For The Record
1,036,837 tons Amount of charred steel, smashed concrete and other debris removed from the World Trade Center site as of last week

5 months Estimated time needed to finish clearing the site

$100 million Amount of money needed right now to keep the new interim Afghan government going

6 months Length of time since Afghan civil servants were last paid

$399 Price of a BlackBerry pager to be included in the gift bags given to Grammy Award presenters

$15,000 to $20,000 Estimated value of the contents of each bag

1 Rank of Johnson & Johnson in latest Harris survey on corporate reputation

60 Rank of Bridgestone/Firestone in the survey, out of 60

Sources: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, AP, Wall Street Journal

Bush's Mystery Guest For State of the Union
Who will be this year's Lenny Skutnik? Ever since January 1982, when Ronald Reagan paused during his first State of the Union address to point to the man who had pulled an Air Florida plane-crash survivor out of the icy Potomac River, the practice of introducing surprise guests at the big speech has been an annual presidential routine. President Bush will almost certainly have a hero or two from Sept. 11--a New York City fireman, a policeman or perhaps the widowed spouse of one of the brave passengers who brought down Flight 93--in the balcony sitting next to Laura Bush that night. But a better-known guest is likely to be Hamid Karzai, the dapper interim leader of Afghanistan's new U.S.-backed government. Karzai is scheduled to pay Bush a visit at the White House on Jan. 28, the day before the State of the Union address. Will Karzai be a guest at the speech? Presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer refused to comment, saying, "You'll have to watch the speech." But one White House staff member was less circumspect. "I can't say," he replied after a pause. "Wink, wink, nod, nod." BY JAMES CARNEY

A Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy?
Books by conservatives are hot these days, but it still comes as a surprise to see that Bernard Goldberg's Bias (Regnery; 232 pages) has bounced to the top of the New York Times best-seller list. The former CBS News correspondent caused a stir in 1996 when he published a column in the Wall Street Journal complaining that a snide CBS Evening News piece about presidential candidate Steve Forbes was an instance of biased reporting. The book expands that charge into a broadside against liberal bias in the media. Goldberg, though foaming a bit at the mouth, lands a few good punches. He notes, for example, how ABC's Peter Jennings, ticking off the Senators at President Clinton's impeachment trial, labels all the conservatives ("Senator McConnell of Kentucky; very determined conservative member of the Republican Party") but not the liberals ("Senator Mikulski of Maryland").

Yet a few examples get stretched awfully far, and the tough-minded media critic loses out to the ideologue for long stretches (arguing that the media have underplayed the downside of having kids in day care and overplayed the "myth" of heterosexual AIDS). The book also has a heavy dose of score settling. CBS News executives come across as duplicitous scoundrels, and Goldberg claims that Dan Rather, after assuring him just before seeing the Journal editorial that "we were friends yesterday, we're friends today, and we'll be friends tomorrow," hasn't spoken to him since. Which may explain why Bias is No. 1. Press critiques are for journalism schools; any book with a chapter called "Mugged by 'the Dan'" has got a real shot. BY RICHARD ZOGLIN

27 Years Ago in TIME
Former Symbionese Liberation Army leaders Bill and Emily Harris, along with two others, were charged last week with the murder of a customer during a 1975 bank robbery. But when they were caught and arraigned that year, it was their old comrade PATRICIA HEARST who made TIME's cover.

Patty had changed during her hegira. Not only had her long dark blonde hair been cut shorter and dyed red but she had lost her healthy, cover-girl looks. Her face was noticeably drawn. But she did not look or act like a victim who had been forced by her abductors to rob a bank and denounce her grieving parents and her fiance as "pigs" and "clowns." She was as casual as if she had dropped by to answer a traffic summons. She was wearing stained rubber clogs and dark brown cotton pants, and beneath her striped, long-sleeved jersey she was braless...Next, Patty's friends Bill and Emily Harris went before [Judge] Woodruff. As Harris entered the courtroom, he scanned the expectant audience and cried out, "What do you say, comrades? Keep on trucking!" Then he lifted his left hand in a clenched-fist salute. The Harrises were arraigned on charges of illegal possession of arms; bail was set at $550,000 for each. As he was led from the courtroom by two U.S. marshals, Harris raised his right arm, his fist a hard ball, and announced loudly, "This ain't no big deal, comrades. Long live the guerrillas!"

--TIME, Sept. 29, 1975

Bullying Bosnia For Six Suspects
Last week's detention by U.S. troops of six suspected al-Qaeda-linked terrorists in Bosnia showed just how hard the Bush Administration is willing to lean on other friendly governments in the war on terror. The six Algerians, who at the time held Bosnian papers, were arrested by Bosnian authorities in October after U.S. intelligence picked up phone conversations about possible attacks on the American and British embassies in Sarajevo. Citing the need to protect its sources, however, the U.S. refused to give its records to Bosnian prosecutors. When Bosnia's Supreme Court ruled that it had insufficient evidence to continue holding the suspects, U.S. military officials in Bosnia raised a stink. "They told us to live up to our international obligations," a senior Bosnian official told TIME, and they pressed Bosnia to keep the men in custody or turn them over to the U.S. American officials feared that adhering to the letter of Bosnian law would allow the men to escape. But human-rights groups and some local politicians objected that the men's legal and humanitarian rights were being violated. "We were squeezed on all sides," said the Bosnian official. The U.S. prevailed. When the prisoners were released, Bosnian police spirited them through a crowd of 300 angry supporters chanting "Law! Law!" and rushed them to an undisclosed location. The suspects are expected to be sent to the Guantanamo Bay prison that holds al-Qaeda members caught in Afghanistan. BY ANDREW PURVIS

