BOSTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) -- A group of leading Harvard University professors have launched an angry protest over a report that the school's controversial president, Lawrence Summers, had told faculty members he was dissatisfied with an important dean and had considered firing him."This kind of backbiting is more than unprofessional," said a statement signed by 17 professors including seven department heads sent to Harvard Corp. Tuesday.The statement threatens to reignite controversy at the Ivy League school over Summers, who nearly lost his job over his remarks on women in January.It follows a report in the Harvard Crimson student newspaper that quoted two unnamed sources as saying Summers, a former U.S. treasury secretary, had planned to fire William Kirby, dean of arts and sciences, last year before he was weakened by uproar surrounding his January speech.The paper did not say why Summers wanted to fire Kirby."We remain deeply concerned that the work of our departments and university cannot be sustained under such conditions," said the statement, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters."We think it is highly improper if, as reported, the president of Harvard has been expressing to members of the faculty his 'deep dissatisfaction' with the dean of arts and sciences," it added.Summers faced scattered calls for his resignation after his January remark that intrinsic differences between the sexes may help explain why so few women work in the academic sciences.Those comments followed a public feud with the African-American studies faculty that erupted shortly after Summers became president in 2001. The once-vaunted department has seen an exodus of its top faculty.But since March, when the undergraduate faculty censured him over the comments and his general leadership of America's oldest university, he appears to have polished his image and has carefully avoided controversy after refusing to step down.Summers -- a Harvard alumni and former faculty member -- pledged to change his tone, better listen to the Harvard community and do more to draw women to science and engineering. His spokesman, John Longbrake, said he had replied to the statement in a letter to the professors.Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

NEW YORK (AP) -- For decades, getting more students into college has been the top priority of America's higher education leaders. But what's the point, a growing number of experts are wondering, when so few who go to school finish a degree?Just 54 percent of students entering four-year colleges in 1997 had a degree six years later -- and even fewer Hispanics and blacks did, according to some of the latest government figures. After borrowing for school but failing to graduate, many of those students may be worse off than if they had never attended college at all.Now the question of what to do about the country's unimpressive and stagnate graduation rates is on the agenda, from college presidents' offices to state houses. The latest sign of the trend comes Wednesday, when former Princeton President William Bowen lays out an ambitious research agenda on the question during a speech in New York.Normally, a scholar's decision to take on an academic topic is hardly news. But Bowen, president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is the kind of researcher whose work is so influential that his very curiosity about a subject can raise its profile.His data-driven studies on college athletes, affirmative action and college access for the poor have all sparked nationwide debate in recent years, and he attracted widespread attention last year with a speech at the University of Virginia that called for class-based affirmative action in college admissions.Bowen's latest project will examine in detail who graduates and who doesn't -- and why -- at a group of about 20 varied universities. In an interview, he described the message he will deliver to a Goldman Sachs Foundation gathering on issues facing college trustees as his opening salvo on the topic."The United States has always said it believes in opportunity and social mobility and fairness," Bowen said. "If you find that the odds of getting through are very different for different groups of people, that's something you ought to be concerned about."It's known that elite schools have generally higher graduation rates than non-elite schools. But what's less clear is why the graduation rates at seemingly similar colleges vary so much. For instance, the main campuses of Penn State and the University of Minnesota have comparable price tags, student SAT scores, and percentage of students from poor backgrounds. Yet Penn State graduates more than 80 percent of its students, and Minnesota barely half.Racial gaps are another concern. Overall, the federal figures report 57 percent of white students finish their degree, compared with 44 percent of Hispanics and 39 percent of blacks. A 2004 Education Trust report found a quarter of schools have gaps between whites and blacks of 20 points or more.Traditionally, experts say, blame has fallen on high schools, or on the students themselves. William Bowen's studies on college athletes, affirmative action and college access for the poor have sparked debate in recent years."You walk into a high school and 50 percent of the kids aren't graduating, people say 'What's the matter with this place? Get me the principal. Get me the school board. Let's put this place in receivership,"' said Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. "But people walk into (a college) and say 'What's the matter with these students? We gave them a chance to go to college."'While student responsibility is a factor, "an awful lot of institutions just assumed that getting them in the door was the most important thing," said Kati Haycock, director of The Education Trust.Now, both Haycock and Callan say there are signs that is changing. Graduation rates are on the agenda of Education Secretary Margaret Spellings' new national commission on higher education. There is growing research on how colleges can get students more involved in campus life, which makes them more likely to stay enrolled. And Callan says some state legislatures, even in the face of pressure to increase capacity, are exploring budget incentives for schools to improve graduation rates, not just increase enrollment."But you have to do it carefully, because if you put all the incentives on completion then you just encourage colleges to cherry pick the population" of students most likely to graduate, Callan said. "There's already too much of that."Sarah Turner, a University of Virginia education economist, has assembled data showing graduation rates have stagnated over recent decades even as enrollment has climbed. Explanations range from rising college costs to insufficient academic support to students simply not realizing how valuable a college degree is.But which factors matter most, and how they overlap, is not well understood, largely because the topic is hard to measure. Tracking enrollment numbers is relatively easy, but tracking what happens to individual students over six years is much harder.Bowen, however, specializes in studies that look at large numbers of individual students over time. His previous work tapped into a huge data set of student records from a group of about 20 highly selective colleges. Those schools have atypically high graduation rates, but Bowen says his new work will be based on data from a more representative group of less selective schools.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

LEESBURG, Virginia (AP) -- He was a five-star general who helped plan the invasion of Normandy, secretary of state and of defense under President Truman, and winner of the 1953 Nobel Peace Prize. As the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, he organized an army of 8.5 million Americans during World War II.But Gen. George C. Marshall was best-known as the architect of a sweeping economic recovery program for postwar Europe. The Marshall Plan provided $13 billion to rebuild, stabilize and unite 17 war-torn nations -- including Germany and Italy, the very countries that had just been defeated by the U.S. and its allies.Yet despite all these accomplishments, Marshall led a very private and simple personal life. Now Dodona Manor, the historic Virginia home where he lived from 1941 to his death in 1959, is opening to the public following a six-year, $7 million renovation undertaken by The George C. Marshall Center.Supporters of the restoration of Dodona Manor in Leesburg hope the house will give history buffs and Marshall fans further insight into the life of one of the most famous and influential men of the mid-20th century -- a man whose name is still revered in Europe."There have been many times when I've said, 'I know you don't want us to do this,' because he was a very modest man," Marshall Center Director Anne Horstman said, looking at a bust of Marshall in her office. "We will use this house as a means to showcase a remarkable figure of the 20th century, who did remarkable things for the world."The restoration of the manor was funded in part by 11 of the 17 nations that participated in the Marshall Plan, with Germany contributing the most of any European country, and other major donations from Austria, Great Britain, Italy and the Netherlands. That financial support underlines just how strongly Marshall's legacy still resonates with Europeans.The three-story Federal-style building, which has an open veranda framed by four white columns, was built in the early 19th century. The house had some structural damage; wallpaper had peeled off, furniture was rotting, the grounds were overgrown."A lot of the furniture was actually in very bad shape," said furniture conservator Ron Sheetz, who has worked on 35 to 40 pieces for the restoration. "Veneer lifting, veneer missing, mold, mildew -- you name it."The project has also included work on the interior, exterior and still-unfinished garden, Horstman said.Leesburg -- located 40 miles northwest of Washington -- is now suburban, but in Marshall's day, it was largely countryside. The view from his bedroom window looks over a muddy dirt patch where his prized vegetable garden used to be, and another spot where his wife had a rose garden. His office has a view of the roughly four acres that surround the house.The furnishings and decor are simple, in keeping with the way it looked when Marshall and his wife lived here. Marshall's lightly painted bedroom has little clutter, little furniture and a single bed tucked in the corner along the far wall. The library is filled with a soft yellow couch, a rugged brown reading chair, about 500 original family books and a vintage television in a huge cabinet with a tiny screen the size of a rearview mirror.Twenty-first century Americans accustomed to bad news about international policies may find it difficult to imagine, but experts say the Marshall Plan achieved its goals of promoting unity and economic recovery."The Marshall Plan compelled the nations of Europe, who for centuries had made war against each other, to band together for their own common good. It was a brilliant step in the right direction, and the journey toward unification, however arduous, continues to this day," said Rachel Thompson, director of education at the Marshall Center.Keith Wauchope, a career diplomat and former U.S. ambassador to Gabon who serves on the Marshall Center's board of directors, agrees that the Marshall Plan's impact is still being felt. "Perhaps the most profound legacy of the Marshall plan was the foundation it laid for economic integration, which was the precursor to today's European Union," he said.Dodona Manor will be open to visitors the first three weekends of December. It will close for the holidays and reopen weekends starting January 7.