(CNN) -- When cancer first touched my life in 1984, there were no pink ribbons, no 5K races for "the cure" and few support groups to rely upon. Cancer was the kind of word you whispered and prayed didn't strike your family.But over the course of that year, my family was stricken four times. My father was diagnosed with lymphoma, my aunt with a blood-borne cancer, my mother and sister-in-law with breast cancer.In the end, the disease would take the lives of everyone but my mother, Betty. She survived the first diagnosis, mastectomy and recovery only to have it discovered again five years later.In some cases, up to 40 percent of breast cancer patients have a recurrence. My mother was one of them. In both cases, she believes that a mammogram saved her life.Mammography technology can detect small tumors before they are palpable by physical examination. The key here, from what I've learned from experts and personal experience, is to consult your physician and be your own advocate.The American Cancer Society recommends women do monthly breast self-examinations and have an annual clinical physical examination. The ACS and government health agencies recommend mammograms every year for women ages 40 and older.Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, report that regular mammograms staring at age 50 can reduce mortality rates by 37 percent. Some question, however, the value of regular mammograms before the age of 40.Having dealt with breast-cancer issues for the better part of two decades, I believe that early detection is key. And while mammography is not a perfect tool, experts say it is the first step in the process leading to breast-cancer eradication.Dr. Larry Norton, a breast cancer specialist at Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, told me that the death rate from breast cancer has dropped in all countries with regular mammography.As a journalist, I rarely blend my personal convictions with my professional duties. My story could be your story. Every three minutes brings a new case of breast cancer. Every 13 minutes brings another death.Breast cancer is one of the most important health concerns for women today. According to the American Cancer Society, one in every seven women will be diagnosed in their lifetime. In 2005, the ACS estimates 211,240 women will be diagnosed with -- and more than 40,410 will die from -- breast cancer.The numbers boggle the mind. It's a disease that not only touches women but the men, who love them -- the fathers, the husbands, the sons (in fact, an estimated 1,690 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005).I know my mother believes that she is here today, some 20 years after her first surgery, because a routine mammogram found a lump she could not detect. For that, my family will always be grateful. And that is what gets me to the doctor every year for my routine physical.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The union representing New York University graduate teaching assistants said Monday it has authorized a strike for November 9 over the university's refusal to negotiate a second contract.The university does not have to negotiate with Local 2110 of the United Auto Workers because the National Labor Relations Board ruled last year that graduate students at private universities are not workers and cannot form unions."NYU could settle this any time by agreeing to bargain in good faith," said Maida Rosenstein, president of the union, which represents about 1,000 teaching and research assistants at the university.NYU spokesman John Beckman said the school, which was the only private university in the country to recognize a union of graduate students, has been engaged in "appropriate planning" for a possible strike."In spite of the fact that we had no legal obligation, we engaged in conversations with them over the summer and made them an offer of a second contract, which they rejected unequivocally," Beckman said.Rosenstein called the university's response "a take-it-or-leave-it offer."She said the school wanted a seven-year period to unilaterally determine all terms of the agreement, including the right to cut health benefits anytime.The union's first contract with NYU expired August 31.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

ATHENS, Georgia (AP) -- University of Georgia student Brandon Esco has faced his share of razzing for being a nutrition science major -- a field traditionally dominated by women. "You're only in that major because of the girls," is the most common teasing he's heard.But at the school's College of Family and Consumer Sciences, Esco is part of a growing trend. Five years ago, only about 10 percent of the college's students were men. Last year, nearly one-third of the 1,700 students -- and roughly 40 percent of the tenure-track faculty -- were men.Those changes -- shared by other schools nationwide -- are helping to undermine the stereotypes long acquainted with home economic programs, often sneeringly chided as a "Mrs." degree.Experts say even the moniker "home ec" itself is outdated: Many schools have changed their program titles to terms such as "human sciences" to reflect a broader nature."Our students graduate to become lawyers, loan counselors, directors of day care, dietitians," said Sharon Nickols, dean of UGA's College of Family and Consumer Sciences. "We just don't know their major because they don't say, 'I'm a family and consumer scientist."'The cookie-baking classes and pop quizzes on laundry essentials that once dominated some home ec courses in junior high have broadened into courses geared toward "life skills," including tips for budgeting, and basic knowledge of supply and demand.Those changes have drawn more male students, said Dan Bower, president of the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences, once called the American Home Economics Association."Today's the golden age of home ec," said Dennis Savaiano, the dean of Purdue University's College of Consumer and Family Sciences. "We're directing all the same issues -- family, food and finance -- in a much broader, societal way. These are issues that transcend the home and reflect society in every way."In the 1950s, Americans recovering from World War II re-emphasized the value of working in the home for women. By the 1970s, programs began to branch out more into niche topics as child development, marriage counseling and family therapy became separate programs at many schools.Within the last decade, that pace has quickened. It's not uncommon to find schools offering specialized degrees that focus on property management or courses that tackle nutrition and fitness through a neuroscience lens.Those increasingly specialized programs have helped draw more women and men. Talia DeLuca, left, and Alan Gilmer are both furnishings and interiors majors at the University of Georgia.Florida State University's College of Human Sciences, for instance, has taken an athletic training program under its umbrella while expanding its offering into more subspecialties. Dean Penny Ralston said that's helped the school almost triple in size in seven years and attract more males.But there's still the persistent question of how to broaden the appeal of female-friendly programs to males."Men need nutrition, counseling and health classes just as much as women," said University of Georgia professor Mary Ann Johnson.Esco said he was lured to the University of Georgia by the promise of a good pre-dentistry program. But the Royston, Georgia, native ended up choosing a nutrition science major instead of a more traditional biology or chemistry track."They look at nutrition and how it affects your whole body in a holistic way, then break it down to a cellular level," he said of his professors. "And it's so much more -- they teach you how to be humble, how to be a leader."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico (AP) -- What began as a simple remodeling project for a private vacation home took a wildly romantic turn along the way and blossomed into an enchanting boutique hotel.Janice Chatterton can't say exactly how Hacienda San Angel happened. She never ran a hotel or a restaurant in her life. But it's possible she just couldn't resist sharing the high love-nest potential that came with the property.Chatterton bought her tropical villa from Susan Hunt, who received it as a 1977 Valentine's Day gift from her husband, the late actor Richard Burton. Just around the corner and down the street is another Burton gift house, the one he gave to Elizabeth Taylor when they were here during filming of the 1964 film "The Night of the Iguana."With the ghosts of such dangerous liaisons of the past swirling around it, a small luxury hotel would have a hard time missing as a destination for lovebirds, and Hacienda San Angel doesn't miss.From the outside, the place looks innocent enough, tucked into a modest neighborhood of white stucco and red tile roofs on one of the cobbled residential streets of central Puerto Vallarta. It's nothing like the glossy new high-rise hotel resorts springing up along the beaches north and south of the city.But guests who pull the bell rope that hangs above the door are admitted to a lush tiled courtyard straight out of colonial Mexico, a place where it's easy to picture a duel for your honor on the balustrade or a senorita beckoning from beyond the burbling fountain. Bougainvillea blossoms drop from overhead. Two blocks away, the bell tolls from the tower of the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe.Inside the hotel, romantic and secluded spaces abound. It is a warren of stairways, alcoves, winding passages, terraces, pools, and gardens that lead from courtyard to guest rooms with names like Angel's Dome, Milagro and the Celestial Suite.Chatterton added two adjacent homes to the original villa to create the hacienda's 10 guest rooms. Each is unique, but all of them manage to feel intimate and at the same time wide open to breezes and views of the palm-spangled hills and the broad bay they embrace. Like the rest of the hacienda, the rooms are filled with heavy antique furniture, icons and art work, yet still seem light and spacious.Chatterton, who is from California, wasn't sure if Puerto Vallarta drew enough upscale visitors for the level of luxury she found herself offering. But the market did respond. "It has more than met my expectations," she said. A view of Puerto Vallarta from the hacienda And the hotel -- which opened in 2003 -- has gotten rave reviews from Frommer's, Fodor's, and Conde Nast Traveler, which listed the hacienda on its 2005 "Hot List."Though the villa and its museum-quality decor come straight from the 19th century or even earlier, the hacienda offers a full array of up-to-date spa and concierge services, Internet access, and all-day dining as good as anything else in town. The staff will even serve meals in any courtyard or terrace in the hotel you choose that isn't part of somebody else's room.There's a cocktail hour each afternoon in the main courtyard with its open-air kitchen-dining-lounge area. Mariachis serenade these gatherings, but it's just as charming to listen to them from the guest rooms, which are all within earshot.The shops, markets, galleries, cafes and beaches of this booming coastal resort town are all within easy walking distance. On the other hand, for the severely lovestruck, it really is possible to make tropical dreams come true without even leaving the Celestial Suite, and some guests don't emerge until check-out time.