According to a statement released by the White House this morning, Judge Alito was born in April 1950 in Trenton. He graduated from Princeton University in 1972, and went to Yale Law School, where he earned a J.D. in 1975. From 1977-1980, Judge Alito served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the appellate division, where he argued cases before the circuit court to which he was later appointed.

From 1981 to 1985, Judge Alito served as assistant to the solicitor general. He has argued 12 cases on behalf of the federal government in the United States Supreme Court and he has argued numerous others before the federal courts of appeals.

His career included serving as deputy assistant to the attorney general from 1985 to 1987. From 1987 to 1989, Judge Alito served as United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, where he prosecuted white collar and environmental crimes, drug trafficking, organized crime, and violations of civil rights, the White House said.

Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been indicted for five counts by the federal grand jury investigating the outing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame for perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements to the grand jury, RAW STORY can confirm.

Libby resigned. According to the New York Daily News, his post will be filled by Cheney's chief counsel David Addington. A detailed announcement will be made at 2:15 p.m. ET.

The only sitting Cabinet member to be indicted in recent history was President Reagan's labor secretary, Raymond J. Donovan. Accused of grand larceny in 1984, he was acquitted in 1987. H.R. Haldeman, chief of staff to President Nixon, resigned before being indicted -- and convicted -- in the Watergate coverup.

"The radical right wing of the Republican Party killed the Harriet Miers nomination. Apparently, Ms. Miers did not satisfy those who want to pack the Supreme Court with rigid ideologues."

"I had recommended that the President consider nominating Ms. Miers because I was impressed with her record of achievement as the managing partner of a major Texas law firm and the first woman president of the Texas Bar Association. In those roles she was a strong supporter of law firm diversity policies and a leader in promoting legal services for the poor. But these credentials are not good enough for the right wing: they want a nominee with a proven record of supporting their skewed goals."

"In choosing a replacement for Ms. Miers, President Bush should not reward the bad behavior of his right wing base. He should reject the demands of a few extremists and choose a justice who will protect the constitutional rights of all Americans."

The U.S. grand jury hearing evidence in the leak of a CIA agent's identity won't announce any indictments today, a Justice Department official said.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald met today with grand jurors at the federal courthouse in Washington. Fitzgerald made no comment as he and his staff arrived at 9 a.m. for the start of the session, which lasted about three hours.

Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has asked the grand jury investigating the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson to indict Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Bush’s Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, lawyers close to the investigation tell RAW STORY.

Fitzgerald has also asked the jury to indict Libby on a second charge: knowingly outing a covert operative, the lawyers said. They said the prosecutor believes that Libby violated a 1982 law that made it illegal to unmask an undercover CIA agent.

*****

Those close to the investigation said Rove was offered a deal Tuesday to plead guilty to perjury for a reduced charge. Rove’s lawyer was told that Fitzgerald would drop an obstruction of justice charge if his client agreed not to contest allegations of perjury, they said.

Rove declined to plead guilty to the reduced charge, the sources said, indicating through his attorney Robert Luskin that he intended to fight the charges. A call placed to Luskin was not returned.

To begin considering the handling of Ms. Miller and this whole episode, it is necessary to step back more than two years. Ms. Miller may still be best known for her role in a series of Times articles in 2002 and 2003 that strongly suggested Saddam Hussein already had or was acquiring an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Howell Raines was then the executive editor of The Times, and several articles about weapons of mass destruction were displayed prominently in the paper. Many of those articles turned out to be inaccurate.

*****

The most disturbing aspect of the Oct. 16 retrospective was its revelation of the journalistic shortcuts that Ms. Miller seems comfortable taking.

*****

The Times needs to review Ms. Miller's journalistic practices as soon as possible, especially because she disputes some accounts of her conduct that have come to light since the leak investigation began. Since Ms. Miller did the Plame-leak reporting, the paper has made a significant effort to be as upfront as possible with readers about anonymous sources. An update of the rules for the granting of anonymity in The Times's ethics guidelines by Allan M. Siegal, the standards editor, may also be a good idea.

*****

What does the future hold for Ms. Miller? She told me Thursday that she hopes to return to the paper after taking some time off. Mr. Sulzberger offered this measured response: "She and I have acknowledged that there are new limits on what she can do next." It seems to me that whatever the limits put on her, the problems facing her inside and outside the newsroom will make it difficult for her to return to the paper as a reporter.

Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) said yesterday that he expects White House officials will step down if they are indicted this week but stressed that speculation should cease until special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald announces the results of his investigation into the leak of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Asked yesterday about two figures who are considered central to Fitzgerald's inquiry -- Karl Rove, White House deputy chief of staff, and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff -- Allen said, "I think they will step down if they're indicted." But, he added during an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," "Let's see what happens rather than get into all this speculation and so forth."

