They didn't need to break down the front door -- I told them I had the key."

SAVINGS GONE

But that was not the worst. When Younis' sister arrived she immediately rushed upstairs to a small cabinet and found it empty -- $5,000 in cash, gold and other jewelry, including her wedding ring, were missing. "She went white," said Younis.

The family filed a claim against the U.S. military -- a complex process that took nearly three months to get a reply. In response, the military said the raid was justified and no compensation was owed. The officer who commanded the raid told Younis: "My soldiers aren't thieves."

Being comfortably well-off and employed, the impact of the loss on the family was not too great, but for hundreds, if not thousands of other Iraqi families, raids on their homes can prove devastating, socially and financially.

"Confiscation and theft during raids is rampant," said Stewart Vriesinga, a coordinator for Christian Peacemaker Teams, a non-profit group that documents abuses in Iraq.

"Soldiers don't seem to understand the Iraqi custom of not using banks -- a lot of people keep fairly substantial sums of money at home. A soldier from Kentucky or wherever sees that and thinks the person must be up to no good, so he takes it.

"We sure don't know how much money has been taken from (Iraqis)...but it's enough to have serious socio-economic consequences," he told The News Source.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition said he was aware of Iraqi complaints of theft during raids and said some U.S. soldiers had been disciplined for "inappropriate conduct." But he said the problem was "very rare, extremely rare."

"We're aware of it... But there's also the possibility of Iraqis making malicious claims," said Captain Mark Doggett.

Doggett said when are items are confiscated, a receipt is always given. If the owner is eventually found to be innocent, items can be recovered, he said. But many people who have had property confiscated say no receipts were written.

Vriesinga estimates that in nine out of 10 raids, the home owners raided are innocent, but suffer huge consequences.

"If the husband is hauled off as a suspect, the family has lost its breadwinner and often lost its savings and cash as well," he said, citing a recent Red Cross report which referred to up to 90 percent of Iraqi detainees being innocent.

If Iraqis file complaints, it comes down to a case of the Iraqi suspect's word against the American soldier's, he said.

"If there's any doubt, then it's assumed the Iraqi is lying -- the Americans are creating enemies by the score." 

Smoking: Cutting Back Doesn't Help 24-May-2004 Most smokers find it much easier to cut down their number of cigarettes a day than they do to quit smoking entirely. Now scientists know why: they're actually still getting the same amount of nicotine and cancer-causing agents because they've unconsciously changed their smoking style so that the inhale more deeply.

Cancer researcher Karen Ahijevych says, "The human body really is a miracle. It knows when it is not getting what it's used to, and it automatically does something about it."

When she studied a group of women smokers, she found that when they were allowed fewer cigarettes, "they took larger drags and smoked more of the cigarette before putting it out. In addition, when smoking fewer cigarettes, the women produced more CO in their exhaled air per cigarette, compared to when they smoked their regular number of cigarettes or increased use."

"We were surprised at how much the very efficient smokers could increase their levels of CO and nicotine even further," says Ahijevych. "And the interesting thing is that most of these women were totally unaware that they were changing the way they were smoking to make up for fewer cigarettes."

"...Millions of people want to quit, and they often see cutting back as the first step in a long-term strategy. Unfortunately, our research suggests that this may be giving them a false sense of security."

Climate Change Makes World a Duller Place 23-May-2004 Climate change will affect the world's poor more drastically than rich nations, but the rich will suffer too. For all of us, the world will become a much duller place.

Many of the impacts of global warming are not life- threatening for humans, but will reduce the quality of life. Dan Whipple writes, "A lot of these components-free-ranging wildlife, water to irrigate the golf course, coral reefs to explore while snorkeling-might indeed be things we could get along without, but they also represent things that make life varied and interesting."

Plant ecologist Nina Leopold Bradley has traced the seasonal behavior of 300 species of plants and animals in Wisconsin over 70 years, and notes that about half of them are being affected by global warming. Plants are blossoming earlier and birds are migrating sooner. Eventually they may become extinct.

Biologist Camille Parmesan has studied checkerspot butterflies in California, and found that they've become extinct in areas where they previously lived. The healthy populations of butterflies are now found farther north. She also found that 63% of the butterflies in Europe have shifted their ranges to the north by 20 to 140 miles.

Baby Boy Born from Sperm Frozen Record 21 Years

Mon May 24, 7:01 PM ET 
Add Health 

By Patricia Reaney 

LONDON  - A baby boy was born after being conceived with sperm frozen 21 years earlier in what scientists said Tuesday was a new record. 

The case will give hope to young men about to undergo treatment for cancer which may leave them infertile. 

The boy's father had his sperm frozen when he was 17 before starting successful treatment for testicular cancer in the early 1980s. 

"I'm 99 percent sure that it is the oldest frozen sperm sample used (for a live birth)," said Greg Horne, a senior embryologist at St Mary's Hospital in Manchester, England, which treated the baby's parents. 

The man's sperm was stored in liquid nitrogen nearly two decades ago and was not thawed until he married and decided to start a family. 

Scientists injected a single sperm into the mother's eggs in a technique called intractoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) to create embryos. The boy was born two years ago following four attempts at in vitro fertilization (IVF). 

"Even after 21 years of storage, the percentage of motile sperm after thawing was high," said Horne, who reported the case in the journal Human Reproduction. 

The man and his wife, who chose to remain anonymous, wanted their case publicized to encourage young cancer patients to have hope for the future. 

Young men diagnosed with cancer may become infertile following treatment but they can store sperm beforehand. In Britain sperm can be stored until the man reaches 55. 

"This case provides evidence that long-term freezing can successfully preserve sperm quality and fertility. This is important to know because semen stored by young cancer patients is undertaken at a time of great emotional stress when future fertility is unlikely to be an immediate priority," Horne added. 

Testicular cancer affects 50,000 men each year and the incidence is increasing. It is most common in 15 to 44-year-olds. If treated early the survival rate is very good. 

Horne said advancements in fertility treatments, particularly ICSI, have improved the chances of former cancer patients becoming fathers. 

Although there have been suggestions that freezing and thawing can damage DNA in sperm, he said there was no evidence that damage was increased by the length of time the sperm was stored.

Music buyers gravitate toward legal downloads: survey Wed May 19,12:48 PM ET Add U.S. National - NEWS SOURCE 

NEW YORK (NEWS SOURCE) - US music consumers are sharply increasing their interest in legal downloads and diminishing their use of free song-swapping over the Internet, a survey showed.

The survey by the NPD Group found about five percent of those who have purchased music CDs also used a legal Internet service to purchase music in the first quarter of 2004, or triple the percentage in the same period a year ago.

Among music buyers who purchased both CDs and a song download from a legal service, the likelihood that they also downloaded a song illegally fell dramatically, from 64 percent last year to 42 percent in 2004, the survey found.

The surge in use of legitimate online music services comes as a growing number of companies have set up sites with song downloads for roughly one dollar. At the same time, the music industry has been cracking down on file-swapping with lawsuits alleging copyright infringement.

"Paid services like (Apple's) iTunes and (RealNetworks') Rhapsody appear to be attracting core music buyers, which can create a firm foundation for legal digital music purchases," said Russ Crupnick, president of NPD Music.

"To date, NPD data shows that there has been a small reduction in sales of CDs; however, that decline might be offset by the overall value of the digital customer and the downturn in illegal file sharing."

Consumers who downloaded from a legal service or became paid members of subscription services showed only a small reduction in the number of CDs that they purchased at retail. The average consumer who paid for digital music as well as CDs purchased less than one fewer CD in 2003 compared to 2002, the survey found.

"Our research shows that it's the people who are really into music that are beginning to adopt paid digital services as an additional way of acquiring and enjoying music, and so far these services are living side by side with traditional CDs," Crupnick said.

"As the industry matures and digital music becomes even more main stream, it remains to be seen just how much paid digital music will affect the market for CDs."

Nerve Fibers Regrown in Spines of Rats

Mon May 24, 5:58 PM ET 

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, News Source Writer

WASHINGTON - A combination of therapies helped damaged spines regrow nerve fibers, researchers report in a study of rats.

Three separate therapies, each of which had shown promise in earlier tests, were combined in the new effort by a team at the University of Miami, according to Sunday's online edition of the journal Nature Medicine.

The combination therapy was designed by Damien D. Pearse and Mary Bartlett Bunge, who were looking for a way to help damaged nerve cells overcome signals that limit their growth after an injury.

They combined cell grafts with the administration of a messenger molecule and the drug Rolipram in animals with spinal injuries. The therapy, they found, helped protect nerve fibers from dying and promoted new growth of fibers into, as well as beyond, the area of injury.

"This work opens up new possibilities for treatments for spinal cord-injured humans," Bunge said in a statement.

Naomi Kleitman, director of spinal cord injury research at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, said that in the future "it should be feasible to consider developing a clinical trial in this area" for injured people.

Each part of the therapy was hailed in its own day as promising, but none provided much nerve growth, Kleitman said.

The new work combining them is significant, added Kleitman, who formerly worked at Miami but was not part of the research.

The therapy included administration of the drug Rolipram near the time of injury and, up to one week later, transplantation of nerve cells called Schwann cells and administration of cyclic adenosine monophosphate, or cAMP. The Rolipram helped protect the damaged nerve cells from further injury. The Schwann cells and cAMP spurred regrowth.

The research was supported by the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis and the Buoniconti Fund.

___

On the Net:

Nature Medicine: http://www.nature.com/naturemedicine

Mossad Goes On-Line to Recruit Spies...and Waiters

May 24, 10:29 am ET 

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM  - The Israeli spy agency Mossad emerged from the shadows on Monday when it launched a Web site to attract recruits for "special tasks" -- as well as intelligence analysts, waiters and drivers.

Long a secretive elite, Mossad is raising its profile to compete with the private sector in the search for talent.

"Mossad's mainstay is its people," reads the site's (www.mossad.gov.il) foreword by agency chief Meir Dagan, posted next to backlit photographs of unnamed intelligence analysts at their desks.

The launch of the site is the spy agency's second break with the era of the old-boy network whereby veteran agents would tap their friends when job openings appeared.

Dagan's predecessor Efraim Halevy began the trend in 2000 by placing advertisements for case officers in the Israeli press -- a big change for an agency whose motto is the biblical proverb "Without subterfuge, the nation falls."

Halevy argued market forces took precedence over mystique.

"The days when a security career was seen as the be-all and end-all of Israeli citizenship are over," he told The News Source. "Now we are an open society, and Mossad has had to appeal to the widest range of talented applicants who might otherwise head for hi-tech or other private sectors."

For decades, Mossad had a reputation for deadly derring-do.

In 1960, its agents captured Nazi fugitive Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. After 11 Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinian gunmen at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Mossad hunted for the masterminds, killing some of them.

But Mossad has also been embarrassed by a series of bungles. In 1997 its agents botched an attempt on the life of a leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Jordan. In 1998 a Mossad team was arrested in Switzerland while spying on a local man believed linked to Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas.

Mossad's U.S. counterpart, the Central Intelligence Agency, has had a Web site since 1995. But Yossi Melman, senior security correspondent for Haaretz newspaper, said it was too early to trumpet a new American-style transparency in Mossad.

"This is basically a belated employment move which Mossad is making the most of," Melman said, noting that the Web site advertises for English-speaking waiters and bus drivers as well as analysts, translators and agents for "special tasks."

Hitler Heir Doesn't Want 'Mein Kampf' Royalties

May 24, 9:50 am ET 

BERLIN  - A German historian said Sunday a distant relative of Adolf Hitler could sue the state of Bavaria for royalties from the Nazi dictator's book "Mein Kampf" but the retired Austrian engineer said he wants no part of it.

Werner Maser told Bild am Sonntag that Peter Raubal, whose father Leo Raubal was a nephew of Hitler, would have a strong chance of winning the copyright from Bavaria, which was given the German rights to the book by the postwar occupying powers.

"Peter Raubal is the only heir of Hitler that I know of," Maser said. "As the closest relative alive, he could claim royalties from Hitler's book 'Mein Kampf'. Raubal would have to sue Bavaria. I am quite certain he would win."

Hitler died with no immediate heirs but Leo Raubal was one of his half-sister Angela Raubal's children. Maser said Leo Raubal long considered such a lawsuit before his death in 1979. Bild am Sonntag said royalties could be worth millions of euros.

"Yes I know the whole story about Hitler's inheritance," Peter Raubal told Bild am Sonntag in what the paper said were his first public comments on the issue. "But I don't want to have anything to do with it. I will not do anything about it. I only want to be left alone."

In Germany, it is illegal to distribute "Mein Kampf" except in limited circumstances. Nazi symbols like the swastika and the stiff-armed Hitler salute are also banned. "Mein Kampf" is available online and in most countries, including Israel.

Hitler dictated the tome to his secretary Rudolf Hess while in prison in Bavaria following the failed Munich "Beer Hall" putsch of 1923. It outlines a doctrine of German racial supremacy and ambitions to annex vast areas of the Soviet Union.

Published in 1925, it became a school textbook after Hitler won power in 1933. All German newlyweds also received a copy.

Now, purchasers who can prove an academic purpose may secure an existing copy but otherwise sales are banned and Bavaria refused to authorize new copies. The Allied Control Commission assigned Bavaria the rights to Hitler's assets in 1946.

Homer's 'Iliad' Now in 'Messenger Speak'

May 24, 9:37 am ET 

LONDON  - Homer's ancient Greek poem "The Iliad," the basis for Hollywood blockbuster "Troy," has been compressed for a new generation too lazy to see the film let alone read the 24-book epic that runs to over 15,000 lines.

The first five books of the centuries-old tale, set in the final year of the Trojan War -- which began when Trojan Paris snatched Helen (the face that launched a thousand ships) from Greece -- are now available in the language people use when sending instant messages, Microsoft said on Monday.

Book Two is reduced to just 24 words of 'messenger speak', losing some of the lyricism of the original. "Agamemnon hd a dream: Troy not defended. Ordered attack! But Trojans knew they were coming n were prepared. Achilles sat sulking in his tent."

The translation, designed to publicize Microsoft's messenger product, is not written in Homer's dactylic hexameters but it does use 'emoticons' little faces or images -- to emphasize intense moments.

First Janet Jackson, Now Nipple Video Banned

May 21, 11:42 am ET 

DUBLIN  - Four months after Janet Jackson outraged the United States by bearing her breast on TV, Ireland has banned a video to encourage voting in next month's European elections because it shows a bare nipple.

In Britain, where bare breasts are shown daily in tabloid newspapers, the film will be shown in censored form. The breast-feeding sequence survives but shots of the offending nipple have been edited out.

The 45-second film was produced by the European Parliament's audio-visual department and shows a suckling baby trying to decide which of its mother's breasts to feed from.

The idea is to show people making choices -- like voters at the ballot box.

While the sight of a baby suckling at its mother's breast is considered acceptable for hundreds of millions of other Europeans, Irish officials believe it would cause offence in Roman Catholic Ireland.

"I decided that due to sensitivities here, this is not the right image to promote anything in Ireland, unless it is of a medical or scientific nature," the head of the European Parliament's Irish office, Jim O'Brien, said.

Ireland, where over 90 percent of the population is Catholic, is traditionally conservative on issues of sexuality. Abortion is illegal and homosexuality was decriminalized only in 1993.

Jackson caused a furor in February when in a Super Bowl halftime performance her duet partner Justin Timberlake ripped open her costume to expose her right breast during a live coast-to-coast telecast by American network CBS.

In Britain, film advert regulators found the suckling shot racy, likening the image to "the sort of breast shot you would associate with a men's magazine."

A member of the four-man, four-woman Cinema Advertising Association (CAA) panel, which took the decision, said they found that they ended up looking at the breast and not the baby.

"It was literally the breast full screen size with an erect nipple side on and the infant gazing across at them," said Greg Lyons, a copy consultant at the CAA.

"The panel found themselves looking at something that was very difficult for them," he said. "The infant was contemplating the breasts in rather an adult way."

Rosie Dodds, policy research officer for Britain's National Childbirth Trust, said the advert could have been innovative and striking.

"I do think it is a pity that we make the link between the sexuality of breasts and their nutritive function," she said.

'Good Thief' Leaves Apology for Burgled Charity

May 21, 11:25 am ET 

AMSTERDAM  - A Dutch thief left an apologetic letter and promised a donation after he realized he was burgling a charity that helps the poor and elderly.

The thief's remorseful handwritten letter praised charity group Humanitas for its work and agonized over the effect the burglary would have on his conscience.

"I have only eaten some biscuits from the tin and some Easter eggs. When I'm less hard up I will make a small contribution to your account," said the account of the letter published on the Humanitas Web site (www.humanitas.nl).

Humanitas said it has no plans to file a police report on the break-in at its office in Arnhem, near the German border.

"Of course it's a nuisance there was a burglary, but it leaves a good feeling that there are still good thieves," the Web site said.

What Is She Thinking About During Sex?

May 21, 11:08 am ET 

BERLIN  - Women watching erotic films are stimulated in a part of the brain associated with planning and emotion, research from scientists in Germany said Friday.

When scientists from Essen University put volunteers in a brain scanning tube and showed them pornography they found both men and women showed activity in the temporal lobes linked to memory and perception, but only women used their frontal lobes.

Unfortunately the researchers were not able to determine if their findings meant that while men lost themselves in the moment the busy modern professional woman was also planning her wardrobe, scheduling the vacation and juggling her tax receipts.

"We don't know why these differences between men and women exist. They just do," said institute director Michael Forsting.

War College Predictions Proving Accurate

Mon May 24, 6:27 PM ET Add U.S. National - 

By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, News Source Writer

WASHINGTON - In the months before the invasion of Iraq (news - web sites), some senior faculty members at the Army War College predicted several of the problems the Bush administration is facing more than a year into the occupation.

A paper, "Reconstructing Iraq: Insights, Challenges, and Missions for Military Forces in a Post-Conflict Scenario," was published in February 2003, written by Conrad C. Crane and Andrew Terrill for the college's Strategic Studies Institute.

Parts of it seem prescient, suggesting that any U.S. occupation would face increasing resistance as time passed. The authors suggested the occupation would have roughly a year of goodwill before resentment mounted. The U.S.-led invasion began in March 2003.

"After the first year, the possibility of a serious uprising may increase should severe disillusionment set in and Iraqis begin to draw parallels between U.S. actions and historical examples of Western imperialism," the authors wrote.

The paper also predicted U.S. forces would face suicide bombings and resistance tactics aimed at eroding public support for the occupation.

"Any expansion of terrorism or guerrilla activity against U.S. troops in Iraq will undoubtedly require a forceful American response. Such U.S actions could involve a dramatic escalation in the numbers of arrests, interrogations, and detentions of local Iraqis. While such actions do improve security and force protection, they seldom win friends among the local citizenry. Individuals alienated from the U.S. occupation could well have their hostility deepened and increased by these acts," the paper warned.

The dangers in Iraq are magnified by the fact that most Americans have little understanding of the society there, the report said.

One piece of advice from the authors was not followed, when occupation forces disbanded the Iraqi regular army.

"To tear apart the army in the war's aftermath could lead to the destruction of one of the only forces for unity within the society," the report said. "Breaking up large elements of the army also raises the possibility that demobilized soldiers could affiliate with ethnic or tribal militias."

With the exception of disbanding the Army, the U.S. government generally seems to be following the reconstruction strategy described in the paper, rebuilding infrastructure and setting up police forces.

"The possibility of the United States winning the war and losing the peace in Iraq is real and serious," it warned. "Rehabilitating Iraq will consequently be an important challenge that threatens to consume huge amounts of resources without guaranteed results."

___

On the Net:

http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pubs/2003/reconirq/reconirq.htm 

France Rejects God Reference in EU Draft

1 hour, 22 minutes ago Add World - 

By CONSTANT BRAND, News Source Writer

BRUSSELS, Belgium - France said Monday it could not accept references to God and Christianity in a European Union (news - web sites) constitution.

France and Belgium have been most opposed to religious references in the charter, while Italy and Poland, backed by Pope John Paul (news - web sites) II, want the charter to acknowledge Christianity's role.

"I think the text as is, is a balanced one," said French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said. "The text already includes a mention to heritage."

The 25 EU foreign ministers set down for a new session of negotiations, one week after talks failed to narrow deep differences over a constitutional draft, which should be finalized by the June 17-18 summit of government leaders.

The constitution seeks to simplify decision-making in the EU and prevent a minority of states from blocking decisions.

The place of religion in the charter's preamble has been hotly debated since negotiations on the constitution began in early 2002.

Foreign ministers from Poland, Italy, Portugal, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia and the Czech Republic proposed a "further attention to a reference to the Christian roots of Europe," at an EU meeting to overcome difference on the constitution.

"The amendment we ask for is aimed to recognize a historical truth," the seven ministers said in a statement. "We do not want to disregard neither the secular nature (of the EU) ... nor the respect of any other religious or philosophical belief."

France wants to stick to the current text which says the EU draws "inspiration from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe."

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw also backed the current text, warning that any mention of Christianity would mean "we have to bear in mind other religions as well."

___

On the Net:

Future of the Europe Union: http://europa.eu.int/futurum/index_en.htm 

Briton is first to fly microlight around Everest 49 minutes ago

LONDON (NEWS SOURCE) - A British adventurer laid claim to being the first to fly around Mount Everest (news - web sites), at 8,848 meters (29,028 feet) the world's highest peak, in a microlight aircraft.

Richard Meredith-Hardy, 46, took off from a base camp 25 kilometres (15 miles) away, then braved potentially dangerous downdrafts to reach the summit where he waved to "a shedload of climbers" and snapped photos.

"This place is seriously big," he said, according to a statement from his ground crew sent to NEWS SOURCE in London, "and we were lucky to get a break in the weather just days before we have to go home."

Meredith-Hardy, a two-time World Microlight Champion, made his flight in a British-built Pegasus XL-S powered by a Rotax turbo engine that was specially rigged to keep his flying suit warm.

His account of his feat, and photos, have been posted on www.flymicro.com. 

We must speak the truth about terror. Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th; malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty. To inflame ethnic hatred is to advance the cause of terror. 
November 10, 2001 
- President Bush Speaks to United Nations 

Tape Details Nixon Drinking Incident 

Wed May 26, 9:01 PM ET 
Add U.S. National - 

By CALVIN WOODWARD, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - As his presidency unraveled, Richard Nixon was too "loaded" to take an urgent call during the Arab-Israeli war and joked darkly about bombing Congress during impeachment hearings, according to transcripts of foreign policy chief Henry Kissinger's phone calls. 

Related Links
� Transcript of Kissinger Call (The Smoking Gun)

With Watergate bearing down and resignation just months away, Nixon also pushed ideas that Kissinger feared could start a war, according to phone calls among more than 20,000 pages of transcripts released Wednesday by the National Archives. 

Kissinger, who was Nixon's national security adviser and then secretary of state, guarded the privacy of the records for three decades before agreeing to let them go to the Archives for public consumption. They had been held sealed at the Library of Congress (news - web sites). 

Kissinger, now a foreign policy consultant, had secretaries tape the calls and make transcripts or listen and take shorthand. The calls spanned the monumental events of the time - the Vietnam War, the secret opening to China, crackling superpower tensions, Middle East conflict and Nixon's downfall. 

On the night of Oct. 11, 1973, just days into the Arab-Israeli War and with the United States and Soviet Union on a seeming collision course, British Prime Minister Edward Heath tried to reach Nixon by phone to discuss the crisis. 

"Can we tell them 'No?'" Kissinger asked his assistant, Brent Scowcroft, who had told him of the request from 10 Downing Street. "When I talked to the president, he was loaded." 

"We could tell him the president is not available and perhaps he can call you," Scowcroft replied. 

Kissinger said Nixon would be available in the morning. 

In March 1974, a month after the House voted to press ahead with impeachment proceedings and five months before Nixon resigned, Kissinger fretted about the president's state of mind in a phone call with White House aide Alexander Haig. 

"I am calling you about something the president said this morning which rather disturbed me," Kissinger said. "He was in a rather sour mood." 

"Yes, that is conceivable," Haig said. 

Kissinger went on to complain that Nixon was being too tough on Israeli allies and "has been just waiting for an opportunity to lay into them. ... Now I tell you if he goes publicly after the Israelis, he might as well start a war." 

Haig said Nixon was, "just unwinding," and mentioned that the president had told him to fetch the "football" - the briefcase with the codes to unleash nuclear weapons. 

"For what?" Kissinger asked. 

"He is going to drop it on the Hill," Haig said. "What I am saying is, don't take him too seriously." 

At the time, Kissinger was doubling as national security adviser and secretary of state, his dual titles testifying to his influence with Nixon. 

But Nixon did not tell him everything. On Oct. 12, 1973, the day after Nixon's supposed night with the bottle, Kissinger knew Nixon was announcing a new vice president to replace Spiro Agnew, who had resigned. But Kissinger did not know whom Nixon had chosen. 

On the phone with Haig, Kissinger said he could go along with Nelson Rockefeller - "that gives me no pain" - or anyone except former Texas Gov. John Connally - "a no-no." Nixon picked Gerald Ford. 

A window into detente, the transcripts also show the rapport Kissinger and Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin developed even in times of extreme tension and bitter public words. 

The two men established a channel as early as 1969, often meeting without secretaries or interpreters. 

Indeed, Kissinger was having lunch with Dobrynin when Democratic Sen. Hubert Humphrey called to complain about the Soviet's rearming Arabs faster than Washington was sending planes to Israel. 

"How do we know the Russians aren't fooling us?" Humphrey demanded. 

"If the Russians are fooling us, we know what we will have to do," Kissinger replied. 

The records show his Soviet guest was in the dining room with him during this talk. 

Although Kissinger's days were piled high with foreign crises, he found time for show biz stars, chatting with Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Warren Beatty and other Hollywood figures. John Wayne called to tell him he had an eye problem - one iris was opening faster than the other. 

"It's not just politics, but also in many respects about American culture," said Karl Weissenbach, who oversaw the opening of the records as director of the Nixon presidential materials staff at the Archives. 

In 1973, Kissinger was helping Beatty pitch an idea to the Soviets and told him to send it in a letter to the Soviet Embassy, "and if you send me a copy, I can sort of keep an eye on it." 

Records from the final months indicate the degree to which Nixon was distracted and his staff was glum. 

"The president has approved this thing," Kissinger said of some unspecified proposal on Aug. 3, 1974, five days before Nixon's resignation. "Although I am not quite sure he knew what he was approving." 

A few days later, another caller asked Kissinger if the president was "rational." 

"It's pretty rough," Kissinger replied. He went on to say: "Some awful mistakes were made by the president but he doesn't deserve this."

Physicist: Cosmos Is Shaped Like the Eiffel Tower

Wed May 26, 1:47 PM ET 
Add Science 

BERLIN  - The universe looks like the Eiffel Tower topped with a never-ending spire, a German physicist said Wednesday. 

Missed Tech Tuesday?
Will the next version of Windows be revolutionary or the same old same old? Get a sense for what's coming -- then stay safe with the latest service pack and get some XP tips. 

Researchers in Ulm, birthplace of Albert Einstein, have developed a model of the universe as an elongated triangle like the Paris landmark, but with a spire going on and on. 

The team at Ulm University hopes their model will revolutionize understanding of the universe. Visualisations are difficult because scientists have mathematical proof the universe has an infinite form but a finite volume. 

"Previously, scientists have dodged fundamental problems to create models of the universe but all existing knowledge of quantum physics supports our model," Frank Steiner, professor of theoretical physics, said when asked about an Internet report on the team's work. 

"This research has not been published yet but the unofficial response in the scientific world so far has been positive," he told The News Source. 

Earlier models, such as one in which the cosmos looks like a huge football, have been widely disputed by physicists.

Use Roses to Ward Off Burglars, British Police Say

May 27, 8:04 am ET 

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON  - Homeowners who strategically use roses, cockle shells and high fences in their gardens will provide a first line of defense against burglars, British police at London's annual Chelsea Flower Show said.

To illustrate the point, the Metropolitan Police have constructed a show garden at this year's London flower fest, the place to be seen at the start of the British summer calendar.

"Traditionally people have believed that their defense perimeter began at the house. We are pointing out that it in fact starts at the garden fence," detective inspector Paul Anstee told The News Source at the premier social event.

Garden fences should be at least 1.6 meters high and topped by something prickly, sheds should be double-locked, outside lights on all night, pathways made of something that makes a noise and garden ornaments alarmed, Anstee said.

There is even a climbing rose specially named "New Scotland Yard" after the Metropolitan Police Service's London headquarters, and the garden path is made of cockle shells which make a crunching noise when stepped on.

"Instead of barbed wire on top of the fence we suggest you could plant climbing roses or holly -- something aesthetic used in a creative way to supplement your barrier," Anstee said. "It makes it secure and is attractive as well."

Theft of garden tools and ornaments is a common nuisance during the northern hemisphere summer and also a danger, since such stolen tools often provide would-be thieves with a means of access to the house.

"We show how you can secure garden ornaments or wire them up so they set off an alarm if they are moved," Anstee said.

Moonlighting Cops Star in Porn Movie?

May 27, 7:56 am ET 

SAN FRANCISCO  - Two San Francisco police officers have come under investigation after their departments discovered they had starred in a pornographic movie entitled "Bus Stop Whores" that is circulating on the Internet.

The officers, Kelly Francisco of the San Francisco Sheriff's Department and Darryl Watts of the city's police department, play a prostitute and a john in the film, whose teaser is, "These girls won't ride a bus today!" according to local news reports.

The two are being investigated for any violations of criminal law or administrative rules, but have not faced disciplinary action, department representatives said on Wednesday.

Watts has been taken off patrol duty and reassigned to an administrative position pending the outcome of the investigation, said Maria Oropeza, an SFPD spokeswoman. Francisco continues to work as an institutional officer at San Francisco General Hospital, said Sheriff's Department chief of staff Eileen Hirst.

Attempts to reach the two officers for comment were unsuccessful.

Used Underwear...Get Your Used Underwear...

May 27, 7:49 am ET 

By Christine Kearney

NEW YORK  - In the latest act of sanitizing New York's mean streets, lawmakers want to rid the city of a scourge most people are not even aware of -- previously worn lingerie being sold as new merchandise.

Council members are mulling the proposed legislation after watching a local television news broadcast which claimed leading department stores, including Saks Fifth Avenue and Macy's, had tried to resell returned undergarments.

Under current law, stores do not have to state whether undergarments on sale, including women's panties and thongs, have been bought and returned, although certain stores have developed their own policies.

"This is a major consumer and health issue in that the amount of bacteria that can be transported from one person to another in just one wearing can be a health hazard," said council member Tony Avella.

"When you talk about it people start to giggle as it is a tough subject to discuss."

Spokeswoman Elina Kazan said Macy's does not sell worn undergarments and posts signs in changing rooms that intimate apparel should not be tried on for size on top of bare skin.

"We train our associates to inspect the merchandise upon return and if in salable condition, return it to the sales floor," she said. "Any items that are soiled ... are not returned to the floor."

The council plans further discussions to decide if the bill should exclude brassieres, undershirts, socks and bathing suits, before being put to a council vote later this year.

Saks did not return calls for comment.

Donald Halperin of the New York Metropolitan Retailers Association said the issue was mainly about women's undergarments because women care more about such issues more than men.

Jaguar Chided for Sexy Marketing Letter

May 26, 11:17 am ET 

LONDON  - Luxury automaker Jaguar went too far with a steamy promotional mailing to prospective customers, UK advertising regulators said on Wednesday.

The Valentine's Day letter was signed "Elizabeth Jones" in a version sent to men and "Ian Major" in another sent to women.

It read: "So, what might drive you wild? Could it be the touch of skin on your fingertips? A long, honed body? Firm sensuous curves? A deep, responsive purr? ... I think I have the perfect match for you. I'll send you a photograph next week."

A subsequent mailing contained information on Jaguar's XKR sports car.

Dozens of people who received the letter complained to Britain's Advertising Standards Authority, which ruled that the mailing was "sexually suggestive and, because it did not make clear that it was a marketing communication, was likely to offend or distress some recipients."

Jaguar apologized and agreed not to send similar mailings in the future.

It has been a bumpy week for the automaker's marketing department. On Sunday a $200,000 diamond affixed to the nose of a Jaguar Formula One car as part of a sponsorship deal went missing when the team's rookie driver crashed into a guardrail during the Monaco Grand Prix.

Law on Pizza Purity a Mouthful

May 26, 11:15 am ET 

By Philip Pullella

ROME  - It may be too early to talk about Pizza Police, but Italian legislators are mulling a detailed draft law laying down rules to protect real Neapolitan pizza.

The draft law to separate pure pizza from the putative kind -- all three pages, eight articles and six sub-clauses of it -- was published under the state seal in the Official Gazzette on Tuesday.

It decrees that a Nepolitan pizza must be round and no more than 35 centimeters in diameter. The center should not be higher than 0.3 cm and the crust cannot rise over two centimeters.

The law specifies what kind of flour, salt, and yeast and tomatoes have to be used. The sub clauses go even further.

Margherita, the classic type, must be topped not with just any type of mozzarella but mozzarella "from the southern appenine" mountains.

And restaurateurs beware, you can't call a pizza a "Margherita extra" unless it is topped with mozzarella made from buffalo milk -- a southern Italian specialty.

Rolling pins are blasphemous and dough machines are heretical. The law says the dough must be kneaded by hand. Take a whiff of this phrase from a government document that usually offers the latest on tax brackets and bilateral trade:" On the whole, the pizza must be soft, elastic and easily foldable in half to form a 'libretto"'

If made to specifications, restaurants can label their pizzas STG, or Guaranteed Traditional Specialty.

Neapolitan pizza makers convinced the agriculture ministry to work up the law to protect their craft from bogus copies.

The law, which can be modified ahead of becoming effective, makes provisions for "controls" on restaurants but gives no details.

In a front-page story Wednesday, Italy's leading financial daily, Il Sole 24 Ore, gave it a half-baked review.

"It's useless to close the stable door now that the horse has bolted," the paper said, noting that people and restaurants the world over were making pizza any way they wanted.

If Your Husband Has a Porsche, Follow Him

May 26, 11:09 am ET 

BERLIN  - Don't trust a man with a fast car.

Porsche drivers are less faithful than any other group of car owners, with almost 50 percent of them cheating on their partners, a survey published in German magazine "Men's Car" has revealed.

Among German men, Porsche drivers were the least faithful, with 49 percent admitting infidelity, followed by BMW drivers at 46 percent. Among women, Audi drivers were the least reliable, 41 percent admitting to affairs.

The most faithful group were owners of Opel-Vauxhall cars, with only 31 percent of male and 28 percent of female drivers in Germany having committed adultery.

The survey was carried out by Hamburg-based opinion poll institute Gewis, which questioned 2,253 male and female drivers aged 20 to 50. The results follow similar findings from the same magazine showing that male BMW drivers had the most sex.

Playing with Their Food

May 26, 10:58 am ET 

HAMBURG, Germany  - The sound of 90 pounds of finely tuned cucumbers, leeks, potatoes, radishes, peppers, aubergines and marrows entertained a German audience at a weekend concert by the Viennese Vegetable Orchestra.

The nine-piece orchestra plays a range of original compositions on instruments constructed from vegetables -- including a flute made from a carrot, a saxophone carved out of a cucumber and a pumpkin converted into a double bass.

"I would never have thought you could get sound out of a cucumber," a young woman at the concert said. Others commented on the raw vegetable aroma accompanying the melodies.

The Austrian ensemble, three women and six men, said their instruments are freshly sliced and put together only an hour before each performance to enhance the sound. Size, texture and water content are vital to achieving the correct sound.

"Ordinary vegetables work better together than organic vegetables," said Matthias Meinharter, who plays a violin fashioned from leeks.

The musicians must also work against the clock. To protect their instruments from drying out during the performance, they place damp cloths around the vegetables when they're not in use.

At the end of the performance, the instruments were turned into vegetable soup.

Snail Mail Takes 3 Years to Travel 30 Miles

May 27, 7:46 am ET 

DHAKA  - Red-faced postal officials in Bangladesh are investigating why it took almost three years to deliver a letter just 50 km (30 miles) to a mill worker who had died in the meantime.

The family of rice mill worker Assiruddin Moral posted the letter in northwestern Dinajpur district on June 13, 2001. It reached his workplace in the nearby Nilphamari district, only 50 km away, on Monday.

Managers at the mill refused to take the letter, saying that Moral had died 15 months ago, local officials said on Thursday.

They said snail mail in Bangladesh often meant letters failed to reach intended recipients, who may have left their jobs or moved to other areas while the mail was in the post.

But the latest delay was the first known case in recent times of the recipient having died before receiving the letter.

Postal officials said they had launched an investigation.

Delivery People Urged to Rat Out Minors 

2 hours, 12 minutes ago

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - The long arm of the law may be ringing your doorbell and holding a pizza. 

Police in Portsmouth hope to enlist pizza delivery people and hotel clerks to help cut into underage drinking and parents who allow it. 

Under a new law, it's illegal for the owner or occupants of a home or hotel room to host a gathering of five or more minors who are drinking or using drugs. Teens as young as 17 who throw a party could be tried as adults. 

Portsmouth Police Sergeant Mike Schwartz said the program is called the "Booze Bounty." He said food delivery people and hotel clerks would receive $50 if their anonymous tips of suspicious activity leads to the arrest of a party host. 

"The message being sent to parents is that it's not safe for them to host a party," said Jackie Valley, of the Community Diversion Program in Greenland, which works to keep at-risk youths out of trouble with the law. "This doesn't change the fact that youths using alcohol is still illegal."

Pentagon surprised by Bush pledge to destroy Abu Ghraib: report 56 minutes ago Add Politics - NEWS SOURCE 

WASHINGTON (NEWS SOURCE) - Pentagon (news - web sites) officials were caught by surprise by President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s announcement on Tuesday that the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad was to be torn down.

"This office was not aware of any plans to raze Abu Ghraib or build another prison," a Pentagon spokesman told The New York Times, insisting that he remain anonymous lest he was seen as contradicting the president.

A White House official, who also asked not to be identified, told the daily it was Bush's idea to include the announcement in a speech Tuesday, in which he outlined his strategy to hand over power to an interim Iraqi government on June 30.

The official said Bush had discussed the idea of destroying Abu Ghraib, which has become a symbol of the US military's abuse of Iraqi prisoners, with his war cabinet and US overseer in Iraq (news - web sites) Paul Bremer.

Bremer, in turn, consulted with Iraqis and General Geoffrey Miller, who is in charge of detention operations in Iraq, and replied to Bush that it was a good plan, the White House official said.

It was unclear if Bush's war cabinet included Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, or, if it did, whether Rumsfeld passed on the information on Abu Ghraib to his subordinates at the Pentagon.

Bush's announcement also surprised US lawmakers, including the Senate subcommittee which oversees reconstruction spending in Iraq, the daily said.

Separately, The New York Times on Thursday quoted Miller as saying that Abu Ghraib, already used during the regime of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) as a torture and execution center, would be vacated by US forces by August. 

Immigrants Outlive U.S.-Born Residents

32 minutes ago Add U.S. National - 

By JUSTIN PRITCHARD, News Source Writer

SAN FRANCISCO - Immigrants who come to the United States live an average of three years longer than people born here, new research shows in a surprising finding that challenges some common beliefs.

A growing body of evidence indicates the life span difference reflects both immigrants' innate vitality and their reluctance to embrace Americans' drive-thru, drive-everywhere mentality. They also smoke less.

The life expectancy deficit is true for all races but is most dramatic among blacks. Immigrant black men live nine years longer than black men born in the United States, according to an analysis by a National Institutes of Health (news - web sites) researcher.

The study reviewed millions of death and health records from 1986-94. Though the numbers are old, more limited studies of recent data suggest the same patterns hold true, although life expectancy is generally rising.

The records showed the average American-born black man could expect to reach 64, while a black man born overseas would likely live beyond 73 if he immigrated. In the case of an African-born man remaining in his homeland, he might well have died before his 50th birthday.

Perhaps most astonishing is that immigrants outlive the U.S.-born population even though they're more likely to be poor and less likely to see a doctor, often a prescription for a shorter life.

Such results may seem counterintuitive, but their explanation makes sense.

Lifestyle is a powerful factor. Black immigrants are three times less likely to smoke than American-born blacks, according to NIH research, and far less likely to be obese. Black immigrants drink less and exercise more, according to other federal research.

It is not surprising, then, that national health statistics show black immigrants are far less likely than U.S.-born blacks to die of everything from lung cancer to liver cirrhosis.

Obesity, too, is far more prevalent among American-born residents. Data from the mid-1990s showed that 22 percent of adult immigrants were obese, compared to 28 percent of U.S.-born adults. (Recent numbers suggest about 30 percent of all U.S. residents are obese.)

The smoking numbers were even more dramatic: 18 percent of immigrants smoked, compared to 26 percent of U.S.-born adults.

There are other factors, too, experts say: Immigrants are likely the most physically active, vigorous citizens in their homelands. They must be resilient to journey here and spread roots. They tend to benefit from stress-reducing social support networks and an outlook that, even when poor, they're better off than before.

Some doctors have long suspected that immigrants live longer. But the findings surprise some immigrant advocates who focus more on federal policies other than health.

"People have a misconception that immigrants have poorer health, but when you look at the empirical data ... you almost always find they do better than their U.S.-born counterparts," says Gopal K. Singh, an NIH statistician. His research, published this month in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, reported that immigrant life expectancy surpassed 78, while U.S.-born life expectancy hovered at 75. (Current U.S. life expectancy is over 77 years.)

Singh found that immigrants tend to live longer, regardless of race. The difference is greatest among blacks and Hispanics, who have nearly a four-year gap between immigrants and native-born. Implicated to a lesser extent are whites and Asians/Pacific Islanders, the group with the longest life expectancy.

As they assimilate, however, many immigrants adopt bad health habits. Research by Singh and others suggest that, over time, immigrants behave like the American-born population - more smoke, drink and gain weight.

"Assimilation often means assimilation into eating too much Cheez Whiz," says Mark Krikorian, executive director Center for Immigration Studies.

In the end, however, immigrants appear to pass on to their children some of the health advantages they enjoy. Not that it's a piece of cake.

"There is tension over giving their child what they want - chips, fries or soda - when they know that's not the best thing to be eating," says Dr. Elena Fuentes-Afflick, an associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and pediatrician at the city's main public hospital.

Parents such as Mexican-born Gricelda Aguilar must brace their own impulses against pressures to indulge their kids, who see classmates relishing fast food.

"I prefer to prepare food in the home, like my mama taught me," the mother of four says as she waits at San Francisco General Hospital for a doctor to diagnose her daughter's stomachache.

The fact that Aguilar's 15-year-old, Marili, is seeing a doctor is itself unusual. Just 26 percent of low-income Hispanic kids who aren't U.S. citizens have health care, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

As when she grew up, Aguilar grows essential ingredients, including corn and lettuce, in a garden patch at her home. A typical dinner of rice, beans, chicken and salad has something like 600 calories, nutritionists estimate. A hamburger-fries-and-soda splurge at Denny's or Sizzler like her U.S.-born daughter of 12 enjoys would tally a few hundred extra calories.

In part because of her diet, Mexican-born women like Aguilar can expect to live past 83, according to new data from the Public Policy Institute of California. Their U.S.-born daughters can expect to die before reaching 82. 

Full Moon Not to Blame for Epileptic Seizures

Wed May 26, 9:54 AM ET 
Add Science - Space.com 

By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer, SPACE.com 

The Full Moon has been blamed for many things, most often in error. And now another myth has apparently been cleared. Researchers at the University of South Florida report that the extra gravitational tug exerted during a Full Moon does not influence the frequency of epileptic seizures. 

Missed Tech Tuesday?
Will the next version of Windows be revolutionary or the same old same old? Get a sense for what's coming -- then stay safe with the latest service pack and get some XP tips. 

"Contrary to the myth, epileptic seizures are not more common during a Full Moon," said Selim Benbadis, associate professor of neurology and neurosurgery at the university's College of Medicine. "In fact, we found the number of epileptic seizures was lowest during the Full Moon and highest in the Moon's Last Quarter." 

The Sun, Earth and Moon line up in space to create a Full Moon. Ocean tides, created by both the Sun and Moon, are higher during a Full Moon (they're higher during the Moon's new phase, too). Even Earth's crust is constantly lifted and shifted by these tidal forces.

Supposed effects on humans and animals rarely if ever bear out in serious research.

Yet patients were claiming their seizures were triggered or worsened by the Full Moon, Benbadis said, and "even some health care professionals believe this, but it's never been scientifically tested."

So Benbadis and his colleagues analyzed 770 seizures recorded over three years at Tampa General Hospital, sorting them into epileptic seizures and other types. Of the epileptic seizures, 152 occurred during the Moon's Last Quarter and 94 when Earth's natural satellite was full. Another type of seizure, called psychogenic nonepileptic, increased slightly -- but not significantly -- during the Full Moon.

The study was announced yesterday and will be published in the journal Epilepsy & Behavior.

Other studies comparing the lunar phases to births, deaths, suicides and psychiatric hospital admissions have similarly found little or no connection. A study of dog behavior in 2001 yielded mixed results. Yet the history of epilepsy is not all medical. Its seizures were once pinned on witchcraft and possession by demons, Benbadis notes. Myths die hard.

"Some people still seem to like poetic, mysterious and irrational explanations for puzzling diseases like epilepsy," he said.

Florida Woman, 90, Earns Belated Diploma 

2 hours, 53 minutes ago

By JILL BARTON, News Source Writer 

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Uceba Babson used to trudge through flooded plains for more than a mile to reach her one-room schoolhouse, her lunch pail full of syrup-covered biscuits. 

That was before buses and roads came to rural Pahokee, and the swampy land made getting to school an adventure. But in 1931, Babson gave up her daily commute through Florida swamps to marry a vegetable farmer. 

She now has 81 grandchildren and great-grandchildren to hear her schoolgirl tales, but the end of the story always troubled her. So after outliving three husbands and letting seven decades pass since her last high school class, Babson decided it was time to go back to school. 

After two years of heard work, never missing a day of class, she took part in a graduation ceremony Tuesday night, a few months after her 90th birthday. She received a rousing standing ovation, a bouquet of red roses and a congratulatory letter from Gov. Jeb Bush. 

Babson - born before World War I broke out, before Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic Ocean, before women won the right to vote - now has new stories of getting to school. 

"I studied and studied, and then I learned I actually passed," Babson said. "A lot of it was memorizing. You had to remember the rules and at 90, it's hard." 

She tells of days that begin at 4 a.m. with a hot shower and water bottles to get her knees working. She drove herself in a 1997 Mercury on roads that didn't exist in her childhood. 

Inspired by a book about a man who was in his 90s when he started high school, Babson dove into her math, English, science and social studies courses. 

"I thought, 'If he can do it, there's no reason why I shouldn't,'" Babson said. "It gave me a purpose and I said, 'If it takes me five years, I'm going to do it.'" 

She spent many hours a day studying, learning in social studies about the wars that she had lived through and in science about the photosynthesis that helped her family's cornstalks grow. 

"I couldn't even pick up a magazine because I felt guilty because I thought I should pick up my books for school," Babson said. 

On her first day at the Adult Education Center, her classroom was nearly unrecognizable from the one-room schoolhouse in Pahokee she had left behind. The desks had computers and the seats were filled with people from Jamaica, Haiti and Latin America. 

"We all just blended together. It was wonderful," Babson said. 

The center helps students as young as 16 study for their high school equivalency diploma and helps others take exams and brush up on their English or writing skills. 

For Babson, whose quick gait and proud posture make her appear decades younger than she is, putting on her blue cap and gown and picking up her diploma is the culmination of a dream. 

"This is something I promised myself a long time ago," Babson said. "It's been a challenge, but a wonderful challenge."

Amnesty slams 'bankrupt' vision of US in damning human rights report 2 hours, 43 minutes ago  - NEWS SOURCE 

LONDON (NEWS SOURCE) - The United States has proved "bankrupt of vision and bereft of principle" in its fight against terrorism and invasion of Iraq (news - web sites), Amnesty International charged.

In its 2004 report on the state of human rights around the globe, the London-based group cited grave violations in dozens of other nations.

But it targeted in particular the "war on terror" initiated by US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) in the wake of the September 11 attacks in 2001 for sanctioning human rights abuses in the name of freedom.

The unilateral nature of the conflict to unseat Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in Iraq had additionally "virtually paralyzed" the United Nations (news - web sites)' role in guaranteeing human rights on a global level, the Amnesty report said Wednesday.

The 339-page document, detailing the human rights situation in 157 nations and territories, reserved the most column inches for the United States, with almost as many critical words also meted out to Russia and China.

Other perennial violators were also highlighted such as North Korea (news - web sites), Cuba, and the central Asian state of Turkmenistan where Amnesty summarised the situation simply as "appalling".

"The global security agenda promulgated by the US administration is bankrupt of vision and bereft of principle," wrote Amnesty's secretary general Irene Khan in the report's introduction.

"Sacrificing human rights in the name of security at home, turning a blind eye to abuses abroad and using pre-emptive military force where and when it chooses have neither increased security nor ensured liberty."

The notion of fighting a campaign against terrorism so as to support human rights, while simultaneously trampling on them to achieve this, was no more than "double speak", she said.

"The United States has lost its moral high ground and its ability to lead on peace and human rights elsewhere," Khan added at a press conference in London to launch the annual report.

The report also stated that events in 2003 had "dealt a mortal blow" to the UN's vision of universal human rights, with the global body "virtually paralysed in its efforts to hold states to account" over the issue.

"Not since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948 has there been such a sustained attack on (its) values and principles," Khan told the press conference.

While the report only briefly dealt with damning allegations that US and British troops tortured Iraqi prisoners -- these first came to light just last month -- it had harsh words about the two nations' overall record in Iraq.

"Coalition forces failed to live up fully to their responsibilities as occupying powers, including their duty to restore and maintain public order and safety, and to provide food, medical care and relief assistance," it said.

Elsewhere, Amnesty detailed a long list of abuses in Russia, where security forces "continue to enjoy almost total impunity for serious violations of human rights and international law" in the breakaway republic of Chechnya (news - web sites).

China, despite a new Communist government under President Hu Jintao, had made "no significant attempt" to end the use of torture and other abuses, which "remained widespread".

In the Middle East, both Israel and the Palestinian Authority (news - web sites) were taken to task, with Amnesty saying that some actions by the Israeli army, such as the destruction of property, "constituted war crimes".

One of the most damning assessments was handed to Cuba, which saw a "severe deterioration in the human rights situation" during 2003, most notably through the jailing of dozens of dissidents after "hasty and unfair" trials. 

Panel blames indoor mould for coughs, wheezes

Last Updated Tue, 25 May 2004 18:26:56 

WASHINGTON - Mould and damp conditions are associated with coughing, wheezing and asthma symptoms but there is no hard evidence of a link to other health problems, a U.S. scientific panel has concluded. 

Panelists from the Institute of Medicine reviewed the health effects of mould and recommended ways to prevent dampness and correct the problem in buildings. 

Excess dampness can promote the growth of fungal moulds, bacteria and dust mites. 

It was difficult to separate the health effects of mould exposure from other indoor environmental factors, said panel chair Noreen Clark, dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan. 

The panel concluded there is an association between damp buildings and upper respiratory tract symptoms in asthmatics who are sensitive to mould. 

But the committee said it was unable to find evidence linking mould to fatigue, neuropsychiatric disorders and other health problems some lawsuits have attributed to fungi. A connection cannot be ruled out, the panel added. 

Some indoor moulds produce toxins and damp spaces can support the growth of bacteria that can have toxic and inflammatory effects, the report said. 

Guidelines for preventing dampness should be promoted nationally for people who design, build and manage buildings, the panel said. 

The institute advises the U.S. government on scientific matters. The study was funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. 

Written by CBC News Online staff

In Video Games, Everything Old Is New Again

Sun May 23, 3:40 PM ET 
Add Technology 

By Ben Berkowitz 

LOS ANGELES  - Hold on to something long enough, the theory goes -- a car, a tie or even a hairstyle -- and eventually it will be cool again. 

And so it goes with video games, where today's fans can't get enough of games that were popular when their parents were kids, and quarter-a-game arcade machines now sell for thousands of dollars each. 

In a nod to the nostalgia boom for classic video games, the Electronic Entertainment Expo -- E3 -- the industry's major trade show, a forum devoted to hyping the latest in game technology, last week also organized a tribute to old-school pixilated fun. 

Featuring classic arcade cabinets like "Ms. Pac-Man," "Popeye," "Donkey Kong," "Punch-Out" and "Space Age," and well-loved home consoles like the Nintendo (news - web sites) Entertainment System, Sega Genesis and 3DO, this year's expo drew fans nostalgic for the days when playing a game meant little more than mashing one or two buttons over and over again. 

"These games are designed to be addictive," said Keith Robinson, president of Intellivision Productions, lamenting the fact that modern games are designed more for sneaking around dark corners and exploring vast mostly fictitious lands than the simple fun of trying to rack up high scores. 

Robinson, one of the original programers for the 1980s' Intellivision game system, is one of the "Blue Sky Rangers," a tight-knit group of former Intellivision programers who continue to work together on various projects. 

WHAT'S OLD IS NEW AGAIN 

In fact, even as the modern games industry gets bigger and bigger, classic gaming is very much in vogue. 

Collections of throwback arcade games are available for consoles, handhelds, personal digital assistants and cell phones, and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) has announced it will launch an arcade featuring some classics such as the race favorite "Pole Position" on its Xbox (news - web sites) Live online gaming service later this year. 

One of the organizers of the Los Angeles Classic Gaming Expo, Joe Santulli, said the adults who own and play today's games grew up playing the kinds of games he has on display. 

"There's the memories," he said. "Naturally, a childhood should bring happy thoughts of a simpler time." 

And while new versions of old games are popular sellers, the originals are worth more money than some ever imagined. 

At the E3 event, the organizers offered a flyer from a southern California shop selling pinball machines, redemption games and arcade cabinets from about $400 to nearly $7,000. 

On eBay, a brisk business in old consoles has some systems, bundled with games and accessories, selling for well over $300, some of them even in various stages of disrepair. 

PSSST, WANT TO BUY A VIDEO GAME? 

Commercially, games have come a long way from the early 1980s, when game developers, like early underground hip-hop DJs, resorted to selling their wares out of the trunks of their cars, often packaged in plastic baggies. 

"We didn't have advertising -- you found these things in a Laundromat," said George Sanger, a legend in video game history for his work on game audio whose nickname "Fat Man" belies his slight frame. 

"We started in Mom's basement," Sanger said. "We had nothing to work with but two bits and a six-pack of Jolt." 

But he said some of the creativity has been lost in modern games, vast and expensive undertakings that involve dozens of people that can make or break entire companies. 

"It's impossible to do art under those conditions," Sanger said. 

Though the Atari system and others like it are long gone, the names remain, and the head of the company that now carries the Atari name (Nasdaq:ATAR - news) said the old games are an irresistible draw for some people, much like the child's sled that is the object of a media mogul's yearning in the film classic "Citizen Kane." 

"It's like 'Rosebud,"' Bruno Bonnell, Atari's chief executive, said.

Moore's Politics on Center Stage at Cannes 

Sunday May 23 12:55 PM ET

"Fahrenheit 9/11" put Michael Moore's politics at center stage at the Cannes Film Festival. And there they stayed, right up to the closing act, when he accepted the top prize. 

The message of Moore's film that White House foreign policy since the Sept. 11 attacks has been disastrous generated so much sympathy here that jury president Quentin Tarantino worried Moore might misinterpret the jury's intentions. 

"When I was on stage with Michael Moore, I knew all this politics crap would be brought up," the "Kill Bill" director said Sunday, a day after awarding Moore the Palme d'Or, the festival's highest honor. 

So "I just whispered in his ear and said, `I just want you to know it was not because of the politics that you won this award,'" Tarantino said. "`You won it because we thought it was the best film that we saw.'" 

The whispered exchange between the two Academy Award winners underlined how much effect Moore's politics had on this festival. 

The awards ceremony started out with a political statement inspired by Moore. Belgian director Jonas Geirnaert, a winner for his short film, used his first big break as a filmmaker to talk about Moore's movie and urge Americans not to vote for President Bush. 

Moore's Cannes appearances have given him a much wider following internationally, including in Europe, where people love his anti-Bush message and are charmed by his folksy all-American image. His documentary about gun culture in America, "Bowling for Columbine," won a special prize here two years ago. 

The new movie had one of the longest standing ovations in recent memory which may have had something to do with his politics as well as his filmmaking. But Moore says he wants to be judged on his skills as a director. 

"If I wanted to make a political speech, I'd run for office," Moore told The News Source in a telephone interview. "I'm a filmmaker, and I wanted to make a movie for people to go see it." 

"Fahrenheit 9/11" accuses the Bush camp of stealing the 2000 election, overlooking terrorism warnings before Sept. 11 and fanning fears of more attacks to secure Americans' support for the Iraq war. 

Moore's assault on U.S. policy got him into trouble with Disney, which refused to let subsidiary Miramax release "Fahrenheit 9/11." 

He is still trying to work out a deal for U.S. distribution but thinks the win at Cannes will guarantee him an American audience. He also cites the makeup of the nine-member jury four out of nine are Americans as proof of the strong reaction the film could have in the United States. 

"I would be surprised within the next 24 hours if we don't have somebody," Moore said. "Miramax has been fielding calls all day." 

He hopes to have the film in U.S. theaters by July. But he is cynical about how much impact it could have on the U.S. presidential election in November. 

"If some of those (viewers) end up going and deciding to become good citizens by exercising the right to vote, great," he said. "But let's be honest. ... You have to start with pretty low expectations in terms of the political end of this when you live in a country where half the people don't vote." 

The new movie is darker in tone than "Bowling for Columbine," and includes grisly war footage. But the filmmaker also mixed in humor to get his point across a talent that the jury singled out in explaining what made Moore special. 

Moore's sense of humor came out on awards night, too, when he couldn't resist thanking his "cast" the U.S. Cabinet, and particularly Bush, whose speaking blunders turn up in the movie. 

"He's got the funniest lines in the film," Moore joked. "I'll be eternally grateful to him."

EBay Pulls Schwarzenegger's Cough Drop 

Sat May 22, 3:39 PM ET

By The News Source 

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A seller on eBay tried to auction off a cough drop that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (news) allegedly used, then tossed into a trash can - listing the item under the heading "Schwarzenegger's DNA." 

But the ad posted on the popular Web site Friday was quickly yanked after eBay decided it fell into the category of "body parts," which the Web site will not list for sale. 

The original listing was accompanied by two photos of a half-consumed cough drop and the words, "Own a piece of DNA from the man himself." The seller indicated she or he had seen Schwarzenegger discard the lozenge at a recent public event and had retrieved it. 

"Like many people who collect items from international stars this is a must have," the ad stated. 

The California governor's office confirmed Schwarzenegger routinely sucks on cough drops, but would say little more. 

An eBay spokesman said the seller, identified only as "AMF814," could put the item back up for sale if he or she reclassified it as a collectible. As of Saturday, it was not among the 115 Schwarzenegger collectibles listed.

Gaddafi Walks Out, Boycotts Arab Summit

2 hours, 52 minutes ago

By Lamine Ghanmi 

TUNIS  - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (news - web sites) walked away from an Arab summit on Saturday, damaging the unity of the Arab League to protest against its agenda and failure to take up his proposal for a single Israeli-Palestinian state. 

Slideshow: Mideast Conflict

Gaddafi did not immediately pull his country out of the 22-member league, but said he hoped Libya's basic people's congresses, local councils which theoretically decide Libyan policy, would agree to withdrawal. 

"Unfortunately Libya is forced to boycott the summit because it does not agree to the agenda of the Arab governments. Libya wants the agenda of the Arab peoples," Gaddafi told a rambling news conference after leaving the opening session. 

Libya has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from the league and Gaddafi was a reluctant participant in the Tunis meeting, the last to arrive on Saturday morning after Arab leaders telephoned to press him to turn up. 

Gaddafi is famous for creating drama at international meetings and his walkout was the only glitch in a meeting carefully prepared to prevent unwelcome surprises. 

Arab League spokesman Hossam Zaki said he hoped the withdrawal would not affect the preparations, which followed an abortive attempt to hold a summit in Tunis in March. 

Gaddafi left the conference hall as Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, a controversial figure who has irritated conservative Gulf Arab leaders, defended the league from what he said were attempts to undermine it. 

"WHITE PAPER" PROPOSAL 

"Some voices have risen up, calling for getting rid of the Arab League, or breaking it up," he said, also criticizing Arab governments for failing to pay their dues. 

Gaddafi's main concern appeared to be the Arab League's failure to adopt his "white paper" proposal for a single Israeli-Palestinian state, instead of the widely accepted alternative of Israeli and Palestinian states side by side. 

Thirteen heads of state and three prime ministers, as well as representatives from the six other Arab countries, took part in the opening session at a heavily guarded conference center in the Tunisian capital. 

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (news - web sites), who is trapped in the West Bank town of Ramallah by Israeli forces, spoke by video-link, condemning attacks on Israeli and Palestinian civilians and denouncing recent Israeli actions in Gaza. 

The Tunisian government unexpectedly called off the first attempt at a summit in March, arguing that some Arab governments were obstructing the reforms which the world expected. 

This time, Arab foreign ministers have tried to ensure a success by agreeing all the key documents in advance. 

But the two-day summit takes place at a time of deep pessimism in the Arab world about the ability of Arab leaders to help Palestinians under Israeli rule or end the occupation of Iraq (news - web sites) by the United States and its allies. 

Moussa reflected the mood in his speech, saying the world's problems had grown worse because of violence and the use of force, mismanagement of policy and "double standards." 

"This has affected the Arab world, which sees an unprecedented collapse of the chances of peace and a reversal in hopes of a stable and safe regional future," he said. 

Diplomats say the Arab leaders will not call for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq or add any substance to the Middle East proposal they made in 2002, when they offered peace and normal relations in return for Israeli withdrawals to the borders that existed before the 1967 war. 

An Arab diplomat said the summit would criticize the "immoral and inhumane practices and crimes of the coalition forces" in Iraq and call for the trial of all those responsible, not just the U.S. guards at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. 

"The resolution says the occupation should end as soon as possible and that the United Nations (news - web sites) should have a role that is central and effective in rebuilding institutions," he added. 

Arab diplomats say the summit will endorse democracy and human rights, but activists say that without a timetable or a plan of action their promises could turn out to be empty.

Newly Married Lesbian Couple Files Suit 

1 hour, 52 minutes ago 
Add U.S. National - 

BOSTON - One day after getting married, a lesbian couple filed a medical malpractice lawsuit asking that one of the women receive damages because doctors failed to detect breast cancer in her spouse. 

The lawsuit filed Friday claims "loss of consortium" for Cindy Kalish, 39, because of the advanced breast cancer in new wife Michelle Charron, 44. 

Loss of consortium is a legal claim long available to spouses, but only newly available to gay and lesbian couples since the state began allowing same-sex marriage Monday. The lawsuit provides a glimpse into the kinds of legal battles involving gay and lesbian unions that Massachusetts courts can now expect. 

"I think there will be tons and tons of incidental issues, and this apparently is the first one," said Boston lawyer Steven Schreckinger. 

Charron and Kalish were seventh in line on Monday to apply for a wedding license, and were married Thursday. The lawsuit contends that two doctors affiliated with Fallon Clinic failed to order a biopsy for a lump in Charron's breast, which she first brought to their attention in December 2002. 

By the time the biopsy was performed nearly eight months later, Charron's lump had grown and she was diagnosed with advanced cancer that had spread to her liver and sternum. Doctors have given her 10 years to live. 

A spokeswoman for Fallon Clinic declined to comment on the case. 

The Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that unmarried partners cannot bring lack of consortium claims, said David White-Lief, a specialist in personal injury law and a former chairman of the Massachusetts Bar Association's civil litigation section. 

Schreckinger said the lawsuit's timing could be challenged, because the alleged negligence was before the couple was married. But the couple's lawyer, Ann Maguire, said the court will view the case differently because marriage was not an option before Monday. The couple had a commitment ceremony in 1992.

Sergeant `flagged' for telling news media about prison abuses

Sat May 22, 9:40 AM ET  - Chicago Tribune 

By Mike Dorning Washington Bureau 

The Army on Friday disciplined a military intelligence analyst who told The Tribune about the mistreatment of a 16-year-old boy and other abuses by interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (news - web sites). 

� Chicago Tribune home page
� Subscribe to the Tribune
� Search the Tribune
� More Chicago news

Latest headlines: 
� Baghdad Car Bomb Kills Five, Wounds Senior Official 
The News Source - 18 minutes ago 
� Mother of Iraq Contractor Worries for Son 
AP - 38 minutes ago 
� Change of Venue Rejected for Iraq Case 
AP - 43 minutes ago 
Special Coverage

Sgt. Samuel Provance, 30, said his battalion commander instructed him to turn in his top-secret clearance and was informed he would be reassigned. 

Provance said he also was told his record is "flagged," meaning he cannot receive promotions, awards or honors. He added that he was warned he might be subject to further disciplinary action for discussing abuses at the prison with the news media. 

"It's in reference to what's happened--for going public," the sergeant said. "It's not unexpected." 

Now stationed in Germany, Provance recently completed an assignment at Abu Ghraib, outside of Baghdad. He also gave on-the-record interviews describing interrogators' roles in the abuses to ABC News, the Washington Post and The News Source. 

A lawyer familiar with the case said Provance also was ordered Friday not to discuss abuses at the prison with other government agencies, which the lawyer said appeared intended to bar him from giving information to congressional investigators. 

Army spokesman Paul Boyce said he could not discuss the sanctions, saying that Pentagon (news - web sites) policy is to keep personnel actions private. 

But he said Provance is considered a material witness in the investigation of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and has been admonished not to discuss matters that could come up in future testimony to a court-martial. 

This week Provance described how interrogators abused the 16-year-old to end his father's resistance to questioning. The teen was stripped naked, thrown in the open back of a truck, driven around on a cold night, splattered with mud and then presented to his father, he said. 

The father then broke down and cried after the incident, and told interrogators he would tell them what they wanted, Provance said.

U.S. National - AP
Berkeley Professor Denounced for POW Memo 

Sun May 23, 9:55 AM ET 
Add U.S. National - 

By TERENCE CHEA, News Source Writer 

BERKELEY, Calif. - Some graduating University of California law students used their commencement Saturday to denounce a professor who helped the Bush administration develop a legal framework that critics say led to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. 

About one-quarter of the 270 graduates of Berkeley's Boalt School of Law donned red armbands over their black robes in a silent protest of a legal memo law professor John Yoo co-wrote when he served in the U.S. Justice Department (news - web sites)'s Office of Legal Counsel. 

Outside the ceremony, they also passed out fliers denouncing Yoo for "aiding and abetting war crimes." Yoo said beforehand he didn't plan to attend the graduation. 

"I respect freedom of thought, but I think he should abide by some basic moral standard," said Andrea Ruiz, 35, one of the armband-wearing students. "Respect for human persons is at the core of what the law is about." 

The Jan. 9, 2002, memo, first reported by Newsweek magazine Monday, laid out the legal reasons why the United States didn't have to comply with international treaties governing prisoner rights. It argued that the normal laws of armed conflict didn't apply to al-Qaida and Taliban militia prisoners because they didn't belong to a state. 

Yoo, who worked for the Justice Department between 2001 and 2003, wouldn't comment on the memo or his government work, but said the students have a right to express their opinions. 

"I'm happy to listen to their viewpoints. Beyond that I'm not going to change what I think," Yoo, 36, said during a telephone interview Friday. 

A petition signed by nearly 200 law students and alumni since Thursday alleges that Yoo's memo "contributed directly to the reprehensible violation of human rights in Iraq (news - web sites) and elsewhere." 

"We're embarrassed that he's at our institution," said law student Abby Reyes, who launched the petition. "We came to law school in order to uphold the rule of law, not to learn ways to wiggle our way out of compliance with it." 

The student petition urges Yoo to repudiate the memo, declare his opposition to torture and encourage the Bush administration to comply with the Geneva Conventions that protect the rights of prisoners of war. Otherwise, he should resign, the petition says. 

Yoo said he had no plans to resign. 

"To the extent that the petition goes beyond expressing views, I worry that it's an unfortunate effort to interfere with academic freedom," he said. 

Interim Dean Robert C. Berring Jr. said the law school had no plans to discipline Yoo. 

"The image of Berkeley is the very progressive image," Berring said, "but I think you'd find at Berkeley a pretty wide range of opinions. Professor Yoo is certainly not the only conservative on campus or at the law school." 

During a May 13 appearance on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," Yoo said he thought the pictures of prisoners being abused at the Baghdad prison showed clear violations of the Geneva Conventions. 

"So the question is not whether the Geneva Conventions apply or really whether they're violated or not but how we're going to remedy the situation, and the military is undertaking that," he said, adding that violators should be punished and tried.

Salt Getting Overlooked in Health Craze 

Sun May 23, 1:57 PM ET 


DES MOINES, Iowa - Amid the flurry of efforts by restaurant chains to serve healthier food, one key ingredient is being largely overlooked: Salt. 

Medical experts agree that Americans consume excessive quantities of sodium, which makes up 40 percent of table salt, or sodium chloride. 

"On average we take in about twice the recommended amount," said Paul K. Whelton, a physician at Tulane University in New Orleans. Earlier this month he co-authored a study that found increasing evidence of high blood pressure among American children and adolescents. One in four American adults, or perhaps 50 million people, has high blood pressure, the National Institutes of Health (news - web sites) has estimated. 

Health professionals say public ignorance about sodium is a major challenge. 

"We can see our bellies getting bigger, so we know we should do something about our weight," Whelton said. Not so with salt. 

Yet while high sodium intake has long been associated with hypertension, stroke and other health risks, there are few indications that either fast-food or casual-dining restaurants are making lower sodium levels a high priority. 

Indeed, at times the opposite seems to be true. 

When Wendy's International Inc. rolled out a line of Chicken Temptations sandwiches last month, each contained more sodium than the sandwich it replaced. The fast-food chain's new spicy chicken fillet sandwich, for example, has 1.48 grams of sodium - 0.26 grams more than the previous spicy chicken version. Wendy's new Ultimate Chicken Grill sandwich contains 1.1 grams of sodium, a 50 percent increase from the former grilled chicken sandwich. 

"Our research showed that consumers wanted bigger, bolder taste above all else," said Wendy's spokesman Bob Bertini, describing the products' development process. He attributed the higher sodium counts to changes in the sandwiches' breading and marinade. 

Still, the hamburger chain is "actively working with our suppliers to find ways to minimize the level of sodium in our products, while meeting our customers' high taste expectations," said Bertini. "For example, our R&D team is exploring ways to reduce the sodium in our salad dressings and other menu items." 

But the emphasis at most chains today is on obesity. Because of growing public and government attention to what is perceived as a serious national health problem, restaurant operators are focusing their attention on reducing fat, calories and carbohydrates. 

Although the recommended government guideline for a healthy American adult is no more than 2.4 grams of sodium a day, or about one teaspoon of salt, several studies suggest much lower amounts. The Institute of Medicine (news - web sites) of the National Academy of Science recently concluded that 1.5 grams daily is sufficient for most individuals. The body uses sodium to regulate blood pressure and blood volume, and it is critical for the functioning of muscles and nerves. 

But a meal out can deliver one day's quota in a single sandwich. For example, the club sandwich at Denny's Inc. family restaurants contains 2.45 grams of sodium. The Italian submarine sandwich at Arby's restaurants comes with 2.44 grams of sodium, while the Deli Trio Pannido at Jack In The Box Inc. stores has 2.53 grams. 

That favorite American food, the hamburger, also can deliver a hefty dose of sodium. McDonald's Corp.'s Big Mac contains 1.05 grams, or 44 percent of the recommended daily intake. Burger King's flagship Whopper, served with a slice of cheese, has 1.45 grams of sodium, or 60 percent of the recommended total. 

Salads, touted for their healthful attributes, nonetheless may make it difficult for customers to shake the sodium habit. The Greek salad at Jack In The Box includes 2.625 grams of sodium, the chain's Southwest chicken salad 2.155 grams. 

Dressings often are the culprit. At Burger King, the Fire-Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad with creamy garlic Caesar dressing has 1.61 grams of sodium. Holding the dressing cuts that by 0.71 grams. 

Customers may be hard-pressed to learn the amount of sodium in their food when they dine out. Most restaurants don't post nutritional analyses of their fare, and some of those who do have it on Web sites but not on the premises. 

Among chains that do disclose it, McDonald's is among the most advanced. Besides using its Web site, plus tray liners and brochures in its restaurants, the fast-food giant is considering printing a meal's nutritional components on the customer's sales slip. While the information would come too late to affect that purchase, it might alter those on future visits, the thinking goes.

U.S. to Launch Intelligence-Sharing Plan

2 hours, 30 minutes ago

By CURT ANDERSON, News Source Writer

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department (news - web sites) is putting together a nationwide system to allow federal, state and local law enforcement officials to share information more efficiently about terrorism and other crimes.

"This plan represents law enforcement's commitment to take it upon itself to ensure that the dots are connected, be it in crime or terrorism," Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) said Friday.

The National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan will include information from groups representing 1.2 million law enforcement officials at all levels of government. Under the plan, the Justice Department and FBI (news - web sites) will share information more routinely with state and local officials.

In addition, it will open pathways for state and local police to provide intelligence about terrorism and major crime suspects to the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies.

"We recognize there is no one agency that can be successful on its own," FBI Director Robert Mueller said. "In order to address these threats, we must change."

The failure to share information about terror threats among federal, state and local agencies has been cited repeatedly as a prime reason the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were not detected or disrupted. In the years since the attacks, the FBI has put the gathering, analysis and sharing of intelligence among its top priorities.

The bureau has put in place a new policy to ensure that more of its information can be disseminated broadly to law enforcement officials by reducing the amount classified as top secret or secret. The policy also seeks to overcome turf squabbles and jurisdictional problems that long have blocked information sharing, especially between the FBI and other agencies.

"We're knocking down these barriers each and every day," said Melvin Carraway, chairman of a panel that developed the plan and superintendent of the Indiana State Police.

The new intelligence plan also urges all law enforcement agencies to adopt safeguards for privacy rights and civil liberties, which critics of post-Sept. 11 police tactics say are being threatened in the name of countering terror.

"With this initiative, we will save American lives and we will protect American liberties," Ashcroft said.

___

Justice Department: http://www.usdoj.gov 

Moderate Drinking May Raise Healthy Hormone Levels

Fri May 14, 2:16 PM ET 
Add Health 

By Merritt McKinney 

NEW YORK (The News Source Health) - Moderate drinking may boost levels of a hormone that is believed to help protect against artery disease. The findings could help explain some of the cardiovascular benefits of moderate drinking. 

"People consuming alcohol in moderate amounts may have a healthier hormone status," Dr. Henk F.J. Hendriks at TNO Nutrition and Food Research in the Netherlands told The News Source Health. 

"The implication of this piece of research is that it further substantiates the notion that moderate alcohol consumption is consistent with a healthy lifestyle," Hendriks said. 

Many studies have shown that moderate drinking is associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease. Moderate tippling may lower the risk of artery disease through its effects on inflammation, blood clotting and on the way the body metabolizes fats in the blood. 

There is growing evidence that sex hormones also may be involved in the development artery disease. For example, some studies suggest that high levels of a hormone called DHEAS, or dehydroepiandrosterone, may help keep blood vessels healthy. Levels of DHEAS naturally decline with age. 

Hendriks and his colleagues set out to measure the effect of moderate drinking on levels of DHEAS and other sex hormones. 

The study included 10 middle-aged men and 9 postmenopausal women, all of whom were healthy nonsmokers and moderate drinkers. 

For 3 weeks while on a standardized diet, volunteers consumed moderate amounts of beer or nonalcoholic beer with dinner each night. Participants completed another 3-week cycle during which they switched the type beer they drank. 

After drinking regular beer for 3 weeks, blood levels of DHEAS were almost 17 percent higher than after drinking nonalcoholic beer, the researchers report. The increase in DHEAS was similar in men and women. 

In contrast, levels of testosterone dropped about 7 percent in men after drinking beer. Women's testosterone levels stayed steady throughout the study. 

Levels of a type of estrogen called estradiol remained steady in both men and women throughout the study. 

But levels of HDL cholesterol, which is associated with better cardiovascular health, increased about 12 percent in both men and women. 

The results of the study bolster the idea that moderate drinking may boost blood levels of DHEAS, the researchers conclude. The rise in this hormone may help explain some of the beneficial cardiovascular effects of moderate drinking, the authors note in the May issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. 

Hendriks said that he and his colleagues now would like to study alcohol's effect on other hormones, such as hormones that regulate the uptake and distribution of sugar in the body. 

The Dutch researcher noted that the combination of increasing body weight and greater longevity means that more and more people are developing diabetes. Hendriks said that one of the next steps would be to study the effects of moderate alcohol consumption on several hormones that are influenced by the development of diabetes. 

"These studies should further substantiate the suggestions from epidemiological studies that moderate alcohol consumption may protect against diabetes type II," Hendriks said. 

The current study was funded by the Dutch Foundation for Alcohol Research. 

SOURCE: Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, May 2004. 

Stasi's 'Rosewood' Files to Yield New Secrets

Sun May 16, 8:39 AM ET

By Mark Trevelyan, Security Correspondent 

BERLIN  - It was the last great spying feat of the Cold War. 

In circumstances never explained, microfilm copies of hundreds of thousands of index cards from the files of East Germany's notorious security service, the Stasi, found their way into the hands of the CIA (news - web sites). 

They belonged to the Hauptverwaltung Aufklaerung (HVA), the Stasi department responsible for foreign espionage, and contained a vast trove of data on the identity of its agents and their targets. 

It has taken until now -- 15 years after the Berlin Wall fell -- for the reunified Germany to get copies from the Americans, fix thousands of errors in the U.S.-built index system and start to analyze the so-called "Rosewood" files in detail. 

The new information paves the way for yet another round of checks on politicians and public workers. Several former East German states have said they will vet their staff again. 

That process has already started, despite doubts in some quarters about the value of raking through the past yet again. 

For Marianne Birthler, federal commissioner for the Stasi files, the checks -- which, by law, can take place only until 2006 -- are a vital part of Germany's healing process. 

"It makes absolute sense, in many cases, as a trust-building measure," said Birthler, whose own staff will also face fresh checks. 

"There's another argument: people who harbor a compromising piece of their past have the potential to be blackmailed ... If they work in important public functions, that is a risk for all of us," she told The News Source in an interview. 

VICTIMS AND VILLAINS 

In the case of Rosewood, though, it is painstaking work to sift out the villains from the victims. 

The original microfilmed files were transferred by the Americans onto 381 CD-ROMs and delivered to Germany between 1999 and 2003, although they sent back only the index cards on German citizens -- and not the cards on foreigners, which would have provided an insight into who the Stasi was spying on abroad. 

The records can be searched only with the help of a comprehensive database, but the one supplied by the CIA was strewn with errors -- largely because of the difference between the characters on U.S. and German computer keyboards. 

Where a German name contained a vowel with an 'umlaut' (the two dots above an 'a', 'o' or 'u' which alter its sound), or the letter like a Greek 'beta' which denotes a double 's', U.S. typists had entered it in the database with some other symbol like an asterisk (*) or forward-slash (/). 

It took 50 of Birthler's staff six months to pick their way through the 280,000 names and fix up the database. Other problems arise from the difficulty of reading some entries in the actual file cards, either because the Stasi officer's writing was illegible or because the microfilm was scratched. 

Next the archivists had to deal with another peculiarity of Rosewood. 

Like the 'F16' index cards used in other divisions of the Stasi, the HVA's F16s could be used either to register either an agent -- known as an Informelle Mitarbeiter (IM) or unofficial collaborator -- OR a person on whom the service was spying. 

Unlike other departments, the HVA would often record more than one person under the same registration number -- for example, an agent and his or her close colleagues, friends, family or housekeeper. 

WHO WERE THE SPIES? 

"You can't tell in every individual case which of eight people with a single registration number was actually the IM. You can only do that with the help of other records," Birthler said. 

Of the 280,000 names in Rosewood, it turned out that fewer than 10 percent were HVA agents -- about 6,000 in the former West Germany and more than 20,000 in the East. Of those, about 1,500 in the West and 10,000 in the East were still active by the time the Wall came down in 1989. 

For Birthler, the number of agents the HVA possessed on home soil -- despite the fact it dealt with foreign intelligence gathering -- was "significantly bigger than expected," and represented the biggest surprise in the Rosewood files. 

"For example, there were East German citizens who were allowed to travel on business. Not all, but some of them were used for procuring information." 

The new revelations on the size and membership of the HVA network will help Birthler's researchers as they build up a fuller picture of the Stasi's overseas spying operations, a work which is still in progress. 

Birthler says those expecting the unmasking of prominent public figures as Stasi agents are likely to be disappointed. Nor are fresh prosecutions likely. 

Since 1990, some 3,000 former West German citizens have been investigated for spying for the Stasi, of whom 365 were convicted. Former East Germans cannot be prosecuted for working for their own security service, unless they committed other crimes in the course of their duties. 

STASI TAINT 

So Rosewood may not put more people behind bars, but it still has the power to wreck careers and reputations. 

Fifteen years on, revelations of Stasi links still carry a bitter taint. Last year, for example, senior officials heading Leipzig's bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games (news - web sites) were forced to step down over allegations that they had collaborated with the security police. 

"Dictatorships cast long shadows," said Birthler. 

"If you take both dictatorships (Nazi and Communist), then for over half a century in East Germany there was no critical public opinion ... no free press, no freedom of speech in schools and universities. For civil society that caused very considerable long-term damage. This is a generational task ... 

"More important for many people is the possibility to see what the Stasi collected on them. That enables many who had to suffer under Stasi measures to really leave the past behind them for the first time." 

By law, anyone who was spied on by the Stasi has the right to access his or her files. Applications to do so are still running at about 8,000 a month, mainly from former East Germans. 

Birthler disputes the suggestion, sometimes heard, that the Stasi's agents were themselves its victims in the sense that it exploited and dehumanized them. 

"I would not say that ... there are tragic stories ... A friend found out from his files that his mother spied on him for many years and delivered reports on her son to the Stasi. I can't describe such a mother as a victim." 

Asked what is her greatest frustration, she replied after a long pause: 

"That we can only give very limited help to those people who were the real victims. We can help them to discover the truth as far as that emerges from the files, but we can't give them back their lost lives."

Filmmakers Worry About Tibet Film Footage 

Sun May 16, 2:07 PM ET

By ANGELA DOLAND, News Source Writer 

CANNES, France - Two filmmakers at Cannes took extreme precautions Sunday to make sure the people they interviewed for a rare documentary filmed in Tibet would not face a crackdown by Chinese authorities. 

To make sure the footage did not fall into the wrong hands, moviegoers were searched at the door for cameras and recording devices. 

"What Remains of Us," playing at the Cannes Film Festival (news - web sites), offers a rare and moving look at ordinary people in Tibet talking frankly about the hardships of the Chinese occupation. 

Over eight years, two Canadian filmmakers posed as tourists to make risky trips into Tibet, interviewing people in monasteries, tents, fields and homes. They have been cautious to ensure their subjects cannot be identified and punished by Chinese authorities. 

Despite the dangers, most Tibetans were happy to speak, even on camera, said one of the directors, Hugo Latulippe. 

"The world doesn't listen much to their story," Latulippe said. "So when foreigners come, they want to speak about their problems." 

The filmmakers put themselves at risk by smuggling in a video message from the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader exiled in India. People in Tibet can be arrested merely for having a photo of the Nobel Peace Prize winner, who is peacefully pressing for Tibetan autonomy. 

The movie's premise is simple: The filmmakers stored the Dalai Lama's message in a tiny laptop and secretly showed it to Tibetans. Then they recorded people's reactions. 

The most moving scenes show Tibetans crouched around the tiny computer screen. One elderly woman with a deeply lined face weeps as she clutches a small child. Stylish teenage girls in a city apartment break into tears. 

In a cold and wind-swept field, a family kneels on the grass around the screen, hands pressed together in prayer. 

In the message, the Dalai Lama says that while China is still deeply repressive, it is in the midst of change. He also asks people to study and work hard to prepare for a better future. 

"Tibet, and we the Tibetans, deserve respect," he says. 

To protect the identity of the listeners, the filmmakers shot many of their scenes in hard-to-reach areas. They also interspersed footage from different regions to make it tougher to guess where scenes were shot. Since the film wrapped, they have made as few copies as possible. 

Latulippe and fellow director Francois Prevost, who also is a doctor, teamed up with a young Canadian of Tibetan origin, Kalsang Dolma, who was born in a refugee camp in India. She was the filmmakers' guide, translator and narrator, and she also sang traditional songs on the soundtrack. 

The movie played at Cannes in a critics' showcase. It already has been shown at a lower-profile documentary festival in Toronto, also under tight security. 

The filmmakers are looking for international distributors in Cannes. But any deals will be contingent on guarantees of thorough searches at theater entrances. 

"We're not naive about it," said Jacques Bensimon, film commissioner and chairman of the National Film Board of Canada. "But we want to protect as much as possible the people who agreed to be in the film."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040516/ap_en_mo/film_cannes_tibet_1

Pediatrician Warns Parents About Cicadas

Fri May 14, 1:04 PM ET 
Add U.S. National 

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent 

WASHINGTON  - First there was the girl who fell off her bike fleeing a flying cicada. Then a boy trying to swat a cicada out of the air with a baseball bat instead hit his friend in the nose. 

The News Source 

Slideshow: Buzzing Mass of Cicadas Get Ready for East Coast

The final straw came when another child hurt his hand trying to squish a cicada under a car's tires. Dr. Ray Baker of Cincinnati Children's Hospital was convinced -- cicadas can be a safety hazard to children. 

Starting this week and lasting into June, billions and possibly even trillions of cicadas will emerge across much of the eastern half of the United States. 

The thumb-sized insects are harmless, but they are large, noisy and clumsy. They climb out of their underground homes en masse after 17 years of slow development with only one goal in mind -- finding a mate. 

The last time this happened at such a scale was in 1987, and Baker was working in the emergency room of Cincinnati Children's. 

"We just noticed when this all started, children were coming in and having injuries related to cicadas," Baker said in a telephone interview. 

"After the third or fourth one we decided to keep a list." 

They noted 12 injuries that were fairly significant, Baker said. He wrote a letter to the journal Pediatrics afterward, outlining the cases. 

"They were all related to kids trying to get away from what they perceived as cicadas flying at them, or the children were trying to kill them," Baker said. 

"They do freak people out. They are big. They are bigger than most other flying things and they really don't seem to have any tremendous purpose in which direction they are flying." 

Several children fell off bikes, Baker said. "We had a concussion, a 9-year-old who was fleeing a cicada on her bicycle and fell off," he said. 

Another child hit his head on a brick wall while he was running away from one of the insects. 

"We had a stab wound to the arm from a kid who was trying to kill a cicada on the arm of another child but unfortunately he was using a knife," Baker added. 

"Another kid tried to kick one under a lawn mower and cut his foot, and we saw a crush injury to the hand when a kid tried to put a cicada under the wheels of a moving car." 

All parents can do is try and supervise their children and remind them that that the cicadas are harmless, Baker advised. 

"There's a lot on the news, but I think that just gets kids kind of excited," he said. "Kids don't always do what they are told."

New Overtime Changes Spark Confusion 

15 minutes ago 


By LEIGH STROPE, News Source Labor Writer 

WASHINGTON - New federal overtime regulations will not take effect automatically in 18 states, provoking widespread confusion among state officials, employers and workers, and sparking political battles over how to respond. 

Those states have their own overtime requirements, some of which mirror the old federal rules being replaced in August. Legislative action is required in some states to make changes, complicating an already complex and politically turbulent issue in an election year. 

"It's absolute craziness," said Camille Olson, a labor lawyer with the firm Seyfarth Shaw in Chicago. 

The Labor Department (news - web sites) regulations issued last month will go into place automatically in 32 states and the District of Columbia, according to a Seyfarth Shaw analysis. Elsewhere, it is not so simple. 

"We're in a wait-and-see mode," said John Andrew, chief of the Labor Standards Bureau in Montana's Labor and Industry Department. 

New federal definitions of some white-collar jobs would not apply in Montana without changes to state law or state administrative rules, he said. The Legislature may have to act, but it does not meet again until January. 

The federal rule is a minimum standard. States can have their own requirements, but they cannot be less generous with overtime eligibility. 

The rule rewrites definitions of white-collar workers exempt from overtime pay under the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act. 

Labor Department officials say the changes were needed for clarification and to reduce the number of workers' lawsuits against employers. The rule, which takes effect Aug. 23, will exempt about 100,000 workers now eligible for overtime pay, officials said. Democrats and labor unions say the number will be much higher. 

Underscoring the election-year importance of pocketbook issues, the Republican-controlled Senate voted 52-47 to require that overtime eligibility be guaranteed for all workers who currently qualify. Democrats want to force a vote in the House; GOP leaders acknowledge it will be close. 

Department officials said they are working with states, employers and workers to answer questions and ease the confusion. An enforcement task force was created. Fact sheets and videos are posted on the department's Web site - http://www.labor.gov/ 

In Wisconsin, which has its own overtime requirements, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle's administration said the state may chose to ignore the new federal rules in favor of the old. 

Watching closely is Barb Altschwager, the human resources manager of BelGioioso Cheese Inc. in Denmark, Wis. 

"I'm trying to get my hands on guidelines so that I don't charge down a path that really isn't the right path," Altschwager said. "I think if they're trying to reduce litigation, I do think they could have done a better job of providing a full package for human resources professionals." 

Workers, too, are looking for answers. 

Chris Vota, who has worked for the Pathmark grocery store chain for almost 30 years, is concerned he might lose his overtime pay when his union negotiates a new contract next year. 

He wonders if some of his duties might be considered supervisory, and therefore exempt, under the new rules, and whether New Jersey's overtime requirements would nullify changes. 

"As time goes on, it gets more and more confusing," said Vota, 46, of Eastampton, N.J., who stocks the store's frozen food section, has customer service responsibilities and fills in for his department manager. 

Some states may decide not to act, viewing parts of the old rule as more favorable to workers. As a result, employers in those states ultimately could be required to comply with portions of state law and both the old and new regulations, said Olson, the labor lawyer. 

The Bush administration thinks the new federal rules are more favorable to workers than the old and should be followed. But officials acknowledge they cannot force states to make changes. 

"There may be a few states where their existing rules may provide more protections, but those who claim that the old federal rules are more protective than the new federal rules are just wrong," Labor Department spokesman Ed Frank said. 

Among the states: 

_Illinois passed a law last month keeping the old definitions of administrative, professional and executive employees. "What we don't want to do is be caught off guard by rules that hurt Illinois workers," said state Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate who led the effort, 

_In Minnesota, "the state does not have to endorse or bless these changes nor will the state regulations automatically change," said Roslyn Wade, assistant commissioner of the state Labor and Industry Department. 

_Arkansas is examining whether it wants to change its rule to match the federal one to make it easier on employers, said Denise Oxley, the state Labor Department's chief counsel. If it decides to act, it can do so through regulation, not legislation, she said. 

"How many in Arkansas will either lose or start getting overtime? That's the big question. I can't tell you," Oxley said. 

_In Connecticut, the state probably "will stick with its own set of regulations" because they are more generous than the federal ones, said Anthony J. Palermino, a Hartford lawyer. 

Other states where the federal rules will not take effect automatically: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maryland, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington and West Virginia.

'Doonesbury' Strip Shows Head on Platter 

Fri May 14, 6:05 PM ET

By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH, News Source Writer 

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The distributor of "Doonesbury" called it an "unfortunate coincidence" that a strip depicting a man's head on a platter will run in newspapers Sunday - days after the release of a videotape showing an American's beheading by Iraqi militants. 

Latest headlines: 
� Official: Iraq Abuse Hurt MP's Reputation 
AP - 17 minutes ago 
� France Wants Iraq to Control Its Security 
AP - 43 minutes ago 
� Powell: U.S. Would Leave if Iraq Requests 
AP - 46 minutes ago 
Special Coverage

Kansas City-based Universal Press Syndicate said Friday the strip was drawn before Nicholas Berg's death in Iraq; it will offer a substitute comic strip. 

Berg's headless body was found last Saturday in Baghdad. Three days later, a videotape posted on an al-Qaida-related Web site showed him decapitated. Berg was buried Friday in Pennsylvania. 

In Sunday's strip, the character Joanie, angry about her friend's firing from her university coaching job, begins daydreaming. In the last frame, she's pictured carrying a platter with the head of the university president on it. He says, "What's this." She responds, "A good start." 

"Given its timing following the recent grisly tragedy in Iraq (news - web sites) and the realities of Sunday color production cycles, we felt we should call this to your attention," Lee Salem, editor of Universal Press Syndicate, told newspaper editors in a statement. 

The Pulitzer Prize-winning strip by Garry Trudeau appears in 1,400 newspapers. 

"I regret the poor timing, and apologize to anyone who is offended by an image that is now clearly inappropriate," Trudeau said. 

Several newspapers said the distributor's warning came too late. 

"We may write some sort of letter to our readers the day the strip runs explaining that fact that we didn't receive notice until after the comic was printed and ready to go," said Andrea Buck, interim editor of the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune. 

David Green, managing editor of The (Nashville) Tennessean, said a final decision hadn't been made, but he anticipated the paper also would include a note. 

Mike Needs, public editor of The Beacon Journal in Akron, Ohio, said the strip would run. 

"We have looked at it, and while we think the timing is unfortunate, the content of the strip is not related to the Iraq War situation and therefore we are going to go ahead with publishing that comic strip," he said.

Poker Novice Betting on Beginner's Luck

Fri May 21, 4:28 AM ET Add U.S. National - 

By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS, News Source Writer

SPOKANE, Wash. - Gerry Drehobl took a nice family vacation to Las Vegas and won $365,000 on a pair of kings at the poker table. Not bad for a guy who only took up the game last Thanksgiving.

On Sunday, Drehobl, 49, begins play in the finals of the World Series (news - web sites) of Poker at Binion's Horseshoe Casino in Sin City. The $10,000 entry fee was no problem, not after April 28 when he won the $1 million pot at another WSOP tournament at Binion's.

"I'm still a novice. I don't pretend to be anything different," Drehobl said in a telephone interview Wednesday from Las Vegas. "To win a tournament like that, you've got to be sort of lucky."

It helped that Drehobl felt he had little to lose when he faced some of the best players in the world.

"I took a lot more chances than they would," Drehobl said. "Why risk all their chips on one hand when they can grind it out?"

Drehobl, who runs a corporate aircraft maintenance service, got hooked on cards sitting around with his wife's family on holidays. They all played and he didn't, but he wanted to be part of the group. Then he started watching tournaments on television and reading books about poker.

Around Thanksgiving, Drehobl taught himself the wildly popular Texas Hold 'em, and took to playing at local Indian casinos.

But he had few hopes of a major score when he wandered down to Binion's during vacation last month and joined a poker game by putting up $200. He won, getting $2,000 in chips that bought him into a WSOP tournament.

He finished 40th and used the $4,400 to buy into another WSOP preliminary. After 26 straight hours of play, Drehobl won the big pot. (He got to keep only 35 percent; the top 30 finishers divvied up the much of the rest.)

Drehobl's wife, Ann, immediately took $10,000 and signed her husband up for the world championships.

"She was absolutely thrilled when I won," he said. "She ran up on stage and fell into my arms."

This year's championship, which starts Saturday and runs through next Friday, could draw as many as 2,000 players vying for the $3.5 million first prize. Last year, Chris Moneymaker was the winner among 839 players, getting $2.5 million.

"I don't want to be operating under illusions," Drehobl said of his poker success. "There is some luck involved in the game. But you see the same top players make the final table over and over and over."

Those players don't fluster Drehobl any more.

"I'm having a great time," he said. "There's no reason for me to be nervous anymore." 
'

N. Korea to Release Japanese Relatives

27 minutes ago

By ERIC TALMADGE, News Source Writer

TOKYO - North Korea (news - web sites) agreed Saturday to release the family members of Japanese citizens kidnapped by Northern agents, and Japan pledged aid to the impoverished country at a summit between the two nations' leaders. Five children of the abductees arrived in Tokyo hours later.

The agreement marked a breakthrough in what had been an emotional standoff between the two Asian neighbors. Talks on normalization of ties between them have been stalled by disagreement over the fate of the abductees' families and other issues.

North Korea admitted in 2002 to kidnapping 13 Japanese citizens in the 1980s and 70s. Pyongyang said eight had died, but allowed the five survivors to return to Japan. Tokyo has since pressed for the release of the eight family members left behind: seven children and one husband.

In the 90-minute summit, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said he also pressed the enigmatic North Korean leader Kim Jong Il on his nuclear weapons programs, won a pledge from North Korea to continue a moratorium on missile tests and urged Kim to work with wealthier nations for the sake of his impoverished population.

"I emphasized strongly to Kim Jong Il that there is very little to gain in terms of energy aid or food aid by possessing nuclear weapons," Koizumi told reporters in Pyongyang. "But if you abandon nuclear weapons, you can gain the international community's cooperation."

Koizumi agreed to extend 250,000 tons of food aid and $10 million worth of medical supplies and humanitarian aid to North Korea, which is desperate for assistance.

He also told Kim that Japan would not impose economic sanctions on Pyongyang, despite recent legislation allowing them.

Koizumi said the aid pledge was being made through and at the request of international organizations and should not be considered an exchange for North Korea's release of the family members. It seemed likely, however, that the pledge of aid was key in winning their release.

Koizumi returned to Tokyo on Saturday night, and five children of former abductees followed about 30 minutes later. He was expected to have a meeting with them later after they were reunited with their families.

Pyongyang also praised the summit, calling it "sincere and candid" through its official Korean Central News Agency. The statement was unusually conciliatory for a nation that regularly vilifies Japan.

It said the talks "mark an important and historic event in restoring the confidence, improving the relations between the two countries and promoting peace and stability in Asia and the rest of the world."

American Charles Jenkins, who is married to one of the former abductees, is accused of deserting his U.S. Army unit in 1965 and defecting to the North. He told Koizumi in an hour-long meeting Saturday that he and his two daughters would rather remain in North Korea than face possible extradition and prosecution in the United States.

Koizumi said Jenkins reacted favorably, however, to Kim's idea of meeting his Japanese wife Hitomi Soga in Beijing.

Kim also promised to investigate the fates of other abductees, including the eight that Pyongyang says are dead and two who are unaccounted for. Some in Japan believe that dozens of other possible kidnapping victims may still be alive in North Korea.

The former abductees in Tokyo said they had mixed feelings about the deal. Some expressed frustration that Jenkins and his daughters would not be coming to Japan, while relatives of those believed dead were furious that aid had been offered without a full accounting of the victims.

"The outcome is the worst we had expected," said Shigeru Yokota, whose daughter Megumi is one of the eight who were said to be dead. "At the news (of the agreement), the voices of our anger filled the room."

The one-day trip was Koizumi's first visit to Pyongyang since an unprecedented meeting with Kim in September 2002.

Both leaders had an interest in a favorable outcome. Kim was eager to get foreign aid for his collapsed economy and Koizumi wanted to resolve the emotional dispute over Japanese kidnapping victims ahead of parliamentary elections in July.

The results also boded well for potential moves to establish diplomatic ties.

"We must normalize this abnormal relationship," Koizumi said, adding, however, that the two sides had not set a date for talks on normalization.

Kim and Koizumi greeted each other in front of the summit room with a simple handshake.

"I believe it is a good thing that you have returned and I welcome you," Kim said as they met. Koizumi bowed slightly and answered "I am fine," when Kim inquired about his health.

The two countries have never had formal diplomatic ties. Japan ruled the Korean Peninsula as a colony from 1910 until its World War II defeat in 1945, and distrust between it and North Korea runs deep.

Some analysts believe another motive for Kim may be to undermine multilateral talks aimed at persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions. They say Kim might believe that a deal with Japan could soften Tokyo's support for the tough stance pursued by Washington.

Tokyo, however, is highly wary of North Korea's nuclear weapons program because virtually all of Japan is within range of the North's missiles.

Tokyo announced in October 2000 that it was donating 500,000 tons of rice to North Korea through the United Nations (news - web sites), but has not sent food aid since then because of the nuclear and abductions issues. Japan did, however, send medical supplies for a recent train explosion near North Korea's border with China.

Kerry Urging Energy Independence in U.S.

38 minutes ago

By NEDRA PICKLER, News Source Writer

BOSTON - With the start of the summer driving season approaching and gasoline prices soaring, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) said the United States should strive for energy independence.

"There are two reasons why we cannot be asleep at the wheel during this current energy crisis," Kerry said in the weekly Democratic radio address. "First, soaring energy prices are putting our economy at risk and second, our dependence on Middle East oil is putting our national security at risk. But it doesn't have to be this way."

In the short term, the Massachusetts senator said, the United States should divert oil being used to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and bring it to market. The White House says, though, that would have only a negligible impact on pump prices. Kerry also said the country's leaders should demand that Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing nations increase supply.

He said his long-term strategy as president would include investments in alternative fuels and new technologies that are more fuel-efficient. He said he would establish tax credits to help make fuel-efficient cars more affordable.

"Our dependence on foreign oil is a problem we must solve together the only way we can - by inventing our way out of it," Kerry said.

The average price per gallon rose to $2.017 this week, the first time the national average has exceeded $2. Kerry and other Democrats blame President Bush (news - web sites) and Republican leaders for allowing prices to rise so high, and his radio address reiterated the case he made earlier this week on the campaign trail.

"We're at war and families are struggling to make ends meet, especially with rising gas prices," Kerry said. "For our security, our economy and our environment, we must make America energy independent."

Chalabi handed US secrets over to Iran: report

28 minutes ago 
Add World - NEWS SOURCE 

WASHINGTON (NEWS SOURCE) - Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi faced accusations that he passed classified US intelligence to Iran as the United States faced strong criticism from the Iraqi Governing Council over a raid on Chalabi's home. 

NEWS SOURCE Photo 

CBS television, quoting senior US officials, said the former Pentagon (news - web sites) favourite personally handed Iranian intelligence officers sensitive information that could "get Americans killed." 

It quoted the officials as saying that the evidence against Chalabi was "rock solid." 

The Wall Street Journal also quoted a US official as saying that Chalabi passed sensitive information to Iran. "That's absolutely true," the official said on condition of anonymity. 

The reports said the US administration has started a high-level inquiry to determine who could have given the information to Chalabi. 

An aide to Chalabi, who is head of finance for the Iraqi Governing Council as well as leader of the Iraqi National Congress, dismissed the accusations as "nonsense". He said they were part of a strategy by the Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) to discredit Chalabi. 

The council on Friday came to the defence of Chalabi over a raid on his Baghdad home and office by Iraqi police and US forces. 

Documents, computers, personal belongings and weapons were seized during the operation. 

After the raid, a furious Chalabi, who was once considered Washington's favourite to become Iraq (news - web sites)'s post-war leader, said he was breaking ties with the US-led coalition authorities. 

The governing council held a special meeting on Friday and blamed the coalition for the raids. 

"The Governing Council unanimously condemned the raids on Mr. Chalabi's home and holds the coalition authorities responsible," said Samir al-Askari, deputy council representative for Shiite member Mohammed Bahr al-Ulum. 

But in Washington, General Richard Myers, the head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Iraqi authorities are handling the case against Chalabi. 

"It was the Iraqi police who conducted the activity, that the role for US forces was as an outer cordon, not part of the activity in any of the facilities," Myers told the House of Representatives' Armed Services Committee. 

"It's Iraqis doing what they should be doing. And I don't know about the facts in the case about Chalabi and so forth, but to have the minister of interior, the police and the court connected, doing things they think are important, is a good sign." 

Askari said however that neither interior minister Samir al-Sumaydai nor justice minister Hashem Abderrahman al-Shibli were aware of the raids. 

Myers was asked about reasons for the US administration's break with Chalabi but he would only say that information provided by Chalabi's organisation was "useful in many cases." 

Chalabi, a wealthy Shiite banker and politician, has fallen from grace in Washington amid allegations his party provided false information ahead of last year's invasion of Iraq.

AP: Kerry Considers Delaying Nomination

31 minutes ago

By NEDRA PICKLER and SHARON THEIMER, News Source Writers

BOSTON - John Kerry (news - web sites) is considering delaying his acceptance of the Democratic presidential nomination at the party's July convention so that he can keep spending the millions of dollars that he raised during the primaries, The News Source has learned.

If Kerry were to delay acceptance of his nomination for a month, he would even the playing field with President Bush (news - web sites), who is planning to accept the nomination at the Republican National Convention five weeks later. The party convention would still be held at the end of July, but Kerry would officially accept the nomination at a later date under such a plan.

Kerry and Bush are expected to use federal funding for their general election campaign and will be limited to spending the roughly $75 million in federal funds given to each candidate once they accepts the nomination. At that point, neither candidate would be able to raise or spend private funds.

"We are looking at this and many other options very seriously because we won't fight with one hand behind our back," Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said Friday.

Cutter said other options being considered include having the Democratic National Committee (news - web sites) or local and state Democratic parties raise money to support Kerry's candidacy. However, Kerry would not have control of much of the money raised by the party. By law, the DNC cannot coordinate more than roughly $16 million of spending with Kerry's campaign in the general election. Delaying the nomination would be a dramatic move and is believed to be the first time a candidate would ask his party to reschedule his nomination so he could stop the clock from ticking on his general-election government financing. Kerry and Bush skipped public financing for the primary-election season, enabling them to spend as much as they wish until their parties officially nominate them at conventions this summer. Since becoming the party's presumptive nominee in early March, Kerry has broken Democratic fund-raising and spending records. He raised roughly $31 million last month alone, pushing his campaign total to a Democratic record $117 million. Kerry started May with $28 million in the bank, far less than President Bush's $72 million but still a Democratic record. Bush has raised more than $200 million so far. Both Kerry and Bush are expected to accept $75 million in full government financing for the general-election phase of their campaigns, which starts for each when he is nominated. If Kerry is nominated in late July as the party planned, he will have to make his $75 million check last five weeks longer than Bush. Because the Republican convention is timed later than the Democratic gathering, Bush will have about a month more to raise money from private contributors than Kerry. When the Democratic Party scheduled its convention, it didn't know it would have a nominee who opted out of public financing for the primaries and the $45 million spending limit the program imposes through the spring and summer. At the time, the party anticipated it would face the same situation it has in previous elections: a nominee who emerged from the primaries hovering at the spending limit and had to limp through several months awaiting the convention and the campaign-sustaining government financing. _____ News Source Writers Liz Sidoti and Ron Fournier contributed to this report. ___ On the Net: http://www.johnkerry.com http://www.georgewbush.com
Civil rights panel mired in internal fights Fri May 21, 9:40 AM ET Add Top 

By Kristina Herrndobler Washington Bureau While civil rights advocates spent this week celebrating the 50th anniversary of the ruling that integrated public schools, the federal commission charged with upholding civil rights collapsed in disarray, unable to even discuss its own longstanding dysfunction. The commission was supposed to spend its monthly meeting discussing its internal problems, but instead its members engaged in a heated debate about why the meeting was abruptly adjourned by the chairwoman. The truncated meeting on Monday, the 50th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, was just the most recent in a long series of internal battles that plague the commission and make critics wonder if it can fulfill its purpose. Congress has launched several investigations into the management structure of the commission and its performance. "They have a responsibility to promote civil rights in this country and to report to the public on civil rights," said Rep. Steve Chabot (news, bio, voting record) (R-Ohio), chair of the House Subcommittee on the Constitution. "Rather than performing that important function, they have really become a public spectacle." The commission investigates civil rights complaints and publicizes its findings, although it has no enforcement power. Four of the commissioners are appointed by Congress and the other four by the president. Currently the panel has four members appointed by Republicans and four by Democrats, which often leaves the commission evenly divided on any issue. The arrangement makes it difficult for the commission to generate a majority position on anything. Commissioner's analysis "The big problem with the commission is its structure," said Republican Commissioner Russell Redenbaugh. "In having an even number of commissioners, you can't break a deadlock, so in that alone there is a major design flaw." While most of the commissioners agree that their even number contributes to their problems, they also point fingers at one another for being partisan and closing their minds to debate. "The commission is supposed to be independent, and the commissioners are supposed to be people who care about civil rights and not party," said Mary Frances Berry, the commission chairwoman. Berry says she is a registered independent. She was appointed chairwoman by President Bill Clinton (news - web sites) in 1993. She has been at the center of some of the commission's most public controversies. In December 2001, President Bush (news - web sites) named Peter Kirsanow to be the fourth Republican on the commission, but Berry and a majority of commission members refused to let him take his seat. The commission argued that Kirsanow should not be seated because the term of the Democratic commissioner he was replacing had not expired. Federal marshals escorted him to his seat in May 2002, after an appeals court unanimously ordered that he be seated. Berry appealed to the Supreme Court, but it refused to hear the case. "I think people of good will, regardless of party, can work together for a common good independent of ideology, but that isn't happening here," Kirsanow said. Commission violated rights Last year, in another spot of trouble, the commission was ordered by a court to pay $165,000 in damages and other costs for violating the civil rights of an Hispanic employee. Created in 1957, the commission has not had an increase in its $9 million budget for almost a decade, and has not had an audit of its spending in at least 13 years. "It is not a surprise that Congress has kept our money flat all these years," Redenbaugh said. "We haven't done very well with the little money they have given us and we haven't even submitted an audit." Earlier this month, Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch (news, bio, voting record) (R-Utah) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) complained that the commission's staff director was refusing to meet with investigators from the General Accounting Office (news - web sites), the investigative arm of Congress. At the direction of Congress, the GAO is looking into the commission's spending and trying to understand the commission's lines of authority. Commission staff director Les Jin and GAO representatives met Thursday in what both sides called a cooperative session to discuss how the investigation will be carried out. On Monday, Berry adjourned the commission's meeting just minutes after it began because the four Republican commissioners were not present. They walked in moments later, but Berry refused to reconvene, saying the meeting had already been adjourned. The commissioners said they planned to use June's meeting to discuss their internal disputes--which was supposed to be the agenda of the May meeting as well. Mindy Barry, a staff member of the House Judiciary Committee's oversight council, said the commission does nothing to promote civil rights. "I just wish that someone could have been there with a camera on Monday to take a picture of the empty meeting room and say, `This is what the Civil Rights Commission was doing on the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education,'" she said. 

Vatican Warns Catholics Against Marrying Muslims

1 hour, 50 minutes ago

By Shasta Darlington 

VATICAN CITY  - The Vatican (news - web sites) warned Catholic women on Friday to think hard before marrying a Muslim and urged Muslims to show more respect for human rights, gender equality and democracy. 

Slideshow: Pope John Paul II

Calling women "the least protected member of the Muslim family," it spoke of the "bitter experience" western Catholics had with Muslim husbands, especially if they married outside the Islamic world and later moved to his country of origin. 

The comments in a document about migrants around the world were preceded by remarks about points of agreement between Christians and Muslims but they seemed likely to fuel mistrust between the world's two largest religions. 

The document said the Church discouraged marriages between believers in traditionally Catholic countries and non-Christian migrants. 

It hoped Muslims would show "a growing awareness that fundamental liberties, the inviolable rights of the person, the equal dignity of man and woman, the democratic principle of government and the healthy lay character of the state are principles that cannot be surrendered." 

When a Catholic woman and Muslim man wanted to marry, it said, "bitter experience teaches us that a particularly careful and in-depth preparation is called for." 

It said one possible problem was with Muslim in-laws and advised future mothers that they must insist on Church policy that children born of a mixed marriage be baptized and brought up as Catholics. 

If the marriage is registered in the consulate of a Muslim country, the document said, the Catholic must be careful not to sign a document or swear an oath including the shahada, the Islamic profession of faith, which would amount to converting. 

DIFFERENT APPROACHES 

The document highlighted the contrasting approaches the Vatican has taken in recent years toward Islam, which has emerged as a strong rival for souls, especially in Africa. 

Pope John Paul (news - web sites) has broken ground in dialogue with Muslims and even prayed in a mosque in Damascus. He won plaudits in the Muslim world for his strong opposition to the Iraq (news - web sites) war. 

But Vatican officials and leading Catholic prelates have expressed increasingly critical views about the spread of Islam and the challenge this poses for Catholicism. 

The Vatican's top theologian, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, said earlier this week the West "no longer loves itself" and so was unable to respond to the challenge of Islam, which was growing because it expressed "greater spiritual energy." 

The migration document also discouraged churches from letting non-Christians use their places of worship. 

This issue arose last month when Muslims in Spain asked to be able to pray in Cordoba cathedral, which was once a mosque. A senior Vatican official said this would be "problematic."

U.K. Paper Apologizes for Fake Photos 

1 minute ago

LONDON - The Daily Mirror newspaper apologized Friday for publishing faked photographs of alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners by British forces, and the editor stepped down. 

"The Daily Mirror published in good faith photographs which it absolutely believed were genuine images of British soldiers abusing an Iraqi prisoner," the newspaper said. 

"However, there is now sufficient evidence to suggest that these pictures are fakes and that the Daily Mirror has been the subject of a calculated and malicious hoax." 

The government had denounced the photos as fake on Thursday, and the regiment involved said it had conclusive evidence that a truck seen in the photos had never been in Iraq (news - web sites) - where the Daily Mirror had claimed the photos were taken. 

The newspaper said it would be "inappropriate" for Piers Morgan to continue as editor, and he had stepped down with immediate effect. 

Second Snakehead Found in Potomac River 

Fri May 14,10:17 AM ET

By STEPHEN MANNING, News Source Writer 

ROCKVILLE, Md. - A second northern snakehead has been caught by a fisherman in the Potomac River, Maryland officials said, a sign that the destructive alien species may have invaded the Washington area's largest river. 

Missed Tech Tuesday?
Explore super fast 64-bit computers, check the top ten list of desktops with the quicks and get an answer to the question: Is the Apple Power Mac G5 the world's fastest PC? 

The 12-inch immature female was found in the river Wednesday just south of Fort Washington by an angler who turned it over the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. The agency confirmed that the fish was a northern snakehead, a nonnative species imported from China. 

The discovery comes nearly a week after a fisherman caught a similar sized snakehead May 7 in a small tidal creek near Mount Vernon, Va., just across the river from Fort Washington. 

That has led state environmental officials to worry that the voracious fish that can destroy an ecosystem and live out of water may be spawning in the Potomac. 

"Two fish, same size, same area. It makes you start to wonder about the origin," said Steve Early of DNR's fisheries division. "Our concern ratchets up." 

One snakehead was caught in a Wheaton lake earlier this year and thousands were discovered in a Crofton pond in 2002. The Wheaton lake was drained and declared snakehead free while the Crofton pond was poisoned to kill the fish. 

But it would be impossible to use those kind of control methods in the Potomac, a large river that forms the border between Virginia and Maryland and flows into the Chesapeake Bay. 

Early urged fishermen to watch out for snakeheads in the area. He said anglers should kill the fish by freezing it or clubbing it and then alert DNR. The agency planned to place signs at all access points within a 10 mile radius of Marshall Hall, the point on the river where the fish was caught. 

"It was at least inhabited by two (snakeheads)," he said. "We want to find out if it is inhabited by more." 

He said state officials are unsure if the two fish were released independently of each other or if there is a reproducing population of the fish in the Potomac. DNR believes the fish found on the Maryland side was hatched in 2003. 

Native to China, snakeheads are voracious predators, sitting on the top of the food chain and devouring smaller fish. They are considered a delicacy in some Asian countries, and were often sold in Asian markets or kept in tanks by collectors. They are harmless to humans. 

In 2002, the Department of the Interior banned the import of 28 species of snakehead, including the northern variety. Those who owned snakeheads before that time could keep their fish but were barred from transporting them across state lines, he said. 

After the Wheaton discovery, Montgomery County drafted its own law making it illegal to possess a nothern snakehead.

Gang Members Indicted on Terror Charges Fri May 14, 4:49 AM ET 

By LUKAS I. ALPERT, News Source Writer NEW YORK - Nineteen members of a street gang accused of menacing their neighborhood have been indicted on murder and other charges as acts of terror, believed to be the first use of the state's anti-terrorism law against a gang. Five of the 19 gang members indicted by a grand jury were arrested Thursday, police said. The other 14 were still being sought. Charging that the St. James Gang acted with "the intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population," Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson said the grand jury was justified in adding the terrorism stipulation to several counts including conspiracy, murder and gang assault. Johnson said it was the first time he was aware of that the terrorism statute had been used in such a way. The law, passed by the state Legislature six days after the Sept. 11 attack, allows for more severe sentences. Edgar Morales, 22, who was arrested Thursday, faces the most serious charge, second-degree murder as a terrorist act, for the shooting death of a 10-year-old girl in August 2002 at a baptism party. Prosecutors allege 12 members of the gang crashed the party and confronted a man they believed was a member of a rival gang. The gang members chased the man outside and started shooting, hitting the girl with a stray bullet, prosecutors said. If convicted on that charge, Morales, who also faces several other charges, would face a mandatory life sentence without parole. The charge without the terrorism stipulation would carry a sentence of 25 years to life. The four other men arrested Thursday were charged with conspiracy and could face as much as 25 years in prison if convicted.

Frogman Living in Bog Arrested for Arson

May 14, 8:04 am ET 

BERLIN  - A German frogman who lives on a swampy island and wears a combat-style diving suit and black face paint has been arrested for suspected arson attacks on two yachts, Berlin police said on Friday.

Authorities found the man's camp, equipment and a boat with a silencer on its engine after a tip-off from a forester.

"He wore combat-style aquanaut camouflage and launched his attacks from a swampy island," wrote Bild newspaper on Friday.

Police believe the man, 36, abandoned his flat in eastern Berlin in March to live in a tent on the boggy island in a lake south of the city.

A judge issued an arrest warrant after the two yachts were destroyed by fire, causing an estimated $118,000 in damage. He had already been arrested in March for breaking and entering a pleasure boat.

Slippery Grease Bandits Make Slick Getaway

May 14, 7:52 am ET 

OKLAHOMA CITY  - Oklahoma police are looking for grease bandits who made off with 5,000 pounds (2268 kg) of used cooking oil and grease from three restaurants.

Police in Edmond, north of Oklahoma City, said on Thursday the grease bandits have hit an area of Mexican, Chinese and steak restaurants over the past three months.

The robbers took the used cooking grease that was stored in large cylinders in back of the restaurants.

The restaurants were planning to sell the grease to a recycling company and the total value of the stolen goods was about $380.

Glynda Chu, a spokeswoman for the Edmond police said the bandits had a good idea of how to get money in the used grease market, but she thinks it odd that anyone would put so much effort into making off with so much cooking byproduct.

"It would be a big chore to haul that smelly stuff away," Chu said. "They did, however, make a slick getaway."

Fear of Idolatry Sparks Wig Ban

May 14, 7:45 am ET 

JERUSALEM  - An ultraorthodox Jewish sage has issued a ritual ban against natural hair wigs from India, saying they may have been made from tresses shorn from women during Hindu ceremonies, Israeli newspapers reported on Friday.

Many Orthodox Jewish women, who adhere to rules of modesty by allowing only their husbands to see their natural hair, responded to the ruling by switching to synthetic wigs or hats, the Yedioth Ahronoth and Haaretz dailies reported.

The edict, issued by the spiritual leader of an ultraorthodox sect, said some hair in wigs sold in Israel may have come from women who took part in Hindu haircutting ceremonies, which was tantamount to idol worship.

Fugitive Who Faked Suicide Is Found Alive

May 13, 3:52 pm ET 

PHILADELPHIA  - A Tennessee man who faked his suicide 13 years ago to avoid fraud and burglary charges has been found alive and well in California, a law enforcement official said on Thursday.

Mark Paisley, now 34, left a suicide note in his car parked by the Delaware River near Philadelphia in 1991 after being sought for credit card fraud in Pennsylvania and burglary in Tennessee, said Pennsylvania State Trooper Glenn Blue.

Because no body was ever found, Blue, who works for the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force, said he always suspected Paisley had not killed himself. As a result, he made periodic checks on the case over the last three years and found Paisley's brother, Joseph, was living in Tennessee.

After initially suspecting Joseph was the fugitive, Blue discovered another Joseph Paisley living in San Francisco. The man turned out to be Mark Paisley using his brother's name.

Mark had been arrested in California on minor fraud and theft charges, Blue said, and was arrested again as a fugitive earlier this week, when he admitted his true identity.

Paisley is expected to be returned to Pennsylvania within the next 30 days and will face the original charges plus one of flight to avoid prosecution.

Blue cases where fugitives are caught after living under an alias happen once or twice a year, but the Paisley case -- with its faked suicide -- was special.

"It is unusual for it to be quite this elaborate," he told The News Source.

City Declares 'No Communist' Zone

May 13, 9:02 am ET 

LOS ANGELES  - A Southern California city known as "Little Saigon" because of its large Vietnamese population has become the first U.S. city to declare itself a "no Communist" zone.

The city council in Garden Grove, about 30 miles south of Los Angeles, passed a resolution on Tuesday saying it "does not welcome, or sanction high-profile visits, drive-bys or stopovers by members or officials of the Vietnamese Communist government."

The resolution, passed to cheers from a crowd of about 200 Vietnamese residents, also urged city officials to refrain from "initiating engagements with or facilitating" visits by Vietnamese Communists.

Garden Grove and the neighboring city of Westminster are home to some 90,000 residents of Vietnamese descent -- the largest Vietnamese population outside Vietnam. Many are political refugees and visits by visiting Vietnamese government delegations are frequently met with large protests and demonstrations.

"It is a provocation," said councilman Van Tran, who came to southern California from Vietnam as a 10 year-old refugee. "They claim they want reconciliation with the Vietnamese community here but they drive through Little Saigon in motorcades with lights blazing and with motorcycle escorts as if they own the place."

The State Department was forced to cancel a visit to Garden Grove last month by a leading Vietnamese official because police and local officials said the 24 hour notice was insufficient time to provide adequate security.

In 1999, a local video store owner who displayed a Vietnamese flag and a portrait of Ho Chi Mich provoked demonstrations by thousands of people lasting 53 days.

Smoking Soldiers Ignited Ammo Disaster

May 13, 8:56 am ET 

KIEV  - Two smoking soldiers set off tons of ammunition that killed five people, caused $725 million in damage and sent debris showering across southern Ukraine last week, the emergencies minister said on Tuesday.

A series of blasts hurled debris as far as 25 miles after fire broke out last Thursday at a warehouse complex where 92,000 tons of artillery ammunition was stored.

Blasts were still heard on Tuesday, emergencies minister Hryhory Reva told parliament.

"At about 12 o'clock on Thursday, two servicemen, who were stocking military ammunition, began smoking at their working site. It caused the fire and set off the explosions," he said.

The blasts caused some $725 million in damage to the defense ministry and population in the Zaporizhya region, he said. They destroyed buildings in a two-mile radius, including a local railway station.

A minor gas pipeline was also damaged. Metal fragments and other debris were thrown 40 km, causing fires in nearby towns.

Authorities evacuated some 7,000 people from the surrounding area. People started to return home on Tuesday, five days after the initial blasts.

Some parliamentary deputies have demanded Defense Minister Evhen Marchuk resign because of his inability to turn around the ex-Soviet state's struggling armed forces.

The Ukrainian army has seen its reputation battered in recent years following a series of disasters.

Drunken Priest Shoots Mayor Dead

May 13, 8:54 am ET 

MEXICO CITY  - A Catholic priest shot to death the mayor of a town in western Mexico early on Wednesday after the pair got drunk and began punching each other during a religious festival, state officials said.

After exchanging blows, the priest whipped out a 9mm pistol and fired four bullets into Lorenzo Ruiz, mayor of Chalpatlahuac, an indigenous town nestled in mountains 138 miles west of the Guerrero state capital of Chilpancingo, authorities said.

"It seems they were arguing, these two men. They were at a get-together, they had words and the priest shot the mayor. They were apparently both in a state of drunkenness," said Guerrero state spokesman Jesus Nava.

Local newspapers said the priest, whom they identified as Lorenzo Cuellar, was arrested after he also shot the mayor's son, injuring him.

The priest was in Chalpatlahuac to celebrate a local religious festival which started on Tuesday evening and lasted into Wednesday morning.

Guerrero is one of the poorest and most violent states in Mexico.

Ukrainian Giant Battles Poverty, Loneliness

May 13, 8:52 am ET 

By Olena Horodetska

PODOLYANTSI, Ukraine  - All Leonid Stadnyk wants is a simple, quiet and inconspicuous life. But the 33-year old Ukrainian is just too tall for that.

At a height of eight feet four inches, Stadnyk may be the world's tallest man and he keeps on growing.

Measurements by the Ukrainian branch of the Guinness Book of World Records show he is already taller than Tunisia's Radhouane Charbib, who is listed by the book as the tallest living man.

The local and foreign press have descended on his village, making him a minor celebrity. He gets paid for some of the interviews and has been offered help in getting shoes and clothes that might fit him.

Stadnyk says his height has brought him little joy.

"For my entire life I wanted to be shorter. I was bowing down, stooping," Stadnyk said, sitting in his house in the tiny village of Podolyantsi in central Ukraine. "I have always wanted to be in the shadows. I tried not to stand out, but now..."

Stadnyk remembered happier times when he was about the same size as his classmates in the village school, even a bit shorter. But then at the age of 14 he started growing rapidly. At first nobody seemed to take much notice of the tall, awkward boy with a shy smile. But then his first problems began. "There were no shoes, no clothes for me in the shops. When I was undergoing medical checks, they could not measure my height, the scale ran out. Then I became self-conscious," he said, blaming a hormonal imbalance for his growth despite never having proper medical tests to diagnose his condition. Ordering made-to-measure clothes is not easy in former Soviet Ukraine, where often a simple transaction can require dozens of documents. Money is scarce after he had to quit his job as a veterinarian due to poor health. He said his arms are very strong but complains his legs are getting weaker under his weight of about 440 lbs. "For my job, I had to travel seven kilometers (4 miles) every day. With my height I could move only by horse, on a cart." "It did not matter whether it was winter frost or summer heat, animals fell ill and I had to go. I did not have proper shoes and my feet froze. I had to stop working." Now his mother is the breadwinner in the family, while Stadnyk stays at home and takes care of the house, land and cattle.

The family house is crumbling. He walks cautiously with a bowed head to avoid the ceiling. He curls in a small armchair with his knees nearly reaching his chin. He sleeps on two beds.

Stadnyk gets a pension worth about $28 a month while needing at least $200 just to order a pair of shoes. They last about four months, he said.

Mother and son rely mostly on home-grown fruit and vegetables.

"Life is difficult. We are working, working very hard to earn our bread," he says. "With every year it is getting more difficult. Years pass by, my health gets weaker."

And he says he is lonely.

Stadnyk's village is isolated. Most youngsters have left to find work in bigger cities. Houses cry out for a coat of paint and are circled by half-broken fences.

He dismisses local media frenzy around him, saying he has no plans to capitalize on his extreme size and move into show business. He wants to stay near his mother, his best and only friend at the moment, and work in the garden.

"I do not smoke, do not drink. Every penny I can save I spend on buying seeds and seedlings. The garden is a place for me. Height doesn't matter there."

Riots Took Toll on Sex Drive

May 13, 8:42 am ET 

ROME  - Riots that dominated a G8 summit in Genoa in 2001 suppressed the sex drive of its residents and led to a sharp decline in births in the city, a study showed on Wednesday.

In the ninth month after the riots, birth rates dropped off 29 percent compared to the average birth rate on the same dates over the three previous years, the study carried out by San Martino hospital showed. Even 11 months after the clashes, birth rates were 20 percent lower.

"Violent demonstrations can cause a stress reaction with negative consequences for sexual drive and reproductive activity," the author of the study, Aldo Franco De Rose, told Italian news agency ANSA.

As part of the study, 402 residents were asked if they had had less sex after the riots. A third of respondents said yes and just over half said they suffered from anxiety.

The three-day G8 summit in July 2001 was marred by widespread rioting in which one protester was killed and hundreds injured during pitched street battles with police.

Coming to a Store Near You: Chinese Cola

May 13, 8:37 am ET 

SHANGHAI  - China's largest beverage maker is going where no other Chinese firm has gone before -- it has shipped the first retail batch of its own cola to the home of the carbonated soft drink, the United States.

Hangzhou Wahaha Group, whose 170,000-bottle shipment is on the way to New York and Los Angeles, will have to slug it out with giants PepsiCo Inc and Coca-Cola Co in the mammoth $64 billion market.

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo own eight of the top 10 soft drink brands in the United States, while British sweets and drink maker Cadbury Schweppes Plc claims the remainder.

"We have sent our first shipment of Future Cola to the United States and it should get there in June," the spokesman said.

Wahaha, which translates as "laughing baby" and comes from a popular children's folk song, decided to enter the U.S. cola market following the success of its milk exports last year, on which the spokesman declined to provide details.

She also declined to say what the U.S. retail price of Future Cola would be, but a 600-ml bottle sells for about two yuan (24 U.S. cents) in China.

Wahaha is regarded as a private enterprise despite the state holding a passive stake, and has attracted plant investment from French food group Danone totaling $120 million.

Its products include bottled water, teas, milk drinks and Future Cola, whose label bears a red-and-white color scheme similar to that of Coke.

Coca-Cola dominates the Chinese market with a share of 24 percent in 2003, while Future Cola had a seven percent share, the official English-language Shanghai Daily said.

British courts say women are the 'better' drivers

2 hours, 25 minutes ago

LONDON (NEWS SOURCE) - Women, much-maligned by the opposite sex for their supposed lack of ability behind the wheel, make far safer 
and more law-abiding drivers than their male counterparts, British officials said. 

Of those found guilty of all driving offences by courts in England and Wales in 2002, 88 percent were male motorists, according to 
statistics published by the Home Office. 

Men committed almost all the most serious offences, such as causing death and dangerous driving, but women's share of speeding 
offences rose from 13 percent in 1998 to 17 percent in 2002. 

The category in which women committed the highest number of offences was obstruction, waiting and parking -- being responsible 
for 23 percent of such cases in 2002. 

Women committed just six percent of the death or bodily harm offences in 2002 and just three percent of dangerous driving 
offences. 

But female offences relating to driving with excess alcohol or drugs in the system increased -- up from nine percent of the total in 
1998 to 11 percent in 2002. 

Men were responsible for 96 percent of vehicle thefts and 97 percent of offences relating to motorcyles. 

Overall, women's share of motoring offences rose only one percent between 1998 and 2002. 

Chlamydia May Affect More Than Thought 

Tue May 11, 4:00 PM ET 
CHICAGO - More than 4 percent of young adults in the United States are infected with chlamydia, and the sexually transmitted 
disease is six times more common in blacks than in whites, researchers say. 

In a nationally representative study of 14,322 people ages 18 to 26 conducted in 2001-02, University of North Carolina researchers 
found that 4.7 percent of women and 3.6 percent of men had chlamydia. The overall prevalence was 4.2 percent. 

The researchers said their figures are slightly higher than some previous nationwide estimates, which were based on different 
methodology. 

The prevalence was lowest among whites - 1.94 percent - and highest among blacks - 12.54 percent. Other infection rates were 
10.4 percent of Native Americans, 5.9 percent of Hispanics and 2 percent of Asian-Americans. 

Similar racial and gender disparities have been found in previous studies. 

While current screening strategies focus on testing young women, the high rates found in men suggest better methods are needed, 
said lead author Dr. William C. Miller of UNC-Chapel Hill. 

The study appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association (news - web sites). 

The UNC study is based on in-person interviews with young adults and analysis of urine specimens. 

Chlamydia is the most common bacterial sexually transmitted disease nationwide, with an estimated 3 million people infected each 
year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites). 

Chlamydia infections can be cured with antibiotics. Left untreated, they can cause pelvic pain and infertility in women and increase 
susceptibility to the AIDS (news - web sites) virus in men and women. 

In 2002, 834,555 cases of chlamydia were reported in the United States. 

Human papilloma virus, which can cause cervical cancer, is the most common sexually transmitted disease nationwide, with more than 
5 million new cases each year, according to the CDC. 
___ 

On the Net: 

JAMA: http://jama.ama-assn.org 

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov 

The Real Thing
Tuesday May 11, 3:02 am ET 
Kelly Cramer, Miami Daily Business Review 

A Miami consumer attorney has filed a lawsuit against Atlanta-based Coca-Cola, claiming the soda giant engaged in deceptive trade practices by not telling the public that Diet Coke sold through store fountains is different from the same product sold in cans and bottles. 

Lance A. Harke of Harke & Clasby filed the suit in Miami-Dade Circuit Court in March on behalf of Bartimous Berry, a Miami longshoreman. He is seeking class action status. Dan Schafer, a company spokesman in Atlanta, called the suit "frivolous and without merit." 

"We will contest it vigorously," he said Monday. 

Coke's South Florida counsel, Steven E. Siff, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery in Miami, declined comment. 

The lawsuit is one of several similar actions filed nationwide against Coca-Cola. The suit claims the company uses a saccharin and aspartame mix rather than just aspartame in the fountain version of the world's most popular diet soda. The lawsuit was filed under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. 

Saccharin was once thought to cause cancer in laboratory rats. For years, the Food and Drug Administration required a warning label on all products containing the artificial sweetener, but later studies led to President Bill Clinton signing a bill allowing no label. 

"There are lots of consumers who don't have interest in drinking a saccharin beverage," Harke said. "But the primary problem is that the company is selling something different from what they say they're selling ... Coke advertises the product in a 'unified' manner -- you'd have to be a lawyer or scientist to somehow dig for the information that the formulation is very different for fountain Diet Coke. 

"But there are numerous point-of-sale opportunities, such as at or near the soda fountain, on the cups, at the check-out counters, in the advertising campaigns generally in print and TV media, lots of ways to get the information out -- if Coke wanted to," he said. 

Coca-Cola acknowledges on its Internet site that it uses a saccharin/aspartame mix in the fountain version of its soda. "Why is the U.S. fountain version of Diet Coke sweetened with aspartame and saccharin?" is how the question is posed on the Web site. 

"Because aspartame by itself is heat and pH sensitive (meaning it loses its sweetness over time), the concentrated fountain syrup causes aspartame to lose its sweetness faster than it would in a finished beverage," the Web site says. "Fountain diet drinks, therefore, are sweetened with a blend of aspartame and saccharin to assure maximum product quality." 

Harke said that Coca-Cola added that the company's Internet site's disclosure, on a frequently asked questions page, came shortly after one of the lawsuits was filed over the sweetener. 

The lawsuit seeks to include everyone who bought Diet Coke from a fountain in Florida between Nov. 30, 1984, and March 12, 2004, the day the lawsuit was filed. 

According to the complaint, before November 1984, Coca-Cola sweetened all Diet Coke with saccharin or a mix of both saccharin and aspartame. 

In the 1970s, concerns were raised that saccharin causes cancer and, by the 1980s, the FDA issued a requirement for a warning label on all saccharin products cautioning that the artificial sweetener caused cancer in lab rats. After that, Coca-Cola publicly announced it was switching to NutraSweet, the brand name for aspartame. 

Initially, Coca-Cola included the NutraSweet logo on its diet sodas and prominently displayed it in television and print ads. But according to the lawsuit, sometime in 1993 some of the ads began to say in small print that the fountain version was not sweetened with 100 percent aspartame; the statement did not mention saccharin. 

Once Coca-Cola began using generic aspartame in the late 1980s or early 1990s, the language in the ads about a difference in the fountain version of the drink disappeared, according to the lawsuit. 

"They're saving money on this and cheating their customers," Harke said, because saccharin is cheaper than aspartame. 

A lawsuit filed in Illinois was settled a few years ago and others filed across the county are in the preliminary stages, Harke said.

Mass. Town to Let Out-Of-State Gays Wed 55 minutes ago Add U.S. National - 

By JENNIFER PETER, News Source Writer BOSTON - Officials in Cape Cod's gay tourism mecca of Provincetown voted to offer marriage licenses to out-of-state same-sex couples, potentially setting the stage for another legal battle over gay marriage. Thumbing their nose at Republican Gov. Mitt Romney's stance, the town's selectmen unanimously decided Monday to issue marriage certificates to all couples as long as they attest that they know of no legal impediment to their union. Romney immediately issued a statement Monday threatening legal action against city and town clerks statewide who defy his interpretation of the law. Romney's office has warned clerks that they will be required to seek proof of residency or the intention to move to Massachusetts from all couples - gay and straight - who are seeking to marry as of Monday, when same-sex weddings become legal. "We are a nation of laws," Romney said in the statement. "If they choose to break the law, we will take appropriate enforcement action, refuse to recognize those marriages, and inform the parties that the marriage is null and void." Provincetown town clerk Doug Johnstone did not return a call for comment early Tuesday, but in the past he has resisted Romney's instructions to obtain proof of residency from couples before issuing marriage licenses. Romney based his decision on a 1913 Massachusetts law that says couples cannot be married here if such a marriage would be void in the state in which they live. And no other state currently recognizes gay marriages. But the Provincetown Board of Selectmen said gay couples who live outside Massachusetts and have no intention of moving here will still be issued marriage licenses, as long as they attest that they know of no legal impediment to their union. Huge crowds are expected in Provincetown on Monday, the day that the decision by the Supreme Judicial Court, the state's highest court, takes effect that legalizes gay marriage in Massachusetts. For months, business owners and hoteliers in the gay-friendly seaside town at the tip of Cape Cod have been preparing for an anticipated summer rush of gay weddings. Romney's office has said the consequences of an illegal marriage could be severe for the couple, particularly if they have children, because of legal questions of support and custody. There also could be legal consequences for the clerks. Under state law, officials who issue a license "knowing that parties are prohibited" can face a fine of $100 to $500 or a prison sentence of up to a year. Attorney Mary Bonauto, who represented several gay couples whose case led to the court decision legalizing gay weddings, said Romney's interpretation of state law should bar marriage to gay couples only from those states that have laws on their books that declare gay marriages "null and void." She estimates that only about 20 states have that type of law. "It's because of his personal beliefs that he is applying the law to all 49 (other states)...," Bonauto said. "I find it sad that the Massachusetts governor would penalize a town for recognizing that Massachusetts has no business denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples whether they are Massachusetts residents or not." The Legislature has given preliminary approval to a constitutional ban on gay marriage, but it must still receive an additional round of approval from lawmakers during the 2005-2006 session and then by voters in November 2006. The constitutional amendment would simultaneously legalize civil unions. ___ On the Net: http://www.provincetowngov.org

Unmarried, Female and Turned Off by Politics Mon May 10, 7:55 AM ET

By Robin Abcarian Times Staff Writer SEATTLE - Adriana Maza is an articulate 23-year-old nanny who hopes one day to attend medical school. She has dabbled in grass-roots politics, has opinions about the war in Iraq (news - web sites), the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the presidential candidates and even considers herself a feminist. But she does not vote. "I guess I don't really feel like there's much of a choice," she said. "Until I feel there is a candidate who really represents my views, someone who can represent something positive, I don't feel compelled to vote." In this, she is part of a larger phenomenon. According to pollsters, when single women are compared with married men, married women and single men, they account for the largest number of Americans who are, in essence, voluntarily disenfranchised. More than 21 million single women - almost half of those eligible - did not cast ballots in the last presidential election. Although each election cycle brings its catchy, pollster-coined demographic fad - soccer moms, waitress moms, NASCAR (news - web sites) dads - no one has systematically studied the "single woman" vote until recently. The group, which encompasses women who have never married, are divorced or are widowed, has seemed too diffuse to lump into one electoral niche. "This population of single women covers a lot of categories, across race, across ages, across incomes, so ... it's more complicated to make a broad statement about these women," said Ruth Mandel, director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Because of their large numbers, she added, they have "the potential of changing the outcome of an election, particularly in a close race." With the country politically polarized and polls showing a virtual dead heat between President Bush (news - web sites) and his presumed Democratic challenger, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, the November election will be hard-fought and probably cost record-breaking sums. Although some think the side that best energizes its base will win, others argue that the key to victory is identifying and motivating voters at the margins - the undecided and the previously unengaged. Many analysts predict that registering single women - and then getting them to vote - could result in a big payoff for Democrats. As a group, unmarried women tend to have liberal views on social issues such as abortion, gun control and gay rights, pollsters say. When single women vote, they generally vote Democratic. This was what struck Page Gardner after the 2000 election. A liberal political activist and consultant in Washington, Gardner decided to examine exit polling data, census data and a variety of public opinion studies. "I thought everyone was sort of missing the point in terms of the post-election analysis," she said. As she began crunching numbers with her husband, Ron Rosenblith, a political consultant and former aide to Kerry, she discovered that single women and men were not registering to vote in numbers that reflected their proportion of the population. "We looked at demographic changes in this country, and it became clear that more and more unmarried men and women were not participating in the process," Gardner said. "Heads of households are becoming increasingly unmarried. In the 1950s, 80% of households were headed by married people, now it's a 50-50 split. There is a whole growing group of people on the sidelines of our democracy. The numbers literally jump out at you." For Gardner's purposes, it was the single women who were of particular interest. Had this group voted in the same proportion as married women in the 2000 election, she discovered, an additional 6 million votes would have been cast around the country (including an estimated 202,000 in Florida, which Bush carried by 537 votes). With Christina Desser, a political strategist and environmental lawyer in San Francisco, Gardner launched Women's Voices, Women Vote, a legally nonpartisan effort. The group hired the Democratic polling firm of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research Inc. to conduct a national survey last fall on the voting attitudes of 1,036 single women under age 65 - whom it dubbed "women on their own." The firm also convened focus groups in three demographically diverse states - Missouri, Florida and Washington - to help figure out how to encourage single women to vote. "The challenge is to craft a message that reaches subgroups in this population," Mandel said. "Clearly, the message to a woman in her 20s, a recent college graduate looking for a job in New York City, is going to be different from the retired widow who is concerned about Medicare and Social Security (news - web sites)." However, despite such diversity, said pollster Anna Greenberg, "One of the most surprising things is how homogenous they are" in their thinking about politics. "Healthcare was the biggest issue - this is a major source of stress for them," Greenberg said. "Younger women tend to be a little more worried about education; for older women, they tend to worry about retirement. Overall, they are consumed by their own economic security." In the survey, 65% of single women said they viewed the country as "seriously off on the wrong track." (During the same period, 50% of all respondents to The Times Poll agreed with that statement.) Many single women are alienated from the political process, Greenberg said, because they don't see connections between elections and their own lives. Or they think their votes don't matter. Maza, the nanny, said she was turned off to politics after Seattle residents voted against a major sports venue and the stadium was built anyway. "That's the perfect example where people obviously don't want something and it happens anyway," she said. Many single women have a skeptical, if not cynical, view of the way government works. "Over and over, they used expressions like male politicians have never walked in their shoes," Greenberg said. "The spontaneous use of that phrase was rather interesting.... The whole challenge is to get them to see they have a stake." Take, for instance, Belinda Rogers, an unemployed single mother waiting at a downtown Seattle bus stop recently when a local citizens group was registering voters. Rogers, 45, emphatically declined to sign up. She has no time for politicians. "The ones on the top of the ladder should come down to the bottom of the ladder to see what it's really like," she said before hopping a bus to school. Sometimes, Greenberg said, single women simply don't feel informed enough to choose among candidates. This view was expressed by Heather Reuble, 25, a single massage therapist walking briskly down Seattle's Union Street. She did not stop when she was approached to register. "Why don't I vote?" she repeated, when asked. "Good question. I know I should. I choose not to. It's really intimidating." Single women are not "enthusiastic" about the war in Iraq, Desser said, but they are not consumed by it either. Abortion was not a primary concern, the survey found. "I don't want to minimize how important choice is to these women," Desser said, "but I think it has long been believed that that's the only issue used to mobilize women, and the fact is that issues that mobilize women are not that different from issues that mobilize men." Gardner said one of the most striking findings in the focus groups was the reaction single women had when they learned that there were so many of them. "A light bulb went off. They got that if they participated, they could literally change the course of the nation." This was the logic that motivated Regina Owens, a divorced Seattle mother, to begin voting recently after a nearly 20-year hiatus. "I really felt like it didn't matter," said Owens, 43, who is an independent. "The corporate honchos, the policymakers ... I just felt like, well, they go do lunch and talk among themselves and make deals." When a canvasser from a citizens group came to her door in 2001 and asked Owens to get involved in an effort to stop cuts to food stamps, she said she suddenly understood the connection between voting and her life. "I felt like I was personally affected. I had always wondered, what can I do to make a difference? I wasn't voting, so that wasn't helping." Since then, she has become a volunteer with Washington Citizen Action, has personally registered 47 others and is looking forward to voting in her first presidential election in many years. Women's Voices, Women Vote is compiling lists of single, voting-age women in 12 states. Some, such as Florida, Ohio and Missouri, are considered swing states. Others, such as South and North Carolina, are not. In each state, however, more than half of heads of household are single and there is a significant difference in voter registration between married and single women. Desser said Women's Voices, Women Vote has amassed about $1 million of the $3 million it hopes to raise. According to the group's website, funding has come from the Heinz Family Foundation (part of the Heinz Family Philanthropies, which is chaired by Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry); the anti-Bush group MoveOn.org; and the Bauman Foundation, known for its environmental focus. Heinz Kerry's chief of staff, Jeff Lewis, is on the advisory committee, as are Democratic activist John Podesta, the Ms. Foundation's Marie Wilson and Kim Gandy of the National Organization for Women (news - web sites). Although Republicans are not specifically targeting single women, they are refusing to cede the battle over their vote. "We're definitely reaching out to register women," said Christine Iverson, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee (news - web sites). "But we're not focusing on one demographic group." This week, the Bush reelection campaign is launching a program called "W Stands for Women." The volunteer effort by women around the country will "communicate the president's message and record of achievement, especially on the issues that women care most about - making America more secure, strengthening the economy, making healthcare more accessible and more affordable," said campaign spokeswoman Ali Harden. The Democratic National Committee (news - web sites) has a similar program aimed at helping Kerry. Ultimately, Desser said, the effort to reach single women is not just about one election, it's about civic engagement: "This is about how you make voting part of the culture within which these women live." * (BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX) The voting gender gap Women traditionally vote in greater numbers than men, but a huge bloc of single women steered clear of the ballot box in 2000. Several groups are working to encourage more turnout by single women in this year's presidential election. --- 2000 election voter turnout 186.3 million eligible* voters 60% voted (110.8 million) 53.5% women (59.3 million) 46.5% men (51.5 million) --- A closer look at eligible voters, broken down by marital status: 44.8 million single women: 52% voted (23.4 million) 48% did not vote (21.4 million) Voted for: Al Gore (news - web sites) (D) 66%** George W. Bush (R) 30% Ralph Nader (news - web sites) (G) 4% -- 34.9 million single men: 44% voted (15.5 million) 56% did not vote (19.4 million) Voted for: Gore 48% Bush 45% Nader 7% -- 52.8 million married women: 68% voted (35.9 million) 32% did not vote (16.9 million) Voted for: Gore 49% Bush 49% Nader 2% -- 53.8 million married men: 67% voted (36 million) 33% did not vote (17.8 million) Voted for: Bush 58% Gore 40% Nader 2% *Eligible voters are U.S. citizens age 18 and older. **Voter returns based on exit poll data. Numbers are rounded to nearest decimal place. Sources: U.S. census, Los Angeles Times exit poll

U.S. tipped to Holocaust in '42

Fri May 14, 6:08 AM ET  - USATODAY.com 

By Richard Willing, USA TODAY 

U.S. intelligence officials learned within months of the U.S. entry into World War II that Nazi Germany planned mass killings to eliminate Jews, scholars reviewing newly declassified reports said Thursday.

� Consumers not feeling much inflation yet; prices up 0.2% 
� U.S. storms into Najaf, battles with al-Sadr's militiamen 
� E-mail from consul says Berg was in U.S. military's hands 
� More than 300 released from Abu Ghraib 
� FBI: Berg warned to leave Iraq 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Search USATODAY.com 
Snapshots 
USA TODAY Snapshot 
How many Americans suffer from osteoporosis? More USA TODAY Snapshots 

But the U.S. government gave the information low priority in August 1942, the scholars concluded, not acknowledging that Germany had a plan to exterminate Jews until six months later. (Related site: National Archives group)

"It was an intelligence failure," said Richard Breitman, an American University Holocaust historian who studied the documents. "The early information was not assimilated or used correctly."

Breitman was part of a team of scholars, citizens and government officials who reviewed more than 240,000 pages of documents at the National Archives related to Nazi and other World War II-era crimes. The material was from files of the FBI (news - web sites), CIA (news - web sites) and its predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services.

The documents show a federal intelligence unit was formed to interview Jews who immigrated from Axis countries in 1941 and 1942. One, Joseph Goldschmied, described how Germans seized money and property from Jews in his hometown, Prague, Czechoslovakia, and sent thousands to die in the Theresienstadt detention camp.

"If Hitler remains true to his program of destroying all European Jewry - he will have achieved this goal soon," Goldschmied said in August 1942.

The scholars said the declassified documents also show:

� The CIA recruited as intelligence sources 23 Germans who appeared to have perpetrated war crimes.

� The U.S. Army protected an additional 100 German spies, including their leader Reinhard Gehlen, who had knowledge of Soviet Russia.

� The FBI and CIA helped Nazis or Nazi collaborators with intelligence value elude war-crimes prosecution.

� The agencies pressured the Immigration and Naturalization Service to let war criminals working with American authorities resettle in the USA. 

American intelligence recruited the ex-Nazis in the Cold War fight against communism, some documents show. The professors say many of the ex-Nazis had little long-term value.

The documents include a previously unknown description of a tea party hosted by Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944, that Italian dictator Benito Mussolini attended. Hours earlier, Hitler had just missed being assassinated by a bomb planted by some of his senior officers.

The firsthand account from a translator, said Hitler gobbled candy-colored pills and raved for a half-hour "in a fit of frenzy" with "foam on his lips," questioning whether "the German people are worthy of my great ideas." 

"I don't know why I didn't go over to the Allies there and then," said the translator, Eugen Dollmann, in a conversation after his capture in 1945.

NBC Closes Merger With Universal 

47 minutes ago 
Add Business - 

By SETH SUTEL, News Source Business Writer 

NEW YORK - NBC closed its deal to merge with the Universal entertainment businesses Wednesday, creating a new media conglomerate that will take its place alongside giants such as Time Warner Inc. and Viacom Inc. 

The new company, to be known as NBC Universal, will be led mainly by NBC executives including Bob Wright, the NBC chairman who will become chairman and CEO of the company. Wright will also continue as vice chairman of General Electric Co., NBC's parent company. 

The deal brings together television's top-rated network among the 18-49 age group, which advertisers try hardest to reach; a major movie studio; a television production studio; a handful of cable TV channels including USA, Sci-Fi, CNBC and Bravo; and a group of 29 television stations. 

Wright said the combination presented a "tremendous growth opportunity for our viewers, advertisers, employees, and GE shareowners." 

While not as diverse or large as some of the other major conglomerates, NBC Universal will own several top-quality properties, not least of which is the powerful "Law & Order" franchise, a cash cow for NBC which is produced by Universal's television arm. 

The deal also gives NBC a major TV studio, ensuring the network a stable pipeline of future shows and giving it more bargaining power among other media conglomerates in negotiating for shows of its own. 

GE will own 80 percent of NBC Universal, while the French media and telecommunications conglomerate Vivendi Universal will own the remaining 20 percent. Vivendi is also getting $3.4 billion in cash in the deal. 

Ron Meyer, the head of Universal Studios, will remain at the company as head of the Hollywood studio as well as its associated theme parks. 

Several NBC executives will take on larger responsibilities in the new conglomerate, including Randy Falco, who will oversee the company's operations. Rising star Jeff Zucker will oversee all TV programming except for sports, which will be handled by NBC sports chief Dick Ebersol.

Raiders Haven't Hired 'Apprentice' 

Tue May 11, 8:48 PM ET

ALAMEDA, Calif. - The Oakland Raiders said they haven't hired Nick Warnock, who made it to the final episodes of Donald Trump's NBC hit reality show, "The Apprentice," but the team hadn't ruled out employing him in the future. 

Slideshow: Donald Trump and 'The Apprentice'

Related Links
� 'The Apprentice' (Y! TV)

Raiders spokesman Artie Gigantino said Tuesday that reports last week that Warnock had finalized a job with the Raiders were "premature." 

The Raiders met with Warnock, 27, last week about selling luxury suites at the Oakland Coliseum, which is a part-time job with the franchise. 

For now, Warnock will be working for Jason Binn's Niche Media Holdings, publisher of several high-end magazines. He will sell advertisements and will be based in Los Angeles. 

"No deal has been completed," Gigantino said. "The way it was left, Nick was going to fulfill prior commitments and when he was done we'd revisit what the next step was." 

Warnock, a native of New Jersey, was among 16 candidates on "The Apprentice" who competed for a high-paying job with Trump. In the last episode, Trump hired Internet entrepreneur Bill Rancic, who will oversee the construction of a 90-story building project in Chicago.

U.S. to Build World's Fastest Computer 

Tue May 11, 8:35 PM ET

By H. JOSEF HEBERT, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - Viewing supercomputers as crucial to scientific discovery, the Energy Department will announce plans 
Wednesday to build the world's fastest computer at a research laboratory in Tennessee. 

The supercomputer to be built at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory will be funded over the initial two years by federal grants totaling 
$50 million. 

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham (news - web sites) was to make the formal announcement in a speech Wednesday, in which he 
will call development of the world's fastest computer for general science "critical to our nation's competitiveness." 

The News Source obtained a copy of Abraham's announcement Tuesday. 

The project submitted by Oak Ridge scientists envisions a computer capable of sustaining 50 trillion calculations per second. 

The Energy Department project will involve Cray Corp., International Business Machines and Silicon Graphics Inc., all private 
companies that have been deeply involved in high-performance computing research. 

The program will attempt to develop a computer that will surpass Japan's Earth Simulator, built by NEC in 2002 and capable of 
sustaining nearly 36 trillion calculations per second. Some computers have reached many times that speed, but not on a sustained 
basis. 

With the NEC computer in 2002, Japan became the world leader in having the most powerful computer for scientific research - one 
even faster than computers used at the government nuclear weapons laboratories. 

"This computer will propel the United States into the global lead in high-speed computers aimed at scientific discovery," according to 
Abraham. 

Ultra-fast supercomputers are considered essential in today's scientific research, from analyzing climate change and developing fusion 
energy to understanding cellular structures, Energy Department officials said. 

With the development of the Earth Simulator, many officials believed the United States had lost the lead in scientific computation, 
although U.S. universities and federal research labs still have many of the fastest computers now operating. 

Superfast computers do more than solve complicated sets of equations. They allow for sophisticated simulations that lead to scientific 
discoveries once only found through lengthy experimentation. For example, supercomputers are key in the Energy Department's 
attempt to simulate the forces of a nuclear explosion, replacing actual bomb testing. 

"We are making this significant investment in America's scientific infrastructure with the expectation that it will yield a wealth of 
dividends, major research breakthroughs, significant technological innovations, medical and health advances, enhanced economic 
competitiveness and improved quality of life," Abraham will tell a group at the Council on Competitiveness in Washington. 

While the Japanese are to be congratulated for their accomplishment, the United States "must make the commitment necessary to 
regain the clear-cut lead" in supercomputing, he contends. 

"This is exactly what we are going to do," promises Abraham. 

The department chose the Oak Ridge proposal from among four finalists. The others were submitted by the Lawrence Berkeley 
National Laboratory in California, Brookhaven National Laboratory (news - web sites) in New York and the Stanford Linear 
Accelerator Center in California. 

Microsoft Warns of 'Important' Windows Flaw Tue May 11, 7:31 PM ET Add Technology 

By Spencer Swartz SAN FRANCISCO  - A flaw in Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) almost universally used Windows operating system could allow hackers to take control of a PC by luring users to a malicious Web site and coaxing them into clicking on a link, the company warned on Tuesday. The world's largest software maker issued the warning as part of its monthly security bulletin, along with a patch to fix the problem. The security warning was rated "important," the second most serious on Microsoft's four-tiered rating scale for computer security threats. The highest is "critical." Anti-virus software company Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq:SYMC - news) called the vulnerability a "high risk" due to the impact the flaw could have if successfully exploited. The security flaw affects the latest versions of Windows, including Windows XP (news - web sites), and software for networked computers such as Windows Server 2003, Microsoft said. Vincent Gullotto, vice president of the anti-virus emergency response team at Network Associates Inc. (NYSE:NET - news), said he did not believe the vulnerability was a high risk but said computer users should retrieve security patches from Microsoft's Web site. Stephen Toulouse, a manager at Microsoft's Security Response Center, said that while the vulnerability would not allow for the automatic spread of a virus in the way the recent Sasser worm spread across global networks, it could still have serious consequences. "The net result of an attack would be for an attacker to be able to do anything you already do on your computer," he said. To exploit the vulnerability, an attacker would have to host a Web site that contains a Web page used to exploit the vulnerability and then persuade the user to visit the Web site and perform several actions before the attacker could take over a computer, Toulouse said. The fast-moving Sasser computer worm hit PC users running the ubiquitous Microsoft Windows 2000 (news - web sites), NT and XP operating systems a little over a week ago, afflicting computer users around the world by causing automatic reboots and slowing down Internet connections. The suspected author of the Sasser worm was caught in Germany this past weekend. Tuesday's security bulletin is the 15th issued so far this year by Microsoft, of which seven have identified "critical" flaws in its software. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft issued 51 security bulletins in 2003. Last year, Microsoft adopted a new monthly patch release program, which it said would let customers apply software fixes for security bugs more easily.

Mass. Town May Have Earliest Baseball Law Tue May 11, 4:22 PM ET 

By ADAM GORLICK, News Source Writer PITTSFIELD, Mass. - Officials and historians in this western Massachusetts city released a 213-year-old document Tuesday that they believe is the earliest written reference to baseball. The evidence comes in a 1791 bylaw that aims to protect the windows in Pittsfield's new meeting house by prohibiting anyone from playing baseball within 80 yards of the building. That bylaw would have been produced well before Abner Doubleday is said to have written the rules for the game in 1839. Historian John Thorn was doing research on the origins of baseball when he found a reference to the bylaw in an 1869 book on Pittsfield's history. He shared his find with former major leaguer and area resident Jim Bouton, who told city officials about the ordinance. A librarian found the actual document in a vault at the Berkshire Athenaeum library. Its age was authenticated by researchers at the Williamstown Art Conservation Center. "It's clear that not only was baseball played here in 1791, but it was rampant," Thorn said. "It was rampant enough to have an ordinance against it." The long-accepted story of baseball's origins centers around Cooperstown, N.Y., where Doubleday is said to have come up with the rules for the modern game. That legend long legitimized the Baseball Hall of Fame's presence in Cooperstown, although later evidence pointed to the first real game being played in Hoboken, N.J., in 1846. In 2001, a librarian at New York University came across two newspaper articles published on April 25, 1823, that show an organized form of a game called "base ball" was being played in Manhattan. The Pittsfield group hopes their find puts to rest the debate about the game's origins. "Pittsfield is baseball's Garden of Eden," Mayor James Ruberto said. But experts say it may be impossible to say exactly where and when baseball was created because it evolved from earlier games, such as cricket and rounders, another English game played with a bat and ball. "There's no way of pinpointing where the game was first played," said Jeff Idelson, a spokesman for the Hall of Fame. "Baseball wasn't really born anywhere." Still, Idelson said if the Pittsfield group's document is authentic, it would be "incredibly monumental." Pittsfield might be a sensible home for the sport. Some historians have documented "the Massachusetts game" as a precursor to modern baseball, where runners were thrown out if they were hit by a ball. Bouton, whose decade-long career as a pitcher included stints with the New York Yankees (news) and Houston Astros (news), lives in nearby Egremont and is helping to restore Pittsfield's Wahconah Park, the former home of several minor league teams. He hopes the discovery helps bring attention to the project. "We thought this was a lucky stroke," said Bouton, whose 1970 book "Ball Four" offered a scandalous look behind the scenes of professional baseball. "I'm sure Pittsfield will live off this for a while." For now, the document will be kept in a vault until city officials figure out how to properly display it. A copy will be hung at Wahconah Park, one of the nation's oldest ballparks.

N.Y. Removes Controversial Parking Meter 

Tue May 11, 5:53 PM ET 
Add U.S. National - 

By KAREN MATTHEWS, News Source Writer 

NEW YORK - The city wasted no time in mollifying motorists angry over a case of meter madness. A parking meter in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn was so close to a fire hydrant that parking there meant risking a $115 ticket. 

State law requires that cars park at least 15 feet from hydrants - leaving only 12 feet, 5 inches between the meter and the buffer zone. Only a tiny car such as the Mini Cooper, measuring just 11.9 feet, could fit in that space; a Ford Taurus would be about 4 feet too long. 

The city removed the meter on Tuesday, following a front-page headline in the Daily News. 

"We took the meter out," said Tom Cocola, a spokesman for the city Department of Transportation. "We try to listen to the public." 

That was too late for George Akopoulos, 47, who co-owns a restaurant nearby. He said he got a ticket a month ago but paid it to avoid a hassle. Others, such as Bob Restaino, 64, have unsuccessfully fought their tickets. 

"This is a disgrace. I put money in the meter, went to lunch and got a ticket. I was parked legally," Restaino told the Daily News. 

Restaino, who is retired, called the newspaper in frustration after spending three hours in parking court Monday. 

But Tuesday was a new day for him. He was autographing copies of his picture in the paper for neighborhood residents and fielding calls from the BBC, the British broadcasting network. 

"I never actually in my wildest dreams figured it would go this far," he said. 

Cocola said anyone who got a ticket at the meter should plead innocent and mail a copy of the Daily News story with the ticket. "I think they'll be successful," he said. 

He said he didn't know how the meter and the fire hydrant were installed so close together in the first place. "It may have been a miscalculation," he said.

Study: Brain Prefers Working for Cash 

Thu May 13, 1:05 PM ET 
By DANIEL YEE, News Source Writer 

ATLANTA - It's nicer when you actually earn it. 

Missed Tech Tuesday?
Explore super fast 64-bit computers, check the top ten list of desktops with the quicks and get an answer to the question: Is the Apple Power Mac G5 the 
world's fastest PC? 

Lottery winners, trust-fund babies and others who get their money without working for it do not get as much satisfaction from their cash as those who earn it, a 
study of the pleasure center in people's brains suggests. 

Emory University researchers measured brain activity in the striatum - the part of the brain associated with reward processing and pleasure - in two groups 
of volunteers. One group had to work to receive money while playing a simple computer game; the other group was rewarded without having to earn it. 

The brains of those who had to work for their money were more stimulated. 

"When you have to do things for your reward, it's clearly more important to the brain," said Greg Berns, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral 
science. "The subjects were more aroused when they had to do something to get the money relative to when they passively received the money." 

Berns and other researchers said the study has broader real-world implications, particularly in the age of multimillion-dollar lottery jackpots. 

He said that other studies have shown "there's substantial evidence that people who win the lottery are not happier a year after they win the lottery. It's also 
fairly clear from the psychological literature that people get a great deal of satisfaction out of the work they do." 

In the Emory study, published Thursday in the journal Neuron, volunteers played a computer game in which they had to push a button every time a triangle 
appeared. The 16 volunteers played while their brains were scanned by a magnetic resonance imaging machine, or MRI. 

The researchers found that some reward centers of the brain were activated whenever a volunteer received money. However, the striatum was activated only 
when volunteers worked for their reward. 

Berns suggested that the brain is wired this way by nature. 

"I don't think it ever evolved to sit back and sit on the couch and have things fall in our laps," he said. 

The study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. 

"This part of the brain is a fascinating part. It's associated with drug abuse, a number of diseases," Berns said. "It's no coincidence we're finding it to be very 
important in almost everything that we do." 

___ 

On the Net: 

Emory University: http://www.emory.edu

Officials Unaware of Interrogation Rules 

2 hours, 16 minutes ago 


By PAULINE JELINEK, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon (news - web sites)'s No. 2 general and the deputy defense secretary said they were unaware of interrogation rules approved for use in Iraq (news - web sites) allowing the use of dogs or days of sleep deprivation. 

Slideshow: Iraq Prisoner Abuse Investigation

Latest headlines: 
� Senator grills Wolfowitz on US prisoner interrogation 
NEWS SOURCE - 6 minutes ago 
� US overseer for Iraq says US does not stay where "not welcome" 
NEWS SOURCE - 14 minutes ago 
� Militia Move Around City of Nassiriyah 
AP - 14 minutes ago 
Special Coverage

Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz appeared Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites). The panel is trying to determine if the prisoner abuse was limited to a small group of soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison or if the problem was more widespread and military leaders were involved. 

Photos of hooded, naked Iraqi prisoners being sexually humiliated and apparently injured by their American captors have touched off an international outcry. Pentagon officials say the treatment in the pictures goes well beyond approved interrogation techniques. 

But the approved techniques have also raised concerns on the committee. A summary of "Interrogation Rules of Engagement" provided to senators by Army officials says that, with a general's written approval, prisoners could be subjected to stressful positions for up to 45 minutes, isolation for more than 30 days, military dogs and up to 72 hours of "sleep management." 

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said he believed the policy would allow prisoners to be held "naked, with a bag over their head, squatting with their arms uplifted for 45 minutes." 

Both Pace and Wolfowitz said such treatment would appear to violate the Geneva Conventions. But they said they weren't familiar with the interrogation techniques approved for use in Iraq. 

The Pentagon late Thursday issued a statement saying the scenario Reed described would be "contrary to our regulations. Senator Reed is mistaken." 

As senators pursue their inquiry, they are expected to call other top military officials. Senators have particularly expressed interest in hearing from Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith; Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq; and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the commander of Abu Ghraib. 

Speaking to reporters Thursday, Miller defended his role in advising U.S. authorities last fall on how to set up a detention and interrogation system in Iraq that could yield useful intelligence on the insurgency. 

"I'm absolutely convinced we laid down the foundations for how you detain people humanely," said Miller, former commander of the U.S. prison compound at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. 

Miller gave a tour of Abu Ghraib on Thursday to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who made a surprise visit to Iraq in hopes of containing the scandal. 

Rumsfeld called the controversy surrounding the prison a "body blow for all of us" and said the people who did wrong will be punished. 

"You can be absolutely certain that the abuses of a few are not going to change how we manage this force," Rumsfeld told troops. "We need all of you to make this thing work for our country." 

Rumsfeld also held out hope to his war-weary audience that international troops may soon arrive to augment their ranks. He said U.S. officials were engaged in talks with nations "that have capabilities to bring forces in," and those discussions were going well. 

"I'm encouraged. I think we'll find that we will get additional forces," Rumsfeld said. He did not specify which or how many countries are involved, saying only "we're probably talking to a couple of handfuls, maybe three handfuls of nations."

Fast-Food Breakfast May Inflame Blood Vessels Wed May 12,12:44 PM ET Add Health 

By Amy Norton NEW YORK (The News Source Health) - Downing a big fast-food breakfast may spur a temporary but large inflammatory response in the blood vessels, a small study suggests. Researchers say that while an occasional indulgence in such high-fat, high-carbohydrate fare probably poses no concern, the new findings suggest that making it a regular routine could lead to chronic blood vessel inflammation and complications, such as heart attack and stroke. The study included nine healthy, normal-weight adults who were fed a breakfast of one Egg McMuffin, a Sausage McMuffin and two servings of hash browns from McDonald's. The meal weighed in at 910 calories, 81 grams of carbohydrates, 51 grams of fat and 32 grams of protein. While the hearty breakfast may be on the supersize side, lead study author Dr. Ahmad Aljada of the State University of New York at Buffalo said it reflects what many Americans order up at fast-food restaurants. "We wanted to look at a typical American meal," he told The News Source Health. "We're not targeting McDonald's." Dr. Catherine Adams, corporate vice president of worldwide quality at McDonald's and a registered dietitian, cautioned against reading too much into the findings. The normal metabolic response to eating involves some inflammation and the production of molecules called oxygen free radicals. Any heavy meal, compared with water, will generate a much greater inflammatory response, Adams noted. And no one, she told The News Source Health, advocates regularly consuming a 900-calorie fast-food breakfast. However, Aljada said additional research suggests that it's not the size, but the content of the breakfast that may be the problem when it comes to inflammation in the blood vessels. He said he and his colleagues found that 900 calories' worth of an American Heart Association (news - web sites) (AHA)-endorsed breakfast high in fruit and fiber did not produce the inflammatory responses seen with the fast-food breakfast. "The number of calories is not the issue," Aljada said. "It's the type of food." There may be something about the metabolism of fat, for example, that spurs significant inflammation, according to the researcher. In past studies, he and his colleagues found that both pure glucose (sugar) and fat trigger greater inflammatory responses than protein does. The AHA-based breakfast, while high in carbohydrates, contains complex, fiber-rich carbs, as well as antioxidant vitamins that may ward off inflammation, Aljada explained. For the new study, the researchers gave nine adults the fast-food breakfast and another eight a glass of water after an overnight fast. They took blood samples before the meal or drink, then again one, two and three hours afterward. The blood samples showed that in the fast-food diners, markers of inflammation and free-radical production rose and remained high for hours after the meal. Chronic inflammation is key in the development of the artery disease atherosclerosis, a hardening and narrowing of the arteries that can lead to heart attack and stroke. Aljada said that the concern is that, over time, repeated inflammatory responses like those seen in the study could lead to chronic inflammation in the blood vessels. He said his advice to fast-food fans is to "eat moderately." "And," the researcher added, "you may want to look into eating more fruit and fiber." Adams echoed the call for moderation, saying fast-food fare can fit into a balanced diet. Ordering that Egg McMuffin with a glass of orange juice-rich in free radical-squelching antioxidants is one way to strive for better balance, she noted. Aljada said he and his colleagues are studying the inflammatory effects of other types of food as well, including Atkins-style high-fat, high-protein meals, and foods with a high glycemic index. Foods in this latter group are digested quickly to glucose and cause a swift surge in blood sugar; they include carbohydrates such as white bread and potatoes. SOURCE: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (news - web sites), April 2004.

Lemurs Aren't So Dumb After All, Study Finds

Wed May 12, 5:31 PM ET 
Add Science 

WASHINGTON  - Lemurs, once believed to be cute but basically stupid, show startling intelligence when given a chance to win treats by playing a computer game, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday. 

Missed Tech Tuesday?
Explore super fast 64-bit computers, check the top ten list of desktops with the quicks and get an answer to the question: Is the Apple Power Mac G5 the world's fastest PC? 

The study will help shed light on how humans became sophisticated mathematically, the Duke University team said. 

So far, it suggests primitive animals such as lemurs need a good reason, such as a treat, to bother trying to count. Humans and monkeys, in contrast, will stretch their minds simply out of curiosity. 

Lemurs are primates, as are monkeys, apes and humans. But they are considered far less intelligent. "The little bit of research that's out there suggests their learning capacities are not as sophisticated as those of monkeys," said psychologist Elizabeth Brannon, who led the research. 

"So initially, I thought it very unlikely that I was going to get any cognitive experiments to really work with them." 

But she found a combination of greed and the lure of a touch-screen computer worked to get the long-tailed animals to cooperate. 

"If a task involves a food reward, they can be amazing," she said. "They'll work for a couple of hundred trials because they want these sugar pellets, even though we do not deprive them of food in any way." 

Although lemurs are social, they would often stop what they were doing to play on the computer. 

"Occasionally, one animal would come over and finish the sequence started by another to get the reward," said Brannon. 

Unexpectedly, the lemurs could remember sequences. For instance, they showed they could remember the order of appearance of random images by touching them in order when they reappeared as a group. 

"It shows that the animal is actually learning some kind of strategy above and beyond what they're learning about the individual pictures in a given set," Brannon said. 

But the lemurs were not especially dexterous. "While monkeys will use their fingers, the ringtails (lemurs) use their nose or mouth to touch the screen, sometimes kind of kissing it," Brannon said.

Lemurs Aren't So Dumb After All, Study Finds

Wed May 12, 5:31 PM ET 
Add Science 

WASHINGTON  - Lemurs, once believed to be cute but basically stupid, show startling intelligence when given a chance to win treats by playing a computer game, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday. 

Missed Tech Tuesday?
Explore super fast 64-bit computers, check the top ten list of desktops with the quicks and get an answer to the question: Is the Apple Power Mac G5 the world's fastest PC? 

The study will help shed light on how humans became sophisticated mathematically, the Duke University team said. 

So far, it suggests primitive animals such as lemurs need a good reason, such as a treat, to bother trying to count. Humans and monkeys, in contrast, will stretch their minds simply out of curiosity. 

Lemurs are primates, as are monkeys, apes and humans. But they are considered far less intelligent. "The little bit of research that's out there suggests their learning capacities are not as sophisticated as those of monkeys," said psychologist Elizabeth Brannon, who led the research. 

"So initially, I thought it very unlikely that I was going to get any cognitive experiments to really work with them." 

But she found a combination of greed and the lure of a touch-screen computer worked to get the long-tailed animals to cooperate. 

"If a task involves a food reward, they can be amazing," she said. "They'll work for a couple of hundred trials because they want these sugar pellets, even though we do not deprive them of food in any way." 

Although lemurs are social, they would often stop what they were doing to play on the computer. 

"Occasionally, one animal would come over and finish the sequence started by another to get the reward," said Brannon. 

Unexpectedly, the lemurs could remember sequences. For instance, they showed they could remember the order of appearance of random images by touching them in order when they reappeared as a group. 

"It shows that the animal is actually learning some kind of strategy above and beyond what they're learning about the individual pictures in a given set," Brannon said. 

But the lemurs were not especially dexterous. "While monkeys will use their fingers, the ringtails (lemurs) use their nose or mouth to touch the screen, sometimes kind of kissing it," Brannon said.

New Prison Abuse Photos Outrage Lawmakers 8 minutes ago 

By KEN GUGGENHEIM, News Source Writer WASHINGTON - Fresh photos showing American soldiers brutalizing Iraqi prisoners with snarling dogs or forced sex left members of Congress angry and disgusted, but apparently with few new clues about how widespread the abuse was and who ultimately should be held accountable. In separate private screenings on Capitol Hill, House and Senate members saw photos and video Wednesday of Iraqi corpses, military dogs menacing cowering Iraqi prisoners, Iraqi women forced to expose themselves and other sexual abuses. Some lawmakers said the pictures included forced homosexual sex; others said the quality of the photos were too poor to discern what was happening. The 1,600-plus photos, which included scenes of abuse mixed in with travelogue-type snapshots, were in addition to the those that already surfaced publicly depicting abuse and sexual humiliation at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. The photos have created international condemnation and threatened to undermine U.S. military and rebuilding efforts in Iraq (news - web sites). Lawmakers differed over whether the new batch of photos should be released - a decision likely will be left up to the Bush administration. Some said they feared releasing photos would only further inflame international passions; others argued it would demonstrate the openness of American society and limit the damage caused by the gradual leaking of photos to media outlets. They also disagreed about whether the photos they saw were much worse than the ones already made public. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said, "It was significantly worse than anything that I had anticipated. Take the worst case and multiply it several times over." But Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., said, "Anything like this is shocking ... but it's generally the same as what's in the public domain - no huge surprises." The viewing came a day after Islamic militants, in a video, showed the beheading of an American in Iraq to avenge the prison abuse. President Bush (news - web sites) said "there's no justification" for the killing of Nicholas Berg, 26, and that it would not shake U.S. resolve to bring democracy to Iraq. The private Capitol Hill screening marked the latest turn in a scandal that has prompted Bush to apologize to the victims and Democrats to demand the dismissal of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. The Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites) has been holding hearings to determine whether prisoner abuses were limited to the Abu Ghraib facility. The committee also wants to see whether responsibility went beyond a small group of enlisted soldiers and their immediate supervisors, who the Army says provided inadequate training and supervision. Among the uncertainties is whether military intelligence officials directly or indirectly encouraged the abuse in order to "soften up" detainees for interrogations. The Defense Department is investigating the abuse, and the courts-martial of three military police guards have been ordered. Lawmakers said the new photos showed small groups of soldiers - fewer than a dozen - abusing the prisoners. Many of the soldiers' faces were already familiar from photos published worldwide. It wasn't clear whether all the abuse took place at Abu Ghraib or at other locations, they said. Senators said the photographs were presented as a rapid slide show on a screen in the classified hearing room. Pentagon (news - web sites) officials were present, but did not answer questions about the pictures, apparently fearing they might interfere with the any prosecutions. The photos were seized from service members and included many shots unrelated to the investigation, such as pictures of historic sites. Some photos showed what appeared to be soldiers having sex. Because of the vast number of photos - and members coming and going - not all saw the same slides, and impressions varied. "I saw cruel, sadistic torture," said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., who added that some of the images were of male prisoners masturbating. She said she saw a man hitting himself against a wall as though to knock himself unconscious. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said he did not see acts of violence, but what appeared to be "results of acts of violence." He said he saw people in body bags and a person with a face "virtually gone." He saw "people being stitched up above the eyebrow apparently unconscious." Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., said, "There were people who were forced to have sex with each other." Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., said, "There were some pictures where it looked like a prisoner was sodomizing himself" with an object. He said blood was visible in the photograph. But House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said he thought "some people are overreacting." "The people who are against the war are using this to their political ends," he said. At a Senate hearing earlier Wednesday, Rumsfeld said Pentagon lawyers had approved methods such as sleep deprivation and dietary changes as well as rules permitting prisoners to be made to assume stressful positions. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told senators the military has taken steps to correct the problems that led to abuses, including replacing the military police unit that took some of the photos.

Weinsteins, Disney Reach Deal on 'Fahrenheit 9/11' Wed May 12, 4:53 PM ET Add Movies 

LOS ANGELES  - Miramax Films said on Wednesday it has reached a deal with Miramax's owners, the Walt Disney Co., allowing it to find a new distributor for director Michael Moore (news)'s controversial documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11," which Disney refused to distribute. "We are very happy that Disney has agreed to sell 'Fahrenheit 911' to Bob and Harvey," Miramax spokesman Matthew Hiltzik said in a statement, referring to Miramax co-chiefs Harvey and Bob Weinstein. Under the agreement, the Weinstein brothers would acquire the rights to the film that chronicles America's response to the Sept. 11 attacks and looks at links between the family of President Bush (news - web sites) and prominent Saudis, including the family of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites). Hiltzik said the Weinsteins are providing a "term sheet" to Disney based on a similar deal for a previous, controversial Miramax film "Dogma," and that the brothers "look forward to promptly completing this transaction." The Weinsteins would then be free to find a new distributor to release the documentary into theaters, possibly as soon as July. Disney, Miramax's corporate parent, had previously refused to distribute the movie that Miramax had funded. Disney's decision, which it said it had made as long as one year ago, spurred headlines last week when Moore, the filmmaker behind 2002's Oscar-winning "Bowling for Columbine," went public with it.

Accused Soldiers Face Global Condemnation Wed May 12, 4:28 PM ET Add U.S. National - 

By ROBERT TANNER, News Source National Writer 

They are neighbors, relatives, co-workers. One fixed cars; another might've bagged your groceries, if you'd stopped in her small West Virginia town. Seven soldiers, volunteers drawn by money or duty or the chance to get out of town. They got called up to Iraq (news - web sites) and entered another world. And now they're being condemned by everyone from the president to the Vatican (news - web sites). The photos of Iraqi detainees being humiliated can't be argued with. But what about these soldiers behind them? Families and friends say there's an explanation, others to blame, orders given. The soldiers' lives offer scant clues. If you picked a handful of people off the street, you'd probably find roughly similar stories, most mundane, some troubled: growing up in small towns and suburbs, dreams of college and careers, marriages, kids, a strife-filled divorce, money worries. What's striking, ultimately, is not so much how they stand out from the crowd, but how much they blend in. Seven of roughly 1.2 million part-time troops, they're reservists from the 372nd Military Police Company in Cresaptown, Md., sergeants and specialists, in their 20s and 30s, four men and three women. The first to go before a military tribunal - Spc. Jeremy Sivits - faces a special court-martial next week. The 24-year-old from Hyndman, Pa., apparently took some of the photographs. He could get up to one year in prison. Back in Hyndman, Sivits worked at a window-blind factory. He married two years ago, lived with his wife's parents. His love is baseball, playing catcher, first and third base in school and adult leagues, said Jamey Ringler, the best man at Sivits' wedding. His family and friends, like those of the other soldiers who have been charged in the scandal, don't buy the allegations against Sivits - or say someone higher-up is more to blame. "I'd bet my house on it, he's not that type of person," said Ringler. His friend, Ringler said, was well-mannered and obeyed the rules. "It was always, 'Sir, yes sir, yes ma'am.'" "He was just following instructions," said his father, Daniel Sivits, a veteran himself. Yellow ribbons wave from his porch. Sivits might be first to face justice, but two of the soldiers getting a great deal of scrutiny are both prison guards in civilian life - Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick II, 37, of Buckingham, Va., and Spc. Charles A. Graner Jr., 35, of Uniontown, Pa. Frederick is the oldest, with 20 years in the Reserves. He signed up in high school and was the senior enlisted soldier at the Abu Ghraib prison between last October and December, when the alleged crimes occurred. His six years as a prison guard were virtually spotless, said his wife, Martha. He even was cited for saving the life of a prisoner who tried to hang himself, she said. The warden at the Virginia prison wouldn't comment on Frederick's record. Frederick claims the abusive treatment - inmates stripped naked, cuffed to their cells - was orchestrated by military intelligence officers, not MPs, according to a diary his family made available. For Graner, his history turns up uncomfortable echoes - allegations of brutality at the prison where he worked in western Pennsylvania, threats of violence against his ex-wife. In lawsuits brought by inmates, he was accused of using excessive force and of planting a razor blade in a plate of potatoes, causing an inmate to cut his mouth. Both suits were dismissed. He divorced his then-wife in 2000, a marriage that brought two children. She sought legal protection a year later, and alleged in court documents that he dragged her by the hair out of their son's room, and tried to throw her down the stairs after an argument. But perhaps the soldier who has received the most notoriety is Spc. Lynndie England, 21. The sight of the slight woman in Army gear, holding a naked prisoner by a leash or pointing at a prisoner's genitals, has spurred widespread revulsion. She was headstrong, family and friends said, and dreamed of becoming a storm-chaser who studies tornadoes and other, catastrophic weather. She joined the Reserves to see the world beyond her one-stoplight hometown of Fort Ashby, W. Va. England worked at a local grocery, and, later, nights on the line at a chicken-processing plant. She married at 19 and divorced within two years. Now her family can't stand to see the pictures anymore, her story the ugly flipside to Jessica Lynch, another small-town West Virginian girl caught up in this war - but one who came home a hero. England "really wasn't involved," insisted Destiny Goin, a friend so close she considers herself a sister. "She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time." The other two women joined the Reserves after Sept. 11. Spc. Sabrina D. Harman, 26, was an assistant manager at a pizza chain, while Spc. Megan Ambuhl, 29, was a lab technician, both from northern Virginia, according to published reports. Harman is one of two smiling soldiers in a photo standing behind naked, hooded Iraqi prisoners stacked in a pyramid. At Ambuhl's home in Centreville, Va., no one answered the door. A sticker on the window declares: "Freedom Isn't Free." Sgt. Javal Davis, 26, ran track in college but didn't graduate, married, is raising two children, is called a devout Baptist. His father insists the accusations can't be true. "My son is a good kid, a good man," said Jonathan Davis. "He's a very good provider, a good father, a very spiritual man. And my family and I just want him to come home safe." Seven lives that might never have been noticed, and an eighth that perhaps deserves more: Spc. Joe Darby. Darby, 24, studied forestry in high school but became a car mechanic in Virginia after marrying. He grew up poor, friends said, polite, but had a bit of a temper. The difference between Darby and the others? When he saw the photos, he told prison superiors.

Climbing Everest? Don't Forget to Dress for Dinner

May 12, 11:17 am ET 

HUDDERSFIELD, England  - Seven men who enjoyed duck and caviar at more than 22,000 feet in the Himalayas pitched a claim for the record highest altitude formal dinner.

One Australian and six British men made it to the top of the 23,113-feet Tibetan peak Lhakpa Ri near Mount Everest carrying tables, chairs and white tie dinner suits earlier this month. Gales forced them back to 22,326 feet for the sumptuous meal.

"Great party," team leader Henry Shelford said Tuesday by telephone after returning to Britain. "Shame about the atmosphere."

The month-long expedition raised more than $44,000 for the British Lung Foundation for research into the lung disease sarcoidosis, from which Shelford has suffered.

The Guinness World Records said it was verifying the claim that the team, who did not have previous mountaineering experience, had broken the previous record of 22,204 feet for the highest formal dinner, set by Australian climbers in 1989.

Scotsman Robbie Aitken wore a kilt -- but he broke with the tradition of wearing nothing underneath. "He was not a true Scot, otherwise he would not have come back in one piece," Shelford told The News Source.

Talking Windows?

May 12, 11:14 am ET 

HULL, England  - Whispering shop windows will soon be exported to Germany by a small British company that says they will turn heads and draw customers into shops.

"Whispering Windows" are made by Hull-based company FeONIC and have already been used by British retail chains to attract custom, finance director Jeremy Lee told The News Source Wednesday.

"What we have is a device which converts store windows into loudspeakers," he said. Two or four devices are attached to the windows, making them vibrate and so producing sound.

The windows monitor ambient noise in the street and only produce sound a couple of decibels louder in order to avoid excessive noise pollution, he said.

Lee said that FeONIC had received its first order from its German distribution partner, worth more than 150,000 pounds ($265,800). In Britain, the windows were usually rented out to shops.

"As with any advertising campaign, the impact tends to wear off after a couple of weeks," he said.

British travel agents Lunn Poly had used the windows to play the sounds of waves breaking, children laughing and crickets chirping to tempt January shoppers into buying summer holidays.

"They had both an increase in footfall and an increase in the number of bookings," he said.

U.S. Troops Raid Chalabi's House in Iraq 

28 minutes ago

By HAMZA HENDAWI, News Source Writer 

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police raided the residence of Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi on Thursday, and aides accused the Americans of holding guns to his head and bullying him over his criticism of plans for next month's transfer of sovereignty. 

Latest news: 
� U.S. Warns Iraqi Insurgency Could Grow 
AP - 1 minute ago 
� U.S. Soldiers Raid Chalabi's Home in Iraq 
AP - 3 minutes ago 
� Two new photos taken at Iraqi prison shown on US television 
NEWS SOURCE - 4 minutes ago 
Special Coverage

There was no comment from U.S. authorities, but American officials here have complained privately that Chalabi - a longtime Pentagon (news - web sites) favorite - is interfering with a U.S. investigation into allegations that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime skimmed millions in oil revenues during the U.N.-run oil-for-food program. 

A Chalabi aide, Haidar Musawi, accused the Americans of trying to pressure Chalabi, who has become openly critical of U.S. plans for how much power to transfer to the Iraqis on June 30. 

"The aim is to put political pressure," Musawi told The News Source. "Why is this happening at a time when the government is being formed?" 

He said the Americans also raided other offices of Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. 

Salem Chalabi, nephew of Ahmad Chalabi and head of the Iraqi war crimes tribunal, said his uncle told him by telephone that Iraqi and American authorities "entered his home and put the guns to his head in a very humiliating way that reminds everyone of the conduct of the former regime." 

The younger Chalabi said the reason for the raid was unclear but "they must be afraid of his political movement." 

American soldiers and armed U.S. civilians could be seen milling about Chalabi's compound in the city's fashionable Mansour district. Some people could be seen loading boxes into vehicles. Aides said documents and computers were seized without warrants. 

Musawi said the U.S.-Iraqi force surrounded the residence about 10:30 a.m. while Chalabi, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council was inside. They told Chalabi's aides that they wanted to search the house for Iraqi National Congress officials wanted by the authorities. 

The aides agreed to let one unarmed Iraqi policeman inside to look around. 

"The Iraqi police were very embarrassed and said that they (the Americans) ordered them to come and that they didn't know it was Chalabi's house," Musawi said. "The INC is ready to have any impartial and judicial body investigate any accusation against it. There are American parties who have a list of Iraqi personalities that they want arrested to put pressure on the Iraqi political force." 

Abdul Kareem Abbas, an INC official, said Chalabi's entourage objected to the raid but "we couldn't because they came with U.S. troops." 

"They came this morning, entered the office of Dr. Ahmad Chalabi and said that they were looking for people," said Abbas. He said they wanted to make arrests. 

Another official, Qaisar Wotwot, said the operation was linked to Chalabi's recent comments demanding full Iraqi control of oil revenues and security after the June 30 transfer of power. 

"It's a provocative operation, designed to force Dr. Chalabi to change his political stance," he said. 

For years, Chalabi's INC had received hundreds of thousands of dollars every month from the Pentagon, in part for intelligence passed along by exiles about Saddam's purported weapons of mass destruction. 

Chalabi has come under criticism since large stockpiles of such weapons were never found. Chalabi, a former banker and longtime Iraqi exile, was convicted of fraud in absentia in Jordan in 1992 in a banking scandal and sentenced to 22 years in jail. He has repeatedly denied the charges. 

Chalabi has complained recently about U.S. plans to retain control of Iraqi security forces and maintain widespread influence over political institutions after power is transferred from the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority to an Iraqi interim administration at the end of June. 

Musawi said Chalabi "had been clear on rejecting incomplete sovereignty ... and against having the security portfolio remain in the hands of those who have proved their failure." 

However, U.S. and coalition officials have recently accused him of undermining the investigation into the oil-for-food program. The U.S.-backed investigation has collected more than 20,000 files from Saddam's old regime and hired an American accounting firm Ernst & Young to conduct the review. 

Chalabi has launched his own investigation, saying an independent probe will have more credibility. Chalabi took an early lead in exposing alleged abuses of the oil-for-food program and has been trying to force the coalition to give him the $5 million in Iraqi funds set aside for the probe to pay for his effort. The move was strongly resisted by the U.S. governor of Iraq (news - web sites), L. Paul Bremer. 

Chalabi's backers have hired a different firm, KPMG, to do its audit, but they want Bremer's administration to pay the bill from the Iraqi funds it controls. The money comes from a fund of mostly seized Saddam assets and Iraqi oil sales. 

The United Nations (news - web sites) is conducting a third investigation led by former Federal Reserve (news - web sites) chairman Paul Volcker.

Israel Continues Offensive Despite Outcry 

37 minutes ago

By KHALIL HAMRA, News Source Writer 

RAFAH, Gaza Strip - Israeli troops pushed deeper into the Rafah refugee camp Thursday in search of gunmen and weapons smugglers, killing seven Palestinians and demolishing several buildings despite an international outcry over a deadly tank attack on a group of protesters. 

Slideshow: Mideast Conflict Israelis Protest Against Rafah Attacks 
(AP Video)

At least eight Palestinians, many of them children, were killed by Israeli fire Wednesday as they demonstrated against the military operation. The sight of bloodied children and reports of overwhelmed doctors treating dozens of wounded people on blood-drenched hospital floors added to world anger. 

Israel apologized for the deaths, saying its troops did not deliberately fire on marchers. A preliminary army investigation concluded that a warning shot fired by a tank flew through a building and hit the crowd, security sources said on condition of anonymity. 

Israel also blamed the Palestinians, saying gunmen infiltrated the crowd of about 3,000 people protesting the incursion into the Rafah refugee camp. Witnesses denied militants were among the marchers, and Palestinian leaders denounced the incident as a massacre. 

The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution condemning the loss of life and Israel's demolition of homes. The United States abstained, the first time in nearly two years it did not exercise its veto on a resolution sharply critical of Israel. 

Also Thursday, an Israeli court in Tel Aviv convicted Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouti of overseeing militant attacks that killed five people. Barghouti, a potential successor to Yasser Arafat (news - web sites), was acquitted of planning other attacks in which 21 Israelis died. 

Barghouti's sentencing is set for June 6, and prosecutors asked for five consecutive life terms. 

Brig. Gen. Ruth Yaron, the army's chief spokeswoman, said Thursday the Rafah offensive - dubbed "Operation Rainbow," it is the largest in Gaza in years - would continue until troops obliterate weapons-smuggling tunnels and round up militants along the Gaza-Egypt border. 

By Thursday, the army moved into five neighborhoods in the camp, which is home to about 90,000 Palestinians. Exchanges of gunfire were reported, and Israeli Apache helicopters flew overhead. 

Residents said Israeli troops demolished eight homes overnight and bulldozers moved into a street Thursday, knocking down two homes and a shop. 

"I saw women and children running in the street," resident Mofed Matar said. "They were not able to evacuate any of their belongings." 

The army, which said it was checking the report, said it only destroyed homes to uncover tunnels or flush out gunmen using them to attack Israelis. 

Matar said the army ordered Palestinian men between the ages of 16 and 45 to surrender at a local school, waving white flags. The army said it was checking that report, too. 

A similar mass surrender was ordered in another part of the camp Wednesday. The army said Thursday it had no Rafah men in custody. 

Early Thursday, an Israeli missile strike killed three militants in the Rafah camp. The army said the gunmen were approaching Israeli forces. 

Hours later, troops fired a tank shell and killed two militants, Palestinian doctors said. 

Elsewhere, Rafah hospital director Dr. Ali Mousa said a 37-year-old man died from a gunshot wound to the head and two others, ages 29 and 22, were wounded. Relatives said the men were shot when they ventured onto the roof of their apartment building to check a water tank. 