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- If anything demonstrates the post-Hurricane Katrina challenge in getting New Orleans' multibillion-dollar convention business going again, it's the dilemma now faced by the Bourbon House seafood restaurant in the French Quarter.Tourists and conventioneers, who once constituted about 60 percent of the restaurant's business, have been replaced by relief workers and local residents with a limited choice of places to dine. And manager Kavin Lassalle has his hands full, trying to serve packed restaurants with half the employees he once had."We couldn't handle the convention business as it was," he said.In recovering from Katrina, the convention industry and the businesses that service it face severe shortages of workers, as well as the task of convincing the public that the city is not a sitting duck for another storm that could shatter the levee system and unleash deadly flooding into the Big Easy."That level of comfort in attendees and the convention business is going to be vital," said Jeff Anding, director of convention marketing for the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors' Bureau.Katrina's strike on August 29 wiped out all business conventions for the rest of 2005 -- at an estimated cost to the region's economy of $3.5 billion. Twenty-eight of the 70 major conventions scheduled for 2006 already have canceled, Anding said.But the convention district -- downtown hotels and the convention center, along with the nearby French Quarter -- came out lucky in comparison to other landmarks such as the Louisiana Superdome. The convention center is under repair and is scheduled to host its first post-storm convention on April 1."The elements that make up the tourist experience in New Orleans are there. It's really significant for us to get that word out," Anding said.Staffing shortageBefore Katrina hit, New Orleans was trying to build on a record 2004 when it received an estimated 10.1 million visitors. Conventions pumped an estimated $6 billion into the economy, which had lost oil industry and other corporate jobs.Now the business is flat on its back.Hotel rooms are almost impossible to get. In a recent survey of its members, Smith Travel Research said only 24 of the 266 hotels in New Orleans were open to the public. Another 67 were taken up by hurricane evacuees and relief workers. In the New Orleans metropolitan area, only 12,981 of the market's 81,753 rooms were open to the public.But Anding said that by January 1, only one major convention hotel will still be shuttered -- the owners decided to renovate as well as repair -- and the convention bureau estimates that 18,000 to 20,000 hotel rooms will be available to tourists and conventioneers.Jan Freitag, a vice president of Smith Travel Research, said the damage to hotels from Katrina was unprecedented in his research group's history."The question is when (will) people believe in New Orleans as a destination where they can enjoy themselves? It's not a question of the hotels themselves, but it's a question of the traveling public," Freitag said.The World Trade Centers Association, which represents 278 private economic development groups in 78 countries, was the first major group to book a New Orleans convention for 2007 after Katrina. WTCA Executive Vice President Robert DiChaira said a major challenge for the city will be to reassemble the thousands who service conventions and work in hotels."That has to be the priority," DiChaira said. "People make a city."Mayor Ray Nagin said there are at least 4,000 jobs that could be filled immediately in the tourism-convention sector, provided that places are found for workers to live. Nagin wants the federal government, which is paying for evacuees to live out of state, to direct that money to temporary housing in the New Orleans area.The Bourbon House, for example, is down about 75 employees of its usual 150-person staff."We're having staffing problems, especially in the housekeeping and kitchen departments," Lassalle said.Upturn in other citiesThe Ernest N. Morial Convention Center put New Orleans ahead of the curve for a number of years in the mega-convention business. But after seeing that success, cities such as Minneapolis, Chicago, Atlanta and San Diego hopped into the picture with big convention centers of their own -- and aggressive marketing.New Orleans' competitors are enjoying a sudden upturn because of Katrina.For example, the National Black MBA Association, with 11,000 attendees, held its convention in early October in San Diego on five weeks notice. Atlanta has nailed down five meetings that were scheduled for 2005 and 2006 in New Orleans.Chicago, with its McCormick Place convention center, has nabbed two medical conventions, with a combined 33,000 delegates, and the National School Boards Association meeting, with 13,000 delegates, for early 2006. Officials in Chicago estimate the economic impact to their city -- and New Orleans' loss -- at $74.8 million.Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, who heads Louisiana's tourism agency, said he would ask Congress for $1.6 billion over three years to revive the business, including $60 million for marketing. Businesses, the state and local governments would put in another $40 million."If you get the infrastructure ready and can't get anybody to use it, you're -- I can't say what I want to say -- you're out of luck," Landrieu said.The WTCA's DiChara said he had little doubt that New Orleans would rebound as a tourism and convention center. "Who doesn't want to go to New Orleans?" he said.Nagin, however, warned against taking New Orleans' historic charms for granted in the face of competition from other convention cities."We can't sit back and say, 'People are going to come back because we have Bourbon Street,"' he said.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Pluto, that cosmic oddball at the far reaches of our solar system, may have three moons instead of one, scientists announced on Monday.Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope glimpsed the two new satellites back in May, and were intrigued when the pair of possible moons appeared to move around Pluto over three days in what looked like a nearly circular orbit.If confirmed by the International Astronomical Union, they will get official names based on classical mythology, joining Pluto's moon Charon, which is named for the ferryman of the dead. Pluto is named for the lord of the underworld.For now, the new satellites are called simply P1 and P2. One of the scientists who discovered the satellites couldn't resist making some spooky allusions with the announcement."It's ... strictly coincidental that Pluto of course was named for the god of the underworld and we're describing these Halloween moons," said Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in a telephone news conference.Pluto's first known moon, Charon, was discovered in 1978. Charon is about half Pluto's size, making it less like a satellite and more like a sibling, and many scientists consider Pluto and Charon to be a binary system, with the moon orbiting about 12,000 miles from the planet.The newfound putative satellites are likely much smaller than Charon, ranging in size from perhaps 30 miles to 100 miles in diameter. Scientists are still trying to figure this out.Charon is about 745 miles across, and Pluto is about 1,430 miles across.The discovery of the two additional satellites means Pluto is the first known object of the Kuiper Belt -- a ring of rocky debris circling outside Neptune's orbit -- with more than one moon, said Hal Weaver, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.However, the new finding does little to clear up Pluto's planetary status. While it was discovered in 1930, Pluto has such an eccentric orbit around the sun that some have questioned whether it deserves to be called a planet.The International Astronomical Union, which considers such matters, calls it a planet, but the specific definition of what constitutes a planet is under review.Mere multiple moons do not change Pluto's status, according to Stern, who serves on an astronomical panel that is working on the new definition."Whether or not an object has a moon is not part of the criteria that we've considered, because so many small objects in the solar system have moons," Stern said. "But I think, just on a visceral level, the fact that Pluto has a whole suite of companions will make some people in the public feel better about its status of planethood."Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

ST. LOUIS, Missouri (AP) -- Songbirds may be the Sinatras of the animal world, but male mice can carry a tune too, say Washington University researchers who were surprised by what they heard.Scientists have known for decades that male lab mice produce high-frequency sounds -- undetectable by human ears -- when they pick up the scent of a female mouse. This high-pitched babble is presumably for courtship, although scientists are not certain.But it turns out those sounds are more complex and interesting than previously thought."It soon became ... apparent that these vocalizations were not random twitterings but songs," said researcher Timothy Holy. "There was a pattern to them. They sounded a lot like bird songs."To make their point, the researchers provided audio recordings of the sounds, which have been modified for human ears. The recordings do indeed sound birdlike.The findings by the researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are published online Tuesday in the journal Public Library of Science Biology.If the analysis by the researchers is confirmed, mice can be added to the short list of creatures that sing in the presence of the opposite sex, including songbirds, humpback whales, porpoises, insects and, possibly, bats."There was joy in this discovery," Holy said. "We didn't expect it."The finding opens the possibility of using mice to study and develop treatments for autism and other communication disorders, said Holy, the lead author and assistant professor of neurobiology and anatomy at the university's medical school.Bird song, how it is perceived and learned, is used to understand how the human brain works. But some questions might be posed better with mice, for experimental convenience, he said.If it is true that the male mice are producing songs, it raises questions about how their sounds develop and whether mice -- like birds -- are able to learn new sounds, said animal communication expert Peter Marler, a behavioral neurobiologist at University of California, Davis.He said "extraordinarily little" is known about how the human brain helps people learn to speak."We don't know even where to look in the (human) brain," he said. "If it were to turn out that (mice) songs are learned, and that parts of the brain are involved in learning, that might open a new area of investigation."Marler said the only mammals known to learn new sounds are whales and porpoises, and "they're not exactly ideal for study."Holy and co-author Zhongsheng Guo were studying the brain response in male mice to chemical signals emitted by female mice. The mice sounds were not audible to humans without technical amplification. Initially, researchers recorded the sounds with a microphone, stored them in a computer and converted them to an image.Later, they developed a way to hear the sounds by recording them on tape and reconstructing them four octaves lower. Holy said the mice sounds met two key criteria for song -- distinct syllables and recurring themes, "like the melodic hook in a catchy tune."He said their finding is not just perception, but a "very careful quantitative analysis of sounds."Holy said adult bird songs are much more practiced, predictable and refined than those of mice, but even birds don't start out as great singers. They learn.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

