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The Georgia National Fair is a 10-day fair that is held every October on the Georgia National Fairgrounds and Agricenter in Perry, Georgia. It was first held in 1990, and has grown to attract an annual average of 400,000 visitors. It offers a wide range of activities and shows, such as circuses, thrill rides, live music performances, and agricultural shows. The carnival has been provided for years by Reithoffer Shows, a very respectable operation in the business.

http://www.georgianationalfair.com/
http://www.gnfa.com/

By John Poirier

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. regulators took over two banks on Friday and sold them to Mutual of Omaha Bank, the sixth and seventh bank failures this year as financial institutions struggle with a housing bust and credit crunch.

Two weeks after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp seized IndyMac Bancorp Inc, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said it closed First National Bank of Nevada and First Heritage Bank NA of California.

First National, characterized as undercapitalized, had total assets of $3.4 billion and $3 billion in deposits. First Heritage, described as critically undercapitalized, had assets of $254 million and $233 million in deposits, regulators said.

The FDIC said the cost of the transactions to its insurance fund is estimated to be $862 million, adding that the two failed banks represent just 0.3 percent of $13.4 trillion in total industry assets at about 8,500 FDIC-insured institutions.

The FDIC said the 28 offices of the two banks will reopen on Monday as Mutual of Omaha Bank. Over the weekend, customers can access their money by writing checks, using automatic teller machines or debit cards.

Mutual of Omaha Bank currently has more than $750 million in assets and operates 14 retail branches in Nebraska and Colorado with commercial lending offices in Dallas and Des Moines, Iowa, the FDIC said.

It is a subsidiary of Mutual of Omaha, a 99-year-old insurance and financial services company with more than $19 billion in total assets.

Top banking regulators have warned of additional insolvencies this year and next, but for now do not expect failures the size of IndyMac, which had $32 billion in assets and $19 billion in total deposits at the end of March.

IndyMac, the third largest U.S. bank failure, was regulated by the Office of Thrift Supervision and is expected to deplete the FDIC’s insurance fund by between $4 billion and $8 billion.

IndyMac is being run by the FDIC while the agency looks to sell its assets.

The FDIC oversees an industry-funded reserve of about $53 billion used to insure up to $100,000 per deposit and $250,000 per individual retirement account at insured banks.

The agency also has a running tally of problem banks that its examiners closely monitor. At the end of the first quarter, 90 institutions were on the list that is expected to be updated next month.

First Heritage of Newport Beach, California, had three branches with customers comprised mostly of corporations, while First National of Reno, Nevada, had 25 branches. Both were owned by First National Bank Holding Co of Scottsdale, Arizona.

In addition to assuming all the deposits, Mutual of Omaha Bank will purchase about $200 million of assets and pay the FDIC a 4.41 premium to assume the deposits.

None of the entities are publicly traded.

(Reporting by John Poirier; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

BEIJING - Parents whose children died or were disabled in China’s devastating earthquake will be allowed to have more children after lawmakers in the hardest-hit province waived strict family-planning controls, state media reported Saturday.

The Sichuan provincial legislature passed exemptions Friday to relax family-planning laws that are commonly referred to as the one-child policy.

Under the exemptions, families whose only child died or was disabled or whose two children were both disabled may now have another child as may families in which one parent was disabled, the reports said.

The May 7.9-magnitude quake left nearly 70,000 people dead in China’s worst natural disaster in 30 years. Among the dead were children from 18,000 families, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

The loss of so many children stirred public anger across China over shoddily built schools in a chronically underfunded education system that is often susceptible to local corruption. Parents of dead children have staged protests demanding investigations but in recent weeks have been subjected to intimidation and financial inducements to silence them.

Sichuan has begun paying $15 per month in subsidies to 5,200 families whose children died or were disabled, the China Daily quoted the provincial family planning commission as saying.

[Source: Yahoo News]

By JOHN DUNBAR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.’s $3.3 billion buyout of rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. will mean millions of subscribers will be able to receive programming from both services, while executives say it will create huge cost savings for the industry.

Federal regulators formally approved the merger of the nation’s only two satellite radio operators Friday.

“I think it’s going to be, in the end, a good thing for consumers and be in the public interest,” Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin told The Associated Press. “Consumers will enjoy a variety of programming at reduced prices and more diversified programming choices.”

Subscribers will not have to buy new radios to receive a mix of programming from both services, according to the companies. But if they want to pursue a special pay-per-channel a la carte option, they will need new sets.

