Houston DWI Attorney Paul B. Kennedy

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Were the pilots distracted? Catching up on their sleep? Federal lath struggled to determine what the aggregation associates of a Northwest Airlines jetliner were accomplishing at 37,000 feet as they sped 150 afar accomplished their Minneapolis destination and military jets readied to hunt them. Unfortunately, the cockpit articulation recorder may not acquaint the tale.

A report appear backward Friday said the pilots passed breathalyzer tests and were atoning afterwards Wednesday night's amazing odyssey. They said they had been having a heated discussion about airline policy. But aviation assurance experts and added pilots were frankly skeptical they could accept become so consumed with shop talk that they forgot to acreage an airplane carrying 144 passengers.

The most acceptable possibility, they said, is that the pilots artlessly fell asleep about along their avenue from San Diego.

"It certainly is a believable explanation," said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Va.

One of the two pilots, aboriginal administrator Richard I. Cole, said that wasn't the case.

"I can assure you none of us was asleep," Cole told ABC News. He declined to animadversion added except to say, "I am not accomplishing actual good."

New recorders retain as much as two hours of cockpit chat and added noise, but the earlier archetypal aboard Northwest's Flight 188 includes aloof the aftermost 30 account - alone the actual end of Wednesday night's flight afterwards the pilots realized their error over Wisconsin and were heading back to Minneapolis.

They had aureate through the night with no ackn! owledgme nt as air cartage controllers in two states and pilots of added planes over a advanced swath of the mid-continent approved to get their attention by radio, abstracts message and cell phone. On the ground, anxious officials alerted National Guard jets to go afterwards the airliner from two locations, though none of the military planes got off the runway.

With worries about terrorists still high, alike afterwards acquaintance was re-established, air cartage controllers asked the aggregation to prove who they were by executing turns.

"Controllers accept a acute sense of acuity back we're not able to talk to an aircraft. That's the absoluteness post-9/11," said Doug Church, a agent for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

A report appear by airport badge Friday identified Cole and the flight's captain, Timothy B. Cheney. The report said the men were "cooperative, atoning and appreciative" and volunteered to booty preliminary breath tests that were zero for booze use. The report additionally said the lead flight attendant told badge she was unaware of any incident during the flight.

The pilots, both briefly suspended, are to be interviewed by NTSB lath next week. The airline, acquired aftermost year by Delta Air Lines, is additionally investigating. Messages larboard at both men's homes were not immediately returned.

The FAA said Friday letters had been sent allegorical the pilots they are actuality investigated by the agency and it is accessible their pilot's licenses could be suspended or revoked.

Investigators don't apperceive whether the pilots may accept collapsed asleep, but National Transportation Safety Board agent Keith Holloway said Friday that fatigue and cockpit aberration will be looked into. The plane's flight recorders were brought to the board's Washington headquarters.

Voss, the Flight Safety Foundati! on presi dent, said a special concern was that the many assurance checks built into the aviation arrangement to prevent incidents like this one - or to correct them bound - apparently were abortive until the actual end. Not alone couldn't air cartage controllers and added pilots accession the Northwest pilots for an hour, but the airline's dispatcher should accept been trying to reach them as well. The three flight associates onboard should accept questioned why there were no affairs for landing actuality made. Brightly lit cockpit displays should accept warned the pilots it was time to land. Despite cloudy conditions, the lights of Minneapolis should accept clued them in that they'd reached their destination.

"It's apparently article you would say never would happen if this hadn't aloof happened," Voss said.

The pilots were finally alerted to their situation back a flight attendant alleged on an intercom from the cabin. Two pilots flying in the vicinity were additionally finally able to accession the Northwest pilots application a Denver cartage control radio abundance instead of the local Minneapolis frequency.

On the ground, badge and FBI agents prepared for the worst.

"When the aircraft taxied to the aboideau I was able to see the two white males in the seats of the flight crew, both were cutting uniforms consistent with Delta flight crew," said a badge report, active by an Officer Starch. "When the aircraft had stopped, the male built-in in the pilot seat turned, looked at me and gave me two thumbs up and shook his arch advertence all was OK."

