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

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (AP) -- He's the top rusher in Division I-AA, most likely good enough for a shot at the pros. But Brown's Nick Hartigan would gladly set the NFL aside for the chance to study at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.What he won't do is abandon his teammates with the Ivy League title on the line.So, with his two big dreams on a collision course, Hartigan is crafting an ambitious travel plan.The senior running back has made the finals in the Rhodes selection process and will have to interview November 18 in Pittsburgh for the scholarship. Then he'll have to jump on a plane for New York, where Brown plays Columbia in its season finale the following day; at least a share of the Ivy League title could be on the line.Afterward, he might have to fly back to Pittsburgh for another round of interviews that night.But missing the game is not an option, even for a chance at Oxford."These kids are my brothers," said Hartigan, who's averaging 163 yards a game. "I've spent four years killing myself -- we all have -- to get this Ivy League title. It's not something I can skip."Hartigan's lucky he even has a chance to both interview and play: Rhodes committees are famous for refusing to accommodate scheduling requests. But he caught a break. Unusually, his selection committee planned to start interviewing some candidates Friday afternoon. Late Wednesday he got word he could have one of those slots.That means Hartigan will have a shot at one of the two scholarships being awarded from the Pittsburgh region, out of 32 nationally. He'll be up against a dozen or so other exemplary finalists in a pool where even his 3.91 GPA could be near the bottom.But he'll get to make his case."It's about as great a situation as I could have hoped for," said Hartigan, also a candidate for the Draddy Award -- the "academic Heisman Trophy." "I'm incredibly grateful to them."No mere bookwormWhether he wins or not, Hartigan looks like just the kind of Renaissance young man diamond magnate Cecil Rhodes had in mind a century ago when he created the Rhodes Scholarship.Rhodes's will ordered that recipients "shall not be merely bookworms" and shall be chosen for their scholastic achievements, character and "fondness of and success in manly outdoor sports such as cricket, football and the like."Over the years, selectees have included Heisman Trophy winner Pete Dawkins and runner-up Byron White, along with eventual NBA players -- and members of Congress -- Tom McMillan and Bill Bradley.The emphasis on sports has declined, but "athletic interest and success are still relevant," said Elliot Gerson, American secretary of the Rhodes Trust. "They have not been written out of the will. If someone demonstrates outstanding athletic success, it is in his or her favor as other factors are considered."Hartigan is the biggest reason Brown (7-1, 4-1 Ivy League) is guaranteed a share of the Ivy title if it wins its last two games; the Bears play Dartmouth (2-6, 1-4) this Saturday. Last week, he ran for 192 yards and scored four touchdowns against Yale, winning conference player of the week for the fifth time. He's rewritten Brown's record book and will likely finish as the Ivy League's third all-time leading rusher. Ed Marinaro, a 1971 Heisman Trophy finalist, tops the list followed by another Cornell back, Chad Levitt.But none of Hartigan's achievements on the field would matter without his stellar academic record -- earned in an era when big-time college sports have become so intense that Gerson says it is practically impossible for a star in a marquee sport to assemble the wide-ranging credentials a Rhodes Committee are after.About a half-dozen or so varsity athletes are still usually among the 32 American scholars selected each year -- many of them standouts and some even Olympians. But generally they have come from sports like swimming and track, where it is still possible for a committed college athlete to do other things. That has become harder in football, even at a I-AA program."I've pretty much been working from the day I got out of my parents' car four years ago August," Hartigan said this week, on a day when had been up for a 7 a.m. walkthrough, film time, class, practice and proctoring study hall for the team's freshmen. He double-majored in history and political science, and also ran a deck-washing business back home in Northern Virginia.He first learned about the Rhodes by reading "A Sense of Where You Are," a book about Bradley that his father gave him for inspiration. Hartigan wants to study health policy -- examining why Great Britain has managed to create a national health insurance system but the United States has not -- with an eye toward a career in law, policy or, perhaps, elective office.Pro scouts have stopped in regularly to watch film on Hartigan, and if Oxford doesn't work out he will likely have his shot at the NFL. It's a good consolation prize -- and at least he won't have to wonder what might have been.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Staying up an hour or two past bedtime makes it far harder for kids to learn, say scientists who deprived youngsters of sleep and tested whether their teachers could tell the difference.They could.If parents want their children to thrive academically, "Getting them to sleep on time is as important as getting them to school on time," said psychologist Gahan Fallone, who conducted the research at Brown Medical School.The study, unveiled Thursday at an American Medical Association science writers meeting, was conducted on healthy children who had no evidence of sleep- or learning-related disorders.Difficulty paying attention was among the problems the sleepy youngsters faced -- raising the question of whether sleep deprivation could prove even worse for people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.Fallone now is studying that question, and suspects that sleep problems "could hit children with ADHD as a double whammy."Sleep experts have long warned that Americans of all ages don't get enough shuteye. Sleep is important for health, bringing a range of benefits that, as Shakespeare put it, "knits up the raveled sleave of care." Not getting enough is linked to a host of problems, from car crashes as drivers doze off to crippled memory and inhibited creativity. (See how much sleep your children need)Teachers detect lack of sleepBut exactly how much sleep correlates with school performance is hard to prove.So Brown researchers set out to test whether teachers could detect problems with attention and learning when children stayed up late -- even if the teachers had no idea how much sleep their students actually got.They recruited 74 6- to 12-year-olds from Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts for the three-week study.For one week, the youngsters went to bed and woke up at their usual times. They already were fairly good sleepers, getting nine to 9.5 hours of sleep a night.Another week, they were assigned to spend no fewer than 10 hours in bed a night. And another week, they were kept up later than usual: First- and second-graders were in bed no more than eight hours and the older children no more than 6.5 hours.In addition to parents' reports, the youngsters wore motion-detecting wrist monitors to ensure compliance.Teachers weren't told how much the children slept or which week they stayed up late, but rated the students on a variety of performance measures each week.The teachers reported significantly more academic problems during the week of sleep deprivation, the study, which will be published in the journal Sleep in December, concluded.Students who got eight hours of sleep or less a night were more forgetful, had the most trouble learning new lessons, and had the most problems paying attention, reported Fallone, now at the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Springfield, Missouri.How much sleep?Sleep has long been a concern of educators.Consider: Potter-Burns Elementary School in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, sends notes to parents reminding them to make sure students get enough sleep prior to the school's yearly achievement testing. Principal John Haidemenos considers it important enough to include in the school's monthly newsletters, too."Definitely there is an impact on students' performance if they come to school tired," he said.But the findings may change physician practice, said Dr. Regina Benjamin, a family physician in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, who reviewed the data at Thursday's AMA meeting."I don't ask about sleep" when evaluating academically struggling students, she noted. "I'm going to start."So how much sleep do kids need? Recommended amounts range from about 10 to 11 hours a night for young elementary students to 8.5 hours for teens.Fallone insists that his own second-grader gets 10 hours a night, even when it meant dropping soccer the season that practice didn't start until 7:30 -- too late for her to fit in dinner and time to wind down before she needed to be snoozing."It's tough," he acknowledged. But "parents must believe in the importance of sleep."The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (AP) -- The relationship between this city and native son Muhammad Ali always comes back to the story of the brash Olympic boxing champ -- then known as Cassius Clay -- tossing his 1960 gold medal into the Ohio River in disgust over entrenched racism.But the story may be apocryphal -- Ali later told friends he simply misplaced the medal -- and as the years passed, Louisville and Ali eventually came to appreciate each other.Now, Ali's hometown is ready to unveil its most lasting tribute, a museum celebrating the life of one of the 20th century's most recognizable figures.The Muhammad Ali Center opens November 21, chronicling the life of "The Greatest" inside and outside the ring, emphasizing his peaceful values and vision of global tolerance, and setting the record straight about that infamous gold medal."People will be surprised when they visit the Ali center," said museum spokeswoman Jeanie Kahnke. "Many people only know of Ali as a boxer and a three-time heavyweight champion of the world. What they may not know about him is how he has been a charitable individual for most of his life. That has only grown since he has retired from the ring."Ali, now 63 and battling Parkinson's Disease, is expected to attend a star-studded opening gala November 19, along with celebrities Will Smith, Angelina Jolie, Jamie Foxx, Jim Carrey, James Taylor and B.B. King. The event is even attracting guests all the way from England, New Zealand, Australia, Pakistan, South Africa, Jamaica and Barbados."There are very few in the world who affect people the way Ali does," Kahnke said. "We've heard from people who are suffering from diseases and young kids who were born 15 years after Ali's last fight. Ali gives them the strength to achieve their own goals and fight for their own beliefs."Ali the boxer retired in 1981 with a 56-5 record, 37 knockouts and an Olympic gold medal. By then, the legendary fighting career was only part of his story.He became the world's best-known Muslim, took a peaceful stand against the Vietnam War that cost him his heavyweight title and has worked in his later years as a United Nations peace ambassador, helping raise awareness and money for the world's poorest nations.Embracing a native sonOrganizers broke ground on the $75 million, 93,000-square-foot project in 2002. Experts were summoned on the Vietnam War, Islam, civil rights and other areas to create a center related intimately to Ali's life. Some of the exhibits were reviewed by longtime Ali coach Angelo Dundee and biographers Robert Lipsyte and Thomas Hauser."When you think about boxing, you just see the athlete on a stage," said curator Susan Shaffer Nahmias. "For many years, Ali's story stopped at the ring. This center shows a picture of Ali through a voice that isn't a sportswriter."Numerous exhibits highlight parts of Ali's life often buried beneath his athletic prowess.One exhibit aims to set the record straight about the story in Ali's autobiography of him flinging his light heavyweight Olympic gold medal into the river. The since-denied story goes that he tossed the medal in disgust over continued racism in his hometown after he was refused service in a restaurant and harassed by a group of racist motorcyclists.Other displays recall the lighting of the Olympic flame at the 1996 Atlanta Games, when a trembling Ali hoisted a golden torch as spectators frantically clicked cameras and stood to give him a loud, emotional ovation."He held the torch, with the world watching and somehow, his disability enhanced his persona," said Tom Owen, a Louisville historian and professor. "He continues to have an energetic spirit. You see that man ascending to light the Olympic torch. What city wouldn't want to embrace a native son like that?"Longtime friend Howard Bingham, a Life magazine photographer who has shot hundreds of pictures of Ali since the 1960s, said it was one of the champ's defining moments."I told him, 'Ali, this is a time when the world is saying thank you for what you have done and sacrificed, and how you've helped people throughout your life,"' Bingham said.In a hands-on area designed to look like Ali's training camp in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania, visitors can learn how to shadowbox and hit a speed bag. Onlookers can gawk at Ali's Olympic gold medal that he received in Atlanta to replace the one that was lost.There is also the hope the center will become a bipartisan place where leaders can come, share their viewpoints and cultivate peace. The Muhammad Ali Institute for Peace and Justice, which is based at the University of Louisville, plans to hold seminars at the center to promote peace-making and conflict resolution. With Ali's international appeal, the goal is certainly within reach."We are not a world capital. But I believe they have hope that disputing peoples will come here," Owen said. "I would love to see Muhammad Ali come back and put his blessing and his encouragement at those tables of reconciliation."Ali, who currently lives in Michigan with his wife, Lonnie, has long hinted at moving back to the city where he grew up."He is the most recognized figure in the history of this city and when visitors ask about him, I point to the center," Owen said. "We hope he has a long and continuing life and hopefully, one day, he will come home."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

