South Florida Sun Sentinel from Fort Lauderdale, Florida • 3

SB Thursday, February 7, 2008 SOUTH FLORIDA 3A $4 PET FOOD FIRMS CHARGED Two Chinese businesses and a company were indicted over last year's incidents of tainted pet food. A U.S. attorney said thousands of pets may have died. 9A Getty Images photo Swat ftUFI0fo! Senate fails to OK expansion of rebates IIHHIIIJIULIHI. I MIM.H110U.ll.il.

I.ll Jil Ml I UJWI. lj.lllW lit ii.uiii.iiiiui,ni-u.iii "ctete? "I'Ssfc'l SALVAGING: Volunteers look for whatever they can find at Jerry and Michelle Chenault's home site in Moulton, on Wednesday, a day after tornadoes swept through the region. In northwestern Alabama, the bodies of three family members were found 50 yards from their ruined home. AP photoMatt McKean Tornadoes kill dozens More than 50 died and hundreds were injured in tornadoes that swept across the South. Death tolls by state as of 5:30 p.m.

Area of severe weather Reported tornado sighting BY JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS AND ANDREW TAYLOR THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Washington Senate Republicans blocked a move by Democrats on Wednesday to add more than $40 billion in checks for the elderly, disabled veterans and the unemployed to a bill to stimulate the economy. The 58-4 1 vote fell just short of the 60 required to break a Republican filibuster and bring the Senate version of the stimulus bill closer to a final vote. The Senatemeasurewas backed by Democrats and a few Republicans but was strongly opposed by Republican leaders and President Bush, who objected to costly add-ons. The vote left the $205 billion Senate stimulus bill in limbo and capped days of partisan infighting and procedural jockeying. Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois flew to Washington for the vote.

Republican front-runner John McCain of Arizona did not vote. Supporters actually had 59 votes in favor of the Democratic proposal, but Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada switched his vote to 'no' at the last moment, a parliamentary move that allows him to bring the measure upforrevote. Republican leaders objected to add-ons such as a $14.5 billionunem-ployment extension for those whose benefits have run out, 1 billion in heating aid for the poor and tax breaks for renewable energy producers and coal companies. The measure builds upon a less costly $161 billion House-passed bill providing 1 ,200 checks to most taxpayers and tax breaks to businesses investing in plants and equipment. The Senate version would provide checks of 1,000 to a broader group that includes 20 million older Americans, 250,000 disabled veterans and taxpayers making up to 150,000 for singles or $300,000 for couples.

Reid denied Republicans an opportunity to offer changes to the measure, provoking the filibuster. The calculus was that enough Republicans would relent in the face of political pressure to vote for unemployment insurance and heating aid to join with Democrats to force the measure through. "Our constituents will look at us as the folks that slowed it down and added a bunch of spending to it," said Sen. Jon S. Kyi of Arizona.

Republican leader Mitch McCon-nell, said he wants to amend the measure to add the provisions favoring disabled veterans and the elderly and making clear that illegal immigrants can't get rebate checks. Reid rejected the offer at least for the time being but Republicans seemed confident he would eventually agree to comparable changes because the alternative would be to approve the House bill and leave retirees living on Social Security and disabled veterans without rebate checks. i i OHIO ILL. 1 MO. i mm OKLA.

AM, MISS. ALA. GA. FLA. tamer, moved on to Ohio and the Great Lakes and was expected to reach the East Coast on Wednesday night.

Tornado experts said there was no evidence the deadly outbreak was related to global warming or anything other than the clash of contrasting cold and warm air masses that usually precedes such events. In Jackson, Matt Taylor, a junior at Union University, was scouring the campus Wednesday for his missing SUV after a close call that left him with staples in his scalp and a bandaged leg. On Tuesday night, Taylor had hunkered down in Waters Commons, a residence building, when the sirens went off, but when a door blew open, he was sucked outside, bringing with him a gumball machine he had grabbed. "By the time I got back in, it exploded," he said of the building. Although 80 percent of the residential section of the campus was demolished or severely damaged, there were no fatalities; officials credited the college's disaster plan.

Across the Southeast, residents said they owed their lives to early warning systems. The destruction began in Arkansas in the late afternoon Tuesday. A tornado that residents described as a massive black wall of wind and debris tore a six-mile swath through the center of Atkins, a rural town with a population of about 3,300, killing four and injuring at least eight, including one deputy who suffered a broken ankle. Major Dillard W. Bradley, chief deputy of the Pope County sheriff's department, said 60 to 80 structures "were completely blown away." In the Southeast, five states residents survey twisters' damage BY SHAILA OEWAN AND BRENDA GOODMAN THE NEW YORK TIMES atkins, ark.

Residents in five Southeastern states rose Wednesday to widespread clusters of destruction caused by an unusually ferocious winter tornado system. At least 52 people were killed and scores were injured. Many had spent a harrowing Tuesday night punctuated by breaking glass and warning sirens as the tornadoes tossed trailer homes into the air, collapsed the roof of a Sears store in Memphis, whittled away half a Caterpillar plant near Oxford, and shredded dorms at Union University in Jackson, leaving crews to rescue nine students trapped in the rubble. Arkansas and Tennessee were hit the hardest, with Arkansas reporting 13 dead and Tennessee 28. In Atkins, 70 miles northwest of Little Rock, a middle-aged couple and their 1 1-year-old daughter died when their house was wiped out by a direct hit.

