Sadler took the checkered flag Sunday in the Pop Secret 500 at California Speedway and all but locked up a spot in the Chase, yet Kasey Kahne and Mark Martin also drove away big winners. (Related story: Sadler savors California win)

They finished second and third to move into ninth and 10th in the standings with the Chevy Rock and Roll 400 remaining before the Chase begins in earnest and the field pares down to the top 10 drivers and any other within 400 points of the leader.

Perhaps that's why Kahne looked more energized than drained after a hot and sweaty day of racing under the hot California sun.

The rookie let out a wide smile and exchanged high-fives and handshakes with members of his crew when the race was over and the standings had settled with Kahne moving up two spots and breaking into the top 10 for the first time since April 18.

"We're ninth, so that's an improvement," Kahne said. "We did what we needed to do here today. ... We'll go on to Richmond and keep all the fenders on it, hopefully in the top 10, and we'll have a shot at making that top 10."
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Nextel Cup leaders
Kasey Kahne and Mark Martin moved into the top 10 heading into Saturday's race at Richmond International Raceway.
Driver Pts. Behind Prev. Wins
1. Jimmie Johnson 3,482 — 2 4
2. Jeff Gordon 3,432 50 1 5
3. Dale Earnhardt Jr. 3,366 116 3 4
4. Tony Stewart 3,304 178 4 2
5. Matt Kenseth 3,253 229 5 2
6. Elliott Sadler 3,204 278 7 2
7. Kurt Busch 3,183 299 6 2
8. Ryan Newman 3,078 404 10 1
9. Kasey Kahne 3,067 415 11 0
10. Mark Martin 3,058 424 12 1
On the bubble
Drivers just outside NASCAR's postseason Chase for the Nextel Cup. Only the top-10 drivers and those within 400 points of the leader qualify to run for the championship in the final 10 races.
Driver Pts. Behind leader Behind No. 10 Prev.
11. Jamie McMurray 3,033 449 25 15
12. Bobby Labonte 3,022 460 36 9
13. Dale Jarrett 3,015 467 43 14
14. Jeremy Mayfield 3,003 479 55 13
15. Kevin Harvick 3,002 480 56 8
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Martin also had reason to smile — although he rarely does — after gaining two spots. He appeared to have the fastest car throughout much of the race, but he struggled in restarts after cautions, of which there were a track record 11.

"We had a killer race car on the long greens, but we can't help it the cautions came out," Martin said.

The 44-year-old, who narrowly missed out on Cup titles in 1990 and 2002, has expressed mixed feelings about NASCAR's new playoff-style system, preferring to focus on race wins instead. And there was no change here.

"Check with me on Saturday night about midnight, and I'll give you a statement about the points," he said.

For several other drivers, it wasn't a good day or night at Fontana, where the late-afternoon race began in 99-degree heat and ended under cool, breezy skies

Kevin Harvick, who started the race eighth in points, placed 28th and dropped seven spots to 15th, 56 points out of the Chase. It's his lowest point in the standings this season and follows finishes of 24th and 16th.

"That wasn't fun at all," Harvick said.

The same goes for Bobby Labonte. The 2000 Cup champion dropped to 12th place from ninth after a 20th-place showing.

Sadler doesn't have to worry about such details after winning his second race of the season and the third of his career.

He gained a spot in the standings to move into sixth place, thanks in part to a final-pit call by crew chief Todd Parrott.

"He made a great air pressure adjustment at the end of the race, and I didn't agree with it," Sadler said. "That's why he's the winningest active crew chief in the garage."

Sadler also beat out Kahne — who has five second-place finishes in 2004 — for the second time this season, with the other victory coming by 0.028 seconds at Texas Motor Speedway in April.

Tony Stewart (fourth in points) and Matt Kenseth (fifth) also clinched spots in the Chase with Sunday's results, and Kurt Busch (seventh) has virtually locked up a spot. They joined Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr., who already were in

"I kept plodding along, trying to win golf tournaments," Singh said to ABC-TV moments after his victory.

"And here I am."

Singh's victory was his sixth on the PGA Tour this season and 10th in the last two seasons. That includes a playoff victory for the 41-year-old in the PGA Championship last month.

Over that span Woods, 28, has five victories, including one this season, and no wins in major championships.

"I've had a good run," said Woods, who added he is pleased with the way he is playing.

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Woods, Singh tee-to-tee
On a rare Monday finish to a PGA Tour event, Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh had a memorable duel for the Deutsche Bank Championship title and the No. 1 ranking in the world. Paired together, the rivals had similar statistical results (both shot 69 for the round), but Singh, who had a three-stroke lead to start the day, is the new No. 1.
Category Tiger Woods Vijay Singh
Scoring
Eagles 0 0
Birdies 5 5
Pars 10 10
Bogeys 3 3
Other 0 0
* Singh had one penalty stroke.
Par performance
Par 3s -1 0
Par 4s -2 -2
Par 5s +1 0
Off the tee
Driving average 312.2 314
Driving accuracy 64.3% 64.3%
Longest drive 333 333
Approach to green
Greens in regulation 72.2% 77.8%
Hole outs 1
Avg. distance to pin 25-10 26-5
Around the green
Sand saves 0%
Scrambling 60% 25%
Avg. distance to pin 6-7 7-8
On the green
Avg. putts per green in regulation 1.769 1.643
One putts 6 6
Three putts 1 0
Lag putts (avg. distance to pin after first putt) 1-11 2
Total putting distance 68-1 64-5
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Singh had a three-stroke lead to begin the day, but Woods had evened the score with five holes left. From there, Singh nailed down the top spot and the tournament by making three birdies down the stretch. Both shot 69, but Singh finished at 16 under par at the TPC of Boston. Woods and Adam Scott shared second at 13-under.

"I'm not disappointed about the ranking," Woods said. "I'm disappointed in not winning. Winning takes care of the ranking."

The ranking is compiled over a two-year period. Woods' once-commanding lead had dwindled to 0.18 points entering the Deutsche Bank, so all Singh had to do to become No. 1 was finish ahead of Woods. Their first rematch will be in the American Express Championship beginning Sept. 30 in Ireland. Woods, who will next lead the USA into the Ryder Cup on Sept. 17-19 near Detroit, won the Am-Ex last year; Singh tied for second.

Singh becomes the 12th player to be No. 1 since the ranking became official in 1986. No player dominated it like Woods. He has led seven times for a total of 334 weeks, including his consecutive run that began Aug. 15, 1999, after he won the PGA Championship.

"Finally it's turned into my favor," said Singh. "I've worked pretty hard for this. I finally achieved what I wanted to do starting at the beginning of the year. It was a good win, as well. Coming down the stretch got pretty tight there, but I got focused and I played pretty good coming down."

Singh and Woods were tied at 13-under after Singh bogeyed the 13th hole, but Woods bogeyed the next one and Singh birdied No. 15 to pull ahead by two strokes. Singh added birdies on the final two holes.

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Duval nabs best finish since '02

After making the cut for the first time in 15 months, David Duval finished tied for 13th at the Deutsche Bank Championship for a payday of $93,750 more than he has made in 24 events since the start of the 2003 season.
Duval double-bogeyed the first hole for the second consecutive day but shot 67.

Duval, the last player to be No. 1 in the world before Tiger Woods started his record run in 1999, won the British Open in 2000. He was in the top 10 on the money list from 1996-2001, but his game self-destructed and he fell to 80th in 2002 and 211th in 2003. This week's performance could be a sign of better things to come for the 32-year-old.
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"It was a golf tournament to me. It wasn't about the ranking," said Singh, who has won the last nine times he took a lead into the final round. "It wasn't about going out there and trying to beat Tiger and beat the No. 1 player. I was out there trying to win the golf tournament and that was my goal starting out today.

"You know, Adam Scott nearly jumped up and took it away," he added, "but I was very focused."

Scott started the day seven strokes behind Singh before making the turn with four consecutive birdies to get into contention. He birdied the 18th hole to move into second place at 13-under, and Woods' 69 matched him; John Rollins and Daniel Chopra were another two strokes back at minus-10.

Singh took a three-stroke lead into the final day and made it four when he dropped to 15-under with a birdie on the first hole. But the lead withered over the front nine and disappeared when Woods chipped in for birdie on 12 and Singh went over the green with an 8-iron on 13, then missed a 7-footer to save par.

That left them tied at 13-under, with Scott one stroke back.

On 14, a 485-yard par-4, Woods and Singh were 6 inches apart on the green, about 9 feet from the pin. Singh sank his putt to save par, but Wood pushed his to the left for a bogey. On the par-5 15th their drives landed 6 yards apart on the fairway but Singh put his approach to 4 feet and Woods was 17 feet from the flag; Singh picked up another birdie to drop to minus-14 and Woods two-putted for par, leaving him two strokes back.

After making another birdie on 17 to expand his lead to three strokes, Singh smiled and seemed to relax. He acknowledged the cheers of the crowd for the first time all day.

"I made the putts that counted," said Singh, who birdied the last hole after missing a 22-foot putt for eagle. "The big putt was on 17. When I made that one, I said, 'That's it.' "

On the second hole, a par-5, 553-yard dogleg right, both players got into trouble. Singh couldn't find his ball and took a drop, hit to 14 feet of the pin and then two-putted for bogey; Woods found his among the rocks in front of the green, but when he swung at the ball he hit a rock instead, jamming his wrist, breaking his club and costing himself a stroke.

Shaking off the pain, he punched his way up the hill, chipped onto the green and two-putted from 18 feet for a bogey.

Divots: After making the cut for the first time in 15 months, David Duval finished tied for 13th for a payday of $93,750 — more than he has made in 24 events since the start of the 2003 season. He double-bogeyed the first hole for the second consecutive day but shot a 67. ... Scott, who shot a 62 in the second round last year on the way to a four-stroke victory at 20-under, had the best back nine of the day with a 30. ... Shigeki Maruyama posted a career-high sixth top 10 finish. He was tied for sixth.

Contributing: The Associated Press

By conservative estimates, the underground deposits around Fort McMurray hold 1.6 trillion — with a "t" — barrels of oil, making them the largest lode of hydrocarbons on Earth. Up to 330 billion barrels of the crude here in Canada's oil sands region are recoverable, geologists say. Saudi Arabia, by contrast, possesses 262 billion barrels of proven reserves.

With oil prices bounding to nearly $50 a barrel this summer, both the Bush and Kerry campaigns have been talking up the Canadian option. Both extol a U.S. energy policy that draws more supply from friendly, familiar Canada and less from the volatile Middle East.

Despite the region's promise, not even the most giddy Canadian oil executive is ready to declare that the sands will break the USA's reliance on Middle East supplies anytime soon. Since 1967, the industry has spent $21 billion opening mines, drilling wells and constructing processing plants in the oil sands. Over the next decade, nearly two dozen companies plan to spend $24 billion more to expand existing operations or open new ones. Fresh investment could rise to as much as $40 billion by 2025, an amount equivalent to the combined spending of American companies in China over the past 25 years.

Yet even with all the money flowing in, oil from the sands "helps you on the margins. That's about it," says Allan Markin, chairman of Canadian Natural Resources, which is spending $6.4 billion on a project at the northern edge of the sands region.

Current production in the sands is about 1 million barrels a day, about half of which goes to the USA by pipeline. Production is forecast to rise to 2 million barrels a day by 2010 and 3 million a day by 2015. But the USA now guzzles more than 20 million barrels a day, about 60% of which is imported. Daily U.S. demand is projected to climb to 23 million barrels by 2010, even as domestic production falls.

Obstacles to development

So why not squeeze more from the oil sands? Tantalizing as the region is, it poses any number of obstacles. Technological, financial and environmental hurdles stand in the way of more aggressive exploitation.

Geologists joke that drawing a barrel of oil from the Saudi desert is as easy as poking a straw in the ground. The Saudis pump oil at a cost to them of $2 to $3 a barrel and comfortably make money even if global futures prices crash to $10 a barrel.

Not so in the molasses-like sands of Alberta. Here, costs range from $8.50 to $12 a barrel, and getting that barrel requires substantial manpower, technology and energy. After adding capital costs, shipping and depreciation, sands producers need per-barrel global prices above the $18-to-$23 level.

About 20% of the oil sands deposits can be surface mined. At its Steepbank and Millennium mines 20 miles north of Fort McMurray, Suncor uses bulldozers to scrape off the top layer of soil, silt, clay and rock. Three-story-high shovels gouge out buckets of oil sand and load them on gigantic trucks that can handle up to 400 tons apiece. The trucks, as big as generous suburban homes, shuttle 24 hours a day from the shovels to crushers, where they dump their loads. The rule of thumb is that two tons of sand yield one barrel of oil.

Eighty percent of the crude locked in the sands is too deep to surface mine.

So most new investment is aimed at extracting it by drilling wells to inject steam at high pressure, which separates and thins the tar-like bitumen so it can be pulled to the surface. It's a method that requires large quantities of water and natural gas.

In both cases, getting the bitumen is only the start. While it looks like thick oil, bitumen has a more complex molecular structure. It contains too much carbon and too little hydrogen, and must go through a costly upgrading process. The end product is so-called synthetic oil that can be moved through pipelines and refined into gasoline and other products.

The sands process is difficult and costly enough that industry reserve estimates vary wildly on Canada. Several authoritative guides refuse to include any oil from the sands in the country's reserve total. Others pare the recoverable figure from 300 billion barrels or more to 180 billion barrels or less.

A freak of geology

The region is a freak geologic formation created by the remnants of marine life left behind by an ancient inland sea that once covered much of Alberta. Venezuela has a similar oil sands region.

In 1719, a Cree Indian presented a sample of bitumen to a white explorer with the Hudson Bay Company. But for the longest time, the tar-like goo that pooled along the banks of the Athabasca River didn't seem good for much. The Cree and Chipewyan used it to fill smudge pots and ward off mosquitoes, or warmed it into a gum to waterproof their birch bark canoes. But the engineers and fortune seekers who played with it — boiling, spinning and treating it with chemicals — succeeded mostly in blowing themselves up or going bankrupt, or both.

That changed in 1967 when Suncor began extracting the first commercially viable oil from the sands. Still, it wasn't until the early 1990s that early pioneers Suncor and Syncrude developed the technology that enabled them to make steady returns capturing, processing and shipping sands oil. Even then, they saw their costs spiral out of control: Syncrude's $3.5 billion three-stage project ultimately cost $7 billion.

Today, projects "are being built as fast as they can," says Randy Ollenberger, energy analyst at BMO Nesbitt Burns in Calgary.

Costs remain a huge concern. Fort McMurray is crisp and beautiful this time of year, but remote, harsh and unforgiving much of the rest of the calendar. Temperatures plunge to 40 degrees below zero. And many oil leases in the northern sands areas are beyond the reach of paved roads, some accessible by "winter" roads over tundra, some only by helicopter.

At the northern edge of the Athabasca region, Canadian Natural Resources has scrapped the idea of trying to hire scarce pipe fitters, welders and carpenters locally or even import them from other parts of Canada. Instead, it wants to build an airport at its plant site, flying workers into job camps on 200-seat 737s. Much of the labor could come from Venezuela, Turkey, India, China, the Philippines, Hungary and South Africa, the company says.

Environmental concerns

Sands developers are under pressure to find ways to use less water and natural gas. They also are encouraged by the federal government in Ottawa to hire more workers from local tribes — referred to by Canadians as First Nations — and to buy more supplies from tribal businesses.

In addition, the oil companies work under strict environmental guidelines requiring that they run relatively eco-friendly operations and reclaim land as they finish mining. At its mine sites, Suncor has planted 3 million trees and built greenways to accommodate the bears, wolves, moose, caribous, deer and beavers. The company periodically fires off explosive charges at collection ponds to keep birds from drinking or nesting there.

One concern is that the Kyoto Protocol agreement, intended to lower global greenhouse-gas emissions, could hamper new development in the sands. "The question they have about Kyoto is, where does it end? Kyoto in and of itself isn't a big deal. It might mean another 25 cents a barrel in operating costs. But these investments are made on 40-year assumptions, vs. the standard industry investment horizon of three to five years. What does the offspring of Kyoto look like?" Ollenberger says.

Labor shortages and high costs are evident in Fort McMurray, a distant 18th-century trading post that has become a bustling town of 58,000. Thirty years ago, rough saloons like the Oil Can and the Peter Pond Pub drew far-from-home Newfoundlanders, who came to work in the sands and never left. Today, housing is in short supply, and median prices for single-family homes are close to $240,000, among the country's highest. Fast-food outlets such as Canada's ubiquitous coffee-and-doughnuts chain Tim Hortons have had trouble attracting and keeping workers.

Despite high costs and other problems, oil from the sands comes with little political risk. No Arab oil sheiks, no guerrilla insurgencies, no Russian autocrats, no African strongmen, no bribe-seeking bureaucrats.

"It's one of the few sources that's not in a ridiculously problematic zone," says Seth Kleinman, an energy markets specialist at PFC Energy, a Washington consulting firm.

The sands also have a different lifespan and payout than traditional oil wells. Sands companies expect a 15% to 18% annual return on projects that have a life of 35 to 40 years. A typical oil well delivers two or three times the returns, but production and returns peak in three years and drop sharply.

Suncor CEO Rick George says there's enough promising technology on the way to solve some of the environmental problems and lower costs. Natural gas use, for instance, will drop if companies can fuel their operations with the petroleum coke that is a byproduct of the bitumen-upgrading process. He's optimistic that total sands production can get to 5 million barrels a day in 15 years.

Oil prices haven't been above $40 a barrel long enough for Canadian sands companies to consider accelerating their expansion plans.

"They tend to be reasonably conservative players investing in long-term strategic projects" involving new technology, says Scott Mitchell, lead analyst for North America at Wood Mackenzie, an energy consultancy in Edinburgh, Scotland. "A lot of these companies are still feeling their way."

Whether they speed up or not, it's folly to view the sands as some kind of magic bullet that will eliminate America's dependence on OPEC and the Middle East, says Mike Rodgers, senior director at PFC Energy.

"You hear a lot of talk about gaining independence from Middle East oil," Rodgers says. "That can't happen as long as demand keeps growing. The only way to truly gain independence from Middle East oil is for us to do something about demand growth and develop other energy sources."

Contributing: Kelly Barry

"We've never had a storm sit over the whole state and batter it like this before," Bronson said. Intense, but smaller, Hurricane Charley three weeks ago is being blamed for up to $180 million in citrus damage. "Frances could exceed that," he said.

Between the two storms, eight of Florida's 10 biggest citrus-producing counties — with more than 500,000 acres of groves — have been hit by damaging wind and rain, said Florida Citrus Mutual, an industry group.

Meanwhile, Florida's tourism industry began reopening Monday, and some major operators salvaged one day of the three-day holiday weekend. In Orlando, several theme parks, including Disney's Magic Kingdom and Universal Studios, reopened Monday. All of the parks will open today.

"We had tens of thousands of guests at the hotels on our properties during the storm, and they're anxious to get to the parks," said Disney spokeswoman Jacquee Polak.

Universal spokesman Tom Schroder said, "We hope some of the guests stay longer."

Neither would estimate losses from their shutdown Saturday and Sunday. But for many tourism operators, the holiday was a total loss. Orlando Ghost Tours, which offers $25 nighttime walking tours of downtown buildings believed to be haunted, lost 42 reservations.

"Labor Day weekend is our busiest time, second only to Halloween," said owner Emilio San Martin.

As owners of homes and businesses began cleanup, state insurance officials had not yet estimated potential claims but believe it will be far short of Charley's nearly $7 billion.

Sam Miller, executive vice president of the Florida Insurance Council, also said Frances' most extensive damage likely will be from flooding rather than wind.

That means less exposure for insurance companies because private carriers don't provide flood insurance. Policies are written under the National Flood Insurance Program handled by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Adams reported from Miami; Eldridge reported from McLean, Va.

The research is the first that takes into account other factors linked to early teen sex — such as poor grades, low parent education, having older friends and living in a one-parent home — and tracks how TV-watching might predict sexual activity, says Jane Brown, a University of North Carolina media researcher who specializes in adolescents. The phone survey of 12- to 17-year-olds also took into account sexual experience at the start of the study.

Kids who said they watched more sex-oriented programs at the beginning of the year were more likely than others their age to become sexually active during the next year. Those in the top 10% for viewing of sexually related scenes were twice as likely to engage in intercourse as those in the lowest 10%, Collins says. The more sex-oriented scenes they saw, the more likely they were to become sexually active.

"It's social learning: 'monkey see, monkey do,' " Collins says. "If everyone's talking about sex or having it, and something bad hardly ever comes out of it, because it doesn't on TV, then they think, 'Hey, the whole world's doing it, and I need to.' "

The study didn't take into account a teen's interest in sex or feelings of sexual readiness as the year began. So the findings might exaggerate TV's influence in causing kids to start sex, says adolescent psychologist Joseph Allen of the University of Virginia.

"Sexually explicit TV viewing is exactly the kind of thing adolescents would do if they were interested in becoming sexually active," Allen says. "She may be picking up on teenagers who are about to seek out sexual experiences." Different levels of readiness might have a small effect on the findings, Collins says.

Physical maturity also matters. More sexually developed youngsters feel readier for sex and are more likely to be sexually active, Allen says, "and almost certainly these kids would be watching more sexy TV shows."

Television executives were skeptical, too. "With all due respect to RAND, we do not believe that one show can alter a person's sexual behavior," says HBO spokesman Jeff Cusson. HBO aired Sex and the City, one of the programs tracked in the study.

"Some TV may be too provocative for kids, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be on the air," says Todd Leavitt, president of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. "As the father of three daughters, I believe parents have an obligation to monitor their kids' TV viewing."

Teens whose parents supervised their activities closely were less likely to watch sexually oriented shows.

"Most important is keeping the set out of children's bedrooms, because otherwise the kids have complete control over what they watch," Brown says. Studies show that about 3 of 5 teens have TVs in their bedrooms, she says.

The attack came a week after Hamas suicide bombers blew up two buses in the Israeli city of Beersheba, killing 16 people.

In an unusually strong statement, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia warned that that airstrike would bring Hamas retaliation, which he said would be "justified."

"No crime goes unpunished," Qureia said of the Israeli attack at a meeting of the Palestinian Cabinet. "For sure there will be retaliation, and the retaliation will be justified if it happens."

Hamas, which has carried out dozens of deadly attacks inside Israel, vowed revenge. Hours after the attack, Palestinian militants fired mortars and homemade rockets at Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and the border town of Sderot. One Israeli in Sderot was slightly wounded in a rocket attack, rescue officials said.

The army said it struck a field where "senior Hamas terrorists" had trained militants to fire mortars and rockets. In the past month, Hamas assembled a large bomb and a suicide bomber's explosives belt at the training camp, the army added.

"No one is immune when he carries out terrorist attacks against innocent Israeli civilians," said Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom.

In Gaza City, children stayed home from school Tuesday and shops remained closed in a sign of mourning. Black smoke billowed over the city as students burned tires at spontaneous demonstrations.

Some 30,000 people, including dozens of gunmen from Hamas and other militant groups, joined a funeral procession Tuesday in Gaza City. As militants fired machine guns into the air, the crowd screamed for revenge.

"Our response to this crime is coming, God willing. and our twin attack in Beersheba is only one part of many strikes to come," a Hamas militant screamed over loudspeakers mounted on a car.

In the West Bank, Qureia said the airstrike undermined peace efforts, noting that it came a day after Egyptian officials visited the West Bank. Israel is planning to withdraw from Gaza next year, and Egypt has stepped in as a mediator to ensure security in the area after the pullout.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon refuses to negotiate directly with the Palestinians, saying they are not a serious peace partner.

Since the current round of fighting with the Palestinians broke out in September 2000, Israel has frequently targeted militants through airstrikes and other military operations.

But the strikes are usually aimed at very specific targets — usually senior militants or activists on their way to an attack. Last spring, Israeli killed Hamas' spiritual leader and his successor in separate strikes three weeks apart.

This policy, which Israel calls "targeted killings," has enraged the Palestinians and drawn international criticism, especially because of frequent civilian casualties.

Tuesday's attack was the first time the army has targeted such a large gathering of militants.

In the deadliest airstrike, an Israeli F-16 warplane killed a Hamas leader, Salah Shehadeh, along with 14 other people, including nine children, in July 2002.

In October 2003, 14 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli missile strike in a Gaza refugee camp. Palestinians said only two of the dead were militants; Israel put the figure much higher.

In Tuesday's attack, the dead were all identified as Hamas militants. At least five helicopter missiles pounded the camp in the Shajaiyeh section of Gaza City, a known Hamas stronghold, just after midnight.

There was pandemonium at Gaza's Shifa Hospital as casualties arrived in ambulances and cars. Blood-spattered Palestinians carried dead and wounded into the emergency room, while others went straight to the morgue carrying plastic bags with body parts.

Hundreds of angry Palestinians, many of them members of the Hamas military wing with blood on their clothes, gathered outside and shouted for revenge.

The Hamas military wing said Israel had struck a "scout's camp where a group of fighters was training" and pledged revenge.

While Israel described the site as a terrorist camp, the airstrike also appeared to be linked to last week's suicide bombing in Beersheba, even though the bombers had come from the West Bank. Israel has historically carried out harsh retaliation following deadly attacks on its citizens.

In a separate incident in Gaza, Israeli troops fired at the Khan Younis refugee camp, critically injuring a 10-year-old girl who was walking home from school, Palestinian hospital officials said.

Military officials said they had exchanged fire with militants in the area, but had no information on a girl being hit.

Violence has increased in the Gaza Strip since Sharon announced plans this year to evacuate all Gaza settlements and four West Bank enclaves.

Palestinian groups are vying for control ahead of the planned pullout and have stepped up attacks to give the impression that they are driving Israel out of the territory. Israel, in the meantime, has increased its strikes so the pullout won't look like a victory for the militants.

In an interview late Monday with foreign journalists and academics, Putin again rejected Western calls for negotiations with Chechen rebel representatives, Britain's Guardian daily reported.

"Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace?," the Guardian quoted Putin as saying sarcastically. (Related story: Al-Qaeda ties probed)

"You find it possible to set some limitations in your dealings with these bastards, so why should we talk to people who are child-killers?"

Putin said foreigners should have "no more questions about our policy in Chechnya" after the attackers shot children in the back, and said the Chechen cause was aimed at undermining all of southern Russia and majority-Muslim regions of the country.

"This is all about Russia's territorial integrity," Putin was quoted as saying.

He also said his government would conduct an internal investigation but not a public one — warning that a parliamentary probe could turn into "a political show." Two opposition politicians had called for an investigation, including into whether authorities had prior information about planned terrorist attacks, and what the government was doing to stabilize the situation in Chechnya.

