"Ed" star tracking down Green River Killer By Kimberly Nordyke and Nellie Andreeva

"Ed" star tracking down Green River Killer By Kimberly Nordyke and Nellie Andreeva
1 hour, 13 minutes ago



LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - "Ed" star Tom Cavanagh will play a cop on the trail of America's deadliest serial murdered in the Lifetime Movie Network miniseries "Desperate: The Search for the Green River Killer."

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The four-hour project follows two teen girls from a Seattle-area trailer park who cross paths with the infamous killer.

It is based on the book "Chasing the Devil: My Twenty-Year Quest to Capture the Green River Killer," by Sheriff David Reichert, the lead investigator on the Green River case.

Cavanagh will play Reichert, who navigated a number of suspects and false leads over two decades until he zeroed in on Gary Ridgway, who ultimately pleaded guilty in 2003 to killing 48 women, mostly prostitutes and runaways.

Amy Davidson (ABC's "Eight Simple Rules") portrays Helen "Hel" Remus, one of the serial killer's early victims and narrator of the story. Also on board are Sharon Lawrence ("NYPD Blue") and James Russo (AMC's "Broken Trail").

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

Aniston, Howard bare shorts at film fest By Gregg Kilday

Aniston, Howard bare shorts at film fest By Gregg Kilday
1 hour, 46 minutes ago



LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Actresses Jennifer Aniston and Bryce Dallas Howard will show off their directing skills at the Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films & Short Film Market, which kicks off August 23.

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Aniston's "Room 10," a romantic drama she directed with Andrea Buchanan, stars Robin Wright Penn as a nurse alongside Kris Kristofferson. Howard's "Orchids" stars Alfred Molina and Katherine Waterston in an unlikely romance.

Other familiar names who will appear in some of the shorts on display include James Gandolfini, Louis Gossett Jr., Joe Mantegna and Steven R. McQueen in "Club Soda"; Patrick Stewart and Joanna Lumley in "The Audition"; Ron Livingston in "Life Happens"; Margaret Cho and Jane Lynch in "Love Is Love"; David Morse in "A.W.O.L."; Ron Silver and JoBeth Williams in "Call It Fiction"; and Wendie Malick in "Waiting for Yvette."

The event, now in its 13th year, will run at the Camelot Theatres in Palm Springs through August 29

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

NASA studies gouge on Endeavour's belly By LIZ AUSTIN PETERSON, Associated Press Writer

NASA studies gouge on Endeavour's belly By LIZ AUSTIN PETERSON, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 24 minutes ago



HOUSTON - If astronauts have to venture into the void of space to fix a deep gash on the shuttle Endeavour's belly, they'll get plenty of help from a team of experts assembled to help pick and perfect the best repair technique.

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NASA put together the team of engineers, astronauts and spacewalk gurus on Monday as other specialists scrambled to determine whether the crew needed to fix the gouge to avoid extensive post-flight repairs. A decision was expected by Wednesday.

The gouge is relatively small — 3 1/2 inches by 2 inches — and the damage is benign enough for Endeavour to fly safely home. But part of it penetrates through the protective thermal tiles, leaving just a thin layer of coated felt over the space shuttle's aluminum frame to keep out the more than 2,000-degree heat of re-entry. Fixing any resulting structural damage could be expensive and time-consuming.

To patch the gouge, spacewalking astronauts would have to perch on the end of the shuttle's 100-foot robotic arm and extension boom, be maneuvered under the spacecraft, and either apply protective black paint or squirt in a caulk-like goop.

Mission Control told the crew late Monday that officials had ruled out a third repair technique involving a protective plate that could be screwed over the damage.

All three techniques were developed following Columbia's catastrophic re-entry, and NASA has never attempted this type of repair on an orbiting shuttle. Only the black paint has been tested in space.

Astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Dave Williams have trained extensively on the ground and could perform any necessary repairs during the mission's fourth spacewalk set for Friday. Their last tile-repair class was just three or four weeks before launch.

"I think that regardless of what repair method is chosen over the next day or so, we could execute it if required," said John Shannon, chairman of the mission management team.

Covering the exposed white coated felt with black protective paint would keep heat from building up in the cavity, Shannon said.

For extra heat protection, the astronauts could also squirt in the caulk-like goop from a tank attached to their spacesuit's backpack. In that case, they would apply the paint first to make sure the goop stuck.

If the repairs are ordered, astronauts on the ground will practice repairing a replica of the gouge underwater so they can create precise instructions for the spacewalkers and their crewmates.

When an astronaut from the shuttle Atlantis' June mission had to staple up a thermal blanket that had peeled back during launch, the ground crew sent him 60 pages of instructions and four videos, Shannon said.

Mastracchio and Williams have already completed two spacewalks in three days. On Monday, they removed a 600-plus-pound gyroscope from the space station's exterior that failed last October. They installed a new one in its place that was carried up aboard Endeavour. The space station has four gyroscopes to keep it steady and pointed in the right direction.

Teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan — Christa McAuliffe's backup for Challenger's doomed mission in 1986 — helped monitor the spacewalk from inside the joined shuttle-station complex.

On Tuesday, Morgan will speak with students in Idaho, where she taught elementary classes before moving to Houston in 1998 to become the first teacher to train as a full-fledged astronaut.

