Nation in brief

Motorcyclists trace tribute to Trail of Tears

WATERLOO, Ala. - Thousands of motorcyclists offered a rumbling, 200-mile tribute Saturday to Cherokee families who were forced from their homes to present-day Oklahoma in the brutal trek that became known as the Trail of Tears.

The annual ride from Chattanooga, Tenn., to Waterloo, began in 1994. Eight motorcycles started the drive that year, but their number swelled to about 100 by the time they reached their destination. As many as 100,000 were expected this year.

Cherokee descendant Keith Sneed said the ride is the only public acknowledgment of a shameful episode of history, when the federal government forced Cherokee families from their homes, herded them to Chattanooga, then took them by boat, wagon and on foot to present-day Oklahoma in 1838-39. The brutal conditions of the trek killed thousands.

WASHINGTON - Retired Gen. Wesley Clark already appears to be competitive in a new national poll released Saturday just days after he became the 10th Democratic presidential candidate.

Clark was among the leaders of the Democratic candidates in the Newsweek Poll and was not far behind President Bush in a head-to-head matchup in the poll taken only days after entering the race.

Clark, with 14 percent, was grouped among the leaders, along with former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, both at 12 percent, and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry at 10 percent. Other candidates were in single digits.

The president's overall job approval rating stood at 51 percent, about where it's been in several recent polls.

In a matchup with Bush, 47 percent of voters backed the president and 43 percent backed Clark.

Matched against Kerry, Bush had a slightly larger lead, 48 percent to 43 percent, and led Dean in a head-to-head matchup, 52 percent to 38 percent.

The poll of 1,001 adults was taken Thursday and Friday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, and 4 percentage points for registered voters.

WASHINGTON - In a decision that represents another reduction of the State Department's influence on counterterrorism policies, the CIA and FBI will soon take control of a database of suspected terrorists used to screen people seeking visas to enter the United States, according to government officials.

The State Department's TIPOFF database, which holds the names of more than 110,000 known or suspected terrorist associates, will be transferred to the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, which the CIA runs with assistance from the FBI.

The database also will be the main component of a new FBI-operated master list of suspected terrorists, created in a directive from President Bush on Tuesday to serve as a one-stop clearinghouse for police, airline workers, nuclear plant operators and others conducting background checks.

David P. Robbins, a noted mathematician who in his dying months tried to solve a problem that had bothered him since he was a boy - what is the area of a polygon if you know only the lengths of the sides? - died Sept. 4. He was 61 and died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Princeton, N.J.

His goal since April was to find the formula for the seven-sided heptagon, and he and researcher Julie Roskies got part of the way there. Robbins told the Wall Street Journal in July that he trusted Roskies to finish the work.

Robbins, who was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., earned his bachelor's degree from Harvard and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

CALIF. GOVERNOR SIGNS SAME-SEX PARTNER BILL: Gov. Gray Davis signed a domestic partner bill that closes the legal gap, to the extent possible under federal law, between gay and straight couples. The legislation grants same-sex couples nearly all the same rights and responsibilities as married spouses. Davis has worked hard to cast himself as the nation's most gay-friendly governor, especially since the recall campaign began.

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