Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXVI No. 457

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A congresswoman said Thursday that her "jaw dropped" when military doctors told her that four in 10 women at a veterans hospital reported being sexually assaulted while in the military.

A government report indicates that the numbers could be even higher.

Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, spoke before a House panel investigating the way the military handles reports of sexual assault.

She said she recently visited a Veterans Affairs hospital in the Los Angeles area, where women told her horror stories of being raped in the military.

"My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41 percent of the female veterans seen there say they were victims of sexual assault while serving in the military," said Harman, who has long sought better protection of women in the military.

"Twenty-nine percent say they were raped during their military service. They spoke of their continued terror, feelings of helplessness and downward spirals many of their lives have taken since.

"We have an epidemic here," she said. "Women serving in the U.S. military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq."

As of July 24, 100 women had died in Iraq, according to the Pentagon.

In 2007, Harman said, only 181 out of 2,212 reports of military sexual assaults, or 8 percent, were referred to courts martial. By comparison, she said, 40 percent of those arrested in the civilian world on such charges are prosecuted.

Defense statistics show that military commanders took unspecified action, which can include anything from punishment to dismissal, in an additional 419 cases.

But when it came time for the military to defend itself, the panel was told that the Pentagon's top official on sexual abuse, Dr. Kaye Whitley, was ordered not to show up despite a subpoena.

"I don't know what you're trying to cover up here, but we're not going to allow it," Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, said to the Defense official who relayed the news of Whitley's no-show. "This is unacceptable."

Rep. John Tierney, the panel's chairman and a Democrat from Massachusetts, angrily responded, "these actions by the Defense Department are inexplicable."

"The Defense Department appears to be willfully and blatantly advising Dr. Whitley not to comply with a duly authorized congressional subpoena," Tierney said.

An Army official who did testify said the Army takes allegations of sexual abuse extremely seriously.

"Even one sexual assault violates the very essence of what it means to be a soldier, and it's a betrayal of the Army's core values," Lt. Gen. Michael Rochelle said.

The committee also heard from Mary Lauterbach, the mother of Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, a 20-year-old pregnant Marine who was killed in December, allegedly by a fellow Marine.

Mary Lauterbach said her daughter filed a rape claim with the military against Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean seven months before he was accused of killing her.

"I believe that Maria would be alive today if the Marines had provided a more effective system to protect the victims of sexual assault," she said.

In the months after her daughter filed the rape claim, she said, the military didn't seem to take her seriously, and the onus was on "Maria to connect the dots."

"The victim should not have the burden to generate evidence for the command," Lauterbach told the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs. "Maria is dead, but there will be many more victims in the future, I promise you. I'm here to ask you to do what you can to help change how the military treats victims of crime and to ensure the victims receive the support and protection they need and they deserve."

Another woman, Ingrid Torres, described being raped on a U.S. base in Korea when she worked with the American Red Cross.

"I was raped while I slept," she said.

The man who assaulted her, she said, was a flight director who was found guilty and dismissed from the Air Force.

Fighting back tears, Torres added, "he still comes after me in my dreams."

The Government Accountability Office released preliminary results from an investigation into sexual assaults in the military and the Coast Guard. The GAO found that the "occurrences of sexual assault may be exceeding the rates being reported."

"At the 14 installations where GAO administered its survey, 103 service members indicated that they had been sexually assaulted within the preceding 12 months. Of these, 52 service members indicated that they did not report the sexual assault," the GAO said.

The office found that the military and Coast Guard have established policies to address sexual assault but that the implementation of the programs is hampered by an array of factors, including that "most, but not all, commanders support the programs."

"Left unchecked, these challenges can discourage or prevent some service members from using the programs when needed," the GAO said.

By Renee Schoof

McClatchy

WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency told the Bush administration that by law California should be able to set air-quality standards tougher than federal law, but President Bush rejected the advice and made clear he wanted a single national standard, a former EPA official said Tuesday.

The testimony from whistle-blower Jason Burnett came as the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee's chairwoman, Sen. Barbara Boxer, is investigating what the California Democrat charges is an effort by the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office to cover up the threat from global warming.

Burnett told the committee that EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson went to the White House last year with a plan to grant California a waiver that would allow it to set tougher standards, at least for several years.

Bush made it clear he preferred a single national standard, Burnett said, and in the end Johnson denied California's request. Johnson has said that there was nothing unique in California's situation that supported granting the waiver and he made the decision independently.

The administration has denied Boxer's requests for e-mails and other documents. She plans to hold a vote Thursday in her committee to subpoena the documents but needs at least two Republican members to attend for a quorum.

A key e-mail that Boxer wants disclosed is an EPA document that describes how global warming endangers public health and welfare. Burnett sent the e-mail to the White House in December. He said Tuesday he sent it only after making last-minute checks that the agency was ready to release it and the White House Office of Management and Budget was ready to receive it.

The White House asked Burnett to withdraw the e-mail, but he refused. The OMB declined to open it. By not officially receiving the e-mail, the OMB ensured that it couldn't be made public.

The finding Burnett helped draft and sent the OMB was the agency's response to a Supreme Court ruling in April 2007.

"This president, I believe, made a decision that flies in the face of a Supreme Court case, and so I believe it is clearly unlawful," Boxer said.

Burnett described for the committee how the EPA produced a report based on the findings of thousands of scientists whose peer-reviewed work on how emissions of heat-trapping gases were causing the Earth to warm was produced or endorsed by the government.

Burnett said that officials from the White House, the vice president's office, the Department of Energy and other agencies agreed at a Cabinet-level meeting in November that greenhouse gases endangered the public and regulation was needed.

But soon afterward, the administration decided to get public comment instead of proceeding with EPA regulation of vehicles under the Clean Air Act. On Dec. 19, the White House announced it was denying California's request.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Tuesday that Johnson had taken the views of administration officials into account but made his own decision.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXVI No. 456

(AP)

EDMONTON, Alberta (July 29) -- A chunk of ice spreading across seven square miles has broken off a Canadian ice shelf in the Arctic, scientists said Tuesday.

Derek Mueller, a research at Trent University, was careful not to blame global warming, but said it the event was consistent with the theory that the current Arctic climate isn't rebuilding ice sheets.

"We're in a different climate now," he said. "It's not conducive to regrowing them. It's a one-way process."

Mueller said the sheet broke away last week from the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf off the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada's far north. He said a crack in the shelf was first spotted in 2002 and a survey this spring found a network of fissures.

The sheet is the biggest piece shed by one of Canada's six ice shelves since the Ayles shelf broke loose in 2005 from the coast of Ellesmere, about 500 miles from the North Pole.

Formed by accumulating snow and freezing meltwater, ice shelves are large platforms of thick, ancient sea ice that float on the ocean's surface. Ellesmere Island was once entirely ringed by a single enormous ice shelf that broke up in the early 1900s.

At 170 square miles and 130-feet thick, the Ward Hunt shelf is the largest of those remnants. Mueller said it has been steadily declining since the 1930s.

Gary Stern, co-leader of an international research program on sea ice, said it's the same story all around the Arctic.

Speaking from the Coast Guard icebreaker Amundsen in Canada's north, Stern said he hadn't seen any ice in weeks.

Plans to set up an ice camp last February had to be abandoned when usually dependable ice didn't form for the second year in a row, he said.

"Nobody on the ship is surprised anymore," Stern said. "We've been trying to get the word out for the longest time now that things are happening fast and they're going to continue to happen fast."

By David Goldman

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Renewed fears about the battered housing market and rising unemployment sent stocks into a tailspin Thursday.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost 283 points, tumbling 2.4%. The Dow finished 30 points higher Wednesday as investors cheered falling oil prices despite a cautious report on the economy from the Federal Reserve.