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration has yet to follow through on a two-year-old plan to find and plug holes in air cargo security and doesn't even have a schedule for completing it, according to congressional investigators.A report by the Government Accountability Office being released Wednesday says the Transportation Security Administration won't be able to protect cargo-carrying planes from terrorists unless it understands where they're vulnerable."According to officials, limited resources and competing priorities have delayed agency efforts to conduct such an assessment," said the GAO report, which was obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. The GAO is Congress' investigative and auditing arm.Critics say it makes no sense to screen people and luggage carefully but not the cargo on passenger planes. Last year, about 6 billion pounds (2.7 billion kilograms) of cargo -- a quarter of the cargo shipped by air in the United States -- was flown aboard passenger airplanes.Critics also say cargo planes need to be protected because terrorists could use them as weapons. Late in 2003, Homeland Security officials said intelligence indicated al-Qaeda might hijack cargo planes and attack nuclear plants, bridges or dams.Since the September 11 attacks, several stowaways have been discovered in the holds of cargo aircraft.Air cargo loaded onto passenger aircraft must be shipped by a company that has registered with the TSA. Cargo airlines have security plans and some cargo is randomly inspected.But the report noted that the TSA collects information on less than one-third of the registered companies that ship goods on passenger planes, and that information may not be reliable.The TSA has also exempted certain kinds of cargo from inspections because it doesn't view it as a risk, the GAO said. The report noted that visits to four airports showed that "a considerable amount of cargo" being loaded and unloaded on passenger airplanes was exempt from inspection.TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark said the agency required airlines to triple random inspections of cargo, hired 100 cargo inspectors and is testing new security technology."TSA has established a strong layered system of security in the air cargo arena and recognizes the need to do more," Clark said.Congressman Ed Markey, a Democrat who requested the report, said it confirms the concerns he has raised about loopholes in cargo security."GAO's report blows away the Bush administration's smoke screen that paperwork checks, random inspections and other half measures keep Americans safe," Markey said in a statement.Congressman Chris Shays, a Republican who also asked the GAO for the report, said it's time to implement tougher inspection regulations."Uninspected cargo is a risk to air passengers," Shays said in a statement.The TSA, which is part of Homeland Security, promised regulations to plug holes in air cargo security by the end of 2003. Congress gave the agency an August deadline to come up with the rules. The TSA has yet to do so.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Fans eager to get their first live look at the National Zoo's new baby panda need only wait a few more weeks.The zoo announced Tuesday that four-month-old Tai Shan will get his first visitors from the general public on December 8. The zoo's financial supporters and other VIPs have been filing past the cub since earlier this month.But anyone will be able to reserve a panda-viewing ticket on the zoo's Web site starting Monday.Visits are expected to be limited to 10 minutes, and will likely be confined to the morning hours.Zoo spokeswoman Peper Long tells The Washington Post that's when visitors have the best chance of seeing Tai Shan at his most active. Zoo officials say they're slowly introducing visitors to Tai Shan's den, so he can get used to having them around.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

SANTA BARBARA, California (AP) -- Greg Sanders once stalked his chief nemesis -- an otter nicknamed Phoky -- for 24 days.When Sanders, a biologist, finally captured the critter at Southern California's Anacapa Island, he shipped Phoky north to Monterey under an ambitious federal program to preserve otters while protecting shellfish divers from natural competition.But within six months, Phoky was back in forbidden waters. He was one of dozens of otters that surprised government biologists at almost every turn. Now, it seems, officials are throwing in the towel.In an admission that the slick-furred creatures refuse to respect boundaries imposed by man, authorities want to officially abandon their otter-relocation policy.If the government's battle of wits is at an end, the otters have won."This concept of taking animals and putting them in one place and expecting them to stay where we want them ... wasn't really working," said Sanders, 44, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist.The agency is taking public comment through January in hopes of scuttling the program, which cost several million dollars before it tailed off in 1993. Fishermen want the existing policy enforced.Environmentalists praise the idea of letting otters go where they want, saying it will aid the recovery of a species hunted almost to extinction.By the end of the 19th century, an otter population of 16,000 that had stretched from Mexico to Oregon had dwindled to 50 otters in a secluded cove off Big Sur. Today there about 2,700 southern otters off California's coast, according to estimates.To appease fishermen, Fish and Wildlife banned otters in 1987 from California waters south of Point Conception near Santa Barbara -- with one exception.Fearful that an oil spill could wipe out otters elsewhere, the agency tried to create a reserve for 150 otters on San Nicholas Island, about 80 miles south of Santa Barbara.Biologists had thought the otters would stay near San Nicholas, which has plenty of food and is surrounded by deep water that is hard to swim across. Even if the otters wanted to leave, it seemed improbable that they had the navigation skills to do it -- especially since they were taken to the island by plane."We flew 'em out there," Sanders said, "although we didn't blindfold them."The otters didn't play along. Some swam up to 200 miles to return to native habitat along the Central Coast.Fishermen and seafood processors say federal officials never did enough -- and complain that lobster and urchin fishing could be devastated if otters continue roaming Southern California waters."It comes down to a philosophy of, what do you believe in? Do you believe in animals or do you believe in human beings?" said Robert S. Juntz Jr., president of the Sea Urchin Processors Association and owner of a processing plant in Mendocino County that employs about 45 people.Otters are good at getting their prey -- but getting otters was never so easy.After waiting for an otter to fall asleep, wildlife crews would sneak up beneath it with a propeller-powered craft manned by a diver and snare it in a net. The otter then would be flown in a chartered plane or driven hundreds of miles to a Northern California beach for re-release. Some died from the stress.Total cost: $6,000 to $12,000 per otter.But before officials can catch an otter, they have to spot it. One recent day, as part of the agency's fall otter survey, Sanders spent two hours near the University of California at Santa Barbara, peering through a telescope at a kelp bed where something resembling an otter had been seen the day before.Sanders perked up when a potential otter bobbed near the surface, but it turned out to be a harbor seal. Or a log. Lots of things look like otters."You get these harbor seals that fake you out," Sanders said.Sometimes, though, Sanders catches a break -- as in the incident he refers to as "the drive-by sighting."Years ago, Sanders got a call from a lifeguard who had been cruising along coastal Highway 101 near Ventura when he spotted what he thought was an otter. Sanders was incredulous, but decided to follow up.It turned out to be Phoky.A few weeks ago, Sanders and other wildlife officials marked the 15th anniversary of Phoky's first capture near Anacapa. Phoky, though, didn't make it to the celebration. He had better places to be.Last Sanders heard, the otter was rumored to be in Mexico.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- The rate of Caesarean sections in the U.S. has climbed to an all-time high, despite efforts by public health authorities to bring down the number of such deliveries, the government said Tuesday.Nearly 1.2 million C-sections were performed in 2004, accounting for 29.1 percent of all births that year, the National Center for Health Statistics reported. That is up from 27.5 percent in 2003 and 20.7 in 1996.The increase is attributed to fears of malpractice lawsuits if a vaginal delivery goes wrong, the preferences of mothers and physicians, and the risks of attempting vaginal births after Caesareans.The C-section rate increased for all births, even those that involved healthy, first-time pregnancies with a full-term, single child. In 2000, the government announced a national public health goal of reducing the C-section rate for such births to 15 percent by 2010, but the actual rate now is about 24 percent and rising.The government also reported that more than a half-million infants were born preterm -- at less than 37 weeks' gestation -- in 2004, which is another record. And the proportion of infants with a low birth weight rose to 8.1 percent in 2004, from 7.9 percent the year before.Increases in multiple-fetus pregnancies and in preterm C-sections seem to help explain the preterm and low birth weight numbers, said Joyce Martin, an epidemiologist who co-wrote the report.A C-section is major surgery: A doctor cuts open a women's abdomen to retrieve the baby. The risks include infection and in rare cases death, and recovery time is longer than with a vaginal delivery. Doctors often perform a Caesarean when the fetus lacks oxygen or is in some other kind of life-threatening distress.For decades, C-sections were done in only a small fraction of births. In 1970, the national rate was 5 percent. Then it rose, surpassing 20 percent by the mid-1980s.Experts say many factors drove the rate: Mothers increasingly preferred the convenience of C-sections, which could be scheduled. Technological innovations let doctors better see problems before birth.The trend temporarily reversed in the early 1990s, partly because HMOs pressured doctors to curtail unnecessary procedures. But by the late 1990s, health insurers had cut back their C-section control efforts.Also, doctors became worried by studies that showed that women who deliver vaginally after having a C-section earlier suffer a ruptured uterus -- a potentially lethal complication for both mother and child -- in about 1 percent of such cases.Some hospitals have banned vaginal births after C-section, said Tonya Jamois, president of the International Cesarean Awareness Network, an advocacy organization."Women are struggling to avoid unnecessary surgery, but the medical system has abandoned them. For many, they have to submit to major surgery in order to get medical care," she said.The rate of vaginal deliveries has dropped to 9.2 percent of births after a previous Caesarean in 2004, compared with 28.3 percent in 1996.The rate of Caesareans among women who have not previously had one has shot up, climbing to 20.6 percent of such births in 2004, compared with 19.1 percent in 2003 and 14.6 in 1996.Dr. Sarah Kilpatrick, head of a practice committee for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said that 20 years ago, virtually no women asked for C-sections. But nowadays, she said, "the public gets the sense that it's like a zipper -- they open you and then close you back up."Some women believe they have a lower chance of becoming incontinent if they opt for a C-section, though the evidence to support that is not complete, Kilpatrick said.