*****

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), appearing on the same program, said people should wait, but if there were an indictment, she hoped it would be for "a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime."

*****

Former attorney general Richard Thornburgh, who once served as head of Justice's criminal division, said that he considered opening of the Fitzgerald Web site as "an ominous development" for those under investigation. "You don't open up a Web site if you're ready to shut down an investigation," he said on CNN's "Late Edition."

He also challenged the idea that an indictment for less than the original crime was not important. "If there is false testimony given or there's an attempt to corrupt any of the witnesses or evidence that is presented to the grand jury, that's a very serious offense because it undermines the integrity of the whole rule of law and investigatory process."

He is "the architect" who steered George W. Bush to victory four times, twice as Texas governor and twice as president. But can Karl Rove organize his own garage? Can the master of Bush's political planning figure out where to put the ladders, paint cans and cardboard boxes?

*****

The inventory, seen from outside:

-Some cardboard file boxes stacked one on top of the other, labeled "Box 6," "Box 4" and what appears to be "Box 7." No sign of boxes 1, 2, 3 and 5.

-What appear to be paint cans stacked alongside a folded, folding chair.

-A rather large wood crate marked "FRAGILE" and painted with arrows indicating which way is up. On top of the crate, two coolers.

-A tall aluminum ladder.

-A snow shovel leaned in front of another cardboard box.

-Wicker baskets inside of wicker baskets on top of a shelf running the length of the rear wall. Transparent plastic storage bins crammed with indiscernible stuff. Another cardboard box.

-In one corner, the rear wheel of a bicycle sticks out, along with what appears to be a helmet.

-Another ladder, this one green, leaning sideways.

As he weighs whether to bring criminal charges in the C.I.A. leak case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel, is focusing on whether Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, and I. Lewis Libby Jr., chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, sought to conceal their actions and mislead prosecutors, lawyers involved in the case said Thursday.

Among the charges that Mr. Fitzgerald is considering are perjury, obstruction of justice and false statement - counts that suggest the prosecutor may believe the evidence presented in a 22-month grand jury inquiry shows that the two White House aides sought to cover up their actions, the lawyers said.

Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby have been advised that they may be in serious legal jeopardy, the lawyers said, but only this week has Mr. Fitzgerald begun to narrow the possible charges. The prosecutor has said he will not make up his mind about any charges until next week, government officials say.

With the term of the grand jury expiring in one week, though, some lawyers in the case said they were persuaded that Mr. Fitzgerald had all but made up his mind to seek indictments. None of the lawyers would speak on the record, citing the prosecutor's requests not to talk about the case.

In a talk that took place in the days before Plame's CIA employment was revealed in 2003, Rove and Libby discussed conversations they had had with reporters in which Plame and her marriage to Iraq war critic Joseph C. Wilson IV were raised, the source said. Rove told the grand jury the talk was confined to information the two men heard from reporters, the source said. Rove has also testified that he also heard about Plame from someone else outside the White House, but could not recall who.

The account is the first time a person familiar with Rove's testimony has provided clues about where the deputy chief of staff learned about Plame, and confirmed that Rove and Libby were involved in a conversation about her before her identity became public. The disclosure seemed to further undermine the White House's contention early in the case that neither man was in any way involved in unmasking Plame.

*****

Lawyers in the case have said Rove and Libby are the central focus of Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's 22-month investigation, which is scheduled to end by the time the grand jury expires Oct. 28. But they are not the only officials worried about the uncertain conclusion to the case.

John Hannah, an aide to Cheney and one of two dozen people questioned in the CIA leak case, has told friends in recent months he is worried he may be implicated by the investigation, according to two U.S. officials. It is not clear whether Hannah had any role in unmasking Plame, or why he should fear Fitzgerald's probe. But the eleventh-hour emergence of another possible target shows how Fitzgerald has cast his net so widely over the past two years that it is impossible to know who, if anyone, it might ensnare.

*****

But many unknowns remain. What role did Hannah play? What, if any, role was played by former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer? Who was the second source for Robert D. Novak, the columnist who first disclosed Plame's name and role in July 2003? Who was the White House official who leaked word about Wilson's wife to The Washington Post's Walter Pincus, who has never publicly revealed his source?

Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers pledged support in 1989 for a constitutional amendment banning abortions except when necessary to save the life of the mother, according to material given to the Senate on Tuesday.

"If Congress passes a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution that would prohibit abortion except when it was necessary to prevent the death of the mother, would you actively support its ratification by the Texas Legislature," asked an April 1989 questionnaire sent out by the Texans United for Life group.

Miers checked "yes" to that question, and all of the group's questions, including whether she would oppose the use of public moneys for abortions and whether she would use her influence to keep "pro-abortion" people off city health boards and commissions.