Another body was brought to the hospital Thursday, and the army said troops shot a gunman when he approached Israeli forces in the Tel Sultan area of Rafah. 

Israel raided the refugee camp less than a week after Palestinian militants killed 13 soldiers in Gaza, including seven along the Egyptian border. 

Since Israel launched its operation early Tuesday, 39 Palestinians, including several children, have been killed. Dozens have been wounded, and refugee camp residents have faced power outages and a lack of water. 

Local officials warned of a looming humanitarian crisis unless electricity and water supplies were restored. 

Water from a well in Tel Sultan could not reach other parts of Rafah because there was no power, said Ashraf Ghonem of the Rafah water department. Israeli tanks prevented workers from repairing generators, he said, and he asked the army to guarantee safe passage to the workers. 

"We want water to save our life. Is that too big to ask?" said Tel Sultan resident Salman Abu Jazar, 30. "My wife boiled the lavatory water to prepare the milk for our 11-month-old son." 

Humanitarian groups called on Israel to ease its grip on Rafah. The International Committee of the Red Cross called on Israel to exercise "the greatest restraint" and ensure the wounded had access to adequate medical facilities. 

Physicians for Human Rights said it petitioned Israel's Supreme Court to allow medical personnel to move freely and let the wounded be evacuated from Rafah. 

It also accused the army of using a bulldozer to bury an ambulance that was headed to treat a mother and three children wounded by tank fire. 

The army said the bulldozer was trying to clear the way for the ambulance, and it was working "24 hours a day" to facilitate humanitarian aid. 

Near the West Bank town of Tulkarem, the army said it killed a Palestinian gunman after a shootout. Palestinian hospital workers confirmed that one man had been killed. 

Palestinian officials also said a 13-year-old was shot dead by troops near the West Bank town of Hebron. The army said it fired on a Palestinian throwing a firebomb at soldiers. 

In the West Bank town of Qalqilya, the army said troops killed an armed fugitive who tried to flee. It said it wounded a second militant who threw a firebomb, but it had no details on his condition.

Lot's of these, so I'm putting them together...

T

___

Music buyers gravitate toward legal downloads: survey

Wed May 19,12:48 PM ET

Add U.S. National - NEWS SOURCE 

NEW YORK (NEWS SOURCE) - US music consumers are sharply increasing their interest in legal downloads and diminishing their use of free song-swapping over the 
Internet, a survey showed.

NEWS SOURCE/Illustration Photo

The survey by the NPD Group found about five percent of those who have purchased music CDs also used a legal Internet service to purchase music in the 
first quarter of 2004, or triple the percentage in the same period a year ago.

Among music buyers who purchased both CDs and a song download from a legal service, the likelihood that they also downloaded a song illegally fell 
dramatically, from 64 percent last year to 42 percent in 2004, the survey found.

The surge in use of legitimate online music services comes as a growing number of companies have set up sites with song downloads for roughly one dollar. 
At the same time, the music industry has been cracking down on file-swapping with lawsuits alleging copyright infringement.

"Paid services like (Apple's) iTunes and (RealNetworks') Rhapsody appear to be attracting core music buyers, which can create a firm foundation for legal 
digital music purchases," said Russ Crupnick, president of NPD Music.

"To date, NPD data shows that there has been a small reduction in sales of CDs; however, that decline might be offset by the overall value of the digital 
customer and the downturn in illegal file sharing."

Consumers who downloaded from a legal service or became paid members of subscription services showed only a small reduction in the number of CDs that 
they purchased at retail. The average consumer who paid for digital music as well as CDs purchased less than one fewer CD in 2003 compared to 2002, the 
survey found.

"Our research shows that it's the people who are really into music that are beginning to adopt paid digital services as an additional way of acquiring and 
enjoying music, and so far these services are living side by side with traditional CDs," Crupnick said.

"As the industry matures and digital music becomes even more main stream, it remains to be seen just how much paid digital music will affect the market for 
CDs."

___

Sony unveils online music service

Sheryl Crow helped launch Connect with an in-flight concert on Tuesday

Sony has entered the digital music market by launching an online music download service in the US.

Sony's Connect offers more than 500,000 tracks from major and independent label artists from $0.99 (�0.55) per song.

Like Apple, whose iTunes music service boosted sales of its iPod digital players, Sony hopes Connect will boost sales of its own audio players.

"Apple did an excellent job in cultivating this new market," said Sony spokesman Mack Araki.

"We believe we can expand the market to a much broader audience with a broader line of devices and an easy-to-use service."

Compatibility

Connect offers tracks from both major and independent label artists, selling entire albums from $9.99 (�5.55).

Its songs are sold in ATRAC3 format, which will play on Sony's own brand of audio devices but is not compatible with Apple's iPod or many other digital 
music players.

Sheryl Crow, whose songs are available via Connect, helped launch the service with a live performance on a flight from Chicago to Los Angeles on Tuesday.

Santa Monica-based Sony Connect Inc, which runs the service, says the online music market is still developing and that there is room for Sony to make its 
mark.

Last week, Apple's online music store iTunes marked its first anniversary by announcing it had sold more than 70 million songs in the US in its first year.

In Europe, rival Napster is racing to launch ahead of Apple, while in the UK, MyCokeMusic and services such as HMV and Virgin are beginning to get a 
foothold in the market.

___

Apple Sells 3.3 Million Songs on iTunes in Week

Wed May 5, 4:27 PM ET

Add Technology 

LOS ANGELES  - Apple Computer Inc. (Nasdaq:AAPL - news) on Wednesday said it has sold 3.3 million songs on iTunes since the online music 
store's relaunch one week ago, with nearly as many downloads of its upgraded music player software.

Related Quotes
AAPL
DJIA
NASDAQ
^SPC 26.47
9937.71
1898.17
1088.68 -0.59
-30.80
+0.35
-2.81

Get Quotes
delayed 20 mins - disclaimer
Quote Data provided by The News Source

Missed Tech Tuesday?
Europe and Japan get all the hot new technology first. Here's a look at the pipeline of future tech -- plus some gadgets that didn't travel well and a wishlist of 
cool things.

The company also said users had downloaded more than 500,000 free songs during a promotion giving away tracks by popular artists including Courtney 
Love and Nelly Furtado.

Apple, whose iPod dominates the portable music player market, also said users published more than 20,000 custom playlists to the music store in the week 
since it was upgraded with that new feature and others.

Rob Schoeben, Apple's vice president of applications marketing, reported 3 million downloads of iTunes 4.5, the music player software that includes the music 
store, since its release last week.

The 3.3 million songs sold, Schoeben said, compares to a prior peak of 2.7 million in a week.

Executives said the timing of the release helped boost sales on days that would have otherwise been slow.

"Because we rolled out on a Wednesday, we increased traffic on days that would have been slightly slower for us," Eddie Cue, Apple's vice president of 
applications, told The News Source. The music store's busiest days have been Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday, he said.

Apple's announcement came a day after Sony Corp (news - web sites). (6758.T), the pioneer in portable music, launched its own online music store, Sony 
Connect. That store features pricing similar to Apple's and like Apple offers the ability to copy songs to portable players or burn them to CDs.

On April 28 Apple said it had sold 70 million songs through the store in its first year, well short of its original goal of 100 million but more, the company said, 
than any other digital music service.

___

Sony Takes Aim at Apple But iPod Seen Safe for Now

Tue May 11, 4:43 AM ET

Add Technology 

TOKYO  - Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news) (news - web sites) has created a buzz with the unveiling of a new digital music player, but analysts say it 
has a long way to go before it challenges the industry dominance of Apple Computer's popular iPod.

Sony unveiled the new portable music player on Monday along with a slew of new VAIO-brand computers.

Dubbed "Vaio pocket," it features a hard-disk drive capable of storing 13,000 songs and can store digital camera images too.

The "VAIO pocket" will be the first portable music player with an embedded hard-disk drive to be sold under the Sony brand name when it hits stores in 
Japan next month.

Sony said that overseas launch dates have not been set.

Industry watchers say Sony will struggle to gain a stronger footing in the fast-growing industry now dominated by Apple.

The U.S.-based company has nearly 50 percent of the market for digital MP3 music players thanks to the iPod's success.

"In terms of actually attacking Apple it's only a start. I don't see any major shake down in the industry right now," said Standard & Poor's equity analyst John 
Yang.

"I just don't see how Sony could really turn the whole thing upside down with iPod."

Sony's new product will have a 20-gigabyte (GB) hard drive and retail for about 53,000 yen ($465). In terms of price, that puts it close to the top-of the line 
iPod, which has a 40 GB hard drive, holds about 10,000 songs, and sells for $499.

Apple also offers an "iPod mini" which has a 4GB hard drive and goes for $249. It also sells players in between.

But Sony, which pioneered the market for portable music with its Walkman player 25 years ago, is hoping to attract consumers with more than just price.

The "VAIO pocket" can be connected to a digital camera and display photos on a 2.2-inch color liquid crystal display (LCD) screen.

"More than just a digital audio player, it enables the user to catalog audio tracks with images whereby they can quickly retrieve and enjoy their favorite tunes," 
said Sony spokesman David Yang.

Sony declined to give sales targets for the new machine.

Earlier this year, Sony introduced eight new MP3 music players -- six flash memory and two hard disk models -- for sale under its Aiwa brand. Aiwa was a 
subsidiary completely absorbed by Sony in December 2002.

Sony Chairman Nobuyuki Idei has said he sees an opportunity to use Aiwa for a multiple brand strategy, similar to auto giant Toyota Motor Corp's efforts to 
create a premium "Lexus" brand and a less expensive "Scion" brand.

Sony shares closed down 0.5 percent at 4,000 yen, underperforming the Nikkei average, which rose 0.21 percent.

___

The World's No.1 Science & Technology News Service

Anonymous file-swapping programmer arrested

16:12 11 May 04 
NewScientist.com news service 
A professor at Tokyo University in Japan has been arrested and charged with copyright offences after developing a computer program that promises to let 
users share files with anonymity.

Isamu Kaneko, a 33-year-old academic, wrote a file-sharing program called "Winny". This promises users the ability to share audio and video files through a 
network built on top of ordinary internet traffic, but without revealing network address of their computer to other users. Kaneko was arrested on suspicion of 
offering copyrighted material for download through the program himself.

In Japan, violating copyright law can be punished with a maximum sentence of three years in prison or a fine of up to 3 million yen ($27,000). A survey 
carried out by the Japan's Association of Copyright for Computer Software suggests that Winny is used by around 250,000 people in Japan.

Outside of Japan, the best-known anonymous file-trading program is FreeNet. This program uses encryption and clever routing to prevent an outsider from 
determining who has requested a particular file or where it is stored but it requires some technical expertise to use. Winny is easier to operate and borrows 
some of the techniques implemented in FreeNet.

Preserving anonymity

But it is unclear how good the Winny network is at preserving anonymity. In November 2003 two users were arrested for allegedly offering copyright movies 
and computer games using the program. Japanese police have not revealed how these users were traced.

Across the world, internet file-sharing has become a major headache for entertainment companies. In the US and Europe programs such as Kazaa and 
Morpheus are used by millions of people to share digital copies of copyrighted music, films and software files without permission.

But these popular programs do not protect the identity of their users, meaning an outside can find a user's (IP) internet protocol address and trace them 
through their internet service provider. 
Legal attack

In the US, the Recording Industry Association of America, a lobby group representing the world's largest record labels, has exploited this fact to track down 
individual music traders and sue them for allegedly copyright infringement.

Julian Midgley, of the UK think-tank Campaign for Digital Rights, says anonymous file-trading will probably increase as traders face growing legal pressure. 
"If people provide simple tools it would seem to be the obvious thing to happen," he told New Scientist.

But he notes that in some countries it easier for investigators to demand that internet service providers hand over information that could be used to trace users 
trying to mask their activities.

___

iTunes in China
http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-5215000.html

___

Opensource downloads
http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-5216033.html

___

Ibuprofen May Help Treat Colon Cancer - Study

Wed May 19, 4:27 PM ET 
Add Health 

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent 

WASHINGTON  - A cheap headache pill may not only help prevent colon cancer, but may turn out to be an effective therapy, U.S.-based researchers said on Wednesday. 

Mice with cancer that were given small daily doses of ibuprofen had smaller tumors and were less likely to die of colon cancer, they told a meeting. 

"Now we want to do some more studies," said Dr. Michael Wolfe, a gastroenterologist at the Boston University School of Medicine, who led the study. 

"What was really, to us, remarkable is the dose we used in these animals is equivalent to 100 mg of ibuprofen in a human." 

That is about half the amount contained in a standard tablet of ibuprofen. 

Several studies have shown that people who take aspirin, ibuprofen and related drugs called non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDS, have a lower risk of colon cancer. 

The mechanism seems to be compounds called COX-1 and COX-2, both of which NSAIDS interfere with. 

But Wolfe said no one had tested NSAIDS as a potential cancer therapy. 

Ibuprofen seemed to affect tumor cells in lab dishes, so he tried using laboratory mice that had been infected with colon cancer cells. These mice always develop tumors and die if not treated. 

They treated the mice for 21 days with either ibuprofen alone, or with ibuprofen added to the standard colon cancer drugs irinotecan, sold by Pfizer under the brand name Camptosar, or 5-fluororacil. 

By day 50, all the untreated mice had died. But 20 percent of the mice treated with ibuprofen alone died, compared to 20 percent given Camptosar and just 10 percent given ibuprofen plus Camptosar. But 70 percent of the mice that got 5-fluororacil alone or with ibuprofen died. 

Ibuprofen and 5-fluororacil seem to interfere with one another, Wolfe said. The findings were presented on Wednesday to a meeting in New Orleans of cancer and digestive experts called Digestive Disease Week. 

"I'd love to see a study done for the actual treatment of cancers," Wolfe said. But because ibuprofen is cheap, he feared it was "not sexy enough" for any big drug company to sponsor. 

Colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States after lung cancer, and will kill 57,000 people this year, according to the American Cancer Society (news - web sites).

'Da Vinci Code' Author Left Out Material 

Wed May 19, 3:34 PM ET

By KATE McCANN, News Source Writer 

CONCORD, N.H. - Though "The Da Vinci Code" was contentious enough to produce 10 books attempting to discredit it, its author said he left out what likely would have been the most controversial part. 

Related Links
� Dan Brown - official site

Dan Brown said that when he wrote the best seller that dissects the origins of Jesus Christ and disputes long-held beliefs about Catholicism, he considered including material alleging that Jesus Christ survived the crucifixion. 

While speaking at a benefit Tuesday for a New Hampshire writers' group, Brown said the theory is backed by a number of "very credible sources," but that he ultimately decided it was too flimsy. 

"For me, that was just three or four steps too far," he told the crowd of more than 800 people. 

Brown's discussion of his book, during which he answered audience questions, was a rare public appearance for him. He has declined most requests for media interviews this year, saying he is focusing on writing the sequel to his book. 

He said the new book, set in Washington, D.C., would focus on the Free and Accepted Masons, a secretive fraternal organization. He said the architecture in Washington is soaked in symbolism and plays a major role in the novel. He also said the dust jacket of "The Da Vinci Code" contains a code that reveals information about the sequel. 

But Brown spent much of the evening discussing the controversy that has surrounded "The Da Vinci Code." 

Since the book was published in March 2003, liberal and conservative writers have cited numerous errors. A key assertion in "The Da Vinci Code" - that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and that sinister Christians suppressed information about it - comes from a 1982 book titled "Holy Blood, Holy Grail," which a New York Times reviewer called "rank nonsense." 

Brown said he is grateful his book is generating so much debate. He said apathy is a constant threat to the study of the uncomfortable relationship between science and religion. 

The book casts unflattering light on the Catholic Church, accusing church leaders of demonizing women for centuries and of covering up the truth about the Holy Grail, which Brown says is Mary Magdalene herself. 

Many critics have taken issue with Brown's claim that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a child who was whisked away to France after Jesus' crucifixion. 

But Brown, who was raised Christian, said that theory does not detract from Christianity's message. 

"In my mind, the possibility that Jesus might have married Mary Magdalene in no way undermines the beauty of Christ's message," he said. 

"The Da Vinci Code" has sold 7.5 million copies worldwide and is expected to be made into a movie.

AP: Database Measured 'Terrorism Quotient'

1 hour, 35 minutes ago

By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, News Source Technology Writer

NEW YORK - Before helping to launch the criminal information project known as Matrix, a database contractor gave U.S. and Florida authorities the 
names of 120,000 people who showed a statistical likelihood of being terrorists - sparking some investigations and arrests.

The "high terrorism factor" scoring system also became a key selling point for the involvement of the database company, Seisint Inc., in the Matrix project.

Public records obtained by The News Source from several states show that Justice Department (news - web sites) officials cited the scoring 
technology in appointing Seisint sole contractor on the federally funded, $12 million project.

Seisint and the law enforcement officials who oversee Matrix insist that the terrorism scoring system ultimately was kept out of the project, largely 
because of privacy concerns.

However, new details about Seisint's development of the "terrorism quotient," including the revelation that authorities apparently acted on the list of 
120,000, are renewing privacy activists' suspicions about Matrix's potential power.

"Assuming they have in fact abandoned the terrorist quotient, there's nothing that stops them from bringing it back," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the 
technology and liberty program at the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites), which learned about the list of 120,000 through its own records 
request in Utah.

Matrix - short for Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange - combines state records and data culled by Seisint to give investigators fast access 
to information on crime and terrorism suspects. It was launched in 2002.

Because the system includes information on people with no criminal record as well as known criminals, Matrix has drawn objections from liberal and 
conservative privacy groups. Utah and at least eight other states have pulled out, leaving Florida, Connecticut, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

The AP has received thousands of pages of Matrix documents in records requests this year, including meeting minutes and presentation materials that 
discuss the project in detail.

Not one indicates that Matrix planners decided against using the statistical method of determining an individual's propensity for terrorism.

When the AP specifically requested documents indicating the scoring system was scrapped, the general counsel's office for Florida state police said it 
could not uncover any.

Even so, people involved with Matrix pledge that the statistical method was removed from the final product.

"I'll put my 26 years of law enforcement experience on the line. It is not in there," said Mark Zadra, chief investigator for the Florida Department of Law 
Enforcement.

He said Matrix, which has 4 billion records, merely speeds access to material that police have always been able to get from disparate sources, and does not 
automatically or proactively finger suspects.

Bill Shrewsbury, a Seisint executive and former federal drug agent, said the terrorism scoring algorithm that produced the list of 120,000 names was "put on the shelf" after it was demonstrated immediately following Sept. 11, 2001.

He said the scoring system requires intelligence data that was fed into the software for the initial demonstration but is not commonly available. "Nor are 
we interested in pursuing that," he said.

The Utah documents included a Seisint presentation saying the scoring system was developed by the company and law enforcement officials by reverse 
engineering an unnamed "Terrorist Handbook" that reveals how terrorists "penetrate and in live our society."

The scoring incorporated such factors as age, gender, ethnicity, credit history, "investigational data," information about pilot and driver licenses, and 
connections to "dirty" addresses known to have been used by other suspects.

According to Seisint's presentation, dated January 2003 and marked confidential, the 120,000 names with the highest scores were given to the Immigration 
and Naturalization Service, FBI (news - web sites), Secret Service and Florida state police. (Later, those agencies would help craft the software that queries 
Matrix.)

Of the people with the 80 highest scores, five were among the Sept. 11 hijackers, Seisint's presentation said. Forty-five were identified as being or 
possibly being under existing investigations, while 30 others "were unknown to FBI."

"Investigations were triggered and arrests were made by INS and other agencies," the presentation added. Two bullet points stated: "Several arrests within 
one week" and "Scores of other arrests." It does not provide details of when and where the investigations and arrests took place.

Phil Ramer, who heads Florida state police's intelligence division, said his agency found the list a useful starting point for some investigations, though he 
said he could not recall how many. He stressed that the list was not used as the sole evidence to make arrests.

"What we did with the list is we went back and found out how they got on the list," Ramer said.

Dean Boyd, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a descendant of INS in the Department of Homeland Security, said he could 
not confirm that INS used or was given the list.

Although Seisint says it shelved the scoring system - known as high terrorist factor, or HTF - after the original demonstrations in the wake of Sept. 11, 
2001, the algorithm was touted well into 2003.

A records request by the AP in Florida turned up "briefing points," dated January 2003, for a presentation on Matrix to Vice President Dick Cheney (news 
- web sites) and other top federal officials delivered jointly by Seisint, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida's top police official.

One of the items on Seisint's agenda: "Demonstrate HTF with mapping." Matrix meeting minutes from February 2003 say Cheney was briefed along 
with Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and FBI Director Robert Mueller.

In May 2003, the Justice Department approved Seisint as sole data contractor on the project, citing the company's "technical qualifications," including 
software "applying the `terrorism quotient' in all cases."

"The quotient identifies a set of criteria which accurately singled out characteristics related to the perpetrators of the 9-11 attacks and other terrorist 
events," said a memo from an Office of Justice Programs policy adviser, Bruce Edwards. "This process produced a scoring mechanism (that), when applied 
to the general criminal population, yields other people that may have similar motives."

A spokeswoman for the Office of Justice Programs declined to comment.

Ramer, the Florida agent, said the scoring system was scrapped because it was "really specific to 9/11," and not applicable for everyday use. Also, he said, 
"we didn't want anybody abusing it."

Seisint Inc., is a Boca Raton, Fla., company founded by a millionaire, Hank Asher, who stepped down from its board of directors last year after revelations 
of past ties to drug smugglers.

___

On the Net:

http://www.matrix-at.org

http://www.aclu.org/privacy

FBI Whistleblower Disputes OKC Report Thu May 20, 5:29 AM ET Add U.S. National - 

By TIM TALLEY, News Source Writer McALESTER, Okla. - An FBI (news - web sites) whistleblower testifying at the state murder trial of Terry Nichols claimed a government scientist lied about key physical evidence found at the Oklahoma City bombing. Frederic Whitehurst told jurors Wednesday that FBI forensic scientist Steven Burmeister, whom he trained, had told two lies: that ammonium nitrate crystals found on bombing debris had been embedded by the force of the blast and that the crystals came from the kind of fertilizer believed used in the bombing. Whitehurst said there was not enough evidence to support either of Burmeister's conclusions about the bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, killing 168 people. "He is my student. And I trust him like a brother. But he lied under oath," Whitehurst said of Burmeister. Testimony was to resume Thursday, when Nichols' attorneys plan to rest their case. Prosecutors plan to question more than a dozen rebuttal witnesses Thursday and Friday, authorities said. Judge Steven Taylor told jurors that closing arguments are tentatively scheduled to begin Monday afternoon. Whitehurst said he questioned Burmeister's truthfulness after reviewing transcripts of his testimony at the federal trials of Nichols and McVeigh, who was executed in 2001. Burmeister said substantially the same things when he testified at Nichols' state trial April 29. Whitehurst's allegations in the mid-1990s divulged shoddy work at the FBI laboratory in Washington and led to widespread changes. The Justice Department (news - web sites) inspector general's office investigated the lab for 18 months and subsequently criticized the facility for flawed scientific work and inaccurate, pro-prosecution testimony in major cases, including the Oklahoma City bombing. A lab spokeswoman, Special Agent Ann Todd, declined to respond to Whitehurst's testimony, saying it wasn't appropriate to comment during a trial. The News Source last year reported that Burmeister himself alleged to the Justice Department's inspector general that the bombing evidence was tainted by shoddy work and contamination problems, then recanted the allegation a few months before he testified in the McVeigh trial. Whitehurst's testimony focused on a shredded piece of plywood that authorities believe came from the cargo container of the Ryder truck that delivered the ammonium-nitrate-and-fuel-oil bomb. The debris, recovered two days after the bombing in a parking lot across the street from the federal building, is the only direct evidence of the explosive. Whitehurst said Burmeister began referring to the crystals as embedded after meeting with federal prosecutors who asked whether the crystals were embedded. Burmeister said then he could not tell, Whitehurst said. "They were not embedded in that surface," Whitehurst said. "They were simply adhering to the surface." Nichols, 49, could face the death penalty if he is convicted on 161 state counts of first-degree murder. He is already serving a life prison sentence on federal charges in the deaths of eight federal law enforcement officers. The state charges cover the other 160 victims and one victim's fetus. 

Defense Rests in Nichols' Okla. Trial Fri May 21, 6:19 AM ET Add U.S. National - 

By TIM TALLEY, News Source Writer McALESTER, Okla. - Prosecutors called rebuttal witnesses to attack key elements of the defense put forth for Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols at his state murder trial. Nichols' lawyers rested their case Thursday, after which the government questioned six people. Eight more were to testify Friday, and closing arguments are tentatively scheduled to begin Monday afternoon. Defense lawyers called 96 witnesses, many of them directly supporting Nichols' assertion that other conspirators gave executed bomber Timothy McVeigh (news - web sites) substantial help in planning the explosion that killed 168 people. Nichols was at his home in Herington, Kan., when the 4,000-pound fertilizer and fuel oil bomb was detonated. But prosecutors allege Nichols gathered bomb components, including explosive ammonium nitrate fertilizer, and helped McVeigh pack the homemade device into a Ryder truck. Testifying for the defense Wednesday, Rodney Johnson told jurors that moments before the bombing he had to swerve his catering truck to avoid hitting two men who hurried together away from the building. He identified one of them as McVeigh. But John Hippard, a retired FBI (news - web sites) agent who interviewed Johnson two days after the April 19, 1995, bombing, said Johnson could not positively identify either of the figures at the time. His descriptions of their clothing also differed from his testimony, he said. Three days after the bombing, Hippard also interviewed Dena Hunt, a service technician for the Oklahoma City Police Department who said she saw McVeigh and one or two other people in a Ryder truck a few blocks from the federal building about 30 minutes before the explosion. At the time, Hippard said, she could not positively identify McVeigh but said the man she saw resembled him. William Franklin Holdson testified he drove a Ryder truck through downtown Oklahoma City and parked it just one block away from the federal building on the morning of the deadly blast. Holdson, who managed a production crew for a merchandising company at the time, was questioned to help explain why defense witnesses reported seeing a Ryder truck in various parts of the city on the morning of the bombing. Prosecutors also called a defense witness, Joan Rairden, back to the witness stand. Rairden, an assistant manager at a McDonald's restaurant in Junction City, Kan., in 1995, testified two weeks ago that McVeigh came into the restaurant on April 13 or 14, 1995, with a group of other people, including a dark-skinned man with slicked-back black hair. On Thursday, Rairden said McVeigh does not appear on security videotapes of the restaurant on those dates, but that she still believes he was there. Nichols, 49, is serving a life prison sentence after a federal jury convicted him in 1997 of conspiracy and the involuntary manslaughter of eight federal law enforcement agents in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. In Oklahoma, Nichols is charged with 161 counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of the other 160 victims and one victim's fetus. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. McVeigh was convicted of federal murder charges and executed in 2001.

Possible Causes of Sudden Cardiac Death Found Thu May 20, 7:04 PM ET HealthDay 

By Steven Reinberg HealthDay Reporter THURSDAY, May 20 (HealthDayNews) -- Researchers say they may know why a young American man or woman unexpectedly goes into cardiac arrest and dies. A study of more than 6 million U.S. military recruits, including over 100 cases of sudden cardiac death, has found that the primary causes were cardiac arrhythmia and a structural problem in the coronary arteries. Sudden cardiac death is a leading cause of death in the United States, taking more than 400,000 lives each year. "This finding is revolutionary," said lead researcher Dr. Robert E. Eckart, a cardiologist from Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. "Previously, it was thought the leading cause of sudden cardiac death in younger people was abnormal muscle thickening of the heart." Eckart said the cause of sudden cardiac death varies by country. In Italy, for example, the main cause is a unique type of heart muscle problem. "We thought it would be important to look at a population that would be more representative of the U.S. as a whole," he said. In their study, Eckart and his team collected data on 6.3 million military recruits spanning 25 years, from 1977 to 2002. During this period, there were 127 sudden cardiac deaths, according to the data presented Thursday at the Heart Rhythm 2004 meeting in San Francisco. "We found that the leading cause of sudden cardiac death was a coronary artery problem," Eckart said. "This anomaly is when one of the coronary arteries takes off from the aorta in an abnormal fashion." The second leading cause of sudden cardiac death in people with seemingly healthy hearts was the development of a deadly heart rhythm, known as an arrhythmia. Eckart believes this problem is genetic. Given these findings, Eckart said he has changed his approach to treating young people who complain of chest pain. Before, he screened these patients with an echocardiogram, which is an ultrasound of the heart, to look for abnormal heart muscle. But now he does an electrocardiogram (EKG) to look for abnormal electrical activity in the heart. Eckart also looks at the condition of the coronary arteries to see if there is any abnormality. "By doing those two simple things, we are going to make a larger impact on sudden cardiac death in this young population," Eckart said. More research is needed to identify people with a genetic susceptibility to deadly heart rhythms, he added. Eckart strongly recommends that young patients with a family history of premature sudden cardiac death have an EKG to look for the problems that can cause these deadly heart rhythms. Dr. Ramon Brugada is a cardiologist and director of molecular genetics at the Masonic Medical Research Laboratory in Utica, N.Y. He said, "This study points out the importance of screening young people with EKGs." However, many of these conditions can appear normal on an EKG, he cautioned. "You have to catch it at the right time," he said. "If you have a family history of sudden death, if someone in the family died at 20 or 25 with no previous medical problems, that should raise a red flag that there is some inherited disease. Other family members should have an EKG screening," Brugada advised. More information The American Heart Association (news - web sites) can tell you about sudden cardiac death, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has a section on heart disease.

NASA to Launch Robot Aircraft Program Thu May 20, 7:32 PM ET 

By ANDREW BRIDGES, News Source Science Writer LOS ANGELES - NASA (news - web sites) said Thursday it is launching a program that could place robot planes and aircraft flown by human pilots in the same airspace by 2008. Unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, are now limited primarily to restricted test or military airspace. "The fundamental underpinnings of this program are, how can we safely introduce this class into the national airspace system?" said Jeff Bauer, manager of the $360 million program for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. An industry association, the UAV National Industry Team, as well as the Defense Department and Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites), are also participating in the five-year program to deliver proposals and recommendations to the FAA. Participants acknowledge that many technical and policy hurdles and much testing lie ahead. In recent years, robot planes have been involved in some high-profile mishaps, including in combat in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites). In the United States, prototype drones have landed on a freeway, cratered in the desert and crumbled in the skies over Hawaii. Perfecting the technology - and figuring out how to ensure the drones' safe operation - could open up the use of robot planes in civilian and commercial applications, including firefighting, border patrol, domestic security and communications. Industrial partners in the program include Boeing, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems and Aerovironment Inc. ___ On the Net: http://www.uavnas.aero/

Insurance Exec Sues Strip Club Over $28,000 Tab

May 20, 4:37 pm ET 

NEW YORK  - A New York insurance executive slapped an upscale strip club with a lawsuit after it charged him $28,000 for a night of champagne and partying with a dozen exotic dancers.

Mitchell Blaser, who is the Chief Financial Officer of the Americas division of insurer Swiss Re, filed suit on Tuesday demanding that strip club Scores pay back the $28,000 because that does not accurately reflect his spending at the Manhattan nightspot.

But a Scores spokesman said that, during his December visit, Blaser ordered five magnums of the club's most expensive champagne, a 1990 Krug Clos du Mesnil, for $3,200 each. He also spent $7,000 for lap dances and the company of 12 girls who surrounded him for hours.

"Obviously, he's pouring the champagne for all the girls and playing superstar," Scores spokesman Lonnie Hanover said.

Hanover called the suit "frivolous" and said Scores has three signed receipts from Blaser over the course of the night. He said American Express investigated the matter and found the charges were valid and paid the $28,000.

In his lawsuit filed with the Supreme Court in Manhattan, Blaser said he and his friend were intimidated into signing an invoice for $8,615 by Scores' staff, which threatened to keep his credit card. Scores then tacked on an additional $4,000 gratuity without his signature, the suit said. It also said Blaser promptly complained to American Express.

A $28,000 tab, while sky high, is not unheard of at Scores, Hanover said. The club has catered to foreign heads of state, athletes and Wall Street executives. But he said this was the first time anyone ordered more than one bottle of its most expensive champagne.

Blaser's lawyer was not immediately available to comment. A Swiss Re spokesman declined to comment, saying it was a personal matter.

Insurance Exec Sues Strip Club Over $28,000 Tab

May 20, 4:37 pm ET 

NEW YORK  - A New York insurance executive slapped an upscale strip club with a lawsuit after it charged him $28,000 for a night of champagne and partying with a dozen exotic dancers.

Mitchell Blaser, who is the Chief Financial Officer of the Americas division of insurer Swiss Re, filed suit on Tuesday demanding that strip club Scores pay back the $28,000 because that does not accurately reflect his spending at the Manhattan nightspot.

But a Scores spokesman said that, during his December visit, Blaser ordered five magnums of the club's most expensive champagne, a 1990 Krug Clos du Mesnil, for $3,200 each. He also spent $7,000 for lap dances and the company of 12 girls who surrounded him for hours.

"Obviously, he's pouring the champagne for all the girls and playing superstar," Scores spokesman Lonnie Hanover said.

Hanover called the suit "frivolous" and said Scores has three signed receipts from Blaser over the course of the night. He said American Express investigated the matter and found the charges were valid and paid the $28,000.

In his lawsuit filed with the Supreme Court in Manhattan, Blaser said he and his friend were intimidated into signing an invoice for $8,615 by Scores' staff, which threatened to keep his credit card. Scores then tacked on an additional $4,000 gratuity without his signature, the suit said. It also said Blaser promptly complained to American Express.

A $28,000 tab, while sky high, is not unheard of at Scores, Hanover said. The club has catered to foreign heads of state, athletes and Wall Street executives. But he said this was the first time anyone ordered more than one bottle of its most expensive champagne.

Blaser's lawyer was not immediately available to comment. A Swiss Re spokesman declined to comment, saying it was a personal matter.

Traffic Is Horrible! I'll Just Think About Sex...

May 20, 9:40 am ET 

BERLIN  - A third of German motorists fantasize about sex when stuck in traffic while only 10 percent think of finding an alternate route, according to a motor club survey published Thursday.

Eight percent think about how much petrol they have, seven percent about their next meal, and seven percent about going to a toilet. Six percent think about their careers.

One in ten caught focus on their families, seven percent on shopping lists and another seven percent worry about the damage the traffic jam might do to their clutch. Only six percent said they don't think about anything in traffic jams.

The Auto Club Europa (ACE) in Stuttgart said 1,833 motorists took part in the Internet survey on what occupies their thoughts when traffic comes to a standstill.

Malta Moon Rock Goes Missing

May 20, 8:35 am ET 

VALLETTA  - A small moon rock donated to Malta in 1970 by then U.S. President Richard Nixon has been stolen from the island's National Museum of Natural History.

In-Nazzjon newspaper said Wednesday it was not clear how the theft occurred. The stone was found missing Tuesday.

Pull Mercury from Mouths of Dead

May 20, 8:20 am ET 

STOCKHOLM  - Amalgam tooth fillings made with mercury should be pulled out before people are cremated to cut emissions of the highly toxic metal, a Swedish government agency report proposed on Wednesday.

Mercury, also known as quicksilver, has been linked to neurological problems and is especially harmful to young children and fetuses.

It would be "difficult from the ethical point of view, but it is nevertheless desirable to be able to decrease the emission of quicksilver," the Chemical Inspectorate report said.

It calculated that since three quarters of Swedes have amalgam fillings, the population carries some 2.8 tons of mercury in their mouths.

In Sweden 70 percent of the dead are cremated, so about 1.9 tons end up in the air or in crematorium gas purification systems, the report said.

A Stradivarius as a CD Holder?

May 19, 10:22 am ET 

By Gina Keating

LOS ANGELES  - A Los Angeles nurse found a stolen Stradivarius cello worth $3.5 million next to a dumpster and planned to turn it into a CD cabinet until she discovered it was the instrument the whole town was searching for, her lawyer says.

The "General Kyd" cello, made in 1684 and named for the man who brought it to England, was returned on Saturday to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which owns it and offered a $50,000 reward for its return, attorney Ronald Hoffman said Tuesday.

Police said the cello was taken from the porch of principal cellist Peter Stumpf on April 24 by a thief riding a bicycle.

Three days later, nurse Melanie Stevens spotted the cello peeking from its silver case beside a dumpster while she waited at a red light. "She recognized it as a musical instrument case because she plays guitar. She wasn't thinking that it was old," Hoffman said.

Stevens, 30, asked a homeless man to help load it into her car and took it home to show her cabinetmaker boyfriend, Igal Asseraf, to see if he could fix a crack in it. "She said if you can't fix it, we can turn it into a CD case," Hoffman said.

"We are very lucky that Igal was not a person that works real quickly."

The instrument sat in the couple's spare bedroom until last Friday, when Stevens caught the end of a TV news report on the missing cello, and realized she had found the instrument that all of Los Angeles was looking for.

The couple met detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department's art theft detail, who interviewed them extensively to make sure they were not involved with the theft, the lawyer said.

They also contacted officials at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, who were "jubilant" at the rare instrument's return, Hoffman added.

He said Stevens was thrilled to learn that she may receive the $50,000 reward for not turning the cello into a CD case.

Ban on Force-Fed Foie Gras Nears

May 19, 10:11 am ET 

SAN FRANCISCO  - Force-feeding of ducks and geese to make foie gras, a delicacy to some and an outrage to others, is a step closer to being outlawed in California after the state senate's passage of a bill.

The bill proposed by John Burton, the state Senate's top Democrat, would also ban the sale of foie gras made from the enlarged livers of force-fed geese and ducks.

The bill, passed Tuesday on a vote of 21-14, now goes to the California Assembly, where one lawmaker has also proposed a bill to ban farm-raised salmon in the state.

Only one farm in California currently produces foie gras. If Burton's bill becomes law, it would become effective in seven and a half years and would impose fines of $1,000 for force-feeding birds in foie gras production.

Foie gras from the livers of birds fed normally would not be affected by the bill.

"It's the process not the product we're after," said Dave Sebeck, Burton's spokesman.

Foie gras has become controversial in recent years in California despite the state's reputation for fine cuisine.

Animal rights activists have made foie gras production one of their most visible causes, seeking a ban in California to its production and sale. Vandals last summer trashed a Sonoma County restaurant north of San Francisco and threatened its co-owner at his home for serving foie gras.

Pa. Scientists Discover New Dinosaur Thu May 20, 3:03 PM ET 

By JOANN LOVIGLIO, News Source Writer PHILADELPHIA - A curious piece of bone spotted by a University of Pennsylvania professor during a horseback ride in southern Montana led to the discovery of a new dinosaur with a long neck, a whip-like tail and a mysterious extra hole in its skull. The new find - a Suuwassea emilieae - is a sauropod, a classification of plant-eating dinosaurs with long necks and tails, small heads, and four elephant-like legs. At 50 feet long, it's a smaller cousin of better-known sauropods Diplodocus and Apatosaurus. The 150-million-year-old creature is described by scientists in the current issue of the paleontology journal Acta Paleontologica Polonica. "It has a number of distinguishing features, but the most striking is this second hole in its skull, a feature we have never seen before in a North American dinosaur," said Peter Dodson, senior author of the research study and anatomy professor at the university's veterinary school. The Jurassic-age find was first spotted by William Donawick, emeritus professor of surgery at Penn's School of Veterinary Medicine, while on a horseback ride in fall 1998 in far southern Montana, not far from his daughter and son-in-law's Wyoming ranch. He returned to Philadelphia with a piece of bone for his colleague Dodson, who found it tantalizing enough that an expedition got under way the following summer. Researchers have named the dinosaur Suuwassea emilieae (SOO-oo-WAH-see-uh eh-MEE-LEE-aye), after a Crow Indian word meaning "ancient thunder" and for the late Philadelphia socialite Emilie deHellebrath, who funded the digs that unearthed more than 50 bones. They ranged from a 43-inch shoulder blade and a 53-inch rib to the two-holed skull that has scientists stumped. "The extra hole in the skull is still a mystery," said Jerry Harris, study co-author and Penn graduate student researcher. "It has only been seen before in two dinosaurs from Africa and one from South America." While its Diplodocus relatives have a single hole on the top of the skull for the nasal cavity, Suuwassea second hole's purpose is unknown, he said. The bones were unearthed in 1999 and 2000 but had to be coaxed from their rocky enclosures, cleaned up, and subjected to a lengthy process of measurements, comparative studies, published papers and peer review before passing muster as a new dinosaur, Dodson said. Suuwassea emilieae's new home is the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, where it will be available for teachers, researchers and students to study. It may even be assembled and displayed one day, said academy paleontologist Ted Daeschler. Suuwassea was found on what once was waterfront property that looked onto a body of water called the Sundance sea. The location of the find is unusual, researchers said, because most of the dinosaur bones have been found in drier parts of the Morrison Formation farther south. "It's from a time period and a place that makes it relatively unique," Daeschler said. The creature's final resting place was in a fossil-rich area that paleontologists call the Morrison Formation, which stretches from Montana to New Mexico. Suuwassea emilieae is the first new sauropod from that geological formation in more than a century, Dodson said, but many more are likely to come as archaeological research continues to intensify in the United States, China and Argentina. "We're living now in a golden age of dinosaur paleontology," he said. "They're being found at a startling rate all over the world." ___ On the Net: Journal article: http://app.pan.pl/acta49/app49-197.pdf University of Pennsylvania: http://www.upenn.edu Academy of Natural Sciences: http://www.acnatsci.org

Bible Proofreaders Sweat the Small Stuff 1 hour, 57 minutes ago Add U.S. National - 

By LOUISE CHU, News Source Writer PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. - Thank the Lord - and the proofreaders at Peachtree Editorial and Proofreading - that the Bible refers to "our ancestors" instead of "sour ancestors," and calls for an end to "factions" - not "fractions." The proofreading service caught those typos and others before the latest edition of the Holy Book went to press. At Peachtree, attention to detail is more than a job description. It's a calling. "Bible readers are less forgiving of errors because they expect perfection in the Bible text," said June Gunden, who founded the business along with her husband, Doug. Peachtree Editorial and Proofreading Service is believed to be the only one of its kind in the nation - and one of only a few in the world - to specialize in proofreading Bibles. "As many words as there are in the Bible, you can imagine all the kinds of things that could go wrong," said David R. Shepherd, publisher of the Holman Christian Standard Bible. "It would be devastating to have a typo in the wrong place or a word left out." A list hangs in the Gundens' office as a reminder of just how much rides on their work. The list, a collection of notorious typos found in the Bible, features one prominent error from a 1631 King James edition: "Thou shalt commit adultery." "Obviously, you try to make sure anything that says, `You shall not,' you make sure you have the `not,'" Doug Gunden said. While such long-ago errors are good for a chuckle, the Gundens, who have been in the proofreading business for more than 25 years, realize that proofreading a Bible is serious stuff. With an ordinary book, "you can put up with more because it's not something you're basing your whole life on," June Gunden said. "It's information, but it's not really life-changing information. It's not something you believe to be infallible." The best-selling book of all time has reached even greater heights in recent years, with Bible sales accounting for almost $140 million last year, an 8 percent increase over 2002, according to the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, which tracks sales at Christian stores. Publishers have been producing new, annotated editions with study notes and graphics - all of which require the Gundens' services. "In the last three months, we've had more calls for new Bibles that people want us to get on our schedule than I can remember," June Gunden said. Wall-to-wall bookshelves at the Peachtree office display the hundreds of Bibles that have passed under the eyes of the 17-person staff. The staff recently finished one of its largest projects, the Holman Christian Standard Bible, the latest of only a dozen English translations produced since the 15th century. The 20-year, $10 million project employed about 100 biblical scholars, linguists and editors to translate the Bible from the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic into modern English. For the last two years, the project was in the hands of the Peachtree staff, which combed each page repeatedly, looking for such things as typos and punctuation errors. Peachtree's employees incorporate their faith into their work, starting each project with a prayer. "If you work on these projects and you don't have an appreciation for this gift that God has given us - his word - it's a little more difficult for you to recognize the magnitude of the project," Doug Gunden said.

Continental Airlines raises fares to offset high fuel prices 2 hours, 6 minutes ago Add U.S. National - NEWS SOURCE 

HOUSTON, United States (NEWS SOURCE) - Continental Airlines announced an immediate worldwide fare increase of up to 20 dollars a flight and said it was considering job cuts to help offset record fuel prices. Fares went up by 20 dollars each way for flights over more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) and by 10 dollars each way for shorter flights, the carrier said in a statement late Tuesday. The new ticket prices would likely cover only 15 to 20 percent of impact of the record fuel costs, it said. Continental, the world's sixth largest airline with a staff of 41,000, said it was considering extra furloughs, wage and benefit concessions and reduced pension funding. "We worked hard to generate 900 million dollars of operating income improvements by removing non-value added expense and generating additional revenue over the past two years. We originally expected that this would let us break even in 2004," chairman and chief executive Gordon Bethune said in a statement. "While we may be faring better than our financially weaker competitors, none of us can afford to operate with these high fuel costs," he added. "If we are not successful in passing along these exorbitant fuel costs through higher fares, we will ultimately be forced to seek significant wage and benefit concessions and furloughs of our dedicated and hard working coworkers in order to survive." Light, sweet crude for delivery in June has declined only a little since Monday when it spiked at a record high 41.85 dollars a barrel in electronic trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Continental said it had expected jet fuel prices to average 68 cents a gallon when it originally laid out plans last year to break even in 2004. Instead, a gallon of jet fuel now cost about 1.14 dollars, increasing Continental's annual operating expenses by about 700 million dollars. "With fuel prices at these levels and the current weak fare environment, the company expects to post a loss in the quarter ending June 30 and a significant loss for 2004 and beyond," the airline said. Continental said it expected to end the second quarter with an unrestricted cash and short term investment balance of between 1.5 billion and 1.6 billion dollars. "However, continued record high fuel prices without an offsetting improvement in the revenue environment will result in continued pressure on the company's cash balances," it warned. Unless fuel prices fall quickly or sales surge, Continental said it expected to have no choice but to shed additional employees and seek wage and benefit cuts from all its employees." Continental said it was "reevaluating" whether to fund its pension plan above the minimum amount of 17 million dollars required for 2004. It had originally expected to contribute 300 million dollars this year. 

Protester Throws Powder at Tony Blair 1 hour, 53 minutes ago By ED JOHNSON, News Source Writer LONDON - A protester hit British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) with a purple powder in the House of Commons on Wednesday, forcing lawmakers to suspend proceedings and evacuate. House authorities said the powder was "benign" - colored corn starch - and lawmakers resumed their session shortly afterward. Blair was not injured but the incident was a major security breach in Parliament, which recently put up a bulletproof screen to protect members from possible attacks from the public gallery. London's Metropolitan Police said two men were arrested but were not immediately charged. Fathers 4 Justice, a group which campaigns on child custody issues, claimed responsibility. A man in a suit stood up in the public gallery and was heard to shout "do you realize" and "five years." Blair visibly flinched as he was hit by the powder. Speaker Michael Martin immediately suspended the weekly session of prime minister's questions. A purplish haze was seen in the chamber as members evacuated. Blair's office said the prime minister was fine. "He is OK. He walked out," a spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity. The suspect and an apparent accomplice were grabbed by security officers, and Martin immediately suspended the session. The man who threw the power was standing in a part of the gallery reserved for guests of members of the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The ordinary public is behind a security screen to prevent such disruptions. The second man was seen holding up a sheet of letter size paper, but it was unclear what message was on it. Fathers 4 Justice campaigns on behalf of fathers denied access to their children and has drawn attention to the issue with a series of high-profile stunts. One member, David Chick, dressed as Spiderman and climbed atop a crane beside London's Tower Bridge in November, forcing police to close the busy traffic route and leading to huge traffic jams. Four members of the group - dressed as Spiderman, Superman, Batman and Robin - also climbed Bristol's Clifton Suspension Bridge in February, leading to its closure. There has been a public focus on security at the Houses of Parliament since two anti-Iraq (news - web sites) war protesters scaled the tower housing the Big Ben bell, part of the legislative complex, in March. Peter Hain, the leader of the House of Commons, said last month that British intelligence had clear information about a danger to Parliament. He warned lawmakers that terrorists could attack the chamber with germs or deadly gas.

Violence in Iraq puts advertisers on edge Tue May 18,12:48 PM ET Add Business - USATODAY.com 

By Michael McCarthy, USA TODAY As broadcast and cable networks enter the crucial "upfront" season, when they try to sell ad time for the upcoming season, there is worry that the flood of grisly images flowing into living rooms from Iraq (news - web sites) and elsewhere will discourage advertisers. Generally, Madison Avenue tries to avoid having ad messages juxtaposed with horrible news or violent imagery. The most extreme example: Networks lost over $1 billion in ad revenue after the Sept. 11 attacks. Even after networks resumed normal schedules, some advertisers yanked ads for fear of being seen as insensitive. While recent images of beheaded hostage Nick Berg, abused Iraqi prisoners, sarin nerve gas attacks and burned corpses of Americans dangling from bridges have been disturbing, so far advertisers haven't pulled back. General Motors, the nation's largest advertiser, "would not advertise on a TV program (just) about atrocities in Iraq," says spokeswoman Ryndee Carney. However she says, "When you buy news media, you take what you can get. The news is the news." But if violence keeps coming - or worsens - watch out, experts warn. "You don't want to run a humorous commercial next to horrific images and stories," says Brad Adgate, senior vice president of media buyer Horizon Media. Bad news from Iraq could shift upfront ad dollars to media outlets viewed as "safe havens," says Jack Myers, editor of Jack Myers Report. Among likely beneficiaries: The Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, Hallmark Channel and Oxygen. "There's a positive glow on the networks that are seen as safe and secure," he says. News sales executives, however, assert that the Sept. 11 attacks and two wars have made marketers tougher about what they think audiences can handle. Through last week, no advertisers had called CNN to pull commercials, says ad sales chief Greg D'Alba. "Five years ago when there was a breaking story, you'd have 20 advertisers call and say 'pull me.' But the news environment has changed. This is must-see television. You have to know." Paul Rittenberg, senior vice president of advertising for Fox News, agrees. "It seems to be having more of an impact on newspapers and magazines." Ford Motor Co.'s. Ford brand hasn't changed its TV schedule, but it is watching images in news magazines with its ads, says spokeswoman Paige Johnson. "We're monitoring the content and will make decisions based on the nature of the content. But we don't have a lot of control." In fact, the war on terror is making it difficult for Madison Avenue "to find shelter from the storm" anywhere, says Allen Adamson, managing director of image consultancy Landor. "This is a new state of normalcy. The intensity and violence depicted in global news is increasing."

Average price of gas goes above $2 Tue May 18,12:54 PM ET By Barbara Hagenbaugh, USA TODAY The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in the USA topped $2 for the first time Monday, the government said, confirming the pain drivers everywhere are seeing at the pump. Gasoline prices rose more than 7 cents a gallon in the past week, to $2.017 Monday, the Energy Department said. That was up 20 cents from a month ago and nearly 52 cents from this time a year ago. (Related story: Other prices rise as companies try to offset fuel costs) The increase comes as millions prepare to hit the road for summer trips. Gasoline costs - although not near the prices paid in past decades when adjusted for inflation - have also become an issue in the presidential campaign. At $2.35 a gallon, Los Angeles had the highest average price for regular gasoline in the country. Drivers were paying more than $2 in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Miami, New York City and Seattle. Gasoline prices have been rising in response to elevated oil prices, which make up nearly half the cost of gas. Monday, the price of crude oil trading in New York rose 17 cents to a record $41.55 a barrel in part because of worries about terrorism and uncertainty about oil producer Iraq (news - web sites). The good news: Some oil analysts say the worst for the climb in gasoline costs is probably over, provided oil costs don't increase much more. The rising gas costs are making Sean Zielenbach, 36, feel better about his decision to buy a Honda gas/electric hybrid car about two months ago, despite the higher cost compared with the all-gas model. "This is looking like a better and better deal," the Arlington, Va., non-profit consultant says.

US soldier alleges cover-up in prison abuse 1 hour, 39 minutes ago Add Politics - NEWS SOURCE 

WASHINGTON (NEWS SOURCE) - A member of US military intelligence said that the army tried to cover up the extent of detainee abuse in Iraq (news - web sites), a US television network reported. Sergeant Samuel Provance told ABC television that dozens of soldiers had been involved in the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. Seven soldiers have been charged. The first will face a court-martial Wednesday in the Iraqi capital. "There's definitely a cover-up," Provance said in an interview with the World News Tonight programme released in advance of the broadcast. "People are either telling themselves or being told to be quiet." Provance, 30, was part of the 302nd Military Intelligence Battalion stationed at Abu Ghraib last September. ABC said the soldier, who is now in Germany, gave the interview despite orders from his commanders not to. "What I was surprised at was the silence," Provance was quoted as saying. "The collective silence by so many people that had to be involved, that had to have seen something or heard something." Provance ran the military intelligence computer network at the prison. He said he did not see the abuse that has brought international criticism on the US military but that interrogators admitted they directed the military police to be rough with prisoners. "Anything (the MPs) were to do legally or otherwise, they were to take those commands from the interrogators," Provance said. The seven charged so far, who include three women, are all from a military police company. Some have said they acted under orders but military officials have said the abuse seen in photos of naked prisoners at Abu Ghraib was limited to a few MPs. Provance said the sexual humiliation began as a technique ordered by military intelligence. "One interrogator told me about how commonly the detainees were stripped naked, and in some occasions, wearing women's underwear," Provance said. "If it's your job to strip people naked, yell at them, scream at them, humiliate them, it's not going to be too hard to move from that to another level." Provance told how US soldiers struck prisoners around the neck and inmates were knocked out. "Then (the soldier) would go to the next detainee, who would be very fearful and voicing their fear, and the MP would calm him down and say: 'We're not going to do that. It's okay. Everything's fine,' and then do the exact same thing to him." Provance also described how two drunken interrogators took a female Iraqi prisoner from her cell in the middle of the night and stripped her to the waist. The men were restrained by another MP. The role of US military intelligence in the abuse is being investigated by Major General George Fay, the army's deputy chief of staff for intelligence. Provance said that when Fay interviewed him, he seemed interested only in the military police, not the interrogators, and seemed to discourage him from testifying. Provance said Fay threatened to take action against him for failing to report what he saw sooner. "I feel like I'm being punished for being honest," Provance said. "You know, it was almost as if I actually felt if all my statements were shredded and I said, like most everybody else, 'I didn't hear anything, I didn't see anything. I don't know what you're talking about,' then my life would be just fine right now."

ere's a little fun to bring a laugh into these dark times:

Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?

GEORGE W BUSH
We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to
know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken
is either against us or for us. There is no middle ground here.

COLIN POWELL
Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image
of the chicken crossing the road.

HANS BLIX
We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been
allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

JOHN KERRY
Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road I am now against it!

RALPH NADER
The chicken's habitat on the other side of the road had been polluted by
unchecked industrial greed. The chicken did not reach the unspoiled
habitat on the other side of the road because it was crushed by the wheels
of a gas-guzzling SUV.

PAT BUCHANAN
To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

RUSH LIMBAUGH
I don't know why the chicken crossed the road, but I'll bet it was getting
a government grant to cross the road, and I'll bet that somebody out there
is already forming a support group to help chickens with crossing-the-road
syndrome. Can you believe this? How much more of this can real Americans
take? Chickens crossing the road paid for by their tax dollars. And when I
say tax dollars, I'm talking about your money, money the government took
from you to build a road for chickens to cross.

MARTHA STEWART
No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had
a standing order at the Farmer's Market to sell my eggs when the price
dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

JERRY FALWELL
Because the chicken was gay --- isn't it obvious? Can't you people see the
plain truth in front of your face? The chicken was going to the
'other side'. That's what they call it the other side. Yes, my friends,
that chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too.
I say we Boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the
liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like "the other
side."

DR SEUSS
Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the
chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I've not been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY
To die in the rain. Alone.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR
I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without
having their motives called into question.

GRANDPA
In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody
told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS
Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the
chicken tell, for the first time, the heartwarming story of how it
experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its life
long dream of crossing the road.

JOHN LENNON
Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together - in peace.

ARISTOTLE
It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

KARL MARX
It was an historic inevitability.

RONALD REAGAN
What chicken?

CAPTAIN KIRK
To boldly go where no chicken has ever gone before.

SIGMUND FREUD
The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the
road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

BILL GATES
I have just witnessed eChicken2003, which will not only cross roads, but
will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook,
- and internet explorer is an integral part of chicken.

ALBERT EINSTEIN
Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the
chicken?

BILL CLINTON
I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What is your definition of
chicken?

AL GORE
I invented the chicken!

THE BIBLE
And God came down from heaven, and he said unto the chicken THOU SHALT
CROSS THE ROAD. And the chicken didst cross the road, and there was much
rejoicing.

COLONEL SANDERS
Did I miss one?

Eminem Suit Against Apple, MTV to Proceed Tue May 18, 8:39 AM ET DETROIT - A federal judge says rapper Eminem (news - web sites)'s copyright infringement claims over use of his song "Lose Yourself" in a commercial for Apple Computer Inc. can go forward. Apple featured a 10-year-old boy singing the Oscar-winning theme song to the rapper's movie "8 Mile" in an ad on MTV for the computer company's iPod music player and iTunes music service. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled that the suit brought by Eminem's publishing company can proceed against several companies, including MTV parent company Viacom and advertising agency TBWA/Chiat/Day. Taylor threw out two state law-based claims of unfair competition and unjust enrichment. The television ad appeared many times during three months beginning in July 2003 and on Apple's Web site, despite the fact that the computer company had unsuccessfully sought Eminem's permission for the campaign. Herschel Fink, a Detroit lawyer for the defendants, said no viewer would think Eminem was endorsing the iTunes service. Eminem's lawyers say he has never nationally endorsed any product. ___ On the Net: Eminem: http://www.eminem.com MTV: http://www.mtv.com Apple Computer Inc.: http://www.apple.com 

Jets Release Details on Manhattan Stadium 2 hours, 34 minutes ago By KAREN MATTHEWS, News Source Writer NEW YORK - The New York Jets (news) released details of their planned West Side stadium Tuesday, featuring wind turbines and solar collector tubes to generate much of its own electricity and hot water. "We envision this as being the greenest building to date," said William Pedersen of Kohn Pedersen Fox, the New York-based architecture firm designing the project. In addition to housing the Jets, the $1.4 billion stadium would be integral to the city's bid for the 2012 Olympics, which got a boost Tuesday with the news that New York was chosen as one of five finalists to host the games. Pedersen called the Olympic announcement "tremendously exciting" and said, "We feel we have a stadium that sets the right tone for it." The stadium would be a rectangle bounded by 11th and 12th avenues and 30th and 33rd streets on the far West Side of Manhattan. Pedersen said its design, which differs from the typical circular or oval stadium, is meant to fit seamlessly into the city's grid. "It should feel as if it's very much connected into this particular place and as opposed to a stadium simply looking as if it could be anywhere, like a UFO landing from space," he said. The south facade of the stadium would contain 25,000 solar collector tubes and the walls would be topped by 34 wind turbines, each 40 feet tall. Pedersen said the windmills would generate almost all of the energy for the facility when it is being used as a football stadium and about 25 percent when it is being used as a convention and exhibition hall. The Jets, whose lease at the Meadowlands in New Jersey expires in 2008, have committed to spending $800 million in private funds on the stadium. The city and state would add $300 million each to build a retractable roof and a deck over the existing rail yards. The project, officially called the New York Sports and Convention Center, would anchor the city's plan to redevelop a large swath of that area. Backers say the stadium would create 7,000 permanent jobs and 18,000 construction jobs and would be a good deal for the city and state. But community groups and many elected officials oppose using tax dollars for a sports facility when schools and city services are facing a budget crunch.

Enron Tapes Hint Chiefs Knew About Power Ploys Tue May 18,11:09 AM ET 

By Jonathan Peterson Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON - Enron Corp. employees spoke of "stealing" up to $2 million a day from California during the 2000-01 energy crisis and suggested that their market-gaming ploys would be presented to top management, possibly including Jeffrey K. Skilling and Kenneth L. Lay, according to documents released Monday. The evidence of apparent scheming - in one recorded conversation, traders brag about taking money from "Grandma Millie" in California - is in a filing by a utility in Snohomish County, Wash. The municipal power unit north of Seattle wants refunds for alleged overcharges made by Enron during the electricity market meltdown. The utility obtained transcripts of routinely recorded trader discussions from the Justice Department (news - web sites), which seized them in its Enron investigation. While it has long been established that Enron engaged in market-gaming tactics - two top traders have pleaded guilty to fraud-related charges for manipulating California's energy market and a third awaits trial - the 450 pages of recorded conversations provide another vivid look into the organization's exploitive subculture. They also suggest that knowledge of alleged wrongdoing may have reached the level of Skilling, Enron's former chief executive, and Lay, the former chairman. In a Sept. 14, 2000, conversation, an employee named "Sue" from Enron's governmental affairs operation checks in with a trader named "Bob" for information that could be used in an in-house presentation to corporate executives. "This is the time of year when government affairs has to prove how valuable it is to Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling," Sue said, according to the transcript. The Snohomish utility identified Sue as Susan J. Mara, Enron's California director of regulatory affairs until December 2001, when she and thousands of others lost their jobs as the result of Enron's financial collapse. In talking with Bob, whose identity couldn't immediately be learned, Mara touts Enron's success in delaying a lowering of energy price caps by state officials. Then, still seeking helpful material for the planned executive presentation, she asks: "Do you know when you started overscheduling load and making buckets of money on that?" Overscheduling load - a tactic that Enron traders famously dubbed "Fat Boy" - involved purposely overstating how much electricity would be needed in the future, creating the appearance of power shortages and leading to inflated prices. Mara, who is now an energy consultant, said Monday that the recorded conversation came about as she gathered information for a budget presentation to be made to executives at corporate headquarters in Houston. "We had to show what our accomplishments were for the year," she said. Mara said she didn't recall what the final presentation contained or which executives heard it. The presentation was not prepared expressly for Skilling and Lay, she said, even though her statement in the recorded conversation implied that they would hear it. The trading tactics discussed on the recording weren't considered illegal or manipulative by Enron, Mara added. Asked Monday about the transcripts, Enron spokeswoman Karen Denne declined to comment, save to say: "We have been and we're continuing to cooperate with all investigations." Skilling's lawyer, Bruce Hiler, declined to comment. Earl J. Silbert, an attorney for Lay, could not immediately be reached. Federal prosecutors in February brought a range of fraud charges against Skilling for his actions when he was at the helm at Enron, but none was related to trading in the California market. Lay has not been charged. In a different conversation in the transcripts, Enron's West Coast trading chief, Timothy N. Belden, discusses the profitability of the company's strategies in California, particularly those executed by a trading desk led by Jeffrey S. Richter: "Well he makes ... between one and two [million] a day, which never shows up on any curve shift.... He steals money from California to the tune of about a million - " At this point the other speaker interrupts, asking Belden to rephrase what he just said. "OK," Belden says. "He, um, he arbitrages the California market to the tune of a million bucks or two a day." Asked about the transcript Monday, Belden's lawyer, Chris Arguedas, said that it was not possible to draw conclusions about the meaning of Belden's remarks without a better sense of the whole conversation. "You can't understand words spoken unless you see the context in which they are spoken," she said. In October 2002, Belden pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge and has been cooperating with the government. Richter pleaded guilty to similar charges the following February. A spokesman for California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer said the state was continuing to investigate Enron. "The comments made in these transcripts, if they're accurate, contain the kind of information that could bolster" a case against Enron, said spokesman Tom Dresslar. Eric Christensen, a lawyer for the Snohomish utility, said the transcripts strongly suggest top Enron executives knew of the trading ploys used in California. "It was common knowledge at least in the government relations unit, and they reported to upper management in Houston," he said. * Times staff writer Nancy Rivera Brooks in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

FBI Probes Possible Cisco Software Theft 1 hour, 12 minutes ago Add U.S. National 

CHICAGO  - The FBI (news - web sites) is investigating the possible theft of source code from networking equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:CSCO - news), the agency said on Tuesday. "We're aware of the situation and we're working with Cisco regarding the potential loss of proprietary data," said Paul Bresson, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, confirming the probe. He said Cisco asked the bureau to look into the matter, but he declined to discuss the case further. Cisco said on Monday it was looking into reports that some of the software code used to run its gear that directs Internet traffic may have been stolen. The company did not say whether any of its code was actually stolen, or if so how much. Source code, the underlying blueprint of computer software, determines how programs work. Companies like Cisco and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) zealously guard their source code as the lifeblood of their business. Hackers who steal source code could potentially harm Cisco's Internetworking Operating System, but hundreds of versions of the system exist, so any potential damage could be limited. Russian Web site SecurityLab.ru reported on Saturday that the code was stolen from Cisco's corporate network, with some leaked onto the Internet. The Russian site estimated about 800 megabytes of source code was taken. Last year, Cisco in a lawsuit accused Huawei Technologies, China's largest telecom equipment maker, of unlawfully copying its operating software. That lawsuit was suspended last October after the two companies reached an agreement.

Team Claims Success With Rocket Launch 

2 hours, 36 minutes ago

By The News Source 

A team of rocketeers led by a Bloomington, Minn., man has claimed success in their goal of launching the first amateur rocket into space, sending a 21-foot rocket an estimated 70 miles above the Nevada desert. 

What's Next in Tech Gadgets?
Do Europe and Japan get all the hot new technology first? Here's a look at the pipeline of future tech -- plus some gadgets that didn't travel well and a wishlist of cool things. 

Ky Michaelson, 65, a former Hollywood stuntman, had been working since 1995 to blast an amateur rocket into space, defined as 62 miles above the earth. His first two attempts, in 2000 and 2002, failed. The third time was the charm. 

"I just freaked out," Michaelson said of Monday's successful launch. "All those emotions after all those years came out of me. I just couldn't believe it." 

This year's model, dubbed the GoFast Rocket, was built in six different states and assembled at the launch site in northwestern Nevada. 

About 25 members of the team that built the rocket, Civilian Space eXploration Team, or CSXT, were on hand to watch the launch at 11:12 a.m. Everyone held their breaths as the countdown reached liftoff, he said. 

"I was concentrating on watching the motor," Michaelson said. "If the motor blows up, it's all over." 

Michaelson said they were still working to recover the rocket on Tuesday, and that its telemetry package should tell them the exact altitude. But he said it reached 4,200 miles an hour in 10 seconds, so the laws of physics would have taken it up about 70 miles. 

"Once you hit 4,200 miles an hour, that thing's gone into space," he said 

The Federation Aeronautique Internationale in Lausanne, Switzerland, the governing body that certifies international aviation records, doesn't have a specific category of records for such accomplishments, but sometimes establishes one after a precedent is set, said Thierry Montigneaux, assistant to the secretary general. He said he didn't think the FAI had a record of such a previous unmanned amateur rocket flight in its archives. 

Michaelson founded CSXT in 1998, bringing together amateur rocketeers including teachers, students and real rocket scientists. In 2000, they launched a rocket that reached 3,205 mph before wind shear snapped off a fin at 45,000 feet. In 2002, they launched a rocket that soared for three seconds before the motor burned through the casing and it exploded. 

Other amateur groups are competing to blast though the same door. Last week, a group led by Burt Rutan launched a piloted rocket from a plane that climbed to 211,400 feet, becoming the first privately funded manned vehicle to reach the edge of space. 

The launch in the Black Rock Desert was monitored by the Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites). 

Donn Walker, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, noted that many private companies already have launched spacecraft such as those carrying satellites. He said CSXT is essentially engaged in a purely amateur space race but has earned the respect of federal regulators. 

"They're very legitimate and they do know what they're doing, absolutely," Walker said. 

Michaelson, who has more than 200 movies and TV shows to his credit, has been obsessed with rockets all his life. As a young man, he owned a rocket-propelled motorcycle that led to his nickname "The Rocketman." 

Michaelson's 4-year-old son is named Buddy Rocketman Michaelson, and Michaelson says his son calls himself "Rocketman Buddy." He also has a 6-year-old daughter, Miracle. 

Now that he's reached his longtime goal, Michaelson says, he plans to return home to Minnesota and spend the summer with his wife, Jodi, and their children. They plan to rent a motor-home and visit Alaska. 

"Do some fishing," Michaelson said. 

___ 

Information from: St. Paul Pioneer Press, http:// www.twincities.com

Commission: Fire, Police Rivalry Hurt 9/11 Rescue

1 hour, 50 minutes ago

By Ellen Wulfhorst 

NEW YORK  - Rivalry between New York's police and fire departments and conflicting advice from emergency teams on Sept. 11, 2001, hampered efforts to save lives as the Twin Towers collapsed in a heap of smoke, the commission investigating the attacks said on Tuesday. 

The News Source 

Slideshow: September 11

The panel, meeting less than 2 miles from the former site of the World Trade Center, said the "long-standing rivalry" between the two departments meant they considered themselves "operationally autonomous" and failed to work together in the largest rescue operation in New York's history. 

"This rivalry has been acknowledged by every witness we have asked about it," a commission staff report read out at the public hearing said. 

The report also said emergency operators answering distress calls from the burning towers gave conflicting advice or were unable to provide even the most basic information, such as the floors affected by the attacks. 

While some evacuees were told to return to their offices, others were told to leave the building. 

Faced with choking black smoke, insufferable heat and no prospect of relief, some of those trapped in the towers jumped from the building, the staff report said. 

To help analyze what went wrong on Sept. 11, the independent commission presented dramatic footage of the day nearly 3,000 people, including around 343 firefighters and 23 police officers, died in the suicide airplane attacks on New York and Washington. 

The videos of the crashes also included statements from fire and police officials on duty that day. 

Hundreds of victims' relatives were attending the hearings, some with pictures of their lost loved ones pinned to their shirts. Gasps filled the auditorium as the commission showed footage of the low-flying passenger planes smashing into the World Trade Center and erupting into balls of fire. 

"I feel a responsibility to know everything that impacted my brother. He died without anybody to give him the information. I need to give him that respect," said Wells Noonan, whose brother Robert Noonan, 36, worked on the 103rd floor of one tower and died in the attacks. 

POOR COMMUNICATIONS 

The commission report said rescue efforts were also hampered by communications equipment that was damaged in the attacks or was not "interoperable" between departments. This meant rescue teams had little idea what was going on on other floors, in other buildings, or outside the towers. 

For example, forces inside the towers did not know about the damage visible from police helicopters circling overhead. 

The commission report said rescue officials did not anticipate the towers would collapse, and certainly not so quickly. The two towers imploded within roughly 1-3/4 hours of the first airplane impact. 

"We didn't have a lot of information coming in. We didn't receive any reports from what was seen from the helicopters," said Joseph Pfeifer, a battalion chief for the New York Fire Department who was at the disaster site that day. 

"It was impossible to know how much damage was done on the upper flowers, whether the stairwells were intact or not ... As a matter of fact, what you saw on TV, we did not have that information," he said of the video footage. 

When the first tower collapsed in a tremendous roar, rescue officials in the remaining North Tower had no idea what had happened. Unaware of the extent of the disaster, rescue officials lacked a uniform sense of urgency to evacuate the remaining building, which collapsed about half an hour later.

Diet, Alcohol Linked to Nearly 1/3 of Cancer Cases 2 hours, 30 minutes ago Add Health 

By Patricia Reaney HARROGATE, England  - Diet is second only to tobacco as a leading cause of cancer and, along with alcohol, is responsible for nearly a third of cases of the disease in developed countries, a leading researcher said on Tuesday. Dr Tim Key, of the University of Oxford, told a cancer conference that scientists are still discovering how certain foods contribute to cancer but they know that diet, alcohol and obesity play a major role. "Five percent of cancers could be avoided if nobody was obese," he said. While tobacco is linked to about 30 percent of cancer cases, diet is involved in an estimated 25 percent and alcohol in about six percent. "We know that obesity and alcohol are important," said Key. Obesity raises the risk of breast, womb, bowel and kidney cancer while alcohol is known to cause cancers of the mouth, throat and liver. Its dangerous impact is increased when combined with smoking. Both alcohol consumption and obesity rates are rising in many countries. Key told the meeting of the charity Cancer Research UK that other elements of diet linked to cancer are still unknown but scientists are hoping that the EPIC study, which is comparing the diets of 500,000 people in 10 countries and their risk of cancer, will provide some answers. Early results of the study have revealed that Norway, Sweden and Denmark have the lowest consumption of fruit and vegetables among European countries while Italy and Spain have the highest. Eating at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day is recommended to reduce the risk of cancer. Key, principal scientist on the EPIC study, said it is looking at dietary links to some of the most common cancers including colorectal, breast and prostate. So far it has shown that obesity is linked to an increased risk of colorectal cancer, while processed and red meat also probably raise the chances of developing the disease and eating lots of fruit and vegetables decrease the odds. "Hormones are the key factor in breast cancer. There is currently about a five-fold variation in breast cancer rates around the world. Much of that variation is due to parity, the number of children (a woman has) and breast feeding," Key said. But he added that obesity and alcohol can also raise the risk of the disease. Scientists working on the study have not positively identified any dietary factors associated with prostate cancer. 

Pope Marks Birthday With Launch of Book Tue May 18, 6:29 AM ET 

By VICTOR L. SIMPSON, News Source Writer VATICAN CITY - Pope John Paul (news - web sites) II marked his 84th birthday Tuesday with publication of his new book, which mixes memories from his native Poland, a touch of self-criticism and a defense of priestly celibacy. "It will be a regular working day and above all a thanks to God for the gift of life," said Vatican (news - web sites) spokesman Joaquin-Navarro Valls. He reported that the Vatican has been flooded with birthday greetings for John Paul. The pope has kept up a busy schedule despite Parkinson's disease (news - web sites) and hip and knee ailments. He received visiting American bishops and Prime Minister Jose Durao Barroso of Portugal, whose delegation broke into "Happy Birthday" in Portuguse. In the evening, John Paul was scheduled to meet with the president of Poland. "To the ever young custodian of peace," said the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano in its birthday greeting. In bookstores in Italy and elsewhere, John Paul's latest literary work "Get Up, Let Us Go" went on sale. It is a sequel to "Gift and Mystery," an account of the pontiff's early priesthood that was released in 1996. It came out a decade after publication of the heavily autobiographical "Crossing the Threshold of Hope," which sold 20 million copies around the world. The latest book draws on the pope's years in Krakow, where - as Karol Wojtyla - he served as bishop and then archbishop, but also touches on his years since his election as the first Polish pope in 1978. He recalls his passion for the theater and being told he would have been a "great actor," but said the suffering around him from World War II led him to abandon a career on the stage, The pope said that those contesting celibacy have raised the issued of the loneliness for priests, but that he personally never felt lonely. In 1958, the pope recalls, he was on a canoeing trip when he was called to Warsaw by the head of Poland's Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, to be told he was being named a bishop of Krakow. Wojtyla made his way by canoe and then in a truck full of flour sacks to the nearest train station for the overnight journey. On hearing of his appointment, he told Wyszynski: "Your eminence, I am too young - I am only 38." "The primate responded: `This is a weakness of which we are quickly cured. Please do not oppose the Holy Father's wish,'" the pope wrote. Wojtyla then returned to Krakow and asked his archbishop for permission to resume the canoeing trip. "You are welcome, but please get back for the consecration," replied the archbishop, Eugeniusz Baziak. The book recounts communist efforts to suppress the church in Poland, Wojtyla's clashes with authorities to protect it and of clandestine meetings he organized with intellectuals and scientists. The pope recalls a "constant fierce struggle" to get a church built in the industrial Krakow suburb of Nowa Huta, designed as a model socialist town with a steelworks at its heart. Communist authorities gave, and then revoked, permission for a new church - a decision that resulted in a fight between security forces and residents who had erected a cross. "In the long term, the battle was won, but at the price of a long war of nerves," the pontiff writes. John Paul says he viewed his first trip as pope - to Mexico in January 1979 - as "a pass that could open the way to a pilgrimage to Poland." "I thought the communists in Poland would not be able to refuse me a visit to my homeland if I were received by a nation with a secular constitution, such as Mexico had," he added. That June, the pope made his first visit to Poland. In a moment of self-criticism, the pope notes that "a part of a pastor's role is to admonish" and says that maybe he failed to be strict enough during his time in Krakow. "Maybe I should reproach myself that I did not try to rule enough" in those years, he writes. "But it stems from my character." The pope wrote the book in March-August 2003, writing some parts himself in Polish and dictating others. Italian publisher Mondadori says it is still negotiating the rights for the English-language edition. The royalties from it will go into a special fund for charitable use, Navarro-Valls said.

David Reimer, subject of 'sex reassignment,' dead at 38 

Los Angeles Times

David Reimer, the Canadian man raised as a girl for the first 14 years of his life in a highly touted medical experiment, committed suicide May 4 in his hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba. He was 38.

David Reimer, who became the unwitting subject of "sex reassignment," at 8 months of age, later underwent a double mastectomy and eventually developed into a muscular, handsome young man.Dr. Milton Diamond, a University of Hawai'i sexologist who helped expose the experiment for the failure it was and became a friend, called Reimer's death a tragedy.

"I hope people learn from it that you don't do something that dramatic to someone without their informed consent," said Diamond, a professor at the John A. Burns School of Medicine. "You also have to deal with people with honesty. He was lied to by physicians and parents, the two groups you want to trust the most."

At 8 months of age, Reimer became the unwitting subject of "sex reassignment," a treatment method embraced by his parents after his penis was all but obliterated during a botched circumcision. The American doctor whose advice they sought recommended that their son be castrated, given hormone treatments and raised as a girl. The physician, Dr. John Money, later wrote a paper declaring the success of the conversion.

But Money's experiment was a disaster for Reimer that created psychological scars he never overcame.

Reimer's story was told in the 2000 book "As Nature Made Him," by journalist John Colapinto. Reimer said he cooperated with Colapinto so other children might be spared the miseries he experienced.

Reimer was born Aug. 22, 1965, 12 minutes before his identical twin brother. His parents named him Bruce and his brother Brian.

After Bruce was maimed in the botched circumcision, the Reimers turned to Money, a Harvard-educated native of New Zealand who had established a reputation as one of the world's leading sex researchers. He told them that raising Bruce as a girl was the best course, and that they should never tell him about having been a boy.

About six weeks before his second birthday, Bruce became Brenda on an operating table at Johns Hopkins. After bringing the toddler home, the Reimers began dressing her like a girl and giving her dolls.

Brenda rebelled from the start. She tried to rip off the first dress her mother sewed for her. When she saw her father shaving, she wanted a razor, too. She favored toy guns and trucks over sewing machines and Barbies.

Money insisted that continuing on the path to womanhood was the proper course for her.

Money already was the darling of radical feminists such as Kate Millett, who in her best-selling "Sexual Politics" had cited Money's writings as proof that "psychosexual personality is therefore postnatal and learned."

But Money's experiment proved the opposite - the immutability of one's inborn sense of gender. Money stopped commenting publicly on the case in 1980 and never acknowledged that the experiment was anything but a success.

Diamond had long been suspicious of Money's claims. He found Reimer through a Canadian psychiatrist who had treated Reimer.

In an article published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine in 1997, Diamond and the psychiatrist, Dr. H. Keith Sigmundson, showed how Brenda had rejected her reassignment from male to female, and, at 14, refused to continue living as a girl.

When she confronted her father, he broke down in tears and told her what had happened shortly after her birth. Instead of being angry, Brenda was relieved. "For the first time, everything made sense," the article by Diamond and Sigmundson quoted her as saying, "and I understood who and what I was."

She decided to take male hormone shots and undergo a double mastectomy and operations to build a penis with skin grafts. She changed her name to David, identifying with the Biblical David who fought Goliath. "It reminded me," he told Colapinto, "of courage."

David developed into a muscular, handsome young man. But the grueling surgeries spun him into periods of depression and twice caused him to attempt suicide.

When he was 25, he married a woman and adopted her three children. Diamond reported that while the phallic reconstruction was only partially successful, David could have sexual intercourse and experience orgasm.

His life began to unravel with the suicide of his brother two years ago. Brian Reimer had been treated for schizophrenia and took his life by overdosing on drugs.

David is survived by his wife, Jane, his parents and stepchildren

He said he did not blame his parents for their decision to raise him as a girl. As he told Colapinto, "Mom and Dad wanted this to work so I'd be happy. That's every parent's dream for their child . . . (But) You can't be something that you're not. You have to be you."

Advertiser staff writer Beverly Creamer contributed to this report.

Murder investigation continues in Norwich
Email to a Friend Printer Friendly Version 
Murder investigation continues in Norwich

Norwich -- Police are still working on several leads in connection with the Friday murder of a world renowned scientist.

Detectives say the body of Dr. Eugene Mallove, 56, an expert on cold fusion, was found late Friday on the grounds outside of his mother's rental property on Salem Turnpike.

Norwich police say they are not ruling out anything but they believe the murder was probably a random act of violence.

Neighbors say the Pembroke, NH resident was working on the vacant property earlier in the day.

Mallove's green Dodge Caravan was stolen from the home and was found several hours later in the employee parking lot at Foxwoods Resort and Casino. Police hope surveillance video of the parking lot will reveal the identity of the person who stole the van.

Mallove was a nominee for the Pulitzer prize and president of The New Energy Foundation. An autopsy revealed that he died of multiple head and neck injuries.

Detectives are now looking at a case 20 miles down the road in Pawcatuck, RI, where a man was assaulted during a robbery at his home. There is some concern that these two cases may be related.

NFA grad killed Science writer Mallove slain at family home in Norwich By GREG SMITH Norwich Bulletin 

NORWICH -- A 56-year-old former Norwich man was killed during a suspected robbery and brutal assault at his family home on Salem Turnpike Friday. Dr. Eugene F. Mallove, a Norwich Free Academy graduate, published author and father of two, died of multiple injuries to his head and neck, according to an autopsy performed Saturday at the Office of the Chief State Medical Examiner in Farmington. The death was ruled a homicide. Police would not confirm Mallove's identity Saturday pending positive identification by family members. Mallove was discovered at the small 119 Salem Turnpike house at 10:55 p.m. Friday after police received a report of an injured person. At the house, situated at the entrance to Interstate 395 in a primarily commercial area, police found Mallove unresponsive, the victim of an assault. He was later pronounced dead by medical personnel called to the scene. Police said initial investigation indicated a robbery, during which a physical confrontation took place. Several unidentified items were taken from the scene and Mallove's vehicle was missing, according to a written statement released by Norwich police. Several hours later, Mallove's 1993 green Dodge Caravan was found in the Foxwoods employee parking lot on Route 2 in Preston. The vehicle is easily identifiable by several large bumper stickers, including an American flag and his company Web site, www.infinite-energy.com, in the rear window. The New Hampshire license plate bears the registration INFNRG. Police are now seeking information from anyone who saw the vehicle between 7 p.m. Friday and 2 a.m. Saturday. Police declined to provide further details of the killing Saturday. Cars sped past the quiet Salem Turnpike home Saturday, where a large Dumpster was situated alongside the home in the driveway. Several cars, which looked as though they hadn't been moved in some time, are near the two-bay detached garage. The home, owned by Mallove's parents since 1958, is now under Eugene Mallove's care, according to city records. Mallove, with his wife, Joanne, had moved to Pembroke, N.H., from Norwich in 1987. In New Hampshire, Mallove was the president of the nonprofit New Energy Foundation and since 1995 the editor-in-chief of the organization's magazine Infinite Energy. The bimonthly magazine covers topics of new technological innovations in energy and science and follows developments in the field, according to its Web site. Infinite Energy managing editor Christy Frazier worked with Mallove for the past six years and had become very close. She called Mallove the "most caring and giving person I probably have ever known -- a very successful, brilliant man. "It's been a wonderful, wonderful experience. It's hard not to love the things he loves because he's so passionate," she said. "He touched the lives of everybody he came in contact with." Mallove's parents, Mitchel and Gladys Mallove, had followed their son's move to New Hampshire in 1988. His father, the son of Russian immigrants, died in March 2003 after a long illness, according to a published obituary. He is buried at the Hebrew Benevolent Cemetery in Norwich. Eugene Mallove had become a grandfather just this year and was caring for his mother, who has Alzheimer's disease, Frazier said. She said Mallove was a Norwich Free Academy graduate. He held a master of science degree and bachelor of science degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received a science doctorate in environmental health sciences from Harvard University in 1975. He also taught science journalism at MIT and Boston University and previously was chief science writer at the MIT news office. He is the author of numerous technical articles and of several books, including the Pulitzer-nominated book on cold fusion titled, "Fire and Ice: Searching for the Truth Behind the Cold Fusion Furor." Anyone with information can call Norwich police at 886-5561, or the anonymous tip line at 886-5561, Ext. 500. gasmith@norwichbulletin.com 

www.infinite-energy.com,

Police investigate Norwich slaying of N.H. man

May 16, 2004

NORWICH, Conn. --Police are investigating the killing of a New Hampshire science writer who championed cold fusion.

Eugene Mallove, 56, of Pembroke, N.H., died late Friday night after being assaulted at a house owned by his parents, police said. The family rented out the house.

Mallove died of injuries to his head and neck, the Norwich Bulletin reported Sunday. The office of the chief state's medical examiner ruled the death a homicide.

Mallove was discovered at the house after police received a report of an injured person. An initial investigation indicated a robbery and a fight had taken place, police said. Several unidentified items were taken and Mallove's minivan was missing.

His 1993 green Dodge Caravan was found early Saturday in an employee parking lot at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket. Police were looking for anyone who saw the minivan after 7 p.m. Friday. It had several large bumper stickers on the back, including one advertisi ng his magazine's Web site: www.infinite-energy.com.

Mallove, who moved from Norwich to Bow, N.H., in 1987 and to Pembroke three years ago, was president of the Concord, N.H.-based New Energy Institute and editor-in-chief of its magazine, "Infinite Energy."

The magazine's managing editor, who worked with him for six years, called Mallove the "most caring and giving person I probably have ever known -- a very successful, brilliant man."

"It's hard not to love the things he loves because he's so passionate," Christy Frazier said. "He touched the lives of everybody he came in contact with."

Mallove, who earned his bachelor's and master's degrees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. from Harvard University, was chief science writer at the MIT news office until he left to champion cold fusion. He also taught science writing at MIT and Boston University.

He was the author of several books, including one on cold fusion that was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize: "Fire and Ice: Searching for the Truth Behind the Cold Fusion Furor."

Mallove believed the infamous Pons and Fleishmann announcement in 1989 that they created nuclear fusion by running an electrical current through a jar of water was not "voodoo science," but a glimpse into an interesting topic worth investigating.

That belief was partly vindicated earlier this year when the U.S. Department of Energy ordered a panel of scientists to review existing research on cold fusion to see whether it is worth pursuing.

"They are now going to do the right thing. It's over 10 years late, no doubt about that, (and) should have been reviewed a long time ago ... but this is a breakthrough," Mallove said in a recent interview with The Telegraph of Nashua, N.H.

"There is a huge body of positive evidence" for low-energy nuclear reactions, he said. "We have measured tritium (a byproduct of fusion), measured heat multiple ways.... There are thousands of papers, hundreds of which are bulletproof."

Mallove's parents, Mitchel and Gladys Mallove, followed him to New Hampshire in 1988. His father died last year after a long illness, but he was still caring for his mother, who has Alzheimer's disease, Frazier said.

He also was survived by his wife, Joanne; a daughter, Kimberlyn; a son, Ethan; and one grandson.

Police eye robbery in killing of scientist By Lisa Kocian and Connie Paige, Globe Staff And Globe Correspondent | May 17, 2004 A scientist who was educated at Harvard and MIT and known for his passionate promotion of cold fusion was slain in a possible robbery Friday night, police in Norwich, Conn., said. Eugene Mallove, 56, of Pembroke, N.H., was unresponsive when police found him in a Norwich house owned by his parents, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Several items were taken from him, including his Dodge Caravan, which was found hours later in an employee parking lot at the nearby Foxwoods Resort Casino, police said. Mallove worked in Concord, N.H., as editor-in-chief and publisher of Infinite Energy magazine and president of the New Energy Foundation, both of which explore alternative forms of energy not generally recognized by mainstream scientists. "One measure of the type of man he is is that we've had thousands and thousands of e-mails and phone calls already. It's fresh news, but it's all over the world already," said Christy Frazier, managing editor of the magazine, when reached by phone yesterday. "It's going to impact the world, not just his friends and family," she said of Mallove's death. "This will change the face of new energy. He was the biggest fighter for new energy and new energy inventors." From a professional standpoint, the loss is particularly difficult, said Frazier, because the US Department of Energy had recently announced it had ordered a review of cold fusion for the first time since 1989, which Mallove had called a "breakthrough" in a New Hampshire newspaper interview. Cold fusion, a theoretical way of creating energy, has been largely discounted by the scientific establishment. Proponents hope it could produce cheaper, safer electricity, among other things.Mallove wrote several books and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his 1991 work "Fire and Ice: Searching for the Truth Behind the Cold Fusion Furor." Frazier, who worked alongside Mallove for six years, recalled him as caring and generous. Although he was perhaps best known as an expert in cold fusion, Mallove's 1975 doctorate from Harvard University was in Environmental Health Sciences, and he earned a bachelor's in 1969 and a master's in 1970 in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to a biography provided by Frazier. Mallove also worked as a consultant to corporations and investment firms doing research and development of cold fusion, according to his biography, and he was the chief science writer at the MIT News Office when cold fusion first came on the scene. He worked as technical adviser on the 1997 thriller "The Saint," an action movie centered on the discovery and control of cold fusion. Police said robbery was a possible motive in the killing, and they were looking for anyone who saw Mallove's green 1993 Dodge Caravan after 7 p.m. Friday. The death was ruled a homicide after an autopsy performed Saturday at the office of the Connecticut chief state medical examiner. The cause of death was blunt force injuries to the victim's head and neck, according to Norwich police. Norwich police Captain Franklyn Ward said yesterday afternoon that he could not say whether one or more individuals participated in the attack or what kind of blunt instrument was used. Mallove's family usually rented out the house they owned in Norwich, but it was vacant at the time of the killing, Ward said. Mallove leaves his wife, Joanne; his daughter, Kimberlyn; his son, Ethan; and his mother, Gladys. According to Frazier, the family was celebrating the recent birth of Mallove's first grandchild. Norwich police Lieutenant John A. John said that 20 to 25 people were working on the case yesterday afternoon, including local police and investigators from the office of the state's attorney for the Norwich district, Kevin T. Kane, and the State Police Major Crimes Squad. News Source material was used in this report. Lisa Kocian can be reached at lkocian@globe.com. 

Eugene F. Mallove, Ph.D. Harvard, 56, Editor-In-Chief, Infinite-Energy.com, 
Norwich, Connecticut; Founder and President, nonprofit New Energy Foundation; and author, 
Fire and Ice: Searching for the Truth Behind the Cold Fusion Furor. Dr. Mallove was found dead Friday night, 
May 14, 2004, inside his Norwich home. Police have ruled his death a homicide and anyone with information 
can call Norwich Police at: 860-886-5177. Tip Line is: (860) 886-5561, Ex. 500. May 16, 2004 - Infinite-Energy.com Editor Murdered on May 14, 2004. Eugene F. Mallove, Ph.D. Harvard, 56, Editor-In-Chief, Infinite-Energy.com, Norwich, Connecticut; Founder and President, nonprofit New Energy Foundation; and author, Fire and Ice: Searching for the Truth Behind the Cold Fusion Furor. Dr. Mallove was found dead Friday night, May 14, 2004, inside his Norwich home. Police have ruled his death a homicide and anyone with information can call Norwich Police at: 860-886-5177. Tip Line is: (860) 886-5561, Ex. 500.

Local scientist found slain 
Police say attackers robbed Mallove 
By ERIC MOSKOWITZ
Monitor staff

------------------------------------------------------------------------
May 17. 2004 8:00AM

Dr. Eugene Mallove of Pembroke, shown in this 1997 photo, was famous for his work on cold fusion. (Monitor file photo)
Zoom 

The police in Norwich, Conn., are investigating the slaying of Pembroke resident Eugene Mallove, a highly regarded scientist and popular father of two who died late Friday after being assaulted outside his childhood home in Connecticut. 

The MIT- and Harvard-educated Mallove traveled to the Norwich home Friday to clean it, Mallove's daughter Kimberlyn Woodard said. The house had been rented out in recent years and was being cleared out between tenants, she said. 

Officers from the Norwich Police Department responded to a report of an injured person at the 119 Salem Turnpike home at 10:55 p.m. Friday. The police discovered Mallove's body outside the house and pronounced him dead at the scene, authorities said. An autopsy confirmed that Mallove, 56, died as a result of multiple injuries to the head and neck, where blunt-force trauma was evident, officials said. 

The initial investigation points to robbery as a possible motive, as several items appeared to have been taken from Mallove, who had a physical altercation with his assailant or assailants, the police said. The attacker or attackers also stole Mallove's dark green 1993 Dodge Caravan minivan, which has several identifying markers - including an American flag sticker, the New Hampshire license plate "INFNRG" and a white-lettered window advertisement for Mallove's scientific Web site, the police said. The van was found early Saturday in a parking lot at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Conn., authorities said. 

Mallove, known as Gene, was the president of the New Energy Institute, a Concord-based nonprofit organization aimed at educating the world about the possibilities of new energy. He served as editor-in-chief of its magazine, Infinite Energy, which he launched in 1995. Previously, he worked as an engineer in the private sector, then as MIT's chief science writer. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees in aeronautical and astronautical engineering at MIT, then earned his Ph.D from Harvard, Woodard said. Well-read and a natural teacher, he proved to be a gifted and lucid science writer, his daughter said. 
Mallove wrote numerous scientific books and articles, as well as three books for the general public, including Fire From Ice: Searching For the Truth Behind the Cold Fusion Furor, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He earned a credit in the 1997 film The Saint, serving as scientific consultant to the thriller about cold fusion that starred Val Kilmer and Elisabeth Shue. 

http://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040517/REPOSITORY/405170353/1031

Global Treaty Takes Effect Without U.S. 

Mon May 17, 4:44 PM ET 
Add Politics - U. S. Congress 

By JOHN HEILPRIN, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - A global treaty phasing out a dozen highly toxic chemicals took effect Monday without the United States, though the Bush administration promised to abide by it. 

The Senate has yet to ratify the treaty, and Congress hasn't passed legislation to carry it out because of a disagreement over whether to add more toxic chemicals to the ban later. Nevertheless, the United States will comply with it "wherever we have the current legal authority," said Claudia McMurray, deputy assistant secretary of state for environment. 

The United Nations (news - web sites)-sponsored Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, or POPs, aims to ban or severely restrict 12 chemicals commonly known as the "dirty dozen." Among them are dioxins and DDT, a pesticide. 

"We're glad that the agreement has come into force, and there's still strong support from the president on down for the United States becoming a party to it," McMurray said. 

President Bush (news - web sites), whose environmental stances came under attack within weeks of taking office, hailed the treaty as a major breakthrough in a pre-Earth Day speech in April 2001. A month later, the United States and 90 other countries signed the treaty, which Clinton Administration officials had negotiated. 

France became the 50th nation to sign in February, 90 days before the treaty was to take effect. Klaus Toepfer, director of the U.N. Environment Program, said more than $500 million would be spent helping countries ban the chemicals. 

Brooks Yeager, a vice president of World Wildlife Fund, said "whales, polar bears, birds of prey and people throughout the world will benefit." 

The 12 toxic chemicals tend to persist in the environment, travel long distances and accumulate in the food chain. They are PCBs, dioxins, furans, DDT and the pesticides aldrin, hexachlorobenzene, chlordane, mirex, toxaphene, dieldrin, endrin and heptachlor. Many of these, such as PCBs, have been linked to cancer and other diseases. 

The use of DDT to combat malaria along World Health Organization (news - web sites) guidelines would be allowed to continue in some countries until a safer means to control the disease are developed. 

Although the chemicals are banned from production for use in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) lacks the authority to ban any U.S. chemical manufacturers from exporting them, McMurray said. 

The administration, she said, will "push very hard in the next few months" to get Congress to approve legislation. "What we're looking for here is to protect our own citizens against emissions from other countries," she said. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Stockholm POPs treaty: http://www.pops.int 

Sarin Nerve Agent Bomb Explodes in Iraq 

15 minutes ago

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, News Source Writer 

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A roadside bomb containing deadly sarin nerve agent exploded near a U.S. military convoy, the U.S. military said Monday. It was believed to be the first confirmed discovery of any of the banned weapons that the United States cited in making its case for the Iraq (news - web sites) war. 

Slideshow: Iraq

Latest headlines: 
� Swede says was abused at Baghdad jail, seeks damages from US army 
NEWS SOURCE - 7 minutes ago 
� U.S. Says Democracy Will Prevail in Iraq 
AP - 11 minutes ago 
� Blair Says Britain Will Not 'Cut and Run' from Iraq 
The News Source - 15 minutes ago 
Special Coverage

Two members of a military bomb squad were treated for "minor exposure," but no serious injuries were reported. 

The chemicals were inside an artillery shell dating to the Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) era that had been rigged as a bomb in Baghdad, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman in Iraq. 

It appears two chemical components in the shell, which are designed to combine and create sarin during flight, did not mix properly or completely upon detonation, a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Kimmitt, however, said a small amount of the nerve agent was released. 

Two former weapons inspectors - Hans Blix and David Kay - said the shell was likely a stray weapon that had been scavenged by militants and did not signify that Iraq had large stockpiles of such weapons. 

Kimmitt said he believed that insurgents who planted the explosive didn't know it contained the nerve agent. 

Sarin-type agents produced by Iraq were largely of low quality and degraded shortly after production, U.N. inspectors said in a March 2003 report. They said it was unlikely that agents produced in the 1980s would still work today. 

U.S. troops have announced the discovery of other chemical weapons before, only to see them disproved by later tests. A dozen chemical shells were also found by U.N. inspectors before the war; they had been tagged for destruction in the 1990s but somehow were not destroyed. 

"The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found," Kimmitt said. "The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised explosive device) which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy. 

"A detonation occurred before the IED could be rendered inoperable. This produced a very small dispersal of agent," he said. 

The incident occurred "a couple of days ago," he said. 

The Iraqi Survey Group is a U.S. organization whose task was to search for weapons of mass destruction after Saddam's ouster. 

The round was an old `binary-type' shell in which two chemicals held in separate sections are mixed after firing to produce sarin, Kimmitt said. 

Many of the materials used for roadside bombs are believed to have been looted from arsenals after the collapse of the regime in April 2003. 

Dispersal of the gas would be far more effective if a shell containing nerve agent were fired from an artillery piece, he said. Kimmitt said he believed it was the first case in which U.S. forces had found an artillery shell containing sarin. 

It was unclear if the sarin shell was from chemical rounds that the United Nations (news - web sites) had tagged and marked for destruction before the U.S. invasion. 

Prior to the war, U.N. inspectors had compiled a short list of proscribed items found during hundreds of surprise inspections: fewer than 20 old, empty chemical warheads for battlefield rockets, and a dozen artillery shells filled with mustard gas. The shells had been tagged by U.N. inspectors in the 1990s but somehow not destroyed by them. 

Kay, who led a U.S. team hunting for weapons, said it appears that the shell was one of tens of thousands produced for the Iran-Iraq war, which Saddam was supposed to destroy or turn over to the United Nations. In many cases, he said, Iraq did comply. 

"It is hard to know if this is one that just was overlooked - and there were always some that were overlooked, we knew that - or if this was one that came from a hidden stockpile," Kay said. "I rather doubt that because it appears the insurgents didn't even know they had a chemical round." 

While Saturday's explosion does demonstrate that Saddam hadn't complied fully with U.N. resolutions, Kay also said, "It doesn't strike me as a big deal." 

In 1995, Japan's Aum Shinrikyo cult unleashed sarin gas in Tokyo's subways, killing 12 people and sickening thousands. In February of this year, Japanese courts convicted the cult's former leader, Shoko Asahara, and sentence him to be executed. 

Developed in the mid-1930s by Nazi scientists, a single drop of sarin can cause quick, agonizing choking death. There are no known instances of the Nazis actually using the gas. 

The Bush administration cited allegations that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction as a main reason for launching the war in Iraq last year. 

The Iraq Survey Group, made up of dozens of teams, has been conducting a secretive and largely fruitless weapons hunt across Iraq for more than a year. The survey group combines members of the CIA (news - web sites), the Defense Intelligence Agency, U.S. military Special Forces and others. 

The team has run into a number of dead ends. In January, for example, field tests on discovered mortar shells near Qurnah in southern Iraq indicated a blister agent was in the shells. But followup tests indicated that the munitions did not contain the agents, though U.S. officials said Saddam had such agents in the early to mid-1990s. 

Blix, the former U.N. weapons inspector, said in Sweden Monday that before the war, his team found 16 empty warheads that were marked for use with sarin. 

He said it was likely the sarin gas used could have been from a leftover shell found in a chemical dump. 

"It doesn't sound absurd at all. There can be debris from the past and that's a very different thing from have stocks and supplies," he said. 

According to U.N. weapons inspectors, sarin-type agents constituted about 20 percent of all chemical weapons agents that Saddam Hussein's government declared it had produced. 

The accounting for sarin was one of a dozen remaining disarmament tasks that inspectors submitted to the U.N. Security Council in March 2003, said Ewen Buchanan, a spokesman the U.N. inspectors. 

"Iraq was known to possess a lot of this material, and there were questions about the accounting," Buchanan said. 

Iraq declared that between 1984 and 1990, it produced 795 tons of Sarin-type agents. About 732 tons were put in bombs, rockets and missile warheads. Iraq further declared that about 650 tons were consumed during the period 1985 to 1988, which included the Iran-Iraq war, and 35 tons were destroyed through aerial bombardment during the Gulf war in 1991. 

Iraq destroyed 127 tons of Sarin-type agents under U.N. supervision, including 76 tons in bulk and 51 tons from munitions.

Report: Jammed Phones Skew 'Idol' Tallies Sun May 16,10:54 AM ET 

LOS ANGELES - Many would-be "American Idol" voters are disenfranchised by overburdened phone lines and by "power dialers" who hog the system, the magazine Broadcasting & Cable reported. According to the magazine's issue being released Monday, "the only people choosing the next 'American Idol" are the ones lucky enough to get through - or skilled enough to get around - tremendously overtaxed phone lines." Fox TV, which airs the talent contest, has failed to address the difficulties viewers must overcome to log votes, the magazine said. The show is a ratings winner and valuable property for its producers and Fox, but Broadcasting & Cable said the network is alienating viewers who repeatedly get a busy signal when they try to call in their votes. The voting system has been called into question in recent weeks as contestants who appeared to be front-runners were dumped in favor of others who many viewers have complained were lesser performers. Last week, favorite La Toya London was voted off while Jasmine Trias survived a shaky performance. Fox said both it and the show's producers have "gone to great lengths" to ensure the integrity of the voting process. "While acknowledging that dedicated fans may be unhappy with the outcome, the system only reports the decision of the voting public," the network said in a statement. The contest winner, who gets a record contract, will be decided in the series finale May 25-26. Trias, Fantasia Barrino and Diana DeGarmo are still in the running. Questions about "Idol" voting are nothing new. In last year's finale between Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken, a total of 24 million votes were recorded, with Studdard declared the winner by a slim 134,000-vote margin. But on the same night, Verizon, the nation's largest phone company, saw its daily volume increase by 116 million calls while SBC reported a call-volume increase of 115 million, according to Broadcasting & Cable. That indicates a logjam in which millions of potential voters never got through, the magazine said. Fox dismissed the allegation as speculative. Viewers are allowed to vote repeatedly by phone during a two-hour window following the Tuesday show. Votes also can be cast by text messaging, which hasn't seen the same problems, the report said. Jammed local phone lines, not the long-distance carrier network, creates the problem for callers, AT&T told the magazine. Fox acknowledged there are times the phone network can't handle all calls due to the volume, but said it is using "the most sophisticated system available in the nation." Ratings and call volume have risen over the show's three seasons. Broadcasting & Cable said so-called power-dialers, who use fast Internet connections and computer autodialing software, also affect the outcome by the number of votes they are able to cast and by tying up lines so that others can't vote. The magazine cited an August 2002 story by The News Source in which "American Idol" producers acknowledged power-dialers were casting thousands of votes. In its statement Sunday, Fox said there are procedures in place to prevent individuals from "unfairly influencing the outcome of the voting," adding that producers can remove votes identified as power-dialing.

Chicago Gets Millennium Park, 4 Years Late 

Sat May 15, 6:33 PM ET

By TARA BURGHART, News Source Writer 

CHICAGO - The millennium is finally dawning on Chicago's lakefront. Four years behind schedule, the $475 million Millennium Park, a pet project of 
Mayor Richard Daley's, is set to officially open in July with a fountain, elaborate gardens and a swooping, shimmering band shell designed by architect Frank 
Gehry. 

Supporters expect the park to revitalize Chicago's reputation for great architecture and culture and draw more people to Grant Park, the city's "front yard" that 
stretches for a mile along Lake Michigan. 

"We're the city of big shoulders and we like to make big, bold statements," said Lois Weisberg, the city's commissioner of cultural affairs. 

But the project has been beset by years of construction delays and cost overruns. It was initially budgeted at $150 million - less than one-third its actual cost 
- and was to open in 2000 as part of the city's millennium celebration. 

Although an ice rink and 1,500-seat theater for music and dance are already in use, most of the park remains hidden behind construction fences and tents. 

The one major piece visible is Gehry's contribution - a 120-foot high music pavilion with a stage surrounded by billowing ribbons of stainless steel and a trellis of curling steel pipes that will support the sound system high above the audience. 

Ned Cramer, curator of the Chicago Architecture Foundation, predicts the city will be "wowed" by the opening, even if it is four years late. 

"The sheer novelty of what's happening there is guaranteed to do exactly what it's supposed to do, which is to draw people's attention," Cramer said. 

Daley proposed the park in 1998 on the 24-acre space between the lake and bustling Michigan Avenue, which used to have a rail yard and parking lot that 
marred the northwest corner of otherwise elegant Grant Park. 

The mayor was heavily involved in the park's planning - he demanded that there be indoor bathrooms instead of portable toilets and worried that a 
Gehry-designed bridge would overshadow other features. 

Daley blamed Gehry for costly delays after a 2001 investigation by the Chicago Tribune found that poor planning, design problems and cronyism led to 
skyrocketing costs. Daley backed off the assertion days later. 

Officially, many factors have been blamed for the delay: a vision that grew more grand as time went on; structural problems with the underground parking 
garages; and the engineering challenges inherent in building Gehry's immense band shell, including a crane so heavy it had to arrive in pieces for fear it would crack the street below. 

In the end, Gehry's bridge was built, its brushed stainless-steel panels curling like a snake toward Lake Michigan. 

But the showcase is the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, the outdoor concert venue named after the late founder of the Hyatt hotel chain and designed by Gehry, the 
architect acclaimed for his Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. 

Other highlights include a 110-ton sculpture forged of a seamless series of highly polished, reflective stainless steel plates. Indian-born artist Anish Kapoor 
has not named the piece, but its shape has already inspired the nickname "The Bean." 

A fountain with a reflecting pool will be bookended by two 50-foot-tall towers of glass bricks. Changing video images will be projected onto the towers, 
including the faces of 1,000 Chicagoans recorded pursing their lips so it will appear as if water is coming out of their mouths - a 21st century version of 
gargoyles. 

In all, about $200 million of the funding came from private contributors whose names are sprinkled throughout the park - Wrigley Square, Bank One 
Promenade, BP Pedestrian Bridge, McCormick Tribune Plaza, the Lurie Garden. 

The city's $270 million is mostly coming from bonds backed by revenue from the underground parking garages, said Lisa Schrader, a spokeswoman in the 
city's budget office. 

Jamaicans Angry Over U.S. Treasure Hunt 

Sat May 15,10:45 AM ET

By STEVENSON JACOBS, News Source Writer 

PORT ROYAL, Jamaica - Jamaicans have long suspected the waters off their southern coast are teeming with shipwrecks and sunken treasure from the days when the island was a haven for pirates. But they have always been happy to leave the mystery to the sea. 

Now some islanders are angry to learn that their government has not only given an American treasure-salvage company permission to explore the area - called Pedro Banks - but also to keep half the bounty. They say all the artifacts - precious or not - are part of their history and belong in Jamaica. 

"You're not just dealing with treasure here," said Ainsley Henriques, who resigned as director of the Jamaica National Heritage Trust, the state agency overseeing the project, to protest the government's decision. 

Admiralty Corp., which launched its expedition this week from Port Royal, a colonial-era pirate town once dubbed the "wickedest city on earth," has promised to conduct a proper archaeological recovery. 

"We're not going to just go down there and tear everything up to get the gold," said Clarence Lott, vice president of the Atlanta-based company. 

Pedro Banks, roughly the size of Jamaica itself, was a busy but treacherous shipping passage for European vessels headed to the New World between the 16th and 18th centuries. 

Archaeologists estimate some 300 ships may have fallen victim to the passage, known to the Spanish as La Vibora - or The Viper - for its fang-like reef. 

One of those ships was the Genovesa, a Spanish galleon that sank in 1730 with several tons of gold and silver on board. Its cargo is worth an estimated $600 million today. 

"It's really mind-boggling what we might bring up," said G. Howard Collingwood, chairman of Admiralty. 

Jamaica formally banned offshore treasure hunting in 1991, fearful of being pilfered by modern-day pirates and harming delicate marine habitats. 

After intense lobbying, Admiralty persuaded the government in 1998 to reverse the ban and won a license to probe the area. 

In addition to half the precious bounty, Jamaica will also receive all non-precious artifacts, including ship fittings, china, and nautical equipment that it intends to display in a maritime museum. 

"We know we're going to benefit," said Susanne Lyon, executive director of the Jamaica National Heritage Trust, the state agency overseeing the project. 

But not everyone is pleased with the plan to dig up the past. 

Henriques, a member of the Archaeological Society of Jamaica, said the project should be handled by an accredited archaeological group, not a profit-seeking foreign company. 

He said Jamaican officials could learn from their counterparts in Egypt, where the government imposed strict limits on excavation after being pilfered by treasure hunters. 

"All archaeology is really looking at is the frozen history of people," he said. "If you just suck it out for the gold, you lose the story. And these stories are important, perhaps more important than the intrinsic value of the treasure itself." 

Other Jamaicans worry the government might be violating a 2001 U.N. convention banning the commercial salvaging of historic shipwrecks. 

Lyon said officials will seek to meet international rules on excavation, noting a team of government observers will be working with Admiralty. 

But first they have to find the wrecks. 

The company, which plans to spend $2.2 million in the first year of operation, says excavation could take five years to complete, and there are no guarantees. 

"Until you bring something up it's all speculation," Collingwood said. 

To reduce the risk, Admiralty will rely on new technology that uses electromagnetic waves to detect precious metal without the need for large-scale excavation of the banks, among the world's richest fishing beds. 

"It allows us to use a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer," said Ken Vrana, one of several archaeologists among Admiralty's crew. 

Stealing some shade near Port Royal's shore, fisherman Vandel Strachan said he supports the project but doubted ordinary Jamaicans will benefit. 

"We won't see any good from that gold with this government in charge," said Strachan, 27. 

Nearby, 59-year-old fisherman George Moore disagreed. 

"It could help others who don't have anything," he said, lounging in a wooden skiff. "Or it can just stay there and grow moss." 

___ 

On the Net: 

Admiralty Corp.: http://www.admiraltycorporation.com 

Jamaica National Heritage Trust: http://www.jnht.com/

Report: Rumsfeld OK'd Prisoner Program 

Sat May 15,11:04 PM ET 


NEW YORK - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the expansion of a secret program that encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners to obtain intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq (news - web sites), The New Yorker reported Saturday. 

The Defense Department strongly denied the claims made in the report, which cited unnamed current and former intelligence officials and was published on the magazine's Web site. Pentagon (news - web sites) spokesman Lawrence Di Rita issued a statement calling the claims "outlandish, conspiratorial, and filled with error and anonymous conjecture." 

The story, written by reporter Seymour Hersh, said Rumsfeld decided to expand the program last year, broadening a Pentagon operation from the hunt for al-Qaida in Afghanistan (news - web sites) to interrogation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. 

Seven soldiers are facing military charges related to the abuse and humiliation of prisoners captured by the now-infamous photographs at the prison. Some of the soldiers and their lawyers have said military intelligence officials told military police assigned as guards to abuse the prisoners to make interrogations easier. 

According to the story, which hits newsstands Monday, the initial operation Rumsfeld authorized gave blanket approval to kill or capture and interrogate "high value" targets in the war on terrorism. The program stemmed from frustrating efforts to capture high-level terrorists in the weeks after the start of U.S. bombings in Afghanistan. 

The program got approval from President Bush (news - web sites)'s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites), and Bush was informed of its existence, the officials told Hersh. 

Under the program, Hersh wrote, commandos carried out instant interrogations - using force if necessary - at secret CIA (news - web sites) detention centers scattered around the world. The intelligence would be relayed to the commanders at the Pentagon. 

Last year, Rumsfeld and Stephen Cambone, his undersecretary for intelligence, expanded the scope of the Pentagon's program and brought its methods to Abu Ghraib, Hersh wrote. 

Critics say the interrogation rules, first laid out in September after a visit to Iraq by the then-commander of the prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, amounted to a green light for abuse. 

Defense Department officials deny that, saying prisoners always are treated under guidelines of the Geneva Conventions. 

"No responsible official of the Department of Defense (news - web sites) approved any program that could conceivably have been intended to result in such abuses as witnessed in the recent photos and videos," Di Rita said in his statement. "This story seems to reflect the fevered insights of those with little, if any, connection to the activities in the Department of Defense." 

Di Rita also said Cambone has never had any responsibility for any detainee or interrogation programs. 

The intelligence sources told the magazine photos of the sexual abuse were used to intimidate prisoners and detainees into providing information on the insurgency. It was thought that some prisoners would do anything - including spying on their associates - to avoid dissemination of the shameful photos to family and friends. 

One intelligence official said the CIA ended its involvement with the program at Abu Ghraib prison by last fall. 

"They said, 'No way. We signed up for the core program in Afghanistan - pre-approved for operations against the high-value terrorist targets - and now you want to use it for cabdrivers, brothers-in-law, and people pulled off the streets,'" the source said.

T. rex bones to rule auction

Sat May 15, 9:40 AM ET  - Chicago Tribune 

By Diane Haithman Tribune Newspapers: Los Angeles Times 

An auction of natural history specimens in Los Angeles this weekend will determine whether bones believed to be additional parts of the first Tyrannosaurus rex ever discovered will be reunited with those of the dinosaur unearthed more than 100 years ago. 

� Chicago Tribune home page
� Subscribe to the Tribune
� Search the Tribune
� More Chicago news

Experts say a collection of T. rex fossil bones and fragments from the Cretaceous Period, to be auctioned Sunday at Bonhams & Butterfields auction house, most likely are parts of the creature discovered in 1900 by paleontologist Barnum Brown. 

That argument gained more heft earlier this week when respected South Dakota fossil hunter Japheth Boyce, who collected the bones from their Wyoming excavation and prepared them for auction, flew to London with a cast of a portion of jawbone that seemed to connect perfectly with a section of jawbone housed in London. 

"As soon as I touched it, I knew," said Boyce of the fragment excavated by Brown a century ago. 

But because of a complicated legal dispute over ownership of what the auction house is advertising as "Barnum" after the discoverer of the species, the court-ordered sale must close Sunday, with the collection of skeletal remains going to the highest bidder. 

"It will sell. There is no reserve," said Thomas Lindgren, director of Bonhams & Butterfields' natural history department. 

While the British Museum, which owns the earlier discovery, may bid on the remains here, so may anyone else. According to the auction house, the offering is the second time a partial T. rex has come up for public auction. The first was in 1997, when Chicago's Field Museum paid $8.3 million for Sue, the most complete T. rex ever found, which was excavated in South Dakota. Scientists believe the species thrived between 65 million and 85 million years ago. 

Sunday is also too soon for the auctioneers to gain scientific confirmation that the bones are indeed from the first T. rex discovered. If they are, Boyce said, the specimens, which must be purchased together, could be worth 4 to 10 times the original appraisals of $400,000 to $900,000. A potential buyer must take a calculated risk, he said. 

Boyce said the bones discovered in 1900 constitute about 13 percent of the total skeleton. The bones to be auctioned, found close to the earlier discovery in Wyoming, potentially represent an additional 20 percent of the skeleton and include a partial skull with teeth, along with portions of bone from the arms, legs, pelvis and feet. 

"That is about one-third of a dinosaur, which would put it in the top six of the most complete T. rexes," Boyce said. Remnants of only about 20 have been found, he added. 

As part of the deal, the buyer of the collection also will get what Boyce calls "goop," rare evidence of the dinosaur's stomach contents, which include bones from Triceratops, duck-billed dinosaurs and even T. rex. 

"When paleontologists find big bones like these--we call them `speed bumps'--we don't know if he passed these bones, or threw them back up, or whether when he died his gut was filled from feeding," Boyce said. He added that the presence of T. rex bones does not imply cannibalism in the species but rather that the creatures were opportunistic scavengers. 

Lindgren said the scientific community hopes the British Museum buys the collection or that it goes to someone willing to donate or lend the bones so they may be reunited with those in London.

Rehnquist's Corporate Jet Trip Questioned 

25 minutes ago

TOLEDO, Ohio - Chief Justice William Rehnquist (news - web sites) is taking a utility's corporate jet Saturday to Ohio so he can speak at the dedication of the state's new court building in Columbus. 

American Electric Power is flying Rehnquist at the request of the Ohio Supreme Court, which plans to pay for the $3,800 flight. The cost is more than three times the most expensive round-trip ticket between Washington and Columbus. 

Security issues and Rehnquist's knee problem made a commercial flight impractical, said Ohio Supreme Court spokesman Chris Davey. 

"We are hoping to save a little money because AEP has agreed to do it at cost," Davey told The Blade newspaper, which first reported the story Friday. "This is not a favor." 

The propriety of the flight is being questioned by the watchdog group Ohio Citizen Action because AEP is being sued by the Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) and Justice Department (news - web sites) for allegedly violating the Clear Air Act. The case could reach the Supreme Court 

"Clearly, this is a favor," said Catherine Turcer, a campaign reform activist for Ohio Citizen Action. "All businesses, including AEP, have things they need or want from the courts." 

Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said Rehnquist had nothing to do with the flight arrangements, which are made by the inviting organization. 

The appearance of a conflict of interest is the second for the high court this year. Justice Antonin Scalia (news - web sites) accepted a ride on a government jet from Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) in January after he invited Cheney on a duck hunting trip to Louisiana. The trip came only about three weeks after the justices agreed to consider a privacy case involving Cheney's energy task force. 

The Sierra Club (news - web sites), the plaintiff in the case, asked Scalia to recuse himself from the case that seeks to force Cheney to release the names and details of the task force to the environmental group; the justice refused.

The Cops Are Chasing Me in a WHAT?

May 14, 10:16 am ET 

ROME  - If you are thinking about speeding on Italian highways this year, think twice. You might find yourself being chased by a Lamborghini.

Italian police took possession Friday of a sleek, 500 horsepower, two-seater Lamborghini Gallardo, which can hit a top speed of 185 miles per hour.

The sports car, painted in the police's distinctive blue and white colors, comes complete with a flashing blue light on the roof and will initially patrol the Salerno-Reggio Calabria motorway -- a road notorious in Italy for wild driving.

The Lamborghini will also be used to transport human organs for emergency operations.

Lewis and Clark's List: Opium and 'Portable Soup'

May 14, 11:00 am ET 

By Deborah Zabarenko

WASHINGTON  - Before the going got tough, the tough went shopping: opium, inkstands, sealing wax and "portable soup" were all on the list of explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who launched an epic journey into the unknown American West exactly 200 years ago.

To mark Friday's anniversary, the National Archives offered a glimpse of documents that shed light on the careful planning and provisioning for the Lewis and Clark expedition from St. Louis to the Pacific and back.

"We were now about to penetrate a country of at least 2,000 miles in width, on which the foot of civilized man had never trodden," Lewis wrote in his diary when they had been traveling nearly a year.

"The good or evil it had in store for us was for experiment yet to determine, and these little vessels contained every article by which we were to expect to subsist or defend ourselves."

The explorers had some high-ranking help, according to archives curator Stacey Bredhoff: President Thomas Jefferson was intimately involved in deciding what to take on the 8,000-mile, 28-month trip. Jefferson signed the Louisiana Purchase treaty in 1803, in which France sold the United States 828,000 square miles of territory. On May 14, 1804, Lewis, Clark and 31 other men launched three small vessels into the Missouri River to investigate the new lands. They were meant to hunt, fish, forage and trade for supplies along the way, but sensibly bought $1,000 worth of provisions on a shopping trip in Philadelphia, the hub of U.S. commerce at that time. One receipt shows the purchase of 193 pounds (88kg) of "portable soup," which Bredhoff said was a paste made of boiled-down beef and cow's hooves, eggs and vegetables. "It was not popular, not at all," she said. "The only time they consumed it was during the real starvation times, particularly when they were going through the Bitterroot Mountains (along what is now the Idaho-Montana border) in September 1805." They apparently returned to St. Louis with plenty of portable soup left over, Bredhoff said. At a Philadelphia apothecary called Gillaspy and Strong, Lewis bought $90.69 worth of medicines and medical instruments. The receipt for this order shows a vast array of compounds for pain and sickness.

Opium and laudanum were among the painkillers, but many of the items on the pharmaceutical list were bleeding or purging agents. The list notes 50 dozen bilious pills -- also known as thunder-clappers -- that were powerful purgatives.

Another list showed items for more general use, especially those used to make a record of the travels.

On this listing, there were eight receipt books, 48 pieces of tape, six brass inkstands, ink powder, sealing wax, 100 quills and one packing hogshead to put it all in.

There were also eight tents, 45 bags and 10 yards of linen.

"It was a military expedition, so the records here are military records," Bredhoff said. "Its purpose was not to make war. It was not to claim land. It was to find a route to the Pacific Ocean, to befriend the western tribes of Indians and to return safely with detailed reports on the geography, geology, astronomy and zoology, botany and climate of the West."

The explorers returned to St. Louis on Sept. 23, 1806. Only one death was recorded among the 33 men who started out and historians believe the cause was appendicitis, Bredhoff said.

'Shrek 2' Among Films Competing in Cannes 1 hour, 18 minutes ago By DAVID GERMAIN, AP Movie Writer 

CANNES, France - Even the snooty Cannes Film Festival (news - web sites) loves computer animation, which has become such the rage in Hollywood it has virtually displaced traditional hand-drawn cartoons on studio slates. The computer-generated "Shrek" (2001) was the first cartoon in 27 years to make Cannes' prestigious main competition, and the sequel "Shrek 2" is among 19 competing films at Cannes this year. The fairy tale sequel faces such serious competition as Wong Kar-wai's time-bending tale "2046" and "Fahrenheit 9/11," Michael Moore (news)'s critique of the Bush administration's actions after the Sept. 11 attacks. An onslaught of computer-animated films including "Finding Nemo," the "Toy Story" movies, "Monsters, Inc.," "Antz" and "Shark Tale" have pushed hand-painted cartoons into the background. The slates at Disney and DreamWorks are dominated by computer-generated animation, or CG, and neither studio has any traditional hand-painted cartoon features in the pipeline. "Ours is a creative choice," said Jeffrey Katzenberg, who co-founded DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg (news) and David Geffen and is executive producer of "Shrek 2." "We have a series of movies ("Shark Tale," "Madagascar") coming that have been very much inspired by `Shrek.' They are in sensibility that kind of movie in that they are somewhat irreverent, they are somewhat subversive," he said. "They're parodies, they're satire, they are very anthropomorphized, and they are best told in CG." Computers allow animators to create simulated three-dimensional realities that appeal to a generation raised on video games with greater visual depth than two-dimensional hand-drawn cartoons. Only a handful of computer-animated features have been made so far, but sharp and funny stories, bright visuals and famous voices have made virtually all of them major hits. Last year's Disney-Pixar adventure "Finding Nemo" passed the hand-drawn "The Lion King" to become the top-grossing animated movie ever at $340 million domestically. "Shrek 2" starred Mike Myers (news), who provided the voice of the gentle green ogre; Cameron Diaz (news), the voice of Shrek's bride Princess Fiona; and Eddie Murphy (news), who plays Shrek's garrulous sidekick, Donkey. The sole bomb among computer-animated movies was "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within." The difference: Computer-animated hits like "Monsters, Inc." and "Shrek" told good stories. "Final Fantasy" didn't. "`Monsters, Inc.' worked because it was such a charming story, and you really bought into the relationship between John Goodman (news) and the little girl," said Jennifer Tilly (news), one of the voice stars for "Home on the Range." "People didn't flock out to see `Monsters, Inc.' because you could see every little hair follicle on his back. It's nice that it looks so real, but if you're attached to the story, it doesn't matter." Filmmakers say it's largely Hollywood's follow-the-leader mentality that has elevated computer animation over the traditional cartoon form, which had ruled since Disney invented feature-length animation with 1937's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Hand-drawn animation went through a sterile period in the 1960s and 1970s but roared back with a creative renaissance in the 1980s and 1990s. "CG is the new thing that people are interested in animation, and 2-D had a huge run there. It had about a 17-year golden age that it's kind of coming off of," said Kelly Asbury, co-director of "Shrek 2." "Lilo & Stitch" in 2002 was the last certified U.S. hit among hand-drawn animated movies. Hand-drawn animation continues to thrive outside the United States with growing international interest in Japanese anime and with such smaller flicks as last year's Cannes offering, "The Triplets of Belleville." Katzenberg, who as a Disney executive in the 1980s and 1990s oversaw the revival of the studio's animation division, said hand-drawn cartoons are simply awaiting another reinvention to inject "something fresh and new." Will Smith (news), voice star of DreamWorks' computer-animated "Shark Tale" due out this fall, said the animation debate reminds him of the music scene in the 1980s. "That same question was posed to me probably about 15 years ago in the music business when everything started moving to drum machines and synthesizers and all of that," said Smith, at Cannes to promote "Shark Tale." "There's a period where you go the digital or CG route, but I think it will always come back to the human flaw that pleases the eye. ... I don't think traditional animation will ever disappear totally."

U.S. Takes Greenpeace to Court in Unusual Trial Thu May 13,12:42 PM ET Add Science 

By Michael Christie MIAMI  - Greenpeace, charged with the obscure crime of "sailor mongering" that was last prosecuted 114 years ago, goes on trial on Monday in the first U.S. criminal prosecution of an advocacy group for civil disobedience. The environmental group is accused of sailor mongering because it boarded a freighter in April 2002 that was carrying illegally felled Amazon mahogany to Miami. It says the prosecution is revenge for its criticism of the environmental policies of President Bush (news - web sites), whom it calls the "Toxic Texan." Sailor mongering was rife in the 19th century when brothels sent prostitutes laden with booze onto ships as they made their way to harbor. The idea was to get the sailors so drunk they could be whisked to shore and held in bondage, and a law was passed against it in 1872. It has only been used in a court of law twice, the last time in 1890. Greenpeace says the decision by the U.S. Attorney's Office to prosecute the organization rather than just the activists who boarded the APL Jade freighter is a sea change in policy, and a conviction would throttle free speech everywhere. It would also be a sharp blow against Brazilian efforts to halt the trade in a hardwood so precious it is known as "green gold." It yields fatter profit margins than cocaine and is blamed for the destruction of vast swathes of the Amazon. "Illegal logging goes on and they're bringing it to Miami and making loads of money, and we're going to trial," said Sara Holden of Greenpeace International. The case is unprecedented, not just because of the bizarre nature of the crime. Six Greenpeace activists were charged after the 2002 protest in choppy waters off Miami, pleaded guilty and sentenced to time served -- the weekend they spent in jail. But U.S. prosecutors were not satisfied, and 15 months later came up with a grand jury indictment of the entire organization for sailor mongering. FREE SPEECH CONCERNS U.S. prosecutors argue Greenpeace did something like that when two "climbers" clambered aboard the Jade to hang a sign demanding, "President Bush: Stop Illegal Logging." If convicted, Greenpeace could be placed on probation, and pay a $10,000 fine. As significant as the prosecution itself, are the implications, free speech campaigners say. Not once since the Boston Tea Party have U.S. authorities criminally prosecuted a group for political expression. "It's ominous," said attorney Maria Kayanan of law firm Podhurst Orseck, which worked with the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) on a "friend of court" brief to back a Greenpeace demand that the government reveal who ordered the prosecution. "It will be very chilling because advocacy groups whose members chose to engage in acts of protest which happen to violate the law will be loathe to act at all." Greenpeace hopes to focus on mahogany during the trial, which will begin on Monday with jury selection in the U.S. District Court in Miami, under Judge Adalberto Jordan. In one line of defense, its attorneys will argue that the activists were highlighting a crime, and giving Washington an opportunity to live up to its commitment to protect mahogany as a signatory to global treaties listing the wood as endangered. Greenpeace Amazon campaigner Paulo Adario said a mahogany tree could be bought in the Amazon for $30. Once turned into dining tables and chairs for sale in New York or London, that same tree could be worth as much as $120,000. Along the way, Amazon Indians are driven from their villages, officials bribed and activists assassinated. Country-sized chunks of rain forest fall to chainsaws as other loggers take advantage of the roads the mahogany hunters carve to get at less valuable woods that would not otherwise have been worth trying to reach. "Mahogany is a red wood, it's red like blood, it's red like shame," Adario said by phone from the Amazon port of Manaus. "The U.S. government should help us to change at least the shameful color of mahogany (but) they are prosecuting us."

Scientists Find Signs of Ancient Crater 2 hours, 19 minutes ago 

By LAURAN NEERGAARD, News Source Writer WASHINGTON - Scientists have discovered signs of a large impact crater buried off the coast of Australia that may be linked to the biggest extinction event in Earth's history, the "Great Dying" 250 million years ago. Many scientists have long blamed a massive meteor near Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula for wiping out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. What caused the far earlier and larger Permian-Triassic extinction - when about 90 percent of all species disappeared - is subject to sharper debate. The leading theory is that the extinction actually stretched over thousands of years, triggered by volcanic eruptions. A massive flow of molten rock over what is now Siberia injected tons of toxic gases into the atmosphere, gradually changing the planet's climate. The new study, published Thursday by the journal Science, backs another theory that a massive asteroid strike played at least some role, too. The researchers cite clues that an impact crater the right age and perhaps 120 miles wide is buried off Australia's northwest corner. They're calling it the Bedout crater (pronounced Beh-doo.) "We think that mass extinctions may be defined by catastrophes like impact and volcanism occurring synchronously in time," lead researcher Luann Becker of the University of California, Santa Barbara, said in a statement. But other scientists are highly skeptical. "It's not yet persuasive that it's even a crater," said Peter D. Ward, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle who has long studied impact craters and mass extinctions. Intensive study is required to join the list of the world's proven impact craters. Most have been eroded by rain, wind and earthquakes over millions of years. This possible new site is poorly preserved and deeply buried. Even if it is an impact crater, size must be proven, Ward added. "It's got to be a big hit" to cause global repercussions, he said. "There's going to have to be a tremendous amount of more work" done on the site. Becker's team, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation (news - web sites), had been hunting a crater in the Southern Hemisphere after finding what appeared to be impact debris in Antarctica. She learned that oil companies had drilled cores from a ridge at the Bedout site decades earlier. In those never-before-studied samples, she found melted rock layers and crystal structures displaying the "shocked" pattern distinctive of meteor impact. Sediments from an oil exploration well provided the right date. 

Aging Octopus Finds Love at Last Thu May 13, 7:51 AM ET 

By MARY PEMBERTON, News Source Writer ANCHORAGE, Alaska - It looks like J-1 is in love. After meeting the very fetching and slightly younger Aurora, he changed color and his eight arms became intertwined with hers. Then, the two retreated to a secluded corner to get to know each other better. We're talking about giant Pacific octopuses here. Aquarists at the Alaska SeaLife Center introduced the 5-year-old J-1 to Aurora on Tuesday morning. The two really hit it off. Spermatophores were seen hanging from J-1's siphon. "We really were not sure he had it in him," SeaLife Center aquarium curator Richard Hocking said Wednesday. Love almost passed J-1 by. At 5 years of age and 52 pounds, he's reaching the end of the line for his species, the largest octopus in the world. J-1 is in a period of decline that occurs before octopus die. His skin is eroding. His suckers have divots. "He's not as strong as he used to be," said aquarist Deanna Trobaugh. With so little time left, J-1 wasn't going to let the sweet Aurora slip through his eight octopus arms. While she had to make the first move, he caught on quickly, especially for an octopus who was collected on a beach near Seldovia in 1999 when he was about the size of a quarter and has lived the bachelor life since. To get the two together, aquarium staff put Aurora in a plastic bag and then gently poured her into J-1's 3,600-gallon exhibit tank. She sank to the bottom of the tank and then made the first move, going over to J-1, who was hanging on a rock wall. She reached out an arm and touched him. Only then did he wake up to the fact he had company. Contact made, she went back to her corner of the tank. J-1, dispelling water from his siphon to get quickly across the tank, was in hot pursuit. "They both were gripping the back wall of the tank. He just about covered her completely," Hocking said. The two remained intertwined for about eight hours. It's possible that during that time when J-1 was exploring Aurora's mantle with his many suckered arms that he passed his sperm packet to her, Hocking said. What the aquarium staff does know is that when they separated, J-1 flashed some colors, turning almost white and then dark red. "It looks like instinct took over during that encounter and they did what they were supposed to do," Hocking said. If Aurora did get cozy with J-1 and accept his spermatophores, or sperm packet, which is delivered from the only arm without suckers, she will produce anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 eggs, which when hatched will look like little squid. "It is just possible, we may see several thousand fertile eggs soon," Hocking said. "We can only wait now and see what nature does." If with many, many children, Aurora - who was about the size of a grapefruit when she was found in 2002 living inside an old tire in front of the SeaLife Center - will stop eating while she tends her eggs. She will weaken and die soon after they hatch. Hocking said it seemed only right to give J-1 a chance to do what octopuses normally do before he dies. In his younger days, J-1 was an easygoing sort who did not try to escape his tank a lot, Hocking said. When aquarium staff would come by to clean, the octopus would reach out and grab hold of someone's arm or a window cleaning tool. "The goal for this was to let him lead a full life," Hocking said. ___ On the Net: www.alaskasealife.org

World Bank Corruption May Top $100 Bln 23 minutes ago  

By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent WASHINGTON  - Corrupt use of World Bank (news - web sites) funds may exceed $100 billion and while the institution has moved to combat the problem, more must be done, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee said on Thursday. Sen. Richard Lugar (news, bio, voting record), an Indiana Republican, charged that "in its starkest terms, corruption has cost the lives of uncounted individuals contending with poverty and disease." He commended World Bank President James Wolfensohn for bringing greater attention to the issue, but said, "Corruption remains a serious problem." Lugar opened a hearing on corruption at the multilateral development banks, the first public examination in an ongoing Senate investigation. He cited experts who calculated that between $26 billion and $130 billion of the money lent by the World Bank for development projects since 1946 has been misused. In 2003, the bank distributed $18.5 billion in developing countries. Jeffrey Winters, an associate professor at Northwestern University, said his research suggested corruption wasted about $100 billion of World Bank funds, and when other multilateral development banks are included, the total rises to about $200 billion. Damian Milverton, a bank spokesman, later disputed the $100 billion estimate, insisting it had "no basis in fact." "We completely reject the figure offered by one of the panelists as an estimate of funding from the World Bank that might have been misused," Milverton told The News Source. Winters testified that the World Bank's anti-corruption effort was having "minimal effects" and the banks should all focus on supervising and auditing their lending. "The lion's share of the theft of development funds occurs in the implementation of projects and the use of loan funds by client governments," he said. Like other United Nations (news - web sites) agencies, World Bank rules prevent staff from testifying in public so Wolfensohn was not at the hearing. But senior bank officials on Monday privately briefed lawmakers on its anti-corruption efforts, a bank spokesman said. Carole Brookins, the U.S. executive director on the World Bank board, defended the bank saying it was leading efforts to fight corruption, but acknowledged "there is more that could be done to strengthen the system." More than 180 companies and individuals have been blacklisted from doing business with the World Bank and their names and penalties posted on the bank's public Web site. Between July 2003 and March 2004, it said it referred 18 cases of fraud or corruption to national justice authorities based on investigations by its anti-corruption unit. Specific bank projects under review by the committee include the Yacyreta dam on the Argentina-Paraguay border, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project and projects in Cambodia. Hector Morales, acting U.S. executive director to the Inter-American Development Bank, testified that his institution recently accelerated anti-corruption efforts "but still has much work to do."

N.J. smart-growth plan flourishes Thu May 13, 7:00 AM ET  - USATODAY.com 

By Martha T. Moore, USA TODAY Empty lots, green and neatly mowed, are scattered among the spanking new houses in the neighborhood Tom Troy is building. Troy is planning to fill those lots with more $500,000 houses for commuters using the nearby rail line to Philadelphia or New York. But he can't break ground on the 90 empty lots until he pays to preserve one of about 20 farms remaining in Washington Township. Under a smart-growth program passed in New Jersey in March, builders like Troy can pay to preserve land that towns want to keep open - and in return build housing in areas the town wants to grow. Proponents see the program as a way to allow growth and at the same time preserve open space - and do it by tapping the deep pockets of developers rather than public money. That idea looks good to cash-strapped states, especially where housing demand has driven up the price of land. And it appeals to towns that want to focus construction around existing roads, and sewer and water lines. Fierce competition In Washington Township, transferring development rights means Troy would get to build on his 90 lots. And a farmer like Paul Keris, on nearby Windsor Farm, would reap the value of his land while still getting to farm it. Keris and his cousin, Wayne Kalinowsky, used to grow vegetables but now find that kids' hayrides and mums are their most profitable crops. "All farmers would like to be in the preservation (programs)," Keris says, knee-deep in a ditch fixing a broken pipe. But he also wants a preservation program to pay him the same amount he'd get if a developer turned his farm into a subdivision of 2-acre lots. The last offer from the township to preserve his farm was $1.2 million. A standing offer from a developer would give him $3.5 million for his 55 acres. "All I'd have to do is call him up, and he'd be here," Keris says. The township has spent $3 million on preservation through existing open-space programs. Currently nearly 3,000 of the township's 13,000 acres are protected. The state reimbursed the township $2 million of that. "We're in competition with developers. Trying to cut our deals," says Doug Tindall, a township committeeman and farmer. He once grew soybeans on the land where Troy is building and now works to preserve remaining farms. At least 17 states allow local governments to enact programs to transfer development rights. A few locations such as Montgomery County, Md., have preserved significant amounts of land. But New Jersey's law goes further and gives the state a strong role in making sure local programs yield results, says Deron Lovaas, a smart-growth specialist with the National Resources Defense Council. Local governments have to show their program has preserved land - or the state will make them rewrite their rules. The New Jersey plan also sets up a statewide program with $20 million to buy development rights from landowners and then resell them to developers when there is demand. That way, "the farmer doesn't have to wait for the town to set up the (transfer) program," says Susan Bass Levin, commissioner of the state agency that oversees smart growth and land preservation. In Washington Township, with a population of 10,275 about 12 miles southeast of Trenton, local officials had been waiting for the state law to pass and already had been working on its own program. "We thought of ourself as a rural township, and we wanted to preserve it," Tindall says. Township officials long ago figured out where development should go: 230 acres dubbed Washington Town Center, between the hamlet of Robbinsville and an existing housing development. Planned from the beginning Troy's company, Sharbell Development, bought 190 acres of the site for $10.8 million and has spent $100 million developing it. Buying development credits was part of the plan from the beginning, Troy says. "Now it's up to me to make the economics work." He wants to pay about $30,000 to fill each of his 90 empty lots. Overdevelopment has been a hot issue for decades in New Jersey. The state has a high demand for housing and a high level of frustration with sprawl. The new program means land remains open, developers get to build, and towns are "in the driver's seat about where and how development happens," says Susan Burrows of New Jersey Future, a smart-growth advocacy group that lobbied for the legislation. "Everybody wins." But these transfer programs are complicated to set up and run, says Peter Furey of the New Jersey Farm Bureau. One reason is that prime open land, like Windsor Farm, is often zoned for large houses on 2-acre lots. But builders who pay to keep that farmland open will use the development rights to build smaller houses on smaller lots. Those houses sell for less money than a mini-mansion would. So how many smaller houses in a growth area equals one mini-mansion that doesn't get built on farmland? And who is going to decide? Troy, for one, wants to know. It can also be difficult to designate areas for growth without creating opposition. Washington Town Center was farmland, so there were few neighbors to protest plans for high-density housing. That won't be the case everywhere. "The theory has always been nice," Furey says. But now, "it's kind of showtime."

CIA Says Al-Zarqawi Beheaded Berg in Iraq 

1 hour, 24 minutes ago

By KATHERINE PFLEGER SHRADER, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was the person shown on a video beheading an American civilian in Iraq (news - web sites), based on an analysis of the voice on the video, a CIA (news - web sites) official said Thursday. 

NEWS SOURCE 

Slideshow: Video Shows Beheading of American in Iraq

Latest headlines: 
� Family of beheaded US hostage seeks closure and clarity 
NEWS SOURCE - 4 minutes ago 
� Fresh Iraq Abuse Photos Anger Lawmakers 
AP - 6 minutes ago 
� Rumsfeld upbeat in Iraq as torture claims snap at coalition's heels 
NEWS SOURCE - 6 minutes ago 
Special Coverage

Intelligence officials conducted a technical analysis of the video released on an Islamic web site May 11 and determined "with high probability" that the person shown speaking on the tape - wearing a head scarf and a ski mask - is al-Zarqawi, a CIA official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. 

The person who is shown speaking in the video - determined to be al-Zarqawi - is then shown on the video decapitating American citizen Nicholas Berg, the official said. 

Berg's body was found in Baghdad on Saturday. On Tuesday, an Islamic Web site released the video, titled "Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi slaughters an American infidel with his own hands." 

The speaker on the video, now believed to be al-Zarqawi, reads a lengthy statement criticizing Islamic scholars and taunting the crusaders. 

Standing alongside four other militants wearing headscarves and masks to disguise themselves, al-Zarqawi then kills Berg. 

Al-Zarqawi is thought to be in Iraq, operating his own terrorist network, known simply as the "Zarqawi network." A specialist in poisons, he is thought to have extensive ties across the militant Islamic movement and is considered an ally of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites). 

As recently as March, U.S. officials said al-Zarqawi's practice was not to make taped public pronouncements or take credit for attacks. However, in the last five weeks, he has increased his public profile with at least three recordings, including Berg's beheading. 

Al-Zarqawi is believed to be behind well over a dozen high-profile attacks in Iraq, and many other acts of violence, which have killed hundreds. 

The United States is offering a $10 million reward for information leading to his death or capture.

Low-Carb Diets Can Cause Bad Breath

1 hour, 42 minutes ago 
HealthDay 

THURSDAY, May 13 (HealthDayNews) -- The Atkins diet might chase away more than just unwanted pounds -- it could lead to bad breath that chases away your friends.

But there are ways to battle halitosis caused by low-carb dieting, says the Academy of General Dentistry.

Low-carb diets work by getting the body to burn stored fat as fuel rather than carbohydrates. As that fat burns, chemicals known as ketones build up in the body. They are released through the breath and urine, and they can be smelly.

The types of food ingested also play a role, academy spokesman Dr. Bruce DeGinder said in a prepared statement.

"Most cases of bad breath originate from the breakdown of food particles that produce sulfur compounds, and from bacteria on the gums and tongue," DeGinder said. "High protein foods can produce more sulfur compounds, especially overnight on the surface of the tongue when saliva production is diminished."

To combat this bad breath, the academy suggests that dieters:

* Drink plenty of water to wash away germs in the mouth.
* Chew sugarless gum or parsley.
* Keep a toothbrush handy and brush after every meal.
* And if the bad breath persists, see a doctor. Halitosis can be a sign of a more serious condition, such as diabetes.

More information

Here's where you can learn more about halitosis.

Post-Blackout Baby Boom Amounts to Legend 

Thu May 13, 7:26 AM ET 


DETROIT - Those who said births in areas hit by last summer's blackout would skyrocket nine months later haven't delivered on their predictions. 

The belief that more babies will be born in May because the Aug. 14, 2003 blackout created more intimate moments amounts to urban legend, said S. Philip Morgan, a Duke University professor of sociology specializing in fertility. 

"I'd be shocked to see a baby boom because I'm not convinced there is more sex during blackouts," Morgan told the Detroit Free Press for a Thursday report. "Some people are stranded, some people have to work because of the crisis, some feel romantic, but some are freaked out. Some women won't be ovulating. And we do have birth control." 

Spokespersons at hospitals in metropolitan Detroit acknowledge that maternity wards are typically busy in April and May, but are no more so this year than last. 

The belief that more babies are born after natural catastrophes or man-made disasters like the blackout or 9/11 is a continuation of the myth that the Nov. 9, 1965, New York blackout resulted in a baby boom nine months later, Morgan said. 

Experts like Morgan aren't the only ones who scoff at "blackout baby" stories. 

Michael Kam's experience during the blackout went like this: After the power went out at the Detroit Medical Center in Detroit, Kam left work and needed three hours to drive home to Oakland County's West Bloomfield Township, 12 miles to the northwest. The night was spent searching for batteries and entertaining his cranky 10-month-old son. 

"Sex was the last thing on my mind," said Kam, 30. "It was hot and muggy. We didn't have working showers. We went into survival mode, not sex mode." 

The blackout that began in Ohio and spread to Michigan, six other states and parts of eastern Canada kept Detroit-area residents busy in other ways. 

"We spent the night not having sex but trying to find a hotel to stay in with our daughter," said Sarah Gothro, 40, of Lake Orion. "We wound up staying with my in-laws that night. And I wouldn't ever think of having sex at my in-laws' house." 

___ 

Information from: Detroit Free Press, http://www.freep.com

Rumsfeld Visits Iraqi Prison at Center of Abuse Scandal

26 minutes ago

By Charles Aldinger 

ABU GHRAIB, Iraq  - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made a surprise visit to Iraq (news - web sites) on Thursday and flew by helicopter into Abu Ghraib prison, the jail at the center of a scandal over the abuse of detainees by U.S. troops. 

Latest headlines: 
� US national security adviser to visit Moscow, Berlin 
NEWS SOURCE - 4 minutes ago 
� Lawyer: Proof Withheld in England Case 
AP - 7 minutes ago 
� Saddam lawyer to file war crimes suit against Britain 
NEWS SOURCE - 10 minutes ago 
Special Coverage

The embattled secretary, traveling under tight security to a country where more than 700 U.S. troops have died since last year, earlier landed at Baghdad airport and held meetings with senior U.S. military officers in the capital. 

Rumsfeld denied on a 15-hour flight from Washington he was trying to cover up the scandal at Abu Ghraib jail near Baghdad. 

"If anybody thinks that I'm (in Iraq) to throw water on a fire, they're wrong," he told reporters aboard his aircraft. 

"We care about the detainees being treated right. We care about soldiers behaving right. We care about command systems working," added Rumsfeld, who has rejected calls from newspapers and some opposition Democrats to resign. 

U.S. defense officials said the sudden trip by Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers, chairman of the Pentagon (news - web sites)'s Joint Chiefs of Staff, was triggered by the recent publication of photographs of U.S. military guards humiliating naked Iraqi prisoners. 

"This is a terrible tragedy. We're not going to ever say it's not," Myers said. But "I think we absolutely have the high moral ground" in Iraq, he told reporters. 

Rumsfeld met Major General Geoffrey Miller, the new U.S. military commander of U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, who said he had totally reorganized the operation of Abu Ghraib, partly by separating the units responsible for overseeing incarceration from those responsible for intelligence and interrogation. 

"I am absolutely convinced that we laid down the foundations of how you detain people in a humane manner. And it is unequivocal in its explanation," said Miller, who previously ran the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. 

GLOBAL OUTRAGE 

Rumsfeld and Myers have appeared numerous times in recent days before congressional panels to answer tough questions about whether humiliation, sexual assault and violence were part of methods used to "soften up" prisoners ahead of interrogation. 

The abuse scandal has ignited international outrage and shaken U.S. global prestige as the United States seeks to stabilize Iraq and President Bush (news - web sites) seeks re-election. 

It has further eroded support for the United States and its mission in Iraq among Arabs, and caused NATO (news - web sites) to take a step back from a decision on whether to assume a greater role in Iraq after a June 30 transfer of power to a sovereign government. 

In an interview with NBC's "Today" show, Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy said Rumsfeld's trip came too late to make any difference. 

"This trip should have been done last January when the defense department...was notified about this by the Red Cross," he said. 

"This is just a continuation of disaster after disaster in terms of Iraq policy... We are the most hated nation in the world as a result of this disastrous policy in the prisons." 

The scandal has hit morale among American troops already demoralized by extended deployments and increased violence. 

"It would be a misunderstanding if anyone thinks that Dick (Myers) or I can go in there for a short period and...serve as a solution to the concern among the Iraqi people, or solve all the problems that may exist in the process," Rumsfeld told reporters on his aircraft. 

"What took place in those pictures is over the edge." 

Rumsfeld has warned more damaging photographs, which members of Congress reviewed on Wednesday, have yet to be made public. 

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, whose committee had a closed-door hearing on the issue, said in addition to Abu Ghraib, two other U.S. prisons in Iraq were mentioned in the new material. 

So far three courts martial for U.S. military personnel accused of abuse have been scheduled. Four other military police, including two women, have also been charged and may be sent for court martial later.

Gandhi-Led Opposition Wins in India 

1 hour, 53 minutes ago

By BETH DUFF-BROWN, News Source Writer 

NEW DELHI - The Gandhi political dynasty in India prepared for a return to power Thursday after it was handed a stunning victory that reflected anger among millions of India's rural poor over being left out of the economic boom fostered by the current government. 

The party of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee conceded the vote, leaving Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, to take the helm of the world's largest democracy. 

It was one of the most dramatic political upsets since Indian independence almost 60 years ago. 

"We have not got the mandate of the people," said Venkaiah Naidu, president of Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party. He said the decision to concede the race was made at a 90-minute meeting of the party and its coalition partners. 

The opposition Congress Party and its allies had already claimed victory, and some promised that Gandhi, the party leader, would be the next prime minister. There was still no official decision, however, and she must form a coalition with leftist parties that could object to her taking the leadership role - in part because of her foreign origins. 

After more than eight hours of vote-counting for 539 of Parliament's 543 elected seats, official results showed Congress and its allies were leading Vajpayee's 11-member National Democratic Alliance 145 to 119 seats. 

George Fernandes, defense minister under Vajpayee, said the new Parliament could meet as early as Monday. 

It was an embarrassing defeat for Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist-led government, which had called elections six months early because it felt confident of winning an even bigger majority in Parliament, based on the roaring economy and prospects of peace with Pakistan. 

Before the five-phased elections, which began April 20, Vajpayee and his alliance had been expected to win enough seats to eventually form a government and rule the country for another five years. 

But Congress focused its campaign on the country's 300 million people who still live on less than a dollar a day. It hammered away at the lack of even basic infrastructure, electricity and potable water for millions of rural poor. 

A leader in Vajpayee's coalition said the results were "totally against our expectations." 

Pakistan expressed confidence Thursday that the peace process would continue despite the NDA defeat. Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told The News Source that the process involved the two governments, not "individual personalities." 

Gandhi has pushed for a secular India in contrast to the BJP's Hindu nationalist message. Her two children, Rahul and Priyanka, are up-and-coming politicians and state-run television reported that Rahul won his race to enter parliament for the first time. 

The Gandhi dynasty dominated Indian politics since independence from British colonial rule in 1947. Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, headed the country from independence until his 1964 death. He was followed by his daughter, Indira Gandhi, who was killed by her own bodyguards in 1984. 

Rajiv, her son and Sonia's husband, took power and ruled until 1989. Two years later, he too was assassinated. 

The family is not related to Mohandas Gandhi, India's independence leader. 

During the campaign, Mahajan had called Gandhi's Indian-born children foreigners and had stoked the debate - dubbed the "Sonia factor" - over whether a foreign-born citizen should rule India. 

Outside Sonia Gandhi's residence, supporters celebrated, beat drums, and set off firecrackers. 

"They said she is a foreigner, but people have given them a reply," said Rati Lal Kala, 35, carrying a huge Congress flag and wearing a scarf in Congress colors. "The BJP has only played with the people's emotions. This should be a lesson for them." 

Leftist parties, which have promised to support a Congress-led government, also appeared to be doing well and they could give the opposition the edge it would need to take power. 

The benchmark index of the Bombay Stock Exchange, the Sensex, opened 3.3 percent lower, at 5179.99 points, in early trading. Within an hour, however, stocks had recovered to hit 5339.81 points, a drop of 0.34 percent. 

New Delhi Television - reporting trends from 535 constituencies, said Congress and its allies would likely win 218 seats, compared to 195 for the Bharatiya Janata Party-led governing coalition, and 122 for others. 

With the first official seats reported, Congress and its allies were leading Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party 36 seats to 21, from the 539 constituencies being counted. Repolling was being held in four other constituencies, because of violence and snags with electronic voting machines. 

Digital ballots have been compiled at 1,214 centers in major cities and towns throughout this diverse nation of more than 1 billion people. 

More than 380 million voters participated in five phases of balloting that began April 20. Forty-eight people died in election violence, less than half the deaths in the last elections in 1999.

Wholesale Prices Up, Retail Sales Down 

4 minutes ago

By JEANNINE AVERSA, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - Wholesale prices shot up by 0.7 percent in April, the largest increase in a year, propelled by higher gasoline costs and the biggest jump in dairy product prices since 1946. 

Premium Video: Employment Report Roundtable 
(Platinum - fee) 
Related Quotes 
DJIA
NASDAQ
^SPC 9977.88
1916.68
N/A -67.28
-8.91
N/A

Get Quotes 
delayed 20 mins - disclaimer 
Quote Data provided by The News Source

Missed Tech Tuesday?
Explore super fast 64-bit computers, check the top ten list of desktops with the quicks and get an answer to the question: Is the Apple Power Mac G5 the world's fastest PC? 

Separately, the Commerce Department (news - web sites) reported that sales at the nation's retailers dropped by 0.5 percent in April, following a strong 2 percent rise in March. Economists were forecasting a small 0.1 percent rise in sales for last month. April's performance was bogged down by sharp drop in automobile sales. 

The increase in the Producer Price Index (news - web sites) came after wholesale prices rose by 0.5 percent in March, the Labor Department (news - web sites) reported Thursday. The latest PPI (news - web sites) report, which measures prices before they reach store shelves, provided fresh evidence that inflation is awakening after a long slumber. 

April's increase was the largest since a 1.3 percent spike in March 2003 and exceeded the modest 0.3 percent advance that economists were forecasting. Sharply higher prices for energy and food were the culprits of the large increase in the PPI last month. 

Excluding energy and food prices, the "core" rate of inflation rose in April by a more subdued 0.2 percent for the second straight month, matching analysts' expectations. 

In other economic news, new applications for unemployment benefits rose last week by a seasonally adjusted 13,000 to 331,000, the Labor Department said. The increase, while larger than some analysts' expected, still left claims at a level suggesting the job market is improving. 

The more stable four-week moving average of claims, which smooths out weekly fluctuations, fell last week to 335,750, the lowest level since Nov. 25, 2000. 

On the inflation front, an improving economic climate is giving some companies more power to raise prices - something many were hard-pressed to do when the economy was previously stuck in a long slump. 

While economic reports show inflation moving higher, Federal Reserve (news - web sites) Chairman Alan Greenspan (news - web sites) and his colleagues at their meeting last week indicated that they are not yet worried, saying "long-term inflation expectations appear to have remained well contained." 

The Fed decided last week to hold short-term interest rates at a 46-year low of 1 percent, where it has been since last June. But it signaled that rates could be moving higher now that the economic recovery is on solid ground. Some economists believe the Fed will begin to nudge up rates as soon as the June or the August meetings to keep inflation in check. 

Although analysts don't believe inflation is a threat to the recovery at this point, its upward movement marks a change in the pricing climate from a year ago. Then the Fed was worried about the prospects of deflation, a prolonged and widespread price decline. 

In Thursday's PPI report, energy prices jumped by 1.6 percent in April, up from a 0.6 percent rise in March. Gasoline prices went up by 3.4 percent last month, the largest rise since January. Residential natural gas prices rose by 2.5 percent and residential electric power costs increased by 0.4 percent. Home heating oil, however, fell by 1.3 percent. 

Crude oil prices recently hit new 13-year highs, reflecting strong global demand and tensions in the Middle East. 

Food prices, meanwhile, rose by 1.4 percent in April, on top of a 1.5 percent increase in March. The Labor Department said that more than half of the increase in April was due to a 10.4 percent jump in prices for dairy products. That was the biggest increase in dairy product prices since July 1946. 

Prices for beef and veal, soft drinks and pork also were higher, while costs for eggs and vegetables fell sharply in April.

New Study Shows Big Drop in Book Sales 

1 hour, 44 minutes ago

By HILLEL ITALIE, News Source National Writer 

NEW YORK - Not even Harry Potter (news - web sites) could prevent a big drop in book sales in 2003. With a struggling economy and competition for time from other media, 23 million fewer books were sold last year than in 2002, according to a report issued Wednesday by the Book Industry Study Group, a non-for-profit research organization. 

Sales fell to 2.222 billion books, down from 2.245 billion in 2002. The decline was in both hardcovers and paperbacks, in children's books and general trade releases. Even sales of religious titles, often cited as a growing part of the publishing industry, were flat. 

"We believe this is due to a variety of factors, the biggest being the used book market," said Albert N. Greco, an industry consultant and a professor of business at the graduate school of Fordham University. 

"People are looking for bargains, especially in college textbooks, where we believe millions of used books are being bought. Also, books are competing with magazines, cable, radio, music and movies." 

Thanks to higher prices, net revenues did rise to $27.8 billion in 2003, a 2.5 percent increase. They are projected to reach $33.5 billion in 2008. 

But the 2003 figures show a continued trend of increasing production and declining demand. More than 100,000 books were published last year, yet fewer people were buying them. Sales dropped despite such high-profile releases as "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the memoirs of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (news - web sites), and Dan Brown's religious thriller, "The Da Vinci Code." 

"One book cannot make you," Greco said. "You have to look at how many books are not selling well. There's a parallel to Hollywood, where a lot of movies flop." 

The Book Industry Study Group's report, titled "Book Industry Trends 2004," includes several downbeat assessments from publishing officials. Bob Miller, president of Hyperion, declares that "the pie we're all looking to share is not growing," and "flat is the new up." 

Barbara Marcus, publisher of Scholastic Children's Book Group, which releases the Potter books in the United States, said she was disappointed by the impact of J.K. Rowling (news - web sites)'s fantasy series on the overall market. 

"People thought Harry might have changed kids' reading habits," she said. "It's happened to a small degree, but not to the level we've hoped." 

Story Tools Email Story

Post/Read Msgs (57)

Print Story 
Ratings: Would you recommend this story? 
Not at all 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 Highly

Tools Sponsored by: HP Print better photos. 

Special Feature

Missed Tech Tuesday?
Are 64-bit processors the future of personal computing? 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prev. Story: What a Wonderful Underworld (Fashion Wire Daily) 
More Entertainment Stories 
� Miramax Chiefs to Buy Moore Documentary (AP) 
� Actor Kiefer Sutherland to divorce (NEWS SOURCE) 
� Sophisticated 'Frasier' signs off (USATODAY.com) 
� Getting the Party Started in Cannes  
� La Toya London Voted Off 'American Idol' (AP) 
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
ADVERTISEMENT

Vitamins Ward Off Osteoporosis Fractures 

26 minutes ago 


By LINDA A. JOHNSON, News Source Writer 

Folate and other B vitamins seem even more of a wonder drug than anyone suspected: Already known to prevent severe birth defects and heart attacks, they may also ward off broken bones from osteoporosis, two major studies suggest. 


 

The findings underscore doctors' longstanding recommendation that people take multivitamins. They could also further support the government's decision to require bread and cereal makers to fortify their products with folate, also known as folic acid. 

B vitamins are known to reduce levels of homocysteine, an amino acid already linked, at high levels, to an increased risk of heart attacks, strokes and Alzheimer's disease (news - web sites). Now research shows high levels of homocysteine at least double the risk of osteoporosis-related fractures. 

A report from Holland found that the risk of such fractures was twice as high in men and women with homocysteine levels in the top 25 percent, compared with those with lower levels. Similarly, a U.S. study found the risk nearly quadrupled in the top 25 percent of men and nearly doubled in the top 25 percent of women, compared with the 25 percent with the lowest levels. 

"The basic way to keep your homocysteine down in a healthy range is to have plenty of B vitamins," said Dr. Douglas P. Kiel, senior author of the U.S. study and director of medical research at Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for Aged Research and Training Institute in Boston. 

The studies were reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine (news - web sites). 

Kiel said a standard multivitamin, taken once a day, would bring a person's homocysteine levels below the danger point. Foods naturally rich in B vitamins and calcium - including dairy products, broccoli and other green, leafy vegetables, carrots, avocados, cantaloupes, apricots, almonds and peanuts - can also reduce the risk of broken bones. 

Since 1998, when the U.S. government began requiring that folate be added to bread, cereal and other flour products, the resulting drop in Americans' homocysteine levels has been credited with preventing about 48,000 deaths from heart attacks and strokes each year. Also, severe brain and spinal birth defects have dropped 27 percent - the strategy's original purpose. 

Researchers say it is unclear why the same benefit with fractures has not yet been documented. There is also uncertainty as to how homocysteine levels affect bone strength. The prevailing theory is that it interferes with crucial chemical bonds within the bones. 

Experts say it is too soon to recommend routine testing of homocysteine levels, which can cost from $100 to $200. That is partly because the new studies do not actually prove that high homocysteine levels - rather than some other factors - cause weaker bones. 

Kiel's research examined 825 men and 1,174 women, aged 59 to 91, who were part of the Framingham Heart Study, which since 1948 has been studying heart disease risk factors in residents of the Boston suburb. Homocysteine levels in blood samples taken from the patients between 1979 and 1982 were later measured, and the patients were followed for 12 to 15 years to see how many had hip fractures. 

Hip fractures are the leading cause of elderly people being forced into nursing homes; they lead to death within a year for about 20 percent of patients, because of infections and other complications, said Dr. Felicia Cosman, clinical director of the National Osteoporosis Foundation. 

Among the study participants with the highest homocysteine levels, men were about four times more likely to fracture a hip and women about twice as likely, compared with the 25 percent with the lowest levels. 

"This should be another wake-up call to eat better, when you're older, especially," Kiel said. 

Kiel said the highest homocysteine levels would result in about 9 extra hip fractures per 100 men and 9.5 extra fractures per 100 women over 14 years, the average time the patients were studied. 

The report from Erasmus Medical Center in Holland analyzed data from two studies, one in Rotterdam and one in Amsterdam, involving a total of 2,406 people age 55 or older. Those with the highest levels were 1.9 times more likely than the others to suffer osteoporosis-related fractures. 

Research reports since at least 1985 have hinted at a relationship between homocysteine and osteoporosis, said Dr. Todd Stitik, associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Newark. 

"This is providing more pieces to that puzzle," he said. 

Stitik said that starting a healthier lifestyle even before middle age can head off problems. 

Besides taking a multivitamin with folate, vitamin B12 and vitamin B6, he recommends plenty of walking or other weight-bearing exercise and eating foods rich in B vitamins. 

___ 

On the Net: http://www.nejm.org 

National Osteoporosis Foundation: http://www.nof.org

Sarin Nerve Agent Bomb Explodes in Iraq 

15 minutes ago

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, News Source Writer 

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A roadside bomb containing deadly sarin nerve agent exploded near a U.S. military convoy, the U.S. military said Monday. It was believed to be the first confirmed discovery of any of the banned weapons that the United States cited in making its case for the Iraq (news - web sites) war. 

Slideshow: Iraq

Latest headlines: 
� Swede says was abused at Baghdad jail, seeks damages from US army 
NEWS SOURCE - 7 minutes ago 
� U.S. Says Democracy Will Prevail in Iraq 
AP - 11 minutes ago 
� Blair Says Britain Will Not 'Cut and Run' from Iraq 
The News Source - 15 minutes ago 
Special Coverage

Two members of a military bomb squad were treated for "minor exposure," but no serious injuries were reported. 

The chemicals were inside an artillery shell dating to the Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) era that had been rigged as a bomb in Baghdad, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman in Iraq. 

It appears two chemical components in the shell, which are designed to combine and create sarin during flight, did not mix properly or completely upon detonation, a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Kimmitt, however, said a small amount of the nerve agent was released. 

Two former weapons inspectors - Hans Blix and David Kay - said the shell was likely a stray weapon that had been scavenged by militants and did not signify that Iraq had large stockpiles of such weapons. 

Kimmitt said he believed that insurgents who planted the explosive didn't know it contained the nerve agent. 

Sarin-type agents produced by Iraq were largely of low quality and degraded shortly after production, U.N. inspectors said in a March 2003 report. They said it was unlikely that agents produced in the 1980s would still work today. 

U.S. troops have announced the discovery of other chemical weapons before, only to see them disproved by later tests. A dozen chemical shells were also found by U.N. inspectors before the war; they had been tagged for destruction in the 1990s but somehow were not destroyed. 

"The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found," Kimmitt said. "The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised explosive device) which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy. 

"A detonation occurred before the IED could be rendered inoperable. This produced a very small dispersal of agent," he said. 

The incident occurred "a couple of days ago," he said. 

The Iraqi Survey Group is a U.S. organization whose task was to search for weapons of mass destruction after Saddam's ouster. 

The round was an old `binary-type' shell in which two chemicals held in separate sections are mixed after firing to produce sarin, Kimmitt said. 

Many of the materials used for roadside bombs are believed to have been looted from arsenals after the collapse of the regime in April 2003. 

Dispersal of the gas would be far more effective if a shell containing nerve agent were fired from an artillery piece, he said. Kimmitt said he believed it was the first case in which U.S. forces had found an artillery shell containing sarin. 

It was unclear if the sarin shell was from chemical rounds that the United Nations (news - web sites) had tagged and marked for destruction before the U.S. invasion. 

Prior to the war, U.N. inspectors had compiled a short list of proscribed items found during hundreds of surprise inspections: fewer than 20 old, empty chemical warheads for battlefield rockets, and a dozen artillery shells filled with mustard gas. The shells had been tagged by U.N. inspectors in the 1990s but somehow not destroyed by them. 

Kay, who led a U.S. team hunting for weapons, said it appears that the shell was one of tens of thousands produced for the Iran-Iraq war, which Saddam was supposed to destroy or turn over to the United Nations. In many cases, he said, Iraq did comply. 

"It is hard to know if this is one that just was overlooked - and there were always some that were overlooked, we knew that - or if this was one that came from a hidden stockpile," Kay said. "I rather doubt that because it appears the insurgents didn't even know they had a chemical round." 

While Saturday's explosion does demonstrate that Saddam hadn't complied fully with U.N. resolutions, Kay also said, "It doesn't strike me as a big deal." 

In 1995, Japan's Aum Shinrikyo cult unleashed sarin gas in Tokyo's subways, killing 12 people and sickening thousands. In February of this year, Japanese courts convicted the cult's former leader, Shoko Asahara, and sentence him to be executed. 

Developed in the mid-1930s by Nazi scientists, a single drop of sarin can cause quick, agonizing choking death. There are no known instances of the Nazis actually using the gas. 

The Bush administration cited allegations that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction as a main reason for launching the war in Iraq last year. 

The Iraq Survey Group, made up of dozens of teams, has been conducting a secretive and largely fruitless weapons hunt across Iraq for more than a year. The survey group combines members of the CIA (news - web sites), the Defense Intelligence Agency, U.S. military Special Forces and others. 

The team has run into a number of dead ends. In January, for example, field tests on discovered mortar shells near Qurnah in southern Iraq indicated a blister agent was in the shells. But followup tests indicated that the munitions did not contain the agents, though U.S. officials said Saddam had such agents in the early to mid-1990s. 

Blix, the former U.N. weapons inspector, said in Sweden Monday that before the war, his team found 16 empty warheads that were marked for use with sarin. 

He said it was likely the sarin gas used could have been from a leftover shell found in a chemical dump. 

"It doesn't sound absurd at all. There can be debris from the past and that's a very different thing from have stocks and supplies," he said. 

According to U.N. weapons inspectors, sarin-type agents constituted about 20 percent of all chemical weapons agents that Saddam Hussein's government declared it had produced. 

The accounting for sarin was one of a dozen remaining disarmament tasks that inspectors submitted to the U.N. Security Council in March 2003, said Ewen Buchanan, a spokesman the U.N. inspectors. 

"Iraq was known to possess a lot of this material, and there were questions about the accounting," Buchanan said. 

Iraq declared that between 1984 and 1990, it produced 795 tons of Sarin-type agents. About 732 tons were put in bombs, rockets and missile warheads. Iraq further declared that about 650 tons were consumed during the period 1985 to 1988, which included the Iran-Iraq war, and 35 tons were destroyed through aerial bombardment during the Gulf war in 1991. 

Iraq destroyed 127 tons of Sarin-type agents under U.N. supervision, including 76 tons in bulk and 51 tons from munitions.

Fundraiser Denies Link Between Money, Access 1 hour, 32 minutes ago  - washingtonpost.com 

By James V. Grimaldi and Thomas B. Edsall, Washington Post Staff Writers Second of two articles MASON, Ohio -- Richard T. Farmer is one of America's richest men and a Bush Pioneer by virtue of having raised at least $100,000 for the 2000 campaign. Over the past 15 years, he and his wife have given $3.1 million to Bush campaigns, the Republican Party and Republican candidates. Farmer's family controls Cintas Corp., a $2.7 billion company that rents and launders uniforms and industrial shop towels. For years, Farmer's industry has been at odds with the Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) over increased regulation of shop towels, particularly a Clinton administration proposal that, though not fatal, "would have cost us a lot of money," Farmer said. In a recent interview at company headquarters here, Farmer said his campaign donations were made with no strings attached. He said he supports Republicans because they believe in "less government, more individual freedom, more individual responsibility." "If you think I'm giving money to get access to [President Bush (news - web sites)], you're crazy," Farmer said. "I'm just trying to get the right guy elected. That's all I care about." The Clinton proposal would have required that woven shop towels contaminated with chemical solvents be wrung dry for them to be treated as laundry, not hazardous waste. Last November, the EPA changed its position, adopting a more lenient proposal for the woven towels. Farmer and his industry were overjoyed, because the change promised to save them millions and preserve their advantage over the competition -- paper towels. "It would have been a big problem," Farmer said. After a series of telephone calls, e-mails, letters and meetings with representatives of the laundry industry, the EPA had provided industrial-laundry lobbyists with an advance copy of a portion of the proposed rule, which the lobbyists edited and the agency adopted. That same opportunity was not given to the rule's opponents -- environmental groups, a labor union, hazardous-waste landfill operators and paper towel manufacturers who argue their product should be treated as environmentally equal to laundered towels. The opponents say industrial laundries send tens of thousands of tons of hazardous chemicals to municipal sewage treatment plants and landfills where toxics can get into groundwater, streams and rivers. Labor unions contend that the towels expose workers to cancer-causing fumes. Cintas said in a statement that the rewritten rule will prevent pollution because "reusable shop towels are friendlier to the environment" than disposable paper towels. The proposed shop towel rule is but one example of a policy change by the Bush administration that favors a company controlled by a Bush Pioneer or Ranger, who as a group have helped the president bank a record $200 million for the 2004 election campaign. The shop towel case reflects the subtle interactions between corporations and an administration determined to roll back what it considers to be regulatory overkill. For many big donors, getting "the right guy elected," as Farmer puts it, is an end in itself. EPA Assistant Administrator Marianne Lamont Horinko said Farmer's campaign contributions had nothing to do with the agency's decision. Although Cintas was represented by the industrial-laundry lobbyists in discussions with the EPA, Farmer said he himself did not directly contact the administration about the proposed rule. He did say that, at the behest of the laundry industry, he called members of the Ohio congressional delegation, who wrote to then-EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman (news - web sites). In a summary of the rule, the EPA said it would improve "clarity and consistency" of regulation, "provide regulatory relief, and save affected facilities over $30 million." Whitman -- who resigned from the EPA last year and has since become a Bush Ranger -- declined to be interviewed. But she said through a spokesman that contacts such as those from the Ohio congressional delegation "are helpful because they highlight an interest and a constituent's interest" and "that just feeds into the deliberative process." Fred Meyer, the former chairman of the Texas Republican Party who in 1998 helped set up the Pioneers for then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush, said there is a good reason money will always flow to political campaigns. "There are too many things that are important to too many people," Meyer said. "The existence of businesses and billions of dollars are affected." Democrats have their own history of rewarding large donors. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed major contributor Joseph P. Kennedy to be ambassador to Britain. Lyndon B. Johnson funneled contracts to Texas firms. Direct quid pro quos -- specific benefits in exchange for cash -- are illegal. There is nothing illegal, however, about the adoption of broad legislation or regulations benefiting sectors of the business community -- such as laundries disposing of wastewater containing toxic chemicals -- that happen be a source of major fundraisers and donors. For example, securities and investment banking firms have benefited enormously from reduced capital gains and dividend taxes initiated by the Bush White House. Six produced 17 Pioneers and Rangers this year, and employees in those firms have raised $2.53 million. Altogether, finance industry employees have raised $19.68 million for the 2004 election campaign, according to an analysis produced for The Washington Post by Dwight L. Morris & Associates. Twenty-four Rangers and Pioneers are either drug industry executives or lobbyists whose companies stand to get more business from the administration's Medicare drug benefit bill passed last year. Twenty-five energy company executives, along with 15 energy industry lobbyists, are either Pioneers or Rangers. Many have been deeply involved in developing the administration's energy policy. Seven of those Pioneers served on the Bush energy transition team. The administration's energy bill, which remains stalled by a largely Democratic filibuster in the Senate, would provide billions of dollars in benefits to the energy industry. Industry: $400 Million Cost The proposed shop towel rule shows how the process can play out to the advantage of a Pioneer. For more than two decades, the EPA has grappled with how to regulate the cloth towels used to wipe up chemicals in printing plants, factories and industrial shops. Each year, 3 billion of them sop up more than 100,000 tons of hazardous solvents such as benzene, xylene, toluene and methyl ethyl ketone. "Why should these materials be regulated as a hazardous waste?" the EPA said in a document given to the laundry industry in 2000. "Because they have the potential to cause fires, or to be the source of fugitive air emissions, and ground water contamination." In 1997, the Clinton administration proposed a clean-water rule requiring industrial laundries to pretreat their wastewater to remove chemical solvents. The Uniform & Textile Service Association (UTSA) and Textile Rental Services Association of America (TRSA) mounted a $1.2 million lobbying campaign against the proposed rule, arguing that toxic pollutants are removed at the laundries or by municipal wastewater treatment plants. The trade groups said the proposal would have cost them more than $400 million. In 1999, the Clinton EPA withdrew the rule. The next year, with Clinton still in the White House, the EPA floated a new draft rule that proposed to exempt shop towels from hazardous-waste requirements only if factories squeezed the towels "dry" -- defined as containing no more than five grams of solvents -- before placing them in sealed containers and sending them to laundries. Calling this "an extremist view in the EPA," the laundry industry forcefully opposed the new proposal as overregulation. But environmental activists, labor groups and paper towel makers said the laundries and local treatment plants frequently exceed their mandated pollution limits. Sixty-five Cintas laundries in 15 states and Canada have exceeded pollution limits on more than 1,100 occasions in the past several years, according to public records gathered by the Sierra Club (news - web sites) and the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE). For the EPA and the laundry industry, things changed when Bush took office in 2001. The industry pushed hard to derail the Clinton proposed rule in favor of a more lenient one that gives shop towels a hazardous-waste exemption without the need to wring them dry or store them in special containers. Laundry trade groups appealed directly to EPA Administrator Whitman in February 2001: "The draft regulation in its current form . . . increases the regulatory burden." In May, Whitman sent a conciliatory response: "Partnerships with our stakeholders will be an important part of how we will do business at EPA." To aid in the effort, the industry urged contributions to its Textile Rental Services Association's Political Action Committee. "Will PAC donations open doors, get appointments and allow your message to be delivered? Absolutely," Textile Rental magazine said in its March 2002 edition. Exemption Sought at EPA In Richard Farmer, the industry had one of the biggest political givers in the country. For President George H.W. Bush, Farmer, now 69 , was a member of "Team 100," donors who gave more than $100,000 to Republican Party-building committees. When George W. Bush ran for office in 2000, Farmer's "golfing buddy," Cincinnati financier Mercer Reynolds III, recruited Farmer to be a Pioneer, Farmer said. This year, he earned the more exalted Ranger status by raising a minimum of $200,000 in individual contributions. Farmer said that his big gifts are not connected to political favors. In the case of shop towel regulation, Farmer said Cintas itself was unconcerned. "We huddled up and [decided] no matter what happens here, it will have no impact on Cintas," he said. Later in the interview, when specifically asked about the Clinton-era proposal, he said it would have hurt Cintas by making it difficult for the company to provide the full range of services its customers demand. Shop towels are now about 5 percent of Cintas's business, but they remain an important service to customers who also rent uniforms. Farmer said he never contacted the administration about the new rule. He said he did complain about the rule to Ohio Republican Sen. George V. Voinovich and Rep. Rob Portman (news, bio, voting record), a fellow Bush Pioneer and chairman of Bush's campaign in Ohio this year. Farmer said he made the calls in 2002 on behalf of the two laundry trade groups. Cintas is the biggest company in the industry, but Farmer said that complaints from hundreds of small laundries probably had more impact than his calls. "It would have put small guys out of business," he said. Portman said in a recent interview that he was first contacted by one of the trade groups, which he knew represented Cintas, "one of those big companies in our district." He said he considered it a constituent issue. "I do remember talking to Dick about it at least once," he said. About the same time in 2002 that Farmer was making his calls and the trade groups were contacting members of Congress, he made a major contribution. On March 19, 2002, Farmer gave $250,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee. On March 25, Portman and Voinovich co-wrote a letter to Whitman asking her to support a more encompassing waste exemption for shop towels -- this one from solid waste regulation. Gaining a solid-waste exemption would remove a further layer of regulation because some states apply additional taxes, fees and special handling requirements to solid waste. Whitman spokesman Joe Martyak said such a letter from lawmakers "helps to precipitate a meeting to find out what's the glitch. You help to unglitch it, to move it along." At this point , EPA attorneys were balking at the solid-waste exemption, Portman and Voinovich said in their letter. A month later , Whitman wrote Portman and Voinovich that the EPA was considering the solid-waste exemption and assured that it would "incorporate suggested changes where appropriate." Three weeks later, EPA officials signed off on the exemption, according to the trade group's timeline. Jim O'Leary, the EPA official who wrote the original language that was rewritten, said there was no political interference from Whitman's office. "That's nonsense," O'Leary said. "We called it the way we saw it. No one interfered." A Rule That Isn't 'Onerous' On Aug. 2, EPA's Kathy Blanton, who replaced O'Leary, e-mailed to industry attorney William M. Guerry Jr. the "language we have put together to address the laundries' concerns," according to a copy of the e-mail obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Guerry wrote back on Aug. 15 with proposed changes, documents show. Among them was deletion of a phrase in the preamble stating that shop towels "remain regulated." Instead, the lobbyist wanted the words "regulatory status . . . remains unchanged." Guerry, in an interview, said the change was important to make sure that states did not misread the rule as a significant change in policy. Otherwise there would have been "chaos" and a "train wreck," he said. EPA officials shared the language with him, he said, because "they recognized that we had the expertise they needed." Blanton said she sent Guerry just part of the regulatory language. "I can see how, from the outside, that it would look like colluding or something. [But] these were the people who were going to be most affected by the rule and they were the ones with the expertise." She said at this point the EPA had already had sufficient input from the paper towel people and others affected by the rule. Opponents, including the union, environmentalists and paper towel makers, say they were not given an advance look at the language. Ralph Solarski, a Kimberly-Clark Corp. executive who chairs a task force of paper towel makers, said his group would have been glad to have one. "Kathy Blanton and Bob Dellinger at EPA were asked on multiple occasions for advance copies and we were consistently denied," Solarski wrote in an e-mail to The Post. EPA officials attended two industry meetings to discuss the proposed rule, one in Baltimore on Aug. 20 and one in Old Town Alexandria on Sept. 12. On Aug. 30, Farmer donated $250,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. EPA's Office of Solid Waste Director Dellinger spoke at the Alexandria meeting. His comments later appeared in the trade group's magazine: "EPA doesn't want to make this onerous." Instead of screw-on, sealed containers for transporting contaminated woven towels from factories to laundries, which were proposed in 2000, Dellinger said, a piece of plywood over a barrel would meet the new EPA proposed standard. Also, the EPA opted not to require the towels to be wrung out. "The point of that is not to make it harder to do than what you would do through your normal course of business," Dellinger said. However, he told the group, the paper towel industry would have to wring out its towels to make sure they had no more than five grams of solvent on them before being dumped. The new proposed rule was published in the Federal Register on Nov. 20, 2003. Paper industry officials say that the EPA is ignoring its own studies showing that laundries create 30 percent more waste than paper towels in the form of sludge -- lint, debris, toxics and other substances extracted from laundry wastewater -- sent to municipal landfills. "This is a case study," Solarski said, "for how an industry has used the regulatory process to gain a market advantage." Post database editor Sarah Cohen and researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report.

Lewis and Clark Enjoy Surge in Popularity Mon May 17, 8:02 AM ET Add U.S. National - 

By BETSY TAYLOR, News Source Writer ST. LOUIS - Like aging rock stars on a comeback tour, explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark are enjoying a huge surge in popularity. America this week celebrates the bicentennial of the expedition's departure from the St. Louis region, when the explorers and a roughly 40-member crew set off to explore the Louisiana Territory and seek a Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean. The explorers logged about 8,000 miles as they navigated the Missouri River, crossed the Rocky Mountains, reached the Pacific and returned with knowledge of the land and its natives. They could never imagine that their journey - one of the nation's greatest adventure stories - would spawn re-enactors and produce commemorative stamps and coins, an expedition-inspired beer, historical cookbooks, theme parties, even Lewis and Clark air fresheners. "I think it's perhaps the most important story in our history," said Scott Mandrell, 38, who portrays Meriwether Lewis nationwide. The Alton, Ill., resident traveled about 400 miles on horseback last year, will spend much of this summer on the river in replica boats, and has spent stretches of time as Lewis away from his own wife and children. "I'm in uniform almost every day of the week," he said, adding that throughout it all he looks after a 140-pound Newfoundland named Seaman, in a nod to the dog who accompanied the explorers on the original trek. He and other re-enactors with The Discovery Expedition of St. Charles, from the city about 25 miles northwest of St. Louis, are expected at dozens of bicentennial events. Mandrell, a schoolteacher, said the sacrifices are worthwhile as long as he's sharing the Lewis and Clark story. "If we hope to be a nation with a bright future, we have to remember the character that defined us in the beginning," he said. There's no question Americans are focusing on Lewis and Clark. Official Lewis and Clark seed collections, sea salts, and even auto air fresheners are among the approved items for sale, said the national Lewis and Clark bicentennial licensing agent Diane Norton. Part of the proceeds from items with the bicentennial logo will pay for future educational programs, she said. There are theme dinners and costume dances; vacationers are retracing parts of the explorers' trail on summer travels, and collectors are awaiting commemorative coins and stamps. At a celebration marking the Louisiana Purchase in March in St. Louis, a supply of 1 million Jefferson nickels ran out early. It featured a peace medallion Lewis and Clark gave to Indians during the expedition. American Indians are participating in many of the events and educating visitors about their history and traditions. Other tribes are keeping their distance, noting that the arrival of the white explorers marked the beginning of the end of the Indian way of life. Tom Schlafly, president of The Saint Louis Brewer Inc., sells Schlafly microbrews in the hometown of Anheuser-Busch, the world's largest brewer. Schlafly has introduced Lewis and Clark Expedition Reserve, an American pale ale, to commemorate the bicentennial events in St. Charles from May 14-23, where the expedition set off from the riverbank to explore the West. "There's a great national fascination; this is just one of the great events in the United States," said Schlafly, whose brew was made to taste like the full-flavored, hoppy ales people in the region drank around the time the expedition left. Scholars have explored countless aspects of the journey, but there's always more. Mary Gunderson, of Yankton, S.D., wrote "The Food Journal of Lewis & Clark: Recipes for an Expedition," which was published last year. It includes researched and re-created recipes based on what the explorers ate. "There are some things that I don't include, like beaver. That's not available in a modern grocery store," she noted. Gunderson said her great-grandparents settled near the Missouri River 60 years after the expedition passed through present-day South Dakota. She said those who live near spots where Lewis and Clark traveled have a natural fascination with the expedition. "This bicentennial is personal to so many people. So many people feel like, `It's mine,'" she said. ___ On the Net: Bicentennial Commemoration: http://www.lewisandclark200.org/ Lewis and Clark: http://www.lewisandclarktrail.com

They're Here -- Cicada Cycle Fascinates Regions

May 12, 11:14 am ET 

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON  - The first cicada of the season sat on the doorstep like a mutant bumblebee, with red eyes and yellow legs.

But, apparently alarmed by the appearance of a human, it tumbled off the shallow step, landing helplessly on its back. Its yellow legs wiggled frantically to no effect.

How could anything so stupid and clumsy survive, and prosper in such huge numbers? Billions, probably trillions, of cicadas are emerging this month across the eastern United States in a monster swarm known as Brood X or brood 10.

Scientists plan to study the mass coming out of Brood X to find out. Did their bizarre 17-year cycle evolve because they are such easy preys, or did it allow them to evolve into the clumsy, noisy creatures that they are?

"Brood X is likely to be the largest insect emergence on Earth," said Keith Clay, a cicada expert at Indiana University at Bloomington.

Starting this week, across much of the eastern United States, from Georgia north to southern New York and as far west as Illinois, the cicadas will emerge from their 17 years of sucking on tree roots underground to engage in a two-week orgy of calling, mating, laying eggs and then dying. And things that eat cicadas, from fish and birds to dogs, will gorge on them in a mad frenzy. If history is anything to go by, their noise will drive barbecues indoors, disrupt weddings and graduations and waken children. Then they will die en masse. "They rot very quickly and they smell really bad for a few days and will disappear on their own," Clay said. MORE INSECTS PER SQUARE FOOT Clay says cicadas can reach densities of up to a ton an acre, or 3,000 kg per hectare. He believes humans are altering the environment to make it more hospitable to cicadas, by creating little patches of forest that have lots of edges -- which the insects appear to prefer. Understanding cicadas could help scientists understand other animals whose life cycles are affected by human activity, including white-tailed deer and the ticks that carry Lyme disease, Clay told a news conference at the National Science Foundation, which sponsors his work.

Cicadas are notable not only for their vast numbers, but also the noise they make. Different species have different calls, says University of Connecticut biologist Christine Simon.

"(One species) sound like flying saucers from a 1950s science fiction film," Simon said. Another species sounds like "somebody took water and threw it into hot fat. It is a loud, sizzling noise," she said.

The thumb-sized insects are found in many countries around the world but the dramatic periodical cicadas of the genus Magicicada are found only in eastern North America. There are seven known species with 17- and 13-year life cycles.

Simon believes the 17-year cicadas evolved when the 13-year cicadas, for whatever reason, developed a four-year dormancy period.

She also believes some dramatic climatic disturbance since the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago favored the development of the 17-year cycle. The cicadas locked in the behavior.

"I think it's just an accident that they became periodical," Simon said.

Scientists agree the mass emergency of billions of bugs has allowed the cicadas to survive even though just about anything will eat them.

"We prefer the term 'predator foolhardy' to stupid," Simon said.

But she notes not all their behavior is overly bumbling. For instance, when a male calls a female his buzz takes one tone, and the female makes a flicking sound to answer during a lull. The male's call changes substantially after that.

"He'll start pawing her front legs," she said. His mechanical-sounding whir will change again, to a kind of chuckling. "While he's doing that, he'll mate with her," Simon said.

Video Creates a UFO Stir

May 12, 11:06 am ET 

MEXICO CITY  - The Mexican Air Force has released footage of what a UFO expert said were 11 invisible unidentified flying objects picked up by an infrared camera as they whizzed around a surveillance plane.

A long-time believer in flying saucers, journalist Jaime Maussan told a news conference on Tuesday the objects were real and seemed "intelligent" after they at one point changed direction and surrounded the plane chasing them.

"They were invisible to the eye but they were there, there is no doubt about it. They had mass, they had energy and they were moving about," he said, after showing a 15-minute video he said the Defense Ministry gave him permission to publicize.

The ministry confirmed to The News Source it had provided the video, filmed by the Air Force on March 5 over the eastern coastal state of Campeche.

"We are not alone! This is so weird," one of the pilots can be heard yelling, after the plane's crew switched on an infrared camera to track the objects, first picked up by radar.

The film, recorded by a plane looking for drugs trafficking near the Gulf of Mexico, shows 11 objects as blobs of light that hover in formation or dart about, sometimes disappearing into cloud.

Mexico's most popular nightly news broadcast showed the video on Monday night.

Interviewed by Mausson on another section of the video, the pilots said they grew nervous when the objects, still invisible, turned back during a chase and surrounded the plane.

"There was a moment when ... the screens showed they were behind us, to the left and in front of us. It was at that point that I felt a bit tense," said Maj. Magdaleno Castanon.

Mexico has a long history of fanciful UFO sightings, most of which are dismissed by scientists as space debris, missiles, weather balloons, natural weather phenomena or hoaxes.

http://ak.imgfarm.com/images/the News Source/amdf563739.jpg

Owl Leads Twitchers on Wild Goose Chase

May 12, 11:04 am ET 

WAKEFIELD, England  - Enthusiastic birdwatchers, still celebrating the discovery of rare storks in a Yorkshire village, could not believe their luck when they spotted a large owl perching on a telegraph pole.

The bird seemed to return day after day, maintaining a statuesque stillness at the village of Wrenthorpe near this West Yorkshire town.

But admiration turned to anger when they found that an unidentified prankster had planted a realistic decoy on the pole.

"One chap phoned me and said it had appeared and every day when he went to work it was still there," local bird enthusiast Harold Barrett told the local press.

"Owls can stay in one place for a while, but not that long," he added.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) said it hoped the disappointment would not discourage people from continuing their interest in birds.

"A lot of people became very excited by birdwatching after the rare storks were found and generated such national interest," an RSPB spokeswoman said.

"It is great that they are looking out for birds. Let's just hope that next time they spot something more than a decoy," she added.

Naughty Gnomes Made to Cover Up

May 12, 11:01 am ET 

BARNSLEY, England  - A Barnsley man has covered up his lewd garden gnomes with painted-on swimwear after police warned him he faced arrest for causing public offence.

While most garden gnomes fish or enact scenes of bucolic tranquillity, ex-army sergeant Tony Watson's models in this northern English town bared their breasts and buttocks, prompting complaints from the public.

"It is an offence to display something that is insulting or likely to cause distress," a police spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

"Although some people view the gnomes as a bit of harmless fun, we have to take complaints from members of the public seriously."

One of the gnomes now sports a polka-dot bikini, said local resident John Threlkeld, who passes the gnomes every day on his way to work.

"Tony used filler and paint to cover them up," he said.

Theme Park Tackles Roller-Coaster Phobia

May 12, 10:59 am ET 

BERLIN  - A German theme park will host a seminar on combating fears of roller-coaster rides -- a session one psychologist Wednesday described as helping people cope with their "weaker self."

The Holiday Park in Hassloch, western Germany, said it was responding to requests from thrill-seeking theme park fans who wanted their friends to overcome fears and ride on the flagship "Expedition GeForce" roller-coaster -- the world's steepest.

Psychologist Marc-Roman Trautmann, who will lead the one-day seminar on May 21, told The News Source: "You can't call this kind of thing therapy because people don't have to ride roller-coasters at all if they don't want to."

"The real issue is for people to recognize their weaker self and learn how to cope with it," said the leading specialist from the German Center for Fear of Flying.

The seminar looks likely to be a sell-out with almost all 28 places already gone, the park's spokesman said. One woman even paid one and a half times the normal 90 euros ($107) price on an Internet auction site for a place.

Virgin on Mexican Wall Is No Miracle, Church Says

May 11, 11:07 am ET 

By Tim Gaynor

ENSENADA, Mexico  - Mexico's Catholic Church ruled out any divine origin for an image on a hospital wall that thousands of pilgrims are flocking to venerate in the belief that it shows the country's patron saint.

The shadowy figure, which the faithful say depicts the Virgin of Guadalupe, appears every night when a light is switched on in the patio of a clinic in the Pacific resort of Ensenada.

But Flor Guzman, a spokeswoman for the Tijuana Diocese in which Ensenada falls, said Monday the church did not believe the image was miraculous although it was pleased at the devotion of the pilgrims.

"The church is quite clear that it is not a miracle, but a natural phenomenon that serves to strengthen the faith of the believers," she told The News Source.