(Southern Living) -- We searched Washington, D.C., for the ultimate value meal: great tasting, excellent service, unique atmosphere, and -- hardest of all -- close to the sites and attractions you want to see. Near the White House and want a bargain lunch? No problem. Spent a bundle on tickets to the Kennedy Center but don't have any money left for a pre-show dinner? Read on. All of the following restaurants are centrally located, and you won't need a wad of Benjamins to eat at them. A couple of Abes should do you just fine. Here are our top 10.Cheap eat No. 1: The BreadlineYou could almost hit the White House with a rock from this bright, tiny restaurant. (Editor's note: Rock throwing is not recommended in D.C.) Walls are decorated with old rationing signs that seem campy to modern politicos. One says: "Save a loaf a week, help us win the war!" But you'll definitely want to eat the bread here. It's crusty on the outside, soft inside -- perfect to house sweet Italian sausage, peppers and provolone ($6.90) or prosciutto, Gorgonzola, and fig jam ($6.90). The curried chicken salad has a fresh, spicy richness and packs a sweet aftertaste, probably accounting for why it's one of The Breadline's most popular dishes ($5.95). Splurge for the tangy, fresh-squeezed lemonade ($2.25). 1751 Pennsylvania Avenue; (202) 822-8900.Cheap eat No. 2: Ben's Chili BowlOK, everyone expects hot dogs and chili to be cheap. Roger that. But excellent, dare we say "gourmet"? You bet. Ben's, a D.C. institution since the Eisenhower administration, has tempted everyone from Bill Cosby to Nat King Cole with their famous "half-smoke," a special chili dog served with chips on the side ($4.35). The soft, steamed bun soaks up Ben's mild chili. The spicy sausage is split and grilled to crusty perfection. We recommend you wash your half-smoke down with a chocolate shake ($2.49). 1213 U Street NW.; (202) 667-0909.Cheap eat No. 3: Lauriol Plaza RestaurantWhile it resembles an old high school gymnasium on the outside, the inside of Lauriol is richly appointed and expensive looking. Big margaritas (both frozen and on the rocks) are popular with locals ($5.50). The chips are the lightest we've tasted, and the mild salsa arrives at your table warm, which enhances its deep tomato flavor. Order the giant Burrito Gordo, a flour tortilla stuffed with chicken or beef, melted cheese, beans, and an ancho chile sauce ($8.95). Maduros, the fried plantains that are served as an appetizer, will wow any true lover of Mexican food ($2.95). 1835 18th Street NW.; (202) 387-0035.Cheap eat No. 4: Matchbox Eleven dollars gets you a savory meal at Matchbox, a trendy new restaurant in the shadow of Chinatown's Friendship Arch.On a special date or want to feel like a Beltway insider? Come here and order the salty and savory Prosciutto White pizza, a mix of prosciutto, kalamata olives, garlic, ricotta, mozzarella and extra-virgin olive oil ($11 for a small). For fun, get a plate of three mini burgers ($7) and a mixed drink called the Ginger Snap, a concoction of pineapple rum, ginger, lemon juice and Sprite ($7). 713 H Street NW.; (202) 289-4441.Cheap eat No. 5: Capital Q Texas BBQI asked how hot the sauces got at this D.C. landmark, just a few doors down from Matchbox. "We got mild and spicy," said the general manager from behind the counter, "but if that isn't hot enough for you, I'll fix something that will kill you!" Luckily, I tried the smoky beef brisket sandwich ($6.50) before I sampled a spoonful of the "kill-you" sauce (free). I used the homemade banana pudding ($2) to extinguish my tongue, so I have no idea whether it tastes good or not. Order it before taking them up on their saucy death threats. 707 H Street NW.; (202) 347-8396.Cheap eat No. 6: The BurroThis restaurant is obviously a favorite for The George Washington University students, and it sits in power digs behind The Mall at 2000 Pennsylvania Avenue. Try the fish taco, a masterpiece of spice, onion, corn crunch, lime-cilantro slaw, pico de gallo and mahi mahi ($2.95). Fresh produce reigns in the Bean Basic gourmet burrito -- low-fat black beans, rice, lettuce, and tomato ($3.95; add grilled spinach or vegetables for another 95 cents). 2000 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.; (202) 293-9449.Cheap eat No. 7: Left BankThe space age and minimalist modern meet at this spare, elegant restaurant. The setting and service give such an expensive feel that you'll think the menu prices are a misprint. Sandwiches begin at $1. A buck gets you a cheese sandwich with your choice of prosciutto or applewood-smoked bacon. The most expensive sandwich is the grilled steak with saut�ed onions and bitter greens on a whole wheat baguette ($10). The Black Angus sirloin burger comes topped with mushrooms, cheese, bacon, and grilled onions, making it well worth its price tag ($8). 2424 18th Street NW.; (202) 464-2100.Cheap eat No. 8: The DinerThe cops love this Adams Morgan neighborhood diner, complete with red vinyl barstools, a tile floor, pressed tin ceiling, and Ella Fitzgerald crooning from the sound system. Open 24-7, the restaurant promises to serve "early birds, night owls and everyone in between." Portions go beyond huge to gargantuan. The "Croque and Dagger," a mystery of eggs, bacon, bechamel, melted Gruyere and toasted French bread comes with home fries ($7.99). For lunch or dinner, the succulent ginger-lime-glazed swordfish accompanied by steamed rice and a side salad is a tangy treat ($10.05). 2453 18th Street NW.; (202) 232-8800.Cheap eat No. 9: Sushi AoiExceptional sushi can really suck the yen out of your wallet. But not at Sushi Aoi. Take the Roll Combo. The perfect choice for newcomers to sushi, the combo features a tuna roll, a cucumber roll and a California roll. Each delicate roll uses exceptional ingredients that seem far more luxurious than the $9.50 price tag. Miso soup and a mixed green salad come free of charge with all entrees. Dinner prices are just $2 to $3 higher, on average, than the lunch prices. 1100 New York Avenue NW.; (202) 408-7770.Cheap eat No. 10: Moby Dick House of KabobYou can stuff yourself like a Christmas goose here for less than $8. The menu is complicated, but don't be put off. Just order a kabob with your favorite meat or veggie. Take the Kabob-E Joojeh: Skinless chunks of tender, juicy chicken with a caramelized crust come with your choice of yogurt-cucumber sauce, salad, rice or bread ($7.75). Absolutely order the Mast-o Kheyar (99 cents, small), yogurt mixed with chopped cucumber, which should be used as a dipping sauce for the fresh, warm pita bread. 1300 Connecticut Avenue; (202) 833-9788.

