October 30, 2001	Tuesday	Shaba'an 12, 1422

WASHINGTON, Oct 29: The anthrax scare forced justices on America’s highest court on Monday to hear legal arguments away from the Supreme Court for the first time since 1935 and closed down the Justice Department’s main mailroom.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist, in brief remarks from the bench, confirmed it was the first time since the court was constructed in 1935 that the nine justices had met outside the marble-columned building.

Before the justices took the bench in the ceremonial courtroom at the nearby US Court of Appeals building on Monday, a court police officer told the several hundred people gathered there: “In the event of an emergency, please remain calm and follow the directions of the police officers.”

Traces of anthrax were found last Friday on a filter at the Supreme Court’s off-site mail inspection warehouse and at another mail-processing area for the Justice Department in Landover, Maryland on Sunday.

In addition, the basement mailroom inside the Justice Department was closed over the weekend for anthrax testing and spokeswoman Susan Dryden said these should be completed on Tuesday or Wednesday.

The country’s mail workers have been on the front line of germ warfare attacks and two Washington postal employees have died after handling mail believed to be contaminated with the anthrax bacteria. A tabloid photo editor from Florida has also died from anthrax inhalation.

POSTAL WORKERS IN SERIOUS CONDITION: Three other postal workers are in hospitals in Virginia and being treated for anthrax inhalation, the most serious form of the disease. All three were in serious condition on Monday.

In New Jersey, authorities said a 56-year-old woman who handled mail at a main processing and distribution center in Hamilton Township near Trenton was in a hospital in a “clinically improving” condition with inhalational anthrax, state health officials said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported 13 confirmed cases of anthrax, two in Florida, three in New York City, three in New Jersey, and five in Washington DC.

The Postal Service has tested about 8,800 employees for anthrax and an estimated 13,000 were on preventive medication.—Reuters