In Vladikavkaz, the North Ossetian capital about 18 miles north of Beslan, hundreds of people gathered on central Freedom Square on Tuesday to protest against terrorism and to castigate local authorities for failing to prevent last week's tragedy.

"Today we will bury our children and tomorrow we will come here and throw these devils out of their seats, from the lowest director up to ministers and the president," said one of the speakers, who refused to identify himself to reporters. (Related story: Russia mourns)

"Corrupt authority is a source of terrorism," said a poster held above in the crowd. Along with thin wax candles, which they lit and placed along the square, protesters distributed fliers calling for North Ossetian President Alexander Dzasokhov to step down.

Russian state television broadcast footage of anti-terrorist marches and memorials held around the world after the Beslan tragedy, and summoned people to an anti-terrorist protest to be held Tuesday afternoon on Moscow's Red Square.

Militants seized the school at Beslan on Sept. 1, a day after a suicide bombing in Moscow killed 10 people and just over a week after two Russian passenger planes exploded and crashed, killing all 90 people aboard — two attacks authorities suspect were linked to Russia's war in Chechnya.

A prosecutor said the militants belonged to a group led by radical Chechen rebel Shamil Basayev. A man identified by authorities as a detained hostage-taker said on state TV that he was told Basayev and separatist former Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov were behind the attack.

Mikhail Lapotnikov, a senior investigator in the North Caucasus prosecutors' office, said on Channel One television that investigators had established the assailants were "the core of Basayev's band" and had taken part in a June attack — also blamed on Basayev — targeting police and security officials in neighboring Ingushetia.

The detainee, identified by a lawyer as Nur-Pashi Kulayev, said on both state-run channels that he and other members of the group were told the goal of the raid was "to unleash a war on the whole of the Caucasus" — the same thing Putin said was the attackers' aim.

On Sunday, Channel One showed the detainee looking frightened as he was manhandled by masked law enforcement officers and swearing to Allah that he didn't shoot women and children.

After the siege ended Friday, Russian news agencies cited unidentified security sources as saying that the planners of the raid were believed to have scouted at least two schools in Beslan.

"Judging by everything, they felt the better one for their goals was the main building of School No. 1 with its half-basement gymnasium annex, where the floor had to be replaced," the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted a law-enforcement official as saying.

"The bandits were able to bring into the school a large quantity of weapons, ammunition, equipment and explosives, under the guise of planks, cement and other building material, enough to defend the seized place for a long period," the official said, according to the report.

Hostages also spoke in news accounts of a huge quantity of explosives in the school — not only the suicide belts worn by some of the raiders but also bombs hung from basketball hoops.

The onetime-hurricane had weakened to a tropical depression early Tuesday and was pouring up to 5 inches of rain on south-central Georgia, with another 2 to 4 inches possible overnight. Several tornadoes were reported in Georgia.

The storm caused flooding in parts of Tampa, forcing police to patrol streets with two amphibious tanks and close about a mile of a busy thoroughfare. More than 100 residents of a retirement home were evacuated in wheelchairs as floodwaters sloshed against their feet.

"I'm not scared," said Heather Downs, who moved into the home two weeks ago after her apartment was badly damaged by Hurricane Charley. "I've been through a lot."

Residents of the Florida Panhandle withstood the tropical storm's heavy rain and winds of 65 mph on Labor Day, ruining the holiday weekend that forced most of the state to deal with the storm and its aftermath.

Along the Atlantic coast, motorists waited for gasoline in lines stretching up to five miles while there was heavy demand for water, ice and basic supplies. About 1,500 people gathered at a Wal-Mart in Palm Beach County while up the coast in Fort Pierce, hundreds of people stood in a line with buckets and ice chests on a sunny, steamy afternoon.

"This has been a long haul," said 64-year-old Judy Duffy, of Fort Pierce, who searched with her husband for ice and water but drove away from a distribution line with an empty cooler. "It's tested my patience. I'm not a nice person today — I haven't had my coffee."

At a Florida Turnpike rest stop in West Palm Beach, a five-mile line of motorists waited for fuel. "It took a little while, but I'm glad to be here," said Greg McCourt, who waited an hour to get gas for a trip to Georgia.

Frances charged into Florida's east coast early Sunday with winds of 115 mph and more than 13 inches of rain, ripping off roofs, smashing boats and flooding West Palm Beach streets up to four feet deep.

The hurricane did more damage to the Kennedy Space Center than any storm in history, ripping an estimated 1,000 exterior panels from a building where spaceships are assembled. No space shuttles were inside the building, but center director James Kennedy said he feared the damage could set back NASA's effort to resume shuttle launches next spring.

Nine deaths in Florida were blamed on Frances, including a grandson and a former son-in-law of Florida State University football coach Bobby Bowden, who died in a collision on a rain-slippery highway.

And in Georgia, officials said an 18-year-old woman died Monday after the car she was riding in hydroplaned and overturned during the storm. There were two earlier deaths in the Bahamas, where Frances forced thousands from their homes.

The storm's broad bands pushed across Florida to enter the gulf north of Tampa, its path crossing some of the area hit by Charley, which killed 27 people in Florida last month and caused an estimated $7.4 billion in insured damage.

Florida Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher estimated Frances' damage at up to "a couple of billion dollars," while Germany's Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer, said the overall insured damage caused by Frances so far is between $5 billion and $15 billion.

President Bush expected to survey damage in Florida on Wednesday, and was asking Congress to approve $2 billion for "urgent needs" stemming from Charley and Frances.

Some schools were planning for classes to resume after serving as shelters during the weekend. The Federal Emergency Management Agency was ready to distribute 1.5 million gallons of water and 1 million meals.

Businesses in Miami Beach tried to return to normal Monday night as convertibles cruised trendy Ocean Drive with their tops down and pedestrians dressed to party crowded the sidewalk.

"It kind of just put a damper on the holiday spirits," said J. Christian Enyart, manager the Clevelander, a popular art deco bar.

While Frances headed out of Florida, residents kept a wary eye on another powerful storm. Ivan, the fifth hurricane of the year, had sustained wind of near 110 mph and was centered 140 miles south-southeast of Barbados in the central Atlantic.

Forecasters were not certain whether it would strike the United States, but after a month of damage from Hurricanes Frances and Charley, many Floridians loathed another impending storm.

"We need it like we need a hole in the head," said 93-year-old Harold Samsel of Hutchinson Island, who was waiting to go back to his apartment for the first time since Frances. "I don't even know if I've got anything to go back to."

As the campaign enters its last eight weeks, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday shows Bush at 52%, Kerry at 45% and independent candidate Ralph Nader at 1% among likely voters. Before the convention, Bush led Kerry by 2 percentage points.

Among registered voters, Bush was at 48%, Kerry at 46% and Nader at 4% in the first nationwide post-convention poll.

Bush's lead remains within the survey's error margin at Labor Day, the traditional start of the campaign's homestretch.

By historical standards, the race is too close to call. But the New York convention altered the political landscape and attitudes toward the candidates in ways helpful to Republicans. Views of whether Bush has the personality and leadership qualities to be president improved by 6 points; those of Kerry declined by 14 points.

And the importance of terrorism — the issue on which Bush has his biggest advantage — surged. Voters now say terrorism is as important as the economy in determining their vote. Bush is preferred by 27 points over Kerry in handling terrorism, up from a 10-point edge last month.

Bush strategist Matthew Dowd says Bush is further ahead than the campaign expected. With the conventions over, he says Kerry "has lost any ability to have any one-way conversation" with voters.

Mark Mellman, Kerry's pollster, says there is "no doubt" that "ugly and inaccurate speeches" at the Republican convention had an effect. "Equally, there's no doubt they'll fade pretty quickly," he says.

The lessons of presidential races since World War II indicate that either candidate could prevail in November. Since World War II, three contests have been within the margin of error among registered voters at Labor Day. In those races, the leading candidate won in 1980; the trailing candidate won in 1960 and 2000.

Bush received a modest bounce from his party's convention, but Kerry's standing sagged in the USA TODAY poll after the Democratic convention in July.

The poll finds the president driving both sides of the ballot: Eight of 10 of his supporters say they will vote for Bush rather than against Kerry. But half of Kerry's supporters say they are voting against Bush.

Several warplanes flew over the sprawling neighborhood of more than 2 million.

In another part of the Iraqi capital, a roadside bomb targeted the Baghdad governor's convoy, killing two people but leaving him uninjured, the Interior Ministry said. Three of Gov. Ali al-Haidri's bodyguards were also hurt in the attack Tuesday in the western neighborhood of Hay al-Adel.

The fighting in Sadr City erupted when militants attacked U.S. forces carrying out routine patrols, said U.S. Army Capt. Brian O'Malley.

"We just kept coming under fire," he said.

O'Malley said the American soldier was killed by small-arms fire and that several others were wounded.

A senior Health Ministry official, Saad al-Amili, said 33 Iraqis have been killed and 193 injured in the Sadr City clashes in the past 24 hours.

An al-Sadr spokesman in Baghdad, Sheik Raed al-Kadhimi, blamed what he described as intrusive American incursions into Sadr City and attempts to arrest the cleric's followers.

"Our fighters have no choice but to return fire and to face the U.S. forces and helicopters pounding our houses," al-Kadhimi said in a statement.

The impoverished neighborhood had been relatively calm since al-Sadr called for cease-fire last week and announced he was going into politics.

Al-Sadr led a three-week uprising in the holy city of Najaf that ended 10 days ago with a peace deal that allowed his Mahdi militia fighters to walk away with their guns. The combat in Najaf left thousands dead and devastated much of the city.

Many Mahdi militiamen are believed to have returned to their stronghold in Sadr City.

Tuesday's violence came a day after a suicide attack on a military convoy outside Fallujah killed seven U.S. Marines and three Iraqi soldiers, U.S. military officials said. It was the deadliest day for American forces in four months.

A group linked to Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi _Tawhid and Jihad — posted a statement on the Internet Tuesday claiming responsibility for the slayings.

The force of the blast on a dusty stretch of wasteland nine miles north of Fallujah, wrecked two Humvees and hurled the suicide car's engine far from the site, witnesses said.

The bombing underscored the challenges U.S. commanders face in securing Fallujah and surrounding Anbar province, the heartland of a Sunni Muslim insurgency bent on driving coalition forces from the country.

U.S. forces have not patrolled in Fallujah since a three-week siege of the city in April that was aimed at rooting out militiaman. As a result, insurgents have strengthened their hold on the city, using it as a base to make car bombs and launch attacks on U.S. and Iraqi government forces.

Since midday Monday, five American soldiers have been killed in attacks in Iraq, the U.S. military said in separate statements Tuesday. The death in Sadr City is same as one mentioned earlier in story.

• One soldier from the Army's 13th Corps Support Command was killed when his convoy was hit by a roadside bomb near the Iraqi capital late Monday.

• One Task Force Baghdad soldier died early Tuesday from wounds sustained from a roadside bombing against his convoy a day earlier in Baghdad.

• Another soldier with Task Force Baghdad died Monday from wounds sustained during an unspecified attack in Baghdad.

• A second soldier from the 13th Coscom was killed in a roadside bomb attack near Qayarrah, just north of Baghdad.

• A third Task Force Baghdad soldier was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade strike during clashes in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City early Tuesday.

The military said it was withholding the names of all the dead soldiers pending family notification. The latest deaths came in addition to the killing of seven Marines early Monday when a car bomb exploded near their convoy on the outskirts of Fallujah.

In total, 995 U.S. service members have now died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003, according to a count by The Associated Press based on Defense Department figures.

In other violence:

• The son of the governor of the northern city of Mosul was killed in a drive-by shooting Tuesday. Lieth Duried Kashmoula died of two shots to the chest, hospital officials said.

• Unknown gunmen killed the deputy director of Baghdad's al-Karama hospital, Abbas al-Husseini, the Health Ministry said. The motive for the attack was not known.

• Two Iraqi policemen were killed and two others injured in a drive-by-shooting in Latifiyah, 25 miles south of Baghdad late Monday, police said Tuesday.

Also Wednesday, gunmen shot at a convoy carrying former Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi as he returned from Najaf to attend the first meeting of Iraq's 100-member National Council, which is to act as a watchdog over the interim government and help shepherd the nation to elections. The council was formally sworn at the Baghdad convention center, in a ceremony marred by a nearby mortar attack that injured one person, the U.S. military said.

Port agents and Iraqi oil officials said Iraq's southern oil terminals were fully operational and exports through them were running at between 1.7 million and 1.9 million barrels a day. There had been conflicting reports earlier in the week over whether new attacks on oil facilities had shut down shipments.

Hostage-taking has been one of the tactics used by militants waging a 16-month-old campaign of sabotage, assassinations and bombings seeking to destabilize Iraq and drive out coalition forces and reconstruction workers. Some kidnappers have also taken hostages in an effort to extort ransom from their families and companies.

The Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport Co. said it paid $500,000 to secure the release of its seven employees — three Kenyans, three Indians and one Egyptian — on Wednesday, a day after a video surfaced on a militant Muslim Web site showing the purported killing of 12 Nepalese workers kidnapped in Iraq.

The men, who were abducted on July 21, were freed after a team of company employees drove under armed guard to an unspecified location in Iraq where the drivers were being held to pay the ransom, KGL chief executive Said Dashti said.

"They (the kidnappers) were not trying to make a political statement, they were purely extortionists," Dashti told The Associated Press shortly after the freed hostages landed in Kuwait.

The seven men had been kidnapped by a group calling itself The Holders of the Black Banners, which demanded that the truckers' home governments pull all their citizens out of Iraq and that their Kuwaiti employer withdraw as well. It later also demanded that Iraqi prisoners in Kuwaiti and U.S. prisons be freed and compensation be paid to victims of fighting in Fallujah.

The group repeatedly extended a deadline hanging over the hostages as local mediators worked on a deal for their release. Last Thursday, the kidnappers dropped nearly all their demands and said they would free the hostages if their employer agreed to stop working in Iraq.

On Friday, Rana Abu-Zaineh, an official at the company, said it had agreed. Soon after, the kidnappers prepared to release the men.

"They told us about two days ago that (we) were being released and we felt very happy, and we did not sleep out of our joy," one of the released hostages, Egyptian Mohammed Ali Sanad, told the Arabic television station Al-Arabiya.

The announcement of their release sparked celebrations in their home countries. "My joy today is as big as the whole world. I feel he is born again," said Sanad's mother, Nadia al-Shanawani.

In a video given to news agencies soon after the release, the seven hostages stand against a wall as a masked militant goes down the line shaking each captive's hand, giving him a hug and handing him a Quran, another Islamic book and what appears to be a CD or cassette.

A voiceover warned "all companies that work with the occupiers of the black destiny awaiting them in Iraq if they continue with this work."

The French hostage crisis persisted, with Arab leaders and Muslims worldwide trying to help save journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, who disappeared Aug. 19 on their way from Baghdad to the southern city of Najaf. Their Syrian chauffeur also vanished.

A group calling itself the Islamic Army of Iraq claimed to be holding the two, demanding France abolish its ban on Muslim head scarves in public schools. French leaders refused, insisting the ban would take effect when schools open their fall term on Thursday.

Diverse organizations ranging from the militant Palestinian group Hamas, which claimed responsibility for deadly twin bombings in Israel on Tuesday, to Sunni and Shiite Iraqi religious leaders issued statements on behalf of the hostages in a show of support not seen previously in efforts to free more than 100 foreigners kidnapped in Iraq in recent months.

France's government has won friends in the region by opposing the U.S.-led war in Iraq and by following generally pro-Arab policies.

Meanwhile, attackers shot at a convoy carrying Chalabi in an apparent assassination attempt that wounded two of his bodyguards Wednesday morning, the Interior Ministry said.

"There are many terror bands there and we must work very hard, very quickly to free this area from the scourge of the terrorists," said Chalabi, a one-time Pentagon favorite who fell out of favor with the United States.

Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi issued a statement condemning the attack, which he said was conducted by "terrorist groups in an attempt to launch a campaign of terror and destabilization in our dear country by targeting political and religious figures."

Hours later, an unharmed Chalabi joined the National Council for its swearing-in ceremony. The council later chose as its president Fuad Masoum, a Kurd who had served as chairman of the national conference last month that helped choose the members of the council.

Chalabi also said Wednesday that an Iraqi court had dropped counterfeit charges against him. The court could not immediately be reached for confirmation.

The council has the power to approve the national budget and can veto some government decisions with a two-thirds majority vote.

As the meeting convened, several mortar rounds exploded near the convention center, inside the heavily guarded Green Zone enclave, wounding one person, the U.S. military said.

"There were between three to five impacts around the checkpoint there causing one injury, an Iraqi citizen, and he is being treated," said Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, a U.S. military spokesman.

Two rounds later landed in the Green Zone itself, sending up a plume of gray smoke. There was no word on whether the second attack caused any injuries.

Elsewhere in the capital, talks to end fighting between U.S. forces and Shiite militants in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City stalled, with the government refusing militant demands for American troops to keep out of the district, negotiators for the militants said Wednesday.

A tentative agreement was initially reached Monday on a proposal that would have barred U.S. troops from entering the slum without Iraqi government permission, but the government backpedaled the next day, said Naim al-Kaabi, a spokesman for rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

State Minister Qassim Dawoud denied the government ever agreed to a deal. "It wasn't (an) agreement. We don't like to reach any agreement with any militia people," he said.

Maj. Phil Smith, an Army spokesman for the Baghdad-based 1st Cavalry Division, said that U.S. commanders were not involved in the talks and that as far as he was aware "no agreement has been reached."

The talks came after al-Sadr accepted a peace deal last week to end three weeks of fighting in Najaf. But clashes have continued in other Shiite areas.

The militant Islamic group Hamas claimed the attack Tuesday in the desert city of Beersheba, when two bombers from the West Bank city of Hebron blew themselves up seconds apart in two buses.

Raanan Gissin, a senior aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, pointed to neighboring Syria on Wednesday, saying Hamas leaders are permitted to work out of the Syrian capital, Damascus.

"The fact that Hamas is operating from Syria will not grant it immunity," Gissin told The Associated Press. Last year Israel attacked targets in Syria after a Palestinian bombing.

Israeli security sources said earlier that Sharon and his military commanders had decided to stage more strikes to eliminate militant Palestinian leaders in response to the bus attack.

The twin bombings in Beersheba shattered hopes in Israel that the period of suicide attacks — more than 100 in four years — was over. "The nightmare is back," the newspaper Yediot Ahronot said Wednesday in its main headline above a photo of a burning bus.

The last suicide attack was in March, and many Israelis believed the militants had been defeated, or at least suffered a serious blow.

Israeli leaders had boasted of increasingly effective means in fighting bombers, including a large network of Palestinian informers, mass arrests and an expanding barrier to separate Israel from the West Bank. Sharon pledged Wednesday to speed up construction of the barrier.

Tuesday's bombers came from the West Bank city of Hebron, about 15 miles north of Beersheba. Ahmed Kawasmeh, 26, and Nassim Jabari, 22, had known each other for years and were members of a secretive Hamas cell led by Kawasmeh's cousin, Imad, a top fugitive.

The Kawasmeh clan is one of the largest in Hebron, and had dispatched five suicide bombers in recent years. Israeli troops destroyed Ahmed Kawasmeh's family apartment, arrested three of his brothers and sealed off Hebron.

Sharon consulted with his defense minister and army commanders late Tuesday and decided to step up military raids in Hebron, including targeted killings of militant leaders, security sources said. No large-scale military operation was planned, the sources said.

Sharon also said he is determined to go ahead with a planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements next year. "This (the attack) has no connection to disengagement," he said, referring to his program.

Israelis have pointed to the barrier as the main factor in the drop-off of attacks in Israel, and residents of Beersheba, a normally quiet city of 200,000 people in the Negev Desert, clamored for completion of the barrier around the West Bank's southern end to protect them.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday after a meeting with Israel's president, Sharon pledged to act. "The fence will be completed according to the Cabinet decision, and we are doing all we can to speed up the process as much as possible," he said.

The barrier has been widely condemned internationally because of the hardships it causes for Palestinians. Completion has been held up by Israel's own Supreme Court, which ordered route changes to ease conditions of the Palestinians.

The bombs went off just seconds apart on the No. 6 and No. 12 buses, on opposite sides of a busy intersection Tuesday afternoon. The buses lay stricken in the street, their windows blown out, roofs buckled outward, interiors gutted by flames. Forensic workers picked up body parts, including a woman's severed hand with a silver ring.

Nissim Vaknin, a passenger on the No. 6 bus, said he was sitting behind the driver, next to a man he later realized was the bomber. Vaknin described the bomber as a "young guy, quiet, not tense." When an elderly woman with shopping bags boarded, Vaknin gave up his seat to her and walked to the back, a gesture that saved his life.

The elderly woman was killed in the blast several seconds later. Vaknin said he was plagued by guilt. "If it weren't for me she'd still be alive today," he told Israel Army Radio.

A 3-year-old boy was also among the victims. More than 80 people were wounded, including 19 school-age children.

Hamas said the attack was retaliation for Israel's assassination of Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin and his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, earlier this year.

In Gaza, thousands of Hamas supporters celebrated in the streets, with Rantisi's widow, Rasha, calling the attack "heroic" and saying her husband's soul was "happy in heaven." She threw candies to the cheering crowd around her house.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said in a statement that "the Palestinian interest requires a stop to harming all civilians so as not give Israel pretext to continue its aggression against our people."

The U.S. State Department brushed aside Arafat's comments and said Hamas must be put out of business.

The delayed Hamas response — Yassin was killed in March and Rantisi in April — was a sign of the group's increasing difficulties in carrying out attacks.

Along with the partially completed barrier, the military said it had foiled dozens of suicide bomb plots, arrested hundreds of terror suspects and crippled the Hamas leadership with assassinations of Yassin and Rantisi.

Palestinian analyst Hani al-Masri agreed. "But now, the military operations (attacks) are a way for Hamas to increase its popularity among Palestinians," he said.

Tuesday's attack was the deadliest since a female suicide bomber killed 21 people on Oct. 4, 2003, in the northern city of Haifa.

The last suicide bombing in Israel was on March 14, when two Palestinian attackers killed 11 Israelis in the southern port of Ashdod. Since then, 338 Palestinians, including militants and civilians, have been killed by Israeli troops. In the same period, 29 Israelis were killed, including soldiers who died in attacks in Gaza and Israeli motorists shot by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

State courts spokeswoman Karen Salaz confirmed the motion was filed, but its contents were not immediately available. She said certain information in the filing would be removed before it was released to the public.

Prosecution spokeswoman Krista Flannigan declined to comment, citing a gag order imposed by the judge.

About 300,000 residents in coastal areas of Palm Beach County were urged to evacuate starting 2 p.m. Thursday.

It would be the worst double hurricane strike on one state in at least a century. (Related maps: Forecast, watches, warnings, location, graphics)

Closing in on the Bahamas, the Category 4 storm with 140 mph winds was expected to fluctuate in intensity and could become a Category 5 storm with top sustained winds of 156 mph or higher, said Jamie Rhome, a meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

The storm could hit anywhere from South Florida to South Carolina as early as late Friday.

"This still is a huge threat to the southeast U.S. coast," Rhome said Wednesday. "All indications for now is that Florida is the prime candidate." (Related video: Florida readies for storm)

Added center director Max Mayfield: "I can't emphasize enough how powerful this is. If there's something out there that's going to weaken it, we haven't seen it."

Hurricane-force winds extended up to about 80 miles from Frances' center, making it about twice the width of Charley and increasing the possibility for damage, forecasters said.

Records from the last century show no two Category 4 storms, which have winds of 131-155 mph, hitting a state within weeks of each other, the hurricane center said.

The last time two Category 3 hurricanes, with winds of at least 111 mph, hit Florida in rapid succession was 1950. Hurricane Easy hit Tampa around Sept. 4 and Hurricane King hit Miami on Oct. 17, six weeks later.

It's been less than three weeks since Charley struck Aug. 13.

Craig Fugate, director of the state Division of Emergency Management, said steps were being taken for to prepare for large-scale evacuations, including possibly reversing lanes of some highways to accommodate fleeing coastal residents.

Frances was forecast to plow through the Bahamas late Wednesday or Thursday before hitting the U.S. mainland. Evacuation orders and hurricane watches were likely to be issued late Wednesday or early Thursday.

Many people didn't need an official head's-up. About two dozen people lined up Wednesday morning at a Home Depot store in suburban Miami, waiting to pay for items such as generators, tarps, flashlights and batteries.

"They're going pretty fast. We can't keep them in stock. As fast as plywood comes in, it's gone," said assistant manager Jay Virgilio.

With landfall possible on the Atlantic Coast from one end of the state to the other, wary officials watched the clock and forecasts as they grew more refined.

"We're planning for the worst and praying for the best," said Chip Patterson, Duval County's emergency preparedness division chief in Jacksonville. About 240,000 people living in low-lying evacuation zones need up to 22 hours to flee in the Jacksonville area.

State and federal emergency officials prepared to repeat a disaster response three weeks after mobilizing for Charley.

"I'd like to get through with this one first before we start the next one," said C.W. Blosser, 37, a paramedic who stayed at a hurricane shelter in Arcadia during Hurricane Charley. "If it comes here, I'm going to fly my family to North Dakota or something like that."

State officials worried about finding hotel rooms and shelters for people who may need to evacuate. Many hotel rooms in the southern half of the state are occupied by those left homeless by Hurricane Charley and out-of-state emergency workers. Some schools and community centers are still being used as shelters.

But Federal Emergency Management Agency officials said they were ready.

"We have all the operations, all the resources that we need to respond to a major emergency," said FEMA spokesman Justo Hernandez.

Gov. Jeb Bush had already canceled his trip to the Republican National Convention because he wanted to stay behind for recovery from Charley.

"The lessons of these storms are that all the science in the world and all the technology in the world isn't going to be able to pinpoint exactly where the storm goes," Bush cautioned. The state emergency operations center was activated for yet another disaster response.

With top sustained winds of 145 mph, Charley destroyed or heavily damaged more than 30,000 homes and was blamed for 27 deaths in Florida. The storm cost an estimated $7.4 billion in insured damage to homes, businesses and personal possessions such as cars. It was the worst natural disaster to hit Florida since Andrew caused $15.5 billion in insured damage and killed 15 people.

Jenna and Barbara Bush introduced White House chief of staff Andrew Card. As he began speaking, 10 protesters sitting in the crowd jumped up, blew whistles and began to chant, "Bush kills." They also removed sweat shirts to reveal T-shirts reading "Bush Drop Global Debt Now."

