John's Wild world aka The Storyteller

LOS ANGELES – The life of "Charlie's Angels" star Farrah Fawcett is being celebrated at a private funeral in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles.

Her longtime companion, Ryan O'Neal, was among pallbearers who accompanied the casket, covered in yellow and orange flowers, into the Roman Catholic cathedral Tuesday afternoon.

Fawcett's friend Alana Stewart and "Charlie's Angels" co-star Kate Jackson were among early arrivals before the hearse arrived, accompanied by 10 motorcycle officers.

Fans and news media are watching from across a street.

Fawcett died Thursday at age 62 after a public battle with cancer. O'Neal and Stewart were at her side.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The life of "Charlie's Angels" star Farrah Fawcett is being celebrated Tuesday at a private funeral held, fittingly, at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.

Her longtime companion, Ryan O'Neal, and her friend, Alana Stewart, both wore black as they entered the service, which was closed to media and the public.

Fawcett died Thursday at age 62 after a public battle with cancer. O'Neal and Stewart were at her side.

"After a long and brave battle with cancer, our beloved Farrah has passed away," O'Neal said in a statement last week. "Although this is an extremely difficult time for her family and friends, we take comfort in the beautiful times that we shared with Farrah over the years and the knowledge that her life brought joy to so many people around the world."

Diagnosed with a rare cancer in 2006, Fawcett's battle with the disease was documented in "Farrah's Story," which aired last month on NBC.

Stewart, a producer of the documentary, said Fawcett was "much more than a friend; she was my sister."

"Although I will miss her terribly, I know in my heart that she will always be there as that angel on the shoulder of everyone who loved her," Stewart said in a statement.

Fawcett and O'Neal, 68, have a son, 24-year-old Redmond, who has been jailed since April 5 on drug charges.

Last week, a judge granted his request to attend Fawcett's funeral. The order by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jane Godfrey allows Redmond O'Neal to be released for three hours and wear street clothes to attend the funeral.

WASHINGTON – U.S. officials said Tuesday that a North Korean ship has turned around and is headed back toward the north where it came from, after being tracked for more than a week by American Navy vessels on suspicion of carrying illegal weapons.

The move keeps the U.S. and the rest of the international community guessing: Where is the Kang Nam going? Does its cargo include materials banned by a new U.N. anti-proliferation resolution?

The ship left a North Korean port of Nampo on June 17 and is the first vessel monitored under U.N. sanctions that ban the regime from selling arms and nuclear-related material.

The Navy has been watching it — at times following it from a distance. It traveled south and southwest for more than a week; then, on Sunday, it turned around and headed back north, two U.S. officials said on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.

Nearly two weeks after the ship left North Korea, officials said Tuesday they still don't know where it is going. But it was some 250 miles south of Hong Kong on Tuesday, one official said.

Though acknowledging all along that the Kang Nam's destination was unclear, some officials said last week that it could be going to Myanmar and that it was unclear whether it could reach there without stopping in another port to refuel.

The U.N. resolution allows the international community to ask for permission to board and search any suspect ship on the seas. If permission for inspection is refused, authorities can ask for an inspection in whichever nation where the ship pulls into port.

North Korea has said it would consider any interception of its ships a declaration of war.

Two officials had said earlier in the day Tuesday that the Kang Nam had been moving very slowly in recent days, something that could signal it was trying to conserve fuel.

They said they didn't know what the turnaround of the ship means, nor what prompted it.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said Sunday that Washington was "following the progress of that ship very closely," but she would not say whether the U.S. would confront the Kang Nam.

The sailing of the vessel — and efforts to track it — set up the first test of a new U.N. Security Council resolution that authorizes member states to inspect North Korean vessels. The sanctions are punishment for an underground nuclear test the North carried out in May in defiance of past resolutions.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, the Obama administration imposed financial sanctions on a company in Iran that is accused of involvement in North Korea's missile proliferation network.

In the latest move to keep pressure on Pyongyang and its nuclear ambitions, the Treasury Department moved against Hong Kong Electronics, a company located in Kish Island, Iran. The action means that any bank accounts or other financial assets found in the United States belonging to the company must be frozen. Americans also are prohibited from doing business with the firm.

Armageddon. Apocalypse. Disaster: These are the words being used to describe California's staggering $24 billion budget deficit. With a midnight deadline to balance the budget, state lawmakers are facing a daunting task: Find a way to bridge the gap or start issuing $3 billion in IOUs this week to cover the bills.

Almost every state is suffering from the effects of the recession, but not every state accounts for 12 percent of the national gross domestic product. According to AP, if California goes down, so goes the nation: California's annual $1.7 trillion economy is the world's eighth-largest economy and provides a significant chunk of tax revenue for the government; California alone funds many social programs for the entire nation.

Like the Big Three automakers, California may be "too big to fail." If the state implodes, the ripple effect could slow the entire nation's recovery from the recession. Burt P. Flickinger, a retail consultant, tells AP:

"California is the key catalyst for U.S. retail sales, and if California falls further you will see the U.S. economy suffer significantly."

How did California dig itself such a huge hole? The recession certainly didn't help, but Time's Kevin O'Leary writes that California's financial troubles can be traced back to the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978. An antitax measure, Prop 13 makes it extremely difficult to raise taxes or pass a budget unless a 2/3 majority in both state houses agree — a virtually impossible task. California Rep. Zoe Lofgren tells Politico:

"If we [in Congress] had to do what the California legislature does, we would never send a bill to the president of the United States,” she said.

If the political wrangling over the budget isn't resolved by midnight tonight, Californians will be feeling the pain on every level, big and small. Just a few of the proposed spending cuts:

— State employees will be forced to take another day of unpaid leave a month, in addition to the two days leave they were forced to take starting in December. (NYT)

— Funding for the Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement will be slashed by $20 million. The "little-known unit" has played a key role in several of the state's high-profile cases: The bureau's agents helped arrest Scott Petersen for the murder of his wife and unborn child, and their investigation led to charges in Anna Nicole Smith's overdose death. (AP)

— 80 percent of state parks would be closed, 25 in the Bay Area alone, including several beaches along the peninsula. Park visitors spend an estimated $2.6 billion a year in and near state parks, but closing the parks would save only .26 percent of the $24 billion deficit. (SF Chronicle)

— Education funding would be reduced by $5.3 billion. School districts have already laid off 30,000 employees. Class sizes are expected to surge from 20 to 30 students and many after school programs, arts and music classes will be cut. A national education survey conducted this year ranked California 47th in per-student spending. (AP)

— Gov. Schwarzenegger is proposing to eliminate the state's $1.3 billion welfare program. Frank Mecca, the head of the County Welfare Directors Association of California, tells Time, "California could become the only state in the First World without subsistence benefits for poor children."