A list of topics Mission Control sent her on Monday included questions from children about what it's like to be weightless, how the crew gets clean air aboard the shuttle, and what stars look like from space.

Morgan and her crewmates will spend the rest of Tuesday using Endeavour's robotic arm to help install a new storage platform on the space station. After pulling the platform from the ship's cargo bay, they will pass it off to the station's robotic arm for installation.

___

On the Net:

NASA: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov

___

AP Aerospace Writer Marcia Dunn contributed to this report from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

China eases foreign exchange controls 2 hours, 52 minutes ago

China eases foreign exchange controls 2 hours, 52 minutes ago



BEIJING - China has scrapped rules that required local companies to convert a portion of their foreign earnings into Chinese currency, the government said Tuesday, in a move that could ease pressure on Beijing's foreign exchange system.

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Companies now will be allowed to decide on their own how to use money earned abroad, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange said on its Web site.

Previous rules requiring companies to convert at least 20 percent of foreign earnings into Chinese yuan boosted demand for the currency, increasing pressure for it to rise against the U.S. dollar and other foreign currencies.

The latest change could help to slow the growth of China's $1.3 trillion foreign reserves accumulated by the central bank as it tries to curb pressure for prices to rise by draining money from the economy through bond sales.

"This policy revision is an important reform in foreign exchange management," the agency said on its Web site. "The implementation of the new policy will improve the autonomy and convenience of domestic companies, strengthen companies' capital management and improve the international balance of payments."

The forced repatriation of foreign earnings by Chinese companies increased the flood of money pouring into the economy from export revenues and foreign investment.

China's current account balance, the broadest measure of its foreign income, rose 48 percent last year to $238.5 billion.

Until 2002, Chinese companies were required to bring home all the money they made abroad and obtain government permission to make new foreign investments. Beginning in 2002, companies were allowed to keep 20 percent of foreign revenues. That was raised to 50 percent in 2004 and 80 percent the following year.

Mattel to recall more Chinese-made toys By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO, AP Business Writer

Mattel to recall more Chinese-made toys By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO, AP Business Writer
1 hour, 55 minutes ago



NEW YORK - Less than two weeks after Mattel Inc. recalled 1.5 million Chinese-made toys because of lead paint, the toy industry is bracing for another blow that could give parents more reason to rethink their purchases just before the critical holiday shopping season.

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Mattel is set to announce the recall of another toy involving a different Chinese supplier as early as Tuesday, according to three people close to the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Details of the latest recall were not immediately available, but one of the three people said the toy is being recalled because its paint may contain excessive amounts of lead.

Scott Wolfson, a spokesman for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, declined to comment. Mattel officials did not immediately return phone calls.

A new Mattel action would mark the latest in a string of recalled products from China, ranging from faulty tires to tainted toothpaste. With more than 80 percent of toys sold worldwide made in China, toy sellers are nervous that shoppers will shy away from their products.

On Aug. 1, Mattel's Fisher-Price division announced the worldwide recall of 1.5 million Chinese-made preschool toys featuring characters such as Dora the Explorer, Big Bird and Elmo. About 967,000 of those toys were sold in the United States between May and August.

Mattel, based in El Segundo, Calif., apologized to customers for that recall and said the move would cut pretax operating income by $30 million. Fisher-Price "fast-tracked" the recall, which allowed the company to quarantine two-thirds of the tainted toys before they reached store shelves.

In documents filed Aug. 3 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mattel noted that additional information became available in July on "other smaller product recalls and similar charges were recorded." Those recalls involved design problems, according to company officials questioned last week.

Days after the Fisher-Price recall, Chinese officials temporarily banned the toys' manufacturer, Lee Der Industrial Co., from exporting products. A Lee Der co-owner, Cheung Shu-hung, committed suicide at a warehouse over the weekend, apparently by hanging himself, a state-run newspaper reported Monday.

Lee Der was under pressure in the global controversy over the safety of Chinese-made products, and it is common for disgraced officials to commit suicide in China.

In June, toy maker RC2 Corp. voluntarily recalled 1.5 million wooden railroad toys and set parts from its Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway product line. The company said that the surface paint on certain toys and parts made in China between January 2005 and April 2006 contain lead, affecting 26 components and 23 retailers.

In July, Hasbro Inc. recalled Chinese-made Easy Bake ovens, marking the second time the iconic toy had been recalled this year.

Before this month, Fisher-Price and parent company Mattel had never before recalled toys because of lead paint.

Romney worth as much as $250 million By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer

Romney worth as much as $250 million By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 44 minutes ago



WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's vast wealth is spread over a dizzying array of foreign and domestic investments that at times have been sold to avoid conflicts with his public stances, the trustee of his blind trust said Monday.

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Among the investments sold by trustee R. Bradford Malt were holdings in companies known to have interests with Iran, including French and Italian oil companies. Romney earlier this year called for state pension systems to divest themselves of Iran-related stocks.

Romney and his wife, Ann, hold assets worth between $190 million and $250 million, his advisers said. The campaign released details of his wealth Monday in a personal financial disclosure report filed with the Federal Election Commission and the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. The value of assets in federal financial reports are listed in ranges, making a precise figure impossible to discern.

