The spectacle occurs when the sun hits the horizon precisely in line with Manhattan's rectangular grid of streets, illuminating both the north and south sides of the cross streets. The sunset show happens four times a year, on two sets of two consecutive days, typically in May and July.

This evening's clouded-overwas the fourth and last of the year; the sun was similarly aligned with the city's streets on May 28, May 29 and yesterday (July 12). []

If conditions had been clear, the climax of the Manhattanhenge effect would have been visible at the precise time of sunset, at 8:24 p.m. EDT. At that point, half of the sun would have appeared on the horizon, and the other half would have appeared to dip below.

Friday'swas also largely washed out by rain and dark clouds, but some New Yorkers were still able to catch a glimpse of the Big Apple's street corridors bathed in stunning orangey-pink light, as the sun descended in the sky.

John Woodford witnessed the sunset show yesterday from the intersection of 42nd Street and Second Avenue. "A large crowd exuberantly emptied into the middle of the intersection from sidewalks and taxis for a better view," Woodford told LiveScience in an email.

The nickname Manhattanhenge is derived from , a prehistoric monument that can be found north of the modern-day city of Salisbury, England. Once a year, the sunrise is perfectly aligned with the stone columns that make up this horseshoe-shaped megalith, which archaeologists believe was built around 2500 B.C.

Still, New York City is not the only place to experience these types of solstices. Other cities with straight east-west grid-patterned streets enjoy these dazzling sunsets as well, including Chicago and Baltimore in the United States, and Toronto in Canada.

Editor's note: If you snapped a photo of Manhattanhenge this weekend and you'd like to share it for a possible story or image gallery on LiveScience.com, please send images and comments, including equipment used, to Denise Chow at.

Follow Denise Chow on Twitter . Follow LiveScience , & . Original article on.

Editor's note: Americans may be living longer and even exercising a tad more, but they're not necessarily healthier, . Myriad reasons exist: too much bad food, too little good food, a sedentary lifestyle, smoking, drinking and just plain living in the wrong area of the country. Yahoo asked readers: What is your biggest obstacle in the way of a healthier you? Here's one response.

Tell us in the comments about your biggest health hurdle.

FIRST PERSON | There is no greater challenge to my health than controlling my weight. As the son of parents of above average height, I stand 6-foot-5 and will never be described as small. Weighing 290 pounds, however, my future is jeopardized by this hardship on my body. Alarmed how such risk affects my three young children, only improved eating and exercise provide real hope of better health.

I married and started a family in my mid-20s, and I previously made the prudent decision to quit smoking. I benefited from powerful motivation of fatherhood and proudly stopped cold turkey in 2004.

Weight was not then an obstacle. Taking my last smoke, I was 225 pounds and largely proportional to my height.

In two years that followed, my son became a toddler, a new daughter graced our lives, and we relocated to a new state, where a third child was born.

During those life-shaping times, I gained 50 pounds.

Though a new wardrobe was required, a busy life seemed a valid excuse to resist changing the lifestyle of frequent fast food, sugary drinks, unhealthy snacks, and unnecessarily large meals. I figured the weight would eventually disappear, just as it unexpectedly arrived.

That never happened. I accumulated another 15 pounds, before I plateaued at my current level in my early 30s.

Occasionally, I get a bug to exercise or shop healthily, but these decisions are never backed by commitment.

In addition to possessing an obese-level body mass index, I have been warned twice that my cholesterol is high. This alarms me, since I lost a grandfather, who I never met, to early age heart disease.

Sadly, other than occasional glances at nutrition facts, even these warnings have not produced change. I consume too much and exercise insufficiently.

I cannot honestly declare commitment to eliminating these deficiencies and overcoming their shallow excuses. But I realize such steps would be wise. I further recognize self-examination and public confession are tools to find willpower to improve.

At 36 years old, I'm blessed with a loving wife and great kids. They deserve the best husband and father I can provide. I cannot be that person at my current weight, as I'm not operating at full potential and risking future health too greatly.

Though my family needs me now, they will depend on me in 20 or 40 years. I want to live a long life. I want to witness future generations of Briscoes, as well as the exciting changes technology will surely bring.

Those desires must be greater than momentary satisfaction from a cheeseburger or the couch.

