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The company, Beef Products Inc., had been looking to expand into the hamburger business with a product made from beef that included fatty trimmings the industry once relegated to pet food and cooking oil. The trimmings were particularly susceptible to contamination, but a study commissioned by the company showed that the ammonia process would kill E. coli as well as salmonella.

Officials at the United States Department of Agriculture endorsed the company’s ammonia treatment, and have said it destroys E. coli “to an undetectable level.” They decided it was so effective that in 2007, when the department began routine testing of meat used in hamburger sold to the general public, they exempted Beef Products.

With the U.S.D.A.’s stamp of approval, the company’s processed beef has become a mainstay in America’s hamburgers. McDonald’s, Burger King and other fast-food giants use it as a component in ground beef, as do grocery chains. The federal school lunch program used an estimated 5.5 million pounds of the processed beef last year alone.

But government and industry records obtained by The New York Times show that in testing for the school lunch program, E. coli and salmonella pathogens have been found dozens of times in Beef Products meat, challenging claims by the company and the U.S.D.A. about the effectiveness of the treatment. Since 2005, E. coli has been found 3 times and salmonella 48 times, including back-to-back incidents in August in which two 27,000-pound batches were found to be contaminated. The meat was caught before reaching lunch-rooms trays.

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Carl S. Custer, a former U.S.D.A. microbiologist, said he and other scientists were concerned that the department had approved the treated beef for sale without obtaining independent validation of the potential safety risk. Another department microbiologist, Gerald Zirnstein, called the processed beef “pink slime” in a 2002 e-mail message to colleagues and said, “I do not consider the stuff to be ground beef, and I consider allowing it in ground beef to be a form of fraudulent labeling.”

One of the toughest hurdles for Beef Products was the Agricultural Marketing Service, the U.S.D.A. division that buys food for school lunches. Officials cited complaints about the odor, and wrote in a 2002 memorandum that they had “to determine if the addition of ammonia to the product is in the best interest to A.M.S. from a quality standpoint.”

“It is our contention,” the memo added, “that product should be labeled accordingly.”

Represented by Dennis R. Johnson, a top lawyer and lobbyist for the meat industry, Beef Products prevailed on the question of whether ammonia should be listed as an ingredient, arguing that the government had just decided against requiring another company to list a chemical used in treating poultry.

• To comply with 21 CFR 1250.30(a), all places where food is prepared, served, or stored must be constructed and maintained as to be clean and free from flies and other vermin. However, our investigators observed numerous live roaches, dead roaches, and other insects, as well as food, and other debris, in various locations, including the following:

• Cart wash area – Live and dead roach-like insects too numerous to count (TNTC)
• Silverware station – At least 40 live roaches as well as other insects
• The hot kitchen – At least eight dead and one live roach insects were observed in and around the walls of the hot kitchen
• Repack area – Live roaches (TNTC), as well as ants
• Pots and pans warewashing room – At least four live and dead roaches, flies
• Dish machine wash area – At least 13 dead roaches inside the machine loading area and 31 or more dead nearby the machine
• Wash area – At least four live roaches on walls and floors

• To comply with 21 CFR 1250.32(a), all food-handling operations must be accomplished so as to minimize the possibility of contaminating food, drink, or utensils. However, our investigators observed the following:

• Employees handling food with bare hands or with unwashed gloved hands

“The situation is they are losing gobs of money, up to $400 billion in mortgages,” Wallison said in a Bloomberg Television interview. The Treasury Department recognized last week that losses will be more than $400 billion when it raised its limit on federal support for the two government-sponsored enterprises, he said.

The U.S. seized the two mortgage financiers in 2008 as the government struggled to prevent a meltdown of the financial system. The debt of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks grew an average of $184 billion annually from 1998 to 2008, helping fuel a bubble that drove home prices up by 107 percent between 2000 and mid-2006, according to the S&P/Case- Shiller home-price index.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the five men had committed a “serious crime” in the September 2007 shooting in Baghdad, which strained U.S.-Iraqi relations and became a symbol for many Iraqis of foreign disregard for local life.

