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If you were driving while drunk and you were caught for doing so, you may require a Dallas DWI attorney. If this is your first violation and you didn’t induce any bodily or property damage you might be able to go in front of the judge and apologies for your activities and get away with niggling penalty. If you are a resident of Dallas and you induced bodily or property damage to anybody in Dallas or if this isn’t your first violation chances are you’ll require a Dallas DWI attorney.

A Dallas DWI lawyer could assist you get some compensation for all that you’ve suffered. They could also help you ensure that the individual who was driving while drunk gets the utmost penalization for their violation. Without a Dallas DWI lawyer on the side of the victim, they’re most of the time left suffering long after the crash has happened.

Sarah Palin and her husband have pieced together a uniquely Alaskan income that reached comfortably into six figures even before she became governor, capitalizing on valuable fishing rights, a series of land deals and a patchwork of other ventures to build an above-average lifestyle.

Add up the couple’s 2007 income and the estimated value of their property and investments and they appear to be worth at least $1.2 million. That would make the Palins, like Democratic vice presidential rival Joe Biden and his wife Jill, well-off but not nearly as wealthy as multimillionaire couples John and Cindy McCain and, to a lesser extent, Barack and Michelle Obama.

One measure of financial health: While there is a home loan, Palin reported no personal credit card debt on her most recent financial report as Alaska governor. That compares to average household credit card debt among Americans of $9,840 last year.

A more complete picture will come when Sarah Palin outlines her personal finances in federal paperwork in coming days. It will include details of any mortgage debt and at least rough dollar totals for bank accounts and investments.

Palin this week characterized herself as “an everyday, working-class American” who knows how it feels when the stock market takes a hit.

The Palins’ total income last year was split almost evenly between Sarah Palin’s white-collar job and her husband’s blue-collar work. Sarah Palin’s salary as governor was $125,000; Todd Palin took in $46,790 as a part-time oil production operator for BP Alaska in Prudhoe Bay, plus $46,265 in commercial fishing income and $10,500 in Iron Dog snowmachine race winnings. These figures do not include nearly $17,000 in per diem payments Palin received for 312 nights spent in her own home since she was elected governor; she also has received $43,490 to cover travel costs for her husband and children.

In addition, each member of the Palin family received $1,654 in state oil royalties paid to all Alaskans.

The Palins’ assets seem enviable: a half-million-dollar home on a lake with a float-plane at the dock, two vacation retreats, commercial-fishing rights worth an estimated $50,000 or more and an income last year of at least $230,000. That compares to a median income of $64,333 for Alaskans and $50,740 for Americans in 2007, according to the Census Bureau.

But in Alaska, scarce roads make private planes commonplace, it’s typical to spend a month or two fishing commercially, and wilderness acreage is so plentiful the state has sold loads’ worth stake-your-claim style. So, it’s often the finer points that matter: How old is the airplane? Where exactly is the fishing spot? Is the house on a paved road?

Land itself doesn’t necessarily translate to wealth, said Tom Hawkins of Anchorage, who paid about $2,000 for a five-acre parcel miles from the nearest road, best reached by snowmachine.

“I’ve got a stunning parcel overlooking a river,” Hawkins said. “I took my wife to it. And she stood up and looked out at the stunning view and said, ‘Dear, what are we going to do with it?’”

The Palins’ main residence, a large two-story house on Lake Lucille in Wasilla, draws much of its value from its prime position along a paved road and float-plane accessible lake, said Darcie Salmon, a local real estate agent. He said lakefront land is plentiful in Alaska, but lakefront land along paved roads isn’t.

The Palins’ home, tucked behind a wooded field, is off Wasilla’s main road, Parks Highway, a mostly four-lane road cluttered with restaurants, bars, retail stores, offices, grocery stores and big-box outlets such as Target. A store-bought “no trespassing” sign is posted near the entry to an unmarked, private gravel drive that winds about 100 yards to the lakefront home. A neighbor’s property has an old metal gate at its entrance with a sign warning, “Enter at your own risk.”

The Palins’ four-bedroom, four-bath house, nearly 3,500 square feet, sits on just over two acres behind a tall wood-plank privacy fence that runs along one side of the property. It’s one of the newest homes in the Snider subdivision lining Lake Lucille and is assessed at $552,000 — more than twice the value of a neighboring two-acre lot with a much smaller, older wood-frame home.