Romney reported that he and his wife have joint interest checking accounts with Bank of America of between $5 million and $25 million and a money market account between $1 million and $5 million. Both also have Individual Retirement Accounts. But the bulk of their money is in two blind trusts, which Malt said are divided evenly between husband and wife.

Blind trusts are designed to prevent public officials from controlling their investments, thus avoiding potential conflicts of interest. Under federal rules, the Romneys were not required to report a blind trust in the name of their children, which aides say is valued at about $100 million.

Romney is by far the wealthiest candidate in the presidential field. He has already pumped about $9 million into his campaign from his personal wealth. The report suggests he could easily tap that vein again.

Presidential candidates had been required to file such disclosures by May 15, but Romney asked for two 45-day extensions to obtain detailed values of his and his wife's blind trusts.

The delay allowed Romney to file two days after the Iowa straw poll, a nonbinding but politically significant rite of passage in a state that holds the first presidential caucus. Romney won the straw poll with 31.5 percent after spending generously in the state on ads and mobilizing supporters.

Though the blind trusts precluded Romney from knowing or controlling the assets of his wealth, Malt, the trustee, said he was aware of the political sensitivity of the investments.

"As I become aware that ownership of some stock was inconsistent with public positions, I might sell them," Malt said in a teleconference with reporters Monday.

He specifically singled out blind trust investments with the Italian-based Eni SpA and the French Total, oil companies that have done business in Iran. Each was sold for between $15,000 and $50,000.

The report offers the most detailed public look yet at the finances of the former Massachusetts governor, who has refused to release his income tax returns, and who previously filed only state financial disclosure forms that described his holdings in the most general terms.

The 47-page federal report was something of a revelation for Romney as well.

Forced to open his blind trust, the Romneys — and the world — discovered precisely which stocks, bonds and mutual funds they own.

Among them: $2.5 million to $8 million in AB Svensk Exportkredit, a Swedish export credit corporation; and $1 million to $5 million in Eksportfinans ASA, a Norwegian financing corporation, and $100,000 to $250,000 in Russian energy giant Gazprom. Ann Romney's trust reported various Goldman Sachs investments of more than $1 million (spousal assets can be reported in less precise figures). Romney's trust has $3.5 million to $16 million in Goldman Sachs investments.

Malt said none of Romney's overseas investments are tax shelters or help reduce his federal tax obligations in any way. "They don't reduce income taxes, they don't defer income taxes," he said.

Malt is a Boston-based lawyer with the national law firm of Ropes & Gray and has been trustee for the Romney blind trusts since Romney became governor of Massachusetts in January 2003. He said the funds will now continue operating as blind trusts and that Romney will not be privy to any further transactions.

Asked while campaigning in Fresno, Calif., whether his enormous financial wealth kept him from appealing to average voters, Romney said his track record in establishing a scholarship program for top-achieving high school students and broadening access to health insurance in Massachusetts showed he "understood the hearts of people."

Romney has said he would give his annual presidential salary of $400,000 to charity.

Malt approved sales of millions of dollars of holdings during the past 18 months, most transactions that would be expected with a portfolio as large as that of the Romneys. Other sales, besides the Iran-related stocks, also helped avoid potential political embarrassment for Romney.

Among them were investments in gaming companies, including Ameristar Casinos and Harrahs Entertainment. Romney has been eager to present himself as the most socially conservative candidate in the field, decrying what he has said is the debasement of the culture.

Romney's blind trust also got rid of between $100,000 and $250,000 in stock in Schlumberger Ltd., the oilfield services company that does business in Sudan. Other presidential candidates, including Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Rudy Giuliani, have reassessed their holdings after discovering that funds they held invested in Schlumberger stock.

Boston Red Sox fans — Romney among them — may blanch at one of the stocks held by one of Ann Romney's blind trust funds: A Goldman Sachs Capital Partners Fund invests in the Yankees Entertainment and Sports network.

The report also highlights a continuing connection between Romney and Bain Capital, the venture capital firm he founded and which he left in 1999 to assume leadership of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.

Earlier this year, Romney played down any lingering connection after The Associated Press reported Bain Capital and Bain & Co., the management consulting firm where Romney used to work, had links to Iranian business interests. At the time, a spokesman highlighted Romney's 1999 resignation from Bain, while Romney himself said his divestment call applied only to future activity, not past dealings.

A notation in Romney's filing, however, says that under a noncompete agreement with Bain Capital, Romney retains a "passive profit share as a retired partner in certain Bain Capital entities formed on or prior to Feb. 11, 2009."

A note in Romney's report states that Romney asked for a listing of Bain's underlying holdings, but, like other funds in his blind trust, the fund managers said the information was confidential and declined to provide it.

___

Associated Press Writer Glen Johnson in Boston and Garance Burke in Fresno, Calif., contributed to this report.

Presidential race hits breakneck pace By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer

Presidential race hits breakneck pace By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 18 minutes ago



CONCORD, N.H. - Late-night conference calls, Sundays spent in the office and a diet served in takeout bags are the hallmarks of the final weeks of a presidential primary campaign.

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They're already the norm in the early voting states of New Hampshire and Iowa — and it's only August.

"We think it's nonstop now?" says Mike Dennehy, Sen. John McCain's national political director. "Once we hit Labor Day, it's going to be blazing fast."

