NEW YORK (AP) -- Teachers in the nation's largest public school system have ratified a new contract with the city that gives them 15 percent raises over four years, union leaders announced Thursday.About 63 percent of the teachers voting favored the new contract, capping a lengthy, often contentious battle between the city and the United Federation of Teachers. More than 86,600 votes were cast."It is my hope that with this agreement, we can put the bitterness of the last few years behind us and work together to provide the highest quality education for our students," UFT President Randi Weingarten said in a statement.Teachers had been without a contract since May 2003. At one point during the negotiations, the union threatened a strike, which would have been illegal.A tentative deal was struck in early October, and union delegates moved to get it approved.Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement that the contract was "good for teachers, the city, and most importantly, our school children."The pay of starting teachers would increase to $42,000 from $39,000, with a new maximum base pay of about $92,000, up from $81,000.The contract also extends the school year by two days and requires teachers to work 50 minutes more each week, giving students extra help.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

LAWRENCE, Kansas (Reuters) -- At the new "Explore Evolution" museum exhibit in Kansas, visitors pass a banner showing the face of a girl next to the face of a chimpanzee for a lesson on how the two are "cousins in life's family tree."They can also study DNA under a 4-foot-tall double helix model, peruse fossil record research, and examine how advancements in treating modern-day diseases require an understanding of the evolution of cell structures.Curators of the exhibit, which opened Tuesday at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, hope their work provides a counterweight to the anti-evolution sentiment sweeping their state and the country. Sister exhibits, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, are opening in Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Minnesota and Michigan."People just don't understand how science works. We need to better inform them about what science is," said Teresa MacDonald, director of education for the university's Natural History Museum, which opened the exhibit on Tuesday.But on November 8, state education officials in Kansas are poised to do what many scientists see as just the opposite.Led by a conservative Christian chairman who says evolutionary theory is incompatible with the biblical account of God's creation of life on earth, the Kansas Board of Education plans to insert questions about the veracity of evolution theory into statewide teaching standards.The action has outraged scientists across the nation and both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Teachers Association have refused Kansas' request to use their copyrighted material.The Kansas board made a similar, but more aggressive effort to weaken evolution instruction in 1999. But a public backlash ultimately led to the reversal of those actions.Evolution under attackNow, the new Kansas standards, which outline what teachers should teach and test on, leave evolutionary principles in the curriculum but insert phrasing that encourages students to question their validity. The standards also delete certain text about how science is defined."The stakes are high," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education. "If Kansas gets away with it ... I anticipate that in every state where science standards are up for revision, we are going to be fighting another battle."Efforts to undermine evolution instruction have also been seen in Michigan, Kentucky, Georgia and elsewhere.And one key case was being tested in court this week in Pennsylvania, where a group of parents sued the Dover Area School Board because teachers had been ordered to tell biology students that the theory of evolution is not established fact.The Pennsylvania school officials introduced students to an alternative theory known as "intelligent design," which holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, such as God, rather than an undirected process such as natural selection.Intelligent design, or ID, proponents have also been active in pressing for the changes in Kansas, but school board members there stopped short of including intelligent design ideas in the state standards."ID is making enormous progress," said John Calvert, a Kansas City lawyer and ID proponent. "Is it going to happen overnight? No. Is it going to happen? Yes."Calvert said museum exhibits such as the one in Lawrence are flawed because they ask visitors to believe humans evolved randomly, with no specific purpose or design by a higher power -- a theory polls show a majority of Americans do not believe.But evolution supporters say religion has no valid role in a science class."This is all based on establishing a theocracy within our system," said Sue Gamble, a member of the Kansas School Board who opposes changing the science standards. "We said we didn't want to do that when we established our country. This should not be happening."Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

(CNN) -- Getting a sense of a destination's true character takes a little time, especially if you're relying solely on the listings in your trusty guidebook.Dig a little deeper, and you're likely to see how the locals live.Reading materialCheck out the local newspaper or independent weekly when you arrive or look for them online before you go."You can find a lot of entertainment stuff in there, a lot of restaurant reviews that might not necessarily be part of the restaurants that are recommended by hostels or tourist agencies," said Laura Martin, editor in chief of the 2007 "Let's Go" guides.Many papers and independent weeklies publish an annual roundup of the city's most popular offerings -- including information on restaurants, bars, shops, galleries and parks.Looking at bulletin boards in coffee shops or local stores often yields good insider information, said Jane Pirone, publisher of "Not for Tourists," a series of guides designed to make you feel like a local, or at least like a good friend is showing you around."One big strategy for me is finding an independent bookstore because you really can find so much cool information about what's going on in the neighborhood and the town from that," Pirone said.By cross-referencing the local entertainment listings with a guidebook, you can find a performance that sounds intriguing in a club or bar that suits your tastes.Take cues from the localsDon't be afraid to ask for recommendations.Sometimes you don't even have to ask. A restaurant packed with locals is promising, said Julian Smith, author of "Moon Handbooks" guides on Ecuador, Virginia and the Four Corners (where Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico intersect). "It might be a really nice-looking restaurant, but if it's sitting empty on a Saturday night, that's probably not a good sign," Smith said.If you're not confident in the advice you receive, ask someone else. Sometimes asking around in an environment where you feel comfortable will produce the sort of recommendations you're seeking."If you're at a cool local record store or coffee shop or bookstore, then the person you ask will most likely give you a more authentic neighborhood restaurant as opposed to a chain that's void of any character about the city," Pirone said.Getting aroundMaking your way from point A to point B with residents gives you more opportunities to gather information. Even if you're not the type to chat with someone on a bus, it's an interesting way to observe day-to-day life."I like to try and take local transportation when I can, instead of a tour or a rental car," Smith said."A lot of times you meet interesting people, and you might stick out, but people usually are interested in where you're from and where you're going."Martin agreed that public transportation can be a fun experience and a good way to get to areas that aren't heavily visited by tourists, but she advises travelers to make sure the system is reliable before hopping aboard.Smith said he likes to hire a taxi and a driver when he's traveling abroad in a place where costs are low."You get kind of a personal tour guide for the day because taxi drivers know everything, just about. They're one of the best sources of information," he said.Rest for the wearyIf you really want a window into local life, consider forgoing a hotel room or hostel for a rental house, apartment or a visit in someone's home.Web sites such as Vacation Rentals by Owner and Great Rentals offer a variety of rental properties across the globe.Smith recommends renting a room in someone's home for a more culturally rich experience.For the truly adventurous, budget-minded traveler, there are a number of hospitality sites -- CouchSurfing.com, Globalfreeloaders.com or Hospitalityclub.org -- that link travelers up with local hosts and accommodations at little or no cost.Smith said he has had good experiences with Servas International, a nonprofit group that links travelers with hosts in an effort to build cross-cultural understanding.Getting off the traditional lodging circuit is a good way to find local flavor, Martin agreed."You're not necessarily with other travelers all the time," she said. "You're getting a better idea of what it actually is like to live in that culture as opposed to just staying there for a few days."

