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Mon Sep 25, 9:58 AM ET LONDON - Paul McCartney says he's "doing fine," despite the turmoil surrounding the breakup of his marriage. McCartney, who appeared Monday at a news conference to launch his new classical album, "Ecce Cor Meum (Behold My Heart)," did not comment directly on his split from his second wife, Heather Mills McCartney. ADVERTISEMENT Asked how he had been coping in recent months, McCartney said: "I'm doing fine thank you. It's OK. "I'm enjoying music. It's something I love to do. It's something that sustains me. So I'm enjoying it, finishing this project off and also the next one." McCartney said he started "Ecce Cor Meum" when his first wife, Linda, was still alive. After she died of breast cancer in 1998, "it stalled me," the 64-year-old former Beatle said. "I took a year or so before I could get back into it. The interlude in the middle is a particularly sad melody and is what got me going again," he said. "Her spirit is very much in this. It would have been her birthday yesterday so it's very appropriate." McCartney said the lyrics of "Ecce Cor Meum" were inspired by what he believes is important in life. "When I came around to thinking, `what do I want the words to say?' I just wrote down a whole load of things that interest me about truth, about love, about honesty and about kindness. Stuff that I thought was important in life." Paul and Heather Mills McCartney announced their separation in May after four years of marriage. They have begun divorce proceedings in an increasingly acrimonious split. The couple have a 2-year-old daughter, Beatrice. "Ecce Cor Meum," which is being released by EMI Classics, is the pop star's fourth classical album. His first, "The Liverpool Oratorio," was released in 1991. Britain's Magdalen College Oxford commissioned McCartney to create the music more than eight years ago in celebration of a new concert hall.

Mon Sep 25, 9:56 AM ET BAGHDAD (Reuters) - British troops in Iraq said on Monday they had killed a senior al Qaeda figure who escaped from a U.S. prison in Afghanistan in 2005. ADVERTISEMENT Omar Faruq was shot dead while resisting arrest during a pre-dawn raid by about 200 British troops in Iraq's second biggest city, Basra, British military spokesman Major Charlie Burbridge said. Burbridge called him a "very, very significant man," although he was believed to be hiding inside Iraq, not necessarily operating there. "The individual had been tracked across Iraq and was in hiding in Basra," Burbridge said. "Two companies (about 200 troops) launched the operation in the early hours of this morning. The troops returned to base without any multinational force casualties." Faruq, a Kuwaiti citizen who was captured in Indonesia in June, 2002, was described by Washington as the most senior al Qaeda figure in southeast Asia, a key link between Osama bin Laden's followers and Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiah militants. He was one of four men who escaped from the high-security U.S. detainee center at Bagram air base north of the Afghan capital, Kabul, in June last year. Washington did not reveal that he had escaped until six months later, when defense lawyers demanded he be produced as a witness at the trial of an army sergeant accused of abusing prisoners in Bagram. U.S. officials were then forced to reveal that he could not testify because he had escaped.

By HANS GREIMEL, Associated Press Mon Sep 25, 9:10 AM ET TOKYO - A Japanese railroad will invest $3.1 billion to develop high-speed magnetic trains over the next decade, the company said Monday, just days after a crash of an experimental magnetic train in Germany killed 23 people. ADVERTISEMENT The spending by Central Japan Railway Co. will expand a test track just west of Tokyo and fund new magnetically levitated, or "maglev," trains carriages. The move comes as Germany and Japan jostle to win new customers for the high speed trains, which are the fastest in the world. Skimming over a guideway on powerful magnetic fields without touching the track, they can reach speeds of up to 360 miles per hour. The technology is still under development, although there are two short stretches of commercially operating maglev trains, one in Shanghai and the other in the central Japanese city of Nagoya. German Traffic Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee was in China at the time of Friday's accident, trying to urge officials there to extend their use of the German-made technology along the Shanghai route, a contract that Japan competed for but lost. "We can't speak for the German company," Central Japan Railway spokesman Taro Yoshikawa said. "But we've conducted extensive testing on our technology, and from a safety point of view, there are no concerns." There have been no fatalities in test runs of the company's maglev, and the train has set a speed record with passengers aboard of 360 miles per hour, Yoshikawa said. The German-built maglev in Shanghai has safety systems that would prevent the type of crash that occurred last week, said Chang Wensen, a professor at the Maglev Research Center at the National University of Defense Technology in the central Chinese city of Changsha. That line has computerized systems that prevent two trains from being on one track at the same time and that automatically stop the train if there is an obstacle ahead, Chang said. Chinese experts already were reassessing the Shanghai maglev's safety following an Aug. 11 fire in an electrical storage compartment beneath the passenger cabin that created large amounts of smoke but caused no deaths or injuries. Preliminary investigations attributed that mishap to an electrical fault. "The accidents in Shanghai and Germany will have some impact but will not hinder the development of the maglev," Chang said. "The maglev technology itself has no problem," he said. "The problems are in the running of the maglev." The operators of the line, Shanghai Maglev Transport Development Co., had no comment Monday. Shanghai's maglev line covers the 19 miles to the city's Pudong International Airport in just eight minutes at speeds of up to 270 mph. Launched in early 2004, it is the world's first commercially operating magnetic levitation train line. Central Japan Railway said over the weekend that the German crash won't affect its testing plans, but the Japanese government said it is closely watching what German investigators conclude about the cause of the crash. Central Japan Railway completed a maglev test run Saturday with about 100 passengers, and the company is still planning a special event on Nov. 22-24, inviting 1,800 people to ride the train at its test center. Japan's only commercially operating magnetic-levitation train, the local Linimo train near Nagoya, carries passengers on a 5.5-mile track at top speeds of 62 miles an hour. Planners eventually want Japan's maglev service to connect Tokyo and Osaka with high speed trains, shortening the trip between Japan's two biggest cities to an hour, compared with the Shinkansen bullet train's 2.5 hours.

by Guy Jackson Mon Sep 25, 12:34 PM ET BERLIN (AFP) - The German city of Munich is still planning to build a magnetic levitation train line despite last week's collision on a test track in which 23 people were killed, officials have said. ADVERTISEMENT The futuristic high-speed train crashed into a maintenance vehicle on the track in western Germany on Friday. Investigators are blaming the collision on a disastrous breakdown in communications. In Shanghai, the only city with a Transrapid in commercial use, officials said they had no concerns about the safety of their system. The accident has cast a shadow over efforts to market the magnetic levitation train, also known as maglev, which was developed in a joint venture by German engineering giants Siemens and ThyssenKrupp. Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee said after a meeting with the companies' representatives on Sunday that "major safety failings" were the cause of the crash. But the transport minister of Bavaria, Erwin Huber, said the state capital, Munich, was still considering building a Transrapid line to link its commercial centre and international airport. The process to gain approval for the Munich project should end in the middle of next year, Huber told Bayerischer Rundfunk radio. "That timetable will not be called into question because the security concept will subsequently be improved." He denied that Tiefensee had expressed reservations about the plans for Munich. "The federal transport minister never announced a change to the timetable, he only said in reply to a question that safety was of the highest priority," Huber said. The Transrapid is powered by a magnetic force field and 'floats' about one centimetre (half an inch) above the track, allowing it to reach speeds of up to 450 kilometres (280 miles) per hour. Despite the revolutionary technology, its high costs have discouraged rail operators from using the system. The only city to have bought a Transrapid train, Shanghai, said on Monday its three-year-old line from the city centre to Pudong international airport was operating without problems. "Everything is in normal operation, and there is no special examination being carried out," said Chen Sheng, an official from the Shanghai Maglev company. China has been keen to build a 170-kilometre (105-mile) extension to the existing line to take passengers from Shanghai to the city of Hangzhou. But lengthy discussions have not made much progress, with German officials rejecting Chinese demands for access to sensitive technology on the train, press reports say. The German daily Die Welt reported on Sunday that it was increasingly unlikely the extension would get the go-ahead because of its estimated 4.3 billion dollar cost. However, there was a boost for the maglev technology when one of Japan's main railway operators on Monday announced plans to spend 355 billion yen (3.1 billion dollars) developing magnetic trains. Central Japan Railway Co. said it wanted to extend a magnetic levitation test track in central Yamanashi prefecture to 42.2 kilometres as part of a 10-year development plan. Meanwhile, three of the 10 people injured in the crash in Lathen near the Dutch border were allowed to leave hospital. Prosecutors said they wanted to question all the staff responsible for the functioning of the train, including the two control room employees whose job it was to observe the track. They could face manslaughter charges. Authorities said 21 of the dead were men and two were women, all aged between 40 and 66. Two US citizens were among those killed while 10 were employees of the RWE energy company who had been riding on the train on a business trip.