Soon afterward Mr. Libby raised the subject of Mr. Wilson's wife for the first time. I wrote in my notes, inside parentheses, "Wife works in bureau?" I told Mr. Fitzgerald that I believed this was the first time I had been told that Mr. Wilson's wife might work for the C.I.A. The prosecutor asked me whether the word "bureau" might not mean the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Yes, I told him, normally. But Mr. Libby had been discussing the C.I.A., and therefore my impression was that he had been speaking about a particular bureau within the agency that dealt with the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. As to the question mark, I said I wasn't sure what it meant. Maybe it meant I found the statement interesting. Maybe Mr. Libby was not certain whether Mr. Wilson's wife actually worked there.

What was evident, I told the grand jury, was Mr. Libby's anger that Mr. Bush might have made inaccurate statements because the C.I.A. failed to share doubts about the Iraq intelligence.

On a day of rapidly developing events, Mr. Cox, a Manhattan lawyer who is married to President Richard M. Nixon's daughter Tricia, dropped out of the race hours after he met privately with Gov. George E. Pataki, the state's top Republican. Mr. Pataki told him that he would endorse Ms. Pirro and use his influence to rally rank-and-file Republicans behind her candidacy, according to a party official.

Mr. Pataki's endorsement puts an end to weeks of speculation over whether he would come to the aid of Ms. Pirro, the Westchester district attorney whose campaign has been struggling in recent weeks to overcome a series of missteps and an aggressive challenge from Mr. Cox.

Mr. Pataki publicly announced his decision to back Ms. Pirro at a news conference in Midtown, where he described her as a "a fighter" and "a trailblazer" as she stood by his side. The combination of Mr. Pataki's endorsement and Mr. Cox's withdrawal gave Ms. Pirro a lift on a day that would otherwise have been dominated by news of her anemic fund-raising.

OCTOBER 12--Sure, nobody seems to know anything about Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers's judicial philosophy, abortion position, or conservative bona fides. But here's something not open for debate: the old gal loves exclamation points and seemed to enjoy writing gushy notes to then-Governor George W. Bush. Below you'll find copies of personal correspondence exchanged between Bush and Miers from 1995-2000 (before migrating to Washington, Miers headed the Texas State Lottery Commission, a post to which Bush appointed her).

In a 1997 Hallmark greeting card (adorned with a photo of a dog), Miers sent along belated birthday wishes and noted that "You are the best governor ever--deserving of great respect!" In another note (penned on an American Greetings card), Miers wrote that she hoped Bush's daughters realized that their parents were "cool." A 1995 Miers note thanked Bush for a visit, adding that an airplane ride with the governor was "Cool!" Sadly, the document dump did not include Miers's e-mail or IM messages, which are surely filled with loads of sappy emoticons.

On a radio show being broadcast Wednesday, Dobson said he discussed Miers with Rove on Oct. 1, two days before her nomination was announced. Dobson said Rove told him "she is from a very conservative church, which is almost universally pro-life," but denied he had gotten any assurances from the White House that she would vote to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

Dobson said Rove told him that Miers had been a member of Texas Right to Life. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said she was not a member of the organization "that I'm aware of." "My understanding is that she attended some events, some fund-raising events that they had," McClellan said.

Miers bought a $150 ticket to a 1989 fund-raising dinner for another anti-abortion group — Texans United for Life — according to the president of the group, now called the Texans for Life Coalition.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said: "The rest of America, including the Senate, deserves to know what he and the White House know. We don’t confirm Justices of the Supreme Court on a wink and a nod. And a litmus test is no less a litmus test by using whispers and signals," the Vermont senator said. "No political faction should be given a monopoly of relevant knowledge about a nomination, just as no faction should be permitted to hound a nominee to withdraw, before the hearing process has even begun."

[S]cores of piranhas shook in spasms in two inches of water -- what was left of the once flowing Parana de Manaquiri river, an Amazon tributary. Thousands of rotting fish lined the its dry banks. The governor of Amazonas, a state the size of Alaska, has declared 16 municipalities in crisis as the two-month-long drought strands river dwellers who cannot find food or sell crops.

Some scientists blame higher ocean temperatures stemming from global warming, which have also been linked to a recent string of unusually deadly hurricanes in the United States and Central America. Rising air in the north Atlantic, which fuels storms, may have caused air above the Amazon to descend and prevented cloud formations and rainfall, according to some scientists. "If the warming of the north Atlantic is the smoking gun, it really shows how the world is changing," said Dan Nepstadt, an ecologist from the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Research Institute, funded by the U.S. government and private grants. "The Amazon is a canary in a coal mine for the earth. As we enter a warming trend we are in uncertain territory," he said.

Deforestation may also have contributed to the drought because cutting down trees cuts moisture in the air, increasing sunlight penetration onto land. Other scientists say severe droughts were normal and occurred in cycles before global warming started.

