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BLACKS ARE WRONG!

Lawmaker says blacks should 'get over' slavery

BY KIMBALL PAYNE

247-4765



January 17, 2007 RICHMOND -- The day after lawmakers honored the teachings of Martin Luther King

Jr., a member of the House of Delegates stirred furious and tearful debate in Richmond with inflammatory

comments about African-Americans and Jews. Del. Frank Hargrove, R-Hanover, triggered controversy

while talking about an impending House resolution that would formally apologize for the state's role in the

slave trade. He said African-Americans should "get over it" because no one alive today was involved in

slavery.



"Are we going to force Jews to apologize for killing Christ?" Hargrove asked.



His comments appeared in the Charlottesville Daily Progress on Tuesday, and lawmakers reacted quickly

when the House opened session that day. Hargrove, 79, responded by denouncing slavery but was met with

groans and awkward silence when he suggested that a Jewish delegate, whose grandparents escaped Nazi-

occupied Poland, was being hypersensitive about the comments.



"I think your skin was a little too thin," Hargrove said.



It marks the third time in the last five months that a Virginia Republican has stepped into racial

controversy. And it comes as the state is poised to welcome the world to Jamestown for the 2007

celebration, where it will mark the contributions of American Indians, Africans and English settlers and the

beginning of the state's complex racial history.



Last year, incumbent U.S. Sen. George Allen lost his seat after using an obscure racial epithet to describe a

worker for a rival campaign. Allen's campaign never recovered after he twice called a videographer for his

opponent "macaca" - a genus of monkey and a racial slur in some French-speaking African countries.



Last month, Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Rocky Mount, touched off outrage when he criticized a Muslim

Congressman for using a Quran at his swearing-in ceremony several weeks ago. Goode has not backed

down, instead warning that not speaking out could lead to the election of more Muslims.



On Tuesday, three delegates stood on the House floor to condemn Hargrove's words.



Virginia Black Caucus Chairman Dwight C. Jones, D-Richmond, said Hargrove's statements were narrow-

minded and exclusionary. Then Jones recalled the horrors of the slave trade and the struggles for civil

rights.



"When somebody tells me I should just get over slavery, I can only express my emotion by projecting that I

am appalled, absolutely appalled," Jones said.



Jones said Hargrove desecrated King's memory. Del. Donald McEachin, D-Richmond, talked about the

stories of his family's bondage that have been passed down from his grandmother who will soon turn 103

years old.



"Quite frankly ... it's hard to get over it," said McEachin. "When there is a wrong committed, there needs to

be an apology."

Del. David Englin, D-Alexandria, explained his family's exodus to the United States to escape fervent anti-

Semitism in Poland prior to World Ward II.



"There are members of this body whose families came here in chains," said Englin, who sits next to

Hargrove on the House floor. "My family came here in hope. ... I know the gentleman meant no harm to

my family. I hope we can all use this as a learning opportunity."



When Englin finished, Hargrove rose to respond. He condemned slavery and said he didn't mean to offend

anyone. But after describing the plight of American Indians, Hargrove continued to explain why he was

against a formal state apology for slavery.



"I didn't have anything to do with mistreating Indians," Hargrove said.



Hargrove then addressed Englin specifically.



"I didn't know you were Jewish. I don't care what your religion is," Hargrove said. "I think your skin was a

little too thin."



Afterward, delegates from Hampton Roads had a variety of reactions.



Del. Mamye BaCote, D-Newport News, read Hargrove's words early Tuesday morning and said she was

not surprised.



"Even though it's 2007, there are still people who believe that an apology isn't necessary," BaCote said.

"Some things haven't changed."



Del. Jeion Ward, D-Hampton, was taken off guard.



"It was shocking to see," said Ward. "It was really saddening."



Del. Lionell Spruill Sr., D-Chesapeake, said there was no excuse for what Hargrove said.



"What he said, you can't dress it up," said Spruill. "The man said thin-skinned? Come on, now. This kind of

stuff has got to stop. He's been around a long time. He knew there was a problem a long time ago. How can

we get over it by these kinds of remarks? It won't go away."



Asked how outsiders would view Virginia in light of this latest racial controversy, Spruill said: "They will

say, well, Virginia's still in the South."



Some black delegates were more forgiving.



"He's been one of those delegates who has always reached out to me," said Del. Onzlee Ware, D-Roanoke.

"He's given me good sound advice. We've had plenty of conversations. I've never felt any racial tension

between us."



Ware said Tuesday's debate could have been handled differently by those who responded to Hargrove.



"Although we disagree with Del. Hargrove's statement, this is America. It's OK for him to feel that way,"

he said. "But my job is to enlighten him, not to try and further incite the debate. That's the only place where

I think we missed the opportunity."



The slavery apology resolution is to be brought for a vote within the next few weeks.

BLACKS MOCKED

Clemson probes party that mocked blacks



CLEMSON, S.C. - Clemson University and the NAACP said Tuesday they are investigating an off-campus

party held during the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend that some considered offensive because white

students drank malt liquor and at least one partygoer wore black face.



Pictures from the party were posted online, and Clemson officials learned of the Jan. 14 party this past

weekend. The school is probing whether students were harassed or whether there was underage drinking.



Clemson President James Barker wrote in a letter to students and faculty that he was "appalled, angered and

disappointed" by the party, which "appeared to mock and disparage African Americans."



"Many people have been offended and deeply hurt," he said.



The party organizers issued an unsigned letter of apology, saying, "We invited all races and types of

peoples and never meant any racial harm."



"We want everyone to know how sorry we are, and that we are willing to do anything to make things right,"

the letter said.



The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was looking into the party and at least

three similar events at other colleges around the country, said state chapter president Lonnie Randolph.



Clemson has roughly 1,100 black students out of more than 17,000 undergraduates, the university's Web

site says.

YOUR MONEY IS MISSING

CLICK HERE



Audit: U.S. lost track of $9 billion in Iraq funds



Pentagon, Bremer dispute inspector general's report

Monday, January 31, 2005 Posted: 0412 GMT (1212 HKT)



WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Nearly $9 billion of money spent on Iraqi reconstruction is unaccounted for

because of inefficiencies and bad management, according to a watchdog report published Sunday.



An inspector general's report said the U.S.-led administration that ran Iraq until June 2004 is unable to

account for the funds.

"Severe inefficiencies and poor management" by the Coalition Provisional Authority has left auditors with

no guarantee the money was properly used," the report said.



"The CPA did not establish or implement sufficient managerial, financial and contractual controls to ensure

that [Development Fund for Iraq] funds were used in a transparent manner," said Stuart W. Bowen Jr.,

director of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.



The $8.8 billion was reported to have been spent on salaries, operating and capital expenditures, and

reconstruction projects between October 2003 and June 2004, Bowen's report concluded.



The money came from revenues from the United Nations' former oil-for-food program, oil sales and seized

assets -- all Iraqi money. The audit did not examine the use of U.S. funds appropriated for reconstruction.

(Full story)



Auditors were unable to verify that the Iraqi money was spent for its intended purpose. In one case, they

raised the possibility that thousands of "ghost employees" were on an unnamed ministry's payroll.



"CPA staff identified at one ministry that although 8,206 guards were on the payroll, only 602 guards could

be validated," the audit report states. "Consequently, there was no assurance funds were not provided for

ghost employees."



The Defense Department, which was in charge of the reconstruction effort, and former Iraq civil

administrator Paul Bremer have disputed the findings.



Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told CNN that the provisional authority was operating under

"extraordinary conditions" and relied on Iraqi ministries to manage development money that was

transferred to them.



"We simply disagree with the audit's conclusion that the CPA provided less-than-adequate controls over

Iraqi funds that were provided to Iraqi ministries through the national budget process for hundreds of

projects, essential services, Iraqi salaries and security forces," Whitman said.



The occupation government established "major reforms" in Iraq's budgeting system, setting up a

transparent mechanism for decision-making and beginning efforts to fight corruption, Whitman said.



Under a U.N. Security Council resolution, the Development Fund for Iraq was to be used for humanitarian

needs, economic reconstruction and repair of infrastructure, continued disarmament, costs of civilian

administration and other programs benefiting Iraqis.



Bremer, in a written response included in the report, said Bowen's report failed to recognize the difficulties

of operating in wartime.

"The IG auditors presume that the coalition could achieve a standard of budgetary transparency and

execution that even peaceful Western nations would have trouble meeting within a year, especially in the

midst of a war," Bremer wrote.



Bremer, who received a Presidential Medal of Freedom in December for his work in Iraq, stated that

auditors did not interview him, any of his budget directors or deputies in preparing their draft report.



"On the whole, the office has done excellent work," he wrote. "But I do believe my colleagues at the CPA

have a right to expect a level of professional judgment and awareness, which seems to be missing in the

current draft report."



Bowen's report, which was prepared for Congress, acknowledged that the insurgency in Iraq poses "the

most difficult challenge" to reconstruction.



"Even under the most favorable of conditions, rebuilding Iraq would be a job of daunting proportions," he

wrote.



But the provisional authority did not clearly assign managerial responsibility, and its rules lacked clear

guidance on procedures and controls for dispersing funds, he concluded.



Staffing shortages and turnover also resulted in inadequate oversight of budget execution by Iraqi

ministries, he found -- and allegations of corruption in the oil-for-food program should have raised

concerns about the Iraqi government's ability to manage the reconstruction funds.





***

Panel questions Annan, delays report



U.N. secretary-general interviewed in oil-for-food investigation



Thursday, January 27, 2005 Posted: 1909 GMT (0309 HKT)



UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was formally questioned Tuesday for

the third time by a panel he appointed to probe the United Nations' controversial oil-for-food program in

Iraq.



The interviews were conducted by members of the Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former U.S.

Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.



Volcker took part in Tuesday's session, which lasted one hour and 35 minutes in Annan's office at U.N.

headquarters, and in at least one other session.



A U.N. spokesman said the committee previously interviewed Annan on December 3 for 25 minutes and on

November 9 for one hour and 45 minutes.



Volcker's interim report on the oil-for-food program had been expected next Monday, but the committee

has decided to delay its release by at least one week.



Sources close to the investigation said the report -- expected to focus on the program's procurement process

and potential corruption involving participants outside the United Nations -- is being held up to give those

involved time to respond.



From the start, Volcker said no one was untouchable in his probe, and Annan pledged to cooperate fully. In

all, he has been interviewed for nearly four hours.

"I couldn't say what I accomplished today. We met with him from time to time," Volcker said exiting the

United Nations. "All I can tell you is wait for the report to come out."



Annan has come under scrutiny for alleged U.N. mismanagement of the program and for an apparent

conflict of interest because a firm employing his son, Kojo Annan, won the U.N. contract to inspect goods

shipped to Iraq.



The oil-for-food program began in late 1996 as a way to permit Iraq, while still under economic sanctions,

to export some of its oil.



Revenues from the sales were deposited in a U.N.-controlled bank account, with proceeds earmarked for

purchasing food, medicine and approved supplies.



Kojo Annan worked for Cotecna Inspection in the late 1990s. The Switzerland-based firm replaced Lloyd's

Register in 1998 as the contractor tapped to authenticate goods arriving in Iraq. The contract became worth

$66 million over five years, according to a U.N. official.



Both Cotecna and the younger Annan have said his work was unrelated to any of the firm's business in the

Middle East or with the United Nations and was limited to West Africa, where Kojo Annan lives.



The oil-for-food program grossed $64 billion, according to Volcker's committee, with two-thirds of the

funds paying for Iraqi imports. The rest paid for U.N. weapons inspectors, Iraqi reparations to Kuwait for

its 1990 invasion and costs of administering the program.



Earlier this month, Volcker's committee said U.N. audits of the program revealed "under-pricing of oil and

the overpricing of humanitarian goods" as well as "inadequate procedures, policy, planning, controls and

coordination process across numerous areas of activity."



Volcker's committee also found U.N. management overseeing the program was "not quick to react to

criticism and was either unwilling or unable to address issues raised." (Full story)



The program ended in 2003 after the U.S.-led invasion toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.



Previously, Saddam handpicked the buyers of Iraqi oil and the vendors of humanitarian goods, allowing

him to extort surcharges on the oil and kickbacks on the goods worth an estimated $1.7 billion to $4.4

billion, according to studies by the CIA-backed Iraq Survey Group and the U.S. Government

Accountability Office.



Besides Volcker, the FBI, the Securities and Exchange Commission and a handful of U.S. congressional

committees are investigating the oil-for-food program.



Last week, federal prosecutors obtained a guilty plea from an Iraqi-American, Samir Vincent, who bought

oil from Iraq and was paid by the deposed regime to lobby U.N. and U.S. officials for the removal of

sanctions. (Full story)



Vincent pleaded guilty to failing to register as a lobbyist, engaging in banned financial activity with Iraq

and failing to report income on his tax returns.

WHOOPI G CALLED HOME

West African Nation Lays Claim to Whoopi



02/07



BISSAU, Guinea-Bissau -- When the government of one of the world's poorest nations learned that

Whoopi Goldberg had taken a DNA test showing her ancestors hail from here, the news reverberated

through the halls of parliament.



It was, the country's leaders decided, a chance to change the image of this West African nation plagued by

coups since wresting independence from Portugal in 1973. If the world could only grasp that a Hollywood

celebrity traced her roots to this forsaken corner of the globe, it could bring goodwill from afar -- even

fame for Guinea-Bissau, they reasoned.



So they decided to write a letter on official stationery embossed with the country's star-shaped seal. It was

hand-delivered to the U.S. Embassy, which passed it on to the State Department in Washington with

instructions for delivery to the Oscar-winning actress.



It begins, with some uncertainty on the star's name: "Your Excellency Hoppy Goldberg, it is with great

euphoria that the government of Guinea-Bissau ... learned of your ancestral origins. ... The news has

awoken in each and every one of us a deep sense of fraternity. ... We simply cannot remain indifferent to

the news of your Guinean heritage."



The two pages peppered with elaborate expressions of praise and respect end with a simple request: Please

come visit our country.



For a special for the Public Broadcasting Service that aired last year, prominent black Americans agreed to

take a DNA test. Oprah Winfrey discovered her roots in the rainforests of Liberia with the Kpelle tribe and

Bishop T.D. Jakes, the Dallas megachurch pastor, found his in Nigeria's Ebo people.



Goldberg learned that her genetic makeup is overwhelmingly Papel and Bayote, tribes indigenous to this

country on Africa's western seaboard.



"She will come. She's Guinean. She's our daughter. She's ours," said Minister of Tourism Francisco

Conduto de Pina.



There are few nations that are poorer than Guinea-Bissau, a country of 1.3 million people roughly the size

of Maryland. In the capital, there are so few hospital beds that women in labor share mattresses in cramped

maternity wards. Water is in chronically short supply, so much so that the fire department does not have

enough pressure in its hoses to fight blazes.



Restaurants routinely run out of food. Civil servants go months without a paycheck. Entire neighborhoods

in the capital have not had electricity for six months.



It's not hard to see how Goldberg's fame and her unexpected blood ties to Guinea-Bissau could seem like an

unparalleled opportunity.



But in an e-mail to The Associated Press, the actress' publicist, Brad Cafarelli, wrote that Goldberg never

received the letter. In what might come as a surprise to fans who know her from the TV series "Star Trek:

The Next Generation," Cafarelli also said a trip overseas is out of the question because Goldberg does not

fly.



"Regardless," he wrote, "due to the fact that she hosts a live daily radio show from New York and does not

fly, it would not be possible for her to travel to West Africa in the foreseeable future."

In Guinea-Bissau, however, the politicians who conceived the letter think the 51-year-old Goldberg is

simply taking her time to reply.



"We're waiting for her with much anticipation," said Prime Minister Aristides Gomes, sitting in his leather-

clad office, an oasis of comfort in the crumbling capital.



Gomes said he's a fan of "The Color Purple," the critically acclaimed film that secured Goldberg's spot in

Hollywood. But he admits few of his countrymen have seen the movie -- or any others featuring the actress.



There are only two television channels in Guinea-Bissau and both broadcast in Portuguese. After the

government learned of Goldberg's ancestry, national TV began showing her movies with Portuguese

subtitles. "Sister Act" and "Sister Act II" were instant hits in the capital, but in much of the country's brush-

covered interior, access to TV is rare.



Her movies never reached the grass-covered huts of Ome, a village 30 miles from Bissau in the country's

Papel region, whose people share her DNA.



"I have no idea who that is," said Tiro Ca, 50, carrying a baby on her back as she studied a headshot of the

actress.



But as villagers gathered to look at the photograph, a consensus emerged. "This woman must be Papel,"

said Iye Faustino, 28, pointing to the actress' distinctive cheekbones, not unlike that of the women crowding

around the grainy image. The shape of her mouth and her nose, he added, is similar to theirs.



In the PBS special, the actress said upon learning of her exact origins: "Who would I see when I went back,

if I was able to go back to the village? Would I recognize anybody? Would they look like my mom?"



Likely she would find people who look not unlike her.



"She's pretty," said Faustino, before handing the picture back. "If she comes here, we will be very happy to

see her."

TRUE LOVE

Eternal embrace? Couple still hugging 5,000 years on



ROME (Reuters) - Call it the eternal embrace.



Archaeologists in Italy have discovered a couple buried 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, hugging each other.



"It's an extraordinary case," said Elena Menotti, who led the team on their dig near the northern city of

Mantova.



"There has not been a double burial found in the Neolithic period, much less two people hugging -- and

they really are hugging."



Menotti said she believed the two, almost certainly a man and a woman although that needs to be

confirmed, died young because their teeth were mostly intact and not worn down.



"I must say that when we discovered it, we all became very excited. I've been doing this job for 25 years.

I've done digs at Pompeii, all the famous sites," she told Reuters.



"But I've never been so moved because this is the discovery of something special."



A laboratory will now try to determine the couple's age at the time of death and how long they had been

buried.

WAL-MART ON HEALTHCARE

Wal-Mart, unions unite on health care



WASHINGTON - Executives from Wal-Mart and three other major U.S. employers on Wednesday joined

hands with union leaders in setting a goal of providing "quality, affordable" health care for every American

by 2012.



However, they did not propose any specific policies to achieve this goal, or commit to spending any extra

money in the near-term to provide health coverage to more workers.



Joining Wal-Mart Stores Inc. CEO Lee Scott and Service Employees International Union leader Andrew

Stern at a Washington press conference were top executives from Intel Corp., AT&T Inc. and Kelly

Services Inc., a temporary staffing agency. Still, the health-care initiative left Wal-Mart's two leading union

critics divided.



The partnership of business and union leaders laid out four main goals, including universal health-care

coverage for all Americans and boosting the value of every dollar spent on health care.



"Government alone won't and can't solve this crisis," Scott said. "By following this campaign's common

sense principles, we believe America can have high quality, affordable and accessible health care by 2012."



But Scott and others did not lay out a detailed plan, and in response to a reporter's question he said Wal-

Mart is not committed to spending more on health care or making any immediate promises to provide

health coverage to more workers.



The SEIU funds campaign group Wal-Mart Watch, which as recently as last month said Wal-Mart's health

plans were a raw deal for employees. But Stern said he joined Wal-Mart and the other employers because

America's health care system requires fundamental change.



"It's time to admit the employer-based health care system is dead," Stern said.



Despite praise from SEIU and Communications Workers of America leaders who called for universal

health care for every American within five years, Paul Blank, the campaign director for

WakeUpWalMart.com, gave only tepid support for the plan in a prepared statement.



"If Wal-Mart is truly serious," Blank said, "we challenge the company to provide universal health care to

all of its uninsured employees and their families today." Blank's group is funded by the United Food and

Commercial Workers, which did not participate in Wednesday's press conference.



The business and union leaders, in forming a coalition dubbed "Better Health Care Together," pledged to

convene a national summit by the end of May to recruit other leaders from business, labor, government and

non-profits.



In late morning trading, shares of Wal-Mart fell 3 cents to $48.55, while shares of AT&T slid 30 cents to

$37.21, both on the New York Stock Exchange. On the Nasdaq Stock Market, shares of Intel gained 22

cents to $21.53, while those of Kelly Services declined 9 cents to $30.91.

SECOND IN SPACE PLACE

Man gets second chance at space ride



LOS ANGELES - A man who gave up a free space ride because he couldn't afford the taxes on the contest

prize may be going to the cosmos after all.



Brian Emmett, a 31-year-old software consultant from the Silicon Valley town of Mountain View, has

signed on to become a consultant to a space tourism upstart in exchange for a chance to experience

weightlessness some 60 miles above Earth.



Emmett won a space trip as part of a 2005 sweepstakes sponsored by software company Oracle Corp. He

forfeited the prize after calculating he would owe $25,000 in taxes for a spaceflight valued at $138,000.



Enter Benson Space Co., a Poway-based company founded by rocket entrepreneur Jim Benson, who is

trying to break into the suborbital spaceflight business.



Benson, who dreamed of flying to space as a boy, said he sympathized with Emmett and offered him a

consulting position.



"He had a dream, the dream got broken and we fixed it," Benson said.



As part of the agreement, Benson said, the company would pay Emmett an undisclosed amount to serve as

a "test passenger," allowing him to hitch a free ride into space in late 2008 when the company hopes to

send its first paying tourists. Benson said the partnership frees Emmett from any tax responsibility.



In return, Emmett would offer his feedback during the testing phase of the project.



Emmett said he was grateful for the second chance to go into space.



"My original situation hasn't changed," he said. "This isn't something I could do with my own means."



Several space tourism ventures, including British mogul Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, are jostling to

develop a suborbital vehicle to ferry rich passengers before the end of the decade. Vehicles would need to

get approval from the Federal Aviation Administration before they could fly out of the atmosphere.



Benson's Dream Chaser will be powered by hybrid rocket motors and can hold as many as six people. The

company has not yet decided on a launch site.



A ticket will cost $200,000 to $300,000 — the higher prices for those who want to be in the co-pilot seat.

GRIEVING SADDAM

Saddam family marks 40 days of mourning



SAN'A, Yemen - With tears and sobs, former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's elder daughter joined

hundreds of Baathists in the Yemeni capital on Wednesday to mark the passage of 40 days of mourning his

death.



Raghad Hussein, accompanied by her son and daughter and several of Saddam's defense lawyers, was

greeted with chants of "Revenge for Saddam!" and "Eternity to Saddam!" on arrival at the San'a airport.



A convoy of cars carrying pictures of Saddam then drove them to a palace in downtown San'a for a

ceremony hosted by the chief of the state security forces, Yahia Mohammed Abdullah Saleh, who is also a

cousin of the Yemeni president.



Addressing the gathering, Raghad praised the insurgents in Iraq, saying that "as long as the resistance and

the mujahedeen are fulfilling their duties in Iraq, the Iraqi people, without any doubt, will achieve victory."



"Saddam Hussein is the real hero and the pan-Arab leader. I am proud of him and proud of his great

struggle and sacrifices," she said.



Other speakers at the ceremony lashed out at the United States and Iran as well as Arab regimes they did

not identify but labeled as U.S. collaborators in Iraq.



Saddam was sentenced to death on Nov. 5 for the killing of 148 Shiites in Dujail after an attempt in 1982 to

assassinate him. The former dictator was executed on Dec. 30 in an unruly scene that brought worldwide

criticism of the Iraqi government. Video of the execution, recorded on a cell phone camera, showed

Saddam being taunted on the gallows.



Saddam loyalists chose to mark the end of the traditional 40-day mourning period in Yemen a day early to

draw attention, because similar ceremonies were scheduled across the Middle East on Thursday as well as

this weekend.



The presence of a large contingent of former Baathists in Yemen has long been known.



Saddam loyalists have set up a media network in Yemen that issues statements in the name of the defunct

Iraqi Baath Party, which was disbanded after U.S.-led forces overthrew Saddam in 2003. Baathists are

believed to be trying to regroup and revive their network across the Middle East.



Raghad, who supervised Saddam's defense, is known as "Little Saddam" because she shares her father's

strident temperament. She has lived in Jordan under the condition that she not engage in political activities

or make public statements. The Iraqi government accuses her and other Baathists of using millions

allegedly stolen by Saddam to help finance the insurgency.

CANCER DRUG

(02/07)

Lab disaster may lead to new cancer drug



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Her carefully cultured cells were dead and Katherine Schaefer was annoyed,

but just a few minutes later, the researcher realized she had stumbled onto a potential new cancer treatment.



Schaefer and colleagues at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York believe they have

discovered a new way to attack tumors that have learned how to evade existing drugs.



Tests in mice suggest the compound helps break down the cell walls of tumors, almost like destroying a

tumor cell's "skeleton."



The researchers will test the new compound for safety and hope they can develop it to treat cancers such as

colon cancer, esophageal cancer, liver and skin cancers.



"I was using these cancer cells as models of the normal intestine," Schaefer said in a telephone interview.



Normal human cells are difficult to grow and study in the lab, because they tend to die. But cancer cells

live much longer and are harder to kill, so scientists often use them.



Schaefer was looking for drugs to treat the inflammation seen in Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, both

of which cause pain and diarrhea.



She was testing a compound called a PPAR-gamma modulator. It would never normally have been thought

of as a cancer drug, or in fact a drug of any kind.



"I made a calculation error and used a lot more than I should have. And my cells died," Schaefer said.



A colleague overheard her complaining. "The co-author on my paper said,' Did I hear you say you killed

some cancer?' I said 'Oh', and took a closer look."



They ran several tests and found the compound killed "pretty much every epithelial tumor cell lines we

have seen," Schaefer said. Epithelial cells line organs such as the colon, and also make up skin.



It also killed colon tumors in mice without making the mice sick, they reported in the journal International

Cancer Research.



The compound works in much the same way as the taxane drugs, including Taxol, which were originally

derived from Pacific yew trees.



"It targets part of the cell cytoskeleton called tubulin," Schaefer said. Tubulin is used to build microtubules,

which in turn make up the cell's structure.



Destroying it kills the cell, but cancer cells eventually evolve mechanisms to pump out the drugs that do

this, a problem called resistance.



"Resistance to anti-tubulin therapies is a huge problem in many cancers. We see this as another way to get

to the tubulin," Schaefer said.



The PPAR-gamma compound does this in a different way from the taxanes, which might mean it could

overcome the resistance that tumor cells often develop to chemotherapy.



"Most of the drugs like Taxol affect the ability of tubulin to forms into microtubules. This doesn't do that --

it causes the tubulin itself to disappear. We do not know why."

Schaefer's team plans more safety tests in mice. As the compound is already patented, her team will

probably have to design something slightly different to be able to patent it as a new drug.



Taxol, developed by U.S. National Cancer Institute researchers and manufactured by Bristol-Myers Squibb

in 1993, had annual sales of $1.6 billion at its peak in 2000.

DIGITIZED PERIODICAL

World's oldest newspaper goes digital



STOCKHOLM, Sweden - For centuries, readers thumbed through the crackling pages of Sweden's Post-

och Inrikes Tidningar newspaper. No longer. The world's oldest paper still in circulation has dropped its

paper edition and now exists only in cyberspace.



The newspaper, founded in 1645 by Sweden's Queen Kristina, became a Web-only publication on Jan. 1.

It's a fate, many ink-stained writers and readers fear, that may await many of the world's most venerable

journals.



"We think it's a cultural disaster," said Hans Holm, who served as the chief editor of Post-och Inrikes

Tidningar for 20 years. "It is sad when you have worked with it for so long and it has been around for so

long."



Queen Kristina used the publication to keep her subjects informed of the affairs of state, Holm said, and the

first editions, which were more like pamphlets, were carried by courier and posted on note boards in cities

and towns throughout the kingdom.



Today, Post-och Inrikes Tidningar, which means mail and domestic tidings, runs legal announcements by

corporations, courts and certain government agencies — about 1,500 a day according to Olov Vikstrom, the

current editor.



The paper edition was certainly not some mass-market tabloid. It had a meagre circulation of only 1,000 or

so, although the Web site is expected to attract more readers, Vikstrom said.



The newspaper is owned by the Swedish Academy, known for awarding the annual Nobel Prize in

Literature. But it recently sold the publishing rights to the Swedish Companies Registration Office, a

government agency.



Despite its online transformation, Post-och Inrikes Tidningar remains No. 1 on a ranking of the oldest

newspapers still in circulation compiled by the Paris-based World Association of Newspapers.



"An online newspaper is still a newspaper, so we'll leave it on the list," WAN spokesman Larry Kilman

said.

IRAQ DEBATE

Dems: Senate debate on Iraq inevitable



WASHINGTON - A lengthy Senate floor debate on the Iraq war is inevitable, despite a Republican effort

to block it, Democrats say.



Following a procedural vote Monday that sidetracked a resolution on the war, Democrats said they would

eventually find a way to put each senator on record. On the table is a nonbinding resolution backed by

several Republicans and most Democrats that would state Senate opposition to President Bush's plan to

send 21,500 more troops to Iraq.



"The president must hear from Congress, so he knows he stands in the wrong place — alone," said Senate

Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev.



The measure, if passed, would be a stinging critique of Bush's decision to deepen the U.S. military

commitment in Iraq. Bush has said the extra troops are needed to calm sectarian violence in Baghdad and

the western Anbar province.



Republicans denied assertions that they were trying to block a vote on the measure, saying that they were

seeking fair rules and consideration of a GOP alternative measure.



"As far as stalling, we've got a week here where we can have a full debate. But we insist on it being a full

debate and a fair one," said Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (news, bio, voting record), R-Miss.



Negotiations on how to move forward on the debate were expected to continue Tuesday, as Defense

Secretary Robert Gates headed to Capitol Hill to testify on Bush's $624.6 billion request in defense

spending. The spending request marks the first time Bush has offered an estimate of how much the wars in

Iraq and Afghanistan will cost a year in advance.



Gates planned to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee alongside Marine Corps Gen. Peter

Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Tina Jonas, the Pentagon comptroller.



While the hefty budget will be a primary focus, panel members were expected to use the venue to air their

grievances on Iraq.



The two political parties were at odds Monday after Democrats refused to give equal consideration during

the debate to a Republican proposal by Sen. Judd Gregg (news, bio, voting record), R-N.H., which would

protect funding for troops in combat.



While Democrats are largely supportive of the Gregg measure, they want to limit debate to only two

proposals: one by Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., that states opposition to the troop

buildup, and another by Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., that would support the

president's position.



Several leading Democrats have endorsed Warner's measure, including Sens. Barack Obama (news, bio,

voting record) of Illinois and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, but many Republicans were reluctant

to say how they would vote. Sens. John Sununu (news, bio, voting record) of New Hampshire, George

Voinovich (news, bio, voting record) of Ohio, Lisa Murkowski (news, bio, voting record) of Alaska and

Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record) of Pennsylvania were each considered GOP wild cards in the vote.



Specter said he wanted to hear out other members before deciding what to do.



"It's a big issue," Specter said. "We need to debate it."

BARBARA MCNAIR DIES

(02/07)

Actress-Singer Barbara McNair dies



LOS ANGELES - Singer Barbara McNair, who became a film and television star in an era when such

opportunities were opening up for black women, has died, her sister said. She was 72.



McNair died Sunday after a battle with throat cancer in Los Angeles, sister Jacqueline Gaither said.



"She was very family oriented," Gaither said. "She was more than just a star or a famous personality. She

was a person of her own."



McNair made her Hollywood acting debut in 1968 in the film, "If He Hollers, Let Him Go."



She later starred opposite Sydney Poitier in "They Call Me Mister Tibbs" and with Elvis Presley in

"Change of Habit."



She hosted television's "The Barbara McNair Show," a musical and comedy program in the late 1960s and

early 1970s. As a singer, one of her biggest hits was "You Could Never Love Him."

WAR TRAINING

(January 2007)



U.S. may have botched training of Iraqis



WASHINGTON - Training the police is as important to stabilizing Iraq as building an effective army there,

but the United States has botched the job by assigning the wrong agencies to the task, two members of the

Iraq Study Group said Wednesday.



"The police training system has not gone well," said former Rep. Lee Hamilton, who co-chaired the

bipartisan commission.



For a second day, a key Republican directly challenged President Bush to do more than pay "lip service" to

this and other recommendations on how to resolve the troubled conflict in Iraq.



"As a nation we'd be much better off if the executive branch were not so insular," said Sen. Arlen Specter

(news, bio, voting record), R-Pa. "I'd think the executive branch would be well advised to do more than

have a meeting and a news conference to give in-depth consideration to what is being proposed here."



According to the report, co-authored by Hamilton and former Attorney General Edwin Meese, the U.S.

erred by first assigning the task of shaping the judicial system in a largely lawless country to the State

Department and private contractors who "did not have the expertise or the manpower to get the job done."



In 2004, the mission was assigned to the Defense Department, which devoted more money to the task. But

department officials also were insufficiently trained for the job, Hamilton and Meese said.



As a result, Iraq has little if any on-the-street law enforcement personnel or a functioning judicial system

free of corruption, they said.



Justice Department officials, they said, should lead the work of transforming the system. Police executives

and supervisors should replace the military police personnel now assigned.



And the FBI should expand its investigative and forensic training in Iraq, Hamilton and Meese told the

panel.



The recommendations about the Iraqi judicial system were included in the Iraq Study Group's report last

year, but got little attention. Hamilton and Meese said Wednesday that unless the U.S. helps create a

capable, trained professional police force and functioning criminal justice system, "ordinary Iraqis will not

live in peace and will not have confidence in their new government."



"Long-term security depends as much on the Iraqi police and judicial system as the Iraqi Army," they

testified.



The hearing comes as lawmakers increasingly line up against President Bush's escalation of the unpopular

war in Iraq, many citing the findings of the Iraq Study Group as they urge an end to U.S. involvement

there.



Wednesday's hearing gave committee Democrats a fresh opportunity to take a swipe at the White House.



"If the administration had been serious and competent about establishing a functioning democracy in Iraq,

it would have seen the need for a trustworthy criminal justice system in which all Iraqis could have

confidence," Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record), D-Vt., said in

prepared remarks.



With a Senate showdown just days away, No. 2 GOP leader Trent Lott (news, bio, voting record) of

Mississippi said he had concerns with each of a host of resolutions introduced so far on the war. If

Republican leaders do not rally behind a single proposal, the party could avoid taking a clear, united stance

on the widely unpopular Iraq war — a consequence Lott suggested he wouldn't mind.



"To herd the cat some times you have to let them stray," he said. "Think about that. Keeping them together

by letting them stray."



The Iraq Study Group recommended the administration pull U.S. combat brigades out of Iraq by early

2008, launch new diplomatic initiatives with Iran and Syria and vastly increase the number of U.S. military

advisers in the country.



Former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, in subtle disagreement with the Bush administration, told

Wednesday's hearing that the United States should always be ready to negotiate, including with Iran and

Syria as part of a regional conference that he proposed for dealing with Iraq.



But Kissinger described radical Islamic fundamentalism promoted by Iran as the biggest threat to the area,

and said that "I see little incentive Iran has to help us solve the Iraq problem."



In prepared testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, former Secretary of State Madeleine

Albright appeared to line up with senators opposing President Bush's buildup in Iraq.



"I could have supported an increase in troops if that increase had been tied to a clear, important and

achievable mission, and if we were guaranteed that our troops would have the best training and equipment,"

she said.

VENEZUELA CHAVEZ

Chavez gains free rein in Venezuela



CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez was granted free rein Wednesday to accelerate changes in

broad areas of society by presidential decree — a move critics said propels Venezuela toward dictatorship.



Convening in a downtown plaza in a session that resembled a political rally, lawmakers unanimously gave

Chavez sweeping powers to legislate by decree and impose his radical vision of a more egalitarian socialist

state.



"Long live the sovereign people! Long live President Hugo Chavez! Long live socialism!" said National

Assembly President Cilia Flores as she proclaimed the "enabling law" approved by a show of hands.

"Fatherland, socialism or death! We will prevail!"



The law gives Chavez, who is beginning a fresh six-year term, more power than he has ever had in eight

years as president, and he plans to use it over the next 18 months to transform broad areas of public life,

from the economy and the oil industry in particular, to "social matters" and the very structure of the state.



His critics call it a radical lurch toward authoritarianism by a leader with unchecked power — similar to

how Fidel Castro monopolized leadership in Cuba.



"If you have all the power, why do you need more power?" said Luis Gonzalez, a high school teacher who

paused to watch in the plaza, calling it a "media show" intended to give legitimacy to a repugnant move.

"We're headed toward a dictatorship, disguised as a democracy."



.Hundreds of Chavez supporters wearing ruling party red gathered in the plaza, waving signs reading

"Socialism is democracy," as lawmakers read out passages of the law giving the president special powers to

transform 11 areas of Venezuelan law.



"The people of Venezuela, not just the National Assembly, are giving this enabling power to the president

of the republic," congresswoman Iris Varela told the crowd.



Vice President Jorge Rodriguez publicly ridiculed the idea that the law is an abuse of power and argued

democracy is flourishing. He thanked the National Assembly for providing "gasoline" to start up the

"engine" of societal changes.



"What kind of a dictatorship is this?" Rodriguez asked the crowd, saying the law "only serves to sow

democracy and peace."



"Dictatorship is what there used to be," Rodriguez said. "We want to impose the dictatorship of a true

democracy."



After the vote, Chavez remained out of public view Wednesday but announced plans for a news conference

Thursday at the presidential palace.



Chavez, a former paratroop commander re-elected with 63 percent of the vote in December, has said he

will decree nationalizations of Venezuela's largest telecommunications company and the electricity sector,

slap new taxes on the rich, and impose greater state control over the oil and natural gas industries.



The law also allows Chavez to dictate unspecified measures to transform state institutions; reform banking,

tax, insurance and financial regulations; decide on security and defense matters such as gun regulations and

military organization; and "adapt" legislation to ensure "the equal distribution of wealth" as part of a new

"social and economic model."

Chavez plans to reorganize regional territories and carry out reforms aimed at bringing "power to the

people" through thousands of newly formed communal councils designed to give Venezuelans a say on

spending an increasing flow of state money on projects in their neighborhoods, from public housing to

potholes.



Historian Ines Quintero said that with the new powers, Chavez will achieve a level of "hegemony" that is

unprecedented in the nation's nearly five decades of democratic history.



Opposition leader Julio Borges called for the 4 million Venezuelans who voted against Chavez not to be

left out of decision-making, particularly as he pushes for constitutional changes including scrapping the

term limits that would end his presidency in 2013.



"The worst we Venezuelans can do is throw in the towel and become like an ostrich (burying our heads in

the sand) and giving up the fight," Borges told the Venezuelan radio station Union Radio.



But the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America, Thomas Shannon, said the law isn't an issue for the United

States.



"The enabling law isn't anything new in Venezuela. It's something valid under the constitution," Tom

Shannon, the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, told reporters in Colombia.



"As with any tool of democracy, it depends how it is used," he added. "At the end of the day, it's not a

question for the United States or for other countries, but for Venezuela."



Chavez has requested special powers twice before, but for more modest legislative changes.



In 1999, shortly after he was first elected, he used it to push through two new taxes and a revision of the

income tax law after facing fierce opposition in congress. In 2001, invoking an "enabling law" for the

second time, he decreed 49 laws including controversial agrarian reform measures and a law that sharply

raised taxes on foreign oil companies.



Now Chavez has a free hand to bring under state control the oil and natural gas projects still run by private

companies in Venezuela, a top oil supplier to the United States and home to South America's largest gas

reserves.



Chavez has said companies upgrading heavy oil in the Orinoco River basin — British Petroleum PLC,

Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips Co., Total SA and Statoil ASA — must submit to

state-controlled joint ventures. The new law enables Chavez to unilaterally "regulate" this transition if

companies don't agree to the new framework within an unspecified "peremptory period."

SPY PROGRAM

Justice to release spy program details



WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Wednesday he will turn over secret documents

detailing the government's domestic spying program, ending a two-week standoff with the Senate Judiciary

Committee over surveillance targeting terror suspects.



"It's never been the case where we said we would never provide access," Gonzales told reporters.



"We obviously would be concerned about the public disclosure that may jeopardize the national security of

our country," he said. "But we're working with the Congress to provide the information that it needs."



The documents held by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — including investigators' applications

for permission to spy and judges' orders — will be given to some lawmakers as early as Wednesday.



Gonzales said the documents would not be released publicly. "We're talking about highly classified

documents about highly classified activities of the United States government," the attorney general said.



The records will be given to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record), D-Vt.,

and the panel's top Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., who two weeks ago

lambasted Gonzales for refusing to turn over documents that even the FISA Court's presiding judge had no

objection to releasing. At the time, Gonzales said it was unclear whether the court orders could be released

without exposing sensitive security information.



The documents also will be available to lawmakers and staffers on the House and Senate intelligence

committees. These people already were cleared to receive details about the controversial spy program.



Leahy said he welcomed the Bush administration decision to release the documents, which he said he

would review to decide "what further oversight or legislative action is necessary." Specter stopped short of

calling for them to be publicly released, but said "there ought to be the maximum disclosure to the public,

consistent with national security procedures."



"They will not be made public until I've had a chance to see them," Specter said.



But the administration still won't release other crucial documents that explain how FISA Court's orders

comply with the 1978 surveillance law that the court oversees, said Rep. Heather Wilson (news, bio, voting

record), R-N.M., a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee. She said the deal to release the

documents stems from a briefing in front of that panel last week, which included Justice Department

officials, and left many lawmakers frustrated.



"We are playing hide the ball down at the Justice Department," said Wilson, who has told House

Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes (news, bio, voting record), D-Texas, that she will support a

subpoena, if need be.



The documents are being turned over two weeks after a testy Senate hearing, during which lawmakers

hammered Gonzales for refusing to provide details about the court's new oversight — and whether it

provides adequate privacy protections.



President Bush secretly authorized the spying program after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, allowing

the National Security Agency to bypass court review and conduct domestic surveillance of people

suspected of links to terrorism.



The program, which a federal judge last August declared unconstitutional, monitors phone calls and e-mails

between the United States and other countries when such a link is suspected.

On Jan. 17, the day before the Senate hearing, Gonzales announced that the FISA Court had assumed

oversight authority of the surveillance program a week earlier, and had already approved at least one

warrant targeting a person suspected of having terror ties.



Senators demanded to know more about how judges on the secret court might consider evidence when

approving government requests to spy on people in the United States. And FISA Court Presiding Judge

Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, in a letter released at the hearing, said she had no objection to giving lawmakers

copies of orders and opinions relating to the secret panel's oversight of the spy program.



Gonzales' remarks Wednesday came as the Justice Department asked a federal appeals court in Cincinnati

to dismiss a civil lawsuit against the spy program. Government attorneys have said the American Civil

Liberties Union's lawsuit is moot since the surveillance now is monitored by a secret court.



The ACLU, however, is asking the appeals court to uphold the earlier decision in August, declaring the

program unconstitutional, since Bush retains authority to continue warrantless surveillance.



Gonzales described the decision to release the documents to Leahy and Specter as the result of ongoing

negotiations between Congress and the administration. He said lawmakers most likely will not have to

review the documents at the Justice Department, which keeps a tight grip on classified information, but

offered few other details.



"It's important for us that they understand what we're doing," Gonzales said. "All they have to do is ask."

FUNNY SENATOR

Comedian Al Franken to Run for Senate



WASHINGTON -- Comedian Al Franken has decided to run for U.S. Senate in Minnesota in 2008,

challenging incumbent Republican Norm Coleman, a senior Democratic official told The Associated Press

on Wednesday.



The official, who requested anonymity because Franken has not made an announcement, said that the

comedian and former star of NBC's "Saturday Night Live" told her of his decision recently.



Andy Barr, the political director of Franken's Midwest Values Political Action Committee, declined to

comment.



The news was not unexpected. Franken has been calling members of the Minnesota congressional

delegation to get their input on a run, and he announced this week that he would be leaving his show on Air

America Radio on Feb. 14. He told listeners he would be making a decision on a race soon.



