Making his first trip to the region since he was named to take over the helm of the British energy giant, Dudley said with no oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico for two weeks the company’s focus was shifting to long term recovery.

“We’ve had some good news on the oil… but that doesn’t mean we’re done. We’ll be here for years,” Dudley told reporters in Mississippi, one of the five states hit by the massive oil spill.

The rate was sharply down from the first three months of the year, slamming the brakes on an already tepid rebound, although it was only slightly lower than the 2.5 percent expected by analysts.

In the first quarter, gross domestic product was revised to 3.7 percent, up substantially from a previously reported 2.7 percent.

Mayor Boris Johnson, himself a keen cyclist, said the scheme was a “new dawn” for pedal power in London, adding he hoped the bikes would become as common a sight on its streets as black cabs and red double-decker buses.

A total of 5,000 bicycles are available from 315 docking stations across the capital, many of them near landmarks such as Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament and the Tower of London.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer appealed against a judge’s injunction stripping the most contentious sections from the legislation, as angry protestors were met by scores of police in riot gear.

Civil rights groups marched through Phoenix, the capital of Arizona, to denounce the new law, even though a judge has temporarily stripped it of key powers allowing police to spot check the immigration status of all suspects.

After months of acrimony, Berlusconi late Thursday demanded that Fini leave his post, which the speaker categorically refused as around 30 lawmakers have indicated they are to join his breakaway movement.

A major defection of People of Freedom (PDL) lawmakers would end the absolute majority that the party and its coalition partner — the anti-immigration Northern League — enjoy in parliament.

BA, which is looking to merge with Spain’s Iberia, said losses after tax rose 15 percent to the equivalent of 146 million euros or 191 million dollars in the three months to June compared with a year earlier.

“Despite both revenues and cost being hit by the closure of UK airspace following the Icelandic volcanic eruption and the impact of industrial action, our financial performance improved during the quarter from underlying revenue increases and further cost reductions,” BA chief executive Willie Walsh said.

Incoming BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley said the company would attempt a “static kill” operation on Tuesday to try to plug the broken undersea Macondo well that caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

“We want to absolutely kill this well. The static kill will be attempted on Tuesday. The relief well by the end of the month (August),” said Dudley, BP’s top executive on the Gulf oil spill who will replace Tony Hayward as CEO on October 1.

Republicans warned the bill will slash U.S. oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, a major supplier of domestic energy, and cut high-paying drilling jobs.

“The Obama moratorium on deepwater drilling has already costs thousands of jobs and this bill will eliminate even more American energy jobs, making it harder and more expensive to produce both energy on and offshore,” said Republican Representative Pete Sessions.

Depending on how fast its exchange rate rises, China is on course to overtake the United States and vault into the No.1 spot sometime around 2025, according to projections by the World Bank, Goldman Sachs and others.

China came close to surpassing Japan in 2009 and the disclosure by a senior official that it had now done so comes as no surprise. Indeed, Yi Gang, China’s chief currency regulator, mentioned the milestone in passing in remarks published on Friday.

The fastest rate of business spending in four years would normally be associated with increased confidence in the economy, but analysts said cash-flush companies were merely making up for ground lost during the recession.

Another factor pointing to anemic growth in coming quarters was a big rise in inventories. Against a backdrop of tepid consumer demand, the increase implied businesses probably have too much stock on their shelves and in their warehouses.

“Obviously I have no intention of resigning,” Gianfranco Fini told a news conference a day after Berlusconi effectively booted him out of the party they founded jointly two years ago, raising the specter of early elections.

A combative Fini attacked Berlusconi for “having not exactly a liberal concept of democracy” and for trying to run a government like an autocratic CEO, “which has nothing to do with our democratic institutions.”

An Army intelligence officer, already under arrest, is at the center of an investigation into the leak of more than 90,000 secret records to WikiLeaks, one of the biggest security breaches in U.S. military history, U.S. officials have said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates declined to comment on the probe but said he could not rule out more leaks of classified information. He also announced plans to tighten access to sensitive intelligence data.

Lawyers for Governor Jan Brewer and Arizona asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to lift an injunction blocking the most intrusive parts of the law, known as SB 1070, and asked for the appeal to be handled quickly.