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- People injured by a vaccine against bird flu or anthrax would have to prove willful misconduct to bring a claim for damages against drug manufacturers or distributors, according to legislation being drafted behind the scenes by Republicans.A 10-page draft of the legislation obtained by The Associated Press says it would be up to the Health and Human Services secretary to declare that such misconduct occurred. If that declaration is made, the case must be heard in federal court.The measure, which would be included in a spending bill, would bar any punitive damages and limit awards for physical and emotional pain and suffering and other noneconomic damages to a maximum of $250,000.The draft legislation was provided to the AP separately by two parties opposed to its provisions, who did not want to be identified.An aide to Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, confirmed the majority leader was looking to add the liability protections to a spending bill.Amy Call said the legislation is important because "it would be a pity to appropriate $7.1 billion to purchase vaccines and antivirals but have no capacity to produce them."She said Frist is seeking clearly defined standards for an industry that is already heavily regulated."We would only provide liability protection in a serious situation and for a set period of time and for a specific purpose," Call said. "The protection would only go into effect if the secretary makes a declaration that we are grave danger and the public is advised to take the product."President Bush's plan for dealing with a flu pandemic called on Congress to give drug manufacturers sweeping immunity against lawsuits. "In the past three decades, the number of vaccine manufacturers in America has plummeted, as the industry has been flooded with lawsuits," Bush said last month. "Today, there is only one manufacturer in the United States that can produce influenza vaccine."Lawmakers from both political parties also have cited a need to grant the industry some protections. However, the protections described in the draft are quite broad, and some say they would make it extremely difficult for those harmed by a medicine to get any financial compensation."The Republican leadership in Congress is trying to do another special favor for the drug companies by slipping a provision into a massive spending bill to absolve the pharmaceutical industry of any responsibility to patients injured by dangerous drugs or vaccines, with no compensation for those who are harmed," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, said in a statement.He called for an open debate on the issue.Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyoming, chairman of the Senate's health committee, favors liability protections for drug manufacturers, but not as part of an appropriations bill, according to spokesman Craig Orfield."He does not want to address biodefense in a piecemeal fashion," Orfield said.Trial lawyers said they oppose having to prove "willful misconduct" to get financial compensation from an injury."Basically, as an average person, I would have to prove some scientist at Merck or some CEO somewhere had made a determination to hurt me," said Chris Mather, a spokeswoman for the Association of Trial Lawyers for America.Willful misconduct, according to the draft legislation, would occur if manufacturers or distributors of a particular product knew that it presented "a significant or unreasonable risk to human health" and there was a "conscious failure to act" to avoid that risk.If the HHS secretary rules against the petition, then those claiming to be harmed could seek judicial review from the U.S. Court of Appeals.Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Florida, a doctor who said he is involved peripherally in the talks, said he doesn't want protections so broad that people might be unwilling to take medicine in the event of a flu pandemic."The way it's being discussed is lacking," Weldon said.Meanwhile, House GOP leaders have delayed until December any action on President Bush's $7.1 billion request to prepare for a potential bird flu pandemic. The development came as negotiators on a huge spending bill covering health care and education programs met Monday night.The House rejected an almost $8 billion Senate plan to fight the flu, saying it will revisit the issue next month as it also turns to Bush's request to direct emergency funds already enacted for victims of Hurricane Katrina to new purposes such as rebuilding highways, levees and federal facilities damaged by the storm.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

NEWARK, New Jersey (AP) -- The author of a sassy blog about the federal judiciary, "Underneath Their Robes," is no longer cloaked in mystery, and it turns out it's a federal prosecutor.The writer of the Web log, which had humorous references to judges as "hotties" and "babes," purported to be a young, female lawyer who worked in San Francisco. But in an interview with The New Yorker magazine published this week the author identified himself as Assistant U.S. Attorney David Lat of Newark.The blog was taken off line Monday in a "mutually agreed upon decision," The Record of Bergen County reported Wednesday, citing an unidentified source. The site appeared to require a password to access it Wednesday.Lat, one of about 100 assistants working under U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie, was still employed there Tuesday, office spokesman Michael Drewniak told the newspaper. He declined to comment further.The blog contained sightings of different judges, including Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito Jr. going to Newark restaurant. It also had lists of "super hotties" and named "Sporty, Spicy Judges," such as Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who threw out the first pitch before a Chicago Cubs game.Two female judges, Kimba Wood and Kim McLane Wardlaw, were described as "babes" in one recent posting.The blog was written under the pen name of Article Three Groupie, or A3G. Article III is the section of the Constitution dealing with the judiciary.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After spending more than 30 years consulting for Democratic candidates, campaign operative Robert Shrum is using his pen to advance his own, liberal views."The book is about what I have seen the direction of progressive politics take, what happens to it and where I think it ought to go," Shrum told CNN in an interview.The veteran political operative was coy about what else he would say in his book, and Washington insiders were aflutter Wednesday about whether it would include sharp critiques of his clients and colleagues from past campaigns -- particularly the failed presidential bids of Sen. John Kerry and former Vice President Al Gore.Shrum did tell CNN he would not disparage Kerry or Gore but left open the door regarding criticizing his own party."I think we should wait for the book," Shrum said. "As long as people who in my view are attacking the Kerry campaign want to worry, I will just let them keep on worrying."Some of his critics are former Kerry colleagues, and they claim Shrum has not shouldered enough blame for the Massachusetts Democrat's unsuccessful attempt to defeat President Bush in 2004. In January, Shrum credited Bush aide Karl Rove with doing "a very good job of coming up with a plan to mobilize Republican voters," but he played down the importance of campaign advisers."I think it's always a mistake to believe that the people who do what I do are the drivers of this, rather than the candidates," he said. "In the end, it's the candidates."One former Kerry campaign staffer said Shrum wrongly consolidated power by simultaneously acting as media strategist and political strategist."He was a disruptive force on the campaign," said the staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Not nearly enough of that story has been told."Other Democrats, though, said Shrum might be able to provide some insight on how to revive the party's prospects. He has been a force in Democratic politics for three decades and has worked on eight presidential campaigns as well as countless congressional, gubernatorial and international races.While Shrum achieved success in congressional races, he never won a presidential contest for his clients."Shrum is a fabulous writer and a very intelligent person," said Anita Dunn, a Democratic media consultant. "He can potentially shed an interesting point of view on the Democratic Party during a time of great transition."Erik Smith, another veteran Democratic operative, suggested the book likely would shape Shrum's future consulting career."Depending on what he writes, it could be the end of a political consulting career or the rebirth of one," Smith said.But Shrum said his political consulting days are over, calling Sen. Jon Corzine, a Democrat who was elected governor of New Jersey last week, his final client. Now, Shrum said, he plans to focus on writing and teaching. He is a senior fellow at New York University Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.The book is expected to hit the bookshelves in the spring of 2007.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday lambasted Democrats accusing the Bush administration of misleading the country on prewar intelligence, calling their allegation "one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city.""What we're hearing now is some politicians contradicting their own statements and making a play for political advantage in the middle of a war," Cheney said. "The saddest part is that our people in uniform have been subjected to these cynical and pernicious falsehoods day in and day out."The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory, or their backbone. But we're not going to sit by and let them rewrite history. We're going to continue throwing their own words back at them."Cheney made the remarks at the Frontiers of Freedom's 2005 Ronald Reagan Gala. The conservative think tank was honoring its founder, former U.S. Sen. Malcolm Wallop, from the vice president's home state of Wyoming.Also Wednesday, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told CNN that the Democratic criticism was a "disservice.""That was an issue that was discussed during the 2004 campaign. It was looked at by the Senate Intelligence Committee, and it was looked at by the Silberman-Robb commission. They found no evidence to support it," Hadley said. "That issue needs to be closed. It does no good to anybody to keep relitigating that issue."The Silberman-Robb commission was appointed by President Bush to investigate the causes of intelligence failures in the run-up to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.That commission and the Intelligence Committee have said there was no evidence that political pressure skewed the intelligence, but they did not address how the administration made its case for war.Before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, Bush administration officials -- including President Bush, Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell -- cited intelligence information that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction to make their case for war. But after Hussein was toppled, no such weapons were found.Senate Democrats have recently stepped up their criticism of the Bush administration's handling of prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons, pressing for completion of a promised Intelligence Committee follow-up investigation into whether the intelligence was manipulated or exaggerated to build support for the invasion.Bush administration officials have insisted that while the intelligence turned out to be wrong, there was no attempt to mislead, noting that the Clinton administration and many Democrats in Congress also came to the conclusion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.In Wednesday's speech, Cheney charged that "some of the most irresponsible comments have, of course, come from politicians who actually voted in favor of authorizing force against Saddam Hussein.""In Washington, you can ordinarily rely on some basic measure of truthfulness and good faith in the conduct of political debate," Cheney said. "But in the last several weeks, we have seen a wild departure from that tradition."The vice president also said that before the war, "there was broad-based, bipartisan agreement that Saddam Hussein was a threat.""In a post-9/11 world, we couldn't afford to take the word of a dictator who had a history of WMD programs, who had excluded weapons inspectors, who had defied the demands of the international community, who had been designated an official state sponsor of terror, and who had committed mass murder."House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi lashed out at the vice president's own credibility."Just because he says it doesn't make it so," she told CNN. "There are pages [and] pages of statements that he has made that have been factually incorrect."Cheney's remarks are the latest salvo in a White House counteroffensive against the allegations that Bush and his administration misled the country, which have helped drag down the president's poll numbers. (Full story)On Monday, Bush himself responded to the charges, saying his critics are "playing politics with this issue and they are sending mixed signals to our troops and the enemy."Some Republicans, including Arizona Sen. John McCain and Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, have also criticized the Bush administration's handling of the war.Hagel on Tuesday defended the right to criticize the White House's war policies in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations."The Bush administration must understand that each American has a right to question our policies in Iraq and should not be demonized for disagreeing with them," Hagel said, according to a transcript on the council's Web site."To question your government is not unpatriotic -- to not question your government is unpatriotic," said Hagel, who was decorated for his military service in Vietnam.