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DWI is an all too familiar issue in most areas of the world nowadays. The trouble is that not enough people understand, until after the fact, just how ravaging drinking and driving could be. DWI affects both the person that was driving while drunk as well as the people that they strike while doing so.

If you were driving while drunk and you were caught for doing so, you may require a Dallas DWI attorney. If this is your first violation and you didn’t induce any bodily or property damage you might be able to go in front of the judge and apologies for your activities and get away with niggling penalty. If you are a resident of Dallas and you induced bodily or property damage to anybody in Dallas or if this isn’t your first violation chances are you’ll require a Dallas DWI attorney.

A Dallas DWI lawyer could assist you get some compensation for all that you’ve suffered. They could also help you ensure that the individual who was driving while drunk gets the utmost penalization for their violation. Without a Dallas DWI lawyer on the side of the victim, they’re most of the time left suffering long after the crash has happened.

Taxpayers have shelled out at least $200 million since 2004 for medications that have never been reviewed by the government for safety and effectiveness but are still covered under Medicaid, an Associated Press analysis of federal data has found. Millions of private patients are taking such drugs, as well.

The availability of unapproved prescription drugs to the public may create a dangerous false sense of security. Dozens of deaths have been linked to them.

The medications date back decades, before the Food and Drug Administration tightened its review of drugs in the early 1960s. The FDA says it is trying to squeeze them from the market, but conflicting federal laws allow the Medicaid health program for low-income people to pay for them.

The AP analysis found that Medicaid paid nearly $198 million from 2004 to 2007 for more than 100 unapproved drugs, mostly for common conditions such as colds and pain. Data for 2008 were not available but unapproved drugs still are being sold. The AP checked the medications against FDA databases, using agency guidelines to determine if they were unapproved. The FDA says there may be thousands of such drugs on the market.

Medicaid officials acknowledge the problem, but say they need help from Congress to fix it. The FDA and Medicaid are part of the Health and Human Services Department, but the FDA has yet to compile a master list of unapproved drugs, and Medicaid — which may be the biggest purchaser — keeps paying.

“I think this is something we ought to look at very hard, and we ought to fix it,” said Medicaid chief Herb Kuhn. “It raises a whole set of questions, not only in terms of safety, but in the efficiency of the program — to make sure we are getting the right set of services for beneficiaries.”

At a time when families, businesses and government are struggling with health care costs and 46 million people are uninsured, payments for questionable medications amount to an unplugged leak in the system.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has asked the HHS inspector general to investigate.

That unapproved prescription drugs can be sold in the United States surprises even doctors and pharmacists. But the FDA estimates they account for 2 percent of all prescriptions filled by U.S. pharmacies, about 72 million scripts a year. Private insurance plans also cover them.

The roots of the problem go back in time, tangled in layers of legalese.

It wasn’t until 1962 that Congress ordered the FDA to review all new medications for effectiveness. Thousands of drugs already on the market were also supposed to be evaluated. But some manufacturers claimed their medications were “grandfathered” under earlier laws, and even under the 1962 bill.

Then, in the early 1980s, a safety scandal erupted over one of those medications. E-Ferol, a high potency vitamin E injection, was linked to serious reactions in some 100 premature babies, 40 of whom died.

In response, the FDA started a program to weed out drugs it had never reviewed scientifically. Yet some medications continued to escape scrutiny.

Sometimes, the medications do not help patients. In other cases, the FDA says, they have made people sicker, maybe even killed them. This year, for example, the FDA banned injectable versions of a gout drug called colchicine after receiving reports of 23 deaths. Investigators found the unapproved drug had a very narrow margin of safety, and patients easily could receive a toxic dose leading to complications such as organ failure.

Critics say the FDA’s case-by-case enforcement approach is not working.

“The FDA does not appear to have a systematic mechanism to report these drugs out,” said Jon Glaudemans, senior vice president of Avalere Health, a health care industry information company, “and there doesn’t seem to be a systematic process by which health insurance programs can validate their status. And everyone is pointing the finger at someone else as to why we can’t get there.”

In most cases, doctors, pharmacists and patients are not aware the drugs are unapproved.

“Over the years, they have become fully entrenched in the system,” said Patti Manolakis, a Charlotte, N.C., pharmacist who has studied the issue. Only a few unapproved drugs are truly essential and should remain on the market, she added.