PLANTATION, Florida (AP) -- A week after Hurricane Wilma, more than 1 million Florida homes are still without power and many doctors' offices remain closed, leaving hospitals swamped as the only source of medical care in some communities."You can't get any regular doctors on the phone. You can't get anything filled," said Tim Swett, 41. He waited five hours at one emergency room and finally left without help for a back problem he had aggravated while cleaning up his mother's yard.It wasn't until he tried another hospital, where disaster teams were set up in tents to handle minor injuries, that he saw a doctor.To help ease the medical crunch, the Federal Emergency Management Agency set up disaster medical assistance teams at four hospitals to help people with minor injuries, prescription medicine or those trying to follow up on routine medical care.At Westside Regional Medical Center in Plantation, a team had seen 190 patients -- including Swett -- by Sunday morning after opening Thursday. The hospital had twice its normal traffic in the days after Wilma hit, said Chief Executive Earl H. Denning."They were being overrun," said Bill Wallace, who is commanding a team of 35 doctors, nurses and others working out of four tents set up in the hospital's parking lot.Wilma was the eighth hurricane to strike or swipe Florida in 15 months. The storm killed 21 people in the state after battering Jamaica, Haiti and Mexico with strong wind and rain, and then tearing across the Gulf and Florida's southern peninsula. In all, 38 deaths were blamed on the hurricane.Sunday afternoon, state officials said about 2,000 people remained in Florida's emergency shelters, most in Palm Beach and Broward counties. Public schools in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties remained closed.Florida Power & Light, the state's largest electric utility, said some areas might not get their power back until November 22, two days before Thanksgiving.But in a sign of progress, 2.2 million customers who lost power after the hurricane were back online Sunday, the company said. And while traffic lights were still out around the region, and broken glass, toppled trees and downed power lines continued to create obstacles, the long lines at gas stations had disappeared. The Lower Keys and Key West were also scheduled to open to tourists on Monday.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) -- A 13-year-old cancer patient who was put into foster care after her parents refused to allow radiation treatment will be reunited with her family, a judge ruled Monday.Faced with her deteriorating health, state district Judge Jack Hunter said Katie Wernecke would be better off with her family in Corpus Christi than in the custody of the foster parents she was assigned by Child Protective Services."CPS and the Werneckes are never, ever going to agree," Hunter said. "If I leave it up to CPS and the Werneckes ... this child is going to die for lack of anything being done."Child Protective Services removed Katie from her family after her parents stopped her cancer treatment. Her father, Edward Wernecke, worried that a move to radiation treatment could put his daughter at heightened risk for breast cancer, stunt her growth and cause learning problems.Before the ruling, Hunter told Wernecke to "look at me man to man, eyeball to eyeball" and promise he would do the best for Katie. Wernecke said he would.Katie's parents have made several attempts to stop treatment for the girl's Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the lymph nodes. She was diagnosed in January and began receiving chemotherapy, which doctors recommended be followed with radiation.Katie's oncologist has said her chances of surviving have fallen from 80 percent to about 20 percent because of incomplete treatment.State lawyers argued that her life would be endangered if she did not continue treatments at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston."We certainly understand why the judge would want Katie at home with her family at this point of her illness," CPS spokesman Aaron Reed said. "This isn't the outcome we advocated for, but our goal all along has been for Katie to get the treatment she needs and get better and go home."Wernecke's parents were overjoyed with the judge's decision."The good news is we're getting Katie back," Edward Wernecke said. Her mother, Michelle Wernecke, added, "She's going to be home soon, it feels great."In a statement, family attorney James Pikl said the decision had larger implications for parental rights in Texas."When your child becomes sick, you do not have to merely stand by while state CPS workers tell you what care your child will receive," he said. "You also need not fear that CPS will take your child away from you simply because you have a disagreement with CPS about what treatment is right for your child."Edward Wernecke said he wanted to try alternatives such as intravenous vitamin C before considering radiation as a possible last resort."If that were her last hope, and it was the only other thing that would save her life, then I would do it," Wernecke testified.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (AP) -- A man who was tried four times over seven years for an alleged sexual assault was freed Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court turned down prosecutors' appeal. Richard Moeck, 58, was released from prison and taken to a Madison bus station.The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in May that Moeck's fourth trial in 1997 amounted to double jeopardy -- a legal doctrine that says a person cannot be tried twice for the same offense.The state Department of Justice appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and warned if Moeck were released, he would flee. But the court refused to hear additional arguments and ordered authorities to release him.Prosecutors contended Moeck lured a 23-year-old man into his apartment in August 1997 and forced him to have sex at knife point. He was convicted and sentenced to 161 years in prison in a second trial after the first ended in a hung jury in January 1998.A state appeals court threw out that conviction based on an error by the judge.A third trial ended in a mistrial.At a fourth trial, Moeck was convicted again, but a state appeals court reversed that conviction last year on double jeopardy grounds, and the state Supreme Court affirmed the decision.Dan O'Brien, assistant attorney general, said the case is "pretty much closed at this point."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- The same judge, the same prosecutor, the same defense attorney, the same Republican complaints of political payback, even the same courtroom strategy. The case against former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is playing out like a rerun of a Lone Star court drama that unfolded in 1993-94.Back then, it was Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison fighting for her political life against Democratic District Attorney Ronnie Earle. Ultimately, she was acquitted of misconduct charges with the help of defense attorney Dick DeGuerin.DeLay, another Texas Republican, has hired DeGuerin to defend him as well, and DeGuerin is employing some of the same legal and media tactics that worked last time -- accusing the district attorney of misconduct, branding the case a political vendetta and demanding the removal of a Democratic judge for alleged bias.The parallels between the cases are striking."It's like `Twilight Zone.' You're seeing the same pattern," said Brian Berry, a GOP consultant who was Hutchison's campaign manager when she first ran for Senate.Delay is under indictment on conspiracy and money-laundering charges for allegedly funneling illegal corporate contributions to GOP candidates for the state Legislature. Texas law generally forbids the use of corporate money for campaigning.Hutchison was charged with using state dollars, employees and computers for personal and campaign purposes when she was Texas treasurer in 1991 to 1993. She was also accused of tampering with state computer records to cover the alleged abuses.In both cases, Earle brought charges against a prominent Republican after the GOP won a crucial Texas election. Both times, the district attorney was accused of trying to settle political scores.When she was indicted, Hutchison had just won a Senate seat long held by Democrats, including Lyndon B. Johnson and Lloyd Bentsen. She joined Phil Gramm in the Senate, giving Texas two Republican senators for the first time since Reconstruction.DeLay reached the highest levels of power in Congress as majority leader after the 2002 election. With his help, the GOP took control of the state Legislature and then pushed through a congressional redistricting plan that sent more Texas Republicans to Congress in 2004."Kay changed the face of politics in Texas by becoming the second Republican senator. ... Tom DeLay changed the face of politics by taking over redistricting. It's not coincidence," DeGuerin said.In both cases, Earle insisted the charges were not politically motivated; he was just doing his job.In Hutchison's case, DeGuerin got state District Judge Bob Perkins, a Democrat, removed because Perkins had donated to Hutchison's political opponent. DeGuerin also got the trial moved to Fort Worth.Now, DeGuerin is asking that Perkins be removed from the DeLay case for contributing to John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004, the Democratic Party and the liberal group MoveOn.org.Perkins has been subpoenaed for a hearing on Tuesday to consider the request. On Monday, the judge filed a motion to throw out the subpoenaed. DeGuerin also wants the trial moved out of Austin.In addition, DeGeurin has accused of Earle misconduct, arguing among other things that Earle shopped the DeLay case around to grand juries until he found one that would indict the congressman.In Hutchison's case, the defense attorney contended that a raid by prosecutors in which they seized computer and phone records from her state treasurer office was conducted improperly, and that the evidence was inadmissible.DeLay supporters say they expect his case will end like Hutchison's.Hutchison was acquitted in 1994 after Earle decided not to go forward with his case. The district attorney cited the judge's refusal to rule on the admissibility of the evidence before trial. Those close to Hutchison say that was just an excuse."The case was shoddily conceived," Berry said. "And he lost it."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito is "clearly within the mainstream" and shouldn't be filibustered, declared a Republican who helped fashion a plan limiting parliamentary roadblocks for judicial nominees.Sen. Mike DeWine, who met with President Bush's latest high court choice earlier Tuesday, warned Democrats he would side with GOP leaders to eliminate the judicial filibuster if the minority party uses it against the New Jersey judge."It's hard for me to envision that anyone would think about filibustering this nominee," said DeWine, an Ohio Republican who sided with 13 other Republicans and Democrats earlier this year to end a Senate stalemate over judicial filibusters.But some Democrats were contemplating just such a move as the 55-year-old Alito began courting senators on the second day of his Supreme Court candidacy."The filibuster's on the table," Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California said after Bush announced that the U.S. Appeals Court judge was his pick to replace his previous unsuccessful choice, White House counsel Harriet Miers, as the successor for retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota also refused to rule out supporting a filibuster."I would leave all those options on the table," he said.Johnson said he hasn't made up his mind on Alito after discussing the right to privacy and other constitutional issues with him Tuesday. "Not surprisingly, it's hard to draw hard and fast conclusions on how he will vote," Johnson said. "There is no question he is a conservative."But others are cautioning their colleagues against rushing to judgment. "Ordinarily it takes six to eight weeks to evaluate a Supreme Court nominee. We shouldn't rush to judgment," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said on CBS' "The Early Show."DeWine, who met with Alito for more than an hour, is one of the 14 centrist senators Democrats need to sustain a filibuster. Without the group's seven Republicans, Democrats would not be able to prevent Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, from abolishing judicial filibusters and confirming judges with a simple majority vote. The Republicans hold 55 of the 100 seats in the Senate.DeWine made clear Tuesday that a Democratic filibuster would not have his support, saying he didn't see how "anyone would think that this would constitute what our group of 14 termed 'extraordinary circumstances' that would justify a filibuster.""This is a nomination of a judge who is clearly within the mainstream of conservative thought," he added.The so-called "Gang of 14" -- the senators who reached the deal on limiting such filibusters -- will hold its first meeting on Alito Thursday.The