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Sam Cooke knew exactly what he wanted.He wanted to sing, and he did it beautifully. He wanted to be famous, and he shrewdly took opportunities, rising from local gospel star to nationally known crooner to pioneering soul man. He started his own label, SAR Records, ran his own publishing and kept pushing forward.He wanted to be in control of his destiny, and he was -- until he let part of himself get out of control on a grim night in December 1964, shot to death at a two-bit Los Angeles hotel.His drive was the stuff of legend. Observers sometimes wondered -- with the singing, the business, the women (lots of women), the sheer motion -- when he slept.Because even as a child, Cooke had his eye on big things."You know, sometimes I think he thought he was the smartest person in the world," his brother, L.C. Cook (Sam added the "e" many years later), tells author Peter Guralnick in Guralnick's exhaustive new Cooke biography, "Dream Boogie" (Little, Brown)."He believed he could do everything until the day he died," says Guralnick, relaxing on a couch in an Atlanta hotel.And yet, Guralnick acknowledges, for someone so accomplished Cooke was a hard man to know.Despite talking with family members, business partners, peers and prot�g�s -- Guralnick's hundreds of interviews included Specialty Records founder Art Rupe, manager Allen Klein, friend and partner J.W. Alexander, Cooke's siblings and the singer's wife, Barbara -- there was something about Cooke he couldn't quite get at."For someone so gregarious and charming, he was at heart an introspective, private person," the author says. "After I spoke to a couple hundred people, I realized that there was not a single person whose life he hadn't touched, not simply as an example but as a mentor. And yet, as true as those stories were -- and there were an infinite number -- they were all from the outside."'Full dimensions'What comes from the inside, he adds, is in the music. That's what attracted Guralnick, author of the acclaimed Elvis Presley biographies "Last Train to Memphis" and "Careless Love," to his subject in the first place."The gospel music put me over," he says. "Specifically hearing 'Live at the Shrine' ['The Great 1955 Shrine Concert'] in which he sings 'Nearer to Thee.' That just destroyed me. It made me see the full dimensions of Sam Cooke."Cooke was born in 1931, in Clarksdale, Mississippi (the same Clarksdale famous for its bluesmen and crossroads soul-selling), but raised in Chicago, Illinois, the son of a preacher man. He was a studious child and read voraciously, but he also had a voice -- a powerful, angelic instrument that caused men to sit up and women to swoon.But Cooke, as his records make clear, was no belter. He carried his audiences with a whisper, not a scream; with easy, sensual moves, not James Brown splits.His songs were conversational, casual and -- particularly in the early solo years -- gossamer, sometimes to the point of novelty ("Everybody Loves to Cha Cha Cha").Cooke had a knack for the effortless hook, the simple story. Guralnick describes the singer writing "Touch the Hem of His Garment," a hit for Cooke's mid-'50s gospel group, the Soul Stirrers. The Stirrers were riding in a car with producer Bumps Blackwell on the way to a recording session and had little material."So Sam said, 'Well, hand me the Bible,' " Blackwell recalls in "Dream Boogie." "And they handed Sam the Bible, and he was thumbing through it, skipping over it and skimming through it, and he said, 'I got one. Here it is right here.' " At which point, Guralnick continues, Cooke wrote the song on the spot.'Something's going to happen' Peter Guralnick worked on his Sam Cooke biography for almost 15 years -- and had it in his mind for many more.His songs, performed hopefully -- even downbeat tunes such as "Sad Mood" and "Chain Gang" -- often belie the conditions of Cooke's working life. As a black man, he was segregated from hotels, restaurants and concert venues -- particularly in a Jim Crow South just awakening to the civil rights movement, which forms a parallel story in Guralnick's book.Cooke also wanted to appeal to the widest possible audience, and it wasn't until well into his solo career that he made a conscious effort to add gospel flavorings to his pop releases, particularly the call-and-response of "Bring It On Home to Me.""When he went pop, he consciously bleached out the sound with 'You Send Me' [and others]. It was not accidental," Guralnick says.But Cooke was always growing, perhaps most notably in one of his most stunning songs (and greatest performances), "A Change Is Gonna Come." The song "just came to me," Cooke once recalled, and it electrified others with its bold lyrics and passionate melody.It also scared him; the song seemed to have rushed to life from his most vulnerable places."That really bothered him -- where it came from -- and also, he was afraid he had gone beyond his audience," Guralnick says. (Cooke held off on recording the song for months; it wasn't released until after his death.) "He knew it was a song he had to record, but he said he was never going to sing it [live]." (He did, but not much.)His friend Bobby Womack felt something else, an ominousness. "It feels eerie, like something's going to happen," he told Cooke.Guralnick shrugs off Womack's darker premonitions, but there's no question the song, at once elegiac and defiant, seems to represent a turning point. "It's highly suggestive in various ways," Guralnick says. Besides being one of Cooke's most personal songs, it became a theme of the civil rights movement.By the time he wrote "Change," Cooke was starting to feel some strain. He had big ideas for his future -- he was starting to develop inner-city talent in Los Angeles -- yet he was struggling with emotional scars: His only son had died in a drowning accident in June 1963, and his often-rocky marriage to Barbara was falling apart. Cooke was drinking more and becoming increasingly rootless.It culminated in that night in December 1964, when Cooke went to the Hacienda Hotel with a strange woman and ended up dead, shot by the hotel manager. Guralnick presents the story as plainly as possible, though mysteries remain: Cooke's behavior, what happened to a large bankroll he was assumed to carry around, inconsistencies with testimony. The answers, nearly 41 years later, are likely unknowable.Much like Sam Cooke himself, a man apart.Guralnick says that even his closest colleagues still talk about him with a sense of respect. "They looked up to him. Even Barbara -- she's still trying to understand Sam. And J.W. -- Sam was the person he'd liked to have been."Because, while he was alive, Cooke lived every moment to the fullest."I don't even know why I do what I do," he told Bobby Womack. "When I do it, it just comes."

DIPICHI, South Africa (Reuters) -- It is hard to believe that 19 shiny flat screen computers can cure the ills of this tiny community in South Africa's arid north where people battle every day against poverty, AIDS, illiteracy and hunger.Yet U.S. computer giant Hewlett-Packard Co. and South African President Thabo Mbeki are promoting Dipichi's smart new IT lab as a blueprint for how technology can trigger growth and tackle poverty across the world's poorest continent.Bridging the so-called digital divide in Africa became a popular mantra among aid workers and government officials during the tech boom that started in the late 1990s but it fell from favor as countless ill-conceived rural IT centers went unused.Skeptics asked what use a computer was when people were hungry, dying of AIDS and too poor to send their kids to school?But as multinationals start to invest in South Africa and elsewhere on the continent, they are touting technology as a panacea for development.Hewlett-Packard (HP) says the Dipichi project will help create jobs, improve farming and educate."I saved someone from a poisonous snake bite after I learnt about first aid from the computer," said Rosina Ledwaba, a 39-year old home-based carer who lives in one of the village's tiny thatched huts with her five children and husband.Next to the brightly painted shipping container that houses the IT lab, Viviane Marakalala proudly showed off the village vegetable garden, which has been packed with leafy cabbages since a group of women learnt about drip irrigation from a computer program."I had never seen a computer in my life but now I know how to use it," said Marakalala, 27. "We looked in the computer and it told us in our language how to use our water better."HP's former Chief Executive Officer Carly Fiorina and Mbeki launched the i-Community project -- one of only two in the world -- in 2002 at the World Sustainable Development conference in Johannesburg. The other project is in Kuppam, India.The project is being run in the Mogalakwena municipality in Limpopo province where 53 percent of the population is jobless and more live below the poverty line.Run in tandem with local government, it links libraries, community centers, clinics and schools around the main town of Mokopane to the Internet, and includes a PC refurbishing center, call center and micro-lender.It also includes IT centers in rural villages like Dipichi, which until recently had neither water nor electricity and can be reached only by a dirt road.In Dipichi, and in many other locations, the computers are operated using satellite technology and residents hope that their presence will pressure local authorities to link their villages to the electricity grid.Miriam Segabutsa, one of the project directors, conceded computer literacy might not seem like an obvious priority for a continent racked by disease and hunger, but insisted it could improve quality of life for ordinary people."It is not about teaching computers for the sake of computers, it is about giving people access to the information they need," she told Reuters.HP is not the only multinational to hand out free computers.Chipmaker Intel Corp. funds community IT centers in townships and software giant Microsoft is setting up "digital villages" to reach half a million poor South Africans.Cell phone companies have adapted wireless technology for myriad development uses like low-cost banking for the poor, delivering price information to rural farmers and monitoring AIDS patients in sprawling townships.Cellular technology has won praise thanks to the lightning spread of mobile phones across Africa but some commentators wonder whether computers and the Internet can be as useful.If only a minority of people in Africa's richest country have access to the Web, Internet use is even rarer in the rest of the continent, where populations are more scattered, resources scarce and where few multinationals dare to venture.Even if computers were available, many would not be able to use them in countries with some of the world's highest illiteracy rates."Bridging the digital divide is a non starter if we haven't even crossed the literacy divide," said Arthur Goldstuck, head of South African technology research company World Wide Worx."There is a danger of ... delivering technology without making sure people can use it."One-off projects like the i-Community that help a handful of people are meaningless when high phone call and Internet access costs keep communications out of most people's reach, he said.But HP and the government say the i-Community project is about opportunity not aid, and can be easily replicated."Most digital divide projects have had a philanthropic impetus, but HP has said that if this thing is to be sustainable, it has to have a solid business case," said Clive Smith, HP's project director. "It can't be sustainable if it is dependent on grants."HP and the local government want to turn the project into a business, which might include handing community IT centers over to local entrepreneurs.After that, they hope to launch more projects across the developing world, eventually making them self-sufficient."Dipichi is making history," Mbeki told crowds of cheering villagers during a recent visit to the project. "Dipichi can show the whole of South Africa how to do development."But concrete plans for turning the unwieldy project into a business are hazy and some commentators are skeptical."It's a bit of a pipe dream to expect this to become self-funding. You can't expect an impoverished community to bear those kinds of costs," said Goldstuck.Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

