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Texas legislature adjourns without passing congressional boundaries BY NATALIE QOTT THE ASSOCIATED PRESS AUSTIN, TEXAS — The Texas leg islature adjourned its second spe cial legislative session Tuesday without passing a congressional redistricting bill, as Senate Democrats blocked the measure by their self-imposed exile in New Mexico and Republicans fumed. Tuesday was the 30th day of the 30-day session. Republican Gov. Rick Perry has indicated he would call yet another special session to try to get approval for new con . gressional boundaries. But he has not said when it would start. Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, chair woman of the Senate Democratic Caucus, said the Democrats who went to New Mexico on July 28 were prepared to stay away an other 30 days if needed. “This is long from over,” Sen. Royce West, a Democrat, said Monday from the hotel where the senators have been for nearly a month. “It’s probably the begin ning of the second quarter, if you want to use a football analogy.” Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst sent a warning to the Democrats. “Let me pass on a very clear message to our 11 colleagues out in Albuquerque. The mood in “It’s probably the beginning of the second quarter, if you want to use a football analogy.” ROYCEWEST SENATOR, D-TEXAS the Senate is changing. We’re tired. We’re tired of sitting here and wait ing,” Dewhurst said. “It is in our 11 colleagues’ best interest to come back sooner rather than later.” The Democrats have said the current map should not be changed, and that proposals before the GOP-dominated legislature this year would have hurt minori ty representation. Republicans, led by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, have said recent voting trends show Texas should have more Republicans representing the state in Washington. Democrats have a 17-15 major ity in the Texas delegation now. Lawmakers failed to draw the lines themselves during the 2001 legislative session, so the current map was drawn by federal judges. Efforts to address redistricting have failed three times this year. During the regular legislative ses sion, the bill failed when more than 50 Democratic House mem bers fled to Ardmore, Okla., block ing a quorum in that chamber. During the first special session, redistricting didn’t get to the Senate floor for a vote because 11 Democrats and one Republican told the governor they would op pose it, meaning the 31-member Senate could not muster the re quired two-thirds vote to even bring it up for consideration. That two-thirds rule was dropped for the second special ses sion, but the Senate still needed a quorum of two-thirds of its mem bers to conduct any business. • Without the Democrats, there wasn’t a quorum. By going to New Mexico, the Senate Democrats avoided the pos sibility of being arrested by the Senate sergeant-at-arms and forced back to the Capitol. In Albuquerque, Sen. Judith Zaffirini and two other Democrats watched on the Internet as the Legislature adjourned. “It really is sad to see the Texas Legislature so divided and at the same time, we felt validated be cause we accomplished what we set out to do,” Zaffh'ini said. Monument supporters protest Alabama attorney general for following federal court order BY KYLE WINGFIELD THE ASSOCIATED I'KESS MONTGOMERY, ALA. - Protesters hoping to keep a Ten Commandments monument in the state judicial building marched on Attorney General Bill Pryor’s office Tuesday, de manding he resign for abiding by a federal court order for the marker’s removal. About 150 monument sup porters marched from the judi cial building to the nearby Statehouse to meet with Pryor, but were met by 10 state police of ficers blocking the door. Seven representatives were allowed in side to meet with Pryor’s chief deputy for about 20 minutes. The rest of the group re mained outside, chanting, “Resign now! Resign now!” The 5,300-pound monument re mained in the rotunda of the ju dicial building, where Chief Justice Roy Moore installed it two years ago. A federal judge has held it violates the constitu tion’s ban on government pro motion of religious doctrine and gave Moore a deadline of last Wednesday to remove it. When Moore refused, associ ate justices ordered it out, sup ported by Pryor. Moore also was suspended Friday on charges of violating canons of judicial ethics for refusing to obey the court order, and Pryor will over see his prosecution. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, accused Pryor of political grand standing'to aid his nomination to a federal appeals court. It has been stalled by Senate Democrats who attacked the Republican Pryor for stands against abortion and in favor of state’s rights. Pryor has said it is his duty to uphold a federal court order to remove the marker. “Bill Pryor should be protect ing the citizens of Alabama in stead of campaigning to get con firmation to the llth Circuit,” Mahoney said. Protesters also hoped to keep the monument in place at least until Wednesday, when a hear ing is set for the last-ditch law suit they filed seeking a tempo rary restraining order. The law suit, filed Monday in federal court in Mobile on behalf of a Christian radio talk show host and a pastor, says forced re moval would violate the consti tutional guarantee of freedom of religion. In a brief speech Monday, Moore told a cheering crowd he would fight to return to his elect ed position and said the case _ against him is based not on some^ thing he did wrong but because “I’ve kept my oath.” At least 300 protesters were there to hear Moore speak pub licly for the first time since his suspension. The monument is expected to be removed from public view in the rotunda this week, though at least one company refused the job. Clark Memorial, the Birmingham company that built the monument and moved it into the building, declined to take it out, for business and personal reasons, vice president Charles Tourney said. Authorities have said the monument is so big and heavy it would be virtually impossible to move it to another floor in th^| building. Intelligence chief defends