SHOTLIST:

1. Exterior, ABC office in New York

2. Tilt down from address to front of office

3. ABC sign

4. ABC employees talking outside office

5. More ABC employees talking outside office

6. Employee entering at another door

7. Sign on door requiring ID card

8. Wide shot, Giuliani arrives

9. SOUNDBITE: (English) Rudolph Giuliani, New York Mayor

"Today we've had 51 calls. Eleven involved packages. We've picked them up, now it'll take a while again to get the results back from that but theres nothing that looks at least in plain view that would be positive but you don't know until you do all the testing. Other than that I think things have quietened down somewhat with regard to people reaction. I think people are understanding that this is something that is isolated."

10. Exterior, Post office

11. US flag over Post office

12. People going into post office

13. People inside post office

14. SOUNDBITE: (English) Voxpop

"It really hasn't made me upset about handling mail, I just think that it didn't take very much to throw us all into a panic."

15. SOUNDBITE: (English) Voxpop

"There's a lot of education not only that's necessary with anthrax, but I think that its important with other organisms that can cause trouble. So I just hope we find the people that are doing it fast."

16. Man wheeling cart into AP mailroom

17. Man sorting mail

18. Close shot, envelope as it is opened

19. Man sorting mail through shelf

20. Interior, pharmacy

21. Counter at pharmacy

22. Woman pouring pills from jar

23. Close shot, pills being poured

24. SOUNDBITE: (English) Russell Gellis, Apthorp Pharmacy

"So people we've seen have now calmed down and at this point interestingly enough, even though today the news got out on ABC about an infant coming down with cutaneous anthrax, there really haven't been any calls

25. Cipro pills in bottles

26. Close shot, bottle

STORYLINE:

Security at media mailrooms and post offices in New York remains high after an ABC news producer's infant son was diagnosed with anthrax.

The diagnosis of the 7-month-old child marked the second anthrax case involving a major news organisation in New York in four days, following one at NBC in which a female employee was infected by a letter carrying anthrax.

ABC News President David Westin said on Monday that the boy had developed the skin form of anthrax after spending time at the newsroom last month.

The child is taking antibiotics and is expected to recover.

Other news organisations to be tested included CNN, CBS, Fox, Daily News and New York Post.

But New Yorkers remain cautious, and say they're keeping an eye out for any suspicious behaviour.

New York Rudolph Mayor Giuliani said no anthrax had been detected in the initial tests.

He also said two people outside of New York who had sent hoax anthrax letters had been arrested by the

F-B-I.

Authorities did not discuss the source of the germ involving the child who was believed to have been on two floors of the ABC building on West 66th Street for several hours on September 28.

Westin said the child is the son of a female producer, but did not release names.

The skin version of anthrax that the boy contracted is not the more-lethal inhaled form that infected two Florida men who worked at a supermarket tabloid, killing American Media Inc. employee Robert Stevens, 63.

New York city health officials say after searching the mail rooms of major media companies overnight they have not found any new traces of anthrax.

The most popular drug for treating anthrax is Ciprofloxin, patented by Bayer pharmaceuticals.

New Yorkers flocked to drug stores last Friday to stock up on tablets, but the mania has faded in the last few days.

Pharmacists say that Doxicyclene is also effective in treating the bacteria.

Anthrax cannot be communicated from person to person, but is being spread by spores that have been sent in the infected letters.

SHOTLIST:

1. Wide shot of Dr. Ivan Walks speaking

2. SOUNDBITE: (English) Dr. Ivan Walks, Washington, DC Chief Health Officer

"We have a gentleman who worked at the Brentwood mail handling facility here in Washington, DC, that presented at a local hospital here in Virginia with a clinical presentation suspicious for anthrax. Those tests have come back, that is now confirmed. However, his treatment was initiated based on those suspicions. He is currently receiving appropriate treatment, he is in that facility, and our CDC (Centres For Disease Control) partners have a physician on site, at that facility, monitoring his progress."

3. Various exterior shots of Fairfax Inova Hospital

4. Wide shot of DC Mayor Anthony Williams speaking

5. SOUNDBITE: (English) Anthony Williams, Washington, DC Mayor "We're going to do everything we can and everything we have to do, working with the postal service, working with the CDC, with federal officials, with the state of Virginia and Maryland, our hospital association, through our public health department to see that people are getting the treatment they need when they need that treatment, irrespective of where they are or where they come from, what they look like or where they work. That's very, very important."