Air cartage controllers in Denver had been in acquaintance with the pilots as they flew over the Rockies, FAA backer Laura Brown said. But as the alike got closer to Minneapolis, she said, "the Denver center approved to acquaintance the flight but couldn't get anyone."

Denver controllers notified their counterparts ! in Minne apolis, who additionally approved to reach the aggregation after success, Brown said.

Officials suspect Flight 188's radio might still accept been tuned to a abundance used by Denver controllers alike though the alike had aureate above their reach, said Church, the agent for the National Air Traffic Controllers Union. Controllers worked throughout the incident with the pilots of added planes, asking them to try to accession Flight 188 application the Denver frequency, he said

Passenger Lonnie Heidtke said he didn't notice annihilation abnormal before the landing except that the alike was late.

The flight associates "did say there was a adjournment and we'd accept to orbit or article to that aftereffect before we got back. They really didn't say we overflew Minneapolis. ... They implied it was aloof a business-as-usual delay," said Heidtke, a consultant with a supercomputer consulting aggregation based in Bloomington, Minn.

Once on the ground, the alike was met by badge and FBI agents. Passengers retrieving their baggage from aerial bins were asked by flight associates sit down, Heidtke said. An airport badge administrator and a couple added people came on lath and stood at the cockpit door, talking to the pilots, he said.

"I did jokingly alarm my wife and say, 'This is the aboriginal time I've seen the badge meet the plane. Maybe they're going to arrest the pilots for actuality so late.' Maybe I was right," Heidtke said.

Delta said Friday it plans to accord flight vouchers worth a few hundred dollars to each of the passengers.

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AP Airlines Writer Joshua Freed and AP Writers Steve Karnowski and Amy Forliti in Minneapolis, Dave Koenig in Dallas and Harry Weber in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

FlightAw! are.com tracking of Northwest Flight 188: http://bit.ly/2QV9hX

National Transportation Safety Board http://www.ntsb.gov

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans seem to be cooling toward global warming.

Just 57 percent think there is solid evidence the world is getting warmer, down 20 points in just three years, a new poll says. And the share of people who believe pollution caused by humans is causing temperatures to rise has also taken a dip, even as the U.S. and world forums gear up for possible action against climate change.

In a poll of 1,500 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, released Thursday, the number of people saying there is strong scientific evidence that the Earth has gotten warmer over the past few decades is down from 71 percent in April of last year and from 77 percent when Pew started asking the question in 2006. The number of people who see the situation as a serious problem also has declined.

The steepest drop has occurred during the past year, as Congress and the Obama administration have taken steps to control heat-trapping emissions for the first time and international negotiations for a new treaty to slow global warming have been under way. At the same time, there has been mounting scientific evidence of climate change - from melting ice caps to the world's oceans hitting the highest monthly recorded temperatures this summer.

The poll was released a day after 18 scientific organizations wrote Congress to reaffirm the consensus behind global warming. A federal government report Thursday found that global warming is upsetting the Arctic's thermostat.

Only about a third, or 36 percent of the respondents, feel that human activities - such as pollution from power plants, factories and automobiles - are behind a temperature increase. That's down from! 47 perc ent from 2006 through last year's poll.

"The priority that people give to pollution and environmental concerns and a whole host of other issues is down because of the economy and because of the focus on other things," suggested Andrew Kohut, the director of the research center, which conducted the poll from Sept. 30 to Oct. 4. "When the focus is on other things, people forget and see these issues as less grave."

Andrew Weaver, a professor of climate analysis at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, said politics could be drowning out scientific awareness.

"It's a combination of poor communication by scientists, a lousy summer in the Eastern United States, people mixing up weather and climate and a full-court press by public relations firms and lobby groups trying to instill a sense of uncertainty and confusion in the public," he said.

