2 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, January 18, 2006 NATION/WORLD Court upholds assisted suicide law i n Oregon Bush administration tried to use federal drug law to stop Oregon doctors WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court yesterday blocked the Bush administration's attempt to punish doctors who help terminally ill patients die, protecting Oregon's one-of-a-kind assisted-suicide law. It was the first loss for Chief Justice John Roberts, who joined the court's most conservative members - Anto- clash over assisted suicide. The case was argued in October on Roberts' second day on the bench, and he strongly hinted that he would back the Bush administration. Some court watchers had expected O'Connor to be the decisive vote, which could have delayed the case until her suc- cessor was on the court. The Senate is set to vote soon on nominee Sam- uel Alito. Justices have dealt with end-of- life cases before, most recently in 1997 when the court unanimously nin Scalia and Clarence Thom- as - in a long but < restrained dissent. The adminis- tration. improp- erly tried to use a federal drug law to pursue Oregon doctors who prescribe lethal doses of prescription medicines, the court said in a rebuke to former Attorney Genera. "The president remains fully committed to building a culture of life, a culture of life that is built on valuing life at all stages. - Scott McClellan White House press secretary ruled that people haveno constitutional right to die. That decision, by then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist, left room for states to set their own rules. Yesterday's ruling, and dissents, were tinged with an understand- ing about the Mission to Pluto stalled because of inclement weather NEWS IN BRIEF it. NEWYORK Lawsuits seek to ban eavesdropping President Bush has exceeded the powers of his office by allowing eavesdropping on conversations of Americans, including lawyers and journalists, according to fed- eral lawsuits seeking to ban the practice. "No president I've ever seen or read about has ever claimed so much power for himself;' Center for Constitutional Rights Legal Director Bill Goodman said Tuesday after his organization sued in Manhattan to stop the practice and require judicial oversight. The center must assume that conversations its lawyers had with hundreds of people were subject to the secret government program to intercept phone calls and Internet communications, the lawsuit says. "We now have to go back and audit, as much as we can, every communication over the past four or five years and determine whether anything was disclosed that might undermine our representation of our clients," said Goodman, whose group has repre- sented hundreds of men held as enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "I'm personally outraged that my confidential communication with my clients may have been listened to by the U.S. government," said plaintiff Rachel Meeropol, an attorney at the center. WASHINGTON Hlastert aims to restrict gifts from lobbyists House Speaker Dennis Hastert urged new restrictions on gifts from lobbyists yes- terday, responding to a scandal that already has claimed two Republican leaders and raised GOP fears about this year's elections. Hastert, confronting a political crisis spawned by the Jack Abramoff scandal, promoted legislation that would end the practices of lobbyists footing the bill for lunches or arranging lavish "fact-finding" trips for members of Congress to warm-weather resorts. Lawmakers-turned-lobbyists would be banned from the House gym and from access to the House floor, where they have been known to make deals in hopes of changing votes. , House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.), who is spearheading the lobbying overhaul effort for Hastert, said the goal was to pass legislation by the end of February. He said it would include the forfeiture of congressional pensions for mem- bers convicted of a felony related to official duties. JERUSALEM Olmert wants to resume talks with Palestinians Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said yesterday he wants to resume final peace talks with the Palestinians and take harsh action against Israeli squatters in the West Bank - a sign the election front-runner is ready for bold steps to end the conflict. The new leader's first policy statement carries special weight because of a wide- spread assumption among Israelis that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who suffered a devastating stroke Jan. 4, will never return to power and that Olmert will replace him. Hospital officials reported no change yesterday in Sharon's condition: critical, stable and comatose. Olmert, a 60-year-old former mayor of Jerusalem and the vice premier under Sharon. has a commanding lead in the polls for the March 28 election, putting him in a strong position to begin carrying out Sharon's vision of delineating Israel's final borders. But Sharon's way was unilateral - he pulled Israel out of Gaza last summer with