PARIS, France (CNN) -- French senators Wednesday joined the country's National Assembly in voting to extend a state of emergency for three more months amid a wave of rioting in numerous cities and suburbs.The law allows local governments to decide whether to impose curfews to curb the rioting, which has persisted for nearly three weeks. The renewed emergency declaration takes effect on November 21.Only a few cities have imposed the nighttime restrictions, but the violence has eased in recent days."French people want us to re-establish the order of the republic," Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said. "We will answer their expectation, because we can't build a future in violence."Sarkozy has also stepped up calls for France to introduce measures to help minorities find jobs, directly challenging President Jacques Chirac.Boosted by an opinion poll showing strong voter support for his tough response to France's worst civil unrest in almost 40 years, Sarkozy on Wednesday fanned controversy over how to bring disaffected youths into mainstream French society, Reuters reports.Sarkozy has called before for "affirmative action" to tackle higher than average unemployment among minorities.The timing of his appeal, two days after Chirac ruled out such steps in a televised address, underlined their differences."I challenge the idea that we all start at the same starting line in life," Sarkozy told L'Express magazine in an interview."Some people start further back because they have a handicap -- color, culture or the district they come from. So we have to help them," he said.The riots began after the October 27 deaths of two young men of North African descent who were electrocuted when they hid in an electrical substation because they thought police were chasing them.Young people in poorer neighborhoods -- many populated largely by immigrants and their French-born children -- began rioting and burning cars in an eruption of their frustration at the problems of unemployment and discrimination.On Monday, President Chirac stressed in a nationally televised address that there must be respect for the law but said that respect also called for generosity to help the nation's weakest citizens and for a halt to the "poison" of discrimination.He called on a wide range of groups -- parents, businesses, trade unions, political parties -- to honor diversity and to end discrimination.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency is stepping up the pressure on an estimated 53,000 families still staying in hotel rooms after losing their homes to hurricanes Katrina and Rita to get into longer-term housing by the end of the month.The agency said Tuesday it will stop paying hotel bills December 1 for most of the families, even though housing advocates say they fear they won't have enough time to find other places.Most of the people still staying in hotels and motels are in Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and Mississippi.FEMA previously had set the December deadline as a goal to have evacuees out of hotels and into travel trailers, mobile homes or apartments until they find permanent homes.Tuesday's announcement marked the first time the agency said it would cease directly paying for hotel rooms that have cost FEMA $274 million since the storms struck.FEMA granted exceptions to evacuees in hotels in Louisiana and Mississippi, where there is a shortage of housing. Evacuees in those states have until January 7 to find homes, said David Garratt, FEMA's acting director of recovery. He said 9,830 households remain in hotels in Louisiana and 2,508 in Mississippi."There are still too many people living in hotel rooms, and we want to help them get into longer-term homes before the holidays," FEMA acting Director R. David Paulison said in a statement. "Across the country, there are readily available, longer-term housing solutions for these victims that can give greater privacy and stability than hotel and motel rooms."Those affected by these storms should have the opportunity to become self-reliant again and reclaim some normalcy in their lives."After December 1, most hurricane evacuees who aren't ready to leave hotels will have to pay the costs out of pocket -- either with FEMA rental housing aid they receive or from their own funds.Katrina hit on August 29, followed by Rita on September 24.Houston, Texas, Mayor Bill White demanded that FEMA grant a similar extension to the city as it moves 19,158 evacuees out of city hotels."We have moved more evacuees out of hotels than any other city has ever had in hotels," White said in a statement. "So we encourage those new to it to ask us, not tell us, how to do it."The hotel program marked FEMA's second step in finding homes for hundreds of thousands of evacuees displaced after the storms. Over the last month, FEMA has moved 8,748 people out of emergency shelters and into hotels and other transitional housing, Garratt said. As of Tuesday, 2,491 evacuees remain in shelters, down from a high of 321,000, he said.Also by December 1, thousands of evacuees who receive FEMA housing aid in vouchers issued though state or local authorities will have to sign a rental lease to remain eligible for the funding. Three months later, on March 1, FEMA will end the voucher program and send housing aid directly to evacuees who qualify.Additionally, the six-month leases for evacuees living on cruise ships will end March 1, Garratt said.Texas Gov. Rick Perry, whose state welcomed many Katrina evacuees, said: "We recognize and agree with FEMA's decision to make personal responsibility a part of the hurricane recovery process. However, my great concern is that there is still no long-term housing plan for the hundreds of thousands of Katrina victims who lost everything -- including their homes -- as a result of the storm, and come March 1 many of them may find themselves with no long-term housing options."Housing advocates said FEMA has not given evacuees enough time to find homes and sign leases -- a process that can take months in rental markets already nearing capacity.So far, FEMA says it has provided $1.2 billion in transitional housing assistance to more than 500,000 households displaced by the hurricanes.The Red Cross had not seen details of the plan Tuesday, but spokesman Michael Spencer said "the time has passed for emergency housing.""Interim housing is the responsibility of the state and federal government, and we have to assume they have a plan in place," he said.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

FAIRFAX, Virginia (CNN) -- The woman accused of robbing four banks while talking on her cell phone -- earning the nickname the "cell phone bandit" -- was arraigned Wednesday and ordered held without bond.Appearing in a Virginia courtroom, Candice Rose Martinez, 19, wore a green jumpsuit with "Sheriff's Department" written on the back and answered, "Yes," when Judge Ian O'Flaherty asked if she spoke English.The judge scheduled her next court appearance -- a preliminary hearing -- for January 4. Martinez, a community college student, also faces federal charges. A hearing in federal court has not been scheduled.Martinez's demeanor in Fairfax District Court differed from that of the woman in bank surveillance video, who chatted casually on a cell phone as she allegedly robbed four Wachovia Bank branches in suburban Washington. (Watch as the suspect is taken into custody -- 2:12)The young woman, who was taken into custody Tuesday, has admitted to the four robberies, according to an affidavit filed against her boyfriend, Dave Chatram Williams, who is accused of driving the getaway car during the holdups.According to the affidavit, Williams, a former Wachovia employee, also has admitted his alleged role, the affidavit said. He was arrested Monday.The robberies took place between October 12 and November 4, police said.In three of the holdups, cameras captured a woman talking on a cell phone as she presented a box containing a note to tellers. In the fourth robbery, she did not carry a box but displayed a handgun and handed the teller a note, police said.An affidavit filed in Fairfax County in connection with her arrest detailed one of the notes, which was taped to an empty box. The robber presented the note to a teller on October 22, the affidavit said.The note said, "You have 40 seconds to put all your money in the box, do not make any sudden moves," according to the court document.The suspect then asked the teller to put all $100 and $50 bills in the box, saying, "I need you to empty all the drawers -- you have three," the suspect said, according to the document.Growing impatient, the robber protested, "You're taking too long, you have 40 seconds," according to the affidavit.Authorities seized $3,500 in cash from Martinez's Chantilly, Virginia apartment -- twenty $100 bills and thirty $50 bills secured with Wachovia bands -- the affidavit said. They also confiscated a cellular phone box, a high school yearbook, a computer, some Louis Vuitton purses and a digital camera, according to the affidavit.CNN's Kevin Bohn and Terry Frieden contributed to this report.

The following is the second in a series of journal entries from a member of the CareerBuilder.com community about losing a job and searching for a new one. At his request, his real name has been withheld so that he can relay his experiences with his former company and potential employers with impunity."Joe" (his nom de blog) is 45 years old and was let go from a management position at a major consumer products company. He relocated with his family to take the job a little more than a year ago. He has agreed to write an online diary about his experience.I read once that most companies fire people on Tuesday mornings. That way the exiled workers have time to pull themselves together before going home to their families or, even worse, their empty apartment. It also gives them three days to begin their job search rather than sit and stew over a weekend.I spent my Tuesday afternoon at the library pulling together a list of friends and contacts whom I could call to discuss my future plans. That evening I took my son, Jacob, to his indoor soccer league, which was finishing up its season.Being temperamentally unsuited to coach 6-year-olds at anything, I sat in the stands and watched. Turnout was low, and they had to mix up teams. The volunteer coach designated two captains and had them choose sides.I watched in agony as my son was one of the last picked. I felt an abject failure, not only as a professional but also as a role model for my child.Even though there were barely enough kids to play, Jacob began the game on the sidelines. "Rejected like his father," I thought.By the third quarter, I began to feel immense anger. "If they think he stinks so badly, let's leave," I fumed.I began to put on my coat and storm down the bleachers when suddenly Jacob was put in as goalie.A huge grin spread over his face as he skipped out onto the court. He was in the game.I watched nervously as he danced about in the goal cheering as his team scored and watching tensely as the ball approached his goal. The other team's "captain" kicked the ball toward the goal, and Jacob jumped out and retrieved it. His teammates and their parents cheered.Jacob began to hop up and down, pumping his spindly arms in the air. He was so elated he didn't see the next shot coming. It landed in the net for a goal.My moment of euphoria ended, and thankfully, soon after, so did the game. The teams did their congratulatory hand slaps. As we rode home, I asked him if he had a good time. "Oh yes, it was awesome," he chirped.That's when I realized I'd found my job-hunt mentor.Jacob certainly isn't a star, but he always plays to please himself and have fun. No matter how many goals he lets by, no matter how many shots he misses, no matter how many hyper-competitive parents grumble at the coach to take Jacob out of the game, he comes back for more -- with an unwavering conviction that eventually he'll make it.And it's not just on the soccer field. Who but an intractable optimist would keep asking to watch "Finding Nemo" after being refused 1,000 times? If he could keep getting up and starting over, so could I."How was your day, Dad?" he asked. "Not, so great," I answered. "But things will get better soon."Eventually I'd tell him what had happened. But I wasn't going to spoil our moment. At least I knew I wouldn't be a loser in his eyes. (At least not for now -- it will be a couple of more years before he's a teenager.)

