The 11-member Disaster Medical Assistance Team, along with a 29-member group from Atlanta, was waiting at a motel in Ashland, Va., about a half-hour outside of Washington, said Augusta unit commander Sanford Hawkins. After the Augusta group was activated Tuesday night, the military brought in its own mobile hospital units to handle the situation, probably due to the sensitive nature of the materials handled at the Pentagon, Dr. Hawkins said.

All seven of the disaster medical units activated were on hold until officials in New York City decide whether they will be needed, Dr. Hawkins said. The groups likely would be used to relieve exhausted doctors and nurses currently tending to victims of the World Trade Center bombing, he said.

Attack fades Richmond party lines

A day after terrorist attacks in New York and Washington shook the nation, the chairmen of Richmond County's Republican and Democratic parties announced their resolve to put political differences aside and unite against terrorism.

''We urge all Augustans to reject the attempts by our enemies to disrupt us and change our way of life from one of freedom to a life of fear and terror,'' said Lowell Greenbaum, chairman of the Richmond County Democratic Party, at the municipal building Wednesday.

''It's going to change our lives forever,'' said Dave Barbee, chairman of the local Republican Party. ''This morning, we're coming together ... in a show of solidarity and unity.''

Military enlistment interest rises

ATLANTA - Across the country, military recruitment offices reported a jump in visitors and phone calls in the hours after the New York and Washington attacks. Recruiters heard from angry teen-agers as well as somber veterans just wanting to know how they could help.

An Army major in Florida called it a ''patriotic swell'' among Americans whose first reaction, after the horror wore off, was an urge to enlist to defend their country.

Gas masks, flags flying off shelves

LOS ANGELES - Sales of gas masks and American flags spiked after the attacks.

At Doughboys Surplus in Bellflower, stun guns, pepper spray and ready-made meals also were in demand.

''It's similar to what happens after an earthquake,'' Manager Nora Andujo said. ''The only thing different are those American flags.''

Supply Sergeant, located in Burbank, sold about 50 masks in 2 1/2 hours Tuesday.

''We went through everything on our shelf,'' said Brent Keith, a store clerk. He said most of their customers were calm but concerned.

''Nobody was really freaked out,'' he said. ''It's more of a precautionary step.''

Attack insurance claims could cost billions

NEW YORK - The collapse of the World Trade Center is likely to become the nation's most expensive man-made disaster ever faced by the insurance industry. It also could lead to higher premiums and policies that restrict liability for acts of terrorism.

Estimates of the payout varied Wednesday from $5 billion to $25 billion. But most agree the figure will far exceed the cost of the largest such disaster to date: the 1992 Los Angeles riots, which cost insurers $775 million, or $1 billion in today's dollars.

German police search for attack clues

HAMBURG, Germany - Acting on a tip from the FBI, police in Hamburg searched an apartment Wednesday where two men believed to be linked to the terror attacks in the United States once lived, police said in a statement.

Police said that the apartment had been uninhabited since February and that the two men were believed to have lived in Florida from July 2000 to January.

''This is a hot lead that we are urgently following,'' police spokesman Joerg Lauenroth said.

Pentagon victims bound for base

DOVER, Del. - Remains of some of those killed in the terrorist attack on the Pentagon will be shipped to Dover Air Force Base, military officials said Wednesday.

''We were told to expect probably about 100, but there's just no telling,'' base spokesman Maj. Jon Anderson said.

No bodies had arrived by Wednesday evening, but once at Dover, the remains will positively identified, processed for burial and shipped to families. Civilian undertakers have volunteered to help, Maj. Anderson said.

Bush grants leniency to federal workers

WASHINGTON - President Bush directed federal agencies to excuse from duty employees dealing with personal emergencies because of the terrorist strikes in New York and Washington.

The order applies to any employees, including law enforcement and relief workers, who can be spared from the job.

Mr. Bush also said teams of specialists have been formed to assist with federal benefits and workers' compensation claims of federal employees injured or killed in the attacks.

Transplant group gets OK to fly

RICHMOND, Va. - While most of the nation's airplanes remain grounded after Tuesday's terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the private network that runs the nation's transplant system has received permission to use chartered planes to deliver organs to medical patients.

Quick delivery is especially crucial when dealing with hearts and lungs for transplant, because each can be preserved only between four to six hours, said United Network for Organ Sharing spokeswoman Anne Paschke.

Groups dig deep to pay for relief

STAMFORD, Conn. - The terrorist attacks have prompted major corporations, small businesses and other groups to donate millions to aid victims' families and relief efforts.

General Electric Co. on Wednesday pledged $10 million for the families of New York firefighters, police officers and rescue workers who died trying to help victims trapped Tuesday in the World Trade Center.

Computer networking giant Cisco Systems Inc. donated $6 million to the Red Cross and other relief groups. Wells Fargo & Co. pledged $1 million to the Red Cross.

Starting Friday, Massachusetts' grocery chain Stop and Shop Co. said it will match contributions from customers and associates. Gladstone's 4 Fish restaurant in Malibu, Calif., has pledged all of Sunday's proceeds to relief efforts.

Other groups, such as the New Haven-based Knights of Columbus, said they'll donate $1 million for the families of victims lost during rescue efforts at both the Pentagon and World Trade Center towers.

Readers spot demonic face in photo

NEW YORK - Several newspapers that printed an Associated Press photo of fire consuming a World Trade Center tower received calls from readers Wednesday saying they saw a strange shape in the smoke.

Some readers said they could identify eyes, a nose, a mouth and horns in the black and gray clouds - and they wondered whether the photo had been manipulated to include a satanic face.

Vin Alabiso, an AP vice president and the executive photo editor, said the photo was unretouched. Readers were reacting to natural indentations in the smoke clouds, he said Wednesday.

Miss America pageant will proceed

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - The Miss America Pageant will go on as scheduled Sept. 22, despite cancellations of other entertainment events in the wake of terrorist attacks.

Pageant officials consulted with ABC-TV and the contestants before making their decision Wednesday, said CEO Robert Renneisen. Contestants voted 2-to-1 in favor of holding the event, he said.

He said he was mindful that some would see the decision as disrespectful, but that canceling the show for an act by ''faithless, cowardly murderers'' was the wrong statement to send.

Contestants arrived in Atlantic City on Monday to participate in preliminary events and rehearsals.

Fate of jets' black boxes pondered

The devastating crashes of two airliners into the World Trade Center were an extraordinary test of the ''black boxes'' that might hold clues to the doomed jets' final minutes.

The crashes of the two Boeing 767s combined a high-speed impact into a steel-and-concrete grid, a long, intense fire and hundreds of tons of crushing weight, circumstances never anticipated in testing, experts say.

''There's really no way to tell what to expect in this,'' said Ted Lopatkiewicz, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board.

Even if the two recorders carried by each plane are intact, investigators still must find the objects - not much larger than shoeboxes - in mountains of debris.

Military forces student pilot to land

Air Force fighters forced an instructor and student, flying despite the ban on all domestic flights, to land their small plane Wednesday in Texas and Air National Guard fighters were scrambled in Michigan to identify another plane flying without clearance.

The Piper Cherokee flying in Texas landed at Shady Shores Airport near Denton.

Instructor Thomas A. Tweeddale said he had taken off from the airport at about noon because he thought the Federal Aviation Administration's flight ban, imposed after the attacks in New York and Washington, had expired. Instead, the FAA said the ban had been continued indefinitely.

- Staff Writers Heidi Coryell Williams and Tom Corwin contributed to these reports.