Tackling the problem is made harder by confusing — and sometimes conflicting — laws, regulations and responsibilities that pertain to different government agencies.

Medicaid officials said their program, which serves the poor and disabled, is allowed to pay for unapproved drugs until the FDA orders a specific medication off the market. But that can take years.

Compare that with Medicare, the health care program for older people.

Medicare’s prescription program is not supposed to cover unapproved drugs. Medicare has purged hundreds of such medications from its coverage lists, but continues to find others.

It might be easier to sort things out if the FDA compiled a master list of unapproved drugs, but the agency hasn’t. FDA officials say that would be difficult because many manufacturers do not list unapproved products with the agency. Yet, the AP found many that were listed — a possible starting point for a list.

Among the drugs the AP’s research identified were Carbofed, for colds and flu; Hylira, a dry skin ointment; Andehist, a decongestant, and ICAR Prenatal, a vitamin tablet. Medicaid data show the program paid $7.3 million for Carbofed products from 2004 to 2007; $146,000 for Hylira; $4.8 million for Andehist products, and $900,000 for ICAR.

Grassley said the system is failing taxpayers and consumers.

“The problem I see is bureaucrats don’t want to make a decision,” Grassley said. “There is no reason why this should be such a house of mirrors when so much public money is being spent.” Grassley is considering introducing legislation to ensure that consumers are told when a medication is unapproved.

FDA officials say they tell Medicaid and Medicare when the agency moves to ban an unapproved drug, so the programs can stop paying.

“The situation is complicated by the fact that Medicaid and Medicare have a different regulatory regime than FDA does,” said FDA compliance lawyer Michael Levy. “There are products that we may consider to be illegally marketed that could be legally reimbursed under their law.”

The FDA began its latest crackdown on unapproved drugs two years ago and has taken action against nine types of medications and dozens of companies. Typically, the agency orders manufacturers to stop making and shipping drugs, and it also has seized millions of dollars’ worth of medications. But federal law does not provide fines for selling unapproved drugs, and criminal prosecutions are rare.

Some manufacturers of unapproved drugs say their products predate FDA regulation and are “grandfathered in.”

“These are drugs that don’t require an FDA approval,” said Bill Peters, chief financial officer of Hi-Tech Pharmacal in Amityville, N.Y. “These are products with active ingredients that have been on the market for a long time.” The company is moving away from older products, Peters said, and its new market offerings are FDA-approved.

Levy said the FDA is skeptical that any drugs now being sold are entitled to “grandfather” status. To qualify, they would have to be identical to medications sold decades ago in formulation and other important aspects.

The agency is targeting drugs linked to fraud, ones that do not work and, above all, those with safety risks. While the crackdown has helped, it does not appear to have solved the problem.

The gout drug banned by the FDA this February is not the only recent case involving safety problems.

Last year, the FDA banned unapproved cough medicines containing hydrocodone, a potent narcotic. Some had directions for medicating children as young as age 2, although no hydrocodone cough products have been shown to be safe and effective for children under 6.

In a 2006 case, the agency received 21 reports of children younger than 2 who died after taking unapproved cold and allergy medications containing carbinoxamine, an allergy drug that also acts as a powerful sedative. Regulators banned all products that contained carbinoxamine in combination with other cold medicines.

“We as Americans have a belief that all the prescription drugs that are available to us have been reviewed and approved by the FDA,” said Manolakis, the pharmacist. “I think the presence of these drugs shows we have a false sense of security.”

Three U.S. firms are preparing to submit final bids for a pair of NASA International Space Station cargo services contract worth up to $3.1 billion through 2015.

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, Calif., and Orbital Sciences Corp., of Dulles, Va., have been honing their rival offers with the aid of $500 million in demonstration money NASA awarded under its Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program.

Also in the hunt for the two contracts NASA intends to award Dec. 23 is Chicago-based PlanetSpace, a commercial space startup that has built a team around the biggest names in the aerospace business.

PlanetSpace announced Oct. 22 that it added Boeing to a team lineup that already included Lockheed Martin Space Systems of Denver and Minneapolis-based Alliant Techsystems.

The day before, the PlanetSpace met with NASA officials in Houston to present and defend their proposal for meeting NASA’s International Space Station cargo delivery needs. Final offers for the Commercial Resupply Services contract are due Nov. 7.

PlanetSpace is the only one of the three teams that submitted proposals back in June to develop their re-supply system without the aid of NASA COTS funding. However, PlanetSpace has been meeting with NASA officials periodically to review progress on its system under an unfunded COTS agreement signed in early 2007.

SpaceX is entitled to receive up to $278 million from NASA for meeting progress milestones spelled out in a 2006 COTS award. Orbital Sciences’ 2007 COTS award is worth up to $171 million. Both companies are required to show steady progress towards demonstration flights of their respective systems.

NASA has said since the inception of the COTS program that winning demonstration funding was no guarantee of landing a cargo launch services contract. NASA also made clear from the get-go that the eventual contract competition would be open to any U.S. firm.

Under the Cargo Resupply Services solicitation issued earlier this year, NASA said it was looking for each selected team to deliver a minimum of 20 metric tons to the space station over the seven-year life of the contract and bring back a minimum of three metric tons of materials over the same time period. No minimum dollar value was specified for the contract, but PlanetSpace Chairman Chirinjeev Kathuria said NASA has spelled out a maximum contract value of $3.1 billion.

Al Simpson, acting director of advanced programs, human space flight at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, said meeting NASA’s minimum order with the PlanetSpace system would entail 10 to 12 launches over the life of the contract.

Lockheed’s role on the team includes working with Boeing to develop, produce and operate modular Orbital Transfer Vehicles that would serve as cargo carriers to the International Space Station.

The cargo vehicle would launch atop the Athena 3 rocket Alliant Techsystems is building largely from heritage hardware. The first stage is a 2.5-segment version of the four-segment solid rocket boosters ATK builds for NASA’s space shuttle fleet. The second stage is the ATK Castor 120 engine used on Athena 1, Athena 2 and Orbital’s Taurus 1 rockets. PlanetSpace is the overall prime contractor and would manage the Commercial Resupply Services contract.

PlanetSpace team officials said Boeing brings its expertise as International Space Station prime contractor to an already well-rounded team.

“A very strong team member has just joined us,” Simpson said. “We have been at this for quite a while now and have, I think, a very valid offer to address NASA’s needs for cargo re-supply and give them the assurance that somebody can actually bring cargo to the station.”

Simpson said PlanetSpace could be ready to conduct cargo launches in 2011.

SpaceX and Orbital Sciences continue to forge ahead on separate cargo delivery demonstration flights planned for late 2009 and 2010, respectively.

NASA, meanwhile, issued a notice Oct. 15 that it intends to buy regular crew transportation and rescue services from Russia through June 2016 under a sole source contract currently under negotiation. The notice, issued by NASA’s Johnson Space Center, indicates the U.S. space agency is negotiating solely for Soyuz flights and related services, not for cargo deliveries aboard the unmanned Russian Progress ship.

NASA officials have pledged to leave Progress out of the new deal to demonstrate its commitment to buying re-supply services from the U.S. private sector.

When Joe Biden tells voters he understands the threat posed by Afghan extremists, he dramatically illustrates one reason why: His helicopter was “forced down” on “the superhighway of terror.” Actually, snow, not the enemy, persuaded the helicopter pilot to land and wait out a storm.

The Democratic vice presidential candidate has repeatedly left that part out, in an episode that Republicans hope will become an echo of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s errant tale during the primaries of landing in Bosnia under sniper fire.

Biden has made a number of questionable statements recently that, viewed in isolation, might not amount to much. But this is a man whose first presidential campaign collapsed 20 years ago after he told a story about coal miners in his family that he lifted without credit from a British politician.

In a recent speech in Virginia coal country, Biden seemed to embellish his background once again. He declared, “I am a hard coal miner,” which he’s not and never has been. His spokesman, David Wade, said Biden was joking.

And looking back on his 1972 Senate campaign, he told Pennsylvania delegates at the Democratic convention that people from his hometown of Scranton, Pa., piled in up to 10 buses and drove to Wilmington, Del., to show him support. “Literally,” he said, “there were hundreds of thousands of people.”

THE HELICOPTER SPIN:

In a Baltimore speech last week, Biden said: “If you want to know where al-Qaida lives, you want to know where (Osama) bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me. Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are.”