Tensions over the law have inflamed a national debate over immigration, which has festered for decades and promises to play into the elections in November, when President Barack Obama’s Democrats are fighting to retain control of Congress.

Tens of thousands of people – many of them idled fishermen – have been involved in the cleanup, but more than two weeks after the leak was stopped there is relatively little oil on the surface, leaving less work for oil skimmers to do.

Bob Dudley, who heads BP’s oil spill recovery and will take over as CEO in October, said it’s “not too soon for a scaleback” in the cleanup, and in areas where there is no oil, “you probably don’t need to see people in hazmat suits on the beach.”

There were several signs Friday that the era of thousands of oil-skimming boats and hazmat-suited beach crews is giving way to long-term efforts to clean up, compensate people for their losses and understand the damage wrought. Local fishermen are doubtful, however, and say oil remains a bigger problem than BP and the federal government are letting on.

Other people contend the impact of the spill has been overblown, given that little oil remains on the Gulf surface, but Bob Dudley, who heads BP’s oil spill recovery and will take over as CEO in October, rejected those claims.

Six more Americans were reported killed in fighting in the south – three Thursday and three Friday – pushing the U.S. death toll for July to a record 66 and surpassing June as the deadliest month for U.S. forces in the nearly nine-year war.

U.S. officials confirmed the latest American deaths Friday but gave no further details. Five of the latest reported deaths were a result of hidden bombs – the insurgents’ weapon of choice – and the sixth to an armed attack, NATO said in statements.

Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman confirms that the governor called top legislative leaders to broach the possibility of changing provisions of the law on Thursday, a day after U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton issued a preliminary injunction.

Senseman says the possibility of having legislators meet in special session to consider changing the law is merely being explored. He says Brewer is still pressing ahead with her appeal of Bolton’s order.

The internal draft written by officials at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services outlines ways that the government could provide “relief” to illegal immigrants – including delaying deportation for some, perhaps indefinitely, or granting green cards to others – in the absence of legislation revamping the system.

It’s emerging as chances fade in this election year for a measure President Barack Obama favors to put the nation’s estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants on a path to legal status, and as debate rages over an Arizona law targeting people suspected of being in the country illegally.

The House ethics committee has a range of punishments it can administer or recommend to the full House. A reprimand is simply a vote by the House to express displeasure with a member’s conduct, and would follow a finding of guilt in a trial.

Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, said the two Democrats and two Republicans on the panel that investigated Rangel for two years were not unanimous in bringing all 13 charges against him, and “the recommendation we had was a reprimand.” Green is one of the Democrats on the panel.

In a speech in Grenoble, the site of recent urban unrest, Sarkozy said that the current list of causes for revoking French nationality would be reevaluated and “rights and benefits” accorded to illegal immigrants would be reviewed.

Meanwhile, a video posted on the Internet showing riot police roughly rousting African immigrant squatters, including one visibly pregnant woman, from an encampment at a housing project prompted shocked reactions around the country.

Americans spent less and businesses thought twice about restocking their shelves in the past three months, making for a sluggish spring. And the government now says the recession was a deeper hole to climb out of than previously known.

The gross domestic product, the broadest measure of U.S. economic output, grew at an annual rate of 2.4 percent from April to June, down from 3.7 percent the quarter before and the weakest showing in nearly a year. Many economists say the economy is growing even more slowly now.

The composition of the “Idol” judges’ panel seems to be changing by the minute, in flux like a lunch counter during the noon rush.

Everyone but Larry King and Kate Gosselin is rumored as a candidate to replace tart-tongued Simon Cowell (out the door to create his own talent competition), Ellen DeGeneres and who knows who else.

The singer-dancer-actor was close to signing a deal to join Fox TV’s hit singing contest, a person familiar with the negotiations said late Thursday. The person, who was not authorized to comment publicly, spoke on condition of anonymity.

Fox declined comment. Phone and e-mail messages for Lopez’s representatives were not immediately returned.

Touring Chrysler and General Motors assembly plants, Obama argued that his administration’s unpopular $60 billion bailout of the two companies – essentially government-funded forced bankruptcies – was paying off. Clear evidence that he sees an opening to appeal to recession-weary voters, Obama will continue to press the same case next week when he tours the Chicago plant where Ford Motor Co. builds the Taurus sedan and plans to assemble a new Explorer sport utility vehicle.