The FCC voted 3-2 to approve the buyout, with the tiebreaker coming Friday night from Republican commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate.

Tate had insisted that the companies settle charges that they violated FCC rules before she would approve the deal. The companies agreed this week to pay $19.7 million to the U.S. Treasury for violations related to radio receivers and ground-based signal repeaters.

The long-running regulatory review was watched closely by exasperated investors anxious for a resolution as well as 18 million-plus satellite radio customers with questions about what impact the merger would have on their service.

The approval was a major blow for the land-based radio industry, which lobbied hard against the buyout. It was also opposed by consumer groups, various members of Congress and state attorneys general, all of whom argued a satellite radio merger would hurt consumers and was not in the public interest.

“They kept each other on their toes,” Democratic commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said of the two companies. “I hope they keep their edge and don’t become a fat and happy monopoly.”

Adelstein voted against the buyout as did fellow Democrat Michael Copps. Joining Martin and Tate in approving the deal was Republican commissioner Robert McDowell.

The companies said the combination would create hundreds of millions of dollars in cost savings and lead to greater choice in programming for subscribers and flexible pricing options.

Tate released a statement Friday night praising the commission’s decision to punish the companies for rules violations before acting on the merger and supporting pro-consumer conditions imposed on the deal.

Under the terms of the consent decree, XM will pay $17.5 million and Sirius will pay $2.2 million to resolve interference complaints and violations related to land-based signal repeaters the companies operate to deliver programming.

The final merger agreement did not require the combined company to include a chip in its radios that will allow customers to receive digital signals from land-based radio stations, which would have helped the land-based radio industry.

Tate, who was lobbied intensely by the industry in the final weeks, said she “could not in good conscience support a government-mandated requirement on the backs of American consumers at this time.”

Martin said the agreement is nearly identical to what he circulated among other commissioners when he first recommended approval for the deal more than a month ago.

The companies first applied for permission to combine in March 2007. The Justice Department approved the deal in March of this year without conditions, saying the companies don’t really compete because customers must buy equipment that is exclusive to either XM or Sirius, and subscribers rarely switch providers.

DOJ also agreed with the companies’ argument that they compete with other forms of audio entertainment, including digital radio, Internet-based radio stations and even devices like Apple Inc.’s iPod.

FCC approval faced a steeper climb because the companies were prohibited from combining under terms of their licenses. The agency struggled to come up with a way to show that allowing a satellite radio monopoly was in the public interest.

The companies voluntarily agreed to a set of conditions, including a three-year price cap and an 8 percent set-aside of “full-time audio channels” for public interest and minority programming. They will also adopt an “open radio” standard that may lead to a greater variety of features in radios and greater competition among manufacturers.

Sirius and XM also have promised to include a limited “a la carte” offering that would be available within three months of the close of the deal and allow listeners to pay only for the channels they want to receive.

By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer
ATLANTA - The Atkins diet may have proved itself after all: A low-carb diet and a Mediterranean-style regimen helped people lose more weight than a traditional low-fat diet in one of the longest and largest studies to compare the dueling weight-loss techniques.
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A bigger surprise: The low-carb diet improved cholesterol more than the other two. Some critics had predicted the opposite.

“It is a vindication,” said Abby Bloch of the Dr. Robert C. and Veronica Atkins Foundation, a philanthropy group that honors the Atkins’ diet’s creator and was the study’s main funder.

However, all three approaches — the low-carb diet, a low-fat diet and a so-called Mediterranean diet — achieved weight loss and improved cholesterol.

The study is remarkable not only because it lasted two years, much longer than most, but also because of the huge proportion of people who stuck with the diets — 85 percent.

Researchers approached the Atkins Foundation with the idea for the study. But the foundation played no role in the study’s design or reporting of the results, said the lead author, Iris Shai of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Other experts said the study — being published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine — was highly credible.

“This is a very good group of researchers,” said Kelly Brownell, director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.

The research was done in a controlled environment — an isolated nuclear research facility in Israel. The 322 participants got their main meal of the day, lunch, at a central cafeteria.

“The workers can’t easily just go out to lunch at a nearby Subway or McDonald’s,” said Dr. Meir Stampfer, the study’s senior author and a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.

In the cafeteria, the appropriate foods for each diet were identified with colored dots, using red for low-fat, green for Mediterranean and blue for low-carb.

As for breakfast and dinner, the dieters were counseled on how to stick to their eating plans and were asked to fill out questionnaires on what they ate, Stampfer said.