So far, the government is using a "wait and see" approach to California, or as a recent Politico headline stated more bluntly — "Washington to California: Drop dead." Earlier this month, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that the administration would "monitor" the situation, but that California's "budgetary problem unfortunately is one that they're going to have to solve."

(Think you can do a better job at balancing the state budget than the governor or state lawmakers? The Los Angeles Times is letting the common folk try their hand with a "You balance the budget" interactive.)

- Lili Ladaga

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A woman who inherited some Chinese carved jade from her father has scored the first $1 million (601,557 pounds) appraisal from experts on the U.S. television program "Antiques Roadshow," the producers said on Monday.

In a record for the show, four pieces of Chinese carved jade and celadon from the Chien Lung Dynasty (1736-1795), including a large bowl crafted for the Emperor, were given a conservative auction estimate of up to $1.07 million.

"For 13 years, we've been hoping to feature a million-dollar appraisal on 'Antiques Roadshow;' it's been our 'Great White Whale,'" executive producer Marsha Bemko said.

"We're thrilled that, despite this year's slow economy, 'Roadshow' finally captured this elusive trophy," she said in a statement released by Boston-based production company WGBH, which licensed the format from the British show of the same name produced by the BBC.

On both shows, members of the public bring in items to be appraised by professionals in the hope of discovering that junk from the attic is actually a valuable treasure.

A spokeswoman said the appraisal was a record for the U.S. show, which is not affiliated with the BBC original. According to British media, the BBC's version had its first million pound appraisal ($1.655 million) last November -- a scale model of Anthony Gormley's artwork, "The Angel of the North."

The statement said the owner of the jade inherited the collection from her father, who bought the objects in the 1930s and 1940s, while stationed in China as a military liaison.

She brought them to an "Antiques Roadshow" event in Raleigh, North Carolina on Saturday.

Asian arts appraiser James Callahan said the fine quality of the pieces indicated they were not made for tourists.

"He was rewarded by finding a mark on the bottom of the jade bowl that translates as 'by Imperial order,'" the statement said.

The previous highest appraisal on the show was a 1937 painting by American Abstract Expressionist artist Clyfford Still, found in Palm Springs, California, in 2008. The painting had been given a retail estimate of $500,000.

The appraisal of the jade items will be shown in the next series of "Antiques Roadshow" starting January 4 on PBS, the producers said.

NEW YORK - Rest easy, fans of "Law & Order: SVU." Stars Mariska Hargitay and Chris Meloni have signed contracts for another season.

That was in some doubt, with fans of the show wondering whether the actors might be replaced after their two-year contracts expired. NBC renewed the drama, its most popular scripted series, without knowing for sure whether they would be back.

Pam Golum, a spokeswoman for producer Dick Wolf, says the two stars will be back at work next week, when the show begins filming its new season.

Reporting from Sacramento — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today scolded Democrats for squandering time holding legislative votes on budget solutions that face certain veto, with the state days away from having to issue IOUs.
"They are wasting time by going through this drill," the governor told reporters in his office this morning. "Why run out of time, and then all of a sudden we have to hand out IOUs?"
The governor's comments followed the Assembly's approval late Sunday night of proposals to balance the budget with the help of higher taxes. Democratic leaders used a series of legal maneuvers to push the levies through without any GOP votes. The state Senate approved the tax package today.
Schwarzenegger said he had made it clear to lawmakers that he would reject any plan to "go inside the people's wallets." His office had issued a statement earlier this morning saying the governor would veto the plan if approved by the Senate.
The package includes a tax increase of $1.50 per pack of cigarettes, a 9.9% extraction tax on oil companies, a $15 vehicle license fee surcharge to fund state parks and a charge on homeowner insurance premiums to pay for emergency response systems.
Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D- Los Angeles) said her caucus wanted to make the point that it is prepared to take action to close California's deficit. The tax hikes account for a small share of budget revisions passed by the Assembly on Sunday that also included cuts in education, healthcare programs and other government services as well as billions of dollars in deferrals and other accounting shifts that push state expenses into future years.
"We just feel that it is very important that we act with or without [a budget] agreement," she said.
The leader of the Assembly's minority Republicans, Sam Blakeslee of San Luis Obispo, called the proposal illegal and said: "It makes moving forward in a cooperative way more difficult when these types of drills are undertaken."
Republicans are normally able to block tax increases despite being the minority party in both houses, because California requires a two-thirds vote for budgets and tax hikes. Achieving that threshold requires some Republican votes.
The Democratic plan essentially swaps taxes and fees, employing an arcane legal loophole that lets legislators pass a tax bill with a majority vote under certain conditions.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – U.S. troops pulled out of Baghdad on Monday, triggering jubilation among Iraqis hopeful that foreign military occupation is ending six years after the invasion to depose Saddam Hussein.

Iraqi soldiers paraded through the streets in their American-made vehicles draped with Iraqi flags and flowers, chanting, dancing and calling the pullout a "victory."

One drove a motorcycle with party streamers on it; another, a Humvee with a garland of plastic roses on the grill.

U.S. combat troops must pull out of Iraq's urban centers by midnight on Tuesday under a bilateral security pact that also requires all troops to leave the country by 2012.

All had left the capital by Monday afternoon, Major-General in Staff, Abboud Qanbar, head of Iraqi security forces in Baghdad, told Reuters.

Another Iraqi official who would not be named, said some units in cities outside Baghdad would leave at the last minute. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said 30 bases remained to be handed over. There are still some 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

Addressing military leaders in Baghdad, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said: "Our sovereignty has started and ... we should move forward to build a modern state and enjoy security which has been achieved."

Many Iraqis were elated even though they feared militants might use the withdrawal as an opportunity to step up attacks.

"The American forces' withdrawal is something awaited by every Iraqi: male, female, young and old. I consider June 30 to be like a wedding," said Ahmed Hameed, 38, near an ice cream bar in Baghdad's upmarket Karrada district.

"This is proof Iraqis are capable of controlling security inside Iraq," added the recent returnee from exile in Egypt.

The government has declared June 30 a national holiday, "National Sovereignty Day."

"BIG JOY"

A spate of bombings in recent days, including two of the deadliest for more than a year that killed 150 people between them, have raised fears militants will try to step up the pace of attacks.

Yet few Iraqis see that as reason for the Americans to stay.

"It is a big joy to see them leaving," said Abu Hassan, 60, a shop owner. "There might be some more attacks because of struggles between the different parties, but Iraqis are controlling security now. It's up to our forces now."

At a ceremony outside central Baghdad's old defense ministry building, the last Baghdad location to be handed over by U.S. forces, a military band played while soldiers and army college students paraded through a square festooned with Iraqi flags.