(SPACE.com) -- A new image from the Hubble Space Telescope reveals stars in the process of being born amid a fantastic scene of wispy space structures and intense radiation.The stars have yet to condense into small enough packages to trigger thermonuclear fusion, which is what powers stars, but they appear to be on the verge, astronomers said Thursday.The setting is 210,000 light-years away in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. At the center of the region is a brilliant star cluster called NGC 346. Arched and ragged filaments with a distinct ridge surround the cluster.Radiation from the cluster's hot stars eats into denser areas, creating the features. The dark, intricately beaded edge of the ridge, seen in silhouette, contains several small dust globules that point back towards the central cluster, like windsocks caught in a gale.Energetic outflows and radiation from hot young stars erode the dense outer portions of the star-forming region, formally known as N66, exposing new stellar nurseries. The diffuse fringes of the nebula prevent the energetic outflows from streaming directly away from the cluster, leaving instead a trail of filaments marking the swirling path of the outflows, astronomers said.The NGC 346 cluster, at the center of the new picture, is resolved into at least three sub-clusters and collectively contains dozens of hot, blue, high-mass stars, more than half of the known high-mass stars in the entire SMC galaxy. A myriad of smaller, compact clusters is also visible throughout the region.A rich population of infant stars is scattered around the young cluster NGC 346, reports a team led by Antonella Nota of the Space Telescope Science Institute/European Space Agency in Baltimore. These stars are likely to have formed 3 to 5 million years ago, together with the other stars in the NGC 346 cluster.These infant stars are particularly interesting as they have not yet contracted to the point where their interiors are hot enough to convert hydrogen to helium.The findings will be detailed in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.The Small and Large Magellanic Clouds are diffuse irregular galaxies visible to the naked eye in the southern hemisphere. They are two smallish satellite galaxies that orbit our own Milky Way Galaxy and will eventually merge with it.

BEIJING, China (AP) -- China has reported the fourth bird flu outbreak in a northeastern province in the past two weeks amid fears that counterfeit flu vaccines being sold there might be worsening the public health threat.The report on Friday brought the total number of outbreaks reported by China in the latest round of cases to seven.The outbreak Sunday killed 300 chickens in Beining, a village near Jinzhou, a city in Liaoning province, the Agriculture Ministry said in a report on the Web site of the Paris-based International Organization for Animal Health. It said officials destroyed 2.5 million birds to contain the virus.Liaoning has reported three other outbreaks since November 3 -- two on farms near Jinzhou and the other near the city of Fuxin.China earlier warned that counterfeit vaccines were being sold in Liaoning, raising the possibility that millions of chickens, ducks and other birds weren't properly inoculated. China suffers from rampant counterfeiting of food and medicines."Quite clearly, there's a major problem in Liaoning, and it seems from what the Chinese are saying this has to do with using shoddy, inferior or maybe fake vaccines for poultry," a World Health Organization spokesman, Peter Cordingley, in comments broadcast Thursday by Hong Kong's Cable TV."And what we have now, almost certainly, we think, is sick chickens who are showing no symptoms, and that is very, very bad. They are silent carriers of the virus," he said.China hasn't reported any human infections in this round of outbreaks, but experts say one is inevitable with so many cases in poultry.Chinese authorities quarantined 116 people after outbreaks Sunday in Jinzhou and Fuxin killed 1,100 chickens, the Agriculture Ministry said Thursday.The first case in Jinzhou on October 26 prompted officials to destroy more than 6 million birds.On Thursday, state television showed government workers in white protective suits and masks spraying disinfectant on chicken coops and farm buildings.One man was shown pouring a bag of chalky, white disinfect on the ground where dead chickens were buried. Others sprayed disinfectant on car tires and roads.China has also reported outbreaks in poultry in the Inner Mongolia region in the north, and in the provinces of Anhui in the east and Hunan in central China.H5N1 first appeared in Hong Kong in 1997 but was curbed when authorities destroyed all poultry in the territory. It re-emerged in December 2003, and has recently spread from Asia to Europe.Meanwhile, WHO is sending experts to Hunan to help investigate whether bird flu caused a 12-year-old girl's death and two illnesses in an area hit by an outbreak in poultry last month, said Roy Wadia, a spokesman in Beijing for the agency.Chinese officials earlier said those three people tested negative for the virus.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

(AP) -- Overweight? Diabetic? Cholesterol out of control? Have we got a deal on a meal for you!If that sales pitch sounds a little sick, that's the point. Aging baby boomers and rising rates of obesity, diabetes and other health conditions have marketers looking to chronic illness as the new must-reach demographic.It's part of a cultural shift that increasingly sees health problems as lifestyles rather than diseases. Now the food industry is realizing those lifestyles can have a major influence on spending habits.It's easy to see why this is a fast-growing trend. For people like Karen Merrill, her lifestyle has become a matter of life and death.The 49-year-old Barrington, New Hampshire, woman had a heart attack and quintuple bypass in 2002. She credits the chronic disease-pitch -- which gives good-for-you branding to everything from menu items to entire supermarket shelves -- makes it easier for her to eat and shop.During a recent trip to her local grocer, she was thrilled to spot several new whole-grain breakfast cereals -- foods she's supposed to be eating more of -- displayed in a special "heart-healthy" section of the cereal aisle."I never would have known that this cereal existed if it wasn't for that display," said Merrill. "By coupling things like that, it introduces me to new things. Normally I would have been heading to the health food store to get it."And there's plenty of incentive for these efforts.Americans with heart problems -- there are more than 70 million of them -- represent $71 billion in annual buying power. The nation's nearly 21 million diabetics command around $14 billion. And don't forget that about two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese.People with chronic health conditions also are two to three times more likely than their healthy peers to follow special diets, making them prime targets for low-fat, low-sugar and other specialty foods, according to a report by IRI Healthcare, a Chicago-based marketing research firm that recently studied the disease-marketing trend.There's also a spillover effect."If Mom comes down with something, the entire household's diet changes," says Bob Doyle, a senior vice president at IRI.Merrill, for example, shops not just for herself, but also hopes to prevent her husband and 11-year-old daughter from suffering her fate.Some critics accuse the industry of trying to profit off sickness, but American Dietetic Association spokeswoman Dawn Jackson Blatner says anything that makes it easier for consumers to make healthy choices is a good thing.Marketing gets more sophisticatedMarketing good-for-you foods is nothing new, but the tactic is becoming increasingly sophisticated and ailment-specific.Broad healthy living campaigns are being replaced with efforts that narrowly target foods to people with particular conditions, says John Stanton, a food marketing professor at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia.Along with those heart-healthy sections that appealed to Merrill, grocers increasingly are introducing shelves of sugar-free items for diabetics and gluten-free foods for people with wheat allergies.The Maine-based Hannaford Bros. Co. grocery chain, for example, recently added gluten-free and dairy-free sections to its 140 stores in the Northeast and is developing plans for additional health-inspired sections."It absolutely is a question of making a grocery store more user-friendly," says Hannaford spokeswoman Caren Epstein, who notes that the typical grocer offers 35,000 items these customers otherwise would need to comb through.Products also are becoming more specialized. Low-fat and low-sugar are old news. Minute Maid has an entire line of health-based orange juices, including its Heart Wise, which the company claims helps lower cholesterol because it is fortified with plant sterols.Since its introduction two years ago, Heart Wise has outsold most other Minute Maid orange juices, says company spokesman Ray Crockett. With so many people concerned about cholesterol, offering such a product just made sense, he says.Companies eager for healthy bragging rights also can seek certification from the American Heart Association, which awards its Heart Check Mark to items low in saturated fat and cholesterol. So far 850 products from 100 companies have passed muster.And the increasingly ubiquitous in-store pharmacy isn't just a convenience anymore; it also is an opportunity to cross-merchandise. Why not grab some oatmeal -- purported to reduce cholesterol -- while waiting for your heart medications?Stand-alone pharmacies -- already chipping into the grocery market with growing food offerings -- are using the same tactic to fight back. Rite Aid, which operates 3,350 shops nationwide, recently said it wants its brand to be synonymous with caring for diabetes.Among efforts to that end, the Pennsylvania company has broadened its selection of diabetic-friendly products and at many stores offers cooking lessons to help diabetics and their families understand the role of diet in managing the condition.But there are potential pitfalls, including a tendency to oversimplify the market, says IRI's Doyle.Though people with high cholesterol buy more vitamins than diabetics (who spend more on meat and eggs), men coping with cholesterol shop differently than women, buying more indulgences such as cookies, according to IRI.Misinformation is another concern. Dietitians say look to the back of packages for nutrition facts; assume anything else is advertising. Even accurate information can give consumers the wrong impression (fat-free or not, cookies require portion control).Companies also risk backlash when consumers don't see instant -- or sometimes any -- results from foods that make health promises."You don't drop 2 pounds in two days. You don't see your cholesterol cut in half," says Cornell University marketing and nutrition professor Brian Wansink. "It sets these foods up for failure when people don't see immediate cure-all benefits." .Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