The low-fat diet — no more than 30 percent of calories from fat — restricted calories and cholesterol and focused on low-fat grains, vegetables and fruits as options. The Mediterranean diet had similar calorie, fat and cholesterol restrictions, emphasizing poultry, fish, olive oil and nuts.

The low-carb diet set limits for carbohydrates, but none for calories or fat. It urged dieters to choose vegetarian sources of fat and protein.

“So not a lot of butter and eggs and cream,” said Madelyn Fernstrom, a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center weight management expert who reviewed the study but was not involved in it.

Most of the participants were men; all men and women in the study got roughly equal amounts of exercise, the study’s authors said.

Average weight loss for those in the low-carb group was 10.3 pounds after two years. Those in the Mediterranean diet lost 10 pounds, and those on the low-fat regimen dropped 6.5.

More surprising were the measures of cholesterol. Critics have long acknowledged that an Atkins-style diet could help people lose weight but feared that over the long term, it may drive up cholesterol because it allows more fat.

But the low-carb approach seemed to trigger the most improvement in several cholesterol measures, including the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL, the “good” cholesterol. For example, someone with total cholesterol of 200 and an HDL of 50 would have a ratio of 4 to 1. The optimum ratio is 3.5 to 1, according to the American Heart Association.

Doctors see that ratio as a sign of a patient’s risk for hardening of the arteries. “You want that low,” Stampfer said.

The ratio declined by 20 percent in people on the low-carb diet, compared to 16 percent in those on the Mediterranean and 12 percent in low-fat dieters.

The study is not the first to offer a favorable comparison of an Atkins-like diet. Research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association last year found overweight women on the Atkins plan had slightly better blood pressure and cholesterol readings than those on the low-carb Zone diet, the low-fat Ornish diet and a low-fat diet that followed U.S. government guidelines.

The heart association has long recommended low-fat diets to reduce heart risks, but some of its leaders have noted the Mediterranean diet has also proven safe and effective.

The heart association recommends a low-fat diet even more restrictive than the one in the study, said Dr. Robert Eckel, the association’s past president who is a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado-Denver.

It does not recommend the Atkins diet. However, a low-carb approach is consistent with heart association guidelines so long as there are limitations on the kinds of saturated fats often consumed by people on the Atkins diet, Eckel said.

The new study’s results favored the Atkins-like approach less when subgroups such as diabetics and women were examined.

Among the 36 diabetics, only those on the Mediterranean diet lowered blood sugar levels. Among the 45 women, those on the Mediterranean diet lost the most weight.

“I think these data suggest that men may be much more responsive to a diet in which there are clear limits on what foods can be consumed,” such as an Atkins-like diet, said Dr. William Dietz, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“It suggests that because women have had more experience dieting or losing weight, they’re more capable of implementing a more complicated diet,” said Dietz, who heads CDC’s nutrition unit.

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By SOPHIA TAREEN, Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO - The Rev. Jesse Jackson used the N-word during a break in a TV interview where he criticized presidential candidate Barack Obama, Fox News confirmed Wednesday.
The longtime civil rights leader already came under fire this month for crude off-air comments he made against Obama in what he thought was a private conversation during a taping of a “Fox & Friends” news show.

In additional comments from that same conversation, first reported by TVNewser, Jackson is reported to have said Obama was “talking down to black people,” and referred to blacks with the N-word when he said Obama was telling them “how to behave.”

Though a Fox spokesman confirmed the TVNewer’s account to The Associated Press, the network declined to release the full transcript of the July 6 show and did not air the comments.

Jackson — who is traveling in Spain — apologized in a statement Wednesday for “hurtful words” but didn’t offer specifics.

“I am deeply saddened and distressed by the pain and sorrow that I have caused as a result of my hurtful words. I apologize again to Senator Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, their children as well as to the American public,” Jackson said in a written statement. “There really is no justification for my comments and I hope that the Obama family and the American public will forgive me. I also pray that we, as a nation, can move on to address the real issues that affect the American people.”

A spokeswoman for Jackson’s civil rights organization, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, said she could not confirm that Jackson used the slur.

Jackson has called on the entertainment industry, including rappers, actors and studios, to stop using the N-Word. He also urged the public to boycott purchasing DVD copies of the TV sitcom “Seinfeld” after co-star Michael Richards was taped using the word during a rant at a Los Angeles comedy club in 2006.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has joined Jackson in opposition of the word, said Wednesday he wanted to hear the comments for himself and declined to discuss Jackson specifically.

“I am against the use of the N-word by anyone and I think we must be consistent,” he told The Associated Press. “We must not use the word.”