The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index (SPX) index fell 2.3% from Wednesday's close. The Nasdaq composite index (COMP) sank 2% in Thursday trading.

The double whammy of slumping existing home sales and a jump in jobless claims renewed investor jitters that tough economic times are far from over.

That sent financial sector stocks plummeting, dragging the rest of the market down with them. With recent steep bank losses, dour economic indicators led investors to fear that the nation's lingering credit crisis would continue for the long-haul.

"Investors don't see any turn in the housing market," said Robert Philips, president and chief investment officer of Walnut Asset Management.

The subprime mortgage meltdown led to a crisis in lending and credit, the main sources of revenue for banks.

"That compounds all the issues that confront financials," Philips added.

Stocks opened mixed in the first few minutes of trading, as techs got a boost from a strong quarterly earnings report from Amazon.com, while an $8.7 billion loss from Ford Motor pressured blue chips. But stocks quickly turned much lower as the weak economic news was absorbed.

Investors will see if the economy can produce some better news Friday, as reports on durable goods orders, consumer sentiment and new home sales are due. Economists, however, expect all three indicators to weaken further Friday.

Economic woes: A report from the U.S. Labor Department showed new unemployment claims rose much more than expected last week. New applications filed for jobless benefits rose by a seasonally adjusted 34,000 to 406,000 - a level not seen since hurricanes devastated the Gulf Coast in September 2005.

"Investors are concerned over the weaker economic data that's coming through Thursday," said Bill Stone, chief investment strategist with PNC Wealth Management. "With more jobless claims, people can't pay their bills, which means more write-offs for companies."

Also driving down stocks was a report from the National Association of Realtors that showed homeowner sales fell 2.6% to a lower-than-expected 4.86 million annual rate in June. The economy has remained in a slump as home sales continue to decline, leading to a slowdown in consumer spending as American homeowners' purchasing power dries up.

Furthermore, the percentage of vacant homes available for sale in the second quarter of 2008 fell just slightly from the record high set in the first quarter, according to Census Bureau figures released Thursday.

That helped drag down shares of homebuilders, as the large inventory of homes must be sold off before contractors can profit from building new ones.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXVI No. 455

By Joseph Neff

Blackwater obtained dozens of small business contracts worth more than $110 million even though the private security company may have exceeded size limits for a small business, according to a federal audit released today.

The Inspector General of the Small Business Administration said Blackwater, based in Moyock, N.C., obtained 39 contracts set aside for small businesses from 2005 through 2007. Of these, 32 contracts worth $2.1 million were set aside for companies with annual revenues of $6.5 million or less.

Blackwater's revenues have exceeded $200 million each of those years, according to federal contracting data.

The Inspector General also found fault with the handling of aviation contracts worth $107 million that the Defense Department awarded Blackwater. The contract was set aside either for a company with less than $25.5 million in annual revenue, or a company with less than 1,500 employees.

The report said the company may have improperly classified Blackwater guards in Iraq and Afghanistan as independent contractors rather than employees.

The report also criticized the Small Business Administration for not examining Blackwater's contention that its security forces in Iraq and Afghanistan are not employees, but independent contractors.

The audit was requested in March by Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said the company had not yet seen the audit and could not comment.

By Michael Astor (AP)

Hundreds of baby penguins swept from the icy shores of Antarctica and Patagonia are washing up dead on Rio de Janeiro's tropical beaches, rescuers and penguin experts said Friday.

More than 400 penguins, most of them young, have been found dead on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro state over the past two months, according to Eduardo Pimenta, superintendent for the state coastal protection and environment agency in the resort city of Cabo Frio.

While it is common here to find some penguins — both dead and alive — swept by strong ocean currents from the Strait of Magellan, Pimenta said there have been more this year than at any time in recent memory.

Rescuers and those who treat penguins are divided over the possible causes.

Thiago Muniz, a veterinarian at the Niteroi Zoo, said he believed overfishing has forced the penguins to swim further from shore to find fish to eat "and that leaves them more vulnerable to getting caught up in the=2 0strong ocean currents."

Niteroi, the state's biggest zoo, already has already received about 100 penguins for treatment this year and many are drenched in petroleum, Muniz said. The Campos oil field that supplies most of Brazil's oil lies offshore.

Muniz said he hadn't seen penguins suffering from the effects of other pollutants, but he pointed out that already dead penguins aren't brought in for treatment.

Pimenta suggested pollution is to blame.

"Aside from the oil in the Campos basin, the pollution is lowering the animals' immunity, leaving them vulnerable to funguses and bacteria that attack their lungs," Pimenta said, quoting biologists who work with him.

But biologist Erli Costa of Rio de Janeiro's Federal University suggested weather patterns could be involved.

"I don't think the levels of pollution are high enough to affect the birds so quickly. I think instead we're seeing more young and sick penguins because of global warming, which affects ocean currents and creates more cyclones, making the seas rougher," Costa said.

Costa said the vast majority of penguins turning up are baby birds that have just left the nest and are unable to out-swim the strong ocean currents they encounter while searching for food.

By Susan Schmidt and Glenn R. Simpson

Influential former Pentagon official Richard Perle has been exploring going into the oil business in Iraq and Kazakhstan, according to people with knowledge of the matter and documents outlining possible deals.

Mr. Perle, one of a group of security experts who began pushing the case for toppling Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein about a decade ago, has been discussing a possible deal with officials of northern Iraq's Kurdistan regional government, including its Washington envoy, according to these people and the documents.

It would involve a tract called K18, near the Kurdish city of Erbil, according to documents describing the plan. A consortium founded by Turkish company AK Group International is seeking rights to drill there, the documents say.

Potential backers include two Turkish companies as well as Kazakhstan, according to individuals involved.

AK's chief executive is Aydan Kodaloglu, who, like Mr. Perle, has been involved with the American Turkish Council, an advocacy group in Washington. She didn't respond to requests for comment. Phyllis Kaminsky, who identified herself as the U.S. contact for Ms. Kodaloglu, said she herself was aware of the drilling plan but referred questions about it to Mr. Perle.

"Richard would know the most," Ms. Kaminsky said. "He is involved, I know that."

People with knowledge of the discussions said they involve Alexander Mirtchev, a Washington consultant and adviser to the government of Kazakhstan, and an associate of his, Kaloyan Dimitrov. Mr. Perle has attended events promoting the interests of Kazakhstan, an oil-rich nation whose ruler, Nursultan Nazarbayev, is involved in a long-running U.S. investigation of 1990s-era oil-company bribery. Mr. Perle has publicly lauded President Nazarbayev as "visionary and wise," according to a publication distributed by the Kazakh embassy in Washington.

Mr. Perle said by email that Mr. Mirtchev is a friend of his who once spent a night at his vacation home in France. Mr. Perle said Mr. Mirtchev is "justly...proud of his influence on the liberalization of the Kazakh economy."

Asked about pursuing oil concessions, Mr. Perle said, "I am not involved in any consortium involving Mr. Mirtchev or Mr. Dimitrov, nor am I 'framing plans for a consortium'" involving either one. He declined to elaborate.

Brian Shaughnessy, a lawyer for Mr. Mirtchev, said his client "is not working on oil related projects in Kazakhstan or Kurdistan with Richard Perle, nor have they done any business deals of this nature." A lawyer for Mr. Dimitrov didn't respond to questions about oil discussions.

A spokesman for Qubat Talabani, the Kurdistan regional government's representative in the U.S., confirmed that the envoy had been approached by Mr. Perle. In a statement, Mr. Talabani said "one of my duties...is to seek out potential investors for our new, growing economy in Iraqi Kurdistan as well as respond...to all legitimate requests for investment information."

Kurdish authorities have been granting oil-drilling contracts even though Iraq's central government and the Bush administration want them to hold off until a national oil law is passed.