6. Wide shot of Dr. John Eisold walking with Capitol Police spokesman to news conference in front of Capitol

7. Cutaway of press

8. SOUNDBITE: (English) Dr. John Eisold, US Capitol Physician

"Based upon what happened at Brentwood does not alter the way that we are behaving with our patient population here. It does not change anything that we are doing."

9. Cutaway of press

10. SOUNDBITE: (English) Dr. John Eisold, US Capitol Physician

"We have read out somewhere between 45-hundred to 5-thousand of the specimens, and as of this time, there continue to be no new positive findings for the personnel screened here on Capitol Hill."

11. Pan from Capitol dome to wide shot of presser

STORYLINE:

Another anthrax case came to light on Sunday, this time in Washington D-C.

Health officials in Washington say an unidentified postal worker has inhalation anthrax, the most serious form of the disease.

The man checked into a Virginia hospital on Friday and was diagnosed on Sunday morning.

At a midday news conference, Washington, D-C Mayor Anthony Williams called the postal worker "gravely ill."

This is the third person in the US to come down with inhalation anthrax.

Six other people have been diagnosed with the skin form of the disease.

The postal employee works in the city's central mail handling facility which processed a contaminated letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle last week.

Authorities say they don't know if this postal worker handled the Daschle letter, and they are investigating the source of the anthrax exposure.

Mayor Williams said more than 2-thousand employees at the Brentwood central mail processing centre and another 150 employees at the air mail handling center near Baltimore-Washington International Airport will be tested for exposure to anthrax spores and receive treatment beginning Sunday.

Meanwhile, the sweep through the U-S Capitol complex continued Sunday.

House and Senate leaders were to be briefed on findings late in the day and planned to hold a news conference to announce whether the Capitol would open Monday.

A Capitol Police spokesman said nineteen buildings including and surrounding the Capitol have undergone environmental surveys and anthrax spores have been found in four of them.

Speaking at a news conference, the U-S Capitol Physician said nearly 5-thousand people have been tested for anthrax since last Monday, when a letter containing anthrax was opened in Daschle's office.

Doctor John Eisold said twenty-eight of those have tested positive for exposure to anthrax but none have contracted the disease.

Eisold said confirmation of inhalation anthrax at the Washington post office will not affect the treatment of patients on Capitol Hill.

SHOTLIST:

APTN

7 May 2002 - Washington, DC

1. Exterior view of Federal Reserve

2. Pull back from flags to exterior of building

APTN - FILE

3. Close-up slide of anthrax bacteria

4. Close-up film of anthrax

5. Pan view of Washington mail handling facility

6. Close-up workers sorting mail

POOL

7 May 2002 - Washington, DC

7. Close-up Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan seated between U.S. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz

8. Pan close-up as President Bush shakes their hands

9. SOUNDBITE: (English) Ari Fliescher, White House spokesman.

"Routine preliminary tests at the Federal Reserve, which were administered late Tuesday and Wednesday have detected anthrax spores in small batches of mail. The affected mail was routine commercial and business mail and did not have any of the characteristics identified by the F-B-I as suspicious, so as a result as has happened previously from time to time unfortunately. Swabs were sent additional testing. These are preliminary, this has happened before. The source of the possible contamination is not known. Subsequent tests of the mail room surfaces and mail distribution points within the Board's buildings have all been negative. (Q: Suggest there could be potentially another anthrax ...?) No Kelly this is new information, this is based on this preliminary report from the federal reserve and so I think the lesson that everyone has learnt from the anthrax episodes of last is that preliminary information is often incorrect information."

APTN

October 25, 2001 - Washington, DC

10. Various views of letters sent containing anthrax to Senator Tom Daschle and NBC Anchorman Tom Brokaw

STORYLINE:

The U-S Federal Reserve reported Thursday that about 20 pieces of mail tested positive for traces of anthrax in an initial screening.

The tainted mail was discovered as part of routine mail testing by the Federal Reserve in a mobile trailer stationed in a courtyard at the Federal Reserve's main buildings in downtown Washington.

The test results were preliminary.

The mail did not contain powder like substances or handwritten addresses. Such preliminary tests often are inaccurate and further tests are being conducted.

In a written statement, the Federal Reserve said: "The affected mail was routine commercial and business mail and did not have any of the characteristics identified by the FBI as suspicious."

