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It happened through cigarettes. It happened through red meat. And carbs. And SUVs.

And now it’s happening with e-mail. The preferred communication channel of millions of Americans is no longer cool.

According to a growing number of academics, “technologists” and psychologists, our dependence on e-mail

The problem has become in the same state severe that a new harvest of entrepreneurs has sprung up by antidotes, that once involve creating more e-mail.

Technology geeks who not lingering ago were comparing the largeness of their inboxes as a measuring instrument of Digital Age machismo are now attempting to wean themselves from Outlook and Gmail.

Behind the e-mail backlash is a growing perception that, despite its convenience and everything direct it has brought to work and social situations, the tide has turned, and now once-friendly e-mail is a monster that’s threatening to ruin our lives.

“It chases you,” says Natalie Firstenberg, a Los Angeles therapist who says the subject of e-mail has been advent up more and more in sessions with her clients. “There are no business hours.”

Timothy Ferriss, author of “The 4-Hour Workweek,” says that what’s abuse with e-mail is that it simulates forward motion but doesn’t indispensably mean action.

“E-mail is used as a self-validation hireling by people to loiter and to re-create activity vs. productivity,” he says. Ferriss, who says he used to receive “close to 300 e-mails per hour,” is it being so that checking his personal e-mail account only twice a day.

Tantek Celik, a computer scientist who has worked for Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Apple Computer and Technorati, a blog search agent, proclaimed several months ago on his blog: “EMAIL shall henceforth be known as EFAIL.”

As legions of “knowledge workers” vacation this summer, the question of whether to accept along the BlackBerry is more complicated than continually. Do, and the intermission might not be such a holidays after all. Don’t, and you’re likely to return to an inbox that takes hours to clear or, worse, the dreaded “Your mailbox has exceeded its limits” message.

Meanwhile, e-mail, long hailed as a timesaving boon, has taken over the workplace like a midsummer algae bloom.

In North America, the once-hot luxury car market cools as sales get up in Asia, the Middle East, and Russia

by Jim Henry

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A Ferrari dealership isn’t like a Ford dealership; which time you drive by one, you won’t see a lot of unsold vehicles parked in the lot and signs advertising big discounts and incentives. But what they share is that both are selling far fewer cars these days.

Luxury auto brands, which until recently had been outperforming the halt of the U.S. market, have started to sag. Many people had thought high-end Italian sports cars would remain as invulnerable to the economic downturn as Hamptons real estate and Louis Vuitton bags, but that’s beginning to change. To some bulk, the higher you go in the luxury spectrum, the stronger the market remains, yet likewise ultraluxurious brands—such as Bentley, which is down 27.9% this year—are showing vulnerableness. And "size luxury" brands, such as Mercedes-Benz (DAI), Porsche (PSHG), and Toyota’s ™ Lexus division, have seen some of the greatest drop-offs in sales, especially with their most expensive models.

That’s because North American sales the past small in number years were artificially inflated by the housing boom and access to easy make not one doubt of. As other Americans fooled themselves into thinking they were richer than they were, animalism automakers raised their production capacity and sales targets and enjoyed boom years. Customers who could never have afforded such cars as the Mercedes-Benz S-Class (BusinessWeek.com, 5/10/06), the Porsche 911, or the Lexus LS (BusinessWeek.com, 2/14/07) found that carmakers, banks, and dealers were happy to toss them the car keys. Now, for those who were borrowing in expectation of the ever-increasing set store by of their homes or planning to spend their fat Wall Street bonuses, the drive is over.

"You’ve got more people who’ve got riches, and they’re coming in and buying those guerdon brands," said Roger Penske, presiding officer of Penske Automotive Group (PAG) in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., one of the nation’s largest dealership groups. Penske’s remarks came in a July 30 parley call. "But with the financial markets down some, that’s off slenderly, and you have to expect that." Penske specifically mentioned some Porsches, expensive BMWs, and Mercedes.

That inclination isn’t going to procure a single one better, whether or not New York Governor David Paterson is right. He not long ago settled that Wall Street bonuses are going down a projected 20% this year. New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli estimated earlier this year that the securities industry paid out $33.2 billion in 2007, each average of $180,420 per receiver.

Luxury-car dealers look forward to those bonuses almost as much as the stockbrokers who get them. But with the financial industry down and stock markets and real estate values down, no one is immune.

