In Baghdad today, as an American, the list of what you can't do is a lot longer than the list of what you can.You can't: eat in a restaurant; see a movie; hail a taxi; go out at night; stroll down the street; stand in a crowd; stay in one spot too long; use the same route twice; get stuck in traffic; forget to barricade your hotel-room door at night; neglect to speak in code when using walkie-talkies; go anywhere without armed guards, communication devices, IDs, a Kevlar vest, and a multi-vehicle convoy.You can't forget you're a target. Other than that, it's not so bad.On the morning flight from Amman to Baghdad you'll find the desperate, the downtrodden, the curious, the convinced; you'll find true believers, truth-seekers, patriots, and parasites. They come looking for money or meaning, or something in between."Welcome to Free Iraq."That's what it says on the T-shirts they sell at Baghdad International Airport.Freedom's great, but so is security, and right now many Iraqis would trade a lot of the first for even some of the second.A Filipino clutching a machine gun shouts instructions in Tagalog to a gaggle of Halliburton workers fresh off the plane from Manila.Printed on the back of his baseball hat is the name of the security company he works for: CusterBattles. It doesn't exactly inspire confidence.Armor-plated cars with a team of Kevlar-vested guards, employed by CNN, meet me at the airport. I'll rarely be without them for the next several weeks.They are former British Special Forces soldiers. Tough, professional men who've done things you can't imagine in places you've never heard of. They don't talk much about where they've been, but one thing they'll tell you right away: Baghdad's the worst they've seen.Without enough soldiers on the ground, the United States has relied on a ghost army of around 20,000 private guards. Critics call them mercenaries, but here "private contractors" is the preferred term."Look at that G.I. Joe," says one of my guards, pointing to a security contractor manning a roadblock. "Isn't he all decked out."You see all kinds. Some are former Navy SEALs who know what they're doing and keep a low profile; others are weekend warriors you don't want to get anywhere near.They swagger around the city, tricked out in B-movie ninja gear: commando vests, knee pads, pistols on hips, knives in boots, machine guns at the ready.A little overweight, a little down on their luck -- for them this s--- came along at just the right time. A year here and they can earn $200,000. A good chunk of it tax-free.War is hell, but it's also an opportunity.There are true believers to be sure, holed up behind high walls and concertina, camped out in the Green Zone, the most protected spot in town. Civilians and soldiers, planners and plotters, trying to respond to events on the ground.The rest of us make do in seedy hotels with bedspreads that look like velvet Persian carpets and windows covered in blast protection.In the snail-slow hotel elevator, a South Korean woman with Birkenstocks and a DV camera exchanges death tolls with an aging Palm Beach playboy. His silver pompadour, double-breasted suit, suede shoes, and paisley pocket square seem very out of place."Did you hear? Three Iraqis were killed, IED," she says, giving the abbreviation for improvised explosive device."Yeah, two policemen got shot in Mosul," he responds.In the office, the numbers come across your computer screen, an endless string of press releases that will never make it on air. Three Turks kidnapped. One soldier killed. Two thousand flak jackets sent to the police. A grenade tossed into a liquor store. A surgeon shot to death outside his home.No names, just bodies. So many small acts of terror; after a while you lose track of them all.From the headlines and pictures you'd think it's complete chaos, but the truth is much more complicated than that. The terror is targeted. Some parts of the country appear peaceful. Other parts, anything but."It's nowhere near as bad as you see on TV," a young soldier says to me. "Sure, you get shot at sometimes, but most of the time it's real boring."During World War II, British troops in Iraq used to say about the town in southern Iraq they were based in, "Basra is the a--hole of the world, but Baghdad's a couple hundred miles up it." Most American soldiers in Baghdad today would likely agree.On patrol with the 1st Cavalry, the hours trickle by. At noon it's 110 degrees, and sweat comes out of body parts that you didn't know could sweat.The soldiers are drenched, their skin slick behind camouflage vests and wraparound sunglasses. You can't see anyone's eyes."I'm sweating more than an E-6 trying to read," Ryan Peterson jokes, his hands never far from the machine gun perched on the back of his Humvee.Peterson, an Illinois reservist, was ambushed in April. He's not sure how things here are going to turn out. "Frankly, it could go either way," he says. Though he's proud of what he's done, he can't wait to get home.Back at base, a camp called Victory, there's row after row of air-conditioned trailers, a Burger King, and a giant PX.You can buy "Who's your Baghdaddy?" T-shirts, electronics and potato chips or simply stand in the aisle and close your eyes, feel the cool air on your face.It feels like America, and though it doesn't last long, I'd be lying if I said it doesn't feel good."It's tough being here, with all these lonely, horny soldiers around," a female friend of mine jokes. She's a civilian working for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which was running the show here for more than a year.She hates it at times, but she can't imagine being anywhere else.A week before he hands over power to the new Iraqi government, I accompany the top U.S. official, Ambassador Paul Bremer, on a farewell tour of northern Iraq.The handover is happening earlier than the United States had originally planned, but little here has happened as originally planned.Bremer's worked 18-hour days, seven days a week. In the air he travels in a convoy of Black Hawk and Apache helicopters; on the ground he is surrounded by dozens of gun-toting guards.On the Black Hawk he largely ignores me, reading over papers and signing official documents. Bored, I examine his well-pressed shirt, his cuff links, and combat boots.His bodyguard reads a paperback copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie.Winning friends and influencing people has been Bremer's job here for more than a year. But on this, his farewell tour, his security seems to be pissing off an awful lot of Iraqis. In one town his detail gets into an argument with local Kurdish journalists.Insulted, they storm out, refusing to cover his press conference. The problem makes winning hearts and minds a difficult thing to do.Riding in a Black Hawk ... the heavy rotors slicing the air, your body shakes so much your skin starts to itch. Feet dangle from the open doors, blast-furnace heat bakes your face, sucking the moisture from your lips.You fly low, 50 feet off the ground, too close for an RPG to be effective. You pitch up over power lines, then plunge back down. The door gunner stays alert. It's hard not to be impressed by the high-tech horsepower of American might.Of course, Bremer's not the only one trapped in a security bubble. We all are, and breaking out is hard to do. You speed along in convoys, surrounded by barrel-chested guys with ceramic plates hidden underneath their shirts, machine guns in hand. Their eyes dart and bodies shift as a car swings out of nowhere alongside you.You stay tense, expecting an attack, but nothing happens, and after a while you stop noticing the weight of your flak jacket, stop feeling your heart beat against the heavy ceramic plate on your chest.I try to spend a couple of hours talking to Iraqis on the street, but the head security guy shows me a note warning of terrorists driving around looking to kidnap foreigners. We go out anyway, but only for a short time.The days blur. Night here is morning in New York, so you work around the clock. At first I sleep only a few hours each day, wake up stunned, my hotel blinds drawn against the heat, not sure where I am.Everything else falls away. Family, friends, bills, mortgages. You talk to people back home on the phone, and it's nice to hear from them, but then you've got to go, happily distanced from the drudgery of that life.It's like being high and not wanting to leave the club. You keep thinking you're going to miss something. One more pill, one more song, one more hour. The key, of course, is to leave before it gets really bad, but in the end, what fun is that?The truth is, it feels good; even amid destruction, you feel alive. It's not just some story you watch on TV -- pixelated people in a faraway land -- it's living, breathing, it fills your nostrils.In a rundown hospital, a young man lies on a plastic sheet, his body burned. A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of men waiting to join the new Iraqi army. Thirty-six were killed; this young man survived."When you get out, do you still plan to join the army?" I ask."Of course," he says. "It's an honor."Despite all the bombs and bullets, the bloodshed and fear, it's impossible not to notice the hope.The morning I leave, terrorists hit the hotels with rockets --not exactly the wake-up call I was expecting.Three Iraqi guards are injured. Thankfully no one is killed.Later, at the airport, when I'm standing on the tarmac and waiting to identify my luggage before boarding the plane, a mortar lands a few hundred meters away.The impact, crushingly loud, shakes the ground. A black plume of smoke rises high into the air. The other passengers look around to see where the shell has landed; a nervous tremor moves through the crowd."It's all right," says a teenage Iraqi baggage handler, laughing. "It's all right."

