The ordeal came to a close after police met three of the man's demands, authorities said. Police said the suspect, 42-year-old George L. Curran of Chandler, asked to see his wife, requested a civil rights attorney and wanted the FBI present. He came out holding a gun to a female hostage's head, authorities said, and surrendered after seeing his wife and sister.

Curran pulled a gun during a legal proceeding and took five men and four women hostage inside a hearing room in a National Labor Relations Board office on the building's 18th floor, police said.

He was armed with a semiautomatic pistol, a revolver and a knife, they said.

Cornele Overstreet, an NLRB regional director who was not among those taken hostage, said Curran had filed a complaint with the agency about 18 months ago and his wife had filed one a few months ago. Both had been dismissed, he said.

Overstreet said Curran had been disgruntled and that the board agent who handled Curran's case had felt threatened by Curran, who had made angry statements.

"The threat wasn't, 'I'm going to kill you or beat you up.' The threat was the level of, 'You folks will get yours,'" Overstreet said.

He said the statements had been reported to federal authorities but that no charges were filed.

On Thursday, Overstreet called 911 after an office manager told him the gunman grabbed another worker and dragged her into the hearing room with a gun in his hand about 3:30 p.m. MST.

Inside the hearing room, a judge was hearing a case involving the termination of two employees from an upscale women's clothing store in suburban Scottsdale.

The hostages - five men and four women - included four federal employees: a court reporter, a judge, an attorney and a secretary.

The floors immediately above and below the hearing room were evacuated.

Hostages' relatives and co-workers waited out the ordeal at a nearby restaurant.

One woman hostage was freed before Curran's surrender and another female escaped down a stairwell after asking to go to the restroom, authorities said.

"I feel sorry for George. He's a troubled person. He seemed to have some psychological problems," Jeff Berman, one of the hostages, told reporters after he was released.

According to federal forecasters, by 2015 one in every five U.S. dollars will be spent on health care, for total annual health-care spending of more than $4 trillion, which will make up 20 percent of the country's gross domestic product.

By comparison, health-care spending accounted for about 16 percent of U.S. GDP in 2004, the latest year for which data are available, according to a study by CMS economists published in the the Feb. 22 online issue of journal Health Affairs .

National health-care spending will grow by an average 7.2 percent annually over the coming decade, 2.1 percent faster than the GDP growth. The increase is due to longer life spans, breakthroughs in medical technology and rising incomes.

Along with hitting taxpayers' wallets, the increasing cost of health-care will burden the federal budget as more people -- mostly aging baby boomers -- become eligible for coverage through Medicare (the federal health program for the elderly) and Medicaid, which covers people with low incomes.

That means that by the end of the next decade, the government will be paying about half of the nation's medical costs.

Rising incomes play a central role in rising health costs, said John Poisal, a statistician for the CMS. As people make more money, they're willing to spend more to stay healthy. That, in turn, spurs research and development of new, costly medical technologies and medications, Poisal said.

But an economist said that rising health care costs, coupled with a move by private insurers to pass on more costs to consumers, could mean that the working poor will be unable to afford health care.

"When spending on health care goes up faster than earnings ... people are priced out of the health insurance market," said Paul Ginsburg, president of the nonpartisan Center for Studying Health System Change.

The biggest culprit is the technology that was supposed to make work quicker and easier, experts say.

"Technology has sped everything up and, by speeding everything up, it's slowed everything down, paradoxically," said John Challenger, chief executive of Chicago-based outplacement consultants Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.

"We never concentrate on one task anymore. You take a little chip out of it, and then you're on to the next thing," Challenger said on Wednesday. "It's harder to feel like you're accomplishing something."

Unlike a decade ago, U.S. workers are bombarded with e-mail, computer messages, cell phone calls, voice mails and the like, research showed.

The average time spent on a computer at work was almost 16 hours a week last year, compared with 9.5 hours a decade ago, according to the Day-Timer research released this week.

Workers typically get 46 e-mails a day, nearly half of which are unsolicited, it said.

