McCain gets loud welcome at Sturgis bike rally

STURGIS, S.D. - Thousands of motorcyclists greeted Republican presidential candidate John McCain with an approving roar Monday as he sought blue-collar and heartland support by visiting a giant motorcycle rally.

"As you may know, not long ago a couple hundred thousand Berliners made a lot of noise for my opponent. I'll take the roar of 50,000 Harleys any day," McCain said, referring to Democrat Barack Obama's recent visit to the German capital.

Billed as the largest event of its kind in the world, the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally has become something of an annual bikers' Woodstock during the past 70 years. It features nine nights of entertainment, with bands including Def Leppard, Lynyrd Skynyrd and REO Speedwagon.

McCain played to a crowd that paused for a veterans salute. He criticized Obama for supporting a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq while opposing efforts to reduce record-high energy prices.

"My opponent wants to set a date to come home. I want us to come home with victory and honor so we will never go back again," the Arizona senator said.

McCain also criticized Congress for adjourning for a five-week recess without approving a new energy plan.

"Tell em' to come back and get to work," McCain said, yelling into the microphone. "When I'm president of the United States, I'm not going to let them go on vacation. They're gonna become energy independent."

Warm reception
McCain was accompanied by Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., who has been mentioned as a potential running mate. He had warned the McCain campaign that a politician might receive an unfriendly welcome, but McCain relished the warm embrace.

His wife, Cindy, also paid tribute to the crowd, saying: "I'd like to thank all of you for your support of our troops, and here's why: I'm many things in my life, and one thing I'd like to be is your first lady. But more importantly, I'm Jack McCain's mother and Jimmy McCain's mother, one in the U.S. Navy and another one in the Marine Corps, an Iraqi vet."

Taking back the microphone, McCain joked that he wanted her to enter the beauty contest held at the site, the Buffalo Chip campground on the edge of town.

"I told her with a little luck, she could be the only woman ever to serve as both the first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip," McCain quipped.

Before landing in South Dakota, McCain visited the National Label Co. in Lafayette Hill, Pa. The 97-year-old, family owned business makes labels for products from medicines such as Tylenol to shampoos in the Suave family.

There, McCain focused on energy policy, telling reporters he has outlined an "all-of-the-above" strategy and mocking Obama's suggestion last week for improving automobile mileage, saying: "We're not going to achieve energy independence by inflating our tires."

On Tuesday, McCain aims to underscore his call for expanded nuclear power in the U.S. by touring a nuclear power plant in the battleground state of Michigan. That trip comes a day after Obama laid out his energy vision in a speech, also in Michigan

Freeman has broken arm, is in good spirits

JACKSON, Miss. - Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman was hospitalized in serious condition Monday after the car he was driving left a rural road in the Mississippi Delta and flipped several times.

Freeman, 71, was airlifted to the Regional Medical Center in Memphis, Tenn., about 90 miles north of the accident in rural Tallahatchie County.

The actor “has a broken arm, broken elbow and minor shoulder damage, but is in good spirits,” according to a statement from Donna Lee, Freeman’s publicist. A hospital spokeswoman said Freeman was in serious condition but would not discuss his injuries.

“He is having a little bit of surgery this afternoon or tomorrow to help correct the damage,” Lee’s statement said. “He says he’ll be OK and is looking forward to a full recovery.”

Freeman, who won an Oscar for his role in “Million Dollar Baby,” is among the stars in “The Dark Knight,” now in theaters. His screen credits also include “Driving Miss Daisy.”

Freeman and a companion were traveling on a dark, two-lane highway that cuts through the expansive farmlands of the Mississippi Delta when the car ran off the side of the road shortly before midnight Sunday, authorities said. The vehicle flipped several times but landed upright in a ditch alongside Mississippi Highway 32, about 5 miles west of Charleston, not far from where Freeman owns a home with his wife.

Mississippi Highway Patrol spokesman Sgt. Ben Williams said rescuers had to use the jaws of life to remove Freeman from the car.

“He was lucid, conscious. He was talking, joking with some of the rescue workers at one point,” said Clay McFerrin, editor of Sun Sentinel in Charleston, who arrived at the scene soon after the accident happened.

McFerrin said it appeared Freeman’s car was airborne when it left the highway.

Bystanders converged on the accident scene trying to get a glimpse of the actor, McFerrin said.

When one person tried to snap a photo with a cell phone camera, Freeman joked, “no freebies, no freebies,” McFerrin said.

News conference detailing Favre plans canceled

GREEN BAY, Wis. - There was no parade, no motorcade, and no photo opportunity — hardly the way you’d expect Brett Favre to return to the Green Bay Packers after spending most of the past month as the league’s longest-running daytime drama.

Favre reported to the Packers as expected Monday, but managed to do so without being noticed by fans and media members staking out several entrances to Lambeau Field managed to catch a glimpse of him.

The team announced Monday afternoon that Favre had been reinstated and returned to the Packers’ active roster, as was expected. To make room for Favre, the team placed cornerback Condrew Allen on injured reserve with a knee injury.

Coach Mike McCarthy had scheduled a news conference for 9:15 p.m. EDT to talk about his plans for Favre. But the news conference was rescheduled for sometime Tuesday because McCarthy was still meeting with Favre.

Both Favre and McCarthy drove out a back gate at Lambeau at 12:22 a.m. EDT. Favre waved to a small crowd of fans and media from his dark red SUV, and McCarthy followed immediately behind him in a black SUV.

Meanwhile, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell ruled Monday that he found no violations of league policy in the Packers’ tampering complaint against Minnesota Vikings. And Minnesota coach Brad Childress denied reports that the Vikings have talked to the Packers about a potential trade for Favre.

“We haven’t had any contact” with the Packers, Childress said.

Vikings coaches apparently did have contact with Favre in the offseason, but Goodell found that their conversations didn’t violate league tampering rules. In a statement, Goodell said, “None of those conversations suggest that Favre was soliciting a job or that other teams were soliciting his services.”

In a statement, the Packers said they consider the matter closed.

“Based on the information that we had, the Packers thought it was appropriate to bring this matter to the league’s attention,” the team said. “We respect the commissioner’s investigation of this matter and we now consider it closed.”

In era of pills, fewer shrinks doing talk therapy

CHICAGO - Cartoons about the psychiatrist’s couch were recently the subject of a museum exhibition. Now, the couch itself may be headed for a museum.

A new study finds a significant decline in psychotherapy practiced by U.S. psychiatrists.

The expanded use of pills and insurance policies that favor short office visits are among the reasons, said lead author Dr. Ramin Mojtabai of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

“The ’couch,’ or, more generally, long-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy, was for so long a hallmark of the practice of psychiatry. It no longer is,” Mojtabai said.

Today’s psychiatrists get reimbursed by insurance companies at a lower rate for a 45-minute psychotherapy visit than for three 15-minute medication visits, he explained.

His study found that the percentage of patients’ visits to psychiatrists for psychotherapy, or talk therapy, fell from 44 percent in 1996-97 to 29 percent in 2004-05. The percentage of psychiatrists using psychotherapy with all their patients also dropped, from about 19 percent to 11 percent.

Psychiatrists who provided talk therapy to everyone had more patients who paid out of pocket compared to those doctors who provided talk therapy less often. And they prescribed fewer pills.

'Aura of invincibility' around meds
As talk therapy declined, TV ads contributed to an “aura of invincibility” around drugs for depression and anxiety, said Charles Barber, a lecturer in psychiatry at Yale University and author of “Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry is Medicating a Nation.”

“By contrast, there’s almost no marketing for psychotherapy, which has comparable if not better outcomes,” said Barber, who was not involved in the study.

The findings, published in Monday’s Archives of General Psychiatry, are based on an annual survey of office visits to U.S. doctors. Of more than 246,000 visits sampled during the 10 years, more than 14,000 were to psychiatrists. The researchers analyzed those psychiatrist visits.

Officials: Ivins was obsessed with sorority

WASHINGTON - The top suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks was obsessed with a sorority that sat less than 100 yards away from a New Jersey mailbox where the toxin-laced letters were sent, authorities said Monday.

Multiple U.S. officials told The Associated Press that former Army scientist Bruce Ivins was long obsessed with the sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma, going back as far as his own college days at the University of Cincinnati.

The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

The bizarre link to the sorority may indirectly explain one of the biggest mysteries in the case: why the anthrax was mailed from Princeton, N.J., 195 miles from the Army biological weapons lab the anthrax is believed to have been smuggled out of.

An adviser to the Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter at Princeton University confirmed she was interviewed by the FBI in connection with the case.

U.S. officials said e-mails or other documents detail Ivins' long-standing fixation on the sorority. His former therapist has said Ivins plotted revenge against those who have slighted him, particularly women. There is nothing to indicate, however, he was focused on any one sorority member or other Princeton student, the officials said.