Card tried to continue speaking, but was drowned out and stopped as young participants in the morning event scuffled with the demonstrators. Police moved in to remove the protesters, including a young woman hoisted out by two officers — one at her shoulders and one at her knees.

At least one delegate was slightly injured. Suhr Daniel, 20, of Milwaukee, said he was punched in the head by a protester. He had a cut near his temple and the side of his face was reddened.

Cheney's speech tonight sets the stage for Bush's acceptance speech. The president is to arrive in New York late Wednesday for a meeting with firefighters, making the connection to the Sept. 11 attacks and ensuing fight against terror that has defined his presidency.

Cheney will contrast Bush's "demonstrated leadership and decisiveness versus Senator Kerry's confusion of conviction — both in foreign and domestic policy — that he's demonstrated during his 20 years in the Senate," Cheney spokeswoman Anne Womack said.

Meanwhile, Bush's chief strategist, Karl Rove, said the Bush-Cheney campaign asked a federal court in Washington to force an end to political ads by outside groups known as "527" organizations. The ads in question have criticized Kerry's military service in Vietnam and also attacked Bush on a variety of issues, most notably the decision to wage war in Iraq.

Kerry, addressing the American Legion convention in Nashville, said, "We know that with the privilege of freedom comes an obligation to give back, to serve. That's something I carry in my gut and I know you do, too."

"The job will be done when there are no more homeless veterans on the streets of America," the candidate said.

Thousands of protesters waving pink fliers reading "The Next Pink Slip Might Be Yours!" formed a symbolic unemployment line from Wall Street to the convention site. The peaceful demonstration came a day after police struggled to contain swarms of protesters, eventually arresting nearly 1,000 demonstrators.

Cheney also plans to discuss the importance of public schools, a vibrant economy and improved health care system, Womack said, and will argue that these things are not possible unless the nation is safe and secure.

With news on the economic front more mixed than Republicans had hoped, Cheney and keynote speaker Sen. Zell Miller, a Georgia Democrat who is backing Bush, are expected to talk about Bush's agenda for creating jobs and encouraging people to own homes and start businesses.

Miller said he will "explain to them why this longtime Democrat, who has never voted for a Republican, by the way, in his life, is voting for this one. And it has to do with the kind of man he is."

"It has to do with the times that we live in, the very dangerous times we live in," Miller said in an interview with The Associated Press. "And it also has something to do with President Bush's opponent. And we'll talk a little bit about his record."

First lady Laura Bush, taking center stage Tuesday on the second night of the convention, declared that President Bush "has led our country with strength and conviction" as the party sought to present the president to voters as an unflinching but compassionate leader deserving of re-election.

Introduced by the president via remote video hookup from a campaign stop in Pennsylvania, a potentially decisive battleground state, the first lady described watching her husband make the difficult decisions that preceded the United States' war with Iraq.

"No American president ever wants to go to war," she said. "Abraham Lincoln didn't want to go to war, but he knew saving the union required it. Franklin Roosevelt didn't want to go to war, but he knew defeating tyranny demanded. And my husband didn't want to go to war, but he knew the safety and security of America and the world depended on it.

"Once again, as in our parents' generation, America had to make the tough choices, the hard decisions, and lead the world toward greater security and freedom," she said. (Related: First lady praises president Text of speech Video)

Tuesday's convention session focused on Bush's declaration that he is a compassionate conservative, with the first lady and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger the featured speakers. The party continued its multi-day delegate voting process, jiggering the roll call so the battleground state of Pennsylvania could provide Bush with the votes he needed to secure the nomination. The roll call will continue Wednesday, when Bush and Cheney formally will become the party's nominees.

"A compassionate people" was the slogan Republicans posted on electronic signs that circle the interior of the arena.

With modern political conventions made-for-television events, the three major broadcast networks devoted their first hour of prime-time coverage to Tuesday's proceedings. The three networks did not cover the first night of speeches, which featured former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sen. John McCain of Arizona. (Related: Speech texts, videos)

In a late addition to Tuesday's program, the first lady was preceded by her twin daughters Barbara and Jenna, who are 22 and recent college graduates. They spoke from the floor of the convention, with the delegates, and introduced their father, who participated by remote video hookup from North Middleton Township, Pa., where he is campaigning with McCain. The president then introduced his wife.

"Tonight I have the best and the easiest job of the convention," he said. "My wife has been there every day since that wonderful day Laura Welch said 'yes' to me."

"I am so proud of the way George has led our country with strength and conviction," the first lady told convention-goers.

"Our parents' generation confronted tyranny and liberated millions," she said. "As we do the hard work of confronting today's threat — we can also be proud that 50 million more men, women and children live in freedom today thanks to the United States of America and our allies."

GOP strategists have been eager to put the spotlight on the first lady because she is the most popular figure in the administration. In the most recent USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll concluded six days ago, Mrs. Bush had a 63% favorable rating and just a 23% unfavorable rating. That makes her more popular and less polarizing than her husband. In the same poll, he had a 54% favorable and 44% unfavorable rating.

She is far more popular than Vice President Cheney, who has a 44% favorable and 45% unfavorable score.

Schwarzenegger also is popular with the public (Related: Entertainers blur line between celebrity, politics). A moderate Republican, he was elected in the recall election that unseated Democrat Gray Davis as governor in 2003, despite his state's Democratic bent. In the same national poll, Schwarzenegger had a 56% favorable to 27% unfavorable rating.

"That's what I admire most about the president," Schwarzenegger said. "He's a man of perseverance. He's a man of inner strength. He is a leader who doesn't flinch, who doesn't waver, who does not back down." (Related: Arnold pumps up GOP Text of speech Video)

"The president didn't go into Iraq because the polls told him it was popular," he said. "As a matter of fact, the polls said just the opposite. But leadership isn't about polls. It's about making decisions you think are right and then standing behind those decisions. That's why America is safer with George W. Bush as president."

The arrests at convention-related protests starting last week rose to more than 1,300. Before the convention began, New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly had said he expected 1,000 arrests during the entire week.

Contributing: William M. Welch, USA TODAY; Steve Marshall, USATODAY.com; The Associated Press

Kazbek Dzantiyev, head of the North Ossetia region's Interior Ministry, said that the hostages have threatened "for every destroyed fighter, they will kill 50 children and for every injured fighter — 20 (children)," the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

At one point, a girl wearing a floral print dress and a red bow in her hair fled the school, her hand held by a flak-jacketed soldier. An older woman followed them. Ruslan Ayamov, spokesman for North Ossetia's Interior Ministry told The Associated Press that 12 children and one adult managed to escape after hiding in the building's boiler room.

The attack was the latest blamed on secessionist Chechen rebels, coming a day after a suicide bomber killed nine people in Moscow and a week after near-simultaneous explosions blamed on terrorists caused two Russian planes to crash, killing all 90 people on board. The surge in violence was apparently timed around last Sunday's Chechen presidential election.

"In essence, war has been declared on us, where the enemy is unseen and there is no front," Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said.

President Vladimir Putin interrupted his working holiday Wednesday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi for a second time and returned to the capital. On arrival at the airport, he held an immediate meeting with the heads of Russia's Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service, the Interfax news agency said.

The standoff began after a ceremony marking the first day of the Russian school year, when it was likely that many parents had accompanied their children. About 17 militants, men and women, stormed the three-story building and herded captives into the gymnasium. They forced children to stand at the windows and warned they would blow up the school if police intervened, said Alexei Polyansky, a police spokesman for southern Russia.

"I was standing near the gates, music was playing, when I saw three armed people running with guns. At first I though it was a joke when they fired in the air and we fled," a teenager, Zarubek Tsumartov, said on Russian television.

Hours after the seizure, Regional Federal Security Service chief Valery Andreyev said on NTV television that negotiations with the hostage-takers "are just, just beginning" and that brief contact had not allowed authorities to evaluate the situation in Belsen, located 10 miles north of the regional capital of Vladikavkaz

The ITAR-Tass news agency, citing local hospitals, reported that seven people died of injuries in the hospital and one was killed at the site during the seizure.

But Regional Emergency Situations Minister Boris Dzgoyev told The Associated Press that two civilians were killed and nine hospitalized, and that two bodies were visible near the school. Interfax cited a health official as saying four people were killed, but the emergencies ministry later said the toll was two.

Dzgoyev said a girl was also lying near the building, presumably wounded, but officials said the area could not be approached because it was coming under fire.

Fatima Khabalova, spokeswoman for the regional parliament, earlier said one of the dead was a father who brought his child to the school and was shot when he tried to resist the raiders. She also said at least nine people had been injured in gunfire, including three teachers and two police officers.

Suspicion in both the school attack and the Moscow bombing fell on Chechen rebels or their sympathizers, but there was no evidence of any direct link. The attacks came around Chechnya's presidential elections, a Kremlin-backed vote aimed at undermining support for the insurgents by establishing a modicum of civil order in the war-shattered republic. The previous president, Akhmad Kadyrov, was killed with more than 20 others in a bombing May 9.

The militants inside the school released one hostage with a list of their demands, including the freedom of fighters detained over a series of attacks on police facilities in neighboring Ingushetia in June, ITAR-Tass reported.

They also seek talks with regional officials and a well-known pediatrician, Leonid Roshal, who aided hostages during the deadly seizure of a Moscow theater in 2002, news reports said.

Parents of the seized children recorded a videocassette appeal Putin to fulfill the terrorists' demands, Khabalova said. The text of the appeal was not immediately available.

The violence was the latest to plague the government of Putin, who came to power vowing to crush the Chechen rebellion. Terrorism fears in Russia have risen markedly following the plane crashes and the suicide bombing outside a Moscow subway station Tuesday night. The blast by a female attacker tore through a busy area between the station and a department store, killing nine people and wounded more than 50.

Authorities said Tuesday that 10 people were killed, but Interfax reported Wednesday that Moscow health officials revised that, saying one man who died in a hospital was not a victim of the blast.

A militant Muslim web site published a statement claiming responsibility for the bombing on behalf of the "Islambouli Brigades," a group that also claimed responsibility for the airliner crashes. The statements could not immediately be verified.

The statement said Tuesday's bombing was a blow against Putin, "who slaughtered Muslims time and again." Putin has refused to negotiate with rebels in predominantly Muslim Chechnya who have fought Russian forces for most of the past decade, saying they must be wiped out.

Regional emergency officials said about 400 people including some 200 children were being held captive in the Belsen school, ITAR-Tass reported. A regional police official said the hostages had been herded into the school gymnasium. There were 17 attackers, both male and female, Interfax said, citing Ismel Shaov, a regional spokesman for the Federal Security Service.

The company, DynCorp, provides bodyguards for Afghan President Hamid Karzai and also helps train the national police.

Speaking at a news conference in the Afghan capital, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, Major Scott Nelson, condemned the attack and said the death toll may rise. "The investigation continues on this. We do not know exactly what the death toll will be," he said. "We are deeply shocked and saddened. We find this a cowardly act."

International workers in Kabul are being warned to keep a low profile, while the U.S. Embassy has advised its citizens to avoid crowded places.

Major Nelson says United States forces provided assistance immediately after the attack, and will assist Afghan authorities in finding those responsible for the attacks. "We rendered emergency medical treatment to some of the injured and assisted with transporting them to medical facilities."

Taleban militants are claiming responsibility for the attack in Kabul, and have promised more such strikes as part of their campaign to disrupt the presidential election, which is scheduled for October 9.

The Taleban was driven from power by a U.S.-led military invasion in late 2001, but its followers have regrouped and continue to carry out frequent attacks on local and foreign facilities as well as on aid and election workers.

An anti-terrorism force spearheaded by the U.S. military has been hunting these militants in an effort to improve security in the country.

In a press release, Chiron said it would delay shipment until it can complete additional release tests. Chiron hopes to start delivering its vaccine in early October.

"Chiron is committed to protecting people. These extra checks will ensure that the quality, safety and effectiveness of our product meet our rigorous standards," said John Lambert, president of Chiron Vaccines in a statement.

Julie Gerberding, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn't consider the delay a potential health crisis.

"What we know from the manufacturer today is that there will be a delay in the delivery of the vaccine from one of our manufacturers. That manufacturer only has about half of the market share for flu vaccine and the other manufacturer, Aventis, right now is predicting on time delivery of their doses of vaccine."

Chiron is expecting to deliver around 40 million doses in early October. Aventis has already delivered a small amount, with somewhere between 15 and 20 million doses expected in September. The remainder of the 100 million doses of flu vaccine is expected to be delivered in October, according to Gerberding.

Medimmune, which manufactures a nasal vaccine will be delivering their vaccine in October as scheduled.

"What this really means for us at CDC is that we're walking a fine line here because we want people to understand and to expect perhaps some delay in their particular vaccine clinic if they normally receive their vaccine in October, but on the other hand, what we don't want is for people to race out and stand in the head of the line to get their vaccine at the beginning of October because there is not expected shortage of vaccine and we don't need to jump to the conclusion that it's important to worry about access to the vaccine," said Gerberding.

However, don't plan a daily meal of chocolate because the researchers warn the weight gain from eating too much chocolate would cancel out the benefit.

Researchers presented their findings at the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology in Germany over the weekend.

The study conducted by Greek researchers involved 17 volunteers who ate 100 grams of dark chocolate. A control group ate a non-chocolate substitute.

Researchers used ultrasound to measure the effect on blood flow and they found improved function of the endothelial cells in the arteries for about three hours after the volunteers had eaten the chocolate.

Purchases of automobiles and other durable goods led the growth in spending after a 0.2 percent decline in June, the Commerce Department said in Washington. Incomes rose 0.1 percent in July, the smallest gain since November 2002 and restrained by a drop in government benefit payments and farm income.

Incomes have slowed since last year when tax cuts gave people more money to spend. After-tax incomes adjusted for inflation rose 2.5 percent at an annual rate in the second quarter, down from the 4.3 percent pace in the same three months last year. With cash from mortgage refinancing also slowing, more job growth will be needed to sustain spending, economists said.

``You have to get the jobs and the wages to replace those cash supplies and that is what we are a little tentative about,'' said Neal Soss, chief economist at Credit Suisse First Boston Corp. in New York. Soss expects spending to increase at a 3 percent annual rate this quarter, almost double the pace of the prior three months.

The economy probably created 150,000 new jobs in August, the most in three months and the first acceleration since March, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey. The Labor Department will release the employment statistics on Friday. In July, employers added 32,000 workers to payrolls.

Rebate Checks

``Last year, we had tax rebate checks and higher mortgage refinancing,'' said Joe Cooper, chief financial officer of Big Lots Inc., in an interview from Columbus, Ohio. People ``do have lower consumer confidence and really haven't felt the impact of an improving economy.'' Big Lots is the largest retailer of discontinued and overstocked goods.

Economists expected spending to rise 0.7 percent after a previously reported 0.7 percent decrease in June, according to the median of 56 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. They had also expected a 0.5 percent increase in incomes after a 0.2 percent rise.

The 4 1/4 percent Treasury note maturing in August 2014 rose 5/32, pushing down the yield 2 basis points to 4.21 percent at 9:32 a.m. in New York.

The spending numbers were released as Republicans gather in New York to nominate President George W. Bush for a second term and a recent poll found 52 percent of registered voters disapproved of how he was handling the economy. His economic leadership received 43 percent approved in the same poll, conducted Aug. 23-25 by NBC and the Wall Street Journal.

Revision

Forty-seven percent of those polls supported Bush, compared with 45 percent supporting his Democratic challenger, U.S. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

The revisions to June spending are as important for the economic outlook as the July rebound, according to economists such as Michael Englund at Action Economics LLC in Boulder, Colorado.

``With the revisions there really wasn't any significant slowing in spending over the last couple of months,'' Englund said. ``We are going to see some pretty solid spending numbers.'' Englund is forecasting a 3 percent to 3.5 percent annualized increase in spending this quarter.

Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of the economy, grew at a 1.6 percent annual pace in the second quarter, according to revised Commerce Department figures issued Friday. The pace, up from 1 percent in the advance estimates, is still the slowest since mid-2001, when the U.S. was in a recession.

Income

The slowdown was a drag on economic growth. Gross domestic product expanded at a 2.8 percent annual rate, compared with 4.5 percent in the first three months of the year.

Disposable income, or the money left over after taxes, increased 0.1 percent in July following a 0.2 percent rise the previous month. Wages and salaries rose 0.4 percent after no change. Wages and supplements to salaries increased 5.3 percent at an annual rate in the second quarter, up from 5.2 percent in the first three months of the year.

Incomes in July were restrained by a decline in government transfer receipts, which fell 0.8 percent because of a reduction in the federal matching rate for Medicaid reimbursements. Those payments had been boosted by last year's tax cuts.

The personal savings rate was 0.6 percent last month, the lowest since December 2002, down from 1.3 percent. The indicator weighs current income from wages, salaries, businesses and government payments against spending. It doesn't account for borrowed money, income from investments, or withdrawals from prior savings.

Durable Goods

Adjusted for inflation, which are the figures used by the government to calculate gross domestic product, spending rose 0.8 percent to $8.452 trillion at an annual rate after falling 0.4 percent a month earlier.

Spending on durable goods such as autos, furniture, and other long-lasting items, rose 4.5 percent adjusted for inflation after falling 3.1 percent.

Spending on non-durable goods rose 0.6 percent after falling 0.2 percent. Spending on services, which account for almost 60 percent of all outlays, increased 0.2 percent after no change.

The report's gauge of prices is up 2.4 percent in the 12 months ended in July compared with a 2.5 percent year-over-year gain the previous month. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, a gauge tracked by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and other policy makers, the price index was unchanged last month, capping a 1.5 percent rise since July 2003, the same as a month earlier.

Auto Sales

A total of 17.3 million cars and light trucks were sold at an annual rate in July, up 12 percent from the previous month, according to industry figures. The average incentive was $3,991 per vehicle during the first half of July, up from $3,667 in June, according to CNW Marketing Research in Bandon, Oregon.

Increased retail sales over the Internet and inventory building by stores contributed to a higher earnings forecast at FedEx Corp., the No. 2 package-delivery company in the U.S., behind United Parcel Service Inc. FedEx, based in Memphis, Tennessee, last week raised its profit outlook for 2005, the second time its done so in two months.

``We have strong momentum in our businesses and believe the economy continues on a sustainable expansion path,'' Alan Graf, chief financial officer of FedEx, said in a statement.

Consumer demand ``continues to drive'' orders at Qualcomm Inc., the world's second-largest maker of chips for cellular telephones, Irwin Jacobs, chief executive of the San Diego, California, company, in an interview Wednesday. ``There is still a significant expansion,'' Jacobs said.

Discounters

Not all retailers are benefiting as higher gasoline prices crimp sales at discount chain stores including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp. The International Council of Shopping Centers, which represents mall owners, last week reduced its estimate for August sales after Wal-Mart cut its forecast.

Sales are likely to increase 2.5 percent from the same period last year, down from earlier estimates of as much as a 4 percent increase, the group said. Discounters are more at risk because lower-income shoppers tend to curb spending the most as the price of gasoline rises, said Michael Niemira, the group's chief economist.

Economists at Lehman Brothers Inc. and Citigroup Global Markets Inc. were among those reducing growth forecasts last week as a result of the jump in oil prices. Lehman cut its projection for growth in the second half of the year to 3.8 percent from 4.5 percent, while Citigroup economists lowered its estimate for the third quarter to 3.4 percent from 4.5 percent.

Federal Reserve policy makers have been more upbeat about the prospects for consumer spending in the face of high oil prices. A barrel of crude climbed to a record $49.40 on the New York Mercantile Exchange Aug. 20 amid concerns about supply. Futures plunged 7.6 percent last week, the biggest weekly decline in a year, as those worries eased. Oil for October delivery closed at $43.18.

``I have not lowered my third-quarter or fourth-quarter GDP estimates by any huge amount,'' said Jack Guynn, president of the Atlanta Fed bank, while speaking to reporters last week. ``I don't have the sense that the energy price increases have had a huge effect'' on the economy. He declined to provide his estimates.

The economy is projected to grow 3.9 percent this quarter, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed earlier this month by Bloomberg News. Consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy, is projected to expand 3.2 percent from July through September, the survey showed.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Carlos Torres in Washington ctorres2@bloomberg.net.

The pilots' negotiating committee met with management Sunday, a week after talks broke down, said Jack Stephan, spokesman for the pilots' group.

The pilots offered a proposal on Saturday, and the company presented a counterproposal Sunday, said Stephan, who declined to comment on specifics.

After recessing for the night, discussions were to resume Monday, Stephan said.

US Airways has said that new labor deals with unions are necessary to avoid a return to bankruptcy court and possible liquidation. The airline has warned that bankruptcy looms if deals are not reached by at least Sept. 30.

A deal with the pilots would be the first significant step in US Airways' plans to cut costs by $1.5 billion a year, including cutting labor costs by $800 million.

The airline has sought $295 million a year in concessions from pilots.

US Airways is also seeking concessions from its flight attendants, machinists, and from the Communications Workers of America, which represents reservations agents and gate workers.

Hurricane watches are in effect for the British and northern U.S. Virgin Islands, including St. Thomas, St. John and the surrounding islands, and for the islands of Culebra and Vieques. Puerto Rico might be included under the watch later Monday, National Hurricane Center in Miami said. (Related: Frances alters, forecast maps)

Tropical storm warnings are in effect for St. Maarten, Anguilla, Barbuda, Antigua, Nevis, St. Kitts, St. Eustatius and Saba. Forecasters said St. Martin and St. Barthelemy may also be threatened and a hurricane watch islands might issued for some of these islands later Monday.

A hurricane watch means that hurricane conditions are possible within 36 hours and a tropical storm warning means that tropical storm conditions are expected within 24 hours.

Hurricane Center forecasters said residents of the Bahamas and Florida should keep a close eye on Frances.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Hermine was headed north in the Atlantic, expected to weaken and pass near Cape Cod on Tuesday. (Related: Hermine track, forecasts maps)

The storm was expected to weaken to a tropical depression over the day as it moves into cooler waters, forecasters said.

"Many times you can see the black plume coming," says Shields, whose citizens group is suing to block expansion of the nearby port on Stockton's inland waterway. "It's unconscionable that this is happening next to homes."

From fishing skiffs to supertankers, boats and ships around the USA are belching out harmful pollutants that cloud the air. Almost none of them have pollution filters. Big ships burn some of the dirtiest fuel on the planet and emit gases that contribute to acid rain, lung disease and heart problems.

Now, for the first time, state and federal officials are working to stifle air pollution from ships. The first nationwide restrictions on ship emissions take effect this year. And at least a half-dozen cities and states — from Los Angeles to New York — have undertaken their own efforts to rein in boat and ship pollution.

"The sheer magnitude of these emissions really gives us a red flag," says Tom Murphy of the Santa Barbara County (Calif.) Air Pollution Control District. His county's pollution cuts "are being negated by these emissions offshore."

Environmental officials ignored pollution from marine vessels for decades. Instead, they focused their regulatory might on cars.

"Ships were perceived as a small source that could be neglected," says James Corbett, who studies emissions at the University of Delaware's Graduate College of Marine Studies. "We've been regulating cars for 30 to 35 years. Ships have not been significantly regulated to date."

Part of the reason that boat and ship pollution is getting more attention is that cars and trucks are getting cleaner. That means ships account for an ever-larger share of the air pollution around port cities. Environmental officials estimate that in 25 years, marine vessels will account for nearly double the percentage of the USA's smog-forming pollution.

What's more, shipping traffic to and from the USA is projected to double by 2020.

Places with dirty air

New Environmental Protection Agency regulations require many vessels built today to have cleaner engines. But local environmental officials say the rules, especially those for large ships, won't do much good.

"We were hoping EPA would adopt stringent regulations," says Ali Mirzakhalili, chief of air quality for Delaware, which has unhealthy smog levels. "The technology is there to reduce (boat emissions), and it's not getting done."

Places where ship emissions are tainting the air:

• Southern California. The region includes the nation's two busiest ports, Long Beach and Los Angeles. The vessels there produce more pollution than any other single source in the area. Their emissions help push smog and soot to unhealthy levels in the region.

• Houston and Galveston. Cruise ships, oil tankers and container ships crowd the ports of these neighboring cities. The percentage of the region's smog-forming chemicals that come from marine traffic is expected to quadruple between 1993 and 2007. That's because other sources have cleaned up. The ships haven't.

• Pittsburgh. Barges ply the rivers that run through the city and the surrounding region. A study by Corbett found that boats and ships heave out as much pollution as the automobile traffic that rolls toward downtown on one interstate highway.

• Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. The gorge is a playground for hikers and boaters. But the river, which divides Oregon and Washington, also carries thousands of boats per year. They help create the haze that cuts visibility in the summer.

Some places that don't even have a port or a river find themselves choking on ship emissions. In Santa Barbara, mammoth ships traveling the shipping lanes off the coast account for more of the county's smog-forming emissions than its cars, trucks and buses do.

Cities and states are trying to cut boat and ship pollution with incentives such as money for cleaner engines. But only the EPA has the power to require the vessels to clean up.

The EPA's new regulations do just that. The agency recently set new pollution standards for boats and ships of all sizes. This year, the EPA announced it will consider making the standards tougher for smaller boats.

Local officials praise those standards but say they're not enough. That's because substantial amounts of pollution come from the biggest ships: behemoths that cross the oceans and emit huge amounts of pollution at sea and as they approach port.

These tankers, container ships and car carriers have engines similar to those in power plants. They burn fuel that's laden with sulfur, which clogs pollution-control equipment and turns into pollutants that cause health problems.

"These ships are essentially floating smokestacks," says Vickie Patton of the non-profit group Environmental Defense.

An international treaty that takes effect next year will curb emissions from these ships. But the Senate hasn't approved the treaty, so it can't be enforced against foreign vessels in U.S. waters. And the restrictions apply only to new ships, so existing ships — which last 20 to 40 years — are free to pollute.

The treaty needs "to be re-examined and tightened. It's fairly old now," says Tom Chase of the American Association of Port Authorities.

EPA may lack power

Local air pollution officials say the EPA should force big ships to clean up more thoroughly and more quickly. The EPA says it's working toward Senate approval of the treaty on foreign ships. It also says it may not have the power to regulate those ships itself.

For now, Sherry Shields is stuck breathing the fumes from the ships that park near her house. And even port officials agree that big ships could use a cleanup.

Jeff Kaspar of the Port of Stockton, which lies in the smog-choked San Joaquin Valley, says ships should use any emissions-reduction technology that works. "That's where the future lies in being able to help the air problems in this valley," he says.

