Olympic cross-country champion Mika Myllyla, who was involved in Finland's largest doping scandal in 2001, was sentenced Monday for drunken driving.
A regional court gave the 38-year-old Myllyla a suspended sentence of three months and 10 days for driving over the limit twice within three days last year. He was also banned from driving for eight months.
Police stopped Myllyla in his car on Oct. 22 and banned him from driving immediately because he was over the limit. …
Aberdeen fear the managerial change at Birmingham City couldscupper plans to keep loan star Sone Aluko.
Blues boss Steve Bruce has taken over at Wigan, with his No.2Eric Black expected to follow within the next few days.
Dons boss Jimmy Calderwood is worried the changes could wreckhis hopes of allowing Aluko to extend his loan deal, which expiresin January, to the summer.
"That could be a dodgy one now," …
Winter brews began hitting the Treasure Valley several weeks ago, but as with all things holiday, their arrival seemed a bit premature. I resisted the temptation to buy in - after all, the first frost was still t� come and Halloween was several days away. But when I saw a six pack of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale in my East End neighborhood market, my resolve crumbled. Good timing. These hearty brews are just the thing for our current cold snap. Here are three of my favorites:
DESCHUTES JUBELALE
Dark copper in color with a two-finger tan head that persists nicely, this beer opens with aromas of fruity hops, caramel and toasty malt. You get flavors of bittersweet chocolate, …
Presidential challenger John McCain said Sunday that he supports a proposed ballot initiative in his home state that would prohibit affirmative action policies from state and local governments. A decade ago, he called a similar effort "divisive."
The reversal comes as McCain, a conservative senator from Arizona, seeks to tailor his policies and rhetoric to independent-minded voters who will determine the outcome of November election.
Both McCain and Democratic rival Barack Obama have accused each other _with good reason _ of "flip-flopping," a charge that carries weight with independents who seek consistency and authenticity in their …
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Libyan rebels may be indiscriminately killing black people because they have confused innocent migrant workers with mercenaries, the chairman of the African Union said, citing the fears as one reason the continental body has not recognized opposition forces as Libya's interim government.
"NTC seems to confuse black people with mercenaries," AU chairman Jean Ping said Monday, referring to the rebels' National Transitional Council. "All blacks are mercenaries. If you do that, it means (that the) one-third of the population of Libya, which is black, is also mercenaries. They are killing people, normal workers, mistreating them."
He added: "Maybe it's …
Dear John: Our group is really into Double Bonus Poker. Pleaseaddress strategy that may be different than regular Jacks or Bettervideo poker. We have conflicting opinions on how to handle twopairs. I save two low pairs (since they pay) and draw for the fullhouse. When I have a high pair that pays, I pitch the low pair to gofor four of a kind since two pairs pay no more than one.
My friends say you should always save two pairs since yourchance of a full house is 12-1. I say in the long run thehigher-paying four of a kind will come out ahead. DaleCrofoot, no address
Answer: In almost all cases, you're better off to …
MADISON, Wisconsin (AP) — The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has officially ordained a 56-year-old Wisconsin man as its first openly gay minister.
Scott Anderson of Madison was ordained Saturday at Covenant Presbyterian Church during a ceremony attended by hundreds of supporters.
He said he never thought the day would come and he told WISC-TV he's humbled and grateful for the opportunity.
Anderson served as a minister …
Several Manhattan movie theaters will charge $20 for an adult ticket to IMAX showings of "Shrek Forever After."
Moviegoers will pay that price this weekend at the AMC theater in Manhattan's Kips Bay …
To ensure that corrosion-resistant steel is wearing well on thestates bridges, West Virginia University engineers are taking birdsand bugs eye views of 100 spans across the state. The bridges are allbuilt with weathering steel, which combines traditional steel withcopper, phosphorus, chromium and silicon to fight rust. The materialhas become popular around the state because it is designed to wearwell and need less painting. WVU engineers have been asked to inspectthe bridges by the …
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Troops opened fire on protesters in cities across Syria and pro- and anti-government crowds clashed in the capital's historic old city as one of the Mideast's most repressive regimes sought to put down demonstrations that exploded nationwide Friday demanding reform.
The upheaval sweeping the region definitively took root in Syria as an eight-day uprising centered on a rural southern town dramatically expanded into protests by tens of thousands in multiple cities. The once-unimaginable scenario posed the biggest challenge in decades to Syria's iron-fisted rule.
Protesters wept over the bloodied bodies of slain comrades and massive crowds chanted …
Carrie Chapman Catt, America's leading suffragist, helped organize the international suffrage movement in 1902. Feminists from developed nations met regularly to exchange strategies for winning the vote in their countries.