Todd Palin built the house with friends who were contractors, he said in a recent television interview.

The house is worth substantially more than the Palins’ starter home, a three-bedroom, two-bath house house built in 1984 on the far western boundary of Wasilla. The quiet, wooded neighborhood was developed about three miles from the city center, with half-acre lots and space for young families.

In addition to the Lake Lucille home, the Palins own recreational property in two remote areas accessible by plane, all-terrain vehicle or snowmachine.

The Palins invested in five lots along Safari Lake, an undeveloped area near Denali State Park. They bought the property, once owned by the state’s Department of Natural Resources and valued at $30,000 in assessment records, with friends Scott and Deborah Richter in 2004 and 2005. The Richters have since divorced.

With other friends, the Palins own a cabin on five acres southwest of Wasilla and the Iditarod National Historic Trail. The land and cabin are assessed at $55,000; property records do not show what the Palins paid for their share.

The Palins own snowmachines and an airplane. Todd Palin has a 1958 Piper float plane that he said has been in his family for about 20 years.

Though old, such planes remain in wide use. Palin’s plane would be worth from about $38,000 to $78,000 depending on its condition, said Boyd Newman, owner of West One Aircraft Sales in Caldwell, Idaho.

Other family assets include Todd Palin’s shoreside lease and commercial fishing permit to harvest salmon from Bristol Bay each season. Last year, the Palins took in $46,265 commercial fishing for sockeye salmon over about a month.

Todd Palin said he purchased his permit from his grandfather in the 1970s. A limited number of permits and shoreline leases have been issued, and the rights to them are often passed down through families or sold. Holders pay a fee each year to renew them.

Palin’s is worth about $30,000, a shoreside lease on Coffee Point, where Palin’s set-net site is located, is worth about $20,000, and Palin’s skiff and gear are likely worth another $20,000, according to estimates by Paul Piercey, a broker with Dock Street Brokers in Seattle, which handles sales of fishing permits, boats and shoreside leases.

Palin’s fishing spot is considered good but not great, Piercey said. And the work is backbreaking. Palin has said he expects to earn 68 cents per pound for this summer’s catch.

“When you get up in the morning, your fingers are so swollen that you have to stick them in a bucket of icewater just to get movement back again” and ease the pain, said Hawkins, who fished on Bristol Bay one year.

Hawkins is former chief operating officer of the Bristol Bay Native Corp. and former chief executive of Choggiung Ltd., two native corporations in which Todd Palin, who is part Yup’ik Eskimo, is a shareholder, along with the Palin children. The Palins are among about 8,000 shareholders in BBNC and among about 1,200 shareholders in Choggiung Limited, Hawkins said.

Sarah Palin reported Todd Palin collecting $266 and each child $21 in dividends last year from BBNC, and a total of $16.50 from Choggiung Limited.

Todd Palin is still a BP employee. Company spokesman Steve Rinehart declined to describe Palin’s status beyond confirming his employment. Palin’s schedule is one week on, one week off, Palin said in a recent television interview.

Palin previously left BP in the 1990s to run Valley Polaris, a snowmachine, four-wheeler and watercraft dealership he pursued with a friend and business partner. They sold the business in 1997; public records do not show whether it was at a profit or a loss. At the time, Sarah Palin was earning about $61,000 a year as Wasilla mayor.

The Polaris dealership was among three business ventures the Palins explored; the others never took off. Palin’s financial disclosure reports do not say how much if any money the Palins invested in the business ventures or real estate, or what if any profit they made on sales.

Sarah Palin formed a consulting business called “Rouge Cou” — French for redneck — but didn’t pursue it.

The Palins teamed with another couple, Ray and Carolin Wells of Anchorage, to start a car wash in Anchorage, but it was never built. Carolin Wells described the Palins as silent partners she believes initially paid half the money to buy the land. Around the time Sarah Palin began considering a run for governor, the Palins reduced their stake to 40 percent.

Barely a year into the land ownership, the man lined up to operate the car wash backed out, and since neither couple wanted to run it, they decided to sell the land and move on, Carolin Wells said. She couldn’t recall the purchase or sales prices of the land, but believes she and her husband made a modest profit and the Palins broke even.