"Baghdad is safe, Iraq is safe. We are moving to sovereignty in secure steps," Qanbar said at the ceremony, which unusually was not cordoned off, despite the presence of the commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, Major-General Daniel Bolger.

U.S. troops will remain at two giant bases near Baghdad airport that are defined as non-urban, in case the Iraqis need to draw on their firepower.

"They'll ask us for help whenever they need something but they've got a lot of capability. This is their country. It only makes sense they should secure their own cities," Bolger said.

More than six years of U.S. occupation and the orgy of sectarian violence it unleashed have left most Iraqis feeling ambivalent about U.S. forces.

Many complain their lives have improved little since then, with daily struggles caused by power cuts and water shortages.

"They did a good job getting rid of that tyrant, Saddam, and we thank them for that, but it's really time for them to leave," said Talib Rasheed, 70, sitting outside in one of Baghdad's leafier suburbs. "Maybe they could leave us some electricity?"

TAMPA, Fla. – Billy Mays, the burly, bearded television pitchman whose boisterous hawking of products such as Orange Glo and OxiClean made him a pop-culture icon, has died. He was 50.

Tampa police said Mays' wife found him unresponsive Sunday morning. A fire rescue crew pronounced him dead at 7:45 a.m. It was not immediately clear how he died. He said he was hit on the head when an airplane he was on made a rough landing Saturday, and his wife, Deborah Mays, told investigators he didn't feel well before he went to bed about 10 p.m. that night.

There were no signs of a break-in at the home, and investigators do not suspect foul play, said Lt. Brian Dugan of the Tampa Police Department, who wouldn't answer questions about how Mays' body was found because of the ongoing investigation. The coroner's office expects to have an autopsy done by Monday afternoon.

"Although Billy lived a public life, we don't anticipate making any public statements over the next couple of days," Deborah Mays said in a statement Sunday. "Our family asks that you respect our privacy during these difficult times."

U.S. Airways confirmed that Mays was among the passengers on a flight that made a rough landing on Saturday afternoon at Tampa International Airport, leaving debris on the runway after apparently blowing its front tires.

Tampa Bay's Fox television affiliate interviewed Mays afterward.

"All of a sudden as we hit you know it was just the hardest hit, all the things from the ceiling started dropping," MyFox Tampa Bay quoted him as saying. "It hit me on the head, but I got a hard head."

Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said linking Mays' death to the landing would "purely be speculation." She said Mays' family members didn't report any health issues with the pitchman, but said he was due to have hip replacement surgery in the coming weeks.

Laura Brown, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said she did not know if Mays was wearing his seat belt on the flight because the FAA is not investigating his death.

U.S. Airways spokesman Jim Olson said there were no reports of serious injury due to the landing.

"If local authorities have any questions for us about yesterday's flight, we'll cooperate fully with them," he said.

Born William Mays in McKees Rocks, Pa., on July 20, 1958, Mays developed his style demonstrating knives, mops and other "As Seen on TV" gadgets on Atlantic City's boardwalk. For years he worked as a hired gun on the state fair and home show circuits, attracting crowds with his booming voice and genial manner.

AJ Khubani, founder and CEO of "As Seen on TV," said he first met Mays in the early 1990s when Mays was still pitching one of his early products, the Shammy absorbent cloth, at a trade fair. He said he most recently worked with Mays on the reality TV show "Pitchmen" on the Discovery Channel, which follows Mays and Anthony Sullivan in their marketing jobs.

"His innovative role and impact on the growth and wide acceptance of direct response television cannot be overestimated or easily replaced; he was truly one of a kind," Khubani said of Mays in a statement.

After meeting Orange Glo International founder Max Appel at a home show in Pittsburgh in the mid-1990s, Mays was recruited to demonstrate the environmentally friendly line of cleaning products on the St. Petersburg-based Home Shopping Network.

Commercials and informercials followed, anchored by the high-energy Mays showing how it's done while tossing out kitschy phrases like, "Long live your laundry!"

Sarah Ellerstein worked closely with Mays when she was a buyer for the Home Shopping Network in the 1990s and he was pitching Orange Glo products.

"Billy was such a sweet guy, very lovable, very nice, always smiling, just a great, great guy," she said, adding that Mays met his future wife at the network. "Everybody thinks because he's loud and boisterous on the air that that's the way he is, but I always found him to be a quiet, down-to-earth person."

His ubiquitousness and thumbs-up, in-your-face pitches won Mays plenty of fans for his commercials on a wide variety of products. People lined up at his personal appearances for autographed color glossies, and strangers stopped him in airports to chat about the products.

"I enjoy what I do," Mays told The Associated Press in a 2002 interview. "I think it shows."

Mays liked to tell the story of giving bottles of OxiClean to the 300 guests at his wedding, and doing his ad spiel ("powered by the air we breathe!") on the dance floor at the reception. Visitors to his house typically got bottles of cleaner and housekeeping tips.

As part of "Pitchmen," Mays and Sullivan showed viewers new gadgets such as the Impact Gel shoe insert; the Tool Band-it, a magnetized armband that holds tools; and the Soft Buns portable seat cushion.

"One of the things that we hope to do with 'Pitchmen' is to give people an appreciation of what we do," Mays told The Tampa Tribune in an April interview. "I don't take on a product unless I believe in it. I use everything that I sell."

His former wife, Dolores "Dee Dee" Mays, of McKees Rocks, Pa., recalled that the first product he sold was the Wash-matik, a device for pumping water from a bucket to wash cars.

"I knew him since he was 15, and I always knew he had it in him," she said of Mays' success. "He'll live on forever because he always had the biggest heart in the world. He loved his friends and family and would do anything for them. He was a generous soul and a great father."

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Associated Press Writer Sarah Larimer in Miami and Ron Todt in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

Larry Roberta's every breath is a painful reminder of his time in Iraq. He can't walk a block without gasping for air. His chest hurts, his migraines sometimes persist for days and he needs pills to help him sleep.

James Gentry came home with rashes, ear troubles and a shortness of breath. Later, things got much worse: He developed lung cancer, which spread to his spine, ribs and one of his thighs; he must often use a cane, and no longer rides his beloved Harley.

David Moore's postwar life turned into a harrowing medical mystery: nosebleeds and labored breathing that made it impossible to work, much less speak. His desperate search for answers ended last year when he died of lung disease at age 42.

What these three men — one sick, one dying, one dead — had in common is they were National Guard soldiers on the same stretch of wind-swept desert in Iraq during the early months of the war in 2003.