In northwestern Alabama, the bodies of another family of three were found 50 yards from the foundation of their ruined home. In Macon County, a 74-year-old man whose trailer was destroyed died in view of his family as they waited for an ambulance to LA. NOTE: Some tornado sightings overlap. SOURCES: National Weather Service; Weather Underground AP graphic navigate debris-strewn roads. Thirty-five injuries were reported in Gassville, a small community in Baxter County, that was almost totally leveled by the storm.

"The wrath of God is the only way I can describe it," Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee said after surveying the damage by helicopter. "I'm used to seeing roofs off houses; houses blown over. These houses were down to their foundations, stripped clean." The governor said 1 ,000 houses in Tennessee were destroyed. President Bush said he would head to the state Friday to view the damage.

Much of the havoc was wreaked by rare "long-track" tornadoes, which stay on the ground for 30 to 50 miles. One tornado in Arkansas seems to have burned a path through five counties, said Renee Preslar, the public education coordinator for the Arkansas Division of Emergency Management. "Normally, tornadoes touch down and they're on the ground for 20 minutes and they pop back up," Preslar said. "There's no signs yet of this having ever come off the ground." On Wednesday the storm, a bit Wire reports WISCONSIN 20 inches of snow grounds flights and shutters schools Milwaukee A major snowstorm lumbered across the Midwest on Wednesday, forcing hundreds of schools and businesses to close and grounding more than 1 ,000 flights as snow piled up nearly 20 inches in some areas. Blustery winds created near-white-out conditions in southern Wisconsin, where slick roads were blamed for two traffic fatalities.

Snowplow operators were called off the roads shortly before noon in Green County, said Highway Commissioner Dallas Cecil. "The winds are blowing so hard the guys can't see the front of their trucks," he said. Occasional brief periods of blizzard-like conditions developed along the Lake Michigan shoreline from Milwaukee to Kenosha as the snowfall picked up Wednesday, said meteorologist Rusty Kapela of the National Weather Service's Sullivan office. NEW YORK Ledger's death is ruled an accidental overdose new York Actor Heath Ledger died from an accidental overdose of six different drugs painkillers and sedatives the medical examiner said Wednesday, leading doctors to warn of the dangers of mixing prescription drugs. The 28-year-old film star died "of acute intoxication" from the combination of two strong painkillers, two anti-anxiety medicines and two sleeping aids, according to the medical examiner's office.

Among the drugs found in his body were oxycodone, a painkiller sold as OxyContin and used in other pain relievers such as Percodan and Perco-cet. Others included drugs sold as anti-anxiety pills Valium and Xanax, which are sedatives. The medical examiner and police wouldn't identify the medications Ledger had in his apartment when his body was discovered on Jan. 22, nor would they discuss who had prescribed them. WEST VIRGINIA Suspect charged with hate crime in torture case Charleston One of several white people charged in the suspected kidnapping, torture and sexual assault of a black woman has been indicted on a hate crime count, and two others have entered guilty pleas in the case.

Six people arrested after Megan Williams was rescued in September had been charged with counts that carry maximum life sentences, but until Tuesday's indictments no one had been charged with a hate crime. The issue has been a sore point among many of Williams' supporters. Karen Burton, 46, of Chapman-ville, was indicted Tuesday on charges of committing a hate crime, kidnapping and malicious wounding. Three others were indicted on counts including kidnapping, sexual assault and conspiracy. Prosecutors say Williams, 20, was held captive for days at a trailer in Big Creek, where she was forced to eat animal feces, sexually assaulted and stabbed.

WASHINGTON D.C. White House: Waterboarding OK in certain circumstances The White House said Wednesday that the widely condemned interrogation technique known as "waterboarding" is legal and that President Bush could authorize the CIA to resume using the simulated drowning method under extraordinary circumstances. The surprise assertion from the Bush administration reopened a debate that many in Washington had considered closed. Two laws passed by Congress in recent years, as well as a Supreme Court ruling on the treatment of detainees, were widely interpreted to have banned the CIA's use of the extreme interrogation method. But in remarks that were greeted with disbelief by some members of Congress and human rights groups, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said that waterboarding was legal and could be employed again "under certain circumstances." Fratto said the nation's top intelligence officials "didn't rule anything out" during congressional testimony on CIA interrogation methods.

WASHINGTON, D.C Moussaoui prosecutor likely knew of tapes' destruction The lead prosecutor in the terror case against Zacarias Moussaoui likely knew the CIA destroyed tapes of its interrogations of al-Qaida suspects more than a year before the government admitted it to the court, newly unsealed documents show. The documents, which were, declassified and released Wednesday by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, detail efforts by Moussaoui's attorneys to send the case back to a lower federal court to find out why the tapes weren't disclosed and whether they would have influenced his decision to plead guilty. In a Dec. 18, 2007, letter to the appeals court's chief judge, the Justice Department acknowledged that its lead prosecutor in the case had been informed about the CIA's tapes of al-Qaida lieutenant Abu Zubaydah being interrogated.

The letter said the prosecutor, Robert A. Spencer, may have been told of the tapes' destruction in late February or early March of 2006..