PARK CITY, Kansas -- The sale of the home of BTK serial killer Dennis Rader is stalled until the courts determine whether the money can be seized to pay for his defense or awards in civil cases.Michelle Borin-Devuono bought the home for $90,000, about $33,000 above its appraised value, at an auction in July. She said she wanted the proceeds to go to Rader's wife, Paula.Rader gave himself the name BTK -- for his preference to "bind, torture and kill" his victims -- and haunted Wichita for decades. He was arrested in February, pleaded guilty in June and was sentenced to multiple life sentences in August for 10 killings from 1974 to 1991. Kansas did not have the death penalty at the time the killings were committed.An emergency divorce granted after Rader's arrest gave Paula Rader all the couple's property and his retirement benefits.However, relatives of three of Rader's victims -- Shirley Vian Relford, Nancy Fox and Vicki Wegerle -- filed court papers in September seeking to prevent Rader's relatives from keeping profits from the house sale, said Paula Rader's attorney, Jim Walker.And Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline filed a lien on the property for reimbursement of the costs of Rader's public defenders."Until those are dealt with, we can't sell it to anybody," said Lonny McCurdy of McCurdy Auction Service, who handled the sale.Another possible hurdle is a ruling issued last month by Sedgwick County District Court Judge Greg Waller, who ordered Rader to pay nearly $42,000 in restitution to relatives of his victims.Borin-Devuono extended her deadline for closing the sale twice, but let it lapse this past week because there is no indication when the title could be transferred."If they can get me a clear title, I'll definitely be still interested in it," she said. "We're just stuck until the courts can make that decision."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- A former New Orleans police officer who resigned after being accused of abandoning his post during the Hurricane Katrina crisis was arrested while driving a stolen truck, authorities said.Willie Earl Bickham, 39, was expected to face felony charges including unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and impersonating a police officer, said Houston police Sgt. Nate McDuell.Bickham told Houston police he was still a New Orleans police officer. But police officials in Louisiana said Bickham resigned in early September to avoid being fired for abandoning his duties.Bickham was driving a 2005 Chevrolet truck when he was pulled over for speeding Saturday. The officer who made the stop noticed the black truck had no license plates.The car dealer's name marked on the truck was a New Orleans dealership that had reported several vehicles stolen during the hurricane crisis, McDuell said.Bickham, who has family in Houston, could also face weapons charges: He had a pistol issued by the New Orleans department, McDuell said.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush encouraged older and disabled Americans on Saturday to enroll in the prescription drug benefit that will soon be offered through Medicare."This new benefit is the greatest advance in health care for seniors and Americans with disabilities since the creation of Medicare 40 years ago," Bush said in his weekly radio address.Enrollment begins Tuesday and continues until May 15, 2006. The program itself begins January 1. To participate, people must enroll in a private plan that will cover a portion of their prescription drug costs.On average, the program will save beneficiaries about 50 percent on their prescription drugs, federal officials estimate. Beneficiaries who qualify for the low-income subsidy will save substantially more -- about 95 percent.Critics have described the program as much too complex, and recent surveys found potential beneficiaries wary. Nearly half of senior citizens don't believe the benefit will help them, according to a survey conducted last month by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health.Most beneficiaries will have more than 40 plans from which to choose, the government has said.Bush described the new benefit as a means of preventing serious illness. In the past, he said, Medicare would pay tens of thousands of dollars for ulcer surgery, but not a few hundred dollars for prescription drugs that would eliminate the cause of ulcers.The president stressed that the benefit is voluntary. He asked family and friends of senior citizens and the disabled to help with the enrollment process. They can call 1-800-Medicare for assistance."The sooner you enroll, the sooner you can have the peace of mind this coverage will bring," Bush said.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal government should strengthen the health care system for veterans, retired Marine Gen. Joseph P. Hoar said Saturday in the Democratic Party's weekly radio address.Speaking on the Veterans Day weekend, the former U.S. military commander in the Middle East said "President Bush has consistently refused to provide enough" money for veterans' health care."Earlier this year, his administration admitted that they were $1 billion short in funding for critical health care services," he said. "They also repeatedly tried to increase the cost of prescription drugs and health care services for veterans nationwide." (Watch the retired general's radio address -- 2:34)The Veterans Affairs Department acknowledged in April that it had underestimated medical care costs. Congress reacted by approving an additional $1.5 billion in emergency funds for the current budget year.Hoar also said, "Thousands of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan will require mental health care, yet the Bush administration has not taken action to deal with this emerging problem."In contrast, Democrats are working to improve the current health care system and strengthen mental health care services, he said."As a veteran and a former commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, I have seen first hand the kind of sacrifices they are making for us. It's a debt we will never be able to repay," he said. "But we have a special duty to make sure our veterans receive the benefits they have earned and deserve when they return home."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- "Chicken Little" remained No. 1 in the pecking order, taking in $32 million in its second weekend to beat back a flock of new movies.Debuting in second place was the sci-fi fantasy "Zathura: A Space Adventure," which grossed $14 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.Jennifer Aniston's first post-"Friends" film -- the thriller "Derailed," co-starring Clive Owen -- opened in third with $12.8 million.Rapper Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson's semi-autobiographical drama "Get Rich or Die Tryin"' premiered at No. 4 with $12.5 million, though it played in fewer theaters than its competitors. The movie has grossed $18.2 million since opening Wednesday.Also debuting in the top 10 was Keira Knightley's "Pride & Prejudice," a new take on Jane Austen's 19th century classic of romance and class conflict. (Watch Keira Knightley talk about "Pirates" and "Prejudice" -- 3:56) The film came in at No. 10 with $2.8 million while playing in just 215 theaters, compared to 3,223 for "Zathura," 2,441 for "Derailed" and 1,652 for "Get Rich or Die Tryin"'.The overall box office was down, with the top 12 movies grossing $114.7 million, off 15 percent from the same weekend last year, when "The Incredibles" was No. 1 with $50.3 million.Movie admissions are running 8 percent behind last year's, but the industry will get a big bump Friday with "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," the fourth film about the boy wizard."This is one of those save-the-day kinds of movies," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations. "There were lines around the block for the latest book, "'The Half-Blood Prince.' I expect no different for this 'Harry Potter' movie."With $80.8 million domestically in 10 days, the cartoon tale "Chicken Little" should soar past the $100 million mark by this coming weekend. That's good news for distributor Disney, whose recent animated slate has been lackluster."You can't crow about things if people aren't buying tickets to your movies," said Chuck Viane, Disney head of distribution. "This proves that our animation team, with their commitment and resilience, can deliver.""Zathura," adapted from the children's book, follows the adventures of two brothers hurled into space by a mysterious board game. Distributor Sony hopes "Zathura" can hang on to a good share of the family audience through Thanksgiving, despite "Chicken Little" and "Harry Potter.""History proves there's room for several of these family-type films. This is the perfect time of year for it," said Rory Bruer, Sony head of distribution."Derailed" was the first release by the Weinstein Co., formed by brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein, who parted ways with their original company, Disney-owned Miramax. The movie stars Aniston and Owen as business execs whose extramarital fling leads to brutality and extortion by a blackmailer.The movie's sexuality and disturbing violence are a new thing for Aniston, who has a goody-goody image."She's done a few things in the R-rated realm, but to see her in a sexy light, not the-girl-next-door-light, and have her fans still show up shows how versatile an actress she is," said Gary Faber, head of marketing for the Weinstein Co."Get Rich or Die Tryin"' stars 50 Cent as a drug dealer aiming to go straight with a music career.Blacks accounted for three-fourths of the audience, according to distributor Paramount. The studio's head of distribution, Wayne Lewellen, said the cachet of director Jim Sheridan could help broaden the audience in subsequent weekends.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

(CNN) -- You know this much from thrillers: Bad things happen to good people. You can be at the right place at the wrong time. Changing a set schedule yields terrible results.All of these time-honored plot points come into play in "Derailed," with nail-biting consequences. The climax isn't much -- even the most mundane episode of "Law & Order" would have concluded more realistically -- but, if you suspend a bit of logic and get on the ride, it's one heck of a good time, with some surprising twists and turns.Charles Schine (Clive Owen) is a brooding husband. He's drifted apart from his wife Deanna (Melissa George), though they maintain a united front for their daughter Amy (Addison Timlin), who is suffering from kidney failure and awaiting a transplant.One day Charlie, who works at an ad agency, misses his usual train into Chicago. On the train he meets a beautiful stranger, Lucinda Harris, played by Jennifer Aniston. She, too, is trapped in a dull marriage. Soon the two find themselves having lunch together, which escalates into dinner and finally to a seedy hotel room.Then an armed man bursts into the room, demanding their wallets and money, and proceeds to pistol-whip Charles and rape Lucinda. After this horrendous ordeal they both decide not to go to the police in order to keep their affair a secret from their respective spouses. And, as terrible as the event was, both think it will end there.Of course, they're wrong.Making a caseThe armed robber, Laroche (Vincent Cassel), begins to blackmail Charles. Laroche, it appears, is not a common mugger, but a sophisticated criminal. As Laroche's demands for money escalate, so do his threats to do physical harm to Charles' family. He even comes to Charles' home posing as a client.Charles pleads with Lucinda to go to the police. She refuses. Without her testimony, Charles' lawyer tells Charles, he has no case.Charles decides to take the situation into his own hands, and now the film really gets twisted -- and entertaining. The lightning pace is maintained with excellent skill by Swedish director Mikael Hafstrom -- making his first English-language film -- as Charles enters a world way over his head.Look for hip-hop artists RZA and Xzibit in small but pivotal roles, and Giancarlo Esposito as the Chicago detective looking into the mounting pile of bodies resulting from Charles' vengefulness.Owen delivers a solid performance and Aniston is excellent in a demanding role that requires her to switch gears at some pivotal moments in the plot. The sexual chemistry between the two, while not overwhelming, is believable; overall, they make a solid pair.Cassel isn't quite as good. His teeth-gnashing exertions diminish the otherwise natural relationships established by Aniston and Owen.Given that we're now entering Oscar season, "Derailed" -- a pure popcorn thriller -- may find it hard to make a dent at the box office. But it is worth seeing. Just stay on the ride.