Should he win the Democratic primary in Minnesota, Franken would take on Coleman, a first-term senator

who is among the Democrats' top targets.

FALLING SAVINGS

2006 personal savings fall to 74-yr. low



WASHINGTON - People once again spent everything they made and then some last year, pushing the

personal savings rate to the lowest level since the Great Depression more than seven decades ago.



The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the savings rate for all of 2006 was a negative 1

percent, meaning that not only did people spend all the money they earned but they also dipped into savings

or increased borrowing to finance purchases. The 2006 figure was lower than a negative 0.4 percent in

2005 and was the poorest showing since a negative 1.5 percent savings rate in 1933 during the Depression.



For December, consumer spending rose a solid 0.7 percent, the best showing in five months, while incomes

rose by 0.5 percent, both figures matching Wall Street expectations.



In other news, a key gauge of factory activity flashed recession warnings in manufacturing in January.



The Institute for Supply Management said its manufacturing index registered 49.3 last month, down from a

December reading of 51.4. A reading below 50 indicates that manufacturing activity is contracting rather

than expanding.



Meanwhile, the Labor Department reported that the number of newly laid off workers filing claims for

unemployment benefits dropped by 20,000 last week to 307,000. That improvement pushed the four-week

average for claims to the lowest level in a year, indicating that the labor market remains healthy.



The savings rate has been negative for an entire year only four times in history — in 2005 and 2006 and in

1933 and 1932. However, the reasons for the decline in the savings rate were vastly different during the

two periods.



During the Great Depression, when one-fourth of the labor force was without a job, people dipped into

savings in an effort to meet the basic necessities of shelter and clothing.



Economists have put forward various reasons to explain the current lack of savings. These range from a

feeling on the part of some people that they do not need to save because of the run-up in their investments

such as homes and stock portfolios to an effort by many middle-class wage earners to maintain their current

lifestyles even though their wage gains have been depressed by the effects of global competition.



Whatever the reason for the low savings, economists warn that it the phenomenon exists at a particularly

bad time with 78 million baby boomers approaching retirement age. Instead of building up savings to use

during retirement, baby boomers are continuing to spend all their earnings.



"These low savings levels are coming right as baby boomers are starting to retire and after your retire, your

savings rate typically goes down as you live off previous savings," said David Wyss, chief economist at

Standard & Poor's in New York.



The savings rate is computed by taking the amount of personal income left after taxes are paid, an amount

known as disposable income, and subtracting the amount of spending. Since the figure has dipped into

negative territory, it means consumers are spending all of disposable income and then some.



For December, the savings rate edged down to a negative 1.2 percent, compared to a negative 1 percent in

November. The savings rate has been in negative territory for 21 consecutive months.



The 0.7 percent rise in personal spending was the best showing since a similar gain in July. It followed

increases of 0.5 percent in November and 0.3 percent in October and reflected solid spending by consumers

during the Christmas shopping season.

Consumer spending posted a solid rebound in the final three months of the year, helping to lift overall

economic growth to a rate of 3.5 percent during that period, up significantly after lackluster growth rates in

the spring and fall.



Incomes were up 0.5 percent in December, the best showing since a similar increase in September.



On the inflation front, a gauge tied to consumer spending that is preferred by the Federal Reserve edged up

by 0.1 percent in December. This gauge, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, was up 2.2

percent over the past 12 months ending in December, still above the Fed's comfort zone of 1 percent to 2

percent.

GIGANTIC BABY

Big baby causes sensation in Cancun



CANCUN, Mexico - He is called "Super Tonio," and at a whopping birth weight of 14.5 pounds, the little

fellow is causing a sensation in this Mexican resort city.



Cancun residents have crowded the nursery ward's window to see Antonio Vasconcelos, who was born

early Monday by Caesarean section. The baby drinks 5 ounces of milk every three hours, and measures 22

inches in length.



"We haven't found any abnormality in the child, there are some signs of high blood sugar, and a slight

blood infection, but that is being controlled so that the child can get on with his normal life in a few more

days," Narciso Perez Bravo, the hospital's director, said on Wednesday.



In Brazil, a baby born in January 2005 in the city of Salvador weighed 16 pounds, 11 ounces at birth.

According to Guinness World Records, the heaviest baby born to a healthy mother was a boy weighing 22

pounds, 8 ounces, born in Aversa, Italy, in September 1955.



Antonio's mother, Teresa Alejandra Cruz, 23, and father, Luis Vasconcelos, 38, said they were proud of the

boy, and noted that Cruz had given birth to a baby girl seven years ago who weighed 11.46 pounds.

DIET

Diet, exercise take off equal pounds, study finds



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Eating less and exercising more are equally good at helping take off the

pounds, U.S. researchers said on Friday in a study that challenges many of the popular tenets of the

multibillion dollar diet and fitness industry.



Tests on overweight people show that a calorie is just a calorie, whether lost by dieting or by running, they

said.



They found there is no way to selectively lose belly fat, for instance, or trim thighs. And their carefully

controlled study added to evidence that adding muscle mass does not somehow boost metabolism and help

dieters take off even more weight.



"It's all about the calories," said Dr. Eric Ravussin of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, part of

Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

"So long as the energy deficit is the same, body weight, fat weight, and abdominal fat will all decrease in

the same way."



Ravussin said the study, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, is one of the

few done under controlled conditions that can actually demonstrate what happens to a human body while

dieting and exercising.



Ravussin's team has been testing volunteers for another reason -- to see if taking in fewer calories helps

people live longer. Strict diets have been shown to help animals from worms to dogs live longer, but it

takes longer to study monkeys and humans.



They tested 24 people, 12 who ate a calorie-restricted diet, and 12 who dieted and also exercised five times

a week for six months.



The dieters ate 25 percent less than normal, while the exercisers reduced their calorie intake by 12.5 percent

and increased their physical activity to lose an extra 12.5 percent in calories.



Another 10 volunteers acted as controls. All food was provided by the university in carefully measured

portions for most of the study.



The volunteers in both groups lost about 10 percent of their body weight, 24 percent of their fat mass, and

27 percent of their abdominal visceral fat. Visceral fat is packed in between the internal organs and is

considered the most dangerous type of fat, linked with heart disease and diabetes.



The distribution of the fat on the body was not altered by either approach -- helping prove that there is no

such thing as "spot reducing," Ravussin said in a telephone interview.



This suggests that "individuals are genetically programmed for fat storage in a particular pattern and that

this programming cannot easily be overcome," he added.



Ravussin has published other studies that also dispute the idea that exercise builds muscle that helps people

lose weight.



"If anything, highly trained people are highly efficient, so they burn fewer calories at rest," Ravussin said.



Dieting alone also did not appear to cause the volunteers to lose muscle mass along with fat, Ravussin's

team found.

"There is a concept that if you exercise, you are going to lose less of your muscle," he said. But his team

found no evidence this is true.



Ravussin believes exercise is crucial to health, however.



"For overall health, an appropriate program of diet and exercise is still the best," he said.



His team found some small suggestion that cutting 25 percent of calories by either diet or diet and exercise

might extend life.



"We found that 2 of the biomarkers of aging were improved -- core temperature was 0.4 to 0.5 degrees C

less," he said. "Insulin, which has been shown to be a biomarker of aging, was reduced," Ravussin said.

That finding was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association last April.

CAREER ADVICE

Grammy winners offer career advice



ATLANTA - Grammy winners including Ludacris and Earl Klugh told Atlanta high school students that

the music industry has plenty of different jobs to offer.



They advised about 300 teenagers on Wednesday to find their niche and show the world their own talent

during a discussion at the Clark Atlanta University's Park Street Music & Art Complex.

"Self-education is the most important thing to have," Ludacris said. "I know you can have street smarts. But

if you combine that with book smarts, you'll be unstoppable."



Klugh, a veteran jazz guitarist who has received a Grammy and 13 nominations, talked about touring and

understanding how to make money from music.



Panelists who included R&B singer Lyfe Jennings, music engineer Phil Tan, record label executive Dee

Dee Murray and songwriter Tab Nkhereanye said the behind-the-scenes roles are important.



"I can't play songs, rap or play instruments like all big headliners," said Tan, a Grammy winner who has

worked with Mariah Carey, Usher and Gwen Stefani.



"But I have the ability to mix songs to make them sound great," he added. "If you want to be a part of the

music industry, there's always something to do."



Murray, general manager of Purple Ribbon Records, offered insights as to how to act professional. She told

the students to take charge of their education.



"Reading, writing and speaking well are useful in this industry," Murray said. "You have to go that extra

mile to get what you want in life. That's with anything."

TEAM WORK

Senate foes of troop buildup join forces



WASHINGTON - Two senators, a Republican and a Democrat, leading separate efforts to put Congress on

record against President Bush's troop buildup in Iraq joined forces Wednesday, agreeing on a nonbinding

resolution that would oppose the plan and potentially embarrass the White House.



Sens. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., and Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich.,

had been sponsoring competing measures opposing Bush's strategy of sending 21,500 more U.S. troops to

the war zone, with Warner's less harshly worded version attracting more Republican interest. The new

resolution would vow to protect funding for troops while keeping Warner's original language expressing

the Senate's opposition to the buildup.



Levin replaced Warner as chairman of the Armed Services Committee when the Democrats took control of

the Senate in January. Their resolution could well gain more support from members of both parties than

their separate versions had been attracting. It lacks Levin's language saying the troop increase is against the

national interest, and it drops an earlier provision by Warner suggesting Senate support for some additional

troops.



Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record) said he wants to begin debate Monday on the

new measure, bypassing committee review. Levin's original resolution would no longer be considered

unless offered as an amendment.



"I believe we have a better chance now" of passing a resolution against the president's plan, said Sen.

Richard Durbin (news, bio, voting record), D-Ill.



The resolution is likely to pose a threat to the White House because of its potential appeal to Republicans

who have grown tired of the nearly four-year war and want a chance to express their concerns. The White

House has been hoping to avoid an overwhelming congressional vote criticizing Bush's handling of the

war.



"It's been a hard work in progress," Warner said of his resolution, which has been struggling to win support

of 60 senators so as to prevent a filibuster.



The agreement comes as several leading Republicans who support the troop buildup said they will give the

administration and the Iraqis about six months to show significant improvement. Many other Republicans

say they are deeply skeptical additional troops in Iraq, rather than a political settlement, would help calm

the sectarian violence.



The widely unpopular war has led to the deaths of more than 3,000 U.S. troops and is blamed for GOP

losses in the Nov. 7 elections that handed control of Congress to the Democrats.



The House had planned on waiting for the Senate to vote as a way of testing the waters for Republican

support of such a resolution. But according to a Democratic aide, the House may begin the process next

week with a committee review. That would set the stage for a House floor debate the week of Feb. 12.



Warner had attracted at least seven other Republicans who were inclined to vote for his resolution.

Scrambling to find additional support, Warner added language proposed by Sen. Judd Gregg (news, bio,

voting record), R-N.H., that would protect funding for troops.



As of late Wednesday, Gregg had not said whether he would support the revised resolution.



"Colleagues have come up to me and said, 'Can you assure me that this doesn't provide a cutoff of funds?'"

Warner said.

Warner's resolution will now rival a proposal by Sens. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz.,

and Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), R-S.C., that would identify benchmarks for the Iraqi

government. McCain's measure is intended to give Republicans an outlet for expressing that the U.S.

commitment in Iraq must not be open-ended, without openly criticizing the president.



McCain's measure also picked up steam Wednesday, with Sens. Pat Roberts (news, bio, voting record), R-

Kan., Lisa Murkowski (news, bio, voting record), R-Alaska, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (news, bio, voting

record), R-Ga., and GOP leaders saying they might support it.



"I don't think this war can be sustained for more than six months if in fact we don't see some progress," said

Roberts. His comments came two days after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (news, bio, voting

record), R-Ky., said the new U.S. military push was the Iraqis' "last chance."



Bush on Wednesday objected to Iraq proposals from Republicans and Democrats alike and acknowledged

that "there's a lot of pessimism" in Congress about his troop buildup.



In an interview with Fox News, Bush took issue with McConnell's statement that his plan needs to be

successful over the next six to nine months.



"I think it's a mistake to put timetables on difficult missions because an enemy can adjust," Bush said. "On

the other hand, I certainly understand the urgency in Mitch's voice. I also understand the skepticism on

Capitol Hill. I mean, no doubt, there's a lot of pessimism there today."



In a statement after the president's interview, McConnell avoided mention of a specific time frame, but he

stressed that the U.S. commitment in Iraq "is not open-ended."



"We will know in a relatively short period of time whether or not the Iraqis are committed, and initial

results are positive," McConnell said. "Of course we would need to reconsider our strategy if this effort

fails."



Bush also criticized a proposal by Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record), a Democratic presidential

candidate from Illinois, to have all U.S. combat forces out of Iraq by spring 2008. "I say that it's important

to succeed and that failure in Iraq will cause chaos," Bush said. "My admonition to those who are speaking

out is let us back the troops and let us hope for the success" of their mission.



Although deserted by some key Republicans, Bush said: "I don't feel abandoned. ... When times are good,

there's millions of authors of the plan. When times are bad, there's one author, and that would be me."

SPENDING

House approves huge spending bill



WASHINGTON - A must-pass bill covering about one-sixth of the federal budget swept through the House

on Wednesday. A sizable chunk of Republicans joined virtually all Democrats in approving spending

increases for education, veterans and the AIDS battle in Africa.



The 286-140 vote — with 57 Republicans voting in favor — was a please surprise for Democrats who

expected far less GOP support. The bill had much to please the rank and file, including Republican

moderates, even though it contained no pet projects for their districts.



"The content is a heck of a lot better than most expected we'd come up with," said the chairman of the

House Appropriations Committee, Rep. David Obey (news, bio, voting record), D-Wis. He worked with his

Senate counterpart, Sen. Robert Byrd (news, bio, voting record), D-W.Va., to add money for initiatives

popular with both Democrats and Republicans.



The overall total would have been even higher had there not been such hurt feelings over how Democrats

powered the bill through the House: just an hour of debate time, no amendments allowed.



Republicans also said the measure was not entirely free of parochial "earmarks," saying powerful senators

such as Ted Stevens (news, bio, voting record), R-Alaska, and Pete Domenici (news, bio, voting record), R-

N.M., received special treatment for home-state projects.



The White House has signaled that President Bush would sign the bill despite cuts to his requests for

NASA, foreign aid and communities affected by the latest round of military base closings.



But numerous agencies are feeling the crunch from operating for four months at or below last year's levels.

So the administration was eager for relief for the FBI, the Census Bureau and the Veterans Affairs

Department and others.



Republicans also struggled to find unity. Conservatives pressed for a budget freeze to save about $6 billion.



Other lawmakers, including Reps. Jerry Moran (news, bio, voting record), R-Kan., and Dave Weldon

(news, bio, voting record), R-Fla., complained about inadequate spending. Moran pushed in vain for $3.3

billion in more money for farm disaster aid. Weldon complained that a $545 million cut to NASA would

jeopardize the agency's plans to send man back to the Moon and on to Mars.



Democrats were not entirely pleased with the bill.



It would grant remarkable flexibility to the administration in determining how to use money within agency

accounts — and in awarding grants and other projects to lawmakers' districts and states.



Living within last year's budget cap set by Bush — before Democrats won control of Capitol Hill in the

November elections — meant they could not be as generous as they would have liked.



Democrats, nonetheless, provided increases for underperforming schools, health research, and grants to

state and local law enforcement agencies.



They were especially pleased with a $260 boost, to $4,310, in the maximum Pell Grant for low-income

college students, and with a 40 percent increase, to $4.5 billion, for fighting AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis

overseas.



Obey said $3 billion to put the 2005 base closing law in place would be added to an upcoming Iraq war

spending bill; that made it easier to bulk up favored domestic accounts.

Republicans contended some money came from phantom savings from highway spending.



In a striking exchange, GOP Rep. David Hobson (news, bio, voting record) of Ohio said Democrats bowed

to powerful Republicans needed to pass the bill in the Senate.



Hobson said the House wanted to cut $495 million from nuclear weapons accounts, but settled for just $95

million out of deference to Domenici and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-

Nev., whose states are home to numerous Energy Department facilities.



Hobson said Democrats acceded to Senate demands to preserve some home-state projects such as $45

million for a much-ridiculed indoor rainforest research in central Iowa.



"If ever there was low-hanging fruit ... this was it," Hobson said.



Obey said that project, obtained two years ago by Sen. Charles Grassley (news, bio, voting record), R-

Iowa, originally was in a bill that Hobson personally negotiated.

The tally for the measure may have been inflated. It contains a provision blocking lawmakers from

receiving their annual cost of living pay raise; some members may have been reluctant to appear to cast a

vote that could be interpreted of voting themselves more money.



Agencies winning budget relief in the bill include:

_Veterans Affairs, which would get a $3.6 billion increase for the rapidly growing veterans medical care

program.

_The National Institutes of Health, which would receive a $620 million increase for health research grants.

_Amtrak, whose budget would be frozen at $1.3 billion instead of absorbing a $400 million cut proposed

by Bush.

_The Census Bureau, which would get money for new computers for field workers conducting the 2010

census.

IMMIGRATION

U.S. plans hike in immigration, citizenship fees



PHOENIX (Reuters) - Immigrants applying to become citizens or permanent residents of the United States

may have to pay higher application fees, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.



The fee increases, which are subject to a review process, are part of a drive by the U.S. Citizenship and

Immigration Services to overhaul its strained processing system, which leaves many legal immigrants

waiting months or years for a green card or naturalization as U.S. citizens.



The fee increases would provide "appropriate funding to meet customer service needs and national security

requirements, and (modernize) an outdated business structure," the agency said.



Under the proposed increases, citizenship applications would cost $595, up from $330, while permanent

residency applications would jump to $905 from $325.



If approved, these fees would be valid for a two-year period starting in October.



Pro-immigration lobbyists were critical of plans to boost charges, which they said won't guarantee improve

service.



"With the level of service showing no signs of improvement, the announcement of yet another round of fee

increases ... is dispiriting," said Douglas Rivlin, spokesman for the Washington-based National

Immigration Forum lobbying group.



"The national interest is served when we facilitate the citizenship and assimilation of immigrants into fully

participating members of society," he added. "This substantial fee increase moves us in the wrong

direction."

CAR FLIES

Flying car seen as solution for rescue



YAVNE, Israel - Rafi Yoeli has an unconventional solution to saving people from burning high-rises or

rescuing soldiers trapped behind enemy lines: a flying car.



Yoeli already has gotten a rudimentary vehicle off the ground — about three feet — and hopes to see a

marketable version of his X-Hawk flying car by 2010.



Although his dream might seem far-fetched, Textron Inc.'s Bell Helicopters is taking a serious look,

teaming with Yoeli's privately held Urban Aeronautics to explore X-Hawk's potential.



Think of the people trapped in the World Trade Center. Think of ground patrols in Iraq blown up by

roadside bombs. Think of New Orleans residents stranded on rooftops after Hurricane Katrina.



X-Hawk and its smaller version, Mule, might one day offer the same capabilities as helicopters, but without

the serious operating limitations — like exposed rotors — that helicopters face in urban terrain.



"The reality is that we have not been designing helicopters to operate in urban environments," said M.E.

Rhett Flater, executive director of the American Helicopter Society, a professional group. "What Rafi is

doing is addressing that need to design some kind of vehicle that can operate in an urban environment, that

can get close to buildings and skyscrapers, and provide some type of relief for people stranded in

buildings."



The concept of a flying utility vehicle dates back 50 years. Other design houses currently working on

vertical lift concepts with enclosed rotors include U.S.-based Trek Aerospace Inc. and Moller International

Inc., both of which focus on a different niche, personal use vehicles.



X-Hawk — for now just a full-size mold in Urban Aeronautics' headquarters in the central Israeli town of

Yavne — looks like a futuristic space car, with its streamlined design, two fans rising from the rear and

cockpit-style driver's seat.



But Yoeli envisions X-Hawk and Mule as more of a truck, pulling up to dangerous combat or terror arenas

to ferry in personnel and supplies and ferry out people at risk.



Like a similarly sized helicopter, X-Hawk will be able to take off vertically, fly up to 155 miles an hour and

as high as 12,000 feet and remain aloft about two hours, Urban Aeronautics says.



But encased fans will replace the exposed rotors that keep helicopters from maneuvering effectively in

urban areas or dense natural terrain because they have to stay clear of walls, power lines and mountain

ridges. And a patented system of vanes is designed to afford the vehicle greater stability. Urban

Aeronautics says vehicles will be able to sidle right up to a building.



The X-Hawk also will be quieter, offering a stealth advantage over helicopters, said Janina Frankel-Yoeli,

the company's vice president for marketing.



But because the rotor diameter is smaller, the new vehicle will use about 50 percent more fuel.



Yoeli started working on the precursor to X-Hawk and Mule in 2000, but Flater said the Sept. 11, 2001,

attacks have "given vertical takeoff and landing vehicles a new priority."



"The military is learning that they have to fight wars in cities again," he said. "So we're looking at

unmanned aerial vehicles that can provide reconnaissance. Obviously the next step would be to look for

vehicles ... that can provide actual relief in urban areas."

Bell, which exhibited a full-scale mock-up of X-Hawk at the 2006 Farnborough air show, sees huge market

potential for an aircraft that could operate in confined areas and evacuate wounded soldiers, but hasn't fully

committed to the project.



Costs are still uncertain, and it's still unclear whether the X-Hawk can be designed to carry a "useful load

— fuel, folks and equipment," said Jon Tatro, Bell's director of advanced concept development.



Mule, configured to carry two wounded people, will carry an estimated $1.5 million price tag. A civilian,

10-passenger version of X-Hawk, for use in rescue missions, utility work or executive transport, is

projected at $3.5 million, while a military model carrying a dozen people and more sophisticated equipment

would cost $6 million.



Tatro and Flater say the estimates for the military model might be low.



Yoeli expects an unmanned Mule prototype to be flying in two or three years and in production within five.

He projects a manned X-Hawk will first hover in 2009 and hit the market within eight years. He hopes

ultimately to sell 250 to 300 machines annually, out of up to 2,000 helicopters sold worldwide.



The 55-year-old Yoeli says he's been fascinated by flight since childhood and got into the flying car

business after two years at Boeing Co., five at Israel Aircraft Industries Ltd. and 14 at a company he co-

founded to develop unmanned airborne vehicles and helicopter applications.



His initial fantasy was a flying sports car. But because of all the regulatory issues that would have to be

resolved before masses of commuters could start whooshing through the sky, he tucked that dream aside to

develop something that could hit the market earlier.



Company headquarters are dominated by a large, white-domed flight simulator and the proof-of-concept

vehicle that Yoeli says he built in his second-floor living room so he could spend more time with his

family.



What's compelled Yoeli on this project is the urge "to get up vertically," without needing a runway or a

rotating mechanism overhead.



"You sit in a traffic jam, and everyone gets this urge: I want to get up now, and over this," he said. "You

need a certain kind of machine. I think X-Hawk can do it."

SCARY MARKETING

9 suspicious packages planted in Boston



BOSTON - Nine blinking electronic devices planted at bridges and other spots in Boston threw a scare into

the city Wednesday in what turned out to be a marketing campaign for a late-night cable cartoon. At least

one of the devices depicts a character giving the finger.



Highways, bridges and a section of the Charles River were shut down and bomb squads were sent in before

authorities declared the devices were harmless.



"It's a hoax — and it's not funny," said Gov. Deval Patrick.



Turner Broadcasting, parent company of Cartoon Network, said the devices were part of a promotion for

the TV show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force."



"The packages in question are magnetic lights that pose no danger," Turner said in a statement. It said the

devices have been in place for two to three weeks in 10 cities: Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago,

Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Ore., Austin, Texas, San Francisco and Philadelphia.



"We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger," the company said.



Police said only that they were investigating where the device came from. The Department of Homeland

Security said there are no credible reports of other devices being found elsewhere in the country.



An angry Mayor Thomas Menino said a stiff penalty will be pursued against whoever was responsible for

the devices.



"It's about keeping a city on edge. It's about public safety," he said.



Authorities said some of the objects looked like circuit boards or had wires hanging from them.



The first device was found at a subway and bus station underneath Interstate 93, forcing the shutdown of

the station and the highway.



Later, police said four calls, all around 1 p.m., reported devices at the Boston University Bridge and the

Longfellow Bridge, both of which span the Charles River, at a Boston street corner and at the Tufts-New

England Medical Center.



The package near the Boston University bridge was found attached to a structure beneath the span,

authorities said.



Subway service across the Longfellow Bridge between Boston and Cambridge was briefly suspended, and

Storrow Drive was closed as well.



Wanda Higgins, a 47-year-old Weymouth resident and a nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, heard

about the threat as she watched television news coverage while preparing to leave work at 4 p.m.



"I saw the bomb squad guys carrying a paper bag with their bare hands," Higgins said. "I knew it couldn't

be too serious."



Messages seeking additional comment from the Atlanta-based Cartoon Network were left with several

publicists.



"Aqua Teen Hunger Force" is a cartoon with a cultish following that airs as part of the Adult Swim late-

night block of programs for adults on the Cartoon Network. A feature length film based on the show is

slated for release March 23.



The surreal series centers on a talking milkshake (Master Shake), fries (Frylock) and a meatball (Meatwad).



The cartoon also includes two trouble-making, 1980s-graphic-like characters called "mooninites," named

Ignignokt and Err — who were pictured on the suspicious devices. They are known for making the obscene

hand gesture depicted on the devices.

LIGHT BULBS UNCONVENTIONAL

California may ban conventional lightbulbs by 2012



LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California lawmaker wants to make his state the first to ban incandescent

lightbulbs as part of California's groundbreaking initiatives to reduce energy use and greenhouse gases

blamed for global warming.



The "How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb Act" would ban incandescent lightbulbs

by 2012 in favor of energy-saving compact fluorescent lightbulbs.



"Incandescent lightbulbs were first developed almost 125 years ago, and since that time they have

undergone no major modifications," California Assemblyman Lloyd Levine said on Tuesday.



"Meanwhile, they remain incredibly inefficient, converting only about 5 percent of the energy they receive

into light."



Levine is expected to introduce the legislation this week, his office said.



If passed, it would be another pioneering environmental effort in California, the most populous U.S. state.

It became the first state to mandate cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, targeting a 25 percent reduction in

emissions by 2020.



Compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) use about 25 percent of the energy of conventional lightbulbs.



Many CFLs have a spiral shape, which was introduced in 1980. By 2005, about 100 million CFLs were

sold in the United States, or about 5 percent of the 2-billion-lightbulb market, according to the U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency.



That number could more than double this year. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. alone wants to sell 100 million CFLs

at its stores by the end of 2007, the world's biggest retailer said in November.



While it will not give opinion on the possible California law, the EPA recommends CFLs.



"They save money and energy," EPA spokeswoman Enesta Jones said. "They are more convenient than

other alternatives and come in different sizes and shapes to fit almost any fixture."



Also, CFLs generate 70 percent less heat than incandescent lights, Jones said.



About a fifth of the average U.S. home's electricity costs pays for lighting, which means even if CFLs

initially cost more than conventional lightbulbs, consumers will save, Jones said.



A 20-watt CFL gives as much light as a 75-watt conventional bulb, and lasts 13 times longer, according to

the Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit group studying energy issues.



Southern California Edison, an Edison International subsidiary and one of the state's biggest utilities, runs a

program that cuts the cost of a CFL by $1 to $2.50. In the past year, SCE has helped consumers buy 6

million CFLs, it said.



California Energy Commission member Arthur Rosenfeld said an average home in California will save $40

to $50 per year if CFLs replace all incandescent bulbs.



While not commenting specifically on Levine's likely legislation, Rosenfeld, winner of the Enrico Fermi

Presidential Award in 2006, said the switch from incandescent bulbs became feasible about five years ago

when CFL performance improved.

"This is clearly an idea whose time has come," he said.



Levine, a Democrat from Van Nuys in Los Angeles, last year introduced a bill that will become law in July

that requires most grocery stores to have plastic bag recycling.

VISTA SECURITY

Windows Vista's hyped security will be tested



SEATTLE/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Computer hackers are off and running trying to find

vulnerabilities in Microsoft Corp.'s new Windows Vista operating system, putting to test the software

maker's claim that it is the most secure Windows program ever.



The new version of Windows, the computer operating system that runs over 95 percent of the world's

computers, became available to consumers on Tuesday after five years of development and a number of

delays to improve security.



A high-profile new product like Windows Vista draws interest from the entire spectrum of the computer

security industry, ranging from hackers trying to exploit a breach for criminal means to researchers looking

to make a name for themselves as security experts.



"For sure, people are hammering away on it," said Jeff Moss, the organizer of Defcon, the world's largest

hacking convention. "If you are a bad guy and you find a problem, you have a way to spread your malware

and spyware."



Most security experts see Vista as a more secure operating system than its predecessor, Windows XP, but

even Microsoft acknowledges it's not impenetrable and attackers will undoubtedly look for a way in.



Attackers can use spyware programs to monitor a computer remotely and collect personal information on a

user. They can also control machines remotely to attack Web sites, send spam e-mail or defraud online

advertisers.



Vista's comes with built-in anti-spyware software, and new account controls curb the ability of users to

unintentionally install harmful programs. The high-end versions come with a feature called BitLocker that

encrypts a computer's hard drive in the case of a lost or stolen machine.



"We know from the outset that we won't get the software code 100 percent right. No one does in the entire

software industry ... but Windows Vista has multiple layers of defense," said Stephen Toulouse, senior

product manager at Microsoft's trustworthy computing group.



Windows Vista runs over 50 million lines of software code and Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft

invested $6 billion (3 billion-pound) to develop the first new operating system since it released Windows

XP in October 2001.



Microsoft's ability to protect Windows from attackers is seen as a critical litmus test for a product that

generated more than $10 billion in sales last year, especially to large institutional customers who are extra

careful.



Another key element in Microsoft's plan to combat attacks will be automatic Windows updates sent to

Vista users to patch up vulnerabilities and changes to its anti-spyware products.



In the past, attackers honed in on vulnerabilities in the core Windows operating system, but those types of

attacks are being cast aside for attacks from e-mail, instant messaging and applications downloaded from

the Web.



"In the past with XP, they could attack the operating system itself to infect you. Today the OS is stronger

but threats can still get on your system," said Oliver Friedrichs, director of emerging technologies at

security software maker Symantec Corp.



Johannes Ullrich, a cyber security expert at the SANS Institute research group, expects hackers are working

furiously to win recognition as the first to find and publicize a security hole in Vista.



He also cautioned that hackers would still be able to launch attacks by taking advantage of vulnerabilities in

Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office, and warned that criminals would hold off on exploiting holes until

more users adopt Vista.



"Being the first to write an exploit for Vista is something a lot of people would like to do," Ullrich said in a

telephone interview. "But ultimately any exploit will be used for financial gain."

YOUNGSTER MUSIC LAW

Teen accuses record companies of collusion



WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. - A 16-year-old boy being sued by five record companies accusing him of online

music piracy accused the recording industry on Tuesday of violating antitrust laws, conspiring to defraud

the courts and making extortionate threats.



In papers responding to the record companies' lawsuit, Robert Santangelo, who was as young as 11 when

the alleged piracy occurred, denied ever disseminating music and said it's impossible to prove that he did.



Santangelo is the son of Patti Santangelo, the 42-year-old suburban mother of five who was sued by the

record companies in 2005. She refused to settle, took her case public and became a heroine to supporters of

Internet freedom.



The industry dropped its case against her in December but sued Robert and his sister Michelle, now 20, in

federal court in White Plains. Michelle has been ordered to pay $30,750 in a default judgment because she

did not respond to the lawsuit.



Robert Santangelo and his lawyer, Jordan Glass, responded at length Tuesday, raising 32 defenses,

demanding a jury trial and filing a counterclaim against the companies that accuses them of damaging the

boy's reputation, distracting him from school and costing him legal fees.



His defenses to the industry's lawsuit include that he never sent copyrighted music to others, that the

recording companies promoted file sharing before turning against it, that average computer users were

never warned that it was illegal, that the statute of limitations has passed, and that all the music claimed to

have been downloaded was actually owned by his sister on store-bought CDs.



Robert Santangelo also claims that the record companies, which have filed more than 18,000 piracy

lawsuits in federal courts, "have engaged in a wide-ranging conspiracy to defraud the courts of the United

States."



The papers allege that the companies, "ostensibly competitors in the recording industry, are a cartel acting

collusively in violation of the antitrust laws and public policy" by bringing the piracy cases jointly and

using the same agency "to make extortionate threats ... to force defendants to pay."



The Recording Industry Association of America, which has coordinated most of the lawsuits, issued a

statement saying, "The record industry has suffered enormously due to piracy. That includes thousands of

layoffs. We must protect our rights. Nothing in a filing full of recycled charges that have gone nowhere in

the past changes that fact."

IRAQ RALLY

Tens of thousands demand Iraq withdrawal



WASHINGTON - Protesters energized by fresh congressional skepticism about the

Iraq war demanded a withdrawal of U.S. troops in a demonstration Saturday that drew tens of thousands

and brought Jane Fonda back to the streets.



A sampling of celebrities, a half dozen members of Congress and busloads of demonstrators from distant

states joined in a spirited rally under a sunny sky, seeing opportunity to press their cause in a country that

has turned against the war.

Standing on her toes to reach the microphone, 12-year-old Moriah Arnold told the crowd: "Now we know

our leaders either lied to us or hid the truth. Because of our actions, the rest of the world sees us as a bully

and a liar."

The sixth-grader from Harvard, Mass., the youngest speaker on the National Mall stage, organized a

petition drive at her school against the war.



The House Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. John Conyers (news, bio, voting record), threatened to use

congressional spending power to try to stop the war. "



George Bush has a habit of firing military leaders who tell him the Iraq war is failing," he said, looking out

at the masses. "He can't fire you." Referring to Congress, the Michigan Democrat added: "He can't fire us.



"The founders of our country gave our Congress the power of the purse because they envisioned a scenario

exactly like we find ourselves in today. Now only is it in our power, it is our obligation to stop Bush."



On the stage rested a coffin covered with a U.S. flag and a pair of military boots, symbolizing American

war dead. On the Mall stood a large bin filled with tags bearing the names of Iraqis who have died.



A small contingent of active-duty service members attended the rally, wearing civilian clothes because

military rules forbid them from protesting in uniform.



Air Force Staff Sgt. Tassi McKee, 26, an intelligence specialist at Fort Meade, Md., said she joined the Air

Force because of patriotism, travel and money for college. "After we went to Iraq, I began to see through

the lies," she said.



In the crowd, signs recalled the November elections that defeated the Republican congressional majority in

part because of Bush's Iraq policy. "I voted for peace," one said.



"We see many things that we feel helpless about," said Barbara Struna, 59, who came from Brewster,

Mass., to march. "But this is like a united force. This is something I can do."



Struna, a mother of five who runs an art gallery, made a two-day bus trip with her 17-year-old daughter,

Anna, to the nation's capital to represent what she said was middle America's opposition to President Bush's

war policy.



Her daughter, a high school senior, said she has as many as 20 friends who have been to Iraq. "My

generation is the one that is going to have to pay for this," she said.



Showcased speakers in addition to Fonda included actors Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins and Danny Glover.



Fonda was a lightning rod in the Vietnam era for her outspoken opposition to that war, earning the derisive

nickname "Hanoi Jane" from conservatives for traveling to North Vietnam during the height of that conflict

35 years ago. She had avoided anti-Iraq war appearances until now.

About 40 people staged a counter-protest, including military family members and Army Cpl. Joshua

Sparling, 25, who lost his leg to a bomb in Iraq in November 2005.



He said the anti-war protesters, especially those who are veterans or who are on active duty, "need to

remember the sacrifice we have made and what our fallen comrades would say if they are alive."



As protesters streamed to the mall, Bush reaffirmed his commitment to the troop increase in a phone

conversation Saturday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a day when one or two rockets struck the

heavily fortified Green Zone, home of the Iraqi government, thousands of Americans and the U.S. and

British embassies.



Bush was in Washington for the weekend. He is often is out of town during big protest days. On Monday,

for instance, he called anti-abortion marchers on the telephone from Camp David.



United for Peace and Justice, a coalition group sponsoring the protest, said there has been intense interest in

the rally since Bush announced he was sending 21,500 additional troops to supplement the 130,000 in Iraq.



The rally was held as congressional opposition to the war is building. The Senate is considering nonbinding

resolutions that would state opposition to Bush sending the extra forces to Iraq.



Frank Houde, 72, of Albany, N.Y., was a career Air Force pilot who served in Vietnam. Houde did not

carry a sign, but said that his protest was on his hat, which said "Veterans for peace."



"The fact is war doesn't work," he said. "Iraq is not going to work. The war was started for reasons that

turned out to be false."

WHITE HOUSE MANIPULATION

Ex-Cheney aide shares media manipulation



WASHINGTON - A smorgasbord of Washington insider details has emerged during the perjury trial of the

vice president's former chief of staff.



For example, when Dick Cheney really needed friends in the news media, his staff was short of phone

numbers.



No one served up spicier morsels than Cheney's former top press assistant. Cathie Martin described the

craft of media manipulation — under oath and in blunter terms than politicians like to hear in public.



The uses of leaks and exclusives. When to let one's name be used and when to hide in anonymity. Which

news medium was seen as more susceptible to control and what timing was most propitious. All candidly

described. Even the rating of certain journalists as friends to favor and critics to shun — a faint echo of the

enemies list drawn up in Richard Nixon's White House more than 30 years ago.



The trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby owes its very existence to a news leak, the public disclosure four

summers ago of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity.



A private brainstorm of Plame's in 2002 brought a rain of public attacks on Cheney the following year.

Cheney was accused of suppressing intelligence and allowing President Bush to present false information

about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.



Plame's husband, ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson, started the attack. Her unit at the CIA had sent him to

Niger in 2002 to check a report Iraq was buying uranium for nuclear weapons. Cheney and the departments

of State and Defense wanted to verify that.



Wilson thought he had debunked the report, but Bush mentioned it anyway in his State of the Union

address in 2003. The story helped justify war with Iraq.



Wilson claimed Cheney's questions prompted his trip and Cheney should have received his report long

before Bush spoke.



Wilson's charges first surfaced, attributed to an unnamed ex-ambassador, in Nicholas Kristof's New York

Times column. But Martin testified she felt no urgency to set him straight because Kristof "attacked us, our

administration fairly regularly."



But by July 6, 2003, Wilson wrote his own account in the Times and appeared on "Meet the Press" on

NBC.



After that much exposure, Cheney, Libby and Martin spent the next week trying get out word that Cheney

did not know Wilson, did not ask for the mission to Niger, never got Wilson's report and only learned about

the trip from news stories in 2003.



Cheney personally dictated these points to Martin. She e-mailed them to the White House press secretary

for relay to reporters.



When the story did not die, Martin found herself in a bind because Cheney's office was known for

disclosing so little.



"Often the press stopped calling our office," Martin testified. "At this point, they weren't calling me asking

me for comment."

So she had to call National Security Council and CIA press officers to learn which reporters were still

working on stories.



Once Martin got names, Cheney ordered his right-hand man, Libby, rather than lowly press officers, to call

— a signal of the topic's importance.



Top levels of the Bush administration decided that CIA Director George Tenet would issue a statement

taking the blame for allowing Bush to mention the Niger story. Cheney and Libby worried Tenet would not

go far enough to distance the vice president from the affair.



Libby asked Martin to map a media strategy in case Tenet fell short.



A Harvard law school graduate, Martin had succeeded legendary Republican operative Mary Matalin as

Cheney's political and public affairs assistant. Matalin had brought Martin to Cheney's office as her deputy

and trained her.



Martin offered these options in order:

_Put Cheney on "Meet the Press."

_Leak an exclusive version to a selected reporter or the weekly news magazines.

_Have national security adviser Condoleezza Rice or Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld hold a news

conference.

_Persuade a third party or columnist to write an opinion piece that would appear in newspapers on the page

opposite the editorials.



Not only did Tenet leave unanswered questions about Cheney, his remarks came out late on a Friday, the

government's favorite moment to deliver bad news.



Why?



"Fewer people pay attention to it later on Friday," Martin testified. "And in our view, fewer people are

paying attention on Saturday, when it's reported."



As Martin rated their options, putting Cheney on "Meet the Press," NBC's Sunday morning talk show, "is

our best format." Cheney was their best person for the show and "we control the message a little bit more,"

according to Martin.



The downside was that Cheney could "get pulled into the weeds and specifics. We like to keep him at a

pretty high level," she said. Also, it "looks defensive to rush him out on `Meet the Press.'"



Next they could give an exclusive or leak to one reporter and she considered David Sanger of The New

York Times, Walter Pincus of The Washington Post, or Time or Newsweek.



Because reporters are competitive, "if you give it to one reporter, they're more likely to write the story,"

Martin testified.



Plus an official can demand anonymity in return for the favor. "You can give it to them as a senior

administration official," she said. "You don't have to say this is coming directly from the White House."



The news weeklies offered a focus on the big picture and opinion-editorial writers and columnists could

voice opinions.



Ultimately, Cheney crafted an on-the-record statement to be attributed to Libby by name along with some

anonymous background information. Libby personally called Matt Cooper of Time, who had e-mailed

questions to Martin earlier.



But when Libby suggested calling Newsweek in fairness, Cheney's aides were at a loss.

"We were scrambling for a number for a reporter that we know there named Evan Thomas," Martin

testified. "We were looking around for a number. I didn't have it with me." Eventually, they found a

number and left a message.



But Cooper did not use the full quote and Martin called to complain. "I put Scooter on the phone with him,

which we didn't do very often on the record with a quote," she testified, "and he took just a piece of it." The

result "wasn't helpful" and the story did not fade away.



So the following week, two senior Bush aides — communications director Dan Bartlett and Rice's deputy,

Steve Hadley — briefed White House reporters. Cheney invited a group of conservative columnists to

lunch at his residence.

IRAN WARNING

Bush warns Iran against action in Iraq



WASHINGTON - President Bush said Monday the United States "will respond firmly" if Iran escalates

military action in Iraq and endangers American forces. But Bush emphasized he has no intention of

invading Iran.



Bush also acknowledged skepticism concerning U.S. intelligence about Iran, because Washington was

wrong in accusing Iraq of harboring weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. "I'm

like a lot of Americans that say, 'Well, if it wasn't right in Iraq, how do you know it's right in Iran,'" the

president said.



The president, in an interview with NPR, said the United States was "constantly evaluating and answering

this legitimate question by always working to get as good intelligence as we can."



Sharply at odds over Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program, Washington and Tehran increasingly are

arguing about Iraq, where both countries are seeking influence. The White House said last week that

American troops in Iraq have been authorized to kill or capture Iranian agents deemed to be a threat. Iran's

ambassador followed up by telling The New York Times that Tehran plans to greatly expand its economic

and military ties with Iraq and open an Iranian national bank branch in Baghdad.



The United States accuses Iran of supplying terrorists and insurgents in Iraq with improvised explosive

devices that have become the most lethal threat to U.S. forces. The Bush administration says it decided to

take a tougher line with Tehran after months of evidence showing Iran was assisting anti-U.S. forces.



"If Iran escalates its military action in Iraq to the detriment of our troops and/or innocent Iraqi people, we

will respond firmly," the president said. "It makes common sense for the commander in chief to say to our

troops and the Iraqi people and the Iraqi government that we will help you defend yourself from people that

want to sow discord and harm. And so we will do what it takes to protect our troops."



Bush said it was important to distinguish the nuclear standoff with Iran from the quarrel over Tehran's

involvement in Iraq. He said he believed the dispute over Iran's nuclear program could be resolved

diplomatically.



Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., has said Bush does not have

authority to launch military action in Iran without first seeking congressional authorization.



