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“We are certainly in contact with the SEC and we are aware of their investigation but we are not going to discuss any ongoing matters,” said FBI Special Agent Shauna Dunlap.

Stanford, a once high-flying businessman whose investment firm’s affiliates stretch from Bogota, Colombia, to Quito, Ecuador, has denied having ties to foreign drug barons and never has been charged with a crime related to his banking. In 1999, Stanford willingly turned over the $3 million from his bank after federal agents found it had come from a drug cartel.

In fact, at the time, Stanford’s cooperation won him praise from authorities who said he had not intentionally accepted drug money.

Around the same time, however, Texas securities regulators found evidence of potential money laundering involving Stanford, an official said Friday in Austin. But, because the activity involved offshore banks, it was referred to the FBI and SEC.

Federal Bureau of Investigation agents were waiting yesterday at a residence in the Fredericksburg area when Stanford’s car pulled up, according to a person familiar with what transpired. The FBI then served him court papers. He was described as cooperative and cordial.

Klaus, whose country now holds the rotating EU presidency, set out a scathing attack on the EU project and its institutions, provoking boos from many lawmakers, some of whom walked out, but applause from nationalists and other anti-EU legislators.

Klaus is known for deep skepticism of the EU and has refused to fly the EU flag over his official seat in Prague during the Czech presidency, saying the country is not an EU province.

He said current EU practices smacked of communist times when the Soviet Union controlled much of eastern Europe, including the Czech Republic and when dissent or even discussions were not tolerated.

“Not so long ago, in our part of Europe we lived in a political system that permitted no alternatives and therefore also no parliamentary opposition,” said Klaus. “We learned the bitter lesson that with no opposition, there is no freedom.”

He said the 27-nation bloc should concentrate on offering prosperity to Europeans, rather than closer political union, and scrap a stalled EU reform treaty that Irish voters have already rejected.

Klaus said that questioning deeper integration has become an “uncriticizable assumption that there is only one possible and correct future of the European integration.”

“The enforcement of these notions … is unacceptable,” Klaus said. “Those who dare thinking about a different option are labeled as enemies.” Observers had been expecting Klaus to deliver a critical speech during his first and only visit to the EU chamber at a time when his country holds the EU limelight as chair of the 27-nation bloc.

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials said parched reservoirs and patchy rainfall this year were forcing them to completely stop surface water deliveries for at least a two-week period beginning March 1. Authorities said they haven’t had to take such a drastic move for more than 15 years.

The situation could improve slightly if more rain falls over the next few weeks, and officials will know by mid-March if they can release more irrigation supplies to growers.

Farmers in the nation’s No. 1 agriculture state predicted it would cause consumers to pay more for their fruits and vegetables, which would have to be grown using expensive well water.

“Water is our life — it’s our jobs and it’s our food,” said Ryan Jacobsen, executive director of the farm bureau in Fresno County. “Without a reliable water supply, Fresno County’s No. 1 employer — agriculture — is at great risk.”

The drought would cause an estimated $1.15 billion dollar loss in agriculture-related wages and eliminate as many as 40,000 jobs in farm-related industries in the San Joaquin Valley alone, where most of the nation’s produce and nut crops are grown, said Lester Snow, director of the Department of Water Resources.

Gasoline taxes that for nearly half a century have paid for the federal share of highway and bridge construction can no longer be counted on to raise enough money to keep the nation’s transportation system moving, LaHood said in an interview with The Associated Press.

“We should look at the vehicular miles program where people are actually clocked on the number of miles that they traveled,” the former Illinois Republican lawmaker said.

Most transportation experts see a vehicle miles traveled tax as a long-term solution, but Congress is being urged to move in that direction now by funding pilot projects.

The idea also is gaining ground in several states. Governors in Idaho and Rhode Island are talking about such programs, and a North Carolina panel suggested in December the state start charging motorists a quarter-cent for every mile as a substitute for the gas tax.

The victim’s fiance told investigators he found the body of 57-year-old Dr. Eugenia Calle in the penthouse apartment at the Aqua Midtown building on 10th Street at West Peachtree Street.

“There did appear to be some signs of a struggle,” Lt. Keith Meadows told WSB-TV Channel 2 reporter Ryan Young.

Meadows said he believed the victim died from “blunt force trauma” to the head. She may have been dead up to 12 hours before her body was found at 11 p.m. Tuesday.

Calle was a physician and a cancer researcher, who has been the director of Analytic Epidemiology for the American Cancer Society since 1994. She was also an adjunct professor in Epidemiology at Emory University.

Calle made great contributions in the medical field, including ground-breaking research that linked cancer with obesity, according to co-workers.

Calle was engaged to be married and she and her fiance were selling her high-rise luxury apartment.

Police said somehow the killer gained entry into her apartment and killed her.

Common in parts of Europe, work-sharing means slashing employees’ pay and hours instead of firing people outright. Two or three people might share what previously was one person’s job.

The idea is that employees are required to share the pain of coping with hard times while everyone gets to keep their jobs — even if they’re paid less.

Work-sharing is the latest buzzword in Japan Inc. Proponents say it’s a good way to avoid American-style layoffs in a society that has long fostered lifetime employment. Toyota Motor Corp., Mazda Motor Corp., Toshiba Corp. and Fujitsu Inc., have all taken up some kind of work-sharing. Nissan Motor Co. and others are considering it.

Although critics say it’s merely a fancy way to disguise wage cuts, the practice is winning powerful supporters here, including Fujio Mitarai, the head of the major business lobby Keidanren.

