News Update Place

GULFPORT, Miss. - U.S. Sen. Trent Lott (news, bio, voting record) says personal losses he suffered because of Hurricane Katrina will weigh on his decision whether to run for re-election in 2006.

The Mississippi Republican lost his waterfront home in Pascagoula during the Aug. 29 storm.

“It was about half my net worth. I have a $400,000 loss after the flood insurance,” the former Senate majority leader said.

“From a personal standpoint, I need a little more income. But the people I care most about, those on the coast, are hurting and need help,” he said.

Lott is suing his insurance company in federal court to collect for wind damage to his home. The case is part of an ongoing dispute between insurance companies and thousands of storm victims who cannot agree on whether a wind-driven storm surge is the same as flooding.

The senator said his family is divided over his running again.

Another consideration, he said, is that he is “so disappointed with the (Bush) administration’s response to this disaster that I’m almost embarrassed.”

Lott, 64, was elected to the Senate in 1988 after serving 16 years in the House. He lost his leadership post in 2002 after he made a remark that seemed to praise the late Sen. Strom Thurmond’s segregationist past.

Lott hinted that if he does seek re-election, he might seek another leadership post. “I might do it just to make everybody nervous,” he said.

Rep. Chip Pickering, R-Miss., has been expected to run for Senate if Lott or Sen. Thad Cochran (news, bio, voting record), R-Miss., retired. Democrats who might be interested include former state Attorney General Mike Moore.

GULFPORT, Miss. - U.S. Sen. Trent Lott (news, bio, voting record) says personal losses he suffered because of Hurricane Katrina will weigh on his decision whether to run for re-election in 2006.

The Mississippi Republican lost his waterfront home in Pascagoula during the Aug. 29 storm.

“It was about half my net worth. I have a $400,000 loss after the flood insurance,” the former Senate majority leader said.

“From a personal standpoint, I need a little more income. But the people I care most about, those on the coast, are hurting and need help,” he said.

Lott is suing his insurance company in federal court to collect for wind damage to his home. The case is part of an ongoing dispute between insurance companies and thousands of storm victims who cannot agree on whether a wind-driven storm surge is the same as flooding.

The senator said his family is divided over his running again.

Another consideration, he said, is that he is “so disappointed with the (Bush) administration’s response to this disaster that I’m almost embarrassed.”

Lott, 64, was elected to the Senate in 1988 after serving 16 years in the House. He lost his leadership post in 2002 after he made a remark that seemed to praise the late Sen. Strom Thurmond’s segregationist past.

Lott hinted that if he does seek re-election, he might seek another leadership post. “I might do it just to make everybody nervous,” he said.

Rep. Chip Pickering, R-Miss., has been expected to run for Senate if Lott or Sen. Thad Cochran (news, bio, voting record), R-Miss., retired. Democrats who might be interested include former state Attorney General Mike Moore.

TOKYO (Reuters) - There is little doubt that the world of television has gone flat, but consumers like Yoshinori Mimura are still confused over whether to go for a plasma, rear-projection or LCD screen.

That decision will only get tougher next year when Canon Inc. and Toshiba Corp. launch a new type of flat screen technology called SED, the latest choice for those wishing to trade in their boxy tube TVs.

“I’m really at a loss over what to do,” said Mimura, a 50-year-old company employee, as he checked out the newest plasma and liquid crystal display (LCD) sets on display at the Biccamera electronics store in Yurakucho area of Tokyo.

“I’d like to buy one but I’m waiting for the right time.”

Mimura, a movie buff, is looking for a TV that’s bigger than 40 inches and is leaning toward a plasma model because he reckons they are better than LCDs at reproducing moving images and generate a deeper black, which important for films.

But he could also hold out for a SED TV that, proponents claim, can deliver a crisp picture with rich blacks, vivid colors, quick response times, low power consumption and a wide viewing angle — essentially combining the best traits of plasma and LCD technology, with none of their shortcomings.

Technologically, SED is the holy grail of the flat TV industry — images just as sharp as a traditional cathode ray tube (CRT) TV in a thin, flat form. Whether its manufacturers can actually make a profit on it, however, is another story. SED stands for surface-conduction electron-emitter display, and is very similar to CRT technology in that a picture is generated when electrons fired from the back of the set collide with a phosphor-coated screen to emit light.

But instead of using three electron guns, SED technology employs an array of hundreds of thousands of tiny electron emitters — one for each pixel on the display.

While the CRT structure requires that electrons are beamed from deep in the back of the set, the SED’s emitters can be arranged on a rear plate located extremely close to the phosphor-coated front, allowing for a much slimmer TV.

