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Three decades ago, Congress imposed limits on domestic intelligence activity after revelations that the FBI, Army, local police and others had misused their authority for years to build troves of personal dossiers and monitor political activists and other law-abiding Americans.

Since those reforms, police and federal authorities have observed a wall between law enforcement information-gathering, relating to crimes and prosecutions, and more open-ended intelligence that relates to national security and counterterrorism. That wall is fast eroding following the passage of laws expanding surveillance authorities, the push for information-sharing networks, and the expectation that local and state police will play larger roles as national security sentinels.

The Mortgage Bankers Association, in a quarterly snapshot of the mortgage market released Thursday, said the proportion of all mortgages nationwide that fell into foreclosure shot up to a record high of 0.83 percent in the October-to-December quarter. That surpassed the previous high of 0.78 percent set in the prior quarter.

“Clearly it’s the worst it’s been,” chief association economist Doug Duncan said in an interview with The Associated Press.

More homeowners — at the same time — fell behind on their monthly payments.

The delinquency rate for all mortgages climbed to 5.82 percent in the fourth quarter. That was up from the 5.59 percent in the third quarter and was the highest since 1985. Payments are considered delinquent if they are 30 or more days past due.

Homeowners with tarnished credit who have subprime adjustable-rate loans were the hardest hit. Foreclosures and late payments for these borrowers also swelled to all-time highs in the fourth quarter.

The percentage of subprime adjustable-rate mortgages that entered the foreclosure process soared to a record of 5.29 percent in the fourth quarter. That was up from 4.72 percent in the prior quarter, which had marked the previous high. Late payments skyrocketed to a record high of 20.02 percent in the fourth quarter, up from 18.81 percent — the previous high — in the third quarter.

The association’s survey covers almost 46 million home loans nationwide.

The worsening foreclosure and late payment figures come as fears grow that the country is teetering on the edge of a recession or in one already.

The blast, around 3:45 a.m., caused no injuries, officials said.

A witness and an officer at a police substation just steps away from the recruiting office saw a man riding a bicycle, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said at a news conference.

They did not see the man’s face, but he was wearing a backpack, he said.

The bomb consisted of some kind of “low order explosive” contained in a military-style ammunition box, Kelly said.

“This was not a particularly sophisticated device,” he said.

No one saw the device being placed, and no one has taken responsibility for the attack, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

“Whoever the coward was that committed this disgraceful act on our city will be found and prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” Bloomberg said.

Authorities were reviewing tapes from security cameras, but the process “will take many hours,” the mayor said.

The recruiting office, one of the nation’s busiest, has been the site of periodic anti-war protests, The Associated Press reported.

“If it is something that’s directed toward American troops, then it’s something that’s taken very seriously and is pretty unfortunate,” Army Capt. Charlie Jaquillard, commander of Army recruiting in Manhattan, told AP.

Authorities say Viktor Bout, seen in this 2002 image, has sold arms to al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Bout, 41, has made his deliveries to Africa, Asia and the Mideast, using obsolete or surplus Soviet-era cargo planes.

A formal announcement on his arrest is expected later in the day in New York.

He was picked up in Bangkok but neither police nor U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Cynthia Brown had details on his arrest.

“We can confirm he has been arrested in Bangkok, and we congratulate the Thai authorities on making this arrest,” Brown said.

Intelligence agencies around the world have tracked Bout for years. While some of his work has been legitimate, most has not.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has a warrant for Bout’s arrest, and the United States could request extradition, but the details are still being worked out, a U.S. government official told CNN.

According to U.S. officials, Bout — a former Soviet air force officer who speaks multiple languages — has what is reputed to be the largest private fleet of Soviet-era cargo aircraft in the world.

Bout acquired the planes shortly after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the U.S. Department of Treasury said in 2005.

At that time, the U.S. Treasury announced it was freezing the assets of Bout and his associates who are all tied to former Liberian President Charles Taylor. Taylor is currently on trial at the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague.

Intelligence officials said he shipped large quantities of small arms to civil wars across Africa and Asia, often taking diamonds in payment from West African fighters.

British intelligence officials found evidence in Afghanistan that Bout had shipped arms to the Taliban and al Qaeda, as well as circumstantial evidence that he shipped weapons technology into Iraq.

And the U.S. government said it received information that Bout profited $50 million from supplying the Taliban with military equipment when they ruled Afghanistan.

Bout — who is said to be the inspiration for Nicholas Cage’s character in the movie, “Lord of War” — told CNN in an interview in 2002 that he never sold arms to the Taliban or the al Qaeda terrorist network. He also denied providing weapons and missile guidance technology to Iraq.

Bout said his air transport company is legitimate, and he ferried a variety of cargo to Africa and to Afghanistan since 1992.

The outage came after Pakistan’s main power utility accused the electricity company supplying the southern port of refusing to settle debts of more than half a billion dollars.

It affected bazaars, businesses and homes in the normally bustling economic hub and caused huge traffic jams as signals went out of order, witnesses said.

“KESC (Karachi Electric Supply Co.) owes 34.8 billion rupees (548 million dollars) to us, which they have avoided paying for many months,” said Tahir Bisharat Cheema, the director general of the supply and management wing of the country’s Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA).

He said the company only repaid 250 million rupees despite weekly reminders “to which they never replied.”

“We sent them a final reminder on Wednesday and informed them that we would stop supplying electricity if the longstanding dues were not paid,” Cheema told AFP.

Karachi has a history of frequent powercuts, but they usually only affect certain districts for a few hours at a time. Many businesses have generators, but private households rarely do.

“We have got a small generator for our house but it has proved highly expensive today because we don’t know when power is going to come back,” said Gulzar Ahmed, who lives in the middle class Liaquatabad neighbourhood.

The city’s power company said supplies were returning to about a third of the city later Thursday but accused the national utility of failing to warn it about the shutoff.

“They suddenly stopped supplying 300 megawatts to Karachi at 8am and the power supply fell to virtually zero,” KESC spokesman Sultan Hassan told AFP.

“KESC staff are making efforts to restore electricity supply but it needs WAPDA supplies resumed first” he said.

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Gold and copper also advanced to all-time highs as the sinking dollar made commodities priced in the U.S. currency cheaper. Oil closed at a record yesterday after OPEC refrained from raising production yesterday and U.S. crude inventories fell for the first time in eight weeks.

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