The image, which appears to be a shadow, was first reported to hospital authorities on April 19.

"The Catholic Church is not going to report the phenomenon to the Vatican for a thorough analysis because it does not have a supernatural explanation," Guzman said.

The Virgin of Guadalupe has been venerated by successive generations of devout Mexicans since she is said to have first appeared to a shepherd in 1531. She is generally depicted in a gown fringed by rays of light.

Among those flocking to Ensenada are pilgrims with chronic illnesses, some of whom claim to have received miraculous cures.

"I was being treated at the clinic for an asthma attack, but when I came outside to see the Virgin, I stopped wheezing," grandmother Maria Esther Valderrama, 66, said on Sunday night.

"It was definitely a miracle," she added.

Staff at the cottage hospital -- known simply as social security clinic No. 32 -- say up to 1,000 pilgrims keep a vigil at weekends.

They transform the clinic's courtyard into a shrine of devotional candles, flower garlands and printed prayer slips.

Mother of three Maria Hernandez murmured a prayer and crossed herself as the electric light blinked to life, casting a shadowy green outline on the hospital wall.

"I believe in the Virgin with all my heart, and seeing her fills me with indescribable joy," she stammered as she gazed up at the three-foot-high image.

Set two blocks back from a port popular with towering cruise ships, the hospital has drawn pilgrims from the nearby cities of Tijuana and Mexicali, and from as far away as San Diego across the border in southern California.

Boys Prefer Video Games to Toys

May 11, 11:04 am ET 

LOS ANGELES  - Boys would rather play a "G.I. Joe" video game than with "G.I. Joe" action figures, a new study finds. Boys ages 5 to 12 spend more time each week playing video games than playing with traditional toys, market research firm NPD Group said on Tuesday. The survey did not detail how much more time was spent.

Toy categories, like action figures and building sets, were most affected by the increased tendency among boys to play virtual games than real games.

On average, all children in that age group play video games for just over 4 hours per week, NPD said, although one-third of the boys surveyed play for more than 6 hours weekly.

Of those surveyed, 20 percent started playing video games at age 3 or younger, and almost half had started by age 5. NPD said girls tend to spend about as much time playing video games as with traditional toys.

The company also found gaming to be more of a year-round hobby in the southern and western United States, and more of a winter seasonal activity in colder regions like the northeastern and central parts of the country.

NPD said the survey was based on responses from 2,809 adults with children ages 5 to 12 who play games.

One thing remained constant, NPD found. Girls still like Mattel Inc.'s "Barbie," ranking it as both the top toy and video games property.

Do It for Your Country

May 11, 10:56 am ET 

CANBERRA  - Australian couples owe it to their country to have more children and should get on with the job, the nation's treasurer said on Tuesday.

"You go home and do your patriotic duty tonight," Peter Costello said when asked by a journalist if he was "the family-friendly treasurer saying get out there and procreate."

In a federal budget handed down on Tuesday, Costello promised $2,083 for every baby born after June as part of a $13.3 billion "family package" to be distributed over five years.

Costello said two youngsters per couple in the nation of 20 million just wasn't adequate.

"If you can have children it's a good thing to do. You should have...one for your husband, one for your wife, and one for your country," Costello said.

"If you want to fix the aging demographic, you're just back to square after two. You make no net improvement," the former-lawyer and father-of-three said.

Some would have to go one step further by having extra children "for your country" to make up the gap left by friends who "aren't even replicating themselves," the Treasurer said.

Drunken Driver Loses Car, Breaks Booze Record

May 11, 10:52 am ET 

BERLIN  - Losing his license did not stop a drunk German driver from jumping back into his car a day later to buy more of his favorite tipple -- only to be nabbed a second time by police who this time seized the car as well.

Following a tip-off, police had stopped the 51-year-old on Monday, when a breath test showed a blood alcohol level more than 10 times over the legal limit.

"The officers could not remember ever having recorded such a high level," said a police spokesman in Hagen, western Germany. The man's license was taken away.

The next morning, the man again bought sparkling wine and drove home. Police again stopped him and recorded an even higher alcohol level -- almost double the amount considered life-threatening to most people.

"This time, the officers confiscated his car too," the spokesman said. The man will be charged.

3D Church Opened to Woo Internet Faithful

May 11, 10:58 am ET 

LONDON  - Christians in Britain opened a zany 3D Internet church on Tuesday, billed as a first chance for believers to log on and worship interactively.

Bishop of London Richard Chartres gave the inaugural sermon -- via a speech-bubble from his cartoon persona -- at the first service on the "Church of Fools" at www.shipoffools.com.

"No one has ever before created a stand-alone church where you can log on as a worshipper and join in however you like -- to kneel, cross yourself, sing hymns or shout 'Hallelujah,"' Web site deputy editor Stephen Goddard told The News Source.

Some two dozen believers signed up as cartoon worshippers for the service, sponsored by the Methodist Church but organized by the multi-denominational "Ship of Fools" project which says its name is deliberately self-deprecating to avoid pomposity.

As well as worshipping, those logged on were able to move around the church and down to its crypt, talk to each other, and give money to a collection plate -- via mobile phone.

With space for just 25 full worshippers, the site also allows up to 500 "ghosts" to drift around the church anonymously.

"This is an experiment to see if online worship can work, Goddard added. "Can we make something sacred from an information stream?"

The online church is the latest in a series of initiatives by Christians in Britain to bring the church into the modern age. Last year, the first mobile, inflatable church opened in England, complete with blow-up organ and polyvinyl pulpit.

England: Superiors Gave Iraq Abuse Orders 

2 hours, 18 minutes ago 
Add U.S. National - 

By ESTES THOMPSON, News Source Writer 

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - The Army private facing a court-martial for being photographed with naked Iraqi prisoners says she was following orders to create psychological pressure on them. 

The News Source 

Slideshow: Iraq Prisoner Abuse Investigation

Latest headlines: 
� Families Hail GIs Facing Court-Martial 
AP - 11 minutes ago 
� Family of Executed American Angry with U.S. Govt. 
The News Source - 17 minutes ago 
� Lawmakers Say New Abuse Photos Disturbing 
AP - 18 minutes ago 
Special Coverage

Pfc. Lynndie England told KCNC-TV in Denver on Tuesday that her superiors gave her specific instructions on how to pose for the photos. Asked who gave the orders, she would say only, "Persons in my chain of command." 

In photographs that have been shown worldwide, England, 21, is seen smiling, cigarette in her mouth, as she leans forward and points at the genitals of a naked, hooded Iraqi. Another photo taken at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison shows her holding a leash that encircles the neck of a naked Iraqi man lying on his side. 

"I was instructed by persons in higher rank to `stand there, hold this leash, look at the camera,' and they took picture for PsyOps (psychological operations)," she told the station. 

"I didn't really, I mean, want to be in any pictures," she said. She also said she thought "it was kind of weird." 

The interview with England, a military reservist from West Virginia, was taped Tuesday in North Carolina. England, who is now at Fort Bragg, also met Tuesday with one of a team of Denver lawyers who have volunteered to take her case. 

Asked whether worse things happened than those already seen on the photos, she said yes but declined to elaborate. 

She said her superiors praised the photos and "just told us, 'Hey, you're doing great, keep it up.'" 

England faces a military court-martial that includes charges such as conspiracy to maltreat prisoners and assault consummated by battery, and could face punishment ranging from a reprimand to more than 15 years in prison. 

No date has been set for a hearing in the case. 

Six other soldiers from the 372nd Military Police Company are also charged. One, Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits of Hyndman, Pa., will face a court-martial in Baghdad next week. 

"We don't feel like we were doing things that we weren't supposed to because we were told to do them," England said. "We think everything was justified because we were instructed to do this and to do that." 

After meeting with England, attorney Giorgio Ra'Shadd said she shouldn't be used as a scapegoat by the military. 

"You don't see my client doing anything abusive at all," Ra'Shadd said in an interview. "I think she was ordered to smile." 

Ra'Shadd said England was pulled into the situations by intelligence agents who subverted the military chain of command. He said they used England to humiliate the men being photographed so they could show the pictures to more important prisoners and threaten them with the same treatment. 

"The spooks took over the jail," said Ra'Shadd. Now in private practice, he was formerly an Army lawyer assigned to the civil affairs and psychological operations command at Fort Bragg. 

Also Tuesday, Pentagon (news - web sites) officials told a Senate committee that the prison conditions shown in the pictures were confined to a few low-level soldiers and intelligence officers. 

But Ra'Shadd contended that the blame for the scandal lies high up in the chain of command, arguing that only the highest-ranking officials could have allowed civilian intelligence to override military command structure.

EU Aiming for Biometric Passports by End-2005

Wed May 12,12:05 PM ET 
Add World 

By Caroline Drees, Security Correspondent 

WASHINGTON  - The European Union (news - web sites) expects to start issuing new biometric passports with digital photographs and fingerprints by the end of 2005 and hopes the United States will continue to allow visa-free travel as a result, a top EU official said on Wednesday. 

Under current U.S. legislation, visa-free travel for 27 U.S. allies -- including many European Union states -- is in jeopardy. It requires all new passports from these "visa waiver" countries to contain a biometric identifier, like a fingerprint or a face-scan, from Oct. 26, a deadline most of the states say they cannot meet. 

The law was passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to improve security. 

"We have come to a consensus that we should introduce in our own travel documents two biometric features," said EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Antonio Vitorino, adding the features would be a digital photograph and a fingerprint. 

"From the European side, we expect to have our legislation in this respect fully adopted by the end of this year ... so that member states will start issuing the new passports with biometric features ... by the end of 2005," he told reporters. 

Both European and U.S. officials are eager for Congress to extend the deadline. Unless this happens, the United States risks a huge shortfall in traveler spending and a consular nightmare when millions of visitors suddenly require visas. 

Some 15.1 million people came into the United States under the visa waiver program last year, and their spending accounted for about two-thirds of spending by overseas visitors. 

The Department of Homeland Security has asked Congress to give visa waiver countries two more years to start issuing biometric passports. 

Vitorino praised U.S. efforts to extend the Oct. 26 deadline. Now that Europe has a clear timeline for issuing the new passports, he said: "We expect that the visa waiver program will be kept for the member states that already benefit from it." 

The Oct. 26 deadline only applies to passports issued after that date. Citizens of visa waiver countries who hold valid passports issued before Oct. 26 will be grandfathered, allowing them visa-free travel until their passports expire.

Company Introducing Low-Carb Wines Thu May 13, 9:03 AM ET 

By BRUCE SCHREINER, News Source Writer LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Brown-Forman has squeezed carbs out of its newest wines. Even the brand names reinforce the carb-counting craze. The spirits and winemaker expects to make a splash with its low-carb wines, which will reach shelves nationally starting around Memorial Day. The wines are named after the grams of carbohydrates in a 5-ounce glass. One brand is called One.6 Chardonnay; the other is One.9 Merlot. Normally, a 5-ounce glass of wine has 3 to 6 grams of carbs, the company said. The low-carb brands have the same alcohol content as other wines. Brown-Forman says it's the first introduction of low-carb wines in this country, where carb-light products are fast becoming a staple due to the popularity of Atkins diet and similar eating plans. The Louisville-based company, the nation's eighth-leading wine producer, hopes to use its head start on the competition to gain a permanent foothold as the leader in the low-carb wine market. "Because of the branding efforts and because of the quality of the wine, we think we have a chance to really own this space," said Andrew M. Varga, vice president and global brand director of Brown-Forman Wines. Varga said the company expects at least 500,000 cases to sell in the first year. "A high side could be you-pick-the-number," he said. Brown-Forman is picking up on the success of low-carb beer. Anheuser-Busch introduced the first major brand in the low-carb beer niche with its Michelob Ultra. Other beermakers have entered the low-carb market. Cara Morrison, the Brown-Forman winemaker in California who developed the brands, said most consumers won't notice any difference in taste. "They have a wonderful fruitiness to them," she said. The low-carb wines, which will sell for around $9.99 a bottle, required slight production modifications. Morrison removed as much sugar as possible from the grapes during fermentation. She blended the wine to maximize the full flavor of the grapes while producing the low-carb count. Her goal was to "give the sensation of sweetness without it being there," she said. One.6 Chardonnay features melon and citrus flavors. One.9 Merlot has smooth, spicy flavors with hints of blackberry and cherry fruit. Brown-Forman put nearly $1 million into research and development. The company plans to unveil the two brands with a $5 million advertising blitz in national newspapers and magazines. It intends to follow up with a low-carb One.9 Cabernet Sauvignon this summer. It hopes the brand names catch on. Varga said it may become as common to order a One.6 Chardonnay as it is to order a Jack Daniel's or Southern Comfort - two of Brown-Forman's most popular spirits. "We think this is a chance to go out with a unique name and some support behind it to potentially badge a wine brand and see if that doesn't have some great traction," Varga said. A California wine retailer was more skeptical. Gregory Condes, who works in wine sales with K&L Wine Merchants in San Francisco, said low-carb wines would be a curiosity among wine drinkers. "It will be more of a novelty," he said. "If it has any success whatsoever, it's going to rely purely on the marketing strategy, not because the market is really asking for it." Condes said Brown-Forman was getting on the low-carb bandwagon and "really stretching it a bit too far." He said he has never had anyone ask for a low-carb wine. "The innate characteristics of wine itself already has healthy attributes as it is," he said. "They are not interested in the carbs as much." 

Justice Dept.: DNA tests for guilty jam system

Thu May 13, 7:00 AM ET

By Richard Willing, USA TODAY 

Guilty convicts who know they won't be exonerated are joining the innocent to ask courts and prosecutors to order DNA tests, the Justice Department (news - web sites) has told Congress.

� Kerry wrapping up health care swing 
� Bush touts record on education 
� Losing companies contest voting project in S.C. 
� Kerry tries to stay focused 
� More Iraq money wanted 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Search USATODAY.com 
Snapshots 
USA TODAY Snapshot 
How much noise do singing cicadas make?More USA TODAY Snapshots 

The DNA tests for the guilty are tying up crime labs and re-traumatizing the victims of rapes and other violent crimes, often years after the crimes occurred, according to a department "views" letter written to sway congressional opinion.

"The creation of a new post-conviction (DNA testing) remedy can readily result in abuse by convicted criminals," wrote William Moschella, assistant attorney general for legislative affairs. 

The criminals' motives in seeking tests that will not exonerate them is to "game the system or retaliate against the victims of their crimes," Moschella wrote.

Moschella offered no statistics, and no independent numbers exist on how many DNA appeals are in the courts. But Moschella did cite recent cases from St Louis. Beginning in 2001, prosecutors there ordered tests on evidence from rapes dating back nearly 20 years. They found that DNA from the crime scenes matched five men who had been convicted of the crimes, though it exonerated two other convicts.

But the testing required rape victims, some of them now elderly, to give DNA samples and to answer questions about their sex lives. Some sobbed and collapsed, while others grew despondent, the memo said. One victim fled the city.

Moschella sent the letter April 28 to six key members of Congress, including Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., his counterpart in the House of Representatives. Moschella wrote that his goal was to discourage them from supporting a bill that would make it easier for federal convicts to petition courts for DNA tests to challenge their convictions. The bill, which also would authorize more than $1 billion in spending on DNA-based crime fighting programs, passed the House last year and is before the Senate. 

DNA, a cellular acid that contains an individual's unique genetic code, has been used since the late 1980s to match biological evidence found at crime scenes to perpetrators. It also has been valuable in challenging convictions because in some cases, DNA tests can show that someone other than the convict committed a crime.

Since 1989, 143 state convicts have been exonerated after DNA tests cast doubt on their convictions, says the Innocence Project, a New York City group that specializes in DNA cases.

In response, 34 states have passed laws making it easier for convicts to petition courts for DNA testing. At issue in the federal legislation is whether a convict seeking a DNA test must show that the test would prove his innocence or only that it would have created reasonable doubt in the minds of a jury.

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, supports the "reasonable doubt" standard. He called the Justice Department's letter "misguided" and said it "shows they are still part of the problem."

Monday, the state prosecutor's office in Miami announced plans to review 500 felony convictions obtained before DNA testing of suspects became common and to offer free tests to those who could be exonerated. Since 2000, prosecutors in St. Louis, San Diego and Houston have begun similar programs.

No figures are kept on how often DNA tests reconfirm a convict's guilt. But anecdotal evidence suggests that is often the case.

The Innocence Project does extensive screening to determine a convict's innocence before it takes his case. But one-third to one-half of those tested nevertheless are shown to be guilty, the project reports.

DNA tests have reconfirmed guilt in several high-profile cases.

In Texas in 2000, then-Gov. George W. Bush granted DNA testing to convicted killer Ricky McGinn before his scheduled execution. The tests reconfirmed his guilt in the rape and murder of his 12-year-old stepdaughter and tied McGinn to two other murders for which he had not been tried.

In Massachusetts in 2002, supporters raised $30,000 to pay for DNA tests they hoped would clear model inmate Benjamin LaGuer of a rape 19 years before. LaGuer, who insisted he was innocent, was featured on ABC-TV's 20/20 program and attracted the support of authors, educators and other Massachusetts intellectuals.

The tests confirmed LaGuer's guilt. He says police must have manipulated the tests to obtain that result.

Handcuffed Man Swims From Alcatraz to SF 

Thu May 13, 8:33 PM ET 
Add Strange News - 

By The News Source 

SAN FRANCISCO - A handcuffed fitness expert defied chilly waters and swam from Alcatraz to San Francisco in an effort to raise funds for diabetes research. 

It took Brian Friedman, 54 minutes, 20 seconds to complete his stunt titled "Escape from Diabetes." 

"People with diabetes often feel they are shackled by the disease," he said Wednesday after completing the 1 1/2-mile stunt in 50-degree water. In addition to the cuffs, he was wearing a T-shirt, black Spandex shorts and a red swim cap. 

Friedman, 42, doesn't have diabetes but swam in honor of his grandfather, who lost both legs to the disease and died in 1988. Friedman has his own personal training business, Training on the Beach, based in Alameda.

High Gasoline Prices Mute America's Love for Big SUVs

Thu May 13, 3:29 PM ET

By Michael Ellis

DETROIT  - Some car buyers are taking diesel-powered Volkswagens for a test drive; others are trading in their sport utility vehicles for family 
sedans, or opting for a model with a smaller engine.

The recent rise in U.S. gasoline prices to record levels has Americans shopping for more fuel-efficient cars, and has at least dampened their love for SUVs 
which some consider the biggest gas guzzlers in suburbia.

"This is definitely different. It's all over the news. I guess people just figure that prices will never go down," said Tim Murphy, the new car sales manager at 
Toyota of Santa Barbara in Goleta, California.

CarMax Group Inc., which operates 51 used car and 12 new car dealerships across the United States, cited gasoline prices on Wednesday as one possible 
reason for weaker sales over the past few weeks. CarMax cut its earnings outlook, sending its shares down more than 13 percent on Wednesday, and the stock 
of its competitors down between 2 and 4 percent.

The average price at the pump hit a record high, unadjusted for inflation, of $1.95 per gallon for regular gasoline, up about 45 cents from a year ago, 
according to AAA. In California, the average price was $2.27 a gallon for regular, the motorist group said.

To top it off, gasoline prices have yet to hit their highest for the year, with the traditional peak summer driving season not set to start until Memorial Day 
weekend later this month, the U.S. Energy Information Administration has said.

Detroit's automakers last week added new incentives on SUVs to cut inventories of unsold models, despite already generous offers, after sales in April were 
weaker than many had expected.

The higher prices could shift demand toward more fuel-efficient models, which had been poor sellers in the past, said Ford Motor Co. Chairman and Chief 
Executive Bill Ford Jr.

Gas prices could "help drive customer behavior the way you'd like to see it," Ford said, when asked what the company was doing to improve the fuel economy 
of its vehicles, at the company's annual meeting on Thursday.

WAR JITTERS

Also hitting new and used vehicle sales is the war in Iraq (news - web sites) and the slow pace of job growth, car dealers and industry officials said.

"Our business has been at levels lower than historical levels for the last few months. What part of that gas prices play is very hard to determine," said Steve 
Whitener, co-owner of Briarwood Ford in Saline, Michigan.

In years past, when prices at the pump spiked, sales of SUVs continued to climb. But this time around, buyers seem more cautious, said Allen Levenson, vice 
president of sales and marketing with Asbury Automotive Group Inc., which operates 140 car franchises in the U.S.

"This is the first time that I've seen a noticeable shift," Levenson said.

Some consumers are trading in large SUVs for smaller models, Levenson said. "There is a little slowdown in the large SUVs. They're buying the smaller 
SUVs or the passenger cars."

Hefty incentives, including General Motors Corp.'s "Truckfest" promotion, contributed to a 1.5 percent drop in the average price of large SUVs in April from 
March, according to Edmunds.com. Prices for compact cars rose 2.4 percent in April from March, Edmunds.com said.

DIESEL AND HYBRIDS

Consumers are taking a second look at Volkswagen's diesel-powered cars, which get 40 miles per gallon or more, said Pat Foley, the used car manager at Rey 
Reece Volkswagen in Portland, Oregon.

"The interest has definitely increased," Foley said. "I would buy 10 used diesels today if I could find them."

Diesel costs about 15 to 20 cents per gallon cheaper than gasoline. But diesel cars are not sold in several states, including California, due to higher emissions 
of smog-forming nitrogen oxide.

Volkswagen had the U.S. market for diesels cornered, but DaimlerChrysler AG's Mercedes recently launched a diesel version of its E-Class luxury sedan, 
and Jeep plans to launch a diesel Liberty SUV this autumn.

Murphy said his California Toyota dealership can't get enough of the Prius hybrid gas-electric car, which gets 55 miles per gallon. In contrast, sales of the 
Sequoia and Land Cruiser large SUVs, which get about 15 or 16 miles per gallon, have softened, he said.

One dealer, who asked not to be named, said some used car wholesalers have stopped buying large SUVs.

"There's so many people who have them, and they're going to unload them, because of the gas," he said.

Abuse Scandal Focuses on Bush Foundation 1 hour, 5 minutes ago Add White House - 

By PETE YOST, News Source Writer WASHINGTON - The Iraq (news - web sites) prisoner abuse scandal shifted Sunday to the question of whether the Bush administration set up a legal foundation that opened the door for the mistreatment. Within months of the Sept. 11 attacks, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales reportedly wrote President Bush (news - web sites) a memo about the terrorism fight and prisoners' rights under the Geneva Conventions. "In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions," Gonzales wrote, according to the report in Newsweek magazine. Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) "hit the roof" when he read the memo, according to the account. Asked about the Gonzales memo, the White House said, "It is the policy of the United States to comply with all of our laws and our treaty obligations." The roots of the scandal lay in a decision, approved last year by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a classified operation for aggressive interrogations to Iraqi prisoners, a program that had been focused on the hunt for al-Qaida, The New Yorker magazine reported. The Pentagon (news - web sites) said that story was "filled with error and anonymous conjecture" and called it "outlandish, conspiratorial." National security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites), in a German television interview, said of The New Yorker report, "As far as we can tell, there's really nothing to the story." Powell said Sunday that there were discussions at high levels inside the Bush administration last fall about information from the International Committee of the Red Cross alleging prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, the focal point of the scandal. "We knew that the ICRC had concerns, and in accordance with the matter in which the ICRC does its work, it presented those concerns directly to the command in Baghdad," Powell said on "Fox News Sunday." "And I know that some corrective action was taken with respect to those concerns." Powell added, "All of the reports we received from ICRC having to do with the situation in Guantanamo, the situation in Afghanistan (news - web sites) or the situation in Iraq was the subject of discussion within the administration, at our principals' committee meetings" and at National Security Council meetings. Congressional critics suggested the administration may have unwisely imported to Iraq techniques from the war on al-Qaida. "There is a sort of morphing of the rules of treatment," said Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del. "We can treat al-Qaida this way, and we can't treat prisoners captured this way, but where do insurgents fit? This is a dangerous slope." The abuse scandal goes "much higher" than the young American guards watching over Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Biden said on NBC's "Meet the Press." In early 2002, the White House announced that Taliban and al-Qaida detainees would not be afforded prisoner-of-war status, but that the United States would apply the Geneva Conventions to the war in Afghanistan. Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites), said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that the reports that Rumsfeld approved a secret program on interrogation for use in Iraq raise "this issue to a whole new level." Asked about the Gonzales memo, Powell said: "I wouldn't comment on the specific memo without rereading it again. But ... the Geneva Accord is an important standard in international law and we have to comply with it." Powell, interviewed from Jordan by NBC, left open the possibility of problems up the line from the prison guards who engaged in abuse. "I don't see yet any indication that there was a command-climate problem higher up," the secretary said. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., expressed concern over the shift in responsibility for the scandal at the prison, where military intelligence personnel were given authority over the military police. "We need to take this as far up as it goes," McCain said on "Meet the Press." Former CIA (news - web sites) counterterrorism official Vincent Cannistraro said it was a major miscalculation to apply interrogation methods that were specifically designed to extract information from al-Qaida prisoners to Abu Ghraib and other holding centers inside Iraq. "It was probably the most counterproductive move that the policy-makers could have made and it showed the complete misunderstanding of the Iraq culture," said Cannistraro. The reasons for importing the techniques, Cannistraro said, were the frustrations at the policy level in Washington that not enough information was being obtained about weapons of mass destruction and the frustration over the lack of information about the resistance in Iraq. ___ On the Net: Taguba report: http://wid.ap.org/documents/iraq/taguba.pdf

Abuse Scandal Focuses on Bush Foundation 1 hour, 5 minutes ago Add White House - 

By PETE YOST, News Source Writer WASHINGTON - The Iraq (news - web sites) prisoner abuse scandal shifted Sunday to the question of whether the Bush administration set up a legal foundation that opened the door for the mistreatment. Within months of the Sept. 11 attacks, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales reportedly wrote President Bush (news - web sites) a memo about the terrorism fight and prisoners' rights under the Geneva Conventions. "In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions," Gonzales wrote, according to the report in Newsweek magazine. Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) "hit the roof" when he read the memo, according to the account. Asked about the Gonzales memo, the White House said, "It is the policy of the United States to comply with all of our laws and our treaty obligations." The roots of the scandal lay in a decision, approved last year by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a classified operation for aggressive interrogations to Iraqi prisoners, a program that had been focused on the hunt for al-Qaida, The New Yorker magazine reported. The Pentagon (news - web sites) said that story was "filled with error and anonymous conjecture" and called it "outlandish, conspiratorial." National security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites), in a German television interview, said of The New Yorker report, "As far as we can tell, there's really nothing to the story." Powell said Sunday that there were discussions at high levels inside the Bush administration last fall about information from the International Committee of the Red Cross alleging prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, the focal point of the scandal. "We knew that the ICRC had concerns, and in accordance with the matter in which the ICRC does its work, it presented those concerns directly to the command in Baghdad," Powell said on "Fox News Sunday." "And I know that some corrective action was taken with respect to those concerns." Powell added, "All of the reports we received from ICRC having to do with the situation in Guantanamo, the situation in Afghanistan (news - web sites) or the situation in Iraq was the subject of discussion within the administration, at our principals' committee meetings" and at National Security Council meetings. Congressional critics suggested the administration may have unwisely imported to Iraq techniques from the war on al-Qaida. "There is a sort of morphing of the rules of treatment," said Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del. "We can treat al-Qaida this way, and we can't treat prisoners captured this way, but where do insurgents fit? This is a dangerous slope." The abuse scandal goes "much higher" than the young American guards watching over Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Biden said on NBC's "Meet the Press." In early 2002, the White House announced that Taliban and al-Qaida detainees would not be afforded prisoner-of-war status, but that the United States would apply the Geneva Conventions to the war in Afghanistan. Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites), said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that the reports that Rumsfeld approved a secret program on interrogation for use in Iraq raise "this issue to a whole new level." Asked about the Gonzales memo, Powell said: "I wouldn't comment on the specific memo without rereading it again. But ... the Geneva Accord is an important standard in international law and we have to comply with it." Powell, interviewed from Jordan by NBC, left open the possibility of problems up the line from the prison guards who engaged in abuse. "I don't see yet any indication that there was a command-climate problem higher up," the secretary said. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., expressed concern over the shift in responsibility for the scandal at the prison, where military intelligence personnel were given authority over the military police. "We need to take this as far up as it goes," McCain said on "Meet the Press." Former CIA (news - web sites) counterterrorism official Vincent Cannistraro said it was a major miscalculation to apply interrogation methods that were specifically designed to extract information from al-Qaida prisoners to Abu Ghraib and other holding centers inside Iraq. "It was probably the most counterproductive move that the policy-makers could have made and it showed the complete misunderstanding of the Iraq culture," said Cannistraro. The reasons for importing the techniques, Cannistraro said, were the frustrations at the policy level in Washington that not enough information was being obtained about weapons of mass destruction and the frustration over the lack of information about the resistance in Iraq. ___ On the Net: Taguba report: http://wid.ap.org/documents/iraq/taguba.pdf

IOC Clears Transsexuals for Competition 

34 minutes ago

LAUSANNE, Switzerland - Transsexuals were cleared Monday to compete in the Olympics for the first time. Under a proposal approved by the IOC (news - web sites) executive board, athletes who have undergone sex-change surgery will be eligible for the Olympics if their new gender has been legally recognized and they have gone through a minimum two-year period of postoperative hormone therapy. 

The decision, which covers both male-to-female and female-to-male cases, goes into effect starting with the Athens Olympics in August. 

The IOC had put off a decision in February, saying more time was needed to consider all the medical issues. 

Some members had been concerned whether male-to-female transsexuals would have physical advantages competing against women. 

Men have higher levels of testosterone and greater muscle-to-fat ratio and heart and lung capacity. However, doctors say, testosterone levels and muscle mass drop after hormone therapy and sex-change surgery. 

IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said the situation of transsexuals competing in high-level sports was "rare but becoming more common." 

IOC medical director Patrick Schamasch said no specific sports had been singled out by the ruling. 

"Any sport may be touched by this problem," he said. "Until now, we didn't have any rules or regulations. We needed to establish some sort of policy." 

Until 1999, the IOC conducted gender verification tests at the Olympics but the screenings were dropped before the 2000 Sydney Games (news - web sites). 

One of the best known cases of transsexuals in sports involves Renee Richards, formerly Richard Raskind, who played on the women's tennis tour in the 1970s. 

In March, Australia's Mianne Bagger became the first transsexual to play in a pro golf tournament. 

Michelle Dumaresq, formerly Michael, has competed in mountain bike racing for Canada. 

Oil Prices Surge Close to $42 a Barrel 

49 minutes ago 
Add Business - 

By BRUCE STANLEY, News Source Business Writer 

LONDON - Oil prices surged close to $42 a barrel Monday as markets shrugged off a Saudi proposal that OPEC (news - web sites) raise its official output target by 6 percent. 

Related Quotes 
DB
DJIA
NASDAQ
^SPC 76.69
9906.91
1876.64
1084.10 -0.26
-105.96
-27.61
-11.60

Get Quotes 
delayed 20 mins - disclaimer 
Quote Data provided by The News Source

Analysts argued that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries must do more - by adding real barrels to world supplies - if it expects to curb the relentless rise in crude prices. 

A senior OPEC delegate, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the group was so worried about overheated prices that it might consider making a larger increase in its target than Saudi Arabia initially suggested last week. 

OPEC, which supplies one-third of the world's oil, plans emergency talks this weekend in Amsterdam to discuss a possible target increase of 1.5 million barrels. Because OPEC already exceeds its current target by more than this amount, analysts say such a move would only legitimize some of OPEC's overproduction and do nothing to trim prices. 

"It's not that it won't be enough. It's irrelevant," said Leo Drollas, chief economist of the Center for Global Energy Studies in London. 

Futures contracts of U.S. light crude for June delivery reached $41.85 a barrel in New York, before retreating to $41.55, up 17 cents from Friday's close. It was a new record close on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, July contracts of North Sea Brent reached $38.50 a barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange, but were up just 4 cents by evening at $37.90. 

June gasoline futures also reached a new high Monday in Nymex trading, closing 0.69 cent higher at $1.417 per gallon. The average retail price of regular unleaded gasoline in the United States is $1.97 per gallon, according to AAA. 

In other Nymex trading, June heating oil was essentially unchanged at $1.043 per gallon, while natural gas futures rose 2.3 cents to $6.424 per 1,000 cubic feet. 

Pressure is building on OPEC to dip into some of its spare production capacity to boost actual output - not just its target. Markets are stretched by unexpectedly strong demand and spooked by turmoil in Iraq (news - web sites) and uncertainty elsewhere in the oil-rich Middle East. 

The assassination Monday of the head of the Iraqi Governing Council underscored the political instability in that country, which has the second-largest proven crude reserves after Saudi Arabia. Izzadine Saleem was the second and highest-ranking member of Iraq's U.S.-appointed council to be assassinated. 

The senior OPEC delegate said representatives at the group's upcoming meeting might discuss raising their target by more than 6 percent. 

"There's no fixed position in terms of numbers," the delegate said. 

Most OPEC members are cashing in on current high prices by pumping an estimated 2 million barrels above their target of 23.5 million barrels. However, if prices stay high, they could damage economic growth and weaken demand for crude. High prices also encourage non-OPEC producers such as Russia and Mexico to pump more oil of their own, worsening the risk that prices may collapse due to oversupply. 

"We are very worried and very concerned about the situation in the oil market, and we know we will do what we have to bring back stability," the OPEC delegate said. 

In spite of OPEC's efforts to micromanage oil supplies, the current robust demand for crude has caught it by surprise. Any decision to increase its production target would mark a major policy reversal. OPEC only just decided at the end of March to reduce its target by 4 percent to 23.5 million barrels. 

The group had feared that seasonal demand would fall during the spring quarter, and it acted preemptively to prevent an oversupply of crude. But instead of falling, demand for oil and refined products intensified in the United States, Europe and China. 

Bottlenecks at U.S. refineries, heavy speculative investment in oil futures and concerns about security in the Middle East - including Saudi Arabia, OPEC's most powerful member - added fuel to soaring prices. The price for a barrel of OPEC's benchmark blend of crudes has risen to $37.67, or 51 percent more than the official targeted price of $25. 

Regardless of what OPEC decides to do with its production target, it should boost actual output by around 500,000 barrels, said Adam Sieminski, an oil price strategist at Deutsche Bank in London. 

"That certainly won't be enough to crash prices, but it might take the upside away," he said. 

Drollas estimates that the 10 OPEC members bound by output quotas have a combined 3.2 million barrels in spare production capacity. This excludes Iraq, which doesn't participate in the group's production agreements. 

The Saudis account for most of this spare capacity. 

"Saudi Arabia alone could boost production by 2 million barrels, and it doesn't take that long. But the question is, will they want to do that," he said. "No one wants to go flat out." 

Scientist Says He Knows Why Earth Wobbles 

Mon May 17,11:05 AM ET

RENO, Nev. - A Reno scientist and his team of researchers have uncovered the mystery of why the Earth wobbles on its axis as it spins through space. Geoff Blewitt, a geophysicist at the University of Nevada, Reno, said the discovery provides scientists with another means to determine whether Earth is undergoing global warming. 

Related Links
� Study Abstract (Geophysical Research Letters)

Researchers have used models and global positioning system (GPS) technology for more than a decade to track the movement of water from melting ice masses, the oceans and the atmosphere that cause the Earth to bulge at its equator and the North Pole to shift slightly, he told the Reno Gazette-Journal. 

In recent years, however, Blewitt and his colleagues developed computer software that analyzes GPS signals more precisely, allowing them to measure changes in the shape of the Earth within a few millimeters, or about three-twentieths of an inch. 

"So instead of using models, we actually observe bulges in the Earth's shape directly and relate it to the wobble," Blewitt said. 

Blewitt and his fellow researchers, Richard Gross of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Peter Clarke and David Lavallee of the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, have published their findings in an article published in the April 1 edition of Geophysical Research Letters. 

Blewitt will present his groups findings Thursday at an international science conference in Montreal. 

"When people think of GPS, they usually think of finding a car on a road somewhere, not measuring the whole diameter of the Earth within a few millimeters," he said. 

"But it's just been recent advancements university researchers developed in the technology of GPS that has allowed us to do that." 

It provides a new method of tracking where water is moving around the planet, Blewitt said. 

"Just by looking at the Earth's shape, we can see where water is moving from the ocean and where it gets deposited on land," he said. "It gives us the ability to measure how much the Earth's climate system is changing." 

N.Y. Among Finalists for 2012 Olympics 

43 minutes ago

By STEPHEN WILSON, News Source Sports Writer 

LAUSANNE, Switzerland - New York and four European capitals - London, Madrid, Moscow and Paris - were selected as finalists Tuesday in the race to host the 2012 Olympics. Four cities failed to make the cut: Havana; Istanbul, Turkey; Leipzig, Germany, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 

The field was trimmed by the International Olympic Committee (news - web sites) executive board based on a report assessing the technical capabilities of the nine cities. 

The unanimous decision, announced by IOC president Jacques Rogge, kicks off a 14-month race culminating with the selection of the host city by the full IOC assembly in Singapore in July 2005. 

Four cities - Paris, London, Madrid and New York - had been considered virtually certain of making the list. Moscow was the wild card, benefiting from its experience as host of the 1980 Olympics. 

Geography favors a European city for 2012 after the 2008 Summer Olympics (news - web sites) in Asia (Beijing) and 2010 Winter Games in North America (Vancouver, British Columbia). 

Paris, which hosted the Olympics in 1900 and 1924, is viewed as the front-runner. The French capital successfully hosted soccer's World Cup in 1998 and the world track and field championships in 2003, and is seen by IOC members as having paid its dues after failed bids for the 1992 and 2008 Olympics. 

London, which staged the games in 1908 and 1948, is considered a main challenger with a bid featuring several famous sports venues and tourist landmarks - including tennis at Wimbledon (news - web sites) and triathlon in Hyde Park. 

Madrid is the only major European capital which has never hosted the Olympics, though Barcelona staged the 1992 games. 

New York, which has never held the Olympics, has to contend with anti-American sentiment fueled by the invasion of Iraq (news - web sites), as well as the geographical disadvantage of the 2010 Winter Olympics (news - web sites) in Canada. The IOC is often reluctant to award consecutive Olympics to the same continent. 

Rogge said the executive board could make a further cut next May if an IOC evaluation commission finds any "serious shortcomings" with any of the five finalists. 

"What we have done today is retained five cities which we believe will deliver, but we will have to check if they do deliver," Rogge said. 

There were no major surprises in the elimination of four cities. 

Leipzig was disadvantaged by its small size and shortage of hotel accommodation. Istanbul, making a fourth straight bid, did not make much of an impact. 

Rio, hoping to become the first city in South America to host the Olympics, has a major crime problem. In addition, Brazil is likely to be awarded soccer's 2014 World Cup - it would be a major challenge to host both events so close to each other. 

"If we could not take up the candidates of Turkey, Cuba, Germany or Brazil, it was absolutely not an indication we do not trust these countries," Rogge said. "It's just that their file at this time was not considered good enough." 

On the eve of the decision, Rogge said the goal was "separating the boys from the men." 

"There is a whole set of criteria," he said, "but the bottom line is ultimately whether a city has the ability of staging the games." 

The process appeared to favor big, modern cities with established infrastructure, reliable transport services, good security and plenty of hotel beds. 

The nine bidders had been listed as "applicant cities." Those accepted on Tuesday became official candidate cities. Each finalist must pay the IOC $500,000 to help cover the cost of the remaining judging and selection process. 

An IOC evaluation commission will compile a thorough report on the bids before the Singapore meeting. Since the Salt Lake City bid scandal, IOC members are banned from visiting bid cities. 

Three members of the 15-member board were excluded from Tuesday's decision because they come from countries with bid cities: Germany's Thomas Bach, Russia's Vitaly Smirnov and Jim Easton of the United States.

9/11 Panel Cites Communication Flaws 

11 minutes ago 
Add U.S. National - 

By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN, News Source Writer 

NEW YORK - Rescuers on Sept. 11 were forced to make rapid-fire, life-and-death decisions based on incomplete communications, according to a new report by the federal commission investigating the attacks. 

The News Source 

Slideshow: September 11

Two days of hearings by the commission investigating the terrorist attacks began Tuesday with a stark warning from the commission's staff: "The details we will be presenting may be painful for you to see and hear." 

In a vivid departure from previous commission hearings, the panel will revisit the jarring sights and sounds of the attack and its aftermath. Videotapes to be aired at the hearings show the confusing, rushed recovery efforts, and the recollections of those who survived. 

One critical issue - early public address announcements in Tower 2 telling workers to remain at their offices - is recounted verbatim by a survivor. 

A 26-page staff report reconstructing events through first-person survivor accounts found: 

_ A fire chief failed to notice a critical second button on a device that carried radio signals up the buildings, leaving the chief to wrongly believe the equipment wasn't working. It was, and was later used by other fire personnel in Tower 2, the south tower. 

_ Other communications gaps that day included a lack of coordination between the police and fire departments, a crush of radio traffic that sometimes blotted out information, and an inability to share information effectively between on-scene officials and 911 phone operators. 

_ A helicopter rescue of trapped workers on the upper floors was not a practical option, due to various equipment attached to the roof, and the heat and smoke of the fire below. 

_ While many of the safety procedures put in place after the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center helped employees escape, others proved ineffective or possibly even dangerous in response to a very different type of attack eight years later. 

_ One survivor, Brian Clark, president of Euro Brokers Relief Fund, said the PA system advised: "Your attention please, ladies and gentlemen, Building 2 is secure. There is no need to evacuate Building 2. If you are in the midst of evacuation, you may use the re-entry doors and the elevators to return to your office. Repeat, Building 2 is secure." 

The report offers no concrete explanation for that direction. But it does suggest two possible reasons: a concern for workers being injured by falling debris from the other tower, and the knowledge that in the 1993 bombing, many of the injuries were sustained in the crowded evacuation of the building.

Diabetes Linked to Higher Alzheimer's Risk - Study

Mon May 17, 4:03 PM ET

CHICAGO  - People with diabetes could have a higher risk of brain-wasting Alzheimer's disease (news - web sites), a U.S. study said on Monday. 

Among those in the study with diabetes, the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease was 65 percent greater than those without diabetes. 

Of 824 elderly Catholic nuns, priests, and brothers participating in the study, 151 developed Alzheimer's disease, according to the study in The Archives of Neurology. Thirty-one of those who developed the disease had diabetes. 

Participants with diabetes also had lower levels of cognition and greater memory problems, said researchers at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. 

Diabetes, also linked to obesity and other ailments, causes the blood levels of glucose to become abnormally high. 

"This is another piece of evidence that watching your key health numbers -- blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar and weight -- is critical to maintaining your brain," William Thies, vice president of the Alzheimer's Association, said in a news release. 

Further research should show whether treatments for diabetes may play a role in lowering the risk for Alzheimer's disease, Neil Buckholz, head of the Dementias of Aging Branch in the U.S. National Institute of Aging's neurosciences program, said. 

Diabetes affects about 20 percent of people over age 65 and is known to be associated with heart disease, kidney failure and impaired cognitive function.

Technology - AP
Hollywood's Interest in Video Games Grows 

Mon May 17,12:56 PM ET

By MAY WONG, News Source Technology Writer 

SAN JOSE, Calif. - The video game industry was once an afterthought in Hollywood, at most an ancillary source of revenue like action figures. The people passionately developing the computer-based form of entertainment were seen as dorks compared with the celebrities. Not anymore. 

Related Quotes 
ATAR
ERTS
DJIA
NASDAQ
^SPC 2.66
50.20
9906.91
1876.64
1084.10 -0.07
-0.84
-105.96
-27.61
-11.60

Get Quotes 
delayed 20 mins - disclaimer 
Quote Data provided by The News Source

What's Next in Tech Gadgets?
Do Europe and Japan get all the hot new technology first? Here's a look at the pipeline of future tech -- plus some gadgets that didn't travel well and a wishlist of cool things. 

Now that games have matured into a $11 billion business, topping movie box-office sales and siphoning television viewers, the lucrative and increasingly influential genre has attracted more star power than ever. 

Pierce Brosnan, Jet Li and Cameron Diaz, among others, have lent their voices and likenesses to games. Acclaimed film directors such as the Wachowski brothers shot footage not just for "The Matrix" films but also for the game based on the movies. 

Games are no longer the follower, either. The "Van Helsing" video game was released the same day as the movie this month. Soon, more blockbuster game franchises, such as "Halo" and "Doom," are expected to become the basis of movies. 

After a long courtship, these two industries have become intertwined in a young marriage, under the common law of entertainment. 

"Everyone is realizing that games are making money - if not more money than films," said Brad Foxhoven, president of Tiger Hill Entertainment LLC. "And when you talk to people who own blockbusters like `Grand Theft Auto' or `Halo,' you have to realize that perhaps the film is what's considered ancillary now." 

Case in point: Foxhoven founded Tiger Hill with film director John Woo to create original content for games that they hope will become franchises for movies or TV. 

Signs of the lovefest were everywhere at last week's Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, in Los Angeles. Games based on "Shrek 2," "Spider-Man 2" and "The Lord of the Rings" movies had top billing, and actor Vin Diesel was promoting one based on the movie "The Chronicles of Riddick." Diesel owns Tigon Studios, the game's developer. 

Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros., which formed a video game division in January, gave details about the upcoming game and movie adaptation of the popular children's book "The Polar Express." Tom Hanks voices both. 

The convergence of games and movies is about both creativity and money - made possible now that games have better graphics and the potential for more cinematic environments and storytelling. 

"The development of a video game allows me to tell stories in ways I never before thought possible," said Woo, who directed "Mission Impossible 2" and decided to get into gaming after attending E3 in 2002. "It is like making a film with 10 acts instead of three and action scenes that go on forever." 

Veteran screenwriter David Freeman got his first taste when he was asked to help rewrite the script for Atari Inc.'s "Enter the Matrix." Since then, he's worked on a dozen other movie-based games, including "Van Helsing" and "Shark Tale." 

He has tailored his writing technique into a game trademark, calling it "emotioneering," and hopes it'll help evoke in players the same emotional depth they have traditionally experienced only in film and TV. 

Game developers have also encroached upon Hollywood to more easily work with and poach talent from the movie industry. In what entertainment attorney Damon Watson recently dubbed the "Joystick Corridor," the stretch from San Diego to Los Angeles now hosts more than 70 companies tied to video games. 

Among the Hollywood migrants to full-time game work: Richard Taylor, who worked on special effects for the first "Lord of the Rings" movie and the upcoming film "Chronicles of Narnia," and Richard Kriegler, an art director for "Star Trek: Insurrection." Both are now art directors at the shiny new Los Angeles studio of the leading video game publisher, Electronic Arts Inc. 

"Consumers are no longer consciously differentiating what they see in a movie and what they're playing on a game," said Mark Skaggs, Electronic Arts' producer of the game "The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth." 

With video games stealing more audience time, a Hollywood talent agent like Larry Shapiro finds plenty of open doors in his mission to introduce the stars of game development to the power brokers of movies and television. 

One of Shapiro's latest matchmaking projects: a development deal between the creator of "The Sims," the all-time best-selling computer game, and the producers of "The Simpsons" hit TV series. 

It's a far different picture than 15 years ago, when Electronic Arts secured a groundbreaking licensing deal with star football coach John Madden. "He was a celebrity and we were a bunch of schmucks," recalls EA co-founder William "Bing" Gordon. 

The flirting between the two industries, some say, dates back to the early '80s, when Atari licensed the "Star Wars" name for its arcade game in 1983 and when Atari's "Cloak and Dagger" became a movie with Dabney Coleman the following year. 

But even when video game revenues first overtook movie box-office receipts four years ago, Hollywood's interest was tepid. The studios' failed efforts in the early '90s to produce their own video games were still in mind. 

Fueled in part by the introduction of CD-ROMs, a slew of film studios invested tens of millions of dollars to establish interactive game shops, only to fold them a few years later amid flops such as a science-fiction game from Steven Spielberg and LucasArts, "The Dig," and Walt Disney Co.'s interactive version of "The Lion King." 

The only reason actor James Earl Jones agreed to do the voice-over for the 1999 game title "Tiberian Sun" was because his son liked the game, Skaggs said. 

Celebrities are much less reluctant now that the Madden NFL video game and dozens of others are proven blockbusters. The casts of "CSI," "Alias" and "ER" are all on board for video game versions of their TV shows. 

Jason Hall, former head of game developer Monolith Productions Inc. and now chief of Warner Bros.' new game division, said the studio turned down an opportunity to develop "Matrix"-based games a few years ago. Today, it would jump at that chance, he said. 

"Now it's changed to directors, actors and producers who are very interested in having their content transmute from film into the game space," he said. "It's gone as far as wanting to produce a game first." 

The benefits of collaboration are mutual. 

For instance, because Ubisoft's game "XIII" featured the voices of rap star Eve and actors David Duchovny and Adam West, the game was reviewed on MTV, a marketing coup, said Ubisoft spokesman Tyrone Miller. 

This synergy is also natural for the new generation of Hollywood executives and artists who have grown up around video games, talent agent Shapiro said. 

"Look at any actor's trailer or writer's room," he said, "and you'll always see a game console in there."

Export of U.S. Jobs Seen Up - Report

Mon May 17, 1:26 PM ET 
Add Business 

By Eric Auchard 

NEW YORK  - The movement overseas of U.S. white-collar jobs over the next few years is accelerating faster than previously expected, Forrester Research said on Monday, fueling a highly charged election-year issue. 

Related Quotes 
DJIA
NASDAQ
^SPC 9906.91
1876.64
1084.10 -105.96
-27.61
-11.60

Get Quotes 
delayed 20 mins - disclaimer 
Quote Data provided by The News Source

What's Next in Tech Gadgets?
Do Europe and Japan get all the hot new technology first? Here's a look at the pipeline of future tech -- plus some gadgets that didn't travel well and a wishlist of cool things. 

Technology market researcher Forrester said in a report 

titled "Near-Term Growth of Offshoring Accelerating" that it expects the number of U.S. business service and software jobs moving offshore to reach 588,000 in 2004 from 315,000 in 2003. 

The loss of U.S. software programing, customer call-center and even legal paperwork positions should rise to 830,000 jobs by 2005, up 40 percent over this year, the report said. 

"In the short term, (the trend) is definitely growing," Forrester business services analyst Stephanie Moore told reporters in a conference call. 

The revised prediction reflects heightened awareness among corporate customers of potential lower costs associated with sending work offshore. It comes 18 months after Forrester helped spark an outcry in the United States over outsourcing when it predicted that some 3.3 million jobs could be shifted to countries such as India by 2015. 

The rush of jobs overseas, coming amid debate over a "jobless" U.S. economic recovery, has provoked a political backlash that has made it a prominent issue in the U.S. presidential campaign. 

"The political backlash has increased the awareness of offshoring ... and increased the awareness of the savings from offshoring among our (corporate) clients," Moore said. 

IMPACT ON U.S. EMPLOYMENT QUESTIONED 

Despite the outcry, government economists say the impact on overall U.S. employment remains minimal. 

Forrester is careful to say that it's statistics focus on specific types of jobs that lend themselves to being transferred overseas and does not suggest some wholesale export of jobs. 

The 830,000 jobs expected to move outside the United States in 2005 amounts to fewer than 1.6 percent of jobs in specific categories viewed by Forrester as most likely to be affected. "The emotional 1 million mark" will be crossed in 2006, report author John McCarthy said in the conference call. 

But critics say the threat to U.S. jobs is exaggerated. 

Cathy Minehan, president of the Federal Reserve (news - web sites) Bank of Boston, has downplayed the effect, saying offshore services accounted for one-tenth of 1 percent of U.S. gross domestic product in 2002. 

"Clearly, this is not immaterial, but it simply isn't large enough to have had a major impact on U.S. employment levels in the aggregate, despite the rhetoric that suggests otherwise," she said during a speech in March. 

"Offshoring is likely to continue. But does it bear a lot of the blame for our current weak job growth? The available data suggest that the answer is no," Minehan said. 

Forrester said it saw little change in its long-term outlook, forecasting that 3.4 million jobs will move overseas not just to India but to China, Russia, the Philippines and Mexico by 2015, up from the 3.3 million it had predicted. 

Forrester says the jobs at risk of moving offshore are concentrated in customer service call-center operations and low-level computer programing and Web design work. But it also includes some biotech, architectural and legal research jobs. 

"It's pretty low-level stuff, but it's stuff that ends up being expensive to organize stateside," Moore said of legal work like scanning boxes of documents into electronic form. 

"COWS HAVE LEFT THE BARN" 

The Forrester forecast assumes minimal risk of major policy changes following last week's election defeat of India's ruling BJP party, which pushed to cut taxes and lower communications costs thereby fueling the outsourcing trend to South Asia. 

Stocks of Indian software services have tumbled on fears that policy changes could hamper growth. 

But John McCarthy, author of the Forrester report, said the growing sophistication and diversification of Indian software services companies such as Infosys, TCS and Wipro, along with deregulation of telecoms services, minimizes the threat that policy changes could slow the movement of jobs to India. 

"To some extent, the cows have left the barn," he said. 

Major U.S. computer services suppliers such as IBM, Accenture and EDS also have embraced the trend, shifting tens of thousands of jobs to India, McCarthy said.

Scam tricks users into 'stealing'
MSNBC
January 25, 2000, 4:00 PM PT

Forward in Format for 

So just what do computer criminals do with stolen credit cards? How about tricking innocent electronics shoppers into stealing on their behalf? That's how at least one scam artist is playing the online credit card game, MSNBC has learned. The intricate scam, which ends up at a Latvian Internet-only bank, can net the scam artist over $1,000 each time and leave the victim holding stolen merchandise. 

For the one victim MSNBC interviewed -- who requested anonymity after a threat from the scam artist -- it worked like this: The innocent shopper spotted a pricey item for sale on an auction Web site -- a high-end Sony video camera that retails for about $2,000. But at the bottom of the auction, the seller noted he or she was willing to sell the camera directly to anyone willing to pay $1,299. 

The shopper, curious but a bit suspicious about the low price, e-mailed the seller asking for more information. The seller then offered to ship the camera directly to the shopper, no questions asked, no money upfront. Just a pledge to return it, or wire the $1,299, within 48 hours. 

"How the heck can I lose?" said the victim at the time. But in the background, here's what happened. Using the home address and other information provided by the victim, the scam artist opened an account at a Web retailer -- in this case, OnSale.com. Then, using a stolen credit card number with a high credit limit, the criminal ordered the camera at full retail price and had it shipped directly to the victim. 

When the camera arrived, the buyer was then instructed to wire the money directly to the seller -- in this case, to the Latvian bank, named Paritate Bank. The transaction was never completed, because in this case, the buyer got suspicious and returned the camera. 

But the victim told MSNBC that others had fallen for the scam, meaning the buyer was left holding stolen property; an anonymous victim had a fraudulent charge on their credit card account; a Web merchant had delivered stolen goods; and the criminal received $1,299 cash in an untraceable, overseas account. 

Fortunately, the victim MSNBC identified stopped short of wiring the cash because Egghead.com's fraud department had noted the suspicious activity and called him. (Egghead owns OnSale.com.) 

Red flags
The scam was first reported last weekend on a Web site devoted to video-camera enthusiasts named "Steve's DigiCams." That site's publisher declined comment for this story and has since removed the story at request of the victim. 

A spokeswoman for Egghead.com confirmed the details the victim shared with MSNBC. "It was a European credit card. ... That definitely raises a few red flags," said the spokeswoman. She said the scam artist hadn't victimized OnSale.com before, but added, "We don't think this was his first time." 

According to the victim, the same seller was selling the same camera on Yahoo! and eBay auction sites last week. 

New Species of Fish Discovered in Seychelles Mon May 17, 8:47 AM ET Add Science 

VICTORIA, Seychelles  - A new species of freshwater fish has been discovered in the Indian Ocean archipelago of the Seychelles, underlining the need for better protection for marine species, environment officials said Monday. The group of 120 tiny islands, which promotes itself as the original site of the garden of Eden, is a hotbed of biodiversity with a kaleidoscopic array of wildlife such as the giant turtle and plant species like the sensual coco de mer. "This new species has never been sampled elsewhere and the species name is unknown," said Wilma Accouche, assistant conservation officer at the environment and natural resources ministry. Accouche said the small copper-colored fish had not been given a name yet as more taxonomic work was required to classify it correctly. The discovery, made during an inventory of Seychelles freshwater systems, brought the number of native freshwater fish species in Seychelles rivers to three. Accouche said the discoveries make it all the more important to protect freshwater ecosystems, especially if the species live close to the coast, where there is more interaction with humans. "This provides us with another platform to educate members of the public on the need to develop a more responsible and protective attitude toward our rivers, as we never know what rare and natural treasures we may be destroying," she said. Accouche said that two species of crustacean were also discovered and work is under way to identify them at the Natural History Museum in Paris. They are new to the region, but it is not yet clear if they exist elsewhere. "We are optimistic of further new finds," she said.

Charlotte book distributor sells for $255M

A Chicago-based private-equity company says it will buy Charlotte-based book and video distributor Baker & Taylor Inc. and will replace its chief executive.

Willis Stein & Partners has agreed to buy the company from The Carlyle Group, another private-equity firm based in Washington, for $255 million in cash. 

"With their rich history as a market leader and diversified customer base, Baker & Taylor is an exciting addition to Willis Stein & Partners' portfolio," says Daniel Blumenthal, managing director of Willis Stein & Partners, in the company's release about the purchase. 

The deal is expected to close later this month. 

The Carlyle Group acquired Baker & Taylor Books, Baker & Taylor Video and Soft Kat businesses from W.R. Grace & Co. in March 1992. During Carlyle's ownership, Baker & Taylor revenue has grown by approximately 50%, and operating cash flow has increased by approximately 300%. Last year, revenue totaled $1.2 billion from a host of accounts that includes libraries and national booksellers. The company also distributes DVDs, videos and music. 

"The management team at Baker & Taylor ... has done an outstanding job in recognizing the changing dynamics within the media wholesaling industry and identifying the opportunities for the company to excel and thrive in a period of significant change," says Philip Dolan, managing director for Carlyle. 

Still, eight years can be a long time for a private-equity company to wait for a payout on an investment in a company like Baker & Taylor. 

Baker & Taylor had filed to take the company public in a $75 million initial public offering in 1999, and Carlyle had intended to sell at least some of its 65% share in the company at that time. Baker & Taylor abandoned that plan in the spring of 2000 after the tech boom went bust and the IPO market began drying up. 

Willis Stein intends to make Richard Willis chief executive of Baker & Taylor once the acquisition is completed. Willis had been chief executive of children's publisher Troll Communications Inc., which is operating in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. 

"We are thrilled to be working with Richard Willis again, building upon the success we achieved together at Petersen Publishing," Blumenthal says. 

The current Baker & Taylor chief executive, Gary Rautenstrauch, will remain with the company to work on special projects. 

Baker & Taylor, founded in 1828, is recognized as one of the country's leading book, music and video suppliers to traditional and Internet retailers, libraries and educational institutions. 

Cheney, Daft, Much to Be Quizzed on Little Green Men in Davos 

Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) -- A galactic mystery hovers over the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland: How many of the 2,280 global leaders, including 31 heads of state, gathered in this Alpine resort conduct business with extraterrestrials? 

This is no whimsy for Davosians. 

It's on the agenda of the annual powwow of the influential and affluent who will ask WEF participants such as U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, Coca-Cola Co. Chairman Douglas Daft and De La Rue Plc Chief Executive Ian Much if the aliens have landed and are collaborating with them and others to concoct government policy, brew soda pop and mint Iraq's new bank notes. 

``The extraterrestrials have yet to make contact with me,'' said Much in a telephone interview. Much will help moderate the Thursday night dinner seminar (closed except to forum participants) on ``The Conspiracy Behind Conspiracy Theories: Have Extraterrestrials Made Contact With Government Leaders?'' 

The British moneymaker is confident -- at least for now -- that De La Rue remains the largest non-government printer of bank notes in the Milky Way. ``If the aliens are here,'' Much reckons, ``I'd absolutely expect them to call me to have their currency printed.'' 

Despite the twilight zone topic arching many an eyebrow along the snow-covered strip of fashionable hotel bars, WEF officials maintain their five-day program on ``Partnering for Security and Prosperity'' requires an unambiguous examination of extraterrestrial presence on Earth. 

``The panelists are the best in their domain, they all have expertise in specific fields,'' explains Philippe Bourguignon, the forum's co-chief executive officer and a former CEO of Club Mediterranee SA. ``The themes and sessions at Davos reflect the global agenda.'' 

Hiding the Facts 

And the public's pulse. A 1996 Gallup Poll found that 71 percent of Americans believe the government knows more about UFOs than it has disclosed; a similar Roper poll found that some 80 percent of those questioned think Wall Street and Washington are hiding knowledge of extraterrestrial contact. The Internet search engine Google Inc. has as many Web pages dedicated to UFOs as it does for investment banking. 

``It is possible that UFOs really do contain aliens, and the government is hushing it up,'' Cambridge University physicist Stephen Hawking told British television viewers in a 1998 interview. 

U.S. President George W. Bush's recent call to put a man on Mars before 2030 has swelled investor interest in exotic technologies, last week boosting the Bloomberg Aerospace Index 1.9 percent, its biggest gain since October. 

Take Me to Your Market Leader 

Earth's leaders prospecting extraterrestrial commerce as part of the forum's global agenda has set off a doozy of anticipation perhaps not seen among UFO analysts since ``Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' was released on DVD. 

Richard Boylan, a retired professor of behavioral science at the University of California, couldn't be more gleeful if Captain Kirk had beamed him aboard the Starship Enterprise. 

``The Davos dinner may represent the great leap forward we need to unravel the fact that corporations and governments are doing business with star visitors,'' says Boylan, widely regarded by ufologists as a specialist in intergalactic mergers and acquisitions. 

Boylan says he isn't surprised the forum neglected to invite him and his colleagues to Davos for the first significant, high- level discussion on emerging alien markets and other popular conspiracy theories that stretch from ``Was the U.S. government behind the attacks of 11 Sept.?'' to whether Humpty Dumpty fell or was pushed off the wall. 

``I've learned to live with insults,'' the 64-year-old psychologist says from his home in California. ``Billions of dollars have been spent to intimidate witnesses and use the giggle factor to put on a funny farm anyone who suggests corporations have privatized extraterrestrial technology.'' 

Working With The Visitors 

According to the calmly resolute Boylan, more than 100 extraterrestrial races are in cahoots with firms that include International Business Machines Corp., Ford Motor Co., Lucent Technologies Inc., Northrop Grumman Corp., Dow Corning Corp., Monsanto Co., Boeing Co. and European Aeronautic, Defense & Space Co. 

``Most Earth corporations are working with visitors from the Altair star system,'' Boylan says. 

Altair is the brightest star in the constellation Aquila, 15.7 light years from Wall Street. Forum participant Martin Reese, Britain's royal astronomer, says ``there is no logical or illogical reason why Earth corporations would be doing business with Altair.'' 

Although Altairian executives were unavailable for comment, Francois Auque, a managing director at EADS, says he's eager to hear from them. ``I'd love to establish links with extraterrestrials,'' says Auque, one of the businessmen behind the Aurora Project to discover if there's water on Mars. ``So far no messages on my cell phone.'' 

Reality at Play 

Tall tales of little green men on Earth go back to Biblical times, but conspiracy dinner panelist Dr. James Gilligan, a professor of psychiatry and social policy at the University of Pennsylvania, suggests today's widespread belief in the fable is not necessarily a sign of reality slipping away. 

``We live in a post-religious age with huge tensions between secularism and traditional religious faith,'' Gilligan explains. ``In the past, people who believed in such phenomenal events would be embraced as having a religious experience.'' 

No matter the conspiracy theory, Gilligan says adherents don't create their delusions from whole cloth. ``There's always some kernel of reality behind the belief,'' he says. 

Rattling off lists of purported government documents, first- person testimonies and ufological exegetes guaranteed to bumfuzzle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regulators, Boylan says star visitors have instructed global leaders to publicly reveal the intergalactic mergers by 2007. 

The Roswell Incident 

Still, the American academic frets the politicians of Earth won't honor the deal and that the forum's conspiracy dinner may be part of the conspiracy. 

``If all the extraterrestrial technology came out at once,'' Boylan reasons, ``it would hurt stockholders in obsolescent industries and the multinationals don't want to lose their power.'' 

As Boylan tells it, the extraterrestrials first came to Wall Street in 1947 by way of Roswell, New Mexico. It was that year when U.S. Army Col. Philip Corso said he found five aliens amid the buzzards and rattlesnakes at a UFO crash site in the desert. The new arrivals were 4.5 feet tall with grayish-brown skin, four- fingered hands and watermelon-sized heads without hair. 

Using Alien Knowledge 

In his book ``The Day After Roswell,'' Corso says he salvaged parts from the downed UFO and managed a government-sponsored reverse-engineering program that decanted the technology to IBM, Bell Labs and Dow Corning. The flotsam of Roswell and other UFO encounters, Boylan adds, was used to formulate laser beams, fiber optics and Microsoft Corp. 

Other analysts argue the alien knowledge was used to create the management consultant industry. 

``UFOs are not engaged in open contact with mankind,'' says Swedish ufologist Bjorn Olav-Kvidal. ``They act more like supervisors.'' 

U.S. officials for decades have resisted any suggestion that the Roswell crash was more than a downed weather balloon or the leftover from a high-altitude parachute test with mannequins. Corporate confidence in alien technology hardly runs so high. 

The Presidential Race 

``I talk to extraterrestrials every day,'' mocks Denis Ranque, chief executive of Thales SA, Europe's largest manufacturer of electronic components for defense systems. ``They call me up every morning and tell me what to do.'' 

After the forum delegates depart Davos on Sunday, ufologists say the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign will become the best venue to spot extraterrestrial market trends. During the 1996 race for the White House, for instance, Republican presidential candidate Senator Bob Dole planted one of Gilligan's reality acorns: ``That's like the Air Force saying UFOs are impossible,'' Dole told reporters in response to President Bill Clinton's statement that 2 percent economic growth was impossible without inflation. 

Where Do Democrats Stand? 

Three years later and armed with a degree in physics, Stephen Bassett founded the Extraterrestrial Phenomena Political Action Committee. This April, the 57-year-old activist and 2002 independent congressional candidate from Maryland will host the First Annual Exopolitics Expo. All the Democratic presidential hopefuls have been invited to assemble in a Washington hotel ballroom to spell out their positions on UFOs. 

``Voters are increasingly willing to confront candidates on the UFO issue,'' Bassett says. ``There is an alien presence in our air space and the government has access to their technology.'' 

He should know. In 1996, Bassett registered with the U.S. Congress as a lobbyist for ``extraterrestrial affairs.'' Still, ET's man on Capitol Hill remains somewhat skeptical about little green men on Wall Street. 

``I'm only 30 percent confident that aliens have contractual relationships with major corporations,'' Bassett says. 
Last Updated: January 20, 2004 19:20 EST

UFO expert comes to Brevard 

By Billy Cox 
FLORIDA TODAY 

George W. Bush raised a few eyebrows during the 2000 presidential campaign when he responded to a question about releasing government files on unidentified flying objects. "It'll be the first thing he (Dick Cheney) will do," Bush said. "He'll get right on it." 

Immediately upon assuming office, however, the Bush administration exhibited an impulse for even tighter controls on government information, long before the 9/11 security clampdown. From Bush's immediate suspension of the 1978 Presidential Records Act to Cheney's refusal to comply with a General Accounting Office request for the names of the Vice President's Energy Task Force members, patterns of concealment are consistent. Just last month, Bush signed Executive Order 12958, which gave the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy the unprecedented authority to declare information "Top Secret." 

"They didn't explain a rationale for it," says Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' government secrecy project in Washington, D.C. "The only way to know for sure how significant it is, is to come back a year from now and see how many times it's been exercised." 

UFO declassification proponents thought they were building momentum for congressional hearings with a forum of witnesses in May 2001 announcing their willingness to testify. Then, the roof fell in. "The Saudi Arabian flying circus came to town, and the U.S. declared an open-ended war against this term, this noun, called terror," recalls lobbyist Stephen Bassett. "All the attention and all the headlines got sucked up by 9/11, and all the political work went into suspended animation." 

But UFO reports never stopped. Nor did calls for government accountability. Friday, one of the leading advocates -- Stanton Friedman -- will discuss what he calls the "Cosmic Watergate" at Brevard Community College's Titusville campus. 

Author of "Crash at Corona" and "Top Secret/Majic," Friedman was among the first to revisit the 1947 Roswell Incident, in which military authorities initially announced the recovery of a flying saucer, only to reverse themselves amid the ensuing media clamor. But from his home in New Brunswick, Canada, the American-born researcher blames contemporary media passivity for enabling a cover-up. 

"The only way we'll make any progress with this issue is when the press gets off its duff and takes a serious look at all the documents that have been in the public domain for years," says Friedman. His background in nuclear physics landed him 14 years' worth of work on nuclear rockets, much of it classified. "I'd like to see them spend just 10 percent of the energy they invested in covering Gary Condit, Elian Gonzales and Monica Lewinsky." 

Friedman contends government documents already in the public domain are loaded with smoking guns, not the least of which is the famous Bolender Memo. In 1969, just as the Air Force was terminating its public investigation of UFOs called Project Blue Book based on their negligible impact on national security, Brig. Gen. C.H. Bolender, deputy director of development for the USAF chief of staff, illuminated a backdoor policy: "Reports of unidentified flying objects which could affect national security. . . . are not part of the Blue Book system." 

"The media needs a commitment to the truth and to ignore the crap," says Friedman. "There was a conference in Chicago in 1997, on the 50th anniversary of Roswell, and one guy shows up wearing alien antennae on his head. CBS was covering the event and -- wouldn't you know it? -- the guy with the headgear is the one who makes the news that night. This is typical." 

Next April, during the presidential primary campaigns, Friedman and a host of investigators will join Bassett, founder of X-PPAC, the Extraterrestrial Phenomenon Political Action Committee, in Washington for yet another effort to forge UFOs into political dialogue. Bassett was on hand in 2001 when an initiative called the Disclosure Project pressed for immunity for whistleblowers whose testimony would violate their security oaths. 

Among the most impressive insiders assembled by the Disclosure Project was a retired USAF captain who -- supported by Strategic Air Command documents -- was in a Wyoming ICBM silo in 1967 when a UFO drained the power from launch complexes housing 10 nuclear-tipped warheads. Another was a Federal Aviation Administration accidents division chief who, despite being told by a CIA agent to keep a lid on it, presented a box full of records concerning a harrowing, 30-minute encounter involving a UFO and a Japanese airliner off Alaska in 1986. 

Although the Bush presidency apparently has no intention of addressing UFOs, its attitude is part of a bipartisan continuum by chief executives to avoid the issue. Jimmy Carter, for instance, filed a report of his own UFO sighting with the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena and promised an open investigation during his 1976 campaign. But as president, Carter never followed through. Bill Clinton, according to the memoirs of former deputy Attorney General Webster Hubbell, directed him to get to the bottom of UFOs. Hubbell failed. 

Repeated efforts by Florida Today to interview both Democrats about UFOs have been unsuccessful. 

Last year, former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta announced his partnership with the Coalition for Freedom of Information -- funded by the Sci Fi Channel, a client of his PodestaMattoon law firm -- to try to end UFO gridlock. For CFI research advisor Ted Roe, the issue is compelling, but so delicate he refers to the mystery in broader terms: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, or UAEs. 

Roe is the executive director of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP) in Vallejo, Calif. In order to improve flight safety, NARCAP, a private outfit, collects data on everything from ball lightning to plasma disturbances, as reported by pilots, radar operators and air traffic controllers. But getting these sources to cooperate is dicey, due to the exotic nature of many UAEs. 

"The really strange ones involve cylinders, discs, spheres, red lights and white lights, V-shaped or boomerang-shaped objects. Some of them are huge," says Roe, whose colleague, Dr. Richard Haines, authored a controversial report in 2000 analyzing more than 100 incidents, entitled "Aviation Safety in America." 

"Some of them seem to demonstrate an alteration of magnetic fields, which can cause compasses to turn up to 20 degrees off direction. They can have transient or permanent effects on avionics systems, such as shutting off transmitters." 

In early September 2001, NARCAP sent survey questionnaires on UAEs to 300 pilots of a major airline carrier. "We couldn't have picked a worse week," says Roe. "Two days later, the (World Trade Center) towers fell." Still, NARCAP got a 24 percent response, with one of every six subjects reporting having seen something so bizarre they couldn't identify it. "But not a one of them reported it to management," Roe adds. 

Roe says retirees are more likely to talk than active pilots, which isn't a surprise. "The airline facilitator who was trying to promote our survey wound up getting two psychiatric evaluations," he says. "There are 500,000 people in our target culture, the aviation community, who are very interested in this subject. But these experiences become toxic when they manifest into (pilots') environment." 

Only constant media pressure, says Friedman, will force authorities to respond to public curiosity. After all, 72 percent of Americans responding to a Roper Poll conducted last year believes the government isn't telling everything it knows about UFOs. 

"I read that with Watergate, the Washington Post had something like 16 people working that story at one time," says Friedman, who'll also be signing copies of his work at Barnes & Noble Booksellers on Merritt Island on 7 p.m. Thursday. "It's going to require that sort of effort. You can have all the seminars and lectures in the world, but if the press doesn't come and follow it up, then you haven't had much of an impact." 

PayPal Warns Its Customers To Safeguard Personal Data 
Tue Mar 16, 9:00 AM ET 
Add Technology - washingtonpost.com 

By Mike Musgrove, Washington Post Staff Writer 

Online payment giant PayPal warned users yesterday that scam artists have obtained select customer aliases, mailing addresses, e-mail addresses and transaction data by using phony e-mails to fool retailers into revealing the information.

� EU Likely to Order Microsoft to Unbundle
� PayPal Warns Its Customers To Safeguard Personal Data
� Personal Tech: Reviews and Features
� Today in photos
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Search news on
washingtonpost.comGo

Patriot Games
Will the government's anti-terror tactics invade your privacy? Plus, protecting yourself from identity theft and is Wal-Mart watching? 

The company said it appeared no personal financial information had been disclosed. But officials said they worried that the fraudulently obtained data could be used to deceive consumers into turning over credit card numbers and other sensitive information.

PayPal is a widely used online payment service that allows Web users to transfer money to each other electronically. PayPal handles the transaction, and neither side sees the other's financial information. Founded in 1998 in San Jose, the company was bought by Internet auctioneer eBay Inc., a major source of new PayPal accounts, four years later. The company now has 40 million customers.

Amanda Pires, a spokeswoman for PayPal, wouldn't identify which merchants were taken in by the scheme or the number of customers whose information might have been exposed. She characterized the number of companies as a "very, very small percentage" of PayPal's millions of merchants.

The companies were apparently sent legitimate-looking e-mails claiming to be from PayPal that asked for password and other account information. The passwords gave the fraudsters access to customer rosters and other sales data, but not to actual credit card or bank account numbers, according to PayPal.

That financial information is stored on secure computer servers that cannot be accessed by any merchant or third party, the company said.

Still, with customer names and other personal information, PayPal officials warned that scammers could direct their "phishing" expeditions toward the customers themselves and seek to trick them into revealing financial information.

For example, scam artists have sent phony PayPal e-mails to users advising them their account would be placed on a "restricted status" until they completed a "credit card confirmation process" online at bogus Web sites designed to look like ones belonging to PayPal.

While such schemes are usually sent blindly to millions of e-mail addresses in the hope of fooling a few Internet users, PayPal warned that scammers using the purloined personal information might achieve a higher rate of success by strategically including some of a user's data. For instance, they might refer to a recent purchase.

"These e-mails could be very, very specific and could deceive people," Pires said, adding that PayPal has not yet seen evidence of fraudulent e-mails resulting from the security breach.

Pires said PayPal does not ask for personal financial information via e-mail and does not refer to old transactions through e-mail.

Pires said that the company grew suspicious last week after noticing some unusual activity in the accounts of one of its merchants. When the company found that more than one of its merchants had been duped by the scam, the company decided to warn the public and posted a notice on its Web site Friday afternoon.

Bruce Schneier, a computer security expert, characterized the scam as "really bad news."

"The more data an attacker gets, the more effective they'll be," he said. "This attack bypasses security and attacks the user directly. It's like me convincing you to give me your ATM card and your PIN."

But David Ricci, an analyst at William Blair & Co. -- and a PayPal user -- credited PayPal for spotting the scam and alerting users. "The company is fastidious about its commitment to safety in all respects," he said.

Cori Martinell, a Washington resident who uses PayPal largely to make purchases related to her knitting hobby, took the alert in stride yesterday.

"Maybe I should worry about my privacy, but it doesn't bother me if people want to know about the ridiculous amount of money I spend on yarn," she wrote in an e-mail. 

Algerian Detained in Spain Bombings Probe

24 minutes ago

By JOHN LEICESTER, News Source Writers 

MADRID, Spain - Police said Tuesday they have detained an Algerian who allegedly talked about a terrorist attack in Madrid two months before it happened, and the death toll in the bombings rose to 201. 

Slideshow: Madrid Terror Bombings

More Audio/Video
� Videos: Madrid Bombings

Ali Amrous was picked up Saturday in the Basque city of San Sebastian to learn if he had advance knowledge of Thursday's terrorist attacks in Madrid, police told The News Source. 

Meanwhile, police identified five new Moroccan suspects in the train bombings, a newspaper reported, and a French investigator told the AP he has found a direct link between prime suspect Jamal Zougam and the spiritual leader of a clandestine extremist group believed involved in last May's deadly attacks in Casablanca, Morocco. 

Incoming Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who was swept into power during elections Sunday, three days after the Madrid attacks, harshly criticized the Iraq (news - web sites) war, which was supported by his predecessor, Jose Maria Aznar. 

"I have said many times that the Iraq war was a great disaster, the occupation continues to be a disaster - it only generates more violence," Zapatero told radio station Cadena Ser on Monday. 

Most Spaniards opposed Aznar's support of the Iraq war, and many believed he made Spain a target for terrorists by his pro-U.S. policies. 

Amrous, an apparent indigent, was first arrested in January after a neighborhood disturbance and made the threatening comments while being questioned by police, saying that "we will fill Madrid with the dead," authorities said. They added that they doubted he was connected at a high level with any terrorist group but may have known about the attacks in advance. 

He was expected to be brought to Madrid for questioning. Police said they did not believe Amrous had any contacts with the armed Basque separatist group ETA, which the Spanish government initially blamed for the attacks. 

The death toll from Thursday's commuter train attacks in the Spanish capital rose to 201 with the death of a 45-year-old woman, authorities said. The toll is now one short of the 202 people killed in the 2002 nightclub bombing in Bali, Indonesia - the worst terrorist attack since Sept. 11. 

Zougam has already been identified by a Spanish judge as a follower of Imad Yarkas, the alleged leader of Spain's al-Qaida cell, who remains jailed on suspicion he helped plan the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. 

Police believe the five new Moroccan suspects took part in the bombings, the Madrid daily El Pais reported Tuesday, without identifying the new suspects by name. 

Interior Ministry spokesman Juan de Dios Colmenero said he could not confirm the report. 

El Pais also reported that two Indians who are believed to have sold telephone cards to three arrested Moroccans were released. De Dios said he could not confirm the report. 

The bombs were triggered by cell phones, and investigators were able to find and arrest the three Moroccans and two Indians on Saturday because a cell-phone card was found in an unexploded bomb and traced. 

Investigators scrambled to learn the scope of the operation that carried out the Madrid attacks. 

A possible link between them and Casablanca gained credibility Tuesday after French investigator Jean-Charles Brisard said he has found a direct tie between Zougam and Mohamed Fizazi, a spiritual leader of Salafia Jihadia, which allegedly was behind the Casablanca attack and which has been linked to Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al-Qaida terror network. 

The suicide bombings in Casablanca killed 33 people and 12 bombers. 

In a telephone call with Yarkas that Spanish police monitored in August 2001, Zougam said he had met with Fizazi, who was among 87 people sentenced in Morocco last August in a trial that centered on the Casablanca attacks. Fizazi received a 30-year sentence. 

The monitored call is cited in a 600,000-page report by investigative Judge Baltasar Garzon, who is probing the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, said Brisard, who spoke with the AP by telephone. Brisard has access to Garzon's documents because he is helping to probe the attacks for lawyers representing some of its victims' families. 

The Garzon document says that in the monitored phone call, Zougam told Yarkas: "On Friday, I went to see Fizazi and I told him that if he needed money we could help him with our brothers," Brisard said. 

Fizazi previously preached at a mosque in Hamburg, Germany, frequented by some of the hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks. 

Zougam also has connections that possibly lead to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Moroccan official said. Al-Zarqawi is a key operative working with al-Qaida who has been blamed in attacks in Jordan, Iraq and elsewhere. 

The other two arrested Moroccans are Zougam's half brother, Mohamed Chaoui, 34, and Mohamed Bekkali, 31. 

Spanish radio station Cadena Ser reported Monday that police found a witness who saw Zougam on a train that was bombed. But Interior Minister Angel Acebes said authorities had no knowledge of a witness. 

The radio, quoting unidentified police sources, said the witness said he saw Zougam on the train headed for Madrid's Atocha station, leaning against a door. 

Both Cadena Ser and the newspaper El Pais reported that police believe Zougam actually left bombs on the train. Ibanez said there was no proof of that. 

Zougam's alleged associations to terror suspects date back more than a decade, when he was introduced to Abdelaziz Benyaich in 1993, Moroccan authorities said. Benyaich, who has dual French and Moroccan citizenship, was arrested in Spain in 2003 in connection with the Casablanca bombings. 

Morocco is seeking Benyaich's extradition and claims he has had contact with al-Zarqawi, whom German authorities reportedly believe was appointed by al-Qaida's leadership to arrange attacks in Europe. 

Moroccan officials also believe al-Zarqawi ordered the attacks in Casablanca, and U.S. officials blamed al-Zarqawi for March 2 bombings in Iraq that killed at least 181 Shiite Muslim pilgrims. The Jordanian militant also is believed to have been behind the 2002 killing of Laurence Foley, a U.S. aid worker in Jordan. 

Authorities have been tracking Islamic extremist activity in Spain since the mid-1990s and say it was an important staging ground, along with Germany, for the Sept. 11 attacks.

Damage from Warming Becoming 'Irreversible,' Says New Report Mon Mar 15, 9:50 AM ET Add World - OneWorld.net 

Jim Lobe, OneWorld US WASHINGTON, D.C., Mar 15 (OneWorld) -- Ten years after the ratification of a United Nations (news - web sites) treaty on climate change, greenhouse gas emissions that lead to global warming are still on the rise, signaling a "collective failure" of the industrialized world, according to the Washington-based World Resources Institute (WRI), a leading environmental think-tank. "We are quickly moving to the point where the damage will be irreversible," warned Dr. Jonathan Pershing, director of WRI's Climate, Energy and Pollution Program. "In fact, the latest scientific reports indicate that global warming is worsening. Unless we act now, the world will be locked into temperatures that would cause irreversible harm." WRI researchers estimate that greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide rose 11 percent over the last decade, and will grow another 50 percent worldwide by 2020. Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol (news - web sites), the international agreement that sets out specific targets to follow up on the treaty, 38 industrialized countries were supposed to reduce their emissions by an average of seven percent below 1990 levels by 2012. The administration of former President Bill Clinton (news - web sites) signed the Kyoto Protocol, but President Bush (news - web sites) withdrew the U.S., which currently emits about 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, from negotiations over Kyoto's implementation. Russia, which indicated initially that it intended to ratify the Protocol, remains undecided. As a result the Protocol--which must be ratified by countries whose greenhouse emissions totaled more than 55 percent of global emissions in 1990 in order to take effect--remains in limbo. WRI decided to make a relatively rare public statement now, both because the tenth anniversary of the UNFCCC's ratification will take place next weekend and because of the growing pessimism surrounding the international community's ability and will to deal with the problem. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which called for voluntary reductions in greenhouse emissions, was signed by, among others, then-President George H.W. Bush, at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and took formal effect March 21, 1994. Today, 188 countries are signatories. The Kyoto Protocol grew out of the UNFCCC when it became clear that plans for voluntary reductions would not meet the initial targets, and as climate and atmospheric scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have become increasingly convinced that the rise in global temperatures of about one degree Fahrenheit over the last century is due primarily to artificial emissions, notably the combustion of fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and gas. Studies over the past decade have shown that the warming trend continues. "The five warmest years in recorded weather history have taken place over the last six years," noted WRI's president, Jonathan Lash. "The ten warmest years in recorded weather history have taken place since 1987. Whether it's the retreat of glaciers, the melting of the permafrost in Alaska, or the increase in severe weather events, the world is experiencing what the global warming models predict," he said. Europe, the main champion of the Kyoto Protocol, suffered its hottest year on record last year. Some 15,000 people in France alone died due to heat stress in combination with pollution, while European agriculture suffered an estimated $12.5 billion in losses. Britain's most influential scientist, Sir David King, recently excoriated the Bush administration for withdrawing from the Protocol and ignoring the threat posed by climate change. "In my view, climate change is the most severe problem we are facing today," he wrote in Science magazine, "more serious even than the threat of terrorism." Even the Pentagon (news - web sites) recently issued a warning that global warming, if it takes place abruptly, could result in a catastrophic breakdown in international security. Based on growing evidence that climate shifts in the past have taken place with breathtaking speed, based on the freshening of sea water due to accelerated melting of glaciers and the polar ice caps. Given enough freshening, the Gulf Stream that currently warms the North Atlantic would be shut off, triggering an abrupt decline in temperatures that would bring about a new "Ice Age" in Europe, eastern Canada, and the northeastern United States and similar disastrous changes in world weather patterns elsewhere--all in a period as short as two to three years. Wars over access to food, water, and energy would be likely to break out between states, according to the report. "Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life," according to the report. "Once again, warfare would define human life." Even if climate change is more gradual, recent studies have argued that as many as one million plant and animal species could be rendered extinct due to the effects of global warming by 2050. A recent report by the world's largest reinsurance company, Swiss Re, predicted that in 10 years the economic cost of disasters like floods, frosts, and famines caused by global warming could reach $150 billion annually. "Accelerated development of a portfolio of technologies could stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations, enhance global energy security, and eradicate energy poverty," noted David Jhirad, WRI's vice president for research. "We urgently need the political will and international cooperation to make this happen." 

Flock of Cows ate Genetically Mutated maize and died - 2/3 of what USA eats is GM FOOD!
Public Enquiry needed IMMEDIATELY

The Institute of Science in Society

Spring 2004 

PART ONE: Cows ate GM maize and died - Public enquiry needed

Could this be the "three mile island" or the "thalidomide" of GM: the clinching evidence that there is something seriously wrong with most if not all GM food and
feed? Twelve dairy cows died in Hesse, Germany after being fed Syngenta's Bt176 GM maize; and other cows had to be slaughtered due to mysterious illnesses.
Protestors in front of the Robert Koch Institute suspect a cover-up. But is there a news blackout as well?

There has been no coverage in the mainstream media; not even after ISIS circulated a detail report, showing how Bt176 has the worst of features common to
practically all commercially approved GM crops. Not only is Bt176 unstable like all GM varieties analysed so far, it is also non-uniform, so that different samples of
the variety gave different results. Either of those features would make the GM variety illegal under European law. 

The dead cows in Hesse are not an isolated case. In 1999, Pusztai and colleagues reported that GM potato engineered with the snowdrop lectin adversely affected
every organ system of young rats, in particular, it made their stomach lining twice as thick. Scientists in Egypt found similar effects in mice fed a Bt potato. Several
years earlier, the US Food and Drug Administration already had data showing that rats fed a GM tomato with an antisense gene to delay ripening developed holes in
their stomach. Add to that the report from Aventis (now Bayer) which showed that glufosinate-tolerant T25 GM maize (about to be approved for growing by the
Blair government) killed twice as many broiler chickens compared to non-GM maize, and a host of anecdotal evidence that livestock, wildlife and lab animals avoid
GM feed when given the choice, and failed to thrive or died when forced to eat it. 

There must now be a public enquiry, not only into the safety of GM food and feed, but especially on why this and other evidence have been systematically
misrepresented, suppressed, ignored and denied in the rush to commercialise GM crops and GM food and feed. It amounts to a serious abuse of science and scientific
evidence, and our governments' scientific advisors must be called into proper account. 

Britain's pro-GM scientific establishment appears to have entered into an elicit relationship, willingly or otherwise, with a gang of biotech corporate warriors -
remarkably metamorphosed from their previous Marxist tendencies - who promote their agenda by infiltrating the establishment and using smear tactics borrowed
from America's far-right to discredit critics. 

Read the evidence and judge for yourselves. There's plenty more: US Department of Agriculture's own data showing that GM crops increased pesticide and
herbicide use by more than 50 million pounds between 1996 and 2003; Roundup Ready herbicide linked to sudden death of GM soya and fusarium head blight in
wheat; and the regulatory sham surrounding Bt crops that's allowing synthetic, altered toxins of both known and unknown toxicities to enter our ecosystems and
food web. 

Send a copy of this issue to your government representatives demanding a public enquiry. (Contact sam@I-sis.org.uk for bulk purchase at cost.) 

Nanotech & nanotox

Another area where science and technology have gone way ahead of safety considerations is nanotechnology, in particular, nanoparticles and nanotubes.

The science is fascinating, and the possibilities enormous, but that's precisely why it raises a host of new safety concerns. It seems that all kinds of substances
acquire entirely new properties when shrunk to the nanoscale (about a billionth of a metre). They become super-efficient catalysts, they concentrate light energy
enormously, acquire new electrical properties, and so on. 

But the first evidence of the hazards has already emerged.Nanotubes could be worse than asbestos, and both nanotube and other nanoparticles can accumulate in
organs and tissues. 

Fortunately, at least some scientists involved in developing the technology are much more willing to consider and discuss the safety concerns openly and engage in
real dialogue with the public; in contrast to those scientists involved in exploiting GM. 

Biology's theory of everything and the obesity epidemic

When the "Living energies" series was circulated, we received an unprecedented number of positive responses from people who know too well that the secret of life
is not to be found in genomes and genes or other molecular nuts and bolts.

I think it may well be in how organisms capture, store and transform energy. 

Indeed, a universal metabolism appears to lie at the basis of all life, which can explain its patterns of biodiversity and many other biological phenomena. This brings
together diverse fields that have hitherto developed independently, such as bioenergetics, ecology, physiology and yes, even the new field of food quality research,
where it is found that animals do tend to prefer organically produced food! 

And, it could also enable us to better understand a range of fundamental problems from sustainable systems to the obesity epidemic, and what to do about it. 

Biology is groping its way towards a theory of everything. Thank goodness not all biology has been swallowed up by genomics and related research. 

There are signs that the National Institutes of Health in the United States, at least, have read the writing on the wall with regard to genomics; and are actively inviting
generous grant applications from scientists (US citizens only) that can "change the current paradigms of medical research." 

All other governments should take heed. 

http://www.i-sis.org.uk 

PART II. Two-thirds of US crops GM contaminated

07.03.2004

By GEOFFREY LEAN 

More than two-thirds of conventional crops in the United States are now contaminated with genetically modified material - dooming organic agriculture and posing a
severe future riskto health - a new report concludes. 

The report - which comes as English ministers are on the verge of approving the planting of Britain's first GM crop, maize - concludes that traditional varieties of
seed are "pervasively contaminated" by genetically engineered DNA. The US biotech industry says it is "not surprised" by the findings. 

Because of the contamination, the report says, farmers unwittingly plant billions of GM seeds a year, spreading genetic modification throughout US agriculture. This
would be likely to lead to danger to health with the next generation of GM crops, bred to produce pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals - delivering "drug-laced
cornflakes" to the breakfast table. 

The report comes at the worst possible time for the English Government, which is trying to overcome strong resistance from the Scottish and Welsh administrations
to GM maize. 

The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee drew attention to the problem in North America in a report published on Friday, and said the Government
had not paid enough attention to it. The MPs concluded: "No decision to proceed with the commercial growing of GM crops [in Britain] should be made until
thorough research into the experience with GM crops in North America has been completed and published". It would be "irresponsible" for ministers to give the
green light to the maize without further tests. 

Peter Ainsworth, the committee chairman, accuses the Cabinet of "great discourtesy" to Parliament by making its decision on the maize last Thursday, the day before
the report came out, and plans to raise the issue with the Speaker of the House. 

This week's statement by Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for the Environment, is expected to fall short of authorising immediate planting of the maize, and
provide only a muted endorsement for the technology.She will make it clear that the Government wants the GM industry to compensate farmers whose crops are
contaminated. This could make cultivation uncommercial. The US study will increase the pressure on her to be tough. 

Under the auspices of the green-tinged Union of Concerned Scientists, two separate independent laboratories tested supposedly non-GM seeds "representing a
substantial proportion of the traditional seed supply" for maize, soya and oilseed rape, the three crops whose modified equivalents are grown widely in the United
States. 

The test found that at "the most conservative expression", half the maize and soyabeans and 83 per cent of the oilseed rape were contaminated with GM genes - just
eight years after the modified varieties were first cultivated on a large scale in the US. 

The degree of contamination is thought to be at a relatively low level of about 0.5 to 1 per cent. The reports says that "contamination ... is endemic to the system". It
adds: "Heedlessly allowing the contamination of traditional plant varieties with genetically engineered sequences amounts to a huge wager on our ability to understand
a complicated technology that manipulates life at the most elemental level." There could be "serious risks to health" if drugs and industrial chemicals from the next
generation of GM crops got into food. 

Lisa Dry, of the US Biotechnology Industry Association, said that the industry was "not surprised by this report, knowing that pollen travels and commodity grains
might co-mingle at various places. What can we infer? It is time to shop at healthfood stores or grow our own. 

Experts: 1794 Silver Dollar May Be First

Sun Mar 14,11:53 PM ET 
Add U.S. National - 

By CATHERINE TSAI, News Source Writer 

DENVER - Coin collecting experts say they have identified a 210-year-old silver dollar that is likely the first one coined by the United States Mint. 

The American Numismatic Association, a coin collectors organization based in Colorado Springs, told The News Source on Sunday it planned to put the coin on public display beginning in mid-April. 

Experts said it's impossible to say for certain that the coin was the very first U.S. silver dollar struck, but its details are so crisp that it certainly was among the first. 

"Until someone walks up to me with a coin in an earlier state that looks better, I'd consider it the first," said John Dannreuther, co-founder of Professional Coin Grading Service. 

Unlike the other roughly 130 surviving U.S. dollars minted in 1794, the silver dollar is in mint condition, according to evaluations performed by Professional Coin Grading Service and Numismatic Guaranty Corp. 

The coin, which has only a few Mint-made file marks, features images of Lady Liberty ringed with stars on the front and an eagle on the back. 

Steven Contursi, owner of Rare Coin Wholesalers, bought the coin last year from an unidentified owner and said he spent "multimillions." It is insured for $10 million. 

The dealer who sold Contursi the dollar - not realizing it could be the first of its kind - has since offered him a $2 million profit on it. 

But it's not for sale, Contursi said: "I think it's a national treasure," he said. 

Contursi traveled to Denver on Sunday with security guards to show it to an News Source reporter. 

The Mint struck 1,758 silver dollars on Oct. 15, 1794, at a time when foreign currencies circulated freely in the United States and the country wanted its own standard to use in world trade. 

___ 

On the Net: 

American Numismatic Association: http://www.money.org Man Died of Neglect, Inmates Say 
Mon Mar 15, 7:55 AM ET

By Mark Arax Times Staff Writer 

FRESNO - For two months, guards and medical staff at a state prison in Corcoran failed to provide meals or emergency care to an elderly inmate dying of malnutrition, according to inmate accounts given to a state senator. 

� Latimes.com home page
� Subscribe to the Los Angeles Times

In the days before 72-year-old Khem Singh starved to death at the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility last month, fellow inmates said, they alerted correctional officers to his grave condition and filed official complaints about his mistreatment. 

But no medical help was provided, even as it became clear to inmates that Singh, a Sikh priest from India who spoke no English and was crippled, had become emaciated and was intent on killing himself. 

One inmate wrote a letter to state Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) pleading that she intervene, but it arrived a few days after Singh's death Feb. 16. The inmate alleged that a guard had brutalized Singh in December, and that Singh was so afraid of a second assault that he hadn't left his cell for meals or medical appointments for nearly 60 days. 

The letter obtained by The Times describes a frail and wheelchair-bound Singh - whose 2001 conviction for sexual molestation in Stanislaus County brought him great shame in the Sikh community - committing slow suicide. His weight had dropped from 110 pounds to 80. 

Prison officials said Friday that they would talk to the inmates and review their letters and complaints as part of a growing investigation into Singh's death. The case coincides with increased scrutiny of California's vast prison system, which is riddled with accusations of brutality, coverups, fraud and poor medical care. 

At Corcoran, Singh's condition took a turn for the worse early this year. Some correctional officers went to the prison's medical staff to express their own concerns, according to Romero, but logbooks show that no medical technician, nurse or doctor followed up and treated him in his cell. 

"Mr. Singh has not left his cell to go to eat - not once," the inmate wrote to Romero in a Feb. 11 letter. "They do not bring him any food. None. I smuggle bread back.... Mr. Singh is gentle, polite. I am ashamed it took me so long to speak out." 

The guard who supervised the cellblock - the same one suspected of having assaulted Singh - is alleged to have told another inmate not to bother speaking out on behalf of the starving inmate. "Forget it; he's going to die," the inmate quoted the guard as telling him, according to Romero. 

A few days later, after collapsing in his cell, Singh died of lung and heart failure caused by starvation. 

"He was committing suicide right in front of them and they did nothing," said Romero, chairwoman of the corrections oversight committee, who visited the prison Tuesday to review medical and custody logbooks and to interview the letter-writer and four other inmates who shared a cellblock with Singh. 

Romero provided their accounts to The Times on the condition that the inmates' names be kept confidential for fear of staff retaliation. 

"As I left the prison, I kept asking myself, 'How could this have happened?' Whether it was intentional or sheer neglect, how could they let a man die right in front of their faces?" Romero said. Romero and others questioned why officers from the Corrections Department's Investigative Services Unit still had not interviewed the five inmates. After a prison hands over an incident report, investigators said, they are supposed to move quickly to gather statements from staff and inmates. This is done to make sure recollections are fresh and untainted. 

"I can't imagine any excuse for not interviewing officers and inmates right away," said one longtime corrections investigator in Sacramento. "That should have been done weeks ago." 

Martin Hoshino, head of the Investigative Services Unit, acknowledged the delay but said his investigators were now moving quickly to interview the inmates and others. 

"The original shape of this case was medical in nature, but recent information and developments suggest that it may be more serious than that," he said. "We're now moving very quickly to collect all the pertinent information." 

Patrick Hart, chief deputy prosecutor for Kings County, said his office would pursue any criminal allegations growing out of the corrections probe. "If their investigation uncovers criminal neglect or other criminal conduct, we won't hesitate to get involved," he said. 

In the days after Singh's death, corrections officials in Sacramento said he had been depressed since arriving at the prison in late 2001, protesting his child molestation conviction and refusing to eat a diet that didn't conform to his vegetarian practices. The official account was that he died after a series of "on and off again" hunger strikes. 

The California prison system has a detailed policy on hunger strikes that requires correctional officers and medical staff to follow numerous procedures. Guards must document in writing any refusal of meals, determine the reason for the hunger strike and report it to a supervisor and healthcare staff. 

Under the rules, nurses and doctors must visit an inmate in his cell daily and assess weight, physical and emotional condition, blood pressure and fluid loss. If an inmate's condition grows worse, the prison can force-feed fluids and nutrients. 

None of this was done for Singh, corrections officials acknowledged. 

But they now say that Singh hadn't officially declared a hunger strike, and that his case falls into a grayer area. 

"He was refusing meals sporadically, but it wasn't an existing hunger strike," said Kelley Santoro, the prison's public information officer. "Was he eating sporadically because he was a vegetarian and didn't like the food served to him? Was he being monitored? All that is under investigation." 

But the prisoners who shared his cellblock tell a different story - of an inmate who didn't have the language skills to communicate that he was on a hunger strike. His refusal to leave his cell to go to the dining hall, coupled with his severe weight loss and physical deterioration, should have brought the same level of care as that of a hunger striker, inmates told Romero and two members of her staff. 

"Here is a guy who's clinically depressed and starving himself, and there's no indication in the logbook that medical staff is responding to his needs," Romero said. "No one went to his cell to check on him, despite repeated concerns from inmates and some officers that he was wasting away." 

Singh's care presented the prison system with challenges, according to Sikh community leaders, his former attorneys and inmates who shared his cellblock in the prison's so-called "special needs yard," a section for sexual offenders and others who are considered prey by more dangerous inmates. 

Singh was not only frail and burdened with a bad leg, but he also was fighting severe depression after having been convicted of sexually touching three children in a case that divided the Sikh community around Modesto. Singh, a husband and father, had been the temple's high priest until an opposing faction, calling for new leadership, forced him out. 

He continued to provide religious training to Sikh children at their homes. It was during one such visit that an 8-year-old girl alleged that he had touched her beneath her underwear during reading of the Guru Granth Sahib, the religion's Scriptures. 

The victim's family had been discouraged by fellow Sikhs from filing charges, according to community members. There was concern that the case would bring negative media attention and ridicule to the growing Sikh community in the San Joaquin Valley. The young girl would be marked for life, it was said, a stigma that might hurt her chances to marry. 

But the girl's parents went forward with the case and were quickly supported by another family, who alleged that their young son and daughter also had been touched inappropriately by Singh. Hardev Grewal, a court-appointed interpreter, said the evidence against Singh had been strong but he had refused to consider a plea bargain. 

"His attorney tried to convince him that, if he takes a deal, he might not die in prison. But he felt it would bring a bad name to him and his family," Grewal said. 

"He ended up testifying on his own behalf. I don't know if it was the language or cultural differences, or if he didn't understand the American way of justice. But he ended up performing poorly." 

He was convicted and sentenced in June 2001 to 27 years to life. Inmates said he never acclimated to prison. He would clasp his hands in prayer and bow to them and guards, but would grow frustrated at every meal when the prison staff insisted on serving him meat. 

The more he protested the food, fellow inmates said, the more insistent staff members became. As a Sikh priest, he viewed any meat on his plate as defiling the vegetables. What food he could eat was often little more than a piece of bread with peanut butter. 

"One inmate told us this whole thing is about vegetables. 'If they would have just given him vegetables instead of meat, he would be alive today,' " Romero said. "But every time he was in line, they insisted on slopping down the meat.' " 

Santoro said Singh had never followed procedure and formally requested a vegetarian diet through a prison chaplain. But inmates told Romero that Singh lacked the language skills to do so. Besides, he was a priest himself. 

The inmates traced his rapid deterioration to an incident in December when a supervising officer grew frustrated with Singh and slammed the cell door on the inmate's hand. 

Singh was clearly injured and in pain but the guard, who had treated Singh poorly in the past, wouldn't allow him to seek medical treatment, according to inmate letters. Singh became so fearful that he hardly left his cell after that, they said. 

"The other inmates showed a lot of compassion for him. They tried to bring him back food but it was never enough," Romero said. "He became nothing but bones. The inmates filed reports and told counselors about his condition. But nothing was ever done. 

"Some of the supervisors at the prison told me this was a case of one inmate falling through the cracks. But this isn't about cracks. This is about the worst kind of neglect."

A Florida Town Asks Itself: Did Banning Satan by Proclamation Make a Difference? NY306-310 of March 9

By Todd Lewan The News Source 
Published: Mar 13, 2004 

* Today's Mortgage Rates
* Online Mortgage Calculators
* Free Online Pre-approval
* Apply Online

INGLIS, Fla. (AP) - It truly was an ambitious undertaking: But Carolyn Risher, mayor of this coastal hamlet of shrimp fishermen and God-fearing folk, believed the hour had come to cleanse her town of the giver of evil. 

Of Satan himself. 

His grip on the community, she'd noticed, had become disturbingly apparent: a father had molested a child, teens were dressing in black and powdering their faces white, pot and crystal-meth use was on the uptick. 

So she sat at her kitchen table on Halloween night two years ago and drafted a proclamation. The words flowed from her pen almost, she recalled later, as though God was guiding her hand. 

"Be it known from this day forward," she began, "that Satan, ruler of darkness, giver of evil, destroyer of what is good and just, is not now, nor ever again will be, a part of this town of Inglis ... In the past, Satan has caused division, animosity, hate, confusion, ungodly acts on our youth, and discord among our friends and loved ones. NO LONGER!" 

And finally: 

"We exercise our authority over the devil in Jesus' name. By that authority, and through His Blessed Name, we command all satanic and demonic forces to cease their activities and depart the town of Inglis." 

The mayor printed her proclamation on official stationery. She stamped it with a gold seal. She signed it and, along with Sally McCranie, the town clerk, made copies and stuffed them into four, hollowed-out wooden posts on which were painted "repent," "request," "resist." 

Then, together with a local pastor, a town commissioner and the chief of police, the 62-year-old mayor went to each of Inglis' four entrances and, in the name of the town's 1,421 residents, fixed those messages of banishment into the very ground. 

"My main goal was to wake Inglis up," Risher told a visitor recently. "If the proclamation could get people to wake up and realize that they needed God, then it would be a success - then Inglis would be saved." 

Would it, though? Would banning the Prince of Darkness from the town's three square miles deliver Inglis from drugs, thieves and drunk drivers? Would it ease the fears of a small, isolated community - frustrated by joblessness and uneasy about war overseas and terrorism at home - and attract an angel of light? 

--- 

To an outsider cruising in fifth gear along the flat, asphalt ribbon that is U.S. 19, the towns along Florida's Gulf Coast do not look like Satan's stomping grounds. They look sedate as they always have, slow and swampy, places where the globes of the streetlights are almost hidden by live oaks and palms, where the bumpers of the four-by-fours are a tad pitted by salty air, where herons jut from the marshes and shallow, brown creeks that cut the Florida scrub. 

Inglis, bounded by timberland to the north and east, an intracoastal waterway to the south and the tepid waters of the Gulf to the west, is no different. There's not a lot going on here economically: a towing business or two, a couple of real estate agencies, a few fruit stands, some bait-and tackle shops, a couple of no-tell motels and a handful of pawnshops, pubs and grills. 

If you'd been able to get a degree in engineering or nuclear physics, you might have landed a good-paying job at the nuclear plant a few miles south. If you hadn't, you'd probably be a struggling shrimp fisherman. Shrimping has fallen on hard times since big buyers began importing cheap shrimp from Asia - "outsourcing of fishermen," as the locals put it. 

It's a town with a '50s feel, perhaps because of the big, bent sign on Highway 40 West reminding people that Elvis Presley came to Inglis to film "Follow That Dream," perhaps because many of the homes and businesses still standing on the main drag went up then, too. 

Or, perhaps it's because of folks like Risher, who is known to drive a wrecker for her husband's towing business when she's not busy dispatching city business. 

The memorabilia that fights for space on her office walls hint of values the community holds dear: a print of The Last Supper, an NYPD cap worn by an officer at Ground Zero, and her original, now-yellowing proclamation. 

There's also a map of the United States, chocked with multicolored pins. Each locates a newspaper, TV or radio station that sent a correspondent to Inglis to write about her anti-Satan campaign. "We got the world's attention," Risher says. 

And how. 

No fewer than 217 news organizations from as far as Sydney, Australia, descended on Inglis in the months following the mayor's act, as did members of the American Civil Liberties Union, whose Florida chief described the proclamation as "the most extreme intrusion into religion by a public official that I have ever seen in my 27 years as a director of the ACLU." 

Soon, Risher was fielding calls from Dan Rather, Gov. Jeb Bush, Saturday Night Live and The New York Times and squinting under the lighting of CNN, NBC and BBC cameras. "It was like wildfire," the mayor recalls. "You couldn't put it out." 

Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" sent a correspondent from New York, dressed him in a red devil's costume, and had him stand out front of the Lil' Champ's convenience store and slip passers-by $20 bills to chase him out of town for the camera. 

And there were loads of pranksters. "Carolyn?" a deep, gravely voice said on the phone one day when Risher answered. "This is Satan. I want you, baby." 

Not everyone found the proclamation funny. Risher filled five binders with letters from Christians around the world, all in support of her stand against Satan. Ian and Jeanne Schodder wrote to tell her they'd been so inspired that they were selling their home in Canada and relocating to Inglis. 

"We are purchasing and closing on 2 parcels of land on Lee Terrace that we have already walked on, dedicated, consecrated and sanctified by the blood of the Lamb," they wrote. "We salute you and join you." 

Then, the unthinkable: Someone stole one of the posts and the messages rolled-up inside. 

All four were replaced, this time sunk into the ground with reinforced concrete. For good measure, metal caps were installed and a local Pentecostal pastor anointed the posts with oil and a blessing. 

Shortly thereafter, a town hall meeting was held. Things got heated. A number of citizens shouted that ACLU lawyers were unfairly pushing their community around. One non-Christian woman who was critical of the mayor's actions got shouted down. The posts were staying. 

The majority of residents did agree to move them onto private property. Risher also agreed to reimburse Inglis in the amount of $13 for the stationary, copying and telephone calls related to the proclamation. 

In the end, the ACLU dropped its suit. (Town commissioners said the proclamation was not an official act because it hadn't been formally approved by a commission vote.) 

Gradually, the flood of reporters, lawyers, comedians and religious advocates receded. That was just fine with townsfolk. They'd had their fill of the church-vs.-state politics, and quite enough of the media spotlight. 

But as the attention dried up and months passed, it became obvious that not all of the dark forces had left Inglis. 

--- 

Bobbi Walker slides a quarter and three pennies across the counter beside the six-pack of Coke and gives the customer with the Brillo-pad beard, earring and Coors stomach a so-long nod. 

The customer's fat, ringed fingers scoop up the coins. "Now that I got me the Coke, I gotta get something to go with it." He winks. Next door to the Lil' Champ's convenience store is Amelia's Packaged Goods, which carries things like rum, this unemployed mechanic's beverage of choice. 

"See ya tomorrow, Mike," Walker says. She checks the wall clock: 10:24 a.m. "He's a little early today. Usually, he ain't in 'til 12." 

At the Mousetrap, a watering hole popular with bandana'd, tattooed bikers and truckers on weekdays and lipsticked, moussed, rock-band lovers on weekends, owner Walt Deal cuts a draft beer and laughs. 

"Did people stop drinking? Heck no," he says. "If anything, business got better. I mean, for a while there, people were driving INTO town to see where the devil is, or was. Only thing it did was make us a laughingstock. I mean, I had relatives calling me from South Jersey saying, 'What the hell kind of a town are you living in?'" 

Steve Morris, a captain on the five-man Inglis force, might take issue with Deal's analysis. Morris' main nemesis is crystal meth. The drug isn't hard to make, and it's sold cheaply on the street. Since the proclamation, Morris says, drug dealing and burglary are way down and busts way up. 

Exactly how much? 

He pauses, his regard clouding a bit. "Significantly." Morris glances upward. "And the Big Man upstairs is the reason." 

Mary Jo Farnan and her husband, Bob, who own the Port Inglis Restaurant around the corner from the police station, aren't convinced. Their eatery has been broken into three times in less than a year. A few weeks ago, they fired a waitress because she and her boyfriend were getting high in the bathrooms on the evening shift. 

"I see Satan all the time," Farnan, 69, says. "His name is crack, pot, coke and meth, and he roams around Inglis like he always has. Steve Morris? Shoot, he doesn't even live in this town. After 5 o'clock, he gets in his car and drives home to Homosassa, a half hour away." 

Farnan grinds out his cigarette stub and frowns. 

"We used to have two cops in Inglis." he says. "Now we've got five men on patrol. If that proclamation had worked, why did we need more?" 

Beneath a canopy of pines and oaks at 42 Daisy Street, Gloria Adams is preparing a stew for her guests: drug addicts, ex-cons, people trying to kick the bottle. 

Adams and her husband, Jim, opened "Jesus Is! Ministries, Inc.," a nonprofit rehab center, in 1979. They have rooms for 32 boarders. Right now they have 31 guests. They're expecting lost soul No. 32 soon. 

Did the proclamation slow down business? 

"No, I'm sorry to say," Adams laments. "There's still a hunger out there. A hunger for faith, an empty spot in people." 

Gingerly, she stirs the stew. "People are afraid 100 times more, say, than they were 10, 15 years ago. You don't know if your own neighbor is a terrorist, or where your job's going tomorrow." 

After lunch, Dan Cummings is drinking coffee behind the counter of his store, D&D Bait and Tackle, waiting for customers. People used to throng the place like seagulls around a piling. These days he waits more than he sells. 

"The mayor stood up for faith, and that touched a lot of people," he says. "But what we really need around here are jobs. Idle hands breed evil, you know." 

A year ago, Floyd Craig, a Korean War vet who owns a farm produce market, ran for mayor against Risher, the incumbent by default for 12 years. Nobody had run against her before. 

Craig got whipped. The devil, he says, didn't. 

"Our drunks still drink, our hookers still hook, and truckers still ride like the devil up and down the highway," he says. "People are going to sin, plain and simple. No proclamation is gonna stop that." 

He bags some lettuce for a customer. "I got nothing against the mayor. She was trying to do right by the community she loves. But if you start thinking that the devil is outside of you, foreign somehow, you stop taking a good, hard look at the evil inside yourself, in your own deeds." 

AP-ES-03-13-04 1221EST

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Write a letter to the editor about this story

Sheriff accused of having handcuffs removed from boy with torch 
Email to a Friend Printer Friendly Version 
More News Headlines more>> 
Gulf Coast Winter Classic Ends With A "Dream"
Meth Lab Bust In Harrison County
MEMA Asseses Flood Damage After Dam Breaks
Tax Return Help Hurt By DHS Cuts
Spring Classic Rolls Into Gulfport
DHS Cutting Costs By Cutting Programs
USM Professors Request Hearing
Hard Rock Works To Protect Environment
Businesses Welcome New Tenant At Former Ocean Springs K-Mart
It's Official: They're American Citizens

Lincoln, Nebraska-AP -- A rural Nebraska sheriff is being sued for having a pair of handcuffs removed from a student, with a torch.
The student had been handcuffed by Sheriff Larry Donner -- who had been invited to speak at a Burwell High School.

The lawsuit claims the handcuff key broke and sheriff had a welding shop remove the cuffs with a torch.

The lawsuit claims the torch caused third-degree burns to Seth Barrett's wrist, which later required surgery.

An attorney for the boy's parents says the theme of the lawsuit is, 'What were you thinking?'

It seeks damages from the sheriff, the school and its welding shop.

Copyright 2004 News Source. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. 

Museum plans to exhibit decomposing human body
March 15, 2004

Print this article

Email to a friend 

Britain's Science Museum is considering a particularly gruesome new exhibit - a decomposing human body displayed in a glass box.

The planned attraction in an adults-only part of the London museum would be intended to prompt debate and tackle taboos about death, the Sunday Times said.

However the museum is still consulting experts such as pathologists and bereavement counsellors to work out both practicalities and ethical concerns, and the idea could still be abandoned, the report said.

The museum's head of learning told the newspaper that the exhibition, if it did go ahead, would use a real body.

"It would be a body of a person who has given consent to have their body displayed as part of an exhibition about death," said Ben Gammon.

"The idea is that you would see the body decomposing in a similar way to how it would decompose in the ground."

A television company was also interested in filming the process through time-lapse photography, he added.

NEWS SOURCE

Some Frozen Lobsters Return to Life

Sun Mar 14,12:40 PM ET

By JAY LINDSAY, News Source Writer 

BOSTON - Call it cryonics for crustaceans. A Connecticut company says its frozen lobsters sometimes come back to life when thawed. 

Trufresh began freezing lobsters with a technique it used for years on salmon after an offhand suggestion by some workers. It found that some lobsters revived after their subzero sojourns. 

Now, Trufresh is looking for partners to begin selling the lobsters commercially. The company was scheduled to attend the International Boston Seafood Show, which began Sunday, armed with video showing two undead lobsters squirming around after being frozen stiff in a minus-40 degree chemical brine for several minutes. 

Company chairman Barnet L. Liberman acknowledged that its lobster testing is limited and only about 12 of roughly 200 healthy, hard shell lobsters survived the freezing. In addition, the company hasn't researched how long a frozen lobster can survive - overnight is the longest period so far. 

Liberman emphasized the company's goal isn't to provide customers with lobsters that always come back to life. He just wants to supply tasty lobsters. 

But frozen lobster can't be much fresher than "still alive" and Trufresh hasn't hesitated to tout their lobsters' restorative qualities. For instance, the company plans to ship the lobsters with rubber bands on the claws, as a consumer protection measure. 

"I wouldn't remove the rubber bands," Liberman said. "It's not worth the risk." 

Bonnie Spinazzola of the Offshore Lobstermen's Association in Candia, N.H, had her doubts about Lazarus-like lobsters entering the existing frozen lobster market. 

"I've never heard of it and I don't know if I believe it," she said. "It might be a robo-lobster." 

Trufresh is based in Suffield, Conn., but has salmon operations in Lubec, Maine, a community on the Bay of Fundy that's the easternmost town in the United States. A few years ago, some workers with lobstering experience suggested freezing lobsters the same way they froze their salmon, which are far too dead (and filleted) to ever be revived. 

First, the lobster's metabolism is slowed in below-freezing sea water and then it's immersed in the minus-40 degree brine. Liberman said the lobster freezes so quickly that damage to muscle tissue cells from the formation of ice crystals is minimized. 

The lobsters are then thawed in 28-degree sea water. A marketing video from the company shows the lobsters freely wriggling around after about two and a half hours. 

The first time they tried it, Trufresh froze about 30 lobsters and two came back to life, Liberman said. But the company wasn't in the lobster business and never pursued it. 

Now, Trufresh is trying to expand its product line as it launches a retail business on the Internet. If it can find partners to catch the lobster and process it, Liberman said Trufresh can be selling them within months. 

Robert Bayer of the University of Maine's Lobster Institute said he was intrigued about the Trufresh process, but dubious. Seafood freezing methods similar to Trufresh's have existed for years, but there have been no reports of undead lobsters, he said. 

"I'm guess I am skeptical about a lobster being brought back to life," Bayer said. "But I'm willing to be shown." 

Vt. Creamery Diversifies Into Crematory

Sun Mar 14,11:01 AM ET 
Add U.S. National - 

By ANNE WALLACE ALLEN, News Source Writer 

GUILFORD, Vt. - Just up the hill from the Gaines' dairy farm stands a small building that looks a lot like a sugar shack, the kind of thing many Vermont farmers rely on to supplement their income. 

But this one-story building houses a human crematory run by a couple of former back-to-the-landers who say they want to provide a personalized end-of-life service. 

The owners, Jim and Ellen Curley, say their new venture is a small family business that will provide options to the community and will help the Gaines' seventh-generation dairy farm survive. 

"I view it as a service to my generation and the older generation," said Jim Curley, 54. "We're a low-volume small scale operation with a beautiful setting." 

End-of-life services are big business in Vermont and elsewhere. Funeral homes and burial businesses abound, but cremation is a growing choice. About 40 percent of Vermonters choose cremation, according to the Funeral Consumers Alliance, a national trade group based in South Burlington. Nationally, the number is 25 percent. 

The Curleys were looking for a family business when they got the idea of opening the crematory. First, they asked their neighbors, the Gaines, if they could use a wooded spot of land across the road from pasture. 

The Gaines said yes. 

"We've had a lot of people ask us to do different things here over the years," said Jackie Gaines, who lives on the farm and runs a dog boarding business there. "Someone wanted to put a warehouse-type of building up; someone wanted to put a building for storage up." 

The Gaines farm has about 200 acres in Vermont and Massachusetts where the family milks 65 cows; grows hay, corn and alfalfa; and runs a maple sugar operation. With milk prices hitting a 25-year low last year, all dairy farms look for other ways to stay afloat - and the Gaines saw Vermont Blessings as one of those ways. 

"The town was concerned with the aesthetic part of a crematory in town, and how that would fit in," said Jackie Gaines. "I told them that it would generate some income for us which would enable us to continue to keep this land as a farm intact for the next generation." 

And while the notion of a crematory on the farm elicited some startled jokes from relatives and passers-by, the farm family was not deterred. 

"Having a lot of animals, we do come in contact with death," said Gaines. 

The result: a neat, rectangular building just up a dirt road in the woods close to Route 5 as it approaches the Massachusetts border. Across the road, there are cows in large fields. Inside the building is the large machine - known in the business as a "retort" - where bodies are cremated at 1,750 degrees and sent into the air as vapor. They've done one cremation so far. 

The Curleys' crematory is the seventh in Vermont, including one in nearby Brattleboro that, like Vermont Blessings, allows families to skip the funeral home and the charges that go along with it and contract directly with the crematory for the service. Another in St. Johnsbury also allows that. 

The Curleys want to capitalize on the market in nearby western Massachusetts, which has a much lower cremation rate than Vermont's. Vermont Blessings plans to woo customers with promises of scenery, privacy, and personal service. 

"At Vermont Blessings we consider cremation a sacred occasion and have designed our facility and services accordingly," says the company's ad in the local newspaper. "Our small-scale unhurried approach offers the most personalized and reverent cremation available." 

The ad tells prospective customers that Vermont Blessings will work with a funeral home or, as Vermont law allows, will work directly with families. 

At some crematories, many cremations are done in a day; Vermont Blessings promises to do no more than two a day. 

"It makes a difference psychologically, to me," said Jim Curley, who has a doctorate in education. "If I was going to choose cremation for my mother, the thought of her being up at the industrial park, or down in a line, was appalling to me." 

Vermont funeral homes offer cremation for as much as $2,200 and as little as $650. Vermont Blessings charges $1,200 to pick up the body, complete the necessary paperwork, do the cremation, and return a container of ashes. 

"Actually they offer the same type of service I offer," said Paul Guare, funeral director at Guare & Sons Funeral Home in Montpelier. Funeral homes also offer embalming and memorial services. Jim Curley is working to obtain a funeral director's license so he can offer the memorial services as well, though he has no intention of doing embalming. 

Lisa Carlson, a longtime advocate for funeral consumers who lives in Hinesburg, agrees with the Curleys that the baby boomers are likely to want a cremation option for their parents that's simple and down-to-earth. 

"Consumers do want better control of the funeral experience," said Carlson, who runs a group called the Funeral Ethics Organization. "If you look at the boomer generation that blended families in new ways, demanded the right for natural childbirth, may have written their own wedding vows, made us recycle - they want to take charge of critical life events." 

--- 

On the Web: 

Funeral Ethics Organization: www.funeralethics.org 

Funeral Consumers Alliance: www.funerals.org

Want to become a mum at 60? Scientists test boundaries of fertility 1 hour, 47 minutes ago NEWS SOURCE 

PARIS (NEWS SOURCE) - Once upon a time, women faced a biological clock, which tick-tick-ticked away the years of their fertility until it rang, with a dull and often dreaded clang, in their forties. That deadline is the force behind innumerable decisions made by women, ranging from when to have a family, how to approach the dating market and how to manage their careers. Men are far luckier in this respect, for they produce sperm from germline cells in their testes throughout their lives. But the latest research suggests that, one day, women may be able to put the clock on hold for years -- and if that happens, the social impact will echo just as loudly as the introduction of the contraceptive pill in 1960. One plank of the "clock" theory is that women are born with a given number of eggs in their ovaries and cannot produce any more during their lifespan. But, 83 years after it was born, this dogma has been hammered by Harvard Medical School (news - web sites) scientists. They gave pre-pubertal mice a chemical that kills egg cells and were astonished to find the rodents continued to produce eggs in adulthood, proving an ability to generate fresh eggs to replace damaged ones. "If these findings hold up in humans, all theories about the ageing of the female reproductive system will have to be revisited," says lead researcher Jonathan Tilly, a Harvard professor of obestrics and reproductive biology. "We also may need to revisit the mechanisms underlying such environmental effects on fertility as smoking, chemotherapy and radiation. Eventually, this could lead to totally new approaches to combating infertility in cancer patients and others." In his mice, the new eggs were replaced thanks to stem cells -- the immature master cells that grow, or differentiate, into specialised cells -- in the ovaries. If the same germline stem cells can be found in women, and a way found to make them grow into the egg precursors called follicles, the menopause could be postponed. "Germline stem cells in humans might easily have been missed for the same reasons that they escaped detection in mice for so long," says Allan Sprading of the Carnegie Institution in Washington. He speculates that depletion of these germ cells may be a cause in the sharp sudden decline in the egg quality when women reach their thirties. Flaws in these older eggs make it harder to become pregnant and avoid a miscarriage. Another assault on fertility doctrine is being led from another direction -- transplants of ovarian tissue. Studies published by Nature this week, where Tilly's work also appears, report on two remarkable experiments in which mammalian ovarian tissue was transplanted to another part of the body, where it grew and was coaxed with hormone treatment into yielding eggs. In the first case, a transplant was carried out on a 36-year-old woman who had had an ovary removed and frozen ahead of cancer treatment six years earlier. Thawed and inserted under her skin, the tissue's follicles yielded more than 20 eggs, which were gently sucked out and fertilised in vitro. Only one developed normally; when it had reached the four-cell stage it was transplanted into her uterus, but she did not become pregnant. In the second experiment, transplanted ovarian tissue in seven rhesus monkeys led to the birth of a healthy female. However, the tissue was fresh, and had not been frozen and thawed. The work -- still in its earliest stages -- mainly targets women who urgently need chemotherapy or radiotherapy for cancer which will make them sterile. They do not have the time, or cannot take the hormones, to coax their ovaries into producing eggs that are then harvested, fertilised and stored. But the potential market is vast. The idea of storing away fertility and reviving it years later, perhaps using IVF and surrogate mothers, will interest many thirtysomething women, oppressed by that ticking clock.

This message is not flagged. [ Flag Message - Mark as Unread ] 

RFID Tags in New US Notes Explode When You Try to Microwave Them 

Adapted from a letter sent to Henry Makow Ph.D. 

Want to share an event with you, that we experienced this evening.. Dave had over $1000 dollars 
in his back pocket (in his wallet). New twenties were the lion share of the bills in his wallet. We 
walked into a truck stop/travel plaza and they have those new electronic monitors that are 
supposed to say if you are stealing something. But through every monitor, Dave set it off. He did 
not have anything to purchase in his hands or pockets. After numerous times of setting off these 
monitors, a person approached Dave with a 'wand' to swipe why he was setting off the monitors. 

Believe it or not, it was his 'wallet'. That is according to the minimum wage employees working at the 
truck stop! We then walked across the street to a store and purchased aluminum foil. We then 
wrapped our cash in foil and went thru the same monitors. No monitor went off. 

We could have left it at that, but we have also paid attention to the European Union and the 'rfid' 
tracking devices placed in their money, and the blatant bragging of Walmart and many corporations 
of using 'rfid' electronics on every marketable item by the year 2005. 

Dave and I have brainstormed the fact that most items can be 'microwaved' to fry the 'rfid' chip, thus 
elimination of tracking by our government. 

So we chose to 'microwave' our cash, over $1000 in twenties in a stack, not spread out on a 
carasoul. Do you know what exploded on American money?? The right eye of Andrew Jackson on 
the new twenty, every bill was uniform in it's burning... Isnt that interesting? 

Now we have to take all of our bills to the bank and have them replaced, cause they are now 
'burnt'. 

We will now be wrapping all of our larger bills in foil on a regular basis. 

What we resent is the fact that the government or a corporation can track our 'cash'. Credit 
purchases and check purchases have been tracked for years, but cash was not traceble until 
now... 

Dave and Denise 

Interesting numerical ties between the Madrid attacks and 9-11 
By News Source Friday, March 12, 2004 

In comparing the Madrid bombings to the 9-11 terrorist attacks in the United States, there are some interesting numerical ties. 

There were 911 days in-between the terror attacks in Madrid and Sept. 11, 2001 - or 9-11 as it has become known - when al-Qaida-backed terrorists slammed planes into the Pentagon, a field in Pennsylvania and the World Trade Center towers in New York, destroying them. 

The Madrid bombings - which happened on 3-11 - also came 2-1/2 years to the day after the 9-11 attacks. 

http://news.bostonherald.com/international/view.bg?articleid=1133 

-=-=- 

Blast came 911 days after Twin Towers By Mar Roman, Madrid 

EXACTLY 911 days after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, 10 terrorist bombs tore through trains and stations along a commuter line at the height of Madrid's morning rush hour yesterday. 

More than 190 people were killed and 1,421 wounded in Europe's bloodiest attack for more than 15 years. 

The blasts - claimed last night by Islamic fundamentalists - came just three days before Spain's general election on Sunday. 

The September 11 attacks are known in the United States as the 9/11 attacks. 

Spain initially blamed Basque separatists for the bombings, but the interior minister also said other lines of investigation were opened after police found a van last night with detonators and an audiotape of Koranic verses near where the bombed trains originated. 

The Arabic newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi said it had received a claim of responsibility issued in the name of al-Qaida. 

The email claim of responsibility, signed by the Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri, was received at the newspaper's London offices and said the brigade's "death squad" had penetrated "one of the pillars of the crusade alliance, Spain". 

"This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America's ally in its war against Islam," the email said. 

Spain backed the US-led war on Iraq despite domestic opposition, and many al-Qaida-linked terrorists have been captured in Spain or were believed to have operated from there. 

There were unconfirmed reports late last night that one of the bombs may have involved a suicide bomber. 

However, earlier reports had said the bombs were dynamite-based and were detonated by remote control. 

After an emergency cabinet meeting, a sombre Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar vowed to hunt down the attackers. 

"This is mass murder," he said. 

The bombers used titadine, a kind of compressed dynamite also found in a bomb- laden van intercepted last month as it headed for Madrid, a source at Mr Aznar's office said on condition of anonymity. 

Officials blamed the ETA separatist group at that time. 

Police found a van with seven detonators and an Arabic tape with Koranic verses in the town of Alcala de Henares, 15 miles east of Madrid, Interior Minister Angel Acebes said last night. 

He added that ETA remained the "main line of investigation" in the blasts, Europe's worst terror attack since the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270. 

Three of the four trains bombed yesterday originated in Alcala de Henares and one passed through it, the state rail company said. 

Panicked commuters abandoned bags and their shoes as they trampled each other to escape the Atocha terminal, where bombs struck two trains. 

Some fled into dark, dangerous tunnels at the station, a bustling hub for subway, commuter and long-distance trains just south of Madrid's famed Prado Museum. 

The bodies of the dead, some with their cell phones ringing unanswered as frantic relatives tried to contact them, were carried away by rescue workers. 

The wounded, faces bloodied, sat on curbs as buses were pressed into service as ambulances. 

One firefighter said he saw 70 bodies along a platform at El Pozo station, just east of downtown Madrid. 

One corpse had been blown onto the roof. 

Forty coroners worked to identify remains, and a steady stream of taxis carried relatives to a sprawling convention centre where the bodies were taken. 

A total of 10 bombs, nearly all in backpacks, exploded in a 15-minute span along nine miles of the commuter line - running from Santa Eugenia to the Madrid hub of Atocha killing 192 people and injuring more than 1,240, Mr Acebes said. This was later revised to over 1,400. 

Police found and detonated three other bombs. 

US President George W Bush called Mr Aznar to express solidarity and sympathy, condemning "this vicious attack of terrorism in the strongest possible terms," National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack said. 

Rescue workers were overwhelmed, said Enrique Sanchez, an ambulance driver who went to Santa Eugenia station, about six miles southeast of the Atocha station. 

"There was one carriage totally blown apart. 

"People were scattered all over the platforms. I saw legs and arms. 

I won't forget this ever. I've seen horror," Mr Sanchez said. 

Shards of twisted metal were scattered by rails in the Atocha station at the spot where an explosion severed a train in two. 

"I saw many things explode in the air ... it was horrible," said Juani Fernandez, aged 50, a civil servant who was on the platform waiting to go to work. 

"People started to scream and run, some bumping into each other and as we ran there was another explosion. 

"I saw people with blood pouring from them, people on the ground." 

The attack horrified Spain on the eve of Sunday's general election. Campaigning was called off and three days of mourning were declared. Newspapers ran special editions. The campaign was largely dominated by separatist tensions in regions like the Basque country. 

Both the ruling conservative Popular Party and the opposition Socialists had ruled out discussions with ETA. The Socialists had come under withering criticism because a politician linked to them in the Catalonia region admitted meeting with ETA members in France in January. 

The government convened anti-ETA rallies nationwide for tonight and announced three days of mourning. 

"What a horror," said the Basque regional president, Juan Jose Ibarretxe, who insisted ETA does not represent the Basque people. 

"When ETA attacks, the Basque heart breaks into a thousand pieces." 

http://www.examiner.ie/pport/web/ireland/Full_Story/did-sgr9sK7yVK-ggsgHuTLc4nqWo2.asp 

-=-=-=-=-=- 

Terror: 911 days after 9/11 
12/03/2004 07:48 - (SA) 

Related Articles: 
Stolen van linked to attacks 
Train bombs: 'Start of WW III' 
Batasuna condemns Madrid blast 
Blasts 'beyond the imaginable' 
Blasts ricochet through JSE 
Wall Street sentiment hit 

Madrid - Spanish officials, stunned by co-ordinated bomb blasts in Madrid on Thursday that killed 192 people and wounded more than 1 400, said they were keeping their lines of investigation open after clues emerged possibly implicating Basque or Islamic militants. 

The atrocity, which Spanish media and officials described as "our own September 11", came exactly two and a half years after the attacks in New York and Washington, or 911 days, and just three days before general elections that the ruling conservative Popular Party is widely expected to win. 

The carnage, carried out in four trains and three railway stations in the southeast of the capital in morning rush-hour, was the worst terror attack in Europe since the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people. 

Spanish King Juan Carlos said in a televised address to the people after visiting survivors in one of the city's hospitals, "A nightmare has struck showing terrorism's cruel face." 

"Your king is suffering with all of you and shares your indignation." 

The news of possible al-Qaeda involvement sent stock markets and the US dollar plummeting. 

The Dow Jones index in New York slid more than one percent, following European indices down. The dollar weakened against the euro, which went from 1.2222 dollars late on Wednesday to 1.2352 on Thursday. 

Edited by Trisha Shannon 

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,6119,2-10-1462_1497208,00.html

The National Institute for Discovery Science issued a report on Cattle Mutilations back on June 17, 2003. 

Unexplained Cattle Deaths and the Emergence of a Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) Epidemic in North America 
http://216.128.67.116/pdf/cattledeaths_tse_epidemic.pdf 

On why the bodies are left ... 

Why Leave the Body? This question has plagued investigators ever 
since the first well-publicized investigations of mutilations 
began back in the early 1970s. As any reader familiar with the 
animal mutilation topic will agree, a plethora of hypotheses 
have sprung up about the perpetrators and their motives for 
animal mutilations. One of the most quoted hypotheses involves a 
government operation to monitor radiation or biological warfare 
testing. But the question "why leave the body?" has never been 
adequately answered by these hypotheses. 

The government can just as easily test their own herds, the 
counter-argument goes, or obtain carcasses from a slaughterhouse 
if they wish to covertly monitor radiation. Thus, for this and 
many other reasons, the evidence points away from the government 
as perpetrators of animal mutilations. 

Vallee (56) and Smith (57) have suggested intriguing hypotheses 
that leaving the cow carcass on the ground constitutes a 
deliberate message. In common with both these authors, we 
suggest that implicit in the deliberate lack of an attempt to 
conceal the carcass on the part of the perpetrators of animal 
mutilation, is a brutal warning. 

We suggest that attention is being deliberately focused on the 
mutilated animals. Further, we suggest the warning is that the 
human food chain is compromised, probably with a prion- 
associated infectious agent that still remains mostly 
undetected. 

On how long this sort of knowledge has been around ... 

If the hypothesis is correct, animal mutilation operations are 
carried out by a knowledgeable group that is cognizant of the 
biochemistry and infectious potential of prion diseases and 
their fatal spread. How difficult is this knowledge to come by? 
Beginning in 1958, Dr. Carleton Gajdusek began mailing kuru 
brains from the wilds of New Guinea to the central 
neuropathology facility at NIH in Bethesda and Fort Detrick. 
Hence, these fatal neurodegenerative diseases have been known in 
the United States, but not highly publicized, since the late 
1950s or early 1960s. Only recently, due to the intensive prion 
research carried in the past two decades has the extent of prion 
replication become obvious in the eye, tongue, anus/large 
intestine and reproductive organs (see above) of animals. If 
these specific tissues are indeed removed during animal 
mutilation for the purpose of prion monitoring, this implies an 
intensive knowledge of prion physiology, biochemistry and 
infectiousness, involving research results not published until 
relatively recently, on the part of the perpetrators of animal 
mutilations. 

On the implications for the future ... 

As discussed above, some of the harrowing consequences of the 
spread of this TSE infectious agent may lie in a subset of the 
epidemic of Alzheimer's disease that is currently ravaging the 
United States healthcare system. According to CDC estimates (43) 
there are now 4 million Alzheimer's patients in the United 
States, with annual health care costs between $100-500 billion. 
With the aging population, this cost is projected to soon rise 
to $1 trillion when 7-8 million have the disease (43). There is 
also the question of the mysterious early onset Alzheimer's, 
currently afflicting about 200,000 Americans. We have presented 
the evidence that thousands of possible CJD cases may be 
misdiagnosed as Alzheimer's and therefore the extent of this CJD 
epidemic in the United States lies beneath the public's radar. 
We hypothesize that the animal mutilators know and have known of 
the potential damage to humans of this infectious agent in the 
human food chain. 

Thus, we hypothesize that animal mutilations serve as both a 
sampling operation AND a warning. 

A central implication of this paper is that animal mutilations 
serve two purposes: as both a covert monitoring operation for 
the prion infectious agent and as a very graphic public warning, 
a display that monitoring is being done. The body on the 
ground, with glaring evidence of highly skilled surgery, serves 
as a calling card and a warning. From the evidence presented in 
this paper, we believe the warning is: "A major human food 
source (beef, elk, deer) is contaminated." 

There are several predictions that arise out of the animal 
mutilation-prion monitoring hypothesis, since the evidence seems 
to suggest that mutilations will be followed, years or even 
decades later, by a TSE outbreak: 

(a) That a rather large outbreak of CWD/TSE will occur in the 
area around Great Falls Montana in the next several years. 

(b) Similar large outbreaks will occur in Argentina and in 
Northern New Mexico in the next few years (the first six cases 
of CWD were found on and near White Sands missile ground October 
2002-February 2003). 

(c) In the next year or two, there will be an unambiguous link 
drawn between CWD and sporadic CJD in humans in the United 
States. 

(d) Even though the state of California has mandated a ban on 
importing elk and deer from other states, the highly intense 
animal mutilation (>30 animals mutilated in 5 years) cluster on 
and near a ranch in N. California, predicts an outbreak of 
CWD/TSE in northern California in 5-10 years. 

(e) In the coming years, as new methods for distinguishing CJD 
from Alzheimer's comes on line, there will be a dramatic 
increase in the incidence of "sporadic" CJD in the population of 
the United States. 

http://www.nidsci.org/articles/articles2.html 
http://www.nidsci.org/articles/articles2.html

The 39th Annual National UFO Conference 
Kings Island Resort & Conference Center 

Opening Statement 
by Kenny Young 

REBIRTH OF CURIOSITY 

Let us assume that our small planet earth and all its human inhabitants were under surveillance by an advanced extraterrestrial intelligence. In the same way that various countries on earth spy on each other for their own security purposes, let us theorize that this advanced intelligence also keeps close watch of earth and its primitive inhabitants, sort of like keeping a close eye on the trashy neighbors in the interstellar neighborhood. 

Perhaps such an advanced intelligence might do more than simply maintain a 'hands off' covert reconnaissance of our world; what if such an advanced intelligence might even interact with our societies, cultures and traditions from time to time to help stabilize our society. In this same hypothetical musing, let us also theorize that this advanced intelligence occasionally provides our primitive civilization with some guidance from time to time, hopeful that the interstellar trash called humanity may be recycled into something better. 

But what shape would this guidance take? How might such guidance be tender to our numerous sensibilities, yet instructive to our needs? Perhaps the best form of guidance would be the tool called CURIOSITY. 

On September 11, 2001, Muslim hijackers murdered thousands of unsuspecting Americans. These religious individuals were enraptured with the belief that their murderous acts would be rewarded by a divine being, eternal life and numerous virgins. CERTAINTY was the motivating factor behind their actions, certainty in their faith. History is full of wars, killing and atrocities caused by certainty and belief. Perhaps if the Muslim hijackers were better educated in the wonders of science and its many mysteries, things may have been different on 9-1-1. Perhaps if they were curious about other cultures and beliefs, their world view would be tempered with more patience and tolerance. Perhaps if there was a shred of curiosity regarding the absolutism of their own convictions, things would be different. 

There should be no doubt that certainty is the kryptonite of humanity. In ages past, certainty, couple forevermore with ignorance, was best left alone to spark localized mass killings and regional wars. But in our present day of nuclear nations, terrorist organizations, rogue groups and individuals constantly seeking weapons of mass destruction at an uncontrollable rate, the scourge of certainty becomes more threatening by the moment. 

The only force that may hinder certainty may be curiosity. But curiosity has been driven back by the ideological. Curiosity is discouraged by defenders of faith or bad science, those having a skewed agenda, those who use twisted reasoning to misinform. Complacency results, disinterest runs rampant and such higher issues are trivialized by a society bound up in its own ignorance. 

What has happened to curiosity? 

Consider for a moment, an interesting event that happened 50-years to the day of still unexplained 1952 UFO overflights of our nation's capitol that made banner headlines across the country. This summer, on July 26, 2002, an unidentified radar target was tracked by NORAD, approaching the restricted airspace around Washington D.C. Two fully-armed F-16 fighter jets were scrambled to intercept the intruder, but the pilots reportedly saw nothing and returned happily to base. Despite the happy ending as per officialdom, all hell tore loose in nearby Waldorf, Maryland as citizens reported a fiery blue light doggedly chased by military fighter jets. 

Curiosity knocks. 

Think about it: at a sensitive time of terrorist concerns nationwide, an unidentified low-flying object approaches the nation's capital, refuses to identify itself and somehow outsmarts or out-maneuvers our top of the line pilots and fighter jet interceptors. Curiosity knocks but the door remains shut as there is little media interest in the event, no investigative journalism, no follow up. There is no media demand for a press conference to hear about temperature inversions, funny lights or witness misperception. Actually, aside from FOX News and small article in The Washington Post, the news media finds greater comfort in exploring the escapades of Martha Stewart and the behind-the-scenes bickering of baseball strike negotiators. 

Curiosity is left out in the cold. 

If this hypothetical advanced intelligence discussed earlier were really out there somewhere, guiding us by the overt interaction resulting from a UFO sighting, we must be collectively wise enough to rise to the occasion, brush of the complacency and comfort of ideology and recognize these higher scientific issues and unresolved mysteries. 

That seed of curiosity just may complicate the kryptonite of certainty and hopefully stabilize a society that is spiraling toward self destruction. 

Curiosity, governed by pure, unadulterated, unrestricted and uninhibited skepticism, may be our only hope for survival. 

Perhaps today, something that you may hear at this 39th Annual National UFO Conference may trigger that healthy sense of curiosity. And with this primary objective, we have a fine lineup of researchers and speakers who have committed themselves to personal investigation of our greatest present-day mystery, and they are prepared to report findings and information that will hopefully compound certainty, obfuscate complacency and give rise to curiosity. We welcome you to the conference and invite you to consider, with an open mind, the information presented here today. 

Employee Suspended for Anti-Bush Message CLEVELAND (AP) - A maintenance worker was suspended for displaying a sign with the word ``traitor'' on his state snowplow while helping provide security for President Bush's motorcade, officials said. Michael Gerstenslager was asked to park a snowplow on an entrance ramp to block access to a highway the president's motorcade used to travel from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport into downtown Cleveland on Wednesday. A state trooper in the president's motorcade saw the sign and reported it to the Ohio Department of Transportation, the agency's spokeswoman, Lora Hummer, said. Gerstenslager does not have a listed telephone number and could not be reached for comment. Gerstenslager is suspended with pay while the department investigates, Hummer said. She said she could not identify potential violations or penalties until the investigation is complete. Discipline can range from a verbal warning to dismissal. A disciplinary hearing will occur next week. 

Justice, FBI Seek Rules for Internet Taps By TED BRIDIS WASHINGTON (AP) - Technology companies should be required to ensure that law enforcement agencies can install wiretaps on Internet traffic and new generations of digital communications, the Justice Department says. The push would effectively expand the scope of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, a 1994 law that requires the telecommunications industry to build into its products tools that U.S. investigators can use to eavesdrop on conversations with a court order. Fearful that federal agents can't install wiretaps against criminals using the latest communications technologies, lawyers for the Justice Department, FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration said their proposals ``require immediate attention and resolution'' by the Federal Communications Commission. They called wiretaps ``an invaluable and necessary tool for federal, state, and local law enforcement in their fight against criminals, terrorists, and spies.'' ``The ability of federal, state, and local law enforcement to carry out critical electronic surveillance is being compromised today,'' they wrote in legal papers filed with the FCC earlier this week. ``Communications among surveillance targets are being lost.... These problems are real, not hypothetical.'' The FCC agreed last month to hold proceedings on the issue to ``address the scope of covered services, assign responsibility for compliance, and identify the wiretap capabilities required.'' Critics said the government's proposal would have far-reaching impact on new communications technologies and could be enormously expensive for companies that need to add wiretap-capabilities to their products, such as push-to-talk cellular telephones and telephone service over Internet lines. The Justice Department urged the FCC to declare that companies must pay for any such improvements themselves, although it said companies should be permitted to pass those expenses on to their customers. Stewart Baker, a Washington telecommunications lawyer and former general counsel at the National Security Agency, complained that the government's proposal applies broadly to high-speed Internet service and puts limits on the introduction of new technology until it can be made wiretap-friendly. Baker said the plan ``seeks to erect a brand new and quite extensive regulatory program'' that gives the FBI and telephone regulators a crucial role in the design of future communications technologies.

03/13/04 20:09 

Pentagon-Sponsored Robot Race Ends Without Winner Sat Mar 13, 6:01 PM ET Add Technology - washingtonpost.com 

By Kyle Balluck, washingtonpost.com Staff Writer BARSTOW, CALIF., March 13 -- The Pentagon (news - web sites)-sponsored robot race held in Southern California today ended without a winner, as none of the autonomous vehicles built by the 15 qualifying teams was able to travel farther than 7 miles from the starting line. Sandstorm, the modified Humvee entered by a team from Carnegie Mellon University, was one of the two vehicles that made it farthest before it succumbed to engine trouble. A vehicle built by Team SciAutonics II from Thousand Oaks, Calif., also traveled about 7 miles before stopping. A vehicle built by The Golem Group of Santa Monica, Calif., was able to travel 5 miles before stopping. Most of the other vehicles competing for a $1 million prize in the Pentagon's "Grand Challenge" failed to travel more than a few hundred yards from the starting point near Barstow, Calif. Both Virginia-based teams were among those whose vehicles barely made it past the starting line. The modified Honda all-terrain vehicle assembled by Team ENSCO from Falls Church only made it a few hundred yards out of the launching area before it flipped over. A four-wheel off-road vehicle entered by a team from Virginia Tech University made it to the edge of the launching area before its brakes locked up. Several other vehicles hit retaining walls or fences near the starting line. The fact that no vehicle made it more than 10 miles from the starting point reflected the enormously difficult challenge of building a vehicle smart enough to navigate across hundreds of miles of desert landscape. Autonomous vehicles make decisions based on their knowledge of the terrain. If a vehicle's cameras or radar detect an obstacle, onboard computers make decisions to go around, or back up, or change gears before moving toward the next waypoint. "It's a tough challenge -- it's a grand challenge -- you can always bet that it's not doable. But if you don't push the limits, you can't learn," said Ensco Inc. engineer Venkatesh Vasudevan. Of the 15 teams that qualified for today's race, only 13 actually started out on the course early this morning, departing in stages from an area near Barstow, Calif. Teams got course information about two hours before the race. Waypoints -- a series of global positioning system coordinates -- were programmed into onboard navigation systems. The race sponsor, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, received more than 100 submissions from teams wanting to participate. That list was winnowed down to 25 teams, comprised of engineering and R&D firms, colleges and volunteers. Of the 21 teams that attempted to qualify over four days of trials earlier this week, just seven completed a flat, 1.36-mile obstacle course at the California Speedway. More than two decades ago, military efforts to research autonomous technology produced large, slow vehicles that could only traverse flat terrain. California officials also successfully tested an automated highway system in San Diego in 1997. But a vehicle that can move quickly over a variety of landscapes and around or over natural and man-made obstructions has remained elusive. In sponsoring today's race, DARPA was responding to a congressional mandate that one-third of U.S. military operational ground combat vehicles be unmanned by 2015. Robotic vehicles one day could deliver supplies, eliminating the threat to drivers and security personnel assigned to vehicle convoys. The agency spent $13 million on the race. It estimated that competitors laid out four to five times that amount developing their entries, which rely on global positioning satellites as well as a variety of sensors, lasers, radar and cameras to orient themselves and detect and avoid obstacles. Non-military considerations also sparked some teams to participate in today's race. Scott Gray, a spokesman for the Carnegie Mellon University team, said he envisions vehicles one day that could be programmed to let blind people travel independently. The two vehicles that made it farthest today had at least some backing from corporate sponsors. The Carnegie Mellon team had various levels of support from Intel Corp., Boeing Co., Caterpillar and Science Applications International Corp. SciAutonics II's Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based team has ties to Rockwell Scientific Company. Carnegie Mellon President Jared Cohon said his school's vehicle cost approximately $3 million. The DARPA Grand Challenge did not escape controversy in the planning stages. Axion Racing, based near Los Angeles, earlier this month objected to a rule change that allowed humans to refuel the vehicles if they wound up spending the night in the desert. Axion team leader Bill Kehaly said entrants with larger vehicles would benefit from the revision. One of the teams selected to participate in the challenge, Northern California-based Team Overbot, dropped out in February. Overbot's John Nagle said he ran out of time to complete his vehicle, noting that an improving economy in Silicon Valley late last year took away many of his volunteers. Nagle also questioned DARPA's decision to increase the number of course waypoints. He says a heavily preplanned approach "doesn't lead anywhere," saying the technique was proven in the California highway test in 1997. The current level of waypoints favored Carnegie Mellon's Red Team, Nagle said. But Gary Carr, team leader from ENSCO, a Northern Virginia engineering firm, said the route is not simply a matter of "connecting the dots." He said the vehicles will have to do a lot of their own thinking on the course, noting a lot of turns can happen in the quarter mile average distance between waypoints. More than 900 people came to Barstow as members of the teams selected to participate in the race. With no winner, DARPA said the $1 million prize money will roll over to another event to be held as soon as 2006. The News Source contributed to this article.

Hitachi Makes 400-Gigabyte Hard Drive Sat Mar 13, 9:19 AM ET 

BY MAY WONG, News Source Technology Writer SAN JOSE, Calif. - Digital media hogs can celebrate. A new, whopping 400-gigabyte hard drive from Hitachi Global Storage Technologies can store up to 400 hours of standard television programming, 45 hours of high-definition programming or more than 6,500 hours of digital music. Previously, the largest such drive available was a 300-gigabyte product from Maxtor Corp., said Dave Reinsel, industry analyst at IDC. San Jose-based Hitachi said it designed the monster drive, the Deskstar 7K400, for audio/video products such as digital video recorders. Yankee Group, a Boston-based research firm, predicts the number of households with DVRs will increase to nearly 25 million by 2007, from about 3 million today. 

3 Charged in Theft From Jackpot Winner 2 hours, 27 minutes ago Add U.S. National - 

WINFIELD, W.Va. - Three men were charged Tuesday with stealing $100,000 from the winner of the biggest undivided lottery jackpot in U.S. history. The men were accused of breaking into Jack Whittaker's sport utility vehicle Jan. 17. The vehicle was parked outside Whittaker's home. Authorities began investigating after learning the suspects spent $7,000 to $8,000 on clothing in a department store. Brian C. Hillabold and David M. Fewell, both 20, were jailed on $75,000 bond. Vernon R. Jackson Jr., 22, was arraigned later, and bond had not been set. Hillabold and Fewell told police that Jackson took the money and gave them $10,000 each, sheriff's Detective Shawn Johnson said. Whittaker won a Powerball prize of nearly $315 million on Christmas Day 2002. Since then, money has been stolen from his vehicle three times, and his business has been burglarized. 

Kleenex Maker to Raise Prices in U.S. 1 hour, 24 minutes ago Add Business - 

DALLAS - Kimberly-Clark Corp., the maker of Kleenex tissues and Scott paper towels, Tuesday said it plans to raise consumer prices of tissue products in the United States by an average of about 6 percent during the third quarter. The company said prices for bathroom tissue, paper towels and napkins will be increased effective July 11. Facial tissue prices will rise beginning Aug. 29. The Dallas-based company said the increases are necessary to offset inflated raw-material costs, particularly for fiber, as well as higher energy costs. Kimberly-Clark said net sales of its consumer tissue products in the United States totaled more than $2 billion in 2003. With annual revenue of $14.35 billion last year, Kimberly-Clark also makes Cottonelle bathroom tissue, as well as personal-care items such as Huggies diapers and Kotex feminine hygiene products. Shares of Kimberly-Clark inched up 11 cents to close at $60.44 Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange (news - web sites). 

Shuttle Gears Were Installed Backward Tue Mar 23,11:50 AM ET 

By MARCIA DUNN, News Source Aerospace Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - To prevent another catastrophe, NASA (news - web sites) will replace braking mechanisms on all its space shuttles after discovering some of the gears were installed backward. Shuttle program manager Bill Parsons said Monday he has launched an investigation into why the rudder speed brake gears - all old original parts in the shuttle tails - were never inspected in more than two decades of flight. If one of the improperly installed gears had been in a high-stress position, it probably would have led to the destruction of the spacecraft at touchdown, he said. "Bottom line is, it was not good," Parsons said. The rudder speed brake is used to guide and slow the shuttle as it comes in for a landing. If even one of the four sets of gears that operate the mechanism jams, then the spacecraft could not land safely. As it turns out, the reversed gears found recently in Discovery were in the least stress-prone position and never failed. But one of the replacement gears - a spare set that was also installed backward - would have ended up in a much more high-stress location in the tail. All the rudder speed brake gears in NASA's inventory - dating as far back as the 1970s - are being X-rayed to see whether they were properly built, and to look for rust and microcracks, already spotted on some gears. Parsons said new or refurbished gears should be installed in time for shuttle flights to resume next March, after a two-year grounding following the Columbia tragedy. The extra work may put NASA a week or two behind, but "I think we'll be able to make that up," he said. Discovery will fly first because the work is further along. Atlantis must be ready to quickly go to the Discovery crew's rescue at the international space station, however, if need be during an emergency. The installation problem surfaced late last year and prompted NASA to delay the next shuttle flight from fall 2004 to spring 2005. "Because of the way these gears go together, you can actually make a mistake and put them in incorrectly, and there was not a good process back in the timeframe" to catch mistakes, Parsons said. He said the maker of the rudder speed brake mechanisms, Hamilton Sundstrand in Rockford, Ill., now has better quality control. At the same time, NASA is inspecting the plumbing in each of its three remaining shuttles. The hoses in question are also original shuttle parts and some are starting to leak, Parsons said. "As we deal with aging vehicle kind of issues, we will find other things along these lines as well, I'm sure," he said. Parsons said engineers are making good progress on the inspection booms and wing-repair kits that will be required on all future shuttle flights. Columbia was destroyed and its seven astronauts were killed during re-entry last year because of a hole in the left wing caused by a piece of insulating foam that broke free at liftoff. ___ On the Net: NASA: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov 

NASA: Mars' Surface Had Pool of Water 1 hour, 40 minutes ago 

By ANDREW BRIDGES, News Source Science Writer PASADENA, Calif. - Mars once had a briny pool of standing water on its surface that could have supported life in the now-frozen planet's distant past, NASA (news - web sites) scientists said Tuesday. Scientists announced earlier this month that the Opportunity rover found evidence of water long ago on Mars, but it was unclear whether the water was underground or on the surface. The new findings suggest there was a pool of saltwater at least two inches deep. A rocky outcropping examined by the rover had ripple patterns and concentrations of salt - considered telltale signs that the rock formed in standing water. The findings add to the growing body of evidence that the Red Planet was once was a warmer and wetter place that may have been conducive to life. "We think Opportunity is now parked on what was once the shoreline of a salty sea on Mars," said Cornell University astronomer Steve Squyres, the mission's main scientist. Although Squyres referred to the water as a sea, scientists said it was not clear how big the body of water might have been or whether it was a permanent fixture. Instead, the site could have been a desert basin or salt flat that periodically flooded with water. The evidence also does not indicate when water covered the broad and flat region where Opportunity landed, called Meridiani Planum, or for how long. Nor does it indicate if any organisms actually lived on Mars. 

British soldiers trapped in Mexican underground cave 
Wed Mar 24, 4:52 AM ET

CUETZLAN, Mexico (NEWS SOURCE) - Driving rain is hampering the rescue of five members of the British military who for six days have been trapped by flood waters in underground caves in Mexico, officials said. 

NEWS SOURCE/Pool/File Photo 

"We confirm that five people are trapped inside a cave and that another seven colleagues who are safe in Cuetzalan are in constant radio contact with them," local emergency services chief Joe Hernandez told NEWS SOURCE. 

He said the trapped cave explorers were alive and well and saw their predicament as a normal occurrence in the science of speleology. They said they have a five-day supply of food. 

The 12-member British team was exploring the caverns in Cuetzalan, 400 kilometers (250 miles) east of Mexico City when they were surprised by sudden floods. 

A public safety official told NEWS SOURCE that a rescue team had arrived from Mexico City and was waiting for the water level to recede so they could get to the Britons. 

Members of a Texan expedition were giving the Britons food and other supplies. But British officials have said the military cavers have food, water and radio contact with the surface. 

The renowned cave complex stretches more than 50 kilometers (30 miles) underground. Steady downpours have turned the entrance to the cave into a raging torrent, making rescue attempts impossible at present, local officials said. 

The British Embassy in Mexico City said it was monitoring the situation closely and that a group of British experts was due to arrive to participate in the rescue operation. 

The Mexican Army has sent a team of 20 experts, including three divers, to reach the trapped explorers, the officer in charge of the rescue operation Lieutenant Colonel Alejandro Perea told NEWS SOURCE. 

A British official who met with Mexican authorities said nine of the explorers were members of the British Armed Forces, but insisted that the expedition was not a military operation but private trip arranged by the team. 

"It's not their first time out here," said Cuetzalan official Miguel Arrieta. "They know their way about those caves down there, but unfortunately they never asked for official permission to carry out their research," he added. 

The trapped speleologists have been identified as Jonathan Sims, Charles Milton, Simon Cornill, Chris Mitchell and Toby Hammet. 

Supreme Court to Take Up 'Under God'

30 minutes ago

By GINA HOLLAND, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - Americans overwhelmingly want the phrase "under God" preserved in the Pledge of Allegiance, a new poll says as the Supreme Court on Wednesday examines whether the classroom salute crosses the division of church and state. 

Almost nine in 10 people said the reference to God belongs in the pledge despite constitutional questions about the separation of church and state, according to an News Source poll. 

The Supreme Court was hearing arguments Wednesday from a California atheist who objected to the daily pledges in his 9-year-old daughter's classroom. He sued her school and won, setting up the landmark appeal before a court that has repeatedly barred school-sponsored prayer from classrooms, playing fields and school ceremonies. 

The pledge is different, argue officials at Elk Grove Unified School District near Sacramento, where the girl attends school. Superintendent Dave Gordon said popular opinion is on their side - but that's not all. 

"It's not a popularity contest. If something is wrong, it should be corrected. No matter how many people support it," he said. "The argument that `under God' in the pledge is pushing religion on children is wrong on the law. It's also wrong from a commonsense perspective." 

God was not part of the original pledge written in 1892. Congress inserted it in 1954, after lobbying by religious leaders during the Cold War. Since then, it has become a familiar part of life for a generation of students. 

The question put to the Supreme Court: Does the use of the pledge in public schools violate the Constitution's ban on government established religion? 

Michael Newdow, the father who filed the lawsuit, compared the controversy to the issue of segregation in schools, which the Supreme Court took up 50 years ago in Brown v. Board of Education. 

"Aren't we a better nation because we got rid of that stuff?" asked Newdow, a 50-year-old lawyer and doctor arguing his own case at the court. 

The AP poll, conducted by Ipsos-Public Affairs, found college graduates were more likely than those who did not have a college degree to say the phrase "under God" should be removed. Democrats and independents were more likely than Republicans to think the phrase should be taken out. 

Justices could dodge the issue altogether. They have been urged to throw out the case, without a ruling on the constitutional issue, because of questions about whether Newdow had custody when he filed the suit and needed the mother's consent. 

The girl's mother, Sandra Banning, is a born-again Christian and supporter of the pledge. 

"I object to his inclusion of our daughter" in the case, Banning said Wednesday on ABC's "Good Morning America" show. She said she worries that her daughter will be "the child who is remembered as the little girl who changed the Pledge of Allegiance." 

Absent from the case is one of the court's most conservative members, Justice Antonin Scalia (news - web sites), who bowed out after he criticized the ruling in Newdow's favor during a religious rally last year. Newdow had requested his recusal. 

The case is Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, 02-1624. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov 

9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (news - web sites): http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ 

Study: Daily Drink Eases Hypertensives' Heart Risk Mon Mar 22,11:47 PM ET Add Health 

CHICAGO  - The protection against heart disease from moderate drinking extends to men with high blood pressure, suggesting current advice for such patients to avoid alcohol is wrong, researchers said on Monday. Long recognized as a stress reducer that cuts the risk of heart disease and strokes, wine and other forms of alcohol may have anti-clotting properties and boost blood levels of high-density lipoprotein, the so-called good cholesterol. The study found that hypertensive men who drank moderately -- one or two drinks per day -- had a 44 percent lower risk of dying from a heart attack than nondrinkers with high blood pressure. Based on an ongoing survey of 14,126 male doctors, the Physicians' Health Study, the five-year study concluded the overall risk of death was 28 percent lower among moderate drinkers with hypertension compared to hypertensive nondrinkers. The benefit was also seen among light drinkers of one to six drinks a week, but the more alcohol consumed -- as long as it remained moderate -- the lower the risk of dying. As with other studies that have concluded drinking can be good for one's health, the researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston warned about health problems such as liver damage, high blood pressure and obesity that can accompany heavy drinking. "However, patients with hypertension who are able to maintain light to moderate alcohol intake have no compelling reason to change their lifestyle and eliminate a possibly beneficial habit," lead author Michael Gaziano wrote in the study published in The Archives of Internal Medicine (news - web sites). There are a variety of risk factors for cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause of death in the United States, but the findings call into question current American Heart Association (news - web sites) guidelines that recommend hypertensive patients avoid alcohol completely, the report said. 

School Trains Girls to Be Good Wives

Mar 23, 9:33 am ET 

By Catherine Bremer

MEXICO CITY  - Once a week after school, a group of girls from well-to-do Mexican families troops to a meticulously kept house in the south of the capital for a class in how to become the perfect wife.

Girls aged 13 to 18 sit eagerly through lessons in cooking, sewing, ironing, dressing, folding napkins, serving a formal dinner and adding feminine flourishes to a home, like a posy of flowers in the bathroom or initials embroidered on the towels.

Such skills, according to teacher Tota Topete, risk becoming a lost art as Mexico's young women join a global trend of focusing on careers rather than housekeeping.

"Now all women want to go out to work, but working an eight-hour day when one is a wife or a mother is just not possible," Topete, a vivacious and impeccably groomed 60-year-old, said after one of her evening classes.

"It means neglecting one's husband. He could start looking elsewhere for affection and that could mean divorce," she warned.

In Mexico, one in three women works outside the home, up from one in five in the 1970s and not including the millions working illegally as domestic helpers or selling street food. As macho attitudes about women working and Catholic ideals on large families are eroded, women are also having fewer babies. And yet for the millions of Mexican women eking out a living in grim city slums or dusty rural villages, running a household is more of a hard slog on a tight budget than an art. In poor communities, girls are whisked out of school at age 10 or 11 to help around the house. They marry young and embark on a lifetime of cooking and cleaning, many also having to put up with philandering husbands. QUEEN ELIZABETH IS STYLE ICON But a world away, highlighted hair and trendy clothes labeling them as part of Mexico's small but disproportionately wealthy upper class, Topete's wide-eyed students fire off questions as they watch her mix a carrot cake batter. "It's important to know all this before you get married. We don't learn it at school," says Jimena Ramirez, 17, who hopes to marry at age 24, once she's completed studies in marketing. Meanwhile Topete, resplendent in pearls, satin blouse and scarlet apron, has whisked the class from kitchen to dining room for tips on how to serve up and clear away a dinner.

"You must never, ever scrape the plates in front of your guests -- and never pile the plates up with food squashed between them," she says, rolling her eyes with horror.

Her well-manicured disciples study from folders with sections on everything from etiquette and flower arranging to dress sense and color coordination. Students pore over color charts to decide which tones best suit their complexions.

A photograph of Britain's Queen Elizabeth is used as an example of a woman who wears enough jewelry to impress -- but never too much.

"If you are going to see a boy, go dressed in the color that suits you best. Brush your hair. Think earrings, think necklace. You must be well presented," Topete says.

"Not depilating your armpits or legs makes for a horrible sight. And if you wear sandals, please look after your feet."

Toward the end of the year-long course Topete broaches the subject of sex -- a major topic in separate classes she runs for married women whose relationships need sparkling up.

"Sex is a big problem today. The stress of living and working in a big city can inhibit libido," she said.

"I tell them they must do it -- and with passion, even if that means taking a siesta before their husband comes home."

CANDLE-LIT DINNERS

Topete is battling a trend in developed countries where women spending more time in the office than at home. Scare statistics abound showing skills like cooking and child-care dying out as working women relegate such tasks to maids and nannies.

Her quest echoes that of U.S. relationship guru Laura Schlessinger, whose best-selling book "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands" smacks of 1950's attitudes. In it she says many marital problems stem from selfish, overly demanding women who treat their husbands more like accessories than priorities.

In Mexico, a 2000 study found women are having two to three children on average, unlike past generations when the government encouraged sprawling families in a misguided bid to boost the economy.

Topete's students say while they want to continue their studies after school and find jobs, they also want to marry and have families. For that, they need domestic skills.

"My mother works. She doesn't have time to show me stuff like this -- but don't print that, she'll kill me," says one girl, as she endeavors to make invisible stitches during a sewing class.

Topete, married for 38 years, quips that a girl will never find a husband if she can't sew. Keeping him is another challenge, she says.

"There must be a balance between being an executive and being a wife," she said. "Prepare a candle-lit dinner and wear something nice. If you keep him happy, then he'll keep you happy." 

Croutons Land Top Brain Surgeon in the Soup

Mar 22, 11:42 am ET 

LONDON  - A leading British brain surgeon has been suspended from work following a dispute over a bowl of soup.

Dr Terence Hope was sent home from the Queen's Medical Center in Nottingham, where newspapers say there is a 39-day waiting list for brain operations, after being accused of taking extra croutons without paying, hospital sources said on Monday.

"A consultant was suspended following allegations surrounding his personal conduct," the hospital said in a statement. "He was due to operate today on three patients. Their surgery has had to be postponed."

Hope, 57, who has been working as a neurosurgeon in Nottingham for 18 years, is an expert in traumatic brain injuries. Efforts to contact him not immediately successful. 

Airline Halts Plan for Lip-Shaped Urinals

Mar 22, 7:56 am ET 

NEW YORK  - Virgin Atlantic Airways on Friday scrapped plans to install bright-red urinals shaped like women's open lips at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, saying it had received complaints they were offensive.

"Virgin Atlantic was very sorry to hear of people's concerns about the design of the 'Kisses' urinals to be fitted into our clubhouse at JFK Airport. We can assure everyone who complained to us that no offense was ever intended," Virgin spokesman John Riordan said in a statement.

Riordan said the British company received several dozen complaints from people and groups including the National Organization for Women after its plans for the urinals had been made public. NOW had posted a message on its Web site urging members to complain to Virgin chief Richard Branson.

"I don't know many men who think it's cool to pee in a woman's mouth, even a porcelain one," said NOW President Kim Gandy on the group's Web site.

The urinal, designed by a Dutch company, was the idea of a female designer. Riordan said Virgin was surprised by the negative reaction to the plan, part of designs for the lounge, built to pamper first-class customers. 

ade-In-Burma Jacket Stirs Flap

Mar 22, 7:52 am ET 

By Caren Bohan

WASHINGTON  - A "Bush-Cheney '04" campaign jacket sold on the Internet has stirred controversy because it was made in Myanmar, whose imports have been banned by the United States.

Although the company that shipped the fleece pullover, Spalding Group of Louisville, Kentucky, has said it did so in error, human rights groups blamed President Bush's re-election campaign staff for not taking a more careful look at the origin of the products being sold in its name.

The Bush administration has had sanctions in place since September against Myanmar -- also known by its colonial name Burma -- in an attempt to punish the government over human rights violations.

"Burma is one of the most repressive, brutal dictatorships in the world," said Charles Kernagan, head of the National Labor Committee, a group that seeks to combat sweatshops internationally. "The Bush-Cheney campaign was putting money into the hands of dictators with that purchase."

Arvind Ganesan of Human Rights Watch was also critical.

"The U.S. government, regardless of the administration, has widely condemned the human rights record of Burma," Ganesan said. "One would expect that they would be extremely diligent about where they buy their products."

Spalding Group, which supplies the merchandise for the campaign of Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney, took responsibility for the controversy, which came to light after a reporter for Newsday newspaper ordered several items off the campaign's Web site.

Among them was a red fleece pullover, priced at $49.95 and embroidered with the Bush-Cheney '04 logo. It carried a "Made in Burma" label.

The Bush administration has been trying to fend off widespread criticism of jobs being moved overseas. Democrats especially have pounced on the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs -- including many in the hard-hit textile industry -- as a presidential election campaign issue.

"I am totally prepared to accept responsibility," said Ted Jackson, president of Spalding. "This is about an honest mistake."

Jackson said a supplier shipped the wrong products.

He said the Bush campaign had asked that all of its products originate from American factories, and his company had listed those instructions when placing orders. Jackson said he had sent an apology letter to the campaign over the flap.

"We are committed to making sure only made-in-the-USA products are sold through the Web site," said Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel. 

Health fears over Chicken Tikka Masala 
50 minutes ago

By Matthew Jones 

LONDON  - One of the country's favourite foods could be slowly poisoning diners who love its distinctive red hue and spicy, creamy taste. 

An investigation on Tuesday found 57 percent of Chicken Tikka Masala dishes tested in Surrey had illegal and potentially harmful levels of chemicals used to give the curry its trademark colour. 

"A lot of people prefer bright red food and restaurants react to that," Yvonne Rees, Surrey's Assistant County Trading Standards Officer told The News Source. 

"When people are offered curries they often pick the one with the brightest colour." 

Rees said the chemicals that give the dish its colour are known to cause health problems like hyperactivity in children, allergies and asthma if consumed in excessive quantities. 

"The reason why there are limits on how much additive a dish can have is for health reasons," she added. 

Chicken Tikka Masala has iconic status in popular culture, vying with fish and chips in the nation's affections, but it bears little relation to a native Indian dish. 

The subject of a musical, it has inspired a range of potato crisps and in 2001 was even praised by a cabinet minister. Former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said the dish epitomised Britons' ability to absorb and adapt external influences. 

Unfortunately that very desire to adapt is causing problems. 

Hajra Makda, editor of Masala magazine which serves the Indian restaurant trade, said there have been earlier problems with additives in Indian cuisine and that consumers and restaurants need to be told about colour dangers. 

"It is good it is out in the open," she said. 

"I don't think the over-colouring is deliberate. The problem is that it is too easy to add a couple more drops (of colour)." 

James Martin, a chef who regularly appears on television cookery programmes, said the dish is the victim of diners' preferences. 

"The British palate demands a Chicken Tikka Masala to be this very, very vivid red colour," he told Sky Television. 

"A lot of the general public will send the dish back (to the kitchen) if it is not." 

"Chicken Tikka Masala should be a light orangey colour." 

New Internet Browser Is Voice Operated 2 hours, 49 minutes ago Add 

By DOUG MELLGREN, News Source Writer OSLO, Norway - Opera Software is developing a new Internet browser that allows users to talk to their computer, the company announced Tuesday. The new browser incorporates IBM's ViaVoice technology, enabling the computer to ask what the user wants and "listen" to the request. Opera declined to give a launch date. The browser is at its developmental stage. At a demonstration, a pizza order form was promptly displayed when the tester told the computer, "Order pizza." But the browser misinterpreted an order for "a pizza" as "eight pizzas." "We feel we are on the verge of moving the Web a little bit," said Christen Krogh, head of Opera's software development. "Voice is the most natural and effective way we communicate," Krogh said. "In the years to come, it will greatly facilitate how we interact with technology." The computer learns to recognize its users voice, accent and inflections by having them read a list of words into a microphone. "Hi. I am your browser. What can I do for you?," asked a laptop with the demonstration versions of the browser. The message can easily be changed to suit users, such as greeting them by name. The demonstration version, so far only in English, is still far from normal casual conversation. Users have to learn to listen to the computer's question, and then wait for a tiny beep before stating their request, a bit like communicating by pressing the transmit key on a simplex radio. "I would like a medium pizza with extra cheese, mushrooms and salami," a tester told the machine. The machine checked off the appropriate boxes on the form, but interpreted "a pizza" as "eight pizzas." Then it asked if the order was correct, and fixed the number when told the order was for one pizza. "Voice has been seen as the next step for years, but there were always problems," Krogh said. The browser corresponds to simple commands. For example, say "Get AP" and it would go to The News Source Internet page. By embedding IBM's voice technology into Opera's browser, a user can talk to the computer, which will understand and translate into normal code for the Net, Krogh said. The could open up the Internet to users who had been excluded because, for example, they were physically unable to use a keyboard, he added. Opera is the third-largest browser on the Web, although it is tiny compared to Internet Explorer and Netscape. It has been gaining ground as the browser of choice for hand-held devices, such as mobile telephones and personal data assistants, because it is known as being fast and needing little memory. IBM's director of embedded speech, Igor Jablokov, said "the new offering will allow us to interact with the content on the Web in a more natural way, first on PCs and in the near future on devices such as cell phones and PDAs." Opera plans to first launch an English version of the voice browser for Windows, to be followed by versions for other operating systems, including Linux (news - web sites) and Symbians. Oslo-based Opera was founded in 1995 by two former developers for the Norwegian telecommunications group Telenor as an offshoot of a company project. Earlier this month, it was listed on the Oslo stock exchange for the first time, and sold nearly 25 percent of its share base for 243 million kroner (US$35.2 million). ____ On the Net: www.opera.com 

New Internet Browser Is Voice Operated 2 hours, 49 minutes ago Add 

By DOUG MELLGREN, News Source Writer OSLO, Norway - Opera Software is developing a new Internet browser that allows users to talk to their computer, the company announced Tuesday. The new browser incorporates IBM's ViaVoice technology, enabling the computer to ask what the user wants and "listen" to the request. Opera declined to give a launch date. The browser is at its developmental stage. At a demonstration, a pizza order form was promptly displayed when the tester told the computer, "Order pizza." But the browser misinterpreted an order for "a pizza" as "eight pizzas." "We feel we are on the verge of moving the Web a little bit," said Christen Krogh, head of Opera's software development. "Voice is the most natural and effective way we communicate," Krogh said. "In the years to come, it will greatly facilitate how we interact with technology." The computer learns to recognize its users voice, accent and inflections by having them read a list of words into a microphone. "Hi. I am your browser. What can I do for you?," asked a laptop with the demonstration versions of the browser. The message can easily be changed to suit users, such as greeting them by name. The demonstration version, so far only in English, is still far from normal casual conversation. Users have to learn to listen to the computer's question, and then wait for a tiny beep before stating their request, a bit like communicating by pressing the transmit key on a simplex radio. "I would like a medium pizza with extra cheese, mushrooms and salami," a tester told the machine. The machine checked off the appropriate boxes on the form, but interpreted "a pizza" as "eight pizzas." Then it asked if the order was correct, and fixed the number when told the order was for one pizza. "Voice has been seen as the next step for years, but there were always problems," Krogh said. The browser corresponds to simple commands. For example, say "Get AP" and it would go to The News Source Internet page. By embedding IBM's voice technology into Opera's browser, a user can talk to the computer, which will understand and translate into normal code for the Net, Krogh said. The could open up the Internet to users who had been excluded because, for example, they were physically unable to use a keyboard, he added. Opera is the third-largest browser on the Web, although it is tiny compared to Internet Explorer and Netscape. It has been gaining ground as the browser of choice for hand-held devices, such as mobile telephones and personal data assistants, because it is known as being fast and needing little memory. IBM's director of embedded speech, Igor Jablokov, said "the new offering will allow us to interact with the content on the Web in a more natural way, first on PCs and in the near future on devices such as cell phones and PDAs." Opera plans to first launch an English version of the voice browser for Windows, to be followed by versions for other operating systems, including Linux (news - web sites) and Symbians. Oslo-based Opera was founded in 1995 by two former developers for the Norwegian telecommunications group Telenor as an offshoot of a company project. Earlier this month, it was listed on the Oslo stock exchange for the first time, and sold nearly 25 percent of its share base for 243 million kroner (US$35.2 million). ____ On the Net: www.opera.com 

Self-Reported Food Intake May Thwart Research Mon Mar 22, 5:33 PM ET Add Health 

By Amy Norton NEW YORK (The News Source Health) - A new study of overweight, diabetic women casts doubt on the reliability of the self-reported dietary habits often used in medical research. Researchers found that most of the 200 women they studied, as many as 81 percent, reported eating fewer calories than they actually had, based on objective measures. Many also claimed to have eating habits that closely matched the recommended diet for diabetics, which suggests the women were really reporting what they thought they should be eating, according to the researchers. The problem with fibbing about or underestimating calories is that it makes it hard to measure the true effectiveness of dietary interventions--a key component of diabetes treatment. The new findings point to the importance of using some objective measure to back up research participants' dietary claims, the study authors report in the March issue of the journal Diabetes Care. Their study included middle-aged and older African-American women with type 2 diabetes, most of whom were overweight or obese. Past research has shown calorie underreporting to be common among women, people who are overweight, and those who want to lose weight, lead study author Dr. Carmen D. Samuel-Hodge told The News Source Health. She said people may, for instance, have a hard time remembering what or how much they ate, or may feel pressured to report eating habits that are "socially acceptable." For the current study, Samuel-Hodge and her colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill compared diabetic women's reported food intake with objective estimates of their calorie expenditure. To get these estimates, they had the women wear small electronic devices called accelerometers, which gauge the number of calories burned during physical activity, for one week. The researchers also measured the women's base metabolic rates. These measures were compared with participants' self-reported dietary intake on three days. The idea is that in the absence of weight loss or gain, a person's calorie intake should roughly equal calorie expenditure. If someone takes in fewer calories than she burns, she should lose weight. Samuel-Hodge and her colleagues found that most of the women in their study reported calorie intakes that were lower than their estimated calorie expenditure. Based on the accelerometer data, the researchers estimate that 81 percent underreported their calorie intake. This estimate dipped, but remained high at 58 percent, when the researchers compared calorie intake with base metabolic rates. The researchers also found that the heavier a woman was, the more likely she was to underreport calories. It's possible, the investigators acknowledge, that many of these women, who were part of a larger study on managing diabetes with diet and exercise, truly were cutting calories. But, they note, six months after the current results were compiled, the women were showing no significant weight loss. The "major implication," the researchers conclude, is that such self-reports need to be independently validated. Samuel-Hodge said the findings are particularly relevant to studies of people with type 2 diabetes because of their high prevalence of obesity. SOURCE: Diabetes Care, March 2004. 

U.S. Mogul Trump Seeks to Trademark 'You're Fired!' 
Thu Mar 18, 7:19 PM ET 
Add Entertainment 

By Andy Sullivan 

WASHINGTON  - The U.S. fast food firm Wendy's asked diners "Where's the beef?," and Nike commanded sports nuts to "Just do it." Now Donald Trump is seeking to trademark another pithy phrase: "You're fired!" 

The real-estate mogul and reality TV star has filed a trademark application for the phrase, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Web site. 

Known for his gaudy casinos and unusual mane of copper hair, Trump dismisses underlings on the hit TV show "The Apprentice" with a curt "You're fired." 

Trump said he intended to emblazon "You're Fired" on games and casino services, and "You're Fired! Donald J. Trump" on clothing. 

Other tyrannical bosses won't have to alter their vocabulary if the application wins approval, a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office official said, as it will only protect those specific uses. 

A trademark attorney listed on the application did not immediately return a call seeking comment. 

The patent office granted 185,000 trademark applications in the last fiscal year. Applications take about a year to process. 

Trump might have competition: A search of the PTO's database revealed that three other applications for "You're fired" have been filed. 

No applications appear to have been filed for "You're outsourced," however. 

The Apprentice runs on the NBC television network. 

Legal Drugs Pose Greatest Health Threat, WHO Says 
Thu Mar 18, 3:33 PM ET 
Add Health 

By Axel Bugge 

BRASILIA, Brazil  - The health threat from legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco is much greater than that from illegal narcotics, the World Health Organization (news - web sites) said on Thursday. 


 

The first report of its kind by the global body found that dependence on alcohol and cigarettes has a much greater cost for societies than illegal drugs like cocaine and crack. 

The Neuroscience of Psychoactive Substance Use and Dependence report said that drug addiction is a growing problem, especially in poor countries which have rising rates of alcohol consumption and smoking. 

There are about 200 million illegal drugs users worldwide, or 3.4 percent of the world population, it said. Illegal drugs contributed 0.8 percent to global ill health in 2000, while alcohol accounted for 4.1 percent and cigarettes 4 percent. 

The percentages are based on a measurement used by WHO which gauges the burden that premature deaths and years lived with disability impose on society. 

The "main global health burden is due to licit rather than illicit substances," the report said. 

Men in rich countries are especially vulnerable to suffer from alcohol- and cigarette-related bad health. 

"Health and social problems associated with use and dependence on tobacco, alcohol and illicit substances require greater attention by the public health community," WHO Director-General Dr. Lee Jong-Wook said in a statement. 

The report also found that it may not be possible to fully cure drug dependence because of long-term changes to the way the brain works. 

Health experts need to consider a range of factors in treating drug dependence because it is a disorder caused by genetic disposition, as well as psychological and cultural factors, it said. 

"Like major psychiatric disorders, substance dependence may not be curable but improved effectiveness of available treatment has contributed significantly to recovery," said Dr. Catherine Le Gales-Camus, assistant-director general of noncommunicable diseases and mental health at WHO. 

The global launch of the report took place in Brazil, a country with spiraling drug-related violence, which has in the past led to rough treatment of drug users. 

Any person can become a drug addict and that dependence is a disorder, making it crucial to eradicate the stigma suffered by drug users that can make treatment more difficult, the report said. 

Stephen Hawking Questioned About Injuries Thu Mar 18, 5:50 PM ET By THOMAS WAGNER, News Source Writer CAMBRIDGE, England - Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has been questioned by detectives about alleged abuses that reportedly left him with a series of unexplained injuries, police said Thursday. Hawking, 62, who is paralyzed by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, was interviewed Wednesday by Cambridgeshire police at Papworth Hospital, said force spokesman Tony Taylorson. It was the first time police have spoken to Hawking since opening an investigation late last year into reports that he suffered mysterious injuries, including a broken wrist, gashes to the face and a cut lip. Since he was diagnosed with ALS more than 40 years ago, the disease has gradually deprived Hawking of the ability to speak or to move, except for a few fingers he uses to operate a computerized voice box. Despite his disabilities, Hawking is one of the world's best-known scientists. He is Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, a post once held by Sir Isaac Newton, and is author of the best-selling book "A Brief History of Time." In January, Hawking was admitted to Addenbrooke's hospital in Cambridge for treatment of pneumonia. He has since been moved to Papworth Hospital in the town of Papworth Everad. "We spoke with Prof. Hawking for the first time on Wednesday in connection with allegations of abuse against him," said Taylorson. "I can't say anything more about the case," which was opened late last year. Hawking has dismissed allegations that he was assaulted or abused at his home in Cambridge as "completely false." Stories in the British press have contained sometimes lurid allegations attributed to unidentified nurses and others who have cared for him. The scientist, who divorced his first wife after 26 years, married his nurse, Elaine Mason, 53, in 1995. The two now live in Cambridge near the university. His former wife, Jane Hawking, who wrote a memoir about their time together, has urged police to investigate the reported abuses he suffered. Recently, she said she and their three adult children have long suspected that he had suffered repeated, unexplained assaults, some of them reported by his full-time nurses, but that he refused to take action. During their investigation, Cambridgeshire police also are expected to question some of Hawking's previous nurses. __ On the Net: Stephen Hawking's site, www.hawking.org.uk 

Survey: Many Species at Risk of Extinction 46 minutes ago 

By PAUL RECER, News Source Science Writer WASHINGTON - A steep decline in birds, butterflies and native plants in Britain supports the theory that humans are pushing the natural world into the Earth's sixth big extinction event and the future may see more and more animal species disappearing. In an effort that sent more than 20,000 volunteers into every corner of England, Scotland and Wales to survey wildlife and plants, researchers found that many native populations are in big trouble and some are gone altogether. "This is the first time, for instance, that we can answer the question, 'Have butterflies declined as badly as birds?'" said Jeremy A. Thomas, an ecologist with the National Environment Research Council in Dorchester, England, and the first author of a study appearing in the journal Science. A survey of 58 butterfly species found that some had experienced a 71 percent population swoon since similar surveys taken from 1970 through 1982. Some 201 bird species were tracked between 1968 and 1971, and then again from 1988 to 1991, with a population decline of about 54 percent. Two surveys of 1,254 native plant species showed a decrease of about 28 percent over 40 years. Thomas said that other scientists, noting losses of mammals and other animals, have speculated about the loss of insects, but the British butterfly study is the first to actually document over decades such a steep decline. "Population extinctions were recorded in all the main ecosystems of Britain," Thomas and his co-authors wrote. This supports the theory, they said, that "the biological world is approaching the sixth major extinction event in its history." Thomas said that some past extinctions have killed off more than 90 percent of all life forms and "nobody is suggesting we are at that point." But, he said, "if this goes on for the foreseeable future then within a short period in geological time we will be getting toward the level of a major extinction." Scott Miller, a biologist with the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, said the British study was impressive in its thoroughness. He said, "They may not be representative of the world as a whole, but they have the best data." The data support the idea that the rise of humans over tens of thousands of years - along with climate changes - is reshaping the natural world in ways that aren't thoroughly understood. Scientists have identified five extinction events in Earth's history, with some so severe that more than 90 percent of all life forms died. The last and most famous extinction was the Cretaceous-Tertiary event some 63 million years ago that killed the dinosaurs and allowed the rise of mammals. It is thought to have been caused by an asteroid hitting Earth. "We are in the middle of a sixth extinction event that began about 50,000 years ago" with the expanding role in the world of human beings, said Paul S. Martin, a zoologist and geochemist at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "It's happening, but it's slower and it is not clear it will be as severe as some of the others." Stuart Pimm, an ecologist at Duke University, said in Science that the British study results "show that we have likely underestimated the magnitude of the pending extinctions." Miller and Martin both point to the hundreds of species, mostly large animals and birds, that already are gone, some wiped out directly through human action. Martin said the fossil records show that the disappearance of many animals in Australia, Madagascar and North America started about the time that humans arrived. Gone from the natural North American environment, for instance, are mammoths, camels, giant sloths and saber-toothed tigers. The causes of the other extinctions are not well understood. The largest ended the Permian Period some 250 million years ago. All but about 4 percent of all species disappeared then. There were three other lesser-known events in the Ordovician (435 million years ago), the Devonian (357 million years ago) and the Triassic (198 million years ago) periods. ___ On the Net: Science: www.sciencemag.org 

Kmart Posts First Post-Bankruptcy Profit 1 hour, 59 minutes ago Add Business 

By Emily Kaiser NEW YORK  - Retailer Kmart Holding Corp. (Nasdaq:KMRT - news) on Thursday posted its first quarterly profit since emerging from bankruptcy last May, and built up a surprisingly large amount of cash as it cut costs and spruced up stores. The Troy, Michigan-based retailer also said that style guru Martha Stewart (news - web sites)'s conviction for lying to investigators over a suspicious stock sale has had no significant impact on sales of Kmart's exclusive Martha Stewart Everyday line of home decor and furniture. Shares of Kmart rose sharply in morning trade on the Nasdaq as the large profit and hefty cash holdings eased lingering concerns that Kmart might slip back into bankruptcy. "Kmart is now one of the more liquid retailers doing business in the United States," said Richard Hastings, retail analyst with credit advisory firm Bernard Sands. "They have a war chest of money to apply to their basic operations. Kmart is going to be around a lot longer than some pundits expected." Kmart filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January 2002, after a poor holiday shopping season compounded its financial woes. It emerged in May 2003 with a new management team, 600 fewer stores and much lower debt. The retailer said it earned $276 million, or $2.78 per share, in the fourth quarter ended Jan. 28, compared with a loss of $1.1 billion a year earlier. The company had said in January that it recorded a profit in November and December, which could put it on track to post its first quarterly profit since exiting bankruptcy. Total sales dropped 25.8 percent to $6.3 billion, in part because of store closings. Sales at stores open at least a year -- a key retail measure known as same-store sales -- dropped 13.5 percent. Kmart has been holding back on price cuts to preserve profits. The retailer listed about $2.1 billion in cash and cash equivalents as of Jan. 28, more than expected. The company has also been reducing inventory and cleaning up stores, which critics said had looked cluttered before and during bankruptcy. Hastings said stores he visited recently looked "clean, neat, with a lot less inventory. They have what they need and nothing more," he said. Kmart faces fierce competition from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE:WMT - news) and Target Corp. (NYSE:TGT - news), and some analysts have questioned whether the retailer has a place in a discount sector dominated by those two powerhouses. Kmart is banking on its exclusive brands such as Martha Stewart Everyday and Joe Boxer to keep customers returning. Stewart's recent conviction cast a huge shadow over her long-running relationship with Kmart. The retailer said in its annual report, also released on Thursday, that is has not had "significant" adverse impact on Martha Stewart product sales since the verdict. The retailer also said it had recently become aware of some reporting violations involving its distribution centers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites). "At the current time, we cannot, with reasonable certainty, estimate the penalty that may be imposed, but are working closely with the Environmental Protection Agency to resolve this matter," Kmart said in the report. Kmart shares were up 9.2 percent at $37.86 Thursday morning on the Nasdaq. 

Kmart Posts First Post-Bankruptcy Profit 1 hour, 59 minutes ago Add Business 

By Emily Kaiser NEW YORK  - Retailer Kmart Holding Corp. (Nasdaq:KMRT - news) on Thursday posted its first quarterly profit since emerging from bankruptcy last May, and built up a surprisingly large amount of cash as it cut costs and spruced up stores. The Troy, Michigan-based retailer also said that style guru Martha Stewart (news - web sites)'s conviction for lying to investigators over a suspicious stock sale has had no significant impact on sales of Kmart's exclusive Martha Stewart Everyday line of home decor and furniture. Shares of Kmart rose sharply in morning trade on the Nasdaq as the large profit and hefty cash holdings eased lingering concerns that Kmart might slip back into bankruptcy. "Kmart is now one of the more liquid retailers doing business in the United States," said Richard Hastings, retail analyst with credit advisory firm Bernard Sands. "They have a war chest of money to apply to their basic operations. Kmart is going to be around a lot longer than some pundits expected." Kmart filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January 2002, after a poor holiday shopping season compounded its financial woes. It emerged in May 2003 with a new management team, 600 fewer stores and much lower debt. The retailer said it earned $276 million, or $2.78 per share, in the fourth quarter ended Jan. 28, compared with a loss of $1.1 billion a year earlier. The company had said in January that it recorded a profit in November and December, which could put it on track to post its first quarterly profit since exiting bankruptcy. Total sales dropped 25.8 percent to $6.3 billion, in part because of store closings. Sales at stores open at least a year -- a key retail measure known as same-store sales -- dropped 13.5 percent. Kmart has been holding back on price cuts to preserve profits. The retailer listed about $2.1 billion in cash and cash equivalents as of Jan. 28, more than expected. The company has also been reducing inventory and cleaning up stores, which critics said had looked cluttered before and during bankruptcy. Hastings said stores he visited recently looked "clean, neat, with a lot less inventory. They have what they need and nothing more," he said. Kmart faces fierce competition from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE:WMT - news) and Target Corp. (NYSE:TGT - news), and some analysts have questioned whether the retailer has a place in a discount sector dominated by those two powerhouses. Kmart is banking on its exclusive brands such as Martha Stewart Everyday and Joe Boxer to keep customers returning. Stewart's recent conviction cast a huge shadow over her long-running relationship with Kmart. The retailer said in its annual report, also released on Thursday, that is has not had "significant" adverse impact on Martha Stewart product sales since the verdict. The retailer also said it had recently become aware of some reporting violations involving its distribution centers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites). "At the current time, we cannot, with reasonable certainty, estimate the penalty that may be imposed, but are working closely with the Environmental Protection Agency to resolve this matter," Kmart said in the report. Kmart shares were up 9.2 percent at $37.86 Thursday morning on the Nasdaq. 