And it's not just McCain sprinting. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's 14-hour campaign days begin at 7 a.m.; to save time, he carries a gallon Ziploc bag of granola — made by his wife, Ann — to double as breakfast and snacks.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani flew to Iowa for a recent debate, landing less than two hours before it began. And Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton flew from New Hampshire to Chicago and back in less than 24 hours, sandwiching an AFL-CIO forum between twin policy addresses here.

The pace is even faster in Iowa, where several forums, the 11-day Iowa State Fair and other events have produced a bumper crop of candidates.

Part of the rush is the ever-accelerating primary calendar, which could well begin this December and produce nominees in February. The race also is the first since 1928 without a sitting president or vice president seeking to stay in the White House. (President Harry Truman dropped out early in 1952, as did his vice president, Alben Barkley, soon afterward.)

Add to that voracious media attention, top candidates who are virtual celebrities and torrid fundraising, and it's clear the relative sanity of Augusts of yore is a thing of the past.

"Everything is happening earlier this time around. I think the campaign just started earlier," said Patricia Harris, a minister in Nashua, N.H., who has met all the candidates and endorsed Clinton.

Like many key community organizers in early voting states, Harris was hoping to lay low for a while after being deeply involved in the last primary campaign — for Democratic Sen. John Kerry, in her case.

That didn't last long.

"Things are so bad in this country that we need to do something now," she said. "I get annoyed when people say, 'Talk to me in a year.' We can't wait."

Others obviously share her sense of urgency. When freshman New Hampshire Rep. Paul Hodes endorsed Sen. Barack Obama last month, the candidate flew in for a two-hour visit that attracted 600.

"You've never rolled out a major endorsement in August (during past cycles). The fact that they seem to be going fast and furious in the beginning of August shows the intensity is significantly different than in the past," said Ray Buckley, state Democratic chairman in New Hampshire.

"It was not that long ago that presidential candidates took vacations in the month of August to prepare for the upcoming presidential primary season. It is a very different primary than we've had before," Buckley said.

Unchanged, however, is the need for candidates to spend large amounts of time in early states, where voters typically think long and hard before choosing.

Recently, Giuliani was the latest presidential hopeful to stop by the Flapjack Family Restaurant in Maquoketa, Iowa.

"We've been here for about 24 years. For whatever reason we've had an awful lot of activity," said owner Sid Thompson, who actually lives in Minneapolis.

He said celebrity doesn't count for much with Maquoketa's 6,000 residents.

"They're open to listening to the candidates, but the residents here do an awful lot of digesting of information rather than being overwhelmed by the candidates being here," he said.

The same appears to be true in New Hampshire, if the latest University of New Hampshire poll for CNN and WMUR-TV is any guide. The poll found that 64 percent of Democrats still haven't made up their minds, and 71 percent of Republicans said the same.

"I know you people in New Hampshire like to shop," Obama said during a recent stop. "You like to take us for a test drive, like to kick our tires."

Those tires, meanwhile, are going to keep spinning at full speed.

"I don't think it's possible (to slow)," Dennehy said. "It's full steam ahead. You try to squeeze out as much as you can from a 24-hour day."

___

Associated Press writer Mike Wilson in Iowa contributed to this report.

China is becoming an issue in 2008 race By FOSTER KLUG, Associated Press Writer

China is becoming an issue in 2008 race By FOSTER KLUG, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 12 minutes ago



WASHINGTON - When Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama said in a recent debate that "the center of gravity in this world is shifting to Asia," he had one nation clearly in mind.

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"China is rising and it's not going away," said the senator from Illinois. "They're neither our enemy nor our friend. They're competitors."

More than a year before the 2008 election, China — occasionally as partner, more often as adversary and potential vote-getter — is also rising as an issue among the candidates for president.

Iraq is, and will be, the top foreign policy issue among the people jockeying for the White House. But as detractors increasingly shine a critical spotlight on China in the buildup to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, the contenders will likely ratchet up their rhetoric on China's ability to help and to hinder American interests around the world.

"It's impossible to avoid China as a policy issue," Doug Holtz-Eakin, a policy adviser to the campaign of Republican Sen. John McCain, said in an interview. "Anybody who is interested in being the next president of the United States has to think consciously about how ... to have China emerge as a responsible stakeholder."

Candidates have been raising, in debates and campaign stops, what they see as China's failure to live up to its duties as an emerging global superpower.

But they also recognize that the U.S. needs China, a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council, to secure punishment for Iran's nuclear program and to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.

As Republican Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, said: "If I'm lucky enough to be president, making China a partner for stability in the world will be one of my highest priorities. China is really key, in many respects, as they become a very large economy."

Many of the comments, however, have been complaints, as candidates work to connect with voters increasingly worried about China's huge military buildup, its flood of goods into the U.S., its ability to influence violence in Sudan's Darfur region, its repression of minorities, dissidents and journalists.

Michael Green, President Bush's former chief adviser on Asia, said that regardless of any harsh words candidates direct toward China, the next president will likely embrace the same measured U.S. policies endorsed by past administrations.

Bashing China might win votes, the reasoning goes, but newly elected presidents soon realize that a more careful tone is needed to deal with the complex U.S.-China relationship.

Still, as the 2008 campaign heats up, criticism has outweighed calls for engagement.

