Ex-death row inmate faces assault charge

Scotsman Kenny Richey, who spent two decades on death row in the United States, is due to face trial in a British court on assault and robbery charges, officials said Tuesday.

Richey, who was spared the death penalty last summer after striking a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors, was charged with breaking into the apartment of Robert McCall in the Scottish capital, Edinburgh, and stealing his cell phone in July.

Prosecutors also accuse Richey of returning to the apartment a few days later, wearing a mask, and beating McCall with a metal rod, striking him in the head and knocking him down a flight of stairs.

Richey denies four charges, including …

Singing praises of Ve-su-su-suvio

Chicken Vesuvio fans didn't chicken out on me. Response to mycolumn of Nov. 28 in which I listed my three favorite places forchicken Vesuvio - La Cantina at Italian Village, New Rosebud Cafe andHouse of Bertini - generated enough mail to fill a coop.

Winner of a dinner for two at the Oyster Restaurant, 1801 W.Lawrence, is Sam Deane of Chicago. He also receives an autographedcopy of my book, Chicago's Food Favorites. Excerpts from his letterand others follow.

Mama mia, the chicken Vesuvio at Trattoria Bellavia, 3811 N.Harlem (286-5568) is the best. The large chunks of potatoes - goldenbrown and crisp - are almost a meal in themselves. The chicken ismoist, tender …

Bonser Is Masterful As Twins Nip Tigers

MINNEAPOLIS - Boof Bonser brought the Minnesota Twins a little bit closer in the tightening three-team race in the AL Central.

Bonser struck out five and allowed only five hits in seven strong innings, leading the Twins to a 2-1 victory over the Detroit Tigers that closed the gap in the standings to three games.

Torii Hunter had Minnesota's only RBI, a second-inning single, against Tigers starter Nate Robertson (12-12). But Bonser (5-5), the stone-faced, right-handed rookie with the peculiar first name, was good enough to give the Twins their second straight win over the division leaders.

The Chicago White Sox, who began the day a half-game behind them in the …

Cadbury 1H profit nearly triples

Candy and gum maker Cadbury PLC tripled its net profit in the first half of the year compared to the same period a year ago, with results boosted by a strong gain from its discontinued beverage business.

The company, which makes Cadbury chocolates, Trident and Dentyne gum, and Halls and Bassett's candies, said Wednesday that net profit was 313 million pounds ($513 million), compared to 113 million pounds a year earlier.

Revenue was up 13 percent to 2.8 billion pounds, or up 4 percent on a constant currency basis. The company confirmed its guidance that it expects full-year revenue growth at the lower end of a 4 percent to 6 percent range.

Cadbury's profit include a 234 …

Moms made these men mug for modeling prize

Mom made 'em do it.

So said two new male models who went up against professionals in a "Face of the '80s" contest Tuesday at Carson Pirie Scott.

"You know how it is with moms," sighed David Sinnigan, 26, aChicago construction worker who recently opened a home-improvementbusiness.

He just happens to be blessed with boffo looks. "I have foursisters, and if I ever come out in raggy clothes, they send me backto change."

Sinnigan, who threw in his lot with the professional pretty boysmore or less on a lark, was named first runnerup in the Chicago legof the national "Face of the '80s for Men" contest. …

Biomass Talk of Optimistic Show

In keeping up with current trends, this year's Oregon Logging Conference show prominently featured biomass. Looking forward, both attendees and exhibitors were optimistic about the future.

Organizers of the 72nd Oregon Logging Conference (OLC) estimate that over 4,000 people passed through the gates for its annual logging show, which was held in late February at the Lane County Convention Center and Fairgrounds in Eugene, Ore.

"We felt the mood at the show was more positive than our 2009 event," says Rikki Wellman, the show's manager. "Everyone seemed to be in an upbeat mood and according to a number of exhibitors, many of the people who attended the show were the decision …

Beckett solid in 5-1 win over Tampa Bay

Josh Beckett allowed a run in six strong innings and the Boston Red Sox won their 12th straight home game to take the AL East lead from Tampa Bay with a 5-1 win over the Rays on Wednesday night.

The scariest moment for Beckett came when his left foot appeared to slip as it landed on a pitch to Cliff Floyd in the sixth inning. Manager Terry Francona and assistant trainer Mike Reinold went to the mound to check on him. Beckett stayed in the game and struck out Floyd.

Beckett (6-4) left after throwing 92 pitches but was not injured, team spokesman John Blake said. He allowed seven hits with five strikeouts and no walks, the eighth time in 11 starts he walked one …

Brennan nearly perfect

L.B. on fire, that's what this game was," Sandburg assistant coachKelley Morris said.

Sandburg senior Lauren Brennan (6-0) was almost perfect Monday,throwing a no-hitter as the No. 9 Eagles (15-3, 2-1) knocked offvisiting Lincoln-Way Central 1-0 in a SICA West contest.

Brennan retired 12 in a row before Knights outfielder ValerieHackett was hit by a pitch to lead off the fifth. But the UIC-boundBrennan, who finished with 10 strikeouts, retired nine straight toend the game.

The Eagles scored in the bottom of the first when Brittany Dixonreached on an error and scored from third on a passed ball.

This was pretty much my best game," Brennan said. I was on …

Catalog company tackles textile recycling

MOVING TOWARD ZERO WASTE

Lands' End, Inc. - a large catalog clothing company headquartered in rural Dodgeville, Wisconsin - continues to expand its recycling program. As a result, the amount landfilled in the last five years decreased by 63 percent, while companv net sales increased by 45 percent. In 1999, the firm recycled approximately 88 percent of all waste generated. The recycling program covers office paper, catalogs, corrugated, beverage containers, newspaper and various plastic items, including film. As part of the waste reduction goal, other initiatives were identified, such as virtually eliminating all garment hang tags and reducing the packaging associated with dress …

Sri Lankan Cabinet minister escapes suicide blast

A suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber blew himself up Thursday near a convoy carrying a senior Sri Lankan Cabinet minister, wounding his deputy and at least six others, the military said.

Maithripala Sirisena, the agricultural development minister, was not hurt in the blast in Boralwegamuwa, about nine miles (15 kilometers) from the capital, Colombo, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said.

Sirisena's junior minister, Siripala Gamlath, was wounded, Nanayakkara said, blaming separatist Tamil rebels for the blast. The bomber was killed, he said.

The Tamil Tigers, whom the United States and European Union list as terrorists, did not comment …

Rowlands' return boosts Avon's promotion push

SOMERSET Coach Clive Book believes the return of sensation SamRowlands could be the key to Avon's continued progress in theTribute Somerset Premier this season, writes Jim Pople.

Avon, who have finished fourth and third in the last two seasons,travel to newlypromoted Nailsea & Backwell on Saturday.

Rowlands was a key figure when he was last at Hicks Field in the2009-10 season, scoring more than 20 tries. "Sam scored very wellthe last time he was with us," said Book. "He certainly brings us aboost at the back. He is an outstanding talent, first-class, and hecan play anywhere as a good all-rounder."

Rowlands' return to the squad will undoubtedly boost …

Lions Trade Hall to Rams for Draft Pick

DETROIT - The Detroit Lions acquired another selection in April's draft on Friday, sending defensive end James Hall to the St. Louis Rams for a fifth-round pick.

The Lions also made official the trade of cornerback Dre' Bly and a sixth-round pick to the Denver Broncos for running back Tatum Bell, offensive tackle George Foster and a fifth-round pick.

Hall had five sacks in seven games before an injury ended his season. He had 33 career sacks in seven seasons with the Lions. Hall, a solid performer throughout his tenure in Detroit, had 3 1/2 sacks in a 20-17 win over the Buffalo Bills in October.

The deal with the Broncos fills needs for both teams, giving Denver …

Health, Life Expectancy, and Mortality Patterns Among Immigrant Populations in the United States

ABSTRACT

Background: The US immigrant population has grown considerably in the last three decades, from 9.6 million in 1970 to 32.5 million in 2002. However, this unprecedented population rise has not been accompanied by increased immigrant health monitoring. In this study, we examined the extent to which US- and foreign-born blacks, whites, Asians, and Hispanics differ in their health, life expectancy, and mortality patterns across the life course.

