"I'm ready for Wednesday to get here," Clemens said, referring to the committee's public hearing next week, when Clemens, McNamee and other witnesses, including current New York Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte, are to testify.

It was the seven-time Cy Young Award winner Clemens' denials of McNamee's allegations in the Mitchell Report about drug use that drew Congress' attention.

"Because the perception out there was so strong originally that he did it and was lying, he's going to extra steps to try and persuade and make people comfortable with the fact that he didn't do it. He's having to take extraordinary measures because the allegations are extraordinary," one of Clemens' lawyers, Rusty Hardin, said outside Tierney's office.

Hardin said Clemens was meeting with individual representatives "to assure them privately the same thing he's saying publicly — that he didn't take steroids, and he didn't take human growth hormone, and he's here to talk to anybody about it who wants to."

Clemens, who gave a deposition Tuesday, was to visit a dozen congressmen Thursday and Friday, including Rep. Tom Davis, the committee's ranking Republican, according to a schedule released by Clemens' camp. Committee chairman Henry Waxman was not listed on the schedule.

In former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell's report on doping in baseball, released in December, McNamee said he injected Clemens 16 times with steroids and human growth hormone in 1998, 2000 and 2001. Clemens has repeatedly denied those accusations, including, he said, under oath Tuesday.

On Wednesday, word emerged that McNamee's representatives turned over gauze pads and syringes they said had Clemens' blood to IRS Special Agent Jeff Novitzky in early January, a person familiar with the evidence said, speaking on condition of anonymity because McNamee's lawyers did not want to publicly discuss details. The syringes were used to inject Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone, the person said. A second person, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the evidence was from 2000 and 2001.

The California Supreme Court has set arguments in the legal fight over gay marriage for March 4, assuring that a ruling will be issued by June.

The state's high court will hear the legal challenge in San Francisco, where the battle over same-sex marriage first unfolded four years ago when Mayor Gavin Newsom temporarily issued marriage licenses to gay couples.

San Francisco city officials and civil rights groups have challenged California's ban on gay marriage, arguing that it deprives same-sex couples of the same legal rights as heterosexual couples.

A divided state appeals court in 2006 upheld the state ban on same-sex marriage, overturning a San Francisco judge who previously declared it unconstitutional. The state Supreme Court will be reviewing that appeals court ruling.

The justices must rule within 90 days of the arguments.

Hafer, 30, of Cynthiana, told the judge he didn't trust his court-appointed lawyer, Doug Crickmer. As Crickmer began to tell Judge Rob Johnson that Hafer couldn't choose his public defender, Hafer landed the first punch.

"I just couldn't take it anymore and I just snapped," Hafer said later at the Scott County jail.

Hafer hit the attorney several times in the face and stomach. Hafer was restrained on the ground. Crickmer was admitted to Georgetown Community Hospital and released later that day. He said he will not file assault charges.

"I certainly don't fault him or blame him or wish him any ill will," Crickmer said Thursday on NBC's "Today" show. "I think Mr. Hafer was just frustrated. Like I said, he had been in jail for some time. ... I think he just got frustrated, fed up, and he just snapped and I was the nearest target."

Hafer was arrested in August on charges of burglarizing a K-Mart store in June.

As for his request for a new attorney, Hafer apparently will get his way. Authorities said a new one will be appointed.

The New York Observer has answered a burning political question that never occurred to us, at least until now: "If the major presidential candidates were top New York law firms, which ones would they be?"

Lawyers in New York - perhaps enjoying a bit more idle time than usual these days - energetically took up the question, offering all kinds of suggestions and nominations, David Lat wrote. Lawyers nationwide have showered Hillary Clinton with more campaign contributions than any other candidate, federal records show. In Mr. Lat's informal survey, though, when asked which firm most embodies Mrs. Clinton, the common answer from lawyers in her home state was "Not mine."

So how did the pairings shape up?