(Southern Living) -- While the land area of the ACE Basin is small enough for a weekend trip, the natural beauty of this great, green place in the South Carolina Lowcountry will make you want to linger longer. Walking trails, canoe trips, nature tours and more await.First stop: WalterboroIf you're driving along I-95, your first glimpse of the ACE Basin comes in the middle of this small city that lies on the area's northern edge. Walking trails of the Great Swamp Sanctuary meander alongside Ireland Creek. It's a great place for birding. Call (843) 549-9595 or visit www.walterboro.org.Oceanside at Edisto IslandFrom U.S. 17, turn south on State 174, cruise slowly through the small town of Adams Run and then follow the road about 25 miles to ocean's edge. Edisto Beach State Park features four miles of nature trails and programs. Loggerhead turtles nest on the island's sandy beaches. Edisto Beach Golf Club is open to the public at Fairfield Ocean Ridge Resort. You can shop, dine and sunbathe. For general information, call the Edisto Chamber of Commerce at (888) 333-2781 or visit www.edistochamber.com.Lowcountry gemsYou'll find the best views of Ernest F. Hollings ACE Basin National Wildlife Refuge and Donnelley and Bear Island Wildlife Management Areas deep in the hearts of these areas. At all three, walking trails take you deep into forests, fields and tidal marsh.At the refuge's visitors center (off State 346), you can tour its headquarters, Grove House, built about 1828. It's one of three antebellum houses remaining in the area and was once the seat of a rice plantation. Cooler days in late fall, winter and spring are the best times to walk the trails of the refuge and wildlife management areas. Bring binoculars (and insect repellent) for great birding in those seasons. For information, call the refuge at (843) 889-3084 or see www.fws.gov/acebasin/.You can put your feet up and see much of the ACE Basin with several vendors who provide guided excursions into the area. Beaufort-based Ace Basin Tours is one. Tours aboard the 38-foot Dixie Lady pontoon boat wind through marshes and around sea islands for about three hours. Call (843) 521-3099 or visit www.acebasintours.com. Paddling the acronymThe Ashepoo, Combahee and Edisto Rivers, along with scores of other tidal creeks, slip through the silence of forests and marsh. Many choose to explore the Edisto, which is the longest free-flowing blackwater stream in North America. The Edisto River Canoe & Kayak Trail Commission has marked a 60-mile trail, with several put-in spots, including one each at Colleton State Park and Givhans Ferry State Park. The commission offers guided educational river trips. Call (843) 549-5591 or visit www.walterboro.org.You'll also find several commercial liveries in the area. One is ACE Basin Outpost, right on U.S. 17 at Joe's Landing on the Ashepoo River. It offers rentals, sales, lessons and tours. Call (800) 785-2925.Driving great roadsThe way paddlers love canoeing the ACE Basin, others love driving its two-lane roads. They glide beside the white fences and green pastures of old plantations, penetrate deep forests and ride along above thick swamps. Glance at the forests along roadsides, and you'll often see the dikes of relic rice fields now overgrown.Take it slow; wildlife may be crossing just ahead in a bend of the road. I once slowed down for a wild turkey to strut across State 26, one of the best roads to drive. From deep forest it rises over relic dunes and ends at Bennett's Point on Mosquito Creek. There you'll find science lessons and fresh shrimp. Biologists of the National Estuarine Research Reserve study shoreline life.Other beautiful two-lane drives are those I like to call "Sabbath roads" that pass alongside historic country churches. They include State 21 (turn off U.S. 17/21), which pauses at Old Sheldon Church Ruins, lovingly preserved by St. Helena Episcopal Church in nearby Beaufort. State 174 turns south off U.S. 17 and passes by Trinity Episcopal, housed in an 1880 edifice. Presbyterian Church on Edisto Island occupies an 1830 structure, while the 1818 Old First Baptist Church houses an African-American congregation.Another African-American congregation worships at St. James the Greater, an 1826 church on what locally is called Catholic Hill. Follow State 303 south of Walterboro and turn right on State 41. Give a (loggerhead turtle) mom a helping handBotany Island Beach ranks as one of the premier nesting sites in South Carolina for loggerhead sea turtles. This year, females lumbered ashore and dug at least 200 nests. The nonprofit Botany Community Conservation Sea Turtle Project always needs volunteers, especially during hatching time in late summer. Call the project coordinator, Meg Hoyle, at (843) 869-2998. The organization also accepts tax-free donations at 2231 Devine St., Suite 100, Columbia, South Carolina 29205.Where to stayYou'll find several chain motels, such as Hampton Inn, along I-95 in Walterboro. Edisto Beach State Park features cabins and campgrounds. Elsewhere on Edisto Island, Fairfield Ocean Ridge Resort offers vacation villas, with off-season rates at 20 percent less than the published online, on-season rates. Rates range from $180 to $760. Call toll-free (877) 296-6335 or visit www.fairfieldvacations.com. Several realty companies offer rentals. For complete listings, call the Edisto Chamber of Commerce at (888) 333-2781 or visit www.edistochamber.com.Many visitors choose to headquarter in Charleston or Beaufort and then drive into the ACE Basin for the day. Beaufort is much closer -- about 30 miles south of the area. Several chain motels are available, along with small inns housed in historic structures such as the Beaufort Inn ($165-$285). Call (843) 379-4667 or visit www.beaufortinn.com. Rates at the Rhett House Inn range $135-$245. Call (843) 524-9030 or visit www.rhetthouseinn.com.Note: Visitors fill Beaufort-area lodging for graduation ceremonies at nearby Parris Island Marine Corps Recruit Depot, which are held most weekends of the year. You often can find accommodations at the last minute, but it's good to call well in advance.Where to dineIn Beaufort, fill up on stone-ground grits and other breakfast foods at Blackstone Deli & Cafe, (843) 524-4330, or choose pastries and gourmet coffees at Firehouse Books & Espresso Bar, (843) 522-2665. Several restaurants line Bay Street, among them the elegant Saltus River Grill (843) 379-3474.On Edisto Island, our choice is the Old Post Office, (843) 869-2339, at 1442 State 174. You'll want to write home about the shrimp and grits.In Walterboro, have a soda at the fountain at Hiott's Pharmacy, (843) 549-7222, on Washington Street downtown, and don't miss the boiled peanuts at Woods Brothers Store, (843) 844-2208, on U.S. 17 near Green Pond.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- NASA's top priorities are a replacement for the space shuttle and completing the international space station, and some other programs are being cut or deferred to concentrate the agency's resources, NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin said Thursday."NASA cannot afford to do everything on its plate today," he told the House Science Committee. Funding priorities required the agency to cancel several programs that "we either did not need or did not need right now," Griffin said.For example, it seemed like putting the cart before the horse to continue life science studies about how people respond to being in space before the agency was sure it could put people back in space, he said.In addition to life sciences, another affected program is nuclear systems technology, Griffin said.That program is designed to provide power to an outpost planned for the surface of the moon. But that won't be needed until after 2018, so the work is currently being deferred, he said.The agency has adopted a "go-as-you-can-pay" approach, Griffin said.That focus on two primary areas should serve as a warning of potential cuts for the rest of NASA, Rep. Bart Gordon commented.Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert expressed support for Griffin but added that "NASA cannot use aeronautics and science as a piggy bank to fund human space flight."Griffin said the next flight of the space shuttle is still planned for spring, adding that while the agency was surprised by problems with the foam insulation on the last flight, a lot has been learned from that.NASA has been developing the new crew exploration vehicle, which is intended to fly to the moon but also can replace the space shuttle when it goes out of service.Delaying that work could result in the United States being out of the manned spaceflight business for a few years after the shuttle is retired, at the same time other nations are increasing their space programs, Griffin said.In addition, he said, NASA is encouraging private industry to submit proposals to carry cargo and crew to the space station.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's response to a flu pandemic could not succeed without a strong effort by state and local governments because the battle might have to be fought on "5,000 fronts," Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt says.Democrats in the House and Senate, however, question whether the states have the financial resources to engage in such a fight.In particular, lawmakers take issue with the Bush administration's plans for the purchase of certain medicines. The plan says states would pay about $510 million for enough anti-flu drugs such as Tamiflu and Relenza, which can reduce the severity of the illness, to treat 31 million people. (Watch if the flu plan is adequate1:38)The federal government would give states an incentive to make those purchases by providing a 25 percent match, or $170 million.Rep. Nita Lowey, D-New York, said the proposal amounted to an unfunded mandate on the states and might mean that some states would not be able to buy enough drugs."This is a national emergency. I believe very strongly it should not depend upon where you live as to what sort of protection you get," Lowey told Leavitt at a House hearing Wednesday.Leavitt unveiled the administration's pandemic preparedness plan during two separate hearings before congressional appropriators. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, broached the issue of state funding, too."States are extremely nervous about what's going to be required of them," she said.Leavitt said that when it came to anti-flu drug purchases the federal government would be spending most of the money. The Bush plan calls for adding enough antivirals to the federal stockpile to treat 24 million people. All of that money would come from the federal government.The program involving state funding would supplement the stockpile with an additional 31 million courses of treatment.Leavitt also downplayed the role of anti-flu drugs during a pandemic, saying people should not equate the stockpiling of the drugs to pandemic preparedness. Rather, the foundation of the Bush plan relies on the development of vaccines that could prevent somebody from getting the disease altogether.Leavitt said funding and liability protections were critical to ramping up the production of a pandemic flu vaccine.Lawmakers said they agreed that drug manufacturers would need some protection from civil lawsuits, but Republicans and Democrats alike expressed concern that some of the legislation proposed so far gives consumers basically no recourse if harmed by a pandemic flu vaccine.Overall, President Bush proposes to spend $7.1 billion to prepare for a flu pandemic, three of which have occurred during the past century. The plan itself was released Wednesday, and it stressed major steps that state and local authorities must begin taking now:Update quarantine laws.Work with utilities to keep the phones working and grocers to keep supplying food amid the certain panic.Determine when to close schools and limit public gatherings such as movies or religious services."Every community is different and requires a different approach," Leavitt said.Also Wednesday, the government for the first time told Americans not to hoard Tamiflu, because doing so will hurt federal efforts to stockpile enough to treat the sick who really need it. Tamiflu's maker recently suspended shipments of the drug to U.S. pharmacies because of concern about hoarding.Lawmakers also grilled Leavitt on why it took the administration more than a year to issue its plan."Could we have acted sooner to avoid the situation we are in now, in effect running for cover?" said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania.But other lawmakers described the Bush plan as sound. Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, congratulated Leavitt for his "proven leadership" on the issue.Pandemics strike when the easy-to-mutate influenza virus shifts to a strain that people have never experienced before. It's impossible to predict when the next pandemic will strike, or its toll. But concern is rising that the Asian bird flu, called the H5N1 strain, might trigger one if it eventually starts spreading easily from person-to-person.