Obama, Clinton to campaign together today in N.H.

Obama, Clinton to campaign together today in N.H.
MANCHESTER, N.H. - Putting their political turbulence behind them, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton began a show of unity Friday aboard Obama's campaign plane as it carried them to New Hampshire for their first public appearance together since the primary race endedAfter greeting each other with a handshake and a kiss on the tarmac at Reagan National Airport, the former foes settled into the second row of the MD-80 plane, Obama at the window and Clinton on the aisle. They were smiling and gesturing to one another as they boarded the plane — Clinton in a powder blue pantsuit and Obama wearing a tie of a nearly identical shade — and spent the entire flight, just over an hour, talking animatedly.

The topic was anyone's guess — their aides and about 20 members of the media traveling on the plane were left out of the conversation. Ahead lay a rally in New Hampshire, where the goal will be to set aside differences and unify the Democratic party while helping each other.

Clinton has already loaned Obama her top fundraisers, and now the two senators rivals are going to see if she can do the same with her supporters.

Following a private fundraiser with Clinton's top donors in Washington on Thursday, the two were heading to the rally in Unity, N.H., population 1,700 — a carefully chosen venue in a key general election battleground state.

Aside from the symbolism of its name, Unity awarded exactly 107 votes to each candidate in New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary in January. Clinton narrowly won the state's contest, setting in motion an epic coast-to-coast war of attrition between the two candidates that ended June 3, when Obama clinched the nomination. Clinton suspended her campaign four days later.

The Unity gathering was the latest and most visible event in a series of gestures the two senators have made in the past two days in hopes of settling the hard feelings of the long primary season. Clinton also praised Obama before two major interest groups Thursday — the American Nurses Association, which endorsed her during the primaries, and NALEO, the National Association of Latino Elected Officials.

Both Democrats badly need one another right now as they move to the next phase of the campaign.

Obama is depending on former first lady to give her voters and donors a clear signal that she doesn't consider it a betrayal for them to shift their loyalty his way. Clinton won convincingly among several voter groups during the primaries, including working class voters and older women — groups that Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain has actively courted since she left the race.

Clinton, for her part, needs the Illinois senator's help in paying down $10 million of her campaign debt, plus an assurance that she will be treated respectfully as a top surrogate on the campaign trail and at the Democratic Party convention later this summer. Some of her supporters want Clinton's name to be placed in nomination for a roll call vote at the Denver convention, an effort she hasn't formally discouraged.

Thursday, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, the New York senator urged about 200 of her top donors and fundraisers — many of whom have been openly critical of Obama's campaign and its perceived slights against Clinton during the primaries — to get behind her erstwhile rival and help him. Obama announced last week he would forgo public financing in the general election, guaranteeing he would need considerable fundraising help in the months to come.

Obama assured the group he would help Clinton retire her debt — an announcement that drew a standing ovation in the room, according to participants. He also wrote a personal check of $4,600 toward that goal — $2,300 each for himself and his wife, Michelle, the maximum allowed under federal law.

"I'm going to need Hillary by my side campaigning during his election, and I'm going to need all of you," Obama said.

He also expressed concern about the sometimes sexist treatment of Clinton during the primary campaign and said Michelle was on the receiving end of such treatment now.

Three top Clinton aides — attorneys Cheryl Mills and Robert Barnett, and longtime confidante Minyon Moore — have been negotiating the details of her future involvement. They've made the case to the Obama campaign that Clinton can spend more time campaigning for him this summer if she isn't working to pay off her debts.

Obama finance chairwoman Penny Pritzker sent an e-mail to the campaign's finance committee Wednesday making a direct pitch.

"Barack has asked each of us to collect five or six checks to help Senator Clinton repay the people who provided goods and services to her campaign," Pritzker wrote. "He made this request in the spirit of party unity. Senator Clinton has promised to do everything she can to help us beat John McCain."

Pritzker also wrote a $4,600 check toward the effort Thursday on behalf of herself and her husband.

Clinton's campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, said he would still like to see Obama tap Clinton to be his running mate, but Clinton will campaign hard for her former rival regardless.

"Whatever he decides to do, whatever role for Hillary, she is ready to go, and she will do whatever they ask her to do in the fall campaign," McAuliffe told CNN Friday.

Bill Clinton's role in Obama's campaign is still a work in progress, even though he issued a brief statement of support through a spokesman earlier this week.

But McAuliffe told reporters Thursday that the former president was ready to go "24-7" if necessary to help Obama defeat McCain in November

Midwestern downpours keep residents out of homes

Midwestern downpours keep residents out of homes

ST. LOUIS - Strong Midwestern downpours may force residents to wait even longer to return to homes they evacuated because of fears of flooding, emergency management officials said ThursdayParts of northeast Missouri and west-central Illinois got as much as an inch of rainfall overnight Wednesday after powerful downpours the night before. Weather systems rolling across Iowa were expected to produce more rain Thursday and Friday, the National Weather Service said.

The rain was bringing new river crests and fresh anxiety. As calls for sandbagging slowed in one community, they popped up in another.

In Canton, Mo., the Mississippi River had fallen to 24.9 feet Thursday, but officials were monitoring weather reports in Iowa and said they could not yet lift a voluntary evacuation in parts of town.

"A major rainfall could bring our levels back up just as quickly as it did before when it rose 10 feet in a week," said Canton emergency management director Jeff McReynolds.

About 45 miles northwest of St. Louis, the community of Winfield called for a two-day break in sandbagging efforts, saying they would refresh their sand supply and restart Saturday with a new push to fill an additional 35,000 sandbags.

The Pin Oak earthen levee, which was protecting about 100 homes in Winfield, was holding but showed signs of strain, with slides, settling and water overflow. A foot of sandbags will be added, said Andy Binder, a spokesman for Lincoln County emergency management operations.

Officials also warned residents about bacteria in floodwaters, urging people to avoid contact with the water. "There's things out there you don't want to be associated with," Binder said.

Iowa was drying out after storms erupted Wednesday afternoon and continued into Thursday morning. In central Iowa, 5 inches of rain were reported in Polk City, near Des Moines, while Ottumwa in the southeast received over 2 inches of rain in about 30 minutes.

Meteorologist Marc Russell of the National Weather Service said that rivers in southeastern Iowa are still in the major flood category and that any more rain, even an inch, could cause flash flooding. The same goes for the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City areas, which suffered major flooding, Russell said.

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt said six joint federal and state damage assessment teams would begin collecting damage information in northern Missouri counties affected by the flooding, part of the process to seek additional federal aid.

In St. Charles County, outside St. Louis, sandbagging resumed and there was talk again of voluntary evacuations in West Alton.

"They were feeling secure three to four days ago, but with the crest levels pushed up a bit, they're discussing voluntary evacuations," said St. Charles County spokesman John Sonderegger.

More rains hit flooded Midwest

More rains hit flooded Midwest

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (Reuters) - More storms dumped crop-drowning rains on parts of the U.S. Midwest on Thursday, threatening strained levees and slowing recovery from a multibillion-dollar flood disaster in the heart of the world's biggest grain and food exporterIn Cedar Rapids, where 4,000 homes were flooded two weeks ago after water spilled over 1,300 city blocks, officials ordered 300 houses demolished. Efforts were under way to determine if some structures in the most flood-prone areas could ever be rebuilt.

The city asked federal disaster officials to send in 500 temporary housing units, most likely mobile homes of the type used following the devastation from Hurricane Katrina.

The National Weather Service said severe thunderstorms in already saturated areas of central Iowa would continue through Friday. Flash flood watches were in place for Des Moines, which saw serious floods two weeks ago, and other Iowa cities.

"A secondary threat of tornadoes is possible over eastern portions of central Iowa Friday afternoon," the NWS said.

Some estimates have indicated the recovery costs for Iowa flooding alone could exceed the $5.7 billion spent after the last major Midwestern floods 15 years ago in 1993.

Flooding from heavy rains that began in late May already have caused more than $6 billion in crop damage in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Nebraska, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the largest U.S. farm group, said.

"I've been farming for 40 years now and this is probably the worst I've seen as trying to get a crop in the ground," said Gorin, Missouri, farmer Kenny McNamar. "It's really going to put a hurt on a lot of people."

Fears that as much as 5 million acres of corn and soybeans have been lost due to the flooding pushed corn and livestock prices to record highs last week.