NEW YORK (AP) -- A Miami resident has bought a virtual space station for $100,000 and wants to turn it into a cross between Jurassic Park and a disco.Jon Jacobs, a director of independent films, plans to call the space resort, in the science-fiction themed game Project Entropia, "Club Neverdie." Like other land areas in the game that has been visited by 300,000 players, the resort grounds will spawn dinosaur-like monsters, which visitors can kill.Jacobs will take a cut of the virtual resources that the carcasses yield, like hides.Jacobs, 39, plans to hire famous disc jockeys to entertain visitors once a week or so at the resort but still reckons on netting $20,000 a month from the hunting tax and other income."I want to operate this thing at the level of a major nightclub in a major city," Jacobs said.Jacobs bought the property late last month from MindArk PE AB, Project Entropia's Swedish developer. The game, which has no subscription fee, has its own currency but it's convertible at a fixed rate to dollars.About a quarter of the purchase money came from Jacobs' in-game earnings.Over three years playing Project Entropia, Jacobs accumulated items that later became worth thousands of dollars, like first-aid kits and powerful weapons.He sold those items last year to buy an island in Project Entropia, but was outbid -- it sold for $26,500, the previous record sale in that world.He refinanced his house shortly after and considered investing some of the cash in the hot Miami real-estate market, but he realized that if he bought a rental property, it really wouldn't generate any income beyond what he'd pay for the mortgage and repairs.So he invested the proceeds in the game.IGE, a leading broker of game property, said it has handled deals worth more than $100,000, but would not provide details because of client confidentiality.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Britain's remembrance poppies have gone high-tech, as digital versions of the red paper flowers are now available for downloading to mobiles.The poppies' move into cyberspace is a bid to get younger Britons aware of the sacrifices made by those who fell in battle, the Royal British Legion charity said."This is the first time the poppy can be downloaded to mobile telephones," a spokesman said. "The Poppy is about remembering those who did not come back."The digital image can be accessed via www.poppy.org.This year's Poppy Appeal has been fronted by an Iraq war widow and her young daughter, a move designed to show the charitable work of the Legion will continue so long as Britain is engaged in military conflicts.The symbol was adopted in the 1920s after the end of World War One because the poppy, a wild flower, was the only plant that grew in the aftermath of the bloody trench warfare which devastated parts of northern France and Belgium.Millions remembered those who died in all Britain's wars with a two-minute silence at 1100 GMT on Friday and a service at the Cenotaph in central London on Sunday. The silence, at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, marked the moment when the guns fell silent at the end of World War One in 1918.The first Legion Poppy Day was inspired by a 1915 poem written by John McCrae, a serving officer, which starts: "In Flanders' fields the poppies blow, Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place: and in the sky, The larks, still bravely singing, fly, Scare heard amid the guns below."Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Three U.S. service members have died in separate incidents in Iraq while insurgents targeted Iraqi security forces, authorities said Sunday.A roadside bomb killed two U.S. Marines during "combat operations" in Amiriya, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) west-southwest of Baghdad, the Marines said.The military statement gave no details about the attack, which happened Saturday, the same day a U.S. soldier died in a vehicle accident near Rawa.Rawa is 140 miles (209 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad in Anbar province, near the Syrian border. Since the Iraq war began, 2,068 U.S. service members have died, 39 in November.On Sunday, insurgents killed one civilian and wounded five Iraqi soldiers in two attacks. The civilian was killed when a roadside bomb missed an Iraqi police patrol in Baghdad, police said. The blast missed the police, who were in the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of Jadeeda.In Kirkuk, 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of Baghdad, a roadside bomb wounded five Iraqi soldiers on morning patrol.Meanwhile, three bodies and one man who was in extremely critical condition were found late Saturday, police said. The men, who appeared to have been tortured and shot in the head, had their hands tied behind their backs and had been blindfolded. The four were found in the northwestern Baghdad neighborhood of Shula, police said.Another apparently tortured body was found in western Baghdad.Iraq: UK troops may leave in 2006British troops could leave Iraq by the end of 2006, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has told a TV news channel. "We don't want British forces forever in Iraq. Within one year -- I think at the end of 2006 -- Iraqi troops will be ready to replace British forces in the south," Talabani told ITV, which released details of the interview in advance of the broadcast.Britain has about 8,000 soldiers in Iraq, many of them in Basra, the country's second-largest city. London has said it will start to pull out its troops as soon as local forces think they can maintain security.Britain's top army general, Gen. Sir Mike Jackson, said Sunday that Talabani's timetable was "realistically possible" but warned against giving a firm date for a pullout. (Full story)U.S. doubts death of Hussein aideThe U.S. military Sunday discounted reports that a top Iraqi fugitive has died, saying the search for Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri remains active.Al-Douri is the highest-ranking lieutenant of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to remain at large more than two years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The Arabic-language news network Al-Arabiya reported his death Friday, quoting what it said was a statement from the Baath Party that once ruled Iraq."Coalition officials question the validity of the Baath party claim, and a reward of up to $10 million remains for information leading to al-Douri's capture or his grave site," the U.S. command in Baghdad said in a written statement.The military said a Web site that claims to be associated with the Baath Party contradicted Friday's report and said al-Douri was still alive.Al-Douri was the vice chairman of Iraq's ruling council and No. 6 on the list of most-wanted members of Hussein's ousted government. He has long been reported to be in poor health, but previous reports of his death or capture have proven to be unfounded.The U.S. military says he has helped finance the insurgency but that his influence has waned while he has been in hiding. (Watch: Who is Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri? -- 1:30)Husayba protestAbout 500 residents of Husayba, site of a recent weeklong battle against insurgents, protested outside the U.S. military's main camp Sunday.U.S. Marine Capt. Rich Pitchford said he met with a 10-member makeshift city council and would update them about their requests at a Monday meeting. Residents were asking for permission to recover bodies and bury the dead -- as well as food and the restoration of essential services.Although the protest was peaceful, many residents were agitated and angry.One of the 10 leaders, who said he was the group's spokesman, said the residents will believe in U.S. forces if Pitchford's promises are fulfilled. Other demonstrators were more skeptical. One man said everything in the city was fine in the eight months before Operation Steel Curtain. Another asked why U.S. and Iraqi forces needed to level so many buildings."There are families that need help," said Karim Ayaj, an Arabic teacher at a Husayba school. "We have not had food supplies and rations for at least four months now." He believes the most important step would be to open the road between the Qaim region near the Syrian border, where Husayba is located, and Baghdad. About 28,000 people are living in palm groves and makeshift camps outside the city, he claimed.Resident Tamil el-Kubeysi was angry about the lack of food and water. "We are a rich country," he said. "We are the country of two rivers. We never would have even dreamed that we'd end up in a situation like this."U.S. and Iraqi forces, meanwhile, have set up two bases and have begun patrolling Husayba.Operation Steel Curtain was launched in Husayba on November 5 and has continued into the nearby city of Karabila. The offensive was aimed at wresting control of the area from insurgents and foreign fighters. Other developmentsJordan needs to crack down on money-laundering and insurgent traffic into Iraq after last week's hotel bombings in Amman, Deputy Iraqi Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi said Sunday. Jordanian authorities say the attacks were carried out by four Iraqis and orchestrated by the group al Qaeda in Iraq, led by Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Chalabi is a former exile who faces bank-fraud charges in Jordan. (Full story)United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan -- the latest top diplomat to visit Iraq -- called Saturday for Iraqis to reconcile. "This region, and particularly Iraq, has suffered too much from terrorist attacks," Annan said during his first visit to Iraq since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion. (Full story) CNN's Arwa Damon and Enes Dulami contributed to this report.

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- A pharmaceutical sales executive who is believed to be the "financier, conspirator and spokesperson" behind last month's New Delhi bombings is in police custody, authorities said Sunday.Tariq Dar was arrested Thursday in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Police Commissioner K.K. Paul said.He was believed to be helped by four other people in connection with the October 29 blasts at two crowded marketplaces. A third explosive device was left on a bus and detonated after it was removed by the bus driver.In all, the bombings killed nearly 60 people and injured more than 200. Paul said the blasts were the work of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a group which has carried out previous attacks.Dar was brought to New Delhi on Friday and has been remanded into police custody for 14 days, Paul said.Police said $12,000 was deposited into Dar's bank account a few days before the blasts, coming from the Middle East. Dar also visited New Delhi between October 4 and 6, Paul said.The rapid detonation explosive RDX was used in all three of the blasts, police said.Lashkar-e-Taiba has denied any responsibility for the bombs, according to news reports.A spokesman for the Pakistani-based militant group, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, on Tuesday called the accusations "completely baseless and false," The Associated Press reported.A little-known Kashmiri group, Islamic Inquilab Mahaz -- which took credit for the blasts -- has ties to Lashkar, officials said.But in a phone call to a news agency in India-controlled Kashmir, the spokesman said his group does not target civilians, AP reported."Lashkar does not believe in carrying out attacks against civilians, especially women and children," Abu Huzaifa told the Kashmir News Service. "We reiterate that Lashkar had no hand in the Delhi attacks."Two other militant groups also denied involvement in the attacks. The denials came a day after India's prime minister told Pakistan's president there are indications of foreign links to the New Delhi bombings and reminded him of his country's pledge to fight terrorism."We continue to be disturbed and dismayed at indications of the external linkages of terrorist groups with bombings," Manmohan Singh said during the conversation with Pervez Musharraf, according to a press release from his office.The release also said Singh told Musharraf that "India expects Pakistan to act against terrorism directed at India."The Pakistani leader had called Singh to express his condolences for the attacks.At a news conference in Islamabad, Musharraf called the New Delhi bombings a "most dastardly terrorist attack.""I would like to give the total and unequivocal support from Pakistan in any investigation the Indians would like to carry out," he said.Pakistan and India have fought two wars over the disputed territory of Kashmir, but in recent years have made bids at peace.Despite the weekend attacks, India and Pakistan agreed to open five crossings along the Line of Control in Kashmir, in an effort to aid victims of the massive October 8 earthquake.New Delhi was the site of a deadly attack on the parliament in December 2001. Indians blamed that attack on Islamic militants backed by Pakistan, which denied the charge. The parliament attack led to a military standoff by both nuclear-armed nations at their borders.Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