Sixty percent of workers say they always or frequently feel rushed, but those who feel extremely or very productive dropped to 51 percent from 83 percent in 1994, the research showed.

Put another way, in 1994, 82 percent said they accomplished at least half their daily planned work but that number fell to 50 percent last year. A decade ago, 40 percent of workers called themselves very or extremely successful, but that number fell to just 28 percent.

"We think we're faster, smarter, better with all this technology at our side and in the end, we still feel rushed and our feeling of productivity is down," said Maria Woytek, marketing communications manager for Day-Timers, a unit of ACCO Brands Corp.

The latest study was conducted among a random sample of about 1,000 people who work at least part time. The earlier study surveyed some 1,300 workers.

Expectations that technology would save time and money largely haven't been borne out in the workplace, said Ronald Downey, professor of psychology who specializes in industrial organization at Kansas State University.

"It just increases the expectations that people have for your production," Downey said.

Even if productivity increases, it's constantly outpaced by those expectations, said Don Grimme of GHR Training Solutions, a workplace training company based in Coral Springs, Florida.

"The irony is the very expectation of getting more done is getting in the way of getting more done," he said. "People are stressed out."

Companies that are flexible with workers' time and give workers the most control over their tasks tend to fare better against the sea of rising expectations, experts said.

Businesses that have moved to 24-hour operations, bosses who micro-manage and longer commutes all add to the problem, they said, while downsizing leaves fewer workers doing the work of those who left.

Finally, there's a trend among companies to measure job performance like never before, said Challenger. "There's a sense that no matter how much I do, it's never enough," he said.

The school went into lockdown after the shots were fired about 7:45 a.m.

The victim, identified as Joseph Monti, 16, was shot twice in the abdomen and once in the chest. A bullet also grazed his left elbow, said Kathleen Nickel, spokeswoman for Mercy Medical Center.

He "is doing very well, better than can be expected considering the bullet wounds," said hospital CEO Vic Fresolone. He said surgeons had repaired intestinal damage caused by the most serious of the wounds.

The suspect was not immediately identified. Sgt. Aaron Dunbar said the shooting wasn't random and the two knew each other.

"We're trying to come up with what the beef was," Dunbar said.

The boy was expected to be arraigned Friday on felony charges of attempted murder, assault, illegal use of a firearm and illegal possession of a firearm, authorities said. He was being held in juvenile detention.

A nearby elementary school in Roseburg, a former southwest Oregon timber town of about 21,000 residents, was briefly locked down as a precaution.

The files released after Congress passed the JFK Act unanimously in 1992 show the massive amount of information that had been withheld from at least five Congressional investigations. Even worse, the Final Report of the JFK Board created by Congress shows that crucial files about attempts against JFK – the cases Bolden worked on – were destroyed by the Secret Service in 1995. And, a report by the government oversight group OMB Watch says that "well over one million CIA records" related to JFK's era remain unreleased, perhaps until the mandatory release date of 2017.

Bolden, now 71, can't wait that long.

Plus, the long-secret files that have been released show how keeping millions of documents secret for decades have negatively impacted US actions in dealing with Iraq, Central America, and Cuba, as well as preventing crucial intelligence failures from coming to light prior to 9/11.

On February 14, 2006, Congress held hearings about National Security Whistleblowers, aimed at improving laws to protect them from retaliation for trying to tell the truth. The witnesses who testified revealed a litany of workers being attacked by their own agencies, of documents destroyed or withheld – even from Congress – and of years of struggle to get fair hearings. This pattern began in the case of Abraham Bolden in 1964, yet most in Congress are unaware of his case. Likewise, Congress doesn't realize that not only did the Secret Service admit destroying crucial JFK documents in 1995, but that the Secret Service then failed to confirm their compliance with the JFK Act under oath, as did other agencies.