Beyond winning the vote the feminists wanted to mobilize womanpower, worldwide, to prevent or stop wars. In 1915, a year after the First World War began, Catt, Jane Addams and other leading feminists formed the Women's Peace Party. Women, it argued, were "the mother half of humanity." Maternal pacifists said motherhood gave women a unique biological, social, and political viewpoint through their relationship not just to men and children, but also to the nation and the world. They believed that motherhood legitimized and motivated the solidarity of all women in condemning war, and that whereas men had conflicting interests and ambitions, women all over the world shared concern for the creation and preservation of human life. Motherhood thus became a potent symbol for pacifists, as reflected in a popular song of 1915, "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier."
In 1915 Addams and other pacifists joined Henry Ford's venture to plead directly with the belligerents for peace. President Woodrow Wilson, recognizing the influence of the peace movement, presented American entry into the …
ABSTRACT
The degree of domain registration in a liquid-ordered/liquid-disordered phase-separating lipid mixture consisting of 1-stearoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-3-phosphocholine, egg sphingomyelin, and cholesterol (molar mixing ratio of 1:1:1) was studied using three different planar lipid bilayer architectures distinguished by their bilayer-substrate distance d using epifluorescence microscopy. The bilayer systems, which were built layer by layer using Langmuir-Blodgett/Schaefer film depositions, included a solid-supported bilayer (d ~ 15 �) and two polymer-supported bilayers with d ~ 30 � and d ~ 58 �, respectively. Complete domain registration between Langmuir-Blodgett and Schaefer …
PERU, N.Y. - Gen. Benedict Arnold led a "wretched, motley" crew of sailors on Lake Champlain against a far superior British fleet near here on Oct. 11, 1776. The rebels lost.
But their dogged fight delayed British movement south for a year, when they would be defeated in the Battle of Saratoga. Historians today consider the Battle of Valcour Island a "victory in defeat" that gave Colonial forces a chance to win at Saratoga - and eventually win the Revolutionary War.
Divers who have spent the last seven years combing the lake bottom in search of "battlefield scatter" from the pivotal fight pulled up dozens of artifacts this week. They displayed them by the shores of the battle site Friday: cannon fragments, solid iron cannonballs, a brass powder scoop, a trigger guard, spectacles, bombs.
"The battlefield objects unveiled here today are tangible connections to the people and times when the concepts of liberty, independence, insurgency and freedom were being debated and defined by this country," said Art Cohn, executive director of the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum in Ferrisburgh, Vt.
The museum, a partner in the Valcour Bay Research Project, will begin exhibiting the artifacts Saturday. A first peek was given during a lakeside ceremony across from Valcour Island.
The jewel among the finds is a cannon from a Colonial gunboat called the New York. The cannon exploded - no one knows why - sending fragments flying into the water and killing a lieutenant named Thomas Rogers.
Portions of the gun were found a few years ago. Divers have now recovered three more fragments, allowing them to jigsaw the pieces together. They also have discovered a heavily oxidized sword nearby with the tip broken off that "may well have been Thomas Rogers' sword," said Adam Kane, an archaeologist with the museum.
Most people working on the project are volunteers, including one of the lead divers, Ed Scollon. He has spent countless hours searching the silty lake bottom off of Valcour Island with a metal detector. Many of the artifacts are a few feet down in the silt, which has helped preserve them. Still legible on many of the cannonballs are distinctive "broad arrow" markings that identify them as British.
The finds so far come from where the Colonial ships lined up for battle, though divers hope to work their way to the British line.
"We've now mapped the equivalent of eight football fields of the American line," Kane said. "We're certainly not one-tenth done."
Had Arnold died in the Battle of Valcour, he would be famous mostly for cunning and bravery, instead of treachery. He took on the bigger British boats in a narrow straight that made it difficult for them to maneuver.
Pummeled by the British fleet all day, Arnold sneaked his boats past them that night in a retreat. The British gave chase the next morning. Arnold burned some of his boats to keep them out of British hands and led hundreds of men to Fort Ticonderoga on foot.
By the time fighting was over, snow was falling. The British, fatefully, paused their campaign for the winter.
Arnold stalled the British attempt to take the Hudson Valley and cut the colonies in two.
"His battle plan was brilliant," Scollon said.
Shun Hollywood glitz for a weekend; get down in the trenches with filmmakers who shoulder cameras for humanity. This weekend, Jan. 23 -- 30, the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival has come to town.
When the police do the killing does it become "justifiable homicide?" Academy Award winning documentary filmmaker Jonathan Stack went inside the notorious Angola prison to make the gritty "The Farm."
This time he examines the brutal murder of two Puerto Rican young men shot to death by NYPD detectives in the Bronx in early 1995, and the possibility that a cover-up at the highest levels vindicated the police when they deserved to go to prison for their action. This hard hitting movie is screened at the Coolidge Corner Video Screening Room, Fri., Jan. 24, at 6 and 8 p.m.
The following day, Sat., Jan. 25, an insider's look at the public defenders going about their job, "Presumed Guilty," is screened at two p.m., also at the Coolidge.
These unsung heroes of the criminal justice system clash daily with judges who don't want to hear them out and prosecutors who arrogantly try to send every defendant away apparently believing that an arrest is as good as a conviction. Pamela Yates filmed the worker bees of the courtroom and their clients for three years to make her film.