A recurring theme has been that China must do more to use its oil-buying leverage with Sudan to end rape and murder in Darfur.

In a June debate, Democrat Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico, suggested that if China does not put more pressure on Sudan, "we say to them, maybe we won't go to the Olympics."

Attention has also been given to Beijing's economic policies and the U.S. trade deficit with China — $232.5 billion last year and expected to grow.

At a debate this month, Obama said of China: "We've got to have a president in the White House who's negotiating to make sure that we're looking after American workers. That means enforcing our trade agreements. It means that if they're manipulating their currency, that we take them to the mat on this issue."

American manufacturers contend the Chinese currency is undervalued by as much as 40 percent, giving China a tremendous competitive advantage against U.S. products.

Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton received applause at a debate by raising reports of faulty or tainted Chinese goods that have been shipped to the United States and other countries. It was under Clinton's husband, former President Clinton, that the U.S. normalized trade relations with China.

"We have to have tougher standards on what they import into this country," Clinton said. "I do not want to eat bad food from China or have my children having toys that are going to get them sick."

New York City philanthropist Astor dies By ULA ILNYTZKY, Associated Press Writer

New York City philanthropist Astor dies By ULA ILNYTZKY, Associated Press Writer
42 minutes ago



NEW YORK - Brooke Astor was the grand dame of New York City society and philanthropy — a woman as comfortable in a Harlem youth center as she was in a Fifth Avenue penthouse.

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She hobnobbed with the Queen of England and showed up on the streets of drug-ravaged neighborhoods to donate her fortune. In the course of her rarefied existence, she gave away nearly $200 million.

Her life's motto summed up her prodigious generosity in nine words: "Money is like manure, it should be spread around."

One of city's most recognized ladies, Astor, 105, died Monday of pneumonia at Holly Hill, her Westchester County estate, family lawyer Kenneth Warner said.

Her death reverberated throughout New York.

"Brooke was a truly remarkable woman and an irreplaceable friend," longtime family friend David Rockefeller said. "She was the leading lady of New York in every sense of the word."

Although a legendary figure in New York City and feted with a famous gala on her 100th birthday in March 2002, Astor was mostly interested in putting the fortune that husband, Vincent Astor, left to use where it would do the most to alleviate human misery.

Her efforts won her a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 1998.

Brooke Astor gave millions of dollars to what she called the city's "crown jewels" — among them the New York Public Library, Carnegie Hall, the Museum of Natural History, Central Park, the Bronx Zoo and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the flags were lowered to half-staff after her death.

But she also funded scores of smaller projects: Harlem's Apollo Theater; a new boiler for a youth center; beachside bungalow preservation; a church pipe organ; furniture for homeless families moving into apartments.

It was a very personal sort of philanthropy.

"People just can't come up here and say, 'We're doing something marvelous, send a check,'" she said. "We say, 'Oh, yes, we'll come and see it.'"

The final year of Astor's life was marred by a nasty family feud over her care, including allegations that she was forced to sleep on a couch that smelled of urine while subsisting on a diet of pureed peas and oatmeal. Court papers said her beloved dogs Boysie and Girlsie were kept locked in a pantry.

The allegations emerged in July 2006 court documents that provided almost daily sensational headlines. In a settlement three months later, her son, Anthony Marshall, was replaced as her legal guardian with Annette de la Renta, wife of the fashion designer Oscar de la Renta.

Marshall's son Philip Marshall, a professor at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, had alleged that his father was looting her estate and allowing her to live in the filthy conditions at her Park Avenue duplex. Anthony Marhall, a former diplomat and Broadway producer who won Tony awards in 2003 and 2004, denied any wrongdoing.

In December, a Manhattan judge ruled that claims "regarding Mrs. Astor's medical and dental care and the other allegations of intentional elder abuse" by Anthony Marshall were not substantiated.

"I have lost my beloved mother, and New York and the world have lost a great lady," Marshall said. "She was one of a kind in every way. Her tombstone will be inscribed with the words she specifically asked for: 'I had a wonderful life.' I am thankful that she did. I will miss her deeply and always."

The Vincent Astor Foundation was created when he died in 1959. Vincent Astor had no children; he left his widow $2 million plus the interest off $60 million and endowed the foundation with an additional $67 million. The foundation gave away approximately $200 million by the time it closed at the end of 1997.

"I grew up feeling that the most important thing in life was to have good manners and to enhance the lives of others," Brooke Astor said in a 1992 interview with The Associated Press.

She decided that since the money was made in New York it should largely be spent there. She also persuaded the trustees to give away principal as well as interest so most of the money would be spent in her lifetime.

"I'm afraid that, to old John Jacob Astor, spending principal would seem like dancing naked in the streets," she acknowledged.

Astor's giving was informed by her knowledge of the city, its institutions and its real needs.

"She devoted herself to helping people throughout New York — in all the boroughs," Rockefeller said. "And she would always visit those to whom she contributed money, and out of respect, she would always arrive well-dressed, with a pretty hat, as if she were calling on the Queen of England."

While she had always been comfortable, she was not always rich.

When Brooke Russell was born March 30, 1902, Theodore Roosevelt was president, the U.S. had only 45 states and the Wright brothers had yet to make their first flight. She was the only child of John H. Russell, a career Marine officer who rose to become commandant of the Corps from 1934 to 1936. She was fluent in Chinese after spending her childhood in China and many other places, including the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Hawaii and Panama.

