Al Gore

Sony Corp. on Thursday cut the price of its PlayStation 3 game console in the U.S. and announced an even cheaper model that will arrive before the holiday shopping season.

  The top-line PlayStation model, with an 80 gigabyte hard drive, now costs $499, down from $599. That effectively eliminates the lower-end model, which has a 60-gigabyte drive and has sold for $499.

 A new low-end model with a 40-gigabyte drive will go on sale November 2 for $399.

Unlike the other PlayStation 3 models, the new one won't be able to play games made for the PlayStation 2. In a statement, Sony said this was due to a more extensive lineup of games of the PlayStation 3.

The U.S. launch of the 40-gigabyte model was widely expected, since Sony has already announced it for Japan and Europe. It narrows the price gap with competing game consoles, but the PlayStation is still the most expensive.

 Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 costs $350 and Nintendo Corp.'s Wii costs $250.

"Good Morning America" anchors and reporters effusively lauded Al Gore on Friday after he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on global warming. Diane Sawyer opened the program by breathlessly declaring, "Former Vice President Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize for helping awaken the world to global warming. Now is it time to run for president again?" In her introduction to a piece on the subject, Sawyer gushed that the ex-VP is receiving the award for "for educating the world."

Reporter Kate Snow was no less laudatory. She asserted, "For Al Gore, winning the Nobel Peace Prize is a personal milestone, vindication of a sort." The ABC contributor also claimed that the victory is "a new entry for the history books." To be fair, Snow did inform her viewers that the American politician beat out some very worthy individuals, such as a 97-year-old woman who saved Jewish children from the Holocaust. However, the GMA correspondent never questioned whether there was a political element to Gore receiving the Peace Prize or about the film's factual inaccuracies. She simply labeled the win not just a personal victory for the former vice president, but also "a symbolic victory for his cause."