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The Straight Talk Express stopped by a Little Rock strip mall as the Republican presidential candidate campaigned in Little Rock on Friday. The bus pulled up in front of the Whole Hog Cafe for a late lunch - pulled pork or plate of brisket prominent on the menu.

McCain, joined by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and their wives, even took a trip behind the counter to check out the giant smokers where the meat is cooked and see how the seasonings are prepared.

"Is that a trade secret, your dry rub?" McCain asked. "I think I'm going to have to change my ways."

He departed with a takeout bag of ribs.

McCain said that early in the GOP campaign, they had a lot of time to get to know each other when both were dismissed as the longest of long shots. Chatting with reporters on the Straight Talk Express campaign bus, McCain recalled the days when they were relegated to the most distant ends of the podium in the early Republican debates, drawing few questions from the moderators.

"Governor Huckabee and I had lots of time to chat with each other," McCain laughed. "We became friends on the campaign trail."

They were joined on the bus by their wives, Cindy McCain and Janet Huckabee.

Huckabee, hugely popular with social conservatives, has been mentioned as a potential running mate for McCain, who needs to shore up his support among conservative Republicans.

"The candidates with the Washington experience - my opponents - are good people. They mean well, but they've been in Washington for a long time and even with all that experience they talk about, nothing has happened," Obama said at a local gas station. "This country didn't raise fuel efficiency standards for over 30 years."

The result, the Illinois senator said, is that consumers are suffering.

"So what have we got to show for all that experience?" Obama asked. "Gas that's approaching $4 a gallon."

Clinton, who is challenging him for the Democratic presidential nomination, derided his promise to take on special interests.

Lambert oversaw a huge expansion of the state's court system in his nearly 10 years as chief justice. A Republican in a non-partisan job, he also engaged in political battles that sometimes left him at odds with leading Democrats and Republicans alike.

Within hours of Lambert's announcement, several justices on the state's highest court expressed an interest in holding the $137,832-a-year job that only four men have held since the Supreme Court was formed in 1976.

Lambert, 59, of Mount Vernon, announced his resignation in a news release and declined to comment further.

"We have made great progress in the last decade to improve Kentucky courts and make them more responsive to the needs of Kentucky's families and children," he said in his statement.

Retired corporate chieftains are grousing about their successors. Ex-Federal Reserve chairmen are second-guessing steps taken by the current Fed chief. And President Bush is being nipped at by two former presidents.

It's an upending of tradition. Former presidents didn't publicly challenge the policies of sitting ones. Former Fed chairmen were seldom seen or heard. And retired CEOs were usually just that, retired, and spotted on the golf course, not on CNBC.

But in recent days:

-Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's unorthodox moves to keep the housing crisis from spreading drew pointed comments about the crisis from predecessors Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright said he was in Newark when the terrorist strike occurred and, from his hotel window, he said he saw the second plane hit the World Trade Center. Some of his congregants lost loved ones in the Pentagon and at the World Trade Center, he said.

"We want revenge. They wanted revenge," Wright told "Bill Moyers' Journal." "God doesn't want to leave you there, however. God wants redemption. God wants wholeness. And ... that's the context, the biblical context, I used to try to get people sitting again in that sanctuary."

The interview, for broadcast Friday night, is the first the pastor has given since video of his preaching gained national attention in March, putting Obama's campaign for the presidential nomination on the defensive.

The controversy forced Obama to distance himself from the minister, after a 20-year association through Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. In a March 18 speech in Philadelphia, Obama described the history of injustice that fueled Wright's comments, while also condemning his pastor's statements and acknowledging white resentment of African-Americans.

John Turner, chairman of the state Council on Postsecondary Education, said it would be "premature" to say how the council will react to Beshear.

"The first step is for me to get in and see the governor and see exactly what his goals are," Turner said.

Beshear made his order Thursday after Attorney General Jack Conway stated that the council's recent hiring of Lexington lawyer Brad Cowgill was illegal.

Although Beshear and Turner said Friday they hope to settle the dispute amicably, Turner speculated in an April 21 letter to council members that the governor might have political motives for questioning Cowgill's hiring.

He has named Leonard Peters, a nationally acclaimed chemical engineer with ties to the University of Kentucky, to be secretary of the new Energy and Environmental Cabinet.

Bob Vance of Maysville is expected to stay on as secretary of the Environmental and Public Protection Cabinet, but it might get a new name. Vance has previously told state lawmakers that the agency's Department of Labor will also become a stand-alone cabinet in late June.