SPIEGEL: Since the images of torture at Abu Ghraib became public, you have had a lot of time, while detained in Baghdad, to think about your actions. Today, how do you view what you did - as a disgrace for America?

Frederick: I am very upset and depressed about what happened. I'm not a sadist. My family and my friends will attest to that. I was always proud to be defending America. In doing so, I made a lot of sacrifices in the past twenty years, especially since the attacks of September 11. I have always served my country well, even in Iraq - until we were transferred to Abu Ghraib and things got out of control.

SPIEGEL: What was the prison like when you arrived there in October 2003?

Frederick: As soon as I walked into that place the first time, I knew it was a nightmare. There was dirt everywhere, the toilets didn't work, and it stank. The food was terrible. The chicken wasn't cooked properly. It was still raw. We worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week. And we only had five soldiers for 1,000 prisoners. We had no place to unload our stress. Morale was generally miserable.

SPIEGEL: What kinds of guidelines applied to your job during the night shift? Who gave you your commands and instructions?

Frederick: I didn't even know who was really in charge. I knew that Captain Donald Reese was theoretically the company commander and that Brigadier General Janis Karpinski was in charge of all operations at Abu Ghraib. But in reality, the battalion wanted you to do one thing, while the company wanted you to do something completely different, and the intelligence services had their own ideas altogether. It was total chaos.

SPIEGEL: That's not an excuse for abusing prisoners.

Frederick: You're right, but on my very first tour, when they showed me cell block 1-A, I saw naked prisoners with their hands tied to the door. Sleep deprivation, withholding food, humiliating prisoners - those things were already routine at Abu Ghraib before I was transferred there.

SPIEGEL: You are also a prison guard in your civilian life, so that you're someone who should know about the proper treatment of prisoners. Why didn't you talk to your superiors about these practices?

Frederick: On the very first day, I asked a sergeant in military police company 372 why the prisoners were being treated that way. His answer was: That's the way the intelligence services do it. I heard a number of people say: "We don't waste a lot of time with them here. If they don't cooperate, we deal with them."

SPIEGEL: You keep talking about everyone else, but you did play along, after all. Who started the torture? Were you following orders, or did the situation simply escalate?

Frederick: Both. They would say: "Let the dogs loose on these prisoners! Try to get more information out of them. Take away their food, their clothing. Humiliate them!"

SPIEGEL: You stacked naked prisoners into a pyramid and abused them. Was that your idea, or were you also just following orders?

Frederick: There was a riot uprising at Abu Ghraib. A prisoner had injured a female American soldier in the face with a rock. They brought him and the other ones who were involved to our section, the "tough section," as a punishment. First we searched them. Then we made them undress and forced them to build that pyramid - and then everything got out of hand. One of the methods was to humiliate them, so that they would break down and talk, and I...I just wanted (he begins to cry) to humiliate them. And so I made them masturbate. I didn't want to commit a crime, I just wanted to humiliate them. But I am guilty of that.

SPIEGEL: Didn't you realize, at that moment, that what you were doing was wrong?

Frederick: I had mixed feelings at the time. Today I know I was wrong. On the one hand, I was filled with rage for this prisoner who had injured a female soldier. And they had told me to "humiliate them!" On the other hand, no one explained to us exactly how we were supposed to do that.

SPIEGEL: Why didn't you object? Didn't you have clear guidelines?

Frederick: I had guidelines at the prison in Buckingham, Virginia, where I worked as a civilian. But there were no guidelines at Abu Ghraib. No one gave me any instructions on the military principles for treatment of prisoners.

SPIEGEL: You could have invoked the Geneva Conventions.

Frederick: I didn't know anything about the Geneva Conventions. No one told me about them when I was in training. I just recently tried to find out about the Conventions on the internet. In addition, the intelligence people were constantly praising us. They would just say: "Keep up the good work."

SPIEGEL: Was that in reference to the abuse?

Frederick: The intelligence service simply imposed no limits. They wanted concrete results, and they didn't care how they were achieved.

SPIEGEL: What do expect from your trial?

Frederick: First of all, I want to apologize to the victims and their families. And I will take responsibility for my actions during the trial. But I also hope that others will follow my example and assume their share of the responsibility. It's clear that more people are responsible for what happened in Abu Ghraib, and many of them haven't even been charged yet.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the meetings were well within the norm of diplomacy and that no laws were broken. Israel has flatly denied it has a spy at the Pentagon.

The Israeli diplomat was identified as Naor Gilon, head of the political department at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, and a specialist on Iran's nuclear weapons program.

U.S. officials say the FBI investigation focuses on Lawrence A. Franklin, an analyst of Iranian affairs who works in a Pentagon policy office headed by Douglas J. Feith, the undersecretary for policy. Feith has been accused by Democrats of seeking to manipulate intelligence to help make the case for going to war in Iraq. Congressional investigations have found no evidence of that.

The Israeli daily Maariv on Monday quoted Gilon as saying that he did nothing wrong. "My hands are clean. I have nothing to hide. I acted according to the regulations," Gilon said.

The diplomat told Maariv he was concerned that as a result of the reports, he won't be able to continue working in Washington. "Now, people will be scared to talk to me," the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Newsweek magazine reported in this week's edition that more than a year ago, the FBI was monitoring a meeting between an Israeli Embassy official and a representative of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the main Israeli lobbying group in Washington. At one point, Franklin joined the two, according to Newsweek.

Newsweek did not identify the Israel diplomat, but Israeli media said it apparently was Gilon. Israeli officials said Gilon has met repeatedly with Franklin.

Newsweek, citing U.S. intelligence officials, said that Franklin on one occasion allegedly tried to hand over a classified U.S. policy document on Iran, but that the Israeli diplomat refused to take it.

Maariv quoted Israeli sources as saying that Gilon did not take documents from Franklin, but had frequent meetings with him.

Israel's Foreign Ministry declined comment. The Israeli ambassador to the United States, Danny Ayalon, told Maariv that Gilon went by the book, and that "nothing was done under the table."

The New York Times reported on its Monday edition that government officials say Franklin had been cooperating with federal agents for several weeks and was preparing to lead them to contacts inside the Israeli government when work of the investigation, first reported by CBS News, was leaked late last week. Efforts to reach Franklin by telephone have been unsuccessful.

On Sunday, Israeli Cabinet minister Natan Sharansky said he believed the allegations might stem from an internal conflict between the Pentagon and the CIA.

"I hope it's all a mistake or misunderstanding of some kind, maybe a rivalry between different bodies," Sharansky told Canadian Broadcasting Corp., singling out "the Pentagon and the CIA."

American officials said the FBI has spent more than a year investigating whether a Pentagon analyst funneled classified material to Israel.

The material described White House policy toward Iran. Israel says Iran and its nuclear ambitions pose the greatest single threat to the Jewish state.

Sharansky said the ban on espionage in the United States dates to the scandal over Jonathan Pollard, an American Jew caught spying for Israel in 1985. "There are absolutely no attempts to involve any member of the Jewish community and any general American citizens to spy for Israel against the United States," he said.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office issued a denial late Saturday, saying "Israel does not engage in intelligence activities in the U.S."

The right-wing voices of past GOP conventions, such as Ralph Reed, Pat Buchanan, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, will be replaced this year mostly with moderate Republicans such as California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and even a moderate Democrat -- Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia.

"The program represents the wide scope of the party," said convention spokesman Leonardo Alcivar.

"So I think you're going to see supporters of the president that represent all sides of the Republican Party."

After most of the moderate speakers were announced, conservative GOP speakers were added to the schedule, including Sens. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Sam Brownback of Kansas.

According to CNN political analyst Jeff Greenfield, spending more time on moderates just makes good sense.

"The GOP doesn't need to convince the right to vote for Bush, and, with the exception of some grousing that led to Santorum and Brownback to be added to the speaker list, they won't be showing the right-wing side of the party," Greenfield said.

The convention will portray Bush as a strong defender of the nation during a global war on terrorism and a U.S.-led war in Iraq, against a backdrop of themes touting compassion, courage, hope and opportunity.

Opportunity, according Greenfield, is something this week's events might provide for the party itself.

"They need to outline a second-term agenda," said Greenfield. "A recent memo by the Democratic advocacy group Democracy Corps said the Democratic convention missed an opportunity to be more detailed about its plans under a Kerry administration. The Republicans have an opportunity here to say, "'If we get a second term, here's what's going to happen.'"

Madison Square Garden is hosting the gathering, the first-ever Republican Party convention to be held in New York. (Special report: America Votes 2004, the Republican convention)

Bush has pleased conservative backers by supporting a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage, restricting stem-cell research and signing a bill banning a rarely used late-term abortion technique. Convention organizers have chosen, however, to assemble a list of speakers who are mostly moderate in their political views.

Polls show voters are deeply divided between Bush and his Democratic rival, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

The vote is expected to be so close on November 2 that strategists are reaching out to key independents and moderates who might be convinced to cross party lines. More moderate and independent ballots could put Bush over the top in important states where the vote is expected to be close.

Courage of a Nation
Giuliani and Sen. John McCain of Arizona will both be highlighted speakers on opening night, expanding on Monday's theme: "A Nation of Courage."

Giuliani, whose actions after the September 11, 2001, attacks made him a heroic figure among both Democrats and Republicans, will recount that day's horrible events, including individual acts of bravery.

McCain, a Vietnam War veteran and former POW, will then speak about bravery in the U.S. military following the attacks and President Bush's role in America's war on terrorism.

Monday night's events also will include a special tribute to the victims of September 11.

Tuesday's theme, "Compassion of the American People," will be dominated by two speakers -- first lady Laura Bush and Gov. Schwarzenegger, who vaulted into the world of politics during 2003's California recall race.

The Austrian-born former body builder and movie star will touch on his personal success story, often referred to as the quintessential American dream. The night's events will kickoff with a performance by country music solo artist Sara Evans, whose hit single "Suds in the Bucket" has cracked Billboard's Country Top Ten.

Other entertainers scheduled to perform during the convention include country music's The Gatlin Brothers, Lee Ann Womack and Brooks and Dunn. Also set to perform is Daniel Rodriguez, who gained fame as a New York police officer who sang "The Star Spangled Banner" at ceremonies and memorials in the aftermath of September 11.

Tony-award winning actor Ron Silver, who played a political analyst and polling expert on the NBC television series "The West Wing" is also expected to be on hand.

Miller's party poke
Miller, signaling bitter disappointment with his own Democratic party, has accepted a GOP invitation to deliver the convention's prestigious keynote address on Wednesday, when the theme is Land of Opportunity.

Miller may be the first major party member to deliver keynote addresses at both Democratic and Republican conventions. He was the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention in 1992, also in New York's Madison Square Garden.

The move makes a powerful statement about the state of the Democratic Party, according to convention spokesman Alcivar.

"It speaks to the fact that today's Democratic Party is so out of the mainstream, it has moved so far left, that a senator who just 12 years ago supported a then-centrist Democrat -- Bill Clinton -- is unable to support today's Democratic nominee," Alcivar said. "It also speaks to the strength of the president."

Miller, a former governor of the GOP stronghold state of Georgia, is expected to tout the Bush economic agenda, including business and taxation policy.

His speech amounts to a painful poke in the eye for Democrats, according to Greenfield. "Oh, it's a real poke," Greenfield said. "It's a way of embodying the idea that Republicans have done better than the Democrats, because even prominent members of their own party are supporting the other side."

Miller's speech will be followed Wednesday by a darling of right-wing conservatives, Vice President Dick Cheney, who is expected to detail Bush's "vision for spreading freedom around the world to ensure our safety at home," according to the convention Web site.

Cheney will nominate Bush
Following recent convention tradition, Cheney will then officially nominate Bush on Wednesday as the GOP presidential choice, and the following evening, Bush will accept his party's nomination.

The music, lights, cameras, balloons, cheers, funny hats and all the other convention pomp and ceremony reach a pinnacle Thursday night when Bush delivers his acceptance speech.

Bush will be introduced by New York Gov. George Pataki.

The theme of Bush's speech and the theme of the night, "Building a Safer World and a More Hopeful America," is designed to accent Bush's role as commander in chief, overseeing two U.S. wars in three years, while leading the reorganization of several national security agencies under the umbrella Department of Homeland Security.

After almost 16 hours of convention events this week -- virtually all during prime-time television viewing hours -- the party's quadrennial nomination celebration will come to an end. What voters take away from it will be unique to each voter, according to Greenfield.

"The party gets to say what the party gets to say, and its up to voters to say,' Is this an accurate picture of what this party stands for?' "

The mortgage giant said that its latest nationwide survey showed that rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages rose to 5.82% for the week ending Aug. 26. That's up slightly from the average rate of 5.81% last week.

"Mortgage rates were mostly unchanged this week, amid conflicting economic reports as to the strength of the economy," said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac's chief economist.

Rates on 30-year mortgages hit a high this year of 6.34% the week of May 13. Since then, rates — while bouncing around — have slowly drifted downward as economic activity cooled in the late spring and early summer.

For 15-year, fixed-rate mortgages, a popular option for refinancing, rates rose to 5.21% this week, up from 5.19% last week. Rates on one-year adjustable rate mortgages increased to 4.05%, compared with 4.01% last week.

The nationwide averages for mortgage rates do not include add-on fees known as points. The 30-year mortgage carried an average 0.7 point fee this week. Fifteen-year and 1-year mortgages each carried an 0.6 point fee.

A year ago, rates on 30-year mortgages averaged 6.28% with 15-year mortgages at 5.60% and one-year ARMs at 3.84%.

Economic reports released earlier this week showed that sales of both new and previously owned homes fell in July. (Related story: As sales slip, some wonder if the 'house party' is over)

"Our housing outlook remains positive and forecasts only a gradual rise in mortgage rates in the next few months, indicating another strong year for the housing sector," Nothaft said.

The Mortgage Bankers Association, meanwhile, said that refinancing accounted for 40.4% of all home mortgage applications filed last week, down from 40.7% the previous week.

It was the third straight annual increase for both categories. While not unexpected, it was a double dose of bad economic news during a tight re-election campaign for President Bush.

Approximately 35.8 million people lived below the poverty line in 2003, or about 12.5% of the population, according to the bureau. That was up from 34.5 million, or 12.1% in 2002.

The rise was more dramatic for children. There were 12.9 million living in poverty last year, or 17.6% of the under-18 population. That was an increase of about 800,000 from 2002, when 16.7% of all children were in poverty.

The Census Bureau's definition of poverty varies by the size of the household. For instance, the threshold for a family of four was $18,810, while for two people it was $12,015.

Nearly 45 million people lacked health insurance, or 15.6% of the population. That was up from 43.5 million in 2002, or 15.2%, but was a smaller increase than in the two previous years.

Uninsured rates for children, though, were relatively stable at 11.4%, likely the result of recent expansions of coverage in government programs covering the poor and children, such as the state Children's Health Insurance Program, analysts said.

Meanwhile, the median household income, when adjusted for inflation, remained basically flat last year at $43,318. Whites, blacks and Asians saw no noticeable change, but income fell 2.6% for Hispanics to $32,997. Whites had the highest income at $47,777.

Census Bureau analyst Dan Weinberg said the results were typical of a post-recession period. He said the increase in the number of people without insurance was due to the uncertain job picture.

"Certainly the long-term trend is firms offering less generous (benefit) plans, and as people lose jobs they tend to lose health insurance coverage," he said.

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry seized on the numbers as evidence the Bush administration's economic policies have failed. During the years Bush has been in office, 5.2 million people have lost health insurance and 4.3 million have fallen into poverty, he said.

"Under George Bush's watch, America's families are falling further behind," Kerry said.

Bush administration officials were quick to counter that the data didn't reflect more recent gains in the economy in the first half of 2004 and left some of the blame on Congress. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said Bush was focusing on proposals that would reduce the costs of health insurance for businesses.

"The big failure is not what is happening in the administration. Individuals in the Senate have failed to adopt the president's health care plan," he said.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, noted that while more people lost insurance, there also were about 1 million more Americans with coverage in 2003. Overall, 243 million people had insurance last year.

"The bottom line is this: More people in America have health coverage today than at any time in our nation's history and I think that's a fact worth noting, but we can always do more," he said.

Even before release of the data, some Democrats claimed the Bush administration was trying to play down bad news by releasing the reports about a month earlier than usual. They normally are released separately in late September — one report on poverty and income, the other on insurance.

Putting out the numbers at the same time and not so close to Election Day "invite charges of spinning the data for political purposes," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y.

Census Director Louis Kincannon — a Bush appointee — denied politics played any role in moving up the release date. The move, announced earlier this year, was done to coordinate the numbers with the release of other data.

"There has been no influence or pressure from the (Bush) campaign," Kincannon said Wednesday.

Official national poverty estimates, as well as most government data on income and health insurance, come from the bureau's Current Population Survey.

This year the bureau is simultaneously releasing data from the broader American Community Survey, which also includes income and poverty numbers but cannot be statistically compared with the other survey.

As a brand, BMW vehicles likely will retain the most value over the next five years, the report says.

The average new vehicle is worth about 30% of its purchase price in five years, according to Kelley Blue Book. But these vehicles are expected to hold about 50% of their purchase price.

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VALUE PREDICTIONS

2005 model-year vehicles predicted to best hold their value over the next five years, by category:
Sedan: Honda Civic
Coupe: Infiniti G35
Convertible: Nissan 350 Z Touring Roadster
Wagon: Volkswagen Jetta TDI
Hatchback: Mini Cooper
Luxury: BMW 5 Series
Pickup: Toyota Tacoma PreRunner
Sport utility: Volvo XC90
Minivan: Honda Odyssey
Vehicles expected to quickly lose value:
Pontiac Aztec
Chrysler Sebring sedan
Jaguar X-Types
Mitsubishi Diamante
Mercury Sable
Suzuki Vitara

Source: Kelley Blue Book
What's your car worth? Click here.

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Kelley Blue Book bases its forecast on current demand for and availability of a vehicle, as well as historical resale values of the model, according to executive editor Charlie Vogelheim.

Not considered for the list were high-performance or low-volume models or those priced over $60,000.

"The broader the market appeal, the stronger the vehicle value will be in the future," Vogelheim says. "A highly popular or desirable car with limited availability will depreciate slower than a car that is in excess supply or is less desirable."

Standard colors such as white, black and silver help the resale value of a car. Options such as a CD player, leather seats, sunroof, power windows and door locks, a tilt wheel, cruise control and premium sound system also help.

Despite the recent rise in gasoline prices, consumers still prefer larger, gas-guzzling engines.

Vogelheim warns that some vehicles that are launched with a lot of buzz can quickly lose their value. The Chrysler PT Cruiser and Volkswagen New Beetle are two examples, he says. When they first hit the market, they were selling for prices well above sticker. Now, they are sold with discounts.

The 2005 Aztec is expected to lose value faster than some other cars.


The Mini probably will not suffer the same fate as the Beetle and PT Cruiser because it has worldwide appeal and production is being kept in check, which should limit supply, Vogelheim says.

Vehicles likely to lose value quickly are those often found in rental car fleets, those with high maintenance costs, vehicles built in high volumes, or vehicles that have a design with limited appeal, such as the Pontiac Aztec. Detroit-made cars don't make the list mostly because they are made in big volume, Vogelheim says.

Custom paint jobs and wild modifications that make a car too personal also will devalue it, Vogelheim says. "Sometimes, we see people putting thousands of dollars' worth of aftermarket options and customization into a vehicle, and it's likely that they'll never get it back."

The judge in the case granted prosecutors' request for a hearing Thursday to question the reliability of the defense's DNA experts. The witnesses are expected to argue that the DNA evidence shows the accuser was promiscuous.

A closed hearing will also be held Thursday to discuss the roughly 100-item questionnaire prospective jurors will fill out.

Prosecutors provided no details about the possible contamination in a court filing released Wednesday. But they expressed concerns about defense expert Elizabeth Johnson, who testified in June that DNA evidence suggests the accuser had sex with another man after her encounter with Bryant and before her hospital examination the following day.

The claim is a core part of the defense's strategy to undermine the accuser's credibility and could bolster its claim that she accused Bryant as part of a pattern of behavior intended to gain the attention of a former boyfriend. The woman's attorneys deny the allegation.

The prosecution did not comment on why it waited until so close to the beginning of the trial to raise the DNA issue.

Prosecutor Dana Easter said contamination was found in DNA control samples intended to ensure accurate testing. That is less of a concern than contamination in samples taken from a defendant or accuser, said Scott Robinson, a defense attorney familiar with the case. But he said it could help prosecutors counter the defense expert's theories.

"If prosecutors can demonstrate there's reason to doubt the integrity of the defense lab, that will certainly help," he said. "With DNA technology, that's really about all you can do. Juries are so confused by the science involved, you've got to attack the evidence."

Defense attorneys, who are subject to a sweeping gag order in the case, did not return a call seeking comment.

Bryant, 26, has pleaded not guilty to felony sexual assault, saying he had consensual sex with the woman at the Vail-area resort where she worked last summer. If convicted, the Los Angeles Lakers star faces four years to life in prison or 20 years to life on probation.

During the June hearing, Johnson said her lab and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation both found genetic material matching Bryant and a man identified only as "Mr. X" on the accuser's underwear. Mr. X's genetic material was also found on the woman during the hospital exam, suggesting the two had sex after she was with Bryant, Johnson said.

She said none of Mr. X's genetic material was found on Bryant, again suggesting her encounter with the other man followed her encounter with the NBA star. She said it was unlikely that Mr. X's DNA could have been transferred to her body simply from the underwear.

Johnson's testimony was mistakenly sent to media organizations by a court reporter and later released by the judge after the organizations won a court fight to publish the details.

Prosecutors have known for months that Bryant's attorneys planned to put Johnson on the stand to present DNA test results. Their request for a hearing on the labs' reliability so close to trial was "extremely unusual," former prosecutor Karen Steinhauser said.

"It may be a legitimate issue, but it's something that should have been raised a long time ago," Steinhauser said.

Prosecutors also said some of the data from Technical Associates Inc., the California firm where Johnson works, appears to have been "whited out or otherwise manipulated."

Easter also said defense attorney Hal Haddon had repeatedly refused to provide documents and evidence that should have been shared with the prosecution. Her filing included an Aug. 16 letter in which Haddon told prosecutors much of that material had already been turned over.

"Your letter is a transparent tactic designed to distract us from trial preparation," Haddon wrote.

Williams didn't rule out a return but made it clear that given his contract and the state of the coaching staff, "It's not in my best interests to play football right now," he told The Miami Herald in a story published Wednesday night on the newspaper's Web site.

Williams has acknowledged testing positive for marijuana three times, which means he likely wouldn't be allowed to play this season, even if he decided to come out of retirement.

Williams is in Australia and said he plans to travel to India soon for a "couple of months." He said he contacted the Dolphins after they sent him a letter last week seeking repayment of $8.6 million by Monday.

"I didn't call them to see if I could come back. I was just causing a conversation to happen," Williams said. "They sent me the letter and (my agent) told me it's in my best interests to call them."

Asked if he was prepared to pay the money back or return to the team by Monday, Williams said, "That's really up to the Dolphins about the money. ... This whole thing gets crazier by the day."

Williams' agent, Leigh Steinberg, didn't return calls seeking comment. Coach Dave Wannstedt declined to comment.

"I'm only commenting about the players on our team," Wannstedt said.

Retirement papers Williams filed with the NFL last month aren't binding. But because he was in the league's substance abuse program, he can't return for one year without penalty. Williams has said he's a three-time offender in the program, meaning the penalty would be a suspension that would prohibit him from playing this season.

Williams, who led the NFL in rushing in 2002, stunned the Dolphins when he decided to retire a week before training camp started at age 27.

Playing its best game of the Olympics when it needed it most, the USA defeated previously unbeaten Spain, 102-94 in the quarterfinals Thursday and is now only two wins away from what appeared to be, as recently as a week ago, an unattainable gold medal. (Related item: Box score)

"It'll be really hard to beat them if they shoot like that and play together like they did," said Spanish star Pau Gasol, who plays for the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies and led Spain with 29 points. "They were motivated and played as a team. They did what they had to do. It's going to be very difficult for anyone to beat them if the play like that."

The USA team has been criticized because of its poor shooting and chastised for its style of play, but none of those traits were apparent against Spain.

"We've been through some difficult times and it's such a young team, but I think the adversity we've had getting blown out by Italy in Germany, playing so poorly against Puerto Rico and giving a game away against Lithuania helped us," said coach Larry Brown. "I think sometimes adversity brings you together. We have become much closer as a group and that was vital today."

All of the problems that plagued this team in the preliminary round seemed to disappear — the team was focused and selfless. They paid attention to detail, played fundamentally smart, were patient, worked for good shots and as a result shot the ball well — all the things Brown has been begging them to do.

Shooting had been the USA's most glaring weaknesses going into the game, it was no problem against Spain.

Stephon Marbury saw to that with a U.S. Olympic record 31 points.

Through the five games of group play, Marbury had averaged 4.2 points, shot 20% from the field and 2-for-16 from three-point range. But against Spain, he was 6-for-9 from three-point range and 10-for-15 overall.

"Stephon controlled the game from horn to horn," said center Tim Duncan, the team's leading scorer who got into foul trouble and played only 21 minutes. "It's all about moving the ball when they play a zone and making them pay."

For the game, the USA was 12-for-22 from three-point range, shot 51% from the field, had only eight turnovers and 16 assists.

"We're getting better," forward Richard Jefferson said. "We're showing that over the past two weeks our team has improved. We getting used to everything. We're getting used to the way teams are playing us. Guys are starting to understand where the shots are going to come, when they're going to come and when to take them."

Marbury, the only true point guard on the team, had been reluctant to shoot in previous games. With opponents playing zone defenses against the USA and packing things inside to neutralize Duncan, the outside shots were there to be had. The USA just wasn't making them. Going into the game they were shooting only 28.6% from three-point range and 46% overall.

"When I first came here, coach Brown said I was going to score by accident, and to not even think about scoring," Marbury said. "I just tried to run the team, get everybody involved."

He was the team's assist leader, averaging 3.4 a game, but his shooting was nighmarishly bad, so bad, in fact, that he seldom even looked at the basket to shoot.

"The last couple of games coach Brown has been coming up to me and telling me to take those shots," Marbury said. "I knew I wasn't shooting the ball well, so I went to the gym on our off day and got extra shots. Repetition is the key."

In addition to adjusting to the international style of play, the team is also coming around to Brown's style of coaching.

"It's not easy playing under coach Brown because he demands so much from you," Marbury said. "To try to play your game and do exactly what he wants, having that combined into one has been a challenge. But everything I've learned under coach Brown I can bring to New York and that will help me with my team and coach there."