DETROIT, Michigan (AP) -- Former "Desperate Housewives" actor Page Kennedy says he wasn't fired from the hit show because of any improper behavior.Kennedy said officials merely wanted to recast his role and that reports of him being let go for on-set nudity are false."There are a lot of stories that have been told, but the truth of the matter is that Touchstone (the show's producer) decided to go in a new direction, and they bought out my contract," Kennedy told the Detroit Free Press.Publicists for the series have said Kennedy, who joined the show this season, was fired earlier this month after a "thorough investigation by the studio" of allegations of improper conduct made against him.Kennedy, 28, said he's concerned about the damage the allegations could do to his image, at least in the short term."I feel that my life will be looked at under a microscope now," he told The Detroit News. "Anything that I do or am perceived to do will make news."Kennedy played Caleb, a character shrouded in mystery and seen only briefly as he was held captive in the basement of Wisteria Lane newcomer Betty Applewhite (Alfre Woodard). The role has been recast, and Kennedy's final appearance on the ABC series aired Sunday.Kennedy, who has appeared in the HBO series "Six Feet Under," plays a small role in the "In the Mix," which stars Usher and is set to open on November 23.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) -- A summit focusing on narrowing the digital divide between the rich and poor residents and countries opened Wednesday with an agreement of sorts on who will maintain ultimate oversight of the Internet and the flow of information, commerce and dissent.The World Summit on the Information Society had been overshadowed by a lingering, if not vocal, struggle about overseeing the domain names and technical issues that make the Internet work and keep people from Pakistan to Canada surfing Web sites in the search for information, news and buying and selling.Negotiators from more than 100 countries agreed late Tuesday to leave the United States in charge of the Internet's addressing system, averting a U.S.-EU showdown at this week's U.N. technology summit.U.S. officials said early Wednesday that instead of transferring management of the system to an international body such as the United Nations, an international forum would be created to address concerns. The forum, however, would have no binding authority.U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce Michael Gallagher said the deal means the United States will leave day-to-day management to the private sector, through a quasi-independent organization called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN."The Internet lives to innovate for another day," he told The Associated Press.Negotiators have met since Sunday to reach a deal ahead of the U.N. World Summit on the Information Society, which starts Wednesday. World leaders are expected to ratify a declaration incorporating the deal during the summit, which ends Friday.While the summit drew thousands of people from around the world, most western countries opted not to send their top-ranking leaders, preferring instead to send government workers and low-level figures.However, other leaders were scheduled to attend, including Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, Senegal's Abdulaye Wade and Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was due to fly to the summit Wednesday, organizers said.The summit was originally conceived to address the digital divide -- the gap between information haves and have-nots -- by raising both consciousness and funds for projects.Instead, it has centered largely around Internet governance: oversight of the main computers that control traffic on the Internet by acting as its master directories so Web browsers and e-mail programs can find other computers.The accord reached late Tuesday also called for the establishment of a new international group to give more countries a stronger say in how the Internet works, including the issue of making domain names -- currently done in the Latin languages -- into other languages, such as Chinese, Urdu and Arabic.Under the terms of the compromise, the new group, the Internet Governance Forum, would start operating next year with its first meeting opened by Annan. Beyond bringing its stakeholders to the table to discuss the issues affecting the Internet, and its use, it won't have ultimate authority.Gallagher said the compromise's ultimate decision is that leadership of the Internet, and its future direction, will remain in the hands of the private sector, although some critics contend that the U.S. government, which oversees ICANN, if only nominally, could still flex its muscle in future decisions."The rural digital divide is isolating almost 1 billion of the poorest people who are unable to participate in the global information society," the agency said in a statement.Ahead of the summit, rights watchdogs say, both Tunisian and foreign reporters have been harassed and beaten. Reporters Without Borders says its secretary-general, Robert Menard, has been banned from attending.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Broadcasting pioneer Ralph Edwards, who spotlighted stars and ordinary people as host of the popular 1950s show "This Is Your Life," died Wednesday of heart failure. He was 92.Publicist Justin Seremet confirmed that Edwards, whose career as producer and host included "Truth or Consequences" and "People's Court," had died. Other details were not immediately available.Edwards first hit it big in radio in 1940 with "Truth or Consequences," a novelty show in which contestants who failed to answer trick questions -- the "truth" -- had to suffer "the consequences" by performing some elaborate stunt.Then came television. The Federal Communications Commission approved commercial broadcasts beginning on July 1, 1941, after a few years of experimental broadcasts, and NBC's New York station was the first to make the changeover."Amazingly enough, I did 'Truth or Consequences' on television in July 1941. It was the first commercial show for NBC," Edwards recalled."A 10-second commercial was $9," he said.The United States' entry into World War II five months later disrupted TV's progress. "Truth or Consequences," which prospered on radio in the interim, returned to television in 1950.Earlier that same year, the citizens of little Hot Springs, New Mexico, voted 1,294-295 to change the town's name to Truth or Consequences. Edwards had promised to broadcast the radio show from the town that agreed to the change."In those days, nothing seemed impossible," he once said."This Is Your Life" also was born on radio and then migrated to television, running on NBC-TV from 1952 to 1961. It featured guests, many of them celebrities, who were lured in on a ruse, then surprised by Edwards announcing, "This is your life!" Relatives and old friends then would be brought on to reminisce about the guest.Among the people he caught unaware were Marilyn Monroe, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, Bob Hope, Andy Griffith, Buster Keaton, Barbara Eden, Bette Davis, Shirley Jones, Jayne Mansfield and Carol Channing.But not all guests were entertainers. A 1953 episode profiled Hanna Bloch Kohner, a survivor of the Holocaust."At least half of our guests were ordinary people," Edwards said. "In the beginning we didn't use celebrities at all. But when we did, I think it humanized the stars and gave them more appeal."SurprisesEdwards said he and his staff used all kinds of subterfuge to surprise guests. Some would run away and be pulled back, all in fun, but broadcaster Lowell Thomas made headlines when he refused to play along on a 1959 show."He saw instantly what was going on, and nobody puts anything over on Lowell Thomas," Edwards recalled years later. "He tore the show apart. I said, 'You're going to enjoy this,' and he said, 'I doubt that very much.' ""His third-grade teacher said he knew every rock and rill in the Rockies. And he said, 'Yeah, and I knew every saloon, too,' " Edwards recalled. "The rating kept going up during the show as people called their friends to tune in."According to the reference book "The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows," one person was off limits for the surprise treatment: Edwards himself. He told staff members he would fire every one of them if they put him on.Both "Truth" and "This Is Your Life" have periodically returned to television in syndicated form.Just last week, it was announced that a new version of "This is Your Life," with Regis Philbin ("Live with Regis and Kelly") as host, is planned by ABC. Philbin previously was host of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" for the network.Over the years, Edwards kept himself busy as a producer.Edwards had a hand in other shows, producing or creating "Name That Tune," "Cross Wits," "Superior Court," "It Could Be You," "Place the Face," "About Faces," "Funny Boners," "End of the Rainbow," "Who in the World," "The Woody Woodbury Show" and "Wide Country." In the '80s, Ralph Edwards Productions' show "The People's Court" made a star of retired Judge Joseph A. Wapner."We've seen many changes and enjoyed them all," Edwards said in a 1999 interview. "I still find 'live' the most exciting, particularly for my type of shows."Edwards broke into radio in 1929 in Oakland as a 16-year-old high school student.He worked at KROW and KFRC in San Francisco while attending college at the University of California at Berkeley."The changes in both radio and television are mind-boggling," Edwards said. He recalled that until 1948 his radio version of "Truth or Consequences" was done twice each Saturday, once for the east coast and again three hours later for the West Coast."We would use the same script, but all new contestants," he said.Edwards said he went back to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, dozens of times over the years.Besides changing the name, townspeople made Edwards an honorary member of the Sheriff's Posse. The name continues a half-century later. Periodic efforts to reverse the change failed."I am truly proud of my namesake city and have enjoyed a wonderful association throughout the years," he said.He also appeared in several motion pictures: "Seven Days Leave," "Radio Stars on Parade," "Bamboo Blonde," "Beat the Band," "I'll Cry Tomorrow," "Manhattan Merry-Go-Round" and "Radio Stars of 1937."Edwards' wife, Barbara, died in 1993 after 53 years of marriage. Their children are a son, Gary, who worked with Edwards; and two daughters, Christine and Laurie.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

SACRAMENTO, California (AP) -- Reporters swarmed a gift shop Wednesday where a winning $315 million lottery ticket was sold, then shifted to a medical center in Garden Grove when they were told seven of its employees shared the golden ticket.The "lucky seven," as people have begun to call them, asked to stay anonymous for now, said Kaiser Permanente spokeswoman Barbara Shipnuck.The winners have 180 days to redeem the ticket. Big lottery winners often delay coming forward while they get tax and financial advice.The prize was the third-biggest won with a single ticket in the history of lotteries in the United States. The numbers drawn Tuesday night were 2-4-5-40-48 and mega number 7.The winning ticket was bought at Rainbow Water, Juice, Flower & Gift. Raquel Cordova, 20, was busy Wednesday giving interviews and selling more lottery tickets at the shop not far from Disneyland.Cordova, 20, said that a couple of years ago, her parents Guadalupe, 53, and Jose Cordova, 53, were considering selling the store but changed their minds."My mom's like, 'No, no, someday I'll hit it big and I'll be able to retire," Raquel said.The Cordova family will receive $1 million for selling the winning ticket.Just last month, an Oregon family claimed the largest jackpot in U.S. lottery history won by a single ticket, $340 million. The numbers were drawn October 19 in the other big multistate lottery, Powerball. Until then, the richest undivided lottery jackpot in U.S. history was the $314.9 million Powerball jackpot won by a West Virginia man on Christmas Day 2002.On May 9, 2000, the jackpot for the Big Game -- the forerunner of Mega Millions -- grew to $363 million. But that record amount wound up being split between two winning tickets.Besides California, Mega Millions is played in Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Washington.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

