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www.pantagraph.com Pantagraph Wednesday, September 6, 2006 A7 OUR IWIOMbMORLD Keeping you up to date on the news World watch Your guide to the top headlines from the United States and around the world. Arctic (hvmi r3 Asia 2 Oil find could boost U.S. supply WASHINGTON, D.C-A trio of oil companies led by Chevron Corp. has tapped a petroleum pool deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico that could boost the nation's reserves by more than 50 percent. A test well indicates it could be the biggest new domestic oil discovery since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay a generation ago.

But the vast oil deposit roughly four miles beneath the ocean floor won't significantly reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil and it won't help lower prices at the pump anytime soon, analysts said. Full story on Page CI North America AT Atlantic 1 8. Pacific Ocean South America I in umw mi iii 1 i. imt'M ii ni I Calderon named Mexican president-elect MEXICO CITY Felipe Calderon was declared president-elect Tuesday after two months of uncertainty, but his ability to rule effectively remained in doubt with Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador vowing to lead a parallel leftist government from the streets. The unanimous decision by the Federal Electoral Tribunal rejected allegations of systematic fraud and awarded Calderon the presidency by 233,831 votes out of 41.6 million.

Full story, photo on Page A8 OUR NATION McClellan resigns as Medicare drug chief WASHINGTON, D.C. After eight months overseeing the new Medicare drug benefit, the biggest change since the health program's beginning, Mark McClellan said Tuesday it was time to move on. McClellan, 43, has been with the Bush administration from the start, and he has been at the Centers for Medicare and Medic aid Services since Mark March 2004. McClellan "My kids don't remember me in a job where I got home regularly for dinner. It's just time," said McClellan, the father of 7-year-old twin girls.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said McClellan's task of overseeing the drug benefit's implementation was the equivalent of a Mars landing. Under the program, elderly beneficiaries enroll in plans administered by private insurers. Seniors had dozens of plans to pick from, leaving many of them confused and frustrated. Early on, states had to step in to ensure their poorest residents could continue getting medicine.

Rumsfeld has shoulder surgery for torn rotator cuff WASHINGTON, D.C. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld underwent successful shoulder surgery Tuesday to repair a torn rotator cuff. Eric Ruff, the Pentagon press secretary, said Rumsfeld, 74, had the surgery on his left shoulder at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and described it as elective surgery that was scheduled weeks in advance. Rumsfeld did not undergo general anesthesia for the arthroscopic procedure, Ruff said.

Nonetheless, the defense secretary transferred to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England the responsibility for determining how to respond if a potentially hostile aircraft entered U.S. airspace. Ruff said that was the only responsibility shifted to England, and that it was expected to be returned to Rumsfeld in a short time. Gonzales says cities must work harder to fight crime WASHINGTON, D.C. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday that cities will need to work harder to combat a spike in crime but shouldn't count on more federal funding, citing growing demands in the war on terrorism.

At a news briefing, Gonzales was responding to several mayors and police chiefs who expressed concern at a crime conference last week that the Bush administration was devoting too Workers continue to search for victims in the rubble of the World Trade Center disaster site, on Dec. 26, 2001, in New York. Health study on 911 released 10 Europe 76 Ocean Africa Indian IN THE SPOTLIGHT respiratory problems, said co-author Robyn Herbert. Most of the patients in the study first came to ground zero between Sept. 11 and Sept.

13, 2001, which exposed them to a higher concentration of asbestos, pulverized concrete, mercury and toxins that will leave them chronically sick, she said. "There should no longer be any doubt about the health effects of the World Trade Center. Our patients are sick," she said. The study, to be published Thursday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, focused mostly on the so-called "World Trade Center cough," a phenomenon that was little understood immediately after the attacks, but has become the chief concern of health experts and advocates since then. At a news conference to release the study Tuesday, Herbert was joined by lawmakers who blasted the federal government for not doing enough to protect the workers' health and not spending enough to treat them.