On Thursday, Chicago Board of Trade corn for July 2009 delivery set another record high at $8.22 a bushel, more than double the 40-year average for corn prices. Corn is the main feed for meat animals, main source for ethanol fuel, and used in hundreds of other food and industrial products.

Iowa officials said this week that at least 2.5 million acres

of corn and soybeans in Iowa, well above 10 percent of planted acreage in the top U.S. producing state for those crops, needs to be replanted. But it is too late in the season for good yields on replantings.

"It's a bad situation. You can't do anything," said Missouri farmer Jim Collins, whose 3,000 acres of corn and soybeans sit about 50 miles west of the Mississippi River. "We'll just have to try to collect on our insurance."

INFLATION JITTERS

Worries about short supplies of basic food and feedstuffs have set off fresh alarms about rising world food price inflation even as oil and energy costs also set records.

The U.S. Federal Reserve cited rising inflation worries on Wednesday as it nervously kept U.S. interest rates unchanged.

Up to 5 inches of rain fell in parts of Iowa on Thursday and heavy rainfall was also reported in Missouri.

Additional heavy rains in the past two days have added new stress to levees along the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, though no new breaches were reported on Thursday.

"This is a dangerous time, and the longer the water stays up on the levee, the more dangerous it gets," said Alan Dooley, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in St Louis.

He said the prime area of concern is north of St. Louis on the Mississippi, including a levee at Winfield, Missouri, where a struggle has been going on for days to shore up an earthen berm protecting dozens of homes and a large chunk of farmland.

Patrick Slattery, a spokesman for the National Weather Service, said: "The thing about these storms right now is the ground is saturated and can't absorb any more."

He said there is some hope that the additional rains will not have a major impact on the Mississippi though the additional water could prolong the flooding.

"Anything that falls in the flooded area is going to cause problems," he said. "It's going to take a considerable amount of time for all of this water to leave," perhaps several weeks.

The Midwest storms and torrential rains have killed 24 people since late May. More than 38,000 people have been displaced from their homes, mostly in Iowa where 83 of 99 counties have been declared disaster areas.

(Additional reporting by Carey Gillam in Kansas City and Erin Zureick in Chicago; Writing by Michael Conlon; Editing by Peter Bohan and Anthony Boadle)

Project to dissect cocoa genome, protect crop

Project to dissect cocoa genome, protect crop

MIAMI - Government scientists are launching a five-year project Thursday aimed at safeguarding the world's chocolate supply by dissecting the genome of the cocoa bean. A U.S. Department of Agriculture team based here, funded with more than $10 million from Mars Inc., will analyze the more than 400 million parts of the cocoa genome, a process that could help battle crippling crop diseases and even lead to better-tasting chocolate.

Fungal diseases are estimated to cost cocoa farmers an estimated $700 million annually. The analysis will not only identify what traits make cacao trees susceptible, but it will allow scientists — and candymakers — to better understand every aspect of cocoa, from its ability to sustain drought to the way it tastes.

"Once we have the whole genome, they'll be able to go in and look at all the genes they're interested in," said Ray Schnell, a research geneticist with the USDA, referring to candymakers. "They'll all be interested in flavor genes."

The project's backers say the work stands to be a boon to farmers, largely in Africa, who produce about 70 percent of the world's cocoa. By determining which breeds of cacao trees are most appropriate for a specific locale and most able to fend off disease and drought, farmers could increase crop yields.

Ajay Royyuro, who leads the Computational Biology Center at IBM Research in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., said the cocoa genome project capitalizes on advances from examining the far more complicated human genome. An IBM team will participate in the cocoa efforts.

"The genome revolution is underway and there is a way in which that revolution can be leveraged to have an economic impact," Royyuro said.

Though the project is funded by Virginia-based Mars — the maker of M&Ms, Snickers and other fixtures in American chocolate — its findings will be made public, even to its competitors. Mars says there will be more information to examine than any one company could ever do alone, and that the main reasons for cracking the genome are to combat cocoa pests and disease.

"For us, the fact that Hershey has similar information that every other chocolate company in the world has, that's fine," said Howard-Yana Shapiro, Mars' global director of plant science, in a phone interview from Rome.

Shapiro said he did not expect improvements in yields from research would lead to larger overall cocoa crops. He said higher yields would allow farmers to devote some of their land to other lucrative crops that could boost their paychecks.

Virtually no cocoa is produced in the U.S., but the USDA has an interest in the crop because so many domestically produced items (think raisins and almonds, for example) are important to chocolate.

Report: Climate change linked to national security

WASHINGTON - Global warming is likely to increase illegal immigration, create humanitarian disasters and destabilize precarious governments in political hot spots, all of which could affect U.S.Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Central and Southeast Asia are most vulnerable to warming-related drought, flooding, extreme weather and hunger. The intelligence assessment warns of the global impact from the spillover: increased migration and "water-related disputes," according to prepared remarks by Tom Fingar, deputy director of national intelligence for analysis, who was scheduled to speak before a joint House committee hearing.
"We judge that the most significant impact for the United States will be indirect and result from climate-driven effects on many other countries and their potential to seriously affect U.S. national security interests," Fingar stated.
The national intelligence assessment on the national security implications of global climate change to 2030 is one of a series of periodic intelligence reports that offer the consensus judgment of top analysts at all 16 U.S. spy agencies on major foreign policy, security and global economic issues. Congress requested the report last year.
The assessment deals with the projected effects of climate change, and not just the negative ones. It predicts modest improvements in agricultural yields in North America and more water resources in South America. It predicts that most U.S. allies will have the means to cope economically. Fingar says, however, that unspecified "regional partners" could face severe problems.
Fingar states that the quality of the analysis is hampered by the fact that climate data tend not to focus on specific countries but rather on broad global changes.
Africa is among the most vulnerable regions, the report states. An expected increase in droughts there could cut agricultural yields of rain-dependent crops by up to half in the next 12 years.
Parts of southern and eastern Asia's food crops are vulnerable both to droughts and floods, with rice and grain crops potentially facing up to a 10 percent decline.
As many as 50 million additional people could face hunger by 2020, and the water supply — while larger because of melting glaciers — will be stressed by growing population and consumption. Between 120 million and 1.2 billion people in Asia "will continue to experience some water stress."
Latin America may experience increased precipitation, possibly cutting tens of millions of people from the ranks of those in want of water. But from 7 million to 77 million could still be short water resources because of population growth.
As Fingar represents it, the assessment strikes a considerably less ominous tone than a report issued a year ago by the Center for Naval Analyses on the same subject. That report, written by top retired military leaders, drew a direct correlation between global warming and the conditions that lead to failed states becoming the breeding grounds for extremism and terrorism.
"Climate change will provide the conditions that will extend the war on terror," stated Adm. T. Joseph Lopez, who commanded U.S. and allied peacekeeping forces in Bosnia in 1996.
"Weakened and failing governments, with an already thin margin for survival, foster the conditions for internal conflicts, extremism and movement toward increased authoritarianism and radical ideologies," the previous report said. "The U.S. will be drawn more frequently into these situations," stated the report, which drew on 11 retired generals and admirals.
The naval think tank report was a clarion call to reverse global warming with a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Fingar's remarks are far more muted. Where the 63-page private report mentions terror or terrorism almost 30 times, his 21-page statement makes no mention of it. "Conflict" appears about 20 times in the think tank report. Fingar mentions "conflict" only twice, "disputes" once, and "ethnic clashes" once. national security, according to an assessment by U.S. intelligence

McCain choice to help with veep is discreet lawyer

McCain choice to help with veep is discreet lawyer

WASHINGTON - The choice for John McCain's running mate is such a mystery that few people even know who is helping in that search. The Republican is leaning on a consummate behind-the-scenes player in Washington — attorney Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr. — for this maximum-discretion, minimal-disclosure assignmentIn Culvahouse, a one-time White House counsel to President Reagan, McCain gets someone whose work mostly has been so obscure that he likely isn't recognized outside Washington's Beltway.

Culvahouse has been involved in vetting people for positions at all levels of government for three decades, roles he's gotten partly because of his reputation for under-the-radar maneuvering.

McCain has turned to him in recent weeks as he sorts through a list of some 20 or more would-be No. 2s — not that you'd know it. The Arizona senator, like every nominee-in-waiting, is demanding privacy and trying to keep the search under wraps, including the involvement of the man who goes by A.B.