Dabbagh said Iraq may sue the private security company, now known as Xe Services.

“The Iraqi government regrets and is disappointed by the U.S. court’s decision … We have our own investigations and they showed that Blackwater committed a serious crime in the killing of 17 Iraqi citizens,” Dabbagh said.

“The Iraqi government is considering other legal means through which it can sue the Blackwater company,” he added.

After the 2003 invasion, private guards protecting U.S. personnel enjoyed immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts, but that ended with a bilateral pact that took effect in 2009.

The five guards were charged in a U.S. federal court a year ago with 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 counts of attempt to commit manslaughter and one weapons violation count.

In an executive order released Wednesday, President Barack Obama put the Postal Service in charge of dispensing “medical countermeasures” to biological weapons because of its “capacity for rapid residential delivery.”

While most likely unrelated, the release of the executive order comes less than a week after a man with alleged ties to al-Qaida tried to bring down a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner. In recent days, Obama has sought to assure the public that his administration is doing what it can to protect the nation from terrorist attacks.
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Ford Motor Co. dropped 1.3 percent for the week, bringing its decade loss to 80 percent after the credit crisis threatened to push the carmaker into bankruptcy last year. Apple Computer Inc., the iPhone maker that beat analysts’ profit estimates for 19 straight quarters, climbed 0.8 percent, extending a 720 percent advance over the last 10 years.

This past year’s rally wasn’t enough to restore money lost in two bear markets after the Internet bubble collapsed in 2000 and more than $1.7 trillion in global bank losses sent the index to a 38 percent decline in 2008. The S&P 500 posted an average decrease of 0.9 percent a year since 1999 including dividends, the first negative return for a decade since data began in 1927, according to S&P analyst Howard Silverblatt.

They said he had not undergone the usual full body search before entering the base in Khost province, and so was able to smuggle in an explosive belt.

A bomber wearing an explosive vest entered Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost Province, near Pakistan.

A Taliban spokesman said one of its members who was working for the Afghan army carried out the attack.

In a separate incident, four Canadian soldiers and a journalist died in a roadside bomb attack in Kandahar.

It was the worst fatal incident affecting Canadians in Afghanistan for more than two years.

Army uniform

A Taliban spokesman said the militant who carried out the attack at the Chapman Base on Wednesday evening was working as a soldier in the Afghan army.

Zabiullah Mujahid told the BBC the bomber was wearing uniform when he managed to breach security at the base, detonating his explosives belt in the gym.

Unnamed US officials were quoted as saying that most if not all of the dead Americans were either CIA agents or contractors, although this has not been confirmed by either the CIA or the Pentagon. A further six Americans are reported to be wounded.

Reports say the base is used by provincial reconstruction teams, which consist of soldiers and civilians.

The base has been described as “not regular” – a phrase that implies it was a centre of CIA operations in Khost province, the BBC’s Peter Greste in Kabul says.

It is the biggest single reported loss of life for the CIA since the war began in Afghanistan eight years, and the biggest loss for the US since October.

“We mourn the loss of life in this attack, and are withholding further details pending notification of next of kin,” US state department spokesman Ian Kelly said.

A spokesman for Isaf, the international Nato force in Afghanistan, said that “no US and no Isaf military personnel were killed or injured” in the incident.

Raised questions

Khost province – which is one of the Taliban’s strongholds – has been targeted by militants over the past year.

The number of foreign civilians deployed in Afghanistan has been rising as international efforts there focus increasingly on development and aid.

Civilians work alongside military reconstruction teams at provincial bases around the country.

A “civilian surge” was one of the three core elements of the new US strategy for Afghanistan announced by US President Barack Obama at the beginning of the month.

The fact that an attacker has been able to breach security at such a sensitive facility raises questions about the ability of US forces to protect themselves ahead of the surge, our correspondent adds.

Michael Gennaco, an expert in police conduct issues who has conducted internal reviews of Taser use for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and other agencies, said the ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals prohibits officers from deploying Tasers in a host of scenarios and largely limits their use to situations in which a person poses an obvious danger.