AUSTIN, Texas - A retired Texas judge was appointed yesterday to decide whether state district Judge Bob Perkins should continue presiding over former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's trial on money-laundering and conspiracy charges.

C.W. Duncan, a former state district judge, will hold a hearing Nov. 1 on DeLay's request that Perkins leave the case because he has contributed money to candidates and Democratic causes that oppose DeLay.

Perkins referred the decision to B.B. Schraub, the presiding judge of the third administrative judicial region. Schraub assigned the case to Duncan yesterday. The hearing will be in Perkins' Austin courtroom.

In the document asking Perkins to step aside, attorneys listed 34 contributions that Perkins made to Democratic organizations and candidates, including three to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., when he was running for president in 2004.

WASHINGTON - A lumber dispute and the threat of bird flu were on the agenda for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's trip to Canada yesterday. Her overnight trip to the Canadian capital of Ottawa was her first since taking over from Colin Powell in January as the top U.S. diplomat.

The trip comes at a sensitive time in the bitter, years-old dispute over Canadian lumber imports. Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin said yesterday that he is willing to negotiate a softwood-lumber agreement with the United States if Washington returns $3.5 billion in contested duties.

The Bush administration imposed tariffs averaging 27 percent in 2002, which Canadian officials said was a reaction to lobbying pressure from the U.S. lumber industry.

The panel voted to urge state legislators not to allow gays to marry, not to recognize out-of-state same-sex unions, and not to set up a domestic-partner registry for couples who may not legally marry.

"My hope is before I die I will be able to approach a justice of the peace in the state of New Hampshire and be legally married," said Ed Butler, an openly gay commission member, who had submitted the recommendation for marriage.

PHILADELPHIA - A supplement-maker that wrongly claimed its shark-cartilage and other products had cancer-fighting benefits plans to refund customers millions of dollars.

Lane Labs USA-Inc. has tentatively agreed to return up to $8 million to customers who bought three products targeted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, company attorney Paul Fishman said yesterday.

Last year, a federal judge agreed with an FDA request to ban the Allendale, N.J. company from selling the three products and allowed the agency to order customer restitution.

Supplement-makers may not claim their products can treat, prevent or cure specific diseases without approval from the FDA, which Lane Labs did not obtain.

NEW ORLEANS - After complaints from gun-rights groups, FEMA said yesterday that it is lifting a ban on firearms at emergency housing parks built in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

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