Canon, better known for its cameras and copiers, started researching SED technology 20 years ago and joined hands with Toshiba in 1999. They formed a joint venture in 2004 and plan to invest about $2 billion to develop and make the panels in Japan.

“We have big plans for the digital television business,” Canon chief executive Fujio Mitarai said at an exhibition in Paris in the fall.

PRODUCTION CONCERNS

It is easy to see why Mitarai is so optimistic.

Flat TV sales have already surpassed CRT in Japan and the global market is expected to quadruple to about 100 million units by 2009, according to DisplaySearch, as prices fall rapidly and access to digital and high-definition broadcasting spreads.

Mitarai has said he would like to have a SED TV on the market by spring of 2006. The first set will be a 55-inch model, putting it in direct competition with plasma and to a certain extent LCD sets, which are encroaching into the 50-plus range.

But analysts say Canon will be hard pressed to profit on the venture anytime soon. SED is a wonderful technology, but capital investment is heavy and it will be years before output is at levels that ensure earning a decent return.

Merrill Lynch analyst Ryohei Takahashi notes that South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. is aiming to get the price of a plasma set down to $20 per inch by 2008. That would mean $1,000 for a 50-inch TV, one-fourth current prices and a mighty hurdle for a relatively new product like SED.

“Making a profit in that type of environment will be very difficult,” said Takahashi, predicting it might be 5 years before Canon gets the business out of the red. “But Canon has plenty of money and can stay in the game for 10 or 20 years.”

The reality is that most flat TV makers are unable to keep up with high materials costs and as set prices fall 30 percent per year. Plasma TV giant Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and top LCD TV maker Sharp Corp. are among a select few in the black right now.

Takahashi said Canon has proven that it can make a high-quality 36-inch SED TV, which the company has been showing to the public at exhibitions, but it has yet to unveil the 55-inch model that will be going up for sale.

“I don’t think there are 1,000 people in the world that have seen the 55-inch TV, so no one can really comment on the picture quality. There are still concerns that the production process is quite difficult for the large screen,” he said.

But if Canon can get production kinks worked out and the picture is as sharp as it claims, indications are SED could give plasma and LCD a run for its money at the high-end.

Mimura said his ideal TV should be able to meet full high-definition (HD) specifications, meaning they are able to produce images at the highest standard of 1,920 by 1,080 pixels — a standard that will be satisfied by the SED.

Price isn’t everything. Mimura said he would be willing to shell out 500,000 to 600,000 yen (US $4,300 to $5,200) if the TV was right.

“The picture has to be nice,” he said.

CHICAGO - The first time Mary McCray’s granddaughters saw snow, it was Christmas in New Orleans last year. Few of the flakes stuck but, to them, it was a miracle.

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The four girls, ages 8 to 12, remember the chicken, stuffed peppers and baked macaroni their grandmother made for a special dinner and the presents Santa brought. And now, despite all they’ve been through — wading through neck-high flood water to escape Hurricane Katrina, sleeping on the ground outside the Superdome and a long bus ride to Houston and then Chicago — they’re just as excited this year.

“We’re going to have another white Christmas!” Rabriel McCray, the eldest of the girls, shouts gleefully as she watches an all-out blizzard from a window of their new, subsidized apartment on Chicago’s South Side. Giddy and giggling, 9-year-old Keoka McCray and 8-year-old Wilshondra make pretend snow angels on the carpeted living room floor.

Their grandmother, whom they call “mo-mo,” is more subdued and looks worried.

“You know what I told you,” she says, looking at a boxed-up Easy Bake oven she purchased to replace one they left behind and a TV that has a few basic video games. “This is all I can buy you.”

Even so, the girls stay upbeat, a testament to the resilience of some of the youngest Katrina survivors, whose families are often struggling financially. Parents and aid workers note that many storm-displaced children are helping in their own way, making modest requests when asked what they’d like Santa to bring them this year.

“When I look at their lists, I find it quite amazing. Usually kids ask for PlayStations or DVDs — these kids are asking for necessities,” says Cherrell Jackson, who is coordinating a holiday gift program for about 200 Katrina families for the Heartland Alliance, a Chicago-based service organization.

So far, she’s received gift donations for about half of the families — most of them filling kids’ requests for clothing and winter weather gear, school supplies and books.

In Foley, Ala., children living in motels, shelters and trailers provided by the federal government also have been filling out letters to Santa, provided by retirees Bruce and Patti Walstad.