Emotions often flared during the game and frustrated Spanish coach Mario Pesquera even confronted Brown as the teams left the floor after the game was over a late timeout Brown called when the game was well in hand. Pesquera, who saw his squad go from medal contender to playing for seventh place, also criticized the officials. (Related story: Spain coach miffed)

"We played under NBA rules, not FIBA rules," he said. "I wish they would have told me that was what we were going to do before the game. It was dificult for us to cope with that."

Much more than just a gold medal is at stake as the USA heads into Friday's semifinals. The gold medal game is Saturday. The way the team is selected, who is asked to play and who isn't, the training schedule in preparation for the Olympics and the problems NBA players have with the international game have all come under scrutiny.

"We're growing as a team. We know how to win games now," Marbury said. "We're not relaxing at all, though. We have to come out and win two more games to win the gold medal. We are all well aware of what is ahead and what's at stake."

Lithuania eliminates China from medal contention

With a different star but the same team concept, Lithuania reached the men's basketball semifinals for the fourth straight Olympics.

The Lithuanians remained unbeaten Thursday with a 95-75 victory over China, setting up a semifinal game against either Italy or Puerto Rico. Lithuania has settled for bronze in the last three Olympics.

Reserve guard Arvydas Macijauskas had 32 points for Lithuania (6-0), which used its defense and rebounding to get its fastbreak going and stop the surprising run by China (2-4) and star center Yao Ming.

Lithuania entered the game with six players averaging 9 points or better. In its biggest win so far — the 94-90 victory over the United States in the preliminaries — Sarunas Jasikevicius had 28 points, 16 of them in the fourth quarter.

Seven players had at least seven points on Thursday.

Yao had 29 points and 11 rebounds for China, which reached the quarterfinals with a 67-66 victory over two-time defending world champion Serbia-Montenegro. Longtime NBA coach Del Harris, who took over the China national program in May, called it the best win in his 45-year career.

Macijauskas had 19 points in the first half as Lithuania took a 53-37 lead, more than doubling his average. He finished 11-for-16 from the field and made all four of his 3-point attempts.

China closed within 55-45, but the 7-foot-6 Yao, who plays for the Houston Rockets, picked up his third foul less than 20 seconds later and went to the bench. The teams exchanged 3-pointers before Lithuania went on a 9-2 run to take a 67-50 lead with 1:54 left in the third quarter.

After Yao returned, China couldn't get closer than 74-61.

With a win over Spain on Friday in the seventh-place game, China — the eighth-place team in 1996 — would have its best finish in eight Olympic appearances. It would be an upbeat ending as the country prepares to host the Olympics in 2008.

Contributing: Wire reports

Al-Sistani returned to Najaf on Thursday in hopes of using the power of his popularity to bring an end to fighting in the holy city. U.S. forces called a cease-fire, but hours earlier, a mortar barrage hit a mosque filled with Iraqis preparing to join the cleric's march, killing 27 people.

Along with the mortar attack, another group of thousands of marchers heading into Najaf from its sister-city Kufa came under fire from an Iraqi National Guard base. At least three people were killed and 46 wounded. (Related video: Kufa mortar attack)

Including those attacks, around 95 people were killed in Kufa and Najaf during the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry reported.

The violence could undermine the peace effort by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, the most widely respected cleric among Iraq's Shiite majority. His intervention could be the best hope so far to end the fighting between U.S.-Iraqi forces and the Mahdi Army militia of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. (Related video: Al-Sistani returns to Najaf)

Al-Sistani arrived in a 30-vehicle convoy that drove in from Basra, cheered by thousands of supporters in towns along the way. Urged by al-Sistani's aides to march for peace, thousands more came from their hometowns to Najaf and gathered on its outskirts, but witnesses said police barred them from entering the city.

Al-Sistani was expected to hold direct talks later Thursday with al-Sadr, said al-Sadr aide, Ahmed al-Shaibany.

"The presence of his eminence al-Sistani will solve the crisis because he promised he would negotiate with the government and will persuade the Sadrist movement to reach ... a solution that will save (their) dignity," al-Shaibany said. "I'm optimistic."

Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi declared a 24-hour ceasefire, and the U.S. military said they would adhere to it "to see if this agreement will be adhered to by al-Sadr," according to spokesman Rear Adm. Gregory Slavonic. Al-Sadr's officials also said they would stick to a truce.

The heavy fighting in Najaf appeared to ease when al-Sistani arrived, though sporadic gunfire still echoed. Al-Sadr fighters and Iraqi security forces traded fire several hundred yards from al-Sistani's house, wounding at least three people. Hours later, gunbattles and an explosion could be heard again in the Old City.

With all sides — the Americans, the Iraqi government and al-Sadr — giving at least nominal support to al-Sistani's efforts, it was not known who fired the mortars that struck the mosque in Kufa or whether it was an attempt to sabotage the peace effort. Iraqi police have shot at peaceful marchers several times in the past few days.

The 75-year-old ayatollah is seeking to bring his enormous popularity to bear to end the fighting, which has killed scores of civilians and nearly paralyzed the city since it began Aug. 5.

In the last 24 hours, 55 people were killed and 376 injured during clashes in Najaf, Sa'ad al-Amili of the Health Ministry said Thursday. At least 40 people have been killed in Kufa over the same period, including the victims in the mosque.

The military said Thursday that a U.S. soldier in Baghdad was killed by a mortar attack the night before. As of Wednesday, 964 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003, according to the U.S. Defense Department.

Al-Sistani — who had been in London undergoing medical treatment — has refused to get involved in previous crises and has stayed above the fray, supporting neither al-Sadr nor the U.S. troops and the pro-U.S. government.

He holds the loyalty of a far broader swath of Iraq's Shiite majority than al-Sadr. Al-Sadr's fiery anti-U.S. message has drawn many poorer, disillusioned Shiites but is seen by other Shiites as too radical. Al-Sadr's followers have set up their own religious courts and arrested hundreds of people on charges including selling alcohol and music deemed immoral.

Al-Sistani is calling for Najaf and Kufa to be declared weapons-free cities, for all foreign forces to withdraw from Najaf and leave security to the police and for the Iraqi government to compensate those harmed by the fighting here.

Al-Sistani's 30-vehicle convoy drove 220 miles from the southern city of Basra to Najaf, joined by at least a thousand cars from towns along the way, where supporters on the street cheered al-Sistani.

He arrived in Najaf just before 3 p.m. and went directly to one of his houses in the al-Sa'ad neighborhood, about a mile from the revered Imam Ali Shrine, where the militants were holed up.

"Contacts are now going on to solve the crisis. The atmosphere is positive," Hamed al-Khafaf, an al-Sistani aide, said.

A close al-Sadr aide said the militants would listen to al-Sistani's peace plan. "We will listen to him and we hope to see the government listen to him as well," said Yusif al-Nasiri. "They should listen and obey what he is going to say."

Al-Sadr's aides had backed al-Sistani's call for a march on Najaf and urged their followers to join in.

Thousands of Shiites had gathered at the mosque in Kufa, an al-Sadr stronghold, to march to Najaf when the mortar rounds hit — one inside the mosque compound and around two others at the main gate, according to witnesses.

"This is a criminal act. We just wanted to launch a peaceful demonstration," said Hani Hashem, bringing an injured friend to the hospital.

The blasts killed 27 people and wounded 63, according to Mohammed Abdul Kadhim, an official at Furat al-Awsat hospital in Kufa.

Blood was splattered on the pavement in a courtyard beside the mosque and a pair of sandals was left nearby, according to Associated Press Television News footage. Shrapnel from the explosions tore small chunks out of walls and the pavement, but the compound did not appear to have suffered serious structural damage.

Outside the hospital's gate, crowds of angry people gathered, shouting "God is great!"

After the attack, thousands of demonstrators loyal to al-Sadr marched on nearby Najaf but came under fire from a base between the two cities housing Iraqi national guardsmen and U.S. troops, witnesses said.

The marchers scattered when the gunfire broke out. The day before, gunfire from the same base killed eight people and wounded 56 others who were taking part in what appeared to be a peaceful demonstration supporting al-Sadr.

Another mortar attack in Kufa on Wednesday, apparently targeting a police checkpoint, killed two civilians, including an 8-year-old boy.

Al-Sadr aide Hussam al-Husseini blamed the mortar attack on American forces backing Iraqi troops in the city. "We held the interim government responsible for this bombing," he said.

A U.S. military spokesman, Marine Capt. Carrie Batson, denied the Americans fired the barrage, saying troops were still avoiding targeting holy sites in Kufa and Najaf.

One U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was possible that rebels firing at nearby Iraqi National Guard positions overshot their target and hit the mosque.

Any damage inflicted by U.S. forces on holy sites would anger Iraq's Shiite majority and could spark a greater uprising against the fledgling interim government, which is also battling a persistent and bloody Sunni insurgency.

In other violence, saboteurs attacked about 20 oil pipelines in southern Iraq late Wednesday, reducing exports from the key oil producing region by at least a half, an official with the state-run South Oil Co. said Thursday on condition of anonymity.

The mortgage giant said that its latest nationwide survey showed that rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages rose to 5.82% for the week ending Aug. 26. That's up slightly from the average rate of 5.81% last week.

Based on weekly survey of about 4,000 banks. For more info.

"Mortgage rates were mostly unchanged this week, amid conflicting economic reports as to the strength of the economy," said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac's chief economist.

Rates on 30-year mortgages hit a high this year of 6.34% the week of May 13. Since then, rates — while bouncing around — have slowly drifted downward as economic activity cooled in the late spring and early summer.

For 15-year, fixed-rate mortgages, a popular option for refinancing, rates rose to 5.21% this week, up from 5.19% last week. Rates on one-year adjustable rate mortgages increased to 4.05%, compared with 4.01% last week.

The nationwide averages for mortgage rates do not include add-on fees known as points. The 30-year mortgage carried an average 0.7 point fee this week. Fifteen-year and 1-year mortgages each carried an 0.6 point fee.

A year ago, rates on 30-year mortgages averaged 6.28% with 15-year mortgages at 5.60% and one-year ARMs at 3.84%.

Economic reports released earlier this week showed that sales of both new and previously owned homes fell in July. (Related story: As sales slip, some wonder if the 'house party' is over)

"Our housing outlook remains positive and forecasts only a gradual rise in mortgage rates in the next few months, indicating another strong year for the housing sector," Nothaft said.

The Mortgage Bankers Association, meanwhile, said that refinancing accounted for 40.4% of all home mortgage applications filed last week, down from 40.7% the previous week.

Ali Hamza Ahmad Sulayman al Bahlul, 36, of Yemen, was defiant as he appeared before the five-member panel to be charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes, which could bring a sentence of life in prison.

"As God is my witness, and the United States did not put any pressure on me, I am an al-Qaeda member," the detainee said through an Arabic interpreter.

Al Bahlul — appearing with head shaved, tan pants and a gray polo shirt — started to speak about his relationship to the Sept. 11 terror attacks but was cut off by the presiding officer, Army Col. Peter E. Brownback.

Earlier, when al Bahlul was asked if he had any questions, he replied: "Am I allowed to represent myself?"

After initially saying the order setting up the military trial panels did not allow that, Brownback later decided to refer the request to John D. Altenburg Jr., a retired Army general in charge of the proceedings.

Brownback ordered the al Bahlul's military-appointed defense lawyers to file a motion addressing structural challenges to the commission and to formally request that higher authority consider whether the Yemeni can represent himself or hire a foreign citizen as his attorney.

The hearing then recessed, with no date set for the next session.

The instructions for the military panel say defendants must be represented by either civilian or military attorneys who are U.S. citizens and certified to practice law in the United States.

"I have a large amount of knowledge," al Bahlul said, when asked whether he had sufficient knowledge of American culture to understand the proceedings.

Brownback warned that even if he were allowed to represent himself, there might be evidence he would not be allowed to see because he doesn't have clearance for classified information.

"I don't think it is fair the evidence would not be presented, and the accused cannot defend himself without seeing such evidence," al Bahlul said.

He added: "I would like to represent myself. If the American system will not allow me to defend myself. ... then I will be a listener only."

Al Bahlul is one of four Guantanamo detainees being arraigned at hearings this week as the first step toward trials by a five-member military commission — the first such proceedings since German saboteurs were tried secretly during World War II.

Bin Laden's chauffeur, 34-year-old Salim Ahmed Hamdan of Yemen, declined to enter a plea in the first hearing Tuesday. David Hicks, a 29-year-old Australian cowboy accused of fighting with Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime, pleaded innocent Wednesday. Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi, a Sudanese born in 1960, is to be charged Friday.

The Pentagon has accused al Bahlul of being a "key al-Qaeda propagandist who produced videos glorifying the murder of Americans to recruit, inspire and motivate other al-Qaeda members" to attack the United States and other countries.

Al Bahlul's father, Hamza Ahmed, told The Associated Press in previous interviews in Yemen that the family has suffered from his son's detention, both "psychologically and financially."

"He is cultured and peace-loving and he speaks English and enjoys reading and writing poetry," said Ahmed, noting his son used to send money home.

He said his son, who is married and has four children, told him in a letter that Pakistan handed him over to the Americans and that he had left Pakistan to seek medical treatment for his grandson before the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

"In his letters he told me how much he missed his wife and children. He has not committed any crimes and he hates no one," Ahmed said.

Al Bahlul's appointed lawyer, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Philip Sundel, had been expected to challenge the impartiality of the commission's five members, which has emerged as a key issue in the hearings. The members could be disqualified for good cause.

Hicks' lead civilian attorney, Joshua Dratel, began Wednesday's hearing with a challenge to the impartiality of Brownback, questioning the former military judge's relationship with Altenburg, who is overseeing the proceedings.

Brownback served with Altenburg in Fort Bragg, N.C., and his wife worked in Altenburg's office. He also attended the wedding of Altenburg's son and spoke at a retirement roast for the general.

"Our concern is for a full and fair process," Dratel said.

Other panel members who have been challenged include one who knew a firefighter killed in the Sept. 11 attacks and another who arranged the logistics for detainees to be sent from Afghanistan to Guantanamo.

McCain, R-Ariz., has called on Bush to condemn the anti-Kerry ads, even as he is actively supporting Bush's re-election. McCain told The New York Times that he plans to personally "express my displeasure" to the president, the paper reported Thursday.

Bush called McCain from Air Force One and the two had a brief discussion about the matter, McClellan said.

The debate over Democratic nominee John Kerry's service in Vietnam has dominated the presidential race in recent weeks after the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth aired ads questioning Kerry's decorated record. (Related story: Parties find hype to ad war)

Bush has criticized the Swift Boat Veterans group's first commercial and all other outside group attack ads — many of which have targeted his own re-election. But he has not explicitly condemned the Swift Boat veterans' ad.

McClellan said that complaints have been filed with the Federal Election Commission, including one by the Kerry campaign, which allows legal action if the agency doesn't act. The Bush-Cheney campaign would be the entity that would file such a lawsuit, but McClellan did not indicate when that might happen.

"There have been previous complaints filed," McClellan said. "The FEC had an opportunity to act. They did not act so that allows those who filed those complaints to pursue action against the FEC."

The Bush campaign and the GOP have filed complaints accusing the Kerry campaign of illegally coordinating millions of dollars worth of anti-Bush ads with soft-money groups on the Democratic side.

The Kerry campaign filed its own complaint last week with the FEC, alleging that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was illegally coordinating its efforts with the Bush-Cheney campaign.

All sides deny the allegations, and neither campaign has produced proof of coordination on the part of its rival.

McClellan said the goal is "to shut down all of this activity by these shadowy groups."

"We want to pursue court action," he added.

Mike Russell, a spokesman for the Swift Boat group, said Thursday that "we're going to continue doing what we're doing because this group is made up of more than 250 veterans who feel it is their obligation to tell the truth about John Kerry's military service."

"We're obviously going to abide by the spirit and letter of the law but as it sits right now 527s are free to operate and we're going to continue to do so," he said.

It was the third straight annual increase for both categories. While not unexpected, it was a double dose of bad economic news during a tight re-election campaign for President Bush.

Approximately 35.8 million people lived below the poverty line in 2003, or about 12.5% of the population, according to the bureau. That was up from 34.5 million, or 12.1% in 2002.

The rise was more dramatic for children. There were 12.9 million living in poverty last year, or 17.6% of the under-18 population. That was an increase of about 800,000 from 2002, when 16.7% of all children were in poverty.

The Census Bureau's definition of poverty varies by the size of the household. For instance, the threshold for a family of four was $18,810, while for two people it was $12,015.

Nearly 45 million people lacked health insurance, or 15.6% of the population. That was up from 43.5 million in 2002, or 15.2%, but was a smaller increase than in the two previous years.

Uninsured rates for children, though, were relatively stable at 11.4%, likely the result of recent expansions of coverage in government programs covering the poor and children, such as the state Children's Health Insurance Program, analysts said.

Meanwhile, the median household income, when adjusted for inflation, remained basically flat last year at $43,318. Whites, blacks and Asians saw no noticeable change, but income fell 2.6% for Hispanics to $32,997. Whites had the highest income at $47,777.

Census Bureau analyst Dan Weinberg said the results were typical of a post-recession period. He said the increase in the number of people without insurance was due to the uncertain job picture.

"Certainly the long-term trend is firms offering less generous (benefit) plans, and as people lose jobs they tend to lose health insurance coverage," he said.

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry seized on the numbers as evidence the Bush administration's economic policies have failed. During the years Bush has been in office, 5.2 million people have lost health insurance and 4.3 million have fallen into poverty, he said.

"Under George Bush's watch, America's families are falling further behind," Kerry said.

Bush administration officials were quick to counter that the data didn't reflect more recent gains in the economy in the first half of 2004 and left some of the blame on Congress. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said Bush was focusing on proposals that would reduce the costs of health insurance for businesses.

"The big failure is not what is happening in the administration. Individuals in the Senate have failed to adopt the president's health care plan," he said.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, noted that while more people lost insurance, there also were about 1 million more Americans with coverage in 2003. Overall, 243 million people had insurance last year.

"The bottom line is this: More people in America have health coverage today than at any time in our nation's history and I think that's a fact worth noting, but we can always do more," he said.

Even before release of the data, some Democrats claimed the Bush administration was trying to play down bad news by releasing the reports about a month earlier than usual. They normally are released separately in late September — one report on poverty and income, the other on insurance.

Putting out the numbers at the same time and not so close to Election Day "invite charges of spinning the data for political purposes," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y.

Census Director Louis Kincannon — a Bush appointee — denied politics played any role in moving up the release date. The move, announced earlier this year, was done to coordinate the numbers with the release of other data.

"There has been no influence or pressure from the (Bush) campaign," Kincannon said Wednesday.

Official national poverty estimates, as well as most government data on income and health insurance, come from the bureau's Current Population Survey.

This year the bureau is simultaneously releasing data from the broader American Community Survey, which also includes income and poverty numbers but cannot be statistically compared with the other survey.

U.S. District Judge Richard C. Casey in Manhattan said the Supreme Court has made it clear that a law that prohibits the performance of a particular abortion procedure must include an exception to preserve a woman's life and health.

Casey issued the ruling two months after hearing closing arguments in the case. (Related: Court's ruling)

A San Francisco judge has already declared the 2003 law unconstitutional, and a judge in Lincoln, Neb., is still considering the question. The three judges suspended the ban while they held the trials.

The law, signed in November, represented the first substantial federal legislation limiting a woman's right to choose an abortion. Abortion rights activists said it conflicted with three decades of Supreme Court precedent.

It banned a procedure that is known to doctors as intact dilation and extraction, but is called "partial-birth abortion" by abortion foes. During the procedure, the fetus is partially removed from the womb, and its skull is punctured or crushed.

The judge challenged the conclusion by Congress that there is no significant body of medical opinion that the procedure has safety advantages for women.

Casey said the congressional record itself undermined the finding because it included contradictory views, including nine medical associations which opposed the act because they believed the abortion procedure provides safety advantages for some women.

In the San Francisco ruling, issued June 1, U.S. District Judge said the act places an undue burden on a woman's right to choose.

Al-Sistani returned to Najaf on Thursday in hopes of using the power of his popularity to bring an end to fighting in the holy city. U.S. forces called a cease-fire, but hours earlier, a mortar barrage hit a mosque filled with Iraqis preparing to join the cleric's march, killing 27 people.

Along with the mortar attack, another group of thousands of marchers heading into Najaf from its sister-city Kufa came under fire from an Iraqi National Guard base. At least three people were killed and 46 wounded. (Related video: Kufa mortar attack)

Including those attacks, around 95 people were killed in Kufa and Najaf during the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry reported.

The violence could undermine the peace effort by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, the most widely respected cleric among Iraq's Shiite majority. His intervention could be the best hope so far to end the fighting between U.S.-Iraqi forces and the Mahdi Army militia of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. (Related video: Al-Sistani returns to Najaf)

Al-Sistani arrived in a 30-vehicle convoy that drove in from Basra, cheered by thousands of supporters in towns along the way. Urged by al-Sistani's aides to march for peace, thousands more came from their hometowns to Najaf and gathered on its outskirts, but witnesses said police barred them from entering the city.

Al-Sistani was expected to hold direct talks later Thursday with al-Sadr, said al-Sadr aide, Ahmed al-Shaibany.

"The presence of his eminence al-Sistani will solve the crisis because he promised he would negotiate with the government and will persuade the Sadrist movement to reach ... a solution that will save (their) dignity," al-Shaibany said. "I'm optimistic."

Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi declared a 24-hour ceasefire, and the U.S. military said they would adhere to it "to see if this agreement will be adhered to by al-Sadr," according to spokesman Rear Adm. Gregory Slavonic. Al-Sadr's officials also said they would stick to a truce.

The heavy fighting in Najaf appeared to ease when al-Sistani arrived, though sporadic gunfire still echoed. Al-Sadr fighters and Iraqi security forces traded fire several hundred yards from al-Sistani's house, wounding at least three people. Hours later, gunbattles and an explosion could be heard again in the Old City.

With all sides — the Americans, the Iraqi government and al-Sadr — giving at least nominal support to al-Sistani's efforts, it was not known who fired the mortars that struck the mosque in Kufa or whether it was an attempt to sabotage the peace effort. Iraqi police have shot at peaceful marchers several times in the past few days.

The 75-year-old ayatollah is seeking to bring his enormous popularity to bear to end the fighting, which has killed scores of civilians and nearly paralyzed the city since it began Aug. 5.

In the last 24 hours, 55 people were killed and 376 injured during clashes in Najaf, Sa'ad al-Amili of the Health Ministry said Thursday. At least 40 people have been killed in Kufa over the same period, including the victims in the mosque.

The military said Thursday that a U.S. soldier in Baghdad was killed by a mortar attack the night before. As of Wednesday, 964 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003, according to the U.S. Defense Department.

Al-Sistani — who had been in London undergoing medical treatment — has refused to get involved in previous crises and has stayed above the fray, supporting neither al-Sadr nor the U.S. troops and the pro-U.S. government.

He holds the loyalty of a far broader swath of Iraq's Shiite majority than al-Sadr. Al-Sadr's fiery anti-U.S. message has drawn many poorer, disillusioned Shiites but is seen by other Shiites as too radical. Al-Sadr's followers have set up their own religious courts and arrested hundreds of people on charges including selling alcohol and music deemed immoral.

Al-Sistani is calling for Najaf and Kufa to be declared weapons-free cities, for all foreign forces to withdraw from Najaf and leave security to the police and for the Iraqi government to compensate those harmed by the fighting here.

Al-Sistani's 30-vehicle convoy drove 220 miles from the southern city of Basra to Najaf, joined by at least a thousand cars from towns along the way, where supporters on the street cheered al-Sistani.

He arrived in Najaf just before 3 p.m. and went directly to one of his houses in the al-Sa'ad neighborhood, about a mile from the revered Imam Ali Shrine, where the militants were holed up.

"Contacts are now going on to solve the crisis. The atmosphere is positive," Hamed al-Khafaf, an al-Sistani aide, said.

A close al-Sadr aide said the militants would listen to al-Sistani's peace plan. "We will listen to him and we hope to see the government listen to him as well," said Yusif al-Nasiri. "They should listen and obey what he is going to say."

Al-Sadr's aides had backed al-Sistani's call for a march on Najaf and urged their followers to join in.

Thousands of Shiites had gathered at the mosque in Kufa, an al-Sadr stronghold, to march to Najaf when the mortar rounds hit — one inside the mosque compound and around two others at the main gate, according to witnesses.

"This is a criminal act. We just wanted to launch a peaceful demonstration," said Hani Hashem, bringing an injured friend to the hospital.

The blasts killed 27 people and wounded 63, according to Mohammed Abdul Kadhim, an official at Furat al-Awsat hospital in Kufa.

Blood was splattered on the pavement in a courtyard beside the mosque and a pair of sandals was left nearby, according to Associated Press Television News footage. Shrapnel from the explosions tore small chunks out of walls and the pavement, but the compound did not appear to have suffered serious structural damage.

Outside the hospital's gate, crowds of angry people gathered, shouting "God is great!"

After the attack, thousands of demonstrators loyal to al-Sadr marched on nearby Najaf but came under fire from a base between the two cities housing Iraqi national guardsmen and U.S. troops, witnesses said.

The marchers scattered when the gunfire broke out. The day before, gunfire from the same base killed eight people and wounded 56 others who were taking part in what appeared to be a peaceful demonstration supporting al-Sadr.

Another mortar attack in Kufa on Wednesday, apparently targeting a police checkpoint, killed two civilians, including an 8-year-old boy.

Al-Sadr aide Hussam al-Husseini blamed the mortar attack on American forces backing Iraqi troops in the city. "We held the interim government responsible for this bombing," he said.

A U.S. military spokesman, Marine Capt. Carrie Batson, denied the Americans fired the barrage, saying troops were still avoiding targeting holy sites in Kufa and Najaf.

One U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was possible that rebels firing at nearby Iraqi National Guard positions overshot their target and hit the mosque.

Any damage inflicted by U.S. forces on holy sites would anger Iraq's Shiite majority and could spark a greater uprising against the fledgling interim government, which is also battling a persistent and bloody Sunni insurgency.

In other violence, saboteurs attacked about 20 oil pipelines in southern Iraq late Wednesday, reducing exports from the key oil producing region by at least a half, an official with the state-run South Oil Co. said Thursday on condition of anonymity.