White House on Tuesday named former Indiana Republican Sen. Dan Coats and former Republican Party chairman Ed Gillespie to help guide Alito through his confirmation process. The two served in the same capacity for Miers, who withdrew her nomination last week after some conservatives refused to fully support her candidacy and questioned whether she was qualified.Conservatives thrilledConservatives are much more comfortable with Alito than they were with Miers because of his conservative track record as a federal judge, prosecutor and a Reagan administration lawyer.Miers had never been a judge.The nomination got Bush on the good side again of conservative and anti-abortion groups, who declared Alito a winner after opposing Miers.James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family Action, said he was "extremely pleased," and the anti-abortion Operation: Rescue declared that the country was on "the fast-track to derailing Roe v. Wade as the law of the land."Bush, who has seen his standing eroded by the insurgency in Iraq, rising fuel prices, Hurricane Katrina mistakes, the indictment of a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney and Miers' nomination, emphasized Alito's work on "thousands of appeals" and "hundreds of opinions" when he introduced the candidate to the nation Tuesday."He has a deep understanding of the proper role of judges in our society," Bush said at the White House. "He understands that judges are to interpret the laws, not to impose their preferences or priorities on the people."Alito pledged to uphold the duty of a judge to "interpret the Constitution and the laws faithfully and fairly, to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans, and to do these things with care and with restraint."Democrats waryDemocrats, however, are deeply suspicious of Alito, with Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the party's leader in the Senate, wondering aloud "why those who want to pack the court with judicial activists are so much more enthusiastic about him" than Miers.Alito upheld a requirement for spousal notification in an abortion case more than a decade ago, although Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter -- an abortion rights Republican -- insisted that doesn't mean Alito would rule to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established abortion rights.Earlier this year, with O'Connor casting the deciding vote, the high court threw out a death sentence that Alito had upheld in the case of a man who argued that his lawyer had been ineffective.Republicans, meanwhile, returned to their insistence that all judicial nominees deserve hearings and confirmation votes."I expect the Judiciary Committee to conduct a fair and dignified hearing in a timely manner, followed by an up or down vote by the Senate," said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.Bush's first nominee this year, John Roberts, is now chief justice.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- In a courtroom victory for Rep. Tom DeLay, the judge in the campaign-finance case against the former House Republican leader was removed Tuesday because of his donations to Democratic candidates and causes.A semiretired judge who was called in to hear the dispute, C.W. "Bud" Duncan, ruled in DeLay's favor without comment. Duncan ordered the appointment of a new judge to preside over the case.The ruling came after a hearing in which DeLay's attorneys argued that state District Judge Bob Perkins' political donations created the appearance of bias. Perkins, a Democrat, has contributed more than $5,000 since 2000 to Democratic candidates such as John Kerry and the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org."The public perception of Judge Perkins' activities shows him to be on opposite sides of the political fence than Tom DeLay," defense attorney Dick DeGuerin argued.Perkins had declined to withdraw from the case, and prosecutor Rick Reed argued at the hearing that DeLay had to prove that a member of the public would have a "reasonable doubt that the judge is impartial" before Perkins could be removed."Judges are presumed to be impartial," Reed said.Perkins did not attend the hearing and did not immediately return a call for comment.DeLay had no comment as he left the courthouse. Throughout the proceedings, he sat in the front row behind his attorneys with his wife and aides. He often smiled, and occasionally chuckled when Democrats said negative things about him in their testimony.DeLay's lawyers are also seeking to have the trial moved out of Austin, citing the media attention and noting that Austin, widely perceived as a liberal college town, is "one of the last enclaves of the Democratic Party in Texas."Judges are elected in Texas and are free to contribute to candidates and political parties. DeLay's lawyers repeatedly said during the hearing that they were not accusing Perkins of doing anything wrong, but that there should not be a public perception of partiality in the case.The issue came up for Perkins before. He voluntarily stepped aside in a 1994 case against Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Perkins had made a $300 contribution to Hutchison's opponent. Hutchison, who was also represented by DeGuerin, was ultimately acquitted of misconduct charges.DeLay was forced to step down as House majority leader after being charged with funneling corporate campaign contributions to GOP candidates for the Texas Legislature. Texas law forbids the direct use of corporate money for campaigning.The defense tried to show that Perkins knew MoveOn.org and the party frequently vilified DeLay in their advertising and fundraising literature.MoveOn.org is conducting a "Fire Tom DeLay" campaign, but Perkins said that campaign began after he made his contributions to the group. Prosecutors argued that many of Perkins' contributions were made during a presidential election, when DeLay was not the primary target of the group."The law expresses no need for judges to check the citizenship at the courtroom door," District Attorney Ronnie Earle said in closing arguments. Earle heads the criminal investigation into DeLay's fund-raising activities.DeLay's attorneys subpoenaed Perkins to testify, but Duncan did not make him take the stand. Perkins argued that his participation would threaten the public's confidence in the judiciary.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- At its peak, it was more than 60,000 strong, a many-legged beast tramping and burning its way through the South at the end of the Civil War."It consumes everything in its path. It is an immense organism, this army. ... And any one of the sixty thousand of us has no identity but as a cell in the body of this giant creature's function, which is to move forward and consume all before it," says one of E.L. Doctorow's characters in "The March" (Random House).For Doctorow, author of the prize-winning and best-selling novels "Ragtime" and "Billy Bathgate," Sherman's march, a seven-month campaign across Georgia and the Carolinas following the general's taking of Atlanta in September 1864, was a chance to investigate its impact on some of those 60,000, with history lurking in the background."It seemed to me very different than anything else in the Civil War," says Doctorow in an interview at an Atlanta hotel, noting that he first thought of writing what he calls his "road novel" 20 years ago."The idea of an army of 60,000 men on the march, living off the land, going through plantations, taking the livestock, horses, mules and every bit of food they could find, and destroying Confederate infrastructure -- the armories, machine shops, cotton mills, railroads ... just depriving the Confederacy of everything it needed to maintain itself. ... It seemed to me I could make a novel out of that and find something."It was "another kind of society," he adds. "I wrote the book to discover the secrets of that march. ... Everybody in the march was changed."O untimely deathIn that spirit, Doctorow's "no identity"-speaking character, Dr. Wrede Sartorius, isn't completely correct. In Doctorow's work, the march is made of many individuals, each of whom brings his or her specific personality to the journey.There is Dr. Sartorius himself, a methodical, inventive surgeon; Emily Thompson, the daughter of a Southern judge who becomes an assistant to Sartorius; Pearl, a freed slave; Arly and Will, two Confederate soldiers who change sides (and identities) as the opportunity provides; Calvin Harper, a photographer's black assistant; the brittle and inscrutable Sherman himself; and a variety of supporting characters, some real, some fictional, all part of the march's fabric, like the colors of a serpent.Sherman was particularly fascinating, Doctorow says. Early in the war, the Union general suffered a nervous breakdown and was criticized by newspapers as "crazy and useless," in Doctorow's words. (A famous photo, taken after he returned to the battlefield, shows him with arms crossed, his eyes the receptacles of a gloomy, thousand-yard glint.) His tactics during the march were alternately ruthless and thoughtful. Success prompted those same critics to hail him as a hero, while Southerners -- particularly Georgians -- retain a lasting enmity for the man. "He did have a lot of guilt," Doctorow says. "When the war was over, he went down South to oversee rescue and relief efforts." (Before the war, Sherman -- who was born in Ohio -- had headed what would become Louisiana State University.)Sherman survived the war. Not all Doctorow's characters do, and for some, death comes suddenly and capriciously.One soldier is caught in a Confederate ambush; another character has his head blown off by a cannonball. A third character, his memory destroyed by a spike in his head, exists for many pages and abruptly kills himself.Doctorow, the impassive narrator, dictates these demises with little comment or judgment -- or, sometimes, advance knowledge."You make discoveries," says the author. "The experience is just the same as the reader's. These characters came to me whole, with names, their behaviors, their diction, without any calculation or planning or outline. You write to find out what you're writing."'I don't have a style'Though Doctorow is a critic of the Iraq war and President Bush, he says he didn't write the book to illustrate the brutality of war. "When you're writing about the past you're inevitably writing about the present, but it wasn't a conscious, allegorical intention," he says. "I leave it for the reader to decide how relevant that is."The book's rootless refugees also evoke comparison to the victims of Hurricane Katrina -- an assessment one of Doctorow's friends made after the book came out.Doctorow's books, almost always about the past, have often stirred comparisons to the present. They've also grappled with a variety of themes, mixing styles, real-life figures and fictional characters -- including the snapshots of Sigmund Freud, Theodore Dreiser and Coalhouse Walker Jr. in 1975's "Ragtime," the sunny memoir-like telling of 1985's "World's Fair" or the Bronx working-class argot of 1989's gangster tale "Billy Bathgate.""I've always found it necessary to have the illusion that I don't have a style -- that each book demands its own style," he says. Most of the books use fictive narrators, he says, and "each of those narrators has his own place in the world -- his own language."Authors that are too aware of their style are in trouble," Doctorow says. "I know that Hemingway finally began to hear his own voice, and I think that was the beginning of the end for him.""The March" has earned wide praise and is selling well, currently standing at No. 11 on The New York Times' best-seller list. As much as Doctorow's writing, its success is testament to the hold the Civil War still has on the United States, and the ever-resonant issues raised by that conflict.But Doctorow cautions against reading it as a judgment on Sherman, the Confederacy, or even the Civil War."I think it's impossible to read this book and decide it's a clear, propagandistic effort to distinguish between good and evil," he says. "I don't think any successful novel can reside anywhere but ambiguity."

