>> next on espnews, call it a comeback. manny returns to baseball for the first time since his 50-gamn suspension. we'll bring you his results and the reaction. one win from a national title. how lsu followed up monday's dramatic win and how texas responded with its season on the brink. and the unprecedented proposition the lakers are making to phil jackson, and how the legendary coach is responding to it next on news.

>> happy to welcome you inside the espnewsroom. kevin connor, mike yam keeping you current with the latest news, scores and highlights. tuesday night the magical manny tour, began not in springfield but albuquerque. >> the last time the ic isotopes were this big homer simpson was using the bat. dodger outfielder suspended for 50 games for violating major league baseball's drug policy. he was playing with the albuquerque isotopes. the isotopes in ""the simpsons" threatened to move. manny, who struggled in this

game, maybe it was the southwest flight that he took to fly to albuquerque. he did fly commercial. manny did play four innings. he went 0 for 2 with a strikeout. in his time on the albuquerque field. and for ramirez, he is scheduled to play two more games, too. five innings on wednesday, and six innings on thursday, then fly back to los angeles for friday. manny of course rescheduled to join the dodgers on the field july 3rd when they face the padres in san diego, the firsts game after his suspension comess to an end. >> all right. so the dodgers with one eye onnt albuquerque,e,e,eye on chicago and the white sox on tuesday. region. inflicting suffering of its own people and many others. to be sure i am aware and international affairs old wounds do not heal easily. however if we look closely at iraq political economics potential is clearly in the gulf

nations' strategic interest to support the government and people of iraq. iraq neighbors should lend support with intelligence sharing and increase border control efforts. especially those nations that have thus far failed to live up to pledges to tighten border crossings. iraq moreover should be considered for membership and a regional forum such as the gulf cooperation council. agreed security progress has been made in iraq over the past two years. there remain those that wish to see the new iraq feel and who will continue to kill innocent civilians to further this goal. as we have seen in anbar, diyala and the men of the province's legal, success depends on the final analysis of the fortitude of the iraqi people and the leaders the chance. yet as the united states response we draw down its presence, we look for sustained international and regional support that will allow iraq to take full charge of its own

security and join the family of nations. though afghanistan is outside the regional focus of this conference it is nonetheless a vitally important topic for the gulf security interests. al qaeda and its ideology were incubated in the failed state of afghanistan and the extremists largely returned their attention there in the week of rehearsals and iraq. but as we have seen from a tax and al qaeda planning and activities across the middle east and europe the danger reaches far beyond the borders of afghanistan and pakistan. afghanistan has become the u.s. military's main effort and central front. president obama author on some 21,000 additional u.s. troops including more than 10,000 marines in the southern part of the country reinforcing our british, canadian, australian, dutch and danish allies. as you know, president obama ordered a comprehensive civil

military strategy focused on protecting the afghan people and appointed a new leadership team. our goal is in afghanistan that doesn't provide a sing query for al qaeda that rejects the rule of the taliban and has a government that works for the needs and security of the afghan people who elected it. u.s. government is also sending more than 400 civilians to the country, most of whom will be deployed outside the capitol to the reconstruction teams and various other units laboring to bring improvements to the lives of afghans at the provincial and district levels. i believe with the new strategy we and our international afghan partners will have both military and civilian capacity to be able to make headway. of course the situation in afghanistan cannot be addressed in isolation from its neighbors. to a considerable degree the taliban resurgence began when

pakistan made peace agreements with various insurgent and extremist groups on its western border. this allowed the freedom of movement and effective base of operations. that approach by the pakistani government has come to an end. there is now clear recognition by the pakistanis on the direct threat that extremists opposed to their national survival. the recent offensive by the pakistani military and the swat valley was certainly an encouraging first step. also encouraging is the support afghanistan has received from other nations including members of the gulf community. we are grateful for that assistance would urge you to do more to improve afghan governments, reconstruction, economic development and security capacity. the application of more resources, improve cooperation, better integrated civil military and diplomatic strategy and benefit of lessons learned both

in country in iraq present a historic but fleeting opportunity to turn the situation in afghanistan around. i hope he will help us take that opportunity. in closing i would like to strike a note to the -- strike in note of optimism about the state of affairs in the gulf region. i think is warranted because while many of the problems in the least have a long history we should also stop to recognize alliance of the overall picture that have changed. they include iraq slowly but surely fighting its way out of the darkness of the recent decades positive political trends in places like lebanon, pakistan and iraq where the electorate gravitated towards parties that stand for pluralism and away from parties different religious extremism. and last but not least the unprecedented cooperation between the nations of the gulf as you and we face these difficult dangerous threats to

the common security. as i said at the outset, american administrations led by both parties coming back some six decades have regarded the stability of the gulf region as a vital national interest for the united states. the eight presidents i've been privileged to serve all recognize that our security and prosperity are closely tied to the security and prosperity of the middle east. president obama is no different. he pledged america will continue to be present and engaged in this part of the world to protect our enduring interests and those of our allies and partners. as we look ahead lacasa pledge to keep these efforts strong and make them even stronger. to cast aside old animosities and work together and friendship forging ever closer ties between your militaries and u.s. central command and with each other. all of this will bring in better brighter future for all of our

people. thank you very much. [applause] now a senate hearing on high-speed rail. a federal stimulus bill includes