Fed spokesman David Skidmore said some of the mail was addressed to Chairman Alan Greenspan as well as other officials.

Swabs that produced the positive readings will be sent to a laboratory for additional testing.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said it is important not to jump to conclusions.

The Fed also had positive initial test readings for a batch of mail received in December. However extensive follow-up tests never found any new letters containing anthrax. The Fed said Thursday it believes those initial positive readings were "the result of cross-contamination."

SHOTLIST:

1. Medium shot police officer in front of car in vicinity of Ford building

2. Close up "Staff only, no thru street"

3. Close up sign visitors entrance

4. Close up sign Ford House Office Building

5. SOUNDBITE (English) Lt Dan Nichols, Spokesperson for Capitol Hill Police

"This morning, after doing the environmental sampling around the capitol complex, it was discovered that a sample came back from the Ford House office building mail room as positive for anthrax and its important to realise that this was not an unexpected situation. We've been trailing the mail through the capitol complex for quite some time and after the discovery in the Hart and the Dirksonand also the US Police on sight delivery center, testing was done at the Ford Center mailroom."

6. Wide shot of news conference with Lt Dan Nichols behind John Eisold, attending physician

7. SOUNDBITE (English) John Eisold, Attending Physician

"As you are aware, we have tested over 4,000 people and have not found any further positive findings than we have already reported. We have identified a zone in which people need full dose therapy for a two month course of treatment. That process of giving results back and treating people is ongoing and at this time none of the people who have demonstrated exposure, have become symptomatic. This new finding in the Ford building, as explained by the Lieutenant, is actually not surprising if you follow the trail of the mail."

8. Medium shot exterior Ford center with pan to road with police

9. Close up sign "Staff only, no through Street"

10. SOUNDBITE (English) Lt Dan Nichols, Spokesperson for Capitol Hill Police

"As it stands right now the goal is for the Senate to come back on Monday and for the House to come back on Tuesday. Now we'll have to evaluate further to see if this changes that balance or not."

11. Medium shot Capitol Hill

12. Wide shot Capitol Hill

STORYLINE:

Authorities have discovered evidence of anthrax in a House of Representatives office building that processes mail for lawmakers, congressional officials said on Saturday, as hazardous materials teams methodically worked their way across Capitol Hill.

The anthrax was found in a mail bundling machine in the Ford House Office Building, three blocks from the U.S. Capitol, where mail is directed to the Longworth Building, which houses the offices of Gephardt and House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

The finding in the Ford Office Building brought to three the number of facilities believed to be tainted by anthrax.

It marked the first time evidence had been found on the House side of the complex.

The announcement of the discovery at the House building came five days after nearly 30 people in Congress were exposed to anthrax after an envelope, disguised as a letter from schoolchildren and laced with the bacteria, was opened in the office of Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle.

The disclosure came as authorities said they had pinpointed the New Jersey post office sorting box from which anthrax-bearing letters were sent, advancing their investigation even as two more people were found to have the skin form of the disease.

It is not known whether any affected mail from the Ford House building was delivered. No details on how the bacteria reached the mailroom were immediately available.

Mailroom workers in the Ford House will be tested for possible anthrax exposure but there were no plans to extend testing to other workers, officials said.

The new find added to a growing anthrax scare throughout the United States, where eight people are confirmed to have been infected with the potentially deadly bacteria so far.

SHOTLIST:

1. Wide of Supreme Court

2. Exterior of court building

4. Close up of court

5. SOUNDBITE: (English) Dr John Eisold, Capitol Hill Physician:

"Following the same thought process we did last week, we are following the letter so to speak and if there is evidence of a contaminated filter at the off site screening although its a conservative approach for us to take, we are making the assumption that quite possibly something may have come to the mail room here. And as you know there are many mail rooms that have been screened and followed with treatment."

6. Wide of Eisold speaking

7. Wide of mail warehouse sorting facility used by Supreme Court

8. Various of police tape and building

9. Media outside building

10. Post office closed near facility

11. Various of police tape

12. Wide of spokesmen

13. SOUNDBITE: (English) Lieutenant Dan Nichols, US Capitol Police:

"We have determined that we have three locations within the Longworth House offices thus far which have tested positive for anthrax bacteria."

