"The defendants have combined to create a Presidential primary election with a stunningly anti-democratic scenario - every one of the more than 4.25 million registered Democratic voters in Florida will be completely disenfranchised and their constitutional rights with respect to that election will be rendered meaningless," the suit alleges.

The suit is being filed by Sen. Bill Nelson and Rep. Alcee Hastings in response to the DNC's decision last month to disqualify all of Florida's delegates to next year's national party convention. A spokesman for Nelson declined to comment and said the senator will make a statement on Thursday.

Dean had pushed for the punishment because Florida violated the party's rule against holding presidential primaries before Feb. 5. Both parties are struggling to retain control of the primary calendar even as states attempt to become more relevant by holding their voting at the beginning of the process.

By punishing Florida, Dean hopes to stave off other defections from the approved calendar.

"Their primary essentially won't count, " Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean told a Florida newspaper in June. "Anybody who campaigns in Florida is ineligible for delegates."

The Democratic presidential candidates have responded by pledging not to campaign in states which break the party's rules, like Florida.

The lawsuit alleges that taking such a drastic action violates the Constitution and the law in several ways.

The suit says the decision imposes "geographic discrimination" that violates the equal rights provisions of the Constitution and effectively eliminates the free expression of speech by the state's residents on behalf of the candidates.
Also, the suit alleges that minority voters will be hurt because the Republican primary will go forward as usual, while the Democratic primary will not count.

"Minority members who are predominantly registered as Democratic voters, will suffer a disproportionate impact by virtue of the exclusion of Democratic voters," the suit alleges.

The suit asks the court for an injunction that would ban the DNC from going forward with their threatened punishment. In addition to legal arguments, the suit uses harsh language to accuse the DNC of violations.

"In the annals of modern politics, no national party has inflicted so devastating and sweeping a "geographic discrimination" upon an entire state's electorate consisting exclusively of members of its own party," the suit says.

A spokeswoman for the DNC declined to comment on the suit, saying they had not "been given the courtesy of seeing the claims" made against the national party.

"It's disappointing that after months of trying to resolve this situation, they have chosen this path," said spokeswoman Stacie Paxton.

The Marchellettas own Circle Industries, a multi-million dollar international commercial construction firm based in Alpharetta. Circle worked on various prominent jobs, including the construction of the Olympic Village in downtown Atlanta in 1996 and the Atlantis hotel and casino on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. Kottwitz served as the bookkeeper of the firm during the relevant period.

Testimony and other documents presented during trial revealed the Marchellettas spent millions in company money for their own personal benefit. The biggest items were two luxury estates built by the owners, each of which cost Circle more than $1 million.

The Marchellettas also caused Circle to pay more than $10,000 for each of the following personal items: luxury custom clothing, trips to the now-defunct Gold Club, a rental apartment in Alpharetta and landscaping costs at a house one of them kept in New York. None of these personal payments were recorded on Circle's books as income or loans to the Marchellettas, or as having anything to do with them personally. Instead, with the assistance of Kottwitz, the expenses were falsely booked as job-related or other business expenses.

The jury found Marchelletta Sr. and Jr. guilty of one count each of willfully subscribing to a false personal tax return, and all defendants guilty of assisting in the filing of a false corporate return and of conspiracy to commit these crimes.

"This was a case of pure greed, in which the defendants tried to defraud the United States Treasury of over $1 million," said U.S. Attorney David E. Nahmias. "The Marchellettas, assisted by their former bookkeeper, Kottwitz, skimmed millions out of their company tax-free to pay for their own mansions and other personal expenses, disguising those blatant personal expenditures on the company tax returns as business expenses. Today the jury held them accountable for their lies, deception and bogus accounting."

The Food and Drug Administration may establish a "behind the counter" system allowing more drugs that currently require a prescription to be sold without one.

In a notice set to be published in today's Federal Register, the agency announced a Nov. 14 hearing to explore "the public health benefit of drugs being available without a prescription but only after intervention by a pharmacist."

Such intervention could require a pharmacist to make sure a patient meets certain criteria to get a particular drug and to instruct the patient how to properly use it.

Currently, most drugs are sold either with a prescription or over the counter in retail stores and pharmacies. The agency has carved out a few exceptions, including limiting distribution of Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc. "Plan B" emergency-contraceptive pill to pharmacies that agreed to keep it behind the counter and to require women to show a photo identification to prove they are age 18 or older.

Some groups that have called for a behind-the-counter status for drugs have said it might allow certain drugs sold with a prescription to be safely sold without one.

In 2005, an FDA panel of outside medical experts turned down a bid by Merck & Co. and Johnson & Johnson to sell Mevacor, a cholesterol-lowering drug, without a prescription. Several panel members said the FDA should consider establishing a behind-the-counter system that would allow consumers to purchase Mevacor from pharmacists much like the British are allowed to purchase Merck's Zocor, another cholesterol-lowering drug. Most panel members said that, if such a system existed in the U.S., they would have voted to allow Mevacor to be sold without a prescription.

The FDA noted that other countries with behind-the-counter status include Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland.

Along with a Nov. 14 meeting to solicit public comments on the issue, the FDA said it is also seeking written or electronic comments on the issue until Nov. 28.

The agency said it wants input such issues as whether there should be a behind-the-counter status for certain drugs and whether the status should be a transitional way for prescription products to eventually move to over-the-counter status, where consumers can purchase products on store shelves. Other questions include the impact on patient safety and whether it would improve access to medications.

The agency said certain logistical questions would need to be addressed, including pharmacy storage and dispensing of the medications along with questions about whether and how pharmacists might be reimbursed.