NORFOLK, Virginia (AP) -- A testing company that incorrectly scored online versions of Virginia's high school exit exam has offered $5,000 scholarships to five students who were blocked from graduating.The five students had already failed the English portion of the Standards of Learning test and had retaken it over the summer.In all, Pearson Educational Measurement told 60 Virginia students they had failed when they had actually passed. Students typically first take the exam in their junior year and are allowed to retake it. Five were prevented from graduating because of the error.Roanoke school officials alerted the company to the problem September 27 after discovering a student who had passed was listed as failing, said Charles B. Pyle, Virginia Department of Education spokesman.Pearson recently won a $139.9 million contract to take over the state's SOL testing program next year. It had been subcontracting the work."This is not common at all," said David Hakensen, Pearson's vice president for public relations. "This is a very unusual occurrence for us."In 2000, a Pearson scoring error caused 8,000 Minnesota students to flunk and kept 50 seniors from graduating. The company offered $7 million to wronged students in a mass settlement.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Education Secretary Margaret Spellings launched a major review of the nation's colleges Monday, citing slipping U.S. performance and scattershot decision-making."We make small fixes with programs to emphasize key areas, but we don't think strategically about the bigger picture," Spellings told a new team of policy advisers. "We can't afford to leave the future of our nation's higher education community to chance."Spellings' Commission on the Future of Higher Education has a task as sweeping as its name. By August 1, the group must recommend how to make colleges more accessible and affordable for families, accountable to policy-makers and competitive with peers worldwide.That goal is complicated because higher education in the United States is itself complex, a mix of largely independent schools with different missions, finances and political bases.For at least their first meeting, which largely focused on money matters, Spellings' advisers seemed pleased even to be talking about a coherent higher education strategy."We concentrate so much on what we're really good at that sometimes we don't look far enough out into the future and see what the problems are," said Charles Vest, professor of engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the school's former president.Spellings chose leaders from academia, corporate America and research for the panel, along with officials from the departments of Defense, Energy, Commerce and Labor.The college review is the most significant higher education initiative by the Bush administration, which is better known for its focus on reading and math in early grades.Part of Spellings' motivation is personal. She recently went through the college selection process with her oldest daughter and realized how confusing it is for families.Federal policymakers are also worried that the nation's colleges are not producing enough qualified workers and researchers, particularly in math, science and engineering. A string of government and independent reports has raised alarm about U.S. competitiveness.Commission members said that the country often doesn't know what it gets for its money because data on student learning in college are hard to find. The federal government commits about $80 billion a year to higher education in research grants and student aid."We don't really understand how money is used in higher education," said commission Chairman Charles Miller, former chairman of the board of regents for the University of Texas system. "I think most people outside higher education don't have a clue, and my experience inside is a lot of us who govern higher education don't know a lot about it."Spellings added that government and education leaders often have little good information about what's working and what's not, leading to "the accidental way that we make policy."She has set a goal of assuring that any students who work hard can go to college regardless of how much money their parents earn. And although she says it is time for significant federal action -- perhaps in the category of the G.I. Bill after World War II -- she has also assured observers that she is not advocating a bigger role for the government.The commission will hold meetings across the country over the next several months. Miller told reporters that the group will find a way to get direct input from college students.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Private aviation returned to Reagan Washington National Airport Tuesday, more than four years after restrictions were imposed in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.The first aircraft arrived at the airport across the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia, from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey about 7 a.m. EDT and taxied through a water arch formed by two fire trucks.The flight was permitted after the Transportation Security Administration introduced rigorous new rules which require passengers and crew members to undergo background checks.A certified armed security officer also must accompany each flight, and some trips require a federal sky marshal. Flights also have to land first at one of 12 gateway airports."This is a first step," said Rep. Tom Davis, R-Virginia. "There are still a ton of regulations."Reagan National's location is sensitive to security officials because the airport's runways carry planes near the White House, Capitol and Pentagon.Commercial airline flights at the airport resumed about a month after September 11, though it took incessant lobbying by local officials and business leaders -- as well as congressional intervention -- to persuade federal authorities the airport was safe for general aviation."To close Reagan down to general aviation sends the wrong signal," said Rep. Jim Moran, D-Virginia.But some people oppose opening the airport to private planes. They argue that it will be harder to differentiate planes that have permission to fly within the restricted airspace over Washington from those that don't have permission.Pilots have strayed hundreds of times since the government restricted airspace over the capital just before the start of the Iraq war in 2003. In many cases, fighter jets, which are prepared to shoot down a plane, have escorted an errant plane to an airport.Until Tuesday, most private flights were diverted to Manassas Regional Airport, about 30 miles southwest of Reagan National.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

ILULISSAT, Greenland (AP) -- It is one of the most barren and inhospitable places to live on the planet. Yet the Arctic landscape of Greenland attracts thousands of visitors yearly who marvel at the astounding beauty of icebergs, glaciers and a vast ice cap.The Kangia fjord, a UNESCO World Heritage Site outside this western Greenland town, offers one of the most dramatic views of the forces of nature in motion. Enormous blocks of ice break off with a thunderous roar from the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier and into the fjord before beginning their silent 25-mile voyage out to the Arctic Sea.Tourists wrapped in blankets watch the spectacle from cutters, zigzagging between the massive ice blocks, while others swoop down over the glacier in helicopters."I have never seen anything like this. The glacier is fantastic," said Javier Gonzales Garcia, 42, of Barcelona, Spain. "These are mountains like we have in Spain but they are of ice and disappear in the ocean. I will tell my grandchildren about this when I get old."Some 30,000 tourists visit the world's largest island every year, with the bulk going to Ilulissat, which means "icebergs" in Greenlandic, which is spoken by the indigenous Inuits.More than 80 percent of visitors come from Denmark, which Greenland is part of as a semiautonomous territory. Other Scandinavians, Germans, French and Britons also find their way here -- although it is considered an extreme destination for them, too."Greenland is attracting people who want to try something different, really different," said Hans Peter Poulsen of the Greenland Tourism and Business Council. "There is no mass tourism here."Traveling to and within Greenland is expensive because of its size and remote location. The island stretches 1,655 miles from south to north, and is four times larger than France. The vast ice cap covers 85 percent of the island.There are no roads connecting towns and settlements, so transportation is by plane, helicopter and dogsled, or by boat during the ice-free summer."The infrastructure is a huge problem and a giant challenge," Poulsen said.Dogsleds, kayaks, cultureDogsled rides are offered in Sisimiut or Ilulissat, Greenland's third-largest town, where the 4,400 residents are outnumbered by more than 6,000 sled dogs.Daring visitors paddle in kayaks between icebergs or camp in tents in the Arctic wilderness. Others hike the 10,560-foot-thick ice cap, or join a photo safari, hoping to snap shots of musk oxen and reindeer on land, or whales and seals at sea.Don't expect to cross paths with any polar bears, though. Most Greenlanders have never seen one, as the animals seldom venture into populated areas from their habitat in the more inaccessible northern parts.In coastal towns, tourists can board a cutter or fishing boat for a late-night cruise among the icebergs. They steer you so close you can break off a small chunk of ice, frozen for 100,000 years, and slip it into your drink in the midnight sun.Visitors can get a taste of the local culture in Kulusuk, a village of 230 people on the thinly populated, wind-swept east coast, where locals perform Inuit drum dances. The village has no paved streets, but there is a modern hotel next to a small airfield."The tourists who come here are typically Europeans and Americans on a round trip to the Nordic countries," said Patrick M. Abrahamsen of the Hotel Kulusuk. They come via Reykjavik, the capital of neighboring Iceland, "to get a quick feel of Greenland."Tourists are not the only ones interested in Greenland. Scientists too, are eyeing it -- but with worry. Many scientists believe the thinning of the ice cap that covers the world's largest island is the result of global warming, with dire implications for various aspects of life here, from fishing to local hunters' dogsledding on the ice-covered fjords and inlets.More than glaciers and icebergs Tourists climb a hill over Kulusuk, Greenland, in August. In Qassiarsuk, a hamlet near Narsarsuaq, southern Greenland, is a replica of what has been called the first Christian church built in North America, to which Greenland geographically belongs.The Viking Eric the Red -- whose son Leif Ericson is believed to have landed in North America 500 years before Columbus -- built the tiny 10-foot wooden church with a grass roof next to his home.Ilulissat, too, has more to offer than calving glaciers and icebergs.At the mouth of the Kangia fjord is the archaeological site of Sermermiut, where the earliest human settlement on the island was established 4,400 years ago.In the Ilulissat hinterland, where the rocks are covered by soil and moss, more than 300 different species of plants, including crowberries, lousewort, marsh tea and Niviarsiaq -- Greenland's national flower -- can be found.Every town or larger village has at least one museum.Ilulissat has a museum for whaling and fishing, and one for explorer Knud Rasmussen, who documented Eskimo culture in the early 20th century. The permanent exhibit sits in a red wooden house in the middle of the town where he was born in 1879.Nuuk, the capital 372 miles south of Ilulissat, houses Greenland's National Museum, displaying local history, well-preserved mummies of Inuits, kayaks and other artifacts. Sisimiut, on the Arctic Circle, has an archaeological museum dedicated to the Inuits, who arrived here from Siberia more than 4,000 years ago.Kangerlussuaq, near Sisimiut, and Narsarsuaq are both former U.S. Air Force bases with permanent exhibits on the American presence there.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- A new species of flying reptile that died out with the dinosaurs 65 million years ago has been named for its fang-like teeth, British scientists said on Tuesday.Palaeobiologists at the University of Portsmouth in southern England dubbed the remains of the pterosaur found on a beach on the Isle of Wight three years ago Caulkicephalus trimicrodon.Caulkhead is the informal name for natives of the Isle of Wight, off the southern coast of England, and trimicrodon means three small teeth."It has massive fang-like front teeth, behind which are three small teeth. Behind those are bigger teeth and then rows of smaller teeth," said Dr David Martill, who described the specimen in the journal Cretaceous Research."It was a fish-eater, with a crest on the tip of its snout and a wing span of 5 meters which would have made it one of the largest flying animals of its time," he added in a statement.Pterosaurs, or winged lizards, evolved the ability to fly. They lived from about 228 million to 65 million years ago.Their size ranged from those of a small bird to a creature with a wing-span of up to 18 meters or 60 feet. They had hollow bones, thin bodies, large brains, crests and long beaks.Flight in pterosaurs evolved separately from birds. Scientists had thought that the creatures used to glide on the wind, but research has shown that large species could fly. Some species had a hair-like covering on their body.Martill said the flying reptile evolved many different forms and that at least two groups became toothless.Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

