Blockade

MARYLAND Circuit judges face competition Three sitting Baltimore circuit judges risk losing their places on the bench if voters simply check off the first three of the six names on the ballot. The candidates in the first contested city judicial election in eight years are listed alphabetically, and the incumbents are listed last. pg 1A Rochambeau gets reprieve The 100-year-old Rochambeau apartment building got a last-minute reprieve from the wrecking ball yesterday when the chief judge of the Maryland Court of Special Appeals put on indefinite hold the demolition planned by the Archdiocese of Baltimore to replace it with a prayer garden.

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- A passenger plane swept over downtown Beirut and sliced along the Mediterranean coast yesterday afternoon, marking the end of an Israeli-imposed air blockade that had isolated Lebanon for weeks. But a sea blockade remained in force. Israel vowed to keep control of its neighbor's waters until the Lebanese military and international forces were in place to prevent seaborne weapons smuggling. The Middle East Airlines flight from Paris landed at Beirut's airport just minutes after Israel relinquished its hold on Lebanon's skies.

JERUSALEM -- Israel's government said yesterday that it would end its air and maritime blockade of Lebanon today to make way for an international force that is to deploy as part of a cease-fire that ended the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas. Israel's decision came after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan notified Israeli leaders that the international force was ready to take positions at Lebanon's airports and along the coast, according to a statement from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office.

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan demanded yesterday the release of two Israeli soldiers held by the Hezbollah militia, and ordered Israel to lift its blockade on Lebanon. Annan's sharply worded remarks came during a visit to Lebanon aimed at shoring up a U.N. Security Council cease-fire resolution adopted two weeks ago in an effort to end more than a month of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. "It's a fixed menu," Annan said in response to complaints from both Israel and Hezbollah that their adversary was not complying fully with the resolution.

WASHINGTON -- In what could become the largest evacuation by sea in modern history, about 10,000 Americans and tens of thousands of European and other civilians are expected to begin boarding ships from Beirut today amid the escalating fighting between Israel and Hezbollah forces. The American evacuees are to be ferried to the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus on charter ships, watched over by U.S. Marine and Navy jets and warships that will escort the vessels through an Israeli blockade of Lebanon and guard against other threats, according to U.S. military and civilian officials.

A marathon legal fight over protests outside abortion clinics will return to the Supreme Court for a third time, with the justices agreeing yesterday to revisit whether federal racketeering and extortion laws can be used to stop menacing blockades outside clinic entrances. The court agreed to hear what is now a 19-year-old case - the second abortion-related case on next term's calendar - as it finished its work for the summer with no public indication that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist plans to retire, as many predicted.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani soldiers have found a network of tunnels that could have allowed al-Qaida fighters to escape a week-old siege of villages in the tribal region bordering Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said yesterday. One tunnel, a mile long, linked the homes of two tribal elders - Nek Mohammed and Sharif Khan - who have been leading supporters suspected of harboring al-Qaida fugitives in the tribal area of South Waziristan. Another linked the fortified mud compounds in the battle zone with a dry riverbed near the Afghan border, according to Brig.

WITH THE 3RD INFANTRY DIVISION, in central Iraq - A crude sign now stands at the checkpoint where four Americans died when a bomb in a taxi exploded Saturday. "Roadblock ahead," it states, in Arabic. "Leave the area or we will fire." On Saturday, the road was open to anyone who did not appear to be a threat to the American forces arrayed in the flat scrub desert of central Iraq. Yesterday, it was closed to everyone. So were other roads leading into Najaf, a city on the Euphrates River now encircled by soldiers from the 3rd Infantry and the 101st Airborne divisions.

SILOPI, Turkey - A busload of anti-war protesters and a small group of American soldiers ran into each other on a lonely stretch of roadside north of here yesterday, near the border with Iraq. It was an odd, awkward meeting between one group hoping to stop a war, and another, perhaps, planning for the start of one. Both halted at a military checkpoint, about 50 yards apart. The Americans, escorted by an armored vehicle, were guests of the military and apparently engaged in surveying the road to Iraq.

WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans yesterday failed to break a filibuster blocking the nomination of a Hispanic lawyer to one of the nation's most powerful federal courts, a setback for President Bush's efforts to leave a conservative stamp on the judicial system. In a showdown roll call, the Republicans fell five votes short of the 60 they needed to cut off the Senate's month-long debate and move to a final vote on Miguel Estrada's nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.