NEW YORK (AP) -- The door to a Hunter College lecture hall opens, and in steps Madonna. There's no tweed for this professor-for-a-day; she wears a black dress and form-fitting boots that stretch to her knees.She's the latest participant in "Stand In," one of MTV Networks' hottest features, particularly given its brevity and relative lack of visibility.The MTVu network, a spinoff seen primarily on college campuses, invites celebrities to be surprise lecturers. Since Jesse Jackson inaugurated the series in January 2004, "Stand In" has featured Bill Gates, Shimon Peres, Tom Wolfe, Kanye West, Ashley Judd, Russell Simmons, Snoop Dogg, Sen. John McCain and Sting."It brings the class to life in a way that few would ever imagine," said Stephen Friedman, MTVu's general manager.MTVu had envisioned a series where colleges would compete to hear a celebrity speak. But that proved too time-consuming to organize and when its second speaker, Marilyn Manson, nailed his appearance at Temple University, MTVu knew it had a better format.Manson walked into a class on art and politics in full makeup, writing "Mr. Manson" on the blackboard and setting down a bottle of absinthe before the startled students. He then led a discussion on the role of provocative art in society, saying "art to me is a question mark. I don't think it should ever be an answer."Gates, the one-time computer geek turned world's richest man, surprised a University of Wisconsin class on introduction to programming. McCain requested a visit to his alma mater, the U.S. Naval Academy, to talk politics.The students' reaction is key; most episodes someone with mouth agape at who has just walked into their sleepy classroom.Participating colleges and MTVu try to keep the secret by telling fibs to students who may wonder about the cameras when they show up to class.At Hunter last week, a film class was told it was screening Madonna's new documentary, "I'm Going to Tell You a Secret," and discussing it with the film's director. With an endless stream of adults walking in and out of the room during the movie, smart students figured out what was happening."Since there were security guards all lined up I figured she was coming," said Pinar Noorata, a junior film major. "That was kind of a dead giveaway. But I think everybody was still surprised. It was kind of surreal."As the students stood and applauded Madonna, about a half-dozen pointed their cell phone cameras in her direction so their friends would believe them later.They lobbed mostly softball questions about the film, Madonna's interest in kabbalah and her two-decade journey through different musical incarnations."I don't feel like I'm trying on personas," she said. "What I always hope to do is change and evolve. I have no regrets because that's life and life is about change."She looked back at students who weren't much younger than her when she made her journey from her home in Michigan to New York City, hoping to make it first as a dancer, then as a singer. She counseled self-confidence and tenacity."The biggest mistake that any of us can make is to believe what other people say about us," she said.Creating excitementFor the celebrities, the appearances offer a dose of hero worship in a carefully controlled environment, before a youthful audience many of them need to court. The white-suited Wolfe seemed genuinely juiced to stand before a class that was studying one of his novels.There's also the chance to promote a pet cause, like on Thursday when actress Cameron Diaz jolted awake an 8 a.m. Stanford University civil engineering class. She appeared with architect William McDonough to talk about building designs that protect the environment."I was expecting like 10 kids to show up," Diaz told The Associated Press later. "It's exciting. A few of the kids came up afterward and said, 'This is so great, this is something I'll remember.' Hopefully, it's something they'll be thinking about when they are sitting down trying to create."Sting brought his band to an advanced musical composition class at the University of Illinois-Chicago, offering one thrilled student the chance to add a flute solo to "Every Breath You Take.""To make it more meaningful, you really have to have the right class," Friedman said. "What makes this work is the setting of the right person in the right class."Seeing much of the stand-ins is a challenge, though. MTVu leaves most of the appearances on the cutting-room floor, boiling each down to a four-minute sound bite. MTVu is available only on television systems in dorms and dining halls at 730 college campuses, although this fall it became the first MTV Network streamed continuously on the Web. Past appearances are archived and can be viewed through the station's Web site.MTV is considering giving "Stand In" some exposure on the main network, Friedman said, and is also mulling making extended versions of the appearances available on the Internet.For Hunter College senior Ruomi Lee-Hampel, it turned out to be one class definitely not worth skipping."Hearing a director speak about his work was my purpose in coming," he said. "It was just an added bonus to see Madonna in fishnets."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

COCHIN, India (AP) -- A few stars are still twinkling in the inky pre-dawn sky when Koyampurath Namitha arrives for work in a quiet suburb of this south Indian city. It's barely 4:30 a.m. when she grabs a cup of coffee and joins more than two dozen colleagues, each settling into a cubicle with a computer and earphones.More than 7,000 miles away, in Glenview, Illinois, outside Chicago, it's the evening of the previous day and 14-year-old Princeton John sits at his computer, barefoot and ready for his hourlong geometry lesson. The high school freshman puts on a headset with a microphone and clicks on computer software that will link him through the Internet to his tutor, Namitha, many time zones away.It's called e-tutoring -- yet another example of how modern communications, and an abundance of educated, low-wage Asians, are broadening the boundaries of outsourcing and working their way into the minutiae of American life, from replacing your lost credit card through reading your CAT scan to helping you revive your crashed computer.Princeton is one of thousands of U.S. high school students turning to tutors in India."Hello Princeton, how are you? How was your test?" Namitha asks."Hello, yeah ... I'm good," Princeton replies. "It was good."Namitha works for a company called Growing Stars, based in Cochin and Fremont, California. Princeton and his 12-year-old sister Priscilla each meet with their online math teacher twice a week.The chitchat ends quickly and a geometry worksheet pops up on Princeton's computer screen.Teacher and pupil speak to one another, type messages and use digital "pencils" to work on problems, highlight graphs and erase mistakes. Princeton scrawls on something that looks like a hyped-up mouse pad and it shows up on Namitha's screen. He can also use a scanner to send copies of assignments or textbook pages that he needs help understanding."Here we go," Princeton says, as they begin a lesson on such concepts as parallel lines and complementary angles in the quiet coziness of the family's suburban home. Above him, on the desk, sit plastic figurines of Mickey and Minnie Mouse and the Statue of Liberty. On the walls are framed photos of his family, including his grandparents who -- by coincidence -- live in southern India.His mom, Bessy, brings him orange juice and cookies."India has very good teachers, especially in math and science. Also, these subjects are culture-free so it is comparatively easy for Indian teachers to teach them," says Kiran Karnik, who heads India's National Association of Software and Service Companies. "Online tutoring is an area which shows enormous potential for growth."Most companies are reluctant to talk about earnings. But Shantanu Prakash, chief executive of India-based Educomp Datamatics, estimates that Indian online tutoring companies earned about $10 million last year, 80 percent of it from the United States.That's small change in the Indian information technology industry -- a business built largely on the outsourcing that is shifting jobs from the West to cheaper, foreign locations. Annual export revenue from offshore outsourcing last fiscal year totaled $17.2 billion.But about a dozen Indian software firms are banking that online tutoring will flourish in America, where falling standards are causing concern.The first e-tutoring businesses started less than three years ago, and already thousands of Indian teachers coach U.S. students in math, science or English for about $15-$20 an hour, a fraction of the $40-$100 that private tutoring costs in the United States.The Indian firms have benefited from the growing U.S. government-financed tutoring industry -- which had revenues last year of nearly $2 billion. That growth is partly due to the No Child Left Behind law, which requires schools to test students in math and reading every year from third grade through eighth grade.While the outsourced tutoring companies are competition for their U.S.-based counterparts, the National Education Association -- a professional organization that represents millions of American teachers -- "enthusiastically supports the continued and expanded use of distance education," according to a statement and its guidelines for promoting quality teaching in class and online.However, not every child has Internet access at home, said Denise Cardinal, an NEA spokeswoman."We think that good tutoring and good public schools should be available to every student, regardless of the family's income," she said.Princeton's family, like others with college-bound students, pays its own tutoring bills, seeing online tutoring as a way to get high-quality instruction at a lower cost.Most full-time teachers at Growing Stars earn about $230 monthly.But while the money is good by Indian standards, what's missing is one-on-one contact."This is a bit like teaching in a void," says Priya Shah, who helps high school students improve their English writing skills. "The lack of eye contact is a disadvantage, but it's a gap which one overcomes with time."But the work is much less stressful than teaching a class of 40 kids or more, and the tutor can adapt to the individual student's learning pace.That was evident during Princeton's class."Princeton, let's go over that again," Namitha says a couple times when he didn't understand, patiently redrawing a diagram on the screen.When he gets answers correct, Namitha flashes a smiley face on his screen. "Oh, I am smart," Princeton half-jokes.The system isn't perfect. Sometimes Princeton has to repeat himself so Namitha can hear him. Or his computer freezes up."It's so old," he says. "That's why I'm asking my dad to get a new one."But despite the glitches, Princeton's mother, Bessy Piusten, is pleased with the results, saying her children have been getting all A's and B's since they started online tutoring about two years ago.Daughter Priscilla, who takes online algebra lessons, wants to be a neonatal physician. Princeton wants to be a pharmacist. Their mother is a respiratory therapist at a Chicago hospital, and her husband is a radiology technician.At the end of the session, Namitha assigns Princeton problems for their next meeting."Homework! C'mon!" Princeton protests. "Fine, fine. But without homework, life would be wonderful," he says. His little sister, who is watching, giggles.Princeton acknowledges that because of his tutor "math is now easy for me."Maybe some day, he adds, he'll be able to chat with his tutor via video screen. But either way, he prefers an online tutor over an in-person one."If I talk back to that person, they won't do anything to me," he says, laughing. "This way is much better."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