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AP) -- For David Kozlow, turning 40 was a major pain in the neck. And in the ankles, back, groin, shoulder and hamstrings.A lifelong athlete who played high school lacrosse and college football, ran a 5:20 mile and bench-pressed 300 pounds, the attorney found himself approaching his 40th birthday with a laundry list of exercise-related injuries.One of those ailments, a herniated disk in his neck, took two years of acupuncture and heat therapy to alleviate the pain."I still had the mind-set that I was in my 20s," he said. "It took a few years for me to come to the conclusion that I couldn't really do what I used to do, and I had to readjust my sights."Getting older hurts -- and when it comes to exercise injuries, doctors say that's more the case than ever before. Many are seeing increasing numbers of baby boomers with blown knees, sore backs, stiff shoulders and other complaints."The volume of people in their 40s, and even in their 30s, coming in with (knee) osteoarthritis is much higher than a decade ago," said Dr. Jess Lonner, director of knee-replacement surgery at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. "It's a highly motivated generation that plays harder than a generation ago."Sports injuries among baby boomers increased by 33 percent from 1991 to 1998, according to figures cited in a U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission report. Baby boomers in 1998 suffered more that 1 million sports injuries, to the tune of nearly $19 billion in medical costs, said the report from 2000, the most recent data available.The highest numbers of sports-related injuries came from bicycling, basketball, baseball and running, according to the consumer report. The most common injuries come from overuse and affect knees, ankles, lower back and shoulders.Aging can't be avoided, but injuries can be. And doctors say that doesn't mean all avid joggers must hang up their running shoes, or lifelong basketball players must necessarily forgo the neighborhood court -- it's all about exercising smarter."The old adage 'no pain, no gain' should be less relevant as we age than when we're younger," Lonner said. "It's a matter of being educated in how to exercise appropriately and what signs to look out for when exercising, like muscle soreness and joint pain."For Kozlow, the solution was to switch from strenuous weightlifting to a workout that was gentler on muscles and joints. Now he does yoga and tai chi every day, strength training with light free weights and push-ups every other day, along with isometrics and elastic resistance bands. He also walks to and from work -- about a 35-block round-trip."The goal was to be pain-free and to be fit without hurting myself," said Kozlow, who didn't rely on drugs or surgery to heal his injuries. "You have to readjust your mind-set and be more attuned to your body and its limitations, which can be hard to admit."As we age, experts say, it's easier to get injured and it takes longer to heal sprains and strains. The physical changes and ailments that can come with age include loss of muscle mass, decreased bone density, diminished muscle and tendon flexibility, and joints less able to handle impact.If the idea of exercise is to keep in top physical condition, hot-dogging it on mountain bike trails or trying to relive those varsity-letter glory days in "weekend warrior" style can be counterproductive, said Dr. Vonda Wright, clinical instructor in the department of orthopedic surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine."Many of us may still feel like we're 20, but we're not 20," she said. "Men come into my office with ruptured Achilles' tendons or muscle tears because they insist on doing the same things they did when they were much younger."Doctors recommend a physical exam, including a cardiovascular work-up, for baby boomers looking to get active or stay fit. The results can be used to tailor an individual fitness program with the lowest injury risk."It all depends on the person. If you repeatedly get banged up by being on the basketball court, you should think about getting on a bike," Wright said. "There's a time to reconsider doing extreme sports, but there's never a time to stop being active."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- A 20-year-old man accused of using thousands of hijacked computers, or "bot nets," to damage systems and send massive amounts of spam across the Internet was arrested on Thursday in what authorities called the first such prosecution of its kind.Jeanson James Ancheta, who prosecutors say was a well-known member of the "Botmaster Underground" -- or the secret network of computer hackers skilled at bot attacks -- was taken into custody after being lured to FBI offices in Los Angeles, said U.S. Attorney's spokesman Thom Mrozek.A bot is a program that surreptitiously installs itself on a computer and allows the hacker to control the computer. A bot net is a network of such robot computers, which can harness their collective power to do considerable damage or send out huge quantities of spam.Mrozek said the prosecution was unique because, unlike in previous cases, Ancheta was accused of profiting from his attacks -- by selling access to his "bot nets" to other hackers and planting adware -- software that causes ads to pop up -- into infected computers."Normally what we see in these cases, where people set up these bot systems to do, say, denial of service attacks, they are not doing it for profit, they are doing it for bragging rights," he said. "This is the first case in the nation that we're aware of where the guy was using various bot nets in order to make money for himself."Ancheta has been indicted on a 17-count federal indictment that charges him with conspiracy, attempted transmission of code to a protected computer, transmission of code to a government computer, accessing a protected computer to commit fraud and money laundering.Ancheta, who was expected to make an initial court appearance late on Thursday or Friday, faces a maximum term of 50 years in prison if convicted on all counts, though federal sentencing guidelines typically call for lesser penalties.Prosecutors did not name the companies that they said paid Ancheta and said the firms did not know any laws were broken.Mrozek said Ancheta, who lives in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, was thought to have made nearly $60,000 from the planted adware, using the money to pay for servers to carry out additional attacks, computer equipment and a BMW.He said Ancheta was taken into custody after FBI agents called him into their offices to pick up computer equipment that had been seized in an earlier raid.Among the computers he attacked, Mrozek said, were some at the Weapons Division of the U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California and at the U.S. Department of Defense.Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush -- who had wanted an up-or-down vote on his Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito, by the end of the year -- said Friday he was disappointed that hearings on his nominee will not begin until January."Sam Alito Jr. is a incredibly intelligent, well-qualified person who should be on the court," Bush said while attending the Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina. "I told the leadership I thought it would be best to have the hearings before Christmas. They didn't feel like they could get the job done.""Fortunately there is a firm date and we look forward to working on that date," Bush said.Thursday leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee said the confirmation hearings for Alito, who would replace the retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, would begin January 9.Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said that "simply couldn't be done" because of the volume of writings Alito has produced in 15 years as a judge.The Pennsylvania Republican said senators need time to comb through about 300 opinions the New Jersey-based nominee has issued on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals."We have to do it right. We can't do it fast," Specter said.He said the committee's staff was stretched "very, very thin" by the confirmation process for Chief Justice John Roberts, who was confirmed in September, and by the failed nomination of White House Counsel Harriet Miers, who dropped out of the process last week.Specter said a vote by the full Senate tentatively scheduled for January 20. (Watch: Why one liberal backs Alito -- 2:26)O'Connor announced her retirement in July after nearly a quarter-century on the Supreme Court. She agreed to remain until her successor could be confirmed.That process was delayed when Roberts, her designated replacement, was instead tapped to replace Chief Justice William Rehnquist after Rehnquist's death in September. Then Miers withdrew last week amid sharp criticism from Bush's conservative allies, who questioned her credentials.By contrast, Alito, 55, is considered a darling of the movement, though top Justice Department officials advocating his confirmation Thursday sought to portray him as a "mainstream" federal judge."You can't pigeonhole him. He's not pro-plaintiff. He's not pro-defendant," said a senior Justice Department lawyer, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity. "It's unfair to pull out one or two cases and say he has inclination one way or another."Specter and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the committee's ranking Democrat, urged interest groups on both sides of the political spectrum to hold their fire on Alito."Virtually anybody who either voted for John Roberts or against John Roberts said the hearings were fair, and they learned enough to make up their mind," Leahy said.Alito "made a very good initial impression" in meetings with senators this week, but "we're only Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday into the process," Specter said.McCain predicts confirmationEarlier Thursday, the influential group of Senate moderates known as the "Gang of 14" emerged from their first meeting on the nomination with the message that "everyone is reserving judgment on everything," in the words of Sen. Mark Pryor, an Arkansas Democrat.The group -- which earlier this year reached a compromise to head off a showdown over several Bush nominations for the federal courts -- could have tremendous sway over Alito's fate, particularly if Senate Democrats attempt to filibuster the conservative judge."It's way too early to talk about some of the more divisive things that have been talked about in the past," Sen. Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat, said after the meeting, which lasted about 30 minutes."We're going to let the process unfold, make up our minds as we go along. But nobody's talking about those issues that would break up the gang or cause a rule change or a filibuster," Nelson said."Some of us are more favorably disposed than others," said Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican who held the meeting.McCain said he is "very favorably disposed" toward Alito, but "it's my obligation to go along with the Gang of 14 and have periodic meetings and discussions."The former presidential candidate later told CNN that he expected Alito to be confirmed.Republican Sens. Mike DeWine of Ohio, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Olympia Snowe of Maine have said they don't see Alito triggering the "extraordinary circumstances" standard the group had set that could initiate a filibuster."Judge Alito's nomination has been here a week," McCain said. "To make a conclusion before even one hearing is held is not the way the 14 are going to function, as far as I know."Alito continued making the rounds on Capitol Hill on Thursday, meeting with more of the senators who will help decide whether he is to sit on the nation's highest court. He met with at least four members of the Gang of 14, including McCain, Pryor, West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd and Rhode Island Republican Lincoln Chafee.CNN's Ted Barrett and Terry Frieden contributed to this report