These soldiers and hundreds of other Guard members from Indiana, Oregon and West Virginia were protecting workers hired by a subsidiary of the giant contractor, KBR Inc., to rebuild an Iraqi water treatment plant. The area, as it turned out, was contaminated with hexavalent chromium, a potent, sometimes deadly chemical linked to cancer and other devastating diseases.

No one disputes that. But that's where agreement ends.

Among the issues now rippling from the courthouse to Capitol Hill are whether the chemical made people sick, when KBR knew it was there and how the company responded. But the debate is more than about this one case; it has raised broader questions about private contractors and health risks in war zones.

Questions, says Sen. Evan Bayh, who plans to hold hearings on the issues, such as these:

"How should we treat exposure to potentially hazardous chemicals as a threat to our soldiers? How seriously should that threat be taken? What is the role of private contractors? What about the potential conflict between their profit motives and taking all steps necessary to protect our soldiers?

"This case," says the Indiana Democrat, "has brought to light the need for systemic reform."

For now, dozens of National Guard veterans have sued KBR and two subsidiaries, accusing them of minimizing and concealing the chemical's dangers, then downplaying nosebleeds and breathing problems as nothing more than sand allergies or a reaction to desert air.

KBR denies any wrongdoing. In a statement, the company said it actually found the chemical at the Qarmat Ali plant, restricted access, cleaned it up and "did not knowingly harm troops."

Ten civilians hired by a KBR subsidiary made similar claims in an arbitration resolved privately in June. (The workers' contract prevented them from filing suit.)

This isn't the first claim that toxins have harmed soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan; there have been allegations involving lead, depleted uranium and sarin gas.

This also isn't the first challenge to KBR, whose billions of dollars of war-related contracts have been the subject of congressional scrutiny and numerous legal claims.

Among them are lawsuits recently filed against KBR and Halliburton Co. — KBR's parent company until 2007 — that assert open-air pits used to burn refuse in Iraq and Afghanistan caused respiratory illnesses, tumors and death. (KBR says it is reviewing the charges. Halliburton maintains it was improperly named and expects to be dismissed from the case.)

Earlier this year, several members of Congress asked Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to investigate potential burn pit hazards. He replied that his agency is conducting a health study of 30,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and noted the VA "has learned important lessons from previous military conflicts" as it deals with environmental exposure questions.

Some veterans advocates say the military is more attuned to health risks than it was in Vietnam and the Gulf War, but still falls short.

"I'm a realist — things are going to get burned, things are going to be blown up," says Tom Tarantino, an Iraqi veteran and policy associate at the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. "But I think the DOD (Department of Defense) could do a better job at tracking what people are exposed to. If there's a big pit outside your base, you need to know what's going on and do tests ... so if people start getting sick, they won't spend years trying to figure out what's wrong with them."

This isn't a natural fit, he concedes, since the Defense Department "is a war-fighting agency, not an environmental protection agency. But I think there's a lack of information out there."

This case stems from the chaotic start of the war in 2003 when a KBR subsidiary was hired to restart the plant, which had been looted of equipment, wiring, even metal roofing and siding. The Iraqis had used hexavalent chromium to prevent pipe corrosion at the plant, which produced industrial water used in oil production.

It's the same chemical linked to poisonings in California in a case made famous in the movie "Erin Brockovich."

Hexavalent chromium — a toxic component of sodium dichromate — can cause severe liver and kidney damage and studies have linked it to leukemia as well as bone, stomach, brain and other cancers, according to an expert who provided a deposition for the civilian workers.

The chemical "is one of the most potent carcinogens know to man" and it can "enter every cell of the body and potentially produce widespread injury to every major organ in the body," said Max Costa, chairman of New York University's Department of Environmental Medicine.

KBR, however, says studies show only that industrial workers exposed to the chemical for more than two years have an increased risk of cancer — and in this case, soldiers were at the plant just days or months.

The company also notes air quality studies concluded the Indiana Guard soldiers were not exposed to high levels of hexavalent chromium. But Costa says those tests were done when the wind was not blowing.

Both soldiers and former workers say there were days when strong gusts kicked up ripped-open bags of the chemical, creating a yellow-orange haze that coated everything from their hair to their boots.

"I was spitting blood and I was not the only one doing that," recalls Danny Langford, who worked for the KBR subsidiary. "The wind was blowing 30, 40 miles an hour. You could just hardly see where you were going. I pulled my shirt over my nose and there would be blood on it. I also saw the soldiers. They had blood splotches on their masks."

Larry Roberta, a 44-year-old former Oregon National Guard member, remembers a strange metallic taste and dust everywhere. He sat on a bag of the chemical, unaware it was dangerous.

"This orange crud blew up in your face, your eyes and on our food," he says. "I tried to wash my chicken patty off with my canteen. I started to get sick to my stomach right away."

Roberta had coughing spells and agonizing chest pains, he says, that "went all the way through my back. Whenever I breathed, the pain got more sharp. ... Every day I went there, I had something weird going on."

Russell Kimberling, a former Indiana National Guard captain, had severe sinus troubles that forced his evacuation to Germany. After returning, he became alarmed one August day in 2003 while escorting some officials to the plant in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

"I jumped out of the truck and I turned around and they (KBR staff) had full chemical gear on," he says. "I looked at some of my soldiers and said, 'This can't be very good.'"

"They could have told us to put chemical suits on," Kimberling adds. "There are so many things that could have been done."

Ed Blacke, hired as plant health, safety and environmental coordinator, says he became worried after workers started having breathing problems and a former colleague sent him an internal KBR memo outlining the chemical's dangers. Blacke says when he complained at a meeting, he was labeled a troublemaker and resigned under pressure.

"Normally when you take over a job, you have a briefing — this is what's out there, here's what you need for protective equipment," says Blacke, who testified at a Senate Democratic Policy Committee hearing last year. "There was nothing, nothing at all."

Blacke and Langford were among those whose civil claims were resolved in arbitration.

Kimberling is among nearly 50 Guard veterans — most from Indiana, a smaller number from Oregon and West Virginia — who've sued.

Mike Doyle, the Houston lawyer representing the soldiers and civilians, maintains KBR knew as early as May 2003 the chemical was there, but didn't close the site until that September.

"Once they (KBR) found out about it, they didn't tell anybody and they did everything to conceal it," he contends. "You have (KBR) managers in Houston, in Kuwait City who knew about this. Their staff was getting reports and soldiers and civilians who were in the field were told, 'No big deal. There's nothing to worry about.'"

The lawsuit cites minutes of an August 2003 KBR meeting that mentions "serious health problems at the water treatment plant" and notes "almost 60 percent of the people now exhibit the symptoms."

In a recent wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, KBR chairman William P. Utt suggested the company be given some latitude with its military contracts.

"We think there ought to be some consideration given in many of these claims to the same protections the government has from these suits that exist," he said.