ANTIGUA, Guatemala (AP) -- In a word, Antigua is old.It has been perched in the forested Panchoy Valley for more than 450 years, was one of the Americas' largest cities around the time of the Spanish Armada, and was nearly wiped off the map by an earthquake three years before the U.S. Declaration of Independence was signed. Even its name means "old."But it's new to the thousands of tourists arriving from every corner of the globe every day."We had friends who had come down and talked about it," said Emily Smith, 35, of Chattanooga, Tennessee, who was shopping for handicrafts with her husband and 4-year-old daughter. "But it's even more beautiful than we expected. We have fallen in love with it."Nearly a decade after the end of a 36-year civil war that left 200,000 people dead, Guatemala is starting to shed its bloodstained reputation and earn new fame as a top tourist destination.Oscar-winning director Francis Ford Coppola opened an exclusive jungle resort not far from the Mayan ruins at Tikal, in the northeastern region of Peten. And on September 15, CBS began airing episodes of "Survivor Guatemala," filmed in jungle-shrouded Yaxha, between two lakes and near the border with Belize.Few places in the hemisphere offer so much variety -- ancient ruins, jungle rain forests, whitewater rapids, 33 volcanos, beaches, colonial hideaways and the modern-day cultural influence of 22 Mayan cultures. A 2 1/2-hour flight from Miami, Guatemala is roughly the size of Ohio."The natural beauty and cultural beauty you see where 'Survivor' was filmed is available all over the country," said Daniel Mooney, director of INGUAT, the country's tourism agency. "Guatemala really is as good as it looks on TV."Just under 1.2 million foreigners visited in 2004, nearly 300,000 of those Americans, and officials hope to surpass 1.4 million this year.Those tallies have yet to catch Costa Rica, an ecotourism mecca that has for decades been considered the safest place in Central America. That country's tourism institute reported 1.7 million foreign visitors in 2004.Still, Guatemala has come a long way since 1996, the last year of the war, when only about 520,000 foreigners visited. During the dark days of government-led anti-insurgency campaigns in 1984, fewer than 200,000 dared make the trip.Popular with backpackers, well-heeled travelers, families and students studying Spanish, Antigua offers colonial beauty and breathtaking natural views set to the tinkling of xylophone-heavy Marimba music, which drifts in from all directions day and night.Volcano expeditionsThen called Santiago de los Caballeros, the city was the nation's capital until the 1773 quake prompted the government to flee to present-day Guatemala City, 30 miles to the east. The moniker Antigua Guatemala, or "Old Guatemala City" stuck.Dozens of churches and the crumbling stone remains of Spanish-conquest era structures abound. Many tourists prefer to simply wander the cobblestone streets, however, peeking inside stores offering Mayan weavings and clothing in a dizzying array of colors -- all handmade and available on-the-cheap by U.S. standards.More adventurous visitors can opt for a steep climb up the dormant Agua Volcano, which towers 13,500 feet above Antigua.An easier hike scales the gravel-covered slopes of the ever-smoldering Pacaya Volcano. Daylong excursions leave every morning from Antigua, though the volcano is about an hour bus ride away."This has always been popular with tourists, but after September 11 things got quiet," said Feliciano Salvador, 19, whose family runs a one-room textile shop. "Now things are full again. On television, everywhere you look, people are talking about Antigua."That's not good news for everyone. Rebecca Corry and Dennis Hedges, retired school teachers from Taos, New Mexico, first came to Antigua in 1995 -- and liked it better back then."Now it's more industrialized, more cosmopolitan, more prepared for tourists," Corry said. "But I kind of enjoyed it more before. We like sleepy."Dark facets of the past also linger. The U.S. State Department has issued near-constant warnings about the dangers of coming to Guatemala in recent years. A May travel advisory singles out street gang violence and banditry in Guatemalan cities and frequent armed robberies on highways.Nicole Delisi, visiting Antigua from Corozal, Belize, where she is a Peace Corps volunteer, said two of her colleagues were robbed in separate incidents during one weekend in Guatemala City."Guatemala still has its issues," said the 28-year-old from San Francisco, who was thumbing through a guidebook on a bench in Antigua's breezy central square.'Something for everyone' A little girl stands in front of Mayan textiles for sale in Santiago Atitlan. But crime concerns seem far away at La Lancha, the jungle resort owned by Coppola, who calls Guatemala "peaceful and friendly."The 10-room resort opened last year near Lake Peten Itza -- not far from the sprawling, 2,700-year-old Tikal ruins."I thought it made sense to look for property there, since Tikal was such a magnet," he said via e-mail, adding, "I love the abundant wildlife -- we have a troop of howler monkeys that you see almost daily and huge parrots that roost in trees."Tikal's temples, palaces, ball courts, steam baths, stone carvings and more than 3,000 other structures are awe-inspiring by themselves. But the surrounding jungle canopy, teeming with chattering toucans and parrots, ornery monkeys and unseen serpents and jaguars makes a visit all the more spectacular.For most visitors, getting there means a 50-minute flight from Guatemala City to the lakefront city of Flores -- whose airport officials renamed "Mayan World" to entice tourists. From there, it is a brief bus ride.Tours headed to little-restored ruins deep in the jungle -- like El Mirador and Survivor's Yaxha -- also often use Flores as a jumping-off point.There's plenty to see without boarding a plane, however.Three hours along harrowing, two-lane highways northwest of Antigua is Panajachel.The scruffy beachfront town accommodates visitors to Lake Atitlan, whose picturesque shores are ringed by volcanos and Mayan artisan villages. Hundreds of U.S. and European expatriates have stayed for good.Visiting from neighboring El Salvador, the top supplier of tourists to Guatemala, Pablo Gomez counted the bustling Mayan market town of Chichicastenango, north of Panajachel, as another must-see."I love my country, but we don't have this culture," said Gomez, who was traveling with his wife and three children. "Mayan influence is everywhere in Guatemala."Tourism officials are just as quick to mention lesser-known destinations such as Lake Izabal, a sprawling freshwater reserve that feeds into the Caribbean, or the Black Christ icon, which drew Pope John Paul II to the sweaty religious center of Esquipulas, near the Honduran and El Salvadoran borders, in 1996."There's something for everyone," said Mooney, the tourism director. "And they may have to come back a few times to see it all."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

MOSCOW, Russia (AP) -- The Russian Cabinet on Tuesday approved a nine-year government program to expand its space programs, backing the ongoing development of the new Clipper spacecraft as well as building Russia's segment of the international space station.In its statement, the Federal Space Agency did not say how much funding the programs would receive.But it said the government plans include a new project called the Phobos-Grunt, which will be sent to the Martian moon of Phobos to collect soil samples. By the end of 2006, the space agency will begin work on preparations for a manned trip to Mars.The new Clipper spacecraft, currently under development, is planned to be able to carry a crew of six compared to three crew members on the Soyuz ships -- Russia's longstanding workhorse space craft. Engineers say the Clipper will have a takeoff weight of 14.5 metric tons (16 U.S. tons), will be reusable and capable of making up to 25 flights.Russia also expects to increase the number of commercial satellite launches, the agency statement said.In recent months, however, Russia has experienced several embarrassing crashes and mishaps involving its space program.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

LONDON, England (AP) -- King Tutankhamen was a red wine drinker, according to a researcher who analyzed traces of the vintage found in his tomb.Maria Rosa Guasch-Jane told reporters Wednesday at the British Museum that she made her discovery after inventing a process that gave archaeologists a tool to discover the color of ancient wine."This is the first time someone has found an ancient red wine," she said.Wine bottles from King Tut's time were labeled with the name of the product, the year of harvest, the source and the vine grower, Guasch-Jane said, but did not include the color of the wine.Several clues led scientists to believe the wine may have been red: drawings from the time of grapes being pressed into wine were red and purple, for example. But the color of King Tut's wine was impossible to verify until Guasch-Jane invented a process to detect a color compound not found in white wine called syringic acid.To test her method, Guasch-Jane scraped residue from wine jars owned by the British Museum and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Two of the jars came from King Tut's tomb, discovered by English archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922.Patrick McGovern, an American molecular archaeologist, said he has discovered grape residue in northern Iran that dates winemaking to 5400 B.C.Scientists believe the first wine discovered in Egypt, buried in King Scorpion's tomb in about 3125 B.C., was produced in Jordan and transported 500 miles by donkey and boat to Egypt, he said. Eventually, grapevines were planted in Egypt.Research shows that ancient Egyptian kings and members of the upper class drank wine regularly, but common people consumed it only during festivals and special occasions, Guasch-Jane said.Wine was offered to gods in ceremonies, and kings were buried with jars of wine and food similar to what they consumed when they were alive, she said.Guasch-Jane first reported her findings in the academic journal Analytical Chemistry last year.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Make it a burger, fries and nutritional information to go.Seeking to counter charges that its food is unhealthy and contributes to obesity, McDonald's Corp. announced Tuesday that it will display nutrition facts on the packaging for most of its menu items next year.Patrons of the world's largest restaurant company will be able to learn the amount of calories and fat, among other information, in a McDonald's product by looking at the wrapper instead of having to go to its Web site or ask for it at the counter.The fast-food industry has been under pressure from consumer groups and the government to provide more nutritional information about its food. McDonald's and others had previously made calorie count brochures available, resisting calls to do more.In announcing the latest push to improve its image on health issues, McDonald's said it demonstrates its commitment to promoting balanced, active lifestyles. CEO Jim Skinner also said the move responds to demand by customers, not consumer groups."We've communicated with our customers for more than 30 years now about our food" ingredients, he said in an interview at the McDonald's flagship restaurant in downtown Chicago, Illinois. "This was a way for us to close that loop and provide them with an easy way to understand the nutrition information in the food that they're eating."The new packaging will be introduced in McDonald's restaurants in North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America starting in the first half of 2006. The Oak Brook, Illinois-based company said it expects to have the packaging available in more than 20,000 of its 30,000-plus restaurants worldwide by the end of the year.McDonald's has been a magnet for complaints that fast food is unhealthy. It was targeted by the 2003 documentary "Supersize Me," which focused on the health risks of an all fast-food diet, and hit with a lawsuit blaming the company for the obesity of teenage customers, although that suit was dismissed.The company has long maintained that its food can be part of an active, balanced lifestyle.The packaging information will consist of icons and bar charts displaying how McDonald's menu items relate to daily recommendations for calories, protein, fat, carbohydrates and sodium.They will debut at McDonald's restaurants at the Olympic Winter Games in Turin, Italy, in February.The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit health advocacy group, called the move "a useful step in providing customers more, and more readable, nutrition information." But the Washington-based organization, which has long urged fast-food companies to both provide more information and offer healthier food, was muted in its praise and said McDonald's should provide calorie counts on its menu boards."Considering America's obesity epidemic, that calorie information would do more than just about any other measure to help people protect their waistlines," said CSPI Executive Director Michael F. Jacobson.He also said that instead of giving total fat content, McDonald's should have been more specific since its fried foods are high in saturated and trans fats, which increase the risk of heart disease.But Dr. Louis Sullivan, former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and a health adviser to McDonald's, said its "creative" approach is "scientifically sound and communicates complex information in a clear and accessible way."Skinner said putting the data on the menu board would make it too complex and would slow down service.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