Stage 2 of the World Match Racing Tour will head for the southern German town of Langenargen on Lake Constance for Match Race Germany. Fresh from his win at the Brasil Sailing Cup, new World Tour leader Paolo Cian of Team Shosholoza will head up a field of 12 teams including America’s Cup skippers and crews.

The 12 team field will include:

1. Paolo Cian (ITA) - Team Shosholoza
2. Matthieu Richard (FRA) - French Match Racing Team
3. Ian Williams (GBR) - Team Pindar
4. Bjorn Hansen (SWE) - Alandia Sailing Team
5. Sébastian Col (FRA) - K Challenge/French Match Racing Team
6. Peter Wibroe (DEN) - Team Wibroe
7. Staffan Lindberg (FIN) - Alandia Sailing Team
8. Adam Minoprio (NZL) - Emirates Team New Zealand
9. Jes Gram Hansen (DEN) - Trifork Racing
10. Damien Iehl – French Match Racing Team
11. Eric Monin (SUI) - Search.ch ‘Qualifier from the German Championship’
12. Markus Wieser (GER) - Team Sea Dubai ‘Qualifier from the Berlin Match Race’

Team Shosholoza is on top of the World Championship standings with their win at the Brasil Sailing Cup. They are the favorites going into Germany having won the event last year sailed in matched Bavaria 35’s “We sailed well in Brazil and had a great event to kick off our World Tour season” commented Paolo Cian “we are the defending Champions in Germany but anything can happen and it’s still a long way to win the World Championships” The fiery Italian will be up against some familiar foes this weekend including current World Champion, Ian Williams and his Team Pindar as well as Tour regulars Col, Hansen and Richard.

Frenchman Sébastien Col comments on the additional benefits the tour is providing him other than the opportunity of competing to become World Champion “Match Race Germany is our first event on the World Match Racing Tour this year. My objective this season is to sail at the highest level and to use the WMRT to prepare for our next America’s Cup campaign with K-Challenge. This will enable me to test different configurations with crew members and trimmers who would be interesting for us to recruit in the team. I’m starting the week with a two days training with Mathieu Richard in Pornic, then we will head to Langenargen to start the event on Wednesday.”

Perhaps no other venue on the World Tour is as stunning as Lake Constance which is bordered by Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Measuring 40 miles in length and 8.5 miles in width, Lake Constance, also called Bodensee, covers 220 square miles, making it central Europe’s second largest freshwater lake. With over 20,000 spectators last year, the event prides itself on its public access and festival atmosphere that takes place along the promenade of Langenargen at Lake Constance. With a large beer tent, many food vendors and bands playing everything from Dixieland to reggae, the event offers a slice of Oktoberfest in early summer.

Racing starts May 7 at 9.00hrs GMT subject to weather conditions. The format will see the teams split into two groups of 6 with the top three from each going to the quarter finals and the bottom three from each sailing a repechage for the final two places in the quarter final. From there the knockouts begin culminating in a first to three point final on Monday, May 12th which is a public holiday in Germany.

For more information about the World Match Racing Tour, visit the WMRT website at www.worldmatchracingtour.com.
Yvonne Reid

[Source: bymnews.com]

By TANALEE SMITH, Associated Press Writer

SYDNEY, Australia - An Australian doctor proposed Monday that the government pay up to $47,000 for kidney donations to overcome a chronic shortage.

The suggestion touched off debate around the country on the idea, which critics say will end in the poor selling their organs to the rich.

Kidney specialist Gavin Carney said allowing the sale of organs would save thousands of lives and billions of dollars in care for patients on transplant waiting lists. He also said it would stop people from buying organs on the black market in developing countries, where they pursue risky, unregulated surgeries.

Australia has one of the lowest rates of organ donation in the developed world, about 10 donors per 1 million people, according to a federal health task force.

“We’ve tried everything to drum up support for organ donation and the rates have not risen in 10 years,” Carney was quoted as saying in Fairfax newspapers. “People just don’t seem to be willing to give their organs away for free. … Let’s pay people some money for a new car or a house deposit and those waiting lists will be halved within about five years.”

Carney, a professor at the Australian National University, could not immediately be reached by The Associated Press.

Carney’s proposal was immediately criticized by transplant groups, who fear it would exploit poor people.

The idea was dismissed by Health Minister Nicola Roxon, who said Australians would not be allowed to market their organs. “But we do know that we need urgent action in this area of organ donation,” Roxon told Australia Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Rather than paying people for organs, Roxon said her ministry would act on some of the recommendations of a federal task force that recently completed a review of the organ donation system. She did not specify its recommendations.