Two days later, in Cincinnati, he said al-Qaida has re-established a safe haven and it’s not in Baghdad. “It’s in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he said, “where my helicopter was recently forced down.”

At a Sept. 9, fundraiser, Biden addressed his national security credentials by talking about “the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan where my helicopter was forced down. John McCain wants to know where bin Ladin and the gates of Hell are? I can tell him where. That’s where al-Qaida is. That’s where bin Ladin is.”

THE FACTS: In February, Biden and fellow senators John Kerry and Chuck Hagel were flying in a helicopter over Afghanistan in a fact-finding trip when a snowstorm closed in.

“It went pretty blind, pretty fast and we were around some pretty dangerous ridges,” Kerry told The Associated Press afterward. “So the pilot exercised his judgment that we were better off putting down there, and we all agreed.”

He said the group waited for about three hours until a convoy with U.S. troops took them to Bagram Air Base.

“We sat up there and traded stories,” Kerry joked. “We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn’t have to do it.”

He added: “Other than getting a little cold, it was fine.”

The area was reported as not being under Taliban control. But Wade noted “it’s the wild west out there” and the senators were transported under guard and with air cover from an F-16.

Though Biden never said his helicopter was shot at in Afghanistan, last year he asserted that he was “shot at” in Iraq. He amended that later, saying the quarters he was staying in while visiting Baghdad’s protected Green Zone shook from a nearby blast, and “I was near where a shot landed.”

The McCain campaign jumped on the Biden stories Wednesday, putting out a statement from a retired Black Hawk pilot saying there is no mistaking being shot at or forced down by the enemy.

But if Biden was not literally in the sights of the enemy in Iraq, he unquestionably went through several dicey situations verified by other lawmakers there, including the explosion of a mortar near the compound and his plane’s evasive maneuvers while taking off, in response to a possible missile attack.

THE COAL SPIN: In a speech at a United Mine Workers fish fry in Castlewood, Va., on Sept. 21, Biden told the miners he is one of them. “Hope you won’t hold it against me, but I am a hard coal miner — anthracite coal, Scranton, Pennsylvania, that’s where I was born and raised,” he said.

Biden mentioned his great-grandfather, a mining engineer who became a state senator in the early 1900s.

THE FACTS: Biden was born in Scranton, moved to Delaware at age 10 and has never had experience in the mines. His father worked in the oil business and ran a Delaware car dealership.

Biden’s comment was reported at face value in press accounts from the event. Wade said it wasn’t meant to be taken literally.

“Judging by the laughter and applause, I think it was clear to everyone under the sun that they got the joke from this son of Scranton’s coal country,” Wade said. An AP reporter who covered the speech said Biden’s claim came across as a genial if awkwardly self-deprecating effort to establish a bond with the miners — not a joke.

In his 2007 memoirs, Biden put his roots in a more modest context: “I had ancestors from the coal mining town of Scranton.”

In 1987 at the Iowa State Fair, Biden both borrowed and slightly adapted lines from Neil Kinnock, then British Labor Party leader, in portraying himself as the descendant of coal miners. In one of the lifted lines, Biden talked about: “My ancestors, who worked in the coal mines of Northeast Pennsylvania and would come up after 12 hours and play football for four hours.”

(Kinnock had talked about Welsh ancestors “who could work eight hours underground and then come up and play football.”)

Biden also was found to have exaggerated his academic record during that campaign and a plagiarism episode from his school days emerged. The revelations crippled his Democratic primary campaign and he pulled out of the presidential race.

President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed hope Thursday that Congress will approve a landmark agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation whose passage is in doubt.

In remarks to reporters at the start of an Oval Office meeting, Bush said the deal is an example of how the U.S.-India relationship has changed for the better during his administration.

“It has taken a lot of work on both our parts, a lot of courage on your part,” Bush said, looking toward Singh. “Of course we want the agreement to satisfy you. We have to get it out of our Congress. We are working hard to get it passed as quickly as possible.”

The pact would allow the U.S. to sell nuclear materials to a country that has tested nuclear weapons but has refused to sign international treaties designed to limit the illicit spread of such materials. The accord would reverse three decades of U.S. policy by shipping atomic fuel to India in return for international inspections of India’s civilian, but not its military, reactors.