BEIJING, China (AP) -- China hopes to conduct a spacewalk in 2007 and might recruit women into its next group of astronaut candidates, a senior space program official said Monday following the safe completion of the nation's second manned mission.The Shenzhou 6 flight ended the first stage of China's plan, which focused on development of space vehicles, said Tang Xianming, director of the China Space Engineering Office. The next stage focuses on developing ways for astronauts to walk in space and the ability to rendezvous and dock with other spacecraft, he said."Our estimate is that around 2007 we will be able to achieve extravehicular activity by our astronauts and they will walk in space," he said at a news conference.Tang said he also expected to see female Chinese astronauts "in the not-too-distant future.""At present, we do not have women participants among our astronaut candidates," he said. "But according to our development program and plans for manned space engineering, for the next round of selections, we might consider having some female astronauts."The Shenzhou 6 capsule carrying astronauts Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng landed before dawn Monday by parachute in China's northern grasslands after a five-day mission. (Full story)Crews rushed to the site in helicopters and off-road vehicles. State television showed the astronauts climbing out of their kettle-shaped capsule with the help of two technicians and clambering down a ladder in the darkness.They smiled, waved to the cheering ground crew, accepted bouquets of flowers and sat in metal chairs beside the capsule."I want to thank the people for their love and care. Thank you very much," Fei said.The country's No. 2 leader, Wu Bangguo, who watched the landing from the Beijing mission control center, declared the flight a success."This will further improve the country's international status and national strength, and will help to mobilize its people to rally around the Communist Party and work harder for the future of the country," Wu said in a brief speech to technicians.In a break with the military-linked space program's usual intense secrecy, state media lavished coverage on this mission -- a decision that paid off in an outpouring of patriotic excitement."Today, every son of the Yellow Emperor feels very proud," said Shanghai furniture salesman Zhang Jinhua, 34, referring to the legendary founder of the Chinese nation.Communist leaders hope that such pride will shore up their standing at a time of public frustration at corruption, wrenching economic change and a growing gap between rich and poor.On Monday, state television showed technicians at the Beijing control center, once a closely guarded secret, cheering when word came that the astronauts -- known in Chinese as yuhangyuan, or "travelers of the universe" -- were safe.After a snack of noodles, tea and chocolate, Fei and Nie were flown to Beijing and welcomed as heroes.On the tarmac in the Chinese capital, Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan saluted them and other members of the astronaut corps embraced them, one with tears in his eyes.Fei and Nie, both former fighter pilots, rode in an open car in a parade through a military facility. Fei, left, and Nie wave to cheering crowds in Beijing. Dressed in blue jumpsuits and white gloves, they waved to thousands of cheering soldiers and groups of children as musicians beat Chinese drums and cymbals. "Welcome the space heroes," said a banner hung along the route.Shenzhou 6 flew 2 million miles in 115 hours and 32 minutes in space, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The mission was far longer and more complex than the 2003 flight, when astronaut Yang Liwei orbited for 211/2 hours.The Shenzhou 6 mission demonstrates that "China has grasped the core technology of manned space engineering and shows that China can independently solve high-technology problems and has earned a seat in the upper echelons of the world's science and technology fields," Tang said.The Shenzhou 6 is a modified version of Russia's Soyuz capsule. China also bought Russian technology for spacesuits, life-support systems and other equipment. But space officials say all the items launched into orbit were Chinese-made.The government already has announced plans to land an unmanned probe on the moon by 2010 and eventually send up an orbiting laboratory.China said last year it would launch a moon-orbiting satellite in 2006. The 2-ton Chang'e satellite would orbit at least a year and record three-dimensional images of the lunar surface.The lunar program -- named Chang'e after a legendary Chinese goddess who flew to the moon -- includes plans to land a vehicle by 2020 that would collect soil samples and conduct other tests, possibly in preparation for a manned moon base.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

LONDON, England -- European Union foreign ministers on Tuesday declared the spread of bird flu from Asia into Europe a "global threat" requiring international action. The meeting issued a statement saying bird flu posed a serious, global health threat if it shifted from birds to humans and one that required "a coordinated international reaction." However, European Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said that the presence of bird flu in southeastern Europe did not increase the risk of a pandemic."The fact we have avian flu in Europe does not affect the possibility of a human influenza pandemic," Kyprianou told a news conference, calling for increased preparedness on the part of Europe if bird flu spread to humans. Kyprianou said most of the 25 EU governments lack sufficient stocks of anti-viral drugs designed to boost resistance to the common flu of such risk groups as the elderly, the young, diabetics and others.He said the EU was working on a deal with the pharmaceutical industry whereby EU governments will "increase vaccination for seasonal flu ... and the industry will invest more to build up manufacturing capacity.""We have not reached the level of (vaccination) preparedness that we should have," Kyprianou told reporters after updating the EU foreign ministers on the westward spreading of bird flu."The ministers met as 12 new cases of bird flu were discovered in Romania and a day after tests in Greece indicated the virus has reached the EU for the first time. (Full story)And samples from a dead bird were sent from Macedonia to London for testing after a large number of birds died in the village of Bitola near the border with Greece, a member of Macedonia's parliament said Tuesday.Gorgi Orovcanec, who is also former minister of health, said that while "many" birds died only one was suspected of having "some kind of disease." The EU was also preparing to ban sales of live birds and poultry from the Aegean Sea region of Chios pending tests on samples taken from turkeys feared infected with the deadly Asian H5N1 strain.Swiss drug maker Roche, pressed to raise output of antiviral flu drug Tamiflu, said it would consider allowing rival firms and governments to produce it under licence for emergency pandemic use. A Dutch company said it was working on a vaccine. The EU's Kyprianou told the news conference that that in the Greek case antibodies had been found but bird flu had not been confirmed.He called for "international action and international solidarity -- especially with the countries most affected in Asia." Poultry from Turkey and Romania have already been banned by the EU as bird flu found there was confirmed as H5N1. Tests were also being carried out on birds in Bulgaria and Croatia.EU officials moved to reassure the public."We have already taken all steps necessary. Once it has touched European soil, then we have raised all the measures we should take," Kyprianou told reporters."I don't think we have to enter into panic," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said. The EU foreign ministers stressed the need for the EU to coordinate any efforts to stamp out bird flu in consultation with specialized United Nations organizations. Officials stressed the EU does not consider bird flu to be a European problem but that it recognizes there is a threat of a pandemic. Also seeking to calm public fears, the head of the EU's new agency for disease prevention on Monday downplayed the current risk to humans."The risk to human health, to public health, at this stage is minimal," said Zsuzsanna Jakab of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control. However, she said the Stockholm, Sweden-based agency was drawing up guidelines on how workers who deal with infected animals can protect themselves against infection. Romania detected 12 new cases of suspected bird flu in the Danube delta Tuesday, one of them close to the border with Ukraine, Agriculture Minister Gheorghe Flutur said. (Full story)"A swan tested positive with antibodies close to the border with Ukraine, near the village of C.A. Rosetti," Flutur told reporters. "A few swans in Maliuc and a wild duck in Ceamurlia de Jos also tested seropositive." The southernmost German state of Bavaria -- which lies along the fight path of migrating birds -- banned poultry sales Tuesday in an effort to avoid the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.The Bavarian Ministry for Consumer Protection and Health said Tuesday, "Since Monday, poultry markets in Bavaria are banned."As of Wednesday, all poultry in this state will have to be indoors.""Bavaria is taking these measures as its area covers many migrating birds' flight path," the ministry said. "Bavaria is asking for a Germany-wide indoor rule for poultry."TestsGreece was testing a bird found on the tiny eastern Aegean island of Inousses to establish if the bird flu virus it bore was the H5N1 strain, which first emerged in Hong Kong in 1997 and has killed more than 60 people."As a purely precautionary measure we have ... imposed an export ban of living poultry, meat and other poultry products from the region of Chios to other areas, the EU member states and third countries," Greek Agriculture Minister Evangelos Basiakos told Reuters.No human cases of the virus have been found in Europe.The World Health Organization has expressed fears that alarm in Europe could distract attention from what is the real seat of the danger in southeast Asia. More than 60 people have died of the disease in Asia where, by contrast to Europe, people often live close to poultry and are exposed to a greater peril.In Bulgaria, which neighbors Romania and Turkey, newspapers have spoken of "panic" and "hysteria."Sofia has urged calm but is preparing a national crisis headquarters and stepping up border controls and surveillance of poultry farms and wetlands near its Danube River boundary -- seen as a major conduit for migrating birds.Croatia is also testing dead birds found by citizens.Focus on GreeceGreece, however, was the focus of attention on Tuesday, where results of tests for the H5N1 virus were awaited.People on the Greek island of