The couples let their state paperwork lapse on the venture, Anchorage Car Wash LLC, resulting in a letter threatening to dissolve the corporation. The letterhead carried Gov. Palin’s name on it.

The deal was among several involving undeveloped land the Palins have engaged in over the years.

The Palins purchased a parcel on Beaverhouse Lake in Big Lake in 2003 and sold it in 2004 for an undisclosed amount. The land has been assessed at $14,000 the past three years.

The Palins sold nearly five acres of undeveloped waterfront property on the northeast shore of Wasilla Lake in 2005 to a local developer. The sales price wasn’t disclosed. The land now is subdivided into five parcels, with two waterfront lots, two others behind those, and a commercial lot. Duane Mathes, a local real estate agent showing the property for the owner who bought it from the Palins, said the leveled lots are listed for $149,500 each.

Salmon, who was mayor of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough that includes Wasilla while Palin was Wasilla mayor, recalled that as mayor, Sarah Palin shared many of his pro-development views, and said the Palins’ land acquisitions weren’t unusual.

“A lot of Alaskans own a lot of land,” Salmon said, “and if you’re bright, you buy land in the path of progress.”

President Bush is welcoming the $700 billion financial rescue deal reached by congressional leaders and his administration.

He says the measure would help protect the nation’s economy from a systemwide breakdown. Bush says the cost to the economy could be disastrous without the rescue plan.

The president says he knows lawmakers will face difficult votes this coming week on the plan. But he is confident Congress will do what is best for the economy and quickly pass the bailout.

The comments came in a White House statement late Sunday. It was Bush’s first statement on the compromise that emerged after tough bargaining on Capitol Hill over the weekend.

Barack Obama on Thursday criticized lawmakers who are holding up a deal on the $700 billion financial bailout plan, saying they need to clarify their objections so an agreement can be reached and the economy saved from further damage.

The Democratic presidential nominee spoke in a round of television interviews after a White House meeting also attended by Republican presidential rival John McCain. Obama said he left thinking they will reach a deal, but that some work still needs to be done.

While other Democrats said McCain is part of the problem, Obama would not criticize his opponent directly.

But his spokesman blasted the Republican for an “out of touch response to the economic crisis.” Press secretary Bill Burton e-mailed a memo that said McCain has been in full campaign mode despite saying he would suspend his campaign to deal with the crisis.

“He just turned a national crisis into an occasion to promote his campaign,” Burton wrote. “And it does nothing to help advance this critical legislation to protect the American people during this time of economic crisis.”

Obama, trying to appear above the politics being waged between the two camps, said that at the White House meeting he tried to understand the objections to the approach being taken by congressional leaders and the Bush administration.

“The question I asked was, `Well, do we need to start from scratch or are there ways to incorporate some of those concerns?’” Obama said on ABC’s “World News.” “I think that at this point the president, the secretary of the Treasury and those who are expressing some of these concerns have to provide some clarity.”

“Keep in mind House Democrats and Senate Democrats and me and the leadership are all pretty burned up about this thing,” Obama said at a news conference after the TV interviews. “This wasn’t happening on our watch. We weren’t preventing some of the regulatory reforms that might have prevented us from getting here.”

Obama said jobs, economic growth, retirement accounts, small businesses and financial markets will all be at risk without a bailout plan. “There are no good options at this point. There are bad options and worse options. Sounds familiar from our discussions of Iraq,” Obama said.

Obama said he hopes McCain will go ahead with their debate scheduled for Friday night in Mississippi. McCain said Wednesday they should delay the forum to focus on the crisis. But Obama said on CNN: “My sense is that we can do more than one thing at a time.”

He told NBC’s “Nightly News” that he’ll raise the economy at the debate, even though its focus is supposed to be foreign policy.

“With this looming in the horizon, this has an effect all across the globe,” he said. “We can’t be strong abroad if we’re not strong at home.”

Democratic and Republican lawmakers announced a tentative deal at midday Thursday, while Obama was en route to Washington. Obama told the “CBS Evening News” he was not sure what went wrong.

“It’s important not to inject presidential politics into this,” Obama said. “My preference is to use the phone … in a way that’s not a photo op because I think that sometimes prevents things from getting done. It’s amazing what you can get done when you’re not looking to try to get credit for it.”