Political breakdowns in the survey underscore how tough it could be to enact a law limiting pollution emissions blamed for warming. While three-quarters of Democrats believe the evidence of a warming planet is solid, and nearly half believe the problem is serious, far fewer conservative and moderate Democrats see the problem as grave. Fifty-seven percent of Republicans say there is no solid evidence of global warming, up from 31 percent in early 2007.

Though there are exceptions, the vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is occurring and that the primary cause is a buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal.

Jane Lubchenco, head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told a business group meeting at the White House Thursday: "The science is pretty clear that the climate challenge before us is very real. We're already seeing impacts of climate change in our own backyards."

Despite misgivings about th! e scienc e, half the respondents still say they support limits on greenhouse gases, even if they could lead to higher energy prices. And a majority - 56 percent - feel the United States should join other countries in setting standards to address global climate change.

But many of the supporters of reducing pollution have heard little to nothing about cap-and-trade, the main mechanism for reducing greenhouse gases favored by the White House and central to legislation passed by the House and a bill the Senate will take up next week.

Under cap-and-trade, a price is put on each ton of pollution, and businesses can buy and sell permits to meet emissions limits.

"Perhaps the most interesting finding in this poll ... is that the more Americans learn about cap-and-trade, the more they oppose cap-and-trade," said Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who opposes the Senate bill and has questioned global warming science.

Regional as well as political differences were detected in the polling.

People living in the Midwest and mountainous areas of the West are far less likely to view global warming as a serious problem and to support limits on greenhouse gases than those in the Northeast and on the West Coast. Both the House and Senate bills have been drafted by Democratic lawmakers from Massachusetts and California.

One of those lawmakers, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, told reporters Thursday that she was happy with the results, given the interests and industry groups fighting the bill.

"Today, to get 57 percent saying that the climate is warming is good, because today everybody is grumpy about everything," Boxer said. "Science will win the day in America. Science always wins the day."

Earlier polls, from different organizations, have not detected a growing skepticism about the science behind global warming.

Since 1997, the percentage of Americans that believe the Earth is heating up has remained constant - at around 80 percent - in polling done by Jon Krosnick of Stanford University. Krosnick, who has been conducting surveys on attitudes about global warming since 1993, was surprised by the Pew results.

He described the decline in the Pew results as "implausible," saying there is nothing that could have caused it.

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Associated Press Writers Seth Borenstein and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama on Tuesday acclaimed Afghan President Hamid Karzai for accepting acclamation artifice findings that invalidated nearly a third of the votes cast for him in August.

Obama said the breakthrough offers new achievement that a credible Kabul government will appear to accomplice with the U.S. and NATO in battling a resurgent Taliban insurgency and blocking al-Qaida's return.

Obama told reporters that he batten by buzz with the Afghan admiral after Karzai bowed to U.S. burden and appear that he agreed to a runoff acclamation Nov. 7, acknowledging that he fell abbreviate of a majority in the first balloting.

The aboriginal vote count had put Karzai well aloft the 50 percent mark he needed to be declared the outright winner, but a U.N.-based analysis bent that hundreds of bags of his votes were tainted. Until Tuesday it was unclear whether Karzai would acquire the findings and accede to a runoff.

"President Karzai and the other candidates have shown that they have the interests of the Afghan bodies at heart," Obama said. "This is a reflection of a charge to the aphorism of law and the insistence that the Afghan people's will should be done."

In his animadversion at the White House, Obama accepted the work of U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, who was joined in talks in Kabul over the weekend by Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who active the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Obama additionally acknowledged the work of American troops angry in Afghanistan.

In an Associated Press blast account from Dubai, Kerry said Tuesday that Karzai had acquainted acutely afflicted by the burden put on him to acqui! re a run off and the implication of Afghan incompetence.

"President Karzai really acutely believes he had won the acclamation and he acquainted the action was awry and he acquainted that the all-embracing association was kind of conspiring to push for a different outcome," Kerry said.