Methods: We used National Vital Statistics System (1986-2000) and National Health Interview Survey (1992-1995) data to examine nativity differentials in health outcomes. Logistic regression and age-adjusted death rates were used to examine differentials.

Results: Male and female immigrants had, respectively, 3.4 and 2.5 years longer life expectancy than the US-born. Compared to their US-born counterparts, black immigrant men and women had, respectively, 9.4 and 7.8 years longer life expectancy, but Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino immigrants had lower life expectancy. Most immigrant groups had lower risks of infant mortality and low birthweight than the US-born. Consistent with the acculturation hypothesis, immigrants' risks of disability and chronic disease morbidity increased with increasing length of residence. Cancer and other chronic disease mortality patterns for immigrants and natives varied considerably, with Asian Immigrants experiencing substantially higher stomach, liver and cervical cancer mortality than the US-born. Immigrants, however, had significantly lower mortality from lung, colorectal, breast, prostate and esophageal cancer, cardiovascular disease, cirrhosis, diabetes, respiratory diseases, HIV/AIDS, and suicide.

Interpretation: Migration selectivity, social support, socio-economic, and behavioural characteristics may account for health differentials between immigrants and the US-born.

The United States (US) immigrant population has grown considerably in the last three decades, from 9.6 million in 1970 to 32.5 million in 2002.1 Immigrants now represent 11.5% of the US population, the highest percentage in seven decades (Figure 1).1-3 The rapid increase in the immigrant population since 1970 reflects large-scale immigration from Latin America and Asia.1-5 More than half of all US immigrants are from Latin America and over a quarter of all immigrants hail from Asia. Europeans, who accounted for the majority of immigrants before 1965, currently represent 14% of the total US immigrant population.1

The unprecedented rise in the US immigrant population has not been accompanied by an increase in monitoring health and mortality patterns among immigrants of various ethnic and national origins.6-8 Most national surveillance data systems in the United States do not routinely report health statistics by immigrant status. For surveillance databases that include immigrant/nativity status as a data item, analyses of immigrant health statistics by socioeconomic, demographic, and health services characteristics are hampered by the unavailability of the appropriate population denominator data and/or by an incomplete reporting of immigrant status. Moreover, the substantial ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity of the current US immigrant population poses a special challenge to the systematic monitoring of data on immigrant health and well-being.

In this study, we examine the extent to which US- and foreign-born blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and non-Hispanic whites in the United States differ in their health and mortality patterns across the life course, using three large federal data systems: National Vital Statistics System (NVSS), National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), and US Decennial Census. We examined nativity differentials for a variety of measures: life expectancy, infant mortality rate (IMR), low birthweight (LBW), activity limitation, chronic disease prevalence (morbidity), number of bed disability days, and mortality from major causes of death.

DATA AND METHODS

Data for life expectancy and mortality analyses came from the mortality component of the NVSS.9 To compute stable death rates and life expectancy estimates, nine years of mortality data from 19861994 were pooled. Population denominator data by age, sex, race/ethnicity, and nativity came from the 1990 US Decennial Census.10-12 Death rates were age-adjusted by the direct method using the 2000 US population as standard.9 We computed average annual rates of mortality from allcauses combined, and from all major cancers and causes of death: lung, colorectal, stomach, prostate, breast, cervical, esophageal, and liver cancers; and cardiovascular diseases (CVD), respiratory diseases, cirrhosis, diabetes, suicide, homicide, and unintentional injuries. Life expectancy estimates were calculated via the standard life table methodology by converting observed age-specific death rates into life table probabilities of dying.13 The 1998-2000 data on IMR and LBW were derived from the natality component of the NVSS.14,15 Logistic regression models that account for complex sampling designs were fitted to the 1992-1995 NHIS data to estimate relative risks of chronic disease prevalence, bed disability, and activity limitation among 39 ethnic-immigrant groups after adjustment for a variety of socio-economic and demographic factors.16-20 The NHIS is a national sample household survey in which data on socio-economic, demographic, behavioural, morbidity, health, and health care characteristics are collected via personal household interviews.21 The survey uses a multistage probability design and is representative of the civilian noninstitutionalized population of the United States. Detailed descriptions of the NVSS and NHIS have been provided elsewhere.9,21,22

RESULTS

During 1986-1994, male and female immigrants had on average 3.4 and 2.5 years longer life expectancy at birth than did the US-born (Figure 2). Black and Hispanic immigrant men and women had, respectively, 9.4, 4.3, 7.8, and 3.0 years longer life expectancy than their US-born counterparts. Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino immigrants, however, had lower life expectancy than their US-born counterparts. Immigrants had, respectively, 18% and 27% lower LBW and infant mortality rates during 1998-2000, with Chinese and Koreans experiencing the lowest LBW and infant mortality risks (30% and 52% lower, respectively) compared to their US-born counterparts (Table I). Consistent with the acculturation hypothesis, risks of disability and chronic disease morbidity during 1992-1995 among immigrants of various ethnic backgrounds, although significantly lower than those for the US-born non-Hispanic whites, increased with increasing duration of residence in the United States. For example, compared to US-born non-Hispanic whites of similar socio-economic backgrounds, the risk of chronic medical condition was, respectively, 69%, 56%, and 37% lower among recent Chinese immigrants (those who immigrated to the US in the previous 15 years), long-term Chinese immigrants (those who immigrated to the US more than 15 years previous), and US-born Chinese (Table II).

Cancer and other chronic disease mortality patterns for immigrants and the US-born also varied considerably (Tables 111 and IV). Black male and female immigrants had at least 35% lower total cancer mortality than US-born blacks. However, Chinese male immigrants and Japanese female immigrants had, respectively, 35% and 25% higher total cancer mortality than their US-born counterparts. Black immigrants had 69% lower lung cancer mortality than US-born blacks. On the other hand, Chinese male immigrants and Japanese female immigrants had, respectively, 51% and 42% higher lung cancer mortality than their US-born counterparts. Stomach cancer mortality was almost twice as high for immigrants, especially Chinese immigrants, as for the US-born. Liver cancer mortality was substantially higher for immigrants, with Chinese immigrant men and Japanese immigrant women in particular experiencing three times higher mortality than their US-born counterparts. While prostate cancer mortality was generally lower among immigrants, Filipino immigrants had a 3.1 times higher mortality rate than US-born Filipinos. Breast cancer mortality was substantially lower among immigrants, with Chinese, Japanese, and black immigrant women experiencing, respectively, 35%, 34%, and 30% lower mortality than their US-born counterparts. Compared to the US-born women, cervical cancer mortality was substantially higher among Asian/Pacific Islander (API) immigrants, especially Japanese immigrant women, who had 146% higher mortality than US-born Japanese women.

Compared to the US-born, CVD mortality was significantly greater among Japanese and Filipino immigrants. It was at least 34% lower among black immigrants and at least 12% lower among Hispanic immigrants. Immigrants overall had significantly lower mortality from cirrhosis, diabetes, and respiratory diseases. While black and Hispanic immigrants had substantially lower suicide rates, Japanese and Chinese men and women had, respectively, 59%, 44%, 125%, and 95% higher suicide rates than their US-born counterparts. The homicide rate was 65% greater among immigrant men than among US-born men, with the risk being 120% and 38% higher for API and Hispanic immigrant men, respectively. Although tuberculosis, viral hepatitis, and other infectious disease mortality was higher among API immigrants, HIV mortality was at least 11% lower among the overall immigrant population and at least 48% lower among API immigrants compared to the US-born population.