The JFK Board's Final Report detailing that was released 1998, amidst the aftermath of the Monica Lewinsky affair, which may explain why it received little attention at the time. The OMB Watch report in which an official who worked with the JFK Board admitted that "well over one million CIA records" are still secret was released in the hotly contested election year of 2000, which may be why that escaped the notice of journalists and those in Congress. In addition, the major revelations in the four million JFK documents that were released in the 1990s – and continued to trickle out today – are only just now coming to light.

In today's world of instant e-mail and 24-hour news channels, many were recently amazed that Vice President Cheney was able to keep news of his shooting of another man secret for almost 24 hours.

Yet in November 1963, John and Robert Kennedy were able to keep two assassination plots against JFK that month out of the media at the time. The first was in Chicago, on November 2, 1963 – when JFK had to cancel his trip and motorcade at the last minute – and the second was during JFK's long motorcade through Tampa, Florida on November 18, 1963, just four days before Dallas. Both the Chicago and Tampa plots had many similarities to Dallas, yet they were withheld from the news media and most investigators.

Bolden was involved in investigating the Chicago plot and was informed about the similar Tampa attempt. Bolden's own testimony to a Congressional Committee about the Chicago plot was kept secret for over fifteen years, but when finally released in the 1990s, it supported other information that had emerged about the plot over the years.

Unknown to Bolden until recently, the crux of all this secrecy about the attempts to assassinate JFK in Chicago, Tampa, and Dallas were John and Robert Kennedys' "Plan for a Coup in Cuba" to overthrow Fidel Castro on December 1, 1963. The most secret operation of the Kennedy years, the CIA side of the operation was code-named AMWORLD, a term withheld from five Congressional investigations (and the Warren Commission) and declassified only in the 1990s. It appeared in print for the first time just three months ago. Using declassified files from the National Archives, we found that in the days, weeks, and months before Dallas, Robert Kennedy had a secret government committee looking at how the US could deal with the "assassination of American officials" if Castro found out about the Kennedys' coup plan, and tried to retaliate.

The thinking behind such plans – and worries that the revelation of the Kennedy coup plan could trigger another nuclear confrontation with the Soviets just a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis – was behind most of the secrecy surrounding JFK's assassination. However, key officials in agencies like the FBI, the CIA, and the Secret Service also used the excuse of National Security to withheld information that could have been embarrassing to them.

We only uncovered the Kennedys' plan with the help of almost two dozen people who worked with John and Robert Kennedy on the coup plan, their war against the Mafia, and their tragic aftermath. One of them told us that Robert Kennedy was aware of Bolden's plight, but "couldn't" do anything about it at the time – and in the context of the coup plan and the plans to protect it we had just been discussing, it was clear why. Any intervention on Bobby's part could have unraveled a veil of National Security secrecy that could have led to World War III.

Our sources and all the new documents don't show any vast conspiracy to kill JFK – they confirm what Bobby Kennedy himself came to believe, after several secret investigations by his trusted associates: that the Mafia had been behind his brother's assassination. Those Mafioso had infiltrated the Kennedys' coup plan through AMWORLD, and used the secrecy surrounding it to prevent a thorough investigation into JFK's death by pointing the blame toward Castro.

Bolden went to Washington in the Spring of 1964 to tell Warren Commission staff about the Chicago and Tampa attempts, and other Secret Service laxity, such as late night drinking bouts by the agents. News reports of the late-night drinking of Secret Service agents the night before JFK's assassination were threatening to become a major scandal, but the Secret Service couldn't reveal that the agents were blowing off steam after the stress of the recent plots against JFK in Chicago and Tampa. While Warren Commission staff had heard vague rumors of the Chicago plot, they had been told nothing about the Tampa attempt (which would continued to be withheld from the later Congressional investigations into JFK's assassination).

Bolden was arrested the day he arrived in Washington to talk to Warren Commission staff.