After some debate, Mr. Lat declared Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison the closest match for Mrs. Clinton. Why Paul Weiss? One anonymous lawyer at the firm suggested that, like the candidate, the firm had a reputation for being a bit, well, hard-driving. (The lawyer actually used a more colorful phrase.) "But those who know her - and us - know we are 'good people,'" the lawyer added.

Another lawyer nominated Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, the boutique firm known for advising in big mergers and defending chief executives under siege, as a match for Mrs. Clinton, suggesting they both had a "thorough command of the issues." This caused a Wachtell associate to snort back, "Can you picture Wachtell crying?"

Many lawyers pitched their employers as the Barack Obama of law firms, but Mr. Lat gave that title to Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, a relatively young business-litigation firm where, according to a recent article in The New York Times, "flip-flops are acceptable footwear."

"Both seem to be the young, upstart contenders, trying to do things a new way," was how one observer put it.

On the Republican side, John McCain got paired with Cravath, Swaine & Moore, but only after plenty of jokes about being old - and at least one reference to torture.

Finding a match for Mitt Romney was apparently a cinch: It was Sullivan & Cromwell, a law firm that consistently ranks near the top of the merger advisory league tables. A former associate at the firm offered these common traits: "Very picture-perfect. Always willing to go with the highest bidder."

Vasily Alexanian, 36, has said he will die unless he is transferred from his Moscow prison to a specialist hospital, and the Strasbourg-based European court has given three separate instructions to the Russian authorities to move him.

Alexanian is a former vice-president of Yukos, an oil company whose founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was imprisoned in what was widely seen as a Kremlin campaign to punish the businessman for his political ambitions.

A judge at Moscow's Simonovsky district court ordered that Alexanian's trial for fraud and tax evasion be suspended while he receives treatment. It was the first admission by a court that he is gravely ill.

But the court rejected a request for him to be released on bail, saying he was a flight risk and could receive the treatment he needed in the sanatorium at the Sailor's Rest prison in Moscow where he is being held.

'They are not giving me any treatment in there,' Alexanian told reporters from his metal cage in a corner of the courtroom.

'There is no guarantee they will give me access to a specialist clinic. All they are doing is adjourning the trial. That is all. Nothing else.'

Alexanian's lawyers say his condition has left him partially blind, suffering from cancer of the lymph nodes and with suspected tuberculosis.

Meanwhile Thursday, the Clinton campaign asked Obama to debate once a week, but he demurred.

Obama, riding a wave of fundraising from large donors and small Internet contributors, also raised $32 million in January.

Clinton acknowledged Wednesday that she loaned her campaign $5 million late last month as Obama was outraising and outspending her heading into Feb. 5 Super Tuesday contests. Some senior staffers on her campaign also are voluntarily forgoing paychecks as the campaign heads into the next round of contests.

Obama and Clinton outpaced all candidates in 2007, with each raising $100 million.

The Obama campaign said on its Web site that $7.2 million has been received since Tuesday evening. Campaign spokesmen said they were confident the figure was accurate.

Buoyed by strong fundraising and a primary calendar in February that plays to his strengths, Obama plans a campaign blitz through a series of states holding contests this weekend and will compete to win primaries in the Mid-Atlantic next week and Hawaii and Wisconsin the following week.

He campaigned in Louisiana Thursday. The state holds its contest Saturday.

Clinton, with less money to spend and less confident of her prospects in the February contests, will instead concentrate on Ohio and Texas, large states with primaries March 4 and where polling shows her with a significant lead. She even is looking ahead to Pennsylvania's primary April 22, believing a large elderly population there will favor the former first lady.

In a sign of Clinton's increasing concern about Obama's growing strength, her campaign manager, Patti Solis, sent a letter Thursday to the Obama campaign seeking five debates between the two candidates before March 4.

"I'm sure we can find a suitable place to meet on the campaign trail," Solis wrote. "There's too much at stake and the issues facing the country are too grave to deny voters the opportunity to see the candidates up close."

Obama rejected a debate proposed as soon as this Sunday to be broadcast on ABC, but his campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Thursday, "there will definitely be more debates, we just haven't set a schedule yet."