“One boy asked for a necklace for his mother and a football — that was it,” Bruce Walstad says. “A 9-year-old boy asked for clothes for his 3-year-old sister — and he knew the sizes. Another just wanted ’someone to help my mom take care of us.’

“It can break your heart.”

The Walstads began buying toys and necessities for Katrina victims by asking friends and their former police colleagues in the Chicago area to donate $5 each. They ended up receiving thousands of dollars, enabling them to purchase everything from car seats, strollers and bunk beds to diapers, shoes, clothing and toys for Christmas.

For this Sunday, they organized a Christmas party at a VFW hall for kids from families displaced by Katrina, providing a bright spot for those who’ve been scrambling to find permanent housing.

Though they’re planning to soon move from the Super 8 motel in Foley to a house outside Montgomery, Ala., about 150 miles away, Penny Boutwell stayed on a bit longer so her 6-year-old daughter Jessica could attend the party. Jessica, who faces bowel surgery in early January, has made only one request of Santa so far — for new books and cartridges for her LeapPad reading system.

“She’s not asking for much this year,” Boutwell says, “probably because she knows we don’t have much.”

Elsewhere, in Mesquite, Texas, 8-year-old Robdell Bridges and his 3-year-old sister, Jewel, recently begged their mother to stop their car outside a store so they could drop all her change in a Salvation Army collection bucket.

“They’re so busy worrying about other kids not having anything,” says mom Germaine Bridges. She considers herself one of the lucky Katrina survivors because she and her husband, Dennis, have been able to buy their children Christmas toys and a tree this year. Both she and her husband also are in the process of being approved for jobs, hers at a bank and his with the Dallas transit system.

Back in Chicago, the Heartland Alliance is working with donors to get gifts for Mary McCray and her granddaughters.

Each of the girls has put clothing at the top of her list for Santa, along with scarves, hats and gloves. “And an ice cream maker!” Wilshondra says.

Mari, their 10-year-old sister, also asks to put in a request for their grandmother: “A big fluffy coat — the biggest you got! And a truck to ride around in.”

They also wish they had gifts for their grandmother on this particular December day, her 45th birthday. But they’re happy just to celebrate.

Mary McCray tells them to go ahead and cut the cake without her. So they do, singing “Happy Birthday” to her from the kitchen. Wilshondra runs back into the living room and gives a kiss to her grandmother, who can’t help but crack a smile.

TORONTO (CP) - Energy-saving Christmas lights, some of them given away to help people to conserve energy, have been recalled across the country because they pose a possible electrical hazard.

The Canadian Standards Association issued the recall Friday, telling people to stop using the lights, manufactured by Bortex Industry Co. Ltd., due to an electrical problem that “may pose a potential for a shock or fire hazard.”

“A manufacturing defect may cause a malfunction of the light string resulting in overheating and possible melting in the encapsulated area of the light string,” the association said in a release.

The association began investigating the lights after Nova Scotia Power tested the lights and found they sparked and may pose an electrical hazard.

The utility ordered a recall earlier this week of more than 2,000 boxes of the LED lights that were given out at tree-lighting ceremonies around the province in exchange for regular lights that use more electricity.

The products involved were sold between August and December 2005 and were also available at Costco Wholesale warehouse locations across Canada (product Nos. 501701 or 501702), in packs of three boxes.

Costco issued a recall two weeks ago, offering a full refund if they were returned to the store. No other lights sold at Costco Wholesale were affected by the recall.

The affected lights are only those with a little white label attached to the cord that have the model number COD-TL-35 and the date 07/2005. The lights also have a little red CSA label with the number 228296.

There have been no reports of injury or property damage involving the lights, the association said in a release.

Light-emitting diode lights use up to 95 per cent less energy and can last twice as long as fluorescent bulbs, and up to 20 times longer than incandescent bulbs, because they have no filament and generate almost no heat.

MIAMI - A Haitian girl gave a thumbs up to doctors a day after they finished removing much of a 16-pound tumor-like mass that had engulfed her face.

Doctors at Jackson Memorial Medical Center in Miami called the 17-hour procedure a success. It went so well they were able to remove the growth from both sides of 14-year-old Marlie Casseus’ face, rather than just one side as planned, the doctors said Friday.

Marlie was breathing on her own and was in stable condition at the center’s Holtz Children’s Hospital, said Dr. Jesus Gomez of the University of Miami School of Medicine, one of the surgeons involved in the operation.

“She’s doing extremely well. She’s healing according to plan. She’s extremely happy. We’re extremely excited,” an exhausted Gomez told reporters.