$8 billion for states to build high-speed rail lines. in this hearing we will hear from pennsylvania governor ed rendell and the texas high-speed project. additional witnesses include the heads of the federal railroad administration and amtrak. this hearing, chaired by senator lautenberg of new jersey, is just under two hours. [inaudible conversations] >> we could do several things. often at the events meant to be full day just invite members of the audience to make it look like there's a big crowd. [laughter] so you've got senator warner, myself and senator lautenberg on the way and that is all that you really need but i don't want your ego to be upset. there's a lot going on today and

part of it obviously is what happened with the metro rail system and is actively depressing, senator warner, sad that there is no current way for the ntsb or the department of transportation or anybody else that can make recommendations but they have no enforcement of 40. i did not know that until this happened. and people can have a variety of philosophies about the federal government. but it seems to me that where you have a heavy train being hit by vice versa light stream being hit by a heavy train and something went wrong and yes we know we will speculate and it will all come out in the and and in the meantime the only thing

that counts is all those families of the dead and sometimes the families of the injured suffered longer. but there is no authority, they have got to run a safe train. there are recommendations but no authority. the chairman has arrived. >> sorry, the train was a little late getting here. thank you, mr. chairman. among chairmen here, he's the chairman. thank you for being here, and my apologies for a couple minutes of target. what we will try to do in order to expedite things is we will limit opening statements to the three of us, make them short and

ask the other members who may come to include their statement in the record or question period. we have to work in five minute cycles here. so i will start buy once again thanking you all for being here. the rules you play are very important and we are pleased to have a chance to talk to you. this hearing comes to order and we gather here at a rather sad moment. many lives were lost with the crash of the metro and there are numbers still to be computed of those not only perished but those that were wounded. and what it tells as we see the

confusion that followed and the effort that has followed is how important the use of the metro transit system is, and for the last few years, we amtrak because we are talking about the intercity but we can't ignore the contribution that the transit rail makes. the last few years we have seen amtrak break ridership efforts year after year to read and 2008, and attracted more than 28 million riders marking the sixth straight year of gains. these gains in proved too important points. it establishes the fact that the people are sick and tired of waiting in traffic standing in

line at the airport, inhaling dangerous emissions and just waiting indefinitely for their who traveled mechanism to be there. if we come provide reliable service americans will choose. second, these gains proved time cries out this time for major investment in high-speed rail. we need to fill the rising demand for faster and more efficient service. for years, we have had flights to fight, too big and fall for faster rail against those that want to bankrupt amtrak even as more americans were demanding increased amtrak service. and in this chart we have here in quick fashion describes some of the hurdles we face for you

will have problems discerning what each of these covers is, the blue is highway investment since 1949, aviation is the yellow and the intercity passenger rail you can see at the bottom is the green and when we look how much we have invested in the highways and aviation system it's obvious that we have invested too little in rail. now we are not suggesting those other modes are not important but we need to invest more and rail. last year we took a step forward with my landmark call to prepare for the next generation ahead of the traveling demand but obviously building. a law provides $13 billion over five years to repair and update

and track's infrastructure and gross service in towns and cities ready for passenger rail. we also created new programs for high-speed rail investment. it has been a long road but this law finally paves the way for solid an ongoing federal commitment to passenger rail. fortunately we have strong partners in the white house and president obama, vice president biden and with the help of secretary ray lahood de know that to keep the commuters mobile and the nation competitive and to get the economy back on track we cannot simply rely on cars and planes to get people place to place. we need to balance the transportation system and high-speed rail is part of the equation. and that's why the recovery law we passed in february contains more than $8 billion for high-speed intercity passenger

rail. this money will not only improve the real surface, it would create jobs. in this tough economy these transportation investments are smart investments. they put people at work, reduce delays and congestion and cut dependence on foreign oil. president of, and his administration presented a great addition for high-speed rail network. america and i'm committed to working with the president to turn that vision into reality and i look forward to hearing from how we can make that happen, and i turned first to the ranking member on the subcommittee, senator thune and then hear from senator rockefeller and ranking member hutcheson. >> thank you, mr. chairman for calling this hearing and the distinguished panel today i want to welcome my state is one of

the few in the country that doesn't have passenger rail and we have to hearken back in history to a time when we did. i recall my father who is now almost 90 talking about taking, back in the 30 staking their railroad from my home town to mitchell which is about 130 or 40 isles and that was a frequent thing and people at the time traveled by rail of lott, passenger rail but it's been some time since we've had the south dakota where we are dependent upon the freight railroading so i can probably approach this issue may be more dispassionately than most since it isn't something we have an outdoor state although maybe with all the stimulus money we could get some. that would be nice. but i want to say it is an opportunity that the funding that's been made available for the high-speed rail in the budget model made the stimulus money but the other 5 billion