Few disagree that the intervention helped keep the firms afloat.

With its proposed amendment, is the Obama administration merely clarifying a statute or expanding it? Only time and a suddenly on guard Congress will tell.

Federal law requires communications providers to produce records in counterintelligence investigations to the FBI, which doesn’t need a judge’s approval and court order to get them.

Republican Roy Blunt and Democrat Robin Carnahan have been campaigning against each other for almost a year and a half in Missouri’s U.S. Senate race, since shortly after four-term Republican Kit Bond announced he would not seek re-election.

On Tuesday, they may finally become their parties’ official nominees.

Scalia offered these insights and many others during an appearance in Montana this week that provided a unique glimpse into the beliefs of the Supreme Court justice.

He said the Supreme Court should abandon the notion of a “living constitution” – an approach the court adopted in the last half of the 20th century that has resulted in the nation’s charter being rewritten time and again by unelected judges who are unqualified to make decisions on morality.

Obama administration officials said the investigation into the release of 76,911 documents could extend beyond members of the military. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said posting the war logs on the Web jeopardized national security and put the lives of Afghan informants and U.S. military personnel at risk.

Asked what the Obama administration could do to stop the disclosure of more war secrets, Gibbs said, “We can do nothing but implore the person that has those classified top secret documents not to post any more.”

As it turns out, the feud isn’t completely over.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is considering granting a posthumous pardon to Billy the Kid, angering descendants of Garrett who call it an insult to recognize such a violent outlaw.

Summerville Councilman Walter Bailey, worried there is a void in immigration laws, has proposed an ordinance that goes farther than state law, which was sharpened two years ago to allow police to identify illegal immigrants for deportation.

The proposal would prevent illegal immigrants from living in the town of 45,000, which calls itself “Flower Town in the Pines,” and in most cases prevent them from working here.

Sherrod was forced to resign last week as director of rural development in Georgia after Andrew Breitbart posted the edited video online. In the full video, Sherrod, who is black, spoke to a local NAACP group about racial reconciliation and overcoming her initial reluctance to help a white farmer.

Speaking Thursday at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, Sherrod said she would definitely sue over the video that took her remarks out of context. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has since offered Sherrod a new job in the department. She has not decided whether to accept.

Missouri on Tuesday will become the first state to the test the popularity of President Barack Obama’s top policy accomplishment with a statewide ballot proposal attempting to reject its core mandate that most Americans have health insurance.

The legal effect of Missouri’s measure is questionable, because federal laws generally supersede those in states. But its expected passage could send an ominous political message to Democrats seeking to hang on to their congressional majority in this year’s midterm elections.

But there’s one thing Malia Obama hasn’t done, until now, her dad says, and it’s a rite of passage countless kids have experienced: a summer at camp, bunking with a bunch of other girls in a wooden cabin or tent, sharing chores, swatting away mosquitoes and giggling the night away.

It’s a wonderful time – lumpy cots and all – say advocates of the camp experience, who are thrilled with the presidential decision to let Malia partake in a classic American tradition.

The Anglo-Dutch oil giant reported a 15-percent jump in net profit to 4.39 billion dollars (3.38 billion euros) in the second quarter to June as it slashed costs and raised output.

Shell’s performance contrasts with that of BP, which on Tuesday posted a second-quarter loss of 16.9 billion dollars — the biggest-ever quarterly loss for a British company — after the devastating Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

But years of legal wrangles and probes lie ahead and myriad questions remain about the long-term effects of the massive oil spill on wildlife, the environment and the livelihoods of Gulf residents.

US officials were anxious not to sound too optimistic ahead of next week’s crucial operations and cautioned that a mountain of work lay ahead to clean up oiled shorelines and pick up some 20 million feet (3,800 miles) of boom.

Demonstrators angrily denounced the law, even though a judge has temporarily stripped it of key powers allowing police to spot check the immigration status of all suspects.

Civil rights groups were urging state schools, town and city governments and local police departments not to comply with the law, and began a march from a church to the courthouse and the offices of tough county sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Commuters and tourists infuriated by heavy traffic and often overcrowded, unreliable public transport finally have a two-wheeled alternative, similar to schemes already in place in Paris, Shanghai and dozens of cities worldwide.