By Will Dunham Mon Sep 25, 6:24 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military is delaying the departure of thousands of soldiers from Iraq while speeding the arrival of thousands more as a way to keep more troops on the ground to handle unrelenting violence, the Pentagon said on Monday. ADVERTISEMENT In a bid to stem a rise in sectarian violence between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims that has heightened concern over civil war, the United States has increased the number of troops in Iraq the past two months to 142,000. A brigade of roughly 3,800 soldiers from the Army's 1st Armored Division, based in Germany, that was to have left Iraq in January is being held in place for an extra 6-1/2 weeks and will leave in late February, the Pentagon said. These soldiers are now set to serve roughly 13 months in Iraq, longer than the policy of 12-month tours of duty for Army soldiers. They are in the area of Ramadi, capital of Anbar province in western Iraq, the heartland of the Sunni Arab insurgency. Meanwhile, a similarly sized Texas-based Army brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division will go to Iraq a month earlier than previously scheduled, beginning its deployment in late October, the Pentagon said. Both moves enable the Pentagon to bolster troop levels in Iraq without actually deploying soldiers not already due to go. But the timing reflects what some military experts have called the growing strain on the Army in continuing to provide large numbers of combat troops for Iraq and Afghanistan. A Pentagon statement said the moves "are necessary to maintain the current force structure in Iraq into the spring of next year." It is the second time in two months that the military has extended a brigade beyond its planned departure date to deal with unabated violence in Iraq 3 1/2 years into the war. Army Gen. John Abizaid, head of U.S. Central Command, said last week the United States is likely to keep more than 140,000 troops in Iraq through at least next spring. President George W. Bush has acknowledged he had hoped to begin reducing troop levels by now but was thwarted by the persistent violence. 'A GREAT DEAL' "There's no question but that any time there's a war, the forces of the countries involved are asked to do a great deal," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters. "From time to time, there may be units that will be asked to increase the number of days in-country from what had been anticipated. On the other hand, we're also bringing you some other units in earlier, which is another way of dealing with that issue." By extending a unit scheduled to leave Iraq, the Army can maintain or bolster troop levels without having to send reinforcements from outside the country. Bu such action often provokes anger and disappointment among soldiers and families. Some military experts have said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have stretched the Army nearly to breaking point, with many soldiers serving two or three tours of duty and equipment wearing out at alarming rates. Pentagon policy is for Army soldiers to serve 12-month tours in Iraq and Marines seven months. Troops who serve longer get extra pay. The Pentagon said delaying the departure of the 1st Armored Division brigade will give another unit due to go to Iraq in January -- a brigade of the Georgia-based 3rd Infantry Division -- a full year of rest since it last saw combat. At key times in the war such as Iraqi elections in 2005 and the return of sovereignty in 2004, the Pentagon has delayed troop departures to beef up the U.S. presence.

Reuters - A Montana mother who allowed her 18-month-old baby daughter to inhale from a marijuana water pipe on several occasions was properly convicted, but should not have to spend five years in jail, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday.

Reuters - A car commercial proclaiming a jihad on the U.S. auto market and offering "Fatwa Fridays" with free swords for the kids is offensive and should not be aired, Muslim leaders said on Sunday.

AP - Retired military officers on Monday bluntly accused Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld of bungling the war in Iraq, saying U.S. troops were sent to fight without the best equipment and that critical facts were hidden from the public.

By Gopal Sharma Mon Sep 25, 11:14 AM ET KATHMANDU (Reuters) - All 24 people on board a helicopter chartered by conservation group WWF in Nepal were killed after the aircraft crashed in bad weather two days ago, officials said on Monday. ADVERTISEMENT The wreckage of the Russian-made helicopter was found earlier on Monday by a Nepali army team after incessant rains and fog had hampered rescue efforts. The army helicopter found the crashed aircraft about 2 km southwest of Ghunsa, a village in Taplejung district, about 300 km (190 miles) east of the capital, Kathmandu. "There are no survivors," Purushottam Shakya, who coordinates rescues from Kathmandu airport, told Reuters. Officials said the helicopter was found broken into pieces. Plans were being made to recover bodies and more helicopters were being sent to Taplejung, they added. Some rescuers had also reached the site by land. "There were 24 people on this helicopter, including 7 staff of WWF," WWF Director-General James Leape told Reuters television at WWF headquarters in Gland, Switzerland. "All together it represented some of the most important leadership of the conservation movement in Nepal, and certainly many of the leaders of the WWF's efforts in Nepal and elsewhere. It is a huge loss for this organization but also for conservation in Nepal and of course for the families of these 24 people," he said. Of the 20 passengers and four crew, 17 were Nepalis. Others included a Finnish diplomat, two Americans, a Canadian and a Swiss-Australian, as well as two Russians. Nepal's junior forest minister, Gopal Rai, his wife, Finnish Charge d'Affaires Pauli Mustonen, and the deputy director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Nepal, Margaret Alexander, were among those on board. Other passengers were conservationists working for the WWF and two Nepali television journalists. The passengers had attended the handover of a WWF project to the local community and were on their way back. LOUD NOISE The bodies would have to be carried for two hours to Phere, the nearest point where helicopters could land, said another rescue official at Kathmandu airport. "Bodies have been found. Only one body is in a better shape and can be recognized. Pieces of bodies are scattered over a steep slope near a gorge," he said. But more bad weather slowed plans to shift the bodies. Heavy rains, fog and strong winds forced helicopters to abandon flights to the mountainous region, said Hem Nath Dawadi, district administrator of Taplejung. "Rescue workers are collecting the bodies on the spot. They will be picked up by helicopters when the weather improves," Dawadi told Reuters. "But this is not possible today." The area, located above 3,500 meters (11,480 feet), is very remote and with few villages. The rugged landscape is dominated by gorges. The helicopter left Ghunsa village at about noon (0615 GMT) on Saturday but never arrived at its destination in Taplejung town, a 20-minute flight. Officials said on Sunday villagers had reported hearing a loud noise in a gorge soon after the helicopter left Ghunsa, a region that is home to Mount Kanchenjunga, the world's third-highest peak at 8,586 meters (28,169 feet). Eighteen people, including 13 Germans, were killed when a commercial plane crashed in the hills of western Nepal in 2002. Himalayan Nepal, home to Mount Everest, has a poorly developed road network and many tourists and officials travel by helicopters or small planes to remote mountainous areas.