(CNN) -- The dangerous H5N1 strain of bird flu that has killed more than 60 people in Asia, has now been found in Croatia, the European Union has announced."The Commission has been informed by the European Union reference laboratory ... that the virus isolated in wild birds in Croatia is indeed the H5N1 virus," EU Commission spokesman Philip Tod said.Croatian authorities said they slaughtered all domestic poultry in four villages near a Nasice pond where two of 13 swans found dead tested positive for bird flu. The pond is next to the Zdenci park and all the infected swans were believed to have been from the same flock. The virus had earlier been detected in birds in Romania, Russia and Turkey, raising fears it could spread to the rest of Europe. (Watch Europe's bird flu strategy -- 2:17)On Tuesday, the EU said it would ban the importation of exotic birds and impose stricter rules on the private ownership of parrots and other pet birds.On Wednesday, Britain's Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett revealed that a second parrot had probably died of the lethal strain of the disease while in quarantine in the UK. (Full story) In Germany, officials said that preliminary tests on wild geese found dead there came back positive for bird flu. And even though the fowl died of poisoning -- not influenza -- further tests would be carried to see whether they carried H5N1.Slovenia, Hungary and France were also testing birds found dead for signs of bird flu.. China has announced its third outbreak of bird flu in a week and Indonesia confirmed its fourth human death from the virus.The latest Chinese outbreak killed 545 chickens and ducks in central China and prompted authorities to destroy nearly 2,500 other birds, the government reported.China earlier told the United Nations that 2,100 geese in the eastern province of Anhui were infected, news agencies reported Tuesday. More than 500 of the birds died and 45,000 were culled. China last week reported another outbreak had emerged in the country's northern region of Inner Mongolia. Some 2,600 chickens and ducks were found dead at a breeding facility.There have been no reports of human cases of bird flu in China.Also Tuesday, Indonesia said testing had confirmed that a man who died last month was positive for bird flu, raising the number of deaths from the virus in the country to four.The latest victim, a 23-year-old from Bogor, West Java, was hospitalized in late September and died two days later, Hariadi Wibisono, a Ministry of Health official told The Associated Press on Tuesday. A Hong Kong lab confirmed the test results.The lethal H5N1 strain that has decimated the bird industry in Asia and has reached Europe first surfaced in Hong Kong in 1997, before re-emerging in 2003 in South Korea and spreading to countries including Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, China, Indonesia and Cambodia.While bird flu has devastated the bird population, there have only been 121 cases where the flu has jumped to humans since 2003. Of those, more than 60 have died, all after close contact with sick birds.However, experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that could be transmitted between humans, triggering a global pandemic.Scientists believe migratory birds escaping the harsh northern winter are helping spread the virus, and governments around the world are nervously monitoring their borders and testing wild birds landing on their shores. Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

NEW YORK (AP) -- A jury ruled Wednesday that the Port Authority was negligent in the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 -- a long-awaited legal victory for victims of an attack that killed six people and wounded 1,000 eight years before terrorists brought down the buildings.The six-person jury ruled that the Port Authority, the agency that owned the World Trade Center, was negligent by not properly maintaining the parking garage where terrorists detonated more than a half-ton of explosives in a Ryder van. Several separate trials will now be held to determine money damages.The jury took just one day to reach its verdict after the four-week trial.The trial cast the spotlight on an attack that was overshadowed after September 11, but was horrific nonetheless. The noontime blast blew a gigantic crater in the garage, filled the building with smoke, wrecked the towers' power and emergency systems, and spread fear across New York.The verdict came after almost 12 years of legal delays in the civil case. The Port Authority's last appeal, to try to get the case thrown out, was rejected last year, clearing the way for the trial.The agency vowed to appeal. "The Port Authority is confident it will prevail," lawyer Marc Kasowitz said.The jury appeared to be swayed by a 1985 report written by the Port Authority's own security officials, who warned the 400-slot garage was a likely attack site. Plaintiff lawyers cited the report as proof that the Port Authority could have protected the building long before the attack, but did not want to because it was inconvenient and would have cost too much."They should have closed the garage," lead plaintiff lawyer David J. Dean said after the verdict. "Lives would have been saved, and 1,000 people would not have been hurt."Jurors apparently agreed.Juror Ray Gonzalez, 58, said the 1985 report was "very prominent" in deliberations. He said the Port Authority "dropped the ball. No one took (the report) seriously."The jury determined that the agency was 68 percent liable for the bombing -- a ruling that Kasowitz found stunning."To hold the Port Authority twice as liable as the terrorists for the 1993 bombing stands logic, rationality, and reason on their heads," he said.Kasowitz said during the trial that it was "offensive" to suggest the agency chose profits over safety. He said 3,000 of the Port Authority's own employees, which the agency considered "family," worked at the site in 1993.And he said that nothing would have deterred resourceful terrorists -- obsessed with bombing a building that was an icon of capitalism -- from finding a way to unleash an attack."The plaintiffs want to blame the Port Authority for the murderous acts of fanatical terrorists who schemed for years and traveled thousands of miles" to carry out the attack, Kasowitz told the jury.During the trial, state Supreme Court Justice Nicholas Figueroa ordered lawyers to avoid mention of the Sept. 11 attack because it was irrelevant to the 1993 bombing.Six people were convicted and sentenced to life in prison in criminal court for their roles in the bombing. Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the reputed mastermind, said at sentencing: "Yes, I am a terrorist and I am proud of it."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Police found a bloody shoe print on the lid of a storage container at the hilltop estate where Pamela Vitale was beaten to death, a court affidavit revealed. The document, released Monday, also provided details of the violent beating the wife of prominent attorney Daniel Horowitz received before she died. Vitale's injuries included a four-inch stab wound in her abdomen, a traumatic head injury and multiple wounds on her legs, an affidavit stated.On October 15, Horowitz called police at 5:53 p.m. and screamed, "Help me, she's dead," the affidavit said.Contra Costa County sheriff's deputies searched the home of Scott Dyleski on October 19. He was charged as an adult with murder last week in connection with Vitale's death. (Watch: Who is Scott Dyleski? -- 2:45 )Investigators seized two laptops, a computer central processing unit, bedding, knives and a duffel bag from Dyleski's house, just down the hill from Horowitz and Vitale's estate in Lafayette, an affluent community east of Oakland.Also, the affidavit said, a neighbor told Lafayette police that his credit card had been stolen and used to buy hydroponic growing equipment -- often used to cultivate marijuana.The equipment was scheduled for shipping to Horowitz and Vitale's address, according to the affidavit. The supplier withheld the shipment, believing the purchase was fraudulent.The neighbor, Doug Schneider, contacted police because he believed the purchase may have been related to Vitale's murder, according to the affidavit, parts of which were sealed.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

(CNN) -- A majority would vote for a Democrat over President Bush if an election were held this year, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll released Tuesday.In the latest poll, 55 percent of the respondents said that they would vote for the Democratic candidate if Bush were again running for the presidency this year.Thirty-nine percent of those interviewed said they would vote for Bush in the hypothetical election.The latest poll results, released Tuesday, were based on interviews with 1,008 adults conducted by telephone October 21-23.In the poll, 42 percent of those interviewed approved of the way the president is handling his job and 55 percent disapproved. In the previous poll, released October 17, 39 percent approved of Bush's job performance -- the lowest number of his presidency -- and 58 percent disapproved.However, all the numbers are within the poll's sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, so it's possible that the public's opinion has not changed at all.More than half, 57 percent, said they don't agree with the president's views on issues that are important to them, while 41 percent said their views are in alignment with those of Bush on important issues.Democrats preferred on issuesOn separate issues, a majority of those questioned felt the Democrats could do a better job than Republicans at handling health care (59 percent to 30 percent), Social Security (56 percent to 33 percent), gasoline prices (51 percent to 31 percent) and the economy (50 percent to 38 percent).Forty-six percent also believed Democrats could do better at handling Iraq, while 40 percent said the GOP would do better.In 2003, 53 percent said Republicans would better handle Iraq and only 29 percent believed the Democrats would do better.The only issue on which Republicans came out on top was in fighting terrorism: 49 percent said the GOP is better at it, while 38 percent said the Democrats are.And there was a dramatic shift downward in the latest poll, compared with September, in the percentage of people who said that it was a mistake to send U.S. troops to Iraq.This time, 49 percent said it was a mistake, versus 59 percent who felt that way last month.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The federal grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA operative's identity adjourned Wednesday afternoon and Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald made no public announcement of any action. But Fitzgerald met with U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan, the chief judge of the District of Columbia, for about 45 minutes after the grand jury met, a court official told CNN."I can confirm a meeting took place in the chief judge's chambers after the grand jury met today," court spokesman Sheldon Snook said. He declined to say what they talked about. (Watch the day's events -- 1:42 )Many legal experts and lawyers not involved in the case had expected the grand jury to vote on an indictment Wednesday and that the outcome would be announced publicly. The grand jury's term is set to expire Friday unless Fitzgerald requests an extension.White House anxiety levelsAsked about anxiety levels at the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan said Wednesday, "There's a lot of speculation going around, and I think there are a lot facts that simply are not known at this point. It remains an ongoing investigation, and we'll let the special prosecutor continue to do his work."He added, "This White House is focused on the priorities of the American people."Several experts told CNN it is possible that indictments could be under seal and made public later.These experts also said it is possible the grand jury could consider indictments later this week, or that Fitzgerald could let this grand jury term end and take his case to a new panel.It is also possible that Fitzgerald could end his investigation without bringing any charges.On Tuesday, FBI agents interviewed a Washington neighbor of Valerie Plame for a second time. (Watch Washington wait for possible indictments -- 2:59)The agents asked Marc Lefkowitz on Monday night whether he knew about Plame's CIA work before her identity was leaked in the media, and Lefkowitz told agents he did not, according to his wife, Elise Lefkowitz.Lefkowitz said agents first questioned whether the couple was aware of Plame's CIA work in an interview several months ago.Retaliation accusationsPlame and her husband, retired State Department diplomat Joseph Wilson, have accused Bush administration officials of deliberately leaking her identity to the media to retaliate against Wilson after he published an opinion piece in The New York Times. Federal law makes it a crime to deliberately reveal the identity of a covert CIA operative.