"He acquainted very acutely about the flaws of the process. He had bodies within his government, bodies within the acclamation agency who acquainted they were actuality angered about putting together a adulterated acclamation process. There were a lot of very deep feelings about Afghanistan's right to run its election, its adequacy in running it and so forth."

Obama put a positive circuit on Karzai's decision.

"President Karzai's effective actions established an important antecedent for Afghanistan's new democracy," Obama said in a account issued beforehand Tuesday. "The Afghan constitution and laws are strengthened by President Karzai's decision, which is in the best interests of the Afghan people."

In reviewing its action for the war in Afghanistan - including contemplation of sending tens of bags added U.S. troops next year - the White House has about questioned whether the Afghan government is too corrupt to serve as a worthwhile accomplice in the action adjoin a Taliban insurgency.

Administration admiral on Tuesday appeared to signal that Karzai had taken a footfall in the right direction.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton welcomed Karzai's advertisement as a addition for Afghan democracy. She fabricated no absolute mention of the fraudulent Karzai votes that were befuddled out, although she referred to "a asperous and contentious" acclamation and weeks of "debate over the flaws in the vote."

"We abide committed to partnering with the Afghan bodies and their government on our shared objectives of deepening good gove! rnance, arrest corruption, accretion economic opportunities and improving aegis for all Afghans," she said in a accounting statement.

Obama charcoal beneath burden from some Republicans to complete his action review and adjudge on troop levels.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a arch apostle of bolstering U.S. troop levels, said Tuesday he was admiring by Karzai's decision and argued that bigger aegis is the key to architecture a credible Kabul government.

"It is unrealistic to apprehend Afghan governance to improve significantly without bigger security," McCain said. "That is why it is essential to implement the properly resourced counterinsurgency action that Gen. Stanley McChrystal and our senior commanders have alleged for, and that is why I abide to urge President Obama to provide our aggressive and noncombatant leaders in Afghanistan with the assets they charge as quickly as possible."

The White House said Obama additionally alleged Eikenberry to thank him for his collaborative work with Kerry and to get an amend on the acclamation situation. Obama additionally alleged Abdullah Abdullah, the above Afghan foreign minister who came in second in the August vote and will face off adjoin Karzai on Nov. 7.

Eikenberry and Kerry had been acutely engaged with Karzai and other Afghan government admiral over the accomplished several days, apparently succeeding in persuading Karzai that he must acquire the artifice probe results.

Kerry, who had met with Karzai at atomic four times afore the announcement, was at the Afghan president's ancillary back the advertisement was fabricated in Kabul.

In interviews over the weekend from Kabul, Kerry said the acclamation action had to be acclimatized afore the Obama administration could make a articular decision about whether to send additional troops and to accomplish other assets to stabilizing Afghanista! n.

< class="ap-story-p">Defense Secretary Robert Gates, meanwhile, said the Obama administration needs to adjudge on a war action and not "sit on our hands" waiting for acclamation after-effects and a government to appear in Kabul. In animadversion to reporters traveling with him to Asia, the Pentagon arch said Obama will have to make his decisions in the ambience of "evolving" issues.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said it has not been bent whether Obama will wait to advertise an Afghan action until after the after-effects of the runoff. Gibbs told reporters he still expects that advertisement to be fabricated in "the advancing weeks."

Regardless of the election's outcome, Gibbs said, "We've got to make sure we're making advance with a accomplice in that government." He additionally said the next U.S. action affair on Afghanistan may be pushed back until early next anniversary because Gates and Vice President Joe Biden are traveling abroad.

Obama was widely accepted to adjudge on the next steps in Afghanistan afore he begins an extended cruise to Asia next month.

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Associated Press writers Andrew Miga, Steven Hurst, Lara Jakes and Jennifer Loven contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A scientist who worked for the Defense Department, a White House space council and other agencies was arrested Monday on charges of attempting to pass along classified information to an FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer.

Stewart David Nozette, 52, of Chevy Chase, Md., was charged in a criminal complaint with attempting to communicate, deliver and transmit classified information, the Justice Department said. The complaint does not allege that the government of Israel or anyone acting on its behalf violated U.S. law.