The reorganization will undo moves by former Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher that combined cabinets for the environment and public protection and abolished a labor cabinet.

Tom FitzGerald, an environmentalist and attorney with the Kentucky Resources Council, praised the reorganization "because the current cabinet is too large for anyone to govern."

"I definitely would not qualify for any hall of fame," said Obama, who uses the game for exercise and describes himself as not bad for a 46-year-old guy. "I've already said we're taking out the bowling alley at the White House and putting in a basketball court."

Touring the Indiana Hall of Fame with Obama was George McGinnis, who played pro basketball with the Indiana Pacers and Philadelphia 76ers. He pointed with pride to the state championship his high school team won in 1969.

"Who's the best player you ever saw?" Obama asked. The answer was Julius Erving, or Dr. J.

Obama also got tested at one exhibit, where he was challenged to make a shot. His first shot was an air ball, but his second hit nothing but net.

Questions surfaced about the status of the court's administrative director only a day after Chief Justice Joseph E. Lambert announced he will retire June 27.

And the Frankfort rumor mill ground at full speed with speculation about who will succeed Lambert as chief justice and whether he will play a role in the process.

Senate President David L. Williams, R-Burkesville, acknowledged Friday that the Senate did not confirm the appointment of Jason Nemes to director of the Administrative Office of the Courts during the recently ended session of the General Assembly. Nemes' appointment was not put to a vote.

"He did not have the support to be confirmed," Williams said in a statement released by his spokeswoman.

LENGTH: 30 seconds.

AIRING: nationally on cable television.

SCRIPT: Questioner: "President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years "

McCain: "Maybe 100. That would be fine with me."

Speaking in a broadcast interview, Obama also brushed aside a challenge from Hillary Rodham Clinton to debate before the May 6 primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. "I'm not ducking. We've had 21" debates, he said.

Trailing in delegates and the popular vote, Clinton has been stepping up the pressure on Obama for more debates before the upcoming primaries, which are crucial to her candidacy. She also has been reaching out to uncommitted Democratic superdelegates in hopes of capitalizing on her Pennsylvania primary victory.

Clinton's Pennsylvania victory was buoyed by support from working-class and white voters, but Obama dismissed the notion Sunday that race will be a factor in the presidential election.

"Is race still a factor in our society? Yes. I don't think anybody would deny that," he said on "Fox News Sunday."

After a noisy campaign rally, Obama donned sweat pants and a "USMC" shirt for a little action on the courts, with no ordinary companions. His 3-on-3 team included Alison Bales, a member of the WNBA's Indiana Fever.

Blake Hancock, a Marion high schooler was picked to take part in the game because he collected 150 voter registration forms, and he picked some high school friends and they joined Obama for about 15 minutes of half-court hoops.

Obama is noted for using basketball to get his exercise and is said to be a fierce competitor. He kept up with the younger competitors, but at one point joked with medics standing by that they might be needed.

And he proved to be effective, scoring four baskets that included a nifty left-handed three-pointer, along with four rebounds and a couple of steals.

A downtrodden economy, the war in Iraq and a public call for change have created an Electoral College outlook and a political environment filled with extraordinary opportunity for the Democrats and enormous challenge for the GOP nominee-in-waiting.

Both parties count on victory in dozens of states that long have voted their way. The competition to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to win is expected to play out primarily in 14 states. All but one saw the greatest action in 2004. The exception is Virginia, a longtime Republican stronghold where Democrats have made inroads.

Eight of the states went for President Bush four years ago, including the crown jewels Ohio and Florida. Six, including big-prize Pennsylvania, voted for Democrat John Kerry. In the battlegrounds, far more electoral votes, 97, are up for grabs for Democrats than the 69 available for McCain to go after. Twice as many of the closest states - decided by 2 or fewer percentage points - voted Republican in 2004; they include New Mexico and Iowa, which the GOP won by 1 point.

Both sides argue that their candidates can expand the playing field by making more states competitive than in previous elections. But they likely will only spend time and money to test that theory once they feel confident about higher priority states.

The GOP nominee-in-waiting rapped his Democratic rival for opposing his idea to suspend the tax on fuel during the summer, a proposal that McCain believes will particularly help low-income people who usually have older cars that guzzle more gas.

"I noticed again today that Sen. Obama repeated his opposition to giving low-income Americans a tax break, a little bit of relief so they can travel a little further and a little longer, and maybe have a little bit of money left over to enjoy some other things in their lives," McCain said. "Obviously Sen. Obama does not understand that this would be a nice thing for Americans, and the special interests should not be dictating this policy."