Inousses, where the suspect bird was discovered, found themselves the center of media attention. The farmer who alerted authorities after seeing turkeys fall ill said he feared for his island."Yes I am concerned, but not just for me but for all the people here," Dimitris Komninaris told reporters. "But everyone on the island is keeping calm."Greeks sought out the antiviral drug Tamiflu, reflecting growing demand throughout Europe.European officials say the 25 nations in the EU, as well as Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein, have only 10 million doses now for an area of almost 500 million people, and will have only 46 million doses by the end of 2007. Stockpiling vaccines is difficult as flu viruses can mutate quickly. Roche Holding said it would be willing to discuss giving a production licence for Tamiflu to rival firms including Indian generic drug maker Cipla. Executive David Reddy told Reuters however the firm had not yet been approached by Cipla, which says it could make a copy-cat version to help governments build stockpiles.Dutch company Akzo Bobel said it was working on a human vaccine against H5N1 and would begin clinical trials next year.Besides the human danger, countries visited by bird flu in its various forms can face grave economic losses. The milder H5N7 strain struck the Netherlands in 2003, prompting slaughter of 30 million birds and losses estimated at 500 million euros.Journalist Anthee Carassava in Athens contributed to this reportCopyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- The 5-inch vertical scar marking Steve DeLuca's belly didn't stop him from posing topless for a new pinup calendar -- it's what got him the job.The 37-year-old firefighter from suburban Mt. Prospect is on display with 17 other buff amateur models in the 2006 "Colondar," designed to illustrate that colon cancer isn't just a disease that hits old people.Cancer affecting the colon and/or rectum is diagnosed in more than 140,000 Americans each year. About one in nine cases affect people younger than 50, or up to about 15,000 young people annually.The calendar is the latest project created by a support and education group called the Colon Club and features scantily clad men and women and their scars, along with stories of their diagnosis."I'm not embarrassed at all. I had no problems showing the scar," said DeLuca, featured in May's photo wearing firefighter gear sans a shirt and next to bikini-clad Marci Westlake, a 36-year-old Sparks, Nevada mother of two who was diagnosed at age 31."We're showing that there is life after this and if it happened to us, it can happen to anybody," said DeLuca, who was diagnosed at age 33.Colon Club co-founder Molly McMaster of upstate New York learned she had colon cancer on her 23rd birthday and created the group with a friend whose cousin died of the disease at age 27."We want doctors to see that it can happen to people under 50 because you see so many young people getting misdiagnosed," McMaster said.DeLuca was diagnosed after a routine physical exam. He had some rectal bleeding symptoms "but everybody blew them off because I had no history of cancer in my family and I was only 33," he said.His doctor referred him for a colonoscopy, a cancer screening exam that usually isn't recommended until age 50 unless there are symptoms or a family history of disease.Even then, the doctor assured him that he likely just had hemorrhoids."I was shocked" by the diagnosis, DeLuca said, "because everybody was blowing it off like it wasn't going to be a big deal."McMaster had classic symptoms -- including blood-tainted stools, weight loss, and stomach pains. She said doctors told her she had constipation and irritable bowel syndrome and told her not to worry. After six months, she consulted a different set of doctors who found a cancerous tumor the size of two fists.Surgery removed the mass, along with two feet of her large intestine. McMaster also had chemotherapy and six years later, is still cancer-free.McMaster posed for the Colon Club's first Colondar in 2005 in a red bikini, with the scar on her stomach just barely visible."It's kind of like a badge of honor" that shows "we've made it through this," McMaster said.Most people who are diagnosed at an early age have a genetic form of the disease, said Dr. Durado Brooks, director of colorectal cancer at the American Cancer Society.The calendar points out that up to about 10 percent of colon cancer cases are caused by genetic mutations.The Colondar was inspired by British women who posed nude for a leukemia fundraising calendar and whose story was told in the 2003 movie "Calendar Girls."The group's educational efforts also include the "Colossal Colon," a 20-feet long, 4-feet high polyurethane replica of a colon that features polyps, cancer and even hemorrhoids. Group leaders have taken it to sporting events, malls, hospitals and state fairs nationwide to highlight the disease."We like to make people laugh and get them talking about colon cancer," McMaster said. "The next step is to get them screened."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. violent crime rate declined 2.2 percent last year, continuing a decade-long downward trend in serious offenses, the FBI said Monday.All major categories of violent crime in the United States declined in 2004, bringing the rates of the most serious offenses, including murders, rapes, robberies and assaults, to a level 32 percent lower than those reported in 1995, the new figures show. The rate of property crimes -- such as burglary, larceny and auto theft -- declined 2.1 percent as well last year.The only category of violent crime in which the number of incidents rose was forcible rapes -- to 94,635 in 2004 from 93,883 in 2003, an increase of 0.8 percent. But accounting for an increase in population, the rate of forcible rapes dropped 0.2 percent.The 523-page FBI Uniform Crime Report is the final compilation and statistical analysis of crime data reported by nearly all state and local law enforcement agencies for 2004.The annual report offers no reasons for the trends, but the exhaustive statistical data provides criminologists and academics with raw material to examine.Experts have attributed declines in recent years to a variety of factors, including an aging population and harsher punishments such as mandatory sentences.In 2004, the number of violent crimes dropped 1.2 percent to 1,367,009 from 1,383,676 in 2003.One murder occurred in the United States every 32.6 minutes, and the murder rate dropped 3.3 percent to 5.5 per 100,000 people (16,137 offenses).The number of murder cases was down by nearly 400 from the previous year.The report said the number of murder victims and the total of suspects were both nearly equally divided by race. Most suspects were adult men using firearms, and about one in five murder victims was female.Last year there were 401,326 robberies, down about 13,000 from 2003, and the robbery rate dropped 4.1 percent to 136.7 per 100,000 people. Arrests were made in 62 percent of murder cases, 55 percent of aggravated assault cases, 42 percent of rape cases and 26 percent of robbery cases, according to the report.Almost 7,700 hate crimesThe FBI calculated 7,649 hate crimes -- cases in which offenders were motivated by bias. Of those cases, 53 percent of cases were based on race, 16 percent on religion, 15 percent on sexual orientation and 13 percent were based on ethnicity. Because of changes in reporting procedures, the FBI provided no statistical comparison to the previous year.Of single-bias incidents, the most -- 2,731 -- were described as anti-black, while 954 other cases were labeled anti-Jewish. Of the anti-homosexual cases, 738 were committed against men and 164 were against women. The FBI report also contained two special reports that examine juvenile drug violations and crimes against infants.The drug abuse report said the number of juveniles arrested increased over a 10-year period, from 159,000 in 1994 to 195,000 in 2003."Trends for overall arrests involving drug abuse suggest that this social problem shows no signs of abating," the report said.In 2003, the last year for which juvenile arrest data was available, nearly 163,000 juveniles were arrested for possession -- 127,000 of those arrests involved marijuana, and 14,000 involved cocaine or opium. Nearly 32,000 juveniles were arrested for the sale or manufacture of drugs, the report found.In what the FBI terms an "exploratory study," a review of data involving infant victims shows that between 2001 and 2003, there were 94 cases of murder including non-negligent manslaughter of infants under 1 year of age. Most of the offenses involved assaults -- 1,023 aggravated assaults and 1,404 simple assaults.There were also 215 kidnappings and 39 rapes.Most of the incidents involved relatives or someone the family trusted. The report said an infant is rarely the only victim but reliable information is difficult to collect."When incidents occur in private and the witnesses to such crimes either cannot speak for themselves or may be reluctant to speak because of a sense of loyalty to friends and family, it can be difficult for law enforcement to ascertain sufficient information during an investigation to have a case accepted for prosecution," the report concluded.

DALLAS, Texas (CNN) -- Investigators want criminally negligent homicide charges brought against the driver of a bus that caught fire and exploded outside Dallas, killing 23 nursing home patients who were fleeing Hurricane Rita, a sheriff's spokesman said Monday.The driver, Juan Gutierrez Robles, is currently in federal custody on immigration charges, Sgt. Don Peritz told CNN."We are recommending prosecution on 23 counts of criminally negligent homicide, one for each of the decedents," Peritz said. "It's now up to the district attorney's office to forward that information to a grand jury."Each charge is a felony punishable by up to two years in prison under Texas law, and Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez said an investigation by local, state and federal agencies could yield additional charges.The bus was carrying patients from a nursing home in Bel Air, Texas, near Houston, on September 23, as residents of the Texas Gulf Coast evacuated their homes ahead of the hurricane. The bus caught fire near Wilmer, on the southern outskirts of Dallas, and the blaze caused oxygen canisters brought for the nursing home patients to explode, destroying the vehicle, investigators found.Robles, 37, of Pharr, Texas, and 14 patients escaped the burning bus. The driver was initially credited with rescuing some of the passengers, but Valdez said police "haven't been able to find anyone to confirm that he actually helped someone off the bus."Peritz said the recommended charges were based on "the totality of his actions from the time he left Bel Air until the time the bus caught fire outside Wilmer.""Everyone on the bus was under his care and control," he said.Investigators are still trying to determine who was responsible for the vehicle's maintenance and safety, Peritz said. The bus was owned by a Canadian company and leased to a firm in the United States, which leased it to another company that then contracted with the company Robles worked for -- Global Limo, of Pharr, Texas."We've got to backtrack all the way back to the original bus owners and see who owns what, who leased what to whom, when did they do that, who maintained the bus and how did they maintain the bus," Peritz said.Global Limo, which was shut down by federal officials this month, had no comment Monday, according to The Associated Press.