(Fitzgerald profile)The July 2003 article cast doubt on a key assertion in the Bush administration's arguments for war with Iraq -- that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium for a suspected nuclear weapons program in Africa.Wilson, who was acting ambassador to Iraq before the 1991 Persian Gulf War, said the CIA sent him to Niger, in central Africa, to investigate the uranium claim in February 2002 and that he found no evidence such a transaction occurred and it was unlikely it could have. (Full story)Days after Wilson's article was published, Plame's identity was exposed in a piece by syndicated columnist and longtime CNN contributor Robert Novak.Rove has testified before the Fitzgerald grand jury that he believes it was I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, who first told him that Plame worked for the CIA and had a role in sending her husband to Africa, according to a source familiar with Rove's testimony.New York Times reporter Judith Miller spent 85 days in jail for contempt before finally agreeing last month to tell grand jurors that Libby told her Wilson's wife may have worked at the CIA, although she said Libby did not identify Plame by name or describe her as a covert agent or operative.Libby has also testified before the grand jury.Poll: Most suspect wrongdoingsOnly one in 10 Americans said they believe Bush administration officials did nothing illegal or unethical in connection with the leak, according to a national poll released Tuesday.Thirty-nine percent said some administration officials acted illegally in the matter.The same percentage of respondents in the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll said administration officials acted unethically, but did nothing illegal.The poll was split nearly evenly on what respondents thought of Bush officials' ethical standards -- 51 percent saying they were excellent or good and 48 percent saying they were not good or poor.The figures represent a marked shift from a 2002 survey in which nearly three-quarters said the standards were excellent or good and only 23 percent said they were fair or poor.The latest poll questioned 1,008 adults October 21-23 and has a sampling error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.Report links Cheney to caseThe New York Times reported Tuesday that notes in Fitzgerald's possession suggest that Libby first heard of the CIA officer from Cheney himself. (Full story)But the newspaper reported that the notes do not indicate that Cheney or Libby knew Plame was an undercover operative.The Times said its sources in the story were lawyers involved in the case.The notes show that George Tenet, then the CIA director, gave the information to Cheney in response to questions the vice president posed about Wilson, the Times reported.Cheney said in September 2003 he had seen no report from Wilson after his assignment in Africa."I don't know Joe Wilson. I've never met Joe Wilson. I don't know who sent Joe Wilson. He never submitted a report that I ever saw when he came back," he told NBC.Cheney's office had no comment, and the White House would neither confirm or deny the Times report. "The policy of this White House has been to carry out the direction of the president, which is to cooperate fully with the special prosecutor," said White House press secretary Scott McClellan, who was peppered with questions about the report at his daily briefing."There's a lot of speculation that is going on right now. There are many facts that are not known. The work of the special prosecutor continues, and we look forward to him successfully concluding his investigation," he said.McClellan said he had not sought any clarification about Cheney's involvement from the vice president or his office and bristled when a reporter asked if Cheney always tells the truth to the American people, dismissing the query as "ridiculous."In 2003, McClellan used the same word to deny that either Rove or Libby had been involved in the leak.The Justice Department opened a criminal probe in September 2003 at the request of the CIA.Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, Illinois, was named special prosecutor at the end of 2003 after then-Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the probe.CNN's Kelli Arena, Dana Bash and Suzanne Malveaux contributed to this report.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Nicollette Sheridan is keeping the title of "Desperate Housewife," but she's no longer a fiancee.Sheridan, who plays Edie Britt on the hit ABC show, and Swedish actor Niklas Soderblom have called off their engagement, People magazine reported Wednesday.The couple "have parted ways after a year and a half," Sheridan's publicist, Nicole Perna, said in a statement. "They ask that you respect their privacy at this time."Sheridan and Soderblom became engaged last winter. It would have been the second marriage for Sheridan, who was wed to Harry Hamlin from 1991-93.Sheridan, 41, was nominated for a Golden Globe earlier this year for her role on "Desperate Housewives."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

NEW YORK (AP) -- It goes without saying that TV mogul Dick Wolf is big.The "Law & Order" empire he built (including "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," which airs Sundays; "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," Tuesdays; and their progenitor, in its 16th season, on Wednesdays) is also big. Just ask NBC, which reportedly logs as much as $1 billion in annual ad sales from "Law & Order" programming, and counts "Special Victims Unit" its highest-rated show.But that's not all. "Conviction," Wolf's drama about assistant district attorneys, is scheduled to premiere on NBC in midseason. And a series he's developing for NBC next season would chronicle the impact of a sensational murder trial as it overtakes a small town.Wolf has lots going on. Even so, he still feels the pain from NBC axing "Law & Order: Trial By Jury" just weeks after its premiere last March."Extraordinarily upsetting," he says.Was he really blindsided?"More than blindsided. I had been told multiple times, 'Yeah, the show's coming back. What're you worried about?' "But when NBC's fall schedule was unveiled last May, "Trial By Jury" was nowhere to be found. The network had dumped it for "Inconceivable," an aptly titled melodrama about a fertility clinic. "Inconceivable" vanished after just two airings.What then? What else: reruns of "Criminal Intent" are filling that Friday gap, at least through November sweeps.So much for NBC's latest stab at reducing its dependence on "Law & Order" backups, which are routinely plugged into the network's leaky schedule like fingers in a dike. (One notable week last season, one or another "Law & Order" series aired during 12 of NBC's 22 prime-time hours.)This may account for why Wolf (at 58 a veteran producer who has weathered his share of flops) takes umbrage at how the network discarded "Trial By Jury" after long benefiting from its three predecessors.What did canceling "Trial By Jury" really say about NBC's faith in the "Law & Order" brand?"It was more a statement about the network and our mandate to move forward," declares NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly, who cites the network's prime-time plunge from first to fourth place last season as "a very clear sign in the ratings that it was time to move on."It's like 'L&O,' but ..."Trial By Jury" wasn't a breakout hit, and the network opted not to wait for it to catch on.Asked the prospect for future "Law & Order" spinoffs, Reilly says, "We have no plans at the moment."But he hastens to point out: "We clearly jumped back into business with Dick."With just a pilot script in hand, NBC has ordered 13 episodes of "Conviction," which Wolf created after finding this statistic: Among the hundreds of prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney's office, the average age is 28. This translates into young, inexperienced and attractive go-getters who are pushed to the limit. Casting is under way.A crime-and-courts sort of drama ripped from the headlines, "Conviction" need add only a few location title cards, "cha-chung" sound effects, and yet another variation on Mike Post's theme to qualify as "Law & Order: Conviction." (It will even occupy the elaborate courtroom-and-offices set vacated by "Trial By Jury" at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens.)But it won't be wearing that "Law & Order" mantle. Dick Wolf. His new show, "Conviction," comes to NBC in midseason. "It's a very high-octane show with a pace that we've never seen in the 'Law & Order' shows before -- very kinetic, and very young," Reilly promises. "I don't want any assumptions (by the viewer) that it needed to adhere to the 'Law & Order' conventions."Wolf, who sizes up this strategy with a "no comment," might prefer to have "Conviction" in the "Law & Order" fold.After all, brand familiarity might boost viewer sampling. Besides, "Conviction" could then join the parallel world all "Law & Order" series share -- where stories and characters are free to intermingle, and where crossover episodes come naturally."I'm certainly not gonna say that there should never be another show with 'Law & Order' in the title," says Wolf.But no matter how big he is, the network is bigger."They have the power to put a show on and take it off," he says matter-of-factly. "Producers can cajole, scream, threaten. It doesn't do any good. The networks will do what they perceive is in their best interest, not mine."But we're partners," he adds. "It's their asset, too." That is, his series are produced in association with NBC Universal Television Studio, a division of NBC Universal, which profits not only from the first-run telecasts, but from syndication, too: old "Law & Order" episodes on TNT; "Special Victims Unit" and "Criminal Intent" reruns on USA. Even "Trial By Jury" will be recycled by Court TV starting in December.And the rerun pool is only getting deeper for the "Law & Order" trio."I don't think the franchise has a wear-out factor. There are gonna be great stories forever," Wolf says. "My only mantra is: Keep the brand healthy."Now the question on his mind might be: Is NBC listening?Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A new federal regulation making it easier for law enforcement to tap Internet phone calls is being challenged in court.Privacy and technology groups asked the federal appeals court in Washington on Tuesday to overturn a Federal Communications Commission rule that expands wiretapping laws to cover Internet calls -- or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).Law enforcement agencies already can obtain a subpoena for the contents of VoIP calls from Internet access providers. But the FBI and others want the ability to capture the technology live and they want systems designed so it would be easy to do that."The whole process of innovation on the Internet would be seriously damaged," said John Morris, staff counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology.To meet the rule's requirements, Internet call providers would have to rewire networks at great cost, Morris said. In addition, there is fear the rule would stifle development of new technologies by placing more regulatory burdens on innovators.Justice Department spokesman Paul Bresson says court-authorized electronic surveillance is a critical law enforcement tool. "As communications technologies develop, we must ensure that such progress does not come at the expense of our nation's safety and security," he said.The FCC declined comment on the legal challenge.The Center for Democracy and Technology was joined in its court petition by several groups, including CompTel, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Electronic Privacy Information Center.Separately, the American Council on Education, which represents about 2,000 colleges and universities, filed an appeal of the rule on Monday in federal court in Washington.The rule, approved by the FCC in August, requires that providers of Internet phone calls and broadband services ensure their equipment can allow police wiretaps.The rule applies to VoIP providers such as Vonage that use a central telephone company to complete Internet calls. It also applies to cable and phone companies that provide broadband services. The companies must comply by May 2007.The education group said schools are willing to cooperate with the FBI, but that there are other ways to assist law enforcement rather than rewiring networks."We fear that the FCC order will make every college and university replace every router and every switch in their systems," said council senior vice president Terry Hartle. "The cost of doing that is substantial."For example, he said, the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently rewired its network as part of its regular upgrade of computer systems. The cost, he said, was $18 million.