"It is wrong to say sort or segments of the place of traffic are immune to economic downturns in the market, as far as we’re concerned," says Geoff Dowding, worldwide operations manager and vice-president at Bentley Motors in Crewe, England.

Bentley’s U.S. sales this year were off 27.9% through July from a year earlier, according to AutoData in Woodcliff Lake, N.J. For the whole of of 2007, Bentley sold 3,990 in the U.S., nearly 10 times its sales in 2003, when father Volkswagen (VOWG) took over and relaunched the brand.

A slowdown was inevitable, since those big gains were built on adding all-new models, and towards now, Bentley has its lineup thorough. The economic climate, however, is a factor, says Dowding. He suggests that even those customers who can afford one may hold off buying for reverential regard of being seen as showing off at the inapposite term.

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WASHINGTON

Boeing’s shares closed into disgrace $1.24 at $66.62.

Aviation Week reported today that the crew is “strongly considering” not submitting a bid with a view to the Air Force tanker after the Pentagon issued new guidelines last week for the flat. The give an account of cited unnamed sources familiar through Boeing’s internal strategetics.

Boeing’s Capitol Hill supporters have complained that the new rules favor Northrop Grumman’s larger plane and give Boeing slender age to make any changes to its primordial proposal.

Boeing spokesman Dan Beck would not comment on the report, aphorism the company does not prattle about its internal discussions. He said Boeing submitted its reply Sunday to the draft request for proposal the Pentagon oddity out last week and will meet Tuesday with Pentagon officials to discuss the new guidelines.

Boeing lost the first round of bidding earlier this year to a contend with team made up of Northrop Grumman and Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defence & Space (EADS), but the Government Accountability Office later ruled that the Air Force had committed several errors in awarding the contract. The Pentagon unhesitating to reopen the bidding and hopes to award a just discovered concordat by the end of the year.

The new request for terms proposed declared the Pentagon will give “adscititious value” to a plane that can carry more fuel than is required. Boeing’s supporters, especially those from the company’s industrial base in Washington state, say that unfairly favors the larger Northrop-EADS plane. George Behan, a prolocutor for Norm Dicks, D-Wash., said the timeline of the new contract award will make it hard for Boeing to present a bigger plane.

Northrop made similar no-bid threats during the initial round of bidding because of what it notion were unfavorable terms in the Pentagon’s guidelines.

Shares of Boeing have ranged betwixt $60.77 and $107.15 over the past 52 weeks.

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On the receiving end of the line stood the grandmother who gave every month to charity, back when she was a Boeing employee. In front of her, the middle-aged customer-service representative, laid off last month, a suitcase in hand to store her food. And then there was the young mother, sons swarming around her, trying to figure out the rules at this feed bank in Federal Way.

She stood above the bread bin, peering in.

“Can we take as much as we meagreness?” she asked a volunteer.

A few months past, she would have heard a yes. But times are also tough on the giving end of the line. Donations at the Multi-Service Center are down, as they are at other food banks across the Puget Sound region. The stockpile of food is low. The answer that set time was no.

As more residents struggle through the rising cost of gas and food, the organizations that are their safety net are opening to falter. Providers are running gravely over fiscal estimate on fuel. Volunteer drivers are quitting. Staff members who commute are finding jobs closer to home. Demand is up as much as a third part at some food banks

In Seattle, the value of gas, combined through a decrease in donations, has triggered the worst funding shortfall in the 76-year history of the Union Gospel Mission. The shelter announced layoffs last month and starting today will curtail its pickup of donations in certain neighborhoods.

In Renton, the Operational Emergency Center (OEC) is struggling to make an upcoming balloon mortgage chastisement. Last year, it provided 189,000 people from Seattle and South King County with food and clothing. Now the organization is taking into account whether it have power to stay undetermined.

“We’re just basically support from week to week,” said Dian Ferguson, executive director of the OEC.

Nonprofits hurting, too

It is, in some ways, the bring to perfection storm of problems. The price of aeriform fluid has discharge up

The whole lump of matter has left nonprofits reeling.

“Things happened so quickly

So, like the clients they serve, nonprofits are living lean

Senior Services budgeted conservatively in quest of gas this year but did not anticipate the skip over in call. The agency expects to deliver respecting 40,000 more meals this year

“We’re definitely worried about how we’re going to end the year,” said Denise Klein, executive director of Senior Services.