The task force attributed Australia’s low organ donor rate to a decrease in road accidents and strokes, lack of public awareness, and poor identification of donors in hospitals, among other factors. In comparison, Germany has 15 donors per 1 million people, the Netherlands has 25, the United States 27, and Spain 35, it said.

Selling or buying organs is illegal in Australia, as in most countries, and carries a penalty of six months in jail and a fine of up to $4,130.

More than 1,800 people are waiting for kidney transplants in the country but only 343 kidneys were donated last year, Fairfax reported. Transplant Australia, a national charity and organ support group, said the average wait for a kidney transplant is four years.

The group’s chief executive Chris Thomas said his organization rejects paying for organs and instead is working with the government to change the donation system. He said Carney’s proposal would leave poor people vulnerable.

“It really focuses on the poor and people who are least able to pay for things in society. They get attracted to these types of things,” he told ABC Radio. “We’d reject that.”

Kidney Health Australia also rejected Carney’s proposal, saying it would be open to “many ethical issues and abuse.”

“In my opinion it is inappropriate for the Australian medical system to consider, and is counter to the Australian culture which promises an equitable approach in all things,” KHA medical director Tim Mathew told The Associated Press. “The commercial trade in organs is not something we can support.”

Carney said the suggestion that paid donation would exploit poor people was “a red herring,” telling ABC radio that government regulation of organ commercialization would ensure high ethical standards and medical safeguards.

“I don’t support (illegal trade),” Carney said. “But I also do not agree with the fact that we should let people just rot on dialysis until they have been on dialysis so long they are untransplantable.”

Last week, health officials in the Philippines announced that foreigners will be banned from receiving kidneys for transplant there in an attempt to crack down on a thriving black market in organs sold by poor people.

By Hossein Jaseb

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran on Monday dismissed any prospect of new talks with the United States on Iraq, accusing U.S.-led forces on Monday of a “massacre” of the Iraqi people.

The two foes last year held three rounds of ground-breaking discussions in Baghdad, easing a diplomatic freeze of almost three decades, but Iraqi officials have expressed frustration that a fourth round has failed to get off the ground.

Iraq says it does not want its soil to become a battleground for a proxy war between the United States and Iran, which are also at loggerheads over Iran’s disputed nuclear program.

“Right now, what we observe in Iraq is a massacre of the Iraqi nation by the occupying forces,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told a news conference.

“Concerning this situation, talks with America will have no results and will be meaningless.”

Hosseini did not elaborate, but U.S. forces have been fighting daily battles with militiamen loyal to anti-American Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad for several weeks.

Washington accuses Iran of funding, arming and training “rogue” elements of Sadr’s Mehdi Army to attack U.S. and Iraqi forces, despite its public commitment to stabilizing Iraq.

Tehran blames the violence on the U.S. presence in Iraq.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Tom Casey criticized Iran for its latest statements and reiterated U.S. accusations of Iranian meddling in its neighbor’s affairs.

“It is meaningless to have talks on anything with Iran as long as they don’t change their behavior. That said, we have continued to be willing and ready, and are willing and ready, to have additional discussions with the Iranians through this tripartite channel,” Casey told reporters.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said there was no point in continuing the talks at this point.

“We see the value of the talks to be continued, but when the conditions are right and conducive,” he told the U.S. television news network CNN.

SHI’ITE MILITIAS

Despite the mutual accusations, U.S. and Iranian officials had launched talks in May last year aimed at easing bloodshed in Iraq. The fourth meeting has been postponed repeatedly.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry also voiced support for Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in cracking down on “illegal” Shi’ite militias, after an Iraqi delegation urged Tehran to stop backing such groups.

The U.S. military said last week “very, very significant” amounts of Iranian arms had been found in Basra and Baghdad during an offensive against gunmen loyal to Sadr.

Maliki has ordered the formation of a committee to compile evidence of Iranian “interference” in Iraq that would then be presented to Tehran, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh Dabbagh said on Sunday.

Hosseini said Tehran had always supported stability in Iraq.

“What Iran has repeatedly said … was its support for Mr Maliki’s government,” Hosseini said. “Iran believes that illegal armed groups that committed crimes should be legally confronted.”

Ties between Iran and Iraq have improved since Sunni Arab strongman Saddam Hussein was ousted in the U.S.-led invasion and a Shi’ite-led government came to power in Baghdad.