The government is now considering earmarking public money for companies that take up work-sharing to curb surging joblessness as the world’s second-largest economy slides into what authorities are calling Japan’s worst recession since World War II.

Suddenly Mr. Stanford, whose company ran a bank in Antigua, made a lot of friends, spreading money to both political parties and their leaders. The legislation languished in a Senate committee until the terrorist attacks of 9/11 convinced Congress it needed to act.

Stanford, accused by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of an $8 billion fraud, continued to give money to scores of members of Congress, as well as the Obama presidential campaign.

The contributions, along with those from accused swindler Bernard Madoff, once again raise questions about the relationship of the rich and sometimes fraudulent to America’s lawmakers.

The campaign contributions are “one vehicle to try to influence and skew policy,” says Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), which follows campaign contributions. “Often the efforts are too brazen.”

Donations of $2.4 million

In Stanford’s case, since 2000 he, his company, or its employees have delivered $2.4 million to political operations, according to Ms. Krumholz. Stanford and his wife personally gave $931,000.

“It’s a lot of money when you consider 99 percent of the public doesn’t even give $200,” the amount needed to gain the attention of the Federal Election Commission, Krumholz says. “It makes him a big player.”

In fact, politicians of both parties have been scrambling to distance themselves from the scandal. An Obama aide says the $4,600 contribution from Stanford himself has been donated to charity. Sen. Bill Nelson (D) of Florida is going one step further, shedding money that came from Stanford or his employees.

“Bill has told his campaign he wants every thin dime associated with Stanford returned to a charity or used in some way that could help folks who were deceived by this guy,” a Nelson aide says in an e-mail.

Echoes of Madoff scandal

The same thing happened after the Madoff financial scandal broke. Mr. Madoff and his wife were also contributors to the political process, giving $238,200 since 1991, according to the CRP. His own donations, plus those of his firm, total nearly $1 million.

Two of the largest recipients, Sens. Ron Wyden (D) of Oregon ($13,000) and Charles Schumer (D) of New York ($12,000), say they have donated the money to charity.

Federal authorities accuse Stanford of “massive” fraud centering on high-interest-rate certificates of deposit (CDs). According to the SEC, in recent weeks the Stanford Financial Group has quoted rates as high as 10 percent on a five-year CD, more than twice the highest current US rate, which bankrate.com says is less than 4 percent.

Stanford, who has not been charged with any crime, may have yet more pressing concerns. According to an ABC News report, federal authorities are investigating the banker regarding money laundering for a Mexican drug cartel. The network, on its website, says one of Stanford’s private planes was detained last year by Mexican officials, who found suspicious checks that might be drug related.

Ties to US, Antigua

Stanford, who was born in Mexia, Texas, has dual citizenship in the US and the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda, the site of his international banking operations.

In the past, the Caribbean island nation has been in the cross hairs over its money-laundering rules.
Twelve years ago, after the US imposed sanctions on the island, then-Prime Minister Lester Bird asked Stanford to help oversee a rewrite of Antigua’s money-laundering regulations.

“The embassy described it as record-gate or file-gate,” recalls Jonathan Winer, then deputy assistant secretary of State for international law enforcement. “Stanford took over the records of the offshore bank regulator, created the rules for cleaning it up, and drafted the legislation. None of us had ever seen anything like this before,” says Mr. Winer, now a senior vice president at APCO International in Washington, a global consulting firm.

Stuart Eizenstat, who was deputy secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001, recalls the notoriety of Antigua as it failed to improve. Antigua appeared on a Treasury “name and shame” list during that period, but, unlike other countries, Antigua was not “shamed.”

“That list included Russia, Liechtenstein, Panama, Israel, and Antigua among countries not up to international standards,” says Mr. Eizenstat, now head of the international practice at the law firm Covington & Burling in Washington.

“Most of the other countries did change their rules, but not Antigua,” he says.

Fraud legislation stalled

Cutting down on money laundering and financial fraud became a significant interest of Rep. Mike Rogers (R) of Michigan, a former FBI agent. He introduced legislation to improve the ability of state and federal agencies to share information. With the support of the Clinton administration, it passed the House.

But when the bill reached the US Senate, it stalled.

The public-interest lobbying group Public Citizen became curious about what happened. It found Stanford had given contributions to the “soft money” accounts of then-Sen. Tom Daschle (D) of South Dakota, who was Senate minority leader, as well as other key legislators and both political parties.

“What we concluded was that it was his soft-money contribution, aimed at killing the money-laundering legislation, that got the bill killed,” says Steve Weissman, then at Public Citizen, now associate director for policy at the Campaign Finance Institute in Washington.

Representative Rogers knew from his experience at the FBI that something needed to be done, says a spokeswoman.

The move comes after Sweden turned down GM’s request for government help for Saab.

An application to reorganize the brand was filed at a district court in Vanersborg, in southwestern Sweden, Saab spokeswoman Margareta Hogstrom said. It was approved later Friday.

The Swedish government on Wednesday rejected a request from loss-making GM to inject money into the carmaker. GM, which is seeking help from the U.S. government to avoid bankruptcy at home, has been looking for buyers for Saab but said it needs more funding to spin off or sell the division.

“We explored and will continue to explore all available options for funding and/or selling Saab and it was determined a formal restructuring would be the best way to create a truly independent entity that is ready for investment,” Saab’s managing director, Jan Ake Jonsson, said in a statement.

The move would give Saab protection from creditors while it restructures in a process similar to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S.

“Pending court approval, the reorganization will be executed over a three-month period and will require independent funding to succeed,” Saab said, adding it would seek funding “from both public and private sources.”