WEST

HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS CHAIRMAN TO RETIRE

Republican Rep. Bill Thomas, the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, announced yesterday he will retire from Congress after serving for more than a quarter century. Mr. Thomas, 64, made the announcement in his hometown of Bakersfield. His resignation was widely expected because, under House Republicans’ self-imposed term limits for committee chairmen, Thomas can no longer serve after this year as head of the influential Ways and Means Committee. “I’m not walking away into the sunset,” Mr. Thomas said yesterday. “Just because I won’t be in office doesn’t mean I won’t have any influence.” For the past five years, Mr. Thomas has played a key role in shepherding President Bush’s tax cuts and writing legislation on Medicare, Social Security, and pensions.

– Associated Press

MIDWEST

SOUTH DAKOTA GOVERNOR SIGNS ABORTION BAN INTO LAW

PIERRE, S.D.- Governor Mike Rounds signed legislation yesterday banning nearly all abortions in South Dakota, setting up a court fight aimed at challenging the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. The bill would make it a crime for doctors to perform an abortion unless the procedure was necessary to save the woman’s life. It would make no exception for cases of rape or incest. Planned Parenthood, which operates the state’s only abortion clinic, in Sioux Falls, has pledged to challenge the measure.

– Associated Press

SOUTH

JUDGE REFUSES LONG DELAY IN ABRAMOFF SENTENCING

MIAMI – A federal judge yesterday refused to allow a lengthy delay in the sentencing of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, even though lawyers for both sides said the move could jeopardize a federal corruption investigation involving Congress and the Bush administration. Abramoff attorney Abbe Lowell warned that the defense would disclose information about the ongoing corruption investigation to demonstrate the level of Abramoff’s cooperation, something that could affect Abramoff’s sentence in the fraud case. “We will name names,” Ms. Lowell said by telephone at a hearing before U.S. District Judge Paul Huck. “That is not a good thing for law enforcement.” The judge agreed to delay sentencing from March 16 to March 29, but he rejected a joint motion by federal prosecutors and attorneys for Abramoff and co-defendant Adam Kidan to hold off for at least 90 days.

– Associated Press

PROSECUTORS SAY MOUSSAOUI COULD HAVE PREVENTED SEPTEMBER 11

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Opening its argument for executing Al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, the government said yesterday he “lied so that murders could follow” on September 11, 2001. But the defense portrayed Moussaoui as a buffoon isolated even by Al Qaeda and urged jurors to deny him the martyrdom of a death sentence. In a heavily guarded courthouse just miles from the Pentagon, where some of the 2,972 victims of September 11 died, prosecutor Rob Spencer opened his case by telling the jury that “even though he was in jail on September 11, he did his part as a loyal Al Qaeda soldier.”

– Associated Press

IN THE COURTS

SUSPECTED ISRAELI MOB BOSS EXTRADITED

A suspected Israeli mob boss, Zeev Rosenstein, was extradited to America on yesterday for involvement in a drug ring that allegedly distributed more than 1 million Ecstasy pills in Miami and New York. He’s expected to be arraigned in federal court in Miami today. U.S. prosecutors have called the short, squat Mr. Rosenstein one of the world’s most wanted drug traffickers, and he’s long been called no. 1 on Israel’s most-wanted list.

– Associated Press