McCain's advisers, the few in the know, are under strict orders not to even discuss the search. McCain, at times, has violated his own rule, including mentioning he wanted to consult with Culvahouse and disclosing he had a preliminary names list.

When word leaked that three potentials — former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist — were invited to McCain's estate Arizona for Memorial Day weekend, aides were furious and insisted it was a social affair.

Democrat Barack Obama, too, has advocated a private process but, so far, it's been fairly public. Obama, for example, announced that a former Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign manager would be chief of staff to his yet-to-be-chosen running mate.

Obama also announced his search committee shortly after clinching the nomination — Jim Johnson, the former chairman of Fannie Mae, Eric Holder, a former deputy attorney general, and Caroline Kennedy. Within days, the committee went to Capitol Hill to consult with Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Under fire from Republicans and McCain, Johnson abruptly resigned after The Wall Street Journal reported he got home mortgages with help from the CEO of Countrywide Financial Corp. Holder, too, has faced a barrage of GOP attacks; he was the former Justice Department official who vetted President Clinton's oft-criticized 2001 pardon of financier Marc Rich.

The third member of Obama's team has a larger-than-life name as the daughter of former President Kennedy.

Conversely, Culvahouse's role in McCain's search has been largely shrouded in secrecy.

McCain aides won't confirm his position, but it's an open secret in GOP circles that while McCain and campaign manager Rick Davis are running the show, Culvahouse is closely involved the process.

"From my understanding, he has been asked to take a look at the potential candidates for vice president, look at their background," said former Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee, for whom Culvahouse was a top aide in the 1970s.

Baker called Culvahouse the perfect choice for such an assignment, saying: "He's smart. He's discreet. He doesn't seek out the press and a forum. He knows the system here in town; he's worked in it and understand it. He has no discernible ax to grind, and those things together make him enormously qualified and capable."

And, Baker said, he's not prone to leaking names: "You ain't going to get it from him, and that's one of his endearing qualities."

Aside from working for Baker, Culvahouse's other high-profile political post was as Reagan's counsel for nearly two years in the 1980s. During that time, Culvahouse vetted an estimated 200 nominees for various positions, including Robert Bork and Anthony Kennedy for the Supreme Court and Alan Greenspan for Federal Reserve chairman. He also advised the president on a range of matters, including the Iran-Contra investigations.

These days, Culvahouse is the chairman of O'Melveny & Myers, an international law firm where he has worked since 1976, save for a few years in the 1980s. His biography posted on his firm's Web site says he also has an "active corporate governance, internal investigations and compliance, and strategic counseling practice." Among his clients: the International Olympic Committee in the scandal surrounding the Salt Lake City games and Ford Motor Co. in the Firestone tire investigations.

Lobbying is not listed as part of his role, and Republicans familiar with his work say that he isn't a lobbyist by trade and does not have a lobbying practice. Senate records show he was registered to lobby on behalf of Fannie Mae and Lockheed Martin in a couple of instances several years ago but his allies say those were rare occasions and he hasn't done any work requiring him to register with the Senate in five years. They call it "a stretch" to describe Culvahouse as a lobbyist, a description Democrats use for him.

Culvahouse also has served on a range of commissions and boards, including his current service on the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and the Intelligence Oversight Board.

A George W. Bush donor in 2000 and 2004, Culvahouse was in McCain's camp during the 2008 primary.

"John McCain is the only candidate who can rally the Reagan coalition of conservatives, independents and conservative Democrats needed to defeat the Democratic nominee," Culvahouse told The Washington Times in January. He praised McCain as like Reagan, saying that McCain is "motivated by obligation" and "sees government service as an honor and a privilege."

Report: Citigroup to slash investment-banking jobs

Report: Citigroup to slash investment-banking jobs

NEW YORK - Citigroup is preparing fire thousands from its worldwide investment-banking division, The Wall Street Journal reported on SundaThe Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, said the layoffs are part of a plan to cut about 10 percent of the staff of the 65,000-member investment-banking group.

Messages left with Citigroup spokesmen on Sunday were not immediately returned. The Journal said the fired employees could be notified as early as Monday.

The New York-basked global bank, along with much of Wall Street, is in the throes of recovering from bad investments on mortgages and leveraged loans that cut billions of dollars from its portfolio.

It was not immediately clear if the reported job cuts would be in addition to cuts announced by Citigroup in April. After reporting a $5.1 billion first-quarter loss, the bank said then it was reducing its staff by 9,000, in addition to the 4,200 job cuts the bank announced late last year.

As of the end of last year, Citigroup had about 147,000 full-time employees.

In May, Citigroup unveiled a three-year plan that included getting rid of more businesses, mortgages, real-estate operations and jobs.

The bank called for shedding between $400 billion and $500 billion of its $2.2 trillion in assets and growing revenue by 9 percent over the next few years as it tries to rebound from the huge losses tied to deterioration in the credit markets.

Earlier this month, the bank said it was closing the Old Lane Partners hedge fund that was co-founded by Chief Executive Vikram Pandit. The bank is shuttering the fund just 11 months after it was acquired for more than $800 million.

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Can the Martian arctic support extreme life?

Can the Martian arctic support extreme life?

LOS ANGELES - Bizarre microbes flourish in the most punishing environments on Earth from the bone-dry Atacama Desert in Chile to the boiling hot springs of Yellowstone National Park to the sunless sea bottom vents in the PacificCould such exotic life emerge in the frigid arctic plains of Mars?

NASA's Phoenix spacecraft could soon find out. Since plopping down near the Martian north pole a month ago, the three-legged lander has been busy poking its long arm into the sticky soil and collecting scoopfuls to bake in a test oven and peer at under a microscope.

There hasn't been a eureka moment yet. But Phoenix turned up a promising lead last week when it uncovered what scientists believe are ice flecks in one trench and an icy layer in another.

Scientists hope experiments by the lander will reveal whether the ice has ever melted and whether there are any organic, or carbon-containing, compounds.

"We're looking for the basic ingredients that would allow life to prosper in this environment," chief scientist Peter Smith of the University of Arizona in Tucson has said in describing the mission's goal.

The discovery of extreme life forms, known as extremophiles, in unexpected nooks and crannies of the Earth in recent years has helped inform scientists in their search for extraterrestrial life.

"It's very suggestive that there are lots of worlds that may support life that at first glance may look like fourth-rate real estate," said Seth Shostak, an astronomer at the SETI Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

While the possibility for ET seems to grow with new extremophile discoveries on Earth, the truth is there's no evidence that life ever evolved on Mars or if it even exists today.

But if there were past or present life on the red planet — a big if — scientists speculate it would likely be similar to some extreme life on Earth — microscopic and hardy, capable of withstanding colder-than-Antarctica temperatures and low pressures.

"It's going to be microbes. It's not going to be a little green man," said Kenneth Stedman, a biologist with the Center for Life in Extreme Environments at Portland State University.

Under a microscope, extremophiles vary in size and shape. Some resemble miniature corkscrews while others are rods or irregular shapes. Scientists use a dye to distinguish the living ones from the dead.

The Phoenix mission has its limitations beside a shoestring budget of $420 million. It doesn't carry instruments capable of identifying fossils or living things. Rather, the lander has a set of ovens and a gas analyzer that will heat soil and ice and sniff the resulting vapors for life-friendly elements. Its wet chemistry lab will test the pH, or acidity, of the soil much like a gardener would. And its microscope will examine soil granules for minerals that may indicate past presence of water.

Most living things on Earth thrive not only in the presence of water, but also need sunlight, oxygen and organic carbon. But the range of conditions in which life can survive has been expanded with recent discoveries of micro-organisms trapped in glaciers and rocks or living in volcanic vents and battery acid-like lakes.

These extreme conditions on Earth mirror the harsh environments found on Mars and other parts of the solar system. Present day Mars is like a desert with no hint of water on its weathered surface, although studies of rocks suggest the planet was wetter once upon a time.

Most researchers agree life likely cannot develop on the Martian surface, which is bombarded by lethal doses of radiation. But satellite images have revealed a softer side, spying hints of a vast underground store of ice near the red planet's polar regions. Phoenix last week hit what's thought to be an ice layer 2 inches below the surface.

Even if Phoenix uncovers microbe-habitable conditions, a more sophisticated spacecraft would be needed to determine if life was ever there or is present now.

The last time NASA looked for organics was during the 1976 twin Viking missions, which sampled soil near the Martian equator but turned up empty.