"I haven't thought about it at all," says Suzuki, batting .370, including 1-for-5 Sunday in a win against Detroit. "I just want to play well and give the fans something to get excited about. We don't have a good record, but I want to go out and play to the best of my ability. We have a lot of games left. I have to focus on those games and not what's already happened."

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Crackerjacks of bat

Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki is batting .506 in August and .484 since the All-Star break. Highest batting average after the break since 1990 (minimum 200 plate appearances):

Player Season Avg.
Barry Bonds 2002 .404
Larry Walker 1998 .402
Tony Gwynn 1993 .400
Barry Bonds 2003 .388
George Brett 1990 .388
Albert Belle 1998 .387
Johnny Damon 2000 .386
John Olerud 1998 .381

Suzuki is on pace for the best four-season hits total since 1946 (924):

Player Years Hits
Kirby Puckett 1986-89 879
Kirby Puckett 1985-88 863
Wade Boggs 1985-88 861
Wade Boggs 1983-86 860
Ichiro Suzuki 2001-04 859

Source: Elias Sports Bureau

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Steve Hirdt of Elias Sports Bureau says that Sisler's record is forgotten because fans focus on a player's batting average: "If Ichiro goes after the record, it'd be great, the closest thing you could get to chasing Joe DiMaggio's (56-game) hitting streak. It'd be exciting if Ichiro needed 20 hits with 15 games to go."

Sisler, who had an engineering degree, was a left-handed batter who was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1939 with a .340 career average. His 257 hits for the St. Louis Browns helped him win the American League batting title with a .407 average. Two years later, he hit .420 to win a second title.

Suzuki, a left-handed batter from Japan in his fourth major league season, has come closest to Sisler's record since World War II — when he had 242 hits during his rookie 2001 season.

Suzuki likely has a good idea about Sisler's career; after his rookie season, he spent three days at the Hall of Fame. He asked Hall officials to keep his visit quiet.

"I wanted to learn about the history behind it," he says. "I don't know as much as the average American would know."

Suzuki, with 859 career hits, already has broken one record, Paul Waner's 75-year-old mark for most hits in a player's first four seasons, 840. Next up could be Sisler's mark.

A hit man with varied strokes

August is supposed to be the dog days, when players, especially those on underachieving non-contending teams such as the Mariners, go through the motions. Suzuki isn't following that script.

He batted .274 in June and carried an overall .320 average into July. He since has zoomed into the batting lead in the AL, thanks to a .432 July average and a .506 average in August.

Since July 20, Suzuki has had two five-hit games and four four-hit games, including Saturday in Detroit. On July 31 he became the first player since Joe Medwick in 1936 to record two 50-hit months in a season. (Hall of Famers Rod Carew and George Brett each had one 50-hit month in their careers.)

Suzuki, at 5-9, 170, has a unique batting style: He sometimes starts running to first base as he swings.

• He can pull an inside pitch to right field — he has the Mariners' record with 12 leadoff home runs — as easily as he can slice a double down the left-field line.

• Suzuki can hit a ball 10 feet and use speed to reach first base.

• He spreads the defense and hits the holes with line drives and ground balls.

• And he mixes in a few bunts.

"It's almost like he has the knack to guide a ball through a hole," Paul Molitor, Seattle's hitting coach, says of Suzuki. "It's like he has a special feeling for finding the holes."

The two have opposite styles: Molitor, who had 3,319 hits and was inducted into the Hall of Fame this summer, had a still, steady approach; Suzuki moves around and adjusts in the batter's box.

Molitor, who had four 200-hit seasons, with 225 his highest, says he doesn't coach Suzuki.

"He's recovered from a slow start and raised his average 50, 60 points when he's had more than 300 at-bats — that's something that's hard to fathom," Molitor says. "It's difficult to dig deep and keep driving when what you hoped to be playing for is no longer at stake."

Mariners reliever Shigetoshi Hasagawa, a teammate of Suzuki's with Japan's Orix Blue Wave, is amazed at Suzuki's concentration: "When he's like this, you can't touch him or get him out. And, it's not just his skills. For him, it's the mental games. He's very disciplined and focused."

It's been a wild several days for Suzuki. Wednesday night in Kansas City, he got slammed in the back of his head by a fastball from Royals pitcher Jimmy Serrano. Suzuki experienced dizziness Thursday so he didn't play, but he got a break: The game with the Royals was rained out and rescheduled.

"Thank you, God," Suzuki said.

Friday night in Detroit, he was feeling dizzy but legged out three infield hits. He said the first hit "felt like three beers, and by the end, it was down to one beer."

Losing year overshadows chase

Suzuki's historic season might be keeping Mariners fans interested at a time when meaningless second-half games are being played for the first time at 5-year-old Safeco Field. Inside the clubhouse, the feeling is different.

The Mariners were built to contend this season, but instead are in fourth place, 231/2 games out of first place, relegated to September spoiler in the AL West. The roster is in a state of transition, with prospects such as infielder Bucky Jacobsen getting a chance to win jobs for 2005.

Infielders John Olerud and Rich Aurilia are gone. Designated hitter Edgar Martinez, who will retire after the season, is in the lineup for home games only. Pitcher Freddy Garcia was traded, and second baseman Bret Boone was nearly traded. Catcher Dan Wilson lost his job to Miguel Olivo.

Suzuki's hitting is great, but nobody is thinking his record-chasing season eases the pain of losing.

"Maybe in the last few days we can think about it," outfielder Randy Winn says. "But we are here to win games. This has not been a fun year, and you don't think about records at this time of year.

"I remember one year in Tampa Bay, Jose Canseco had 31 or 32 home runs at the (All-Star) break, but at the time, we didn't think about. Now, when I look back, I think, 'Wow, that was a lot of home runs.' Ichiro is swinging the bat really well, and some day, I'll sit back and say, 'That was amazing, and I was there to see it.' "

Martinez agrees. He hit .343 to win the 1992 batting title in a season when Seattle lost 98 games.

"Ichiro is as hot as a player can be, and he's fun to watch, but this is a disappointing season," Martinez says. "In 1992 I remember the empty feeling I had when I was doing well, and the team wasn't. I remember thinking, 'Something's missing.'

"I was having a good year, but it was not enough."

When it comes to his performance, Suzuki, experiencing the first losing season of his career, doesn't understand what all the fuss is about. He had a slow start because the Mariners wanted him to be less aggressive, thinking that would help his power numbers. Suzuki didn't like that, so he went back to his usual style.

He says his goal is to get 200 hits in every season and that he's just doing his job, that it isn't any more difficult playing during a losing season than during a winning season.

He says he wants to be good enough so that he can reach a point where fans are not amazed, and that fans shouldn't be amazed.

"I don't wonder why I'm getting these hits," Suzuki says. "At this point in my career, I should be doing what I am doing. I want to be the kind of player where the fans look at what I do and think, it's just another day."

The Americans zeroed in on a gold medal, and were four outs from a tournament-long shutout before the Aussies scored a run — the first given up by the U.S. pitching staff in 54 2-3 innings.

One minor flaw on an otherwise perfect run on the game's grandest diamond.

Women's softball has never been played better.

Lisa Fernandez pitched a four-hitter and Crystl Bustos homered twice in the Americans' best all-around game of the tournament. Under the burning Greek sun and in swirling wind, the U.S. team pounded three home runs off Aussie ace Tanya Harding.

They moved over runners. They played stingy defense. They did everything right while thrilling 5,000 fans unlikely ever to see a team as good as this red-white-blue Dream Team of power and speed.

These Yankees, minus the payroll and pinstripes, were simply awesome.

"This is the greatest feeling in the world," said outfielder Kelly Kretschman. "We made it look easy but every game was tough."

Bustos homered twice off Harding, and the United States completed a three-game sweep of the silver medal-winning Aussies, the only team in the same class as the Americans in these games.

The United States outscored Australia 20-1 in the three-game sweep and finished the nine-game tournament by outscoring the field 51-1. The run total was just one of more than a dozen Olympic records that fell to the mighty U.S. squad.

After getting the final out, Fernandez flung her glove high into the air and was swarmed on by her teammates, who piled on one after another as if they were attempting to build a pyramid in the dirt.

The Americans are leaving Greece with what they came for: a gold medal for themselves, their country and a "team mom" who couldn't be there to share it.

A month before the Olympics, Sue Candrea, the wife of U.S. coach Mike Candrea, died of a brain aneurysm while traveling with the team on its "Aiming for Athens" tour. She quit her job to join her husband of 28 years.

She rode the buses with the All-American girls, went for coffee with them and gave them companionship while on the road away from their families as they chased their dream of Greek gold.

The American women honored Sue Candrea by wearing "SC" decals on their batting helmets and wristbands. She was always in their hearts.

Until the final with Australia, the Americans stiffest test — and only one — came in the preliminary round against Japan, the bronze medalist which forced the U.S. team into extra innings and the excruciating international tiebreaker.

In the eighth inning, the U.S. caught a break when third baseman Reika Utsugi lost an easy popup in the sun, giving the Americans an extra out that seemed heaven sent.

"Sue was looking down upon us," Candrea said at the time.

She was in their thoughts as they savored the medal.

After sharing hugs with his coaching staff, Candrea walked onto the field to join his players. The first to meet him was Leah O'Brien-Amico, the only mother on the 15-woman roster, who wrapped her arms around her Olympic and college coach.

Moments later, the entire U.S. team surrounded Candrea and lifted him into the air.

The major overhaul, the first in more than half a century, is aimed at mostly white-collar workers. The Labor Department says manual laborers and other blue-collar workers will not be affected.

The new rules are intended to limit workers' multimillion-dollar lawsuits, many of them successful, claiming they were cheated of overtime pay for working more than 40 hours a week.

Retailers, restaurants, insurance firms and banks have been targets, and jobs in those places are generally exempt from overtime in the new rules. They include chefs, pharmacists, funeral directors, embalmers, journalists, insurance claims adjusters, low- and midlevel bank managers and dental hygienists. (Related: Steve Strauss: Details are mostly bad for employees.)

There is little agreement by the Bush administration, employer groups, labor experts and others on how many workers will gain or lose the right to overtime pay under the new rules in the Fair Labor Standards Act.

"To be candid, no one knows," said Jerry Hunter, a labor lawyer at Bryan Cave LLP in St. Louis and former general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board during the first Bush administration.

Employers have sought changes for decades, complaining the regulations were ambiguous and out of date, and questioning why highly paid professionals should get overtime pay. Labor unions, however, say the new rules are intended to reduce employers' costs.

Estimates of how many workers will lose their overtime eligibility range from 107,000 to 6 million. Workers who could become newly eligible range from very few to 1.3 million.

"Not only is the Labor Department unsure, but a lot of people in a lot of industries are unsure," Hunter said. "This is all very fluid right now."

Whether the new rules will reduce litigation is questionable, experts say. Lawyers representing workers have found the suits lucrative.

"This has become a very big area of plaintiffs' employment law, and it is not simply going to go away because of these new regulations," Bill Schurgin, a labor lawyer in the Chicago office of Seyfarth Shaw.

Critics say the changes will eliminate overtime for millions of middle-class Americans struggling in a weak jobs market.

"These are drastic changes that will hurt working families," said Karen Nussbaum, executive director of Working America, an AFL-CIO organization created for workers unable to join unions. The AFL-CIO is holding a protest outside the Labor Department on Monday.

Labor Secretary Elaine Chao has created a task force that will be "looking very closely and critically at any reclassifications that result in workers losing their overtime status," said Steven Law, deputy secretary.

The department's Wage and Hour Division "will be very, very carefully monitoring and following up with enforcement," especially in high-violation industries, he said. The department won $212 million in back wages for overtime violations in 2003, a 21% increase.

At Denver Water, a public utility, none of the 1,050 employees will be reclassified, said benefits manager Jim Crockett.

"We were in compliance before, and when I analyzed the jobs for the new rules, it came up that no changes were necessary," he said.

When in doubt, the utility classifies workers as overtime-eligible, Crockett said. For example, its survey chiefs are in the field only during only summer months supervising crews; the rest of the year they oversee few workers, if any. But the chiefs are given overtime status, he said.

What's happening in general:

•About 107,000 white-collar workers now eligible for overtime pay who earn $100,000 or more annually could lose it under the new rules, the Labor Department said.

•About 1.3 million workers, mostly low- and midlevel managers at stores and restaurants, who earn less than $23,660 a year will be newly eligible. However, employers can avoid paying them overtime by raising their salaries, so critics say far fewer will benefit from overtime.

•For white-collar workers who fall between those salary levels, their overtime status depends on their job duties and experience. The rules revamp the definitions of professional, administrative and executive employees, called "duties tests," that are used to determine eligibility.

For example, professional employees exempt from overtime had professional degrees. The new rule allows employers to substitute work experience and instruction.

Executive employees had authority to hire and fire. The new rule expands that provision, saying an executive can make recommendations that carry weight regarding employment status.

Labor leaders say slight changes in wording could exempt millions from overtime pay. The Labor Department says duties are more clear and make status more certain, resulting in "few, if any" losing overtime.

The changes will prompt "a whole new round of litigation to determine what these phrases mean," said Baldwin Robertson, a Washington labor lawyer hired by Working America to answer workers' questions on its Web site.

The U.S. State Department last year offered a $2 million reward for Higuera's capture, although that was well short of the $5 million it once offered for his alleged bosses at the time — brothers Javier and Eduardo Arellano Felix of Tijuana.

Macedo said Higuera split with the Arellano Felix gang late last year and became the "principal operator" for a rival drug boss, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, whose gang is said to increasingly control Mexico's western border with the United States.

The split led to a series of bloody confrontations between the two gangs in the Tijuana area, Macedo said.

While the United States has asked for Higuera's extradition, Macedo said the prisoner would first be prosecuted in Mexico, where he faces nearly a dozen charges of drug trafficking, arms violations and organized crime.

Macedo said Higuera's capture resulted from intelligence gathered by both Mexican and U.S. officials, but he declined to give specific details.

Higuera's brother, Ismael, who also was a top lieutenant in the Arellano Felix gang, was arrested in 2000.

U.S. officials have praised efforts by Mexican President Vicente Fox's administration to go after this country's organized crime rings.

The Arellano Felix gang has been hit especially hard. Police in Mazatlan shot Ramon Arellano Felix to death in February 2000. His brother Benjamin was captured at his home in Puebla a few weeks later, dealing a major blow to one of Mexico's most violent drug gangs.

In 2003, the Gulf Cartel's leader, Osiel Cardenas, was arrested during a shootout in Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.

Those arrests have led to a series of detentions of second-tier drug traffickers and to turf battles all along the border that have left dozens dead.

Mia Hamm set up the goal with a short cross from the right, pushing back the pass toward a cluster of three players about 6 yards from the net. The 19-year-old O'Reilly, a freshman at North Carolina, somehow got her foot on the ball before defender Ariane Hingst did, pushing a shot to left of goalkeeper Silke Rottenberg.

The win gives the Fab Five — long-standing U.S. stars Hamm, Julie Foudy, Joy Fawcett, Brandi Chastain and Kristine Lilly — a chance to go out as champions in their final tournament together.

The U.S. team will face either Brazil or Sweden, who played later Monday in Patras, for the Olympic title Thursday in Athens. Germany will play in the bronze medal game on the same day.

The victory avenges a 3-0 loss to Germany in the World Cup semifinals 11 months ago in Portland, Ore. Germany went on to win the Cup and entered the Olympics ranked No. 1 in the world.

The Americans were unlucky that the game even went to overtime. They dominated Germany most of the match, and Germans' tying goal came on a shot from Isabell Bachor that deflected off Fawcett's hip two minutes into second-half injury time.

Then, in overtime, O'Reilly had an open net in front of her after getting past Rottenberg at the top of the penalty box, but she rushed her shot and hit the near post. O'Reilly nearly scored again in the second overtime after a long run with a shot that forced a juggling save by Rottenberg.

Lilly scored her 98th career goal in the 33rd minute — her third goal in as many games — and the U.S. defense didn't allow a shot on goal until the 77th minute. Birgit Prinz, the reigning world player of the year, was essentially neutralized.

Bachor sent the game to overtime by setting up her shot with a move that twisted defender Christie Rampone to the ground. Bachor's 11-yard drive hit Fawcett in the hip, leaving goalkeeper Briana Scurry helpless as the ball landed inside the near post. It was only the second shot on goal for Germany in the match.

Lilly's first-half goal capped a strong, 10-minute stretch for the Americans. Chastain dribbled a cross from the left wing, and Abby Wambach used her strength to fight off Hingst and flick the ball ahead to Lilly. Lilly's shot hit the hand of the veteran Rottenberg, who was leaning just slightly the wrong way, before settling inside the far corner of the net.

A disputable referee's call cost the Americans a chance to go ahead 2-0 in the 38th minute. Hamm, chasing a long ball, was flipped on a rolling tackle by Rottenberg inside the penalty area. Instead of awarding a penalty kick, Australian referee Krystyna Szokolai gave the U.S. team a corner kick.

In the second half, Scurry made her first save in the 77th minute, falling to the ground to stop Renate Lingor's long free kick.

Play was very physical in a game that included three yellow cards, including Germany's first of the tournament. Hamm, Wambach and Prinz were especially targeted with pushes, shoves and nudges that sent them tumbling to the turf. Foudy was taken off in the 61st minute, after getting spiked in the right foot by Bachor and was soon replaced by Aly Wagner.

"This is a chance for the president and other military leaders to get outside of Washington, D.C., and have a good detailed discussion about key defense priorities," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said of the meeting Monday at the president's ranch.

Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice were among those set to attend. Gen. George Casey, the senior U.S. officer in Iraq, and Gen. John Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command, planned to participate via a video conference hookup.

Bush's fourth annual meeting on defense priorities focuses on Iraq and threats to national security in the future. The candidates' campaigns, meanwhile, are embroiled in a debate over the past.

Ads financed by Bush supporters allege that, in the late 1960s, Kerry received an early exit from combat in Vietnam for "superficial wounds." Kerry backers claim the Bush campaign has ties to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the anti-Kerry group running the ads in three states.

The Bush re-election campaign has denied any links. Moreover, the White House says Kerry has benefited from more than $62 million worth of similar advertising against the president.

The war of words between the two campaigns is playing out as Bush spends a week at his ranch relaxing and preparing for next week's Republican National Convention in New York.

At the defense meeting, a likely discussion topic was on rotating U.S. troops and a future reduction in forces, said Dan Goure, a military analyst with the Lexington Institute, a public policy think tank in Virginia.

About 130,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq. More than 940 U.S. service members have died since the invasion in 2003.

"They're going to be doing another rotation in about nine months, so they'll be thinking through that whole policy — what forces they have, what forces they're going to bring on, how many will be National Guardsmen — that kind of thing," Goure said.

Another likely topic, he said, will be completing the training of Iraqi security forces, who can help secure the nation for elections at the end of the year. Creating functional internal security forces in Iraq is critical to withdrawing American, British and allied troops.

Goure said other issues could include security in Afghanistan in anticipation of upcoming elections, terrorism and the overall makeup of U.S. forces during the next decade.

A week ago, Bush announced a troop realignment plan that ultimately would bring up to 70,000 troops — plus about 100,000 family members and civilian workers — back to the United States beginning in 2006. The changes would not directly affect the roughly 150,000 troops involved in or supporting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On Sunday, a handful of people opposed to the war in Iraq gathered a few miles from Bush's ranch at a home dubbed the "Peace House." It's has been run since last year by peace activists who don't want Bush to be the only voice in Crawford.

Amira Matsuda, 46, an Iraqi-born mother of four from Plano, Texas, said that while Bush talks of liberation and reconstruction, her homeland is "falling apart." She said many Iraqis think those being trained for the Iraqi security force are siding with Americans.

"That's why you see in Najaf police security forces being killed or kidnapped," she said. "Stability in my opinion will never take place because people are not happy with the occupation."

The three-paragraph statement did not specify the charges to which Frederick will plead guilty, and it wasn't clear whether he would still contest any of the allegations. He is charged with maltreating detainees, conspiracy to maltreat detainees, dereliction of duty and wrongfully committing an indecent act.

Frederick, 37, of Buckingham, Va., has a pretrial hearing scheduled for Tuesday in Mannheim, Germany.

His civilian attorney, Gary Myers, did not immediately respond to e-mailed questions about Frederick's case. Telephone calls to Myers' hotel room in Mannheim went unanswered.

Frederick is among seven members of the 372nd Military Police Company based in Cresaptown, Md., charged in the scandal, which involves physical abuse and sexual humiliation of prisoners.

He would be the second of the seven to admit wrongdoing. Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits of Hyndman, Pa., pleaded guilty to three abuse charges in May and was sentenced to a year in prison.

Frederick, who worked as a prison guard in Virginia, was the senior enlisted soldier at the Abu Ghraib prison between October and December, when the mistreatment allegedly occurred.

He was among the first to be publicly identified by CBS' 60 Minutes II when it broke the story April 28.

Frederick is accused of having helped force a prisoner to stand on a box with wires placed on his hands, a scene displayed in one of the photos from the prison. Frederick's charge sheet says the prisoner was told he would be electrocuted if he fell off the box, although the wires were not connected to a power source.

Frederick also is accused of forcing naked detainees into a pyramid position and photographing the scene. He also allegedly ordered detainees to masturbate in front of other prisoners and guards, posing two detainees to simulate oral sex while photographing them.

One photo from the prison shows Frederick standing behind a naked prisoner smeared with feces. Frederick's mother, Jo Ann Frederick, has said the inmate spread the feces on himself.

She said on Monday that she did not know what offenses her son planned to acknowledge.

"I can only say that Chip has told us things, and it's not that it was so much hands-on things, but he is responsible for what some of the others did, and some of the things he did he feels were not right," she said.

Frederick has claimed the abusive treatment was orchestrated by military intelligence officers rather than MPs, according to a diary his family made available.

In his statement Monday, Frederick said he hoped that "all those within the Army who contributed to or participated in the chaos that was Abu Ghraib" accept responsibility.

He also expressed concern about Spc. Joseph Darby, a member of the 372nd credited with tipping off Army investigators to the abuse. Relatives of Darby said last week that he is in protective military custody, partly because of threats from people in their communities who believe he betrayed his fellow soldiers.

Frederick said he harbored no ill will toward Darby: "He did what he thought was right, and it was right," Frederick wrote.

In Mannheim on Monday, a military judge hearing evidence in the abuse cases demanded that prosecutors speed up the investigation. Col. James Pohl expressed displeasure after being told a lone Army criminal investigator was reviewing thousands of pages of records contained in a secret computer server at Abu Ghraib.

Al-Sadr followers claimed that U.S. airstrikes overnight damaged an outer wall of the Imam Ali Shrine compound, which remains in control of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia. The U.S. military said the strikes targeted militants' positions south of the shrine but did not hit the wall. There was no independent confirmation of the damage. (Related video: Militants control Holy Shrine)

Gunfire rang out in the city throughout the day, and black smoke rose over the Old City, a neighborhood of small, twisting alleyways where fighters from al-Sadr's Mahdi Army have been holed up and where the walled, golden-domed shrine is located.

Tanks approached within 250 yards of the shrine, their closest move in days, and U.S. snipers were on rooftops around the holy site, witnesses said.

The size of the al-Sadr's forces in the Old City appeared to have decreased Monday with the U.S. advance, witnesses said. Fewer fighters were seen in the streets and some were seen leaving Najaf, residents said. Militant medical officials said at least two insurgents were killed and four others injured.

Early Monday, explosions shook the city as militiamen fired mortars at U.S. troops, who responded with artillery.

In Baghdad's heavily Shiite Sadr City neighborhood, an explosion, apparently from a U.S air attack, killed four people and injured nine others Monday, said Dr. Qasim Saddam, director of Sadr Hospital. The U.S. military said it was unaware of the incident.

In the southern city of Nasiriyah, U.S. journalist Micah Garen said after his release from more a week in captivity that he hoped to stay in Iraq to continue working on a documentary project he'd started about the looting of archaeological sites.

"This experience hasn't made me want to leave at all," Garen said late Sunday in an interview with Associated Press Television News. He also thanked al-Sadr for helping free him from his captors.

The U.S. advance came a day after American forces sealed off the Old City as efforts that have nearly reached a possible resolution to the standoff began to falter.

The Imam Ali Shrine, one of Shia Islam's holiest sites, has been at the center of the fighting that erupted Aug. 5. Mahdi Army militants used the shrine as a stronghold and a refuge, with U.S. forces saying they won't enter it for fear of outraging Iraq's Shiite majority.

Iraqi government officials — who days earlier had said Iraqi troops might storm the shrine — were now counseling patience, saying they intended to resolve the crisis without an assault. Even if Iraqi security forces rather than Americans raid the shrine, it would likely turn Shiites against the new government as it tries to gain legitimacy and tackle a 16-month-old insurgency.

"The government will leave no stone unturned to reach a peaceful settlement," Iraqi National Security adviser Mouaffaq al-Rubaie told The Associated Press on Sunday. "It has no intention or interest in killing more people or having even the most trivial damage to the shrine. We have a vested interest in a peaceful settlement."

The crisis in Najaf, which has spread to other Shiite communities, appeared on the verge of resolution Friday, when insurgents agreed to turn over the shrine to representatives of Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani.

But the transfer has bogged down in quibbling over technicalities. Representatives from both sides have said they were still working out the details.

Worries over the fallout have fueled calls for international action to end the Najaf fighting. Syria's prime minister, Naji al-Otari, in talks with his Jordanian counterpart Monday, warned that instability in Iraq "is about to backfire on neighboring countries" and called for Arabs and Iraq's neighbors to "help it get out of its current ordeal."

Iran has called on Muslim nations to hold an urgent meeting to deal with Iraq. Iranian President Mohammad Khatami repeated denials of claims by some Iraqi officials that his country supports al-Sadr.

"We have never taken sides in favor or against any group or faction in Iraq," Khatami told reporters when asked if Iran was supporting al-Sadr, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

The chairman of the world's largest grouping of Muslim countries suggested the United Nations take a role in helping stop the Najaf violence. "If the confrontation in Najaf is not defused, it will inflame emotions and may create unpredictable conditions," said Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who heads the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference.

Assailants in Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, killed one Turkish citizen and two Iraqis along a road as they headed to the northern city of Kirkuk late Sunday, Maj. Neal O'Brien, a spokesman for the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division, said Monday. No other details of the attack were immediately available.

In Kirkuk, Sharzad Hassan, 31, an official with the pro-U.S. Patriotic Union of Kurdistan was gunned down by unknown attackers late Sunday in a drive-by shooting, police officer Sarhat Qadir said Monday.

Five U.S. troops were reported dead on Sunday — including three Marines killed in action Saturday in Anbar province, a Marine who died in a vehicle accident and a soldier killed by a roadside bomb Sunday in the northern city of Mosul.