He also said KBR has been unfairly targeted in war zones. "People think there's an opportunity here in Iraq, let's paint it on KBR, then we'll worry about making the facts precise or correct later," Utt said.

As for the water plant, KBR says once it learned of the chemical, it took precautions to protect workers, notified the Army Corps of Engineers and led the cleanup. It says the Corps had previously deemed the area safe.

KBR also points to Army tests of 137 Indiana Guard soldiers that showed no medical problems that could be linked to exposure, as well as a military board review that found it unlikely anyone would suffer long-term medical consequences.

But Bayh and Doyle say those tests were done too late to be valid and note that soil tests were taken after the contaminated area was covered with asphalt and gravel.

Doyle also disagrees with KBR's contention that workers weren't there long enough — weeks or months — to have elevated cancer risks.

It can take a long time for symptoms of illness to surface — five to 10 years or more for cancer. But some of those who say they were exposed are already ill.

Gentry, a retired lieutenant colonel who commanded the Indiana Guard unit, is in the late stages of lung cancer, which has spread to other parts of his body, according to his friend, Christopher Lee.

Gentry hasn't sued, but in a December 2008 deposition he recalled complaining to his superiors after his soldiers were told by KBR workers the orangish sand was a cancer-causing chemical. He said it was "very disappointing" that KBR managers didn't share that information.

"I'm dying because of it," he said.

While acknowledging he wasn't 100 percent certain that's why he has cancer, Gentry — who served a second tour in Iraq — said his doctor "believes the most probable cause was my exposure to this chemical."

KBR's actions, he said, had put "my men at risk that is unnecessary."

The Indiana, West Virginia and Oregon National Guards have sent hundreds of letters to soldiers notifying them of possible contamination and urging them to seek medical attention. The Oregon Guard also set up a Facebook page and reports about 15 soldiers have reported medical symptoms.

Bayh has introduced a bill calling for a special medical registry that would require the Department of Defense to notify all military members of exposure to potential toxins — and provide comprehensive medical care. (It would be limited to those serving after Sept. 11, 2001.)

A similar notification measure was approved Thursday in the U.S. House, an amendment to the defense authorization bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, an Oregon lawmaker.

All these measures come too late for 1st Sgt. David Moore, who served with Gentry.

He thought his persistent cough in Iraq would stop when he returned home. Instead, breathing became difficult; he eventually needed a chair in the shower because he could no longer stand, says his brother, Steve. Moore had nosebleeds, too, and boil-like rashes behind his ears and on his back, arms and legs. He went from doctor to doctor. "None of them could ever figure out what it was," his brother says.

By late 2007, the one-time construction worker — who had been "strong as an ox," and ran 3 1/2 miles every other day — couldn't even venture outside, Steve Moore says. But he didn't give up.

"He was always upbeat," his brother says. "He said, 'They'll figure it out, they'll figure it out.' He thought that until the last time I talked to him. You could see the fear in his eyes. They had him on 100 percent oxygen and he still couldn't breathe. He requested to be put on a ventilator so they could figure it out."

Moore died in February 2008. The cause was lung disease. His death was ruled service-related. His brother believes it was hexavalent chromium.

Larry Roberta, the former Oregon Guardsman who needed stomach surgery after his return, still has physical and emotional problems: Post traumatic stress. Mood swings. Nose polyps. Chest pains. Migraines that can keep him bedridden for days.

He takes two inhalers — he can't walk a block without them — and high blood pressure medicine every day and testosterone shots every two weeks.

"I have 100 percent disability," he says. "I've got a long laundry list of things that happened to me while I was there. If you add it all up, I'd be almost 200 percent disabled."

Roberta recently testified before Oregon lawmakers, urging them to set aside money for Guard members who develop cancer from exposure to the chemical.

His wife, Michelle, says her husband's illness has dramatically changed his outlook.

"He has no ambitions for life anymore," she says. "At his age, that makes me very sad. I worry about him every day."

Kimberling, the former Indiana Guardsman, struggles as well.

The father of two young children — he's a pharmaceutical salesman in Louisville, Ky. — says he hasn't been able to get life insurance because his possible exposure is mentioned on his medical records.

Sometimes, he says, it's hard to sort out his real aches from his fears.

"I feel like I'm a 38-year-old in a 60-year-old's body," he says. "There are a lot of things that seem to be going south a lot quicker than they should. Sinus problems ... pain in my joints that I've never felt before.

"I'm not sure if it's the anxiety of finding out about it or not. I kind of know and feel it's just a matter of time before it catches up with me."

___

Kimberly Hefling in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

With his round face and sad eyes, Oracio Sandoval, 33, sits at a Los Angeles County welfare office in Carson, Calif., armed with a thick pile of job-application forms. Out of work since January, Sandoval is struggling to stay afloat financially. Married with two children, he and his wife used to make $3,000 a month. Now they rely on her $800 from Starbucks and their CalWORKs payment of $250. "It's not much, but it helps. We just barely make ends meet for rent and the bills. I am not sure how much longer we can go on like this," he says.

Sandoval, like many of California's 39 million residents, is caught up in the pain of the worst recession in 50 years and a state's flailing attempt to balance its books by making brutal cuts in programs long seen as essential. The Sandoval family is but one of more than 154,000 welfare cases in Los Angeles County. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says the state should abolish its welfare program. Doing so would save $1.3 billion and rip a large gaping hole in the safety net that now keeps more than 500,000 California families like the Sandovals out of homeless shelters. (Read "With a New Budget, Now Californians Brace for the Pain")

States across the nation are suffering the effects of lost tax revenue in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. California's woes are similar and different in kind, played out on a grand scale in a state that boasts the world's eighth largest economy and a Hollywood star in the lead role. After voters rejected a slew of convoluted budget-balancing measures, the governor has proposed cuts to programs that would make California more like a struggling Third World state than 21st century America: welfare subsistence benefits would end, 1 million poor children would lose health care, college aid for the state's best and brightest would be phased out, nonviolent prisoners would be released, hundreds of state parks would be shuttered, and thousands of teachers would lose their jobs. (Read about the 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.)

"California could become the only state in the First World without subsistence benefits for poor children," says Frank Mecca, executive director of the County Welfare Directors Association of California. If California ends CalWORKs, the state's welfare-to-work program, it would save $1.3 billion but lose three times that amount in federal money. (Since President Bill Clinton's reform, welfare has been run by the states, which receive block grants from the Federal Government that they spend as they wish. Mecca says no other state has ever said no to the federal money, nor has one proposed a flat-out elimination of welfare for families with children.) (Read "Can Marijuana Help Rescue California's Economy?")

