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Ford Motor Co. recalled about 155,000 pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles on Monday to repair a cruise control switch system that already had led to millions of recalls.

Ford said the latest recall involved 2003 versions of the F-150, F-250, F-350, F-450 and F-550 Super Duty truck, the Ford Excursion SUV and the Lincoln Blackwood pickup.

The No. 2 U.S. automaker previously had recalled 5.8 million vehicles in the past two years because of engine fires linked to the cruise control systems in trucks, SUVs and vans. That recall, one of the largest in history, covered vehicles from the 1994-2002 model years.

Ford officials said Monday an internal check found the switch systems in some early 2003 trucks and SUVs and the company acted to allow owners to get it repaired. The switch system could corrode over time, overheat and ignite.

“We wanted to make sure that customers could go to the dealerships and deal with that as soon as we knew it,” Ford spokesman Dan Jarvis said. He said there had been no reports of fires in the 2003 vehicles.

The F-150 pickup has been the top-selling vehicle in the U.S. for 30 years and is considered crucial to Ford’s attempts to return to profitability. The F-Series has faced soft sales in recent months because of a slowdown in housing construction; sales for the pickup were down nearly 12 percent in 2006 to nearly 800,000 vehicles.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration completed an extensive investigation last year into the cause of the fires. Through August of last year, the most recent data available, the agency had received 1,472 complaints connected to the problems, including 65 reports of fires.

The safety agency has said there have been no confirmed deaths or injuries, but lawsuits were filed in Iowa, Georgia and Arkansas over deaths allegedly tied to the fires. The automaker reached a settlement in the Iowa case in October.

Ford said last year its review found that brake fluid could leak through the cruise control’s deactivation switch into the system’s electrical components, leading to corrosion. That could produce a buildup of electrical current that could cause overheating and a fire.

To fix the problem, dealers install a fused wiring harness to the cruise control deactivation switch to prevent the risk of fire if the switch leaked. Ford officials said about 45 percent of the vehicles under the previous recalls have been repaired.

In the face of Hurricane Katrina, pastors on the Gulf Coast were confronted with the challenge of protecting their families, serving their congregations, sheltering the displaced and finding some way to continue in ministry. Here are some voices from the midst of the crisis.

BY SATURDAY, September 3, we were serving 200 meals a day out of the kitchen. People were donating all sorts of things to us, but nothing had gotten in from the outside. We had generators running, refrigeration, and a TV on which we could watch the latest worthless news coverage. We had to make an agreement to hold each other’s hands when we met a media person so we didn’t slap ‘em. There was little useful information out there. We were blessed by God in the midst of it all, and the church was surely serving the community.

Security was the huge issue. Roving gangs of looters and druggies were around. We had to guard the church at night. It was pretty hairy. We were housing about 35 people from the neighborhood in the education wing.

On Saturday some New Orleans police told us to leave. Another group of police told us it would be better to stay, because our conditions were better than those in most of the shelters.

Whether to leave became a moot point after dark when ten SUVs showed up loaded with National Guard troops and border patrol agents, who said, “We are getting you all out of here. You have an hour.” By that time the gangs were getting closer and we could not deal with the security issues. We evacuated about 100 people from the church and community. Some are in a shelter–God knows where.

The church is heavily damaged. We will need a new roof. The bell tower came apart and the bell is loose. The tower itself was moving back and forth four to five feet from the church. It held, but is not structurally sound. All that is insured, but the ministry is not.

We did get folks out, but we really need to get back in to take care of the community and start the rebuilding process. Lutheran Disaster Relief will tell you that if you get in too late, you never really are accepted.

We have staff to pay, we have no students, no school receiving tuition payments. People are scattered all over and our collections are down. We have a great chance now to teach people about what the church really is. Let’s get the focus off the brick and mortar and on to the ministry. Jesus did it with word and sacrament. We can too.

–David Goodine, pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church, just east of the French Quarter, which sheltered community members in church facilities during the week after the storm. He and others at the church were evacuated on September 3.

OUR CHURCH IS completely destroyed, but we’re having a great opportunity to minister. Since September 1 we’ve been fielding teams that are coming in to clean up.

Probably 60 percent or more of our church family have some type of severe damage to their homes. We’re doing our best to meet their needs.

