CIA interrogators staged "mock executions" while questioning terror suspects, according to a long-suppressed report by the CIA's inspector general. The report is to be released next week, but sources told Newsweek it contains shocking revelations about "enhanced" interrogations with terror suspects. The suspected bomber of the USS Cole, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was threatened with a pistol to the head by his interrogators, the report says. (A federal law bans threatening prisoners with "imminent death.") A mock execution was staged in a room next to another detainee in order to scare him into giving information. A gunshot was fired next door so the detainee would think another prisoner had been killed. Bush administration officials confirmed that Nashiri was one of three detainees who underwent waterboarding, though video of his interrogations were ordered destroyed. "Mock executions" were not listed in the document of acceptable "enhanced" interrogation techniques penned by Bush lawyers. Top Bush CIA officials, including directors Porter Goss and Gen. Michael Hayden, argued for the report's secrecy when it came out in 2004 on the grounds that it would damage America's reputation.

The White House will likely tack an additional $2 trillion onto its staggering 10-year budget-deficit estimate next week, Politico reports. Obama officials attributed the deficit’s startling increase to a worse-than-expected economy and plunging tax revenue. According to the new estimate, the deficit will reach $9 trillion in the next decade, up from the $7 trillion predicted earlier. The announcement will no doubt fuel Obama’s critics, who have attacked the president’s stimulus spending.

Bad news for the Democrats: Respected political analyst Charlie Cook is projecting that the Democrats could lose over 20 seats in Congress in 2010. According to the Cook Political Report, the situation this summer “has slipped completely out of control for President Obama and Congressional Democrats.” According to the report, “the chances of Democratic losses going higher than 20 seats are just as good as the chances of Democratic losses going lower than 20 seats.” The fact that Obama is losing control of the debate even as the economy rebounds “underscores how much the President’s and his party’s legislative agenda have contributed to these poor poll numbers.”

How close did the world come to total meltdown? "The world has been through the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Friday. "As severe as the economic impact has been, however, the outcome could have been decidedly worse." Bernanke credited the rescue to coordinated and aggressive action by central banks and governments around the globe. He warned, however, that "the economic recovery is likely to be relatively slow at first, with unemployment declining only gradually from high levels."

More details have come out about the cozy relations between the CIA and contractors from Blackwater USA, now known as Xe Services. The Los Angeles Times reports that after a 2004 contract between the CIA and Blackwater, top CIA officials began to resign in order to take high-level positions within the company. These resignations fueled a backlash inside the agency and on Capitol Hill against the use of outside contractors. Although it may not be illegal to use contractors to kill or torture terrorism suspects, or guard CIA lockups, the relationship underscored the extent to which the CIA was outsourcing jobs to carry out what Sen. Dianne Feinstein called "activities that are inherently governmental."

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America voted to accept noncelibate gay clergymen and women in "lifelong" relationships after also deciding to open up its congregation to gays in relationships. The 1,045 voting members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church’s 4.6 million-strong congregation reversed the church's earlier policy, which allowed gays to serve as clergy members only if they vowed to remain celibate. Some voting clergy members in attendance worried making such an allowance would be “encouraging sin,” while others favored “the side of mercy, grace, justice, and love of neighbor.” Though other religious denominations, like Episcopalians and Unitarians, have already accepted gay clergy members, the Evangelical Lutherans are the largest to do so.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has nominated Ahmad Vahidi, a former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, to head the country’s defense ministry, despite Vahidi's questionable past. Vahidi has been on Interpol’s “red notice” since November 2007 for his alleged involvement in a 1994 car bombing of the Israeli-Argentine Mutual Association building in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people and injured 150. It became the worst attack on a Jewish target outside Israel since World War II. The red notice is not an arrest warrant, but is occasionally interpreted by the police organization’s member nations as a request to detain the suspect. Argentinean prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who led the investigation into the 1994 bombing, said Vahidi, currently Iran's deputy defense minister, was a “key participant” in planning the attack. “Iran has always protected terrorists, giving them government posts,” Nisman told the Associated Press. “But I think never one as high as this one.”

The World Health Organization says swine flu will continue to spread in an "explosion" of cases in the coming months, jeopardizing the health of many around the world. WHO's Western Pacific director cautions of an “explosion in case numbers” in many countries, which could see H1N1 incidences double every three to four days for several months as temperatures decrease. The virus has already claimed the lives of almost 1,800 people worldwide and will continue to cause deaths internationally, especially in developing countries, which are ill-equipped to battle the strain. Though WHO’s flu chief, Keiji Fukuda, noted that two drug manufacturers have already pledged to donate 150 million doses of the vaccine to poor countries by the end of October, “how we get them to developing countries,” Fukuda said, “is probably the most critical issue.”