NEW YORK (CNN) -- When Charles Ardai and Max Phillips, both lovers of pulp fiction, decided to form a new paperback imprint dedicated to resuscitating the golden age of pulp paperbacks, they did so in the time-honored manner of pulp characters through the ages -- over drinks."Alcohol was involved, of course, and this is the sort of idea you generally expect will fade as sobriety returns, but the next day we both still loved the idea," said co-founder Ardai in an interview."We knew how much work it would be, but the more we thought about it, the more irresistible it seemed."So the pair, both veteran writers (Ardai even worked at Davis Publications, parent company of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Analog), took some of the money they'd made with the D.E. Shaw Group, an investment and technology development firm, and established Hard Case Crime publishing.The idea was to reissue some of the classics of the hard-boiled genre, including decades-old novels by Domenic Stansberry, Donald Hamilton, Ed McBain, Richard Stark, Lawrence Block and Donald E. Westlake. Most of these were originally published between the 1940s and 1960s, and have now been repackaged in classic pulpy mass-market form, complete with original noirish paintings commissioned for each book (all of which have a six-dollar price point, aimed at the widest audience possible).But the idea wasn't just irresistible to them. Other writers -- both newcomers and veterans such as Westlake -- were attracted to the imprint.This year Hard Case has rolled out its first original novels, written exclusively for the publisher -- kicking off with one of the biggest names of them all, Stephen King.King's short mystery "The Colorado Kid," which eschews supernatural interlopers in favor of a cold-case mystery (though one rife with trademark King morsels --"Nice and pink down there," quips a medical examiner of a corpse's lungs), has put Hard Case on the best-seller lists."The publication of 'The Colorado Kid' represents a big step forward for us," Ardai said. "With a first printing of nearly one million copies, it's by far the biggest book we've ever published, quite possibly the biggest [distributor] Dorchester has ever published as well.""I'm delighted by everything they've done," says Westlake, a three-time Edgar Award winner and Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, whose novel "361" was reissued by Hard Case in May.'Taste and high energy'The plots still shine with chrome-tipped hard edges and bright puddles of blood.In "361," for example, a veteran's father is shot dead while driving and the son turns to revenge.In David Dodge's "Plunder of the Sun," a private detective is paid to smuggle a package to Peru, with various murders all around."Branded Woman," by Wade Miller (who also wrote the book on which Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil" was based), stars a seductive jewel thief and her shot at revenge.Westlake is particularly appreciative of the imprint's desire to serve up its pulp with blades intact."The postwar hard-boiled paperback original, from the late 1940s through the '60s, used the experience of World War II to form a fatalistic tough-minded worldview, in which trust is almost always wrong," he says."We write now in a different world, with different experiences and different expectations. I would say the books now are softer because the experiences of this world are softer."Mystery-writing legend Block, whose second Hard Case novel, "The Girl With the Long Green Heart," will be published next month, was also pleased."I think they're playing a role similar to that played a generation ago by Black Lizard [an imprint created by Vintage in the early '90s], and doing so with taste and high energy."Ardai and Phillips have big plans for Hard Case. Dorchester has played a key role, they emphasize -- "They've gotten our books not only into bookstores of all sizes, but also drugstores and truck stops and military PXs and all those other markets that have always formed the backbone of the mass market distribution system," says Ardai -- and they want to keep growing. King's best-seller hasn't hurt, either."We published six books in our first year, we're publishing nine this year, and we're scheduled to publish 12 in 2006," Ardai said.That's worth a drink. Straight up.

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Apple Computer Inc. Monday said its iTunes online service has sold a million videos in under 20 days.iTunes, the most popular online music store, began selling about 2,000 music videos and episodes of ABC's "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" for $1.99 October 12.The debut coincided with the launch of a new generation of Apple's iPod digital music player that can play video on its 2.5-inch color screen.Technology, media and Wall Street analysts are eyeing Apple's performance for validation that a market for legal downloading of videos exists.Topping the list of big sellers were music videos by Michael Jackson, Fatboy Slim and Kanye West, as well as episodes of ABC shows."Selling one million videos in less than 20 days strongly suggests there is a market for legal downloads," Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, said in a statement. "Our next challenge is to broaden our content offerings."At the service's launch, Walt Disney Co.'s ABC was the only nonmusic programming provider aside from Jobs' Pixar Animation Studios Inc., which is also providing short films for the service.Sources have said Apple is in discussions to lure more television networks to provide programming.Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

NEW YORK, New York (Reuters) -- Entries from Wikipedia, the popular free online encyclopedia written and edited by Internet users, may soon be available in print for readers in the developing world, founder Jimmy Wales said on Monday.He said content from the Web site may also be burned onto CDs and DVDs so computer users in places like Africa, who lack access to high-speed Internet, could consult parts of the reference work offline.Wales also described as incorrect reports, one of them from Reuters, that certain pages of the Wikipedia could be subject to tightened controls or "frozen" for good to prevent vandals and pranksters from tampering with them."We are talking to several agents and publishers about what they would be interested in," Wales said of the book project.He cited health, football and histories of World War Two or rock 'n' roll as examples of how entries could be grouped into subjects."I have always liked the idea of going to print because a big part of what we are about is to disseminate knowledge throughout the world and not just to people who have broadband," Wales said by telephone from St. Petersburg, Florida.Issues like funding, distribution and topics were still being discussed but a first printed work could be ready from mid-2006, he added.Wales, a 39-year-old former options trader, set up Wikipedia in 2001. The site operates through the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit organization that relies on donations to pursue its goal of spreading knowledge for free.The reference work uses "Wiki" software, which gives anyone with access to the Internet the opportunity to edit any page.Some 350,000 people have contributed terms, background, context or simply corrected spellings for more than 2 million Wikipedia entries in more than 25 active languages. About 800,000 entries are in English.Wales, an American, said a core group of around 2,000 contributors did the bulk of the work and formed the backbone of the Wikipedia "community."In August, Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper quoted Wales as saying that "controls" could be tightened to protect potentially sensitive pages of Wikipedia. Reuters picked up the report and, in translating sections of it, said some pages could be "frozen" in perpetuity."The idea that we are going to tighten our editorial 'rules' is completely not correct (and) the articles would not be frozen in perpetuity," Wales said. He said he had been misinterpreted and mistranslated.Wales said new software would be deployed from the end of the year that would allow changes to very active pages which might be prone to vandalism to appear on the site with a time delay, so members of the community could review them.Enthusiasts had also been discussing whether to create "stable" versions of certain pages that would stand as the most recent reliable entry on a given topic. These would be available behind the latest contributed version and would also be updated as necessary, Wales said.Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

LONGDENVILLE, Trinidad (AP) -- For millions of Hindus around the world, Diwali marks a time for families and friends to gather for fireworks, lighting of lamps and feasting to celebrate the triumph of good over evil.But celebrating this year's ancient Hindu festival of lights took on a more personal tone for Rajesh Ramoutar.Ramoutar, 37, is one of dozens of Indian-origin farmers in central Trinidad who say they were discriminated against by being denied the right to observe Diwali at the state-owned farm where they raise fish and sheep -- a charge the government denies.Diwali, officially observed in Trinidad on Tuesday, marks the victory of Hinduism's most revered god, Rama, over the demon king Ravana in Hindu mythology.The farmers got permission to hold the celebrations last week after threatening to sue, but not before sparking an uproar that highlighted racial tensions between Trinidadians of African and East Indian descent."Christmas celebrations are held on premises every year and no one has stopped them," said Ramoutar, who has worked for 14 years on the farm in rural Longdenville, 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of the capital of Port-of-Spain.The government has said it never tried to stop the farmers from observing the celebrations but only from using a meeting room on the farm because of a fire hazard associated with using oil lamps."There was no discrimination involved," said Brent Bain, a spokesman for Trinidad's Agriculture Ministry.Still, Ramoutar called the government's relenting "a victory not only for Hindus, but against discrimination in Trinidad and Tobago."Politics is divided along racial lines in the twin island nation of 1.3 million. Blacks mostly support the governing People's National Movement while East Indians favor the main opposition party. The country's population is roughly split in half between both groups.The Diwali dispute angered Trinidad's East Indian community, whose members complain that the country's winner-take-all system of politics results in discrimination against supporters of the party not in power.They say the East Indians are denied promotions and jobs in the military and police service, noting the majority of senior police officers are black. Many East Indians also blame a recent wave of kidnappings on blacks who they say target Indian businessmen.More than 200 East Indians arrived in Trinidad on May 30, 1845 aboard the ship "Fatel Razack" to work as indentured laborers on British sugar plantations.The Diwali celebration is one of several traditions that add to the Caribbean country's cultural mosaic.On Saturday, Ramoutar and about 75 other farmers gathered at the farm's meeting room, the men wearing traditional long tunics and the women wearing colorful saris adorned with hand-woven patterns and gold trimmings.After being led in a puja, or a worship with special prayers, the group went outside and placed dozens of amber-glowing lamps on the ground meant to show Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, the way into homes and offices.Other Hindus celebrate Diwali with loud firecrackers, followed by feasting on sweets made with milk, lentils, dry fruits and nuts."Look around us, there are all these lights and highlights of Hindu culture. We have to preserve this for our children. Our forefathers passed it on to us and we have to pass it on to them," Ramoutar said.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