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Google Inc. has unintentionally provided a sneak peek at what appears to be a looming expansion into classified advertising -- a free service that might antagonize some of the Internet search engine's biggest customers, including online auctioneer eBay Inc.Screen shots of the experimental service, dubbed "Google Base," appeared on several Web sites Tuesday shortly after the legions of people who dissect the online search engine leader's every move discovered a link to a page inviting people to list things like a used car for sale, a party planning service and current events.Google confirmed the development of the service a few hours after taking down the link."We are testing new ways for content owners to easily send their content to Google," the Mountain View, California-based company said in a statement. "We're continually exploring new opportunities to expand our offerings, but we don't have anything to announce at this time."By offering a forum that would enable people to sell goods and services without paying for the advertising, Google might hurt eBay -- a major buyer of the online ads that account for most of Google's profits.EBay depends on the fees that it receives for helping to sell all kinds of products and services, including items that might be listed for free on Google Base. The San Jose, California-based company also owns a 25 percent stake in Craigslist, a popular site that offers free classified ads in more than 100 cities.Google also has confirmed it's working on an online payment service, but CEO Eric Schmidt has said the service won't compete with eBay-owned PayPal.Another free online classified ad service also would pose another financial threat to newspapers, which already have been squeezed in the cities where Craigslist provides free listings.If a free Google listing service materializes, it could change the way many Web sites view the online search engine leader.Through most of its seven-year existence, Google has depicted itself as a vehicle for delivering people to other destinations that contained a desired piece of information or product.But during the past 18 months, Google has increasingly been adding more content and services that are turning its Web site into more of portal -- a sort of one-stop shop for information and commerce."As soon as you start competing with some of the people that you are indexing, it creates a completely different dynamic," said Craig Donato, chief executive of Oodle.com, a search engine that pools listings from dozens of classified advertising sites."Google can get away with a lot of stuff, but (Google Base) would certainly give people pause," he said.Google's diversification has coincided with tougher competition from Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN -- two longtime portals that have been trying to build better search engines.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The death toll in Pakistan from the October 8 earthquake has risen to 54,197, while the number of injured has increased to about 78,000, most of them with multiple fractures, the Federal Relief Commission told CNN Wednesday.More than 3.3 million people have been left homeless as a result of the quake, which affected about 9,700 square miles (25,000 square kilometers).Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, said Wednesday that efforts to provide shelter, medical treatment and other aid to the victims were being redoubled in the face of the imminent arrival of winter in the North West Frontier province and the state of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, regions hardest-hit by the disaster."We are racing against time to shield the victims from cold weather in the mountainous region," he said as a U.N. conference sought more international financial aid for the country.Speaking to a delegation of International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Musharraf said the country was working to get tents for the millions made homeless.He said he appreciated the rapid international relief assistance extended to the country in the wake of the worst natural disaster in Pakistan's history.Meanwhile, the United Nations said Wednesday donors had pledged an additional $580 million for Pakistan's earthquake victims.The U.N. had requested $550 million in immediate aid on the eve of the donors' conference in Geneva on Wednesday, but officials said some of the new money might go to other humanitarian organizations or future reconstruction projects, The Associated Press reports.Jan Egeland, the head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that so far $111 million had been specifically earmarked for the U.N. appeal to help victims of the 7.6-magnitude quake that killed nearly 80,000 people. Pakistan has said rebuilding the area will cost $5 billion."The good news is that we have very good pledges, but the bad news for us is that too little is committed to the U.N.'s flash appeal," he told reporters after the meeting, as he harshly criticized donors giving money for reconstruction."It is not right to sit with the money for reconstruction for one year from now if it is a question of whether people will still be alive," Egeland said, according to AP.He earlier warned that more resources were needed to save 2 million to 3 million lives.The flash appeal is for U.N. agencies and a number of charities, including Save The Children and Catholic Relief Services. It does not cover separate appeals by agencies such as the Red Cross, even though some are working with U.N. agencies in the field.So far, donors have been slow to respond to the fund-raising appeals. To make matters worse, relief efforts are hampered by massive logistical problems, continued aftershocks and mudslides in Pakistan's mountainous area.Two and a half weeks after the earthquake struck, many mountain communities in the remotest areas are still out of reach.Charity group Oxfam has accused rich countries of "failing to respond generously" and singled out seven countries, among them Belgium, France, Austria, Finland, Greece, Portugal and Spain, who it said had so far given nothing to the U.N. appeal.Oxfam also said the United States, Germany, Italy and Japan had given less than one fifth of their fare share -- calculated according to the relative size of their economy as a proportion of the total from major industrialized countries, AP reported.Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's Sunni Arabs, who turned out in larger numbers for a constitutional referendum after boycotting January's parliamentary vote, are now flexing their political muscles for the December 15 assembly election, Sunni Arab officials told CNN.Three Sunni Arab groups -- the General Conference for the People of Iraq, the Iraqi Islamic Party and the Iraqi National Dialogue -- have formed a coalition, representatives of those groups said.Their announcement came a day after Iraqi officials announced that the constitution had won approval in the October 15 referendum, with 63 percent of voters casting ballots and more than 78 percent of them favoring the document. (Full story)In Washington, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq on Wednesday called the referendum a "landmark moment" for the Middle East.Zalmay Khalilzad helped the Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni lawmakers hammer out the document.He noted that Sunni Arabs "participated in substantial numbers" in contrast to January, when they stayed away from the polls during voting for the transitional assembly.Khalilzad said "positive political developments and continuing growth in the capabilities of the Iraqi forces" make is possible that the number of U.S. forces in Iraq could be reduced in 2006."I do believe it's possible that we could adjust our forces, downsizing them in the course of next year," he said.U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq continue to battle a persistent insurgency believed to be dominated by Sunnis, who controlled the country until Saddam Hussein was overthrown in 2003.The U.S. military said Wednesday an American soldier died Tuesday evening in southern Iraq near Camp Bucca after a vehicle accident.The casualty raised the death toll for U.S. forces in Iraq to 2,001, the day after U.S. senators held a moment of silence in Washington to mark the 2,000th fatality. (Full story)Of the 2,001 deaths, 1,560 have been in hostile situations and 441 nonhostile, according to U.S. military figures counted by CNN.Sen. John Kerry called on President Bush Wednesday to begin reducing U.S. troop levels, with the objective of pulling out "the bulk of American combat forces by the end of next year."In a speech at Georgetown University in Washington, Kerry outlined a plan calling for the removal of 20,000 troops in the coming months, following the "completion of the democratic elections." (Full story)Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan and 25 other protesters were arrested Wednesday as they lay on the sidewalk in front of the White House on the first night of what they said would be a weeklong vigil mourning U.S. deaths in Iraq.Sheehan, whose son died while serving in Iraq, was arrested last month in another White House protest. (Full story)Autonomous regions issueThe name of the new Sunni Arab coalition -- the Iraqi Accord Front -- has been submitted to Iraq's electoral commission for participation in December's election, an Iraqi Islamic Party spokesman said.A spokesman for the General Conference party, Sheikh Imad al-Deen Mohammed, said the coalition will "urge people to participate and vote during the coming general elections and to play a good role in the next government."The new assembly will be the permanent legislature. Its members, who will serve four-year terms, will choose the president, prime minister and Cabinet.Sunnis stayed away from the January 30 election, picking up few seats in the assembly. Over the year, many Sunnis decided to participate in the political process.Shiite and Kurdish leaders and Sunni officials spent weeks before the referendum devising compromises to make the constitution more palatable to Sunnis.Federalism -- the existence of autonomous regions -- remains one of the main issues of contention, Khalilzad said. Kurds in the north and Shiite Arabs in south favor language permitting such regions.Many Sunni Arabs, noting that Iraq's oil wealth is centered in those areas, say such regions would benefit those groups in the long run. Sunnis want a more centralized government.An autonomous Kurdish region already exists in the north, and some Shiites have expressed a desire for one in the south.One compromise allowed the constitution to be amended by the new assembly, a move that was agreeable to some Sunnis.Even though the constitution won by a wide margin, many of the minority Sunni Arabs voted against it.Khalilzad: 'Living document'Participation in the December 15 election for a parliament will benefit Sunnis, Khalilzad told the daily White House press briefing."More than 50 articles in the draft constitution require implementation laws to be passed in the next assembly," he said. "So being in the next assembly will also effect possible changes in addition to the normal amendment process."Khalilzad said "success" in the ethnically and religiously diverse Iraq depends "on a national compact" and he believes the "ratification of the constitution signals major progress toward that goal."He said the constitution is a working document, a fact that should assure opponents have "avenues for further changes" when the new parliament convenes."Like the U.S. Constitution, this is a living document that can be adjusted," he said.Other developmentsThe director-general of Iraq's Ministry of Culture, Nabeel Yasser al-Musawi, died in a drive-by shooting Wednesday while in his pickup truck in western Baghdad, Iraqi emergency police said.Khalilzad said the United States will work with Iraqis to "expand" security for lawyers and witnesses in the trial of Saddam Hussein. Iraqi lawyers and defense attorneys in the tribunal raised safety concerns after an attorney representing a Hussein co-defendant was killed last week. (Full story)A man the U.S. military describes as "an al Qaeda terrorist cell leader who personally assisted in at least three videotaped beheadings" was killed in a coalition raid on a "suspected safe house" in Mosul this weekend. The military, in a written statement, said Nashwan Mijhim Muslet, also known as Abu Tayir or Abu Zaid, and his assistant, Nahi Achmed Obeid Sultan, also known as Abu Hassan, were killed. "Several" insurgents were killed in raids on two "safe houses" Wednesday in the western town of Hit in Anbar province, the U.S. military said.