Bush told NPR he had no intention of going into Iran. "This is the kind of thing that happens in

Washington," the president said. "People ascribe, you know, motives to me beyond a simple statement —

'Of course we'll protect our troops.' I don't know how anybody can then say, 'Well, protecting the troops

means that we're going to invade Iran.'"

FORMER PRESS SEC

Fleischer recalls discussion about Plame



WASHINGTON - Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer testified Monday he first heard that a

prominent war critic's wife worked at the CIA from vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. He said

he thought the information might help deflect critical questions from reporters.



Fleischer said Libby told him about Valerie Plame's job at the CIA over a lunch in the White House mess

on July 7, 2003. But Libby has told investigators he thought he first learned about Plame on July 10 from

NBC reporter Tim Russert.



Four other government witnesses also have said they discussed Plame with Libby before July 10, and the

discrepancy between those accounts and what Libby told the FBI and a grand jury are a major component

of the perjury and obstruction of justice charges against Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff.



Libby now says his memory failed him when he spoke to Russert. Russert said Monday that he did not tell

Libby about Plame. "I was not and never have been the recipient of the leak," Russert told an audience in

Oklahoma City.



The appearance of Fleischer, President Bush's chief spokesman from 2001 through mid-2003, slightly

swelled the crowd of trial onlookers, including veteran reporters eager to see a White House press secretary

questioned under oath.



Acknowledging that he fielded lots hostile questions at the White House, Fleischer proved to be a calm and

unflappable witness, even under cross-examination by defense attorney William Jeffress. He often turned to

speak directly to the jurors, sometimes using hand gestures.



Fleischer testified under an immunity agreement with prosecutors. He said he sought the deal after reading

about the investigation and worrying, "Oh my God. Did I somehow play a role in outing a CIA operative?"

He insisted he believed throughout that the information was not classified.



Fleischer said his lunch with Libby was their first ever and had been scheduled by Libby in anticipation of

Fleischer's imminent departure to start his own company.



After talk of career plans and the Miami Dolphins, the subject shifted to the controversy raging over

criticism by Plame's husband, ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson, of President Bush's State of Union address in

January 2003.



Bush had said Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa for nuclear weapons, and that had become part of

the justification for war with Iraq. Since then, Wilson had said in print and on television that he was sent to

Niger to investigate the report and had debunked it in 2002. Wilson claimed questions by Cheney

motivated his trip and that Cheney should have received his report months before Bush repeated the story

in his speech.



Previous testimony showed Cheney's office was working to get word out that Cheney didn't send Wilson to

Niger and had never heard of Wilson, his trip or his conclusions until press reports in spring 2003.



Libby said Wilson was sent to Niger by his wife and she worked at the CIA in the counter-proliferation

division, Fleischer testified. "I believe he mentioned her name and said something like, `This is hush-hush,

this on the Q-T, not very many people know this.'"



"My sense is that Mr. Libby was telling me this was kinda newsy," Fleischer added. He did not think the

information was classified, however, because whenever he was told or given classified information "people

would always say, `This is classified. You cannot use it.'"

Fleischer said he again heard about Plame four days later from White House communications director Dan

Bartlett aboard Air Force One during Bush's trip to Africa. Bartlett was reading a document and began

"venting" to no one in particular his displeasure that reporters kept writing that Cheney had sent Wilson to

Niger.



"His wife sent him," Fleischer recalled Bartlett saying. "She works at the CIA."



Fleischer said he relayed that information later in the day to John Dickerson of Time magazine and David

Gregory of NBC in Uganda.



The information "didn't seem to me to be very newsy," Fleischer testified, but "now I had one more little

nugget to back up" the administration version.



As press secretary, reporters "challenge everything you say. They always want you to back it up," Fleischer

testified. He said he thought, "Maybe this will help this go away because it backs up the White House

statement."



Jeffress tried to suggest that Fleischer might have heard the Plame story first from Bartlett and was trying

to protect him.

Wasn't Bartlett Fleischer's boss?



"Nominally," Fleischer said, asserting he worked for Bush.



Jeffress got Fleischer to acknowledge he saw reporters between July 7-10, but he said he didn't tell any of

them about Plame until after hearing from Bartlett.



But Fleischer would not back off his contention that he heard about her job from Libby first. He conceded

only that he wasn't absolutely sure Libby used her name.

BRANDY

Police want Brandy charged in fatality



LOS ANGELES - The California Highway Patrol recommended Monday that actress-singer Brandy be

charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter in a freeway crash that killed a woman motorist last

month, a city attorney's spokesman told The Associated Press.



The CHP referred the matter to the city attorney's office for review, said spokesman Nick Velasquez.



"The office is currently reviewing the case and determining whether the evidence warrants the filing of a

misdemeanor charge of vehicular manslaughter," Velasquez said.



A message seeking comment from Brandy's publicist, Courtney Barnes, was not immediately returned.

Earlier this month, Barnes issued a statement saying Brandy "wishes to publicly express her condolences to

the family of the deceased."



Barnes also has said Brandy wasn't under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the crash.



The charge carries a maximum sentence of one year in county jail and a $1,000 fine, Velasquez said.



Prosecutors couldn't say when they would make a decision about whether to bring a case. If charged,

Brandy wouldn't necessarily have to appear in court and could have her lawyer enter a plea, Velasquez said.



Brandy, 27, was driving a Land Rover on Interstate 405 on Dec. 30 when traffic slowed and her vehicle

struck the back of Honda driven by Awatef Aboudihaj, 38, according to a CHP report.



Aboudihaj's car hit another vehicle, slid sideways into the center divider and was then hit by another car,

the report said. Aboudihaj, a Los Angeles waitress, died at a hospital from blunt-force injuries, according to

the coroner's office.



The CHP alleges in a report that Brandy caused the accident by breaking a law against driving at a speed

"greater than is reasonable or prudent" or that "endangers the safety of persons or property," according to a

part of the report obtained by the AP.



Bill Sayed, an attorney for Aboudihaj's husband, said he supported the CHP's recommendation.



Brandy, who earned a Grammy in 1999, has made five albums. She began her recording career at 14 and

acted for film and television, starring on the sitcom "Moesha" from 1996-2001 and most recently as a judge

for NBC's "America's Got Talent."

HUNGRY SNAKE

Huge python makes a meal of 11 guard dogs



"I was shocked to see such a huge python," orchard-keeper Ali Yusof told the New Straits Times in an

article published beneath a picture of the captured snake, which was almost long enough to span the width

of a tennis court and as thick as a tree trunk.

Villagers did not harm the snake, which was tied to a tree then handed to wildlife officials, the paper said

on Friday.

BB KING

Bluesman B.B. King hospitalized in Texas



HOUSTON - B.B. King was hospitalized for a low-grade fever following the flu but was in good condition

Friday, his management agency said.



The 81-year-old bluesman was expected to be discharged Saturday, a hospital spokesman said. King's

agency said he plans to perform Tuesday in Fort Worth.



"He's doing great," said Tina France, vice president of Lieberman Management of New York. "He's in good

spirits and cracking jokes."



King had been scheduled to perform Thursday at the Grand Opera House, but was admitted to The

University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, said Paul McCarthy, a hospital administrator.



King, who has a history of diabetes, was taking antibiotics for a 100-degree fever, France said. The ailment

in a younger person wouldn't have required hospitalization, but King is being monitored because of his age,

she said.



His concerts in Galveston, Orange and Tyler, Texas, previously scheduled for this week and early next

week, will be rescheduled for June, France said.



John Koloen, a hospital spokesman, said the hospital in Galveston, about 50 miles southeast of Houston,

was keeping King in the elderly acute care unit until Saturday "just to make sure."



With his trademark guitar that he named "Lucille," King racked up hits including "The Thrill Is Gone,"

"Every Day I Have the Blues" and "You Upset Me Baby."



Born on a plantation in Itta Bena, Miss., King started out on street corners playing for pocket change,

according to his Web site. He went on to become one of the nation's most influential blues musicians.



In December, President Bush awarded King the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his musical

contributions.

YOUTUBE MONEY

YouTube to share revenue with users



DAVOS, Switzerland - Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube, said Saturday that his wildly successful site

will start sharing revenue with its millions of users.



Hurley said one of the major proposed innovations is a way to allow users to be paid for content. YouTube,

which was sold to Google for $1.65 billion in November, has become an Internet phenomenon since it

began to catch on in late 2005. Some 70 million videos are viewed on the site each day.



"We are getting an audience large enough where we have an opportunity to support creativity, to foster

creativity through sharing revenue with our users," Hurley said. "So in the coming months we are going to

be opening that up."



Hurley, who at 30 is one of the youngest Internet multimillionaires, gave no details of how much users

might receive, or what mechanism would be used.



In October 2005, Revver — which like YouTube offers video clips online — announced plans to attach

advertising to user-submitted videos and give their creators a cut of the profits. Revver has said it would

split the ad revenue evenly with content creators.



Hurley said that when YouTube started, he and the site's other co-founders — Steve Chen and Jawed

Karim — felt revenue-sharing would build a community of users motivated by making money, rather than

their love of videos.



But that as the site has grown, the three, who continue to run the company, have come to see financial

remuneration as a way of improving content.



Hurley spoke on the last full day of the World Economic Forum, which brings together the world's

political, social and business leaders for a five-day gathering on the problems facing the world.

CELL PHONES TRAVEL

Cell phones vital in developing world



HANOI, Vietnam - Nguyen Huu Truc's trusty cell phone has revolutionized his small embroidery business

— and his life.



When he bought his first mobile phone in 1995, Vietnam had just one fixed-line phone for every 100

people, and cell phones were a pricey novelty. Communication was difficult, forcing Truc to make time-

consuming trips to suppliers and buyers.



But these days, Vietnam has 33 telephones per 100 people — and two-thirds of the phones are mobile.

Now Truc can make calls on his cell phone from virtually anywhere in the country for about 10 cents a

minute, saving him time and money and providing quicker access to information.



"I cannot imagine what it would be like if I didn't have my mobile phone for a day," he says. "It's no longer

just something that only the rich can afford. Now, it's a basic means of communication."



Truc's experience provides a glimpse into how wireless communication is helping fuel Vietnam's rapid

growth — and transforming dozens of other developing nations from the ground up.



Today, mobile phones are the primary form of telecommunication in most emerging economies, fulfilling

much the same role as fixed-line phone networks did in facilitating growth in the United States and Europe

after World War II.



Some developing nations have even jumped out in front as mobile pioneers. In the Philippines, more than 4

million people use their cell phones as virtual wallets to buy things or transfer cash — services still rare in

many wealthy countries, with few exceptions like Japan.



As service charges and handset prices have plunged and coverage areas have expanded, cell phone

subscriptions in the developing world have surged fivefold since 2000, to 1.4 billion at the end of 2005,

according to the U.N. International Telecommunication Union. That's nearly double the 800 million in

advanced economies.



Research shows that greater cell phone use can drive economic growth in emerging economies. Based on

market research in China, India and the Philippines, consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found that raising

wireless penetration by 10 percentage points can lead to an increase in gross domestic product of about 0.5

percent, or around $12 billion for an economy the size of China.



"There's enormous entrepreneurship and creativity worldwide, and through mobile phones you're providing

people with the tools — rather than aid — to earn a living," says Leonard Waverman, a London Business

School professor. In a separate study of 92 countries, Waverman had findings similar to McKinsey's report.



"It's not a magic bullet, but it's a vital tool," says Waverman, whose research was partly funded by British

mobile carrier Vodafone Group PLC.



By bouncing signals off base stations, relay towers and satellites instead of over copper wires strung to

villages and homes, cell phones can hurdle mountains. Mobile phones are not hampered by illiteracy —

which is a barrier to computer use — giving millions new opportunities to exchange information, make

money and conduct business.



In India, fishermen call ahead to ports to see where they will get the best deal on their catch. Kenyan

farmers check crop prices on a service offered by local provider Safaricom.



In South Africa, cell phones serve as a virtual office for carpenters, painters and other laborers who post

their numbers on handwritten signs advertising their skills.



The Philippines has become a global leader in mobile commerce. Since 2000, Smart Communications Inc.,

the country's largest carrier, has allowed subscribers in its Smart Money program to hold limited amounts

of cash in electronic wallets linked to their mobile accounts.



Using their cell phones, members can withdraw cash from their bank accounts, pay for goods and services

and transfer money and airtime credit. The phone records all transactions. Overseas Filipinos are even

using this service to send money home. While the system is designed with work with financial institutions,

subscribers don't need a bank account.



"If your son or daughter is away at school and needs money, this is an easy way to send it to them," says

Ramon Isberto, a Smart spokesman.



This kind of application holds promise for the millions in developing countries who have no bank accounts

and for whom transferring money can be difficult or risky.



Wizzit, a South African-based company targeting customers without bank accounts, has been offering cell

phone-based financial services since 2005.



Vodafone, which is investing heavily in Africa, is partnering with Kenyan affiliate Safaricom and the

Commercial Bank of Africa to soon launch M-Pesa, a mobile financial service that allows users to send and

receive cash and perform other transactions.



"Financial institutions are realizing that the only way to reach new customers is through mobile networks,"

says Nick Hughes, head of the mobile payment team at Vodafone.



Expanding mobile networks also brings other economic benefits, experts say. It lures more foreign

investment, gives families better access to health and educational information and provides governments

with more revenue from licenses and taxes.



Wireless technology has emerged at a fortuitous time for carriers expanding in developing countries

because it is so much cheaper and easier to build than fixed-line networks.



Rugged, sprawling Afghanistan, for example, now has 2 million cell phone subscribers and only 20,000

fixed-line phones.



"They can leapfrog the technology," says David Knapp, general director of Motorola Vietnam.



In Vietnam, where the economy is growing 8 percent a year, the communist government has spent heavily

to expand coverage to all 64 provinces.



"The more people who have cell phones, the more the economy will grow, and vice versa," says Bui Quoc

Viet, a spokesman for the state-run Vietnam Post & Telecommunications Corp., the country's largest

telecom company.



The government has also promoted competition: Vietnam now has six mobile carriers, two with foreign

partners. The development has driven down service charges, a key factor in the tripling of cell phone

subscribers over the past two years to 18 million.



Mobile phones provide a good way for the younger generation to seek new business opportunities and cash

in on Vietnam's move toward a market economy, says Paul Ruppert, managing director of consultancy

Global Point View LLC, who has extensive experience in Asia.



"It's all micro-activity — tailors, small repair shops, textile producers, grocery stores," Ruppert says. "Even

though they're small, they're allowed to get an idea of the market via the cell phone."

Text messaging, or SMS, is another application that's particularly popular in Asian nations like Thailand,

Vietnam and the Philippines. It's considered a cheap, unobtrusive way to stay in touch with friends, connect

to the Internet and conduct business.



"It's a good way to save costs, but more importantly I can use SMS services as evidence for my business

transactions," says Truc, the embroidery business owner.



Carriers have adapted to the needs of poorer customers by selling prepaid airtime cards, often for as little as

35 cents per card. This eliminates the need for a contract, credit history check or even an address. Once you

register for a phone number and buy an airtime card, you're in business.



Handset makers, meanwhile, are offering ultra-cheap phones. Motorola Inc., under the GSM Association's

emerging market handset program, has produced cell phones with a wholesale price of less than $30. Retail

prices vary depending on taxes and local market conditions.



But even those phones are still too expensive for many who live on one or two dollars a day.



That's given rise to communal phone use and a cottage industry made up of people who resell phone

service for a living.



Both are typified in Bangladesh's "Palli Phone," or village phone, program. A quarter million "phone

ladies" buy mobile phones on credit from Grameen Bank, winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize along with

its founder Muhammad Yunus, providing wireless communication for the community and themselves with

a livelihood.



Hasina Banu, who lives in a remote village in northern Bangladesh, bought a phone from Grameen for

about $110 and each week pays back about $2.50. She now earns about $25 a month from the phone and

plans to use that money to open a small grocery store.



But even in rural Bangladesh she says competition is heating up among other "Palli Phone" sellers.



"Now I get less customers," Banu says. "But I am happy that now I have some money with (which) I can

expand my business."

MYSPACE DRUG BUST

Police track suspected dealer on MySpace



SUFFOLK, Va. - A man is facing felony drug distribution charges after an investigation that police said

started after his brother used his MySpace Web page to boast of their homegrown marijuana crop and the

frequency with which both men use marijuana, police said.



Michael Wayne Pilkerton, 20, of Suffolk was charged after police used an informant to make three

marijuana purchases from him in recent months, police said. They said the investigation was launched in

March after they learned about the MySpace page.



The page's creator, Jonathan Pilkerton, was not mentioned any further in a search warrant filed in Suffolk

Circuit Court detailing the investigation last week.

HILLARY’S JUSTIFICATION

Clinton defends war vote, touts security



DES MOINES, Iowa - Pressed to defend her Iraq war vote, Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday there are

no "do-overs in life" and Democrats need a presidential nominee who inspires confidence on national

security.



In her first campaign swing through this early nominating state, the New York senator told party activists

that Democrats in 2008 will face "someone on the other side who will be very tough and strong, even

bellicose perhaps."



That likely was a reference to Arizona Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), who has taken a hard

line in supporting more U.S. troops to Iraq, as President Bush has announced.



The former first lady also said has learned the lessons of the last two presidential campaigns, both lost by

Democrats who responded slowly to criticism.



"When you are attacked, you have to deck your opponent," Clinton said. "I have been through the political

wars longer than some of you have been alive. We've got to be prepared to hold our ground and fight back."



Clinton, who announced her candidacy last weekend, said Democrats cannot concede the security issue.



"We have to nominate someone who can have the trust and confidence of the American people to make the

tough decisions as commander in chief," the former first lady said. "That is the threshold issue."



Her initial foray in Iowa was far different from the traditional caucus campaigning, with a few people in a

living room. More than 1,500 people jammed a high school gymnasium for a town hall-style meeting.

Some 150 reporters and photographers chronicled the event.



Earlier, she met with state Democrats at the party's headquarters.



Attention focused on Iraq and her vote to authorize the use of force ahead of the U.S.-led invasion in March

2003. Presidential rivals such as former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards now say the vote in support was

a mistake.



"There are no do-overs in life," Clinton said. She says Congress received bad information going into the

vote and that she would have voted differently given what she knows now.



"As a senator from New York, I lived through 9/11 and I am still dealing with the aftereffects," Clinton

said. "I may have a slightly different take on this from some of the other people who will be coming

through here."



Clinton said her view was that the nation was engaged in a deadly fight against terrorism, a battle that she

contends President Bush has botched.



"I do think we are engaged in a war against heartless, ruthless enemies," she said. "If they could come after

us again tomorrow they would do so."



Clinton has urged a cap to the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, but has refused to go along with suggestions

that Congress use its power of the purse to bring the war to a halt.



"This will be a problem that will be left to the next president," the senator said. "We've got to figure out

now, given where we are, how we go forward."

Seeking a "phased redeployment" of troops from Iraq, she said, "We've got to bring the Iraq war to the right

end." The Democratic-controlled Congress, she said, must start to "build the political will" to stop the

president.



Clinton joked about the emotions she stirs in both those who like her and those who do not. "I know what

I'm getting into. I do inspire strong feelings," she said.



She later planned to visit eastern Iowa for house parties in Cedar Rapids and Davenport.

IRAQ RESOLUTION

Bush: 'I'm the decision-maker' on Iraq



WASHINGTON - President Bush, on a collision course with Congress over Iraq, said Friday "I'm the

decision-maker" about sending more troops to the war. He challenged skeptical lawmakers not to

prematurely condemn his buildup.



"I've picked the plan that I think is most likely to succeed," Bush said in an Oval Office meeting with senior

military advisers.



The president had strong words for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who are lining up to support

resolutions opposing his decision to send 21,500 troops to Iraq. He challenged them to put up their own

ideas.



"I know there is skepticism and pessimism and that some are condemning a plan before it's even had a

chance to work," the president said. "They have an obligation and a serious responsibility therefore to put

up their own plan as to what would work."



Despite doubts in Congress and among the public about his strategy, Bush said lawmakers agree that failure

in Iraq would be a disaster and that he chose a strategy that he and his advisers thought would help turn the

tide in Iraq.



The president met with Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, newly confirmed by the Senate to command U.S.

troops in Iraq.



"My instruction to him was `Get over to the zone as quickly as possible, and implement a plan that will

achieve our goals,'" Bush said.



"You're going into an important battle in the war on terror," he told Petraeus.

Bush talked about Patraeus later in the day at a retreat with House Republicans at Cambridge on Maryland's

Eastern Shore.



"As the president I must make sure he has everything he needs, that he thinks he needs, to succeed in the

mission that we have sent him on," the president said. "I look forward to working with you to make sure

that our generals and our troops that we put into harm's way have the support of the United States

Congress."



Earlier in the Oval Office, Bush was asked about stepped-up activities in Iraq against Iranian activities

thought to be fueling the violence.



Bush defended the policy, but said it is no indication that the United States intends to expand the

confrontation beyond Iraq's borders.



"That's a presumption that's simply not accurate," Bush said.



But added: "Our policy is going to be to protect our troops. It makes sense."



Bush also said he was confident that the dispute over Iran's nuclear program could be resolved

diplomatically.



On the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the U.N. nuclear

watchdog agency, said Friday that Iran expects to start installing thousands of centrifuges in an

underground facility next month. He said the installation would pave the way to large-scale uranium

enrichment, a potential means of making nuclear weapons.

"I understand that they are going to announce that they are going to build up their 3,000-centrifuge facility

... sometime next month," ElBaradei said.



Meanwhile, Bush also called Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to thank her for her support in

the global war on terror. The president commended Arroyo for actions against the al-Qaida-linked group,

Abu Sayyaf. Philippine officials say DNA test results have confirmed that the leader of the group was

killed in a clash with Philippine troops in September, officials said Saturday.

WORLD’S OLDEST WOMAN

At 114, U.S. woman becomes world's oldest person



BOSTON (Reuters) - A Connecticut woman born to former slaves in the decades following the U.S. Civil

War has become the world's oldest person, at 114, according to Guinness World Records.



Emma Faust Tillman, born near Greensboro, North Carolina, on November 22, 1892, became the world's

oldest person on Wednesday, following the death of Emiliano Mercado del Toro, of Puerto Rico, Guinness

said on its Web site.



Longevity is common in Tillman's family. Though none of her 23 siblings have matched her 114 years,

three sisters and a brother lived past 100, her great-nephew John Stewart Jr., said on Thursday.



"At 114, she's lived a good, honorable, straight life," said Stewart, who is 76. "Her comment is always, 'If

you want to know about longevity and why I lived so long, ask the man upstairs."'



Tillman, who lives in the Hartford, Connecticut, nursing home she moved to at the age of 110, was not

available for an interview.



"Sometimes, she doesn't feel like talking," Stewart said. "But when you're 114, you can call your own

shots."



Tillman never smoked, drank or wore eyeglasses, Stewart said.



Karen Chadderton, administrator of the Riverside Health and Rehabilitation Center, where Tillman lives,

said until a few months ago Tillman spent much of her time caring for an ailing roommate more than 20

years her junior, who has since died.



"About a month ago, she started feeling less energetic," said Chadderton. "During the morning she has

energy, she's up and about, in a wheelchair, but in the afternoon, once she goes to sleep, she doesn't want to

be bothered."



According to the International Committee on Supercentenarians, there are currently 86 people aged 110 or

older alive in the world today. Eighty of them are women.



The world's next-oldest resident is Japan's Yone Minagawa, born in 1893, according to the ICS. Guinness

World Records said it is still investigating that claim.

TOWEL IN PATIENT

Suit settled over towel found in patient



CANTON, Ohio - The Cleveland Clinic settled a lawsuit filed by the family of a woman who died seven

years after a surgeon left a rolled-up towel inside her chest.



The confidential agreement with Bonnie Valle's family came Thursday, almost two weeks into a jury trial

in Cleveland.



Also Thursday, Judge Nancy Margaret Russo dismissed claims against Valle's Canton-based doctor, Jeffrey

Miller.



Valle had surgery for emphysema at the Cleveland Clinic in 1995 and died at age 60 in 2002. She donated

her body to the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine in Rootstown, where a dissection

revealed a green surgical cloth the size of a large hand towel in her left lung.



Her family sued in 2004, claiming that because Valle's doctors never found the towel, she suffered serious

complications, incurred medical expenses and died.



"She always said, `On the left side it feels like there's something there. It felt like something moved,'"

Valle's daughter, Jeanne Clark, said in 2004.



Clinic attorneys disagreed that the towel affected Valle's health.



In a letter to the medical school, Miller wrote that he did not think the towel affected the length or quality

of Valle's life.



"She lived seven years ... which is certainly as well as one would have expected her to survive given her

severe emphysema and poor pulmonary function and overall condition," Miller wrote.

MICHAEL IN THE U.S.

Michael Jackson returns to the U.S.



TOKYO - Michael Jackson is back in the United States after living in Bahrain, France and Ireland. He

emerged with his spokeswoman Friday to confirm to The Associated Press that he is back after more than a

year in self-imposed exile following his acquittal in a high-profile child molestation trial that ended in June

2005.



They also said he is on the comeback trail _ planning a pair of "fan appreciation events" in Japan in March,

one of which will charge $3,300 for the opportunity to meet the Gloved One.



"I can confirm that he is in the United States," spokeswoman Raymone K. Bain said. "We don't give out

information regarding our client's whereabouts because of safety, and this is just an ongoing policy."



During the brief conference call, Jackson read a statement prepared for The Associated Press about his

plans to visit Japan and allowed only one question: How are you?



"I'm fine, thank you," was his reply.



Jackson, one of the best-selling artists of all time, said he has chosen to come back to Japan because of the

strong support he enjoys there.



"My friends and fans in Japan have been so supportive of me and my family for many, many years," he

said. "My fans in Japan helped me achieve historic milestones in the music industry."



Broderick Morris, the promoter working the Japan side of Jackson's trip, said they have sold 220 of 300

tickets to a "platinum VIP party" on March 8. Guests will have dinner, get autographed photos and be able

to "meet and greet" Jackson for 30 seconds to one minute, he said.



A less-exclusive party is scheduled for the following day. Jackson is not obligated to perform at either

event, and promoters refused to comment on how much Jackson, 48, would be paid.



Jackson made his first official foray back into the spotlight after his acquittal with an appearance _ again, in

Tokyo _ to accept MTV Japan's "Legend Award." Last November, he allowed the syndicated TV show

"Access Hollywood" to film him in the studio, working on music with producer will.i.am from the Black

Eyed Peas.

OBAMA AND CELEBRITIES

Obama excites entertainment community



Star quality: It's what Hollywood was built on. And there's no question that to the many powerful

Democrats in the entertainment community, Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) has loads of it.



George Clooney calls him a friend. Halle Berry has said she'd "collect paper cups off the ground to make

his pathway clear." Oprah Winfrey says he's her man.



And three of the most powerful men in Hollywood _ Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David

Geffen _ have just invited Democrats to a truly high-profile fundraiser: a Feb. 20 reception for Obama at

the Beverly Hilton Hotel, with a dinner later at Geffen's home for top donors.



But despite all that, political analysts note that being the "next big thing" can be fleeting. And a number of

traditional donors and activists in Hollywood and the music industry are a long way from choosing, at this

early stage, whom to endorse among the three seen as top-tier Democratic candidates: Obama, Sen. Hillary

Rodham Clinton and John Edwards.



"People are very excited that this is a fine Democratic field," says Marge Tabankin, a longtime political

activist in Hollywood. "Many people will support several candidates, to keep a healthy debate going. The

top candidates are all coming out in the next month, and people will be carefully checking them out,

listening to what they have to say."



The movie, television and recording industries gave $33.1 million to federal candidates and parties in 2004,

with much of that coming from Hollywood, according to the non-profit Center for Responsive Politics.

Those industries were more generous in 2000, contributing $38.6 to federal candidates and parties, the

center found. In both election cycles, Democrats got the majority of the money _ 69 percent in 2004 and 64

percent in 2000.



In the 2004 cycle, Katzenberg donated about $248,000 to federal candidates and parties, Geffen gave about

$73,500 and Spielberg gave some $29,200.



Tabankin and other analysts point out that it's Clinton who's the clear front-runner at this point, with the

long-term relationships, the financing, the network of support dating to the early '90s, when her husband

began his first term as president.



Others note the admiration for Edwards, and the sense that the former North Carolina senator and the 2004

vice presidential nominee has a strong and clear message this time around.



"People feel he's very well-positioned," Tabankin says. "He's got support for his commitment to fighting

poverty, for his energy and his intelligence." And in liberal Hollywood, many like his position on Iraq _

he's recanted his 2002 vote authorizing force there and demanded that Senate rivals block funds for

President Bush's troop increase.



Even the Obama fundraiser hosted by the three founders of the DreamWorks movie studio doesn't mean all

three have decided to endorse Obama. Only Katzenberg is backing the Illinois senator, says Katzenberg's

political adviser, Andy Spahn.



Spielberg isn't picking favorites yet. He and other major Los Angeles donors, including producer Steve

Bing, media mogul Haim Saban, supermarket magnate Ron Burkle and investment banker Sim Farar, will

be co-hosting a fundraiser for Clinton in the spring, said her spokesman, Phil Singer.



Clooney, one of the world's hottest movie stars, has made no secret of his enthusiasm for Obama's

candidacy, even if he's made no public endorsement.

"George is a huge supporter and fan of Barack, as well as a friend," said Clooney's publicist, Stan

Rosenfield. He stressed that Clooney is unlikely to campaign for Obama, though, because the actor feels

support from liberal Hollywood can be a detriment to the candidate. "You lose the heartland."



Barbra Streisand and Norman Lear, major Democratic players in Hollywood, have not taken a position, and

they traditionally give to multiple candidates "in order to keep debate alive," says Tabankin, who is

affiliated with the Barbra Streisand Foundation.

Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons says he has yet to make a choice. But he has an idea for the perfect

Democratic candidate.



"If you could take Barack Obama's image, add Hillary Clinton's money and John Edwards' voice, that

would be my candidate," says Simmons, an independent who has supported both Democrats and

Republicans.



Simmons says Obama has yet to present a clear picture of where he stands.



"He's a rock star," Simmons said in a telephone interview. But he added, "I don't know what his opinions

are." Simmons says that so far, the message he prefers is Edwards' _ but he's also fond of Dennis Kucinich,

the liberal Ohio congressman launching his second long-shot candidacy.



Others, Tabankin says, have similar reservations. "Obama has tremendous potential _ he cuts across race

and class lines. But people don't know him yet," she says.



There's also a current of nervousness: Is the country ready to elect a black president? The same current of

nervousness exists about Clinton, of course: Is the country ready to elect a female?



A key mistake, says analyst Todd Boyd, would be to reduce everything to the gender and race factor.



"We're simplifying things if we do that," says Boyd, a professor at the University of Southern California's

School of Cinematic Arts. "What I'm finding interesting is that Obama is not the immediate favorite of a lot

of African-Americans _ he came up through the system, not the grass roots like Jesse Jackson. At the end

of the day, race and gender are a major factor but not the only factor. Hollywood will line up and see how

these things play out."



Yet Boyd and others cannot deny that Obama has one thing the others don't.



"Obama has the potential to be a star like nobody else does," he said. "He has that 'It' factor, that star

appeal. And it's Hollywood that created that system."

SIDNEY POITIER’S BOOK

Winfrey chooses Sidney Poitier memoir



CHICAGO - Oprah Winfrey turned to an old acquaintance and personal idol for her first new book club

choice since the James Frey scandal a year ago, announcing Friday that she had selected Sidney Poitier's

"The Measure of a Man."



Poitier's "spiritual autobiography," published in 2000, combines memories of such plays and films as "A

Raisin in the Sun" and "The Defiant Ones" with observations about the Academy Award-winning actor's

childhood, his religious faith, his thoughts on racism and the influence of such world leaders as Nelson

Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi.



"He writes really candidly and passionately about his childhood, his family, relationships and his

extraordinary career," Winfrey said on her show. "It's a beautifully crafted book, written like poetry.

Because, just as he speaks so eloquently, he also writes that way, too."



Poitier did not appear on the telecast. But Winfrey said she will host "a once in a lifetime dinner party" with

Poitier that will include members of her book club.

She called him "one of my personal heroes since I was a little girl."



"The Measure of a Man" spent several weeks on The New York Times' list of best sellers, and the audio

edition, narrated by Poitier, won a Grammy Award for best spoken word album. Poitier wrote a previous

memoir, "This Life," released in 1980.



Right before Winfrey announced her selection, her 56th book club pick, "The Measure of a Man" ranked

288,958 on Amazon.com, a number that will likely change, and fast. Winfrey's picks almost inevitably top

best seller lists.



Mark Tauber, vice president and deputy publisher of HarperSanFrancisco, an imprint of HarperCollins,

declined Friday to say how many books would be printed, but did say he expects to sell hundreds of

thousands of copies.



Tauber also said that unlike many celebrity memoirists, Poitier did not use a ghostwriter, although the actor

did have editorial "help."



"I'm sure there'll be speculation about Winfrey picking yet another memoir," Tauber said. "But Poitier's life

is filled with so much integrity."



During an interview that appeared in her own "O" magazine in 2000, Winfrey and Poitier discussed his life

and career, a meeting that the talk show host acknowledged left her feeling like a star-struck fan.



"Poitier and I are sitting across from each other at the Bel-Air hotel in Los Angeles _ and I'm admiring that,

at 73, this man still personifies grace, ease, strength and courage," Winfrey wrote at the time. "He is a

gentleman in every sense of the word. In my more than 25 years as an interviewer, I've talked to hundreds

of people _ yet today, I'm giddy."



In 2005, Poitier made a surprise appearance on Winfrey's TV program, when she was marking her 20th

anniversary on the air. Just before he came on stage, Winfrey had been telling her audience that after she

had interviewed the actor, "I sobbed and cried because I felt I was not good enough for Sidney." Poitier,

apparently, was also disappointed _ with himself _ and phoned Winfrey to say so.



"It was life-changing," Winfrey was recalling, moments before Poitier arrived. "I was like, 'Oh my God.'"



Poitier, who turns 80 on Feb. 20, became the first black performer to win the Oscar for best actor, cited in

1964 for "Lilies of the Field." His other films include "In the Heat of the Night," "To Sir, With Love" and

"The Blackboard Jungle." In 2002, Poitier received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement.



He should be a welcome break from the travesty of Frey, whose "A Million Little Pieces" was picked by

Winfrey in the fall of 2005, only to have The Smoking Gun Web site reveal in January 2006 that the

memoir was largely fabricated. Winfrey initially defended Frey, then changed her mind, brought him back

to the show and chewed him out.



Winfrey's next pick, Elie Wiesel's "Night," was announced on Jan. 16, 2006, soon after the Frey scandal

broke, but had already been decided upon weeks earlier. More than 1.5 million copies of Wiesel's

Holocaust memoir were sold because of Winfrey's selection, according to publisher Farrar, Straus &

Giroux.



Winfrey acknowledged on Friday's show that it had been a year since she had chosen a selection for her

book club. She said she was busy during that time researching curriculum for her school for disadvantaged

girls in South Africa, which opened earlier this month.



"So I really did not have time to devote to reading other books," she said. "But now I do."



Winfrey indicated the idea to feature "The Measure of a Man" came to her over the holidays while she was

dining with a group of people in Africa that included Poitier.



"We were all sitting around the table, and I was asking Sidney Poitier to tell some of the life stories from

his book. And let me tell you, everybody at the table was weeping," Winfrey said. "I was sitting there, I

was thinking, 'I wish everybody could hear this.' And then I realized, everybody can! Everybody can. I love

this book."

MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE?

Tax break talks slow minimum wage hike



WASHINGTON - The minimum wage increase that was supposed to zip through Congress veered onto a

collision course Wednesday as lawmakers argued over business tax breaks that would be attached to ensure

Republican support.



Democratic leaders in the House began laying groundwork to blame the Republicans for any impasse.

Senate Democrats, however, cautioned their House colleagues not to jeopardize legislation they'd promised

to approve if they gained control of Congress.



House Democrats demanded a clean bill from the Senate — no tax attachment — setting up a confrontation

that could delay final congressional passage of the $2.10 an hour increase.



The Senate did vote 54-43 to advance a House-passed measure that would lift the pay floor without any

accompanying tax cut. However, that was well short of the 60 votes needed to keep that version moving.



The vote was a signal to the House that without the tax breaks a minimum wage bill appeared doomed in

the Senate. And the Senate promptly moved to a broader bill, backed by its Democratic leaders, that would

raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour over 26 months and provide $8.3 billion in tax benefits to

businesses over 10 years.



In the House, Democrats threatened to stifle that effort by enforcing constitutional precedents that require

all tax bills to originate in the House. They blamed Republicans for the brewing impasse.



"Democrats are committed to helping small businesses, but we should not delay a minimum wage increase

another day in order to negotiate a tax package," said Brendan Daly, a spokesman for House Speaker

Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record).



Senate Democrats seemed more willing to accept the tax portion if it meant fulfilling their campaign

promise.



"Both bodies want to keep their eye on the ball," said Sen. Max Baucus (news, bio, voting record), D-

Mont., a co-sponsor of the Senate tax break provisions.



House Democrats could try to alter or even remove the tax package from the Senate version when the two

houses try to reconcile their differing versions in a conference committee.



In the meantime, the confrontation exposed difficulties the Democratic majority may well encounter when

sending other House legislation to the Senate, where the minority Republicans enjoy more power to shape

legislation than in the House.



Still, in a separate vote Wednesday, the Senate effectively killed a modified line-item veto bill. The

Republican-inspired measure would have permitted a president to pluck individual items out of spending

bills and submit them to Congress for a vote.



Senators also defeated a Republican amendment that would have given only the states the right to increase

the minimum wage.



The federal minimum wage has been unchanged for 10 years. In the meantime, a number of states have

moved on their own to increase their minimums.



According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal leaning think tank, inflation has eroded

the value of the minimum wage to its lowest level in more than 50 years.

"Minimum wage workers are men and women of dignity," Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting

record), D-Mass., a longtime advocate of raising the wage floor, said. "They do some of the most difficult,

backbreaking jobs in our society. They deserve a fair wage that respects the dignity of their work and they

shouldn't have to live in poverty."



Since the House passed its version two weeks ago, Speaker Pelosi, D-Calif., and Rep. Charles Rangel

(news, bio, voting record), the chairman of the taxwriting Ways and Means Committee, have prodded the

Senate to keep tax proposals out of the bill.



In scheduling the vote Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev.,

sought to demonstrate the lack of Republican support for a straight minimum wage bill without tax cuts.

Every Democrat present voted to cut off debate and five moderate Republicans joined them.



"There seems to be agreement to raise the minimum wage," said Republican Sen. Michael Enzi (news, bio,

voting record) of Wyoming. "The difficulty has been how do we take care of some of the impact to small

businesses that will result from this."



Reid is backing an $8.3 billion tax package that would extend for five years a tax credit for employers who

hire low-income or disadvantaged workers. It also extends until 2010 tax rules that permit businesses to

combine as much as $112,000 in expenses into one annual tax deduction.



The cost of the proposal would be paid with revenue realized from a proposed cap of $1 million on

executive compensation that can be tax deferred. The tax package also would end deductions for court

settlements or punitive damages paid by companies that have been sued.



Those proposed revenue increases have drawn opposition from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has

urged senators to vote against them.



"These are permanent tax law changes that hat have significant impact on the broad business community,"

Bruce Josten, the chamber's top lobbyist, said in an interview.

APRIL 17th IS TAX DAY

IRS pushes back tax filing deadline



WASHINGTON - Taxpayers around the country will get an extra two days, until April 17, to file 2006

returns and pay taxes owed, the Internal Revenue Service said Wednesday.



The two-day reprieve comes about because April 15, the usual tax day, falls on a Sunday this year and

April 16 is Emancipation Day, a legal holiday in the District of Columbia. The IRS said holidays observed

in the nation's capital have an impact nationwide.



The tax agency had previously announced that residents of the District of Columbia and six eastern states

would have an April 17 deadline because they are served by an IRS processing facility in Massachusetts,

where Patriots Day will be observed on April 16.



The IRS said the April 17 deadline will apply to actions including:

_2006 federal individual income tax returns, whether filed electronically or on paper.

_Requests for an automatic six-month tax-filing extension.

_2006 balance due payments.

_Tax-year 2006 contributions to a Roth or traditional IRA.



Emancipation Day marks the April 16, 1862, signing by Abraham Lincoln of the Compensated

Emancipation Act, which freed slaves in the District of Columbia. It is not a federal holiday, and IRS

offices will be open.



In 2008 taxpayers will again face the usual April 15 deadline. The next year that Emancipation Day could

affect filing deadlines is 2011.

IRAQ TRAGEDY

4 Americans in Iraq crash shot in head



BAGHDAD, Iraq - Four of the five Americans killed when a U.S. security company's helicopter crashed in

a dangerous Sunni neighborhood in central Baghdad were shot execution style in the back the head, Iraqi

and U.S. officials said Wednesday.



A senior Iraqi military official said a machine gunner downed the helicopter, but a U.S. military official in

Washington said there were no indications that the aircraft, owned by Blackwater USA, had been shot out

of the sky. Two Sunni insurgent groups, separately, claimed responsibility for the crash.



In Washington, a U.S. defense official said four of the five killed were shot in the back of the head but did

not know whether they were still alive when they were shot. The defense official spoke on condition of

anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.



The helicopter was shot down after responding to assist a U.S. Embassy ground convoy that came under

fire in a Sunni neighborhood in central Baghdad, said a U.S. diplomatic official in Washington.



A second helicopter also was struck, but there were no casualties among its crew, said the diplomatic

official, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to make statements.



The doomed helicopter swooped into electrical wires before the crash. U.S. officials said it was not clear if

gunfire brought the aircraft down or caused its pilot to veer into the wires during evasive maneuvers.



The Iraqi official, who also declined to be identified because details had not been made public, said the four

were shot in the back of the head while they were on the ground. The crash occurred in an old

neighborhood of narrow streets on the east bank of the Tigris River, north of the central city.



In separate fighting Wednesday, U.S. and Iraqi troops battled gunmen firing heavy weapons from concrete

high-rises in another Sunni insurgent stronghold, on the west bank of the Tigris north of the heavily

fortified Green Zone.



Iraq's defense minister said as many as 30 militants were killed and 27 captured.



Apache attack helicopters buzzed past the tall buildings and radio towers along Haifa Street, while several

Humvees drove on the tree-lined street below. Gunfire rang in the background as shells fell, according to

AP Television News footage.



The U.S. military said the targeted raids were intended to clear the area of militants, dubbing the operation

dubbed Tomahawk Strike 11. The clashes were the second major fighting to break out in the area in less

than a month.



The military reported separately that an American soldier was killed Wednesday in fighting near the city's

center, but officials declined to say whether it was connected to the Haifa Street fighting. The military also

said that two Marines were killed Tuesday in western Anbar province.



In the aftermath of Tuesday's Blackwater helicopter crash, U.S. forces were planning to blow up the

wreckage to prevent people from scavenging equipment, the Iraqi official said.



Blackwater USA confirmed that five Americans employed by the North Carolina-based company as

security professionals were killed, but provided no identities or other details.



On Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad offered condolences for the five Americans killed.

"We lost five fine men," Khalilzad told reporters during a round-table discussion at the embassy in the

heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad.



He said he had traveled with the men who were killed and had gone to the morgue to view the bodies, but

offered no further details beyond saying that it was difficult to determine what happened because of "the

fog of war."



Another American official in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said three Blackwater

helicopters were involved. One had landed for an unknown reason and one of the Blackwater employees

was shot at that point, he said.



That helicopter apparently was able to take off but a second one then crashed in the same area, he added

without explaining the involvement of the third helicopter.



The Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television said the 1920 Revolution Brigades insurgent group claimed

responsibility for shooting down the helicopter and showed a video taken by a cell phone of a mass of still-

smoldering twisted metal that it was said was the wreckage of the chopper.