(CNN) -- A 16-year-old apprentice jockey died Wednesday after being thrown from his horse at a track near Columbus, Ohio, police and track officials said.Josh Radosevich was thrown off the thoroughbred Nyoka during the third race at Beulah Park, in Grove City. Radosevich was trampled by at least two horses after falling, and was pronounced dead at a Columbus hospital, a Grove City police report stated."We mourn the loss of this young and spirited jockey," the track said in a statement issued Wednesday evening.The accident occurred about 1:05 p.m., police said. The teenager was leading the field of 10 when his mount stumbled in the muddy track and pitched him forward.The horse suffered a severe leg fracture and was euthanized at the track, Beulah Park officials said.The remaining 10 races were canceled. Radosevich, who was a sophomore in high school, had recorded 14 wins.Another jockey, Jorge Collazo Jr., was knocked off his horse during a collision following Radosevich's fall. He was treated and released, the track said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The CIA has concluded that Cuban President Fidel Castro suffers from Parkinson's disease and could have difficulty coping with the duties of office as his condition worsens, an official said Wednesday.The assessment, completed in recent months, suggests the nonfatal but debilitating disease has progressed far enough to warrant questions among U.S. policymakers about the communist country's future in the next several years."The assessment is that he has the disease and that his condition has progressed. There appear to be more outward signs," said an official who is familiar with the assessment. (Watch: How healthy is Castro? -- 2:17)Bush administration officials and members of Congress have already been briefed on the findings about Castro. The Cuban leader, 79, has been in power on the island of 11 million people since leading a 1959 revolution. He has long been at ideological odds with Washington.But U.S. diplomats played down the significance of any CIA assessment and said they were not using such intelligence to make policy decisions about Castro or Cuba."Do we see him losing his grip over the country? No," said a State Department official, who asked not to be named because he was discussing intelligence conclusions. "We are not in any way adapting how we plan for the day Castro is gone based on an assessment that he might have Parkinson's."The CIA based its assessment on a variety of evidence, including observations of Castro's public appearances and the opinions of doctors employed by the agency."If the assessment is correct, you could expect there to be effects on his ability to come to grips with fresh challenges over the next several years," said the U.S. official who has seen the CIA report. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the document is classified."It could have implications for the way Castro functions, and by natural course, the way the Cuban government functions," the official added.The Rumor MillCuban officials declined to comment on the CIA assessment. They insisted Castro was in good health when he failed to show up at a summit of Ibero-American leaders in Spain in October.Castro has long been the subject of rumors of illnesses, including Parkinson's, despite a generally strong physical constitution. Many of the reports up to now have come from the anti-communist Cuban-American community in Florida.Castro has dismissed them as the work of his enemies who wish to see him dead. In a recent television interview with Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona, Castro joked the rumors were so common that the day he died, nobody would believe it. (Read about Castro's remarks to Maradona)The Cuban leader's pace has slowed noticeably since tumbling to the floor after a speech a year ago. But his stamina appears unabated and he still gives long speeches. (Read about his fall and the State Department reaction)Castro's brother Raul, head of the armed forces, has been designated as his successor and the Cuban leader has said that he expects Cuba's political system to outlive him."If it's true and he does have it, then it's still an open question anyway as to how much it might -- somewhere further in the future -- affect how he runs Cuba. So we would not use this kind of conclusion to inform our policymaking," the State Department official said of the CIA assessment.Cuba and the United States have no diplomatic relations, and Washington imposed an economic embargo on Havana 43 years ago. It is still in effect.Parkinson's is a chronic, irreversible disease that affects about 1 percent of people over the age of 65 worldwide. Among notable sufferers are actor Michael J. Fox, boxing legend Muhammad Ali and former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno.In October 2004 when Castro tripped and broke his left knee and right arm after a speech, he refused tranquilizers and general anesthetic during a three-hour operation, telling Cubans he was fully in command of government affairs.He has dismissed reports of illnesses ranging from stroke and brain hemorrhage to heart attack and hypertensive encephalopathy. Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Five U.S. Marines were killed in Iraq on Wednesday during a firefight near the Syrian border in Ubaydi, the military said.Sixteen insurgents were also killed in the fighting, part of Operation Steel Curtain, a U.S.-Iraqi military offensive aimed at clearing insurgents out of towns in northwestern Iraq.The announcement brought the number of U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war to 2,079, according to U.S. military reports.Operation Steel Curtain was launched in Husayba on November 5 and forces have also been deployed into parts of the nearby city of Karabila.Husayba had become a command and control center for insurgents and foreign fighters, the military has said. News of the American casualties came as a prominent Sunni Muslim party called for an international investigation into allegations that detainees were being tortured in an Iraqi Ministry compound.The facility allegedly held more than 160 detainees -- some who showed signs of apparent torture.The Iraqi Islamic Party, which helped broker the deal that brought a national constitution to a national referendum in October, said Wednesday the detainees were mostly Sunnis and the human rights violations at the compound were part of a campaign to marginalize Sunnis ahead of another nationwide vote next month."The Islamic Party appeals to the U.N., Islamic Conference Organization, Arab League and human rights organizations all over the world to condemn the flagrant violations of human rights under the current government and demand them to launch an international investigation so that those involved would get just punishment," the party said in a statement."I have the full story of this shelter," said party secretary-general Tariq al-Hashimi. "I have all the documents about that." (Watch: Footage of abuse in similar cases in Iraq -- 3:04)"Nobody except the Sunni community are reporting missing people," al-Hashimi said. "I have a concrete knowledge about what I am talking about. I am sure those people being discovered in this shelter are exclusively Sunni people."He displayed a report with what he said were photographs of abuse victims and a CD that he said contained the information he planned to present to the United Nations and other international organizations. Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said Tuesday the prisoners were found malnourished and possibly tortured by government security forces at a Baghdad lockup. He has launched an Iraqi-led investigation with U.S. assistance.Deputy Interior Minister Hussein Kamal has dismissed as "nonsense" allegations that a majority of detainees were Sunni."There are Turkomen from Tal Afar, there are Kurds, Arabs, Sunni and Shia," he told CNN.He also denied an allegation that the facility was run by the Badr organization -- the military arm of the Supreme Council of Iraqi Revolution in Iraq Shiite party."These are employees of the Ministry of Interior, not affiliated with one organization or another," he said.The U.S. military said they found the detainees Sunday when they entered a building controlled by the ministry while looking for a missing 15-year-old boy. The boy was not there, but the detainees were. Iraqi police said the building was run by "police commandos" who work for the Interior Ministry.In Iraq, police answer to the Interior Ministry, while the Iraqi military answers to the Ministry of Defense.While the U.S. military would not confirm the condition in which they found the detainees, Iraqi police said they had been tortured. Kamal confirmed that human rights abuses had taken place and that the facility was run by the Interior Ministry's Special Investigation Unit."I saw signs of physical abuse by brutal beating -- one or two of the detainees were paralyzed and had their skin peeled off various parts of the body," he told CNN Tuesday.Kamal said the building housed 161 detainees.Al-Hashimi said the presence of the facility was not entirely a surprise -- it was merely "the missing link" in what he said was a series of arrests of Sunnis that ended with either a missing person report or a body."When I talked to minister of the interior, I told him many times I have a list of missing detainees," he said. "He (Interior Minister Bayan Jabr) said I could go and check the prisons, and he ... told me about 4 or 5 official prisons.""I sent my staff to go and check the prisons," al-Hashimi said. "At the end of the day, I didn't discover those detainees. So it gave me the impression that there are hidden and secret camps in fact being again directed and managed by Ministry of Interior, but no one knows about them."Al-Hashimi called for Jabr's immediate replacement and said he feared there were more such facilities."I am sure that there are many other secret camps being used by Ministry of the Interior, and we have to move very quickly, make this survey and try to announce to the Iraqi people," he said."Whoever might have some sort of information about these secret camps should present it to a reliable source and try to gather this information and pass it to the American troops or whoever will now manage the file of this case."Other developmentsThe U.S. military reported that a Task Force Baghdad soldier died Wednesday from wounds sustained when a roadside bomb went off a day earlier northwest of Baghdad.Three U.S. soldiers died Tuesday when their patrol struck a roadside bomb northwest of Baghdad, the military said. The soldiers were assigned to Task Force Baghdad. Their names were withheld pending notification of relatives. The incident is under investigation, the military said. The deaths bring the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq to 2,072.The U.S. military said it had captured a key leader of al Qaeda in Iraq. Ayadah Husayn Matar, known as the emir of Sada, was among suspected insurgents and foreign fighters captured earlier this month in a raid on a safe house. Matar, also known as Abu Ahmed, was responsible for all terrorist operations in Sada. The Pentagon has acknowledged U.S. troops used white phosphorous as a weapon against insurgents in Falluja last year. But they denied allegations in an Italian television news report that the spontaneously flammable material had been used against civilians. (Full story)CNN's Enes Dulami, Cal Perry and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.

