Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum is joining law firm Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott LLC and is expected to provide "strategic counseling" to clients, the firm said Monday.

Santorum, a three-term Republican senator from Penn Hills, was defeated in his bid for re-election by Bob Casey in November.

 
Santorum will work out of Eckert Seamans' Washington, D.C., office, the law firm said.

"We are extremely pleased that Rick is joining our firm and that our clients will have the benefit of his understanding of what it takes for businesses to succeed in today's global economy," Eckert Seamans CEO Tim Ryan said in a statement.

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The opinion by U.S. Department of Interior Solicitor David Bernhardt was posted with no formal announcement on the department's Web site on Friday.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall, contacted in Washington, D.C., said the new policy would allow them to focus on protecting species in areas where they are in trouble, rather than having to list a species over its entire range.

But he acknowledges his political opponents will try to exploit recent news that a lawyer with his Houston law firm has been representing Citgo before the Texas legislature.

Citgo Petroleum is a U-S-based company bought in 1990 by Venezuela's national oil company. It employs thousands of people in the U-S.

Chavez has criticized President Bush and is close to Fidel Castro. So Citgo has become unpopular with some Americans.

Giuliani is seeking the Republican nomination for president in 2008.

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee say the Bush administration needs to be more straightforward about the White House's role in the dismissals of eight federal prosecutors.

"I've told the attorney general that I think this has been mishandled, that by giving inaccurate information ... at the outset, it's caused a real firestorm, and he better get the facts out fast," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the chairman of the committee, pledged to get the public testimony of White House officials involved in the case whether they want to testify or not.

On Monday, the Justice Department planned to turn over to Congress documents that could provide more details of the role agency officials _ including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales _ and top White House officials played in planning the prosecutors' dismissals.

The White House was also expected to announce this week whether it will let political strategist Karl Rove, former White House counsel Harriet Miers and other officials testify or will seek to assert executive privilege in preventing their appearance.

Leahy delayed a vote on issuing subpoenas until Thursday as the president's counsel, Fred Fielding, sought to negotiate terms. But on Sunday, Leahy said he had not met Fielding nor was he particularly open to any compromises, such as a private briefing by the administration officials.

More than 60 million cans of dog and cat food sold under dozens of brand names were recalled on Saturday after being linked to the deaths of 10 animals.

The food was manufactured by Menu Foods, of Streetsville, Ontario, which makes wet food sold as store brands for companies like Wal-Mart, Kroger and Safeway.

The company also makes food on behalf of many brand-name pet food makers. Menu Foods said it had recalled some food made for the Iams unit of Procter & Gamble. Two other pet food companies — Nestle Purina PetCare and Hills Pet Nutrition, the unit of Colgate-Palmolive that makes the Science Diet brand — recalled some of their products that were made by Menu Foods.

Menu Foods is recalling only certain gravy-style pet food in cans and pouches it made from Dec. 3 to March 6.

The company said in a statement that tests of its food had “failed to identify any issues with the products in question.” But it did associate the timing of the reported deaths with its use of a new supplier for wheat gluten, a source of protein. Sarah Tuite, a spokeswoman for Menu Foods, declined to name the supplier.

The Israeli cabinet voted Sunday to limit talks even with moderate Palestinian officials to shared security and humanitarian concerns, ruling out a formal peace process until the new Palestinian government recognizes Israel and renounces violence.
 
In officially rejecting the Palestinian unity government that was sworn in over the weekend, the cabinet also stated that "Israel expects the international community to maintain the policy it has taken over the past year of isolating the Palestinian government."

The vote was unanimous, with two cabinet members from the Labor Party, including the only Arab minister, abstaining.

"This is a government that does not accept the conditions of the international community," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said.

The new Palestinian cabinet includes rival political parties and has pledged to respect previous agreements that recognize Israel, unlike the previous cabinet in office since the radical Islamic movement Hamas took control of the government nearly a year ago.

But it continues to be led by Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, and its political program falls short of renouncing violence and explicitly recognizing Israel, the conditions for resumption of foreign aid.

Most international donors cut off economic aid after Palestinian voters chose Hamas to run the Palestinian Authority in January 2006.

Unemployment and poverty have increased in the territories since then, and about 130 Palestinians have been killed over the past year in a violent power struggle between Hamas and the rival Fatah movement.

For a second consecutive day, thousands of protesters flowed through the streets of several cities Sunday to call for an end to the funding of the Iraq war or the immediate return of U.S. troops.

Demonstrators converged in San Francisco, New York, Portland, Ore., and elsewhere to mark the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and call on President Bush to heed what they said was the will of the people.

In largely peaceful demonstrations, about 3,000 people in San Francisco closed Market Street; in New York, more than 1,000 protesters converged in a park near the U.N. headquarters.

Dozens of police in San Francisco on foot and motorcycle blocked traffic and kept an eye on the crowd, which stretched for blocks through the financial district. No arrests were reported by late Sunday afternoon.