The K18 concession, which is estimated to hold 150 million or more barrels of oil, would potentially be operated by Houston-based Endeavour International, according to documents and people familiar with the discussions. A spokeswoman for Endeavour said, "At this point we wouldn't have anything definitely going on, and we wouldn't comment on anything that hadn't been publicly announced."

Mr. Perle also has explored obtaining an oil concession in Kazakhstan in tandem with a northern Iraq deal, according to people familiar with those discussions.

Mr. Perle, who was an assistant Defense secretary in the Reagan administration, is known for his strong support of Israel and hawkish views on arms control. In the early days of the Bush administration, he was one of the most influential proponents of U.S. military action to oust Iraq's President Hussein.

Mr. Perle was chairman of the Defense Policy Board, which advises the Pentagon, but resigned in March 2003 amid criticism of his role as an adviser to a telecom company that was seeking U.S. government approval for a sale to Asian investors. He is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute think tank.

Every year, Brazil airlifts dozens of penguins back to Antarctica or Patagonia.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXVI No. 454

By Richard Wolf (USA Today)

WASHINGTON — The White House has increased its estimate for next year's deficit to nearly $490 billion, a record figure that will saddle the next president with deepening budget problems in his first year in office, a report due out Monday shows.

The projected deficit for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 is being driven higher by the continuing economic slowdown and larger-than-anticipated costs of the two-year, $168 billion fiscal stimulus package passed by Congress, said two senior administration officials with direct knowledge of the report. In February, President Bush predicted the 2009 deficit would be $407 billion.

The budget update shows this year's deficit headed under $400 billion, at least $10 billion less than projected, according to the two officials. That's partly because tax revenue held up reasonably well despite the weaker economy.

The rising deficit for 2009 marks a sharp turnaround for Bush's fiscal legacy. He inherited a $128 billion surplus when he came into office in 2001. It soon turned to red ink because of a recession, the Sept. 11 attacks and the war on terrorism.

Curbing the deficit will fall to Bush's successor and the next Congress following a time when taxes were cut and major spending initiatives were undertaken, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, transportation projects, farm subsidies, Medicare prescription drug coverage and a recently passed expansion of veterans' education benefits.

The actual 2009 deficit could climb still higher because the new projection does not reflect full funding for the wars. In addition, a worsening economy could add to the red ink by reducing tax revenue and increasing safety-net payments, such as jobless benefits and food stamps.

Both presidential candidates have proposed tax cuts that could further swell the deficit. The non-partisan Tax Policy Center estimates that Republican John McCain's cuts would cost $4.2 trillion and Democrat Barack Obama's $2.8 trillion over 10 years. Neither candidate has specified major spending cuts he would make to reduce the deficit.

"The picture's looking pretty dark out there," said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. He credited Bush's tax cuts with creating six years of economic growth but "on the spending side, their record is not good."

White House budget director Jim Nussle said that despite the surplus Bush started with, he faced a deficit in defense, intelligence and homeland security that had to be bolstered after 9/11.

"This is not just a mathematical exercise," he said in an interview with USA TODAY. Nussle said an economic recovery and a renewed effort by Congress to control spending could rein in the deficit.

Bush proposed in recent years to slow the growth of spending in programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Those efforts were ignored by Congress — most recently last week, when the House voted to sidestep a provision of the 2003 Medicare prescription drug law that would have required lower Medicare spending.

The biggest budget deficit recorded to date was $413 billion in 2004. In today's dollars, that would be about $478 billion. As a share of the economy, the 2009 deficit would be 3% to 4%, below the post-World War II record of 6% set in 1983.

By Lara Jakes Jordan (AP)

Top aides to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales broke the law by letting politics influence the hiring of career prosecutors and immigration judges at the Justice Department, says an internal report released Monday.

Gonzales was largely unaware of the hiring decisions by two of his most trusted aides, according to the report by Justice's Office of Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility.

But it singles out his former White House liaison, Monica Goodling, for violating federal law and Justice Department policy by discriminating against job applicants who weren't Republican or conservative loyalists.

"Goodling improperly subjected candidates for certain career positions to the same politically based evaluation she used on candidates for political positions," the report concluded.

In one instance, Justice investigators found, Goodling objected to hiring an assistant prosecutor in Washington because "judging from his resume, he appeared to be a liberal Democr at."

In another, she rejected an experienced terror prosecutor to work on counterterror issues at a Justice Department headquarters office "because of his wife's political affiliations," the report found. It also found she rejected at least one job applicant who was rumored to be a lesbian.

Goodling's attorney, John Dowd, declined comment Monday. Attempts to reach her were not immediately successful.

Additionally, a majority of immigration judge candidates considered by former Gonzales chief of staff Kyle Sampson were recommended by the White House's political affairs office — including one name forwarded by then-top adviser Karl Rove. Sampson told investigators that he did not consider those jobs to be protected from political considerations.

His lawyer, Brad Berenson, described those hiring decisions as an honest mistake and said that Sampson "immediately agreed with the recommendation to put a stop to this process" when he first learned he may have been wrong.

The federal government makes a distinction between so-called "career" appointees and "political" appointees, and the long-accepted custom has been that career workers are not hired on the basis of political affiliation or allegiance.

The 140-page report does not indicate whether Goodling or Sampson could face any charges. None of those involved in the discriminatory hiring still work at Justice, meaning they will avoid any departmental penalties.

However, Justice investigators said that bar associations that license lawyers have asked about the report's findings on Goodling — indicating she could be sanctioned there, potentially including losing her ability to practice law.

Congressional investigators said they also were considering asking the Justice Department to pursue perjury charges against Goodling, Sampson and possibly Gonzales as a result of their spoken or written congressional testimony during House and Senate investigations last year. Lying to Congress is a crime.

Democrats said the report affirms their charges of White House meddling in the hiring and firing of Justice Department employees.

"The cost to our nation of these apparent crimes was severe, as qualified individuals were rejected for key positions in the fight against terrorism and other critical department jobs for no reason other than political whim," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich.

"The report also indicates that Monica Goodling, Kyle Sampson, and Alberto Gonzales may have lied to the Congress about these matters," Conyers added. "I have directed my staff to closely review this matter and to consider whether a criminal referral for perjury is needed."

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said "it is crystal clear that the law was broken" by the political hiring process.

"But since it is unlikely that Monica Goodling acted on her own," Schumer added, "the question is, how many others were involved."

In their report, Justice investigators sought to find whether Republican politics were driving hiring polices at the nation's premier law enforcement agency whose appointees are expected to be selected on a nonpartisan basis. The investi gation is one of several that examine accusations that Bush administration politics drove prosecution, policy and employment decisions within the Justice Department.

Those accusations were initially spurred by the firings of nine U.S. attorneys in late 2006 and culminated with Gonzales' resignation under fire as attorney general last September.

Gonzales, who has kept a low profile since leaving the department said in a statement that "political considerations should play no part in the hiring of career officials at the Department of Justice. ...I agree with the report's recommendations." His attorney, George Terwilliger, defended Gonzales by saying "it's simply not possible for any Cabinet officer to be completely aware of and micromanage the activities of staffers, particularly where they don't inform him of what's going on."

The man who replaced Gonzales, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, said he is "of course disturbed" by the findings.

"I have said many times, both to members of the public and to department employees, it is neither permissible nor acceptable to consider political affiliations in the hiring of career departm ent employees," Mukasey said in a statement shortly after the report was released Monday morning. "And I have acted, and will continue to act, to ensure that my words are translated into reality so that the conduct described in this report does not occur again at the department."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said the report indicates that the effort to politicize federal law enforcement was not just the actions of a few "bad apples," but administration policy.

He called it "a clear indication of the untoward political influence of the Bush administration on traditionally nonpolitical appointments."