An Obama aide says the Illinois senator has been working the phones between campaign events to stay on top of developments in the negotiations and offer his help, speaking daily with Democratic congressional leaders and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Obama called Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., Thursday morning for an update when Dodd happened to be meeting with Republican Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah, working on a deal. Dodd passed the phone to Bennett, and Obama spoke briefly with him as well.

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A cancer-fighting Sen. Edward M. Kennedy prepared to attend, and possibly speak, at the opening day of the Democratic National Convention on Monday as presidential nominee-to-be Barack Obama unleashed a hard-hitting television commercial linking GOP rival John McCain to President Bush.

The ad signaled that the Democrats’ gathering would be just as much about skewering McCain as about unifying the fractured party after a protracted primary season that split supporters between Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

Kennedy, who is being treated for a malignant brain tumor, is a beloved figure within the party, and the Massachusetts senator’s last-minute appearance at the Pepsi Center is a way toward unification as the four-day convention opens amid signs of acrimony between Obama and Clinton delegates.

Kennedy arrived in Denver Sunday night and got a checkup at a local hospital. He plans to attend to watch a video tribute to him and may address the convention if he feels up to it, said a senior Democratic official who talked on the condition of anonymity.

“He’s truly humbled by the outpouring of support and wouldn’t miss it for anything in the world,” said Stephanie Cutter, a Kennedy spokeswoman.

As Democrats put the final touches on opening night, Obama’s campaign released an ad featuring images of McCain hugging Bush and the two smiling in spite of tidings of economic woe. It features a parody of the Sam Cooke classic “Wonderful World,” which starts off with the line “Don’t know much about history.” For the ad it’s “I’m not up on the economy,” playing on McCain’s earlier admission that economics wasn’t his best subject.

Ending with a photo of Bush patting McCain’s back, the spot asks, “Do we really want four more years of the same old tune?”

McCain’s campaign also released an ad to play on what it sees as a weakness for Obama: his lack of support among some Clinton backers. That ad features a Clinton supporter who now backs McCain assuring like-minded voters: “A lot of Democrats will vote McCain. It’s OK, really!”

Opening night at the Pepsi Center, the main venue for the four-day convention, aimed to tell the Illinois senator’s personal story to the millions of voters nationwide who will begin tuning in to the presidential campaign. Obama’s wife, Michelle, was the evening’s keynote speaker.

Obama’s campaign dismissed concerns about the impact of die-hard Clinton supporters on the choreographed show of unity. Behind the scenes, however, polls showed significant Clinton support still being denied to Obama, and pro-Clinton demonstrations at offsite venues were creating a different kind of anticipation. Clinton has backed Obama and was scheduled to speak Tuesday night.

“There are a lot of delegates here who had passionate choices in an extended primary season,” Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs told “Today” on NBC. “We feel confident that if we can demonstrate a record of change, a record of vision … a team of Barack Obama and Joe Biden can convince Democrats, Republicans and independents to support a ticket of change in November.”

Most Democratic delegates were putting the rough-and-tumble primary contest behind them and focusing on electing the first black presidential nominee of a major political party. The night was turned over to Michelle Obama, the candidate’s wife of nearly 16 years, to allow the potential first lady a prime-time speech meant to serve a dual purpose: humanize Obama and show up her own critics before her largest audience yet.

“Our stories are the quintessential American stories,” she said in an interview CNN aired Monday. “I am here because of the opportunities that my father had, that my mother had. You know, we are who Americans were supposed to be.”

With Democrats and convention delegates streaming to the Mile High City, party officials worked to assure a harmonious week.

Biden headed by plane to Denver on Monday after making an unannounced visit to the Amtrak train station in Wilmington, Del, that he has used for years to commute to Washington and his day job in the Senate.

“These guys have been my family,” said Biden as he greeted vendors and travelers. Biden has taken Amtrak during his 35 years in the Senate. He visited the station with his wife, Jill, and his security detail.

Biden said his Wednesday night convention speech “is all ready.”

At some point during the week, Clinton was expected to release the delegates she won in primaries and caucuses and encourage them to support her former rival.