We are trying to be strategic in sending teams to the neighborhood of a church member, where they can also help out others in the neigborhood as a way to share the love of Christ.

We’re starting to see a better picture of the New Testament church emerge. Our people are having to get back to the concept that the church is the people of God, not the facility.

For worship, we will gather at a high school auditorum, and we’ll be there as long as they let us stay.

We’re focused on meeting immediate needs. We are just beginning to think about the future, planning for a ministry base without a facility. A new building is two to three years away.

This is a Sunday school-driven church. At some point we are going to have to look at how to do discipleship classes, how to do youth and children’s ministry. In all likelihood it will involve house ministry. We’ll just have to reinvent church for First Baptist.

–Brian Upshaw, senior associate pastor at First Baptist Church in Gulfport, Mississippi.

AT 4:30 A.M. on Sunday, August 28, my spouse woke me up. “Cliff, that storm has taken a northern turn. We are going to get out of here.” I knew it was the right decision, but I thought about the sermon I’d prepared, and the few who were still in town and might come to worship. What would they say if I abandoned them?

I sent a group e-mail to all the members telling them that I had decided to “evacuate”–that awful word. My spouse packed a few plastic bags of with extra clothes. No time for the pictures, the memories, the keepsakes, the diplomas. It was time to get out and get out quick!

Then I thought, “What about Ann?” She is an 80-year-old neighbor, with no relatives in town, no car, no resources. I woke her up. “It looks like it’s the big one,” I said. “Are you ready to go?”

I was surprised when she said, “Give me 15 minutes.”

So 15 minutes later, with a few clothes and bags loaded, Ann was in the car with my wife, Nieta, and we were headed north.

We’ve gotten a blessed chaos of shipments, many sent by other Methodists, folks across the country who knew churches or members in Mississippi and so sent help. The Methodist Book of Discipline speaks of connectionalism as a “blessed web of interactive relations,” and we see that now. Everyone just wants to help, no one’s falling prey to trying to control this.

We had loss of life in three churches where people sought refuge but were just swept away by the floodwater. There is tremendous griefwork to be done. But we can’t tend to it because folks have so many immediate needs for food and shelter.

During the hurricane we had churches sheltering people in their attic or second floor, churches that sent out folks in boats to rescue people. We had one person swimming in the flood who motioned to a Hispanic woman in the shape of a steeple over his head, since he couldn’t speak Spanish–that was his way of saying, “Come to my church!”

I’ve not heard anyone ask, “Where was God?” I’ve heard many say, “God was with us.” Many will and have asked that, of course. We have all levels of sadness but also a tremendous sense of God’s presence. With the psalmist “we have seen the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” There has been loss of life and possessions, but the preaching I’ve heard insists that no one is asking about stuff, but whether people are OK.

Someone phoned the Methodist building, saying he’d called information and said there had to be a Methodist conference building in that area code. He was a Methodist, and he was trying to find his two children. We sent someone to the convention center, they announced the children’s names on the loudspeaker, a couple brought them forward, and they were told their father was in Houston looking for them. That’s part of what we’re doing–connecting people.

We’ve had to put pressure on the Red Cross and FEMA to get benefits to the churches in our city that are sheltering people. We met with the mayor and city council, to get them to help. At first the Red Cross and FEMA were giving assistance only to people at identified shelters, like the Lake Charles Civic Center and Burton Coliseum. Food, blankets, clothing, medical aid were not being made available to those being housed in the churches. Our people were supposed to go to those shelters. But a lot of our people didn’t want to go. They wanted a more homey atmosphere. After a week the Red Cross relented and started giving out supplies.

On the Sunday after the storm I preached on “Preparing for life,” based on Mark 1:1-13. I said we prepare for life by receiving the Holy Spirit, we prepare by receiving a divine call, and we prepare by being tested. And we were being tested. I wanted people who had been displaced to not get discouraged by the state they were in, but to see it as preparing them further for life.

Three modified driverless vehicles crossed the finish line and into the history books on Saturday after traversing 132 miles of desert terrain, guided only by laser sensors and onboard computers.

No winner was declared yet for the $2 million prize in the race, sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to spur the development of driverless vehicles that one day could carry water, fuel and other supplies for the U.S. military in war zones.