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Two Lebanese brothers were charged Wednesday in connection with the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, presidential spokesman Rafic Shalala said.Presidential spokesman Rafic Shalala confirmed that Mahmud and Ahmed Abdel-Al, have been charged.The brothers, identified as Mahmud and Ahmed Abdel-Al, were already in custody. Ahmed was arrested more than a month ago on weapons possession charges, and Mahmud was arrested Saturday after the release of a U.N. report on the Hariri assassination.That report said Mahmud telephoned Lebanese President Emile Lahoud minutes before the February 14 blast that killed Hariri and 20 others.The U.N. report -- called the Mehlis report after its author, German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis -- concluded that there was "converging evidence" of involvement by Syrian and pro-Syrian Lebanese officials in the assassination.The U.N. probe concluded that the bomb used to kill Hariri was detonated above ground and used at least 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) of military explosives.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. John Kerry says President Bush should bring home 20,000 troops from Iraq over the Christmas holidays if the December parliamentary elections there are successful.Defeated by Bush last year and a potential candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, Kerry called for a "reasonable time frame" for pulling back troops rather than a full-scale withdrawal advocated by some Democrats. He said it could be completed in 12 to 15 months. (Read the passage of Iraq's constitution)"It will be hard for this administration, but it is essential to acknowledge that the insurgency will not be defeated unless our troop levels are drawn down ... starting immediately after successful elections in December," Kerry said in a speech Wednesday at Georgetown University.The presence of 159,000 U.S. troops in Iraq is deterring peace efforts, said Kerry, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee."To undermine the insurgency, we must instead simultaneously pursue both a political settlement and the withdrawal of American combat forces linked to specific, responsible benchmarks," he said. "At the first benchmark, the completion of December elections, we can start the process of reducing our forces by 20,000 troops over the course of the holidays."Kerry, who voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq, has been a strong critic of Bush's handling of the war, accusing the president of misleading the public into going to war.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- The death toll attributed to Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana has grown to 1,053, according to figures released Tuesday.The number of bodies received by a special morgue in St. Gabriel near Baton Rouge and by coroners in 13 parishes rose to 1,061, up from 1,056 on October 21. But that total included the bodies of eight people whose deaths have since been ruled unrelated to the storm, the state Department of Health and Hospitals said.Just under half of the bodies have been identified, and many of those names have not been released because of difficulty locating family members or because autopsies are pending, said Bob Johannessen, a DHH spokesman.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

MIAMI, Florida (AP) -- Miami International Airport reopened to domestic flights Wednesday for the first time since Hurricane Wilma, but the biggest carrier there expected to operate only half its flights.West Palm Beach's airport also opened, but Fort Lauderdale's remained closed.Lines were forming Wednesday morning at Miami International, the busiest U.S. hub for Latin American travel. Although several flights arrived and left, the airport looked far from fully operational with some employees still standing around and waiting.The nation's largest airline, American Airlines, is the airport's biggest carrier. The unit of AMR Corp. typically flies 500 flights a day into and out of Miami, but the carrier said Tuesday operations there would run at 50 percent until aircraft and crews flown out before the hurricane arrived were back in place.Officials at the Fort Worth, Texas-based airline did not return messages seeking comment Wednesday.Jennifer Combs was trying Wednesday to get on a Delta Air Lines Inc. flight to Hawaii to help her best friend celebrate her first wedding anniversary. She was supposed to leave Tuesday, was on her third flight change and still didn't know when she would leave."We just can't seem to get out of here," Combs said. "It's very frustrating. I just feel bad. I see people sitting on the floor sleeping, I'm sure they've been here a long time."The first plane to land in Miami since Monday's hurricane arrived from Brazil on Tuesday night. Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Southwest Airlines Co.'s hub for South Florida, remained closed to commercial traffic but emergency aircraft were coming into both facilities."Our main problem right now is water pressure, because it's an integral part of our fire safety system," Fort Lauderdale airport spokesman Steve Belleme said. "That's mandatory before we can have passengers in the building."No decision has been made on when commercial flights would be able to return, he said. Roof damage still needed to be repaired in many of the airport's four terminals, but the instrument landing system and runway lights are working, he said.Palm Beach International Airport appeared to have about half its flights scheduled for the day operating, according to its Web site.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Writing a thank-you letter after an interview doesn't just showcase a candidate's manners -- it can also make or break his or her chances of landing a job.Nearly 15 percent of hiring managers say they would not hire someone who failed to send a thank-you letter after the interview. Thirty-two percent say they would still consider the candidate, but would think less of him or her, according to CareerBuilder.com's recent "How to Get in the Front Door" survey.Although most hiring managers expect to receive a thank-you note, format preferences differ.One-in-four hiring managers prefer to receive a thank-you note in e-mail form only; 19 percent want the e-mail followed up with a hard copy; 21 percent want a typed hard copy only, and 23 percent prefer just a handwritten note.No matter which format you choose, it's crucial to act quickly when sending a thank-you letter to your interviewer.Twenty-six percent of hiring managers expect to have the letter in-hand two days after the interview, and 36 percent expect to have it within three to five days. Sending the letter quickly reinforces your enthusiasm for the job, and helps keep you top-of-mind for the interviewer.Here are some tips to make the most of your thank-you letter:Stick to three paragraphs: In the first paragraph, thank the interviewer for the opportunity. Use the second to sell yourself by reminding the hiring manager of your qualifications. In the third paragraph, reiterate your interest in the position.Fill in the blanks: Thank-you notes are a great way to add in key information you forgot in the interview, clarify any points or try to ease any reservations the interviewer might have expressed.Proofread carefully: Double-check to be sure your note is free from typos and grammatical errors. Don't rely solely on your spell-checker.Be specific: Don't send out a generic correspondence. Instead, tailor your note to the specific job and the relationship you have established with the hiring manager.The CareerBuilder.com survey, "How to Get in the Front Door," was conducted from May 17 to May 27, 2005. Methodology used to collect survey responses totaling more than 650 hiring managers for this study involved selecting a random sample of comScore Networks panel members. These Web panel members were approached via an e-mail invitation, which asked them to participate in a short online survey. The results of this survey are statistically accurate to within +/- 3.84 percentage points (19 times out of 20).Rosemary Haefner is CareerBuilder.com's vice president of human resources and senior career adviser. She is an expert in recruitment trends and tactics, job seeker behavior, workplace issues, employee attitudes and HR initiatives.

(CNN) -- Development and storms have eroded much of the coastal wetlands that provide "speed bumps" for approaching storms. CNN.com asked readers whether steps should be taken to rebuild them. Here is a sampling of those responses, some of which have been edited:If coastal wetlands are rebuilt using taxpayer money, then people will want to go back in and develop this area for housing again. The wetlands are important, but money talks and those that have it will influence the area with promises of economic boom due to new development. Besides, every time one of their houses is destroyed or damaged by a storm, my insurance premiums go up. Stop the building in high risk areas and we can discontinue putting our rescue workers in harm's way as well. If the area is strategic to our national security and can't be replaced that's one thing, but most of the cases do not fall into that category. Randy, Minneapolis, MinnesotaPerhaps the most effective intervention would be NO intervention. Recent history is littered with examples of human meddling in nature going wrong, whether by intent/design or by accident. Probably best to let Mother Nature do her thing and take care of herself. Greg Ulbrich, Charleston, West VirginiaWe can fix everything that needs to be fixed. "Man is his worst enemy." We first must fix this problem before we fix anything else. Waymon Boone, Milford, ConnecticutI think people should be allowed to rebuild anything they want as long as it doesn't take our tax dollars. I think people should have a say in how tax money is spent. If people want to live on the coastal wetlands, let them foot the bill every time. Lisa, Cary, North CarolinaIt's frustrating to read the comments of those who say that the wetlands should not be built back because nature destroyed them. If it weren't for the development, the wetlands would be able to rebuild themselves. Because of our expansion into that habitat it no longer has room to bend and change with the times as it has been doing long before we came along. Catherine, Atlanta, GeorgiaFor those who say, let's allow the wetlands to return to nature, and let's not use taxpayer money to rebuild New Orleans, I say let's not lose sight of the economical facts. New Orleans is a major shipping port, strategically located at the mouth of one of the world's largest rivers. The impact of the loss of the port would be absolutely catastrophic to our agriculture, textile, and oil industries. The loss of revenue, and the resulting loss of jobs, would eventually affect everyone in this country. Instead of jerking your knee and saying, "Gee, let's allow Mother Nature to take back the Gulf Coast," stop and think, for once. Kate Webber, Santa Clara, CaliforniaI am not native to Louisiana, but I have lived in Prairieville (southeast of Baton Rouge) for 4+ years. If you were to drive west out of Baton Rouge to Lafayette and Lake Charles, you will see that most of the land south of I-10 is some form of undeveloped wetland or swamp. Overdevelopment of wetlands is not the issue here. The problem is the elevation of the land. I am about 50 miles in a straight line to the ocean, and our elevation above sea level is only 15 feet. Some parts of New Orleans, obviously, are below sea level. I do not see how increasing the size of wetlands will help diminish a storm surge and keep low-lying areas from flooding from a direct hit from a tropical storm. I believe it would be a waste of resources to build them up or out. It is part of living near the coast. That is, a few times a year you may need to evacuate, every 5-10 years you may need to fix some damage to your house, and every 25-30 years your house may be destroyed. That is the risk, and I believe a lot of people are re-evaluating whether the risk is worth taking. Matt Evers, Prairieville, LouisianaYes, we