SALEM, Oregon (AP) -- Police shot a man after he crashed a truck into a downtown courthouse early Saturday, ending a pursuit that began when he allegedly set fire to several squad cars in a nearby town and shot at an officer who chased him.The man drove the pickup through the glass double doors of the Marion County Courthouse and hid inside the building for about three hours, setting at least one fire before police tracked him down in a stairwell, police Capt. Jeff Kuhns said.He was in surgery Saturday afternoon, officials said. His condition and the extent of his injuries were not immediately released.Authorities identified the man as Christopher Lee Millis, 37, of nearby Keizer."We have a few indications of what might have motivated him," said Marion County District Attorney Walt Beglau. He declined to elaborate.The pursuit started shortly before dawn when a man was spotted pouring liquid on cars parked at the police department in Keizer and setting them on fire, authorities said.An officer chased him in her car, but the suspect fired at her, police said. The officer crashed but wasn't injured.Shortly afterward, police got calls that someone in the area was firing shots at homes. Around 6:30 a.m., Salem police got a call that someone had driven up the concrete steps of the courthouse and crashed through the doors.Officers from several police departments surrounded the building and attempted to negotiate with the man. They eventually confronted him in the stairwell and shot him.Millis had set at least one fire inside the courthouse and fired a weapon, Kuhns said, adding that it was unclear whether he was firing at officers outside. A bomb squad was called in as a precaution after Millis was subdued, and police searched the five-story courthouse for possible explosives but didn't immediately find any.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WOODWARD, Iowa (AP) -- Ron Runyan couldn't hear the sirens. The winds were deafening.In a matter of moments, the quiet weekend he had planned with his mother and sister turned into a nightmare.Runyan, a 47-year-old truck driver from Fargo, North Dakota, looked outside his mother's window Saturday night and saw a howling tornado headed for the house. He rushed his family into the basement as the disaster struck. (Watch dramatic amateur video of twister -- 1:05)"My sister fell down right below the stairs, and my mom, with the wind, kind of took her away from me," he said. "It was so dirty, I couldn't see her, and that was it."His mother, Lucille Runyan, 84, was the only person killed in storms that produced at least nine tornadoes on Saturday. His sister, Nancy Runyan, 53, remained hospitalized Sunday night with a broken hip.As crews removed debris from what remained of his mother's home Sunday, Ron Runyan stood across the street in the small town of about 745 residents remembering the terror."Everything happened so fast," he said. "We were down below the stairs and the roof was coming off. Everything was folding. The house was crackling."Runyan said he would have died, too, if he hadn't dived into a corner when the roof blew off.Stratford and Woodward, 30 miles to the south, were the hardest hit by the tornadoes that swept through central Iowa on Saturday afternoon. The governor declared Hamilton and Dallas counties, north and west of Des Moines, disaster areas, making them eligible for state assistance.As many as 30 homes in Stratford were destroyed, and at least 40 in Woodward were severely damaged, officials said. Search dogs were brought in to check the rubble, but authorities said they believed all residents were accounted for."It's amazing. If you've seen the damage here, we had homes that were just obliterated, and they had people in them at the time it came through," said Dallas County Sheriff Brian Gilbert.Gov. Tom Vilsack on Sunday visited Woodward and Stratford, where he offered his condolences to the Runyan family."Tornadoes in November in Iowa just aren't supposed to happen," he said.In Woodward, Jackie Seeman and her husband shifted through the rubble of their destroyed home. Seeman, 47, said she had been in bed when the house collapsed around her Saturday."I heard a big whoosh and a big boom and then my house just came in on me," she said.On Sunday, they were delighted to find a few of their NASCAR collectibles, but their car was covered in rubble and their boat had been tossed hundreds of feet by the storm. Boats, lawnmowers and board games littered lawns nearby in the town of about 1,200 residents, and debris hung from trees."We'll probably stay here, although I'd like to go somewhere without a tornado," Seeman said as she began crying.National Weather Service meteorologist Karl Jungbluth said the tornadoes that struck Woodward and Stratford are both being classified as F-2 on the Fujita scale, which measures the strength of a tornado up to F-5, the strongest. Both towns were socked with winds that likely neared 150 miles per hour, he said.Only Woodward, Stratford, the northwest edge of Ames and some farms suffered structural damage, Jungbluth said.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

(CNN) -- On Tuesday, Bruce Springsteen's 1975 classic "Born to Run" comes out in a newly remastered edition.About time.Despite the endless re-releases, re-re-releases and re-packaging of other artists' work over the years (how many Who greatest hits collections do we need, anyway?), Springsteen has remained untouched. Pre-"Lucky Town" Springsteen CDs were never updated after they were first issued, just as CDs first became dominant in the mid-1980s. They even still have the official "compact disc" logo on the cover, long since dropped on other artists' releases, and the sound quality is dismal. Technology has now gotten to the point where CD remasterings can strengthen and brighten the sound without ruining artists' intentions (as, sadly, some early CDs -- such as the muddy mess of Derek and the Dominos' "Layla" -- did), and Springsteen, a studio perfectionist, has been long overdue for the treatment.The downside of all these remasterings and reissues is that consumers sometimes have to buy the same album more than once. In some cases, such as Motown, it's worth it: That label butchered many of its '60s classics when it first transferred them to CD, and it wasn't until the past few years that the wrongs have been righted (even though, to my regret, some recent singles collections only feature songs in mono -- even the post-1966 material that sounds better in stereo). On the other hand, Elvis Costello's Columbia recordings have now come out on CD three times -- first on Columbia (with mediocre quality), then on Ryko (much better) and now Rhino (wonderful, but overkill). Classic albums also now are being released on DVD, thus allowing consumers to purchase yet another copy of something they may already own in several other formats. With "Born to Run," though, Columbia/Sony is doing things right. The remastered album presumably meets Springsteen's strict standards (and this is a guy known to do dozens of mixes before he's happy with a track) and includes a documentary about the making of the album and a DVD of a London concert from Springsteen's now-legendary 1975 tour.(An update: A reader e-mails to say that Columbia did release a "gold disc" CD of "Born to Run" in the mid-'90s, but that "It might have sounded a little better, but nothing earth-shaking." Which makes this new "Born to Run" still the one to have ... for now, anyway.)Eye on Entertainment lets the screen door slam.Eye-openerWhen "Born to Run" was released on August 25, 1975, it was an event.Rumors had floated for months about Springsteen's project, one that would consolidate the audience he'd earned with "Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J." (1973) and "The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle" (also 1973) and his marathon live shows, as well as make concrete the full-blown Wall of Sound he had in his mind.The album succeeded, perhaps too well. Both Time and Newsweek famously put Springsteen on their covers the same week, and Springsteen was hailed as rock 'n' roll's savior. That's a big responsibility for anybody, and it's one that changes with the whims of a fickle press and public. Whether "savior" or not, Springsteen has lived up to "Born to Run's" promise in the years since -- whether with "Darkness on the Edge of Town" (1978), featuring his angriest, most scathing guitar solos; the panoramic "The River" (1980); the brooding "Nebraska" (1982); the arena-filling "Born in the U.S.A." (1984); the introspective "Tunnel of Love" (1987); and on to the present day with "The Rising" (2002) and this year's "Devils and Dust."Looking back at "Born to Run," it was obvious that it was all there. Gone was the excessively wordy verse of "Asbury Park" or the drift of "E Street"; in their places were tight word-pictures and tighter playing:"The screen door slams / Mary's dress waves / Like a vision she dances across the porch / As the radio plays" ("Thunder Road")or: "One soft infested summer me and Terry became friends / Trying in vain to breathe the fire we was born in" ("Backstreets")and, of course:"The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive / Everybody's out on the run tonight but there's no place left to hide" ("Born to Run").The remastered, three-disc "Born to Run" comes out Tuesday.On screen50 Cent stars in a movie based on his life, "Get Rich or Die Tryin'." It's directed by Jim Sheridan, who directed the very different "My Left Foot" and "In America." Opened Wednesday.Clive Owen is a married man, and Jennifer Aniston is his mistress. And then someone finds out about their affair. The result? "Derailed," a thriller that opens Friday."Zathura" is the follow-up to "Jumanji." This time, two brothers playing a board game find themselves in outer space. The film, which includes Tim Robbins among the cast members, was directed by Jon Favreau ("Elf"). Opens Friday.On the tube"The Comedians of Comedy" is the name of a new show starring Brian Posehn, Maria Bamford, Patton Oswalt and Zach Galifianakis. It's as much about comedy construction as it is about laughs. 11 p.m. ET Friday, Comedy Central.On Saturday, "Mean Girls" debuts on Showtime (8 p.m. ET), and "Old School" comes to ABC (9 p.m. ET). There's a lesson in that somewhere."Masterpiece Theatre" presents the story of Elizabeth I, "The Virgin Queen." Not to be confused with "Elizabeth R." 9 p.m. ET Sunday, PBS.Sound wavesFor better or for worse, Madonna hasn't given up her musical career. Her new album, "Confessions on a Dance Floor" (Warner Bros.), comes out Tuesday.For better or for worse, Carrie Underwood is starting her musical career. The "American Idol" winner's first album, "Some Hearts" (Arista), comes out Tuesday.A Wilco live album, "Kicking Television: Live in Chicago" (Nonesuch), comes out Tuesday.As a friend of mine once said about Elvis Costello, a best-of for Bob Dylan should be at least 10 albums long. Yet Columbia has narrowed it down to 16 songs with "The Best of Bob Dylan," not to be confused with "Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits," "The Very Best of Bob Dylan" or "Biograph." Or anything by Springsteen, for that matter. It comes out Tuesday.Paging readersFrank McCourt finishes (I think) his memoirs with "Teacher Man" (Scribner), the follow-up to "Angela's Ashes" and " 'Tis." It comes out Tuesday.For trivia buffs such as me, this is one of the big releases of the year: The 2006 World Almanac and Book of Facts (World Almanac) comes out Tuesday.Video center"Madagascar" comes out on video Tuesday. (Watch an exclusive clip from the DVD -- 0:28)Just last week there was the big "Sex and the City" box. Now comes the "Friends" DVD box -- all 10 seasons, together for the first time. For some people, this will keep them occupied until January. It comes out Tuesday.