Bolden himself had previously arrested both of his accusers, one of whom later admitted committing perjury against Bolden. But the Chicago judge told the jury he felt Bolden was guilty, and Bolden was convicted and sentenced to six years in jail. Former Senate investigator and top Freedom of Information attorney Bud Fensterwald looked into Bolden's case and concluded that Bolden had been framed. After reviewing Fensterwald's files, we tracked down additional information about the Chicago mobster that Bolden's accusers worked for, whose gangster associate had infiltrated AMWORLD. The Mafia knew the Secret Service wouldn't defend Bolden because of his accusations of laxity, and that others in the government couldn't come to Bolden's aide because of National Security concerns.

After over forty years, Abraham Bolden is still trying to clear his name, but National Security concerns that date from 1963 still stymie his efforts. Along with another researcher, we provided written testimony about the Tampa attempt against JFK to the JFK Board in November of 1994.

But about six weeks later, in January 1995, the Board's Final Report states that the Secret Service told them they had just destroyed records covering the time of the Tampa (and Chicago) attempts. This was despite the 1992 JFK Act which required those records be preserved and released. The Secret Service also told the Board it had earlier destroyed other crucial records. And as we noted earlier, "well over one million CIA records" related to JFK's assassination still remain secret today, despite passage of the 1992 JFK Act.

Abraham Bolden paid a heavy price for trying to tell the truth about events involving the man he was sworn to protect – JFK – that became mired in National Security concerns. Bolden still lives in Chicago, and has never given up trying to clear his name. Two days after Christmas, his wife passed away unexpectedly just three days before their 49th wedding anniversary. She had remained with Bolden through it all, always sure of his innocence.

Will Abraham Bolden live to finally see the justice so long denied to him?

As Congress looks into much-needed legislation to protect today's National Security Whistleblowers, we urge to them to consider those like Bolden who risked their careers and lives to tell the truth decades ago.

It's in the interest of Congress to do so, since the four million JFK files released in the 1990s show the massive amount of information that was withheld from Congress in the 1970s and 1980s. Will no one be held responsible – or even investigated – for that? Or for the Secret Service document destruction in 1995? And how can Congress expect agencies like the CIA to keep them fully informed today, when so much has been – and continues to be – withheld?

After languishing for several years, Congress finally funded the Public Interest Declassification Board, which is scheduled to be held on February 25, 2006, which is one opportunity for some of these matters to be explored. All this secrecy has harmed – and continues to impact – American foreign policy and actions in countries ranging from Iraq to Cuba.

Each of us has a member of Congress and two Senators who can be contacted to let them know we care about these matters. Even those outside of the U.S. can make journalists and others aware of Bolden's plight and the ongoing secrecy of this government and the harm it brings to democracy.

It's the least we can do for ourselves, for history, and for a brave whistleblower like Abraham Bolden.

Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann worked together for 17 years to research and write Ultimate Sacrifice: John and Robert Kennedy, the Plan for a Coup in Cuba, and the Murder of JFK. There is more information about the book and Abraham Bolden at www.ultimatesacrificethebook.com.

The protest from the Paris-based International Council for Science (ICSU) came only a week before President George W. Bush was due to visit India with another scientific issue--a planned civilian nuclear cooperation deal--high on the agenda.

The ICSU and the U.S. embassy in New Delhi disagreed over details of the row. The embassy said it had not denied a visa but asked Mehta for more information on his work before his application can proceed.

The ICSU said Mehta had provided it with written proof his visa was denied, and it complained that tough visa rules imposed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were keeping many foreign scientists from needed exchanges with their U.S. colleagues.

"The whole procedure is outrageous," said Carthage Smith, Deputy Executive Director of ICSU, an umbrella group of 133 national academies of science and international science unions. "He is not going to go on his knees and ask for a visa."

"Professor Mehta is a very well known scientist, but there are many lesser known scientists to whom this is happening," Smith said. "The bigger issue is important."

Smith said Mehta had been subject to "hostile treatment" at the U.S. consulate in Chennai, in southeastern India, when he applied for a visa and was asked to prove his work could not be used for chemical weapons.

"They said 'you're denied a visa,' gave him a form which says that but also says he can reapply," he said.