Dracula Park to Lure Fans to Romania

Mar 18, 8:25 am ET 

By Radu Marinas

BUCHAREST  - Diehard Dracula fans may be able to sate their thirst for jelly-and-blood puddings by May 2005 when a theme park dedicated to the infamous count is expected to open.

The Balkan country wants to boost its ailing tourist industry by luring visitors to the park near Bucharest, which would feature horror rides, a vampirology institute and gory menus.

The long-delayed plan to build a park is back on track after securing private investment. But the park will cost more than double the original amount, said Sorin Marica, the head of the Dracula Park SA firm, which owns the project.

"We'll open it by May (2005). The season starts then, so that's the best timing for Dracula," Marica told The News Source on Wednesday.

Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling and Brau-Union AG of Austria were among the investors already committed to the project, sources close to the deal said.

Marica said the park needs financing worth up to $70 million against $30 million originally, because the project has been expanded to include golf-courses, horse racing, a karting track and an water park.

The park ran into trouble in 2002 when the project was forced to re-locate from a 13th century Transylvanian town of Sighisoar, a World Heritage Site.

UNESCO, the cultural arm of the United Nations, said the onslaught of millions of tourists would ruin the medieval birthplace of Vlad Tepes the Impaler -- believed to have inspired Bram Stoker's fictional Count Dracula.

The Romanian state has now offered 1,137 acres of state land in Snagov, 25 miles from the capital of 2.5 million people, hoping to capitalize on one of its most recognizable names and attract much-needed foreign investment.

"We're close to finalizing talks with the investors...they include foreign tour operators and investment banks," Marica said adding that the project has secured most of the money.

Construction at the site, 11 miles from the capital's international airport, will start this summer. The park expects to draw about one million tourists annually -- 20 percent of them from abroad.

The headless body of Vlad Tepes, the real-life 15th-century Wallachian prince notorious for impaling his Ottoman prisoners, is believed to be buried at a monastery in the middle of Snagov Lake, near the planned theme park.

Vlad is thought to have been born in Sighisoara around 1431 to Vlad Dracul or Dragon. The young Vlad was named Dracula -- meaning son of Dracul -- by his father. In Romanian, the word also means the devil. 

Ticking Clock Empties NZ Central Bank Building

Mar 18, 8:23 am ET 

WELLINGTON  - A ticking clock given as a gift to a government minister prompted the evacuation of New Zealand's central bank on Thursday.

Several hundred people were evacuated from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand building and surrounding streets in Wellington's government district were cordoned off when a suspicious parcel was found at 8:30 a.m.

Police said a parcel that arrived in the offices of the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology, a tenant in the building, aroused suspicions from the way it was packaged and the noise.

"For safety's sake, the building was evacuated and explosives experts from the army brought in," Inspector Phil Gubb told reporters at the scene.

"However, the package was harmless. It was a gift from an overseas government to a cabinet minister."

The clock was a gift to Science Minister Pete Hodgson from a delegation who attended a meeting of Asian and Pacific science ministers held in New Zealand last week, the ministry said.

Police gave the all-clear after two hours.

The central bank switched to back-up systems and there was no disruption to New Zealand financial and banking markets. 

German Jews Attack Vegetarian Ad Campaign

Mar 18, 8:21 am ET 

BERLIN  - An animal rights group said on Wednesday it would go ahead with a controversial advertising campaign that likens the slaughter of animals to the murder of Jews under the Nazis despite threats of a legal challenge.

Paul Spiegel, president of the Central Council of Jews, said he would ask prosecutors to raise charges of "inciting racial hatred" against vegetarian group People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) for the advertisements called "Holocaust on a plate."

PETA campaign coordinator Matt Prescott said he was aware of the council's views, but added: "We are not willing to end the campaign." He said he himself was Jewish.

The posters, due to be displayed in Stuttgart from Thursday and in 11 European cities at later dates, show pictures of battery hens packed into cages next to historic pictures of emaciated Jewish inmates in Nazi concentration camp bunk beds.

Stuttgart prosecutor Eckhard Maak was quoted Wednesday as saying PETA should think twice because German law foresaw fines or up to five years in prison for anyone found guilty of belittling or denying the Holocaust.

Maak said if the campaign went ahead "then you can expect the police won't shut their eyes," according to an advance copy of an interview due to be published in Thursday's Berliner Zeitung newspaper.

Spiegel earlier told the newspaper the Jewish council would press charges if the campaign was launched. He has urged PETA to drop the "disgusting" adverts, saying they were "a violation of human dignity, especially of the Holocaust victims."

PETA officials say the posters are designed to raise public awareness of what they call the maltreatment of animals before they are slaughtered.

Pythonesque Manila Diner Serves Spam, Spam, Spam

Mar 18, 8:21 am ET 

MANILA  - Spamburgers, Spam nuggets, Spam Spaghetti, Caesar salad with Spam, Spam and eggs: the menu at the Spamjam restaurant in Manila could be straight out of the Monty Python sketch.

"I'm a Spam lover," said Philip Abadilla, who opened the world's first Spam restaurant in December. "It's always on my mind."

While the canned luncheon meat will forever be ridiculed by fans of the British comedians, it is a much loved staple in the Philippines.

Filipinos eat 2.75 million pounds of the stuff every year, and woe betide anyone arriving from the United States who doesn't bring a few cans for their relatives.

"It appeals to my taste buds," said Aris Yambao, a 28-year-old advertising executive on his second visit to the red, yellow and blue restaurant in one of Manila's enormous shopping malls.

Yambao was one of just eight people in the half-full diner Thursday at lunchtime, but Abadilla said he gets up to 300 customers a day and is in negotiations to open two further branches.

First produced in 1937 by Hormel Foods Corp of the United States, Spam became an institution during World War II.

It gave its name to junk e-mail because of the singing Vikings in the Monty Python sketch, who kept drowning out a waitress offering dishes such as spam, egg, spam, spam, bacon and spam.

Hormel, whose Philippine venture helped Abadilla set up Spamjam, is hoping to take the restaurant to other countries.

For people who don't like Spam, such as the female customer played by Graham Chapman in the sketch, the menu also offers hot dogs.

To which the Spam-loving waitress played by Terry Jones would have said: "Urgghh!" 

Italian Police Break Into Church to Install Priest

Mar 17, 10:36 am ET 

ROME  - Police in a small Italian town had to break into a church to let a priest take up his new job, thwarting a six-month blockade by parishioners devoted to his predecessor.

The faithful in the mountain town of Trasacco had jammed the church doors shut in protest after the Church transferred their Capuchin monk and sent a non-Capuchin to replace him.

So attached were parishioners to the Capuchins, who had served them for the last 430 years, that they briefly bricked the last friar into the local monastery to try to stop him leaving their town about 60 miles east of Rome.

The newcomer, Father Duilio Testa, was appointed in September but only entered his church Monday when police broke in through a window to let him in, deputy mayor Vincenzo Retico told The News Source by telephone.

He said Testa would have his spiritual work cut out for him.

"How can the people welcome him now, arriving flanked by police?" he said.

"Everything that there is in this town today was built with the toil and sweat of the monks. They were part of our being."

The Capuchins are a branch of the Franciscan order, famed for their long white beards. 

Italian Police Break Into Church to Install Priest

Mar 17, 10:36 am ET 

ROME  - Police in a small Italian town had to break into a church to let a priest take up his new job, thwarting a six-month blockade by parishioners devoted to his predecessor.

The faithful in the mountain town of Trasacco had jammed the church doors shut in protest after the Church transferred their Capuchin monk and sent a non-Capuchin to replace him.

So attached were parishioners to the Capuchins, who had served them for the last 430 years, that they briefly bricked the last friar into the local monastery to try to stop him leaving their town about 60 miles east of Rome.

The newcomer, Father Duilio Testa, was appointed in September but only entered his church Monday when police broke in through a window to let him in, deputy mayor Vincenzo Retico told The News Source by telephone.

He said Testa would have his spiritual work cut out for him.

"How can the people welcome him now, arriving flanked by police?" he said.

"Everything that there is in this town today was built with the toil and sweat of the monks. They were part of our being."

The Capuchins are a branch of the Franciscan order, famed for their long white beards. Wrong Number Leads to Woman's Arrest

Mar 17, 10:35 am ET 

OKLAHOMA CITY  - An Oklahoma woman dialed a wrong number and ended up under arrest after she tried to set up a drug deal with her former parole officer, police said on Tuesday.

Patricia Michel was arrested last Thursday on suspicion of the unlawful distribution of a dangerous controlled substance at her home in Durant, Oklahoma, near the Texas border.

Michel called her former parole officer, Doug Canant, on his cell phone by mistake, thinking he could help set up a deal where she could acquire methamphetamines, police said.

"I am a bit of a joker, so I was playing along," Canant said in a telephone interview. "She thought she was talking to her local drug dealer."

She told the parole officer she did not have money to buy drugs because she was waiting for her U.S. tax refund and wanted to exchange one type of drug for another, Canant said.

Acting on Canant's tip, the local drug task force sent agents to Michel's house and set up a deal. She handed over two pills that were controlled substances and instead of getting drugs, she got arrested, police said.

Michel has been released on bond but faces between two years to life in prison if convicted. If she receives parole, she may have Canant as her parole officer again.

"It is a small town and there are only three of us (parole officers). It will be the luck of the draw," Canant said. 

Wrong Number Leads to Woman's Arrest

Mar 17, 10:35 am ET 

OKLAHOMA CITY  - An Oklahoma woman dialed a wrong number and ended up under arrest after she tried to set up a drug deal with her former parole officer, police said on Tuesday.

Patricia Michel was arrested last Thursday on suspicion of the unlawful distribution of a dangerous controlled substance at her home in Durant, Oklahoma, near the Texas border.

Michel called her former parole officer, Doug Canant, on his cell phone by mistake, thinking he could help set up a deal where she could acquire methamphetamines, police said.

"I am a bit of a joker, so I was playing along," Canant said in a telephone interview. "She thought she was talking to her local drug dealer."

She told the parole officer she did not have money to buy drugs because she was waiting for her U.S. tax refund and wanted to exchange one type of drug for another, Canant said.

Acting on Canant's tip, the local drug task force sent agents to Michel's house and set up a deal. She handed over two pills that were controlled substances and instead of getting drugs, she got arrested, police said.

Michel has been released on bond but faces between two years to life in prison if convicted. If she receives parole, she may have Canant as her parole officer again.

"It is a small town and there are only three of us (parole officers). It will be the luck of the draw," Canant said. 

U.S. to Force Airlines to Provide Traveler Data 
Wed Mar 17, 4:35 PM ET

By Andy Sullivan 

WASHINGTON  - The U.S. government will require reluctant airlines to give up passenger data to test a controversial passenger-screening system, a senior government official said on Wednesday. 

At the same time, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration plans to seek public input to allay concerns that the system will violate passenger privacy, TSA Acting Administrator David Stone told a congressional subcommittee. 

As a result, the new Computer Assisted Passenger Profiling System will be delayed by several more months, Stone said. Officials had hoped to begin background checks on passengers by the beginning of 2004. 

CAPPS II would check government intelligence and consumer data amassed by companies like Acxiom Corp. to verify passengers' identities and determine if they have criminal records or links to groups such as al Qaeda. 

But researchers need passenger records to test the system, and airlines that have cooperated in the past have faced boycotts and class-action lawsuits. 

"The likelihood of us volunteering that information in the future is somewhere between zip and zero," said James May, president of the Air Transport Association, a trade group. 

Lawmakers on the House of Representatives aviation subcommittee said they were not pleased that the system was taking so long to develop, and some questioned whether it would effectively catch potential hijackers or simply violate the privacy of millions of innocent travelers. 

"That's not the way we envisioned this," said Florida Republican Rep. John Mica (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the subcommittee. 

"I just don't think we're headed down a path here that's going to work," said Oregon Democratic Rep. Pete DeFazio, who said resources would be better spent on baggage screening and tighter controls on airport employees. 

Delta Air Lines Inc. pulled out of a pilot program last spring after a threatened boycott, while JetBlue Airways Corp. and Northwest Airlines Corp. have been hit with class-action suits following revelations that they secretly gave passenger data to government researchers. 

Stone said the agency would compel airlines to provide passenger data, a move that would reduce their liability to lawsuits. At the same time, TSA might also disclose more details about the program and seek public input to build support, he said. 

"There is an inherent goodness in CAPPS II that I believe will shine through as we examine the system more closely," he said. 

The agency will take several months to figure out a course of action, he said. After he left the hearing, Stone declined to elaborate on the process or say how long it would take. 

A European Union (news - web sites) committee will vote Thursday on a tentative deal that would allow airlines to provide passenger information to the United States. The outcome of the vote is uncertain. (Additional reporting by Lisa Jucca in Brussels) 

Anti-War Activists Call for Bush Censure Over Iraq 
Wed Mar 17, 5:00 PM ET 
Add Politics 

WASHINGTON  - Military families and anti-war activists urged Congress on Wednesday to censure President Bush (news - web sites) for what they called his deception and manipulation of intelligence before the Iraq (news - web sites) war. 

"The best way that the United States Congress can honor those brave men and women in uniform who have served in Iraq, and who continue to serve in Iraq, is to honor the truth," said Sue Niederer, whose 24-year-old son, Army Lt. Seth Dvorin, was killed in Iraq in February. 

"They can do so by holding accountable those who deceived and manipulated the American people to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq, starting with President Bush," Niederer said at a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol. 

As Bush was inside for a St. Patrick's Day luncheon, the soldiers' families and anti-war activists displayed boxes of petitions calling for Bush's censure. The group Win Without War said it had gathered 560,340 signatures endorsing a censure resolution. 

A statement released at the news conference contrasted Bush's public comments on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq with CIA (news - web sites) and media reports disputing the White House pre-war position that Iraq possessed these weapons. 

David Kay, the chief of the U.S. hunt for banned weapons in Iraq, said in January he did not believe there were any large stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons in the country. 

The censure campaign is led by Win Without War -- a coalition of 42 organizations -- along with MoveOn.org, True Majority, Working Assets and Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities. 

The business group plans an ad campaign to begin on Friday, the U.S. anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. 

The ad, set to run in The New York Times, is headlined, "Have you noticed what's happening to chief executives who lie?" and goes on to say, "It's time for someone in this government to step forward and take personal responsibility for the deadly deceptions used to mislead this great nation into war. And that someone must be George W. Bush." 

On Saturday's first anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, anti-war activists including a group of military families, plan to demonstrate outside the Fort Bragg military base in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The groups include Military Families Speak Out, Bring Them Home Now coalition, United for Peace and Justice, September 11th Families of Peaceful Tomorrows and Veterans for Peace. 

At least two counter-demonstrations supporting the Bush administration's military policies are also planned for the same day in Fayetteville, home to one of the largest military bases in the United States. 

NASA hears words not yet spoken 
Wed Mar 17, 6:28 PM ET 
Add Science - NEWS SOURCE 

WASHINGTON (NEWS SOURCE) - NASA (news - web sites) has developed a computer program that comes close to reading thoughts not yet spoken, by analyzing nerve commands to the throat. 

NEWS SOURCE/NASA/File Photo 

Missed Tech Tuesday?
Will the government's anti-terror tactics invade your privacy? Plus, protecting yourself from identity theft and is Wal-Mart watching? 

It says the breakthrough holds promise for astronauts and the handicapped. 

"A person using the subvocal system thinks of phrases and talks to himself so quietly it cannot be heard, but the tongue and vocal cords do receive speech signals from the brain," said developer Chuck Jorgensen, of NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California. 

Jorgensen's team found that sensors under the chin and one each side of the Adam's apple pick up the brain's commands to the speech organs, allowing the subauditory, or "silent speech" to be captured. 

The team concluded that the method could be useful on space missions or other difficult working conditions, such as air traffic control towers and even to make current voice-recognition software more active. 

"What is analyzed is silent, or subauditory, speech, such as when a person silently reads or talks to himself," Jorgensen said. 

"Biological signals arise when reading or speaking to oneself with or without actual lip or facial movement." 

On early trials, the program could recognize with 92 percent accuracy six words and 10 numbers that the team repeated sub-vocally. 

The first words were "stop," "go," "left," "right," "alpha," and "omega." 

Then, the inventors gave each letter of the alphabet a set of digital coordinates. 

"We took the alphabet and put it into a matrix -- like a calendar," Jorgensen said. 

"We numbered the columns and rows and we could identify each letter with a pair of single-digit numbers. 

"So we silently spelled out 'NASA' and then submitted it to a well-known Web search engine. We electronically numbered the Web pages that came up as search results. We used the numbers again to choose Web pages to examine. This proved we could browse the Web without touching a keyboard." 

The next trial will command a robot similar to the Rovers currently exploring Mars. 

"We can have the model Rover go left or right using silently 'spoken' words. 

"A logical spin-off would be that handicapped persons could use this system for a lot of things," he said, as well as persons wanting to speak by telephone without being overheard. 

To reach that goal, the team plans to build a dictionary of English words recognizable by speech recognition software. 

The equipment will need improved amplifiers to strengthen the electrical nerve signals, which are now run through noise reduction equipment before they can be analyzed. 

"The keys to this system are the sensors, the signal processing and the pattern recognition, and that's where the scientific meat of what we're doing resides." Jorgensen said. 

New Law Has Little Effect on Spam E-Mail-Survey 
Wed Mar 17, 6:35 PM ET 
Add Technology - Internet Report 

WASHINGTON  - "Spam" e-mail is proving more irritating than ever to U.S. Internet users since a national anti-spam law took effect Jan. 1, according to a survey released on Wednesday. 

Missed Tech Tuesday?
Will the government's anti-terror tactics invade your privacy? Plus, protecting yourself from identity theft and is Wal-Mart watching? 

Internet users are more likely to say e-mail is less trustworthy and less reliable than when they were surveyed in June, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found. 

Internet users also are more likely to say spam has made the online experience unpleasant, the nonprofit research group said. 

Get-rich-quick schemes, miracle cures and other unsolicited bulk messages accounted for 62 percent of all e-mail in February, according to filtering company Brightmail Inc. 

The 1,371 Internet users surveyed by Pew between Feb. 3 and March 1 said they have seen little change since the law took effect. 

Slightly more than half said they saw no change in the amount of spam they received at home or work. 

Twenty-nine percent said they had reduced their use of e-mail because of spam, up from 25 percent who said so last June. 

Sixty-three percent said spam made them less trusting of e-mail in general, up from 52 percent, and 77 percent said the flood of spam made the act of being online unpleasant and annoying, up from 70 percent. 

The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. 

Lawmakers Blame Spain, Battle Over Iraq 
1 hour, 26 minutes ago 
Add Politics 

By Vicki Allen 

WASHINGTON  - U.S. Republicans charged Spain's new government with appeasing terrorists on Wednesday as politicians accused rivals of exploiting the Iraq (news - web sites) war for election-year advantage in a bitter House of Representatives debate. 

 

Related Links
� Text of Iraq Resolution (AP)
� Iraq Resolution Roll Call (AP)

Latest headlines: 
� U.N. May Expand Probe Into Iraq Aid 
AP - 45 minutes ago 
� Bomb Destroys Baghdad Hotel, Killing 27 
AP - 49 minutes ago 
� Kerry Criticizes Bush's Iraq Policy 
AP - 52 minutes ago 
Special Coverage

As the dust settled from a deadly explosion at a Baghdad hotel, top Republicans who control the House trained their fire on Spain. The pro-Bush government was replaced in an election on Sunday, three days after train bombings in Madrid killed 201 people, and the new government has promised to pull Spanish troops from Iraq. 

"Here is a country that stood against terrorism, and had a huge terrorist act within their country, and they chose to change their government and to in a sense appease terrorists," House Speaker Dennis Hastert, of Illinois, said. 

Majority Leader Tom DeLay, of Texas, said, "If we follow the example of the new Spanish government and we accept failure in Iraq and permit the victory of the terrorists, there will be no counting the number of people around the world who will suffer the consequences." 

Republicans pushed through the House a resolution to mark the anniversary of the Iraq war's start and commend U.S. troops, passing it 327-93. 

While many ended up voting for it to back the troops, Democrats called the resolution a politically motivated endorsement of President Bush (news - web sites)'s Iraq policies that glossed over deaths and errors of the conflict and occupation. 

A line that drew fire from many Democrats said "the United States and the world have been made safer with the removal of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and his regime from power in Iraq." 

"Is it safer today in Spain? Is it safer in the Middle East? Putting it on paper doesn't mean that we're out of the conflict," said Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat. 

BITTER DEBATE 

Republicans said their resolution was nonpartisan, did not mention Bush, and was meant to rally lawmakers behind U.S. forces. 

But Democrats called it a trap to force them to cast votes that could be used against them in November elections, either to be seen as endorsing a war many thought was a grievous mistake, or as not supporting troops. 

"The mission is far from being accomplished and President Bush will be judged harshly for the tragic events of the last year," said Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida, who said Bush misled the nation into believing Iraq was an imminent threat with weapons of mass destruction and links to al Qaeda. 

But Republicans touted the end of Saddam's brutal regime and Iraq's steps toward democracy. "Things have changed and it is because of the steadfastness of this president and this nation and this Congress," Hastert said before the debate. 

"I'm sure that John Kerry (news - web sites) and Nancy Pelosi will have a different view," Hastert said of the Democratic presidential nominee and the House Democratic leader. 

Even though no banned weapons have been found in Iraq, DeLay called Saddam "a mass murderer sitting atop a nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons program, a ticking time bomb, a nuclear 9-11 waiting to happen." 

Democrats said the resolution ignored the rising death toll among U.S. soldiers, humanitarian workers, Iraqi civilians and others, and the ongoing violence including Wednesday's car-bombing at a Baghdad hotel that killed 27 people. 

"With their resolution, the Republicans are in denial as to why we went into Iraq, in denial as to the current state of stability and security in Iraq," said Pelosi, of California. (additional reporting by Joanne Kenen) 

tudy: Parents Don't See Obesity in Their Children Wed Mar 17, 6:45 AM ET Add Health 

By Patricia Reaney LONDON  - Parents are so accustomed to seeing overweight youngsters that many fail to realize when their own children are obese, British researchers said on Wednesday. It is a worrying trend according to scientists at the Peninsula Medical School in Plymouth, England because being overweight and obese increases the risk of suffering from a variety of illnesses later in life. Obese children are also more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes, a disease previously seen only in adults. "A third of the mothers and 57 percent of dads actually saw their obese child as normal," said Alison Jeffery, a member of the research team at the medical school. "Quite a few parents are not recognizing it as a problem. They are not recognizing the health risks either," she added in an interview. But Jeffery said it isn't a case of denial. "We are all used to seeing people who are bigger than they used to be 20 years ago and we just see people who are overweight as normal." Jeffery, who presented her findings to the Diabetes UK medical conference in Birmingham, England, questioned 300 seven-year old children and their parents about their perceptions of body size. One third of mothers and half of fathers who were either overweight or obese rated themselves as "about right." When the child was a normal weight, according to an internationally recognized measurement of obesity in children, most of their parents, regardless of their own size, knew there was no problem. When the child was overweight but not obese, only a quarter of the parents knew it. But when the youngsters were obese, 40 percent of parents were not concerned about their child's weight. Health experts have described the increased rates of obesity in children as a serious public health problem because of its link with diabetes as well as an increased risk of heart disease, stroke and other illnesses later in life. The prevalence of type 2 diabetes in obese children in Poland is nearly four percent. In Hungary it is two percent and 1.6 percent in Germany, according to recent research. "Diabetes is hugely on the increase and we know that children from as young as the age of seven have metabolic changes that are precursors to diabetes if they are very overweight," said Jeffery. "They may not be diabetic until they are older but you can see it beginning." 

Famous British Wills Available Online Wed Mar 17,12:42 PM ET 

By JANE WARDELL, News Source Writer LONDON - When William Shakespeare bequeathed his "second-best bed" to his wife nearly 400 years ago, a scribe dipped his quill pen in ink and scratched the bard's last wishes on parchment. Now the public can see the playwright's final will and testament on a computer screen with the click of a mouse. The document is among more than 1 million wills, spanning five centuries, that Britain's National Archives posted on the Internet this week for public access. About 100 wills dated from 1384 to 1858 have been collated in a special section befitting their famous authors, including Jane Austen, Captain James Cook and Napoleon Bonaparte. Shakespeare's is free to download, but the others cost $5.40 each. "This is a fantastic resource that can bring history so much closer to us," said Tony Robinson, host of the television archaeology program "Time Team." "We can now all be historical researchers in the comfort of our own homes." Shakespeare's will is considered to be of particular significance because it contains three of the six surviving examples of his signature. Dated March 25, 1616 - less than a month before he died - it begins with the Bard hoping that, after death, he will "be made partaker of lyfe everlastinge." The playwright goes on to request that his fortune be divided among his family, with some money going to the poor of his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon. He bequeaths the bed to his wife, his sword to Thomas Combe and a silver bowl to his daughter Judith. The 1824 will of French leader Napoleon Bonaparte, who asks his son to adopt his motto "Everything for the French people," is accompanied by an extract from his personal diary. Similarly, Lord Horatio Nelson's 1803 will is accompanied by his private diary, written in September and October 1805. "Pride and Prejudice" author Jane Austen bequeaths her 800-pound estate - worth about $124,000 in today's dollars - to her "dearest" sister, Cassandra Elizabeth, in her 1817 will. Henry, her brother, gets only 50 pounds, or about $7,800 today. Naval hero Sir Francis Drake asks to be buried at sea, with two of his favorite ships sunk nearby, in his 1596 will. Other wills available include those of Oliver Cromwell (dated 1687), the Duke of Wellington (1818), Captain James Cook (1776), John Donne (1616), and William Wordsworth (1847). ___ On the Net: National Archives wills online: http://www.documentsonline.pro.gov.uk/ 

Boy Wins Vt. Rotten Sneaker Contest

2 hours, 5 minutes ago

By TIM McCAHILL, News Source Writer 

MONTPELIER, Vt. - Daegan Goodman may have had the shortest distance to travel to the rotten sneaker contest, but you couldn't tell that by smelling his shoes. The 10-year-old from Montpelier took the crown - and probably a few of the judges' olfactory glands - in the annual event, which lured eight other finalists to Vermont's capital city from across the country. 

Daegan explained his simple recipe for winning the coveted golden sneaker. 

"I just wear 'em, sweat in 'em, play sports - I just try," he said, the flashing bulbs and news cameras signaling the start of the youngster's celebrity. 

Regular use and abuse seemed the treatment of choice for competitors in Tuesday's contest, which is sponsored by Odor-Eaters. 

"I do BMX," said James Melton, 11, of Phoenix, Ariz. "The dirt and sweat combined made (my sneakers) really stinky." 

James won a local contest to make it to Montpelier, heralded as the "Rotten Sneaker Capital of the World." 

Appearing last in the 90-minute finals, James couldn't quite pass muster with "master sniffer" George Aldrich. But the impressive stench from his sneakers caused the 48-year-old judge to sway slightly nonetheless. 

The annual contest began in 1975 as a way to help a local sporting goods store sell shoes. In 1988, Odor-Eaters - maker of anti-foot-odor insoles, sprays and powder - assumed sponsorship of the event. 

As the winner, Daegan gets a $500 savings bond, $100 to buy a new pair of sneakers, the golden sneaker and a plethora of Odor-Eater products - fitting prizes for a boy with many more miles to walk. 

He'll also get plenty of attention along the way. Daegan is already scheduled for appearances on cable television shows, and organizers said he'll get similar requests throughout the year. 

But with glory comes sacrifice, and to prove it Odor-Eaters hired a military man to whip competitors into shape before judging began. 

Sgt. Odor-Eaters - known better by his real name, Jason Goodwin - moderated the contest and led participants through a series of push-ups, jumping jacks and sit-ups to make their shoes smell all the more stupefying. 

"It was an honor; I was proud," said Goodwin, who in his real life is an actor from New York City. "I didn't realize how smelly the shoes would be." 

Smell alone is not the only quality the shoes are judged on. Appearance, "overall condition," heels and soles also count, qualities that require the presence of four other judges. 

But in the end it is Aldrich who assumes the hardest responsibility. His job in Montpelier doesn't get easier even though he's conducted hundreds of smell tests for NASA (news - web sites) space shuttle missions. 

"The stench sometimes stays with me for days," said Aldrich. "It's like a flashback." 

Despite the sour smells, Aldrich said he'd come back for his sixth time next year if he's asked. 

Bible-Zine for Boys Set for Easter Launch Tue Mar 16,10:46 AM ET By Pat Harris NASHVILLE, Tenn.  - The world's largest publisher of religious material is selling the sizzle along with the solemn in a line of "Bible-zines" -- repackaged Bibles aimed at hip Christian teen-agers. Leaning on the successful slogan of famous Depression-era salesman Elmer Wheeler -- "Don't sell the steak, sell the sizzle" -- Transit Books, the teen division of publisher Thomas Nelson, adopted the eye-popping format of mainstream teen magazines to create Revolve, a four-color, 388-page New Testament for teen-age girls. The smashing success of Revolve, a one-time magazine that went on sale in July for $14.99, has led to the planned Easter launch of Refuel, a Bible-zine aimed at teen-age boys. Revolve, which has no advertising, excerpts easy-to-digest biblical passages to answer the tough questions teen-agers often ask. Woven throughout is an easy-to-read Bible in a flashy format so teen-agers might feel more comfortable paging through it in public. "We've found a way to make the word of God exciting, relevant and fun for young women again," said Transit Books brand manager Laura Whaley. Revolve does not duck once-forbidden topics, with one reviewer likening it to Seventeen magazine, "only saintlier." One article in Revolve defines rape and urges victims to speak out, and another deals with sexual issues. 'DATING A GODLY GUY?' Interspersed with scripture are quizzes and snappy columns such as "Are You Dating a Godly Guy?" and "Beauty Secrets You've Never Heard Before." It suggests ways to getting along with mother by hosting "a chick flick night for your friends and their moms" and baking a cake together. Especially popular with Revolve readers are blurbs entitled "Guys Speak Out" in which boys are asked to respond to topics such as "describe your ideal girl." A calendar asks readers to "Pray for a person of influence" and notes celebrities' birthdays that include Martin Luther King, Justin Timberlake and Mel Gibson, whose movie "The Passion of the Christ" is drawing big Christian audiences. A "beauty secret" blurb urges readers to make it a habit to talk to God while applying sunscreen. Numerous surveys probe whether readers gossip, or whether they pray for a boyfriend. Another item suggests not dressing to show off one's body because it makes boys think unwanted sexual thoughts. Sold primarily in Christian bookstores around the United States, Revolve sold 30,000 copies in its first month -- more than any other Bible for that period published by Thomas Nelson -- and then went on to sell at least 40,000 more with 10,000 additional orders, Whaley said. She would not disclose overall sales. The publisher is based in Nashville, a city in the Bible Belt, the Southeastern U.S. region that is strongly religious. "We had thousands of e-mails pouring in from youth ministers and parents and young men themselves asking us to create the same type of product for guys," said Whaley, whose father is a minister. To create Refuel, advice was sought from youth ministers around the country, biblical scholars were enlisted to write passages, and teen-agers were asked for their responses. Thelma McMurray, a sales clerk at Lifeway Christian Book Stores in Nashville, said sales of Resolve were brisk. "After the publicity in newspapers and on television came out, we couldn't keep (it) in stock," she said. SIBLING MAGAZINE The publisher's targeting of the teen market began in 1999 with the "Extreme for Jesus" line that sold more than 2 million copies, producing $14 million in revenue, editor Kate Etue said. Then its sibling magazine, "Extreme Teen Bible," sold almost a million copies, compared to the average Bible edition that sells about 40,000 copies. But Revolve did draw some complaints for its content and some criticism that it trivializes the Bible. Initial copies of Revolve contained the statement, "God made guys to be leaders in relationships." After some readers complained, the reference was removed. "It was taken out of context," Whaley said. "Rather than argue, we removed it from subsequent issues. But we encourage girls not to (phone) their crushes. The tendency for teen girls is just to pick up the phone and yap to this guy, but that's not always perceived in the best way on the other end." So what will the boys' Refuel feature? The splashy cover should attract any young guy interested in girls, hot-dogging on skis, girls, basketball, pop music ... and girls. Refuel asks, "What should a guy do to impress a girl?" Answer: "Nothing. He should concentrate on being himself ..." A calendar contains reminders to perform good works such as "Talk to someone you usually ignore." There is a blurb on "How to Wrestle an Alligator" (hop on its back, lock its jaws and clobber its nose) and a warning against using dietary supplements that can enlarge male breasts and shrink genitals. There is also a list of the "Top Ten Ways to Honor Your Dad," which range from "Look him in the eye when he talks" to "Don't threaten to put him in a rest home." Next, the publisher plans a Bible-zine for women, set for release in June. As of now, there is no Bible-zine in the works for men. 

Part-Time Vegetarians Become More Common Tue Mar 16, 1:44 PM ET 

By J.M. HIRSCH, News Source Writer CONCORD, N.H. - Even after five years, Christy Pugh has no trouble sticking to her vegetarian regimen. The secret to her success? Eating meat. Pugh is one of a growing number of part-time vegetarians whose loose adherence to the meat-free diet is transforming a decades-old movement and the industry that feeds it. "Sometimes I feel like I'm a bad vegetarian, that I'm not strict enough or good enough," the 28-year-old bookkeeper from Concord said recently. "I really like vegetarian food but I'm just not 100 percent committed." These so-called "flexitarians" - a term voted most useful word of 2003 by the American Dialect Society - are motivated less by animal rights than by a growing body of medical data that suggests health benefits from eating more vegetarian foods. "There's so many reasons that people are vegetarians ... I find that nobody ever gives me a hard time when I say I usually eat vegetarian. But I really like sausage," Pugh said. In recent years the market for vegetarian friendly foods has exploded, with items such as soy milk and veggie burgers showing up in mainstream groceries and fast food restaurants. But even the diet's activists say that growth can't be attributed to committed vegetarians, who are estimated at about 3 percent of the adult U.S. population, or about 5.7 million people never eating meat, poultry or seafood. Charles Stahler, co-director of the Baltimore-based Vegetarian Resource Group, credits the growth to flexitarians - vegetarians who dabble in meat and carnivores who seek out vegetarian meals. "This is why Burger King has a veggie burger. It's not because of us," he said. "The true vegetarians wouldn't rush to Burger King anyway. It's because of those people in the middle. They are the driving audience." Though flexitarian headcounts are imprecise, Stahler estimates roughly 30 percent to 40 percent of the population at least occasionally seeks out vegetarian meals. Suzanne Havala Hobbs, a nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, credits the growth of flexitarianism to the nation's better understanding of the diet-disease connection. "Whether you make a commitment to eating strictly vegetarian or not, cutting back your dependence on meat is something most people acknowledge they know they should do," she said. Mollie Katzen, a cookbook author and a founder of the iconic vegetarian eatery Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, N.Y., takes another perspective. The former vegetarian thinks people who eschew meat would be better off if they didn't. Though she still advocates vegetable-based diets, Katzen sees room - and for many people a need - for flexibility. "To base our diet there, yes. Absolutely," she said. "However, where the protein comes from in that diet, I don't feel it's wrong if you've got a great big plate of vegetables your protein is from a healthy, happy chicken, or a grass-fed cow." Plenty of people seem to agree. At Wild Oats stores, a Boulder, Colo.-based chain of natural foods grocers that cater to vegetarians, the majority of shoppers aren't vegetarians. Tracy Spencer, a spokeswoman for the company, said Wild Oats shoppers are concerned about health and want the grocer's natural and organic products, including meats. Publishers of vegetarian magazines also are taking notice. To target the part-timers many have softened their approach to meatless diets, even at risk of alienating the far smaller reader pool of true vegetarians. Until last year Natural Health, a Woodland Hills, Calif.-based magazine with a monthly circulation of 300,000, published only vegan recipes, which exclude even dairy and honey. Now the recipes regularly include meat, said Barb Harris, the magazine's editorial director. "There is a big interest in vegetarianism," she said. "But we can also tell from our readership that these are not people who are following a pure vegetarian lifestyle. These are people who are integrating a vegetarian menu in their current diets." A similar change occurred at the 30-year-old Vegetarian Times, considered the standardbearer of vegetarianism. Though still meat-free, the once mostly vegan magazine focuses less on activism and more on recipes with broader appeal. Carla Davis, managing editor of the Glen Allen, Va.-based monthly, said the changes were made after a survey showed 70 percent of the magazine's 300,000-plus readers weren't vegetarian. Even the strictest of vegetarian advocacy groups considers the flexitarian trend a good thing. Bruce Friedrich, spokesman for Norfolk, Va.-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said he doesn't see any harm in vegetarianism focusing more on food than the issues that spurred the movement. "From our perspective, if people influenced by health consequently cut back on fish and meat consumption, that helps animals," he said. "If two people cut their meat in half it helps as much as one person going completely vegetarian." ___ On the Net: Natural Health: http://www.naturalhealth1.com/ Vegetarian Resource Group: http://www.vrg.org/ Vegetarian Times: http://www.vegetariantimes.com/ 

Congress May Tackle 'Drugged Driving' Tue Mar 16, 4:56 PM ET 

By APARNA H. KUMAR, News Source Writer WASHINGTON - Citing estimates that 11 million people sometimes drive under the influence of illegal drugs, a growing chorus in Congress wants the government to do something about it. The states are wary. Eight states now have specific laws on "drugged driving," but their statutes are vague. None specifies an equivalent level to the 0.08 percent blood content that Congress established as the legal level for alcohol impairment. That's partly because there's no roadside test to detect the presence of drugs in the body - no handy "breathalyzer" as there is for alcohol. And even if blood or urine samples taken at a hospital test positive for drugs, there's no standard for how high is too high to drive. "Zero tolerance" is the level some lawmakers want Congress to establish. A motorist found to have any controlled substance in his or her system would be considered unlawfully impaired. "Everyone who drives is affected by this," said Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, citing a report last September by the Department of Health and Human Services (news - web sites) estimating that during the previous year nearly 11 million people drove at one time or another under the influence of drugs. The same survey said three times as many people - 33.5 million - drove under the influence of alcohol in 2002. Portman introduced a bill last week that would create a model drug-impaired driving law for states to adopt to address what proponents say is a monumental problem that has gone largely ignored. Eight states already have drug-impairment laws, according to the American Prosecutors Research Institute. They are Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Utah. "In every state of the country it's illegal for someone to drive under the influence of any drug or substance that may cause them to be impaired," said John Bobo, director of the National Traffic Law Center at APRI. But in these eight states, it is "per-se illegal" to have any detectable amount of a controlled substance in your system. Under Portman's proposal, states that enact similar laws defining impaired as any detectible amount of drugs in a blood or urine sample would get money for training police and prosecutors and for driver counseling. They would also get grants to research field tests to measure motorists' drug levels. Rather than offering a carrot, Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., prefers the stick approach. His bill would make states that don't enact drug-impaired driving laws forfeit 1 percent of their annual federal highway funds to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (news - web sites). The amount forfeited would double each year up to 50 percent. States are wary of both approaches, recalling that when incentives were not enough to persuade some of them to adopt the 0.08 blood alcohol limit for drunken driving, Congress in 2000 directed that up to 6 percent of their federal highway funds be taken away. Recalcitrant state legislatures fell quickly into line. "We believe that as a basic principle states need to enact laws that meet their own needs," said Cheye Calvo, a transportation policy specialist for the National Conference of State Legislatures. The Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents state highway safety agencies, goes further, advising its members not to adopt drug-impaired driving laws at all for the time being. "There has been little to no evaluation as to their effectiveness," said spokesman Jonathan Adkins. "Most drivers who are drug impaired are also alcohol-impaired, so police "get 'em" that way." Alcohol was linked to 41 percent of all traffic fatalities in 2002, resulting in 17,419 deaths, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. While there are no reliable statistics for how often drugs are involved in fatal traffic accidents - primarily because drivers are often only tested for drunkenness - "we think it's about 10 to 20 percent," said Jeff Michael, director of the office of impaired driving at NHTSA. "There's a good bit of overlap with alcohol." Wendy Hamilton, president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said her group supports efforts to curb drug-impaired driving. But she cautioned it is difficult to set an across-the-board standard for all illegal drugs when they may affect driving differently - or not at all. "There needs to be more research," Hamilton said. ___ On the Net: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov Mothers Against Drunk Driving: http://www.madd.org 

Congress May Tackle 'Drugged Driving' Tue Mar 16, 4:56 PM ET 

By APARNA H. KUMAR, News Source Writer WASHINGTON - Citing estimates that 11 million people sometimes drive under the influence of illegal drugs, a growing chorus in Congress wants the government to do something about it. The states are wary. Eight states now have specific laws on "drugged driving," but their statutes are vague. None specifies an equivalent level to the 0.08 percent blood content that Congress established as the legal level for alcohol impairment. That's partly because there's no roadside test to detect the presence of drugs in the body - no handy "breathalyzer" as there is for alcohol. And even if blood or urine samples taken at a hospital test positive for drugs, there's no standard for how high is too high to drive. "Zero tolerance" is the level some lawmakers want Congress to establish. A motorist found to have any controlled substance in his or her system would be considered unlawfully impaired. "Everyone who drives is affected by this," said Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, citing a report last September by the Department of Health and Human Services (news - web sites) estimating that during the previous year nearly 11 million people drove at one time or another under the influence of drugs. The same survey said three times as many people - 33.5 million - drove under the influence of alcohol in 2002. Portman introduced a bill last week that would create a model drug-impaired driving law for states to adopt to address what proponents say is a monumental problem that has gone largely ignored. Eight states already have drug-impairment laws, according to the American Prosecutors Research Institute. They are Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Utah. "In every state of the country it's illegal for someone to drive under the influence of any drug or substance that may cause them to be impaired," said John Bobo, director of the National Traffic Law Center at APRI. But in these eight states, it is "per-se illegal" to have any detectable amount of a controlled substance in your system. Under Portman's proposal, states that enact similar laws defining impaired as any detectible amount of drugs in a blood or urine sample would get money for training police and prosecutors and for driver counseling. They would also get grants to research field tests to measure motorists' drug levels. Rather than offering a carrot, Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., prefers the stick approach. His bill would make states that don't enact drug-impaired driving laws forfeit 1 percent of their annual federal highway funds to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (news - web sites). The amount forfeited would double each year up to 50 percent. States are wary of both approaches, recalling that when incentives were not enough to persuade some of them to adopt the 0.08 blood alcohol limit for drunken driving, Congress in 2000 directed that up to 6 percent of their federal highway funds be taken away. Recalcitrant state legislatures fell quickly into line. "We believe that as a basic principle states need to enact laws that meet their own needs," said Cheye Calvo, a transportation policy specialist for the National Conference of State Legislatures. The Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents state highway safety agencies, goes further, advising its members not to adopt drug-impaired driving laws at all for the time being. "There has been little to no evaluation as to their effectiveness," said spokesman Jonathan Adkins. "Most drivers who are drug impaired are also alcohol-impaired, so police "get 'em" that way." Alcohol was linked to 41 percent of all traffic fatalities in 2002, resulting in 17,419 deaths, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. While there are no reliable statistics for how often drugs are involved in fatal traffic accidents - primarily because drivers are often only tested for drunkenness - "we think it's about 10 to 20 percent," said Jeff Michael, director of the office of impaired driving at NHTSA. "There's a good bit of overlap with alcohol." Wendy Hamilton, president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said her group supports efforts to curb drug-impaired driving. But she cautioned it is difficult to set an across-the-board standard for all illegal drugs when they may affect driving differently - or not at all. "There needs to be more research," Hamilton said. ___ On the Net: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov Mothers Against Drunk Driving: http://www.madd.org 

LexisNexis Selling Database to Prisons

Tue Mar 16, 7:55 AM ET

By JAMES HANNAH, News Source Writer 

DAYTON, Ohio - A company whose extensive database of laws and court cases is used mostly by legal offices, schools and libraries has attracted a new type of subscriber: prisons. 

Missed Tech Tuesday?
Will the government's anti-terror tactics invade your privacy? Plus, protecting yourself from identity theft and is Wal-Mart watching? 

The service from LexisNexis enables prisons to provide required access to legal information while banishing law books, which are more expensive, quickly outdated and easily damaged, according to facilities that use the database. 

LexisNexis, based in this southwest Ohio city, has installed computer kiosks resistant to damage in four prisons and jails in Hawaii and five in California. The kiosk consists of a touch-screen computer monitor covered in shatterproof glass inside a steel box bolted to a wall. 

Prisons had to be assured that the kiosks, manufactured by Touch Sonic Technologies in Santa Rosa, Calif., would not pose a danger of broken glass that could be used a weapons, said Bill Carter, vice president and managing director of LexisNexis' western market center in Dallas. 

"We've taken a crowbar to it. It doesn't shatter," Carter said. 

The kiosks in Riverside County correctional facilities in California have worked out well and replaced law books, sheriff's Capt. Alan Flanary said. 

"We don't have problems with inmates tearing pages out or defacing the books," he said. In addition, the time-consuming process of inserting printed updates into law books has been eliminated, he said. 

Inmates navigate the database by touching different parts of the monitor screen, which includes a keypad. The Internet-based public records database provides access to more than 4.6 billion documents from more than 30,000 news, business and legal information sources. 

Flanary said the inmates seem to like the kiosks better than the books because they simply can type in a topic and retrieve related legal information. 

"You see this wall of books facing you and you don't know where to begin," he said. 

The service for the five California correctional facilities costs $94,400 a year, which is less expensive than purchasing law books and other legal materials, Flanary said. Money inmates spend at prison commissaries is used to pay for the kiosks. 

Touch Sonic approached LexisNexis about offering the service to inmates, and the companies began selling the idea to prisons. The first kiosk was installed at a prison in Hawaii in November. LexisNexis is negotiating with correction officials in five other states to install the kiosks. 

"The prisoners who have tried the kiosk use it quite frequently, and most became experts in just a few minutes of use," said Harry Fuchigami, librarian at the Women's Community Correctional Center in Kailua. "I use the system myself because it's much easier to look up statutes using the touch screen than it is with our books." 

In Ohio, inmates do legal research primarily through law books, said JoEllen Culp, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. 

Prisoners have no access to the Internet or any electronic legal resources, but the state is considering purchasing legal information on compact discs, she said. 

Charles Carbone, a lawyer with California Prison Focus, which advocates for prisoners' human rights, said the kiosks are a step in the right direction for ensuring access to quality legal materials. Since the 1970s, the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) has mandated that inmates have access to legal information. 

"It would probably address one of the plaguing problems of prison law libraries - they are understaffed and undershelved," he said. 

___ 

On the Net: 

www.lexisnexis.com 

www.touchsonic.com/ 

Many Think U.S. Wants World Domination

Tue Mar 16, 2:01 PM ET 
Add U.S. National - 

By WILL LESTER, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - A majority of people living in Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey say they believe the U.S. is conducting its campaign against terror to control Mideast oil and to dominate the world, according to an international poll released Tuesday. 

The governments in all four Muslim-majority countries have strong ties with the U.S. government. 

A sizable number of people in France, Germany and Russia also have these suspicions about the campaign against terror, according to the Pew Global Attitudes Project. 

The polls were taken in February, before the train bombings in Spain that claimed the lives of at least 200 people. 

In a surprise defeat, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's conservatives on Sunday became the first government that backed Washington in Iraq (news - web sites) to be voted from office. 

When people in the nine countries - including Britain and the United States - were asked if the campaign against terrorism was a sincere effort to reduce international terrorism, majorities in France, Germany and the four Muslim-majority countries felt it was not. Almost half in Russia felt it was not, while majorities in Britain and the United States said they believe the campaign is a sincere effort to fight terrorism. 

The surveys found considerable cynicism and anger among the Muslim-majority countries a year after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. And they found a growing desire among European countries for a balance of power between the European Union (news - web sites) and the United States. 

"Europeans want to check our power," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. "There's considerable support for making the European Union as powerful as the United States." 

Europeans in those countries are eager to set up security arrangements independent from the United States. 

People in the surveyed Muslim countries remain angry about U.S. policies, and even supportive of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), the Saudi terrorist who took credit for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. 

Almost two-thirds of the people in Pakistan say they view bin Laden favorably - a significant finding because U.S. troops are trying to find bin Laden in the mountainous region on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan (news - web sites). More than half of those in Jordan and almost half of those polled in Morocco had a favorable view of the Saudi terrorist. 

Anger toward the United States in these Muslim-majority countries remains very high, Kohut said, though the intensity has dropped a bit since last May. 

While seven in 10 in the United States feel their country takes into account the interests of other countries when making international policy decisions, few in the other countries shared that view. 

Majorities in all the countries except Pakistan, and almost half there, felt the United States doesn't make much of an effort to consider the interests of other countries in its policy decisions. 

At least two-thirds of people living in France, Germany, Russia and Turkey thought it would be a good thing if the European Union becomes as powerful as the United States. Turkey and Russia are not currently members of the European Union. 

A majority of those in Britain, France, Germany, Russia and Turkey think Western Europe should take a more independent approach to security and diplomatic matters. 

In other key findings: 

_While support for the war on terrorism has dropped in many of those countries, it has increased in Russia - 73 percent approve - and is almost as strong there as in the United States. 

_About half in Pakistan said suicide bombings carried out by Palestinians against Israelis and against U.S. troops in Iraq can be justified. Two-thirds or more in Jordan and Morocco say it can be justified in both situations. 

_A majority of the people in Pakistan and Jordan say Iraq will be worse off now that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) has been removed from power. 

_A solid majority of those in France, Germany, Russia, Pakistan and Jordan believe United States President Bush (news - web sites) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) lied about the weapons of mass destruction they claimed were in Iraq. 

_Ratings for the United Nations (news - web sites) are relatively high in European countries, and low in the Muslim countries. Just over half in the United States, 55 percent, gave a favorable rating to the U.N. 

"In America, the ratings of the U.N. are much lower than elsewhere," said Kohut, referring to the European countries. "Historically we're at a low point." 

The polls were conducted between Feb. 19 and March 3. They have margins of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points in Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey and the United States. Polls in Britain, France and Germany have a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points. 

___ 

How the international survey was conducted: 

Results for the surveys in nine countries are based on telephone and face-to-face interviews in those countries. Telephone interviews were conducted among a nationwide sample of 1,000 adults in the United States, 500 in Great Britain 503 in France and 500 in Germany. 

Face-to-face interviews were conducted among a nationwide sample 1,000 adults in Jordan, 1,002 in Russia and 1,017 in Turkey. In Morocco, 1,000 face to face interviews were conducted with 1,000 adults in four major cities and in Pakistan, 1,220 face-to-face interviews in largely urban areas. 

The interviews were conducted between Feb. 19 and March 3. 

In countries where the sample size was more than 900 - (the United States, Russia, Jordan, Turkey, Morocco and Pakistan - the margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. In the countries where the sample was about 500 - Britain, France and Germany - the margin of error was plus or minus 5 percentage points. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Pew Research Center - http://www.people-press.org 

How-To Book May Help Hackers 
Mon Mar 15, 3:00 PM ET 
Add Technology - PC World 

Paul Roberts, IDG News Service 

A new book on writing code to exploit security flaws in software is raising eyebrows in the technical community. The book publishes "zero day," or previously unknown, techniques for exploiting vulnerable systems, including those running Microsoft Windows.

� Microsoft Issues Security Updates
� Microsoft Warns of VoIP Vulnerability
� Security Group Warns of Linux Flaw
� Software Users Hit a Rough Patch
� Trojan Horse Hijacks IE

Patriot Games
Will the government's anti-terror tactics invade your privacy? Plus, protecting yourself from identity theft and is Wal-Mart watching? 

The Shellcoder's Handbook: Discovering and Exploiting Security Holes, by Jack Koziol, David Litchfield, Dave Aitel, Chris Anley, Sinan Eren, Neel Mehta, and Riley Hassell, is an advanced guide to writing software exploits. The book is intended as a resource for network administrators who are interested in closing security holes. However, the book also contains working examples of code for exploiting vulnerable systems and previously unpublished techniques for launching attacks such as heap overflows and kernel attacks, according to two of the book's authors.

Shellcode is a term that describes small pieces of computer code that launch operating system shells, or command interfaces such as the common C:\ command line interface on Microsoft DOS. Shellcode is often a component of attacks in which malicious hackers use software exploits to get control of vulnerable systems.

The book is being published by John Wiley & Sons; it is scheduled to be released on March 22, 2004. It contains chapters on a variety of attack types, including stack overflows, heap overflows, and format string bugs. The authors discuss everything from writing Windows shellcode to exploiting security holes in Hewlett-Packard's Tru64 operating system, according to a description of the book published on the Wiley Web site.

Fully Functional Exploits

Also contained in the guide are fully functional examples of software exploits, according to coauthor Dave Aitel, founder of Immunity of New York City, a security consulting company.

"The book is trying to teach you how to write exploits, so of course there are exploits," he says.

Aitel contributed chapters on heap overflows and Windows exploits, as well a technique for finding flaws in network communications protocols called fuzzing, he says.

The information contained in the new book is essential to administrators who want to secure the computer systems under their management, he says.

"It's hard to get context on a [software] vulnerability if you don't know how to exploit it. People who know how to write exploits make better strategic decisions," he says.

Coauthor Chris Anley agrees and says The Shellcoder's Handbook is not a cookbook for hackers.

"This isn't a collection of exploits. It's a book that tells you how to find the bugs and understand what the impact of the bugs is," says Anley, a director at Next Generation Security Software in Surrey, UK.

"We wanted to make a book that describes from basic through advanced level what exploits can do," he says.

Covering the Basics

The book is structured like a primer. Early chapters focus on basic concepts like stack overflows and use examples written for the open-source Linux (news - web sites) platform. Later chapters focus on more complicated problems and obscure operating systems such as Sun Microsystems' Solaris and HP's Tru64, Anley says.

The book pulls together information that could be obtained from security discussion groups on the Internet or from a university-level network security administration course, say Anley and fellow coauthor David Litchfield, also of Next Generation Security Software.

However, The Shellcoder's Handbook also delves into more arcane exploit-writing topics that are not commonly discussed, such as format string bugs, which address vulnerabilities in the way some programs written in the C programming language output data. And a chapter titled "Alternative Payload Strategies" discusses ways in which an exploit writer can subtly manipulate a compromised machine other than to produce a shell prompt, such as extracting data from a database or tampering with cryptographic services, Anley says.

The Shellcoder's Handbook and other books like it stir up controversy within the information technology security community about whether researchers should publicly disclose holes in software products, says Alan Paller, director of research at The SANS Institute.

Authors who publish software exploits walk a fine line between informing the public and lowering the bar for malicious hackers, he says.

"You don't want to make writing an exploit as easy as fixing a car," Paller says.

However, Paller believes that IT professionals who defend networks from attack benefit more from books like The Shellcoder's Handbook than do attackers.

"In the security world there's lots of advice, and a lot of it doesn't make much sense. So if you understand why you have to do certain things and can connect the defense back to an actual attack, that helps," he says.

Paris Hilton Primps for 'Simple' Trip

27 minutes ago 
Add Entertainment - 

By ADRIAN SAINZ, News Source Writer 

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. - In the sequel to Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie's hit Fox reality show "The Simple Life," the socialites-turned-TV stars are driving themselves on a 30-day cross-country trip with no money, credit cards, cell phones or boyfriends. 

The pink pickup truck is gassed up. The shiny metallic trailer is hitched to the back. And Hilton, in a pink and red sundress with a flower in her hair, is posing for cameras on a South Beach hotel balcony. Let the road trip begin. 

"I've never been on a road trip anywhere," Hilton, 23, told The News Source on Thursday, sitting in her plush hotel room bed. "The farthest I've driven is from L.A. to Palm Springs, which takes like two hours. It seems fun." 

Hilton, the leggy blonde hotel heiress, and Richie, the equally blonde daughter of singer Lionel Richie (news), helped make the first season of "The Simple Life" a huge success for Fox. The pretty young ladies broke free from their sheltered upbringings, working odd jobs milking cows and hawking burgers at a fast food restaurant while living with a family in ultra-rural Altus, Ark., population 817. 

They drew laughs from viewers who were amazed that Hilton and Richie had never held a regular job or seen a paycheck, much less know what do with one. They did manage to bake a pie, but the family's dog ate most of it before it could be presented at a local festival. 

"The worst thing was working at the dairy farm, cause that was, like, our first job," Hilton said. "I hated the cow smell. It was gross." 

In "The Simple Life 2," they'll stay with several different families in a continuation of the theme that made the first season a success. Filming was to begin in the next few days; the show airs in June. 

"It's going to be definitely more interesting and more adventurous because last time, we were just stuck in Arkansas with a family, but this time it's going to be different families every episode," Hilton says. 

Jon Murray, the show's executive producer, says there will be eight episodes, double the number from the first season. Hilton and Richie will travel throughout the southern United States, towing the live-in trailer from Miami Beach to Beverly Hills. Murray hopes they will again charm TV audiences. 

"Paris and Nicole are so full of energy in life," Murray says. "They're outlandish sometimes, they're foolish sometimes, they're a little clueless sometimes, but they really are nice and they're not mean spirited in the fun they're having." 

Murray says "the girls" will have jobs set up for them, but will be on their own for almost everything else. They have to deal with their own wardrobes, hair and makeup. If the pickup breaks down, it's their problem. And there'll be plenty of small-town fun, Murray says. 

"Everyone likes it because it's for all ages," Hilton says. "People from the city will be like, `Oh my God, I cannot believe you did that,' and people from the country think it's funny because they do it every day." 

Hilton's social life is regular fodder for tabloids, TV shows and Web sites. She also became an inadvertent Internet icon when a homemade sex video she shot with her then-boyfriend circulated online. 

But Hilton says the late-night party scene is losing it's appeal. 

"I don't like going out anymore. It's not that much fun," Hilton says. "Since the show came out, I can't really have fun anymore because people coming up every minute and, are like, `Oh, can I have a picture.' ... I really can't even hang out with my friends very much anymore." 

While she was well-known as a model before the hit, the show has provided new avenues of work for Hilton. She's recording a CD and has acting jobs lined up. 

As for her public image, Hilton says she may be misunderstood. 

"People who don't know me or haven't met me they'll assume she's spoiled or this or that," Hilton said. "That's what people will think because of where I come from. Every time I meet someone or people talk to me, they're like "You're completely the opposite of what I thought. You're so sweet." 

Something for Everyone Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2004 03:29:07 -0800

** Warning: Rated R ** SOMETHING TO OFFEND EVERYONE......... What do you call two Mexicans playing basketball? Juan on Juan. What is a Yankee? The same as a quickie, but a guy can do it alone. What is the difference between a Harley and a Hoover? The position of the dirt bag. Why is divorce so expensive? Because it's worth it. What's the fluid capacity of Monica Lewinsky's mouth? One US leader. What do you see when the Pillsbury Dough Boy bends over? Doughnuts. Why is air a lot like sex? Because it's no big deal unless you're not getting any. Why is Chelsea Clinton so homely? Because Janet Reno is her real father. What do you get when you put 50 lesbians and 50 politicians in a room together? 100 people who don't do dick. Define "Egghead": What Mrs. Dumpty gives to Humpty. How many women does it take to change a light bulb? None, they just sit there in the dark and bitch. What's the fastest way to a man's heart? Through his chest with a sharp knife. Why is it so hard for women to find men that are sensitive, caring, and good-looking? Because those men already have boyfriends. What makes men chase women they have no intention of marrying? The same urge that makes dogs chase cars they have no intention of driving. What's the difference between a porcupine and BMW? A porcupine has the pricks on the outside. Why does Mike Tyson cry during sex? Mace will do that to you. Why did OJ Simpson want to move to West Virginia? Everyone has the same DNA. Why do men find it difficult to make eye contact? Breasts don't have eyes. What's the Cuban National Anthem? "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" What's the difference between a southern zoo and a northern zoo? A southern zoo has a description of the animal on the front of the cage along with a recipe. How do you get a sweet little 80-year-old lady to say the F word? Get another sweet little 80-year-old lady to yell, "BINGO!" What's the difference between a northern fairytale and a southern fairytale? A northern fairytale begins, "Once upon a time..." A southern fairytale begins, "Y'all ain't gonna believe this shit..." What's the difference between a snowman and a snow-woman? Snowballs! What do you call four Mexicans in quick sand? Quatro-Sinko!

Science - News Source Mars Rovers Hunt Clues to Planet's Past 13 minutes ago 

By ANDREW BRIDGES, AP Science Writer PASADENA, Calif. - Beginning late Christmas Eve, a small armada of exploratory spacecraft will reach Mars, some attempting to enter orbit, others to make risky landings on the Red Planet's surface. Together, they represent one of the most ambitious efforts yet to resolve the contradictions that persist in alternately intriguing and beguiling scientists. The prospect of life on Mars has charged the public imagination for more than a century, ever since astronomers first spied what they thought were canals dug to irrigate the planet's ruddy surface. But after spacecraft and Earth-based telescopes began taking a closer look at the planet, evidence of the canals - and the Martians who presumably created them - quickly vanished. Instead, the scrutiny showed Mars to be a dusty, frigid world, shrouded by an atmosphere too thin to breathe, bombarded with radiation and largely dry beyond the ice that caps its poles. It seemed altogether hostile to life as we know it. But ongoing scientific spadework continues to turn up evidence that suggests that long ago Mars was a wetter, if not warmer, world where rivers large enough to carve canyons the size of the United States flowed across its surface. Life, even if just tiny microbes, could have thrived in such a place. "There is no consensus and a lot of contradictions," said Michael Carr, a planetary geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (news - web sites) who has played a role in nearly every past mission to Mars. A small fleet of international spacecraft is approaching the Red Planet. The first, Britain's Beagle 2, is scheduled to land on Mars Dec. 24. That same day, Europe's Mars Express should enter orbit around the planet. Mars Express successfully released Beagle 2 on Friday, after carrying it piggyback most of the way to Mars. Spirit, the first of NASA (news - web sites)'s identical robot explorers, is expected to land Jan. 3. Its sibling, Opportunity, is scheduled to settle on the opposite side of the planet Jan. 24. The odds of all four spacecraft succeeding are slim. Since 1960, roughly two-thirds of the three dozen spacecraft sent to Mars have failed, including two 1999 NASA missions, the Climate Orbiter and Polar Lander. Most have been lost on launch or arrival, the most perilous portions of any mission. The most recent failure was the Japanese satellite, Nozomi, which failed to enter orbit around Mars earlier this month. NASA's back-to-back 1999 failures prompted the American space agency to tighten oversight of the design, construction, testing and launching of its spacecraft, including this year's batch. It's also taken pains to publicly stress the risks of dispatching two landers to Mars. "Landing on Mars is very, very, very difficult," said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for space science. "The fact that the world has failed most of the time it's gone there is indicative of that." Despite the odds, NASA has had three successful landings on Mars: the twin Viking landers reached the planet in 1976, undertaking a direct search for life but producing results that were inconclusive; and the 1997 Pathfinder mission. Two other NASA spacecraft, the Mars Global Surveyor and the 2001 Mars Odyssey, are already at the planet. There, from high on orbit, they continue to pile on the discoveries. Many of these findings address the question of whether water was present in the Martian past. Little of the evidence, however, offers a definitive answer. In October, a team of scientists reported Odyssey had detected on the surface of Mars copious amounts of a mineral that's easily weathered away in the presence of water. That suggested Mars has been a dry wasteland for eons. Weeks later, a second team reported evidence to the contrary, after Global Surveyor beamed back glossy images that show features apparently created by the meandering flow of rivers. The case for life on Mars routinely undergoes similar setbacks and advances. The two studies are just the latest in some half-dozen "gotcha" moments in Mars science in recent years, said Daniel McCleese, chief scientist of the Mars exploration program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "We are now in a position where the smoking gun for past, persistent water on Mars depends on who you talk to and what day of the week it is," he said. "The case is being made on both sides. That's the nature of science." Meanwhile, gains in understanding Mars are also being been made on Earth and include what some believe is compelling evidence for Martian life. In 1996, a team of scientists announced a meteorite found in Antarctica that was believed to have been blasted from Mars contained microscopic fossils of ancient bacteria. Although many scientists question the claim, it's further energized the search for life. And new understanding of the tenacity of terrestrial microbes on Earth has scientists thinking Mars might not be too harsh for life after all. Britain's Beagle 2 lander is designed to seek out organic material in the Martian soil, which could suggest the presence of such forms of life. Its mission also is to sample the atmosphere for traces of methane, a telltale byproduct of many biological processes. The NASA rovers weren't designed to look for life. Nor will they look for water, the necessary ingredient of life as we know it. Instead, they'll look for minerals in the rocks on Mars that could suggest, on the one hand, the past presence of water and, on the other, the possibility that it allowed the planet to harbor life. "We need a proxy for the proxy," Firouz Naderi, manager of the Mars exploration program at JPL, said of the indirect search for life. Such evidence could suggest Mars was a warmer, damper and all-around more hospitable place billions of years ago - just as life first stirred here on Earth. "It immediately raises questions: If the conditions were right, if it happened on Earth, could it have happened on Mars?" said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, the principal scientist on NASA's current mission. The $820 million pair of rovers and the array of instruments they carry should help reconcile the conflicting views of Mars, he said. "The mineralogy and topography are telling you different stories. The only thing to do is get down there and look," he said. Even so, the results likely will not be definitive, said Carr, of the U.S. Geological Survey. "I am sure at the end of these missions there will be an argument and there will be two camps, just as there are now," he said. ___ On the Net: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer/
Lack of 'Christmas Spirit' Ends Display 1 hour, 59 minutes ago Add Strange News - 

By LAURA WALSH, News Source Writer KILLINGLY, Conn. - Christmas just isn't the same for this small eastern Connecticut town that was once set aglow during the holidays by one man and his spirit. Mervin Whipple, known as "Mr. Christmas" to the people of Killingly, has decided to pull the plug on his brilliant, gigantic holiday light display. There will be no lights this year. Partly, it was the pricey bills. But mostly, there just isn't enough Christmas spirit, the once-jolly Whipple said. "It's a changed world," Whipple said while fighting back tears. "The spirit of Christmas is gone." Whipple had threatened to close down the display in recent years. But now he says it's official: Whipple's Christmas Wonderland is no more. More than 1.5 million people from across the country visited the display over its 35-year run. Decorated with 110,000 bright lights and 300 moving figures, including everything from Santa Claus to life-size angels, Whipple's home was a holiday tradition and a Connecticut landmark. "He's our Father of Christmas," said Killingly resident Bethany Milardo, 29, who had visited the display every year for as long as she could remember. "I have never, ever seen anything like it before, and I doubt I will ever find anything that tops it." Whipple said volunteers began to dwindle over the past few years, and the bill - $19,000 last year - had grown too costly. "Help was becoming far and few between and I kept getting bigger and bigger," he said. "I just couldn't keep up anymore." Whipple said charging visitors to see his display was simply out of the question, even if it meant saving his Christmas Wonderland. "No way," he said. "I made a vow 35 years ago that I would never charge anyone one penny and I never did." Although he did have a small donation box stowed away in the corner of his showroom, it remained virtually empty over the years. In 2001, Whipple said the first two days' donations brought in less than half a cent per person. Whipple said he had hoped the town would purchase his Winter Wonderland and put it on display in Killingly's Owen Bell Park. He even offered it to town officials for the discounted price of $200,000. Whipple said the Disney-like display costs more than $1 million. But Acting Town Manager Peter Curry said Killingly could not afford it. "It just isn't something the town could shoulder," Curry said. "We are certainly going to miss it though." Whipple's Christmas Wonderland opened in 1967 with a nativity scene and 225 lights as a tribute to his stepson Edmond, who died in an accident the year before at the age of 20. Before Edmond died, Whipple had promised to help him decorate the home for the holiday. "It never became a reality for him so I decided to carry it on myself," Whipple said. Whipple owns a gravestone business and is the town's cemetery superintendent, a profession he inherited from his father. He is also a justice of peace who has married more than 1,500 couples. For Craig Griffin, 33, of Killingly, who had been Whipple's right-hand man for 16 years, it feels strange not to begin the holidays in September, when the pair usually began setting up the display. It would take another two or three months just to take it all down. "Things used to be a lot simpler," Griffin said. "The expectations kept growing. It used to be a lot easier to amuse people." Since Whipple put his Christmas Wonderland on sale in January, he has received seven offers from people in Rhode Island and New York and as far away as Utah and Oklahoma. But nothing has really stuck, he said. Part of the problem is that Whipple refuses to disassemble his display. It's all or nothing, he said. "I don't want to sell the seven dwarfs without Snow White," he said. "It wouldn't be the same. It would spoil it."

Scientists Blame Soot for Global Warming Tue Dec 23,10:42 AM ET 

By JOHN HEILPRIN, News Source Writer WASHINGTON - NASA (news - web sites) scientists say soot, mostly from diesel engines, is causing as much as a quarter of all observed global warming by reducing the ability of snow and ice to reflect sunlight. Their findings on how soot affects reflective ability, known as albedo, raise new questions about human-caused climate change from the Arctic to the Alps. "We suggest that soot contributes to near worldwide melting of ice that is usually attributed solely to global warming," National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientists James Hansen and Larissa Nazarenko wrote in a paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (news - web sites). "Soot is a more all-around `bad actor' than has been appreciated," they wrote. Soot is a blackened material formed mainly from carbon particles that are, along with salts and dust, byproducts of burning fossil fuels and vegetation. Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and Nazarenko, a staff associate there, found soot is twice as potent as carbon dioxide in changing global surface air temperatures in the Arctic and the Northern Hemisphere. Greenland may be an exception, they said, because it is downwind from Canadian forests and has little manmade pollution. The biggest source of soot in developed countries is diesel fuel, but major sources elsewhere include burning wood, animal dung, vegetable oil and other biofuels. Hansen told The News Source that the authors estimate the soot effect is equivalent to putting a 1-watt bulb, the size of a miniature Christmas tree bulb, over every two square yards in the Northern Hemisphere. The effect is greater in northernmost snow regions, and almost nonexistent in the tropics. Levels of airborne soot as high as about 100 parts per billion were found in the Alps, enough to reduce the snow's ability to reflect light rather than absorb it from about 98 percent down to between 80 percent and 90 percent, Hansen said. In spring and summer, as the snow melts and some soot accumulates as crud on the surface, the remaining snow is even darker, he said. The scientists suggest in their paper that the same pattern could occur in the Himalaya range of South Asia, where prevailing winds might deposit fossil fuel and biofuel soot carried in a brown haze from India. Many scientists believe the burning of fossil fuels is causing an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, triggering what is called the greenhouse effect. A higher concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere would trap more of the sun's heat, possibly causing the Earth to warm. Scientists thought until recently that only carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have global reach and effect. They now are finding the same thing with these microscopic, suspended particles of pollutants, generically known as aerosols, that settle on ground hours later. Soot particles, which absorb toxic organic material, are minute enough to penetrate skin. Soot is the aerosol most responsible for the haze in rapidly developing countries such as India and China, the scientists said. Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton professor and expert on climate policy, called the study "an interesting early calculation" that could prove to be important. "It means that - if it's right - we need to keep an eye on it," he said. "When we think about all these greenhouse gases, we ought also to think about controlling these particles that are also changing the climate." The Bush administration in 2001 ordered pollution cuts from heavy-duty diesel engines and diesel fuel used in highway trucks and buses. This year it proposed requiring a 90 percent reduction in pollution from diesel-powered construction and other off-road equipment, starting with 2008 models. ___ On the Net: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: http://www.pnas.org NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies: http://www.giss.nasa.gov Pew Center on Global Climate Change: http://www.pewclimate.org

Mystery Donor Continues Holiday Tradition

Wed Dec 24,10:30 AM ET 
Add Strange News - 

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - The city's annual mystery donor has struck again. 

For the 25th straight year, an anonymous donor has given at least $1,000 to the Salvation Army in Morgantown. This year the anonymous donor upped his gift to $1,501. 

The donor's currency varies from gold coins to bills that are no longer minted 

Capt. Ed Long, who oversees the Salvation Army in Monongalia, Marion and Preston counties, appeared as requested shortly after 3 p.m. Friday at the Giant Eagle kettle. There he found the prize - a $1,000 bill and a $500 bill folded inside a $1 bill in the traditional red kettle. 

"Oh, my gosh!" exclaimed bell ringer Alice Hoalcraft. All bell ringers are aware of the special Christmas gift, but there's been no pattern to where it appears. 

"I couldn't believe it," she said later. "I don't know who it is." 

The donor's ritual hasn't changed much since 1978: He places the donation in a randomly selected kettle, then makes an anonymous telephone call to the Salvation Office directing officials to that kettle. 

The donation is always made between Dec. 20 and Christmas. 

One year, he left an $10 gold piece from 1881. On another occasion, he wrapped two $500 bills from 1834 in a $1 bill.

Global Dimming 19-Dec-2003 In 1985, researcher Atsumu Ohmura discovered that it's too dark. When he checked the levels of sunlight recorded in Europe and compared them to similar measurements made in the 1960s, he found that levels of solar radiation hitting the Earth had declined by more than 10%. David Adam writes in The Guardian that this is happening despite the fact that the planet is getting hotter. Ohmura says, "I was shocked. The difference was so big that I just could not believe it." Scientists now refer to this as "global dimming." Over the past 50 years, the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth has decreased by about 3% a decade. "It's an extraordinary thing that for some reason this hasn't penetrated even into the thinking of the people looking at global climate change," says climatologist Graham Farquhar. "It's actually quite a big deal and I think you'll see a lot more people referring to it." It doesn't mean the sun is sending out less radiation, it means that less of it is reaching the Earth, due to pollution. Tiny particles of soot reflect sunlight and cause bigger, longer lasting clouds to form. This will cause solar power to work less effectively and also affect agriculture-especially in northern areas. Researcher Shabtai Cohen says, "In the northern climate...a reduction in solar radiation becomes a reduction in productivity. In greenhouses in Holland, the rule of thumb is that a 1% decrease in solar radiation equals a 1% drop in productivity. Because they're light limited, they're always very busy cleaning the tops of their greenhouses."

Man Discovers He's a Tribal Chief 11-Dec-2003 Mick Henry, a retired builder from Yorkshire, England, has discovered he's actually a chief of the Ojibway tribe in Canada, and owns thousands of acres of land there. He's the son of an English mother and a Canadian father, but since his father returned to Canada shortly after his birth, he never knew about his Ojibway relatives. He says, "I never thought something like this could happen to anyone, certainly not someone like me." Going home doesn't mean he has to go native. He says, "They are still looking for a proper ceremonial name for me. I thought they still lived in tents and went hunting for their food. In fact they all have lovely houses and enjoy a wonderful lifestyle."

A Place Where Time Travel is Real 10-Dec-2003 Physicist Michio Kaku says he knows of nothing that makes time travel impossible and "In the laws of physics, if it's not forbidden, it's mandatory. This is pretty much proven every time." And an amateur explorer says he's discovered a portal where time is altered. In msnbc.com, Alan Boyle quotes Kaku as saying, "Over the last 10 years there's been a sea change. Ten years ago, you would be considered a lunatic if you proposed that time travel was possible...Now, the burden of proof has shifted to the cynics, who have to prove that it's not possible." One time travel theory involves wormholes, which are shortcuts between two distant regions in the curved time- space of the universe. But in the past, scientists though a time machine that traveled through wormholes (if the exist) would need so much power it would instantly explode. "Since then, there have been experiments indicating that the machine does not explode," Kaku says. But "Black holes are not preferable for time travel because they're one-way trips. It's like an elevator with only an 'up' button." Engineer Paul Nahin says, "The fact that you can't change the past doesn't mean that you can't affect it. We know Joan of Arc died, but you could very well be the person who threw the match on the wood." "I tend to believe the many-worlds interpretation," Kaku says. This means that there's a world in which Joan of Arc died, and another in which you went back in time and saved her- in fact, there are as many universes as there are possibilities. Ron Quinn writes in the Tucson Weekly about a secret place in the Arizona mountains he discovered in 1956, where time is altered. He says, "The reason I'm bringing this tale to light after all this time is because something is in the works might effect this interesting place. Tucson Electric Power Company plans on building a 345,000-watt high-voltage transmission line from Tucson to Nogales. The line could come quite close to this site. When this line becomes active, what, if anything, will this enormous voltage do to this delicate location? Enhance the natural energy already lurking within it, or nothing? Only time will tell." It started when John, a local Indian, told him about a mysterious stone archway. In the 1800s, three Indians discovered it while hunting. They started chasing each other through it, but one of them never emerged from the other side. The remaining two Indians fled. In 1948, John came upon the arch in a storm. When he looked through it, he saw a blue, cloudless sky on the other side. Ron and his brother Chuck set off to find the arch. When they found it, they noted that it was about 7 feet high and 5 feet wide. They threw stones through it and Ron even stuck his arm through, but nothing happened. Their friend Louie Romero was camping near the arch one night with some other cowboys when they all heard the rumbling hooves and whinnying of approaching horses-but they couldn't see them. The sounds suddenly ended and in the morning, they could find no hoof prints. Historical figures have also been seen near the arch. Some have seen a dark- robed Jesuit priest, who became transparent, then vanished. Others have seen a troop of Spanish soldiers, who also vanished. Ron writes, "During one of our two-week adventures, I found myself near the canyon that leads towards that oddball site. Not having been there in almost four years, I decided to pay it a visit...Below to my left was a canyon-where none had existed...I soon discovered I was in the same canyon that led toward the hill I had just scaled. I was more than 250 yards back down the canyon on a different slope and now I was facing south-I had mysteriously been transported to the new location. Thinking I was looking west, I was really looking east seeing the canyon I had just hiked." He was afraid he might not still be living in his own time, so he was relieved when he got back to his Jeep. People have found large numbers of geodes-a type of quartz that conducts electricity-in the vicinity of the arch. They've also experienced vibrations, their arm hair standing on end, and strange ear pressure when in the area, all of which could be caused by electricity. Ron writes, "Could these large geodes be the main source that activates the natural energy within the area? "...What we have out there is a natural phenomena created accidentally by nature. It alters time, and there's no way to predict when this might occur...On my last visit to this wondrous place, I discovered the top portion of the archway had collapsed. All that remains are the two columns. Will this damage interfere with its ability to change time?"

Drugs Don't Work 09-Dec-2003 Just when the controversial new Medicare drug bill has been passed, a new report has come out showing that half the time, prescription drugs don't work. And a couple of illegal drugs can cause changes in DNA that can be passed down to future generations. Steve Connor reports in the Independent that Allen Roses, vice-president drug company GlaxoSmithKline, says that more than half of the patients who take expensive prescription drugs don't get any benefit from them. Connor writes, "It is an open secret within the drugs industry that most of its products are ineffective in most patients but this is the first time that such a senior drugs boss has gone public." It turns out that drugs for Alzheimer's disease only work for one of every three patients, and cancer drugs only work for 25% of patients. Drugs for migraines, for osteoporosis, and arthritis work about half the time. Diabetes drugs only work for about 60% of patients. Most of the time when drugs don't work, it's because the patient has genes that interfere with the medicine. Roses says, "The vast majority of drugs-more than 90%-only work in 30 or 50% of the people." He thinks drug companies should create genetic tests to identify which patients will benefit from certain drugs before they're prescribed. Also, if one drug doesn't work, another may, and a genetic test would help doctors discover what drug works for which patients more quickly, without patients having to experience negative side effects from ineffective medicine. At a time when drugs are being used more and more for treatment, and insurance companies and the government are trying to figure out how to pay for them, this knowledge could cut costs considerably, by avoiding unnecessary prescriptions. Nobody ever accused cocaine and ecstasy of not working, but Italian researcher Giorgio Bronzetti says, "Cocaine and ecstasy have proved to be more dangerous than we had imagined. These drugs, on top of their toxicological effects, attack DNA provoking mutations and altering the hereditary material. This is very worrying for the effects it could have on future generations." Ecstasy use in the U.S. has increased 70% between 1995 and 2000, and is taken mostly by young people who are just entering their reproductive years.

Bad Sex Award (for writing, anyway) 05-Dec-2003 There's a lot of awkward writing in novels, particularly when it comes to sex. In the U.K. they've done something about it: they've created the Bad Sex in Fiction Award. Keep reading for scintillating excerpts from some of the nominees. Some famous U.S. authors were nominated this year, including John Updike, Paul Theroux and Tama Janowitz. In "Peyton Amberg," Janowitz says a lover's foreplay is "as if he was searching for lost car keys." Some writers can never forget that humans are basically primates. In "Too Beautiful for You," Rod Liddle describes an orgasm this way: "She came with the exhilarating whoops and pant-hoots of a troop of Rhesus monkeys, which was flattering, if alarming." In writing-as in sex-some writers just try too hard. Paolo Coelho writes in "Eleven Minutes" that "I was the earth, the mountains, the tigers, the rivers that flowed into the lakes, the lake that became the sea." And the winner? India's Aniruddha Bahal, for this passage from his novel "Bunker 13": "She is topping up your engine oil for the cross-country coming up. Your RPM is hitting a new high. To wait any longer would be to lose prime time...She picks up a Bugatti's momentum. You want her more at a Volkswagen's steady trot. Squeeze the maximum mileage out of your gallon of gas. But she's eating up the road with all cylinders blazing." This combines two of men's favorite subjects: cars and sex. Now if he could only find a way to get some football metaphors in there....

Stroke Victim Now has British Accent 05-Dec-2003 Tiffany Roberts, an American woman who had a stroke, now has a British accent, despite the fact that she's never been to the U.K. The "foreign accent syndrome" is rare but not unknown. Once she began speaking again after her stroke in 1999, Roberts says, "When people first started asking me where in England I was from, and a family member asked why am I talking that way, that is when I became very conscious that a part of me had died during the stroke." Researchers don't know why or how this happens. Dr. Jack Ryalls says, "When [stroke victims] don't recover or when they only have very, very residual effects left, it's heard as an accent. Its a real phenomenon. It just hasn't been documented very often." These patients haven't really gained a foreign accent-it just sounds that way, as a result of brain injury. This was first documented in 1941, when a Norwegian woman received a shrapnel injury to her brain during an air raid that left her with a German accent.

Our Bodies Contain Dangerous Chemicals 03-Dec-2003 A cocktail of dangerous chemicals has been found in the blood of every person tested in a study in the U.K., and everyone in the U.S. probably has them too. The 77 chemicals found include PCBs, which can affect gender, and a common fire retardant. Shaoni Bhattacharya quotes toxicologist Matthew Wilkinson as saying, "Every single person we monitored had a range of these chemicals." Some of these chemicals persist in the blood for a very long time, as shown by the fact that 99% of the people in the study tested positive for DDT, which has been banned for decades in the U.K. Animal tests show these chemicals can be harmful at high levels, but no one knows the effects of carrying low levels of these chemicals around in your blood for a long time.

Sun Changes Asteroid Orbits 09-Dec-2003 It's been discovered that the force of sunlight on an asteroid can change its orbit, which is one reason why asteroids change direction and head for Earth. What we don't know is this: Will the increased solar activity on the sun right now have an increased effect on asteroids? Eugenie Samuel Reich writes in New Scientist that astronomers have detected the influence of sunlight on asteroids for the first time, since it's very subtle. However, it's enough to coax them out of the Solar System's asteroid belt and into an orbit that can impact Earth. Scientists know of five mass extinctions in the Earth's history, and the reasons for most of them remain mysterious. The one that occurred about 250 million years ago killed 90% of all species. Dinosaurs evolved afterwards, but were finally killed off 65 million years ago, after an asteroid impact. Now scientists say the extinction of 250 million years ago, which was the largest in Earth's history, was also caused by an asteroid. Researchers have concluded this from the discovery of rare mineral grains, that must have come from space, that have been found in ancient rocks in Antarctica. They've also found tiny capsules of helium and argon gases, which are commonly found in space, trapped inside rocks from this period. Astronomers are calling for more funding to detect asteroids that may be heading our way. With the current solar activity, and our history of impacts, let's hope they get it.

Vegetables can be Dangerous 26-Nov-2003 We think of fresh vegetables as something that's always good to eat, but they can be dangerous. Scallions imported from Mexico recently killed three people and made hundreds more sick. Grow your own? Research shows that vegetables grown in urban gardens can be contaminated with lead. Marian Burros writes in The New York Times that in 2000, there were as many cases of food poisoning caused by fruits and vegetables as there were from meat, fish and eggs combined. This is due to an increase in imports from countries with lower sanitary standards, where fields are often irrigated with contaminated water. When the F.D.A. tested imported produce, it found that almost 5% of it was contaminated with harmful bacteria. The Centers for Disease Control say that 5,000 people die and 76 million become ill from food poisoning every year. In 1996 and 1997 it was Guatemalan raspberries, and from 2000 through 2002 it was salmonella in Mexican cantaloupes. In 1999 salmonella was found in tomatoes grown in the U.S. Megan Fellman reports that another problem is lead from car exhausts. A study by Northwestern University in Chicago shows that vegetables grown in urban gardens in the U.S. may contain hazardous amounts of lead. "We are concerned about the edible portions of leafy vegetables and herbs that were found to contain lead," says researcher Kimberly A. Gray. "It is important that urban gardeners locate fruit and vegetable gardens away from buildings, test the lead levels in their soils and develop strategies to ensure safety for them and their children." Root vegetables, such as carrots, beets and onions, are likely to be especially contaminated.

Cell Phones Dangerous in Surprising Way 19-Nov-2003 Cell phones have been accused of being dangerous because they beam microwaves into people's brains, but now a new cell phone danger has been discovered. If you talk on your cell phone while walking, it can give you an aching back. Australian researcher Paul Hodges says this is because of the way we breathe. You may not have noticed this, but the human body is designed to exhale when our feet touch the ground, in order to protect the spine from sudden jolts. But talking and walking at the same time disrupts this pattern, so the spine is more likely to be injured. While we sometimes talk with other people while walking, we're much more likely to talk on our cell phones. Matthew Bennett, of the British Chiropractic Association, says, "This is totally new research. It shows that we really shouldn't be talking and walking at the same time. Talking appears to disrupt our ability to walk efficiently. This is something we will now have to add to our list. People with bad backs should watch the way they bend to pick things up, shouldn't sit for too long and now it would seem shouldn't talk with someone they are walking with. This is particularly important for [cell] phone users. We already know that holding a phone to your ear for long periods is bad for you, because it can increase tension across the shoulder and cause pain." 

The Soy of Sex 18-Nov-2003 A lot of women are taking soy supplements to help with the symptoms of menopause, because it contains a vegetable form of estrogen. However, new tests show it can reduce normal sexual behavior as much as 70%. Women may accept the end of fertility, but few want this to include the end of their sex lives as well. Since the recent news about negative effects from prescription hormone replacement therapy (HRT), women are looking in health food stores for relief. Emily Singer writes in New Scientist that when rats were given a soy supplement in doses that were adjusted for their body size, their sexual behavior decreased dramatically. For some reason, the plant form of estrogen seems to reduce the levels of natural estrogen in the human body, which may be why Asian women, who eat a diet high in soy, have lower cancer rates. Estrogen-reducing breast cancer drugs, such as tamoxifen, have a similar effect on women. Reseacher Heather Patisaul, who did the studies, thinks women taking the soy supplements may blame their lack of sex drive on menopause, and says, "...No one has asked these women about sexual side effects."

Teflon Trouble 21-Nov-2003 Teflon, the non-stick coating on pots and pans and stain protector on carpets and clothes, can give you the "Teflon flu." In large amounts, it can also cause birth defects. Sue Bailey, who worked at a plant that made chemicals for Teflon when she was pregnant, gave birth to a severely deformed baby. One of these chemicals, known as C-8, has been linked to cancer and organ damage in animals. Is the amount of Teflon in our daily lives dangerous as well? Brian Ross, Rhonda Schwartz and Maddy Sauer report for abcnews.com that C-8 has been found in the blood of almost every American, and some of the highest levels have been found in children. "In retrospect, this may seem like one of the biggest, if not the biggest, mistakes the chemical industry has ever made," says environmentalist Jane Houlihan. "And how could [these chemicals] not be in our blood? They're in such a huge range of consumer products. We're talking about Teflon, Stainmaster, Gore-tex, Silverstone. So if you buy clothing that's coated with Teflon or something else that protects it from dirt and stains, those chemicals can absorb directly through the skin." Dupont vice president Uma Chowdhry says, "We are confident when we say that the facts, the scientific facts, demonstrate that the material is perfectly safe to use. We do not believe there are any adverse health effects. There are lots of chemicals that are present in our blood." There's also "Teflon flu," which you can get if you overheat your Teflon pans. "It feels like the flu," says Houlihan, "headaches, chills, backache, temperature between 100 and 104 degrees. At 554 degrees Fahrenheit, studies show ultrafine particles start coming off the pan. These are tiny little particles that can embed deeply into the lungs. At 680, toxic gases can begin to come off of heated Teflon." Chowdhry says, "You get some fumes, yes, and you get a flu- like symptom, which is reversible." She says "Teflon flu" only lasts a couple of days. But Houlihan says, "It's a potential threat, and the EPA's moving fast in studying this. Human blood levels are too close to the levels that harm lab animals. That's why they're moving so fast." 

Better Not to Eat? 26-Nov-2003 About the only regimen that is guaranteed to give you longer life is to continuously deprive yourself of enough to eat-at least it works for mice and fruit flies. People are now beginning to try this diet as well, although we will have to wait to see if it works for humans. Now scientists have discovered a hermit in India who says he hasn't eaten or drunk anything for 20 years. He's lived to be 70 and is in perfect health. Rajeev Khanna writes in bbcnews.com about Prahlad Jani, who was recently put under constant video surveillance in Sterling Hospital in India for 10 days, in a room with a sealed- off toilet. During that time, he did not eat anything and "neither did he pass urine or stool," says hospital deputy superintendent Dr. Dinesh Desai. "A series of tests conducted on him show his body mechanism is that of a normal person." Most of us can only live for a few days without water. We can survive without food for several weeks, because we can live on our stored protein and fat. Despite the fact that Jani drinks no water, urine appears to form in his bladder, but it is reabsorbed by his bladder walls. He says, "I feel no need for food and water."

Life Expectancy in Retreat for World's Poorest-UN Thu Dec 18, 8:02 AM ET  

By Richard Waddington GENEVA  - While life expectancy increases in most of the world, in AIDS (news - web sites)-ravaged parts of southern Africa adult mortality is higher than 30 years ago, the World Health Organization (news - web sites) said on Thursday. In 14 African countries, the U.N. agency said in its annual World Health Report, child mortality is higher than it was in 1990, with over 300 children out of every 1,000 born in Sierre Leone dying before the age of five. The 194-page report, which ranges from life expectancy through road traffic deaths to the fight against polio (news - web sites) and AIDS, also warned of a growing gulf in health care and exposure to disease between the poorest nations and the rest. "Today's global health situation raises urgent questions about justice," WHO Director-General Lee Jong-wook, wrote in an introduction. "In some parts of the world there is a continued expectation of longer and more comfortable life, while in many others there is despair over the failure to control disease though the means to do so exist." Of the 57 million premature deaths in 2002, 10.5 million were among children of less than five years of age and 98 percent of those were in developing countries. In Zimbabwe, the average life expectancy for both sexes was 37.9, in Zambia 39.7 and in Angola 39.9, while in Switzerland it was 80.6, in Sweden 80.4 and in France 79.7. HIGH RATE IN JAPAN A baby girl born now in Japan could expect to live 85 years, while one born at the same time in Sierra Leone would probably not survive beyond 36. "A world marked by such inequities is in very serious trouble," wrote Lee. "We have to find ways to unite our strengths as a global community to shape a healthier future." The report said AIDS was the leading cause of death in the 15-59 age range, reducing the life expectancy of adults in Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Zimbabwe by 20 years. Deaths from the virus and the complications it brings were almost twice those from the next top killer -- heart disease -- and well over twice more than the third most fatal -- tuberculosis, according to the report. The WHO said diseases related to tobacco were responsible for some five millions deaths a year. It said that in 2002, over 1.2 million people died of lung cancer -- largely caused by smoking -- which was a 30 percent increase on 1990. Three out of four of these deaths were among men, the WHO said. Among men, average life expectancy is 77.9 years in Australia and 75.9 in France. In China, the average man lives to 69.6, in Brazil to 65.7 and Egypt to 65.3. But in Russia -- where health and other social services have largely collapsed since the end of the Soviet system in 1991 -- a man can expect to live to only 58.4. French women have a present life expectancy of 83.5, just ahead of Australian women who can expect to live to 83. Russian women, less prone to the ravages of heavy vodka-drinking, can expect to outlive their men by around 14 years and die at just over the age of 72.

Sony Unveils World's First 'Running' Humanoid Robot Thu Dec 18, 3:10 AM ET Add Technology 

By Edwina Gibbs TOKYO  - He may not be able to give you a run for your money but one quick step for Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news) (news - web sites).'s Qrio humanoid robot is one big step for robots in general. Electronics and entertainment giant Sony said on Thursday that it had developed the world's first running -- okay, jogging -- robot. "All around the world, universities and think tanks have been researching how to make robots run but we are pleased to announce that we have done it first," Toshi Doi, an executive vice president at Sony told a news conference. The sleek and diminutive Qrio, which until recently had been known as Sony's SDR robot entertaining crowds with fluid and funky dance motions, can now trot at a speed of 15 yards per minute. If 23-inch, 15-pound Qrio were average human-size, that would translate into 1.5 miles an hour. The big technological breakthrough, says Sony, was in getting both the robot's feet to lose contact with the ground at once. Up until now humanoid or two-legged robots have needed to have one foot on the floor to move stably. "The hardest part was theoretical. Humanoid robots like Sony's older Qrios and Honda's Asimo have been based on a theory which dictates that there must be contact with the floor. We had to develop a new theory," said Doi. Other enhancements for the latest version of Qrio include more advanced finger control that allows him, swiveling like a baseball pitcher, to throw a light ball some three to four yards, and hold fans while dancing. Sony's robot developers admit however that Qrio's running prowess has some way to go. Its running distance is still short and it is not yet ready to join older models that entertain at Sony's promotional events because the technology that allows those models to get up when they fall needs to be enhanced for the new Qrio. The next challenge, said Doi, is to make Qrio's running motion less jogging-like and more like an athlete's. At the moment, Qrio's time with both feet off the ground is only 40 milliseconds, compared with around one second managed by athletes, he said. Sony, which also makes the Aibo (news - web sites) robot dog, a sell-out success when it debuted in 1999, said it still doesn't have a timetable for commercializing Qrio, whose name is short for "quest for curiosity." And Doi admits a running Qrio is not necessarily a helpful product. "It's not useful. Sony doesn't make useful robots. Sony makes robots that entertain," he said. 

Chicago Eatery to Destroy Infamous Ball 2 hours, 25 minutes ago By BENNIE M. CURRIE, News Source Writer CHICAGO - Here's one way to try to end the Cubs' curse: Destroy the ball that was in the middle of one of the team's most heartbreaking defeats. That's exactly what Grant DePorter wants to do. Deporter, a friend of Harry Caray and managing partner of the late broadcasters' area restaurants, paid $106,600 at auction Friday for the foul ball that disrupted the Cubs' possible run to the World Series (news - web sites). "We want to create some closure to the way the season ended," DePorter said. The ball is to be destroyed in an act of exorcism. It is earmarked for death on Feb. 26, when the restaurant organizes a worldwide toast to Caray. DePorter plans to ask fans for ideas on how best to banish the ball. "Harry Caray was a true Cubs fan, and we think he'd want us to do whatever we can to make it easier for fans to put this thing behind us," he said. Cubs fan Steve Bartman deflected the ball in Game 6 of the National League (news) championship series on Oct. 14. The ball appeared headed for the glove of Cubs outfielder Moises Alou, but he was unable to catch it after it ricocheted off Bartman's hand. The Florida Marlins (news) rallied to win the game, and the Cubs then lost Game 7 and their chance to reach their first World Series since 1945. DePorter wants to make sure that if Cubs fans can't control the fate of their season they can at least control the fate of this ball. "We weren't about to let it get into the hands of a Marlins fan," he said. The auction was handled by MastroNet Inc. of suburban Oak Brook. Thirty-seven bids had been made on the ball by the time the auction closed about 4 a.m. MastroNet said the seller was a 33-year-old Chicago attorney identified only as Jim. According to the company, he was sitting near Bartman and picked up the ball when it bounced his way. The ball was authenticated using affidavits, ticket stubs and other information, MastroNet said. DePorter said he was pleased his bid surpassed that for the ball that skipped through Bill Buckner's legs in the 1986 World Series, helping the New York Mets (news) beat the Boston Red Sox (news). Actor Charlie Sheen paid $93,500 for that ball in a 1992 auction, and author Seth Swirsky bid $63,945 to acquire it in 2000. "The Cubs fans' sorrow is worth more than the Red Sox fans' sorrow," DePorter said. DePorter said Bartman will be invited to attend the event when the ball is destroyed. Messages left Friday by The News Source with Bartman and his spokesman were not immediately returned. He has sought to avoid the limelight since issuing a statement shortly after the fateful game, saying he was "truly sorry from the bottom of this Cubs fan's broken heart."

Kramer Cracks in "Seinfeld" Feud Wed Dec 24, 4:40 PM ET Add Television - E! Online 

By Julie Keller Kramer has crossed the Seinfeld picket line. Michael Richards, the beloved, wacky star of the much-Emmyd comedy series has broken ranks with costars Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfus and decided to participate in an upcoming DVD about the show. Until now, all three stars have passed on participating in the project due to financial woes-reps for all three actors have said their clients were unhappy with their payoffs from the continually successful show and they didnt want to work for free. But Richards finally caved to pressure after talking things over with series star Jerry Seinfeld over the weekend. He does maintain that he would like to receive some cash for participating, particularly since others like Seinfeld, co-creator Larry David (news) and several others involved in production are still making money on the show. "I think everyone wants to get paid," Richards told the New York Times. "Is it honorable for those on the inside to make compensation? That's an ethical question they have to deal with. But I never heard back from anybody." It seems unlikely that Kramer will cash in for his participation, since actors dont generally get paid on residual deals like DVDs. "I innocently asked a question. 'Is there some compensation?' I don't believe there is," Richards told the Times. "There isn't anything." Still, Richards says he is going to do his part to make the DVD a success. "I'm not boycotting," he told the Times. "I'm involved. I was never called to do an interview. I am so for the DVD coming out that I'll go on the Tonight show." Elizabeth Clark, a rep for Seinfeld, says the actor still has hope that the erstwhile George and Elaine will come around and that he plans to get in touch with them in the New Year. "He hopes they will participate in the DVD," she said in a statement. But whether Alexander and Louis-Dreyfus sign on or not, the DVD is likely to be a smashing success. Seinfeld was consistently a No. 1 show and a mainstay of "Must-See TV" on NBC throughout its run from 1990 to 1998. Even today, it still runs relentlessly in syndication and generates millions for its Seinfeld and David, co-creators and executive producers. Seinfeld, meanwhile, is having no trouble keeping his pockets lined even without the help of his hit show. The star has landed a deal to write, produce and star in Bee Movie, a computer-animated feature-length flick for DreamWorks. 

Parish Offers Incense-Free Christmas Mass Wed Dec 24,10:37 AM ET Add Strange News - 

MAPLEWOOD, Minn. - Following requests from parishioners, a Catholic parish is holding incense-free Masses. One Mass on Dec. 24 and another Christmas Day at Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church will be "incense-free." At least one parishioner has already sent a thank-you note because of the change. "I have asthma and so does my son," Kristi Otto said. "I get physically ill from the smell of it. There have been so many times when I've gone to church and I've had to leave and sit in the car and wait for my family." Frankincense was widely used for centuries, in part because of its medicinal use as an anti-inflammatory, antiseptic and calming fragrance. The incense - resin scraped from the root of the frankincense tree found in eastern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula - was even touted as beneficial to those with asthma. But those such as Otto, her 7-year-old son, and people with certain perfume allergies are sensitive to the smell. "We've had a number of people in the parish call because they find it difficult to go to Mass on high holidays, as much as they'd like to go," said Mary Bothwell, an administrative assistant at Presentation. Churches with traditional "high liturgy" - such as Catholics, Orthodox and Anglicans - often burn incense during worship, especially on holy days such as Christmas and Easter. "It is a symbol of our prayers rising to the heavens, as described in the Psalms," said Steve Klein, an administrator at Presentation. It also makes worship a full sensory experience, said Tom Paulus of St. Patrick's Guild, which sells liturgical incense to many parishes in the Twin Cities. "We use all the physical senses in worship - music appeals to sound, and incense draws in the sense of smell - to remind us Jesus actually took the form of a human being," Paulus said. "We are a physical church." 

U.S. Blurs High-Tech Washington Images

Wed Dec 24, 2:00 AM ET

By TED BRIDIS, News Source Technology Writer 

WASHINGTON - The government is selectively blurring some of its highest-quality aerial photographs of Washington to hide objects in plain view on the roofs of the White House, Capitol and Treasury Department (news - web sites). 

Your Annual PC Tune-up Rev up your PC for 2004 with our annual tune-up guide, plus must-have free utilities and maintenance tips to keep your PC purring. 

Deferring to Secret Service worries about terrorists, the government also obscured aerial views of the Naval Observatory compound where Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) lives. It made no effort to blur detailed photographs showing the Pentagon (news - web sites), Supreme Court, CIA (news - web sites) headquarters, Justice Department (news - web sites) or FBI (news - web sites) headquarters. 

Experts said they feared the unusual decision reflects a troublesome move toward new government limits on commercial satellite and aerial photography, a booming industry driven by recent technology advances and including some major companies based outside the United States. 

Some commercial satellites already can snap photographs almost as detailed as those images shot from airplanes ordered blurred by the government. 

Some experts also questioned the effectiveness of blurring one set of government-financed photographs. Tourists can see the roofs of the White House and U.S. Capitol from dozens of tall buildings downtown, and the Web site for the National Park Service shows a June 2002 photograph of the White House from atop the Washington Monument. 

"We have to accept that we're not going to be invisible from space anymore," said James Lewis, a satellites expert for the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The knee-jerk reaction is to turn it off. Once in a while that makes sense, but not very often." 

Some private companies that already purchased this most recent collection of detailed photographs did not know some had been degraded by the government until contacted by The News Source. 

"This is the first time we've seen anything like this," said Chris Becwar of GlobeXplorer LLC of Walnut Creek, Calif., which makes satellite and aerial photographs available over popular Web sites. "We'd prefer that it not be there." 

Becwar said the company will consider replacing the degraded government photographs with other commercially available images of downtown Washington that haven't been altered. 

The Secret Service (news - web sites) ordered the photographs degraded as a condition of permitting a contractor's twin-engine Piper Navajo Chieftain to fly directly over Washington in April 2002, where such flights have been heavily restricted since the 2001 terror attacks. 

Secret Service spokesman John Gill said the agency worried that the high-altitude photographs, so detailed that pedestrians can be seen in crosswalks, "may expose security operations." 

Mary Hiatt, a vice president for EarthData International of Maryland LLC, said the Secret Service "gave us guidance as to what they had concerns about," and the company used commercial software to blur parts of some photographs and obscure parts of others. 

A civil-liberties expert, James Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said he wasn't troubled by the government's actions. But he said the government's demand "illustrates the tension that exists between the public's right to know and security concerns." 

Still, Dempsey added: "I don't see the public interest in what the top of the White House looks like." 

The affected images include: 

_The White House, where the roof is obscured to hide objects in plain view. 

_The nearby Old Executive Office Building where many presidential aides work. The roof on that photo is obscured and interior courtyards blurred. 

_The Treasury Department, next door to the White House, where the roof also is obscured and interior courtyards blurred. 

_The Capitol, where the main building and five nearby congressional office buildings are blurred. 

_The Naval Observatory compound where the vice presidential residence is, which is blurred. 

The U.S. Geological Survey (news - web sites), which paid for the photographs, has been distributing them publicly since last December without formally acknowledging they were altered. The Washington photographs were part of a national project to create high-resolution images of 133 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Miami, St. Louis, Las Vegas and Dallas. 

About half the cities already have been photographed, and none of the images except those of Washington were blurred for security reasons, said Scott Harris, a spokesman for the Geological Survey. 

___ 

On the Web: 

USGS (news - web sites) National Map: http://seamless.usgs.gov

Family Pets Get Caught Up in Holiday Gift Spirit 
Tue Dec 23, 3:55 PM ET 
Add U.S. National 

By Frank Tang 

NEW YORK  - Chad is receiving 8 different presents every night of Hanukkah this year. 

"He's our son. We didn't want to give each other Hanukkah presents, but not give Chad a present," said Sarah Gerber, a technical writer in New York, who spent about $60 on holiday gifts for Chad this year. 

Chad, though, is not Gerber's son -- he's her dog. 

Americans will spend a whopping $31 billion in 2003 on their pampered pets, up 5 percent from a year earlier, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association (APPMA), a trade group. 

Indeed, this holiday season has gone to the dogs, and the cats and other pets. 

According to the APPMA, 62 percent of American households own a pet, and almost half of those have more than one. Forty million Americans will be shopping not only for the family this holiday season, but also for their pets as well. 

Matthew Everding, a general manager of Petco Animal Supplies Inc., said there was a "crazy amount" of last-minute shopping at his New York City store. Holiday sales rose about 10 percent from a year ago, and it's been climbing every year, he said. 

"We have a lot more people buying for other people's pets" this year, since more people bring presents for their families' and friends' pets as party gifts, said Everding. 

DOGS ARE PEOPLE, TOO 

Consumers can now find chic and unique pet holiday gifts not only at pet supplies stores, but also some clothiers, as well as luxury retailers. 

Petsmart Inc. said some of the hottest presents for the four-legged family members include the "canine holiday party tray," which has colorful dog treats -- such as frosted shortbread cookies and dipped bone biscuits, for about $12. 

Another unique gift Petsmart offers is the Pawlish Nail Polish, a line of pet-safe nail polish for cats and dogs, made by human cosmetics maker OPI Products Inc. 

"A lot of our products are actually mimicking what's going on in the human world," said Alisa Bartmess, Petsmart's category manager. 

Pet lovers can also find everything from a $600 deluxe fur-covered pet sofa bed to a $35 sterling-silver dog charm bracelet for humans on the Web site of upscale retailer Neiman Marcus Group Inc. 

Neiman also offers a little jewelry for our canine friends. A variety of jade and amber dog collars are available, which cost about $70 each. 

"This (dog collar) looks like something which can easily be a bracelet for women to wear ... something you can wear for the day," said Ginger Reeder, vice president of public relations of Neiman Marcus Direct. "The dogs are catching up the rest of us, I guess." 

DAYWEAR ... EVENINGWEAR ... DOGWEAR? 

Swedish clothier H&M also offers a collection of trendy "dogwear," such as sweatshirts, raincoats and jackets, and their matching accessories, like pet carriers. 

For the owners of the amply fed pet, Iams Co., a unit of Procter & Gamble Co., offers a variety of restricted-calorie and weight-control dog and cat foods, under the Eukanuba and Iams brands. 

American pets are increasingly resembling their owners in terms of body size. In fact, one out of every four dogs and cats in the Western world is obese. 

Pet owners can actually save money by following the feeding suggestions provided by the pet food maker, since most people are overfeeding their pets, Iams President Jeffrey Ansell told The News Source in a recent interview. 

By the way, Chad, the 3-year-old Shiba Inu, is really happy after receiving a yarmulke cap, which he'll be wearing when the Gerbers light the next candle during Hanukkah.

David Bowie says no sir to knighthood Wed Dec 24,12:21 PM ET Add Entertainment - 

LONDON - You can have Sir Mick, and Sir Elton, and Sir Paul, but you'll won't hear Sir David - as in Bowie. The veteran singer was one of the people The Sunday Times revealed as declining honors from the queen. Bowie said he'd never accept a knighthood and doesn't even know what it's for. Sir Mick Jagger (news) was delighted to become a knight earlier this month. But bandmate Keith Richards (news) called the title a disgrace and paltry honor. The Sunday Times this week published a list of 300 people - including Bowie, comedian John Cleese (news) and actor Kenneth Branagh (news) - who declined honors since 1945. About 2 percent of the 3,000 people chosen each year decline, according to the government. Most do so quietly, but last month poet Benjamin Zephaniah publicly rejected an OBE - Officer of the Order of the British Empire - because the title reminded him of "thousands of years of brutality." "Stick it, Mr. Blair and Mrs. Queen, stop going on about empire," he wrote in The Guardian newspaper. After the list was published, Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites)'s government promised to make the system of awarding knighthoods and other honors more open. Twice a year the government announces recipients of a host of titles, from knighthoods and damehoods to Companions of Honor, for exceptional achievement or service to the nation. Though the honors are bestowed by Queen Elizabeth II (news - web sites), most recipients are chosen by committees of civil servants from nominations made by the government and the public.

Artifacts Discovered at Monticello

Mon Dec 22, 3:52 PM ET 
Add U.S. National - 

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - Bricks, mortar, nails and window glass were among artifacts discovered near a 200-year-old wall now being repaired on the grounds of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's mansion. 

Related Links
� Monticello - official site

The items will help archaeologists determine how the wall was originally constructed and to what extent Jefferson leveled a mountaintop to build his home on level ground, said Sara Bon-Harper, Monticello's archaeological research manager. 

Excavators have found thousands of artifacts while shoring up the wall along the north terrace of Monticello. 

The dig didn't start out as research; work on the wall started in November when it began to bow from soil pressure and poor drainage, Bon-Harper said. 

Bon-Harper and a crew of about eight professional excavators are digging a trench along the wall about 5 feet deep, 5 feet wide and eventually 125 feet long. So far, the trench is about 40 feet long. 

After all the dirt is removed, a mason will install a retaining wall and drain to relieve soil pressure. 

Among the artifacts discovered are building materials such as bricks and window glass. 

"A couple of items we were pretty jazzed about finding, including a set of keys that may well have been used for the doors for the north pavilion," Bon-Harper said. 

Archaeologists also have discovered dishes, drinking glasses and animal bones. Jefferson's servants would often sweep trash out the door or throw it out the nearest window, Bon-Harper said. 

"Refuse disposal was not at all what it is now," she said. 

Among the more modern discoveries made along the terrace are 20th-century coins, probably dropped by tourists. 

The excavation also will provide researchers with information about what was planted along the wall. 

___ 

On the Net: 

http://www.monticello.org/ 

Attorney Says Limbaugh Blackmailed by Maid 2 hours, 57 minutes ago By JILL BARTON, News Source Writer WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Rush Limbaugh paid "substantial" blackmail to a former maid before she told law enforcement and a tabloid newspaper about his addiction to prescription painkillers, his attorney told a judge Monday. Attorney Roy Black said Limbaugh could not complain to authorities about the maid's demand for $4 million because they would use the information against him, and that the maid and her husband "bled him dry" before going public anyway. The claim was made during a court hearing where Black asked that medical records related to Limbaugh be kept secret. The seizure of the records from doctors in Florida and California violated the conservative radio commentator's privacy, Black argued. Palm Beach County prosecutors insist they need to review the records, which are sealed, to determine how much Limbaugh's doctors knew about his frequent prescriptions for OxyContin, hydrocodone and other painkillers. Assistant State Attorney James Martz said judges approved the warrants after investigators discovered Limbaugh received more than 2,000 painkillers, prescribed by four doctors, at a pharmacy near his $24 million mansion. "Now the next question is did those doctors know about each other?" Martz said. Reviewing the records would be the only way to determine if Limbaugh violated the law by withholding information from his doctors - and went "doctor shopping" for drugs. Limbaugh's attorneys outlined a defense against accusations that he illegally used prescription painkillers and laundered money to finance his drug habit. Black said Limbaugh suffered from a degenerative disc disease with "pain so great at one point doctors thought he had bone cancer," and that Limbaugh chose to take addictive painkillers rather than have surgery. Surgery would have meant doctors would have gone through Limbaugh's throat to operate on his spine, which could threaten his career as a commentator, Black said. Limbaugh's former maid, Wilma Cline, learned of his addiction and threatened to sell the story to The National Enquirer. She and her husband, David Cline, demanded millions and were "paid substantial amounts of money," the lawyer said. The couple "bled him dry" and then went to authorities to gain immunity from prosecutors before selling their story for $250,000 to the Enquirer, Black said. The tabloid ran a story in October, days before Limbaugh announced he would enter a drug rehabilitation program, alleging they supplied him drugs for years. Black said Limbaugh paid money to the Clines because they were blackmailing him - not because he was laundering money. "It's not money laundering to pay blackmail and extortion," Black said. Ed Shohat, the attorney for the Clines, denied Black's allegation. "Rush Limbaugh confessed and admitted that he bought the pills. ... I know of no facts that my clients demanded money from Rush Limbaugh in any way," he said. Limbaugh allegedly withdrew cash 30 to 40 times at amounts just under the $10,000 limit that requires a bank to report the transaction to the federal government. The action drew suspicion because it can be a federal crime to structure financial transactions below the $10,000 limit. "This would never happen except this guy's name is Rush Limbaugh," Black said about the financial probe. "There's a double standard." Martz declined to comment after the hearing. Judge Jeffrey A. Winikoff did not say when he would decide whether the records should be unsealed.

States Look to Combat Obesity With Laws Mon Dec 22, 5:13 PM ET Add U.S. National - 

By ROBERT TANNER, News Source National Writer Fighting to shed a few pounds and control that waistline? For the soaring number of Americans who are becoming dangerously overweight, states and cities across the country want to help. With the U.S. Surgeon General calling obesity an epidemic, legislators nationwide are offering measures to encourage healthy food choices and ban the worst temptations. Skeptics say government should stay away from trying to legislate something as personal as what we eat. But supporters say they can't ignore a growing public health problem or how it drives the ever-rising cost of health care. Few ideas have become law yet. But states have considered scores of bills this year that would, among other things: get kids exercising; warn restaurant eaters about fat, sugar and cholesterol on the menu; and, ban sugary sodas and fattening chips from school vending machines. In a Louisiana experiment, the state will pay for a few government employees' gastric bypass surgery - or stomach stapling - to see if it reduces health care costs. "As a country, we have to wake up. We are in an epidemic," said Nevada state Sen. Valerie Wiener, who has had her own battles with weight but now is a champion weightlifter. She heads a state committee gathering data on obesity, and how the legislature, food companies, the health care system and schools can act. "We're all paying the price," she said. Under the laws that have passed, states will: _Test the BMI - body-mass index, a ratio of height to weight - of students in six Arkansas schools, and send results home. Pediatricians say regular tests like this should be performed nationwide to track children at risk of becoming obese. _Ban junk food from vending machines in California. New York City, in an administrative decision, banned hard candy, doughnuts, soda and salty chips from its vending machines. _Require physical education programs in Louisiana schools, and encourage it in Arkansas and Mississippi. Though once a staple, such daily classes are now only required by state law in Illinois; other states let local officials decide or require exercise less often. Public campaigns aimed at getting people to change their eating habits also remain popular. Billboards across West Virginia, featuring photos of bulging stomachs and couch potatoes, exhort people to "Put Down Chips & Trim Those Hips." Houston, Philadelphia and San Antonio, Texas have started "get fit" drives. The statistics show the need for such efforts. The number of obese adults has doubled in 20 years, and is now up to nearly 59 million people, or almost a third of all American adults. Childhood obesity has tripled, with one child in six considered obese. As the pounds add up, so do the health care costs, because obesity is linked to diabetes, heart disease, and deaths from cancer - among other ailments. West Virginia found that, for state employees, costs for obesity have more than doubled since 1995, rising from $37 million to $78 million, now nearly a fifth of the employees' $400 million health plan. Still, some are critical both of the statistics and the proposals. "There's a lot of fear and hysteria," said Mike Burita at the Center for Consumer Freedom, an advocacy group for the restaurant and food industry. "We're allowing government and these public health groups to dictate our food choices to us." Among his top targets is the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group that produces a steady flow of warnings about unhealthy food, from movie popcorn to Chinese takeout. "It's OK to have a cheeseburger and fries, but it shouldn't be a mainstay of your diet," Burita said. Exercise and education are the solutions, he said. "Kids went from playing dodge ball to playing computer games." The skeptics are being heard. A Texas proposal to limit school children's access to snack and soda vending machines died after the state soft drink association complained. Most of the 80 or so obesity-related bills around the country also failed to pass. "It's difficult to want to tackle something like this, something as huge as this," said Weiner, the Nevada lawmaker. She plans to bring together people from the food industry and the public health community to work with lawmakers. The federal government is acting, too. The Bush administration urged insurance companies to offer premium discounts to people with healthier lifestyles. It has started giving grants to cities to target unhealthy habits. More immediate changes are brewing on the state and local level. In West Virginia, the state agency that insures public employees has started offering exercise benefits and diet counseling, in addition to the state's advertising campaign. "If we don't get a handle on this, this generation of kids coming up will have a shorter life span than their parents," said Nidia Henderson, wellness manager at West Virginia's Public Employees Insurance Agency. "That's scandalous." ___ On the Net: U.S. Surgeon General: http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/topics/obesity

Stewart Says It's Saddest Holiday Ever 2 hours, 51 minutes ago By The News Source NEW YORK - Facing trial on a stock-trading scandal, Martha Stewart (news - web sites) says her legal woes have curtailed her holiday plans. "It's the saddest holiday ever. It's an unwelcome time for me, very unwelcome," she told CNN's "Larry King Live" in a taped interview scheduled to air Monday. "I generally have a Christmas party but this year I'm only having a small family party." Stewart's criminal trial on securities fraud and conspiracy charges is scheduled to begin Jan. 12. In excerpts provided to The News Source, Stewart, 62, denies any wrongdoing, but said the approaching trial has caused her a lot of pain. "You have no idea how much worry and sadness and grief it causes," she says. Despite the ordeal, Stewart says she hasn't allowed herself to get angry. "You can't let that get to you because then, again, your functionality, your daily chores can't get done," she says. "And my legal team has inspired me to behave in an appropriate fashion." 

Origin of 'Jingle Bells' Song Is Debated

1 hour, 42 minutes ago 
Add U.S. National - 

By RUSS BYNUM, News Source Writer 

SAVANNAH, Ga. - Dashing in the sun, through oaks and Spanish moss. Sleigh riding's no fun, when there's no snow to cross. 

Related Links
� Our Jingle Bells Connection (Unitarian Universalist Church of Savannah)
� Jingle Bells Lyrics

Could "Jingle Bells" really be a song of the South? 

It's not hard to see why balmy Savannah has a tough time selling the Christmas carol as a native creation. Or why the claim makes folks in Medford, Mass. - hometown of the song's composer - cry humbug. 

This much is known: James Pierpont was the organist at Savannah's Unitarian Universalist Church in 1857 when he copyrighted the song "One Horse Open Sleigh," a title later changed to "Jingle Bells." 

One of the most popular American Christmas songs, "Jingle Bells" made Pierpont a pre-Civil War one-hit wonder. But did he write it here as a piece of homesick, holiday nostalgia? Or did he compose it years before in Medford, not seeing the tune as a moneymaker until he drifted south? 

"No one really knows where he was when he wrote it - that's the rub," said Constance Turner, Pierpont's great-granddaughter in Coronado, Calif. "Evidently, James was quite the free-spirit and he published some bad songs and one, at least, we know of that's a very good song." 

Medford, just outside Boston, claimed the carol without challenge until 1969, when Milton Rahn, a Savannah Unitarian, announced he had linked the song's composer to Georgia. 

Rahn was listening to his daughter play "Jingle Bells" on the piano when he glanced at the sheet music and noticed the composer's name: J. Pierpont. 

He had earlier found letters John Pierpont Jr., the church's pastor from 1852 to 1858, had written home to Medford saying his brother, James, had come to Savannah as an organist and music teacher. Further research found the composer had married in Savannah in 1857 weeks before he copyrighted "Jingle Bells." 

"I saw this as something to help us get publicity for the church," Rahn said. 

Pierpont, who lived from 1822 to 1893, was said to be a wanderer who ran away to sea at 14 and later went to California during the Gold Rush. During the Civil War, he joined a Confederate cavalry regiment in Savannah, bucking his family's staunch abolitionist views. 

Though Pierpont came from an aristocratic family - his nephew was the financier John Pierpont (J.P.) Morgan - he never made much money himself. 

His other songs included several touting the Confederate cause, with titles such as "We Conquer Or Die" and "Strike For The South." But none struck a chord like "Jingle Bells." 

After Savannah erected a "Jingle Bells" marker across from the church in 1985, then-Mayor John Rousakis declared the tune a Savannah song. 

To folks in Medford, that made Rousakis and Rahn a pair of grinches out to steal their Christmas history. A series of not-so-jolly exchanges followed. 

"In the words of Shakespeare, it is our intention to keep our `honor from corruption,'" Medford Mayor Michael McGlynn wrote in a 1989 letter to Rousakis. "We unequivocally state that `Jingle Bells' was composed ... in the Town of Medford during the year 1850!" 

Rousakis fired back with an equally strong, unyielding letter. 

"James L. Pierpont is still here with us," Rousakis wrote, noting the composer's Savannah burial. "I am sure (Pierpont) will join us in spirit when we finally and formally proclaim Savannah, Georgia, as the birthplace of `Jingle Bells.'" 

According to Medford, Pierpont was inspired by the winter sleigh races down snow-filled Salem Street in Medford and wrote the song at the Simpson Tavern, a boarding house with the only piano in town. 

Ace Collins, author of the 2001 book "Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas," says he found more proof of Medford being the rightful birthplace while researching his chapter on "Jingle Bells." 

Collins said he found a New England newspaper from the early 1840s that mentioned "One Horse Open Sleigh" debuting in Medford at a Thanksgiving church service. The song proved so popular, he said, Pierpont gave a repeat performance at Christmas. 

When it comes to which city deserves bragging rights, Collins gets diplomatic. Pierpont may have written his song in Medford, he says, but Savannah made him realize its universal appeal. 

"Savannah was the key," Collins said. "If it can play in Savannah, where snow was a novelty, it can play anywhere." 

___ 

On the Net: 

Unitarian Universalist Church of Savannah: http://www.jinglebellschurch.org 

Medford: http://www.medford.org 

Songwriters Hall of Fame: http://www.songwritershalloffame.org

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/currents/Content?oid=oid:47018

A Place Where Time Travel is Real 10-Dec-2003

Physicist Michio Kaku says he knows of nothing that makes time travel impossible and "In the laws of physics, if it's not forbidden, it's mandatory. This is pretty much proven every time." And an amateur explorer says he's discovered a portal where time is altered. 

In msnbc.com, Alan Boyle quotes Kaku as saying, "Over the last 10 years there's been a sea change. Ten years ago, you would be considered a lunatic if you proposed that time travel was possible...Now, the burden of proof has shifted to the cynics, who have to prove that it's not possible." 

One time travel theory involves wormholes, which are shortcuts between two distant regions in the curved time- space of the universe. But in the past, scientists though a time machine that traveled through wormholes (if the exist) would need so much power it would instantly explode. "Since then, there have been experiments indicating that the machine does not explode," Kaku says. But "Black holes are not preferable for time travel because they're one-way trips. It's like an elevator with only an 'up' button." 

Engineer Paul Nahin says, "The fact that you can't change the past doesn't mean that you can't affect it. We know Joan of Arc died, but you could very well be the person who threw the match on the wood." 

"I tend to believe the many-worlds interpretation," Kaku says. This means that there's a world in which Joan of Arc died, and another in which you went back in time and saved her- in fact, there are as many universes as there are possibilities. 

Ron Quinn writes in the Tucson Weekly about a secret place in the Arizona mountains he discovered in 1956, where time is altered. He says, "The reason I'm bringing this tale to light after all this time is because something is in the works might effect this interesting place. Tucson Electric Power Company plans on building a 345,000-watt high-voltage transmission line from Tucson to Nogales. The line could come quite close to this site. When this line becomes active, what, if anything, will this enormous voltage do to this delicate location? Enhance the natural energy already lurking within it, or nothing? Only time will tell." 

It started when John, a local Indian, told him about a mysterious stone archway. In the 1800s, three Indians discovered it while hunting. They started chasing each other through it, but one of them never emerged from the other side. The remaining two Indians fled. In 1948, John came upon the arch in a storm. When he looked through it, he saw a blue, cloudless sky on the other side. 

Ron and his brother Chuck set off to find the arch. When they found it, they noted that it was about 7 feet high and 5 feet wide. They threw stones through it and Ron even stuck his arm through, but nothing happened. 

Their friend Louie Romero was camping near the arch one night with some other cowboys when they all heard the rumbling hooves and whinnying of approaching horses-but they couldn't see them. The sounds suddenly ended and in the morning, they could find no hoof prints. Historical figures have also been seen near the arch. Some have seen a dark- robed Jesuit priest, who became transparent, then vanished. Others have seen a troop of Spanish soldiers, who also vanished. 

Ron writes, "During one of our two-week adventures, I found myself near the canyon that leads towards that oddball site. Not having been there in almost four years, I decided to pay it a visit...Below to my left was a canyon-where none had existed...I soon discovered I was in the same canyon that led toward the hill I had just scaled. I was more than 250 yards back down the canyon on a different slope and now I was facing south-I had mysteriously been transported to the new location. Thinking I was looking west, I was really looking east seeing the canyon I had just hiked." He was afraid he might not still be living in his own time, so he was relieved when he got back to his Jeep. 

People have found large numbers of geodes-a type of quartz that conducts electricity-in the vicinity of the arch. They've also experienced vibrations, their arm hair standing on end, and strange ear pressure when in the area, all of which could be caused by electricity. Ron writes, "Could these large geodes be the main source that activates the natural energy within the area? 

"...What we have out there is a natural phenomena created accidentally by nature. It alters time, and there's no way to predict when this might occur...On my last visit to this wondrous place, I discovered the top portion of the archway had collapsed. All that remains are the two columns. Will this damage interfere with its ability to change time?" 

Time Travel Will be Easy 03-Jun-2003

To travel through time, you can open a wormhole in space- time and step through it. All you need is some "exotic matter," which is repelled, rather than attracted, by gravity. The problem is, no one knows how to make exotic matter. But New Zealand researcher Matt Visser thinks we'll learn how to make it soon-then we'll be ready to travel in time. Wormholes are hypothetical tunnels that connect distant parts of space-time. Einstein's theory of general relativity says they exist, but in order to stay open, they need exotic matter. Quantum theory says that subatomic particles and their antiparticles pop in and out of existence all the time in the vacuum of space. Exotic matter might be created by suppressing this action. 

Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking says that even if we could make a wormhole that was stabilized by exotic matter, we couldn't go through it to time travel, because even a single atomic particle would destabilize it. Does this mean we'd go back in time and never get home to the present again? But physicists have found a way to solve this problem, using the "time loops" inside a wormhole so we can travel backwards in time without being able to change anything that would alter the future. In other words, we'll be able to travel back in time, but we won't be able to kill off our grandparents (which would mean we wouldn't exist). 

Time Travel May be Real 30-Apr-2004

If we can speed up time, we may be able to travel in time. Now scientists say they're learning how to do it. If you find this confusing, you're not alone: physicist Carlos Dolz says, ''A big problem for science is common sense. It works for most everything in people's lives, but not in physics.'' 

Rafael Sangiovanni writes in the Miami Herald that physicist Dolz has managed to speed up time. In the past, atomic clocks on planes flying fast have been compared with the same kind of clocks on the ground to show that the clocks on the planes moved forward slightly more quickly. In his experiment, he puts a digital clock under immense force by spinning it on a centrifuge, in order to speed up the frequency of the pulses produced by the clock and push it ahead. It takes about six hours to move the clock ahead four seconds. 

Sometimes time just SEEMS to go faster. Scientists have a theory about why time flies when you're having fun, and drags when you're bored. Brain scans show that patterns of activity in the brain change depending on how we focus on a task. If we're concentrating on the time, instead of on the job itself, this triggers brain activity which makes time seem to go more slowly. If your brain is busy focusing on a task, then it doesn't have enough resources to also pay attention to the time it takes, and the time seems to pass more quickly. Neuroscientist Tonmoy Sharma says this is because "...The same parts of the brain that are involved in motor function are also involved time perception." 

ALL Global Warming From Planes? 30-Apr-2004

NASA scientists say that cirrus clouds formed by contrails increased surface temperatures enough to account for all the warming that took place in the United States between 1975 and 1994. This totally ignores major global warming causes like changes in ocean currents, which have been observed by NASA's own satellites. This statement may be a result of government pressure on NASA to discredit the upcoming film The Day After Tomorrow. 

NASA's Patrick Minnis says, "This result shows the increased cirrus coverage, attributable to air traffic, could account for nearly all of the warming observed over the United States for nearly 20 years starting in 1975, but it is important to acknowledge contrails would add to and not replace any greenhouse gas effect. During the same period, warming occurred in many other areas where cirrus coverage decreased or remained steady." 

Contrails form when the water vapor in the aircraft exhaust condenses and freezes. Global warming means that the lower atmosphere is warmer which causes the upper atmosphere, where planes fly, to be colder, so more and longer-lasting contrails are being formed. Contrails can turn into cirrus clouds that trap heat and warm the Earth even more. Minnis does admit that global warming is affected by humans and is not entirely a natural phenomenon. He says, "This study demonstrates that human activity has a visible and significant impact on cloud cover and, therefore, on climate. It indicates that contrails should be included in climate change scenarios...This study indicates that contrails already have substantial regional effects where air traffic is heavy, such as over the United States. As air travel continues growing in other areas, the impact could become globally significant." 

Extinction-Is it in Our Future? 29-Apr-2004

Half of the 114 species that have become extinct, despite the federal Endangered Species Act of 1973, once lived in Hawaii. The Center for Biological Diversity says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service knowingly delays putting species on the endangered list "to avoid political controversy even when it knew the likely result would be the extinction of the species." Extinction could happen to us too-unless we learn how to lengthen our telomeres. 

Because Hawaii has-or had-so many unique species, it has the worst extinction problems in the U.S. Only 19% of these extinct species were put on the endangered list. The CBD's Kieran Suckling says, "But species known to be endangered were stuck in bureaucratic delay and went extinct before they had a chance to be listed...They were sacrificed to bureaucratic inertia, political meddling, and lack of leadership." 

Brian Nowicki, who co-authored the CBD report, says, "Listing delays and extinctions have plagued the Fish and Wildlife Service for 30 years, but the Bush administration has pushed the crisis to an unprecedented level." The Bush administration has placed an average of only nine species on the list per year, while the Clinton administration averaged 65 listings per year. 

However, Michael Buck, of the Department of Land and Natural Resources, says, "Just getting something on the list does not save endangered species." 

In terms of the life of the Earth, humans are fairly recent-will we go extinct any time soon? Kate Ravilious writes in the Mail & Guardian that according to researcher Reinhard Stindl, the answer can be found on the tips of our chromosomes. He believes that all living things except bacteria and algae have an evolutionary clock that counts down to an eventual extinction date. This contradicts Darwin's theory of natural selection, as well as those who always blame extinction on changes in habitat. 

Scientists have long been puzzled about "background" extinction. We know the causes of most mass extinctions, of the kind that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, but these account for only 4% of extinctions. Most extinct animals seem to disappear quietly. In fact, over 99% of all the species that ever lived on Earth are already extinct. 

Paleontologists who examine layers of rock can see that evolution does not run smoothly, but has stops and starts. Species have long stable periods followed by a sudden extinction, rather than a gradual disappearance. Scientists used to think the fossil record was incomplete, but now they think that an extinction date is programmed into each species. 

Stindl says it can be explained by the protective caps on the end of chromosomes, called telomeres. When cells divide, they have a hard time copying telomeres properly, and soon they become shorter. Because our telomeres become shorter as we age, this may be what causes aging in the first place. Telomeres also get shorter from generation to generation, as DNA is passed along. 

He says, "The shortening of telomeres between generations means that eventually the telomeres become critically short for a particular species, causing outbreaks of disease and finally a population crash. It could explain the disappearance of a seemingly successful species, like Neanderthal man, with no need for external factors such as climate change." 

After a population crash, there are always a few isolated individuals left. When they die off, the species becomes extinct. But if they mate with each other, they can "reset" their cellular clock, elongating their telomeres and starting a new species. This means that despite what we've been taught, inbreeding can sometimes be a good thing. "Established strains of lab mice have exceptionally long telomeres compared to those in wild mice, their ancestors," says Stindl. "Those strains of lab mice were inbred intensively from a small population." 

Short telomeres may cause diseases as well. Cancer could be caused partly by telomere erosion, since the shortest telomere in humans occurs on chromosome 17 and most human cancers are affected by the loss of a tumor suppressor gene on this chromosome. 

Immune deficiency diseases like AIDS and lupus may be brought on by short telomeres in the immune system. Heart attacks and strokes could be caused by the cells lining blood vessels being unable to replace themselves due to telomere erosion. Lower sperm count could also be caused by shortened telomeres. 

Stindl says that telomeres shorten only a tiny amount between each generation, meaning it takes thousands of generations before they reach a critical level. This is why many species remain stable for tens to hundreds of thousands of years, creating the long periods in evolution when nothing seems to happen. 

The solution for humans? Stindl believes we may be able to elongate our telomeres by increasing the activity of a certain enzyme in embryos. If so, we would be the first species to prevent its own extinction. 

Drought or Flood-Which One Will Hit Your Town? 28-Apr-2004

Global warming brings flooding-and droughts. It all depends on where you live. The Western U.S. and the West Coast will continue to have droughts, due to lack of snow melt and a drop in rainfall. Meanwhile, massive flooding is predicted for the U.K. And now we know that the ocean rises higher on the coasts than it does in the "middle," making things even worse. 

What causes too much rain in one area and a drought in another? Kate Ravilious writes in New Scientist that the Western drought is partially caused by melting Arctic sea ice. Towers of warm air form above the areas where there is no more sea ice, and that disturbs the flow of air in the atmosphere around them, which affects rainfall. Researchers Jacob Sewall and Lisa Cirbus Sloan found that such towers formed between Norway and Greenland, deflecting winter storms that would otherwise have passed over the West Coast of the U.S. As Arctic sea ice melts, the annual rainfall may drop by as much as 30% from Seattle to Los Angeles, and inland as far as the Rocky Mountains. 

As temperatures rise over the next 50 years, the area of Arctic sea ice is predicted to shrink by as much as 50% in some areas during the summer. Sewall says, "Winter sea ice acts like an insulating lid. When the lid is reduced, more heat can escape from the ocean to warm the atmosphere." 

Paul Brown writes in The Guardian that 4 million people in the U.K. may lose their homes to flooding in the next 50 years, according to a government report. 

Britain's chief scientist, Sir David King, says "safety valves" need to be created in cities to channel floodwater. The 150- year-old drains in Britain's older cities, as well as in many other European cities, are in danger of being overwhelmed by large amounts of water. Some urban areas may need to be abandoned or relocated. "Some structures such as oil refineries could be relocated [inland]. However, other assets such as coastal towns will be difficult to relocate," King says. "In Wales and other parts of the U.K., erosion could threaten beaches and therefore tourism." 

Jenny Hogan writes in New Scientist that satellites show ocean levels are rising faster near the coasts than in mid- ocean. Researchers Simon Holgate and Philip Woodworth think the oceans may act like water in a bathtub: If you splash water in the bath, the waves travel outwards and lap over the edge of the tub. 

Other parts of Europe are planning for the future as well. In certain parts of the Netherlands, some new developers must build their houses on stilts and provide each family that moves in with an escape boat. 

Why Dinosaurs Went Extinct: No Sex 28-Apr-2004

65 million years ago, dinosaurs experienced bad weather and an asteroid impact, but scientists say their real problem was too many males for the number of females. They think that the sex of dinosaurs, like crocodiles today, depended on the temperature the day they were born. Debris from the asteroid impact blocked the sun and cooled down the climate, leading to the birth of too many males. 

In bbcnews.com, David Whitehouse quotes infertility expert Sherman Silber as saying, "The Earth did not become so toxic that life died out 65 million years ago; the temperature just changed, and these great beasts had not evolved a genetic mechanism (like our Y chromosome) to cope with that." But crocodiles and turtles had already evolved at the time of the dinosaur extinction, so why didn't they go extinct as well? "These animals live at the intersection of aquatic and terrestrial environments, in estuarine waters and river beds, which might have afforded some protection against the more extreme effects of environmental change, hence giving them more time to adapt." 

Rhinos seem to have the same sort of problem today, as a group of visitors to a British safari park discovered when one of them tried to have sex with their car. When tourist Dave Alsop stopped his car to take pictures of two-ton white rhinoceros Sharka mating with his girlfriend Trixie at the West Midland Safari Park, the rhino left Trixie and tried to mount Alsop's Renault instead, denting the doors and ripping off the side mirrors. When Dave drove away, Shaka chased the car in hot pursuit. "He was a big boy and obviously aroused," Alsop says. "He sidled up against us. The next thing I know he's banging away at the car and it's rocking like hell." 

Gregg Braden says there's coded information that has been found deep within the DNA of our bodies. What is so extraordinary about this is that it can be read as a message in a number of ancient biblical alphabets. 

Magic Bullets 28-Apr-2004

Diets and diet pills affect our bodies, when the problem is really in our brains. But now, for everyone who has despaired of ever losing weight, scientists have discovered two "magic bullets" that work on our brain circuits. One helps you stop smoking and cuts your bad cholesterol too (the perfect drug!), while the other one works by using a hormone inside your own fat to rewire your brain so you're not hungry. 

Researcher Shirly Pinto discovered that leptin, a hormone found in fat that helps regulate weight, changes the wiring of the brain in order to regulate hunger, which is why fat people still get hungry. Co-researcher Jeffrey Friedman says, "This is a very dynamic effect that's quite dramatic and somewhat surprising. In response to leptin, the cells create new connections...The brain's wiring may be different in lean versus obese individuals." If we learn how to adjust our leptin levels, we may become less hungry and more able to lose weight. 

Researcher Robert Anthenelli discovered a drug called rimonabant that works on the brain by blocking the circuits that control the urge to eat and smoke. He says, "We think this might be the ideal compound for people who are overweight and smoke." 

The drug blocks the brain system that regulates hunger, as well as cravings for cigarettes, alcohol and drugs (Marijuana stimulates this circuitry, which is why it makes people so hungry). The new drug also cuts levels of harmful cholesterol. 

Since people who stop smoking tend to gain weight, researcher Ian Campbell says, "A drug which could tackle both problems would represent a fantastic opportunity." 

Will New Movie Wake People Up? 25-Apr-2004

This weekend's Drudge Report says, "Employees at NASA have been told not to comment publicly on Fox's new summer fuss-film The Day After Tomorrow" for fear that "moviegoers will be alarmed enough to blame the Bush administration for inattention to climate change. 'No one from NASA is to do interviews or otherwise comment on anything having to do with' the film, said an April 1 message to employees." 

Meanwhile, NASA's own satellite images reveal that a crucial part of the North Atlantic ocean circulation is slowing down, which could change our weather dramatically, just in time for the movie, which will be released worldwide on May 28. NASA's Sirpa Hakkinen said (before the media blackout), "It is a signal of large climate variability in the high latitudes." 

Roger Highfield writes in the Telegraph that while climatologists once believed that the effects of global warming would occur gradually, new data from ice cores shows that it happened suddenly in the past. Climatologist Peter Rhines says, "The question is, how much 're-plumbing' of the ocean circulation is required to push the coupled atmosphere-ocean system over a threshold?" 

Hakkinen and Rhimes have studied the weakening of the Gulf Stream, also known as the subpolar gyre. Hakkinen says, "If this trend continues, it could indicate reorganization of the ocean climate system, perhaps with changes in the whole climate system..." Rhines says, "Computer models have shown the slowing and speeding up of the subpolar gyre can influence the entire ocean circulation system." 

Fred Pearce writes in New Scientist that despite the fact that it will wake up the world to what's happening to our weather, scientists' reactions to the upcoming film based on The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber are not all positive. 

A Pentagon report agrees with the movie scenario, which predicts that a shutdown of the Gulf Stream could plunge the northern hemisphere into a deep freeze. Both the Pentagon and the filmmakers think this could happen soon. But climatologist Stefan Rahmstorf says, "The DoD (Department of Defense) scenario is extreme and highly unlikely." 

Peter Schwartz, who helped created the report, says that although the it is "not the most likely scenario, it is plausible, and would challenge U.S. national security in ways that should be considered immediately." 

Will the movie wake people up so we can demand that our governments act-before it's too late? 

NASA Can Talk After All 27-Apr-2004

In an earlier story, we reported that the White House issued an order stating that "No one from NASA is to do interviews or otherwise comment on anything having to do with" the film The Day After Tomorrow. But NASA public affairs administrator Glenn Mahone now says, "We encourage our researchers to openly answer all appropriate questions regarding the science explored in the movie." 

The "NASA Notice to all Employees Regarding Media Reports about the film 'The Day After Tomorrow'" says: "News reports in recent days have suggested that NASA has attempted to 'muzzle' researchers from responding to the issues raised in the upcoming movie 'The Day After Tomorrow.' To the contrary, NASA expects that as colleagues, we will speak our minds, regardless of whether those views work to the advantage of the agency or not. Diversity of opinion is a valuable resource and plays an important role as we work to successfully fulfill our mission objectives." 

"To clarify the specific issue, a number of NASA colleagues assisted with the film's development. However, we require producers to sign a cooperation agreement before offering any formal advance promotional support. This is a standard agency policy that has successfully worked with other entertainment blockbusters such as 'Armageddon' and 'Space Cowboys.' But the producers of 'The Day After Tomorrow' have not signed an agreement. As such, NASA does not plan any specific support of this production." 

"This direction should not be interpreted as an attempt to keep scientists from speaking out on the issue of climate change. We encourage our researchers to openly answer all appropriate questions regarding the science explored in the movie." 

Glenn Mahone Assistant Administrator of Public Affairs 

Scientists Back Superstorm Film 07-May-2004

Despite government pressure on NASA not to support the scenario in The Day After Tomorrow, scientists are backing the science behind the film. The part of the film most of them object to has to do with the compression of events that they think will happen gradually. Marine physicist Tim Barnett says, "What happens will frankly be worse than what they show, in the long run. Our lives and all our systems will get stretched and stretched and pushed and pushed. The conflicts that will come up will be remarkable." Andrew Bridges quotes oceanographer William Patzert as saying, "...Perhaps it's an opportunity to crank up the dialogue on our role in climate change." 

"To have a major studio release of a movie tackling a serious issue is a terrific opportunity for Americans to start talking about the reality of the problem, what can be done about it and the enormous threat that President Bush is not dealing with," says Peter Schurman of Moveon.org, which will be holding a rally outside the Museum of Natural History in New York during the premiere. 

Former vice-president Al Gore, who will attend the rally, says, "Millions of people will be coming out of theaters on Memorial Day weekend, asking the question, 'Could this really happen?' I think we need to answer that question." 

Extraterrestrial bugs to invade Earth?

Then NASA's Spirit and Opportunity probes landed on Mars recently, they were carrying some of the most sophisticated technology ever sent to that planet. But they might also have been carrying some illicit stowaways: microbes. That is what John Rummel worries about every day. He is NASA's planetary protection officer, a sort of cosmic border guard, and his job is to keep the planets safe from each other's contagions: to prevent Earth from being infected with extraterrestrial bugs and to make sure Earth bugs don't stow away on space probes and infect other planets. 

"The best way to find life on Mars," Mr. Rummel said, "is to bring it from Florida." 

In the last few years his work has heated up as probes zip with increasing frequency through a solar system that seems more and more likely to harbor extraterrestrial life. NASA's Stardust probe collected dust from a comet and will bring it to earth in 2006. This summer a probe will be launched for Mercury, and others are planned for Jupiter's icy moon Europa, which is potentially ripe with water in liquid form, considered essential for creating life. And in January, President Bush proposed building a lunar base to be used eventually as a launching pad for a manned mission to Mars, report nytimes.com 

According to iol.co.za if humans ever go to Mars, they may find electric mini-tornadoes that could make toxic dust stick to their spacesuits, researchers said on Tuesday. National Aeronautics and Space Administration(Nasa) scientists have already detected whirlwinds and duststorms on Mars, and they figure they may generate electric charges just as small tornadoes on Earth do. 

"There's probably an electrical environment to Mars which up to now has gone unmeasured," William Farrell of Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre said. "Chances are probably pretty good that the same kind of physics is going on there that's going on here." 

Nasa scientists figure whirlwinds and duststorms on Mars may generate electric charges just as small tornadoes on Earth do. As on Earth, Martian mini-tornadoes can likely produce an electric field of 4000 volts per metre - enough to create dangerous static cling with spacesuits and equipment, according to William Farrell of Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre. 

While the earthly electrical environment is most commonly seen during thunderstorms, Farrell said, "on Mars that may also be occurring, but driven by dust storms and dust devils," inform nzherald.co.nz 

source:

http://newsfromrussia.com/science/2004/04/24/53614.html

Congressional Hearing Requested for Area 51 Microbiologist 

April 22, 2004 Global News & Press Release Distribution 

Senator Hatch, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, has been approached about giving Dr. Dan Burisch a hearing regarding designer viruses, extraterrestrial interaction and treaties.

WASHINGTON, DC (PRWEB) April 22, 2004 -- Dan Burisch, a Ph.D. microbiologist presently in lock-down in Area 51 related black ops, who has expressed willingness to testify publicly, is one step closer to getting immunity and the Congressional hearing he seeks. Harry Dschaak and Sterling Allan, who met with Dr. Burisch on April 5 via an insider-invited breach of his lock-down status, traveled by car across the country to Washington D.C. and presented his case to several members of Congress two weeks later on April 19, 2004. 

According to an earlier report about his readiness to disclose upon receiving immunity, Dr. Burisch has said he will answer all questions put to him if subpoenaed to do so.

Dschaak (pronounced DeeShock) and Allan focused their efforts on the office of Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah because of his position as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. They also visited with the staff of other Senate members from Idaho, Utah, and Nevada, where Dschaak, Allan, and Dr. Burisch reside, respectively.

A Hatch staff member who met with Dschaak and Allan to be briefed on the matter, said this case would likely fall under the Select Committee on Security. Notwithstanding a full schedule, Senator Hatch did offer the courtesy of a quick stop in the conference room where the briefing took place. The staff member informed Dschaak and Allan that there are thousands of cases vying to be brought into a Congressional hearing.

Allan said that this issue regarding Dr. Burisch is being watched by thousands worldwide and that he would be glad to commence a petition effort if that could help demonstrate the mandate that is behind this matter. Allan's petition basically offers people an opportunity to voice their support of subpoenaing Dr. Burisch' for a Congressional hearing or other appropriate deposition.

The Burisch deposition would include producing evidence of deadly virus design, with a signature genetic sequence included that could unobtrusively prove the laboratory origin of the virus. These organisms are similar to HIV and SARS, which researchers such as Len Horowitz, M.D., have documented as having man-made, laboratory origins.

The testimony would also include a report of approximate one year period of time in which he was assigned to work on a living extraterrestrial being who offered himself as part of an agreed-upon exchange at S4 of Area 51 north of Las Vegas, NV. 

He can also testify of human subjects he heard who were/are being held at S4 and being treated as laboratory animals against their will.

He also claims to have first-hand experience with working stargates. What form the evidence for such would take is yet to be determined.

Dr. Burisch also claims to be privy to work being done to capture the genetic components of an extraterrestrial disease and insert that into microbial vectors that can target human beings, which Dschaak compares to creating a Cholora-like epidemic of a deadly disease for which there is no previous immunity developed. Perhaps the most crucial part of his testimony would regard his knowledge of a purported tau-IX treaty that exists between certain Extraterrestrial groups and a group of powerful, international, racist, elitist humans. This cabal has allegedly been using their tight control of Extraterrestrial information over the past half a century as a means of exerting extant control over affairs on earth, from government, to energy, to technology, and healing. Meanwhile, they mainly withhold these technological advances from the lay populous while personally benefiting from these things themselves. The treaty also purportedly provides allowances for transitive human abductions.

A professional investigative reporter, Linda Moulten Howe, in reporting on April 19 on the Dan Burisch situation among other secret ops relating to extraterrestrials, gave evidence that the secrecy was first put in place by President Harry Truman. This arose out of what could be considered to be benign intentions of shielding the lay public from what to him was a shocking situation in order to avoid mass hysteria and panic. From that time, the official stance of the U.S. government was to deny any involvement with or knowledge of Extraterrestrial beings. She argues that while some information may yet merit secrecy for purposes of national security because of its military implications, that world should at least be brought into knowledge of the general case of extraterrestrial interaction with earth. Another researcher who has been reporting recently about Dr. Burisch, and received a dialogue communication as recently as April 16, is Michael E. Salla, Ph.D. He purports that there are many alien races that have visited or who now are occupants upon the earth. He wanted to know from Dr. Burisch if he had interaction with more than one species. Dr. Burisch reported that he had only interacted with one race, which was a type of a Gray called a J-rod; and believed there were three in all: two males and one female, the latter of which was allowed to return from whence she came. The males expired.

A research group, headed by Robert Wood, Ph.D., who is involved in proving the authenticity of some original MJ-12 (extraterrestrial-secret controllers) documents are presently now focusing on a recently recovered (was shredded) document that alleges to be communications between a present major world leader and Dr. Dan Burisch.

Though Dr. Burisch is now in even more stringent lock-down, with tight security around him, he has superiors on the inside who are in favor of disclosure. Back-door communications are still taking place. Allan predicts that the handlers will facilitate access to Dr. Burisch at such time as a subpoena may be produced for him to testify before Congress or other appropriate bodies.

According to Stephen Greer, M.D., head of the Disclosure Project, the case for secrecy is beginning to melt, as thousands of material witnesses are beginning to step forward. These include individuals from within the U.S. government including the military, CIA, FBI. Greer sees the Burisch case as a likely poster child case for the many scientists and operatives who have been involved in various facets of this "kleptocracy," as he calls it. Greer asserts that this elitist clique does not want disclosure because the spin-off technologies that will be made available to the world will result in their loss of control because of the level of empowerment it will afford the lay citizen. "Each home could have its own power generation system that taps into the sea of energy that surrounds us. The problem of world hunger could be solved within ten years."

Underlying all these researchers is a volunteer team of amateur researchers who have been following the Burisch story and who have been receiving a significant volume of insider-leaked covert communications with the intent of disclosure. Their forum, godlikeproductions.com has recently become subject to junk message attacks to overwhelm legitimate messages.

Dschaak believes that the reason Dr. Burisch is being protected from being mortally terminated, despite his past disclosures and his intended future disclosures, which usually result in an untimely death sentence of the person making such sensitive disclosures, is because he is in process of developing technologies for those on the inside, which he alone is capable of furthering at this time. Dr. Burisch wants to make sure that these technologies are made available for peaceful purposes, and not for the furtherance of oppression. 

Allan speculates that if they have their way, the elitists on the inside, who are working with a darker agenda-holding faction of extraterrestrial, would inoculate themselves with this particle of life and then eradicate billions of non-immune humans using the super disease.

The thrust of Dr. Burisch's present project, the Lotus Project, involves a "Ganesh Particle" that holds promise for being able to efficiently heal damaged cells and tissue - a "fountain of youth" kind of technology. According to Dschaak, "Dr. Burisch has said that he has until March 15, 2005 to present a written paper fully describing this technology to those who are his handlers, who in turn begrudgingly answer to a shadowy elitist group, who allegedly have ties to a less benevolent faction of Extraterrestrial beings." Dr. Burisch's handlers are former members of the Committee of the Majority, who Dan refers to as Maji.

Allan and Dschaak reported to Senator Hatch's staff member that the window of time for calling a Congressional hearing for Dr. Burisch is therefore short. Many who have followed the secrecy behind the extraterrestrial question for the past half century posit that time is drawing near a critical point of no return if disclosure does not take place. Greer compares this to the "D-1" stage of take-off for an airplane. "You reach a point in which you either take off, or you crash off the end of the runway." 

Dr. Burisch has already disclosed volumes of information. Video interviews with him are available, such as a 68-minute interview he did with Bill Hamilton on Sept. 18, 2002. Another, more professional video interview with Dr. Burisch by a former Fox news cameraman is in process of being released, 

But there is some information that Dr. Burisch does not wish to disclose until he receives immunity. While he believes he can explain how in his mind he was justified in participating in these projects, he thinks that others might be quick to point an accusing finger, possibly wanting to charge him with war crimes. Until he can be protected from such charges, he does not wish to disclose certain of the facts he has at his disposal. Furthermore, he also does not wish to trample the oaths he is under; and a subpoena would provide him legal grounds to speak freely - which he has repeatedly stated to be his desire.

He is not worried about death. Dschaak observes that Dr. Burisch faced the likelihood of an untimely death a long time ago and has made peace with his maker.

We already have a wealth of information from the testimonies that have been given by Dr. Burisch. He apparently wants to be able to get these other things out in the open as well.

##

CREDITS:

Much of the information contained in this press release was obtained at the X-Conference held at Washington, D.C. April 17-18, 2004, organized by Stephen Bassett.

http://www.paradigmclock.com 

REFERENCES:

Petition in support of a Congressional hearing for Dr. Dan Burisch http://www.petitiononline.com/burisch/petition.html 

Area 51 Microbiologist Ready to Talk (April 8, 2004 Press Release) http://www.greaterthings.com/News/ET/Burisch/PR040407/ 

Dr. Burisch Interview with Bill Hamilton http://www.greaterthings.com/ET/Burisch/ 

Steven Greer, M.D.'s Disclosure Project http://www.disclosureproject.com 

Robert Wood, Ph.D. http://www.majesticdocuments.com 

Michael E. Salla, Ph.D. http://www.exopolitics.org 

Bill Hamilton, Skywatch International http://www.skywatchinternational.com 

God-Like Productions Forum http://www.godlikeproductions.com Volume 6 Burisch Thread http://www.godlikeproductions.com/bbs/message.php?message=295261 

GLP Forum 'Dan Burisch' Library http://scorpius.spaceports.com/~bemused/index12.html 

Linda Moulten Howe http://www.earthfiles.com 

Len Horowitz - laboratory origin of HIV and SARS http://www.tetrahedron.org 

Senator Orrin Hatch, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee http://hatch.senate.gov 

CONTACT:

Harry Dschaak

208-548-2448

Rockland, Idaho (MST)

(c) Copyright 1997-2003, PR Web(tm). All Rights Reserved

Mars Rovers Explore Hints of Salty Water 

By Robert Roy Britt

Senior Science Writer

posted: 03:25 pm ET

19 February 2004

NASA's Opportunity rover sent back new images from Mars showing that small spheres previously found on the surface also exist below, in a trench the rover dug. Hints of salty water were also found in the trench, but much more analysis is needed to learn the true composition.

Meanwhile Opportunity's twin rover, Spirit, is about to dig a trench of its own in order to investigate soil that sticks to its wheels, suggesting the fine-grained material might be moist. 

In a press conference today, officials said the soil at both locations could contain small amounts of water mixed with salt in a brine that can exist in liquid form at very low temperatures.

The scientists stressed that only miniscule amounts of water would be needed to create the brine.

Water is the main thing scientists are searching for at Mars, because all life as we know it requires liquid water.

Mechanically speaking, both rovers are performing better than engineers promised and they might last into summer, well beyond the 90 days they were designed for, said Steven Squyres, principal investigator for the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) project from Cornell University.

Mission officials have long known that if all goes well, the rovers would indeed exceed the three-month life span that was considered a minimum design criteria. The robots face a host of threats, from frigid temperatures to high doses of radiation and wind-blown dust that can coat their solar panels, eliminating their source of power.

"These vehicles are holding up spectacularly," Squyres said today. But he cautioned that "projections are very difficult to make." Still, he said all signs point to a lifetime "that could be considerably longer" than the original plan and that he hoped to be still doing rover science in the summer.

source: www.space.com 

Bush backs alien evidence

George W Bush says there is mounting evidence to suggest there is alien life on other planets.

The US President used his budget document to declare that there may be "space aliens" to be discovered.

A passage entitled, "Where are the Real Space Aliens?", states that important scientific research over the last 10 years indicates that proof of "habitable worlds" in outer space is becoming more of a reality.

Evidence for the current or previous existence of large bodies of water, an essential element for life, has already been found on Mars and on Jupiter's moons.

Astronomers are also discovering planets outside of our solar system, including around 90 stars with at least one planet orbiting them.

The document says: "Perhaps the notion that 'there's something out there' is closer to reality than we have imagined."

Story filed: 16:29 Monday 3rd February 2003

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_746860.html

BBCI News - Science 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2941826.stm 

Thursday, 29 May, 2003 

Historic Mars lander 'did find life' 
By Helen Briggs 
BBC News Online science reporter 

Claims have re-emerged that the US space agency (NASA) did find 
signs of life on Mars during the historic Viking landings of 
1976. 

Dr Gil Levin, a former mission scientist, says he now has the 
evidence to prove it, just days before the US and Europe send 
new expeditions to the Red Planet. 

The United States and Russia have spent billions since the 1960s 
on a handful of space craft designed to land on Mars. 

Only three have succeeded so far: the two Viking probes in the 
1970s and Mars Pathfinder in 1997. 

In 1976, the world was gripped by excitement when a robotic 
spacecraft touched down on Mars for the first time in history. 

Biology experiments detected strange signs of activity in the 
Martian soil - akin to microbes giving off gas. 

Before announcing the news that life had been found on another 
planet, Nasa carried out more tests to look for evidence of 
organic matter. 

However, the Viking experiments failed to find this essential 
stuff of life and it was concluded that Mars was a dead planet. 

New evidence 

Dr Levin, one of three scientists on the life detection 
experiments, has never given up on the idea that Viking did find 
living micro-organisms in the surface soil of Mars. 

He continued to experiment and study all new evidence from Mars 
and Earth, and, in 1997, reached the conclusion and published 
that the so-called LR (labelled release) work had detected life. 

He says new evidence is emerging that could settle the debate, 
once and for all. 

He told BBC News Online: "The organic analysis instrument was 
shown to be very insensitive, requiring millions of micro- 
organisms to detect any organic matter versus the LR's 
demonstrated ability to detect as few as 50 micro-organisms." 

Dr Levin, now president and CEO of US biotechnology company 
Biospherix, has a new experiment that he says "could 
unambiguously settle the argument". 

But it was rejected by both Nasa and the European Space Agency 
(Esa) to go on-board this summer's Mars missions. 

The British-built Beagle 2, which will be deposited on the 
Martian surface by Esa's Mars Express space craft, is going with 
the main purpose to hunt for life. This is a risky strategy, 
claims Dr Levin. 

"Strangely, despite its billing, Beagle 2 carries no life 
detection experiment!" he said. "Neither its GCMS (organic 
detector) which is claimed to be more sensitive than Viking's, 
nor its isotopic analysis instrument can provide evidence for 
living organisms." 

Robot geologists 

Nasa's mission to Mars is taking a more circumspect approach to 
the big life question. 

Its two identical rovers will roam the ancient plains of Mars 
acting as robot geologists. 

Mark Adler, deputy mission manager, said the main science 
objective was to understand the water environment of Mars not to 
search for life. 

He told BBC News Online: "What we learnt from Viking is that it 
is very difficult to come up with specific experiments to look 
for something you don't really know what to look for." 

Claims of life on Mars have always proved highly contentious. 
Twenty years after Viking, microbe-like structures discovered 
inside a Martian meteorite found in Antarctica led to more 
claims that were later rejected. 

As the astronomer Carl Sagan once said, extraordinary claims 
require extraordinary evidence. And there is no reason to 
believe that anything found this time will be any different. 

"It's going to take a number of missions if we want to know 
whether there is life on Mars or not," said Dr Charles Cockell, 
a Mars biologist at the British Antarctic Survey in 
Cambridgeshire, UK. 

"If we find no evidence of life on Mars it may just mean we have 
looked in the wrong place."

High Hormone Levels Linked to Prostate Risk

Sun May 9,11:19 AM ET 
Add Health 

WASHINGTON  - Men over 50 who have higher levels of testosterone have a higher risk of prostate cancer, U.S. researchers reported on Sunday. 


 

The findings may mean that men should be cautious about a new kind of treatment called testosterone replacement therapy, being tested in older men who see a decline in general health and vigor. 

A study of more than 750 men showed those with the highest levels of free testosterone in the blood were the most likely to have prostate cancer. 

"Since testosterone replacement therapy increases the amount of free testosterone in the blood, older men considering or receiving testosterone replacement should be counseled as to the association until data from long-term clinical trials becomes available," said Dr. Kellogg Parsons, a urologist at Johns Hopkins University who led the study, said in a statement. 

The association between free testosterone and prostate cancer risk in older men was not affected by height, weight, percent of body fat or muscle mass, Parsons told a meeting of the American Urological Association in San Francisco. 

A second study presented at the same conference found that obese men may be more likely to see their prostate cancer come back after surgery. 

Another Johns Hopkins team found that obese men are more likely than men with normal weight to have high levels of prostate specific antigen, or PSA. PSA is produced by prostate cells and is overproduced when the prostate becomes cancerous. 

"Our results show that moderately and severely obese men were at an increased risk for high PSA levels after surgery and therefore are likely to have prostate cancer recurrence," said Dr. Stephen Freedland, who led the study. 

His team studied 1,106 patients treated at five Veteran's Administration and military hospitals across the country. 

"Our findings add to the burgeoning list of chronic and deadly diseases associated with obesity and underscore the importance of this major public health problem," Freedland said. 

Obesity is also linked with pancreatic, breast and colon cancer, as well as heart disease and diabetes. 

Prostate cancer (news - web sites) affects 221,000 American men a year and kills 29,000. 

Pentagon to Give Congress Abuse Photos 

2 hours, 54 minutes ago 
Add Politics - U. S. Congress 

By JENNIFER C. KERR, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - Bracing for what the defense secretary has described as "sadistic" pictures, Congress will see the unreleased photos showing Iraqi prisoners being abused by U.S. soldiers, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites) said Sunday. 

NEWS SOURCE 

Slideshow: Abuse of Iraq Prisoners Investigated

Another leading Republican, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, suggested that Pentagon (news - web sites) chief Donald H. Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers may not keep their jobs as the scandal unfolds. 

"I think it's still in question whether Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and, quite frankly, General Myers can command the respect and the trust and the confidence of the military and the American people to lead this country," said Hagel, a decorated Vietnam veteran. 

"Over the next couple of weeks, the president's going to have to make some hard choices," Hagel said. 

"`This is deeper and wider than I think most in this administration understand. Aside from the fact we're losing the Iraqi people, we're losing the Muslim, Arab world, and we're losing the support of our allies," he told CBS' "Face the Nation." 

President Bush (news - web sites) has supported Rumsfeld, saying last week, "He'll stay in my Cabinet." 

Sen. John Warner, whose committee heard from Rumsfeld on Friday, said Pentagon investigators will give lawmakers the photos to see in private. 

"I was assured yesterday that all the new photos are being reviewed by the lawyers and so forth and will be forthcoming to the Congress," said Warner, R-Va. 

Other members of Congress urged the Bush administration to make them public as quickly as possible. 

"If there's more to come, let's get it out," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told NBC's "Meet the Press." 

"For God's sake, let's talk about it because (U.S. military) men and women's lives are at stake given how we handle this," he said. 

Previously released photos, depicting the torture and sexual humiliation of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, have led to worldwide condemnation and calls for Rumsfeld's resignation. 

During his testimony before Congress last week, Rumsfeld warned that more cruel photos were to come, including video images. 

Both Warner and Graham said they want Rumsfeld to stay on the job. Some leading Democrats, including Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, have said Rumsfeld should step down. 

The Armed Services Committee's top Democrat, Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, said the abuse at the prison indicated the failure of the administration's Iraq (news - web sites) policy. 

"This is not just a few guards in some kind of an aberrant conduct. This is a much more systemic problem here," Levin said. "And the military intelligence, including I believe the CIA (news - web sites), ... have got to be held accountable, right up the chain." 

The committee plans to hear from more Pentagon officials on Tuesday. Warner eventually wants to testimony from Army Major Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, whose report detailed abuse at Abu Ghraib. 

Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., said the scandal has tainted America's reputation and set back efforts to safeguard the country. 

"The tragedy of this is, it goes directly to the heart of how we hope to win the war against terror and what we're hoping to accomplish in Iraq," Bayh told "Fox News Sunday." 

"And that is that we are morally superior to our adversaries. We don't kill women and children. We don't torture people. We stand for freedom," he said. 

Study: Molecule 'Vacuums Up' Fat from Mice

2 hours, 7 minutes ago 
Add Science 

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent 

WASHINGTON  - A new approach being used to fight cancer may also help fight fat, U.S. researchers said on Sunday. 

They said blocking a certain protein seems to literally vacuum fat off mice. 

When fat mice were injected with the new "fat-zapper" every day for a month, they all slimmed down to normal weight with no visible side-effects, the researchers reported in the June issue of Nature Medicine. 

But they stressed the experiment is still in the very early stages and it affects a function found in virtually all cells -- meaning it has a high potential for serious side-effects. 

"I am trying to un-hype this," said Dr. Wadih Arap of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, who led the research. 

In cancer, a new class of drugs called angiogenesis inhibitors starve tumors by cutting off their blood supply. 

Arap and colleagues have turned this approach against fat. 

It makes sense, Arap argues -- fat cells grow and proliferate quickly just as cancer cells do. Like tumors, they build themselves a scaffold of tiny blood vessels called capillaries for sustenance. 

Cancer drugs tackle different proteins involved in building blood vessels. Arap's team looked for a protein that might be found only in the blood vessels that feed fat cells. 

They found one. Prohibitin is active on the surface of fat-feeding blood vessels. They also found a monoclonal antibody -- a synthetic immune system molecule -- that finds and attaches to prohibitin alone. 

REVERSING OBESITY 

"If even a fraction of what we found in mice relates to human biology, then we are cautiously optimistic that there may be a new way to think about reversing obesity," said Renata Pasqualini, Arap's research partner and wife. 

Arap's team made the monoclonal antibody lethal by attaching it to another protein fragment or peptide that causes apoptosis -- a natural programmed cell suicide. 

Then they put normal mice on what they called a "cafeteria diet." "It is high in calories," Arap said in a telephone interview. The mice started out weighing just under an ounce, 20 to 25 grams, but more than doubled their weight on the diet. 

Then they injected half the mice with the new fat-killing molecule. After daily injections for a month, the fat mice lost, on average, 30 percent of their body weight. 

"The weight loss was also accompanied by a reversal of fatty liver and glucose intolerance," Arap said, describing two common complications of obesity. "They actually looked better. You could see them walk and so on." 

They also tested aging mice, which tend to get fat. "They responded just the same. They looked a little thinner," he said. 

Arap said his team saw no side-effects. "They didn't have any signs of being ill," he said. "All measures look improved. If they had a side-effect we couldn't detect it." 

Arap's team did not measure how long their mice lived and they did not measure lean body mass to see if the mice lost healthy muscle tissue, too. 

Next they plan to test baboons, which tend to put on weight much as humans do. 

Arap noted that other research in which fat rodents have miraculously lost weight has not translated to humans. And prohibitin is found inside cells, which means that accidentally disrupting it there could cause severe side-effects. 

"I think it will be a while before we know whether this will be duplicated in humans," he said. 

Obesity Becoming Major Global Problem 

Sat May 8, 5:26 PM ET

By EMMA ROSS and JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA, News Source Writers 

It's a bitter truth to swallow: About every fourth person on Earth is too fat. Obesity is fast becoming one of the world's leading 
reasons why people die. In an astonishing testament to globalization, this outbreak of girth is occurring just as doctors everywhere but 
sub-Saharan Africa are winning the fight against infectious diseases from smallpox to malaria. 

Now a new enemy is emerging in the 21st century - our appetite. Around the globe, about 1.7 billion people should lose weight, 
according to the International Obesity Task Force. Of those who are overweight, about 312 million are obese - at least 30 pounds 
over their top recommended weight. 

Already, a third of all deaths globally are from ailments linked to weight, lack of exercise and smoking. And perhaps most worrisome 
is obesity's spread beyond wealthy western nations. 

From the glaciers of Iceland to the palm-fringed beaches of the Philippines, there are now more fat people in the world than hungry 
people. And in extreme cases, people who are heavy since childhood could die as much as five to 10 years early. 

"The developing world in particular is going to bear the enormous brunt of this weight gain," said Neville Rigby, policy director of 
the IOTF. 

"We're even seeing obesity in adolescents in India now. It's universal. It has become a fully global epidemic - indeed, a pandemic." 

___ 

No country immune 

___ 

Certainly the United States - home of the Whopper and the Super Big Gulp - remains a nation of scale-busters, with two of every 
three Americans overweight. 

But there are a dozen places even worse. 

South Pacific islands like Tonga, Kosrae and Nauru, where traditional meals of reef fish and taro are replaced by cheap instant 
noodles and deep-fried turkey tails. 

Greece, birthplace of the Olympic Games (news - web sites). Kuwait and other wealthy, oil-soaked Gulf States. 

Soon China will be the world's biggest country in more ways than sheer population, experts predict. It's a stunning reversal from the 
Mao Zedong era when as many as 40 million people starved in the Great Leap Forward famine of 1958-61. 

When university student Li Guangxu was a baby, rice was rationed. Now he eats cookies for breakfast. 

Shopping at a CarreFour supermarket in western Shanghai, Li fills a shopping cart with cookies, chips, soda and beer. 

"I like these things. They taste great," Li said. "I don't have time for anything else. Older folks don't eat this stuff, but we do." 

And a food fix always is within arm's reach. Almost no one can resist. 

"I compare the propensity to eat as somewhere between the propensity to breathe and the propensity to have sex," said Stephen 
Bloom, chief of metabolic medicine at the University of London's Imperial College. "It's much worse than stopping smoking." 

___ 

Weight's health effects 

___ 

Type 2 Diabetes is the illness most directly linked to obesity. A condition that often leads to heart disease and kidney failure, it is 
blamed for more than 3 million deaths a year. It afflicts 154 million people - nearly four times the number who have HIV (news - 
web sites) or AIDS (news - web sites) - and the WHO forecasts more than twice as many people will develop diabetes in the next 25 
years. 

Obesity can triple the risk of heart disease. One-third of all deaths globally - about 17 million - are blamed on heart disease, stroke 
and related cardiovascular problems, WHO figures show. 

Countries with extensive health care have stalled the onset of heart disease into old age. But in much of the world, fatal heart attacks 
and strokes are much more common among working age adults. Over the next 30 years, the trend is projected to worsen. 

Researchers from Columbia University's Earth Institute examined Brazil, China, India, South Africa and the Russian republic of 
Tartarstan. They found that the heart disease death rate for adults ages 30-59 was up to twice as high as the U.S. rate, and in Russia 
the rate was up to five times higher 

Obesity was cited as a primary factor, along with smoking, lack of exercise and untreated high blood pressure. The researchers 
described the influence of unhealthy diets as "surprising." 

Obesity also plays a significant, if poorly understood, role in many cancers. WHO data shows cancer accounts for about 12.5 percent 
of the world's deaths, and that rate is expected to increase dramatically, mostly in developing countries. 

The global trend toward weight gain and its associated illnesses is not restricted to the well-off. High-fat, high-starch foods tend to be 
cheaper, so poor people eat more of them.

In Mexico, 40 percent of its 105 million people live in poverty. Yet two-thirds of men and women there are overweight or obese. 

___ 

How it happened 

___ 

Many factors contribute to the widening of the world's waistline. 

For starters, there is cheap, plentiful food. Even in poor nations, the relative cost of eating is declining. 

And the consumption of oils and fats used in processed foods has doubled over the last 30 years. 

"One year they had very expensive butter and the next year edible oil came on the scene," said Barry Popkin, who heads nutrition 
epidemiology at the University of North Carolina and serves as a WHO adviser. "All of a sudden for very little money you could 
make your food taste better." 

Nutritionists say cheaper sugar is another factor, despite the industry's strenuous denials. 

James E. Tillotson, director of Tufts University's Food Policy Institute, calculates the average American drinks the equivalent of a 
55-gallon drum of soda every year, compared to 20 gallons of sweetened beverages a year in 1970. 

Increases almost as dramatic have occurred in Europe, and soft drink factories are increasingly popping up in developing countries. 

"We never thought people would abuse them," said Tillotson, who developed fruit-based drinks for Ocean Spray in the 1980s. 

Another factor is how food is promoted and distributed. 

In 1990, no more than 15 percent of food bought in Latin America came from supermarkets. Now, 60 percent is from six 
supermarket chains. 

There are demographic changes, too. In many nations, women in the work force created a demand for convenience foods. 

"We already are tired from working and we buy only packaged foods," said Bertha Rodriguez of Mexico City. The 61-year old 
great-grandmother supports herself by frying quesadillas in a streetside stand. 

___ 

Technology triumphs 

___ 

People spend more time sitting in the car, at the computer and especially in front of the television - an average of 1,669 hours a year 
in the United States, a habit that is extending internationally. 

With such low activity levels, as little as 100 extra calories a day translates into 10 pounds in a year. 

Technology is changing activity levels even in the poorest nations. 

"Telephones, cars, computers all come from the freedom from hunger and fear," Bloom said. "But it's had a bad side effect." 

Some governments are taking steps. 

Singapore schools have added physical activities and replaced soft drinks with bottled water. Brazil is making school lunch programs 
serve fruits and vegetables. 

But it's a battle against human nature. 

"It would be a huge public health achievement if we simply stopped the weight gain where it is now," said Stephen Blair, research 
director at the Cooper Institute of Aerobics Research in Dallas. 

"I think that's what we're stuck with." 

Party Planned for Kaufman, Just in Case 

Sat May 8,12:19 PM ET

NEW YORK - Andy Kaufman (news) died of lung cancer on May 16, 1984, but according to legend, the eccentric comedian said if he were faking, he'd resurface 20 years later to the day. 

So, just in case, a party is being planned by Bob Zmuda, Kaufman's best friend and partner, at the House of Blues in Los Angeles on May 16. 

"Over 100 personal ads will be taken out across the country and abroad, reminding him of his words. Will he show?" Zmuda asked on the Web site for Comic Relief, a series of shows that raise money for health care for the homeless. Zmuda founded Comic Relief after Kaufman's death. 

VIP tickets to the Andy Kaufman - Dead or Alive? tribute offer "select seating and celebrity reception (hopefully with Andy)." 

The tribute also promises a performance by Las Vegas lounge lizard Tony Clifton, one of Kaufman's characters. 

Kaufman was best known as the lovable foreign-car mechanic Latka Gravas on the '70s TV sitcom "Taxi." 

___ 

On the Net: 

http://www.comicrelief.org/ 

> Vatican Acknowledges ET Presence
> by Monsignor Balducci
> 
> Preface by Richard Boylan, Ph.D.
> (Finally I have obtained an English translation of the unprecedented paper
> Monsignor Balducci gave me at our historic meeting in Rome in December (2002).
> In this seminal work, the Monsignor-theologian, (who is the Pope's choice as
> Chief Exorcist for the Archdiocese of Rome/Vatican itself), not only makes an
> air-tight case for the reality and acceptability of Star Visitor contacts with
> humans, but argues that these Visitors are more highly intellectually and
> spiritually evolved than humans. The Monsignor gave me a copy of this Paper,
> and 
> intends to share it with his Vatican colleagues. It must also be the first
> document by a high-level churchman to mention Area 51, Nevada!)
> 
> Over the last 150 years it have appeared sequentially and with an increasing
> spreading and frequency rate, two types of manifestations and phenomena, very
> different between them, but both so interesting, controversial and fascinating
> to divide public opinion into two different aspects: or everything is real,
> or well everything is false. These are spiritualism and ufology. It shouldn't
> surprise us this approach, because it's related only to the reactions and
> behaviour of the public before these two phenomena and not to their contents,
> obviously quite different between both of them!
> 
> Regarding spiritualism, this is a practice for which there are testimonies
> across the centuries; in 1847, with the sisters Fox in Hydesville (New York),
> it 
> had a special remark and spread rapidly in several countries. Very soon there
> was an explanation for the phenomena connected to such practices, even by the
> scientists: the souls of the disincarnated, better said of the dead people,
> are the cause of this. This was called the spiritualist hypothesis, against
> which theologians soon opposed to the so called demonic hypothesis.
> 
> Only by the end of XIX century there were made the first attempts to look for
> a natural explanation, and finally in 1922, with the thick book of the French
> scientist Charles Richet, "Trait� de M�tapsychique", it began officially the
> so called Metapsychics, nowadays better known as Parapsychology.
> 
> When I began with my demonic and metapsychic studies back in 1950, I found
> myself in a period when, since two decades ago, it was denied the existence of
> spiritualist phenomena (and not only by some scientists, but also by a very
> wide public opinion), that represented at that time the most abundant cases of
> Metapsychics. 
> 
> The same is valid since some decades on regarding Ufology.
> 
> After this premise, we reach our subject, for which I have two very brief
> clarifications to expose.
> 
> - The acronym UFO (Unidentified Flying Object), is used here in a wider
> sense, or even better, including also the existence of living beings in other
> planets. 
> 
> - The aim of my intervention is to underline that something real must exist
> in the phenomena, and how this does not contrast at all with Christian
> religion, being considered positive even among theologians.
> 
> Let's divide the speech in three points:
> 
> 1. Something real must exist.
> 2. Theological considerations on the habitability of other planets.
> 3. Some testimonies favourable to it.
> 
> I - UFO: Something real must exist.
> This is a statement coming out from basic considerations based upon common
> sense, human rationalism and upon a normal and possible course of our lives,
> considering not only individual and social aspects, but also religious.
> 
> In fact, today there is a great amount (still increasing) of testimonies
> regarding the so called flying saucers or spaceships and the
> extraterrestrials;
> and among them there are some coming from reliable persons, with a culture and
> initially non believers. There are already hundreds of thousands of eye
> witnesses in the world that state to have seen UFO's at least once. There are
> so 
> many, even in a smaller amount, the testimonies coming from the so called
> contactees. 
> 
> If we consider this, it seems impossible to deny at a rational level that
> something real does exist! A totally sceptic behaviour is not justified at
> all, 
> because a priori seems to be against to the elemental prudence suggested by
> the 
> good sense. 
> 
> It is also real that we could think rationally that so large average of
> testimonies could be due to illusions, hallucinations and to states of intense
> suggestion. In other cases it could be also due to particular light effects or
> well to atmospheric phenomena, such as clouds that over the mountains may show
> a 
> shape similar to the flying saucers; we could use as an example the so called
> ball rays or well globular flashes of lighting.
> 
> Other times UFO's could be confused with certain types of round-shaped
> aeroplanes, that were certainly built in USA since the so called Cold War (it
> is 
> also certain that Russia built some aeroplanes of this type). This promoted in
> the period after World War II, the spreading of the idea that flying saucers
> were nothing else but new inventions with warring aim, obviously kept secret.
> 
> But these are always inaccurate explanations and considerations to explain
> the number of testimonies and the wideness of UFO phenomenon. The most severe
> and hard criticism could reduce largely this number, but never will be able to
> eliminate all of them.
> 
> We also have to remember that in several countries exist places,
> organisations and associations that collect evidences and testimonies on tape,
> in order to 
> make them examine and study by experts and scientists as necessary; after
> that the whole set is catalogued in explainable and non explainable phenomena.
> It 
> is not any longer a secret the existence of the so called "Area 51" in
> the United States, within a zone in the hearth of the Nevada desert; an
> enormous land area that has a larger construction underground than on the
> surface. 
> In France is famous the SEPRA association; in Italy there is the CUN, "Centro
> Ufologico Nazionale" (National Ufological Centre), already on its 36th. year
> of existence, and with Dr. Roberto Pinotti as President since long ago; also
> in 
> Italy there is since 4 years until now the CIFAS ("Council of International
> Federation of Advanced Studies") dedicated to study the relationships between
> man and extraterrestrial space, which President is still Gen. Salvatore
> Marcelletti. 
> 
> Regarding the existence of something real within UFO phenomenon, I must add
> another consideration that was left for last to better underline its
> importance. And this is, that a generalised, systematic and total incredulity
> finally 
> would weaken and destroy the value of human testimony, with serious and
> unforeseeable consequences, because that is the base of life not only
> individual and 
> social, but also religious.
> 
> In fact, testimony is a form of communication of our faith in our partner.
> This is a widely spread way on daily life (when listening news, spending,
> buying, etc.). Let's imagine what could happen on individual and social life
> if the 
> value of human testimony was weaken, with the logical decrease and
> disappearance of that faith many times is essential for daily life!
> 
> After this, I have extended such inconveniences to religious life; in fact,
> also Christian religion is based upon human testimony, being the Divine
> Revelation an historical fact.
> 
> In 1937 Jesuit theologian Herbert Thurston wrote on purpose: "From a logical
> point of view, christians that accept miracles and other episodes related on
> the Gospel... they cannot reject in an obstinate way the reiterated
> testimonies 
> of modern and reliable witnesses, that relate what their eyes have seen...
> All our Apologetic system is based upon the belief in the Truth said in the
> Gospel" ("Church and Spiritualism"; Milan, 1937; p.p.179). For that:
> "systematic 
> demolition and discredit of human testimonies regarding simple fact data, seem
> to me contrary in principle to all belief on the historic seriousness of
> Gospel, and indirectly, to every belief on Christian Revelation" (Op. Cit.
> p.p. 
> 157). 
> 
> II. Theological and biblical considerations on the habitability of other
> planets. 
> First of all a clarification: we should exclude that angels use spaceships,
> due to the fact that they are merely spiritual beings, and that they are
> wherever they want to be, and in the rare cases when they show themselves,
> they 
> don't have any difficulty to assume a visible form. The very same we can say
> about 
> dead people. Holy Virgin, in the very few cases when she could consider to be
> in contact with human people (very exceptional episodes and to be confirmed
> in their authenticity), continues to choose other very different ways to
> transmit us her maternal affection, to manifest us her urgencies, to
> communicate us 
> her maternal claims or to give us her sweet reproaches. Even keeping their
> angelic nature, we shouldn't think about the devils at all, because they are
> connected in their liberty to God on their extraordinary activity, and in that
> way 
> they are disabled to express their terrible and malefic hate regarding us.
> Let's 
> remember St. August: "If the devil by his own initiative could do anything,
> even a single living being would not stay on Earth" (ML 37, 1246); let's
> remember also to St. Buenaventura: "Is so large the demon's cruelty, that he
> would 
> swallow us in every moment, if Divine protection don't guard us" ("Diaeta
> salutis", tit. 7 c.1,
> Verona 1748, p. 183).
> 
> Therefore, when speaking about extraterrestrials, we must think in beings
> like us, or well and preferably in other types of living beings, that in their
> spiritual part they have associated a material one; better said, a body in a
> better state than the one existing for us as humans.
> 
> There is not a scientific certainty yet about this problem, even if this
> seems to be closer and closer, thanks to the progress of science and study.
> Regarding the theological and biblical aspect of this matter, we can remark
> three 
> points, three affirmations in favour from the various considerations:
> 
> 1. Before all, that exist other inhabited planets is
> something possible. In the Bible there are not specific allusions to other
> living beings, but neither is excluded this hypothesis, that for this stays as
> possible, if we think that God's omnipotence and wisdom have no limits, being
> infinite. 
> 
> 2. Furthermore, the existence of other inhabited planets
> is something credible. In fact, there is a great diversity between angels,
> merely spiritual beings and us, composed by spirit and matter; better said,
> soul 
> and flesh, but a soul that cannot act if don't use the body as an instrument;
> a body that makes with its passions and capital vices conditional the soul to
> the point of make human person so fragile, and more devoted to evil than to
> goodness. Therefore is credible that this enormous distance between us and the
> angels could be reduced by the presence of beings that, havingalso a body
> (even if more perfect), their soul is less conditioned on their intelligent
> and 
> volitional acting.
> 
> If necessary, there is another confirmation upon the very ancient saying of
> Lucrezio Caro: "Natura non facit saltus"; a very famous phrase (that I found
> on 
> the "De rerum natura") and quoted - regarding that argument - also by some
> theologians. 
> 
> Another consideration is taken for the aim of the creation, or well the Glory
> of God, a concept that you can find several times on the Bible. For instance,
> Psalm 18 begins by saying precisely: "heavens sing the glory of God". But
> only human person is able to give this glory to God in a conscious way,
> because 
> it has intelligence and free will.
> 
> Precisely for this, several theologians say, is not only possible but
> credible, that in the spaces that are distant and inaccessible for men and his
> scientific instruments, do exist other beings able to know God as their
> Creator, and 
> also they give Him this Glory, that for them and their worlds represent the
> aim of Creation. 
> 
> Jesuit Father Domenico Grasso, Professor of Theology at the Pontifical
> Gregorian University wrote on purpose: "Why all the perfection God has spread
> so 
> widely in the universe should be kept hidden without singing the glory of God?
> Wouldn't it be a discordance unsuitable for God? Who writes a book knowing
> that 
> it will never be read by anyone, or well who paints a painting to hide it from
> anyone's sight?".
> 
> He claims regarding the statements made by German theologian Joseph Pohle in
> one of his books of 1904 (page 457): "It seems to be accordingly with the aim
> of the world that inhabitable celestial bodies are settled by creatures that
> recognise the glory of God in the physical beauties of their worlds, in the
> same way man does with his smaller world" ("Die Sternewelt undihre Bewohner" -
> "The Stars of Universe and its Inhabitants"; K�ln 1904; pp. 457). Finally
> Father 
> Grassoconcludes: "we must think in the angels to know where God receives the
> glory from these worlds from, because them, that are purely spiritual, "are
> not able to know the matter but indirectly, in the same way man does with the
> spirit" (ib.). 
> 
> 3. Beyond to be something possible and credible, I would see desirable the
> inhabitability of other planets. In a future, even if very remote, these
> eventual inhabitants, superior to us, could be very helpful to us, specially
> in our 
> spiritual path. In a non practical way, they could had been protecting and
> helping us since long time ago.
> 
> If it is the case that they do really exist intelligent beings on other
> planets, it would be easier to understand how to conciliate their existence
> with 
> the redemption of Christ. As St. Paul says (cfr. Col. 1, 16-17), a real fact
> is 
> that Christ is the centre and head of the creation of the universe. Therefore
> there 
> are no worlds without a reference of Him. From the Bible is possible to
> assure that Christ, as Incarnated Verb, has total influence upon all the
> possible 
> inhabited planets.
> 
> I quote what said by St. Paul to the Colossians: "For by Him all things were
> created that are in heaven and that are on Earth, visible and invisible,
> whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were
> created 
> through Him and for Him. And He is before all things and in Him all things
> consist... For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should
> dwell. 
> And by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth
> or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross" (Col.
> 1, 
> 16-20). 
> 
> The Church celebrates the last Sunday of the Liturgical Year (before the
> Advent) as the Feast of Christ, King of the universe, and in its liturgy the
> universality of His kingdom is remembered, which is also expressed in the
> daily 
> Mass. 
> 
> III. Algunos testimonios a favor.
> There exist several interesting statements on the inhabitability of other
> worlds by lay scientists, theologians or servants of God which already
> qualified 
> for a process of beatification or canonisation. Obviously I'll limit myself to
> quote just some of them.
> 
> Beginning with the laymen, let me quote the great French scientist Charles
> Richet (1850 - 1935), that was, among other things, a materialist. In 1922, in
> his "Trait� de M�tapsychique", he stated: "Do we have any right to claim, just
> because of our limited senses and our mistaken intelligence, that man is the
> onlyintelligent being in this immense cosmos?... That other intellectual
> forces, different from us, exist, is not only possible but extremely probable.
> It is 
> even certain... It is absurd to claim that we are the only intelligence in
> nature... The existence of these beings cannot be proven, but the probability
> of 
> their existence is evident" (loc. cit., Paris 1922, pp. 787-788).
> 
> I remember 5 theologians:
> 
> 1. Cardinal Nicol� Cusano (1401 - 1464), philosopher and scientist that said:
> "We are not authorised to exclude that on another star beings do exist, even
> if they are completely different from us".
> 
> 2. The Jesuit Father and astronomer Fr. Angelo Secchi (1818 - 1876) wrote:
> "It is absurd to claim that the worlds surrounding us are large, uninhabited
> deserts and that the meaning of the universe lies just in our small, inhabited
> p
> lanet.". 
> 
> 3. The famous Dominican preacher Jacques-Marie-Louis Monsabre (1827 - 1907)
> referred to the principle "Natura non facit saltus" when he claimed that other
> intelligent beings besides men and angels exist.
> 
> 4. The already quoted English Jesuit Father Herbert Thurston wrote: "Who can
> claim that there are no other intelligent beings besides these 3 categories of
> angels, demons and men in the Universe of God? I do not intend to confirm the
> possibility I indicated in my question as a fact, but I ask: Who can be sure
> about it?" (Op. Cit., pp. 3).
> 
> 5. German Theologian Giuseppe Pohle: "Hypothesis of the plurality of
> inhabited worlds is totally favourable to the glory of the Lord. God creates
> for His 
> glory, and any glory is possible without intelligentbeings, able to know the
> creation of the Lord"
> 
> I remember two persons for whom there is already going on their process of
> canonisation: 
> 
> 1. The Salesian Father and Servant of God Don Andrea Beltrami (1870 - 1897)
> who prayed also for the possible inhabitants of other planets. Of the 16
> booklets he wrote, one seems to deal with this topic (and I say "seems"
> because 
> unfortunately I was not able to know the titles of his 16 publications).
> 
> 2. The second (with whom I want to close this paper), is the already
> sanctified Padre Pio, who was beatified by Pope John Paul II on May 2, 1999
> and 
> canonised on June 16, 2002. From St. Fr. Pio, the following dialogue is
> documented 
> and officially published by the Cappuchin Order: Question: "Father, some claim
> that there are creatures of God on other planets, too". Answer: "What else? Do
> you think they don't exist and that God's omnipotence is limited to this
> small planet Earth? What else? Do you think there are no other beings who love
> the 
> Lord?". 
> 
> Another question: "Father, I think the Earth is nothing compared to other
> planets and stars". Answer: "Exactly! Yes, and we Earthlings are nothing, too.
> The Lord certainly did not limit His glory to this small Earth. On other
> planets 
> other beings exist who did not sin and fall as we did". (Don Nello Castello:
> "Cos� parl� Padre Pio"; Vicenza, 1974).
> 
> Lac. Corrado Balducci Rome, C. 7 / 6 / 2001

Accused Mont. Militiamen Plead Innocent

2 hours, 46 minutes ago

GREAT FALLS, Mont. - Three men who allegedly belong to a militia group that authorities say was plotting to kill Montana public officials have pleaded innocent to federal firearms charges.

Steven N. Morey, 44, James Riley Day, 60, and John W. Slatter, 53, appeared in court Friday and were ordered held pending detention hearings Wednesday.

Federal authorities say the men, all of the Kalispell area, are suspected of belonging to a militia group called "Project 7," which refers to Flathead County license plate numbers that begin with the numeral seven.

In 2002, authorities said they had uncovered evidence of a plot by Project 7 to kill Flathead Valley public officials and law enforcement officers. No one has been charged with plotting murder.

Authorities said Project 7 had amassed a huge arsenal - machine guns, 30,000 rounds of ammunition, explosives, night-vision equipment and body armor.

The men, all of the Kalispell area, were indicted Thursday on charges of conspiracy to possess illegal firearms. Morey also is charged with eight counts of possessing machine guns, some with the serial numbers removed. Day faces one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm and one count of possession of a machine gun.

Also indicted in the alleged firearms conspiracy were David Burgert, 50, Tracy Brockway, 34, and Larry Chezem, 53. Burgert is serving a seven-year federal sentence for firearms convictions. Brockway and Chezem, a one-time candidate for Flathead County sheriff, had not been arrested.

Story Tools Email Story

Post/Read Msgs

Print Story

Ratings: Would you recommend this story?

Not at all 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 Highly 

Tools Sponsored by: HP Print better photos.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ Prev. Story: Germans Arrest Teen 'Sasser' Worm Suspect (AP)

Next Story: Casablanca Finally Gets a Rick's Cafe (AP)

More Top Stories Stories

� New allegations blunt Bush's bid to quell Iraqi prisoner scandal (NEWS SOURCE)

� Rumsfeld Warns Not All Images Are Out (washingtonpost.com)

� Rumsfeld apologizes for Iraq abuses (USATODAY.com)

� With a Great Divide, Laker Season Hasn't Really Come Together (Los Angeles Times)

� FDA defends decision on day-after pill (Chicago Tribune)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Study Links ADHD Drugs to Growth Delays Mon Apr 5, 8:08 AM ET



CHICAGO - New research bolsters evidence that stimulants like Ritalin (news - web sites) used for attention deficit problems may stunt children's growth, but it does not address whether the affect is permanent. 

Children who took stimulants during the two-year study grew more than half an inch less and gained over eight pounds less than those who weren't medicated. 

The study involved 540 youngsters with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, who were aged 7 to 9 at the outset of the study and were randomly assigned to receive common treatments including medication, behavior management and a combination of the two. 

Girls generally reach their final height around age 16 and boys around age 18, so it's too soon to tell if the growth delays continued or were permanent, the researchers said. 

American Academy of Pediatrics' guidelines that recommend treating ADHD with stimulants and behavior therapy say evidence collected by following youngsters into adulthood indicates the drugs don't cause any significant height reduction. 