Scientists chose to dig in Mars' far north this time because they think it's an analog to Earth's polar regions, which preserve life's building blocks and sometimes even life itself in ice.

Researchers have shown microbes on Earth can be inactive in a deep freeze for thousands of years and resuscitated under the right conditions.

In 2005, NASA researchers announced they revived bacteria that were apparently dormant for 32,000 years in a frozen pond in central Alaska. Earlier this month, Penn State University scientists said they were able to grow in the lab an ultra-small species of bacteria trapped in a Greenland glacier under high pressure and low oxygen for at least 120,000 years.

"There's a lot of amazing things that survive in the cold environments," said Jennifer Loveland-Curtze, a senior research associate at Penn State.

What that means for Mars and other hostile environments is debatable. But scientists are plumbing the depths of Earth for clues to possible life that may exist elsewhere in the universe.

"We need to continue to try to understand what's going on with the extremophiles here on Earth," said Stedman of Portland State University. "The more we learn how extremophiles here are functioning, the more that will inform any kind of future mission."

Hollywood's Best Bikini Body

Hollywood's Best Bikini Body

It’s virtually impossible to think of their names without associating them with bewitching sensuality. Here’s a look at the beauties who made it to the 'Best Bikini Body Ever' list...

English model Kelly Brook earned herself the title of the 'Best Bikini Body Ever.' "Kelly looks great on the beach. She's curvy, sexy and confident too," the Sun quoted the voters as saying.

Ellen DeGeneres and Rachael Ray share Emmy spotlight

Ellen DeGeneres and Rachael Ray share Emmy spotlight

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Comedian Ellen DeGeneres and cooking-lifestyle guru Rachael Ray shared the Daytime Emmy spotlight on Friday as they split television's top two awards for entertainment talks showsIn another high point of the evening, Jeanne Cooper, the grand dame of America's longtime No. 1 soap opera, was named best lead actress in a drama series for her 35-year role as Katherine Chancellor on "The Young and the Restless."

It was the first Emmy win after eight nominations for Cooper, who is one of only two remaining "The Young and the Restless" cast members from the early days of the show.

"I bet you thought I died," the 79-year-old actress joked as she accepted her award, adding later, "This is totally shocking to me."

Veteran "General Hospital" star Anthony Geary, who plays the popular Luke Spencer character, won his sixth trophy as best lead actor. "General Hospital" was named best daytime drama series for a record 10th year.

The victory for "Rachael Ray" in the race for best talk show marked an upset triumph over "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," which had won the prize in each of the last four years.

"Wow! Holy cat," a stunned Ray enthused on stage. "I really can't breathe."

Ray, whose syndicated series was spun off from recurrent appearances on Oprah Winfrey's show, has grown quickly into a ubiquitous brand highlighting a homespun, easy approach to cooking based on her "30 Minute Meals" concept.

She made headlines last month when a Dunkin' Donuts ad she appeared in was yanked after a Fox News Channel commentator complained the scarf Ray wore resembled a Muslim kaffiyeh.

LADIES OF 'THE VIEW' STILL BRIDESMAIDS

Although her program lost out to Ray, DeGeneres pulled off a triumph for a fourth straight year as best talk show host. In doing so, she prevailed again over the co-hosting ensemble of "The View," led by creator-producer Barbara Walters and newly installed moderator Whoopi Goldberg.

Another team of perennial joint nominees, Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa of the morning show "Live with Regis and Kelly," extended their losing streak as well.

But Philbin, 76, was not sent home empty-handed. The veteran TV personality, who got his big break as Joey Bishop's sidekick in the 1960s and hosted the game show hit "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" decades later, received a lifetime achievement award recognizing his 47 years in the business.

DeGeneres' win capped a tumultuous year for the comedian in which she sparked a national uproar over an adopted puppy, ad-libbed her way through the writers strike and announced plans to wed her long-time partner, actress Portia de Rossi, after a California court ruling allowing gay marriage.

"I never take this for granted," DeGeneres, 50, said taking the stage to accept the prize. "This has been a crazy year and ... we've done a lot of crying and a lot of laughing, and I cried all by myself and then people laughed."

It was an obvious reference to tears DeGeneres shed last October when she recounted on the air how an animal rescue group took back a puppy she had adopted because she had given the dog, Iggy, to a friend without first notifying the agency.

Another bittersweet moment Friday night came as Jennifer Landon, 24, the daughter of the late TV star Michael Landon ("Bonanza," "Little House on the Prairie") saluted her father in French as she accepted her third consecutive award as best younger actress for her role on "As the World Turns."

"It was a little salute to my pops: 'For you always, I love you,"' she said backstage when asked for a rough translation.

The 35th annual edition of the awards was broadcast live on ABC from Hollywood's Kodak Theater, home of the Oscars.

Scientists ponder whether ice on Mars ever melted

Scientists ponder whether ice on Mars ever melted

LOS ANGELES - The apparent discovery of ice near Mars' north pole has scientists asking: Did the frozen water melt at some point in the planet's long history to create an environment friendly for life?The Phoenix spacecraft exposed bright white crumbs at the bottom of a trench while digging near Mars' north pole earlier this week. The bits disappeared in new photos sent back on Thursday, convincing scientists that the magic act was evidence of ice that vaporized after being exposed to the sun.

"The fact that there's ice there doesn't tell you anything about whether it's habitable," chief scientist Peter Smith of the University of Arizona said Friday during a teleconference from Tucson.

To judge whether the Martian polar environment could be hospitable, scientists are using the spacecraft's instruments to study minerals in the soil and ice for hints of carbonates and sulfates, which are formed by the action of liquid water.

Preliminary results from an experiment that baked a soil sample in one of Phoenix's test ovens failed to yield evidence of water. A data glitch on the lander this week prevented scientists from getting the results right away from the last testing phase.

Water is a prerequisite for life, but it's just one piece of the equation. Scientists generally agree that organic carbon and an energy source like the sun are also considered necessary ingredients.

Mars today is arid and dusty, constantly bombarded by radiation and with no apparent trace of water on its surface. But carvings of channels and gullies on the Martian surface suggest a wetter past. Some scientists speculate that water may have evaporated into the atmosphere and the rest trapped beneath the surface in the form of ice.

"The holy grail is to find water near the surface of Mars," said astrobiologist Mitch Sogin of the Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole, Mass., who is not part of the mission.

Phoenix's latest discovery is not a total surprise. In 2002, the orbiting Mars Odyssey spacecraft spied evidence of a reservoir of frozen water near the planet's poles. Phoenix, which landed May 25, is the first robotic craft to reach out and touch it.

Scientists not involved in the mission said the Phoenix team makes a compelling case for the presence of ice.

"It's not unexpected, but finding it is different than predicting it," said Bruce Jakosky, an astrobiologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder. "Everybody expected the ice to be there. That's why Phoenix went there in the first place."

The bright chunks seen in the Martian soil vanished in images taken Thursday of a trench where they were seen four days earlier. Scientists had debated whether the chunks were salt or ice, but settled on frozen water since salt would not disappear.

"We have found the proof that we've been seeking," Smith said.

Smith said the ice, which appeared to be pure, was found 2 inches deep in the trench.

Digging in another trench, Phoenix hit a hard surface believed to be an icy layer, which will also be tested.

The big question is whether the ice ever melted and remained stable long enough as a liquid.

"If so, one of the requirements is satisfied for life as we know it," said Kenneth Nealson, a geobiologist at the University of Southern California, who had no role in the mission

Naomi Campbell gets 200 hours for 'air rage'

Naomi Campbell gets 200 hours for 'air rage'
LONDON - Temperamental model Naomi Campbell was sentenced to 200 hours of community service Friday after pleading guilty to assaulting two police officers after an "air rage" incident at Heathrow AirportShe was also ordered to pay 200 pounds ($400) to each of the police officers she attacked and 150 pounds ($300) to Miles Sutherland, the captain of the British Airways plane she disrupted, in addition to a 2,300 pound ($4,600) fine.

She could have received six months' jail time and a heavy fine for the six offenses stemming from a violent spat in April with British Airways cabin crew and police who removed her from a flight in handcuffs while waiting on the tarmac at Heathrow.

Prosecutors said Campbell used foul language, kicked and spat at police, accused airline personnel of racism and threatened to sue them after she was told that one of her bags had not been placed on the flight to Los Angeles in April.

Campbell was traveling in first class and became abusive to the captain after he left the cockpit to personally explain to her why her bag — and those of many other travelers — had not been placed on the flight.