At 4 p.m., again in the Coolidge, you have the opportunity of seeing Raoul Peck's new film, "Profit and Nothing But."
His dramatic documentary about assassinated African leader Patrice Lumumba was shown in Boston last year. Peck who had grown up in the Congo where his family immigrated to escape Haitian dictator Duvalier, this time looks at his native Haiti.
"Profit And Nothing But" follows suit with the examination of the impact of globalization on Jamaica in "Life And Debt" that was screened at the Strand in the fall. Peck's movie will also be screened Mon., Jan 27 at 7 and 9 p.m. at the Coolidge.
Other films in the festival are being screened at the International Institute of Boston and the Museum of Fine Arts., where "Sweet Sixteen" is the opening night offering, tonight at 7:30.
Show your film!
A similar festival is looking for short films made by young people. The 3rd annul Media That Matters Film Festival will be shown as part of an installation at Lincoln Center in New York during the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival next year. The deadline for submission is Feb. 6, 2002.
Many of the short films screened at the film festival at Boston Youth Works this past summer would be ideal for this festival. Film and video works must be a maximum of eight minutes in length. Docs, animation, games, music videos, interactive online projects, PSA's and youth productions are welcome. See http://www.newfilmmakers.com for more information.
There are at least three awards of $1000 each presented at an awards ceremony in New York. The Sundance Channel will be sponsoring an award for the best youth-produced film, video, or new media project. For further questions, you can call Shira Golding (Film Festival Coordinator) at (646)230-6288.
She's a winner
"Best Discovery of the Year" designation from the Boston Film Society went to Boston International Festival of Women's Cinema for screening Lorna Lowe Streeter's emotionally moving documentary "Shelter." The true life drama focused on the filmmaker's search for her birth parents and her longing for a comforting maternal presence in her life. Streeter also showed her movie at the Roxbury Film Festival.
Asunder
Does this sound gripping? Blair Underwood, Debbie Morgan, and Michael Beach as young marrieds caught up in a thriller about revenge and obsession. Tim Reid's indie film "Asunder" comes to Northeastern University's Blackman Auditorium for one screening, Fri., Feb. 7 at 7:30 p.m.
Filmmaker Reid will be at the screening for a Q. & A. session. The event is part of The Color of Film Series which debuted with the Jamaican shot documentary "Life And Debt" shown at the Strand last fall.
Founder of the sponsoring organization Color of Film Collaborative Lisa Simmons says that the series came about "because we realized with the success of the Roxbury Film Festival that there really is an audience for the films we want to screen."
You can call 617-282-1234 for more information.
A big drop in May retail sales has raised new concerns about the durability of the economic recovery.
Retail sales plunged 1.2 percent last month, the Commerce Department said Friday. It was the largest decline in eight months.
Americans slashed spending on everything from cars to clothing to building materials. Auto sales fell 1.7 percent. Excluding autos, sales fell 1.1 percent.
Economists are worried that households will start trimming outlays as they continue to be battered by high unemployment and uncertainty in the stock market. Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of total economic activity.
There's also concern that spending will freeze up as Americans see their wealth shrink. Investors have sold off stocks for more than a month because of concerns that Europe's sovereign debt crisis will slow a worldwide economic rebound. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 7.9 percent last month, the worst May for the blue chip index since 1940.
A separate Commerce report Friday said business inventories rose 0.4 percent in April for the fourth consecutive month of gains. Business sales climbed 0.6 percent in April for the 13th straight monthly increase.
Some economists cautioned against overreacting to the gloomy May retail sales report because the numbers can be volatile from month to month. But they said if future months show weakness, then they will be forced to trim their estimates for overall economic growth in the second half of this year.
Analysts said the key will be employment and income growth in the months ahead.
"Our own view is that the labor market recovery will be a grudging one, that consumers will enjoy only modest gains in wages and salaries for some time and that consumer spending growth will therefore prove disappointing," said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR Inc., an economic consulting firm in New York.
The decline in May retail sales was the largest since sales had fallen 2.2 percent in September. Analysts had been forecasting sales would be weak but remain in positive territory. The government did revise up slightly the April performance to show a gain of 0.6 percent for the month instead of the originally reported 0.4 percent increase.
Pulling down the overall number in May was a 9.3 percent plunge in building materials. That follows the expiration of a tax credit for homebuyers in April that spurred home sales.
Department store sales fell 1.8 percent while sales in the broader category of general merchandise stores, which includes big retailers such as Wal-Mart, fell 1.1 percent.
Gasoline stations sales were down 3.3 percent, a drop that reflected in part lower gasoline pump prices during the month.
The Federal Reserve reported Thursday that households' net worth rose for the fourth consecutive quarter, but since then stock prices have been tumbling. Economists say it may not be until 2012 or 2013 at best before Americans' wealth returns to its pre-recession levels.