(ACLU)

Memo Dated January 28, 2003, from CIA to OLC
Contains "communications from the CIA to OLC on a matter in which the CIA requested legal advice from OLC" and shows that CIA interrogators were permitted to use both "Standard Techniques" and "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" and that in each CIA interrogation session in which an Enhanced Technique was employed, a "contemporaneous record" was created setting forth, among other things, "the nature and duration of each such technique employed" and "the identities of those present."

Memo Dated August 4, 2004, from CIA to OLC
Contains "communications from the CIA to OLC on a matter in which the CIA requested legal advice from OLC" and shows that CIA interrogators were told that the Justice Department had concluded that certain interrogation techniques, "including the waterboard," did not violate the torture statute. The document also indicates that CIA interrogators were told to take into account the possibility that their actions would ultimately be subject to judicial review.

Memo Dated August 1, 2002, from OLC to CIA
Memo "advising the CIA regarding interrogation methods it may use against al Qaeda members," and includes information "regarding potential interrogation methods and the context in which their use was contemplated." The document also discusses "alternative interrogation methods," a phrase that was echoed by President Bush in a September 2006 speech promoting the Military Commissions Act. Though heavily redacted, the document shows that the Justice Department authorized alternative interrogation methods after concluding that "those carrying out these procedures would not have the specific intent to inflict severe physical pain or suffering" or "to cause severe mental pain or suffering." The memo explains: "Prolonged mental harm is substantial mental harm of sustained duration, e.g. harm lasting months or even years after the acts were inflicted upon the prisoner." The memo also includes this sentence: "Your review of the literature uncovered no empirical data on the use of these procedures, with the exception [redacted]." The memo is signed by Jay Bybee, who also signed the "organ failure" memo issued to the CIA the same day, and who is now a federal appellate judge.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 453

By Saeed Shah

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan's intelligence agencies and police have disappeared hundreds of Pakistanis, including children as young as 9, as part of the U.S.-led war on terrorism, Amnesty International charged Wednesday.

The missing Pakistanis frequently were tortured and have been moved among secret detention centers regularly so that they become impossible to trace, the human rights group said.

Amnesty said that allied countries, primarily the United States, had "benefited from this activity," which began under the regime of President Pervez Musharraf. Some citizens were handed over to foreign intelligence agents for questioning in Pakistan or abroad, it said.

The human rights group was highly critical of Pakistan's newly elected government for not taking firm steps to recover the apparent terrorism suspects, some of whom have been missing for up to seven years and never been charged.

Amnesty didn't give a number of those missing but backed the claims of relatives groups' that at least 563 people remain unaccounted for.

Amina Janjua, who leads one relatives' group, told McClatchy that hundreds more haven't been brought to the attention of human rights activists. She said that new cases were still coming to her, more three months after the new government took power.

Amnesty said that many of the missing were involved in nationalist movements from the smaller provinces of Baluchistan and Sindh, and it charged that the Musharraf regime had exploited the anti-terrorism agenda to crack down on political opponents.

It called for the government to compile lists of missing people and to shift detainees into official prisons and process them through the courts. "This is an easy and achievable step forward that would signal a very strong break with the policies of the government of General Musharraf," said Sam Zarifi, the Asia Pacific director at Amnesty.

"It really is a nonpolitical issue, and the government should start showing some concrete results."

Amnesty said there was little hope of progress on the missing persons until the new government reinstated the judges whom Musharraf fired last November when he put the country under six weeks of martial law. Those judges, led by deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, had hauled top officials into court and demanded that they produce the missing, a tactic that led to the recovery of dozens of people, some of whom were taken into court on stretchers.

But there's no sign that the judicial crisis is about to be resolved, as the coalition government is bitterly divided on the issue.

Janjua has met the new prime minister and the head of the Interior Ministry.

"They (the government) talk a lot, but that is not enough," said Janjua, whose husband, Masood, vanished three years ago and is thought to be in the custody of Pakistan's notorious Inter-Services Intelligence agency. "We want our loved ones back at home. For them, the politicians, this is routine, but for us, it is a matter of life and death."

Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for the Pakistan People's Party, told McClatchy that the missing-persons issue is "high on the agenda," and that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani had mentioned it to him several days ago.

Babar said that the Interior Ministry had been "tasked to call a meeting of the (intelligence) agencies and sort it out." The law minister is compiling a list of missing persons for further action, he said.

The government has kept the Supreme Court judges whom Musharraf appointed in November, who, according to activists, have taken up no human-rights cases since they were installed.

The new government also has retained Malik Qayyum, the attorney general from the previous government, as well as Kamal Shah, the chief bureaucrat at the Interior Ministry, and Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj, the head of Inter-Services Intelligence, the organization most accused of disappearing people.












By Jane Kay

Environmental groups Wednesday called on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to enforce a law that would control the thousands of pounds of toxic mercury discharged into the atmosphere every year by cement kilns in the United States.

Two of the nation's worst mercury-emitting cement kilns are in Northern California - in Cupertino and Davenport, north of Santa Cruz. They dump hundreds of pounds of the poison into the air each year and help make the Bay Area's mercury emissions the highest of any region in California.

The emissions are double those of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the next highest.

Large bodies of water - San Francisco Bay, Chesapeake Bay and Lake Huron, among others - are vulnerable to airborne mercury from 150 cement kilns across the country, said a report issued by Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project, two groups specializing in environmental law. Even small amounts of mercury are toxic and can cause numerous health problems, particularly for children.

The groups want the EPA to set standards that require continuous stack monitoring and pollution-control devices, among other measures.

"We are recommending that EPA get off its duff and regulate mercury as it should have more than 10 years ago," said Eric Shaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project and former director of the EPA's Office of Regulatory Enforcement.

On Wednesday, the two environmental groups for the first time released a figure estimating that U.S. kilns release 23,000 pounds of mercury compounds a year.

That's nearly double the amount previously reported by the companies. The revised figure comes from the EPA as part of a new rule-making process driven by lawsuits by the Sierra Club and others over the past years.

The mercury comes, in part, from limestone feedstock and petroleum coke fuel.

An EPA spokesman, Dale Kemery, said in a statement that the EPA is in the process of reconsidering the current mercury emissions standards for new and existing cement kilns. Since 1990, U.S. mercury air emissions have been reduced by 45 percent, he said.

The two groups say that 1990 amendments to Clean Air Act required the EPA to identify sectors that are major sources of air toxics and set emission standards.

The deadline for cement kiln standards was 1997, and subsequent court orders called for mercury regulations on kilns, they said.

The Northern California cement kilns put out a combined 675 pounds of mercury, according to company reporting for 2006, the latest year available. The amount of mercury emitted from each plant equals mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, the biggest emitters in the world.


The Bay Area's five oil refineries contribute 58 percent of the region's mercury air emission. The Cupertino cement kiln alone contributes 35 percent, 39 crematoria contribute 5 percent, and 240 other sources contribute 2 percent, according to research by state scientists and the San Francisco Estuary Institute, a scientific research center.

A potent toxic metal, mercury has long been known to interfere with the development of the nervous system, impairing the brain in growing children and affecting IQ, behavior and physical growth. In adults, the toxic metal can affect memory and cognition, and lead to numbness in extremities.

Mercury enters the food chain when it falls into bays and oceans and accumulates in big fish, such as swordfish, tuna and shark. Only 1/70th of a teaspoon dumped into a 20-acre lake can make fish unsafe to eat, scientists say.

In San Francisco Bay, anglers are warned against eating striped bass, carp, catfish and some other species because of mercury contamination.

The two cement kilns in Northern California are:

Hanson Permanente Cement in Cupertino. The plant, which released about 500 pounds of mercury compounds in 2006, is listed in the report the third-worst kiln in the country. The report notes that the Hanson plant "is located within a major residential area in close proximity to several Cupertino schools."