(CNN) -- The disappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway in Aruba May 30 may have travelers and their loved ones looking closely at travel safety.Even in destinations that are considered relatively safe, there are pockets of danger. But that doesn't mean plans should be changed or canceled.Travel experts suggest you find out about a destination's specific areas of concern and use the same caution you would in unfamiliar situations at home."Being aware is the biggest thing you can do," said Nilou Motamed, a senior editor at Travel + Leisure magazine.Motamed recommends the State Department's Web site as a good first source of information on destinations that are considered dangerous to Americans.The State Department issues travel warnings for those locations. Consular information sheets that include information on crime, safety and security for every country also are posted on the agency's Web site.Comparing the State Department's information with postings from similar agencies in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom gives travelers a wider perspective on safety issues, said Don George, Lonely Planet's global travel editor.Consider registering with the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate, particularly if you are headed to an area that has a current travel warning. "They've just made it easier," Motamed said. "You can do it online, so you don't actually even have to go to the embassy when you get there."Motamed and George also suggest looking for a destination's English-language publications before the trip. Many newspapers are posted online and often are the best source of current local news.When you get there, ask locals for guidance, George advises."Ask local people what's appropriate and what's not appropriate," George said. "[To] a hotel clerk in the hotel where you're staying, you can say, 'Is it OK to walk in this part of town after dinner or is it better to get a taxi?' "Using normal caution and trusting your instincts also goes a long way on the road."It's just really important to keep that notion of common sense always in your head whether you're in Paris or Papua New Guinea," George said.If you're traveling alone, establish a regular pattern of communication with someone at home, George advises. Whether it's a phone call or an e-mail every night or every second day, keeping someone posted about your trip is a good safety measure.With group travel, let someone in your group know where you're going when you split off for a solo outing.The State Department advises travelers to leave a copy of their itinerary with someone at home in case of an emergency. It's also a good idea to leave a copy of your passport, tickets, credit cards and traveler's checks.Bring a copy of those important documents with you as well, and be sure to keep the copies in a separate place."It's a great idea to copy those," Motamed said. "Because in case you lose them, it's so much easier to get them replaced if you have a copy of them."The State Department advises familiarizing yourself with local laws and customs. Dress conservatively and avoid the appearance of affluence, the agency suggests.Above all, exercise caution, George advises."We should always have our guard up to a certain extent."

TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- A miniature robot released by a Japanese space probe to a small asteroid circling the Sun was lost before it was able to land on the asteroid's surface, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said on Sunday.Minerva, a can-shaped "baby" robot 10 centimeters (3.9 inches) long, had been designed to gather information on the Itokawa asteroid as part of a rehearsal ahead of the unmanned Hayabusa probe's own landing on the asteroid Itokawa, scheduled for November 19.Minerva's landing was to have been the first attempt by Japan to send information-gathering equipment to an astronomic object outside the Earth.Equipped with a camera and thermometers, Minerva was meant to hop around Itokawa and send data such as surface temperatures and images back via Hayabusa, the Kyodo news agency reported.A previous attempt to land Minerva earlier this month was aborted due to technical problems.Itokawa, an asteroid 600 meters (1,970 feet) long that travels on an orbit that takes it between earth and Mars, is named after Hideo Itokawa, the father of Japan's space exploration program. It is currently about 290 million kilometers (180 million miles) away from the Earth.Junichiro Kawaguchi, a professor at JAXA, said scientists had miscalculated the best moment to release Minerva, a task made difficult by Hayabusa's changing altitude over the asteroid."It is very disappointing that it did not work out nicely. We found out various things about the asteroid, so we will study the data and hope it will lead to the successful landing of Hayabusa," Kyodo quoted him as saying.Hayabusa, which was fired into space on May 9, 2003, has been hovering over Itokawa for almost two months.The spacecraft is designed to swoop down on the asteroid on two separate occasions and gather samples before returning to Earth.Scientists hope that by studying samples of the asteroid's surface they will be able learn more about the origins of the universe.Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

BROOKLYN CENTER, Minnesota (AP) -- Police shut down a suburban shopping mall Saturday after screaming fans of the boy band B5 rushed the stage during a free concert, grabbing at the band members' clothing and overwhelming the small team of security guards."Things were falling off the stage, girls were falling off the stage, girls started fighting," said Theresa Curtis, who was working at a store near the stage.Some of the girls grabbed one of the boys in the band, said Tamy Johnson, another store employee. "He ran to the back. Another boy, he just ran. Security escorted some of the boys out the back," she said.Four people were treated at a hospital for minor injuries, and five others were treated at the mall, police said. There were no arrests.More than 2,000 fans, mostly teenage girls, had converged on Brookdale Center mall for the show, sponsored by the local Radio Disney station, KDIZ-AM. The band had made it to the second song when the chaos broke out."It just seemed like a girl frenzy," said Christopher Taykalo of Radio Disney.The 10 mall security guards assigned to the concert and the radio station staff were overwhelmed.Seventy officers from 23 area Minneapolis-area communities responded to the chaos. It took about 15 minutes for them to get the crowd under control and another 30 minutes to clear out the mall. The mall reopened later Saturday evening.It just seemed like a girl frenzy. -- Christopher Taykalo, Radio Disney"I've never seen anything like it in my life," Jennifer Fullbright, 49, of Cottage Grove, told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis. She had brought her daughter and her friend to the see the band.Curtis said her store took in a few girls who had lost their parents amid the ruckus.B5 is a group of five brothers from Atlanta -- Dustin, Patrick, Kelly, Bryan and Carnell Breeding -- ages 10 to 17. Their debut album, "All I Do," came out this summer, and they toured with the BET cable network's "Scream Tour IV."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

DALLAS, Texas (Reuters) -- Heart attack survivors whose hearts were infused with stem cells from their own bone marrow showed nearly twice the improvement in the organ's pumping ability as patients given a placebo, according to a study presented Sunday.A further analysis of the data found that benefits to heart function seen four months after an attack appeared to be most pronounced in patients with more severe heart attacks that caused greater damage to the muscle, researchers said at the American Heart Association annual scientific meeting."The medications and interventional therapies available so far are intended only to limit further damage to the heart," said Andreas Zeiher, professor at J.W. Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, and a senior author of the study."In contrast, progenitor cell therapy has the potential not only to limit further damage, but to regenerate heart function," he said.Progenitor cells are immature cells that can become a variety of specialized cells."The concept that we can regrow heart muscle cells would be an extraordinary development in the treatment of heart disease," said Dr. Richard Stein, director of preventive cardiology at New York's Beth Israel Hospital, who is attending the meetings."It changes the entire game," he said of the prevailing thought that a person has a finite number of heart cells that cannot be regrown once they are destroyed.The primary goal of the 204-patient study was to show improvement in function of the left ventricle -- the pumping chamber of the heart -- which is considered a good gauge of a patient's prognosis following a heart attack.Both groups in the study had nearly identical left ventricular function going in, and both showed improvement after four months as expected, researchers said.But patients who received the bone marrow cell infusion saw an improvement in their left ventricular ejection fraction -- a measure of heart efficiency -- on average, of 5.5 percent. Those getting placebo saw a 3 percent improvement.Researchers said the compelling results stood in contrast to "widely mixed results" seen in prior smaller studies of the cell therapy.They were further encouraged by other results, including less heart enlargement seen in the bone marrow cell patients, and improved blood flow in the artery where the attack occurred, indicating the possibility that new blood vessels may have been created to nourish the damaged area.Heart enlargement, which often occurs after an attack as the heart tries compensate for reduced pumping ability, is a hallmark of a failing heart.The reduction in heart enlargement seen in the bone marrow cell patients appeared to lead to reduced incidence of new heart attacks, hospitalization due to heart failure and deaths, researchers said."The trial may be a landmark in helping to determine whether the concept of progenitor [cell] therapy will have a future for restoring heart function after" heart attacks, said lead investigator Volker Schachinger of Goethe University. Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Images from video smuggled from North Korea show a public execution and what appears to be a concentration camp housing political prisoners, according to a CNN documentary set to air Sunday night.In one clip, the residents of a village gather on a hillside to watch the firing-squad execution of a man accused of helping a defector cross into China. North Korean dissidents shot the video, which they smuggled out of the country through a network of contacts into their communist neighbor to the north.The North Korean government did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment on the documentary's allegations.Human Rights Watch has estimated there are 200,000 political prisoners inside North Korea; Pyongyang denies any camps exist.North Korea is the last Stalinist regime, a closed one-party state founded on a personality cult, a rogue regime known for repression of its people and a menacing nuclear arms program, a nearly bankrupt nation, where, in the 1990s, the U.S. government says more than 2 million people starved to death during a famine. Kim Jong Il denied the famine even existed. Sarah McDonald, who produced and directed the documentary, "Undercover in the Secret State," said her crew interviewed a man who had been in a camp shown in the movie."What he described, we didn't put it in the film," she said Friday from London, England. "It is so appalling, you just can't imagine. He said that 95 percent of people who go into that prison die in the prison. Their whole motivation is to kill these people, but they won't let them die easily."They -- they torture them to death over a very long period of time." Dissidents used new technology like small digital cameras and cell phones to get the images and to set up their escapes to China and safe house in Bangkok, Thailand, the documentary shows. In another scene, a man defaces a poster of Kim Jong Il then flees the country with the image. He tells Korean journalist Jung-Eun Kim he wants the world to know of the growing opposition movement within North Korea. Other images from the film include emaciated children begging and stealing on streets littered with dead bodies and a nearby market selling bags of rice that had been provided by the United Nations for famine relief. "Some of [the dissidents] are motivated because their families actually starved to death in front of them, and they realized that they just had to go out and seek a way of ensuring that their lives were changing in the future," McDonald said. "Others have actually had a sense of the outside by going into China and realizing that life on the outside is not what it appears."