Organizers said they were waiting for final race times from the three driverless vehicles that finished and two others still on the course, which would be paused overnight and restarted on Sunday.

A winner, based on travel times, would be declared early Sunday, said DARPA Director Tony Tether. “We have a winner, we just don’t know who it is,” Tether told reporters.

Last year, in the inaugural race sponsored by DARPA, called the Grand Challenge, every machine failed within sight of the starting line. The Pentagon decided to double the prize and hold the event again this year.

Twenty-three modified Humvees, SUVs, pickup trucks and dune buggies were sent into the mountains and valleys in the Nevada desert to navigate man-made obstacles, tunnels and a dry lake bed just after sunrise on Saturday.

One broke down at the starting line.

A blue Volkswagen SUV, “Stanley,” built by a Stanford University team overtook an automated Humvee, “H1ghlander,” built by Carnegie University students at the 102 mile mark (164-km) and arrived at the finish line first.

hortly afterward, that Humvee and another, “Sandstorm,” also built by the Carnegie Mellon team finished the race.

The rugged, twisting Mojave desert course, about 40 miles southwest of Las Vegas on the Nevada-California border, was chosen because of its similarity to terrain where the U.S. military is currently most active, Iraq and the Mideast.

At one point, the vehicles had to climb through a steep valley that organizers said was “reminiscent of a mountain pass in Afghanistan.”

DARPA designed a much more difficult course this year, saying at least a third of the contestants would be able to cross the finish line given the level of technology demonstrated in qualification events earlier this week.

But many of the vehicles simply stopped running on the course. One stopped after a tire went flat and another hit a bridge. Still left on the course was a huge six-wheeled truck called “TerraMax” and a modified SUV called “GrayBot.”

Using global positioning satellites and inertial navigation, the vehicles were programmed to follow a pre-defined course disclosed only hours before the race. Radar, lasers and cameras mounted on the vehicles guided onboard computers that steered the vehicles around obstacles.

“This is the first step in the evolution of truly automated vehicles,” said Sebastian Thrun, leader of the Stanford University team, adding he was confident Stanley had clinched the prize.

He said Stanley’s technology could be used in the near future to assist drivers by detecting potential accidents.

“It’s a no-brainer that 50 to 60 years from now, cars will drive themselves,” Thrun said.

Both Thrun and Tether compared Saturday’s race to the first controlled flight by the Wright brothers in 1903, calling the race a “historic achievement.”

By hosting the event, the U.S. military is aiming to comply with a congressional mandate for a third of U.S. military vehicles to be unmanned by 2015.

But DARPA’s Tether said that could be accomplished earlier, based on the technology shown so far in this year’s race.

The interior iswell made and equipped, sure. But, compared to Subarus ofthe past, a 1974Hillman Avenger would look greatand, no matter how improved the quality of materials may be, you have to ask yourselfwhy it was felt that fully grown adults would want a car that looked like a spaceship inside. The Honda Civic suffers from the samekind of “Buck Rogers” approach to both its interior and exterior design. Just how infantile do car designers think we are? Infantile enough to buy ChryslerPT Cruisers by their thousands, I suppose, butat least thad an American Graffiti charm. The B9 is more Japanese graffiti - both an eyesore and incomprehensible.

The automatic gearbox is too hasty to kick down which, to me, often suggests a lack of confidence in a car’s engine on the part of its maker. And you have no choice, as there is no manual option. This hardly improves the B9’s most un-Subaru-like acceleration but, if you are hoping that nugatory performance means it is easier on the environment, you’d be wrong: there is no diesel option either, so you have to make do with the petrol version. That has an average fuel consumption of 23mpg, which ought to ensure the B9 goes straight to the top of the SUV hate lists.

This is the kind of car that, a decade or so from now, when we are wading knee-deep in melted ice as we attempt to clear our inner cities of disorientated penguins, will mean we look back on the rise of the SUV as a crazed 2007 abhorrence that we would all much rather forget, like the England cricket team or Jade Goody.

The B9 was originally intended to be a Saab. It is the Swedish company’s great fortune that GM’s parlous financial state meant that never happened, but equally a shame that another noble brand has been forced to pick up the unedifying pieces of this project.