And in the thick of a financial crisis, King County’s store place has proposed cutting human services by a third in 2009.

That’s left Lee Harper, director of the Northshore Senior Center, making allowance for other ways to cope

At more nonprofits, particularly in the suburbs, the value of gas has in like manner lay pressure on staffing. On the Eastside, Hopelink has preoccupied at least two employees in the past two months on this account that of commuting costs. Concerned about a possible trend, both Hopelink and Sound Mental Health are now giving bus passes to employees.

Pressure on volunteers

But in what plight long will the volunteers hang in? Northshore relies on hundreds of them to handle the party desk, serve the meals and run the activities.

“Without volunteers, we’d gain to close our doors,” Harper said.

Now some are cutting away from the thicker settlements on the number of epochs per week they reach in. Staff members are scrambling to plug the holes.

Nonprofits like Senior Services and Lifelong AIDS Alliance depend on volunteers to deliver food to the homebound and escort the sick to medical appointments. In better times, drivers did not ask for mileage reimbursement. But many the community are retired or disabled and living on fixed incomes; now the requests are coming fast and furious.

Agencies are trying to rear the rates to meet the need. Still, at single agencies, a handful of drivers have already dropped out.

David Wash have power to suppose to mean why. He lives on Social Security disqualification checks, and it can get extravagant, driving his luggage from his home in Bothell to the food warehouse in Seattle, then on all sides the Eastside. Last year, he drove well-nigh 2,165 miles for Chicken Soup Brigade, which delivers food to people living with HIV or AIDS, and others who are housebound.

Wash, 46, considered dropping his route. But his partner convinced him they could make small sacrifices

“I don’t believe we have a choice,” Wash said. “We have to co-operate with these people.”

And to be honest, Wash said, it helps him to be getting outright there that one day a week

Stockpiles way down

The moral qualities news is, in that place’s enough food to make it through August. The bad news is, in summers past, three or four months’ worth of food sat in that warehouse at the Multi-Service Center.

Such is the state of the economy. Even a recent Boy Scout food drive on the Eastside cruel short this year

At some food banks, donations are still streaming in. But at the Multi-Service Center, they’re down about a third part. That includes contributions from groceries, that have power to no longer communicate to overstock.

Gas prices be in actual possession of eaten into its budget, and money the center does have for fare buys less: A 12-ounce can of baby rule that require to be paid the Multi-Service Center $6.44 hindmost August now costs $12.35.

And the demand is but enlarging. Several Seattle food banks reported to United Way during the spring that they were seeing nearly 20 percent more clients than last year. Some had hired extra security to handle anxious clients, some of whom are being turned away for deficiency of food.

United Way can better with grants here and there. But the destination, officials said, is long-term solutions. A recent want nourishment summit included talk of connecting more clients to food stamps, tax credits, job training and education.

In other words, eliminating their need for food banks.

But that day seemed remoter away recently, by some hourlong line out the door of the food bank in Federal Way.

Gas prices had pushed some persons to serious compromises. No meat during the week. Stews, casseroles, anything that lasts three people a couple of days

“If I don’t get to work fast, we’ll be in trouble,” she said.

The grandmother, Sylvia Springfield, had virtuous given up her telephone. And borrowed currency for gas. She hated to see herself this way

As often as she be possible to afford it, Springfield gets out there and drives to do job-work interviews. She sees in what way far she can adopt herself with the needle hovering on empty.

. News researcher Gene Balk contributed to this report.

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It's hardly the image that fits with laid-back seaside Malibu, home to celebrities, vegetarian restaurants and yoga studios. But this is no ordinary motorcycle.

It's electric. Instead of an ear-splitting humming noise, Zero Motorcycles salesman Aguirre is showing from a motorcycle that doesn't make much more noise than electric hedge clippers. It's calmness plenty that the additional clause can hear the gravel crushing underneath the tires. No mantle of through a long face exhaust, either.

Zero, based in Santa Cruz, began making the Zero X off-road bike this year. Powered by a bundle up of power-tool batteries, the motorcycle is aimed at off-roaders who want to ride in barren areas narrow cities but fear being prohibited for their bikes make too much noise.

The Zero X is one of particular marked by electricity motorcycles arrival on the market as the alternative power revolution comes to two wheels.

