This morning, CBS News wouldn't confirm it when we asked. But now it's definite: Mike Wallace is retiring from 60 Minutes this spring. On NYTimes.com, Jacques Steinberg reports:

"When asked in an interview last April if he would ever consider retiring from 60 Minutes, Mike Wallace said that he planned to do so only 'when my toes turn up.'

'Well,' Mr. Wallace said, amending that statement in an interview today, 'they're just beginning to curl a trifle.'

After serving as a correspondent on 60 Minutes since its inception in September 1968, Mr. Wallace said today that he had decided to retire this spring, at the end of the current television season. He said that the move had come at his initiative, and that 'CBS is not pushing me.'"