A U.S. embassy spokesman in New Delhi said the application had only been delayed. "He was asked for additional information and the application can be processed; it can be continued," he said.

Mehta, a former head of the Indian Institute of Science who has taught in the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Japan, said the consulate accused him of hiding information that could possibly be used for chemical weapons when he could not give details of his doctoral thesis.

"I did my Ph.D 40 years ago," he told the Deccan Herald in Bangalore, the southern Indian high-tech center where he lives. "I told them I did not remember the topic. Science has progressed and changed completely since then."

The ICSU, which has coordinated major international research programs and promoted free exchange of scientists and their data since 1931, expressed "grave concern" over the case.

"It clearly illustrates that, despite some progress, all is far from well with regards to the visa policies and associated practices for scientists wishing to enter the U.S.," he said.

Moldy Nationalism: It's amazing. America has never been a more dynamic, multicultural society and the world has never been more of a global village, but NBC still treats the games as if it were 1980 and the United States were taking on the Eastern Bloc. As Florida writer Pierre Tristam wrote in his blog:

NBC covers the Olympics the way American neocons do foreign policy: The world is 95 percent America, 3 percent water, and 2 percent everything else. America's projection onto the world is mostly as an emblem of force, preferably unrivaled…. You get the sense that none but American athletes are in these competitions, just as the Bush White House gives the sense that all the world is collateral for American foreign policy. NBC has been trained for the task. The same people who brought us the Iraq war as show business and The Rescue of Jessica Lynch as truth, and who keep bringing us coverage of the White House as public relations, now bring us the Olympics as a two-week commercial for American power.

Call it the Bushwhacking of the games. Please, NBC. Rocky has retired and Ivan Drago has left the building.

Tape Delays: In the age of real-time video on the Internet, showing the games on 10-hour tape delay is as anachronistic as shoulder pads and piano-key ties. For people actually interested in the outcomes, the answers are a keystroke away. Sports are about tension. As I write this, I already know that Sasha Cohen aced the short program in figure skating. Will I tune in to the prime-time broadcast? Maybe. If it were on live, I would have watched it or taped it. But for NBC to do that would mean losing precious advertising dollars. So viewers lose the very essence of what separates sports from pro wrestling: suspense and surprise at unanticipated outcomes.

Idiotic Sports: Is your water cooler abuzz with news of the skeleton finals? What about the half-pipe? The slalom? No? Then congratulations, you don't work in an insane asylum. Most of the sports highlighted by NBC seem to have been dreamed up in corporate boardrooms to sell Mountain Dew and manufacture medals for US athletes. No one knows or cares about these sports. In Las Vegas, where you can bet on whether the Super Bowl will start on time, there is no action on these competitions.

Bode Miller: For reasons known only to members of the United States Olympic Committee, skier Miller was chosen as the person who would lead the American public to their television sets. Instead, after the publicity machine of the USOC got him on the cover of Time, Newsweek and every publication but Modern Bride, Miller emerged as a petulant brat. This would be forgivable, if he actually won -- or even medaled -- at his events. Miller not only lost, but seemed content to lose. The cardinal rule of Olympic sports is that you can be as arrogant and obnoxious as you wish, but you'd better back it up with results. Miller's stock is falling faster than Dick Cheney futures.

It's a damn shame NBC has messed up the Winter Olympics, because there has been drama a-plenty, enough to satisfy even a nation of reality TV junkies.

There was speed skater Shani Davis of Chicago becoming the first person of African descent to win an individual gold at the Winter Olympics -- amid a feud with teammate Chad Hedrick. This culminated with a stunning turn in the 1,500-meter finals when Italy's Enrico Fabris blew both out of the water and the subsequent press conference where Davis and Hedrick engaged in trash-talk icier than the Torino terrain.

There was an ice-dancing competition that looked more dangerous than crossing the track during the Daytona 500. Roman Kostomarov and Tatiana Navka of Russia won in dazzling fashion, as Kostomarov flew across the ice on one skate with Navka teetering on his knee.

