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Bush leads in battleground states by Will Lester Associated Press Washington - The challenge facing A1 Gore in the batt'e to win states, and electoral votes, was underscored last week as Republican George W. Bush campaigned in California. The powerhouse state, where Gore once led comfortably, now appears competitive. And Bush is showing strength in the polls in many other crucial states. In 20 states where both campaigns are focusing their energy and advertis ing, Bush has a lead or an edge in more than half, including some states De mocrats should be able to count on. He was even with Gore in seven of those states, while Gore was ahead in two. “I can’t think of any state where Gore is over-performing,” said Stuart Rothen berg, a nonpartisan political analyst. “From what I’ve seen in the tossup states and even some states that are reliably Democratic, Bush has an advantage.” After the Republican National Con vention, Bush’s single-digit lead grew into double-digits in national polls, rang ing from 11 points in some surveys to 18 points in a tracking poll. Gore heads to the Democratic National Con vention in Los Angeles next week seek ing a poll “bounce” of his own. “This is a hurricane passing over the political electorate,” Republican poll ster Neil Newhouse said of the conven tions’ effect on public opinion. “We’re in the eye now, then we’re going to have the Democratic Convention.” Substantial improvement by Gbre in national [lolls should help him in the state-by-state battle for electoral votes, which is how the presidency is won. Whoever wins a state gets its elec toral votes. California, the biggest prize, has 54 electoral votes - one-fifth of the 270 needed to win. “A rising tide lifts all boats,” New house said, using pollsters’ favorite ex pression to describe the relationship be tween national and state polls. “Gore needs to raise his numbers nationally be fore targeting states.” Gore’s widely praised vice presi dential pick of Sen. Joe Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew from Connecticut, should give him a boost along with the week long convention exposure, some say. Gore couldn’t have made a stronger pick, said Charles Oberly, a Democrat and former Delaware attorney general who (knows) Lieberman. “The whole situation has changed in a subtle manner,” he said. “Picking Lieberman will prove a dynamic move. He’s an extremely solid, contemplative, good person.” Bush has an edge in polls in Delaware, as in many battleground states. But Oberly thought Lieberman’s addi tion to the ticket - he was the first De mocrat in Congress to chastise President Clinton for the Monica Lewinsky scan dal - could help level the playing field on moral values. “We feel that as voters begin to fo cus on the campaign and the candidates’ stand on the issues, they’ll see that A1 Gore is on their side,” said Gore cam paign spokesman Doug Hattaway. “The choice of Joe Lieberman has created a lot of excitement and attention.” Bush was traveling through Cali fornia this week, before heading to Ore gon and Washington - competitive states where Gore should be strong. “This allows us to spend time in tra ditional Democratic strongholds while A1 Gore has to fight to secure his base,” Bush campaign spokesman Ari Fleisch er said. In California, a poll released Thurs day by the Public Policy Institute of Cal ifornia, found Gore backed by 40 per cent of likely voters while Bush drew 37 percent. A Field Poll conducted in June found Gore backed by 46 percent of likely voters and Bush by 35. percent. Gore’s campaign hopes to build his electoral base in Northeastern and West Coast states and fight it out in the bat tlegrounds of Illinois, Michigan, Mis souri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jer sey. “Gore is probably going to do worse in the South than in the rest of the coun try,” said Charles Bullock, a political scientist at the University of Georgia. “He doesn’t have the charisma that Clin ton had and Bush seems to have.” Gore has an edge in his home state of Tennessee, and is within striking dis tance in Georgia. Both men are close in Florida, which Clinton won in 1996. His immediate concern is to solidi fy his base of support in crucial states like California. Brief inflation jump produces little effect > on July retail pricing by Martin Crutsinger Associated Press Washington - Inflation at the wholesale level, after a huge jump in June caused by soaring energy costs, disappeared altogether last month as prices remained unchanged. The Labor