Prosecutors said she shouted a number of obscenities and tried to kick the police who were summoned to remove her after she "ordered" Sutherland to delay takeoff and look for her missing piece of luggage.

At one point, the black model accused the airline staff of being racist and said they would not have removed her from the flight if she was white. She told a white policewoman that the only reason she was being arrested was because she was "black and famous" and threatened to sue.

Magistrate Peter Yiacoumi told Campbell that she was getting credit for past good behavior and for pleading guilty at the first hearing, but said the crimes could not go unpunished. Prosecutors said she kicked and spat at police officers, used foul language repeatedly, and had to be removed from the plane.

"These offenses are aggravated because they were committed within a lengthy incident in a confined space on an aircraft," he said. "Whilst we accept that the loss of your suitcase would have been stressful, your subsequent behavior cannot be justified."

After the sentencing, Campbell's spokesman, Alan Edwards, said the catwalk star was "very, very relieved" the incident was over. He said she felt she had been treated fairly and predicted she would work hard during her community service.

The incident happened shortly after the opening of Heathrow's new Terminal 5 building, which did not function properly at first, resulting in many cancellations and lost bags.

Campbell's lawyer said she was upset because the missing bag contained an outfit that she was contractually obligated to wear at an event in Los Angeles.

Campbell, 38, arrived in court Friday morning in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes and was immediately swarmed by paparazzi. She did not make a statement to the court beyond confirming her name and her address, and her lawyer entered a guilty plea.

Her spokesman, Alan Edwards, said outside the court that Campbell regretted the incident and looked forward to telling her side of the story.

In the past, Campbell has been charged with throwing objects at members of her staff.

Last year, she was sentenced to a week of community service spent mopping floors and cleaning bathrooms in New York City after admitting "reckless assault" for throwing a mobile phone at her housekeeper.

Earlier, she had agreed to take an "anger management" course after a similar attack on an employee in Canada. That employee claimed Campbell threw a mobile phone at her and threatened to throw her out of a moving car.

Other staff members have also brought charges and lawsuits against Campbell, one of the most highly paid models in the world.

Obama team weighs Nunn, Edwards as running mates

Obama team weighs Nunn, Edwards as running mates

Lawmakers fail to gag celebrity chef Gordon RamsayRep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich., who leads the Congressional Black Caucus, said members of her caucus asked her to forward the names of Edwards and Nunn when she met Wednesday with Obama's vice presidential search team. The team, Caroline Kennedy and Eric Holder, indicated the two were on the list.

"We've been brainstorming in the Congressional Black Caucus. Former Senator Sam Nunn's name has come up, as well as John Edwards' name has come up among our CBC members. I reported that to them and they had both of those names on their list," Kilpatrick said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Kilpatrick said she made several suggestions during the 45-minute meeting, including former Vice President Al Gore, Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha and Ohio Governor Ted Strickland. Gore endorsed Obama on Monday.

"I asked them what type of person the senator is looking for? And they said in general someone who could help him rebuild the country ... talking about change. How we reinvest in America, get people back to work and reinforce our education system and bring the jobs back," she said.

She declined to say which names were put forth by Kennedy and Holder. The prominent Democratic attorneys have been meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to receive feedback on Obama's potential running mate. Obama has said he won't discuss the process until he's made his choice.

When Kilpatrick said Gore was her personal choice, "they had a smile on their face. They have a list of candidates. I think I may have been the first to do that. They didn't say one way or the other."

But she wasn't the only one to mention Gore.

Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif., chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, met Wednesday with Kennedy and Holder. A former Clinton supporter, he offered Clinton's name but said he mentioned others, too. Those included Edwards, Sens. Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, Gore, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sibelius and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano.

"These are all good names," Baca said. "Ultimately the decision will be up to Obama."

Edwards, a former North Carolina senator who was John Kerry's running mate in 2004, could help Obama appeal to white, working-class voters who largely favored Clinton in the primary and will be a critical voting bloc in the general election. The drawback is that Edwards was the vice presidential nominee on a losing ticket four years ago, while Obama's campaign is about turning the page.

Edwards has said he is not seeking the vice presidency — but hasn't ruled out accepting if asked.

"I'd take anything he asked me to think about seriously, but obviously this is something I've done and it's not a job that I'm seeking," Edwards said last Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

Nunn would bring national security credentials to the ticket, having served as the longtime Armed Services Committee chairman. The former Georgia senator is a member of Obama's foreign policy advisory group.

But Nunn has not been in office for more than a decade so he is not well-known nationally. He is a conservative Democrat who supported school prayer and opposed gays in the military, while Obama tends to have a more liberal viewpoint. Nunn will turn 70 in September.

Other lawmakers who have been briefed say there about 20 names on the list Obama's team has been discussing. The list includes current elected officials, former elected officials and retired military generals, lawmakers have said.

Kilpatrick said most of the names she was asked about were in the Senate.

Scientists find monkeys who know how to fish

Scientists find monkeys who know how to fish

BANGKOK, Thailand - Long-tailed macaque monkeys have a reputation for knowing how to find food — whether it be grabbing fruit from jungle trees or snatching a banana from a startled touristNow, researchers say they have discovered groups of the silver-haired monkeys in Indonesia that fish.

Groups of long-tailed macaques were observed four times over the past eight years scooping up small fish with their hands and eating them along rivers in East Kalimantan and North Sumatra provinces, according to researchers from The Nature Conservancy and the Great Ape Trust.

The species had been known to eat fruit and forage for crabs and insects, but never before fish from rivers.

"It's exciting that after such a long time you see new behavior," said Erik Meijaard, one of the authors of a study on fishing macaques that appeared in last month's International Journal of Primatology. "It's an indication of how little we know about the species."

Meijaard, a senior science adviser at The Nature Conservancy, said it was unclear what prompted the long-tailed macaques to go fishing. But he said it showed a side of the monkeys that is well-known to researchers — an ability to adapt to the changing environment and shifting food sources.

"They are a survivor species, which has the knowledge to cope with difficult conditions," Meijaard said Tuesday. "This behavior potentially symbolizes that ecological flexibility."

The other authors of the paper, which describes the fishing as "rare and isolated" behavior, are The Nature Conservancy volunteers Anne-Marie E. Stewart, Chris H. Gordon and Philippa Schroor, and Serge Wich of the Great Ape Trust.

Some other primates have exhibited fishing behavior, Meijaard wrote, including Japanese macaques, chacma baboons, olive baboons, chimpanzees and orangutans.

Agustin Fuentes, a University of Notre Dame anthropology professor who studies long-tailed macaques, or macaca fascicularis, on the Indonesian island of Bali and in Singapore, said he was "heartened" to see the finding published because such details can offer insight into the "complexity of these animals."

"It was not surprising to me because they are very adaptive," he said. "If you provide them with an opportunity to get something tasty, they will do their best to get it."

Fuentes, who is not connected with the published study, said he has seen similar behavior in Bali, where he has observed long-tailed macaques in flooded paddy fields foraging for frogs and crabs. He said it affirms his belief that their ability to thrive in urban and rural environments from Indonesia to northern Thailand could offer lessons for endangered species.

"We look at so many primate species not doing well. But at the same time, these macaques are doing very well," he said. "We should learn what they do successfully in relation to other species."

Still, Fuentes and Meijaard said further research was needed to understand the full significance of the behavior. Among the lingering questions are what prompted the monkeys to go fishing and how common it is among the species.

Long-tailed macaques were twice observed catching fish by The Nature Conservancy researchers in 2007, and Wich spotted them doing it two times in 1998 while studying orangutans.

Divers survive dragon island ordeal in Indonesia

Divers survive dragon island ordeal in Indonesia
LABUANBAJO, Indonesia (AFP) - Five European divers battled a komodo dragon during 36 hours stranded on an Indonesian island reserve for the deadly reptiles after getting caught in strong currents.
The divers -- three Britons, a Frenchman and a Swede -- endured two nights on the deserted eastern island which is infested with the huge monitor lizards before rangers found them around midday Saturday, a French survivor said.

Laurent Pinel, 31, said the group had to fight off one dragon with rocks and scavenged for shellfish as they waited to be rescued from the tiny island in the Komodo National Park, east of Bali.

"On the beach a komodo dragon came amongst us yesterday (Friday) afternoon," the Frenchman said, describing how the group had to pelt the dangerous reptile with rocks to scare it away.