INTERPRETING IMMIGRANT HEALTH PATTERNS

Health, life expectancy, and mortality patterns for immigrants and the US-born vary considerably in the United States. Overall, immigrants have better perinatal and adult health, and lower disability and mortality rates than the US-born. While mortality from several major causes was significantly lower for black and Hispanic immigrants than for US-born blacks and Hispanics, mortality rates were generally higher among Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino immigrants compared to their US-born counterparts. Ethnic-nativity patterns in health also vary by cause of death and by other health outcomes.25"29 Better overall health among immigrants and variations in nativity and country-of-birth patterns in morbidity and cause-specific mortality have also been observed for Canada.30-40

A number of explanations have been suggested for higher life expectancy, better health, and lower mortality among immigrants. First, people immigrating to the United States or Canada may be healthier than those who remain in their countries of origin. This is referred to as the "healthy immigrant effect" or positive immigrant selectivity.6,7,27,28,31,34 Second, immigrants possess more favourable health-enhancing behavioural profiles, such as lower rates of smoking, drinking, obesity, and better diet. This has been observed for both Canada and the United States.6-8,24,30,31,34,41,42 Third, immigrants may have higher levels of social and familial support and social integration compared to the US-born.6-8 Fourth, socioeconomic characteristics might partly account for the health differentials. Although immigrants are generally better educated, they have higher unemployment and poverty rates and lower rates of health insurance coverage than the US-born.1,6,7 However, previous studies as well as the results in Table II indicate only a modest contribution of socio-economic factors in explaining nativity differentials.6-8,24,27,28 Fifth, macro-level societal factors, such as racial/ethnic discrimination, social segregation, and labour market discrimination may play a part, especially when explaining the relatively poorer health status and socially disadvantaged position of US-born blacks relative to other groups.6,7,43

Last, inconsistencies in the coding of immigrant status in the numerator (mortality) and denominator (population) data may contribute to the reported life expectancy and mortality differentials between immigrants and the US-born. However, longitudinal cohort studies in the United States have produced mortality patterns consistent with the cross-sectional findings of this study.6,7,27

Differentials in infant mortality and mortality from many chronic diseases, such as cancer and CVD as shown in Tables I, III, and IV, may partly reflect inequalities in health care access and utilization between immigrants and the US-born. Recent data show that immigrants are more likely to be without health insurance coverage than the US-born (31.6% versus 11.9% in 2000).44 The rate of non-coverage is even higher among immigrants who are not naturalized (41.3%) and Hispanic immigrants (54%).7,44 Recency of immigration is also associated with lower rates of health insurance coverage and use of preventive health services, such as mammogram, colorectal, and prostate cancer screening.45,46 Low use of medical services by immigrants has also been observed in Canada and Australia - the countries with free, universal health care access.34 Moreover, some ethnic-immigrant groups may receive inferior health care, including cancer screening and treatment, because of cultural and linguistic barriers and potential ethnic discrimination.7,43

DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

Vital records and other administrative health databases generally do not contain several key immigration-related variables, such as duration of residence or recency of immigration, parental nativity status, citizenship/naturalization status, refugee status, and English language proficiency, all of which may affect both immigrant health and its determinants.6,7 Sample surveys can be a good source for facilitating in-depth analyses of these characteristics and other factors that influence immigrant health; however, they are not particularly useful for monitoring the health of many immigrant groups who represent a small proportion of the total population. Vital records, cancer registries, and other disease surveillance systems are important for identifying significant health problems and disease risks among various ethnic-immigrant groups and for monitoring changes in their health status over time. Clearly, such surveillance databases need to be strengthened and augmented with additional information on the immigration process. The data systems that link records from the major national population surveys with vital records and disease registries are particularly useful m this regard. Two national databases that use record linkages of population surveys with administrative sources, such as the National Death Index (NDI) and population-based cancer registries, are the US National Longitudinal Mortality Study and NHIS-NDI which have previously been used to assess immigrant health and mortality patterns.6,7,27,47,48 With the continuation of long-term mortality follow-up, these longitudinal databases hold much promise for analyzing temporal immigrant mortality patterns and for conducting research on social determinants of immigrant mortality.

Future research needs to examine more directly the impact on changes in immigrant health of the acculturation process, a process by which immigrants adopt the values, attitudes, beliefs, practices, and lifestyle characteristics of the native-born.6,7 In the case of both Canada and the United States, acculturation plays a major role in modifying the social, health, and behavioural characteristics of immigrants, particularly of non-European immigrant groups, which generally leads to a decrease in their health and mortality advantage over time.7,28,30,34,35 Studies have often used duration of residence since the time of immigration as a proxy measure of acculturation. However, more direct measures of acculturation, such as ethnic-cultural identity, social networks, language use, dietary preference, and acceptance by own group or the majority group, need to be considered.7,49 Besides acculturation, other competing hypotheses such as "cultural pluralism," whereby groups retain significant ethnic and social ties to their cultural heritage, also need to be examined when explaining the better health status of some immigrant groups (e.g., second generation Asian and Hispanic subgroups in the United States).50

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors thank T.J. Mathews of the National Center for Health Statistics tot providing birthweight and infant mortality data on Asian Americans.

RESUME

Contexte : La population immigrante des Etats-Unis a enregistre une croissance sans precedent au cours des trois dernieres decennies, passant de 9,6 millions de personnes en 1970 a 32.5 millions en 2002. Cette hausse ne s'est toutefois pas accompagnee d'une surveillance accrue de la sante des immigrants. La presente etude examine la mesure dans laquelle les tendances en matiere de sante, d'esperance de vie et de mortalite different, au cours de la vie, chez les Noirs, les Blancs, les Asiatiques et les Hispaniques nes aux Etats-Unis et a l'etranger.

Methode : Grace aux donnees du National Vital Statistics System (1986-2000) et de la National Health Interview Survey (1992-1995), nous avons examine les differences clans les resultats sanitaires selon le lieu de naissance. Ces differences ont ensuite ete analysees par regression logistique et a la lumiere des taux de mortalite rajustes selon l'age.

Resultats : L'esperance de vie des immigrants, hommes et femmes, etait plus longue de 3,4 et de 2,5 ans, respectivement, que celle de la population nee aux Etats-Unis. Compares a leurs homologues nes aux Etats-Unis, les immigrants noirs, hommes et femmes, avaient une esperance de vie plus longue de 9,4 et de 7,8 ans, respectivement, mais l'esperance de vie des immigrants chinois, japonais et philippins etait plus courte. Dans la plupart des groupes d'immigrants, les risques de mortalite infantile et d'insuffisance de poids a la naissance etaient plus faibles que dans la population nee aux Etats-Unis. Conformement a l'hypothese de l'acculturation, les risques d'incapacite et de maladies chroniques chez les immigrants augmentaient avec la duree de leur etablissement aux Etats-Unis. Les tendances de mortalite liee au cancer et a d'autres maladies chroniques chez les immigrants et les Americains de naissance variaient considerablement; par exemple, les taux de mortalite lies aux cancers de l'estomac, du foie et du col uterin etaient considerablement plus eleves chez les immigrants asiatiques que dans la population nee aux EtatsUnis. Toutefois, chez les immigrants, les taux de mortalite lies aux cancers du poumon, du colon et du rectum, du sein, de la prostate et de l'sophage, aux maladies cardiovasculaires, a la cirrhose, au diabete, aux maladies respiratoires, au VIH/sida et au suicide etaient beaucoup plus faibles.

Interprtation : La selection des immigrants, le soutien social et les caracteristiques socioeconomiques et comportementales pourraient expliquer les differences de sante entre les immigrants et la population nee aux Etats-Unis.

[Reference]

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[Author Affiliation]

Gopal K. Singh, PhD1

Barry A. Miller, DrPH2

[Author Affiliation]

La traduction du resume se trouve a la fin de l'article.

Surveillance Research Program, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD

1. Health Statistician

2. Epidemiologist

Correspondence: Copal K. Singh, National Cancer Institute, Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, 6116 Executive Blvd, Suite 504, MSC 8316, Bethesda, MD 20892-8316. Tel: 301-402-5331, Fax: 301-496-9949, E-mail: gopal_singh@nih.gov

Redskins Dismiss Williams and Saunders

The Washington Redskins fired assistants Gregg Williams and Al Saunders on Saturday, promoted Greg Blache to lead the team's defense and announced that a head coach would likely not be in place for at least another week.

The Redskins also formally announced the hiring of Jim Zorn, who agreed to a three-year deal Friday to lead the offense.

"The process of selecting a new head coach continues, although no hire is planned until after the Super Bowl so as not to distract from the championship game as well as to keep open all our options," owner Dan Snyder said in a statement, his first public comments on a coaching search that began more than two weeks ago.

"We are on track with our interviews," Snyder added. "But in the interim we also are filling our coaching positions and re-signing several existing staff members."

