Biggest search for Fossett ends

CARSON CITY - The biggest search this year for Steve Fossett has ground to a halt with team members leaving a rugged mountain area without finding any sign of the aviator-adventurer, who has been missing for a year. Detailed information on the areas searched will be turned over to local authorities, who helped the 28member team with data amassed in the extensive hunt conducted last year after Fossett disappeared during a pleasure flight in a borrowed plane. The team, which had been looking since Aug. 23, focused on canyons in the Wassuk Range about 130 miles south of Reno. (AP)

Soft drinks accounted for less than a quarter of the beverages sold in schools last year, demonstrating that a voluntary transition toward healthier drinks is working, the beverage industry said yesterday. The current school year will mark the final year of a three-year, voluntary program designed to lower the calories and portions offered to students through vending machines. Many states ban the sale of soft drinks on campuses. Bottled waters represented the largest percentage of drinks sold, 27.6 percent of the product mix last year, versus 22 percent the year before and 13 percent in 2004. (AP)

The Senate voted yesterday to shift $8 billion into the highway trust fund, restoring solvency to an account that is going broke and staving off what could have been crippling delays in federal aid for road and bridge projects around the country. The voice vote was taken five days after Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said the trust fund would be out of money by the end of the month and urged Congress to approve the $8 billion replenishment bill that the White House previously had threatened to veto. The House passed a nearly identical bill in July and was expected to send a version to the president. (AP)