By Kamran Haider Mon Sep 25, 3:34 AM ET ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Scoffing at rumors that he had been overthrown in a coup while visiting the United States, President Pervez Musharraf said Pakistan was not an unstable "banana republic." ADVERTISEMENT Independent television channel Geo News on Monday showed the president smiling and laughing with journalists in the United States as he scotched speculation that he had been toppled. "It is a nonsense. What should I say about this. Look we aren't, thank God, a banana republic, where such things happen suddenly," said Musharraf, who came to power himself in a bloodless military coup seven years ago. The rumors swept Pakistan on Sunday during a power outage that blacked out large parts of the country, including the capital Islamabad, the neighboring garrison city of Rawalpindi and eastern city of Lahore. "I've been told the power breakdown was in Ghazi Barotha, and these rumors surfaced due to this. As if a power breakdown is needed to create such disturbance?" Musharraf joked, as he stood alongside his wife. Newspaper offices and journalists were flooded with telephone calls and text messages inquiring about the rumors, eventually forcing Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani, who was traveling with Musharraf, to issue a denial. The Pakistani leader was due to launch his autobiography "In the Line of Fire" in New York later on Monday, and he is scheduled to meet President George W. Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai later this week to discuss their sometimes strained alliance in the war on terrorism. Musharraf is due to arrive back in Pakistan on Thursday, having been out of the country for two and a half weeks. Last week, Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted as Thai prime minister while attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York, which Musharraf also attended. Musharraf had a routine medical check-up in Texas with a Pakistani-American doctor over the weekend. "They have declared me very fit," state-run Associated Press of Pakistan quoted the president, an ex-commando, as saying. Musharraf has survived several assassination attempts since withdrawing Pakistan's support for the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan in 2001, after the Islamist militia refused to surrender its guest, Osama bin Laden, in the wake of al Qaeda's September 11 attacks on the United States. The Times newspaper in Britain opened a serialization of Musharraf's memoirs on Monday with the Pakistani leader's account of how the CIA paid his government millions of dollars for handing over to America hundreds of al-Qaeda suspects. While fears of assassination remain, speculation about Musharraf's grip on power is seldom heard openly, as there is no overt political challenge to him. Leaders of the mainstream opposition parties are living in exile, and while some Islamist leaders talk of toppling the president, most diplomats and analysts reckon Musharraf could only be ousted by a coup from within the military.

AP - Pop singer Aaron Carter has broken off his engagement to his older brother's ex.

By Philip Pullella Mon Sep 25, 2:45 AM ET VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict meets Muslim ambassadors and Italian Islamic leaders later on Monday in an unprecedented move to try to defuse anger over his use of a medieval text which says their religion was spread by violence. ADVERTISEMENT As many as 20 envoys, including those from Iran, Iraq, Turkey and the Arab League, are expected to attend a special private audience with the Pope at his summer residence at Castelgandolfo, south of Rome. The Vatican said on Friday the meeting, scheduled to start at 11:45 a.m. (0945 GMT), was to relaunch dialogue with the Islamic world. The leader of more than one billion Catholics has several times expressed regret for the reaction to a speech nearly two weeks ago in which he quoted 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who spoke of the Prophet Mohammad's "command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." But he has stopped short of the unequivocal apology wanted by Muslims for the speech, which he gave at Regensburg University during a trip to his native Germany. Besides the Pope, the Vatican will be represented by its new Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and Cardinal Paul Poupard, its Culture Minister who is also responsible for inter-religious dialogue. It was still not clear what structure the meeting would have and whether the envoys would have a chance to have discussions with the 79-year-old Pope, who is facing the toughest international crisis since his election in April, 2005. Iraq's Vatican envoy, Albert Edward Ishmail Yelda, told Reuters before the meeting he hoped there would be an "exchange of views" rather than just a papal speech. Thousands of Muslims demonstrated again on Friday after prayers at mosques around the world but the anger and the size of the protests appears to be diminishing. "This meeting will be very important, especially in these days, to try to stop every action that is not good," said Fathi Abuabed at the Arab League's Vatican mission. Turkey's religious affairs director Ali Bardakoglu urged the Pope not to just to reiterate that he was misunderstood. He told CNN Turk on Friday that taking this line "comes near to accusing people of blindness in their perceptions." But Bardakoglu would consider meeting Benedict if the Pope's planned trip to Turkey in November goes ahead. The violence of reactions has raised security concerns. Mehmet Ali Agca, who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981, warned Benedict not to travel to Turkey, saying his life would be at risk. The Pope has said his real intention had been to "explain that religion and violence do not go together but religion and reason do." Western politicians, including President Bush, and Christian church leaders have tried to calm the crisis by ensuring Muslims that the Pope was sincere when he expressed regret at the offence caused.