14. SOUNDBITE: (English) Dr. John Eisold, US Capitol Physician:

"We will notify the staffs in those offices and by your press releases reach people who may have visited those offices subsequent to or on the day of the 12th of October on the day that those buildings were closed last week so that we can identify people who may have travelled through those offices or worked in those offices and tomorrow we will start seeing those people and treating them with a course of antibiotics."

15. Wides of press conference

STORYLINE:

Anthrax was discovered on Friday on a filter removed from a warehouse which screens mail headed for the Supreme Court.

The discovery led officials to make plans to shut the court building down as a precaution.

Federal officials said there was no evidence the microbe had travelled to the court building itself.

But a court spokeswoman said the entire building would be closed and employees sent home and that it would be tested thoroughly.

She added that if any contamination is detected, the building will be decontaminated.

The building was immediately closed to tourists and the ventilation system was turned off in case any material had found its way from the postal screening centre, officials said.

Capitol physician John Eisold declined to say whether any of the nine justices were tested for exposure or whether any are receiving antibiotics.

The justices held a private meeting in the building on Friday morning.

Authorities were taking much the same precautions as they did when anthrax was discovered across the street in a Senate office building, Eisold said.

Court medical workers began testing some of the 400 people who work in the main building on Friday afternoon.

The court was in temporary recess this week, but returns for arguments and other business Monday.

If the building is shut down, the court will borrow alternate court facilities.

Meanwhile trace amounts of anthrax have been discovered in the offices of three lawmakers in a House office building, congressional officials said Friday night, as evidence of bioterrorism spread on Capitol Hill.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said tests detected the anthrax in the Longworth House Office Building.

The names of the three lawmakers were not disclosed.

The Longworth building, which provides space for dozens of lawmakers, receives mail that is processed by a machine where anthrax had previously been found.

The machine is located in a separate House office building several blocks away.

The positive tests turned up as Congress struggled to recover from a bioterrorism scare caused by the discovery of anthrax in two Senate office buildings.

SHOTLIST:

1. Various postal employees waiting for anthrax testing in auditorium of DC General Hospital

2. Exterior Brentwood Post Office

3. Postal employee looking at anthrax fact sheet

4. Close shot of anthrax fact sheet

5. Various postal workers waiting inside hospital for anthrax testing

6. Exterior shot of DC General Hospital

7. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr. Ivan Walks, Washington, DC Chief Health Officer

"What's going on today here at DC General, we are testing from 9am to 10pm, but we'll stay open as we did last night until every employee who worked in the back of the Brentwood mail station and every employee at the Maryland air handling station comes in. We will contact them through the postal service and if they haven't gotten here, we're gonna find them and make sure they get the care they need."

8. Various tourists outside the empty US Capitol complex

9. Various area set up on Capitol Hill for emergency rescue and investigators

10. Emergency rescue truck

11. Shots of crews working outside a big white tent

12. Wide shot of orange cones and other security measures outside US Capitol building

STORYLINE:

Health officials in Washington DC are waiting for test results from five patients who have symptoms consistent with anthrax, after a local postal worker was diagnosed with a rare and dangerous form of the disease.

More than 2200 postal workers in the Washington area are being tested for exposure to the disease, and the Postal Service has closed two facilities where the sick man worked.

The man, identified as Leroy Richmond, is in serious but stable condition at a suburban Virginia hospital near his home.

The Postmaster General, John Potter, said the U-S Postal Service was increasing security at its facilities and introducing technology to sanitise mail.

Potter said postal workers were not being ordered to wear gloves and face masks.

Washington's chief health officer said the authorities were watching five other postal workers who have flu-like symptoms that might indicate inhalation anthrax.

The five are receiving treatment in hospital.

Over the last two and a half weeks three men have been diagnosed with inhalation anthrax, a disease not seen in the United States since 1978.

A Florida man died from the disease.

Six others, including two postal workers in New Jersey, have been infected with a treatable form of anthrax that is contracted through the skin.

Health and postal officials said they do not know how the Washington postal worker came into contact with enough anthrax to allow the bacteria to travel into his respiratory system and lodge deep in his lungs.

Meantime, congressional leaders reopened the Capitol building on Monday, although House and Senate office buildings remained closed until results from environmental testing are complete.

Officials said one building - the Longworth House office building - was receiving particularly close scrutiny.

A mail-sorting machine in a nearby House annex building found to be contaminated over the weekend handles mail for the Longworth building, so investigators want to learn if tainted mail ended up in Longworth.