One of Miers' jobs as White House counsel was to judge the judges, including the search that ended with the Roberts pick. According to a presidential adviser who has been briefed on the chronology of the decision, senior adviser Karl Rove was less involved than he is in most major decisions. Some conservatives speculate that Rove was distracted or out of the loop because of his possible legal jeopardy in the CIA leak case, but White House officials reject that notion. The driving force was chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr., who took over the vetting role. "This is something that Andy and the President cooked up," the adviser told TIME. "Andy knew it would appeal to the President because he loves appointing his own people and being supersecret and stealthy about it." Relations between Rove and Card have always been strained, and this adviser said the nomination has reignited the tension. Another Republican involved said it reflected Bush's isolation. "Somebody just like her should have told him, "Mr. President, no. This is a mistake." But he picked the picker, so there was no one there to tell him no."

"My theory is that she is going to be a Justice very much like Sandra Day O'Connor," says Gary Rice, in words that might cheer moderates but spook anyone looking for someone with a weed whacker who will go after liberal rulings of the past 30 years. "If she moves the law, it will be in small steps. She won't be one to say, 'Let's just throw all that out and do something different.'" One of the most intriguing insights into the Real Harriet Miers came from her longtime friend, former law partner and sometime love interest Justice Nathan Hecht, who is considered the most conservative justice on the Texas Supreme Court. "This is very important, and I don't think the public understands," he told TIME. "When you take an oath and swear that you will judge cases properly after that, you can't inject your personal views or religious faith into decisions because it would be wrong. You would either be a bad Christian or a bad judge. Religion says a lot about who you are personally, but it says nothing about stare decisis [following precedent], the commerce clause, the First Amendment, search and seizure or any of the issues she's going to deal with." All of which will surely leave some Christian activists wondering, What's the good of having the first Evangelical on the bench if she leaves her faith in the robing room?

Bush said aggressive action would be needed to prevent a potentially disastrous U.S. outbreak of the disease that is sweeping through Asian poultry and which experts fear could mutate to pass between humans. Such a deadly event would raise difficult questions, such as how a quarantine might be enforced, the president said.

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 bans the military from participating in police-type activity on U.S. soil. But Dr. Irwin Redlener, associate dean of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and director of its National Center for Disaster Preparedness, told The Associated Press the president's suggestion was dangerous. Giving the military a law enforcement role would be an "extraordinarily Draconian measure" that would be unnecessary if the nation had built the capability for rapid vaccine production, ensured a large supply of anti-virals like Tamiflu and not allowed the degradation of the public health system. "The translation of this is martial law in the United States," Redlener said.

And Gene Healy, a senior editor at the conservative Cato Institute, said Bush would risk undermining "a fundamental principle of American law" by tinkering with the act, which does not hinder the military's ability to respond to a crisis. "What it does is set a high bar for the use of federal troops in a policing role," he wrote in a commentary on the group's Web site. "That reflects America's traditional distrust of using standing armies to enforce order at home, a distrust that's well-justified."

Healy said soldiers are not trained as police officers, and putting them in a civilian law enforcement role "can result in serious collateral damage to American life and liberty."

Federal prosecutors have accepted an offer from presidential adviser Karl Rove to give 11th hour testimony in the case of a CIA officer's leaked identity but have warned they cannot guarantee he won't be indicted, according to people directly familiar with the investigation.

The persons, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of grand jury secrecy, said Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has not made any decision yet on whether to file criminal charges against the longtime confidant of President Bush or others.

The U.S. attorney's manual requires prosecutors not to bring witnesses before a grand jury if there is a possibility of future criminal charges unless they are notified in advance that their grand jury testimony can be used against them in a later indictment. Rove has already made at least three grand jury appearances and his return at this late stage in the investigation is unusual.

The prosecutor did not give Rove similar warnings before his earlier grand jury appearances.

In 2000, Aragoncillo worked on the staff of then-Vice President Al Gore. When interviewed by Philippine television, he remarked how valued Philippine employees were at the White House.

"I think what they like most is our integrity and loyalty," Aragoncillo said.

As political activists rush to mine Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' slender public record, a former campaign manager says she opposed abortion rights while running for Dallas City Council in 1989. "She is on the extreme end of the anti-choice movement," said Lorlee Bartos, who managed Ms. Miers' first and only political campaign and said they discussed abortion once during the race. "I think Harriet's belief was pretty strongly felt," Ms. Bartos said Monday. "I suspect she is of the same cloth as the president."

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Ms. Bartos said Ms. Miers was supportive of abortion rights in her youth. She said Ms. Miers then underwent "a born-again, profound experience" that caused her to oppose abortion.

*****

Ron Key, who has been Ms. Miers' pastor since the early 1980s, said his church is anti-abortion. Mr. Key, who recently left Valley View Christian Church to found a new church with Ms. Miers and others, stopped short, however, of saying that those beliefs would color her approach to the law.