Another Dole, Another Race
When she formally announces her candidacy for the U.S. Senate this week from her home state of North Carolina, Elizabeth Dole will become the instant front runner. The most recent public poll, conducted earlier this month, showed her clobbering her most likely Democratic opponent, Clinton-era White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles, by a 47-point margin. Still, Dole's race for the seat being vacated by Jesse Helms may not be as easy as it once seemed. Democrats have put up TV ads blasting her for a Ken Lay-hosted fund raiser just nine days after Sept. 11. (Her campaign has since donated $5,000 received from Enron's ex-CEO and his relatives to a fund for employees of the bankrupt energy giant.) Some scoffed at Dole's declaring her mother's Salisbury home as her residence, when she's a fixture at the Watergate in Washington, where she and Bob have an apartment. And though her campaign had $2.5 million on hand in January, it also had an eyebrow-raising $637,000 in debts, mostly from direct-mail expenses, according to insiders. The big question, though, is whether Dole will get past the scripted, stilted quality that helped doom her 2000 presidential bid. Her announcement on Saturday may offer the first clues. BY MATTHEW COOPER

78 Years Ago in TIME
Today the Winter Olympics get cover stories in TIME and wall-to-wall television reportage. For the very first Winter Games, held in Chamonix, France, in 1924, TIME devoted a single column to the events. JOHN HESSIN CLARKE, U.S. Supreme Court Justice from 1918 to 1922, appeared on the cover.

The Winter Sports division of the Olympic Games closed at Chamonix, with Norway the decisive victor, having scored 134 1/2 of the 391 points allotted...The great event of the week was the final in hockey, in which Canada defeated the U.S., 6-1. It was a contest between Canadian teamwork and American individual stars. In twenty seconds after the play began a Canadian was sent sprawling. Before two minutes had elapsed an American was laid out by a Canadian's stick. From start to finish the players knocked each other about so that the game was a succession of man-ruled-out-for-two-minutes and man-retired-for-injuries. The only U.S. goal came when Drury took the puck down the ice through the Canadian team. The Canadian goals came as the result of short, accurate, decisive passes...

In fancy skating for women, Mme. Herman Szabo-Plank of Austria won first, with Miss Beatrice Loughan, American, second, and Miss Theresa Blanchard of America, fourth.

--TIME, Feb. 11, 1924

A King-Size Anniversary
Come Aug. 16, it will have been 25 years since Elvis Presley passed on, and the Elvis industry is gearing up to make sure those few fans who have not seen him since then do not forget his face. The host of commemorative items include no-brainers like a greatest-hits CD (RCA) and a four-CD box set (BMG Heritage) of more than 100 unreleased songs. There's also the obligatory coffee-table book and guide to the King's queens and consorts. Kids born in the post-Elvis years will get a chance to become fans too. An animated Disney movie about a tiny Elvis fan hits theaters June 21.

--THE GIRLS' GUIDE TO ELVIS It's just like being in junior high again. This book offers the scoop on Elvis' way with women--the wives, the girlfriends, the screaming fans--and leaves plenty of room for ever important hair and wardrobe discussion. Oh, yeah, a rundown of Elvis films and concert highlights too.

--LILO AND STITCH In this film, young Lilo, a Hawaiian girl with a deep sense of ohana (family), befriends a stray dog on the run from another galaxy. What better melodies to accompany their adventures in the tropics than Lilo's favorite Elvis hits?

--THE ELVIS TREASURES This coffee-table scrapbook is filled with reproductions of Elvisabilia, from a contract with RCA to an eighth-grade library card, which readers can tuck into the pocket of their best rhinestone-studded jumpsuit.

Enron: The Scandal That Keeps on Giving
For Enron watchers who feared things might be getting stale, last week brought fresh material for outrage. Although whistle blower Sherron Watkins testified in Congress that she believed former CEO Kenneth Lay was "duped" by underlings about accounting abuses, a trove of newly released exchanges shows just how chummy Lay was with George W. Bush in his days as Texas Governor. In one note Bush teases Lay about getting older; in another Lay scribbles that he's "so proud" of the Governor and his wife. Beyond the niceties, Lay repeatedly seeks Bush's support for legislation that would benefit Enron.