OTTAWA, Canada (Reuters) -- Former Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien, bristling with defiance, emerged from the political twilight on Tuesday to attack the head of an inquiry who blamed him for a government kickback scandal.Chretien, who has kept largely to himself since stepping down in December 2003, said judge John Gomery had given too much credence to testimony from unreliable witnesses.In a report released on Tuesday, Gomery said Chretien bore some responsibility for allowing a government sponsorship program to spin out of control to such an extent that C$100 million ($85 million) was directed to Liberal-friendly advertising firms."Gomery has reached conclusions that are in no way based on the evidence before him. In order to reach his conclusions he chose to ignore or misrepresent the clear evidence of all of the senior public servants ... who testified before him," the scrappy, 71-year-old Chretien told a nationally televised news conference.The former prime minister defended the sponsorship program, which was designed to boost the image of Canadian federalism in Quebec after a 1995 referendum on independence for the French-speaking province was only narrowly defeated."Ten years ago, in the aftermath of the referendum in Quebec, the very existence of Canada was on the line... I had a responsibility to ensure that Canada never again came close to the precipice," Chretien said."Any mistakes that were made were in that context and in the best of good faith," he added, saying Prime Minister Paul Martin -- finance minister at the time of the scandal -- had approved the money for the sponsorship program."He assured me there was no problem and he would have had to assure himself (of that) as well," Chretien said. (Full story)He also seemed irritated that public and media interest in what he called a "small program in a very large government" was overshadowing what he had done in a decade of power, citing decisions such as signing the Kyoto accord on global warming and spurning the U.S.-led war in Iraq, a decision that angered U.S. President George W. Bush."If I had decided to go to war with Mr Bush, today we would not be talking about the Gomery report. We would be dealing with the body bags coming back to Canada, of fit young Canadians who had been killed in Iraq," he said testily.Chretien said some members of Martin's current cabinet had resisted his efforts to reform laws on the financing of political parties."You have to make decisions that are not popular. If there was one thing with me, I was always happy to make a decision," he said to laughter.Martin is often criticized by the media and his opponents for being chronically indecisive.Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, paid tribute to victims of the September 11 attacks Tuesday as they began a weeklong tour of the United States -- a trip the British press predicted would cause little excitement among Americans.After arriving in New York City on a private chartered jet, the couple traveled by limousine to Ground Zero for a tour of the site.The couple then went to nearby Hanover Square to unveil a memorial park to the 67 Britons who died when the hijacked jets slammed into the World Trade Center.They walked around to greet some of the several hundred well-wishers and onlookers who gathered behind barricades at the square.Camilla seemed relaxed, smiling broadly as she accepted a bouquet of flowers from a small girl. The Duchess of Cornwall, who has been trying to project a more glamorous image, wore a dark rose Italian wool crepe jacket and dress with velvet chiffon trim.Speaking at reception for relatives of the British September 11 victims and supporters of the memorial garden project, Prince Charles said he and his wife had been "profoundly moved" by their trip to Ground Zero, "not just the scale of the outrage but the deeply distressing individual stories of heroism and of loss.""Our hearts go out to you today as they did on that dreadful today," said Charles, who met privately with families before the unveiling ceremony.Referring to the July 7 bombings of London's transit system that killed 52 people along with the four suicide attackers, he said "both our nations have been united by grief and strengthened by the support we have given each other."The tour, which is designed to celebrate ties between Britain and America and promote Charles' environmentalist causes, is the first official overseas trip for the 56-year-old heir to the throne and his wife since they married in April.British media, however, predicted the couple would fail to capture the attention of Americans in the same way as Charles' 1985 official visit when a radiant Princess Diana danced with John Travolta at a White House dinner.Papers in London took note of a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll, which found 59 percent of Americans surveyed saying they were "not at all interested" in the visit, 22 percent were "not too interested," 13 percent were "somewhat interested" and 6 percent were "very interested."Nineteen percent said they would like to meet Charles and Camilla in person, compared to 31 percent who, in an ABC News/Washington Post poll in 1985, said they would like to meet Charles and Diana.Gallup interviewed 1,008 people 18 and older in the United States by telephone on October 21-23. Gallup said the survey had a sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points."The trip has been dismissed as a 'royal bore' by Americans," The Daily Mail newspaper said Tuesday, quoting a headline in USA Today.At Hanover Square -- named for King George I of Hanover -- a cadre of law enforcement officers stood near a line of police barricades and hundreds of people gathered, many holding banners and cameras, eager to take snapshots or perhaps shake hands with the royal couple."I've been following this man since I was in grade school in Minnesota. I wrote papers about him," Thomas Rex Campbell, a writer who grew up in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, said of Prince Charles. "I very much admire him for his breadth of vision on the world. He's interested in everything from farming to classical architecture. He's the best-educated Prince of Wales ever."The memorial garden, which is due to be completed next summer, is designed as a green corner of Britain in Manhattan, with topiary trees, boxwood hedges and a sculpture by artist Anish Kapoor.Later Tuesday, Charles and Camilla were to attend a reception at the Museum of Modern Art that Charles' office said was a chance for the couple "to meet a good cross-section of interesting and influential New Yorkers." Guests invited to enjoy champagne and organic canapes with the couple included Robert De Niro, Steven Spielberg, Sting, former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and actress Kim Cattral.The prince and duchess also were to meet with hurricane victims in New Orleans, homeless people in San Francisco and President Bush at the White House.White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday that Bush was open to discussing any topic with Charles, stressing it was primarily a social visit.Bush "looks forward to the visit. He's glad to talk about whatever issues Prince Charles may want to bring up," McClellan said.It is also part of a careful palace plan to win acceptance for the duchess, long reviled in the British press -- and among Diana-philes -- as the woman who broke up the royal romance. "There were three of us in that marriage," Diana told a television reporter in 1995.Charles and Diana divorced in 1996; Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris the following year.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

(CNN) -- A decaying address book. A black plastic comb. A dirty penny.These are some of the last things a young World War II airman put in his pockets on the day he died six decades ago. And they are a few of the many clues beginning to emerge in the search for his identity.The investigation began in earnest two weeks ago, when climbers found a frozen body in a U.S. military uniform at the bottom of a glacier in the Sierra Nevada. Forensic scientists exhumed the body from its icy tomb and transported it to Honolulu, Hawaii, where the body is being studied at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, the largest forensic crime lab in the world.So far, investigators have narrowed the body's identity to one of 10 World War II soldiers, out of the thousands who are missing or unidentified.Forensic scientists at the lab believe the airman was Caucasian, had fair hair and was probably in his early 20s when he died, judging by his teeth."These root tips are closed, which is indicative of someone at least 21 years old," said Dr. Andy Henry, a forensic dentist.From looking at the airman's bones, scientists think he most likely died when his plane crashed six decades ago, not by freezing to death in the mountains."The injuries are so substantial, he didn't feel anything. He died immediately," said Dr. Robert Mann, a forensic anthropologist.Investigators are trying to move beyond these general observations to pinpoint the airman's precise identity. Here are some of the clues they used to narrow their search from thousands of missing soldiers to just 10, and are continuing to employ to find his identity:• He was wearing a World War II Army Air Force uniform.• A corroded nameplate, collar pin and Army Air Corps insignia were found on his uniform.• Remnants of his sweater, undergarments and socks are intact.• He had a broken plastic black comb.• Dimes from 1936 to 1942 were found in his pocket.Some potentially vital clues, such as three small leather-bound address books, haven't yielded as much information as investigators had hoped.The pages of the books, which may once have contained the names, addresses and phone numbers of friends and family, were too decomposed to reveal their original content.Scientists are convinced that with the help of DNA testing they will be able to identify the airman in the weeks and months ahead.In Pleasant Grove, Ohio, three sisters, all in their 80s, hope the frozen airman is their big brother, Glenn Munn, whose plane went missing in the Sierra Nevada in 1942."I just wanted a final confirmation to know he was found and have him brought home here for burial," says Sara Zeyer, Munn's sister. "We don't know that though. We don't, but that's my wish."