Obama’s poor performance in today’s Washington Post/ABC News poll was caused partly by a sharp dip in support from Democrats. On the three questions where Obama fared the worst, he took a big hit from his core supporters, reports Greg Sargent after looking at additional polling data. For example, on the question of whether “Obama will make the right decisions for the country,” he dropped 12 points among liberals since the 100-day mark. His approval rating dropped 11 points overall in the same time period. A Washington Post polling analyst said independents were a greater factor in the overall drop in approval ratings, but pointed out that this might be the “first sign that something is going wrong with his base.”

In an effort to garner control in the battle against drug traffickers, Mexico has passed a new law that decriminalizes small amounts of drugs by setting maximum “personal use” amounts on marijuana, cocaine, heroin, LSD, and methamphetamine. A person will no longer be arrested if found with 5 grams of marijuana (or 4 joints), a half-gram for cocaine (or 4 lines), 50 milligrams of heroin, 40 milligrams of methamphetamine, or 0.015 milligrams of LSD. “This is not legalization,” assured Bernardo Espino del Castillo of the attorney general’s office.  “This is regulating the issue and giving citizens greater legal certainty.” Under the new law, anyone caught with drug quantities below the limit will be encouraged to seek treatment, until the third time a person is caught when treatment becomes mandatory.

Despite signs that the economy is beginning to heal, last month the joblessness rate rose in 26 states, the Labor Department reports. Especially alarming, California, Nevada, Rhode Island, and Georgia all saw their highest unemployment rates since records began in 1976. California was hit particularly hard, as the joblessness rate unexpectedly rose to 11.9 percent from 11.6 percent. The state shed a total 35,800 jobs last month—more than any other state—and it's lost 760,000 jobs over the last year. The figures support economists' belief that the national unemployment rate will reach 10 percent by early 2010.

Former President Bill Clinton was forced to cut short his holiday in Bermuda yesterday due to the approach of Hurricane Bill. Clinton, who was vacationing with Secretary of State Hillary, had to leave their resort as the Category 3 hurricane caused 95kph winds on the island. A shame, because the “adult-only” resort where they were staying offered not only golf, but a clothing-optional sky deck and couples sex therapy. Clinton was seen playing golf yesterday at the oceanside Port Royal Golf Course, which has hired four former Guantanamo Bay detainees to help ground crews prepare for the PGA Grand Slam of Golf in October.

In a last-minute plea to the media as the Obama family heads to Martha's Vineyard for some downtime, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs asked that Sasha, 8, and Malia, 11, be given privacy on their vacation. "It is our strong hope and desire that you all, during this family vacation, will respect the privacy of Sasha and Malia," he said. "If the girls are out and about on Martha's Vineyard without their parents, it's our strong desire that you give them their space, their privacy, and you do not cover two little girls who are on vacation." Gibbs said public appearances with their parents, like ice cream trips, are fair game. The White House will be adding local Vineyard media to the press pool, temporarily, and will release "readouts" with details about the Obamas' activities, all in an effort to stem the media's curiosity about the vacation. Gibbs' plea seemed targeted at the local media and paparazzi, who have attempted to photograph the Obamas on vacation from far distances before.

Embattled New York Governor David Paterson knows the main reason for his abysmal approval ratings and calls for him to not participate in the upcoming primary: He's black. Speaking on Friday on a morning radio show, Paterson pointed his finger specifically at the white-dominated media, which he says doesn’t have enough black voices to counteract the bias against him. Paterson drew parallels with other black leaders who are having a tough time in the headlines, including Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and even Barack Obama. "The reality is the next victim on the list, and you can see it coming, is President Barack Obama, who did nothing more than trying to reform a health care system," Paterson said, adding that New York's budget woes are not nearly as grave as those of other states. "What did I do that I should not run for reelection?" he asked. "We're not in the post-racial period.”

Leading officials from the George W. Bush White House are disputing Tom Ridge’s claim that politics played a role in setting the country’s terror threat level when Ridge led the Department of Homeland Security. “We went over backwards repeatedly and with great discipline to make sure politics did not influence any national security and homeland security decisions,” former White House chief of staff Andy Card told Politico. In his forthcoming book, Ridge claims that the Bush White House wanted to raise the terror level before the 2004 election. Fellow homeland security official Fran Townsend also rejected Ridge’s claim. “Never in my experience did I see any political influence exerted on the cabinet secretary,” Townsend said. With his new book, Ridge joins the ranks of former Bush insiders like Paul O’Neill and Scott McClellan who have taken a critical look at the White House they served.