Representatives of Hanson said they wouldn't be able to comment on the emissions.

At the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, Brian Batement, director of engineering, said the cement kiln is "within levels that are considered acceptable." The company performed a health risk assessment in 1994, and there have been a series of updates over the years, he said.

CEMEX's RMC Pacific Materials plant in Davenport (Santa Cruz County). The plant reported about 175 pounds of mercury compounds and is listed as the ninth worst on the kiln list. The plant is "right beside homes and farms along California's coastline and only 40 miles north of the Monterey Bay Sanctuary," the report said.

Jennifer Borgen, a spokeswoman for CEMEX USA, said the plant is in compliance with all requirements regarding mercury. This year, the state approved the plant's health risk assessment sent by the Monterey Bay Unified Air Pollution Control District. The corporation is working closely with the EPA on new mercury emissions limits, which should be proposed in September, she said.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 452

By Sandi Doughton

The fumes that waft from top-selling air fresheners and laundry products contain dozens of chemicals, including several classified as toxic or hazardous, says a University of Washington study published today.

None of the chemicals was listed on product labels, nor does the federal government require companies to disclose ingredients in fragrances, said study author Anne Steinemann.

"I was surprised by both the number and the potential toxicity of the chemicals that were found," said Steinemann, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and public affairs.

The health effects of the chemicals are unclear, but Steinemann launched her analysis after years of fielding complaints from people who said air fresheners and other household products made them dizzy, left them short of breath or caused headaches, seizures or asthma attacks.

"After you hear about a hundred of these stories, you realize there's something going on," she said.

The report is the latest in a string of unsavory news reports about consumer products, from the presence of lead in children's toys to the discovery of hormone-disrupting compounds in plastics and baby lotions.

Steinemann's study focused on six widely used products: dryer sheets, fabric softener, laundry detergent, a liquid spray air freshener, a plug-in air freshener, and a solid disc deodorizer used in commercial-airplane toilets. A contract laboratory sealed each product inside a container, then used two types of instruments to identify chemicals emitted into the air.

Collectively, the six products gave off nearly 100 volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including acetone — the eye-stinging ingredient in nail-polish remover and paint thinner. (VOCs are compounds that vaporize easily, like paint and gasoline fumes. Many VOCs are know to be harmful.)

The study didn't report the levels of individual chemicals, but all six of the products emitted at least one substance the federal government classifies as toxic or hazardous.

Among them are three chemicals the Environmental Protection Agency considers "hazardous air pollutants" with no safe exposure levels: acetaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane, both likely human carcinogens; and methyl chloride, which has been linked to liver, kidney and nervous-system damage in animals.

A spokeswoman for the Fragrance Materials Association of the United States,
an industry group, said all ingredients are tested for safety and the results reviewed by independent scientists.

"We are certain that, when used in compliance with standards, these fragrance ingredients are safe and can be used ... with confidence," Cathy Cook said in a written statement.

For most healthy adults, slight exposure to toxic or hazardous chemicals is probably not much of a health concern, said Lance Wallace, a retired EPA scientist who is collaborating with Steinemann. But up to 30 percent of people are sensitive to perfumes and other fragrances, he pointed out.

Studies in Denmark and the U.S. have confirmed that even healthy male college students report headaches, eye irritation and other effects when exposed to a mix of volatile organic compounds.

When Steinemann and a colleague surveyed more than 2,000 people in 2004 and 2005, they found 20 percent were in some way sickened by air fresheners.

For those with asthma, the figures were nearly twice as high: Up to 37 percent reported headaches or trouble breathing.

Studies conducted by the industry-funded Research Institute for Fragrance Materials have generally reported few health effects.

Children are more sensitive to chemical exposure than adults, said Steve Gilbert, founder of Toxipedia.org, a clearinghouse on toxic chemicals. And people are usually exposed to a stew of substances, which may interact in unknown ways.

"At the very minimum, we should have a right to know what is in these products," said Gilbert, a Seattle toxicologist who was not involved in the study.

Manufacturers are not required to list the ingredients used in air fresheners, laundry products or most other consumer products, Steinemann said in her study, published in the journal Environmental Impact Assessment Review.

"There needs to be more testing of these products and greater disclosure ... so that people know what they're being exposed to," she said.

Steinemann wouldn't name the specific products tested, partly out of fear of industry lawsuits. She also said it would be unfair to single out specific companies at this point. A larger analysis, which looked at 25 different products, found many other brands contain similar chemicals. The second study is under review and will be published next year.

Her advice for people who want to reduce their exposure is to avoid use of air fresheners and buy fragrance-free laundry products.

But even that's no guarantee, she pointed out. Some products marketed as "unscented" or "fragrance-free" actually contain the same chemicals as scented products — with the addition of a "masking fragrance" that cancels out the smell.

And many products labeled "natural" or "organic" also contain some of the same chemicals.














REUTERS

HOUSTON (July 23) - A collision between a chemical tanker and a fuel barge on the Mississippi River spilled over 400,000 gallons (1,560,000 liters) of fuel oil and prompted the U.S. Coast Guard to close a 29-mile (47-km) stretch of the waterway around New Orleans, a Coast Guard spokesman said.

The river remained closed between Mile Marker 99, near the Harvey Canal, and Mile Marker 70, downstream from New Orleans, as of 3:00 p.m. CDT (4 p.m. EDT).

Vessel traffic was halted after the 1:30 a.m. CDT (2:30 a.m. EDT) collision in which the MV Tintomara cut in half an American Commercial Lines barge loaded with No. 6 fuel oil.

About 420,000 gallons of thick, slow-to-evaporate fuel spilled from the barge, but nothing leaked from the Tintomara, officials said.

A sheen at least 12 miles long spread down river, and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality said efforts were being made to minimize the impact on air and water quality and wildlife.

Drinking water intake was diverted or closed in the area and citizens were asked to conserve water use to maximize supplies on hand pending resumption of water treatment operations, the New Orleans water department said.

Cleanup crews spread booms, which are floating barriers, to try to contain the oil and keep it out of sensitive areas, said Jean Kelly, spokeswoman for the state environmental agency.

State staff were at the scene and still gathering details of the environmental impact, she said.

"We have a lot of wildlife in the southern delta," Kelly said.

The river closure stalled at least 10 vessels northbound and 15 southbound on the river, as well as 29 at locks waterways connecting to the river as of 3:00 p.m. CDT, a Coast Guard spokesman said.

Three refineries with 560,000 barrels per day of capacity were in the affected area, although there were no reports of effects on refinery operations. Some are served by pipeline rather than by vessel traffic on the river.

A Coast Guard environmental strike team also was on scene, along with helicopters and a Coast Guard vessel, the Coast Guard said. Tugboats were holding the pieces of the barge near the Crescent City Connection bridge, downstream from Harvey Canal, officials said.

Refineries in the area include Chalmette Refining LLC, which handles up to 193,000 bpd, and ConocoPhillips'
Belle Chasse refinery with 247,000 bpd capacity, both of which reported no impact. Chalmette Refining is a joint venture between Exxon Mobil and Venezuelan state oil company, PDVSA.

Murphy Oil, which owns the 120,000 bpd refinery at Meraux did not respond to telephone calls.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 451

By David Malakoff

Arguing that it's the wrong tool for the job, the Bush Administration today said that it will not use the nation's leading clean air law to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. "It would be irresponsible" to use the Clean Air Act to attack climate change, said Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Stephen Johnson, arguing that the strategy would produce decades of legal paralysis and economic disruption and few benefits.

Instead, EPA released a 588-page document that asks the public to comment on a dizzying array of issues raised by regulating greenhouse gases. Johnson says he hopes the document will help convince Congress and the public that new laws are needed to deal with global warming.