Williams' dismissal removes one of the early favorites to succeed Joe Gibbs, who resigned Jan. 8. Williams had been in charge of the Redskins defense for all four seasons under Gibbs and was popular among fans, but his confrontational style and poor track record at his previous head coaching stint with the Buffalo Bills did little to help his chances for the top job.

Williams met four times with Snyder to discuss the position, but it quickly became clear that the owner was more focused on other candidates, including former New York Giants head coach Jim Fassel and current Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo.

Williams told The Washington Post on Friday night that he was considering withdrawing his name from consideration. He and Snyder met Saturday morning to part ways.

A person familiar with the selection process told The Associated Press that the Redskins have granted the St. Louis Rams permission to interview both Williams and Saunders for coordinator positions. The person said the Rams had to seek permission because, even though Williams and Saunders were told they were being dismissed, the team hasn't formally terminated their contracts. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the subject.

The person also said that Saunders, who ran the offense for the past two seasons, was never a candidate for the head coaching position. Saunders, like Williams, was considered a possible heir-apparent to Gibbs when he arrived in Washington, but he was never able to generate the type of consistent, high-yardage attack he had during his long stint as an offensive coordinator in Kansas City.

Saunders' fate was sealed when Zorn, the Seattle Seahawks quarterback coach since 2001, agreed to terms Friday.

A bigger surprise is the promotion of Blache, who has coached the defensive line and has held the title of defensive coordinator _ in name only, because the job was actually Williams' _ since 2004. Blache was previously the actual defensive coordinator for five seasons for the Chicago Bears.

"Greg Blache is an outstanding coach with deep experience. Players respond to him, and his co-workers respect him. He has our full confidence," Snyder said. "We're counting on Jim to continue Jason Campbell's growth, while moving our offense forward."

The moves mean that the new head coach _ whoever he is _ will find his top two assistants already in place when he takes over. Snyder expressed confidence in making the moves because both Zorn and Blache were highly regarded by the candidates he has interviewed.

"During our interviews with prospective head coaches we heard time and again how highly respected some of our 2007 assistant coaches were and who they would select to fill out their staffs," Snyder said. "That intelligence is helping guide our hiring decisions."

One current assistant whose job seems secure is special teams coach Danny Smith, who praised Zorn in the statement released by the team.

"I'm thrilled to be able to work with him again," said Smith, who was a coach with Zorn on the Detroit Lions staff in 1999 and 2000.

Meanwhile, Snyder will have to wait until Feb. 4 _ the day after the Super Bowl _ for a first chance to interview Spagnuolo and any other assistants working in the championship game. New England Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels is also on Snyder's list of head coach candidates.

In addition to Fassel, who has met with Snyder on three occasions, the owner has interviewed Indianapolis Colts defensive coordinator Ron Meeks and Tennessee Titans defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz.

Raging Calif. Fires Burn Scores of Homes

SAN DIEGO - Wildfires blown by fierce desert winds Monday reduced scores of Southern California homes to ashes, forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee and laid a hellish, spidery pattern of luminous orange over the drought-stricken region.

At least one person was killed in the fires, and dozens were injured. Nearly 130 homes had burned in one mountain town alone, and thousands of other buildings were threatened by more than a dozen blazes covering at least 310 square miles.

"The sky was just red. Everywhere I looked was red, glowing. Law enforcement came barreling in with police cars with loudspeakers telling everyone to get out now," said Ronnie Leigh, 55, who fled her home at a mobile home park as smoke darkened the sky over the nearby ridge line.

Firefighters - who lost valuable time trying to persuade stubborn homeowners to leave - were almost completely overwhelmed as gale-force winds gusting to 70 mph scattered embers on the dry brush. California officials pleaded for help from fire departments in other states.

A pair of wildfires consumed 128 homes in the Lake Arrowhead mountain resort area in the San Bernardino National Forest east of Los Angeles, authorities said.

At least 14 fires were burning in Southern California, said Patti Roberts, a spokeswoman for the Governor's Office of Emergency Services.

From San Diego to Malibu, more than 150 miles up the coast, some 265,000 people were warned to leave their homes. More than 250,000 were told to flee in San Diego County alone, where hundreds of patients were moved by school bus and ambulance from a hospital and nursing homes, some in hospital gowns and wheelchairs. Some carried their medical records in clear plastic bags.

A 1,049-inmate jail in Orange County was evacuated because of heavy smoke. The prisoners were taken by bus to other lockups.

In San Diego, more than 194,000 reverse 911 calls - calls from county officials to residents - were made, alerting residents to evacuations, county Supervisor Ron Roberts said.

Many of those told to evacuate ended up at Qualcomm Stadium, home to the NFL's Chargers, where thousands of people huddled in eerie silence on the bleachers, staring at muted TV news reports of the wildfires. A lone concession stand served coffee and doughnuts.

Many evacuees gathered in the parking lot with their pets, which were banned from the stadium.

The sprawling Del Mar Fairgrounds on the coast was also turned into an evacuation center, along with high schools and senior centers.

At least one of the fires, in Orange County, was believed to have been set. And a blaze threatening the homes of the rich and famous in Malibu might have been caused by downed power lines, authorities said.

Mel Gibson, Kelsey Grammer and Victoria Principal were among the celebrities forced to abandon their homes over the weekend, their publicists said.

Another blaze was started by a car fire. Flying embers started new fires at every turn.

San Diego County fires were burning so fast that authorities did not have an accurate count of how many homes had been destroyed.

"It was nuclear winter. It was like Armageddon. It looked like the end of the world," Mitch Mendler, a San Diego firefighter, said as he and his crew stopped at a shopping center parking lot to refill their water truck from a hydrant near a restaurant. Asked how many homes had burned, he said, "I lost count."

Tom Sollie, 49, ignored evacuation orders in Rancho Bernardo to help his neighbors spray roofs on his street with water. His home was untouched, but he watched a neighbor's house reduced to nothing but the remnants of a brick chimney. "The house went up like a Roman candle," Sollie said.

He added: "If we weren't here, the whole neighborhood would go up. There just aren't enough fire trucks around."

The blazes in San Diego County and elsewhere erupted one after another over the weekend. Things got worse Monday, when several new fires erupted and other fires merged. Parts of seven Southern California counties were ablaze.

All San Diego police officers and detectives were ordered to return to work to help move people to safety and handle other fire-related emergencies.

Firefighters complained that their efforts to stop the flames were delayed when they were confronted by people who refused to leave their homes.

"They didn't evacuate at all, or delayed until it was too late," said Bill Metcalf, a fire boss. "And those folks who are making those decisions are actually stripping fire resources."

As flames, thick smoke and choking ash filled the air around San Diego County's Lake Hodges, Stan Smith ignored orders to evacuate and stayed behind to help rescue the horses of his neighbor Ken Morris.

"It's hard to leave all your belongings and take off, and the bad thing is you can't get back in once you leave," Smith said.

"I heard the cops come by, and I just ducked," Morris said.

Besides, said Smith, "Lots of time the fire doesn't ever come. It's come really close before. I've seen it so bad you couldn't even hear yourself talk over the flames and ash blowing everywhere."

Black smoke blanketed much of northern San Diego and nearby suburbs as flames hopscotched around homes in Rancho Bernardo, a community with many elderly people, destroying one of every 10 homes on one busy street.

Highways, canals and other features normally act as firebreaks. But the towering flames and flying embers rendered them useless this time.

Dozens of motorists gathered on an Interstate 15 overpass in San Diego to watch flames race up a hillside and engulf at least a half-dozen homes. Witnesses said they watched flames jump west over the 10-lane freeway.

"The flames were like 100 feet high and it moved up the hill in seconds. It was at the bottom, it was in the middle, and then it was at the top," said Steve Jarrett, who helped a friend evacuate his home in nearby Escondido.

Fire near the San Diego Wild Animal Park led authorities to move condors, a cheetah, snakes and other animals to the fire-resistant veterinary hospital on the grounds of the park. The large animals, such as elephants, rhinos and antelope, were left in irrigated enclosures.

The world-famous San Diego Zoo was not immediately threatened.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in the seven affected counties, opening the way for government aid.

"Its a tragic time for California," he said in Malibu, where a church, homes and a mansion resembling a medieval castle were destroyed over the weekend.