Britain’s prewar dossier on Iraq’s weapons BY THOMAS WAGNER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS LONDON — A top British offi cial denied his government knowingly exaggerated the threat of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, saying Tuesday that solid evidence indicated Baghdad could launch a chemical or bio logical strike within 45 minutes. John Scarlett, chairman of Britain’s secretive Joint Intelligence. Committee, said the intelligence contained in an offi cial dossier on Saddam Hussein’s military was the best that British officials had at the time. Scarlett testified at an inquiry into the death of David Kelly, 59, a weapons expert who commit ted suicide after he was identi fied as a possible source of a British Broadcasting Corp. re port questioning the dossier and the integrity of the government’s case against Iraq. The report touched off a bitter dispute with the BBC and has be come the biggest crisis of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s six years in power, with polls showing a majority of Britons question the credibility of his government. The dossier was published Sept. 24 and was later quoted by the Bush administration in its own indictments of Iraq. Scarlett acknowledged that the 45-minute warning came from a single, uncorroborated source in Iraq, but said: “It was an established and reliable line of reporting, and it was quoting a senior Iraqi military officer.” The BBC report cited an unidentified source as saying Blair’s office had overruled in telligence advice when it includ ed the claim in the dossier. Kelly denied he was the report’s source, but after he committed suicide the BBC said he was. The failure of the coalition to find stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq since the war ended also has seemed more damaging to Blair than to Bush, who relied heavily on Blair as his top coalition partner dur mg the war. Scarlett’s comments before Lord Hutton, the senior appeals judge directing the inquiry, opened the third week of testi mony. Blair and Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon are sched uled to testify later this week. Scarlett testified that Blair, who had to struggle to persuade Dritnno onil Parliament that a war in Iraq was necessary — had wanted the dossier about Iraq to be “as strong as possible,” using all available in telligence in formation. Scarlett acknowledged that some of Blair’s spokesmen had argued for stronger wording when the dossier was drafted, and that several Defense Intelligence Staff members had expressed concern about the re liability of the source behind the 45-minute warning. But Scarlett said that Blair’s spokesmen had never sought to r-:’":'!:---:!"---..... “I was not aware of any unhappiness within the intelligence community about the contents in the dossier and the judgments we were making in it.” JOHN SCARLETT CHARIMAN OF BRITAIN'S JOINT INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE interfere in the intelligence judg ments in the dossier and denied reports of disagreements be tween them over the drafting pro cess. By the time the dossier was published under Scarlett’s lead ership and final control, he said, “I was not aware of any unhap piness within the intelligence yv/iimiuimj about the con tents in the dossier and the judgments we were making in it.” He stressed that the docu ment had simply . been designed to show the intelli gence assess ment available to riahinpt minic. ters at the time and was not in tended to make the case for war. Asked about the BBC report, Scarlett called “completely un true” allegations that the 45 minute warning was inserted in the dossier at the request of Blair’s government, despite op position by Britain’s intelligence community and concerns that it was incorrect. Dark chocolate might reduce blood pressure, study suggests BY LINDSEY TANNER THE ASSOCIATED DRESS CHICAGO — A small study sug gests that eating dark chocolate can lower your blood pressure — a delicious instance in which some thing that tastes good might, for a change, be good for you. The short study would need to be confirmed in larger, longer term ones before doctors could recommend treatment with choco late, researchers say. If the results can be confirmed, “you can sin with perhaps a little less bad feeling,” said Dr. Franz Messerli, a hypertension expert at Ochsner Clinic Foundation in New Orleans. The German study appears in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association. Thirteen adults with untreated mild hypertension got to eat 3 ounce chocolate bars every day for two weeks. Half of the patients got white chocolate, half got dark chocolate. Dark chocolate contains plant substances called polyphenols — ingredients scientists think are re sponsible for the heart-healthy at tributes of red wine. Polyphenols also have been shown to lower blood pressure in animals. Blood pressure remained pretty much unchanged in the group that ate white chocolate, which does not contain polyphenols. But after two weeks, systolic blood pressure — the top number — had dropped an average of five points in the dark-chocolate group. The lower, or diastolic, reading fell an aver age of almost two points. The participants had an aver age blood pressure reading of about 153 over 84. While their blood pressure did not fall enough to be considered in the desirable range — below 120 over 80 — the results show dark chocolate “might serve as a promising approach to reduce sys tolic blood pressure,” said lead au thor Dr. Dirk Taubert of the University of Cologne. Chocolate: dark is healthiest MODERATE CONSUMPTION OF DARK CHOCOLATE MAY HELP REDUCE THE RISK OF HEART DISEASE, NEW RESEARCH SHOWS Dark chocolate benefits uLess sugar than milk chocolate uMore antioxidant-rich than milk chocolate Cocoa contains flavonoids and other compounds, which inhibit “bad” LDL cholesterol oxidation; oxidized cholesterol has a greater chance of clogging arteries I Source: U.S. National Library of Medicine, Pennslyvania State ' University, KRT Photo Service Graphic by Samantha Hall ...■ 1 ■ " ' - . '' ." • - ■. 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