must rebuild them. Anyone who says "No" doesn't understand the whole issue. It was human activity that weakened the wetlands and other coastal areas (not only wetland areas) through development and deforestation and made them more vulnerable to erosion and destabilization not only from hurricanes but also small, everyday storms. The federal government should make it easier for states to use eminent domain in the most vulnerable areas and should also not support redevelopment of these areas that were wiped out in the past. Stricter zoning ordinances should also be implemented by the affected states. Maybe include Hurricane Strike Zones based on history and not allow development of those areas at all. After all, it is my tax dollars that will have to bail these people out when they get hit again. Joe Sofranko, West Chester, PennsylvaniaNo, I don't think that they should be rebuilt at all. Nature knows exactly what she's doing, and she'll get by just fine. Besides, the amount of time and money spent at the taxpayer's expense would not equal out in the end, considering that next year another hurricane will just come by and tear the "speed bumps" apart again. The coastal south is hurricane territory -- it is an undeniable fact. Don't keep rebuilding the windmill. Jason Bartlett, Coudersport, PennsylvaniaIf eroded wetlands are not restored, cities farther north of the Gulf Coast will suffer. The wetlands serve as a buffer that weakens storms before they get to the more populated areas. Population centers farther north will be subject to stronger storms and possibly storm surge, which will also be able to travel farther north. Either restore the wetlands or move the population centers farther north before they, too, suffer a "Katrina" type event similar to what New Orleans has suffered. By the way, wetlands erosion is considered a factor in the levees that failed, as storm surge and high winds that would have been buffered by these wetlands ultimately caused their failure. Burke, Houston, TexasThe arguments being made by viewers about costs are rather spurious, and sadly endemic of a culture where the idea that you're supposed to "gain wealth, forgetting all but self" has been all too readily accepted. One wonders what the viewers who take this position think about the taxpayers' money that is being poured into an unnecessary occupation of Iraq. Further to that, one wonders where the priorities of these people are. We need to think outside of irrational, yet plainly accepted truths, like ones that tell us landowners and investors deserve more protection than the environment. Someone can rage about "lefties" all they want, but if they can't see how a fraction of what's being spent on something like Iraq and the entire military-industrial system could be used for so much good in this world, then they're not really serious about finding solutions to the genuine problems we face and should just keep their opinions to themselves. Andrew Stoeten, Toronto, Ontario, CanadaLeave it as it is. Isn't a true environmentalist the one who doesn't interfere with mother nature? Then again we as humans are part of nature and like any other animal can change the landscape drastically if we so choose. Jade, Orem, Utah

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- These pumpkins look like something scared them.Eerie white pumpkins -- naturally white, not painted -- are finding their way into more and more homes this Halloween season.The albinos are called ghost pumpkins, snowballs, luminas or Caspers -- presumably a reference to the friendly ghost. And the ones about the size of a baseball? Baby Boos.White pumpkins are slightly more expensive than their orange cousins, but parents and party planners say they're more ghoulish and offer a better canvas for drawing or painting jack-o'-lantern faces.Victoria Pericon, author of "Mommy Land: Entering the Insanity of Motherhood," spotted white pumpkins this year for the first time in New York City and thinks her crayon-wielding 2-year-old daughter "will be crawling all over this thing."Those who carve the pumpkins will find they still have orange flesh beneath the white rind, adding to their ghostly appeal when a candle is put inside."When you get a dark night, I think they're going to look pretty cool outside," said Karla Neely, a Dallas public relations account executive who bought a white pumpkin for her home last week. "They seem like they will almost glow."White pumpkins -- simply another variety of the autumn favorite -- have been around for a while, but what was once a curiosity at farmers markets is now making the scene at larger groceries and pumpkin patches.Gensler Gardens, a family farm near Rockford, grew 6,000 white pumpkins this year because the 1,000 it cultivated last year were such a hit. But more than a week before Halloween, all 6,000 had been sold, and the Genslers will probably grow 20,000 next year, Scott Gensler said."White has become a strong decorating element in people's homes," said Nancy Soriano, editor-in-chief of Country Living magazine, which put pumpkins that had been painted white on its cover last October. "They might have white pottery, sofas, and white pumpkins add a very iconic look."Deborah Racicot, the executive pastry chef at Gotham Bar and Grill in New York, has been carving white pumpkins for years to display at her house."People that are throwing parties tend to buy them," Racicot said, adding that those hosting soirees "are looking for the coolest thing to make their party a little more chic than normal."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Kathy Hudson, 43, received the call in her classroom surrounded by 20 rowdy 4-year olds.It was her doctor. He said a routine mammogram showed what looked like "a spot of cancer.""I was shaking," she said. "I didn't even know how to answer him."I just put my phone up and took a deep breath and said 'you know, I have to get through these next minutes with the kids. Don't fall apart.' "Hudson is one of more than 200,000 women in the United States that the American Cancer Society says will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year.New, targeted treatments and better forms of diagnosis have caused deaths from breast cancer to decline since 1990. Breast cancer remains by far the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women, well ahead of lung cancer -- which will be found in 79,000 women this year -- according to the American Cancer Society.However, lung cancer is the deadliest for women, the five-year survival rate for women with lung cancer is only 14 percent, according to the non-profit National Center for Policy Analysis.Hudson's ordeal began when she went in for a mammogram she'd been "too busy" to get for three years. A suspicious looking spot was found, and after a lumpectomy she was diagnosed with breast cancer.Keeping a routineWhile treatments have improved, they can still be brutal -- beginning with some type of surgery followed by radiation, chemotherapy, hormone therapy or a combination of those.For Hudson, it meant radiation and incorporating that treatment into her busy life with her husband and three daughters."We really had to become comfortable with the word 'cancer' and all of the terminology that came with it," she said.For Hudson's husband, Jerry, the diagnosis meant doing "what she needed me to do to help raise our kids and bring them up," he said.Jerry Hudson said he felt helpless: "How am I going to deal with this? How do I support her, because I don't really understand what she is going through?"Kathy Hudson said keeping a routine has helped."It keeps your mind off the problem. It's always there, you know: 'I have cancer. I am a cancer patient.' "But the aches, pains, sleeplessness and fatigue that treatments cause remind her.Treatment side effectsAccording to experts at the non-profit, educational Web site breastcancer.org: "Your body is in a war against cancer. It needs all its resources to fight the disease, so it shuts down your energy for other activities that would take away your strength from the battle. Fatigue is the result."Possible side-effects of cancer treatments are hair loss, nausea, and cognitive problems like a spotty memory or trouble finding the right words.Doctors say women often don't ask their doctors for help with such problems, thinking they must endure these miseries. In fact, many can be treated.Hudson gets her radiation treatment during her students' nap breaks. She said being with them is its own medicine."They sure do love you a lot and they make you laugh, so even when you are feeling rotten being in the classroom isn't really a bad place to be," she said. "You expend a lot of energy with them, but you get so much in return it makes things easier at times."Her fighting spirit helps, too."It's like this war you fought, and you are going to win. If you look at it that way, you are going to win," she said.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rep. Tom DeLay failed to comply with House requirements that he disclose all contributions to a defense fund that pays his legal bills, the Texas Republican acknowledged to House officials.He wrote officials that $20,850 contributed in 2000 and 2001 was not reported anywhere. Another $17,300 was included in the defense fund's quarterly report but not in DeLay's 2000 annual financial disclosure report -- a separate requirement. Other donations were understated as totaling $2,800, when the figure should have been $4,450.It was during that period that DeLay was the subject of several House ethics investigations.DeLay, R-Texas, stepped aside as House majority leader -- at least temporarily -- after he was indicted on a felony charge September 28 in a Texas campaign fund-raising investigation. He has since been charged a second time in the same case.On October 13 DeLay wrote the clerk of the House, Jeff Trandahl, that his first inkling of inconsistencies in his disclosures came last February."I brought this matter -- which I discovered on my own -- to the attention of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to alert the chairman and ranking member," DeLay said in his letter."Upon learning of these accounting irregularities, I immediately requested that the trust undergo a full and complete audit from its June 2000 inception through 2004 to determine if any additional accountancy problems existed with the trust."The audit confirmed the unreported donations and the other errors, DeLay said.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