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Tuesday he is "cooperating fully" with federal investigators probing his sale of stock in a large health care company founded by his father, but declined to say whether he has been subpoenaed or personally answered questions in the case."I acted properly at every point. I am absolutely confident of the outcome itself," said the Tennessee Republican, whose decision to order the sale of stock from his blind trusts in June is under review by both the Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors.Frist directed the sale of his stock in HCA, Inc., about two weeks before the for-profit health care firm issued a disappointing earnings forecast that drove its share price down almost 16 percent. At the same time, top executives and directors of the company were selling shares totaling $112 million in value.Frist has denied acting on insider information. He has previously said he wanted to divest himself of shares in the company to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest at a time when he was preparing for a possible 2008 presidential campaign.The lawmaker rarely discusses the investigations in public, but made himself available to reporters before the Senate convened for the day and appeared ready to field questions on the issue."I am cooperating fully with the inquiries under way. I acted properly at every point. I am absolutely confident of the outcome itself," he said.At the same time, he said it would not be proper to say whether he has been subpoenaed or made himself available to answer questions personally.HCA was formed by Frist's father and brother.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's CIA-leak inquiry is focusing attention on what long has been a tactic of U.S. President George W. Bush's administration: slash-and-burn assaults on its critics, particularly those opposed to the president's Iraq war policies.If top officials are indicted, it could seriously erode the administration's credibility and prove yet another embarrassment to Bush on the larger issue of how he and his national security team marshaled information -- much of it later shown to be inaccurate -- to support their case for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.The grand jury is concluding a 22-month investigation of whether administration officials illegally leaked information disclosing the identity of an undercover CIA officer, Valerie Plame, in an effort to discredit her husband, former diplomat and war critic Joseph Wilson.Anxiety at the White House increased after Bush adviser Karl Rove's fourth appearance last week before Fitzgerald's grand jury, and with a New York Times reporter's firsthand account of her dealings with I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide.Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes, the Bush administration's public diplomacy chief and a longtime Bush confidante, said, however, that the White House was not distracted by the investigation. "It's not something that's affecting the daily business of the White House," Hughes said in a taped interview aired Tuesday on NBC's "Today" show. "It's business as usual."The piece by reporter Judith Miller also fueled speculation that Fitzgerald was seeking to determine whether Cheney played a role in a campaign to discredit Wilson."The grand jury investigation has the possibility of really shining a light on the credibility of the administration, how officials tried to undermine those who were criticizing them and how they then covered up that attempt," American University political scientist James Thurber said."The question of whether the vice president was involved, we'll probably never know. But it was pretty close to him," said Thurber. He questioned whether Rove and Libby would have operated "on their own" in discussing Wilson's wife with reporters.White House officials have had quiet discussions about what to do if any Bush aides are charged. There is a general expectation that a staffer would resign if indicted.Wilson had written a newspaper essay, published July 6, 2003, that sought to undermine the administration's earlier claims that Iraq had sought to buy uranium "yellowcake" from Niger to help it build nuclear bombs.It came at a particularly difficult time for the president and his aides. The war clearly was not going well, despite Bush's "mission accomplished" speech two months earlier. And Bush was already reeling from criticism over mentioning the African yellowcake connection -- which turned out to be based on faulty British intelligence -- in his State of the Union address.While the president and his top aides refuse to comment now on the investigation, or on any issues surrounding the unfounded Iraq-African uranium claim, they were not so tightlipped in July 2003.During a presidential trip to Africa just days after Wilson's article appeared, then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice -- now the secretary of state -- spent nearly an hour with reporters on Air Force One trying to put blame for the faulty State of the Union conclusions on the CIA and its then-director, George Tenet.Bush was also talkative then. "I gave a speech to the nation that was cleared by the intelligence services," he told reporters during a stop in Uganda.Some analysts suggest that any administration plot to undermine Wilson privately only mirrored Bush and Rice's open efforts to undermine Tenet on the same subject."This is an administration that was trying to play hardball at every level," said Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy scholar at the Brookings Institution. "And that's what they were doing with Wilson. And he of course was playing hardball, too. It was an ugly back and forth."Plame was named by columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003, as a CIA operative on weapons of mass destruction. Novak wrote that "two senior administration officials" had told him that Plame had suggested her husband, a former ambassador, be sent to Niger in 2002 to check out reports that Saddam Hussein was shopping for uranium.The reports had no basis in fact, something Wilson reported back to a Bush administration that ignored his conclusions, Wilson later wrote.In her account in Sunday editions of The New York Times, Miller, who spent 85 days in jail before agreeing to speak to the grand jury, wrote that Fitzgerald asked her questions about Cheney. "He asked, for example, if Mr. Libby ever indicated whether Mr. Cheney had approved of his interviews with me or was aware of them," she wrote.Such a question could suggest the prosecutor was investigating whether Cheney was part of a conspiracy to discredit Plame and Wilson."The answer was no," Miller wrote.While Bush vowed as recently as July to fire anyone on his staff found to have committed a crime in the CIA-leak matter, he has since completely clammed up."I've made it very clear to the press that I'm not going to discuss the investigation," Bush said Monday when asked by a reporter whether he would remove an aide under indictment. "There's a serious investigation. I'm not going to prejudge the outcome of the investigation."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

(Entertainment Weekly) -- Let's start with that album title, shall we? It may be clunky and comical, but for Ashlee Simpson, "I Am Me" is probably a profound statement of defiance -- her way of standing up for herself after her onstage fiascoes and, by insinuation, taking some responsibility for them. The title is also an extension of her shtick. Sure, she screws up, doesn't always sing in key or dance well, and can't decide on her hair color. But that's okay, because she's a regular person, just like you and me! You have a problem with that?Not surprisingly, an air of defensiveness and self-pity hangs over Simpson's second album. "Beautifully Broken" ("It seems like yesterday that my world fell from the sky") and "Catch Me When I Fall" allude to life after her post-Saturday Night Live lip-synch train wreck, even if the wound was self-inflicted. In "L.O.V.E.," she implores "all my girls" to gather 'round for support; in "Dancing Alone," she asserts that "it's my life, I'm doing fine." "Hollywood sucks you in, but it won't spit me out," she semi-snarls in "Boyfriend," which finds Simpson rhyming "for sure" and "my tour," certainly two phrases of equal importance in her universe.But who is this "me," anyway? Little Ashlee was, of course, never the "bad-ass girl" she claimed to be on her debut, 2004's gangly "Autobiography," which proved definitively that ersatz punk was the new middle-of-the-road pop. "I Am Me" does at least confirm that she's a producer's dream: a singer of no discernible personality who can be altered to suit the demands of the marketplace. With its shameless knockoffs of Gwen Stefani (the cheerleader bop of "L.O.V.E."), U2 (the stadium-rock throb of "Dancing Alone"), and Fiona Apple (the piano ballad "Catch Me When I Fall"), "I Am Me" practically amounts to a NOW tribute album. Every song feels like a retread of some hit you've heard before, somewhere. Blaring like Karen O one moment, crooning like a husky version of her sister the next, Simpson (who's listed as a co-writer on the songs) is a pop changeling -- if, in fact, that's her we're actually hearing. The way technology works, you never know. For sure, Simpson's Svengali, John Shanks, is one cunning producer. The new-wave-y bounce of "Coming Back for More," the funk-punk shimmy of "Boyfriend" (the disc's grabbiest song by far), and the wide-screen hook of "Beautifully Broken" are like studio exercises, ways for Shanks to practice his craft and prepare for his next jobs. (Recently, he's also pumped up Sheryl Crow, Liz Phair, and Alanis Morissette.) As for the reality-show star at the heart of "I Am Me," it turns out the title song is actually about a breakup, with Simpson telling the insensitive guy who dumped her, "I am me/And I won't change for anyone." Even he must have found that line ironic.EW Grade: C-'Feels,' Animal CollectiveReviewed by Will HermesIn the space of five years, this quartet of Brooklyn-cum-international freaks have gone from making barely listenable abstract-folk-rock records to making irresistible ones. Last year's "Sung Tongs" was sweet, but "Feels" is breathlessly giddy and shamelessly trippy -- like what might've happened if the Beatles expanded "Tomorrow Never Knows" into a concept album, with kindergarteners contributing song ideas. Somewhere up there, John Lennon and Timothy Leary are grinning.EW Grade: A'Catching Tales,' Jamie CullumReviewed by Raymond FioreThe jazzbo's multi-genre sophomore disc, "Catching Tales," is a potentially disastrous proposition: a gumbo of Billy Joel-style piano pop, Chet Baker's fragile sentimentality, and the underlining smirk of British melancholy. But it works, mostly. Credit Jamie Cullum's limber, sassy twine of a voice box for making ordinary songwriting more memorable and giving dreary lite-jazz arrangements a kinetic infusion of young blood.EW Grade: B-

NEW YORK (AP) -- The same TV critics that Bree of "Desperate Housewives" would have happily welcomed to a dinner party last year would now probably get one of those icy glares she reserves for her misbehaving son.Viewers are still lapping up new episodes of the Sunday soap, but the first rumblings of a critical backlash have set in. That forced show creator Marc Cherry to insist he's just as involved in the show's preparations as he's always been."Yes, we're trying some new stuff," Cherry said. "Some of it might work. Some of it might not. This, of course, is the nature of episodic television. They can't all be gems."But Cherry said he's pleased with how the season has started creatively and that he's doing his best to please his audience.ABC's hit is second only to "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" as television's most popular show this fall, although several critics have taken issue with how its second season has begun. Joanne Ostrow of The Denver Post said the hour is "edging toward vapidity.""The tone is off," Ostrow wrote. "Not campy enough to make the comedy clever, not real enough to make it engaging as mystery-drama. The story is too rooted in convention to be truly outrageous, too melodramatic to make it plausible as anything but goofy comedy."David Bianculli of the New York Daily News said the series doesn't have any traction. This season's new story line, with Alfre Woodard's new character, Betty, imprisoning someone in her basement "has not only wasted Woodard's talent, but our time as well," he wrote.This season finds the series "clinging to old plots while fumbling with new ones," wrote Robert Bianco of USA Today."Perhaps it was too much to hope that the second season of 'Housewives' would get off to the same kind of explosive start as the first," Bianco wrote. "But we do expect the series to do more than just mark time."Both Bianco and Bianculli noted that Cherry had not written any of the season's first three episodes. Although it's likely Cherry made major contributions to the scripts, "that's not the same thing," Bianco wrote.Involved 'constantly'Cherry said that it's "patently untrue" that he's less involved in the writing."I am as involved in the writing process as I've ever been," he said. "I help come up with the story lines, I give notes and, indeed, I rewrite things constantly. I take the credit and the blame for everything that goes on the screen."Touchstone Television announced last month that Cherry had signed on as co-executive producer of another series, "Kill/Switch," described as a murder-mystery with humor.It's an old Hollywood story that people behind a successful project are suddenly in demand to do much more, and often find themselves pulled in different directions, said critic Aaron Barnhart, who runs the TV Barn Web site."It's probably awfully tempting to think of yourself as building an empire and wanting to develop several shows instead of being satisfied developing that one exquisitely good show," he said.This season's first three "Desperate Housewives" episodes were seen by an average of 27.2 million people, above the 23.7 million average for all of last season. This year's average doesn't include the preliminary ratings for Sunday's episode, seen by 25.5 million people, according to Nielsen Media Research.Fans are offering their own critiques on message boards. One fan posted on the Television Without Pity Web site that "I haven't been loving the new season thus far, but this (Sunday's episode) was good.' "Bree's odd relationship with the town pharmacist was the topic of much Internet chatter. "What is wrong with Bree?" one fan asked. "The doyenne of all things seemly and mannerly and she is having her male friend for dinner already?"Rest assured, Cherry said, "I'm paying attention to my audience's response and am trying my darndest to please them. And I will continue to do so as long as I've got that executive producer credit above my name."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