By Chang-Ran Kim, Asia auto correspondent Mon Sep 25, 8:40 AM ET HAGA-GUN, Japan (Reuters) - Honda Motor Co. (7267.T) said on Monday it has developed a new and simple diesel powertrain that is as clean as gasoline-fuelled cars, unveiling plans to mount it on a car for the U.S. market by 2009. ADVERTISEMENT Diesel engines, which now power half of Europe's new cars, are slowly gaining traction with fuel-conscious consumers around the world since they typically get 30 percent better mileage than gasoline cars. Their weakness has been the higher exhaust levels of nitrogen oxide (NOx), a greenhouse gas, and carmakers are racing to come up with ways to clear the world's strictest emissions regulations, which the United States will usher in next year. Honda's new diesel drivetrain generates and stores ammonia within a two-layer catalytic converter to turn nitrogen oxide into harmless nitrogen. Honda engineers said the technology is superior to a process pioneered by Germany's DaimlerChrysler AG (DCXGn.DE) because the latter requires a complex system and heavy add-ons to generate ammonia from urea-based additives. Some technical hurdles remain. The system would need fine-tuning for the wide-ranging cetane indexes of diesel fuel found in the United States. Honda also needs to develop technology to measure emissions levels according to U.S. On-Board Diagnostic System requirements. But Japan's third-biggest auto maker said it planned to roll out the advanced diesel engine, first in the United States within three years and later to other regions. DaimlerChrysler, which along with Volkswagen AG (VOWG.DE) already sells diesel cars in the world's biggest auto market, is preparing its next-generation diesel car for a 2008 launch. Honda has long been at the forefront of green powertrain technology, perhaps most famously with the development in 1973 of the CVCC (Compound Vortex Controlled Combustion) engine which gave the popular Civic its name. The engine was the first to meet U.S. clean air guidelines without a catalytic converter. "Just as we paved the way for cleaner gasoline engines, we will take the leadership in the progress of diesel engines," Honda Chief Executive Takeo Fukui told a news conference. Honda would be "open to considering" licensing its new diesel technology once it was perfected, Fukui said. FUEL CELLS, FLEX-FUEL In a demonstration of other new power plant technologies at its R&D center in Tochigi, north of Tokyo, Honda also showed off a prototype of its next-generation fuel cell vehicle which runs on a newly developed compact and more powerful fuel cell stack. The new stack is designed to allow the hydrogen and water formed during electricity generation to flow vertically instead of horizontally, making the component 20 percent smaller and 30 percent lighter than the previous version. Honda's new FCX fuel-cell car now has a driving range of 570 km (354 miles) -- a 30 percent improvement from the 2005 model. Its maximum speed is 160 km (100 miles) per hour, and it can be driven in temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius (-22 F). Honda plans to begin marketing the car in limited numbers in 2008 in Japan and the United States. Honda said it also developed a flexible fuel vehicle system that can operate on any proportion of ethanol to gasoline between 20 percent and 100 percent. That car will be sold in Brazil, the biggest market for ethanol-based vehicles, later this year. "Way out in the future, the ultimate green car will be fuel cell vehicles," Fukui said. "But in the meantime, you need a wide range of green technology to meet varying local needs and fuel supply."

E! Online - The decidedly un-P.C. hijinks of [bleeped!]: Number Two proved irresistible for legions of teenage boys, racking up $28.1 million at the multiplex--nearly triple the haul of its closest competitor.

