WASHINGTON

RUMSFELD QUOTES CLINTON OFFICIALS IN JUSTIFYING IRAQ DECISION

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld yesterday joined the Bush administration’s attack on Iraq war critics. At a Pentagon news conference, Mr. Rumsfeld noted that the Iraq Liberation Act, passed by Congress in 1998, said it should be American government policy to support efforts to remove Saddam Hussein’s regime from power. He noted that President Clinton signed the act and ordered four days of bombing in December 1998.

– Associated Press

ALITO DISTANCES HIMSELF FROM ABORTION STATEMENT

An abortion rights supporter, and the only woman on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Feinstein, a Democrat of California, said she asked Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito about a document released Monday that shows him telling the Reagan administration he was proud to help argue that “the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.” “He said, ‘I was an advocate seeking a job, it was a political job and that was 1985. I’m now a judge, I’ve been on the circuit court for 15 years, and it’s very different. I’m not an advocate, I don’t give heed to my personal views, what I do is interpret the law,'” Ms. Feinstein said.

– Associated Press

REPORT: PBS CHAIRMAN VIOLATED LAW, ETHICS STANDARDS

A former chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting broke federal law by interfering with PBS programming and appearing to use political tests in hiring the corporation’s new president, internal investigators said yesterday.

A Republican, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, also sought to withhold funding from PBS unless the taxpayer-supported network brought in more conservative voices to balance its programming, said the report by the CPB inspector general, Kenneth A. Konz.

– Associated Press

HOUSE-SENATE NEGOTIATORS FREEZE EDUCATION SPENDING

Federal aid for education would be frozen under a bill emerging from House-Senate negotiations. Aid for special education would increase by less than 1%, while programs funded under President Bush’s No Child Left Behind program would be cut by more than 3%.To avoid cutting more deeply into education, medical training, and Pell Grants, lawmakers are reluctantly giving up about $1 billion worth of home state projects from a sweeping bill funding education, labor, and health and human services programs.

– Associated Press

ACTIVIST TO BE HONORED BY NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Civil-rights leader, labor activist, and president of the Washington-based A. Philip Randolph Institute Norman Hill, 72, will be honored tonight at a dinner hosted by the New-York Historical Society expected to draw around 200 guests, society staff said, including Rep. Charles Rangel, a Democrat of Harlem.

In an interview with The New York Sun, Mr. Hill said that while blacks have secured the right to eat at the same restaurants and occupy the same housing as whites, they lack the financial resources to do so. Mr. Hill said yesterday that he hoped the event honoring him would provide cause to further the goals of “economic justice.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

PENSION INSURANCE AGENCY REPORTS $22.8B DEFICIT FOR 2005

The federal agency that insures the private pensions of 44 million workers, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, said yesterday that its deficit was $22.8 billion in 2005, as big airlines in bankruptcy dumped their pension liabilities.

– Associated Press

SOUTH

JURY BEGINS DELIBERATIONS IN AL-ARIAN CASE

A jury of six men and six women in Tampa, Fla., are to resume considering the fate this morning of a college professor, Sami Al-Arian, and three other men accused of murder conspiracy, money laundering, and charges, stemming from their alleged involvement with Palestinian Islamic Jihad. No verdict was returned during the first day of deliberations. In an interview posted Monday on the Web site of an alternative newspaper chain, Creative Loafing, Mr. Al-Arian decried his trial as unfair and said he had wanted to testify in his own defense.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun