ZAHARO, Greece — Fires pushed by gale-force winds tore through more parched forests, swallowed villages and scorched the edges of Athens on Saturday with ashes raining onto the Acropolis. The death toll rose to at least 49 as the government declared a nationwide state of emergency.

Soldiers and military helicopters reinforced firefighting forces that were stretched to the limit by Greece's worst summer of wildfires in decades. In the most ravaged area — a string of mountain villages in southern Greece — rescue crews picked through a grim aftermath that spoke of last-minute desperation as the fires closed in.

Dozens of charred bodies were found across fields, homes, along roads and in cars, including the remains of a mother hugging her four children.

And new fronts emerged. Dozens of fresh fires broke out across the country — including some blamed on arson — with the worse infernos concentrated in the mountains of southern Greece.

By sea and by land, authorities evacuated hundreds of people trapped by the flames.

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MIDWEST SOAKED BY FLOODS

CHICAGO — Barbara Campagna and three colleagues paddled to the Farnsworth House in Plano, built by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1951.

There, they piled furniture into their borrowed rowboat as rising water threatened the building in the aftermath of torrential storms.

"We've been calling it 'Lake Farnsworth' all day because (the house) is floating on the water," Campagna, the architecture director for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, said late Friday of the glass-walled house, which rests on four-foot stilts.

"Every piece is worth tens of thousands of dollars. They're all replaceable, but very expensive," she said.

About 120,000 ComEd customers in northern Illinois remained without power Saturday, said ComEd spokesman Joe Trost. Power to more than half a million customers had been restored since Thursday's storm, but it could take days to restore power to all customers, officials said.

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VIOLENCE IN IRAQ DOWN FROM PEAK LAST YEAR

BAGHDAD — This year's U.S. troop buildup has succeeded in bringing violence in Baghdad down from peak levels, but the death toll from sectarian attacks around the country is running nearly double the pace from a year ago.

Some of the recent bloodshed appears the result of militant fighters drifting into parts of northern Iraq, where they have fled after U.S.-led offensives. Baghdad, however, still accounts for slightly more than half of all war-related killings — the same percentage as a year ago, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press.

The tallies and trends offer a sobering snapshot after an additional 30,000 U.S. troops began campaigns in February to regain control of the Baghdad area. It also highlights one of the major themes expected in next month's Iraq progress report to Congress: some military headway, but extremist factions are far from broken.

In street-level terms, it means life for average Iraqis appears to be even more perilous and unpredictable.

The AP tracking includes Iraqi civilians, government officials, police and security forces killed in attacks such as gunfights and bombings, which are frequently blamed on Sunni suicide strikes. It also includes execution-style killings — largely the work of Shiite death squads.

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MUCH OF NEW ORLEANS STILL LIES IN RUINS

NEW ORLEANS — Two years after Hurricane Katrina, much of the "city that care forgot" still lies in ruins. But Otis Biggs' task as he shuffles his Tarot deck this moist August day is to peer into the future to 2015, the storm's 10th anniversary.

Rings of silver and turquoise flash as one card, then another flops onto a zodiac-patterned table in the incense-perfumed Bottom of the Cup Tea Room in the French Quarter, where the diminutive Biggs has been telling fortunes for 32 years.

An upside down tower — violent storms will hold off until levees are repaired.

The ace of cauldrons — money will flow.

The empress — stability, fruitful things.

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FLORIDA DEMS COULD LOSE SAY IN '08 RACE

WASHINGTON — Florida Democrats would forfeit their votes in selecting a presidential nominee unless they delay their state election by at least a week, the national party said in a stern action Saturday meant to discourage others from leapfrogging ahead to earlier dates.

The Florida party has 30 days to submit an alternative to its planned Jan. 29 primary or lose its 210 delegates to the nominating convention in Denver next summer.

The state party chairwoman, Karen Thurman, said she would confer with state officials about the ultimatum. "It's going to be a difficult discussion," she said, because Floridians are wary of having their votes taken away.

Elected officials in Florida have said they would consider legal action and a protest at the convention if the national party barred the state's delegates.