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Australian police stopped and questioned three recently arrested Sydney terror suspects near Australia's only nuclear reactor in December last year, according to a police document submitted to a court.The police fact sheet for eight Sydney terror suspects who faced a Sydney magistrate last week was released to the media Monday.They were among 18 terror suspects arrested in Sydney and Melbourne last week and charged with planning a terrorist attack. Police have not identified the likely target.The document alleges that Mazen Touma, Mohammed Elomar and Abdul Rakib Hasan were stopped in their car by New South Wales state police near the nuclear facility at Lucas Heights, in southern Sydney, in December 2004.The men also had a trail bike and claimed they were there to ride it, the document said.But according to the fact sheet, when interviewed separately, all three gave different versions of the day's events to police."Police inquiries revealed the access lock for a gate to a reservoir of the reactor had recently been cut," the sheet said.Touma, Elomar and Hasan, along with five other Sydney men, have been charged with conspiring to manufacture explosives in preparation for a terrorist act.They are to reappear in the Sydney court again on December 5.Earlier, Australia's senior police chief said Monday he supported a plan to create a regional counterterror task force to track extremists throughout Southeast Asia.Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty will give a keynote address at a summit of Southeast Asian police chiefs in Jakarta this week.Indonesian counterterrorism authorities will seek agreement from neighboring countries to establish a regional task force, The Australian newspaper reported."It's up to the Indonesians and the other ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) police chiefs as to what initiatives they want to bring forward and what they finally agree to," Keelty told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio from Thailand."But we would support a team being put together to look at, particularly, the areas where there's cross-border movement of people who are suspected terrorists, who have been under investigation by our joint teams in Indonesia and our joint teams in the Philippines," he said."Something like a joint effort or a collaborative effort would be a good outcome," he added.Keelty said such a project would build on existing arrangements, such as the Jakarta Center for Law Enforcement Cooperation, which already involves Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines.Australia committed A$38 million ($27.7 million) to the center last year and has provided 20 police and government lawyers to staff it."Clearly, what we want to do is look at two things: Are we providing the proper response today for the problems we face today, and what are the problems of the future and how do we best respond to those?" Keelty said."And what's the capacity of the police to do that and are the police the only agency that needs to be involved in this?" he added.Australian Attorney General Philip Ruddock said Sunday that Australia wanted to build stronger counterterror links within the region."We've had an operation funded in Indonesia dealing with policing and obviously it's important to us to have the best available intelligence arrangements within the region and to improve the capacity and to ensure that the laws a seamless," Ruddock told Nine Network television.Ruddock was due to meet his U.S. counterpart, Alberto R. Gonzales, later Monday in Sydney.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

LITITZ, Pennsylvania (AP) -- A 14-year-old girl was missing after her parents were shot to death in their home Sunday morning, and authorities were searching for her 18-year-old boyfriend, who reportedly abducted her at gunpoint.Michael and Cathryn Borden, both 50, were found shot to death shortly after 8 a.m., Lititz Police Chief William Seace said.The couple's 9-year-old son, David, the youngest of five children, had fled to the home of neighbors, who called 911, Seace said. An older daughter still living at home and two adult sons were also safe, he said.But Kara Beth Borden, 14, was missing. Police said she was last seen that morning at the family's home in Warwick Township, about 60 miles west of Philadelphia, and was reportedly abducted at gunpoint by David G. Ludwig."The young girl was out during the night, came home, and her parents confronted her. From what we understand, he came to the house," Seace said."We don't know whether she has been abducted or is willingly a part of this," Seace said, but he added that until they can determine otherwise, police are operating on the assumption that Kara had been kidnapped.Stephanie Mannon, a 16-year-old friend who had worked with Ludwig, said he and Kara had been seeing each other secretly."Their parents didn't approve of them being together" because of the age difference, she said. "It wasn't because he was a shady character, because he wasn't."The Borden family had lived in the home in the normally quiet community for several years, said neighbor Tod Sherman, 47. Mike Borden worked for a printing company, and the children were home-school, he said.Sherman said the family knew Ludwig through a home-schooling network and he had occasionally seen the teen at their home.Sunday morning, neighbors woke to the sound of an ambulance and a phone call from Lancaster County emergency management officials warning them to stay inside.Neighbor John Hohman, 40, said he looked out a window after getting the call and saw police running through the neighborhood. About an hour and a half later, he said, authorities told residents to go to their basements and wait until further notice."We were really upset. We didn't know what going on," Hohman said.Hohman described Kara, who sometimes baby-sat for his family, as "a very nice girl."Sherman described her father as "very smart and focused, a nice guy.""They were super people," he said.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

(CNN) -- An Iraqi woman detained Sunday by Jordan said she tried to blow herself up with her husband in an Amman hotel last week, in one of three attacks that killed 57 bystanders.Local authorities said the attacks were orchestrated by al Qaeda in Iraq -- a group led by Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- and that the confessed bomber is the sister of al-Zarqawi's "right-hand man," who was killed by U.S. forces in Falluja, Iraq. CNN anchor Fredericka Whitfield on Sunday discussed the confession with Joyce Davis, the author of "Martyrs: Innocence, Vengeance and Despair in the Middle East."WHITFIELD: Why, Ms. Davis, are you seeing this as a part of this civil war in Islam?DAVIS: Because what you are now seeing is a tactic that was once used against the West, against allies of the United States. You're seeing that same tactic now turned on Muslims, on people who these Islamic militants are supposed to be trying to protect.WHITFIELD: Do you see that perhaps the profile of what had been the common -- or more expected -- suicide bomber to be changing as a result of the influence of this civil war within Islam?DAVIS: That's a very good observation, because we are seeing tactics that one would say ... show desperation. As the security forces are intensifying their abilities to stop the typical, so to speak, the male suicide bomber, we are seeing that they're trying more and more to bring women, and of course, what one fears, children. We've even had in recent times the use of a mother -- the mother of two children, small children -- who carried out a suicide attack.These are not things that just pop up overnight. These are well-planned operations, and generally there have been practice runs.WHITFIELD: Does it seem as though this woman -- if al Qaeda was going to for the first time use a woman to carry out such a plan -- that she really was the perfect candidate, in part because of her brother's relationship to al- Zarqawi?DAVIS: That's right. Clearly, the people they have chosen are people who are trusted, who have some connection, and they feel that they will carry out the operation.But the other thing that is generally required is proof that you have the willpower, the discipline, and what they would call the commitment to ... the precepts of Islam, this kind of inner conviction to go forward with an operation.So it's surprising to me to hear that her husband simply gave her a belt. I would have thought she'd have had to have proved herself many times for this kind of operation.WHITFIELD: In her statement she says that her husband organized everything, and she doesn't know anything. Is that a believable statement? Might she be recruited or coerced or forced to be a part of this mission, but really not be open to all the details of how it is being executed, just given instructions on how to detonate her belt?DAVIS: It is possible that she would simply have been told what to do. But she would have had to prove her inner strength, her commitment before then. ... I tend to think she was part of an organization, and had many times been asked to carry out or to help in operations. And this time, she was expected to carry out the ultimate operation, a suicide bombing.WHITFIELD: So her docile demeanor in this statement might intentionally be to kind of throw off her intent, that perhaps this is not the first time that, as you say, she has proven that she would be willing to carry out this plan, that there were other things that she probably had to do to win the trust of al-Zarqawi or his group?DAVIS: Absolutely. And I would caution us against stereotypes with regard to women. As we know, women can be very fine soldiers, and women also can be ruthless. Women can be shrewd. So I would caution us, this is one of the things, don't look for the typical suicide bomber. A woman can be a suicide bomber.WHITFIELD: So perhaps those who are studying whether it's al Qaeda in Iraq or other terror groups, that there's a possibility that, as you look at friends or family members that are linked to these group leaders, they are more likely now perhaps to be used to carry out such attacks? DAVIS: I would certainly caution against assuming that everyone whose relative may have been involved in a terrorist attack or may have been a suicide bomber also will commit such an attack. But in my studies, I have found clearly that sometimes these kinds of operations are committed by family members. They are cells that exist. And again, there has to be an anger. Something that has really pushed someone to the edge of wanting to actually use their bodies as a weapon.