Weight loss, however, is a known potential side effect from long-term stimulant use. 

The study, led by University of California at Berkeley researcher Stephen Hinshaw, was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and appears in the April issue of Pediatrics. 

Initial results after 14 months of follow-up, published in 1999, showed that drugs alone or used with behavior therapy were the most effective treatment. 

The 24-month follow-up found that drug treatment with or without behavior therapy remained superior, though the effect diminished somewhat over time. The researchers attributed this in part to patients stopping or starting medication. 

ADHD, the most common neurobehavioral disorder in childhood, affects 4 percent to 12 percent of U.S. school-age children. Symptoms may include short attention span, impulsive behavior, and difficulty focusing and sitting still. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org 

Strange discoveries of objects that should not exist have often placed a huge question mark against what we know of the world. Particularly compelling is the evidence that suggests that deep in antiquity Mankind was considerably more advanced than we have ever dared to imagine. At the very least these finds encourage us to ask deeper questions concerning the world that once was. For only through a spirit of true inquiry can we ever hope to acquaint ourselves with these forgotten pages of our planets history. Let us then examine a few of these finds, and see what conclusions can be drawn: (read more)

The Coso Artifact. 

In 1961 a strange stone was found in the Coso Mountains of California. Strange, because when it was sawed open it was found to contain a bizarre mechanical device. This comprised of an hexagonal layer of some unknown substance, which surrounded an inch thick porcelain cylinder, which in turn contained a shaft of bright metal around 2 mm in length. Around the porcelain cylinder were rings of copper, which remarkably showed no signs of corrosion. 

Later examination at the Charles Ford Society confirmed the device as some kind of mechanical instrument. Photographs taken of the object showed the metallic shaft fixed to a tiny spring. This led to it being labelled as some form of electrical device. Experts who examined it compared it to a spark plug. 

This was remarkable enough, but when geologists insisted that the rock in which it was encased was over half a million years old, the mystery sky rocketed. What was it doing there? How had it got there? On the face of it there was no plausible answer. Just the unthinkable - that this was a relic from a past era of high technological advancement - one that existed over half a million years ago. 

The Morrisonville Enigma. 
In 1891 there was an even more remarkable find. A woman in Morrisonville Illinois was shovelling coal when a piece broke open in front of her. To her astonishment she found it contained a beautiful gold chain of elaborate workmanship. The local newspaper gave the following account: 

'Mrs Culp thought the chain had been dropped accidentally in the coal, but as she undertook to lift the chain up, the idea of its having been recently dropped was shown to be fallacious, for as the lump of coal broke, it separated almost in the middle, and the circular position of the chain placed the two ends near to each other; and as the lumps separated, the middle of the chain became loosened while each end remained fastened to the coal.....' Nor was the Morrisonville incident the only one of its kind. In 1844 an unidentified gold artifact was discovered in a quarry in England.

Workmen blasting granite, came across the discovery of an item of gold thread about eight feet below the surface. It was embedded in rock thought to be over 60 million years old. Experts sent at the behest of the Times newspaper concluded that the object had been artificially manufactured, but ventured no opinion as to how it could have found itself embedded in rock so unimaginably old. 

The Salzburg Cube. 
In 1885 a block of coal was found to have a strange steel cube embedded inside of it. Later tests confirmed it to be artificially manufactured and experts were astonished. The edges were sharp and straight, and there was little doubt that this was a machine made instrument that seemed part of a much larger instrument. 

The Rhodesia Man Mystery. 
In 1921 the discovery of a Neanderthal skull in Rhodesia revealed an astonishing mystery. The skull had been pierced by a high velocity projectile, similar to a bullet. Mysterious, because it was disclosed that this injury must have occurred at the moment of death, and not afterwards. It meant that whoever fired the fatal bullet must have fired it many thousands of years ago. In his book Secrets of the Lost Races, author Rene Noorbergen had the following to say: 'A German forensic authority from Berlin has positively stated that the cranial damage to Rhodesian man's skull could not have been caused by anything but a bullet'.

The fact that the skull was found fully 60 feet below the surface of the ground attested to the fact that this was no recent injury, and experts were baffled. Even so certain conclusions seemed obvious: The most apparent of these was that in times considered too remote for intelligent life, this creature had been gunned down by a high velocity weapon. The neat entry point of the wound testified to the great speed of the projectile, which had created a perfectly rounded hole. 

Ancient computer. 
One of the most significant finds that gives undisputed evidence of hitherto unsuspected ancient knowledge is the so called Antikythira device ! This mysterious mechanism comprising of a series of interlocking cogs and wheels was found at the site of an ancient shipwreck just off the Greek island of Antikythira. Straight away it became apparent that this was something extraordinary, and although heavily corroded, radiograph examination revealed the existence of a precision instrument of great complexity. A differential turn table with interlocking cogs testified to its high degree of craftsmanship. But what was it? 

At first experts dubbed it a navigational instrument, but detailed investigation revealed it to be something a good deal more complex. Certain similarities with later astronomical instruments led to it being labelled a planisphere - a calendrical device that gives the year round positions of stars and planets. Other inscriptions, unfortunately damaged, seemed to refer to zodiacal positions with a degree of accuracy that involved considerable expertise. 

Important Questions. 
Incredibly the wreck from which the device was salvaged dates back to nearly one hundred BC. This created an immediate stir. Such refined craftsmanship was at that time unknown, and was to remain so until the 16 th century. Now suddenly this fortuitous find raised important questions. For this kind of precision instrument to exist there must equally have existed a sophisticated method of production. But up until that moment no hint of such capability had ever been found. 

Awesome achievement. 
So what can we make of the Antikythira device ? Is it just an archaeological oddity - a simple aberration to the established order, or does it represent the tip of a vast treasure of unexplained ancient technology? 

In our opinion this strange instrument categorically places the technology of it's era in a completely different light. We are seeing something that should not have existed for over 1500 years, and once again we are left in awe at achievements that leap out across the void that separates our understanding of these distant ages. But whatever the meaning and function of the Antikythira device, we must not forget that it's importance represents no more than a small gem in a large crown of strange and magnificent finds. 

Global Catalogue. 
No corner of the globe is without some strange enigma of things that seem impossible to explain. Indeed the catalogue of these finds is highly impressive. Ancient lenses polished as finely as any we have today - pieces of an ancient battery, magnificent astronomical observatories, sophisticated toys resembling heavy earth moving equipment - these are only a small element of a rich vein of finds that is slowly extending our perception of ancient times. There is even evidence that ancient man may have flown in aircraft. 

It is a known fact that ancient druidic legends speak of frequent flights using the power inherent in ley-lines. By some unknown means these ley-lines were capable of raising flying machines that according to author Rene Noorbergen regularly flew backwards and forwards between England and Greece. He writes: ' Druidic tradition tells of such heroes as Mog Ruith, Bladud and the magician Abiris, who possessed flying vehicles activated by the ley-line energies and were able to travel in them as far as Greece'. 

Ancient electrical supply. 
Particularly compelling is evidence of an ancient electrical supply. This seems to have been utilised much as we use electric current today. 

One area especially rich in evidence of this sort is ancient Babylonia and Persia. A discovery of several clay pots excavated in Iraq revealed an amazing discovery. Each of the pots appeared to have been soldered with a lead/tin alloy, topped with copper discs, sealed with bitumen. Far sighted investigators discovered that when a mixture of copper sulphate and acetic acid was added to the pots it produced around 2 volts of electricity. Over the years many more electric cells were discovered, almost as if this was part of a mass-produced industry. Also of amazing importance is the discovery of electroplated gold jewelry using a technique only recently discovered in this modern age. 

Strange Lamps. 
Written evidence in mystical Hebrew literature speaks of strange energy sources and of lamps that 'lit themselves'! 

Also strange, are seafaring stories from the last century. More than one sea-man described strange orb like lamps hung by natives in the jungles of South America. These lamps were apparently self-sustainable utilising a source of energy that seemed impossible to explain. In 1601 a Spanish writer and explorer who followed the Conquistadores to South America wrote of a strange pillar on which was a brilliant white object that illuminated the whole of the surrounding area to quite some distance. 

The ancient historian and travel writer Pausanias, once wrote of a temple with a light that burnt continuously for at least a year. Even more amazing is the account of the discovery of the sepulchre of Pallas near Rome. This was said to have been lit by a light source that had kept the interior of the chamber illuminated for over two thousand years. 

Medical Knowledge. 
Unusual early knowledge of medical procedure is another strange aspect of the ancient world. Perhaps the most bizarre evidence of this sort concerns the discovery of numerous skulls from the Neolithic age that appear to have been trepanned. 

In his book Colony Earth, author Richard Mooney explains the process in the following terms. 'Trepanning today is an operation in which a section of bone in the skull is removed, either to ease pressure caused by a tumour or blood clot, or to remove splinters of bone caused by a skull fracture, and the cavity closed by a plate. The operation is hardly minor and requires great skill and care to perform. It is difficult to believe that Neolithic man - if he was, as has been thought, extremely primitive - could have carried out such operations with the crudest techniques, a flint knife, and no anesthetics or notions of hygiene'. 

Apparently survivors of this treatment later went on to live for years afterwards. This in itself was remarkable, as even in relatively recent times patients undergoing surgery had a high mortality rate from infection or blood poisioning. 

Soviet Finds. 
Particularly well documented evidence of ancient cranial surgery comes to us from research in the former Soviet Union. Examination of several skulls found at the site of Ishtikunuy near Lake Sevan in Armenia, revealed a highly developed technique of skull surgery employed over 4000 years ago. One patient had suffered a serious head injury, presumably leaving sensitive brain tissue exposed. Despite these difficulties the surgeons of the day had neatly plugged the fracture using a carefully shaped wedge of animal bone. From the way the patients bone tissue had enveloped the plug, it was possible to deduce that the woman had survived the operation and went on to live for quite some time afterwards. 

Ancient brain surgery. 
Soviet scientists uncovered even more starling evidence, this time involving surgery directly on the brain. It was found that one woman had been successfully operated upon to remove an inch wide object that smashed through her skull. This had penetrated directly to the brain. Sensationally the surgeons of the day were able to cut around the object to remove the splinters, before closing up the wound using animal bone. Once more the patient was able to live on for many years afterwards. 

Admiring the great skill of these early surgeons one scientist, Professor Jagharian remarked: 'Considering the ancient tools the doctors had to work with, I would say they were technically superior to modern-day surgeons'. 

Ancient X-ray machine. 
In Peru a rock drawing from Toro Muerto appears to a show a figure with raised arms, with what appears to be an X-ray plate of the thorax. Fully visible are the ribs of the chest cavity, and a central column resembling the spine. Little information is available on the circumstances of this find, which if genuine represents yet another amazing insight into the astonishing complexity of the ancient world. 

Far reaching conclusions. 
In detailing the sheer wealth of these strange and bizarre finds we could go on and on. All we have done here is to just barely scratch the surface of the many enigmas that surround us. In so doing we have seen the image of a world that once was. We see it slowly take shape in front of us. A world completely at variance with the established view of things. It means that sooner or later, the pieces of this gathering jigsaw will force even the most hardened skeptic to accept the full majesty of the world that once was. 

Even now we have approached the point where doubters can rightfully be termed fools and idiots - blind bigots, whom history will rightfully view with the scorn they deserve. The evidence is overwhelming, and it all adds up to the fact of a planet considerably stranger than we have ever imagined. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Written by Aeroman

In Chicago, a Scavenger Hunt Unlike Others

May 7, 2:55 pm ET 

By Isaac Wolf

CHICAGO  - Bring in a "McDonald's Sad Meal," find a graduate thesis written on napkins or build a log cabin blindfolded.

Welcome to what's billed as the world's largest scavenger hunt, under way on Friday at the University of Chicago.

The hunt's targets are not old sets of keys or stray clothespins on the wanted list when children play the game going door-to-door. These items are food for the twisted student imagination on a campus known more for Nobel Prizes than spring foolishness.

Now in its 18th year, "Scav Hunt" began at midnight on Thursday with the unveiling of a 282-item list, each one worth a number of points, which teams of students seek to complete by Sunday when the game ends.

Some of this year's challenges: Build a "Calvin Kleinometer"; produce "a McDonald's Sad Meal"; construct a diorama tribute to dioramas with no infinite regressions; replicate Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss" using only lip prints made with cosmetics that haven't been tested on animals; and "demonstrate conclusively that there really is a wrong way to eat a Reese's (candy)."

The list has a handful of items that can be completed only from New Jersey, prompting several teams to send devoted members on the 1,000-mile road trip.

Four students can build a rustic but homey log cabin while blindfolded, handcuffed and ear-muffed, or produce a thesis on dining hall napkins, signed off by a thesis committee.

The character of the hunt stems from the "twisted imagination" shown by many Chicago students, according to 1990 graduate Rick Jeffries, a co-founder of the event.

The contest ends on Sunday afternoon when 15 judges evaluate the yield brought in by several hundred participants, who are formed into teams. The university said the hunt's size and range are thought make it the largest such event in the world.

Stalking More Prevalent Than Thought?

May 7, 9:19 am ET 

By Victoria Cutler

LONDON  - Hollywood stars are not the only people to be hounded by stalkers.

Stalkers are more likely to harass ordinary people than generally thought, according to a study published in Britain on Thursday, which said one in eight British adults are victims of "persistent or unwanted attention."

"The public perception is of stalking as a crime that effects only celebrities," said the report by researchers at the University of Liverpool.

"However, recent large-scale studies in the USA and Australia suggest the prevalence in the general population may be far higher than expected."

Stalkers are most likely to target professional women in their 40s with jobs that put them in positions of responsibility or bring them into close contact with clients, the researchers found, after examining data from Britain, the United States and Australia.

People such as surgeons, social workers, lawyers and therapists may become a target for harassment, said co-author Professor David Canter.

"If you are in a professional position and somebody does seem to be taking a particular interest in you, you do have to be alert to the possibility that this could be difficult to handle," Canter told The News Source.

Canter has had first-hand experience of harassment, having taken a former secretary to court to stop her from phoning him 100 times a day to demand that he renew her short-term contract.

Up to 45 percent of stalking episodes included violence and in many cases the stalking behavior did not stop until the victim made drastic changes to his or her life, the study showed.

The authors warned that confrontation generally leads to increased stalking activity and advised victims not to respond or react to their stalker in any way, but to inform the police and document the stalker's behavior.

The problem can affect companies as well as individuals, Canter said. Drawing the line between harassment and legitimate claims can also be difficult for firms, which can be targeted over issues such as compensation or intellectual property.

"Companies can get themselves into some of the most terrible knots over these people who target them because they try to deal with them in a rational way, the way you would with any other request," he said. The study was sponsored by Chubb Insurance, which said it offers a policy to cover stalking.

'Solitary Salad' on Menu for Jailbirds

May 7, 9:06 am ET 

By Kerstin Gehmlich

PARIS  - Fancy a "Solitary salad" or some "Jail-style apple pancakes?" French prisoners have published their own cookbook to teach other inmates how to produce low-budget meals with simple prison cooking equipment.

The book, "Cooking Just For Me," seeks to live up to France's reputation for gastronomic excellence. It features 100 recipes by convicts that range from sophisticated fish dishes to rich chocolate cakes and desserts.

"Cooking in prison forces you to be creative: You only have a pan, a saucepan and an electric stove -- that's all," Claude Deroussent, a doctor in the Ensisheim prison in southeastern France who launched the project, told The News Source.

Deroussent called on France's 60,000 prisoners last year to send in their favorite recipes and asked renowned chef Marc Haeberlin to select the best out of an overwhelming 600 replies.

"I was very impressed by the prisoners' inventiveness," said Haeberlin, whose Alsatian restaurant L'Auberge de l'Ill near Strasbourg has received the Michelin guide's top three-star rating.

"Some prisoners have built their own oven by putting one electric stove on each end of a stool and wrapping aluminum foil around it," he said.

"Ingredients are another challenge. Not everything is as readily available as here in my restaurant. Some convicts say they save biscuits at breakfast to make cake later on."

Haeberlin said he was amused by the inmates' instructions on some of the recipes he received. One message read: "This recipe takes time. But time is not really scarce in here."

A prisoner from Caen in northern France who provided the best recipe -- sea bream with mushrooms and lettuce -- was awarded a television set by prison authorities.

In March, the 160-page book was distributed free to Ensisheim inmates. But its authors aim to publish it in prisons nationwide and to even sell it in shops.

Deroussent is seeking a publisher and said he hoped proceeds from any sales could go to a prison doctors' association, of which he is a member.

"The recipes suit anyone living on their own and cooking for themselves, such as students or elderly people," Deroussent said.

He said cooking was psychologically important to prisoners, who spend a lot of time alone and have little physical activity.

"We call chefs like Haeberlin creators. Like him, the prisoners feel they are creating something when they cook," he said.

The cookbook includes advice on weight loss and cholesterol, of concern to many prisoners, Deroussent said. Its recipes are written in a simple style suited to culinary amateurs.

It also offers tips for cooking in a small prison cell -- not unlike the cramped apartments in which many Parisians live. Adding a small amount of vanilla to oil before frying fish, it advises, reduces fish odor in a cell or small room.

Haeberlin said as many men as women had sent recipes and the book offers a colorful ethnic mix, from traditional French meals to Moroccan couscous dishes.

"One thing stood out: There was a surprising number of recipes for chocolate cakes. Maybe, if you're a bit lonely, chocolate is what you really long for," he said.

Author Turns Love of Rats Into Book

May 6, 4:58 pm ET 

By Aleksandrs Rozens

NEW YORK  - They push and shove their way through narrow subway entrances, they are creatures of habit and they love going out to eat at night in a big crowd. They are the other New Yorkers: rats.

Robert Sullivan was so taken by these creatures that he went out ratting -- as he likes to call it -- in dirty alleys of Manhattan to watch them work and play day and night.

Sullivan has parlayed those experiences into a book, "Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants," which quickly became a bestseller after its April publication.

"People all around the U.S. are interested in rats," Sullivan said in a recent interview, adding that on a book tour he also searched for rats behind Chicago blues clubs, San Francisco's tenderloin district and in Beverly Hills trees.

Sullivan's study of rats allowed him to explore overlooked and sometimes messy nooks and crannies -- something encouraged by his father, who often took Sullivan and his family to explore New York's South Street Seaport.

He spent nearly a year of evenings from the summer of 2001 to summer 2002 watching a colony of rats as they feasted on garbage from a Chinese eatery in Eden's Alley, a tiny, cobble-stoned alley in New York's downtown financial district.

Armed with infra-red night-time goggles, Sullivan monitored rats at night while the city dealt with the World Trade Center catastrophe not far away.

New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani called the book "Engaging ... a lively, informative compendium of facts, theories and musings."

The New York Observer noted that the book goes beyond rats alone to give people "a deeper understanding of both the history of New York City and the essence of mankind."

His research, he said, "was just kind of messing around in the back yards of the city. What is neglected is fascinating to me ... What is neglected is maybe more telling in some ways than what is universally embraced and lauded."

PARALLELS BETWEEN RATS, PEOPLE

Sullivan recalled that he could not get to his alley "for a while right after 9/11" but he found parallels between rat colonies and people in New York after the attacks.

"There were groups of people who helped people, people who screwed people, but people wanted to be with (other) people. They wanted to pick pockets or fleece you or they wanted to be together with people just because it is good to be people," said Sullivan, adding that "rats are similar."

Nocturnal with an excellent sense of taste, rats can detect minute amounts of poison, down to one part per million. By one estimate, rats are behind 26 percent of all electric cable breaks in New York because of their attraction to wires.

Their front two teeth grow five inches (12.5 cm) a year and allow them to gnaw on concrete and steel. Their skeletons can collapse so they can squeeze through holes as small as three quarters of an inch wide -- the average width of their skulls.

New York subway workers call them track rabbits, and Sullivan writes that when rats are not foraging for food they are having sex. Rats, writes Sullivan, have sex 20 times a day with as many females as possible. Also, rats in all-male colonies will have sex with each other.

These are just some of the tidbits of data Sullivan discovered in his research. He relies on rat catchers and bits of scientific research like that of William B. Jackson, a professor at Bowling Green State University, and the Environmental Protection Agency as well as Johns Hopkins University.

The commonly held belief that there is one rat per person in New York, or 8 million, is a myth, Sullivan said.

"There are definitely a lot of rats, but not one per person," he said. "If there was one per person we would be tripping over them."

According to his book, published by Bloomsbury, the one-rat-per-person stems from a 1909 study of rats that estimated there were 40 million rats in England, one for each of the country's 40 million acres and 40 million people.

"There was one rat per person in England because of a coincidence of population and acres," said Sullivan.

"It is a number people just love. Subconsciously they want to believe there are as many rats as people."

While he does not estimate how many rats live in New York, he offers an alternative task.

"We could go and figure out how many there are but it would take a long time. You would be better off going and spending money on neighborhoods where there are problems with rats, trying to help people," Sullivan said.

Sullivan's book tracks the history of rats, describes such oddities as the promoters of rat fights in the 19th century and details a convention of exterminators.

While he once captured a rat, Sullivan says he has never brought one home nor is he likely to adopt one as a pet.

"No I never kept a rat. I'm married," he explained.

Falling in Love -- a Gender-Bending Experience

May 6, 10:28 am ET 

LONDON  - Falling in love -- that crazy, blissful feeling -- causes gender-bender changes in men and women's testosterone levels.

A study by an Italian researcher shows that when couples fall in love their testosterone levels alter. It falls in men and rises in women so they become more like each other.

"Men who were in love had lower levels of the male sex hormone testosterone -- linked to aggression and sex drive -- than other men," New Scientist magazine said Wednesday.

"Love-struck women, in contrast, had higher levels of testosterone than their counterparts."

Donatella Marazziti, a scientist at the University of Pisa in Italy, made the discovery after studying 24 people in love.

"It's as if nature wants to eliminate what can be different in men and women, because it's important to survive at this stage," she said.

Not all scientists agree with Marazziti's interpretation of the results and some say changing testosterone levels could be a result of increased sexual activity.

But whatever the reason it doesn't last long.

Two years later, when the same people were tested again and were no longer madly in love, their testosterone levels were back to normal.

Street Slang Proves Big Hit with Book Lovers

May 5, 9:13 am ET 

By Christian Oliver

TEHRAN  - Persian is famed as the melodic, courtly language of medieval poets such as Omar Khayyam and Hafez, but it is a dictionary of vulgar street slang that is taking Iranian literary circles by storm. At Tehran's annual book fair, the woman running the stall of the dictionary's publisher Nashr-e Markaz had to explain to a disappointed stream of book buyers that the sixth edition had already sold out.

Much of the slang is the vernacular of "Javads," a wayward breed of young men who drive around Tehran, trying to lure girls into their cars.

Unsurprisingly, many of their racy, often chauvinistic expressions derive from their beloved automobiles.

A "zero kilometer," a reference to a car with no mileage on the clock, is a virgin. "Been in an accident" refers to a girl who has become pregnant.

Girls' backsides, a favorite talking point of hot-blooded Javads, are "hubcaps."

The most popular stall at the fair which opened Monday was one specializing in books on the giddy social life of the Pahlavis, the royal family deposed in the 1979 Islamic revolution.

"Iran's bestsellers at the moment are all contemporary history," said Ahmad Pirani, who contributed to a book on the private life of the last Shah. His colleague Paris reckoned he knew why: "People want to read about this part of history to know who they are."

A white-turbaned mullah leafed through "Wives of the Shah."

In a country with few entertainments, Tehran's 11-day book fair is viewed as a fun day out. Fast-food and ice-cream vendors do a brisk trade.

Outside the exhibition rooms, couples exchanged tentative, illicit caresses on the lawns as schoolgirls perched on a wall reading Tintin comics. Publishing thresholds have relaxed a touch since liberal President Mohammad Khatami came to power in 1997 but his attempts to push through sweeping social reforms have been thwarted by conservative supervisory bodies.

Iran zealously censors any works criticizing the Islamic system. It banned "The Stoning of Soraya M," Freidoune Sahebjam's tale of violent, arbitrary justice in rural Iran.

British novelist Salman Rushdie, sentenced to death by an Iranian fatwa in 1989, is still taboo. An American book on male psychology called "All Men Are Jerks Until Proven Otherwise" has also fallen foul of the censors lately.

Religious and scientific texts dominated the fair's book stacks but young people also snapped up horror novels, U.S. rock lyrics and biographies of England footballer David Beckham.

Islamic publishing houses were also selling new technology: swarms of women in the all-enveloping chador gathered round CD-ROM virtual tours of holy shrines.

"I have come here almost every year," said black-bearded law student Hamid Soleimani, 25. He had bought some books on the early martyrs of Shi'ite Islam.

Elsewhere, a young woman in a green silk headscarf thumbed through a Persian translation of "The Fox," D.H. Lawrence's tale of simmering erotic tensions. Other stands were decked with works by American Jewish actor and director Woody Allen.

Adel, a silver-haired religious bookseller from Tehran's sprawling bazaar, said he was complementing his Korans with the adventures of boy-wizard Harry Potter. "These J.K. Rowling books are selling pretty well," he said.

'Vent-Line' Irks Counselors

May 5, 8:12 am ET 

BOSTON  - Licensed mental health professionals are steamed over a Maine entrepreneur who charges angry people $1.99 a minute to listen to them rant and rave over the telephone.

Philip Doyen receives between 10 and 20 phone calls a week to "Vent-Line," a service he launched in February that allows callers to blow off steam -- at a price.

But some professional counseling services aren't happy about Doyen's business and are urging prosecutors to investigate whether he is breaking any state laws, the Portland Press Herald newspaper reported on Tuesday.

"For some people, venting is going to upset them more," Leslie Brancato of the Community Counseling Center in Portland, Maine, told the paper. "That he's charging $1.99 a minute is, in my opinion, totally exploitative."

Doyen, who works as a computer repairman when not operating Vent-Line, says he has dozens of customers along the U.S. East Coast.

"I'm in it for the money, like everybody else," the Press Herald quoted him as saying. "If it helps people, great."

Tourist's Trinkets Really Ancient Statues

May 6, 9:29 am ET 

AMSTERDAM  - A Dutch tourist's souvenir Hindu statuettes will be sent back to Indonesia and put on show in a museum after they turned out to be valuable 13th century works of art, customs officials said on Thursday.

"The individual bought the statues on a roadside while on holiday in Indonesia, thinking they were new and made to look old," Rotterdam customs press officer Kees Nanninga said.

Rotterdam port customs stumbled across the stone statuettes, one of the elephant-headed god Ganesh, the other a male torso of another Hindu deity, in a spot check late last year.

The statuettes, estimated to be worth 15,000 euros ($18,230) together, were handed over to the Indonesian embassy in the Netherlands on Thursday and will eventually be exhibited in Jakarta's National Museum.

Cyprus or Crete? Stamp Seems to Blur EU Map

May 6, 9:30 am ET 

DUBLIN  - Ireland, current president of the European Union, has issued a postage stamp which appears to confuse new EU-member Cyprus with the Greek holiday island of Crete.

The stamp shows a map of the enlarged EU with the old member states colored blue and the new states in yellow.

Cyprus is positioned just south of Greece and looks suspiciously like Crete in shape. It is longer and thinner than the real Cyprus and has a rectangular bump on the bottom of it, just like the Greek island.

"The shape is closer to that of Crete than Cyprus although, to be fair, the designer does seem to have taken some artistic license with the other countries too," said Peter Geoffrey, a Dublin philatelist.

"I suppose it might be a little insulting if you were from either Crete or Cyprus."

The Irish Post Office insisted on Thursday there had been no mistake but conceded the designers had to move Cyprus from its position in the eastern Mediterranean to fit it on the stamp.

"There is no way they could have left Cyprus where it was," a spokeswoman said. "It's quite a crowded stamp as it is.

"This is not meant to be a "to-scale" map of the EU," she added. "It's like an image taken through a photographer's fish-eye lens. I know some people are saying it looks like Crete but it's not. It is quite definitely Cyprus."

Number Found at Spain Site Leads to Arrest 

1 hour, 41 minutes ago

MADRID, Spain - Police investigating the Madrid terror bombings have arrested a Moroccan whose telephone number was found in the ruins of an apartment where seven suspects blew themselves up, the Interior Ministry said Saturday. 

The man, whose name was not released, was arrested Thursday night in Parla, a town just south of Madrid, a ministry official said. 

The suspect's telephone number was found in the wreckage of an apartment where seven suspects, including the suspected ringleader of the train attacks, blew themselves up on April 3 as police prepared to go in and arrest them, the official said. 

The attacks on March 11 killed 191 people and wounded more than 2,000, and have been blamed on Islamic militants with possible links to al-Qaida. 

Eighteen people have been charged so far - six with mass murder and the rest with collaborating with or belonging to a terrorist organization. Six of the 18 have been released from jail but still face charges. 

On Thursday, the FBI (news - web sites) arrested an American lawyer, Brandon Mayfield, 37, in the United States as a material witness in the case. 

Spanish officials say at least one of Mayfield's fingerprints were found on a plastic bag containing detonators of the kind used in the attacks. The bag was found in a van left near the station from which three of the four trains bombed on March 11 departed. U.S. officials said a single print of Mayfield's was found on the bag. 

The newspaper El Pais reported Saturday that Spanish investigators have serious doubts as to whether the print is Mayfield's. They have no record of him traveling to Spain recently, and experts found only eight points of similarity between the print and the one of Mayfield held in U.S. files because of his status as a former member of the Army. The FBI said it found 15 such points, El Pais said. 

The Interior Ministry declined to comment on the report.

Hearing-impaired get movie treat

Fri May 7, 9:40 AM ET

- Chicago Tribune 

By Paul Singer Washington Bureau 

When Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" character sneered, "Go ahead--make my day," the line became such a cultural phenomenon that President Ronald Reagan (news - web sites) repeated it in daring Congress to pass a tax increase he could veto. 

But John Stanton and millions of other deaf Americans did not recognize the reference. The line comes from a 1983 movie that--like virtually all other American movies released since the end of the silent film era--had no subtitles or captions for the hearing-impaired. 

Now a lawsuit filed by Stanton and two other deaf moviegoers against two major movie chains may change that, paving the way for a broad expansion of captioning devices for the hearing-impaired in theaters throughout the country. 

In a settlement approved by a federal judge last week, the theater chains--AMC Theaters and Loews Cineplex--agreed to install individual captioning devices in a dozen theaters in the D.C. area over the next year. They also agreed to build the system into at least one screen in all their new theater complexes in the region. 

"I'm probably going to be deaf for the rest of my life," said Stanton, a Washington lawyer. "I hope I'm going to live to see the day where almost every movie is caption-accessible. ... I think our settlement is a very good starting point to get that process going." 

Settlement sets new standard 

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler approved the settlement April 30. While it applies only to the Washington area, it "will set the standard for what other communities, at a very minimum, should be offering," she said. 

The deal calls for use of Rear Window captioning technology, designed to help hearing-impaired moviegoers without blocking others' view, that provides the user a transparent plastic panel attached to a seat's cup holder. The captions are displayed on the back wall of the theater, and the reflection is visible on the panel but invisible to patrons in adjoining seats. 

The technology currently is available in only one movie theater in the Washington area and fewer than 100 nationwide. Six screens in the Chicago area have Rear Window technology, including the AMC City North and the AMC Yorktown in Lombard. There are no closed-caption screens elsewhere in Illinois. 

An AMC spokesman said that in addition to the Washington-area court settlement, the chain has made a voluntary commitment to install Rear Window in all its new theater complexes--but not for every screen. AMC also will retrofit at least one theater in all 210 of its complexes nationwide to provide captioning technology. 

Loews declined to comment on its plans. 

Stanton's lawsuit argued that theaters without captions violate the Americans With Disabilities Act, which requires businesses to establish reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities. 

Two other lawsuits seeking to force theaters to install captioning technology--one in Oregon, one in Texas--have failed, leaving the D.C. settlement as the first lawsuit to result in an agreement to add captioning. 

"What the settlement does is provide a model that can be replicated in other communities around the country," said Todd Houston, executive director of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. 

David Monroe, the lawyer who negotiated the settlement on behalf of AMC and Loews, said even more captioning devices may be installed nationwide if it makes economic sense. 

"If it turns out that a lot of additional people come to see captioned films, that makes it more likely that they will make more captioned films available," Monroe said. 

But some advocates for the deaf are disappointed that the settlement does not go further.

"It's a drop in the bucket," said Cheryl Heppner, chairwoman of the Coalition for Movie Captioning, an alliance of advocacy groups for the deaf and hard of hearing. The coalition says the deal requires only "the ability to show captioned movies on roughly 5 percent of AMC/Loews screens forever." 

Other advocates say the Rear Window system is cumbersome and that a better approach would be "open captions"--subtitles projected on the screen and visible to all patrons. 

Studio and theater executives adamantly oppose that idea, saying such subtitles would be a distraction to their hearing clientele and would interfere with a director's creative control of the image on the screen. 

Richard King, a spokesman for AMC Theaters, said his company has tested open captioning and "we have found that is something that is not appealing to moviegoers [who] are not hearing-impaired." 

It is an open question whether there is an economic incentive for theaters to install captioning devices. 

Costs $10,000 to install 

The Rear Window systems cost about $10,000 to install, and King pointed out that there are no data to prove that the technology brings in flocks of deaf or hard-of-hearing patrons. 

Tawny Holmes, student body president at Gallaudet University, a D.C. school for hearing-impaired students, said deaf students looking for evening activities do not immediately think of going to the movies, mostly because they don't expect to find a captioned film. 

"But when there is an announcement that there is going to be a captioned movie, they go in droves," she said, speaking through a sign-language interpreter. 

Studios generally produce captions for the DVD or video versions of their films, and they already produce captions for some theatrical releases at minimal cost--about $50,000 per movie, said an executive at a major Hollywood movie studio who asked that his name not be used because of potential litigation. "The cost is the same whether it's in 12 theaters or 1,200," he added. 

But the executive noted that the same is not true for theater owners, for whom the $10,000 cost per auditorium makes it prohibitively expensive to install the system in all 36,000 screens across the country.

Soldier Says He Hot-Wired Odai's Car 

Fri May 7,10:33 PM ET 
Add U.S. National - 

By CLAYTON BELLAMY, News Source Writer 

TULSA, Okla. - An Oklahoma soldier stationed in Iraq (news - web sites) hot-wired Odai Hussein's Lamborghini sport utility vehicle, military records say, and the soldier goes on to claim his action lured the son of the former Iraqi dictator into a U.S. trap. 

But the account from Spc. Jeremy Huhman of Enid, Okla., as passed along by his mother and Oklahoma U.S. Senate candidate Kirk Humphreys, differs on key points from the official version of the raid last July that killed Odai, 39, and brother Qusai, 37. 

In Huhman's account, his hot-wiring of the expensive Italian vehicle caused a worried Odai to emerge from the villa where he and Qusai were holed up. The Army has said only that troops surrounded the building and stormed it after firing missiles and rockets. No other witnesses saw Odai come outside. 

A U.S. Army document that led to a commendation for Huhman says he was asked to fulfill various missions in Iraq "... from hot-wiring Uday Hussein's Lamborghini SUV to generator repair to bringing captured facilities back online." 

"Uday" is an alternative spelling of Odai. 

The award recommendation, obtained by The News Source, does not describe the circumstances under which Huhman hot-wired the SUV. 

The document is signed by 1st Lt. Philip Benner, Huhman's executive officer with Bravo Company, 558th Engineering Unit. 

Benner, reached at company headquarters in Fort Hood, Texas, declined to comment. "It's a matter we haven't unclassified," he said. 

Huhman was on leave Friday, a soldier who answered the phone at Bravo Company said. Other attempts to reach Huhman were not successful. 

The Pentagon (news - web sites) press office referred The AP to Fort Hood, where a public affairs officer referred calls to Benner and Huhman. 

The Lamborghini or any attempts to hot-wire it are not included in either official Pentagon descriptions of the raid or in accounts from Iraqi witnesses. An official Army briefing the day after the raid said soldiers tried twice without success to enter the villa and were able to get inside only after firing rockets and missiles into the building. 

Witnesses interviewed by The AP said U.S. soldiers hopped out of four Humvees and surrounded the villa, using megaphones to demand the occupiers come out. The home's owners came out, but Odai, Qusai and their bodyguards fired, wounding four Americans, the witnesses said. 

Humphreys said he met Huhman in March on a flight from Dallas to Oklahoma City, and the two talked for a few minutes. 

Huhman's mother, Judy, was unavailable for comment, but she confirmed her son's account in a story Tuesday in the Enid News & Eagle. 

"He was a teenager once," she said. "He knows about cars." 

Humphreys, a Republican, has been telling the story during campaign stops to show, he says, that while politicians debate the war, soldiers are risking their lives to win. Democrats have accused Humphreys of making the story up to justify his support for the war and to criticize Democrats. 

"I did not make it up. I did not embellish it," Humphreys said.

Low-Carb Impact Affecting Krispy Kreme 

1 hour, 51 minutes ago

Add Business - 

By PAUL NOWELL, News Source Business Writer 

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Could the Krispy Kreme doughnut be the latest victim of the low-carb diet craze? 

The Winston-Salem-based doughnut maker said Friday that it is cutting its profit projection for this year by 10 percent because of lower demand for its high-calorie treats - which the company attributes in part to the low-carb diet phenomenon. 

The announcement drove its stock price down 23 percent in early trading. 

"The popularity of low-carb diets has captured the consumer's attention," said Scott Livengood, chief executive and chairman of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. "It's impossible to predict if low-carb is a passing fad or will have a lasting impact. 

"For several months, there has been increasing consumer interest in low-carbohydrate diets, which has adversely impacted several flour-based food categories, including bread, cereal and pasta," he said. 

Until recently, Livengood said, the consumer change had "little discernible effect on our business." However, he said, recent market data suggests consumer interest in reduced carbohydrate consumption has heightened. 

He said the development is most evident in sales of packaged doughnuts to grocery store customers. 

In March, Krispy Kreme unveiled plans to offer a low-sugar doughnut. 

One of Krispy Kreme's Hot Original Glazed doughnuts has 200 calories. More than half those calories come from fat, which gives the fried doughnut texture and flavor. 

On Friday, Livengood said the company estimates diluted earnings per share from continuing operations before charges will be about 23 cents in the first fiscal quarter ended May 2. 

Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call were expecting earnings of 27 cents a share. 

For the fiscal year ending in February 2005, it expects to earn $1.04 to $1.06 a share before charges which is approximately 10 percent lower than prior guidance. Analysts expected $1.17 a share. 

Including one-time charges, diluted earnings per share from continuing operations will be about 16 cents for the first quarter and between 93 cents and 95 cents for fiscal 2005, he said. 

"Our current guidance assumes a continuation of the low-carb phenomenon that is affecting the industry," Livengood said. "Needless to say, we are disappointed that external forces have caused us to revise our first quarter and fiscal 2005 earnings guidance." 

The company will divest its existing Montana Mills operation, which will result in a charge of at least $35 million in the first quarter and charges of $2 million to $4 million in subsequent quarters, Livengood said. 

In addition, six company stores will be closed, he said. 

In morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange (news - web sites), Krispy Kreme shares were down $7.30 at $24.50. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Krispy Kreme Inc.: www.krispykreme.com.

Adidas Creates Computerized 'Smart Shoe'

2 hours, 25 minutes ago

By WILLIAM McCALL, News Source Business Writer 

PORTLAND, Ore. - Adidas says it has created the world's first "smart shoe" by mating it with a computer chip that adapts its cushioning level to a runner's size and stride. 

The Adidas 1 is the product of a three-year secret project the German company developed at its U.S. headquarters in Portland, Ore. 

On Thursday, Adidas opened its research lab to reporters from around the world for a first peek at a shoe the company claims will revolutionize distance running and training. 

"This is the first intelligent shoe ever," said Erich Stamminger, global marketing director for Adidas. "It senses, understands and adapts." 

After thousands of hours of testing, Adidas is confident the computerized shoe will endure the wear-and-tear of running in almost any condition - from hard pavement to dirt trails, and dry streets to wet beaches. 

The microprocessor is located in the arch of the shoe, and drives a tiny screw and cable system that adjusts the heel cushion depending on the signals sent back by an electric sensor coupled to a magnet. 

It is powered by a battery that conserves power by adjusting the shoe while it is in the air during a runner's stride, avoiding resistance from the ground. 

The entire assembly weighs no more than 40 grams - just 10 percent of the 400-gram total weight of the shoe, to keep it light enough for distance runners. 

But the $250 price tag is likely to make it a luxury item when it first goes on sale in December, said Paul Swangard, managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon. 

"It's something that doesn't necessarily seem to have massive market appeal, but from the company standpoint speaks volumes about its technology capabilities," Swangard said. 

New Finds Put Maya Culture Back a Few Centuries

Wed May 5, 7:55 AM ET

By Thomas H. Maugh II Times Staff Writer 

Archeologists excavating a 2,500-year-old Maya city in Guatemala have unearthed buildings and massive carvings indicating the presence of a royal metropolis of more than 10,000 people at a time when, scientists had previously believed, the Maya were only simple farmers. 

� Latimes.com home page
� Subscribe to the Los Angeles Times

New studies at the Cival site in the Peten jungle have unearthed the oldest known carved portrait of a Maya king and two massive stone masks of the Maya maize deity, discoveries indicating that the Maya developed a complex and sophisticated civilization hundreds of years earlier than previously believed. 

The city of towering pyramids and sweeping plazas is yielding other surprising artifacts, including jade and ceramic offerings to the gods that may mark the beginnings of the Maya dynasties, Vanderbilt University archeologist Francisco Estrada-Belli said Tuesday during a National Geographic (news - web sites) Society telephone news conference from Washington. 

Estrada-Belli "is pushing back the time for the evidence of Maya state institutions by several centuries," said archeologist Elsa Redmond of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. 

"We had hints of these kinds of buildings from El Mirador," another Maya city of the so-called Preclassic Period, which dates from roughly 2000 BC to AD 250, Redmond said. 

The Maya civilization came into full bloom at cities such as Palenque in Mexico and Tikal in Guatemala during the Classic Period, beginning about AD 300. But other Preclassic sites have been built over, often repeatedly, rendering interpretation of the findings problematic. 

Cival, for reasons that are not clear, was abandoned about AD 100, "never to be occupied again," Estrada-Belli said, and has lain relatively untouched since. "It is very unusual to have a completely preserved Preclassic city that was not buried by subsequent building," he added. 

It may have been a forgotten city, he said, or it may have been a sacred site whose memory was preserved and where building was forbidden. 

And because it was preserved, it is now clear that " 'Preclassic' is a misnomer," he said. The new evidence shows that "Preclassic Maya societies already had many features that have been attributed to the Classic Period - kings, complex iconography, elaborate palaces and burials.... The origin of the Maya civilization has to be found in the first part of the Preclassic period, rather than the last part." 

Cival, which is about 25 miles east of the much better known city of Tikal, was discovered in 1984 by Ian Graham of Harvard University. Most of the site was overgrown by jungle, however, and Graham's team thought it was a minor outpost. 

Estrada-Belli has been studying the nearby Classic Period city of Holmul and was using satellite imaging and global positioning systems to explore the surrounding area when he rediscovered Cival four years ago. The new technology showed that its ceremonial center spanned half a mile, more than twice Graham's initial estimate. 

Estrada-Belli and his colleagues have been digging there with support from the National Geographic Society. 

Their findings and those of others studying the Preclassic period are the subject of a National Geographic documentary, "Dawn of the Maya," which will air May 12 on PBS. 

The most spectacular find at Cival occurred by accident. Estrada-Belli reached into a fissure in the wall while examining a dank looter's tunnel in the city's main pyramid and came into contact with a piece of carved stucco that felt like a snake or a mustache. 

Digging into the site from the other side of the pyramid, he discovered a 15-by-9-foot stucco mask. The one visible eye was L-shaped and the mouth was squared, with snake's fangs in its center. 

"The mask's preservation is astounding," he said. "It's almost as if someone made this yesterday." The looters, he added, "just missed it." 

More recently, the team discovered a second, apparently identical, mask on the other side of a set of stairs. The eyes appear to be adorned with corn husks, suggesting the Maya maize deity. 

Estrada-Belli believes that the masks flanked a pyramid stairway that led to the temple room, providing a backdrop for elaborate rituals in which the king - viewed by people in the plaza - impersonated the gods of creation. 

The team also found a stela, or carved stone pillar, dating to 300 BC, showing the accession of a king whose name has not yet been determined. Such stelae were quite common in Classic Period cities, but none this old have previously been found. "We didn't know there were kings then," Estrada-Belli said. 

The large plaza in front of the pyramid was the scene of offerings to the Maya gods. In a recess in the plaza, the team found a red bowl, two spondylus shells, a jade tube and a hematite fragment. 

Behind the recess was a cross-shaped depression containing five smashed jars, one on each arm of the cross and one in the center. The jars signify water and date to 500 BC, he said. 

Under the center jar were 120 pieces of jade - an unusual concentration of wealth for the period - most of them round, polished pebbles. Nearby were five jade axes, placed with their blades pointing upward. The pebbles probably symbolize maize and the axes sprouting maize plants, Estrada-Belli said. 

Kings in the Classic Period were thought to embody the maize god on Earth, and it seems that this tradition started much earlier than was originally thought, he said. 

The team also found a major clue to what probably was the ultimate fate of Cival - a hurriedly constructed defensive wall built about AD 100. 

The 6-foot-high wall "was a desperate attempt to close off the inner core of the site," he said. The find surprised him, he said, because "there was no previous evidence of warfare in the Preclassic Period." 

Ultimately, he said, Cival "probably met the same end as many cities in the Classic Period": conquest by a more powerful neighbor.

Fifth HIV Case Strikes California Porn Industry

27 minutes ago

Add Movies 

By Gina Keating 

LOS ANGELES  - A veteran porn actress on Wednesday became the fifth adult film performer in Los Angeles to test positive for HIV (news - web sites) since an industrywide quarantine went into effect last month to stop the spread of the potentially deadly virus, an industry health care official said. 

The actress was one of 14 performers who worked directly with actor Darren James, a longtime porn performer who is believed to be the source of the outbreak. 

The latest diagnosis marks the largest outbreak of the AIDS (news - web sites) virus in Southern California's porn industry in six years. 

The AIDS scare has prompted a virtual shutdown of adult film production in recent weeks and raised the prospect of tighter regulation on an industry, which has long thrived on Hollywood's fringes in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. 

James may have contracted the virus while filming in Brazil on a "non-condom" set in March and has passed it to at least three of his co-stars, said Sharon Mitchell, who runs the HIV screening program for the Adult Industry Medical Foundation. 

The woman's name was not made public but Mitchell described her as "an actress working in the industry for several years." 

"She had a good head on shoulders and was well prepared for this diagnosis," said Mitchell, a former porn actress with a doctorate in public health. "She did realize that HIV was an occupational hazard." 

The woman was one of about 50 porn actors under a 60-day quarantine because they had worked directly with James or with the women who had onscreen sex with him after his suspected exposure to the HIV virus (news - web sites). 

The partners of the latest actress to test HIV-positive have already tested negative once, but will be monitored for another 30 days to ensure that they are not carrying the disease, Mitchell said. 

"This is the benefit of containment," Mitchell said. "They haven't been out working. They have been under quarantine." 

In an unrelated case, a transsexual porn actress whose stage name is Jennifer tested positive for HIV on Tuesday. Her only two partners returned negative tests on Wednesday, indicating the virus had spread no further, Mitchell said. 

Mitchell has advocated a moratorium on filming until the quarantine is lifted on June 8 but not all of the 200 or so production companies that comprise the multibillion-dollar industry have complied. 

She said the last major outbreak of AIDS in the industry, which employs about 1,200 actors, occurred in 1998 when six people tested positive for HIV. There was an additional case the following year and none since then until James tested positive for the virus in mid-April. 

The latest HIV outbreak prompted calls for unprecedented inspection of film shoots and mandatory condom use -- proposals that critics said would drive the industry underground or out of state.

Israel Said to Finance Illegal Outposts 

1 hour, 54 minutes ago

By JOSEF FEDERMAN, News Source Writer 

JERUSALEM - Israel's Housing Ministry has spent millions of dollars on unauthorized construction in the West Bank, a government report said Wednesday, leading the attorney general to impose a new way of monitoring settlement spending. 

NEWS SOURCE 

Slideshow: Mideast Conflict

Also Wednesday, the Palestinian legislature fired a high-ranking official it accused of corruption. It was the first time lawmakers dismissed a senior official for corruption. 

In Gaza, two Palestinians were killed and 16 - including a news photographer - were wounded in Israeli-Palestinian violence. In the West Bank, an armed Hamas fugitive was shot dead by troops. 

Also, Israel released a co-founder of Hamas, Mohammed Taha, after holding him for 14 months without charges. Taha, accused by the army of leading Hamas' military wing, was arrested in a raid on the Boureij refugee camp in central Gaza. 

The report, issued by the watchdog state comptroller, detailed how the Housing Ministry funneled about $6.5 million for illegal construction, more than half of it to unauthorized outposts. 

Attorney General Meni Mazuz ordered an unprecedented freeze on funding for settlement construction, charging that settlements were diverting state funds to the outposts. 

The Justice Ministry announced Wednesday that Mazuz had lifted last month's ordered freeze after approving a monitoring system to ensure government money is not used for illegal projects. 

From January 2000 to June 2003, the Housing Ministry approved 77 contracts for construction projects in 33 West Bank areas, 18 of them unauthorized outposts, the report said. Of the $6.5 million given to illegal West Bank construction, about $4 million went to the outposts, the comptroller's report said. 

Housing Minister Effie Eitam, leader of the pro-settler National Religious Party, pledged to respect the law. 

"I promise that every shekel (dollar) that comes from the government will be transferred to legal activities," Eitam told Israel's Army Radio after the report was released. 

Israel is obligated under the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan to dismantle dozens of unauthorized West Bank outposts, many of them no more than a trailer on a barren hilltop. 

Palestinians view the outposts as further encroachment on land they want for a state. Although Israel has removed a handful of the outposts, most were rebuilt within days. 

A U.S. official declined to respond to the findings in the report but said the American position on illegal outposts is well known. 

"Consistent with the road map, settlement activity is to be frozen, and certainly illegal outposts even more so," the U.S. official said on condition of anonymity. 

On Sunday, members of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites)'s Likud Party voted against his plan to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip (news - web sites) and small parts of the West Bank. In consultations Tuesday in New York, the "Quartet" of Mideast mediators - the United States, European Union (news - web sites), Russia and United Nations (news - web sites) - endorsed Sharon's plan. 

In a Wednesday letter to Quartet members, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said the defeat of Sharon's plan was an opportunity to return to negotiations "and the end to Israeli occupation of all Palestinian territory." 

At the United Nations in New York, Palestinians pressed for a vote Thursday on a General Assembly resolution affirming their right to sovereignty over the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem and stating that Israel "has no sovereignty over any part of this territory." 

Arab diplomats said Wednesday this was a crucial issue for the Palestinians because of President Bush (news - web sites)'s endorsement last month of Sharon's plan. 

In another development, the Palestinian legislature Wednesday fired the head of the Palestinian Monetary Authority after a parliamentary probe concluded he was involved in corruption and mismanagement. 

Amin Haddad was the first high-ranking Palestinian official to be fired by the parliament for corruption. The monetary authority monitors the flow of money in the Bank of Palestine. The Palestinian administration assumed control over the private bank three years ago, but losses have tripled during that time to $34 million. 

"This is part of the parliament's war against corruption in the Palestinian Authority (news - web sites)," said Hassan Khreishe, the Palestinian deputy parliament speaker. 

Haddad could not be reached for comment. 

In the West Bank village of Talouza, troops shot dead an armed Hamas fugitive, the army said. Villagers said the dead man, Einad Janajra, was the target of an Israeli raid last month but escaped, and an innocent bystander was shot dead instead. 

The army later apologized for killing the bystander, a university lecturer. 

In Gaza, two Palestinians were killed in fighting with the Israeli army. 

Palestinian officials said one person was killed after entering an unauthorized area near the border with Israel. Originally the Palestinians said two were killed, but only one body was found. The military said soldiers opened fire on two men, hitting one. 

In the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, a Palestinian security guard was killed by Israeli gunfire after dozens of youths began throwing stones at troops. One of the wounded, Mahmoud Hams, is a news photographer working for Agence France-Presse, the French news agency. 

The army said soldiers fired at gunmen. The military demolished 10 buildings, uprooted dozens of olive trees and damaged infrastructure in the area, witnesses said. 

The army has stepped up activity in southern Gaza since Palestinian gunmen killed a pregnant Jewish settler and her four young daughters in an ambush there Sunday.

Bush Asks Congress for $25B for Iraq War 

35 minutes ago 
Add White House - 

By ALAN FRAM, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration asked Congress Wednesday for a $25 billion down payment for next year's U.S. operations in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites), a retreat from the White House's earlier plans not to seek the money until after the November elections. 

Bush Administration to Seek $25B for Iraq War 
(AP Video)

Latest headlines: 
� U.S. Officer Tells of Violence, Death at Iraq Prison 
The News Source - 7 minutes ago 
� Bush Vows Justice on Iraq Prison Abuse 
AP - 19 minutes ago 
� Official Apologizes for Abuse of Inmates 
AP - 21 minutes ago 
Special Coverage

The money - half of what White House officials have said they expect to need for 2005 - is designed to carry the military through the first months of the new budget year, which starts next Oct. 1. Congress is likely to be adjourned for much of that period, and the Army in particular would be expected to face a cash crunch unless funds were approved beforehand. 

"While we do not know the precise costs for operations next year, recent developments on the ground and increased demands on our troops indicate the need to plan for contingencies," President Bush (news - web sites) said in a statement. "We must make sure there is no disruption in funding and resources for our troops." 

White House budget chief Joshua Bolten and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz went to the Capitol to describe the proposal to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and other top Republicans. 

"I certainly expect so," Frist told reporters afterward when asked whether Congress would approve the funds. "It's for our troops." 

The proposal comes amid an intensified Iraqi insurrection that has inflicted steady casualties on Americans and forced the Pentagon (news - web sites) to plan on keeping more troops in the country next year than the administration had planned. 

It also comes with the administration and the military facing widespread criticism at home and abroad for the abuse of Iraqi war prisoners. 

The White House, too, faced growing demands from lawmakers of both parties in recent weeks that the money for Iraq needed to be approved before Congress adjourns this fall. 

Democrats criticized the Bush proposal because they said it was well short of what will really be needed. 

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said the request would fall short by least $40 billion. With this year's expected record deficit looming as a campaign issue this fall, Obey said the shortfall was intentional. 

"What it demonstrates is that they tried simply to avoid showing any of the costs before the election," Obey told reporters. "Now they are asking for the least they can possibly ask for ... concealing the full costs." 

The administration will seek more money for next year "when we can better estimate precise costs," Bush said. 

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) said it was too early to tell if he would support the proposal. The Massachusetts senator said U.S. troops "need to get what they need," but he faulted the administration for failing to provide them promptly with body armor and humvee trucks. 

Underlining how Iraq has become a political issue, the Democratic National Committee (news - web sites) took the unusual step of commenting on a spending proposal, saying it was insufficient and misleading. 

"The troops deserve our full support, but that does not change the fact that this president has a staggering credibility problem on Iraq," said DNC spokesman Jano Cabrera. 

The administration provided few details, but officials said all the money would be for the military. The funds would add to the federal deficit, though all $25 billion probably would not be spent next year. 

Even before Wednesday's request, Congress had provided $165 billion for the Pentagon for Iraq, Afghanistan and anti-terror efforts at home and abroad since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to an October 2003 report by the Congressional Research Service. 

Most of that money came from an $87.5 billion bill last November, and a $79.5 billion measure enacted in April 2003. 

Unlike those bills, administration officials did not characterize the new request as urgent, participants in Wednesday's meeting said. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., said the $25 billion would probably be attached to the regular defense spending bill for next year, which he said would be completed by the time Congress adjourns for the fall elections. 

In February, Bush's budget omitted any funds for U.S. military and reconstruction activities in Iraq and Afghanistan next year. Bolten said at the time that the administration's 2005 request for Iraq could be up to $50 billion and said the request would not come until at least January. 

For months, administration officials stood by that timetable, insisting they had enough money to last until the new year. 

In recent weeks, administration officials raised the possibility that they might need extra money for the final weeks of this fiscal year; many members of Congress said they believed billions will be needed. 

Lawmakers leaving Wednesday's meeting said administration officials said they expected to make it through this year's final five months if they are given authority to shift funds among different accounts in the Pentagon's budget. 

As recently as Monday, a senior administration official played down the need for money right now for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Bush "has not been told that there is a resource problem," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. 

That official also said there was currently enough money for reconstruction in Iraq. 

Of $18.4 billion provided last November for rebuilding that country's economy and government, less than $2.8 billion has been spent or is owed to contractors, according to the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-led agency governing Iraq.

Mayan Queen's Tomb Found in Rain Forest 

Thu May 6,10:09 AM ET

By JAMIE STENGLE, News Source Writer 

DALLAS - While excavating an ancient royal palace deep in the Guatemalan rain forest, archaeologists made a rare discovery - the 1,200-year-old tomb and skeleton of a Mayan queen. 

Archaeologists announced the find Thursday, and said the woman appears to have been a powerful leader of a city that may have been home to tens of thousands of people at its peak. They found her bones on a raised platform, with evidence of riches scattered around her body. 

"We find clues of people's existence in the past all the time, from the garbage they left or the buildings they built. ... But when you actually come face-to-face with human beings, it's a deeply sacred moment for all of us," said David Freidel, an anthropology professor at Southern Methodist University, which sponsored a team of 20 archaeologists excavating the site. 

The discovery in the ancient Mayan city of Waka' in northwestern Guatemala was made in February but was not made public until Thursday. 

Word of the find comes two days after a Vanderbilt University archaeologist, whose work is supported by the National Geographic (news - web sites) Society, publicly described excavation of a little-known Guatamalan site called Cival, which housed as many as 10,000 people at its peak some 2,000 years ago. 

Stephen Houston, a Brigham Young University professor specializing in Mayan archaeology and writing who was not involved in the project, called the tomb discovery significant. 

"We haven't found to date many tombs of Maya queens," he said. 

The tomb is the first discovered at Laguna del Tigre, Guatemala's largest national park, where SMU began its excavation project in 2002. 

The queen's skull and leg bones were missing, probably removed sometime after the body had decomposed to be used as relics. Other than that, the tomb - measuring 11 feet long by 4 feet wide by 6 feet high - was untouched. 

The queen is thought to have been 30 to 45 when she died, but archaeologists have uncovered no clues as to her name, dynasty or cause of death. 

Freidel, who leads the excavation team with archaeologist Hector Escobedo of Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, said the power the queen held is evident in the 1,600 artifacts found in the tomb - especially the remains of a plated helmet. 

Twenty-two jade plaques, each about 2 inches square, appear to have been part of the helmet. Archeologists also found a 4-inch long jade carving depicting the dead of a deity in profile - a type of jewel worn by kings and queens, Freidel said. 

Stingray spines found in the tomb were usually used as bloodletting implements - males pierced their genitals in ceremonies that offered their blood to the gods, while women generally placed the spines in their tongues. The ones found in the tomb were placed on the queen's pelvis, Freidel said. 

"She's being represented as both male and female, in my view," Freidel said. 

Research suggests that Waka' - called El Peru on present-day maps - was inhabited as early as 500 B.C., but reached its peak between A.D. 400 and A.D. 800. The city was abandoned in the late 800s to 900s. 

Freidel's project is working with the Guatemala government and conservation groups to try to protect 230,000 acres of the Laguna del Tigre. 

Last year, 100,000 acres of the park were burned as impoverished villagers cleared rain forest for illegal cattle ranching and logging. Freidel says the deforestation threatens habitat for several endangered species, including the scarlet macaw, as well as the area's archaeological resources. 

___ 

On the Net: 

SMU: http://smu.edu/smunews/waka/default.asp

Small Biz Owners Cope With Rising Prices 

Thu May 6, 8:06 AM ET 
Add Business - 

By JOYCE M. ROSENBERG, News Source Business Writer 

NEW YORK - With inflation rising, especially when it comes to gasoline prices, and interest rates also on the way up, many small business owners are becoming more creative about cutting costs. 

Related Quotes 
DJIA
NASDAQ
^SPC 10241.26
1937.74
1113.99 -69.69
-19.52
-7.54

Get Quotes 
delayed 20 mins - disclaimer 
Quote Data provided by The News Source

"You really have - in this economy - to be careful," said Amy Levy, who owns a public relations firm in Los Angeles. 

Levy, who says it can cost $40 to fill her car up, said she's becoming more careful about making 40 mile trips to business appointments. She'll still travel to meet with clients, but she might not make every photo shoot. 

She's also rethinking subscriptions to some trade publications because "$20 here, $50 there, it really adds up, especially for a small business owner." 

Since the start of 2004, inflation has become an issue for small business owners. They're particularly feeling the pinch of higher gasoline prices, but with the Consumer Price Index (news - web sites) already up 5.1 percent this year, it's clear that many things are getting more expensive. And with interest rates expected to rise in the near future, the cost of borrowing will also be going up. 

Many small business owners would like to pass on their rising costs to customers - and the jump in the CPI indicates that many are doing so. 

"Compared to a year ago, it's probably a little easier to raise prices," said Raymond Keating, chief economist for the Small Business Survival Committee, a Washington-based advocacy group. 

But the more competitive an industry is, the harder it is to charge customers more. 

"For a retailer that has to keep in mind that Wal-Mart's down the road, it's going to be a little more difficult," Keating said. 

At Planterra Corp., a Bloomfield, Mich., interior landscaping firm, "we're in a still price-sensitive marketplace," co-owner Shane Pliska said. "We're trying to be a better business and be more efficient rather than passing on prices to our customers." 

Planterra's solution to higher gasoline prices has been to schedule almost all of its deliveries over four days instead of five. Drivers are now working four 10-hour days instead of five eight-hour days, and Pliska said the company has cut its fuel expenditures by 20 percent. 

"We discovered that our routers, our drivers, were delivering in a more efficient way," Pliska said. 

Whether they can raise prices for not, business owners need to look at their entire operation to see where they might be able to make some more cuts or substitutions. 

Levy, for example, said she's stopped overnighting packages to clients if she'll be traveling to their neighborhoods in the next few days and the clients don't need the materials immediately. 

Although inflation is making companies more vigilant about costs, Keating noted that higher prices are also a sign that business is improving. 

"It's a pretty good environment for the economy overall," he said. 

It's also true that the Federal Reserve (news - web sites) is poised to push interest rates higher to ensure that the economy doesn't grow too fast, and that can be a concern for businesses hoping to borrow. But Keating doesn't expect a quarter-point increase in rates to do much damage to small businesses, because rates will still be at extremely low levels. 

Higher rates tend to affect more-established businesses the most, since startups generally are financed with an entrepreneur's own sources of capital, often credit cards or personal loans. A business owner with a track record who's concerned about rates should consider taking out a line of credit now, before rates move up. 

In the case of a new company, a savvy owner will use money from cards with extremely low rates - and there are very favorable long-term deals available if the owner has a good personal credit history. Such rates tend not to be affected by the Federal Reserve's monetary decisions.

Red Cross Sought Action on Prisoner Abuse 

22 minutes ago

GENEVA - The international Red Cross said Thursday that it had repeatedly asked U.S. authorities to take action over alleged prisoner abuse at Iraq (news - web sites)'s Abu Ghraib prison before recent revelations about the way detainees were treated. 

"We were aware of what was going on, and based on our findings we have repeatedly requested the U.S. authorities to take corrective action," said Nada Doumani, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, speaking from Amman, Jordan. 

The ICRC, which visits prisoners held by coalition authorities in Iraq, had previously declined to comment publicly on conditions at the prison. 

"We've been visiting Abu Ghraib prison since already from last year," Doumani told The News Source. "We are of course aware of the situation since we talk with the detainees privately. 

"We get testimony from them. We visit all the premises in this place. We crosscheck information we receive from different detainees. Definitely we were aware of what was going on in Abu Ghraib. 

Doumani said the visits have been taking place every five or six weeks since last year. The most recent visit was March 20, she said. 

The scandal over treatment of prisoners began when CBS television broadcast pictures of smiling American guards with Iraqi prisoners in humiliating positions. That unleashed a huge international outcry. 

The ICRC is designated by the Geneva Conventions on warfare to visit prisoners of war and other people detained by an occupying power. It traditionally discusses its observations only with the detaining authority, but has been under pressure to say whether it had specifically warned the United States about prisoner abuse before the photographs came to light. 

Doumani didn't say specifically when it gave its first warnings, but that it was over a period of months. 

Yankees Balk at 'Spider-Man' Ads on Bases 

1 hour, 56 minutes ago

By RONALD BLUM, News Source Sports Writer 

NEW YORK - Spider-Man is coming to a base near you. In the latest example of a sponsor's stamp on the sports world, ads for the movie "Spider-Man 2" will be placed atop bases at major league ballparks during games from June 11-13. 

The promotion, announced Wednesday, is part of baseball's pitch to appeal to younger fans - and make money along the way. 

But the New York Yankees (news), one of 15 teams at home that weekend, balked at the idea after the deal was announced. They will put ads on the bases only during batting practice, and then just for one game, team spokesman Rick Cerrone said. 

While commemorative logos have been on bases for special events such as the All-Star game or World Series (news - web sites), the Hall of Fame knew of no other commercial ads on bases, spokesman Jeff Idelson said. 

"This was a unique chance to combine what is a sort of a universally popular character and our broad fan base, including the youth market we're trying to reach out to," said Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief operating officer. "It doesn't impact the play or performance of the game." 

Nowadays, ads can show up just about anywhere in sports. 

Telecasts of major league and college football games, for example, include virtual ads visible just to TV viewers. College football bowl games are named for advertisers. Boxers' backs bear stenciled ads. Just last week, a court ruled that Kentucky Derby jockeys could wear sponsors' patches on their uniforms. 

"I guess it's inevitable, but it's sad," said Fay Vincent, a former baseball commissioner and former president of Columbia Pictures, which is releasing "Spider-Man 2." 

"I'm old-fashioned. I'm a romanticist. I think the bases should be protected from this. I feel the same way I do when I see jockeys wears ads: Maybe this is progress, but there's something in me that regrets it very much," he added. 

Chicago Cubs (news) manager Dusty Baker didn't think it would make a difference. 

"I don't care," he said. "You've still got to touch base, whether they got spiders, scorpions or snakes on them." 

The movie promotion has been in the works for more than a year and will include ad buys and ballpark events, such as giving masks to fans, said Jacqueline Parkes, baseball's senior vice president for marketing and advertising. 

The ads, about 4-by-4-inches with a red background and yellow webbing, won't appear on home plate. The Yankees did agree to allow ads in the on-deck circles during their series that weekend against San Diego. 

"Spider-Man 2" opens June 30, and the weekend in early June was picked because it is during interleague play, which draws higher attendance than usual. 

"We need to reach out to a younger demographic to bring them to the ballpark," Parkes said. "They are looking for nontraditional breakthrough ways to convey 'Spider-Man' messaging. ... It's the future of how we generate excitement inside the stadium and about the game itself." 

Baseball will receive about $3.6 million in a deal negotiated by Major League Baseball Properties with Marvel Studios and Columbia Pictures, a division of Sony Inc., a high-ranking baseball executive said on condition of anonymity. 

The Yankees and Boston Red Sox (news) will get more than $100,000 each, the team executive said, also on condition of anonymity. Most of the other 13 teams playing at home that weekend will get about $50,000 apiece, the team executive said. 

Parkes said the amount a team receives depends on the level of its participation. Geoffrey Ammer, president of marketing for the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, was not immediately available for comment, spokesman Steve Elzer said. 

In a twist, Amanda Aardsma, the sister of Giants rookie pitcher David Aardsma, has a small role in the movie. 

Ralph Nader (news - web sites), a presidential candidate and consumer advocate, criticized the deal. He wrote Tuesday to baseball commissioner Bud Selig, denouncing the decision to have ads on uniforms during the season-opening series in March between the Yankees and Tampa Bay Devil Rays (news) in Tokyo. 

"It's gotten beyond grotesque," Nader said. "The fans have to revolt here. Otherwise, they'll be looking at advertisements between advertisements." 

Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, called for baseball fans to boycott Sony products. Nader is the chair of the organization's advisory board. 

U.S. Rep George Nethercutt, a Washington Republican who is a former part-owner of the Greensboro Bats and the Michigan Battle Cats minor league teams, sent a letter to Selig protesting the decision. 

"Little Leaguers deserve to see their heroes slide into bases, not ads," wrote Nethercutt, who is running for U.S. Senate. 

Todd Zeile of the New York Mets (news) didn't mind the ads. 

"We're an entertainment outlet. there's going to be commercialism," he said. "At least, at this point, we don't look like NASCAR (news - web sites) drivers or World Cup soccer players. That's not to say that's not in the future." 

In separate promotions, the bases also will feature pink ribbons Sunday as part of a Mother's Day promotion to raise breast-cancer awareness, and they will have blue ribbons on Father's Day, June 20, to raise prostate-cancer awareness. 

John Hirschbeck, head of the World Umpires Association, said the ads won't make it harder for umpires to make calls at the bases. And it wouldn't bother him if umpires' uniforms had ads - as long as they share the profit. 

"We've got it on jockeys' pants. Why not?" he said. 

Vincent, brought into baseball by commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti, wondered how his friend would have reacted. Giamatti, who died in 1989, rhapsodized about baseball is essays such as "The Green Fields of the Mind," in which he referred to second base as a "jagged rock" in the middle of the field. 

"Wherever he is, Bart is spinning," Vincent said. "It's a good thing he's not around." 

World Faces a 'Devastating' Diabetes Epidemic-WHO

Wed May 5,12:49 PM ET 
Add Health 

By Richard Waddington 

GENEVA  - The world faces a devastating diabetes epidemic, with the annual death toll already exceeding the three million killed by AIDS (news - web sites) and set to rise, the World Health Organization (news - web sites) warned Wednesday. 


 

Issuing a cry of alarm about the disease, the WHO and the International Diabetes Foundation said the number of sufferers worldwide would more than double to 366 million by 2030, from some 171 million at present. 

Although often thought a rich country risk, it is in poorer countries that diabetes is growing fastest, with cases seen rising 150 percent over the next 25 years. In India, for example, the number would leap from 32 million to 80 million. 

Furthermore, while in rich states diabetes affects mainly older people, in poorer countries incidence is surging among those still economically active, the two organizations said. 

"The number is increasing dramatically and has the potential to overwhelm countries' health systems," WHO director for chronic disease Dr Robert Beaglehole told a news conference. 

Diabetes is often linked to obesity, which the WHO has already warned is rising in developing as well as developed countries. 

WHO and the Foundation said they were launching a campaign to raise awareness, because, unlike some other health threats, diabetes could be prevented by improved eating and exercise habits. 

"It is determined environmentally and therefore it can be reversed," Beaglehole said. 

LARGELY UNRECOGNIZED 

Some 3.2 million people died in 2000, the latest year for which figures were available, of ailments brought on by diabetes such as cardiovascular disease and kidney failure. 

This compares with three million deaths from AIDS. 

"The burden of premature death from diabetes is similar to that of HIV (news - web sites)/AIDS, yet the problem is largely unrecognized," the two organizations said in a statement. 

Although it was not possible to predict accurately the future death rate, WHO officials said it would probably mirror the increase in overall cases. 

The per capita death toll was highest in the Middle East and parts of the Pacific, with more than one in four deaths in the 35-64 age range attributed to diabetes. 

There is some evidence ethnicity plays a role, with Asians and Africans seemingly more prone to the illness, which can also cause blindness and poor circulation leading in some cases to amputation of limbs. 

Type 1 diabetes, which mainly affects children, appears genetically determined and has no cure. 

But most sufferers have type 2, which some 58 percent of the time is triggered by being overweight, combined with a lack of exercise, the WHO and the Foundation said.

Report: Disney Blocking Anti-Bush Documentary

1 hour, 21 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES  - Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore's documentary linking President Bush (news - web sites) with powerful Saudi families, including that of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), is stirring up controversy even before its release. 

That's if it even gets released. 

Hollywood trade paper Daily Variety said in its Wednesday edition that Walt Disney Co. has moved to prevent its Miramax Films unit from distributing "Fahrenheit 911." 

The Disney edict could herald the bloodiest political battle yet between Miramax's feisty co-chairman Harvey Weinstein and Disney CEO Michael Eisner, who oversaw the purchase of Miramax a decade ago, Daily Variety said. 

"Fahrenheit 911," Moore's follow-up to his Academy Award-winning film "Bowling for Columbine, will still premiere in competition at the Cannes Film Festival (news - web sites) in France later this month. Rumors had been circulating of a July release date in North America, but the film does not appear on Miramax's summer schedule, the paper said. 

It quoted a Miramax spokesman as saying that the company was "looking forward to resolving this amicably." 

Officials from Miramax and Disney were not immediately available for comment on the report. 

Sony Launches Online Music Service 

Tue May 4, 8:47 PM ET

By ALEX VEIGA, News Source Business Writer 

LOS ANGELES - Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news) (news - web sites). entered the bourgeoning digital music market Tuesday, launching an online music download service that the electronics and media conglomerate is banking will also generate sales for its line of portable audio players. 

The service, dubbed Sony Connect, offers more than 500,000 tracks from artists on major and independent labels. Like Napster (news - web sites) 2.0 and the iTunes Music Store from Apple Computer Inc., Sony Connect sells individual tracks starting at 99 cents and full album downloads beginning at $9.99. 

Sony's entry into the online music market comes more than a year since the launch of iTunes and months behind about a dozen other pay music sites and subscription services. Like Apple, which used its online music sales as way to drive sales of its iPod digital players, Sony hopes to turn a profit for its own array of audio players. 

But doing so will depend largely on whether Sony can draw music fans who have not already invested in iPods or other music players - which cannot play song files in Sony's ATRAC3 format - to buy its own brand of audio devices. 

"They're behind the curve already and they have to play catch-up on two fronts, on selling their audio players and getting people to use their music service," said Michael Goodman (news), senior analyst with the Yankee Group in Boston. "There's roughly three to four million people that have already placed that bet." 

Officials at Santa Monica-based Sony Connect Inc., which runs the service, say the online market is still developing and there is room for Sony to scoop up market share. 

"Apple did an excellent job in cultivating this new market," said spokesman Mack Araki. "We believe we can expand the market to a much broader audience with a broader line of devices and an easy to use service." 

Apple has about 30 percent share of the overall portable digital music player market, which includes players that play protected content sold by the online services and players that can only play MP3s or other unsecured song files, Goodman said. 

Apple's share of portable players that can play legally purchased music files is between 80 percent and 90 percent, he said. 

Users of Sony Connect need to download its SonicStage interface and player to play the songs. Araki said the software can convert MP3 files to the higher-quality ATRAC3 format. The program also enables users to burn audio CDs that can play on any CD player. 

Sony Connect adopts the same copy restrictions that most other services do, allowing songs to be transferred to up to three PCs and transfers to compatible portable audio devices. Up to 10 audio CDs can be burned with the same track listing. 

____ 

On the Net: 

http://www.connect.com

Marijuana Abuse Is Up Among U.S. Adults 

Tue May 4, 4:00 PM ET 


By LINDSEY TANNER, News Source Medical Writer 

CHICAGO - Habitual marijuana use increased among U.S. adults over the past decade, particularly among young minorities and baby boomers, government figures show. 


 

The prevalence of marijuana abuse or dependence climbed from 1.2 percent of adults in 1991-92 to 1.5 percent in 2001-02, or an estimated 3 million adults 18 and over. 

That represents an increase of 22 percent, or 800,000 people, according to data from two nationally representative surveys that each queried more than 40,000 adults. 

Among 18- to 29-year-olds, the rate or abuse or dependence remained stable among whites but surged by about 220 percent among black men and women, to 4.5 percent of that population, and by almost 150 percent among Hispanic men, to 4.7 percent. 

Among all adults ages 45 to 64, the rate increased by 355 percent, to about 0.4 percent of that population. 

The report, published in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association (news - web sites), was led by Dr. Wilson Compton of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, who said the rise in dependence was probably due at least partly to increases in the potency of pot over the past decade. 

Also, the figures may indicate that baby boomers "bring their bad habits with them into old age," he said. 

The researchers said adults were considered marijuana abusers if repeated use of the drug hurt their ability to function at work, in school or in social situations, or created drug-related legal problems. 

Drug users were considered dependent if they experienced increased tolerance of marijuana, used it compulsively and continued using it despite drug-related physical or psychological problems. 

Overall use of the drug - that is, casual use and habitual use - remained stable at around 4 percent, or more than 6 million adults. 

"This study suggests that we need to develop ways to monitor the continued rise in marijuana abuse and dependence and strengthen existing prevention and intervention efforts," said Dr. Nora Volkow, the institute's director. Programs that target young black and Hispanic adults are particularly needed, she said. 

Increases in dependence among young minorities may reflect their growing assimilation into sectors of white society where marijuana use is more accepted, Compton said. 

Researchers from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism contributed to the report. 

___ 

On the Net: 

JAMA http://jama.ama-assn.org 

Health - The News Source

Study: Low-Fat May Not Be Best for Heart

Tue May 4,10:24 AM ET

Add Health 

By Amy Norton 

NEW YORK (The News Source Health) - A relatively high amount of fat in the diet may be a boon to a healthy person's cholesterol levels, a small study suggests. On the other hand, limiting fat intake too much could have the opposite effect. 

Researchers at the State University of New York at Buffalo found that when 11 healthy but sedentary adults followed a very low-fat diet (19 percent of calories from fat) for three weeks, they saw a drop in their HDL cholesterol -- the "good" cholesterol believed to protect against heart disease. 

In contrast, three weeks on a diet that provided 50 percent of calories from fat boosted participants' HDL levels, according to findings published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. 

To circulate in the blood, cholesterol must be attached to a protein, forming a complex called a lipoprotein. HDL, or high-density lipoprotein, molecules carry cholesterol away from the arteries and to the liver to be cleared from the body. Experts believe that an HDL level of 60 or more helps lower the risk of heart disease, while a level lower than 40 raises the risk. 

The new findings suggest that adequate fat intake can help ward off heart disease by raising HDL. 

"That isn't to say we think everyone should be on a 50-percent fat diet," study co-author Dr. David R. Pendergast told The News Source Health. 

But, he said, the findings do indicate that moderation, and not tight restriction, is the way to go. According to Pendergast, that means getting about 30 to 35 percent of calories from fat -- at or slightly more than the level health officials currently recommend. 

But he also stressed the importance of calorie balance, which means eating only enough to meet the body's calorie expenditure. Fat has more calories per gram than either carbohydrates or protein, and if a person takes in more calories as a result of eating more fat, weight gain may follow. 

While saturated fat is blamed for raising "bad" LDL cholesterol levels, Pendergast said it may in fact be the combination of lots of fat and too many calories that makes for unhealthy cholesterol profiles. 

In his team's study, the high-fat diet -- rich in foods such as red meat and olive oil -- provided roughly the same number of daily calories as participants' regular diets, which contained about 30 percent of calories from fat. 

The 19-percent low-fat diet had fewer calories, and men and women in the study lost a small amount of weight while following it. Their HDL levels, however, were significantly lower on this diet than on the high-fat one-an average of 54 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL), versus 63 mg/dL, Pendergast and his colleagues found. 

What's more, the high-fat diet did not boost LDL cholesterol beyond the levels participants had on their regular diets. 

Although the men and women followed each diet for only three weeks, Pendergast said he does not think the cholesterol effects are "transient." 

He and his colleagues had previously conducted a similar study with endurance runners, in which a very low fat intake had negative effects on HDL cholesterol and on immune function. Pendergast said this research suggests that both healthy, sedentary people and healthy athletes are "probably not well served" by diets very low in fat. 

Whether high- and low-fat diets have the same effects in obese individuals or those with cardiovascular disease is not yet clear, he noted. 

As for why a high-fat, calorie-conscious diet might bump up HDL levels, one theory is that dietary fat leads to higher levels of the chief HDL transporter protein, ApoA1. 

SOURCE: Journal of the American College of Nutrition, April 2004.

But It Was So Tasty...snack DNA Nabs Thief

May 4, 10:52 am ET 

BERLIN  - A German burglar who took a bite out of a meatball during a night raid on a sandwich shop was caught after forensic scientists ran a DNA test on it.

"A DNA test on the saliva traces identified an old friend," police in Frankfurt said Tuesday.

Police did not have to spend long hunting down the 43-year-old culprit after the meatball theft in January because he was already in prison for burglary.

A Toast to the Prime Minister!

May 4, 10:49 am ET 

OTTAWA  - Canadians upset that genetically modified wheat might one day find itself on their shelves now have a new way to vent their anger -- mail a slice of bread to Prime Minister Paul Martin.

Two groups of activists launched their innovative campaign in bakeries and grocery stores across the country Tuesday as a way to protest against what they say is Ottawa's plan to allow GMO products in Canada.

"We're hoping that a huge pile of bread sitting in his office will finally force Martin to act in accordance with the will of the public on this issue," said Anne-Marie Turmel of Friends of the Earth of Quebec. Canadian regulators are examining the food, feed and environmental safety of a variety of GMO wheat from Monsanto Co. designed to withstand a popular weed killer.

The possibility of government approval alarms the Canadian Wheat Board, which has a monopoly on bread wheat sales from Canada's main growing region. The CWB has said buyers of 87 percent of its wheat last year required guarantees it was not genetically modified.

Laura Sewell of the Council of Canadians -- the other activist group involved -- said the protest follows a similar campaign last October in which Canadians were urged to send slices of bread to members of parliament.

"I don't know how much bread they received but it was enough to be noticed," she said.

New U.S. 'Secrets' Include Pinochet's Pisco Sours

May 4, 9:30 am ET 

WASHINGTON  - Don't tell anyone, but Augusto Pinochet was partial to scotch and pisco sours.

This information about the former Chilean dictator's beverage preferences used to be public knowledge but is now one of 14 million U.S. secrets that were classified last year, the National Security Archive -- an independent nongovernmental watchdog group -- said on Monday.

That's up from 11 million national security secrets classified in 2002 and 8 million the year before that, the archive said in a statement, which also included the details on what Pinochet liked to drink.

That piquant information was included in a 1975 biographical sketch of Pinochet by the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The sketch was released in full in 1999 when President Bill Clinton declassified U.S. documents related to human rights abuses in Chile. It was re-released in 2003, but with much of the material blacked out. Now it is officially under wraps again, but the archive posted both the blacked-out and full versions on its Web site, http://www.nsarchive.org.

"It's reflexive, knee-jerk secrecy," said the archive's director, Thomas Blanton. "Nobody's back there behind the curtain asking, 'Does this secret make us safer or is it just to keep somebody from being embarrassed?"'

The information on the 14 million new secrets comes from a new report released to President Bush by the Information Security Oversight Office, which oversees the national security secrecy system, the archive said.

The National Security Archive is an independent nongovernmental research institute and library.

More Vets Get Drastic Disease 03-May-2004

It has been reported that more Gulf War Vets got Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS), which gradually leads to complete paralysis, than the general public. Those soldiers blamed it on bioterrorism from Saddam, while current soldiers in Iraq fear they may get it from the vaccinations they're forced to take, which are often not yet approved for the general public. Now it's been discovered that not just Gulf War Vets, but ALL Vets are more likely to get the disease. 

Helen Phillips writes in New Scientist that public health researcher Marc Weisskopf found that soldiers who served in either the first or second world wars, the Korean war or the Vietnam war are 60% more likely to develop ALS, and those who served in several wars are twice as likely to get it. The risk is the same for soldiers in the army, navy, air force or national guard. 

Since soldiers were not exposed to chemical weapons in all of those conflicts, the cause may be chemicals used by our own military. It could also be caused by trauma, stress, infection, exposure to lead in bullets or extreme physical exercise. Any increase in the incidence of ALS will be noticed, because the disease is very rare. About 10% of the cases are inherited. Neurobiologist Jasper Daube says, "I am very interested and excited by any study that helps sort the cause out." 

Like to Eat Meat? Read On... 13-Oct-2003

A molecule that makes the immune system think our body has been invaded is absorbed into our bodies when we eat red meat and milk products. Despite this, we've been eating meat and rejecting fish every chance we've gotten since prehistoric days. 

The molecular sugar called N-glycolylneuraminic acid (Neu5Gc), which is found in non-human mammals, occurs naturally in lamb, pork and beef. Researchers have found that eating red meat causes this molecule to become absorbed into our tissues. This can set off an immune response, since our bodies may see the molecule as an invader. They've also found small amounts of Neu5Gc in human cancer tissues, leading to the theory that eating red meat may eventually cause cancer. 

But the biggest problem is with organ transplants. Researcher Ajit Varki says, "Over the past decade, the number of patients waiting for organ transplantation has more than tripled, with little increase in the number of donor organs. This has led to an exploration of using animal organs for transplantation into humans, a process called xenotransplantation. However, the leading donor candidate is the pig, an animal in which Neu5Gc happens to be very common. The current study raises the possibility that human antibodies against Neu5Gc might recognize the Neu5Gc in the pig organ and facilitate its rejection." 

Despite this, scientists have discovered that Stone Age man stopped eating fish and started eating meat as soon as he could. "In Britain [meat eating] happened very quickly, in a generation or two," says researcher Michael Richards. "We had expected to find a gradual switchover, but this was a virtual dietary revolution." 

Richards studied the change in diet during the Neolithic period between 5,200 and 4,500 years ago, when even people who live next to the sea switched to meat if they could. "Out went the marine foods and instead we find a wholesale switch to other meats. We have found huge quantities of cattle bones as well as pigs in the settlements from this period," he says. 

"It was a complete dietary makeover. We have no evidence that there were suddenly no fish in the sea. The people simply stopped eating fish."

Cancer Survivors Shouldn't Have Kids 07-Jul-2003

Roger Highfield writes in the Telegraph (U.K.) newspaper that it may be dangerous for cancer survivors to have children, since the genetic changes caused by radiation and chemotherapy can be passed down to their children and grandchildren, putting them at greater risk of developing cancer. 

Researcher Dr. Yuri Dubrova has discovered that this happens with mice, and he now wants to look at statistics to see if there's evidence that this happens with human beings. "I am uncomfortable with extrapolating our results," he says. "...The mouse data are not enough to change our perception. We are desperate for human data.'' 

It's already known that radiation therapy can alter the genetic makeup of the individual being treated. Earlier studies have found no inherited mutations, or cancers, among human families that were exposed to high levels of radiation, such as those at Hiroshima or Chernobyl. But Dubrova has found a more subtle problem. Radiation seems to affect the "eraser" used by cells in the body to correct genetic errors. This results in "genomic instability," which gives tumors the ability to quickly adapt and change, making them less vulnerable to body defenses or to drugs. 

When male mice were exposed to high levels of radiation, these genetic mutations were passed on to their offspring, even when the offspring had not been exposed to the radiation and the mother wasn't irradiated. This higher mutation rate persisted in the grandchildren of the mice. "We were absolutely surprised," Dubrova says. "When you go to the second generation you see the same level of instability that you see in the first generation of offspring." 

He expects to find evidence of this happening in humans and says, "I don't think there is a great deal of difference between humans and mice, frankly. At a first glance we do differ. But looking closely at biology, DNA repair, damage and genome size, we are pretty similar.''

Cancerous Conditions at Glamorous High School 23-Jun-2003

An alarming number of cases of cancer are turning up among former students of Beverly Hills High School in California, in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the country. Many of its graduates became movie stars. People blame the cancer on pollution from oil rigs that are set up next to the school's athletic fields. Famous environmentalist Erin Brockovich, who had a movie made about her, is part of the legal team that's filing a suit to have the rigs removed. They say the cancer rate among ex- students is 20 to 30 times higher than the national average. 

Mike Edwards of Venoco, the company that owns the rigs, says, "I think what the tests show is that the air quality is safe for the workers, safe for the neighborhood, safe for the school." 

Dr. Paolo Toniolo, a professor of environmental medicine, says, "The high number, if truly high, could be a pure coincidence, as cancers are rarely distributed uniformly in the population, but tend to lump together in time and space. Other factors should also be considered such as the frequency of acquired conditions causing immune deficiency, the use of illicit drugs, the use of steroid hormones or other performance-enhancing medications by athletes."

Childhood Cancer Caused by Infection 26-Sep-2003

A common infection could be the cause of the mysterious brain and lymphatic cancers that kill young children. Scientists have discovered that childhood cancer cases cluster together in a way that suggests that this is the origin. And how do adults who survived childhood cancer feel about their lives today? 

Caroline Ryan writes in BBC News Online that researchers who studied childhood cancer rates in England for the last 50 years say the disease patterns can't be explained by chance. They found that cases of lymphatic cancer and brain tumors occurred in the same areas and time periods much more frequently than they would have expected. Children born within a year of each other and living within a few miles of one another when they were born were much more likely to come down with these diseases. 

Most of the clusters were too small to have been noticed before-usually around 3 or 4 cases-but the frequency of these cases was unusual. "We found something that's not random, that isn't likely to be a chance occurrence. It's the first time we've found these clusters so the big step forward is that it points to a common factor between these cancers," says researcher Richard McNally. "We would infer that it's to do with something sporadic, some sort of occasional environmental exposure. The obvious cause would be infections, which come and go in waves. It could be that these cancers result as a rare consequence of exposure to certain infections." 

How do childhood cancer survivors do in adulthood? Almost 44% of 9,535 survivors who were studied had at least one significant health problem related to their cancer, including amputations, organ damage or stress due to worries about a recurrence of the cancer. "The cancer therapy that did a good job of killing the cancer cells also can affect those developing cells and tissues in ways that we may not recognize until 20 or 30 years later," says Dr. Kevin Oeffinger. 

The study participants were diagnosed between 1970 and 1986. "They realize that they're pioneers," Oeffinger says. "People treated in the '50s and '60s did not have the chance of making it into their adult life." 

Kelly Wood is a survivor who is now 29 and has a 2-year-old son. She was diagnosed with leukemia at age 2 and had three years of radiation and chemotherapy, which left her heart muscle weak and damaged her lungs and thyroid gland. She takes medicine for these conditions, but says, "I'm doing pretty good. I went to school and did everything that everybody else did." She's thankful the treatment didn't leave her infertile, which sometimes happens. 

17% of patients reported mental health problems, 13% reported anxiety and 12% reported impairments in daily functioning, partly caused by amputations. The percentages were higher for cancers requiring aggressive or invasive treatment. Doctors now know that some types of cancer, such as Hodgkin's disease, require less radiation than previously thought. Dr. Melissa Hudson says, "Some of these patients by today's standards were probably overtreated."

More Harm Than Good 14-Oct-2003

Some heavily advertised products actually do you more harm than good. A recent study shows that sunscreens are totally worthless, but using them makes people complacent, so they spend more time in the sun, which can lead to skin cancer. And taking too many antacids can lead to dangerous food allergies. 

British Plastic surgeon Roy Sanders says suncreams were much less effective at blocking ultraviolet A (UVA) light, which is what causes the skin cancer melanoma, than UVB. "When ultraviolet A impinges on the skin it triggers the release of highly reactive chemicals called free radicals which we believe can induce a malignant change," he says. "Since ambient sunlight is principally ultraviolet A and since sunscreens protect mostly against ultraviolet B, if we use the sunscreens it may increase the risk of us developing a rather unpleasant cancer called malignant melanoma... We're lulled into a sense of false security...and so people are inclined to take a much greater dose of the sun." Cases of malignant melanoma have doubled every 10 years since the 1950s. 

Austrian researcher Erika Jensen-Jarolim says indigestion pills may trigger food allergies, because they allow food to enter the intestines before it is fully broken down. She gave half the people in her study a medicine for indigestion, while the other half got a placebo. None of them had any food allergies. She found that people taking the drug showed signs of food allergy symptoms, while none of those in the placebo group did. 

Antacids are designed to reduce levels of gastric acid in the stomach, but this acid is necessary, because it helps the stomach to break down food before it enters the intestines. Low levels of acid may result in food entering the intestines before it is broken down. The body's immune system then tries to attack the food, triggering an allergic reaction. This reaction is less likely to happen with familiar foods, since the body has become accustomed to them. 

Allergies to food can range from mild rashes to potentially life- threatening anaphylactic shocks. "These findings are significant for those people at risk for a food allergy," says Jensen-Jarolim, "since 10% of the adult population today is on antacids."

Cancer has Eternal Life 03-May-2004

We recently explained that aging and death are caused by the fact that the ends of our cells, called telomeres, shorten every time the cell divides. But there is one kind of cell that has the secret of eternal life: cancer cells. If we could learn how they live forever, unless killed by chemotherapy or radiation, we might be able to figure out how we can live forever too. 

Shaoni Bhattacharya writes in New Scientist that cancer cells stay young by adding tiny caps to their telomeres whenever they divide, so they don't get shorter the way the ends of regular cells do. Researcher Madalena Tarsounas says, "Cancer has an amazing ability to shake off the shackles of aging and death, which is one of the reasons why it can be so hard to treat." 

If cancer can't show us how to live for ever, we might at least be able to figure out how to attack the telomeres of cancerous cells so they age and die like every other cell does. Researcher Robert Souhami says, "Cancer cells are adept at slipping the constraints of the aging process, but this highly significant study points to ways of making them mortal, and vulnerable, once more." 

Changing the telomeres of cancer cells would be a wonderful alternative for cancer patients who now have to undergo debilitating chemotherapy or radiation. Now it's been discovered that a substance in green tea helps kill leukemia cells by interrupting the communication signals they need in order to survive. What made researchers look at green tea? Since the 1970s, studies have shown that in parts of the world where people drink lots of it, the incidence of cancer is lower. Dr. Neil E. Kay says, "We're continuing to look for therapeutic agents that are nontoxic to the patient but kill cancer cells, and this finding...is an excellent start."

Police Use Sweet Tactics to Curb Drunken Brawls

May 3, 8:57 am ET 

LONDON  - Drunken brawlers beware -- the weapon of choice for police in the southern England seaside town of Bournemouth is chocolate rather than truncheons and handcuffs.

In an effort to reduce alcohol-related violence, police in the southern county of Dorset are handing out chocolate bars to late-night revelers as they leave the town's bars and clubs during the current three-day holiday weekend.

The government has launched a crackdown on heavy drinking in towns and cities across the country, aimed particularly at the young.

"The reason for most alcohol-related violence in Bournemouth is that people get frustrated, then aggressive, waiting for either food or a taxi home," said police constable Ian Curtis.

"By giving them something to eat as they leave bars and clubs, we hope to distract people from causing trouble by fulfilling one of their main needs -- food -- and giving them something else to do."

Schwarzenegger Seeks to Terminate Bobblehead Doll

May 4, 9:40 am ET 

By Adam Tanner

SAN FRANCISCO  - Having a doll with a bobbing head in your own likeness may be all right for Abraham Lincoln, Al Capone, Hilary Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Jesus. But California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is outraged and wants out, distinguished company or not.

Schwarzenegger has sued a family business objecting to its sale of a "bobblehead" doll featuring the former Hollywood action hero's likeness, his attorney said on Monday.

Totting an AK-47 style automatic weapon and a suit, the smiling Schwarzenegger doll is offered for $19.99 from www.bobbleheadelection.com. Bobblehead dolls typically include a spring inside the neck to allow the head to bobble.

"We spoke to them, they said, 'We're not going to stop', I said 'Fine, we're going to sue you,"' Schwarzenegger's personal attorney Martin Singer told The News Source. The suit was filed on Friday in Los Angeles County Superior Court in Santa Monica.

"They took my client's name, they took his likeness and they're selling it for money. They have no right to do it," Singer continued. "It's not political free speech."

The firm making the Schwarzenegger doll, Bosley Bobbing Head Doll Company of Canton, Ohio, has produced several well-known politicians in its $19.99 political line, including Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Jesus, Lincoln and Capone sell for $14.95.

"We're going to fight it; we think that we're right," said firm co-owner Todd Bosley. "A big legal bill isn't going to do us any good by any means but, you know, we're going to do everything we can to continue to sell it and to stay in business."

He said other politicians have welcomed dolls bearing their likeness. New York Senator Hillary Clinton signed one of her bobbleheads and returned it to the company. Former President Jimmy Carter sent them a signed book, and Former New York Mayor Rudolf Guliani has brought his doll to his speaking engagements, Bosley added.

The firm made less than a million dollars in sales last year from dolls made in China, he said.

Schwarzenegger, a former Mr. Universe and box office superstar, has aggressively sought to stop others to marketing his image. After a similar legal threat in January a Portland, Oregon, brewery stopped selling a beer called "The Governator" featuring a man flexing his muscles beneath a California logo with the words "Pumping Iron Brewing" above.

"He's always protected his commercial rights; they're very valuable," attorney Singer said. "He gets offered up to $20 million for commercial exploitation uses."

Bush, Kerry Awash in Money
Tue May 4, 7:55 AM ET

By Lisa Getter Times Staff Writer 

WASHINGTON - This year's presidential race - fueled by more than a million donors, including many who have never given before - is well on its way to becoming the country's first $1-billion political campaign, experts say. 

� Latimes.com home page
� Subscribe to the Los Angeles Times

Latest headlines: 
� Bush Bus Tour to Hit Four Ohio Stops 
AP - 34 minutes ago 
� Bush Promises Better Days for Slumping Ohio 
The News Source - 45 minutes ago 
� Kerry Blasts Bush's Education Policy 
AP - 57 minutes ago 

The money is coming in small donations and large ones, online and in the mail, from wealthy philanthropists and immigrants who can't even vote. In part, it represents unprecedented interest in the campaign from people throughout the country. 

Together, President Bush (news - web sites) and his presumptive challenger, Sen. John F. Kerry, have drawn money from 700,000 more individual donors than those who contributed to Bush and Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites) in the entire 2000 campaign, according to figures provided to The Times by the three campaigns. 

Already, donations to Bush, Kerry and the Democrats who had contested the Massachusetts senator for the party's nomination have exceeded more than $400 million - more than double what was raised at this point four years ago. 

By the time it's all over, when all the money spent by the political parties, state party organizations, independent groups, conventions and the candidates themselves is tallied, several campaign finance experts said the total will be up to $1 billion or more. 

"The numbers are phenomenal," said Anthony Corrado, a campaign finance expert at Colby College in Maine. "Something's happening here. It's like the explosion of civic participation in fundraising." 

Experts say several factors explain the 2004 money phenomenon. The contribution limit from individuals was doubled to $2,000, which naturally led to more money in the system. Both Bush and Kerry opted out of the public financing system during the primaries and caucuses, allowing them to raise as much money as possible until this summer's conventions. 

Donors can now give money over the Internet more easily. And the country is politically polarized, which has motivated people to try and give their candidate an edge in a very close race. 

"It's the perfect political storm for fundraising," said Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee (news - web sites). 

That money has translated into extensive television advertising, particularly in the 17 battleground states where the presidential election is being fought most intensely. It's also paying for voter mobilization drives and hefty fees for dozens of political consultants who strategize, produce ads and conduct polls, as well as to the broadcast stations and networks selling air time. 

"You're definitely talking in excess of $1 billion," said Dwight L. Morris, who analyzes campaign finance data for news organizations. "It is mind-boggling." 

The thought of a $1-billion presidential campaign shouldn't bother people, said Ed Gillespie, the Republican National Committee (news - web sites)'s chairman. 

"When you look at the amount of money spent to get people to vote and participate in the political system," he said, "it pales in comparison to what is spent to get people to buy toothpaste." 

Not all experts agree on how the billion-dollar figure will break down, but here's one conservative scenario that would easily put the race near that mark: Bush is expected to raise and spend about $210 million and Kerry, $120 million, including funds designated for legal and accounting expenses. After the conventions, each candidate will receive $75 million in public money for the general election. The rest of the Democratic field has already spent about $160 million, including matching funds. 

The RNC plans to pour at least $50 million into the presidential campaign; the DNC is confident it will spend at least that much as well. Another $100 million will be spent on the political conventions. Independent groups known as 527s say they will spend $145 million. And MoveOn.org has announced a $50-million fundraising goal for its political action committee. 

That would put the total over $1 billion. And that doesn't include money spent by other PACs, state political parties and interest groups on the presidential race. 

In the wake of campaign finance reform, the outpouring of so much money - particularly from individual donors - has turned conventional political wisdom on its head. 

"Everyone's assumptions have proved wrong," said Trevor Potter, a Washington lawyer and former chairman of the Federal Election Commission (news - web sites). 

The political parties, particularly the Democrats, were expected to be struggling for cash. The McCain-Feingold legislation approved two years ago banned them from receiving unlimited contributions - known as soft money - from unions, corporations and individuals. Yet, the Republican and Democratic national committees together have raised $230 million, more than what they collected at the same time in 2000 when soft money was allowed. 

Many "thought this party would be wiped out with McCain-Feingold," said McAuliffe. "Contrary to public perception, we are in the strongest financial position in the history of our party." 

The DNC has $35 million in cash today, compared with the spring of 2000, when it was millions of dollars in debt. 

Soft money is still finding a niche in the election through donations to the independent groups, known as 527s after a section of the Internal Revenue Service (news - web sites) tax code. Most of those groups are spending unlimited dollars on anti-Bush political advertising and get-out-the-vote programs. 

"We are seeing people coming out of the woodwork," said Ellen Malcolm, president of America Coming Together, one of the 527s. 

Donors to both parties feel the outcome of this year's election is critical - from the retired Honduran army colonel who has given money to Bush even though he is not a U.S. citizen, to the Hollywood producer who counted more than 200 new faces at a fundraiser she helped put on recently for Kerry. 

"Bush is a great motivator. I can't stand the guy. He's ruining our country and everything it stands for," said Roy Cloud, 45, a wine importer in Washington, D.C. He made his first political contributions this year - $250 to Kerry and a smaller amount to the MoveOn.org Voter Fund, an independent anti-Bush group. 

Castlen Moore, 25, who commutes between her house in Houston and her job at a Washington, D.C. engineering firm, had equally passionate things to say about why she recently contributed $250 to Bush's campaign. It was her first political contribution. 

"Once you donate money to a campaign, you feel connected to it," Moore said. She's decided that Americans will be much safer with Bush in office and is encouraging her friends to contribute money to him, even if they can afford only a $15 donation. 

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (news - web sites) shocked the political world early in the campaign when he raised $30 million in donations in chunks of less than $200 before dropping out of the race for the Democratic nomination. 

But like most fundraising records this year, that record has already been shattered. Bush had raised $37 million in donations of less than $200 as of the end of March; Kerry had raised $21.5 million in small donations, according to an analysis by the Campaign Finance Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit affiliated with George Washington University. 

The bulk of money flowing to both campaigns still comes from large donors such as Ravi Narayan, 45, an accountant in Virginia, who donated the maximum $2,000 to Bush. 

Narayan said he gave money "to make a stand." He supports Bush's positions on family values and taxes. "Everyone thinks the rich people are supporting Bush," he said. "I'm a new immigrant," from India. 

Hector Rene Fonseca, a retired Honduran army colonel, donated $2,000 to Bush and raised about $50,000 more on behalf of the president, even though he can't vote in the election. (As a permanent legal resident, he can give money). 

Bush's position on gay marriage motivated Fonseca to contribute. 

"That's what's key for me. Being of Latino descent, I do respect the institution of marriage between a man and a woman," he said. 

Allyn Stewart, a Los Angeles film producer and longtime Democratic fundraiser, has hosted two such events for Kerry. Both attracted political novices, including women who had never raised money for a political cause, she said, "moms, entertainment executives, lawyers, architects, truly all over the map." 

She's surprised by the number of people wanting to donate the maximum to Kerry: "There are a lot of people saying, 'I want to go to the full $2,000.' I've never experienced that before." 

Louis Susman, Kerry's national finance chairman, said he has never seen such interest in a presidential campaign: "Every single event I've had, I've been closed down by fire marshals or there's not been enough room." 

On Monday night in Minneapolis, thousands of donors packed a cavernous hall and contributed $1 million to Kerry - double the goal set by the campaign. 

The political parties are also benefiting from new money. The RNC said it had a million new donors since Bush took office. And the DNC said it has counted a million new donors since 2001 - including 800,000 who were identified through direct-mail solicitation. 

In Pittsburgh, engineer Lynda Bilec, "a young 63," gave her first contribution ever to the RNC this year, "because I like President Bush and I don't like the Democrats anymore." 

She said she donated $50 to the RNC and $50 to the Bush campaign. The campaign thanked her with a note and a picture of the president. 

In Atlanta, retired real estate executive Jack Cross, 73, a long-time Republican, said he became so distressed about the Bush administration's fiscal and foreign policies in January that he donated $25,000 to the DNC, the maximum allowed by an individual. 

Giving "money is the only thing I could do," he said. "My wife was shocked. She said, 'You're what?' " 

Concerned that there wouldn't be enough money for a Democratic presidential candidate to wage a successful campaign, a small group of wealthy liberals and Democratic strategists met last summer at philanthropist George Soros' home in the Hamptons to strategize. 

Out of that meeting, America Coming Together and other 527 groups were born. These groups fall under IRS regulations, so the money collected is not subject to soft-money restrictions. 

In March, the Bush campaign and the RNC filed a complaint with the FEC, alleging that what the 527s are doing is illegal. But donors who were named in that complaint are undeterred. 

"In my particular case, it motivated me to give more," said pharmaceutical company founder Agnes Varis, who donated $995,000 to the Joint Victory Campaign 2004, the fundraising arm of America Coming Together, before the complaint was filed. 

"What can I tell you? I come from Brooklyn," said Varis, 74. "I can't think of any better act of patriotism than giving to ... get the message out to the American people about what is really going on in this country. We have to take it back in 2004. I have a stake in that at my age."

Ex-Dillinger Hideout Up for Sale in Wis. 
Tue May 4, 4:07 AM ET 
Add U.S. National - 

By ROBERT IMRIE, News Source Writer 

MANITOWISH WATERS, Wis. - A lakeside restaurant where John Dillinger and his gang of bank robbers escaped a hail of government gunfire in the 1930s is up for sale for nearly $2.6 million. Bullet holes and all. 

Related Links
� Little Bohemia Restaurant - official site

It's the second time that Little Bohemia, a supper club and former inn on 11 acres, has been up for sale since Dillinger was the government's Public Enemy No. 1. 

"I tell people, 'I have got good food. And I hire nice people,'" owner Frank Theisen said. "'The sun sets over the lake. And I have bullet holes.'" 

Lots of them - in windows and three different pine walls. 

On April 22, 1934, federal agents were tipped off that Dillinger and Lester "Baby Face Nelson" Gillis were at Little Bohemia for a weekend getaway. 

Dillinger, alerted that something was up because dogs started barking, jumped out his upstairs room's window, onto the inn's roof and escaped into the darkness, running along the shores of Little Star Lake before he stole a car. 

The agents shot to death a local man and wounded two others in their attempt to capture Dillinger, who died three months later outside the Biograph theater in Chicago after he was betrayed by a woman who became known as the Lady in Red. 

"They made their escape pretty much clean," Theisen said. "Most all of the shooting that was done here - it wasn't so much of a gun battle - was bullets coming in. The guys had pretty much slipped out the back and away." 

The government badly wanted Dillinger and letting him escape was an embarrassment, Theisen said. 

After 16 years of cooking roast duck dinners and specialties such as liver dumpling soup - and answering umpteen questions about Dillinger - Theisen said it is time for him and his wife, Terry, to explore other options. 

Personal items that Dillinger left behind - including a suit, a suitcase, a canister of Ex-Lax and a bullet-riddled can the gangsters used for target practice - still are on display in the rustic restaurant tucked into thick woods about 100 miles north of Wausau. 

Yellowing newspaper accounts of Dillinger, many with screaming headlines such as "Dillinger Again Shoots Way out of Trap" or "Dillinger Runs for Cover," decorate the restaurant's entryway. As does the wanted poster the government issued offering a $15,000 reward for Dillinger, "Dead or Alive." 

Above the restaurant are several rooms including the one Dillinger stayed in the night of the shooting. The rooms are no longer rented out. 

There's been interest in buying the 11-acre property, but no offers in the year since he put it up for sale, Theisen said. The place's history makes it novel, he said. But it's the value of the land that gives the property its $2.59 million price tag. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Little Bohemia: http://www.littlebohemia.net

California thirsty for seawater Mon May 3, 9:40 AM ET

 - Chicago Tribune 

By John Fleming Special to the Tribune 

Water is everywhere along California's thirsty midsection and south, but not a drop to drink. Or to do the laundry, water the garden or drive explosive residential development and a huge industrial base. 

Yet as the unpotable Pacific sloshes up against the coast, a growing number of people are looking to the ocean to cure California's need for fresh water: 

Take out the salt and you have a virtually inexhaustible supply. 

Desalination has been used on a large-scale for decades in places such as the Middle East. And small facilities have played a part in alleviating water shortages during times of drought in California and other parts of the U.S. What is new is the scale and number of desalination plants being considered in California and other states, such as Florida and Texas.

Spurred in part by technological advances that have made the process cheaper and an exploding population that is putting more pressure on limited water resources, 20 desalination plants are in some stage of development along the California coastline. Some are small, and some are very large, including a proposed San Diego plant that would be the biggest in the Western Hemisphere, producing 50 million gallons of drinking water per day. State water officials say that if all the plants under discussion are built, more than a million Californians would be using seawater for their everyday needs. 

"The population of California is growing by 600,000 a year," said Chuck Keene an official at the state Department of Water Resources who led a 27-member task force formed last year to explore the possibilities of desalination. 

"How do we solve our water needs with that in mind? You have to come up with new and better ideas. Desalination will be part of the solution, it will happen; there is no question about that. The question is how best to approach it." 

Seawater that has been desalinated is not cheap, costing on average about $1,000 an acre-foot as opposed to about $30 from a readily available source such as a river, Keene said. An acre-foot is the amount of water needed to cover one acre with 1 foot of water, about enough to supply the water needs of a household in a year. 

Desalination also comes with its share of environmental concerns. Plant discharge dumped back into the ocean can be much saltier, affecting marine life, for example. 

There is also the question of private water distributors selling what is considered to be a public resource, seawater. The powerful California Coastal Commission, the state agency charged with regulating coastal development, is worried about this, while Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites)'s administration supports the private companies. 

Cost, environmental questions and the challenges involving the private sector, however, are secondary, California officials say. The real question surrounds development, they insist. 

"We have some very serious problems with big desal plants," said David Dilworth, the executive director of the environmental group Helping Our Peninsula's Environment in Monterey. "The bottom line is desalination can fuel explosive growth here." 

The prospect of runaway growth is especially worrying in central California, where places such as the Monterey Peninsula are nearly pristine, absent strip malls and acres of track homes, in part because of the lack of water 

That's why Dilworth and his group are closely watching a desalination project the state, local water district and county are considering about 15 miles north of the city of Monterey. 

Perched on land overlooking a small marina, the site is considered advantageous because it would be adjacent to the Duke Energy Moss Landing Power Plant, which could fuel it. And its location, on the way to Santa Cruz, positions it to provide water to population centers away from the peninsula. 

The project, tangled in bureaucracy and local politics, calls for a small capacity of about 9,000 acre-feet per year. But, Dilworth believes the Moss Landing project would immediately be ripe for expansion. 

"Sure, it is true that you can expand desalination facilities," said Tom Luster, the chief desalination official at the California Coastal Commission, "but before any addition to any plant would take place the owner of the plant would have to first come back to the commission." 

Approval wouldn't be easy, Luster said, and there would be extensive public debate. 

To many something must be done in California to alleviate the water shortage. The Monterey area is under orders from the state to dramatically reduce the amount of water it takes from the ecologically fragile Carmel River, and Southern California has to find a replacement for Colorado River water, which has been restricted by the federal government. 

Local officials project that the San Diego area alone will pick up an additional 800,000 residents by 2020. 

"In many ways desalination for coastal areas makes perfect sense," said Patricia Bernardi, a former member of the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District and self-described pragmatic environmentalist. "But it also makes sense to be diversified doesn't it? What we need is a combination of approaches that cures the shortages but doesn't fuel growth. Desal should be part of that."

U.S. may cut water to state

Southwest drought slashes Colorado River flows.

By Stuart Leavenworth -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Get weekday updates of Sacramento Bee headlines and breaking news. Sign up here.

The Bush administration is threatening to impose unilateral water cutbacks on California, Arizona and Nevada if the three states can't come up with a plan to deal with a historic drought on the Colorado River.

Following five years of dry weather, the two largest reservoirs on the Colorado are roughly half-empty and dropping fast, and Interior Department officials are urging water agencies to work together on a contingency plan or have one imposed on them.

"We need the three basin states to get their act together and deal with shortages," said Assistant Interior Secretary Bennett Raley in a recent meeting with water officials from California, Arizona and Nevada. If the three states can't work out a plan, he said, the Interior secretary "will have to do it."

For years, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and other fast-growing cities in the region have depended on surplus water from the Colorado - supplies that exceed their entitlements. Now, the Southwest is shifting to a much drier period, and states are facing not only the loss of surplus but also cutbacks that could affect tens of millions of people.

In California, the water squeeze is already being felt statewide. With less water from the Colorado River, Southern California is pushing conservation, more use of groundwater banks and extra pumping from the Delta.

"We are entering some new territory," said Raley, who notes that the modern Southwest has never had to deal with an extended drought.

Since 1999, Lake Mead has dropped more than 80 feet and is at 58 percent of capacity. With less water pressure going through its turbines, Hoover Dam is losing some of its capacity to generate power, and Las Vegas is preparing to deepen its water intake in Lake Mead to keep up with a moving target.

Upstream, at Lake Powell, the water loss is even more dramatic. In four years, Powell has dropped nearly 120 feet, and now holds 42 percent of its maximum water capacity. Never before have both Lake Mead and Lake Powell been at such a low state at the same time, according to officials for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

Water leaders in the Southwest are closely watching these lake levels, and so are those in other Western states. Under the 1922 Colorado River Compact, the upper-basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming must deliver 7.5 million acre-feet of water to the three lower-basin states each year. Lake Powell was built so the upper basin could deliver on that promise, but now Powell's future is in doubt.

According to federal forecasts, drought and water deliveries could drain Powell in three years. In such a situation, the upper basin would be forced to forgo river withdrawals or risk a major court battle.

To head off that prospect, water officials from seven states have been meeting regularly in recent months, said Dennis Underwood, a former reclamation commissioner who now works for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The most recent meeting was held Monday in Phoenix, where officials discussed options for keeping the taps flowing.

Some of those options, said Underwood, include storing lower-basin water in upper-basin reservoirs to reduce the huge evaporation that occurs in Lake Mead. Agencies are also discussing water trades and "forbearance agreements" - paying farmers not to irrigate - to help vulnerable areas through a drought.

One such spot is Las Vegas, the nation's fastest growing city and one that draws 98 percent of its water from the Colorado. Not wanting to gamble on their future, Nevada officials have been pressing for some type of interstate water-sharing arrangement.

Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said the recent talks are a recognition that the regional water situation is serious. "People are finally realizing that the drought is real," said Mulroy, "and not something I thought up in a bar."

In a December speech in Las Vegas, Interior Secretary Gale Norton laid out some of the possible scenarios. Under the 2001 Interim Surplus Guidelines, Norton said she is required to cut surplus supplies to California, Arizona and Nevada if the surface of Lake Mead drops to 1,125 feet in elevation - 10 feet below its current level.

Further down the road, Norton could use her court-appointed authority as Colorado "river master" to declare a shortage and impose cutbacks. Some water experts believe Norton could make such a declaration when Lake Mead's surface level hits 1,083 feet elevation - about 52 feet below its current elevation - but the law isn't specific.

To ratchet up the pressure, Interior officials invited Southwest water leaders and a group of journalists on a boat trip this month down the Grand Canyon, where Raley repeated his warning Norton was ready to take action. "Time lost now is time we may not be able to recover," said Raley, pacing across a sand bar like Gen. George Patton.

Some environmentalists say the Bush administration is delaying tough decisions by playing this kind of drawn-out pressure politics. This year, they note, the Bureau of Reclamation declared a partial surplus on the Colorado River, which further depleted Lake Mead. Now federal officials are preaching drought preparedness.

"The bureau is dragging its feet," said Jeff Van Ee, a water watchdog for the Sierra Club in Las Vegas. "They haven't taken this drought seriously."

Raley, who oversees the Bureau of Reclamation, said he started working closely on the drought problem in January. Before that, he helped seal a landmark settlement that quantified how much water California's cities and farms could draw from the Colorado River. By agreeing to limit its water withdrawals to 4.4 million acre-feet, California was given a 13-year grace period to continue receiving "surplus" water from the river.

Now, say water officials, that grace period appears to be moot.

War makes Iraq worst place to be a reporter

Mon May 3, 8:45 AM ET 
Add Mideast - NEWS SOURCE 

PARIS (NEWS SOURCE) - War has made Iraq (news - web sites) the most dangerous country for a reporter to work in, but Cuba, followed closely by China, jailed most journalists for doing their job last year, according to reports issued to mark World Press Freedom Day. 

NEWS SOURCE Photo 

The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists said up to 25 journalists had been killed at work in Iraq since March 2003, when a US-led invasion aimed at toppling the government of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was launched. 

"More than a year after the war in Iraq began, the country remains the most dangerous place in the world to work as a journalist," it said Monday. 

It said that at least six Iraqi media workers had been murdered and several others had received threats, while armed groups had abducted at least eight journalists so far this year. 

At least seven -- and possibly as many as nine -- journalists had been killed by gunfire from US forces, while other journalists, mostly Arab or Iraqi, had been detained and suffered mistreatment at the hands of US forces, it said. 

The Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders (known as RSF, its initials in French) said in its annual report that Cuba led the list of countries repressing journalists, 29 of whom were in jail for "acts against the state". 

President Fidel Castro (news - web sites) had "consolidated the government's news monopoly" by cracking down on dissent and in doing do had "decimated Cubas fledgling independent press," it said. 

Imprisoned journalists and their families "have denounced inadequate medical attention, have been placed in solitary confinement, and have complained about receiving foul-smelling and rotten food," the report said. 

The most dangerous country for a reporter in Latin America was, however, Colombia, where five journalists were killed in 2003 and "threats, assaults and kidnappings are still the daily lot of journalists," RSF said. 

"Throughout the continent, legislative reforms are still needed to ensure there is complete press freedom," it said. 

Asia was, however, the "world's biggest prison for the press," RSF said, with more than 200 journalists jailed last year, three sentenced to death and at least 16 murdered. 

China topped the dismal regional ranking, with 27 journalists in prison and another 61 citizens jailed for posting their views on the Internet out of a global total of 73, it said, adding: 

"The Internet has become a battleground between the democratic opposition and Beijing, and repression is rampant." 

On a positive note, RSF said Chinese journalists "pushed back the limits of censorship" as never before last year, but it was still "strictly forbidden to publicly criticise the (one-party) system." 

In Myanmar, 11 journalists were imprisoned last year and Zaw Thet Htwe, the editor of a football magazine, was condemned to death "on the trumped-up charge of 'attempted assassination of military junta leaders'," RSF said. 

Of the 16 journalists killed in the region, seven were murdered by contract killers in the Philippines, mainly in the troubled southern island of Mindanao. 

The report said at least 600 Asian journalists were physically attacked or threatened in 2003. 

It singled out Bangladesh, which saw "more than 200 cases of physical attacks or death threats against journalists by political activists, especially from the ruling party, or criminals." 

The Middle East and North Africa made up "the region with least press freedom," RSF said, noting "it had few independent media and journalists in several countries strictly censored themselves." 

Eight former Soviet bloc nations which joined the European Union (news - web sites) on May 1 largely respected press freedom during 2003, "but in most of them, laws punishing defamation and perceived insults frequently hampered journalists in their work and gave undue protection to the authorities," RSF said. 

But further east in Europe and in Russia, conditions were deteriorating and 85 journalists were detained or arrested and some 200 were attacked for doing their job, it said. 

Turkmenistan -- a gas-rich Central Asian country run with an iron fist by Separmurad Niyazov -- "is the most repressive of the former Soviet republics and its media are totally censored," RSF said. 

But the presidents of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Uzbekistan were also included on its media "predator" list.

Bremer Takes Back Statements About Bush 

Mon May 3, 7:16 AM ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq - L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq (news - web sites), said Sunday he regrets a statement he made more than six months before the Sept. 11 attacks that the Bush administration was "paying no attention" to terrorism. 

Bremer said any implied criticism that President Bush (news - web sites) was not acting against terrorism was "unfair." 

Ahead of the November election, Bush is facing criticism he didn't make terrorism his No. 1 priority before the attacks on the Pentagon (news - web sites) and World Trade Center and then weakened the war on terror by invading Iraq and shifting the focus from Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al-Qaida network. The resurfacing of Bremer's comments added to administration frustrations. 

At a McCormick Tribune Foundation conference on terrorism on Feb. 26, 2001, Bremer said, "The new administration seems to be paying no attention to the problem of terrorism. What they will do is stagger along until there's a major incident and then suddenly say, 'Oh, my God, shouldn't we be organized to deal with this?' 

"That's too bad. They've been given a window of opportunity with very little terrorism now, and they're not taking advantage of it." 

Bremer made the speech after he had chaired the National Commission on Terrorism, a bipartisan body formed by the Clinton administration to examine U.S. counterterrorism policies. 

In a statement Sunday, Bremer said his remarks three years ago "reflected my frustration" that none of his commission's recommendations had been implemented by Clinton or the new Bush administration. 

"Criticism of the new administration, however, was unfair. President Bush had just been sworn into office and could not reasonably be held responsible for the Federal Government's inaction over the preceding 7 months," Bremer's Sunday statement said. 

"I regret any suggestion to the contrary. In fact, I have since learned that President Bush had shared some of these frustrations, and had initiated a more direct and comprehensive approach to confronting terrorism consistent with the threats outlined in the National Commission report. 

"I am strongly supportive and grateful for the President's leadership and strategy in combating terrorism and protecting American national security throughout his first term in office." 

Sasser Worm Strikes Hundreds of Thousands

1 hour, 11 minutes ago 
Add Technology 

By Brett Young 

HELSINKI  - The fast-spreading "Sasser" computer worm has infected hundreds of thousands of PCs globally and the number could soon rise sharply, a top computer security official said on Monday. 

"If you take a normal Windows PC and connect to the Internet, you will be infected in 10 minutes (without protection)," Mikko Hypponen, Anti-Virus Research Director at Finnish data security firm F-Secure, told The News Source. 

"It seems to be gradually getting worse, but it could jump as the United States wakes up," he said. 

F-Secure says the worm, which surfaced at the weekend, automatically spreads via the Internet to computers using the Microsoft Windows operating system, especially Windows 2000 (news - web sites) and XP. 

The spread of the virus had been muted so far, Hypponen said, as it emerged on a weekend, and holidays closed offices in places like the United Kingdom and Japan on Monday. But the was spread was expected to worsen as the working week hits its stride. 

"We have already seen three versions of Sasser during the weekend, and we could see more today," Hypponen said, adding he believes the worm originated in Russia. 

Finnish bancassurer Sampo temporarily closed all of its branch offices, some 130 in all, on Monday as a precaution against Sasser. 

In Australia, Westpac Bank said it was hit by the worm, and branches had to use pen and paper to allow them to keep trading, The Australian newspaper (http://www.theaustralian.news.com) reported. 

U.S. firm Delta Air Lines suffered a computer glitch on Saturday that caused delays and cancellations of certain flights across its system, but a spokesman said there was no information yet as to the cause. 

"With Sasser it seems that companies are (using software) patches better and more quickly than last year (with virus "Blaster"), but for those that are hit, they are hit hard," Hypponen said. 

Blaster infected computers around the globe last year. 

NO NEED TO CLICK 

The current worm does not need to be activated by double-clicking on an attachment, and can strike even if no one is using the PC at the time. When a machine is infected, error messages may appear and the computer may reboot repeatedly. 

"Compared to what happened with Blaster...last August... this virus has all the same features," Hypponen said, noting that both worms exploited relatively new holes in Windows and frequently caused computers to reboot. 

Microsoft said Blaster cost it "millions of dollars of damages," and has issued a $250,000 bounty for information on the whereabouts of its author. 

F-Secure said corporate networks should be protected against Sasser and its variants by firewalls -- Internet road blocks that separate internal from public networks. 

F-Secure said the worm emerged 18 days after Microsoft posted a corrective-code software patch on its Web site. This continues a common pattern with viruses whereby firms announce flaws in their software and hackers race to exploit them. 

For home computer users, people should make sure they have downloaded the patch from Microsoft to fix the breach. If their computer is infected, must first be downloaded before the virus is removed or else the PC could catch the worm again. 

Hypponen said he was not sure there was a better way for firms to alert users to software problems. 

"There are always going to be security holes in mainstream products," he said. "Even if these are not made public, the bad boys will find out about them anyway."

Kin May Have to Pay for Legally Insane

Sun May 2, 1:29 PM ET



By LISA FALKENBERG, News Source Writer 

DALLAS - Keith Laney has lost nearly everything. His wife, Deanna, beat their three young sons with rocks - killing two and permanently impairing the third. And now he could be forced to pay for her care. 

Deanna Laney was acquitted of murder by reason of insanity in April, so instead of being sentenced to prison a judge committed her to a state hospital, where she could remain for the rest of her life. 

Unlike prison, the cost of confinement in a state mental hospital isn't totally covered by the state in Texas. The state pays for the poor, but it requires other patients or their families to pay what they can, based on insurance, income, benefits and property. 

Wisconsin and North Carolina also charge criminally confined patients, but experts at several mental health associations interviewed by The News Source said they did not know how many other states charge such patients. 

"We can definitely say that Texas is not alone," said David Miller, senior policy associate at the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors. "We know other states do it. I just don't think it's an indicator that anybody has tracked." 

The Laneys lived comfortably, according to testimony during her trial. Keith Laney is an air compressor repairman. Their house was paid for and they owned a hobby farm with a cabin. 

But now that Deanna Laney has been committed to the North Texas State Hospital for treatment, her hospital costs are $462 per day, nearly $14,000 per month. The state will determine how much her husband will have to pay after reviewing his assets. 

Most health insurance plans pay for state hospital services, but it was unclear whether the Laneys have health insurance. Of the 23 patients in Texas state hospitals in 2003 who had been acquitted of murder by reason of insanity, 19 were indigent and not charged, two were covered by Medicare and two had Veterans Affairs benefits, the Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation says. No individual patients or relatives were charged. 

Keith Laney has declined to give interviews since the May 2003 beatings that killed 8-year-old Joshua and 6-year-old Luke. Another son, Aaron, now 2, survived but his sight is impaired and doctors say he will never live independently. 

In contrast to Deanna Laney, Andrea Yates, the Houston woman who drowned her five children in 2001, was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison, where treatment for her mental illness is free. 

Courts in various states are split on the issue, said Michael Perlin, a professor at New York Law School who has written about the matter. Some reason that patients should pay because the overriding purpose of their hospital stay is treatment. Others believe patients shouldn't have to pay because the state has ordered them to the hospital, largely to protect the public. 

Connecticut courts have struck down statutes requiring people acquitted by reason of insanity to pay for their own care, arguing there are no reasonable grounds to differentiate them from "ordinary prisoners." 

However, Perlin said there has never been a significant public debate on the issue. 

"I think most of the people are indigent so the bills come in and they just ignore them," he said. "In cases where people are not indigent, they don't want to challenge it because doing so would result in a court case. A lot of people would not want to call into attention that their relative was institutionalized for this purpose." 

Sandra Ross, a spokeswoman at the hospital where Deanna Laney receives treatment, said it charges because it's a hospital, not a prison. 

"Our role is to take care of you. ... That's the reason why we're able to charge, just like a real hospital," she said. "Whether or not that's right or wrong is a legal issue, it's a legislative thing." 

Charging some patients was written into Texas law years ago to enable the state to provide care for poor patients, said Don Rogers, a spokesman for the Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation. 

"This is an opportunity to bring in funds so that we can provide services for more people," Rogers said. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Texas Mental Health and Mental Retardation: http://www.mhmr.state.tx.us/ 

Millions of computers worldwide hit by Internet worm, experts say

2 hours, 32 minutes ago

Add Technology - NEWS SOURCE 

PARIS (NEWS SOURCE) - Millions of computers have already been infected by a new Internet computer worm that caused disruptions over the weekend and may spread rapidly when businesses resume work Monday morning, experts warned. 

The worm, named Sasser, began to spread on Saturday, and unlike a virus does not travel through e-mails or attachments. It can spread by itself to any unprotected computer linked to the Internet. 

It attacks through a flaw in recent versions of Microsoft's Windows -- Windows 2000 (news - web sites), Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP (news - web sites) -- and causes the computer to shut down, then rebooting it, repeating the process several times. But it appears to do no lasting damage. 

The anti-virus company Panda Software said Sunday slightly more than three percent of the world's computers, around 18 million out of the estimated 600 million operating worldwide, were infected. 

"Compared to other viruses which have appeared on weekends when activity is low -- doubly so now that May 1 is a holiday in many countries -- this one has positioned itself as one of the quickest-spreading and most virulent ones," Luis Corrons of PandaLabs, which has offices in Spain and the United States, said Sunday. 

"All these signs make for a dark forecast for the beginning of the week when it is expected that the number of incidents will soar at the beginning of the work day." 

"The problem seems to be getting worse," Mikko Hyppoenen, an anti-virus expert at F-Secure, a leading internet security firm, told NEWS SOURCE from Helsinki, adding that millions of computers worldwide may have been infected. 

"We don't know how big this is going to be (but) we expect things to get much worse on Monday when people bring their laptops in to the office after the weekend," Hyppoenen said. 

Since laptops are not protected by company firewall systems if used on a server other than the company's, they run the risk of being infected and in turn infect the company's network when used in the office. 

"It seems to me an exaggeration to say that millions of computers have been affected," Bernard Ourghanlian, Microsoft's technical director in France, told NEWS SOURCE, where work was disrupted by the worm Saturday night. 

But he acknowledged that the worm was spreading Sunday. 

"We are recording at the moment several attacks a minute on 'honey pots' (computers deliberately left unprotected so they can monitor viruses)", he said, adding that France and some southeast Asian countries seemed to be particularly hit. 

Microsoft made available a software update last month to fix the flaw exploited by the worm, and since mid-April several million copies have been downloaded. 

"We have every hope the spreading of this virus will be limited by the many precautions we have taken," he said. 

"It is not possible to give a figure for the spread of the virus, still less the cost of the damage it will do," he said, adding that many firms never admit being infected and that if small and medium sized businesses did not take precautions on Monday morning Sasser could spread rapidly. 

In Moscow the Russian computer security firm Kaspersky Labs warned of a possible major epidemic when business activity resumes Monday. 

"For the moment the extent of the epidemic isn't that severe only because most people are not at work" and their computers are shut off, Denis Zenkin told NEWS SOURCE. 

For the moment the worm, the third major Internet infection this year after Mydoom.A in January and Bagle.B in February, does not appear to be a worldwide phenomenon. One American specialist reported only a few hundred computers infected, another did not rank Sasser in its 10 most common infections. 

Experts said they did not know who started the virus, but Alfred Huger, head of engineering at California-based computer security firm Symantec, said it was started deliberately by an individual. 

"Of that much we're sure," he said. "What we're not sure of is that individual's motives, because the virus is not doing any damage, and it's not installing a backdoor" which would give future access to other viruses. 

"We'll just have to wait and see," he said. 

"This worm is unlike previous ones in that it does not appear to be causing any damage to computers," said Huger. "It will slow your computer down, but there does not appear to be any direct damage to the hard drive. 

Election Pits '66 Yalies Against '68

15 minutes ago

By DIANE SCARPONI, News Source Writer 

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - This year's presidential election is going to be a class war: Class of '68 versus Class of '66. 

"If Yalies were going to vote based on who's an alum, you'd have to flip a coin," said sophomore Alissa Stollwerk, secretary of the Yale College Democrats. 

President Bush (news - web sites) and Democratic rival John Kerry (news - web sites) graduated from Yale University in the 1960s, a time of upheaval at Yale and campuses across the country. Both shied away from the radicalism of the day but joined the same secret society and followed similar pursuits, their paths diverging after graduation. 

When Kerry graduated in 1966 with a degree in political science, opposition to the Vietnam War was building. Yale still required students to wear jackets and ties at dinner, and no female undergraduates were admitted. 

By the time Bush earned a degree in history in 1968, Yale was simmering with activism against the war and in favor of labor unions and other causes. Dinner jackets were gone, and female undergraduates arrived the following year. 

Both men were chosen to join Yale's top secret society - Skull and Bones. Each year, 15 seniors are tapped for the 172-year-old club, which owns a windowless crypt on campus and a private island in the St. Lawrence River. 

The experiences and influence of Bonesmen, as members are known, have reached mythic proportions. Their rites and membership are supposed to be secret, although initiations reportedly include lying in a coffin and confessing personal sexual secrets. Presidents Taft and George H.W. Bush were members. 

Classmates remember Kerry as a big man on campus who played several sports, including junior varsity hockey. As a freshman, he also dated Jacqueline Kennedy's half-sister, Janet Auchincloss. 

"He had a lot of demands on his time, and for him to play hockey in winter and play j.v. - that was a fair amount of dedication to the sport, and he played hard," recalled Gordon Walker, a classmate who managed the team. 

Kerry, whose father worked for the State Department after graduating from Yale, was involved in politics from the moment he arrived in New Haven. He was head of the Yale Political Union, a college debating society, and joined the Fence Club, which was popular with preppy, blue-blood students. 

Bush was a born Yalie as well as a legacy. His grandfather, Prescott Bush, the future senator from Connecticut, graduated from the Ivy League school. His father, the former president, was a student when he was born there. The line continues this spring when Bush's daughter, Barbara, earns a Yale degree. 

The future president had grown up in Texas, however, and chafed at the East Coast intellectual scene. He had a run-in with the activist school chaplain, the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, who told Bush to his face that his father had been "beaten by a better man" in an unsuccessful run for Senate in 1964. 

Bush joined Delta Kappa Epsilon, a sporty fraternity that was the closest thing to "Animal House" on the Yale campus. He also played sports, including baseball, although he was not a starter like his father. 

"He was congenial, gregarious, relatively unremarkable in a sense," recalled a classmate and fellow team member, Jim Latimer. "I enjoyed knowing him. He was entirely pleasant." 

Despite the legacy, Kerry is more popular at Yale, his politics favored by the liberal-leaning student body. 

When Bush accepted an honorary degree and spoke at Yale's 300th graduation ceremony in 2001, many graduates carried signs or wore emblems critical of Bush. Some turned their backs on him when he spoke. 

Yet Bush won over others with his self-deprecating humor. He congratulated the honors students, then added: "To the C students, I say, 'You, too, can be president of the United States.'" 

During the 2000 election, Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites) was the top vote-getter in the ward that includes much of the campus. Green Party candidate Ralph Nader (news - web sites) got more votes than Bush. 

Robert Chung, chairman of Yale Students for Bush and vice chairman of the Yale College Republicans, said Bush may do better this year because campus Republicans have been more active. 

"The college Republican club was pretty much dead for the past five or six years and this year we've revived it. The closet Republicans are coming out, now that there's an outlet for them," said Chung, a sophomore from Los Angeles. 

Kerry last spoke publicly on campus in 1997 when his daughter, Vanessa, was a student. 

During his years at Yale, Kerry told students, he "spent much time elsewhere - intellectually." He also said he had thought about running for president. 

"There are times when you think about it more seriously than others," Kerry said. "But it's a fishbowl life. I'm going to play out my options so I can make that choice when it comes." 

___ 

On the Net: 

Kerry campaign: http://www.johnkerry.com 

Bush-Cheney campaign: http://www.georgewbush.com

Study: Shoppers Deserting Supermarkets 

1 hour, 55 minutes ago

Add Business - 

By IRA DREYFUSS, News Source Writer 

CHICAGO - For financially pressed consumers, it's coming down to a choice between spending on gasoline or groceries, and gasoline is winning, a food industry analysis finds. 

"Given the economic environment, it is not surprising that more shoppers are buying food today in discount stores and other low-price venues than ever before," said the report by the Food Marketing Institute, released at the organization's annual trade show in Chicago. 

"High oil prices, both at the pump and for home heating, depress consumers' ability to spend more," the study said. 

Gasoline prices have been soaring: about 35 cents a gallon since December, driven by surging crude oil prices, according to gasoline industry analyst Trilby Lundberg. 

The food industry report said the fuel price increases are tightening the pressure on personal budgets that already were squeezed hard by credit card bills. 

"In 2003, for the second consecutive year, we detected among consumers that minus inflation, minus inflation, they are managing to buy their groceries for less than they did last year," Michael Sansolo, FMI's senior vice president, told the group's opening conference Sunday. 

Consumers feel the financial pain and are acting to ease it by finding cheaper places to spend on food, said the FMI report, citing a survey commissioned by the trade group. The survey of more than 500 people telephoned randomly in January had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points. 

As a result, supermarkets are losing their hold on their customers, who can go to other retailers such as discount stores, the survey said. 

The proportion of respondents who said a supermarket was their primary food store fell by 5 percentage points since a year earlier, to 72 percent. The share of shoppers who considered a discount store their first choice rose by 4 percentage points, to 21 percent. 

The report also said shoppers are finding other ways to be more careful in their spending. 

More shoppers said they were comparison shopping, looking in newspapers for sales,using coupons and rebates, stocking up on bargains even if they don't need the items right away, and buying only what was on their grocery lists. More shoppers also were keeping grocery lists, the survey found. 

For all that work, however, the average grocery bills that the survey respondents reported showed little change. The average weekly bill fell $1, to $90, from January of 2003. 

Working against the desire to save money was the desire to save time, something else that modern America has all too little of. The survey showed an increase in purchases of precooked foods, which cost more than the ingredients for from-scratch meals. 

"The trend toward timesaving convenience foods from precooked pasta to cereal bars continues," the report said. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Food Marketing Institute: http://www.fmi.org/ 

Univ. of Chicago Returns Tablets to Iran 

2 hours, 44 minutes ago

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, News Source Writer 

TEHRAN, Iran - The University of Chicago on Saturday returned 300 ancient clay tablets taken from Iran on loan 67 years ago, marking the first U.S. return of borrowed Iranian artifacts since the Middle Eastern state's 1979 Islamic revolution. 

NEWS SOURCE Photo 

The clay tablets belong to the Achaemenid dynasty that ruled ancient Persia about 2,500 years ago. They have provided historians with details about the languages and daily life in the Persian empire. 

The tablets were received in Iran on Saturday, the official Islamic Republic News Agency said, citing National Museum chief Mohammed Reza Kargar. 

Archeologists discovered the tablets in 1933 in the ruins of Persepolis, capital of the Achaemenid dynasty. They were loaned for research purposes to the institute, Kargar said. 

The tablets have taken on added significance as the university's Oriental Institute - a leading center for the study of ancient Iran in America - tries to re-establish ties with Iranian scholars and archaeology sites. 

The United States severed diplomatic relations with Iran in 1979 after Iranian militant students seized the U.S. embassy to protest Washington's refusal to hand over the shah to Iran for trial. Militants held 52 people hostage for 444 days. 

Tehran-Washington relations began thawing after the 1997 election of President Mohammad Khatami (news - web sites), who called for cultural and athletic exchanges to help bring down the wall of mistrust between both countries. 

Relations worsened after President Bush (news - web sites) named Iran as part of an "axis of evil." 

Kargar said Iran was open to new cooperation with the university's Oriental Institute, which shared a close relationship for most of the 20th century until Iran's 1979 revolution. 

"Iran's Cultural Heritage Organization is prepared for scientific exchanges with the world's scientific centers, but so far we have not signed any research cooperation agreement" with the Oriental Institute, Kargar said. 

The 300 tablets are among tens of thousands discovered in 1933 by University of Chicago archeologists excavating in Persepolis. They vary in size from that of a dish towel to a packet of chewing gum and in color from beige to reddish brown. 

The tablets are written in cuneiform - an early system of writing that used wedge shapes - but the language is Elamite, which is poorly understood. The translations took years, but all 300 tablets have been translated and published. 

From the tablets, researchers have learned how much laborers in Persia were paid, that workers were brought in from distant parts of the empire, such as Greece, Egypt and Central Asia, and details about the system under which foreign delegations were authorized to travel across the land.

Dakota Growers Roll Out Low-Carb Pasta

Fri Apr 30, 9:00 PM ET



By DALE WETZEL, News Source Writer 

BISMARCK, N.D. - Trying to buck an anti-carbohydrate trend that has hammered pasta sales, a North Dakota company is unveiling a new brand of pasta it hopes will appeal to dieters who have been shunning noodles and spaghetti. 

The Dakota Growers Pasta Co. product, called Dreamfields, is joining an assortment of new, reduced-carbohydrate offerings on the nation's grocery shelves. Dreamfields' developers say its flavor is virtually indistinguishable from regular pasta. 

It is made mostly from semolina, a granular flour that is used to make conventional pasta, with a patented fiber blend added to block digestion of most of the product's carbohydrates. 

"We think we have an edge, because along with being low-carb, it is authentic pasta. This is the real deal," said Jack Hasper, Dakota Growers' vice president for marketing. 

Dakota Growers is part of a group of four businesses, which formed a separate company to develop and market the pasta. It got its formal introduction Thursday at a news conference at Tavern on the Green, a restaurant in New York City's Central Park. 

It includes spaghetti, elbows, penne rigate and linguine shapes, and will be sold through grocery stores, discount outlets and Dreamfields' Web site. A one-pound box will sell from $2.39 to $2.69, compared to 79 to 99 cents a pound for regular pasta, Hasper said. 

Dreamfields is advertised as having only 5 grams of digestible carbohydrates for each 2-ounce serving. Dakota Growers' regular product has about 42 grams. 

Jon Anfinsen, a biochemist and one of the project's business partners, says Dreamfields' fiber blend blocks digestion of most carbohydrates, causing the colon to treat them as dietary fiber. 

In human tests, the product did not have a laxative effect, Anfinsen said. Blood sugar testing confirmed the pasta's low levels of digestible carbohydrates, said Dr. John Abernethy, owner of a medical clinic in Gainesville, Fla., where testing has been conducted for six months. 

"We've done hundreds of test meals with several dozen subjects," Abernethy said. 

The Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) currently does not regulate claims about foods' carbohydrate content. The agency is considering three requests to define the meaning of some terms, including low- and reduced-carbohydrate, a spokeswoman said. The petitions were brought by ConAgra Foods Inc., Kraft Foods Inc. and the Grocery Manufacturers of America. 

Tim Dodd, Dakota Growers' president, said Dreamfields initially should appeal to two large customer groups - dieters who favor low-carbohydrate meals, and people with diabetes. Starchy foods can cause a diabetic's blood sugar levels to rise quickly. 

Rick Mendosa, an Aptos, Calif., writer who maintains a Web site with a comprehensive trove of diabetes information, tried the Dreamfields pasta recently over several days. 

It caused minimal increases in his blood-sugar levels, said Mendosa, who posted test results on his site, http://www.mendosa.com. 

"Some people have weaned themselves off pasta because it is so high in carbs generally, but I think there will be a big market, a huge market in this for people with diabetes," Mendosa said in an interview. 

He has heard from other diabetics who experienced big jumps in their blood-sugar levels after eating Dreamfields, but that may have happened because they were extremely resistant to insulin, Medosa said. Insulin regulates how the body uses blood sugar, which is extracted from carbohydrates. 

Laurie Kuntz, chief executive officer of LowCarbiz, a Denver-based newsletter, magazine and Web site that tracks low-carbohydrate products, said the lack of scientific information about Dreamfields so far has bred skepticism about its benefits. 

"I know that in the diabetic world, there are a number of people who have been showing insulin spikes, so they're not believing what they are reading on the label," she said. 

Anfinsen said he had expected some disbelief. The pasta brand's Web site will feature extensive research information on the product for consumers to examine, he said. 

"What we have here is something that is very good. It is good for the health of the population," he said. 

The number of low-carbohydrate foods has mushroomed in recent months. Kuntz estimates there are 1,300 products that advertise themselves as low-carb, and the number is rising. 

"There are chips, salad dressings, hot cereals, bars, pasta, pancake mix, cereals, ketchup, jellies, ice cream. You name it," she said. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Dreamfields: http://www.dreamfieldsfoods.com 

LowCarbiz: http://www.lowcarbiz.com 

Television - AP

'Simpsons' Cast Settles Salary Dispute 

Fri Apr 30,11:02 PM ET

By LYNN ELBER, News Source Television Writer 

LOS ANGELES - A month after stalled contract renewal talks led the voices of "The Simpsons" to stop work, both the actors and Fox are getting more "D'oh!" 

Terms of the deal were not announced for the actors who provide the voices for Homer and Marge Simpson and other characters on the long-running animated series. 

"We couldn't be happier to have reached a multiyear deal with the enormously talented cast of 'The Simpsons,'" series producer 20th Century Fox Television said Friday in a statement. 

A spokesman representing the cast said they had no immediate comment. 

Despite speculation the dispute would shorten the 2004-05 season, the studio said it was optimistic that all 22 planned episodes could be finished. 

The loss of even a few episodes of "The Simpsons," a bulwark of Fox TV's schedule, would be financially painful for the network. 

Each cast member was seeking about $360,000 an episode, or $8 million for the 22-episode, 2004-05 season, the trade paper Daily Variety reported previously. The actors were earning $125,000 an episode. 

The contract dispute involves Dan Castellaneta (Homer); Julie Kavner (news) (Marge); Hank Azaria (news) (Moe, Apu and others); Harry Shearer (news) (Mr. Burns and others); Yeardley Smith (news) (Lisa) and Nancy Cartwright (Bart), the paper said. 

The actors' previous deal, which covered seasons 13, 14 and 15, was reached without complication. 

In 1998, however, the cast - except for Kavner, who had a previous deal in effect - sought significant pay increases. At that time, the performers made $30,000 an episode from a show that has proved a huge international moneymaker.

Crime-Fighting Cameras Divide Neighbors

Fri Apr 30, 4:38 PM ET

Add U.S. National - 

By MIKE COLIAS, News Source Writer 

CHICAGO - Renee Singletary has noticed a big change since police mounted a conspicuous video camera near the West Side barber shop where she has worked for a decade. The camera is one of 30 installed last summer by Chicago police as high-tech scarecrows to chase off gangs and street thugs. 

The remote-controlled cameras - mounted on lamp posts high above intersections in rough neighborhoods - can rotate 360 degrees and zoom in tight enough to read a license plate, feeding video directly to squad-car laptops. 

"It's so much quieter now," said Singletary, 42. "Before, there were kids hanging out doing whatever. It was unsafe to walk around." 

Fifty upgraded cameras to be installed later this year will have sensors to detect bullets whizzing through the air, relaying the precise location of gunfire to dispatchers. 

But as Chicago police expand their $3.5 million "Operation Disruption" - one of the nation's most aggressive uses of surveillance cameras to curb violent crime - residents and lawmakers are divided over whether the cameras are effective or an invasion of privacy that brands their neighborhoods as ghettos. 

"It seems prejudiced to me," said Abdul Bucky, 40, who works at Deal Beauty Supply and General Merchandise, within sight of another camera in the East Garfield Park neighborhood, about five miles west of downtown. "Why didn't they put them in all the neighborhoods?" 

The cameras, which can film day or night, are protected in white bulletproof cases about the size of a small file cabinet and emblazoned with the Chicago Police Department seal. 

State Sen. Rickey Hendon has sponsored legislation to limit how many devices police install and to get rid of the cameras' attention-getting blue-strobe lights. Hendon said the lights have led people to label the neighborhoods "blue light districts." 

"I think they're a violation of people's civil liberties," said Hendon, who said he has received complaints from residents who fear the cameras can zoom into their windows. "People going about their everyday lives shouldn't be spied on by Big Brother." 

City officials said the cameras are not used to peer into private homes. Officers are reminded that using the system for anything beyond viewing public places would violate the Fourth Amendment, police spokesman Pat Camden said. 

"We give these guys basic discretion in life-and-death situations, and using these pods is no different," Camden said. "If an officer violates department policy, he would be disciplined." He declined to say what that discipline could be, calling such a situation hypothetical. 

The American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) in Illinois said it considers the cameras constitutional as long as police use them only to monitor street crime, though a spokesman said privacy questions likely will mount as more cameras are installed. 

"There really should be a societal public-policy debate, with an eye toward ensuring there are specific regulations in place that protect against an invasion of privacy," ACLU spokesman Ed Yohnka said. 

Chicago, which led the nation in murders last year, is far more aggressive in using police cameras than many other major cities. 

The New York Police Department for years has used cameras in housing projects but has not used any to target street crime. Detroit, Houston and Washington, D.C., have placed cameras during big downtown events but not in high-crime neighborhoods. 

Los Angeles has been limited to a closed-circuit TV system installed last year in a large, gang-ridden park, which police said helped reduce shootings by 50 percent. 

Chicago officials say crime has plummeted within a block of each camera. Narcotics calls dropped 76 percent over the first seven months, police said. Minor crimes such as property damage were down 46 percent. 

Some residents said gang members simply moved their business to the side streets - a phenomenon experts call displacement. 

Chicago Police Assistant Deputy Superintendent Ron Huberman, who ran Operation Disruption until a recent promotion, acknowledged the effect but said police have beefed up their presence in outlying areas. 

"When dealers move out, we can pick them off," Huberman said. 

___ 

On the Net: 

http://www.cityofchicago.org/police

Pet Owners Warned of When Cicadas Emerge 
Thu Apr 29, 1:24 PM ET 
Add U.S. National - 

By DAVID DISHNEAU, News Source Writer 

HAGERSTOWN, Md. - When millions of cicadas emerge across the eastern United States for a rare mating season, they will appear as tasty morsels to pets who could get sick from eating the insects, officials warned. 

NEWS SOURCE 

Slideshow: Buzzing Mass of Cicadas Get Ready for East Coast

Related Links
� Periodical Cicadas (umich.edu)

The insects are protein-rich but their hard outer shells can cause vomiting and constipation in cats and dogs, said Randall Lockwood, vice president for the Humane Society of the United States. 

"Imagine a yard full of chicken nuggets, that's sort of what it's going to be like" for dogs and cats, Lockwood said Tuesday. 

Millions of the large, red-eyed insects will soon emerge from the ground for a once-every-17-years mating dance lasting well into June. 

Experts say the insects will climb into trees and shed their shells to reveal their wings. Males will attract mates through a loud buzzing sound. 

The approximately 1 1/2-inch-long bugs "combine all the stuff that particularly dogs like to chase," Lockwood said. "They're kind of flying pet toys: They are loud, slow-moving, often low-flying." 

The Washington-based Humane Society advises keeping pets indoors, securing screens and holding tight to dog leashes outdoors. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Humane Society of the United States: http://www.hsus.org./ace/352 

Middle East - AP
Accused Soldiers Didn't Know Geneva Rules 

Fri Apr 30, 7:25 PM ET

By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - The six U.S. soldiers facing courts-martial in connection with mistreatment of detainees at an Iraqi prison did not receive in-depth training on the Geneva Conventions, which govern the handling of captives, a military spokeswoman said Friday. 

NEWS SOURCE 

Slideshow: Abuse of Iraq Prisoners Investigated

Latest headlines: 
� Talabani Seeks Iraqi Council Expansion 
AP - 8 minutes ago 
� Marines Start Fallujah Withdrawal 
washingtonpost.com - 26 minutes ago 
� Bush, Blair vow to punish soldiers over abuse of Iraqi prisoners 
NEWS SOURCE - 38 minutes ago 
Special Coverage

Those soldiers have been reassigned to other duties in Iraq (news - web sites), Col. Jill Morgenthaler said in an e-mail from Iraq. No courts-martial proceedings against them have taken place, she said. 

Their boss, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade, and at least seven others have been "suspended" from their duties at Abu Ghraib prison, Morgenthaler said. 

It was unclear precisely what a suspension entails, or if it is the same as being formally relieved. Morgenthaler said she believed Karpinski had returned to the United States. 

President Bush (news - web sites) on Friday condemned the mistreatment of some Iraqi prisoners, saying, "Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people. That's not the way we do things in America. I didn't like it one bit." 

He was asked about photos showing scenes of humiliation including Iraqi prisoners naked except for hoods covering their heads, stacked in a human pyramid, one with a slur written in English on his skin. Arab television stations were leading their newscasts on Friday with the photos. 

"I share a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated," Bush said. 

Karpinski has been replaced as head of the prison by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, deputy commander for detainment operations. Miller formerly commanded the U.S. prison for alleged terrorists at the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. 

A leading human rights group said the military should investigate whether the soldiers' superiors ordered or tolerated the abuse. 

"The brazenness with which these soldiers conducted themselves ... suggests they felt they had nothing to hide from their superiors," said Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch. 

In the past, Karpinski has defended the prison against claims from freed prisoners and human-rights groups that prisoners were abused, saying Iraqis were treated "humanely and fairly." 

Last September, during a visit by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, she displayed torture devices used there by Saddam's interrogators. The prison was one of the most notorious in Iraq under Saddam's regime. 

The acknowledgment that the soldiers did not receive in-depth training on international covenants regarding the handling of prisoners echoes complaints from Army Reserves Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, one of the six facing court-martial, and his civilian lawyer in Washington, Gary Myers. 

Charges include dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, assault and indecent acts with another person. 

Some military officials privately said that training or no, the U.S. soldiers should have known better. 

In some photos from the prison, aired first on CBS' "60 Minutes II" and now around the world, two U.S. soldiers standing near the prisoners hammed it up for the camera. 

One of the photos showed a hooded prisoner standing on a box with wires attached to his hands. CBS reported the prisoner was told that if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted, although in reality the wires were not connected to a power supply.

'Nightline' War Dead List Causes Uproar 

1 hour, 50 minutes ago

By LYNN ELBER, News Source Television Writer 

LOS ANGELES - Criticism of a TV station group's refusal to air a "Nightline" recitation of America's war dead in Iraq (news - web sites) swelled Friday with Sen. John McCain, soldiers' relatives and media watchdogs speaking out. 

McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, sent a strongly worded letter to Sinclair Broadcast Group about its decision to pull Friday's "Nightline" from seven stations throughout the country. 

"There is no valid reason for Sinclair to shirk its responsibility in what I assume is a very misguided attempt to prevent your viewers from completely appreciating the extraordinary sacrifices made on their behalf by Americans serving in Iraq," the Arizona Republican said in the letter Friday. 

In a 40-minute broadcast, ABC News anchorman Ted Koppel was to read aloud the name of a U.S. service man or woman killed in the Iraq war as their photo appeared on the screen along with their name, military branch, rank and age. "Nightline" planned to include more than 500 killed in action in Iraq since March 19, 2003, as well as more than 200 non-combat deaths. 

Military Families Speak Out, whose anti-war members have relatives or loved ones in the military, condemned Sinclair's decision, saying it was "dishonoring our troops and their families." 

The group's Web site posted one member's letter of opposition. 

"The Sinclair Broadcast group is trying to undermine the lives of our soldiers killed in Iraq. By censoring `Nightline' they want to hide the toll the war on Iraq is having on thousands of soldiers and their families, like mine," wrote Jane Bright of West Hills, Calif. (Her son, Sgt. Evan Ashcraft, was killed in July near Mosul, Iraq.) 

"We should be honoring all the men and women who have served," said Ivan Medina, 22, of Hinesville, Ga., who was with the Army in Iraq and whose twin brother, Irving, died there. "My hat goes off to `Nightline.'" 

Free Press, which describes itself as a national media reform group, sent its own letter to Sinclair questioning whether the company's actions violated federal rules governing "stewardship of the public airwaves." 

The letter, signed by Free Press managing director Josh Silver, said the group intended to encourage viewers served by Sinclair stations to weigh in when TV license renewal hearings are held. 

Robert McChesney, the organization's president, called Sinclair's motives into question. 

"No one thinks for a second this decision has anything to do with journalism," McChesney said. "It's a politics-slash-business decision that Sinclair made because they don't want to (anger) the White House." 

Sinclair, a political supporter of the Bush administration, is trying to curry favor with the White House to bolster chances of gaining changes in station ownership rules, McChesney alleged. 

"The stench of corruption here is extraordinary," he said. 

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Friday: "I don't think we decide you all's coverage. I think we should always remember and honor all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice defending our freedoms." 

Maryland-based Sinclair, whose holdings include 62 TV stations, made $65,434 in 2004 political donations - 98 percent of that to Republicans and 2 percent to Democrats - according to the Web site opensecrets.org, which tracks contributions. 

Sinclair announced Thursday it would pre-empt "Nightline" on its ABC affiliates, including stations in Columbus, Ohio, and St. Louis, Mo. It said the program "appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq." 

Calling the broadcast a political statement "disguised as news content," Sinclair pointed to the producers' omission of "the names of thousands of private citizens killed in terrorist attacks" since 9-11. 

WTXL-TV, the Tallahassee, Fla., ABC affiliate that has an agreement to share resources with Sinclair but controls its own programming, planned to air Friday's "Nightline." 

Early reports had wrongly included the Media Venture Management-owned station among those dropping the show. That prompted a flood of correspondence, said WTXL station manager Mike Plummer. 

"The overwhelming response has been people want it," he said Friday. 

ABC noted its news division had reported "hundreds of stories on 9-11" while adding that, on the first anniversary of that tragedy, it aired the victims' names. 

Still, some observers questioned ABC's motives. 

Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, derided what he called the program's "partisan nature," saying it's one goal was "to turn public opinion against the war."

Wal-Mart Begins Using Smart Labels 

Fri Apr 30, 2:51 PM ET 
Add Business - 

By CHUCK BARTELS, News Source Writer 

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and a number of its suppliers are using a Dallas distribution center as the starting point for a technology that's targeted to one day replace the bar code and help companies improve inventory efficiency and reduce theft. 

NEWS SOURCE/Getty Images/File Photo 
Related Quotes 
ABS
WMT
DJIA
NASDAQ
^SPC 23.36
57.00
10225.57
1920.15
1107.30 +0.05
-0.57
-46.70
-38.63
-6.59

Get Quotes 
delayed 20 mins - disclaimer 
Quote Data provided by The News Source

Related
� Wal-Mart Drives RFID (Ziff Davis)

The radio frequency information (RFID) tags provide automatic tracking of pallets and cases of goods. Eight suppliers began using the tags Friday to track 21 products. Wal-Mart said it will have more than 100 suppliers using the tags by January. 

Wal-Mart chief information officer Linda Dillman would not say how much the Bentonville-based company is spending but said the tags are on the top line of Wal-Mart's technology budget. 

The RFID tags contain a chip that holds the details of what is in a case or on a pallet of goods. Rather than have a worker with a handheld scanner logging in barcodes, the system will let a computer system use a radio signal to log the goods as they arrive at the loading dock. 

The tags can also be used in the manufacturing process, which Dillman said can help suppliers become more efficient, and the tags will help companies on both ends know where their products are at all times. 

Wal-Mart says the tags will help reduce theft and counterfeiting, the latter particularly affecting prescription medicines. 

Steve David, chief information officer for Proctor & Gamble Co., said counterfeiting costs industry $500 billion worldwide and backshop theft costs companies $50 billion per year. 

Ian Robertson, director of Hewlett Packard's RFID program, said HP has put the technology in place in some of its production facilities. 

"We felt that the best thing to do was get on the ground and try it," he said at a demonstration with Wal-Mart on Thursday in Dallas. Robertson said the company found it could better track its materials and could read the RFID tags where it was impractical to have a human standing by to scan barcodes. 

Dave Hogan, chief information officer for the National Retail Federation said the RFID tags could gain an important place rather quickly. He said barcodes will likely be around for quite a while and that he expects them to be used in concert with RFID tags even when the new technology moves to store shelves. 

"This is all about the distribution center and the supply chain, case and pallet. That's the big win," Hogan said. 

P&G's David said one of the objectives of having the tags in distribution is to help ensure that store shelves stay stocked. By extension, tagging individual items will help that goal. 

Target Corp. and Albertsons Inc. are also experimenting with the technology, Hogan said, but Wal-Mart is pushing it most aggressively to its suppliers. Wal-Mart says the technology will help it keep costs low, which it can pass on to its shoppers. 

David said the hope is that RFID tags will catch on more quickly than the dozen or so years it took barcodes to become common. 

"It's really about getting to this critical mass juncture so we can learn and roll faster," David said.

3rd Adult Movie Performer Tests for HIV 

Thu Apr 29,11:40 PM ET

LOS ANGELES - A third adult movie performer tested positive Thursday for the virus that causes AIDS (news - web sites) in the midst of an HIV (news - web sites) outbreak that has halted most production, according to the director of an AIDS testing service. 

NEWS SOURCE Photo 

"This is not over," said Sharon Mitchell, executive director of the nonprofit Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation, which screens performers for sexually transmitted diseases. 

Mitchell declined to identify the woman diagnosed Thursday but said the performer had sex with five men before all were barred from adult movie sets under a voluntary quarantine in place since the first HIV case was announced April 12. 

Fifty-three people are on the quarantine list and dozens of producers in the nation's multibillion-dollar porn industry have shut down production until further HIV tests are conducted. 

A performer with the stage name Darren James apparently contracted HIV while filming unprotected sex scenes in Brazil. He returned to the United States and apparently infected Lara Roxx during film shoots, Mitchell said. 

Los Angeles County health officials and the state's Division of Occupational Health and Safety are investigating. 

Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) of Southern California claimed Thursday the county Department of Health Services violated the law by obtaining private medical information on potentially HIV-infected performers without a subpoena. 

"The government needs to make a showing that the breach of the confidentiality is warranted and the way to do that is by going through the court," ACLU attorney Peter Eliasberg said. If people think the government can obtain their private records, it may deter them from getting HIV tests, he said. 

County Health Officer Jonathan Fielding said he had not seen the letter and could not comment. 

Mitchell said her attorney indicated she had no choice last week when she turned over the records. The records of the two performers who had tested positive at the time were not included because of state privacy requirements, she added. 

Mitchell said the health department was to use the information to interview the performers and determine whether they may have passed on HIV to people outside the porn business.

"What has been will be
again ... there is nothing
new under the sun..."
Ecclesiastes 1:9

DNA Shoots Hole in Captain Cook Arrow Legend

Thu Apr 29, 3:18 AM ET 
Add Science 

SYDNEY  - It was a great legend while it lasted, but DNA testing has finally ended a century-old story of the Hawaiian arrow carved from the bone of British explorer Captain James Cook who died in the Sandwich Islands in 1779. 

Missed Tech Tuesday?
Chart the rise of the anti-Windows, test-drive Linux and review the ongoing legal battle. 

"There is no Cook in the Australian Museum," museum collection manager Jude Philp said on Thursday in announcing the DNA evidence that the arrow was not made from Cook's bone. 

But that will not stop the museum from continuing to display the arrow in its exhibition, "Uncovered: Treasures of the Australian Museum," which does include a feather cape presented to Cook by Hawaiian King Kalani'opu'u in 1778. 

Cook was one of Britain's great explorers and is credited with discovering the "Great South Land," now Australia, in 1770. He was clubbed to death in the Sandwich Islands, now Hawaii. 

The legend of Cook's arrow began in 1824 when Hawaiian King Kamehameha on his deathbed gave the arrow to William Adams, a London surgeon and relative of Cook's wife, saying it was made of Cook's bone after the fatal skirmish with islanders. 

In the 1890s the arrow was given to the Australian Museum and the legend continued until it came face-to-face with science. 

DNA testing by laboratories in Australia and New Zealand revealed the arrow was not made from Cook's bone but was more likely made of animal antler, said Philp. 

However, Cook's fans refuse to give up hope that one Cook legend will prove true and that part of his remains will still be uncovered, as they say there is evidence not all of Cook's body was buried at sea in 1779. 

"On this occasion technology has won," said Cliff Thornton, president of the Captain Cook Society, in a statement from Britain. "But I am sure that one of these days...one of the Cook legends will (prove) to be true and it will happen one day."

Sinclair Stations to Boycott 'Nightline' Tribute
2 hours, 1 minute ago 
Add Entertainment TV 

By Steve Gorman 

LOS ANGELES  - A major television chain, the Sinclair Broadcast Group, will bar its ABC-affiliated stations from airing a planned "Nightline" tribute to fallen U.S. troops in Iraq (news - web sites), saying the program is a political statement disguised as news. 

ABC News plans to devote Friday's entire "Nightline" segment to the tribute, with anchor Ted Koppel reading aloud the names of hundreds of fallen American servicemen and women as their photographs are shown. 

The network's intentions drew a denunciation from Sinclair, a Baltimore-based owner of 62 television stations in 39 markets reaching roughly 24 percent of U.S. television households. 

Sinclair said the "Nightline" segment "appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq." 

In a statement posted on its Web site, the broadcast group accused Koppel and his show of seeking to "highlight only one aspect of the war effort and in doing so to influence public opinion against the military action in Iraq." 

An ABC News spokeswoman said Sinclair's decision to preempt Friday's "Nightline" on its stations would remove the program in at least seven markets -- St. Louis, Missouri; Columbus, Ohio; Charleston, West Virginia; Pensacola, Florida; Springfield, Massachusetts and Asheville and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. 

Sticking to its plans, ABC News issued its own statement defending the planned broadcast as "an expression of respect which simply seeks to honor those who have laid down their lives for this country." 

In an interview with Internet media report Poynteronline, Koppel himself rejected the notion that he was out to make a political point. 

"Just look at these people. Look at their names. And look at their ages. Consider what they've done for you. Honor them," Koppel said. "I truly believe that people will take away from this program the reflection of what they bring to it." 

Sinclair's boycott drew a sharp rebuke from U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, a New York Democrat and leading congressional critic of newly relaxed media ownership regulations adopted last year by the Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites). 

"The decision by Sinclair ... to keep this program off its stations is being made by a corporation with a political agenda without regard to the wants or needs of its viewers," Hinchey said. "This move may be providing a chilling look into the future if we allow media ownership to be consolidated into fewer and fewer hands." 

The Washington-based liberal think tank the Center for American Progress cited campaign contribution reports showing Sinclair executives have donated more than $130,000 to President Bush (news - web sites) and his political allies since 2000. 

The network initially said the 30-minute telecast would be limited acknowledging only the 523 U.S. troops killed in combat since the start of the war in March 3002. But on Thursday, ABC said it would expand the program to 40 minutes to include another 200 or more Americans who died as a result of accidents, friendly fire or suicide. 

ABC is a unit of the Walt Disney Co.

Report: Road Deaths Up Slightly Last Year 

Wed Apr 28, 4:44 PM ET

Add U.S. Government - 

By DEE-ANN DURBIN, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - Deaths from crashes of motorcycles and sport utility vehicles rose last year, leading to a slight increase in the overall highway fatality count. 

Preliminary figures show 43,220 people died in 2003, up from 42,815 in 2002, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (news - web sites) said Wednesday. People drove more total miles last year, so the rate of deaths per miles traveled was about the same. 

Fifty-eight percent of those killed weren't wearing seat belts, a source of frustration for NHTSA administrator Jeffrey Runge, whose emphasis on seat belt use helped achieve a record use rate of 79 percent last year. 

Runge said Congress should approve one-time bonuses for states that pass primary seat belt laws that allow police to stop motorists for failing to buckle up. Twenty states and the District of Columbia have such laws. 

Motorcycle deaths increased 11 percent to a total of 3,592, NHTSA said. It was the sixth straight year in which motorcycle deaths have increased, a trend Runge blamed on the widespread repeal of helmet laws since 1995, when Congress stopped penalizing states for not having them. 

Passenger car fatalities declined 3.8 percent, but SUV fatalities increased 11 percent for a total of 4,451. Runge said that was partly due to a 12 percent increase in SUV sales, but he said SUV rollover also was a significant problem. 

There would have been a 4 percent increase in deaths if no SUVs had rolled over, Runge said. 

Ron DeFore, a spokesman for the Washington-based Sport Utility Vehicle Owners of America, said Wednesday that NHTSA is unfairly focusing on the small percentage of rollover crashes. 

"There's a misperception among many that SUVs are dangerous killer vehicles," DeFore said. "In all other crashes, they are much safer." 

Runge said NHTSA will combat rollover deaths with new requirements for roof strength that will come out this year. He also said NHTSA expects to save as many as 1,000 lives each year with a new standard for vehicle performance in side-impact crashes. That standard will be released next month, Runge said. 

Forty percent of crash deaths - or 17,401 - were alcohol-related, NHTSA said. That was about the same as 2002, when 17,419 people died in alcohol-related crashes. 

Wendy Hamilton, president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said police need to combat those numbers with more frequent highway checkpoints and tougher sanctions for drivers who have high blood-alcohol levels. 

There were some bright spots in the latest government statistics. Injuries declined by around 35,000, which NHTSA attributed to an increase in seat belt use and safer vehicles. Fatal crashes involving drivers ages 16 to 20 also fell 3.7 percent to 7,452. 

In response, several safety groups on Wednesday urged quick passage of a Senate highway bill that would set deadlines for NHTSA to upgrade some safety standards. A House version of the bill doesn't include those provisions. 

"If we had 800 people killed every week in airplanes, everyone would be falling all over themselves coming up with a safety plan." said Jacqueline Gillan, vice president of the watchdog group Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. 

The NHTSA plans to release final 2003 fatality figures in August. The agency collects its data from police reports in all 50 states. 

___ 

On the Net: 

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov

Solar Energy Celebrates 50th Anniversary 

Tue Apr 27, 9:42 PM ET

By WILLIAM McCALL, News Source Writer 

PORTLAND, Ore. - Fifty years ago, two Oregon scientists stood on the wide, green lawn of Bell Labs headquarters in New Jersey to announce the world finally had a way to turn sunlight into electricity. 

Daryl Chapin, an electrical engineer, and Gerald Pearson, a physicist, joined chemist Calvin Fuller on April 25, 1954, to demonstrate the first practical solar cell made of silicon - later to become the prime ingredient in computer chips. 

But it had taken more than a century since French experimental physicist Edmund Becquerel discovered the photovoltaic effect in 1839 before the process that converts light into electricity could be commercialized with the technology developed by the Bell Labs trio. 

"An amazingly simple-looking apparatus made of strips of silicon showed how the sun's rays could be used to power ... a transistor radio transmitter carrying both speech and music," the original press release from Bell Labs said. 

Chapin and Pearson were both graduates of Willamette University in Salem, which awarded them honorary doctorates for their work in 1956. 

Their research with Fuller built on the theories about the photoelectric effect that won the Nobel Prize for Albert Einstein in 1921. 

The trio were originally searching for a solution to battery problems within the Bell telephone system when they created a solar photovoltaic cell capable of generating enough power from the sun to run electrical equipment. 

"It was a modest application at first - they were just trying to power a small radio," said Alice E. White, director of integrated photonics research at what is now Lucent Technologies Bell Labs. 

A half century later, solar cells power everything from wallet calculators to the Mars Rover. 

They have also significantly reduced the cost of energy as the technology has been refined. 

"At the time, manufacturing costs were over $1,700 per watt. But costs fell to $20 per watt by the 1970s and are now about $3 per watt," said Christopher Dymond, solar specialist for the Oregon Department of Energy (news - web sites). 

In addition, a little reverse engineering has made photovoltaic cells essential to the Internet. 

By reversing the process and converting electric signals into light, data and other types of communication signals can be carried over high-capacity fiber optic lines that link high-speed networks. 

"The Internet backbone wouldn't be possible without fiber optics switched with photodetectors," said Adam Grossberg, a Bell Labs spokesman. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Bell Labs: http://lucent.com 

Calif. Bill Would Ban Smoking in Car with Kids

Wed Apr 28, 2:23 PM ET

 

SAN FRANCISCO  - California could be on its way to becoming the first U.S. state to outlaw smoking in cars or trucks that have children inside. 

A bill is being considered in the state Assembly to allow police to stop vehicles if a minor appears to be exposed to smoke from a pipe, cigar, cigarette, or "any other plant." 

The bill has the support of the American Lung Association, which points to research showing secondhand smoke can cause cancer, respiratory infections and asthma. 

Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh, a Democrat and author of the bill, has referred to a survey by state health officials that found 29 percent of youth in the state had been exposed to secondhand smoke in the prior week. 

Opponents say the bill, which last week passed in the Transportation Committee and now heads to the Appropriations Committee, not only encroaches on Constitutional freedoms but demonstrates the intentions of some politicians to eventually ban smoking everywhere in California. 

"If the ultimate goal is to ban smoking, then have the courage to come up and say that," said Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy, a Republican in the Democratic-dominated legislative body. 

"Show me good science that shows that secondhand smoke is a problem. I don't know that they've proved that," Mountjoy added. 

California in 1995 became the first state in the nation to ban smoking in virtually all workplaces, said Paul Knepprath, the vice president of government relations at the American Lung Association of California. 

No other state has instituted a sweeping ban on smoking in cars with children present, Knepprath said. 

Science - AP
Engineers Oversee Wind Turbine Project 

Tue Apr 27, 2:08 PM ET

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho - Three electrical engineers from the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory are overseeing the installation of wind turbines on a tiny South Atlantic island occupied by the U.S. Air Force. 

Linux on Your Desktop?
Chart the rise of the anti-Windows, learn how to test-drive Linux without installing it and review the ongoing legal battle. 

The 900-kilowatt turbines will help the military base reduce its use of diesel generators and lower air pollution. 

For engineer Kurt Meyers, it's a 20-hour commute from Idaho Falls to Ascension Island, a 35-square-mile parcel of red volcanic rock is perched between South America and Africa. He's made the trip twice in the past month. 

"It's a one-of-a-kind installation," Meyers said. 

The dry, windy landscape was discovered in 1501 but has only been inhabited for about 200 years, leaving its surrounding waters relatively pristine. 

Meyer had already designed and overseen installation of four smaller turbines for the base in 1996. 

The combination of the six wind turbines, plus solar cells that were also installed, can supply enough power when the wind is blowing to run the whole base. 

The savings on diesel fuel alone will be $400,000 to $750,000 each year. 

The two turbines will pay for themselves within eight years and are expected to run for at least 25 years, said Charlie Clinchard, who has overseen their installation from Patrick Air Force Base in Florida. 

Part of the challenge Meyers faced was making sure a steady electrical supply is available to power the computers at the base, which track rockets and satellites for NASA (news - web sites) and the Air Force as they take off from Florida and later are in orbit. 

"We need 100 percent reliability because we've got to have power during a rocket launch, even if the wind isn't blowing," Clinchard said. 

The INEEL group has developed a system that senses wind power and then automatically powers the diesel generators up or down to compensate. 

A battery system wouldn't have worked as well because it would've been too expensive and hard to maintain, Meyers said. 

As a benefit, the system uses extra power to run a desalination plant to provide the base with fresh water. 

Installing the new turbines wasn't easy. The ideal height for their towers would have been 65 meters, but the engineers had to settle for about half that because that's as far as the largest crane on the island would reach. 

They also had to build up the ground to make sure the rock would support the turbines' weight. 

Fewer Say Bush Is Serving Middle Class Sun Apr 4, 1:12 AM ET

 - washingtonpost.com 

By Dana Milbank and Richard Morin, Washington Post Staff Writers 

As he approaches the November election, President Bush (news - web sites) has shed a good part of the "compassionate conservative" image he cultivated during the 2000 election, a Washington Post poll has found.

Bush came to office three years ago with a message that he was different from traditional Republican conservatives because he was promoting programs for the poor and disadvantaged. But with his presidency dominated by foreign policy issues and such traditional conservative favorites as tax cuts, he has dropped from his speeches the compassionate conservative moniker that was his trademark in 2000.

The Post poll found Americans split over whether Bush has governed in a compassionate way, with 49 percent saying he has and 45 percent saying he has not. That is down sharply from February 2003, when a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found that 64 percent of Americans thought he had governed compassionately.

While a majority of Americans (58 percent) say Bush has governed as expected, the Post poll showed that the rest are about twice as likely to say the president has been less compassionate (25 percent) than to say he has been more compassionate (13 percent). Forty-four percent now believe Bush cares most about serving upper-income people, an increase from 31 percent in September 1999 and 39 percent in July 2000. Forty-one percent believe Bush cares equally about all people, with small numbers saying he favors the poor or the middle class.

Whether this loss of compassion credentials is a problem for Bush depends on which voters prove to be the decisive bloc in November. Political strategists say the Bush campaign is gambling that it can win largely by mobilizing core GOP voters in large numbers -- a departure from recent elections, in which many moderate "swing" voters were the key.

Republican pollster Bill McInturff has determined that both Democratic- and GOP-leaning voters have made up their minds early this year. With fewer voters crossing between parties in recent elections, "there's not much flexibility on either side," he said. "Bush folks have been preparing for this type of election for a long time. There's a handful of groups up for grabs."

Republican strategist Scott Reed, who managed Robert J. Dole's 1996 presidential campaign, predicts that 4 percent of the electorate will be truly undecided in the fall, rather than the usual double-digit number. A Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted earlier last month found that 6 percent were uncommitted. The compassion theme "got you to the dance" in 2000, Reed said, but in 2004, "Bush needs to be seen as the warrior in the war on terrorism who also understands the need for job growth."

Democrats, though working to turn out their partisans, say Bush is taking a big risk by dropping the compassionate conservative theme. "He was given the benefit of the doubt by the swing voters who decided the election in 2000," said Jim Jordan, who is helping to organize an anti-Bush advertising drive. "But after three-plus years of governing as a hard-right ideologue, that image is in tatters." Jordan predicts that 2004, like previous elections, "is going to be settled in the middle."

Bush advisers say loss of standing on the compassion measures is a byproduct of the emphasis on terrorism and foreign policy. "While there has been a lot of media attention focused on national security priorities, the fact is the president has delivered on his domestic agenda," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, citing Bush achievements on education, Medicare prescriptions, help for religious charities, homeownership and AIDS treatment.

Still, Bush has made gestures that appear to be aimed at his conservative supporters rather than moderates: a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, the recess appointments of conservative judges and ending the expiration of his tax cuts. Last week, 31 Senate Republicans broke with Bush and voted to increase child-care funding for welfare recipients. As a result of such White House positions, said Andrew Kohut, a pollster who directs the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, Bush's standing has slipped among independents and even moderate Republicans.

"The working assumption is that because things are polarized, there can't be a lot of people up for grabs," Kohut said, "but the middle is still swinging." Kohut thinks three in 10 voters could still change their minds -- and at the moment, they favor the Democrats on domestic issues.

Respondents to the Washington Post poll, conducted March 10 to 14 and confirmed in subsequent polling, supported this view.

"He's shown far less compassion than I thought he would," said Michael Adams, 48, a political independent who is disabled and lives in Kalamazoo, Mich. "He's for the rich and not for the poor or even for the average person. I expected him to be more compassionate. He's a disappointment. He's for the rich and nobody else."

Similarly, Barbara Wright, a 69-year-old West Virginian, said she is a registered Republican who supported Bush in 2000 but may not do so in 2004. "If he realized how the normal people lived, middle-class people live, if he had some sort of a clue, that would be better," she said. "But he doesn't." Wright hopes that Bush simply is unaware of the problems that people like her face. "I hope he doesn't know. I worry he doesn't care."

Some poll responses suggest Bush still appears to have an opportunity to regain the compassion issue. "I really think he's trying to help everyone, even if people don't see that," said Democrat Deborah Secord, 53, a vice president of a printing company who lives in Sutton, Mass. "I don't think he's just for one class of people. I think he's trying to do things for everybody."

But few expect Bush to rerun the compassion theme of 2000. The conservative National Review magazine is proclaiming "The Death of Compassionate Conservatism" in its April 5 issue. If Bush gains on his Democratic opponent, writes author Ramesh Ponnuru, "it will have little to do with compassionate conservatism and more to do with negative attacks on John Kerry's liberalism."

Assistant polling director Claudia Deane contributed to this report.

FBI Agent Warned of 911 Months Before it Happened 02-Apr-2004

Sibel Edmonds, a former translator for the FBI who speaks Azerbaijani, Farsi, Turkish and English and has a top-secret security clearance, says the claim by Condoleezza Rice that there was no information about al-Qaeda planning airplane strikes before 911 is "an outrageous lie" because she provided that information to the government herself, a few months before the attack. 

Andrew Buncombe writes in the Independent that Edmonds told this to the government panel investigating 911 during a 3-hour closed session. She told them the FBI had information in the spring and summer of 2001 that an attack using airplanes was only months away and the terrorists were in place in the U.S. The Bush administration has tried to silence her. 

Edmonds says, "I gave [the commission] details of specific investigation files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the investigation. I gave them everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very easily. There was general information about the time-frame, about methods to be used-but not specifically about how they would be used-and about people being in place and who was ordering these sorts of terror attacks. There were other cities that were mentioned. Major cities-with skyscrapers." 

She was hired as an FBI translator on September 13, 2001, two days after the attacks, to translate documents and FBI wire-taps. She says, "Two hundred translators side by side, you get to see and hear a lot of...things...President Bush said they had no specific information about September 11 and that is accurate but only because he said September 11." She says that although the exact date wasn't known, the administration knew an attack using airplanes was only months away. 

Condoleezza Rice says, "Despite what some have suggested, we received no intelligence that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles, though some analysts speculated that terrorists might hijack planes to try and free U.S.-held terrorists." 

Edmonds says, "Rice says 'we' not 'I.' That would include all people from the FBI, the CIA and DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency]. I am saying that is impossible." 

Captured terrorist Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has told U.S. interrogators that al-Qaeda was planning attacks on the Library Tower in Los Angeles and the Sears Tower in Chicago, right after the September 11 attacks. 

The Washington Times reports that Mohammed says, "We were looking for symbols of economic might." They picked the Library Tower in Los Angeles because it was 'blown up' in the film 'Independence Day.'" This confirms an earlier report that al-Qaeda originally planned to crash airliners into targets on both coasts. It's also part of Mohammed's legal "defense" -he says he couldn't have been part of 911 attacks, since he was busy preparing for a different terrorist attack. 

What stopped them? Mohammed says Zacarias Moussaoui, who is facing trial in the U.S. as the "20th hijacker," had been sent to a flight school in Minnesota to train for a West Coast attack, but he got caught before he could carry it out. Mohammed says, "The original plan was for a two-pronged attack with five targets on the East Coast of America and five on the West Coast. We talked about hitting California as it was America's richest state, and bin-Laden had talked about economic targets." But bin-Laden vetoed simultaneous coast-to-coast attacks, saying "it would be too difficult to synchronize." Instead, they planned for two waves of attacks, hitting the East Coast first and then the West Coast. He says, "Osama had said the second wave should focus on the West Coast."

Bach's missing score found in Japan Sat Apr 3, 3:17 AM ET

Add Entertainment - NEWS SOURCE 

TOKYO (NEWS SOURCE) - A missing musical score composed by Johann Sebastian Bach (news) was found in Japan, scholars said, calling it an invaluable discovery for musicians and researchers around the world. 

The 1728 composition, called "Wedding Cantata BWV 216," was found among the possessions of Japanese pianist Chieko Hara, who died in Japan in 2001 at the age of 86. 

"This is invaluable material that will lead to greater understanding of Bach," Tadashi Isoyama, a professor at Kunitachi College of Music, told reporters. 

Isoyama led a team of scholars who since December have been examining the authenticity of the eight-page score, which has been missing for 80 years. 

The score was hand-written under Bach's supervision for the 1728 wedding of the daughter of a customs official in Leipzig, Germany. 

The documents contain soprano and alto parts with German lyrics. 

It was not clear how Hara came to acquire the score, the last known owner of which was a descendant of German composer Felix Mendelssohn, Isoyama said. 

Researchers believe Hara, who spent much of her career in Europe, might have received it from her Spanish husband and cellist Gaspar Cassado, who knew Mendelssohn's descendant. 

Isoyama's college purchased the work and is considering releasing copies of the score for further research and performance.

Brazil 'Hurricane' Caused by Global Warming? 28-Mar-2004

The existence of a rotating storm with an eye in the South Atlantic means that regional waters are now warm enough to generate the kind of moist upward flows of air that trigger tropical storms and hurricanes. Whether or not this will become a permanent weather feature is unknown. But it is known that ocean surfaces worldwide are warming, and therefore that incidents like this will become more common in the future. 

Not since 1966 has a storm of this type struck the South American coast. Not since 1991 has a storm with the structure of a hurricane appeared in the South Atlantic. If it has sustained winds above 74 mph, the Brazil hurricane qualifies as a Category 1 storm, the least powerful hurricane. If, indeed, the wind readings are correct--the U.S. has no hurricane watch aircraft in the area, and Brazil has no means to analyze hurricanes, so the actual state of this storm is open to question. Brazilian officials say that it is not a hurricane or tropical storm. U.S. officials disagree. 

What is known is that the storm is striking the southern coast of Brazil, and one child and seven fishermen, so far, are missing. It is also probable that it is the largest storm of this type ever seen in the region. Earlier records are sketchy, but there is no evidence that either of the earlier storms were as powerful. 

As the oceans warm and the stratosphere cools due to global warming, the potential for more, and more powerful, storms rises worldwide. The possibility of a super-hurricane taking place in the traditional hurricane alley of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico is now substantial.

Life on Mars-From Earth 26-Mar-2004

Scientists speculate that bacteria may spread through the universe on asteroids and that life on Earth may have come from Mars. Now they've discovered the opposite: that life on Mars may have come from Earth during the last 30 years. 

In New Scientist, David L. Chandler quotes NASA's Andrew Schuerger as saying, "I believe there is life on Mars, and it's unequivocally there, because we sent it." He says that of all the space probes sent to Mars, only the two Viking craft in 1976 were sterilized, a procedure which is routinely done now. He thinks some Earth bacteria may be still living on Mars. 

We now know that salt water existed for a long time on the surface of Mars and some life could survive there still. But could it be from Earth? "They are probably not going to survive in 200 kelvin conditions and in sulphuric acid," says Jeff Kargel of the U.S. Geological Survey. "Maybe they could. And maybe we've just done a really terrible thing."

A Surprising Reason Why Soft Drinks Make You Fat 26-Mar-2004

The rate of obesity in the U.S. started to increase in the 1970s, about the same time that manufacturers switched from sugar to cheaper corn syrup for their colas and other soft drinks. Now researchers say this may be because high fructose corn syrup-a food, like margarine, that is created in the lab and not found in nature-does not trigger the same appetite response in the body as sugar, so it's more likely to make us fat. 

Connoisseurs who remember the great taste of old-time sodas try to find Kosher Coke and Coca-Cola bottled in Mexico, where it's still made with sugar. But these sodas may not just taste better; the cost-cutting measures of major manufacturers may be the leading cause of obesity in America. Obesity researcher Dr. George A. Bray says the rise in corn sweeteners is "coincidental with the epidemic of obesity. Body weights rose slowly for most of the 20th century until the late 1980s. At that time, many countries showed a sudden increase in the rate at which obesity has been galloping forward." 

Unlike glucose (sugar), fructose doesn't trigger responses in the hormones that regulate your appetite and energy output, meaning it's much more likely to be converted into fat. 

"Fake foods" have been a major cause of disease in the past few years. Margarine, which replaced butter when it was scarce during World War II, was once touted by the American Heart Association as a miracle food that lowered cholesterol levels. It's now been shown to do just the opposite and we're warned not to eat it. 

Despite being vegetarians, cows were fed protein in the form of the ground-up bones of other cows, leading to Mad Cow Disease. 

High-fructose corn syrup made soft drinks cheap, especially after we could no longer import sugar from Cuba. Like all the other "fake foods" of recent years, it was created so manufacturers could cut costs and make more profit. And like the other fakes, it has ended up costing the public large amounts of money for treating heart disease, obesity and for Mad Cow monitoring. 

What will they try to sell us next?

New Virus Jumped from Monkeys Just Like HIV 25-Mar-2004

Scientists now agree that HIV started in Africa from people eating dead monkeys-or "bushmeat"-that had the disease. The virus then mutated into a form that can infect human beings. Now researchers say it's happening again in Africa with a brand-new virus. Will this one be as deadly as AIDS? 

Andy Coghlan writes in New Scientist that once again, the virus jumped from monkeys to man from the eating of bushmeat. It was once thought that such a mutation was rare, but now scientists think it may be common. "Our research shows the transmission of retroviruses to humans is not limited to a few, isolated occurrences like those that gave rise to HIV," says researcher Nathan Wolfe. "It's a regular phenomenon, and a cause for concern." 

Wolfe screened 1800 people from nine rural communities in Cameroon for the new virus. Ten of them who said they'd been exposed to the blood or body fluids of primates tested positive for the new virus. Wolfe thinks viruses infect humans through cuts they receive when they prepare the meat. 

One way to reduce this transmission would be to provide food for native people who would otherwise have to hunt and eat primates. Wolfe says, "It would help conserve endangered species and lower the potential for transmission of viruses to people." However, the illegal importation of bushmeat to London, where there are many African immigrants who consider it a delicacy, shows that some people will probably eat it anyway.

Red or White? 25-Mar-2004

King Tutankhamun drank red wine, according to a new scientific method that can determine the color of the wine residue found in the ancient jars that were buried with him in his tomb. 

Scientists have found wine in a jar from 5400 BC in present- day Iran. But our earliest knowledge about wine growing comes from ancient Egypt, where the winemaking process was depicted on tomb walls in drawings from 2600 BC. "Wine in ancient Egypt was a drink of great importance, consumed by the upper classes and the kings," says Egyptologist Maria Rosa Guasch-Jan�. 

King Tut's wine stash was discovered in 1922, but scientists haven't been able to analyze it until now. The inscription on the jar reads: "Year 5. Wine of the House-of-Tutankhamun Ruler-of-the-Southern-On, l.p.h.[in] the Western River. By the chief vintner Khaa," which isn't much different from the labels used on fine wines today. 

Guasch-Jan� says, "Wine jars were placed in tombs as funerary meals. The New Kingdom wine jars were labeled with product, year, source and even the name of the vine grower, but they did not mention the color of the wines they contained."

Carbon Dioxide at Record Levels 24-Mar-2004

Despite new concern about the dangers of global warming, carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, has reached record high levels in the atmosphere. Climatologist Ralph Keeling says, "We are moving into a warmer world." Why is this happening now, despite new awareness of the problem? 

Charles J. Hanley quotes NOAA's Pieter Tans as saying, "China is taking off economically and burning a lot of fuel. India, too." 

If global warming is inevitable, we need to start preparing for a very different future. Alex Kirby writes in bbcnews.com that the U.K., at least, is beginning to take action. 

Dr. Simon Thornton-Wood of the Royal Horticultural Society says, "We've lost a lot of orchards in the UK, but apples are still an important crop. I think the climate will mean it becomes harder to get a decent crop in the south of England, and apples may head north to find a cooler place to grow. Other fruit crops will be affected too, but I imagine it will be easier to grow crops like peaches instead...Our members are becoming more aware. In these last few years we've seen some quite significant variations in what people regard as the norm." 

Another problem will be weeds: Thornton-Wood says, "Giant hogweed has already gone haywire, and we think other invaders may do the same. Japanese knotweed is a problem, but we don't really know where the next crisis will come from, so we're calling on gardeners to be observant. You never know how species like these are going to affect the ecology of the British countryside, but they always do. They out- compete the native fauna and flora and change what has become familiar." 

You'll notice that there are no news stories of this kind appearing in the U.S. press. Are our scientists hiding their heads in the sand instead of planning for the future-or are they protecting the current administration's lack of action on global warming?

Daylight-Saving Time Issue in Ind. Race

Sat Apr 3, 1:00 PM ET

By MIKE SMITH, News Source Writer 

INDIANAPOLIS - The governor has given his position on the issue. So have the other two candidates seeking the state's highest office. 

While it isn't as pressing as other election-year topics like jobs, schools and budget deficits, the perennial question of whether all of Indiana should observe daylight-saving time has the candidates trying to devise a solution for what has been a complex clock-setting situation in the state. 

For more than three decades, people in some parts of Indiana set their clocks ahead one hour during daylight-saving time, but most do not. It is an almost-comical part of Hoosier lore, debated each year in the Legislature, in offices, in bars and on talk radio. 

Some say the existing system hurts the state's image and stunts commerce. Others, such as former Indiana House Speaker John Gregg, scoff at such claims. 

"It's still 24 hours," said Gregg, who dealt with the issue often in his 16 years in office until he retired in 2002. "If you want more daylight, get up earlier." 

It's not just whether all of Indiana should be on daylight time. Should it be on New York time or Chicago time? 

The candidates for governor have touched on the issue, with some waffling. 

Former White House Budget Director Mitch Daniels, considered the leading Republican candidate, favors statewide observance of daylight-saving time, with "as much of the state as possible" in the Central time zone. 

Democratic Gov. Joe Kernan backs daylight-saving time, but he has not specified a time zone. However, Lt. Gov. Kathy Davis - his running mate - says Central time is probably the best fit. 

Republican Eric Miller wants to put the question to a vote of the people, even though the state constitution does not include a mechanism for such ballot initiatives. 

Indiana is among three states that do not observe daylight-saving time - at least not completely. The others are Arizona and Hawaii. 

To eliminate a confusing time mix, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act of 1966 mandating observance of daylight time. For most Americans, that means setting clocks an hour ahead before they go to bed on the first Sunday in April. Daylight-saving time begins at 2 a.m. that Sunday and ends at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday in October. 

Proponents claim that the extra hour of evening sunshine helps to reduce energy consumption and crime. 