Last week, the International Council of Shopping Centers reported that its index for revenue at stores open at least a year posted a 2.6 percent rise in May compared to sales in May 2009. That followed a 0.8 percent April increase and a 9 percent surge in March.
Target Corp. posted a small gain in May that was below internal forecasts while department store chain J.C. Penney Co. and many teen merchants including Abercrombie & Fitch Co. and American Eagle Outfitters Inc. reported declines in revenue at stores open at least a year.
The overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, grew at an annual rate of 3 percent in the first three months of this year with much of that growth reflecting a 3.5 percent expansion in consumer spending, the best showing for this category in three years.
Usain Bolt's stunning world record in the Olympic 100-meter final is still a long way from how fast the human body can go, according to a study by a U.S. professor.
Shortly after Bolt ran 9.69 seconds in Beijing, Stanford University biology professor Mark Denny set about to estimate just how fast humans will be able to run. He concluded that male sprinters could eventually get the 100 record down to 9.48 seconds and women could run the distance in 10.39.
"My results ... tell us that speed has limits, but not what accounts for these limits," writes Denny, whose conclusions were published last week in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
Bolt surely could have gone faster at the Olympics in August. The tall Jamaican slowed down over the final meters and even banged his fist off his chest in celebration before crossing the line three hundredths of a second faster than the record he had set a few months earlier.
In September, Norwegian physicist Hans Eriksen analyzed TV footage of the Olympic final and estimated that Bolt could have run 9.55 seconds if he had not slowed down.
The women's record in the 100 is 10.49, set by the late Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988. But Denny used 10.61 seconds in his study because of "compelling evidence that the (10.49) race was wind aided."
Denny used historical records dating back to the 19th century to track the progress of speed in humans, horses and dogs. He found that speeds in horses and dogs at the major races in the United States and Britain peaked, mostly in 1970s but some earlier, while most of the human races had not.
"In each case, an absolute speed limit is definable, and the current record approaches that predicted maximum," the 57-year-old Denny says in his summary.
But while Denny, like other experts in the past, concludes that speed has limits, he says it is impossible to know what those limitations are. He writes that it is unlikely that athletes' speeds are constrained by a single physiological or mechanical factor.
Denny, an avid marathoner, says the pattern of these limitations on speed could help scientists figure out how to break them.
At the Olympics, Bolt followed up his record in the 100 with another in the 200, running 19.30. Denny predicts that record could be lowered to a staggering 18.63.
In the marathon, where Haile Gebrselassie holds the men's record of 2:03:59, Denny's study says that time can be lowered by more than three minutes to 2:00:47. According to the research, the women's record of 2:15:25 set by Paula Radcliffe could be trimmed to 2:14:97.
"Predicted maximum speeds for women are 9.3 percent to 13.4 percent slower than those for men," Denny writes. "The present gender gap between men and women will never be closed between 100 meters and the marathon."
Denny also mentions performance-enhancing drugs and their ability to make a human, or animal, go faster.
"For present purposes, let us define a greyhound, thoroughbred or human (male or female) as an individual performing without drug or genetic enhancement," Denny writes. "If drugs have contributed to the winning speeds in the races used here, speeds in the absence of these drugs would presumably have been slower."
___
On the Net:
Journal of Experimental Biology: http://jeb.biologists.org
WASHINGTON (AP) — BP too often operated on the fly in the closing days of work on its doomed Gulf of Mexico oil well, adding needless risk of a blowout, investigators, experts and panel members said at the presidential oil spill commission Tuesday.
They said the company was hurried and made confusing, last-minute changes to plans that were unusual in the complex environment of deep water. They said BP could have operated more safely if the company took the time to get the necessary equipment and materials.
"We are aware of what appeared to be a rush to completion," commission co-chairman William K. Reilly said. What is unclear, he said, is what drove people to determine they could not wait for equipment and materials to perform operations more safely.
Lawyers investigating the April 20 disaster have said they found no evidence that anyone aboard the rig or on shore made a conscious decision to sacrifice safety for money. But the panel's leaders made clear Tuesday that the findings in sum exposed a lack of safety culture on the rig, with Reilly blasting all three companies — BP, Halliburton Co., and Transocean — as "laggards" in the industry and in "need of top-to-bottom reform."
Much of the scrutiny focused on the company's plan to temporarily plug the well, which investigators with the presidential commission say added to the risk of a blowout. Plugging the well is a procedure used to seal it off until the company comes back to produce oil and gas.
Experts questioned BP's use of a single plug in the process. Charlie Williams, a chief scientist with Shell Energy Resources Inc., said the company used a minimum of three plugs in its deepwater wells.
BP also chose to fill the well with seawater, rather than heavy drilling mud, leaving it vulnerable to an upsurge of oil and gas — a condition that is not allowed for exploratory wells drilled in other places, experts said. The company also chose not to use mechanical plugs, devices put inside the pipe that also can block oil and gas.
Many of the decisions would have required additional time and materials, said Steve Lewis, an advanced drilling technology engineer with Seldovia Marine Services who reviewed BP's drilling plans, federal permits and communications on behalf of the commission.