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate insisted Thursday on opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling after being blocked by environmentalists for decades, then voted overwhelmingly to prohibit exporting any of the oil pumped from the region.With a 51-48 vote, the Senate approved requiring the Interior Department to begin selling oil leases for the coastal plain of the Alaska refuge within two years.Repeated attempts to approve such drilling have failed in the Senate because drilling supporters were unable to muster the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster by opponents. This year, drilling supporters attached language ending the ban on drilling in the refuge to a budget measure that is immune from filibuster.Opening the refuge, which was set aside for protection 44 years ago, has been one of President Bush's top energy priorities.Bush, in Argentina for a two-day summit, hailed the vote."Increasing our domestic energy supply will help lower gasoline prices and utility bills," he said in a statement. "We can and should produce more crude oil here at home in environmentally responsible ways. The most promising site for oil in America is a 2,000-acre site in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and thanks to technology, we can reach this energy with little impact on the land or wildlife."Bush and other drilling advocates argue that the country needs the estimated 10.5 billion barrels of oil that are believed to lie beneath the refuges coastal tundra in northeastern Alaska and slow the growing dependence on oil imports. The United States now uses about 7.3 billion barrels of oil a year."America needs this American oil," said Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. He called opposition to pumping the refuge's oil "ostrich-like" and said the refuge's reserves are "crucial to the nation's attempt to achieve energy independence."Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, who led the effort to continue the ban, called drilling in the refuge a gimmick that will have little impact on oil or gasoline prices, or U.S. energy security."Using backdoor tactics to destroy America's last great wild frontier will not solve our nation's energy problems and will do nothing to lower skyrocketing gas prices," Cantwell argued.The House is considering a measure that also includes a provision to open ANWR to oil companies. It cleared the Budget Committee on Thursday but has garnered so much opposition for various reasons that House leaders are thinking about jettisoning the contentious refuge drilling section.The Senate's decision to keep the provision in its bill "gives us a little more flexibility," said Acting Majority Leader Roy Blunt, R-Missouri. A decision on ANWR would then be made when the House and Senate try to mesh their two budgets.Meanwhile, the Senate, in an 86-13 vote, required that none of the oil from ANWR be exported. Otherwise "there is no assurance that even one drop of Alaskan oil will get to hurting Americans," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, a drilling opponent who nevertheless sponsored the no-export provision. He co-sponsored the amendment with Sen. Jim Talent, R-Missouri, who strongly supports drilling there.Drilling supporters argued that ANWR will give the country more domestic oil production, so fewer barrels will have to be imported. Today about 60 percent of the oil used in the United States is imported.But no oil is likely to flow from ANWR for 10 years and peak production of about 1 million barrels a day isn't expected until about 2025, according to the Energy Department. Currently, the United States used about 20 million barrels of oil a day.Environmentalists have cited a report by DOE's Energy Information Administration that concluded that ANWR oil would only slightly affect gasoline prices and marginally lower the growth of imports by 2025, when imported oil would account for 64 percent of U.S. demand instead of 68 percent without ANWR's oil.Environmentalists said drilling platforms and a spider web of roads and pipelines will threaten the ecology of the refuge's coastal plain which is used by caribou, polar bears, musk oxen and millions of migratory birds that land there during warmer parts of the year.They have referred to the area as North America's Serengeti, a reference to the African wildlife paradise. Proposing to drill for oil in ANWR has raised the passions of conservationists of all political stripes, according to William Meadows, president of the Wilderness Society. "It would translate into a real outpouring of anger directed toward members of Congress," he said.Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has countered that modern drilling techniques and stringent environmental regulations will safeguard the coastal plain and its wildlife. "We can develop ANWR oil without harm to the environment and to the wildlife that live there," she said, adding that development would create tens of thousands of jobs both in Alaska and elsewhere.The provision in the budget bill assumed $2.5 billion in federal revenue from oil lease sales over the next five years. Alaska would get a like amount as well as half of future oil royalties from the refuge. That's one reason Alaska's senators have fought for years to approve oil exploration in the refuge, which was set aside in 1961 for special protection.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

(CNN) -- "Jarhead," a blow-by-blow first-person account of the Persian Gulf War, is far less compelling than Anthony Swofford's 2003 memoir of the same name on which the movie is based.By carefully avoiding any references or comparisons to the current situation in Iraq, it's not an anti-war movie. Frankly, it's barely a war movie at all -- at least, not in the classic troops-clashing-in-battle sense.That lack of drive makes for an admirable character study, but keeps the audience at a distance."Jarhead" begins with Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal, making a smooth transition into mainstream Hollywood filmmaking) and keeps its focus on him as he goes through his personal Desert Storm.The film traces his grueling, painful journey from boot camp grunt to high-strung, emotionally drained sniper. He becomes a one-man killing machine, with emphasis on "machine."WaitingWe're taken into the inner workings of boot camp, as a group of men who wouldn't have given each other the time of day in civilian life learn to work together and finally come to the point where they would give their lives for one another. It's a grim process made all the more intolerable by Staff Sgt. Sykes, played by Jamie Foxx. With Sykes -- declaiming, defiant, determined -- Foxx once again proves he's got enough talent to play just about any role.Swofford is teamed with another grunt, Troy (the terrific Peter Sarsgaard), to be trained as snipers. Snipers work in teams and they're put together at random.Long days of training finally pay off when they're finally sent to Kuwait, only to find themselves sitting on their humps for six mind-numbing months in the scalding desert, waiting and waiting some more, doing their best to hang on to their sanity and keep their raging testosterone in check.Finally the men see four days and four hours of actual action against the enemy. But it becomes painfully clear that this isn't to be their war, one fought on the ground, but rather an air war using Scud missiles and fighter jets with burning oil wells lighting up the ink-black desert skies. All their sacrifices have been for nothing.Quite frankly, so has the movie.Screenwriter William Broyles Jr. -- a Vietnam veteran -- has written a war movie with no war.The acting is superb and all involved try damned hard to give this film a purpose. There are some extremely interesting scenes -- one, in particular, features Swofford with an enemy soldier in his sights, but he's forbidden to shoot him by his superiors -- and some remarkable insights into the hearts and minds of men who face the idea of death every day while fighting a growing sense of futility about their mission. The few battle scenes are also well done and infused with a great sense of dread.But somehow director Sam Mendes ("American Beauty," "Road to Perdition") can't pull it all together. In the end, "Jarhead" feels remote, uncertain of whether it wants to make a big statement, or if it wants to make one at all.As a study of one man's war experience, "Jarhead" has its moments. But if you want a great movie about the Gulf War, rent David O. Russell's "Three Kings."

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The powers behind "The West Wing" are making this campaign promise: Sunday's live debate between presidential candidates Arnold Vinick and Matt Santos will be far from politics -- or television -- as usual.Laurence O'Donnell, who balances work as a political analyst and a "West Wing" executive producer, said the hourlong episode (8 p.m. EDT on NBC) represents "my wish-fulfillment debate.""We are using the accepted liturgy of presidential debates. It will look the same, it will be moderated by Forrest Sawyer, a real news person, it will have all that real feel to it," O'Donnell said."But I think it will be more satisfying in that the candidates end up really going into the issues in a way that they normally would not," he said. "They end up each forcing the other to get more honest as the debate wears on."In other words, Republican Vinick, played by Alan Alda, and Democrat Santos, portrayed by Jimmy Smits, will listen and respond to each other -- as opposed to real-world debates that tend to excise substance or spontaneity.The fictional encounter starts with the usual rules, the kind that "are set up by the candidates and are there to protect the candidates and not promote an informed debate," said executive producer Alex Graves, who is directing O'Donnell's script.But one of the politicians -- Graves won't say who -- quickly proposes tossing the book aside."And that's the starting point and everybody, including the moderator, underestimates what that's going to mean," Graves said. "It ends up ... with the candidates doing and saying things you would never expect to see in a debate, never."The actors may also do something rarely seen. Although they have a script, Alda and Smits also received a crash course in debate strategy and issues that will allow them to veer off the page."It's loose enough that it will be exciting to the audience," Smits told The Associated Press.Asked if that approach puts unusual pressure on the actors, he replied: "Pressure? I'm totally sweating this."Battling backThe episode, with separate live versions for Eastern and Western time zones and with just two commercial breaks, could be the highlight of a resurgent year for "The West Wing," which is drawing lavish critical praise after being dinged in recent seasons for a creative slump.Ratings for the series need a jolt. In the first few weeks of the season, and with a move from Wednesday to Sunday, it lost more than 30 percent of its audience (while ABC's new Oval Office drama "Commander in Chief" jumped into the top 10).Whether "The West Wing" can regroup and return for an eighth year, it's making this season count. There's the immediacy of a story line with echoes of the CIA leak case, with the TV version involving communications director Toby Ziegler and space program secrets.That's intercut with the lively presidential campaign that could end up with the White House remaining in the hands of the Democratic Party or with a moderate Republican senator from California gaining control early next year.The producers are claiming they have yet to decide whether Vinick or Santos prevails; maybe Sunday's show will offer clues."The West Wing" featured a debate before, between President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) and Republican opponent Robert Ritchie (James Brolin). But that fourth-season show switched between behind-the-scene machinations and the debate itself.This time, the producers decided to really stretch TV's boundaries. Scenes typically last scant moments; the debate episode will offer two 25-minute blocks of uninterrupted drama, most of it focused on the candidates."We're letting two great actors really go at each other and try to defeat each other for basically an hour, nonstop," O'Donnell said, with the chance to go "deeper and deeper and slug each other harder and harder."Issues include taxes, health care and U.S. border security. (The topic of abortion was explored in the previous week's episode.)'More exciting than daunting'The challenges are "more exciting than daunting," said Alda, who, like Smits, has worked on the stage. The "M*A*S*H" star also can claim live on-air experience: In the early days of TV and his career, Alda appeared on shows including "The U.S. Steel Hour."He likes his character -- Vinick "seems unusual in that the positions he takes have some connection to the values he holds," Alda notes dryly -- and is rooting for him."It makes it fun. When an actor plays a character, you want what that character wants. Otherwise it doesn't look authentic. So I really want to defeat Jimmy -- I mean Jimmy as the character," Alda said."No, he wants to win," is the retort from Smits when told of Alda's remark.The actors and producers agree there's significant room for error on a live episode, especially given how infrequently it's done (an "ER" episode and the recent "Will & Grace" episode among the few examples).Ever the strategist, O'Donnell suggests that missteps could prove as rewarding for viewers as a flawless hour."We could get it completely wrong. You might be able to only hear Alan Alda and not hear Jimmy because the mikes don't work (or) the camera goes out; some crazy thing happens with the equipment. Certainly, the actors can lose their way.""There's just nothing more fun to watch than that kind of train wreck. If I wasn't involved with the show I'd be turning it on just to see: OK, how do they screw up," he said.