On Sunday, by unanimous vote, the party’s credentials committee restored full voting rights to delegates from Florida and Michigan. The party had stripped both states of their convention voting rights for holding primaries before the rules said they could. The new committee vote was taken at Obama’s behest, and Democrats hope the goodwill gesture will help improve their standing in two important states.

Obama, slowly making his way to Denver via a tour of battleground states, said Sunday that one of his goals is for voters to come away from the convention thinking he is one of them. His uncommon name and family background still concern some voters.

“I think what you’ll conclude is, ‘He’s sort of like us,’” Obama said in Eau Claire, Wis. “‘He comes from a middle-class background. He went to school on scholarships. He had to pay off student loans. He and his wife had to worry about child care. They had to figure out how to start a college fund for their kids.’”

Obama closes the convention Thursday night when the action shifts to Invesco Field at Mile High stadium, where the 47-year-old, first-term senator will give his speech accepting the nomination from the 50-yard line. He said Sunday he was “still tooling around with my speech a little bit.”

He is scheduled to campaign Monday in Iowa.

McCain, meanwhile, wasn’t disappearing from the campaign trail entirely. He was using an appearance Monday on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and newspaper interviews to stay in touch with voters. And, there’s continued interest in his choice of a running mate.

Besides Michelle Obama, other speakers Monday night include Barack Obama’s sister, Maya Soetero-Ng, and Craig Robinson, his brother-in-law. The schedule also includes former Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa, a Republican moderate who broke ranks with his party this month and endorsed Obama.

It was a coup for Democrats: An emerging young evangelical voice, a registered Republican no less, accepted their invitation to deliver a prayer at next week’s Democratic National Convention.

But Cameron Strang, the 32-year-old editor of edgy and hip Relevant Magazine, had second thoughts and pulled out of delivering the benediction on the convention’s first night, Monday. Citing fears that his bridge-building gesture would be wrongly construed as an endorsement, Strang said he instead hopes to take a lower-profile role, participating in a convention caucus meeting on religion later in the week.

“Through Relevant, I reach a demographic that has strong faith, morals and passion, but disagreements politically,” Strang wrote on his blog. “It wouldn’t be wise for me to be seen as picking a political side when I’ve consistently said both sides are right in some areas and wrong in some areas.”

Little known to outsiders, the Strang name carries weight with evangelicals, especially in the fast-growing charismatic and Pentecostal branches. Cameron’s father, Steven, who like his son is based in the Orlando, Fla., area, founded a magazine, Charisma, that spawned a publishing empire. The elder Strang has endorsed Republican Sen. John McCain.

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has aggressively courted the young evangelical vote, and the younger Strang has been part of it. He was on the guest list when religious leaders met with Obama in June in Chicago, consulted the campaign on Christian issues and interviewed Obama for his magazine, which claims a print circulation of 80,000 and 450,000 unique Web site visitors per month.

Yet Strang’s reticence to play such a high-profile role shows such relationships are a work in progress: While Democratic leaders are reaching out to more diverse religious groups, many younger evangelicals are striving for political independence and common ground without compromising on core issues like abortion.

The convention’s schedule is studded with faith-themed events, including the first interfaith gathering to open a Democratic convention. Those delivering invocations and benedictions during the four-night convention include a Greek Orthodox archbishop, a Catholic nun, a rabbi from Judaism’s Reform tradition and Joel Hunter, a Republican and Florida megachurch pastor who has made the environment a signature issue.

In his blog post, Strang wrote that he initially accepted the benediction invitation, in part, so he could pray in a forum where faith isn’t typically emphasized. He also wanted to provide tangible evidence that “this generation of values voters doesn’t necessarily need to draw political battle lines the way previous generations have, and that we can work through areas of disagreement toward common goals.”

Those goals range from fighting poverty, torture and genocide to protecting the environment and reducing the number of abortions, he wrote. Strang calls himself a pro-life Republican.

Learning later that he was to speak on the main stage on opening night gave him “serious pause.” Strang said Obama representatives understood his decision, and he wants to keep his good relationship with them.

Asked whether he got any pressure to reduce his role, Strang said Thursday he got a few e-mails, but it was a personal decision.

Obama campaign and convention committee officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Democratic officials have emphasized their faith outreach work is meant to recognize the nation’s religious diversity and unite the religious and nonreligious around shared values.