"We had nothing to eat. We ate some kind of mussels scraped from the rocks," Pinel told AFP from a medical clinic in this sleepy port on Flores island where the divers were being treated after their rescue.

The Parisian said the divers had spent about nine hours adrift at sea late Thursday after being swept away from their dive boat in one of the strong currents for which the area is notorious.

They struggled against the rip tide to reach islands they could see in the distance but after several hours they stopped swimming and tied themselves together by their diving vests to preserve energy.

Late Thursday night they saw another island and decided to make one more effort to reach land, fearing they would be carried out of the relative protection of the Nusa Tenggara island chain and into the open sea.

"If we'd continued (to drift), it would have been the ocean," he said.

"We were exhausted. Everyone had cramps."

What they did not know was that they were heading to Rinca Island, a reserve for aggressive monitor lizards known as komodo dragons that can easily kill a human.

The largest lizard in the world, komodos usually feast in packs and can easily devour prey as large as buffalos. One bite can be extremely dangerous due to the virulent bacteria in their saliva.

Most of the stranded divers stuck close to the pebbled beach until they were spotted by national park rangers some 40 hours after they disappeared.

There were emotional scenes at this Flores port as the divers returned.

"They are really in good health with no wounds whatsoever. They walked by themselves and hugged each other and cried when they reached the port," local policeman Victor Jumadu said.

A British couple who own a dive shop in Labuanbajo were leading the divers when the wife's group was caught in the current.

Dive master Ernest Lewandowski told AFP he was ecstatic that his wife, Kathleen Mitchinson, and their guests had been found safe.

"They are all alive and medical services are on standby. Thank God. I just want to hear my wife's voice," he said before rushing to the port to wait for their return.

Lewandowski, who owns the Reefseekers Diving business on Flores, said he only noticed his wife was missing when his group surfaced an hour after entering the water.

A lack of fuel for aircraft had hampered the search and police had to call on fishermen to help after only three search boats could be deployed on Friday.

Komodo National Park lies about 500 kilometres (300 miles) east of the popular tourist island of Bali. It is well known for its teeming sealife at dive sites up to 40 metres deep.

Small reef sharks are common but divers say the main threat comes from strong currents formed by the combination of relatively shallow water, large depth variations and the channels formed between islands.

Caribbean monk seal becomes extinct

Caribbean monk seal becomes extinct
HONOLULU - Federal officials have confirmed what biologists have long thought: The Caribbean monk seal has gone the way of the dodoHumans hunting the docile creatures for research, food and blubber left the population unsustainable, say biologists who warn that Hawaiian and Mediterranean monk seals could be the next to go.

The last confirmed sighting of a Caribbean monk seal was in 1952 between Jamaica and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service confirmed Friday that the species is extinct.

Kyle Baker, a biologist for NOAA's Fisheries Service southeast region, said the species is the only seal to become extinct from human causes.

The seals were first classified as endangered in 1967, and wildlife experts investigated several reported sightings over the past few decades. But officials determined they were other seal types.

The federal agency says there are fewer than 1,200 Hawaiian and 500 Mediterranean monk seals remaining, and their populations are declining.

"We hope we've learned from the extinction of Caribbean monk seals, and can provide stronger protection for their Hawaiian and Mediterranean relatives," Baker said.

The Hawaiian monk seal population, protected by NOAA, is declining at a rate of about 4 percent annually, according to NOAA. The agency predicts the population could fall below 1,000 in the next three to four years, placing the mammal among the world's most endangered marine species.

"When populations get very small, they become very unstable," Baker said. "They become more vulnerable to threats like disease and predation by sharks."

Vicki Cornish, a wildlife expert at the Ocean Conservancy, said the fate of the Caribbean monk seal is a "wake-up call" to protect the remaining seal populations.

"We must act now to reduce threats to existing monk seal populations before it's too late," she said. "These animals are important to the balance and health of the ocean. We can't afford to wait."

Monk seals are particularly sensitive to human disturbance. And the sea creatures have been losing their food supply and beaches, officials say.

"Once Hawaii, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean were teeming with fish, but these are areas under severe fishing pressure," Cornish said. "They'll eat almost anything — shellfish or finned fish — but their food supply is waning and they're in competition with man."

The Caribbean monk seal, first discovered during Christopher Columbus' second voyage in 1494, once had a population of more than 250,000. But they became easy game for hunters because they often rested, gave birth or nursed their pups on beaches.

From the 1700s to 1900s, the seals were killed mainly for their blubber, which was processed into oils, used for lubrication and coating the bottom of boats. Their skins were used for trunk linings, clothing, straps and bags.

The endangered Hawaiian monk seals face different types of challenges, including entanglement in marine debris, climate change and coastal development.

About 80 to 100 live in the main Hawaiian Islands and 1,100 in the largely uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, a marine national monument.

Biologist Bud Antonelis said NOAA's Fisheries Service has developed a monk seal recovery plan for the Hawaiian monk seals.

"But we need continued support from organizations and the public if we are to have a chance at saving it from extinction," he said. "Time is running out."

As for the Caribbean monk seal, NOAA said it is working to have them removed from the endangered species list. Species are removed from the list when their populations are no longer threatened or endangered, or when they are declared extinct.

Ed McMahon talks about possible home foreclosure

Ed McMahon talks about possible home foreclosure

LOS ANGELES - Ed McMahon blames the possible foreclosure of his multimillion-dollar Beverly Hills house on a set of problems all too familiar to many Americans: a foundering economy, health problems and poor planning"If you spend more money than you make, you know what happens," McMahon said Thursday night on CNN's "Larry King Live." "You know, a couple of divorces thrown in, a few things like that. And, you know, things happen."

McMahon, 85, appeared with his wife, Pamela. The couple said they are $644,000 behind on their mortgage payments and are in negotiations with lender Countrywide Home Loans Inc. to set a foreclosure date.

McMahon, in a neck brace, said he had stopped working since he broke his neck in a fall 18 months ago. He didn't elaborate.

McMahon, who was Johnny Carson's sidekick on the "Tonight" show, said the house had been on the market for two years and that although 50 organizations or individuals had looked at it, no one had made an offer. Documents show McMahon has a $4.8 million mortgage on the home.

"It's like a perfect storm," he said. "Economy problems. Selling the house right now is a tremendous operation."

McMahon bought the six-bedroom, five-bathroom, 7,000-square-foot house in January 1990. The mansion, which is listed at $6.25 million, is in a gated hilltop section off Mulholland Drive called The Summit. Britney Spears is among his neighbors.

Asked why a millionaire couldn't make house payments, Pamela McMahon said the couple had less money than people may think and suggested they could have done a better job managing their finances.

"We didn't keep our eye on the ball. We made mistakes," she said. "It's embarrassing to say the least, and it's sad, because you know, Ed's worked his whole entire life."

McMahon, a former pitchman for the American Family Publishers' sweepstakes and former "Star Search" host, received a $7.2 million settlement after a toxic mold spread through his house and led to the death of their dog in 2001.

With legal fees and construction costs of fixing the mold problem, the money did not go far, McMahon said.

"We had nine lawyers, they had nine lawyers," McMahon said. "By the time that's all over, and you rebuild the house from the outside in. ... A lot of things went wrong."

Still, McMahon said he was hopeful. He said there has been renewed interest in the house this week.

"I'm optimistic," he said.

Eagle wounded by poacher gets new beak, new look

Eagle wounded by poacher gets new beak, new look
ST. MARIES, Idaho - More than three years after a poacher shot off her upper beak, a bald eagle named Beauty can finally live up to her name — with the help of volunteersA team attached an artificial beak to the 15-pound eagle in mid-May, improving her appearance and, more importantly, helping her grasp food.

"She's got a grill," joked Nate Calvin, the Boise engineer who spent 200 hours designing the complex beak.

The "grill" was exposed when a bit of the synthetic beak broke off during application. But the new beak is only a temporary fix, designed to nail down precise measurements.

A final beak made of tougher material will be created and attached later, though her saviors don't plan to release her back into the wild. They say that she has spent too much time with humans that the final beak will still not be strong enough to tear flesh from prey.

But getting this artificial beak now was key to Beauty's survival. A wild eagle that must be hand-fed by humans would eventually have to be euthanized, especially since her life span could run four more decades, said Jane Fink Cantwell, who took Beauty to her raptor recovery center in Idaho two years ago.