A Gap In New Baggage Rules
Last Friday should have been a huge headache for air travelers. The start of a three-day weekend was also the first day U.S. airlines had to screen checked bags for explosives and match bags to their owners on originating flights. But things went so smoothly that some security experts suspected not all the required checks were being performed. Even if they are, a big gap in the new regulations could leave passengers vulnerable. Because of a last-minute change, the Department of Transportation decided to "bag match" only on originating flights, not on the second or third leg of a continuing flight. The airline industry has resisted adopting the policy widely, saying it would worsen delays. But proponents point to the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988: it was placed by a ramp worker in Malta and on two connecting flights was never matched to a passenger. Congressman Jim Oberstar called the bag-match loophole "the Achilles' heel in the security system." A rule scheduled to take effect in December would require screening of all bags. But fewer than 10% of the FAA-approved machines needed are available. BY SALLY B. DONNELLY

All Aboard The U.S.S. Pork!
If a bankrupt cruise company, its half-finished ships and taxpayers left holding the bill don't spell opportunity to you, you're just not ready for Capitol Hill. A $1.1 billion federal loan guarantee was pushed through Congress in 1999 to help American Classic Voyages build cruise ships in Senator Trent Lott's hometown of Pascagoula, Miss. The company hit the rocks last fall, citing a decline in tourism due to terrorism and leaving its debts unpaid and its ships at the dock. Republican Congressman Gene Taylor of Mississippi came up with a plan to solve this pork-barrel mess: more pork barrel. Taylor wants the U.S. Navy, already strapped for cash trying to keep its dwindling fleet of 320 warships afloat, to spend several hundred million dollars to buy the cruise ships. Taylor got language added to the 2002 defense bill suggesting the Navy finish the vessels and put them out to sea as a morale booster for troops. The clause reads that the sea service should consider buying vessels "under construction in a U.S. shipyard" for leisure use, housing or a command ship. Though it doesn't mention the ships in Pascagoula, they're the only ones that fit the bill. The Secretary of the Navy last week said he would consider the idea, but it's "probably a stretch." BY MARK THOMPSON

Cinema Verite?
It's an occupational hazard in Hollywood: make a film based on real-life events and, predictably, you're going to have people grousing over inaccuracies. So it is with the latest crop of fact-based dramas. A bigger mystery: what Tolkien fans did before they had Peter Jackson's movie to pick apart.

A Beautiful Mind

CRITICISM Where to begin? In the grand tradition of sanitized biopics, the film about genius mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr. omits his illegitimate child and his alleged liaisons with men, as well as his divorce from and remarriage to Alicia Nash, who helps him battle schizophrenia.

RESPONSE Scriptwriter Akiva Goldsman says the "architecture" of Nash's life mattered more than the facts.

Ali

CRITICISM Howard Cosell sits ringside for the rumble with Foreman. Actually, he left Zaire before the fight. Also, the lawyer in Ali's draft case calls him from a motel as Martin Luther King Jr. is shot there. Dubious.

RESPONSE Director Michael Mann says he tried "to represent the totality" of the Cosell-Ali bond and the tumult of 1968.

Black Hawk Down

CRITICISM It used real aircraft, but the film cut the number of men defending the chopper and put names on the helmets, a practice discontinued years ago. Somali casualties remain nameless.

RESPONSE Director Ridley Scott was worried that the audience would lose track of the characters. No comment from the studio about the portrayal of Somalis.

The Lord of the Rings

CRITICISM Yes, hobbits are imaginary, but you wouldn't know it from the outrage over the anthropological errors alleged in the film. Example: fans say a hobbit wears shoes in one scene when everyone knows they leave their hairy, oversize feet unshod.

RESPONSE Producer Mark Ordesky says he double-checked and swears there's no shoe. BY JYOTI THOTTAM

How To Frisk A Pretzel
President Bush's fainting episode, caused by a pretzel, appeared to have little medical significance. But it was a major event for at least one constituency: late-night talk-show hosts. Here, at last, was a terrorism-free gaffe they could make fun of--which they did, endlessly. The Tonight Show's Jay Leno, who joked about Bush's deciding "which game he's going to pass out watching," tells TIME the mishap was "a gem" because it didn't require "mocking his ability to govern...but was just a light human foible." Indeed, Bush got relatively gentle treatment: most of the jokes were at the expense of others, like Dick Cheney, or the pretzel itself. "The reality is, going hard at Bush now wouldn't go over very well," says David Javer-baum, a writer for Comedy Central's Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Craig Kilborn, star of CBS's Late Late Show, deadpanned that the Secret Service wrestled the pretzel to the ground, but he continues to bar jokes at Bush's expense. The pretzel debacle didn't change his mind. "I think this story will become funnier," he says, "when Dan Quayle spells pretzel with an e at the end."

This Just In
The CIA had no comment Saturday on a Washington Post report that military officers in CHINA had removed 27 listening devices from a Boeing 767-300 delivered to President Jiang Zemin in August after it was refitted in Texas. The Chinese allege that the U.S. planted the BUGS, described as highly sophisticated devices capable of being activated by satellite. The Chinese paid $150 million for the now grounded airliner, which was intended to be Jiang's PERSONAL AIRCRAFT. The report promises to complicate U.S.-China relations as Jiang and President Bush prepare for a SUMMIT, scheduled for Feb. 21, in Beijing.