The author of an obscure vampire book is going right for the jugular: Claiming Stephenie Meyer stole ideas from her work for the fourth book in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn, Jordan Scott is suing the mega-bestselling writer for copyright infringement. Scott started working on her book, The Nocturne, when she was 15, posting passages online as she wrote. Meyer's book resembles The Nocturne in language, plot lines, characters and other points, the lawsuit claims. In response, Meyer's publisher said the "alleged similarities" are "wholly lacking in substance," and called the suit a meritless claim aimed to advance the career of Scott, now an aspiring screenwriter. Scott's book had an initial printing of 5,000 books, while the Twilight series has sold more than 70 million copies worldwide.

Rupert Murdoch is trying to turn back the much-heralded demise of newspapers. Over the last couple weeks, News Corp. executives have met with major news publishers, including The New York Times, Washington Post, Hearst, and Tribune in hopes of forming a consortium that would charge for news on the web and on portable devices, according to the Los Angeles Times. Skeptical analysts have pointed out that papers with successful pay walls such as The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times cater to traders, who require timely information about business, so it's unclear whether people will be willing to pay for general interest sports, entertainment, or local news. New media consultant Alan D. Mutter suggested that instead of a conventional pay wall, the consortium look at unifying user registration across many news sites and tracking the stories each user reads. That information could be married to geographic and demographic data and sold to advertisers. But neither pay walls nor unified registration can eliminate the obvious threat: the consortium will probably attract antitrust scrutiny for federal regulators.

Well, guess it was the thought that counts. After announcing that Michael Jackson would be buried on what would have been his 51st birthday, Aug. 29, his family has rescheduled the burial for Sept. 3. The private burial—which well take place at a mausoleum at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, Calif.—"will be limited to family and close friends," a statement said, according to People magazine. The singer died on June 25; manslaughter charges against his doctor are reportedly in the works.

President Obama said on Friday that the hero’s welcome in Libya for Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi was “highly objectionable” when a reporter shouted him a question as he left the White House for vacation. Both the United States and Britain had warned Libya that there would be serious diplomatic repercussions if al-Megrahi received a hero’s welcome. Al-Megrahi was released from Scotland because he will soon die from terminal cancer.

Savor the irony: Rep. Michele Bachmann, a solid anti-abortion Republican, told Sean Hannity today that “under no certain circumstances will I give the government control over my body.” She was, of course, talking about health care, not abortion.

Americans are crazy for health claims. According to a report from Pricewaterhouse Coopers, even in a recession, people will pay big bucks for food that says it will prevent health problems or provide a healthy alternative to sugary snacks, the Associated Press writes. The emerging line of products, which the food industry has dubbed "nutraceuticals" or "functional foods" account for more than $27 billion in sales per year, or about 5 percent of the U.S. food market. Growth rates of 8.5 to 10 percent are expected in this field, compared to 1 to 4 percent for the food industry as a whole. According to a senior nutritionist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the fortified juices and B12-laced candy bars are "really just junk food dressed up to look prettier than it is."

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and his leading opponent Abdullah Abdullah have both claimed victory in Thursday's presidential election, leading Afghanistan watchers to fear that the country could divide along ethnic lines and break out in violent protest. Spokesmen for both candidates said that a run-off in early October would be unnecessary as their man had won. Election officials urged the candidates to avoid making statements about the election until official results came in. The Afghan government said that 25 people were killed Thursday in a total of 135 attacks on voters. The Taliban had threatened to disrupt the vote with violence.

As the manhunt for model-murder suspect and reality-TV contestant Ryan Alexander Jenkins crosses the border into Canada, police have released grisly new details on the murder of swimsuit model Jasmine Fiore. In an apparent attempt to conceal Fiore's identity, the killer cut off the model's fingers and removed her teeth before stashing the suitcase containing her naked body in a trash bin in Buena Park, California. Jenkins has been missing since the body was discovered Saturday, and police warn that he may be armed. Jenkins allegedly married Fiore in Las Vegas after meeting her at a strip club where she was performing, shortly after he was booted from VH1 reality show Megan Wants a Millionaire. Fiore's mother says the pair married in March but had a "big blowout" in May. Jenkins, a native of Calgary, is now being pursued by law enforcement on both sides of the border. "There will be no stone unturned and we'll look under every rock for him," said the chief inspector of the U.S. Marshals.

Coffee purists should rejoice while treat-lovers despair. Simple Starbucks beverages such as plain coffee and lattes will see price cuts between 5 and 15 cents while "complex" beverages such as the Frappuccino will see price hikes as high as 30 cents, the Associated Press reports. Overall, more Starbucks prices will be increased than will be lowered or unchanged under the plan, and the increases average 10 to 15 cents. Although Starbucks won't say how many cities are getting the price changes, there are plans to expand the new pricing plan nationwide in the coming months.

