Nation in brief

Study: Pills used in 6% of abortions

NEW YORK -- Doctors used pills such as RU-486 to perform about 6 percent of abortions in the first several months after the controversial drug was approved in the United States, a new study says.

The study, to be published today by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, is one of the first to account for the number of abortions using mifepristone, or RU-486, since it became available in 2000. The study estimates that more than 37,000 abortions were performed using pills in the first six months of 2001.

The researchers noted the U.S. abortion rate continued to fall to its lowest rate since the 1970s: 21.3 abortions for every 1,000 women age 15 to 44. The number of providers who performed surgical abortions also fell.

NASA needs a day to clear shuttle launch

CAPE CANAVERAL -- With just two days remaining in the countdown, NASA said Tuesday it needed 24 more hours of engineering analysis before clearing space shuttle Columbia for launch on a science mission with Israel's first astronaut.

A crack in another shuttle has had engineers working practically nonstop for the past month in order for Columbia to lift off Thursday as planned with Ilan Ramon, a colonel in the Israeli air force.

Shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore said everyone is confident that Columbia is safe to fly despite the crack found in December in the plumbing of Discovery. But engineers want to make sure nothing has been overlooked in making that conclusion.

Man pardoned by Clinton facing tax charges

MIAMI -- A California businessman pardoned by President Bill Clinton for a 1983 fraud conviction has been charged with tax evasion.

Agents with the Internal Revenue Service arrested Almon Glenn Braswell, 59, on Monday. Federal prosecutors and the IRS had been investigating Braswell and his dietary supplement business.

Braswell served seven months of a three-year prison sentence for falsifying documentation for a hair-growth product.

Clinton granted 177 pardons and clemencies just before leaving office in 2001. Braswell's pardon became one of the most criticized after it was learned that the president's brother-in-law, Hugh Rodham, had been paid $200,000 to work on the case. Rodham later returned the money.

New Md. governor to restart executions

ROCKVILLE, Md. -- Maryland's death penalty moratorium will almost certainly be lifted after Republican Gov.-elect Robert Ehrlich takes office today, opening the way for the execution of as many as 12 inmates.

All executions in Maryland were suspended last May by Democratic Gov. Parris Glendening, who did not seek re-election.

The incoming and outgoing administrations disagree on exactly when and how the moratorium officially ends, but Ehrlich has made it clear he will end it. And death warrants could be signed within a few weeks for at least two inmates.

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