Another Sunni insurgent group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, also claimed responsibility and posted identity

cards of men who were on the helicopter on a Web site, including at least two that bore the name of Arthur

Laguna, who was later identified by his mother as among those killed.



Laguna was a 52-year-old pilot for Blackwater who previously served in the Army and the California

National Guard, his mother, Lydia Laguna, of Rio Linda, Calif., told the AP. She said she received a call

from her other son, also a Blackwater pilot in Baghdad, notifying her of Arthur's death.



Witnesses in the Fadhil neighborhood told the AP that they saw the helicopter go down after gunmen on

the ground opened fire. Accounts varied, but all were consistent that at least one person operating the

aircraft had been shot and badly hurt before the crash.



Blackwater USA provides security for State Department officials in Iraq, trains military units from around

the world, and works for corporate clients.



"These untimely deaths are a reminder of the extraordinary circumstances under which our professionals

voluntarily serve to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people," the Blackwater statement said.



Katy Helvenston, mother of Scott Helvenston, a Blackwater employee who died in March 2004 when a

frenzied mob of insurgents ambushed a supply convoy they were escorting through Fallujah, said Tuesday's

crash "just breaks my heart."



"I'm so sick of these kids dying," she said.



Before Tuesday's crash, at least 22 employees of Blackwater Security Consulting or Blackwater USA had

died in Iraq as a result of war related violence, according to the Web site iCasualties.org, which tracks

foreign troop fatalities in Iraq.



The crash of the small surveillance helicopter, believed to be a version of the Hughes Defender that was

developed during the Vietnam War, was the second associated with the U.S. war effort in Iraq in four days.



A U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter went down Saturday northeast of Baghdad, killing all 12 service

members on board. The American military in Baghdad has refused to confirm a report by a Pentagon

official that debris at the crash site indicated the helicopter was shot out of the air by a surface-to-air

missile.

HEALTHCARE

Obama calls for universal health care



WASHINGTON - Every American should have health care coverage within six years, Democratic Sen.

Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) said Thursday as he set an ambitious goal soon after jumping into

the 2008 presidential race.



"I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal

health care in this country," Obama told a conference of Families USA, a health care advocacy group.



The Illinois senator did not provide specifics on his plan for coverage.



Obama was previewing what is shaping up to be a theme of the 2008 Democratic primary. His chief rivals,

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards, also are strong proponents of universal health care and

have promised to offer their plans.



Obama said while plans are offered in every campaign season with "much fanfare and promise," they

collapse under the weight of Washington politics, leaving citizens to struggle with the skyrocketing costs.



He said it's wrong that 46 million in this country are uninsured when the country spends more than any one

else on health care. He said Americans pay $15 billion in taxes to help care for the uninsured.



"We can't afford another disappointing charade in 2008, 2009 and 2010," Obama said. "It's not only

tiresome, it's wrong."



Obama's call was an echo of a speech he made last April when he said Democrats "need to cling to the core

values that make us Democrats, the belief in universal health care, the belief in universal education, and

then we should be agnostic in terms of how to achieve those values."



His argument Thursday not only will be considered through the prism of the presidential campaign, but

weighed against rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's ill-fated plan to overhaul the health care insurance

system when she was first lady.



Even after leading that calamitous attempt in 1993, Clinton remains in favor of universal health care and

has made it a central theme of her presidential bid.



"One of the goals that I will be presenting ... is health insurance for every child and universal health care for

every American," she said at a community health clinic in New York Sunday, the day after entering the

2008 Democratic field. "That's a very major part of my campaign and I want to hear people's ideas about

how we can achieve that goal."



On Thursday, she criticized Bush's proposal to make health care more affordable through tax breaks,

arguing that it would lead to less funding for hospitals.



Addressing the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Clinton was self-deprecating in describing her own experience

in the health care debate and joked that Bush would need some heavy-duty protection as he wades into the

fight.



"I welcome his participation in the health care debate. I'm going to send him a suit of armor because I know

anybody who puts a foot in the health care debate is gonna need that. I've got the scars and experience to

show for it," said the New York senator.



Another candidate, Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, also backs universal health care.

RACIAL CASE REOPENED

Man pleads not guilty in 1964 race case



JACKSON, Miss. - A reputed Ku Klux Klansman and former sheriff's deputy pleaded not guilty Thursday

to kidnapping charges in the deaths of two black hitchhikers, four decades after their decomposed remains

were found in the Mississippi River.



James Ford Seale, 71, was one of two white suspects initially arrested in 1964, but the FBI _ consumed by

a search for three civil rights workers _ turned the case over to local authorities. A justice of the peace

promptly threw out all charges.



Seale was arrested again Wednesday, seven years after the Justice Department reopened the investigation

into the deaths of teenagers Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee. He was charged with two

counts of kidnapping and one count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping.



At his arraignment, Seale was shackled at the ankles and wrists and wore an orange jail jumpsuit, white

socks and mismatched flip-flop sandals _ one orange, the other yellow _ as he appeared before U.S.

Magistrate Linda R. Anderson.



Anderson asked Seale if he understood the charges, which carry sentences of up to life in prison.



"Yes, ma'am, I think so," Seale said in a calm voice.



Seale _ previously believed to be dead _ will spend several days in the Madison County jail outside

Jackson. A bond hearing is set for Monday. His court-appointed public defenders say he has cancer.



The indictment alleges that Klansmen took Moore and Dee, both 19, to the Homochitto National Forest in

southwestern Mississippi. Seale held a sawed-off shotgun on the men while other Klan members beat them

with switches and tree branches, it said.



The teenagers were still alive when they were weighted down and dumped into the Mississippi River, the

indictment said.



The second suspect, church deacon and reputed KKK member Charles Marcus Edwards, now 72, was not

charged. U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales declined to explain why or to say whether Edwards had

agreed to testify against Seale. Sources close to the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity

have said Edwards was cooperating with authorities.



"Forty years ago, the system failed," said FBI Director Robert Mueller, who joined Gonzales and siblings

of the victims at a news conference in Washington. "We in the FBI have a responsibility to investigate

these cold case, civil rights-era murders where evidence still exists to bring both closure and justice to these

cases that for many, remain unhealed wounds to this day."



The break in the 43-year-old case was largely the result of the dogged efforts of Moore's older brother, who

appeared at the Washington news conference.



Red-eyed but strong-voiced, Thomas Moore said the case proved that cases of the civil rights era can still

be solved.



"There can be justice _ even 42 years later," said Thomas Moore, 63, of Colorado Springs, Colo.



Thelma Collins, Dee's sister, told the gathering that she won't be satisfied until the case is concluded. She

said cried when she heard about Seale's arrest.

"I thank the Lord that I got to see it," Collins said. "At my age _ I'm 70 years old _ I did get to see

something good come of it."



But, Collins added, "It's not enough."



The arrest marked the latest attempt by prosecutors in the South to close the books on crimes from the civil

rights era that went unpunished. In recent years, authorities in Mississippi and Alabama won convictions in

the 1963 assassination of NAACP activist Medgar Evers; the 1963 Birmingham, Ala., church bombing that

killed four black girls; and the 1964 Philadelphia, Miss., slayings of the three civil rights workers _ the case

that led to the discovery of Moore's and Dee's bodies.



Seale and Edwards are suspected of kidnapping the pair May 2, 1964, in a Klan crackdown prompted by

rumors that black Muslims were planning an armed "insurrection" in rural Franklin County.



For years, Seale's family told reporters that he had died. But in 2005, Thomas Moore and a Canadian

documentary filmmaker, David Ridgen, found Seale living a few miles from where the kidnapping took

place.



According to FBI interrogators, Edwards admitted he and Seale took the two into the woods for a

whipping. Edwards said both men were alive when he left them.



An informant told the FBI that Seale's brother and another Klansman took the unconscious men to the river,

lashed their bodies to an engine block and some old railroad tracks, and dumped them from a boat. The

other Klansmen and the informant have since died.



The remains of Dee and Moore were discovered two months later near Tallulah, La., during a search of the

eastern Louisiana swamps for three civil rights workers who had disappeared from Philadelphia, Miss. The

bodies of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were found in Mississippi a short time

later.

WAL-MART SUIT

Wal-Mart settles in overtime case



Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will pay more than $33 million in back wages to thousands of employees after turning

itself in to the Labor Department for paying too little in overtime over the past five years, according to an

agreement announced Thursday by the U.S. Labor Department.



Wal-Mart said the department's review of its overtime calculations also found it had overpaid about

215,000 hourly workers during the same five-year period. The company said it will not seek to recover any

overpayments, which were at least $20 per worker.



Steven Mandel, associate solicitor in the Labor Department's Fair Labor Standards Division, said the case _

involving nearly 87,000 employees _ resulted from Wal-Mart coming to the department in early 2005 and

asking for a review of its overtime calculations.



"They had some concern that some of the practices were not in compliance" with federal wage laws, he told

a conference call for reporters



"It's not particularly unusual for an employer to come to us and talk to us about potential payroll

violations," Mandel said.



But Mandel said the overtime settlement was one of the largest ever reached by the department's wage and

hour division.



Wal-Mart said the settlement includes no fines or penalties and that it has adopted measures to prevent the

errors from occurring again.



"The fact of the matter is we discovered this matter, we reported it to the Department of Labor and we

resolved the issue," Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley said.



"We are committed to our associates (employees) and we've apologized to them for this error," Simley said.



Simley said Wal-Mart discovered possible mistakes in its formulas for overtime during a regular internal

review. He said there was no connection between the company reporting itself to the Labor Department and

multiple lawsuits against the retailer in recent years by employees alleging payroll violations.



Last October, Wal-Mart workers in Pennsylvania won a $78.5 million judgment for working off the clock

and through rest breaks. Wal-Mart denied wrongdoing and is appealing the jury award.



One of Wal-Mart's most vociferous critics, union-backed WakeUpWalMart.com, said the overtime

settlement was a sweetheart deal that favored the retailer rather than its workers.



WakeUpWalMart.com spokesman Chris Kofinis said workers were not represented in the settlement talks

and added that the idea that Wal-Mart "would negotiate in the best interests of its workers is ludicrous on

its face."



Critics had previously denounced a separate Labor Department settlement with Wal-Mart over child labor

violations, which was made public last February.



That $135,540 settlement was later found by the Labor Department's inspector general to contain

significant concessions for the retailer. The inspector general's report said the settlement was "significantly

different" from other such agreements and included far-reaching restrictions on the government's ability to

assess monetary penalties.

Regarding the overtime issue, Mandel said the department carried out a national review of all Wal-Mart

stores over a two-year period from February 2005 to this year.



The settlement was approved Thursday by a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for western Arkansas,

Mandel said.



The highest award to an individual employee was about $39,000, he said.

NEW OLD BIRTH CONTROL

New birth control pills could win approval



WASHINGTON - New birth-control pills that are less effective in preventing pregnancy than the original

contraceptives of the 1960s still could win federal approval if they promise other benefits, under a

recommendation by health advisers.



Food and Drug Administration advisers refused this week to recommend a set standard on how often next-

generation pills would have to fail for them to be denied federal approval.



"We don't want an arbitrary number to be ascribed," said Dr. Charles Lockwood of Yale University, acting

chairman of FDA's reproductive health drugs advisory committee.



Instead, the panel of outside experts recommended the agency keep an open mind to approving less-

effective pills that could offer other important benefits, such as reduced risk of blood clots and stroke.



Doing otherwise could limit the options available to women, the panel said.



Most of the roughly 12 million U.S. women who take the pill do so to prevent pregnancy. But others rely

on hormonal contraceptives to curb acne or regulate their monthly periods. The latest, low-dose versions of

the pill allow women to go 84 days between periods.



Throughout the 1960s, the earliest birth control pills to win FDA approval failed just once per 100 woman-

years of use. That is, for every 100 women taking the pills for a year, there was fewer than one pregnancy

on average among them.



Today, newer pills contain less estrogen and progestin. Those pills can reduce the risk of sometimes deadly

side effects. But as the hormone content of the pills has dipped, failure rates have climbed.



Over the last decade, the FDA has approved some pills with failure rates that were twice the rate considered

acceptable in the 1960s. Still, the pills remain highly effective, the FDA says.



The FDA acknowledged its own staff is split over whether to establish an acceptable failure rate for pills

and, if so, what that rate should be. The FDA isn't required to follow the recommendation that it not set

such a limit, but it usually does follow the judgment of its advisory committees.



Several panelists, during two days of meetings this week, suggested that any birth-control pill that isn't

highly effective or offers some other benefit simply wouldn't sell, making the issue moot.



"If a new product isn't as good as what's out there, clinicians aren't going to prescribe it _ unless there's

something there," said Lorraine Tulman, of the University of Pennsylvania's School of Nursing and the

panel's consumer representative.



Panelist Dr. Paul Blumenthal, of Stanford University, even suggested the FDA establish different classes of

pills, depending on their effectiveness in preventing pregnancy.



The FDA is considering future guidelines that drug makers could follow in seeking approval for new

hormonal contraceptives.



The FDA is looking at how well studies done prior to the approval of those products reflected their "real-

world" use. Typically, that use is less consistent and reliable than it is in clinical studies.



In public testimony, experts said pill studies should include more older and overweight women to reflect

the makeup of the U.S. population.

FORECLOSURE? 9 options



Real estate markets are slowing. Interest rates are ticking up. And the phones are ringing at ByDesign, a

Los Angeles-based credit counselor, as homeowners start to panic about not being able to make their

mortgage payments.



"The number of people asking for appointments to talk about foreclosure is definitely up," said Susan

Ulaga, the nonprofit service's senior vice president of counseling. Rising rates "are really putting a crunch"

on homeowners with adjustable-rate loans.



Nearly a quarter of the nation's mortgages have rates scheduled to reset this year or next, which means

higher payments for millions of homeowners. How many will default isn't known, but the Mortgage

Bankers Association, which tracks delinquencies and foreclosures, expects a "modest" uptick in both by the

end of the year.



If you're in danger of falling behind on your mortgage, or if you're already delinquent, it's important to

know what's ahead and what your options are. Usually, the faster you move, the more choices you'll have

about your financial future.



The timeline

30 days: Your troubles actually start as soon as you miss a single payment. Lenders may not contact you

until you've skipped a second payment, but most will report the first late payment and every subsequent

delinquency to the credit bureaus. Even a single late payment can devastate your credit score, the three-

digit number that lenders use to help gauge your creditworthiness. Each subsequent "late" further decreases

your score, making it more difficult and expensive to get a loan or a refinance that might help your

situation. In addition, lenders typically tack on late fees of 5% or so for each missed payment.

90 days to one year: Eventually, if the payments aren't made, the lender will file a "notice of default" with

a local courthouse and send you a letter saying that the foreclosure process will start unless you make good

the missing payments.



How quickly the notice is filed depends on the individual lender. Some hold off if you contact them to

work out a payment plan or otherwise explain your situation. Others are more aggressive and start the

process as soon as possible to try to protect their investment.



"They may do it as early as 90 days, or as late as a year," explained Anthony Hsieh, president of

LendingTree.com. "It really depends on the lender's temperament."



Usually, this notice means that the amount you owe has shot up as well, since the lender typically adds

substantial fees to cover its legal costs.



The notice of default "is a big threshold," Hsieh said. "Once you get into that state, it's a whole different

world. Your options are fewer."



The notice of default is generally picked up by the credit bureaus, further depressing your credit score and

making refinancing the loan extremely difficult.



(In addition, the notice tips off scam artists that you're in trouble and may be vulnerable to various "equity

skimming" schemes. One common ploy: The scam artist promises to take over your payments, but instead

rents out your house and keeps the rent payments as pure profit. The home goes into foreclosure, your

credit is trashed and you've lost any equity you had in the home.)



90 days more: Borrowers typically have 90 days from the notice of default to make up the deficit before

the lender sends out a "notice of sale," which sets a sale date for the house (typically within the next 15 to

30 days).

Some lenders will allow you to keep your original loan if you can make up the missing payments plus any

late fees and legal charges. Others will insist you refinance with another lender. You can also halt the

foreclosure, at least temporarily, by filing a lawsuit or filing for bankruptcy. For either legal option to work,

you'll have to be able to come up with a payment plan to fix the deficit.



Your options

Lenders today typically offer a variety of solutions for people who have fallen behind on their mortgages.

Among them:



Temporarily reducing or waiving payments.



Setting up short-term repayment plans to help you make up the deficit.



Adding the unpaid balance to the principal of your loan and increasing your payments slightly to cover the

extra amount.



If you have certain types of loans, you may have even more options. If you have a mortgage insured by the

Federal Housing Administration, for example, you may qualify for an interest-free (and payment-free) loan

to get your mortgage current. The money doesn't need to be paid back until you pay off the mortgage or sell

the house.



If you can work out a solution with the lender quickly enough, you can contain or even avoid serious

damage to your credit. That's among the reasons housing experts typically urge you to call your lender as

soon as you know you'll have trouble making a payment.



This is good advice, but trickier than it may seem at first, for two reasons:

Lenders can make it tough to get to the right people. The folks you want to talk to are in the "loss

mitigation" department. But many lenders don't routinely route borrowers to that department until they've

missed several payments. Until then, you might be dealing with the lender's collections department, which

typically offers one option: Pay up now. If you're serious about keeping your home, you may have to really

push to get to right people.

"The loss mitigation department (is) where the options are really going to open up," ByDesign's Ulaga said.

You have to be able to make the payments. If you agree to a lender's "workout" or "loan modification"

solution and then fail to make the agreed-upon payments, you'll be in a world of hurt. At best, you'll have

"a lot fewer options the second time around," Ulaga said. More likely, Hsieh said, the lender will simply

accelerate the foreclosure process.

This can be a big problem if the financial crisis that caused you to fall behind isn't over. If you don't know

where you're going to get the money to make the payments, trying to work out a solution with your lender

will be tough.

"If you're honest like that, (lenders) are not going to want to work with you," said New Jersey bankruptcy

attorney John Amorison. "If you're dishonest, you breach the agreement."

That's no reason to hide from your lender or ignore its letters, Hsieh said. Even if you can't work out an

agreement, keeping in contact is usually the right choice: "At least you know where you stand."

Filing a lawsuit or bankruptcy carries similar risk: If you don't have the money to make the payments, the

foreclosure can proceed, and you may have further damaged your credit score.

9 steps to getting out of this mess

So what to do? First, you'll need to take a hard, clear-eyed look at your financial situation. To that end:

Make a budget. Sketch out a spending plan for the next several months, including expected income and

expenses. See what costs you can trim to free up as much money as possible for home payments. You may

need to pay the minimums, or even less, on other debts. In certain very limited circumstances -- such as

when you are absolutely sure your financial hardship will be short-lived -- it may make sense to skip

payments on some bills so you can pay your mortgage. Read "How to not pay your bills" to learn about the

consequences that may follow. Another option: borrowing money from friends or family, or tapping

retirement funds. Do the latter only if you're convinced you can make future payments; you don't want to

drain your retirement funds if you're only going to end up losing the house.

Consider getting help. Legitimate credit counseling services, those associated with the National

Foundation for Credit Counseling or the Association of Independent Consumer Credit Counseling

Agencies, typically have housing counselors that can help you evaluate your options. Or you can find a

housing counseling agency approved by the Housing and Urban Development Department by calling (800)

569-4287. If you have a Veterans Administration loan, you can call (800) 827-1000 to get a referral to a

financial counselor.

Check your refinance options. If you have equity in your home, your credit rating is relatively intact and

your lender hasn't yet filed a notice of default, you may be able to get another loan with more affordable

payments. An experienced mortgage broker, preferably one affiliated with the National Association of

Mortgage Brokers, can let you know your options. Be cautious about jumping into another risky loan,

though: adjustable, interest-only or "option" mortgages might just put off the day of reckoning and you

could find yourself facing even higher payments down the road.

Be realistic. Many times, Amorison said, people struggle to hang on to a house that they simply can't

afford when they'd be far better off without it.

"People are just too tied to their homes," Amorison said. "It's just property."

That may seem harsh, but it's far better to sell a home while you still have equity and some semblance of a

credit score than to have it taken away in foreclosure.

Get organized. If you are going to try for a loan modification, you'll need to prepare a small mound of

documentation. The lender will specify what it wants, but typically you'll need to supply the details of your

financial situation, a budget, documentation of your hardship (a letter from your doctor explaining an

income-reducing illness, for example, or your layoff notice from your employer) and a "hardship letter"

that outlines, in heart-rending detail, the circumstances that led you to fall behind and the improved

prospects that will allow you to get your financial life back on track.

You may also want (or be required) to provide a market analysis of your house, Ulaga said, to document

how much equity you have in your home. A real estate agent can typically prepare this for free in exchange

for the chance of winning your business should you decide to sell.

Leaving home

If a loan modification or refinance isn't possible or feasible, your options come down to these:

Sell the house. If you have enough equity in your home to allow you to pay off your mortgage in full, after

deducting any real estate agent commissions, then a quick sale is usually your best option. You'll preserve

what's left of your credit score and your equity, leaving you in a much better position should you want to

buy another home in the future.

Offer a deed in lieu of foreclosure. If you can't sell the house for what you owe, but you're not deeply

"upside down" on your mortgage, this may be an option: you propose handing over the deed to your home

and your lender agrees to release you from your mortgage. This usually keeps you from having to pay any

deficit that might be owed on the property, while the lender avoids further legal costs related to a

foreclosure.

Lenders can't be forced to accept a deed, however. Typically, lenders require that the borrower make "a

really good effort" to sell the home first, Ulaga said, and show that their delinquency was due to

"unavoidable hardship" before they'll agree to a deed in lieu of foreclosure.

Negotiate a short sale. If you owe substantially more on your home than it's worth, you may be able to get

the lender to accept less than it is owed by negotiating a "short sale." You essentially sell the house for

whatever you can get, and the lender agrees to accept the proceeds and not go after you for the deficit.

A short sale can further damage your credit scores, often showing up as a "settlement" that indicates you

paid less than you owed. You may also face an IRS bill on the unpaid debt, which is generally considered

income to you. A skilled negotiator may be able to avoid these consequences or at least minimize them, so

you may want to consider getting an experienced attorney's help.

Allow the foreclosure to proceed. This is generally the worst choice. In some states and in some

circumstances, the lender can even go after you in court for any deficit between what the house eventually

sells for and what you owe. An attorney or housing counselor can let you know if that's a possibility.

Even if the worst happens, though, the damage to your financial life needn't be permanent. If your situation

improves, you may be able to get another mortgage, at a reasonable interest rate, within a few years. For

more details, check out "Bounce back fast after bankruptcy" for suggestions on how to rebuild your credit

after financial disaster.

MONEY

Coin shortage could turn pennies to nickels



NEW YORK (Reuters) - Talk about pennies from heaven.



A potential shortage of coins in the United States could mean all those pennies in your piggy bank could be

worth five times their current value soon, says an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.



Sharply rising prices of metals such as copper and nickel have meant the face value of pennies and nickels

are worth less than the material that they are made of, increasing the risk that speculators could melt the

coins and sell them for a profit.



Such a risk spurred the U.S. Mint last month to issue regulations limiting melting and exporting of the

coins.



But Francois Velde, senior economist at the Chicago Fed, argued in a recent research note that prohibitions

by the Mint would unlikely deter serious speculators who already have piled up the coinage.



The best solution, Velde said, would be to "rebase" the penny by making it worth five cents rather than one

cent. Doing so would increase the amount of five-cent coins in circulation and do away with the almost

worthless one cent coin.



"History shows that when coins are worth melting, they disappear," Velde wrote.



"Rebasing the penny would ... debase the five-cent piece and put it safely away from its melting point," he

added.



Raw material prices in general have skyrocketed in the last five years, sending copper prices to record

highs of $4.16 a pound in May. Copper pennies number 154 to a pound. Prices have since come down from

that peak but could still trek higher, Velde said.



Since 1982, the Mint began making copper-coated zinc pennies to prevent metals speculators from taking

advantage of lofty base metal prices. Though the penny is losing its importance -- it is worth only four

seconds of the average American's work time, assuming a 40-hour workweek -- the Mint is making more

and more pennies.



Velde said that since 1982 the Mint has produced 910 pennies for every American. Last year there were

8.23 billion pennies in circulation, according to the Mint.



"These factors suggest that, sooner or later, the penny will join the farthing (one-quarter of a penny) and the

hapenny (one-half of a penny) in coin museums," he said.

U.S. SENATE SAYS ‘NO’

Senate panel votes against Bush on Iraq



WASHINGTON - The Democratic-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee dismissed President

Bush's plans to increase troops strength in Iraq on Wednesday as "not in the national interest," an unusual

wartime repudiation of the commander in chief.



The vote on the nonbinding measure was 12-9 and largely along party lines.



"We better be damn sure we know what we're doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into

that grinder," said Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record) of Nebraska, the sole Republican to join 11

Democrats in support of the measure.



Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record), D-Del., the panel's chairman, said the legislation is "not an

attempt to embarrass the president. ... It's an attempt to save the president from making a significant

mistake with regard to our policy in Iraq."



The full Senate is scheduled to begin debate on the measure next week, and Biden has said he is willing to

negotiate changes in hopes of attracting support from more Republicans.



House Democrats intend to hold a vote shortly after the Senate acts.



Even Republicans opposed to the legislation expressed unease with the revised policy involving a war that

has lasted nearly four years, claimed the lives of more than 3,000 U.S. troops and helped Democrats win

control of Congress in last fall's elections.



"I am not confident that President Bush's plan will succeed," said Sen. Richard Lugar (news, bio, voting

record) of Indiana, senior Republican on the committee.



But he said in advance he would vote against the measure. "It is unclear to me how passing a nonbinding

resolution that the president has already said he will ignore will contribute to any improvement or

modification of our Iraq policy."



"The president is deeply invested in this plan, and the deployments ... have already begun," Lugar added.



He suggested a more forceful role for Congress, and said lawmakers must ensure the administration is

"planning for contingencies, including the failure of the Iraqi government to reach compromises and the

persistence of violence despite U.S. and Iraqi government efforts."



Divisions over the war were on clear display as the committee met.



Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said he wanted to change the measure to say flatly that the number of troops in

Iraq "may not exceed the levels" in place before Bush announced his new policy. The suggestion failed, 15-

6.



Sen. Norm Coleman (news, bio, voting record), R-Minn., sought to amend the legislation to show support

for an increase troops in the Anbar province in western Iraq, but not in Baghdad, where the sectarian

violence is particularly fierce. His proposal also fell, 17-4.



Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., chastised fellow lawmakers, accusing them of being reticent to respond to

Bush's plans. He said he would seek passage of legislation at a later date cutting off funds for the war.



Hagel's remarks were among the most impassioned of the day, and he was unstinting in his criticism of the

White House.

"There is no strategy," he said of the Bush administration's war management. "This is a pingpong game

with American lives. These young men and women that we put in Anbar province, in Iraq, in Baghdad are

not beans; they're real lives. And we better be damn sure we know what we're doing, all of us, before we

put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder."



A Vietnam veteran, he fairly lectured fellow senators not to duck a painful debate about a war that has

grown increasingly unpopular as it has gone on. "No president of the United States can sustain a foreign

policy or a war policy without the sustained support of the American people," Hagel said.



At least eight other Republican senators say they now back legislative proposals registering objections to

Bush's decision to boost U.S. military strength in Iraq by 21,500 troops.



The growing list — which includes Sens. Gordon Smith (news, bio, voting record), George Voinovich

(news, bio, voting record) and Sam Brownback (news, bio, voting record) — has emboldened Democrats,

who are pushing for a vote in the full Senate by next week to rebuke the president's Iraq policy.



In his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, Bush urged skeptical members of Congress to give the plan

a chance to work.



Many lawmakers remained reluctant.



"I wonder whether the clock has already run out," said Sen. Susan Collins (news, bio, voting record), R-

Maine. She said she was worried that U.S. troops in Iraq are already perceived "not as liberators but as

occupiers."



Bush did get a word of support from former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, one of the 2008 Republican

presidential hopefuls.



"I believe we should give the president the support to do this. I want us to be successful in Iraq," he said

Wednesday on NBC's "Today" show. "I know how important it is to the overall war on terror. Success in

Iraq means a more peaceful world for America, it means a victory against terrorists. Failure in Iraq means a

big defeat against terrorists and the war on terror is going to be tougher for us."



But Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record), D-Ill., appearing on the same show, said, "I think all of

us are talking about a phased redeployment which would leave American troops in the region to send a

strong message, not only to the Iraqi government that we want to help them, but also to neighbors, like Iran,

that we're not abandoning the field."

MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE

Tax breaks sidetrack minimum wage bill



WASHINGTON - Democrats' promise of a quick increase in the minimum wage ran aground Wednesday

in the Senate, where lawmakers are insisting it include new tax breaks for restaurants and other businesses

that rely on low-pay workers.



On a 54-43 vote, Democrats lost an effort to advance a House-passed bill that would lift the pay floor from

$5.15 to $7.25 an hour without any accompanying tax cut. Opponents of the tax cut needed 60 votes to

prevail.



The vote sent a message to House Democrats and liberals in the Senate that only a hybrid tax and minimum

wage package could succeed in the Senate. But any tax breaks in the bill would put the Senate on a

collision course with the House, which is required by the Constitution to initiate tax measures.



In a separate vote, the Senate also effectively killed a modified line-item veto bill. The Republican-inspired

measure would have permitted a president to pluck individual items out of spending bills and submit them

to Congress for a vote.



Raising the minimum wage is one of the new Democratic Congress' top priorities. The wage floor has been

unchanged for 10 years. The bill would increase it to $7.25 in three steps over 26 months.



"Why can't we do just one thing for minimum wage workers, no strings attached, no giveaways for the

powerful?" asked Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., a leading sponsor of the bill.



The House passed the increase two weeks ago. Since then Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record),

D-Calif., and Rep. Charles Rangel (news, bio, voting record), the chairman of the tax writing Ways and

Means Committee, have prodded the Senate to keep tax proposals out of the bill.



Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., scheduled Wednesday's vote to

demonstrate the Democrats' lack of Republican support for a straight minimum wage bill without tax cuts.

Every Democrat present voted to end debate and five moderate Republicans joined them.



"There seems to be agreement to raise the minimum wage," said Republican Sen. Michael Enzi (news, bio,

voting record) of Wyoming. "The difficulty has been how do we take care of some of the impact to small

businesses that will result from this."



Reid is backing an $8.3 billion tax package that would extend for five years a tax credit for employers who

hire low-income or disadvantaged workers. It also extends until 2010 tax rules that permit businesses to

combine as much as $112,000 in expenses into one annual tax deduction.



The cost of the proposal would be paid with revenue realized from a proposed cap of $1 million on

executive compensation that can be tax deferred. The tax package also would end deductions for court

settlements or punitive damages paid by companies that have been sued.



A vote on that package is not expected until early next week.

HOT-ATLANTA IS DIXIED

White Atlanta suburbs push for secession



ATLANTA - A potentially explosive dispute in the City Too Busy to Hate is taking shape over a proposal

to break Fulton County in two and split off Atlanta's predominantly white, affluent suburbs to the north

from some of the metropolitan area's poorest, black neighborhoods.



Legislation that would allow the suburbs to form their own county, to be called Milton County, was

introduced by members of the Georgia Legislature's Republican majority earlier this month.



Supporters say it is a quest for more responsive government in a county with a population greater than that

of six states. Opponents say the measure is racially motivated and will pit white against black, rich against

poor.



"If it gets to the floor, there will be blood on the walls," warned state Sen. Vincent Fort, an Atlanta

Democrat and member of the Legislative Black Caucus who bitterly opposes the plan. Fort added: "As

much as you would like to think it's not racial, it's difficult to draw any other conclusion."



The legislation calls for amending the Georgia Constitution to allow the return of Milton County, which

succumbed to financial troubles during the Depression and was folded into Fulton County in 1932.



The former Milton County is now mostly white and Republican and one of the most affluent areas in the

nation. Atlanta and its southern suburbs are mostly black, are controlled by Democrats and have

neighborhoods with some of the highest poverty rates in America. (Buckhead, a fashionable Atlanta

neighborhood of clubs, restaurants and mansions, would remain in Fulton County.)



"The only way to fix Fulton County is to dismantle Fulton County," said state Rep. Jan Jones, the plan's

chief sponsor. "It's too large, and certainly too dysfunctional, to truly be considered local government."



Jones, a former marketing executive who lives in the Fulton suburb of Alpharetta, cited the county's

troubled library and public transit systems and a jail that was taken over by a federal judge because it was

filthy and unsafe. He denied the move is racially motivated.



Don Petree, the 62-year-old owner of Don's Hairstyling in Roswell, another northern Fulton suburb, said

many of his customers "feel like they're not being taken care of like they should be with the tax dollars

they're spending. I think there's some truth to that."



Milton County would have a population of about 300,000, instantly making it Georgia's fifth-largest

county.



Residents of north Fulton represent 29 percent of the county's population of 915,000 but pay 42 percent of

its property taxes, according to a local taxpayers group. A split would lead to the loss of $193 million in

property taxes alone for Fulton County.



About 25 miles to the south in downtown Atlanta, the Rev. J. Allen Milner said he is afraid the tax revenue

loss would have a devastating effect on those who need government help the most.



"If you take that money out of their coffers, human services will suffer greatly," said Milner, a black man

who runs a homeless mission and is pastor of the Chapel of Christian Love Church.



Critics of a split also worry about the future of Grady Memorial Hospital and the Atlanta area's MARTA

commuter-rail system — both of which have contracts with the county.



In addition, some warn that a breakup of Fulton could harm Atlanta's international reputation as a

progressive city and hurt its appeal as a business, entertainment and convention destination.



While other Southern cities erupted in violence a generation ago, Atlanta came through the civil rights

movement with little strife, earning the nickname The City Too Busy to Hate. It is now home to one of the

nation's largest black middle-class communities.



"This would send a clear messages to companies around the country that Atlanta may not be as progressive

as it would like people to think," Fort said.



The measure would require the support of two-thirds of both the House and Senate. Then it would have to

put to a statewide vote. Also, residents of what would become Milton County would have to endorse the

plan.



While Republicans have majorities in both chambers, they would need to win over three Democrats in the

Senate and 14 in the House to get it passed.



The legislation has support from some of the Legislature's key leaders. Republican House Speaker Glenn

Richardson has referred to his top lieutenant, Rep. Mark Burkhalter, as "the member from Milton County."

FIGHT – MICROSOFT & WIKIPEDIA

Microsoft offers cash for Wikipedia edit



Microsoft Corp. landed in the Wikipedia doghouse Tuesday after it offered to pay a blogger to change

technical articles on the community-produced Web encyclopedia site.



While Wikipedia is known as the encyclopedia that anyone can tweak, founder Jimmy Wales and his cadre

of volunteer editors, writers and moderators have blocked public-relations firms, campaign workers and

anyone else perceived as having a conflict of interest from posting fluff or slanting entries. So paying for

Wikipedia copy is considered a definite no-no.



"We were very disappointed to hear that Microsoft was taking that approach," Wales said.



Microsoft acknowledged it had approached the writer and offered to pay him for the time it would take to

correct what the company was sure were inaccuracies in Wikipedia articles on an open-source document

standard and a rival format put forward by Microsoft.



Spokeswoman Catherine Brooker said she believed the articles were heavily written by people at IBM

Corp., which is a big supporter of the open-source standard. IBM did not immediately respond to a request

for comment.



Brooker said Microsoft had gotten nowhere in trying to flag the purported mistakes to Wikipedia's

volunteer editors, so it sought an independent expert who could determine whether changes were necessary

and enter them on Wikipedia. Brooker said Microsoft believed that having an independent source would be

key in getting the changes to stick — that is, to not have them just overruled by other Wikipedia writers.



Brooker said Microsoft and the writer, Rick Jelliffe, had not determined a price and no money had changed

hands — but they had agreed that the company would not be allowed to review his writing before

submission. Brooker said Microsoft had never previously hired someone to influence a Wikipedia article.



Jelliffe, who is chief technical officer of a computing company based in Australia, did not return an e-mail

seeking comment.



In a blog posting Monday, he described himself as a technical standards aficionado and not a Microsoft

partisan. He said he was surprised to be approached by Microsoft but figured he'd accept the offer to review

the Wikipedia articles because he considered it important to make sure technical standards processes were

accurately described.



Wales said the proper course would have been for Microsoft to write or commission a "white paper" on the

subject with its interpretation of the facts, post it to an outside Web site and then link to it in the Wikipedia

articles' discussion forums.



"It seems like a much better, transparent, straightforward way," Wales said.

TEXT MESSAGED NOVEL

Text message novel published in Finland



HELSINKI, Finland - A novel whose narrative consists entirely of mobile phone text messages has been

published in Finland.



"The Last Messages" tells the story of a fictitious information-technology executive in Finland who resigns

from his job and travels throughout Europe and India, keeping in touch with his friends and relatives only

through text messages.



His messages, and the replies — roughly 1,000 altogether — are listed in chronological order in the 332-

page novel written by Finnish author Hannu Luntiala. The texts are rife with grammatical errors and

abbreviations commonly used in regular SMS traffic.



"I believe that, at the end of the day, a text message may reveal much more about a person than you would

initially think," said Luntiala, who also is head of a company that keeps databases on people living in

Finland.



Sari Havukainen, spokeswoman at Finnish publishing house Tammi, said the company is considering

translating the book into other languages.



The taciturn Finns, keen on all mobile gadgets, have wholeheartedly accepted text messages as a tool to

communicate even in most private matters. Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen recently made tabloid front

pages after reportedly having broken up with his girlfriend with a text.

SEND MORE TROOPS

Group Says al-Qaida No. 2 Mocks Bush



CAIRO, Egypt -- Al-Qaida's deputy leader mocked President Bush's plan to send 21,000 more troops to

Iraq, challenging him to send "the entire army" and vowing insurgents will defeat them, according to a new

videotape released Monday by a U.S. group that tracks al-Qaida messages.



The Washington-based SITE Institute said it had intercepted the video from Ayman al-Zawahri, which had

not yet been posted on Islamic militant Web sites, where his messages are usually posted. SITE did not

elaborate on how it received the message.



Al-Zawahri said the U.S. strategy for Iraq, outlined by Bush in a Jan. 9 speech, was doomed to fail.



"I ask him, why send 20,000 (troops) only -- why not send 50 or 100 thousand? Aren't you aware that the

dogs of Iraq are pining for your troops' dead bodies?" said al-Zawahri in the footage released by SITE,

which assesses and analyzes intelligence related to terrorism.



"So send your entire army to be annihilated at the hands of the mujahideen (holy warriors) to free the world

from your evil," he said, "because Iraq, land of the Caliphate and Jihad, is able to bury ten armies like

yours, with Allah's help and power."



The video showed al-Zawahri in a full gray beard and wearing a white turban, in front of a black backdrop.



The message was the first reaction from al-Qaida's leadership to the new Iraq strategy. The U.S. has said

the extra troops aim to crack down on al-Qaida fighters and other Sunni Arab insurgents in Iraq, as well as

Shiite militiamen blamed in the country's spiraling sectarian violence.

KID GOES TO JAIL

Class president gets 53 years in prison

January 18, 2007, 12:21 PM EST YORK -- A York County judge sentenced Lafayette High School's 2005

class president Thursday to 53 years in prison for the May 2006 shooting of Michael Tyler, a 29-year-old

father of four.



Marquise Edwards, 19, agreed in November that there was enough evidence to convict him of first-degree

murder and using a firearm while committing a felony.



Police say Edwards shot Tyler in the stomach May 4 on Walnut Drive in Yorktown after arguing with him

earlier in the day.



During the sentencing hearing, members of Tyler's family remembered "Big Mike" as someone everyone

looked up to, while those who know Edwards expressed disbelief at his involvement.



Edwards apologized to Tyler's family, and to the family members and Lafayette High School staff members

who testified on his behalf.



"I'm disappointed in myself because I let a lot of people down," he said."I can't bring him back, but I wish I

could."



Two co-defendants, Marquise Edward's cousin Kwaume Edwards and Carlos Chapman, are set for trial Jan.

30 and Feb. 22.

LIVE LONGER=GO TO PRISON

State Prison Inmates Outliving People on Outside





State prison inmates, particularly blacks, are living longer on average than people on the outside, the

government said Sunday.



Inmates in state prisons are dying at an average yearly rate of 250 per 100,000, according to the latest

figures reported to the Justice Department by state prison officials. By comparison, the overall population

of people between age 15 and 64 is dying at a rate of 308 a year.



For black inmates, the rate was 57 percent lower than among the overall black population — 206 versus

484. But white and Hispanic prisoners both had death rates slightly above their counterparts in the overall

population.



The Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics said 12,129 state prisoners died between 2001 through

2004.



Eight percent were murdered or killed themselves, 2 percent died of alcohol, drugs or accidental injuries,

and 1 percent of the deaths could not be explained, the report said.



The rest of the deaths — 89 percent — were due to medical reasons. Of those, two-thirds of inmates had

the medical problem they died of before they were admitted to prison.



Medical problems that were most common among both men and women in state prisons were heart disease,

lung and liver cancer, liver diseases and AIDS-related causes.



But the death rate among men was 72 percent higher than among women. Nearly one-quarter of the women

who died had breast, ovarian, cervical or uterine cancer.



Four percent of the men who died had prostate or testicular cancer.



More than half the inmates 65 or older who died in state prisons were at least 55 when they were admitted

to prison.



State prison officials reported that 94 percent of their inmates who died from an illness had been evaluated

by a medical professional for that illness, and 93 percent got medication for it.



Eighty-nine percent of these inmates had gotten X-rays, MRI exams, blood tests and other diagnostic work,

state prison officials told the bureau.

CHAVEZ CALLS RUMSFELD A DOG

Hugo Chavez Calls Rumsfeld 'Mr. Dog,' Defends Arms Deals



CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez called U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld

a "dog of war" on Tuesday, saying the defense chief has no business suggesting neighboring

countries are concerned about Venezuela's arms purchases.



Chavez said it's disingenuous for Rumsfeld to say he knows of no country that is threatening Venezuela,

and he insisted that the U.S. is a threat.



The Venezuelan leader called on Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to clarify whether he shares

Rumsfeld's worries about Venezuela's recent military acquisitions, including helicopters, fighter jets and

assault rifles.



CountryWatch: Venezuela

"If this man is saying that my neighbors are worried because the weapons that Venezuela is acquiring could

go to the leftist guerrillas, I need to know, President Uribe, if you have some type of worry regarding this,"

Chavez said. "It should be you who says it, not the dog of war."



In his televised speech, Chavez also chuckled as he called Rumsfeld "little dog" and "Mr. Dog."



Rumsfeld, attending a meeting of Western hemisphere military leaders in Nicaragua this week, told

reporters on Monday that he understood why Venezuela's neighbors would be concerned by the buildup.



Venezuela recently closed deals with Russia worth roughly US$3 billion (euro2.4 billion) for 24 Sukhoi

Su-30 fighter jets, 53 military helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles. Venezuela is also obtaining a

license for the first Kalashnikov rifle factory in Latin America.



Chavez also said Venezuela will soon install Chinese-made radar and an advanced air-defense system

equipped with anti-aircraft missiles capable of shooting down approaching enemy warplanes.



"We are going to install a system for rockets and missiles, which are defensive weapons," said Chavez,

speaking to students during the inauguration of a state-run university campus in central Venezuela.

"Venezuela is a country that needs defensive capacity."



Chavez, who has called U.S. President George W. Bush "the devil," said the new military hardware is

purely for defense. He claims the United States plans to invade this South American nation to seize control

of its immense oil reserves — an allegation that U.S. officials deny.



Relations between Caracas and Washington have been particularly tense since Sept. 23, when Venezuela's

top diplomat was temporarily detained by officials at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.