Gomez said doctors are still concerned about the risk of infection. He called Marlie a brave girl.

“I asked her in my broken Creole, ‘Marlie if you’re OK, give me thumbs up,’ and she raised her thumb up,” he said.

Casseus suffers from a rare form of polyostotic fibrous dysplasia, a nonhereditary, genetic disease that causes bone to become swollen and jelly-like. Doctors said the pressure of the growth on her eye socket would have caused her to go blind if they hadn’t operated.

The Haitian nonprofit Good Samaritan helped bring Casseus to the U.S. in September after the painful growth became so big it began to crush her breathing passage. The doctors are donating their time.

Marlie’s mother, Maleine Antoine, thanked doctors and all those who donated funds to help pay for the operation.

“I hope that she has a life and will be happy like any normal teen girl. She has suffered so much,” Antoine said through an interpreter.

During the operation that began Wednesday morning, doctors inserted metal plates to reconstruct Marlie’s lower eye-sockets after the mass of jelly and bone was removed. Doctors also reconstructed the interior of her nose, which had been all but destroyed by the disease.

Gomez said they hoped to operate on her jaw, which has swelled to nearly double its normal size, in about two months. Further reconstructive surgeries will follow.

Already photos of the girl before and after showed a stark difference. The bulbous mass that made her look as if her face had been stretched over an eggplant was gone.

Gomez said Marlie will be able to breathe through her nose but is unlikely to have a sense of smell or taste.

Only about 3 percent of the 150,000 people diagnosed with the disease worldwide suffer such an extreme condition, Gomez said.

Back home in Port-au-Prince, Casseus was rejected by her neighbors, who would cross the street when she walked by.

The hospital’s International Kids Fund, which seeks to provide medical care to needy children from around the world, said donations for Marlie’s operation had come from as far as Iceland and Hong Kong. The fund said it is seeking more money for Marlie’s continued care

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - You’ve got mail — and possibly gonorrhea, HIV or another sexually transmitted disease.

E-mail sent through Web sites launched in Los Angeles and San Francisco is providing people with a free, sometimes anonymous, way to tell their casual sex partners they might have picked up more than they bargained for.

Los Angeles County health officials launched www.inspotla.org this week in a bid to reduce the rapidly rising spread of STDs by encouraging sexually active men and women to get tested.

“This is another opportunity for people to disclose STD exposure to partners because sometimes people don’t always have that face-to-face opportunity, or that level of relationship,” Karen Mall, director of prevention and testing at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, said on Thursday.

“Partner disclosure is where we really have the opportunity to break the chain of HIV infection,” Mall said.

The site allows users to choose one of six free e-cards to send to their sexual contacts either unsigned or with a personal message that avoids awkward face-to-face disclosure.

“It’s not what you brought to the party, it’s what you left with,” says one e-card featuring a picture of a bare-chested man. “I left with an STD. You might have one too. Get checked out soon.”

“You’re too hot to be out of action,” says another.

The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, which runs its own counseling services for partner disclosure, welcomed the Web site program.

“Many of the people we are seeing are listing the Internet as the place where they are meeting partners, so the Web site is a really helpful tool for prevention and contacting them,” said Tiffany Horton, manager of the center’s sexual health program.

The site is modeled on one launched in San Francisco last year (www.inspot.org) which is generating about 500 e-cards a month. Both are targeted at gay men but can be used by anyone.

Health officials call the e-cards a “fast, free and flexible partner notification system” that also gives information and links to local testing sites.

Some 2,400 new AIDS cases were reported in Los Angeles County in 2003, along with more than 8,000 new gonorrhea cases and 830 new syphilis cases — most of them among gay men.

The Web sites urge users to show respect and not to misuse the system. Mall said only half of 1 percent of the e-cards sent through the San Francisco site had been malicious or fraudulent.

“The sites do not give anybody the ability to do anything they can do already if they had somebody’s e-mail,” Mall said.

“It is something we can monitor. People can get hold of the Web master if they have concerns or want to complain.

“But I give the (gay) community more credit than that. I think the community really wants to get ahead of HIV and STDs and they realize that notification is really important,” she said.

WASHINGTON - A Republican senator on Saturday accused The New York Times of endangering American security to sell a book by waiting until the day of the terror-fighting Patriot Act reauthorization to report that the government has eavesdropped on people without court-approved warrants.

“At least two senators that I heard with my own ears cited this as a reason why they decided to vote to not allow a bipartisan majority to reauthorize the Patriot Act,” said Republican Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record) of Texas. “Well, as it turns out the author of this article turned in a book three months ago and the paper, The New York Times, failed to reveal that the urgent story was tied to a book release and its sale by its author.”