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- A 20-year-old man accused of using thousands of hijacked computers, or "bot nets," to damage systems and send massive amounts of spam across the Internet was arrested on Thursday in what authorities called the first such prosecution of its kind.Jeanson James Ancheta, who prosecutors say was a well-known member of the "Botmaster Underground" -- or the secret network of computer hackers skilled at bot attacks -- was taken into custody after being lured to FBI offices in Los Angeles, said U.S. Attorney's spokesman Thom Mrozek.A bot is a program that surreptitiously installs itself on a computer and allows the hacker to control the computer. A bot net is a network of such robot computers, which can harness their collective power to do considerable damage or send out huge quantities of spam.Mrozek said the prosecution was unique because, unlike in previous cases, Ancheta was accused of profiting from his attacks -- by selling access to his "bot nets" to other hackers and planting adware -- software that causes ads to pop up -- into infected computers."Normally what we see in these cases, where people set up these bot systems to do, say, denial of service attacks, they are not doing it for profit, they are doing it for bragging rights," he said. "This is the first case in the nation that we're aware of where the guy was using various bot nets in order to make money for himself."Ancheta has been indicted on a 17-count federal indictment that charges him with conspiracy, attempted transmission of code to a protected computer, transmission of code to a government computer, accessing a protected computer to commit fraud and money laundering.Ancheta, who was expected to make an initial court appearance late on Thursday or Friday, faces a maximum term of 50 years in prison if convicted on all counts, though federal sentencing guidelines typically call for lesser penalties.Prosecutors did not name the companies that they said paid Ancheta and said the firms did not know any laws were broken.Mrozek said Ancheta, who lives in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, was thought to have made nearly $60,000 from the planted adware, using the money to pay for servers to carry out additional attacks, computer equipment and a BMW.He said Ancheta was taken into custody after FBI agents called him into their offices to pick up computer equipment that had been seized in an earlier raid.Among the computers he attacked, Mrozek said, were some at the Weapons Division of the U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California and at the U.S. Department of Defense.Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (AP) -- In another time and place, college students wondering whether the campus cafe has any free seats, or their favorite corner of the library is occupied, would have to risk hoofing it over there.But for today's student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, that kind of information is all just a click away.MIT's newly upgraded wireless network -- extended this month to cover the entire school -- doesn't merely get you online in study halls, stairwells or any other spot on the 9.4 million square foot campus.It also provides information on exactly how many people are logged on at any given location at any given time. It even reveals a user's identity if the individual has opted to make that data public.MIT researchers did this by developing electronic maps that track across campus, day and night, the devices people use to connect to the network, whether they're laptops, wireless PDAs or even Wi-Fi equipped cell phones.The maps were unveiled this week at the MIT Museum, where they are projected onto large Plexiglas rectangles that hang from the ceiling. They are also available online to network users, the data time-stamped and saved for up to 12 hours.Red splotches on one map show the highest concentration of wireless users on campus. On another map, yellow dots with names written above them identify individual users, who pop up in different places depending where they're logged in."With these maps, you can see down to the room on campus how many people are logged on," said Carlo Ratti, director of the school's SENSEable City Laboratory, which created the maps. "You can even watch someone go from room to room if they have a handheld device that's connected."Researchers use log files from the university's Internet service provider to construct the maps. The files indicate the number of users connected to each of MIT's more than 2,800 access points. The map that can pinpoint locations in rooms is 3-D, so researchers can even distinguish connectivity in multistoried buildings."Laptops and Wi-Fi are creating a revolutionary change in the way people work," Ratti said. The maps aim to "visualize these changes by monitoring the traffic on the wireless network and showing how people move around campus."Some of the results so far aren't terribly surprising for students at the vanguard of tech innovation.The maps show, for example, that the bulk of wireless users late at night and very early in the morning are logged on from their dorms. During the day, the higher concentration of users shifts to classrooms.But researchers also found that study labs that once bustled with students are now nearly empty as people, no longer tethered to a phone line or network cable, move to cafes and nearby lounges, where food and comfy chairs are more inviting.Researchers say this data can be used to better understand how wireless technology is changing campus life, and what that means for planning spaces and administering services.The question has become, Ratti said, "If I can work anywhere, where do I want to work?" Graduate student Sonya Huang, stands in front of a map of the MIT campus that shows the flow of wireless Internet users at the school."Many cities, including Philadelphia, are planning to go wireless. Something like our study will help them understand usage patterns and where best to invest," said researcher Andres Sevtsuk.Sevtsuk likened the mapping project to a real-time census."Instead of waiting every year or every 10 years for data, you have new information every 15 minutes or so about the population of the campus," he said.While every device connected to the campus network via Wi-Fi is visible on the constantly refreshed electronic maps, the identity of the users is confidential unless they volunteer to make it public.Those students, faculty and staff who opt in are essentially agreeing to let others track them."This raises some serious privacy issues," Ratti said. "But where better than to work these concerns out but on a research campus?"Rich Pell, a 21-year-old electrical engineering senior from Spartanburg, South Carolina, was less than enthusiastic about the new system's potential for people monitoring. He predicted not many fellow students would opt into that."I wouldn't want all my friends and professors tracking me all the time. I like my privacy," he said. "I can't think of anyone who would think that's a good idea. Everyone wants to be out of contact now and then."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Ten years after Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated for trading land for peace, Israel has given up land without peace. It is fearful of another political murder. And it is divided over whether the Middle East conflict would be nearer its end had Rabin lived.Yigal Amir, the young Jewish ultranationalist who shot the 73-year-old leader at point-blank range after a November 4, 1995, peace rally, has still shown no remorse -- and about a fifth of Israelis think he should be pardoned. But memories of Rabin's murder may have kept tempers in check among the nationalists who campaigned against the withdrawal this summer from Gaza and a slice of the West Bank.Still, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who had been the nationalists' darling at the time of Rabin's murder, surrounds himself with an exceptionally large phalanx of bodyguards. Calls for his death spiked in the months before the pullout."I'm afraid we have not learned all the necessary lessons," said Uri Savir, the chief Israeli negotiator of the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords forged in Oslo, Norway, during Rabin's tenure.Rabin's murder stunned not just Israelis but a whole world that had pinned its hopes on the former general's bold peace agenda.State commemorations will be held November 14, the Jewish calendar anniversary of his murder. Events beginning this weekend include gatherings to be addressed by former President Bill Clinton, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and high-ranking visitors from Jordan and Egypt, the two countries formally at peace with Israel.Rabin took power in 1992, a war hero trusted by his people to navigate the rocky road to peace -- even if that meant giving up lands Israel captured in 1967 when he was military chief.The Oslo accords and a peace treaty with Jordan followed, but by 1995, Palestinian suicide bombings had soured the public mood.Hard-liners branded Rabin a traitor for handing back land to the Arabs. Rabbis issued rulings calling for his death, and leaders of Sharon's right-wing Likud party spoke at a tempestuous rally featuring posters of Rabin in a Nazi SS uniform.Critics said it was this climate of incitement that emboldened Amir to act moments after Rabin told cheering thousands that "people really want peace."Some argue that with the shots he fired into Rabin's back, Amir radically changed the course of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.Six months after the murder, the dovish Peres lost an election to Likud's hawkish Benjamin Netanyahu, who in turn was defeated by Rabin protege Ehud Barak. Neither could drive peace forward. Rabin and Peres were "a very powerful combination to lead the peace process," said Savir, now president of the Shimon Peres Center for Peace in Tel Aviv. "From that point of view, I think they had a much better chance of making a deal."Ultimately there will be peace, he said, "but because of the assassination, it will take much more time, and many casualties will have been in vain."Others say the peace process would have run aground anyway, because the Oslo deal didn't address contentious issues such as conflicting claims to Jerusalem and the fate of West Bank Jewish settlements.Rabin got Palestinians to understand Israel's security concerns, said political scientist Jonathan Rynhold, but on the other big issues that finally buried the peace effort in 2000, "I don't think he would have been able to bridge the great differences between the Palestinians and Israel."After five years of Palestinian uprising and more than 4,600 deaths, Israelis and Palestinians seem as far apart as ever on the biggest issues, despite new openings created by the Gaza pullout and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's death a year ago.Israelis today are less riven over land concessions than in 1995. The Gaza pullout met less resistance than feared, and polls show most Israelis supporting the idea of a Palestinian state.But Carmi Gillon, the man in charge of Rabin's security in 1995, said Amir has become a poster boy for radical right-wingers. Now the focus of their hatred is Sharon, and "The assessment that the next political assassination is upon us is correct," Gillon told the Yediot Ahronot newspaper.Some say Israelis haven't yet fully internalized the lessons of Rabin's assassination."An entire group in Israeli society, the leaders of religious Zionism, tried to downplay it saying it was one person, a fringe element," said Arye Carmon, head of the Israel Democracy Institute. "We weren't witness to a serious discussion that explains how a climate was fostered that engendered the very violent vocabulary and physical violence that allowed someone to take a pistol and shoot the prime minister."The institute's just-released "2005 Democracy Index" shows 84 percent of Israelis think another political assassination could take place."I see a serious degeneration in the tenor of public discourse," about Israelis and Arabs, secular and religious, rich and poor, Carmon said.If, a decade ago, Rabin's assassin was a pariah in a nation shocked that a Jew could murder the democratically elected leader of Israel, now a considerable portion would forgive him.A survey by the Dahaf polling institute showed one-fifth of those questioned saying Amir should be pardoned now. It gave no margin of error.Amir, who is serving a life sentence without parole, has been married by proxy in jail to an admirer he met after the murder.His family has been lobbying for his early release, and on its Web site compares the assassination to the "killing of a criminal." The site also calls for the prosecution of Israeli leaders who supported the Gaza pullout."Unlike what was thought at that time, (Rabin's slaying) didn't lead to unity, but only deepened the chasm" in Israeli society, said Yoram Peri, head of the Chaim Herzog Institute for Media, Politics and Society at Tel Aviv, who has written books on the Rabin assassination.Still, Rabin's legacy has been deep, Savir said.Although he never accomplished what he hoped to achieve, "the Oslo process is still alive and kicking," he said. "Whatever is done, either in Gaza, or in the future in the West Bank ... is all based on what Rabin and Peres started in Oslo."