The act allowed states to opt out of daylight time. Hawaii - where day lengths do not vary much because of its tropical location - opted out in 1967. 

Arizona tried daylight time for a year, but state Sen. Jack Brown said lawmakers were buried in constituent complaints: Folks didn't want to wait until 9:30 p.m. for the drive-in movie to start; they didn't like tucking their children into bed with the sun still shining or getting them on the school bus in the dark. And few wanted to make those scorching summer days any longer than they already were. 

Others said it just wasn't natural. "There was one lady who said her chickens stopped laying eggs," Brown said. 

Only the Navajo Indian reservation in the northeastern corner of Arizona observes daylight time, and that's because it extends into the participating states of New Mexico and Utah. 

The issue is more complicated in Indiana, where daylight-saving time causes year-round confusion. 

Of Indiana's 92 counties, five in the northwest corner near Chicago and five in the southwest corner in the Evansville area are in the Central time zone and observe daylight time. They are always on Chicago time. 

The remaining 82 counties are in the Eastern time zone. Five in southeastern Indiana - three by Louisville, Ky. and two by Cincinnati - observe daylight time to stay in sync with their big-city neighbors, which will be on EDT. 

The rest of the 77 counties stay on Eastern Standard Time all year. So, when daylight-saving time is in effect, it is noon EDT in New York, but it is an hour earlier - 11 a.m. EST - in those 77 counties, including the state capital of Indianapolis. The clocks in Chicago will read the same, but it will be 11 a.m. CDT. 

In October when daylight-saving time ends, the 77 counties will be back on New York time and one hour ahead of Chicago. 

Many lawmakers say their constituents are evenly divided. 

Dodging the issue politically can be an art. Republican Rex Early pulled this one off during a 1996 gubernatorial primary debate: 

"Some of my friends are for putting all of Indiana on daylight-saving time. Some are against it. And I always try to support my friends."

Liquor, Wine Can Include Nutritional Info

Fri Apr 9, 3:25 PM ET

Add U.S. National - 

By JEANNINE AVERSA, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - Consumers counting carbohydrates and calories may soon see that information on the labels of their favorite rum, scotch and other liquors. 

While it's up to the individual company to decide whether to provide such information, Peter Cressy, president of the Distilled Sprits Council, said Friday that he expects consumers to start seeing labels containing carb and calorie information on some liquor products within a couple of months. 

A ruling by the Treasury Department (news - web sites)'s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau on Thursday made clear that liquor and wine companies that want to provide carb and calorie information on their labels and advertising can do so, just as some beer companies now do. 

Cressy believes this is good for his industry. 

"More and more consumers are seeking information about the carbohydrate and caloric content of what they eat and drink," Cressy said. Many of the industry's products, including vodka, tequila, whiskey, bourbon, scotch, gin and rum, contain no carbohydrates, he said. 

Providing such information on liquor labels and advertising "is a good thing and will help consumers make choices," he said. 

As part of the ruling, the bureau also issued an interim standard for the use of the term "low carbohydrate" that would be followed by beer, wine and liquor companies that want to provide such information on their labels. 

The bureau said that the term "low carbohydrate" may be used in labeling and advertising of alcohol beverages that contain no more than 7 grams of carbohydrates per serving. 

"That is new. Prior to this, there was no number set in terms of what can be claimed as low carbohydrate and we wanted to come forward with some kind of mark for the consumer as to what is meant by low," said Art Resnick, spokesman for the bureau. 

What qualifies as "low carbohydrate" may change as the bureau goes through the process of adopting final rules, Resnick said. 

Information about carb and calorie content must be truthful in labels and in advertisements. False and misleading statements are prohibited. Information that implies that "consumption of low-carbohydrate alcohol beverages may play a healthy role in a weight maintenance or weight reduction plan" would be considered misleading and thus prohibited, the bureau said. 

Even moderate consumption of alcohol beverages poses health risks for some people, the bureau said. 

Companies wanting to provide carb and calorie information also need to provide information on the protein and fat content of the product, the bureau said. 

___ 

On the Net: 

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau: http://www.ttb.gov/

Some presidential history. Look what happens when a President gets elected in a year with a "0" at the end. Also notice it goes in increments of 20 years. 

>1840: William Henry Harrison (died in office)

>1860: Abraham Lincoln (assassinated)

>1880: James A. Garfield (assassinated)

>1900: William McKinley (assassinated)

>1920: Warren G. Harding (died in office)

>1940: Franklin D. Roosevelt (dies in office)

>1960: John F. Kennedy (assassinated)

>1980: Ronald Reagan (survived assassination attempt)

>2000: George W. Bush ???????????? 

And to think that we had two guys fighting it out in the courts to be the >one elected in 2000. 

You might also be interested in this. 

Have a history teacher explain this----- if they can.

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.

John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946. 

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.

John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960. 

Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.

Both wives lost their children while living in the White House. 

Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.

Both Presidents were shot in the head. 

Now it gets really weird. 

Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy.

Kennedy's Secretary was named Lincoln. 

Both were assassinated by Southerners.

Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson. 

>Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.

>Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908. 

John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839. 

Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939. 

Both assassins were known by their three names.

Both names are composed of fifteen letters. 

Now hang on to your seat. 

Lincoln was shot at the theater named 'Ford.' 

Kennedy was shot in a car called 'Lincoln' made by'Ford.' 

Lincoln was shot in a theater and his assassin ran and hid in a warehouse. 

Kennedy was shot from a warehouse and his assassin ran and hid in a

theater. 

Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials. 

And here's the kicker... 

A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe,Maryland

A week before Kennedy was shot, he was with Marilyn Monroe.

Why Housing Could Spring a Leak

Wed Apr 7, 8:30 AM ET

Add Business - BusinessWeek Online 

It sure looked like good news: On Apr. 2, the government announced that a stunning 308,000 new jobs were created in March (economists were expecting only about 130,000). For the housing market, however, these tidings hit like a ton of bricks. Almost immediately, interest rates started rising, and housing stocks started falling. 

KB Homes (NYSE:KBH - News) fell from $80.20 to $76.60 that day and to $75.27 the next (see BW Online, 4/5/04, "KB Home: Cyclical No Longer?"). D.H Horton (NYSE:DHI - News), Lennar (NYSE:LEN - News), and Centex (NYSE:CTX - News) all slumped an average of about 7% those two days before rebounding a bit on Apr. 6. 

Are these stocks signaling potential weakness ahead for real estate? You bet they are. While housing experts point to myriad reasons why the real estate market will likely stay robust through 2004, the risk of a serious downturn in the next few years is clearly increasing -- particularly in areas of the country where home prices have risen the most. 

"AN ATTRACTIVE ZONE." So far, the interest rate jumps have been moderate. Mortgage rates, both traditional 30-year and adjustable, remain way below their historical average of around 8%. But on Apr. 6, Bankrate.com's overnight survey of lenders showed the average rate on a 30-year-fixed mortgage spiked to 5.48%, up from 5.2% a week earlier. 

"It's hard to be too concerned about such a relatively small backup," notes Mike Sklarz, chief valuation officer for real estate services company Fidelity National Financial in Jacksonville, Fla. "We're still in such an attractive zone of interest rates." He believes rates would have to rise to 6.5% or 7% to hurt the market. 

That kind of a rise doesn't seem likely this year. Indeed, rates briefly climbed above 6% last August, only to retreat quickly when the economy slowed in the fourth quarter. But through it all, sales volume and home-price appreciation nationally have never slumped. And if the economy continues to grow and inflation perks up, a housing market bubble is certainly a plausible scenario a year or two from now. 

THE AFFORDABILITY QUESTION. Any downturn in the market could have major economic ramifications. With home ownership now up to almost 70% of households, Americans are pouring more and more of their savings -- as well as their hopes and dreams -- into their homes. "You can't ignore the fact that low interest rates haves aided affordability and to some extent deserve credit for continued rapid price appreciation in real estate prices over the year," says Greg McBride, financial analyst at Bankrate.com. 

It's people's ability to afford a high-priced home that is directly affected when rates rise, not the actual home price. For now, buyers are turning to adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) to find the same interest rate they could once get through a 30-year fixed, says Paul Fine, senior vice-president at GMAC Mortgage. ARMs provide buyers with a lower rate now, in exchange for lenders gaining the option of raising the rate at a set point in the future. 

The increasing popularity of ARMS is likely to keep the housing market strong through this year, says Frank Anton, president of Hanley Wood, a Washington (D.C.)-based media company that serves the residential-construction industry. The problem is that ARMs put homeowners at risk of being unable to afford their home in the future if interest rates rise substantially over the next few years (see BW, 4/12/04, "Home Buyers: ARMed And Dangerous?"). 

Here's a worst case scenario: Today's buyer of a $500,000 home finds that in three years she owes that same amount, but has to pay twice as much to finance it, while she can sell the house for only $300,000. It doesn't take much imagination to see what such a trend would do to the banking industry, consumer confidence, and the broader economy. 

SUPPLY-DEMAND CUSHION. So far, that kind of doomsday appears far fetched, housing experts say. They expect home prices to level off at some point in the future, but not tumble. While regional home values can and often do rise and fall, average home prices nationwide haven't dropped in about 35 years of record-keeping. 

Plus, housing inventory remains near record lows, and supply is hard to add in areas where prices are rising fastest, says Craig Kucera, who covers homebuilding stocks for brokerage firm Friedman Billings Ramsey. "We still have a significant supply-demand imbalance," he says. "That adds some cushion if there's a slowdown in 2005 or later this year, but I don't see that." 

Plus, if rates continue to rise (which isn't a given), that will likely be because the economy is improving, which means personal incomes will be rising, and more people will be able to afford higher-priced homes, Anton says. Even in a rising-rate environment, "it's conceivable that the housing market would move ahead with barely a blip," he adds. 

WARNING SIGNS. None of this means that stable real estate values are etched in stone, however. The country is already dotted with pockets of vulnerability. In parts of California such as Silicon Valley, average prices have climbed beyond the affordable range for the typical income-earner. Sklarz points to places like Key Biscayne (Fla.) and South Hampton (N.Y.), where prices have risen the fastest, as potential trouble spots. It's "a pretty good signal" of vulnerability, he says, if prices have gone up more than 150% in the past five years. 

Worried about your neighborhood? Watch the local listings for a growing inventory of homes on the market and flattening or falling prices at the high end. That's a leading indicator for the rest of the market, says Sklarz. Keep your ears open for signs of speculation: Is your neighbor buying a house with plans to fix it up and flip it? 

Kucera also looks at the rental market, which is weakening on a national level, as a gauge of home-price appreciation potential. If you can rent a comparable home for much less than it would cost to buy it, that's a worrisome sign. 

Also, keep an eye on those homebuilding stocks. For now, Wall Street is signaling only more risk, not the reality of a weakening housing market. Luckily, houses aren't like stocks, which are a lot easier to trade. But as mortgage rates rise, fewer people will be able to afford to move up to a nicer house. That's a trend today's home buyers need to keep in mind, even if any weakening in the housing market is still years away. 

12 dangerous dietary supplements identified by 'Consumer Reports'

Thu Apr 8, 7:29 AM ET

 - USATODAY.com 

By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY 

If they're natural, they must be safe, right? Not so, say researchers at Consumer Reports magazine.

In a report in the May issue, the consumer publication found a dozen herbal supplements - some banned in Asia, Europe and Canada but widely available in the USA - that may cause cancer, kidney or liver damage and even death.

They include: 

� Aristolochia, linked to kidney failure and cancer.

� Yohimbe, linked to heart and respiratory problems.

� Bitter orange, similar to ephedra, the banned weight-loss supplement believed responsible for 155 deaths nationwide.

The researchers also cited chaparral, comfrey, germander, kava and scullcap, all of which are known or likely causes of liver failure; lobella because of its impact on the heart; and pennyroyal oil because of possible liver, kidney and nerve damage.

Two of these supplements have already been acted on by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites). Organ/glandular extracts are affected by FDA restrictions on the use of bovine materials in supplements because of the risk of mad cow disease.

And in March, then-FDA commissioner Mark McClellan warned companies to stop selling the bodybuilding supplement androstenedione (andro). 

"A lot of people believe that herbal supplements are safe because they've been used for years in traditional medicine," says senior editor Nancy Metcalf. But "when they went looking for problems in China, they found plenty of them."

The findings highlight the lack of oversight. A 1994 law, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, has been seen as tying the hands of regulators because it requires the FDA to allow the sale of any supplement it cannot prove is unsafe.

But a recent report by the National Institutes of Medicine says flat out that the FDA doesn't need direct evidence of human harm to stop sales of dangerous supplements. It's enough to establish the danger using animal or test-tube studies, or even with reports of problems from similar products.

Manufacturers should be required to report side effects and include a phone number on packaging for consumers who want to do so, the panel said.

Meanwhile, the FDA has sent warning letters to 16 dietary-supplement distributors found to be making false and misleading claims on the Internet for weight-loss products. Many claim to block starch, carbohydrates and fat calories, creating weight loss without any lifestyle changes.

Not all supplements are snake oil, Consumer Reports says. It identified three that show possible benefits and low risks, including saw palmetto for benign enlarged prostate, glucosamine and chondroitin for arthritis, and fish oil capsules for heart health.

IRS Helps Authorities Find Missing Teen

Fri Apr 9, 2:31 PM ET

Add U.S. National - 

By MARY DALRYMPLE, News Source Tax Writer 

WASHINGTON - Missing kids aren't pictured only on the back of milk cartons. A taxpayer found a missing child this spring after seeing her picture in an Internal Revenue Service (news - web sites) tax instruction booklet. 

The anonymous taxpayer helped authorities locate Michelle Branch, missing seven years from her home in Fremont, Calif., on March 16. 

"She really didn't know anybody was even looking for her," said D'Ann Taflin, spokeswoman for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. 

Branch, who described herself to Taflin as a "wild kid," went missing at age 17. She's now 24 years old and living in Detroit. 

Her family plans to send her a plane ticket so she can fly to California and visit them in May. 

The reunification marks the first time the IRS can say with certainty that a photograph in a tax publication led the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to a missing child. 

The center distributes photographs to more than 300 partners. The IRS started publishing them in their highly visible and widely used tax publications in 1999. About 1,300 pictures have appeared in IRS publications, and 200 of those children have been found. 

"One in six missing children is found as a direct result of someone recognizing that child's photo, and we count ourselves extremely fortunate to have the IRS as a powerful partner," said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. 

In addition to distributing photographs, the center trains law enforcement and social service workers, offers child protection training and helps the State Department solve cases of international child abduction. 

It has helped authorities locate more than 80,000 children since 1984. 

__ 

On the Net: 

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: www.missingkids.com 

Penn State Study Finds Origins of Snakes

Fri Apr 9, 8:09 AM ET

By DAN LEWERENZ, News Source Writer 

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Using DNA evidence, two Penn State University researchers think they have answered a long-standing question among scientists: Did snakes evolve from land-based lizards, or did they come from the sea? 

In an article for the May 7 issue of the journal Biology Letters, Penn State biology professor Blair Hedges and postdoctoral scholar Nicolas Vidal write that the genetic evidence strongly suggests that snakes evolved from land-dwelling lizards. 

It's a conclusion that confirms a general trend in evolutionary biology, but bucks more than 100 years of thinking about reptiles, Hedges said. 

The first tetrapods, or four-legged creatures, migrated from the oceans onto land 365 million years ago. Many animals later returned to the sea, including the ancestors of modern dolphins and whales - their arms and legs evolved into fins. 

Herpetologists, though, have been divided about the origin of snakes. Some thought snakes evolved from land-based lizards, losing their legs to better squeeze through small holes and crevasses close to the ground. Others thought aquatic lizards, such as mosasaurs, made a second migration onto land as snakes. 

Evidence for the aquatic theory came largely from physical similarities between monitor lizards such as the Komodo dragon - the closest living relatives of mosasaurs - and snakes. 

"Monitors have these long, forked tongues like snakes, and not many other lizards have similar tongue morphology," Hedges said. "The body shape of a monitor is very long and snakelike. The jaws are very large and tending toward the snake's jaw type. So there were several lines of evidence, morphologically, that point toward a snake-monitor relationship." 

To test that theory, Vidal and Hedges compared the DNA from 17 of the 25 known families of snakes to DNA from all 19 families of lizards. They found snakes to be much more similar to land-based lizards than they were to monitors, providing strong evidence for a terrestrial evolution. 

"In the last five or so years, people looking at gene sequences have claimed that they found support for a monitor-snake relationship in the sequence data," Hedges said. "But in all cases, they were missing many families of lizards, so I guess you could say the didn't have all the data to really say that for certain. 

"When we had all of the families' data, it clearly showed there was no snake-monitor relationship." 

Although the evidence contradicts the strongly held beliefs of some herpetologists, Nancy J. Berner, associate professor and chair of biology at the University of the South, said the DNA comparison would be strong evidence for those looking strictly at physical similarities. 

"The thing that really caught my attention, and that I think is really significant, is that the investigators were looking at genetic relatedness as opposed to anatomical structures," Berner said. "What this does is it's taking the new technology that's out there and applying it to an old question, really testing old theories. I would say that they're really on to something here." 

Although their research leads Hedges and Vidal away from the monitor lizards and the aquatic theory, they still haven't determined exactly where snakes began to separate from the lizard family tree. 

"Now we need to identify the closest relative of snakes. We don't have it yet," Vidal said. "We can exclude monitors - that's statistically supported, strongly - so we know their origin is not marine. But all of the other lizard lineages are terrestrial, so we have to find which one." 

___ 

On the Net: 

Penn State University: http://www.psu.edu 

White House - AP

9/11 Documents Show Hijacking Warnings

15 minutes ago

Add White House - 

By CURT ANDERSON, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - U.S. government agencies issued repeated warnings in the summer of 2001 about potential terrorist plots against the United States masterminded by Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), including a possible plan to hijack commercial aircraft, documents show. 

While there were no specific targets mentioned in the United States, there was intelligence indicating al-Qaida might attempt to crash a plane into the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. And other reports said Islamic extremists might try to hijack a plane to gain release of comrades. 

The escalating seriousness was reflected in a series of warnings issued by the State Department, Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites), Defense Department and others detailing a heightened risk of terror attacks targeting Americans. 

Whether the Bush administration had enough information to take more aggressive action is at the heart of the dispute over the contents of an Aug. 6, 2001, intelligence briefing the White House was working to declassify at the urging of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. White House officials said the document would not come out Friday and probably would not be ready for release until early next week. 

Several Democrats on the commission claim the memo, called a presidential daily brief, or PDB, included current intelligence indicating a high threat of hijackings. It was titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." 

"Something was going to happen very soon and be potentially catastrophic," said one of the Democrats, former Indiana Rep. Timothy Roemer. "I don't understand, given the big threat, why the big principals don't get together." 

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) repeatedly told the panel Thursday that the document was a history of al-Qaida threats and contained no new imminent threat information requiring different government action. The possibility of hijackings was being investigated by the FBI (news - web sites) and the Federal Aviation Administration, she said, adding that most of the summer 2001 threats concerned U.S. interests abroad. 

"The country had taken the steps that it could given that there was no threat reporting about what might happen within the United States," Rice said. 

Congress already has conducted an investigation into the attacks and its final report includes a detailed timeline of the increasing threats U.S. officials picked up during the summer of 2001. It also includes some of the material from the PDB. 

The memo mentioned intelligence that bin Laden wanted to hijack aircraft to gain release of prisoners in the United States. The PDB also contains FBI information about "patterns of activity consistent with preparations for hijackings or other attacks," according to congressional investigators. 

A key event occurred on June 21, 2001, when a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., returned a 46-count indictment charging 13 Saudis and one Lebanese with the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. service personnel. 

Rumors of the coming indictment had been circulating for weeks before that, according to officials familiar with the intelligence, leading to increased worries that terrorists might take some action in connection with the case. 

The next day, June 22, the FAA issued a nationwide circular "referring to a possible hijacking plot by Islamic terrorists to secure release of 14 persons incarcerated in the United States" in the Khobar Towers case. In fact, the 14 were still at large, although the circular did not mention that. They remain fugitives to this day. 

More terrorism warnings quickly followed, including: 

_ A worldwide caution issued June 22 by the State Department warning Americans abroad of increased risk of terror attacks. 

_ Four Defense Department alerts between June 22 and July 20 alerting U.S. military personnel that "bin Laden's network was planning a near-term, anti-U.S. terrorist operation." 

_ A July 2 bulletin from the FBI to federal, state and local law enforcement agencies describing "increased threat reporting" about bin Laden or groups allied with al-Qaida. The bulletin suggested the greatest risk of an attack was overseas "although the possibility could not be discounted" of an attack inside the United States. 

_ Intelligence received by U.S. agencies in August about the plot to either bomb the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi from an airplane or crash an aircraft into the building. The report cited two unidentified people who met in October 2000 to discuss this plot on instructions from bin Laden. 

A senior law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the FBI issued at least two other bulletins in 2001 about the terror threat intelligence but did not include directives for field offices to take specific actions because there was no imminent threat to the homeland. 

There had been numerous earlier reports of bin Laden's interest in using aircraft for terror attacks, including a 1998 plot to fly an explosives-laden plane from a foreign country into the World Trade Center and an April 2000 plot to hijack a Boeing 747 and either fly it to Afghanistan (news - web sites) or blow up. 

But in December 2000, the FBI and FAA issued a classified threat assessment that played down the possibility of a threat to domestic aviation from terror operatives known to be in the United States. 

"Terrorist activity within the U.S. has focused primarily on fund-raising, recruiting new members and disseminating propaganda," that report says. "While international terrorists have conducted attacks on U.S. soil, these acts represent anomalies in their traditional targeting which focuses on U.S. interests overseas." 

The congressional intelligence inquiry's report suggests that this mind-set, less than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, may have contributed to an overall U.S. view that there was a low probability of attacks on American soil, particularly using aircraft as weapons. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Joint intelligence report: http://news.findlaw.com/wp/docs/911rpt 

9/11 Commission: http://www.9-11commission.gov 

Mortality Rate Highest for Detroit Kids

Thu Apr 8, 1:22 PM ET



DETROIT - The mortality rate is higher among Detroit children than among any of the nation's 15 largest cities. 

The death rate also is 68 percent above the national average. Between 1999 and 2001, the most recent years for which data is available, 1,032 children under 18 perished, a study by The Detroit News of federal health records found. 

And although many of the deaths could not be prevented, an unusually high number were lost to fires, homicides and conditions indicative of impoverished communities. 

"We're losing our kids," said Sharon Peters, president and CEO of Michigan's Children, a Lansing-based advocacy group. "It's unacceptable. And it's a distinction Detroit can ill afford to have." 

Although recent figures are not available, examples of violent deaths among Detroit's children are commonplace. Just Wednesday, four children and their mother were buried after being beaten to death with a pipe last week. 

Between 1999 and 2001, 80 children in Detroit died in homicides, records show. 

And Detroit's overall murder rate has leapt 50 percent over last year during the first three months, going from 68 to 102. 

Homicides account for about 8 percent of Detroit children's deaths. Its homicide rate among children was the second-highest for the major cities, behind Chicago for the three years studied. 

But much more common causes of death are health problems often associated with poverty. 

Detroit's infant mortality rate - the portion of children who don't survive their first year of life - is double the state average, according to the Michigan Department of Community Health. For every 1,000 babies born to Detroit mothers in 2002, 16 died. 

The most frequent cause of death among Detroit's kids between 1999 and 2001 was extremely low birth weight, often less than 2.2 pounds. At least 178 babies died that way, according to records from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites). 

All told, 434 deaths or 42 percent of the total were linked to conditions such as respiratory problems or infections that take hold during the first months of a child's life. 

Experts say that while such conditions sometimes cannot be prevented, in other cases they are directly tied to poverty, drug use or other factors that hamper new parents' abilities to care for their kids. 

Dr. Theodore Jones, who works with high-risk pregnancies at Hutzel Women's Hospital in Detroit, said the drug use among pregnant women is a serious concern. 

And he said poverty among Detroit families makes them less likely to get proper treatment and care. About a third of Detroit children live in poverty, the highest rate among the 15 cities. 

Records also show that fires, car crashes, suicide and other accidents kill an unusually high number of children. 

Among the 15 biggest cities, Detroit's death rate from fires ranks highest - 54 died between 1999 and 2002. The city ranks third for the portion of children killed in car crashes and from suicide and second in other types of accidents, such as drownings, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention records show. 

___ 

Information from: The Detroit News, http://www.detnews.com 

Green Tea Component Kills Leukemia Cells Thu Apr 8, 7:03 PM ET

HealthDay 

THURSDAY, April 8 (HealthDayNews) -- A component of green tea helps kill cells of B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), the second most common leukemia in American adults, according to new research.

Mayo Clinic researchers found that the component, called epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), destroys leukemia cells by interrupting the communication signals they need to survive. The research appears online in the journal Blood.

CLL is most often diagnosed in people in their mid-to-late 60s. Chemotherapy is used to treat the most severe cases, but there is no cure for CLL.

In this study, the Mayo scientists found that EGCG prompted leukemia cells to die in eight of 10 patient samples tested in a laboratory.

"We're continuing to look for therapeutic agents that are nontoxic to the patient but kill cancer cells, and this finding with EGCG is an excellent start," study leader Dr. Neil E. Kay said in a prepared statement. "Understanding this mechanism and getting these positive early results gives us a lot to work with in terms of offering patients with this disease more effective, easily tolerated therapies earlier." 

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute (news - web sites) has more about CLL.

Technology - AP

System Can Detect Fraudulent Passports

Thu Apr 8, 5:29 PM ET

By DAVID TIRRELL-WYSOCKI, News Source Writer 

CONCORD, N.H. - Australia, one of the United States' strongest allies, has added a new weapon to its arsenal - a toaster-sized document reader that tells in seconds whether a passport is a fraud and identifies travelers who might be included on terrorist watch lists. 

"What we're trying to do is strengthen border security by making sure that the people who are coming into this country are who they say they are," said Tim Chapman, a manager with Australia's Customs Service. 

In a multimillion-dollar contract, Australia has installed 400 iA-thenticate units from Imaging Automation Inc. of Bedford, N.H., at its international airports in hopes of authenticating the documents of every person entering. 

The system ranges from $5,000 to $15,000 per unit. It uses multiple light sources to examine hundreds of security features on travel documents. Many of the features, including the composition of ink, are invisible to the naked eye. 

Australia joins Canada, Hungary, Sweden, Finland, Nigeria among the countries using or testing the iA-thenticate system. The Dallas-Fort Worth and Boston airports and a company that contracts with nuclear plants use the system to check credentials of prospective employees. 

Chapman said the system was deployed in Australia in mid-February and already has detected false documents. Without giving details, he said the people might not have been detected beforehand. 

Imaging Automation is trying to sell its system to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which is facing delays in its plans to incorporate passport-validating fingerprint and facial biometrics at border crossings. 

___ 

On the Net: 

iA-thenticate devices: http://www.imagingauto.com 

Actors Whip Easter Bunny at Church Show Thu Apr 8,11:08 AM ET

Add U.S. National - 

GLASSPORT, Pa. - First, the Passion of the Christ. Now, the torment of the Easter Bunny? 

It may not have been as gruesome as Mel Gibson's movie, but many parents and children got upset when a church trying to teach about Jesus' crucifixion performed an Easter show with actors whipping the Easter bunny and breaking eggs. 

People who attended Saturday's show at Glassport's memorial stadium quoted performers as saying, "There is no Easter bunny," and described the show as being a demonstration of how Jesus was crucified. 

Melissa Salzmann, who brought her 4-year-old son J.T., said the program was inappropriate for young children. "He was crying and asking me why the bunny was being whipped," Salzmann said. 

Patty Bickerton, the youth minister at Glassport Assembly of God, said the performance wasn't meant to be offensive. Bickerton portrayed the Easter rabbit and said she tried to act with a tone of irreverence. 

"The program was for all ages, not just the kids. We wanted to convey that Easter is not just about the Easter bunny, it is about Jesus Christ," Bickerton said. 

Performers broke eggs meant for an Easter egg hunt and also portrayed a drunken man and a self-mutilating woman, said Jennifer Norelli-Burke, another parent who saw the show in Glassport, a community about 10 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. 

"It was very disturbing," Norelli-Burke said. "I could not believe what I saw. It wasn't anything I was expecting." 

Human-Cat Relationship Goes Back Further

Thu Apr 8, 9:37 PM ET

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - While ancient Egypt provides the first written record of cats, a burial discovered on Cyprus indicates that humans and felines may have become associated much earlier - extending 9,500 years or more into the past. 

It's a relationship that has ranged from their being adored as gods in the Nile valley to their slinking into medieval witchhood and rising again to be revered in poet T.S. Eliot's verses and in the stage show "Cats." Today, more than 30 percent of American homes host a cat. 

Jean-Denis Vigne of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris believes the relationship first blossomed with the development of agricultural societies 10,000 or so years ago. 

"It seems that cats probably came more and more frequently into villages where grain stocks attracted numerous mice," said Vigne. "I think that human beings rapidly understood that they could use cats for reducing the number of mice." 

It was Vigne's research team that uncovered the carefully buried cat on Cyprus, placed just inches from a human burial that also contained polished stones, shells, tools and jewelry. The graves are estimated to be 9,500 years old. 

The cat belonged to the Felis silvestris species, a wild cat, which was significantly larger than modern domestic cats. The cat's bones were placed carefully, parallel to the human, and showed no signs of butchering, another indication that the animal may have been a pet, Vigne said in a paper in Friday's issue of the journal Science. 

The finding seems to be evidence of cats being tamed earlier than previously thought, said Melinda Zeder of the Smithsonian Institution (news - web sites)'s National Museum of Natural History. 

If the cat was intentionally buried with the human, which it seems to have been, Zeder said, "what they've got is pretty good evidence of a kind of relationship with humans." 

It's hard to know whether it was a pet or a working mouser because "the bones aren't talking," said Zeder, president of the International Council for Archaeozoology. 

What may be surprising is that there hasn't been evidence of an earlier relationship with cats, she added, noting that indications of human-dog relations go back 12,000 years. 

Blaire Van Valkenburgh, a biology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, agreed that the finding is "the first suggestion that there was a significant emotional attachment" between a human and a cat. 

"They make a good case that they were buried at the same time and it shows that whoever buried it cleared a special spot for it," she said. "That makes it significant." 

Vigne noted in his paper that there have been older remains of cats - specifically a jaw - found on Cyprus, but it was not associated with a human grave. Cat bones about 9,000 years old were also found near Jericho, but there was no indication of domestication, though that may have been under way in several places at about the same time. 

Cats are not native to Cyprus, so their presence on the eastern Mediterranean island indicates they were brought there at some point. 

"The first discovery of cat bones on Cyprus showed that human beings brought cats from the mainland to the islands, but we couldn't decide if these cats were wild or tame. With this discovery we can now decide that these cats were linked with humans," Vigne said. 

The best known ancient evidence of cats comes from Egypt, where the animals were bred 4,000 or more years ago. Cats were often included in Egyptian art and worshipped as the cat goddess Bastet. 

Stones engraved with images of wild cats and other animals have been discovered from Western Asia and dated back to the Early Neolithic - 4000 to 3000 B.C. 

This may be evidence that cats had spiritual significance for humans, according to Vigne, though the real meaning of the representations is irreparably lost. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Science: http://www.sciencemag.org

Study: Textbook Prices Soar for Students

Thu Apr 8, 9:12 AM ET

Add U.S. National - 

By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, News Source Writer 

PORTLAND, Ore. - College freshman Amy Connolly knows not to judge a book by its cover. Instead, she judges the newest Calculus 101 text by what's inside: a CD-ROM, flashy color photographs and a bubble-wrapped study manual. All those extras bring the price tag to $126, she says. 

"The textbook companies are adding bells and whistles that students don't need - it's making the cost of education unaffordable," said Connolly, a student at Portland State University. 

A study spearheaded by students in Oregon and California found that the cost of textbooks has skyrocketed because of the bundling of ancillary products like CD-ROMs. It also claims that publishers roll out new editions year after year, forcing students to buy new books although the content scarcely changes. 

Pat Schroeder, president of the Association of American Publishers and a former congresswoman, said the report was one-sided and flawed. 

Fifteen members of Congress have asked for an investigation into the pricing policies of U.S textbook publishers. The Government Accounting Office, which is the investigative arm of Congress, has given the request high priority, said Cornelia Ashby, the director of the office's education branch. 

The study was conducted by the California Student Public Interest Research Group, Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group and the OSPIRG Foundation. The groups conducted a survey of the most widely assigned books in the fall of 2003 at 10 public colleges in Oregon and California. 

According to the study, college students today spend about $900 on textbooks every year. On average, textbook publishers keep books on the shelf for 3 1/2 years before issuing a new one. Over half of faculty members surveyed said the new editions are "rarely" to "never" justified. 

"Calculus hasn't changed much since Isaac Newton. The question needs to be asked - do we really need a new edition every few years?" said U.S. Rep. David Wu, an Oregon Democrat who was the first lawmaker to ask for the investigation last fall. 

Textbook publishers say the students' recommendations, which include a five-year minimum before the release of a new edition, fail to take the need for updates into account. 

"Imagine a government textbook that had Bill Clinton (news - web sites) as president. Or an accounting textbook that didn't include Enron. Or a biology textbook that didn't have cloning or stem cell research. The world changes so fast," said Jessica Dee Rohm, spokeswoman for Thomson Learning, the Stamford, Conn.-based textbook giant. 

Publishers say that even if the subject is calculus or art history, and by nature doesn't change as radically as genetics, the revised editions are always different. 

"We have a revision diary that's hundreds of pages long for that book - we invested $300,000 of research to change it," said Rohm, referring to the Calculus 101 book that Connolly held up at a news conference in Portland on Wednesday. 

Rohm said that the information age has changed everything, and the CD-ROM is only the tip of the iceberg in staying on top of that trend. 

The spiraling price of textbooks has led to all sorts of strategies to reduce the financial hit, said Merriah Fairchild of the California Student Public Interest Research Group. 

"I know stories of students pooling together to buy a single book - students just can't afford it anymore," Fairchild said. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Association of American Publishers: http://www.publishers.org/ 

Thomson Learning: http://www.thomson.com/learning/learning.jsp?x2 

CALPIRG: http://www.pirg.org/calpirg/ 

OSPIRG: http://www.ospirgstudents.org/

Government Licenses First Private Rocket

Thu Apr 8, 8:29 AM ET

By LESLIE MILLER, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - The government on Wednesday awarded a California aviation company the first license for a manned suborbital rocket. 

The Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) announced that it gave a one-year license to Scaled Composites of Mojave, Calif., a company founded by aviation maverick Burt Rutan. His goal is public space travel within 10 years. 

Rutan is best known for designing the Voyager airplane that made the first nonstop, unrefueled flight around the world in 1986. But his dream is to inspire excitement about space flight. 

Though he declined to comment on obtaining the launch license, Rutan posted a statement on the company's Web site expressing his hopes that ordinary people can travel to space in 10 years. 

"I strongly feel that, if we are successful, our program will mark the beginning of a renaissance for manned space flight," he wrote. "This might even be similar to that wonderful time period between 1908 and 1912 when the world went from a total of ten airplane pilots to hundreds of airplane types and thousands of pilots in 39 countries. We need affordable space travel to inspire our youth." 

The Scaled Composites craft consists of a rocket plane, dubbed SpaceShipOne, and the White Knight, an exotic jet designed to carry it aloft for a high-altitude launch. SpaceShipOne, made of graphite and epoxy, has short wings and twin vertical tails. It reached 12.9 miles altitude in a trial flight; the license will allow the spacecraft to reach the edge of space, about 60 miles up. 

The license is a prerequisite for the X Prize competition, an international space race that will give $10 million to the first company or person to launch a manned craft to 62.5 miles above the Earth, and then do it again within two weeks. The craft must be able to carry three people. 

The prize, announced in 1996, is sponsored by the privately funded X Prize Foundation in St. Louis. Supporters include Dennis Tito, the American who spent $20 million to fly in a Russian craft as the first space tourist; pilot Erik Lindbergh, the grandson of Charles Lindbergh; former astronaut and U.S. Sen. John Glenn; and movie actor Tom Hanks. 

FAA spokesman Henry Price said the agency is considering two other applications for launch licenses. One is an X Prize contestant. 

Twenty-seven contestants from seven countries have registered for the X Prize competition. 

Before launching the spacecraft in the X Prize competition, Scaled Composites must give the prize sponsors 90 days notice, Price said. The company can launch its rocket before that, he said, but it must be in an area that isn't risky. 

Scaled Composites is located in the Mojave Desert. 

FAA inspectors carefully examined the space vehicle to make sure it's safe, said Price. 

"There's no sure thing in anything when it comes to rocketry," he said. "We want to do what we can with the knowledge we have to make sure the launch is as safe as possible for the public." 

The company also had to demonstrate that it was adequately insured for a launch and that it met environmental standards, Price said. 

A suborbital flight reaches space but doesn't travel fast enough or high enough to complete an orbit of the Earth. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Scaled Composites: http://www.scaled.com 

Federal Aviation Administration: http://www.faa.gov 

X Prize: http://www.xprize.com 

'Mary Tyler Moore House' Is Up for Sale 
Tue Apr 27,10:45 AM ET 
Add Entertainment - 

MINNEAPOLIS - The "Mary Tyler Moore (news) House" is up for sale with an asking price of nearly $1.7 million. 

The five-bedroom, six-bath Victorian home quietly went on the market in early March, but a "For Sale" sign only recently appeared on its lawn. 

Although actress Mary Tyler Moore never set foot in the house during the show's production, exterior shots of the 112-year-old home were used in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" during the show's run in the 1970s. The fictional character Mary Richards lived in a third-floor apartment. Her wacky neighbor was Rhoda Morgenstern. 

The home's owners did not release a reason for selling. They have owned the house since 1988. 

Some previous owners in the early 1970s became so weary of uninvited guests that they stretched a banner saying "Impeach Nixon" outside to discourage television crews from taking additional exterior shots. 

___ 

Information from: St. Paul Pioneer Press, http://www.twincities.com

Blog-Tracking May Gain Ground Among U.S. Intelligence Officials

Tue Apr 27, 8:53 AM ET

By Doug Tsuruoka 

People in black trench coats might soon be chasing blogs. 

Related Quotes 
DJIA
NASDAQ
^SPC 10478.16
2032.53
1138.15 +33.43
-4.24
+2.62

Get Quotes 
delayed 20 mins - disclaimer 
Quote Data provided by The News Source

Linux on Your Desktop?
Chart the rise of the anti-Windows, learn how to test-drive Linux without installing it and review the ongoing legal battle. 

Blogs, short for Web logs, are personal online journals. Individuals post them on Web sites to report or comment on news especially, but also on their personal lives or most any subject. 

Some blogs are whimsical and deal with "soft" subjects. Others, though, are cutting edge in delivering information and opinion. 

As a result, some analysts say U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials might be starting to track blogs for important bits of information. This interest is a sign of how far Web media such as blogs have come in reshaping the data-collection habits of intelligence professionals and others, even with the knowledge that the accuracy of what's reported in some blogs is questionable. 

Still, a panel of folks who work in the U.S. intelligence field - some of them spies or former spies - discussed this month at a conference in Washington the idea of tracking blogs. 

"News and intelligence is about listening with a critical ear, and blogs are just another conversation to listen to and evaluate. They also are closer to (some situations) and may serve as early alerts," said Jock Gill, a former adviser on Internet media to President Clinton (news - web sites), in a later phone interview, after he spoke on the panel. 

Some panel and conference participants, because of their profession, could not be identified. But another who could is Robert Steele, another blog booster. The former U.S. intelligence officer said "absolutely" that blogs are valid sources of intelligence and news, though he said authenticating the information in blogs "leaves a lot to be desired." 

Steele is founder and CEO of consulting firm OSS.Net, which organized the conference. The OSS '04 conference focused on public sources of intelligence. (OSS stands for open source solutions. In this case, open source is an intelligence term, not a reference to Linux (news - web sites) and open source software.) 

China Wants To Block Blogs 

The CIA (news - web sites) and FBI (news - web sites) haven't publicly commented about use of blogs in their work, but many D.C. observers believe both agencies monitor certain blogs. 

At least one nation, China, is actively tracking blogs. It's also reportedly trying to block blogs. Several press reports earlier this year said the government shut two blogging services and banned access to all Web logs by Chinese citizens. 

Many journalists write blogs and use other blogs to help find sources or verify facts and rumors. Blogs hail from just about any spot on the globe. They can provide first-hand insights into local events and thinking, even in parts of the world where there's little official information. 

One example is the "Baghdad Blogger." 

In March 2003, as U.S. forces stormed Iraq (news - web sites), one of the few sources on the Iraqi viewpoint was a blog written by a person who turned out to be 29-year-old Iraqi architect Salam Pax, though it's not certain that is his real name. 

Some reporters followed his blog daily, which gave gritty insights into how the war was shaking the lives of Iraqis. 

The U.S. military never publicly acknowledged Pax, but people at the conference say they believe U.S. military officers read the blog. 

Some news organizations valued the blog. Britain's Guardian newspaper was so impressed that it hired Pax in May 2003 to write a biweekly column on life in Baghdad. He's still writing it. 

Blogs last year also provided information during the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome. In China, where the SARS (news - web sites) outbreak began, the government at first said little. But health officials and reporters were able to get a sense of what was happening through blogs, as well as from e-mail and cell phone text messages sent to people outside China. This might have spurred China's blog crackdown. 

Gill says blogs are a good way to uncover news that regular media aren't covering or can't cover. "Blogs may be the best and only channel for such news stories," Gill said. 

NGOs Already Get Attention 

Various U.S. agencies already scan the Web sites of so-called nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, for information on political, economic and environmental issues. So tracking blogs isn't a big step. And there are software products and online services for this task. 

While blog postings are voluntary and available to anyone to read, some observers say blog monitoring by governments or the media raises civil liberties and privacy issues. One such critic is James Love, director of the Ralph Nader (news - web sites)-affiliated Consumer Project on Technology. 

"When you're conducting surveillance where you have no expectation of illegal activity, there has to be some threshold to justify such surveillance," Love said. 

Some point to other dangers in using blogs for intelligence or news. Blogs can be used to spread lies or disinformation. 

It's hard to fact check a blog account of an event in a remote area like Mongolia. Plus, many bloggers don't use their real names. Confirming identities can be hard. 

In Baghdad last September, guerillas fired two surface-to-air missiles at a U.S. military transport, but missed. A blogger in Baghdad who goes by the name "Riverbend" wrote that the plane carried Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was then in Iraq. 

The report proved false, but it confused the media. 

Determining blog accuracy is the crucial first step to taking it further, warned Tim Witcher, who spoke at the conference. He's the former Seoul, Korea, bureau chief for Agence France-Presse, a news service. "A blog only becomes news when we can be 100% sure that it's true," he said.

More than 600 isolated in Beijing as SARS fears grow
2 hours, 35 minutes ago

BEIJING (NEWS SOURCE) - More than 600 people have been isolated in Beijing as the city moves to prevent a SARS (news - web sites) outbreak from spreading ahead of the busy Labour Day holidays, state media and medical workers said. 

NEWS SOURCE Photo 

NEWS SOURCE 

Slideshow: SARS

"The number of people who have been isolated has risen to more than 600 because of the SARS epidemic," Wu Jiang, director of the infectious disease control department of Beijing Centre of Disease Control told the Beijing News. 

The CDC confirmed the figure when contacted by NEWS SOURCE, adding that 24 of those under observation were staff from the national center of disease control. 

At least 133 people are also in isolation in Anhui province, reports said. 

"The people are either isolated in the same place or at home," said Wu, who expressed confidence that the Chinese capital would not be crippled by SARS as it was last year. 

"At the moment the situation is under control. There is little possibility of the SARS epidemic affecting Beijing society," he said. 

While the World Health Organisation has shown concern about bio-safety practices at the laboratory where the outbreak occurred, it backed Wu's assessment, saying the Chinese government appeared to be following all the right procedures. 

"We still don't see this as a public health threat," WHO spokesman in Beijing Bob Dietz told NEWS SOURCE. 

"We're pretty sure we've identified the source, the channels of transmission have been broken and we can trace it back to one source." 

Meanwhile, two WHO experts arrived in Beijing Tuesday to investigate bio-safety standards at a top Chinese laboratory believed to be the source of the outbreak. 

Chinese authorities last week said a researcher at the Beijing-based Institute of Virology contracted SARS and infected a nurse who took care of her at a Beijing hospital. 

The researcher's mother has since died, while the nurse's relatives and contacts have also gone down with symptoms of the disease. 

So far there are six suspected and two confirmed cases in Beijing and Anhui, although no new cases have been reported for two days. 

In response to the scare, the Institute of Virology has been closed down and emergency inspection teams are being rushed around the country to check if health guidelines are being followed. 

Dietz said four WHO teams were due to arrive in China over the next few days to look at bio-safety in laboratories, help in epidemiological investigations and to make sure hospitals have proper SARS precautions in place. 

With the week-long Labour Day holiday starting Saturday, surveillance is being stepped up around the country to prevent SARS being spread by the millions of people taking train, bus and plane journeys. 

Body temperature screening has resumed in airports and railway stations and passengers are required to fill in health declaration forms, the health ministry said. 

� China SARS Patients Reported Doing Better 
AP - 1 hour, 15 minutes ago 
� More than 600 isolated in Beijing as SARS fears grow 
NEWS SOURCE - 2 hours, 35 minutes ago 
� WHO team arrives in Beijing to investigate SARS scare 
NEWS SOURCE - Tue Apr 27, 7:47 AM ET 
Latest SARS News 

Last year SARS killed nearly 800 people and infected more than 8,000 worldwide, with Beijing the worst-hit city in the world. 

The Beijing Daily, citing Mayor Wang Qishan, said that a Beijing anti-SARS headquarters had been set up to deal with the crisis. 

"The whole city should pay high importance to SARS and act immediately and decisively to sincerely implement important instructions by the central leaders ... to resolutely control the SARS epidemic," Wang said. 

Story Tools Email Story 

IOC Gets Olympics Cancellation Insurance 2 hours, 33 minutes ago

By STEPHEN WILSON, News Source Sports Writer 

LONDON - For the first time, the IOC (news - web sites) has taken out cancellation insurance on the Olympics: a $170 million policy to cover the risk of the Athens Games being called off because of war, terrorism, earthquakes or flooding. 

The Athens Olympics will be the most heavily guarded in history, with a security budget nearing $1 billion - more than three times the amount spent on protecting the 2000 Sydney Games (news - web sites). NATO (news - web sites) has agreed to help provide security in Athens. The Athens Games are the first Summer Olympics (news - web sites) since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. 

IOC president Jacques Rogge told The News Source on Tuesday that coverage for full and partial cancellation of the Aug. 13-29 games had been signed with a syndicate of London-based insurance companies. 

It's the first time the International Olympic Committee has insured any Olympics against cancellation. 

The policy does not protect corporate sponsors of the Olympics or television networks, which have billions of dollars riding on the games. 

The policy covers a "whole range of issues such as terrorism, earthquake, flooding, landslides, things like that," Rogge said by phone from Lausanne, Switzerland. 

He said the move represents "standard prudent judgment" and does not reflect any lack of confidence in the Athens Games, which have been troubled by construction delays and security worries. 

"It has absolutely nothing to do with (doubts about) Athens," Rogge said. "We started discussing this already in August 2001, and we are going to work toward the other games in the future." 

IOC finance chairman Richard Carrion, who led the negotiations, said the possibility of Olympic venues not being ready on time is not covered by the policy. Neither is the case of teams not showing up for the games. 

Athens is hosting the first summer games since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. Terrorism concerns have increased since the March 11 train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people. 

The Athens policy also covers the bulk of the 28 international sports federations on the Olympic program and the 202 national Olympic committees sending teams to the games. Many of those organizations rely heavily on games-related revenue for their existence. 

Rogge said the IOC will also negotiate individual cancellation policies for future Olympics, including the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, Italy, and 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. 

The insurance industry was reluctant to offer terrorism coverage in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11. The IOC had no coverage for the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. But negotiations for Athens picked up speed two months ago. 

Rogge said security has long been the IOC's "No. 1 priority" and that Greece has done "everything humanly possible" to safeguard the games. 

"This is an unprecedented effort," he said. "More cannot be done. Nobody can guarantee 100 percent security, but we can guarantee that we've done everything that was available and possible." 

Aside from terrorism, insurance experts say the main risk in Athens would be from earthquakes. Athens sits on a fault line. In 1999, a quake in the Athens area killed 143 people, injured about 2,000 and left thousands more homeless. 

Rogge said he and Denis Oswald, the IOC's overseer of Athens preparations, are confident Greece will be ready - "but at the last moment." 

"They could have had a more easy ride, but what counts is the readiness on the eve of the 13th of August," he said. "I think they will get there in the end." 

Besides getting insurance coverage, the IOC is building its financial reserves to deal with any cancellation or disruption of the games. 

The reserves have been increased from $85-$90 million in July 2001 to about $160 million, or about $50 million short of what the IOC says it would need to continue operating for four years in the event of an Olympics being called off.

Hunt for Atlantis Leads Researcher to Cyprus

Apr 26, 10:20 am ET 

NICOSIA  - A U.S. researcher who is convinced the fabled city of Atlantis is lurking in the watery deep off Cyprus will launch an exploratory mission this summer, he said on Monday.

"We believe our discovery will put Cyprus at the center of the world stage forever," Robert Sarmast told The News Source.

Sarmast said the east Mediterranean island is actually the pinnacle of the long-lost city and the rest of it is about one mile below sea level.

Using deep sea maps and clues found in Plato, Sarmast said he has discovered a sunken rectangular land mass stretching northeast from Cyprus toward Syria.

"We are going to sail 70 miles offshore Cyprus, directly over the spot where we believe Atlantis City lays submerged and waiting to be discovered," he said.

The mystery of Atlantis -- both whether it existed and why it disappeared -- has fired the imagination of explorers for centuries.

Many believe the ancient civilization was destroyed in the biblical flood and that it was possibly the site of the Garden of Eden.

Greek mythology says Atlantis was a powerful nation whose residents were so corrupted by greed and power that Zeus destroyed it.

Some say it is in the Aegean, others in the Azores or the Celtic Ridge of Britain, and others put it even farther a field in the South China Sea.

On Friday, he will herald the start of the expedition and Cyprus's membership to the European Union by heading out to the area where the mission will commence.

"At midnight we will deploy a sealed capsule to the seafloor containing a Cyprus flag, an EU flag and a flag bearing the symbol of Atlantis," he said.

Da Vinci: Inventor of the Car?

Apr 23, 12:09 pm ET 

FLORENCE, Italy  - Leonardo da Vinci is revered around the world as a master of Renaissance painting and an ingenious engineer, but few have thought of him as the father of the modern car.

But on Friday, the Museum of History and Science in Florence -- the heart of Renaissance Italy -- unveiled the first "automobile" built based on some of the sketches from da Vinci's famous notebooks.

"This has been a big adventure which has also helped us to develop tools to help people unaware of Leonardo's scholarship understand this complex device," said Paolo Galluzzi, director of the museum.

The primitive-looking contraption runs on springs instead of petrol and was probably intended to produce special effects at courtly events, but it was still the world's first self-propelled "vehicle," the experts said.

The "automobile" -- which in fact looks more like a wagon -- is by no means the first invention discovered in da Vinci's mysterious manuscripts, which include flying machines, helicopters, submarines, military tanks and bicycles.

Born near Florence in 1452, da Vinci is thought of as the original "Renaissance Man" -- a talented painter, sculptor, engineer and musician.

Many of his ideas were recorded in notebooks now housed in museums and enjoying unprecedented popularity due to the best-selling novel the "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown.

In 1905, Girolamo Calvi, one of the pioneers of da Vinci studies, noted the links between da Vinci's designs and the first motor cars which were beginning to take to the roads.

In 1936, Calvi referred to da Vinci's sketches as "Leonardo's Fiat" but it wasn't until very recently that scientists correctly interpreted his design and the models on display in Florence are the first reconstructions.

Three "car" models, copies of da Vinci's sketches and an interactive digital simulation can be seen at the museum (http:/www.imss.fi.it/news/eautomobile.html) until June 5.

Dog Feels Below Par After Eating 28 Golf Balls

Apr 25, 8:50 am ET 

LONDON  - Vets cut open a German Shepherd dog to find she had scoffed no fewer than 28 golf balls.

Eighteen-month old Libby had been coughing blood after weeks of fetching golf balls at the northern England course where owner Mike Wardrop works as a bar manager.

Wardrop told The News Source on Friday he hadn't realized the dog had a secret appetite for the dimpled balls she found at Didsbury Golf Club in Manchester.

"When I take her for a walk every day she is prone to finding golf balls," Wardrop said. "She can fit five in her mouth."

Libby is now recovering from the operation to remove the balls, with 30 stitches across her belly.

"I've had to buy her two footballs," said Wardrop. "She can't swallow them."

http://www.gazette.net/200417/gaithersburg/news/212780-1.html

his message is not flagged. [ Flag Message - Mark as Unread ] 

Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 16:28:50 -0500 From: "Aerielle Louise" <aergo@earthlink.net> Add to Address Book Subject: Transgenic Meat Scandal 2-26-03

This gave me dry heeves.

Really sickening information.

;-( 

K Mwrote: 

http://mercola.com/2003/feb/26/transgenic_meat.htm

Transgenic Meat Scandal

By Dr. Joe Cummins

E-mail: jcumminsA@uwo.ca 

The inability of the U.S. regulatory agencies to prevent contamination of the food chain with potentially poisonous transgenic plant and animal products has reached scandalous heights. 

Within recent months, we've learned that transgenic pharm crops have contaminated food crops, and a transgenic papaya was approved for commercial production even though it contained a transgenic protein whose amino acid sequence is identical to a known allergen. 

Now, the U.S. Food and Drug administration (FDA) reports that the University of Illinois has marketed 386 pigs that were the progeny of transgenic animals. The FDA report indicates that the marketed animals had not been adequately tested for the presence of transgenes, and fails to give details of the transgenes in the experimental animals. It states its belief that the incident was an isolated one, and that the transgenic products posed no health risks. 

The FDA report is not entirely forthcoming or truthful; indeed, it reads more like a public relations text on behalf of the corporations than a serious public information document. 

Andrew Pollack reported in the New York Times that some of the transgenic animals had the gene for insulin-like growth factor, but that the FDA still believed such genetic modifications posed no health concerns to those who have consumed meat from the transgenic animals. Pollack also contradicted the FDA's claim that the present case was an "isolated incident." 

In 2001, transgenic animals had been butchered and turned into sausage. 

The FDA's claim that there is no health concern associated with consumption of transgenic animals containing insulin-like growth factor is truly bizarre. Insulin-like growth hormone is a well known cancer promoter, as is documented in an editorial report published in the British Medical Journal in 2000. 

The cancers associated with high insulin-like growth factor include colorectal and breast cancer. The transgenic pork poses a real and immediate danger of cancer promotion for consumers. 

Let's now turn to the famous earlier sale of transgenic pork that was ignored by FDA. In 2001, carcasses from transgenic pigs created at the University of Florida were sold for human consumption rather than being incinerated even though they had, in addition, been treated with barbiturate drugs and chloroform. Some meat was turned into sausage and consumed by a number of people. 

A report from Agence France Presse English The News Source treated the episode with dismissive levity, calling it the "Wurst-case Scenario" and quoted a lady, who ate five pounds of the transgenic sausage, pronouncing that it "tasted real good." 

A more professional Gainsville Sun reported that the pigs had been injected with barbiturates to kill them, before the carcasses were sold to a local butcher who made sausages from the meat. The butcher was quoted as saying that, "we only ate a little bit of it, we threw it out because it did not taste right." But then, the butcher also said he took the remainder of the sausage to the home of a friend whose funeral was in progress, and it was consumed by the friends of the deceased. 

Neither government regulators nor journalists have come to grips with the hazards of transgenic foods. As is clear in the present case, many of the transgene products themselves could be dangerous. 

But a more insidious danger is the exposure of the public to transgenic DNA, which has the potential to cause cancer by jumping into the genomes of cells. The first two cancer victims among the handful of successes of gene therapy, identified within months of each other, ought to serve as a warning. 

As we have repeatedly stressed, the transgenic constructs used in gene therapy are essentially the same as those used in making transgenic plants and animals, and carry the same risks. 

Our government regulators have not been doing their job. But the worst offenders are the scientists in universities who should have known better than to have allowed the transgenic animals and carcasses to be sold as food. 

Institute of Science in Society February 13, 2003 

Dr. Mercola's Comment 

The American public is being subjected to genetically modified foods with no warning or choice in the matter. The consequences of such food are virtually unknown, as this technology has never before existed in the history of the world. 

Already, investigators have found that rats fed genetically modified potatoes had an increased thickening in the lining of their stomach and intestine and a weakening of their immune system; now scientists want to put vaccines into plants without any real knowledge of what effects this unnatural addition will have on human health, or the health of our planet. 

This is SHEER LUNACY. 

What these scientists have failed to fully appreciate is that once these genetically modified plants are growing it is physically impossible to prevent them from pollinating other plants, thereby contaminating them with these new proteins of which we do not know the long-term consequences. 

The absurdity of the entire process is mind-boggling. These scientists are willing to sacrifice the country's food supply by adding vaccines, which do not even work, to plants. If this continues, our grandchildren may not have access to any non-genetically modified food, and the health of our society may continue to rapidly decline. 

One of the keys to health is good food. Although most of us don't choose to do so, we can still purchase real, unaltered food in this country. Sadly, the future does not appear to provide this option. 

Genetically modified foods did not exist prior to 1995, but already 70 percent of processed foods have genetically modified foods in them. 

There have been NO STUDIES done with humans to show what happens when genetically modified foods are consumed. The FDA has ASSUMED that these modified foods are equivalent to the original foods and does not require any studies to have them approved. 

This is especially troubling in light of the United State's federal track record on genetically engineered safety, which is terrible. 

For example, not long ago genetically modified Starlink corn was approved for animal consumption, but NOT human consumption because of a concern that it could cause allergies in humans. However, Starlink corn would up directly in the human food supply, despite FDA precautions. 

This lack of regulation and total irresponsibility in using genetically modified foods is a disaster waiting to happen. 

Related Articles: 

Genetically Modified Foods, Inc. 

GMO Crops Are an Accident Waiting to Happen 

Drug Company Owns Monsanto and Their Weed Killer Is What Funds GMO Crops 

GMO Crops Are An Accident Waiting to Happen

AAC plans to manufacture and refurbish launch vehicles and spaceships

for

the suborbital space tourism industry and launch vehicles for

government,

academic and other commercial launch activities. Approximately 24,000

SF

of enclosed space Within three years we intend to manufacture our

orbital

launch vehicles and spaceships.

The suborbital spaceship will carry a tour guide "pilot" and six

passengers on its fully automated 3.4 g flight to Mach 4. After

separating from the launch vehicle, it will coast into blackness of

space

at 0 g before returning to the launch site under a parasail. According

to independent market surveys, many will pay $100,000 to $150,000 for

this extreme adventure. At our minimum flight rate of two per week,

AAC

will earn $7,200,000/month of which about $6,000,000 is profit after

the

$5,500,000 initial investment is paid. We expect to eventually fly

twice

a day to meet demand as the high-end market is exhausted and we

gradually

lower the price to make the experience available to more people. With

repeat customers as "pilots" at this flight rate as much as

$39,200,000/month will flow into AAC.

At the spaceport, AAC will test, condition and train AAC customers for

seven days to be astronauts. During that period their families will

buy

necessities and souvenirs in local stores, eat in local restaurants,

and

entertain themselves at theaters and other tourist attractions. Many

tourists will be drawn to the area just to watch launches and landings,

further adding to the retail sales associated with the presence of AAC.

If a five star hotel is not nearby, AAC will acquire high-end

prefabricated homes for its customers as well as those of its employees

who want to live near work.

The first private company to send the equivalent of three people to an

altitude of 62.5 miles, return them safely to earth, and repeat the

feat

two weeks later with the same vehicle will win the $10,000,000 X Prize.

That money will largely be spent in the jurisdiction of the "American

Space Port." Furthermore, the first company to provide reliable

suborbital flights will get the lion's share of what is independently

estimated to be a multi-billion dollar market. AAC is also concerned

that the airplane buffs and rocket amateurs competing for the X Prize

will injure the industry by injuring someone if AAC is not the first to

send consumers into space on a reliable reusable launch vehicle like

that

designed by Bill Sprague, a thirty-year veteran of the launch vehicle

industry. Hence the urgency to move our equipment into manufacturing

facilities near an airport with a controlled airspace for convenient

customer access by jet from commercial hubs and helicopter to tourist

attractions, and where AAC can safely transport its vehicles on

trailers

to a nearby launch and landing site before 2005.

The 140-page Business Plan, 11-page Executive Summary, two independent

market studies, vehicle design and additional supporting documentation

are available pending a non-disclosure agreement.

Suborbital Facility Requirements:

2000 SF Office, presentation area and restrooms 1000 SF Research and development area 3000 SF Subtotal

400 SF Shipping/Receiving 800 SF Inventory and restrooms 200 SF Medical 200 SF Electronics assembly and test 2500 SF Metal fabrication area 1200 SF Assembly area (gantry crane and clear of columns) 300 SF Launch and Recovery equipment area 4000 SF Refurbishment area (gantry crane and clear of columns) 200 SF Pyrotechnics refurbishment area (isolated from other

buildings) 98000 SF Subtotal

10000 SF Centrifuge and Training area (clear of columns) 1000 SF Test and Conditioning area and restrooms 11000 SF Subtotal

112000 SF Total

Launch and Landing area:

3000 SF Three launch pads, one test stand, two 100' x 30' landing

pads

and subsurface/berm Flight Control, LOX, RP-1 and Helium and

Nitrogen trailer parking areas.

Customer Housing:

14 High-end hotel rooms or prefabricated homes

Employee Housing: 30 Homes or prefabricated homes

Orbital Facility Requirements: 40000 SF Fabrication and assembly

Bill Holmes Chief Operations Officer and VP of Operations 350 Rio Plata Drive Oceanside, California 92057 760-476-9418 voice and FAX 760-917-2498 mobile 7609172498@tmomail.net email to cell Bill.Holmes@AmericanAstronautics.com

Entertainment Celebrity/Gossip
Briton Bets All on Vegas Roulette Spin -- and Wins
Sun Apr 11, 6:07 PM ET

By Wendy Urquhart 

LAS VEGAS  - A British man who sold all his possessions, including his clothes, stood in a rented tuxedo on Sunday surrounded by family and friends and bet everything on a single spin of the roulette wheel. 

He won't go home empty handed. 

Ashley Revell, a 32-year-old Londoner, sold all his possessions in March, took $135,300 to the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, did some low stakes gambling and then placed everything he had left on "Red." 

The wheel was spun, a crowd of supporters including his Mum and Dad from London went wild, the ball bobbled over the slots and landed on Red '7' -- and Revell walked away with $270,600. 

"It all happened so quickly, it was spinning before I knew it," Revell said, adding he did not intend to try to double it again. He gave a $600 tip to the croupier and plans to party -- and buy some clothes. 

"It's really down to my friends and family and Mum and Dad," he told The News Source Television. "I knew even if I lost I'd always have a home to go to." 

"I'm still against it," said his Dad. "He shouldn't have done it. He's a naughty boy. I tell my kids they shouldn't gamble. I've got four others and they're all going to want to go the same way." 

"It's just brilliant," said Ashley Hames, a friend from London in Las Vegas for the occasion. "He's put his neck on the line and got away with it. It's absolutely great." 

"It bobbled for a second and I just thought, 'Oh no, it's not going to do it,"' said another friend, James Frederick. "But it did and I'm made up for him. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy." 

Asked if he wanted to try his luck again, Revell said: "No that's it for me. I think he'd like me to do it again, but no that's it," gesturing to a casino host. "I don't want to ride my luck," he said as the champagne began to flow. 

This week, the gambling spirits had seemed against him. He put in a week gambling about $3,000 in a bid to raise his pot. 

By Wednesday, he was down $1,000. 

Revell, recently a professional gambler, said he decided to take a big plunge while he was still young and had raised the stakes as high as possible, including selling his clothes. 

"I like to do things properly," he said. 

Revell said he had planned to have a friend videotape his bet-it-all spin, but Britain's Sky One television decided it was worth a short reality series, called "Double or Nothing." 

Sky will not pay him, he says, but a crew from Dai4 Films has followed his preparations and covered the spin at the Plaza Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. It also plans to follow him for a month afterward.

Entertainment Celebrity/Gossip
Briton Bets All on Vegas Roulette Spin -- and Wins
Sun Apr 11, 6:07 PM ET

By Wendy Urquhart 

LAS VEGAS  - A British man who sold all his possessions, including his clothes, stood in a rented tuxedo on Sunday surrounded by family and friends and bet everything on a single spin of the roulette wheel. 

He won't go home empty handed. 

Ashley Revell, a 32-year-old Londoner, sold all his possessions in March, took $135,300 to the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, did some low stakes gambling and then placed everything he had left on "Red." 

The wheel was spun, a crowd of supporters including his Mum and Dad from London went wild, the ball bobbled over the slots and landed on Red '7' -- and Revell walked away with $270,600. 

"It all happened so quickly, it was spinning before I knew it," Revell said, adding he did not intend to try to double it again. He gave a $600 tip to the croupier and plans to party -- and buy some clothes. 

"It's really down to my friends and family and Mum and Dad," he told The News Source Television. "I knew even if I lost I'd always have a home to go to." 

"I'm still against it," said his Dad. "He shouldn't have done it. He's a naughty boy. I tell my kids they shouldn't gamble. I've got four others and they're all going to want to go the same way." 

"It's just brilliant," said Ashley Hames, a friend from London in Las Vegas for the occasion. "He's put his neck on the line and got away with it. It's absolutely great." 

"It bobbled for a second and I just thought, 'Oh no, it's not going to do it,"' said another friend, James Frederick. "But it did and I'm made up for him. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy." 

Asked if he wanted to try his luck again, Revell said: "No that's it for me. I think he'd like me to do it again, but no that's it," gesturing to a casino host. "I don't want to ride my luck," he said as the champagne began to flow. 

This week, the gambling spirits had seemed against him. He put in a week gambling about $3,000 in a bid to raise his pot. 

By Wednesday, he was down $1,000. 

Revell, recently a professional gambler, said he decided to take a big plunge while he was still young and had raised the stakes as high as possible, including selling his clothes. 

"I like to do things properly," he said. 

Revell said he had planned to have a friend videotape his bet-it-all spin, but Britain's Sky One television decided it was worth a short reality series, called "Double or Nothing." 

Sky will not pay him, he says, but a crew from Dai4 Films has followed his preparations and covered the spin at the Plaza Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. It also plans to follow him for a month afterward.

Hallucinogen May Cure Drug Addiction...

http://www.kron.com/global/story.asp?s=1652207&ClientType=Printable

BAY AREA (KRON) -- Drug addiction has been the plague of modern America. But that could now change forever. What started as a rumor may now actually be an incredible breakthrough in the battle against addictions of all kinds. 

Ibogaine has a number of strikes against it: 

It doesn't come from a modern laboratory, but from an ancient plant. 

It was discovered not by a scientist, but by a heroin addict. 

It is mildly hallucinogenic and completely illegal in the United States. 

However, when it comes to curing addiction, a reputable scientist believes ibogaine is nothing short of a miracle. "I didn't believe it when I first heard about ibogaine. I thought it was something that needed to be debunked," admits Dr. Deborah Mash, professor of Neurology and Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology at University of Miami. 

Dr. Mash is one of the few scientists in the world to study ibogaine, a mild hallucinogen that comes from the root of a shrub found in West Africa and was rumored to have the amazing ability to help drug addicts kick their addiction. 

"This didn't come from the Salk Institute, this didn't come from the Scripps Institute. This came from a junkie who took a dose to get high himself. So the original observation came from the underground," says Dr. Mash. 

Observations from this particular underground are not likely to gain the respect of mainstream society, and ibogaine was no exception. 

That first report came in 1962. But decades would pass with little scientific investigation. There were decades during which the cost of addiction in terms of medical care, lost productivity, crime and incarceration rose to $160 billion a year. 

The human toll was impossible to calculate. 

Patrick Kroupa was a heroin addict for 16 of his 35 years. "It was a very high level of desperation. I had been pretty successful in my life, I had accomplished a lot of things I wanted to do, and then repeatedly I just watched everything burst into flames and disintegrate because I could not stay off heroin," confesses Patrick. "It gets very tiring living like a slave because you keep chasing this and it's like you're not getting high, it's just 'I must do this every single day just to get normal so I can function.'" 

Like most addicts, Patrick tried to quit. But treatment for addiction is notoriously ineffective. Only one in ten addicts manages to return to a drug-free life. Most stay dependent on illegal drugs or their legal substitutes, like methadone. 

"And I was a spectacular failure at every possible treatment modality, every paradigm, every detox, every therapy, nothing ever worked," admits Patrick. 

Even as Patrick Kroupa despaired of ever kicking heroin, Dr. Mash was petitioning the Federal Food and Drug Administration to allow a scientific test of ibogaine, which by this time had been classified as a "schedule one" drug on a par with heroin. In 1993, the FDA approval came through. 

"We were established, we had a team of research scientists, doctors, clinicians, psychiatrists, toxicologists and we wanted to go forward with this," describes Dr. Mash.

But even with FDA approval, Dr. Mash could not get funding to look into what was, after all, a counter-culture drug. In order to complete her project, she had to leave South Florida and go offshore, to the island of St. Kitts. 

In 1998, clinical trials finally got underway. Patients were given carefully prepared oral doses of ibogaine. What happened next astounded the sceptical scientist. 

"Our first round in St. Kitts, we treated six individuals, and I will go to my grave with the memory of that first round," says Dr. Mash. 

It quickly became apparent that one dose of ibogaine blocked the withdrawal symptoms of even hard-core addicts and was amazingly effective for heroin, crack cocaine and even alcohol. 

There are two reasons why: The first, science can measure. The second remains a mystery. 

Dr. Mash admits, "I was really scared. I questioned my own sanity on numerous occasions." 

"I don't like the word 'hallucinogen,' but indeed, ibogaine alters mental state. And what it seems to do is it puts people into a four to six hour state of almost an active dream, it's like a lucid dream." she describes. 

But as Dr. Mash was about to discover, during that dream state, something extraordinary happens. "We knew ibogaine was effective for blocking opiate withdrawal, we saw it diminish the desire to use alcohol. And we saw the cravings for cocaine blocked. I was hooked," she says. 

Patrick admits, "It's literally like a miracle. Nothing has ever worked and this just did." He was one of the 280 people in Dr. Mash's trial of ibogaine. 

"Patrick was one of the worst opiate addicts, worst heroin addicts that I have ever enountered in my life," says Dr. Mash. His arms still bear the scars of years of heroin addiction, and he knows only too well what happened when the flow of drugs into those arms was interrupted. "When you're going through withdrawal, you're sweating, you're shaking, you're freezing, you're hot, it feels like your spine is being smashed in a vise, it's pain," describes Patrick. 

Within 45 minutes of taking ibogaine, he actually felt his addiction leaving him. "That moment is the first time in about 10 years that I had actually been clean. Not just detoxed, but clean. That was it. That was the first time. That was like a miracle," says Patrick 

That was four years ago. Patrick Kroupa has not touched drugs since. "I'm saying this having been on heroin for my entire adult life. I mean, 14 to 30 is a long time," he says. 

On one level, Dr. Mash understands some of what happens. Ibogaine in the body is metabolized into another compound called 'noribogaine.' Noribogaine appears to reset chemical switches in the brain of an addict. 

"The noribogaine resets that, so it resets the opiates, blocks the opiate withdrawal, diminishes craving and the desire to use, and it elevates mood," say Dr. Mash. 

But of the "visions" that people see, Dr. Mash understands very little -- only that they are somehow significant to the outcome. "It's as if the plant is teaching you something fundamental about who you are as a person and why you've got yourself locked into this intractible pattern of behavior," she says. 

Ibogaine will not work for everyone. And even for those for whom it does work, it is not a "magic bullet." "You need treatment, you need social workers, you need case management, you need medication, psychiatry, you need the whole boat of professionalism around this," says Dr. Mash. 

But for Patrick Kroupa and many of the other addicts in the trials, ibogaine was a miracle. "It's like if you suffer from terminal cancer and somebody goes by and says, 'Oh, yeah, we cured that. We passed this thing over you and it's gone,'" he says. 

Even the reserved scientist believes this ancient drug from Africa holds astounding promise for the modern world. "I think we're going to see fantastic numbers. I think these numbers are going to be stunning," says Dr. Mash. 

Dr. Mash will present her findings to the Food and Drug Administration next month. She hopes the FDA will eventually authorize further testing, based on her results. In the meantime, ibogaine remains illegal in the United States. 

Ibogaine is advertised on the internet, but there is no guarantee of the quality unless it's given under medical supervision. And for now, that can only be done overseas. 

For ibogaine detox information, contact Healing Transitions at 1-888-426-4286 or www.Ibogaine.net 

(Copyright 2004, KRON 4. All rights reserved.)

Hallucinogen May Cure Drug Addiction...

http://www.kron.com/global/story.asp?s=1652207&ClientType=Printable

BAY AREA (KRON) -- Drug addiction has been the plague of modern America. But that could now change forever. What started as a rumor may now actually be an incredible breakthrough in the battle against addictions of all kinds. 

Ibogaine has a number of strikes against it: 

It doesn't come from a modern laboratory, but from an ancient plant. 

It was discovered not by a scientist, but by a heroin addict. 

It is mildly hallucinogenic and completely illegal in the United States. 

However, when it comes to curing addiction, a reputable scientist believes ibogaine is nothing short of a miracle. "I didn't believe it when I first heard about ibogaine. I thought it was something that needed to be debunked," admits Dr. Deborah Mash, professor of Neurology and Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology at University of Miami. 

Dr. Mash is one of the few scientists in the world to study ibogaine, a mild hallucinogen that comes from the root of a shrub found in West Africa and was rumored to have the amazing ability to help drug addicts kick their addiction. 

"This didn't come from the Salk Institute, this didn't come from the Scripps Institute. This came from a junkie who took a dose to get high himself. So the original observation came from the underground," says Dr. Mash. 

Observations from this particular underground are not likely to gain the respect of mainstream society, and ibogaine was no exception. 

That first report came in 1962. But decades would pass with little scientific investigation. There were decades during which the cost of addiction in terms of medical care, lost productivity, crime and incarceration rose to $160 billion a year. 

The human toll was impossible to calculate. 

Patrick Kroupa was a heroin addict for 16 of his 35 years. "It was a very high level of desperation. I had been pretty successful in my life, I had accomplished a lot of things I wanted to do, and then repeatedly I just watched everything burst into flames and disintegrate because I could not stay off heroin," confesses Patrick. "It gets very tiring living like a slave because you keep chasing this and it's like you're not getting high, it's just 'I must do this every single day just to get normal so I can function.'" 

Like most addicts, Patrick tried to quit. But treatment for addiction is notoriously ineffective. Only one in ten addicts manages to return to a drug-free life. Most stay dependent on illegal drugs or their legal substitutes, like methadone. 

"And I was a spectacular failure at every possible treatment modality, every paradigm, every detox, every therapy, nothing ever worked," admits Patrick. 

Even as Patrick Kroupa despaired of ever kicking heroin, Dr. Mash was petitioning the Federal Food and Drug Administration to allow a scientific test of ibogaine, which by this time had been classified as a "schedule one" drug on a par with heroin. In 1993, the FDA approval came through. 

"We were established, we had a team of research scientists, doctors, clinicians, psychiatrists, toxicologists and we wanted to go forward with this," describes Dr. Mash.

But even with FDA approval, Dr. Mash could not get funding to look into what was, after all, a counter-culture drug. In order to complete her project, she had to leave South Florida and go offshore, to the island of St. Kitts. 

In 1998, clinical trials finally got underway. Patients were given carefully prepared oral doses of ibogaine. What happened next astounded the sceptical scientist. 

"Our first round in St. Kitts, we treated six individuals, and I will go to my grave with the memory of that first round," says Dr. Mash. 

It quickly became apparent that one dose of ibogaine blocked the withdrawal symptoms of even hard-core addicts and was amazingly effective for heroin, crack cocaine and even alcohol. 

There are two reasons why: The first, science can measure. The second remains a mystery. 

Dr. Mash admits, "I was really scared. I questioned my own sanity on numerous occasions." 

"I don't like the word 'hallucinogen,' but indeed, ibogaine alters mental state. And what it seems to do is it puts people into a four to six hour state of almost an active dream, it's like a lucid dream." she describes. 

But as Dr. Mash was about to discover, during that dream state, something extraordinary happens. "We knew ibogaine was effective for blocking opiate withdrawal, we saw it diminish the desire to use alcohol. And we saw the cravings for cocaine blocked. I was hooked," she says. 

Patrick admits, "It's literally like a miracle. Nothing has ever worked and this just did." He was one of the 280 people in Dr. Mash's trial of ibogaine. 

"Patrick was one of the worst opiate addicts, worst heroin addicts that I have ever enountered in my life," says Dr. Mash. His arms still bear the scars of years of heroin addiction, and he knows only too well what happened when the flow of drugs into those arms was interrupted. "When you're going through withdrawal, you're sweating, you're shaking, you're freezing, you're hot, it feels like your spine is being smashed in a vise, it's pain," describes Patrick. 

Within 45 minutes of taking ibogaine, he actually felt his addiction leaving him. "That moment is the first time in about 10 years that I had actually been clean. Not just detoxed, but clean. That was it. That was the first time. That was like a miracle," says Patrick 

That was four years ago. Patrick Kroupa has not touched drugs since. "I'm saying this having been on heroin for my entire adult life. I mean, 14 to 30 is a long time," he says. 

On one level, Dr. Mash understands some of what happens. Ibogaine in the body is metabolized into another compound called 'noribogaine.' Noribogaine appears to reset chemical switches in the brain of an addict. 

"The noribogaine resets that, so it resets the opiates, blocks the opiate withdrawal, diminishes craving and the desire to use, and it elevates mood," say Dr. Mash. 

But of the "visions" that people see, Dr. Mash understands very little -- only that they are somehow significant to the outcome. "It's as if the plant is teaching you something fundamental about who you are as a person and why you've got yourself locked into this intractible pattern of behavior," she says. 

Ibogaine will not work for everyone. And even for those for whom it does work, it is not a "magic bullet." "You need treatment, you need social workers, you need case management, you need medication, psychiatry, you need the whole boat of professionalism around this," says Dr. Mash. 

But for Patrick Kroupa and many of the other addicts in the trials, ibogaine was a miracle. "It's like if you suffer from terminal cancer and somebody goes by and says, 'Oh, yeah, we cured that. We passed this thing over you and it's gone,'" he says. 

Even the reserved scientist believes this ancient drug from Africa holds astounding promise for the modern world. "I think we're going to see fantastic numbers. I think these numbers are going to be stunning," says Dr. Mash. 

Dr. Mash will present her findings to the Food and Drug Administration next month. She hopes the FDA will eventually authorize further testing, based on her results. In the meantime, ibogaine remains illegal in the United States. 

Ibogaine is advertised on the internet, but there is no guarantee of the quality unless it's given under medical supervision. And for now, that can only be done overseas. 

For ibogaine detox information, contact Healing Transitions at 1-888-426-4286 or www.Ibogaine.net 

(Copyright 2004, KRON 4. All rights reserved.)

Disney to Reshuffle Management at ABC

Sun Apr 11, 1:43 PM ET

By GARY GENTILE, News Source Business Writer 

LOS ANGELES - The Walt Disney Co. is planning a management shake-up at its fourth-place ABC network to stem a ratings slide and placate dissatisfied investors. The moves include the departure of Lloyd Braun, who has served as chairman of the ABC Entertainment Television Group since 2002, according to company sources familiar with the matter. 

Meanwhile, Anne Sweeney, a rising star credited with expanding the reach of Disney's non-sports cable networks, will likely be given a more prominent role at the struggling network, sources said. 

The changes are seen as an effort to buy more time for a Disney recovery while fending off critics of the media conglomerate, including large pension funds and dissident ex-board members. 

"The resident management will take the blame," said Harold Vogel, CEO of Vogel Capital Management in New York. "They are going to do something just to show there is some momentum to the shareholders." 

Analysts point out that broadcast television is a notoriously cyclical business, with turnarounds often taking years and hinging on shows becoming mega-hits like NBC's "The Apprentice" or Fox's "American Idol." 

As a result, analysts view the ABC shake-up as more symbolic than effective - at least in the short term. Pilots for the fall season are already in production and the networks will present their lineups to advertisers in a few months. 

"Everybody understands if you put a new management into a network you're not going to see results overnight, and if you do it's just luck," said Tom Wolzien, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.. 

In the week ended April 4, ABC had an average of 7.4 million viewers a night, compared to 13.2 million for ratings leader CBS, according to Nielsen Media Research. 

Though ABC has developed sitcoms like "According to Jim" that partly stemmed its ratings slide on some nights, it needs to find a hit reality show or a compelling drama to hook viewers, analysts said. 

The network could benefit if the shake-up reduces the number of hoops programmers must jump through to get a show on the air. 

"From a Wall Street perspective, it's tough to know who runs what," said David Miller, an analyst with Sanders Morris Harris. "As it stands right now, there's too much bureaucracy, and you can't make creative decisions in a bureaucracy." 

Poor ratings also hinder recoveries because producers tend to take their best shows to more successful networks. 

"When you're at the bottom of the heap, you're not the first stop for the good stuff," Wolzien said. "The first stop will be CBS and NBC." 

The executive changes, which are still being discussed, include a new role for Alex Wallau, who has been president of ABC since 2000 overseeing news, sports, daytime and children's programming as well as the prime-time schedule. His revised duties have yet to be determined. 

Susan Lyne, president of ABC Entertainment, is expected to remain and be given more authority over the prime-time schedule. 

Braun previously served as co-chairman of Disney's television division with Stu Bloomberg, who was fired when ABC slipped to third place among the networks after the collapse of its once-hot quiz show, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." 

Disney is expected to elevate Sweeney, chief of ABC Cable Networks, to a more prominent role, possibly taking on some of the responsibilities held by Braun and Wallau. 

She joined Disney in 1996. As president of Disney Channels Worldwide, she presided over the expansion of the Disney cable channel from 14 million homes to more than 80 million homes as cable companies moved the channel from a pay service to the basic cable tier. 

She also oversaw the launch of Disney channels in other countries, as well as the creation of cable channels Toon Disney and SoapNet domestically. 

Several months ago, Sweeney was given the task of turning around the ailing ABC Family channel, which Disney acquired as part of its $5.2 billion purchase of Fox Family Worldwide in 2001. 

ABC is only part of Disney's larger media networks division, which includes the profitable Disney Channel and ESPN sports network. Analysts said improvement in Disney's theme park and animated film operations are more important for an overall corporate recovery. 

"I'm sure Disney management would like to see improvement in any area sooner rather than later," said Janna Sampson, co-manager of the AmSouth Select Equity Fund and director of Portfolio Management at Oakbrook Investments. 

"But as I rank the problems, my concerns over ABC are bottom of the barrel." 

Still, ABC has become a growing source of embarrassment and frustration at Disney, especially after cable giant Comcast Corp. made an unsolicited $54 billion bid for the company in February and singled out the network for improvement. Disney's board has rejected the bid as too low. 

Analysts said doing something - anything - will likely please Disney investors. 

"They have to show they are doing something about it and the only clear way to do that is move people around or get rid of people," said Paul Kim, an analyst at Tradition Asiel Securities. "It's probably a very smart thing to do." 

Voodoo Practitioners Gather in Haiti 
2 hours, 56 minutes ago

By PAISLEY DODDS, News Source Writer 

SOUVENANCE, Haiti - Haitians celebrated one of the year's most important Voodoo pilgrimages on Sunday, an event marked by drumming, sacrifices - discussion of whether Haiti's new government can heal a country still reeling from a bloody rebellion. 

Carrying a heavy political significance this year, the pilgrimage drew hundreds to Souvenance, a village 90 miles north of Port-au-Prince, where followers made animal sacrifices to the West African warrior spirit Ogoun and danced to dizzying drum beats. 

Founded by former slaves from the kingdom of Dahomey - now Benin - this dusty village fringed by cactus trees hosts the ceremony each year during the Rara carnival, when bands of costumed drummers and dancers roam the countryside. 

Wrapped in white satin scarves, initiates chant and dance throughout the night to beckon spirits as onlookers gather. Rum, cane liquor and herbs are offered to appease a pantheon of spirits. 

On Sunday, the faithful sacrificed goats and held them overhead, the goats' blood dripping onto their heads and staining their white clothes. 

Voodoo is one of Haiti's three constitutionally recognized religions, along with Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Under President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the government sanctioned Voodoo marriages, baptisms and other rites. Two-thirds of Haiti's 8 million people are said to practice Voodoo, which worships one creator and many spirits, or loas. 

"Voodoo is all about unity," said George Fernand, 63, a Voodoo houngan, or priest. "We're hoping the new government will help bring us unity." 

Some of the rebels who staged the revolt that ousted Aristide on Feb. 29 held Voodoo ceremonies at the launch of their insurgency. 

An offering to the Voodoo god of war burned in Gonaives, the site of Haiti's declaration of independence from France 200 years ago and where the latest revolt began. 

On Saturday night, initiates gyrated in front of Wilfred Ferdinand, a rebel leader known as "Little Wil," and a houngan gave him a special blessing. 

"Voodoo allowed us to accomplish a lot," said Ferdinand, guzzling beers as he watched the trancelike dancing in the dirt-floor Voodoo temple. "I've come to pay my respects and see it all happen." 

Government representatives were also expected in Souvenance, but none had arrived by early Sunday. 

The rebels have close ties to Haiti's impoverished masses, while the nation's new U.S.-backed interim government is composed of technocrats, many of whom spent years abroad. 

Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue says the government will hold elections in 2005. 

At least 300 people were killed in the rebellion. Some parts of the country are still without police and international peacekeepers. 

"The country needs security and it needs leaders who can help stop the hunger that so many of us have," said Roget Biename, 54, a resident of Souvenance, which like most villages in Haiti is plagued with malnutrition and lack of clean water. "If the government wants to earn our trust they will have to work on all these things." 

Voodoo rituals date back more than 400 years and have roots among the Yoruba tribe of Togo, Benin and parts of Nigeria. 

The religion was banned by French colonial authorities, forcing slaves to hide their faith by adopting Catholic saints to correspond to African deities. 

Several presidents also outlawed Voodoo, but it surged under dictator Francois Duvalier, or Papa Doc, who with his top hat and glasses resembled Baron Samedi, the Voodoo guardian of the dead. 

Because of deepening poverty, Voodoo - which often requires pricey offerings of alcohol and food to the spirits - has lost some followers. But most practice the religion. 

"It's our culture," said Rodney Jean-Louis, 43, a Haitian-American who came from Queens, New York, to participate in the ceremony. "Whether I'm in New York or anywhere else, the drums are going to beat in my blood."

Not Your Parents' Mobile Home
Sun Apr 11, 7:55 AM ET

By Amanda Covarrubias Times Staff Writer 

Shopping for a home in pricey Westlake Village, Stacy and John Fernandez quickly realized their $360,000 budget would get them only so far. Still, they never expected to end up in a trailer park. 

� Latimes.com home page
� Subscribe to the Los Angeles Times

But they are thrilled with the three-bedroom, two-bath double-wide they bought last December in Oak Forest, a leafy mobile home park nestled at the foot of the Santa Monica Mountains. 

With its covered front porch, spacious family room and two-car garage, the 1,800-square-foot mobile home offers plenty of "house" for the money and - best of all - the Fernandezes own the land their home sits on. 

"We're surrounded by $1-million homes, so this is a deal," said Stacy Fernandez, a probation officer who couldn't afford anything else in the high-end community. "We were told by our Realtor yesterday that ... our house has gone up $30,000 in value. 

With a creek running through it and oak trees arching in high tunnels over streets named Sherwood Drive, Little John Way and Friar's Lane, Oak Forest is a nature lover's dream. Residents proudly note that Errol Flynn wore tights, a sword and feathered cap to shoot scenes under the oaks for the 1938 movie classic "The Adventures of Robin Hood." 

Renee Michelle Alexander bought her 1970s-era trailer there in January for $400,000. New models often feature granite countertops and hardwood floors; hers has leaky toilets, old plumbing and a dark interior. But Alexander, a first-time homeowner who relocated from Pasadena to be closer to family, figures she got a deal anyway. 

"Where else can you get all this space?" the artist and massage therapist said as she opened doors and closets to reveal a collection of vintage clothing, antique jewelry and garage sale curios. "Not in a condo." 

Alexander and the Fernandez family are part of a small but growing segment of people who see mobile homes as a way to achieve a piece of the American dream in hyper-expensive coastal California. 

Traditionally, living in a mobile home has meant renting space for it. In exclusive beachfront parks such as Paradise Cove in Malibu, used mobile homes sell for as much as $650,000. But those price tags cover only the coach and the right to lease the space. An owner still has to pay rent, which can be as much as $2,000 a month. 

In recent years, mobile home dwellers have begun forming cooperatives to buy their communities (Oak Forest residents own their plots outright). About 200 of the state's 4,800 mobile home parks are resident-owned, according to Sheila Dey, executive director of the Western Manufactured Housing Assn. in Sacramento. 

Typically, resident owners pay monthly fees of $150 to $250 to maintain the premises, which can include security gates, swimming pools, recreation rooms and lush landscaping. 

"A lot of times when you buy these places, the roads are deteriorated, the water and sewage is old, the clubhouse is old and so are the amenities in it," said Jerry Bowles, vice president of the Golden State Manufactured Home Owners League. 

"It'll have a dishwasher that hasn't worked in 10 years, an icebox that can't keep ice cream cold," Bowles added. "But you see the attitude change when residents take over. There's a lot of pride of ownership." 

In Santa Cruz County, one of the most expensive areas in the state to buy a house, with the median price hovering at $560,000, city governments are increasingly supporting conversions because other affordable housing is in such short supply. 

Capitola, a coastal city there, has earmarked $400,000 in redevelopment funds to help residents of 90-unit Wharf Road Manor buy their park. In exchange for the financial assistance, residents agree that when they sell their homes they will do so at prices that "moderate income" families can afford, said community development director Kathleen Molloy. 

"A lot of cities have identified mobile home parks as a source of relatively affordable housing," Molloy said. "We're trying to maintain the diversity of income and housing stock in the city." 

Robert and Dolores Glissman bought their mobile home in Santa Cruz County's Scotts Valley late last year for $360,000 after a decade in a tiny beach rental. Their new place is a relative Taj Mahal, with cathedral ceilings, skylights and ample storage. 

"I never thought I'd live in a mobile home," said retiree Robert Glissman, who added that the couple had moved to Spring Lake park after tiring of the rowdy college scene in Santa Cruz. "My mother lived in one.... They were very tinny and poorly insulated. You would cook in the summer and freeze in the winter. But this is built as well as a site-built home." 

His future neighbor, Sandi Crouser, sorted her belongings on a recent morning as she prepared to downsize from a four-bedroom house on an acre in Felton to a two-bedroom mobile home in Spring Lake. With her children grown and her husband, Bill, in a nursing home, Crouser said, the family house was too big. Her coach, across the street from one of several lakes studding the grounds, cost a bit more than $400,000. 

Crouser is having the old trailer, which was in disrepair, removed and replaced with a new structure. 

"My kids said, 'Mom, you know you don't have to have a little tin box. You can have it taken away and have a nice, modular home put in.' What I ended up with is very nice.... It's hard to find a place with a view." 

Back in Westlake Village's Oak Forest, a white Bentley in the driveway of a creekside dwelling says it all: Mobile homes have gone upscale. 

Take the three-bedroom number recently purchased for $409,000 by professional dog-walker Kris Barnes and her husband, Stuart Steinberg, a teacher. With picture windows in the spacious living room, a kitchen equipped with full-size appliances and a small yard in the rear that borders green hillsides, their abode is a far cry from the dark, cramped trailers of days past. 

About the only difference inside is a feeling of elevation; mobile homes and other kinds of manufactured housing often rest above ground level on jacks or risers. 
"We really wanted to live in Westlake Village," Barnes said. "But everything we looked at cost $800,000 or more." 

Then their real estate agent took them to Oak Forest. 

"I don't see the difference between this and a regular house," Barnes said while sitting on an overstuffed sofa in their all-white living room. 

"The only thing smaller is the storage. We had our closets redone to utilize as much space as possible. But I love this house."

Children on Easter Egg Hunt Find Guns 
Sat Apr 10,11:24 PM ET 
Add Strange News - 

FLINT, Mich. - A group of children hunting for Easter eggs Saturday during a church event found two loaded handguns outside an elementary school. 

Flint police said officers were called to the scene and also recovered a BB gun and a broken toy gun on the grounds of Gundry Elementary School. No one was injured, Sgt. Michael Coote said. 

One of the guns discharged when it was dropped, according to a police report, but it was unclear who dropped it. 

The pastor of Ruth Street Baptist Church told WJRT-TV that one of the handguns had a bullet in the chamber, and the other handgun's clip had bullets in it. 

"It's terrible that something like this has happened," Pastor Namon Marshall told the station. 

Coote said he did not know how long the guns had been in the park. 

Police opened an investigation after confiscating the weapons.

Pre-9/11 Memo Shows al-Qaida's Intent

1 hour, 11 minutes ago

Add White House - 

By SCOTT LINDLAW, News Source Writer 

CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush (news - web sites) was told more than a month before the Sept. 11 attacks that al-Qaida had reached America's shores, had a support system in place for its operatives and that the FBI (news - web sites) had detected suspicious activity that might involve a hijacking plot. 

Since 1998, the FBI had observed "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks," according to a memo prepared for Bush and declassified Saturday. 

White House aides and outside experts said they could not recall a sitting president ever publicly releasing the highly sensitive document, known as a PDB, for presidential daily briefing. 

The Aug. 6, 2001 PDB referred to evidence of buildings in New York possibly being cased by terrorists. 

The document also said the CIA (news - web sites) and FBI were investigating a call to the U.S. embassy in the United Arab Emirates in May 2001 "saying that a group of (Osama) bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives." 

The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, Washington and Pennsylvania, asked the White House to declassify the document at its meeting Thursday. It is significant because Bush read it, so it offers a window on what Bush and his top aides knew about the threat of a terrorist strike. 

The PDB made plain that bin Laden had been scheming to strike the United States for at least six years. It warned of indications from a broad array of sources, spanning several years. 

Democratic and Republican members of the 9-11 commission saw the document differently. 

Democratic commissioner Bob Kerrey, a former senator from Nebraska, said the memo's details should have given Bush enough warning to push for more intelligence information about possible domestic hijackings. 

"The whole argument the government used that we were focusing overseas, that we thought the attack was coming from outside the United States - this memo said an attack could come in the United States. And we didn't scramble our agencies to that," he said. 

Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democratic commissioner and former Watergate prosecutor, said the memo calls into question national security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites)'s assertion Thursday that the memo was purely a "historical" document. 

"This is a provocative piece of information and warrants further exploration as to what was done following the receipt of this information to enhance our domestic security," he said. 

Senior administration officials said Bush saw more than 40 mentions of al-Qaida in his daily intelligence updates during the first eight months of his presidency. The CIA prepared the document "in response to questions asked by the president about the possibility of attacks by al-Qaida inside the U.S," one said. 

But the senior officials refused to say what Bush's response to the memo was. 

Republican commissioner James R. Thompson, a former Illinois governor, said the memo "didn't call for anything to be done" by Bush. 

The memo's details confirm that the Bush administration had no specific information regarding an imminent attack involving airplanes as missiles, Thompson said. 

"The PDB backs up what Dr. Rice testified to. There is no smoking gun, not even a cold gun," he said. 

"Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the U.S.," the memo to Bush stated. Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America." 

After President Clinton (news - web sites) launched missile strikes on bin Laden's base in Afghanistan (news - web sites) in 1998 in retaliation for bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 231 people, "bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington," the memo said. 

The memo cited intelligence from other countries in three instances, but the White House blacked out the names of the nations. 

Efforts to launch an attack from Canada around the time of millennium celebrations in 2000 "may have been part of bin Laden's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the U.S.," the document stated. 

Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam, who was caught trying to cross the Canadian border with explosives about 60 miles north of Seattle in late 1999, told the FBI that he alone conceived an attack on Los Angeles International Airport, but that bin Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah "encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation," the document said. Ressam is still awaiting sentencing after agreeing to testify in other terrorism cases. 

Zubaydah was a senior al-Qaida planner who was captured in Pakistan in March 2002. 

Al-Qaida members, some of them American citizens, had lived in or traveled to the United States for years, the memo said. 

"The group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks," it warned. 

The document said that "some of the more sensational threat reporting" - such as an intelligence tip in 1998 that bin Laden wanted to hijack aircraft to win the release of fellow extremists - could not be corroborated. 

One item in the memo referred to "recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York." A White House official speaking on condition of anonymity said that was a reference to two Yemeni men the FBI interviewed and concluded were simply tourists taking photographs. 

On May 15, 2001, a caller to the U.S. embassy in the United Arab Emirates warned of planned bin Laden attacks with explosives in the United States, but did not say where or when. 

The CIA reported the incident to other government officials the next day, and a dozen or more steps were taken by the CIA and other agencies "to run down" the information from the phone call, senior administration officials said Saturday evening. 

One official said references to al-Qaida in prior presidential briefings "would indicate 'they are here, they are there' in various countries and the CIA director would tell the president what was being done to address "these different operations." 

___ 

News Source Writer Hope Yen in Washington contributed to this report.

Six killed in Peru landslide
1 hour, 39 minutes ago 
Add World - NEWS SOURCE 

LIMA (NEWS SOURCE) - At least six people died after a landslide hit the community of Aguas Caliente near the famed Inca ruins of Machu Picchu, a local official said. 

 

The victims died when a mud and rock avalanche destroyed their homes in the southeastern town of Aguas Calientes. 

A 27-year-old man's body was found six kilometers (3.7 miles) from where the landslide occurred. 

Fifteen homes were destroyed, affecting 60 people. 

A second landslide destroyed railway tracks near Machu Picchu, trapping about 1,500 tourists. 

No tourists were among the dead, the official said. 

A spokeswoman for train company Peru Rail said repairs on the track had started and it was possible "everything would be ready Sunday to evacuate the tourists." 

President Alejandro Toledo, who had arrived in the nearby city of Cusco by helicopter Friday with television crews from the Travel Channel and the Discovery Channel to film a documentary, said he was coordinating the rescue and cleanup efforts with civil defense authorities. 

He lent his helicopter for the rescue effort and said he ordered military helicopters to take tourists out of the Inca ruins. 

"I suspended all my activities to come to the zone that was hit by the avalanches," Toledo said. "I'm with the people of Aguas Calientes, seeing their anguish and sadness." 

Heavy rains hit the area this time of year, Toledo said, adding that the Alcamayo river had overflowed. 

A civil defense official said food, clothing and tools would be flown to the area. 

Machu Picchu, a magnet for tourists the world over, is a 15th century Inca stone city, perched atop a rocky ridge high in the Andes mountains, invisible from below and accessible only by bus from Aguas Calientes. 

Archaeologists believe the cloud-shrouded Machu Picchu ruins, with their palaces, baths, temples, storage rooms and some 150 houses, were used by the Incas as a secret ceremonial city. 

One of the marvels of the city is the architectural precision with which its structures were designed and built. Most of the buildings are of solid granite blocks, cut with bronze or stone tools and smoothed with sand. 

The blocks fit together perfectly without traces of mortar, although none of the blocks are the same size and have multiple faces. The joints are so tight that even the thinnest of knife blades cannot be forced between the stones. 

Fat Cat Hunger Strike After Meat-Feeding Owner Goes

Apr 10, 6:40 am ET 

BERLIN  - An obese German cat six times the normal weight has gone on a hunger strike at a Berlin animal shelter after being taken from his owner who had fed him four lbs of mince daily, Bild newspaper reported on Saturday.

Mikesch, weighing nearly 41 lbs, was brought to the animal shelter on April 1 and was so overweight he could not take more than four steps without becoming exhausted. His elderly owner was at the same time taken to a nursing home.

Shelter officials said six-year-old Mikesch is so fat he cannot clean himself and suffers from heart trouble. They said he felt lost without his meat-feeding owner and stopped eating altogether when he was put on a diet to gradually lose weight.

A shelter worker will take Mikesch home with her for 10 days to help get his appetite back, shelter head Carola Ruff said.

"The cat had a good night in her flat on the first night and that's giving us hope his condition will improve," Ruff said.

Cats usually weigh between six and 12 lbs and eat no more than about 10 ounces of food each day, vets say.

Bank-Robbing Church Minister Headed to Jail

Apr 9, 9:41 pm ET 

BOSTON  - A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a pentecostal minister to more than six years in prison for robbing banks from Maine to Massachusetts of more than $10,000, prosecutors said.

Jerry Hayes, 53, of Hartford, Maine, was arrested in May after he gave a Massachusetts bank teller a note saying he was armed and demanding that large-denomination bills be placed into a bag.

The note added: "Do not put any device into bag: paint, track, etc. If I sense an alarm is set: Someone will be hostage."

The teller gave the minister $2,550 in cash and a dye pack that exploded as he fled. Police later arrested him and found a loaded .38 caliber handgun on the floor of his car.

Federal prosecutors said a subsequent investigation showed he had robbed four other banks in Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and that he was laundering the proceeds through an account in the name of the church where he was pastor, the Shema First Apostolic Assembly in Canton, Maine.

Hayes pleaded guilty to the robberies in September. U.S. District Judge Reginald Lindsay sentenced him on Thursday to six years and six months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release.

She Closed Airport to Avoid Vacation with Boyfriend

Apr 8, 10:04 am ET 

DUESSELDORF, Germany  - A Croatian woman was convicted Thursday of disturbing the peace for phoning a bomb threat to Duesseldorf airport to get out of a vacation with her boyfriend.

The woman was given a suspended sentence after admitting in court that she called authorities and, in a hoax, made an al Qaeda bomb threat because her parents disapproved of her boyfriend.

"I didn't know how I would be able to tell my parents about a holiday with him and I couldn't really say to him 'Listen, my parents wouldn't approve'," the woman, 28, identified only as Marina B., told the Duesseldorf state court Wednesday.

"Then I had the idea that if the trip could somehow be blocked by someone else, for example a bomb threat, then that would solve all the problems," she added. Her flight departed anyway, several hours late.

The threat prompted authorities to shut down Germany's third busiest airport on a busy Sunday in September, stranding 64,000 people for hours, while police searched in vain for a bomb.

Police initially arrested her boyfriend, after tracing the threatening phone calls to his cell phone, when the couple returned from Spain. He denied making the calls.

Prosecutors had demanded a three-year jail sentence for the woman. But the court opted to give her a two-year suspended sentence. Separately, she faces a damage claim of 1.5 million euros ($1.9 million) from the airport and airlines.

Betting It All on Vegas Roulette Spin

Apr 8, 7:34 am ET 

LOS ANGELES  - A British man who has sold all his possessions, including his clothes, will stand in a rented tuxedo on Sunday and bet everything on a single spin of the roulette wheel.

If he wins, he doubles his money. If he loses, he will be left with only the television crew documenting his every move.

Ashley Revell, a 32-year-old Londoner, said he was worth about 75,000 pounds ($138,000) after he sold everything in March.

"I thought I was worth at least 100,000 pounds," he said in a telephone interview from Las Vegas, where he is putting in a week gambling about $3,000 in a bid to raise his pot.

By Wednesday, he was down $1,000.

Revell said he had planned to have a friend videotape his bet-it-all spin, but Britain's Sky One television decided it was worth a short reality series, called "Double or Nothing."

Sky will not pay him, he says, but a crew has followed his preparation and will cover the spin live on Sunday at the Hard Rock casino in Las Vegas. It also plans to follow him for a month afterward, win or lose.

Revell, recently a professional gambler, said he decided to take a big plunge while he was still young and raised the stakes as high as possible, including selling his clothes.

"I like to do things properly," he said.

He had not decided yet whether to place his money or red or black on Sunday afternoon.

"I don't know man," he said. "One of them is going to be the right thing to say and one is going to be the wrong thing."

He added that if he won he would probably take his winnings rather than spin again.

American Airlines says it agreed to share passenger data with government 1 hour, 10 minutes ago

 - NEWS SOURCE 

WASHINGTON (NEWS SOURCE) - American Airlines, the top US carrier, said it agreed to hand over passenger information to the US government, and the data ended up in the hands of four vendors vying for contracts with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). 

American Airlines is the third US airline to admit releasing passenger data after the September 11, 2001 attacks. 

"American Airlines recently learned that in June 2002, at the request of the Transportation Security Administration, some passenger travel data was turned over by an American Airlines vendor to four research companies vying for contracts with TSA," the airline said in a statement released Friday. 

"The discovery came as American reviewed whether it had turned over such data to the TSA following the announcement of data releases by other carriers," the company said. 

American Airlines authorized passenger names records held by its vendor, Airline Automation Inc. (AAI), to be given directly to the TSA, but instead, AAI gave the data to four vendors, the release said. 

The airline agreed to hand over about 1.2 million passenger names records -- about a week's worth -- "because of the heightened interest in aviation security at the time and American's desire to ensure its passenger and crew safety" following September 11, the company said. 

American Airlines passenger jets were among the four planes hijacked and used as guided missiles in the 2001 attacks on the United States, which killed some 3,000 people. 

"Our desire to assist TSA in the aftermath of the events of September 11 was consistent with our focus on safety and security," John Hotard, an American Airlines spokesman, said in the press release. "No passengers were harmed by the transfer of the data." 

The vendor, AAI, required that each vendor sign non-disclosure agreements and destroy or the return the data after the project was completed. 

In January, The Washington Post reported that Northwest Airlines turned over to NASA (news - web sites)'s Ames Research Center reservation data from October to December 2001, a period when roughly 10.9 million people traveled on the carrier. 

Small carrier JetBlue was criticized in September after it was learned that it had provided passenger records to a Pentagon (news - web sites) contractor for security studies. 

Pole reversal: Feared "flip" of Earth's magnetic field takes 7,000 years
Wed Apr 7, 2:15 PM ET 
Add Science - NEWS SOURCE 

PARIS (NEWS SOURCE) - A reversal of the Earth's magnetic field, a rare but feared event due to the catastrophic effect it could have on human life, takes about 7,000 years to complete, according to a study. 

NEWS SOURCE/NASA/File Photo 

Missed Tech Tuesday? 
Wal-Mart's doing it, and soon tech could track your every move. Here's how to protect yourself from RFID. 

The so-called "flip" between the Earth's North and South poles occurs at long but unpredictable intervals, the most recent one occurring about 780,000 years ago. 

The 180-degree switch occurs when there is a change in the circulation patterns in the molten iron which flows around the Earth's outer core and, like a dynamo, creates the magnetic field. 

The intensity of the field drops for a while before the circulation rhythm is established and the new polarity occurs. 

But how long the switching process takes before the new poles become established has only been guessed at. 

Estimates have ranged from a couple of thousand years to 28,000. 

US researcher Bradford Clement casts light on this area of uncertainty by analysing records taken from sedimentary samples drilled from various sites around the world. 

These samples, deposited at four different ages in Earth's history, have a residual magnetic echo from the magnetic field that prevailed at the time. 

"These records yield an average estimate of about 7,000 years for the time it takes for the directional change to occur," Clement, of Florida International University, writes in Nature, the British science weekly. 

The big switchover does not take place in one swoop, though. 

It happens faster at the Equator and takes longer at higher latitudes -- the closer one gets to the poles. 

The reason for this, says Clement, is that in the absence of the main North-South magnetic field, the Earth's core develops a weaker secondary field which has many "mini-poles" at the surface. 

Eventually the two main poles are established again, but on opposite sides of the planet, and restore their primacy. 

No-one knows what would happen to life on Earth if the "flip" occurred today but the speculation borders on the doomsday. 

Many aspects of life today would be literally turned upside down, both for humans, given our dependence on magnets for navigation, and for migrating animals which use an inner compass. 

We would also be more exposed to deadly busts of solar radiation, from which we are normally protected by Earth's magnetic field. And the loss of that shield would cause solar particles to smash into the upper atmosphere, warming it and potentially causing wrenching climate change. 

There was a scare in 2002 after French geophysicist Gauthier Hulot discovered a weakening of Earth's magnetic field near the poles, which could be interpreted as an early sign that a "flip" is near. 

Polarity reversals "seem to occur randomly in time," says University of Washington scientist Ronald Merrill. The shortest interval between "flips" is between 20,000 and 30,000 years, and the longest is a mighty 50 million years.

Unfinished Kipling tale gets told, a century later
Wed Apr 7, 4:18 PM ET 
Add Entertainment - NEWS SOURCE 

LONDON (NEWS SOURCE) - An unfinished children's tale by British author Rudyard Kipling, dug up after decades in an English school, has been published for the first time, a charity organization dedicated to the author said. 

 

"Scylla and Charybdis", part of Kipling's Stalky and Co. saga about boys at a boarding school, sees Stalky and his friends catch a colonel cheating at golf. 

The manuscript was discovered by an archivist at a school built on the same site as the author's own childhood school in Windsor, west of London. 

The Kipling Society's secretary Jeffrey Lewis said the novel was probably left unpublished because Kipling did not think it was good enough. 

"He started a second draft and didn't complete it," Lewis told the BBC. 

Born in Bombay in 1865, Rudyard Kipling did part of his schooling in England. He moved there for good in 1896, after writing "The Jungle Book" in the United States. 

Kipling refused most of the awards offered to him, but accepted a Nobel Literature Prize in 1907. 

The cult author, beloved of generations of children for his "Kim" and "Just So Stories", died in 1936.

Global Warming Could Melt Greenland Ice Sheet-Study Wed Apr 7, 2:01 PM ET

Add Science 

By Patricia Reaney 

LONDON  - Greenland's huge ice sheet could melt within the next 1,000 years and swamp low-lying areas around the globe if emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and global warming are not reduced, scientists said on Wednesday. 

A meltdown of the massive ice sheet, which is more than three km (1.8 miles) thick would raise sea levels by an average seven meters (yards), threatening countries such as Bangladesh, island in the Pacific and parts of Florida. 

"Any area that is less than seven meters above sea level would be flooded," said Jonathan Gregory, a climate scientist at the University of Reading in southern England. 

Researchers have already calculated that an annual average temperature rise of more than three degrees Celsius would be sufficient to melt the ice sheet in the future. 

Gregory and his colleagues have produced new calculations, which are published in the science journal Nature, showing that a temperature rise of that degree is indeed likely to happen. 

"We found that the levels of CO2 which we could quite likely reach during this century are sufficient to produce that amount of warming," he said. 

Using methods developed for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Gregory and his team did modeling studies of temperature change in response to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases over the next 350 years. 

"We estimated what that meant for the temperature of Greenland to see whether it passed the critical level threshold," Gregory added. 

It did. 

Some of the models forecast a temperature rise that was nearly three times more than the threshold. 

"How quickly it would happen would depend on how severe the warming was," Gregory said when asked when the ice sheet would disappear. "It is a great deal of ice." 

Under the Kyoto Protocol (news - web sites), the European Union (news - web sites) must cut its greenhouse gas output by eight percent of 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. To help reach these targets, the EU has designed an international emissions trading scheme, due to start in 2005. 

Plants in each member state will be granted tradeable CO2 certificates which allow them to generate a set amount of the polluting gas. 

But it may not be enough. 

"Presuming the calculations are right, that it is going to happen, and that we are in the right ball park then you would prevent it (the meltdown) happening by not allowing CO2 to go above the levels we were considering," Gregory said. 

The lowest CO2 concentration scenario used in the models was 450 parts per million. Current levels are below that, according to Gregory, but by the middle of this century are likely to exceed it. 

"It would not be impossible to remain below that level, if it is the important threshold, but it will mean greater emissions reduction than is currently being considered," he added. 

Human Rabies Vaccine Recalled in U.S.

Wed Apr 7, 5:25 PM ET



By DANIEL YEE, News Source Writer 

ATLANTA - A rabies vaccine for humans is being recalled in the United States and 23 other countries because a live strain of the virus was found in another batch made at the same time. 

Testing of Aventis Pasteur's IMOVAX vaccine revealed the presence of a live Pittman-Moore strain of the rabies virus, when the drug was not supposed to contain live virus, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites) said. 

While the tested lot of the vaccine was never distributed for public use, Aventis recalled four other lots in the United States because they were made during the same time as the faulty lot. The CDC said those lots had all passed quality tests. 

The CDC said it was theoretically possible but unlikely that anyone who received rabies shots from the recalled lots could have been exposed to the live form of the virus. 

As a result, the CDC has recommended that people who have taken recalled rabies shots receive additional shots of the vaccine that have not been recalled. 

The recalled lots, X0667-2, X0667-3, W1419-2 and W1419-3, were distributed between Sept. 23 and Friday, company officials said. 

Twenty-one other lots were being recalled in 23 other countries, according to information from the vaccine manufacturer posted Wednesday on a Web site for infectious disease doctors. The lots recalled overseas also passed quality tests, the CDC said. 

There is no scientific data on the effect of exposure to the Pittman-Moore rabies virus, which differs from the wild rabies virus, but according to anecdotal accounts lab workers exposed to it "never had any adverse consequences," said Len Lavenda, a spokesman at the company's offices in Swiftwater, Pa. 

He said the recall affected at least 82,000 doses distributed in the United States and Western Europe, but he did not have data for other parts of the world. 

A vaccine expert said Aventis did not have to recall the lots because they had been tested and did not carry the live virus. 

"This really was an excess of caution and a very elaborately cautious response. Exceedingly responsible," said Dr. William Schaffner, head of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. 

Schaffner said the rabies vaccine is the most commonly used in the world. 

The other countries affected by the recall were: Angola, Australia, Botswana, Croatia, Denmark, Chad, Germany, Hong Kong (China), Ireland, Italy, Malawi, Mozambique, New Zealand, Netherlands, Norway, Nigeria, Oman, Spain, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Zambia and Zimbabwe. 

___ 

On the Net: 

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr 

FDA (news - web sites) recall information: http://www.fda.gov/cber/recalls/rabave040204.htm 

Aventis recall information: http://www.vaccineshoppe.com/secure/index.cfm?faRabiesRecall

History Channel Withdraws Show on JFK Conspiracy Wed Apr 7, 6:10 PM ET

Add Entertainment 

By Larry Fine 

NEW YORK  - The History Channel apologized and said it was withdrawing a controversial documentary aired last November that accused former U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson of complicity in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. 

A statement on Wednesday from The History Channel said "The Guilty Men" program had "failed to offer viewers context and perspective." 

"The show wasn't vetted as properly and thoroughly as it should have been," station General Manager Dan Davids told The News Source. 

"The History Channel apologizes to its viewers and to Mrs. Johnson and her family for airing the show." 

The History Channel said the documentary was withdrawn from home video sales and would no longer be broadcast on the network. Davids said the station would also strengthen its review procedures, especially of controversial shows. 

"The Guilty Men," the ninth episode of the "Men Who Killed Kennedy" series was produced by Briton Nigel Turner. It centered on the theory of author Barr McClellan, a former lawyer in a firm that represented Johnson, in his book ""Blood, Money & Power: How L.B.J. Killed J.F.K." His book was published by Hannover House last October. 

The documentary, shown in the week of the 40th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, caused a storm of protest from prominent veterans of the Johnson administration, including broadcaster Bill Moyers and Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America. 

In response, The History Channel assembled three historians to review the show. They slammed the LBJ conspiracy theory as "entirely unfounded" and concluded that the documentary should not have been broadcast in the first place. 

The historians are presenting their findings in a one-hour panel discussion on The History Channel on Wednesday night. 

"The History Channel accepts the criticisms of these historians," Davids said. "We have a great responsibility (to our viewers) and this time we did not live up to it." 

Book author McClellan, interviewed on the documentary program, said he tried to cooperate with the reviewing panel by sending them material but never heard back from them. 

"It doesn't seem as if they treated the subject fairly at all," McClellan said in a telephone interview on Wednesday from his home in Gulfport, Mississippi.

Top Stories - The News Source
D.C. Lead Woes Prompt Scrutiny of Federal Rules
2 hours, 57 minutes ago

WASHINGTON  - Chronic problems with high levels of lead in Washington D.C.'s water supply are prompting scrutiny of water regulation at the national level, members of Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) said on Wednesday. 

Sen. James Jeffords (news - web sites), a Vermont independent, told a Senate hearing he planned to introduce a bill within days that would require testing for lead in water systems across the country, eliminate lead service lines and pipes and prohibit lead in plumbing fixtures. 

The bill would also require immediate notification of all homes with elevated lead test results and require public water systems to provide in-home filters where lead is a problem. 

"Today's hearing is just the first step in what I hope is a long list of actions that we can take to help solve D.C.'s lead problem and prevent this from occurring elsewhere in the nation," Jeffords told a hearing of the Fisheries, Wildlife, and Water Subcommitee. 

Lead can cause permanent brain damage to infants and children and harm adults who ingest high levels of it. 

The EPA requires utilities to notify the public and in some cases replace lead pipes if lead rises to more than 15 parts per billion in water supplies, but lawmakers at the hearing said the experience of residents of the nation's capital city highlighted regulatory shortcomings. 

Regular tests of D.C. water in 2002 revealed elevated lead levels in an unexpectedly high proportion of test samples, and a much larger sampling last summer showed thousands of homes above the 15 parts per billion level. Some showed lead levels of more than 30 times that. 

Residents say they were sent only a proforma letter about the results with no follow-up from city health authorities. 

Two families filed a class action lawsuit against the city last month to demand it provide an alternate water supply and threatened to sue the EPA as well. Officials have distributed thousands of Brita water filters to homes with lead lines. 

A senior EPA official said Washington's problems had already prompted the federal agency to review the lead rule and seek data from state officials about local lead levels.

Government Licenses First Private Rocket 

1 hour, 15 minutes ago

By LESLIE MILLER, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - The government announced Wednesday that it has issued the first license for a manned suborbital rocket, a step toward opening space flight to private individuals for the first time. 

Missed Tech Tuesday? 
Wal-Mart's doing it, and soon tech could track your every move. Here's how to protect yourself from RFID. 

The Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) gave a one-year license to Scaled Composites of Mojave, Calif., headed by Burt Rutan. Rutan, who hopes to make affordable space travel a reality in a decade, is best known for designing the Voyager airplane that made the first nonstop, unrefueled flight around the world in 1986. 

"This is a big step," FAA spokesman Henry Price said. 

The Scaled Composites craft consists of a rocket plane, dubbed SpaceShipOne, and the White Knight, an exotic jet designed to carry it aloft for a high-altitude launch. SpaceShipOne, made of graphite and epoxy, has short wings and twin vertical tails. It reached 12.9 miles in a trial flight; the license will allow the spacecraft to reach the edge of space, about 60 miles up. 

The license is a prerequisite for the X Prize competition, an international space race that will give $10 million to the first company or person to launch a manned craft to 62.5 miles above the Earth, and then do it again within two weeks. The craft must be able to carry three people. 

The FAA is considering two other applications, Price said. One is an X Prize contestant. 

Twenty-seven contestants from seven countries have registered for the X Prize competition. 

The prize, announced in 1996, is sponsored by the privately funded X Prize Foundation in St. Louis. Supporters include Dennis Tito, the American who spent $20 million to fly in a Russian craft as the first space tourist; pilot Erik Lindbergh, the grandson of Charles Lindbergh; former astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn; and actor Tom Hanks. 

Rutan declined to comment. The company states on its Web site that its goal is to show that private space flight can be done, and at a low cost. 

"We look to the future, hopefully within 10 years, when ordinary people, for the cost of a luxury cruise, can experience a rocket flight into the black sky above the earth's atmosphere, enjoy a few minutes of weightless excitement, then feel the thunderous deceleration of the aerodynamic drag on entry," the statement says. 

Before launching the spacecraft in the X Prize competition, Scaled Composites must give the prize sponsors 90 days notice, Price said. The company can launch its rocket before that, he said, but it must be in an area that isn't risky. 

Scaled Composites is located in the Mojave Desert. 

FAA inspectors carefully examined the space vehicle to make sure it's safe, said Price. 

"There's no sure thing in anything when it comes to rocketry," he said. "We want to do what we can with the knowledge we have to make sure the launch is as safe as possible for the public." 

The company also had to demonstrate that it was adequately insured for a launch and that it met environmental standards, Price said. 

A suborbital flight reaches space but doesn't travel fast enough or high enough to complete an orbit. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Scaled Composites: http://www.scaled.com 

Federal Aviation Administration: http://www.faa.gov 

X Prize: http://www.xprize.com

Parts From Saint-Exupery's Plane Found 
2 hours, 28 minutes ago

By ANGELA DOLAND, News Source Writer 

PARIS - It was one of French aviation's enduring mysteries: Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the pilot and author of the beloved tale "The Little Prince," took off on a World War II spy mission for the Allies and was never seen again. 

After 60 years, officials have confirmed that the twisted wreckage of a Lockheed Lightning P-38, found on the Mediterranean seabed not far from the rugged cliffs of Provence, belonged to Saint-Exupery, Air Force Capt. Frederic Solano said Wednesday. 

In France, the discovery is akin to solving the mystery of where Amelia Earhart's plane went down in the Pacific Ocean in 1937. 

"This was our holy grail," said Philippe Castellano, president of an association of aviation buffs who helped authorities identify the debris. "We never even imagined this." 

It was a stunning revelation: Teams have been searching up and down the coast for decades, and many experts believed the plane was probably too far out to sea to be recovered. 

Clues to the crash started coming together in 1998, when a bracelet bearing Saint-Exupery's name turned up in a fisherman's net near Marseille. Some reports said the find was a fake. 

"For six years, people had their doubts," said the fisherman, Jean-Claude Bianco. "People claimed I made it myself." 

But Bianco's discovery jogged the memory of a local scuba diver, who first saw the plane debris nestled in the ocean bed in the 1980s. 

The diver, Luc Vanrell, pored over records of downed planes. By 2000, he was convinced he had found the right one. But it took time to get permission from France's Culture Ministry to have the pieces brought up for analysis. 

The plane, smashed into hundreds of pieces, lies 100 to 300 feet below the surface, less than three miles from the coast between Marseille and Cassis. The key find was a tail piece bearing a tiny serial number, 2734 L - the same as Saint-Exupery's, Castellano said. 

A piece of the puzzle remains unanswered: the cause of the crash. Theories have ranged from hostile gunfire to suicide. The debris has so far yielded no clues. 

"It's impossible to say if he was shot down, if he lost consciousness, or if he had a mechanical accident," said Patrick Grandjean of the national Department of Subaquatic and Submarine Archaeological Research. 

Famous for his bravery, Saint-Exupery was selected for the dangerous mission of collecting data on German troop movements in the Rhone River Valley. His plane vanished in the night on July 31, 1944, when he was 44. 

He has become one of France's most admired figures, in part because of "The Little Prince," a tender fable about a prince from an asteroid who explores the planets and then falls to earth. Saint-Exupery's other works, which largely deal with his aviation experiences, include "Wind, Sand and Stars" and "Flight to Arras," about a doomed reconnaissance mission. 

Until the euro currency was introduced in 2002, the novelist's image appeared on the nation's 50-franc note. In Lyon, Saint-Exupery's hometown, the international airport is named after him. 

Castellano, president of the Aero-ReL.I.C. organization that helped identify the plane, said some Saint-Exupery fans resisted the efforts. They wanted to keep the mystery alive. 

"In the end, I think everyone is satisfied," he said. "We didn't find a body, so the myth surrounding his disappearance will live on." 

___ 

On the Net: http://www.aero-relic.org

PETA Uses Murder Case in Anti-Meat Ads

Apr 7, 1:54 pm ET 

VANCOUVER, British Columbia  - A U.S. animal rights group defended an advertising campaign on Wednesday that links the women victims in a Canadian serial murder case to the fate of butchered pigs.

Relatives of the Vancouver women, feared killed by accused murderer Robert Pickton, have denounced the campaign by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which wants to convince people not to eat meat.

Health officials warned last month that processed pork products that Pickton gave or sold to friends from his ramshackle Port Coquitlam farm outside Vancouver may have been contaminated by human remains. Pickton was arrested in 2002 and is awaiting trial on multiple murder charges.

The billboards in Toronto and Edmonton, Alberta, show pictures of a woman and a pig with the slogan: "Neither of us is meat." The signs do not mention the Pickton case, but PETA acknowledged the link.

"PETA's point? Consumers who may have eaten human flesh probably didn't notice because pigs and people alike are made of flesh and blood, i.e., 'meat'," the group said in a press release.

The group is upset that Vancouver billboard firms rejected the ads. PETA also tried to use the Pickton case in a 2002 advertising campaign, but backed off after objections from native Indian groups and the women's relatives.

Many of the more than 60 Vancouver prostitutes and drug addicts who disappeared in the 1990s, and are feared killed by Pickton at his farm, were Indians.

Pickton's murder trial is expected to start late this year. He is charged with 15 murders, but prosecutors have said they expect to add at least seven more murder counts.

Chocolate During Pregnancy Has Good Impact on Baby

Apr 7, 1:52 pm ET 

LONDON  - Pregnant women rejoice. Eating chocolate is good for the baby, say Finnish researchers.

Scientists at the University of Helsinki, who asked 300 pregnant women to record their chocolate consumption and stress levels, found that daily treats had a positive impact on the newborn baby's behavior.

Six months after the infants were born the mothers who had eaten chocolate reported more smiling and laughter in their offspring.

"And the babies of stressed women who had regularly consumed chocolate showed less fear of new situations than babies of stressed women who had abstained," New Scientist magazine said Tuesday.

Katri Raikkanen and colleagues who conducted the research admitted they can't be certain that chocolate consumption and the babies' behavior are not linked with other factors.

"But they speculate that the effects they observed could result from chemicals in chocolate associated with a positive mood being passed on to the baby in the womb," the magazine added.

AMSTERDAM  - Body piercing and tattoos make way.

Apr 7, 1:23 pm ET 

AMSTERDAM  - Body piercing and tattoos make way. The latest fashion trend to hit the Netherlands is eyeball jewelry.

Dutch eye surgeons have implanted tiny pieces of jewelry called "JewelEye" in the mucous membrane of the eyes of six women and one man in cosmetic surgery pioneered by an ophthalmic surgery research and development institute in Rotterdam.

The procedure involves inserting a 3.5 mm (0.13 inch) wide 1 piece of specially developed jewelry -- the range includes a glittering half-moon or heart -- into the eye's mucous membrane under local anaesthetic at a cost of 500 to 1,000 euros ($1,232).

"In my view it is a little more subtle than (body) piercing. It is a bit of a fun thing and a very personal thing for people," said Gerrit Melles, director of the Netherlands Institute for Innovative Ocular Surgery (www.NIIOC.nl).

The piece of jewelry is inserted in the conjunctiva -- the mucous membrane lining the inner surface of the eyelids and front of the eyeball -- in sterile conditions using an operating microscope in a procedure taking about 15 minutes.

"Without doing any harm to the eye we can implant a jewel in the conjunctiva," Melles said. "So far we have not seen any side effects or complications and we don't expect any in the future."

The Rotterdam-based institute, which develops new ocular surgical techniques in corneal, cataract and retinal surgery, developed and patented the jewelry made with special materials and the surgical procedure.

The institute, which carries out the procedure in cooperation with an eye clinic near the city of Utrecht, said it has a waiting list for people who wanted the implant.

Cross-Dressing Heats Up Republican Race

Apr 7, 9:16 am ET 

DALLAS  - What started as a dull runoff race to field a Republican candidate for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives has heated up due to a controversy over cross-dressing.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported on Tuesday photographs of candidate Sam Walls dressed in women's clothes have circulated among political leaders in Johnson County, south of Fort Worth. Local Republican leaders confirmed separately that they had seen the photographs of Walls in a wig, dress and high heels.

Walls, who has the endorsement of several leading Republicans in the state and was expected to win the run-off, was not available for comment. He said in comments printed in the Star-Telegram that he will not drop out of the race due to a campaign of blackmail.

"Through intermediaries, my opponent told me to drop out of the campaign or the private information would be released," Walls told the paper. "Now my opponent is using the information in an attempt to intimate that I am a homosexual, which I am not."

Walls, 64, who describes himself as a fervent Baptist, told the paper his family had "dealt with" the issue of his cross-dressing and that he asked for forgiveness.

The opponent in question is Rob Orr and his campaign officials said they have not distributed the photos.

Jeff Judd, the county chairman of the Republican party, said it was too late for Walls to drop out of the April 13 runoff.

"It would have been much better judgment for him not to have run," he said.

Gymnast's Skills Save Him in Fourth-Floor Fall

Apr 6, 1:30 pm ET 

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia  - A British junior gymnastics team member fell from the fourth floor of a Ljubljana hotel but suffered only a broken ankle after putting his gymnastics skills into practice, the Slovenian press reported Tuesday.

"Probably my gymnastic knowledge and experience saved me," the Slovenske Novice newspaper quoted 17-year-old Steven Jehu as saying.

"There was a big window that could be opened. I leaned out over a metal bar, but the bar suddenly broke. I couldn't do anything. I fell," Jehu said.

The gymnast did a somersault while falling from the window, which was more than 33 feet from the ground, and braced himself for a regular gymnastic landing.

Jehu, whose favorite discipline is the rings, is one of five British junior athletes who traveled to Ljubljana last week for the European gymnastics championships on April 15-18. "I got away with it all right, although the European championships for me ended before they even began," he said.

Leader Says Gold Teeth Out, White Teeth In...

Apr 6, 8:05 am ET 

ASHGABAT  - Turkmenistan's president has told his people to shun traditional false gold teeth in favor of white ones, the latest eccentric command after moves to ban beards, ballet and circuses.

President Saparmurat Niyazov, who has unlimited powers in the Central Asian nation of six million, set his eyes on Monday on a student with a full set of gold teeth as she was reading an address in his honor at a local university.

"Sebildzhan, don't be offended. You look great with gold teeth, but you would look far better with white ones," television showed Niyazov as telling her. "Here's the health minister, himself a dentist. He will give you white teeth."

"I know this fashion (for gold crowns) appeared when the Turkmen lived in penury," said Niyazov, who portrays himself as modernizing the gas-rich nation but is criticized in the West for human rights violations.

Similar statements by Niyazov have in the past been interpreted as law. Earlier this year he expressed a dislike for beards and long hair on male students, resulting in their disappearance from universities.

Displaying a smile full of gold teeth has long been a sign of prestige and relative wealth in largely impoverished post-Soviet Central Asia, and many young people buy gold teeth even if their natural ones are in perfect order.

Fire and No Buyer for Two Former Clinton Homes

Apr 6, 7:51 am ET 

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.  - It was a bad weekend for two Arkansas families in homes once occupied by former U.S. President Bill Clinton -- one house failed to sell and another caught fire.

A small, frame structure in Hope, Arkansas, where Clinton spent part of his childhood, failed to sell during the 10 days it was offered to on-line bidders on eBay.com. The owner, Gary Johnson, a Hope tourism official, isn't sure why.

"We had set a $45,000 minimum bid, but eBay kicked it up to $200,000," Johnson said. "How eBay came up with $200,000, we don't understand."

Johnson said the house is still for sale, although not on-line.

The 950-square-foot (88-square-meter) house was the second Clinton and his mother occupied in Hope following his birth in 1946. Clinton has said he can trace many happy childhood memories to that house. The first home is now a museum.

A home in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where Clinton and his family lived after they moved from Hope, was heavily damaged in a fire on Sunday night.

The current owner was working on an automobile that caught fire. The flames entered the attic from the garage and then spread through the structure, said Hot Springs fire chief Opal Sanders.

"The damage was pretty extensive. It was burning pretty good by the time we arrived," Sanders said.

The Hot Springs home was a modest, brick veneer residence.

Play Uses Therapy, Real Life to Entertain

Apr 5, 1:08 pm ET 

By Christine Kearney

NEW YORK  - Think you need a therapist? How about seeing one who takes your life and puts it on stage in front of a New York theater audience?

A zany new off-Broadway show, "This is Your Ridiculous Life," uses professional psychotherapists onstage to interview members of the audience. Their life stories then are used as material for improvised comedy skits.

Director and cast member David Wackman says the provocative show produces universal stories with a New York flavor each night.

"A lot of people who live and visit New York have an immediate sense that they have entered a crazy zone," he said. "There is so much bizarreness and craziness in New York and in this show we have a way of unleashing that."

Previews this weekend were met with howls of laughter from the audience. In one, an audience member named Stella described playing childhood games with her sister. Cast members acted out the games.

Another scene involved an audience member named Shanta, who described meeting her boyfriend in a nightclub where they both were singers. Yet another scene used a life experience from Maria Coaker to create a skit imagining her confronting a politician she did not like.

"I think it's fabulous. It was fun being a participant and they were very creative in making all the skits and doing everything instantaneously," she said afterward. "It is what New York is all about, being spontaneous. It's being able to see different faces and different people."

The show features seven members of the Castillo Theater's performing ensemble and was conceived by artistic director Fred Newman. It is being shown weekly at the All Stars Project's Performing Arts Center.

The 23-year-old nonprofit All Stars Project sponsors the Castillo Theater's experimental and political theater projects and survives largely on donations. Tickets are $15.

Tokyo Cab Reaches NY from Argentina, Meter Running

Apr 5, 10:10 am ET 

NEW YORK  - When Japanese actor Gitan Otsuro climbed out of his cab in New York City on Friday, the meter showed more than 6 million yen ($58,000) -- but he's not planning to pay the fare.

The three-month, 20,000-mile trek from Patagonia in the Tokyo taxi was sponsored by a Japanese TV station which is making a travel documentary about it.

The taxi, with Tokyo cab driver Tsuyoshi Sakuma, 66, at the wheel, passed through 11 countries and was welcomed at its New York destination by an honor guard of the city's yellow cabs.

"The thing I enjoyed most was when we came into New York and saw the Statue of Liberty," Sakuma said. "I couldn't believe how big it was."

Global Music Sales Slide, Some Recovery Signs-IFPI 2 hours, 43 minutes ago

Add Entertainment 

By Bernhard Warner 

LONDON  - Global music sales fell 7.6 percent in 2003 to $32 billion, the steepest decline since the advent of the compact disc, the trade body representing the world's largest music companies said on Wednesday. 

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) blamed the slump in retail music sales -- now in its fourth consecutive year -- on rampant piracy, poor economic conditions and competition from video games and DVDs. 

However, a strong second-half recovery in the United States, Britain and Australia, boosted by top-selling acts such as Justin Timberlake (news), Beyonce and rapper 50 Cent, has raised hopes that the worst is behind the beleaguered industry. 

"I think the long-term secular decline has just about come to a conclusion. Is it over? I don't know the answer to that yet," said IFPI Chairman Jay Berman. He predicted 2004 music sales in unit terms would decline "by about four percent." 

Continental Europe -- specifically Germany, France and the Nordic countries -- plus Japan continued to experience steep sales declines. Berman said there was no recovery in sight in those markets. 

Noting that first-half 2003 sales were down nearly 11 percent, analysts regarded the full-year figure as positive news but said evidence of a full-fledged recovery is flimsy. 

The industry is making strides by cutting costs and staff but needs to invest more in new technologies such as Internet music stores and mobile phone ring tones to develop new revenue streams, analysts said. 

"Anything that will pull the industry out of the mire and turn things around they will have to invest in," said Simon Dyson, an analyst with London-based consultancy Informa Media. 

Shares in EMI, the world's largest stand-alone music label, were down 0.4 percent to 262 pence at 1035 GMT. 

CD WOES AND PROBLEMS IN GERMANY 

Global compact disc sales -- the most often cited figure in discussing the health of the industry -- fell 9.1 percent in value in 2003, the IFPI said. Unit sales fell by 6.5 percent. 

Total sales of singles, including cassettes and vinyl, which have dipped significantly since the Internet file-sharing and CD-burning craze began in the late 1990s, fell 18.7 percent in value terms between 2002 and 2003. 

In the German market, sales fell for the sixth consecutive year, this time by 19 percent. The trade body recently conducted a study that found the number of CDs burned by German consumers jumped to 325 million in 2003 from 260 million in 2002. 

To fight piracy, the industry has begun suing the most prolific online music swappers. The legal clampdown, which started in the United States and recently spread to Europe and Canada, will become a global initiative, the IFPI said last week. 

Music labels have also been slashing costs, dumping B-list stars and cutting staff. Last week, EMI announced it would shed 1,500 jobs, or about 19 percent of its staff. 

Sony Music and Bertelsmann's BMG plan to merge forces, hoping to save an estimated $300 million annually through creating the second largest music label behind Universal Music . 

The IFPI noted it factored in foreign exchange fluctuations in assigning a global retail value. 

The global retail figure dropped from $32.2 billion in 2002 to $32 billion in 2003 with the weak dollar cushioning some of the decline in absolute terms. 

The IFPI represents hundreds of the world's independent and major music labels including Warner Music, Sony Music, Universal Music, EMI and BMG. 

(Additional reporting by Adam Pasick in London) 

Surgeons Who Play Video Games Err Less 

Tue Apr 6,10:19 PM ET

By VERENA DOBNIK, News Source Writer 

NEW YORK - All those years on the couch playing Nintendo (news - web sites) and PlayStation appear to be paying off for surgeons. Researchers found that doctors who spent at least three hours a week playing video games made about 37 percent fewer mistakes in laparoscopic surgery and performed the task 27 percent faster than their counterparts who did not play video games. 


 

"I use the same hand-eye coordination to play video games as I use for surgery," said Dr. James "Butch" Rosser, 49, who demonstrated the results of his study Tuesday at Beth Israel Medical Center. 

Laparoscopic surgery - using a tiny camera and instruments controlled by joysticks outside the body - is performed on just about any part of the body, from an appendix to the colon and gall bladder. 

The minimally intrusive surgery involves making tiny keyhole incisions, inserting a mini-video camera that sends images to an external video screen, with the surgical tools remote-controlled by the surgeon watching the screen. Surgeons can now practice their techniques through video simulations. 

Rosser said the skill needed for laparoscopic surgery is "like tying your shoelaces with 3-foot-long chopsticks." 

"Yes, here we go!" said Rosser, sitting in front of a Super Monkey Ball game, which shoots a ball into a confined goal. "This is a nice, wholesome game. No blood and guts. But I need the same kind of skill to go into a body and sew two pieces of intestine together." 

The study on whether good video game skills translate into surgical prowess was done by researchers with Beth Israel and the National Institute on Media and the Family at Iowa State University. It was based on testing 33 fellow doctors - 12 attending physicians and 21 medical school residents who participated from May to August 2003. 

Each doctor completed three video game tasks that tested such factors as motor skills, reaction time and hand-eye coordination. 

The study "landmarks the arrival of Generation X into medicine," said the study's co-author, Dr. Paul J. Lynch, a Beth Israel anesthesiologist who has studied the effects of video games for years. 

Kurt Squire, a University of Wisconsin researcher of video game effects on learning, said that "with a video game, you can definitely develop timing and a sense of touch, as well as a very intuitive feel for manipulating devices." 

Squire, who was not involved in Rosser's project, said applying such games to surgery training "could play a key role in preparing medical health professionals." 

Beth Israel is now experimenting with applying the findings. 

Rosser has developed a course called Top Gun, in which surgical trainees warm up their coordination, agility and accuracy with a video game before entering the operating room. 

"It's like a good football player," Rosser said, "you have to warm up first."

Man, 77, Holds Record for Blood Donations

Tue Apr 6, 7:38 AM ET

Add Strange News - 

ST. LOUIS - At a time when blood donations are down, the American Red Cross (news - web sites) is especially pleased with a St. Louis man. 

Maurice Wood, 77, holds a pair of records in the Guinness Book of World Records for giving blood. He has been donating for 54 years, longer than anyone else in the world, and has made 301 donations during that span. 

Every two months, Wood travels to the South St. Louis County American Red Cross donation center in Crestwood, although he could easily come up with excuses to stay home. He takes medicine for Parkinson's disease (news - web sites) and high blood pressure. 

"I come because I like the idea," he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "I always have. I am going to give until I can't give any more. It's a pleasure to give. It is easy to do, and I know that somewhere, it helps save somebody's life." 

Colleen Meyer, supervising nurse at the donation center, said Wood is so persistent in his mission that he battled an ice storm the last time he donated. 

So far, Wood has given 37 1/2 gallons of blood, one pint at a time. The Guinness world-record holder, Maurice Creswick of South Africa, has donated 49 gallons. 

Wood, a former federal railroad inspector, began donating in 1950 when he was 24. His blood type is AB positive, which only 3 percent of U.S. residents have. That blood type is unique in that it can be used to transfuse pregnant women or newborn babies. 

Wood is inspiring other older donors to give. 

Charles "Joe" Kovac Jr., 84, of Concord Village, has donated 15 1/2 gallons of blood since 1962, when he was 42. His goal is to donate 25 gallons of blood by the time he is 100. He earlier sent Wood a fan letter, and the two visit by telephone. 

Red Cross spokesman Jim Williams said the agency is grateful. 

"We aren't looking for world-record setters; we are just looking for people who want to help save lives," he said.

Study Disputes Sex-Prostate Cancer Link

Tue Apr 6, 4:00 PM ET



By LINDSEY TANNER, News Source Medical Writer 

CHICAGO - Contrary to some research, frequent sexual activity does not increase the risk of developing prostate cancer and might even reduce the danger, a study of nearly 30,000 men found. 

Some previous studies have suggested that men who have frequent ejaculations - whether through sex or masturbation - might be more prone to prostate cancer. One theory is that lots of sex exposes men to various germs and viruses that somehow lead to prostate cancer.

The latest study should be "reassuring to those men who may be more active than others," said Dr. Durado Brooks, prostate cancer director for the American Cancer Society (news - web sites). 

The study involved 29,342 health professionals ages 46 to 81 who were asked about their ejaculations in their 20s, 40s and during the previous year, 1991. During about eight years of follow-up, 1,449 men developed prostate cancer. 

On average, the men overall had four to seven ejaculations a month. No increased risk of prostate cancer was seen in men who reported more frequent ejaculations, and there appeared to be a decreased risk in men with the highest reported levels. 

The two highest activity levels - 13 to 20 ejaculations a month, and at least 21 a month - were linked with decreased cancer risks of 14 percent and 33 percent respectively. 

One theory is that frequent ejaculations help flush out cancer-causing chemicals or reduce the development of calcifications that have been linked with prostate cancer. 

But relatively few men in the study reported heavy sexual activity, so more research is needed to establish whether there is, in fact, a link, said Dr. Michael Leitzmann, a researcher at the National Cancer Institute (news - web sites) who led the study. 

"It's too early to suggest that men should change their sexual habits to alter their prostate cancer risk," he said. 

The study appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association (news - web sites). 

The theorized connection between frequent sexual activity and prostate cancer is not entirely far-fetched: High levels of the male hormone testosterone can cause a strong sex drive and can also fuel the growth of cancer cells. 

The study involved mostly white men. Leitzmann said it is unclear whether similar results would be found in blacks, who have much higher prostate cancer risks than whites. But he said the biological mechanisms that might explain the results probably do not differ by race. 

Prostate cancer (news - web sites) is the second most common cancer in men, after skin cancer. One in every six men will develop it. The American Cancer Society estimates that this year, 230,900 new cases will be diagnosed and that about 29,900 men will die from prostate cancer. 

The walnut-sized prostate gland produces fluids that are contained in semen. 

___ 

On the Net: 

JAMA: http://jama.ama-assn.org 

American Cancer Society: http://www.cancer.txorg 

Watchdogs Slam Google's New E-Mail Service

2 hours, 54 minutes ago

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, News Source Business Writer 

SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc. hails its new e-mail service as a breakthrough in online communication, but consumer watchdogs are attacking it as a creepy invasion of privacy that threatens to set a troubling precedent. 

Although Google's free "Gmail" service isn't even available yet, critics already are pressuring the popular search engine maker to drop its plans to electronically scan e-mail content so it can distribute relevant ads alongside incoming messages. 

Privacy activists worry that Gmail will comb through e-mail more intensively than the filters widely used to weed out potential viruses and spam. 

Gmail opponents also want Google to revise a policy that entitles the company to retain copies of people's incoming and outgoing e-mail even after they close their accounts. 

The e-mail scanning, which Google says will be handled exclusively by computers, has raised the most alarms, partly because it seeks to capitalize on messages sent by people without Gmail accounts. 

Google intends to deliver ads by analyzing what's being discussed. For instance, an e-mail from one friend to another talking about an upcoming trip might include links to hotels or airlines. 

Gmail has a "definite creepiness factor," said Ari Schwartz, associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology. 

Mountain View, Calif.-based Google portrays the commercialization of e-mail as a small trade-off for a service that will give each user one gigabyte of storage - up to 500 times more than other leading free services - and provide a quicker, cleaner way to search e-mailboxes. Most e-mail messages opened on Gmail won't even contain ads, according to Google. 

Nevertheless, critics say the free storage - roughly the equivalent of 500,000 pages - isn't worth compromising individual privacy rights. 

"Consumers really need to look this gift horse in the mouth because it has rotten teeth and bad breath," said Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a watchdog group. 

The Gmail backlash has inspired Orwellian comparisons likening Google to Big Brother, a disturbing development for a privately held company committed to making money "without doing evil." 

"We are not going over to the dark side," said Wayne Rosing, Google's vice president of engineering. "Consumers can expect us to treat their e-mail as private and with a great deal of respect. I don't think we are doing anything unreasonable." 

Gmail apparently doesn't bother everyone. Without providing specifics, Rosing said "hundreds of thousands" of people have registered with Gmail.com since Google announced the service last week. The company is still testing Gmail before offering it to the general public later this year. 

The enthusiastic response to Gmail probably is being driven by the chance to get so much e-mail storage space for free, said Chris Hoofnagle, associate director for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. 

Hoofnagle estimates Google will pay about $10 annually for each gigabyte of storage the company gives away, a small price to build an audience likely to be prized by advertisers. 

"It's not a great deal. Individuals would be throwing away the protections of their communications for a few dollars," Hoofnagle said. "We don't see this as any different than letting a company listen in on your phone conversations and letting the Postal Service open your mail." 

Some parts of Gmail even could be illegal, said Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, a watchdog group in London. 

Google's current Gmail policy advises potential users that "residual copies of e-mail may remain on our systems, even after you have deleted them from your mailbox or after the termination of your account." 

Vast data collection like that appears to be a blatant violation of communication protections in United Kingdom and possibly elsewhere in Europe, Davies said. Privacy International already has filed a complaint against Gmail with United Kingdom regulators. 

"If millions of people have their communication history kept on Google computers," Davies said, "then that storehouse becomes a very valuable source of information for a range of unintended consequences." 

The watchdogs also worry that Gmail could give Google a way to individually identify the people using its search engine, placing a name with the material being sought. 

Google already tracks most searches conducted at its site by tagging users' Web browsers with a chunk of data known as a "cookie." Google users are able to remove or block the cookie, although few do. 

Rosing said there will be an information firewall separating Google's search engine from Gmail. 

"We don't use the data collected on one service," he said, "to enhance another." 

___ 

On The Net: 

http://www.gmail.com 

http://www.privacyrights.org 

http://www.privacyinternational.org 

http://www.epic.org

Alzheimer's can cut life expectancy in half

Tue Apr 6, 6:51 AM ET

 - USATODAY.com 

By Kathleen Fackelmann, USA TODAY 

An older person newly diagnosed with Alzheimer's can expect to live about half as long as a peer who does not have the progressive brain disease, a study says.

For example, a 70-year-old woman who is diagnosed with Alzheimer's today can, on average, expect to live another eight years compared with the 16 years she'd live if she didn't have the disease, according to the study.

The findings give millions of American families a better idea of what to expect when a family member is diagnosed with Alzheimer's, says Ronald Petersen, a spokesman for the Chicago-based Alzheimer's Association.

Some people with Alzheimer's do well for years; they slowly develop the worst symptoms and die 15 or more years later. Others progress rapidly and can die within a few years after diagnosis.

Up until now, doctors had to use professional judgment to size up a patient's risk of a rapid decline. The study's findings could allow doctors to offer patients, and their caregivers, a more reliable estimate of longevity, says study author Eric Larson of the Group Health Cooperative in Seattle.

Getting news of a rapid decline might be hard to hear, but it can help patients decide how they would like to handle their affairs at a time when they are still lucid, Larson says. 

Such news also can help family members budget for a disease that often requires nursing-home care for people with advanced disease. Nursing homes can cost $70,000 a year.

Larson and his colleagues studied 521 men and women ages 60 and older who had just been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. The team evaluated each patient's mental functioning with standard tests and also checked for high blood pressure, heart failure and other conditions likely to affect their survival.

The team found that survival was poorest for patients who wandered, had problems walking and had a history of heart disease and diabetes.

Other findings from the study, which is published in today's Annals of Internal Medicine:

� Women with Alzheimer's tend to live longer than men.

� The severity of the disease was a more important predictor of length of survival than social factors such as race.

� People who scored poorly on initial memory tests had a high risk of dying quickly, perhaps because the disease was advanced at the time of diagnosis.

The study's findings will help policymakers plan for the estimated 16 million Americans who will develop Alzheimer's by 2050 if not enough is done to stop the disease, says Neil Buckholtz at the National Institute on Aging, which helped pay for the study. But the findings also might help researchers who are searching for ways to delay or even stop this disease, he says.

Networks to Air Rice Testimony Live Thursday 1 hour, 1 minute ago

Add Entertainment TV 

LOS ANGELES  - The three major U.S. broadcast networks said on Tuesday they will broadcast live National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites)'s testimony before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 2001 attacks. 

ABC, NBC and CBS said they would go live at 9 a.m. EDT on Thursday to broadcast the appearance, which comes amid controversy over whether she failed to focus on the threat posed by al Qaeda in the weeks before the Sept. 11 2001 attacks on the world Trade Center and the Pentagon (news - web sites). 

A Fox News spokesman said they would offer their coverage to affiliates to air at their discretion. 

A spokeswoman for NBC news said Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert would anchor the network's coverage; CBS said Dan Rather would handle its coverage; and ABC said Peter Jennings and a senior team of correspondents would cover the event. 

Rice, who initially declined to testify, is scheduled to appear before the commission for 2-1/2 hours, and the networks said they would stay with her appearance as events warranted. 

The White House had initially insisted that Rice's testimony be private before bowing to political pressure from both Republicans and Democrats that she speak publicly. 

She is expected to address claims by former U.S. counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke that she and President Bush (news - web sites) ignored the threat of al Qaeda before the 9/11 attacks. 

While it is not uncommon for networks to interrupt regular daytime programming for breaking news, lengthy scheduled preemptions during the day for news events are far less frequent. NBC said the last time it aired daytime gavel-to-gavel coverage of a live address was the one given by Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) at the United Nations (news - web sites) in February 2003. 

CBS is a unit of Viacom Inc., ABC is a unit of the Walt Disney Co., NBC is a unit of General Electric Co., and Fox is a unit of News Corp. Ltd. . (With additional reporting by David Morgan and Steve Holland in Washington)

ACLU to Sue Government Over 'No-Fly' List 

2 hours, 12 minutes ago

By LESLIE MILLER, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites)'s officials declined to comment in advance of their planned announcement Tuesday that they would file a class-action lawsuit challenging the list of travelers that the government has barred from flying because they're considered a threat. The civil rights group is representing seven plaintiffs. 

Airlines are instructed to stop anyone on the "no fly" list that is compiled by the Transportation Security Administration. The ACLU contends, though, that some people are wrongfully put on the list. 

"Many innocent travelers who pose no safety risk whatsoever are stopped and searched repeatedly," the ACLU said in a statement issued Monday. 

The no-fly list is one of two lists kept by the TSA. The other is the "selectee." Those on the no-fly list are not allowed to board a commercial aircraft. Those on the selectee list must go through more extensive screening before boarding. 

Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies request that the TSA put names on the list. 

Little else is known about the lists, including how many people are on them and how they qualify to get on or off. 

The TSA acknowledged the name-matching technology used by some airlines confuses people on the no-fly list with passengers who have similar names. 

In such a case, a passenger would be referred to a law enforcement official, who would be able to clear up mistakes by checking the person's identification and perhaps putting in a call to the FBI (news - web sites), Mark Hatfield said. 

Problems with the no-fly list have provided fodder for critics of the TSA plan to conduct computerized background checks of all airline passengers and to rank them according to their risk of being a terrorist. They say that if a no-fly list with relatively few names causes confusion and produces misidentifications, the government cannot be trusted with a far broader program. 

Some people on the no-fly list have found it impossible to get off, said David Sobel, general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. 

"There doesn't seem to be any reliable way to resolve the problem that these people continuously confront," Sobel said. 

Hatfield acknowledge such problems exist but said the agency has worked to help people wrongly identified. 

Separately, the TSA said Monday that it is seeking proposals from companies to run a pilot "registered traveler" program in which low-risk frequent fliers could avoid extra security inspections at airports by submitting to background checks. 

Companies are being asked to show how they'd manage the program, as well as their capabilities in biometric identification and computer technology. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Transportation Security Administration: http://www.tsa.gov 

Homeland Security Department: http://www.dhs.gov 

American Civil Liberties Union: http://www.aclu.org 

Wal-Mart Drives RFID Thu Apr 1, 9:24 AM ET

Michael Fitzgerald - ExtremeTech 

It's hard to feel sorry for Wal-Mart, by far the nation's largest company. But it does seem that Wal-Mart can't catch a break on RFID. 

First, Wal-Mart stores in Brockton, Mass., and Broken Arrow, Okla., were caught secretly running trials of RFID-tagged items, such as Gillette's razors, to see if the tags could help keep the stores' shelves stocked and prevent shoplifting. Consumer privacy advocates screamed foul, and the tests were quickly shut down. A number of consumer privacy groups subsequently issued a position paper on RFID. Wal-Mart said little publicly about the shutdown, though industry observers attribute it mostly to the fact that RFID is still too expensive for efficient in-store tagging. 

Now, Wal-Mart is focused on its supply chain, using RFID to track pallets and containers. It has demanded that its top 100 suppliers tag all pallets and containers with RFID by Jan. 1, 2005. Consumer advocates have no issues with RFID in the supply chain, but Wal-Mart is facing pressure from another group, its suppliers, who are balking at the costs. While Wal-Mart is expected to save more than $8 billion a year from RFID implementations, thanks in part to greatly reduced labor costs, suppliers want to know what's in it for them. Forrester Research estimates it will cost between $9.5 million and $20 million for the companies to comply with Wal-Mart's mandate. For more on this, see CIO Insight's Wal-Mart's Network Effect and Baseline's RFID: Hit or Myth?). 

Forrester analyst Christine Overby said she thinks Wal-Mart will have to back off its Jan. 1 mandate. "Suppliers are still struggling with the business case, and rightly so. They're getting pressure from their boards and management to justify what can be a $9 million to $20 million investment, with no real clear benefit that shows even a break-even return in their investment," she said. 

Other U.S. retailers will likely follow Wal-Mart's lead. Meanwhile, British retailers Marks & Spencer and Tesco are aggressively pursuing RFID tagging in their stores. Firms such as Accenture have said they expect RFID to improve forecasting by as much as 20 percent, helping firms lower inventory levels by as much as 30 percent while increasing sales between 1 and 2 percent (see more on the business case in the eWEEK article Time is on RFID's Side). Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Defense (news - web sites) also wants its suppliers using RFID by January 1, 2005, (see DoD Details Its RFID Plans). 

Perhaps Wal-Mart can take solace in the knowledge that it has not bungled so badly as German retailer Metro, which secretly put RFID tags in its shopper loyalty cards and tagged almost all of the items in one of its stores, drawing the ire of German privacy activists and forcing the store to apologize. 

We Be Jammer Thu Apr 1, 9:18 AM ET

Michael Fitzgerald - ExtremeTech 

RSA Security, best-known for its encryption algorithms and an eponymous security conference, thinks it has a way to block RFID tags from being read by prying eyes. 

At issue here is how to turn off the tags once they leave a store. One could use brute force, cutting or ripping them off. Or there's old-fashioned hacking: Metal (think aluminum foil) disrupts RFID signals for the kind of tags that would probably be used on consumer goods in a store. 

What RSA has devised is a blocker tag that basically sends a mini-denial of service attack to RFID readers. The readers can read only one tag a time, so RSA's blocker tag sends multiple signals at once, confusing the reader and making it impossible for it to read the actual tagged products that might be in a consumer's shopping bag. As RSA has currently devised the tag, it would be implanted in bags given to customers at checkout lines and would then prevent readers in other stores from reading any data. (for more, read EWeek's RSA keeps RFID private.) 

Meanwhile, RFID vendors are also working on ways to give consumers peace of mind about the chips. "There will be ways and choices given to consumers. That has to happen," said Christophe Duverne, vice president of marketing and sales for identification products at Philips Semiconductors, the largest maker of RFID chips. 

Duverne said future generations of the company's chips will have easy-to-trigger kill features. And he said Philips is talking with privacy groups. "These guys are very sensible people, and this is new territory. We need to take their concerns seriously." 

Just in case, remember that a swift tap with a hammer does very bad things to RFID chips.

Mars Spirit Rover Ends Primary Mission

Tue Apr 6, 6:16 AM ET

By ANDREW BRIDGES, News Source Science Writer 

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA (news - web sites)'s Spirit rover has finished its primary mission to Mars yet continues to roll along, moving toward a cluster of hills that could yield evidence of the planet's wet past. 

By Monday, Spirit's 90th full day on Mars, the unmanned robot and its twin, Opportunity, had accomplished nearly all of the tasks before NASA would consider their joint mission a full success. 

"Spirit has completed its part of the bargain and Opportunity doesn't have much left to do," said Mark Adler, manager of the $820 million double mission. 

The tasks included a requirement that one of the rovers travel at least 1,980 feet - a mark Spirit surpassed on Saturday. 

Between the two of them, the rovers also had to take stereo and color panoramas of their surroundings, drive to at least eight different locations and operate simultaneously for a minimum of 30 days. 

NASA assumed technical and other problems would ground the rovers fully one-third of the time they operated on Mars. 

Despite computer memory problems that left Spirit sidelined for 2 1/2 weeks, it's still spent more days at work than expected, Adler said. 

For Opportunity, it still must function for another 20 martian days - which are nearly 40 minutes longer than Earth days - before it meets all of its targets, Adler said. 

"It's better than we could have possibly imagined," he said. 

Spirit landed Jan. 3 in Gusev Crater, a 90-mile-diameter depression scientists believed once contained a lake. Spirit has found traces of limited past water activity in rocks it has examined, but none of the lake deposits scientists hoped it would uncover. 

Spirit is now several days into a trek toward a cluster of hills that may contain geologic evidence of a more substantially wet environment, including perhaps layered rocks formed in standing water. 

Opportunity has found such rocks at its landing site, halfway around the now frozen and dry planet, since it landed Jan. 24. Scientists believe a salty sea or swamp once covered that site, called Meridiani Planum. 

NASA has extended the joint mission through September. If the rovers continue to function, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory will apply for money to further extend the project, Adler said. 

___ 

On the Net: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html 

News Corp. to Reincorporate in U.S.

2 hours, 2 minutes ago

Add Business 

By Sophie Hares 

SYDNEY  - Rupert Murdoch made the final break from his Australian roots on Tuesday with plans to shift the corporate headquarters of News Corp. Ltd., one of the world's top four media empires, from sleepy Adelaide to New York. 

Murdoch, who has taken U.S. citizenship and has lived in the United States since the 1970s, said News Corp. would move its primary share listing to the New York Stock Exchange (news - web sites) to boost access to U.S. capital markets. 

News Corp., which includes 20th Century Fox film studios, the Fox News Channel, scores of newspapers and a swathe of pay-TV businesses from BSkyB to DirecTV, earns more than 75 percent of its profits in the United States. 

"It's something that has been discussed for some time. I think it's a positive. They trade at a discount to U.S. peers -- I think the discount is in the order of 10 percent," said Tony Wilson, media analyst at UBS. 

"It's very positive that there are very few tax liabilities for shareholders or for the company." 

News Corp. has been managed on an operational basis from New York for many years, but analysts said the group opted to maintain its main listing in Australia to avoid capital gains charges on acquisitions. 

The firm, which said none of its businesses, and very few of its shareholders, would be slapped with a tax bill as a result of the reincorporation, will maintain secondary listings in London and Australia, where it currently makes up about seven percent of the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index. 

"News Corp.'s roots, heart and culture are unmistakably Australian," said Murdoch, News Corp.'s executive chairman. 

The 73-year old media mogul's family's News Corp. interests are worth A$8.8 billion ($6.6 billion). 

"Our presence as a foreign issuer in the U.S. leaves many of the world's biggest funds and investors unable to invest in News Corporation," Murdoch said on a conference call. 

"That, we believe, is a prime reason our stock trades at a discount to some of our peers, despite our very strong financial performance in the past few years." 

Making it easier for major U.S. institutional investors to add News Corp. stock to their portfolios would help make the share base more liquid and narrow the gap between News Corp.'s non-voting and voting stock, the group said. 

"Over time, its profile in the U.S. will increase if it's included in U.S. indices," said Alex Pollak, media analyst at Macquarie Equities. 

News Corp., whose American Depositary Receipts currently trade on the NYSE, said it had no plans to alter the structure of its New York-traded Fox Entertainment Group. 

SIMPLIFYING STRUCTURE 

The reincorporation, which will take place through a share-for-share exchange, also involves News Corp. buying the 58 percent of Australia's Queensland Press Ltd. (QPL) owned by the Murdoch family. QPL's assets are valued at A$2.5 billion. 

The restructure would see the Murdoch family hold its shares directly in News Corp. rather than through the convoluted, indirect structures currently used. 

After the reincorporation, the Murdoch family's share of News Corp. voting stock would be trimmed to 29.45 percent from 29.87 percent of News Corp., while the QPL deal would add around A$200 million to the listed firm's operating profits. 

"QPL just cleans up the whole structure, plus it's a good asset," said UBS's Wilson. 

However, some analysts said Australian investors might opt to vote against the reincorporation which would see their stock go from being a major component of Australia's benchmark index to just a tiny part of the NYSE. 

"Is it good to be a big fish in small pond or a small fish in a big pond? Actually, from a share price perspective, it's better to be a big fish in a small pond," said one analyst, who declined to be named. 

News Corp., which said its fixation on DirecTV had seen it delay the reincorporation until now, said its balance sheet was healthy, its cash flows robust and it had no major acquisitions in its sights. 

It plans to update the market on its financial outlook when it releases third quarter results on May 6. 

News Corp. shares ended one cent firmer at A$12.16 as the overall market notched just higher.

Ikea Founder Denies Being Richest Man 
2 hours, 23 minutes ago 
Add Business - 

By TOMMY GRANDELL, News Source Writer 

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - The founder of Swedish furniture giant Ikea isn't hurting for money, but the company he founded denied on Monday a report that he surpassed Bill Gates (news - web sites) and Warren Buffett (news - web sites) as the world's wealthiest man. 

Related Quotes 
DJIA
NASDAQ
^SPC 10473.78
2059.98
1142.23 +3.19
+2.81
+0.42

Get Quotes 
delayed 20 mins - disclaimer 
Quote Data provided by The News Source
Related Links
� World's Richest People (Forbes)

In an article to be released this week, Swedish news weekly Veckans Affaerer said Ingvar Kamprad, 77, the founder of Ikea, had surpassed Microsoft's Gates and Buffett as the world's wealthiest person. 

The falling exchange rate between the Swedish krona and the U.S. dollar, the magazine said, had caused Kamprad's personal fortune to rise to an estimated $52.5 billion. 

Ikea said that wasn't the case. 

"This is completely wrong. It's a mistake that is made all the time," said Ikea spokeswoman Marianne Barner. "Estimating the value of the company, including all the stores, and saying it's all Ingvar's, that is totally wrong." 

"Ingvar Kamprad does not own Ikea. Ingvar donated the concern to the Dutch Stichting INGKA Foundation in 1982." 

In February, Forbes magazine's annual ranking of the world's billionaires put Gates at No. 1 with an estimated $46.6 billion. It was the 10th consecutive year the Microsoft co-founder was atop the list. 

Buffett, the Omaha investment guru, was No. 2 with $42.9 billion. 

On that same list, Kamprad was No. 13, with an estimated fortune of $18.5 billion. 

But Veckans Affaerer said when the dollar's slide against the kronor was calculated, he had overtaken Gates and Buffett. 

Kamprad has a reputation for frugality and lives in Switzerland where, as a resident, he is not subject to Sweden's taxes, which are among the highest in the world. 

Ikea, founded in 1943, has 174 stores in 31 countries and employs some 76,000 workers.

Smoking Ban Linked to Drop in Heart Attacks
Sun Apr 4, 7:11 PM ET 
Add Health 

By Patricia Reaney 

LONDON  - Ireland's ban on smoking in pubs and restaurants could have added health benefits if research in the United States is anything to go by. 


 

Nearly two years before the emerald isle became the first country to outlaw smoking in public places, the city of Helena in Montana passed similar legislation and saw a sharp drop in heart attacks. 

Opponents subsequently had the U.S. law overturned but in the six months it was enforced, hospital admissions for heart attack fell by 40 percent in the city. 

"The observations...suggests that smoke-free laws not only protect people from the long-term dangers of second-hand smoke but also that they may be associated with a rapid decrease in heart attacks," said Professor Stanton Glantz of the University of California, San Francisco. 

Smoking is a risk factor for heart disease and stroke but Glantz's research, which is published online by the British Medical Journal Monday, is the first to report a link between a ban and heart attacks. 

Only 24 people were admitted to the city's heart hospital with a heart attack during the six-month smoking ban, compared to an average of 40 during the same periods in the year before the law was imposed and after it was overturned. 

Thirty-eight percent of the heart attack patients in the study were smokers, 29 percent had quit and 33 percent had never smoked. 

Further studies are needed to confirm the findings but Glantz said the impact is consistent with the known effects of second-hand smoke on cardiac disease. 

"The dramatic decrease in heart attacks in the Montana study makes sense because exposure to passive smoking can increase the risk of heart attack," a spokesman for the anti-smoking group ASH (Action on Smoking and Health (news - web sites)) said. 

"It all basically points to the need for a ban on smoking in public places and how crucial it is to public health," he added. 

In Ireland, which introduced the nationwide ban last week, around a quarter of deaths from heart disease are caused by smoking. Smokers have twice the risk of heart attack of non-smokers. 

In further research into the dangers of passive smoking also published online, pubic health experts in New Zealand discovered that people who have never smoked but who live with a smoker have a 15 percent higher risk of death than someone who resides in a smoke-free environment. 

"The results from this study add to the weight of evidence of harm caused by passive smoking and support steps to reduce exposure to other people's smoke -- in the home and in other settings," Tony Blakely of Wellington School of Medicine and Health Sciences in New Zealand, said in the study.

Soap on the cellphone as TV goes tiny
Sun Apr 4, 7:19 PM ET 
Add Technology - NEWS SOURCE 

CANNES, France (NEWS SOURCE) - The launch of TV's first-ever soap for the tiny mobile phone screen might not suit everyone's taste, but it is living proof that the TV and digital worlds are merging. 

 

With this convergence due to transform the average consumer's entertainment fix, a record number of mobile-phone operators -- including heavy-hitters such as Vodafone, Nokia (news - web sites) and Telefonica -- turned up in large numbers at this week's international MiPTV and MILIA trade shows. 

Aside from ring tones and music, games, news and sports results are the current favourites of cell phone users, many of them children and younger adults. And now the race is on to attract new audiences, with the big strides achieved in video streaming to phones throwing up new opportunities. 

"The quality of content, like video, is improving as are the handsets. It's a step change in the level of service," Vodafone's Graham Ferguson told a forum in this Riviera town. 

The first soap-drama specifically made for mobile phones, called "Hotel Franklin," has just been launched by media giant News Corporation. The episodes last just one-minute because, said News Corp.'s Lucy Hood, this "seems to us to be the natural length" for phone viewers. 

That time frame allows for enough character development and plot before leaving a hook at the end to get viewers to look at the next episode. 

The hugely popular dysfunctional Simpson family characters star in another News Corp. initiative to tap into the big mobile phone market. Phone users can call up cute, short clips featuring The Simpsons with messages like "I'm tired" or "Happy Birthday" to send to their friends. 

Hit TV game shows such as "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" are also transferring to telephones, and a deal to license a Millionaire phone game, developed by Active media, and an SMS mobile text version, was unveiled here this week. 

Movie lovers are also in for a treat. There has been a huge rise in the number of homes with broadband connections opening the way for video-on-demand services and on-demand television (IPTV). 

Japan's Softbank Broadmedia has led the way in video-on-demand and just a year after the service was launched, BB Cable TV subscribers can choose from a 2,300-strong video library. 

A number of companies have followed in BB Cable's footsteps. The world's largest cable company, Comcast, offers a large selection of interactive video-on-demand products, which are proving popular with over 50 per cent of its 23 cable subscribers. "We're getting lots of mileage out of video-on-demand," Comcast's Ty Ahmad-Taylor said here. 

Viewers appear to appreciate the ease of the system, which enables calling up a movie directly on the TV set, without having to leave home. The cost of the "rental" is either included in a subscription or automatically put onto the phone bill. 

The millionaire-studded principality of Monaco was one of the first in Europe to launch the VOD concept in Europe but it is also available elsewhere, notable in Britain through Video Networks. 

The more optimistic market watchers believe it might not be long now before all digital devices in the home, including the DVD, mobile phones, digital cameras and the brand-new digital video recorders known as DVRs are hooked up together. 

If and when that happens, the PC could play the central link-up, upstaging the power of the television. 

With the number of remote controls that are scattered around many people's homes that might be a great step forward. But other experts are hedging their bets about how long this may take to happen, if it comes about at all. 

As one key speaker at MILIA, Joichi Ito, pointed out, "traditionally, the (content) industry has been wrong about how consumers use these devices." 

So while there may be a lot of balls in the air, no one really knows for the moment which ones are going to stay up and which are going to fall.

800,000 Cards Overcharged at Wal-Marts

Sun Apr 4, 7:23 PM ET

Add Business - 

By DAN D'AMBROSIO, News Source Writer 

DENVER - A computer hardware problem caused more than 800,000 credit and debit card transactions to be double- or triple-billed last week at Wal-Mart stores nationwide, according to officials at First Data Corp., which handled the electronic payments. 

The excess Visa and Mastercard charges, which occurred Wednesday and were posted on Thursday, have been reversed, First Data spokeswoman Staci Busby said Sunday. 

Busby said the problem showed up on reports the company generates for quality control purposes. She said it's unclear how many customers were affected, and that she had no other details about the hardware problem. 

"Anyone who conducted a transaction with a Visa or Mastercard on March 31 should check their statements," Busby said. 

Danetta Thompson, a spokeswoman for Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart said Sunday the retailer had posted signs about the problem and was informing customers. She said signs in the stores direct customers to First Data's toll-free number, 888-893-0626. 

"I feel like they've got their arms around the problem," Thompson said. "Those charges have been reversed." 

Busby said some affected customers may not see the reversed charges on their accounts until Tuesday. She said First Data has instituted additional measures as a result of the overbilling. 

First Data processes payments for retailers, moving money from consumers' accounts to merchants' bank accounts. The Greenwood Village, Colo.-based company has 30,000 employees and operates in 195 countries and territories. 

___ 

On the Net: 

http://www.firstdata.com 

Some Doctors Turn to Cash-Only Policies

Sun Apr 4,12:24 PM ET



By REBECCA COOK, News Source Writer 

RENTON, Wash. - When Chuck O'Brien visits his doctor, they talk about his aches and pains, his heart problems and his diet, but never about his health insurance. 

That's because his doctor only accepts cash. 

Dr. Vern Cherewatenko is one of a small but growing number of physicians across the country who are dumping complicated insurance contracts in favor of simple cash payments. 

When O'Brien leaves the exam room, he writes a check for $50 and he's done - no forms, no ID numbers, no copayments. 

"This is traditional medicine. This is what America was like 30 years ago," said O'Brien, 55 and self-employed, who believes he has saved thousands of dollars by dropping his expensive insurance policy and paying cash. "It's a whole world of difference." 

Is this the health care wave of the future? Probably not, experts say. Most people are content with monthly premiums and $10 copays; nine out of 10 doctors contract with managed-care companies. 

But cash-only medicine is becoming an increasingly attractive option for doctors frustrated by red tape and for the 43 million Americans who lack health insurance. 

"It's a terrible indictment of the collapsing health care system," said Arthur Caplan, chairman of the medical ethics department at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. "Insurance and managed care were supposed to streamline - instead what they've done is add so much paperwork and bureaucracy they're driving some doctors out." 

Health insurers downplay the trend, while emphasizing recent efforts to mend tattered relationships between doctors and managed care companies. 

"I don't look at it as a threat," said Mohit Ghose, spokesman for the industry group America's Health Insurance Plans. "It's just a different way of practicing." 

Medical establishment leaders don't object to doctors working for simple cash. 

"This is America. One size does not fit all," said Dr. John C. Nelson, president-elect of the American Medical Association. "We certainly support the physicians' right to do that." 

An obstetrician-gynecologist in Salt Lake City, Nelson easily recalled times when he believed managed care rules prevented his patients from getting the best treatment. He said cash-only doctors are driven by the desire to practice medicine without interference. 

"There is a great intrusion by third parties into the patient-physician relationship," Nelson said. "We can understand their frustration." 

Cherewatenko, a broad-shouldered 45-year-old who wears black jackets and red stethoscopes at work, switched to cash out of desperation six years ago. His suburban Seattle practice was hemorrhaging money, and he and his partners realized they were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars just to process insurance paperwork. 

"We said, 'Let's cut out this administrative waste,'" Cherewatenko said. Before, he charged $79 for an office visit and got $43 from an insurance company months later, minus the $20 in staff time it took to collect the payment. Now he charges $50 - and he never worries about collection costs, because patients pay in full after every visit. 

Cherewatenko sees fewer patients now. His whole office would probably fit inside his old waiting room. But he says the freedom is worth it. 

"Accounts receivable is zero. It's a great feeling," Cherewatenko said. "I feel like I'm a real doctor again." 

He started a group called SimpleCare to spread the gospel of cash-only medicine. The organization steers patients to doctors who offer cash discounts, and gives technical and moral support to doctors who want to start cutting their ties to insurance. Membership has grown to 22,000 patient members and 1,500 doctors. Some reject all insurance and take only cash, while others continue to accept insurance while offering discounts of 15 percent to 50 percent for cash-paying patients. 

Independent of SimpleCare, doctors in California, Colorado, Minnesota, Texas, Mississippi and other states have also quit the insurance game. Some tired of the paperwork and administrative expenses. Some wanted to spend more time with patients without managed care bean-counters peering over their shoulders. The patients who pay cash range from poor to wealthy, with most in the blue-collar middle. 

"When I first started, I thought it would be the elite. That's not the case," said Dr. Shelley Giebel, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Temple, Texas, who washed her hands of insurance eight years ago. 

Her standard, hour-long annual checkup costs $140. Everyone pays cash. 

If a patient needs extra tests or treatment, Giebel tells them upfront what it will cost. 

"If it is an urgent test, we'll go ahead and do it. We're not going to delay medical care because they don't have the money in hand," she said. Often, patients return later with the money. 

"It has usually not been a problem that people forgo medical care," she said. 

The cash-only movement isn't just changing the way people pay, it's changing the way these doctors work. Because of managed care's low reimbursement rates, doctors on insurance contracts must limit their time with each patient. 

Giebel, a typical example, said she would have to double her patient load to make ends meet if she relied on insurance - something she can't imagine. "How can you possibly talk about prevention of cancer and heart disease when you're seeing patients every 12 minutes?" she asked. 

Cash-only patients rave about the quality of care. 

"They take time here with you," said Jesse Rainwater, a 59-year-old church pastor from Bellevue, Wash., who credits Cherewatenko with teaching him to manage his diabetes. "They don't just bring you in and run you out like a bunch of cattle. You feel like you're loved." 

The cash-only approach evokes Norman Rockwell-tinged visions of country doctors being paid with chickens. The simplicity is tempting, but the truth is many people went without preventive health care in those "good old days." A $50 charge can be powerful incentive to delay seeing a doctor until you're in pain - which can lead to more expensive health problems later. 

"Medicine used to be a cash-only business, and there were certainly many people who didn't have the cash," said Caplan, the medical ethicist. Doctors who insist on cash also have an ethical obligation to help people who can't afford the fee, he said - even if it means accepting chickens. 

Cash crusaders acknowledge the need for some type of insurance. Without it, expensive surgery or hospitalization would force most people into bankruptcy. But they think health insurance should work more like car insurance: you pay for the routine maintenance and little dings yourself, and insurance pays for more expensive repairs. 

O'Brien, a freelance marketing specialist, switched from a comprehensive health plan with $300 monthly premiums to a catastrophic plan that costs $75 a month, with a $2,000 deductible. He pays out-of-pocket for routine checkups, and his insurance will kick in if he ever needs expensive care. 

The promise of a simple cash payment lured him to Cherewatenko's office, but the doctor's personal attention keeps him coming back. The $50 exams are just part of the bargain for O'Brien. Cherewatenko recently met him for coffee to talk about improving his diet - including an admonition to cut back on caffeine. 

"How often does your doctor go out and have a cup of coffee with you?" O'Brien asked. 

___ 

On the Net: 

http://www.simplecare.com

The Housework Conspiracy 05-Apr-2004

Is this some kind of conspiracy? Researchers say that doing housework can reduce a woman's chance of getting cancer. 

They found the risk of endometrial and breast cancer was cut by 30% from physical activity such as household chores and walking. Women who did chores for more than four hours a day had more protection than those who only worked for two hours. Women who walked for a hour a day, rather than just a half hour, also got less cancer. 

Researcher Clare Stevinson says, "Some levels of housework are hard enough to have a physiological effect. It doesn't have to be a huge amount of high intensity stuff. But the more you do, the better."

A Surprising Reason Why Soft Drinks Make You Fat 26-Mar-2004

The rate of obesity in the U.S. started to increase in the 1970s, about the same time that manufacturers switched from sugar to cheaper corn syrup for their colas and other soft drinks. Now researchers say this may be because high fructose corn syrup-a food, like margarine, that is created in the lab and not found in nature-does not trigger the same appetite response in the body as sugar, so it's more likely to make us fat. 

Connoisseurs who remember the great taste of old-time sodas try to find Kosher Coke and Coca-Cola bottled in Mexico, where it's still made with sugar. But these sodas may not just taste better; the cost-cutting measures of major manufacturers may be the leading cause of obesity in America. Obesity researcher Dr. George A. Bray says the rise in corn sweeteners is "coincidental with the epidemic of obesity. Body weights rose slowly for most of the 20th century until the late 1980s. At that time, many countries showed a sudden increase in the rate at which obesity has been galloping forward." 

Unlike glucose (sugar), fructose doesn't trigger responses in the hormones that regulate your appetite and energy output, meaning it's much more likely to be converted into fat. 

"Fake foods" have been a major cause of disease in the past few years. Margarine, which replaced butter when it was scarce during World War II, was once touted by the American Heart Association as a miracle food that lowered cholesterol levels. It's now been shown to do just the opposite and we're warned not to eat it. 

Despite being vegetarians, cows were fed protein in the form of the ground-up bones of other cows, leading to Mad Cow Disease. 

High-fructose corn syrup made soft drinks cheap, especially after we could no longer import sugar from Cuba. Like all the other "fake foods" of recent years, it was created so manufacturers could cut costs and make more profit. And like the other fakes, it has ended up costing the public large amounts of money for treating heart disease, obesity and for Mad Cow monitoring.

First Robin Seen in Far North 23-Apr-2004

In Spring, many of us look for signs that the weather is warming, and one of these is the first sighting of a robin. Recently Inuits living in Northern Canada had the same experience-for the first time ever. Are robins in the far north a sign of global warming? 

Martin Mittelstaedt writes for the Canada Globe & Mail that the Inuits (also known as Eskimos) don't even have a name for the robin. In the summer of 1993, Inuits showed John Babaluk of the federal fisheries a fish they'd never seen before, which turned out to be a sockeye salmon. "We actually saw, recorded, took pictures and did some measurements on some sockeye salmon that had shown up in Sachs Harbor," Babaluk says, "That was the first time that any of the locals that we talked to had seen them."

Yereth Rosen writes in planetark.com that Alaska shows major signs of warming as well. Aleut tribal leaders say salmon are getting warm-water parasites and show strange behavior. Salmon and moose meat now have odd tastes and the marrow in moose bones is strangely runny. 

Beavers are moving north, damming up rivers and affecting water flow and salmon eggs. Alaskans are frustrated that people in the lower 48 aren't noticing the symptoms of global warming that they see all around them. Orville Huntington, of the Alaska Native Science Commission, says, "It looks like winter out there, but if you've really been around a long time like me, it's not winter. If you travel that ice, it's not the ice that we traveled 40 years ago."

Lawns May Cause Dog Cancer 23-Apr-2004

This is the time of year when people are fertilizing their lawns and putting pesticides on them. A new study shows that these chemicals may cause bladder cancer in some dogs-and maybe in people too. Researcher Larry Glickman says, "While we hope to determine which of the many chemicals in lawn treatments are responsible, we also hope the similarity between human and dog genomes will allow us to find the genetic predisposition toward this form of cancer found in both Scotties and certain people. 

"These dogs are more sensitive to some factors in their environment," Glickman says. "As pets tend to spend a fair amount of time in contact with plants treated with herbicides and insecticides, we decided to find out whether lawn chemicals were having any effect on cancer frequency."

Glickman talked to 83 owners of Scottish terriers whose pets had recently been diagnosed with bladder cancer and learned that "The risk...was found to be between four and seven times more likely in exposed animals." Scotties are about 20 times more likely to develop bladder cancer than other breeds. 

According to the National Cancer Institute, about 38,000 men and 15,000 women are diagnosed with bladder cancer each year. Humans and animals share genes that can predispose them to cancer. Glickman says, "If such a gene exists in dogs, it's likely that it exists in a similar location in the human genome. Finding the dog gene could save years in the search for it in humans and could also help us determine which kids need to stay away from lawn chemicals."

http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=3731

Should We Make Mars Another Earth? 22-Apr-2004

Some scientists think they can make Mars into a livable planet again by tinkering with its atmosphere. "Terraforming has long been a fictional topic," says NASA's Michael Meyer. "Now, with real scientists exploring the reality, we can ask what are the real possibilities, as well as the potential ramifications, of transforming Mars." But they'll have to watch out for the electrified dust devils. 

Robin McKie writes in The Observer that researchers who want to terraform Mars point to the fact that traces of methane have been found in the Martian atmosphere. This is a result of decaying life forms, meaning Mars was once hospitable to life and could be again. 

In order to terraform Mars, engineers would have to find a way to thicken its atmosphere and heat up its surface. While we're trying to get rid of excess greenhouse gases here on Earth, the way to warm up Mars is to produce them. One idea is to put a large mirror into orbit above Mars, which would focus the Sun's rays onto its polar icecap. The ice would melt and release carbon dioxide, which would trap the Sun's heat and warm up the planet. Adding CO2 to atmosphere would also thicken it and protect the surface from ultra-violet radiation from space that would kill off any life there. 

Not everyone agrees that this is a good idea. Astronomer Monica Grady says, "We now know Mars used to have an atmosphere, but it disappeared for reasons that are still unclear. If we restore Mars's atmosphere, we could easily find it disappeared again. We would have done some devastating things to the planet for a temporary effect. That is certainly not ethical." 

NASA's Lisa Pratt says, "It is very depressing. Before we have even discovered if there is life on Mars-which I am increasingly confident we will find-we are talking about undertaking massive projects that would wipe out all these indigenous life forms, all the strange microbes that we hope to find buried in the Martian soil. It is simply ethically wrong. 

"If we find life on Mars, the philosophical implications will be profound. If it is unlike Earthly life and has a different genetic code, this will show that living beings evolved separately on two neighboring worlds. Life is therefore likely to be ubiquitous throughout the galaxy. If it has the same genetic code, however, it will indicate that one planet must have contaminated the other - probably by rocks being blasted across the solar system following meteorite impacts. We may really be Martian in origin. Given the importance of these issues, we simply cannot risk starting a global experiment that would wipe out the precious sensitive evidence we are seeking." 

Robert Roy Britt writes in space.com that there are whirling dust devils on Mars that generate high-voltage electric fields. Future Mars explorers will have to learn how to avoid them. 

The same thing happens to dust devils here on Earth. In Arizona and Nevada, where there are plenty of them, researchers drove so fast they raced right through dust devils so they could measure their voltage. They found the devils had huge electric fields of over 4,000 volts. 

Dust devils are miniature tornadoes that can be started by a gentle breeze. They can grow as large as a football field and have winds up to 60 mph. On Mars, dust devils can be five times wider and soar 5 miles high, higher than tornadoes on Earth. 

Before the tests, scientists didn't realize that dust devils were electrically charged. They knew they become electrified when particles in the dust rub against one another, producing static electricity, but they thought the positive and negative particles cancelled each other out. Instead, the smaller particles tend to gain a negative charge and the wind carries them higher, leaving the positive particles close to the ground. This separation turns the dust devil into a giant battery. 

NASA's William Farrell says, "If Martian dust devils are highly electrified, as our research suggests, they might give rise to increased discharging or arcing in the low-pressure Martian atmosphere, increased dust adhesion to space suits and equipment, and interference with radio communications."

Autism May be "Extreme Maleness" 22-Apr-2004

New research shows that autism may be linked to male hormones circulating in the developing fetus, and babies who produce high levels of testosterone are more likely to be autistic. It's an affliction that mostly shows up in males. This has led to the theory that autism is an exaggerated form of the way ordinary men think and behave. Researcher Simon Baron-Cohen says, "What I am doing is testing this idea that autism might be an extreme of the male brain." Baron-Cohen tested amniotic fluid taken from 70 pregnant women during amniocentesis for testosterone levels. When the children were born, he found that "Those who had a high level of testosterone also found it more difficult to fit into new social groups." While they were not actually autistic, they did have more autism-like traits. They were less curious and less willing to make eye contact with other people. 

Previous research shows that men are basically less empathic than women, and this difference is exaggerated in people with autism. Baron-Cohen says, "It's showing that the sexes are different. It's not about one being better than the other. You're going to find individuals who are not typical of either sex." 

Runestone Proves Vikings in Minnesota 22-Apr-2004

If the slab of granite known as the Kensington Runestone is real, it proves the Vikings were in central Minnesota more than a century before Columbus discovered America. Researchers are taking the stone to Sweden to ask experts there if it's genuine. There are many runestones in Sweden- massive rocks carved with strange designs and symbols. 

The "runestone" was dug up by Swedish farmer Olof Ohman in 1898 while he was clearing stumps from his land near Kensington with his son Edward. Ohman claimed he had no idea who carved the ancient Scandinavian symbols, known as runes, into the rock. The inscription on the rock refers to a band of Vikings being there 650 years ago. It describes men in the exploring party being killed by Indians and says, "eight Goths and twenty-two Norwegians" came from "Vinland over west" in 1362. "We had camp by two skerries, one day's journey north from this stone we were, and fished one day. After we came home, found ten men red with blood and dead." (Skerries are rocks that are tiny islands). 

In 1949, the Minnesota Historical Society made a recording of Edward's voice when he was 61 years old. On it, he says, "I was ten years old and going to school at the time." He describes helping his father pry the 200 pound rock from underneath a tree stump, and says, "...I sat down on it and started to dig in the dirt with my hands, as kids usually do, and I suggested to Dad that we should take it home and use it for a door step. And just then I discovered a carving on it. I told Dad it was written on." 

R.S. Thornton, the Douglas County Historian at the time the tape was made, asks him, "Did they look as though they were fresh? Or how did [the markings] look?" 

"...They looked to me to have been there for many years," Ohman replies. 

Another man asks him, "Did you ever see your father writing runes on paper at any time before this stone was found?" 

"No, sir." 

Bergman Richards, then president of the Minnesota Historical Society, asks, "Had the earth where the stone was found ever been farmed or plowed or disturbed in any way?" 

Edward says, "Never." 

But the recording doesn't satisfy the many critics who think the runestone is a hoax created by Scandinavian-Americans who wanted to be known as the discoverers of America. 

A fiberglass replica of the stone has been placed on temporary display at the Runestone Museum in Alexandria, Minnesota, while the real stone is being taken Sweden, to be examined by some of the world's top experts. It has already been studied by local geologist Scott Wolter. After examining the rough upper edges of the runes, he says, "I'm saying that the weathering of the inscription is older than 200 years and therefore, it has to be genuine." 

Anthropologist Michael Michlovic says, "...I still think the Kensington stone is a fake...Until runic experts, and until Scandinavian language experts, can look at this inscription and say, 'yes, this medieval, ' I see no reason why we should accept this as authentic." 

In Sweden, papers from the 1880s by a 16-year-old boy have been found that are written a runic alphabet similar to one used on the runestone. Skeptics says this proves that people in the 19th century created the symbols. But Wolter says the boy may have been copying the alphabet from an older source. At least the papers prove that Ohman didn't create the symbols himself. 

Geniuses Use Both Sides of the Brain 21-Apr-2004

Why are some people so much smarter than the rest of us? One reason may be that they've learned how to use both sides of their brain at the same time. Scientists know that the left side of the brain is the problem-solving side, while the right side is more imaginative. But if you're one of those rare people who can combine them, you can harness incredible brain power. 

A recent study of teenagers who are above-average math students found that the right and left halves of their brains are better able to work together than the brains of average students. Psychologist Michael O'Boyle says, "Giftedness in math, music or art may be the by-product of a brain that has functionally organized itself in a different way." 

How can you get a brain like that? It's partly due to genetics, and partly due to the environment. O'Boyle says, "I don't think we can create a math genius without the innate talent already there." 

Neurologist Heidi Roth says, "There's a lot of interest in how training and learning can affect the brain's functional organization and structure, but it's controversial. We have recently become aware of the striking ability of the brain to change its organization depending on experience. For example, people who are highly skilled string instrument players will have greater representation in the brain for the left hand, because special skills in the left hand are needed to play these instruments." 

The differences are caused by the corpus callosum. "It's the conduit for information crossing from one hemisphere of the brain to another," says Roth. "The corpus callosum allows the two hemispheres of the brain to speak to one another. If it's severed, the integration between the two hemispheres is very poor." 

The corpus callosum is often larger in left-handed people, who are also more likely to be gifted in math. Other traits of math geniuses: besides being left-handed, they tend to be males who are nearsighted and have more allergies and migraine headaches.

Evidence of Reincarnation 20-Apr-2004

Six-year-old James Leininger may be the reincarnation of a 21-year-old Navy fighter pilot who was shot down over the Pacific by the Japanese during World War II. James' parents Andrea and Bruce say they are "probably the people least likely to have a scenario like this pop up in their lives." So what has convinced them it's true? James liked to play with toy planes from an early age, but by age two, they started giving him nightmares. Andrea says, "I'd wake him up and he'd be screaming [saying] "Airplane crash on fire, little man can't get out." In a home video when he was three, James seems to be doing a sophisticate preflight check. When she pointed out what she thought was a bomb on the underside of a toy plane, James corrected her and told her it was a "drop tank." She says, "I'd never heard of a drop tank. I didn't know what a drop tank was." 

James' nightmares got so bad that his mother took him to see therapist Carol Bowman, who has been a guest on Dreamland. She encouraged James to tell his parents about his memories. He told them his plane had been hit by the Japanese and crashed. He said his plane was a Corsair and says, "They used to get flat tires all the time." He also said the ship he took off from was called the "Natoma" and he flew with a pilot named Jack Larson. His father Bruce discovered that both the ship and the pilot were real. He says, "You could have poured my brains out of my ears. I just couldn't believe it." 

Bruce began to search the internet for information about the pilot and the ship and found out that the only pilot from that squadron who was killed at Iwo Jima was named James M. Huston Jr. He contacted Ralph Clarbour, who was a rear gunner on a U.S. airplane that flew off the same ship and he told him his plane was next to one flown by Huston over Iwo Jima on March 3, 1945. He saw Huston's plane being struck by anti-aircraft fire and says, "I would say he was hit head on, right in the middle of the engine." 

Bruce believes "He came back because he wasn't finished with something." 

California Quake Predicted for September 19-Apr-2004

In May, there will be a TV miniseries about a devastating quake in California that scientists say is too extreme to be real. But a U.S. geophysicist says a major earthquake will hit southern California by September 5th. 

Vladimir Keilis-Borok has developed a way of predicting earthquakes by tracking miniquakes, that often cannot even be felt. Using this method, he predicts that California will experience a 6.4 quake in September. He accurately predicted a 6.5 quake in Central California last December and an 8.1 quake in Japan last September. He says, "Earthquake prediction is called the Holy Grail of earthquake science, and has been considered impossible by many scientists. It is not impossible. We have made a major breakthrough, discovering the possibility of making predictions months ahead of time, instead of years, as in previously known methods." 

Seismologist Nancy Sauer says, "Even two years back it was practically a dirty word to say earthquake prediction." 