Department said Fri day that its Producer Price Index, which measures inflation pressures before they reach the consumer, was flat in July, a significant easing of price pressures following a hefty 0.6 percent surge in June. The turnabout was the result of a big swing in gasoline and other en ergy costs, which declined by 0.7 per cent in July after having jumped 5.1 percent the month before. The July performance for whole sale prices was even better than econ omists had been expecting. They had been looking for a small 0.1 percent rise. Friday’s wholesale inflation re port, likely a harbinger of good news for next week’s report on consumer inflation, was viewed as providing a further reason for the Federal Re serve to leave interest rates unchanged when policy-makers next meet on Aug. 22. The news at the wholesale level was also good after excluding volatile food and energy costs. The so-called core rate of inflation was up just 0.1 percent in July, after having fallen 0.1 percent in June. The Commerce Department re ported today that retail sales rose a stronger-than-expected 0.7 percent in July, propelled by sharp gains in purchases of autos and other big-tick et items. So far this year, inflation at the wholesale level has risen at an an nual rate of 4.1 percent, an acceler ation from a 2.9 percent rise in whole sale prices for all of 1999. This speed-up was caused by the surge' in energy prices. Exclud ing energy and food, wholesale prices have risen a very moderate 1.1 per cent, basically unchanged from last year’s 0.9 percent increase in core inflation. For July, energy costs were down 0.7 percent, the biggest decline since a 3 percent plunge in April. Last month, gasoline prices fell 9.1 per cent, the biggest drop since a decline of 10 percent in April. The overall drop in energy costs came despite the fact that natural gas prices rose 6.2 percent, the second big monthly rise. Residential electric power prices were up 2 percent last month, the biggest jump in more than nine years. However, home heat ing oil costs fell in July by 1.3 per cent. Food costs were flat last month following two consecutive monthly declines. Prices were held back last month by big declines in the price of eggs, fruit and vegetables. Beef prices were also down, falling 1.4 per cent, the biggest decrease since last November. Outside of food and energy, new car prices were down 0.5 percent and small truck prices were off 0.1 per cent, the best showing in this cate gory since a 0.8 percent drop in Jan uary. The Fed has raised interest rates six times over the past 14 months in an effort to slow the economy enough Economy see page io Retired Army general oversees drug war aid By Will Weissert Associated Press CARTAGENA, Colombia - Bar ry McCaffrey, a retired four-star U.S. Army general who has led Washing ton’s war on drugs for the past five years, is facing one of his toughest battles yet. He is overseeing a controversial $ 1.3 billion U.S. aid package to Colombia that includes combat he licopters, weapons and training by the elite U.S. Special Forces - all part of an effort to stanch the flow of drugs out of a country riven by war, death squads and drug lords. Despite the scale of the task be fore him, McCaffrey remains opti mistic. “There’s a widespread belief on the part of a lot of very smart peo ple that confronting drug production in Colombia is obviously impossible and therefore why should you start,” McCaffrey said in an interview this week in Colombia. “But the situa tion here is not hopeless.” McCaffrey and U.S. Undersec retary of Stale Thomas Pickering met Thursday with Colombian President Andres Pastrana to work out the fi nal details of the aid package. Most 'of the money will go to supply this Andean nation with about 100 U.S. military advisers, 60 combat heli copters, weapons, and miscellaneous hardware for its war on drug pro ducers. But the plan, approved by Con gress and signed by President Clin ton last month, also includes more than $400 million for nonmilitary programs, such as encouraging farm ers to plant alternative crops. Spe cific use of those funds has yet to be worked out, U.S. officials said. “This is a process that we will need to develop as we go along,” Pickering said, adding that both coun tries have sought advice on how to best use the money from Colombian non-governmental organizations. McCaffrey calls the aid - military and not - the first step toward Colom bia’s national recovery. “No one is saying it will be easy, the hard work now begins. But we need Colombia to know that they are