Separately, Enron disclosed that Lay sold $100 million in its stock last year (about $70 million more than he earlier reported), $20 million of it after Watkins warned him of the company's precarious situation, according to the New York Times. It was also revealed that for several weeks before Enron's Dec. 2 bankruptcy filing, 20 to 30 senior officers were allowed to withdraw millions of dollars from "deferred-compensation accounts" even as retirees and former execs also owed money were refused the same right until it was too late. Other documents emerged that show how aggressively Enron used its financial clout to protect its interests. A memo from Enron's auditor Arthur Andersen discusses the "influence" and "access" Enron hoped to get in exchange for a contemplated $500,000 donation to the International Accounting Standards Board, which harmonizes accounting standards among nations--something Enron was presumably very interested in. Sources tell TIME that since 1989, Enron gave $46,000 to that body's U.S. counterpart, the Financial Accounting Standards Board. BY DAREN FONDA AND ADAM ZAGORIN

Family Planning
The U.S. BIRTHRATE in 2000 reached its highest point since 1971, 2.1 CHILDREN per woman, according to a National Center for Health Statistics report released last week. For the first time in nearly 30 years, America has reached its replacement rate--births in the nation are offsetting deaths. This ends three decades in which the U.S. population grew only because of immigration. POSSIBLE CAUSES: A booming economy, which often nudges birthrates, increasing numbers of women having babies in their 40s, and a high rate of fertility among the growing Hispanic population. Only one demographic saw a decline: the TEEN BIRTHRATE is down 22% from its record high of 62 births per 1,000 females in 1991.

For Bush, It's Not Easy Being Green
For a while, it seemed Bush didn't care what environmentalists thought of him. His Vice President dismissed conservation as "a personal virtue," and his press secretary said Americans should not curtail energy use because "the American way of life is a blessed one." But perhaps because polls now show that nearly three times as many Americans say they trust the Democrats in Congress than say they trust the President to protect the environment, Bush recently has tried to clean up his rhetoric, if not his policies.

Last week Bush introduced a new "Clean Skies" initiative that he said "will constitute the most significant step America has ever taken--has ever taken--to cut power-plant emissions." But environmentalists didn't bite. "His claim is ludicrous," says Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust. "What he's really proposing is a massive relaxation of the Clean Air Act." Sources tell TIME that Christie Whitman, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, fought for tougher restrictions but was rebuffed. The EPA's own numbers say the Clean Air Act left alone will reduce power-plant emissions nearly twice as fast as Bush's new proposals.

Bush also tried to appease international critics still angry over his decision to reject the Kyoto Protocol, the treaty aimed at reducing global warming and endorsed by most of the rest of the world. Bush proposed a system that would be voluntary for corporations and would tie emissions reduction to economic output. He says his plan would prevent more than 500 million metric tons of heat-trapping gases from going into the atmosphere over the next 10 years--"the equivalent of taking 70 million cars off the road." But according to Bush's own economic-growth figures, his plan would actually translate into a nearly 14% increase in global-warming pollution over the next decade. For greens, the rhetoric is wearing thin fast. BY ANDREW GOLDSTEIN

Ousting Saddam: Can It Be Done?
Toppling dictator Saddam Hussein has been a Bush Administration goal from the start, and the war drums were beating louder than ever last week. Administration hard-liners said Dick Cheney's upcoming trip to the Middle East will build a coalition for action. Even moderate Colin Powell told the Senate that "a regime change would be in the best interests of the region. And we are looking at a variety of options that would bring that about."

Still, many of the obstacles to ousting Saddam remain. Some Bush advisers believe a force of just hundreds of U.S. troops bolstering local insurgents could spark a nationwide drive to topple Saddam. But many uniformed officers say it would take between 200,000 and 500,000 troops to assure his downfall. And getting that many soldiers into Iraq would not be easy. Neither Saudi Arabia nor Turkey, likely key launching points for an attack, is eager to help.

Another problem for would-be invaders is how to deter Saddam from launching any biological, chemical or radiological weapons he may have mounted on Scud missiles. "If Saddam feels it's the end, the constraints that acted on him last time wouldn't this time," says an Israeli diplomat. Israeli leader Ariel Sharon expressed this fear to Bush during his visit to Washington earlier this month.

