Other possible runners include Richard Gephardt, the House minority leader, Tom Daschle, the Senate majority leader, as well as senators John Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina, a photogenic young lawyer dubbed “the new Clinton” by some.All have been quietly sounding out donors and have been setting up organisations in key states. In the meantime, the wheels of other potential candidates are spinning in the sand.Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, Mr Gore’s running mate in 2000, has signalled he intends to seek the nomination – but only if his old partner decides not to. In other words, as one Democratic analyst put it, “if Gore goes for the nomination, it’s going to be pretty hard to stop him”, whatever the secret wishes of the establishment.The dilemma was summed up by the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who wrote of how Democrats “could be stuck acting as though the guy who lost the election, even though he won, could win again, even though they’re sure he’d lose”.Mr Gore says he will not take a final decision on whether to run until the end of the year, but the Memphis meeting, along with the growing edge to his criticism of the Bush administration and the support of his family, are clear signs that he is leaning in that direction. And whatever his failings, Mr Gore is far better known than any of his putative rivals for the nomination.Crucially, too, the Memphis gathering showed the bulk of the powerful fund-raising network he assembled for 2000 is intact. He had a gilt-edged chance in 2000 and blew it.But the mood of the party base is much more favourable to a man it continues to believe had the election stolen from him by an unholy alliance of Florida Republicans and the US Supreme Court. Karenna said: “It makes you sick about what he could do if he were in that job, and makes me think he should go for it again.”That delight is not shared by the Democratic high command, which believes the party must find a fresh face to recapture the White House Mr Gore is yesterday’s man, they say. Those comments, made in private sessions with his supporters, are said to have drawn a standing ovation.No less important, both his wife, Tipper, and eldest daughter, Karenna, have publicly declared they would be delighted if he ran.

Barely 18 months after his controversial and traumatic defeat by George Bush in the presidential election, Al Gore is giving increasingly strong signs that he intends to seek revenge in 2004 – whatever the misgivings of Democrat elders.
The latest indication came at a weekend meeting of donors in Memphis, in the former vice-president’s home state of Tennessee (which he crucially failed to carry in 2000), when Mr Gore vowed that if he does run again, he would “let it rip” and “let the chips fall where they may”. In similar tests earlier this year before the federal takeover, investigators found failure rates of nearly 50 per cent at 32 airports.A TSA spokeswoman said: “The TSA is looking for problems in the system daily so we can fix them We have issues to correct.”. The transfer of all staff is intended to be completed by 19 November.The tests showed that the least secure airports appeared to be in Cincinnati, Ohio; Jacksonville, Florida; and Las Vegas, Nevada, where more than half of the fake metallic weapons concealed in the agents’ luggage went undetected. The organisation is in the process of hiring the screeners, of which there are about 45,000 across the country, to serve in its new federal airport security force, which will cover about 400 airports. Jack Plaxe, an aviation security consultant, described the result as “just pathetic”, adding: “There has to be problems with the people or their training.”The 387 tests – the unpublished results of which were revealed by USA Today – were run last month at 32 different airports by undercover officials from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which began overseeing airport screening in February.The agents were instructed to do as little as possible to conceal the fake weapons contained in their luggage.The baggage screeners who were tested work for, and were trained by, the commercial security companies that used to work for the airlines and are now being supervised by the TSA. Passengers and their hand luggage are routinely searched by staff before they board.But with public anxiety already high amid warnings of possible further attacks on or around this week’s 4 July holiday, the revelations will do little to assuage the fears of passengers.At Los Angeles international airport, there was a 41 per cent failure rate.

Security staff at some of America’s leading airports failed to detect fake weapons including bombs, guns and dynamite in 24 per cent of undercover tests by government officials.
At some airports, screeners let through more than 50 per cent of the weapons.Security at airports across the United States has supposedly been increased since the attacks of 11 September. Eleven bodies had been recovered by morning from the smoldering wreckage, authorities said.The smell of jet fuel permeated the area at daybreak, as rescue workers scoured the 20 mile radius on Germany’s border with Switzerland and Austria, about 220 135 miles south of Frankfurt.Search crews located the Tu–154’s flight data recorder, Mueller said, and were hoping it would provide some answers about why the Russian plane’s pilots did not respond to air traffic controllers.. Scattered fires were sparked in the rural area, but there were no casualties on the ground, authorities said.Dirk Diestel, 47, was changing his child’s nappy shortly before midnight when he looked up through a skylight and saw a huge fireball in the sky.”Immediately I thought that something horrible had happened,” he said. (2143 GMT) over Lake Constance and all people aboard the Tu–154 are also believed dead, said Wolfgang Wenzel, a police spokesman for Baden–Wuerttemberg in Tuebingen.”At such an altitude, it would be a wonder if anyone survived,” he said.Authorities said nobody on the ground was harmed, even though large chunks of the plane – including a tail section, an engine and pieces of landing gear – fell close to homes.Witnesses said they heard a noise like thunder and saw a fireball erupt in the night sky, then saw large and small pieces of wreckage falling to the ground and into Lake Constance.