The Arizona senator deflected questions about his record on the Bush administration's tax cuts - he initially opposed them but now supports extending them - by again criticizing Obama.

"Sen. Obama wants to raise the capital gains tax, which would have a direct effect on 100 million Americans," McCain said. "That means he has no understanding of the economy and that he is totally insensitive to the hopes and dreams and ambitions of 100 million Americans who will be affected by his almost doubling of the capital gains tax."

The Fischer campaign started airing a 30-second TV ad that questions the management of nursing homes formerly run by Lunsford and Vencor, the Louisville-based company he co-founded. The ad, airing across the state, features an elderly woman, who is a paid actress.

"His business practices are totally unethical," says the woman, whose words are muffled at points during the ad.

Kim Geveden, political director for the Fischer campaign, said in a news release that Lunsford's "business and political history are an issue in this campaign."

He predicted voters would choose Fischer if reminded that Vencor "paid the largest fine ever levied for overbilling Medicare" and that "Vencor had a practice of evicting Medicare patients in favor of patients that had higher-paying private insurance."

"My opponent, Senator Obama, opposes giving consumers a break from the gas tax," Clinton said at a firehouse. "I understand the American people need some relief," she added, implying that Obama doesn't get it.

Obama has said motorists would not benefit significantly from suspending the gas tax.

"This is his solution to the problems of the energy crisis and your gas bills," Obama told several thousand at a noisy rally in Wilmington. "Keep in mind that the federal gas tax is about 5 percent of your gas bill. If it lasts for three months, you're going to save about $25 or $30, or a half a tank of gas."

The idea to suspend the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day was first proposed by McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, as a way to lessen the pain at the pump for consumers this summer.

The ad says President Bush has talked about staying in Iraq for 50 years, then plays a clip of McCain saying, "Maybe 100. That'd be fine with me."

The announcer then says: "If all he offers is more of the same, is John McCain the right choice for America's future?"

Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan said the ad deliberately distorts what McCain, the likely GOP presidential nominee, said.

The committee's chief counsel, Sean Cairncross, said he sent letters Monday to NBC, CNN and MSNBC insisting that they stop airing the commercial.

Restaurant owner Elie Maloof testified that Antoin "Tony" Rezko told him that the person picked to replace Patrick J. Fitzgerald as U.S. attorney in Chicago would end a federal investigation into corruption under Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

"The federal prosecutor would no longer be the federal prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald would be eliminated," Maloof said at Rezko's fraud trial.

Prosecutors said last week that former Illinois Finance Authority executive director Ali Ata, who is set to take the witness stand as early as Thursday, will testify Rezko told him of a plan to replace Fitzgerald.

Prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve that Ata would say he talked with Rezko about such efforts on the part of Springfield lobbyist Robert Kjellander and former presidential adviser Karl Rove.

The campaign said in a statement Monday that Daskas is withdrawing because of family reasons. It did not elaborate.

The former prosecutor had been considered a strong candidate to unseat Republican incumbent Jon Porter. The 3rd district includes parts of Las Vegas, Henderson and Boulder City.

Porter is seeking a fourth term in the House.

Digits in the phone numbers dialed were generated randomly to reach households with unlisted and listed landline numbers.

Interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish.

As is done routinely in surveys, results were weighted, or adjusted, to ensure that responses accurately reflect the population's makeup by factors such as age, sex, education, region and race.

No more than one time in 20 should chance variations in the sample cause the results to vary by more than plus or minus 3.1 percentage points from the answers that would be obtained if all people in the U.S. were polled. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.6 percentage points for Democrats and 5.3 percentage points for Republicans.

The omitted votes were all from Northampton County in the Lehigh Valley.

Pennsylvania Department of State spokeswoman Leslie Amoros said the problem was traced to a mistaken assumption that all of the county's votes had been recorded.

After the numbers were corrected Monday, about 21,000 votes were added to the Democratic presidential race and about 5,300 to the Republican presidential race.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton picked up 13,287 votes and Sen. Barack Obama 7,678 votes for the Democratic presidential nomination. Clinton's lead of 31,583 to 19,893 in Northampton County now matches The Associated Press' figures.

The Indiana ad campaign would be the biggest single expenditure in a state for the mostly union financed group, called the American Leadership Project. The group spent more than $1 million running ads in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

"Indiana has been ground zero for economic anxiety since 2001," said Jason Kinney, an Indiana native and one of the organizers of the American Leadership Project.