From Friday, they can pick up one of 6,000 bicycles from 400 docking stations in central London — including at the British Museum and Buckingham Palace — then pedal to their destination and drop it off, all for a small fee.

The Brazilian was at the wrong end of a controversial demand to pull over and let Alonso overtake and go on to claim victory in Germany last weekend.

When asked at the Hungaroring circuit ahead of Friday’s first free practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix what would happen if he was faced with the same situation, he replied, “I will win.

Pakistan’s ambassador to Britain accused Cameron of “damaging the prospects of regional peace” while the foreign ministry in Islamabad reminded him of the nation’s commitment and sacrifices in the fight against terror.

Cameron’s trip to India was meant to showcase his new foreign policy based on commercial interests, but the minefield of India-Pakistan relations and regional security risked overshadowing his pitch for investment and open trade.

In experiments on rabbits, the researchers coaxed the animals’ stem cells to rebuild the bone and cartilage of a missing leg joint, according to a study published on Thursday.

“This is the first time an entire joint surface was regenerated with return of functions including weight bearing and locomotion,” lead researcher Jeremy Mao, a professor at Columbia University Medical Center, said in a statement.

Cameron was to hold talks in New Delhi with top officials including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and attend a summit on expanding economic relations between Britain and its former colony — now one of the world’s fastest growing economies.

In a two-day trip seen as a test of Cameron’s new focus on business in Britain’s foreign policy, manufacturing groups BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce used the first day to unveil two defence deals worth a combined one billion dollars.

Attorneys hoping to lead the legal fight against BP are set to descend on Boise, Idaho, to address a special judicial panel considering how to bring order to the hundreds of civil lawsuits spawned by the spill after a rig explosion on April 20.

“There will be more lawyers in that courtroom than exist in the entire city of Boise put together,” Mark Lanier, a Houston-based lawyer who plans to attend the hearing, joked this week. “It’s going to be a circus.

Even as a kid, “Bobby” as he was then known “was completely unflappable,” remembers Charles Brent, Dudley’s hometown friend in southern Mississippi in the 1960s.

If he tried out for a sports team and got cut, he kept his emotions in check. “Nothing got him upset,” said Brent, now a neurosurgeon. “He was often on the bad end of an injustice — where someone was selected instead of him. I never saw him get angry or raise his voice. Or disappointed.”

Hispanic and labor activists, delighted by Wednesday’s last minute ruling, pushed ahead with protests in central Phoenix, chanting, banging drums and blocking a street to challenge the law’s remaining measures aimed at illegal immigrants.

Tensions over the law inflamed a national debate over immigration, which has festered for decades and promises to play into the elections in November, when President Barack Obama’s Democrats are fighting to retain control of Congress.

Unemployment was the main culprit driving foreclosure actions on more than 1.6 million properties, the company said.

“We’re not going to see meaningful, sustainable home price appreciation while we’re seeing 75 percent of the markets have increases in foreclosures,” RealtyTrac senior vice president Rick Sharga said in an interview.

The deficit is 22 percent of the $85 billion general fund budget the governor signed last July for the fiscal year that ended in June, highlighting how the steep drop in California’s revenue due to recession, the housing slump, financial market turmoil and high unemployment have slashed its all-important personal income tax collection.

In the declaration, Schwarzenegger ordered three days off without pay per month beginning in August for tens of thousands of state employees to preserve the state’s cash to pay its debt, and for essential services.

The world’s largest online retailer and leading e-reader seller also revealed its third generation Kindle, some 21 percent smaller and 15 percent lighter than the previous version, but still priced at $189.

Amazon does not give sales figures for the Kindle, but said last week that its growth rate tripled after it cut its price on the device from $259 and said e-books were outselling hardcover books. Apple has said it sold more than 3 million iPads, starting at $499, since the product was introduced in April.

The so-called static kill can begin when crews finish work on drilling the relief well 50 miles offshore that is needed for a permanent fix.

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said crews would drop in casing for the relief well later Thursday, and that could speed up work on the static kill, though he did not say how much. He previously said it would begin late Sunday or early Monday.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration told Enbridge Energy Partners Chairman Terry McGill in a Jan. 21 letter that its corrosion monitoring in Line 6B, the line that ruptured, did not comply with federal regulations.