India has faced a nuclear trade ban since its first atomic test in 1974.

The civilian nuclear deal has been a high priority for Bush and the Indian government. Time is running out, however, as lawmakers wrap up this year’s session to campaign for the November elections.

In his remarks to reporters, Singh thanked Bush for meeting with him on a day of high-wire negotiating over a multibillion dollar rescue deal for Wall Street. He credited Bush with having invested a great deal of domestic political capital to make the deal possible.

“I sincerely hope that this agreement, which is before the U.S. Congress, will be approved in a manner that is satisfactory to both of our countries,” Singh said.

A Senate committee overwhelmingly approved a bill on the nuclear agreement this week, but the measure has not been presented to the full Senate or in the House.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said before Bush’s meeting that the legislation “is on the right track” for passage.

But Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the deal poses unacceptable risks to U.S. national security.

“Unbelievably, if India tests a new nuclear weapon, the deal does not cut off their supply,” Markey said in a written statement. He accused Bush of attempting to sidestep congressional review and oversight.

Supporters had hoped to have it included in a broader spending bill Wednesday, but the legislation passed the House without it.

The House and the Senate would have to pass the bill and send it to Bush for the deal to go through before a new administration takes office in January. The last-minute attempt comes as Congress debates a bank bailout plan and rushes to pass numerous important measures before shutting down for the year.

The administration needs the Democratic-controlled Congress’ help to overcome a law that says Congress may not ratify the accord sooner than 30 working days after receiving it. The deal was rushed to Congress on Sept. 10, but that left insufficient time for ratification before the election break without a change in the law.

This month, the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group of countries that supply nuclear material and technology agreed to lift the ban on civilian nuclear trade with India, the last necessary step before Congress could consider the deal. The ban was imposed because India is not a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and has developed nuclear weapons.

The administration has warned that failure to ratify the deal would keep U.S. companies from doing business in India’s multibillion-dollar nuclear energy sector.

There are many types of cases that personal injury lawyers pursue. They include motor vehicle accidents, slip and fall cases, dog bites, construction accidents, wrongful death, medical negligence and nursing home malpractice cases. They all are processed with similar strategies and techniques. If you or a love one have been seriously injured by the negligence of a third person, you may be eligible for just compensation. If you are an Arizona resident who has suffered such harm, then you shouldn’t hesitate to contact an Arizona personal injury lawyer.

There are a number of different type injuries which can occur in accidents. Among the most serious are closed head injuries which sometimes include brain damage, serious fractures, ruptured or herniated discs, burns, lacerations causing disfigurement and many others. A good attorney can help you find qualified medical help often with physicians who are certified specialists. Some times these specialists are even willing to work on a lient basis. If you are harmed in an accident through the negligence of another person or business, then you are definitely within your rights to make a claim and, if necessary, to pursue a law suit. It doesn’t matter if it is a workplace accident or an injury at your favorite restaurant, a good attorney will evaluate the liability situation and assist you in recovery.. An well-qualified Arizona accident attorney can get you the money you deserve. The money you need to address your medical bills, an amount for pain and suffering, permanent injury and disfigurement and an amount to compensate you for your loss wages and loss of future earning capacity. There are several new sources to check for information. Do your investigation and research on the internet to determine which attorney will best serve your purposes. Find which law firms have informative site and offer free consultations. I’m sure you’ll be able to find an well-qualified Arizona accident lawyer quickly. Then the attorney and you can start work on your case and you’ll be one step closer to getting your life back to track.

Don’t be afraid to conscientious and ask questions while in the hiring process. The quality of the attorney you select will make a big difference in your overall result.

The traditional festive opening of a national political convention was overshadowed by cancellations Monday, as John McCain and GOP officials tried to balance the desire to invigorate their partisans with showing empathy for those in Hurricane Gustav’s path.

Monday’s seven-hour program was pared back to roughly three, all of it strictly business and none of it in prime time. Network anchors who had planned to be in Minnesota instead were dispatched to the Gulf Coast. Democrats stood down in the war room they’d established to give rapid response to the Republicans.

And the delegates themselves shifted their gaze from the convention podium to their relatives, friends and neighbors along the Gulf Coast.

McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, urged delegates to take off their “Republican hats” and put on “American hats,” shifting their organizing and fundraising power from party politics to the needs of the evacuees.