As of Friday, 949 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003, according to the U.S. Defense Department.

Garen, who was kidnapped Aug. 13 in Nasiriyah, was released Sunday along with his Iraqi translator at al-Sadr's offices there after the cleric's aides appealed for his freedom.

APTN videotape showed Garen in apparently good health, drinking a soft drink on a couch next to Sheik Aws al-Khafaji, an al-Sadr aide in Nasiriyah.

"I feel like I have lots and lots of friends here and I hope that I can continue to work here," the 36-year-old New Yorker said.

Sheik Aws al-Khafaji, an al-Sadr aide, said Sunday night the kidnappers mistakenly had thought Garen was working for the U.S. intelligence services.

"The kidnappers listened to the call that we made during Friday prayers, and they contacted us and we asked them to bring him to (al-Sadr's) office and promised that no one would pursue them," al-Khafaji said.

The president made his comments as the Kerry campaign fought back against charges made by an outside group that the Democratic senator had lied about wartime events in Vietnam for which he received five medals.

In a conference call with reporters arranged by aides to the Democratic presidential candidate, Navy swift boat officers Rich McCann, Jim Russell and Rich Baker said Kerry acted honorably and bravely and was well qualified to be the nation's commander in chief.

"He was the most aggressive officer in charge of swift boats," Baker said.

Additionally, crewmate Del Sandusky said at a news conference in Harrisburg, Pa., that he personally witnessed the battle action for which Kerry received Silver and Bronze stars and two of his three Purple Hearts.

"He deserved every one of his medals," Sandusky, a retired computer repairman who drove Kerry's boat for nearly three months.

The attack on Kerry's war record has dominated the presidential campaign in the days since Swift Boat Veterans For Truth began airing its commercial in three states.

With polls suggesting Kerry's standing was beginning to slip — at least among veterans — the Democrat last week called on Bush to call for the ads to be pulled from the air. He also accused Bush of allowing front groups to "do his dirty work."

Bush's campaign heatedly denied any connection with the anti-Kerry group, and called on the Democratic challenger to join the president in a call for all outside groups to pull their ads.

Bush has himself been subjected to a multimillion-dollar barrage of attack ads aired by groups seeking to help Kerry win the White House.

He wouldn't be on a podium, with an olive wreath over his heart, the national anthem playing and cameras recording every glisten in his eyes. (Related item: Thursday's swimming roundup Hall upset)

The last one could come in the mail to the suburban Baltimore home where the 19-year-old lives with his mom, several weeks from now.

That precious package would be symbolic of how these Games have gone for Phelps and the U.S. swimming team. It would represent a disappointment and an achievement, all wrapped in one. Its trappings wouldn't clear the high bar of expectation, but it still would be prized for its place in sports history.

On Thursday, the oohs, awe and uh-ohs of U.S. swimming at these Games tumbled together in a mere 20 minutes.

In the men's 200-meter backstroke final, the USA's Aaron Peirsol easily beat his competitors. But as he was waving to the crowd, making his way toward a row of television cameras, he saw the scoreboard list the second-place finisher as the winner. The reason: Peirsol had been disqualified for an illegal turn.

Peirsol weaved in a daze toward the warm-down pool, muttering "it seems bogus to me" as he passed a group of reporters. His mom, sobbing into a tissue, soon followed. Within minutes, the disqualification was overturned and mom was crying tears of joy.

"It was weird, it was frustrating, it was a little interesting," Peirsol said, "but it turned out OK."

The same could be said of the 2004 Olympic fortunes of Phelps and the team overall.

Phelps was pegged to match or beat Mark Spitz's 1972 medal haul of seven golds in Athens. Led by that gold standard, the U.S. men were projected to be at their most dominant since 1976, when the Americans won 12 of 13 men's events.

Neither expectation will be met. But in the final two days of the Athens swimming competition, Phelps still can set a medal mark — he could win the most medals of any Olympian at a non-boycotted Games — and the USA can extend its incontestable rule of the Olympic pool.

The USA also won five medals on the first day of the Athens Games, but only one was gold. If the wave stays at a crest, the USA should win at least five more medals at this Olympics. A total of 26 would match the U.S. haul in the 1996 Games but would be seven short of the 33 the U.S. team won in Sydney four years ago.

The USA has easily won the medal count at the last three Olympics. Australia is in second place here with 12.

The most shocking U.S. shortfall of the week came in the men's 100 freestyle, where the USA didn't qualify anyone for even the semifinals for the first time in history. That disappointment trumped the USA's bronze medal in the 4x100 freestyle relay, which, combined with Phelps' third-place finish in the 200 freestyle, derailed the Spitz quest.

"What Spitz did was an unbelievable accomplishment, and it is very, very challenging," Phelps said. "Once you get to a meet like this, it's so emotionally draining."

Phelps has six medals, four gold, and the chance to win two more. Soviet gymnast Aleksander Dityatin is the only other Olympian to win eight medals in one Games. Dityatin won three golds, four silvers and a bronze in the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, which the USA and more than 50 other countries boycotted.

"First it was seven, now eight. I can't get away from numbers," Phelps said with a smile, adding he became aware of the record when he saw something about it online just before the Olympics began. "But, like I always say, I take one race at a time."

Phelps' last two races, though, are inextricably linked. In the morning session Friday, he will swim the butterfly leg for the USA in the medley relay qualifying heats. In the evening session, he will take on countryman Ian Crocker in the 100 fly, an event in which Crocker has beaten Phelps twice in the last year, but only by breaking the world record each time.

If Crocker wins again, he will swim the fly leg for the USA in the medley relay final Saturday. If Phelps finally conquers Crocker, he will swim in the relay final. Crocker has been slowed by a sore throat this week, and Phelps had the fastest qualifying time in Thursday's semifinals.

Whether he beats Crocker on Friday or not, Phelps will get whatever medal the USA wins. Phelps swam in only the preliminaries of the medley relay in last year's world championships, yet the gold won by the USA in the final counted toward his six-medal total.

The U.S. men, with world recordholders in three of the four swim strokes included in the medley relay, are heavily favored to win gold. Phelps will be on the podium to receive it Saturday only if he swims in the final. Otherwise, it will come in the mail.

"Everybody wants to win a finals relay," said Phelps, who led off the USA's victory in the 4x200 freestyle relay earlier this week. "It's exciting to be a part of that. I missed out on being part of that last year, so I definitely want to be a part of it this year."

If he were part of it, the men's medley relay — as the last swimming event of the Athens Games — could be the perfect capstone for Phelps and his roller coaster-riding teammates.

He wouldn't be on a podium, with an olive wreath over his heart, the national anthem playing and cameras recording every glisten in his eyes. (Related item: Thursday's swimming roundup Hall upset)

The last one could come in the mail to the suburban Baltimore home where the 19-year-old lives with his mom, several weeks from now.

That precious package would be symbolic of how these Games have gone for Phelps and the U.S. swimming team. It would represent a disappointment and an achievement, all wrapped in one. Its trappings wouldn't clear the high bar of expectation, but it still would be prized for its place in sports history.

On Thursday, the oohs, awe and uh-ohs of U.S. swimming at these Games tumbled together in a mere 20 minutes.

In the men's 200-meter backstroke final, the USA's Aaron Peirsol easily beat his competitors. But as he was waving to the crowd, making his way toward a row of television cameras, he saw the scoreboard list the second-place finisher as the winner. The reason: Peirsol had been disqualified for an illegal turn.

Peirsol weaved in a daze toward the warm-down pool, muttering "it seems bogus to me" as he passed a group of reporters. His mom, sobbing into a tissue, soon followed. Within minutes, the disqualification was overturned and mom was crying tears of joy.

"It was weird, it was frustrating, it was a little interesting," Peirsol said, "but it turned out OK."

The same could be said of the 2004 Olympic fortunes of Phelps and the team overall.

Phelps was pegged to match or beat Mark Spitz's 1972 medal haul of seven golds in Athens. Led by that gold standard, the U.S. men were projected to be at their most dominant since 1976, when the Americans won 12 of 13 men's events.

Neither expectation will be met. But in the final two days of the Athens swimming competition, Phelps still can set a medal mark — he could win the most medals of any Olympian at a non-boycotted Games — and the USA can extend its incontestable rule of the Olympic pool.

The USA also won five medals on the first day of the Athens Games, but only one was gold. If the wave stays at a crest, the USA should win at least five more medals at this Olympics. A total of 26 would match the U.S. haul in the 1996 Games but would be seven short of the 33 the U.S. team won in Sydney four years ago.

The USA has easily won the medal count at the last three Olympics. Australia is in second place here with 12.

The most shocking U.S. shortfall of the week came in the men's 100 freestyle, where the USA didn't qualify anyone for even the semifinals for the first time in history. That disappointment trumped the USA's bronze medal in the 4x100 freestyle relay, which, combined with Phelps' third-place finish in the 200 freestyle, derailed the Spitz quest.

"What Spitz did was an unbelievable accomplishment, and it is very, very challenging," Phelps said. "Once you get to a meet like this, it's so emotionally draining."

Phelps has six medals, four gold, and the chance to win two more. Soviet gymnast Aleksander Dityatin is the only other Olympian to win eight medals in one Games. Dityatin won three golds, four silvers and a bronze in the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, which the USA and more than 50 other countries boycotted.

"First it was seven, now eight. I can't get away from numbers," Phelps said with a smile, adding he became aware of the record when he saw something about it online just before the Olympics began. "But, like I always say, I take one race at a time."

Phelps' last two races, though, are inextricably linked. In the morning session Friday, he will swim the butterfly leg for the USA in the medley relay qualifying heats. In the evening session, he will take on countryman Ian Crocker in the 100 fly, an event in which Crocker has beaten Phelps twice in the last year, but only by breaking the world record each time.

If Crocker wins again, he will swim the fly leg for the USA in the medley relay final Saturday. If Phelps finally conquers Crocker, he will swim in the relay final. Crocker has been slowed by a sore throat this week, and Phelps had the fastest qualifying time in Thursday's semifinals.

Whether he beats Crocker on Friday or not, Phelps will get whatever medal the USA wins. Phelps swam in only the preliminaries of the medley relay in last year's world championships, yet the gold won by the USA in the final counted toward his six-medal total.

The U.S. men, with world recordholders in three of the four swim strokes included in the medley relay, are heavily favored to win gold. Phelps will be on the podium to receive it Saturday only if he swims in the final. Otherwise, it will come in the mail.

"Everybody wants to win a finals relay," said Phelps, who led off the USA's victory in the 4x200 freestyle relay earlier this week. "It's exciting to be a part of that. I missed out on being part of that last year, so I definitely want to be a part of it this year."

If he were part of it, the men's medley relay — as the last swimming event of the Athens Games — could be the perfect capstone for Phelps and his roller coaster-riding teammates.

Princeton earned at least a tie for the No. 1 ranking for the fifth consecutive year of the rankings, which saw few changes among the highest-rated schools. The latest survey, which hits newsstands Monday, again has Yale at No. 3, followed by the University of Pennsylvania.

The University of California-Berkeley, at No. 21, was the top-rated public university. It was followed at 22 by the University of Virginia and the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor in a year that saw public universities generally hold their own despite state budget cuts across higher education.

Williams College was the top-ranked liberal arts college. Caltech was considered the best value among national universities based on ranking and price, including financial aid.

The rankings are generated by a formula that includes variables such as graduation and retention rates, faculty and financial resources, and the percentage of alumni who donate money to their alma mater.

The rankings are both reviled and breathlessly awaited by college administrators, who insist no formula can capture the value of a college experience but have been forced to acknowledge the enormous role rankings play in the minds of many applicants and parents.

Even the magazine, however, urges students to use the rankings as just one source of information.

"Dig into the data, read the numbers, then use that as a launching point to learn about the nature of the school, the personality," said Executive Editor Brian Kelly. "We say this is a great starting point, but we don't pretend it's anything more than that."

Princeton issued a statement saying administrators there "were pleased to be recognized as one of many outstanding universities" but that formulaic rankings "cannot capture the distinctiveness of any institution or whether one or another university might be an appropriate match for any individual student."

Harvard did not respond to requests for comment.

Management also told pilots union leaders that negotiations, which resumed a week ago, must end Friday so that members can vote "no later than Sept. 8," according to a copy of the proposal obtained by USA TODAY.

Under the proposal, the pay cuts could be minimized by work-rule changes that would boost pilot productivity.

Pilot spokesman Jack Stephan declined to discuss specifics, but says that the group is working on a counterproposal. Numbers or dates could change, he said.

"If it takes working through the weekend, I think our committee is prepared to do that," Stephan said.

US Airways management is eager to speed labor talks. The airline says it will file for bankruptcy protection if it fails to get its four labor groups to agree to concessions. It would be the second Chapter 11 filing in two years for the Arlington, Va.-based carrier.

In addition to the nearly $300 million in savings sought from pilots, the carrier is seeking $500 million from flight attendants, mechanics and customer-service agents. So far, pilot talks are most promising.

Talks took on new gravity this week when board Chairman David Bronner said that, absent a new cost structure, the airline can't survive long term, even under bankruptcy protection. Bronner runs the Retirement Systems of Alabama, which has invested $240 million in the airline and holds a controlling stake in it.

CEO Bruce Lakefield responded to Bronner's comments in a letter to workers Thursday, hoping to allay fears. In it, he called a new bankruptcy filing "a very real possibility," and said it would provide "no guarantee for success." But talk of "an imminent shutdown, a disruption of service or impending liquidation is simply not true."

He acknowledges that the new cuts will be painful, but said they could make US Airways "an absolutely fierce competitor."

Prior givebacks are costing pilots about $5 billion over about six years, Stephan says. The latest proposal would cost another $1.2 billion over the next four years.

Some pilots went from making about $200,000 a year to less than $100,000, Stephan says. The average US Airways pilot is 52. They must retire at age 60.

Airline consultant Ron Kuhlmann said passengers probably won't see any changes related to the proposed pilots' deal.

But, he said, "If it all comes together correctly, they might be flying on a solvent airline instead of an insolvent airline."

The report will substantiate claims by some Army military police that they were told by intelligence personnel to treat Iraqi detainees harshly to prepare them for questioning, the officials said. CIA personnel will be cited in the report for possible improper actions, with the recommendation that they be further investigated, the officials said.

The report stems from an investigation initially headed by Army Maj. Gen. George Fay, who was ordered to look into allegations of prisoner abuse by military intelligence personnel at Abu Ghraib, a sprawling prison complex about 20 miles west of Baghdad. Fay's investigation was one of several into abuses that occurred at Abu Ghraib last fall, including incidents in which prisoners were stripped naked and sexually humiliated and abused by U.S. personnel. An earlier investigation of the role of MPs by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba found widespread abuse and led to criminal charges against seven soldiers, one of whom pleaded guilty.

The officials described the Fay report as a complex document that deals with numerous issues, including specific allegations of prisoner abuse, the "culpability of omission" by individuals who failed to report or stop abuse, and confusion over which interrogation techniques could be used, how, and under what circumstances.

The report finds that military medical personnel became aware of abuse at Abu Ghraib while treating injured prisoners but failed to report it to their superiors, the officials said. The role of the medical personnel was first reported in The New York Times Thursday.

Investigators from the Army's criminal investigative division are separately reviewing at least 50 deaths of prisoners while in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to one of the officials. The Pentagon had previously acknowledged investigations into 39 deaths.

The Fay report does not cite any direct abuse of prisoners by officers. However, it does criticize senior officers for failing to provide proper oversight for the military intelligence personnel working at Abu Ghraib.

The report also says a volatile situation was created in the prison by the shifting rules about which interrogation techniques were permitted, the Defense officials said.

The report describes how an increasingly hostile environment inside the prison and outside its walls affected the behavior of soldiers inside.

The Fay investigation, which began in April, focused on the role of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, the unit that was in control of interrogations at Abu Ghraib. The brigade was under the command of Col. Thomas Pappas and Lt. Col. Steve Jordan.

The Fay investigation focused on officers up to Pappas who had direct day-to-day command over the prison, the Defense officials said. Under new privacy rules in effect at the Pentagon, Pappas and other individuals will not be identified by name in the report, one of the officials said.

Also scheduled to be released Tuesday are the results of an investigation chaired by former Defense secretary and CIA director James Schlesinger, which examined whether Pentagon officials set clear interrogation rules for Iraq.

The Senate Armed Services Committee has scheduled a hearing for Sept. 9 to review the Fay and Schlesinger reports.

Another investigation headed by the Navy Inspector General is looking at the handling of prisoners and interrogations throughout the military. There are also investigations underway of accusations of prisoner abuse in Afghanistan and another on allegations of abuse by special operations personnel in Iraq.

The spike brought prices close to the psychologically important $50 threshold.

U.S. light crude for September delivery peaked at $49.27 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, a new intraday high. That later fell to $49.20, 50 cents above Thursday's closing price of $48.70, which was the highest Nymex settlement on record.

Adjusted for inflation, oil is still about $8 less per barrel than it was leading up to the first Gulf War in 1991.

On London's International Petroleum Exchange Friday, Brent crude futures for October delivery also soared to a new intraday record of $45.15, before falling to $45.06.

Market watchers say some traders had started to whisper about the possibility of a $60 barrel, even as the head of producers' cartel OPEC made soothing but vague comments about "a significant outcome" from its next members' meeting in September.

OPEC President Purnomo Yusgiantoro said Friday in Jakarta: "I expect there will be a significant outcome from the meeting to overcome this big problem (of rising oil prices)."

Similar comments from OPEC officials have so far failed to halt the energy market's record-breaking run as investors suspect tight supplies and possible disruption are currently more powerful factors than loose assurances from the cartel.

OPEC accounts for a third of global supply, but about half the oil exported worldwide. Its ministers are set to gather in Vienna, Austria Sept.15-16.

Purnomo, who is also Indonesia's energy minister, told reporters the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will also meet with major non-OPEC oil producers at the meeting. He didn't elaborate.

"The momentum of fear is running so hot now, everyone is waiting for something bad to happen," said Ng Weng Hoong, editor at EnergyAsia.com in Singapore.

Market-watchers say concern was still focused on the showdown in Iraq with radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in the holy city of Najaf, a confrontation that has already lasted three weeks.

The militia has repeatedly threatened to target Iraq's vulnerable oil infrastructure, especially the Gulf state's pipeline network, accentuating market fears about tight global supplies.

Oil prices are now up 57% the past 12 months.

When asset prices undergo rapid shifts, trading levels often overshoot, or swing far beyond the levels dictated by fundamentals as quickly shifting sentiment takes hold. The condition accentuates volatility, as do the speculative activities of large hedge funds - investment pools for wealthy individuals.

The showdown in Iraq is just one of the factors that has driven crude prices to record highs this year, even as demand remains robust because of rebounding growth in major economies.

Analysts also cite the fear of more terror attacks in Saudi Arabia, the world's top producer, and the battle by Russian oil giant Yukos against bankruptcy as other factors behind the price surge. Production capacity remains stretched.

But Esa Ramasamy, editorial manager for oil in Asia at Platts, the energy market analysts, cautioned that the sight of repeated record highs is spurring major energy consumers — both countries and companies — to start economizing.

"At these kinds of dizzy heights, the reactions start setting in," he said, citing government-led efforts in South Korea and Thailand curb save power consumption. Both countries are oil importers.

"This will spread to other countries too," he said. "When everybody does it, it really puts demand down again."

Contributing: Associated Press Writer Jake Lloyd-Smith in Singapore

The first came just after midnight and killed two people and injured six, said Dia'a al-Jumeili, a doctor at Fallujah's main hospital.

A second warplane fired at least one missile into an industrial area of the city later Friday morning. It exploded in an open field, leaving a crater and spraying shrapnel across the doors of nearby automobile shops, but causing no serious damage and no casualties.

The military could not immediately be reached for comment.

Insurgents responded to the earlier attack by firing mortars toward a nearby U.S. base as calls of "God is Great" and Quranic verses, used to boost the morale of the fighters, blared from the loudspeakers of mosques.

U.S. forces have routinely bombed targets in the cities it says are insurgent safehouses or strongholds. Fallujah is located some 65 kilometers (40 miles) west of Baghdad.

Many of the Sunni insurgents believed responsible for the spate of kidnappings, bombings and shooting attacks at coalition troops, Iraqi forces and civilians, are based in the city.

Since the U.S. Marines pulled back from Fallujah after besieging the city for three weeks in April, the military has been limited to using long distance strikes against targets there.

The moves came after a day and night of fighting in Najaf that killed 77 people and wounded 70 others, as al-Sadr militiamen mortared a police station and U.S. warplanes carried out bombing raids.

By daylight Friday, however, the holy city south of Baghdad appeared the quietest it has in weeks.

Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said a peaceful resolution was possible and backed off the threats he made a day earlier to send a massive Iraqi force into the shrine to root out militants, a move that could damage the holy site and further enrage the nation's majority Shiites.

"We are not going to attack the mosque, we are not going to attack Muqtada al-Sadr and the mosque, evidently we are not going to do this," Allawi told BBC radio. "We are not going to attack the shrines at all."

"We have extended the olive branch, the olive branch is still extended, he can take advantage of the olive branch," Allawi said. "We want a peaceful solution."

In a sermon read on his behalf in the nearby Kufa Mosque, al-Sadr said he wanted the religious authorities to take control of the Old City from his Mahdi Army, though he also called on all Muslims to rise up if the shrine is attacked.

"I call on the Arab and Islamic people: If you see the dome of the holy Imam Ali Shrine shelled, don't be lax in resisting the occupier in your countries," he said. It was unclear if al-Sadr was calling for worldwide attacks on U.S. forces — which he often refers to as Iraq's occupier.

With peace efforts continuing, U.S. tanks were on the streets late Friday morning, but residents reported seeing some of the Mahdi Army militia pulling out of the Old City.

The Imam Ali Shrine compound, which had been filled with hundreds of chanting and bellicose gunmen in recent days, appeared far calmer. Video of the compound and its outskirts, shown on the Arab television station Al-Jazeera, revealed far fewer people inside and no armed men. One sandbagged gun position outside the shrine was abandoned.

U.S. forces said they were still geared up for a fight.

"We are continuing to do planning and preparations for continuous offensive operations to get Mahdi militia destroyed, to capture Muqtada al-Sadr and to turn the holy shrine back to the Iraqi people," Lt. Col. Myles Miyamasu, of the 1st Cavalry Division, told CNN on Friday.

Explosions and gunbattles raged in Najaf all day Thursday. During the night, warplanes were "clearing Muqtada militia positions" east of the shrine, U.S. Marine Capt. Carrie Batson said. At least 30 explosions shook the Old City.

Before dawn Friday, U.S. forces also fired precision-guided bombs at militiamen who were firing mortars at U.S. troops in the neighboring cemetery and Old City, Batson said.

Earlier Thursday, militants bombarded a Najaf police station with mortar rounds, killing seven police and injuring 35 others. Another round hit near the same station Friday, but inflicted no casualties.

In Baghdad, troops from the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division pulled out of the Sadr City slum, scene of fierce fighting between U.S. forces and supporters of the rebel cleric the day before, when five fighters and five civilians were killed.

U.S. Capt. Brian O'Malley said soldiers "went all the way through the city and back" but pulled out Friday to respect the Muslim Sabbath.

In Fallujah, U.S. warplanes launched two airstrikes Friday on the troubled Iraqi city, considered a hotbed of Sunni Muslim insurgents. Two people were killed and six injured in the first attack just after midnight, said Dia'a al-Jumeili, a doctor at Fallujah's main hospital.

A second warplane fired at least one missile into an industrial area of the city later Friday morning. It exploded in an open field, leaving a crater and spraying shrapnel across the doors of nearby automobile shops, but causing no serious damage.

Shrapnel from the second blast also hit an ice cream factory, wounding three people, said Adel Khamis, another doctor at Fallujah General Hospital.

U.S. forces have routinely bombed targets in the city it says are insurgent safehouses or strongholds. Fallujah is located some 40 miles west of Baghdad, witnesses said.

Elsewhere in Iraq, militants attacked oil facilities in the north and south, fired mortars at U.S. Embassy offices in the capital, injuring one American, and threatened to kill two hostages, a Turkish worker and a U.S. journalist.

The violence in Najaf between the insurgents and a combined U.S.-Iraqi force has angered many in Iraq's Shiite majority and proven a major challenge to Allawi's fledgling interim government as it tries to build credibility and prove it is not a U.S. puppet.

Meanwhile, with pressure mounting, al-Sadr has taken alternating stances of defiance and conciliation.

After Allawi made a "final call" on Thursday for the cleric's militia to surrender and threatened to send a massive force into the shrine, al-Sadr sent a telephone text message vowing to seek "martyrdom or victory," and his jubilant followers inside the shrine danced and chanted.

Later, a top al-Sadr aide said the cleric had ordered his militia to turn over control of the shrine. But in a letter shown by the Arab television station Al-Arabiya, al-Sadr said he would not disband his Al Mahdi Army.

After struggling for three quarters and even going into the fourth down 67-62, the USA simply pounded the ball inside, turned up the defensive pressure and looked like the team everyone expected to see at the Olympics. It started the period with a 10-0 run, with all of the points coming on either layups or dunks. The USA outscoreed Australia 24-12 in the final stanza and of the 12 field goals they made only one shot was not from point blank range.

"We continue to struggle from outside, but we got the ball inside," said coach Larry Brown. "This was the first time we really did that when we needed to. We've got to remember how we won this game. When you get the ball inside, something good usually happens. But eventually you are still going to have to make a jump shot."

Australia built as large as a 12-point lead in the second period, relying on three-point shooting. The Aussies were 8-for-12 from long range in the first half, but only 4-for-14 in the second. The USA was 3-for-17 from three-point range, with Allen Iverson making all three. But in this game, at least, that poor shooting didn't matter as the USA shot 71% from two-point range. The 89 points is the most the USA has scored so far, having not gotten out of the 70s in its first two games.

"We're just coming back each day and trying to get better," said guard Dwayne Wade.

Tim Duncan was the main recipient of the ball going inside as he led the USA with 18 points and 11 rebounds. But it was LeBron James, Wade and Shawn Marion who set the tone.

Wade had four assists to go with his 12 points, James had four assists and eight points and Marion, who may have earned a spot as the starting small forward in place of Richard Jefferson, was 8-for-10 from the field and finished with 16 points and eight rebounds. All three also upped the tempo of the game when they were on the floor, particularly Marion.

"Everybody on this team has a role and everyone's can't be to score all of the time," Marion said. "If I got to bring energy, I bring energy. If I've got to bring rebounds, I'll rebound — scoring, whatever."