By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer Sun Sep 24, 11:15 PM ET NEW YORK - Anybody who believes Nancy Grace was chastened by the suicide of a young mother following their tough television encounter doesn't know Nancy Grace. ADVERTISEMENT The prime-time prosecutor continues to focus nearly full-time on Melinda Duckett, piling up evidence to point to the Florida woman's guilt in the disappearance of her 2-year-old son, Trenton, all with the support of her bosses at CNN Headline News. The case points a spotlight on the hard-charging Grace, who has quickly joined Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann among the most polarizing personalities in cable news. "I remain dedicated to the ongoing fight for crime victims everywhere," Grace said in a statement to The Associated Press. "Right now, our focus is on helping find baby Trenton Duckett safe and sound, and we will pursue the case until there is a resolution." Melinda Duckett, named Thursday as the primary suspect in her son's disappearance, shot herself on Sept. 8, a day after taping the interview. Grace questioned her about what she was doing on the day Trenton disappeared, pounding her desk and asking: "Where were you? Why aren't you telling us where you were that day?" While Duckett's ex-husband is among the people who say Grace shouldn't shoulder any blame in the suicide, questions were raised about CNN Headline News' sensitivity in airing the interview after knowing Duckett had killed herself. Portions were rerun again Thursday. "I don't fault Nancy Grace for asking the questions," said MSNBC host Joe Scarborough. "That's her job. That's her shtick. She's an entertainer. The problem is what happened afterward. She's gone on a personal jihad against this woman. At what point does CNN step in and say `enough's enough?'" Scarborough's show last week paid almost as much attention to Grace's conduct as Grace did to the Duckett case. He calls Grace a "runaway beer truck" and said CNN Headline News gives her free rein because of her importance to the network. A CNN Headline News spokeswoman dismissed that assessment as absurd. Kenneth Jautz, CNN Headline News chief, said he hadn't spoke to Grace about her coverage and said he saw no reason for her to change. "Nancy is passionate and outspoken about crime and the rights of victims, particularly in children's cases," he said. "I think that comes across in the show. I think she's been very successful because of her passion, because of her no-nonsense direct approach." By any measure, "Nancy Grace" is a hit. It has also helped CNN Headline News transform itself: after more than two decades of running constant news updates, the network made Grace the star of its first real show in February 2005. Ratings for the time slot tripled almost overnight, and Grace frequently gets a bigger audience than Paula Zahn on CNN. Her show airs twice in prime time, live at 8 p.m. ET and repeated at 10. Grace went to college to be an English teacher, but her life changed in 1980 when her fiance was killed in a mugging by a man out on parole. Convinced that victims were overlooked in the criminal justice system, she became a prosecutor in Atlanta, then a quick-witted and forceful pundit for Court TV and other outlets. True crime stories have become a genre unto themselves on cable TV, with Grace and Fox News Channel's Greta Van Susteren leading the way to especially strong ratings last summer following Natalee Holloway's disappearance in Aruba. Grace's show feels like a courtroom on speed. Using evidence both solid and circumstantial, she pieces together cases with a prosecutorial zeal. The attention puts pressure on real authorities investigating cases. All of it, she believes, benefits crime victims. "You're an angel to so many people, you just don't know," one fan from South Carolina said on Thursday's show. Her critics find Grace too quick to make damning judgments, suggesting her work runs counter to the justice system's presumption of innocence. Her hunches are often right, but what kind of damage can they do when she's wrong? Seven years ago, Grace said she "would definitely have voted to indict" the Ramseys in their daughter JonBenet's death. "There's no doubt in my mind," she said. When John Mark Karr was arrested this summer as a suspect in the girl's murder, she repeatedly called him a "perv" before the allegations fell apart. The case remains unsolved. When runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks was missing, Grace said, "I just don't believe it's a case of cold feet" before it turned out to be exactly that. Lauren Ritchie, a columnist at the Orlando Sentinel, suggested Grace went over the edge by suggesting in a "Good Morning America" interview that guilt made Melinda Duckett commit suicide. "Grace's performance so far is only a slim cut above TV show host Jerry Springer's antics," Ritchie wrote. "Springer, however, doesn't masquerade as respectable." CNN Headline News emphasizes that "Nancy Grace" is an opinion-based show, not a traditional newscast, Jautz said. He defended the network's decision to air Duckett's interview after she killed herself, saying both parents wanted to speak to Grace in the hope of locating Trenton. "We always make sure that we have people who disagree with her point of view on her show," he said. "We have more people who disagree with her than agree with her point of view." That can be risky. When a lawyer on Thursday's show suggested it was possible someone other than Duckett could have thrown away the pictures of her son that were found in a Dumpster near her home, Grace cut him off. "Until you have something sensical to say," she told him, "I'm locking you back up." With critics suggesting Grace's relentless focus on the case is cruel to Duckett's family, virtually all of Wednesday and Thursday's shows were devoted to Trenton's disappearance. "Nancy Grace" averaged 689,000 viewers the first three days of the week, comfortably above the show's third quarter average of 534,000 viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. Grace appeared close to crying Thursday when Melinda's ex-husband came on her show and said that despite people blaming Grace in Duckett's death, "I don't hold you responsible at all." She also flashed defiance. "To all the people that have been riding me like a mule about questioning her, I would advise them to A, take a look at the (news conference) today when police named her the primary suspect and B, join us in the search to find this baby," she said. ___

By GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press Writer Mon Sep 25, 2:48 PM ET OJAI, Calif. - Cooler weather helped firefighters who were slowly encircling one of the largest, longest-burning wildfires in recent state history on Monday as dying Santa Ana winds were replaced by cooler ocean breezes. ADVERTISEMENT The hot winds from the northeast were down from 40 mph to 10 mph and were colliding with an onshore flow coming up from the south. Flames that had grown more active over the weekend were "pretty much lazy," said Larry Comerford of the U.S. Forest Service. "We're slowly gaining the upper hand." The fire in Los Padres National Forest had burned about 134,000 acres, or nearly 210 square miles, since Labor Day. It was 41 percent contained. The fire has crept toward the town of Ojai, an artists' enclave popular with tourists, but by Monday a call for voluntary evacuations of 300 homes and a college east of the city was called off. No homes were in immediate danger, although residents of Ojai and other towns within 10 miles of the fire were told to stay alert. Officials said a DC-10 jet that dumped 48,000 gallons of fire retardant Sunday helped knock back the edge of the fire. Twenty-five smaller aircraft were being used Monday to fight the blaze. "If something major happens, it would really be an act of God because this area has just been covered so completely by the fire service. It's pretty hard to think too much is going to happen," Mike Gram, 54, said Sunday during a stop at an Ojai grocery store. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency Sunday for Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles. The move clears the way for assistance from the governor's emergency services office and state funds for rebuilding and recovery. The fire has cost $36.7 million to fight, with that figure increasing about $1 million a day.

Sun Sep 24, 10:23 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A second bag of spinach contaminated with toxic E.coli bacteria has been found in Utah, and regulators hope it will offer clues about an outbreak that has now sickened 173 people and killed as many as three. ADVERTISEMENT A bag of spinach found in New Mexico last week helped experts pinpoint suspect farms in three counties in California's Salinas Valley, but the FDA said spinach grown outside of those counties is safe to eat. "The Utah Department of Health and the Salt Lake Valley Health Department have confirmed that E. coli O157:H7 ... has been found in a bag of Dole baby spinach purchased in Utah with a use-by date of August 30, 2006," the Food and Drug Administration said in a statement on Sunday. The E.coli strain O157:H7 is the same as that found in the nationwide outbreak. The FDA said 173 cases of illness due to E. coli have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including 27 with a serious type of kidney failure called hemolytic uremic syndrome. There have been 92 hospitalizations and one death in 25 states. Health officials also said they strongly suspected the deaths of a two-year-old boy in Idaho and an 86-year-old woman in Maryland were caused by the E. coli outbreak but samples that would prove this were not available. FDA officials said even if everyone stopped eating spinach when warnings were first issued around September 15, they would expect to receive reports about illnesses into October because it often takes two to three weeks to hear of possible cases, perform the needed tests and get results back. Escherichia coli is a common and usually harmless bacteria found in the guts of animals. A new, toxic strain called E.coli O157:H7 was identified in 1982. It now causes an 73,000 cases of infection and 61 deaths in the United States each year.

