The latest salvo from those hoping Gore would reprise his 2000 run for the White House came in a full-page ad in The New York Times sponsored by draftgore.com, which says it is a group of grass-roots Democrats. Gore has said repeatedly, if not definitively, that he is not planning to seek the presidency.

"Your country needs you now — as do your party and the planet you are fighting so hard to save," said Wednesday's ad, which group founder Monica Friedlander of Oakland, Calif., said cost $65,000.

Despite no overt campaigning for the presidency, Gore was backed by 12 percent of Democrats in this month's Associated Press-Ipsos poll. That's down from 20 percent in June, but enough to tie for third with former Sen. John Edwards, well behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and just trailing Sen. Barack Obama.

"Doggone him," Pat Sutton, 69, a Gore supporter and homemaker from Lincoln, Neb., said of Gore's non-candidacy. "That's the kind of president I want, who's willing to stand up to the hard stuff. And there's a lot of hard stuff out there."

"He's far and away more intelligent than the others," said Jason Thompson, 36, an environmental health inspector in Fort Myers, Fla. "I like his environmental stand, I think he's the more sincere of the candidates, and I think he got hosed in his first election" when George W. Bush defeated him in 2000 in a disputed election.

Longtime political aide Roy Neel, who runs Gore's office in Nashville, Tenn., said the former vice president is focusing on prompting action against global warming. He said he has seen no signs Gore is contemplating a race.

"He's making no plans, and we're doing nothing," said Neel, adding, "He's not ruled it out in the future."

Asked what "the future" meant, Neel said, "Sometime later than today."

Donna Brazile, campaign manager for Gore's bitter 2000 loss to Bush, said she believes he will not run — this time.

"He's very comfortable and committed" to his work on global warming, she said, and to business pursuits that include Current TV, a cable network he helped found. She would not rule out a future presidential run.

"Al Gore should be viable for the rest of his life" as a candidate, she said.

Gore has been in the public eye this year, particularly in February when the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" about his efforts to educate about global warming won the Oscar for best documentary. Current TV also captured an Emmy.

Friends hope a crowning third award will come later this week, when the Nobel Prize for peace is announced.

As Mozilla continues to develop Mozilla2, the second version of the platform on which Firefox is built, it will add mobile devices as a category. That means developers of Mozilla2, which is expected to be complete in early 2009, will keep mobile phones in mind as they build the new platform, Schroepfer wrote.

He didn't get more specific on a release date for the mobile browser other than to say "not before 2008." Schroepfer also said Mozilla hadn't yet decided which mobile phones the browser would work on.

Depending on compatibility, Mozilla could face competition from companies such as Microsoft Corp. and Apple that include their own browsers in phones running their operating systems, as well as from third parties such as Opera Software ASA that have been fine-tuning their mobile browsers for years now.

The announcement comes after the release earlier this year of a new version of Minimo, a Mozilla-based mobile browser for Windows Mobile devices. A few months prior to the release, the lead developer of Minimo said he wouldn't be spending much time on the project in the future. On Tuesday, Schroepfer said that there are no plans to further develop Minimo.

Mozilla also offers Joey, a project in development that lets users clip and save text, photos, videos and other content while using a PC and then access that content through a browser on a cell phone.

Mozilla is also involved with a group of companies including Arm Ltd. and MontaVista Software Inc. that is developing an open-source Linux-based platform for devices that are bigger than a cell phone but smaller than a laptop. Mozilla is developing a browser for the platform and has already built one for a similar device, the N800, from Nokia Corp.

The new Mozilla hires who will contribute to the mobile Firefox initiative are Christian Sejersen, who recently worked for Openwave Systems Inc., and Brad Lassey, who worked for France Telecom R&D, which has been very active in mobile Linux initiatives.

In June 2003, the state gave class-action status to the case which grew to include 1.7 million people who bought similar computers.

H-P is a major employer in Roseville.

"The critical question is the price level of homes in the United States, which are almost certainly going to fall," Greenspan said, as the hefty inventory of unsold homes continues to drive down prices. "What we don't know at this stage is whether, in fact, the decline in home prices will be a large one or a modest one," he said.

Given the current climate, the odds that the United States will skirt a recession now look better than 50/50, Greenspan said. In March, he put the odds of a recession over the next six to nine months at one-third, but that could be offset by stock market prices if they continue to rise, he said.

Greenspan also addressed the credit crisis that roiled markets this summer, noting that credit market adjustments were "an accident waiting to happen" given the low level of credit spreads for such a long period of time.

"History always suggests that that does not last," Greenspan said. "If it wasn't subprime, it would have been something else."

The United States came into the credit crisis amid a "fairly strong" global economic upswing, and talking about the U.S. economy without the worldwide context is "no longer relevant," he said.

Turning to China, Greenspan said growth there has been "quite remarkable," adding that "nobody is fully cognizant or understands why they have done so well for so long." China has moved dramatically toward capitalism, he said, and even though its economy appears to be "overheating," the country continues to progress.