White House deputy press secretary Scott Stanzel said in an e-mail that President Bush called Schwarzenegger to make sure the state is getting the help it needs.

One person died in one of the fires near San Diego. More than a dozen people were hospitalized with burns and smoke inhalation, including four firefighters, three of whom were listed in critical condition, officials said. Some of the injured were hikers, while others may be illegal immigrants.

San Diego County spokeswoman Lesley Kirk said fire crews were stretched thin and were anxiously awaiting reinforcements from other parts of the state.

"The winds are up, it's very, very dangerous conditions," Kirk said. "Fires are popping up all over the place."

Flames forced the evacuation of the San Diego community of Ramona, which has a population of about 36,000.

Christine Baird, 42, was ordered to evacuate her apartment in the Rancho Bernardo area at 5:30 a.m. She moved to California from Canada earlier this year.

"Instead of snow we had ash all over the car," she said. "This is all new for me. We've got no family in the area, so there's really nowhere else to go."

In late October and early November of 2003, 15 fires in many of the same areas killed 22 people and destroyed 3,640 homes. Ten years earlier, in October and November of 1993, 26 fires in those areas killed four people and damaged or destroyed 1,200 structures.

---

Associated Press writers Chelsea J. Carter and Jeremiah Marquez in Los Angeles, Jacob Adelman in Santa Clarita and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.

German Cup results

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Results from the German Cup (home team listed first):

Second Round
Tuesday's Games

RB Leipzig 0, Augsburg 1

Unterhaching 1, Bochum 4

Heidenheim 0, Borussia Moenchengladbach 0 (Moenchengladbach wins 4-3 on penalties)

Fortuna Duesseldorf 3, 1860 Munich 0

Eintracht Trier 1, Hamburger SV 2, after extra time

Borussia Dortmund 2, Dynamo Dresden 0

Greuther Fuerth 4, Paderborn 0

Hoffenheim 2, Cologne 1

Wednesday's Games

Holstein Kiel vs. Duisburg

Rot-Weiss Essen vs. Hertha Berlin

Hannover vs. Mainz

Karlsruhe vs. Schalke

Erzgebirge Aue vs. Nuremberg

Bayern Munich vs. Ingolstadt

Stuttgart vs. FSV Frankfurt

Eintracht Frankfurt vs. Kaiserslautern

Carnival prospects buoyed by upturn in bookings

More travelers are booking cruise vacations and paying more for the getaways, a welcome sign for an industry that's struggled to keep its cabins full, executives at Carnival Corp. said Tuesday.

In the past nine weeks, reservations for the next nine months climbed 8 percent at the company that owns the Carnival, Princess and Holland America cruise lines. But the prices passengers were paying for their cruise vacations climbed 17 percent.

That's still below where it was before carriers started slashing prices to tempt travelers to come aboard. But it's a welcome sign of recovery for the industry that's seen its per-passenger profit plunge.

"We've been surprised," said Howard Frank, the cruise line's vice chairman and chief operating officer. "We didn't expect it to come back this dramatically. Whether we can sustain these kinds of levels as we increase pricing and whether we can sustain the booking volume is the next question."

Citi Investment Research analyst Greg Badishkanian said the trends showed "positive signs."

For the first quarter, which ended Feb. 28, Carnival's profit fell 33 percent _ dragged down as fuel costs soared.

But its revenue crept up, climbing 8 percent and both figures were better than expectations.

Carnival posted net income of $175 million, or 22 cents per share. During the same period last year, the company earned $260 million, or 33 cents per share.

This year's results included a one-time gain of 5 cents per share from the sale of a ship.

Revenue climbed to $3.10 billion from $2.86 billion.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected the Miami company to earn 14 cents per share with revenue of $3.09 billion. Those estimates typically exclude the impact of one-time items.

In the first quarter, Carnival paid nearly 80 percent more for fuel than it did during the same period in 2009. That cost the company the equivalent of 22 cents per share.

Looking ahead, Carnival executives said rising fuel prices and the weak dollar will cut into results. But they expect the company's full-year profit to be better than expected as passengers continue to pay more for tickets and it continues to cut costs.

The cruise line expects a full-year profit between $2.25 and $2.35 per share _ up from its December forecast of $2.10 per share to $2.30 per share.

Carnival shares rose 62 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $38.53 in midday trading Tuesday. Competitor Royal Caribbean also got a boost, with shares increasing $1.45, or 4.6 percent, to $32.88.

U.N. Urges Resolution of Iran Seizure

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Security Council expressed "grave concern" Thursday over Iran's seizure of 15 British sailors and marines and called for an early resolution of the escalating dispute, but Iran's chief international negotiator suggested the captives might be put on trial.

The council's statement wasn't as tough as Britain had hoped, though, and the divide seemed to deepen.

As the standoff drove world oil prices to new six-month highs, Turkey, NATO's only Muslim member, reportedly sought to calm tensions by urging Iran to let a Turkish diplomat meet with the detainees and to free the lone woman among the Britons.

Tensions had seemed to be cooling a day earlier, but after Iran offended leaders by airing a video of the prisoners and Britain touched a nerve in Tehran by seeking U.N. help, positions hardened even more Thursday.

Iran retreated from a pledge by Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki that the female sailor, Faye Turney, would be released soon. Mottaki then repeated that the matter could be resolved if Britain admitted its sailors mistakenly entered Iranian territorial waters last Friday.

Britain's Foreign Office insisted again that the sailors and marines were seized in an Iraqi-controlled area while searching merchant ships under a U.N. mandate and said no admission of error would be made.

With Britain taking its case to the United Nations, Ali Larijani, the top Iranian negotiator in all his country's foreign dealings, went on Iranian state radio to issue a warning.

He said that if Britain continued its current approach, "this case may face a legal path" - a clear reference to Iran prosecuting the sailors and marines in court. "British leaders have miscalculated this issue," he said.

Gen. Ali Reza Afshar, Iran's military chief, blamed the backtracking on releasing the British woman on "wrong behavior" by her government. "The release of a female British soldier has been suspended," the semiofficial Iranian news agency Mehr said.

The Security Council's statement was a watered-down version of a stronger draft sought by Britain to "deplore" Iranian actions and urge the immediate release of the prisoners, primarily because Russia and South Africa opposed putting blame on the Tehran regime, diplomats said.

Russia also objected to the council adopting Britain's position that its sailors were operating in Iraqi waters when they were captured, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

With agreement required from all 15 members for a statement's wording, the parties spent more than four hours in private talks before emerging with wording softer than had been sought by Britain, which is also known as the United Kingdom.

"Members of the Security Council expressed grave concern at the capture by the Revolutionary Guard and the continuing detention by the government of Iran of 15 United Kingdom naval personnel and appealed to the government of Iran to allow consular access in terms of the relevant international laws," the statement said.

"Members of the Security Council support calls including by the secretary-general in his March 29 meeting with the Iranian foreign minister for an early resolution of this problem including the release of the 15 U.K. personnel."

South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo said negotiations were needed to ensure the statement focused on the agreed facts. "There is no political twisting of anything that happened," he said.

British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry expressed satisfaction with the statement and said he hoped it would send "the right message" to the Iranian government that it should provide immediate access to the prisoners and bring their prompt release.

Late Thursday night, Britain's Foreign Office told the AP of contacts with Iran over the detained Britons.

"The Iranian government has sent a formal note to the British Embassy," a spokeswoman said. "Such exchanges are always confidential but we are giving the message serious consideration and will soon respond formally to the Iranian government."

The spokeswoman, who spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with Foreign Office policy, refused to provide any other details.

Earlier, Iranian state television reported what was believed to be Ahmadinejad's first comment on the standoff, saying he accused Britain of using propaganda rather than trying to solve the matter quietly through diplomatic channels.

Iran's state TV also said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip had contacted Ahmadinejad seeking permission for a Turkish diplomat to meet with the seized Britons and urging the release of Turney, the female sailor.

Erdogan's move was seen as a possible opening to mediation in the faceoff because Turkey is one of the few countries that has good relations with both Iran and the West.

The report said Ahmadinejad promised that Erdogan's appeal would be studied, but also told the Turkish leader that the detention case had entered a legal investigation phase.