The bird was found in 2005 scrounging for food and slowly starving at a landfill in Alaska. A bullet had taken from her curved upper beak, leaving her tongue and sinuses exposed, with a stump useless for grasping food. Cantwell said eating with her beak was like using one chopstick.

She also had trouble drinking and couldn't preen her feathers.

Beauty was taken to a bird recovery center in Anchorage, where she was hand-fed while her caretakers waited in vain for a new beak to grow. Cantwell in 2007 agreed to take the eagle to her Birds of Prey Northwest ranch. Every day she used tongs to feed Beauty food, such as strips of salmon.

During a speaking engagement in Boise, she met Calvin, who offered to design an artificial beak.

"As an engineer, as a human being first, I was interested in helping it out," Calvin said.

Molds were made of the remaining beak and scanned into a computer so the artificial beak could be created accurately.

The nylon-composite beak will help the bird drink and grip food.

Some critics question such an extraordinary effort to save one bird that is no longer on the endangered species list. But Cantwell pointed out that Beauty has the potential to breed or be a foster mother to orphaned eagles.

Cantwell also plans to use the bird at lectures around the country to teach people not to shoot at raptors.

The procedure took place in the garage of Cantwell's neighbor, in front of reporters and guests.

Beauty was laid on her back, fully conscious, with a ribbon of veterinary wrap around her wings. Her talons were wrapped in a leather strap.

"Everybody better be still and quiet," Cantwell told visitors. "Let's be mindful she's a nervous, wild animal."

A gold and titanium pin was glued to the remnant of her upper beak to serve as the guide for sliding the artificial beak into place.

The volunteers moved slowly and talked softly as they slipped the beak on and off, making minor adjustments. A grinder, sander and scissors were used to trim both the artificial beak and the existing remnant of upper beak. The bird sometimes nipped harmlessly at their hands.

About an hour and a half into the procedure, Beauty lurched upright and spread her wings, snapping the wrap. She hovered above the table, screeching, with Cantwell and the other handler holding the leather straps.

After a couple of minutes, they calmed the eagle and got her back onto the table, then completed the procedure.

The Boeing Co. and a maker of synthetic skin in California have volunteered to help make the permanent beak.

After the surgery, Cantwell cradled the eagle and prepared to return Beauty to her aviary, saying: "The eagle has landed, and she has a beak."

Obama and Clinton meet, discuss uniting Democrats

Obama and Clinton meet, discuss uniting Democrats

WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton and likely Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama met privately Thursday night to talk about uniting the Democratic Party. "Senator Clinton and Senator Obama met tonight and had a productive discussion about the important work that needs to be done to succeed in November," their campaigns said in joint statement.

The statement included no details of their talks, as pressure mounted for Obama to invite Clinton to become his running mate.

Robert Gibbs, an Obama spokesman, would not say where the former rivals met, except that it was not at Clinton's home in Washington, as had been widely reported.

Reporters traveling with Obama sensed something might be happening between the pair when they arrived at Dulles International Airport after an event in Northern Virginia and Obama was not aboard the airplane.

Asked at the time about the Illinois senator's whereabouts, Gibbs smiled and declined to comment.

Clinton returned to Washington after the last primaries on Tuesday night, when Obama earned the 2,118 delegates he needed to secure the Democratic nomination. She planned to announce Saturday that she was ending her campaign and supporting Obama.

The meeting followed Clinton's disavowal hours earlier of efforts by some supporters who have urged Obama to choose her as his running mate.

"She is not seeking the vice presidency, and no one speaks for her but her," communications director Howard Wolfson said. "The choice here is Senator Obama's and his alone."

Even as Clinton was bowing out of the race, supporters in Congress and elsewhere were ramping up a campaign to pressure him to put her on the ticket.

Bob Johnson, the billionaire founder of Black Entertainment Television and a Clinton supporter, on Wednesday sent a letter to the Congressional Black Caucus urging the group to encourage Obama to choose Clinton as his No. 2. Johnson said he was doing so with her blessing.

Obama is seeking to become the first black president.

Clinton has told other friends and supporters she would be willing to be Obama's running mate. But her immediate task is bringing her own presidential bid to a close, and how.

In an e-mail to supporters, the New York senator said she "will be speaking on Saturday about how together we can rally the party behind Senator Obama. The stakes are too high and the task before us too important to do otherwise."

Clinton expressed the same sentiment in a conference call with 40 members of her national finance committee, whom she urged to begin raising money for Obama and for the Democratic National Committee.

"She was in good spirits and totally supportive, without qualification, of Senator Obama and his campaign," finance co-chairman Alan Patricof said of the call.

It was a shift in tone by the former first lady, who announced 17 months ago that she was "in it to win it." Many of her supporters want her as the vice presidential candidate, in their minds a "dream ticket" that would bring Obama her enthusiastic legions and broaden his appeal to white and working-class voters.

On his campaign plane Thursday, Obama praised Clinton for inspiring millions of voters and said she had opened the doors for his two young daughters to imagine being president one day.

"We're going to speak to them but also listen to them and get advice," he said of Clinton's campaign team.

Obama also said he would welcome help from former President Clinton, calling him an "enormous talent."

Obama indicated he intends to take his time making a decision about inviting Hillary Clinton to join the ticket.

"We're not going to be rushed into it. I don't think Senator Clinton expects a quick decision and I don't even know that she's necessarily interested in that," Obama told NBC in an interview.

Clinton's move to formally declare that she is backing the Illinois senator came after Democratic congressional colleagues made clear they had no stomach for a protracted intraparty battle. Now that Obama has the delegates needed for the nomination, Clinton had little choice but to end her quest.

Some of her closest supporters — the nearly two dozen House Democrats from her home state of New York — switched their endorsements to Obama Thursday. Their public announcement followed two days of private phone calls weighing her options.

"She was just as spunky as ever," Rep. Charlie Rangel said of Clinton's mood on the calls, as her friends and supporters urged her to come to a decision "sooner rather than later."

Many of the lawmakers said it was important for them, as New Yorkers who are close to Clinton and helped launch her presidential bid, to work together to repair some of the rifts in the party

Egypt uncovers 'missing' pyramid of a pharaoh

Egypt uncovers 'missing' pyramid of a pharaoh

SAQQARA, Egypt - Egyptian archaeologists unveiled on Thursday a 4,000-year-old "missing pyramid" that is believed to have been discovered by an archaeologist almost 200 years ago and never seen again.Zahi Hawass, Egypt's antiquities chief, said the pyramid appears to have been built by King Menkauhor, an obscure pharaoh who ruled for only eight years.

In 1842, German archaeologist Karl Richard Lepsius mentioned it among his finds at Saqqara, referring to it as number 29 and calling it the "Headless Pyramid" because only its base remains. But the desert sands covered the discovery, and no archaeologist since has been able to find Menkauhor's resting place.

"We have filled the gap of the missing pyramid," Hawass told reporters on a tour of the discoveries at Saqqara, the necropolis and burial site of the rulers of ancient Memphis, the capital of Egypt's Old Kingdom, about 12 miles south of Cairo.

The team also announced the discovery of part of a ceremonial procession road where high priests, their faces obscured by masks, once carried mummified sacred bulls worshipped in the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis.

The pyramid's base — or the superstructure as archeologists call it — was found after a 25-foot-high mound of sand was removed over the past year and a half by Hawass' team.

Hawass said the style of the pyramid indicates it was from the Fifth Dynasty, a period that began in 2,465 B.C. and ended in 2,325 B.C. That would put it about two centuries after the completion of the Great Pyramid of Giza, believed to have been finished in 2,500 B.C.

Another proof of its date, Hawass says, was the discovery inside the pyramid of a gray granite lid of a sarcophagus, of the type used at that time.

The rectangular base, at the bottom of a 15 foot-deep pit dug out by workers, gives little indication of how imposing the pyramid might have once been. Heaps of huge rocks, many still partially covered in sand and dust, mark the pyramid's walls and entrance, and a burial chamber was discovered inside.

Archaeologists have not found a cartouche — a pharaoh's name in hieroglyphs — of the pyramid's owner. But Hawass said that based on the estimated date of the pyramid he was convinced it belonged to Menkauhor.

Work continues at the site, where Hawass said he expected to unearth "subsidiary" pyramids around Menkauhor's main one, and hoped to find inscriptions there to back up his claim.

The partial ceremonial procession road unveiled Thursday dates back to the Ptolemaic period, which ran for about 300 years before 30 B.C.