U.S. officials have apologized for the incident and expressed hope that relations between the two countries

can be improved.

MJ HEAD SHRINKAGE

Michael Jackson Shirks Shrink Evaluation - Jacko Avoids Shrink Evaluation



I told you last Tuesday in this space that Michael Jackson was on the verge of settling his custody

agreement with ex-wife Debbie Rowe concerning their two children, Prince and Paris.



Late Saturday, word came from the lawyers: The deal is done.



What they didn’t tell you is why Jackson was eager to conclude the case before the next hearing. There are

two reasons. For one thing, the case and all its papers are now public. Anyone can read the ongoing battles

between Jackson and Rowe simply by going down to the Stanley Mosk Courthouse on Hill Street in

downtown Los Angeles.



Click Here for the Michael Jackson Celebrity Center

But the second reason was more pressing: Jackson would have been ordered soon to have a psychiatric

evaluation. The only way he could have stopped it was to announce he was a Scientologist and decline on a

religious grounds to have a qualified mental-health professional ask him a few questions. Of course, people

would have paid more to see those papers than to see him in concert.



I am told that Rowe’s lawyers had already picked out one of the most prestigious and well-respected family

psychologists in the Los Angeles area, Dr. Mary Lund. Jackson would have done anything to avoid

answering her questions, whether they were posed in her Santa Monica office, in a London or Paris hotel

(where he likes to make lawyers go for depositions) or on top of a roller coaster at Disneyland.



Hence, the hurried settlement. As I told you last Tuesday, back in July 2005 Jackson was offering Rowe $4

million to stay away from the kids and see them once a year. This meant Rowe would have to sign away all

her parental rights, however, so she didn’t sign on the dotted line. An appeals court, on a separate track,

then restored all the parental rights she’d given away in 2001.



Here’s the thing about Rowe: She had Prince and Paris as part of a deal with Michael Jackson. She actually

loved him. She knew he wanted to be a parent, but without consummating a relationship or legal adoption.

So she married him and had the kids with a donor. She would have stayed married to him, but once the

children were born, and she and Jackson were living apart, she had no legal agreement for visitation.



She thought divorce would clarify the situation. But it only made things worse. Jackson, she said, according

to court papers, was making her travel long distances to odd places so she could see her children.



In 2001, at a low point, she gave up and petitioned the court to let go entirely. She told the court it was too

confusing for the kids to see her occasionally.



But then the child molestation scandal broke on Feb. 6, 2003. On TV, Jackson looked suspect after Martin

Bashir’s interview showed the 45-year-old pop star holding hands with a 12-year-old boy. All hell broke

loose.



Jackson’s associate, Marc Schaffel, reached out to Rowe and asked her to appear in a rebuttal video. She

agreed because she thought that it would show Jackson she was loyal. Maybe he would let her see the kids

as a reward. He did not.



In fact, Jackson — who is famously disloyal to everyone around him — did nothing for Rowe at all.



In October 2003, maybe to provoke him a little, she appeared on ―Entertainment Tonight‖ to talk about

raising horses. Jackson responded by claiming she’d violated their confidentiality agreement and cut off her

sizeable annual alimony payments of $750,000.

In December, a couple of weeks after his arrest, Jackson went into business with the Nation of Islam.

Rowe, who converted to Judaism in her first marriage, panicked. Her children were Jewish. The Nation of

Islam, she felt, was anti-Semitic. She worried about how her kids would be treated and renewed her quest

to see them.



Rowe threw another emotional grenade at Jackson in January 2004. While his lawyers convened a now

famous freak show of a public summit meeting at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Rowe lunched with Schaffel at

the nearby Ivy restaurant.



The summit meeting showed that Jackson was listening to Leonard Muhammad, son-in-law of NOI

leader Louis Farrakhan, who’d once chided Jackson in a speech for being weird.



Rowe, who’d never heard a word from Jackson even after defending him on TV a year earlier — not even a

thank-you note — was miffed that she wasn’t part of the summit. She wanted to get his attention. She got

it.



And then came the trial. Rowe’s testimony, on Jackson’s behalf, along with that of Macaulay Culkin, is

probably what saved him from doing any prison time at all. She told the court Jackson was a good father.

That’s all the jury had to hear.



Jackson was acquitted on all counts, and instead of rewarding Rowe, he continued to ignore her. Because

the children’s passports had been confiscated by the police, he sent his nanny to get new ones. Jackson lied

on the applications and said he had full custody. The passports were issued, and Jackson took his children

to the Middle East island of Bahrain.



Rowe would never have seen her children again, except for that brief settlement talk in late July 2005.

Things went so well that Jackson sent Prince and Paris back to Los Angeles on Aug. 2 with their nanny.



Rowe spent a couple of hours with them in a hotel but was told not to let Prince or Paris know she was their

mother, just a friend. Jackson’s lawyers then sent different wording for the proposed agreement, and

everything broke down.



People ask me all the time, what’s the story with Debbie Rowe? Did she have children for money?



The answer is no. She actually did it naively out of love and friendship. She expected a lot from Michael

Jackson, and like his family and other friends, like his fans (the ones that are mentally healthy) and his

employees, she was deeply disappointed.

P.S. Clearing up the Rowe matter still leaves Jackson with a lot of legal issues on his plate. Darien Dash,

cousin of Damon, is still suing him for $48 million, and the courts have allowed the case to proceed.

Jackson is also being sued by former attorney Brent Ayscough for unpaid fees. So stay tuned …

Click Here for the Michael Jackson Celebrity Center



Queen Rules; Zippy Zarem; Picture This

Stephen Frears’ ―The Queen‖ opened the New York Film Festival on Friday night and went right into

theaters on Saturday. Helen Mirren stars as Queen Elizabeth II, who must deal with the sudden death of

Princess Diana.



Michael Sheen plays Tony Blair, only in office a short time. James Cromwell is Prince Philip. Sylvia

Syms, only 72 in real life, is the then 95-year-old Queen Mum. All these performances are devastatingly

good.



Screenwriter Philip Morgan — who also wrote "The Last King of Scotland" (it’s his year) — captures

everything about that moment in time with delicious accuracy.



Philip — evil in every way — is blissfully ignorant, stupid and mean. Blair starts out as a populist and

quickly joins the establishment. The Queen Mum is an old lush.

But it’s Mirren’s soon-to-be Oscar-nominated performance that is the most memorable. Elizabeth II is a

slow learner, but Mirren makes her mistakes almost defendable …



PR legend Bobby Zarem’s birthday at Elaine’s on Saturday night went on into the wee hours, with urbane

director Taylor Hackford (Mirren’s hubby) telling great tales to ―Chorus Line‖ original star Donna

McKechnie plus boatloads of A-listers and media types …



Jill Krementz’s Friday night presentation of her 2007 calendar was sold out to the rafters at Barnes &

Noble Lincoln Center. Her husband, Kurt Vonnegut, made the introduction, and Jill held us spellbound

with stories about all her subjects from Truman Capote to John Guare, who surprised her with an

appearance and a testimonial.



And forget the fancy stuff: Jill told the crowd one of her most famous pictures, of Saul Bellow, was taken

on a little point-and-shoot camera that she carries in her handbag.



The highlight of the evening was Irving Berlin’s 13-year-old great-grandson reading his quote from the

calendar to accompany the late great composer’s picture ...

68 BULLETS KILL MAN

Florida Police Shot Suspected Cop Killer 68 Times



LAKELAND, Fla. — Officers fired 110 rounds of ammunition at the man suspected of killing a

sheriff's deputy, killing the suspect, according to an autopsy released by the sheriff's office.



Angilo Freeland — who was suspected of fatally shooting the deputy after being pulled over for speeding

Thursday — was hit 68 times by the SWAT team members' shots, the examination released Saturday

showed.



He also was suspected of wounding a deputy and killing a police dog.



Freeland's death ended a nearly 24-hour manhunt that forced schools to lock down and families to stay

indoors as about 500 officers scoured the woods.



• Click here to read FNC correspondent Steve Harrigan's on-the-scene blog



Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Crime Center



The wounded deputy had pulled Freeland over for speeding and became suspicious of his identification.

The suspect got nervous and bolted into the woods, officials said.



Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said he was not concerned by the number of shots fired.



"You have to understand, he had already shot and killed a deputy, he had already shot and killed a K-9 and

he shot and injured another deputy," Judd said by phone Saturday. "Quite frankly, we weren't taking any

chances."



Ten SWAT officers surrounded Freeland on Friday as he hid beneath brush and a fallen tree in a rural area.

Authorities say he raised the gun belonging to the deputy he had killed, prompting nine officers to fire.



"I suspect the only reason 110 rounds was all that was fired was that's all the ammunition they had," Judd

said. "We were not going to take any chance of him shooting back."



The SWAT officers who shot Freeland have been placed on paid administrative leave, standard procedure

in all police shootings.



Also released Saturday were autopsy results for the deputy, Vernon Matthew Williams, 39, which showed

he had been shot eight times. He was not wearing a protective vest, but shots hit him in his right leg and

behind his right ear, among other places.

Diogi, his German shepherd police dog, was also killed. The dog had been shot once in the chest.



Authorities said deputy sheriff Doug Speirs, also 39, was fired at several times and shot once in the leg. A

sergeant and an officer from the Lakeland Police Department were also fired at, authorities said.

DOOMS DAY IS AHEAD

Nuclear, climate perils push Doomsday Clock ahead



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The scientists who mind the Doomsday Clock moved it two minutes closer to

midnight on Wednesday -- symbolizing the annihilation of civilization and adding the perils of global

warming for the first time.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which created the Doomsday Clock in 1947 to warn the world of the

dangers of nuclear weapons, advanced the clock to five minutes until midnight. It was the first adjustment

of the clock since 2002.



"We stand at the brink of a second nuclear age," the bulletin's board of directors said in a statement.



They pointed to North Korea's first nuclear test, Iran's nuclear ambitions, U.S. flirtation with "bunker

buster" nuclear bombs, the continued presence of 26,000 American and Russian nuclear weapons and

inadequate security for nuclear materials.



But the scientists also said destruction of human habitats wreaked by climate change brought on by human

activities is a growing danger.



"Global warming poses a dire threat to human civilization that is second only to nuclear weapons," they

said.



The announcement was made in news conferences in London and Washington.



"We foresee great peril if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons

obsolete and to prevent further climate change," theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking of the University of

Cambridge, a member of the bulletin's board of sponsors, told reporters in London.



'VILLAGE IDIOTS'



Cambridge astrophysicist Martin Rees added that while the Cold War confrontation between two nuclear-

armed superpowers is over, the world is closer than ever to having nuclear bombs used in a localized war or

by terrorists in a city center.



"A global village will have its village idiots," Rees said.



Kennette Benedict, the bulletin's executive director, dismissed the notion that by touting the threat posed by

global warming, the scientists had diluted their message about the nuclear peril.



Many scientists predict dire consequences from global warming, including higher sea levels that over time

could swamp coastal regions, more severe storms and worse wildfires. Human activities like burning of

fossil fuels contribute to warming, they contend.



Physicist Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland said if humankind fails to

change course on global warming, "there's a great possibility that the Earth in the year 2100 will only dimly

resemble our planet today -- and as it has existed over the past 500,000 years."



The bulletin's scientists moved the clock two minutes forward in 2002, to seven minutes until midnight,

following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.



The bulletin was founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who had worked on developing the

first nuclear bomb, and it is now overseen by some of the world's most prominent scientists.



The bulletin created the clock in 1947, two years after the United States ushered in the nuclear age by

dropping atomic bombs on two Japanese cities at the end of World War Two, to symbolize the urgent

nuclear dangers confronting the world.

It now stands at the closest to midnight since 1984, when it was three minutes to midnight amid a

deepening Cold War.



It has been adjusted 18 times in 60 years. It was set as close as two minutes to midnight in 1953 after the

United States and Soviet Union tested hydrogen bombs, and as far as 17 minutes to midnight in 1991 at the

Cold War's end.

CHAVEZ MAD AT U.S.

Chavez to U.S. officials: 'Go to hell'



CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez told U.S. officials to "Go to hell, gringos!" and called

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "missy" on his weekly radio and TV show Sunday, lashing out at

Washington for what he called unacceptable meddling in Venezuelan affairs.



The tirade came after Washington raised concerns about a measure to grant the fiery leftist leader broad

lawmaking powers. The National Assembly, which is controlled by the president's political allies, is

expected to give final approval this week to what it calls the "enabling law," which would give Chavez the

authority to pass a series of laws by decree during an 18-month period.



On Friday, U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said Chavez's plans under the law "have

caused us some concern."



Chavez rejected Casey's statement in his broadcast, saying: "Go to hell, gringos! Go home!"



He also attacked U.S. actions in the Middle East.



"What does the empire want? Condoleezza said it. How are you? You've forgotten me, missy ...

Condoleezza said it clearly, it's about creating a new geopolitical" map in the Middle East, Chavez said.



In typical style, Chavez spoke for hours Sunday during his first appearance on the weekly program in five

months. He sent his best wishes to the ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro, his close ally and friend who has

been sidelined since intestinal surgery last summer.



Other comments ranged from watching dancing Brazilian girls wearing string bikinis at a recent

presidential summit to Washington's alleged role in the hanging of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.



"They took out Saddam Hussein and they hung him, for good or worse. It's not up to me to judge any

government, but that gentleman was the president of that country."



Holding up a newspaper with a photograph of him gazing at a string bikini-clad Brazilian dancing samba

during a summit last week in Rio de Janeiro, Chavez laughed and said: "I didn't know where to look ... It

was truly a thing of beauty."



Chavez, who was re-elected by a wide margin last month, has said he will enact sweeping reforms to

remake Venezuela into a socialist state. Among his plans are nationalizing the main telecommunications

company, CANTV, and the electricity and natural gas sectors.



He said Sunday his government will not pay the market value for CANTV, but rather will take into account

debts to workers, pensions and other obligations including a "technological debt" to the state. CANTV,

partially owned by U.S.-based Verizon Communications Inc., was privatized in 1991.



The president's opponents accuse him of using his political strength to expand his powers.



Relations between Caracas and Washington have been tense since Chavez was briefly ousted in a 2002

coup that he claimed the U.S. played a role in. The Bush administration has repeatedly denied being

involved, although it recognized an interim government established by coup leaders.



Since then, Chavez has consistently accused the U.S. of conspiring to oust him and often asserts the CIA is

working to destabilize his government. U.S. officials have denied trying to overthrow Chavez, but they

have labeled him a threat to democracy.

Criticizing excessive consumption and self-indulgence, Chavez also announced plans in his broadcast to

raise domestic gasoline prices and approve a new tax on luxury goods such as private yachts, second homes

and extravagant automobiles.



He did not give details on the gas price hike, which he said would not affect bus drivers who provide public

transportation, or the luxury tax. He said revenue from the new measures would be put toward government

social programs.



Venezuela is one of the world's leading petroleum exporters and gasoline now costs as little as 12 cents a

gallon due to government subsidies.

DRUG COMPANY LAYOFFS

Pfizer to lay off 10,000 to cut costs (January 2007)



NEW YORK - Pfizer Inc. announced Monday it will cut 10,000 jobs, as the world's largest drugmaker

seeks to slash its annual costs by up to $2 billion by 2008 amid fierce competition from generic drugs.



The company said it will close three research sites in Michigan and two manufacturing plants in New York

and Nebraska. It may also sell another manufacturing site in Germany and close research sites in Japan and

France.



It's the second time in two years that Pfizer has announced a major cost reduction plan in order to combat

the loss of about $14 billion in revenues this year due to expiring patents on key drugs. The company is at

risk of losing 41 percent of its sales to generic competition between 2010 and 2012, according to one

analyst.



The latest cuts, which amount to 10 percent of Pfizer's worldwide workforce, come on top of a previously

announced plan to cut costs by $4 billion a year by 2008.



Pfizer also reiterated that its revenue would be flat this year and next year, but said it expects its earnings

will jump by between 6 percent and 9 percent in both 2007 and 2008.



The latest layoffs include the elimination of 2,200 jobs from the U.S. sales force, which Pfizer announced

late last year. The company said Monday it would cut 20 percent of its European sales force but couldn't

immediately say how many drug representatives it employed there.



Analysts are skeptical that Pfizer's crop of current and pipeline products can generate enough sales to

compensate for revenue it stands to lose. Pressure on Pfizer has intensified since safety issues forced it to

halt development of the star drug in its pipeline, which was slated to replace the best-selling drug Lipitor as

it loses patent protection as early as 2010.



"You can't cost-cut your way to prosperity," said Les Funtleyder, an analyst at Miller Tabak & Co.



Still, the cuts do help shore up business and remain a good short-term strategy as the company seeks

acquisitions to boost revenue, said Barbara Ryan, an analyst at Deutsche Bank.



The sites in Michigan employ about 2,300 people, while the plant being closed in the Brooklyn borough of

New York employs 600 people. Only 25 jobs will be lost in Nebraska. Pfizer said many of the Michigan

workers will be offered jobs elsewhere in the company.



Pfizer's fourth-quarter earnings report, issued earlier Monday, illustrated the company's woes. Net income

for the period rose sharply because of the $16.6 billion sale of its consumer health-care business last month,

resulting in an after-tax gain of $7.9 billion. However, after adjusting for that gain and other items, Pfizer's

earnings fell 15 percent on flat sales, hurt by the patent expiration of antidepressant Zoloft last year.



Meanwhile, U.S. sales of Lipitor, Pfizer's top-selling drug, slipped 6 percent to $1.95 billion. Last summer

Zocor, a rival cholesterol treatment made by Merck & Co., lost patent protection and insurers have pushed

the cheaper versions of that drug over Lipitor when appropriate.



Pfizer's struggle with patent expirations comes as insurers and the government are pressuring drugmakers

to keep prices down and refusing to pay for new treatments that are essentially the same as those they are

intended to replace.



That means drugmakers are taking bigger risks to find new types of medicines. But their attempts can fail.

Last year, safety issues forced Pfizer to scrap its drug torcetrapib, a novel cholesterol treatment, after

spending $800 million on its development.



Overall, Pfizer's own labs haven't been very productive. It hasn't introduced a blockbuster since it

discovered the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra in 1998.



Meanwhile, some recent deals to bolster its pipeline haven't produced new treatments. Last year, Pfizer

killed at least two development agreements after the drugs didn't live up to expectations.



At the same time, key drugs are losing patent protection. This year, Pfizer will face generic competition on

blood pressure medicine Norvasc, which brought in $4.9 billion in sales last year, and allergy treatment

Zyrtec, with $1.6 billion in revenue in 2006.



Analysts differ on the approach they believe Pfizer will take to bolster revenues. Funtleyder thinks Pfizer

will continue to ink development deals with companies that have products that will be ready for market by

the time Lipitor loses patent. He thinks it won't be forced into a mega-merger unless many of those deals

falter.



Ryan believes Pfizer will buy a company with a product flow so it can use the revenue to add to its

earnings.



For the fourth quarter, net income soared to $9.45 billion, or $1.32 per share, from $2.73 billion, or 37

cents per share, a year ago. Excluding the gain from the sale of the consumer division, earnings totaled

$3.05 billion, or 43 cents per share, down from an adjusted $3.59 billion, or 49 cents a share, a year ago.

The earnings beat the consensus estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial by a penny per share.



Revenue was essentially flat at $12.60 billion compared with $12.55 billion a year ago. Analysts expected

sales of $12.62 billion.



Zoloft sales sank 79 percent to $166 million. In the United states, Zoloft sales plunged 88 percent to $76

million.



For the year, Pfizer earned $19.34 billion, or $2.66 a share, up from $8.09 billion, or $1.09 a share, in 2005.

Revenue rose to $48.37 billion, up from $47.41 billion in 2005, driven by strong U.S. sales of cholesterol-

lowering treatment Lipitor, pain-reliever Celebrex and blood pressure pill Norvasc.



Pfizer shares slipped 52 cents, or almost 2 percent, to $26.70 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock

Exchange. The stock has traded in a 52-week range of $22.16 to $28.60.

ARIZONA SNOW

Rare snow storm surprises Arizona (January 2007)



PHOENIX - More than a foot of snow fell on parts of northern Arizona, and several more inches were

possible Monday, while children as far south as Tucson got a rare chance to play in the snow.



Sunday's storm, one of the strongest of the winter, came amid a wave of storms that have brought snow, ice

and strong winds to the Plains region, and also to the Southwest, including Arizona, Texas and New

Mexico.



The harsh, frigid conditions were blamed for at least 11 traffic fatalities in the Plains over the weekend. In

Colorado, crews looking for a missing snowshoer found a body in a creek southwest of Denver Monday,

but authorities had not determined whether it was the missing man.



Southern New Mexico picked up 9 inches on snow on Sunday and Monday, closing 145 miles of the

Interstate 25, the state's major north-south highway. "The semi-trucks are having a hard time," State Police

Lt. Rick Anglada said, noting that three tractor-trailers had jackknifed on I-25 and 10 to 15 rigs had pulled

off the roadway.



Some public schools in the southern and western parts of the state closed Monday.



Although the heaviest snowfall in Arizona on Sunday was in the north, snow also fell in downtown

Phoenix and Tucson, which received up to 1 1/2 inches, according to the National Weather Service.



Danita D'Water said there were huge snowflakes in her neighborhood in far northeast Phoenix.



"The children are running up and down the street, riding their scooters in the snow," she said. "The kids are

pretty excited but the adults were out taking pictures."



More than a foot fell in Forest Lakes, Pinetop and at the Sunrise Ski Resort, among other places in northern

Arizona. Between one and three inches fell in Flagstaff, said Robert Bohlin, meteorologist with the

National Weather Service.



A winter storm warning remained in effect until noon Monday for parts of northern and northeastern

Arizona, with the National Weather Service forecasting up to an additional three inches of snow.



Dense fog and icy roads created hazardous driving conditions Monday morning in the Tucson area.



In Colorado, 3 to 6 inches of snow fell across much of the Front Range, with more in the in the eastern

plains and the mountains. Strong winds created whiteout conditions on the state's eastern plains. Dozens of

schools opened late or closed Monday in eastern Colorado.



Few details were released about the body found near Chatfield Reservoir, which was near the area where

Mel Dinklage, 46, went snowshoeing alone on Saturday. Jefferson County sheriff's officials said Dinklage

was an inexperienced snowshoer who wasn't familiar with the area.



On Sunday, officials closed a long stretch of Interstate 70, from near Denver International Airport almost to

the Kansas state line because of high winds, blowing snow, poor visibility and ice. The road had reopened

by Monday morning.



In Oklahoma, where an ice storm disrupted power to as many as 125,000 homes and businesses more than

a week ago, about 17,000 electrical customers remained without power early Monday — mostly in the

eastern part of the state.

Hundreds of utility linemen worked through the night in hopes of fully restoring power by Monday or

Tuesday, authorities said. But for some rural customers, it could be at least another week before the

electricity is back on.



Warmer temperatures led to melting ice and snow that turned roads into slushy rivers, yards into quagmires

and streams into rushing torrents.



Muddy roads and pastures caused some utility equipment to bog down, slowing their progress, said

Michelann Ooten, spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management.



"Extremely muddy conditions in some areas are making it difficult for some electrical restoration crews,"

Ooten said.



A pickup truck carrying radioactive materials used in pipeline scanning equipment was swept from a bridge

and disappeared in a swollen creek in Oklahoma's Pittsburg County, said Undersheriff Richard Sexton.



The truck's two occupants escaped unharmed, but efforts to locate the truck and its radioactive cargo were

suspended after dark. He said officials hope the creek's level will fall enough on Monday to reveal the

truck's whereabouts. A container with the material is bolted to the truck.



"The radioactive materials are still in the truck, and that's what we're worried about," Sexton said.



In Missouri, more than 45,000 people remained in the dark from the same storm.



Winter weather has also hit hard on the East Coast, bringing snow, sleet and freezing rain to Virginia,

Washington, D.C., and Maryland and making roads treacherous. An accident on Interstate 81 in Virginia

killed one person and injured five, authorities said. Several school districts in northern and western Virginia

were closed Monday.

OPRAH CRIES

Winfrey cried over relative's 'betrayal' (01/07)



CHICAGO - Oprah Winfrey says in the February issue of her magazine that she cried for three days when a

relative told the National Enquirer that Winfrey became pregnant at 14 and lost the baby after birth.



Winfrey already had confirmed the Enquirer's 1990 report that she got pregnant as a teenager, telling

Parade magazine later that year that the baby was born prematurely and died shortly after birth. Her half-

sister, Patricia Lloyd, sold the story to the tabloid, according to news reports at the time.



Winfrey, who did not name Lloyd in her column, wrote in O, The Oprah Magazine that the relative "sat in

a room, told them the story of my hidden shame and left their offices $19,000 richer."



"I felt devastated. Wounded. Betrayed. How could this person do this to me?" she wrote.



Winfrey now says she learned something from what she calls "that first betrayal." Having the secret out

was "liberating" and it allowed her to begin to heal from the sexual abuse she said she experienced as a girl.

She says she hasn't let more recent betrayals in her life bother her as much, although they still feel like "a

kick in the gut."

CLINTON FOR PRESIDENT

Hillary Clinton launches White House bid (01/07)



NEW YORK - Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton launched a trailblazing campaign for the White

House on Saturday, a former first lady turned political powerhouse intent on becoming the first female

president. "I'm in, and I'm in to win," she said.



In a videotaped message posted on her Web site, Clinton said she was eager to start a dialogue with voters

about challenges she hoped to tackle as president — affordable health care, deficit reduction and bringing

the "right" end to the Iraq war.



"I'm not just starting a campaign, though, I'm beginning a conversation with you, with America," she said.

"Let's talk. Let's chat. The conversation in Washington has been just a little one-sided lately, don't you

think?"



Clinton's announcement, while widely anticipated, was nonetheless an historic moment in a fast-developing

campaign that has already seen the emergence of a formidable black contender, Democratic Sen. Barack

Obama (news, bio, voting record) of Illinois.



Since joining the field, Obama has secured the backing of a number of prominent fundraisers, including

billionaire philanthropist George Soros, stepping up the pressure on Clinton to disclose her plans.



In an instant, Clinton became the most credible female candidate ever to seek the presidency and the first

presidential spouse to attempt to return to the White House in her own right. Her husband, Bill, served two

terms as president from 1993 to 2001.



"I am one of the millions of women who have waited all their lives to see the first woman sworn in as

president of the United States — and now we have our best opportunity to see that dream fulfilled," said

Ellen Malcolm, president of EMILY's list, which raises money for Democratic women who run for office.



With her immense star power, vast network of supporters and donors and seasoned team of political

advisers, the 59-year-old Clinton long has topped every national poll of potential Democratic contenders.



But her controversial tenure as first lady left her a deeply polarizing figure among voters, leading many

Democrats to doubt Clinton's viability in a general election.



In a detailed statement posted on her Web site, Clinton sought to acknowledge and bat away such doubts.



"I have never been afraid to stand up for what I believe in or to face down the Republican machine," she

wrote. "After nearly $70 million spent against my campaigns in New York and two landslide wins, I can

say I know how Washington Republicans think, how they operate and how to beat them."



Recently, Clinton has clashed with many in her own party over the Iraq war.



Clinton supported the 2002 resolution authorizing military intervention in Iraq. She has refused to recant

her vote or call for a deadline for the removal of troops. She has announced her opposition to President

Bush's troop increase in Iraq and has introduced legislation capping troop levels.



"A woman candidate could find it easier to run in peacetime, rather than wartime, but Senator Clinton's

tried to position herself as a serious person on national security," said Andrew Polsky, a presidential

historian at Hunter College. "But that means she's staked out difficult position on the war that won't make it

easy for her to get Democratic nomination."



With a $14 million campaign treasury, Clinton starts with an impressive fundraising advantage over the rest

of the Democratic field. But Obama and others have started to secure fundraising commitments from New

York, California and other deep-pocketed, Clinton-friendly areas.



Her creation of a presidential exploratory committee, announced Saturday, allows her to raise money for

the campaign; she already has lined up campaign staff.



In tone and substance, Clintons' videotaped announcement recalled her first Senate race in New York in

2000, where she conducted a "listening tour" of the state's 62 counties before formally entering the contest.



She promised a three-day series of Web chats with voters beginning Monday and prepared a campaign

swing late this coming week through the early voting state of Iowa, while a visit to New Hampshire was in

the works.

On Sunday, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was also set to enter the Democratic field; if elected, he

would be the first Hispanic president.



For the short term at least, the outsized candidacies of Clinton and Obama were expected to soak up the

lion's share of attention.



Obama, who launched his own presidential committee on Tuesday, praised Clinton as a friend and

colleague.



"I welcome her and all the candidates, not as competitors, but as allies in the work of getting our country

back on track," he said in a statement.



Other Democratic contenders include former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack; Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd; Ohio

Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, the party's 2004 vice-presidential

nominee. Delaware Sen. Joe Biden has said he will run and planned to formalize his intentions soon.

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the party's 2004 standard bearer, is also contemplating another run.



An influential player in her husband's political career in Arkansas, Hillary Clinton leapt to the national

scene during the 1992 presidential campaign when husband and wife fought to survive the scandal over

Gennifer Flowers' allegations of a lengthy affair with Bill Clinton when he was the state's governor.



The Clintons appeared together on CBS' "60 Minutes" to talk about their marriage — Hillary Clinton's first

famous "Stand by Your Man" moment.



As first lady, Clinton headed up a disastrous first-term effort to overhaul the health care insurance system.

There was more controversy as the couple battled allegations of impropriety over land deals and

fundraising, missing records from her former Arkansas law firm and even her quick and hefty profits from

an investment in cattle futures.



There was no letup in the second term. The president found himself denying — then admitting — having a

sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. As he battled impeachment and possible

removal from office, his wife's poll numbers rose.



Her own political career began to take shape in late 1998 when New York Democrat Daniel Patrick

Moynihan announced he would not seek re-election to the Senate seat he had held since 1976.



The campaign trail was not always friendly. For almost every cheer, there was a shouted "Go home,

Hillary!" and the emerging Republican theme that carpetbagger Clinton simply wanted to use New York as

a launching pad for a later presidential run.

PC VIRUS

Storm Worm hits computers around the world (01/07)



HELSINKI (Reuters) - Computer virus writers attacked thousands of computers on Friday using an

unusually topical email citing raging European storms, a security company said.



The virus, which the company named "Storm Worm," was emailed to hundreds of thousands of addresses

globally with the subject line "230 dead as storm batters Europe."



An attached file contained so-called malware that can infiltrate computer systems.



"What makes this exceptional is the timely nature of the attack," Mikko Hypponen, head of research at

Finnish data security firm F-Secure (FSC1V.HE), told Reuters.



Hypponen said thousands of computers, most in private use, had been affected.

He said most users would not notice the malware, or trojan, which creates a back door to the computer that

can be exploited later to steal data or to use the computer to post spam.

LOSE WEIGHT WITH WII

It's official. Wii use can cause weight loss (01/07)



LOS ANGELES, Jan 19 (Reuters Life!) - Video gamers who'd rather battle virtual villains than fight the

flab can take heart. Use of the new Nintendo Wii can lead to weight loss.



After six weeks and 21 hours of total game play on Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s (7974.OS) new game console,

Philadelphia resident Mickey DeLorenzo is nine pounds (4 kgs) lighter and making a splash with his new

svelte self.



"I'm on my 15 minutes here," he joked, referring to the famous Andy Warhol quote about 15 minutes of

fame, in a telephone interview with Reuters on Friday.



DeLorenzo, 25, came up with the idea for his experiment after he and his fianc饠 ended up breathless and

glistening with sweat after virtually pummeling each other in the "Wii Sports" boxing game.



"On the fly, as I was typing my blog posts, I set up a daily regimen and went at it 100 percent," said

DeLorenzo, who tipped the scales at 181 pounds -- where he's been for the last couple years -- when he

started the experiment on December 3.



He ate as usual and didn't deprive himself during the holidays. The only thing that changed was the addition

of daily, 30-minute sessions of Wii tennis, bowling, boxing or baseball.



DeLorenzo chronicled his progress on his blog at WiiNintendo.net, which includes weight-loss charts and

"before" and "after" pictures, as well as shots recalling Rocky Balboa, the City of Brotherly Love's most

famous fictional resident -- with Wiimotes.



While he expected to shed a couple pounds, DeLorenzo got more than he bargained for.



"Seeing the 'before' and 'after' pictures, I am going to keep doing it. I am going to add some weights to the

next round because I don't want to shrink to nothing," said DeLorenzo, who said he had never before dieted

or worked out to lose weight.



More projects are already in the works.



A fitness Web site already has asked him to help it create Wii workouts and he already owns the Internet

address WiiWorkout.net, which for now, links to his blog.



He's betting that Nintendo will soon have its own workout game. And no, the Japanese game giant hasn't

called.



Visits to DeLorenzo's blog have jumped -- he's been the subject of numerous blog posts and news stories on

major mainstream media outlets -- but his fame has not come without a price.



The bill for the extra Web traffic was $80 two days ago and has likely climbed. He's adding ads to offset

the cost, but said even if he comes out in the red on this venture, it's all been worth it.



"It's been a wild ride. It's been great."

CRUMBLING MOON

Earth's Moon Destined to Disintegrate (January 2007)



The Sun is midway through its stable hydrogen burning phase known as the main sequence. But when the

Sun enters the red giant phase in around 5 billion years things are going to get a lot rougher in the Earth-

Moon system.



During the red giant phase the Sun will swell until its distended atmosphere reaches out to envelop the

Earth and Moon, which will both begin to be affected by gas drag-the space through which they orbit will

contain more molecules.



The Moon is now moving away from Earth and by then will be in an orbit that's about 40 percent larger

than today. It will be the first to warp under the Sun's influence.



'The Moon's actual path is a wiggly line around the Sun, with it moving faster when it is slightly farther out

(at full Moon) and more slowly when it is slightly closer (at new Moon),' said Lee Anne Willson of Iowa

State University. 'So the gas drag is more effective at the farther part of the orbit and this will put the Moon

into an orbit where the new Moon is closer to Earth than the full Moon.'



Willson's idea about the Moon's demise, explained recently to SPACE.com, is an unpublished byproduct of

her research into Earth's fate in the face of an expanding Sun.



Moving away



Today, the Moon is on average 239,000 miles (385,000 kilometres) away and has reached this point after a

long and dramatic journey.



Earth's Moon was born around 4.5 billion years ago in a titanic collision between our planet and a Mars-

sized sibling, according to the leading theory. The enormous impact threw debris into orbit around the

young Earth and from this maelstrom the Moon coalesced.



For the last few billion years the Moon's gravity has been raising tides in Earth's oceans which the fast

spinning Earth attempts to drag ahead of the sluggishly orbiting Moon. The result is that the Moon is being

pushed away from Earth by 1.6 inches (4 centimeters) per year and our planet's rotation is slowing.



If left unabated the Moon would continue in its retreat until it would take bout 47 days to orbit the Earth.

Both Earth and Moon would then keep the same faces permanently turned toward one another as Earth's

spin would also have slowed to one rotation every 47 days.



Solar influence



The Sun's mutation into a red giant provides a huge stumbling block to the Moon's getaway and is likely to

ensure the Moon ends its days the way it began; as a ring of Earth-girdling debris.



'The density and temperature both increase rapidly near the apparent surface (photosphere) of the future

giant Sun,' Willson explained. As the Earth and Moon near this blistering hot region, the drag caused by the

Sun's extended atmosphere will cause the Moon's orbit to decay. The Moon will swing ever closer to Earth

until it reaches a point 11,470 miles (18,470 kilometers) above our planet, a point termed the Roche limit.



'Reaching the Roche limit means that the gravity holding it [the Moon] together is weaker than the tidal

forces acting to pull it apart,' Willson said.



The Moon will be torn to pieces and every crater, mountain, valley, footprint and flag will be scattered to

form a spectacular 23,000-mile-diameter (37,000-kilometer) Saturn-like ring of debris above Earth's

equator. The new rings will be short-lived. Theory dictates they'll eventually rain down onto Earth's

surface.



'Particles of different masses will have different survival times; the smaller particles will be removed first,

and the biggest ones last. Most of the ring particles would be gone by the time the Earth reaches the stellar

photosphere,' Willson said.



If the Sun's photosphere reaches Earth, our planet too will experience drag and spiral into the Sun to be

incinerated.



Possible out



There are possible natural alternatives, however.



If the Sun as a red giant sloughs off enough material before Earth evaporates, our planet will be revealed

from its stellar cocoon in a Moon-less guise. Earth, robbed of its companion, would undertake a lonely vigil

as the Sun turns eventually into a stellar corpse called a white dwarf Sun, fading to black over the ensuing

trillions of years.



Alternatively, if the swelling Sun loses 20 percent of its mass prior to it reaching our vicinity, both Earth

and Moon could be spared incineration and remain together facing each other for eternity. The actual

outcome remains a theoretical uncertainty because no red giant star has been observed during this crucial

phase.



This article is part of SPACE.com's weekly Mystery Monday series.

Top 10 Strangest Things in Space

Moon Mechanics: What Really Makes Our World Go 'Round

24 Hours of Chaos: The Day The Moon Was Made

Mysteries of the Sun

Original Story: Earth's Moon Destined to Disintegrate

Visit SPACE.com and explore our huge collection of Space Pictures, Space Videos, Space Image of the

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DOG BEER

Pet shop owner creates beer for dogs (January 2007)



AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - After a long day hunting, there's nothing like wrapping your paw around a

cold bottle of beer. So Terrie Berenden, a pet shop owner in the southern Dutch town of Zelhem, created a

beer for her Weimaraners made from beef extract and malt.



"Once a year we go to Austria to hunt with our dogs, and at the end of the day we sit on the verandah and

drink a beer. So we thought, my dog also has earned it," she said.



Berenden consigned a local brewery to make and bottle the nonalcoholic beer, branded as Kwispelbier. It

was introduced to the market last week and advertised it as "a beer for your best friend."



"Kwispel" is the Dutch word for wagging a tail.



The beer is fit for human consumption, Berenden said. But at euro1.65 ($2.14) a bottle, it's about four times

more expensive than a Heineken.

DRIVING AND OTHER THINGS

U.S. drivers eat, shave, email -- oh, and drive (January 2007)



CINCINNATI, Jan 22 (Reuters Life!) - Talk on the phone while you're driving? Fix your makeup? Check

e-mail? You're not alone.



A survey released on Monday shows 81 percent of Americans do more than drive when they're behind the

wheel.



More than eight of 10 people surveyed by Nationwide Mutual Insurance said they adjust the radio or music

while they drive, while 73 percent talk on the phone, 68 percent eat, 19 percent send text messages and 5

percent checked their e-mail.



Personal hygiene was also a big driver distraction, with 19 percent fixing their hair, 12 percent putting on

makeup and 2 percent shaving while at the controls of a car.



"Clearly Americans have much to do and little time to do it, so to cope with that we've become multi-

taskers," said Bill Windsor, associate vice president of Safety at Nationwide.



"The problem with that is driving requires focus, and multi-tasking while driving puts you and your fellow

drivers at risk."



Drivers in the survey also admitted to changing seats with passengers, watching a movie, painting their

toenails, nursing a baby and putting in contact lenses while driving.



Younger drivers multi-task the most, the survey found, with 35 percent of 18-to-27 year olds saying they

always multi-task in the car, compared to 21 percent of baby boomers.



Windsor said the consequences for young drivers are severe, with car accidents being the number one cause

of death for Americans aged 18 to 27.



"The bottom line is if it can be done in the kitchen, bathroom, office or bedroom, it should not be done in

the car," Windsor said.



While some U.S. jurisdictions require hands-free devices for cellphone use in cars, most of the activities

listed in the survey are not illegal unless they are determined to be the cause of an accident.



The survey of 1,200 drivers between the ages of 18 and 60 found that while 83 percent believe they are safe

drivers, 38 percent admitted they have driven a certain distance without any recollection of doing so.



Sandra Guile, spokeswoman for AAA in Cincinnati, said the automobile club's driving instructors have

seen it all, and work hard to try to correct the bad habits.



"Imagine if you're going 55 miles an hour down the road and you spill something on your suit and you have

a meeting that day -- you're going to be more worried about grabbing a napkin than watching the road,"

said Guile. "But it just takes a split second to look away and there's an accident."



Cincinnati professor Penny Braboy said that while she never eats or makes phone calls while driving, she

does answer the phone if it rings -- and she admits to other distractions.



"I have put on lipstick in the car," Braboy, 55, said with a laugh. "And I might try to look for something in

my purse, which I know is dangerous."



But she said her distractions have never caused an accident.

"I try to be careful," said she, getting into her sport utility vehicle, Starbucks coffee in hand.

FOREIGNERS & ITUNES

German, French groups want open iTunes (January 2007)



OSLO, Norway - German and French consumer groups have joined a Nordic-led drive to force Apple Inc.

to make its iTunes online store compatible with digital music players made by rival companies, a

Norwegian official said Monday.



Currently, song purchased and downloaded through iTunes are designed to work with Apple's market-

leading iPod players but not competitors' models, including those using Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Media

system. Likewise, iPods generally can't play copy-protected music sold through non-Apple stores.



Last June, consumer agencies in Norway, Denmark and Sweden claimed that Apple was violating contract

and copyright laws in their countries.



Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman Bjoern Erik Thon said French consumer lobby UFC-Que Choisir and

its German counterpart, Ferbraucherzentralen, joined the effort late last year, and other European countries

are considering it. Finland's Kuluttajavirasto consumer group is also part of the effort.



"This is important because Germany and France are European giants," Thon said. "Germany, in particular,

is a big market for digital music."



The Nordic regulators have met Apple officials at least twice on the complaints.



In a written statement after one such meeting in Oslo in September, Apple said it "is working to address the

concerns we've heard from several agencies in Europe, and we hope to resolve these issues as quickly as

possible."



Thon said Norway gave Apple until September to change its polices, or face possible legal action and fines

in the country.



"It cannot be good for the music industry for them to lock music into one system," he said.



A French law that allows regulators to force Apple to make its iPod player and iTunes store compatible

with rival offerings went into effect in August.

HP AND RUSSIA

Hewlett-Packard to open Russia facility (January 2007)



SAN JOSE, Calif. - Hewlett-Packard Co. said Monday it plans to open a research and development facility

in St. Petersburg, Russia, that will employ dozens of researchers and focus on inventing ways to manage

and mine digital data.



The Russian center will be HP's seventh R&D center around the world operated under the umbrella of HP

Labs, the Palo Alto-based company's central research organization.



HP Labs was founded more than 40 years ago and has claimed breakthroughs in areas as diverse as pocket

calculators, semiconductor devices, thermal ink jet printing and nanotechnology. Its other facilities are in

China, India, the United Kingdom, Israel and Japan.



HP declined to say how much it was spending on the new facility, which will be located in the company's

existing sales facility in St. Petersburg.



Beth Keer, director of the company's Information Services and Process Innovation Lab, will initially

oversee the project as acting director while searching for a full-time director and research staff.



Keer said the new facility will allow HP to tap into a pool of Russian scientists with a rigorous academic

background and help local customers solve region-specific problems arising from fast-growing industries

including oil and gas exploration, telecommunications and banking.



The research could help companies, for example, mine customer data they've already collected and

understand how to better improve their products based on their tastes.



"It's really important for us to be where our customers are, and where the scientific talent is," Keer said.

AMERICAN IDOL

Seattle sets new `Idol' benchmark



LOS ANGELES - The "American Idol" auditions in Seattle, dubbed the "weirdest turnout in history" by

host Ryan Seacrest, more than lived up to the billing.



"What the bloody hell was that?" judge Simon Cowell said on Wednesday's show after enduring a unique

version of "Unchained Melody," adding, "It was almost non-human."



In fact, the two-day tryout for Fox's hit singing talent was a real zoo.