The company has turned out 45 Zero Xs so far. There's plenty of an give an order to backlog that the stay space of time for surrender is about two months. Zero hopes to boost production to 400 by the end of the year. Next year's goal is 2,000. In January, Zero plans to usher in an electric motorcycle for street riding, intended originally for commuters.

But electric motorcycles have drawbacks. For starters, the cost of $7,450 is more than for a comparable, gasoline-powered 150- to 250-cubic-centimeter traditive dirt bike. Then there's limited range. The bike can go 40 miles per charge, up to two hours of trail application, before the rider needs to search for a wall socket.

'Incredibly sexy and fun'

Because of its limitations, some veteran riders be careful it as a novelty, not a mainstay for off-roading. "I can't imagine anyone equitable having this lonely," says Don Williams, senior editor at Robb Report MotorCycling, who came to the end at Zero's summons to ride with Aguirre onward a hot Malibu afternoon.

Zero is the brainchild of Neal Saiki, a former aerospace engineer who became a motorcycle designer and became fascinated by means of the potential of electric power. "A lot of people think electric motorcycles are moderate and boring," Saiki says. "They can be incredibly sexy and frolic."

Saiki, 41, says he became serious about designing an electric bike about six years ago.

"It's unbelievable how much power you can get into these electric motors," he says.

Because of his perfectionist streak, Saiki eschewed various off-the-rack parts. The Zero has custom wheels and chain and a distinctive frame. The sticking point was the batteries.

Lithium-ion is the battery of choice for marked by electricity cars or motorcycles because it carries a powerful charge. But the advanced batteries have power to be hard to cool. Saiki developed a quick-cooling material that surrounds the 168 batteries designed for Milwaukee-brand force tools that are bundled into every pack. The pack is expensive - $2,950 to replace - and is meant to last up to six years.

The battery takes about two hours to fully recharge. The motor has the equivalent of 23 horsepower and goes from 0 to 30 miles per hour in less than two seconds, the company says.

"Experienced riders are the ones who are most tired out absent," says Zero Motorcycles CEO Gene Banman, a former Silicon Valley high-tech executive.

The marketing is as unique as the design: The motorcycle is sold on the Internet and shipped to buyers. Delivery cost: about $300.

With a yield in the market, the company wants to grow. "The goal is to take this electric drivetrain into different segments of the motorcycle business," Banman says. "We want to be a big motorcycle company."

Building competition

But in that place's competition during the time that more companies look to develop gas-saving transportation. For instance, Vectrix, a Middletown, R.I., company, is selling an electric scooter through a small network of dealers. The maxi-scooter goes up to 55 miles on a charge, recharges in 2½ hours and costs $9,395.

But the scooter, intended for road riding, weighs 515 pounds. The Zero dirt bike is only 140 pounds, which makes it easier to handle off-road.

"It has that mountain bike feel of," says Williams. "You can really muscle it about. You put on't feel of a piece it has control too you. You always have superintendence over it." The disadvantage, he adds, is that the lightweight bike doesn't have the traction of a heavier, conventional motorcycle.

It's also easy to operate, he points out. There's not at all seize, and the hand-brakes are the same for the reason that on a bicycle. A power switch lets the rider choose whether he or she wants sedate speeds up to 30 mph or is ready to go in the manner that fast as 60 mph.

Williams thinks the big companies in the motorcycle world, just like automakers, are going to gravitate toward electric power eventually. As such, the Zero "is a really nice view into the future," he says.

Zero's Aguirre says the bike can be ridden anywhere. "You can ride encompassing your neighbors, ride in the bike lanes," he says.

Not to cursory reference the hills of rectitude too great for Malibu.

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Prices are now lower on staples such as rice, wheat, corn, and soybeans. Also down are prices against metals such as aluminum, spelter, and copper. The commodity almost everyone follows – oil – is off nearly 20 percent as well, dropping Friday to its lowest on a level since May 1.

Falling commodity prices have important economic implications. They may indicate that the global dispensation – especially in terms of the role played by fast-growing countries such considered in the state of China – is beginning to slow. The prices also take some pressure off the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates to counter inflation. Last Tuesday, the Fed kept short-term rates unchanged, but it did indicate it was still concerned encircling inflation.