The ad quotes commentators who describe Obama's economic plan as deficient. The ad campaign could come at a crucial time for Clinton. The Democratic presidential race in Indiana is a dead heat, according to public opinion polls. Obama, the better-financed candidate, has been spending more than Clinton in the state.

As of its last filing with the Federal Election Commission, the group had raised $1.5 million, almost all of it from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a union that has endorsed Clinton.

They're enlisting your neighbors.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor, unveiled the party's new voter turnout strategy to reporters during a conference call last week. The party's "Neighborhood Volunteer" tool kit will allow regular people to act as political operatives and campaign foot soldiers this fall by identifying 25 "targeted voters" near them.

Those would be Democrats or independents who have consistently voted in the last few elections, as well as newly registered voters.

The newly minted party ambassadors eventually will be able to use the program on their home computers to download and customize campaign literature to hand out to their neighbors as they canvass the area talking up the Democrats' presidential nominee, whoever that will be.

The survey released Monday gives the New York senator and former first lady a fresh talking point as she works to raise much-needed campaign cash and persuade pivotal undecided superdelegates to side with her in the drawn-out Democratic primary fight.

Helped by independents, young people and seniors, Clinton gained ground this month in a hypothetical match with Sen. McCain, the GOP nominee-in-waiting. She now leads McCain, 50 percent to 41 percent, while Obama remains virtually tied with McCain, 46 percent to 44 percent.

Both Democrats were roughly even with McCain in the previous poll about three weeks ago.

Since then, Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary, raising questions anew about whether Obama can attract broad swaths of voters needed to triumph in such big states come the fall when the Democratic nominee will go up against McCain. At the same time, Obama was thrown on the defensive by his comment that residents of small-town America were bitter. The Illinois senator also continued to deal with the controversial remarks of his longtime Chicago pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, said the veto is unconstitutional, contending that Saturday was the last day the governor could issue a veto. Beshear disagreed.

Since the legislature has officially ended its regular session for this year, it cannot override the veto. Williams said a lawsuit to challenge the veto is likely but would not say if he would file it.

If Beshear's veto stands, Williams said, the governor and his administration would have no authority to build any roads for the next two years.

But Beshear maintains that without his veto, "No change to the highway plan, no matter how badly needed, could be made without new legislation."

An angry Obama told reporters yesterday he was "outraged" by what he called a "performance" by Jeremiah Wright at the National Press Club in Washington on Monday and added that he was "saddened by the spectacle."

Wright used the forum to reiterate some of his charges against the U.S. government, including his suggestion that the government invented the AIDS virus to destroy "people of color."

Obama calls the comments "divisive and destructive" and says "they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate."

The Illinois senator will hold a major rally tonight at Indiana University six days before crucial Democratic primaries in Indiana and North Carolina.

Obama is trying to tamp down the uproar over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright at a tough time in his campaign. The Illinois senator is coming off a loss in Pennsylvania to rival Hillary Rodham Clinton and trying to win over white working-class voters in Indiana and North Carolina in next Tuesday's primaries.

"I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday," Obama told reporters at a news conference Tuesday.

His strong words come just six weeks after Obama delivered a sweeping speech on race in which he sharply condemned Wright's remarks but did not leave the church or repudiate the minister himself, who he said was like a family member. After weeks of staying out of the public eye while critics lambasted his sermons, the former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago made three public appearances in four days to defend himself.

On Monday, Wright criticized the U.S. government as imperialist and stood by his suggestion that the United States invented the HIV virus as a means of genocide against minorities. "Based on this Tuskegee experiment and based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything," he said.

1972 - Wright becomes pastor of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ.

1985 - Obama begins working as a community organizer in Chicago; meets Wright.

1988 - Obama embraces Christianity after hearing a Wright sermon on hope.

1992 - Obama joins Trinity United Church; Wright officiates at Obama's wedding.

Partisan groups and the political parties are pushing their way onto the airwaves, often with negative ads that are adding an even more quarrelsome tone to an already bruising presidential campaign.

In Louisiana, Mississippi and Indiana, ads on behalf of Republican congressional candidates label Democrat Obama too liberal. One ad by the North Carolina Republican Party cites Obama's ties to his controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

On cable nationally, the Democratic National Committee portrays Republican John McCain as a continuation of President Bush's Iraq and economic policies.

In Indiana, which holds a key primary on May 6, a group mostly financed by the Clinton-backing American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is running an ad critical of Obama's economic plan.

"If he should be president, it would be ironic that he comes from a party that talks a lot about family values," said Bob Kafka, national organizer for ADAPT, a group advocating for passage of the bill. Without the legislation, many disabled and elderly people don't have the choice to apply coverage to anything other than institutional care, he said.