NORTHERN BABIL PROVINCE, Iraq (CNN) -- It's dubbed the "meat grinder." And the toll taken on U.S. forces on these roads patrolled by the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in the northern Babil province explains why.They are some of the most dangerous roads in Iraq and being on them cost the unit 14 men in less than two months this summer.The soldiers say a cycle has developed: they get hit by a roadside bomb and five minutes later someone puts another in its place.As we geared up to patrol a road called "Route Bug" -- one of the worst -- an African-American sergeant stood on top of his Bradley fighting vehicle and exclaimed to his men, "I've seen this movie gentlemen, and the black man does NOT die first."Everyone laughed. It was a moment of levity masking an unfortunate truth that all the men knew all too well: this is not a movie, and the cost of the war here at Forward Operating Base Falcon is as real as it gets.When you walk into squadron headquarters, the first thing you see is the Wall of Fallen Heroes. The wall's 14 pictures and biographies of men killed from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment stand out like a massive scar. It's impossible to do justice to each story on the wall with a photo and a brief bio.'Part of me will never leave'The commander of Thunder Squadron, Lt. Col. Ross Brown, constantly engages in debates -- both political and military.Brown, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, is haunted by the memories of his fallen soldiers. "A part of me will never leave," he said.As Brown explained how each soldier's death has affected the unit, I couldn't help wonder about the toll that they have taken on him.He goes to each site where his men have died, picks up pieces of their bodies and places them in body bags. There is no pleasant death from homemade bombs; they tear limb from limb.Later, Brown sits for hours listening to stories told by the fallen soldier's comrades. He then goes to his office to draft a letter to the soldier's family.Sometimes Brown receives letters from family members in response. He shared one of them with me in which the family of a soldier killed in a burning vehicle asked about the condition of his body."How do you tell a family that we could not get to the burning vehicle for over an hour?" Brown asked. "That the ammo inside was cooking off?"Instead, Brown writes to the families about the sacrifices they are making.Brown said he writes the letters in part "for the kids.""I want their kids to know who their father was and how he lived," Brown said. "My father fought in Vietnam. If he had died when I was young, I would want to know who he was, how he lived."Sacrifice and honorEach story Brown tells is about sacrifice and honor. One soldier Brown talks about had lost his legs and an arm in combat. Despite his severe injuries, Brown said, the soldier would ask only about the condition of his comrade next to him." 'Is he OK? Is he OK?' " Eight hours later, the soldier who had lost three limbs died at a medivac station with Brown by his side.As I stand in front of this wall, I am stunned by how short the lives of these men were.Spc. Eric James Poelman -- who died after his Bradley vehicle hit a bomb, flipped over and caught fire -- was 21 years old.Riding in the Bradley with Poelman were his two friends, Sgt. Justin Lee Vasquez, 26, and Pfc. Brian Scott Ulbrich, 24. I think about their families.Men like Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Wade Phelps, who died on June 23, leaving behind his wife, Bobbi, their son, Christian, and their three daughters: Cloud, Raeseana and Jegavaini.For the American citizen who is removed from this conflict, the casualties may appear like a manageable trickle of death in the Iraq war. But for the men of Thunder Squadron and their families, it is an almost daily, terrifying loss.The Wall of Fallen HeroesStaff Sgt. Justin Lee Vasquez, 26 January 1979 - 5 June 2005Spc. Eric James Poelman, 6 April 1984 - 5 June 2005Pfc. Brian Scott Ulbrich, 22 October 1981 - 5 June 2005Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Wade Phelps, 11 March 1966 - 23 June 2005Staff Sgt. Scottie L. Bright, 16 July 1968 - 5 July 2005Cpl. Lyle J. Cambridge, 30 October 1981 - 5 July 2005Sgt. Timothy James Sutton, 31 October 1982 - 11 July 1005Spc. Ronnie David Williams, 22 May 1979 - 17 July 2005Staff Sgt. Jason W. Montefering, 23 January 1978 - 24 July 2005Sgt. Milton M. Monzon Jr., 5 October 1983 - 24 July 2005Pfc. Ernest W. Dallas Jr., 15 October 1983 - 24 July 2005Pvt. 1st Class Reveron A. Villatoro 1 February 1986 - 24 July 2005Staff Sgt. Jeremy Alexander Brown 10 November 1978 - 3 July 2005Pvt. 1st Class Robert Adam Swaney 21 May 1984 - 30 July 2005

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (CNN) -- Trapped inside the darkened, stifling hot attic of her flooded home in New Orleans with her two teenage daughters, Debbie Este watched her own mother die as they waited for help she thought would never come.For three days they waited, sweating and stripped nearly naked because of the 110 degree heat, with no food and running out of water. The rising water reached the attic and threatened the survival of anyone inside the yellow-sided, single-story house.During half the time they were trapped, the body of Debbie's mom, Melissa Harold, 68, who didn't make it through the ordeal, lay lifeless on the attic floor.Debbie and her girls -- Tiffany, 16, and Amanda, 13 -- could hear the churn of helicopters overhead, evacuating neighbors near their house on Arts Street. The sound only reminded them that nobody had come to their rescue.Their own screams for help were unanswered. Fear got the better of Debbie. She felt so hopeless, she thought about using painkillers she had with her to end her and her daughters' plight."I said nobody's going to come save us up here and I don't wanna die like this, three days laying in this stinky, dirty water," Debbie Este said this week. "I couldn't take it anymore. We're gonna die, why don't we just end it quicker?'"At that time, stories of life and death and desperation were taking place across New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina's fury swept through the Gulf Coast, raising the waters and breaching the levees that kept the city and its homes above water.For the Estes, one family member was left dead and Debbie and her two daughters made it out alive, joining the hundreds of thousands of displaced people. Before their eventual rescue and relocation to a shelter in Baton Rouge, however, the three trapped survivors had to rescue themselves from succumbing to Debbie Este's desperation.Debbie, who is 47 and uses a wheelchair, had carried her painkillers -- 60 Loratab 10s -- into the attic. And she asked the girls to swallow the pills with her to end the suffering."She kept on saying, come on and take 'em," said Tiffany, who marked her 16th birthday in the Baton Rouge River Center shelter on Monday. "I just kept telling her we were going to be saved, but really, I didn't know."Amanda swayed her mother from suicide by talking about her future."I said I want to finish school and have a job and have kids and have a husband," Amanda said."She was miraculous. I couldn't believe it," Debbie said of her younger daughter. "I was so proud of her. She just screamed like that for hours and hours. Her and Tiffany kept saying we weren't going to die up here."Tiffany doesn't remember much else, having slept most of the time, even though her mom regularly woke her up, afraid she had died. "After my grandma died, I just went to sleep. She thought I'd died, but I was just sleeping."Escape to higher groundBefore Katrina hit the Gulf Coast on Sunday, August 28, Debbie said she hadn't paid much attention to the warnings and didn't want to evacuate without the family's pets. "I never once dreamed ... I just thought it would be a little wind and rain and then it would just blow over."The family had lived in the three-bedroom house on Arts Street for 13 years. Melissa Harold, the grandmother, moved in several years ago after Debbie's husband died. They lived with three dogs, a cat, a guinea pig, a gerbil, six hamsters and a parakeet."My mom told us we weren't leaving because wherever we went, we couldn't bring our animals with us," said Tiffany, who wants to be a veterinarian and mourned leaving behind the pets, including those buried in the back yard.On Monday morning, after the levees broke, the water came into the house, and instantly swamped the carpeted floors. Within minutes, it was waist deep."It started coming in my bedroom, and before I know it, the mattress is all full of water," Debbie said. "It was that quick."Amanda woke Tiffany up in her room, the last room to stay dry. The girls quickly started grabbing pets and waited for their mom, who was snatching credit cards from her room."When it started getting like that, I said we have to go in the attic, because that's the highest place I know of to go," Debbie said.Tiffany lost her cell phone trying to save a hamster and nearly drowned trying to save her cat in water that quickly swelled over her head. "It started coming up, faster and faster," she said.Debbie pulled Tiffany to safety on the attic ladder, and in turn, the girls helped their mom, who has been in a wheelchair for three years after an injury, on the steps into the dry attic. "God must have been with me, I don't know how I did it," Debbie said.They only found about a gallon of drinking water to take up with them. Then their battle to survive began.Torturous conditionsTemperatures climbed with the water level. On the first day, they watched the water reach the fifth ladder step from the top. On the second day, it lapped onto the attic floor.The family stayed in the back of the attic, not trusting the other side of the floor, which was weaker. While trapped in her attic, Debbie Este watched her mother die while the family waited for rescue. There were no windows, or light, just one small air vent. They took off most of their clothes because it was so hot.With no tools, Tiffany and Amanda banged against the inside of the roof, hoping someone would hear and come to their rescue.Tiffany dipped her feet in the floodwater to stay cool and thought about a root beer left behind in her room. Her mom wouldn't let her enter the water to go get it. They all repeatedly stopped their grandmother from trying to swim to get her purse from downstairs.By Monday evening, the 68-year-old woman's condition had deteriorated and her daughter and granddaughters knew she was dying. Six months earlier, she had suffered from congestive heart failure."Her breathing was getting slower, she kept saying she wanted water," Tiffany said, but the sips from the almost-empty bottle were not enough.Melissa Harold, a former newspaper reporter, passed away a day and a half after climbing into the attic. "We told her we loved her, and she said she loved us," Debbie said, in tears. "I told her I was sorry I couldn't help ... And she closed her eyes."Soon, the drinking water was gone. By Wednesday, the same water they had to urinate in started filling up the attic. They inched farther and farther back.Then, Debbie Este heard a voice from outside. Her brother, Aldo Harold, 50, had arrived by boat with some friends. Debbie had last talked to him by phone briefly three days earlier when the water started coming in to his house about a mile away."I thought I was dreaming," Debbie said. "I heard my brother hollering 'Debbie!' and I don't think I've screamed so hard in my life, I said 'We're here!'"Tiffany, awakened by her mother's screams, realized they were going to stay alive. "My uncle just kept saying he was going to get us out."In about five minutes, using an ax, Aldo chopped through the black shingles and wood of the roof so the three of them and two dogs could be pulled into the boat.During the rescue, more water poured in, raising the level in the attic. Holding her forefinger and thumb about six inches apart, Debbie said, "This much more and we would have been dead."They were pulled out into a surreal scene. All they could see was water all around as they emerged from their drowned house."My mother is dead up in the attic," Debbie said this week in Baton Rouge, her eyes darkened behind sunglasses indoors. "I just keep thinking about watching my mother die, and there was nothing I could do."Time for recoveryThe boat took them to the Save-A-Lot in their neighborhood. Then they rode in the bed of a pickup truck to the University of New Orleans. From there, a helicopter took them to Baton Rouge, where they stayed in a field hospital for one day while Debbie was treated for dehydration. Tiffany celebrated her 16th birthday at the shelter on Monday, where she's stayed for more than a week. Finally, they were brought to the American Red Cross' River Center shelter, where they tried to begin rebuilding their lives.Volunteers are making arrangements to find housing for them in Columbia, South Carolina, and they packed up some donated medicines, stuffed animals and clothes in plastic and cardboard boxes and trash bags.Debbie grieves the loss of her mother, who had been her support system all her life, and worries about her brother, who she hasn't heard from since he rescued her and her girls. He stayed behind to help find more people.Two of their dogs survived the flood, a shitzu named Matt and lab mix named Princess, but they couldn't bring the dogs out of the city and had to leave them behind."I think I'm in shock. I can't even think," Debbie said. "I just take each thing as it comes. And I still keep blaming myself. I say we should have left.Now, she said her girls are all she needs. When she got pregnant with her first child, she quit her job as an accountant to be a homemaker. Surprised by how much her youngest, Amanda, loves kids, Debbie's dream now is to live long enough to have grandchildren."But not anytime soon," she said, with a smile.