Strang found a different young evangelical to take his place delivering the closing prayer on Monday night: Donald Miller, author of the popular spiritual memoir “Blue Like Jazz.”

Strang’s soul-searching prompted one other change: He switched his political affiliation to independent this week.

As for his presidential preference, Strang said he still hasn’t decided.

The United States warned sternly Thursday of a long-term rupture with Russia if Moscow does not quickly abide by its promise to withdraw its fighting forces from Georgia. In contrast to the tough talk, Condoleezza Rice rushed to the former Soviet republic with a new cease-fire plan offering concessions to Moscow.

The new document would allow Russian peacekeepers who were in the disputed South Ossetia region before the fighting broke out a week ago to stay, and they would now be permitted to patrol in a strip up to six miles outside the area, U.S. officials said. But that allowance would be temporary, and details were still to be worked out, the officials said.

Issuing urgent statements in Washington and abroad, President Bush and his foreign policy lieutenants sought to jawbone Russia into compliance while taking a U.S. military response off the table — suggesting strict limits to how far he was willing to go in the waning days of a controversial presidency.

Bush repeated his call for the cease-fire to be honored and demanded that Russia respect the “territorial integrity” of Georgia. He spent nearly four hours being briefed at CIA headquarters about the war on terror and the grim situation in Georgia.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he saw no need to invoke American military force in the nearly week-old war, despite continued uncertainty about Russia’s next move.

“The United States spent 45 years working very hard to avoid a military confrontation with Russia. I see no reason to change that approach today,” Gates said at the Pentagon.

Standing alongside, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. James Cartwright, said it appeared Russia was “generally complying” with the truce. But then Georgian leaders said a convoy of more than 100 Russian tanks and other vehicles had moved from the western city of Zugdidi deeper into their nation before stopping.

Cartwright had said Russian forces appeared to be forming up in Georgia in preparation for withdrawal.

Russian and Georgian forces have been fighting since Georgia sought to regain control of a breakaway province. Fighting spread beyond the small mountainous enclave and has left Georgian cities, a key port and roads badly damaged.

The United Nations estimates 100,000 people have been uprooted by the conflict, while estimates of the dead range from scores to thousands. Gates described a broad humanitarian effort for Georgians displaced or harmed by the fighting. He said there was no need for U.S. fighting forces there, although the relief effort is being run by the American military.

The Pentagon says there are fewer than 100 U.S. military personnel on the ground in Georgia now, including about 60 U.S. Special Forces and Marines who’ve been there for a while to train local troops on their way to deployment in Iraq. Now that the Georgian contingent has been called home from Iraq and the training mission suspended, the trainers would be available to help out in the current crisis.

“I think what happens in the days and months to come will determine the future course of U.S.-Russian relations,” Gates said. “My personal view is that there need to be some consequences for the actions that Russia has taken against a sovereign state.”

Gates told reporters he believes Russia has decided “to punish Georgia for daring to try to integrate with the West,” actions that call into question U.S. attempts to forge solid political, economic and military partnerships with Russia.

Rice was in Paris issuing another urgent call on Russia to honor a previously announced cease-fire ahead of her mission to Georgia.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been leading Western efforts to stop the fighting, said the documents are “intended to consolidate the cease-fire.”

Russia and Georgia have agreed to a truce, but Russian tanks and troops remain. Rice was heading to the capital Tbilisi on Friday carrying the document for signature by President Mikhail Saakashvili.

She had no plans to visit Moscow.

Rice has not ruled out a diplomatic mission to Russia sometime soon, but the United States is sensitive to the perception that a visit could suggest that Washington is open to compromise on Georgia’s future. She insists the United States will stand by its closest friend among the gradually democratizing former Soviet republics.

The French-brokered cease-fire requires Russia to withdraw all of its combat forces from Georgia but gives Russian peacekeepers the express right to patrol beyond the disputed border region of South Ossetia that lies at the heart of the conflict, U.S. officials said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the accord is not yet finalized and there are still U.S. and Georgian concerns about the expanded patrol rights that need to be worked out.

Sarkozy said, “If tomorrow, President Saakashvili signs these documents, then the withdrawal of the Russian troops can start.”

The concessions on Russian patrols outside South Ossetia were demanded by Russia, which accuses Georgian forces of attacking the peacekeepers and pro-Russian South Ossetians who live there.

