Across the Nation

DURHAM, N.C. — The prosecutor who led the now-discredited rape case against three Duke University lacrosse players was held in criminal contempt of court Friday for lying to a judge when pursuing charges against the athletes.

Superior Court Judge W. Osmond Smith III sentenced Mike Nifong to a day in jail. The former Durham County district attorney, who was already stripped of his law license and had resigned from office, had faced as many as 30 days.

Search for 6 men trapped in Utah coal mine indefinitely suspended, families’ spokesman says

SALT LAKE CITY — Federal officials have indefinitely suspended efforts to find six men trapped for nearly four weeks inside a coal mine after a robotic camera failed to provide any useful information, an attorney for the men’s families said Friday.

"They said, ’We’ve exhausted the options that we know about,”’ said Colin King, an attorney serving as a spokesman for all six families.

Allyn Davis, a regional director for the Mine Safety and Health Administration, told the families that the robotic camera was successfully dropped down the fourth of seven holes bored into the mountain, but that it quickly became stuck in the mud as it moved over piles of debris, King said.

Ailing White House press secretary Tony Snow resigns

WASHINGTON — President Bush announced Friday that press secretary Tony Snow, who has waged a battle with cancer while manning the White House lectern, will resign and be replaced by his deputy, Dana Perino, on Sept. 14.

"It’s been a joy to watch him spar with you,” Bush told the White House press corps in the briefing room.

Snow, who had said recently that he would leave before the end of Bush’s presidency, said cancer was not the reason he was stepping down. Instead, the father of three said he needs to make more than his White House salary of $168,000. He can earn far more on the speechmaking circuit.

Students charged with carrying explosives across state lines

WASHINGTON — Two Egyptian students at the University of South Florida were indicted Friday on charges of carrying explosive materials across states lines and one was accused of teaching the other how to use them for violent reasons.

Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 24, an engineering graduate student and teaching assistant at the Tampa-based university, faces terrorism charges for teaching and demonstrating how to use the explosives.

He and Youssef Samir Megahed, 21, an engineering student, were stopped for speeding Aug. 4 in Goose Creek, S.C., where they have been held on state charges.

The two men were stopped with pipe bombs in their car near a Navy base in South Carolina where enemy combatants have been held.

They were held on state charges while the FBI continued to investigate whether there was a terrorism link.

Mohamed was charged with distributing information relating to explosives, destructive devices, and weapons of mass destruction, which is a terrorism-related statute, a Justice Department official said. The crime carries a maximum of 20 years in prison.

He and Megahed both face with charges of transporting explosives in interstate commerce without permits, which carries a 10-year prison penalty. Their defense attorney, Andy Savage, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The indictment was handed up in Tampa, Fla.

In South Carolina, where Mohamed and Megahed have been held in the Berkeley County jail, U.S. Attorney Reginald I. Lloyd praised state and federal authorities for cooperating in the four-week investigation that initially did not look like a terrorism case.

"The arresting deputy’s vigilance and the immediate response of our local investigators and prosecutors are highly commendable,” Lloyd said in a statement.

Since the Aug. 4 arrest, authorities sought to determine whether Mohamed and Megahed were fledgling terrorists or merely college students headed to the beach with devices made from fireworks they bought at Wal-Mart in their car, as they claimed. The local sheriff in South Carolina said the explosives were "other than fireworks.”

The charges follow several searches in Tampa, including of a storage facility and a park where the explosives might have been tested, authorities said.

Both Mohamed and Megahed are in the county legally on student visas, officials said.