As California faces a $25 billion budget shortfall, which it must resolve by July 1, the state is on the brink of financial disaster, and ripples from its fiscal collapse could adversely affect both the nation's economic rebound and, potentially, the Federal Government's credit status. The Republican governor and GOP legislators say they will not raise taxes, especially after Schwarzenegger and six Republican legislators joined a budget deal with Democrats in February that combined deep cuts and $12.8 billion in higher taxes. Now the budget shortfall has spiked again as state tax receipts have dropped 27% from a year ago. Democrats and advocates for programs under the knife will fight the cuts, but neither money nor time are on their side.

In addition to its multibillion-dollar deficit, California faces a severe cash-flow crisis and state controller John Chiang warns that the state could run out of money in July. California has the worst credit rating among the 50 states, so its leaders have pressed the Obama Administration and Congress to act as a co-signer on the state's borrowing. As with AIG, California officials argued, the state is too big to fail. "A fiscal meltdown by California ... would surely destabilize the U.S., if not worldwide financial markets," state treasurer Bill Lockyer wrote U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on May 13. Yet experts say such action by the Federal Government, while not a bailout, could possibly endanger the nation's AAA credit rating. Without short-term assistance, California could plunge deeper into chaos and become a drag on the nation's economic recovery. (The Page: "California Budget Deadlock Broken.")

This week, however, the Obama Administration said it was not going to do anything to help California right now, believing that the state should try to get its budget mess in order first. There are good reasons for the Treasury not to rush to California's aid. If it backstops Sacramento, rewarding the state's bad behavior, it would set an example for other states to follow. A nightmare scenario: the Federal Government backs California's loans, which leads to a downgrading of the Treasury's credit rating and the unnerving of the global credit markets. Spooked, the Chinese government, which currently bankrolls a large portion of the U.S. deficit, decides to take its money elsewhere. The ripples from California's crisis would then extend far beyond the Sandovals and other families on the wrong end of the budget ax.

The financial crisis in California grew worse this week as State Controller John Chiang warned that if legislators and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger fail to come up with a budget-balancing package, he would begin paying California's bills with IOUs on July 2. The last time the state did this was during the Great Depression.

What has brought California to such a perilous state? How did its government become so wildly dysfunctional? One obvious cause is the deep recession that has caused tax revenues to plunge for all states. But California's woes have a set of deeper reasons: direct democracy run amok, timid governors, partisan gridlock and a flawed constitution all contribute to budget chaos and people in pain. And at the root of California's misery lies Proposition 13, the antitax measure that ignited the Reagan Revolution and the conservative era. In Washington, the Reagan-Bush era is over. But in California, the conservative legacy lives on. (Read TIME's report: Can the U.S. Afford to Let California Fail?)

Before Prop 13, in the 1950s and '60s, California was a liberal showcase. Governors Earl Warren and Pat Brown responded to the population growth of the postwar boom with a massive program of public infrastructure — the nation's finest public college system, the freeway system and the state aqueduct that carries water from the well-watered north to the parched south. When Ronald Reagan was governor he actually raised taxes. Then Proposition 13 shot the tires out of Pat Brown's liberal state. Liberal legislative leaders such as Willie Brown and John Burton jerry-rigged repairs and kept the damaged vehicle running for 30 years. Now Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger says there is no choice but to complete the demolition by slashing essential services. (TIME's Joel Stein weighs in on California's state of insanity)

Proposition 13 was the brainchild of the late Howard Jarvis. The antitax crusader was a policy genius not unlike Franklin D. Roosevelt. Both shared an affinity for designing deep structural change that, once embedded in the political system, is nearly impossible to alter without a massive change of heart by voters. Social Security is the lasting legacy of the New Deal era because F.D.R. understood that workers who contribute payroll-tax deductions from their paychecks would not want politicians tinkering with their retirement dollars. Conservatives have mounted assaults on Social Security through the years but to no avail.

Jarvis created a similarly impregnable institution. When he rode the wave of anger over skyrocketing property-tax assessments to pass Proposition 13 in 1978, he included a two-thirds vote requirement for the passage of any new taxes in California — an insurmountable obstacle built on populist allergy to any kind of new levy. Beholden to a tax-averse electorate, the state's liberals and moderates have attempted to live with Proposition 13 while continuing to provide the state services Californians expect — freeways, higher education, locking up felons, assisting needy families and, very importantly, essential funding to local government and school districts that vanished after the antitax measure passed.

Now, however, that balancing act no longer seems possible. In the state's current fiscal crisis, California's public schools stand to lose $5.3 billion on top of $7.4 billion in cuts last year. Superintendents and school boards foresee teacher layoffs, increased class sizes, the loss of computer labs and libraries and, in some districts, insolvency. Superintendent Ramon Cortines says the Los Angeles Unified School District will lay off more than 2,500 teachers.

"If not for the county [welfare program], lots of people would be out on the streets and I'd be one of them with my two kids," says Cinnamon McDaniel. Petite and well dressed, McDaniel is hardly the Reagan-stereotype welfare mom of yore. The 26-year-old African American mother of two was employed until a year ago when her doctor ordered her to stop working because of complications with her second pregnancy. A high school graduate and a preschool teacher's aide for six years, she is working toward a nursing degree. Following a divorce, she now receives a welfare check for $623 as well as food stamps and the state's health coverage for low-income families. "Last year I was able to work and pay my own bills. I'd like to see if Gov. Schwarzenegger could cut it on $600 a month."

South of Los Angeles at California State University, Fullerton, Nicole Muth, 22, has just finished her junior year with straight A's. Muth grew up in Modesto with "lots of love but no money." Raised by her aunt and uncle, she receives a Cal Grant of $4,500 a year. "It definitely helps," says Muth, who credits the grant with allowing her to focus on her studies. As part of his proposed budget cuts, however, Schwarzenegger says Cal Grants should be phased out and that money promised to the incoming college class eliminated. "I appreciate the grant very much and I'm concerned about students coming after me not having the opportunities I've had," says Muth. "I'm really sad to see our state in this economic crisis. It's bewildering." Muth is not alone.

The governor has addressed the need for shrinking the state, saying, "We have to go and make certain cuts in health care. We have to make certain cuts in education, in higher education, in all these various different programs, in prisons, law enforcement and so on." But Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a nonprofit advocacy group, says, "These are no longer cuts. These are amputations, and the question is, Which limb are we cutting off today?"

The financial crisis in California grew worse this week as State Controller John Chiang warned that if legislators and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger fail to come up with a budget-balancing package, he would begin paying California's bills with IOUs on July 2. The last time the state did this was during the Great Depression.