One big-eyed, failed hopeful was compared to a "bush baby," a jungle animal, by the caustic Cowell, who

termed another contestant, a 6-foot-4 woman who passed singing muster, a "giraffe." Then there were the

actual animals — a Chihuahua and a Pomeranian — brought along for the ride.



Many of those on display were conspicuously lacking skill, self-awareness or fashion sense, and "American

Idol" made the most of their situation with camera work and Cowell's gibes.



He earned his paycheck in Seattle, one of seven cities where auditions were held last summer. The next

episode, on Tuesday, will feature the Memphis, Tenn., tryouts.



"You could lie in a bath with your mouth open and you couldn't sing," Cowell told one woman who

insisted that a drink of water would smooth her delivery.



A few promising singers made it through the gauntlet of Cowell and fellow judges Randy Jackson and

Paula Abdul, including Jordin Sparks, 16, the daughter of former NFL player Phillippi Sparks, and a

brother and sister who dabbled in a bit of teenage sibling rivalry.



The series kicked off its sixth year Tuesday with its largest season premiere audience ever, an estimated

37.3 million viewers.

IS MSPACE RESPONSIBLE?

MySpace hit with online predator suits



NEW YORK - Four families have sued News Corp. and its MySpace social-networking site after their

underage daughters were sexually abused by adults they met on the site, lawyers for the families said

Thursday.



The law firms, Barry & Loewy LLP of Austin, Texas, and Arnold & Itkin LLP of Houston, said families

from New York, Texas, Pennsylvania and South Carolina filed separate suits Wednesday in Los Angeles

Superior Court, alleging negligence, recklessness, fraud and negligent misrepresentation by the companies.



"In our view, MySpace waited entirely too long to attempt to institute meaningful security measures that

effectively increase the safety of their underage users," said Jason A. Itkin, an Arnold & Itkin lawyer.



The families are seeking monetary damages "in the millions of dollars," Itkin said.



"Hopefully these lawsuits can spur MySpace into action and prevent this from happening to another child

somewhere," he said.



Critics including parents, school officials and police have been increasingly warning of online predators at

sites like MySpace, where youth-oriented visitors are encouraged to expand their circles of friends using

free messaging tools and personal profile pages.



MySpace has responded with added educational efforts and partnerships with law enforcement. The

company has also placed restrictions on how adults may contact younger users on MySpace, while

developing technologies such as one announced Wednesday to let parents see some aspects of their child's

online profile, including the stated age. That tool is expected this summer.



"MySpace serves as an industry leader on Internet safety and we take proactive measures to protect our

members," Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace's chief security officer, said in a statement. "We provide users with

a range of tools to enable a safer online experience."



But he said Internet safety is a shared responsibility, requiring users to "apply common sense offline safety

lessons in their online experiences and engage in open family dialogue."



The lawyers who filed the latest lawsuits said the plaintiffs include a 15-year-old girl from Texas who was

lured to a meeting, drugged and assaulted in 2006 by an adult MySpace user, who is currently serving a 10-

year sentence in Texas after pleading guilty to sexual assault.



The others are a 15-year-old girl from Pennsylvania, a 14-year-old from upstate New York and two South

Carolina sisters, ages 14 and 15.



Last June, the mother of a 14-year-old who says the youth was sexually assaulted by a 19-year-old user

sued MySpace and News Corp., seeking $30 million in damages. That lawsuit, pending in a Texas state

court, claims the 19-year-old lied about being a senior in high school to gain her trust and phone number.



News Corp. shares hit a new 52-week high of $24.07 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange

before slipping back to $23.99, up 29 cents.

WOMAN DRINKS WATER & DIES

Sheriff looks into water-drinking death



SACRAMENTO, Calif. - As participants in KDND-FM's water-drinking contest chugged bottle after

bottle, a listener called in to warn the disc jockeys that the stunt could be fatal.



"Yeah, we're aware of that," one of them responded.

Another DJ said with a laugh: "Yeah, they signed releases, so we're not responsible. We're OK."



Those comments, and others made during the Jan. 12 "Morning Rave" radio show, appeared to give little

regard to the risk of water intoxication. But just hours after the contest, a woman who guzzled nearly two

gallons was dead.



On Wednesday, the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department launched a criminal investigation into the

incident, and attorneys for the family of Jennifer Lea Strange said they plan to file a wrongful death lawsuit

against the radio station.



The county coroner said preliminary autopsy findings indicate Strange, a 28-year-old mother of three, died

of water intoxication.



Authorities decided to pursue the investigation after listening to a tape of the show, obtained by The

Sacramento Bee, during which DJs joked about the possible dangers of consuming too much water,

sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Tim Curran said. At one point, the DJs even alluded to a college student who died

during a similar stunt in 2005.



Strange was one of about 18 contestants who tried to win a Nintendo Wii gaming console by determining

how much water they could drink without going to the bathroom.



Several hours into the contest, Strange was interviewed on the air and complained that her head hurt.



"They keep telling me that it's the water. That it will tell my head to hurt and then it will make me puke,"

she said.



Eventually, Strange gave in and accepted the second-place prize: tickets to a Justin Timberlake concert. She

commented that she looked pregnant, and a female DJ agreed.



"Oh, my gosh, look at that belly. That's full of water. ... Come on over, Jennifer, you OK?" a male DJ

asked. "You going to pass out right now? Too much water?"



Several hours later, Strange was found dead in her home.



On Tuesday, KDND's parent company, Entercom/Sacramento, fired 10 employees connected to the contest,

including three morning disc jockeys. The company also took the morning show off the air.



Station spokesman Charles Sipkins said Wednesday the company had not yet heard from the sheriff's

department but that it would cooperate with the investigation.

INFLATION

Inflation has best showing in 3 years



WASHINGTON - The Labor Department reported Thursday that consumer prices rose by 2.5 percent in

2006, the best showing since prices had increased by just 1.9 percent in 2003. The improvement came in

spite of the fact that consumer prices jumped 0.5 percent in December, as gasoline prices staged a

momentary rebound.



The slowdown in inflation translated into more spending power for Americans. The government said

average weekly earnings for non-supervisory workers rose by 2.1 percent last year, after adjusting for

inflation. That was the biggest gain in nine years.



Inflation-adjusted weekly earnings had fallen for three straight years, a development that Democrats argued

in last fall's election campaigns showed that President Bush's economic policies were not working for the

middle class.



In other economic news, the number of newly laid off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits fell

to a seasonally adjusted 290,000 last week, the lowest level in 11 months and an indication that the labor

market began the new year in good shape in spite of weakness in housing and auto manufacturing.



Meanwhile, the Commerce Department reported that construction of new homes rose by 4.5 percent in

December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.642 million units, raising hopes that the worst of the

housing slowdown may be coming to an end.



However, analysts cautioned that the figure was heavily influenced by warmer-than-normal weather last

month.



The 0.5 percent December increase in consumer prices had been expected, given that gasoline costs

rebounded during the month. However with crude oil prices setting 19-month lows in recent weeks, the

expectation is that gasoline costs will resume their downward trend and stay well below the record level of

over $3 per gallon, set last summer.



For all of 2006, energy costs rose 2.9 percent, a significant slowdown after an increase of 17.1 percent in

2005 and 16.6 percent in 2004. That price moderation occurred in recent months. After advancing at a 22.8

percent annual rate in the first six months of 2006, energy costs fell at a 13.4 percent rate in the final half of

the year.



The moderation in energy in the second half of last year helped lower the overall price increase to 2.5

percent, down from a gain of 3.4 percent in 2005, which had been the biggest price jump in five years.



Core inflation, which excludes volatile energy and food costs, rose by 2.6 percent in 2006, up from gains of

2.2 percent in both 2004 and 2005. That was the fastest increase since a 2.7 percent rise in 2001.



The Federal Reserve has been watching the performance of core inflation closely for signs that the surge in

energy costs in recent years was breaking out to more widespread inflation troubles.



In an effort to prevent that from occurring, the Fed raised interest rates at 17 consecutive meetings as a way

of slowing overall growth enough to keep inflation under control.



Analysts believe the central bank could start cutting interest rates by this summer if core inflation continues

to show improvement.



The report on the Consumer Price Index offered good news on that front, showing that core inflation was

rising at an annual rate of 1.4 percent in the final three months of the year, just half of the 2.8 percent rate

of increase turned in during the July-September quarter. It was the best showing of the year.

SPOUSE MISSING?

Majority of US women living without spouse



The New York Times, which based its report on an analysis of census results, said 51 percent of women in

2005 reported living without a spouse, up from 35 percent in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000.



"Coupled with the fact that in 2005 married couples became a minority of all American households for the

first time, the trend could ultimately shape social and workplace policies, including the ways government

and employers distribute benefits," the newspaper said.



It said that several factors are behind the shift including women marrying at a later age and living with

partners for more often and for longer periods. Women are also living longer as widows and once divorced,

often opt to stay single, the report said.



According to the Census figures, only about 30 percent of black women are living with a spouse, compared

with 49 percent of Hispanic women, 55 percent of non-Hispanic white women and more than 60 percent of

Asian women.

BROKE POWER BALL WINNER

Powerball winner: Thieves cleaned me out



CHARLESTON, W.Va. - A man beset by problems since winning a record lottery jackpot says he can't pay

a settlement to a casino worker because thieves cleaned out his bank accounts.



Powerball winner Jack Whittaker gave that explanation in a note last fall to a lawyer for Kitti French, who

accused him of assaulting her at the Tri-State Racetrack and Gaming Center, a slots-only casino near

Charleston, according to a motion French's lawyer filed this week demanding payment of the confidential

settlement.



Whittaker won a nearly $315 million on Christmas 2002, then the largest undivided lottery prize in U.S.

history. He took his winnings in a lump sum of $113 million after taxes.



Since then, he has faced his granddaughter's death by drug overdose; he has been sued for bouncing checks

at Atlantic City, N.J., casinos; he has been ordered to undergo rehab after being arrested on drunken driving

charges; his vehicles and business have been burglarized; and he has been sued by the father of an 18-year-

old boy, a friend of his granddaughter's, who was found dead in Whittaker's house.



In the latest lawsuit, Whittaker told French's lawyer, John Barrett, that "a team of crooks" cashed checks in

September at 12 City National Bank branches and "got all my money," according to the motion Barrett

filed Wednesday in state court.



"I intend to pay but can't without any money," Whittaker wrote, according to the motion.



An official with City National Bank said Friday the bank is investigating "small discrepancies" in

Whittaker's accounts.



Calls to Whittaker and his lawyers Friday were not immediately returned.

WIRELESS THEFT

Using neighbor's wireless link: Probation



SINGAPORE - A Singaporean teenager who illegally tapped into a neighbor's wireless Internet network —

an offense the city-state deems punishable by jail — was placed on 18 months' probation by a district court

Tuesday.



The court also ordered Garyl Tan Jia Luo, 17, to carry out 80 hours of community service after he admitted

linking his computer to his neighbor's wireless router to access the Internet without permission.



Tan could have been jailed up to three years and fined 10,000 Singapore dollars (US$6,500).



Senior District Judge Bala Reddy cited a probation report as saying Tan had been addicted to Internet

gaming at the time of the offense, adding the teenager had "few friends, if not none."



Reddy said Tan should seek "disciplined and structured psychiatric and psychological intervention" to cure

his addiction.



Tan is the first Singaporean to have been prosecuted and convicted for tapping illegally into a wireless

Internet network, an offense under the Computer Misuse Act, according to Tan's lawyer, Sam Koh.



A second Singaporean is currently facing 60 charges of illegally accessing wireless Internet networks.

MIDWEST ICE STORM

Death toll mounts from Midwest ice storm



ST. LOUIS - The death toll from a powerful winter storm rose to 36 across six states Monday as utility

crews labored to restore service to hundreds of thousands of Missouri households and businesses enduring

cold weather without electricity for heat and lights.



The crews hoped to take advantage of moderate weather expected Monday — with only a few lingering

snow showers and flurries — before temperatures plunged back to the single digits Monday night.



However, some people won't be back online until late Wednesday, said the utility Ameren.



Power outages spread to other states Monday as the remains of the storm system streamed across New

England.



Ice-covered roads cut into Martin Luther King Jr. holiday observances from New York to Texas, where

officials canceled Gov. Rick Perry's inauguration parade scheduled for Tuesday.

Even in Maine, more accustomed to winter weather, a layer of sleet and snow on roads Monday shut down

numerous businesses, day care centers and schools.



Waves of freezing rain, sleet and snow since Friday had been blamed for at least 15 deaths in Oklahoma,

eight in Missouri, five in Iowa, three in Texas and four in New York and one in Maine.



Seven of the Oklahoma deaths occurred in one accident, in which a minivan carrying 12 people slid off an

icy highway Sunday and struck an oncoming truck, the Highway Patrol said. All of the van's occupants

were adult residents of Mexico, who were traveling from Arizona to North Carolina, Highway Patrol Capt.

Chris West said.



About 330,000 homes and businesses had no electricity Sunday night in Missouri. State officials did not

have a new estimate Monday morning, but Ameren's share of those outages had dropped from 130,000 to

98,000, spokeswoman Susan Gallager said. However, that figure included about 13,000 new outages in

central Missouri.



Most of the Missouri power outages were caused by the weight of ice snapping tree branches and dropping

them onto power lines, officials said. In New Hampshire, outages also were caused by vehicles sliding into

utility poles.



Missouri National Guardsmen went door to door checking on the health and safety of residents in the

hardest hit parts of the state and helping to clear slick roads. The St. Louis temperature hovered just above

the freezing mark Monday morning, and the wind chill was 24 degrees, the weather service said.



As the storm blew across the lower Great Lakes and northern New England on Monday, a layer of ice up to

a half-inch thick knocked out power to more than 50,000 customers in northern New York and was blamed

for dozens of traffic accidents, authorities officials said.



A King holiday appearance in Albany, N.Y., by Gov. Eliot Spitzer was canceled because the weather

prevented him from flying or driving north from New York City.



The ice accumulation also blacked out at least 4,500 customers in New Hampshire, but in the northern part

of the state ski areas were celebrating their first significant snowfall of the season.



The weather and the need to de-ice aircraft prompted the cancellation of 100 scheduled departures Monday

morning at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, DFW Airport spokesman Ken Capps said. More than

400 flights were canceled there Sunday.

About 122,000 customers were blacked out in Oklahoma as of Sunday night, the state Department of

Emergency Management said. Authorities said it could be up to a week before power is fully restored.



Late Sunday, President Bush declared a federal disaster for Oklahoma because of the storm.



Elsewhere, a weekend cold snap that had worried citrus growers and other farmers in California produced

rare freezing temperatures Monday in southern Arizona. The 8 a.m. reading in Phoenix was 29, the weather

service said.

ALZHEIMER'S STUDY

New gene linked to Alzheimer's identified



Abnormalities in a gene called SORL1 increased the risk for the disease, and this finding could help

scientists develop new treatments, the researchers reported in the journal Nature Genetics.



The researchers looked at DNA samples from 6,000 people from four ethnic groups: Caribbean-Hispanics,

North Europeans, black Americans and Israeli-Arabs. They found certain variations of SORL1 more often

in people with late-onset Alzheimer's disease than in healthy people.



The late-onset form, affecting people age 65 and up, represents about 90 percent of Alzheimer's cases. The

rarer early-onset form affects people from about age 30 to 65.



Only one other gene, called ApoE4, has been identified as a risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer's. It was

identified in 1993.



Several genes are linked with early Alzheimer's, and study of both types might lead to better understanding

of how the disease begins and how to tackle it.



Many scientists think Alzheimer's begins with the buildup in the brain of a gooey material called amyloid

that clumps together to form plaques. That material stems from a protein called amyloid precursor protein,

or APP.



SORL1 controls the distribution of APP inside nerve cells of the brain. When working normally, the gene

prevents APP from being degraded into a toxic byproduct called amyloid beta peptide. When SORL1 is

deficient, it allows more of the bad amyloid beta peptide to accumulate, fostering amyloid plaques.



Alzheimer's is a complex disease that gradually destroys a person's memory and ability to learn, reason,

make judgments, communicate and carry out daily activities. Scientists have struggled to understand the

biology of the disease and its genetic and environmental causes.



'PIECE OF THE PUZZLE'

"It's another clue to the way in which this disease comes about, another piece of the puzzle," Dr. Peter St.

George-Hyslop, director of the Center for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of

Toronto and one of the key researchers, said in a telephone interview.



"Every time you get a piece of the puzzle and you can relate it to something else in the puzzle, you're that

much closer to knowing what the picture on the puzzle is," he added.



St. George-Hyslop said it is premature to say what percentage of cases of late-onset Alzheimer's disease

can be attributed to SORL1. ApoE4, which also may be involved in the production of amyloid plaques, has

been linked to about 20 percent of late-onset Alzheimer's cases.



"This appears to be the fifth Alzheimer's disease gene, and there are likely to be other important genetic

variants that need to be identified before the entire picture is complete," Dr. Richard Mayeux of Columbia

University Medical Center in New York, also involved in the research, said in a statement.



The disease first affects parts of the brain controlling memory and thinking, but as it advances it kills cells

elsewhere in the brain. Eventually, if the patient has no other serious illness, the loss of brain function will

prove fatal.



Researchers from Boston University and the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Jacksonville, Florida,

also took part in the five-year study.

DO YOU NEED A CREDIT CHECK?

CREDIT CHECKS - CIA & FBI LOOKING AT YOUR CREDIT



Cheney: Credit checks aren't illegal



WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday the Pentagon and CIA are not violating

people's rights by examining the banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected

of terrorism or espionage in the United States.



Rep. Silvestre Reyes (news, bio, voting record), D-Texas, the new chairman of the House Intelligence

Committee, said his panel will be the judge of that.



National security letters permit the executive branch to seek records about people in terrorism and spy

investigations without a judge's approval or grand jury subpoena.



"The Defense Department gets involved because we've got hundreds of bases inside the United States that

are potential terrorist targets," Cheney said.



"The Department of Defense has legitimate authority in this area. This is an authority that goes back three

or four decades. It was reaffirmed in the Patriot Act," he said. "It's perfectly legitimate activity. There's

nothing wrong with it or illegal. It doesn't violate people's civil rights."



In a statement Sunday, Reyes promised that his panel would take a careful look at those claims.



"Any expansion by the department into intelligence collection, particularly on U.S. soil, is something our

committee will thorough review," Reyes said.



"We want our intelligence professionals to have strong tools that will enable them to interrupt the planning

process of our enemies and to stop attacks against our country," he said. "But in doing so, we also want

those tools to comply fully with the law and the Constitution."



The Pentagon and the CIA, to a lesser extent, have used this little-known power, officials said. The FBI, the

lead agency on domestic counter-terrorism and espionage, has issued thousands of such letters since the

attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.



The letters have generated criticism and court challenges from civil liberties advocates who claim they

invade the privacy of Americans' lives, even though banks and other financial institutions typically turn

over the financial records voluntarily.



The vast majority of national security letters are issued by the FBI, but in rare circumstances they have

been used by the CIA before and after Sept. 11, according to a U.S. intelligence official. The CIA has used

these noncompulsory letters in espionage investigations and other circumstances, the official said.



The New York Times, which reported Sunday on the expanded use of the technique by the Pentagon and

CIA, said military intelligence officers have sent the letters in up to 500 investigations.



Cheney was interviewed on "Fox News Sunday."

GRISHAM LAWSUIT

Va. court OKs suit against John Grisham



RICHMOND, Va. - Best-selling author John Grisham and a couple he knows must answer allegations that

they deliberately caused a woman's emotional problems by accusing her of sending them anonymous

letters, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled Friday.



In a 6-1 ruling, the court reinstated Katharine Almy's lawsuit against Grisham, Alan Swanson — a teacher

at a private school were Grisham served on the board of directors — and Swanson's wife, Donna.



A judge had dismissed the lawsuit after reviewing a deposition by a mental health professional who treated

Almy. The justices, however, ruled Almy had stated allegations sufficient to hold a trial on her claim of

intentional infliction of emotional distress.



Almy, who denies writing the letters, is entitled to her day in court, said her lawyer, Bernard J. DiMuro.



Thomas E. Albro, the attorney for Grisham and the Swansons, declined to comment.



Donna Swanson received several handwritten letters between 1996 and 1998 accusing her husband of

infidelity, among other allegations, according to the facts set out in Friday's ruling. Grisham, a

Charlottesville-area resident whose legal thrillers include "The Firm" and "The Runaway Jury," also

received an anonymous letter in 1998. The court did not describe the contents of that letter.



Almy claims Grisham and the Swansons set out to prove she wrote the letters, hiring two handwriting

experts to compare the letters to other samples of her writing: materials from a baseball league in which

Almy's daughter played and Grisham coached and confidential records from her children's files at the

school.



Almy alleges the defendants persuaded authorities to send a police officer to Almy's home to confront her,

which she says caused her severe emotional problems.

TAX TIME

Put off reading this until tax time



WASHINGTON - Procrastination in society is getting worse and scientists are finally getting around to

figuring out how and why. Too many tempting diversions are to blame, but more on that later.



After 10 years of research on a project that was only supposed to take five years, a Canadian industrial

psychologist found in a giant study that not only is procrastination on the rise, it makes people poorer, fatter

and unhappier.



Something has to be done about it, sooner rather than later, University of Calgary professor Piers Steel

concludes. His 30-page study is in this month's peer-reviewed Psychological Bulletin, published by the

American Psychological Association.



In 1978, only about 5 percent of the American public thought of themselves as chronic procrastinators.

Now it's 26 percent, Steel said.



And why not? There are so many fun ways to kill time — TVs in every room, online video, Web-surfing,

cell phones, video games, iPods and Blackberries.



At work, e-mail, the Internet and games are just a click away, making procrastination effortless, Steel said.



"That stupid game Minesweeper — that probably has cost billions of dollars for the whole society," he said.



The U.S. gross national product would probably rise by $50 billion if the icon and sound that notifies

people of new e-mail suddenly disappear, he added.



And there's good reason to worry right now about the problem of procrastination.



"People who procrastinate tend to be less healthy, less wealthy and less happy," Steel said Wednesday.

"You can reduce it, but I don't think you can eliminate it."



Psychologist William Knaus, who has written several self-help books on fighting procrastination since

1977's "Overcoming Procrastination," said Steel is "absolutely right."



He said he found it harder to wean chronic procrastinators from the habit of delaying than to wean

alcoholics from booze. Knaus mentioned one businessman who spent 40 hours of delay time to avoid five

minutes of work.



"It's a huge problem," Knaus said. "I think the majority of mental disabilities people have — anxiety, panic

— they can be defined as a special case of procrastination."



There is personal financial fallout from procrastination, too. Delay in filing taxes on average costs a person

$400 a year and last-minute Christmas shopping with credit cards was five times higher in 1999 than in

1991, Steel found in a review of more than 500 economic and psychological studies about putting off

unpleasant chores.



Steel's study found that in the past quarter century, the average self-score for procrastination (using a 1-to-5

scale with 1 being no delaying) has increased by 39 percent.



Overall, more than a quarter of Americans say they procrastinate. Men are worse than women (about 54 out

of 100 chronic procrastinators are men) and the young are more like to procrastinate than the old, Steel

said. Three out of four college students consider themselves procrastinators.

Early studies looking at U.S. and Canadian cultures didn't find any differences in the two countries'

procrastination problem, but Steel said when he has more time he'll get around to more cross-cultural

studies.



The causes of procrastination combine temptation, sense of immediacy, the value of doing the job, and

whether you believe you can get the work done, Steel found. He even created a complicated mathematical

formula, complete with Greek letters, to figure out when a person is likely to procrastinate.



Temptation is the biggest factor. And it's why procrastination is getting worse, Steel said, citing technology.



"It's easier to procrastinate now than ever before. We have so many more temptations," he said. "It's never

been harder to be self-disciplined in all of history than it is now."



But procrastination goes back thousands of years, before technology. Ancient literature harps on the

problem, Steel said. Knaus mentioned a book from 1852: "Thoughtless Little Fanny: The Unhappy Results

of Procrastination." The author is just called "a friend of children."



While many self-help books say perfectionists procrastinate because they don't want to get things wrong,

Steel found just the opposite. Perfectionists procrastinate less and do better because they avoid delaying.

However they do worry more about putting stuff off, he said.



Studying procrastination as a field has a benefit, said the professor. The more he knows about the problem

and the causes, the less he procrastinates — even though he sheepishly acknowledges his study was

completed five years late.



The good thing about studying procrastination, he said: "If you take a day off from it, you can always say

it's field research."

MICHAEL JACKSON

Spokeswoman: Jackson resolved bill suit



LOS ANGELES - Michael Jackson has amicably resolved a lawsuit filed by a Beverly Hills pharmacy that

claimed the singer owed more than $100,000 for prescription drugs during the past two years, his

spokeswoman said Friday.



"(Mickey) Fine Pharmacy has been paid," Jackson spokeswoman Raymone K. Bain said in a statement.



The suit, filed Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleged the pharmacy had an oral

agreement with Jackson to pay for his prescription medications and sent monthly bills that went unpaid by

the singer.



As of Dec. 25, 2006, Jackson owed $101,926 and had made his last payment in mid-2005, the lawsuit said.



A lawyer representing the pharmacy initially declined comment on the lawsuit, and did not immediately

return a phone call late Friday regarding Bain's comments.



In her statement, Bain said the lawsuit related to the administration of Jackson's finances. She noted that

Jackson has filed a lawsuit against his former business managers.

TWO BOYS FOUND

Man charged with kidnapping Mo. boy - January 12, 2007



BEAUFORT, Mo. - A 13-year-old boy who vanished from the gravel road near his home five days ago was

found alive Friday about 60 miles away in a suburban St. Louis home, along with a 15-year-old boy

missing since 2002, authorities said.



Sharp-eyed police and suspicions about a white truck led police to the Kirkwood apartment of Michael

Devlin, 41, who has been charged with one count of first-degree kidnapping, Sheriff Gary Toelke said.



The sheriff said both boys appeared unharmed. William Ownby who goes by Ben, appeared somewhat

dazed as he walked inside the sheriff's department, where he was reunited with his family who had been

searching for him since Monday.



"His eyes lit up like silver dollars," said the boy's uncle, Loyd Bailie, who was escorted to the sheriff's

department with Ben's parents. Everyone broke into tears and Ben's parents embraced him as tightly as they

could, Bailie said.



The straight-A student and Boy Scout was last seen after he stepped off his school bus and ran toward his

Beaufort home down a gravel road on Monday.



A friend who left the bus with the boy told authorities that after the two parted, he saw a small white pickup

with a camper shell speeding away from where Ben had been walking.



Searchers on foot, horseback and all-terrain vehicles looked for Ben in the hilly area about 60 miles

southwest of St. Louis.



Toelke said the break in the case came Thursday night. Kirkwood city police officers were serving a

warrant on an apartment complex when they noticed a white truck matching the description of a vehicle

authorities had been searching for in the Ownby investigation.



Kirkwood officers contacted the Franklin County Sheriff's Department and determined where the owner of

the truck was and then searched Devlin's house.



Toelke said authorities found Ben and were surprised to find another boy who identified himself as Shawn

Hornbeck.



Hornbeck disappeared from his Richwoods in October 2002, when he was 11. He went for a bike ride and

never returned.



Hornbeck's parents, Pam and Craig Akers, were reunited with their son, Toelke said.



Later, both boys were taken to SSM Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital in St. Louis for evaluation.

Hospital spokesman Bob Davidson said both were in good spirits.



"The boys were smiling and appeared very pleased to be with their families," Davidson said. "Obviously

the families were incredibly tickled to have the boys back. It's a thrilling night."



Hornbeck's parents have devoted themselves to bringing missing people home since Hornbeck vanished

over four years ago from his hometown 65 miles southwest of St. Louis.



His parents, dozens of volunteers and sniffer dogs searched for weeks. The couple set up a Web site and

listened to anyone who offered a tip.

Craig Akers, Shawn's stepfather, quit his job as a software designer to devote his time to a foundation

bearing his son's name. They depleted their savings, borrowed against their retirement and talked to

psychics. The financial strain forced both of them back to work.



A retired police officer volunteered to work on the case until Shawn was found.



Even though so much time had passed, Pam Akers said her son is frozen in her memory as an 11-year-old

boy.



"It's been four years," she said on the anniversary of his disappearance last fall. "But for me, it's just been

one long continuous day."



Toelke said authorities were still investigating the motive behind the abductions. Franklin County

Prosecutor Robert Parks said more charges are likely to be filed.



"There are a lot of things we don't know right now," Toelke said.



Neighbor Rick Butler, 43, said the FBI came to his door Thursday night and showed a picture of Ben,

asking if he had seen him. He said he had not. But he had seen a boy he now believes was Hornbeck.



He said he saw no evidence that the boy now believed to be Hornbeck was scared or trying to get away. He

had seen Devlin and the teen pitch a tent in the courtyard.



"I didn't see or hear anything odd or unusual from the apartment," Butler said. "I just figured them for

father and son."



Devlin worked at a local pizzeria and an overnight shift answering phones at a funeral home, the St. Louis

Post Dispatch reported.



"He just acted like a relatively normal guy. Nothing unusual stuck out at me," his former landlord, Marvin

Reid, told the newspaper.

MEDICARE REFORM

House approves Medicare reform measure - January 12, 2007



WASHINGTON - The House approved legislation Friday requiring the government to negotiate with drug

companies over the price of medicines for Medicare participants.



Despite a veto threat from the president, Democrats used their majority status to push through another of

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record)'s priorities for the first 100 hours of the new

Congress. The vote was 255-170, mostly along party lines.



The idea behind the bill is using the sheer size of the Medicare program to generate steeper discounts than

private insurance plans can muster.



"Forty-three million people can have the purchasing power to perhaps encourage these drug houses to give

the government and the American retirees a better price," said the bill's author, Rep. John Dingell (news,

bio, voting record), D-Mich.

However, the bill's prospects dim after Friday's vote.



President Bush has said he would veto the bill if it makes it to his desk. He said that competition is already

reducing prices for seniors and creating an environment that encourages the development of new drugs.



The Senate has held one hearing on the subject this year, and more are expected, with that chamber likely

to take a much longer look at the concept than the House did.



The legislation strikes a clause known as the "noninterference provision," which prohibits the secretary of

Health and Human Services from participating in negotiations between drug manufacturers and insurers

that sponsor Medicare plans. It would require the secretary to negotiate. Insurers still would be allowed to

try for steeper discounts than what the government obtained.



Republicans countered that the drug benefit, which kicked in on Jan. 1, 2006, has cost less than anticipated,

and the large majority of seniors and disabled people who use the program are satisfied.



"With all that's right with the program, it seems unwise and unkind to jeopardize its success," said Rep.

Michael Burgess (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas.



Democrats have said that savings produced by the negotiations would be used to reduce a coverage gap that

is common in many plans. Reducing the gap, known as the doughnut hole, would lower those beneficiaries'

out-of-pocket costs.



But Republicans counter that there wouldn't be any savings. Also, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget

Office said the legislation was unlikely to result in savings to taxpayers.



The drug program cost about $30 billion in its first year. Insurance companies offer competing coverage

plans, and seniors may enroll in the one they like best. The administration announced on Wednesday that

23.5 million seniors had enrolled in stand-alone plans as of Jan. 1.



White House press secretary Tony Snow noted that actuaries at both the budget office and the Department

of Health and Human Services say the bill will have little or no effect on federal spending and provide no

substantial savings to the government.



"If this bill is presented to the president, he will veto it," Snow said Friday.



Currently, private drug plans negotiate how much they'll pay for the medicine their Medicare customers

take. Those plans get a federal subsidy, plus consumers pay for a portion of the medicine.

Dingell said the government can do better than individual insurance companies in getting discounts.



"The president and his Republican allies have argued that this bill would do nothing. Then why, I must ask,

would he bother to veto it?" said Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.



Twenty-four Republicans voted for the legislation. Rep. Dan. Burton, R-Ind., was one of them. He noted

during the debate that Americans pay more for medicine than residents of other countries pay. Also, the

government negotiates for other products.



"For us to say we cannot negotiate on pharmaceuticals is just crazy," he said during the debate.



No Democrat voted against the legislation.

CANON'S VENTURE

Canon to take control of joint venture - January 12, 2007



TOKYO - Japanese electronics maker Canon will take full control of a joint venture for flat panel TVs

using a new technology called SED, the company said Friday, in a move aimed at an early settlement of a

legal dispute in the United States.



Canon Inc. will turn SED Inc., an equally owned venture with Toshiba Corp., into a wholly owned

subsidiary, effective Jan. 29, the two companies said in a statement.



The decision was prompted by litigation against Canon underway in the U.S. over SED technology, a new

type of flat-panel display jointly developed with Toshiba, the statement said.



SED, which stands for surface-conduction electron-emitter display, panels have a reputation for delivering

clear and vivid images because their light-beaming technology is similar to that for old-style cathode-ray

tube TVs.



Nano-Proprietary Inc., a U.S. technology company that has licensed a key SED technology to Canon,

claims SED Inc. is not covered under the agreement because the company is not a Canon subsidiary.



Canon decided to purchase all outstanding shares held by Toshiba in the joint venture "based on the

assumption of prolonged litigation pending against Canon in the United States with respect to SED

technology," the companies said.



The purchase price is estimated at about 10 billion yen ($82.64 million), the Nikkei business newspaper

said in its evening editions, citing unidentified sources.



Canon and Toshiba will produce SED television sets in Japan later this year as originally planned, although

Canon will reassess its future mass-production plans for SED panels, the statement said.



Though the joint venture, set up in 2004, will be fully taken over by Canon under an agreement between the

two companies, Toshiba is planning to procure SED panels from Canon in the future and assemble its own

SED TVs, said Toshiba spokesman Keisuke Ohmori.



Toshiba shares, which have made some fluctuations over the past year, closed up 0.86 percent to 819 yen

($6.77) on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Canon shares, which have risen about 20 percent over the pas six

months, climbed 1.24 percent at 6,540 yen ($54.05).

U.S. UNIFORM IN PLAYBOY MAG.

Sergeant in trouble for Playboy spread - January 12, 2007



SAN ANTONIO - An Air Force staff sergeant who posed nude for Playboy magazine has been relieved of

her duties while the military investigates, officials said Thursday.



In February's issue, hitting newsstands this week, Michelle Manhart is photographed in uniform yelling and

holding weapons under the headline "Tough Love." The following pages show her partially clothed,

wearing her dog tags while working out, as well as completely nude.



"This staff sergeant's alleged action does not meet the high standards we expect of our airmen, nor does it

comply with the Air Force's core values of integrity, service before self, and excellence in all we do," Oscar

Balladares, spokesman for Lackland Air Force Base, said in a statement.



Manhart told Playboy that she considers herself as standing up for her rights.



"Of what I did, nothing is wrong, so I didn't anticipate anything, of course," Manhart, 30, told The

Associated Press. "I didn't do anything wrong, so I didn't think it would be a major issue."



Manhart, who is married with two children, joined the Air Force in 1994, spending time in Kuwait in 2002.

She trains airmen at Lackland.

CLINTON & OTHERS-IRAQ

Clinton, other lawmakers, head to Iraq - January 12, 2007



WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and two other lawmakers are headed to

Iraq this weekend as Congress engages in fierce debate over President Bush's plan to send 21,500 more

troops to salvage the U.S. effort there.



Clinton, a Democrat from New York who is considering running for president, is traveling with Sen. Evan

Bayh (news, bio, voting record), D-Ind., who had also eyed the 2008 race but opted out, and Rep. John

McHugh (news, bio, voting record), a Republican from upstate New York.

The three, all members of armed services committees, are to meet with top Iraqi officials and U.S. military

commanders. The trip also takes them to Afghanistan.



"This was the first opportunity we had to be able to go because of the long weekend, and it turns out that

the timing is propitious because of the president's plans," said Clinton, who opposes Bush's plan to send

more U.S. troops to Iraq.



During the trip, Clinton and McHugh will spend time with troops from the Army's 10th Mountain Division,

which is based in New York and deployed in both Iraq and Afghanistan.



Bayh stressed he wants to meet with top Iraqi officials and judge for himself how serious they are about

using their own troops and leadership to stabilize the country.



"The essential truth in Iraq is that we can't do this for them," said Bayh. "We need to take away their

security blanket."



McHugh has not been as critical of the Bush administration's handling of the war as the two Democrats, but

like many Republicans in Congress he sounds increasingly exasperated with conditions in Iraq.



McHugh said he wanted to warn Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of the dwindling patience in

Washington.



"It's folly to think that you can stabilize 80 percent of a country while one of the most important sites in the

Middle East, Baghdad, is in total chaos. You can't just shove that under the rug," he said.



It's Clinton's third visit to Iraq. She went last in February 2005 with Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting

record), a Republican presidential contender.



Although she opposes more U.S. troops for Iraq, Clinton wants to see more troops in Afghanistan, where

"we seem to be on autopilot," she said.



"I wish we were discussing additional troops for Afghanistan. We are hearing increasingly troubling reports

out of Afghanistan and we will be searching for accurate information about the true state of affairs both

militarily and politically," she said.

WORKERS PISS YOU OFF?

"It's Important to Stay Cool Under Pressure"



We've all had stressful workdays, but be careful: Losing your temper in the workplace might cost you more

than embarrassment. It could lead to loss of respect from co-workers and colleagues, and might just cost

you a valued customer, a well-deserved promotion or even your job.



However, there are a few simple tips that might help you overcome your stress, anger and frustration:



Keep calm. Learning to stay cool when you are about to lose your temper might be one of the hardest things

to do, but there are ways to manage short-term anger and frustration. Keep your voice calm, remove

yourself from the situation if need be, and talk about it with somebody.



Be prepared. If prepared, you are less likely to be caught off guard, thus readily minimizing stressful

situations that may lead to loss of temper. For example, if you are a Notary Signing Agent heading for an

early morning assignment, prepare materials the night before. Make sure that all your notarial tools are

functioning correctly.



Be organized. Use all methods available to keep you on track and aware of deadlines, appointments and

other commitments. Use calendars, journals, cell phone reminders and Personal Digital Assistants to avoid

the anger and embarrassment associated with arriving late or missing work assignments.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Apple renames itself, unveils iPhone - January 10, 2007



SAN FRANCISCO - First there was iPod, now there's iPhone.



The next phase of Apple's plan to reinvent itself as a consumer electronics company was unveiled Tuesday

by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, and it received a warm reception from Wall Street. The touch-screen-controlled

device plays music, surfs the Internet and delivers voice mail and e-mail differently than any other cell

phone.



IPhone, introduced by Jobs during his keynote speech at the annual Macworld Conference and Expo in San

Francisco, was accompanied by Apple TV, a set-top box that streams video from computers to television.

the company is even getting a name change — from Apple Computer Inc. to just Apple Inc. — to better

reflect its transition to a full-scale consumer electronics manufacturer and retailer.



But it remains to be seen whether a $500 phone and some other gadgets will be enough for the company to

remain a Wall Street darling and sustain the market dominance enjoyed by iPod, Apple's iconic digital

music player. Others wonder whether the phone — despite its slim elegance and wide-screen monitor — is

priced competitively.



"Prospects for the new device are positive, but it is not a given that Apple can win against a slew of

wireless providers, phone manufacturers, and Microsoft, all of whom are similarly motivated to raise their

flag on the same territory," said James L. McQuivey, a communications technology professor at Boston

University.



Even the phone's name is in contention.



Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems Inc. that makes networking equipment for the home and small

businesses, unveiled its new iPhone line of Internet-enabled phones last month. Cisco has owned the

trademark on the name "iPhone" since 2000. Although Cisco is agitating for Apple to make a public

statement clarifying use of the name, Apple executives say their cellular phone doesn't compete with

Cisco's Internet phone.



Despite that uncertainty — and despite the fact that Apple's phone won't be available until June — Wall

Street has initially blessed it. Apple shares jumped $7.10 to close at $92.57 on the Nasdaq Stock Market,

creating about $6 billion in new shareholder wealth. The stock has traded in a 52-week range of $50.16 to

$93.16.



Nearly 120 million Apple shares changed hands Tuesday, more than 4 times the average daily volume.



Meanwhile, shares of other smart-phone makers slid: Treo-maker Palm dropped 5.7 percent, BlackBerry's

Research In Motion Ltd. lost 7.9 percent and Motorola Inc. shed 1.8 percent.



Tim Bajarin, principal analyst with Creative Strategies, said the iPhone appears poised to revolutionize the

way cell phones are designed and sold.



"This goes beyond smart phones and should be given its own category called `brilliant' phones," he said.

"Cell phones are on track to become the largest platform for digital music playback, and Apple needed to

make this move to help defend their iPod franchise as well as extend it beyond a dedicated music

environment."



Apple's iPod currently commands about 75 percent of the market for downloaded music and portable music

players. The company's iTunes digital media store has sold more than 2 billion songs, 50 million television

episodes and more than 1.3 million feature-length films, catapulting iTunes beyond Amazon.com for digital

media sales.

Initial hopes for the iPhone are relatively modest. The company hopes to sell about 10 million units in

2008, or about 1 percent of the market. About 957 million cellular phones were sold in 2006.



Apple TV, which a price tag of $300, has a 40-gigabyte hard drive and stores up to 50 hours of videos,

9,000 songs or 25,000 photos. It will be available in February.

Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president for worldwide marketing, said Apple isn't getting out of the

computer business, despite the name change. It's simply broadening its business.



"We sell Macintoshes and will continue to do so and are very happy with that business," he said.



The phones, which will operate exclusively on AT&T Inc.'s Cingular Wireless network, will start shipping

in June. The 4-gigabyte model will cost $499, while an 8-gigabyte iPhone will be $599.



Cingular would not provide details of its financial arrangement with Apple. But Glenn Lurie, president of

national distribution for Atlanta-based Cingular Wireless, said Cingular's board agreed to the collaboration

without even seeing a prototype, based on Apple's reputation for innovation.



"We looked at this and said, `Apple is so good at what they do,'" he said.



It's not Cingular's first foray into music-playing phones. In 2005, the company teamed with Motorola on an

iTunes-enabled phone called ROKR. But the product was widely considered a flop because it only held 100

songs and required users to buy songs through a computer and download the songs to the phone —

deficiencies the new Apple phone would remedy.



IPhone is less than a half-inch thin — slimmer than almost every other phone on the market. It comes with

a built-in, 2-megapixel digital camera, as well as a slot for headphones and a SIM card.



The phone automatically synchs the user's media — movies, music, photos — through iTunes on

computers running either Mac OS X or Microsoft Corp.'s Windows. The device also synchs e-mail, Web

bookmarks and nearly any type of digital content stored on a PC.



The phone supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless technology and can detect location from Global

Positioning System satellites. It also can send and display e-mail and text messages. Apple is partnering

with Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) on Web-based e-mail and Google Inc. on maps.



To make a call, users can tap out the number on an on-screen keypad or scroll through their contacts and

dial with a single touch. To zoom in on a photo or Web site, tap twice. To zoom out, tap once with two

fingers.

"It works like magic," Jobs said. "It's far more accurate than any touch display ever shipped. It ignores

unintended touches. It's super smart."

CELEBRITY KIDS

Walters calls Trump `poor, pathetic man' - January 10, 2007



NEW YORK - Donald Trump has called Barbara Walters a liar and Rosie O'Donnell a loser. On

Wednesday, they both fired back.



"Well, he's at it again," said O'Donnell, referring to a letter written to her by Trump and reported Tuesday

by the media. The letter said Walters had told him that working with O'Donnell on ABC's "The View" is

like "living in hell."



"That poor, pathetic man," said Walters, drawing whoops of approval from her TV audience.



O'Donnell high-fived Walters and co-hosts Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasselbeck. "You know, he just can't

— he just can't let go, but we're moving on," Walters said.



The co-hosts didn't mention him by name, referring to Trump as "he" and "that guy."