The buildings were closed after an anthrax-tainted letter arrived a week ago at the office of the Senate Majority Leader,Tom Daschle.

SHOTLIST:

1. Wide shot White House press secretary enters briefing room

2. Medium shot photographers

3. SOUNDBITE: (English) Ari Fleischer, White House Press Secretary "Early this afternoon a positive anthrax culture was found at the remote mail site that serves the White House. This is a delivery site that is located some miles away from the White House and handles all White House mail. Tests results showed it to be positive for a small concentration of anthrax. The facility has been closed for further testing and decontamination. Tests will be performed on all mail received at this site to determine it's source. All employees at this site are being swabbed and tested. Mail room employees at the White House will also be swabbed and tested. Environmental sampling throughout the White House has all shown negative."

4. Medium shot journalists at news briefing

5. SOUNDBITE: (English) Ari Fleischer, White House Press Secretary "The President also has confidence in the security procedures that are in place at the White House. The President expressed his concern for the people who work at the facility. The President also said that this is another example that this is a two-front war, that there are people who seek to do evil to this country, that there are people who mean us harm and the had mailed letters obviously to high-impact places: The news media, Majority Leader Daschle, perhaps in this case to the White House. The president understands that these are enemies that we face who are seeking to create the most disruption in our society and he is determined not to let them succeed."

6. Wide shot briefing room

STORYLINE:

The U-S Secret Service says anthrax has been found during screening at a mail handling facility for White House post.

It's not ceratin where the anthrax came from, but the agency said the mail processed there comes through Washington's Brentwood postal facility, where anthrax has turned up in several places.

The facility that handles the White House mail is a military installation several kilometres (miles) from the White House itself.

During a news briefing in Washington on Tuesday, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said the remote facility had been closed for testing and decontamination.

He said all the tests carried out on the White House itself had come back negative.

SHOTLIST:

1. Various of US Postal Service warehouse on V Street

2. Sign saying "Closed Today" on post office door

3. Fire engines driving in to base / push-in to sign at Navy Base Postal Office

4. Street outside L Street Post office

5. Tape across entrance to building

6. Various of police tape around entrances

7. Loading dock at post office entrance

8. Woman on cell phone walking outside post office

9. Tilt up to US flag above post office

STORYLINE:

As US Postal Service officials awaited test results from several mail facilities on Friday, local officials in the Washington, D.C. area prepared to respond to the possibility of anthrax contamination in their communities.

"There's every reason to hope for the best, but we're also preparing for an alternative contingency," said District of Columbia Mayor, Anthony A. Williams.

The mayor and other regional officials were notified Thursday afternoon that air monitors at a mail sorting facility at the Anacostia Naval Air Station detected an abnormal pathogen.

Tests conducted on an air filter produced positive readings for low levels of anthrax spores. Further tests were being conducted early Friday by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Following a series of anthrax attacks in October 2001, the district government led efforts to provide antibiotics for more than 17,000 people after anthrax spores were discovered at the Hart Senate Office Building and a massive US Postal Service facility located in the city.

Two workers from the Brentwood Mail Distribution Center died and several others fell ill following exposure to the bacteria.

The US Postal Service closed eleven facilities in the capital region as a precaution Thursday.

The number included a facility that processes mail destined for the White House and the headquarters of several federal agencies, and three full service post offices in the district, three in Arlington, Virginia and four postal facilities in suburban Maryland, including one at Andrews Air Force Base.

The eleven closed facilities each supplied mail handled at the Navy site.

SHOTLIST:

1. Northeast Brentwood postal facility

2. Postal facility doors with warning posters

3. Close up of police car guarding site

4. Various of site testing

5. Raised U.S and postal service flags

6. Various of Brentwood exterior

7. Entrance of closed off facility

8. Helicopter flying over Brentwood

9. Police officers stepping into car

STORYLINE:

The clean up operation of the deadly anthrax spores contained in the Brentwood postal facility finally began on in Washington on Monday, seven months after the building was shut down.

Brentwood post office was closed last October when two employees died after letters tainted with anthrax passed through the facility. The building was then sealed off, after investigators said the area was severely contaminated with anthrax.

The clean up operation has been delayed several times owing to the sheer size of the facility. Many scientists believe that filling the building with a thick fog of Chlorine gas, necessary to decontaminate the area, is extremely dangerous.