Cornyn did not name the senators in his remarks on the Senate floor.

A call to The New York Times’ Washington bureau was referred to spokeswoman Catherine Mathis, who could not be reached immediately.

Times reporter James Risen, who wrote the story, has a book “State of WAR: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration,” coming out in the next few weeks, Cornyn said.

“I think it’s a crying shame … that we find that America’s safety is endangered by the potential expiration of the Patriot Act in part because a newspaper has seen fit to release on the night before the vote on the floor on the reauthorization of the Patriot Act as part of a marketing campaign for selling a book,” Cornyn said.

Since October 2001, the super-secret National Security Agency has, without court-approved warrants, eavesdropped on the international phone calls and e-mails of people inside the United States. President Bush said Saturday that the White House had kept the congressional leadership informed, which a Republican lawmaker confirmed.

But several senators cited the NSA revelation as a reason to uphold a filibuster on the renewal of the expiring portions of the USA Patriot Act — the domestic anti-terrorism law enacted after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — without getting additional safeguards into the law. Supporters of renewing the law failed to get 60 votes needed to break the filibuster.

Bush on Saturday also attacked the disclosure. “As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have,” Bush said in his weekly radio address. “The unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk.”

Round Rock, Texas-based notebook manufacturer Dell has been forced to recall 22,000 notebook computer batteries sold in the U.S. and 13,000 sold abroad.

“Working with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, we have issued a voluntary recall for the defective notebook batteries,” said Tom Kehoe, a spokesperson for Dell.

Dell has promised to replace any affected batteries.

“We identified that the batteries could overheat and potentially cause a short-circuit,” Kehoe said. “This was a manufacturing defect.” Kehoe said the recall was made out of concern for safety, as the batteries could pose a fire risk.

The identification number for each battery appears on a white sticker. Dell said that customers should have this number available when they contact the company to determine if their battery is part of the recall.

Notebook Models

In the advisory, Dell said that the 35,000 recalled batteries were sold with several models of Latitudes, Inspirons, and Precision mobile workstations between October 5, 2004 and October 13, 2005.

The specific computers affected are the Latitude D410, D505, D510, D600, D610, D800, D810 notebooks; the Inspiron 510M, 600M, 6000, 8600, 9200, 9300, XPS Gen 2 notebooks; and the Precision M20 and M70 mobile workstations.

The batteries display either a “Made in China” or a “Made in Japan” sticker. In addition to being sold with the notebooks themselves, the batteries also were sold individually as replacement or secondary batteries between October 2004 and October 2005. When sold on their own, the batteries were priced at between $99 and $179, Dell said.

Consumer Advisory

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Dell are telling consumers to stop using the batteries immediately, unless otherwise instructed. Dell said it had been told about three incidents of the recalled batteries overheating.

The incidents resulted in damage to a tabletop and a desktop and “minor damage to personal effects,” but no reported injuries.

Dell has issued a consumer advisory that lists hotline numbers for affected notebook owners to call. The firm can be reached at 866-342-0011, and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission can be contacted at 800-638-2772.

A reporter for the French newspaper Liberation has gone missing in Iraq along with her Iraqi assistant.
“We have had no news from Florence Aubenas in over 24 hours”, the Paris-based daily said.

It said that Ms Aubenas and her assistant, Hussein Hanoun Al-Saadi, were last seen leaving their Baghdad hotel early on Wednesday.

Two French journalists were released last month after being held hostage by Iraqi militants for four months.

Very worried

The French foreign ministry has confirmed Ms Aubenas and her assistant are missing.

“Every effort is being made by our representatives in Baghdad and by the ministry in Paris to find them,” it said in a statement.

A journalist on the paper told the AFP news agency that staff there were very worried.

French journalists like Ms Aubenas have been warned to avoid Iraq
Ms Aubenas, 43, is an experienced reporter who has covered conflicts in Rwanda, Kosovo, Algeria and Afghanistan. She arrived in Iraq on 16 December.

The newspaper said it had alerted Iraqi and US officials.

The case of journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot generated nationwide anxiety in France, and behind-the-scenes dealings by French diplomats and intelligence services.

After their eventual release, the pair said their colleagues should not go to Iraq, as it was a deeply dangerous place for journalists of all nationalities.

The French foreign ministry also stressed that it had warned “all our nationals, including media representatives, to avoid going to Iraq given the current security risks in this country