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- China, which launched its first manned space mission just two years ago, plans to put a man on the moon around 2017 and investigate what may be the perfect source of fuel, a newspaper reported on Friday.Two Chinese astronauts orbited Earth for five days last month in the Shenzhou VI and China was now developing new craft up to the Shenzhou X, eyeing a permanent space station and an eventual moon mission, state media said this week."China will make a manned moon landing at a proper time, around 2017," leading scientist Ouyang Ziyuan was quoted by the Southern Metropolis News as saying.The project also includes setting up a moon-based astronomical telescope, measuring the thickness of the moon's soil and the amount of helium-3 on the moon -- an element some researchers say is a perfect, non-polluting fuel source.Some scientists believe there is enough helium-3 on the moon to power the world for thousands of years."We will provide the most reliable report on helium-3 to mankind," Ouyang said.The United States unveiled a $104 billion plan in September to return Americans to the moon by 2018. Its Apollo program carried the first humans to the moon in 1969.China's first lunar orbiter could blast off as early as 2007, coinciding with its third manned space trip in which possibly three men would orbit Earth in Shenzhou VII and conduct a space walk. (Full story)China was designing a rocket that could carry a payload of 25 tons, up from a present limit of eight tons, the Beijing News reported this week, though it would unlikely be ready for another six-and-a-half years.Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Six Iraqi police officers were killed and 12 others wounded Friday in a gunbattle at a checkpoint north of Baghdad, police and hospital officials said. At least 40 gunmen in three vehicles began shooting at the checkpoint near the town of Baquba about 7:30 a.m. (11:30 p.m. ET Thursday), officials said.The battle continued for about 30 minutes, with the attackers using small-arms fire, according to authorities.The commander of the checkpoint in Buhriz, about 7 kilometers (4 miles) south of Baquba, was among those killed, officials said. A roadside blast in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora killed one person and injured eight others, police said.The bomb hit a civilian vehicle, they added.U.S.: Suspected insurgents killedThe U.S. military on Friday said it had identified five people killed last Saturday as suspected al Qaeda leaders.Authorities initially said several suspected terrorists were killed in the October 29 strikes in Husayba, near the Syrian border, which were part of a series of raids on suspected terrorist safe houses.Three safe houses were destroyed by air strikes, the military said. One apparently was the location of a meeting between suspected al Qaeda in Iraq terrorist leaders from the Husayba and Qaim areas west of Iraq, coalition forces said in a written statement Friday.The military said those killed included: Abu Asil, a suspected North African terrorist who was a senior al Qaeda in Iraq foreign fighter facilitator in the Qaim region and was a suspected associate of wanted militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.Abu Raghad, a senior al Qaeda in Iraq foreign fighter and terrorist cell leader who operated in the Husayba area.Abu Talha, an al Qaeda in Iraq terrorist cell leader in the western Ubaydi area.Abu Usama and Abu Salman, al Qaeda in Iraq terrorist cell leaders in the Husayba area.2 more U.S. soldiers killedA U.S. soldier died Thursday night near Tallil from non-battle-related causes, a U.S. military statement said. Authorities are investigating the incident near Nasiriya in southern Iraq.The military also reported that another U.S. soldier in Baghdad was killed Friday. The soldier, assigned to Task Force Baghdad, was killed when a convoy struck a roadside bomb on the eastern side of the capital, the military said. The names of both soldiers were being withheld until their families are notified. Since the start of the war, 2,039 U.S. troops have died in Iraq.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Carolyn and Keith Maupin walked into the Pentagon Friday hoping for any new bits of information about their son, who was captured by insurgents near Baghdad more than 18 months ago.They left after more than two hours, saying defense officials assured them the military is continuing to search for Army Reserve Sgt. Keith "Matt" Maupin. But they got no definitive answer to the question that haunts them most: Is he still alive?"Even though you see a smile, your heart still aches," Carolyn Maupin told a reporter after the meeting, as she and her husband visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, both wearing pins bearing a photo of their son.Surrounded by journalists and escorted by two Army officials, Keith Maupin -- wearing a POW-MIA hat -- said he believes "they'll find something soon. They'll find him." He said he and his wife went to the somber Vietnam Wall because, "There are 50,000 names on that wall, and I just wanted to say thanks."The Maupins met with Lt. Gen. James L. Campbell, the Director of the Army Staff, as well as officials from the Casualty Assistance Office and the Joint Personnel Recovery Office. They also had a video conference call with senior officers in Iraq, including officials from U.S. Central Command.Asked whether they learned anything new, they said nothing."We will not discuss the specifics of the update because it is an ongoing operation and saying anything could be detrimental to Matt's safe return and the safety of those involved in the search," they said in a written statement.The statement continued, "It has been more than 18 months since he was captured, and we pray every day for him and the soldiers who continue to search for him. We ask the American people to do the same."Army officials said Friday that Sgt. Maupin's status remains unchanged, and he is still considered captured. He is the only soldier who is missing or currently considered captured in the Iraq War.The officials who met with the Maupins were expected to provide the family with more details of the ongoing search for their son, including reports that a Fort Drum, N.Y.-based Army unit spent seven hours Saturday searching for his body in the Abu Ghraib area west of Baghdad.The Batavia, Ohio, soldier has been missing since April 9, 2004, when his fuel truck convoy was ambushed by insurgents west of Baghdad after leaving camp. He was 20 at the time.A week later, Arab television network Al-Jazeera released a videotape showing Maupin sitting on the floor surrounded by five masked men holding automatic rifles.That June, Al-Jazeera released another tape purporting to show a U.S. soldier being shot. But the dark and grainy tape showed only the back of the victim's head and did not show the actual shooting. The Army ruled it was inconclusive.The Maupins said Friday's meeting -- which also included a private lunch in the Pentagon -- was helpful, and showed the Army is following leads on their son's whereabouts.And it seems other Ohio residents are also following the progress. As the Maupins walked near the Vietnam Memorial, they were greeted by Jeffrey and Courtney Neal, who were visiting Washington, D.C., from Harrison, Ohio."We're praying for you guys, hang in there," Jeffrey Neal told the Maupins, as the couples embraced.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Like peanut butter and jelly or bacon and eggs, r�sum�s and cover letters go hand in hand. Although both pieces are valuable on their own, they pack the most punch when served together. But while all job seekers know the importance of a well-organized r�sum�, many don't understand the power of a strong cover letter.In addition to reinforcing key skills and experience, a cover letter demonstrates your desire to work for the employer and the specific ways in which your expertise can benefit the firm. More importantly, it helps differentiate you from other job seekers and provides incentive to contact you for an interview.Even if composition isn't your forte, you can still create a killer cover letter. Here's how:1. Know your stuff: Before you begin writing, learn as much as you can about the potential employer. Visit the firm's Web site and scan industry publications to familiarize yourself with recent news about the company, such as quarterly earnings, and to learn about future plans, like expansion into new markets. The more you know about an organization, the better you can tailor your cover letter to the firm's needs.2. Personalize it: Never begin a cover letter with "Dear Sir or Madam" or "To Whom it May Concern." Correspondence with generic salutations often signal to potential employers that you lack the initiative to locate the appropriate contact. If a job listing does not include the name of the hiring manager, call the company's receptionist and explain the position you are applying for to see if he or she can help you fill in the blank.3. Start strong: A good cover letter begins with a powerful opening paragraph. Your goal is to describe briefly how you heard about the position and why you're interested in it. Skip cute introductions: "Teamwork is my middle name" or "I am smart as a whip," for example. A "catchy" opening can appear stilted and insincere and offers little, if any, value to the piece.4. Offer an enticement:. The body of the letter should expand upon -- not simply repeat -- the key points in your r�sum�. Highlight those skills and experiences most relevant to the job opening and provide concrete examples of how you can benefit the company. For example, if you are applying for a management position, share how turnover within your department decreased by 20 percent during your tenure. Or communicate how your attention to detail and ability to adapt quickly to new environments allow you to deliver first-rate client service.5. Be bold: In addition to expressing gratitude for the hiring manager's time and interest, close your letter by outlining your next steps. Be proactive by stating when you will contact him or her to follow up. Doing so is a great way to reinforce your enthusiasm for the job. However, don't forget to include a phone number or e-mail address where you can be reached in case the firm wants to get in touch with you first.In addition to following these practices, you'll want to avoid common pitfalls when composing your cover letter:6. Getting ahead of yourself: Focusing on matters such as expected salary and title can come across as presumptuous and untimely. Wait until you have secured a meeting and become better acquainted with the hiring manager to mention these topics.7. Goofing the proof: Our company's research consistently shows that one or two typographical errors are enough to discourage a hiring manager from calling you back. Utilize your computer's spell-check function, but also ask friends and family to double-check your work. You don't want a small mistake to call your professionalism or attention to detail into question.8. Forgetting the format: If you submit your application via e-mail, make sure to prepare the file as a plain text document so it is universally compatible. Remove all formatting enhancements, such as underline or boldface, and replace bullets with asterisks or dashes. If you fail to do so, your recipient may receive a bowl of alphabet soup. Also, paste the cover letter into the body of an e-mail to save hiring managers the worry of corrupt or unreadable attachments.Some job seekers spend hours assembling a r�sum� and only a short amount of time on the accompanying note. Submitting a thoughtful and well-written cover letter, however, can help you outshine your competition and get you one step closer to an interview.Kate Lorenz is the article and advice editor for CareerBuilder.com. She researches and writes about job search strategy, career management, hiring trends and workplace issues. Other writers contributed to this article.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana -- Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, flew into New Orleans on Friday for a brief glimpse of the ravaged city and a chance to meet a few of the hundreds of thousands of residents whose lives were turned upside-down by Hurricane Katrina.After an airport ceremony to greet their flight from Washington, the couple went to the impoverished lower Ninth Ward, which was all but obliterated when water breached one of the levees that protected the city.Standing atop a patched 20-foot levee, they shook their heads in disbelief at the destruction: splintered homes, chunks of concrete, overturned cars. The couple also met residents and rescue workers.Tommy and Gloria Jones, who lost their house in the disaster, presented Charles and Camilla with a gift of a Mardi Gras doll and a picture frame.Later, at a stop in the French Quarter, a woman presented Charles with a baseball hat emblazoned with "Bring New Orleans back." Another gave him a string of Mardi Gras beads which he wore over his blue suit.Despite the inconvenience the visit caused to the recovering city, some residents said it was worthwhile.Mary Prinz, 66, said she had thanked Charles "for coming and giving us some publicity. We need people to come down here and see how bad it is. Maybe the senators and congressmen from up north will come down now that he's led the way."Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, also were to meet children and parents at the Cathedral Academy in the city's French Quarter -- the first school in the area to reopen after the storm -- before flying on to San Francisco later Friday.The tightly choreographed visit was scheduled to last barely two hours. But vice principal Peggy LeBlanc, whose flood-destroyed school was merged with Cathedral after the storm, said it was still significant."For people who have lost everything, something like this means a lot," she said."My impression is it's very important for the prince that this be centered on the children, and that this is a humanitarian act," she added.More than 1,300 people died across five Gulf states when Katrina hit in late August, the vast majority of them in Louisiana. Eighty percent of New Orleans was inundated by floodwaters.Engineering experts say that despite extensive repairs, dozens of breaches remain in the city's levee system more than two months later. Sen. Susan Collins, chairwoman of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee, warned this week that the repairs might be insufficient to protect residents if another storm should strike this season.On Thursday, Charles said he and Camilla were "utterly horrified to see the terrible scenes of destruction wrought by the hurricane across New Orleans and the surrounding area."Charles, whose Foundation for the Built Environment charity is helping fund reconstruction projects, said he planned "to meet some of the brave and resilient people trying to rebuild their lives and to pay tribute to the astounding efforts of emergency workers."Earlier Friday, the prince and duchess wrapped up a 21/2-day trip to Washington with a solemn tribute to American war dead and a meeting with young students of Shakespeare.A military guard of honor greeted the couple as they laid a wreath of red and white flowers at the National World War II Memorial.Charles wore a dark suit and Camilla a black wool crepe suit and matching hat. They walked slowly around the inside of the vast monument -- a circle of 50 granite pillars flanked by arches around a pool and fountains -- before chatting with veterans.Later, at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Charles and Camilla watched fifth-to eighth-grade students perform scenes from "Much Ado About Nothing" and were then led on stage to meet the cast.The royal tour has met a muted response in a Washington preoccupied with scandals involving top White House and congressional figures, battles over a Supreme Court vacancy and the rising death toll in Iraq.The weeklong visit, designed to bolster trans-Atlantic ties and promote Charles' environmentalist causes, also represents a coming-out for Camilla, 58, who married the prince in April after a relationship that stretched back three decades and was interrupted by their marriages to others.For many fans of the late Princess Diana, Camilla remains the woman who broke up the fairy-tale royal romance, although both Charles and Diana acknowledged having affairs before divorcing in 1996. Diana died 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.

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Twenty-five years after the murder of former Beatle John Lennon, a Canadian-based film company is set to explore the mind of his killer in a movie starring Lindsay Lohan and Jared Leto, backers of the project said on Thursday.Leto, who played a heroin addict in "Requiem for a Dream" and a cocaine-snorting arms dealer in "Lord of War," has signed on to portray Lennon's killer, Mark David Chapman, in the upcoming independent film "Chapter 27."Lohan, the teenage "Mean Girls" star last seen in "Herbie: Fully Loaded," will play a fictional Lennon fan who befriends Chapman during the weekend he kills the musician outside his Manhattan apartment building.Leto, 33, and Lohan, 19, are rumored to be dating, but her publicist told Reuters only that the two have spent time in recent months "doing research for the movie together."The parts of Lennon and wife Yoko Ono have not been cast.Peace Arch Entertainment President John Flock, whose Toronto-based company is financing the picture, said the character of Lennon himself would get relatively little screen time as the movie focuses on Chapman in the days leading up to the murder.The role Lohan will play was created as a plot device to help filmmakers deconstruct Chapman and his motivation for killing the rock celebrity, Flock said."It's a psychological study of (Chapman)," Flock told Reuters. "I wouldn't call it a sympathetic portrayal of him, but you do kind of get into Chapman's head."Likewise, Flock suggested the murder itself would be depicted in a relatively circumspect manner. "It's the most significant event in the movie, but we're not planning on giving it much if any screen time."Chapman, currently serving a prison sentence of 20 years to life, shot Lennon to death outside the Dakota apartment building on December 8, 1980, hours after getting the former Beatle to autograph a copy of his newly released comeback album "Double Fantasy."Flock said the title of the film, "Chapter 27," is a reference to the 26 chapters in the J.D. Salinger coming-of-age novel "The Catcher in the Rye," which Chapman cited as his inspiration for the murder. Chapman has said he identified with the book's hero, who hated phonies, and gunned Lennon down because he thought him a hypocrite.Production on the film, the brainchild of first-time writer and director Jarrett Schaeffer, is set to begin January 16 in New York, with producers aiming for a commercial release late next year, Flock said.Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

NEW YORK (CNN) - One thing many SUV buyers like about their vehicles is the increased visibility. They feel like they can see farther down the road over the roofs of other cars. But that long-distance line of sight comes at a price that can be tragic.What SUV drivers can't see is what's close behind them and, when backing out of a driveway or parking spot, that could be a person. In many cases, it's a small child.More than 2,400 children are backed-up over every year in the United States. Of those, about 100 are killed. In most cases, those children are run over by a parent or other relative.Julie Peck's son, Jackson, was four years old when he was killed two days before Christmas. Jackson's grandmother couldn't see the young boy running up from behind just as she was backing up the family's SUV."He was gone instantly. They didn't hear a sound when the car backed over him," said Julie Peck. "When they pulled it off him, he wasn't making a sound."It's called the "bye-bye syndrome" said Janette Fennell, founder of the auto safety group Kids and Cars.Wanting one last chance to see mommy, daddy, or grandmother before they go, a child will run up behind the vehicle at the worst possible time. Small children don't realize that the driver may not be able to see them.While most drivers are aware that there are areas behind their vehicle in which they cannot see, many don't realize how large those areas can be. The problem is worse in trucks and SUVs than in other cars because of their increased height and the distance between the driver and the tailgate or rear window."More and more people are buying bigger and bigger," said Consumer Reports auto test director David Champion, "and the bigger the vehicle, the bigger the blind spot."Champion illustrated the problem using 28-inch-high cones, about the height of a typical two-year old. The cone had to be 10 feet, 10 inches from the back of a Subaru Impreza sedan before it became visible in the rear-view mirror.The cone had to be a little over 18 feet to be seen from the driver's seat of a Dodge Grand Caravan minivan and it was invisible up to 25 feet from the back of a large Toyota Tundra pick-up.From the driver's seat of a Chevrolet Suburban, a large SUV, the cone wasn't visible until it was 46 feet, nine inches away.For a shorter driver, the blind spots are even larger.Various factors, besides just the size of the vehicle, can affect the size blind spots. Small windows can make blind spots larger, for example, while high-mounted seats can make them smaller."On these big vehicles where we see something like 20, 30, 40 feet of blind spot behind, that is where the problems are," said Champion. "That is where the deaths we are seeing in backover accidents are occurring."It's a problem the industry isn't addressing right now, said Ron DeFore, a spokesperson for SUV Owners of America, an organization partially funded by car companies.There's not enough data, he said, to require automakers to come up with a solution.Optional equipment available on many trucks and SUVs can help solve this problem. Some cars and trucks are already available with sensors that sound an audible warning when something is close behind and the vehicle is in reverse. Some even have video cameras that show what's behind the vehicle where the mirrors can't see.For vehicles that don't have this type of equipment, several companies make products that you can easily install yourself.While back-up video camera systems can cost thousands of dollars, radar-based sensors cost much less, generally a couple of hundred dollars. Some of these systems take just a few minutes to install.Champion thinks systems like these should be required on all larger vehicles.But DeFore disagrees, citing the cost."If we take the attitude that any new technology, down the road, should just be mandated because it saved a few lives," he sad, "that is very dangerous public policy because you just start pricing vehicles well beyond what a lot of people can afford."Senators Hillary Clinton (D-New York) and John Sununu (R-New Hampshire) have proposed legislation requiring the U.S. Department of Transportation to issue regulations aimed at reducing accidents that frequently kill or injure children in cars.Feedback

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba (CNN) -- Twenty-three detainees on hunger strikes at the prison camp here are being force fed to prevent their deaths, a doctor who works with the prisoners told CNN. "They are malnourished because they have hunger struck for a significant amount of time," said the doctor, who asked that his name not be used because he fears reprisals from the prisoners. Since August 8, the number of detainees refusing to eat has risen from several dozen to about 128, about a quarter of the prison population, according to the Pentagon. Though Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said earlier this week that the prisoners were on hunger strikes to get media attention, the doctor said they were protesting their detention. The doctor denied that the prisoners were protesting their treatment at the prison facility.The doctor's statement also is at odds with Rumsfeld's report on Tuesday that 27 detainees were participating in hunger strikes, 24 of which were being force fed. (Read about Rumsfeld's news conference on Tuesday)Many of the facility's roughly 500 prisoners have been held for more than three years without being charged or having access to a lawyer. Most were captured in Afghanistan and are suspected of having ties to al Qaeda or the Taliban regime that formerly ruled Afghanistan. A lawyer who represents several Guantanamo detainees said one of the prisoners attempted suicide last month because of conditions at the facility."He has been in solitary confinement for almost two years. He has almost no contact with other human beings. He has one hour of exercise a week solitary in a cage," attorney Mark Sullivan said. The doctor dismissed those allegations, saying no Guantanamo detainees are placed in solitary confinement and none appears to be clinically depressed. "They see a physician on a daily basis. There's a nurse in the facility 24 hours per day, and we have not seen that," he said.U.N. investigators recently were invited to visit the facility but were not granted the same access to the detainees as the International Committee of the Red Cross. (Read about Red Cross efforts to access detainees)Red Cross reports on detainees are confidential, while the United Nations makes its findings public. Rumsfeld denied that was why the U.N. investigators weren't given access."We're not inclined to add to the number of people that would be given that extensive access," Rumsfeld said.The last hunger strike at the prison, known as Camp Delta, was in July. Sixty-eight detainees refused food, but started eating again on their own before the August 8 hunger strike, Pentagon officials said.