that is and the next five annual appropriation cycles but i also would argue that it pulls decomposes risk. it is a great advancement to address the corridors between the major urban areas but it's also a great financial risk to the taxpayers the selection of the management isn't wisely carried out. and this is the key area that i'm the most interested in hearing about from today's witnesses. in my view the federal government generally does a poor job deciding on how to spend its money than this is especially true when it comes to discretionary programs where the government has to choose between projects. one common result is the money gets spread than over a wide range of projects and as a result none of them gets done correct or quickly or the government uses soft criteria that results in choosing unfindable were unsustainable projects. we also often find costs by a lot of control and the estimates run realistically low from the

beginning. how does the department of transportation and the railroad administration intend to decide between the project and how well the construction be overseen? specifically what i would like to hear the panel's discussed today is how the projects will be chosen, what criteria will be used, how will the department validate the data such as ridership and cost submitted by applicants and what oversight would occur and how would it be carried out to ensure the project is coming in on budget and on time. i hope the congress will monitor how the program is implemented and that this program succeeds and when we look back five years from now after spending as much as 13 billion as is envisioned by the administration we will see progress and dancing high-speed rail in the country. to me success means passenger trains the serve republic transportation needs that have been constructed on budget and on schedule filled with passengers making of routes economically viable. i want to thank the panelists for appearing today and for sharing their testimony.

thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. the chairman of the committee, senator rockefeller. i want to make him a general but -- [laughter] >> thank you, chairman lautenberg. first of all, i want to apologize. i'm not on the judiciary committee. the white house is anxious to have all senators meet with judge sotomayor before recess. i have been a debate, the time at 3:15. that's kind of for light for her should she win, which i think she will, and so i have to excuse myself but i do that without misgiving because this is frank lautenberg's passion and has been for years really

more than anybody. so i also welcome all of you including governor rendell i never see him in person, it's always on television and it's kind of exciting to meet somebody like that. [laughter] >> mr. chairman, you don't know how exciting it is. i've worked with him. [laughter] >> now, i agree totally with senator lautenberg that the excitement of high-speed passenger rail. i've spent ten, 12 years either cheering or ranking on the aviation subcommittee of this body and it just occurs to me that we are down now relatively to few airlines with lots of problems, and if you just look at the pattern of people's

behavior, they want to use fast rail. they want to use rail. they want to use a fast rail, so that is what this is about. you know, i look at west virginia, people don't necessarily assume that there is a lot of passenger rail through west virginia. but it's actually a huge factor as it is obviously in southwestern virginia also. in fact, our amtrak service, which center lautenberg helps so much, has increased -- is doubled in one of its lines in the last year doubled and the other has risen by 19%. west virginians don't travel endlessly so this is an important statement. earlier senator lautenberg and i

joined us the indicated with the vice president $1.3 million allocation to the stimulus package it was called him, this beach is one of very interesting but the money israel and that is what counts and i have to say in a non-partisan fashion it is thrilling to have as senator lautenberg pointed out somebody in the white house who wants this and cares about it and who doesn't like that level of dream up there and wants to increase the green and has already done that. i want to make a special point today to say that i believe passenger real can do so much as a country. that's not just a cliche. we need to increase the use of passenger rail enormously, not just for passengers but for

freight, and we need to do it as fast as we possibly can. it affects the climate change and it affects one third of our greenhouse emissions in this country. the department of energy ohrid national laboratories says the inner city passenger rail is 17% more efficient than air travel. that is 21% more efficient than although travel says something. so encouraging greater use is terribly important. i will do everything i can, senator lautenberg, to work with you to make sure we can do this. and we will. it's inevitable. it's part of america's destiny. i thank the chair. and i apologize to the audience and to the witnesses. >> thanks very much, senator rockefeller.

your position as the chairman of the committee is one that gives encouragement that we can achieve this goal of having a more important relate to the transportation system. thank you for your encouragement senator hutchinson. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i am pleased to be at this hearing and also to have the opportunity to have a texas presence at the hearing because you and i, mr. chairman, have worked a long time on amtrak keeping amtrak viable and i will say we have had a very productive partnership keeping the national part of amtrak also valuable, and i think it is essential and now that we are beginning to see the possibilities for high-speed rail and fink eight becomes even more important to have the national part of the system also have the opportunity for high-speed rail to connect into

amtrak and therefore provide a better synergism and ridership and service both to amtrak and the high-speed rail i think will help ease the traffic congestion ekstrand in many parts of our work country. i was very pleased you mentioned the amtrak reauthorization bill last year. the first amtrak authorization bill before this last one was 1997 and i sponsored that one as the chairman of the surface transportation subcommittee and i think we did some great reforms in last year to begin the process having a federal partnership for capital grant programs for states to be able to invest in rail, and i think that is an important step forward to making it more viable because any successful real

project is going to have to have a multi partners. it's going to have to have private-sector, federal, state because it is so expensive and the early investment is expensive but then it becomes much more efficient after it is finally build and established. and i am pleased to welcome mr. szabo who will appear for the first time as the administrator. we are glad to have you here. you will play a major part in this and i'm glad you are going to have seven regional meetings to determine what the parameters for high-speed rail should be. and i think having them all over the country is another good sign. i just want to say that robert eckels is the former executive in texas of the largest county, harris county and he is now heading up the effort for high-speed rail corridor called e