The paper, to be presented this week by Tel Aviv University researchers at the "NEO [Near-Earth Object] Detection and Threat Mitigation" workshop, discusses the discovery of a high incidence of double "Aten-type" asteroids and the danger of their potential collision with Earth.

TAU runs a national information center (supported by the Israel Space Agency and the Science and Technology Ministry) on near-Earth asteroids and comets that are liable to cause our planet harm. At the TAU Wise Observatory in Mitzpe Ramon, researchers monitor these celestial bodies and study the light coming from them.

As part of his doctoral work at TAU, David Polishook investigated Aten-type asteroids that transverse the Earth's orbit but most of the time are located between the Earth and the Sun so that they are difficult to observe.

Out of eight bodies investigated, five were found to be double - a main asteroid several kilometers in diameter and a smaller "moon" that revolves around it. These moons are apparently several hundred meters in diameter and located only a few kilometers from the asteroids they circle.

This discovery is important because the presence of the moon disrupts scientists' plans of eliminating the danger to Earth posed by double asteroids either by changing their orbit or destroying them in a nuclear explosion.

Following the presentation on the discovery by TAU researchers, NASA workshop organizers are to write a report for the US Congress on the subject. Since only American citizens are permitted to present their research in person, the Israeli scientists were asked to send their data as a "white paper" for discussion.

Grime stained the walls after flood waters rose to 8 feet in a two-year-old theater on Monday, knocking out the power. Clumps of debris, carpet and ceiling tiles remained Thursday.

"It's starting to smell like the bayou, isn't it?" facility manager Tim Edwards said.

The flood damage at the Archives was expected to cost at least $2 million to repair, but the Archives still planned to host its annual Fourth of July reading of the Declaration of Independence on Tuesday, and officials hoped to reopen the building later next week.

The Archives, which finished a $100 million renovation three years ago, typically has 5,000 visitors a day in June and July.

No Smithsonian museum exhibits were damaged by flood waters, Golkin said. Most damage was limited to mechanical equipment, but at the American history museum had flooding in the lower-level cafeteria and gift shop.

Carpeting and other fixtures need to be replaced before the building can reopen, Golkin said. It wasn't immediately clear how long that would take.

"It was very scary, no doubt about it," said Albert Nigro of Amherst, who said he was driving about 200 yards behind the westbound truck.

Cars behind the truck spun out, he said. A shaken witness called a television station and said his car was lifted from the Thruway and dropped into oncoming traffic.

The truck driver had minor injuries.

A construction trailer near the Thruway was tossed into a nearby road, slightly injuring a worker inside, police said. The storm also ripped off tree limbs, damaged store signs and downed power lines.

As in much of the Southwest, the high desert lands of New Mexico are locked in another drought cycle this summer, with wildfires raging in tinder-dry forests. According to the National Weather Service, statewide precipitation for May was 36 percent of the normal amount - the seventh straight excessively dry month.

Santa Fe has received only 1.2 inches of precipitation during the seven-month period since November, the lowest in 133 years of record keeping. The 0.41 inches in Albuquerque is the lowest in 114 years of data.

And in Las Vegas, a community along the eastern edge of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the 60-month data show precipitation 18.71 inches below normal, according to Charlie Liles, meteorologist in charge of the Weather Service in Albuquerque.

"That's essentially a year's precipitation over a five-year period," Liles said.

As a result, Las Vegas has imposed some of New Mexico's most restrictive water rules. Outdoor watering has been banned since last fall, leaving lawns withering in once-lush neighborhoods.

Deborah Martinez, who has lived for 42 years in the stately Victorian home where she grew up, gave up her vegetable garden this year. Where her grass hasn't yellowed, it has blown away, and the morning glories that once grew on her fence are history.

She and her husband, William, can only watch as the roses and vines adorning their porch wither. They've even begun to share their bath water.

"We'd rather have survival water," Mrs. Martinez said as the two sat on a porch swing. "It's OK if everything dies, as long as we don't."

Las Vegas relies almost entirely on surface water. Melting snowpack and rainfall collects to form the Gallinas River, and 98 percent of the water for the town's 18,000 residents is stored in two reservoirs in the mountains above town. The river then trickles through the meadows of Las Vegas, barely ankle-deep and a few yards wide this summer.

"Through the '70s and '80s, you'd usually see spring runoff last into June," Trujillo recalled. "By the middle of July, we'd get into the monsoon season. There was always enough water. It was like clockwork."

But the clock seems broken. It wasn't a snowy winter this year. And as months pass without rain, city reserves have dropped to 50 percent of capacity - enough to last only into September unless monsoonal rains sweep across New Mexico as they usually do in July and August.

Liles said forecasting models suggest precipitation should be close to average in July and August, meaning the late-summer downpours may be coming.

