[Washington Post: Editorial]

YES, OF COURSE, President Bush's latest initiative on Iraq is arrogant and self-defeating. But that's not the most remarkable aspect of his decision to exclude companies from a number of countries that are important U.S. allies from bidding on reconstruction contracts. After all, a spiteful unilateralism has characterized the administration's handling of postwar Iraq all along, and it's an important reason why the United States must now face daunting military and political challenges nearly on its own. What's really strange about the administration's latest slap at Germany, France, Canada and other countries it seems intent on treating as adversaries is that it reverses at a stroke months of patient efforts by that same administration to overcome the divisions its Iraq policy created. ....

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[Washington Post: Nation and Politics]By Lois Romano
Washington Post Staff Writer

The case of Virginia coal miner Roger Keith Coleman -- put to death for the 1982 murder of his wife's sister, Wanda McCoy -- is one of a handful of death-penalty cases in which DNA evidence still exists in police labs and evidence facilities across the country that could cast doubt on the guilt of men already executed.

Since DNA "fingerprinting" began to revolutionize criminal forensics in the late 1980s with precise identifications, it has freed more than 130 convicts, 12 of whom have walked off death row. But in other cases, prosecutors have successfully blocked the testing of DNA before an execution and then fought posthumous tests just as vigorously.

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-[AP Politics]   By APRIL CASTRO, Associated Press Writer

AUSTIN, Texas - The state's GOP-proposed Congressional redistricting map would divide a black community in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to such an extent those voters could not elect their candidate of choice, a history professor testified in federal court

Democratic U.S. Reps. Chet Edwards of Waco and Max Sandlin of Marshall also testified Friday that minority communities in their districts also would be split up under the plan approved by the Republican-dominated Legislature in October. ...

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