"I know there was pressure on these people to get done and move on," Lewis said. "The apparent shuffling and scrambling was not really necessary."
Meanwhile, in New Orleans, a federal judge on Tuesday barred news organizations from a conference over a company's claim that the government is moving too slowly to resume offshore drilling. It said the government has not yet issued a single permit to allow offshore drilling even though a moratorium was lifted in October.
U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman said the hearing would be held in his chambers. He said news organizations had no right to attend.
The government is defending the time it is taking to approve deepwater offshore drilling permits that would have been suspended under the moratorium that was lifted nearly a month ago.
Ensco Offshore claims that since the ban was lifted Oct. 12, the government has not issued a single permit that would allow the resumption of any previously suspended drilling activities.
The government does not seem to dispute that allegation, saying in a late Monday filing that it must ensure applications meet regulations toughened after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
The moratorium was ordered in the wake of the April 20 explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig.
___
Associated Press writer Harry R. Weber contributed reporting from New Orleans.
___
Online:
National Oil Spill Commission: www.oilspillcommission.gov
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - Tropical Storm Noel headed toward the Bahamas on Tuesday after causing flooding and mudslides that killed at least 20 people in the Dominican Republic and left another 20 missing, officials said.
Forecasters said a tropical storm watch, which means that tropical storm conditions are possible within 36 hours, may be issued for southeast Florida later in the day.
The spinning tropical storm had been forecast to hit Haiti hardest but veered toward the Dominican Republic, apparently catching residents off guard Monday.
"We didn't know that it was going to be like this, it took us by surprise," said Guarionex Rosado as he left his home in La Cienaga, one of Santo Domingo's most affected neighborhoods.
Noel temporarily knocked out the Dominican Republic's entire power system early Monday, plunging 9.4 million people into the dark for about two hours, said Radhames Segura, vice president of the state-owned electric company.
Manuel Antonio Luna Paulino, president of the Dominican Republic's National Emergency Commission, said at least 20 people had died and another 20 were reported missing.
Three of those killed died when they were swept up by a fast-moving river in San Jose de Ocoa, southwest of the capital. Three more - a couple and their child - were killed in a mudslide in the port city of Haina, officials said.
International aid workers believe the death toll is certain to rise as reports come in from remote areas of the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
"I think this has taken some officials by surprise. The storm was predicted to go more toward Haiti," said Holly Inuretta, a regional adviser for U.S.-based Catholic Relief Services.
Haitian Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis said there were no immediate reports of casualties in his country, but he urged people to seek shelter. "It's moving very slowly and dropping a lot of rain," he said
Haiti is prone to deadly flooding because of its steep mountains and hills deforested by people who cut down the trees to make charcoal. Floods earlier this month killed at least 37 and sent more than 4,000 people to shelters.
At 8 a.m. EDT, Noel's top sustained winds were near 50 mph, down from 60 mph earlier in the day, according to the National Hurricane Center. Its center was over Cuba near Holguin and about 275 miles south of Nassau, Bahamas.
It was moving west near 12 mph, but was expected to turn away from Florida on Thursday or Friday and speed into the open Atlantic.
---
Associated Press writer Jonathan M. Katz in Port-au-Prince, Haiti contributed to this report.
NAME - Ryan Clark Crocker
AGE-BIRTH DATE - 58; June 19, 1949
EXPERIENCE - U.S. ambassador to Iraq March 2007-present; U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, 2004-07; international affairs adviser, National War College, 2003-04; director of governance, Coalition Provisional Authority, 2003; deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, 2001-03; interim envoy to Afghanistan, 2002; U.S. ambassador to Syria, 1998-01; U.S. ambassador to Kuwait, 1994-97; U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, 1990-93; political counselor, American Embassy in Cairo, 1987-90; deputy director State Department Office Israel and Arab-Israeli Affairs 1985-87; chief of political section, American Embassy in Beirut, 1981-84; chief economic/commercial officer, U.S. interests section, American Embassy in Baghdad, 1978-1981; economic/commercial officer, American Embassy in Doha, Qatar, 1974-1976; foreign service officer, US Consulate, Khorramshahr, Iran, 1972-1974.
EDUCATION - BA, Whitman Coll., 1971; postgraduate student, University College, Dublin, Ireland
FAMILY - wife, Christine Barnes, a retired Foreign Service secretary.
Michael Phelps has a whole day off. In Rome, no less.
Will he tour the Vatican? Check out the Trevi Fountain? Visit the Colosseum?
"I've got to try to get as much rest as possible," Phelps said.
Guess his mother is here for the sightseeing. Phelps is all business, even when he's swimming a reduced schedule that actually provided him a break on Thursday.
"I've got most of the workload over with now," Phelps said, sounding a bit relieved after a tiring, stressful year.
He's also got another world record, and this one was particularly satisfying. One night after he was soundly beaten by Germany's Paul Biedermann in the 200-meter freestyle, Phelps broke his own record in the 200 butterfly Wednesday for his first individual title at these world swimming championships.
