The chief of the Guantanamo war court yesterday spurned President Obama's request to freeze the military commissions trying war-on-terror captives, and said he would hold a hearing next month for an alleged USS Cole bomber in a capital terror case.

The development meant that only withdrawal of the charges could stop Abd el Rahim al-Nashiri's Feb. 9 arraignment. A Pentagon source said late yesterday that could happen within days.

RULING APPROVES FURLOUGH IN CALIF.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California officials must immediately implement Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's order that state employees take two days off without pay each month, a judge ruled yesterday, denying claims by unions and State Controller John Chiang that the governor's directive is illegal.

The decision clears the way for the biggest rollback of the state payroll in decades. Starting next week, 238,000 state employees will be furloughed on the first and third Fridays of each month.

LAST DEA AGENT LEAVES BOLIVIA

LA PAZ, Bolivia — The last U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents left Bolivia yesterday, ordered out by President Evo Morales even as Bolivian police report that coca cultivation and cocaine processing are on the rise.

Morales demanded the DEA's exit in November 2008 as part of a dispute between U.S. and Bolivian officials that included his expulsion of U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg and the Bush administration's decertification of Bolivia as ineffective in the drug war.

Senior law-enforcement officials said it was the first time a DEA operation had been ordered out of a country en masse.

CALIF. OIL DRILLING PROJECT REJECTED

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — A state panel rejected a proposal yesterday that could have led to the first new oil drilling project off the California coast in 40 years.

The State Lands Commission voted against Plains Exploration & Production Co.'s request to expand drilling off Platform Irene in the Santa Barbara Channel.

Commission Executive Officer Paul Thayer said the project was effectively dead unless the oil company takes it to court or reapplies to the commission with a new proposal.