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- The bodies recovered from a nursing home and hospital after Hurricane Katrina were so decomposed they may not yield any evidence for prosecuting crimes, the coroner overseeing the autopsies says.Louisiana's attorney general charged the owners of a flooded-out nursing home in Chalmette with negligent homicide in mid-September after 34 bodies were discovered. He has also subpoenaed 73 people in an investigation into rumors that patients were put out of their misery at New Orleans' flooded-out Memorial Medical Center, where 40 people were found dead.But Orleans Parish Coroner Frank Minyard, who is overseeing autopsies for the state, said this week that the bodies from the two institutions were so decomposed he listed the cause of death merely as "Katrina-related.""There is no physical evidence from the autopsy that these people were murdered or euthanized," Minyard said. "If they did not have a knife sticking in them or a bullet in the body, it's hard to pinpoint an exact cause."He was still waiting for toxicology reports but said unless those show abnormal levels of morphine or another drug, those tests will not help.Kris Wartelle, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Charles Foti, said the findings will not deter prosecutors."I know what our investigators found when they went down there. What he's saying does not change anything we're doing," she said.Jim Cobb, an attorney for the nursing home owners, said the lack of autopsy evidence will make it difficult to prove the charges against his clients.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- A swampy section of the city is becoming a dumping ground for paint cans, broken furniture, insulation and whatever else is in the rubble.From its beginnings, New Orleans has viewed the surrounding wetlands and Mississippi River as the logical places for its waste. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the city again is turning to the swamp.East of the city's residential neighborhoods lies a large tract of swamp land that has been turned into an industrial corridor. Even before Katrina it was besmirched with scrap metal and used parts yards, rust-colored streams and dead cypress trees.Making matters worse, environmentalists warn, is that the mounds of debris from Katrina also are winding up here.Already, illegal dumping goes on in plain sight. On one road, a pile of paint cans, telephone poles, biological hazard bags and insulation reaches several feet high. Some of it has been pushed into the swamp next to the road.A month after Katrina, the state Department of Environmental Quality also allowed the reopening of an old city-owned garbage landfill that had been closed down by federal regulators more than a decade ago.The Sierra Club and Louisiana Environmental Action Network charge that the Old Gentilly Landfill should only be a repository for construction waste.Instead, it has become one of the main drop-off spots for debris and trucks carrying furniture, mattresses and building materials. Dust is kicked up all day on the roads leading to it.Environmentalists are considering filing a lawsuit to challenge the rebirth of the landfill."I understand that we need to get rid of the waste from the city of New Orleans, but we have to make sure that we are following the environmental laws," said Darryl Malek-Wiley of the Sierra Club's Delta Chapter.Darin Mann, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Quality, said inspections have shown that the debris going into the landfill is in compliance with the state's plan to deal with the wreckage from the hurricane.The fears over turning the Old Gentilly Landfill into a Superfund site are not without precedent.When Hurricane Betsy flooded the city in 1965, much of the debris from that hurricane was dumped in the Agriculture Street Landfill. Homes and a school were built atop the landfill before it was found to be contaminated and declared a Superfund site.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

PARIS, France (AP) -- Violence erupted for a sixth night Tuesday in the troubled suburbs northeast of Paris with police firing rubber bullets and tear gas as they faced down gangs of youths in Aulnay-sous-Bois, according to witnesses.A store set afire in the nearby suburb of Bondy, France-Info radio reported.No trouble was immediately reported in Clichy-sous-Bois, where rioting began last Thursday following the accidental deaths of two teenagers. The latest violence broke out as Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy met in Paris with youths and officials from Clichy-sous-Bois.An Associated Press Television news team reported confrontations between about 20 police and 40 youths in Aulnay-sous-Bois with police firing tear gas and rubber bullets.France-Info said that about 100 fires burning in numerous suburbs of the Seine-Saint-Denis region, an area of soaring unemployment, delinquency and other urban ills.A carpet store in the town of Bondy was set afire, and cars were burning in Bondy and Sevran, France-Info reported.Police said 13 people were jailed following rioting late Monday and early Tuesday in Clichy-sous-Bois and three other suburbs. A total of 68 cars were torched in a handful of suburbs, LCI television reported, while police said 21 cars -- two of them police vehicles -- were set on fire in Clichy-sous-Bois on Monday night.The mayor of Sevran said youths set two rooms of a primary school on fire Monday night along with several cars. Police said three officers there were slightly injured."These acts have a direct link to the events in Clichy-sous-Bois," Sevran Mayor Stephane Gatignon said in a statement.Suburbs that ring France's big cities, home to immigrant communities often from Muslim North Africa, suffer soaring unemployment and discrimination. Disenchantment and anger thrive in the tall cinderblock towers and long "bars" that make up the projects.The troubles were triggered by the deaths of two teenagers electrocuted in a power substation where they hid to escape police whom they thought were chasing them. A third was injured but survived. Officials have said police were not pursuing the boys, aged 15 and 17.Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin met Tuesday with the parents of the three families who a day earlier had refused an invitation to meet the interior minister -- blamed by many for fanning anger with his tough talk and tactics.Sarkozy met Tuesday night with some of the victims' relatives, other youths, a police representative and officials from Clichy-sous-Bois, according to the Interior Ministry said, which gave no details of what was said at the meeting.In Clichy-sous-Bois, the head of the Paris mosque, Dalil Boubakeur, visiting Muslim leaders there, was forced to leave abruptly after his car was pelted with stones, LCI reported. A tear gas grenade that landed in the mosque Sunday fed anger. It was unclear who fired the tear gas.A growing number of politicians and anti-racism groups claimed Sarkozy was inflaming the tense atmosphere.'Warlike' wordsSarkozy recently referred to the troublemakers as "scum" or "riffraff," and in the past vowed to "clean out" the suburbs.Even within the conservative government, there were critics.Such "warlike" words would not bring calm, Equal Opportunities Minister Azouz Begag said in an interview published in the daily Liberation. He told the paper that he "contests this method of becoming submerged by imprecise, warlike semantics."While re-establishing order demands firmness, "it is in fighting the discrimination that victimizes youths that order is re-established, the order of equality," said Begag, raised in a low-income suburb of Lyon.The president of SOS-Racism, an anti-racism group, called Tuesday for a "massive investment plan" to cure suburban ills."The police response alone ... is not at all adequate," Dominique Sopo said on France-Info radio, calling for a "real policy of breaking the ghettos."Violence first visited French suburbs in 1981, in the Lyon area. For three decades, successive governments have worked to improve conditions, but discrimination and a sense of exclusion prevails.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Coming off one of the deadliest months for American troops, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld indicated that the number of U.S. forces in Iraq could rise temporarily as Iraqis prepare to vote in mid-December parliamentary elections."We have had a pattern of increasing the number of coalition forces during periods when there was an expectation that the insurgents and terrorists would like to try to disrupt the political process," Rumsfeld told Pentagon reporters.Rumsfeld and Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said they expect insurgents to expand their attacks as the elections approach, but would not say exactly how they plan to protect U.S. soldiers from the growing number of roadside bombs."We'll decide what we're going to do about December as we go along, but it would not be a surprise to me that the commanders would want to have some sort of an overlap there" between arriving and departing units, Rumsfeld said.U.S. troop levels rose to a peak of 161,000 before the October 15 election on the new constitution, but dipped to 158,000 as of Tuesday. There were 159,000 U.S. troops in Iraq for the January elections.Rumsfeld also defended the government's decision not to permit United Nations human rights investigators to meet with terror suspects detained at Guantanamo Bay. Three U.N. experts were given permission to visit the facilities in Cuba but said they won't go if they could not interview prisoners.Rumsfeld said it was not appropriate to give U.N. investigators the same extensive access that has been granted to officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross."There has to be a limit to how one does that," Rumsfeld said, adding that the government does not want to increase the number of organizations that have extensive access to the detainees. He said the decision not to provide full access to the U.N. officials was made not by the Pentagon but by the U.S. government.Rumsfeld and Pace talked at length about the deadly homemade bombs -- called improvised explosive devices -- that have become a growing threat in Iraq, including killing seven service members in three separate attacks Monday.January and October were two of the deadliest months in Iraq, they said, because elections were held then, and the insurgents are trying to prevent the Iraqi people from participating in the political process.Pace said U.S. forces are still finding an enormous amount of explosives in Iraq. The Pentagon and its commanders, he said, are working to find the best technologies and tactics to protect the troops, including better armor and improved battlefield operations.He said that while the number of IED attacks has risen, the number of casualties per effective IED attack is going down. As of Tuesday, the U.S. military death toll for October was at least 93, bringing the total number of military deaths to at least 2,026 since the war in Iraq began.Rumsfeld said coalition commanders will soon recommend future troop rotations based on the security situation and political environment in Iraq. In September the Pentagon announced that about 9,400 active-duty soldiers scheduled to finish one-year tours in January will stay at least seven extra days, to avoid a transition to new units during the Iraqi election.In other comments:-- Rumsfeld said he believes some Guantanamo detainees have been conducting hunger strikes to capture press attention. Currently, 27 detainees are participating in the hunger strike, including 24 who are being force fed and monitored by medical authorities.Many of the nearly 500 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have been held more than 3 1/2 years without charge or access to lawyers. Most were captured in the Afghanistan war, suspected of ties to the al Qaeda terrorist network or the Taliban regime ousted by U.S. forces in late 2001.