For good measure, he surpassed another of Mark Spitz's accomplishments with the 34th world record of his career, one more than Spitz had during his brilliant run in the pool.
The 200 fly was an appropriate salve on Phelps' wound. That event produced his first trip to the Olympics in 2000 where he finished fifth as a 15-year-old. That event produced the first of all those world records in 2001.
"I've always done well in it," said Phelps, who's earned two golds and one silver in Rome. "I guess you can call it my bread and butter event."
He went out strong, fought off the pain over the last lap and touched in 1 minute, 51.51 seconds, more than a half-second lower than his gold medal-winning time of 1:52.03 at the Beijing Olympics.
Phelps was a lot more relaxed for this race than he was getting ready to face Biedermann.
It showed.
"I actually had a really good night sleep for the first time this whole trip, so I was pretty happy about that," Phelps said. "I actually woke up this morning after my alarm went off. I hit snooze a couple times before I actually got up."
He'll have more time to sleep in. Backing off his eight-event program at the last two Olympics and the 2007 world championships, Phelps is competing in six races at Rome, three of them relays. The reduced scheduled provides a most welcome break right in the middle and sets him up for his final three events: the 100 fly, 800 free relay and 400 medley relay.
His coach, Bob Bowman, said the buildup to the 200 free "was more intense, like really intense."
"It was probably too intense," he acknowledged. "I mean, he was like ready for a death match, which it was. (For the 200 fly) he was more relaxed."
The U.S. will be favored in the relays, which leaves the 100 fly as the most intriguing event left on Phelps' platter. That was the race he won by a thousandth of a second in Beijing, a margin so close that runner-up Milorad Cavic of Serbia still believes he touched first.
"I'm ready for that event," Phelps said. "There's a bunch of guys that are going to be right there."
For the 200 fly, he had planned to wear a Speedo bodysuit, only to discover during warmups that the one he brought to the Foro Italico was too tight in the shoulders. So he went back to the legsuit, which he prefers in the fly anyway.
Phelps went out much faster than he normally does in the fly, and paid for it on the final push to the wall. His arms were burning. His legs, too. But there was no way he was losing again.
He surged to the wall a body length ahead of silver medalist Pawel Korzeniokski of Poland, with Japan's Takeshi Matsuda settling for bronze. Phelps whipped around quickly to see his time and held up his right index finger when the "WR" was posted.
"I wanted to step on it in the first 100 to get out there in the clean water, and that's pretty much what happened," Phelps said.
On Tuesday, he was the one in stormy waters. Germany's Paul Biedermann swam away from Phelps in the 200 free and snatched away his world record, too.
Most of the talk afterward was about what they were wearing _ and there wasn't a red carpet in sight. Biedermann was in a polyurethane Arena X-Glide suit, which everyone concedes produces much faster times than Phelps' year-old Speedo LZR Racer.
Bowman threatened to pull his star from all future international events unless FINA speeds up its timetable for banning bodysuits. The governing body had mandated that male swimmers go back to wearing waist-to-knee "jammers" made from textile materials, but says the new rules may not be fully implemented until May 2010.
Phelps will let others debate those issues, though he's never real happy about losing. Friends stepped up to help him cope with his first major individual loss since 2005, sending along texts to the effect: "If you want to call me and just yell at the phone and get some frustration out, I have no problem sitting there and listening."
He took them up on the offer.
"That definitely helped," Phelps said.
Then he got in on the record-breaking, which shows no signs of letting up. Italy's Federica Pellegrini thrilled the Italian crowd by winning the women's 200 free, her second championship and third world record of the meet.
"I feel that my heart is for Italy," she said after clapping along with the crowd during her country's bouncy national anthem, "Fratelli d'Italia" (Brothers of Italy).
Germany's Daniela Samulski and Russia's Anastasia Zueva got things rolling Wednesday by setting records in consecutive semifinal heats of the 50 backstroke. South Africa's Cameron van der Burgh broke his own mark in another non-Olympic event, the 50 breaststroke.
Most impressively, China's Zhang Lin took down Grant Hackett's four-year-old record in the 800 free by more than six seconds (7:32.12), with Tunisia's Ous Mellouli also going under the old mark but only getting silver in yet another event not on the Olympic program.
For those who've lost count, that's 22 records in Rome, hardly living up to the label as the Eternal City. Nothing is sacred in these suits, which have already helped surpass the 15 records set at the last worlds in Melbourne two years ago, with four days still to go.
For Phelps, it's only three.
He's got a day to rest.
British officials say swine flu cases in England dropped slightly last week, with about 53,000 new cases.
In a statement Tuesday, experts guessed there were about 64,000 new cases the week before. The numbers are only estimates and have a wide margin of error.
Britain also announced Thursday it would start offering the swine flu vaccine to healthy children under five, besides those already being vaccinated, mainly people with other health problems. While swine flu is mild in most people, it has hit children and young people disproportionately hard.