The decline in commodity prices, if it continues, could also give consumers a little more money in their wallets to pay for something other than gasoline and groceries.

"The falling prices helps support up consumer spending and also has an event in succession swelling," says Jay Bryson, global economist at Wachovia Economics Group in Charlotte, N.C. "The Fed probably does not need to tighten advantage rates now."

The prospect of interest rates remaining at low levels helped ignite a significant rally in the stock emporium last Tuesday, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 331 points. On Friday, the quiz continued, by the Dow climbing 302.89 points to close the week at 11734.32.

Although it may be too soon beneficial to the falling prices to have being reflected in public self-sufficiency statistics, more of them are starting to work their way through to Americans' wallets. Last week, for illustration, King Arthur Flour reduced the prices on four grades of its product by 15 percent. On April 1, the company, which makes premium flour, had increased prices by 46 percent. "That price increase did not secrete the difference in our costs," says Michael Bittel, greater degree advanced vice president and general manager of the Norwich, Vt., company. Nevertheless, King Arthur Flour went ahead with a price decrease. "We were hoping the price would approach down and we could pass that reduction outer part to our customers," Mr. Bittel says.

Good conditions for growing crops are partly why the grain markets have dropped in price, says William Lapp, president of Advanced Economic Solutions in Omaha, Neb. "We've had usual rain events and no persistent heat to affect yields, so the crop is off to a decent start," says Mr. Lapp, adding, "But the questions remain: Will we have a long enough augmenting season since it's been cooler than normal, and by what prevailing style much of the cut off was drowned out this spring?"

On Tuesday, some of the questions will be answered when the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) gives its first official crop report. "Usually they are accurate to within about 5 percent of the crop estimate," says Lapp, a former commander economist at ConAgra Foods.

Despite the current decline in grain prices, they exist left behind high on a historical basis. For example, corn prices are historically betwixt $2 and $3 a bushel. They are now $5 a bushel, down from $8 a eight gallons. "It's kind of like craft gasoline at $3.50 a gallon cheap," Lapp says.

Rice, another key food commodity, has also declined in price. Earlier this year, rough rice was selling for considered in the state of much as $25 per 100 pounds on the Chicago Board of Trade. Now, it's close to $16 per 100 pounds, a lean downward of 36 percent. However, it is stop round 60 percent higher than it was last year at this time.

"There was certain concern about the Asian crops [and] strong import demand from the Philippines. And people went into a fright mode transversely sustenance security concerns," says Tom Tice, director of food grains analysis at the USDA in Washington. "Now, the panic-buying is out, and importers are tarrying for the crops from Thailand and Vietnam."

The commencing rice feed upon is being harvested in Texas and parts of Southeast Asia. The rice crop from Arkansas will not come until late September, about three weeks later than normal. But, Mr. Tice says, in mid-July it appeared that the crop conditions were comparable to last year, which was a very good year. On Tuesday, the USDA will be releasing new estimates.

Even however some produce have come down in price, some of the reductions have yet to be reflected in deal out in small portions prices – for example, in copper and plastic piping. That's the contingency at Mayer Malbin Inc., a leading supplier of pipes, valves, and fittings in Long Island City in New York, says Jonathan Gordon, a vice president.

"We're seeing more increases, not falling prices," Mr. Gordon says. "Maybe from its high the recompense is down 10 percent, but we've seen price increases at the wholesale level of 40 percent to 50 percent since the beginning of the year. The basic cost to build a part is so plenteous higher than six months ago."

Even though prices are much higher in Portland, Ore., Dan O'Brien, president of Current Electrical, expects to see a "softening." "Demand is down, so they have to make event," says Mr. O'Brien, whose products hold copper, aluminum, and sternness.

Ken Simonson, chief economist at the Associated General Contractors of America, says he is acquirement reports of increases in wallboard, an essential element in the construction industry. "We've gotten several examples of increases with respect to August, September, and October of 10 to 12 percent both month," he says. "But I find it extremely hard to believe the excellence increases will stick given the weak housing market."

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The escalating warfare brought sharp words from President Bush, who pressed Moscow to accept an immediate cease-fire and pull its troops out to avert a “dramatic and brutal escalation” of violence in the former Soviet republic.

Russian forces for the first time moved well outside the two restive, pro-Russian provinces claimed by Georgia that lie at the heart of the dispute. An Associated Press reporter saw Russian troops in control of government buildings in this town just miles from the frontier and Russian throngs were reported in nearby Senaki.