The North Korea agreement, announced in Beijing on Wednesday, sets out the first specific timetable for the North to disclose all its nuclear programs and disable all facilities in return for 950,000 metric tons of fuel oil or its equivalent in economic aid.

The accord is the second stage of a six-nation pact reached in February, one that has continued to draw sharp criticism from conservatives who complain that the United States is rewarding North Korea for its test of a nuclear device last October. The agreement has not yet resolved the contentious question of when North Korea will give up its nuclear weapons.

The agreement calls on the United States to "begin the process of removing" North Korea from a United States terrorism list "in parallel" with the North's actions. Conservative critics said the United States should not take North Korea off the terrorism list until it gave up all its nuclear weapons, and argued that the pact was far too conciliatory toward a nuclear power with alleged ties to international terrorism.

But the Bush administration has been eager to show diplomatic progress, and Bush suggested that the deal should serve as an example to Iran, which has refused to suspend its uranium enrichment program. During a town hall meeting on Wednesday in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Bush told a questioner that he might hold direct talks with Iran if it first froze enrichment of uranium.

"An appeal to morals today is all that we have left," Khodorkovsky wrote in the open letter posted on the Web site of the All-Russia Civil Congress, a rights group.

Khodorkovsky is serving an eight-year prison sentence after being convicted of tax evasion and fraud in a trial seen by his supporters as punishment for his attempt to mount a political and economic challenge to President Vladimir Putin. His Yukos oil company, once Russia's largest, has been taken over by the state.

His open letter, which was dated Monday but only drew attention Thursday, was his first in more than two years.

It was directed at Russia's liberals, but contained his prescription for Russian society as a whole.

"Only by convincing people that they, deep in their soul, do not simply want to live in good conscience but cannot be happy living otherwise, will it be possible to lay the foundation for building a democratic, law-abiding state, our Russia," the letter said.

Khodorkovsky was ruthless in consolidating his control over Yukos in the rough privatizations of the 1990s, when Russia's prime resources were parceled out to the politically connected businessmen who became known as the oligarchs.

Once he had consolidated his control, he was among the first in Russia to push for Western-style business practices. He also began to support political parties that opposed Putin's policies and created a foundation to help strengthen civil society in Russia.

"He has stopped being a businessman not only in practice, but in his thoughts," Lyudmila Alexeyeva, one of Russia's most respected human rights advocates, said Thursday on Ekho Moskvy radio. She said the transformation occurred even before his arrest in October 2003.

"The ordeal he went through has contributed to these reflections. This is a traditional path for people living a difficult life," Alexeyeva said. "This is a very true path, and it's a pity that very few businessmen or politicians take it."

In his last missive from prison, issued in August 2005, shortly after his conviction, Khodorkovsky had warned of a growing sense of social injustice over post-Soviet reforms that had enriched a few and plunged the majority of Russians into poverty.

In this week's letter, Khodorkovsky referred several times to the need for faith. He said morals were the strongest and most important argument against the presence of hundreds of thousands of homeless children and the lack of medicines in a country with a budget surplus.

Morals also were the only argument "against terror and revolution as a means of solving political problems and against the shutting up of all sorts of dissenters," he wrote.

In 2005, Khodorkovsky had called for liberals to create a broad "social-democratic" coalition with communists and nationalists to oppose the Kremlin.

Such a coalition, called the Other Russia, was formed in 2006. It has held a series of street protests called dissenters' marches, some of which have been violently dispersed by police, but has not succeeded in uniting Russia's squabbling liberals or in attracting communists.

On Sunday, the Other Russia chose former world chess champion Garry Kasparov to be its candidate in the March presidential election. Even if he were to be allowed to run, which is unlikely, he would have little hope of posing a significant challenge to the Kremlin's chosen candidate.

Li Heping said he was attacked with fists and electric batons and held for about five hours Saturday night. He said he was forced into an unmarked car by unidentified men after leaving his Beijing office.

"They covered my head and drove me to somewhere far away and brought me to a basement and beat me," Li told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "They said you out-of-town lawyers are making trouble in Beijing, making it unstable."

The alleged attack on Li came the same day a dissident in eastern China who wrote about local corruption was arrested on charges of subverting state power. Also over the weekend, police detained the son and brother of Ye Guozhu, a Beijing resident serving a four-year prison sentence for disturbing the social order after he applied for a permit to hold a protest against forced evictions.

China's ruling Communist Party has taken some steps to appear more open ahead of the Beijing Olympics next summer, such as loosening restrictions on foreign reporters.

But critics say its grip on dissent has in fact tightened under President Hu Jintao. Controls seem to be ratcheted up as China prepares to hold its twice-a-decade Communist Party congress at which some new senior leaders will be appointed. The meeting, which begins Oct. 15, will set policy for the next five years.

Li, who said he was left with bruises and a swollen face, didn't know if the attack was related to the congress.

"They shouldn't do this during the 17th Party Congress. Aren't they going out of their way to cause trouble?" he said.

The lawyer said he was dropped off near some woods after the attack and walked a long distance until he found a taxi to take him home. He said he was being followed around the clock by security agents.

Li said he wasn't sure if he would be able to continue working. He returned to his office the day after the attack and found his lawyer's license was missing. A portable hard drive and his computer memory had been wiped clean, he said.

The lawyer's clients have included Chen Guangcheng, a blind activist who helped villagers file a lawsuit accusing local officials of forcing them to undergo abortions or sterilization. Cases this year include that of a Falun Gong practitioner whose family members were detained, and four farmers who were wrongly accused of murder, he said.

Telephones at the Beijing public security bureau, which often monitors the activities of dissidents, rang unanswered on Wednesday. The general inquiry line of the state security bureau was not answered.