He predicts the quake will hit an area that stretches across desert regions to the east of Los Angeles, home to around nine million people, including the Mojave desert and the resort town of Palm Springs, which lies near the San Andreas fault. An earthquake on the southern San Andreas of a magnitude of 7.5 or larger could kill thousands of people in the greater Los Angeles area and cause damage estimated in the tens of billions of dollars. 

Seismologist Ray Weldon's data backs up Keilis-Borok's research, but he says, "...I don't lend any insight or support to a window of time."

How Your Car Pollutes-You 19-Apr-2004

You already know that automobile exhaust pollutes the outside environment. But did you know that the air INSIDE your car is also dangerously polluted? A study of highway patrol troopers shows that spending too much time inside your car can be bad for your heart. 

Jennifer Warner writes that while air pollution levels inside cars are lower than the levels outside, they're still bad, and can cause cardiovascular problems such as blood clotting and variations in your heart beat. This happened to nine healthy North Carolina state highway patrol troopers who spent all day in their cars. 

Researcher Michael Riediker put air quality monitors inside their patrol cars, and each trooper wore a heart rate monitor. He found that prolonged exposure to air pollution inside their cars caused changes in their heart rates that were potentially dangerous. Riediker says exposure to in-car air pollutants "should be minimized."

Americans are Getting Shorter 16-Apr-2004

Increased height has always been a sign of health and Americans have always been taller than Europeans-until now. Now they're becoming taller than we are and researchers want to know why. John Komlos says, "There is much concern about the obesity epidemic in the U.S. because of health consequences, but the fact that the physical stature of Americans has been lagging well behind European levels has all but eluded comment. Within half a century a veritable metamorphosis in the shape of the American population took place without notice; from being the tallest in the world still around World War II, Americans have become one of the most obese at the start of the 21st century." 

Komlos analyzed data from the last 200 years for 250,000 people and found that in the 1800s, the Dutch were about three inches shorter than Americans, but now they're around three inches taller. When he compared the heights of American slaves and present-day Norwegians, he discovered that, at the time of the American Revolution in 1775, the average American man was 5 feet 9 inches tall, which was about two inches taller than the average British man. Now the average Brit is half an inch taller than the average American. 

The logical assumption would be that the U.S. has lots of short immigrants, such as Mexicans and Asians, but Komlos says he's left those people out of his study. He says, "We think it could be linked to factors such as the better medical attention available in western and northern European countries, and better access to a welfare state. There is also a more even distribution of income in western and northern Europe." 40 million Americans don't have health insurance, while the Dutch have the "world's best" pre- and post-natal care. 

Due to starvation and lack of good nutrition, North Koreans are becoming smaller and frailer than South Koreans, almost as if they were another race. It's hard to believe that the same thing could be happening here in the U.S. too.

Cambodian PM turns year younger on birthday
Mon Apr 5, 5:58 AM ET 
Add Entertainment - NEWS SOURCE 

PHNOM PENH (NEWS SOURCE) - Rather than facing the trauma of turning a year older, Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen has marked his birthday by declaring himself a year and four months younger. 

NEWS SOURCE/Cambodge Soir/File Photo 

The premier told an audience attending a school building opening that according to official documents he should have turned 53 on Sunday, the Cambodia Daily reported Monday. 

"It is not my real birthday, April 4, 1951... My true birthday was August 5, 1952," he was quoted as saying, adding that he had forgotten his real birth date and misreported it when he became a soldier in 1970. 

Southeast Asia's longest serving leader reportedly said he never celebrated his or his family's birthdays to "save money and time". 

Hun Sen is not the only one with such a problem in Cambodia, where the civil registry is in disarray after nearly three decades of conflict and lists just five percent of all Cambodians. 

A campaign to list the kingdom's population of more than 12 million people on the registry was launched last month. 

Papers on 1964 Brazil Coup Declassified

Sat Apr 3, 4:44 AM ET

By TOM MURPHY, News Source Writer 

SAO PAULO, Brazil - Newly declassified U.S. documents show the extent of American willingness to provide aid to Brazil's generals during the 1964 coup that ushered in 21 years of often bloody military rule. 

The National Security Archive, a non-governmental Washington-based research group, posted the documents on its Web site this week to coincide with Wednesday's 40th anniversary of the coup. 

Figuring prominently in the records is Lincoln Gordon, the U.S. ambassador to Brazil at the time and now a resident expert in Latin American affairs at the Brookings Institution in Washington. 

"We were working at a frenzied pace in those days to get Washington ready for whatever might happen," Gordon, 90, said in a telephone interview with The News Source. "It was the height of the Cold War and Brazil was a major country in Latin America." 

The documents show members of Lyndon B. Johnson's administration actively preparing to aid the coup plotters. 

In a March 27, 1964, cable to the State Department, Gordon requested a naval task force and deliveries of fuel and arms to the coup plotters "to help avert a major disaster here." 

Gordon said in the cable that Brazil could fall under the spell of a communist-style regime led by President Joao Goulart, "which might make Brazil the China of the 1960s." Mainland China turned communist in 1949 under Mao Zedong. 

The documents also reveal what some experts say was a major miscalculation by the CIA (news - web sites). 

A CIA cable from Brazil, dated March 30, predicted a military coup "within the next few days." It added, "The revolution will not be resolved quickly and will be bloody." 

In fact, the coup was put in motion the next day, March 31, and was over by April 4, when Goulart fled to exile in Uruguay. The entire episode was bloodless. 

"The CIA was probably harking back to events in 1961, when the military was deeply divided over the issue of Goulart assuming power," said American political scientist David Fleischer, who teaches at the University of Brasilia. "But, just as there was no violence in 1961, there was none in 1964. It was a CIA miscalculation, not for the first time and not for the last." 

A Brazilian historian, Gaudenico Torquato of the University of Sao Paulo, said, "They (the CIA) got it wrong. At that time, the U.S. was involved in the feverish competition against communism known as the Cold War. That colored their judgment." 

In a March 31 reply to Gordon, Secretary of State Dean Rusk said the administration had decided to "immediately mobilize" a naval task force. He also promised fuel, ammunition and tear gas shipments to the Brazilian military. 

"These new documents serve to reinforce what is now a well-known tale," said Fleischer. "The U.S. organized its support for the coup in an operation called Brother Sam. The task force ended up steaming toward the South Atlantic, but the aid was never needed. The coup ended quickly and without bloodshed." 

Gordon said Rusk made it clear that the U.S. would only intervene under certain circumstances. "He wanted to make sure there was broad political support in Brazil for the military before advising any intervention." 

The documents show President Johnson was keenly following events in Brazil. In one instance, Johnson instructs aides "to take every step that we can" to aid Brazilian military forces opposed to Goulart. 

The audiotape presents a briefing between Johnson and national security aides. In it, Johnson says, "I'd get right on top of it and stick my neck out a little." 

But Gordon said: "People like Rusk were cautious. I think they were influenced by the Bay of Pigs and didn't want a repeat of that experience." 

In 1961, anti-Castro rebels, supported and armed by the U.S., were defeated by Castro when they attempted to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. 

From 1964 to 1985, Brazil was ruled by a string of five colorless military presidents chosen by their fellow officers. The dictatorship ended in 1985 when a democracy movement swept the country. 

___ 

On the Net: 

National Security Archive: http://www.nsarchive.org 

New Software Seeking State Tax Scofflaws Sat Apr 3, 3:32 PM ET

By MARTIN FINUCANE, News Source Writer 

BOSTON - Tax scofflaws, beware! A pack of digital bloodhounds may be on your trail. State revenue agencies across the nation are hunting for tax evaders with new high-tech tools: computer programs that mine an increasing number of databases for clues on the finances of people and businesses. 

If your name is flagged, expect a letter or a call. 

"It's the new trend. It's where everybody is headed," said Verenda Smith, government affairs associate at the Federation of Tax Administrators, which represents state tax agencies. "The greatest value of these systems is in finding patterns that the human eye isn't that good at seeing." 

In Massachusetts, for example, the state tax agency can scan a U.S. Customs and Border Protection database of people who paid duties on big-ticket items entering the country - so anyone who fails to pay the state the required 5 percent "use tax" gets flagged. 

The state has also tried comparing motor vehicle registration data with tax returns, looking for people who might be driving Rolls Royces or Jaguars but declaring only a small income, Revenue Commissioner Alan LeBovidge said. 

"They're able to drill or mine increasingly large amounts of information from various sources. Activities that would have previously taken them years of work can now be done within seconds," said Amar Gupta, co-director of the Productivity From Information Technology research center at MIT's Sloan School of Management. "The dynamics have changed." 

The new tools have reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in increased tax collections, officials say. But the government's growing sophistication at collecting and scrutinizing data about taxpayers is sounding alarms among privacy advocates. 

The Federation of Tax Administrators doesn't keep a definitive list of states using the technology, but Massachusetts, Texas, California, Washington, Virginia, Iowa and Florida are known to be leaders in the trend, which began in the late 1990s. The IRS is also using the techniques. 

Revenue agency officials say the systems make them more efficient, with audits tending to yield more. They also say innocent people who shouldn't be audited at all are less likely to be bothered. 

The tax agencies' "data warehouses" can stockpile data from state and federal agencies and, in some cases, private sources. And they are using new tools to analyze the data, including "data-mining" software that can scrutinize mountains of information to find patterns or establish relationships. 

Tax officials say many of the databases they use have been available to them for years - but it has never been so easy to integrate and analyze them. 

That ease with which government can now measure up our lives troubles Chris Hoofnagle, associate director at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington-based privacy group. 

He worries that the growing database culture in the United States "can empower the state over individuals or increase the power of the state." 

"It can be used maliciously," said Hoofnagle. 

Government data-mining sparked controversy last year, forcing a shutdown of the Pentagon (news - web sites)'s Total Information Awareness project to plumb public and private records for clues about terrorism. More recently, privacy concerns led several states to drop out of the Matrix crime database system. 

The digital dossier-building among tax agencies doesn't just pinpoint which taxpayers should be audited. The analyzing systems can automatically generate letters to taxpayers and help locate people who have changed their addresses. 

The Massachusetts system mixes databases from the IRS and Customs, along with state motor vehicle, incorporation and professional licensing records. The state tax agency says it uses other databases, but won't name them. 

Officials in Massachusetts and several other states said, however, that their agencies did not buy information from the sometimes-controversial vendors that aggregate and sell vast amounts of personal data about individuals. 

For its part, the IRS "has contracted with several companies that assist the agency with data mining, primarily the agency's own data, and to build case models to identify non-compliant taxpayers," said agency spokeswoman Nancy Mathis. 

The Massachusetts agency has brought in $47 million thanks to the system since its June 2002 inception, LeBovidge said. California officials estimate that for the four years ending in fiscal 2003, their new system brought in $260.6 million - while Texas says is data-mining tech has harvested more than $362 million since the late 1990s. 

As an example of a successful case, Massachusetts officials said IRS records led them to a man who worked in the state but had not bothered to file state income taxes. He had to cough up $33,000. 

LeBovidge says it's unfair to call database-mining Orwellian. 

"We're asking people to pay their taxes that are legitimately due," he said. "And if we don't have people pay the taxes that are due, then we have to ask the people that are stepping forward to pay more. And that's not fair." 

LeBovidge now unabashedly dreams of a day when people won't even have to fill out their income tax forms: The government will have so much information about people's finances that it can simply fill out tax forms and mail them to taxpayers to be endorsed. 

California has taken a step in that direction, mailing 23,000 pre-filled-out forms to taxpayers who have simpler types of returns, a small fraction of the state's 15 million business and private returns, said Denise Azimi, spokeswoman for the California Franchise Tax Board, 

She said an upgrade to California's "non-filer" system that began in the late 1990s offered the state an increased data warehousing and analysis capability. The system brings together multiple databases, including records from the IRS, state agencies, banks and brokerage houses to try to identify tax cheats. 

In its data-mining for tax cheats, Texas uses a pattern-recognition technology similar to what credit card companies use to flag unusual charges. 

Looking at a restaurant, for example, the system can examine the cigarette, alcohol and sales taxes collected and compare the numbers to what would be expected of a typical restaurant, flagging numbers that seem out of whack, said Billy Hamilton, Texas deputy comptroller. Texas also scans Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) records for people who have bought planes and failed to pay a sales or use tax. 

For privacy advocates, such methods can violate a fundamental privacy principle: data collected for one purpose shouldn't be used for another without a person's permission. 

James Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology says said he wouldn't go so far as to call for eliminating data-mining for tax cheats. 

But they should be "subject to checks and balances," he said, with those targeted given a chance to dispute a state's findings. 

"Are people innocent until proven guilty," he said, "or are they guilty by computer match until proven innocent?" 

___ 

Martin Finucane can be reached at mfinucane(at)ap.org 

Life on Mars Could Have Come from Earth -Study 
Wed Mar 24, 2:07 PM ET 
Add Science 

LONDON  - An American scientist believes that if life is finally proved to exist on Mars, its origins may be more mundane and closer to home than we think. "I believe there is life on Mars, and it's unequivocally there, because we sent it," said Andrew Schuerger in the New Scientist Magazine Wednesday. 

Missed Tech Tuesday? 
Get a preview of tomorrow's PC and desktop displays. Plus, where the PC won't be anytime soon. 

The University of Florida scientist said there is a good chance that microbes from Earth have made it to Mars by hitching a lift aboard space probes. 

Schuerger said of all probes sent to Mars, only the two Viking craft in 1976 were adequately heat-sterilized. Procedures used for all missions since then, including NASA (news - web sites)'s twin rovers and Europe's Beagle 2, would have left some microbes on board. 

The Cheapest Disneyland Paris Visit - Buy a Share 
Mar 26, 8:23 am ET 
PARIS  - The cheapest way to visit Disneyland Paris may be to buy a single share in Euro Disney, the company that operates the theme park.

Shareholders who trekked to Euro Disney's annual meeting on Thursday at Marne-la-Vallee, about an hour by train or car from central Paris, were given two same-day tickets for the firm's parks there, the Magic Kingdom and Walt Disney Studios.

They also received two cuddly toys from the "Lion King" film, a restaurant voucher and two other tickets valid from June 27 to July 27.

Euro Disney shares were trading at 0.45 euro each on Thursday. The current entry price at the parks is 49 euros ($59.42) for an adult and 39 euros for a child. 

Gorilla Pair at Philadelphia Zoo Break Up 

Sun Mar 28, 3:59 PM ET

Add Strange News - 

PHILADELPHIA - Five years have passed without the pitter-patter of baby gorilla feet, and zookeepers have decided that Demba and Chaka just aren't working out. Introduced to each other five years ago at the Philadelphia Zoo amid high reproductive hopes, it's not even clear the gorillas ever mated. 

That's a big change for Chaka, who had been dubbed "best stud muffin" after fathering eight little ones at Cincinnati's zoo. 

"Things have not gone that way," said Andy Baker, the Philadelphia Zoo's senior vice president for animal programs. 

In May, Chaka, a 380-pound silverback, will travel to Columbia, S.C., to the Riverbanks Zoo's "Gorilla Base Camp." Philadelphia's two other male gorillas, Mike and Kimya, will go with him. Demba gets to keep their Philadelphia home, and she will be joined by a troupe from the St. Louis Zoo: a toddler, his parents and another female. 

The departure of 19-year-old Chaka is bittersweet to keepers because he is a link to the era before a Christmas Eve 1995 fire at the zoo that killed 23 primates, including Chaka's parents. Chaka would have likely died, too, if he wasn't on a breeding loan program in Cincinnati. 

Demba and Chaka were supposed to breed and start a new dynasty of apes. Gorilla handlers were particularly hoping that Demba, whose parents were wild-born, would mate to introduce her genes into the captive population. 

But Demba may have been, biologically speaking, damaged goods from early gorilla-hood. She was raised by humans and didn't meet another of her own species for years. Even then, she never seemed quite comfortable with her own kind. But keepers figured that with Chaka's past success, passion might take hold. 

Now at age 33, Demba's biological clock "has pretty well ticked its last tick," said Dan Wharton, the nation's gorilla coordinator and director of the Central Park Zoo. 

The two females that Chaka will be living with are younger, and one is known to be fertile. 

___ 

On the Net: 

http://www.phillyzoo.org 

Merchants Find Problems With Google 

Sat Mar 27, 1:00 PM ET

By ANICK JESDANUN, News Source Internet Writer 

NEW YORK - Once among the top results when using common search terms like "Seattle hotels," the hotel reservation site GotHotel.com has all but disappeared from the Internet. 

Though the site is still there, it's almost impossible to find using the leading search engine, Google, after a routine shuffle of its results-ranking formulas. Site owner Allen Price laments that one large company can make or break a one-person operation overnight. 

"It can be catastrophic at times," said Price, who runs the business from his home about 3 miles from Google's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters. "They are all-powerful, they are the best, and they call all the shots." 

Google may be popular, but it gets its share of complaints. Merchants quibble when their sites rank poorly, while some users say the popularity-based ranking system shuts out useful, but little-known sites. 

Because a site scores higher the more other sites link to it - an indication of popularity - independent films are less likely than Hollywood blockbusters to appear in results, said Dragomir Radev, an information studies professor at the University of Michigan. 

Newer and foreign sites may also be difficult to find because they are not as well known by the U.S.-centric Internet population. 

When Google emerged on the Internet more than five years ago, it was hailed by the tech elite as a revolution in searching. Its popularity-based ranking system produced more relevant results than the keyword-focused search engines of the era. 

But as Google's popularity grew, so did attempts to fool it. A cottage industry developed around search engine optimization to share tricks for ranking higher. 

One early trick involved buying hundreds of domain names and having them link to one another to mimic popularity. As Google closed one loophole, webmasters found others. 

Pranksters have figured out that they, too, could game the system, so that typing "miserable failure" gets you President Bush (news - web sites)'s biography, even though neither word appears on the page. 

Using Teoma technology it bought in 2001, Ask Jeeves says it can counter the flaws by also factoring in reputation - a site's expertise within a community. But its index is smaller - 2 billion, compared with Google's 4.3 billion. (GotHotel doesn't rank high on Ask Jeeves, either). 

Google co-founder Larry Page said complaints are common when rankings change, but the adjustments improve searches. 

"We're not acting in the interest of those companies, but acting in the interest of users," he said. 

Although merchants are as likely to rise as they are to drop, Page said, "that half that goes up will be happy but not say anything." 

Too Much Sleep Not a Good Thing 
1 hour, 24 minutes ago 
HealthDay 

SATURDAY, March 27 (HealthDayNews) -- Like most everything else, sleep is best done in moderation.

Related Links
� Self-Reported Sleep Complaints (Psychosomatic Medicine)

 

Spending too many hours in bed each night can cause as many problems as getting too few hours of sack time, according to a University of California, San Diego study in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.

The study found people who sleep more than eight hours a night (long sleepers) and people who get less than seven hours of slumber both report more sleep complaints than people who get just the right amount of shuteye -- between seven and eight hours per night.

"Although it is unclear why long and short sleepers should have similar types of sleep complaints, these data challenge the assumption that more than seven or eight hours of sleep is associated with increased health and well-being," study co-author Michael A. Grandner says in a prepared statement.

He and colleague Dr. Daniel F. Kripke examined data from about 100 adults interviewed during the National Sleep Foundation's 2001 Sleep in America Poll.

They found that, compared with people who slept seven to eight hours a night, long sleepers reported more problems with falling asleep, waking up during the night, waking up too early, feeling unrefreshed when they wake up and feeling sleepy during the day.

Both long and short sleepers reported more sleep problems than people who got seven to eight hours of sack time each night. Women were more likely to be long sleepers than men.

More information

The National Sleep Foundation offers advice on getting a good night's sleep.

Will the Next Extinction Include Us? 21-Mar-2004

There have been five mass extinctions on the Earth in the past four billion years, and the last one 65 million years ago wiped out the dinosaurs. Biologists have long speculated that if humans become extinct, insects will become the next dominant species. Now they say we're about to have a sixth extinction, but it won't be the end of us-not yet, anyway. Instead, we're about to lose many of our butterflies, birds and plants. But just as human beings evolved by learning how to survive the ice age, some insects show evidence that they can grow bigger brains when they need to. 

Anil Ananthaswamy writes in New Scientist that British scientists say that species of insects are becoming extinct at a increasingly high rate. They first noticed a decline in bird species that has been blamed on pollution and the spread of suburbs, which destroy the habitat of some birds. But now they've noticed that insects, which make up half of the species on Earth, are disappearing even faster. 

"If we can extrapolate that pattern of the British butterflies to other British insects, and indeed to invertebrates across the planet, we are obviously looking at a very serious bio- diversity crisis," says one researcher. 71% of butterfly species have decreased over the last 20 years, as well as 56% of birds and 28% of plants. 

"We found strong evidence that the decline in the species richness of grasslands within the U.K. was linked to nitrogen pollution," says researcher Carly Stevens. Nitrogen pollution is caused by burning fossil fuels and from certain types of fertilizer. The UN's Mark Collins says, "Evidence of a global extinction crisis has come into stark focus with these important results." 

Some insect species will survive, however, and one of these may be a special kind of wasp with a brain that grows bigger as it solves bigger problems. "The amount of change is striking," said psychologist Sean O'Donnell. 

Polybia aequatorialis wasps live in colonies of 2,000 or more and as the wasps age, they learn to perform different, more complex jobs. Workers start at the bottom by doing tasks in the interior of the nest and later move up to working on the exterior. Finally, they leave the nest to look for food and building materials. O'Donnell says, "What is happening is that the complexity of the tasks the insects engage in is increasing." In order to do these increasingly complex tasks, their brains actually grow larger. 

If human brains got bigger as we face increasingly bigger problems, and we were able to cooperate to the same extent socially, we might be able to come up with solutions to problems like global warming, nuclear proliferation and potential asteroid impacts, which will probably eventually wipe us out in another major extinction. 

Less Oil Than We Thought 21-Mar-2004

We recently reported that the University of Uppsala in Sweden warns that in ten years, oil supplies will drop to disastrously low levels. Now The Financial Times reports that Royal Dutch Shell says it has much lower reserves that it previously stated. On analyst calls this cut "staggering." 

Critics say Shell has known its oil reserves were 20% lower than their original estimate for a long time and the company faces investigations in the U.S. and Europe. This means that gas prices will rise at a time when we're fighting a war in the Middle East that requires a lot of fuel. Also, the rise in anti- American fundamentalism may cause some Middle Eastern countries to restrict their output. The Saudis also say they have fewer gas reserves than earlier reported estimates, and U.S. oil companies still do not feel safe venturing into Iraq's oil fields. 

Shell's miscalculation was uncovered by outside auditor Ryder Scott, who says Shell used technology which was insufficient to determine the volume of its oil reserves. Shell CEO Malcolm Brinded calls the error "disappointing and embarrassing." 

You heard it here first: If you drive an SUV or large truck, sell it and buy a small sedan or hybrid car asap! In a few years, gas prices will rise so high you won't be able to give these large vehicles away. 

Another Close Call 19-Mar-2004

We may not have noticed, but on Thursday afternoon an asteroid 100 feet in diameter, the size of a small office building, made the closest approach ever recorded to the Earth, missing us by one-tenth of the distance between here and the Moon. It was discovered only two days ago. 

Jeff Hecht writes in New Scientist that the previous record for a near-miss occurred on September 27, 2003, when asteroid 2003 SQ222 missed the earth by about twice that distance. We didn't know about that one until it already passed us by, since it came from inside the Earth's orbit. 

The latest asteroid, 2004 FH, was too small to cause widespread damage if it hit us, and like many asteroids, it would have been more likely to explode in the air. However, if this happens on a large enough scale, it can release particles that shade the sun, killing off plants and animals in a kind of "nuclear winter." 

Andrew Bridges writes that astronomers discovered the asteroid during a routine survey carried out with a pair of NASA telescopes in New Mexico. NASA's Steve Chesley says, "It immediately became clear it would pass very close by the Earth." It could swing by again in the future and threaten us once more. 

Asteroids this size pass by close to the Earth about once every two years. "The important thing is not that it's happening, but that we detected it," Chesley says. However, detecting it two days before a possible impact wouldn't have given us enough time to do anything about it. 

Close Call in November 18-Mar-2004

The Sun nearly shut down the Earth last November when a wave of massive explosions on the Sun threatened power grids all over the world. This solar flare, which hasn't been measured until now, was so violent that satellite detectors were unable to record its true size. It shot charged electrical particles and gas into space at two million miles per hour. Scientists in New Zealand say it almost caused unimaginable destruction. 

Chris Millar writes that their calculations show the flare's X- ray radiation was equivalent to that of 5,000 suns. The harmful radiation was absorbed by the magnetosphere, a protective layer around the earth which is growing weaker because the Earth's poles are about to flip. One of the scientists describes the power of the flare as being greater than "every nuclear warhead being detonated at once." 

David Whitehouse writes in bbcnews.com that no one realized how big the flare was when it first exploded, because satellite detectors were blinded by its radiation, but the scientists have estimated its size by studying how the x-rays hit the Earth's atmosphere. 

The Earth didn't take a direct hit from the flare-if it had, satellites could have been damaged that affected every radio, TV and cell phone signal and power grid on Earth. It could have also been bad news for the astronauts on the International Space Station. Last October and November, as reported in unknowncountry.com, the Sun began an incredible increase in solar activity, producing huge flares from the most active sunspot region ever seen. Day after day, the Sun sent billions of tons of charged particles out into space. But on November 4, just as Active Region 486 was rotating away from the Earth, it sent out the most extraordinary solar flare in history. If the Sun hadn't been rotating away from us, we would have taken a direct hit. Researcher Neil Thomson says, "This makes it more than twice as large as any previously recorded flare. If the accompanying particle and magnetic storm had been aimed at the Earth, the damage to some satellites and electrical networks could have been considerable." 

Pigs with Wings & Cactus with Human Hair 18-Mar-2004

Some scientists are manipulating genes in bizarre ways that seem to have no practical use. Are they creating science or art? Or are they just making monsters? 

New Scientist reports that Laura Cinti has created a cactus that grows human hair. She says, "Hair is a sign of reproduction, a sign of our bodies changing, becoming or being sexual. So the cactus with hair becomes a sexual symbol." To create it, she combined human genetic material with cactus DNA. She says, "Bald men are particularly interested in the work." 

Alas, most of her genetically-modified cacti are not doing well. "They've been imploding, shriveling," she says. 

Oron Catts created wings for pigs. He says, "We took the statement 'pigs could fly'...and decided to literally grow pigs' wings..." He admits this raises "huge ethical and epistemological questions which people haven't begun to think about." 

To make them, he says, "We harvested pig bone marrow stem cells left over from scientific experiments...Once we had the semi-living tissue wings we took them and fixed them with formalin, then dried them and coated them with gold to preserve them." None of them have been transplanted onto pigs yet. 

Catts played music to the pig cells to make them grow. He says, "Before Napster collapsed we downloaded lots of pig songs-from Looney Tunes to heavy metal-and played them to the cells while they were seeding in the bioreactor. We did seem to get better distribution of the cells when we played the music." 

Marta de Menezes creates butterfly art-with live butterflies. She says, "I became incredibly excited at the idea that I could create an art-piece in a butterfly. It would have the characteristics of a painting, but also something more important because the butterfly was already a life form itself. My butterflies have wing patterns never before seen in nature. I created them by interfering with their normal developmental mechanisms with a very thin needle while the butterfly was still in the cocoon. You can do this to a high degree of accuracy." 

She alters only one wing of her butterflies because "by changing one wing I would be changing the butterfly into something that was definitely not natural." 

She says, "People were very shocked at first. They didn't think it a good idea." For her next project: "...I plan to make the stripes of zebrafish vertical instead of horizontal so that they look more like zebras. I'd do this through selection and breeding, so the changes would be inherited." 

Scientist Creates Roswell UFO Metal 17-Mar-2004

Witnesses who found the debris from the Roswell, New Mexico UFO crash in 1947 reported seeing metal as thin as the silver foil from a cigarette pack that nonetheless could not be pierced by a bullet. Now Discover Magazine reports that scientists have created what sounds like the same thing. 

Brad Lemley writes in the April issue of Discover about a metal strip as thin as aluminum foil that cannot be even be severed by wire cutters. When a steel ball is dropped onto it, the ball bounces back and will not go through it. 

Lemley writes, "It's all astounding, yet oddly familiar. In the typical science fiction film circa 1950, there's that scene in which scientists return from the just-landed flying saucer and tell the Army brass that no tool known to humankind an cut, burn, bend or otherwise scar the hull. But the metal in front of me is decidedly terrestrial in origin-it was developed in Pasadena... 

"It's called metallic glass, or amorphous metal, and it appears to be nothing less than an entirely new class of material that can be used to build lighter, stronger versions of anything." Amorphous metal is made by rearranging the atoms in metal so they react differently to heat. William Johnson, who helped discover it, says, "This is the structural material of the future." Was it also the structural material of the past for another civilization? 

A strange type of foam, made up of magnesium and bismuth, with gaps between elements which do not reveal how they are sandwiched together, was also found at Roswell. Johnson says, "A sandwich made of two thin sheets of amorphous metal flanking amorphous foam would be strong, light, insulating fireproof, bug-proof, rustproof, sound dampening, and difficult to penetrate with bombs." 

Allergic to Home 16-Mar-2004

Worried about pollution? Stay away from home, where moving around-and even vacuuming-can kick up enough dust particles to be hazardous to your health. Maybe this will reassure you: the toilet seat is the most germ free place in your house. 

Michael Bernstein writes for the American Chemical Society that that ordinary household activities can increase your exposure to particulate pollution. When small particles lodge in your lungs and get into your bloodstream, they can cause everything from asthma to heart disease. Particulates in your home come from outdoor, cooking, smoking, heating equipment and ordinary human activities-like moving around. 

"I measured concentrations of airborne particles continuously while performing a variety of normal human activities that resuspend house dust in the home," says researcher Andrea Ferro (it's no accident that a woman investigated this). She placed particle detectors in a house in Redwood City, California, then folded clothes, dusted, made beds, vacuumed and did other everyday activities. 

Dusting created a significant amount of particles, but "The highest source was from two people just walking around and sitting on furniture," says Ferro. This released half as many particles as smoking a cigarette. She says, "The result that was most surprising to me was that just walking around can resuspend almost as much dust as vacuuming. 

"The source strengths depended on the number of persons performing the activity, the vigor of the activity, the type of activity and the type of flooring," Ferro says. Moving around on a wooden floor releases fewer particles than the same activities done on a carpet. 

Vacuuming not only didn't remove the particles, it actually created many more, because vacuum brushes release deeply embedded particles from the carpet. Also, the motor produces particles; and the bags don't collect 100% of them. 

These particles are smaller than those emitted from older power plants, for instance; however, "Smaller particles tend to deposit deeper in the lungs than the larger particles, potentially causing more harm," Ferro says. 

The solution? "One study estimates that about two-thirds of house dust is tracked in from outdoors," Ferro says. "Therefore, leaving shoes at the door can make a big difference in reducing the particle reservoir on the floor." 

A recent study showed that the cleaner your kitchen looks, the dirtier it actually is, since sponges harbor germs and wiping down surfaces spreads these germs around. But escaping to the office won't help, since scientists have found that keyboards, computer mice and telephone dials contain 400 times as many germs as toilet seats. 

According to the study, telephones had up to 25,127 germs per square inch, keyboards 3,295 and computer mice 1,676. The average office contains 20,961 germs per square inch. "Desks are really bacteria cafeterias," says microbiologist Charles Gerba. "They are breakfast bars, lunch tables and everything else, as we spend more hours at the office. When someone is infected with a cold or flu bug, the surfaces they touch during the day become germ transfer points because some cold and flu viruses can survive on surfaces for up to 72 hours. An office can become an incubator." 

New Scientist Magazine regularly does germ surveys in typical homes, and always finds that the toilet seat is the most germ- free surface in the house. They think this could be because we actually "scrape off" the germs when sliding off it. 

Lethal Popcorn 15-Mar-2004

With the news about genetically-modified crops and Mad Cow Disease, it seems as if no food is safe to eat. Now the EPA has discovered that the fumes released into the air when a bag of butter-flavored microwave popcorn is opened can be deadly. 

Exposure to vapors from this butter flavoring, which contain the chemical diacetyl, has been blamed for a rare lung disease contracted by popcorn factory workers in Missouri, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska. It's not known if the amounts of this chemical released during popping at home are large enough to be dangerous. 

About 50 brands and flavors of microwave popcorn are being tested, from super-buttery to sweet. The EPA's Jacky Rosati says, "Obviously, we are looking at diacetyl because it is a known compound that will come off this popcorn. But we're not looking at that alone." 

GM Pharm Crops Infiltrating our Food 09-Mar-2004

U.S. scientists say there could be a "serious risk to human health," after they've discovered that major food crops are being widely contaminated by DNA from GM crops that are engineered to produce chemicals and drugs. Microbiologist Margaret Mellon, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, says, "If genes find their way from pharm crops to ordinary corn, they or their products could wind up in drug-laced corn flakes." 

It's been shown that it's impossible to keep standard crops free from contamination by GM crops grown nearby. The pollen is spread by the wind, and dust from grain elevators mixes different types of crops together. This is disturbing for people opposed to eating GM foods, but it's especially troubling when crops are engineered to produce drugs or chemicals, which would be dangerous if they got into the foods we eat. 

Fred Pearce writes in New Scientist that "pharm" crops could already be poisoning food crops, according to a study by the Union for Concerned Scientists. GM crops are now being grown that manufacture proteins for healing wounds and treating conditions such as cystic fibrosis, cirrhosis of the liver and anemia, as well as antibodies to fight cancer and vaccines against rabies, cholera and foot-and-mouth disease. While this could be a wonderful breakthrough against disease, it's dangerous for people to take these drugs who do not have these conditions-but there may be no way to avoid it. 

The UCS asked two labs to test seeds from traditional varieties of corn, soybeans and canola, looking for DNA from "pharm" crops. The labs reported that the seeds were "pervasively contaminated with low levels of DNA sequences from GM varieties." 

"Seed contamination is the back door to the food supply," says Mellon. "The realization that some seeds may already have been contaminated [by pharm crops] is alarming" and could pose a "serious risk to human health." 

Geoffrey Lean writes in the New Zealand Herald that more than two-thirds of U.S. crops are now contaminated with GM crops, meaning an eventual end to organic farms. A new report says that traditional varieties of seed are "pervasively contaminated" and states that the U.S. biotech industry says it is "not surprised" by this. 

Due to GM contamination of ordinary seeds, the report says, farmers unwittingly grow billions of GM plants every year, spreading these plants even wider. Since they're stronger and more disease-resistant, they crowd out traditional versions of the same plants. 

Union of Concerned Scientists has found that at least half the corn and soybeans and 83% per cent of the oilseed rape in the U.S. are contaminated with GM genes, and this has occurred only eight years after the first GM varieties were planted. They report that "contamination...is endemic to the system," and say, "Heedlessly allowing the contamination of traditional plant varieties with genetically engineered sequences amounts to a huge wager on our ability to understand a complicated technology that manipulates life at the most elemental level." 

John Aglionby writes in the Mail & Guardian that the pollen from GM corn grown in the Philippines last year may have made 100 people sick. Dr. Terje Traavik, of the Norwegian Institute of Gene Ecology, analyzed blood samples from 39 of them and thinks it may have been the GM pollen that caused the problems. He says, "My interpretation is there is a coincidence in time between two different phenomena." 

The problems began last July when the GM corn plants started flowering. "There was this really pungent smell that got into our throats," says Maryjane Malayon. "It was like we were breathing in pesticides." 

Her sister, their parents and her nine-month-old daughter began coughing, vomiting, feeling dizzy and suffering from head and stomachaches. Soon another family living nearby began having similar complaints, and eventually 100 people were affected. The Malayon family eventually had to move. "We were the only ones who moved because we were so close," Maryjane says. "But within a week we had all recovered." 

Bernhard Nanquil, who rented their home while they were gone, says, "Within a week I too was sick with a stomach ache and diarrhea." 

Livestock also became ill. "One day the horse ate some of the corn plants and its appetite disappeared," says Nestor Catoran. "The belly swelled, its mouth started frothing and it slowly died." Villagers link the GM corn to the deaths of four other horses as well. 

NASA Warns of Coming Climate Change 08-Mar-2004

The idea that global warming could send North America and Western Europe into an ice age within a few decades can no longer be called a conspiracy theory by skeptics, now that NASA is taking it seriously. 

According to the NASA website: "The thawing of sea ice covering the Arctic could disturb or even halt large currents in the Atlantic Ocean. Without the vast heat that these ocean currents deliver...Europe's average temperature would likely drop 9 to 18�F, and parts of eastern North America would be chilled somewhat less. Such a dip in temperature would be similar to global average temperatures toward the end of the last ice age roughly 20,000 years ago. Some scientists believe this shift in ocean currents could come surprisingly soon-within as little as 20 years..." 

"It's difficult to predict what will happen," says NASA's Donald Cavalieri, "because the Arctic and North Atlantic are very complex systems with many interactions between the land, the sea, and the atmosphere. But the facts do suggest that the changes we're seeing in the Arctic could potentially affect currents that warm Western Europe, and that's gotten a lot of people concerned." 

NASA has satellites reporting on the ice cover in the Arctic, which show "a long-term decline in the 'perennial' Arctic sea ice (the part that remains frozen during the warm summer months)...This year-round ice has been retreating since the beginning of the satellite record in 1978 at an average rate of 9% per decade." 

Melting Arctic sea ice could "dump enough freshwater into the North Atlantic to interfere with sea currents...Retreating ice cover exposes more of the ocean surface, allowing more moisture to evaporate into the atmosphere and leading to more precipitation. 

"Because saltwater is denser and heavier than freshwater, this 'freshening' of the North Atlantic would make the surface layers more buoyant. That's a problem because the surface water needs to sink to drive a primary ocean circulation pattern known as the 'Great Ocean Conveyor.' Sunken water flows south along the ocean floor toward the equator, while warm surface waters from tropical latitudes flow north to replace the water that sank, thus keeping the Conveyor slowly chugging along. An increase in freshwater could prevent this sinking of North Atlantic surface waters, slowing or stopping this circulation." 

NASA says that, "Once considered incredible, the notion that climate can change rapidly is becoming respectable." 

Quantum Weirdness in Real Life 15-Mar-2004

Scientists used to think that the ideas of quantum physics- for instance, that everything is in "superposition" (both everywhere and nowhere) until observed and that particles can be "entangled" and affect each other at great distances- applied only on the atomic level, but now they're using quantum weirdness to create incredible new inventions. 

In Business Week, John Carey quotes physicist William D. Phillips as saying, "To common sense, quantum mechanics is nonsensical." But it's already been used to create lasers and MRI machines. Phillips is clumping together groups of atoms that are both "everywhere" and "nowhere" at the same time. He says, "Every atom is everywhere-that's what makes it so wonderful...It can do some amazing things." 

Physicist John Preskill says, "Physicists relish the weirdness, but now we're starting to ask if we can put the weirdness to work." Quantum weirdness makes unbreakable codes possible and could enable us to transmit electricity over long distances with no loss of power. 

One of the most important quantum inventions being worked on is a computer that can solve problems in 30 seconds that would take 10 billion years using today's supercomputers. "We have not yet begun to figure out what the applications are," says physicist Carl J. Williams. "But the risk is underestimating the impact." 

Mark Peplow writes in nature.com that scientists have evidence that an atom and a photon (the smallest particle of light) can share the same information, an important step in creating a quantum computer, which would process information using atoms instead of transistors and circuit boards. This new discovery means that light can carry the atom's information from one place to another-at the speed of light! 

Computers store information as a series of bits, which are switches that can be "on" or "off." In the cadmium atom, the tiny magnetic fields of the nucleus and an outer electron can either point in the same direction (on) or opposite directions (off). Once the atom is in one of these states it will stay that way for thousands of years, says researcher Chris Monroe. But in the quantum world, the cadmium atom can be both on and off at the same time, since it's in "superposition" and the atoms are "entangled." "Einstein called this 'spooky action at a distance,'" says Monroe. "It is as if there are hidden wires connecting the two. We do not know how they got there, but they are essential for quantum computing." 

"The goal is the control of quantum matter," says physicist Immanuel Bloch. "It's a great challenge, but there are great rewards." 

You Hate Spam, So Why Are You Sending It? 12-Mar-2004

If you're like the rest of us, you hate spam, but if you're not careful, you're probably sending a lot of it to your friends. At least one third of all spam is being sent from home computers without their owners' knowledge. Your address book can be cracked and your computer power harnessed by one the many computer viruses going around. 

Mark Ward writes in bbcnews.com that hackers create viruses that search out computers with insufficient firewalls and virus detectors and add them to a huge pool of PCs that send out reams of spam every day. Spammers want to use your computer by remote control because of the new anti- spam laws that make it impossible to send out spam any other way. 

"You cannot effectively spam without a network of proxies," says Joe Stewart of Lurhq. "You are being blocked everywhere you go." To cover their tracks, spammers only use a small number of the computers they control at any one time. 

First, a virus infects your machine and sends copies of itself to everyone in your address book, hoping to spread the infection. Then, on a date that's coded into the virus, your computer reports to a secret internet site to await future orders. Once a machine is invaded, other hackers can "see" this and will send you lots of new spam as well. 

But the battle isn't over: Pete Barlas writes that four of the largest e-mail providers, Microsoft, Yahoo, EarthLink and AOL, have banded together and filed lawsuits against the six biggest senders of spam. 

The companies being sued break the law by sending e-mail with fake "from" addresses. They're hard to catch because they frequently change their e-mail addresses, and about half the spam in the U.S. comes from Asia or Europe, although one of the biggest spammers is in Canada. 

God in the Brain 15-Mar-2004

Researcher Mario Beauregard is studying where in the brain religious feelings are actually experienced by placing electrodes on the scalps of seven nuns in order to record the electrical activity in their brains as they recall a spiritual experience. Before they would allow him to do this, Beauregard had to convince the nuns that he was not trying to disprove the existence of God. 

The nuns all say they had a religious experience while they were in their 20s that caused them to choose their vocation. Previous experiments have shown that remembering an intense emotional experience activates the same brain networks as actually having that experience. 

The Economist reports that Olaf Blanke, who has studied how the brain generates out-of-body experiences, says he has identified the brain mechanisms responsible for this, as well as for amputees' illusions of "phantom limbs." He imaged the brains of six brain-damaged patients and found that damage at the junction of two lobes of the brain causes a breakdown of a person's perception of his own body, causing the boundary between personal and extrapersonal space to become blurred. Temporal lobe epilepsy can produce the same result. He thinks that some people give this a mystical interpretation. 

Radiologist Andrew Newberg, who scanned the brains of Buddhists and Franciscan nuns while they were meditating or praying, says, "We have frequently argued that many aspects of spiritual experiences are built upon the brain machinery that is used for other purposes such as emotions." 

At the end of each session, Beauregard asks the nuns to complete a questionnaire which reveals their feelings of love and closeness to God, as well as any distortions they experienced of time and space. "The more intense the experience, the more intense the disorganization from a spatio-temporal point of view," he says. The nuns describe time slowing down, and the self dissolving into a larger entity that they describe as God. 

Does this mean that God is all in the brain-or merely that we use a specific part of our brain in order to experience God? 

Spiritual transformation, which involves interpreting the world in a new way, is available to contemporary people through their iPods and Walkmans, which researcher Michael Bull calls "transformative devices" with which "users manage space, time and the boundaries around the self." 

Mark Ward writes in bbcnews.com that scientists who study how people behave in public usually only pay attention to what people see, not what they're listening to. "There's the visual domination of explaining urban experience," Bull says, "but if you look at it through sound you get different explanations." 

Through interviews with Walkman and iPod users, he found that listening to music acts as a shield, or a cocoon, that helps people reclaim their personal space and interpret the events happening around them differently from people who are not listening-or who are listening to different tunes. He says, "They construct their moods, they re-make the time of their day. It's a much more active process even though it's dependent on the machinery." 

How to Tell a Cell Phone Lie 11-Mar-2004

Ever want to pretend you're stuck in traffic as an excuse for breaking a date? Now there's software for your cell phone that can generate a fake background noise, so when you call to cancel, you'll be believed. 

Will Knight writes in New Scientist that SoundCover can also mimic a thunderstorm, a dentist's drill or even a circus, so you don't have to use the same excuse every time. You can even assign background noises to specific callers, so if the excuse works once, you can use it again (and again). An especially popular sound is another phone ringing, so you can pretend you have to answer your landline. 

The software blends the outgoing voice with a looped audio track, so it sounds genuine. "To the person on the other end it sounds like a genuine background," says Simeda's CEO Liviu Tofan. "We think some people will use it for fun and some people to make good excuses." 

A Surprising Reason Why Soft Drinks Make You Fat 26-Mar-2004

The rate of obesity in the U.S. started to increase in the 1970s, about the same time that manufacturers switched from sugar to cheaper corn syrup for their colas and other soft drinks. Now researchers say this may be because high fructose corn syrup-a food, like margarine, that is created in the lab and not found in nature-does not trigger the same appetite response in the body as sugar, so it's more likely to make us fat. 

Connoisseurs who remember the great taste of old-time sodas try to find Kosher Coke and Coca-Cola bottled in Mexico, where it's still made with sugar. But these sodas may not just taste better; the cost-cutting measures of major manufacturers may be the leading cause of obesity in America. Obesity researcher Dr. George A. Bray says the rise in corn sweeteners is "coincidental with the epidemic of obesity. Body weights rose slowly for most of the 20th century until the late 1980s. At that time, many countries showed a sudden increase in the rate at which obesity has been galloping forward." 

Unlike glucose (sugar), fructose doesn't trigger responses in the hormones that regulate your appetite and energy output, meaning it's much more likely to be converted into fat. 

"Fake foods" have been a major cause of disease in the past few years. Margarine, which replaced butter when it was scarce during World War II, was once touted by the American Heart Association as a miracle food that lowered cholesterol levels. It's now been shown to do just the opposite and we're warned not to eat it. 

Despite being vegetarians, cows were fed protein in the form of the ground-up bones of other cows, leading to Mad Cow Disease. 

High-fructose corn syrup made soft drinks cheap, especially after we could no longer import sugar from Cuba. Like all the other "fake foods" of recent years, it was created so manufacturers could cut costs and make more profit. And like the other fakes, it has ended up costing the public large amounts of money for treating heart disease, obesity and for Mad Cow monitoring. 

What will they try to sell us next? 

Hawaii Might Claim Biological Resources

2 hours, 53 minutes ago 
Add U.S. National - 

By BRUCE DUNFORD, News Source Writer 

HONOLULU - Hawaii could become the first state to stake a legal claim to hundreds of potentially valuable animal and plant products discovered on state lands, under a bill being considered by the state Legislature. 

Hawaii is a good place to establish a system to protect government property rights to its plants and animals, supporters of the bill say. Of more than 22,000 known species on the islands, 8,850 are found only in Hawaii, said Naomi Arcand of the Hawaii Audubon Society. 

"Rather than selling the exclusive rights to our natural resources, we should focus initially on the method to achieve sustainable, equitable use," Arcand said. 

State Rep. Glenn Wakai, the primary architect of the bill, said an estimated 5,000 bioprospecting projects are under way in Hawaii's rain forests, volcanic fields, teeming reefs and deep ocean chasms between the islands. He proposed a statewide inventory of them. 

"We have no idea what these individuals and these companies are doing here, so this is a step to finding out," he said. 

Hawaii's indigenous people have been key players in the bioprospecting legislation, hoping to protect their rights to gather plant and animal resources used in traditional and cultural medicinal practices. 

The bill's supporters said they did not know of any lucrative bioprospecting discoveries involving Hawaiian species, but they believe the potential is great. 

Hawaii follows last year's lead by China, Brazil, India and nine other of the world's most biodiverse countries, who signed an alliance to fight "biopiracy" and press for rules protecting their people's rights to genetic resources found on their land. 

That declaration was a response to complaints by Indians and environmentalists. 

Three years ago, Yellowstone National Park began collecting royalties on the commercial results of scientific research in the park. 

NASA's 5,000-Mph Jet Makes First Flight

18 minutes ago

By ROBERT JABLON, News Source Writer 

LOS ANGELES - Three years after its first test flight ended in an explosion, NASA (news - web sites) on Saturday successfully launched an experimental jet designed to reach speeds approaching 5,000 mph. 

NEWS SOURCE 

Slideshow: Hypersonic Unmanned Jet in Tests

Related Links
� X-43A Hypersonic Jet (NASA)

The unpiloted X-43A made a 10-second powered flight, then went through some twists and turns during a six-minute glide before plunging into the Pacific Ocean about 400 miles off the California coast. 

"Everything worked according to plan. It's been wonderful," NASA spokeswoman Leslie Williams said. "I actually thought it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. We've been waiting a few years." 

It wasn't immediately clear what speed the needle-nosed jet achieved after it was boosted to about 3,500 mph by a rocket, Williams said. 

The first X-43A flight ended in failure June 2, 2001, after the modified Pegasus rocket used to accelerate the plane veered off course and was detonated. An investigation board found preflight analyses failed to predict how the rocket would perform, leaving its control system unable to maintain stable flight. 

NASA built the X-43A under a $250 million program to develop and test an exotic type of engine called a supersonic-combustion ramjet, or scramjet. 

In theory, the air-breathing engine could propel an airplane to speeds of Mach 7 or faster, enabling around-the-world flights that would take several hours. The Department of Defense (news - web sites) also is working on the technology, which it's eyeing for use in bombers that quickly could reach targets anywhere on the globe. 

The 2,800-pound X-43A was mounted on a Pegasus rocket booster and carried to an altitude of 40,000 feet by a modified B-52 bomber, which took off from Edwards Air Force Base in the high desert. 

A few seconds after the craft was dropped, the rocket flared, sending the jet skyward on a streak of flame and light. At about 100,000 feet, the rocket dropped away. 

The scramjet took over, using up about two pounds of gaseous hydrogen fuel before gliding. Applause rang out in the control center at Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards. 

Technological hurdles mean it will be decades before such a plane could enter service. And NASA's role in developing the technology remains in doubt, as the agency recently cut funding for more advanced versions of the X-43A. 

Engineers have pursued scramjet technology because it could allow rocket-speed travel but with considerable savings in weight. Rockets must carry their own oxygen to combust the fuel they carry aboard; scramjets can scoop it out of the atmosphere. 

In scramjets, oxygen is rammed into a combustion chamber where it mixes with fuel and spontaneously ignites. To work, the engine must be traveling at about five times the speed of sound - requiring an initial boost that only a rocket can provide. 

A third X-43A could fly as early as the fall. 

___ 

On the Net: 

NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center: http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/ 

Four-Eared Kitten Finds 'Normal' Home 
Mar 25, 10:08 am ET 
By Sabine Neubert

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany  - A four-eared German kitten has been given a new home after a German animal shelter was deluged with requests to adopt the animal born six months ago with the genetic defect.

"We wanted to make sure the people were looking for a normal cat and not a gag to make an exhibition out of her," Enrico Schlag, a worker at the Garmisch-Partenkirchen animal shelter, said on Thursday.

"We've found a completely normal family for her that has already adopted cats from us in the past."

The shelter in the foothills of the Alps in southern Germany received dozens of calls after local media published pictures of Lilly. The News Source, which reported the kitten's search for a home on Wednesday, also received numerous offers from readers around the world eager to adopt her or make donations to the shelter.

Tessy Loedermann, head of the shelter, said Lilly will first be neutered and held at the shelter for another two weeks.

Loedermann said the black-and-white cat with the extra set of ears was "not a freak" but rather an energetic, loving and well-adjusted kitten.

"She is not a mutant," Loedermann said. "She's just a plain and ordinary kitten."

Lilly, born on a farm near the winter resort town famous for hosting the 1936 Winter Olympics, has an extra pair of slightly smaller, non-hearing ears just behind the normal two. Vets have attributed the phenomenon to a gene malfunction.

"The front ears are completely normal while the two ears directly behind them are about half the size and not fully developed," Schlag said.

She was given to the shelter last week because the family had more cats than they could care for.

"We're trying to treat her as a completely normal kitten and the other cats here have played with her in a normal manner as well," Schlag said. "She hasn't been ostracized by the other cats at all. She's a bundle of energy but likes to be cuddled." 

'Good Cop' Beats 'Bad Cop' in Interrogations

Mar 25, 10:18 am ET 

STOCKHOLM  - "Softly softly" police interviews with crime suspects yield more confessions than inquisitorial interrogations, according to a new Swedish study.

Victims also tend to provide more evidence when questioned gently, improving the chances of a conviction, the doctoral dissertation for Stockholm University showed.

"Police interviews marked by dominance are mainly associated with a higher proportion of denials, whereas an approach marked by humanity is significantly associated with confessions," crime investigator Ulf Holmberg wrote in a doctoral dissertation for Stockholm University.

He interviewed 94 offenders, 178 victims and 430 police involved in murder, assault and rape cases in Sweden.

He found some police got impatient and aggressive in interrogations due to stress caused by exposure to crime.

"You eat murder, you sleep murder and you even sh-t murder, it follows you all the time," the study quoted one homicide investigator saying. 

Christ Movie Moves Man to Confess Murder 
Mar 26, 8:18 am ET 
HOUSTON  - A repentant Texas man went to police after seeing Mel Gibson's controversial film "The Passion of Christ" and confessed to murdering a 19-year-old woman who was pregnant with his child, authorities said on Thursday.

Police had thought Ashley Nicole Wilson, who died on Jan. 18, had hanged herself, but Dan Leach, 21, went to them on March 9 to admit that he had killed her, said Fort Bend County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Jeannie Gage.

Leach wanted to seek redemption after talking to a friend and seeing the movie about the last hours of Christ's life, she said.

"He mentioned that speaking with the friend and seeing the movie 'The Passion of Christ' made him feel remorse," Gage said.

Leach said he killed Wilson because she was pregnant with his child and he did not want to be involved with her anymore, she said.

Wilson was found in her apartment with a suicide note describing her depression but Leach said he staged the murder to look like she had killed herself. The Houston Chronicle first reported the story in its online edition.

Leach was released after his confession while police investigated and was arrested on Tuesday after a grand jury indicted him. He was being held on $100,000 bail, Gage said.

The Mel Gibson film has been criticized for graphic violence and for its portrayal of the role of Jews in the death of Christ. 

Slave Descendants File $1B Lawsuit 

1 hour, 20 minutes ago

Add U.S. National - 

NEW YORK - Descendants of slaves filed a $1 billion lawsuit Monday against U.S. and British corporations, accusing them of profiting by committing genocide against their ancestors. 

Lawyers for the eight plaintiffs said the complaint was the first slave reparations lawsuit to use DNA to link the plaintiffs to Africans who suffered atrocities during the slave trade. 

The suit filed in federal court in Manhattan accuses Lloyd's of London, FleetBoston and R.J. Reynolds of "aiding and abetting the commission of genocide" by allegedly financing and insuring the ships that delivered slaves to tobacco plantations in the United States. 

The defendants "have destroyed our national and ethnic identity," one of the plaintiffs, Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, said at a news conference announcing the suit. 

DNA testing has made a "direct connection" between Farmer-Paellmann and the Mende tribe in Sierra Leone, whose people "were kidnapped, tortured and shipped in chains to the United States," the suit said. 

Scientific evidence also has linked the other plaintiffs to tribes in Niger and Gambia, the suit said. 

Ellen Matthews, a spokeswoman for R.J. Reynolds, said the company had not received a copy of the suit. Calls to the other defendants were not immediately returned. 

In January, a federal judge in Chicago threw out a similar lawsuit brought by descendants of slaves. 

Ambassador: Six Cavers to Leave Mexico

1 hour, 13 minutes ago

MEXICO CITY - Mexico will allow six rescued cave explorers and seven colleagues to leave the country after authorities determined there was no evidence or wrongdoing, Britain's ambassador said Monday. 

The six were trapped inside the cave by floodwaters for more than a week, and had refused help from Mexican officials, instead waiting for a British rescue team. 

President Vicente Fox (news - web sites) then raised questions about the activities of the team, which included British military members. Some members of the Mexican press had speculated the explorers were searching for signs of uranium. 

"We can now expect all 13 to leave tonight," said Britain's ambassador to Mexico, Denise Holt. 

An immigration spokesman refused to confirm whether the 13 would leave Monday, but said it was a possibility. 

The announcement came hours after the Attorney General's office found there was no evidence the cave explorers did anything illegal in exploring a cave near Mexico City. 

While prosecutors said there was no evidence of illicit activity, immigration officials were still investigating whether the explorers violated terms of their tourist visa and could be kicked out of the country. 

Seldom in the history of the Internet has a single company attracted so many industry leaders, in such a short time, as has AdSavers Network (ASN). Why have so many previous million-dollar-a-year industry earners joined ASN in just the last few months? It is because ASN has (1) an affordable product that is unique, backed by real technology, that people continue to use because it truly helps them save money on everything they buy... everyday, and (2) the most innovative and lucrative compensation plan in the industry. No plan rewards Business Builders like this one. Now you can even earn commissions on every coupon print! Whether you are looking to make part-time or full-time income, our Patent Pending product and powerful compensation plan allows you to make money 4 different ways, up to 31 times each month:

Powerful up-front income (50%)

Uni-Max Forced Matrix organization and residual income (Get Paid on 5x7 plus compression)

Advertisers Personal Referral Bonus ($100)

Advisors Personal Referral Bonus ($100)

Personal Referral Coupon Prints (10%)

Personal Monthly BBR Bonus ($10 for each personally sponsored Adviser) 

The Company pays instant commissions (daily pay) to its Sales Advisors by facilitating the issuance of a Cash Debit Card to each Affiliate who is enrolled in our Business Center to earn commissions. There are no credit requirements for the issuance of the card. Cash commissions are deposited directly onto the card each commission period. You can withdraw all the cash on the card at anytime or you can make purchases with it at restaurants, department stores, and any retail outlet where debit cards are accepted. 

Iraq economy shakes off the shackles of Saddam

Mon Mar 29, 7:05 AM ET

 - USATODAY.com 

By Paul Wiseman, USA TODAY 

Hussein Abizaid Khadum doesn't care where the cars come from. His auto-repair shop serves car thieves and crime victims alike. He and his crew paint over vehicles, patch up bullet holes and pound out the dents and dings suffered in the daily crush of Baghdad traffic.

His business is thriving, taking in about $1,000 a day. He estimates that stolen cars account for 20%. "I don't care about the source of the business," Khadum, 37, says cheerfully, his T-shirt and work pants splotched with paint, the air around him heavy with paint fumes and exhaust. A longtime renter, he's about to move his family into a brand-new house.

Anything goes these days in Baghdad's teeming streets, crowded souks and back alleys. An exhilarating but virtually lawless economy has risen from the ashes of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s government. Business opportunities are everywhere, but so are corruption and crime.

"The regime is gone," says Osama al-Quraishi, an Iraqi entrepreneur who returned to Baghdad to search for business opportunities after decades in exile in Europe and the Middle East. "There are no restrictions. There are no rules." He predicts Baghdad will soon replace Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, as the Middle East's commercial center.

Besides crushing human rights, Saddam smothered the Iraqi economy. The dictator, who invaded Iran in 1980 and Kuwait in 1990, ran a war-based economy, diverting resources to the military and starving the rest of the country. Iraq (news - web sites)'s infrastructure deteriorated; the oil industry alone needs $10 billion to $40 billion of investment to catch up. Saddam and his cronies imposed stiff duties on imports, steered government contracts to loyalists and buried business in regulations. This encouraged a culture of kickbacks and corruption.

"It was a lawless economy governed by one principle: Saddam and the Baathist party took whatever they wanted," says Bill Block, an economist with the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.

Under Saddam, the shops were silent, the goods available were obsolete or absurdly overpriced, and the cars were clunkers dating back 15 or 20 years. Now that Saddam is gone, signs of bounty are visible everywhere in Baghdad and to a lesser extent in smaller cities such as Mosul and Basra.

The World Bank (news - web sites) says Iraq's economy shrank by nearly a third last year after several years of smaller declines. The World Bank projects a sharp rebound in 2004 - growth ranging anywhere from 30% to 70% - and an overall economy worth $17 billion to $22 billion. That would make the Iraqi economy about the size of North Dakota's or Vermont's, which have the smallest output among the 50 states.

Bush administration officials working on Iraqi reconstruction are optimistic that Iraq's growth will approach the high end of the World Bank projection. Salaries and pensions for public employees have been increased. Repairs to the power grid, oil facilities and roads are having ripple effects throughout the economy. Farmers who could not get seed, fertilizer and animal feed in recent years are producing again. 

The billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money pouring into Iraq acts as a powerful stimulus. The United States is expected to award contracts for $14 billion in reconstruction work this year and $4 billion to $5 billion next year. Much of that will go to pay Iraqis working for contractors and subcontractors and to Iraqi businesses furnishing equipment and supplies.

Cell phones and TV sets

That money then trickles down to the car-clogged streets of the capital. Television sets and washing machines are piled high in boxes outside Baghdad appliance stores. Trucks loaded with consumer goods trundle down the streets. Families line up outside shops for satellite phones and cell phones, which were banned by Saddam's government. Entrepreneurs offer truckloads of merchandise - TV sets, office equipment - obtained from who-knows-where.

In a gold-rush atmosphere, hustlers cut business deals over glasses of sugared tea or cups of thick Turkish coffee. Schemers map out grandiose plans for five-star hotels and fancy restaurants in a city where most accommodations are stuck in a 1970s time warp. Business people arrive from overseas, some from exile, eager for a piece of the reconstruction contracts.

Foreign companies are weighing whether to place a long-term bet on Iraq. Pepsi is refurbishing a bottling plant; Nestle is considering a bottled-water factory; MCI is providing cell phone service to the U.S. authorities. Companies from Merck to Motorola are studying the market, according to Tom Foley, the Coalition Provisional Authority's private-sector czar. 

Baghdad families show off late-model used cars, just imported from Dubai. Police say the number of cars in the capital, a city of more than 5 million people, has doubled to 600,000 since Saddam fell. "Where are they going to find roads to drive all these cars?" wonders police Lt. Gen. Sulaiman Taha al-Shaikhli, commander of west Baghdad's car-registration center.

The new arrivals are conspicuous by their fresh paint jobs and black license plates. Saddam-era clunkers are betrayed by their age, rust and white plates. The car market is so strong that Gezar Tuma, 32, and his brothers closed their struggling Fallujah Kebab restaurant in Baghdad's posh al-Mansour neighborhood and replaced it with a car lot, their second.

"Each day today is worth 10 years under Saddam," says Abdul Reza Ougla, 48, a truck driver who cruises south Baghdad's Karada commercial district looking for merchants who need him to haul something somewhere. He earns 40,000 Iraqi dinars (about $28) a day, up from 15,000 under Saddam.

Behind the boom:

� Iraq is duty- and tax-free until Thursday, when a flat tax rate will be launched. Imports are flooding into the country partly because the stiff duties are gone. The duties once accounted for more than half the price of imported goods. A Baghdad family can now buy a Maytag refrigerator for $825, down from $1,200 a year ago. Truck driver Ougla just bought a Kia flatbed truck for $8,400; it would have cost him $12,000 under Saddam, he says. Car dealer Khadum Jurri, 40, used to sell two or three cars a month. Now, he's selling 50 a month, among them late-model Mercedes sedans.

� Spending power is up. Civil servants got huge pay raises after the coalition decided to correct Saddam-era parsimony. "Public-sector wages under Saddam were quite literally starvation wages," economist Block says. Thana Ismail, 40, has seen her monthly wages at the Ministry of Trade shoot up from 3,000 Iraqi dinars a month (barely $2 at today's exchange rates) to 300,000 (just over $200). This means she can finally afford to replace the wheezing washing machine she bought nearly two decades ago. She has her eye on a $185 jumbo Samsung model.

� Saddam's relatives and loyalists are no longer around to harass entrepreneurs and demand kickbacks or ownership stakes in profitable businesses - or to flex their muscle just for fun. (Jurri remembers when customs officials impounded one of his cars, a violet BMW, because they said the color would offend the sensibilities of Saddam's oldest son, Uday.)

Back in business

From a brick building on a quiet side street in south Baghdad's Arasat al-Hindiyah neighborhood, Omer Tabra, 37, enjoys a unique vantage point over the simmering local economy. In a country where no one trusts the banks, people have long come to the Tabra family to wire money overseas and receive remittances from abroad.

Since Saddam's fall, the volume of cash moving through the offices of his family's Nepal Trading Co. has risen from $2 million to $12 million a day. He says funds are divided about equally between incoming and outgoing. Cash leaves Iraq mainly to pay for imports and arrives to finance new projects.

"All kinds of businesses are active - cars, home appliances, ready-made clothes, tires and batteries, foodstuffs," Tabra says. All that is good news for Nepal Trading, which collects a 0.5% commission on outgoing cash and a minimum fee of $10 for each delivery of inbound money.

The firm's office is conspicuous only by the three BMWs parked on the street and the steady stream of people in and out. Tabra oversees the family empire from a room hidden behind a window with thick purple drapes. It's sparsely decorated with three purple couches and battered fiberboard furniture. A picture of his father, one of several dozen entrepreneurs executed by Saddam on trumped-up charges of hoarding food, hangs on a wall in the waiting room. Tabra often wears a traditional dishdasha robe, a gold pen slipped into the breast pocket.

He's expanding his modest quarters by a third. You can hear it through the walls: the pounding of hammers, the shrill whine of a power drill. The makeover will move his cashiers farther into the building, where they will be less vulnerable to an armed assault. 

Security concerns are not theoretical in Baghdad's Wild West atmosphere. Crime is rampant, carjacking common. Tabra's couriers have been robbed three times since Saddam's fall, losing a total of $800,000 cash. In December, Tabra's brother-in-law and a cousin were ambushed in their car while carrying money through the streets of Baghdad. Four gunmen in a white Mercedes ordered them to stop. Instead, the cousin slammed his car into reverse and tried to get away. The gunmen riddled the car with bullets, wounded both men and grabbed $400,000. The two are still in the hospital; the brother-in-law is paralyzed.

Street violence and corruption are the flip side of the Baghdad boom. Under Saddam, car dealer Tuma complains, he and his brothers only had to bribe one of Saddam's relatives. In a way, it was one-stop shopping. Now, every cop on the beat seems to have his hand out, he says. Police threatened to arrest Tuma on trumped-up charges and relented only after collecting a $50 payoff. When thieves drove off with a car someone had entrusted the Tuma brothers to sell, police demanded a $100 payment on top of $2,000 compensation to the car's owner. 

"The police are always trying to create trouble for you, so you have to pay them," Tuma says. They want only U.S. dollars. 

On the other hand, Tuma concedes that some of his best customers are crooked cops. One cash-rich police captain recently ordered three cars, including a fully loaded '93 Mercedes for $8,000.

Underlying the boomtown atmosphere is the fear that the good times won't last or that those who don't move swiftly will be left behind. "If you don't have people on the ground, you're going to miss the boat," Foley says.

One sign of the ongoing uncertainty about what will happen once political power is restored to Iraqis: Jurri's car dealership still carries the name (al-Sakker) of a Saddam crony, now in hiding, who forced Jurri to accept him as a partner, contributed nothing and confiscated most of the profits.

Jurri would love to change the name but says, "I'm scared he'll come back." 

Chile Park-Builder Sets Sights on Argentina, Paraguay

Sun Mar 28,12:34 PM ET

By Ignacio Badal 

SANTIAGO, Chile  - Years of obstacles and bad press have not discouraged millionaire American conservationist Douglas Tompkins, who bought up land in Chile to make Latin America's biggest nature sanctuary and now is working toward creating a network of wildlife-protection areas in Argentina and Paraguay. 

Tompkins, 61, who made his fortune in the fashion industry, has bought land in northern Argentina and is looking at possible purchases in Paraguay as well, to copy the concept of his Pumalin Park in Patagonia in southern Chile. 

In addition his wife, Kristine Tompkins, former CEO of Patagonia clothing, has more than 250,000 acres in three protected areas in southern Argentina through her Conservacion Patagonica charitable foundation, one of which is slated to be donated to Argentina's national parks system. 

Tompkins, dubbed the ecological magnate in Chile, did not deny or confirm local news reports that his wife is now seeking to buy land in Chile's virgin and almost inaccessible area of Aisen, across the border from her Argentine holdings. 

"You'd have to talk to her," he told The News Source in an interview. Kristine Tompkins did not answer an e-mail asking about her reported interest in buying land in Chile. 

"We are 100 percent dedicated to our projects in Argentina," Tompkins said. "And probably also in Paraguay, where there are conservation opportunities. Not in Brazil, that country is a time bomb, there's going to be a bigger default than in Argentina." 

AGREEMENT WITH GOVERNMENT 

Tompkins is not the only wealthy person who has bought up huge expanses of forest in southern Chile. Local tycoons Anacleto Angelini and Eliodoro Matte bought forests for logging. 

But Tompkins has turned his land into Pumalin Park, setting up ranger facilities, camping areas and trails that attract thousands of tourists and launching small farming projects that provide some jobs to local communities. 

He financed his park when he sold out 13 years ago his interest in the Esprit fashion company that he had co-founded in San Francisco. The company has since become the Hong Kong-based Esprit Holdings Ltd. . 

His Conservation Land Trust bought up 741,200 acres of dense forests of ancient larches, snowcapped volcanoes and fjords in the remote and uninhabited region of Palena. 

The purchases sparked suspicions among local politicians who saw the huge land purchase as a threat to national sovereignty, since his holdings cross Chile from the Andes to the Pacific ocean, on both sides of the only state highway in the zone. 

Years of negotiating with the government have built trust and improved his relationship with wary Chileans, but his reputation in Chile as an interloper still bothers Tompkins. He says if he were a foreign businessman who had bought up the land to cut down the trees, no one would have said a thing. 

"I think there's a business plot to block conservation projects," he said. "That's why an environmental conservation movement has come into being to confront the business threat not only in Chile, but around the world," he said. 

After six years of negotiations, Tompkins signed in December an agreement with the Chilean government converting Pumalin Park into a nature sanctuary twice as big as the metropolitan area of the capital, Santiago. 

Lagos' close adviser Francisco Huenchumilla reached the agreement with Tompkins, fending off opposition lawmakers who were against the sanctuary plan, saying it threatened national sovereignty as well as business development in the region. 

The U.S.-based Conservation Land Trust will hand over control of the sanctuary to Chile-based Fundacion Pumalin, which will be administered by a seven-member board, four named by Tompkins and three by regional academic, civilian and religious leaders. 

Business activities will be prohibited in the reserve, but the government can use the land for infrastructure projects. 

"The law is very clear. If the government decides to put a pipeline, power lines, roads or a port, there is an expropriation procedure, and they have to compensate," said Tompkins. 

GREEN ENCLAVES 

If Kristine Tompkins buys the 173,000 acres she is supposedly negotiating in Aisen, the couple will have invested more than $50 million in becoming Chile's biggest landholders, after the Angelini group, which controls Forestal Arauco forestry firm, and has 1.4 million acres. 

But the total will shrink when Tompkins moves ahead with a promise to donate 208,000 acres of his land holdings to the government to expand an existing national park. 

Chile's National System of Protected Wildlife areas includes national parks, reserves and monuments and covers more than 19 percent of the country's territory. 

Seeking new areas to save, a few years ago Tompkins bought 692,000 acres in the Argentine province Corrientes where he has formed a wetlands park, Esteros del Ibera, which combines conservation zones with forestry and cattle ranching areas. 

In Buenos Aires province he owns a large ranch dedicated to agriculture and beekeeping, and in the northern province of Salta he is "looking at" a piece of jungle land that would also go to conservation. 

He did not say where the land is that he is looking at in Paraguay, but said it is also jungle terrain he would like to preserve. 

It's a Tough Life for Paper Currency 

Sun Mar 28, 1:17 PM ET



By JEANNINE AVERSA, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - Andrew Wilson throws his own special load of laundry into the wash: eight white cotton terry towels, 2 1/3 ounces of powdered laundry detergent - and 25 crisp U.S. greenbacks. 

Wash, rinse and spin. When the load is done, it's not the towels he goes for first. 

Wilson is a chemist at a Bureau of Engraving and Printing lab that checks how dollar bills survive the torture of every day life - whether bucks are spun in a washing machine or dumped in a crumpled mass into an overstuffed handbag. 

The bureau, which makes the nation's paper currency, tests thousands of greenbacks weekly. 

The dollars are picked at random from larger batches of freshly made notes. But these bills will never make it into cash registers, wallets or handbags. Eventually, they are destroyed. 

"What we do here is after the currency is printed, we test the currency to make sure it meets our specifications, which are pretty stringent," said Goutam Gupta, chief of the bureau's Office of Technical Support. 

"For example, some people will frequently leave their currency in their pocket and then launder the clothing. So, the note actually has to survive that process," said Gupta, who holds a doctorate in chemistry. 

"Is the quality good enough so that (the bill) still retains its clarity and resolution so that it looks like a nice American bank note. We run tests to simulate these actual stresses you'll see in circulation," he said. 

The lab tests how well the notes hold up after indignities such as being laundered, soaked in chemicals or folded repeatedly - technically known as the "crumple" test. 

All the tests are important, but it is most troubling if a bill flunks the crumple test, Gupta said. "It is more serious ... because people will take a note and fold it and stick it into their pocket," he said. "That is a much more likely scenario in actual use." 

In that test, physicist Virgil Huber cuts a fresh $20 bill into three pieces so it will fit into a special metal contraption. He rolls one slice like a cigarette and inserts it into the device, which squashes it into a pellet. Each crinkly wad is then carefully unfolded and examined. 

A bill is tested seven days to 10 days after it rolls off the printing press to provide sufficient time to make sure "the ink is cured," said Valentino DeVito, who also holds a doctorate in chemistry and is manager of technical services. If ink flakes off, the bill can look worn. In general, the bills hold up well because "we have very excellent ink these days," DeVito said. 

The same tests are run regardless of the bill's denomination. Only one type of test is applied to a selected bill; the same note never goes through the entire battery of tests. No one knows when the torture tests now used first started. 

In the laundry test, the 25 bills, eight all-cotton terry towels and standard laundry detergent are tossed into top-load washing machine. The mix of bills and towels slosh and spin through a regular wash cycle in about 14 gallons of hot water. 

The water temperature is about 142 degrees Fahrenheit, plus or minus 4 degrees. When the notes come out of the washing machine, they are air dried and then examined. 

The ink on the front of the bill is more likely than the ink on the back to take a hit from the laundry test, DeVito said. The portrait areas on the front of bills - such as the face of Abraham Lincoln on the $5 or George Washington on the $1 - have the heaviest ink and can be more susceptible to ink flaking and visible damage, DeVito said. 

In a second test, a bill is soaked for 24 hours in a glass container filled with one of nine chemicals or solvents, such as gasoline, bleach or sulfuric acid. 

The usually cream-colored background in a note that had been bleached looked very light, but otherwise the ink was in good shape, DeVito said, examining one specimen bill. Like the laundry test, the chemical soak tests rarely produce a problem with the backs of the bill. "The backs are resilient," DeVito said. 

The lab also conducts a "rub" test, using the same nine solvents. A 2-pound weight with a pad on the bottom is rubbed repeatedly across a bill that has had a solvent poured on it. 

Each test has criteria for passing or failing. Most bills pass, officials said. 

"In a worst-case scenario ... and something is grossly wrong, the production may have to be destroyed," Gupta said. "Remember, we are only taking a small sample from the production, but if we find something wrong that flags that production batch, it will be put on hold until a determination can be made as to what to do with that," he said. 

Officials, however, cannot think of a time in recent memory when that has happened. Should a note fail, "We have pretty sophisticated scientists ... to specifically determine why there is a failure ... and rectify it," Gupta said. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Bureau of Engraving and Printing: http://www.moneyfactory.com/ 

Video of currency testing is available at: http://wid.ap.org/video/video/greenbacks.rm 

Video Game Industry Faces 'Crisis of Creativity' 
Sun Mar 28, 8:50 AM ET 
Add Technology 

By Reed Stevenson and Ben Berkowitz 

SAN JOSE, Calif.  - The video game industry is facing a hardening of the creative arteries as aging gamers' tastes increasingly shift toward sequels and games based on movies, industry participants said this week. 

Related Quotes 
ERTS
TTWO
DJIA
NASDAQ
^SPC 51.78
36.33
10212.97
1960.02
1108.06 +1.75
+1.40
-5.85
-7.15
-1.13

Get Quotes 
delayed 20 mins - disclaimer 
Quote Data provided by The News Source

With more and more titles chasing the success of their predecessors and content owners digging deep into their libraries to tap older material for quick fail-proof conversion into games, the industry is faced with a question more serious than rhetorical: What's new? 

"The gaming industry will shrink unless we start to see new games," said Toru Iwatani, who created Pac-Man, one of the first video games to become a worldwide hit. 

One of the industry's first huge hits, published by Namco Ltd. (9752.T) in 1980, Pac-Man crossed gender lines and became a huge hit with women. 

At the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, California, a gathering of industry insiders where the talk is more about how games are made than how they are sold, the dearth of new titles and the increasing cost of developing games was a common theme at keynotes and panel discussions. 

The high up-front costs of developing games is also pressuring developers to rely more on sure-fire hits and take less risks on new, innovative titles. 

Electronic Arts Inc. (NasdaqNM:ERTS - news), the gaming industry's largest publisher, has perfected the art of getting gamers hooked on yearly releases of sports games and turning out versions of movie hits such as "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" and "Harry Potter (news - web sites): Quidditch World Cup." 

EA's U.S. market share in 2004 is more than twice that of its closest competitor, and the company generates more revenue in the December quarter than its closest competitor does in an entire fiscal year, driven in large part by those repeat sports and film titles. 

CONSERVATIVE GAMERS? 

Out of the top 100 games sold in Japan during 2001, 10 were original titles, but that number was halved in 2002 and fell to merely two in 2003. 

"The ratio of original titles to sequels is dropping dramatically," said Ryoichi Hasegawa, an industry veteran who was at Sega Corp. (7964.T) before joining Sony Corp (news - web sites).'s (6758.T) gaming business. 

Things are little better in the United States, where last December, according to the NPD Group, more than half of the 20 best-selling games on all platforms were sequels or derivatives of existing properties. 

Part of the problem is the advancing average age of gamers, which is rising as the industry matures. 

Last summer, the Entertainment Software Association, an industry trade group, found that the average age of gamers had risen to 29 years old, dispelling the view that gamers consist mainly of teenagers. 

"Core gamers are advancing in age and they are becoming more conservative," Hasegawa told a panel. 

Sony , which dominates the global console market, is planning for its PlayStation 2 (news - web sites) console to have a lifespan of at least a decade, and its executives acknowledge that with such a long cycle, its user base will naturally age and have different tastes. 

"We have to think very carefully about the type of audience we're reaching with our games," Andrew House, an executive vice president with Sony Computer Entertainment of America, said in a keynote address at the conference. 

But it is not just EA chasing after proven material. Upcoming titles such as "Halo 2," "Half-Life 2," "Doom III" and "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" are all expected to top sales charts this year, in large part because the games that preceded them were so successful. 

And licenses for films and TV shows are being snapped up left and right by publishers counting on consumers to opt for something familiar when trying to decide how to spend their $30 to $50 per game in discretionary income. 

Just this year, EA has licensed "The Godfather" and Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. (NasdaqNM:TTWO - news) has set up an ongoing licensing deal with the Cartoon Network. 

Ubi Soft (UBIP.PA) announced on Thursday that it had licensed the early 1980s TV series "The Dukes of Hazzard." 

Despite the proliferation of sequels and licensed games, Pac-man creator Iwatani said that he had seen this happen before during his 20 year-career, and that new and revolutionary new games appear in a two- to three-year cycle. 

"It's difficult right now but I expect to see a recovery in a couple years," Iwatani said. 

Trump Hotels Low on Luck, and Cash, Auditors Warn
Wed Mar 31,11:01 AM ET

NEW YORK  - Casino mogul Donald Trump may have the final word with his television apprentices, but his auditors say Trump's casino company will be in deep trouble without a cash infusion -- which would leave him with a minority holding in the company. 

The warning hit the shares of Trump Hotels & Casinos Resorts, which fell more than 12 percent in Wednesday morning trading. 

The ability of the casino company to continue as a "going concern" hinges on a deal that would allow Credit Suisse First Boston to infuse $400 million in exchange for majority stake in the company, according to auditors for Ernst & Young. 

"The company has experienced increased competition, has incurred recurring operating losses and has a working capital deficit at December 31, 2003," Ernst & Young auditors wrote in a letter to the board of directors. 

Trump Hotels shares fell 12.5 percent to $2.37 on the New York Stock Exchange (news - web sites). 

The auditors said the company was looking at alternative solutions. "Absent the successful completion of one of these alternatives, the Company's operating results will increasingly become uncertain. These conditions raise substantial doubt about the Company's ability to continue as a going concern," they warned. 

The deal with DLJ Merchant Banking, a Credit Suisse First Boston affiliate, includes a proposed refinancing of $1.8 billion in high-interest debt, a modified board of directors and a name change to Trump International Corp. 

The deal, contingent on renegotiations with bondholders, would remove Trump as chief executive but would let him remain chairman of the board. 

Trump Hotels, strapped in $1.8 billion of debt, has lacked the cash flow to reinvest in its Atlantic City properties while its competitors have been expanding and renovating to lure new customers. Casinos in the New Jersey coastal resort have been struggling with competition from the new $1 billion Borgata Hotel Spa and Casino. 

Trump Hotels owns three casinos in Atlantic City and a riverboat casino in Gary, Indiana. It also manages an Indian casino in California. 

Trump, a self-promoting dealmaker, stars on the hit reality television show "The Apprentice," in which he comes across as the consummate executive whose trademark line is "You're fired." 

Police, Zoo Staff Clashed Over Gorilla 
Wed Mar 31,10:04 AM ET 
Add U.S. National - 

DALLAS - As a 350-pound gorilla ran free at the Dallas Zoo, attacking four people, employees clashed with police on how to corral the animal before police shot it to death, a newspaper reported Wednesday. 

Despite more than five years of emergency drills together, police officers did not cooperate with zoo staff on March 18 as they tried to subdue Jabari, The Dallas Morning News reported, citing zoo records. 

"It was mayhem," wrote Mike Glover, the zoo's emergency weapons team leader. 

Zoo records show that just before the escape, two teenage boys standing on a trail overlooking the gorilla exhibit hurled either ice or stones at Jabari. The gorilla escaped his walled compound, snatched up a toddler with his teeth and injured three others. 

Police have said officers were forced to shoot the charging gorilla after it came within 15 feet of them. According to the newspaper, a tranquilizer gun wielded by zoo staff had jammed. 

The newspaper said police either ignored or were unaware of an emergency plan the police department had helped write. The SWAT team ran past employees on a nature trail, bypassing a meeting point set up to organize a search-and-rescue mission. 

Animal welfare advocates have said police could have used nonfatal techniques to contain the gorilla, including using rubber bullets or cornering it. 

Clarke Asks Anti-Bush Group to Pull TV Ads 
45 minutes ago

By TED BRIDIS, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites)'s former counterterrorism adviser objected Wednesday to the use of his name and critical comments about Bush in a new broadcast advertisement from a political group supporting Democratic candidate John Kerry (news - web sites). 

NEWS SOURCE 

Slideshow: September 11

Latest headlines: 
� Military Sex Assault Likened to 'Friendly Fire' 
The News Source - 8 minutes ago 
� Iraqis Drag Bodies Through Streets After Attack 
The News Source - 8 minutes ago 
� Iraqis Drag U.S. Corpses Through Streets 
AP - 31 minutes ago 
Special Coverage

Richard Clarke said he instructed his lawyer to ask the MoveOn.org Voter Fund to stop broadcasting the ad, which Clarke said was created without his knowledge or permission. The group said it wouldn't pull the ad, and one outside legal expert said the ad was clearly permissible under U.S. copyright laws. 

"I just don't want to be used," Clarke told The News Source. "I don't want to be part of what looks like a political TV ad. I'm trying hard to make this not a partisan thing but a discussion of how we stop terrorism from happening in the future, keep this on a policy issue. I don't want this to become any more emotional or personal than it has already." 

The campaigns director for MoveOn, Eli Pariser, said Clarke's comments were presented fairly and accurately but acknowledged it didn't speak with Clarke about the spot. 

"This is a public statement that Clarke had made," Pariser said. "We think it's important to get what Clarke has to say out there." 

One copyright expert said Clarke had little legal recourse under copyright statutes protecting the publicity rights of celebrities or public figures. 

"It's very difficult to imagine any claim that a court would take seriously in this context," said Susan Crawford, an assistant professor at Yeshiva University's Cardoza Law School in New York. "I'm surprised he's doing this. No one would assume that Richard Clarke encouraged them to do this." 

Clarke's attorney, Robert B. Barnett, couldn't be reached immediately for comment; his office said he was traveling. 

The advertisement by MoveOn.org accuses Bush of "shamelessly" exploiting the September 2001 terrorism attacks against New York and Washington. It includes two audio excerpts from an interview with Clarke that CBS aired on "60 Minutes" on March 21, the day before Clarke's book, "Against All Enemies," went on sale. 

In the interview excerpts, Clarke said it was "outrageous" that Bush was promoting his response to the terror attacks because "he ignored terrorism for months when maybe we could have done something to stop 9-11." 

A spokesman for CBS said the network didn't know about the ad. 

"CBS News was unaware that MoveOn.org was using CBS News copyrighted material without permission and to advocate a point of view," spokesman Kevin Tedesco said. "We are exploring our options." 

Clarke's scathing criticisms of the Bush administration's response to terrorism provoked an extraordinary response by the White House, which derided Clarke's assertions as false and irresponsible. 

Clarke - whose closest friend is a top aide to Kerry - has sought to deflect charges that his complaints were politically motivated, pledging last week during congressional testimony not to accept any job offer from the Kerry campaign. 

Clarke said it was unclear immediately whether he can legally demand that MoveOn stop airing the advertisement against Bush, since it includes remarks he made in a national news broadcast. 

"The point is not whether they're acting illegally, but I certainly want everyone to understand they are acting without my permission and distorting my message," Clarke said. 

___ 

On the Net: 

MoveOn's disputed ad: http://flash.moveon.org/pac/images/clarke.mpg 

Rat Genome Helps Separate Mice from Men
Wed Mar 31,12:44 PM ET 
Add Science 

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent 

WASHINGTON  - The genetic code of the rat joined the growing list of creatures whose DNA has been mapped on Wednesday and experts said it will make the laboratory rat, already beloved by scientists, an even better tool for fighting human disease. 

Missed Tech Tuesday? 
If you've waited this long, why not file online? Get a move on with E-filing tips and tax site comparisons. 

The rat is only the third species to be sequenced to such a degree, after the completed human genome sequence in April 2003 and the draft mouse genome in December 2002. 

It confirms that the laboratory rat is in fact a good choice for medical research. Almost all human genes associated with diseases have counterparts in the rat genome, the researchers write in this week's issue of the journal Nature. 

"This is an investment that is destined to yield major payoffs in the fight against human disease," Dr. Elias Zerhouni, head of the National Institutes of Health (news - web sites) that funded most of the research, said in a statement. 

"For nearly 200 years, the laboratory rat has played a valuable role in efforts to understand human biology and to develop new and better drugs," he added. 

"Now, armed with this sequencing data, a new generation of researchers will be able to greatly improve the utility of rat models and thereby improve human health." 

The researchers, led by a team at Baylor College of Medicine's Genome Sequencing Center in Texas, chose the Brown Norway strain of laboratory rat, known scientifically as Rattus norvegicus. 

This species was best known in the past for infecting ships and is distinct from the smaller black rat, Rattus rattus, notorious for spreading plague. 

"As we build upon the foundation laid by the Human Genome Project (news - web sites), it's become clear that comparing the human genome with those of other organisms is the most powerful tool available to understand the complex genomic components involved in human health and disease," said Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Human Genome Research Institute. 

Having the rat genome along with the mouse and the human allows scientists to triangulate, just as mariners triangulate to navigate using the stars and the sun, said Baylor's Richard Gibbs, who led the study. 

That in turn will help show what makes mice different from people, and rats from mice, the scientists told a news conference. 

"If we have two things we can't really tell how far apart we are. Now that we have a third species we can see whether the changes are rat changes, mouse changes or human changes," Gibbs said in an interview. 

The map has already shown an explosion of change in the rat's genetic makeup, Gibbs said -- helping separate the rat from other rodents and especially mice. 

Rats have significant differences from mice and from people notably in olfaction and immune system genes. 

But it is not so much new genes as extra copies of genes, Collins said. 

"It certainly doesn't seem that any new genes were invented along the way," Collins said. 

In other words, what makes us different from rats or mice is not some unique human gene, but rather what the body does with its genes. 

Recipe for Danger

Mar 31, 7:58 am ET 

NEW YORK  - Attention cooks -- a recipe for rolls in the current issue of Southern Living magazine could be hazardous.

The magazine, published by Time Warner Inc.'s Southern Progress Corp. subsidiary, said it is alerting readers about potential dangers from a recipe for icebox rolls in its April issue. The magazine said it has requested the removal of all copies of the April issue from newsstands.

"It has been determined that heating the water and shortening, as described in the recipe, is potentially dangerous and may pose a fire and safety hazard," the Birmingham, Alabama-based magazine said in a statement.

Southern Living said 12 of its roughly 2.4 million subscribers had contacted the company with concerns about the recipe. A corrected recipe is available on the southernliving.com Web site. 

Woman Challenges Trump 'You're Fired' Trademark

Mar 31, 8:01 am ET 

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON  - Chicago pottery merchant Susan Brenner has a message for real-estate mogul Donald Trump: in the Windy City, she'll do the firing.

Capitalizing on the success of his reality-television show, "The Apprentice," Trump has sought to trademark the phrase "You're Fired!" for use on clothing and casino equipment.

But the copper-maned mogul might want to tread carefully in the Chicago area, where Brenner says she has emblazoned the phrase on plates, mugs, birdhouses and other items in her suburban ceramics studio since 1997.

For underlings on "The Apprentice," a "You're fired" from Trump spells the end of a chance to work with one of the most high-profile businessmen of the past 20 years.

For Brenner, "You're fired" is a clever pun on the process of painting and glazing ceramics in her Northbrook, Illinois, studio, said attorney Marvin Benn.

Benn said on Tuesday he was preparing a letter warning Trump that he could be liable for trademark infringement if he sold "You're fired" products in Illinois and neighboring states.

"Because of what's going on, people are coming up to her and saying, 'You're using his mark,"' said Benn, who chairs the intellectual-property group at the law firm Much Shelist.

Brenner is entitled to local trademark protection even though she has not filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Benn said in a telephone interview.

Had she filed a patent application, she would be entitled to nationwide protection, he said.

A Trump spokeswoman declined to comment.

"The Apprentice" is shown on the NBC network, a division of General Electric Co. 

Here Comes the Punctuation Vigilante

Mar 30, 10:39 am ET 

By Paul Majendie

LONDON  - In the land of Shakespeare, punctuation faced extinction until writer Lynne Truss came to the rescue with a clutch of carefully placed commas and colons.

Taking a zero tolerance approach to grammatical lapses, she wrote a sprightly guide to punctuation, "Eats, shoots and leaves," that has sold more than half a million copies in Britain alone and soared to the top of bestseller lists.

Now, honing her crusading zeal over misplaced apostrophes, Truss is off to the United States to ensure transatlantic tidiness reigns supreme on the printed page.

She fervently believes the Internet, e-mails and text messaging have widened people's horizons, but treat punctuation like unnecessary linguistic baggage.

Truss, who says she is a stickler for accuracy and not an obsessive pedant, thinks the English have lost touch with the language they invented and gave to the world.

But she will not cast the first stone at the Americans, often mocked by the haughty British for bastardizing their mother tongue.

"American education seems to take grammar quite seriously," she told The News Source before leaving on a 10-city, coast-to-coast tour of North America for the launch of the book there next month.

"My sense of it is that British English is worse actually than American English. I think Americans really like rules. I think we in Britain are very slapdash and don't care if we are right or wrong."

PUNCTUATION CAMPAIGN

But Hollywood has certainly enraged Truss, a feisty columnist and broadcaster who would happily reach for her marker pen to put in punctuation where Tinseltown offers none.

"What about that film Two Weeks Notice? Where was the apostrophe?" she asks, enraged that there is no apostrophe at the end of Weeks.

The rise of the manufactured British pop band Hear'Say had her apoplectic with grammatical rage and she rejoiced when "the group thankfully folded within 18 months."

"Valentine's Day was a terrible time for me too," she said. "Only half the shops put the apostrophe in. That was upsetting."

Now it looks like her punctuation campaign could go global.

"The book is out in the Gulf states. There is a separate edition in India. It has done well in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. It does seem to be touching a chord," she said.

"It is an international issue. The Internet is having a big effect on the way people write in every language."

Truss insists that punctuation vigilantes are not nerds who should really get out more.

"We are like the little boy in The Sixth Sense who can see dead people, except that we can see dead punctuation," she said.

For, as she explains in "Eats, Shoots and Leaves," published in Britain by Profile Books, a misplaced comma can indeed be deadly.

The book's title stems from the joke about a panda who walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots into the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter as the panda heads for the exit. The animal produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and all is revealed.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves." Monday, 29 March 2004 17:32:21

Dallas Fed Bank President Gets Poetic

Mar 30, 10:36 am ET 

By Jon Herskovitz

DALLAS  - Global investors bet billions of dollars on the carefully crafted statements of the U.S. Federal Reserve. So what exactly is Dallas Fed Bank President Robert McTeer doing writing limericks about the economy?

McTeer is a member of the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed's monetary policymaking body and the group responsible for setting interest rates. He has taught economics at universities and written numerous articles on subjects such as the role of productivity growth and the new economy.

He also has a penchant for mixing his high-minded outlook on the U.S. economy with a bit of lower-brow poetry.

"This poetry writing is something that I do for fun, way out on the fringes," McTeer said.

In 2002, he penned a limerick to describe the turnaround in the economy despite predictions of a recession. It read:

There once was an economy on the ropes

That kept dashing our recovery hopes

When we made the concession

To call it a recession

It turned up, and we felt like dopes

McTeer's first haiku, the Japanese poetic form with three unrhymed lines of five syllables, seven syllables and five syllables, was delivered to Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. It was on contemporary monetary policy. That haiku was lost but another macroeconomic haiku can be found on a special section of the Dallas Fed's Web site (http://www.dallasfed.org) called "Rhymes with No Reason."

The "Rhymes" section houses a collection of McTeer's poems and vignettes and brings a bit of levity to a Web site loaded with economic statistics and analysis.

While market players have a tough time interpreting the obtuse and somewhat opaque Fed speak, McTeer can give the current state of the economy in the form of a haiku:

The economy

Is recovering nicely

But without new jobs

'CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR'

He gussied up the sentiment when he addressed a high-powered group of economists and market players in New York with the limerick called "Close but No Cigar":

The recovery is now 2 years old

And maybe it was oversold

Now we've made the discovery

That it's a jobless recovery

It wins the silver, but not the gold

McTeer is considered a "dove" among Fed bank presidents, meaning he does not take as hard of a line as other Open Market Committee members in using monetary policy to stamp out inflation. He has earned the nickname the "lonesome dove" -- also the title of a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Texan Larry McMurtry -- for occasionally standing apart from other committee members.

McTeer admits he would not mind being a country music singer and songwriter.

"The only problem is that I am not that good at songwriting and I don't sing all that well," McTeer said.

So the president of the Dallas Fed Bank uses poetry as a creative outlet.

"I do not know anything about poetry. I do not know how to do it right. If I did, it probably wouldn't rhyme and then it probably wouldn't be any fun," he said.

Christopher Rupkey, a senior financial economist for the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in New York, said McTeer is an important player among the Fed bank presidents. His speeches, often unscripted, are closely watched because they give some insight as to what is happening behind the scenes at the Fed, Rupkey said.

"McTeer is a highly trained economist who also has a common sense view of the economy. He can look at economic actions and understand how they will be perceived by Main Street and Wall Street," Rupkey said.

Fed watchers have said McTeer is one of several candidates mentioned as a possible replacement for Greenspan once he steps down.

McTeer uses his poetry to help connect with audiences such as Rotary clubs or high school teachers when he gives speeches. He delivers his verse to audiences of economists, investors and various groups in Texas and the Southwest that have booked him as a speaker.

He says the poetry is part of his "shtick."

"When somebody invites a Fed person to speak, what they really expect is something like eating spinach. They think it is something they ought to do, but they are not expecting to enjoy it," McTeer said. 

Treasury Department Slips on Ladders

Mar 30, 10:36 am ET 

By Jonathan Nicholson

WASHINGTON  - It was the anecdote that politically seemed too good to be true. And it was. Treasury Secretary John Snow was set to say on Friday that "frivolous lawsuits" had caused the U.S. ladder industry to fold.

"There is not a single company left in the United States that makes ladders. The lawsuits got to be too much for the ladder industry," read comments Snow prepared for a conference sponsored by the Small Business Administration.

But when the department discovered there were some 11 producers selling $850 million worth of ladders in the United States, those words were left unspoken and deleted from a speech text posted later on the department's Web site.

A Treasury official said the statement was in error.

"The buck stops with me," said Treasury spokesman Rob Nichols on Monday. "That is my error. That is a factual inaccuracy that I missed during the fact-checking process."

The Bush administration has been urging Congress to pass measure to curb lawsuits against businesses. Tort reform is part of President Bush's pre-election economic plan.

Federal agencies often provide advance copies of carefully vetted speeches to reporters, to help get their message across in stories.

"I'm really disappointed," said Ron Pietrzak, executive director of the Chicago-based American Ladder Institute, which includes 11 domestic ladder makers and has a Web site at: www.americanladderinstitute.org

The group said the U.S. ladder industry generates sales of more than $850 million annually.

Pietrzak said liability issues are a concern for manufacturers. "People do stupid things," he said.

But Pietrzak said his group is also worried about competition from Chinese ladder makers.

In January, Forbes magazine said the nation's oldest ladder maker, family-owned John S. Tilley Ladders Co. of Watervliet, N.Y., had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, in part because of rising liability insurance costs. A call to the company was not immediately returned. 

Oven Gets Hot, Woman Gets Shot

Mar 29, 10:39 am ET 

SAN ANTONIO  - A Texas woman heating fish sticks was shot in the leg by a gun that had been stashed in her oven, police said.

Roxanne Perez, 29, was taken to a local hospital where she was in good condition, police said Friday.

They said a friend of hers had hidden the .357 caliber handgun in the stove two weeks earlier without telling her after she told him no guns were allowed in her house.

When Perez heated up the fish sticks she also heated up the gun, which caused several rounds to be fired. One hit her in the leg.

No charges have been filed because the shooting was accidental, police said. 

Purebred Dogs Are Said to Resemble Owners

2 hours, 5 minutes ago

By SETH HETTENA, News Source Writer 

SAN DIEGO - Those who think purebred dogs look like their owners are barking up the right tree, but matching a mutt to its master is another thing, a study suggests. 

Research at the University of California, San Diego indicates that when people pick a dog, they look for one that, at some level, bears some resemblance to them. And when they get a purebred dog, they get what they want. 

When given a choice of two dogs, judges correctly matched 25 purebreds with their owners nearly two out of three times. With mutts, however, the pattern went to the dogs. 

"When you pick a purebred, you pick it specifically because of how it's going to look as a grown-up," said Nicholas Cristenfeld, UCSD professor of psychology and co-author of the study, which appears in the current issue of Psychological Science. 

Cristenfeld said mutt owners such as himself make their choice on the spur-of-the-moment at a dog pound, not knowing what a puppy will look like. 

Forty-five dogs and their owners chosen at random were photographed separately at three San Diego dog parks. The judges, some 28 undergraduates taking psychology classes at UC San Diego, were shown pictures of the owners and two dogs and asked to match the correct dog with the owner. 

Out of the 25 purebreds, there were 16 correct matches and nine misses. For 20 mutts in the study, there were seven matches, four ties and nine misses. 

"There is a certain stereotype of person from each breed," said Tracy Cavaciuti, a French Bulldog breeder in Connecticut. 

So what kind of person likes the pop-eyed, pointy-eared, pug-nosed Frenchie? 

"Actually, they're quite trendy and good-looking," Cavaciuti said, adding that they tend to strut on the streets of New York City's tony Upper East Side. 

Hound people are a different story. 

"You can spot them a mile away," she said. "They're very doggy." 

How the aristocratic Afghan Hound or the otherworldly French Bulldog resemble their owners is unclear since the study found judges didn't use any one characteristic to make the matches. There were no significant correlation between dogs and owners on the basis of size, attractiveness, friendliness and energy level when considered separately. 

"People are attracted to looks and temperaments that reflect themselves or how they perceive themselves," said Gail Miller, a spokeswoman for the American Kennel Club. Miller, who has owned several bearded collies, described her "beardies" as gregarious, active dogs. 

"I'm definitely like them - very outgoing, likes to have fun and get active," she said. 

___ 

News Source writer Daisy Nguyen contributed to this story. 

German Clerk Catches Thief with Own Stolen Card

Mar 29, 10:36 am ET 

BERLIN  - A German man was arrested for credit card theft after trying to buy $90 worth of beer and cigarettes at a gas station with a stolen card that belonged to the cashier, Berlin police said Monday.

"When I looked at the credit card I saw it was my name," the 33-year-old named Heiko told Berlin's B.Z. newspaper. He locked the man inside the shop and called the police. He said he had recently ordered a credit card but it never arrived in the post.

"It was not a common name, so there was no chance of coincidence," a police spokeswoman said. 

San Francisco Ballpark Becomes WiFi Internet Hub

Tue Mar 30, 4:01 PM ET

Add Sports 

SAN FRANCISCO  - The old ballgame is getting some new technology. 

Baseball fans bored by the slow pace of a game or wanting more statistics and information will be able to connect computer devices via wireless computer networking, or WiFi, at San Francisco Giants (news) home games this year, the team announced on Tuesday. The Giants' stadium is, after all, called SBC Park, for telecommunications giant SBC Communications Inc. 

"We've created, if not the largest, one of the largest hot spots in the world," said Larry Baer, the team's chief operating officer. "We're the first professional sports facility to provide people universal WiFi connectivity." 

San Francisco's wired stadium is the latest in a growing world of wireless connectivity. Earlier this month the city of San Jose, the capital of Silicon Valley, began offering free WiFi service in its downtown areas. 

A growing number of retail establishments such as McDonald's and Starbucks are also offering WiFi, a wireless technology that allows a computer with a special modem to connect to the Internet. 

Even more remote corners of the world are beginning to offer WiFi services. 

Srinagar, home to alluring houseboats and gondolas at the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains, recently started offering WiFi service to lure tourists deterred in recent years by turmoil in India's Kashmir (news - web sites) region. 

The WiFi service, provided by SBC and Nortel Networks Corp., is free for fans attending games, but tickets to games cost as much as $75 for the best seats. 

American Kids, Parents Lack Sleep, Survey Finds

Tue Mar 30, 7:16 PM ET

Add Health 

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent 

WASHINGTON  - Most American children are not getting enough sleep and television and caffeine are helping keep many awake at night, the National Sleep Foundation said on Tuesday. 

A survey of 1,400 parents showed that many are not aware of how much sleep their children need and may not realize that TV and caffeine can affect their child's sleep. 

"Parents are paying a price for their children's poor sleep habits," Jodi Mindell, a director of the foundation and associate director of the Sleep Disorders Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, told a news conference. 

"The majority of parents are being awakened at least one night a week by their children." 

At the same time, researchers told a conference at the National Institutes of Health (news - web sites) that Americans need guidelines on how to get more sleep. 

"The depth and breadth of sleep problems is not fully appreciated in this country," said U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona. "Chronic sleep loss and untreated sleep disorders have a profound impact on Americans of all ages -- they affect 70 million Americans and cost our nation $15 billion in health care expenses." 

Dr. Carl Hunt, director of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research, said the research shows that sleep disorders are common but people do not yet realize it. 

"We need to define some better ways to get the message out to people," Hunt said in an interview. "It's not just a matter of 'you ought to sleep more' but why they ought to sleep more." 

DYING TO GET SOME SLEEP 

Hunt said lack of sleep can be dangerous, just like high cholesterol or high blood pressure.

"We do know that it can kill you," he said. "A lack of sleep has major implications for accidents -- not only workplace accidents but highway accidents." 

The Sleep Foundation said its survey showed 30 percent of all children aged 1 to 10 wake at least once a night and need attention, which then affects their parents' sleep. 

The poll found 26 percent of children aged 3 or older drink at least one caffeinated beverage a day, including sodas or iced tea. Those children slept a half-hour less each night than those who did not drink caffeine. 

The survey also found many children have a television in their bedroom. Parents said 43 percent of school-aged children had their own TV sets, as did one third of young children aged 3 to 5 and 20 percent of infants and toddlers. 

According to the poll, children with TV sets went to sleep 20 minutes later than those without and slept on average 9.2 hours a night compared to 9.6 hours a night -- "a loss of more than two hours of sleep a week," the foundation said. 

The result can be cranky children who are not learning as well as they should, the group said. 

"Parents need to make sufficient sleep a family priority," said Mindell, adding that bedtime routines should exclude TV and include a reading a story. 

The poll found that infants aged 3 to 11 months slept only 12.7 hours a day on average, although they need 14 to 15 hours. Toddlers aged 1 to 3 slept 11.7 hours but they need 12 to 14. 

Preschoolers up to 5 slept 10.4 hours a night on average although they are supposed to get 11 to 13 hours and children up to age 10 slept 9.5 hours although they need 10 or even 11 hours a night. 

Kutcher 'Punks' Audience; Show to Return 
1 hour, 4 minutes ago

By ANTHONY BREZNICAN, News Source Entertainment Writer 

LOS ANGELES - Curse you, Ashton Kutcher (news), for your lying, cheating, punk-ing ways! On Thursday - which just so happened to be April Fools Day - MTV announced that Kutcher and his celebrity prank show "Punk'd" will return to the network with a new season. In December, Kutcher swore the program was finished. 

Related Links
� Punk'd (MTV)

"This is not an April Fools joke," MTV spokeswoman Vanessa Reyes said. 

But, but ... what about a few months ago, when Kutcher promised the world he was all punk'd out? Was he just tricking everybody? 

"Yes, he was," Reyes said. 

When Kutcher announced an end to the series after two seasons in December, The News Source pointed out the possibility that the announcement was a trick aimed at duping new celebrity prank victims into complacency. 

At the time, a page on MTV's Web site announced the end of season two with this message: "But don't worry, the new season starts in March." 

Turns out it actually starts in April, but in this tangle of lies, who's counting? 

Here's what Kutcher told The News Source in January: 

"I've become the boy who cried wolf," he acknowledged, offering some assurance that his decision to end the show after two seasons isn't just another hoax. 

"Let's put it this way," he said. "I'm getting ready to start shooting two movies, I'm still working on `That '70s Show,' I'm producing two other shows for MTV and creating a one-hour drama pilot for Fox ... I don't have the time." 

Liar. 

Anyway, "Punk'd" returns to MTV on Sunday, April 25. 

Unless Kutcher gets eaten by a wolf in the meantime. 

___ 

On the Net: 

"Punk'd" official site: http://www.mtv.com/onair/punkd/index.jhtml 

Dip Into Honey Pot for Good Health 
Mon Mar 29, 1:26 PM ET 
Add Health 

By Merritt McKinney 

NEW YORK (The News Source Health) - Adding a little honey to your diet may do more than satisfy your sweet tooth. Honey may also boost levels of healthy antioxidants, new research suggests. 


 

For centuries, honey has been known to have some beneficial effects, according to University of California-Davis researcher Dr. Heidrun B. Gross. In an interview with The News Source Health, Gross recalled her grandmother's advice to eat honey when she felt under the weather. 

Now, Gross and her colleagues have provided scientific evidence to support what her grandmother knew all along. 

"Honey is not just a sweetener," Gross said. It also has compounds called phenolics that have antioxidant properties, she explained. These substances quench free radicals, which are unstable byproducts of normal metabolism that cause damage to arteries, and to DNA that can lead to cancer and other diseases. 

It is easy enough to take vitamin supplements that contain antioxidants, but Gross said she prefers "to look for foods, rather than compounds, that are already part of our diet." 

In a study of 25 healthy adults, Gross and her colleagues showed that honey can boost antioxidant levels. For 29 days, participants added 4 tablespoons of buckwheat honey to their daily diet. The researchers tested two types of buckwheat honey with different amounts of antioxidants. 

Blood samples taken at the beginning and end of the study showed that the total level of phenolics increased in both groups of volunteers. 

Gross presented the results Sunday at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Anaheim, California. 

Previous research had shown that a single dose of honey can boost antioxidants, but Gross said that the current study is thought to be the first study of daily honey consumption. 

"You can definitely increase the amount of antioxidants" by adding a little honey to your diet, Gross said. She noted that the study included only healthy people, so the jury is still out on the long-term health benefits of honey. 

But for people interested in boosting antioxidant levels, the California researcher recommended adding 2 to 4 tablespoons a day to their diet. This amount of honey "definitely provides some antioxidants," she said, which may boost the body's defense system. 

Gross advised people to consider substituting honey for other sweeteners that do not provide the same burst of antioxidants. 

But not all honey is created equal in terms of antioxidants, Gross said. For the most part, the darker the honey, the more antioxidants it contains, she said. 

Wi-Fi signals turn up in some unexpected places

Mon Mar 29, 6:58 AM ET

Add Business - USATODAY.com 

By Michelle Kessler, USA TODAY 

Anyone can get their kicks on Route 66 - but on Highway 101, you can get Wi-Fi in 77 places.

At least that's how many wireless networks USA TODAY found while driving the highway from San Francisco to Los Angeles. We hunted for networks from a moving car using a wireless-enabled laptop and standard Microsoft Wi-Fi software, which is part of Windows.

Wi-Fi signals usually travel only about a city block, so we expected to pick up only networks that are very close to the freeway. And we expected to miss some of those, because trees, hills, buildings and other obstructions can block Wi-Fi signals. (That might explain why we found fewer networks in hilly San Francisco than in flat L.A.) Our technique would work on any highway in America.

Our 440-mile journey turned up networks in surprising places - and some surprisingly lax security. 

What we found:

�Most Wi-Fi networks are private. Some Wi-Fi networks, such as those in coffee shops, airports and hotels, are designed for anyone to use. But most of the ones we saw appeared to be private networks from homes and businesses. (It's often tough to tell exactly where a Wi-Fi signal originates.) 

We saw a cluster of networks near high-rise apartments in San Francisco's hip South of Market neighborhood, for example. Others popped up near the Silicon Valley office parks that are home to tech giants Oracle and Sun Microsystems.

These networks were probably set up for internal use only. But there's almost no way to keep a Wi-Fi signal - which travels via radio wave - contained inside a building.

�A private Wi-Fi network might still be open. Although no one can control where a Wi-Fi signal goes, basic security precautions can keep the public from logging on. A surprising number of networks didn't have them.

To test, we stopped in downtown Los Angeles. Among the 31 networks we found along one block, only 13 required a password, or network key, to log on. That's one of the most rudimentary Wi-Fi security features.

Two networks - one from a Starbucks and one from the L.A. Public Library - were designed to be open to the public. The other 16 appeared to be private but required no password. Three were so open we easily hopped onto their connections, borrowing their Internet service to surf the Web and send e-mail. Had we more devious intentions, we could have used the network to try to hack into internal corporate files. 

�Wi-Fi is found mainly in high-tech, urban areas - but not always. Not surprisingly, Silicon Valley and Los Angeles had the most Wi-Fi networks. Clusters also popped up near California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo and the University of California-Santa Barbara.

But one network appeared in the middle of farmland, just north of the small town of Salinas. Another popped up near the farming town of Gonzales, population 8,275. 

And a third appeared on a picturesque stretch of beachfront highway occupied only by a restaurant, sheep and surfers.

High Court Permits Foster Photos Withheld

2 hours, 42 minutes ago

By GINA HOLLAND, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the government does not have to release 11-year-old photographs from the suicide of Clinton administration White House lawyer Vincent Foster because it would cause his family pain and intrude on their privacy. 

The News Source Photo 

The unanimous decision makes it more difficult to use a public records law to access law enforcement records from autopsies and death scenes. Justices said the privacy rights of survivors must be balanced against the public's right to information. 

A California attorney had sought the Foster pictures, saying they might prove he was murdered as part of a White House cover-up. There was no reasonable evidence of that, the Supreme Court said. 

"Family members have a personal stake in honoring and mourning their dead and objecting to unwarranted public exploitation that, by intruding upon their own grief, tends to degrade the rites and respect they seek to accord to the deceased person who was once their own," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote. 

The widow of race car driver Dale Earnhardt (news - web sites) had filed papers with the Supreme Court opposing the release of four photographs of Foster's body. The Earnhardt family had worked in Florida courts to prevent public release of autopsy photographs of Earnhardt, who died in 2001 during the Daytona 500. 

Multiple investigations determined that a depressed Foster shot himself in the head at a Civil War-era park in Virginia in 1993. The 48-year-old longtime friend of Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton (news - web sites) was handling several personal legal matters for them at the time. 

Foster's family had joined the government in fighting the release of death scene pictures to attorney Allan Favish. Favish sought the photos under the Freedom of Information Act. He argued that the law did not give any special privacy rights to relatives. 

The Bush administration maintained that a victory for Favish, known as a Clinton antagonist, could lead to the release of other sensitive information, like autopsy photographs of U.S. soldiers killed overseas and pictures of unidentified remains from the Sept. 11 attacks. 

The Supreme Court ruled that a part of the law that allows the government to withhold records that could "constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy" applies to the survivors. 

Kennedy said that means child molesters and murderers cannot use the law to get photographs of deceased victims. 

"We find it inconceivable that Congress could have intended a definition of `personal privacy' so narrow that it would allow convicted felons to obtain these materials without limitations at the expense of surviving family members' personal privacy," he wrote. 

It was an important clarification of the federal law that allows reporters and others to get some unclassified records. 

Favish had the backing of media groups worried that the court could keep too much information off-limits and hurt journalists trying to uncover wrongdoing and abuse in federal agencies. 

Kennedy said that even if family members object to the release of information, a court could order it if there is some evidence of government impropriety. That is not the case in Foster's death, he said. 

Thousands of pages of reports about the Foster death and more than 100 photographs have already been released, and five government investigations concluded that the death was a suicide. 

The case is National Archives and Records Administration v. Favish, 02-954. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Supreme Court briefs: http://www.abanet.org/publiced/preview/briefs/home.html 

Allan Favish site: http://www.allanfavish.com 

"Simpsons" Cast Strikes Again
Thu Apr 1, 1:00 PM ET 
Add Television - E! Online 

By Josh Grossberg 

Aye Caramba! The real-life alter-egos of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and the rest of The Simpsons gang want more D'oh. 

� News: The Simpsons movie finally?
� News: The Simpsons renewed
� News: The Simpsons get more D'oh

E! Online Photo 

The News Source 

Slideshow: The Simpsons

Six of the show's voice actors have failed to turn up for two table reads in the last couple of weeks in a strong-arm bid for better pay, delaying production on the hit 'toon's 16th season, reports Variety 

The suddenly silent include DanCastellaneta (Homer, Krusty, Grandpa Simpson, Mayor Quimby), Nancy Cartwright (Bart, Nelson, Ralph Wiggum), Julie Kavner (Marge, Selma, Patty), Yeardley Smith (news) (Lisa), Hank Azaria (news) (Moe, Apu, Chief Wiggum), and Harry Shearer (news) (Mr. Burns, Ned Flanders, Principal Skinner, et al). 

The work stoppage comes after reps for the Simpsons cast sought to renegotiate the terms of their current deal with Fox TV executives but met with little success. 

Talks to renew the thesps' contracts reportedly broke down when Fox rebuffed their request for a pay hike to $360,000 an episode each, or $8 million for the full 22-episode season. That's a major raise from the $125,000 an episode the cast raked in for seasons 13, 14, and 15. 

That three-year deal expired at the end of last season and America's favorite dysfunctional family has been working without a contract ever since. Meanwhile, their agents and Fox have been battling over just how much is enough to keep them on The Simpsons, now the longest running show on television and the crown jewel of Fox's prime-time lineup. 

The current impasse is similar to a contract battle that occurred in 1998 when Castellaneta and company were making just a meager $30,000 an episode. They went on a similar strike then because they felt they deserved their fair share of the revenue pie. 

Mmmmpie. 

The Simpsons is a global industry, earning more than $1 billion for Fox in syndication revenue with reruns showing all over the world and millions more through the licensing of merchandise. 

A spokesman for Fox and James L. Brooks (news)' Gracie Films, which produces The Simpsons, refused to comment on the contract dispute, as did the actors' reps. 

While the group doesn't come close to Ray Romano (news)'s reported $1.7-$2 million per episode for his Emmy-winning series Everybody Loves Raymond, the CBS star does put in a heck of a lot more time on the clock. 

That's because the Simpsons Six have the lightest work schedule this side of Springfield, showing up at the office about two half-days a week. And considering it takes a mere six to seven hours to voice an episode, an insider close to the negotiations told Variety that "they already have the deal of a lifetime." 

It's expected both sides will eventually reach an agreement and the dispute will not affect the animated movie that Brooks and Simpsons creator Matt Groening are currently developing with a team of writers. 

As Mr. Burns might say..."exxxxxcellent." 

Fossil Find Is From Early Push-Up Creature 
Thu Apr 1, 5:39 PM ET

By PAUL RECER, News Source Science Writer 

WASHINGTON - A 365-million-year-old arm bone fossil found in Pennsylvania came from one of the first creatures able to do push-ups, an evolutionary step that was necessary for animals to move from the sea to dry land. 

When the animal lived, there were no vertebrates on dry land, and the oceans were a place of fierce, toothy meat eaters living a predatory life of eat or be eaten. 

It was into this hostile environment that a two-foot-long animal that was more than a fish and less than a true amphibian made its brief appearance in the fossil record, said researcher Neil Shubin. 

The four-legged creature had a humerus, or upper arm bone. Such a bone, far different from the flipper bones of fish, gave the creature an important new ability - it could raise its upper body like an athlete doing push-ups. 

"This animal was there for just a brief moment in time," said Shubin, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago. "It was only later that we start seeing in the fossil record things that commonly walked on land." 

The animal's upper arm bone shows that evolution was already preparing vertebrates for their grand invasion of the world beyond the beach and the eventual appearance on land of amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs, birds and mammals. 

"It could have evolved this for a variety of reasons, including pushing its head up out of the water to breathe or to walk around in shallow water," Shubin said. "And we can't exclude the possibility that it walked on land." 

He said other similar tetrapods from around the same period are known to have had both gills and lungs and, thus, could breathe either under or above the water. 

The animal's arm bone fossil has a bony crest that formed the anchor for powerful chest, or pectoral, muscles. 

"That is the muscle used when you do a push-up or a bench press," said Shubin. "And that is the muscle that is super-emphasized in this animal." 

He said the shoulder joint was primitive, rather like a hinge that could move the arm up and down. The human shoulder joint enables the arm to swivel and twist and turn through many degrees of motion in several directions. 

"These animals had a hinge in the shoulder that allowed them to do just one thing - push-ups," said Shubin. "That was a stage that our common ancestors went through before evolution eventually developed the classic ball and socket joint," as in human shoulders. 

Jennifer A. Clack, a researcher at the University of Cambridge in England, said the discovery by Shubin and his co-authors suggests the humerus bone could have come from a previously unknown tetrapod that needed its limbs to bear weight, as required when living on land. 

Discovery of the new fossil, she said, should stimulate a closer analysis of fossils from the Pennsylvania site where the new discovery was made. 

The tetrapod fossil was discovered in a road cut in a part of western Pennsylvania. The road construction revealed layers of rock that were laid down as sediment when the area was covered by a vast inland sea, stretching from what is now the Gulf of Mexico deep into the heartland of North America. 

Shubin said the animal, which has not been named, lived in a river delta, an area where water draining from mountains to the east joined the inland sea. 

Other fossils indicate that almost all of the other animals living in the area were meat-eating fish, some 15 feet long with teeth the size of railroad spikes. 

One of those predators may have killed the tetrapod whose fossil Shubin and his co-authors studied. He said the bone bears faint marks of what might have been tooth marks. 

"It was highly hostile and predatory, so there were lots of things that could have eaten this guy," said Shubin. 

____ 

On the Net: 

Science: http://www.sciencemag.org 

Gateway to Close Its 188 Retail Stores 2 hours, 31 minutes ago

 

By Duncan Martell 

SAN FRANCISCO  - Gateway Inc. (NYSE:GTW - news) on Thursday said it would close its remaining 188 stores and eliminate about 2,500 retail jobs, or 38 percent of its workforce, ending a controversial chapter for the struggling computer and consumer electronics maker. 

Poway, California-based Gateway, which opened its first store in late 1996 in North Carolina and at one point had more than 320 of them, made the move less than one month after it completed its acquisition of eMachines for $290 million. 

Wayne Inouye, who ran eMachines and took over as chief executive of Gateway from co-founder Ted Waitt, who remains chairman, is not wasting time to try to right the ship at Gateway, analysts said. He and his executives turned around eMachines and built it into a tightly run and profitable distributor of low-cost PCs with 2003 revenue of $1.1 billion. 

"The eMachines team has a real take-no-prisoners attitude when it comes to cost," said Martin Reynolds, an analyst at Gartner Inc. "They're very good at managing retail channels and costs." 

Shares of Gateway rose in after-hours trade to $5.60 on the INET electronic brokerage, up from their close of $5.40 on the New York Stock Exchange (news - web sites). In regular trade, Gateway stock rose 12 cents. 

Boosting its access to retailers such as Best Buy Co. (NYSE:BBY - news), which along with others sells eMachines PCs, was one of the principal rationales for Gateway to buy eMachines. With the store closings, due by April 9, a Gateway spokesman said it will redouble its efforts to build a broader retail distribution network for its PCs, flat-panel TVs, digital cameras and other consumer electronics products. 

Brad Williams, the Gateway spokesman, said that the company would disclose the financial impact of the stores' closure when it reports quarterly results April 29 and would provide additional detail about its brand and channel strategy "in the weeks to come." 

For the time being, it's expected that eMachines PC will retain their brand name on retailers' shelves. Had Gateway kept the stores, it could have caused friction with retailers like Best Buy. 

Best Buy's Chief Executive Brad Anderson said last month at the The News Source Consumer Products and Retail Summit in New York that he was "troubled" with the connection between Gateway and eMachines, because it meant he was essentially selling a competitor's merchandise. 

That friction is now gone. 

Gateway's purchase of its profitable rival doubled its market share in the United States to about 7 percent, and it forecast it will return to sustained profitability in 2005 as a result of the acquisition. 

Gateway's stores had long been criticized by analysts and investors as an expensive drag on cash flow because of lease costs and the difficulty of managing inventories. 

Just last May, Waitt rolled out an expensive plan to remodel its stores to make them a destination of sorts for customers where they could explore all of Gateway's wares in a more relaxed setting. 

That remodel was completed in September, in time for the Christmas shopping season, but, ultimately, the die had long been cast. 

"It was a bold try, and Ted had a vision there, but market forces were against him. It was just too expensive to make those stores work," Reynolds said. 

Irish Lawmaker Loses Post for Smoking

Thu Apr 1,10:40 AM ET

Add World - 

DUBLIN, Ireland - Ireland's sweeping new ban on workplace smoking claimed its first casualty Thursday - a high-profile lawmaker who lost his political post after lighting up in the parliamentary bar. 

John Deasy, who was supposed to lead the Fine Gael party's official support for the ban, was punished after smoking at least three cigarettes Tuesday night in the bar beside the debating chamber. 

Fellow lawmakers said Deasy had tried to open a locked emergency door into an outdoor courtyard. When the bar staff wouldn't let him out, he began smoking indoors in violation of the ban. 

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said he had no choice but to dismiss Deasy from his justice post in the shadow cabinet. 

"Politicians must lead by example. No man, no woman, and no politician is above the law," Kenny said. 

Kenny said Deasy may also face prosecution. The ban specifies a maximum $3,700 fine for anyone who smokes in an enclosed workplace. 

Deasy, 35, declined to comment. He will remain a lawmaker representing Waterford in southeast Ireland. 

The son of a former agriculture minister, Deasy had been tipped as a possible future Fine Gael leader. He frequently captured media attention with his stinging attacks on the government, left-wing opposition parties and even - to the anger of Kenny - his own right-leaning party. 

Representatives of more than 10,000 pub owners in Ireland have claimed the ban will cost them business in a country where about 30 percent of adults smoke. So far, however, pubs have reported few problems in enforcement. Unlike the parliamentary bar, some have created new outdoor areas where drinkers can still smoke legally. 

Sun Settles With Microsoft, Cuts Jobs

14 minutes ago

By MAY WONG, News Source Technology Writer 

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Struggling server maker Sun Microsystems Inc. reached a sweeping, $1.6 billion settlement with Microsoft Corp. and said it plans to cooperate with its longtime nemesis, a company it had branded an unrepentant monopolist. 

The surprise agreement was accompanied by an announcement Friday by Sun that it is cutting 3,300 jobs and that its net loss for the fiscal third quarter will be wider than expected. The cuts represent 9 percent of its total work force of more than 35,000. 

The "broad cooperating agreement" with Microsoft ends Sun's $1 billion private antitrust suit against the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant. Sun's complaints also helped spark the investigation that led to the European Union (news - web sites)'s recent record fine against Microsoft. 

"It puts peace on the table in a big way," said Scott McNealy, Sun's chief executive, during a conference call Friday. 

As part of the deal, Microsoft will pay Sun $700 million to resolve the antitrust case, which was scheduled to go to trial in January 2006, and $900 million to resolve patent issues. Sun and Microsoft also will pay royalties for each others' technologies. 

"Our companies will continue to compete hard, but this agreement creates a new basis for cooperation that will benefit the customers of both companies," said Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive officer. 

Sun's biggest claim - and the main charge in its antitrust against Microsoft - involved the Java programming environment Sun created to allow software to run on all computers regardless of the operating system. 

Sun said Microsoft violated its license agreement by creating its own version of Java, thus making it less universal. Though a settlement of that case was reached, both sides ended up in court again after Microsoft said it planned to stop supporting Java. 

Under Friday's agreement, Microsoft "may continue to provide product support" for its version of the software, called Microsoft Java Virtual Machine. 

The deal also creates cooperation between the companies in the technical area of Web-based applications and user identity management between Sun and Microsoft servers. Sun also agreed to sign a license that will allow its software to better communicate with Windows-based desktop computers. 

The agreement settles Sun's complaint over Microsoft's server communications that led to the EU's decision against Microsoft last month. That ruling also was based on Microsoft's bundling of its media player with its ubiquitous Windows operating system, though Sun did not play a role in that complaint. 

"Sun is also satisfied that the agreements announced today satisfy the objectives it was pursuing in the EU actions pending against Microsoft," Sun said in a statement Friday. 

The agreement is an unprecedented change in the relationship between the two companies. 

Sun's McNealy often railed against Microsoft, repeatedly calling Microsoft a monopoly and its .Net Web services technology "dot-Not." He often used the world "hairball" in describing Microsoft's proprietary software. 

But the anti-Microsoft rants quieted in recent months, as Sun struggled to post a profit and the companies worked at resolving the issues between them. On Friday, Sun executives said discussions have been ongoing since Sun licensed Java to Microsoft. 

Sun, once a shining star of Silicon Valley, also said it expects revenue for the quarter ended March 28 to be approximately $2.65 billion. Net loss will be between $750 million and $810 million, or 23 cents to 25 cents per share. 

Analysts polled by Thomson First Call were projecting a loss of 3 cents a share on revenue of $2.85 billion. 

Shares of Sun rose on the news, up 39 cents to $4.58 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Microsoft shares rose 55 cents to $25.63. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Sun Microsystems: http://www.sun.com 

Washington Delivers Partisan Pranks

43 minutes ago

Add Elections - 

By ELIZABETH WOLFE, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) doesn't have a Republican-leaning French cousin. President Bush (news - web sites) is not pushing legislation that would have other countries pay off the deficit. Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter is not retiring to study Scottish Common Law. 

And Democrats and Republicans did not agree on anything Thursday. 

Playing traditional April Fools' politics, the parties and presidential campaigns mocked their opponents with bogus announcements that didn't always get a laugh. 

In one of the day's more believable pranks, the Democratic National Committee (news - web sites) announced that Republicans had agreed to a series of televised presidential debates. 

"This day, April 1, will indeed go down as a historic day in presidential politics," DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe and Republican National Committee (news - web sites) Chairman Ed Gillespie said in a joint statement that proved to be false. 

On a day when Kerry's campaign did issue a debate challenge to Bush, some media outlets were confused, calling both parties for more details and prompting the DNC to issue a clarification. 

"At a glance, we will admit it looks quite formal," DNC spokesman Jano Cabrera said about their statement. 

For its turn, the RNC announced that Kerry's French cousin had called to support Bush. 

A cartoon spoof on the RNC Web site also poked fun at the Massachusetts senator's support of higher gas taxes and his claims of backing from anonymous foreign leaders. 

"All of it has his French cousin so upset, he called to say he's voting for Bush," a voiceover said in the animated ad, which ended with an April Fools' greeting in French. 

Kerry's campaign took a dig at Bush over rising deficits and U.S. jobs lost overseas, attributing a fake quote to the president explaining why other countries should be responsible for the U.S. deficit: "Why should every kid born in America be stuck with $35,000 in debt - when we can just outsource it and stick it to every kid on the planet?" 

Addressing Pennsylvania's heated Republican Senate primary between Specter and Rep. Pat Toomey, a news release from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee headlined "Specter to Retire" irked a handful of duped reporters. 

"One thing I learned from this is how few people read past the subject line or headline in a press release," said DSCC spokesman Brad Woodhouse. "There were some media outlets that didn't think it was all that funny." 

___ 

On the Net: 

Republican National Committee: http://www.rnc.org 

Democratic National Committee: http://www.democrats.org 

Virgin's Branson to Host Fox Reality Show 
1 hour, 4 minutes ago 
Add Entertainment - 

NEW YORK - As Donald Trump basks in the popularity of his NBC reality show, "The Apprentice," the Fox network has announced that Virgin Group's Richard Branson will be leading a group of young entrepreneurs on a global journey. 

"Branson's Big Adventure," the working title of the show, will air later this year, Fox Broadcasting Co. said Thursday. 

The show will feature "a select group of America's best and brightest," who will fly to international destinations and relive some of Branson's personal experiences. Each week, one candidate will be left on the tarmac as the rest of the group jets off to the next adventure. 

Mike Darnell, executive vice president of specials and alternative programming for the network, said in a statement, "It's not about business acumen; for Branson, it's about finding that one extraordinary individual who has the right stuff to follow in his footsteps. 

"This isn't about selling a glass of lemonade." 

First Frontal Portrait of Pharaoh Found in Egypt Thu Apr 1,10:34 AM ET

Add Science 

CAIRO  - Egyptologists have pieced together fragments of the first known ancient portrait of a pharaoh drawn from the front rather than in profile, a Spanish archaeologist said on Thursday. 

Jose Manuel Galan told The News Source in an interview that the portrait, which appears to show either Tuthmosis III or his mother Hatshepsut, was painted on a wooden board buried in the courtyard in front of a tomb in the southern town of Luxor. 

Hatshepsut, who was often portrayed as a man, ruled concurrently with her son for about 20 years from 1503 BC. Luxor, also known as Thebes, was the dynastic capital. 

The piece is unusual because ancient Egyptians always portrayed Egyptians in profile. The only frontal portraits are of foreigners, underworld demons and other weird creatures, and the dwarf god Bes, widely believed to be a cultural import. 

Galan speculated that the royal portrait was either a sketch for a statue or a casual drawing of the kind art students made to show off their skills or for amusement. 

The fact that the wooden board also carries a version of the drawing by a less skilful hand suggests that a student might have used it to copy the work of his master, he added. 

The Egyptologists found one fragment in 2002 and 13 in 2003 and have spent the past year piecing them together and preparing the board for exhibition in the Luxor museum. 

Galan said he has confident it was a pharaoh because the figure is wearing the "nemes" crown, a trapezoidal cloth garment exclusively worn by kings. 

"We find the closest parallel to this object in a wooden board in the British Museum and the way their eyes, their lips, their nose, their figures are done is very peculiar to this time," he said. 

The wooden board is 20 by 12 inches and covered in creamy-yellow stucco. The drawing is in black paint, with a square red grid of the kind used to copy proportions. 

Galan said the board may have been part of the funerary equipment of an official called Djehuty, who was overseer of the treasury and public works under Hatshepsut, or possibly of a member of Djehuty's family. Djehuty's tomb lies nearby. 

The Egyptologist works at the Spanish Supreme Council for Scientific Research in Madrid. 

Contraceptive Sponge Near U.S. Return 
Thu Apr 1, 3:18 PM ET 


By LINDA A. JOHNSON, News Source Writer 

TRENTON, N.J. - Marisa Dawson is delighted to say she has had many "spongeworthy" moments in the year since the Today birth-control sponge came back onto the market by way of Canada. 


 

"I'm in heaven," said Dawson, an Ocoee, Fla., nurse who been buying boxes regularly from a Web site because the product cannot legally be sold in this country yet. 

She said the sponge has restored spontaneity to her sex life with her longtime boyfriend, and she has not gotten pregnant. 

"Time to reorder," she wisecracked Tuesday, with only nine sponges in the cupboard. 

Like thousands of other Internet buyers and former sponge users, Dawson wants to be able to buy them in U.S. stores. She is even planning a big "spongeworthy" party to mark the occasion. 

It could happen by the end of the summer, according to the founders of Allendale Pharmaceuticals, situated in the New Jersey town of the same name. They said that three weeks ago, they submitted the final batch of data needed for approval by the Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites). 

FDA spokeswoman Susan Cruzan said the agency does not discuss pending applications. 

Allendale chairman Robert J. Staab - nicknamed SpongeBob by some - and chief executive Gene Detroyer bought the rights to sell the sponge in 1998, three years after Wyeth stopped producing it rather than pay for expensive upgrades to its factory. Roughly 250 million Today Sponges had been sold from 1983 to 1995. 

When production stopped, Dawson and many other women began hoarding sponges - a phenomenon lampooned in a "Seinfeld" episode in which Elaine rations her supply by deciding whether a boyfriend is "spongeworthy." 

Allendale now has the spermicide-infused polyurethane sponges made at a factory near Binghamton, N.Y., but only for distribution in Canada. 

They sell for $2.50 to $3 each at stores across Canada, including Wal-Mart. Allendale's contracts with distributors specifically bar them from selling the sponges on the Internet, but it happens anyway. 

Without spending a dime on advertising, the company sold about 400,000 sponges through the end of February, Detroyer said. He said he expects to sell at least 10 million in the first year they are available in the United States. 

The Today Sponge fails in about 10 percent of women each year, compared with 99 percent effectiveness for the pill. Nor does the sponge protect against sexually transmitted diseases. 

But it is available without a prescription, can be inserted hours before sex and has particular appeal for women with a history of breast cancer or other reasons to avoid the pill, which can raise the risk of cancer. 

Diane Butler, owner of a home appraisal business in Westland, Mich., said she loves the sponge, in part because she has had breast cancer twice and lost her twin sister and mother to the disease. 

Butler, 46, ordered several dozen sponges from an Internet site shortly before they came on the market in Canada and is about to reorder. 

"I'm having lots of fun," Butler said. 

___ 

On the Net: http://www.allendalepharm.com 

Paper Backups Sought for Voting Machines

Thu Apr 1, 4:08 PM ET

By ROBERT TANNER, News Source National Writer 

An effort to erase doubts about new ATM-style voting machines by backing up digital votes with paper records is gaining ground nationwide, as state officials heed warnings about security and potentially messy recounts. 

Four states are demanding printers that will generate paper receipts voters can see and verify, and more than a dozen other states are weighing the change. But only one - Nevada - expects to have a paper trail in place by the fall elections. 

"People are just realizing exactly what we've bought into in some states," said Maryland state Sen. Andrew Harris, a Republican. "The stakes are so high. I don't put it above someone trying to manipulate elections on a grand scale." 

Harris wants to fix what many in the computer science world and elsewhere see as a dangerous flaw in the touchscreen machines that will be used in up to 34 states this November. 

Their worry? That voters will make one choice, and the machine - through a coding error or a hacker's manipulation - will record it as another. With no one the wiser, election outcomes could be changed. 

Many election administrators and voting machine industry representatives say that such fears are misguided, and ignore the rigorous tests and trial runs - from manufacture to Election Day - that protect the vote. 

But the doubters are winning support. Harris has proposed that the 16,000 new touchscreen machines that all Maryland voters will use this year be outfitted with a paper ballot printed after a person makes a choice. The voters would then get to see and verify their selection, and the ballot would be secured in case of a recount. 

The idea, known as a verified voter paper trail, has been proposed in at least 16 other states as lawmakers have begun responding to months of complaints, letters of protests and security studies that found serious flaws in the ATM-style equipment. 

Secretaries of state in California, Missouri and Nevada have gone further and ordered changes. And Illinois passed a law last year requiring a paper trail. Only Nevada, however, will be ready for the fall elections. 

"The issue is all about accountability," said Dean Heller, Nevada's GOP secretary of state. "These votes are out there in cyberspace somewhere, and nobody can prove that they exist. The paper trail does." 

Because of the state's size, California's change will have the biggest impact, though Democratic Secretary of State Kevin Shelley has given counties until 2006 to add paper ballots. 

Florida election officials ruled earlier this year that new touchscreen machines put into place after the 2000 election crisis are exempt from a law that requires manual recounts in close elections - because there is no way to determine voter's intentions from the computer record. 

Decisions like that scare some election advocates, sparking their push for a paper trail. (The decision also added fuel to a Florida lawsuit seeking a federal court to order the paper records. No decision has yet been reached). 

Stanford University computer scientist David Dill, who runs the Web site VerifiedVoting.org, has collected endorsements from more than 7,000 people for an online petition calling for voting paper trails. 

He remains hopeful that the federal government will act, though Congress has gone nearly a year without holding a hearing on several Democrat-authored measures to require a paper trail. 

And there is widespread opposition to paper receipts, from election administrators, some computer scientists and even the League of Women Voters. 

"It's sending the wrong message to people," said Kay Maxwell, president of the league, a nonpartisan civic organization. "That if you only do this, it settles all the problems. That's not being fair to people, it's not being truthful to people." 

The league's argument is that the entire voting system needs funding and attention - voter education, poll worker training, state registration systems. Many of those issues were targeted by the federal Help America Vote Act that has yet to deliver more than a fraction of the $3.9 billion promised to the states. 

The group opposes the push for paper trails for electronic voting machines because they say it will not provide the blind, disabled and non-English speakers the same access as other voters. 

And election administrators shake their heads about the additional demands a paper trail would create: managing supplies of paper and ink, higher costs for buying and maintaining equipment, and longer lines on Election Day for people with questions, or who want to vote again after seeing their choices. 

In Missouri's St. Louis County, printers will add $12 million to the $25 million bill to replace punch cards with touchscreen machines, said Judy Taylor, elections director. 

"It's making more of a problem," she said. 

Blair Eyes Identity Cards After UK Arrests
Thu Apr 1, 3:14 PM ET 
Add World 

By Michael Holden 

LONDON  - Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) indicated Thursday that Britain would speed up the introduction of compulsory identity cards following the arrest of nine terror suspects this week. 

The News Source Photo 

NEWS SOURCE 

Slideshow: UK Terror Raids Net Bomb Materials, Suspects

Britain was already planning to bolster its tough anti-terror laws, passed in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, but Blair told his monthly news conference further measures were needed now. 

"I think the whole issue of identity cards, which a few years ago were not on anyone's agenda, is very much on the political agenda here, probably more quickly even than we anticipated," he said. 

His comments came days after anti-terror police carried out the biggest operation since the September 11 attacks, arresting eight Britons in and around London and seizing half a ton of ammonium nitrate fertilizer -- prime bomb-making material. 

A ninth man was arrested late Thursday "on suspicion of being concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism." 

British police also said they were working with Canadian authorities after they arrested software developer Mohammed Momin Khawaja, a 29-year-old Canadian with Pakistani parents, on Monday. He is accused of "knowingly facilitating a terrorist activity" in Ottawa and London. 

"We need to make sure in light of fresh information and operations such as the one that has just taken place that we are up to date with what is happening on the ground," Blair said. 

The government has already announced plans for ID cards, but intended to introduce them "incrementally," starting with a voluntary scheme aimed at stopping welfare benefit cheats. 

The issue has been controversial, with critics arguing cards would breach citizens' human rights. 

Blair said civil liberties were no longer an objection in the "vast majority of quarters" and that practical issues were now the only obstacle. 

Britain's most senior policeman Sir John Stevens, who has warned an attack on London was inevitable, has argued ID cards are "a must" in the fight against terror. 

Britons have not had to carry identity documents since World War II, unlike most European who have to produce ID cards at the request of police or officials. 

Blair's comments come after detectives were given three more days to quiz the men arrested in raids Tuesday. 

The eight, who police sources say are Muslims of Pakistani origin, were arrested on suspicion of preparing to carry out acts of terrorism. 

Meanwhile the arrest of computer expert Khawaja fueled British newspaper speculation that the UK suspects had been using e-mails to communicate with al Qaeda "mentors" abroad. 

The Muslim Council of Britain has asked the country's two million Muslims to help police in the fight against terror. 

(additional reporting by Alison Williams) 

Vitamin E Said to Cut Bladder Cancer Risk 

2 hours, 48 minutes ago



By DANIEL Q. HANEY, News Source Medical Editor 

ORLANDO, Fla. - Getting plenty of vitamin E by eating foods like nuts and olive oil appears to cut in half people's risk of bladder cancer, the fourth leading cancer killer among men, a new study suggests. 

The research, released at a cancer conference Sunday, is the latest blip in the ups and downs of perceptions about this nutrient's powers to ward off disease. Experts once had high hopes that vitamin E would prove to be an important safeguard against heart attacks. But that idea eventually faded as repeated studies failed to show any protective effect. 

Whether vitamin E does anything to stop cancer is still far from proven, but some think the vitamin may be helpful, perhaps by warding off the damaging effects of oxygen. The strongest evidence of this so far has been against prostate cancer, and a large federally sponsored experiment is under way to help prove this. 

The new study offers a strong hint that dietary vitamin E may also protect against bladder cancer, which kills about 12,500 Americans annually and is four times more common in men than women. 

The study was based on questionnaires of the eating habits of about 1,000 Houston residents. Those whose vitamin E intake was in the top 25 percent had just half as much bladder cancer as those in the lowest quarter. The actual difference in the amount of vitamin-rich food the two extremes ate was small, however, the equivalent of a single daily serving of spinach or a handful of almonds. 

The research was funded largely by the state of Texas. It was presented by John Radcliffe, a nutrition researcher from Texas Woman's University, at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Orlando. 

The reduction was roughly the same, regardless of whether people got their vitamin E from food alone or in combination with vitamin pills. 

The team looked at the two most common forms of vitamin E, called alpha- and gamma-tocopherol, and found that only the alpha variety was linked with lower bladder cancer risk. Good sources of this include almonds, spinach, mustard greens, peppers, sunflower seeds and a variety of oils, including olive, cottonseed and canola. 

Experts say it is too soon to make any firm recommendations about vitamin E intake for cancer prevention beyond the usual advice to eat plenty of vegetables and other plant-based foods. 

"People need not be afraid to incorporate nuts and seeds into their diets," Radcliffe said. "For a long time, dietitians would not recommend them because they are high in fat. But half an ounce to an ounce of nuts and seeds daily would not shoot up someone's calorie levels appreciably." 

Researchers would like to tease out which elements of the diet are especially healthful. Many studies have shown that people who eat lots of fruits and vegetables have lower risk of cancer. However, these foods contain more than 100 potentially helpful vitamins, minerals and other substances, and no one knows exactly which components do this. 

Some wonder whether people who often eat fruits and vegetables have healthier living habits overall, so their diets might have little real importance. For now, the best scientists can do is recommend that people eat five more servings daily of a variety of vegetables and fruits. 

The strongest evidence of vitamin E's cancer effects comes from a study several years ago on nearly 30,000 Finnish smokers. It unexpectedly found those who took alpha-tocopherol pills lowered their prostate cancer risk by one-third. The same study shocked researchers by showing that another once high-flying nutrient, beta carotene, appeared to actually increase their risk of lung cancer. 

A National Cancer Institute (news - web sites) study now under way is testing the effects of 400 milligrams of vitamin E and 200 micrograms of selenium daily on more than 32,000 men for seven years to see if they reduce prostate cancer. 

Dr. David Alberts, head of cancer prevention at the University of Arizona, said studies like Radcliffe's "are extremely helpful in raising a hypothesis. It is very difficult to make a recommendation" that people take vitamin supplements without a carefully conducted experiment, like the ongoing prostate cancer study. 

The recommended U.S. intake of vitamin E is 15 milligrams daily, which is roughly the amount in a multivitamin. 

___ 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Medical Editor Daniel Q. Haney is a special correspondent for The News Source. 

___ 

On the Net: 

American Association for Cancer Research: http://www.aacr.org/2004AM/2004AM.asp 

Posted on Sun, Mar. 21, 2004

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/states/florida/counties/miam
i-dade/cities_neighborhoods/west/8234518.htm

SCIENCE MUSEUM

Test could lead to time travel

A physics professor will try to turn back time in an experiment at the Miami
Museum of Science.

BY RAFAEL SANGIOVANNI

Herald Writer

It's back to the future all over again -- at least, that's what Carlos Dolz
has in mind.

The Florida International University physics professor plans to take time to
task at 10 a.m. Wednesday, when he presents an experiment that involves
using acceleration to speed up a digital clock by four seconds.

Dolz's experiment -- which takes six hours to finish -- will become part of
Playing With Time, the current exhibit at the Miami Museum of Science.

Dolz, who has been a lecturing theoretical physicist for nine years, really
doesn't know where his experiment could lead.

''The point of this is to question how things really work,'' he said. ``This
goes beyond common understanding.''

The aptly titled ''Time Shift Experiment'' combines some of the most
complicated physics concepts with simple machines and -- Dolz said -- may
prove that time travel is possible.

Time shifts are not uncommon, the professor said. There have been
experiments in the past that compared atomic clocks on fast-flying planes to
those on the ground. The clocks on board the planes showed a slight shift
forward, Dolz said.

He said he became even more fascinated by time when he was studying
gravity -- he found that he could not truly understand one without the
other.

He began fiddling with time shifts in his experiments and was approached by
Museum of Science officials in late 2003.

They had decided to host the time exhibit to pique public interest in the
abstract concept of time.

''[Time] is a hands-on phenomenon,'' said Sean Duran, director of exhibits
at the Museum of Science. 'This exhibit helps [people] to get some of those
`big-picture' questions that were posed by the big guys like Einstein.''

They wanted Dolz to come aboard with his presentation.

But unlike the other time experiments on display, which are already proven
and made for learning, Dolz's is an authentic first-time experiment made for
both learning and discovery.

He hopes to stir up the public's preconceptions about time, gravity and
acceleration.

''A big problem for science is common sense. It works for most everything in
people's lives, but not in physics,'' he said. ``It's limited to point of
view and perspective, [so] it's really not enough.''

The experiment involves putting a digital clock under immense force by
spinning it on a centrifuge.

The basic idea behind the experiment is to speed up the frequency of the
pulses, or ticks, produced by the clock with force to push it ahead.

Dolz said it takes about six hours to move the clock ahead four seconds.

While past experiments were expensive and produced minimal results, Dolz
said he is taking an economical approach and shooting for a range of
results.

''He can use very simple tools to come to some of the same grand
conclusions,'' said Duran, adding that Dolz's experiment could prove
Einstein's theory that time is only relative.

Dolz's four-second time shift, when compared to the plane experiments, is
considered a huge change -- so much so that scientists from various
universities will be monitoring the experiment to certify the results.

Dolz said he is looking forward to sharing his discovery, claiming
contending that understanding time helps people in everything they do.

But in the science world, Dolz has no idea what kind of impact his
experiment could have -- much like the great scientists of the past.

''Did [Benjamin] Franklin know that his fiddling around would take us where
we are today?'' he asks. ``We may be seeing the beginnings of time travel,
but I have no idea. I'm like Franklin, Columbus and [Michael] Faraday: we
[just] do what we are capable of doing.''

Gene Mutation Said Linked to Evolution 

2 hours, 29 minutes ago

By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA, News Source Science Writer 

Igniting a scientific furor, scientists say they may have found the genetic mutation that first separated the earliest humans from their apelike ancestors. 

The provocative discovery suggests that this genetic twist - toward smaller, weaker jaws - unleashed a cascade of profound biological changes. The smaller jaws would allow for dramatic brain growth necessary for tool-making, language and other hallmarks of human evolution on the plains of East Africa. 

The mutation is reported in the latest issue of the journal Nature, not by anthropologists, but by a team of biologists and plastic surgeons at the University of Pennsylvania and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. 

The report provoked strong reactions throughout the hotly contested field of human origins with one scientist declaring it "counter to the fundamentals of evolution" and another pronouncing it "super." 

The Pennsylvania researchers said their estimate of when this mutation first occurred - about 2.4 million years ago - generally overlaps with the first fossils of prehistoric humans featuring rounder skulls, flatter faces, smaller teeth and weaker jaws. 

And, the remarkable genetic divergence persists to this day in every person, they said. 

But nonhuman primates - including our closest animal relative, the chimpanzee - still carry the original big-jaw gene and thanks to stout muscles attached to the tops of their heads, they can bite and grind the toughest foods. 

"We're not suggesting this mutation alone defines us as Homo sapiens," said Hansell Stedman of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. "But evolutionary events are extraordinarily rare. Over 2 million years since the mutation, the brain has nearly tripled in size. It's a very intriguing possibility." 

University of Michigan biological anthropologist Milford Wolpoff called the research "just super." 

"The other thing that was happening 2 1/2 million years ago is that people were beginning to make tools, which enabled them to prepare food outside their mouths," he said. "This is a confluence of genetic and fossil evidence." 

Other researchers strenuously disagreed that human evolution could literally hinge on a single mutation affecting jaw muscles, and that once those muscles around the skull were unhooked like bungee cords, the brain suddenly could grow unfettered. 

"Such a claim is counter to the fundamentals of evolution," said C. Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University. "These kinds of mutations probably are of little consequence." 

Others sought to find some middle ground in the debate. 

University and commercial laboratories rapidly are comparing the human genome with that of chimpanzees to determine what makes people human, and how hominids split from Old World apes and monkeys some 6 million years ago. 

So far, perhaps 250 genetic differences have been flagged for further study. 

Jaws have been a focus of evolutionary research since Darwin, and the mutation offers a tantalizing theory. But it is unlikely that one mutation - even at a crucial evolutionary juncture - would make a person, they said. 

"They have successfully nailed a genetic mutation that works to deactivate these jaw muscles," said Richard Potts, director of the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Institution (news - web sites). "But their suggestion connecting it to the brain is way too speculative." 

In their experiment, the Penn team isolated a new gene in an overlooked junk DNA sequence on chromosome 7. It belongs to a class of genes that express production of the protein myosin, which enables skeletal muscles to contract. 

Originally the scientists were concentrating on determining the biological underpinnings of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a muscle-wasting disease. But once they isolated the mutation, they spent the next eight months deciphering its evolutionary implications. 

Different types of myosin are produced in different muscles; in the chewing and biting muscles of the jaws, the gene MYH16 is expressed. But the Penn researchers discovered humans have a mutation in the gene that prevents the MYH16 protein from accumulating. That limits the size and power of the muscle. 

In primates like the macaque, the jaw muscles were 10 times more powerful than in humans. They contained high levels of the protein, and the thick muscles were attached to bony ridges of the skull. 

When did this genetic split occur? Scientists assume that the rate of genetic change a species undergoes is relatively constant over time. So the Penn group looked deep into the fossil record to determine when the jaws of human ancestors started looking smaller and more streamlined as compared to more apelike creatures. 

Homo habilis was the earliest known species to begin showing skull and jaw differences from its more apelike cousins more than 2 million years ago. 

The Homo line flourished, with the finer-boned Homo rudolfensis, ergaster and erectus lines soon emerging. 

Meanwhile, the heavier-browed, long-jawed Australopithecus afaransis and Paranthropus robustus eventually disappeared. 

Without the strong bands of muscle constraining the skull, the Penn researchers said the Homo skull changed shape and grew to accommodate a much larger brain, while the Australopithicine skulls did not. 

The Penn researchers said mutation opened an evolutionary struggle in which brain conquered brawn, although it probably took another million years to complete. 

The mutation also offers a glimpse of behavioral changes, the Penn researchers said. Apes use their powerful bites to maintain social control, while early humans may have had to rely more on cooperation. 

Critics said the study wrongly assumes that evolution works so neatly. 

The first early humans with the mutation probably would have had weaker mouths, but still had large teeth and jaws. Many additional mutations would have been needed. 

"The mutation would have reduced the Darwinian fitness of those individuals," said anthropologist Bernard Wood of George Washington University. "It only would've become fixed if it coincided with mutations that reduced tooth size, jaw size and increased brain size. What are the chances of that?" 

Avoiding Cliches Isn't Rocket Science

Mar 24, 10:28 am ET 

LONDON  - The fact of the matter is that at the end of the day there is nothing, like, value-added about using cliches 24/7 -- with all due respect it's not awesome, it's annoying.

The Plain English Campaign said Wednesday it had canvassed people in 70 countries to find the most irritating phrases of all.

"When readers or listeners come across these tired expressions, they start tuning out and completely miss the message -- assuming there is one" said John Lister of the Plain English Campaign.

People who busily "touch base" or talk about "ballpark figures" and "bottom lines" are not "singing from the same hymn sheet," they are quietly driving others to distraction.

"Using these terms in daily business is about as professional as wearing a novelty tie or having a wacky ringtone on your phone," Lister said in a statement.

A particular bugbear is the constant use of "like" as a form of punctuation.

Lister said that they had expected geographical variations, but the same phrases appeared to be universally annoying around the world.

"Gobbledegook jargon and cliches really are no respecter of international boundaries," he told Sky Television in a cliche-riddled interview.

Other named-and-shamed cliches include:

-- blue-sky thinking

-- it's not rocket science

-- crack troops

-- between a rock and a hard place

-- I hear what you're saying

-- touch base

-- bear with me

-- to be honest with you 

Veg-O-Matics Live on in Kitchens Everywhere

Mar 24, 11:03 am ET 

By Andrew Stern

CHICAGO  - Use superlatives. Tell buyers they won't pay full price. Offer free stuff if they buy now. Keep up the patter. Never stop moving.

The hard sell has been around since ... well, forever. And the Popeil brothers may have perfected the pitchman's art.

The Popeils -- Sam, Raymond, and Sam's son Ron -- became millionaires hawking an endless stream of household gadgets that every home anywhere seemingly had to have.

Many will remember the vegetable-chomping "0-Matics": the Veg-O-Matic, the Chop-O-Matic, the Dial-O-Matic, the Slice-O-Matic, the Peel-O-Matic, the Whip-O-Matic. There were the battery-powered "cordless electrics": the Miracle Broom, the Garden Trimmer, the Smokeless Ashtray. And there was the silly gadgetry: the Pocket Fisherman (a compact fishing rod), the Trimcomb (haircuts), and Mr. Microphone (for projecting one's voice over the radio).

The Popeils kept coming up with gadgets and Tim Samuelson kept collecting them at auctions and from basement sales.

Samuelson's collection of more than 150 devices are part of a two-month exhibition on display through mid-May at Chicago's Cultural Center, a determinedly low-brow show compared to a photography exhibit upstairs and the museum show of gem-like Rembrandt prints on view nearby.

Out-of-town visitor Joel Dain skipped the Rembrandts, but his eyes glisten at the memory of the Dial-O-Matic he bought four decades ago from a New York pitchman. Dain recalls the episode because the gadget is still in his kitchen, slicing and dicing tomatoes and potatoes.

"It still works, though pieces of plastic have broken off," Dain says, adding the steel blade never needs sharpening. Doesn't he make room for modern appliances? "I have a microwave oven, but I have to keep it in the basement because my wife is scared of it," he says.

The gadgets made under the Popeil and Ronco names invariably still work when Samuelson finds one. He demonstrates a Veg-O-Matic's durability by standing on it.

He pours cream into a Whip-O-Matic -- "faster than any electric mixer because it has Popeil's special planetary action," he proclaims, displaying the whirling, rotating plastic blades -- and after a few turns of the handle he upends the whipped contents over his head without spilling a drop.

PITCHING ON THE BOARDWALK

The late Popeil brothers -- Sam and Ray -- honed their marketing skills amid the crowds strolling New Jersey's coastal resort boardwalks where pitchmen barked to attract customers.

To hear Samuelson talk, he might prefer roaming the boardwalk himself, but spends workdays instead answering questions in his job as a Chicago cultural historian. But the jovial architecture buff, who stores his gadget collection in his apartment, says his pitch pales against the master of the late-night infomercial, Ron Popeil, now 69.

"In five minutes, I can sell anything," Ron Popeil is quoted as saying in Samuelson's book of Popeil-ia, "But Wait! There's More! The Irresistible Appeal and Spiel of Ronco and Popeil" (Rizzoli, 2002).

Flip the TV channels past midnight and one is sure to hear Popeil's dulcet tones coaxing buyers for his Rotisserie oven -- with free barbecue gloves and a recipe book if you buy now.

And over the years, the Popeils sold millions of gadgets in the United States, but also in Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom and other countries, Samuelson said.

The Veg-O-Matic originally sold for $9.98 (later reduced to $7.77) and the Pocket Fisherman for $19.95. Since so many were sold and because they are so durable, the gadgets can sometimes be obtained cheaply -- so Samuelson's collection may not have appreciated much.

No matter. Samuelson revels in this slice of Americana, though he says Popeil urged him to quit demonstrating the Slice-O-Matic. "He said 'It'll take your arm off."'

Ron Popeil prefers tinkering in his Beverly Hills kitchen much like his father, Sam, whose family would often find him fooling with his latest gadget amid the clutter in his kitchen, Samuelson says. Sam created the Pocket Fisherman after being accidentally poked in the eye by a child's fishing pole.

Sam's brother Ray oversaw their factory after they moved to Chicago in 1945, occasionally making televised sales pitches without showing his face. In order not to distract viewers from the product, he shaved his arms and performed a manual ballet, laying out sliced vegetables like a Las Vegas card dealer.

A documentary showing at the exhibition recorded 1950s-era pitchmen reeling in customers at Chicago's legendary open-air Maxwell Street flea market, which Samuelson narrates: "'Here, here's a free sample.' Keep it moving. Build up the product. Use superlatives: 'miracle product,' 'fantastic,' 'amazing.' Don't say the price until the end -- that's 'the turn.' Show people the money (from previous sales). Tell them you can buy it in the store for this price, then make the pitch at a lower one."

Nowadays, gadgets are unveiled with slick marketing techniques inside Chicago's cavernous convention center at the housewares industry's annual show.

Ron Popeil learned to pitch by studying the Maxwell Street regulars.

"I don't think we'll ever run out of ideas," Ron Popeil once said. "There's always going to be some necessity that you never knew you needed, but you absolutely can't live without." 

McDonald's to Start Taking Credit Cards 

2 hours, 7 minutes ago

Add Business - 

OAK BROOK, Ill. - McDonald's customers will soon be able to use credit and debit cards to pay for their meals at a majority of the chain's U.S. restaurants. 

The company said Thursday it had reached agreements to accept payments via Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover Card and STAR cards. 

Cashless payments, primarily debit cards, already are accepted at more than 3,000 of McDonald's 13,600 U.S. restaurants. The company said Thursday it intends to more than double that number this year to as many as 8,000 restaurants. 

McDonald's franchisees, who operate 80 percent of its U.S. outlets, must pay fees to the credit-card companies for each transaction, but they also could see an increase in sales by offering customers the cashless option. 

Participating McDonald's will post the credit card logos at their counters and drive-thrus. 

___ 

On the Net: 

http://www.mcdonalds.com 

Canada could ditch winter blues by annexing Caribbean paradise 
Fri Mar 26, 2:14 AM ET  - NEWS SOURCE 

MONTREAL (NEWS SOURCE) - Ask anyone their image of Canada -- and it's a fair bet that a tropical nirvana shaded by palm trees, with an emerald sea lapping miles of golden sands would be the last thing to come to mind. 

NEWS SOURCE/Edmonton Sun/File Photo 

That could soon change, if an ambitious project makes the sun-kissed Caribbean islands of Turks and Caicos the eleventh -- and warmest -- province of ice-bound Canada. 

Peter Goldring, a Conservative member of parliament from the frigid plains of Alberta, has launched a bid to annex the small tropical archipelago between Haiti and the Bahamas -- which is now a British Crown colony. 

His drive is gathering pace, backed up by a petition, a motion in Canada's House of Commons, a proposed parliamentary committee of friendship, an effort to lobby businessmen and a website evoking the joys of "a place in the sun." (www.aplaceinthesun.ca). 

Goldring is not the first Canadian politician to launch such a Caribbean crusade. 

In 1917, Canadian prime minister Robert Borden had the same idea. 

However, it was affordable jet travel in the 1970s and 1980s that carried heat-seeking Canadians to the Caribbean and the annexation idea really take off. 

The Turks and Caicos government requested a link-up with Canada in 1987, but a Canadian Foreign Ministry study turned down the idea. 

Today, Goldring told NEWS SOURCE, things are different. 

In January he met the archipelago's Chief Minister Michael Misick who, he said, was "very interested in discussing with Canada." 

Massimo Pacetti, a Liberal member of parliament for Quebec, has joined Goldring's crusade, and said in an interview with CBC Thursday that he had even kicked the idea around with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. 

"He told me, 'I am not for it, I am not against it. Give me the facts'." 

Goldring says there is a huge upside to his scheme, for both the islands and Canada. 

"Canada is a trade country and it came to my mind that there was a market, the islands are a small market but they are the doorway to the Caribbean. 

"From there, we could have shipping to Cuba, the Bahamas, even touching the north of South America ... this represents two billion a year in exports for Canada." 

And for the islanders, life could be good as Canadians, he said. 

"When I was there, I went to a grocery store and I saw rib steak at 16 US dollars a pound ... we have a beef business in difficulty, and our beef is at 14 Canadian a kilo! (10.5 US)," he said. 

If the islands did join up with Canada there would be plenty of work to do. 

Bridges need to be constructed over shallow straits between islands, as do retirement properties for Canadians desperate to escape their chilly homeland. 

Authorities must also build tourist facilities for the nearly half-million Canadian "snow birds" who head south to the Caribbean each year, to escape the winter blues. 

Businessmen are also pushing the idea, hoping to make a fast buck as the tourism trade heats up. 

But there is still a long way to go. 

First Britain needs to give the green light, for one of its final colonies to go its own way. 

"It's a little bit like in 1949, when Newfoundland joined Canada," said Goldring. 

There will also need to be a referendum in the islands and then negotiations to decide how exactly the tie-up would work. 

Goldring wants the islands to elect to become a province of Canada, to avoid any whiff of colonialism. 

Then there is the question of racism. How will Canadians feel seeing their tax dollars pumped into the country's new possession? 

But Pacetti insisted: "we have 300,000 immigrants a year. It's something we can handle." 

Mexico to Question Rescued British Cavers

1 hour, 55 minutes ago

Add World 

MEXICO CITY  - Mexican migration authorities said on Friday they would question a group of British cavers on an expedition that fueled a diplomatic quarrel after six of them were trapped underground for a week. 

Four of the trapped cavers are members of the British armed forces, and the Mexican government is upset it was not told in advance of their presence. Scuba divers plucked the six from a from a cave system in central Mexico on Thursday. 

A migration spokeswoman, who declined to be named, told The News Source expedition members would be questioned at the Iztapalapa immigration center in Mexico City. 

"The group are to be questioned by migration officials so that they can explain what they have been doing," she said. She added it was unclear if the Britons would be detained. 

Thirteen cavers in all took part in the expedition. Most were members of the Combined Services Caving Association, an enthusiasts group made up of active and retired British military members and civilians in the defense ministry. 

The trapped cavers had become blocked by surging underground floodwaters two days into a routine exploration trip in the Cuetzalan caves in Puebla province. 

Late on Thursday, Mexican immigration undersecretary Armando Salinas said expedition members, who had entered Mexico on tourist visas, would be handed over to immigration authorities for questioning. 

Mexican President Vicente Fox (news - web sites) has asked for a "swift" explanation of what the foreign soldiers were doing in the cave complex, one of the most extensive in the world. Mexico does not allow foreign military exercises on its soil. 

Calif. Mob Tries to Create Supercomputer

Sat Apr 3, 4:51 PM ET

By TERENCE CHEA, News Source Writer 

SAN FRANCISCO - Hundreds of area technophiles joined laptops Saturday in an attempt to create a computing force on par with the world's most powerful supercomputers.

The experiment organized by researchers at the University of San Francisco was designed to determine whether a gymnasium full of off-the-shelf personal computers networked together can muster enough power to process the most complex research problems. 

Organizers hoped to break into the ranks of the world's top 500 supercomputers through the event, which they called "Flashmob Supercomputing." 

"Flashmob is about democratizing supercomputing," said John Witchel, a graduate student at USF who codeveloped the concept. "It's about giving supercomputing power to the people so that we can decide how we want supercomputers to be used." 

Supercomputers perform highly sophisticated functions, such as predicting weather patterns, modeling biological processes or animating movies. Most are run by government laboratories or big corporations because they are expensive, costing $25 million to $1 billion. 

Saturday's flashmob event was a dry run designed to measure how much computing power could be generated, rather than tackle a specific task. 

The term "flashmob" comes from the spontaneous Internet-organized gatherings that gained popularity last year. During the events, hundreds of people suddenly appear at a predetermined location, perform a wacky stunt - such as wearing purple hats or spinning in circles - then quickly disperse, leaving bystanders scratching their heads. 

Saturday's event was not the first time citizens have pooled their computing power. For example, the SETI(at)home project has created a virtual supercomputer through Internet-connected PCs to search for signs of extraterrestrial life. 

Organizers hope the Flashmob concept can eventually be applied to problems requiring high-powered computing such as the study of global warming or AIDS (news - web sites) research. 

___ 

On the Net: 

USF FlashMob I: http://www.flashmobcomputing.org 

Top 500 Supercomputing Sites: http://www.top500.org 

New Technology Could Detect Dirty Hands Sat Apr 3, 6:09 PM ET

By TED BRIDIS, News Source Technology Writer 

WASHINGTON - With just a flicker of blue light, little Johnny's mother one day may know for sure whether her son washed his hands before dinner. 

New light-scanning technology borrowed from the slaughterhouse promises to help hospital workers, restaurant employees - one day, even kids - make sure that hand washing zaps some germs that can carry deadly illnesses. 

A device the size of an electric hand dryer detects fecal contamination and pinpoints on a digital display where on a person's hands more scrubbing is needed. 

eMerge Interactive Inc., a struggling technology company in Sebastian, Fla., is hoping to tweak light scanners it already sells to beef plants to detect the same kinds of nasty germs on humans. 

The blue-light scanners could dramatically improve hygiene among employees who forget to wash their hands after bathroom breaks. This practice is a leading cause of food poisoning that afflicts tens of millions of Americans every year. 

Studies show people typically fail to scrub around fingernails and between fingers adequately. The government recommends people wash their hands for at least 20 seconds; researchers find many people do not even use soap. 

"People are not good at handwashing," said Janet Anderson, a nutritionist at Utah State University. "We find that unless sinks are very close to where people are handling food, they don't wash their hands well." 

eMerge, which demonstrated an early prototype for The News Source, said its first clean-hand scanners could go on sale as early as year's end to restaurants, nursing homes, hospitals and day-care centers. Using identification cards, the devices can even record which employees scrubbed acceptably and which ones still have dirty hands. 

"Being able to tell whether there's fecal matter is a major improvement," said Jim Mann, executive director of The Handwashing Leadership Forum, a group in Illinois that studies food-borne outbreaks. 

Mann called the scanning technology promising but "not a silver bullet" because it cannot detect pathogens such as salmonella or viruses that do not always spread initially in fecal contamination. Salmonella can be present in raw eggs, for example. 

Using a specific light wavelength, the scanners cause a fluorescence in even minuscule amounts of fecal contamination that could carry dangerous bacteria like E. coli; it shows up on a built-in display as a bright red spot on a person's dirty hand. 

"Nobody wants to have doo-doo on their burger," said Jacob Petrich, a biophysical chemist at Iowa State University who invented the meat-scanning technology with two scientists, Thomas A. Casey and Mark A. Rasmussen, at the Agriculture Department. 

Experts say the high-speed beef scanners work faster - examining 500 beef carcasses every hour - and more accurately than government inspectors visually looking for contamination on meat in packing plants. Excel Corp., a leading processor, is installing the scanners in all its plants across North America. 

In meat plants, the scanners look for evidence of chlorophyl, the green pigments found in plants and grasses common to cow diets. The clean-hands scanners will need to search for other signatures, not just chlorophyl, that might signal contamination by meat eaters: Human diets are much more diverse than cattle's. 

People on the popular Atkins diet, for example, would have almost no chlorophyl in their systems, said eMerge's executive vice president, Richard Stroman. He declined to say which new markers the company is investigating, calling that a trade secret. 

"If you only eat beer and cheese pizza, what kind of signatures are you going to get," asked Petrich, who suggested that hospitals or restaurants could ask employees to swallow chlorophyl tablets. "This is do-able, it's just a question of technology, of how you look at the spectral signatures of diets." 

eMerge sells the beef scanners under an exclusive license with Petrich and the other inventors, who won a federal patent in June 1999. The company, whose stock closed Friday at $1.86, has lost nearly $200 million since it started operations. 

___ 

On the Net: 

AP video of hand-scanner: http://wid.ap.org/interactives/scanner.html 

eMerge Interactive Inc.: www.emergeinteractive.com 

National Animal Disease Center: www.nadc.ars.usda.gov 

Iowa State chemistry department: www.chem.iastate.edu 

HIV Rates Rising Among the Elderly

Thu Mar 25,11:46 AM ET 


DETROIT - Happily involved in a relationship with a flirtatious, handsome man, Alice Renwick gave little though to the possibility of contracting HIV (news - web sites). 


 

At 65, Renwick, an infection control nurse at a methadone clinic, reasoned she was too old to become pregnant and the couple stopped using condoms. But then Renwicks's partner, a former heroin addict, discovered he was HIV-positive. When he died, she secretly knew she too was infected. In 1997, she knew for certain after being tested. 

"I have no one to blame," Renwick told The Detroit News for a Thursday story. "I was alone, depressed, ego deflated." 

Renwick is just one in a population of people over 50 in which the HIV infection rate has doubled over the past five years, reaching 2,394 by January. Officials say the spike is linked to a number of factors, ranging from more active sex lives and the belief that it's mainly a problem among the younger generation, to stigmas about sex and the elderly. 

"We have failed to put an older face on HIV/AIDS (news - web sites)," said Frances Jackson, associate professor of nursing at Oakland University. "Many agencies that work with HIV-positive clients have failed to address this." 

The surge in infections among this demographic is particularly disturbing because the number of people 65 and older is climbing rapidly. But even as their numbers swell, awareness of the disease has not, advocates say. 

"It's still a hidden problem," said Jackson, who researched older adults' knowledge of, and susceptibility to, HIV in Detroit from 2000 to 2003. "We don't want to think about older people having sex, so we don't want to talk about it." 

Jackson's research shows that while older adults are aware of the risks of HIV, they don't believe it affects them. 

The few prevention programs aimed at the elderly have had mixed results, say advocates. 

The Adult Well-Being Services in Detroit was the first and only group in Michigan to receive a federal grant to educate seniors and their doctors on HIV and substance abuse among that age group, said Thea Simmons, director of the group's community health promotion. 

The group's "Knowledge is Golden" program uses real stories to educate seniors and their health providers at churches and senior centers around Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties. 

But program officials say they have not been allowed to make presentations at many Detroit area assisted-living facilities, largely because of the stigma about discussing sex among older residents. 

Realizing this, some health care providers like Dr. Eric Ayers are becoming more assertive in discussing the risks with their older patients. Ayers, who runs an internal medicine practice at Wayne State University, says many of his colleagues are still uncomfortable engaging in such discussions. 

"Many physicians are not skilled and comfortable in addressing sexual health, and drug use and abuse patterns," he said. "There is a need to get comfortable in addressing and asking about sexual health and preferences." 

Health workers, say this is no time to be shy. 

At the Visiting Nurses Association of Southeastern Michigan, David Perkins said older adults with HIV is a "pretty big issue." 

"It's about a fifth of our case load, with the population increasing," said Perkins, who supervises clients in Wayne and Macomb counties. "We have to get the word out." 

AP: Developers Get Farmers' Tax Breaks

1 hour, 14 minutes ago

Add Business - 

By ALLEN G. BREED and MARTHA MENDOZA, News Source Writers 

Millions of dollars in property tax breaks intended to preserve farmland are going instead to companies that bulldoze farms to build housing subdivisions, malls and industrial parks, an News Source investigation has found. 

It's happening from coast to coast, costing local governments badly needed revenue or forcing them to increase the taxes of other property owners. The breaks can be enormous. Without them, land owners would typically pay two to 400 times more in property taxes. 

In most states, the tax breaks date back to the 1950s and '60s, when lawmakers became alarmed at the rate at which farmland was disappearing under concrete and asphalt. 

But loopholes in the laws are producing unintended, though perfectly legal, consequences. 

Here's what's happening: A developer buys land with the intention of building on it. During the years when he readies the property for construction - preparing architectural plans, acquiring financing and permits, even building roads and laying water pipe - he runs some cows or cuts some hay. Then he claims the tax break. Because of the loopholes, often even a pretense of farming can be enough to qualify. 

Usually, the tax break ends only after construction of buildings begins; sometimes, it doesn't even stop then. 

Some examples: 

_ In Iowa, real estate developer Knapp Properties Inc. owns 239 acres near the Des Moines Airport. The land, close by a Wingate Hotel and a Federal Reserve (news - web sites) check-processing plant, is subdivided for commercial development and is for sale at a total price of $7 million. But because Knapp allows local farmers to plant corn and soybeans on it, the company paid $14,345 in property taxes last year instead of $320,514. 

_ In Denver, Delmer Zweygardt is building a subdivision called Deer Creek Farms. As the houses started going up, he grazed a few cows on the edge of the property. City officials pointed out that zoning laws don't allow cows in a subdivision, but the state Board of Assessment ruled that the presence of cows was enough to qualify Zweygardt for the tax break anyway. This reduced his total tax bill on 48 house lots from $22,000 a year to $60 until the subdivision was nearly completed in 2002, leaving no room for cows. 

_ In Mobile County, Ala., Delaney's Inc., has planted pine seedlings on 54 acres left over after building a Hampton Inn., a Marriott Courtyard, a Lowe's and a Wal-Mart. This "tree farm" has been subdivided and laced with paved streets in preparation for development, and local officials insist the land is not suitable for growing timber. But the developer's lawyer pointed out that the law doesn't require Delaney's to be a good farmer - just a farmer. The result: a 2003 tax bill of $152 instead of $64,230. 

Such cases are commonplace. The News Source found scores of them throughout the country - some with "Soon To Be the Home Of" signs heralding future malls, industrial parks or housing developments on property receiving tax breaks intended to encourage land preservation. 

In Polk County, Iowa, which includes the city of Des Moines, about 10 percent of those claiming farmland tax breaks are actually identified on the tax rolls as developers. Jim Maloney, county assessor, said most of the others are also developers and speculators. 

All over the country, local officials offered similar accounts 

"We have a lot of wannabe farmers who are out there trying to farm the system rather than the property," said Alaska State Assessor Steve Van Sant. 

___ 

Every state offers some type of tax incentive to protect land from development. In some states, only working farms are eligible. In others, the breaks apply to agricultural land whether it is being farmed or not, and some also include timberland or other open space. 

"The whole idea was to encourage people to keep their land in agricultural use," said Talbot D'Alemberte, who sponsored the law as a member of the Florida state legislature in 1972. 

One factor driving development was property taxes, legislators throughout the country thought. Encroaching development increases land values, causing property taxes to rise. This, in turn, increases pressure on cash-strapped owners to sell to developers. 

States tried to relieve that pressure by taxing threatened land according to what it is used for rather than what it could sell for. Although the tax breaks have been a welcome relief for working farmers, they have done little to slow the pace of development, according to numerous studies by think tanks and universities. 

For example, Jane Malme of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, Mass., reviewed farmland tax breaks in all 50 states and found that they have done little to preserve farmland. 

Many local officials have reached the same conclusion. Broward County, Fla., has lost 62,000 acres of agricultural land to development since 1972, and has only 7,600 acres left. There, the land-preservation tax break "has not slowed development an iota," said Gaylord Wood, attorney for the appraiser's office. But it cost the county $13 million in taxes last year. 

To discourage owners from taking the tax break and then developing their land, some states back-bill landowners at the normal tax rate, sometimes tacking on interest, if they develop the land. 

But 20 states, including Florida, don't back-bill at all. In eight others, back-billing is limited to three years or less of back taxes - but developers and speculators often hold land longer than that before building. 

Texas back-bills 5 years and tacks on 7 percent in annual interest. That hasn't deterred Hewlett-Packard from taking the tax break on 175 acres of woods across from its 9,000-employee complex in Houston. 

The company says the land may eventually be developed, and local officials are convinced it will. For now, Hewlett-Packard manages the property as a tree farm, saying it produces a "nominal" income. Thus, it qualifies for the agricultural land tax break, saving the computer giant about $500,000 a year. While the county may eventually recover five years of that with interest, Compaq, which Hewlett-Packard absorbed in 2001, began receiving the tax break 14 years ago. 

Other large corporations also take advantage of land preservation laws to reduce the cost of owning land they may eventually use for expansion. 

For example, in Osceola County, Fla., Walt Disney World receives the farming break on 1,600 acres of pasture, timber and nurseries where it grows plants for its theme parks. The land, worth $194 million, is taxed as if it were worth $12.3 million, according to the county land records office. Disney spokesman Jacquee Polack said the company keeps a buffer of undeveloped land around the park, but she acknowledged some of this property will be developed. 

Of course, many property owners who receive the tax breaks have no intention of developing their land. President Bush (news - web sites), for example, receives the agricultural tax break for his 1,582-acre ranch in Crawford, Texas, saving $23,679 last year on what would otherwise have been a $44,617 tax bill. 

However, property tax laws are so vague that it is easy for others to take advantage. 

"Our statute just says `agricultural use,'" said Roger Hamm, a supervisor in the Kansas Division of Property Valuation. "If an individual bales a bale of hay, that's agricultural use, based on Board of Tax Appeals rulings. It's almost that vague, yes. Not only almost - it is." 

Elbert County, Colo., agricultural appraiser Jane Penley, said: "I have people who have 60 acres and who put one cow on it and get the tax break." Elsewhere in the state, parking lots have qualified after a few cows were brought in to graze on grassy strips between parking lanes, assessors said. 

Developers who take advantage of the loopholes are within their rights. 

"I mean, that's the way the law's written," said Morgan County, Ala., Revenue Commissioner Amanda Scott. "I don't blame any taxpayer for decreasing their tax liability based on the law." 

Developers are unapologetic. "The way they tax is what you use it for," said Bob Schroder, vice president of Arlinghaus Builders. "It's not who owns it or what you might do with it someday. It's what you do with it now." 

In Boone County, Ky., Arlinghaus leases 1,000 acres it plans to develop to farmers who grows hay and tobacco on it. That qualifies the land for the agricultural tax break, reducing the property tax bill from $53,070 to $5,100. 

Every tax dollar lost through loopholes must be made up somehow_ either in reduced services or in higher taxes for other property owners. The amount lost nationwide cannot be estimated, in part because property taxes are assessed by thousands of local jurisdictions. But even solid estimates for individual counties are unavailable. 

What is clear is that the total cost of land preservation tax breaks - regardless of their merits - is enormous. 

In Wisconsin, which didn't adopt its agricultural tax break until 1996, more than $644 million in property taxes promptly shifted from farmland owners to other property owners, according to a study by the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance. 

In Lafayette County alone, the assessed value of farmland dropped by $75 million, reducing tax revenue by $1.5 million. To compensate, the county increased the tax bills of non-farmers by as much as 40 percent, and also imposed a sales tax. 

Some local officials have tried to fight back, seeking to limit tax breaks to those with no obvious development plans. Often, however, loopholes complicate enforcement efforts. 

In Florida, Orange County appraiser Bill Donegan is scrapping with the Hilton and Hyatt hotel chains over two parcels totaling 71.1 acres adjacent to the county convention center on a commercial strip between Walt Disney World and Universal Studios. 

The hotel companies have planted saplings and call their parcels tree farms, but it's difficult to imagine them remaining so for long. At current market prices, it would take more than 20,000 years for tree farms to recover the $67 million Hilton and Hyatt paid for the property. 

At stake in the dispute: whether the companies' annual tax bill will be $200,000 or $1.24 million. 

___ 

Joshua Duke, a University of Delaware agriculture expert, said there has been a lot of talk about reforming laws governing land-preservation tax breaks, but that not much happens. 

Few members of the public seem to realize how little the tax breaks do to slow development, how much they cost, or how widely they are misused, many assessors and land experts said. 

Meanwhile, those who benefit from the tax breaks are a large and vocal constituency. In Iowa, they showed up en masse last year to block the reappointment of a tax assessor who was trying to get tough on agricultural exemptions. 

Many farmers' organizations, whose members truly are farming their land, also oppose reform, fearing tinkering with the laws could cost their members money. 

Without property tax breaks, "a farmer cannot stay in business ... in this day and age, with all of the land values escalating and being developed as we become a more urban society," said Paul Till, administrator for the Alabama Farmers' Federation. 

"Change this law?" said John Zimple of Arkansas' Assessment Coordination Department in Little Rock. "There probably would be a civil war." 

___ 

EDITOR'S NOTE - News Source Writer Mike Schneider in Florida contributed to this report. 

Amusement Ride Accident Injures 7 in Fla. 
56 minutes ago

MIAMI - An amusement ride broke open and ejected several passengers at a county fair, injuring seven people including a teenage girl who was in critical condition. 

A piece of paneling came off "The Gravitron" while it was running late Friday, Miami-Dade police spokesman Juan DelCastillo said Saturday. The ride spins at high speed to generate centrifugal force that pins seated passengers against its interior wall. 

A bolt that held the panel in place sheared, said Liz Compton, a Department of Agriculture spokeswoman. 

About 40 to 45 people were on the ride when the accident happened, said Phil Clark, chief executive of the Miami-Dade County Fair and Exposition. 

Three of the passengers were hurled out through the opening left by the panel, DelCastillo said. There was no immediate word on how far the three people were thrown. 

A 16-year-old girl who suffered head and upper body injuries was in critical condition at Jackson Memorial Hospital, DelCastillo said. Six other people suffered injuries that weren't life threatening. 

The ride passed inspection before the fair opened March 18, Compton said. 

The fairground was closed after the accident but reopened for normal hours Saturday. The ride was impounded and an engineer planned to inspect it on Monday. 

Agriculture officials do not believe the "Gravitron" has been involved in any other accidents in the state, but the agency was trying to learn if any other fairs were using a similar ride. Those rides would be re-inspected. 

Vampire Bats Kill 13 People in Brazil
Fri Apr 2, 6:01 PM ET 
Add Science 

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil  - Rabies-carrying vampire bats killed at least 13 people in a remote Amazon town in Brazil's northern state of Para last month, authorities said on Friday. 

The state health care department said the thumb-sized creatures had attacked about 300 people -- an unusually high number -- since March 2 in the riverside Portel area, next to the world's biggest estuarine archipelago of Marajo. 

"All the deceased had a history of recent bat attacks and six of them had confirmed human rabies from bat bites," a department spokeswoman said. 

Other bite victims received vaccines and other anti-rabies treatment after March 19, when authorities became aware of the problem. 

The spokeswoman said government scientists suspect the attacks are linked to a change in the bats' migration pattern caused by deforestation. 

"There is no guarantee that we won't have more cases," she added. 

The most recent death occurred last weekend. 

Vampire bats normally feed on the blood of large birds and sleeping cattle, lapping it from cuts they make with their teeth. They often transmit rabies to cattle. 

Metallic Sound Is Heard by Space Crew 
Fri Apr 2, 2:25 PM ET

By MARCIA DUNN, News Source Aerospace Writer 

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The two men aboard the international space station heard a strange metallic sound again Friday, four months after being startled by it the first time. 

NEWS SOURCE 

Slideshow: International Space Station

Cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri was talking to flight controllers in Moscow when he heard a loud drumlike noise coming from the instrument panel of the station's Russian-built living quarters. 

Kaleri and astronaut Michael Foale first heard the mystery noise - described as a flapping sheet of metal - back in late November. Neither the crewmen nor flight controllers were ever able to identify the sound, although engineers suspected space junk may have damaged something on the exterior. 

Kaleri said Friday morning's noise came from about the same place as before and sounded the same. 

"I had the headset on, so I didn't hear it very clearly. But it sounded sort of like a drum. It sounds sort of like a sheet of something being bent," the cosmonaut reported. 

Russian flight controllers told Kaleri that they would try to figure out where the noise was coming from, and speculated that perhaps one of the systems inside the station was the source of the problem, rather than something on the outside. 

NASA (news - web sites) officials, however, said all systems appeared to be operating properly. 

"It's very strange," Russian Mission Control said. "I doubt that it would be a coincidence that you're hearing the same thing coming from the same place." 

During a spacewalk in February, Kaleri and Foale were supposed to check the exterior of the space station where the noise originated last November. But Kaleri's spacesuit overheated and became damp, and the spacewalk had to be cut short, so the men did not have time to inspect the area. 

Kaleri and Foale's six-month space station mission is almost over. Their replacements are due to arrive in another 2 1/2 weeks. 

___ 

On the Net: 

NASA: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov 

Fat Hamster in Printer Sparks Rescue

Apr 1, 7:45 am ET 

BERLIN  - A hamster called "Teddy" sparked a police rescue mission after he climbed inside a computer printer and got stuck because he was too fat to get out again, authorities said Wednesday.

"Contrary to his normal habits, Teddy climbed inside a PC printer and was unable to get out because of his corpulence," police in the northern city of Flensburg said in a statement, adding that they initially thought it was an April Fool's joke.

Luckily for Teddy, a neighbor of his owner managed to free the hamster so the arriving police officer was spared the task.

"After all the commotion, the animal was already peacefully asleep again in his cage, having escaped with nothing but a few bruises," said the statement. 

Schwarzenegger Has No Taste for Governator Ale

Apr 1, 7:33 am ET 

SAN FRANCISCO  - An Oregon brewery has found out the hard way what happens when Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Hollywood idol turned governor of California, flexes his muscles to protect his image.

A business advisor to Schwarzenegger said on Wednesday that lawyers for the governor were quickly dispatched to stop plans by Portland Brewing Co. to sell Governator Ale with the Pumping Iron label.

Governator alludes to the series of "Terminator" movies in which Schwarzenegger battles futuristic machines out to control humanity, and "Pumping Iron" references the 1977 documentary about body building that helped make Schwarzenegger famous.

"Any unauthorized use of his name, voice or likeness has to be stopped," said Paul Wachter, the trustee of Schwarzenegger's blind trust. "If you don't stop it, his name, voice or likeness would become public domain, which would be a disaster personally and professionally."

Wachter said he does not believe the Oregon brewery thought it was breaking any laws with its Governator Ale, but noted the Hollywood-icon-turned-politician has long been quick to protect his image.

"Governor or not, we can't really change what we do because otherwise it would be open season," Wachter said. "He carefully reviews every commercial tie-in."

Portland Brewing Co. did not return telephone calls requesting an interview, but Wachter said the brewery has scrapped plans to bottle Governator Ale.

A bottle of the ale was listed for sale on Ebay Inc.'s online bazaar on Wednesday afternoon for $15.50. 

A Godsend, Till a Life Unravels
Fri Apr 2, 7:55 AM ET

By Alan Zarembo and Benedict Carey Times Staff Writers 

INDIANAPOLIS - Traci Johnson believed it was God's plan for her to leave home to attend a tiny Bible college here - and she prayed every day for the Lord to provide for her tuition. 

� Latimes.com home page
� Subscribe to the Los Angeles Times

Then an unusual opportunity presented itself. 

Eli Lilly & Co., the pharmaceutical giant headquartered a few miles from Indiana Bible College, was seeking healthy subjects for a live-in clinical drug trial. The 19-year-old freshman told her friends back home in Pennsylvania that the study was her best hope to stay in school. 

"Trace, that don't sound right," her friend Colleen Jacoby told her. "I never heard of a human guinea pig." 

But the students at the Bible college knew all about the trials. They made perfect subjects for studies requiring healthy people - and they were used often, receiving hundreds, even thousands of dollars for a few weeks work. 

If accepted into the study, she could make $150 a day for 49 days - more than a year's worth of her school expenses - for taking a drug known as duloxetine, an antidepressant that had already been given to thousands of people and was on the verge of approval by the Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites). 

She had faith that God would find a way. "It was in his hands," she wrote in her diary. 

Just before the new semester, a Lilly representative called. Her prayers were answered. 

A month later, she was dead. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Indiana Bible College is on the outskirts of Indianapolis, in a former hospital. With 260 students, it is a tight-knit community of Pentecostals. TV is banned and girls are required to wear long skirts. It's not unusual to see students drop their knapsacks and form an impromptu circle, praying for a sick aunt or alcoholic cousin. 

For Johnson it was a sanctuary. 

She grew up in blue-collar Bensalem, Pa., but the center of her childhood was a Pentacostal church in a rough Philadelphia neighborhood. Every Wednesday morning, she walked with the pastor past bars and discount stores canopied by train tracks. They huddled around prostitutes and drug addicts. She prayed so hard for them that tears rolled down her cheeks. 

Then last summer, she announced that the Lord had told her to attend Bible school. 

"She just went wherever the Lord was leading her," said Kathy DePalma, who ran the Christian day-care center where Johnson had worked. 

When friends came to visit in Indianapolis, Johnson chattered about the college's football team, her new church and the young men who had caught her eye. 

"I think my highest want right now is the person who Jesus wants me with," she noted in her diary soon after starting school, "someone I can pray with." 

In a school essay, she envisioned herself as a preacher's wife, raising her children and sitting in the first pew of church. 

All she needed was $3,470 a semester. She had arrived with little money, and her father had recently lost his job as a machinist. 

"I REALLY REALLY REALLY need you to open a way for me to pay my bill," she wrote to God in her diary. "Please provide a way." 

One Final Trial 
A few miles from the Bible college, the neon logo of Eli Lilly glows atop the company's headquarters in south Indianapolis. 

In 1972, a Lilly biochemist discovered that a patented chemical, fluoxetine, enhanced the action of the brain chemical serotonin, which affects mood. More testing showed the chemical could dissolve feelings of despair and sadness. 

The FDA approved the drug, Prozac, in 1987 and since then, sales have totaled more than $21 billion. But by the late 1990s, the patent on Prozac was about to expire, and the company needed a sequel. Lilly began looking at duloxetine, a patented agent that not only affects serotonin, like Prozac, but also norepinephrine, another brain chemical. 

Duloxetine had been shelved in the early 1990s, in part because low doses had no effect on depression. But higher doses, Lilly scientists discovered, relieved depression at least as well as Prozac. Subsequent testing proved the drug also curbed stress-related urinary incontinence. 

By 2003 Lilly had a trade name, Cymbalta, and industry analysts were projecting sales of $2.5 billion a year for depression alone, a figure rivaling the high-water mark for Prozac. 

The drug already had been tested in 8,500 people, but the FDA wanted one last clinical trial to measure its effect on heart rhythm. It would use doses as much as up to five times that recommended for incontinence, and six times the dose for depression. 

Lilly needed 100 healthy females between 18 and 75 (women are more prone to incontinence) for seven weeks. 

The inventors of Prozac had their sequel. They just had to complete one last trial. 

A Great Fundraiser 
Lilly's human test clinic, located at the University of Indiana Medical Center, is a resort-like facility with a library, rooftop sundeck and a panoramic view of downtown. "I felt I was on a mini-vacation," reads one testimonial on the clinic's website. 

The site touts the drug trials as a great way for schools, churches and community organizations to raise money. 

There are hundreds of similar test centers around the country, many of them near college campuses because of the ready supply of students looking for part-time work. 

Healthy subjects, free of the ailment for which the drug is designed, are typically used to measure a drug's side effects and health risks. By the time a drug has reached this stage, it has been extensively tested in animals, and the risk of death is considered minimal. 

"My test was for a medicine for schizophrenia," said Nasri Ashkar, a 21-year-old senior at Indiana Bible College. 

The medicine made him itchy, but "it wasn't a bad experience at all," he said. 

Another classmate, 22-year-old Gary Parks, said he had applied to nearly two dozen studies at the clinic and participated in nine. Ticking them off, he quickly lost track: "Something to prevent the spread of cancer ... a diabetes one." 

Parks made $2,600 in the diabetes study for a week of work, although he recalled that "everybody was throwing up." 

Nausea, Parks concluded, was just part of the job. 