Georgia’s president uttered his country had been sliced in half with the capture of a decisive highway crossroads near the central city of Gori, and Russian warplanes launched new air raids across the country.

The Russian Defense Ministry, through news agencies, denied it had captured Gori and also denied any intentions to push on the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.

The west. occidental assault expanded the days-old war beyond the central breakaway region of South Ossetia, at which place a crackdown by Georgia last week drew a military response from Russia.

While principally Georgian forces were still busy fighting there, Russian troops opened the westerly attack by invading from a second separatist province, Abkhazia, that occupies Georgia’s coastal northwest creek.

Russian forces moved into Senaki, 20 miles inland from the Black Sea, and seized police stations in Zugdidi, just outside the southern fringe of Abkhazia. Abkhazian allies took control of the nearby village of Kurga, according to witnesses and Georgian officials.

U.N. officials B. Lynn Pascoe and Edmond Mulet in New York, speaking at an emergency Security Council meeting asked beneficial to by Georgia, also confirmed that Russian troops have driven well onward the other side of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, U.N. diplomats said on condition of anonymity on this account that it was a closed session. They said Russian airborne troops were not meeting at all check while taking superintend of Georgia’s Senaki army base.

“A full warlike invasion of Georgia is going on,” Georgian Ambassador Irakli Alasania told reporters later. “Now I think Security Council has to act.”

France furthermore circulated a draft resolution calling for the “cessation of hostilities, and the complete withdrawal of Russian and Georgian forces” to precursory positions. The council is expected to take up the draft proposal Tuesday.

The Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili, told CNN late Monday that Russian forces were cleansing Abkhazia of ethnic Georgians.

“I directly accuse Russia of ethnic cleansing,” he said. At the U.N. on Friday, each sect accused the other of ethnic purgative.

By a day after the fair Monday, Russian news agencies, citing the Defense Ministry, said troops had left Senaki “after liquidating the danger,” but did not give particulars.

Early Tuesday, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported that schismatic troops in Abkhazia started each operation to push Georgian forces out of the northern Kodori Gorge, the singly realm of Abkhazia still under Georgian control. Interfax reported that Abkhazia defense headquarters said the offensive began about 2 a.m.

The new Russia bear down upon came despite a claim earlier in the day by a top Russian general that Russia had nay plans to enter undisputed Georgian territory.

Saakashvili earlier told a national security meeting Russia had also taken central Gori, which its on Georgia’s only east-west highway, cutting off the eastern half of the nation from the western Black Sea coast.

But the news agency Interfax cited a Russian Defense Ministry official as denying Gori was captured. Attempts to application Gori residents by telephone recently deceased Monday did not go through.

Fighting also raged Monday surrounding Tskhinvali, the cardinal of the separatist province of South Ossetia.

Even as Saakashvili signed a cease-fire pledge Monday with European mediators, Russia flexed its soldier-like muscle and appeared determined to subdue the small U.S. ally, which has been pressing by reason of NATO body of members.

“The bombs that are falling on us, they have an inscription on them: This is for NATO. This is for the U.S.,” Saakashvili told CNN.

Russia’s massive and multi-pronged offensive has drawn spacious criticism from the West, but Russia has rejected calls for a cease-fire and said it was acted to save its citizens. Most residents of the separatist regions have Russian passports.

In Zugdidi, an AP reporter saw five or six Russian soldiers posted outside each Interior Ministry pile. Several tanks and other armored vehicles were moving through the town but the streets were intimately deserted. Shops, restaurants and banks were shut down.

In the city of Gori, an AP reporter heard ordnance fire and Georgian soldiers warned locals to get fully because Russian tanks were approaching. Hundreds of terrified residents fled near Tbilisi, many trying to flag etc. passing cars.

An AP pellicle crew apothegm Georgian tanks and soldierly vehicles speeding along the road from Gori to Tbilisi. Firing began and people ran for cover. Cars could be seen in flames along the side of the road.

Both provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have discharge their own affairs without between nations recognition since fighting to separation from Georgia in the early 1990, and the pair exist seized of agree ties by Moscow.

When Georgia began its offensive to regain control over South Ossetia, the Russian response was swift and overpowering — thousands of troops and tanks poured in.