Chlorine dioxide gas will be pumped into a tent covering three pieces of equipment that handled the anthrax tainted letters.

The area will be tested a week to ten days later, and if the effort proves successful, cleanup for the rest of the facility will begin in mid-August.

Around five pounds (2 and a half kilos) of gas will be used in Monday's test. Two thousand pounds (1,000 kilos) of chlorine dioxide will be needed to cleanse the entire building.

SHOTLIST:

1. Priest lead procession into church

2. Postal worker standing outside

3. Exterior of church with parked postal service cars

4. Two shots photo of Joseph Curseen

5. Exterior church

6. Casket is brought out of church

7. Parents hug family friends

8. Hearse pulls out

9. Procession of mail trucks pan and zoom into the Washington monument in the distance

STORYLINE:

The second funeral of two postal workers killed by anthrax took place on Saturday.

A day after his colleague Thomas Morris Junior was buried, a funeral was held for Joseph Curseen.

Both men died after contracting inhalation anthrax at work.

The two men worked at Washington D.C.'s central postal processing facility called Brentwood.

Officials plan to test as many as four-thousand sites in the Washington D.C. area for anthrax.

The sites, which could include large apartment buildings, received mail from the facility.

The U.S. Postal Service has ordered environmental tests at 30 mail processing and distribution centers across the country.

For Curseen and his co-worker it was too late. Officials still do not know who is behind the anthrax attacks.

SHOTLIST:

1. Set up shot of Ridge

2. Wide view of Government Officials in front of reporters

3. SOUNDBITE: (English) Tom Ridge, U.S. Homeland Security Director.

"This briefing will be the first of many opportunities that we will have to discuss homeland security and our government's response efforts."

4. Cutaway reporters

5. SOUNDBITE: (English) Robert Mueller, Director, F-B-I.

"We in the F-B-I are pleased this morning to join with Post Master General Jack Potter to announce a reward of up to 1 million dollars for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible of terrorist acts of mailing anthrax."

6. SOUNDBITE: (English) Jack Potter, U.S. Post Master General.

"The best defence that we have right now is an educated American public, an educated work force, both the employees in the postal service and those who work in mail rooms and our message has been consistent. It's very clear, if you receive something that is suspicious, we want you to isolate it, put it in a plastic bag. Don't let other people touch it, don't taste it, don't shake it, don't sniff it ... these are very common sense things that we are asking the American public to do and then we are asking them to call law enforcement."

7. Wide view of reporters

8. SOUNDBITE: (English) Dr David Satcher, U.S. Surgeon General.

"The administration took steps this week to expand antibiotic stockpile, even further. We now have enough to serve 2 million people for 60 days which is what is recommended when one has been exposed to anthrax. We have now taken steps to expand that so that we can in fact serve up to 12 (m) million people with ciprofloxicin for up to 60 days."

9. Cutaway reporters

10. SOUNDBITE: (English) Tom Ridge, U.S. Homeland Security Director.

"I would say that even though this press conference suggests it's really about anthrax. Generally we are more vigilant today, and continue to get more vigilant every day as we assess every risk that might present themselves in this country. If you take a look at everybody, the F-B-I, the Border Patrol, the Coast Guard, the C-D-C - everybody is working 24-7. We have engaged the State and Federal communities. I think our antennae are up for all conceivable risks and you ought to be reassured of that."

11. Pan view of Ridge walking out of briefing room.

STORYLINE:

Seeking to inform the American public, the new Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge held his first news conference Thursday, after taking the position last week.

Ridge told reporters that a total of five people have been infected with anthrax in the US, out of thousands and thousands that have been tested so far in the scares that have swept the country.

He says a sixth possible infection is being evaluated.

Ridge and other top Bush administration officials sought to calm public fears over the anthrax attacks.

F-B-I Director Robert Mueller said that the government was offering a one million dollar reward for information leading to the conviction of anyone responsible for the anthrax attacks.

And Postmaster General John Potter announced that the postal service would mail within the next week a postcard to everyone in America outlining what they should be suspicious of in mail they receive.

U-S Surgeon General sought to allay fears that there were not enough antibiotics to treat those who may have come in contact with anthrax.

Dr David Satcher said that in addition to increasing the available antibiotic Cipro other types of antibiotics were know to treat anthrax.

When asked by reporters, Ridge denied the Bush administration was focussing on anthrax to the detriment of dealing with other terrorist threats.