In the Nation

WASHINGTON - Eight-term Rep. Deborah Pryce of Ohio will not seek reelection, GOP officials said yesterday, making her the third prominent House Republican from the Midwest to announce retirement plans in recent days.

Pryce was her party's fourth-ranking leader before the GOP lost control of Congress in the 2006 election. In that vote, she narrowly defeated Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy, who is running again in 2008.

Democrats say they also will compete strongly for the seats being vacated by former Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and seven-term Rep. Ray LaHood, both of Illinois.

Pryce, 56, has scheduled a news conference today in Columbus. One official said the decision by Pryce, a single parent, was largely a family matter. - AP

WASHINGTON - The word

Iraq

doesn't appear in former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's resignation letter. Neither does the word

war

.

The deadly conflict that eventually drummed him out of office comes up only in vague references, such as "a critical time in our history," in the 148-word, four-paragraph letter he wrote President Bush a day before the Nov. 7 election. Bush announced Rumsfeld's departure Nov. 8, after the massive antiwar vote that put Democrats in control of Congress.

The letter - whose existence the Pentagon denied as recently as April - surfaced this week in response to multiple Freedom of Information Act requests. But it sheds no light on why Rumsfeld believed he should leave his post after directing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for nearly five years. Instead, in his last paragraph, he says only, "It is time to conclude my service." - AP

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. - A tractor-trailer rig crashed and exploded in flames early yesterday, killing at least one person and snapping off an overpass support column.

The overpass did not collapse, but authorities closed an 11-mile section of Interstate 70 in this western Colorado city.

A second person was believed to be in the truck and was feared dead, but crews sought to ensure the overpass was stable before searching the charred wreckage. About 19,000 vehicles a day use I-70 in Grand Junction, 200 miles west of Denver. - AP

South Texas braced yesterday for Tropical Storm Erin to bring torrential downpours to a state that has already had one of its rainiest summers on record. Gov. Rick Perry ordered emergency vehicles and personnel, including National Guard troops, to the Harlingen and Corpus Christi areas. In the Pacific, Flossie was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm.

Dozens of women's and public-health groups called on R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. yesterday to remove from the market its Camel No. 9 cigarettes, a brand they say is cynically aimed at getting young, fashion-conscious women and girls to start smoking.