Remembering that logic, words must become actions, marked by healthy eating at home and increased exercise across my hometown of Port Charlotte, Fla.

O'Bannon and his lawyers asked a federal court judge to turn their antitrust lawsuit into a class action, representing thousands of former and current college athletes. The lawsuit demands that the NCAA find a way to cut players in on the billions of dollars earned by college sports from live broadcasts, memorabilia sales, video games and in other areas.

U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken didn't rule on either the merits of O'Bannon's case or his demands to turn the case into a class action. It could take weeks, even months, before Wilken rules.

Instead, she ordered O'Bannon's lawyers to revise the lawsuit to fix some legal technicalities, including explicating adding current players to the lawsuit. Lawyer Michael Hausfeld said he will file a new lawsuit that includes current players, but will seek to keep their names confidential.

"They are afraid of retaliation," Hausfeld told the court.

NCAA lawyer Greg Curtner is against certifying the lawsuit as a class action, arguing that the claims of thousands of collegiate athletes are too different to be treated the same. For instance, certain athletes bring in more revenue than others and have different legal claims at stake.

The NCAA argues that many of the athletes receive scholarships in exchange for playing sports and to pay student athletes would ruin amateur athletics. To pay athletes more than that would ruin collegiate sports, the NCAA argues.

The debate over compensating college players is almost as old as the NCAA, founded in 1906. Amateurs have been expected to compete for free and the love of sport or at least the cost of a scholarship and the pursuit of an education.

The NCAA is steadfast in its position that student-athletes are prohibited from receiving payment for participating in sports. It also says it has done nothing wrong in marketing itself for the benefit of its member schools and will continue to vigorously contest the lawsuits

But the NCAA's revenues have skyrocketed in recent years it recently signed a $10.8 billion, 14-year television deal for basketball and so have the demands of athletes to share in the money.

"I'm doing this for change," O'Bannon said outside court.

The star of the NCAA 1995 basketball champion UCLA Bruins traveled from his Las Vegas home to attend the hearing Thursday.

He said he first became aware that others were profiting from his image in 1995, when he visited a friend's house and was shown an avatar resembling O'Bannon playing for the 1995 Bruins in the game. Two years later, he filed a lawsuit that focused attention from lawmakers, college administrators and others on just how much money the NCAA and its member schools earn each year.

The schools argue that money-making sports like football and baseball help support sports such as volleyball and gymnastics with smaller fan bases.

That may be, O'Bannon said, but he still thinks student athletes who help generate the revenues are entitled to a cut.

"I believe the kids coming through the system can do better than I did," he said. "I never thought this lawsuit would get this big, but now that it has, I hope it forces big changes."

The Royal & Ancient organizers said in a news release on Monday that five Race to Dubai money-list exemptions had been secured by Bjorn, South African Richard Sterne, Australian Brett Rumford, Finn Mikko Ilonen and Briton Marc Warren.

The 42-year-old Bjorn will be playing in his 16th British Open. He has twice finished tied second, at St Andrews in 2000 and at Sandwich three years later.

The Dane was also a double European Tour runner-up last month, at the BMW International in Germany and the Austrian Open.

Former Ryder Cup player Weekley, Billy Horschel, Russell Henley, Jimmy Walker and Harris English have booked their tickets for the third major championship of the season through the U.S. PGA Tour's FedExCup points table.

Weekley ended a five-year drought by winning the Crowne Plaza Invitational in Texas in May.

He finished tied 13th at the British Open in 2009.

Swede Jonas Blixt, winner of the Greenbrier Classic in West Virginia on Sunday, is among eight players to get into golf's oldest major through the world rankings.

The other seven are fellow Swede Fredrik Jacobson, British pair Chris Wood and Martin Laird, Americans Ken Duke and Kyle Stanley, Marc Leishman of Australia and Graham DeLaet of Canada.

The British Open begins on July 18.

(Writing by Tony Jimenez; editing by Patrick Johnston)

Now the Defense Department wants to take those countries and five waterways off the danger pay roster, saving about $120 million each year while taking a bite out of an estimated 56,000 troops' salaries, The Associated Press has learned.

Senior defense and military leaders are expected to meet later this week to review the matter and are poised to approve a new plan. Pentagon press secretary George Little declined to discuss details but said no final decisions have been made.