Since the virus was first detected in Britain last spring, there have been more than 700,000 reported cases.
Pss-s-s-s-s-t. Barbara Richardson has a secret she wants to share.
"You may not know this, but today is my husband's birthday," the wife of Democratic presidential contender Bill Richardson said in an e-mail to supporters on Thursday. "Just write a little note or a joke or anything at all you think he might enjoy."
Barbara Richardson said the couple would read them after the debate in Las Vegas.
The New Mexico governor, who turned 60, may also enjoy a present accompanying the well wishes. At the bottom of the e-mail was a link to contribute to Richardson's campaign.
The appeal is the latest in a string of creative pitches as campaigns seek to tap the Internet in novel ways.
Earlier this month, Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, lagging far behind the leading Democratic challengers in the fundraising race, tried to capture attention by sending out an e-mail with the subject line: "Fw: Re: Update?"
The e-mail purported to pass along an e-mail chain between two staff members, Tim Tagaris and campaign manager Sheryl Cohen, updating fundraising progress.
It, too, asked for donations. But not the pesky birthday cards.
NEW YORK - Carlos Pena hit a three-run homer to tie Tampa Bay's single-season record and the Devil Rays beat New York 8-2 Sunday to send the Yankees into a pivotal series on a sour note.
Tampa Bay beat Andy Pettitte for only the second time in 20 career starts and won a series at Yankee Stadium for the first time since 2005. It's only the Devil Rays' fourth series win in 27 trips to the Bronx.
Bobby Abreu went 2-for-5 with an RBI for the Yankees, who entered play trailing AL East-leading Boston by five games. New York is two games ahead of Seattle in the wild-card race with the Mariners coming to town for a three-game set beginning Monday.
Akinori Iwamura hit a two-run homer one day after his bat was confiscated, and Dioner Navarro and Josh Wilson had solo drives for the Devil Rays.
Pettitte was coming off a typically brilliant August and had won 12 straight decisions against the Devil Rays.
But Tampa Bay went in front on B.J. Upton's sacrifice fly in the sixth, and Pena hit his 34th homer in the seventh to chase Pettitte and make it 5-1. Jose Canseco also hit 34 homers with the Devil Rays in 1999 and Aubrey Huff accomplished the feat in 2003.
Pettitte (12-8) allowed five runs and 11 hits in 6 1-3 innings, falling to 8-2 in 11 starts since the All-Star break. He also dropped to 13-2 with a 3.53 ERA against Tampa Bay.
The left-hander, who won all six of his starts last month, hadn't lost since July 27 at Baltimore.
While Pettitte struggled, the Devil Rays got a great start from Jason Hammel (2-4). The rookie struck out seven in five-plus innings, allowing just one run and five hits on his 25th birthday.
Hammel, who went 0-6 in nine starts with Tampa Bay last season, earned his first career win as a starter. He tossed 2 1-3 shutout relief innings to win at Arizona on June 18.
Navarro connected with one out in the third for his seventh of the season, giving Tampa Bay a 1-0 lead. Left fielder Johnny Damon tried to bring it in with a well-timed jump at the wall but the drive just cleared his glove.
Damon responded in the fifth, throwing out Wilson at the plate and giving New York a little momentum.
Hammel hit Andy Phillips with a pitch with one out in the bottom half and Melky Cabrera followed with a double to right. Phillips hustled around third and stuck his hand under Navarro to reach the plate ahead of the tag.
Cabrera went to third on the throw home and Damon reached on an error to give the Yankees runners on the corners. But Hammel got Derek Jeter to fly out to right and struck out Abreu to end the inning.
Phillips left the game with a contusion on his right wrist and was replaced at first by Wilson Betemit in the sixth. The Yankees said he will have a precautionary MRI exam and CT scan.
Hammel departed after he brushed Alex Rodriguez with a pitch to begin the sixth. Scott Dohmann entered and got Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada to fly out before Robinson Cano walked to put runners on first and second. Betemit then flied out to left to end the inning.
Dohmann and three others combined to work the final four innings for the Devil Rays.
Iwamura's two-run drive in the eighth was his first since Yankees manager Joe Torre questioned whether his bat conformed to major league rules during New York's 9-6 win on Saturday.
Devil Rays manager Joe Maddon then got Alex Rodriguez's bat confiscated by the umpires in what Maddon said was purely a retaliatory move.
Notes:@ Tampa Bay RF Delmon Young singled in the fourth to extend his hitting streak to 10 games and LF Carl Crawford singled in the seventh to extend his to 11. ... New York dropped to 15-3 this season when Damon starts in left field. ... The Devil Rays improved to 23-59 at Yankee Stadium all-time.
(This version CORRECTS Devil Rays 8, Yankees 2; SUBS 9th graf to correct Hammel is 25 years old)
NEW YORK - Stocks were narrowly mixed Friday after strong advances all week and after the Commerce Department reported that housing construction fell to its lowest level in more than six years.