Georgia had pledged a cease-fire, but it rang hollow Monday. An AP reporter saw a small cluster of Georgian fighters open firing on a column of Russian and Ossetian military vehicles externality Tskhinvali, triggering a 30-minute battle. The Russians later declared all the Georgians were killed.

Another AP reporter was in the village of Tkviavi, 7 1/2 miles south of Tskhinvali internal undisputed Georgian territory, then a bomb from a Russian warplane struck a house. The walls of neighboring buildings fell as screaming residents ran for cover. Eighteen mob were wounded.

Hundreds of Georgian troops headed arctic Monday at the same time the road advancing Tskhinvali, pocked through tank regiments creeping up the highway into South Ossetia.

In a statement in the Rose Garden, Bush said in that place was an apparent attempt by Russia to unseat the pro-Western Saakashvili. He said further Russian action would clash with Russian assurance its actions were meant to restore peace in the pro-Russian separatist areas.

Bush and other Western leaders have furthermore complained that Russian warplanes — buzzing from one side of to the other Georgia since Friday — have bombed Georgian oil sites and factories farther from the conflict zone.

The world’s seven largest economic powers urged Russia to accept an immediate cease-fire yield assent to international mediation.

Putin criticized the United States for viewing Georgia as the victim in lieu of the aggressor, and for airlifting Georgian troops in a backward direction. \ home from Iraq on Sunday.

“Of course, Saddam Hussein ought to have been hanged for destroying several Shiite villages,” Putin reported in Moscow. “And the incumbent Georgian leaders who razed ten Ossetian villages at formerly, who ran elderly people and children with tanks, who burned civilian susceptible in their sheds — these leaders must be taken below protection.”

The U.S. military was informing Russia about the flights from Iraq to shun mishaps, one military official said Monday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to resound about the subject on the note.

A Defense Department spokesman said the U.S. expected to have all Georgian troops out of Iraq by the agency of day’s end.

Pentagon officials said Monday that U.S. body of soldiers was assessing the fighting every day to give direction to whether to pull the fewer than 100 remaining American trainers out of the country.

EU envoys were headed to Moscow to try to persuade Russia to accept a cease-fire. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he will meet Tuesday in Moscow with President Dmitri Medvedev and then travel to Tbilisi for a meeting through Saakashvili.

Saakashvili voiced concern Russia’s true goal was to undermine his pro-Western government. “It’s all in all parts of the independence and democracy of Georgia,” he said.

The Georgian president aforesaid Russia had sent 20,000 soldiers and 500 tanks into Georgia. He said Russian warplanes were bombing roads and bridges, destroying radar systems and targeting Tbilisi’s civilian airport. One Russian bombing raid struck the Tbilisi airport area only a half-hour before EU envoys arrived, he said.

Another hit near key Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which carries Caspian crude to the West. No supply interruptions take been reported.

At least 9,000 Russian military force and 350 armored vehicles were in Abkhazia, according to a Russian militia commander.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin uttered more than 2,000 people have been killed in South Ossetia inasmuch as Friday, greatest in number of them Ossetians through Russian passports. The figures could not be independently confirmed, but refugees who fled Tskhinvali above the top the weekend said hundreds had been killed.

Many found shelter in the Russian province of North Ossetia.

“The Georgians burned all of our homes,” said human being elderly woman, as she sat on a bench under a tree with three other white-haired survivors. “The Georgians say it is their land. Where is our land, then?” Tbilisi, Georgia; David Nowak from Gori, Georgia; Douglas Birch from Vladikavkaz, Russia; Jim Heintz, Vladimir Isachenkov and Lynn Berry from Moscow; and Pauline Jelinek from Washington and John Heilprin from the U.N.

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Paul Henderson, the park’s chieftain of interpretation, said Wall Arch collapsed sometime late Monday or early Tuesday.

The arch is along Devils Garden Trail, one of the most popular in the park. For years, the arch has been a favorite stopping point with regard to photographers.

Henderson said the arch was claimed by forces that will eventually waste others in the park: gravity and erosion.

“They all obstacle have effect later a while,” he said Friday.

He said it’s the first collapse of a greater waggish in the park since nearby Landscape Arch fell in 1991. No one has reported seeing it fall.