Senior military leaders came up with the proposed list of locations in their regions, including several countries in the heart of the tumultuous Middle East, such as Jordan, where hundreds of troops have recently deployed because of the bloody Syrian civil war on its border, and Bahrain.

Officials have argued that if service members are allowed to bring their families with them for assignments then it is difficult to argue that they should receive danger pay.

Defense officials said the proposal would strip the stipend which can be up to $225 per month from tens of thousands, including thousands stationed in Kuwait, which was a key hub during the Iraq war. It also would affect thousands of sailors who routinely travel through the Persian Gulf region on ships or airmen who fly over the Gulf.

The $225 monthly cut in pay would come regardless of the service member's base salary, which can range from a low of roughly $18,000 a year for a brand new recruit to a high of nearly $235,000 a year for a four-star general with more than 40 years in the military. Troops also can receive a variety of other allowances for housing, clothing or job specialties.

Defense officials described the proposal on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about it.

Under the plans being discussed, troops would still receive the extra money if they serve in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. The U.S. does not have any military members now serving in Iran.

Some of the countries that could likely be dropped from the list include Bahrain, where the Navy's 5th Fleet is located, as well as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Liberia, Haiti and several former Soviet republics.

The list has routinely evolved over many years, with countries added as they became more dangerous hotspots. And military leaders do periodic reviews of the list.

While the changes are based solely on the security review, the cuts also come as the Pentagon is under growing pressure to slash its budget, and as more than 650,000 civilians began taking the first of their 11 required days off without pay through the end of this fiscal year on Sept. 30.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said earlier this week that the fiscal pressures and congressional gridlock have led to far more abrupt and steeper cuts than expected. He noted that if Congress does not find a way to avoid the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration, the department will have to find $52 billion in additional savings next year.

So far, the danger pay decision does not affect the tax-free status of service members' pay when serving in those countries or on ships in the Gulf region.

Under existing Defense Department rules, military troops serving in as many as two dozen different nations as well as the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Gulf of Oman, Arabian Sea and Gulf of Aden have been able to receive the imminent danger pay. Until early 2012, they received the full monthly amount $225 at the time for any complete or partial month they served in any of the qualifying areas.

Beginning Feb. 1, 2012, troops received pro-rated payments of $7.50 for each day they were on official duty in one of the areas.

The total cost has been about $500 million per year.

Officials also said the proposed changes do not affect hostile fire pay. Service members who are exposed to a hostile fire or hostile mine explosion event are eligible to receive a full monthly payment of $225. But they can't receive both danger pay and hostile fire pay for the same month.

Francis, a pope from "the end of the Earth" whose ancestors immigrated to Argentina from Italy, has a special place in his heart for refugees: As archbishop of Buenos Aires, he denounced the exploitation of migrants as "slavery" and said those who did nothing to help them were complicit by their silence.

On Monday, he will arrive at Lampedusa's port by boat, as the migrants do, and will throw a floral wreath into the sea in memory of those who died trying to reach the island, which is closer to Africa than the Italian mainland and is the frequent landing place for smugglers' boats leaving from Libya or Tunisia.

According to the U.N. refugee agency, 8,400 migrants have landed in Italy and Malta in the first six months of the year, almost double the 4,500 who arrived during the first half of 2012. It's still a far cry from the tens of thousands who flooded to Italy during the Arab Spring exodus of 2011.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has recorded 40 deaths in the first half of 2013, and a total of 500 for all of 2012, based on interviews with survivors. Fortress Europe, an Italian observatory that tracks migrant deaths reported by the media, says about 6,450 people died in the Canal of Sicily between 1994 and 2012.

Francis decided somewhat at the last minute to visit Lampedusa, a treeless, strip of an island nine kilometers (four miles) long, after reports of nearly a dozen migrants lost at sea a few weeks ago. The decision, announced July 1, left the island struggling to bring in enough security forces, portable bathrooms, ambulances and other necessities for its first papal visit.

Mayor Giusi Nicolini said the Vatican had explicitly requested a simple affair, in keeping with Francis' humble take on the papacy. He will greet a few dozen migrants upon arrival at the port and celebrate Mass on the main sports field, located near the "boat cemetery" that houses the remains of broken migrant ships that have reached Lampedusa's rocky shores. On Sunday, yellow and white Vatican flags fluttered atop the rotting boats.