What has brought California to such a perilous state? How did its government become so wildly dysfunctional? One obvious cause is the deep recession that has caused tax revenues to plunge for all states. But California's woes have a set of deeper reasons: direct democracy run amok, timid governors, partisan gridlock and a flawed constitution all contribute to budget chaos and people in pain. And at the root of California's misery lies Proposition 13, the antitax measure that ignited the Reagan Revolution and the conservative era. In Washington, the Reagan-Bush era is over. But in California, the conservative legacy lives on. (Read TIME's report: Can the U.S. Afford to Let California Fail?)

Before Prop 13, in the 1950s and '60s, California was a liberal showcase. Governors Earl Warren and Pat Brown responded to the population growth of the postwar boom with a massive program of public infrastructure — the nation's finest public college system, the freeway system and the state aqueduct that carries water from the well-watered north to the parched south. When Ronald Reagan was governor he actually raised taxes. Then Proposition 13 shot the tires out of Pat Brown's liberal state. Liberal legislative leaders such as Willie Brown and John Burton jury-rigged repairs and kept the damaged vehicle running for 30 years. Now Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger says there is no choice but to complete the demolition by slashing essential services. (TIME's Joel Stein weighs in on California's state of insanity)

Proposition 13 was the brainchild of the late Howard Jarvis. The antitax crusader was a policy genius not unlike Franklin D. Roosevelt. Both shared an affinity for designing deep structural change that, once embedded in the political system, is nearly impossible to alter without a massive change of heart by voters. Social Security is the lasting legacy of the New Deal era because F.D.R. understood that workers who contribute payroll-tax deductions from their paychecks would not want politicians tinkering with their retirement dollars. Conservatives have mounted assaults on Social Security through the years but to no avail.

Jarvis created a similarly impregnable institution. When he rode the wave of anger over skyrocketing property-tax assessments to pass Proposition 13 in 1978, he included a two-thirds vote requirement for the passage of any new taxes in California — an insurmountable obstacle built on populist allergy to any kind of new levy. Beholden to a tax-averse electorate, the state's liberals and moderates have attempted to live with Proposition 13 while continuing to provide the state services Californians expect — freeways, higher education, locking up felons, assisting needy families and, very importantly, essential funding to local government and school districts that vanished after the antitax measure passed.

Now, however, that balancing act no longer seems possible. In the state's current fiscal crisis, California's public schools stand to lose $5.3 billion on top of $7.4 billion in cuts last year. Superintendents and school boards foresee teacher layoffs, increased class sizes, the loss of computer labs and libraries and, is some districts, insolvency. Superintendent Ramon Cortines says the Los Angeles Unified School District will lay off more than 2,500 teachers.

"If not for the county [welfare program], lots of people would be out on the streets and I'd be one of them with my two kids," says Cinnamon McDaniel. Petite and well dressed, McDaniel is hardly the Reagan-stereotype welfare mom of yore. The 26-year-old African American mother of two was employed until a year ago when her doctor ordered her to stop working because of complications with her second pregnancy. A high school graduate and a preschool teacher's aide for six years, she is working toward a nursing degree. Following a divorce, she now receives a welfare check for $623 as well as food stamps and the state's health coverage for low-income families. "Last year I was able to work and pay my own bills. I'd like to see if Gov. Schwarzenegger could cut it on $600 a month."

South of Los Angeles at California State University, Fullerton, Nicole Muth, 22, has just finished her junior year with straight A's. Muth grew up in Modesto with "lots of love but no money." Raised by her aunt and uncle, she receives a Cal Grant of $4,500 a year. "It definitely helps," says Muth, who credits the grant with allowing her to focus on her studies. As part of his proposed budget cuts, however, Schwarzenegger says Cal Grants should be phased out and that money promised to the incoming college class eliminated. "I appreciate the grant very much and I'm concerned about students coming after me not having the opportunities I've had," says Muth. "I'm really sad to see our state in this economic crisis. It's bewildering." Muth is not alone.

The governor has addressed the need for shrinking the state, saying, "We have to go and make certain cuts in health care. We have to make certain cuts in education, in higher education, in all these various different programs, in prisons, law enforcement and so on." But Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a nonprofit advocacy group, says, "These are no longer cuts. These are amputations, and the question is, Which limb are we cutting off today?"

EDITOR'S NOTE: Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. This report is based on the accounts of witnesses reached in Iran and official statements carried on Iranian media.

___

Iran's hardline president lashed out anew at the United States and President Barack Obama on Saturday, accusing him of interference and suggesting that Washington's stance on Iran's postelection turmoil could imperil Obama's aim of improving relations.

"We are surprised at Mr. Obama," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in remarks to judiciary officials broadcast on state television. "Didn't he say that he was after change? Why did he interfere?"

"They keep saying that they want to hold talks with Iran ... but is this the correct way? Definitely, they have made a mistake," Ahmadinejad said.

Obama was strongly criticized at home and by many abroad, for his initial measured response to opposition allegations that Ahmadinejad was re-elected by fraud in the June 12 balloting and to the harsh crackdown on protesters. The Obama administration wants to improve contacts with Tehran, especially because of concern that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

Since the election, opposition protesters repeatedly have clashed with security forces who beat them with batons, fired tear gas and water cannons and arrested hundreds of people. At least 17 people have been killed, in addition to eight members of the pro-government Basij militia, officials have said.

The crackdown has pushed protesters off the streets, ending days of unprecedented demonstrations that saw hundreds of thousands of people demanding the election be canceled and held again.

Many supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi have been shouting "God is great!" from the roofs of their homes — a practice dating to the 1979 Islamic Revolution — to register discontent with the regime.

Members of the Basij have been raiding homes and beating residents in an attempt to stop the chanting, Human Rights Watch said Saturday. The group also said that authorities were seizing satellite dishes to prevent citizens from seeing news broadcast from overseas. Iranian officials have blamed the BBC, Voice of America and other news channels for fomenting unrest on behalf of Western governments.

"While most of the world's attention is focused on the beatings in the streets of Iran during the day, the Basijis are carrying out brutal raids on people's apartments during the night," said Sarah Leah Whitson, the group's Middle East director. "Witnesses are telling us that the Basijis are trashing entire streets and even neighborhoods as well as individual homes trying to stop the nightly rooftop protest chants."

On Friday, Obama hailed the demonstrators in Iran and condemned the violence against them.

"Their bravery in the face of brutality is a testament to their enduring pursuit of justice," Obama said. "The violence perpetrated against them is outrageous. In spite of the government's efforts to keep the world from bearing witness to that violence, we see it and we condemn it."

In a separate show of defiance of international opinion, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi was quoted by the official news agency IRNA as accusing the Group of Eight countries — including the United States — of "intervening and hasty remarks." G-8 foreign ministers on Friday called for an end to the violence in Iran and urged the authorities to find a peaceful solution.