not in this fight alone (and) isolat ed. We need them to know we will win it,” said McCaffrey, who was a commander during the Persian Gulf War and chief of U.S. forces in Latin America. As director of the White House National Drug Control Policy Office, McCaffrey has often enjoyed bipar tisan support in Washington, as well as foes for his tough stand against the use of medical marijuana. During his five years, anti-drug spending has grown to almost $6 billion, funds for drug-prevention programs have in creased 54 percent and the budget for drug-addiction treatment has grown 32 percent. But helping Colombia step back from the brink is another challenge altogether. Here, Pastrana, who has an ap proval rating of barely 30 percent, is trying to gain the upper hand in a 36 year war against more than 26,000 leftist guerrillas who reportedly earn at least $370 million a year from their drug-protection racket. Adding to the violence, right wing paramilitary units kill guerril . las and civilians suspected of being leftist sympathizers. Armed groups across the spec trum, as well as common criminals, kidnap some 3,000 people a year for ransom. And - despite Washington’s ef forts over the years - Colombian drug production has increased. The coun try supplies the vast majority of the world’s cocaine. It also supplies most of the heroin sold on the East Coast of the United States and now ranks fourth in the world in overall pro duction, U.S. officials say. Bogota has stepped up its coop eration with Washington on the drug front. On Thursday, Pastrana signed an order to extradite one of his coun try’s most powerful and ruthless drug traffickers to the United States for trial. Alberto Orlandez Gamboa is wanted by U.S. prosecutors for im porting thousands of pounds of co caine to the United States. His lawyer said he will keep fighting the extra dition. And as McCaffrey helps coor dinate the unfolding of Washington’s costly assistance to Colombia, hu man rights groups worry that the U.S. military is getting too friendly with an army that may ignore or even en courage attacks on civilians by right wing death squads. Other critics say they see the ear ly stages of Vietnam all over again. Still others are concerned that aeri al spraying of pesticides on crops of coca and poppy could harm Colom bia’s environment - and the health of its citizens. While McCaffrey rejected those points, he conceded that U.S. aid ini tiative is not perfect. But he said he believes it is necessary. “This is a huge, beautiful coun try with 40 million people whom we admire ... and who are sick of the drqgs and the violence here,” he said. Survivor Software site confuses fans of hit CBS show By Anick Jesdanun Associated Press New York - Talk about your bad “Survivor” instincts. Tens of thousands of fans of the hit CBS show are visiting www.sur vivor.com for updates, and all they get is some lousy advertising, along with a witty greeting saying they’ve reached Survivor Software instead. The problem is that the show’s of ficial site is less obvious — http://cbs.com/survivor. Survivor Soft ware’s Web operator, Conrad Walton, is trying to have a little fun, and make a little cash, with the mistaken iden tity. “Survivor,” which quickly topped the ratings after it debuted May 31, features 16 contestants sent to an is land off Malaysia with scant provi sions. On each episode, players com pete for rewards like a phone call home, and at the end, they vote some one off the island. The last person re maining wins $1 million. Traffic to the software site peaked in mid-July amid speculation — in correct, it turned out — that contes tant Gervase Peterson wins “Sur vivor’’because his was the only photo without an “X” at an internal CBS site. Just for fun, Walton put up a fake headline, “Gervase wins the million.” “Tliis is a page that says we’re not related to CBS in any way, yet peo ple were really angry,” he said. “It’s been a very interesting experience. People really care about this.” On Wednesday, when castaways ousted Colleen Haskel'., the software site got about 45,000 visitors — more than twice the 19,000 he got all year through May. A few weeks ago, the crush-crashed the site, so he now baby-sits his computers when the show airs each week. Walton asked CBS to buy an ad with the correct link, but the network refused, so he found other advertis ers instead, including an auto club and a credit card issuer. He won’t discuss the profits, but said, “It’s nothing out rageous. I’m not quitting my day Job.” He said the revenue compensates him for the extra time