But Mayor Michael Bloomberg cast doubt on the study's claims, saying "I don't believe that you can say specifically a particular problem came from this particular event." Dr. John Howard, who was appointed by the Bush administration in February to coordinate the various ground zero health programs, called the findings "extremely important" and said they support other researchers' work, including a study of city firefighters. John Sferazo, another worker in the study, said the White House did too lit systems during fueling of the shuttle's power system and weren't concerned. 54 killed in rampage at bed-and-breakfast NEWRY, Maine A cook was charged Tuesday with shooting and dismembering the owner of a bed-and-breakfast and three other people in a grisly Labor Day weekend killing spree that shocked people across the Maine countryside. State Police chief Col.

Craig Poulin refused to discuss a motive for what he called the worst homicide case in Maine in 14 years. The victims were identified as bed-and-breakfast owner Julie Bullard, 65, who lived at the inn; her daughter Sel-by, 30; Cindy Beatson, 43, both of Bethel; and James Whitehurst, 50, of Batesville, Ark. Christian Nielsen, 31, told detectives that his four-day killing spree began with a local man on Friday and continued two days later with the slaying of the owner of the Black Bear Bed Breakfast where he was staying in Newry, according to state police. The daughter of the inn's owner was Ocean Australia Associated Press tile photoSTEPHEN CHERNIN tle, too late. "If President Bush wanted this situation to be cleaned up, it would have been cleaned up long before now," he said.

In lung function tests, ground zero workers had abnormalities at a rate double that expected in the general population; these problems persisted for months and in some cases years after the exposure, the study found. The study said that almost 70 percent of trade center responders had new or worsened respiratory problems during or after the attacks. Sixty-one percent of responders who had no symptoms before the attacks developed problems while working on the "pile" at ground zero. A third of those tested had abnormal lung function, which Herbert said is a rate twice as high as the nonsmoking population. Mount Sinai examined 12,000 ground zero workers between July 2002 and April 2004, and got permission to use 9,442 workers in its research.

They include construction workers, police and firefighters and other volunteers who worked at the site, in the city morgue or at a landfill where more than 1 million tons of trade center debris were carted. Lawmakers said the government has to develop a coordinated funding program to pay for health care for the workers for the rest of their lives, and said environmental officials failed to warn people about the danger of breathing the air near the site. The mayor announced that a World Trade Center clinic including treatment for undocumented workers and the uninsured will open in January at a public hospital. then killed along with a female friend when they arrived there unexpectedly on Monday, authorities said. OUR WORLD Iraq extends state of emergency BAGHDAD, Iraq Iraq's parliament reopened Tuesday after a summer recess and voted to extend a state of emergency for a month because of unrelenting sectarian violence, while the president predicted bloodshed will be quelled by the end of next year.

The U.S. military announced the deaths of three more American servicemen, bringing to 10 the number of coalition soldiers killed the previous two days eight Americans and two Britons. Iraq's state of emergency, which has been in place for almost two years, covers every area except the autonomous Kurdish region in the north. It grants security forces the power to impose curfews and make ar rests without warrants. Two U.S.

Marines and one sailor were killed in An bar "due to enemy action" Monday, the U.S. military command reported. Five other Americans had previously been reported killed Sunday and Monday, and two British soldiers died from a roadside bombing in the south Monday. Bomb attack wounds investigator, kills 4 BEIRUT, Lebanon A leading investigator in the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister was wounded by a roadside bomb that killed four other people Tuesday. Lt.

Col. Samir Shehade, deputy head of the intelligence department in the national police force, was hospitalized in stable condition in the southern port of Sidon. Four of Shehade's aides and bodyguards were killed when the remote-controlled bomb detonated near their two-car police convoy in the southern town of Rmaile. Five people in the convoy were wounded in addition to Shehade. The motive for the attack was not known, but it raised the specter of more politically inspired attacks in Lebanon.

Some critics have accused Syria of using such attacks to warn Lebanese leaders not to be too independent. Castro 'recovering at a satisfactory pace' HAVANA Cuban leader Fidel Castro said he lost 41 pounds after his intestinal surgery in late July, but the worst is over and he will receive visiting dignitaries, as Cuba prepares for a summit of the 116-nation Non-Aligned Movement next week. "I'm recovering at a satisfactory pace," Castro said in a letter published Tuesday in a two-page spread in the Communist Party newspaper Granma. The newspaper also showed new photos of the 80-year-old leader in a rocking chair reading and writing. Although details of his health are treated as a state secret, the government plans to celebrate Castro's Aug.