"The man is obsessed with me, and I'm happy to say his show tanked," O'Donnell said, an apparent

reference to the ratings of the latest edition of Trump's NBC reality show, "The Apprentice," which started

Sunday and fell short of those from last spring's season premiere.



An e-mail from The Associated Press seeking comment from Trump wasn't immediately answered

Wednesday. But TV show "The Insider" said a statement from Trump said, "They didn't even have the

courage to mention me by name. It was sad to see Barbara read her statement off a cue card."



In his letter to O'Donnell, Trump said Walters had "lied to both of us."



He said Walters had called him from her vacation trying to end the feud and supposedly told him "don't

worry, she won't be here for long" and "Donald, never get in the mud with pigs."



Walters said last week she hadn't told Trump she didn't want O'Donnell on the daytime talk show. "Nothing

could be further from the truth," she said.



The Rosie-Donald feud began last month after Trump announced that Miss USA Tara Conner would keep

her title, which had been in jeopardy because of underage drinking. He owns the pageant.



O'Donnell said his news conference had annoyed her "on a multitude of levels" and that the twice-divorced

real estate mogul had no right to be "the moral compass for 20-year-olds in America."

EXPENSIVE HOUSING

U.S. home prices unaffordable for many workers: study - January 10, 2007



CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. home prices may have dipped over the past year, but many American workers

would still struggle to afford a median-priced home in major cities, a new study said on Wednesday.



"American workers are really not gaining ground and they're so far behind in the first place," said Barbara

Lipman, research director for the nonprofit Center for Housing Policy, which conducted the study.



While the median home price in the 202 largest metropolitan areas declined 2 percent from a year ago to

$248,000 in the third quarter of 2006, mortgage rates rose enough over the year that homes actually became

less affordable as pay did not keep pace.



"The real story is what happened to salaries," Lipman said. "Lower-paid occupations -- such as in retail, or

home health workers -- their salaries went up only about 3 percent."



The study found an annual income of nearly $85,000 was needed to afford the median-priced U.S. home.



In the New York metropolitan area, a $500,000 median-priced home required a $171,000 annual salary.

The median-priced home in San Francisco, the most expensive U.S. market, was $759,000, requiring

income of $260,000. In less-expensive Chicago, the median-priced home cost $254,000, requiring an

$87,000 salary.



On the opposite end of the spectrum, Mansfield, Ohio, homes cost a median $85,000, requiring $29,118 in

income.



The study assumed home buyers needed a 10 percent down payment and could afford to pay 28 percent of

their income on mortgage payments, property taxes and home insurance.



In reality, many households expend a much higher percentage of their incomes on mortgage payments,

Lipman said. To afford that, consumers cut other expenses such as for health care and transportation, she

said, citing research showing unaffordable housing is the major reason families lack health insurance.



Other ways families cope with high housing expenses is to work longer hours or extra jobs, or by crowding

in more income producers, she said. An October 2006 survey by the group found families who seek to buy

less-expensive homes in further-out suburbs -- adding to urban sprawl -- pay so much more for transit that

it eliminates the savings.



While home prices range widely across the country, wages for low-wage jobs -- from teachers to janitors --

are about the same no matter where they are located, Lipman said.



The report cited housing aid programs offered by some big-city hospitals that have plenty of modestly-paid

workers.



"For the low- to moderate-income individuals that we're talking about, they're not going to be helped by

marginal declines in home prices," Lipman said. "The only way to address the problem is to create more

affordable units (homes) -- which may mean higher density units, townhouses and condos."

HONEST PEOPLE

Man's wallet returned after 62 years - January 10, 2007



MEXICO, Mo. - Ray Heilwagen has his wallet back, 62 years after he lost it in France during World War

II. Late last year, Heilwagen received a call from Stephen Breitenstein of Palatine, Ill.



"He said, 'Did you lose a billfold?' and I remembered I did," Heilwagen told the Hannibal Courier-Post.

"Then he said, 'I found it and will send it to you.'



"I could hardly believe it."



Breitenstein's father, who also served in France during World War II, recently died. Digging through his

father's possessions — ironically on Veteran's Day — Stephen Breitenstein found the old wallet. He figured

his dad found it during the war and brought it home, hoping to find the owner. Not knowing how to do so,

he left it in a drawer for more than six decades.



Using the Internet, Breitenstein tracked down Heilwagen. After their phone conversation, he mailed the

wallet to him.



"He sent it to me, and I received it in very good order," Heilwagen said. "It had everything in it — (French)

francs and pictures and my original Social Security card and some receipts."



The wallet also included an article from the Courier-Post (Heilwagen grew up in Hannibal) that his parents

had mailed to him during the war.



Heilwagen served with the Army's 79th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army, which was in combat in France

from their arrival in July 1944 until he was injured and hospitalized that November with a leg injury. He

received a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.



"We were in combat continuously, every day almost," he recalled. "We were in a battle and received small

arms fire, then a German mortar came in and exploded. It blew me into the river, and I had about five

pieces of shrapnel in my right leg."



As medics helped him in the field, Heilwagen recalled pulling out his billfold to look at pictures. The next

day, he was taken to a French hospital, where the shrapnel was removed.



"They were getting ready to ship me out to another hospital, and I looked for my billfold, and it was gone,"

said Heilwagen, who was later discharged and returned to Missouri. He retired after a 39-year career with

Southwestern Bell Telephone.



As for Breitenstein, "I was impressed that a stranger would go to such trouble to locate me and return my

wallet," Heilwagen said.

CHAVEZ'S 3RD TERM

Venezuela's Chavez sworn in for 3rd term - January 10, 2007



CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez echoed Fidel Castro's cry of "socialism or death" as he

was sworn in for a new six-year term on Wednesday, promising to accelerate Venezuela's transformation

into a socialist state.



Chavez took the oath of office at the National Assembly after a sweeping re-election victory that has given

him free reign to pursue more radical changes, including plans to nationalize power and

telecommunications companies.



His right hand raised, Chavez declared: "Fatherland, socialism or death — I swear it," invoking the Cuban

leader's famous call to arms.



Chavez also alluded to Jesus, saying: "I swear by Christ — the greatest socialist in history."



In a speech that followed, he said the central aim of his term that runs until 2013 will be "to build

Venezuelan socialism."



"I don't have the slightest doubt that is the only path to the redemption of our peoples, the salvation of our

fatherland," Chavez told lawmakers to applause. He said he believes that socialism — not capitalism — is

the only way to guarantee well-being not only for Venezuela, but the world.



He said a commission was being formed to oversee proposed constitutional reforms, including one that

would allow "indefinite re-election" by doing away with presidential term limits that bar him from running

again in 2012.



Referring to critics' claims the action showed he was a tyrant or doing the bidding of Castro, Chavez said,

"The important thing is that the people will make the decision, because nothing can be done without that

here." He has said in the past that Venezuelans should decide in a referendum.



Chavez also said he would ask the National Assembly, solidly dominated by his allies, for special powers

allowing him to enact a series of "revolutionary laws" by decree.



He scolded leaders of the Roman Catholic Church and the Organization of American States for criticizing

his decision not to renew the license of an opposition-aligned television station.



Addressing Venezuela's top Catholic prelate, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino, Chavez said he could not

understand why the church supported Radio Caracas Television, which Chavez accuses of subversive

activities aimed at ousting him.



"Mr. Cardinal," Chavez said, "the state respects the church. The church should respect the state. I wouldn't

like to return to the times of confrontation with Venezuelan bishops, but it's not up to me. It's up to the

Venezuelan bishops."



With oil profits booming and his popularity high, Chavez seems to be in step with many Venezuelans even

as spooked investors rushed to sell off Venezuelan stocks in the affected companies after his nationalization

announcement Monday.



Chavez attended a ceremony earlier Wednesday at the tomb of Simon Bolivar, the South American

independence hero who is the inspiration of Chavez's "Bolivarian Revolution" movement. He then rode in

an open car, blowing kisses and waving to supporters who tossed rose petals, to the National Assembly,

where he was sworn in by the body's president, Cilia Flores.

Some lawmakers shouted "Viva socialism!" after the ceremony.



Chavez, an admirer of the 80-year-old Castro, has said he is crafting a new sort of "21st century socialism"

for Venezuela. Critics say it is starting to look like old-fashioned totalitarianism by a leader obsessed with

power.



"They want to nationalize everything. This is the beginning," said Marisela Leon, a 47-year-old engineer

who said she might consider leaving the country because she sees difficult times ahead.



The U.S. government has expressed concern about Chavez's vaguely defined nationalization plans, which

he has said also include bringing under state control four lucrative oil projects now run by foreign

companies in the Orinoco River basin.



But most of Chavez's largely poor supporters remain optimistic. Miguel Angel Martinez, a 52-year-old

street vendor, said the president "has dedicated himself to studying communist, socialist and democratic

models and has taken the best of those models."



Orlando Vera, a 63-year-old window washer, said nationalization makes sense for companies that serve the

public interest. "Everything the man is doing is good," he said, adding that his economic situation has

improved under the Venezuelan leader.



First elected in 1998, Chavez has cemented his popularity by using a bonanza in oil profits to set up state-

funded cooperatives and fund social programs from subsidized grocery stores to free universities.



An Associated Press-Ipsos poll conducted three weeks before Chavez was re-elected on Dec. 3 found 62

percent of those asked supported nationalizing companies when in the national interest — a result that

paralleled Chavez's victory with nearly 63 percent of the votes.



But that support also has its limits. The poll found 84 percent said they oppose adopting a political system

like Cuba's, despite Chavez's reverence for Castro.



Chavez, who was traveling to Nicaragua later Wednesday to attend the inauguration of fellow leftist Daniel

Ortega, said he does not aim to copy Cuba's system.



But he ended his speech by repeating the phrase that Castro made famous: "Toward victory always!

Fatherland, socialism or death! We shall prevail!"

AL QAIDA KILLING

Al-Qaida chief in Somalia may be dead - January 10, 2007



MOGADISHU, Somalia - A senior al-Qaida suspect wanted for bombing American embassies in East

Africa was killed in a U.S. airstrike, a Somali official said Wednesday, a report that if confirmed would

mean the end of an eight-year hunt for a top target of Washington's war on terrorism.



In Washington, U.S. government officials said they had no reason to believe that the suspect, Fazul

Abdullah Mohammed, had been killed. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the

information's sensitivity.



The report came as U.S forces apparently launched a third day of airstrikes in southern Somalia. At least

four separate strikes were reported around Ras Kamboni, on the Somali coast near the Kenyan border.

Witnesses said an AC-130 gunship attacked a suspected al-Qaida training camp.



A senior Somali government official also said a small U.S. team has been providing military advice to

Ethiopian and government forces on the ground. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of

the sensitivity of the information.



In Washington, a U.S. official said it would be virtually unheard of for the United States to be involved in

an operation of this size without "eyes on the ground."



Two senior Pentagon officials said they had heard of no plans to put any sizable contingent of Americans in

Somalia. However, small teams of liaison officers — such as special forces or trainers — are another

matter, the officials said.



All three officials also spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the

subject.



Meanwhile, Somalia's deputy prime minister said Wednesday that American troops were needed on the

ground to root extremists from his troubled country, and he expected the troops soon.



Fazul, the al-Qaida suspect believed killed in the airstrike Monday, was wanted for allegedly planning the

1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.



"I have received a report from the American side chronicling the targets and list of damage," Abdirizak

Hassan, the Somali president's chief of staff, told The Associated Press. "One of the items they were

claiming was that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed is dead."



Fazul, 32, joined al-Qaida in Afghanistan and trained there with

Osama bin Laden, according to the transcript of an FBI interrogation of a known associate. He had a $5

million bounty on his head for allegedly planning the 1998 embassy bombings, which killed 225 people.



He is also suspected of planning the car bombing of an Israeli beach resort in Kenya and the near-

simultaneous attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner in 2002. Ten Kenyans and three Israelis were killed

in the blast at the hotel, 12 miles north of Mombasa. The missiles missed the airliner.



In Washington, an intelligence official said the U.S. killed five to 10 people in an attack on an al-Qaida

target in southern Somalia but did not say who was killed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity

because of the operation's sensitivity.



Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said, meanwhile, that eight terror suspects had been killed in the

U.S. airstrike, and he was awaiting results of DNA testing to determine their identities. He said he believed

they were high-ranking members of the Somali Islamic movement.

He also said he was not aware of any American special forces in Somalia, but that the U.S. was providing

intelligence.



In three days of attacks near Afmadow, close to the Kenyan border, 64 civilians had been killed and 100

injured, said elder Haji Farah Qorshel. There was no independent confirmation of his claim.



Hassan said local intelligence reports indicated that Abdirahman Janaqow, a deputy leader of the Somali

Islamic militants, had also been killed.



The airstrikes were part of the first U.S. offensive in Somalia since 18 American soldiers were killed there

in 1993.



The offensive is aimed at capturing al-Qaida members thought to be fleeing Somalia since the Islamic

militia that sheltered them began losing ground to Somali government soldiers backed by Ethiopian troops

last month. It has drawn international criticism, although Britain's leader Tony Blair has pledged support.



U.S. Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said the U.S. military assault had been based on

credible intelligence. He would not confirm any details of the airstrikes, conducted by at least one AC-130

gunship. He would also not say if any specific members of al-Qaida had been killed, or address if the

operations were continuing.



Somalia's Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Aided said U.S. special forces were needed on the ground as

Somali and Ethiopian forces have been unable to capture the last remaining hideouts of suspected

extremists.



"The only way we are going to kill or capture the surviving al-Qaida terrorists is for U.S. special forces to

go in on the ground," said Aided, a former U.S. Marine. "They have the know-how and the right equipment

to capture these people."

"As far as we are aware they are not on the ground yet, but it is only a matter of time," Aided said.



Leaders of Somalia's Islamic movement have vowed from their hideouts to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla

war, and bin Laden's deputy has called on militants to carry out suicide attacks on Ethiopian troops.



Somalia has not had an effective central government since clan-based warlords toppled dictator Mohamed

Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other. The interim government was established in 2004.

MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE

House set to vote on minimum wage hike - January 10, 2007



WASHINGTON - Tackling a top priority, House Democrats pushed a $2.10 an hour increase in the federal

minimum wage toward passage Wednesday, calling it only a partial restoration of purchasing power for

America's lowest-paid workers.



As their second bill since taking control of Congress, the Democratic-written legislation would raise the

federal wage floor from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour in three steps over 26 months. The federal wage hasn't

budged for 10 years.



House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (news, bio, voting record), D-Md., said passing the boost "is simply a

matter of doing what's right, what's just, and what's fair."



"If the minimum wage had been adjusted with the cost of living on an annual basis since 1968, a minimum

wage worker would not be making $5.15, not be making $7.25, would be making $9.05," he said.



Organized labor and other supporters pitched the bill as coming to the aid of the working poor. Business

groups and other opponents said it could lead to higher prices for goods and services, force small

companies to pink-slip existing workers or hire fewer new ones, and crimp profits.



"In America we can either have maximum opportunity or we can have minimum wages. We cannot have

both," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas.



The bill would raise the wage floor in three steps. It would go to $5.85 an hour 60 days after signed into

law by the president, to $6.55 an hour a year later, and to $7.25 an hour a year after that.



"For 10 years the lowest-paid Americans have been frozen out. They have been working at a federal

poverty wage, not a federal minimum wage," said Rep. George Miller (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif.,

author of the legislation.



President Bush said he supports a wage boost paired with "targeted tax and regulatory relief" to help

businesses — which would have to pay for the higher labor costs — stay competitive. As currently written,

the House bill doesn't include any such tax or regulatory breaks.



House Democrats are denying Republicans any chance to amend the minimum wage bill. Rep. Howard

McKeon (news, bio, voting record), R-Calif., complained that constituted a "a series of colossal missed

opportunities"



The Senate is expected to move quickly — perhaps in the next few weeks — on a similar bill. Business

groups and some Republican lawmakers, however, hope they will be able to get some business-friendly

provisions into the Senate package.



The last time the federal minimum wage rose was in 1997. That's the longest stretch without an increase

since the minimum wage was established in 1938. Inflation has eroded the minimum wage's buying power

to the lowest level in about 50 years.

The Labor Department says 479,000 workers paid by the hour earned exactly $5.15 in 2005, the most

recent estimate available.



The federal minimum wage is like a national wage floor, though some people can be paid less under certain

circumstances. States can set minimum wages above the federal level; more than two dozen states plus the

District of Columbia do.



People who are paid the minimum wage tend to be young — under age 25 — never married, more likely to

be a woman, a minority and work part time, according to a recent analysis of 2005 data by the Labor

Department.



If the federal wage does rise in 26 months to $7.25 an hour, about 5.6 million people — 4 percent of the

work force — who make less than this would be directly affected, according to the Economic Policy

Institute, a liberal leaning group. The group estimates that another 7.4 million workers would benefit

indirectly as raising the floor would ripple through the work force.



That means higher payroll costs for employers.



"It is an economic reality that if the federal minimum wage increases by 41 percent, it will put upward

pressure on all labor costs for small businesses, which continue to be the engine of economic growth in the

United States," the National Retail Federation complained in a letter Tuesday to House Speaker Nancy

Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) of California.



The retail group expressed concern about the "lack of balance" in the House bill because it doesn't include

other provisions to help ease the economic impact on companies.



Many businesses want the pot sweetened, perhaps by faster depreciation or other tax breaks or letting small

businesses band together to buy health insurance for their workers.



But AFL-CIO President John Sweeney shot back saying: "An increase in pay for America's lowest-paid

workers should not have to depend on additional payoffs to business."



Both the House and Senate minimum wage bills also would extend the minimum wage — on a separate

time table — to employers on the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory.



Recent attempts to boost the federal minimum wage had failed when Republicans had control of Congress.

But prospects changed after the Nov. 7 midterm elections put Democrats in charge in both the House and

Senate.

SLAYING IRAQI'S

New facts emerge in Iraqi slayings case - January 6, 2007



WASHINGTON - A Marine squad that had just endured casualties from a roadside bombing ordered five

unarmed Iraqi civilians out of a taxi, and the squad leader shot them one by one, witnesses have told naval

investigators.



Four Marines have been charged in the deaths of 24 civilians, including women and children, that occurred

immediately after a bombing in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005, killed one Marine and injured two others. In

addition, four officers who were not there during the killings but were accused of failures in investigating

and reporting the deaths have been charged.



The killings have led to the biggest U.S. criminal case involving civilian deaths to come out of the Iraq war.



According to one witness, quoted in the report by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service obtained by The

Washington Post, a white taxi happened upon the scene shortly after the explosion. The Marines' squad

leader, Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, ordered the passengers, five unarmed Iraqis, out of the car, witnesses

said.



The Post said naval investigators found that the five Iraqis were shot by Wuterich as they stood there.



"They didn't even try to run away," according to one witness, a young Iraqi soldier working with the

Marine squad. "We were afraid from Marines and we saw them behaving like crazy. They were yelling and

screaming."



After the taxi inhabitants were shot, the report found, the Marines raided nearby houses, firing

indiscriminately, using both grenades and guns, in a bloody, door-to-door sweep, killing 14 unarmed

inhabitants, in just 10 minutes.



One 13-year-old girl was the lone survivor in the second house, losing five family members, including her

mother and 3-year-old sister and 5-year-old brother.



"He fired and killed everybody. The American fired and killed everybody," Safah Yunis Salem told

investigators.



The four Marines charged last month with murder for the Haditha deaths are: Wuterich; Sgt. Sanick P. Dela

Cruz; Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt; and Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum. They all face a maximum penalty of

life in prison.



Defense attorneys have disputed the idea that the shootings were in revenge for the roadside bombing,

saying their clients were doing what they had been trained to do: responding to a perceived threat with

legitimate force.



Navy investigators interviewed hundreds of witnesses, including Marines, Iraqi soldiers and civilians. The

Post said the report is sometimes fragmented and contains conflicting testimony of the events that day.

FREE COLLEGE COURSES

How to go to M.I.T. for free - January 5, 2007

(By Gregory M. Lamb, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor)



By the end of this year, the contents of all 1,800 courses taught at one of the world's most prestigious

universities will be available online to anyone in the world, anywhere in the world. Learners won't have to

register for the classes, and everyone is accepted.



The cost? It's all free of charge.



The OpenCourseWare movement, begun at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2002 and

now spread to some 120 other universities worldwide, aims to disperse knowledge far beyond the ivy-clad

walls of elite campuses to anyone who has an Internet connection and a desire to learn.

Intended as an act of "intellectual philanthropy," OpenCourseWare (OCW) provides free access to course

materials such as syllabi, video or audio lectures, notes, homework assignments, illustrations, and so on. So

far, by giving away their content, the universities aren't discouraging students from enrolling as students.

Instead, the online materials appear to be only whetting appetites for more.



"We believe strongly that education can be best advanced when knowledge is shared openly and freely,"

says Anne Margulies, executive director of the OCW program at MIT. "MIT is using the power of the

Internet to give away all of the educational materials created here."



The MIT site (www.ocw.mit.edu), along with companion sites that translate the material into other

languages, now average about 1.4 million visits per month from learners "in every single country on the

planet," Ms. Margulies says. Those include Iraq, Darfur, "even Antarctica," she says. "We hear from [the

online students] all the time with inspirational stories about how they are using these materials to change

their lives. They're really, really motivated."



So-called "distance learning" over the Internet isn't new. Students have been able to pay for online courses

at many institutions, either to receive credit or simply as a noncredit adult-learning experience. Many

universities also offer free podcasts (audio or sometimes video material delivered via the Internet).



But the sheer volume and variety of the educational materials being released by MIT and its OCW

collaborators is nothing less than stunning.



For example, each of the 29 courses that Tufts University in Medford, Mass., has put online so far is

"literally the size of a textbook," says Mary Lee, associate provost and point person for the OCW effort

there. The material provides much more than "a skeleton of a course," she says. Visitors to Tufts' OCW

course on "Wildlife Medicine" call it is the most comprehensive website on that topic in the world, Dr. Lee

says.



What OCW is not, its supporters agree, is a substitute for attending a university.



For one thing, OCW learners aren't able to receive feedback from a professor - or to discuss the course with

fellow students. A college education is "really the total package of students interacting with other students,

forming networks, interacting with faculty, and that whole environment of being associated with the

school," says James Yager, a senior associate dean at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns

Hopkins University in Baltimore. He oversees the OCW program there. His school of public health now

offers nearly 40 of its most popular courses for free via OCW. The school's goal is to put 90 to 100 of its

200 or so core courses online within the next year or so. In November, learners from places such as

Taiwan, Britain, Australia, Singapore, Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands logged some 80,000 page

views of OCW course material, Dr. Yager says.



MIT's initiative began with the idea of giving faculty at other universities access to how professors at MIT

approached teaching a subject. But after the OCW project went online, the school quickly realized it had

two other huge constituencies: students at other colleges, who wanted to augment what they were learning,

and "self learners," those not pursuing a formal education but interested in increasing their knowledge.



Along with course content, MIT also wanted to showcase its teaching methods. Many schools follow a

traditional model, teaching the theory first, then allowing students to practice what they've learned. MIT

has a "practice, theory, practice" way of teaching, Margulies says, that aims to get students engaged and

energized immediately - before delving much into theory.



Younes Attaourti, a physics professor in Marrakesh, Morocco, stumbled upon MIT's OCW site while

surfing the Net. He's used the materials as the basis for courses he's taught on statistical physics and

quantum theory of fields. And for his own learning, he's downloaded theoretical physics courses and one on

ultrafast optics. "I don't think there is another university elsewhere in the world that is more generous," he

writes in an e-mail: "[T]his is the first time that many people around the world are able to have access to

top-quality courses."



Phillipa Williams is an adult (40-something) student at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New

Zealand, studying mathematics ("don't groan, I love it!" she writes in an e-mail). She's worked her way

through many of the OCW undergraduate mathematics courses, she says, because they provide "a different

viewpoint, another explanation of material," as well as different practice questions.



MIT's OCW website features even more glowing feedback from learners. "[B]ecause of money, many good

students with great talent and [who are] diligent do not have the chance to learn the newest knowledge and

understanding of the universe," says Chen Zhiying, a student in the People's Republic of China. "But now,

due to the OCW, the knowledge will spread to more and more people, and it will benefit the whole [world

of] human-beings."



"The MIT OCW program is a generous and far-sighted initiative that will do more to change the world for

the better than a thousand Iraq-style invasions," the MIT site quotes Leigh Pascoe, a self-learner in Paris, as

saying. "It does much to restore my faith in the enlightenment of the American people and their great

experiment in democracy. This program should be emulated by every university worthy of the name."



Besides MIT, Tufts, and Johns Hopkins, the OCW consortium (ocwconsor tium.org) in the United States

includes among its members Michigan State, Michigan, Notre Dame, and Utah State. Internationally,

members include groups of universities in China, Japan, and Spain.



So far MIT has published 1,550 of its courses for OCW and plans to get the rest online by the end of this

year. The materials for each course vary. Full videos of lectures, one of the most popular features, are

available for only 26 courses, about 1,000 hours of video in all. "We'd like to do more video because it's

really quite popular and our users love it," Marguiles says. "But it's quite expensive." The program relies on

"generous support" from foundations, individuals, and MIT itself for funding, she says.



Schools like Tufts and Johns Hopkins were able to jump-start their OCW programs quickly because the

schools had already committed themselves for many years to putting all their classroom materials online for

use by their own students. The biggest job has been to vet the materials for copyright issues, so-called

"copyright scrubbing," Lee and Yager say. If permission cannot be obtained for a specific photo or chart, it

must be left out of the OCW version or a substitute found.



The OCW effort is part of a wide range of dynamic educational content emerging on the Internet, says Dan

Colman, associate dean and director of Stanford University's continuing studies program and host of the

website oculture.com, which highlights what's happening in Web-based education, with an emphasis on

podcasts.



Full-fledged online courses "might eventually offer a viable alternative to the classroom, but right now we

have a ways to go," he writes via e-mail. Podcasts, for example, let learners hear a lecture, but they don't

require that the listener write a critical essay or take part in a classroom discussion - activities that are a key

element of the learning process, Mr. Colman says.

And technology still needs to advance a bit more too. "We'll need a very fast fiber network and

communication tools that give courses a greater degree of immediacy and sociability before this [online]

model will become a real option educationally and economically," he says. "In the meantime, the traditional

classroom is fairly safe."



For example, lab work, which usually requires close hands-on collaboration between an instructor and

students, remains problematic online, Yager points out.



The losers in putting free content online aren't likely to be universities, which will continue to attract young

students, Colman says. But free podcasts and OCW courses may pull adult learners away from other leisure

activities, he says, such as reading books, watching educational television shows, or buying recordings of

books or lectures. "All of these entities could suffer as users find free high-quality information on the

Web," Colman says.

WARNING FOR NORTH KOREA

Japan, U.S. warn N. Korea on nuke tests - January 5, 2007



TOKYO - Japanese and U.S. officials warned Friday of tougher measures against North Korea if the

isolated communist nation conducts a second nuclear test.



Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that a second nuclear test "no doubt would deepen its isolation."



Rice and South Korea's foreign minister, Song Min-Soon, agreed at a news conference in Washington that

their governments want negotiations on North Korea's nuclear program resumed.



"If North Korea is prepared to return in a more constructive spirit" the talks could be reopened fairly soon,

Rice said. But she added, "We know of no substantive response from the North Koreans."



The remarks came amid U.S. media reports that Pyongyang has appeared to have readied for another

nuclear test and that the preparation steps were similar to those taken before its first nuclear detonation on

Oct. 9. But Japanese and South Korean officials have not reported any signs that the North was preparing

for another test.



The talks, held last month in Beijing, would swap economic incentives and a U.S. assurance of respect for

North Korea's security for cessation of the nuclear weapons program that produced a nuclear test nearly

two months ago.



Tokyo urged its neighbor to refrain from any developments that would stoke regional tensions.



"We think it is essential that North Korea should stop further nuclear testing and they should abandon all

their nuclear programs," said Nori Shikata, assistant press secretary for Japan's Foreign Ministry. "If they

conduct another nuclear test, then the international community, including Japan, will take additional

measures."



Shikata did not say what other steps might be taken, but said they would be pursued through the United

Nations, which authorized trade restrictions against North Korea after its October test.



Rice said "there is intensive discussion among the parties about the resumption of the six-party talks."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said negotiators were looking for "clear commitments,

clear indications, clear actions" that North Korea had made the "strategic choice" to abandon its nuclear

weapons.



"Obviously, conducting a second nuclear test sends the opposite signal and very clearly indicates that they

have chosen to go down the pathway of deeper isolation for North Korea and the North Korean people,"

McCormack said.



But officials in Japan and South Korea said earlier Friday they saw no particular signs that the North was

readying for a second test.



"Some unidentified activities have been detected around a suspected test site but so far there are no

particular indications directly linked to an additional nuclear test," said Cho Hee-yong, a spokesman for

South Korea's Foreign Ministry.



A South Korean military intelligence official said vehicle and personnel activities are constantly spotted at

a suspected test site but that it was too early to say whether they indicated an imminent nuclear test, the

Yonhap news agency reported, without identifying the official.



North Korean nuclear envoy Kim Kye Gwan said in December that his country would bolster its atomic

arsenal and further improve its deterrent in response to international pressure.

The North has hailed its test as "an auspicious event in the national history," and says it serves as a key

deterrent against a possible U.S. attack. Washington has repeatedly denied that it plans to invade.



In 2005, North Korea pledged to dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for security guarantees and aid

but no progress has been made in implementing that accord.



A key sticking point at the international talks has been North Korea's demand that the U.S. lift financial

restrictions imposed on it in response to the impoverished nation's alleged counterfeiting of $100 bills and

money laundering.

MORE U.S. TROOPS IN IRAQ?

Critics slam possible Iraq troop boost - January 5, 2007



WASHINGTON - Days from announcing an overhaul of Iraq strategy, President Bush on Friday

encountered a wall of criticism of the U.S. troop escalation that is expected to be the centerpiece of his new

war plan.



Bush also reshuffled his war commanders, installing a new team to support the policies he will announce

next week. Democrats and Republicans alike took aim at the expected increase in U.S. forces.



"It has to be significant and sustained. Otherwise do not do it," said Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting

record), a Republican presidential hopeful and Vietnam veteran who has been advocating a troop increase.



Those for going in the opposite direction spoke out, too.



"We are well past the point of more troops for Iraq," new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., wrote in a letter to Bush a day after their party took the reins

on Capitol Hill. Instead, Pelosi and Reid urged Bush to begin pulling troops out in four to six months.



The criticism underscored that Bush, preparing his new policy for an increasingly unpopular and costly

war, will face a Congress that is not only controlled by Democrats who could challenge him at any turn but

also populated with Republicans looking toward the congressional and presidential elections of 2008.



The president spent much of the day in last-minute consultations with members of Congress from both

parties, by all accounts soliciting their input while giving few hints of his own plans. But doubts about

dispatching more soldiers to Iraq — which Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson (news, bio, voting record) called

"the elephant in the room" at the White House — were expressed to the president's face and before various

audiences around Washington.



Rep. Heather Wilson (news, bio, voting record), R-N.M., an Air Force veteran and member of the House

Intelligence Committee who had just returned from Iraq, lambasted Bush's war leadership as lacking "a

clarity of mission."



She spoke at a news conference against sending more Americans, saying the U.S. should be focused only

on hunting for al-Qaida terrorists and ensuring Iraq does not become a source of regional instability.



"We're talking about goals in lofty terms that are not vital American national interests," she said.



CBS News reported that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has recommended that the president order an

immediate 10,000 additional troops to Iraq with an option to double that number by spring under a plan in

which five additional brigades of troops could eventually help in Baghdad and two in troubled Anbar

province. Asked for comment, a senior defense official told The Associated Press that parts of the CBS

report were incorrect but declined to say which parts or to comment on any recommendations Gates might

have made to Bush.



Bush, meanwhile, announced more changes in his team of military and diplomatic advisers.



He said Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander overseeing the theater that includes Iraq, will be

succeeded by Adm. William Fallon, now Abizaid's counterpart in the Pacific. Army Lt. Gen. David

Petraeus is the president's choice to be the new chief commander in Iraq, replacing Gen. George Casey. The

nominations must be approved by the Senate.



Petraeus led the 101st Airborne Division during the 2003 Iraq invasion and later headed the effort to train

Iraqi security forces.



Both Abizaid and Casey already had been expected to rotate out of their jobs. Both also had publicly

expressed skepticism about a troop increase, and when Bush began devising a new Iraq plan their timetable

appeared to move up.



Also, Ryan Crocker, a veteran American diplomat who is now U.S. envoy to Pakistan, was expected to

replace Zalmay Khalilzad as U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Bush nominated Khalilzad, a subject of criticism in

Iraq as favoring his fellow Sunni Muslims, to become the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.



In a White House that prides itself on discipline, there was much confusion about the personnel changes.

There was a torrent of news leaks, unsuccessful efforts by the White House to control the flow of

information and messy shifts in how the announcements would be made.



The president's talks Friday with several groups of lawmakers included moderate Democrats and loyalist

Republicans but also some of the president's biggest critics, such as Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham

Clinton and Barack Obama.



"He did say he has not made up his mind yet," said Rep. Chris Carney, a freshman Democrat from

Pennsylvania who is in the Navy Reserve and served as a Pentagon intelligence analyst.



Republican Sen. Norm Coleman (news, bio, voting record), part of a later meeting with over a dozen

senators of both parties, said the skepticism about whether a burst of troops could achieve anything was

nearly universal.



"I don't think there was a sense that case had been made," said Coleman, from Minnesota.



Several senators said Bush promised an increase would be done only in concert with greater efforts by the

Iraqi government, which has failed to rein in the Shiite militias and to supply the promised amount of Iraqi

forces to work alongside Americans.



Nelson, who said he walked away with no doubt Bush is planning to boost troops, said the president

suggested there would be "the expectation of the Iraqis carrying out their part of the deal or else." But, said

the Nebraska Democrat, the president did not define the consequences.



Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, set to unveil his own revamped strategy within days, is himself

uneasy about more American troops, preferring that the U.S. presence be pulled back to Baghdad's

outskirts.



During a nearly two-hour discussion Thursday, Bush told al-Maliki he was ready to send additional U.S.

forces. But the Iraqi leader replied "he would have to talk that over with his senior military officers to see if

they were needed," Sami al-Askari, an al-Maliki political adviser, told The Associated Press.



Sen. Joe Lieberman, meanwhile, agreed with McCain that a small, temporary force boost would not be

enough. Neither of the senators, appearing together at the conservative American Enterprise Institute,

would put a precise number on how many more troops might be necessary.



However, they said that — at minimum — it should be another three to five brigades for Baghdad, where

Shiite militias are terrorizing the minority Sunni population, and one brigade for western Anbar Province,

the center of the mostly Sunni anti-American insurgency. With about 3,500 troops in each brigade, that

would total 14,000 to 21,000 additional troops.



A letter from 28 House Republicans urged Bush to divert some of the 21 Iraqi battalions operating in

peaceful provinces to Baghdad and other dangerous areas, to spare U.S. troops.



White House press secretary Tony Snow said Bush's meetings with lawmakers were more than just window

dressing.



He said, "The fact is, these meetings may not be happy-face, kumbaya, but they have been very

constructive."

MORE U.S. JOBS…?

January 5, 2007



WASHINGTON - Employers stepped up hiring last month, boosting payrolls by a healthy 167,000 and

keeping the unemployment rate steady at a still historically low 4.5 percent. Workers' wages grew briskly.



The latest snapshot of the nation's employment climate, released Friday by the Labor Department, showed

that the jobs market ended 2006 on a strong note and provided fresh evidence that the troubled housing and

automotive sectors aren't dragging down employment across the country.



The tally of new jobs added to the economy last month exceeded analysts' forecasts for a gain of around

115,000 and was the best showing since September. Analysts were predicting the politically sensitive

jobless rate would remain unchanged from November, which it did.



"This is a good report for the American worker," said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics.



For all of 2006, the nation's unemployment rate dropped to a six-year low of 4.6 percent as the economy

added 1.8 million jobs. In 2005, the unemployment rate averaged 5.1 percent.



With the economy losing momentum, though, many economists predict the jobless rate will climb this year

and average around 4.9 percent.



On Wall Street, stocks fell as the strong jobs report threw cold water on investors' hopes that the



Federal Reserve would soon slice interest rates to protect the economy against fallout from the real-estate

bust. The Dow Jones industrials were down 63 points and the Nasdaq index was off 18 points in morning

trading.



In December, jobs gains in education and health care, business services, financial firms and leisure and

hospitality swamped job losses in construction, manufacturing and retail. Jobs gains for both October and

November turned out to be stronger than the government previously thought.



Many employers showed not only a greater appetite to hire in December but also more willingness to boost

compensation to workers.



Workers, many of whom had seen their paychecks eaten by inflation, saw wages grow robustly last month.

Average hourly earnings jumped to $17.04, a sizable 0.5 percent rise from the prior month. Analysts were

forecasting a more modest, 0.3 percent increase.



Over the last 12 months, wages grew by a strong 4.2 percent. That matched the annual gain registered in

November and was exceeded only by a 4.3 percent annual increase in November 2000.



Growth in wages should support consumer spending — a force that helps drive the economy. But a rapid

and sustained advance — if not blunted by other economic forces — can stoke concerns about inflation.



Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says the central bank will be on close watch for any signs that

wage growth might be spurring an unwanted pickup in inflation.



The Federal Reserve, which has boosted rates 17 times since June 2004 to fend off inflation, has been on

the sidelines since August. Analysts believe the Fed will keep its finger on the interest-rate pause button

when it meets next on Jan. 30-31. The strong wage and job-growth figures also dashed investors' hopes that

the Fed might soon lower rates.



The latest employment snapshot comes as the new Democratic-controlled Congress, which convened

Thursday, will now play a lead role in shaping policies for workers and businesses.

A top priority for Democrats is boosting the federal minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour.



President Bush said he supports such a move as long as it is paired with business-friendly provisions, which

would soften the sting to employers who would have to dole out more in labor costs.

The job hunt got shorter in December.



The average time that the 6.8 million unemployed people spent in their job searches was 15.9 weeks, down

from 16.3 weeks in November.



On the payrolls front, education and health services added 43,000 jobs in December. Professional and

business services added 50,000 slots. Leisure and hospitality expanded employment by 31,000 and

financial firms added 9,000 new jobs.



Factories, however, cut 12,000 positions and construction companies eliminated 3,000 jobs - casualties of

the souring housing market and the struggling auto industry. Retailers shed just over 9,000 slots.



Employment gains were stronger in both October and November. Employers added 154,000 new positions

in November, versus the 132,000 reported last month. Payrolls grew by 86,000 in October, up from a

previous estimate of a 79,000 gain.



The strong showing on jobs comes even as the economy lost steam throughout last year.



Economic growth slowed to a pace of 2 percent in the late summer — the most recent period available —

and is expected to remain sluggish for a while as the economy works its way through fallout from the

housing slump and the lingering impact of two years of rising interest rates.



Even with the expectations for slow growth ahead, most analysts don't believe the economy will slide into

recession, but they do predict that the unemployment rate will move higher.

January 3, 2007

Saddam execution video leads to arrests - By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer



BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi authorities reported the arrests Wednesday of two guards and an official who

supervised Saddam Hussein's hanging and said the guard force was infiltrated by outsiders who taunted the

former leader and shot the video showing his body dangling at the end of a rope.



National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie and two other top officials variously reported one to three

men were being questioned in the investigation into who heckled Saddam as he was minutes from death

and took cell phone pictures of his execution.



"The investigation has already had an arrest warrant against one person and two to follow," al-Rubaie told

CNN. He said the guard force at the execution was infiltrated by an Arab television station or another

outsider.



The clandestine footage appeared on Al-Jazeera television and Web sites just hours after Saddam was

hanged Saturday. The tumultuous scenes quickly overshadowed an official execution video, which was

mute and showed none of the uproar among those on the floor of the chamber below the gallows.



The unauthorized video, which ignited protests by Saddam's fellow Sunni Arabs in various Iraqi cities,

threatens to turn the ousted dictator into a martyr. Saddam was shown never bowing his head as he faced

death, and asking the hecklers if they were acting in a manly way.



A U.S. military spokesman, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell, said Saddam was dignified and courteous to

his American jailers up to the moment he was handed over to the Iraqis outside the execution chamber. He

said no Americans were present for the hanging.



Sami al-Askeri, a Shiite lawmaker who advises Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said two "Justice Ministry

guards were being questioned. The investigation committee is interrogating the men. If it is found that any

official was involved, he will face legal measures."



A second key al-Maliki adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to

release the information, said, "In the past few hours, the government has arrested the person who

videotaped Saddam's execution. He was an official who supervised the execution and now he is under

investigation."



Prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon, one of 14 official witnesses to the execution, told The Associated Press that

he saw two government officials using camera phones at the hanging.



"I saw two of the government officials who were ... present during the execution taking all the video of the

execution, using the lights that were there for the official taping of the execution," he said. "They used

mobile phone cameras. I do not know their names, but I would remember their faces."



Caldwell said the tumultuous execution would have gone differently had the Americans been in charge.



As the storm over the handling of the hanging gained strength, Caldwell was among several U.S. officials

who suggested displeasure with the conduct of the execution.



"If you are asking me: 'Would we have done things differently?' Yes, we would have. But that's not our

decision. That's the government of Iraq's decision," the general said.



The Bush administration sent conflicting signals Wednesday about the taunting and baiting that

accompanied Saddam's execution, with the White House declining to join criticism of the procedure and

the State Department echoing the U.S. military's questions about it.

"The president is focused on the new way forward in Iraq so these issues are best addressed out of Iraq, out

of Baghdad," deputy White House press secretary Scott Stanzel said. "Prime Minister Maliki's staff have

already expressed their disappointment in the filmings, so I guess we'll leave it at that."



Stanzel said the U.S. military and the U.S. Embassy in Iraq had expressed concerns about the timing of the

execution and about "the process and what took place."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said U.S. officials had questioned holding the execution on

a Muslim festival day, the opening of Eid al-Adha, and as well as some procedures.



U.S. Embassy spokesman Lou Fintor said Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and his diplomatic team "did

engage the government of Iraq on issues relating to procedures involved in the timing of the execution (of

Saddam), given the upcoming holy days. While the government of Iraq gave consideration to U.S.

concerns, all decisions made regarding the execution were Iraqi decisions based on their own

considerations."



The second-guessing over the conduct of the execution came as Iraqi and Arab media and an Iraqi

government official said preparations were under way to hang two of Saddam's co-defendants in the next

few days but that the details still have to be worked out with the American military.



A Cabinet official, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the information, said the two men

would hang "at the beginning of next week."

Caldwell said those executions, like Saddam's, were the responsibility of the Iraqi government. "It's a

sovereign nation. It's their system. They make those decisions."



Saddam's half brother Barzan Ibrahim, a former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former

chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, were originally scheduled to hang with Saddam. But their

execution was delayed until after Eid al-Adha, which ended Wednesday for Iraq's majority Shiites.



In Washington, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts denied a request by a lawyer for Bandar to

block the U.S. military from transferring custody of the condemned man to Iraqi authorities.



U.N. human rights chief Louise Arbour appealed to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to prevent the execution

of Ibrahim and al-Bandar, saying she was concerned with "the fairness and impartiality" of their trials.



Saddam, Ibrahim and al-Bandar were sentenced to death for the 1982 killings of 148 Shiites in the town of

Dujail, north of Baghdad, after a failed assassination plot against Saddam. They were convicted Nov. 5, and

an appeals court upheld the verdict on Dec. 26.



Saddam was hanged in Baghdad's Shiite neighborhood of Kazamiyah. During his regime, Saddam had

numerous dissidents and opponents executed in the facility, located in a neighborhood that is home to the

capital's most important Shiite shrine — the Imam Kazim.