James, feeling more comfortable on this team, was impressive as he scored on two rim-rattling fast break lob dunks and made a number of key passes inside that resulted in easy layups. He had played only about 11½ minutes in each of the first two games, but was on the floor for 18 against Australia. And, according to Brown, will continue to get more minutes as the tournament progresses.

"I'm going to contribute any way I can," James said. "I don't care if I get 40 minutes or 10 minutes."

At 6-8, James is at least six inches taller than all of the other guards, and knows how to utilize his size. "If T.D. (Duncan) doesn't get the ball we can't win," James said. "He's the best player in the world and I can see over the defense easier than Stephon (Marbury and Allen (Iverson) and get it into him."

Brown utilized James as an initiator on offense and was also impressed with his defense and the way he has improved since he has been here. "He was the first guy against Greece to make an effort to throw it inside," Brown said. "He's great at making the first pass and passes to start plays are more valuable that passes that end plays. His hustle plays against Greece turned that game around, too."

The USA is now 2-1 in group play and in position to win the group, which would give it an easier path to the gold medal. Up next, on Saturday, is perhaps its toughest opponent in its group, European champion Lithuania.

"Everything isn't clicking yet," said Duncan, "but we're headed that way."

FINA officials said the decision was reversed because the judge in Peirsol's lane provided inadequate details about the alleged violation that were "not in the working language of FINA."

Peirsol, the world record-holder and current world champion, led most of the race and easily beat the field, touching first in 1 minute, 54.95 seconds. He was more than two seconds ahead of the next swimmer, Austria's Marcus Rogan.

Peirsol clutched a lane rope and held up his right index finger, thinking he had become the fifth swimmer to sweep both backstroke events at the Olympics, after already winning gold in the 100.

But there was a delay in putting up the official results. After several minutes, the scoreboard flashed "DSQ" beside Peirsol's name — a disqualification. The crowd gasped and then began to boo. Still standing on deck, the 21-year-old from Irvine, Calif., shrugged his shoulders in disbelief.

"It sounds pretty bogus to me," he said. "I think I got disqualified for crossing the lane line before people had finished, but I'm not sure."

Coincidentally, Peirsol stirred controversy earlier in the meet when he accused Japan's Kosuke Kitajima of doing an illegal dolphin kick while winning the 100 breaststroke. Swimming officials found nothing wrong with Kitajima's technique, and he completed a sweep of the breaststroke events in the 200 Wednesday night.

Rogan wound up with silver in 1:57.35, while Romania's Razvan Florea settled for bronze (1:57.56). Great Britain's James Goddard, who initially had a bronze, dropped back to fourth in 1:57.76.

Goddard was second much off the race, only to get passed by Rogan and Florea on the final leg. He said he didn't know what happened in Peirsol's lane.

"You can hear the crowd and they are not happy," he said. "There should be a way on the scoreboard so people know why there is a disqualification."

Peirsol won the 100 back Monday and duplicated teammate Lenny Krayzelburg's sweep of the backstroke events in 2000. At the Sydney Games, Peirsol gave a glimpse of his potential by winning silver in the 200.

Phelps notches new Olympic record in 100 fly semifinal

Michael Phelps led the field in the 100 fly semis, posting an Olympic record of 51.61. Andre Serdinov (Ukraine) followed in 51.74. World record holder Ian Crocker, who has rebounded nicely from a disappointing first few days, followed in 51.83. Igor Marchenko (Russia), Gabriel Mangabeira (Brazil), Geoff Huegill (Australia), Thomas Rupprath (Germany) and Duje Draganja (Croatia) round out the final field of eight. It took 52.74 to make the medal round.

One July night in 2003, all three of the top three finishers in the Olympic men's 100 fly semifinals held the world record. First came Andrei Serdinov's mark in the world championship semifinals. It was broken minutes later by Michael Phelps. Then Ian Crocker snatched the world record the next night in the final when he became the first man under 51 seconds. The mark has remained the property of Ian Crocker for over a year now.

200 IM podium made in the USA

American Michael Phelps won his fourth gold medal of the Olympics in the 200-meter individual medley Thursday night, leading the entire race.

Phelps finished in an Olympic-record time of 1 minute, 57.14 seconds, lowering his own mark of 1:58.52 set in the semifinals one night earlier.

Ryan Lochte of Daytona Beach, Fla., earned silver in 1:58.78. George Bovell of Trinidad, who swims for Auburn University, took bronze in 1:58.80.

Phelps, the world record-holder and current world champion, earned his third individual gold medal in Athens. Mark Spitz is the only other swimmer to win more than two in a single Olympics. Spitz won four — and Phelps still has one individual event remaining, the 100-meter butterfly on Friday.

The 19-year-old from Baltimore was unsuccessful in his bid to break Spitz's record of seven golds in the 1972 Munich Games, but still could end up with eight medals.

Phelps, who is moving to Ann Arbor this fall to attend Michigan and train with Club Wolverine, also has two bronze medals, giving him the largest personal haul so far of any athlete in Athens. His other golds were in the 200 butterfly, 400 individual medley and 800 freestyle relay.

Russian gymnast Aleksandr Dityatin is the only person to win eight medals at a single Olympics, earning three gold, four silver and one bronze in the boycotted 1980 Moscow Games. Eight athletes have won seven, including Spitz and U.S. swimmer Matt Biondi in 1988.

South Africa's Schoeman snags top seed in 50 free final

South African sprinter Roland Schoeman posted the top time in the 50 free semis, with American Lezak Jason Lezak hot on his heels in 22.12. Defending gold medalist and American record holder Gary Hall also moves on with his 22.18.

South Africa's Schoeman snags top seed in 50 free final

South African sprinter Roland Schoeman posted the top time in the 50 free semis, with American Lezak Jason Lezak hot on his heels in 22.12. Defending gold medalist and American record holder Gary Hall also moves on with his 22.18.

Prelims: Popov, Hoogie left out of 50 free semis

Two-time Olympic champion Alexander Popov of Russia and Pieter van den Hoogenband of the Netherlands, the 2000 bronze medalist, didn't make the 16-man evening semifinal.

Van den Hoogenband, the 100 free gold medalist, was 17th in 22.56 — just three-hundredths of a second out of the last berth. Popov, 32, tied for 18th with a time of 22.58 seconds — well off the world record of 21.64 he set in June 2000.

Gary Hall, who tied teammate Anthony Ervin for gold at the Sydney Games and finished second to Popov in 1996, was fastest in 22.04.

Frederick Bousquet of France was second in 22.24 and Bart Kizierowski of Poland was third in 22.26. Kizierowski trains with Hall in Berkeley, Calif.

Lezak of Irvine, Calif., was seventh in 22.33.

The king is dead, long live the king

The results were as surprising as the 100 free, when Popov was eliminated in the semifinals, Lezak and Crocker were knocked out in the preliminaries, and Hall didn't qualify in the event at the U.S. trials.

Popov became the first man to win consecutive 50 freestyle Olympic titles, at Barcelona in 1992 and Atlanta four years later.

"We'll miss him," said Bob Bowman, a U.S. assistant and Phelps' coach. "He's such a great ambassador for this sport, but it's like a heavyweight boxer. They won't go out until they're knocked out. Maybe this is a sign it's time to move on."

Lack of sleep and focus causes Hoogie to stumble in 50 free

Van den Hoogenband blamed his failure on the exciting aftermath of his victory in the 100 freestyle Wednesday night. He got about four hours' sleep, staring at the ceiling of his room before stepping out on the balcony to see the sights.

"It was such a big night for me," he said. "I am so very happy."

Van den Hoogenband could hardly make his way around the athletes' village, the bus and the pool without being stopped by admirers.

"When I went to the dining room, they were standing up and cheering for me," he said. "When I got on the bus, everyone was saying, "Yeah, Pieter.' Everywhere it was, 'Yeah, Pieter.' Finally, I was like, 'What am I doing today? Oh yeah, the 50.'"

Van den Hoogenband was approached for autographs in the minutes before he walked on deck to race.

"When I got on the starting blocks, I was like, 'Focus, focus, focus,' but I couldn't," he said.

The 50 free will be Hall's only moment to shine in Athens.

He was miffed about being left off the 400 free relay team for Sunday's final. He didn't bother coming to the pool to see the Americans finish third. And he was told he won't be on the 400 medley relay team, either.

"He wasn't happy with that," U.S. men's coach Eddie Reese said. "You've got to prove it at this meet. What happened a year ago or four years ago doesn't matter."

Hall suggested the U.S. coaches were giving special treatment to Phelps by putting him on the 400 free relay, even though the 19-year-old from Baltimore didn't compete in the 100 free at the U.S. trials, which usually determines the pool of relay swimmers. Phelps' bid to break Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in one games was partially derailed by the relay's third-place finish.

"Gary and I are going to disagree," Reese said. "I tried to convince him that Michael was not here to win seven gold medals and I'm not here to help him."

Crocker rebounds, leading 100 fly qualifiers

In the men's 100 butterfly, Phelps took a back seat to Crocker, who set the world record at last month's U.S. trials. Crocker, of Portland, Maine, was fastest in 52.03 and Phelps was third in 52.35.

Crocker came into the meet with a sore throat, draining his energy in the 4x100 free relay and causing him to miss the semifinals of the individual 100 free.

"I haven't been sleeping too well," said Phelps, who could still finish with eight medals. "This has been an emotionally and physically draining meet."

Andriy Serdinov of Ukraine was second in 52.05. Geoff Huegill of Australia, the 2000 bronze medalist, was fifth.

The first game will be played after the 2005 season and is expected to earn the ACC $6 million annually. The league is adding the game as part of its expansion to 12 teams — Miami and Virginia Tech are joining the conference this year and Boston College will join next year.

"It's formal and official ... Jacksonville has landed the ACC football championship game," Florida State athletic director Dave Hart told The Florida Times-Union after emerging from a noon meeting of ACC faculty representatives in Greensboro, N.C.

Jacksonville gets the game on a two-year contract, with an option for another two years at the city's discretion.

Jacksonville and Charlotte, N.C., were the top cities seeking the game.

The decision will give the city its third major college football game at Alltel Stadium along with the Gator Bowl and the annual Florida-Georgia game. In addition, the 2005 Super Bowl is being played in Jacksonville.

"We are absolutely ecstatic that we have been awarded this game. We look forward to hosting this game for many years to come," Gator Bowl President Rick Catlett told the newspaper.

City officials and the Gator Bowl called a Thursday afternoon news conference to announce the decision.

None of the six proposals from cities pursuing the Expos is complete enough to satisfy and be accepted, Major League Baseball President Bob DuPuy said.

"There's nothing yet that we can tie a ribbon on and sign today," DuPuy said after the relocation committee met during owners meetings in Philadelphia. The session was attended by Commissioner Bud Selig. (Related item: Owners extend Selig through 2009)

"We enumerated with the commissioner all the current offers and the standing of the various offers," DuPuy said. "He asked a number of pertinent questions. We intend to continue discussions with more than one of the candidates over the next couple of weeks. No decisions have been made, and no cities eliminated."

The other potential cities are Norfolk, Va., Portland, Ore., Las Vegas and Monterrey, Mexico. USA TODAY reported in June that Washington and Northern Virginia had emerged as the front-runners but that the relocation committee was split.

That Northern Virginia is facing serious issues is a setback for the committee. The location, about 60 miles from Baltimore's Camden Yards, could be used as a compromise to sway Orioles owner Peter Angelos, who opposes a team in Washington.

DuPuy refused to say when a decision will be made. Earlier this week he said issues such as financing, traffic and zoning laws were keeping baseball from coming to Northern Virginia or Washington, and not Angelos.

"The effort is to get it done as soon as we can get it done," he said Wednesday.

Chicago White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, who chairs the relocation committee, said outside of labor negotiations "this Montreal situation is the most difficult thing I have been involved with. There's no easy answer."

The Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority has stated a major advantage of its plan is that the financing is in place for a $442 million stadium.

But MLB's concerns about Northern Virginia seem to echo those of Virginia House Speaker William J. Howell, who said last week a plan to pay for the stadium using "moral obligation" bonds could face resistance in the Virginia General Assembly.

The Northern Virginia proposal is also based on the stadium financing plan including an $82 million contribution from developers who want the stadium to anchor a tract with new homes, retail and commercial space.

The Washington Post recently reported that much of the land included in that phase of the deal has yet to be acquired by the developer.

The Washington proposal includes a downtown stadium costing between $278 million and $385 million.

Crude oil futures pushed past the $47 mark and closed up 52 cents with the release of fresh U.S. government data that showed inventories of oil and gasoline fell last week.

U.S. stockpiles of oil and gasoline remain about 4% above last year's levels but haven't been sufficient to calm fears that events in volatile Iraq, Venezuela and Russia could lead to the loss of critical supplies.

Oil prices trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange have set intraday highs each day since July 30.

Energy traders are watching to see if:

• A rebel Shiite cleric whose militia is battling U.S. troops in Iraq in the holy city of Najaf honors his pledge to disarm his forces. Muqtada al-Sadr, who has backed out of past promises to demobilize his militia, agreed to a new deal late Wednesday. He had spurned a peace overture from an Iraqi government delegation a day earlier. (Related story: Rebel cleric says he will disarm)

Production in Iraq's southern oil fields has been cut in half, following al-Sadr's threats to blow up pipelines and other facilities there.

• Leading Russian oil producer Yukos can continue to pump and ship crude amid efforts by government authorities to collect billions in back taxes. China, which buys 124,000 barrels a day from Yukos, offered Wednesday to pay Russian rail fees to prevent any disruption in supplies.

Yukos executives have warned the company will soon go bankrupt if it does not get more time to pay a $3.4 billion tax bill.

• Venezuela's political opposition takes to the streets, following what it says was a fraudulent Sunday recall vote on President Hugo Chavez. International observers, including former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and the Organization of American States, have agreed to examine the opposition's tampering evidence.

At home, the Energy Department said commercial oil stockpiles declined for the third consecutive week, drawn down to make up for lost production in the Gulf of Mexico, where tropical storms forced platform evacuations. Gasoline stocks fell for the second week in a row.

Retail gasoline prices edged up, according to motorist club AAA. Nationally, regular unleaded averaged $1.869 a gallon, down from $1.917 a month ago but far above the $1.609 average at this time last year.

The nation's refineries are running at 96% of capacity, the Energy Department said Wednesday.

Contributing: Wire reports

The judge didn't say what the development was and the lawyers are barred by a gag order from discussing it.

Delucchi had said defense attorneys would begin their cross-examination of star witness Amber Frey, Peterson's former lover, on Wednesday morning. The defense had even set up a big screen with a digital media presentation before the lawyers went behind closed doors.

Frey is now scheduled to take the stand again Monday. Three other witnesses will likely testify Thursday, the judge said. Prosecutors are trying to show jurors that an affair with Frey was Peterson's motive for killing his pregnant wife, Laci, who vanished just before Christmas 2002.

On Tuesday, jurors heard the fifth day of phone conversations between Peterson and Frey that she had taped at the request of police. In all, jurors heard 24 of the more than 200 calls that the two made to each other while authorities searched for Laci between late December 2002 and February 2003.

Under an order from Delucchi, defense attorney Mark Geragos cannot ask Frey during cross-examination about any relationships she had before or after meeting Peterson unless they were discussed on the taped conversations.

In a call Feb. 7, 2003, played in court Tuesday, Peterson tells Frey he is spending the night in Sacramento and will call her the next day from a pay phone.

Frey asks Peterson why he is going to Sacramento.

"I can tell you but not on these phones," Peterson replies, in an apparent reference to his calls being listened to. It was unclear whether Peterson knew Frey was taping him.

In a later call, Peterson expresses frustration that Laci's family "is accusing me of having something to do with it (her disappearance) now."

Prosecutors allege Peterson killed Laci in their Modesto home on or around Dec. 24, 2002, then dumped her weighted body from a small boat into San Francisco Bay. Her badly decomposed remains and the couple's fetus washed up along a bay shore in April 2003, not far from where Peterson said he launched a solo fishing trip the day she vanished.

Geragos argues Peterson was framed after the real killer learned of his widely publicized alibi. The defense concedes Peterson had an extramarital affair but said that fact does not make him a killer.

During one on Feb. 7 played Tuesday, Peterson presses Frey to see him.

"I just know that if we got to sit down ... I think of how both of us could be experiencing something so unbelievable that I think it would help both of us," Peterson says.

"I just don't see how that would be possible," Frey says.

Peterson calls back several minutes later. He can be heard sobbing throughout the call.

"You know I'm not a monster, Amber," he says before suggesting the pair meet at a friend's mountain home about 60 miles east of Los Angeles.

"In 1992, Senator Miller delivered the keynote address in the very same arena at the Democrats' convention," GOP chairman Ed Gillespie said in making the announcement. "We're honored he'll be taking the stage at the Garden this year for President Bush."

Thirty-year mortgage rates averaged 5.81% in the week ended Aug. 19, down from 5.85% a week earlier, Freddie Mac said. They were again the lowest since an average of 5.79% in the week ended April 8, 2004.

Freddie Mac said 15-year mortgages stood at an average of 5.19%, down from 5.24% last week and the lowest since they averaged 5.12%, also in the April 8, 2004, week.

One-year adjustable rate mortgages dipped in the week to an average of 4.01% from 4.08%, the lowest since 3.98% in the June 3, 2004, week.

"Mortgage rates eased even further this week in response to a setback in economic growth during June and possibly July," Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist, said in a statement.

But he added, "We believe the slowdown to be temporary and we expect growth to pick back up in the second half of this year."

He pointed to a recent Commerce Department report of an 8.3% surge in July housing starts as evidence that "lower rates have spurred further expansion of homeownership.

"Thanks in great part to the low mortgage rates we have experienced thus far, 2004 will be another banner year for the housing industry," Nothaft added.

Next week the National Association of Realtors will release July existing home sales and the Commerce Department will issue new home sales for that month. Commerce will also release another estimate of second-quarter 2004 U.S. gross domestic product.

Freddie Mac said lenders charged an average of 0.7% in fees and points on 30-year mortgages, up from 0.6% last week. They charged 0.6% on 15-year mortgages and the ARM, both unchanged from last week.

Freddie Mac is a mortgage finance company chartered by Congress that buys mortgages from lenders and packages them into securities for investors or holds them in its own portfolio.

The stock started at $100.01 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, $15.01 higher than its initial offering price. Within minutes, Google was at $98.08, with 5.5 million shares changing hands.

The stock was widely expected to start trading at 11:40 a.m. ET. Around that time, the price was reported to have topped $140 a share at Nasdaq, which then put out word that those figures were incorrect.

Minutes later, the stock was reported up more than $13 a share to around $98.

Nasdaq officials said a delay in trading is standard for IPOs, and added that there were some technical issues as the Nasdaq matched bid and ask prices in the minutes leading up to trading.

A Nasdaq official said the false start was the result of two trades that "should not have gone through."

Google executives, guarded tightly by security, were at the stock market's broadcasting studio in Manhattan to mark the start of the trading session Thursday morning at 9:30 a.m. ET.

Google closed its unusual auction to set its initial stock price Wednesday after receiving regulatory approval for its IPO.

The popular Internet search engine e-mailed investors registered to bid on its shares that it priced the initial public offering at $85 a share. That was the low end of the new expected range, which was already reduced from $108-$135. (Related: What about Google's business?)

Also, Google's two founders cut in half the number of shares they expected to sell as part of the offering, and several big shareholders said they would not sell anything in the IPO.

The upshot: Rather than raising $3.1 billion in what would have been the 13th-biggest initial public offering, the sale would raise just $1.7 billion — which would not even rank it in the top 25 IPOs.

Co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who would have been worth $4.6 billion midway in the original IPO range, saw the value of their post-sale stakes shrink to $3.2 billion. Still, that would rank them near 50th on the Forbes richest Americans list.

A series of missteps by Google and renewed turmoil in tech stocks proved a powerful problem for what has been billed as the most anticipated IPO since the tech bubble burst. "Google has stumbled badly out of the gate, even before it was out of the gate," says David Garrity of research firm Caris & Co.

Late Wednesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission granted Google's request to certify the IPO, after delaying the offering 24 hours. Separately, Google said the SEC was investigating whether its co-founders had violated "quiet period" rules. Soon after the SEC decision, Google closed the unusual auction for its shares and notified winning bidders.

Despite the blemishes, the IPO is another big accomplishment for the company. Started less than six years ago, Google has thrived letting consumers search the Internet for free while it charges advertisers for putting links on its Web site.

Contributing: Associated Press, Reuters

Explosions and gunbattles persisted Thursday through the streets of the holy city of Najaf, wracked by violence since the Shiite militant uprising began two weeks ago. Witnesses said a U.S. warplane fired missiles at a hotel in a neighborhood where Mahdi Army militants were known to take up fighting positions.

U.S. forces and Shiite insurgents also fought in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City, where more than 50 militants and civilians were killed Thursday, Mahdi Army spokesman Na'eem al-Kaabi said.

U.S. tanks moved throughout the streets of the impoverished Baghdad neighborhood on Thursday, and helicopter gunships shot at militants from the skies. The U.S. military had no immediate comment on the operation.

A mortar attack Thursday on a building housing offices of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad wounded one American, an embassy spokesman said.

The mortar round hit the roof of one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces inside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy said on condition of anonymity.

Just a day earlier, al-Sadr — in a letter to a national conference in Baghdad — had accepted a peace plan to disarm his fighters, withdraw from the Imam Ali Shrine and turn to politics in exchange for amnesty. But the cleric also insisted he be allowed to negotiate the terms of the plan's implementation, a demand the government dismissed. (Related video: Morning had been quiet)

Reiterating the refusal to negotiate with the armed militants, Allawi called on al-Sadr to accept the government demands to end the Najaf fighting personally — not through aides or letters as he has been communicating so far.

"When we hear from him and that he is committed to execute these conditions we will ... give him and his group protection," the prime minister said in a Baghdad news conference.

Allawi's demand that al-Sadr personally accept the peace deal appeared to be a step back from Minister of State Qassim Dawoud's earlier ultimatum, demanding that al-Sadr's militia immediately evacuate the shrine and drop its weapons to stave off a government offensive.

While government ministers had threatened a possible offensive in Najaf in the coming hours, Allawi set no deadline, saying only "we need to have a solution soon."

Any threatened raid on the Imam Ali Shrine — where the militants are holed up as they battle U.S. and Iraqi forces — could inflame the country's majority Shiite population against the government, especially if the holy site was damaged. Other Muslim countries, including Shiite Iran, have appealed to the Iraqi government to seek a peaceful solution to the crisis.

The Arab League chief on Thursday called for an immediate end to military operations in Najaf and said Iraqi civilians must be spared. Secretary-General Amr Moussa received news of artillery "shelling and renewed clashes with great uneasiness," Arab League spokesman Hossam Zaki said in a statement faxed to The Associated Press.

An al-Sadr representative in Baghdad, Abdel-Hadi al-Darraji, warned that fighting in Najaf could "ignite a revolution all over Iraq."

"We welcome any initiative to stop the bloodbath in Najaf," he told Al-Arabiya television. "Otherwise the battle will move to Baghdad, Amarah, Basra and anywhere in Iraq."

Government accusations that the militants had mined the shrine compound and reports that women and children were among those inside could further complicate a raid.

U.S. troop action against the shrine also would increase outrage in the Shiite world, but Iraqi officials have said a crack squad of Iraqi troops would lead an assault on the poorly trained militants, and U.S. forces would not go inside the compound.

The crisis in Najaf poses the greatest challenge yet to the authority Allawi's fledgling government, which is seeking to gain support from skeptical Iraqis and bring stability to the violence-plagued country.

The Najaf violence has spread to other Shiite communities, including Baghdad's Sadr City slum. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Wednesday that 50 militants were killed in recent fighting.

Several loud explosions rattled central Baghdad on Thursday afternoon, sending at least one plume of black smoke into the sky. The cause of the blasts was not immediately clear.

As part of the government's ultimatum to disarm or risk attack, al-Sadr must also sign a statement saying he will refrain from future violence and release all civilians and Iraqi security forces his militants have kidnapped. In addition, al-Sadr must hold a news conference to announce he is disbanding the Mahdi Army.

"The military action has become imminent," the minister of state, Dawoud, told reporters. "If these conditions are not met, then the military solution will prevail."

Al-Sadr quickly rejected the demands, according to Haidar al-Tourfi, an official at al-Sadr office's office in Najaf. "Either martyrdom or victory," was the cleric's response, sent in a text message presumably from his hideout inside the holy city, al-Tourfi said.

Government ministers have said they hoped a devastating offensive against the Mahdi Army would send a message to other insurgents waging a 16-month-old uprising against the government across Iraq.

"We will take the military action to ... end this abnormal phenomenon so that this phenomenon would be a lesson for all the outlaws" in Iraq, Dawoud told Al-Arabiya.

Three U.S. tanks and two Humvees were parked about 400 yards from the Imam Ali shrine, about as close as U.S. forces have come to the holy site during the fighting.

The military said an American base in Najaf came under mortar attack early Thursday, but no casualties were reported.

U.S. Marines also conducted raids in three parts of Kufa, just east of Najaf. The military said "close air support" was called in, but gave no details.

Mahdi Army militants could be seen manning positions in narrow alleys of the Old City and outside the shrine compound. A clock on the compound's outer wall, reportedly hit by shrapnel, was smoldering and huge plumes of black smoke billowed above the skyline.

Fearful of the violence, few civilians ventured out and most stores, some damaged during the fighting, were closed.

After the mortar attack on the police station, a Najaf hospital was overflowing with the causalities, which a hospital official put at least seven dead and 31 wounded. Some of the wounded were forced to sit on the hospital floor as others lined the halls. Blood pooled on the floor and moans of pain echoed in the corridors

The U.S. military says the Najaf clashes have killed hundreds of militants, though the militants deny that. Nine U.S. troops and at least 47 Iraqi police have been killed as well.

In Washington, the Bush administration said al-Sadr needed to match words with deeds. "We have seen many, many times al-Sadr assume or say he is going to accept certain terms and then it turns out not to be the case," said National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

Meanwhile, the Arab television station Al-Jazeera aired a video Thursday showing a militant group calling itself the Martyrs Brigade vowing to kill a missing Western journalist if U.S. forces don't leave Najaf within 48 hours. The authenticity of the tape could not be determined. (Related story: Militant group threatens to kill journalist Video)

The video showed a man resembling missing 36-year-old journalist Micah Garen kneeling in front of five masked militants armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Garen's father and his fiancee were unavailable for comment.