spent handling mis directed traffic. CBS spokesman Dana McClin tock had no comment, other than to say, “He proposed a business offer, and we declined.” The official site, which includes contestant profiles and taped mes sages from those who have been oust ed, gets hundreds of thousands of vis itors on days surrounding Wednesday’s broadcast. “Given the overwhelming traffic volume at our site,” McClintock said, “it’s clear fans are having no prob lem finding ‘Survivor’ at cbs.com.” Survivor Software, which makes money management tools for Mac intosh computers, has owned the sur vivor.com name since July 1995, pre dating the CBS show. As the Internet grows, finding Web sites easily becomes more difficult. The most logical ’’.com” name often takes visitors someplace else. For instance, fans of “Big Broth er,” CBS’s other “reality ” show, must type http://bigbrother2000.com. f^th erwise, they’ll get a site asking visi tors to “report suspicious persons” to the thought police, a reference to Geoige Orwell’s ”1984.” BuiryTlieVanipueSlayer.com? It’s a site selling products related to the WB show. Friends.com reaches a dat ing service, while Frasier.com offers e-mail for users with that last name. Walton said he has received near ly 1,000 “Survivor’’e-mails since the show first aired. A few were applica tions for “Survivor II,” which debuts in January. He’s not forwarding them, figuring if applicants can’t find the correct site, “they were too stupid to make it on the show anyway.” f News Briefs ■ Fiji’s Speight charged with treason SUVA, Fui (AP) “ Coup leader George Speight was charged Friday with treason for leading the raid on Parliament that plunged Fiji into crisis. Speight was not required to enter a plea to charges of treason, conspiracy to commit treason and being an accessory after the fact to treason at a hear ing at Suva Magistrate’s Court. Prosecutor Robert Schuster, a British lawyer brought in to help with the case, told The Associated Press the treason charge was a capital offense and the other two charges carry life sentences. ■ Helicopter crashes on Swedish montain STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - A helicopter with three people on board crashed into a mountainside early Friday while trying to rescue two climbers in arc tic Sweden, police said. Rescue crews were trying to reach the site of the crash on Kebnekaise, Sweden’s highest moun tain, police said in Gaellivare, the closest town, about 720 miles north of the capi-* tal, Stockholm. The condition of the he licopter crew was not known. The heli copter, which had been called in by a rescue team that liad reached two climbers, was approaching the group when it crashed about 6,000 feet up the mountain, offi cials said. ■ Buchanan condemns ‘moral crisis’ as Reform Parly polarizes LONG BEACH, Calf. (AP) - Further polarizing the Reform Party, candidate Pat Buchanan bemoaned America’s “moral crisis” as rival fac tions staged separate conventions that will likely award dual presidential nom inations. Buchanan portrayed himself as the winner of the intraparty battle and the nomination, planning a Friday an nouncement of his running mate and a Saturday acceptance speech. But fol lowers of party founder Ross Perot held their own convention next door to their adversaries’, declaring it the “true” nom inating gathering and rallying behind nu clear physicist John Hagelin. ■ Buchanan con demns ‘moral crisis’ as Reform Party polarizes i WOBORN, Mass. (AP) - A man whose fatal fight with another parent at their sons’ youth hockey game has been indicted on a manslaughter charge. Thomas Junta, 42, was indict ed. Thursday for the July 5 incident in which Junta and Michael Costin fought over rough play between their sons. Jun ta was asked to leave, but reportedly re turned to the rink to fight Costin. The 40-year-old father of four later died at a hospital. The death has become a na tional symbol of parental rage at youth sporting events. j ■ Democrats boot congresswoman over Playboy fundraiser WASHINGTON (AP) - Rep. Loret ta Sanchez’s insistence on holding a fund raiser at the Playboy Mansion cost her a speaking role at next week’s party con vention and could also prompt the De mocrats to boot one of their highest profile minorities from a leading party post. “Loretta Sanchez will not be speak ing at the Democratic National Con vention next week,” Democratic Na tional Committee Chairman Joe Andrew ^ said in a written statement released Thurs | day. Party officials plan to meet Aug. 18 to determine what, if any, additional ac tinn tn takp