As he faced his own death on the gallows, Caldwell said, Saddam "was courteous, as he always had been,

to his U.S. military police guards."



The spokesman said Saddam's demeanor changed "at the prison facility when the Iraqi guards were

assuming control of him, but he was still dignified toward us.



"He spoke very well to our military police, as he always had. And when getting off there at the prison site,

he said farewell to his interpreter.



"He thanked the military police squad, the lieutenant, the squad leader, the medical doctor we had present,

and the colonel that was on site."

01/02/07 - Iraq PM orders probe into Saddam video



BAGHDAD, Iraq - The prime minister on Tuesday ordered an investigation into the conduct of Saddam

Hussein's execution in a bid to learn who among the witnesses taunted the former Iraqi leader in the last

minutes of his life, then leaked a cell phone video.



The video contained audio of some witnesses taunting Saddam with chants of "Muqtada" and of the former

leader responding that his tormentors were being unmanly. It surfaced on Al-Jazeera television and the

Internet late Saturday, the day Saddam was hanged.



The taunts referred to Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric who is a main backer of Prime Minister

Nouri al-Maliki, the Shiite leader who pushed for a quick execution of Saddam.



Al-Jazeera said when it broadcast the video that it was exclusive to them. The pictures appeared on the

Web at about the same time.



Sami al-Askar, a close al-Maliki political adviser, told The Associated Press that the Iraqi leader had

"ordered the formation of an investigative committee in the Interior Ministry to identify who chanted

slogans inside the execution chamber and who filmed the execution and sent it to the media."



The video was particularly inflammatory not only because the disrespectful chanting was clearly audible,

but also because it showed Saddam's death as he dropped through the gallows floor and then swung by his

neck, his eyes open and neck twisted dramatically to his right.



The clandestine video portrayed a much different scene than the official tape of the execution, which was

muted. It did not show Saddam dropping to his death.

Munqith al-Faroon, an Iraqi prosecutor whose job was to convict Saddam Hussein of genocide, was one of

the small group of witnesses at the hanging and defended Saddam's right to die in peace.



He said he knew that "two top officials ... had their mobile phones with them" at the execution, although

other witnesses had their phones taken away beforehand.

Saddam's execution and the way it was conducted have provoked anger among Sunni Muslims, who have

taken to the streets in recent days in mainly peaceful demonstrations in Sunni enclaves across the country.



On Monday, a crowd of Sunni mourners in Samarra marched to a bomb-damaged Shiite shrine and were

allowed by guards and police to enter the holy place carrying a mock coffin and photos of the former

dictator.



The protest took place at the Golden Dome, a Shiite shrine bombed by Sunni extremists 10 months ago.

That attack triggered the current cycle of retaliatory attacks between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, in the form

of daily bombings, kidnappings and murders.



Meanwhile, the military announced the death of a U.S. soldier by a roadside bomb southwest of Baghdad.

The blast Monday wounded three others, including an interpreter, as they talked with residents about

sectarian violence, the military said.

U.S. troops killed a suspected al-Qaida weapons dealer and two other people in Baghdad raids Tuesday,

and Iraqi forces detained more than 60 suspects over the past week, the U.S. military said.



In Fallujah, a U.S. Marine fatally wounded an Iraqi soldier in an altercation at the guard post they shared,

the U.S. military also said.



The confrontation took place Saturday between members of U.S. and Iraqi units assigned to combined

security posts at the Fallujah Government Center. The Marine — assigned to the 1st Battalion, 24th Marine

Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 5 — has been assigned to administrative duties while the military

investigates.

"This will not impact our mission to continue the transition of the security responsibility to the Iraqi army,"

said Marine Lt. Col. Bryan Salas. "Marines and Iraqis from the two units continue to live, eat, and fight

alongside each other."



Gunmen attacked the car of a provincial councilman northeast of Baghdad on Monday night, killing the

official and three relatives, police said.



The shootings occurred on a road in Diyala province, a stronghold of Sunni Arab insurgents. Ali Majeed

Salboukh, a member of the Diyala provincial council, was slain along with his brother and two other

relatives, police said.



A roadside bomb killed three Iraqi civilians and wounded seven in a neighborhood of eastern Baghdad,

police said. Police said the bomb was hidden in a pile of garbage in Camp Sara, a mixed area of the city

with a large Christian population.



A string of blasts in Camp Sara's shopping district in October killed 16, wounded 87, destroying cars and

collapsing part of a building.



Five mortar shells hit residential areas of western Baghdad, wounding four civilians, police said.



In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair said his country must carry through its commitments in Iraq and

Afghanistan in 2007 while he continues a personal quest to revive the peace process in the Middle East.



"The threat of global terrorism menaces us as it does other nations," Blair said in his New Year's message,

likely his last as prime minister. "That is one reason why it is so important that we see through the battles in

Iraq and Afghanistan where the British forces show day after day why they are the finest in the world."



Hundreds of demonstrators on Monday mourned Saddam in a Sunni neighborhood in northern Baghdad.

Some praised the Baath Party, the outlawed nationalist group that under Saddam cemented Sunni Arab

dominance of Iraq.



In Dor, 77 miles north of Baghdad, hundreds more demonstrators marched to a dedication of a giant mosaic

of Saddam. Children carried toy guns and men fired real weapons in the air.



Mourners at a mosque in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit slaughtered sheep as a sacrifice. The mosque's

walls were lined with condolence cards from tribes in southern Iraq and Jordan who were unable to travel

to the memorial.



The demonstrations came on a day that the U.S. military killed six Iraqis during a raid on the offices of a

prominent Sunni political figure, where American forces believed al-Qaida fighters had taken refuge.



Iraqi authorities, meanwhile, reported that 16,273 Iraqis — including 14,298 civilians, 1,348 police and 627

soldiers — died violent deaths in 2006. The total exceeds the AP count by more than 2,500.



On the first day of the New Year, Iraqi police reported finding the 40 handcuffed, blindfolded and bullet-

riddled bodies in Baghdad. A police official, who refused to be identified because of security fears, said 15

of the bodies were discovered in the mainly industrial Sheik Omar district of northern Baghdad.



On Tuesday, police said they found 15 more bodies in the north of the city.

01/01/2007 - BAGHDAD, Iraq - Enraged crowds protested the hanging of Saddam Hussein across Iraq's

Sunni heartland Monday, as a mob in Samara broke the locks off a bomb-damaged Shiite shrine and

marched through carrying a mock coffin and photo of the dictator.



The demonstration in the Golden Dome, shattered in a bombing by Sunni extremists 10 months ago,

suggests that many Sunni Arabs may now more actively support the small number of Sunni militants

fighting the country's Shiite-dominated government. The Feb. 22 bombing of the shrine triggered the

current cycle of retaliatory attacks between Sunnis and Shiia, in the form of daily bombings, kidnappings

and murders.



Monday's protest came on a day that saw the U.S. military kill six Iraqis during a raid on the offices of a

prominent Sunni political figure, who was suspected of giving al-Qaida in Iraq fighters sanctuary.



Until Saddam's execution Saturday, most Sunnis sympathized with militants but avoided taking a direct

role in the sectarian conflict — despite attacks by Shiite militia that have killed thousands of Sunnis or

driven them from their homes. The current Sunni protests, which appear to be building, could signal a

spreading militancy.



Sunnis were not only outraged by Saddam's hurried execution, just four days after an appeals court upheld

his conviction and sentence. Many were also incensed by the unruly scene in the execution chamber,

captured on video, in which Saddam was taunted with chants of "Muqtada, Muqtada, Muqtada."



The chants referred to Muqtada al-Sadr, a firebrand Shiite cleric who runs one of Iraq's most violent

religious militias. He is a major power behind the government of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.



Many Sunnis are also upset that Saddam was put to death the day that Sunni celebrations began for Eid al-

Ahda, a major Muslim festival. The judge who first presided over the case that resulted in Saddam's death

sentence said the former dictator's execution at the start of Eid was illegal according to Iraqi law, and

contradicted Islamic custom.



The law states that "no verdict should implemented during the official holidays or religious festivals," said

Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin, a Kurd.



Rizgar presided over Saddam's trial on charges he killed 148 Shiite men and boys in Dujail, north of

Baghdad, in a botched assassination attempt in 1982. The judge was removed from the case after Shiite

complaints that he was too lenient.



In a Sunni neighborhood in northern Baghdad, hundreds of demonstrators mourned the executed leader.

Some praised the Baath Party, the outlawed nationalist group that under Saddam cemented Sunni Arab

dominance of Iraq.



"The Baath party and Baathists still exist in Iraq, and nobody can marginalize it," said Samir al-Obaidi, 48,

who attended a Saddam memorial in the Azamiyah neighborhood.



In Dor, 77 miles north of Baghdad, hundreds more took to the streets to attend the dedication of a giant

mosaic of Saddam. Children carried toy guns and men fired real weapons into the air.



Mourners at a mosque in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit slaughtered sheep as a sacrifice for their former

leader. The mosque's walls were lined with condolence cards from tribes in southern Iraq and Jordan who

were unable to travel to the memorial.



Saddam's eldest daughter briefly attended a protest Monday in Jordan — her first public appearance since

her father was hanged.

"God bless you, and I thank you for honoring Saddam, the martyr," said Raghad Saddam Hussein,

according to two witnesses. She addressed members of the Professional Associations — an umbrella group

of unions representing doctors, engineers and lawyers — in the group's office parking lot in west Amman.



In the midst of the protests, U.S. forces continued operations in Iraq.



Six Iraqis were killed in a U.S.-led raid on the Baghdad offices of a top Sunni politician, Saleh al-Mutlaq.

The U.S. military and Iraqi police said they suspected the offices were being used as an al-Qaida safe

house.



Al-Mutlaq is a senior member of the National Dialogue Front, which holds 11 of the 275 seats in Iraq's

parliament.

U.S. forces said they took on heavy fire from automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades as they

sought to enter the building. Ground troops were backed by helicopters that "engaged the enemy with

precision point target machine gun fire," the military said.



It was unclear whether the deaths resulted from the ground assault or fire from U.S. helicopters.



Associated Press Television News footage showed masses of rubble in the area and what appeared to be a

long smear of blood where a body had been dragged across the floor of one of the buildings.



Walls were pitted with what appeared to be bullet and shrapnel holes.



The U.S. death toll, meanwhile, climbed to at least 3,002 by the final day of 2006 as the American military

reported the deaths of two more soldiers in an explosion Sunday in Diyala Province, northeast of the

capital. With the announcement, the Associated Press count of fatalities showed that at least 113 U.S.

service members died in December. That makes it bloodiest month of 2006.



Police reported finding the bodies of 40 handcuffed, blindfolded and bullet-riddled bodies in Baghdad on

the first day of the New Year. A police official, who refused to be named out of security fears, said 15 of

the bodies were discovered in the mainly industrial Sheik Omar district of northern Baghdad.



An Iraqi worker for the Algerian Embassy in Baghdad was shot to death, police said.



Also Monday, the Iraqi government raided and sealed the offices of a privately owned television station,

charging it had incited violence and hatred in its programming. In its coverage of the execution of Saddam

over the weekend, a newscaster had worn black mourning clothes.



The satellite television channel Al-Sharqiya, which broadcasts from Dubai, remained on the air late

Monday. The station is owned by Saad al-Bazzaz, a one-time chief of radio and television for Saddam.

WASHINGTON - Another terrorist attack, a warmer planet, death and destruction from a natural disaster.

These are among Americans' grim predictions for the United States in 2007.



Only a minority of people think the U.S. will go to war with Iran or North Korea over those countries'

nuclear ambitions. An overwhelming majority of those surveyed think Congress will raise the federal

minimum wage. One-third see hope for a cure to cancer.



These are among the findings of an Associated Press-AOL News poll that asked people in the U.S. to

contemplate what 2007 holds for the country.



Six in 10 people think the U.S. will be the victim of a terrorist attack. An identical percentage thinks it

likely that a biological or nuclear weapon will be unleashed somewhere else in the world.



Seventy percent of people in the U.S. predict a major natural disaster in the country and an equal

percentage expects worsening global warming. Also, 29 percent think it likely that the U.S. will withdraw

its troops from Iraq.



Among other predictions for the U.S. in 2007:

_35 percent predict the military draft will be reinstated.

_35 percent predict a cure for cancer will be found.

_25 percent anticipate the second coming of Jesus Christ.

_19 percent think scientists are likely to find evidence of extraterrestrial life.

With Democrats poised to take control of Congress this week, eight in 10 people predict lawmakers will

raise the $5.15-an-hour federal minimum wage. It would be the first increase since 1997.



Democratic leaders have proposed raising it in stages to $7.25 an hour.



President Bush has said he supports the idea, with some protections for small businesses.



Fewer than half the public think it likely the U.S. will go to war with Iran or North Korea. Should it come

down to that, 40 percent think the battle will be with Iran while 26 percent said North Korea.



Higher gas prices, legalized gay marriage and the possible arrival of bird flu also are seen as being in the

cards.



More than 90 percent of people think higher gas prices are likely. A gallon of self-serve regular gasoline

averaged $2.29 last week, compared with $3 over the summer.



Also, 57 percent said it is likely that another state will legalize gay marriage. Same-sex marriage is legal in

Massachusetts; four other states offer civil unions or domestic partnerships.



People were split on whether 2007 will bring the U.S. its first bird flu case. More than 150 people

worldwide have died from the disease. Health officials fear a pandemic if the virus mutates into a form

easily passed from person to person.



Women generally were more likely than men to expect some of the more dire predictions to come true,

such as a worldwide terrorist attack and war with Iran or North Korea. Democrats and people under 35

were more likely than Republicans and older people to say global warming will worsen in 2007.



The telephone poll of 1,000 adults was conducted Dec. 12-14 by Ipsos, an international polling firm. The

margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

___

AP Manager of News Surveys Trevor Tompson, News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius and writer Kasie

Hunt contributed to this report.

SADDAM HANGED

BAGHDAD, Iraq –



Saddam Hussein struggled briefly after American military guards handed him over to Iraqi executioners

before dawn Saturday. But as his final moments approached and masked executioners slipped a black cloth

and noose around his neck, he grew calm.



In a final moment of defiance, he refused a hood to cover his eyes.



Hours after Saddam faced the same fate he was accused of inflicting on countless thousands during a

quarter-century of ruthless power, Iraqi state television showed grainy video of what it said was his body,

the head uncovered and the neck twisted at a sharp angle.



A man whose testimony helped lead to Saddam's conviction and execution before sunrise said he was

shown the body because "everybody wanted to make sure that he was really executed."



"Now, he is in the garbage of history," said Jawad Abdul-Aziz, who lost his father, three brothers and 22

cousins in the reprisal killings that followed a botched 1982 assassination attempt against Saddam in the

Shiite town of Dujail.



The post-execution footage showed the man identified as Saddam lying on a stretcher, covered in a white

shroud. His neck and part of the shroud have what appear to be bloodstains. His eyes are closed.



Al-Arabiya satellite television reported Saturday night that a delegation including the governor of

Salahuddin Province and the head of Saddam's clan retrieved his body from Baghdad and took it for burial

near the executed dictator's hometown of Tikrit. The broadcaster reported the burial would take place

Sunday. The report could not immediately be verified.



Earlier, in Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City, hundreds of people danced in the streets while others

fired guns in the air to celebrate. Some hanged an effigy of Saddam. The government did not impose a

round-the-clock curfew as it did last month when Saddam was convicted to thwart any surge in retaliatory

violence.



It was a grim end for the 69-year-old leader who had vexed three U.S. presidents. Despite his ouster,

Washington, its allies and the new Iraqi leaders remain mired in a fight to quell a stubborn insurgency by

Saddam loyalists and a vicious sectarian conflict.





The execution took place during the year's deadliest month for U.S. troops, with the toll reaching 109. At

least 2,998 members of the U.S. military have been killed since the Iraq war began in March 2003,

according to an Associated Press count.



President Bush said in a statement issued from his ranch in Texas that bringing Saddam to justice "is an

important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain and defend itself,

and be an ally in the war on terror."



He said that the execution marks the "end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops" and

cautioned that Saddam's death will not halt the violence in Iraq.



Within hours of his death, bombings killed at least 68 people in Iraq, including one planted on a minibus

that exploded in a fish market in a mostly Shiite town south of Baghdad.

Ali Hamza, a 30-year-old university professor, said he went outside to shoot his gun into the air after he

learned of Saddam's death.



"Now all the victims' families will be happy because Saddam got his just sentence," said Hamza, who lives

in Diwaniyah, a Shiite town 80 miles south of Baghdad.

But people in the Sunni-dominated city of Tikrit, once a power base of Saddam, lamented his death.



"The president, the leader Saddam Hussein is a martyr and God will put him along with other martyrs. Do

not be sad nor complain because he has died the death of a holy warrior," said Sheik Yahya al-Attawi, a

cleric at the Saddam Big Mosque.

Police blocked the entrances to Tikrit and said nobody was allowed to leave or enter the city for four days.

Despite the security precaution, gunmen took to the streets of Tikrit, carrying pictures of Saddam, shooting

into the air, and calling for vengeance.



Security forces also set up roadblocks at the entrance to another Sunni stronghold, Samarra, and a curfew

was imposed after about 500 people took to the streets protesting the execution of Saddam.



A couple hundred people also protested the execution just outside the Anbar capital of Ramadi, and more

than 2,000 people demonstrated in Adwar, the village south of Tikrit where Saddam was captured by U.S.

troops hiding in an underground bunker.

In a statement, Saddam's lawyers said that in the aftermath of his death, "the world will know that Saddam

Hussein lived honestly, died honestly, and maintained his principles."



"He did not lie when he declared his trial null," they said.



Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the

Revolutionary Court, were not hanged along with their former leader as originally planned. Officials

wanted to reserve the occasion for Saddam alone.



"We wanted him to be executed on a special day," National Security adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie told

state-run al-Iraqiya television.



Sami al-Askari, the political adviser of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, told the AP that Saddam initially

resisted when he was taken by Iraqi guards but was composed in his final moments.



He said Saddam was clad in a black suit, hat and shoes, rather than prison garb. His hat was removed and

his hands tied shortly before the noose was slipped around his neck.



Saddam repeated a prayer after a Sunni Muslim cleric who was present.



"Saddam later was taken to the gallows and refused to have his head covered with a hood," al-Askari said.

"Before the rope was put around his neck, Saddam shouted: 'God is great. The nation will be victorious and

Palestine is Arab.'"



Iraqi state television showed footage of guards in ski masks placing a noose around Saddam's neck.

Saddam appeared calm as he stood on the metal framework of the gallows. The footage cuts off just before

the execution.



Saddam was executed at a former military intelligence headquarters in Baghdad's Shiite neighborhood of

Kazimiyah, al-Askari said. During his regime, Saddam had numerous dissidents executed in the facility,

located in a neighborhood that is home to the Iraqi capital's most important Shiite shrine — the Imam

Kazim shrine.



The Iraqi prime minister's office released a statement that said Saddam's execution was a "strong lesson" to

ruthless leaders who commit crimes against their own people.



"We strongly reject considering Saddam as a representative of any sect in Iraq because the tyrant only

represented his evil soul," the statement said. "The door is still open for those whose hands are not tainted

with the blood of innocent people to take part in the political process and work on rebuilding Iraq."

The execution came 56 days after a court convicted Saddam and sentenced him to death for his role in the

killings of 148 Shiite Muslims from Dujail. Iraq's highest court rejected Saddam's appeal Monday and

ordered him executed within 30 days.



A U.S. judge on Friday refused to stop Saddam's execution, rejecting a last-minute court challenge.



U.S. troops cheered as news of Saddam's execution appeared on television at the mess hall at Forward

Operating Base Loyalty in eastern Baghdad. But some soldiers expressed doubt that Saddam's death would

be a significant turning point for Iraq.



"First it was weapons of mass destruction. Then when there were none, it was that we had to find Saddam.

We did that, but then it was that we had to put him on trial," said Spc. Thomas Sheck, 25, who is on his

second tour in Iraq. "So now, what will be the next story they tell us to keep us over here?"



At his death, he was in the midst of a second trial, charged with genocide and other crimes for a 1987-88

military crackdown that killed an estimated 180,000 Kurds in northern Iraq. Experts said the trial of his co-

defendants was likely to continue despite his execution.



Many people in Iraq's Shiite majority were eager to see the execution of a man whose Sunni Arab-

dominated regime oppressed them and Kurds. Before the hanging, a mosque preacher in the Shiite holy city

of Najaf on Friday called Saddam's execution "God's gift to Iraqis."



In a farewell message to Iraqis posted Wednesday on the Internet, Saddam said he was giving his life for

his country as part of the struggle against the U.S. "Here, I offer my soul to God as a sacrifice, and if he

wants, he will send it to heaven with the martyrs," he said.



One of Saddam's lawyers, Issam Ghazzawi, said the letter was written by Saddam on Nov. 5, the day he

was convicted by an Iraqi tribunal in the Dujail killings.



Najeeb al-Nauimi, a member of Saddam's legal team, said U.S. authorities maintained physical custody of

Saddam until the execution to prevent him being humiliated publicly or his corpse being mutilated, as has

happened to previous Iraqi leaders deposed by force. He said they didn't want anything to happen to further

inflame Sunni Arabs.



"This is the end of an era in Iraq," al-Nauimi said from Doha, Qatar. "The Baath regime ruled for 35 years.

Saddam was vice president or president of Iraq during those years. For Iraqis, he will be very well

remembered. Like a martyr, he died for the sake of his country."

Iraq's death penalty was suspended by the U.S. military after it toppled Saddam in 2003, but the new Iraqi

government reinstated it two years later, saying executions would deter criminals.



Saddam's own regime used executions and extrajudicial killings as a tool of political repression, both to

eliminate real or suspected political opponents and to maintain a reign of terror.



In the months after he seized power on July 16, 1979, he had hundreds of members of his own party and

army officers slain. In 1996, he ordered the slaying of two sons-in-law who had defected to Jordan but

returned to Baghdad after receiving guarantees of safety.



Saddam built Iraq into a one of the Arab world's most modern societies, but then plunged the country into

an eight-year war with neighboring Iran that killed hundreds of thousands of people on both sides and

wrecked Iraq's economy.

When the U.S. invaded in 2003, Iraqis had been transformed from among the region's most prosperous

people to some of its most impoverished.

___

Associated Press Writer Will Weissert contributed to this report.

RANGEL INTRODUCES DRAFT

ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON - Americans would have to sign up for a new military draft after turning 18 under a bill

the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee says he will introduce next year.



Rep. Charles Rangel (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., said Sunday he sees his idea as a way to deter

politicians from launching wars.

"There's no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded



Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and

members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be

placed in harm's way," Rangel said.



Rangel, a veteran of the Korean War who has unsuccessfully sponsored legislation on conscription in the

past, has said the all-volunteer military disproportionately puts the burden of war on minorities and lower-

income families.



Rangel said he will propose a measure early next year. While he said he is serious about the proposal, there

is little evident support among the public or lawmakers for it.

In 2003, Rangel proposed a measure covering people age 18 to 26. It was defeated 402-2 the following

year. This year, he offered a plan to mandate military service for men and women between age 18 and 42; it

went nowhere in the Republican-led Congress.



Democrats will control the House and Senate come January because of their victories in the Nov. 7

election.

At a time when some lawmakers are urging the military to send more troops to Iraq, "I don't see how

anyone can support the war and not support the draft," said Rangel, who also proposed a draft in January

2003, before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. "I think to do so is hypocritical."



Sen. Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), a South Carolina Republican who is a colonel in the U.S.

Air Force Standby Reserve, said he agreed that the U.S. does not have enough people in the military.



"I think we can do this with an all-voluntary service, all-voluntary Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and

Navy. And if we can't, then we'll look for some other option," said Graham, who is assigned as a reserve

judge to the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals.

Rangel, the next chairman of the House tax-writing committee, said he worried the military was being

strained by its overseas commitments.



"If we're going to challenge Iran and challenge North Korea and then, as some people have asked, to send

more troops to Iraq, we can't do that without a draft," Rangel said.

He said having a draft would not necessarily mean everyone called to duty would have to serve. Instead,

"young people (would) commit themselves to a couple of years in service to this great republic, whether it's

our seaports, our airports, in schools, in hospitals," with a promise of educational benefits at the end of

service.



Graham said he believes the all-voluntary military "represents the country pretty well in terms of ethnic

makeup, economic background."



Repeated polls have shown that about seven in 10 Americans oppose reinstatement of the draft and officials

say they do not expect to restart conscription.



Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told Congress in June 2005 that "there isn't a chance in

the world that the draft will be brought back."



Yet the prospect of the long global fight against terrorism and the continuing U.S. commitment to

stabilizing Iraq have kept the idea in the public's mind.

The military drafted conscripts during the Civil War, both world wars and between 1948 and 1973. An

agency independent of the Defense Department, the Selective Service System, keeps an updated registry of

men age 18-25 — now about 16 million — from which to supply untrained draftees that would supplement

the professional all-volunteer armed forces.



Rangel and Graham appeared on "Face the Nation" on CBS.

VICTORY IN IRAQ?

ASSOCIATED PRESS

LONDON - Military victory is no longer possible in Iraq, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in

a television interview broadcast Sunday.



Kissinger presented a bleak vision of Iraq, saying the U.S. government must enter into dialogue with Iraq's

regional neighbors — including Iran — if progress is to be made in the region.



"If you mean by 'military victory' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across

the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time

period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible," he told

the British Broadcasting Corp.



But Kissinger, an architect of the Vietnam war who has advised President Bush about Iraq, warned against

a rapid withdrawal of coalition troops, saying it could destabilize Iraq's neighbors and cause a long-lasting

conflict.



"A dramatic collapse of Iraq — whatever we think about how the situation was created — would have

disastrous consequences for which we would pay for many years and which would bring us back, one way

or another, into the region," he said.



Kissinger, whose views have been sought by the Iraqi Study Group, led by former Secretary of State James

Baker III, called for an international conference bringing together the permanent members of the United

Nations Security Council, Iraq's neighbors — including Iran — and regional powers like India and Pakistan

to work out a way forward for the region.



"I think we have to redefine the course, but I don't think that the alternative is between military victory, as

defined previously, or total withdrawal," he said.

HOME SALES DECREASE



Realtors see a drop in existing home sales for second year (Reuters)



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Next year will likely bring a second annual decline in existing home sales, the

National Association of Realtors predicted on Monday.



Sales of existing homes are expected to decline 8.6 percent to 6.47 million for 2006 and contract another 1

percent to 6.40 million units next year. Still, the housing sector should see a rebound by the end of next

year, said David Lereah, the association's chief economist.



"By the fourth quarter of 2007, existing-home sales will be 4.6 percent higher than the current quarter,"

Lereah said.



Sales of new homes should fall a sharp 17.7 percent this year and another 9.4 percent next year, the

Realtors said.

About three-quarters of the country will see a sluggish expansion of existing home sales next year, Lereah

said.



The health of housing markets across the country will vary, he said, but "general gains in value next year

will be modest by historic standards."



In the last three months of 2005, homes across the nation were appreciating at a 12 percent rate, according

to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. From July to September this year, home price

appreciation had slowed to a 3.5 percent rate.



Lereah also predicted that 30-year mortgage rates would increase to 6.7 percent by September. Those rates

were at 6.11 percent last week, mortgage finance company Freddie Mac reported.

OLDEST PERSON DIES

World's oldest person dies at 116 (Associated Press)



MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Elizabeth "Lizzie" Bolden, recognized as the world's oldest person, died Monday in a

nursing home, the home's administrator said. She was 116. Bolden was born Aug. 15, 1890, according to

the Gerontology Research Group, a Los Angeles organization that tracks the ages of the world's oldest

people.



Guinness World Records recognized Bolden as the oldest person in the world in August after the death of

Maria Esther de Capovilla of Ecuador, who also was 116.



Bolden died at the Mid-South Health and Rehabilitation Center, a nursing home where she had been living

for several years, said the center's administrator, Charlotte Pierce. Bolden suffered a stroke in 2004, and her

family said she spoke little after that and slept much of the time.



Emiliano Mercado del Toro, 115, of Puerto Rico is now expected assume the title of world's oldest person,

said Robert Young, a Guinness researcher. The Gerontology Research Group lists Toro's date of birth as

Aug. 21, 1891.



Family members said this year that Bolden had 40 grandchildren, 75 great-grandchildren, 150 great-great-

grandchildren, 220 great-great-great grandchildren and 75 great-great-great-great grandchildren.

CELEBRITY GIVES MONEY

Actress gives $1 million to arts school (Associated Press)



BALTIMORE - Jada Pinkett Smith has donated $1 million to her high school alma mater, the Baltimore

School for the Arts, asking that its new theater be dedicated to classmate Tupac Shakur, who was shot and

killed in 1996.



"It means a lot when you're a teacher and your most famous alumnus comes back to give a donation," said

Donald Hicken, head of the school's theater department since its founding in 1980 and Pinkett Smith's

former theater teacher. "It really says a lot to the community that the school matters in people's lives."



The donation from the Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation, which is based in Baltimore, will be used

for renovation and expansion. The school, which announced the donation Monday, said it will name its new

theater for Pinkett Smith.



Pinkett Smith, 35, is married to Will Smith who stars in the new movie "The Pursuit of Happyness" with

their 8-year-old son, Jaden.



The couple had previously given $112,500 to the school.



When a $30 million expansion program is finished in the fall of 2007, the school will increase its

enrollment from 316 to 375 students.



Karen Banfield Evans, executive director of the Smith Family Foundation, and Pinkett Smith's aunt, said

the actress was moved by the school's advances since she graduated.



Pinkett Smith wanted the theater named for Shakur because of the friendship they developed at the school.

The rapper died after a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas.



The actress has appeared in movies such as "Ali," which starred her husband, and "Collateral," and she was

the voice of the hippo Gloria in the 2005 animated film "Madagascar."



"The Pursuit of Happyness," a Sony Pictures release opens in theaters Friday.

POLICE BRUTALITY INCREASE

Police brutality charges on the rise



By Hazel Trice Edney, NNPA Washington Correspondent December 11, 2006



WASHINGTON (NNPA) - Fifteen years after the Los Angeles' police videotaped beating of Rodney King

sensitized America about police brutality, some civil rights advocates say cops are still out of control in

Black neighborhoods and the violence appears to be increasing with the institution of anti-terror measures.



"The heightened so-called war on terrorism I think that is fueling police aggression," says Diop Kamau, a

former Hawthorne, Calif. Police detective and executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Police

Complaint Center. "I think that the president's choice with regards to torture, the attack on habeas corpus,

the kind of things that we're doing overseas, I think, are actually impacting domestic police policies.



"I think the green light with regards to spying and everything else, what it has done is elevated the role and

the public's regard for law enforcement to the attitude that says, 'Those are our protectors. We need to take

the gloves off and give them the room to do what they need to do,' Well, they're not always fighting

terrorists, and they're not always arresting bad guys. More often than not they're dealing with regular people

for small and minor incidents."



And they're disproportionately Black.



"It's still mainly just us...We are the fodder for the lion. And the bottom line is that's not going to change

any time soon," says Kamau. "I think that as African-Americans continue to be viewed and anticipated by

police as violent and uncooperative with all of this negative stereotype associated with Black youth, those

are going to be the principle victims."



The center files complaints on behalf of victims, assists citizens with reporting of misconduct, tests for

racial profiling and tests to determine whether police complaint systems work.



Kamau says between Dec. 2005 and Dec. 2006, police misconduct complaints he has received from around

the country have increased by 40 percent, from 239 to 336.



Two currently high-profile cases have sparked outrage from the streets to the halls of Congress.



The Nov. 21 shooting death of a 92-year-old woman in her Atlanta home by police who claimed to have

been on a drug raid is now under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In addition, the Nov.

25 shooting death of 23-year-old Sean Bell by five New York undercover police detectives and officers.

Bell was killed in a hail of 50 bullets as he and two friends left his bachelor party on his wedding day. Civil

rights activists Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson Sr. and Marc Morial have called for FBI investigations into the

case.



Kamau says federal legislation is needed to supercede some state and local laws. Strong police unions also

presents a problem, he says.



"People don't know this, but police unions, particularly in New York, for example, have been lobbying so

that officers who are accused of misconduct don't have to talk to their own police administrators, " Kamau

says.



U. S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the incoming chair of the House Judiciary Committee, which oversees

matters of criminal justice, says he will use his clout to demand more police accountability.



Conyers says he has already spoken with New York Congressmen Gregory Meeks and Charles Rangel and

is planning a meeting with activists and civil rights leaders to seek long-term solutions.

"We're looking at some new ways and we want to hold creative hearings," Conyers told the NNPA News

Service in his first press interview since the Democrats won control of the House Nov. 7. "I'm going to be

meeting with Meeks, Rangel, Rev. Jackson and Rev. Sharpton and we're going to be looking at how we can

move some of this racial and ethnic profiling into a more workable system."



Conyers, the senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, says he will be able to say more after the

official swearing into his new position, which will take place in January.



"The whole idea is that we're beginning to see that it's just not working. Law enforcement investigating law

enforcement is just something that may need to be changed," he says. "There's one thing that we had said

earlier. That's getting independent systems to deal with this and I think that might be possible...[ We will]

get a fair examination of how we improve from some of the deplorable situations that are now being taken

for granted and keep reoccurring. "



Kamau has seen a change in the way people are brutalized. Years ago, police mainly used guns, batons,

dogs and tear gas. Now they have tasers, stun guns and chemicals, such as pepper spray.



"Each of those items in many situations are being used for punishment and abuse and not control," Kamau

says. "Also, you're now looking at where officers were carrying revolvers 30 years ago, they're now

carrying semi-automatic weapons. There's also been an explosion in SWAT teams and intervention teams

across the country."



Though police brutality has long been an issue in the Black community, public outrage over it has been

stronger now that many incidents are being caught by citizens on videotape. Still, national advocates

against police brutality say it will be difficult to crack police culture, including the so-called "blue code of

silence" that causes some police to stick together and sometimes remain silent even after witnessing

wrongdoing.



"The culture of law enforcement is White, male-dominated, racist, sexist, homophobic, and then you might

find a good cop," says retired East Orange, N.J. Police Sergeant De Lacy Davis, founder and president of

Black Cops Against Police Brutality. "The mindset is that it is a White supremacy mindset, by in large, that

we are fighting in policing. Black police didn't enter the police force in this country until 1805 in Louisiana

as 'The Guard'. And their role solely was to watch Black people - free Blacks - and to apprehend Blacks.

Nothing else. And that role hasn't changed since 1805."



Kamau knows about police brutality from experience. In 1988, when he sensed there were places where

Black men could not walk in Los Angeles without police harassment, he went undercover to investigate the

Los Angeles Police Department.



In the video-taped sting operation, he and six companions were stopped while walking through the upscale

Westwood Village area. He was charged with blocking a sidewalk , but the charges were later dropped. The

next year, in a similar operation to test the Long Beach Police Department, he was followed by a news crew

secretly videotaping his movement. Kamau was stopped and beaten by police who did not know that he,

too, was an officer. He was charged with resisting arrest and obstructing an investigation. During the arrest,

an officer bashed Kamau's head through a plate glass window.



The video was publicly released and the officers involved were charged with assault and falsifying police

reports. But they got off when the jury deadlocked, splitting along racial lines. They were never convicted.

The FBI and Justice Department also cleared the officers of any wrongdoing. However, the California State

Legislature increased the penalty for falsifying a police report from a misdemeanor to a felony and now

requires all police officers to take a class in racial sensitivity.



Davis, the author of the book, "Black Cops Against Police Brutality: A Crisis Action Plan," says he not

only witnessed a lot of police brutality before he retired last year after 20 years, but he also broke the "blue

code" many times to serve as a witness in court.

He says one problem is that legislative bodies fail to put teeth into new laws to control police behavior.



"When people talk about oversight and commissions and civilian review boards, all of that is reduced to

nothing if there's no funding for it or investigators for it or if it doesn't have subpoena power," he says.



Among his advice in the book, Davis says if a person believes they are being stopped for no good reason,

they should not debate the issue on the street.



"Take a deep breath and develop your strategy, which will be used later when you file your complaint.

Remain calm," the book states. It says to take notes of the officer's name, badge, car number and physical

description, and notice any witnesses, the time of day, location, weather conditions and unique

circumstances such as a type of vehicle or building nearby.



Davis, as a former union head, says the union must protect dues-paying members, but should also be held

accountable. "Therefore, when the union is doing its job and even doing more than its job by protecting bad

officers; then they should have to share in the liability and the culpability. They should be sued," he says.



Conyers, a member of the Judiciary Committee since his election in 1965, says police brutality and

profiling will be among many criminal justice laws that the Judiciary Committee will now consider with its

new Democratic power holders.



"And we're going to change very dramatically the circumstances that exist in this country in terms of civil

rights laws and actions," Conyers says. "Now that we're in the majority, we don't have to come with hat-in-

hand anymore. We can cause the investigation to happen. We can introduce legislation. And we have the

majority that can pass the laws."



Meanwhile, Kamau is not optimistic to cops under suspicion in the Atlanta and New York cases.



"Don't anticipate any of these officers to be found guilty of anything," he says. "The bad news is that these

kinds of shootings are easily covered up. All these officers have to do is speak to what their state of mind

was and they're going to be exonerated. And their state of mind was, 'I was scared'."

HOME SALES

ANTIOCH, Calif. - Donald Anthony has slashed the price on his four-bedroom, two-bathroom house by

almost $80,000 — and added $40,000 worth of improvements, including a new kitchen and landscaping in

the leafy yard



He's used three different agents. He's listed the 1,800-square-foot home — an immaculate ranch on a quiet

cul-de-sac — on for-sale-by-owner sites, in newspapers, on cable television and community site Craigslist.

He or his agents have spent at least 50 idle afternoons hosting open-house events.



But the 74-year-old retired physicist cannot unload the house, now listed at $489,950 — well below the

price of comparable homes in the fast-growing region between San Francisco and Sacramento.



"The buyers have vanished," Anthony shrugged in front of new Shaker maple cabinets and never-used

appliances. "If this doesn't sell post haste, I'm going to bite the bullet and pull it off the market."



If Anthony can't wait another year or more, he might as well rip out the for-sale sign now.



Although few experts predict that home values will fall dramatically in 2007, many economists say that

prices won't improve for 12 to 18 months. And without the cushion of rising home equity — which

softened the blow of high oil prices last year and kept consumers buying big-ticket items at a rapid clip —

Americans may lose confidence in their finances, and the broader economy is likely to suffer.



Ambitious building booms in many markets in the past half-decade, combined with mortgage interest rates

that have increased about 1 percent in the past year, have resulted in residential real estate stagnation. The

gridlock defies conventional wisdom, stubbornly remaining neither a buyer's nor a seller's market.



"We are currently experiencing the worst of the market freeze, which is being exacerbated by the gap

between the buyer's desire for bargains and the seller's fantasy of what they once thought their homes

would be worth," said Diane Swonk, chief economist for Chicago-based Mesirow Financial, who forecasts

a rebound in early 2008. "The good news is that there are some signs of stabilization. The bad news is that

a substantial backlog of unsold homes still exists."



Global forces and U.S. monetary policies play important roles in the housing slowdown, which already

appears to be depressing the national economy.



The newest forecast by Moody's Economy.com, a private research firm, projected that the median sales

price for an existing home will decline in 2007 by 3.6 percent — the first decline for an entire year in U.S.

home prices since the Great Depression of the 1930s.



The Commerce Department reported Nov. 29 that gross domestic product grew at a 2.2 percent annual rate

in the third quarter, down from 2.6 percent in the second quarter. The residential construction falloff

subtracted 1.2 percent from growth, the department stated.



Peter Morici, business professor at the University of Maryland, said artificially low interest rates over the

past half-decade encouraged China and other exporting nations to purchase 10-year bonds, which kept U.S.

mortgage rates low and fueled the housing bubble — despite a gaping trade deficit that should have sapped

investor confidence years ago.



"In order to play this ponzi scheme, the value of the homes had to go up faster than the economy grew and

faster than people could service their debt. We've reached that limit," Morci said. "The housing market

sustained the economy at a time of very large trade deficits. It's been a false prosperity."



In addition to macroeconomic forces, regional U.S. housing markets faced particular challenges.



In expensive coastal cities, economists say, price appreciation hit a wall. San Francisco and Boston —

where many investors enjoyed double-digit property gains in the late 1990s and the first half of this decade

— have simply become unaffordable.



The number of Californians who could comfortably pay the mortgage on an entry-level home fell to 24

percent in the third quarter — down from 44 percent in 2003, according to the California Association of

Realtors. The median price statewide was $563,190.



"I don't see how the economy can continue with these prices," said Stephen Levy, senior economist of the

Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.



Housing prices in New England grew an average of 10 percent per year from 2000 to 2005, compared with

8.3 percent for the nation as a whole.



But a forecast released Nov. 14 by the New England Economic Partnership, a nonprofit forecast

organization with members are from private industry, government and academia, projects prices in New

England will be flat through 2010, below the U.S. forecast of 2.1 percent growth per year. Housing prices

in Massachusetts are expected to decline 9 percent through 2010.



"Areas along the coast of the nation and the large urban areas tend to see stronger price gains in housing

upturns, and stronger declines in downturns," said Celia Chen, a housing economist with Moody's

Economy.com in West Chester, Pa.



In Sun Belt havens such as San Diego, Las Vegas and Phoenix, overzealous construction resulted in a glut

of new homes and condos. Real estate experts say sellers and developers there will struggle throughout

2007.



"We have to work off the inventory," said Daniel Nussbaum, a licensed investment adviser and CEO of

Calabasas-based TheUSARealty.com. "I honestly think we're past the worst of it, but if you don't take out

your magnifying glass you might not notice."



Florida will likely remain the toughest market for buyers and sellers.



Building frenzies in Miami, Orlando and the Caribbean coast resulted in a plethora of for-sale signs.

Developers desperate to unload inventory offer free granite countertops, appliances and furniture — even

cars, vacations and mortgage payments for up to six months.



Meanwhile, insurance companies dramatically raised premiums after Hurricane Katrina. Depending on

where they live and their policies, Florida home owners may pay as much as 10 times more for flood and

wind insurance than last year; premiums can exceed $30,000 per year on mansions. That's caused monthly

costs to skyrocket, pinching current owners and making it all but impossible for renters to buy.



Throughout Florida, 12,773 existing single-family homes were sold in October, down 22 percent from a

year ago, according to the Florida Association of Realtors. Florida's median price was unchanged at

$242,500, but more than half of the urban areas posted declines. Around Fort Myers, the median price

plunged 44 percent to $249,200 from October 2005.



Not everyone is pessimistic — even in beleaguered Florida.



Long-term demographic shifts from the Midwest and New England bode well for the notoriously boom-

and-bust state, said Dave Denslow, professor of economics at the University of Florida. Florida, which

gained 430,000 new residents in the past year, is a popular destination for Latin American immigrants and

retirees from northern states, Canada and western Europe.



"People start thinking about buying a retirement home in their late 50s, and baby boomers are approaching

that age," Denslow said. "The demand for residential housing here is only going to get stronger through

2020."

Meanwhile, back in Antioch, where Don Anthony is struggling, Zach and Katherine Chouteau are looking

for a house or condo with a home office and room for twin Pug dogs.



They'd love to buy in Antioch, but the couple — who moved from suburban New York five years ago to

start their own business — are reluctant to commit.



Like many shoppers, they're discouraged by higher interest rates — and rampant appreciation in recent

years and the perception that many San Francisco Bay Area owners have halcyon-day notions of multiple

offers and bidding wars.



"It's definitely a friendlier market than earlier this year, but not a dramatically cheaper one," Zach

Chouteau, 41, said. "People have gotten really spoiled by the rapidly escalating prices, and it seems like

they're in denial that things have leveled out. They're just fishing for the best price."