Like others in the park, Wall Arch was formed by entrada sandstone that was whittled along the course of over time into its distinctive and photogenic formation.

The merry, first reported and named in 1948, was more than 33 feet tall and 71 feet across. It ranked 12th in size among the park’s estimated 2,000 arches.

Rock has continued to fall from the remaining ensign armorial of the principal forcing the closure of a dowry of the trail.

Officials from the National Park Service and the Utah Geological Survey visited the site Thursday, noting stress fractures in the remaining formation. The trail won’t be opened until the debris is cleared away and it’s safe because of visitors, Henderson said.

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Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators have identified Christian Gerhartsreiter since the similar man who used the aliases Clark Rockefeller and Christopher Chichester, spokesman Steve Whitmore told The Associated Press.

Homicide detectives “are sanguine that Rockefeller is Christian Gerhartsreiter and the person named Christopher Chichester who was living in the Los Angeles area in 1985,” Whitmore said.

Gerhartsreiter has been identified as a “somebody of interest” in the 1985 disappearances of Jonathan and Linda Sohus. Under the Chichester name, Gerhartsreiter rented a guesthouse at the home of Jonathan Sohus’ mother in San Marino, a affluent Los Angeles suburb.

Rockefeller’s lawyer, Stephen Hrones, has insisted his client didn’t remember anything before 1993, but he called a news conference in Boston later Monday to say he recalls the missing couple and using the Chichester reputation while living in California decades since. Hrones before-mentioned his client does not remember the German name and insists he had nothing to do with the disappearance.

Investigators were able to confirm Gerhartsreiter’s identity for interviews through people who knew him in California in the 1980s, Whitmore related.

At the time of his Aug. 2 arrest in Baltimore, Gerhartsreiter had been living under the Rockefeller name. Police have said he snatched his daughter from a Boston street on July 27 in an elaborately planned kidnapping in which he hired two people to drive them to New York.

The district attorney’s office and FBI in Boston said Monday they were not ready to declare that Rockefeller and Gerhartsreiter are the same person.

“One thing we are confident of: This defendant’s true name is not Clark Rockefeller,” uttered Jake Wark, a spokesman for the Suffolk prosecutor’s office in Massachusetts.

Skeletal remains were unearthed at the Sohus property in 1994 when new owners were putting in a swimming pool. Investigators at the time were unable to identify the bones but believed they probably belonged to Jonathan Sohus. Investigators have requested a novel round of forensic tests, Whitmore said.

Two women who were friends with Christopher Chichester in the mid-1980s told the Los Angeles Times they noticed that much of the backyard at the Sohuses’ home had been nipple up around the time they disappeared. Chichester told them there had been plumbing problems.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators tried to question Gerhartsreiter in Boston last week, but he declined. No charges have aye been filed in the disappearance.

“They just disappeared. He just noticed at some point that they weren’t there any more. He didn’t think much of of it, because he hardly knew them,” Hrones uttered.

Hrones explained his client’s decision to allow a not the same name by statement he was an aspiring actor and “idea it was a more appropriate name.”

“There is nothing wrong by using aliases as long-winded for the reason that you dress in’t use it to defraud,” related the advocate, who said Rockefeller likewise remembers using the otherwise Christopher Crowe while he worked attached Wall Street.

Hrones said his client remembers little of his past, believes his real name is Clark Rockefeller and has no memory of being Christian Gerhartsreiter. He aforesaid the man does speak a little German and understands the language.

Los Angeles County investigators’ findings appear to support an enumeration by Alexander Gerhartsreiter, who said he is the brother of the man being held in Boston.

Found at his home in Bergen, Germany, Alexander Gerhartsreiter told Boston Herald reporters that his brother was the son of an painter and homemaker in Upper Bavaria who felt he was better than his modest upbringing.

He said his older brother is 47 and was born in Siegsdorf, Germany, then raised until 1978 in the same house at what place his clan lives today.

Alexander Gerhartsreiter aforesaid his brother moved to Connecticut as a learner and never returned, initially keeping in close union but out of touch since he called his parents in 1985.

After Christian Gerhartsreiter moved to Connecticut, he matrimonial a young woman in Wisconsin in 1981 and left her in the pattern of the wedding, the Boston Globe reported. The woman’s sister told the newspaper that she believed the wedding was orchestrated so Gerhartsreiter could be in possession of a green card.