Few climate-policy experts were surprised by Johnson's move, which essentially hands off any decision on what the United States will do about climate change to the next president and Congress. "They've been delaying action, and this is more of the same," says Jody Freeman, head of the Environmental Law Program at Harvard Law School.

Today's announcement capped more than 8 years of debate within President George W. Bush's inner circle over the wisdom of using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases. As a presidential candidate in 2000, Bush supported the idea. But he quickly backpedaled once he took office. Then, in a landmark 2007 ruling, the Supreme Court said that EPA must regulate greenhouse gases under the law if it found that the gases threatened human health (ScienceNow, 2 April 2007).

Initially, it appeared that EPA might respond to the ruling by issuing preliminary regulations.

But as material included in today's document makes clear, many other government agencies opposed that idea. In one letter, for instance, White House science adviser John Marburger said that using the Clean Air Act was a bad idea, "given the very weak ability of science to predict how nations, markets, and individuals respond to their environments." As a result, Johnson said, it was impossible to address in a timely fashion all the legal and political questions raised by the court's ruling.











By Doug Smith

BAGHDAD -- Nine Iraqi civilians were killed Wednesday in two armed clashes involving U.S. soldiers, local authorities reported. The military said U.S. soldiers were fired upon first in both incidents.

In the capital, three people were killed in a fiery crash after gunfire erupted as their vehicle passed U.S. soldiers with a convoy stopped near the Baghdad international airport to recover a stalled vehicle.

Officials at Yarmouk Hospital identified the dead as a manager and two female employees from a bank at the airport. Iraqi police also reported that two bodyguards were injured.

A statement from the U.S. military characterized the three as criminals who opened fire on the military convoy about 9 a.m. The statement said that the assault left bullet holes in the U.S. vehicles and that a weapon was recovered from the wreckage.

The conflicting information in the two reports could not be immediately reconciled.

In east Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed one American soldier Wednesday, the U.S. military announced today. At least 4,110 U.S. service members have died since the war began in 2003, according to icasualties.org

Earlier Wednesday outside Tikrit, about 80 miles north of Baghdad, six people were killed and threeinjured in and near a farmhouse that was destroyed in a U.S. airstrike, police said. A U.S. ground patrol called in the strike after coming under fire.

Police said the farmer, Affar Ahmed Zidan, heard the patrol outside about 2:30 a.m. and fired three warning shots in the air, thinking the soldiers were thieves.

Zidan then phoned police for help while hiding under a tree, saying he feared the Americans would bomb him, police said.

A neighbor, Tariq Azzawi, said Zidan was killed beside the tree and his wife and three children were killed in the house. The hospital raised the toll to six.

A statement from the U.S. military said the patrol was fired upon and surveillance teams observed an armed man moving into a nearby group of buildings. The airstrike was ordered when he refused to come out.

The man was killed and four women were slightly injured, but a thorough search did not reveal any other deaths, the statement said.

Civilian deaths at the hands of the U.S. military and private security contractors are a nagging cause of resentment with the Iraqi public and have become a sticking point in negotiations on an agreement to allow U.S.-led forces to remain in Iraq after the United Nations mandate expires at the end of the year.

The Iraqi government is seeking legal jurisdiction in all cases involving injury or death to Iraqis. U.S. negotiators are willing to allow private security contractors to come under Iraqi law, but not the military.

Elsewhere in Iraq on Wednesday, a Mosul City Council member and his driver were fatally shot in an ambush. A car bomb went off near an ice cream shop in east Baghdad, killing three and injuring seven, police said. And two people were killed and four people were injured in Karbala when a bomb detonated in a microbus.

In Washington, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani met with President Bush in the White House.

Talabani's office released a statement saying he praised Bush as "a great friend of the Iraqi people" and pledged to work toward a security agreement between the two countries.

By H. Josef Herbert (AP)

Vice President Dick Cheney's office pushed for major deletions in congressional testimony on the public health consequences of climate change, fearing the presentation by a leading health official might make it harder to avoid regulating greenhouse gases, a former EPA officials maintains.

When six pages were cut from testimony on climate change and public health by the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last October, the White House insisted the changes were made because of reservations raised by White House advisers about the accuracy of the science.

But Jason K. Burnett, until last month the senior adviser on climate change to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson, says that Cheney's office was deeply involved in getting nearly half of the CDC's original draft testimony removed.

"The Council on Environmental Quality and the office of the vice president were seeking deletions to the CDC testimony (concerning) ... any discussions of the human health consequences of climate change," Burnett has told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

The three-page letter, a response to an inquiry by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the panel's chairwoman, was obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. Boxer planned a news conference later in the day.

Burnett, 31, a lifelong Democrat who resigned his post last month as associate deputy EPA administrator because of disagreements over the agency's response to climate change, describes deep political concerns at the White House, including in Cheney's office, about linking climate change directly to public health or damage to the environment.

Scientists believe manmade pollution is warming the earth and if the process is not reversed it will cause significant climate changes that pose broad public health problems from increases in disease to more injuries from severe weather.

Senate and House committees have been trying for months to get e-mail exchanges and other documents to determine the extent of political influence on government scientists, but have been rebuffed.

The letter by Burnett for the first time suggests that Cheney's office was deeply involved in downplaying the impacts of climate change as related to public health and welfare, Senate investigators believe.

Cheney's office also objected last January over congressional testimony by Administrator Johnson that "greenhouse gas emissions harm the environment."

An official in Cheney's office "called to tell me that his office wanted the language changed" with references to climate change harming the environment deleted, Burnett said. Nevertheless, the phrase was left in Johnson's testimony.

Cheney's office and the White House Council on Environmental Quality worried that if key health officials provided detailed testimony about global warming's consequences on public health or the environment, it could make it more difficult to avoid regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, Burnett believes.

The EPA currently is examining whether carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas, poses a danger to public health and welfare. The Supreme Court has said if it does, it must be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

Nowhere were these White House concerns more apparent than when CDC Director Julie Gerberding, the head of the government's premier public health watchdog, testified about climate change and public health before Boxer's committee last October. The White House deleted six of the original 14 pages of Gerberding's testimony, including a list of likely public health impacts of global warming.

The White House, at the urging of Cheney's office, "requested that I work with CDC to remove from the testimony any discussion of the human health consequences of climate change," wrote Burnett.

"CEQ contacted me to argue that I could best keep options open for the (EPA) administrator (on regulating carbon dioxide) if I would convince CDC to delete particular sections of their testimony," Burnett said in the letter to Boxer.

But he said he refused to press CDC on the deletions because he believed the CDC's draft testimony was "fundamentally accurate."

Burnett, in a telephone interview, said he opposed making the extensive deletions because "it was the right thing to do." He declined to elaborate about White House involvement beyond his July 6 letter to Boxer.

As a Democrat, Burnett, seems to have been an odd choice as a senior policy adviser and key liaison with the White House in Bush administration's EPA.

Over the last eight years, he has contributed nearly $125,000 to various Democratic politicians, starting with Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign, according to the Center for Responsive Government. He supports Democrat Barack Obama for president.

Burnett caught the attention of Bush administration insiders as a researcher at the Center for Regulatory Study, a joint effort by the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution, where he co-authored a number of reports on regulation including one criticizing a ban on using cell phones while driving and another criticizing the EPA regulation of arsenic as too expensive with limited benefits.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 450

By Scott Shane

WASHINGTON — Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the CIA's interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes, according to a new book on counterterrorism efforts since 2001.

The book says that the International Committee of the Red Cross declared in the report, given to the C.I.A. last year, that the methods used on Abu Zubaydah the first major Qaeda figure the United States captured, were “categorically” torture, which is illegal under both American and international law.