But he offered a word of caution: The most recent years for poor snowpack in New Mexico were 2000 and 2002 - close together over the 56-year study span. Liles wonders whether those years might indicate a trend toward deepening drought.

Despite the water restrictions, Trujillo said there have been few complaints. Residents are consuming about 1.3 million gallons daily, compared with 2.8 million gallons during normal usage last year.

"Our citizens have been great," Trujillo said. "We've been working since 2000 to implement year-round awareness programs to help conserve water during the droughts, and the response has been outstanding."

Katrina hit New Orleans on August 29, flooding 80 percent of the city and killing more than 1,500 from Louisiana in one of the worst natural disasters the country has seen. So far, only about half the population has returned and vast stretches of the city are nearly deserted and still full of debris.

"Ten months later, you come away with the impression that the cleanup is only beginning," said Friend's wife, Louise. "Oh my goodness, where does anyone start?"

For visitors new to New Orleans, the storm appears to have just passed.

Residents see changes every day -- a store opens, stoplights work at an intersection with temporary stop signs, a government trailer shows up in the front yard of a damaged home in a sign that it will be reclaimed and rebuilt.

But visitors see other things -- such as the word "Baghdad" scrawled in black spray paint across a broken house in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, where it has been for months.

There is the roughly 6-foot-high (2-meter) dirty bathtub ring around miles of houses in areas flooded for weeks.

And many houses remain barely standing, twisted by the force of the storm in areas where Katrina broke through levees and saturated the city with putrid water.

"The devastation, the totality and the enormity of it is just so heartbreaking. If this were hit in a carpet-bombing of a war you couldn't have more devastation," U.S. Sen. George Allen (news, bio, voting record) of Virginia said during a visit just over a week ago.

BEYOND THE FRENCH QUARTER

Many believe they have seen great progress when they arrive, since the tourist centers of the airport, the French Quarter and the Garden District of old mansions survived relatively well. The most historic sections of the city are on the highest ground.

Walter Dupart, 53, remembers when his son's father-in-law arrived. "He said, man, looks like New Orleans is coming back, and I kind of chuckled," Dupart said.

So they got in the car and began what has become the city's unofficial tour, viewing the Lower Ninth Ward, where a barge floated through a canal breach and houses still lie smashed.

The tour continued through St. Bernard Parish, which includes more than 10 miles of shopping malls, restaurants and houses, almost every one a deserted hulk that was flooded.

Up toward Lake Pontchartrain, where other levees breached, gutted houses await repair next to wrecks moved off their foundations. An ancient oak tree sprawled onto one yard and house does not appear to have been touched by cleanup crews.

Dupart, who lives in the once-flooded Gentilly neighborhood, remembers the reaction of his friend, a soldier on leave from Iraq. "'The only way I can describe it is this is like the war zone I just left,"' the visitor had said.

Some are puzzled, angry or indignant at the lack of progress. Insurance money has begun flowing but direct aid to homeowners is not expected before the fall, and views of government's leadership vary sharply among residents.

Thailand-based relief worker Tom Kerr recalled tsunami devastation in Aceh, Indonesia, when he saw the Ninth Ward. "It looked a lot like Aceh when we visited six months after the storm," he said, asking why the United States had not done more.

"Most of the area could be improved very quickly, but it is deserted," said Somsook Boonyabancha, a colleague who is director of the Thai relief group. "If I was the government, I couldn't sleep at night."

A fire service spokesperson said Sunday that 33 helicopters, 17 air tankers and heavy equipment are fighting the fires.

About 400 residents of Sucker River went to La Ronge, and 400 from Stanley Mission and Grandmother's Bay were evacuated to Saskatoon.

Brian Hardlott, band councillor at Stanley Mission, said people were evacuated from the community over the weekend by bus and by float plane. People were assembled to be bussed out and then Saskatchewan Environment reported that the fire had crossed the road.

"That's why we had to call in float planes to get the people out," Hardlott said.

Those evacuated included elders and people with respiratory or other medical conditions, a provincial spokesperson said.

More than 800 people are helping fight the fires.

In Sichuan province at least 11 people were dead and dozens injured after storms began dumping rain on the region on Wednesday, Xinhua news agency said.

In Luzhou prefecture several towns and villages were inundated with up to 18.3 centimeters (7.3 inches) of rain, the report said.

Nine of the fatalities occurred in Gulin county where over 1,300 homes were demolished by the downpour and where damages were estimated at 76 million yuan (9 million dollars), the report said.

In neighboring Guizhou province nine people were confirmed dead, while more than 2,400 people were evacuated from areas where up to 14.8 centimeters of rain has fallen, the report said.

Meanwhile, Yunnan province reported that five people died and two were missing after rainstorms that began Wednesday pelted Zhenxiong county, the report added.