BUSAN, South Korea (AP) -- Counseling resolve and patience, U.S. President George W. Bush is looking for a show of unity among Asian leaders to press North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.Among those gathering here for a 21-nation summit are the leaders of the five countries -- the United States, China, South Korea, Russia and Japan -- negotiating with North Korea for its nuclear disarmament. Bush was meeting Thursday with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun after talks Wednesday in Japan with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that included a call for dismantling North Korea's nuclear program.South Korea has resisted the tough approach advocated by the Bush administration for ending the impasse with North Korea, opposing the idea of military action if diplomacy fails.South Korea also is cool to the idea of taking the standoff to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions."The tone is different sometimes because, of course, for the people of the Republic of Korea, the demilitarized zone is right at their doorstep," said Mike Green, senior director for Asian affairs on the National Security Council.Green said Seoul, the South Korean capital, was as close to the demilitarized zone separating the two countries and to North Korean artillery as the White House was to Dulles International Airport, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) outside Washington."It's very much a clear and present threat for the people," he said.Green, talking with reporters on Air Force One as it flew to South Korea, said Bush and Roh would discuss ways to strengthen coordination on foreign policy. The objective was to have the pursuit of North-South reconciliation reinforce the disarmament talks, Green said. One proposal calls for a peace treaty to replace the armistice that halted the 1950-53 Korean War.Bush and Roh were to confer in Gyeongju, the ancient capital of Korea.Bush's eight-day journey to Asia offers him a reprieve from troubles at home, where his approval rating has fallen to the lowest point of his presidency. Unhappiness over the war in Iraq has hurt Bush's popularity and credibility, and Republicans are nervous about how the war and the president's other woes will affect next year's midterm elections.Roh has been a major supporter of Bush's Iraq policy. South Korea is the third-largest contributor of troops behind the United States and Britain, deploying more than 3,000 soldiers. Like Bush, Roh's domestic approval ratings are down, and his foes call him a lame duck.Bush flew here for the annual summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, representing 21 countries that account for about half the world's trade. APEC is expected to call for progress at the next round of World Trade Organization talks in Hong Kong next month towards a global trade agreement. (Ministers adopt plan)APEC represented "a significant bloc in the WTO membership," said Faryar Shirzad, deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs."And so when they speak and lay out an agenda of ambition, it's an agenda that the membership at the WTO takes note of and helps drive the negotiating dynamics in a constructive way."In addition to the APEC meetings, Bush will hold separate talks with the leaders of Malaysia, Russia and Indonesia before traveling to China on Saturday.Looking ahead to talks about North Korea, Bush said his objective was to remind his partners that they needed to stick together and send a consistent message.The most recent round of negotiations adjourned Friday with no sign of progress, but it's likely they will resume in Beijing next month or in January. In September, North Korea promised to end its nuclear program in exchange for aid, diplomatic recognition and security guarantees.North Korea has insisted that it will not make any move until the United States first offers concessions for giving up its nuclear weapons. Washington has refused the demand.The Pentagon has begun pulling thousands of U.S. troops out of South Korea, where it has maintained a contingent of about 37,000 since the cease-fire amid concerns that the communist North might try to reunite the two Koreas by launching an all-out attack.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Word came Wednesday that Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward, of Watergate fame, knew the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame before it was published in a July 2003 column. The attorney for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff and the only person indicted during the CIA leak investigation, quickly asserted that Woodward's admission undermined the case against his client.As questions also percolated about the Post's ace, the paper reported that Woodward had issued an apology to Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. for not sharing the information sooner. CNN's Wolf Blitzer had an opportunity to chat with Downie about what Woodward knew, his testimony before a grand jury and his future at the Post.BLITZER: What did (Woodward) say to you when you called him about that so-called bombshell?DOWNIE: Well, he did not have a bombshell in the sense of a story, Wolf. We did not have a story to put in the Post. That exchange took place on television, after he had first told me, in late October, about the fact that he had had this conversation back in June of 2003.It was a very brief part of a much longer interview that Bob was conducting for his book with a source that he had conducted many interviews with for his book. And at the time, he doesn't think it was very important. And it was a kind of byplay that wasn't even part of the interview that he was conducting.So he didn't have a bombshell that he could put in the newspaper when he was talking on television recently. But what he should have done during the intervening time after June of 2003 was still tell me that he'd had this discussion with this source.I'm not sure we could have done anything with it because it was a confidential conversation with a confidential source. I'm not sure we could have storified it anyway. But it's a conversation that we should have had so we could make a decision about how to proceed.And as a result of the conversations we've had since then, Bob has acknowledged today that he made a mistake in not telling me about it sooner. He's apologized to me and to the newspaper. And we're going to move along from here now and work on other reporting of his in the future.BLITZER: What made him come forward and finally tell you, some two years after the fact?DOWNIE: It was getting near the time when the grand jury was about to expire. We were all expecting that the special prosecutor was going to take some kind of action. And the events that were going on reminded Bob that probably he should tell me about this.BLITZER: Why didn't you immediately inform your readers, when he told you, yes, he had learned about this early on, long before, you know, Bob Novak wrote his column in July of 2003? Why not, without revealing the source, at least tell your readers what's going on?DOWNIE: Because the source didn't allow us to. The source was insisting on maintaining the confidentiality of this particular part of his interviews with Bob -- and the rest of these interviews with Bob, for that matter. So we didn't have something we could report at that time.BLITZER: You could have revealed to your readers that an unnamed source had told Bob Woodward about this two years earlier without naming the source.DOWNIE: At that point, once Bob had told me about this, then a chain of events took place that led to his being asked by the special prosecutor to testify in a deposition, which Bob did on Monday.And we then set about trying to get releases from sources for the purposes of that testimony, and also for the purposes of our journalism. And two of those sources released us from that. We've now named them, one in the newspaper today, one in the newspaper tomorrow. But this particular source still had not released us from that pledge, so we were not able to report that.BLITZER: There were some days, though, that you could have. You're saying that this happened before October 28, the day the grand jury expired. That was the day that Scooter Libby was indicted. He came to you a few days earlier. It wasn't until November 3 that this source came to the prosecutor, to Patrick Fitzgerald, and said, "I did have a conversation with Bob Woodward." So there was a period of a week, at least, I'm guessing, that this information could have been disclosed.DOWNIE: During which time we were still under the confidentiality pledge, as we are as I sit here talking to you right now. That this is a confidential source who does not want us to report on this information. And we're still unable to. We must maintain the sanctity of these source relationships.BLITZER: He says in a statement, Bob Woodward, "I apologize because I should have told him," referring to you, "about this much sooner. I explained in detail that I was trying to protect my sources. That's job No. 1 in a case like this. I hunkered down. I'm in the habit of keeping secrets. I didn't want anything out there that was going to get me subpoenaed." Does he owe, or do you owe, the readers of The Washington Post an apology?DOWNIE: No. Bob owed me and the newspaper an apology for not telling me, but if he had told me, I don't know what we would have been able to publish in the newspaper because of the confidential agreement under which this was stated. And we still aren't able to publish the details. We're eager to. We're eager to be freed from that pledge.We are publishing everything that we know about his encounters with the other two sources in which he did not claim Mrs. Wilson's -- the name did not come up. But we're still under an obligation to protect the confidentiality of this source and the information that this source supplied.We've asked to be freed from that pledge. We have not been. We must, as Bob said in the quote that you just gave me -- the sanctity of these pledges of confidentiality are essential to the kind of reporting that Bob does, the kind of reports that's kept our readers so well informed for many years now, over three decades, in which Bob has revealed the inner workings of what's going on in many governments, broken many important stories, beginning with Watergate, continuing on through 9/11, would not be possible without this source relationship and without him keeping his promises.He kept his promise about Deep Throat for three decades, even to the point that somebody else revealed that information, and Bob was unable to. And that, those types of promises, we're going to have to continue to keep.BLITZER: The thought that Bob Woodward, having kept the Deep Throat source secret for so many decades, actually goes forward and talks about sources before a prosecutor. That thought, in and of itself, is pretty shocking. But you say two of the sources have been released. He spoke with three administration officials. Now, one of them was, what, the White House chief of staff?DOWNIE: Yes, the White House chief of staff Andy Card today said that we are free to report on this conversation that Woodward testified about. I have to go back to correct something you just said, Wolf. You said that after keeping the secret about Deep Throat for all these years he then gave this deposition to the special prosecutor.He did so only after all three sources, including the source's name we can't divulge in the newspaper, released him from his pledge of confidentiality for the purposes of that deposition. So he was not violating the source relationship in giving that deposition. Otherwise, he wouldn't have done so.BLITZER: What was the nature of the conversation with the White House chief of staff Andy Card?DOWNIE: This did not come up. It was an incidental conversation about something else, and the special prosecutor merely wanted to know from Bob, did the subject of Valerie Plame come up, and Bob said no.BLITZER: Who is the second official you're about to name in The Washington Post?DOWNIE: That is Andy Card. Today we already named Libby and discussed Bob's testimony about his conversation with Libby in which Bob also does not remember Valerie Plame coming up, and as he searched through his notes, did not see any notes that he had taken about Valerie Plame being named by Mr. Libby.BLITZER: And so the third source, who still doesn't want his or her name to be made public, Bob did discuss the conversation with this third still-unnamed source in detail with the special prosecutor?DOWNIE: Yes, because the source gave Bob permission to discuss this with the special prosecutor, but not permission to write about it in the Post.BLITZER: Can you report, can Bob report, or The Washington Post report, the nature of this conversation with this third unidentified source without violating any kind of ground rules? Now that he's discussed it in a deposition that will be presented, presumably, to a grand jury?DOWNIE: No. That secret testimony will be presented secretly to the grand jury. We must still maintain this pledge to our source. If you recall, much earlier in the investigation, another one of our reporters, Walter Pincus, testified in a deposition also, with permission of the source, about a conversation which turns out that Mrs. Wilson didn't come up.But nevertheless, that source gave permission for Walter to testify, but not permission for Walter to write about the details of the conversation or identify the source, and we still haven't. It is sacred at this newspaper, as it is at most newspapers, and I assume at your network also, to not reveal the names and contents of conversations unless we're given permission to do so by our confidential sources.BLITZER: Are you angry at Bob Woodward?DOWNIE: No. He made a mistake. He apologized for it. I've asked him to improve his communications with me about work he's doing on his books that could produce things for the newspaper. He's promised to do so. We're going to move ahead now.BLITZER: And so, unlike Judy Miller, whose career at The New York Times is over with, you expect Bob Woodward to be at The Washington Post for a long time to come?DOWNIE: Oh, yes. I certainly do. This is not an analogous case at all.