The Foreign Ministry also summoned Sweden's ambassador to protest a break-in by demonstrators at Iran's embassy on Friday, IRNA reported

Meanwhile, opposition supporters, faced with a senior cleric's demand that protest leaders be severely punished or even executed, enter the third week of their campaign against the election results in increasingly tight straits.

Mousavi, who claims he actually won the vote, says he will seek official permission for any future rallies, effectively ending his role in street protests.

The opposition may have little opportunity to keep momentum going within the limits of the law, and the international attention that appeared to bolster their morale could be waning. Also, Mousavi's Web site, his primary means for communicating with supporters, remained down on Saturday; an aide told the Associated Press Friday that the site had been hacked.

Mousavi said he would seek official permission for any future rallies, effectively ending his role in street protests organized by supporters who insist he won the election.

"The problem is we have no one to lead us," a 30-year-old resident of Isfahan told AP on Saturday on condition of anonymity because he feared government reprisal. "We are waiting for a new message, but Mousavi does not want to continue, because after all he is part of the system."

"People are angry and afraid," he said. "They are afraid of the future and angry because they failed to achieve change with their ballots."

People continue to resist the government oppression, he said, although very few dare to defy the government on the streets due to massive police presence.

But they continue to shout from the rooftops at night in Tehran and Isfahan, he said. The shouting was particularly loud after ruling clerics accused protesters Friday of challenging and opposing God with their dissent.

Mousavi alleges he was robbed of victory through widespread and systematic fraud. The regime rejects the claim, refusing to consider new balloting, and on Friday, the Guardian Council — Iran's top electoral body — proclaimed the vote the "healthiest" held since the revolution.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ruled out a revote.

Since the election, opposition protesters repeatedly have clashed with security forces who arrested hundreds of people, including journalists, academics and university students. At least 17 people have been killed, in addition to eight members of the pro-government Basij militia, officials have said.

The demonstrations petered out this week under an ever-intensifying crackdown. Mousavi, meanwhile, has sent mixed signals to supporters, asking them not to break the law while pledging not to drop his challenge.

Amnesty International called the prospect of quick trials and capital punishment for some detainees "a very worrying development." It said Iran was the world's No. 2 executioner after China last year, with at least 346 known instances of people put to death. The group also called on the regime to release dozens of detained journalists it said faced possible torture.

As the protests dwindle amid intensifying official pressure, the opposition may suffer from a decline in international attention. The protests and violence dominated Western news broadcasts for nearly two weeks, with the reports substantially bolstered by videos gleaned from Internet sites and by commentary from social networking sites.

Such sites were a key pipeline for the opposition amid the tight restrictions on foreign media in the country.

But along with the diminished action on the streets in Iran, other stories have arisen to siphon away attention — especially the death of pop star Michael Jackson.

Television coverage of Iran's turmoil has fallen since Jackson's death Thursday; on the Twitter micro-blogging site, Iran remained among the most discussed topics, but fell below Jackson and comments about the movie "Transformers 2."

___

Heintz reported from Cairo; Associated Press writer Shaya Tayefe Mohajer in Cairo and Barbara Surk in Dubai, United Arab Emirates contributed to this report.

As mail volume declines, the US Postal Service could shutter up to 3,200 post offices and retail outlets. Most people say they understand -- unless it's their post office.

A rallying cry can be heard across the country, from the swanky streets of New York's SoHo to the tiny town of Randolph, Kan.: "Save our post office!"

As the United States Postal Service, weighed down by a crippling multibillion-dollar deficit, shrinks its operations, post offices across the country are on the chopping block. Each year, hundreds of postal operations shutter, but this coming fall could be the single biggest consolidation in Postal Service history.

Over the next three months, more than 3,200 post offices and retail outlets -- out of 34,000 -- will be reviewed for possible closure or consolidation.

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Downsizing is a business imperative, says Linda Welch, acting vice president of delivery and post office operations at the Postal Service. "Revenues have declined, and mail volume continues to decline," she says.

Not only have e-mail and electronic bill paying made for a skinnier mail stream, but the recession has caused a sharp pullback in advertising mail that has hurt the Postal Service even more.

In March, Postmaster General John Potter asked Congress for the right to reduce the mail week from six days to five, for a savings of $3.5 billion. Shutting down post offices will have similar cost-saving effects. And most Americans say they're OK with the cutbacks, as long as they don't have to pay more to send mail. A recent USA Today/Gallup poll found that more Americans would rather the Postal Service curtail services than seek a bailout or raise stamp prices.

At least, that's what everyone says -- until it's their beloved post office at stake. For various reasons, people tend to react with great fervor when their local offices are endangered.

Consider the case of the Hawleyville Post Office. After years of negotiations, the Postal Service in January notified the Connecticut community that its 166-year-old post office would close Feb. 14. An article in the local newspaper poignantly noted, "The long love affair between the Hawleyville post office and its loyal customers will come to an end on, of all days, Valentine's Day."

Its post office was rickety, but the community embraced it as a gathering place. One resident told the Newtown Bee, "The Hawleyville Post Office is like Cheers in Hawleyville."

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In fear of losing its precious haunt, the community mobilized. A Web site and online petition drive were created. Members got Congress involved. And lo and behold, the community won approval for a new post office, to be opened this summer.

Every time a post office is slated for closure or consolidation, the Postal Service is legally obligated to inform its customers well in advance. "There's a very long process that they have to go through," says Mario Principe, the post office continuance consultant at the National League of Postmasters. That gives the communities plenty of time, usually at least two months, to stage a rescue.

Anatomy of a closure

It's also important to check out why a post office is on the chopping block in the first place. Those under review this summer are mostly metropolitan branches or stations. But in the case of small post offices, federal law states that the reason can't be just that the office isn't bringing in enough revenue. If that's the only explanation given, then the Postal Service can't legally shut it down.

Postmaster General seeks help
Without an infusion, the Postal Service will go broke this year, the postal chief, John Potter, told Congress in March. Should it get a bailout?

Oftentimes, post offices face closure because their leases expire. That's the case in Deer Harbor, Wash. After attempts to find a new location for the post office failed, the community decided "in desperation" to buy the property just to keep it in business. If the community can raise the $250,000 purchase price by the June 30, the Postal Service says it will continue operations there.

The Postal Service seems willing to negotiate, and it's not really bothered by the protests. "It actually it makes us very proud to know that we are a valuable member of the community," says Welch. She says that the Postal Service appreciates the great lengths that some communities will go to just to ensure that their services continue.

What the Postal Service would appreciate even more: If those people would show their appreciation by taking the simple step of sending more mail. Oddly enough, that seems to be the unthinkable last resort.

This article was reported by Caitlin McDevitt for The Big Money