At age 16, she was pushed by her mother into marriage with J. Dryden Kuser, whom she had met at a Princeton prom. The marriage ended in divorce 10 years later.

Her second marriage was to stockbroker Charles "Buddie" Marshall. Her son Anthony, from her marriage to Kuser, took Marshall's name. During her marriage to Marshall, Astor wrote articles for various magazines and joined the staff of House & Garden, where she was feature editor for several years.

Marshall died in 1952. A year later, she married Vincent Astor, the eldest son of John Jacob Astor 4th, who died in the sinking of the Titanic. Vincent Astor's great-great-grandfather John Jacob Astor made a fortune in fur trading and New York real estate.

"Vincent was a very suspicious man," she recalled. "The fact that he had total confidence in me to run the foundation made me want to vindicate him, show him — wherever he is — that I could do a good job."

Hers was a hands-on approach, personally going over applications and then going out to meet the people who ran the programs to see what they were doing.

"Even in the worst drug areas, I don't hesitate to go right in and see people," she once said.

Astor wrote four books: "Patchwork Child," a 1962 autobiography; "The Bluebird is at Home," 1965, a novel; the autobiographical "Footprints," 1980; and "The Last Blossom on the Plum Tree," 1986, a period novel.

___

Associated Press writer Adam Goldman contributed to this report.

Search for trapped Utah miners continue By PAUL FOY, Associated Press Writer

Search for trapped Utah miners continue By PAUL FOY, Associated Press Writer
33 minutes ago



HUNTINGTON, Utah - With the drilling of another hole, the search for six missing miners moved Tuesday toward the back of a mine where officials hoped the men sought refuge in search of an air pocket.

Crews already have drilled two holes and fitted a camera down one of them, but they have yet to learn the coal miners' fate, eight days after the mine partly collapsed under the weight of a shifting mountain.

The camera's ghostly images revealed only one indication of a miner's presence: a tool bag for hammers, wrenches and chisels hanging from a post, 3.4 miles from the entrance and more than 1,800 feet underground.

"It indicates we're very close to where the miners were working," said Bob Murray, chief of Murray Energy Corp., co-owner and operator of the Crandall Canyon mine.

The collapse of the mine's midsection was thought to have pushed ventilated air into a pocket at the rear of the mine, where the miners may have fled when their escape routes were cut off by rubble, said Richard Stickler, chief of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.

The thunderous collapse blew out the walls of mine shafts but left reinforced ceilings mostly intact. About 5 feet of headroom remained in the deeper mine shafts.

"We see a lot of open area. We see good height. Space is what they need and we saw a lot of space," said Al Davis, who heads up MSHA's Western operations.

Other video images taken Sunday showed a twisted conveyer belt, pipes and dripping water.

As crews started drilling a nearly 9-inch-wide camera hole late Monday, Murray said the pace of rescue efforts picked up inside the mine, where heavy machinery was clawing at loose rubble that nearly fills a main passageway.

Rescuers cleared about 680 feet of the 2,000 feet of rubble they were expected to encounter in the mine's main passageway.

The effort could take several more days, but for the first time since the Aug. 6 collapse, the rescuers were progressing steadily forward, without the frequent interruptions that have characterized the rescue effort so far.

"We are moving at a more rapid pace," Murray said late Monday.

The third drill was set to drop 1,300 feet deeper into the mine and near its back wall. The rig required more roads to be built to reach the location on a steep mountainside.

A microphone lowered down the first, 2 1/2-inch hole picked up no sound, and air samples sucked up the hole revealed just over 7 percent oxygen — not enough to sustain life. The hole is now being used to pump 2,000 cubic feet of fresh air a minute into the mine, Stickler said.

Mining rescues after eight or more days are not unheard of. In May 2006, two miners were rescued after being trapped for 14 days following a collapse at an Australian mine.

In 2002, nine coal miners were rescued after surviving eight days in a mine in northwestern China. In 1968, six miners were rescued after 10 days in West Virginia.

Murray has blamed an earthquake for the collapse, although seismologists say there was no quake.

Twelve of the 134 miners working on the rescue have asked to be reassigned because they were frightened by what Murray called "tectonic activity."

"We have had some miners that have been working in the rescue effort that have asked to be relieved. They've been somewhat frightened," he said.

Meanwhile, suggestions of trouble at the mine earlier this year surfaced in a memo from an engineering firm to the mine operator.

The memo involved earth movement that damaged a different underground area, and said structural problems led the company to abandon mining in a damaged northern section.

But the company did not give up on the mine. Instead, it hired Agapito Associates Inc., a Grand Junction, Colo., engineering firm, to analyze how to safely mine the southern sections.

The operators were mining directly across from the area that was damaged in March when last week's collapse occurred.

Agapito's April 18 memo to mine co-owner and operator UtahAmerican Energy Inc. said the operators were involved in retreat mining — a common but sometimes dangerous practice that involves pulling out leftover sections and pillars of coal that hold up the roof.

Although Murray has denied that the company was retreat mining at the time of last week's accident, MSHA officials have said they approved a plan for the mine to engage in retreat mining.