A small, colorful boat has been turned into the altar where Francis will celebrate Mass, and pieces of wood from wrecked migrant boats have been crafted into his pastoral staff and the chalice that will be used at Mass.

The pope will visit the local church and then fly back to Rome before lunchtime.

"It will be a strong, a very strong message to open up the silence that covers up the deaths and this injustice of the Mediterranean," Nicolini told reporters Sunday. "What is launched here will help Lampedusa feel that it's not alone, that it's welcome in Europe."

The island, and Italy as a whole, has insisted that the Europe Union craft a comprehensive migration policy so that the Mediterranean border countries don't have to bear the burden of housing, screening and caring for migrants on their own. The cry has swelled again as the summer season, calm seas and unrest in Egypt and Syria encourage ever more people to make the crossing.

"Lampedusa is the 'Checkpoint Charlie' of the third millennium," Interior Minister Angelino Alfano told Parliament this week. "Lampedusa is the frontier of Europe, and taking care of it isn't a national interest but a European interest."

Italy enraged the UNHCR in 2009 when it started sending migrants intercepted at sea back to Libya without screening them first for asylum. Just last week, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat refused to exclude sending migrants back to Libya unless the EU shows greater solidarity.

"Malta cannot leave its doors open wide and welcome boats from Libya and elsewhere as if nothing happened," he told a news conference after 290 migrants were rescued from a drifting boat south of the island nation. "Call us harsh, call us heartless, but we are not pushovers. Malta expected to be shown the same solidarity it had shown to countries which have received bailouts in recent years."

Francis is expected to ask both governments and local residents to continue opening their doors. The Vatican has said he wants to "encourage the island's inhabitants and appeal to the responsibility of all that they care for these brothers and sisters in such extreme need."

It's a message he has made repeatedly, most recently when he greeted members of the Vatican's office for migrants in May, and before that in 2008, when he celebrated Mass at a sanctuary for immigrants in Buenos Aires marking World Refugee Day. Then, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio decried subtle and not-so-subtle forms of xenophobia and exploitation of refugees, and noted that "we all are migrants, because no one stays put forever."

"We are complicit by our silence, by doing nothing, by turning to those who are responsible to find solutions, by our apathy," he said then.

Lampedusa, with a local population of roughly 5,000 people, has struggled to keep up with the pressure of receiving boatload after boatload of migrants, many from sub-Saharan Africa but also from Egypt, Pakistan and Syria. The island's holding center has room for nearly 400 migrants, but it often houses hundreds more awaiting transfer to the Italian mainland. Protests, including some in recent days, are common.

One Eritrean man, who was prevented by Italian authorities from being identified for privacy reasons, said Sunday he left his wife and two children to reach Italy, making his way through Sudan and the Egyptian desert to Libya where he boarded a boat. He said he hopes to reach his uncle in Norway and find work.

"I made this huge sacrifice," he told The Associated Press on Sunday at the holding center. "The journey was terrible, but I don't feel lost. I had to do it for my family, for my wife and children."

___

Nicole Winfield reported from Vatican City. Michele Barbero in Rome and Stephen Calleja in Valletta, Malta, contributed to this report.

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Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

Editor's note: Americans may be living longer and even exercising a tad more, but they're not necessarily healthier, . Myriad reasons exist: too much bad food, too little good food, a sedentary lifestyle, smoking, drinking and just plain living in the wrong area of the country. Yahoo asked readers: What is your biggest obstacle in the way of a healthier you? Here's one response.

Tell us in the comments about your biggest health hurdle.

FIRST PERSON | In September 2012, after completing 50 years of government service, including 20 in the military and 30 as a diplomat, I retired to my home in suburban Montgomery County, Md., just outside Washington, D.C.

For the past half century I have led a physically active life, and at 68 am in better health than most of my contemporaries. Now, though, that I'm engaged more in building my freelance writing career along with occasional public speeches on international relations, ethics and leadership, I find the opportunities for physical activity somewhat diminished. I'm fortunate in that, except for a tendency toward high cholesterol (partly inherited and partly from having grown up in an environment where fat-rich fried foods were a mainstay of my diet), I don't have any of the other indicators that are a danger to those in my age group. My blood pressure is low normal. That, of course, does expose me to the risk of dizziness or fainting if I stand too suddenly, but it's only a minor problem.