And what about the mysterious raid by Italian police of the Austrian ski team, for suspected drug violation? The suspended Austrian coach Walter Mayer -- working, we now know, with cooperation from Austrian officials -- tried to sneak into Turin with a bag full of performance enhancing goodies. But Italian police were following Mayer and busted down the doors of the team's hotel room. As players threw bags out of windows and flushed steroid-masking agents down the toilet, Coach Mayer made a mad dash and was captured 250 miles from Turin after attempting to bust through a police barricade. International Olympic Committee chairman Jacques Rogge later said, "It's like being in a movie."

In other words, there have been compelling acts of athletic derring-do and personal turmoil during these games. If only the NeoCon Bellowing Corporation would have had the imagination and the backbone to fully and fairly cover what was happening, these Winter Olympics would not have been such a staggering waste of time and talent.

Dave Zirin is the author of "What's My Name Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States." Read more of his work at Edgeofsports.com.

He said the psychologists had already visited the school and he was waiting for their findings and recommendations.

Some pupils still have fainting spells, but the community now seems to be taking it in their stride.

"I was told from the school that those pupils who are still collapsing, do so only at the end of periods and not in the middle of the periods as in the past, an indication that the situation might return to normal now," Udjombala said.

According to the acting school principal, Magnaem Shiimi, some pupils still scream and faint, and claim to be seeing supernatural beings, but the teachers and other pupils are not as frightened of the phenomenon as before.

She said no religious groups were coming to the school in an attempt to exorcise the 'demons' anymore.

Shiimi has been acting as principal since Udjombala suspended principal Helena Makili on January 6 to allow an investigation into allegations that she had caused chaos at the school and endangered the lives of people.

Makili has been accused of allowing witchdoctors to come to the school and get involved in school matters - something that is not allowed.

Udjombala also accused Makili of allowing disorder at the school and not disciplining pupils who assaulted their schoolmates.

Some teachers, parents and children were not happy with the Director's decision and demonstrated at his Ondangwa office, demanding Makili's immediate reinstatement.

However, after Udjombala explained the reasons for the suspension, children returned to school.

Indeed, the Coalition's grande dame, Sadie Fields, hangs out with the leaders of the most radical of the ultra-right theocrats, the Christian Reconstructionists. She is close friends with several Reconstruction leaders, such as Gary DeMar of Powder Springs. Among other things, Reconstruction favors reinstituting slavery and segregating the races - because such institutions were condoned in the Old Testament. Which, perhaps, is one reason you seldom see a black or brown face at Christian Coalition meetings.

If there was any doubt about Fields' delusional beliefs, that doubt was dispelled at a Feb. 22 town hall meeting on immigration reform held at Clark Atlanta University. Fields and two Republican state Senate champions of punish-the-undocumented-immigrants legislation, Chip Rogers and Eric Johnson, were clearly uncomfortable in a setting where most of the audience was African-American and Hispanic.

Rogers, for example, lashed out when a Methodist minister challenged whether the proposed Senate Bill 529 reflected Christian values. Rogers railed that a person's beliefs are between that person and God. What, then, are the Republicans doing trying to enforce their twisted Christianity on the rest of the nation?

The high - or low - point of the evening belonged to Fields. After one speaker noted that when politicians target ethnic groups as scapegoats - as Hispanics are in the GOP's legislation - what often results is a rise in hate crimes.

Fields, who gets her religion from the Old Testament and not from Jesus' words, immediately proclaimed - and I'm not making this up - that: "The majority of hate crimes are against young, white males." She claimed she was quoting FBI statistics.

The audience of about 200 people sat in stunned, disbelieving silence for a minute at the absolute absurdity. Then the jeers and boos began.

Actually, the FBI reported recently that 68 percent of the race-based hate crimes were against African-Americans. Most of the rest were against Hispanics.

For the vast racism reflected in her outburst, Fields wins my nomination for the Pharisee Award.