Murray said Monday that it was Agapito that recommended Crandall Canyon's mining plan and he asserted that it was "perfectly safe."

"We've had a once-in-a-lifetime disaster here," Murray said. "This has not happened before. We have never seen seismic activity as occurred in this case."

___

Associated Press writers Chris Kahn, Alicia A. Caldwell and Brock Vergakis in Huntington and Jennifer Talhelm in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report. AP researcher Rhonda Shafner also contributed.

4 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid 10 minutes ago

4 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid 10 minutes ago



GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli troops and aircraft attacked Islamic militants in the southern Gaza Strip Tuesday, killing two Hamas fighters and two civilians and wounding 15 people, Hamas and Palestinian medical officials said.

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Hamas said one of its men died in a pre-dawn airstrike, east of the town of Khan Younis, and a second was killed along with his 70-year-old mother when ground troops fired at their house.

An Israeli army statement said that in an operation against "terror threats" from the southern Gaza Strip, forces fired at armed militants in four separate incidents and hit the targets on each occasion.

A spokesman said aircraft carried out three attacks and ground forces shot a gunman posing a threat to soldiers.

Israeli Army Radio said troops were rounding up all local males above the age of 16 and interrogating them for information on militants.

Palestinian medical officials said a second civilian, Ibrahim al-Shami, 40, was fatally shot by soldiers when he went out onto the roof of his house and that of a total of 15 people wounded, seven were civilians.

The army often carries out raids into Gaza to target militants and to thwart rocket fire toward Israeli towns.

The military said a rocket was fired from the northern Gaza Strip toward Israel during the morning but there was no immediate report of it hitting anything.

The army also was in action Tuesday in the West Bank, where troops rounded up 13 suspects overnight and took them for questioning, an army statement said. It did not give further details.

Hundreds dead, missing after NKorea rain By BURT HERMAN, Associated Press Writer

Hundreds dead, missing after NKorea rain By BURT HERMAN, Associated Press Writer
4 minutes ago



SEOUL, South Korea - Severe floods caused by days of heavy rains in North Korea have left at least 200 people dead or missing and will hamper the country's ability to feed itself for at least a year, an international aid group operating in the country said Tuesday.

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North Korean officials told the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies that 200 people were dead or missing across the country, acting delegation head Terje Lysholm told The Associated Press from Pyongyang.

North Korean state media reported earlier Tuesday that "hundreds" were dead or missing since the rains began last week.

"The material damage so far is estimated to be very big," the official Korean Central News Agency said. "This unceasing heavy rain destroyed the nation's major railways, roads and bridges, suspended power supply and cut off the communications network."

Lysholm said a total of 63,300 families had been affected by the weather, which completely destroyed 30,000 homes.

Of those, 20,000 houses were in worst-hit Kangwon province, where blocked roads were preventing aid workers from assessing the damage, he said.

More than 247,000 acres of land also have been washed away, Lysholm said, affecting the impoverished nation's already limited ability to feed its people.

"That really definitely has an impact on the food situation for this year and at least one or two years," he said.

Lysholm said the floods were the worst in a decade in North Korea. In the mid-1990s, natural disasters coupled with outdated farming methods and the loss of the country's Soviet benefactor sparked a famine that is estimated to have killed as many as 2 million people.

North Korea's official media also painted a dire picture of the damage caused by the storms, which continue to soak the peninsula.

"The heavy rain destroyed at least 800 public buildings, over 540 bridges, 70 sections of railroads and at least 1,100 vehicles, pumps and electric motors," KCNA said.

The International Red Cross was able to visit 14 counties where it counted 2,500 homeless families and was distributing kits of necessities such as blankets, kitchen sets and water purification tablets, Lysholm said. The national and international Red Cross also established a 24-hour crisis center for updates on the situation, he said.

China bridge collapse kills 22 By ALEXA OLESEN, Associated Press Writer

China bridge collapse kills 22 By ALEXA OLESEN, Associated Press Writer
10 minutes ago



BEIJING - A bridge under construction in an ancient Chinese city collapsed as workers removed scaffolding from its facade, killing at least 22 people and leaving 46 missing, state television reported Tuesday.

The official Xinhua News Agency said 64 people were rescued, including 22 who were injured when the 1,049-foot bridge spanning the Tuo River in Hunan province collapsed Monday. The cause of the collapse was under investigation, it said.

The 140-foot-high bridge in Hunan's Fenghuang County had four decorative stone arches and was scheduled to open as a tourist attraction at the end of this month, Xinhua said. It collapsed as 123 workers were removing scaffolding from its facade, it said.

China Central Television showed bulldozers plowing through the rubble, overturning chunks of stone and concrete mixed in a tangle of steel reinforcement bars. It said 22 people died and 46 were missing.

Xinhua said Hunan Governor Zhou Qiang was at the scene overseeing rescue efforts.

Most of the people working on the bridge were local farmers, the agency said.

"I was riding a bike with my husband and we had just passed under the bridge and were about 50 meters (160 feet) away when it collapsed," said a witness, who would only gave her surname, Wu. "There was a huge amount of dust that came up and didn't clear for about 10 minutes."

Xinhua said the bridge was a $1.6 million project by the Fengda company of western Hunan, without giving the company's full name.