(CNN) -- Computer users in many urban and university areas have come to expect connectivity 24/7. There's a cable modem or DSL at home, a high-speed connection in the office and Wi-Fi for the places in between, from the commute to the coffeehouse.But many long-frustrated suburban and rural dwellers have no choice but to listen to the sound of a dial-up modem handshake, with accompanying slow connections and downloads. Their homes or businesses are in areas that are too costly for telephone and cable companies to wire.WiMAX, a wireless broadband technology sometimes known as "Wi-Fi on steroids," could provide relief soon, some experts say, although others see many years ahead before the long-touted technology gains widespread use."WiMAX is an interesting kind of compromise between cellular and Wi-Fi coverage," said Scott Shamp, director of the University of Georgia's New Media Institute."It gives you high data speeds like Wi-Fi but covers a much bigger geographic area like cellular coverage," said Shamp, who helped create one of the earliest Wi-Fi hot spots, covering parts of the University of Georgia campus and the city of Athens, Georgia.WiMAX, shorthand for World Interoperability for Microwave Access, is a standard for the technology that can deliver wireless broadband services. Its aim is to combine the speed and security of a broadband connection but with the lower cost and convenience of having no wired infrastructure that's needed for cable modems or DSL connections.WiMAX technology may make a huge difference in less developed areas of the world -- providing a cheaper alternative to costly and bulky infrastructure for hard-to-reach places."Certainly in markets like Indonesia, India, Africa and some parts of Latin America, where wired infrastructure is poor, WiMAX provides a huge opportunity. There already is demand," said Charles Golvin, principal analyst with Forrester Research Inc.Europe has jumped into the world of wireless broadband with HiperMAN, while South Korea has developed WiBro. Both are designed to be compatible with WiMAX technology.Standardization is critical so that the many products and applications being developed for WiMAX will work together. The first type of WiMAX system -- for fixed applications such as connecting from a business or home -- was approved last year by the IEEE, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The IEEE soon is expected to approve the next version of the standard, for mobile services.A WiMAX system -- which can be fixed for homes and businesses or mobile for devices -- has two parts: a tower similar to a cell phone tower and a receiver. The receiver could be in the form of a small box, about the size of a modem, or, as is already being developed, a card that can be built into a laptop the same way a Wi-Fi card is in most computers today.The consumer possibilities of devices using WiMAX could bring a gleam to any gadget guru's eye: streaming video, even high-definition television on cell phones, or in cars; multiplayer gaming on a handheld device; and of course, other information and entertainment yet to be invented.The WiMAX timetableGolvin said that while WiMAX will have a big global impact on consumers, vendors and telecom operators by making high-speed wireless more available, it won't happen until 2010 or later in places that have long had access to broadband connections."In developed economies, where cable and DSL infrastructure is reliable, where there are lots of subscribers and it is widely deployed, WiMAX does not have a great advantage," Golvin said.But some WiMAX developers see other business possibilities occurring sooner, such as setting up wireless broadband for entire communities. Intel is one of the companies pushing WiMAX technology and has invested heavily in its development. "What if you want to wire an entire city? Even in a mountainous terrain like Mexico City, you could put up a tower that could reach 50 to 70 miles," said Eliot Weinman, conference chair of WiMAX World Conference & Expo.Connectivity that covers a whole metropolitan area could help cities woo both residents and businesses, with the promise of being "always connected."Weinman said there are already nearly 400 companies backing the WiMAX technology, for everything from improved communication for police, fire and other rescue vehicles to improved entertainment and information for mobile devices.Computer chip maker Intel is playing a big part in pushing WiMAX as the next thing in connectivity, just as it did in driving the Wi-Fi standard. Intel's Centrino laptop processors are expected to be WiMAX-enabled in the next two years.Amid this activity, that cutting-edge group of tech enthusiasts known as "early adopters" has begun to see portable devices as more than just mobile phones -- in reality small computers."More people are getting used to getting their news, sports, weather, music and video on that device, and with that will be more demand for faster networks," Golvin said.

(CNN) -- Geoffrey Bowker, executive director of a research institute at Santa Clara University, remembers a time when going to academic conferences meant leaving office concerns behind, hearing provocative lectures and getting to experience a new city. He especially liked visiting art galleries.No longer.Now, wherever Bowker goes, his office goes with him. E-mails, phone calls and office documents float into his hands, demanding his attention at all hours of the day. Through a cell phone and his laptop computer, Bowker is as connected to his office at conferences as when he is there in person.It's made him more productive, but he's not entirely satisfied."A huge difference for many is that we find it much more difficult to maintain barriers between work and play," said Bowker, executive director of Santa Clara University's Center for Science, Technology and Society, which studies technology's impact on culture.The eroding distinction between work and play is one of the many paradoxes at the heart of our increasingly wireless world."This is always the case with new technology. Often the effects are paradoxical," Bowker said. "The overall upside is that we can maintain a rich social and cultural life while dashing from pillar to post. The overall downside is that our spiritual development -- which requires empty time, contemplation -- is suffering enormously."Wireless use skyrocketsTen years ago, the level of connectedness of today's world was just a prophecy. Cell phones were big and clunky and owned by few people. BlackBerries were a kind of fruit, not all-purpose remote office devices. And Bluetooth was what kids got after eating blueberry Slurpees, not the latest and greatest standard for short-range wireless technology.Today, the use of wireless devices is widespread in the United States, and growing.About 71 percent of America's 108 million households own at least one cell phone, according to Forrester Research Inc. More than 25 million households now own laptop computers, according to Forrester. And 5.3 million households have wireless Internet access."That doesn't sound like a big number, but it is up from zero a couple of years ago. That is rapid growth," said Charles Golvin, a principal analyst at Forrester.More and more everyday devices -- including game consoles, music players, cameras and even cars -- are being designed with wireless connectivity in mind. (Gadgets on the horizon)"The future of devices that don't have some kind of connectivity built into them is pretty bleak. It's going to be the case that almost anything you can think of is going to connect to other things, most often wirelessly," Golvin said.As various kinds of wireless devices become more common, the flow of content will increase as well. Movies will be downloaded in a flash and transported to any one of a number of viewers. Music will flow to cell phones. Music videos and news clips will be downloadable anywhere, anytime. These developments create new challenges for the creators and owners of this content."What are they going to do from a rights perspective?" Golvin asks. "Are they going to be more and more restrictive? Or are they going to embrace new business models, new ways to use content that is going to allow this stuff to flow?"Stretching etiquetteThe prevalence of wireless gadgets and networks is changing how people interact with one another. Social plans are made later in the day; conversations happen more frequently but with more brevity, and expectations evolve. As wireless speeds increase, activities such as watching video on you phone will, too. "Think of the early years of the answering machine on the telephone," said James Hughes, executive director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and a professor at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. "You'd call someone, and at first you'd be annoyed that they'd have that annoying box answer the phone. Now, if a phone rings and rings and doesn't go to a message system, you think it is impolite."Because this technology is designed to follow people wherever they go, it is difficult to come up with one-size-fits-all rules for wireless communication. What is OK at home may not be OK in the office. What is OK on the street may not be OK in church. (Where are your wireless manners?)"To me the technology is ahead of our culture. The common thing we hear about these days is etiquette. Should we be allowed to talk on airplanes is a current question? The behavioral aspects haven't transformed along with the technology," said Dave Mock, author of "The Qualcomm Equation."Challenging securityBeyond etiquette and the need for personal space, security issues also loom large in a wireless world. From proprietary financial data to personal photographs, more and more information than ever before is floating through the air, accessible to thieves and vandals."It does make people more vulnerable. The wires aren't there to be seen. ... Wireless networks are much less secure," said Sarah Hicks, a vice president at Symantec Corp., a digital security company.Hicks advises consumers to create passwords for all their devices and networks, install software that can protect against outside attacks and viruses, and open e-mails only from known sources. (Protecting your network)She said some wireless devices can be particularly dangerous because they constantly scan the area in search of available wireless networks. She recommends changing the settings so they don't mistakenly come across a harmful network."Wireless networks are great," Hicks said. "They enable a lot of freedom, but they also come with risks. Consumers need to protect themselves."