According to the warning, Enbridge was implementing an alternate way of monitoring corrosion in the pipeline, and had detailed to regulators the steps it was taking to track corrosion in the meantime.

They also said a temporary cap on the busted well is holding firm and there is very little oil sheen on the water’s surface 100 days after the rig explosion that triggered the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government’s oil spill chief, said during a news conference in New Orleans that officials are taking every precaution as they move toward a permanent fix.

Sherrod was forced to resign last week as director of rural development in Georgia after Andrew Breitbart posted the edited video online. In the full video, Sherrod, who is black, spoke to a local NAACP group about racial reconciliation and overcoming her initial reluctance to help a white farmer.

Speaking Thursday at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, Sherrod said she would definitely sue over the video that took her remarks out of context. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has since offered Sherrod a new job in the department. She has not decided whether to accept.

The survey also found that Pakistanis have grown less fearful of extremists seizing control of their country, perhaps reflecting gains that government troops have made against militants since early 2009.

Most Pakistanis want improved relations with the United States, according to the poll. But most view the U.S. with suspicion, support for American involvement in the fight against extremists has declined, and nearly two-thirds want U.S. troops out of neighboring Afghanistan.

It was the bloodiest attack in a day that included the deaths of 23 Iraqi soldiers, policemen and other security forces across the country who were targeted by shootings and roadside bombs.

The mayhem serves as a stark warning that insurgents are trying to make a comeback three months after their two top leaders were killed in an airstrike on their safehouse, and as the U.S. military presence decreases day by day.

An investigation is under way, but with both sailors dead, U.S. authorities remained at a loss Thursday to explain what two junior enlisted men in noncombat jobs were doing driving alone in Logar province, where much of the countryside is not under government control.

“This is like a puzzle,” said Abdul Wali, deputy head of the governing council in Logar.

Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s critical role in the Afghan conflict was reinforced this month when the civilian government extended his term by three years. Kayani, 58, is known to be popular among U.S. and NATO generals who have sought to enlist his help in battling militants along the country’s border with Afghanistan.

So crucial is Kayani to the American war effort that when classified documents were posted by Wikileaks this week suggesting that Pakistani spies led by Kayani had colluded with the Taliban, the Obama administration didn’t utter a word of opprobrium against him publicly.

Republican Gov. Jan Brewer called U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton’s Wednesday’s decision halting the law “a bump in the road,” and the state appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Thursday.

Outside the state Capitol, hundreds of protesters began marching at dawn, gathering in front of the federal courthouse where Bolton issued her ruling on Wednesday. They marched on to the office of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has made a crackdown on illegal immigration one of his signature issues.

Missouri on Tuesday will become the first state to the test the popularity of President Barack Obama’s top policy accomplishment with a statewide ballot proposal attempting to reject its core mandate that most Americans have health insurance.

The legal effect of Missouri’s measure is questionable, because federal laws generally supersede those in states. But its expected passage could send an ominous political message to Democrats seeking to hang on to their congressional majority in this year’s midterm elections.

John Metzler, who ran the historic military burial ground for 19 years, said he accepts “full responsibility” for the problems.

But he also denied some of the findings by Army investigators and suggested cemetery employees and poor technology were to blame for remains that may have been misidentified or misplaced. He said the system used to track grave sites relied mostly on a complicated paper trail vulnerable to error.

The allegations – which include failure to report rental income from vacation property in the Dominican Republic and to report more than $600,000 in assets on his congressional financial disclosure statements – came as lawyers for Rangel and the House ethics committee worked on a plea deal.

One was struck, people familiar with the talks said, but Republicans indicated it was too late.

Michael Unglo, 39, formerly of Etna in suburban Pittsburgh, committed suicide in May at a center in Stockbridge, Mass., according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by The Associated Press. He alleged he was molested in the early 1980s while an altar boy by a priest who was convicted of molesting another boy and later resigned.

The diocese decided to stop paying for Unglo’s treatment even though the diocese continued to pay for the priest’s health insurance and a monthly stipend, Alan Perer, attorney for Unglo’s estate, said Thursday at a news conference.

