NEW YORK — "Late Show" host David Letterman covered a number of topics with President Obama — from his daughters to the last movie he saw to health care and Afghanistan — in a taping that ran about 40 minutes. The show was broadcast on CBS last night.

On the war in Afghanistan, Obama said, "Our strategy drifted. ... We didn't have a clear sense of what it was we were trying to accomplish." Obama also weighed in with a brief, but sharp point about race, another subject he typically avoids.

Is all the vitriol about his domestic agenda really about race? Letterman asked the first black president.

"It's important to realize that I was actually black before the election," Obama pointed out. "That tells you a lot, I think, about where the country is at."

COLDPLAY, SATRIANI SETTLE COPYRIGHT SUIT

LOS ANGELES — Court records show guitarist Joe Satriani and Coldplay have reached an agreement that ends a copyright infringement lawsuit filed over the band's smash hit "Viva la Vida."

Satriani sued Coldplay in December, claiming the band copied "substantial, original portions" of his 2004 song, "If I Could Fly."

Coldplay won a Grammy Award earlier this year for "Viva La Vida."

A federal judge in Los Angeles last week dismissed the case at the request of attorneys for both sides. No details about an agreement were included in court filings, other than each side would pay its own legal costs.

JACKSON'S OLD FERRIS WHEEL HAS NEW LIFE

MOUNTAIN HOME, Ark. — A Ferris wheel once owned by Michael Jackson is quietly touring the Midwest.

A liquidation sale scattered many of the rides from Jackson's Neverland Ranch in California.

Jackson reportedly purchased the Ferris wheel for $215,000 in 1990. Co-owner Theresa Noerper says Archway Amusements bought the 65-foot-tall Ferris wheel last year. The Missouri-based company began taking it on the seasonal fair and carnival circuit.

Archway Amusements doesn't go out of its way to publicize the Ferris wheel's ties to Jackson. But word of mouth has gotten to some hard-core Jackson fans.

BRAZIL LEADER URGED TO STEP UP ON AMAZON

SAO PAULO — Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen is a new United Nations advocate for environmental awareness — and reportedly wants her own president to do more to halt Amazon deforestation.

Bundchen told reporters in New York that Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva should propose better laws to stop the razing of the world's largest rainforest.

Silva said yesterday that his new proposal to limit sugar-cane production in the Amazon and other ecologically sensitive areas is proof of his commitment to Amazon preservation. It was unveiled last week.