And even if U.S. forces could spread unrest and limit Saddam's retaliation, there is no one waiting in the wings to take power in Baghdad. One candidate is Ahmad Chalabi, Shi'a leader of the Iraqi National Congress, an opposition group in exile. But Chalabi has little personal following inside Iraq, is distrusted by many U.S. officials and is opposed by key Arab states like Saudi Arabia. Washington is increasingly looking for an exiled Sunni from Saddam's professional army to rally the country against him. An emerging candidate is Nazar Khazraji, a former Iraqi chief of staff who defected in 1996 and is living in Copenhagen. Khazraji can rally the professional military against Saddam, experts say, and would reassure the Saudis and others that Iraq won't fragment into Shi'ite and Kurdish enclaves. But Khazraji's close ties to the seat of power in Iraq create problems for him. A court in Copenhagen is considering bringing war-crimes charges against Khazraji for the massacre of Kurds in northern Iraq in the late 1980s. Khazraji says the blame for the massacres lies entirely with Saddam. BY MASSIMO CALABRESI With Reporting by Scott MacLeod/Cairo and Mark Thompson/Washington

Spotlight on Islamic Art
One of the more unexpected effects of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. has been a renewed interest in Islamic art. Though some galleries were initially concerned that shows of Islamic art would be ill received, the opposite has been true. A Montreal museum canceled a show of Muslim artists right after the attacks but reinstated it after public outcry. Several small galleries quickly put together exhibitions, including the Honolulu Academy of Art, which had planned to open an Islamic gallery late in 2002 with work from Doris Duke's collection but rushed out an exhibition of its own works last November. And the Los Angeles County Museum of Art last week announced the acquisition of the Madina Collection, which will make LACMA's the third largest Islamic art collection in the U.S. But it's not just galleries. College professors are reporting an increased enrollment in Islamic art courses. "I had people sitting on the floor, we were so full," says Renata Holod, professor of Islamic Art and Architecture, of her course at the University of Pennsylvania. Numbers are still small--Holod's class now attracts about 30 students--but it's a pattern that's being echoed on campuses elsewhere. "The art gives a more accurate view of that culture," says Linda Komaroff, LACMA's Islamic curator. "Visitors will come away with the idea that the people who created the stuff sought to surround themselves with beauty." BY BELINDA LUSCOMBE

Teacher, Can You Spare a Dime?
Teachers' salaries have never been anything for our society to brag about, but the financial sacrifices are bigger than many suspect. According to a study provided to TIME by the research firm Quality Education Data, a division of Scholastic, U.S. elementary school teachers spend more than $1 billion a year of their own money on supplies for their classrooms. The average teacher's personal contribution is a surprising $521 annually, 35% more than what the school provides them with to buy such things as paperbacks, software, instructional posters and art supplies. Teachers, with an average salary of $42,000, say what they need most is materials for at-risk students, like books for a fifth-grader who reads at a first-grade level or posters for students who aren't proficient in English. Those who spend the most, first-year teachers ($701 a year), are also the lowest paid: the newcomers are building a collection of supplies they will have throughout their careers. Some relief may be in sight: in his budget proposal President Bush included a tax deduction of up to $400 for teachers paying classroom expenses out of pocket. The measure must still be approved by Congress. Until then, teachers will continue to foot the bill. "This profession attracts a special breed," says Jeanne Hayes, of QED. "Obviously, they're not in it for the money."

The Man the CIA Won't Question
Has the CIA ignored a potentially useful Taliban informant? Mullah Haji Abdul Samat Khaksar, the second highest-ranking Taliban official in U.S. custody, has been waiting months for the CIA to talk to him. The former deputy interior minister of the Taliban says he has valuable information to share with U.S. intelligence--and claims he may be able to help locate former Taliban leader Mullah Omar. (Khaksar's brother-in-law is a top aide to Omar and may be on the run with the fleeing leader.) But until TIME alerted the U.S. military in Kabul in late January of Khaksar's desire to talk, no American officials had spoken with him. Two weeks later, Khaksar met with an American general and his intelligence aide, but no senior U.S. intelligence official has come for a full interview. The CIA will not comment.

When the Taliban abandoned Kabul, Khaksar stayed behind in his villa, giving himself up to the Northern Alliance. Since then, he says he has sent five letters to the U.S. embassy in Kabul, offering to meet the diplomats and pass on information about al-Qaeda hideouts in Afghanistan. Khaksar says the reason the U.S. hasn't been able to find Omar so far is that it is relying on "liars" and tribal chieftains who are using U.S. firepower to take revenge on their enemies. He claims to have information about al-Qaeda links to the isi, the Pakistani intelligence agency that has been a key partner in the U.S. war on terror. In exchange for his information, Khaksar wants safe passage for his family to a location of his choice. Though he has had trouble getting U.S. intelligence officials to listen, Khaksar fears his former comrades in the Taliban and al-Qaeda are paying close attention and want him silenced. BY TIM MCGIRK