“I know you’ll agree with me,” he said. “It’s time to open our hearts, our efforts and our wallets, our concern, our care, for those American citizens who are now under the shadow and the possibility of a natural disaster,” the senator said.

Mike Hubbard, chairman of the Alabama Republican Party, predicted the GOP convention would be “a little less of a party, celebratory and partisan show, like you saw last week on television with the Democrats, because of what is going on. Everybody understands it, understands the magnitude of it.”

Undeterred, protesters planned to go forward with a peace march that had been expected to draw 50,000 people to the state capital.

“Our voices will be front and center, and it will be the main news that is happening,” said Jess Sundin, spokeswoman for the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War.

McCain saw his own pre-convention momentum blunted by public focus on the massive storm. Gustav headed toward the Gulf Coast on Sunday, as more than 1 million Americans made wary by Hurricane Katrina took buses, trains, planes and cars out of New Orleans and other coastal cities. Gustav packed winds near 115 mph (185 kph), and forecasters said it could gain strength before making landfall Monday.

Mindful that President Bush and the Republican Party lost credibility after the federal government’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina three years ago, McCain and new running mate Sarah Palin visited Mississippi on Sunday in advance of the storm and promised swift recovery efforts.

“I have every expectation that we will not see the mistakes of Katrina repeated; in fact, I’m very optimistic that we will see a degree of cooperation and effort on behalf of any victims, of anyone whose lives are touched by this great natural disaster,” McCain later told reporters in St. Paul via satellite from St. Louis.

The Arizona senator said the remainder of the convention schedule would depend on the destruction caused by the storm. He raised the possibility of accepting the nomination on Thursday in a Gulf Coast speech beamed back to the delegates 1,000 miles to the north.

Barack Obama, for his part, received a briefing Sunday from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. The Illinois senator, who has smashed all fundraising records during his presidential campaign, also pledged to use his vast supporter e-mail list to raise money and provide goods for those affected by the storm.

He also said he might visit storm-damaged areas once things have “settled down.”

The storm and the political changes it brought came just as Republicans were ready to uncork their quadrennial celebration.

The Xcel Energy Center, home to NHL hockey’s Minnesota Wild, has been converted into a massive television studio, its floor covered in bright red carpet and one-third of its width filled with a video backdrop behind the podium from which McCain was to speak.

Nets full of red, white and blue balloons hung overhead but hanging in the air was the question of whether they would ever fall.

Republican National Committee Chairman Robert “Mike” Duncan said that by law, the convention had to be called to order on Monday. In addition, a quorum of at least half plus one of the 2,400 delegates was needed to conduct business such as securing a report of the Credentials Committee, adopting the convention’s rules, electing the convention’s officer and adopting the party’s platform.

A quorum is also needed to formally nominate both McCain and Palin, although they would not have to be onsite to accept their nominations.

McCain advisers tried to remain upbeat as they made the best of a bad — and unprecedented — situation.

“You thought the 2000 recount was the most unusual thing you’d ever see in politics,” said veteran GOP operative and McCain adviser Charlie Black. “Maybe not.”

Opening night at the Democratic National Convention will reintroduce Barack Obama to voters, and no one knows him better than the evening’s featured speaker, his wife Michelle.

Ailing Democratic icon Edward Kennedy will also attend the convention Monday night. The Massachusetts Senator and a key Obama supporter traveled to Denver late Sunday. At present, there are no plans for Kennedy to speak, though that might change if Kennedy feels up to it. A video tribute by filmmaker Ken Burns is planned either way.

Kennedy, 76, has had surgery for a malignant brain tumor and undergone a lengthy course of chemotherapy and radiation.

Officially, the Monday convention program is themed “One Nation.”

The presentation, according to a Democratic news release, “will highlight Barack Obama’s life story, his commitment to change, and the voices of Americans calling for a new direction for this country.”

Among those voices will be former Iowa GOP Rep. Jim Leach, whose speech is designed to illustrate Obama’s appeal to Republicans and independents.

Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., women who took some political chances in endorsing Obama over primary rival Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., will try to bring Clinton loyalists around to Obama.

Obama’s sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, and Michelle Obama’s brother, Craig Robinson, will also speak in a program that will detail to voters Obama’s upbringing by a single mother, his days as a community organizer, and his rise in politics.