By the time prosecutors and defense attorneys were done, there had been no sharp-tongued Rahm Emanuel on the stand, squaring off with Blagojevich’s lawyers over the White House chief of staff’s talks with an adviser to the ousted governor about who to appoint to the Senate.

There was no Alexi Giannoulias, the current Illinois treasurer and Democratic candidate for Obama’s old seat, being asked about how he introduced a union official to a close Obama adviser that Blagojevich considered for the Senate seat.

The two new studies conclude that “hands-only” chest compression is enough to save a life. They are the largest and most rigorous yet to suggest that breathing into a victim’s mouth isn’t needed in most cases.

The American Heart Association has been promoting hands-only CPR for two years, though it’s not clear how much it’s caught on. The new studies should encourage dispatchers and bystanders to be more aggressive about using the simpler technique.

She now works in customer service for a major New York bank, and her experience reflects the findings of an Associated Press-Univision poll that examined the attitudes of Latino adults toward higher education. Despite strong belief in the value of a college diploma, Hispanics more often than not fall short of that goal.

The findings have broad implications not only for educators and parents, but for the economy.

The law restores Soviet-era powers to the Federal Security Service, the KGB’s main successor agency, a move that rights advocates fear could be used to stifle protests and intimidate the Kremlin’s political opponents. They also say the law’s obscure wording leaves it too open to local interpretation.

The agency, known by its initials FSB, can now issue warnings or detain people suspected of preparing to commit crimes against Russia’s security. Perpetrators face fines or up to 15 days of detention.

The latest quarterly AP Economy Survey shows economists have turned gloomier in the past three months. They foresee weaker growth and higher unemployment than they did before. As a result, the economists think the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates near zero until at least next spring.

Yet despite their expectation of slower growth, a majority of the 42 economists surveyed believe the recovery remains on track, raising hopes that the economy can avoid falling back into a “double-dip” recession.

Japan’s biggest consumer electronics maker said in a statement Thursday it will buy shares in the two companies through a public tender offer, aiming for a complete purchase by April 2011. Shares in the target companies soared while Panasonic tumbled.

Panasonic Corp. already owns 51 percent of Panasonic Electric Works Co., which has lighting, electric and housing operations, and owns 50.05 percent of Sanyo Electric Co., a money-losing unit with strong battery and solar panel businesses that Panasonic took over in December.

The trend is the latest sign that the nation’s foreclosure crisis is worsening as homeowners battling high unemployment, slow job growth and an uneven rebound in home prices continue to fall behind on their mortgage payments.

In all, 154 out of 206 metropolitan areas with at least 200,000 residents posted an annual increase in foreclosure activity between January and June, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

The Justice Department inspector general is investigating whether hundreds of agents cheated on the test. Some took the open-book test together, violating rules that they take it alone. Others finished the lengthy exam unusually quickly, current and former officials said.

The test was supposed to ensure that FBI agents understand new rules allowing them to conduct surveillance and open files on Americans without evidence of criminal wrongdoing. If agents can’t pass that test without cheating, civil liberties groups ask, how can they follow them?

Examiner Harold E. Moore determined that Officer Jeremy Massey was maintaining custody of 18-year-old Cornelius Gill while protecting himself as three others came toward him during the Nov. 11 arrest.

The arrest sparked outrage in racially charged Paris, about 90 miles northeast of Dallas, where the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panther Party led protests last year after murder charges were dropped against two white defendants accused of fatally striking a black man with a pickup truck.

Michael Moore wants to bring those theaters back. The Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker has a plan to refurbish or prop up downtown movie houses in his home state of Michigan – and eventually nationwide.

Such efforts have been made before. But Moore’s approach has a twist, modeled on the successful resurrection of the State Theatre in Traverse City, his adopted hometown in northern Michigan.

Four roadblocks stood between them and freedom.

What Zoltan Pfeiffer, a top political figure opposed to Soviet occupation, his wife and 5-year-old daughter did not know as they were whisked out of Hungary in 1947 was that their driver, James McCargar, was a covert agent for one of America’s most secretive espionage agencies, known simply as the Pond.

About five hours later, search dogs were on the ground.

Meanwhile, radio operators were already intercepting messages indicating the worst: One of their own was in enemy hands.