The book says Abu Zubaydah was confined in a box “so small he said he had to double up his limbs in the fetal position” and was one of several prisoners to be “slammed against the walls,” according to the Red Cross report. The C.I.A. has admitted that Abu Zubaydah and two other prisoners were waterboarded, a practice in which water is poured on the nose and mou th to create the sensation of suffocation and drowning.

The book, “The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals,” by Jane Mayer, who writes about counterterrorism for The New Yorker, offers new details of the agency’s secret detention program, as well as the bitter debates in the administration over interrogation methods and other tactics in the campaign against Al Qaeda.

The book is scheduled for publication next week by Doubleday. The New York Times obtained an advance copy.

Citing unnamed “sources familiar with the report,” Ms. Mayer wrote that the Red Cross document “warned that the abuse constituted war crimes, placing the highest officials in the U.S. government in jeopardy of being prosecuted.”

Red Cross representatives were not permitted access to the secret prisons where the C.I.A. conducted interrogations, but were permitted to interview Abu Zubaydah and other high-level detainees in late 2006, after they were moved to the military detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

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The book says the C.I.A. shared the report, which Ms. Mayer first described last year in less detail in The New Yorker, with President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Bernard Barrett of the International Committee of the Red Cross declined to comment on the book except to say that the committee “regrets that any information has been attributed to us” because it believes its work is more effective when confidential.

He did confirm that committee personnel “are regularly visiting” the high-level Qaeda prisoners, now at Guantánamo Bay. “We have an ongoing confidential dialogue with members of the U.S. intelligence community, and we would share any observations or recommendations with them.”

The book says Abu Zubaydah told the Red Cross that he had been waterboarded at least 10 times in a single week and as many as three times in a day.

The book also reports that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed the chief planner of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, told the Red Cross that he had been kept naked for more than a month and claimed that he had been “kept alternately in suffocating heat and in a painfully cold room.”

The report says the prisoners considered the “most excruciating” of the methods being shackled to the ceiling and being forced to stand for as long as eight hours. Eleven of the 14 prisoners reported prolonged sleep deprivation, the book says, including “bright lights and eardrum-shattering sounds 24 hours a day.”

Ms. Mayer acknowledges that Red Cross investigators based their account largely on interviews with the prisoners. But she writes that several C.I.A. officers she spoke with confirmed parts of the Red Cross description.

A C.I.A. spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, confirmed that Red Cross workers had been “granted access to the detained terrorists at Guantánamo and heard their claims.” He said the agency’s interrogations were based on “detailed legal guidance from the Department of Justice” and had “produced solid information tha t has contributed directly to the disruption of terrorist activities.”

“The Dark Side” also describes a frightening false alarm at the White House on Oct. 18, 2001, when, it says, an alarm went off on a machine designed to detect biological, chemical or radiological attacks. Among those who believed they might have been exposed to a pathogen was Vice President Dick Cheney.

Ms. Mayer quotes an unnamed “former administration official” as saying, “They thought that Cheney was already lethally infected.”

A spokeswoman for Mr. Cheney, Lea Anne McBride, said his office had not seen the book and could not comment. An administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to comment on the issue said aides had investigated the book’s account at Ms. Mayer’s request and that “no one recalls such an incident.”

By Ashley Seager

Despite spending $230m (£115m) an hour on healthcare, Americans live shorter lives than citizens of almost every other developed country. And while it has the second-highest income per head in the world, the United States ranks 42nd in terms of life expectancy.

These are some of the startling conclusions from a major new report which attempts to explain why the world's number-one economy has slipped to 12th place - from 2nd in 1990- in terms of human development.

The American Human Development Report, which applies rankings of health, education and income to the US, paints a surprising picture of a country that spends well over $5bn each day on healthcare - more per person than any other country.

The report, Measure of America, was funded by Oxfam America, the Conrad Hilton Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. It shows each of the 11 countries that rank higher than the US in human development has a lower per-capita income.

Those countries score better on the health and knowledge indices that make up the overall human development index (HDI),=2 0which is calculated each year by the United Nations Development Programme.

And each has achieved better outcomes in areas such as infant mortality and longevity, with less spending per head.

Japanese, for example, can expect to outlive Americans, on average, by more than four years. In fact, citizens of Israel, Greece, Singapore, Costa Rica, South Korea and every western European and Nordic country save one can expect to live longer than Americans.

There are also wider differences, the report shows. The average Asian woman, for example, lives for almost 89 years, while African-American women live until 76. For men of the same groups, the difference is 14 years.

One of the main problems faced by the US, says the report, is that one in six Americans, or about 47 million people, are not covered by health insurance and so have limited access to healthcare.

As a result, the US is ranked 42nd in global life expectancy and 34th in terms of infants surviving to age one. The US infant mortality rate is on a par with that of Croatia, Cuba, Estonia and Poland. If the US could match top-ranked Sweden, about 20,000 more American babies a year would live to their first birthday.

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"Human development is concerned with what I take to be the basic development idea: namely, advancing the richness of human life, rather than the richness of the economy in which human beings live, which is only a part of it," said the Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen, who developed the HDI in 1990.

"We get in this report ... an evaluation of what the limitations of human development are in the US but also ... how the relative place of America has been slipping in comparison with other countries over recent years."

The US has a higher percentage of children living in poverty than any of the world's richest countries.

In fact, the report shows that 15% of American children - 10.7 million - live in families with incomes of less than $1,500 per month.

It also reveals 14% of the population - some 40 million Americans - lack the literacy skills to perform simple, everyday tasks such as understanding newspaper articles and instruction manuals.

And while in much of Europe, Canada, Japan and Russia, levels of enrolment of three and four-year-olds in pre-school are running at about 75%, in the US it is little more than 50%.

The report not only highlights the differences between the US and other countries, it also picks up on the huge discrepancies between states, the country's 436 congressional districts and between ethnic groups.

"The Measure of America reveals huge gaps among some groups in our country to access opportunity and reach their potential," said the report's co-author, Sarah Burd-Sharps. "Some Americans are living anywhere from 30 to 50 years behind others when it comes to issues we all care about: health, education and standard of living.

"For example, the state human development index shows that people in last-ranked Mississippi are living 30 years behind those in first-ranked Connecticut."

Inequality remains stark. The richest fifth of Americans earn on average $168,170 a year, almost 15 times the average of the lowest fifth, who make do with $11,352.

The US is far behind many other countries in the support given to working families, particularly in terms of family leave, sick leave and childcare. The country has no federally mandated maternity leave.

The US also ranks first among the 30 rich countries of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development in terms of the number of people in prison, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of the total population.

It has 5% of the world's people but 24% of its prisoners.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 449

By Martin Crutsinger

WASHINGTON (July 15) - Soaring costs for gasoline and food pushed inflation at the wholesale level up by a larger-than-expected amount in June, leaving inflation rising over the past year at the fastest pace in more than a quarter-century.

The Labor Department reported that wholesale prices jumped by 1.8 percent last month, the biggest one-month rise since last November. Over the past 12 months, wholesale prices are up 9.2 percent, the largest year-over-year surge since June 1981, another period when soaring energy costs were giving the country inflation pains.

Core inflation, which excludes energy and food, was better behaved in June, rising by just 0.2 percent, slightly lower than expectations.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who was scheduled to deliver his mid-year report on the economy to Congress on Tuesday, was expected to highlight the threat posed by inflation pressures. The central bank at its June meeting brought an end to an aggressive rate-cutting campaign that had been designed to keep a prolonged housing slump and severe credit crunch from pushing the country into a deep recession.

The central bank is currently caught between the opposing forces of rising inflation and slumping economic growth.