By GREGG BELL, AP Sports Writer Sun Sep 24, 10:23 PM ET SEATTLE - Jeremy Shockey is at it again. New York's volatile tight end criticized coach Tom Coughlin after the Giants fell behind by 35 points early before losing to Seattle 42-30 on Sunday. "We got outplayed, and outcoached. Write that down," Shockey said. Asked what he meant by outcoached, Shockey said, "You saw the game." It was reminiscent of comments made by running back Tiki Barber after the Giants' wild-card game loss to Carolina last season. Barber said after the game that the Giants were outcoached by Carolina's John Fox, a former Giants defensive coordinator. Coughlin was practically shouting from a podium after the game. Sweat was running down his face at the thought of Eli Manning's two first-quarter interceptions, a lost fumble and a 35-0 first-half hole that was the largest in New York's 82-year history. "We just gave the game away," Coughlin said. "A team that does nothing but preach and talk about turnovers, we turn it over like nothing matters, nothing counts. It cost us the game." "We started the game and lost our composure again up front and had a couple of foolish penalties ... We had what we thought was a good game plan together. And obviously we didn't execute." Shockey, who had four catches for 58 yards, stewed in the locker room by himself before being told of Coughlin's comments. "They were in different defenses than we thought they were going to be in. They did different things that we haven't seen," he said. "You can make adjustments all you want, but when they do new things and they switch things up, you really can't do anything." Shockey pointed out how well Manning played on New York's final scoring drive. Manning exclusively used the no-huddle offense to move 94 yards, a drive that ended with his 9-yard touchdown to David Tyree. Manning thrived in the no-huddle to rally past the Eagles last weekend. On Sunday, Manning was 2-of-7 for minus-1 yards and the two interceptions in a conventional offense during an awful first quarter, when Seattle led 21-0. He was 20-for-26 for 238 yards after that. Someone asked tackle Luke Petitgout if it mattered that his team rallied for 27 points late. "No," Petitgout said flatly. Shockey, seated next to Petitgout, said "I think it does." "I think when Eli gets to call his plays, get his formations, I think we play better football, when he gets to decide a little bit more than just the set play and then you get to go for it," Shockey said. "But you can't play always in a no-huddle situation." Why not? "You've got to go by their plays," Shockey said. "They're the coaches. They get paid money. They call the plays. Every coach out there is trying to help everybody to move the ball and help his team win. You can't just go out of no-huddle all the time."

By Joal Ryan Mon Sep 25, 12:36 PM ET Meredith Grey can't make up her mind. Imagine how torn TV viewers felt. ADVERTISEMENT With a choice between the season premieres of Grey's Anatomy and CSI Thursday night, channel surfers, by and large, chose the ABC doctor drama. Per final numbers from Nielsen Media Research, Grey's Anatomy won the 9-10 p.m. time slot with 25.4 million viewers; CSI trailed with 22.6 million. The victory is a huge one for ABC, which gambled by moving Grey's Anatomy from Sundays, where it was ensconced after Desperate Housewives, to a historically blighted night for the network. Instead of becoming a Wasteland or a Push, Nevada, two latter-day ABC Thursday-night bombs, Grey's Anatomy became a giant-slayer. CSI has ruled Thursdays since moving there in 2001, mid-way through its first season. More than that, Gil Grissom's forensic gang has ruled prime time as TV's most watched scripted show since the 2002-03 TV year. Up against Grey's Anatomy, CSI saw its audience shrink 22 percent from last fall's premiere. (Grey's Anatomy, by comparison, was up 32 percent.) CSI got beat in total viewers, it got beat in the 18-to-49-year-old demographic, and it got beat in the 18-to-34-year-old demographic. According to ABC, the defeats were the first for CSI in five years, excluding a handful of times it lost out to supersized finales, a la the 2004 Friends farewell. In the drama department, CSI countered Grey's Anatomy's man troubles (Will Meredith choose Dr. McDreamy or Chris O'Donnell-y Finn?) with the apparent date rape of Catherine ( Marg Helgenberger). Thursday marked the first time both science-minded shows went blood lab to blood lab with new episodes. Grey's Anatomy rolled out its third-season premiere; CSI, its seventh. By the end of the night, Grey's Anatomy had its third most watched episode ever. Only the two hours that aired after last February's Super Bowl attracted more viewers. Looking for a bright side, CBS found it by crunching the numbers for its entire Thursday lineup--including the latest episode of Survivior: Cook Islands (17.4 million) and the series premiere of James Woods' Shark (14.7 million)--and declaring itself the most watched network of TV's most watched night. Usually a non-player on Thursdays, ABC kept things close by managing 13.7 million for a Grey's Anatomy clip show that aired from 8-9 p.m., and 12.6 million for the series premiere of Six Degrees in the 10-11 p.m. hour. Though its numbers weren't as scarce as, say, Kidnapped's, and marked a big improvement for ABC in the time period, Six Degrees needs to work on relationship-building. In the course of an hour, the J.J. Abrams soap lost fully 50 percent of the audience ABC assembled for Grey's Anatomy. (Shark lost 35 percent of its CSI lead-in.) Still, with CBS moving hit Without a Trace to Sundays, the 10 p.m. Thursday hour is up for grabs. NBC's aged ER, now 13 seasons old, eked out a win there with an estimated 15.6 million viewers. NBC couldn't eke out much else on the competitive night. Fresh out of footballs, the Peacock made do with the season premieres of My Name Is Earl (estimated 9.9 million), The Office (estimated 9.1 million) and another Deal or No Deal (10.1 million). Earl's Emmy win last month translated into an opener that was 29 percent down from last fall's; The Office's was good for a whopping 1 percent gain. Fox, meanwhile, presumably would like to be left alone with its thoughts after viewers left it alone with three new episodes of 'Til Death (estimated 5.7 million), Happy Hour (estimated 4.4 million) and Celebrity Duets (estimated 3.3 million).