13 birthday on Dec. 2. 9 Japan's Princess Kiko gives birth to boy TOKYO Japan's Princess Kiko gave birth to a boy early today, providing the centuries-old Chrysanthemum Throne with its first male heir in more than 40 years and defusing a looming succession crisis. The birth came minutes after Kiko, 39, underwent a Caesarean section. The boy is the third in line to the throne, after Crown Prince Naruhito and Kiko's husband, Prince Akishino.

No name was immediately announced The arrival of a royal boy forestalled an eventual succession crunch for the royal family, which traces its roots back some 1,500 years. The child is Emperor Akihito's first grandson. 10 Tony Blair sets date to leave office LONDON Britain's Tony Blair will step down as Prime Minister in July 2007 after more than 10 years leading his country, a newspaper reported today after two ministers acknowledged he was likely to leave office next year. Blair intends to resign as leader of the governing Labour party on May 31, 2007 triggering a leadership election likely to take around eight weeks, The Sun tabloid reported. He would then be replaced as Prime Minister on July 26, the newspaper said.

George Pascoe-Watson, political editor of The Sun, told Britain's Sky News television he would not disclose the sources of his story, and said only that the newspaper's previous predictions on the date of elections had been "absolutely bang on the money." The tabloid previously correctly called the dates of Britain's last national election, ahead of a formal announcement by Blair. rom Pantagraph wire services QOn the Net: For updates on news before tomorrow morning, log on to The Pantagraph online at: www.pantagraph.com Finds 70 percent of WTC workers suffer from lung problems By Amy Westfeldt Associated Press NEW YORK The weekend after he toiled amid the ruins at the smoking World Trade Center, volunteer emergency medical technician John Graham was so winded he couldn't even cut his lawn. But in the five years since the attacks, there was never any solid proof that his breathing problems were connected to his work in the dusty, smoky air. Now, a groundbreaking Sept. 11 health study of more than 9,000 patients has confirmed what he already knew: Many of those who toiled at ground zero had breathing problems years after the attacks.

The Mount Sinai Medical Center study found that seven in 10 workers had breathing problems for more than two years after the attacks, and many were likely to be chronically ill and need treatment for the rest of their lives. "Maybe someday, people will start believing that we are ill and that we really do need help," said Graham, 44, a participant in the study who has been in treatment for breathing problems and post-traumatic stress since the Sept. 11 attacks. The study is conclusive proof of a link between recovery and cleanup work at ground zero and long-term when it turned onto its left side while negotiating a curve in Auburn, about 40 miles southwest of Boston. Authorities said 33 people were taken to UMass Memorial Medical Center with minor injuries, mostly scrapes and bruises.

A NASA optimistic for Wednesday launch CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. The weather forecast for today's launch of space shuttle Atlantis worsened slightly Tuesday but appeared good enough for the planned liftoff. There was a 30 percent chance that weather would prohibit the shuttle from blasting off at 12:28 p.m. Wednesday. Unlike last week's planned launch attempts, the window Wednesday opens before Florida's afternoon summer thunderstorms normally blow through.

There were no major technical problems a day before launch. Technicians had noticed a slightly hazardous reading of gaseous oxygen in the rear of the shuttle, but they considered it the result of a bad connection between the ground and flight many dollars for wars abroad. They said that came at the expense of Americans at home who are victims of violent crime. "I think everyone understands at the state and local level that we need to secure our country," Gonzales said, reiterating the desire of federal law enforcement to work more closely with local police to fight crime. But he said that President Bush was also committed to reducing the federal deficit in time of war.

Gonzales said that cities will get closer cooperation but probably not the money they seek. "Not everyone is going to be happy about the funding dollars, but we're going to do our job." 333 people injured after bus rolls over AUBURN, Mass. A bus traveling from New York to Boston rolled over on an interstate off-ramp Tuesday, injuring 33 people, authorities said. "It appears the bus was probably traveling too fast for the off-ramp, which caused the bus to roll over on its side," Auburn Police Chief Andrew Sluckis said. The bus was carrying 57 passengers i.