No, the biggest problem I have is a lack of physical activity. Walking my dog every morning, or the three or four times a week that I walk in the forest behind my house taking photographs of the wildlife and plants that are there in profusion, just doesn't seem to do the trick. I've never been a fan of public gyms, preferring to exercise alone. I was lucky during my time in government to almost always have some kind of exercise gear available. Now, I'm limited to a treadmill, a walker, and my daily isometrics and meditation. Keeping the weight down has been a challenge. When you spend most of each day sitting in front of a computer, snacking is a danger that requires constant vigilance to avoid.

I've tried a number of things, and I am still experimenting to find the combination that works. No longer able to get up from my desk and walk around the organization to reach out to my subordinates, it's been a challenge. Even the dog got a bit tired of five walks a day.

But I am making progress. When I retired, I went from 210 to 240 pounds in the first three months. When my knees, which I injured in the 1970s as a paratrooper in the Army, began telling me they were carrying too much weight, I had no choice but to listen. The amount I eat at each meal was reduced, and even when I can't get the dog to do more than two walks a day, I walk. Running or jogging, with my bum knees, is out of the question. Happily, I am now back to a more comfortable 210 pounds and plan to lose more.

(Reuters) - International Boxing Federation (AIBA) President C.K. Wu has decided to run for the post of the president of the International Olympic Committee as the race for one of the world's top sports jobs heats up, a source said.

"Dr Wu handed over a letter this morning to Dr (Jacques) Rogge, informing him about his candidacy. He will announce it officially next Thursday," a source told Reuters.

The Taiwanese is the third IOC member, behind Germany's Thomas Bach and Singaporean Ng Ser Miang, both IOC vice presidents, to decide to run for the post with the election set for September 10 at the IOC session in Buenos Aires.

Rogge, who succeeded Juan Antonio Samaranch in 2001, sees his two-term presidency come to a mandatory end in September.

There are several more potential candidates with Puerto Rican Richard Carrion, head of the finance commission, Swiss sports administrator Denis Oswald and former Olympic pole vault champion Sergei Bubka, seen as possible contenders. The deadline for candidacies is June 10.

Wu took over troubled AIBA in 2006, managing to restore its Olympic credibility after a string of changes to rules and judging following controversies at the Athens 2004 Olympics that led to an IOC ban on funds for the federation.

The England-educated 66-year-old architect, who is a member of the powerful IOC Executive Board since last year and has been an IOC member for 25 years, was urged earlier this week by his own federation to make a bid for the presidency.

He oversaw a hugely successful boxing tournament at the London 2012 Games where women boxers made a glittering Olympic debut.

He was also in charge of designing the Samaranch Memorial in Tianjin, China, which houses the late IOC president's private collections, and was officially inaugurated by Rogge late last month.

(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; Editing by Alison Wildey)

White House spokesman Jay Carney said it was possible Obama would adopt a "zero option" and not leave any troops behind in Afghanistan. The size of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan after 2014 will be negotiated with the Afghan government, he said.

(Reporting By Steve Holland and Laura MacInnis; Editing by David Brunnstrom)

But such concerns stretch even to New England, an environmentally focused region that long has felt the effects of drifting emissions from Rust Belt states.

Just ask Gary Long, the president of the Public Service Co. of New Hampshire, the state's largest electric company.

Long says the president's plan to impose limits on carbon dioxide emissions suddenly raises questions about the fate of the state's two coal-fired power plants, electricity rates for millions of customers and the ability to find new energy sources. And he also notes that New England has already invested billions of dollars in cleaner energy, agreed to cap its own carbon pollution and crafted plans to import Canadian hydroelectric power.

"New Hampshire's always been ahead of the curve," he says. "Does no good deed go unpunished?"

Long raised those concerns in the days after Obama launched a major second-term drive to combat climate change, bypassing Congress by putting limits for the first time on carbon pollution from new and existing power plants. At the core of his plan are controls on power plants that emit carbon dioxide heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming.