There is general agreement that the eventual nominee will seat Florida's delegates rather than allow a fight at a convention intended to show party unity. But the decision by the Democratic National Committee's rules panel could reduce Florida's influence because candidates may want to campaign in states where the votes are counted.

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MAIN QUESTION IS HOW DEEP TO CUT TROOPS IN IRAQ

WASHINGTON — New calls from lawmakers to begin withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq may trouble the White House but are not too out of step with scenarios envisioned by war commanders.

The disagreement mainly is about how deeply to cut, not when to begin.

Anti-war Democrats and some Republicans want to bring all combat troops home in a matter of months. Generals in Iraq favor starting the transition next year from a predominantly combat role, but only gradually; this approach would leave a six-figure force in Iraq for the next president to command.

About 162,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq now. Some 30,000 were added between January and June as the main element of President Bush's revised strategy to stabilize Baghdad. The first of five Army brigades in that buildup is expected to go home by April, if not a few months earlier.

Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the top day-to-day commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said this month that all five brigades probably would be out of Iraq — and not replaced — by August 2008. That would take the troop total back down to roughly 132,000.

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ALGAE KNOWN AS 'ROCK SNOT' APPEARS IN RIVERS

STOCKBRIDGE, Vt. — It looks like a clump of soiled sheep's wool, a cottony green or white mass that's turning up on rocks and river bottoms, snarling waterways.

Already a scourge in New Zealand and parts of the American South and West, the aquatic algae called "rock snot" is creeping into New England, where it is turning up in pristine rivers and alarming fishermen and wildlife biologists.

"It scares me," said Lawton Weber, a fly fishing guide, who first spotted it on the Connecticut River in northern Vermont in June. "It's an aesthetic eyesore when it's in full bloom mode and its impact on the trout population is going to be significant."

Over the past 10 years, the algae with a scientific name of Didymosphenia geminata, or didymo, has turned up in California, Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, the Dakotas, Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee.

"We're starting to realize it's all over the place," said Karl Hermann, a regional waste monitoring and assessment coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency in Denver.

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MORTGAGE CRUNCH IMPACT SPREADS FAR

The walls are bare, the closets are empty, and Connie and Timothy Pent and their two teenage children are living out of boxes as they wait for a dreaded knock at the door of their three-bedroom hou###Connie regretfully. "You never know."

An increasing number of homeowners and prospective homeowners are getting caught up in the fast-spreading mortgage crisis that is claiming victims from all income levels and demographic groups. Like the Pents, many are trying desperately to get their loan terms reworked but are finding it's not possible in a tightened market.

For five years, the housing boom put money in the pockets of lenders, brokers, realtors and investors and granted easy mortgages to homeowners with both good and blemished credit. But as home prices decline and interest rates climb, the cracks in the housing market's foundation are widening.

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INSIDER TALE OF CITY HALL IN KATRINA

NEW ORLEANS — After Hurricane Katrina inundated his city, as Mayor Ray Nagin surveyed what was already being called the nation's worst natural disaster, press secretary Sally Forman asked if he was OK, she writes in a new book on the man and the post-storm chaos.

"This was God's plan for me, Sally," Nagin said.

"What was?" she asked.

"To rebuild New Orleans."

Forman's book, "Eye of the Storm, Inside City Hall During Katrina," being released this week, details the problems, politics and bureaucracy that hindered efforts to save the city.

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VICK CAN ONLY HOPE JUDGE IS LENIENT

RICHMOND, Va. — Michael Vick can only hope he will get more leniency from the judge than he did from the NFL.

Roger Goodell's letter informing the Atlanta Falcons quarterback of his suspension reads almost like a goodbye, the NFL commissioner doing nothing to hide his disgust and his disdain.

A similar reaction by U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson, who will be presented with Vick's plea agreement on Monday, could mean years in prison.

In court papers, Vick admitted bankrolling "Bad Newz Kennels" and participating in the killing of dogs in the dogfighting operation. But he tried to deflect much of his culpability in the grisly enterprise onto his friends.