Greenspan also said rising Chinese inflation was of little significance, noting that much of the increase was due to rising food prices.

But, he added, "at some point, they've got to slow down" and other areas of eastern Asia could begin to successfully compete with the country. At least through the Olympics, however, China "should do very well," he said.

Since August, Mattel has announced three separate recalls of some 21 million toys because of dangers to children from lead paint or from tiny magnets that can be harmful if swallowed.

Attorneys representing the Sterling Heights, Mich., police and fire pension fund allege that Mattel knew about the defects for months but failed to report them to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, as required by federal law. They allege that the company has withheld information about its products from the commission for years in order to prop up sales and avoid fines, thereby artificially inflating the value of Mattel's shares and breaching their fiduciary duties to shareholders.

Officials with El Segundo, Calif.-based Mattel did not immediately respond to a telephone call and e-mail seeking comment on the lawsuit.

The law requires annual math and reading tests in grades three through eight and once in high school. Schools that miss benchmarks face increasingly tough consequences, such as having to replace their curriculum, teachers or principals.

Earlier, Bush and Education Secretary Margaret Spellings met with civil rights leaders, educators and advocates for minority and disadvantaged students.

Almost everyone agrees the law should be changed to encourage schools to measure individual student progress over time instead of using snapshot comparisons of certain grade levels.

There also is broad agreement that the law should be changed so that schools that miss progress goals by a little don't face the same consequences as schools that miss them by a lot.

There are, however, deep divisions over some proposed changes, including merit pay for teachers and whether schools should be judged based on test scores in subjects other than reading and math.

Opponents to some of the legislative proposals come from the conservative and liberal wings of Congress.

National Urban League President Marc Morial, who was in the meeting with Bush, said the law hasn't been funded even to the levels authorized in the original legislation. But he and others did not lay the blame entirely at Bush's feet.

"Both Congress and the president should make the collective funding of this act a priority," Morial said.

Morial said he and others also talked to Bush about addressing the disparity in the amount of money committed to educating children in different parts of the country, and about strengthening a provision in the law calling for after-school services to help children who fall behind.

Bush listed several ways for enhancing the law:

_Give local leaders more flexibility and resources.

_Offer other educational options to families of children stuck in low-performing schools.

_Increase access to tutoring programs.

_Reward good teachers who improve student achievement in low-income schools.

_Expand access to advanced placement courses.

_Improve math and science instruction.

The president noted national test results released last month that showed elementary and middle schoolers posting across-the-board gains in math and more modest improvements in reading. But he also noted that nearly half of Hispanic and black students still do not graduate from high school on time.

The Commission charges that Dawson primarily ripped off his elderly clients in Long Island, NY. As their financial advisor, he recommended that they surrender their variable annuity policies and mortgage their residences. Then he told them to transfer the proceeds to Ethan Thomas for Dawson to manage through BMG.

To get them to agree, Dawson allegedly lied about his investments and how he planned to use their funds. He promised guaranteed returns of between 12% and 15%, and told clients that he would arrange to either pay their mortgages, or pay out monthly returns on the investments they made. In cases where the guaranteed return exceeded the client's mortgage payments, he claimed the excess return would accrue in the client's account.

But instead of investing the money as promised, Dawson misappropriated his clients’ money for his own use. He directly withdrew at least $100,000 of client assets for his personal use.

By March of 2006, he was pushing his clients for fresh infusions of cash just to keep making the mortgage payments he had promised to make.

It appears that the scheme began collapsing in earnest in the summer of 2006. Between August 17 and 23, 2006, the bank servicing the account intended to make Dawson's mortgage payments returned twenty-one checks for insufficient funds, totaling approximately $172,176. By October of 2006, some investors began receiving notices that their mortgages were not being paid. But when they complained to Dawson, who refused to return their calls, and closed down BMG's office.

Then, on November 7, 2006, Dawson attempted to commit suicide. After being briefly

Hospitalized, he was released on November 17, 2006.

One example of Dawson's fraud involved a 64-year old investor. In 2004, he recommended that the investor refinance his New York home. The investor then lived in Long Island and had been Dawson's client for approximately ten years. Dawson advised the investor to transfer the a large chunk of the proceeds from the refinancing to a "special account" at one of Dawson's firms. He guaranteed the investor a 15% return and promised to make the mortgage payments on the investor's Long Island residence from the investment returns of the "special account." By 2005, that investor had transferred approximately $700,000 to Dawson for his firms to manage.

In October 2006, Dawson sent that investor a BMG fax claiming: "Your certified balance of funds as of March 24,2006 are $884,522.14. The funds are managed by BMG Advisory Services, Ltd." The letter was an utter lie, according to the Commission.

The Commission is also seeking disgorgement of all ill-gotten gains and civil penalties, as well as additional relief, including orders permanently enjoining Dawson from committing future violations of the foregoing federal securities laws.