BEIJING, China (AP) -- China is raising global suspicion about its military intentions by failing to acknowledge the true size of recent increases in its defense spending, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday.On his first trip to China as President George W. Bush's defense chief, Rumsfeld is meeting with government officials and senior military leaders in advance of Bush's planned visit next month.A Chinese spokesman said he hoped Rumsfeld's visit "would increase his understanding" of China's policy.Rumsfeld will speak Wednesday at the Central Party School, the Communist Party's top training center for mid-career members and its main ideological think tank. President Hu Jintao was the school's president before he became the Communist Party general secretary in 2002.In an interview with reporters accompanying him from Washington, Rumsfeld said the United States and other countries would like to know why the Chinese government has understated its defense spending. He mentioned no budget figures, but the U.S. Defense Department has earlier said China might be spending $90 billion on defense this year -- three times the announced total."I think it's interesting that other countries wonder why they would be increasing their defense effort at the pace they are and yet not acknowledging it," Rumsfeld said. "That is as interesting as the fact that it's increasing at the pace it is."Asked about Rumsfeld's comments, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said Beijing hopes the visit can "increase mutual understanding and trust" between the two sides."We hope Rumsfeld's visit to China ... will increase his understanding of China's policy of firmly taking a peaceful road," he said.Bush's proposed Pentagon budget for the fiscal year that began October 1 is $419 billion, not including as much as $50 billion that Congress is likely to add to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and against terror worldwide. Congress is still negotiating a final budget bill.Rumsfeld said the U.S. government welcomed China's emergence as an economic power. But he also said that development had created "somewhat of a tension" for China's leaders as they attempted to cope with new influences and ideas that inevitably entered the country along with foreign investment."China is an important country in the region; it's a country that's increasingly important in the world," he said.China agreed to allow Rumsfeld to visit the headquarters of the strategic rocket forces at Qinghe, making him the first U.S. official ever to see the Second Artillery complex, according to Pentagon officials.The Chinese, however, denied Rumsfeld's request to visit the Western Hills command center, an underground facility that serves as a national military command post. No foreigner is believed to have been inside Western Hills.Rumsfeld was to meet Wednesday with the Chinese Minister of Defense, Gen. Cao Gangchuan.After an official greeting at the airport on Tuesday, Rumsfeld held a closed meeting with U.S. businessmen at his hotel and was attending a private reception with Chinese officials.In his comments before arriving, Rumsfeld suggested that China had yet to satisfy much of the international community that it was committed to political reforms in the direction of democracy.Among the topics expected to arise during his visit: tensions over Taiwan, the self-governing island that China insists on reuniting with the mainland, and U.S. encouragement for China to use its influence in six-party negotiations to end North Korea's nuclear ambitions.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Lebanese officials have asked France to extradite a Syrian man to face charges in connection with the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, judicial sources said Tuesday.An Interpol warrant has been issued for Mohammed al-Siddiq, now in French custody and once considered a witness to the February killing, Lebanese judicial sources told CNN.The extradition process could take up to 30 days, Lebanese security, officials said. No details of the warrant were provided, but it comes just days before United Nations investigators are to release a report into Hariri's killing that could implicate Syrian officials. Syria denies any involvement. (See CNN's interview with Assad)Political sources said al-Siddiq, a Syrian citizen, has been an important witness in the U.N. probe. But judicial sources said they now believe al-Siddiq may somehow be implicated in the crime itself. The U.N. report, expected by the end of the week, was also the subject of a surprise meeting in New York Tuesday morning between U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.The United States and its allies want Syria to comply with a U.N. resolution calling for a complete end to Syrian domination over Lebanon.Despite a pullout of Syrian troops earlier this year following massive demonstrations over Hariri's assassination, the United States says Syria maintains an intelligence presence in Lebanon.Also of concern was Syrian support for extremist groups seeking to derail the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, said U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack."This isn't solely a matter of United States concerns with Syria. Syria has problems with all of its neighbors, virtually all of its neighbors in the region," McCormack said.Rice's talks with Annan also focused on the nuclear standoff with Iran and last week's constitutional referendum in Iraq, McCormack said. The Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad regime has faced sharp criticism from the United States, which has alleged the country shelters terrorist organizations and has failed to take action against terrorists crossing the border into Iraq."We are looking for a change in Syrian behavior," Jim Jeffries, the State Department's coordinator for Iraq, told reporters at the Foreign Press Center in Washington. "We have not seen that yet and we are impatient." U.N. probeIn addition to dealing with Hariri's assassination, the U.N. probe is also expected to address the millions of dollars alleged to have changed hands in an corruption scandal.Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan was reported to have committed suicide October 12, just hours after calling in to a Lebanese radio station to challenge allegations that he was involved in Hariri's assassination.He was one of several senior officials U.N. investigators questioned in August about Hariri's death. (Full story)The U.N. investigation, led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, has already led to the arrests and indictments of four pro-Syrian Lebanese security chiefs on charges linked to the killing. (Who they are)Hariri, a former Syrian ally who served as Lebanon's prime minister five times, was regarded as Lebanon's founding father after a 15-year civil war.Political sources close to the former leader said Hariri was planning to stage a political comeback by publicly supporting the growing opposition to Syria's involvement in Lebanon.His assassination triggered a wave of protests and boosted international pressure for Syria to withdraw troops it had in Lebanon since the 1975 outbreak of civil war.The killing also spurred a wave of attacks on anti-Syrian activists and journalists that have prompted some Lebanese politicians to seek temporary refuge abroad.CNN's Elise Labott contributed to this report

MOSCOW, Russia -- Alexander Yakovlev, one of the architects of the perestroika reform program instituted in the waning years of the Soviet Union, died Tuesday at age 81, a longtime friend said.Yakovlev joined the Politburo, the Soviet ruling council, in 1984, a year before Mikhail Gorbachev became the country's leader. He became one of Gorbachev's key allies as he began a policy of glasnost, or "openness," and a restructuring of the rigid Soviet state.The liberalization those programs produced is credited with contributing to the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991."We promised that things would get better, but things were getting worse and worse," Yakovlev recounted in a 1998 interview for the CNN documentary "Cold War."Davlat Khudonazarov, a former member of the Supreme Soviet and a longtime friend, confirmed Yakovlev's death to CNN.Yakovlev joined Russia's ruling Communist Party in 1943, after service in the Red Army during World War II. He resigned his seat in the Politburo in July 1991, just weeks before the coup attempt that briefly ousted Gorbachev and sped the Soviet state's demise."I wrote a letter to Gorbachev warning him that trouble was brewing. He replied, 'Alexander, you overestimate their intelligence and courage.' In July, I resigned. I said, 'Something's cooking, I can sense it.' He ignored me and went on holiday," Yakovlev recounted in the 1998 CNN documentary.Yakovlev, born in the village of Korolyovo in the Volga River Yaroslavl region, fought in the Red Army in WWII and was badly wounded in 1943. He graduated from the history faculty of Yaroslavl University and became a Communist Party apparatchik.He rose through the ranks and served as the Soviet ambassador in Canada in 1973-1983, where he first met Gorbachev in 1982 when the latter was a visiting member of the Communist Party's Politburo.After the fall of the Soviet Union, Yakovlev became head of the commission for rehabilitation of victims of Soviet political repression. In that role, he remained a key figure in publicizing Soviet-era abuses.In 2000, he attracted world attention by contending that Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg had been shot dead in the Soviet secret police headquarters building in 1947.Yakovlev later established the International Democracy Foundation, which he chaired until his death.Yakovlev is survived by his wife, son and daughter. Information on funeral plans was not immediately made public.Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- The scene at Caf� du Monde on Tuesday was frenetic: employees polishing the counters and wiping clean the windows, contractors installing new equipment in the kitchen and applying one last coat of paint inside and around the landmark's outside seating area.At 6 a.m. Wednesday the trademark beignets and coffee will be back. More than seven weeks after Katrina, one of the city's landmarks is reopening and trying to help New Orleans project a "back in business" image. "There are many jobs to be had here right now in the city of New Orleans," Caf� du Monde vice president Burt Benrud said. "If you come to the city of New Orleans and you don't have a job, you're not looking." (Watch: Influx of Latino workers -- 1:32)But as optimistic as he was on the eve of the reopening, even Benrud acknowledged a fair amount of uncertainty. In his case, he wonders what will happen to a 142-year-old business that operates around the clock when the city's curfew kicks in."(Are) the cops going to show up over here and say it is midnight -- you guys need to close? It is my hope that that situation gets resolved shortly, so we can go back to business as usual: 24 hours a day, 364 days a year." Caf� du Monde gives its workers Christmas Day off.In addition to restaurants, some of the downtown art galleries are reopening. "Help wanted" signs are everywhere, underscoring what economist and University of New Orleans Chancellor Tim Ryan says is the city's most pressing post-Katrina economic and social issue: a shortage of working-class housing."In the short run there is a real critical problem," Ryan told CNN. "If you don't have housing you don't get the people back, and you are going to be limited in the number of businesses you will be able to open ... Right now businesses are not very encouraged, and we are hearing that message from the business community."In fact, "back in business" is in many ways more a slogan than a fact on the ground, especially outside of the French Quarter and downtown's central business district.There were 3,708 licensed retail food establishments in New Orleans when Katrina hit. Fewer than one-third of those, 1,193, have been certified to reopen by the state Department of Health and Hospitals.Further evidence of the devastating economic impact is found in the state's new data on unemployment claims. The state Department of Labor reports more than 281,000 unemployment filings in the past seven weeks since Katrina hit. That's more than 13 times the normal average for a seven-week period and well in excess of the 193,000 claims filed statewide in all of 2004.At Antoine's, the French Quarter restaurant that is as much a museum to the city's Mardi Gras culture as it is an eating establishment, General Manager Mike Guste tells CNN the goal is to reopen by Christmas. Katrina ravaged the restaurant, knocking open a brick wall on the fourth floor and leaving significant water damage."I'm really hoping it is going to be Christmas," Guste said as he led CNN on a tour of the damage. "Christmas or sometime in the middle of December."Guste said negotiations with his insurer are proceeding reasonably well. Contractors are beginning the early stages of reconstruction, and Guste and other managers are gathering the records necessary for their claim under a "business disruption" clause in his insurance policy."I haven't had any definitive answer either way," he said. "I've got my CFO and CEO and some other accountants working on it. ... It's a bean-counter thing. I will leave it to them."Because of that clause, Guste says he hopes to soon begin regular payments to many of the restaurant's employees, and he anticipates minimal turnover in the most crucial positions. Antoine's maitre'd, however, was among those killed by Katrina. Guste said he ignored pleas from family members to evacuate.Mayor Ray Nagin has said it makes sense for the business reopenings to begin in the downtown area, and then in areas that suffered less damage from Katrina and Rita. Visits to lower-income and harder-hit neighborhoods suggest "back in business" is a distant dream at best.On St. Claude Avenue in the predominantly African-American neighborhood of Bywater, banks, restaurants, fast-food establishments and corner groceries remain shuttered, many of them heavily damaged.But count Joseph Peters among the optimists there.Peters reopened his tire-repair shop within a week of Katrina passing, when there was still water in the streets. His business is bustling because of all the damage to cars caused by the debris-strewn streets, and Peters says cleanup crews have been showing up in recent days at a seafood restaurant across the street from his shop. As Peters spoke to CNN on Tuesday, a man with a wheelbarrow made more than a dozen trips in and out of a small, mom-and-pop grocery store nearby, dumping debris on the median of what once was a busy thoroughfare from the working-class neighborhood to the central city."I don't think it is being unfair. It's just the way it works," Peters said between repairs when asked if he believed more help was going first to downtown and richer neighborhoods."You come back in six months you are going to see this up and running," Peters said. "Those people are going back into business. Trust me, they will be back. ... This is home."