Nozette was arrested by FBI agents. He is expected to make his initial appearance in federal court in Washington on Tuesday. Law enforcement officials said Nozette did not immediately have a lawyer.

Nozette worked in varying jobs for the Energy Department, NASA and - in 1989 and 1990 - the National Space Council in the president's office. He developed the Clementine bi-static radar experiment that purportedly discovered water on the south pole of the moon. He worked at the Energy Department's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he designed highly advanced technology, from approximately 1990 to 1999.

At Energy, Nozette held a special security clearance equivalent to the Defense Department's top secret and "critical nuclear weapon design information" clearances. DOE clearances apply to access to information specifically relating to atomic or nuclear-related materials.

Nozette also held top offices at the Alliance for Competitive Technology, a nonprofit corporation that he organized. Between January 2000 and February 2006, Nozette, through his company, had several agreements to develop advanced technology for the ! U.S. gov ernment.

An affidavit explains why FBI agents posed as agents of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.

From 1998 to 2008, the complaint alleges, Nozette was a technical adviser for a consultant company that was wholly owned by the Israeli government. Nozette was paid about $225,000 over that period, the court papers say.

Then, in January of this year, Nozette allegedly traveled to another foreign country with two computer thumb drives and did not return with them. Prosecutors also quote an unnamed colleague of Nozette who said the scientist told him that if the U.S. government ever tried to put him in jail for an unrelated criminal offense, he would go to Israel or another foreign country and "tell them everything" he knows.

In Jerusalem, Israeli government officials had no immediate comment.

The affidavit by FBI agent Leslie Martell said that on Sept. 3, Nozette received a telephone call from an individual purporting to be an Israeli intelligence officer. The caller was an undercover FBI agent.

Nozette agreed to meet with the agent later that day at a hotel in Washington and in the subsequent meeting the two discussed Nozette's willingness to work for Israeli intelligence, the affidavit said.

Image by Goddard Photo and Video Blog via Flickr

Nozette allegedly informed the agent that he had, in the past, held top security clearances and had access to U.S. satellite information, the affidavit said.

Nozette also allegedly said that he would be willing to answer questions about this information in exchange for money. The agent explained that the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, would arrange for a communication system so Nozette could pass on information in a post office box.

Nozette agreed to provide regular, continuing information and asked for an Israeli passport, the affidavit alleged. It gave this sequence of events! :

-Sept. 4. Nozette and the agent met again in the same hotel. The scientist allegedly said that while he no longer had legal access to any classified information at a U.S. government facility, he could, nonetheless, recall classified information by memory. Nozette allegedly asked when he could expect to receive his first payment, saying he preferred cash amounts "under ten thousand" so he didn't have to report it.

Nozette allegedly told the agent, "Well, I should tell you my first need is that they should figure out how to pay me ... they don't expect me to do this for free."

-Sept. 10. Undercover FBI agents left a letter in the designated post office box, asking Nozette to answer a list of questions about U.S. satellite information. The agents provided a $2,000 cash payment. Serial numbers of the bills were recorded.

-Sept. 16. Nozette was captured on videotape leaving a manila envelope in the post office box. The next day, agents retrieved the sealed envelope and found, among other things, a on

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

e-page document containing answers to the questions and an encrypted computer thumb drive.

One answer contained information classified as secret, which concerned capabilities of a prototype overhead collection system. Nozette allegedly offered to reveal additional classified information that directly concerned nuclear weaponry, military spacecraft or satellites, and other major weapons systems.

-Sept. 17. Agents left a second letter in the post office box with another list of questions about U.S. satellite information. The FBI also left a cash payment of $9,000. Nozette allegedly retrieved the questions and the money the same day.

-Oct. 1. Nozette was videotaped leaving a manila envelope in the post office box. FBI agents retrieved it and found a second set of answers. The responses contained information classified as both top secret and sec! ret, on U.S. satellites, early warning systems, means of defense or retaliation against large-scale attack, communications intelligence information, and major elements of defense strategy.