State television also broadcast a video it said showed show the operation that seized the British sailors and marines. In the clip, a helicopter hovers above inflatable boats in choppy seas, then the Royal Navy crews are seen seated in an Iranian vessel.

The video came a day after Iran broadcast a longer video showing the Britons in captivity. That video included a segment showing Turney saying her team had "trespassed" in Iranian waters.

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett condemned Iran's use of Turney for what she called "propaganda purposes," calling it "outrageous and cruel."

The Iranians released a letter Wednesday purportedly written by Turney to her family saying the British sailors were in Iranian waters. And the video aired Thursday showed another letter supposedly by Turney to Britain's Parliament calling for British troops to leave Iraq.

"I ask the representatives of the House of Commons, after the government promised that this kind of incident wouldn't happen again, why did they let this occur, and why has the government not been questioned over this," the letter read. "Isn't it time to start withdrawing our forces from Iraq and let them determine their own future?"

Some experts raised questions about that letter, saying its wording hinted it was first composed in Farsi and then translated into English.

"It's obviously been dictated to her," said Nadim Shehadi, an expert on Iran at the Chatham House think tank in London. "There's no way she would phrase it like that."

Beckett said there were "grave concerns about the circumstances in which it was prepared and issued."

"This blatant attempt to use Leading Seaman Turney for propaganda purposes is outrageous and cruel," Beckett said.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair said Britain wanted to resolve the crisis quickly and without having a "confrontation over this."

"We are not seeking to put Iran in a corner. We are simply saying, 'Please release the personnel who should not have been seized in the first place,'" said the spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government policy.

But in a briefing to reporters, the spokesman said British officials had been angered by Tehran's decision to show video of the captives.

"Nobody should be put in that position. It is an impossible position to be put in," he said. "It is wrong. It is wrong in terms of the usual conventions that cover this. It is wrong in terms of basic humanity."

How to Get on the Radio: A Big Earned Media Campaign Opportunity

Scheduling a candidate for just one radio program may take several days or even weeks and involve as many as 10 to 20 phone calls. The time and effort can be reduced if you know what you are doing and whom you should talk to from the very beginning of the effort.

TALK RADIO IS A powerful medium which can and should be used to your candidate's advantage. It is an inexpensive way to complement your paid media and grassroots effort.

There are several advantages to getting your candidate on radio:

* The candidate will be able to connect with voters in a personal way by speaking directly to voters about his ideas;

* In a live, talk show format, the candidate's positions can be fully presented without worrying about speaking in sound bites (caution: the station may take sound bites from the program to play on their news breaks);

* The candidate can interact with listeners (if it is a call-in show) and demonstrate his ability to empathize with the opinions and problems of others;

* The fact the candidate is on radio will raise his profile and give his campaign legitimacy (if the media is covering you, then the public thinks you are a contender);

* The candidate can use his appearances to energize and galvanize support among grassroots activists;

* Campaign functions like fundraisers can be plugged while on the air;

* Earned radio is the optimal use of a candidate's retail campaigning time. Even a broadcast from a small station is likely to garner a few hundred listeners. Compare this to spending an hour shaking hands at a train station or speaking to 20 people at a coffee;

* Lastly, for the cash-strapped challenger campaign, there is no cash invested in earned radio, only time.

Before the Launch

Before you launch your earned radio media campaign be sure your candidate is up to the task. Ask yourself the following questions:

* Does the candidate know what he or she thinks?

* Is he or she eloquent enough to communicate his or her thoughts effectively to the average radio audience?

a Is the candidate prepared to answer tough and unanticipated questions from the host and listeners without losing his or her temper or appearing confused?

* Is the candidate disciplined enough to stick to the script prepared by him and his or her staff or is he or she prone to come up with new policy initiatives heretofore not discussed with or tested by staff?

* Is the candidate going to make accurate statements or will he or she play fast and loose with the truth when explaining his or her positions or criticizing his or her opponent?

* In general, does he or she sound like a likeable person, even when faced with a negative question?

If the answer to all these questions is yes, you can start scheduling your candidate on radio. If the answer is no to even one question, work with the candidate until he or she is ready to do it right.

Hard Work

Getting a political candidate on radio is not a matter of conjuring up a grand plan (although having a plan can be helpful) - it is a matter of hard work. Scheduling a candidate for just one program may take several days or even weeks and involve as many as 10 to 20 phone calls. The time and effort involved can be reduced if you know what you are doing and whom you should talk to from the very beginning of the effort.

* The first step in your earned radio media plan is getting a list of every radio station that broadcasts into your district. That includes stations that broadcast across the border from a neighboring state. Most states have media services which will provide you with a list of stations either in a book or on disk.

* Once you have your list, start calling each station. Expect that several stations may operate out of the same location and have the same ownership. As a result, you may find yourself in the embarrassing situation of calling what you believe to be different stations because they have different call letters and different phone numbers. Just get your records straight and move on.

Don't bother initially asking for the news director or the station manager, those people are frequently busy or absent and they are likely to take days to return your call if they do at all. Speak to the receptionist. Tell him or her why you are calling and ask them what programs might be willing to interview a candidate for public office. Find out the names and phone numbers of the hosts and producers of those shows. Also, get the name of the news director.

In many small- to medium-sized stations, the talk show host, news director and news anchor are all the same person. You may even find some receptionists who double as producers for one or more shows.

* Make a form and keep a record about the shows and people at each station on separate pages. If you are working on a statewide campaign in a large state, this process of calling every station in the state will take an aggressive, full-time person between one and two weeks.

* Once you have completed your inventory of programs that may be interested in a political guest, start scheduling your candidate for appearances.

You cannot start doing this too early in the campaign. If a radio host thinks his listeners enjoyed the candidate, the host will schedule him again in a few months or when an item of public interest comes up that can be addressed by the candidate. So, get your candidate scheduled as soon as possible so you can get him on the same show several times before the election.

* Make sure you have a biography of your candidate ready to fax or e-mail to any station that expresses an interest or makes a commitment to interview your candidate.

You are most likely to reach the news director, producer and morning hosts by calling before 8:00 a.m. If they don't come to the phone, leave a message and call again in a few hours.

No matter what, don't give up unless you have personally spoken to a decision maker and been given a flat out "no" for a particular program. If someone says they can't use your candidate on their show, ask them if they can recommend a program on their station that might want to interview your candidate. Most news directors are always looking for something to put on the air; so even if there is no interview format on the station, ask if the news director would like to speak to the candidate to record some news bits to be used throughout the day.

Scheduling Tips

Some stations will interview their guests for five minutes and others will keep a guest on for an hour. If you believe your candidate is engaging, schedule him or her for as long as possible. If you are worried about your candidate getting off message in a long format, then only schedule for 15-minute segments.

Be sure to check the programs available on weekends. They are frequently different than weekday shows and their hosts are eager to find interesting guests. Additionally, do not hesitate to book your candidate on different programs on the same station. Just make sure the hosts of the show are aware of the double booking in case they don't want to do it. Better to be honest up front so you can have a good relationship as the election nears.

The relationship of trust and dependability you create early on will serve you well when you find you desperately need to get your candidate on the air to announce a new program or answer unfair charges by his opponent.

Most stations would prefer to interview the candidate in the station. If you have the time, an in-person interview is to the candidate's advantage since the broadcast sound is usually superior to a phone interview. However, in a busy campaign you will need to schedule most interviews by phone.

It is best if the candidate uses a landline rather than a cell phone, which is notoriously unreliable, so plan if possible to have the candidate at a location where he can use a wirebased phone. This will also make the interviewer more secure that he won't lose his guest in the middle of a program where callers are lined up to ask questions.

As a rule, radio shows prefer to call the candidate so they can have him ready to go a few minutes before the show begins. You may not want to give the candidate's number to any media people, and in that case you must reassure the station that the candidate will call the station on time.

Make sure you get several numbers to contact the station. Give the host or producer the number of the campaign headquarters as well as your pager or cell number so they can contact you in the event the candidate has not called the station by the proscribed hour.

There is nothing worse than having a radio program advertise a guest and then have the guest fail to call in. It is embarrassing for the host and you may never be able to gain his confidence again. This goes directly to the credibility of the campaign and candidate, so don't mess up.