For June, energy prices at the wholesale level shot up by 6 percent, as the price of gasoline surged by 9 percent following an even bigger 9.3 percent increase in May.













By Ashley Powers

LAS VEGAS -- Teri Zunick rapped on the window of a downtown pawnshop. She was wilting in 113-degree heat, and clutching the gold bracelet she needed to hock so her electricity would stay on.

Zunick, 45, is also struggling to pay her mortgage and fill up her $60-a-tank SUV. She has stopped getting her pool professionally cleaned. She plans to cancel her cable subscription.

But desperate to pay her electric bill -- now -- Zunick had few options besides Gold & Silver Pawn, a 24-hour shop on a gritty sliver of Las Vegas Boulevard.

Business there is terrific.

When the economy is troubled and the rent takes precedence over heirlooms, the pawnbroker is king. Skyrocketing gas and grocery bills and a rash of foreclosures have been windfalls for the industry's nearly 13,000 shops. So has the surging price of gold, at more than $900 an ounce; people are cashing in their pins, watches, earrings, necklaces and wedding bands.

Earnings of the three publicly traded pawn companies -- Cash America International Inc., EZCORP Inc. and First Cash Financial Services Inc. -- grew by double-digit percentages this year.

Last week, at the National Pawnbrokers Assn. convention here, shop owners said they were lending more money to more customers for longer periods. Even the well-to-do are bringing in motorcycles, laptops and power tools for cash, pawnbrokers said.

"If it weren't for me, by the 15th of the month the whole town would go dark -- they couldn't pay their utility bills," said Larry Hipps, who owns Larry's Jewelry & Pawn in Florence, Ala.

Pawnshops specialize in small loans -- the average is $75 -- and hold everything from televisions to saddles as collateral. More than two-thirds of customers redeem their goods by paying back their loans plus interest, said the pawnbrokers association. The shops sell the remaining items.

Pawnbrokers' experiences are a window on how the economic downturn has wounded the working class.

"The sector we deal with is living paycheck to paycheck," said Frank Ellis, a vice president for Capitol City Pawn & Jewelry, which has nine stores in Nebraska and Kansas.

Many customers are extending their loans by 30 to 45 days -- presumably because it's tougher to scrape together money. "They don't want to lose what they have," Ellis said.

Typically, spring and summer are sluggish for Joe Maciaszek's American Cash Pawn in Monroe, La. The store usually extends eight to 10 pawn loans a day, but the rate has tripled in recent months. His employees are forced to quiz customers more thoroughly.

"We have to be aware of the economy," said Kathy Summers, Maciaszek's daughter. "If they're coming in to get gas money, what can they actually afford to repay?"

Televisions and stereos that customers don't pick up gather dust on shelves, Maciaszek said. Shoppers aren't buying much besides DVDs and videos.

Scott Pasternack, who runs two pawnshops in the Denver suburbs, has $750,000 out in loans -- nearly $150,000 more than usual. His storage space is atypically packed with 3- and 4-carat diamonds, Rolexes and a Tiffany & Co. diamond, ruby and sapphire pin worth at least $5,000.

One woman pawned 20 pieces of jewelry, including diamond rings and gold tennis bracelets, to keep her daughter's home from foreclosure.

By Catherine Clifford and Chris Isidore

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In what could turn out to be the most expensive bank failure ever, troubled mortgage lender IndyMac Bank was taken over by federal regulators on Friday.

The operations of the Pasadena, Calif.-based bank - once one of the nation's largest home lenders - were shut down at 3 p.m. by the Office of Thrift Supervision and transferred to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

According to the FDIC, 10,000 IndyMac customers could lose as much as $500 million in uninsured deposits. The agency says the failure will cost the Deposit Insurance Fund between $4 billion and $8 billion, based on preliminary estimates.

"It's possible this will be the most costly bank failure in history, but it's too soon to say," FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said in a conference call late Friday night. The failure could also affect premiums paid by all banks for deposit insurance, she added.

IndyMac, with assets of $32.01 billion and deposits of $19.06 billion, is the fifth bank to fail this year. Between 2005 and 2007, only three banks failed. And in the past 15 years, the FDIC has taken over 127 banks with combined assets of $22 billion, according to FDIC records.

"There will be increased failures, but it will be within range of what we can handle," Bair said. "People should not worry."

IndyMac marks the largest bank collapse since 1984, when Continental Illinois, which had $40 billion in assets, failed, according to FDIC records. The two most expensive failures were in 1988: American Savings and Loan Association in California ($5.4 billion) and involved First Republic Bank in Texas ($4 billion).

What now for IndyMac customers?

Bair said that the FDIC will try to sell IndyMac as a complete entity within 90 days.

When a bank shuts down, traditional bank accounts are insured to at least $100,000. Some accounts such as annuities and mutual funds are not insured at all. Individual Retirement Account funds are insured to $250,000.

Customers with uninsured deposits will get at least half that money back, and they could get more back, depending on what the FDIC gets when it sells the bank, said Bair.

IndyMac customers will have their funds transferred to a new entity - IndyMac Federal FSB - controlled by the FDIC. They will have uninterrupted customer service and access to their funds by ATM, debit cards and checks.

However, customers will have no access to online and phone banking services this weekend, according to the FDIC. Service will resume on Monday. Loan customers were advised to continue making loan payments as usual.

For additional information, the FDIC has established a toll-free number for customers of IndyMac Federal Bank, FSB.

The toll-free number is 1-866-806-5919 and will operate today from 3:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. (PDT), and then daily from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. thereafter, except Sunday, July 13, when the hours will be 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Customers also may visit the FDIC's Web site at http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/IndyMac.html for further information.

How it got to this point

IndyMac specialized in loans it had long argued were of minimal risk: low documentation loans to residential mortgage borrowers.

On Tuesday, IndyMac - which had 33 branches - announced that it was firing 53% of its workforce and exiting its retail and wholesale lending units. Last year, the lender was ranked 11th in residential mortgage origination, according to trade publication Inside Mortgage Finance.

More importantly, IndyMac also disclosed that regulators no longer considered it "well capitalized." As a result, since Tuesday, the bank wasn't able to accept brokered deposits, or short-term investments in large dollar amounts from brokers seeking the highest return on certificates of deposit.

Over the past two years, IndyMac dropped over 95% in stock price, or about $3.5 billion in market capitalization. Shares traded down nearly 10% on Friday to close at 28 cents.

IndyMac lost $184.2 million in the first quarter and announced on Monday that it was expecting a wider loss for the second quarter. It lost $614 million last year stemming from its focus on the Alt-A mortgage sector, where it originates loans to borrowers who fall between prime (or conforming) and sub-prime on the credit spectrum. The lender's chief executive, Michael Perry, had long argued that it was being unfairly punished given its relatively paltry exposure to sub-prime mortgages.

Rising Alt-A and prime mortgage delinquencies likely were enough indication for investors that the housing crisis had moved beyond the weakest borrowers. Even worse, with the securitization markets in collapse, IndyMac had no way to get new loans off its books. As it turned out, IndyMac was a leader in loans requiring little income and asset documentation, a category that has had disastrous levels of delinquencies at other troubled lenders. What loans the bank had made recently were to borrowers with well-documented assets and income, but those are sharply less profitable with respect to fees and interest income.

IndyMac, in its filing on Monday, said it would focus on its reverse mortgage business, retail branch network and mortgage servicing operations. But the growth restrictions placed on IndyMac by regulators and the banks and brokerages it did business with, as well as the sharply higher borrowing costs, placed the profitability of even its non-mortgage-related banking efforts in doubt.

Even efforts to prop up the bank hurt it. Last month, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote a series of letters to regulators in Washington and California asking them to take steps to prevent the bank's "likely collapse." In response, about $100 million in customer deposits has been withdrawn from the bank, according to one of its filings.