Across the Nation

Lighters were added to the prohibited items list because of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which President Bush signed on Dec. 17.

The Transportation Security Administration, the agency charged with prohibiting dangerous items on aircraft, said lighters will be banned from planes and areas beyond security checkpoints at airports.

"By creating policy to add lighters to the Prohibited Items List we are closing a potential vulnerability in air travel security," said Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Rear Adm. David M. Stone.

The TSA said butane, absorbed-fuel (Zippo-type), electric/battery-powered and novelty lighters were included in the ban.

The rule will be enforced beginning April 14.

Telecommunications entrepreneur arrested

WASHINGTON - Telecommun-ications entrepreneur Walter Anderson was arrested and charged with evading $200 million in federal and local taxes in what the government said was the largest criminal tax case ever against an individual in the United States.

The indictment announced Monday charges Anderson with hiding income from tax collectors through offshore corporations and bank accounts and claiming to be a Florida resident to avoid paying income taxes in Washington, D.C.

Anderson, 51, also was accused of purchasing fine art and wine and having it shipped to Virginia to avoid paying Washington taxes, according to the indictment for fraud, tax evasion and obstructing the IRS.

Arrested Saturday, Anderson pleaded not guilty Monday and was ordered held without bail until a hearing Thursday.

"He was living the high life," said the Internal Revenue Service commissioner, Mark Everson. "Because of his dishonest dealings, Mr. Anderson's lavish life style was subsidized by honest, hardworking Americans."

If convicted, Anderson could face up to 80 years in prison. Messages left with his lawyer, John Moustakas of Washington, were not immediately returned Monday.

In documents requesting Anderson's detention until trial, the government alleged he could be linked to at least seven aliases and that officials seized from his apartment forged identification and manuals detailing ways to create fake identification and hide from authorities.

Gonzales commited

to fighting obscenity

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Monday he would move aggressively to prosecute obscenity cases, and he laid out a broader agenda much like that of his predecessor, John Ashcroft.

In his first lengthy address since becoming attorney general in early February, Gonzales said people who distribute obscene materials do not enjoy constitutional guarantees of free speech.

"I am committed to prosecuting these crimes aggressively," he said to a Washington meeting of the Hoover Institution, a public policy think tank based at Stanford University.

The Justice Department is appealing the dismissal of an obscenity case in Pittsburgh in which a federal judge said prosecutors went too far in trying to block the sale of pornographic movies over the Internet and through the mail. The case initially was prosecuted under Ashcroft.

Gonzales, the son of Mexican immigrants, said the Justice Department also would continue its recent stepped-up activity in human trafficking investigations and prosecutions.

"Its victims are usually aliens, many of them women and children who are smuggled into our country and held in bondage," he said.

The Justice Department also is sending teams of federal agents to five more cities struggling with violent crime, Gonzales said, extending a program begun last year in 15 cities. Investigators focus on prosecuting people for firearms violations, which often accompany gang activity, illegal drug organizations and organized crime groups.