Before every trial, a Lilly official explained the risks and asked him to sign a consent form, a legal document which protects both the subject and the company. It entitles participants to medical care for health problems arising from the trial, allows them to leave the study at any time and warns of the danger of withholding information from researchers. 

Parks said the worst risk he ever heard of during a drug trial was the possibility of fainting from low blood sugar. He wasn't worried. "They have I.V.'s," Parks said, referring to intravenous fluids. "They can bring you back." 

Enough students joined the Lilly trials over the years that they became a routine way of making money, like delivering pizzas or parking cars. That worried some members of the Cavalry Tabernacle Church, which all the students attended. 

At a dinner with students, one woman told them that "your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost." 

The Rev. Paul Mooney, who heads the college and the church, said participating in a Lilly trial was just for "raising pocket money." He said he neither encouraged nor discouraged students from taking part in such trials. 

"We're not talking about illegal drugs," Mooney said. "And these programs are very well monitored by the government and so forth, and they have all kinds of guidelines." 

An Overdose at 15 
Johnson seemed like a good candidate for the duloxetine trial. At 5-foot-4 and 130 pounds, she was physically fit and, by all accounts, reliable and upbeat. 

But during her interview, she told screeners that when she was 15, she had landed in the emergency room after overdosing on Tylenol pills and had to have her stomach cleared, according to a psychiatrist studying duloxetine who has read a report on Johnson's case. The doctor spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was considered confidential. 

A family friend said the overdose occurred after Johnson's first boyfriend broke up with her, and involve a cholesterol-lowering medication used by her father, not Tylenol. 

Johnson denied to screeners she was suicidal then or depressed now, the psychiatrist said. 

The researchers accepted her in the study, which was conducted at several sites across the country. 

Then they presented her with a consent form that listed side effects common in previous duloxetine trials, including insomnia, nervousness and anxiety. It also noted rarer effects, such as fainting and an occasional feeling of indifference. 

She signed the form. 

At the time, a controversy was brewing over antidepressants that affect serotonin. 

Six months before the trial began, drug maker GlaxoSmithKline sent a letter to doctors in England warning that its drug Seroxat (known as Paxil in the United States) should not be prescribed to people under 18. It reported that in its own pediatric trial, subjects reported side effects including "crying, mood fluctuations, self-harm, suicidal thoughts and attempted suicide" when they stopped taking the drug. 

Two months later, drug maker Wyeth cautioned U.S. doctors that its drug Effexor - the FDA-approved antidepressant most similar to duloxetine - increased the risk in teenagers of "suicide-related adverse events such as suicidal thoughts and self-harm." 

In December, British health officials effectively banned the use of most antidepressants in children and teens. 

Lilly's chief medical officer, Dr. Alan Breier, said in an interview that the company was confident that duloxetine was safe. Previous trials did not reveal a statistically significant number of suicides, Breier said. 

The trial's overseers agreed. Dr. Rafat Abonour, head of the University of Indiana board that approved the duloxetine protocol, said he did not recall that suicide was ever mentioned during the review process. 

Five suicides had occurred among 4,124 depressed subjects in studies of the drug. One subject had taken only a placebo. In a recent study of about 1,000 depressed people taking duloxetine for up to a year, seven people attempted suicide and seven others reported that they'd thought seriously about it. 

Breier said that was less than would be expected in a group of depressed patients. The annual suicide rate in the general population is about one in 10,000. The risk in people diagnosed with depression can be 10 to 30 times higher. 

Lilly spokesman David Shaffer said that because data did not link duloxetine to suicide, a history of depression - even a past suicide attempt - would not necessarily disqualify somebody from the trial. 

Several people in the trial had struggled with moodiness and despair. 

Yullan Valor, a freelance product consultant, was among about two dozen subjects who took part in the duloxetine trial at California Clinical Trials in Glendale. She said screeners seemed interested only in depression suffered during the last seven years. She said they did not ask for details about the depression she said she suffered two decades ago - and so never learned that she had once called a suicide hotline for counseling. 

Tatiana Sikic, another participant, didn't tell screeners that five years ago she cut her wrists and took some pills in an attempt to kill herself. 

All she said was that she had a history of depression. 

"I really needed to be in the study," said Sikic, who was out of work at the time. "And I felt fine." 

A Host of Odd Reactions 
On Jan. 10, Johnson, along with the Bible college's secretary and another student, entered the enclosed world of Lilly's clinical drug trial. 

The experience blends dorm living and medical quarantine. Subjects share meals and TV time, opinions and life stories, forming a makeshift community. 

In this study, subjects took duloxetine twice a day. At regular intervals, the medical staff took blood samples and checked heart rhythms. 

Each participant took the drug for 20 days: 16 days working up to a dose of 400 milligrams of duloxetine, followed by a four-day weaning period in which the dosage dropped to zero. For the rest of the study, they were given a placebo. 

Almost everyone had some odd reaction to the drug. Some could not sleep. Others could not get out of bed. There was constant bickering. 

One woman at the Glendale site said she was stunned when she felt an overwhelming urge to run over her husband with the family car as he walked past. Some subjects cut in front of Alzheimer's patients for use of coveted VCRs. 

"It was turning into a madhouse," said 38-year-old Carmellia Wright, an actress. "Every minute someone was breaking down crying or laughing." 

Two weeks into the experiment, Johnson dropped out of school. Even though she could leave the clinic, she was missing classes and skipped the funeral of her grandfather. 

Still, she found time to socialize. And there was a young man, a sophomore, a Christian. "I LOVE his love for you," she wrote to God about the boy in her diary. "God, please work it out." 

They quarreled, but on Jan. 28 - a day when she took the maximum 400-milligram dose of duloxetine - they went on a date and parted with a kiss. "So yeah talking about DRAMA!!" she wrote in her diary. 

She took 240 milligrams the next day, beginning a withdrawal period when brain chemicals can swing wildly. On Feb. 3, Johnson took 120 milligrams of duloxetine before starting on the placebo. 

She seemed fine and baby-sat three nights later, telling one mother she couldn't wait to get back to school. She talked with friends back home and was anxious to be there for the delivery of her sister's baby. 

At 3 p.m. the next day she spoke by phone with John Crompton, a church friend from Philadelphia, and told him she felt sick and needed to rest. 

Sometime in the next few hours, the young woman took the multicolored scarf that she wore around her waist and looped it around her neck. She tied the other end to a shower rod. 

And there she hung, feet dangling close to the floor, until a nurse found her body shortly after 8:30 p.m. 

Reassuring Stockholders 
The Rev. Joel Barnaby, Johnson's pastor back home in Pennsylvania, broke the news to her parents in their living room. 

Reporters barraged Lilly with questions. 

At one of the trial sites, in Evansville, Ind., directors shut down the study, sending home all 16 subjects, according to a Lilly spokesman. But enough people remained in the study to ensure the trial was still scientifically valid, the spokesman said. 

Lilly assured stockholders that the suicide would not delay the drug's release later this year. The company also reported Johnson's earlier pill-swallowing episode to the FDA and the scientists who were studying duloxetine for Lilly. 

While company officials declined to comment in detail on Johnson's death, they said they did not believe the duloxetine contributed to it - and that the reasons behind her suicide were a mystery. She left no note. 

At the Glendale test site, clinic staffers tried to ease worries by telling subjects that Johnson had tried to commit suicide before, and that problems with money and other matters had pushed her over the brink, several subjects said. 

"The psychiatrist told me that she had a history of depression and that she had just broken up with her boyfriend," Wright said. 

Lilly asked test subjects to sign new consent forms and started daily psychological evaluations. It also doubled the weaning period from the drug to eight days. The new forms disclosed the suicide, saying that "at this point the sponsor believes that this event was not caused by duloxetine or the study." 

Most of the Glendale subjects stayed in the trial, but they were infuriated to discover in an online news article that they were being paid less than their counterparts in Indiana. 

To quell revolt, the clinic raised their pay to match the $150 a day in Indiana. 

Convergence of Beliefs 
Those closest to Traci Johnson blame her death on the drug - and the lure of money. 

"This is a terrible spiritual breach of Christian ethics," Barnaby said. "Christians should never have to experiment with psychotropic medicine as a means to make money." 

Johnson believed that faith would protect her - faith that God had led her down a path to $7,000, that other people at the Bible college wouldn't participate in an unsafe study, that a company as huge as Eli Lilly would not let anything happen to her. 

Lilly officials believed that their data ruled out a link between duloxetine and suicide, and that it wasn't necessary to tell subjects about the suicide controversy. 

Even after studies of antidepressants involving thousands of people, the debate over their risk still rages. 

Most psychiatrists say antidepressants are more likely to prevent suicide than trigger it. "Looking at the analysis the British regulators did, I see no significant difference between the drugs and placebo when it comes to suicide risk," said Dr. David Brent, a psychia- trist at the University of Pittsburgh who studies suicide prevention. 

But some researchers point out that suicide is inherently difficult to study. It occurs too rarely to provide reliable data, and too many factors, often deeply personal, can spark a plunge into depression. 

They say Lilly would have to conduct a thorough investigation of each suicide during the duloxetine trials to determine whether the drug was involved. Company officials, who knew few details about the previous suicides, said they now plan to study all six deaths. 

The concerns over antidepressants were already serious enough that on March 22 the FDA warned that some patients could become suicidal when they first started antidepressants or during withdrawal. The agency urged the makers of 10 drugs currently on the market to include labels alerting doctors and consumers to danger signs such as anxiety, hostility and agitation in patients of all ages. 

The FDA is still reviewing duloxetine. If the drug wins approval, regulators will likely advise that it, too, carry the warning. 

Painful Questions 
On a blustery day in February, 17 students rode a bus from Indiana to Pennsylvania with Pastor Mooney for Johnson's funeral. 

Among them was the young man from the Bible college who Johnson had been dating. He has refused to talk about her death. The night she died, he had been scheduled to join an unrelated study at the Lilly clinic. 

He never showed up. 

More than 300 mourners gathered at her old church. "Traci Johnson died last Saturday night, by no fault of her own," Barnaby said from the pulpit. 

The worshipers could not reconcile their memories of Johnson with her suicide. "I was surprised because she had the Holy Spirit," said Ernest Copple, 79, an official at the church Sunday school. 

To fathom the possibility that Johnson freely chose suicide would be to challenge the very foundations of her faith. She would never forsake God's most precious gift. 

"We know if you take your own life, you don't go to heaven," said Jacoby, her friend from home. "We wouldn't do that." 

The day after the suicide, Pastor Mooney invited Dr. Michael Turek, the top Lilly investigator in the Indianapolis duloxetine trial, to church. Students who attended said Turek expressed Lilly's sympathy and answered questions. 

One student asked if they should still participate in trials. 

That, Turek replied, was up to them. 

Dogs Get Their Own Toilet

Mar 31, 2:14 pm ET 

AMSTERDAM  - Dutch dog owners can soon throw away their pooper-scoopers and plastic bags and instead walk their furry creatures to their very own toilet.

The developer of a new "doggy toilet," a small fenced-in patch of artificial grass, hopes the self-cleaning device will help rid towns of the mess left behind by man's best friend.

The first toilet is being tested in Zaltbommel, a small town in central Netherlands, but the developer has already been approached by government officials from as far away as London.

"This is only a pilot program, but we hope to roll out 200 to 300 of these toilets in one year," Hans van de Pos, who has patented the device, told The News Source Tuesday. 

Patient Winner Waits a Year to Claim $23 Million

Apr 2, 1:57 pm ET 

TORONTO  - A Canadian who waited nearly a year to claim a C$30 million ($23 million) lottery prize because he didn't want to "do anything rash" was being described as the most patient man in the country on Friday.

Raymond Sobeski won the biggest single jackpot in Canadian history last April but only stepped forward to claim his prize a mere 12 days before the ticket's expiry date.

"It was the first time that a winner's waited this long," said Kathy Pittman, a spokeswoman for the Ontario Gaming and Lottery Corp. "We thought it must be lost because how can someone sit on it for this long?

"After meeting him, it's perfectly clear to me. He is a gentleman who takes his time, care and caution to make any decision. He's a very patient, laid-back man."

The 47-year-old self-employed computer repairman tucked the winning ticket away in a safety deposit box -- not even telling his family -- and got to work putting his affairs in order.

"I didn't want to do anything rash," Sobeski told reporters on Thursday when he claimed his prize. "I thought it was in my best interest to keep it to myself until I had everything all sorted out."

Sobeski, who called himself "happily unemployed now," said he had known since shortly after the April 11, 2003, draw but wanted to get professional and financial advice first.

His tax-free windfall was front page news in Canada on Friday and a hot topic on radio talk shows where callers wondered how he could keep the secret for so long.

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp had taken out full-page advertisements in the Brantford area in southwestern Ontario, where they knew the winning ticket had been bought, and urged the holder to come forward.

While smaller winnings have expired before, a Lotto Super 7 jackpot has never gone unclaimed. The largest unclaimed lottery win was a C$4.69 million Lotto 649 Ontario jackpot in 1989.

"With our experience, we just figured this person must know. It's just so odd for a C$30 million jackpot, for someone to have thrown out their ticket," Pittman said. "Part of us was sitting back and thinking, it's someone that's waiting."

Sobeski, who grew up on a farm, plans to travel and share the money with his parents and siblings. He said he might also buy a farm.

"He hopped on a plane yesterday evening. Golfing somewhere by today, I'm sure," Pittman said.

($1-$1.31 Canadian) 

U.S. Firms Keep Billions Overseas 2 hours, 7 minutes ago

 - washingtonpost.com 

By Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post Staff Writer 

With sales up 5 percent last year, Merck & Co. was not satisfied: To hold down costs, the pharmaceutical giant shed 3,200 jobs as 2003 drew to a close, and announced that an additional 1,200 positions would go this year. 

But Merck's picture abroad was quite different. It made 1,300 new hires in 2003 outside the United States, on top of the 900 brought on the year before. Company documents indicate that Merck had a cumulative $18 billion in foreign earnings untaxed by the end of last year, $3 billion more than in 2002. And the company said it had no intention of ever paying U.S. taxes on that burgeoning sum. 

"Foreign earnings of $18.0 billion . . . have been retained indefinitely by subsidiary companies for reinvestment," Merck's annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (news - web sites) said. "No provision is made for income taxes that would be payable upon distribution of such earning."

Last week, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the likely Democratic nominee for president, made such lucrative income-tax deferrals a focal point of his campaign, asserting that they are driving companies to expand abroad. Merck's numbers appear to back that up, and so do those of several other big U.S. companies.

By the end of its 2003 fiscal year, Hewlett-Packard Co. had "indefinitely" deferred taxation on $14.4 billion of foreign earnings, according to SEC filings, a move that helped lower its effective tax rate from the statutory corporate income tax rate of 35 percent to 12 percent. 

Domestic employment at Intel Corp. slipped by more than 3,300 people last year, but it grew by more than 4,300 abroad. By the end of 2003, the company had $7 billion in cumulative foreign earnings, $700 million more than it had sheltered in 2002, according to SEC filings. The semiconductor powerhouse stated that it "intends to reinvest these earnings indefinitely in operations outside the U.S."

The Kerry campaign said U.S.-based multinational corporations are deferring taxation on $12 billion in foreign earnings each year, a figure that may be low, corporate tax experts say. Corporate tax revenue in 2003 fell for the third straight year, to its lowest in a decade. As a percentage of the economy, business taxes last year reached the second-lowest level since the Great Depression. Few doubt that tax avoidance has been a reason for meager corporate tax collections, and the deferral of taxes on foreign earnings may be one of the biggest factors.

"It's probably next to impossible to get a read on how big the number is, but it's fair to say it's a big, big deal," said Douglas A. Shackelford, an accounting professor at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School who has studied the issue.

Since Kerry announced his corporate-tax-reform proposal, tax experts have debated its impact on the U.S. job market and its consequences for U.S-based multinationals. But liberal and conservative tax policymakers now appear to agree on one point: The byzantine U.S. system of foreign business taxation is in need of major change.

"This is a largely broken system, rife with abuse," said Gene B. Sperling, a former economic aide to President Bill Clinton (news - web sites) who advises Kerry and is an architect of the candidate's plan.

"There is a real problem here," said Gary C. Hufbauer, an international tax expert at the Institute for International Economics, who is skeptical of Kerry's proposal. "U.S. firms doing business in the U.S. are taxed more heavily than many of their foreign competitors. That's demonstrably true."

Under Kerry's plan, U.S.-based companies would have to pay taxes immediately on virtually all foreign profits that are not taxed by another country. Firms could still defer taxation on profits from subsidiaries set up abroad to serve local markets, but if a U.S. company sets up overseas to ship goods back home, taxes would be due in full.

The $12 billion in additional taxes would be used to lower the corporate tax rate to 33.25 percent, from 35 percent. By closing a major loophole used by only the largest multinationals, the plan would bestow a tax cut on more than 99 percent of U.S. companies, Kerry advisers say. Kerry would also try to lure an estimated $639 billion in untaxed foreign earnings back home with a "tax holiday" that would lower the rate on repatriated earnings to 10 percent for one year.

"In any proposed change to corporate tax law, there will be some companies that will do less well than others," said Roger C. Altman, a senior Treasury official in the Clinton administration and a top Kerry economic adviser. "But the preponderance of companies will do better" under Kerry's proposal.

Eliminating loopholes and lowering overall tax rates is standard, orthodox tax theory, said Joel B. Slemrod, a tax economist at the University of Michigan. On balance, he said, Kerry's plan would probably benefit the U.S. economy.

Given their long-standing support for "tax holidays" on foreign earnings and lower corporate rates, some businesses said they were willing to suspend judgment until they see more details of the proposal. Spokesmen for Merck and Intel said their expansions abroad are not driven by tax factors. Merck spokesman Tony Plohoros noted that the company just opened a research facility in Seattle and is building a multimillion-dollar research lab in Boston.

Chuck Mulloy, an Intel spokesman, said Intel's growth abroad is fueled by a simple fact: 70 percent of the company's sales are international. But he did not dismiss Kerry's plan out of hand.

"It certainly deserves serious consideration," Mulloy said. 

But even philosophical supporters of the plan see major problems. Leonard E. Burman, a former assistant Treasury secretary for tax analysis, said he understands why Kerry wanted to exempt income earned in local foreign markets. But, he said, separating out such income would be difficult, and could open an abused system to still more abuse.

"It's great news for accountants and lawyers," he said.

More fundamentally, critics said, the plan would only hasten the movement of companies abroad. Some countries, such as France, tax only income earned within their borders. Many Republican tax economists say the U.S. system already taxes companies more heavily than other countries and has pushed companies to reincorporate abroad.

Under Kerry's proposal, "What's to prevent them all from going overseas?" said Terry Holt, a spokesman for President Bush (news - web sites)'s reelection campaign.

Altman, who is now a Wall Street investment banker, scoffed at that prospect. "If a corporation has a successful foreign investment, I don't think they're going to divest it for reason of changes in the tax law," he said.

But Shackelford, who supports Kerry's plan, suggested that Hufbauer has a point. At least, he said, it would create incentives for corporate mergers that wind up headquartered overseas, just as Chrysler Corp. and Daimler-Benz AG produced Germany-based DaimlerChrysler AG.

"If deferral is eliminated, there's going to be some hurt there, I don't think there's any question," Shackelford said. 

Kerry advisers conceded that they wrestled with many of those objections before deciding to push ahead. "This is a tough issue, but I kind of think we came out in the right place," Sperling said.

He said objections to the fine print should not distract from the point Kerry is trying to make: The U.S. tax code is actually encouraging the movement of jobs overseas.

"This is a big deal," agreed Robert S. McIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice, who has inveighed against foreign tax deferral for years. As a company, he said, "you may go to India or China or Ireland for the wage differentials -- there's nothing we can do about that. But we don't have to pay you to go there."

Medical Schools Establishes Obesity Course 31 minutes ago

Add Health 

WASHINGTON  - Duke Medical School said on Friday it was setting up a course in treating obesity, saying that with nearly two-thirds of Americans overweight, doctors need specialized knowledge of the condition. 

Coursework will include the underlying causes of obesity and how to treat it. "The students learn how to manage overweight and obese patients non-judgmentally and counsel adults and children to make healthy lifestyle choices," the North Carolina-based medical school said in a statement. 

"Duke is one of the first medical schools in the country to establish an obesity management course for medical students," added Dr. Jarol Boan, and assistant professor of medicine and surgery who set up the month-long course. 

"Physicians have typically had very little exposure to obesity treatment. Part of the reason for this is that obesity is not considered a disease, so students don't get training for obesity." 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites) says obesity is quickly gaining on smoking as the leading cause of death in the United States, taking 400,000 lives a year. 

"There's an obesity epidemic, and students need to be able to deal with the real world," Boan said. 

Richard Simmons Cited for Slapping Man

40 minutes ago

PHOENIX - Exercise guru Richard Simmons allegedly slapped a man who made a sarcastic remark about one of his videos, police said. 

Simmons, known for his "Sweatin' to the Oldies" series of exercise videos set to songs from the 1950s and 60s, was cited for misdemeanor assault. 

A fellow passenger recognized Simmons on Wednesday night at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport as he was waiting for a flight to Los Angeles, police said. 

The man "made the off-hand comment, 'Hey everybody. It's Richard Simmons. Let's drop our bags and rock to the '50s,'" said Phoenix police Sgt. Tom Osborne. "Mr. Simmons took exception to it and walked over to the other passenger and apparently slapped him in the face." 

The passenger, whose identity wasn't immediately available, wasn't injured but told police that he intended to file charges against Simmons, 55. 

Osborne said Simmons was cited for misdemeanor assault and permitted to board his flight. 

Apple Delays IPod Mini Global Launch 
26 minutes ago 
Add Technology 

NEW YORK  - Apple Computer Inc. (NasdaqNM:AAPL - news) will delay global sales of its new iPod mini digital music player until July due to stronger-than-expected demand in the United States, Apple said on Thursday. 

Related Quotes 
AAPL
DJIA
NASDAQ
^SPC 26.21
10102.02
1933.69
1097.02 +0.71
+53.79
+24.21
+5.69

Get Quotes 
delayed 20 mins - disclaimer 
Quote Data provided by The News Source

Missed Tech Tuesday? 
Get a preview of tomorrow's PC and desktop displays. Plus, where the PC won't be anytime soon. 

Apple began shipping the smaller version of its iPod music player in February. 

Demand in the United States has outstripped expected supply through the end of June, the company said. Tight supplies of the hard drive at the core of the player forced Apple to delay increasing manufacturing until July, it said. 

"We're actually consuming just about all the 4 gigabyte, 1- inch drives they make. As they make more, we'll get more," said Greg Joswiak, vice president of hardware product marketing for Apple. 

Hitachi Ltd. (6501.T), which manufactures nearly all of the one-inch drives, expects to boost production to meet customer demand, Hitachi Storage Technologies Chief Executive Jun Naruse told The News Source earlier Thursday. 

In February, Apple said it planned to ship the smaller $249 iPod worldwide in April. It said then it had 100,000 preorders for the gadget. The mini iPod is about the length and width of a business card, weighs about 3.6 ounces and holds 1,000 songs. 

Cupertino, California-based Apple's shares were up 71 cents, or 3 percent, at $26.21 in morning Nasdaq trading. 

Santa Fe Considers Doggie Seat Belt Law

1 hour, 42 minutes ago

SANTA FE, N.M. - Santa Fe is considering requiring doggie seat belts. A major rewrite of the city's animal control ordinance proposes that Santa Fe dogs be buckled up when riding in trucks and other vehicles. 

The ordinance endorsed Tuesday by a City Council committee would require an animal in the bed of a truck to be "crated or restrained ... so it cannot fall or jump from the truck or be strangled." It also would require that any animal "in or on" a vehicle be restrained to keep it from falling out. 

Santa Fe pet stores stock devices to restrain animals in vehicles, although managers said they don't sell many. 

Shops carry a "pet safety sitter," selling for $13.69 to $21.69, that holds dogs in a vehicle's seat via a strap across their chests; a restraint that has a loop that attaches to a seat belt; and "pickup tie-outs" that attach to a dog's collar to keep it from jumping out of the bed of a truck. 

There's even a little booster seat for dogs so they can see out of the window, complete with an attachment so the dog can't jump around in the car. 

The proposed ordinance also addresses restraining animals while walking them on public property. It would require dogs and cats to be on a leash no more than 8 feet long and would no longer consider voice commands as acceptable restraint. 

Leftwing broadcasters take to airwaves

Wed Mar 24, 3:35 PM ET

By Holly Yeager in New York 

Liberal radio station hopes to ride a wave of perceived antipathy to the Bush administration and so succeed where other leftwing broadcasters have failed. From a cramped 40th floor office on Park Avenue, Mark Walsh is plotting a radio revolution. 

There are empty fizzy drink cans and coffee cups everywhere. Someone in blue jeans is sitting on the floor, tapping at a laptop. Pieces of paper are taped all over the walls. The plac e has the look and feel of a political campaign. And it is one, of sorts. 

With a small band of performers, writers, technicians and investors, Mr Walsh is taking a set of unmistakably leftwing voices to America's airwaves, where the right reigns supreme. 

Air America radio goes on the air next Wednesday, initially in four cities - New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles - as well as by satellite and over the internet. By the end of the year, Mr Walsh hopes to be in 36 markets, through a combination of station leases and purchases, syndication deals and other arrangements. 

"You couldn't ask for a better time to launch," said Mr Walsh, chief executive of the fledgling network. 

Al Franken, the comedian-turned-author who will be Air America's top personality, has put it more plainly: "Bush is going down in November." 

So far, conservatives are showing no signs of fear. "This country is based on the principle of free speech, so we wish them well," said a spokesman for Fox News, where Bill O'Reilly, a popular talk radio host, also has a television programme. 

Air America faces an uphill battle as it tries to win listeners and advertisers in a tough market. But, with liberal authors such as Mr Franken on the bestseller list and an infusion of cash into new left-leaning political groups, there are signs that the time may be right. 

"People hate Bush. They're so furious," said Eric Alterman, a liberal media critic. "They just want to be surrounded by reinforcement. They want that in their car radio, in the book s they pick up - it's just a consuming thing." 

Listeners in search of those views today have only a few places to turn. While National Public Radio, the US public radio network, is seen as liberal, it doesn't offer the same satiri cal commentary that conservative talk radio stars such as Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and Mr O'Reilly provide. 

"Democrats are not going to listen to liberal radio because they feel they have to," Mr Walsh said. "Our product has to entertain, it has to inform, it has to be funny and it has to be serious, all at the same time." To prove it has sharp edges, Air America is calling its first programme of the day Morning Sedition, a direct jab at NPR's Morning Edition. 

Mr Walsh, a veteran of HBO, America Online and the Democratic National Committee (news - web sites), was volunteering for Democrat presidential contender John Kerry (news - web sites)'s campaign when he joined the radio n etwork last autumn. While he has no formal ties with the Kerry camp, the "Bring it On!" slogan that Mr Kerry has adopted appears on some Air America posters. 

The group has raised $25m in equity, mostly from wealthy individuals who, Mr Walsh said, made their investments "based on belief and business". 

A separate arm, called Equal Time, which has $30m in debt capacity, will acquire and operate radio stations. The group expects to lose money in its first two years and become profitab le early in its third. 

Past efforts to provide a liberal voice on radio have not worked for several reasons. Mario Cuomo, the former New York governor, and attorney Alan Dershowitz had shortlived shows that were sandwiched between conservative talkers. And while Mr Limbaugh and others rose to prominence in the 1990s by tapping into anger some had for then-president Bill Clinton (news - web sites), "we had no rage to drive our listeners", Mr Walsh said. 

Matthew Felling, of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, a Washington research group, agreed that the time was right to launch a liberal radio network. But he disagreed with Air A merica's comedy-based approach. "If you never present your message in a straightforward way, people won't be able to determine what part of your message is humour and what is fact," he said. "You won't be taken seriously, or as seriously as you should be." 

But Mr Walsh is a confident campaign manager. "We have to become a media brand so rapidly that we stop competition, because there will be competition," he said. "Once we prove that so mebody is going to listen to this stuff, there will be a lot of Johnny wannabes." 

U.N. Prescribes Nutrient-Fortified Foods

Wed Mar 24, 4:35 PM ET

By CHRIS HAWLEY, News Source Writer 

UNITED NATIONS - The brainpower of entire nations has diminished because of a shortage of the right vitamins, and slipping nutrients into people's food seems to be the only solution, a new U.N. survey says. 


 

To fight the problem, the United Nations (news - web sites) is prescribing a whole pantry of artificially fortified foods: soy sauce laced with zinc, "super salt" spiked with iron, cooking oil fortified with vitamin A. 

Deficiencies in these vitamins are having alarming effects in developing countries, even ones where people generally have enough to eat, said the study, released Wednesday. 

A lack of iron lowers children's IQs by an average five to seven points, the report said. A deficiency in iodine cuts it 13 more points, said Venkatesh Mannar, president of the Micronutrient Initiative, which produced the report along with the United Nations Children's Fund. Birth defects increase when mothers don't get enough folic acid, and a shortage of vitamin A makes children 25-30 percent more likely to die of disease. 

"So ubiquitous is vitamin and mineral deficiency that it debilitates in some significant degree the energies, intellects, and economic prospects of nations," the study said. 

It looked at 80 developing countries representing some 80 percent of the world's population. It found: 

_ Iodine deficiency has lowered the intellectual capacity of almost all of the nations by as much as 10 to 15 percentage points. It causes 18 million children a year to be born mentally impaired. 

_ Iron deficiency in adults is so widespread that it lowers the productivity of work forces - cutting the Gross Domestic Product in the worst-affected countries by 2 percent. 

_ Deficiencies in folic acid - a nutrient needed for tissue growth, especially in pregnant women - causes approximately 200,000 severe birth defects every year in the 80 countries. 

_ About 40 percent of the developing world's people suffer from iron deficiency, 15 percent lack adequate iodine and as many as 40 percent do not get enough vitamin A. 

In most Western countries, governments have fought the problem with additives: iodine is sprayed onto salt before packaging, vitamin A is added to milk and margarine, and flour is enriched with niacin, iron and folic acid. 

But that doesn't work in countries where governments are weak, food is not processed in big mills and diets are based on a single starchy staple like rice or corn. 

Other health experts said the U.N. findings echoed other studies showing the link between intelligence and nutrition. 

"This is absolutely happening," said Ronald Waldman, a professor of clinical health at Columbia University. "Vitamin deficiency is a disease, and when people have this disease they don't reach their ideal mental potential." 

While some deficiencies, like lack of vitamin A, can be corrected, "If you grow up and your IQ has suffered from iodine deficiency, it's not going to be reversible," Waldman said. 

Furthermore, things are getting worse in some countries, the report said. The percentage of salt that is iodized has slipped to 25 percent in some Central Asian countries and to 50 percent in India, the country with the largest number of iodine deficient people, the report said. 

Getting vitamins to people other ways just doesn't work, researchers said. In the United States, most people ignored government pleas to take more folic acid, a nutrient found in nuts - until the government started putting it in flour in 1998. The result: cases of spina bifida and anencephaly, two serious birth defects, dropped by at least 20 percent. 

"It becomes an issue of compliance. If people have to eat a vitamin pill every day, a lot of them won't do it," Mannar said. 

The report urges countries to step up enrichment in foods that people don't make themselves - things like soy sauce, cooking oil or margarine. It also endorses a new kind of salt fortified with iron in "microcapsules." 

Putting more nutrients into the food has a measurable economic effect, Mannar said. He cited an Indian study that showed a 20 percent increase in production among tea leaf pickers after iron was added to their diets. 

But the most disturbing gap between countries with good and poor nutrition is in intelligence, said Cutberto Garza, a Cornell University professor who also leads the nutrition program at United Nations University. 

"A difference of five to seven IQ points doesn't sound like a lot, but you have to look at the tail ends of the (statistical) curve," Garza said. "You are significantly reducing the number of gifted people and increasing the number of people with mental incapacities." 

Report: Some Credit Helpers Hurt Consumers 

2 hours, 6 minutes ago

Add Business - 

By MARCY GORDON, News Source Business Writer 

WASHINGTON - Raymond Schuck thought he was being responsible when he went to Cambridge Credit Counseling for help reducing $90,000 in credit card and bank debt. Instead, the retired museum director said the monthly payments he made never reached his creditors - and he ended up filing for bankruptcy. 

"My credit rating was completely ruined," the Lima, Ohio, resident testified Wednesday at a Senate hearing looking into the credit counseling industry. 

Credit counseling companies, which often advertise heavily, portray themselves as offering a refuge for consumers drowning in debt. But lawmakers, regulators and consumer groups charge that some counseling agencies trade on their nonprofit status to gouge customers, serving more as an anchor plunging people deeper into debt than as a life preserver. 

Each year, an estimated 9 million Americans have some contact with a credit counseling agency - often the last stop before a bankruptcy filing. 

A report prepared by the bipartisan staff of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee (news - web sites)'s investigative panel found that consumer complaints are on the rise as new companies come into the credit counseling business and abuses proliferate. The investigators found a pattern of abuse among some counseling agencies, especially new entrants to the field. 

"Clearly, something is wrong with the credit counseling industry," said Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., chairman of the investigative subcommittee. "Our investigation has revealed common patterns of improper conduct" by new entrants. 

Audits of 50 credit counseling agencies by the Internal Revenue Service (news - web sites) "may very well" result in some of them being stripped of their nonprofit tax exemptions or even being referred for criminal investigation to the Justice Department (news - web sites), IRS Commissioner Mark Everson testified to the subcommittee. 

And Thomas Leary, a member of the Federal Trade Commission, said: "We remain concerned about deceptive practices in the credit counseling industry." 

Former employees of Cambridge Credit and AmeriDebt Inc., who also testified, told of having to use fake names, "boiler room" sales operations and pressure on commission-paid counselors to get consumers to pay stiff upfront fees, with no counseling or debt education provided. 

Officials of the two companies disputed the accounts of the former customers and employees. They said their companies act responsibly and provide a valuable service to consumers. 

Chris Viale, chief operating officer of Cambridge Credit, called the accounts "unfair and distorted accusations." 

"There is a popular notion that performance incentives encourage counselors to act in their own best interests rather than in the interests of consumers. This is not true," Viale said. 

As senators grilled the officials about industry practices, the president of Debtworks Inc., Andris Pukke, asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege in refusing to testify. 

The for-profit Debtworks, Pukke and his brother are among several parties named in a lawsuit filed by the state of Missouri against AmeriDebt in September. Debtworks was formed in 1999 when AmeriDebt spun off its processing function for consumer debt plans and turned it into a for-profit business owned and controlled by Pukke, according to the Senate investigators. 

With personal bankruptcies surging to record levels in this country, there is a deep pool of customers for credit counseling companies. 

Credit counselors historically have been financed by banks that issue credit cards but those contributions have been declining, forcing counseling agencies to charge fees. 

Credit counseling works by putting consumers who cannot afford to make all their payments into debt management programs that allow them to consolidate their debts from several credit cards, reduce their monthly payments and lower their interest rates. Consumers agree to destroy their credit cards, not take out new credit and make a monthly payment to the counseling agency, which distributes it to creditors. 

But new entrants - rather than relying on contributions to nonprofit counseling agencies from credit card companies or small fees paid by consumers - use a different structure. They have nonprofit agencies that generate "massive revenues" paid by consumers for a for-profit affiliate for advertising, marketing and executives' salaries, according to the Senate report. 

AmeriDebt, based in Germantown, Md., has been sued by the Federal Trade Commission, five states and consumers. 

The FTC alleged that the company used deceptive marketing to bilk hundreds of thousands of customers and failed to educate people about how to get out of debt. The regulators also alleged that AmeriDebt made customers believe that an initial fee would be part of their debt-reduction payments to creditors - but it instead went to AmeriDebt. 

The company has disputed the regulators' allegations. It says it offers customers educational services, and that the debt-reduction payments are "voluntary contributions." 

Soldiers in Iraq Buy Their Own Body Armor

Fri Mar 26, 3:10 AM ET

By RYAN LENZ, News Source Writer 

Soldiers headed for Iraq (news - web sites) are still buying their own body armor - and in many cases, their families are buying it for them - despite assurances from the military that the gear will be in hand before they're in harm's way. 

Latest headlines: 
� A Daily Look at Military Deaths in Iraq 
AP - 3 minutes ago 
� U.S. Troop Deaths in Iraq Again Rising 
AP - 7 minutes ago 
� BBC: Bodyguard Helped U.S. Track Saddam 
AP - 30 minutes ago 
Special Coverage

Body armor distributors have received steady inquiries from soldiers and families about purchasing the gear, which can cost several thousand dollars. Though the military has advised them not to rely on third-party suppliers, many soldiers say they want it before they deploy. 

Last October, it was reported that nearly one-quarter of American troops serving in Iraq did not have ceramic plated body armor, which can stop bullets fired from assault rifles and shrapnel. 

The military says the shortfall is over and soldiers who do not yet have the armor soon will. But many want to avoid the risk. 

"What we hear from soldiers is that they are told that they are going to get body armor just before they leave or just after they get there. But they don't want to take a chance," said Nick Taylor, owner of Bulletproofme.com, an online distributor of body armor in Austin, Texas. 

Inquiries rise and fall with the rate of deployments, fueled by stories of units falling under attack as little as a day after being issued body armor. Whether they are true, the stories are prompting families to think about buying the equipment, Taylor said. 

Reliance Armor in Cincinnati, which makes armored vests for soldiers and police, has nearly doubled in size as a result of the shortage. 

"We're getting people locally who are deployed National Guard and parents, specifically, coming in and buying," said Don Budke, the company's vice president of sales. "The military people don't want to advertise the fact that there are people doing this on their own." 

Dan Britt paid about $1,400 for body armor for his son, a medic stationed in Kuwait who had orders to move into Baghdad. He recently heard his son received it. 

"In war, as we've learned through all our history, who gets killed and who doesn't is just happenstance," said the father from Hamilton, Ohio. "But if I can raise the odds, then I'll feel better." 

Those that need the armor most are already certain to have it, said Army spokesman Maj. Gary Tallman, and families should not buy the equipment. 

"What we have told family members who have contacted us is that the Army cannot attest to the safety or the level of protection of body armor purchased rather than issued for a soldier," Tallman said. 

The Defense Department says it has contracted with one manufacturer for its armor. Point Blank Body Armor, which produces the Interceptor brand, has all but stopped selling to the public. 

Nancy Durst recently learned that her husband, a soldier with an Army reserve unit from Maine serving in Iraq, spent four months without body armor. She said she would have bought armor for her husband had vests not been cycled into his unit. 

Even if her husband now has body armor, Durst said she was angry he was without it at any time. Her husband also has told her that reservists have not been given the same equipment as active duty soldiers. "They're so sick of being treated as second-class soldiers," she said. 

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who serves on the Armed Services subcommittee, said she knows soldiers who were told by the military to buy body armor before leaving, rather than risk arriving with nothing but their shirts. 

"We lagged far behind in making sure that our soldiers who are performing very difficult and dangerous missions had protective equipment," she said. 

A bill being considered in Congress would reimburse families who bought body armor before the Army asked for increased production to bridge the gap between soldiers who had armor and those that did not. 

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who has talked with hundreds of families who bought body armor for soldiers in Iraq, said the military lost the trust of soldiers' families. 

In that regard, it is not surprising that families bought body armor in spite of what military advised, he said. 

"There still is a lingering level of mistrust with some families as to whether there are people thinking about the best equipment and needs of their loved ones," Turley said. "No one that I know of has been truly held accountable." 

Mexico Rejects British Explanations on Cavers

1 hour, 53 minutes ago

Add Science 

By Tim Gaynor 

MEXICO CITY  - A diplomatic rift between Britain and Mexico widened on Friday when President Vicente Fox (news - web sites) refused to accept London's explanations for the presence of a British military group found stuck in a Mexican cave. 

Fox said Britain had not clarified questions about the activities of six cave explorers, four of them members of the military, who were plucked from a cavern late on Thursday after a week trapped by an underground flood. 

"We received a reply to our request from Britain, but it is frankly unsatisfactory, we need more clarification about what this was about," Fox told a news conference in Nicaragua, where he is on an official visit. 

Mexico's attorney general's office said it was investigating media reports that the cavers were scouting for deposits of potentially radioactive materials. 

"We do not have any indication up to this point that indicates illicit activity," Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, deputy attorney general, told a news conference. 

Mexico does not allow foreign military exercises on its soil.

The Mexican government is upset it was not told in advance of the presence of the expedition, most of whom were members of the Combined Services Caving Association, an enthusiasts' group made up of active and retired British soldiers and civilians in the Ministry of Defense. 

Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez spoke in strong terms. 

"We are not going to tolerate on this occasion that no one explains to us exactly what their citizens were doing here," he said in comments published in the Mexican press. 

RELATIONS SENSITIVE 

Mexico's relations with Britain were already sensitive because of allegations that Britain helped the United States spy on Mexico's U.N. mission in the run-up to the Iraq (news - web sites) war. 

After receiving medical checks at a military hospital, the cavers were brought in minibuses for questioning at a rundown immigration center in Mexico City on Friday, accompanied by trucks bearing rifle-toting members of a special police force. 

British embassy sources told The News Source that all the expedition members were booked on a Friday night flight to London from Mexico City. 

The trapped cavers were trapped by surging underground flood waters two days into a routine exploration trip in the Cuetzalan caves in Puebla province. 

The British Embassy had originally described the cavers as being on a scientific mission and later clarified this to say they were mapping out the cave complex, one of the most extensive in the world. 

Fox had asked on Wednesday for a "swift" explanation of what the foreign soldiers were doing in the caves. 

Hoping to put an end to the incident, Britain said its minister for Latin America, Bill Rammell, met with Mexico's ambassador in London on Friday afternoon, and thanked him for help in getting the group out safely. 

"We respect the Mexican authorities' need to clarify their immigration status," Rammell said, adding that he hoped the incident "could be resolved as quickly as possible." (Additional reporting by Ivan Castro in Managua) 

Nuclear missile allegedly damaged
Web site says Navy called 'broken arrow' aboard Bangor sub
By MIKE BARBER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Was it a "broken arrow" at the Trident submarine base in Bangor in November that led to the firing a month later of the Navy leadership overseeing nuclear weapons there?

The code words used by the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the most severe level of a nuclear weapon mishap reportedly were invoked Nov. 7 when a Trident I C4 missile was damaged while being removed from the submarine USS Georgia in Bangor. 

The allegation was raised over the weekend at a watchdog Web site, jaghunters.blogspot.com, run by a former Navy officer, Walt Fitzpatrick of Bremerton. Fitzpatrick has had a significant beef with the military justice system for 16 years, which the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has reported previously. Fitzpatrick yesterday said he drew upon Navy sources for his information about the missile incident, which has drawn the interest of U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks.

As the P-I reported in December, the top leadership of the Strategic Weapons Facility, Pacific -- responsible for handling intercontinental ballistic missiles at Bangor -- was sacked on the spot. Three officers have been reassigned and three enlisted men face courts-martial on lesser charges.

According to Fitzpatrick, the Nov. 7 incident happened when the missile from tube No. 16 was hauled up and smacked into an access ladder that had been left in the tube, slicing a 9-inch hole in the missile's nose cone. 

The ladder is placed inside the silo after the tube hatch is opened so a sailor can climb inside to attach a hoist to lift the intercontinental ballistic missile out of the tube. After attaching the hoist, the sailor climbs out and the ladder is to be removed before the missile is lifted out. 

The crew members reportedly took a break, and when they returned, they began to hoist out the missile without removing the ladder, damaging the nose cone. Although there would not have been a nuclear explosion, a radiation release or non-nuclear explosion was possible, Fitzpatrick claims.

That didn't happen, though the base's civilian emergency services allies yesterday wanted to know more.

Kitsap County Sheriff Steve Boyer said yesterday that his office was not notified of any incident involving nuclear-tipped missiles last fall. Boyer was surprised yesterday when he heard of the incident from a reporter. He described cooperation with the Navy as excellent, particularly since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Phyllis Mann, who as director of Kitsap County's Emergency Management Division works with the Navy and monitors Navy incidents, said county and state records show no "broken arrow" was reported as is required. Defense Department directives require the FBI as lead civilian agency to be notified, as well as local and state emergency services.

"Based upon our relationships with the bases, we would expect to be notified if there was a public safety health threat," Mann said. 

She's not surprised, however. If the missile was banged up but nothing was released, reporting of the incident might not be required. 

Navy officials here and in Washington, D.C., refused to discuss the allegations, citing a strict Defense Department "neither confirm nor deny" directive concerning nuclear weapons to keep potential or real enemies guessing.

Regarding the disciplinary action meted out in December and the reasons behind it, Pam Sims, spokeswoman for the Strategic Systems Program in Washington, D.C., that oversees the strategic weapons units on each coast, could say little.

"Safety is paramount in everything we do in the Navy and a primary focus for our leadership at every level of command," she said.

The neither-confirm-nor-deny policy, however, handcuffs the Navy from explaining the incident, and stirred up questions from Dicks and activists who have been monitoring the base for years.

"We are working with the Navy to see what may have happened and to see what guidelines they have" for weapons accidents, said George Behan, spokesman for Dicks, who sits on key defense committees. 

Dicks' office yesterday contacted Rear Adm. Charles Young, head of the Strategic Systems Program in the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the nation's "nuclear Navy." 

The issue echoes concerns raised in January by Glen Milner, 52, a peace activist and member of Ground Zero, a citizens group that has protested outside Bangor over the nuclear weapons issue for years and filed lawsuits over safety concerns.

"What would happen in a missile loading accident at the wharf?" Milner asked in a letter to the P-I early this year. 

Ground Zero recently won a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that showed 53 less severe "incidents" prior to 1986 involving submarine-launched missiles. Sixteen were classified as potentially serious. Even if it's unlikely a nuclear warhead would be detonated, the potential remains for a plutonium release or an explosion from the Trident's missile propellant.

Adding Fitzpatrick's concerns to his own, Milner said, "What is most outrageous is that while on Nov. 7 when this ladder is impaled into this nose cone of this missile, imagine the sailors not knowing how far in, or whether it would blow up" creating an instant "dirty" bomb. 

"It's shocking that the Navy didn't reveal anything," he said.

So strict are the Navy's protocols for handling nuclear weapons that overlooking the smallest details results in discipline. The accident immediately shut down the strategic weapons facility. Fitzpatrick said the unit's failure to pass a subsequent inspection resulted in the firings.

As the P-I reported in December, Capt. Keith Lyles, commander of Bangor's strategic weapons unit was fired on the spot Dec. 19. 

Also relieved of duty in what Fitzpatrick says has been coined the "royal flush" were Lyle's executive officer, Cmdr. Phillip Jackson, and Cmdr. Marshall Millett, weapons officer. 

Young, the admiral in charge of strategic systems, cited only a "loss of confidence" as the reasons. Three enlisted men in the missile handling team face courts-martial involving less severe alleged offenses. 

Those who could be reached declined to comment.

Young replaced Lyles with Capt. Lawrence Lehman. Lehman, who had led a 40-man inspection of the facility, replaced Lyles on the spot. The facility reopened after passing inspection Jan. 9.

Although defense officials are mum on nuclear weapons, the P-I in April 1998 reported on a Washington, D.C.-based Natural Resources Defense Council report that said base closures and realignments meant Washington state by 2003 could house 1,685 such weapons, more than any other state and bigger than the nuclear forces of Great Britain, France or China. 

Fitzpatrick, meanwhile, has been a thorn in the Navy's side for years, trying to clear his name from a court-martial conviction that fellow officers and some congressmen say is a case of military justice gone wrong. 

Fitzpatrick was executive officer of the USS Mars when he received a career-destroying reprimand in 1988 for failing to properly supervise the spending of his ship's morale, welfare and recreation money. The non-governmental funds pay for non-government gear such as entertainment or recreational equipment for the crew and are raised through the ship's retail store. 

The incident grew out of a terror attack. Fitzpatrick allowed the money to be used to help Capt. Mike Nordeen, the ship's commanding officer, when his brother, Navy Capt. William Nordeen, was murdered in Greece by terrorists in 1988. Though the ship's crew voted to use the money to send a contingent to the funeral, the Navy came down on Fitzpatrick for misusing the funds.
P-I reporter Paul Shukovsky contributed to this report. P-I reporter Mike Barber can be reached at 206-448-8018 or mikebarber@seattlepi.com

Interesting numerical ties between the Madrid attacks and 9-11 
By News Source Friday, March 12, 2004 

In comparing the Madrid bombings to the 9-11 terrorist attacks in the United States, there are some interesting numerical ties. 

There were 911 days in-between the terror attacks in Madrid and Sept. 11, 2001 - or 9-11 as it has become known - when al-Qaida-backed terrorists slammed planes into the Pentagon, a field in Pennsylvania and the World Trade Center towers in New York, destroying them. 

The Madrid bombings - which happened on 3-11 - also came 2-1/2 years to the day after the 9-11 attacks. 

http://news.bostonherald.com/international/view.bg?articleid=1133 

-=-=- 

Blast came 911 days after Twin Towers By Mar Roman, Madrid 

EXACTLY 911 days after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, 10 terrorist bombs tore through trains and stations along a commuter line at the height of Madrid's morning rush hour yesterday. 

More than 190 people were killed and 1,421 wounded in Europe's bloodiest attack for more than 15 years. 

The blasts - claimed last night by Islamic fundamentalists - came just three days before Spain's general election on Sunday. 

The September 11 attacks are known in the United States as the 9/11 attacks. 

Spain initially blamed Basque separatists for the bombings, but the interior minister also said other lines of investigation were opened after police found a van last night with detonators and an audiotape of Koranic verses near where the bombed trains originated. 

The Arabic newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi said it had received a claim of responsibility issued in the name of al-Qaida. 

The email claim of responsibility, signed by the Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri, was received at the newspaper's London offices and said the brigade's "death squad" had penetrated "one of the pillars of the crusade alliance, Spain". 

"This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America's ally in its war against Islam," the email said. 

Spain backed the US-led war on Iraq despite domestic opposition, and many al-Qaida-linked terrorists have been captured in Spain or were believed to have operated from there. 

There were unconfirmed reports late last night that one of the bombs may have involved a suicide bomber. 

However, earlier reports had said the bombs were dynamite-based and were detonated by remote control. 

After an emergency cabinet meeting, a sombre Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar vowed to hunt down the attackers. 

"This is mass murder," he said. 

The bombers used titadine, a kind of compressed dynamite also found in a bomb- laden van intercepted last month as it headed for Madrid, a source at Mr Aznar's office said on condition of anonymity. 

Officials blamed the ETA separatist group at that time. 

Police found a van with seven detonators and an Arabic tape with Koranic verses in the town of Alcala de Henares, 15 miles east of Madrid, Interior Minister Angel Acebes said last night. 

He added that ETA remained the "main line of investigation" in the blasts, Europe's worst terror attack since the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270. 

Three of the four trains bombed yesterday originated in Alcala de Henares and one passed through it, the state rail company said. 

Panicked commuters abandoned bags and their shoes as they trampled each other to escape the Atocha terminal, where bombs struck two trains. 

Some fled into dark, dangerous tunnels at the station, a bustling hub for subway, commuter and long-distance trains just south of Madrid's famed Prado Museum. 

The bodies of the dead, some with their cell phones ringing unanswered as frantic relatives tried to contact them, were carried away by rescue workers. 

The wounded, faces bloodied, sat on curbs as buses were pressed into service as ambulances. 

One firefighter said he saw 70 bodies along a platform at El Pozo station, just east of downtown Madrid. 

One corpse had been blown onto the roof. 

Forty coroners worked to identify remains, and a steady stream of taxis carried relatives to a sprawling convention centre where the bodies were taken. 

A total of 10 bombs, nearly all in backpacks, exploded in a 15-minute span along nine miles of the commuter line - running from Santa Eugenia to the Madrid hub of Atocha killing 192 people and injuring more than 1,240, Mr Acebes said. This was later revised to over 1,400. 

Police found and detonated three other bombs. 

US President George W Bush called Mr Aznar to express solidarity and sympathy, condemning "this vicious attack of terrorism in the strongest possible terms," National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack said. 

Rescue workers were overwhelmed, said Enrique Sanchez, an ambulance driver who went to Santa Eugenia station, about six miles southeast of the Atocha station. 

"There was one carriage totally blown apart. 

"People were scattered all over the platforms. I saw legs and arms. 

I won't forget this ever. I've seen horror," Mr Sanchez said. 

Shards of twisted metal were scattered by rails in the Atocha station at the spot where an explosion severed a train in two. 

"I saw many things explode in the air ... it was horrible," said Juani Fernandez, aged 50, a civil servant who was on the platform waiting to go to work. 

"People started to scream and run, some bumping into each other and as we ran there was another explosion. 

"I saw people with blood pouring from them, people on the ground." 

The attack horrified Spain on the eve of Sunday's general election. Campaigning was called off and three days of mourning were declared. Newspapers ran special editions. The campaign was largely dominated by separatist tensions in regions like the Basque country. 

Both the ruling conservative Popular Party and the opposition Socialists had ruled out discussions with ETA. The Socialists had come under withering criticism because a politician linked to them in the Catalonia region admitted meeting with ETA members in France in January. 

The government convened anti-ETA rallies nationwide for tonight and announced three days of mourning. 

"What a horror," said the Basque regional president, Juan Jose Ibarretxe, who insisted ETA does not represent the Basque people. 

"When ETA attacks, the Basque heart breaks into a thousand pieces." 

http://www.examiner.ie/pport/web/ireland/Full_Story/did-sgr9sK7yVK-ggsgHuTLc4nqWo2.asp 

-=-=-=-=-=- 

Terror: 911 days after 9/11 
12/03/2004 07:48 - (SA) 

Related Articles: 
Stolen van linked to attacks 
Train bombs: 'Start of WW III' 
Batasuna condemns Madrid blast 
Blasts 'beyond the imaginable' 
Blasts ricochet through JSE 
Wall Street sentiment hit 

Madrid - Spanish officials, stunned by co-ordinated bomb blasts in Madrid on Thursday that killed 192 people and wounded more than 1 400, said they were keeping their lines of investigation open after clues emerged possibly implicating Basque or Islamic militants. 

The atrocity, which Spanish media and officials described as "our own September 11", came exactly two and a half years after the attacks in New York and Washington, or 911 days, and just three days before general elections that the ruling conservative Popular Party is widely expected to win. 

The carnage, carried out in four trains and three railway stations in the southeast of the capital in morning rush-hour, was the worst terror attack in Europe since the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people. 

Spanish King Juan Carlos said in a televised address to the people after visiting survivors in one of the city's hospitals, "A nightmare has struck showing terrorism's cruel face." 

"Your king is suffering with all of you and shares your indignation." 

The news of possible al-Qaeda involvement sent stock markets and the US dollar plummeting. 

The Dow Jones index in New York slid more than one percent, following European indices down. The dollar weakened against the euro, which went from 1.2222 dollars late on Wednesday to 1.2352 on Thursday. 

Edited by Trisha Shannon 

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,6119,2-10-1462_1497208,00.html

FDA Approves Rapid Saliva Test for AIDS Virus 
Fri Mar 26,11:28 AM ET

WASHINGTON  - The United States approved the first rapid saliva test for the HIV virus (news - web sites) that causes AIDS (news - web sites), health officials announced on Friday. 

The test, made by OraSure Technologies Inc., provides results within 20 minutes. Other approved rapid HIV (news - web sites) tests require blood samples. 

"This oral test provides another important option for people who might be afraid of a blood test," Health and Human Services (news - web sites) Secretary Tommy Thompson said in a statement. 

Officials also said the test, called the OraQuick Rapid HIV-1/2, could help on two fronts, encouraging more people to get tested as well as actually receive the results. 

One-fourth of the roughly 900,000 HIV-infected people in the United States are not aware that they are infected, according to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites). 

After the announcement, shares of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania-based OraSure rose 76 cents, or 9.3 percent, to $8.91 on Nasdaq late Friday morning. 

Police seek clues after suicide bombing on Istanbul freemasons 

ISTANBUL : Anti-terrorist police sought clues after two suicide bombers tried to force their way into a crowded masonic hall, detonating a device at the entrance and killing one of themselves and a waiter. 

It was the first such attack on the freemasons, who have included deputies, ministers, senior government officials and army generals among their members.Advertisement 
The two attackers shot their way into a restaurant on the ground floor of the building housing the masonic lodge in the Asian part of the city after wounding a security guard.

One of the assailants then set off explosives wrapped around his body, killing himself and the waiter, according to the city governor, Muammer Guler.

The explosion also injured six people in the restaurant, one seriously, but Guler said most of the 40 people in the room were unharmed because the device went off at the entrance.

The Istanbul governor said there was no apparent link between the event and four other attacks on synagogues and British buildings in Istanbul in November in which 63 people were killed and hundreds injured.

"We think it was organized by inexperienced activists belong to a new Islamic organization," a police official was quoted in the Hurriyet newspaper as saying. "If the attack had been well prepared the whole building could have gone up in the air." 

But the newspaper Milliyet said the kind of bomb used on Tuesday was similar to those employed in the November attacks, which have been blamed on a Turkish Islamic extremist group linked to the Al-Qaeda group of Osama bin Laden.

Police were waiting to interview the surviving attacker, who had abdominal injuries and lost an arm.

He was shown on Turkish television yelling "Damn Israel, long live..." as he was wheeled into the hospital.

Many Jewish businessmen and intellectuals are believed to belong to Turkey's five masonic organizations, which have some 14,000 members.

The largest of these groups, the Association of the Grand Temple of Free and Accepted Masons of Turkey, has been established for almost a century, and was influential among the Young Turk officers who helped create modern Turkey.

The freemasons have enjoyed freedom in this predominantly Muslim but strictly secular country, but are viewed with suspicion by ultra-nationalists and Islamists, who accuse them of having pro-Zionist aims.

Prosecutors have indicted 69 people on charges related to the November attacks, which struck at two synagogues, the British consulate and a branch of the British-based HSBC bank.

- NEWS SOURCE

Calif. Home Power Bill Prompts Pot Probe

2 hours, 40 minutes ago 
Add U.S. National - 

CARLSBAD, Calif. - When police noticed Dina Dagy's family was spending $250 to $300 a month on electricity, they suspected a marijuana farm was flourishing under high-intensity lights inside their suburban home. 

What they found when they showed up with a drug-sniffing dog and a search warrant was a wife and mother who does several loads of laundry a day, keeps a dishwashing machine going, has three electricity-guzzling computers and three kids who can't remember to turn the lights out when they leave a room. 

"It's hard to believe a high utility bill would be enough to issue a state warrant," said Dagy, who is demanding the Police Department issue a written apology. 

Authorities say they have already apologized verbally several times and were only following proper procedures. Tracking down marijuana growers by reviewing electricity bills, they say, is a common practice. 

"I understand they feel something isn't appropriate here, but it is very much consistent with how search warrants are prepared," said police Lt. Bill Rowland. 

When authorities noticed how high the bill for the Dagy home was, they sent a police dog to the neighborhood, and it reacted as though it had smelled drugs. 

They also noticed the family had put its trash out that morning, something police say drug growers often do to hide the evidence. In the Dagys' case, however, it was trash day. 

When officers returned on March 19 with a search warrant, Dagy was volunteering at her son's second-grade class. She was heading back to her car when police arrived at the school, and she returned home and let them into the house. 

They found nothing illegal, and she says she feels fortunate she wasn't in her son's classroom when they arrived. 

"I would have been so embarrassed," she said, "and my son would have died: `They're taking your mommy away!'"

Commission Head Still Wants Rice Testimony Public 
1 hour, 14 minutes ago

WASHINGTON  - The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks feels unanimously that White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) should testify in public, the panel's head said on Sunday. 

The News Source Photo 

The News Source 

Slideshow: September 11

Rice is refusing to appear before the commission in public and under oath to answer allegations from a former White House counter-terrorism official that the Bush administration neglected the threat from al Qaeda. 

But former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean told "Fox News Sunday" that his panel would not try to force her to do so under a court order. 

"To get into a court battle over a subpoena we don't think is really appropriate right now nor will it help us," Kean said. 

The administration is resting its refusal to let Rice testify in public on a ruling by White House legal counsel Alberto Gonzales that to do so would set a precedent that other presidential advisers could be compelled to testify about advice they have given the president. 

"We think in a tragedy of this magnitude that those kind of legal arguments are probably overridden," Kean said. 

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) has challenged Rice to appear publicly, accusing President Bush (news - web sites)'s White House of stonewalling the commission and of attempting "character assassination" against its own former counter-terrorism chief, Richard Clarke. 

Clarke has sparked a political firestorm for Bush by questioning -- most recently in public testimony before the 9/11 commission -- his commitment to fighting terror before hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (news - web sites) and killed more than 3,000 people. 

FURIOUS DENIALS 

Rice, once Clarke's White House superior, has led furious administration denials of the charges and was slated to appear on CBS' "60 Minutes" later on Sunday. 

Kean said that in four hours of private testimony to date, not under oath, Rice has been "very forthcoming." 

"She answered every question we asked her and she answered it well. She has offered to give us more time," Kean said. "But we do feel unanimously as a commission that she should testify in public. We feel its important to get her case out there." 

"We are still going to press and still believe unanimously as a commission that we should hear from her in public," he added. 

Former Rep. Lee Hamilton, an Indiana Democrat, said the panel also did not yet have a date for interviewing President Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites). Bush is insisting on testifying privately before only the commission leaders, not the full panel, though he has relented on an earlier insistence that he appear for only an hour. 

Kean said the panel wanted Bush to speak to all 10 members but he was prepared to take up every question with the president. 

"If the ground rules stay the same we're prepared to get any question that any other commissioner or staff member has, take those questions into the White House," Kean said. "Lee Hamilton and I will make sure that every one of those questions gets answered no matter how long it takes."

Modern-Day Explorers Build Spacecraft 

Sat Mar 27,10:42 PM ET

By BETSY TAYLOR, News Source Writer 

ST. LOUIS - The reward is high, but so is the risk as some of the 27 teams pursuing a $10 million prize for the first privately funded manned spaceflight near a goal that once seemed outlandish. 

Organizers of the X Prize believe that teams could attempt the space trip as early as this summer. 

When the competition was announced just eight years ago, many were skeptical that any privately financed team could meet the requirements to collect the prize: Build a spacecraft capable of taking three passengers 62.5 miles above the planet, then make a second successful suborbital trip within two weeks. 

"It's going to happen in 2004. Someone will win it," said Gregg Maryniak, director of the St. Louis-based X Prize Foundation, a group created to spark development of reusable spacecraft that can take average citizens into space. 

Many of the teams vying for the X Prize already have conducted test launches. One U.S. team propelled a spacecraft to 68,000 feet, or about 13 miles. While a couple of U.S. teams are among the top contenders, crews from six other nations also are in pursuit of the prize. 

It's a diverse group tapping into the same spirit of exploration that led adventurers to sail ships across unknown oceans. Teams range from one financed by a billionaire to a group of scraped-together volunteers. Several boast leading minds who toss around aerospace terms with dizzying precision. Others lament unexpected fires and explosions as part of the learning process. 

Safety is stressed, but team members know they're embarking on a journey with built-in risks, maybe even death. 

"It's a possibility. It's a cost that exploration has to pay. Otherwise, you stay home and watch TV and eat French fries," said Pablo de Leon, the 39-year-old team leader of an Argentinian group that is building a vertical rocket named Gauchito, or The Little Cowboy. 

"If we are not the ones, someone else will do it. But it will be done," de Leon said. 

Canadian Brian Feeney, 44, is team leader of the Toronto-based da Vinci Project. In its simplest terms, the group wants to lift a spacecraft called Wild Fire using an immense helium balloon. The design switches over to rockets to fly and uses a steerable parachute to land. 

Feeney plans to be on board for the first manned attempt. He said he thinks of the risk as similar to that of climbing Mount Everest (news - web sites), the world's tallest peak. "Life is way too short to not explore those boundaries," he said. 

"How many times does a kid have a chance to go into space? I'm living my dream," he said. "I feel like I'm limited; my bicycle won't go as far as I want it to. My grandest dream goes all the way to the stars." 

Maryniak recounted how space tourism advocate Peter Diamandis read Charles Lindbergh's "The Spirit of St. Louis" autobiography and realized how aviation contests, like the $25,000 Orteig prize awarded to Lindbergh for crossing the Atlantic in 1927, helped launch mainstream air travel. 

So the X Prize was announced in 1996. The foundation includes such noted supporters as Dennis Tito, the American who spent $20 million to fly in a Russian craft as the first space tourist, and pilot Erik Lindbergh, the grandson of Charles Lindbergh. 

Nine of the 27 teams have built "serious hardware" and four or five are at the leading edge of the competition, Maryniak said. 

The top competitors include at least two American teams - Scaled Composites of Mojave, Calif., and Armadillo Aerospace of Mesquite, Texas. Both have applied to the Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) to attempt space flight. Another company, which is not competing for the prize, has also applied. 

George Nield, the FAA's deputy associate administrator for commercial space transportation, said, "We are getting very close to making a licensing determination for one of those." 

Several competitors believe Scaled Composites could take the prize. 

Financed by Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, Scaled Composites is led by aviation pioneer Burt Rutan, perhaps best known for his design of Voyager, an aircraft that circled the globe in a non-stop 1986 flight without refueling. 

The Scaled Composites design consists of a rocket plane, called SpaceShipOne, and the White Knight, a jet designed to carry it aloft for a high-altitude air launch. SpaceShipOne traveled faster than the speed of sound in a test on Dec. 17, the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' first flight. 

In addition to the prize competition, the foundation and the teams hope for a time when space travel is more accessible, when people can book a trip into space, see the world from a distance and experience weightlessness. 

"For a lot of them, the real prize is not the X Prize, it's the commercial business," said Maryniak. "The only thing wrong with space flight is there's not enough of it." 

___ 

On the Net: 

X Prize: http://www.xprize.com

Man Says He Sold UCLA's Cadavers

Mon Mar 8, 7:55 AM ET

By Charles Ornstein and Richard Marosi Times Staff Writers 

An alleged middleman in the sale of body parts from corpses donated to UCLA medical school said Sunday night that he cut up about 800 cadavers with the full knowledge of UCLA officials and then sold them to "giant" medical research companies over a six-year period. 

An attorney for UCLA, Louis Marlin, offered a very different account of the case. He said that the middleman, Ernest V. Nelson, had carried out the scheme with the help of Henry Reid, the director of the medical school's willed body program, and a second university employee. Other university officials had no knowledge of it, Marlin said. 

The scheme came to light because Nelson tried to get money from the university after already extracting payments from Reid to keep the scheme secret, said Marlin. 

Nelson was arrested at his home in Rancho Cucamonga on Sunday on suspicion of receiving stolen property. After posting $30,000 bond at the Los Angeles County sheriff's West Hollywood station, Nelson told The Times that his work was well known to officials at UCLA and had been condoned. 

Nelson, 46, said he went to UCLA's body freezer on the seventh floor of UCLA Medical Center twice a week with saw in hand and disassembled bodies. 

He said he was collecting knees, hands, torsos and other body parts needed by his corporate clients, which he said numbered between 80 and 100. 

Nelson also said he followed a protocol set out by Reid that was known to other UCLA officials. 

"I call one of the most prestigious universities in the world, their director gives me the protocol, I follow that protocol and they charge me with receiving stolen body parts?" Nelson said. "If I wasn't supposed to be there, why couldn't they tell me that? It was not done in secret." 

Reid, 54, was arrested Saturday on suspicion of grand theft. He was released early Sunday after posting $20,000 bond. Reid declined to answer a reporter's questions Sunday. 

In rebutting Nelson's account, Marlin, the UCLA attorney, said Nelson had been paying for the body parts with cashier's checks made out to Reid, not the university. 

Marlin also said Nelson's figure of 800 bodies was exaggerated. "It's impossible, because then UCLA would have had no bodies to use," he said. "What the number is, we're going to find out to the best we can." 

Marlin said he had no idea what the actual figure was because the campus was still investigating, but added that the true figure may be in the dozens or even hundreds. The sales covered a four-year period, not six, he said. 

The UCLA lawyer also played down Nelson's contention that campus officials knew about the sale of body parts. "For Nelson to say that other people knew what he was doing is ridiculous," he said. "They actively were hiding this." 

The chain of events that led to the unraveling of the scheme began last year when state regulators began looking into Nelson's work as part of an investigation of a Riverside County crematory. Marlin said UCLA was alerted to a potential problem when the state Department of Health Services contacted the campus. State officials said Nelson had been selling body parts, falsely representing to his clients that the bodies had been tested for infectious diseases at UCLA. 

Marlin said he believes that Nelson was forging forms to satisfy his clients' wishes. At that time, Marlin said, Dr. J. Thomas Rosenthal, associate vice chancellor of the medical school, asked Reid what had happened. Reid responded that he had sold "a very small number" of body parts to Nelson. "According to Henry [Reid], Ernest Nelson told him that he was purchasing these parts, or obtaining these parts for ... an orthopedist doing research. This is what Henry Reid told me also," Marlin said. 

Reid said he was arranging for the body parts to be returned, and officials saw no reason to investigate further, Marlin said. 

Nelson said UCLA then stopped allowing him to take body parts and asked him to return the parts he already had in his warehouse. The university owed him hundreds of thousands of dollars for the body parts he had returned, Nelson said. Earlier this year, Nelson's lawyer filed a claim for $241,000, which amounted to the value of the body parts, Marlin said. When the campus received that claim, officials immediately began investigating, he said. 

On Feb. 26, Reid was called in for an interview and broke down, telling campus lawyers that he had received payment for the sale of body parts, Marlin said. "I said, 'Henry, what's the total amount of money that this guy gave you?' and he says to me, 'Between $15,000 and $20,000.' My head's reeling now. We have a lot of money on the table." 

Marlin said he immediately notified police and had Reid put on administrative leave. Another UCLA employee who is believed to have accepted money for body parts also was placed on leave. 

Marlin said it appears that last year Nelson got money from Reid by threatening that he would blow the whistle on the scheme. Marlin said Reid told him he paid $21,000 to secure Nelson's silence. Some of that money came from a secret bank account that was in the name of the willed body program, Marlin said. 

"The whole basis of this is you have one crook trying to steal more from another crook, and that's what brought it to light," Marlin said. 

Marlin said he did not believe that Nelson came to the campus twice a week. From what he can gather so far, he said, Nelson came anywhere from once to three times a month. 

"If there's one body gone, it's one too many and it's a crime," he said. "The fact that it's more than one, each one makes it worse and worse, and it's a geometric progression as far as the campus is concerned." 

Nelson said his sale of body parts was simply aimed at enriching science. "I provide specimens for research. I'm giving doctors a forum to practice and improve," he said. Nelson said when the truth comes out, "my name will be cleared." 

"There was a chain of command," he said, "and that chain of command doesn't start with Ernest Nelson or end with Ernest Nelson." 

Zimbabwe Seizes U.S.-Registered Plane

32 minutes ago

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwean authorities have seized a U.S.-registered cargo plane carrying 64 "suspected mercenaries" and military equipment, the Home Affairs minister said Monday. 

The News Source Photo 

The Boeing 727-100 was detained at Harare's main airport late Sunday after its owners allegedly made "a false declaration of its cargo and crew," Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi said at a news briefing. 

"The plane was actually carrying 64 suspected mercenaries of various nationalities," Mohadi said. "Further investigations also revealed that on board was military material." 

It was not immediately clear where the plane had come from, or what its purpose was. 

Mohadi gave no further information, but said full details would be released once officials have established "the true identities of the men and their ultimate mission." 

State-run TV broadcast footage of a white plane with the tail number N4610. Inside the aircraft, the station showed two satellite telephones, radios, blue backpacks, sleeping bags, hiking boots, an inflatable raft, paddles, bolt cutters and what appeared to be a can of Mace. 

No weapons were shown, but the station said officials were still going through the cargo section. 

Western journalists were not shown the plane, which Mohadi said had been moved to the nearby Manyame military airfield, and the government's claims could not be independently verified. 

Passengers and crew, all of them "heavily built males" and most of them white, were also taken to the base, where a detention barracks is located, state television reported. 

The plane is registered to Dodson Aviation Inc. of Ottawa, Kan. However, company director Robert Dodson said it had sold the aircraft about a week ago to a "reputable" South African company, Logo Ltd. 

"I think they were going to use it for charter flights," he said by telephone. 

There was no reply at the Pretoria-based company. 

U.S. Embassy officials said the Zimbabwean government had not raised the issue with them. 

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said he was aware of the reports but added: "We have no indication this aircraft is connected to the U.S. government." 

President Robert Mugabe has repeatedly accused the United States and Britain of plotting to overthrow his autocratic regime. 

In 1999, three American missionaries were arrested at Harare International Airport trying to board a homeward Swissair flight with a stockpile of more than 20 rifles and handguns in their baggage. 

Accused of plotting to assassinate Mugabe, the three were jailed for eight months. They said the arms were for self-defense during three years of work among converts in war-torn Congo. 

Zimbabwe faces its worst political and economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1980. The government's often-violent seizure of thousands of white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks has plunged the country into turmoil. 

Swiss government supports end to absinthe ban 
Fri Mar 12, 9:54 AM ET 
NEWS SOURCE 

GENEVA (NEWS SOURCE) - The Swiss government approved draft legislation to end a ban on absinthe, the mythical herbal liqueur beloved of turn-of-the-century artists and blamed for driving some of them mad. 

 

In  Chronic Heartburn
Need Relief? 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
More from :
� Check Your Symptoms 
� How Is It Diagnosed? 
� Available Treatments 

Political debate has been ongoing in the Alpine country since last year over the green spirit, which is thought to be bootlegged in moderate quantities here but was outlawed in 1908, after a factory worker killed his wife and two children in a bout of madness blamed on the drink. 

Absinthe was allowed back into shops in much of western Europe in 1981 after the European Union (news - web sites) passed a directive which overturned bans in many countries. 

Although the law was later eased in non-EU member Switzerland, the drink nicknamed the "green fairy" has remained outlawed in its high-proof form recognized as real absinthe. 

The federal Swiss government said in a report that the 1908 ban no longer was justified, since the quantities of thuyone -- the substance in absinthe considered dangerous -- were now clearly regulated in the drink. 

Legalizing it would actually enable authorities to control the production of the alcohol and tax its sales, it said. 

The fabled aura surrounding absinthe, immortalized in poems by Charles Baudelaire and paintings by Edgar Degas and Pablo Picasso, could also be dispelled if it were no longer illegal, the government concluded. 

Pro-legalization camps in Switzerland have touted the economic benefits of the drink for the isolated Val de Travers in the western canton of Neuchatel, which claims to be the birthplace of the alcohol made from wormwood. 

About 15,000 litwes of absinthe are thought to be distilled illegally in the Val de Travers every year. Most of the locals drink it diluted with water, when it turns into a milky-white colour. 

AP: Rumsfeld, FBI Official Kept 9-11 Items 

32 minutes ago



By JOHN SOLOMON, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department (news - web sites) investigation that criticized FBI (news - web sites) agents for taking souvenirs from the World Trade Center site also found that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and a high-ranking FBI official kept items from the Sept. 11 attack scenes. 

The final investigatory report said the Justice Department inspector general confirmed Rumsfeld "has a piece of the airplane that flew into the Pentagon (news - web sites)." The News Source obtained a copy of the report Friday. 

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said Friday night that Rumsfeld has a shard of metal from the jetliner that struck the Pentagon on a table in his office and shows it to people as a reminder of the tragedy Pentagon workers shared on Sept. 11, 2001. 

"He doesn't consider it his own," Di Rita said, adding the piece is on display for the Pentagon. "We are mindful of the fact that if somebody has an evidentiary requirement to have this shard of metal, we will provide it to them." 

The Justice Department investigation also collected testimony that Pasquale D'Amuro, FBI Director Robert Mueller's executive assistant director for terrorism until last summer, asked a supervisory agent to "obtain a half dozen items from the WTC debris so the items could be given to dignitaries." 

Six items - none needed as evidence - were gathered and sent to D'Amuro, the report said. 

D'Amuro, now the head of the FBI's New York office, told investigators that "he asked for a piece of the building as a memento" and that he was aware that agents had taken such items from other terrorist crime scenes over the years. 

He said he got a piece of the building in June 2003 but denied asking for items for dignitaries. D'Amuro left the following month from FBI headquarters as Mueller's top terrorism official to become an assistant director in charge of the New York office. 

Joe Valiquette, a spokesman for the New York FBI office, declined to comment Friday. 

The report also divulged that FBI agents' removal of items like a Tiffany crystal globe from the World Trade Center rubble gutted a criminal case the bureau was building against a Minnesota contractor that had taken a fire truck door from the same rubble. 

Prosecutors told the FBI they "might not indict the crime regarding the fire truck door due to government misconduct involving the Tiffany globe," the report said. 

Surviving family members were surprised by the latest news. 

"Unbelievable," said William Doyle, whose son was killed in the World Trade Center. 

"Everybody has things that they probably should not have from the World Trade Center site," added Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son died in the towers. "I'm sure there's probably all kinds of people that have all kinds of artifacts." 

The Justice Department's report has not been officially released, but heavily deleted versions of the report began circulating around Washington last month showing 13 FBI agents had taken rubble, debris and items such as flags and a Tiffany crystal globe paperweight. 

The bureau announced it was banning agents from taking items from crimes scenes, but no agents were being charged with crimes because the bureau did not have such a policy during the Sept. 11 investigation. 

The full report obtained by the AP divulges some senior FBI managers were among those cited for having authorized or asked for mementos from the World Trade Center site. 

In addition to D'Amuro, the report stated the now-retired head of the New York FBI office, Barry Mawn, asked and received an American flag and a piece of marble from the debris before his retirement. 

The report also states the special agent in charge of the FBI's office in Knoxville, Tenn., Joe Clark, contacted FBI officials in New York requesting a piece of debris to display in an exhibit dealing with hate crimes. A 100-pound piece of steel was sent to Clark, the report said. 

The report stated FBI agents who worked in New York repeatedly expressed their disgust that visiting agents and supervisors would seek souvenirs from the terrorist attacks. 

Many interviewed regarded the debris as sacred, the reported stated, "and were disgusted by the fact that anyone would want to take items, including pieces of the building which were contaminated with blood and human body parts." 

The report discloses that among the items taken, agents had cut World Trade Center security patches from the sleeves of shirt pieces found in the rubble. 

One New York agent who worked on the evidence recovery team "stated it was a ghoulish prospect that anyone would want things from a crime scene where people have died," the report said. 

Two senior FBI lawyers from New York told the investigators they were never consulted by FBI managers about the propriety of taking items, and they would have objected. 

The FBI New York office's ethics officer, Steven Carolotto, "emphatically stated FBI agents could not profit from working any location" and the "calamity of the event was inconsistent with the taking of items for personal use." 

Investigators also stated that they found evidence that the agent who ran the recovery effort at the landfill, Richard Marx of Philadelphia, gave "inconsistent" answers during the investigation after several colleagues claimed he had given them permission to take items. 

Last summer, Marx was subjected to a lie detector test in which he said he did not recall giving items to Mawn, did not recall giving permission for evidence recovery agents to take items and insisted he was completely true when he gave an affidavit to the investigation. 

"The results of the examination indicated that Marx was deceptive in his responses to all three questions," the Justice report said. FBI officials declined to comment about Marx's conduct. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Excerpts of documents available at: http://wid.ap.org/documents/documents/911souvenirs1.pdf 

FBI: http://www.fbi.gov 

Neil Armstrong Endorses Bush's Space Plan 

Fri Mar 12,12:59 PM ET

HOUSTON - Former astronaut Neil Armstrong says Americans should support President Bush (news - web sites)'s plan for renewed missions to the moon and beyond. 

Armstrong said the plan is economically sustainable and that the country must accept the risks associated with space exploration in order to reap technological rewards. 

"Our president has introduced a new initiative with renewed emphasis on the exploration of our solar system and expansion of human frontiers," Armstrong told a crowd of nearly 600 people Thursday. "This proposal has substantial merit and promise." 

He was in Houston to receive the Rotary National Award for Space Achievement. 

Armstrong, 73, commanded NASA (news - web sites)'s Apollo 11 mission in 1969, becoming the first person to walk on the moon. In 1971, he left the space program to pursue a teaching career in aeronautical engineering in his native Ohio. 

Armstrong said the success of the Bush's space plan depends on whether the government, aerospace industry, researchers and others can unite behind it. 

The Bush White House wants to return to the moon and eventually send astronauts there by 2020, and to Mars - an effort that would cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Some lawmakers have questioned proposed costs and risks. 

"Our economy can certainly afford an effort of this magnitude, but the public must believe the benefits to society deserve the investment," Armstrong said in Friday's edition of the Houston Chronicle. "To limit the program in the name of eliminating the risk is no virtue." 

President Bush has proposed that the space shuttle stop flying in 2010 and that the remaining shuttle flights concentrate on completion of the International Space Station (news - web sites) and research. 

China to Correct Great-Wall-In-Space Myth 

37 minutes ago

BEIJING - The myth about China's Great Wall has come tumbling down, thanks to the nation's first man in space. 

For decades, the Chinese propagated the myth that their most famous creation was visible from space. Elementary-school textbooks in the world's most populous nation still proclaim that the structure can be seen by the naked eye of an orbiting cosmonaut. 

But the myth was shattered upon Yang Liwei's return from a 21 1/2-hour space jaunt last year, so schoolbooks will be rewritten, the Beijing Times newspaper reported Friday. 

The wall stretches thousands of miles across northern China but is only a few yards wide, making it impossible to see from space. 

A Ministry of Education official in charge of teaching materials for China's schools said the textbook's publisher was informed to stop printing the essay that recounts the falsehood. 

The essay is part of China's standard sixth-grade language and literature textbook, the paper said quoting the official, surnamed Zang. 

It reads: "A cosmonaut rising radiantly said 'Flying in my spaceship, surveying our Earth from space, I am able to make out two constructions with my bare eyes: One is a Dutch sea embankment, the other is China's Great Wall!'" 

The paper said, "Having this falsehood printed in our elementary school textbooks is probably the main cause of the misconception being so widely spread." 

Its report quoted Wang Xiang, a delegate to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body to the national legislature meeting in Beijing this week. 

During this year's meeting, Wang submitted a proposal to the government asking that school books and school curricula be amended to stop spreading the Great Wall space myth. 

The myth "is a disadvantage to the real knowledge acquired by our elementary school students," Wang was quoted as saying. 

The Web site for the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration says that while many manmade objects can be seen from space without magnification, the Great Wall is not among them. 

The wall is not that wide and made from native materials that match the color of the surrounding landscape, the NASA (news - web sites) Web site says. 

Krispy Kreme Plans Low-Sugar Alternative

Fri Mar 12, 7:28 AM ET 
Add U.S. National - 

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Hot. Now. Healthy? 

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, long known for its high-calorie treats, says it plans to offer a low-sugar doughnut to attract dieters and diabetics. 

Exactly how low the sugar content would be was unclear. Krispy Kreme spokeswoman Amy Hughes said the new doughnut is still in the early stages of development. It is set to debut before the end of 2004. 

One of Krispy Kreme's Hot Original Glazed doughnuts has 10 grams of sugar and 200 calories. More than half those calories come from fat, 12 grams of it. 

Krispy Kreme lover Nathan Painter said he would give one of the newfangled doughnuts a try. Still, he found the whole idea strange. 

"It just seems odd they're trying to be healthy," he said. 

U.N. Finds 1994 Rwanda Crash Black Box

Fri Mar 12,12:22 PM ET

By EDITH M. LEDERER, News Source Writer 

UNITED NATIONS - In what Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) called a "first-class foul-up," the United Nations (news - web sites) said Thursday it has discovered a black box sent from Rwanda after a 1994 plane crash that unleashed a genocide in the east African nation. 

The device was found Wednesday in a locked filing cabinet in the U.N. Peacekeeping Department's Air Safety Unit. Aviation experts put it there apparently in the belief its "pristine condition" ruled out the possibility that it came from the downed Falcon 50 jet, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said. 

The United Nations now intends to immediately send the black box - technically known as a flight data recorder - to "a qualified outside body for analysis of its contents" to determine whether it came from the plane that was carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, Eckhard said. 

"On the face of it, there's no reason that we would think that that judgment made by those experts 10 years ago was faulty judgment, but to make sure we're going to send it out for analysis," he said. 

Annan has also instructed the Office of Internal Oversight Services, the U.N. watchdog, "to look into exactly what happened 10 years ago," Eckhard said. 

The April 6, 1994 crash killed Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, and his Burundian counterpart, Cyprien Ntaryamira, who had been attending a regional summit in Arusha, Tanzania. 

When it became clear the plane had been shot down, Hutu extremists accused Tutsis of assassinating the Rwandan president and began attacking their longtime ethnic foes. The slaughter lasted about 100 days and claimed the lives of more than 500,000 people, most Tutsis. 

The question of the black box came up during a French investigation of the crash, which also killed the French flight crew. Although the French have not released the results of their recently concluded probe, a newspaper familiar with the findings said it accuses the United Nations of obstruction of justice for failing to inspect the downed aircraft's black box. 

The French newspaper Le Monde said the Air Safety Office at the U.N. Mission in Rwanda sent the black box to New York at the request of the head of the Air Safety Unit. 

Annan, who was in charge of U.N. peacekeeping in 1994, said Thursday he was "incredulous" and "surprised" to learn that a black box had been found at the U.N. headquarters. 

"From what I have picked up, it sounds like a real foul-up, first-class foul-up," he said. "I don't think there's been any attempt to cover-up." 

An independent report on the U.N. role in the genocide, commissioned by Annan, concluded in 1999 that the United Nations and its members lacked the political will and resources to prevent or stop the genocide. 

The United States, in particular, blunted any efforts to get the Security Council more deeply involved in the Rwanda crisis in 1994. 

Annan and then-U.S. President Bill Clinton (news - web sites) both apologized to Rwandans in the late 1990s for the reluctance to intervene. 

According to Le Monde newspaper, the French investigation concludes that the chief suspect in the plane's downing is Rwandan President Paul Kagame, a Tutsi who was the leader of a rebel movement at the time. The newspaper said its information was based on a report dated Jan. 30, but not yet turned over to French prosecutors. 

Eckhard said U.N. officials on Wednesday "were able to trace the paper trail of a black box sent by pouch from the U.N. Mission in Rwanda in 1994 through Nairobi, Kenya, to U.N. headquarters in New York." It was discovered in a cabinet at the Air Safety Unit across the street from U.N. headquarters, he said. 

The officials in charge apparently decided that "its pristine condition indicated that it had not been in a crash," Eckhard said. 

As a result, they decided against sending the black box out to be opened, which was an expensive process, he said. They did circulate its index number but were unable to trace where it came from so they put it in the file cabinet "and did not report it up the chain of command," Eckhard said. 

"None of the senior peacekeeping officials at the time had any knowledge of it," Eckhard said, and neither did then Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali or his staff. 

The black box is now "under lock and key" at U.N. headquarters and a "responsible authority" to analyze it will be selected as soon as possible, he said. 

Eckhard stressed that 1994 was "a very busy time" for U.N. peacekeeping, with 70,000 peacekeepers deployed in about 18 missions around the world and just 200 staff at headquarters to manage them. 

"You make quick judgments and move on to the next thing," he said. "It appears in the judgment of these air safety experts, this black box was not linked to a crash and they set it aside. ... It went into a drawer and was forgotten for 10 years." 

MCI Cleanup Wipes Out $74B in Past Profits

19 minutes ago 
Add Business - 

By MATTHEW BARAKAT, News Source Business Writer 

McLEAN, Va. - The cleanup of WorldCom's tainted books reveals pre-tax losses of $74.4 billion not previously reflected in the company's financial reports for 2000 and 2001, MCI said Friday in a long-awaited report that wipes away a vast accounting fraud and reflects the plunging value of telecommunications assets. 

Related Quotes 
DJIA
NASDAQ
^SPC 10240.08
1984.73
1120.57 +111.70
+40.84
+13.79

Get Quotes 
delayed 20 mins - disclaimer 
Quote Data provided by The News Source

The financial restatement is likely the biggest in corporate history. But as an adjustment on paper only, it has no direct impact on the renamed telephone company's operations or bid to emerge from bankruptcy. 

The adjustments, issued in MCI's annual report, also includes the company's first report of its full-year results for 2002: a net loss of $9.2 billion on revenue of $32.2 billion. 

The adjustments for the two prior years would mean that WorldCom actually suffered a a net loss of $48.9 billion in 2000 and a net loss of $15.6 billion in 2001. The company had reported profits for both those years. 

The restatement helps clear a major hurdle in MCI's bid to emerge from bankruptcy protection. The company, which filed for bankruptcy as the scandal broke in July 2002, plans to exit Chapter 11 by the end of April. 

Although the revisions technically apply only to the years 2000 and 2001, MCI said it basically rebuilt its books from scratch, going all the way back to 1993, to develop a proper accounting. 

"This filing culminates the largest and most complex financial restatement ever undertaken," said chief financial officer Bob Blakely. "It is one of the last remaining milestones on our path to emerge from Chapter 11 protection." 

The filing attributes $8.8 billion of the $74.4 billion restatement to the financial irregularities and questionable accounting practices that have led to criminal investigations and charges against former senior executives at the company, including former Chief Executive Bernard Ebbers. 

Some estimates of the accounting fraud had reached as high as $11 billion. Company spokesman Peter Lucht said the $11 billion estimates had never been confirmed by the company. 

Most of the restatement - nearly $60 billion - stems from a write-down in the value of assets and other adjustments associated with the general struggles of the telecommunications industry. 

Another $5.8 billion is the result of inflated estimates of the assets of numerous companies bought by WorldCom during its binge of acquisitions in the 1990s. 

MCI's writedown was even bigger than the $54 billion writedown by AOL Time Warner in April 2002 to reflect to the declining value of America Online assets. That restatement resulted in the company reporting the largest quarterly loss ever by a U.S. company. 

Blakely said the financial restatements do not affect the company's liquidity, and that it has about $6 billion in cash as of the end of 2003. 


PBS Documentary: Silverstein, FDNY Razed WTC 7

Jeremy Baker

In a stunning and belated development concerning the attacks of 9/11 Larry Silverstein, the controller of the destroyed WTC complex, stated plainly in a PBS documentary that he and the FDNY decided jointly to demolish the Solomon Bros. building, or WTC 7, late in the afternoon of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001.

This admission appeared in a PBS documentary originally aired in Sept. of 2002 entitled "America Rebuilds". Mr Silverstein's comments came after FEMA and the Society of Civil Engineers conducted an extensive and costly investigation into the curious collapse of WTC 7. The study specifically concluded that the building had collapsed as a result of the inferno within, sparked, apparently, by debris falling from the crumbling North Tower. 

In the documentary Silverstein makes the following statement;

I remember getting a call from the, er, fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, "We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it." And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse.
[This can be heard in the audio file http://www.prisonplanet.com/pullit.mp3. Thanks to Sir Dave 'tmo' Soule for transfering this from the video to an MP3 file. "America Rebuilds", PBS Home Video, ISBN 0-7806-4006-3, is available from http://shop.pbs.org/products/AREB901/.]

Mr. Silverstein's comments stand in direct contradiction to the findings of the extensive FEMA report. They even negate Kevin Spacey's narrative in the very documentary in which they appear; "WTC 7 fell after burning for 7 hours." If it had been generally known that the building was "pulled" wouldn't Mr. Spacey have phrased it that way?

In the same program a cleanup worker referred to the demolition of WTC 6: "... we're getting ready to pull the building six." There can be little doubt as to how the word "pull" is being used in this context. 

[This can be heard in the audio file http://www.prisonplanet.com/pullit2.mp3 taken from the video.]

This shocking contradiction is yet another curious twist in a disturbing series of events surrounding the "collapse" of WTC 7, and the WTC complex in general. 

Among these is the fact that, in all the history of high-rise fires, not one has ever resulted in a collapse. On 9/11 three such anomalies were alleged to have occurred. Those who argue that the towers were vulnerable in their top-heaviness and verticality cannot then explain the collapse due to fire of WTC 7, a broad based, 47-story steel-framed building.

There is also the fact that most of the structures destroyed by falling debris were directly under the twin towers, and none of them caught fire. WTC 7 was not only a full city block away from Tower 1 but WTC 6 stood directly between the two buildings and certainly absorbed most of the damage.

In addition, WTC 7 suffered a strangely thorough and complete collapse, leaving only a leveled lot where it once stood. Although it was a much smaller structure, WTC 6's 8-story carcass stood for months afterwards, even after being gutted by Tower 1. 

There's also disturbing correlations between the collapse of WTC 7 and the bombing of the Murrah building in Oklahoma City. Both buildings were constructed using the same bridge beam system that, in WTC 7's case, allegedly contributed to its demise. But more importantly WTC 7, like the Murrah building, housed high-level government offices including the FBI, CIA and the Secret Service. WTC 7 was also the storage facility for millions of files pertaining to active cases involving international drug dealing, organized crime, terrorism and money laundering.

WTC 6, also known as the Customs House building, housed the Departments of Commerce,  Agriculture and Labor and yet another Murrah building tenant, the Bureau of Alcohol,  Tobacco and Firearms. 

WTC 7 was also the location of a kind of a doomsday bunker (a $15 million project of Rudy Giuliani's), a command post from which to operate in case of a total infrastructure breakdown.  Building 7 had apparently been bullet proofed and reinforced to withstand hurricane force winds and attacks of all kinds, a fact which makes its alleged fatal vulnerability to falling debris all the more puzzling.

Mr. Silverstein's comments imply that he and the FDNY threw together an expert demolition job in the space of a few short hours on the afternoon of 9/11. This revelation is staggering enough considering its blatant contradiction to what has been, all along, the official cause of the "collapse." But the fact that the building was buried under tons of debris and consumed in flames at the time makes his comments all the more baffling. 

There's a compelling theory that bombs had been planted inside the twin towers designed to complete the job the hijacked jets had begun. A handful of seasoned professional firefighters and demolition men have commented on how neatly and evenly the towers collapsed. Mr.  Silverstein's bewildering statements in "America Rebuilds" give an exponential boost in credence to this claim and, in a more terrifying light, loan credibility to growing suspicions that the attacks of 9/11 may have been an inside job.

Researchers Study Restless Leg Ailment

Mon Jan 26, 9:06 AM ET 


PORTLAND, Ore. - Researchers at two Oregon hospitals are studying a common but rarely diagnosed ailment that causes millions of Americans to have a creepy-crawly feeling deep in their leg muscle or involuntarily kick their legs. 

Related Links
� Restless Leg Syndrome () In  Chronic Heartburn
Need Relief? 
------------------------------------------------------------------------ More from : � Check Your Symptoms

� How Is It Diagnosed?

� Available Treatments 

The neurological condition, called restless leg, is a nuisance, not life-threatening. But restless leg sufferers are driven to sometimes extreme lengths to move their legs, about the only thing that brings immediate relief. 

Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University and Bend Memorial Clinic are participating in national studies to see how effective certain medicines are in treating the condition. 

Both studies involve drugs that increase the level of a hormonelike substance called dopamine, which is essential in transmitting nerve impulses. Researchers at OHSU are looking at a drug called Requip, a dopamine prescribed for Parkinson's disease (news - web sites). In Bend, researchers are trying sumanirole, a new drug that shows promise for both Parkinson's and restless leg. 

Although the drugs are designed to treat Parkinson's disease, a progressive nervous system disorder, doctors are quick to point out that restless leg and the more serious Parkinson's are not related. 

The best estimates of restless leg syndrome's prevalence range from 6 percent to 15 percent of the adult population. 

Although older people seem more vulnerable, children can have it, too. Some physicians think a small number of children diagnosed with hyperactivity disorders might actually have restless leg syndrome. 

The ailment seems to run in families and is particularly prevalent in people with iron deficiency. 

Newt Hagar, 84, a Portland resident, leads a support group for 20 to 30 restless leg sufferers who meet every other month. 

Hager said whenever he relaxed in front of the television or started drifting off to sleep in bed, his legs will kick of their own accord, about once every 20 seconds. His legs will keep jerking throughout the night, making it impossible for his wife to sleep. 

In movies or on airplanes, Hagar said he has an irresistible urge to get up and walk - about the only way he could make the kicking go away. 

About 80 percent of those with restless leg syndrome also have Hagar's problem, legs that jerk during sleep. 

Dr. Robert Sack, medical director of the OHSU Sleep Disorders Clinic and a restless leg researcher, says patients often have a hard time describing the disturbing feelings in their legs. As a result, they often don't talk to their doctors about the symptoms. 

And even when they do, relatively few doctors know about restless leg. 

"This is the most common disorder your doctor has never heard of," Sack says. 

Neil Bush Divorce Produces Disclosures

Mon Jan 26, 1:54 PM ET 
Add U.S. National - 

By PAM EASTON, News Source Writer 

HOUSTON - In the annals of embarrassing presidential relatives, Neil Bush is no Billy Carter or Roger Clinton. 

But his messy divorce has produced some eye-opening disclosures. Among them: He had sex with women who showed up uninvited at his hotel rooms in Asia; he had an affair and may have fathered a child out of wedlock; and he stands to make millions from businesses in which he has little expertise - including a computer-chip company managed in part by the son of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin. 

It seems certain opportunities tend to present themselves when your name is Neil Bush. 

For his part, Bush defended the fees he has received for consulting jobs. But he gave little insight into whether the women who offered him sex in Hong Kong and Taiwan were perhaps paid by mysterious benefactors. 

In a deposition taken last March and reviewed by The News Source, Bush told the attorney for his wife of 23 years, Sharon, that the women did not ask him for money and he did not pay them anything. 

Asked how he knew what to do when he opened his door and saw a woman standing there, the 48-year-old Bush replied: "Whatever happened, happened." 

"It's a pretty remarkable thing for a man just to go to a hotel room door and open it and have a woman standing there and have sex with her," said the attorney, Marshall Davis Brown. 

"It was very unusual," Bush replied. 

Sharon Bush also accused Neil of fathering a child with the woman he now plans to marry. The woman's ex-husband has filed a defamation lawsuit, and DNA testing has been requested. 

The titillating details have made barely a splash in Texas, where loyalty to the president runs deep. University of Texas government professor Bruce Buchanan said he doubts Neil Bush's shenanigans will become political fodder in the 2004 election. 

"There are lots of examples of presidents with troubled siblings and it never seemed to have that much of an impact," he said. 

Jimmy Carter's beer-swilling brother, Billy, wrote a book called "Redneck Power" and accepted money from the government of Libya. Bill Clinton (news - web sites)'s half-brother, Roger, was jailed for a year for dealing cocaine. Richard Nixon's kid brother Donald took $205,000 from Howard Hughes in the hopes of opening a fast-food chain selling Nixonburgers. 

It is not the first time Neil Bush has caused his family some trouble. At the end of his father's presidency, Neil was among a group of defendants who agreed to pay $49.5 million to settle a negligence lawsuit over the $1 billion collapse of the savings and loan he directed in Colorado. 

Bush denied wrongdoing and was not charged in the grand jury investigation, but the U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision found Bush's conduct "involved significant conflicts of interest and constituted multiple breaches" of his fiduciary duties. 

Bush has gone on to reap profits from other ventures. In the deposition, he said he hoped to receive an estimated $2 million for acting as a consultant to Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., co-founded by Jiang Zemin's eldest son. 

"Now, you have absolutely no educational background in semiconductors, do you Mr. Bush?" Brown asked. 

"That's correct," said Bush, who holds an MBA from Tulane University. 

Bush recently told the AP he has "not received one penny of compensation" from Grace Semiconductor because he never did the consulting. He did not respond to a request for comment on his divorce proceedings. 

Bush has focused most of his energy on Ignite Inc., an Austin-based educational software startup. So far, he has raised $23 million from investors, including Winston Wong, the other founder of Grace Semiconductor. 

"Let's face the reality," Bush told the AP in 2002. "I probably have access to people who probably wouldn't meet with a development-stage company, but I feel I'm held to a higher standard." 

Bush's tax returns, obtained by the AP, showed $357,000 in income from Ignite and at least $798,218 from three transactions involving the stock of Kopin Corp., a small U.S. high-tech company where he had previously been a consultant. 

There is no evidence he has tried to enlist help from the president for any of his ventures. Bush spokesman Taylor Gross said the White House had no comment. 

Still, said Rice University political science professor Bob Stein, "there is a family pattern here where the Bush sons - Jeb, Neil and George - have benefited tremendously by their connections through their father." 

Currying favor with a relative of the president can "start to smell bad," said Steven Weiss, communications director for the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics. 

Rex John, who has known Neil Bush since his Denver days, said he has never known Neil Bush to use his family connections to obtain business opportunities. 

"I'm sure it has opened many doors for him, but it wasn't Neil out there trying to get them open," John said. "Neil would never do anything like that. That's not his style." 

After Neil Bush severed his 23-year marriage to Sharon in May, he proposed last month in France to Maria Andrews, a former volunteer for former first lady Barbara Bush. 

Sharon Bush's lawyer in the defamation case, David Berg, allowed the AP to review the deposition but said he did not have a copy of Sharon Bush's testimony. He would not make her available for an interview. 

Sharon Bush, 51, alleged her ex-husband could have fathered Andrews' 3-year-old son. That prompted Andrews' former husband to file a defamation lawsuit against Sharon Bush. Neil Bush submitted a tissue sample for analysis. 

In the meantime, he has been ordered to pay $1,500 a month in child support for two of his children, Pierce, 17 and Ashley, 14. The couple's oldest child, Lauren, is 19. 

Do Deodorants Cause Breast Cancer? 13-Jan-2004

Chemical preservatives from underarm deodorants have been found in breast cancer tumors. Researcher Philip Harvey says, "From this research it is not possible to say whether parabens actually caused these tumors, but they may certainly be associated with the overall rise in breast cancer cases." 

Biologist Philippa Darbre says, "...These results help explain why up to 60% of all breast tumors are found in just one-fifth of the breast-the upper-outer quadrant, nearest the underarm." 

Gaia Vince writes in New Scientist that when researchers analyzed 20 breast cancer tumors, they found high concentrations of para-hydroxybenzoic acids (parabens) in 18 of them. Parabens mimic estrogen, which plays a role in the development of breast cancers. Parabens are used in many cosmetics and even in some foods. The form of parabens found in the tumors came from something that was applied to the skin, because parabens are eaten, they no longer mimic estrogen in the body. 

Harvey says, "Given that breast cancer is the largest killer of women and a very high percentage of young women use underarm deodorants, I think we should be carrying out properly funded, further investigations into parabens and where they are found in the body." 

Desperate Scientists May Try Sun Shield 13-Jan-2004

Since the small, practical actions necessary to help prevent global warming have not been taken, scientists are now considering crazy schemes to get the job done. 

Mark Townsend writes in The Observer that U.K. climate scientists are proposing to build a massive shield on the edge of space that would deflect the Sun's rays and stabilize the Earth's climate. It would be made up of thousands of tons of small metal pieces, ejected into the upper atmosphere. Another sun barrier could be billions of tiny balloons sent into space. These ideas were inspired by the cooling effect from the 1814 volcanic eruptions in Indonesia, which spewed enough matter into the upper atmosphere to cause temperatures to fall by 30% for 3 years. 

On land, giant reservoirs holding salt water could be built to correct the rise in sea levels caused by melting polar ice, which releases freshwater into the ocean, changing the current that keeps Europe warm. When needed, salt water could be released into the ocean at strategic spots so the Gulf Stream doesn't drop down. 

Other ideas: Huge, floating cloud-making machines that spray ocean water into the air, and large algae plantations, that would absorb greenhouse gases, the way they do in the ocean right now. 

Environmentalist John Schellnhuber says, "The present climate policy does not seem to be working. We are not saying we have the magic bullet, but this is a desperate situation and people should start thinking about the unconventional. Preventative plans on a larger scale are needed." 

Castro Says Bush Plotting to Kill Him 

Fri Jan 30, 7:48 PM ET

Add World - 

By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ, News Source Writer 

HAVANA - Fidel Castro (news - web sites) accused President Bush (news - web sites) on Friday of plotting with Miami exiles to kill him, and said he would die fighting if the United States ever invaded to oust him. 

"I don't care how I die," Castro said at the end of a 5 1/2-hour speech that began Thursday night and continued into early Friday. "But rest assured, if they invade us, I'll die in combat." 

The Cuban president didn't back up his accusations with details. He spoke at the close of a conference bringing together activists across the region who oppose the Free Trade Area of the Americas. 

Castro has insisted over the past year that hardline Cuban exiles in Miami have been pressuring the Bush administration to invade the island - a charge U.S. officials deny. 

Castro also has increasingly referred to his own mortality in recent years, promising to remain in power until his last breath. 

"We know that Mr. Bush has committed himself to the mafia ... to assassinate me," the Cuban president said, using the term commonly employed here to describe anti-Castro Cuban Americans. "I said it once before and today I'll say it clearer: I accuse him!" 

Castro has accused past U.S. administrations of seeking to assassinate him, and during his early years in power there were numerous documented cases of U.S.-sponsored attempts on his life. 

The assassination of foreign leaders as U.S. policy was later banned in 1976 by an executive order signed by then-President Gerald Ford and reinforced by Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan (news - web sites). 

Castro also criticized the Bush administration's Commission for a Free Cuba - a panel set up in October and headed by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites). 

When the United States announced creation of the commission, Powell suggested that the goal is not to ease Castro out but to plan a strategy for Cuba once the 77-year-old leader is no longer in power. 

Earlier in his speech, Castro called on the more than 1,000 activists from across the Americas gathered here to work against the U.S.-backed free trade pact, which he said will only further impoverish their nations. 

The Bush administration has progressively hardened its policies toward the island. Cuban authorities charge the strategy is aimed at wooing voters in Florida, home to most of the Cuban-American exiles living in the United States. 

For more than four decades, the two countries have been without diplomatic ties and a U.S. trade embargo against the island makes most trade between the nations impossible, except for sales of farm products. 

Film Studio Suits Claim 'Screener' Leaks

Thu Jan 29, 4:51 AM ET

LOS ANGELES - Two major movie studios sued an actor and longtime member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (news - web sites) who allegedly leaked "screener" copies of movies that were then reproduced and distributed on the Internet. 

Slideshow: Academy Awards

Columbia Pictures Industries and Warner Bros. filed the lawsuits against Carmine Caridi, a 20-year Academy member who has appeared in "The Godfather: Part II" and "NYPD Blue." 

Caridi, 70, has told investigators he sent VHS copies of about 60 movies he received each year to his Illinois friend, 51-year-old Russell Sprague, who used a software program to convert the VHS tape into DVD format and then sent the original tapes back to Caridi, authorities said. 

Investigators said a search of Caridi's Hollywood apartment turned up 36 original Academy screener tapes, including "The Last Samurai," "In America," "Shattered Glass" and "Mona Lisa Smile." 

Warner Bros. seeks damages of a minimum of $150,000 for each infringing use of its releases "The Last Samurai" and "Mystic River." In a separate complaint, Columbia is asking for its choice between actual damages or $150,000 for each infringing use of "Something's Gotta Give" and "Big Fish." 

Caridi's attorney, Richard Millard, did not immediately return calls Wednesday. An attorney for Warner Bros. declined to comment. An attorney for Columbia did not return messages left late Wednesday. 

Caridi has said he received no money for the films. He allegedly told investigators he believed Sprague was a film buff and merely wished to watch them. 

Sprague was arrested and charged with criminal copyright infringement last week. Caridi has not been charged. 

Piracy and Kidnapping Soar on the High Seas 
Wed Jan 28, 7:14 AM ET 
Add World 

By Neil Chatterjee 

LONDON  - Violent piracy on the high seas has soared and more ships are being hijacked to kidnap the crew for ransom, an ocean crime watchdog said Wednesday. 

Related Links
� Piracy takes higher toll of seamen's lives (IMB)

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said the number of reported ship attacks jumped to 445 in 2003, 20 percent higher than the previous year and the second highest level since it began compiling statistics in 1991. 

The number of seafarers killed also climbed to 21, with another 71 crew or passengers listed as missing, while 88 were injured. This compared to 10 killed and 38 injured the previous year. The number of hostages taken also nearly doubled to 359 in 2003. 

"The figures show an increase in the number of the attacks and violence of the attacks. We call upon the countries with piracy problems to give greater priority to policing their waters," said IMB director Captain Pottengal Mukundan. 

The IMB said the number of ships hijacked for the theft of the vessel and its cargo had dramatically reduced, but that more vulnerable boats such as tugs and barges were being targeted and crews were being abducted for ransom. 

It said kidnappings were believed to largely be the work of militia groups in politically sensitive areas. "The motivation of a militia attack is different to that of commercial pirates," Mukundan told The News Source in an interview. 

"This is a revenue source for them -- but they are not interested in stealing the ship or its cargo. They are locally based groups, who don't want to go to other ports and don't have the contacts to dispose of the cargo," he said, pointing to the separatist movement in Aceh, Indonesia, as an example. 

Indonesian waters continue to be the most dangerous with 121 reported attacks in 2003. The Malacca Straits, between Indonesia and Malaysia and one of the world's most strategically important shipping lanes, saw a rise to 28 attacks in 2003. Thirty percent of the world's trade and 80 percent of Japan's crude oil is transported through the narrow waterway. 

Some Western intelligence agencies and maritime security experts have linked al Qaeda, or militant groups associated with it, to Indonesian piracy. Experts say al Qaeda showed its seaborne attack capability by bombing the Limburg oil tanker off Yemen in 2002 and U.S. warship USS Cole (news - web sites) in 2000. 

"In 23 percent of the attacks, tankers were the targets," Mukundan said. "The fact that these ships carrying dangerous cargoes may be temporarily under the control of unauthorized individuals remains a matter of concern. 

"We have also seen, for the first time, ships being attacked simultaneously by a number of small pirate boats, firing weapons at the bridge of the vessel," he said. 

NEED FOR PATROLS 

Bangladesh was ranked as having the second highest number of attacks in 2003 with 58 and Nigeria came third with 39. Attacks off Nigeria almost tripled compared to the previous year and the IMB regards it as the most dangerous area in Africa for piracy and armed robbery. 

Mukundan said commercial pirates are often backed by organized international crime gangs, that obtain false papers for a ship, so they can change its route to a new port. The gangs are attracted to cargoes that are easy to resell, such as fuel oil, rice or sugar, Mukundan said. 

Modern-day pirates often attack using sub-machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. The IMB said the number of attacks using guns rose to 100 from 68 the previous year. 

However, some countries saw a reduction in piracy. Somalia had a 50 percent drop in reported attacks, although the IMB said the eastern and north-eastern coast of the African country remained a high-risk area for hijackings and kidnapping of crew for ransom. 

Other countries with fewer attacks in the past year included Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ecuador, Guyana and Thailand. Malaysian waters saw a fall to only five attacks, with none reported in the last six months of 2003, which the IMB said was due to vigilant patrols by the Malaysian marine police. 

"Some kinds of attacks and attacks in certain areas have dramatically reduced. This proves once again that when law enforcement agencies take these attacks seriously there will be a corresponding reduction in attacks," Mukundan said. 

U.S. Government Offers Free Cyber Alerts

38 minutes ago

By TED BRIDIS, News Source Technology Writer 

WASHINGTON - Aiming to increase Internet security, the government is now offering Americans free cyber alerts and computer advice from the Homeland Security Department. 

Related Quotes 
MSFT
DJIA
NASDAQ
^SPC 28.41
10643.92
2121.08
1147.76 +0.16
+34.00
+5.04
+3.71

Get Quotes 
delayed 20 mins - disclaimer 
Quote Data provided by The News Source

Anyone who signs up with the new National Cyber Alert System will receive e-mails about major virus outbreaks and other Internet attacks as they occur, along with detailed instructions to help computer users protect themselves. 

The program, which begins Wednesday, represents an ambitious effort by the government to develop a trusted warning system that can help home users and technology experts. 

The goal of improving the overall security of the Internet has been frustrated by increasingly complex software that can be difficult to secure and by hackers learning to launch sophisticated new attacks. 

"There is a clear need for this kind of system to be developed," said Amit Yoran, the Bush administration's cyber security chief. "Receiving information from the Department of Homeland Security gives people a certain level of confidence." 

The announcement comes 11 months after such an Internet warning system was described in the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, a series of proposals endorsed by the Bush administration and technology industry to improve online security. 

The alerts will function independently from the Homeland Security Department's well known color-coded system, which reflects the national threat level. 

The new alert system puts the government in direct competition with dozens of companies and organizations that already transmit similar cyber warnings, and could renew criticisms about earlier, disjointed government efforts that frequently sounded Internet warnings hours or even days after major computer attacks and occasionally included incorrect information. 

Earlier Internet warnings were distributed by the FBI (news - web sites)'s National Infrastructure Protection Center, which moved to Homeland Security when President Bush (news - web sites) created the new department. 

Congressional investigators complained in July 2002 that those earlier warnings were mostly issued after Internet attacks were long under way. They blamed government's inability to analyze imminent Internet attacks, fears about raising false alarms and staff shortages. 

Yoran acknowledged the difficult balance between providing accurate warnings almost immediately. 

"I'm sure we'll take some kicks in the shins," he said. 

He indicated the government will focus on distributing information as quickly as possible, correcting any wrong information as U.S. computer investigators learn new details. "In the absence of information, the operator community is going to rely on whatever information is out there," he said. "It's better to have our voice heard rather than letting people operate in the dark." 

The new alert system also sets up potentially serious conflicts with leading software companies, including Microsoft Corp., which aggressively discourage any public disclosures about new security flaws in their products until engineers can study the problems and offer repairing software patches for their customers. 

Yoran said the government will aggressively warn consumers about vulnerabilities, in some cases revealing threats "above and beyond what specific commercial vendors may not wish to disclose." 

"If the disclosure of certain information is deemed in the public interest, we'll move forward," he said. 

Researchers who discover new vulnerabilities commonly work closely with these companies by agreeing not to reveal details about their work until a software patch is available. But some researchers have increasingly complained that companies take too long to verify their discoveries or deliberately seek to minimize their efforts for marketing purposes. 

___ 

On the Net: 

US CERT: www.us-cert.gov 

Blair Cleared in Weapons Expert's Suicide

1 hour, 3 minutes ago

By THOMAS WAGNER, News Source Writer 

LONDON - A judge cleared Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites)'s administration Wednesday of any direct involvement in the suicide of a government expert on Iraqi weapons but criticized the BBC for its reporting in the scandal that shook the British leadership. 

The government did not act in a "dishonorable, underhanded or duplicitous" way in revealing the identity of weapons expert David Kelly, said senior appeals judge Lord Hutton, who was appointed by Blair to investigate the death. 

Hutton said he was satisfied that nobody involved in the matter could have foreseen that Kelly would take his own life. He killed himself after being identified as the anonymous source of the British Broadcasting Corp. report accusing the government of exaggerating claims about Iraqi weapons to bolster support for war. 

Hutton also said the BBC report that Blair's government had manipulated its intelligence in an official dossier about Iraq (news - web sites)'s weapons was unfounded. He specifically rebutted the BBC report that the government had "sexed up" the dossier. 

"I am satisfied that none of the persons whose decisions and actions I later describe ever contemplated that Dr. Kelly might take his own life. I'm further satisfied that none of those persons was at fault in not contemplating that Dr. Kelly might take his own life," Hutton said on national TV as he read from his 328-page decision. 

"Whatever pressures and strains Dr. Kelly was subjected to by the decisions and actions taken in the weeks before his death, I am satisfied that no one realized or should have realized that those pressures and strains might lead him to take his own life," Hutton said. 

In his report, BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan had quoted his source as saying that Blair's government had "sexed up" the intelligence dossier on Iraq's arms to bolster its argument for the war in Iraq, including a claim that they could be deployed in 45 minutes. 

The subsequent feud between the government and the BBC over the report raised widespread concerns about Blair's integrity and led to the biggest crisis of his seven years in office. 

"Whether or not at some time in the future the report on which the 45-minute claim was based was shown to be unreliable, the allegations reported by Mr. Gilligan on 29 May 2003 that the government probably knew that the 45-minutes claim was wrong before the government decided to put it in the dossier was an allegation that was unfounded," Hutton said. 

The judge also said that Kelly had acted improperly by privately meeting with Gilligan and had breached rules regarding government employees contacts with the media because he hadn't been given permission from his superiors for such a meeting. 

Hutton sharply criticized the publicly funded BBC's "defective" handling of Gilligan's story, saying the network's editors had failed to properly check the reporter's allegations and did not properly investigate the government's complaints about his report. 

The judge criticized the BBC's Board of Governors for failing to fully investigate the criticism of Gilligan's report and would have probably discovered it to be unfounded if they had. 

Hutton pored over documents, e-mails, official minutes and extracts from the personal diary of Alastair Campbell, Blair's former communications director, which provided insights into the interplay of politics and policies at the highest level. 

The scandal has damaged the credibility of Blair, Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon, senior government officials and the BBC. 

Hutton's hearings, lasting most of August and September, transfixed the country, which remains deeply divided about Blair's decision to back the U.S. attack on Iraq. 

The retired chief U.S. weapons inspector, David Kay, said last week that he concluded that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) had no weapons of mass destruction, which were the basis of Blair's case for war. 

FDA Big Factor Behind High Drug Costs -Economist

Tue Jan 27, 7:29 PM ET

Add Health 

By Spencer Swartz 

SAN FRANCISCO  - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites), with its costly and time-consuming drug approval process, is a big reason Americans pay far more for medicine than consumers in the rest of the world, U.S. Nobel laureate Milton Friedman said on Tuesday. 

"The FDA is the most serious situation regarding the high costs of prescription drugs in this country," Friedman told a San Francisco forum on U.S. importation of Canadian drugs. 

"Their (the FDA's) whole incentive is to be ultra-careful, to not make a mistake ... but that's where the problem starts," said the economist, one of the most prominent free market advocates the past century. 

Drug-import supporters say medicines from countries like Canada can as much as two-thirds cheaper than U.S. drugs because of the role many governments play in setting prices. 

Some of those supporters - who believe the FDA should err on the side of caution in approving new drugs - believe U.S. drug prices are simply overpriced by the pharmaceutical industry, which also vigorously opposes importation. 

The forum, held by free-market think-tank Pacific Research Institute, coincides with a growing number of proposals by states from California to Massachusetts to make it easier to buy Canadian drugs. 

Friedman opposes Canadian drug imports - after originally being sympathetic to the idea - because of the damage he believes it poses to patent rights. 

CHEAPER CANADIAN DRUGS 

U.S-produced drugs sold to markets abroad are often sent back to the United States from places such as Canada at cheaper prices, a practice that drug companies say undercuts drug patents and domestic sales of the same drugs. 

The pharmaceutical industry estimates it typically costs about $800 million to bring a new drug to market, although U.S. drug-price critics say that number is inflated by high marketing costs companies run up promoting their drugs. 

Friedman said he believed higher U.S. prices allowed more access to new medicines because drug companies -- supported by strictly applied patent laws -- could make better returns on investments, enabling them to fund future drug development. 

But drug-import supporters said there was no reason why cheaper medicines should not flow between Canada and the United States, as is already case for many other goods covered under the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the United States, and Mexico. 

Rep. Gil Gutknecht, a Republican from the border state of Minnesota, told the forum it was "indefensible" that many American seniors did not refill prescriptions because of high costs. He cited data showing 29 percent of seniors' drug prescriptions went unfilled because of high prices. 

Gutknecht has helped lead a fight in Congress to allow Americans to import drugs from 25 industrialized nations. 

Forum attendees said U.S. tort reform could also help lower drug costs by lowering liability costs. 

Gutknecht said a U.S. drug liability case costing a company $100 million could be dealt with in Europe for $100,000. 

Scientists Create New Form of Matter

Wed Jan 28, 4:05 PM ET

Add Science 

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent 

WASHINGTON  - Scientists said on Wednesday they had created a new form of matter and predicted it could help lead to the next generation of superconductors for use in electricity generation, more efficient trains and countless other applications. 

The new matter form is called a fermionic condensate and it is the sixth known form of matter -- after gases, solids, liquids, plasma and a Bose-Einstein condensate, created only in 1995. 

"What we've done is create this new exotic form of matter," Deborah Jin, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology's joint lab with the University of Colorado, who led the study, told a news conference. 

"It is a scientific breakthrough in providing a new type of quantum mechanical behavior," added Jin. 

Jin and her colleagues' cloud of supercooled potassium atoms is one step closer to an everyday, usable superconductor -- a material that conducts electricity without losing any of its energy. 

"It is related to a Bose-Einstein condensate," Jin said. "It's not a superconductor but it is really something in between these two that may help us in science link these two interesting behaviors." 

And other researchers may find practical applications. 

"If you had a superconductor you could transmit electricity with no losses," Jin said. "Right now something like 10 percent of all electricity we produce in the United States is lost. It heats up wires. It doesn't do anybody any good." 

Or superconductors could allow for the invention of magnetically levitated trains, she added. Free of friction they could glide along at high speeds using a fraction of the energy trains now use. 

BETTER THAN A BOSON 

Jin, a recent recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant," was building on the discovery of the Bose-Einstein condensate by her colleagues Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman. They won the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery. 

Bose-Einstein condensates are collections of thousands of ultracold particles that occupy a single quantum state -- they all essentially behave like a single, huge superatom. 

But Jin says these Bose-Einstein condensates are made with bosons, which like to act in unison. 

"Bosons are copycats. They basically want to do what everyone else is doing," she said. 

Her team's new form of matter uses fermions -- the everyday building blocks of matter that include protons, electrons and neutrons. 

"They are not copycats," Jin said. "Fermions are your independent thinkers -- they don't copy their neighbors." 

But Jin's team coaxed them into doing just that. 

They cooled potassium gas to a billionth of a degree C above absolute zero or minus 459 degrees F -- which is the point at which matter stops moving. 

They confined the gas in a vacuum chamber and used magnetic fields and laser light to manipulate the potassium atoms into pairing up. 

"This is very similar to what happens to electrons in a superconductor," Jin said. 

This is more likely to provide applications in the practical world than a Bose-Einstein condensate, she said, because fermions are what make up solid matter. 

Bosons, in contrast, are seen in photons, and subatomic particles called W and Z particles.

Jin stressed her team worked with a supercooled gas, which provides little opportunity for everyday application. But the way the potassium atoms acted suggested there should be a way to translate the behavior into a room-temperature solid. 

"Our atoms are more strongly attracted to one another than in normal superconductors," she said. 

Kay: Intel Problems Hurt U.S. Credibility 

9 minutes ago

By DEB RIECHMANN, News Source Writer 

WASHINGTON - Flawed intelligence undermines the Bush administration's policy of striking first if U.S. interests are threatened, the former chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq (news - web sites) said Sunday. 

"If you cannot rely on good, accurate intelligence that is credible to the American people and to others abroad, you certainly cannot have a policy of pre-emption," David Kay said. While the United States always has reserved the right of a first strike, President Bush (news - web sites) has elevated the strategy of pre-emption to a central part of his foreign policy doctrine. 

"Pristine intelligence, good accurate intelligence is a fundamental bedstone of any sort of policy of pre-emption to be even thought about," Kay told "Fox News Sunday." 

Kay said that until it is clear how prewar intelligence about Iraq's cache of banned weapons ended up being off the mark, the public will be dubious of claims by the government that Iran, North Korea (news - web sites) or Syria, for instance, pose grave dangers. 

"I think most of us would have greater doubts," Kay said. "I would hope even the president would have greater doubts until we understand the fundamental causes" of the flawed intelligence. 

Meanwhile, Sen. Trent Lott, a top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the administration is considering supporting a new independent commission that would investigate whether the United States used faulty intelligence when it decided to go to war in Iraq. 

"I may be willing to go along with an independent commission because I think it's important that we get reliable information and that we do something about it," said Lott, R-Miss. "How do we make our intelligence more reliable?" 

Asked whether he would like to see CIA (news - web sites) director George Tenet resign, Lott said only, "I think we have major problems with our intelligence community. I think we need to take a look at a complete overhaul. ... I have real problems with the job they've done." 

The committee's top Democrat, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, declined to comment on Tenet. But Rockefeller said he thought the president, Congress and the intelligence community should admit that mistakes on intelligence were made. 

"Until we admit that we were wrong on our intelligence, we will not go about fixing it to make sure it doesn't happen again," Rockefeller said. 

Bush has reacted coolly toward the idea of a new commission, refusing to endorse it publicly. But his administration is under mounting election-year pressure to agree to an independent inquiry about Iraq's alleged arsenal of banned destruction. 

Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) has broached the possibility of a commission in conversations with members of Congress, according to government sources familiar with the conversations. These sources spoke on condition of anonymity. 

Despite months of searching, U.S. inspectors have found no forbidden weapons in Iraq. Bush had cited the suspected weapons as a rationale for the war. 

Kay has said the administration's intelligence on Iraq was "almost all wrong" and that the information on which Bush's war decision was based was erroneous. 

High Aspirin Doses Best at Preventing Colon Cancer

Mon Feb 2, 5:38 PM ET

Add Health 

NEW YORK (The News Source Health) - Previous reports have shown that regular aspirin use can reduce the risk of colon cancer. Now, new research suggests that the strongest benefits occur with aspirin doses higher than those recommended for preventing heart disease. 

Still, aspirin does raise a person's risk of bleeding and it's possible that this risk, especially at high doses, outweighs the anti-cancer benefits, according to a related editorial. 

The results, which are published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, are based on a study of more than 27,000 women who underwent colonoscopy between 1980 and 1998. 

At enrollment, the participants reported no history of colon tumors or other diseases. Aspirin use was assessed with biennial questionnaires. 

During the study period, 1368 cases of colon cancer were diagnosed, lead author Dr. Andrew T. Chan, from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and colleagues note. 

Overall, women who used at least two standard aspirin tablets per week were 25 percent less likely to develop a tumor than were less frequent users. Moreover, the tumor risk fell as aspirin use increased. Compared with non-use, the use of more than 14 tablets per week decreased the risk by 51 percent. This association held true for both short- (no more than 5 years) and long-term aspirin users. 

"Before aspirin can be recommended for chemoprevention in the general adult population, these results suggest the need for a more thorough evaluation of the risks and benefits of routine aspirin use at doses not previously considered," the authors state. 

In a related editorial, Dr. Robert S. Sandler, from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, warns that "until we have different or better information from randomized trials, aspirin use should be limited to persons at higher risk for (tumors)" and to persons without diseases for which aspirin use might be hazardous. 

SOURCE: Annals of Internal Medicine, January 2004. 

TiVo Users Couldn't Get Enough of Janet Jackson

2 hours, 44 minutes ago

Add Entertainment TV 

By Paul Bond 

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - When Justin Timberlake (news) tore at Janet Jackson (news)'s leather outfit during Sunday's Super Bowl half-time show, TiVo (news - web sites) users took notice. 

Then they took notice again and again, using the digital video recorder to replay the event and to pause at the crucial moment in order to discern just what it was that Jackson had revealed to millions of Americans. 

TiVo said that particular halftime stunt was the most replayed moment not only of the Super Bowl but of all TV moments that the young company has ever measured. 

TiVo said it used its technology to measure audience behavior among 20,000 users during the Super Bowl. The exercise revealed a 180% spike in viewership at the time of the -- as Timberlake refers to it -- "wardrobe malfunction." 

One notable TiVo user apparently unimpressed with the performance of Timberlake and Jackson was FCC (news - web sites) chairman Michael Powell (news), who launched an investigation into the bare-breasted matter. Powell is so taken with TiVo that he once referred to it as "God's machine." 

This marks the third year that TiVo has released details of its second-by-second review of how Super Bowl viewers used their TiVo units. Not only did users pause and replay the infamous portion of the halftime show more than any moment during the game, but they also did the same for some commercials. 

TiVo's top two commercials, based on user behavior, are both from Bud Light: a romantic sleigh ride interrupted by a flatulent horse and a sharp-toothed dog demonstrating his unusual way of scoring a beer for his master. 

The News Source/Hollywood Reporter 

Plain Old Cell Phones Fading Away in U.S.

Mon Feb 2, 2:10 PM ET

Add Technology 

By Ben Berkowitz 

LOS ANGELES  - As a fashion color, gray is the new black, thin batteries are in and you're not in vogue if you don't have the latest ringtone. 

As the U.S. wireless market grows, the cell phone is evolving into a phone in name only as calling becomes almost secondary to a host of other functions. 

After years of trailing Japan and Western Europe, where cell phones have long had color screens, e-mail, music, video games, cameras and other accessories that make American cell phones look backward in comparison, handset makers are finally pushing a new generation of units on the domestic market that offer the full range of functions available elsewhere. 

"From the consumer perspective ... it makes no sense to go for a low-end handset," ABI Research analyst Kenil Vora said. "The definition of low-end shifts from monochrome handsets to phones with a little bit of something on it." 

Qualcomm Inc., whose CDMA (news - web sites) network technologies serve as the basis for two of the four largest wireless carriers in the United States, said recently its rapid growth was being driven by demand for phones supporting features like color screens, cameras and multimedia capabilities. 

Such features -- once considered "advanced" -- are now increasingly mainstream, especially as prices fall. CDMA-compatible phones with color screens can be had for as little as $30 and with cameras for $100. 

Texas Instruments Inc. said last week the greatest part of its sales growth was coming from a heated demand for wireless technology, including processors that let phones run multimedia applications. 

As prices fall and demand rises, Qualcomm Chief Operating Officer Tony Thornley told The News Source recently, the market for plain old phones -- no color, no camera, no music or downloadable games -- is drying up in the United States. 

"I think that that part of the market is going to decline quite rapidly," he said. "I think black-and-white screens are going to go the way of the black-and-white television very rapidly." 

The cameras in the new generation of phones in particular are improving -- Thornley said Qualcomm's roadmap for its chips supports resolutions of 4 megapixels by 2005, and predicted that flash and zoom would become increasingly common. Most cameraphones now use 0.3 megapixel cameras. 

In the coming years, Thornley said, the most simple of phones were only likely to have any kind of market share in places like India and Latin America, where low-cost cellular is crucial. 

CELL PHONE NO LONGER 

Qualcomm is not the only company seeing such a shift. Motorola Inc., the world's second-largest cell phone maker, has said that the landscape is changing. 

"Certainly, the whole concept of cell phones is no longer," Chief Executive Ed Zander said on a recent conference call. "It's becoming an information appliance and you're adding the kind of capabilities -- Web access and the kind of camera capability and some of the future products -- (so that) consumers are looking at this thing as more than just making a phone call." 

Brokerage Smith Barney recently estimated that, entering 2004, half of all cell phones shipped would have color displays, and citing IDC, said as many as 100 million camera phones would be shipped in the year. 

The changes can be seen already in the inventory of the four largest U.S. carriers. 

Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc, has only two non-color, under-$100 phones on its Web site. Cingular Wireless, a joint venture of SBC Communications Inc and BellSouth Corp., offers three. AT&T Wireless Services Inc. has two and Sprint PCS Group has none. 

ABI's Vora said that with major handset makers like Samsung Electronics and Nokia (news - web sites) already shipping anywhere from 50 percent to 90 percent of their phones in color, monochrome looked to die out worldwide by 2008. 

Ex-Presidents, Widow Want JFK Film Probe 

Mon Feb 2, 9:06 PM ET

Add U.S. National - 

By LYNN ELBER, News Source Television Writer 

LOS ANGELES - Two former presidents and the widow of Lyndon B. Johnson are calling on the History Channel to investigate a documentary it aired alleging President Johnson was involved in the Kennedy assassination. 

Lady Bird Johnson said the film "falsely and irresponsibly" accuses her husband of conspiring to kill President Kennedy. 

No accusation made against Johnson "has hurt as painfully," the 91-year-old former first lady said in a Jan. 29 letter. Her husband died in 1973. 

Copies of her letter were sent to the chief executives of three companies that own A&E Networks, which includes the History Channel. The letters went to Bob Wright of NBC, Victor Ganzi of Hearst Corp. and Michael Eisner of The Walt Disney Co. 

Former Presidents Ford and Carter also sent letters citing the documentary, "The Guilty Men," which aired last November as part of a series of History Channel specials on the Nov. 22, 1963 assassination. 

Ford, noting he was the last surviving member of the Warren Commission that determined Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy, called the History Channel documentary "reprehensible." 

Alleging that Johnson, as Kennedy's vice president, was part of a conspiracy to murder him is "the greatest, most damaging accusation ever made against a former vice president and president in American History," Ford, 90, wrote in his Jan. 23 letter. 

The letters were released Monday to The News Source by Tom Johnson, chairman of the LBJ Foundation and a representative of the Johnson family. 

Calls to NBC and Disney were not immediately returned. 

"We don't comment on correspondence with our chief executive officer," said Hearst spokesman Paul Luthringer. 

Tom Johnson said he and three other former Johnson aides planned to meet Wednesday with executives of the History Channel and A&E Television Networks to press for an investigation and for its findings to be made public. 

Nickolas Davatzes, president of A&E Television Networks, was expected to take part, History Channel spokeswoman Lynn Gardner said Tuesday. 

Other Johnson aides scheduled to participate are Jack Valenti, now head of the Motion Picture Association of America; journalist Bill Moyers; and attorney Larry Temple. 

"I'm puzzled, bewildered, that a distinguished enterprise like the History Channel would put on the air such garbage, such ugliness," Valenti said in November. "It makes one sick." 

When the Kennedy series aired, the History Channel said in a statement that the point of view in "The Guilty Men" was "meticulously researched." 

"By presenting different viewpoints we enable our viewers to decide to agree or disagree with them and to arrive at their own conclusions," the channel said. 

Parents: Kids Face Antidepressants Risk 

Mon Feb 2,12:19 PM ET



By LAURAN NEERGAARD, News Source Medical Writer 

WASHINGTON - Parents pleaded with the Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) on Monday to end the use of popular adult antidepressants in children, saying the drugs can increase youths' risk of suicide and violence. 

"To die in this violent, unusual fashion without making a sound ... Paxil must have put her over the edge," said Sara Bostock, describing how her daughter Cecily stabbed herself in the chest with a kitchen knife shortly after graduating from Stanford University and two weeks after starting the drug. 

"You have an obligation today ... from preventing this tragic story from being repeated over and over again," said Mark Miller of Kansas City, Mo., whose son Matt hanged himself from his bedroom closet after taking his seventh Zoloft tablet. 

But facing those anguished complaints were a handful of families who say antidepressants changed their children's lives by alleviating serious depression. 

"My children have had tremendous improvement with their illnesses," said Dr. Suzanne Vogel-Scieilia of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, who has two sons using the drugs. "I shudder to think of their plight if these medicines were not available." 

The FDA opened hearings Monday on the emotionally charged controversy, months after British health authorities first sounded the alarm by saying an entire list of antidepressants were unsuitable for child use. 

Here, no final answer is expected until late summer. Until then FDA has advised doctors to use great caution if they prescribe any antidepressants to anyone under age 18. 

"The wrong answer in either direction ... could have profound consequences," said Dr. Russell Katz, FDA's director of neurologic drugs, in explaining the lengthy deliberation. 

Katz acknowledged divisions of opinion even within the FDA, where some scientists believe there is a link between some antidepressants and youth suicide behavior and attempts. 

No studies have occurred in studies encompassing 4,000 children. Preliminary data, however, suggest that suicidal behavior and attempts, while infrequent, might be at least twice as frequent among some antidepressant users. Britain put the risk at around 3.2 percent of children given the drugs, compared with 1.5 percent of those given dummy pills.

But problems with that data led FDA's leaders to conclude that they can't yet answer the question. 

Depression occurs in about 10 percent of youth and can lead to suicide, especially if untreated. Some 1,883 10- to 19-year-olds killed themselves in 2001, and specialists say there are 10 to 20 attempts for every suicide. 

For adults, antidepressants clearly alleviate major depression, the FDA stresses. 

But medicines can work differently in children. The agency has approved only one treatment - Prozac, the best known of a family of popular antidepressants called SSRIs - to alleviate pediatric depression, saying its benefits outweigh side effects. 

Still, it is legal for doctors to prescribe adult medicines to children even if the FDA has not formally approved pediatric use, and child antidepressant prescriptions rose dramatically in the 1990s. The FDA ordered other manufacturers to submit research on how their drugs affect children and teenagers. 

Last summer, British health authorities acted on the first of those findings, declaring that no depressed child or teen should use the SSRI drug Paxil, sold in Britain under the name Seroxat. 

The FDA still is analyzing the studies. 

The reports of suicidal behavior are a hodgepodge difficult to sort out, Katz said. Some cases counted as unintentional drug overdoses may not have been, for example, while others termed suicidal were caused by a mental illness called self-mutilation, where children make small cuts over their bodies. Sorting out just what happened is crucial to settling the issue, Katz said. 

For Monday's hearing, the FDA brought together its scientific advisers to ask if it is analyzing the research appropriately, and if families or doctors need additional advice in the meantime. 

It's a debate eliciting strong emotions. 

The American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, considered the field's top specialists, last month declared evidence that links SSRIs to suicide too weak to justify not using them. The group points to evidence that suicides have dropped as SSRI use increased around the world, and to autopsy studies that show most suicides hadn't taken an anti-depressant, or the right dose, just before their deaths. 

On the other side, critics claim SSRIs sometimes cause agitation and urgent anxiety, called akathisia, that could make certain people suicidal. Dr. David Healy, a Welsh physician who pushed for Britain's crackdown, says even he prescribes the drugs, but that they must come with warnings so doctors can monitor children for signs of trouble. 

Scientists Create 'Superheavy' Elements 

Sun Feb 1, 5:45 PM ET

By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA, News Source Science Writer 

Russian and American scientists say they have created two new "superheavy" elements that will reside at the extreme end of chemistry's periodic table of elements. 

Just a few atoms of the newly discovered elements, 113 and 115, existed for split seconds after being created in a particle accelerator. They represent unusual forms of matter with properties that go well beyond those of the 92 elements that occur naturally on Earth. 

Superheavies may be abundantly generated by supernova explosions in stars. Or perhaps they were fused during the fiery moments that signaled the dawn if the universe. 

Here on the ground, such tiny amounts of superheavies formed in atom smashers probably will never find an everyday use. 

Yet their "birth" adds details to a broader - and very competitive - scientific inquiry to establish a single, unified theory that would explain the physical forces that govern the behavior of all matter. 

Data on the new elements will appear in the journal Physical Review C, a publication of the American Physical Society that specializes in nuclear structure. 

The discoveries will not be fully accepted and added to textbooks until other labs create the elements, a process that could take months or even years. 

Confidence in nuclear structure experiments was shaken when the purported 1999 discovery of two elements was found to be false. But other researchers familiar with the latest study said they were confident in the results. 

"The paper is solid," said Richard Casten, a Yale physicist and an editor for the journal. 

He described the techniques employed at the Joint Institute of Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California as "very tricky." 

But Casten and others expressed confidence in the results and the scientists involved, especially Yuri Oganessian, the Russian physicist and lead author of the paper, for being able to interpret the results of the particle collisions in the Russian cyclotron, or circular accelerator, where the elements were created. 

"I'm confident that the process was good," Casten said. "Yuri is a very well respected and careful guy." 

Efforts to reach Oganessian and other key members of the research team Sunday were unsuccessful. 

In the experiments, researchers fired a rare isotope of calcium at a target made from americium. The new element 115 was created on occasions when the nuclei of the calcium and americium fused. 

In the artificial environs of the cyclotron, atoms of element 115, now labeled Ununpentium, apparently lasted only a fraction of second before it decayed into element 113. The atoms of element 113, known as Ununtrium, persisted for more than 1 second. 

The 115 and 113 are the new elements' atomic numbers, which refer to the number of protons in their nuclei. 

In nature, scientists theorize, they would belong to a special class of superheavy elements known as the "region of stability" that have a much longer life because the shell-like structure of their nuclei contain the highest numbers of precisely arranged protons and neutrons. 

In 1999, California and Oregon State University researchers bombarded a lead target with a beam of krypton ions. They reported detecting three atoms of element 118, which then was the heaviest element detected. They decayed almost instantly into element 116. 

But two years ago, the claims were retracted after a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was found to have fabricated data. Physicist Victor Ninov was the only member of the lab's 16-member team to be dismissed in the incident, and he is appealing the decision. 

Other researchers later created element 116. 

In 1999, Russian researchers at Dubna discovered another superheavy - element 114 - by bombarding plutonium with calcium ions. 

Pizza Makers Consider Low-Carb Dough 

1 hour, 55 minutes ago

By MARTIN FINUCANE, News Source Writer 

BOSTON - Pizza might be hailed as the food of the gods, one of America's best-loved meals, a hearty delectable dish that fills the stomach and seems to soothe the soul. But to low-carb dieters, it's just a gut-busting disk of dough. 

And that has caused pizza makers around the nation to wonder if the low-carb craze will force changes in one of America's best-loved foods. 

They're saying, "Hey, we've got a problem here. Pizza's built on bread. It's the No. 1 enemy of the Atkinites," said Tom Boyles, senior editor of PMQ Magazine, a publication that follows the pizza industry. 

Boyles has a word for those who want to avoid carbohydrates: "carbavoids." 

Although industry sales haven't taken a hit yet, some pizza operators are considering offering customers low-carb pizzas. 

"Pizza operators are asking themselves, 'Do I want to do this?' and they're bouncing the idea back and forth," Boyles said. "It's at that point where they're going, 'Just how far is this going to go?'" 

According to the National Association of Pizzeria Operators, about 3 billion pizzas are sold each year in the United States by about 40,000 shops. 

At the same time, low-carb diets like the Atkins, South Beach and Zone have gained wider popularity. A Harris Interactive poll done last summer for Novartis Consumer Health Inc. estimated that 32 million Americans were on some kind of high-protein, low-carb diet. 

Doug Ferriman, owner of Crazy Dough's Pizza Co. in Cambridge's Harvard Square, said he didn't think low-carb dieters would put "too much of a dent" in the pizza business, but he had clipped a recipe for low-carb dough from an industry publication and was going to try it in the spring. 

"We're going to have to fiddle around with it for a while," he said. 

Some local pizza shop owners and some smaller chains have already moved to meet low-carb dieters' demands. 

In Columbus, Ohio, Donatos Pizzeria has announced it will roll out a pizza with a low-carb crust in its 182 outlets. Spokesman Tom Santor said the pizza dough, made out of soy protein and other ingredients, "tastes fabulous." 

In Louisville, Ky., Bearno's Pizza, a small chain, offers a crustless pizza on the usual circular baking pan. 

And in Escondido, Calif., John Pontrelli, owner of Pit Stop Pasta, offers what may be a traditionalist's worst nightmare: "pizza in a bucket." It has all the pizza toppings placed in a crock or, for takeout customers, a metal can. 

While it's not a big item, he said, some people have asked for it, and "Our motto here is: you want to say no to people as little as possible." 

At Low-Carb Creations in Vancouver, Wash., Craig Adams, vice president and general manager, said sales of low-carb pizza dough had risen 300 percent to 400 percent in the past six months. Adams said the small company, which has 17 employees, had signed agreements to provide the skins to several smaller chains and dozens of other stores. 

Tom Lehmann, of the American Institute of Baking in Manhattan, Kansas, a consultant who works with bakeries and pizza operations worldwide, said, "Low-carb is probably the biggest pebble to be dropped in this little pizza pond for a long time. There's just a huge, huge amount of interest." 

Lehmann, who writes in industry publications as "The Dough Doctor," said he has received an average of five requests per day for the past three months on how to make low-carb dough. 

He said his own experiments so far with making a low-carb dough had turned out a product that tasted, well, different. 

"If you consider a pizza crust as being an edible breadlike product that's located beneath the toppings, the cheese and tomato sauce, OK, that's all we can say about it. ... Wipe away any memories of your old traditional pizza crust," he said. 

Steve Coomes, editor of pizzamarketplace.com, wondered if the low-carb craze would last and whether it was just part of New Year's resolution dieting. 

"I still think that the vast majority of American pizza consumers are going to look at pizza and those side items like wings as an indulgence and will continue to enjoy them in their intended form," he said. 

"They love it to the tune of $26 billion per year." 

In Boston's Italian North End, talk of a low-carb pizza was viewed as sacrilege. 

"In my culinary heart, I will never do low-carb," Salvo Goglio, 36, a native of Sicily and chef at Antico Forno, said while chopping zucchini in a cramped kitchen. 

Brandishing a container of golden polenta, he asked, "How can you get low-carb and keep the flavor?" 

Just then, an order came off the printer above the counter where Goglio was working: roast chicken on a salad, hold the bread. And it turned out that several members of the staff, including Goglio himself, had been "on the Atkins." 

Still, Goglio said, "If you want to really eat good food, you can't cut down carbs." 

Wal-Mart on PR Offensive to Repair Image

Sun Feb 1,11:46 AM ET

Add Business 

By Emily Kaiser 

CHICAGO  - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE:WMT - news) is tired of critics who say it is a behemoth bent on destroying small-town America, driving down wages and shipping jobs to foreign sweat shops. 

Wal-Mart, Fortune magazine's "most admired company," is also among the most sued. Dozens of cases claiming sex discrimination and wage violations have stained its image. Editorials deplore how low-paid Wal-Mart workers must sign up for welfare to make ends meet. 

Even men's magazine Playboy got in on the act, calling Wal-Mart's Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters the "epicenter of retailing's evil empire." 

But after years of abiding unflattering views, the empire is striking back with a tough new public relations strategy. 

"No one likes to hear someone say something negative about their family," said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Sarah Clark. "There are some things out there that are totally inaccurate, and we're looking to set the record straight." 

Officials at the world's largest company have started firing off letters to the editor responding to critical news articles and editorials. Once-reticent Wal-Mart executives are speaking out more in the hopes of cleaning up the world's largest retailer's stained image. 

The company has also altered its advertising campaign to showcase women managers and others who have benefited from working there. 

"We all want to defend our company," Clark said. 

Besides top management, she said, store employees have taken it upon themselves to write letters, with no directive from headquarters. 

"As we have become the most visible company in the U.S., we have increasingly become a target of criticism and even attacks," she said. "We are really in the position of protecting and enhancing an already good reputation, not trying to repair a bad one." 

'DIATRIBE AGAINST OUR COMPANY' 

In the last few weeks, Wal-Mart's benefits manager wrote to The New York Times to explain the retailer's much-maligned health insurance plan, and a district manager sent a letter to The Salt Lake Tribune to "share some things that aren't so bad about us" after a series of stories. 

Chief Executive Lee Scott wrote to Ohio's Akron Beacon Journal after a columnist said Wal-Mart deserved some blame for the closing of a local factory owned by Newell Rubbermaid Inc. (NYSE:NWL - news), one of the retailer's major suppliers. 

Scott called the column a "diatribe against our company" that did not reflect the facts. 

In January, he became the first Wal-Mart CEO to speak at the National Retail Federation trade group's conference. In a speech that he acknowledged sounded defensive at times, he chided the media for heavy coverage of the company's legal troubles, massive imports from China and employee health-care policies. 

Other executives have also started banging the drum. 

"We are not popular with a lot people," Vice Chairman Tom Coughlin said at the grand opening of a new Wal-Mart store in San Antonio in January. 

"If our wages and benefits were so bad, we wouldn't have had that type of attraction with the customer," he was quoted as saying in the San Antonio Express-News. "The chain wouldn't be the size it has become if we were doing as many things wrong as people like to attribute to us." 

BAD PR 

Despite the more aggressive approach, public relations experts say Wal-Mart's image-improvement efforts are not enough to shore up its reputation. 

"For years they've been a classic example of the wrong way to do PR," said Jonathan Bernstein, president of Bernstein Crisis Management and author of "Keeping the Wolves at Bay: A Media Training Manual." 

"They're going to continue to get beat up as long as they basically have a reputation for being unfair or unreasonable to their employees," he said. "All the damage control in the world can't help them unless their policies change. 

This year Wal-Mart faces two key tests that should help determine whether reports of worker mistreatment are isolated incidents or widespread. 

A California judge is set to decide later this year whether a sex discrimination lawsuit should proceed as a class action covering 1.5 million current and former women employees. 

Meanwhile, an investigation into illegal workers at some Wal-Mart stores will be back in the spotlight when a Pennsylvania grand jury completes its deliberations in a few weeks. 

"If they lose one of those cases in California or Pennsylvania, it will hurt," said Paul Argenti, professor of corporate communications at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business. 

Argenti, who advised Kmart in the early 1990s when it was struggling to compete with Wal-Mart, said Wal-Mart's "most admired company" ranking in Fortune's annual poll of executives, directors and analysts should help the company through the worst of the image problems, but it needs to change its insular corporate culture if it hopes to make new friends. 

"They've been very, very internally focused for most of their life," he said. "That's built into their culture. They've never really had to reach out. Now they do." 

Scientists Study How to Keep Brain Awake

Sat Feb 21, 1:54 PM ET 


By MALCOLM RITTER, News Source Science Writer 

Why would a sleep-deprived brain fail to absorb conversations? Just how does it produce drowsiness while a person is driving? Indeed, how does it know it needs more sleep in the first place? 

In  Chronic Heartburn
Need Relief? 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
More from :
� Check Your Symptoms 
� How Is It Diagnosed? 
� Available Treatments 

These aren't just esoteric ponderings. The answers to these and related mysteries about the sleepy brain could lead to improved drugs to help people fall asleep or stay awake. They could help drowsy people find the most effective time to drink coffee or take a nap. 

Frank Knower knew something was wrong when he kept having conversations with co-workers and later couldn't remember a thing that was said. He couldn't even remember what he'd said. 

Later, after he retired, he discovered another problem: He got irresistibly drowsy during long drives. 

None of the usual stay-awake tricks like turning up the radio or rolling down the window could keep him awake. He had to pull over for naps. 

These days, his wife handles a lot of the driving. And while the 74-year-old Knower can still nod off during the day at his home in Tappan, N.Y., treatment for his sleep-disrupting condition, apnea, and a daytime alertness pill help keep his problems in check. 

For Knower, it's a story with a happy ending. For scientists, though, it's a story full of mystery. 

Scientists may even find safe and reliable ways to skip slumber entirely for days without the usual mental glitches. 

"You could have soldiers who could fight a war 24 hours a day and maybe not sleep, at least for a few days," said Dr. Clifford Saper of Harvard Medical School (news - web sites). "If you knew what was making the brain sleepy, you could get at it at a fundamental level ... I think once we learn how the system operates we'll be able to successfully manipulate it." 

Of course, in an economy with such potentially perilous round-the-clock workplaces as trucks, airplanes, nuclear power plants and supertankers, even helping people sleep and function well one day at a time would be a benefit. 

An estimated 70 million people in the United States suffer from sleep problems, either because of disorders such as apnea and insomnia or just a lack of time devoted to slumber, the federal government says. At least 100,000 auto crashes and 1,550 traffic deaths a year are caused by falling asleep at the wheel. 

And sleep deprivation leads to reduced productivity, poor performance in school or the workplace, and possibly medical problems like high blood pressure, heart disease, depression and reduced resistance to viruses. 

"Sleep is as important to our overall health as exercise and a healthy diet," says Dr. Carl Hunt, director of the government's National Center on Sleep Disorders Research. 

So how much sleep is enough? The typical recommendation is at least eight hours a night for adults. But in the February issue of the journal Sleep, an expert called on doctors to abandon that blanket prescription. 

"It appears seven hours or even five or six is safe for people who aren't sleepy during the day," said Dr. Daniel Kripke of the School of Medicine of the University of California, San Diego. 

Kripke cited large studies that tracked death rates in people who habitually slept different lengths of time. But "if someone is sleepy during the day with less than eight hours, as I am myself, then I think it might be wise to get eight hours sleep," he said. 

Hunt said sleep studies overall indicate that adults generally need seven to eight hours a night to be well-rested. "As you ratchet down from seven hours to six or five or four, there's a progressively greater price" in illness, accidents and mental malfunctioning, Hunt said. 

Studies show people can sleep too little and still feel fine during the day, but that's because people stop realizing they're impaired if they sleep too little night after night, Hunt said. So while there probably are some people who truly function well on six hours a night, they can't just rely on how they feel, he said. 

Teenagers need around 8.5 hours of sleep a night, and younger children should aim for about nine hours, he said. 

When the brain runs on too little sleep, it malfunctions in a wide variety of areas: 

_Your reaction time slows and you have trouble paying sustained attention. Driving is "the worst kind of thing," especially in bumper-to-bumper situations or lonely roads, said Edward Stepanski of the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. "You're forced to sit still, so you can't move around and do things people ordinarily do to keep awake, and you're staring at the road." 

_You have trouble keeping tabs on multiple sources of information. So you ignore some of them to focus on a few, and "you fail to notice that you're running out of gas," said David Dinges at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. 

_Creativity suffers. You get stuck on bad solutions and can't think of better ones. 

_You can't remember as much, and "a sleepy brain is just not very good at learning new information," Stepanski said. 

_Your brain just can't do some critical things in a hurry. 

If given the luxury of time, it actually does pretty well with tasks like making decisions and solving complicated problems, says Hans Van Dongen at the University of Pennsylvania. That's because the brain has "an almost stunning ability to find tricks" to get around some hurdles imposed by sleep loss, he said. 

So if you work late in your office answering e-mails without any reason to hurry, you'll probably do all right, though you might have to read some sentences a couple times, he said. But then, as you drive home, you have to react and make decisions - right away. 

"And you find that, oops, you're still impaired, after all, even though you didn't notice it," Van Dongen said. "And now you've got a problem." 

Much of the overall problem in the sleepy brain is what scientists call microsleeps, repeated periods of a second or two, or maybe 10, when you just zone out and don't process information. 

Microsleeps reflect "a kind of struggle inside the brain at the most fundamental biological level" between sleep and wakefulness, producing a sort of in-between state of reverie or inattentiveness, Dinges said. A person might look awake to a casual observer during microsleeps of a couple seconds, or the episodes can be more obvious. 

Think of trying to stay awake at a meeting after partying all night. As Dinges observes in lab experiments, the eyeballs try to roll, the eyelids move unusually slowly and neck muscles start to go limp, which suggests that even muscle-control parts of the brain participate in sleepiness. 

Work in Dinges' lab has shown that after a few nights of too little sleep, people stop realizing their daytime performance is suffering. So researchers are studying whether machines can do a better job of spotting sleep-deprived people. 

Dinges said federal investigators are now seeing whether specialized monitors can track slowly closing eyelids in truckers. Studies suggest that's a reliable sign of impairment, he said. 

Along with researchers from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Dinges has studied how much benefit a sleepy person gets from taking a break and moving around. The results suggest it might buy 10 to 20 minutes of wakefulness. Napping can be more effective as long as you doze at least 10 minutes, he said. 

How about coffee? "Caffeine is not buying you a lot when you've taken it first thing in the morning after you've first awakened," said James Wyatt of the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. At that point, coffee is probably just treating symptoms of caffeine withdrawal, which include sleepiness, confusion and irritability, he said. 

For fighting effects of sleep deprivation, caffeine helps a lot more when it's taken after at least eight hours of wakefulness, he said. 

To come up with better drugs to help people sleep or stay awake, scientists are studying just what happens in the sleep-deprived brain itself. 

The brain has at least two major systems that govern sleep. One is the well-known pacemaker that keeps our bodies on a 24-hour rhythm. It's found in the hypothalamus, and it drives the sleep-wake cycle. Scientists aren't sure yet just how it sends its timing signals to the body. 

But people can obviously override the pacemaker, staying up through most of the night. That's when a second, "homeostatic" system kicks in. It basically keeps track of how short you are on sleep, either from one bad night or a buildup of sleep deprivation over time. And it does its best to make sure you pay this "sleep debt" off. 

Much less is known about this system. Where is it? How does it keep track of your sleep debt, especially if the debt builds night after night? And how does sleep debt impair the brain? 

One apparent actor in this system is a substance called adenosine, which brain cells give off as a waste product. 

The theory goes like this: as brain cells function during wakefulness, they give off adenosine, which mounts up outside the cells in the basal forebrain. There, the adenosine acts to inhibit brain cells that normally promote wakefulness and play key roles in brain function. So you feel sleepy and your mental functioning declines. When you finally fall asleep, your brain cells work less hard and adenosine is taken back into cells, relieving its pressure on the wakefulness circuitry of the brain. 

Caffeine blocks drowsiness by interfering with adenosine's ability to affect brain cells, says Robert McCarley, a researcher at the VA Medical Center in Brockton, Mass., and Harvard Medical School. Further studies of how the brain responds to adenosine might lead to more effective wake-up agents and better sleeping pills, McCarley said. 

To really understand how lack of sleep alters the brain, Dinges said, scientists will need to develop a few more tools. They'll need to find a way to mimic those mental and behavioral changes in animals, for example. And they'll need more detailed brain scans that can capture the very tiny brain structures that play a role in the process. 

But such advances are nearly at hand, Dinges said. 

"Over the next five years," he said, "there will be an exciting amount of work." 

___ 

On the Net: 

Information on sleep: 

www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/sleep/index.htm 

www.sleepfoundation.org/publications.cfm 

U.S. Stealth Fighter Plane May Get Gray Makeover

Feb 19, 10:11 am ET 

HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, N.M.  - The F-117A fighter jet, the radar-eluding stealth plane known for its angular design and charcoal black color, may be getting a makeover in a new shade of gray.

The U.S. Air Force has painted one of its stealth fighters at Holloman Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico to see if the plane called the Nighthawk might be harder to spot when it flies during daylight hours in a color other than black.

"Obviously, if you can see it less during the day, you can fly it more," said Col. Jim Carter, vice commander of the 53rd Wing at Elgin Air Force Base in Florida, which is overseeing the test.

The $45 million fighter plane first rolled off the assembly lines about 20 years ago and is painted a sleek black. The color is perfect for night flights, but creates a stark contrast with daytime skies.

Other color schemes have been tried before on the fighter.

Carter described the test shade as "regular gray aircraft paint," similar to that currently used on other fighter jets. The cost of a paint job on one of the fighters is "a couple thousand dollars," he said.

The test fighter was painted last fall and will be observed over the year for "visual acuity," meaning how easily it is detected during daylight, twilight and evening hours, Carter said. If officials like the new color, the rest of the fleet could get a similar makeover.

"It's still in the exploratory stage, but it will be a big change if we do it," Carter said. 

Danger: Wooden Floors, Scooters -- and Trouser Zips

Feb 19, 10:07 am ET 

LONDON  - Clumsy Britons risk life and limb keeping up with the latest trends such as wooden flooring and micro-scooters -- providing they survive putting their trousers on in the morning.

No fewer than 12,300 people were taken to hospitals after slipping on fashionable wood floors in 2002, four times as many as in 1998, according to a report Thursday.

Many of those accidents involved slipping while walking about at home barefoot or wearing socks, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) said.

Micro-scooters were another new problem: some 20,000 people injured themselves riding the small, silver two-wheelers when the trend hit its peak in 2002, compared to only 2,200 in 1998.

But new fashions were not the only domestic danger -- in fact some problems were as old as the hills.

As many as 5,310 people in Britain needed treatment after being felled pulling on a pair of trousers in 2002, up from 3,695 four years previously.

But on a more encouraging note for British men, there was a mild decrease in the far more serious trouser business of "zip-related mishaps." These eye-watering injuries fell to 700 in 2002 from 800 in 1998. 

244 Muslim Pilgrims Die in Hajj Stampede 

14 minutes ago

By RAWYA RAGEH, News Source Writer 

MINA, Saudi Arabia - Nearly 250 Muslim worshipers died in a hajj stampede Sunday during the annual stoning of Satan ritual in one of the deadliest tragedies at the notoriously perilous ceremony. 

The stampede, during a peak event of the annual Muslim pilgrimage, or hajj, lasted about a half-hour, Saudi officials said. There were 244 dead and hundreds of other worshippers injured, some critically, Hajj Minister Iyad Madani said. 

"All precautions were taken to prevent such an incident, but this is God's will. Caution isn't stronger than fate," Madani said. 

Most of the victims were pilgrims from inside the Saudi kingdom and many were not authorized to participate, he said. 

In an effort to control the crowd of about 2 million, Saudi authorities sets quotas for pilgrims from each country and required its citizens to register. 

The devil-stoning is the most animated ritual of the annual pilgrimage and often the most dangerous. Many pilgrims frantically throw rocks, shout insults or hurl their shoes at the pillars - acts that are supposed to demonstrate their deep disdain for the devil. But clerics frown upon such action, saying it's un-Islamic. 

Last year, 14 pilgrims were trampled to death during the ritual and 35 died in a 2001 stampede. In 1998, 180 pilgrims died. 

The annual hajj, which began Thursday, climaxed Saturday as some 2 million Muslim pilgrims listened to Saudi Arabia's top cleric denounce terrorists, calling them an affront to Islam. However, he defended the kingdom's strict interpretation of the faith. 

Sheik Abdul Aziz al-Sheik said in his sermon there were those who claim to be holy warriors, but were shedding Muslim blood and destabilizing the nation. 

"Is it holy war to shed Muslim blood? Is it holy war to shed the blood of non-Muslims given sanctuary in Muslim lands? Is it holy war to destroy the possession of Muslims," he said, adding that their actions gave enemies an excuse to criticize Muslim nations. 

A large number of the victims of suicide attacks in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iraq (news - web sites) and elsewhere have been Muslims. 

Al-Sheik, who is widely respected in the Arab world as the foremost cleric in the country considered the birthplace of Islam, spoke at Namira Mosque in a televised sermon watched by millions of Muslims in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. 

The mosque is close to Mount Arafat, where the Prophet Muhammad delivered his last sermon in 632. 

In speaking about terrorists who killed fellow Muslims, al-Sheik was clearly referring to the prophet's final sermon, which contained the line: "Know that every Muslim is a Muslim's brother, and the Muslims are brethren. Fighting between them should be avoided." 

Al-Sheik also criticized the international community, accusing it of attacking Wahhabism, the strict interpretation of Islam that is applied in Saudi Arabia: "This country is based on this religion and will remain steadfast on it." 

After the sleepless night of prayer following the sermon, pilgrims gathered pebbles to throw at the pillars. Each threw seven times, chanting "bismillah" ("In the name of God") and "Allahu Akbar" ("God is Great"). 

Calling America "the greatest Satan," Egyptian pilgrim Youssef Omar threw pebbles at one pillar where someone scrawled "USA." 

From there, some pilgrims took off to the nearby holy city Mecca to perform the main "Tawaf," or the circling of the holy stone known as the Kaaba. 

Security has been high during the hajj, with thousands of police guarding the roads and temporary camp city of Mina. Helicopters monitored the crowd from the air. 

The stoning ritual also marked the first day of Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of the Sacrifice, celebrated at the hajj and around the Muslim world with the slaughtering of a camel, cow or sheep. Meat is eaten and distributed to the poor. 

The hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca required of all able-bodied Muslims at least once in a lifetime, is taking place after a series of suicide bombings and police shootouts with suspected terrorists in Saudi Arabia. 

The bombings killed 51 people last year, including many Saudis, other Arabs and eight Americans. Muslims also have died in terror attacks in Turkey, Iraq, Morocco and elsewhere. 

Marvel Sues Sony Over 'Men in Black' Royalties

Sat Jan 31, 9:16 AM ET

Add Entertainment 

LOS ANGELES  - Comic book publisher Marvel Enterprises Inc. has filed a lawsuit against the movie arm of Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news) (news - web sites)., claiming Sony used deceptive accounting tactics to deny Marvel royalties on merchandising related to the "Men in Black" series of films. 

Marvel, which filed two suits against Sony divisions last year over the merchandising of the "Spider-Man" franchise, filed the new suit on Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court against Sony Pictures Entertainment and Columbia Pictures. 

The suit claims that Sony has breached a licensing agreement by failing to properly report revenue, especially for merchandising, showing in statements that the two "Men in Black" films have lost money despite hundreds of millions of dollars in box-office and ancillary sales. 

A spokeswoman for Sony Pictures and Columbia said they had not yet seen the suit and could not comment. 

The suit, which claims breach of written contract and unfair business practices, seeks damages of at least $6 million, an accounting of the movies' earnings and an injunction against further unfair practices. 

The News Source/VNU 

'Jeopardy!' Host Trebek in Car Crash 

Sat Jan 31,12:30 PM ET

TEMPLETON, Calif. - "Jeopardy!" host Alex Trebek escaped injury when he apparently fell asleep at the wheel of his pickup truck, sideswiped a string of mailboxes and sailed over an embankment into a ditch, authorities said. 

Trebek, 63, was driving alone on a rural road Friday and his truck was airborne for about 40 feet, California Highway Patrol Officer Scott Koolman said. 

Trebek owns and manages Creston Farms, a horse breeding and training farm about 10 miles southeast of Templeton on the central coast. An employee there said he wasn't aware of the accident. 

"I don't know how he's doing because I haven't heard anything about it," farm manager Art Mercado said. 

A message left after business hours for "Jeopardy!" senior producer Rocky Schmidt was not immediately returned. 

The Canadian-born Trebek has been host of the popular quiz show "Jeopardy!" since 1984. He also hosts the annual National Geographic (news - web sites) Bee. 

___ 

On the Net: http://www.jeopardy.com/ 

Feds Win Right to War Protesters' Records 

43 minutes ago

Add U.S. National - 

BY RYAN J. FOLEY, News Source Writer 

DES MOINES, Iowa - In what may be the first subpoena of its kind in decades, a federal judge has ordered a university to turn over records about a gathering of anti-war activists. 

In addition to the subpoena of Drake University, subpoenas were served this past week on four of the activists who attended a Nov. 15 forum at the school, ordering them to appear before a grand jury Tuesday, the protesters said. 

Federal prosecutors refuse to comment on the subpoenas. 

In addition to records about who attended the forum, the subpoena orders the university to divulge all records relating to the local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, a New York-based legal activist organization that sponsored the forum. 

The group, once targeted for alleged ties to communism in the 1950s, announced Friday it will ask a federal court to quash the subpoena on Monday. 

"The law is clear that the use of the grand jury to investigate protected political activities or to intimidate protesters exceeds its authority," guild President Michael Ayers said in a statement. 

Representatives of the Lawyer's Guild and the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) said they had not heard of such a subpoena being served on any U.S. university in decades. 

Those served subpoenas include the leader of the Catholic Peace Ministry, the former coordinator of the Iowa Peace Network, a member of the Catholic Worker House, and an anti-war activist who visited Iraq (news - web sites) in 2002. 

They say the subpoenas are intended to stifle dissent. 

"This is exactly what people feared would happen," said Brian Terrell of the peace ministry, one of those subpoenaed. "The civil liberties of everyone in this country are in danger. How we handle that here in Iowa is very important on how things are going to happen in this country from now on." 

The forum, titled "Stop the Occupation! Bring the Iowa Guard Home!" came the day before 12 protesters were arrested at an anti-war rally at Iowa National Guard headquarters in Johnston. Organizers say the forum included nonviolence training for people planning to demonstrate. 

The targets of the subpoenas believe investigators are trying to link them to an incident that occurred during the rally. A Grinnell College librarian was charged with misdemeanor assault on a peace officer; she has pleaded innocent, saying she simply went limp and resisted arrest. 

"The best approach is not to speculate and see what we learn on Tuesday" when the four testify, said Ben Stone, executive director of the Iowa Civil Liberties Union, which is representing one of the protesters. 

Mark Smith, a lobbyist for the Washington-based American Association of University Professors, said he had not heard of any similar case of a U.S. university being subpoenaed for such records. 

He said the case brings back fears of the "red squads" of the 1950s and campus clampdowns on Vietnam War protesters. 

According to a copy obtained by The News Source, the Drake subpoena asks for records of the request for a meeting room, "all documents indicating the purpose and intended participants in the meeting, and all documents or recordings which would identify persons that actually attended the meeting." 

It also asks for campus security records "reflecting any observations made of the Nov. 15, 2003, meeting, including any records of persons in charge or control of the meeting, and any records of attendees of the meeting." 

Several officials of Drake, a private university with about 5,000 students, refused to comment Friday, including school spokeswoman Andrea McDonough. She referred questions to a lawyer representing the school, Steve Serck, who also would not comment. 

A source with knowledge of the investigation said a judge had issued a gag order forbidding school officials from discussing the subpoena. 

___ 

On the Net: 

Drake University: http://www.drake.edu/ 

National Lawyers Guild: http://www.nlg.org/ 

Bikram Master in Court Battle Over Yoga Positions

Fri Feb 6,11:03 AM ET

Add Oddly Enough 

By Elinor Mills Abreu 

SAN FRANCISCO  - Yoga master Bikram Choudhury is bent out of shape. 

The eccentric Calcutta-born yogi who popularized the form of yoga known as "Bikram" is being sued over his claims that he owns the copyright to a 26-posture series used in the practice, which is done in a heated room. 

The suit could eventually set a precedent in an industry noted for its openness and lack of standards. For now, it is kicking up a fuss among yoga practitioners. 

Bikram is a fast-growing yoga style made trendy by celebrities and others attracted to its health benefits and spiritual leanings. 

Choudhury, who is in his late 50s, has sent cease and desist letters to more than 100 Bikram yoga schools and teachers, accusing them of violating his copyright and trademark by employing instructors that weren't trained by him and deviating from his strict teachings, according to James Harrison, a lawyer for the Open Source Yoga Unity. 

In response, the Open Source Yoga Unity, a non-profit collective whose members live in California, Texas, Florida, Arizona, Rhode Island and Canada, has sued the Choudhury in San Francisco federal court. 

The suit asks the court to rule that his copyright and trademark claims are unenforceable because his series of poses stem from postures that have been in public use for centuries.

"No one can own a style of yoga," Harrison told The News Source on Thursday. 

Choudhury was preparing for a trip and unable to comment, according to a receptionist at his Los Angeles yoga school. One of his attorneys declined to comment and another did not return a phone call. 

Lawyers for the two sides met in a court-ordered mediation conference on Wednesday but did not reach a settlement, Harrison said. A trial is scheduled for February 2005. 

While some Bikram instructors have been forced to stop teaching the technique, others remain loyal to their yogi. 

"All he is asking is that they teach (Bikram yoga) honestly and purely, and that's not too much to ask," said Lynn Whitlow, co-owner of Funky Door Yoga in the bay area. "If you want to change it, don't call it 'Bikram.'" 

Nora Isaacs, a senior editor at Berkeley-based Yoga Journal, said her group wasn't taking an official stance. 

"If he does win, the question is what does that mean for the future of yoga?" Isaacs said. "If he asserts copyright, will other schools follow?" 

Choudhury has become rich selling books and videos, teaching workshops that cost $5,000 and collecting franchise fees from the hundreds of studios worldwide that teach Bikram yoga. 

Secret of Homing Pigeons Revealed

Thu Feb 5, 7:45 AM ET

Add Oddly Enough 

LONDON  - The secret of carrier pigeons' uncanny ability to find their way home has been discovered by British scientists: the feathered navigators follow the roads just like we do. 

Researchers at Oxford University spent 10 years studying homing pigeons using global positioning satellite (GPS) and were stunned to find the birds often don't navigate by taking bearing from the sun. 

Instead they fly along motorways, turn at junctions and even go around roundabouts, adding miles to their journeys, British newspapers reported on Thursday. 

"It really has knocked our research team sideways," Professor Tim Guilford said in the Daily Telegraph. 

"It is striking to see the pigeons fly straight down the A34 Oxford bypass, and then sharply curve off at the traffic lights before curving off again at the roundabout," he said in The Times. 

Guilford said pigeons use their own navigational system when doing long-distance trips or when a bird does a journey for the first time. 

But when they have flown a journey more than once they home in on an habitual route home. 

"In short it looks like it is mentally easier for a bird to fly down a road...they are just making their journey as simple as possible." 

Virtual Love for Sale, on the Sly, on eBay

Feb 4, 10:21 am ET 

By Lisa Baertlein

SAN FRANCISCO  - Need a girlfriend but want none of the hassle of actually spending time together? You better act fast if you want to find her on eBay.

A crop of crafty eBay entrepreneurs are offering "imaginary girlfriend" services to the highest bidder, staying just ahead of the Web auctioneer's efforts to ban such listings, which it now deems inappropriate.

The latest bid, with nearly six days to go, is $11.50.

EBay started pulling the "imaginary girlfriend" listings, which have run the gamut from the very naughty to the mostly nice, late last month.

The company had initially allowed the imaginary girlfriend listings -- which had numbered in the low hundreds -- then decided that they had crossed the line "into something that was clearly inappropriate," said eBay spokesman Hani Durzy.

The overall theme of previous listings went something like this: sexy college student seeking money for books will, for one month, write you frequent e-mails and send pictures and perfumed letters you can show to family, friends and ex-girlfriends.

In most cases, personal contact was strictly prohibited. "This in NO WAY makes me your real girlfriend," one lister cautioned.

One young blonde from the Midwest sold her girl-next-door looks as more believable that her competitors.

On the fringes, however, were the more overtly sexual listings that prompted eBay to step in.

On Tuesday, one such listing remained on the site. In it, a pair of Las Vegas-based women calling themselves Leilani and Bianca promised, upon proof of payment, a month-long relationship that "can be anything you want it to be."

The duo, which billed themselves as "sexy and exotic Asian girls," each promised to send one e-mail per week, a handwritten, perfume-scented letter, a sexy garment (new or worn), sexy photos and "passionate and unconditional love." 

Lovers Top Contract Killing 'Hit' List

Feb 4, 10:19 am ET 

SYDNEY  - Want someone killed in Australia? The average price for a "hit" is $12,700, but you can get it as cheap as $380.

A study of contract killings in Australia has found most are not ordered by criminals, but by angry spouses and jilted lovers.

But professional criminals order the most successful "hits."

The Australian Institute of Criminology and South Australia's major crime investigation branch studied 163 attempted and actual killings between 1989 and 2002.

"The most common motive or reason for hiring the services of a hit man was in relation to the dissolution of an intimate relationship," Toni Makkai, acting director of the Australian Institute of Criminology, said in a statement received on Wednesday.

Makkai said the most common motives ranged from preventing a person from pursing another relationship, revenge for having an affair, eliminating a partner in order to be with a lover or to gain custody of children.

Other motives were money, silencing a witness, general revenge, drugs and organized crime rivalry.

The average payment received by a "hitman" for a contract was $12,700, the lowest $380 and the highest $76,000.

The most common weapon used in "hits" was a gun. In fact guns were five times more likely to be used in contract killings than in general murders.

"If you want the job done you are going to use the most deadly weapon available," Makkai said.

Contract killings in Australia make up only a small percentage of all murders. During the four-year study period "hits" accounted for only two percent of murders.

But the number of "hits" is slowly rising with an average now of seven attempted and five completed each year. 

Web Site for Investors Needs Updating

Feb 3, 11:56 am ET 

NEW YORK  - Talk about stale pricing!

Eliot Spitzer, the New York state attorney general leading an industrywide probe of improper trading in mutual funds, tells would-be investors on his office's Web site that stocks are still priced in fractions of eighths for amounts less than $1.

However, the New York Stock Exchange started quoting stock prices in decimals two years ago. According to Fundalarm.com, which brought the snafu to light, the error was presumably caused by the need to update the attorney general's Web site, www.oag.state.ny.us/investors/invest-4.html.

"When you're out fighting the bad guys, you don't always have time to do your own housekeeping," Fundalarm.com said.

A Spitzer spokesman said the error will be corrected.

Spitzer's probes into such improper trading as market timing has led to the ouster of several chief executives and hundreds of millions of dollars in fines.

Market timers prey on fund prices whose underlying assets -- stocks that trade abroad -- are stale and don't reflect recent market conditions. 

Smoke Pollution Makes for Stronger Storms - Study

Thu Feb 26, 5:02 PM ET

Add Science 

WASHINGTON  - Smoke drifting from burning forests in the Amazon is affecting the climate across the entire continent -- drying up rain but making the storms that do develop much more violent than usual, scientists reported on Thursday. 

Smoke rises to the clouds, delaying the release of rain and allowing the clouds to grow taller than they otherwise would, the researchers said. 

Higher clouds produce violent thunderstorms, and while less rain falls to the ground, it often comes in the form of hail and thunderstorms instead of more nourishing, gentle rains, they said. 

Plus the storms push the smoke into higher atmospheric levels, allowing it to be carried far and wide, the international team reports in Friday's issue of the journal Science. 

"The invigorated storms release the latent heat higher in the atmosphere," they wrote in their report. "This should substantially affect the regional and global circulation systems." 

The international team was funded by the European Union (news - web sites) and headed by Meinrat Andreae of the Max Planck Institute of Atmospheric Chemistry in Mainz, Germany. 

They measured whether smoke particles produce cloud droplets -- the seeds of raindrops. A team at Hebrew University in Jerusalem flew special planes through smoky clouds over Brazil and measured how the smoke affected them. 

They found the tiny smoke particles caused the water in the clouds to form minuscule drops that were too small to fall to the ground. 

These can then be carried into higher levels of the atmosphere to freeze into chunks of ice, which fall as hail or big raindrops, they wrote. 

There are plenty of sources for this disruptive smoke, they noted. 

"Several hundred thousand deforestation and agricultural fires burn in Amazonia during the dry season each year, covering vast areas with dense smoke," they wrote. 

Rowling Joins Forbes Billionaires List 

37 minutes ago

Add Business - 

By MICHAEL P. REGAN, News Source Business Writer 

NEW YORK - "Harry Potter (news - web sites)" author J.K. Rowling (news - web sites) and the founders of the Google search engine have landed on Forbes magazine's annual list of billionaires after a year when rallying stocks and a strong euro swelled the list to the longest it's ever been. 

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates (news - web sites) remains perched atop the list for the 10th straight year but investor Warren Buffett (news - web sites) is nipping at his heels. Gates' net worth is now estimated at $46.6 billion, still less than half the $100 billion it peaked at in 1998, but up about 13 percent from the $40.7 billion Forbes attributed to him in 2003. 

Buffett wins the bragging rights for reaping the best gains of the year. He increased his net worth by $12.4 billion to $42.9 billion, significantly narrowing the gap between him and Gates, with whom he competes in bridge tournaments. 

German supermarket magnate Karl Albrecht remained in third place, with a fortune of $23 billion. Close behind were Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud, whose $21.5 billion nest egg put him just ahead of Microsoft's other co-founder, Paul Allen, who came in fifth with $21 billion. 

Rounding out the top 10 were Helen Walton, wife of the late Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, and four members of her family. They were tied for fifth, with each worth an estimated $20 billion - making for a Walton's mountain of money that's bigger than the holdings of Gates and Buffett combined. 

All told, it was a fabulous year to be very rich. 

The magazine counted some 587 billionaires around the world, up from 476 in 2003. Their total net worth jumped to $1.9 trillion from the $1.4 trillion the magazine counted in 2003. 

"After two years of significantly falling fortunes, we really saw an uptick for just about everybody on the list," said Luisa Kroll, an associate editor at Forbes who oversaw the project. 

The strength of the euro currency in comparison to the dollar helped launch 22 new billionaires to the list, for a total of 164 Europeans. Their net worth as a group surged 47 percent to $578 billion. 

Rising oil prices helped Russia add eight new billionaires for a total of 25. That puts the country in third place, behind the United States and Germany. 

In the United States, billionaires likely gained last year not only from a 20 percent rise in stock prices, but also from reductions in taxes on dividends, capital gains and estate taxes, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com. 

"High income, high net-worth households have done very well under the Bush administration," said Zandi, adding that technological advances and trends toward globalization also tend to benefit the rich. 

As usual, older, married men dominated the list, which includes only 53 women and 24 single people. The average billionaire's age is 64, and only 27 are under 40. 

Only six people dropped off the list, compared with 67 who fell off in 2003 and 83 drop-offs in 2002, according to Kroll. One of the notable drop-offs this year was Robert Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, who lost some of his fortune in a divorce settlement. 

There were 56 billionaires who returned to the list after dropping off it in the previous few years, including Yahoo! founders David Filo ($2.2 billion) and Jerry Yang ($1.9 billion). 

They returned to find their upstart search-engine rivals, Google's Sergey Brin and Larry Page ($1 billion each), making their debut on the list. 

Other newcomers included the Canadian creator of Cirque du Soleil, Guy Laliberte ($1.1 billion), and Hong Kong's Michael Ying ($1.8 billion), chairman and CEO of clothing company Esprit Holdings Ltd. 

And there were three billionaires behind bars, including Russia's richest man, former Yukos oil chief Mikhail Khodorkovsy ($15 billion), as well as Yukos shareholder Platon Lebedev ($1.8 billion) and Japanese tycoon Yasuo Takei ($6.2 billion.) 

Navy Sells Itself with Song and Dance Ad

Feb 26, 8:04 am ET 

TOKYO  - Seven actors dressed as sailors strut across the deck of a ship singing "Nippon Seaman Ship, Seaman Ship, For Love...For Peace."

A revival of the disco group "Village People?"

No, a new commercial by Japan's navy aimed at boosting its popularity as the military embarks on a risky operation in Iraq in which ground troops have grabbed most of the attention.

The ad begins with a close-up of the navy's rising sun ensign, then shows the singing sailors gyrating.

"I Love Japan, I Love Peace. The Maritime Self-Defense Force," says a voice-over at the end.

A spokesman for the Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF), as the navy is known, said some feared the ad might seem frivolous, but market research converted the naysayers.

"Awareness of the Self-Defense Forces...is growing along with the dispatch to Iraq," said Lieutenant Commander Akira Ohta.

"But how many are actually aware of the MSDF? There are a lot of young people and women who don't seem interested," he said, when asked to explain the reason for commercial. It will be aired from Monday on giant street screens in central Tokyo.

Army, air force and navy personnel are being dispatched to help rebuild Iraq in the Japanese military's biggest and most dangerous mission since World War II. Critics say the operation violates the nation's pacifist constitution. 

Industry Experts Debate Pilotless Planes 

1 hour, 30 minutes ago

By SLOBODAN LEKIC, News Source Writer 

SINGAPORE - As you fasten your seat belt a "welcome aboard" announcement is made by a computer - because there is no captain. 

While plane designers dream of a high-tech future, the aerospace industry is debating whether if it will become feasible to fly passengers without pilots. 

Computers already play a major role flying many present-day jetliners. They have the capability of carrying out takeoffs. And, they routinely are relied upon during long-range cruising. In good weather they often land planes - but always with a human crew ready to take over. 

Industry experts on Thursday said pilot-less commercial flights are unlikely any time soon. But they acknowledge that the idea has gained greater currency after the wars in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Iraq (news - web sites). 

Unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, successfully undertook reconnaissance, electronic jamming and ground attacks in both conflicts. 

In line with this trend, UAVs are taking center stage at a major international air exhibition for the first time. Dozens of the quirky-looking spy planes are on display at this week's Asian Aerospace show in Singapore. 

This year, Asian Aerospace's flying display didn't open with the usual roar of jet fighters - but with the barely audible buzz of a robotic drone plane. 

Several UAV manufacturers say their technologies could eventually replace commercial airline pilots. 

Possibilities include preprogrammed flights and a single human pilot siting in from a computer screen controlling several craft from a base thousands of kilometers (miles) away.

"Of course it can be done," said Haim Kellerman, vice president of the UAV program at Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems. "There is nothing inherently different between (manned and unmanned) aircraft in terms of aerodynamics. It is only a question of whether there is a will to do it or not." 

For the military, UAVs have the obvious advantage of keeping people out of harm's way. For commercial aviation, the aircraft without pilots could slash operation costs like training and salaries. 

Still, civilian plane makers have said they have no immediate plans to eliminate cockpit crews. 

"It's not imaginable to have a drone airplane full of passengers," said Airbus Industries spokeswoman Barbara Kracht. 

"When you have passengers there are so many factors that make a crew indispensable," she said. "There will always be two pilots on our planes." 

Robert Agostino, director of flight operations of Canadian jet maker Bombardier, agreed. 

"There may be a time in the future when UAV technology will have a great impact on military operations," Agostino said. "But when it comes to commercial planes, it's very different. A pilot can adapt to an unlimited number of changing circumstances." 

However, U.S. plane maker Boeing has refused to rule out UAV technology in its future airliners. 

"We're evaluating the UAV concept. But we don't have any plans at this time to incorporate it into our commercial aircraft," said James Wilkinson, manager of product analysis and communications marketing of Boeing. 

"Following a review of the technology, if it makes sense, we probably would include it," he said. 

Oral Sex Shown to Be Linked to Mouth Cancer 
Wed Feb 25, 2:54 PM ET 
Add Health 

LONDON  - Although the risk is small and it is more likely to result from heavy drinking and smoking, scientists have uncovered evidence that oral sex can cause mouth cancer. 

Related Links
� Oral Sex Linked to Mouth Cancer (NewScientist.com)
� Study Abstract (JNCI) In  Chronic Heartburn
Need Relief? 
------------------------------------------------------------------------ More from : � Check Your Symptoms

� How Is It Diagnosed?

� Available Treatments 

Researchers had suspected that a sexually transmitted infection that is linked to cervical cancer could also be associated with tumors in the mouth. 

Now a study by researchers working for the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France seems to have confirmed it. 

"Oral sex can lead to oral tumors," New Scientist magazine said Wednesday, referring to the latest research. 

The scientists studied more than 1,600 patients from Europe, Canada, Australia, Cuba and the Sudan with oral cancer and more than 1,700 healthy people. 

They found that patients with oral cancer containing a strain of the human papilloma virus (HPV) known as HPV16 were three times more likely to report having had oral sex than those without the virus strain. 

"The researchers think both cunnilingus and fellatio can infect people's mouths," the magazine added. 

Raphael Viscidi, a virologist who worked on the research, believes the findings substantiate the link between HPV and oral cancer. 

"This is a major study in terms of size," he said. "I think this will convince people." 

High consumptions of alcohol and cigarettes are estimated to cause 75-90 percent of all cases of oral cancer. The combination of tobacco smoke and alcohol are thought to produce high levels of cancer causing agents. 

Scientists are currently working on vaccines to prevent cervical cancer, which is more common, but they might also be effective against oral cancer. 

"It is thought the vaccines would prevent oral infections as well," the magazine added. 

Official Says He Was Told to Withhold Medicare Data

Sat Mar 13,12:54 AM ET

Add Politics - washingtonpost.com 

By Amy Goldstein, Washington Post Staff Writer 

The government's longtime chief analyst of Medicare costs said yesterday that Bush administration officials threatened to fire him last year if he disclosed to Congress that he believed the prescription drug legislation favored by the White House would prove far more expensive than lawmakers had been told.

Richard S. Foster, a nonpartisan Department of Health and Human Services (news - web sites) official who has been Medicare's chief actuary for nine years, said he nearly resigned in protest because he thought the top Medicare administrator, and perhaps White House officials, were acting against the public interest by withholding information about how much changes to the program would cost.

"Certainly, Congress did not have all the information they might have wanted, or that we had," Foster said in an interview. 

He said Thomas A. Scully, then administrator of the HHS agency that oversees Medicare, repeatedly told him last spring and summer that Foster would be fired if he complied with requests from Republican and Democratic lawmakers to provide cost estimates of various aspects of the prescription drug legislation. Although other HHS officials ultimately assured him his job was safe, Foster said, the administration's practice of withholding budget predictions continued until the legislation was enacted in November.

Foster is regarded in government and policy circles as a competent and neutral civil servant. His disclosure set off the latest escalation of a partisan war over Medicare that has been playing out since Congress adopted the largest expansion in the history of the health insurance program for the elderly.

Yesterday, congressional Democrats called for an ethics investigation and dispatched a bitter letter to President Bush (news - web sites), who frequently cites the new Medicare law as one of his proudest domestic accomplishments. Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) demanded a new vote on the measure, which barely passed the House and Senate, saying that "members of Congress were called to vote under false pretenses."

A Republican who helped forge the law, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), joined in the criticism. He said, "Government analysts with relevant information should never be muzzled."

The controversy over Foster's threatened dismissal, reported yesterday by the Knight Ridder news service, erupted several weeks after the White House acknowledged that the administration's cost estimates for the law were significantly higher than the ones lawmakers had relied on.

Bush had said he was willing to spend as much as $400 billion for the drug benefits and other Medicare changes during the next decade, and the Congressional Budget Office (news - web sites), the official fiscal advisers to Congress, predicted the law would cost $395 billion.

In late January, the White House said separate calculations, provided by Foster, indicated the law would cost $534 billion. The revelation provoked an outcry from Democrats and conservative Republicans concerned that the drug benefits would deepen the federal deficit.

Internal documents and federal officials made clear that the White House had known of the higher cost estimates for months. Until now, it has not been apparent the lengths to which Bush aides who negotiated the bill with Congress went to keep the figures private.

Foster, who was deputy chief actuary for the Social Security Administration (news - web sites) for 13 years before becoming the chief Medicare actuary in 1995, said his office has a tradition of providing technical assistance to Congress "on an independent, nonpartisan basis."

But last June, he said, Scully directed him to "cease responding directly to Congress" and to funnel all cost estimates to Scully to decide which ones would be released. "More than once, Tom said he was just following orders," Foster said, adding he did not know where the orders came from but believed they might have originated in the White House.

Late that month, Foster dispatched an e-mail to several senior assistants and private actuaries in which he called the situation "nightmarish." He wrote: "I'm perhaps no longer in grave danger of being fired, but there remains a strong likelihood that I will have to resign in protest of the withholding of important technical information from key policy makers for political reasons." He said he decided to stay at his staff's urging. 

Yesterday, HHS officials portrayed the matter as a conflict between Foster and Scully, who left the government for private consulting jobs a few months ago. "Those two just clearly did not get along," said Kevin Keane, assistant secretary for public affairs. "To suggest it's anyone else is way out of line."

Scully said in an interview he had only once forbidden Foster to release information. It would have been in response to a request from the staff of a liberal Democrat, Rep. Fortney "Pete" Stark (Calif.), who wanted to know the effect on Medicare premiums of a form of private-sector competition with the program that had been deleted from the House bill at the time of the request. Scully said the request was designed to "blow up the Medicare bill over something that wasn't even in there anymore."

Foster said that was not the only request that Scully blocked. "I tried to persuade him this was not in the public interest, but I was not successful," Foster said.

Stark aides said yesterday that the provision was in the bill when they asked for the information. Another congressional Democratic aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Foster sometimes conveyed information by telephone, but that White House officials routinely were on the line and sometimes instructed Foster not to answer questions.

George Carlin Responds to Indecency Uproar 

Sat Mar 13, 8:02 AM ET

By ANTHONY BREZNICAN, News Source Entertainment Writer 

LOS ANGELES - George Carlin (news) famously dissected "The Seven Words You Can't Say on Television" as a way to explore what everyone was so uptight about. Thirty-two years later the same debate is still raging, now fueled by Janet Jackson (news)'s Super Bowl flash, the suspension of Howard Stern's raunchy radio show from six stations and new House legislation that would raise a performer's indecency fine from $11,000 to $500,000. 

So what does the 66-year-old Carlin think of the current handwringing over what is indecent, profane, obscene, immoral, lewd or insulting? 

"More of the same, more of the same. What are we, surprised?" Carlin told The News Source on Friday 

He blamed it on religious moralism, media commercialism and election-year politics. 

"The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things - bad language and whatever - it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition. ... There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have." 

Mix that with TV or radio, and you've got a problem, he said. 

"What I always remind people is, radio and television and - as it happens - newspapers and magazines too, are advertising media. ... When you have commercialism involved you have the kind of fear that advertisers are very afraid of offending some potential customer. They don't want to lose a sale. So they have this need to inspect and clean up and watch the content in order not to hurt their own sales. It's based on success at the cash register. 

"And yet, they're very inconsistent_ on that Super Bowl broadcast of Janet Jackson's there was also a commercial about a 4-hour erection. A lot of people were saying about Janet Jackson, 'How do I explain to my kids? We're a little family, we watched it together ...' And, well, what did you say about the other thing? These are convenient targets." 

He also thinks President Bush (news - web sites) is trying to placate right-wing voters. 

The U.S. Air Force veteran compared the recent tension with memories of his military experience. 

"These bursts of interest and decency are just like when you're in the Air Force, Army and Marines, whatever - the discipline in your unit may get a little lax, people live with it, it's fine for months at a time then some colonel notices it and suddenly they crack down ... enforcing all the minor rules and regulations. Then what happens after these bursts of bothering people, that wears off and we get back to normal, relaxed discipline, but things still get done. 

"Society can be counted on to let this fade." 

___ 

On the Net: 

http://www.georgecarlin.com 

Nun Faces Jail for Drunk Tractor Driving

Mar 12, 12:10 pm ET 

WARSAW  - A Polish Benedictine nun is facing jail for driving a tractor into a car while drunk outside her convent in southwestern Poland, police said on Friday.

The 45-year-old nun will be charged with drunk-driving and causing an accident, which carries a prison sentence of up to two years, Dariusz Waluch, police spokesman in the southwestern Polish town of Dzierzoniow, told local news agency PAP.

He said the nun was 17 times over the country's legal alcohol limit for driving. 

This Sounds About Right....

Mar 12, 10:54 am ET 

WASHINGTON  - Americans spend far more time driving cars and watching television than they do exercising, researchers said on Thursday in a study that helps shed light on the country's obesity epidemic.

Americans also spend more time in the office than people in other countries, found the report from a team at the University of California, Berkeley.

The report came the same week federal government researchers said deaths caused by poor eating habits and a lack of exercise were fast catching up to smoking as a leading cause of death. In 2000, 400,000 people died from eating badly and laziness, compared with 435,000 who died from smoking-related illness.

"This study provides a wake-up call for the nation, particularly in light of rising obesity rates in this country," said Linda Dong, a student of epidemiolo