With Obama coming under daily assault from Republicans as a celebrity with a thin resume to be president, Democrats hope the warm introduction will boost his appeal to independents and swing voters, and reinforce his image as the candidate of change.

The “one Nation” theme, said Obama campaign spokesman Josh Earnest, will “demonstrate the breadth of our party and the different kinds of people who make up our country and have found a home in the Democratic party because it represents their values.”

President Bush on Thursday signed consumer-safety legislation that bans lead from children’s toys, imposing the toughest standard in the world.

The new law prohibits lead, beyond minute levels, in products for children 12 or younger. Lead paint was a major factor in the recall of 45 million toys and children’s items last year, many from China.

Both houses of Congress approved the bill by overwhelming margins two weeks ago.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates there are about 28,000 deaths each year linked to unsafe products, including toys, in the United States. More than 33 million people were injured last year by consumer products.

The bill also bans a chemical called phthalates that is widely used to make plastic products softer and more flexible.

And the legislation bolsters the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which took the brunt of criticism last year over the massive recalls and the government’s failure to monitor toy imports before they reach store shelves.

The bill would double the agency’s budget, to $136 million by 2014, and give it new authority to oversee testing procedures and to penalize violators.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said the measure will give the regulating agencies the money they need to enforce the law. “This has become an increasingly difficult and complex job as more imports from more nations are now sold in the United States than ever before,” he said.

Republican John McCain called Thursday for a federal investigation into plans by the DHL shipping company that could cost 10,000 jobs here, as he and his campaign manager took criticism for helping DHL complete a merger in 2003 that led to its current plans.

With Democrats and labor groups blaming McCain and his campaign manager Rick Davis for their role in the threat to local jobs, McCain moved to demonstrate his concern about possible job losses in this critical swing state that gave President Bush the electoral votes needed for re-election in 2004.

The Republican presidential candidate called on the Justice Department to begin an antitrust investigation into DHL’s plans to puts its packages aboard the planes of a rival, United Parcel Service, before delivering them in DHL trucks. Because UPS flies out of Louisville, Ky., the plans call for shutting the DHL shipping hub here that uses the Wilmington airport and eliminating up to 10,000 jobs.

McCain met with elected officials and residents of the southwest Ohio city to discuss the DHL plans. “I can’t assure you that this train wreck isn’t going to happen, but I will do everything in my power to see that we avert it,” McCain told the group.

“Should this happen, DHL will cede significant elements of cost and quality to one of its chief competitors. Consumers all over America would suffer,” McCain told reporters later.

He said Congress may need to intervene and, if DHL is allowed to proceed, he would like to see a rapid response to help displaced workers and to try to attract other commercial development at the Wilmington site.

Since The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer broke the story, Democrats and labor groups have been eagerly pointing out that five years ago McCain and Davis aided German-owned DHL in completing its purchase of U.S.-owned competitor Airborne Express, which had long operated the Wilmington shipping hub.

During a campaign visit last month, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama met with Wilmington Mayor David Raizk to pledge his help if elected.

In 2003, McCain, as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee urged then-Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens to abandon a proposed bill to prohibit foreign-owned carriers from flying U.S. military equipment or troops. Airborne Express said the bill was aimed at torpedoing its merger with DHL, the U.S.-based shipping unit of German postal service Deutsche Post AG.

At the same time, when he was a lobbyist, Davis helped persuade Congress to accept the merger.

Davis took a leave of absence from his lobbying practice to work for McCain. A campaign spokesman said Davis had not worked with DHL since 2005, long before DHL announced plans to move its work out of Wilmington.

Earlier Thursday, McCain, who has contended that Obama is willing to lose in Iraq to win the election, said his rival would forfeit the war as part of an agenda that also promotes big government and high taxes.

McCain told those gathered for a town hall meeting in Lima, in northwest Ohio, that Obama is a talented orator with an agenda that could be boiled down to simple policies the Arizona Republican opposes.

“Government is too big, he wants to grow it. Taxes are to high, he wants to raise them,” McCain said during the meeting. “Congress spends too much and he proposes more. We need more energy and he’s against producing it. We’re finally winning in Iraq, and he wants to forfeit.”