(CNN) -- An al Qaeda member wanted for training terrorists and known for his inflammatory writings has been captured in a raid in Pakistan, two U.S. counterterrorism officials told CNN on Friday.The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, offered few details about the arrest of Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, who had a $5 million reward offered in 2004 for his capture.The raid took place in Quetta, a Pakistani provincial capital near the southern Afghan border.Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad said Thursday that an al Qaeda member was captured and another was killed during a shootout in Quetta earlier this week. Ahmad did not then identify the person captured, and he was not available for comment Friday.The U.S. counterterrorism officials confirmed the man in custody was Nasar, a 47-year-old Syrian who also has Spanish citizenship. The reward poster on the Web site of the non-governmental, non-profit group Rewards for Justice said he was an al Qaeda member who had trained terrorists at two Afghan camps in the use of poisons and chemicals.One of the counterterrorism officials cautioned against overstating his importance in the terror network, saying Nasar was a "background" guy with a "number of contacts.""Nasar is best known for his writings," the official said.But the official added, "We're better off that he's captured."Spanish connectionsNasar is wanted on a 2003 Spanish arrest warrant for allegedly helping to organize in the mid-1990s one of the first al Qaeda cells in that country.He has been linked to multiple al Qaeda suspects in Madrid, including three who were charged with helping to plan the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Spanish authorities said.Nasar has not been charged in the 2004 Madrid bombings that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,500, but the prosecutor has said information about Nasar should be allowed in any trial of bombing suspects.A total of 109 people have been charged in that case. Indictments are expected later this year and a trial would follow next year. Authorities have said Nasar fled Syria in the 1980s, traveling throughout the Mideast and North Africa before settling in Madrid in 1987, where he married. He moved to London in 1995, where he penned inflammatory essays against the United States for an Islamic extremist magazine, Al Ansar. According to CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen, Nasar has known Osama bin Laden for a long time but had a falling out with him a number of years ago. Nasar wrote a book, "The International Islamic Resistance Call," that was published on jihadist Web sites. He discussed training at al Qaeda terrorist camps from 1988 until 1991 and later setting up his own terrorist training camps in Afghanistan just prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks.CNN's Pam Benson, Kevin Bohn, David Ensor, Al Goodman and Syed Mohsin Naqvi contributed to this report.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Former President Jimmy Carter said Friday that there isn't "any doubt" the American people were misled about the war in Iraq and that President George Bush's policy on the war is a "radical departure from the policies of any president."In an interview with CNN, Carter addressed some of the comments made in his new book, "Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis." In the book he says the Bush administration was determined to attack Iraq using "false and distorted claims after 9/11." Carter said the Bush administration spoke of mushroom clouds, weapons of mass destruction and the threat of thousands of Americans dying to garner support for the war. No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. (Watch Carter's interview -- 8:33)He was careful to say he didn't know whether intelligence was misinterpreted or purposely twisted, and Carter praised the attempts by his fellow Democrats in Congress to press efforts to look into the matter. (Watch how the Senate went into secret session over the intelligence used to back the war -- 3:05)"If the investigation would go ahead and proceed, as Democrats have been trying to in the Senate now for more than 18 months, then we will know the circumstances under which the American people -- and I think an entire world -- was misled about what was going on in Iraq," he said. Carter added that he had seen no evidence the White House was involved in the CIA leak investigation that ensnared Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, last week.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 administration claims that then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had been trying to restart his nuclear weapons program.Carter also said that the administration's pre-emptive strike doctrine directed against the possible future use of weapons of mass destruction is a spurious basis for a war when there is no immediate threat to America's security. "We'll bomb, strafe and send missiles against their people even though our security's not directly threatened," he said. "This is contrary to international law. It's also contrary to what every president has done in this country for more than 100 years, Democrat or Republican."As the former president spoke from the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, protests in Mar del Plata, Argentina -- where Bush is attempting to promote free trade among the 34 nations comprising the Summit of the Americas -- had turned violent. (Full story)Shown live footage of the protests, Carter said the United States' reputation in the world is as low as it's been in his lifetime and that the United States has lost its prestige, authority and influence in Latin America. He added, however, that the chief opponent to the Free Trade Area of the Americas, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, is a "demagogue." (Read about Congressional passage of the Central American Free Trade Act)Before the protests turned violent, Chavez denounced capitalism to thousands of demonstrators from his perch in front of a six-story banner of communist revolutionary Che Guevara. Protesters, including Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona, listened as Chavez claimed he would "bury" the Free Trade Area of the Americas proposal. Maradona wore a shirt accusing Bush of war crimes, while protesters called the U.S. president a "terrorist" and a "fascist." (Watch the protests -- 1:25)Carter defended Bush and dismissed as rhetoric the words of the Venezuelan president."The personal attacks on the president and the condemnations of America by Hugo Chavez from Venezuela, I think, are completely unjustified and uncalled for," Carter said. "Chavez is a difficult person with whom to deal personally. I know from my own experience."Carter was voted out of office in 1980 -- 25 years ago on Friday -- after Iranian militants took Americans captive in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. The hostages were freed after 444 days as Carter left office.

EPINAY-SUR-SEINE, France -- Violence erupted again in poor suburbs of Paris where youths torched buildings and dozens of cars and sporadic unrest spread in the early hours of Saturday to at least three other French cities.In a potentially worrying development for Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's beleaguered government, police said more cars were set alight outside the greater Paris area than in the capital's suburbs, the epicenter of riots for more than a week.Out of a total of 152 vehicles reported burnt nationally, less than half were in the greater Paris region, with about a dozen or more cars set alight in each of Strasbourg, in east of France, Rennes in the west, and Toulouse in southwestern France."The general impression is that the situation in the greater Paris area is the same as last night but there are some scattered incidents elsewhere," a police official told Reuters.Rioting by youths, many of whom are Muslims of North African or black African origin, has partly been stoked by their frustration at high unemployment and the perception they lack economic opportunities.Police said minor incidents were reported in provinces elsewhere in the country but were inclined to blame such disturbances on copy-cat violence before the weekend.Rioters in Paris suburbs appeared more inclined to harass police than clash with them head on, an official said.Firemen rushed to put out blazes in the Paris suburb of Val d'Oise after 10 cars and two buildings, one a bakery, were set alight late on Friday, while others in Seine-Saint-Denis battled to extinguish fires at two warehouses.High-profile policingThe latest outbreak of violence came despite a high-profile police presence. About 1,300 officers were deployed in Seine-Saint-Denis, the area worst hit in the disturbances and where the violence first began last week after two teenagers of African origin died while fleeing police.More officers patrolled other suburbs where unrest had broken out, national police said, adding that the units were more mobile than previously.The violence that began in Seine-Saint-Denis has escalated this week and spread to a few other towns in France even before Saturday -- Rouen in northern France, Dijon in the east and Marseille in the south were all affected overnight between Thursday and Friday.This has put mounting pressure on the government to restore order without alienating minority and underprivileged groups but Villepin's calls for calm have so far fallen on deaf ears.Religious leaders will lend their support to government efforts to cool tensions with Catholic, Protestant and Muslim leaders planning a silent march on Saturday in Aulnay-sous-Bois, one of the violence-hit suburbs.Squabbling within the government about how to tackle the unrest has now been papered over, with Villepin and his bitter political rival, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, joining forces to stress the need to balance firmness and justice.Villepin met about 15 young people from riot-hit Paris suburbs late on Friday to discuss possible ways to restore calm."I think he appreciated this meeting and wanted to learn things. It was a very good initiative, he is really looking to solve the problems," Anyss, an 18-year-old in his final year of high school in Seine-Saint-Denis, said after the meeting.However, the opposition remained critical, with the Socialists attacking the government's response."Your government bears part of the responsibility for these events. It is now up to you to take full stock of the crisis," Socialist leaders said in letter to Villepin on Thursday.Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.