An employee of a Fengda Road Construction Company in Fenghuang said he was not clear if the bridge project was his company's or not. He refused to give his name.

Xinhua identified the contractor as the state-owned Hunan Road and Bridge Construction (Group) Ltd. Co., or RBC.

RBC construction manager Xia Youjia and project supervisor Jiang Ping were detained for questioning, it said. Phone numbers listed on the company's Web site rang unanswered Tuesday.

Construction accidents in China are frequent, with contractors often opting for shoddy materials to cut costs and using migrant laborers with little or no safety training.

In its annual report on road safety last year, the Ministry of Communications categorized 6,300 of the country's bridges as dangerous because of serious damage to their "structural components," the China Daily newspaper reported Tuesday.

The newspaper quoted Xiao Rucheng, secretary general of China's Institute of Bridge and Structural Engineering, as saying many of the country's new bridges were being built too quickly and were poorly designed.

Xiao also said China should "learn a lesson from the Mississippi bridge and accelerate the inspection of unsafe bridges," referring to the Aug. 1 collapse of a major interstate bridge in Minneapolis that killed nine people and left four others still missing.

Authorities are trying to determine exactly what caused the nearly four-decade-old Minnesota bridge to crumble.

Surrounded by lush mountains and rice paddies, the ancient city of Fenghuang is a well-known tourist spot and home to the Miao ethnic minority. It is also famed for traditional stilt houses lining the Tuo River.

The Fenghuang bridge collapse was among China's worst in recent memory. On June 15, a bridge in south China's Guangdong province collapsed when a cargo vessel loaded with sand rammed into it, killing nine people. That bridge was built in 1988 and spanned the Xijiang River, a major tributary of the Pearl River.

In January 1999, a pedestrian bridge spanning the Qi River in southwestern China's Sichuan province collapsed three years after it was built. Forty people died and another 14 were injured.

Following the accident, a local county deputy party secretary was sentenced to death for accepting a bribe from a childhood friend in exchange for the bridge-building contract.

The China Daily ran an editorial Tuesday saying rising traffic levels made the need for nationwide bridge repairs and upgrades an urgent issue.

"If left unrepaired these bridges may crumble at any time, (wreaking) economic havoc and possibly claiming human lives," it said, without mentioning the Fenghuang disaster, which wasn't reported by state media until late Monday.

Pakistan marks Independence Day By SADAQAT JAN, Associated Press Writer

Pakistan marks Independence Day By SADAQAT JAN, Associated Press Writer
30 minutes ago



ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan marked the 60th anniversary of its independence from British rule Tuesday amid a political crisis facing the country's U.S.-allied president and surging militant violence.

Artillery guns boomed at daybreak in Islamabad, and military cadets held a changing of the guard ceremony at the mausoleum of Quaid-e-Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's founder, in Karachi, the country's largest city. Flag-raising ceremonies and 21-gun salutes took place in the four provincial capitals.

Some 10 million people moved across borders in one of history's largest mass migrations as the princely states sewn together in 200 years of British rule were split into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu-majority India in 1947.

The subcontinent's partition saw some of the bloodiest fighting of the 20th century, violence that left between 200,000 and over 1 million people dead.

In recent years, Pakistan and India have engaged in a series of negotiations aimed at normalizing relations and settling a bitter dispute over the Himalayan region of Kashmir. The two nations have fought three wars since 1947 — two over Kashmir.

The 60th anniversary is being marked on Wednesday in India.

Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who was born in the Indian capital of New Delhi, recalled in a television talk-show appearance late Monday painful memories of his family's move to Pakistan during partition.

"It was a train journey and my mother was very worried because dead bodies ... there were dead people who could be seen on platforms where the train would stop," Musharraf said.

Independence celebrations fall as Pakistan heads toward presidential and legislative elections.

Musharraf, a close ally of the U.S. in its war against terrorism, is seeking another term as the military head of state, but faces the toughest challenge to his rule since taking power in a bloodless coup in 1999.

Musharraf's bid earlier this year to remove the independent-minded Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry backfired, drawing street protests. The Supreme Court struck down Musharraf's move.

Musharraf also faces rising pressure from Washington to do more to fight al-Qaida and Taliban militants in Pakistan's northwest tribal region bordering Afghanistan, and a wave of suicide bombings and other violence that have killed more than 380 people since early July.

In a statement marking the anniversary, the president urged Pakistanis to reject extremism at the coming elections.

"I urge all Pakistani citizens to get involved in the electoral process and become the instruments of enlightened moderation in their beloved country," Musharraf said.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told an anniversary gathering of hundreds of government officials, school children and others that Pakistan took pride in being the only Muslim country to have nuclear weapons.

"Our nuclear assets are symbols of our national honor and sovereignty," Aziz said. "The nation has always displayed solidarity and unity for them. And we will never tolerate that anyone should look with a dirty eye at our nuclear assets."

In an apparent reference to talk among U.S. officials about possible unilateral U.S. strikes against terrorists in Pakistan, Aziz said "we will never allow any foreign power to interfere in our frontiers."

He said Pakistan would show respect to its neighbors, an apparent reference to India.

On the eve of Independence Day, Pakistan sent home 134 Indian prisoners who had crossed the border illegally, as part of ceremonies marking the two countries' 60th anniversary. India was expected to return Pakistani prisoners on Tuesday.