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The accusations were made by Lawrence Wilkerson, a top aide to Colin Powell, the former Republican Secretary of State, in a signed declaration to support a lawsuit filed by a Guantánamo detainee. It is the first time that such allegations have been made by a senior member of the Bush Administration.

Colonel Wilkerson, who was General Powell’s chief of staff when he ran the State Department, was most critical of Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld. He claimed that the former Vice-President and Defence Secretary knew that the majority of the initial 742 detainees sent to Guantánamo in 2002 were innocent but believed that it was “politically impossible to release them”.

The paper said on Friday 18 banks, including Goldman Sachs Group, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Chase Bank of of America and Citigroup, understated the debt levels used to fund securities trades by lowering them an average of 42 percent at the end of each period.

The banks had increased their debt in the middle of successive quarters, it said.

Citi, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley were not immediately available for comment when contacted by Reuters outside regular U.S. business hours.

Excessive leverage by the banks was one of the causes that led to the global financial crisis in 2008.

Due to the credit crisis, banks have become more sensitive about showing high levels of debt and risk, worried their stocks and credit ratings could be punished, the Journal said.

Holding on to the refunds allows states to use the money for other purposes, earn interest on it or simply wait until there’s enough cash to cover the checks. But the cost can be an unhappy public.

“It’s not the state’s money, it’s the people’s money,” said Missouri Rep. Jason Smith, R-Salem. “It’s money they’ve overpaid to the state, and they deserve to get their money back in a prompt time.”
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With the rate on 10-year Greek bonds reaching as high as 7.5 percent on Thursday, up from 6.5 just three days ago, the cost of insuring against a Greek default hit a record high.

The message from the market could not be clearer: artfully worded communiqués from Brussels will no longer suffice. To avoid bankruptcy, analysts said, Greece needs a bailout from Europe, and fast.

“This is no longer about liquidity; it’s a solvency issue,” said Stephen Jen, a former economist at the International Monetary Fund who is now a strategist at BlueGold Capital Management in London.

But with European officials consumed with a debate over whether loans to Greece should be offered at rates consistent with a typical I.M.F. bailout or punitive ones closer to current market levels, the risk is that while Brussels fiddles, Greece is burning.

At a press conference on Thursday, Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, sought to break the fever in the markets by saying that the aid program proposed by the International Monetary Fund and the European Union was a “very, very serious commitment.”

The statement helped bring yields on 10-year Greek government bonds down from their peak for the day, to 7.35 percent, but it was not enough to turn around the mood of pessimism that contributed to a further fall in Greek and other European stocks.

“I did the best with what they (the county commissioners) gave me. If it wasn’t enough, don’t blame me, don’t blame this department,” said Sheriff Billy Johnson.

Johnson said he is suing the commissioners to get a determination of whether he should use his limited budget to carry out obligations defined by law or put more patrol cars on the streets.

“I just can’t do it anymore,” he said. “I have to have the court explain to the commissioners and to me what my statutory duties are.”

The Ashtabula County Jail has confined as many as 140 prisoners. It now houses only 30 because of reductions in the staff of corrections officers.

All told, 700 accused criminals are on a waiting list to serve time in the jail.

Are there dangerous people free among the 700 who cannot be locked up?

“There probably are,” Sheriff Johnson said, “but I’m telling you, any known violent criminal, we’re housing them. We’ve got murderers in there.”

Ashtabula County is the largest county in Ohio by land area.

Ashtabula County Common Pleas Judge Alfred Mackey was asked what residents should do to protect themselves and their families with the severe cutback in law enforcement.

“Arm themselves,” the judge said. “Be very careful, be vigilant, get in touch with your neighbors, because we’re going to have to look after each other.”

Ashtabula County gun dealers and firearms instructors tell WKYC their business has really picked up since the Sheriff’s Department cutbacks began some months ago.

“That’s exactly why they are coming, so that they can protect themselves,” says Tracy Williams, a certified firearms instructor in Jefferson. “They don’t feel that they are protected. They want to be able to protect themselves.”

Software that uses brain scans to determine what items people are thinking about was among the technological innovations showcased Wednesday by Intel Corp., which drew back the curtain on a number of projects that are still under development.

The software analyzes functional MRI scans to determine what parts of a person’s brain is being activated as he or she thinks. In tests, it guessed with 90% accuracy which of two words a person was thinking about, said Intel Labs researcher Dean Pomerleau.

Eventually, the technology could help the severely physically disabled to communicate. And Pomerleau sees it as an early step toward one day being able to control technology with our minds.

“The vision is being able to interface to information, to your devices and to other people without having an intermediary device,” he said.

For now, the project’s accomplishments are far more modest — it can only be used with prohibitively expensive and bulky fMRI equipment and hasn’t yet been adapted to analyze abstract thoughts.

The system works best when a person is first scanned while thinking of dozens of different concrete nouns — words like “bear” or “hammer.” When test subjects are then asked to pick one of two new terms and think about it, the software uses the earlier results as a baseline to determine what the person is thinking.

By nightfall, the opposition claimed President Kurmanbek Bakiyev had fled and a new government headed by former foreign minister Rosa Otumbayeva, 59, was in control.

…

Scores of protesters were reportedly shot and killed by security forces during waves of day-long running battles that left the capital littered with burning vehicles as crowds stormed the main television station and the Interior Ministry. According to witness reports, another leading opposition figure, Keneshbek Duishebayev, was issuing orders for calm from the National Security Agency, the reviled and feared secret police.

Raised in suburban Wisconsin, Heimo set off in his teens to the Alaskan Bush to pursue the Davy Crockett lifestyle in more or less the only place it was still possible. Amid numerous setbacks and misadventures, Heimo gradually learned how to master his terrain, provide for his Eskimo wife, and rear children in one of the most inhospitable environments in North America.