Make sure details about the radio interviews are written on the candidate's schedule as far in advance as possible. The more information you share with your candidate, the more comfortable he will feel and the better he will perform. At a minimum, include the time and length of the interview, whether it is live or taped, whether listeners will be calling in with questions, the call letters and numbers of the station, the name of the program and host, the number of watts of the station, the stations broadcast distance and area, the station format and if you can find out, the political leanings and personal areas of interest of the interviewer.

Grassroots Reinforcement

You can use your grassroots army to buttress your candidate's appearances and to dog your opponent's appearances. Any time your candidate is going to be interviewed on a station that allows callers, make sure your supporters from that broadcast area know about it and have the phone number to call in advance. This takes some time and effort but can go a long way to creating the appearance of popular support for your campaign. It will also increase your candidate's confidence and comfort while on the air.

If your grassroots army is led by volunteer coordinators, make sure you fax or e-mail them a list of questions you want your candidate's supporters to call the show with. Also ask them to record the program so the campaign will have a record of anything the candidate says.

Make sure the questions are designed to allow your candidate to smoothly glide into his prepared remarks. Questions for his opponent should be designed to catch the opponent off guard and make him take a position that is either unpopular or hypocritical. If the opposition candidate is going to be on the air with your candidate this is doubly important. By flooding the station phone lines with supporters, you will unnerve your opponent no matter how well he thinks his campaign is going.

This was illustrated in the 1996 U.S. Senate primary campaign in Illinois when Lt. Gov. Bob Kustra and state Rep. Al Salvi faced off on a live call in show in Chicago. Four out of five callers supported Salvi and attacked Kustra even though Kustra led by a wide margin in the polls. The lieutenant governor was so shaken that he accused the two hosts of only allowing his opponent's supporters on the air and vowed never to come on their show again.

The truth was that they took calls in the order they were received. Salvi's campaign had simply stacked the deck to assure a positive outcome for their side. Using these guerilla tactics on radio and elsewhere, Salvi scored a surprising come-from-behind victory.

In a large state where you have a statewide candidate who has something interesting to say you should be able to schedule your candidate to be interviewed between two and four hundred times on radio during the primary and general election cycle. This does not include pre-recorded news bits that may be played a dozen times during the course of the day.

The publicity garnered from an aggressive earned media campaign can make the difference in a tight race. And the best part is - it's free.

[Sidebar]

BE SURE TO CHECK THE PROGRAMS AVAILABLE ON WEEKENDS. THEY ARE FREQUENTLY DIFFERENT THAN WEEKDAY SHOWS AND THEIR HOSTS ARE EAGER TO FIND NEW GUESTS.

[Sidebar]

YOU ARE MOST LIKELY TO REACH THE NEWS DIRECTOR, PRODUCER AND MORNING HOSTS BY CALLING BEFORE 8:00 a.m. If they don't COME TO THE PHONE, LEAVE A MESSAGE AND CALL AGAIN IN A FEW HOURS. NO MATTER WHAT, DON'T GIVE UP UNLESS YOU HAVE PERSONALLY SPOKEN TO A DECISION-MAKER AND BEEN GIVEN A FLAT OUT "NO" FOR A PARTICULAR PROGRAM.

[Author Affiliation]

Dan Patlak is a veteran of dozens of federal, state and local campaigns. He currently serves as public information officer for Board of Review Commissioner Maureen Murphy, the highest elected Republican official in Cook County government. He can be reached via e-mail at rpblcn827@aol.com.

High Point beats Winthrop 42-40

Cruz Daniels' putback with 2.4 seconds on the clock lifted High Point to a 42-40 win over Winthrop on Wednesday night.

With the win, the Panthers (5-9, 1-3 Big South Conference) halted a four-game losing streak this season, and a 12-game road losing streak to the Eagles (2-11, 1-3).

After Winthrop took a 40-37 advantage, High Point's Eugene Harris tied the game at 40 on a 3-pointer with 1:12 left to play.

David Singleton missed a layup and Daniels brought down the rebound before hitting the putback for the win.

Steadman Short led the Panthers with nine points and 11 rebounds. David Singleton added 10 boards for High Point.

Cameron Stanley scored a game-high 10 points for the Eagles, who lost their 11th game in 12 tries.

Making Change 2

Making a Federal Case

The existence of the Boylston facility is, in fact, a testament to the inefficiency of the nation's cash handling system. In the Boylston area, for instance, much of the money in Loomis trucks goes from its bank customers to its cash handling facility and then on to the Fed - where the next day Loomis picks up cash, brings it back to its cash handling facility and then delivers it back to the banks.

Each month, Loomis trucks make about 1.3 million pickups and deliveries. And, at each step, there are transaction costs, people costs and operating costs.

Labor and fringe benefits total 40% to 50% of Loomis' revenue, according to Rick Miller, the company's vice president of operations.

The 200 employees in the Boylston facility, for instance, make about $9 to $14 an hour, for an annual payroll of almost $6 million. In addition, armored trucks cost about $80,000, and each of Loomis' almost 3,000 vehicles needs fuel and maintenance. Vehicle expenses run between 11% and 14% of revenue, Miller says. Then there's the cost of the facilities, which eats another 5% to 10% of revenue.

The whole process of handling cash in this country, according to Miller, is fairly inefficient. But, he says, "There are efficiencies to be gained."

Indeed, Bosse says, the company is now trying to automate as much of the process as possible to drive cost and inefficiency out of the system. "The more technology you can get in," he says, "the better the price you can give" to customers.

But there are impediments to the electronic movement of cash.

Across the country in Las Vegas, five nights a week, a courier pulls out of Loomis' parking lot on Palm Parkway and heads to the airport. The courier carries a cash letter for the Business Bank of Nevada - a record of the checks Business Bank is depositing that day in the Federal Reserve Bank in Los Angeles, 270 miles away.

At the airport, the letter is loaded onto a plane that flies to Burbank, Calif., where it is picked up by another courier and driven to the Fed in downtown Los Angeles. Despite the circuitous route, the bank saves "a lot of dollars" sending the letter by ground and air rather than electronically, according to Larry Charlton, Business Bank of Nevada's chief operating officer. That's because the Fed charges the bank per bit to receive electronic files, which the Fed would have to convert back to paper for banks that are covering the checks but can't receive electronic files.

"Does that make sense?" Charlton asks. "Why not charge banks that do paper? Let's charge banks that can't receive electronic files."

That may not happen soon, though. There is no law requiring banks to process electronic files - although there is the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act, which went into effect in October 2004. Known as Check 21, the law requires banks to treat the electronic image of a check as the legal equivalent of a paper check.

Charlton, who used to send his bank's checks to the Fed in Los Angeles, now sends them to the Loomis vault in Las Vegas, nine miles away.

Loomis employees feed Charlton's checks and deposit tickets into a machine owned by banking services company Fiserv, which captures the images and sends them across Fiserv's network. The images are archived in Atlanta, and are read to see if the handwritten amount on the check matches the amount the bank says it is depositing. If the two numbers don't match, the images are displayed on a workstation in Omaha, Neb., where a Fiserv employee balances, or proofs, the transactions by viewing the images and making corrections. When all of the transactions are balanced, Fiserv ships them back through the network to Loomis, where Loomis employees run the checks through the machine again to get them encoded with the correct dollar amount. Then, Loomis creates the cash letter. Charlton's paper checks and deposit tickets are stored for a period of time and then destroyed.

Charlton says he introduced Loomis and Fiserv, hoping they would work together, because he was spending $6,000 to $8,000 a month in transit costs sending checks to Los Angeles. He arranged a meeting in his office, which Loomis confirms.

"I said, 'I'm an old banker used to running big vaults,'" says Charlton, who worked at Bank of America. "I could see the benefit."

In September, however, Loomis announced a partnership with Alogent Corp., a software vendor whose product processes checks in fewer steps.