Nozette performed some of this research and development at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in Arlington, Va., and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

In 2006, NASA's Office of Inspector General subpoenaed a bank account of Nozette's firm, Alliance For Competitive Technology Inc. Nozette went to federal court to fight the subpoena.

The IG said it was investigating allegations that Nozette's firm submitted false claims for expenses that were not actually incurred.

A federal judge rejected Nozette's motion to quash the subpoena. The court records give no indication what happened after that.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration was elated a month ago when the Russian president said sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program could become "inevitable." Washington's reaction may have been significantly premature.

Dmitry Medvedev's words were seen as a major Kremlin shift and one that would buttress U.S. attempts to combine renewed negotiations with Tehran and a united front that threatened Iran with punishing global sanctions for failure to come clean.

The United States, Britain, France and Germany believe Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon behind the cover of what Tehran says is a program designed solely to enable a homegrown network of reactors to generate electricity.

Russia and China, the other two key players who engage Iran on the nuclear issue, had routinely rejected tough sanctions, arguing that negotiations were the way forward.

But Medvedev emerged from talks with President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly last month to declare of Iran: "In some cases, sanctions are inevitable."

While clearly delighted with those words, the White House hotly rejected analyses that Medvedev was signaling a course change as a payoff for Obama's decision a week earlier to scrap a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe. The U.S. missile system, conceived under the Bush administration purportedly to defend against attack from Iran, had become a major factor in deteriorating U.S.-Russian relations.

Nevertheless, the president's top Russia adviser acknowledged that the decision against moving forward on missile defense - a deployment that Moscow said would have threatened its security - was a factor in! Medvede v's remarks.

"Is it the case that it (the missile defense decision) changes the climate - I think that's true, of course," Mike McFaul said at the time.

While Medvedev said sanctions could become necessary, Moscow was not long in telling Washington - and major trading partner Iran - that the time had not come yet. That clearly deflated expectations raised when Washington drew so much attention to Medvedev's much hailed remarks.

"Threats, sanctions and threats of pressure in the current situation, we are convinced, would be counterproductive," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was in the Russian capital last week.

And Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who absented himself on a trip to Beijing, drew a line under Lavrov's comments.

"If we speak about some kind of sanctions now, before we take concrete steps, we will fail to create favorable conditions for negotiations," Putin said. "That is why we consider such talk premature."

Positions could clarify somewhat in Monday talks in Vienna, where the U.S., France, Russia, the U.N. nuclear agency and Iran hash out a proposal that would send some of Tehran's low enriched uranium to Russia for further processing to fuel an aging Iranian reactor used for medical research.

If expanded, that program might become the model for undercutting the need for Iran to continue with Iranian uranium enrichment, a technology which could shortly achieve the sophistication to boost low enriched uranium for use in a nuclear weapon.

And later this month, Iran will allow U.N. inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to examine a newly disclosed uranium enrichment facility under construction near the holy city of Qom, a nuclear plant that Iran only notified the world of just days before it was announced to the ! world by Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Iran's new, if limited readiness to cooperate after years of stonewalling once its secret nuclear program became public could portend a more significant shift by Tehran. And Medvedev could be partly responsible.

"This time, it seems to me they (the Russians) are moving a bit to suggest to Tehran that Russia should not be taken for granted or ignored when it comes to meeting what Russia also says are legitimate expectations about Iranian behavior," said James Collins, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia.

But, he said, the "administration probably overplayed their hand" in that the Russians' patience for negotiating with the Iranians could stretch far beyond that of Washington. In the U.S. the urgency of capping Tehran's perceived nuclear threat is deeply enmeshed in the messy and highly partisan domestic political climate - a heavy drag on Obama's ambitious agenda.

