Judge cuts $28 billion judgment to $28 million

LOS ANGELES -- A judge Wednesday slashed a record-breaking $28 billion award to a former smoker to $28 million, saying the jury's decision on punitive damages was excessive.

Superior Court Judge Warren Ettinger upheld the jury's decision that the cigarette maker Philip Morris was at least partially responsible for Betty Bullock's cancer. However, he said $28 million was "a reasonable sum to be awarded against Philip Morris in these circumstances."

The judge also denied the tobacco company's request for a new trial on the merits of the case. He said Philip Morris provided "no evidence" to refute Bullock's allegations the company had repeatedly lied to the public about the dangers of smoking.

Chafee first GOP senator to seek Lott's ouster

WASHINGTON -- Embattled Republican leader Trent Lott sustained a double-barreled setback Wednesday as Sen. Lincoln Chafee broke ranks to call for a change in party leadership and Secretary of State Colin Powell forcefully criticized his controversial remarks on race.

"I believe it's time to make a change," Chafee, a liberal Republican senator, told reporters in his home state of Rhode Island. "I think the process is happening," he said, and encouraged the White House to step in to help ease Lott from power.

Powell, the highest-ranking black in the Bush administration, made his first comments on a controversy that flared this month when Lott spoke favorably of Sen. Strom Thurmond's segregationist presidential campaign of a half-century ago. "I was disappointed in the senator's statement. I deplored the sentiments behind the statement," he said.

"There was nothing about the 1948 election or the Dixiecrat agenda that should have been acceptable in any way to any American at that time or any American now."

Trade deficit declines to $35.1 billion in October

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. trade deficit declined to $35.1 billion in October, the best showing in seven months, although much of the gain was attributed to the West Coast labor dispute, which sharply trimmed the level of imports.

The Commerce Department reported that the imbalance between what America sells abroad and what it imports decreased by 5.5 percent from the September deficit of $37.1 billion.

The September deficit and an August imbalance of $38.1 billion had been the two highest monthly trade deficits on record as shippers rushed to get goods into the country ahead of the deadline for resolving the dock workers' labor dispute.

Former KKK leader Duke pleads guilty to feds

NEW ORLEANS -- David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader and politician who spent the past three years overseas preaching "white survival," pleaded guilty Wednesday to bilking his supporters and cheating on his taxes. Duke, 52, could get up to 15 months in prison and $10,000 in fines under a plea bargain reached with federal prosecutors. He is free on bail until his sentencing March 19.

The plea to felony charges also disqualifies Duke from running for public office again.

--From wire reports