Blue chip stocks came off their lows of the session and inched higher Friday. The move follows five straight sessions of advances for stocks during which the Dow Jones industrials logged three consecutive record closes this week. Heading into Friday's trading, the major indexes were up at least 1 percent for the week, with the Nasdaq leading the way with a gain of nearly 2.5 percent.
Todd Leone, managing director of equity trading at Cowen & Co., said markets were reacting to the weaker-than-expected housing data but regardless were in need of a break given the recent advances.
"The market is acting tremendously," he said. "I'd like to see a sell-off and we've been getting a little too bullish."
In midday trading, the Dow was up 5.28, or 0.04 percent, at 12,311.10.
Broader stock indicators fell. The Standard & Poor's 500 index was down 1.63, or 0.12 percent, at 1,398.13, and the Nasdaq composite index was down 10.30, or 0.42 percent, at 2,438.76.
Stocks in the energy sector helped elevate stocks.
Bonds rallied, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note falling to 4.61 percent from 4.67 percent late Thursday. The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices rose.
Light, sweet crude fell 31 cents to $55.95 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil has fallen sharply in recent days - it settled at its lowest level in a year Thursday - as traders have grown concerned slumping demand would outweigh production cuts.
While investors were well aware of a slowdown in the housing market, the figures on housing starts showed a precipitous decline. Construction of single-family homes and apartments fell to an annual level of 1.486 million units last month, a 14.6 percent decline from September.
An eagerly anticipated initial public offering, that of New York Mercantile Exchange parent Nymex Holdings Inc., occurred Friday with shares opening at $120 and recently trading at $135.77 after rising as high as $152. The offering of the 134-year-old commodities exchange had been priced at $59 per share, already higher than earlier estimates, as investors cheer strength in the energy and metals markets. The higher opening makes it the biggest gainer for an IPO on the NYSE this year.
Leone contends that the markets have been re-energized by the spate of buyout announcements in recent weeks, such as those for Clear Channel Communications Inc. and Reader's Digest Association Inc. on Thursday. "That just reprices the market. That tells you stocks are worth more than we ever thought."
Still, he would like to see investors catch their breath so stocks don't become overbought. "Long term it scares me a little bit but short term I think we'll continue to move higher."
In corporate news, Starbucks Corp. posted a 5 percent drop in its fiscal fourth-quarter profit, though the coffee retailer's profit met Wall Street's expectations. The stock, which had risen 7 percent since last week, fell $2.50, or 6.3 percent, to $36.93 as investors grew concerned about issues such as labor costs.
Foot Locker Inc., the athletic footwear retailer, fell $1.12, or 4.7 percent, to $22.79, after reporting a 2 percent decline in its third-quarter profit.
Advanced Magnetics Inc. jumped $10.25, or 23.4 percent, to $54.15 after the maker of components used in MRI tests reported promising results from a late-stage clinical trial for an iron-replacement therapy for chronic kidney disease patients.
HB Fuller Co. advanced $1.90, or 7.5 percent, to $27.18 after JP Morgan said the maker of adhesives and coatings was likely to benefit from lower costs for raw materials.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies was down 3.98, or 0.50 percent, at 786.77.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers by about 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 774.8 million shares, compared with 752.8 million traded at the same point Thursday.
Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average closed down 0.45 percent. Britain's FTSE 100 closed down 1.01 percent, while Germany's DAX index was down 0.48 percent, and France's CAC-40 finished down 1.20 percent.
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On the Net:
New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com
Nasdaq Stock Market: http://www.nasdaq.com
FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — The Cardinals' Kyle McClellan won a matchup of No. 5 starters Sunday, pitching five shutout innings in a 10-3 win over the Red Sox.
McClellan (3-0) gave up three hits and three walks with two strikeouts.
Daisuke Matsuzaka (0-2) went 5 2-3 innings, allowing two runs on three hits and two walks with four strikeouts.
The Cardinals sent 14 batters to the plate in the sixth inning and scored 10 runs, all with two outs. Albert Pujols delvered the big blow, a three-run double off Scott Atchison.
Matsuzaka got two quick outs before giving up a walk to Pujols and a run-scoring double to Matt Holliday. Left-hander Andrew Miller, vying for a spot in Boston's bullpen, came in to relieve, facing six batters without getting an out.
Relatives of victims on the jetliner that crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, are honoring their loved ones with a cross-country motorcycle ride.
United Airlines Flight 93 originated in Newark, New Jersey, and was bound for San Francisco when it was hijacked. The 9/11 Commission report said the hijackers crashed the plane as passengers fought to regain control.
The motorcycle caravan rolled out of Newark on Thursday at 8:42 a.m. (1242 GMT) _ the same time as the flight _ and is scheduled to arrive in San Francisco on the eighth anniversary of the attacks.
The ride is a tribute to the 40 victims aboard the plane and also will raise money for a national Flight 93 memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
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On the Net:
Cross-country motorcycle ride: http://www.ridewiththe40.org
Flight 93 National Memorial: http://www.nps.gov/flni/
