News in Brief

State

County clerk indicted for disclosing voter info

LAS CRUCES (AP) - Dona Ana County Clerk Ruben Ceballos was indicted Thursday on charges of illegally disclosing voter information.

Ceballos was accused of releasing voter lists containing Social Security numbers to representatives of three political parties last month.

Ceballos had called the release of Social Security numbers a mistake.

"I did not personally do this, and in no way did my office release this intentionally," he said at a news conference Wednesday.

Chief Deputy County Clerk Mari Langford, who has acknowledged sending out the voter list, said she was subpoenaed Monday by the grand jury.

National

Bush pays respects to sunken USS Arizona

HONOLULU (AP) - President Bush dropped flowers into the water Thursday at the sunken battleship USS Arizona, a reminder of the terror that struck America more than a half century ago. Accompanied by his wife, Laura, the president also toured Pearl Harbor in a launch, riding past a nuclear-powered submarine that fired the first Tomahawk missile of the Iraq war. Bush passed U.S. ships back from the war. Sailors stood at attention on the decks.

Wal-Marts raided, 300 illegal workers arrested

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Federal agents raided Wal-Mart's headquarters and 60 of its stores across the country Thursday, arresting more than 300 illegal workers in an immigration crackdown at the world's biggest retailer. The workers were members of cleaning crews hired by outside contractors, but federal law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity said Wal-Mart had direct knowledge of the immigration violations. They cited recordings of meetings and conversations among Wal-Mart executives, managers and contractors.

Justice says gay sex violates U.S. Constitution

WASHINGTON (AP) - Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia ridiculed his court's recent ruling legalizing gay sex, telling an audience of conservative activists Thursday that the ruling ignores the Constitution in favor of a modern, liberal sensibility. The ruling, Scalia said, "held to be a constitutional right what had been a criminal offense at the time of the founding and for nearly 200 years thereafter."

International

U.S., Iraq ask countries to help rebuilding effort

MADRID, Spain (AP) - American and Iraqi officials urged nearly 80 nations at a donors conference Thursday to pledge billions of dollars to rebuild Iraq, but a senior European official said expectations should be kept low. "You cannot expect European taxpayers, who felt pretty hostile to military intervention, to feel terribly enthusiastic about spending a large amount of money in Iraq," Chris Patten, the European Union's external affairs commissioner, told reporters as the conference began.