In Alogent's system, Loomis employees at the vault scan the checks and deposit tickets into Alogent's software, which creates the images and balances the transactions at Loomis. As with Fiserv, employees intervene to balance transactions manually if necessary, but they don't handle the paper checks again. The software creates files of images and transaction data that are sent back to each bank from Loomis' data center in Houston, which consolidates work from all Loomis vaults. The banks are responsible for archiving the images, and they create their own cash letters - either image- or paper-based - to send on to the Fed or another agency for clearing. Loomis plans to ultimately integrate Alogent's software with the Glory vault system.

Alogent's Michael Hackney, executive vice president of business development, claims that "there's a massive move afoot to change infrastructure" so that checks are cleared via images rather than paper, but the Business Bank of Nevada's Charlton is sticking with Fiserv. He likes Fiserv's software, and a change would mean "a major conversion." Also, Fiserv is building a check-clearing network to compete with the Fed's, according to Charlton.

Regardless of how many ways Loomis decides to image checks, it is selling services that, prior to Check 21, were performed by the Fed. To stay efficient, the Fed is now consolidating its operations for processing both checks and cash.

And that's where Loomis really hopes to gain.

In Portland, Ore., and Little Rock, Ark., where the Fed has closed branches, Loomis serves as the Fed's cash depot. This is a collection point for excess currency that banks are shipping back to the Fed, and for new currency they are ordering from the Fed.

The Fed has given responsibility for cash depots in other areas where it has closed branches to Brink's, Loomis' chief competitor. The agency declines to discuss any work it is doing with the armored-car carriers.

Silewicz thinks Loomis has a leg up on its industry because of the work it has done over the years on e-business. Still, he says, "today, there's not one place that the Fed or a banker can go to and say, here's the flow of funds."

Since the mid-1990s, when the Fed eased regulations on how much cash banks needed to hold in reserve, the banks have been eagerly shipping excess cash to the Fed each night. That way, the cash is earning interest and not sitting on their books. The Fed has never yet charged banks for processing cash. But, in late 2003, the Fed said enough. It proposed charging recirculation fees to banks that overuse the Fed's cash processing facilities - for example, banks are not supposed to ship $20 bills back to the Fed and order newer twenties (which work better in ATMs) within a five-day period.

And the Fed is now finishing a pilot program called "custodial inventory" that would allow banks to hold excess cash overnight in as many as 150 bank-owned facilities. The cash would be considered off the bank's books as if it were at a Fed branch.

Ultimately, Loomis hopes to control at least some of these Fed transfer points, and to do so in a way that would allow the company to sell more services to its own customers. Loomis has no commitment from the Fed. But it has had discussions with the agency about synchronizing its Internet Change Order system with the Fed's own online ordering system, so that when banks order cash in bulk from the Fed, they could specify to Loomis how they want the order broken down for different branches. Loomis could signal back to banks how much cash their ATMs are consuming so banks could modify their orders. It could send banks an electronic Advanced Ship Notice when the cash leaves the Fed, and send notices to the Fed when the banks return cash.

Perhaps in the future, Silewicz says, the Fed would even accept Loomis and other third parties as designated cash processors for banks that are holding excess cash through the Fed's custodial inventory program.

'Virtual Pooling of Cash'

In a perfect world, there would be "a virtual pooling of cash," says Blacketer of Carreker, where banks would have pieces of cash in different places - in their own vaults, at a carrier like Loomis, or at other banks - and would pull cash from the pool as needed, relying on data capture and accounting across institutions.

To survive in this world, armored carriers will need sophisticated information-technology systems; but, as Blacketer says, this has not been their expertise in the past.

"It's been hard for them to turn around and make a million-dollar investment in technology when they're focused on expense management," he says.

Which is symptomatic of the entire industry, says John Jay professor McCrie: "It's just part of the upgrading that this industry has not yet done."

Loomis, however, feels that it is in a good position with its Web-based ordering system, SOFI tracking and accounting system, and Glory inventory setup. "It's e-business now," Grochett told 22 hand-picked Loomis and Securitas managers at Securitas' quarterly training meeting in Las Vegas in August.

Grochett told the managers that day that e-business had been a transition at Loomis, not a quick fix. "We're dabbling in the Federal Reserve information exchange process," he said. "We're recognized by the Fed as a key player, and this couldn't have happened without e-business."

And, he has maintained, the company is filling in the gaps by ramping up wireless systems for drivers and pushing out bar-code systems to its cash facilities.

"Over the years, providing technology solutions has not been a priority, but [it] has taken on significant change in the last five years," Silewicz says. Still, he adds, "There's so much further to go."

Loomis, Fargo & Co. Base Case

Headquarters: 2500 CityWest Blvd., Houston, TX 77042

Phone: (713) 435-6700

Business: Armored-car transport, ATM services and cash processing.

Chief Business Executive: Clas Thelin, chief executive officer

Chief Technology Executive: John Jordan, vice president of information technology

Financials: $499 million (3.65 million Swedish kronor) in 2004, compared to $462.2 million

(3.7 million Swedish kronor) in 2003.

Challenge: Build revenue from cash processing; minimize inefficiencies in the nation's handling of cash.

BASELINE GOALS*:

Boost organic sales growth (excludes impact of acquisitions, divestitures and foreign exchange) to 12% in 2005, from 5% in 2004.

Improve operating margin to 15% in 2005, from 7.1% in 2004.

Increase operating capital employed as a percent of sales to 40% in 2005, from 25% last year.

Pump up return on total capital employed to more than 20% in 2005, from 14% in 2004.

*securitas 2001 Annual Report

AP Interview: UN envoy warns of missing Libya arms

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Some weapons depots in Libya have still not been secured properly, and "much has already gone missing" from unguarded sites, the top U.N. envoy in Libya says.

Preventing more weapons from being smuggled out of country will be difficult, considering the nature of the vast desert nation's borders, the envoy, Ian Martin, told The Associated Press Sunday in an interview.

"That has to be a priority now, to secure what still remains in Libya," he said. "Over time, the international community can assist Libya and its neighbors with that, but I am afraid there is not a quick and easy solution to that problem."

During the chaos of Libya's 8-month civil war, human rights groups and reporters came across a number of weapons depots that were left unguarded and were looted after Moammar Gadhafi's fighters fled.

Martin said the unsecured weapons remain a "very, very serious cause for concern." He said they include shoulder-held missiles, mines and ammunition.

"It's clear that much has already gone missing from unsecured locations and that there are still locations which have not been properly secured," he said.

Martin noted progress concerning chemical weapons and nuclear material. Last week, Libyan officials said they discovered two new sites with chemical weapons that had not been declared by the Gadhafi regime when it vowed several years ago to stop pursuing non-conventional weapons. Officials also said they found about 7,000 drums of raw uranium.

"That, too, has been secured," Martin said of the latest discoveries, noting that the main issue is now how to dispose of them.

The Gadhafi regime fell with the capture and killing of the dictator on Oct. 20, followed by a declaration of liberation by Libya's new leadership three days later.

The U.N. mission headed by Martin is designed to help Libya's interim leaders with the transition to democracy.

By late June, Libyans are scheduled to elect a national assembly that would oversee the drafting of a constitution, followed by parliamentary and presidential elections.

The National Transitional Council last week chose a new prime minister, who is to form a government by mid-month for the transition period.

The prime minister, Abdurrahim el-Keib, said in a televised speech marking the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha that Libya must quickly form new security forces. He added that "the presence of weapons in this random manner really concerns us."

El-Keib also said national reconciliation is a priority. This would include compensating those who were hurt in the fighting and punishing the guilty, he said.

Some Libyan officials have called for a faster transition, warning of a dangerous power vacuum.

Martin said accelerating the elections timetable "is going to be quite difficult, but depends first and foremost on the speed with which they (Libya's interim leaders) can reach the political decisions, and we can't determine that."

Fundamental decisions, including on the preferred electoral system, have not yet been made, he said.

The NTC has acknowledged that it has not established full control over the country. Suspected Gadhafi loyalists are being held in detention centers controlled by semiautonomous armed militias, instead of the NTC. Human rights groups have reported mistreatment of detainees in such lockups.

Martin said the interim authorities have tried to tackle the problem, "but they need to do more, faster, even before a new government is in place."

Jamal Bennour, a prominent Libyan jurist involved in setting up a new judicial system, said that at the moment, the NTC only controls one prison in Tripoli, and courts and prosecutors are functioning at a minimal level.