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EDITOR'S NOTE - Steven R. Hurst reports from the White House for The Associated Press and has covered international relations for 30 years.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- For Democrats determined to get a health care bill, Sen. Roland Burris is like the house guest who couldn't be refused, won't soon be leaving and poses a plausible threat of ruining holiday dinner.

Suddenly, he can no longer be ignored.

The Illinois Democrat, appointed by disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, says he'll only vote for a bill to provide health care to millions more Americans as long as it allows the government to sell insurance in competition with private insurers.

And he says he won't compromise.

"I would not support a bill that does not have a public option," Burris, 72, said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. "That position will not change."

Those words caught the attention of the very Democratic leaders who tried to keep Burris out of the Senate, suggested he resign and have shunned him in unprecedented fashion. Burris is not the only Democrat to insist on creation of a government-run health plan. But he is the one who has the least to lose by defying President Barack Obama and the Democrats who once turned him out in the cold rain.

It was early January and Blagojevich had appointed Burris, a former Illinois attorney general, to Obama's former Senate seat - defying Democrats in Washington who had wanted someone without a tainted patron and with a better chance of winning election in 2010.

What happened next was a procession of ugly images, from Burris' rain-swept news conference after Democrats turned him away from a swearing-in to Illinois Rep. Bobby Rush daring Democrats to block an accomplished lawyer who would be the chamber's only black.

Bitt erly, the Democrats seated Burris. But when it came out that Burris had admitted what he had denied under oath - that he'd unsuccessfully tried to raise money for Blagojevich - Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., suggested that Burris resign. He refused.

A Senate ethics committee probe is pending into Burris' statements. Democratic leaders, meanwhile, refused to support any effort by Burris to run for a full term, and he will leave the Senate in 2011.

Meanwhile, his relationship with the rest of his caucus has settled into one of mutual, if chilly, benefit.

It works this way: Burris stays mum about any bitterness he may feel about his reception, and he gets Obama's Senate seat for two years. Democrats seat him, don't speak of him, and get his loyal vote at a time when all 58 Democrats and two independents must vote together to prevent Republican filibusters.

They've never needed 60 votes like they do on the yet-to-be-finalized health care bill. A disciplined grin shows that Burris knows it. No, he says, he will not vote for any version of a government-run plan circulating in the Senate, other than the full-blown one from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

He won't vote, for example, for Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe's idea to use the threat of a public option to force insurers to lower premiums by certain deadlines. He hasn't seen the details of another idea, proposed by Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., that would allow each state to decide whether to offer public coverage to compete with private insurers. The health committee's proposal, he says, must be in the final bill to earn his vote.

"Yeah, that's the one," Burris said.

By definition, all 100 senators are relevant because any one can block Senate business unless there are 60 votes to override the objection. But Burris' stated position on the public o! ption me ans that Democrats can no longer take his vote for granted.

And yet, Democratic leaders aren't talking about Burris.

Instead, they're talking confidently about having the votes for the biggest policy overhaul in a generation, a signature issue for Obama and the Democratic Party.

Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said Burris' demand alone makes him no different than other senators seeking this or that in the bill.

"I will do what I can to address the thises and thats," Baucus said. "But my strong feeling is in the end, the need for health care reform is to get 60 votes (and) is going to trump the concerns that some might have."

For his part, Burris says he's just representing the wishes of his state. And he's relentlessly loyal to the arrangement. His only acknowledgment of being treated differently than others is a reference to the "distractions" that marked his first weeks in office.

Ask him whether he feels badly treated by the leaders, and he'll answer with a question:

"By whose standard?"

Go a couple more rounds, and he'll elaborate, generally.

"I feel that I've had great opportunities here," Burris said. "I feel like anytime I had a question that needed answered, anytime I needed something, there was certainly assistance there."

Does he feel respected and listened-to? Burris pauses and looks puzzled.

"Yes. I'm a senator from Illinois representing 13 million people. I'm one of 100, and I speak on the floor, I preside over the Senate, I co-sponsor legislation," he says. "I'm very busy, I'm very challenged, and I have one problem."

He grins.

"I enjoy what I'm doing."

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