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -- Actor Ashton Kutcher, whose May-December romance with screen star Demi Moore has riveted the tabloids for months, is producing a Fox TV sitcom pilot inspired by the couple's recent real-life marriage.The show, about a man closer in age to his eldest stepdaughter than his bride, is "loosely based" on Kutcher's new blended-family life, 20th Century Fox Television spokesman Chris Alexander said on Tuesday.The show, tentatively titled "30-Year-Old Grandpa," would be set in Chicago, and neither of the two lead characters are entertainers. Instead it centers on a 30-year-old nightclub owner and a 40-something businesswoman who get married and discover they're expecting a child.At the same time, the woman's 22-year-old unwed daughter announces she is pregnant and plans to move home to raise her baby -- turning the show's leading man into a grandfather overnight.The woman's younger daughter, who had been living with her father, decides she, too, wants to live with mom and the new stepdad."It becomes a very modern, messy look at an extended American family," Kutcher's producing partner, Karey Burke, told Daily Variety.Like the fictional club owner in his sitcom pilot, Kutcher, 27, became a stepfather when he tied the knot last month with Moore, 42, who has three daughters -- aged 11, 14 and 17 -- from her previous marriage to actor Bruce Willis.Kutcher and Moore are not known to be expecting children, but the actress said in a recent Harper's Bazaar magazine interview that she wanted to expand their family.Moore, who starred in "Ghost," "G.I. Jane" and "Striptease," began dating Kutcher in 2003, as she was making a highly publicized return to the screen in "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle."Kutcher, whose break came as a star on television's "That '70s Show," is co-creator of the MTV reality show "Punk'd." His films include "Guess Who" and "Dude, Where's My Car?""30-Year-Old Grandpa" is one of several pilot comedies being developed as possible future additions to the Fox prime-time schedule.No casting decisions have been made. Alexander said he doubted that either Kutcher or Moore would appear in the series, but added, "I suppose anything is possible."Both the Fox network and its sister TV studio are units of News Corp. Ltd Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

HURRICANE, West Virginia (AP) -- With $340 million up for grabs in the second-biggest lottery jackpot in U.S. history, people trekked to a small-town West Virginia convenience store to buy their tickets Tuesday in the apparent belief that lightning can strike twice in the same place.Nearly three years ago, it was the C&L Super Serve in Hurricane that sold the ticket that made West Virginia contractor Jack Whittaker the winner of the nation's biggest undivided jackpot: $314.9 million in the multi-state Powerball lottery.Wednesday's Powerball jackpot climbed into the stratosphere after 20 straight drawings in which no one won the grand prize."It's a lot a money to win for just playing a dollar," 18-year-old construction worker Danny Loudin said after buying his ticket at the C&L.Twenty-seven states offer Powerball, along with the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.Edward Jarvis, a 39-year-old real estate agent, drove from New York's Long Island to Greenwich, Connecticut, to buy $120 worth of tickets."That's worth an hour or two out of your day," he said. "It's cheaper than going to Atlantic City for a heck of a lot better return if you win."What would he do if he won?"Not work," he said, then changed it to work less. "It would be nice to be debt-free. I'd spend a lot more time with my kids and do the things I like to do -- golf."The odds of hitting all six numbers are 1 in 146 million.The biggest lottery jackpot in U.S. history is $363 million, won by two ticket holders in Illinois and Michigan in 2000.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Obesity surgery, which is fast becoming a popular way to battle the nation's weight crisis, may be a lot riskier than most patients realize.New research found a higher-than-expected risk of death in the year after surgery, even among young patients."It's a reality check for those patients who are considering these operations," said University of Washington surgeon Dr. David Flum, lead author of a Medicare study that analyzed the risks.The findings appear in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.Some previous studies of people in their 30s to their 50s -- the most common ages for obesity surgery -- found death rates well under 1 percent.But in a study of 16,155 Medicare patients who underwent obesity surgery, more than 5 percent of men and nearly 3 percent of women aged 35 to 44 were dead within a year. And slightly higher rates were found in patients 45 to 54.Among patients 65 to 74, nearly 13 percent of men and about 6 percent of women died. In patients 75 and older, half of the men and 40 percent of the women died.There are several types of operations to lose weight, most generally involving surgically shrinking the stomach and usually restricted to "morbidly" obese people more than 100 pounds overweight.Those patients often have medical problems brought on by their girth, including heart trouble, diabetes and breathing difficulties -- problems which obesity surgery can sometimes resolve but which can also contribute to making the surgery risky.Patients studied underwent surgery between 1997 and 2002."This is a major operation in a high-risk population. "When you do a complicated operation in a complicated population, we should expect to see adverse outcomes" occasionally, Flume said.Dr. Neil Hutcher, president of the American Society for Bariatric Surgery, said that Medicare patients are probably sicker than the general U.S. population and that complication rates have declined as surgeons' expertise has increased.But Flum argued that some previous research showing lower risks came from "reports from the best surgeons reporting their best results," while the new study is more of a real-world look.A JAMA editorial said even if Medicare patients do face higher risks, they should not be denied obesity surgery."These patients may also represent the potential greatest benefit associated with major lasting weight loss given their associated disease burden," the editorial said.The surgery may be lifesaving when done on the right patients, by experienced surgeons, the editorial said.The study offered no breakdown on causes of death, but obesity surgery's potentially deadly complications can include malnutrition, infection and bowel and gallbladder problems. Also, surgery in general can be a deadly shock to the system, especially in older patients.The American Society for Bariatric Surgery predicts obesity surgery will be performed more than 150,000 times this year in the United States. That is more than 10 times the number in 1998, according to a second JAMA study. The increase parallels a surge in the portion of U.S. adults who are at least 100 pounds overweight, from about 1 in 200 in 1986 to 1 in 50 in 2000, that study said.Flum said the new study suggests that in many cases, obesity surgery may not be right for an older person "who already has the burden of 60 years of obesity on their heart" and other organs.Medicare covers obesity surgery if it is recommended to treat related conditions such as diabetes and heart problems. The government is considering whether to cover surgery to treat obesity alone.Medicare is for younger Americans with disabilities and for patients 65 and older. Flum said most of the patients he studied were under 65 and probably qualified for Medicare because of obesity-related ills, including heart and joint problems.Flum's study lumped together data on different operations, but the most common U.S. obesity surgery, gastric bypass, involves creating an egg-size pouch in the upper stomach and attaching it to a section of intestine.Researchers said one reason men may have higher post-surgery death rates is that they tend to wait longer than women to seek medical help and may be sicker at surgery.Hutcher said patients should seek experienced surgeons, should be thoroughly evaluated before and after surgery, and should receive long-term follow-up care.Most patients "will receive a good outcome," Hutcher said. "A good outcome does not mean there's no risk for complications or mortality."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Hurricane Wilma churned through the western Caribbean with 100-mph winds Tuesday, and forecasters said the record-tying storm could hit Florida by this weekend.The storm has already left seven to 10 people dead in Haitian mudslides caused by heavy rains, government officials told Reuters news agency.The latest in a string of devastating storms to sock the Gulf of Mexico region, Wilma became a hurricane earlier in the day -- matching the record for most hurricanes in a season with 12.The National Hurricane Center in Miami said late Tuesday that the rapidly intensifying storm had become a Category 2 hurricane.Wilma is expected to become a major hurricane -- Category 3 or above, with top winds over 110 mph (177 kph) -- in the next day or two, the hurricane center said.As of 8 p.m. ET, the center of the storm was 185 miles south of Grand Cayman Island and was moving west-northwest at nearly 8 mph. It is expected to turn to the northwest over the next 24 hours.The projections for Wilma's path suggest the storm may skirt the western tip of Cuba on Friday, possibly as a Category 4 storm with winds of greater than 130 mph, before curving eastward and barreling toward the southwestern Florida coast at a speed of 30-40 mph."All interests in the Florida Keys and the Florida peninsula should closely monitor the progress of Wilma," the hurricane center said.But because of the fluctuating conditions involved in hurricane movement, long-range forecasts often change. Hurricane-force winds extend outward about 15 miles from the eye, and tropical-storm-force winds stretch up to 140 miles from the center. Cuba issued a hurricane watch for the provinces of Matanzas westward through Pinar del Rio and for the Isle of Youth, according to the hurricane center. Mexico issued a hurricane watch for the Yucatan Peninsula from Punta Allen to Cabo Catoche. A watch meaning hurricane conditions are possible within 36 hours.A 150-mile stretch of the Honduran coast was under a tropical storm warning, and the Cayman Islands were under a tropical storm warning and a hurricane watch.As much as 15 inches of rain are possible in the Cayman Islands, Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica, with forecasters predicting 5 to 10 inches in most areas. So far this season there have been 21 named storms, tying a record set in 1933. If there is another tropical storm, it would be named Alpha, for the first letter in the Greek alphabet. If that happens, it would be the first time since the naming of storms began in 1953, according to the hurricane center.Of this year's 12 hurricanes, five have achieved major status.The only other time 12 hurricanes have been recorded in the Atlantic was in 1969, according to the hurricane center. The most major hurricanes recorded in a year was eight, in 1950.Hurricane season ends November 30.CNN's Dave Hennen contributed to this report.Reuters contributed to this report.