The U.S. officials acknowledged the solution was not perfect but said the primary goal was to get Russian combat forces out of Georgia as quickly as possible. They said the U.S. would accept the expanded patrol mandate only if it was limited, well-defined and temporary.

Russian patrols outside South Ossetia proper would stop once a new international peacekeeping and monitoring force was in place, one official said, adding that the Russians would not be allowed to use the extra six-mile band “to impede legitimate Georgian movement.”

The cease-fire would also allow Russian peacekeepers to remain in Abkhazia, another, larger disputed province. Those forces would not be given the expanded patrol rights, officials said.

In return, the agreement calls for Russia to respect Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, something that Sarkozy and Rice both stressed on Thursday after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov openly questioned the country’s established borders.

Lavrov declared that the world “can forget about” Georgia’s territorial integrity, strongly suggesting that Russia could absorb the regions where it has supported separatist movements in a goad to Georgia since the election there of a strongly pro-American president.

“I would consider that to be bluster from the foreign minister of Russia,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. “We will ignore it.”

Russia’s president met in the Kremlin with the leaders of the separatist provinces, another signal that Moscow could absorb the regions.

The Thai government on Wednesday began preparing to request the extradition of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who returned to exile in Britain after missing a court appearance earlier this week.

The Supreme Court issued arrest warrants Monday for Thaksin and his wife Pojaman after they failed to attend a scheduled hearing on a corruption case pending against them.

The couple, who traveled to China last week for the Olympics opening ceremony, were also ordered to forfeit a total of 13 million baht ($389,000) bail.

Thaksin said in a handwritten statement Monday that he had decided to return to Britain because he could not expect a fair trial in Thailand, where he was prime minister from 2001 to September 2006, when he was ousted in a military coup.

The government faces pressure to get him back, though many said his departure would help ease political tensions that began with protests early in 2006 seeking his removal from office because of alleged corruption and abuse of power.

Former presidential candidate John Edwards, who won nationwide praise and sympathy as he campaigned side by side with his cancer-stricken wife, Elizabeth, admitted in shame Friday he had had an affair with a woman who produced videos as he prepared to launch his campaign.

Acknowledging a sex scandal he had dismissed as “tabloid trash” only last month, Edwards said he had told his wife and family long ago, but “I had hoped that it would never become public.”

He denied fathering a daughter, born to the woman with whom he had the affair, and offered to be tested to prove it. A former Edwards campaign staff member professes to be the father.

The former North Carolina senator, who was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2004, confessed to ABC News that he had lied repeatedly about the affair with 42-year-old Rielle Hunter. Hunter’s daughter, Frances Quinn Hunter, was born on Feb. 27 this year, and no father’s name is given on the birth certificate filed in California.

After the story broke Friday, Edwards released a statement that said, “In 2006, I made a serious error in judgment and conducted myself in a way that was disloyal to my family and to my core beliefs. I recognized my mistake, and I told my wife that I had a liaison with another woman, and I asked for her forgiveness. Although I was honest in every painful detail with my family, I did not tell the public.”

“I was and am ashamed of my conduct and choices,” he said. “With my family, I took responsibility for my actions in 2006, and today I take full responsibility publicly.”

Edwards declared his presidential candidacy in December 2006. His wife was at his side that day and campaigned enthusiastically with him and by herself in the months that followed. She announced in March 2007 that her cancer, formerly in remission, had returned and there apparently was no cure.

She and her husband said it was important for the campaign to continue.

Edwards dropped out midway through this year’s primaries after it became apparent he could not keep up with front-runners Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. He recently endorsed Obama and has been mentioned as a possible running mate.

He was John Kerry’s running mate in 2004 when Kerry lost to President Bush.

In his statement, he said, “It is inadequate to say to the people who believed in me that I am sorry, as it is inadequate to say to the people who love me that I am sorry.

“In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic. If you want to beat me up feel free. You cannot beat me up more than I have already beaten up myself. I have been stripped bare and will now work with everything I have to help my family and others who need my help.”

The National Enquirer first reported on the affair in October 2007, in the run-up to the Democratic primaries, and Edwards denied it.