Obama said the changes would reduce domestic carbon dioxide emissions by 17 percent between 2005 and 2020 and "put an end to the limitless dumping of carbon pollution." The program also is to boost renewable energy production on federal lands, increase efficiency standards and prepare communities to deal with higher temperatures.

While the specific impact of Obama's plans varies from region to region, energy industry officials across the nation warn of likely plant closures and electricity rate spikes, illustrating the practical and political challenges Obama faces while balancing the nation's tepid economic recovery with an issue he says has dire implications for the planet's future. Republican leaders, many still skeptical of the existence of man-made climate change, have seized on the potential short-term economic impact of what some call the president's "war on coal" to criticize him and fellow Democrats.

The coal industry has been the most vocal opponent of the plan aside from Republican leaders and coal-state Democrats. Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, described the president's policies last week as a "war on America."

But Obama's move was considered long overdue by environmentalists, a vocal segment of the Democratic Party base frustrated by Obama's lack of progress on climate change.

"In New Hampshire, we've been waiting for this," said Catherine Corkery, chapter director for the New Hampshire Sierra Club.

She described the industry concerns over plant closures and rates increases as "shortsighted," predicting that thousands of new jobs focused on green energy development would replace those lost if fossil fuel plants are forced to close.

"Gary Long and those other industry types and the coal types might not be psyched about this carbon standard, but everybody else is excited," Corkery said.

Despite Corkery's enthusiasm, and beyond the political posturing for 2014 congressional campaigns, there is real concern in small towns from New Hampshire to West Virginia that depend on fossil-fuel production for their economic well-being.

Indeed, 650 miles from New Hampshire's largest coal plant, employees at the Longview Power Plant in Maidsville, W.Va., fear the president is simply trying to shut down their operation.

"Our jobs are really on the line," said Joseph Douglass, the environmental manager at the plant. It employs 95 people and has strong ties to local mines, quarries and trucking industries that employ as many as 500 more.

The facility is one of the nation's newest and cleanest coal-fired power plants, with more than $500 million of its $2 billion price tag dedicated to environmental and air-quality controls.

Douglass said it does appear the administration is waging the "war on coal" that the industry has complained about for several years.

"Everybody wants to live in a clean and healthy environment. Everybody wants industry to do their best," Douglass said. "We share, I think, more than we disagree about the need for a clean environment. But, you know, we have questions about some of the conclusions that have been reached and the direction that those conclusions are leading us in. Is this really the right thing to do? We're not sure."

While West Virginia has more than 20 coal-fired plants, New Hampshire has just two.

With roughly 100 employees, New Hampshire's biggest coal-fired plant, Merrimack Station, is "in a rough place," according to Tim Sink, president of the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce.

"It's just seems like they're being forced into a place where they may close the plant," he said.

Asked whether his company may close Merrimack Station, Long said, "That's an open question."

"We don't know the detail yet," Long continued, wondering aloud whether the state's natural gas and oil facilities would be affected. "We know that it's going to lead to a lot of litigation and uncertainty."

Energy officials may be the most vocal critics of the president's push to crack down on global warming, but strong majorities of Americans polled say global warming is a problem.

An AP-GfK poll conducted last November found that 78 percent of Americans including 70 percent of Republicans believe the world's temperature has been rising over the last 100 years. If nothing is done to reduce global warming in the future, it will become a serious problem for the United States, said 80 percent of Americans and 61 percent of Republicans.

About 97 percent of climate scientists around the world who study and publish on the issue agree the world is warming, it is caused by the burning of fossil fuels, and it is a major environmental problem.

But there is substantial disagreement among Americans over whether government should take action to combat global warming. Just 33 percent of Republicans said the government should do quite a bit or a great deal about global warming, compared with 58 percent of independents and 75 percent of Democrats. And 41 percent of Republicans say that if the U.S. took action to reduce global warming, it would hurt the economy, compared with 29 percent of independents and 12 percent of Democrats.

Inside Robie's Country Store, a few miles away from New Hampshire's Merrimack Station, local teacher and carpenter David Erikson said the environmental threat presented by global warming should supersede short-term economic concerns.

"We're going to have to do something," said Erikson, 59, of nearby Weare, N.H., "or we're doomed."

___

Associated Press writer Vicki Smith in West Virginia and AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein and Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta in Washington contributed to this report.