Group of colleges quits US News list

A group of US liberal arts colleges plans to stop participating in US News & World Report's higher-education rankings, saying the magazine's yearly survey misleads students. A majority of representatives at a meeting yesterday agreed not to cooperate with the annual US News assessment, said Christopher Nelson, chairman of the association, called the Annapolis Group. The decision by the group, which includes colleges such as Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore, compounds the resistance to the system used by US News, which compiled its first rankings in 1983 and began publishing them annually in 1987. (Bloomberg)

OHIO

CANTON -- A newborn girl with her umbilical cord still attached was found in a basket on a doorstep 45 miles from where a pregnant woman vanished, authorities said yesterday. A DNA sample was taken from the infant yesterday and was given to authorities investigating the disappearance. Thomas Maurer, sheriff in neighboring Wayne County, said a doctor determined that the baby was less than 24 hours old, and that officials are using "every caution we can" to eliminate the possibility that the baby is related to the missing woman, Jessie Davis. Davis, 26, who is due July 3 with a baby she planned to name Chloe, has not been heard from since Wednesday evening when she spoke to her mother by phone.

NORTH CAROLINA

DURHAM -- A judge suspended District Attorney Mike Nifong immediately yesterday instead of allowing the prosecutor disbarred for his handling of the Duke lacrosse rape case to work for another month. There is probable cause to believe that Nifong "has engaged in willful misconduct in office and conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice, which brings the office into disrepute," Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson wrote.

WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON -- White House budget director Rob Portman announced his resignation yesterday, joining a lengthening list of senior officials heading for the exits in the final 1 1/2 years of President Bush's administration. Bush chose former representative Jim Nussle of Iowa, onetime chairman of the House Budget Committee, as Portman's successor. Nussle, 46, ran for Iowa governor in 2006 and lost. He has been serving in Iowa as an adviser in former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani's campaign for the GOP presidential nod. (AP)