"Families are devastated because they don't have a choice to keep people at home," Kafka said.

McCain was not in his office during the protest. He was campaigning Tuesday in Florida on his health care plan.

The bill, stuck in committee since last year, would amend the Social Security Act to allow people who are eligible for Medicaid coverage of nursing home costs to spend it instead on home-based, or community care.

The Democratic National Committee stripped Michigan of its 128 delegates for holding its presidential primary too early in the year. The state also has 28 superdelegates.

Clinton has argued that she should get 73 delegates based on the results of the Jan. 15 primary, which she won - 18 more than Obama.

Obama, who removed his name from the ballot, wants the 128 pledged delegates split evenly, 64-64.

The compromise, suggested Tuesday in a letter to Michigan Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer, fell halfway between the two proposals.

"I have no desire to wage a battle with the governor over this matter," Cowgill, 56, said in a statement. "It would unduly harm Kentucky's postsecondary education reform efforts, and the positive momentum that has been achieved to this point."

The council, the state's coordinating agency for public universities and community and technical colleges, picked Cowgill as its president on April 14. The vote was 10-0, with two members abstaining and two absent.

But at Beshear's request, the council did not sign a contract while the hiring was in dispute. Beshear had sent the council a letter reminding them that the 1997 higher education reform act requires a national search and that the president be someone with an established reputation and experience in postsecondary education.

Cowgill, a Lexington lawyer who had been state budget director for former Gov. Ernie Fletcher, had no experience as an education administrator before becoming the council's interim president on Sept. 1.

"I've listened to the man. I have met with him and, like many of you, I am excited by his message of change for the future," Chandler told about 40 Obama supporters Tuesday in Louisville. "I made a decision in my own mind that in this place and this time and in this country, the time was right for Sen. Barack Obama."

The endorsement and it's timing could have slight effects on the two major fronts being fought simultaneously in the Democratic presidential primary: the electoral battleground of the May 6 Indiana primary and the inside-the-party race for superdelegates.

Chandler, of Versailles, will serve as one of Kentucky's nine superdelegates who can pick the candidate of their choice at the August Democratic National Convention regardless of who wins Kentucky's May 20 primary.

He joins fellow Democratic U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth of Louisville as the two Obama supporters in the group, with four others still uncommitted.

The Democratic presidential candidate and sheet metal worker Jason Wilfing, 33, pulled into the station in a large white Ford 250 pickup truck, Clinton riding shotgun. Never mind that it wasn't even Wilfing's truck - he had borrowed his boss's larger vehicle to accommodate Clinton's security agent and personal assistant, who rode in the back.

Trailing Wilfing and Clinton was a Secret Service motorcade consisting of six gas-guzzling Suburbans, two squad cars and a green SUV bearing photographers and TV cameras. Several other reporters and cameramen stood shivering in unseasonably cold temperatures, ready to capture the multi-vehicle arrival.

Clinton and Wilfing stepped out of the car and approached the pump. Wilfing chose regular unleaded gasoline, and began filling the tank. The two engaged in chit chat, with New York senator mentioning her proposal for a temporary gas tax holiday to ease the price pinch on consumers.

The tank filled, Clinton looked at the price recorded at the pump and shook her head.

Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy, will be among a small brigade of big political names circulating through Churchill Downs Saturday in support of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

Meanwhile, Chelsea Clinton already has been announced as carrying the flag for her mother, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Both are scheduled to make stops at the table of state Democratic Party leaders Jennifer Moore, the chairman, and Vice Chairman Nathan Smith, Smith said. Both are Democratic superdelegates who have been heavily courted by both campaigns.

"It's totally an accident that Chelsea's going to be at the Kentucky Derby and will be sitting with Jennifer and me," Smith said facetiously.

The auditor also criticized the cabinet for not keeping sufficient documents on payments from its highway safety program, and for letting an acquisition agent in its Division of Right of Way sell land to the cabinet in Edmonson County for a road project she was working on, creating an appearance of impropriety. The agent's case was referred to the cabinet's inspector general for further review, Luallen said.

The auditor's report was her second this year examining how federal funds are spent by state agencies.

For fiscal year 2007, the Transportation Cabinet was unable to show auditors how $24.1 million in federal highway funds was used or to provide a complete list of the local governments that received the money, Luallen said. That leaves taxpayers in the dark, she added.

"We just don't know," she said. "Because of inadequate documentation, we can't confirm that it was adequately spent."