WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The architect of the government's racketeering case against cigarette makers said on Wednesday that she had resigned at a time when the Justice Department is scaling back the legal team devoted to the case.

AP - The son of former UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian on Thursday announced his candidacy for secretary of state in Nevada.

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - The top Louisiana election official said on Friday that hurricane-ravaged New Orleans would not be ready to hold a mayoral election scheduled for February and recommended the vote be postponed by up to eight months.

AP - Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay told a group of soldiers Saturday night that withdrawing troops from Iraq now would be 'a death warrant for Americans in future terrorist attacks.'

AP - A U.N. sanctions committee has imposed a travel ban and frozen the assets of two men linked to an alleged arms dealer with ties to former Liberian leader Charles Taylor, who is wanted on war crimes charges in Sierra Leone, the United Nations announced Thursday.

AP - Vice President Dick Cheney, the point man in the administration's counteroffensive against war critics, to greet troops recently back from Iraq as part of a concerted effort to shore up slumping public support for the war.

AP - A GOP state lawmaker was leading in the race fill the nation's only vacant congressional seat late Tuesday, and voters threw the Spokane, Wash., mayor out of office amid allegations he used a city computer to woo gay men over the Internet.

AP - Gray Davis was joined Wednesday by his former political foe, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, as Davis' official gubernatorial portrait was unveiled.

AP - NATO foreign ministers approved plans Thursday to send up to 6,000 troops into southern Afghanistan, a major expansion of the alliance's peacekeeping mission into some of the most dangerous parts of the country.

JERSEY CITY, New Jersey (Reuters) - Seven-term Democratic congressman Robert Menendez was named by New Jersey Gov.-electJon Corzine on Friday to serve the remaining year of his U.S. Senate term.

AP - A Croatian war crimes suspect, arrested in the Canary Islands after four years on the run, had used a false passport to travel widely, stopping in Argentina, China, Chile, Russia and Tahiti, officials said Friday.

Reuters - Detlev Mehlis, the chief investigator into the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, said on Friday he will present his findings to the United Nations Security Council on December 13.

AP - In a round of speeches on Iraq, President Bush is combining fresh expressions of steely resolve with sobering acknowledgments of how unexpectedly hard the task has been.

AFP - The United States has been taking in immigrants in record numbers, with 7.9 million newcomers -- legal and illegal -- flooding into the country between January 2000 and March 2005, according to a new study.

The Christian Science Monitor - When the US Supreme Court ruled in June that private homes may be seized to make room for commercial development projects, the decision ignited a firestorm of criticism.

AP - Former Texas Supreme Court justice Bob Gammage joined the Democratic race for governor on Thursday.

AP - A former Chicago alderman on Friday announced plans to challenge Gov. Rod Blagojevich in the Democratic primary.

AP - Sen. John McCain, who pushed the White House to support a ban on torture, suggested Sunday that harsh treatment of a terrorism suspect who knew of an imminent attack would not violate international standards.

AP - The military would get a pay raise and an Iraq war veteran would get to adopt a bomb-sniffing dog named Rex under a defense bill the House approved early Monday.

AP - To justify creating a domestic spying program, the Bush administration is relying on a law Congress passed in the chaotic days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that authorizes the president to wage war against al-Qaida and its supporters.

AP - Congress is moving toward a Christmas week showdown that could end a quarter-century fight over whether to exploit the nation's largest untapped reservoir of oil beneath the frozen tundra of an Alaska wildlife preserve.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate early on Thursday approved legislation shaping U.S. space policy, continuing the shuttle and international space station programs and giving a boost to President George W. Bush's vision of a new era of ambitious space exploration.

AP - Republican Rep. Ernest Istook of Oklahoma is the latest congressman giving away campaign donations from lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is at the center of a federal corruption investigation.

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wrapped up his visit to Iraq at a Christmas eve dinner with American troops in Mosul, the country's second largest city and one of its most volatile.

AFP - Croatian general Dragutin Repinc is to head United Nations military observers in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir from December 29, officials said.

AP - Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith has an unusual bedfellow in the Supreme Court fight over her late husband's fortune: the Bush administration.

AP - Three growing entitlement programs consumed nearly half of all federal spending in 2004, and budget analysts expect them to make up an even bigger share in the future.

AP - The state's highest criminal court has agreed to hear Tom DeLay's latest request for a quick resolution to money laundering charges that forced him to give up his leadership post in the U.S. House, his spokesman said Tuesday.

AP - The same environmental groups that lobby and sue the government over protecting air, water and human health also are collecting federal grant money for research and technical work, documents show.

AP - Loyalty and continuity have marked the Bush White House since early on. After two wars, devastating strikes by terrorists and hurricanes, a bruising re-election and countless legislative battles, President Bush's team is continuing the trend — defying history and shakeup rumors to remain almost entirely intact five years in.

AFP - Ugandan rebels killed an Indian UN peacekeeping soldier and wounded four others in an attack in Nord-Kivu province in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations said.