minimal coordination with the Palestinians, whom he viewed as unreliable negotiating partners. VIENNA Europe, U.S. increase pressure on Iran Pressure on Iran intensified yesterday, with key European countries and the United States moving ahead with plans to refer Tehran to the U.N. Security Council and Israel vowing not to let the Iranians develop nuclear weapons. But Russia and China - Iran's past backers - urged negotiations instead of con- frontation, casting doubt on whether next month's International Atomic Energy Agency meeting will demonstrate a unified political will. A meeting Monday in London produced no agreement among the United States, France, Britain and Germany and Moscow and Beijing on whether to refer the dispute over Iranian nuclear enrichment to the Security Council, which could impose sanctions. 0 0 I John Ashcroft. The 6-3 ruling could encourage other states to consider copying Oregon's law, used to end the lives of more than 200 seriously ill peo- ple in that state. The decision, one of the biggest expected from the court this year, also could set the stage for Congress to attempt to outlaw assist- ed suicide. "Congress did not have this far- reaching intent to alter the feder- al-state balance," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority - himself, retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Justices John Paul Ste- vens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Gins- burg and Stephen Breyer. With this decision ,Kennedy showed signs of becoming a more influential swing voter after O'Connor departs. He is a moderate conservative who sometimes joins more liberal mem- bers on cases involving such things as gay rights and capital punishment. In some ways, the decision was an anticlimactic end to the court's latest delicate nature of the subject. The court itself is aging and the death of Rehnquist this past September after a yearlong fight with cancer was emo- tional for the justices. Scalia said in his dissent that the court's ruling "is perhaps driven by a feeling that the subject of assisted suicide is none of the federal govern- ment's business. It is easy to sympa- thize with that position." At the same time, Scalia said fed- eral officials have the power to regu- late doctors in prescribing addictive drugs and "if the term 'legitimate medical purpose' has any meaning, it surely excludes the prescription of drugs to produce death." He was joined in the dissent by Thomas and Roberts. Roberts did not write separately to explain his vote. Thomas also wrote his own dissent. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, "The president remains fully committed to building a culture of life, a culture of life that is built on valuing life at all stages." Unmanned journey would complete NASAs exploration of the planets CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - High winds forced NASA to scrub the launch yesterday of an unmanned spacecraft on a mission to Pluto, the solar system's last unexplored planet. NASA planned to try again today to launch the New Horizons probe, although the forecast held a 40 percent chance of thunderstorms, clouds and gusty winds that could prevent a launch. A successful journey to Pluto would complete an exploration of the planets started by NASA in the early 1960s with unmanned missions to observe Mars, Mercury and Venus. "What we know about Pluto today could fit on the back of a postage stamp," Colleen Hartman, a deputy associate administrator at NASA, said earlier. "The textbooks will be rewrit- ten after this mission is completed." The launch also drew attention from opponents of nuclear power because the spacecraft is powered by 24 pounds of plutonium, whose natural radioac- tive decay will generate electricity for the probe's instruments. Pluto is the only planet discovered by a U.S. citizen, though some astronomers dispute Pluto's right to be called a plan- et. It is an oddball icy dwarf unlike the rocky planets of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars and the gaseous planets of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. "My dad would be absolutely thrilled to see this," said Annette Tombaugh- Sitze, whose father, astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, discovered Pluto in 1930. Pluto is the brightest body in a zone of the solar system known as the Kuiper Belt, made up of thousands of icy, rocky objects, including tiny planets whose development was stunted by unknown causes. Scientists believe studying those "planetary embryos" can help them understand how planets were formed. "Something, and we don't under- stand what ... stopped that process of growth and left us with this fantastic relic, this forensic evidence of planets that were arrested in the midstage of growth," said Alan Stern, the $700- million mission's principal investiga- tor. 0 I I - Compiled from Daily wire reports 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327 www.michigandaily.com JASON Z. 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