-- Rumsfeld said he does not recall talking to Vice President Dick Cheney about undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame whose diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, publicly questioned the Bush administration's justification for going to war in Iraq. And he said he is not aware of any involvement in the matter by the Defense Department. But he said that with a department of hundreds of thousands of people and a time span of five years, he couldn't be sure.Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr., was indicted Friday on charges of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements in the investigation into the leak of Plame's identity.-- Rumsfeld said that after consulting lawyers and ethics officials, he decided not to sell his stock in a company with an interest in the influenza-fighting pill Tamiflu, which could be used to combat bird flu.He said he considered every option, but determined it would be a problem to sell the stock, which has greatly increased in value. Rumsfeld has long held the stock and last week repeated his intention to stay out of any decisions on treatments or vaccines for bird flu.-- He said he had seen no indication North Korea was backing away from plans to continue building nuclear weapons.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- A judge in a bitter dispute between divorced parents over where to bury a son killed in Iraq sided with the soldier's father Tuesday, saying he did not believe the mother's tearful testimony.Army Staff Sgt. Jason Hendrix should remain buried in his father's home state of Oklahoma, despite his mother's claim that he wanted to be laid to rest in California, Superior Court Judge Robert B. Yonts Jr. ruled."May this brave soldier, Sergeant Jason Hendrix, rest in peace," Yonts said.The case focused on a little-known Pentagon policy that says if a slain soldier is unmarried and has no children -- the case with Hendrix -- the remains are given to the elder surviving parent. Hendrix's father, Russell Hendrix, is 48; his mother, Renee Amick, 45. (Read about the trial)Because Hendrix left no will, the only evidence of his desire to be buried in California was Amick's testimony that he told her so about a year before he died. That wish was not put in writing, and the judge did not believe the mother's story."The testimony of the mother appeared forced and contrived. The tears were not genuine," the judge wrote.A spokesman for Amick said the family was disappointed and baffled by the decision. "We were surprised by the judge's characterization of Jason's mother's emotions," A.C. Smith said. "It certainly seemed over the top."Hendrix, 28, was killed by a roadside bomb February 16 near the city of Ramadi. He was buried in April in a plot next to his paternal grandfather, a former Marine, after the Pentagon shipped the body to Oklahoma under its standing policy.Hendrix's parents divorced in 1991, and Russell Hendrix was awarded custody. Jason Hendrix grew up in Watsonville, California, with his mother but finished high school while living with his father in Oklahoma.According to court documents, Hendrix returned to California only to visit family. He also had an Oklahoma driver's license and listed Oklahoma as his state of residence, and there was evidence he planned to return to the state after leaving the Army, the judge said.Moving the body would serve no purpose, the judge said."Jason's remains have already been dishonored by being held in cold storage for nearly six weeks between his death and burial. To further disturb the repose of the deceased would be emotionally upsetting for all members of the family," Yonts said.Omar James, lawyer for Russell Hendrix, said he and his client are optimistic that the judge's decision will end the dispute."I can't imagine what it's like for a mother to grieve for her son," James said. "It's just abhorrent that we had to go through this."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democrats forced the Senate into a closed session Tuesday to pressure the Republican majority into completing an investigation of the intelligence underpinning the 2003 invasion of Iraq.Democrats demanded that Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts move forward on a promised investigation into how Bush administration officials handled prewar intelligence about Iraq's suspected weapons programs.The probe would be a follow-up to the July 2004 Intelligence Committee report that blamed a "series of failures" by the CIA and other intelligence agencies for the mistaken belief among U.S. policymakers that Iraq had restarted its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. (Full story)The Senate reopened about two hours later, after members agreed to appoint a bipartisan group of senators to assess the progress of the "Phase 2" probe, the office of Majority Leader Bill Frist said. (See video on Democratic move -- 3:05)The three Republicans and three Democrats are to report back to Senate leaders by November 14.Democrats accused Roberts of stalling the probe into how administration officials handled the intelligence used to sell Congress and the public on invading Iraq.Roberts, a Kansas Republican, said the closed session was "not needed, not necessary and, in my personal opinion, was a stunt."The closed session was punctuated by acrimonious broadsides in the Capitol hallways.Frist said Democrats had "hijacked" the Senate, and Democrats threatened to close the chamber each day until Republicans agreed to move forward with the investigation."This is an affront to me personally," said Frist, a Tennessee Republican. "This is an affront to our leadership. It is an affront to the United States of America, and it is wrong."Frist said Senate Rule 21 -- which requires everyone but senators and a few aides to clear the chamber until a majority votes to reopen -- had been invoked only rarely and with "mutual conversation" between the leaders of both parties. Democratic leader Harry Reid said the surprise move was necessary to overcome Republican efforts to "obstruct" a full investigation of how the Bush administration led the United States into war."There's nothing more important to a Congress or a president than war," the Nevada Democrat said. "I think the American people are entitled to know how we got there. That's what this is all about."There was no immediate reaction from the White House.Reid said the GOP leadership in Congress has "repeatedly chosen to protect the Republican administration rather than get to the bottom of what happened and why." He said he had "zero regret" about the move: "The American people had a victory today."Rule 21 has been invoked 53 times since 1929, according to the Congressional Research Service. It was invoked six times during the impeachment trial of former President Bill Clinton for senators to organize the proceedings and deliberate on his eventual acquittal.Roberts: Probe in progressSen. Jay Rockefeller, the intelligence committee's ranking Democrat and vice chairman, said the Democratic maneuver was necessary for Americans to learn who was accountable for the way prewar intelligence was used."Everything is about accountability to the American people, accountability of the executive branch ... [and] accountability of the oversight of the Congress," Rockefeller said.He said the committee's Republican majority has refused to request documents from the White House about how the Bush administration crafted arguments for the invasion."What disturbs me the most is the majority has been willing, in this senator's judgment, to take orders from this administration when it comes to limiting the scope of appropriate, authorized and necessary oversight investigations," Rockefeller said.Roberts said his committee has been working on the Phase 2 investigation since May and "we have what we think is a pretty good report." He said the committee will take up the matter next week."However long it takes, working in good faith, we will look into Phase 2 and see what we can do and finish that product," Roberts said.Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat on the panel, expressed his doubts. "Assurances have been made for months that progress is being made," Levin said. "We have not seen any evidence of it."Democrats last year had pushed for the second part of the panel's inquiry to be completed before the November 2004 elections.Democratic Whip Richard Durbin said last week's indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on perjury and obstruction of justice charges showed how the Bush administration reacts to criticism. Libby is accused of lying to investigators and a grand jury probing the disclosure of the identity of a CIA officer whose husband had challenged a key assertion in the administration's case for war."It's a question about whether or not anyone in this administration in any way misused or distorted intelligence," Durbin said. He said senators "owe the American people some straight answers."Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, denied his party was trying to stall Senate action on Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.He said work on Alito's nomination was still going on, and he was scheduled to meet with the nominee on Wednesday.Sen. Christopher Bond of Missouri, a Republican member of the Intelligence Committee, said Democratic complaints against Roberts were "terribly unfair and unfounded." Bond said the panel's 2004 report found no indication that the mistaken assumptions about Iraq's weapons programs were the result of political pressure."Even after they signed on to that, they contend that somehow this intelligence was misused," he said.Responding to that argument, Durbin told CNN, "This is a different question: Once they received the intelligence, did members of the administration accurately and honestly portray it to the American people?"CNN's Ted Barrett contributed to this report.