“The story is false,” he told reporters then. “It’s completely untrue, ridiculous.” He professed his love for his wife, who had an incurable form of cancer, saying, “I’ve been in love with the same woman for 30-plus years and as anybody who’s been around us knows, she’s an extraordinary human being, warm, loving, beautiful, sexy and as good a person as I have ever known. So the story’s just false.”

Last month, the Enquirer carried another story — the blaring headline referred to an Edwards “love child” — stating that its reporters had accosted Edwards in a Los Angeles hotel where he had met with Hunter after her child’s birth. Edwards called it “tabloid trash,” but he generally avoided reporters’ inquiries, as did his former top aides.

He said in his statement Friday he had “used the fact that the story contained many falsities to deny it,” and he called that “being 99 percent honest.”

In an interview, scheduled to air on ABC News’ “Nightline” Friday night, Edwards said the tabloid was correct when it reported on his meeting with Hunter at the Beverly Hills Hilton last month.

A number of mainstream news organizations had looked into the adultery allegations but had not published or aired stories. But newspapers in Charlotte and Raleigh, N.C., recounted the Enquirer’s allegations in prominent articles on Thursday.

The Edwardses have three children — Cate, Jack and Emma Claire. Another son, Wade, died at 16 in a 1996 car accident.

David Bonior, Edwards’ campaign manager for his 2008 presidential bid, said he was disappointed and angry at Friday’s news.

“Thousands of friends of the senator’s and his supporters have put their faith and confidence in him, and he’s let them down,” said Bonior, a former congressman from Michigan. “They’ve been betrayed by his action.”

Asked whether the affair would damage Edwards’ future aspirations in public service, Bonior replied: “You can’t lie in politics and expect to have people’s confidence.”

CBS News chief White House correspondent Bob Schieffer spoke to John and Elizabeth Edwards on Friday afternoon. Schieffer reported that when Elizabeth got on the phone, “she was obviously in tears” and that she said “this is really, really tough,” but she confirmed Edwards told her about the affair in 2006 and the couple had decided to “move on.” When Schieffer asked John Edwards how his wife was doing, he said “she is just amazing, like she always is.”

In his statement, Edwards denied making any payments to Hunter or “or to the apparent father of the baby.” Late Friday, Dallas-based attorney Fred Baron, former national finance chairman for Edwards, said in a statement he decided on his own to “help two friends and former colleagues rebuild their lives when harassment by supermarket tabloids made it impossible for them to move forward on their own.”

Baron, who did not return messages left by The Associated Press, didn’t mention anyone by name in his statement. He said the assistance was offered and accepted without the knowledge of Edwards or anyone else.

In 1999, when Edwards was a senator, he said of President Clinton and his affair with Monica Lewinsky:

“I think this president has shown a remarkable disrespect for his office, for the moral dimensions of leadership, for his friends, for his wife, for his precious daughter. It is breathtaking to me the level to which that disrespect has risen.”

In 2006, Edwards’ political action committee paid $100,000 in a four-month span to a newly formed firm run by Hunter, who directed the production of four Web videos showing Edwards in supposedly candid moments as well as in a public speech talking about morality.

The payments from Edwards’ One America Committee to Midline Groove Productions LLC started on July 5, 2006, five days after Hunter incorporated the firm in Delaware.

Midline provided “Website/Internet services,” according to reports that Edwards’ PAC filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Midline’s work product consists of four YouTube videos showing Edwards in informal settings as he prepares to make speeches in Storm Lake, Iowa, and Pittsburgh, as he prepares for an appearance on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” and travels in Uganda in 2006.

Edwards’ PAC followed the six-figure payment with two smaller payments totaling $14,461, the last on April 1, 2007.

At the time, Hunter was compiling the videos in 2006, Edwards was preparing his run for president.

Episode One of the four videos shows a conversation between Edwards and an unseen woman as the two chat aboard a plane about an upcoming speech in Storm Lake, Iowa.

Cutting between clips of the speech and the conversation with the woman, Edwards touches on his standard political themes, declaring that government must do a better job of addressing the great issues of the day, from poverty and education to jobs and the war in Iraq.

“I want to see our party lead on the great moral issues — yes, me a Democrat using that word — the great moral issues that face our country,” Edwards tells the crowd. “If we want to live in a moral, honest just America and if we want to live in a moral and just world, we can’t wait for somebody else to do it. We have to do it.”