It runs alongside Menkauhor's pyramid, leading from a mummification chamber toward the Saqqara Serapium, a network of underground tombs where sacred bulls were interred, discovered by French archaeologist August Mariette in 1850.

A high priest would carry the mummified bulls' remains down the procession road — the only human allegedly allowed to walk on it — to the chambers where the bulls would be placed in sarcophagi, Hawass said.

Ancient Egyptians considered Apis Bulls to be incarnations of the city god of Memphis and connected with fertility and the sun-cult. A bull would be chosen for its deep black coloring and would be required to have a single white mark between the horns. Selected by priests and honored until death, it was then later mummified and buried in the underground galleries of the Serapium.

The procession route's discovery "adds an important part to our knowledge of the Old Kingdom and its rituals," Hawass said.

The sprawling archaeological site at Saqqara is most famous for the Step Pyramid of King Djoser — the oldest of Egypt's over 100 pyramids, built in the 27th century B.C.

Although archaeologists have been exploring Egypt for some 200 years, Hawass says only a third of what lies underground in Saqqara has been discovered.

"You never know what secrets the sands of Egypt hide," he said. "I always believe there will be more pyramids to discover."

Space shuttle closes in on space station

Space shuttle closes in on space station

HOUSTON - Shuttle Discovery closed in on the international space station early Monday with a super-size delivery: a scientific lab that's as big as a school busDiscovery was also ferrying up the space station's newest resident: astronaut Gregory Chamitoff.

"We're having a great time up here. Today is going to be even more exciting as we get to see the space station as we approach and dock," Chamitoff said as the shuttle headed for its Monday afternoon rendezvous.

Chamitoff will call the space station home for the next six months. He'll replace Garrett Reisman, who will return to Earth aboard the shuttle.

The space shuttle and its seven astronauts are delivering the $1 billion lab on behalf of Japan. They'll install the lab, with help from the space station's three residents, on Tuesday.

It's named Kibo, Japanese for hope, and is 37 feet long and weighs more than 32,000 pounds.

Shuttle commander Mark Kelly and his crew also have a new pump for the space station's malfunctioning toilet. The Russian-built toilet broke 1 1/2 weeks ago, and space officials hope this pump — from a different manufacturing batch than the spares on board — will get it working normally.

Before parking at the space station, Kelly was going to guide Discovery through a slow back flip so the station residents could photograph the shuttle's underside.

It's one of the safety measures put in place by NASA after the 2003 Columbia accident to check for launch damage.

On Sunday, the astronauts performed a cursory wing inspection using their ship's 50-foot robot arm. They sent ground controllers images of the upper edges of the wings, but could not check the lower edges of the wings and the nose cap because they lacked the proper laser tools.

Their laser-equipped inspection boom is at the space station, left there by the previous shuttle crew in March. They'll retrieve it and, after they depart, perform a full survey.

Discovery did not have enough room for the 50-foot boom — standard equipment on all of the previous post-Columbia missions — because of the enormous lab filling its payload bay.

About five pieces of insulating foam broke off Discovery's external fuel tank during Saturday's liftoff, and one or two of them may have hit the shuttle. NASA officials said they were not too worried because the foam losses occurred after the crucial first two minutes of the flight and therefore lacked the acceleration to do much, if any, damage.

What's more, the foam fragments looked to be thin and flimsy.

Astronaut Karen Nyberg said neither she nor her crewmates saw anything wrong as they were surveying the wings.

"To me, it looked really good," flight director Matt Abbott said from Johnson Space Center. But he cautioned: "We've got a lot of work to do to go through the data."

Discovery's fuel tank was the first one built from scratch with all of the post-Columbia safety changes. The tank, at least from the early data, looks to have performed well, said LeRoy Cain, chairman of the mission management team.

Dolce & Gabbana Host Cannes Soiree

Dolce & Gabbana Host Cannes Soiree

While Christian Audigier was having a party back in Los Angeles, Italian designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana threw their own bash at the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival.

It all went down at Baoli, Port Canto in the South of France, and stars like Natalie Portman, Kate Hudson, and Lindsay Lohan all showed up to see what all the fuss was about.

Cannes darling Natalie Portman has been doing double duty at this year's festival, both promoting her own work as well as serving as a member of the jury. And she looked stunning, once again, at the D&G party, sporting a black dress with silver sleeves and some risky purple flats.

Kate Hudson kept her look clean, sharp, and simple in an ivory-colored spaghetti strap dress with a pair of peep toe heels and a half-up hairstyle.

Never one to be left out of a party, Lindsay Lohan made a grand entrance wearing a short, sleeveless green beaded-and-sequined dress with a pair of seriously high heels.

Economic cost drives Senate climate debate

Economic cost drives Senate climate debate

WASHINGTON - From higher electric bills to more expensive gasoline, the possible economic cost of tackling global warming is driving the debate as climate change takes center stage in Congress. Legislation set for Senate debate Monday would require a reduction in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from power plants, refineries, factories and transportation. The goal is to cut heat-trapping pollution by two-thirds by midcentury.

With gasoline at $4 per gallon and home heating and cooling costs soaring, it is getting harder to sell a bill that would transform the country's energy industries and — as critics will argue — cause energy prices to rise even more.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent who is a leading sponsor of the bill, says computer studies suggest a modest impact on energy costs, with several projections for continued economic growth. Sponsors says the bill also offers billions of dollars in tax breaks to offset higher energy bills.

Lawmakers returning from the Memorial Day break have more than just energy legislation to work on:

_Through a printing error, a 34-page section of a $290 billion farm bill did not make it into the final version that became law. Senators now must deal with the missing section on trade and international food.

_The House and Senate are going back and forth over spending for the Iraq war, college benefits for veterans and New Orleans' levees.

The debate on global warming is viewed as a watershed in climate change politics. Yet both sides acknowledge the prospects for passage are slim this election year.

Several GOP senators are promising a filibuster; the bill's supporters are expressing doubt they can find the 60 votes to overcome the delaying tactic.

Only a few senators now dispute the reality of global warming. Still, there is a sharp divide over how to shift lessen the country's heavy dependence on coal, oil and natural gas without passing along substantially higher energy costs to people.

The petroleum industry, manufacturers and business groups have presented study after study, based on computer modeling, that they say bear out the massive cost and disruption from mandating lower carbon emissions.

Environmental groups counter with studies that show modest cost increases from the emission caps provide new incentives to develop alternative energy sources and promote energy efficiency and conservation.

"This debate is going to be mostly about costs," says Daniel Lashoff, director of the Climate Center at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "But we want to make sure in that debate we don't forget that the cost of inaction on global warming would be much higher than the cost of the emission reductions called for in this bill."

The proposal would cap carbon dioxide releases at 2005 levels by 2012. Additional reductions would follow annually so that by 2050, total U.S. greenhouse emissions would be about one-third of current levels.

The bill would create a pollution allowance trading system. That would generate billions of dollars a year to help people offset expected higher energy costs, promote low-carbon energy alternatives and help industries deal with the transition. Part of the $6.7 trillion projected to be collected from the allowances over 40 years would go toward $800 billion in tax breaks to offset people's higher energy costs.

These reductions "will not only enable us to avoid the ravages of unchecked global warming, but will create millions of new jobs," contends Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, who heads the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

The legislation is not as strong as some Democrats, including presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, would like. They want cuts in CO2 emissions of 80 percent by 2050.

Others lawmakers believe the bill goes too far, too fast. They fear it will outpace development of the technology needed to make the shift from fossil fuels, causing energy prices to soar.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the likely GOP presidential nominee, recently announced a less ambitious plan to cut greenhouse emissions 60 percent by 2050. He has not said whether he will support the Senate bill, although he favors a cap-and-trade approach.

A separate GOP proposal, from Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, would set milestones for carbon dioxide reductions over the next 20 years. It would allow for mandates after that time once a clearer picture develops about new, low-carbon energy technologies.

Senators advocating aggressive action on climate change say that would be too late to avert the worst effects of global warming.

Also in dispute is the distribution of pollution allowances. Many Democrats, including Clinton and Obama, to auction all allowances. The Senate bill would give about half of them to states, municipalities and affected industries.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, said he will try to get that changed so that none goes to what he considers to be special interests.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., also wants most, if not all, the allowances auctioned and the money going out in checks to anyone earning $150,000 or less, or $300,000 for couples.