Analysts say Tehran wants to keep a friendly government in charge while ensuring that rival Iraqi Shi’ite factions look to Iran as a power broker.

(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi, Aseel Kami in Baghdad, and Sue Plemingin Washington; Writing by Fredrik Dahl, editing by Ross Colvin and Myra MacDonald)

By LIZ SIDOTI, Press Writer

GREENVILLE, N.C. - Resolute rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama straddled North Carolina and Indiana on Monday on the eve of a pair of crucial primaries in the unceasing contest for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Both predicted the race would stretch into June, regardless of Tuesday’s outcomes.

Seeking an edge in the final hours, Clinton plugged her summertime gas-tax holiday proposal at every stop and released a new TV ad in both states that assailed Obama for his opposition to it. The ad called her “the candidate who is going to fight for working people.”

“He is attacking Hillary’s plan to give you a break on gas prices because he doesn’t have one,” says the ad. “Hillary wants the oil companies to pay for the gas tax this summer — so you don’t have to.”

Obama has accused Clinton of pandering with the proposal, and many economists are against it.

With polls showing Clinton chipping away at Obama’s advantage here, both candidates darted back to North Carolina for some last-minute campaigning. It was a brief diversion from the more competitive Indiana, where each planned to return by nightfall. At stake Tuesday were 187 Democratic delegates.

“Let’s listen to what the people are telling us … because if we listen, we will hear this incredible cry,” Clinton said, keeping up her populist pitch before a couple hundred people in a gymnasium at Pitt Community College.

Elsewhere, Obama campaigned among white, blue-collar workers in Evansville, Ind., before flying to North Carolina. The Democratic front-runner noted that the polls are very tight and the day’s schedule had him “bouncing back and forth” between the two states.

“We’re working as hard as we can and I desperately want every single vote here, in North Carolina and in Indiana,” the Illinois senator said during an appearance at a construction site.

In both states, Obama was trying to recover from a rough patch and put Clinton away after a difficult 16-month fight that has split the party. The former first lady, meanwhile, hoped to hang in the race with a win in one, maybe two states. Her aides lowered expectations for a victory in North Carolina, where Obama is favored, but sounded more optimistic about Indiana, where demographics seem to tilt in her direction.

Obama is ahead in the hunt for convention delegates — 1,743.5 to 1,607.5, according to an Associated Press count Monday — but Clinton senses an opening after a win in Pennsylvania last month. Still, the delegate math works to Obama’s advantage, and it will be hard for Clinton to overtake him.

Nevertheless, TV ads, automatic phone calls and mailed literature flooded both Indiana and North Carolina in the run up to Tuesday while thousands of volunteers for both candidates canvassed countless neighborhoods knocking on doors. With far more cash on hand, Obama outspent Clinton by an estimated $4 million to $5 million — roughly a third more — on TV ads in both states combined.

Both candidates had punishing schedules in the final hours. Clinton was holding five events across the two states, while Obama was jetting from Indiana to North Carolina and back again over a several-hour span. Both began their day at dawn and would end it well into the night.

In the interviews, Obama and Clinton expressed confidence in their chances of winning the Tuesday contests but would not predict that voting this week would be decisive enough to end the primary fight.

On NBC’s “Today” show, Obama predicted that after the final contests June 3 in Montana and South Dakota, “We will be in a position to make a decision who the Democratic nominee is going to be,” he said. “I will be the Democratic nominee.”

Clinton refused to predict Tuesday’s results, but said her campaign has made up some ground after falling behind.

“I think we’ve closed the gap,” she said on CNN’s “American Morning.”

Much of the exchange Monday centered on proposals Clinton has embraced to give drivers some relief from soaring gas prices. Clinton pushed her plan for a summer suspension of the gasoline tax, which she would pay for with a windfall profit tax on oil companies.

“I think a lot of people don’t understand my plan,” Clinton responded on CBS’ “The Early Show.” “I want to the oil companies to pay that $8 billion this summer instead of having the money come out of the pockets of consumers and drivers.”

The last-minute campaigning came as a new poll showed that most people are being squeezed by higher gas prices.

Six in 10 say gas prices have caused financial hardship for their family, including one in five who said it is causing severe problems, according to a CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll released on Monday. That’s actually a bit fewer than the number who said the cost of gasoline was hurting them a year ago.

Eight in 10 said they consider it likely they’ll be paying $4 a gallon sometime this year, and more than four in 10 said they expect prices to hit $5 per gallon.

____

Associated Press Writer Tom Raum in Evansville, Ind., and Alan Fram in Washington contributed to this report.