Barack Obama's presidential campaign was known for its ability to stay on-message and maintain tight discipline. Some of the president's strongest supporters say those attributes have been largely missing as Obama has tried to push his health-care reform plan through this summer. Polling numbers out this week have shown that many Americans do not believe the president when he tells them health care will not be available to illegal immigrants or that there are no "death panels" lurking in the proposals before Congress. "It is a learning experience, a major initiative like this in the first year,’" Howard Dean told the Boston Globe. "It is a different kind of campaign and that’s why they had trouble with the message. I don’t think they were prepared for the vociferousness of the attack." Obama got an earful from callers yesterday during a radio interview. "Passing a big bill like this is always messy," he said. Former Clinton adviser and Daily Beast contributor Paul Begala has some surprising advice for the president: "This is heretical, but I would explain less," Begala told the newspaper. "When you get into the minute details of a 1,000-page bill, you lose people in the weeds."

This might be the best weekend to buy that new car you were thinking about. The government has announced that the popular "Cash for Clunkers" program will end on Monday as it is already running out of money—again. Dealers are preparing for a flood of shoppers this weekend. The program gives consumers up to $4,500 in credit for the purchase of a new car if they trade in an old one. Nearly 500,000 sales have been made since July 24. “It has been successful beyond anybody’s imagination,” President Obama said Thursday in a radio interview. “And we’re now slightly victims of success because the thing happened so quick, there was so much more demand than anybody expected, that dealers were overwhelmed with applications.” Despite the boost in sales, dealers complain that the program has been marred by confusion over reimbursements and qualifications. This is the second time the program has stalled out. The administration says not to expect another jumpstart.

Law-enforcement agencies "working closer than ever before" have launched drug-trafficking charges against 43 people in the U.S. and Mexico, including several suspected cartel leaders. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. appeared alongside U.S. Attorneys Patrick Fitzgerald and Benton Campbell to announce court filings that Campbell said were "among the most significant drug-conspiracy charges ever returned" in his home state of New York. Fitzgerald said the suspects had used "practically every means of transportation imaginable" for smuggling cocaine and heroin into the U.S., including planes, submarines, trains, fishing vessels, and tractor-trailers. Among the indictments unsealed Thursday were Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman-Loera, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada-Garcia and Arturo Beltran-Leyva. El Chapo's notoriety precedes him: He was No. 701 in this year's Forbes magazine list of the richest people in the world, with an estimated net worth of $1 billion. He has been indicted before but has repeatedly eluded capture.

Investigating acts perpetrated by secret agents in secret prisons has never been easy—and The Washington Post reports that attorneys for Gitmo detainees may have broken the law while investigating interrogation techniques at the CIA's "black site" facilities. The Justice Department recently questioned the lawyers about whether they unlawfully provided their clients with photographs of CIA personnel, including undercover agents. The agents' photos were provided by the John Adams Project, an organization affiliated with the ACLU and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers; the attorneys were apparently trying to identify their clients' interrogators. ACLU Director Anthony Romero says he does not know which laws the government thinks the military lawyers have broken: "That is the most vexing part of it. Usually when you're read your Miranda rights or visited by the Justice Department or the FBI, you are given some indication as to what laws are at stake." A John Adams Project spokesman said, "The lawyers have a duty to find out what happened to their clients," and blamed the new charges on “certain agencies” wanting "to insulate themselves from accountability." The Justice Department has not yet determined whether the lawyers breached laws governing classified information.

Bad news out of Taiwan. Reuters reports that at least 153 people are dead and 464 are missing following one of the island's worst typhoons, which caused landslides that obliterated parts of some villages in Taiwan's southern mountains. The military has pledged to help dig to find bodies. Local media outlets say that President Ma Ying-jeou will reshuffle his cabinet as public perception of his handling of the catastrophe plummets.

Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, who released Pan Am bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, doesn't have a lot of friends right now. The Telegraph reports that Barack Obama called the decision a "mistake" while British Conservative leader David Cameron said MacAskill made "a bad decision" and was "wrong," and many victims' family members found the release appalling. Al-Megrahi, 57, released to Libya on compassionate grounds due to his terminal prostate cancer, was met in Triopli by a crowd of Scottish-flag-waving thousands, including Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi's son, Saif al Islam-Gaddafi. According to The New York Times, the Scottish first minister said the display was not "appropriate" and David Miliband, the British Foreign secretary called the "hero's welcome" a "disturbing" sight. In an op-ed in the Guardian, Brian Flynn, who lost his brother in the bombing, said al-Megrahi's release was like sending a convicted September 11 bomber to serve out the rest of his sentence under Osama bin Laden. He added, "Didn't those [270] victims deserve a life long enough to contract cancer?"

Things are getting mighty testy in Silicon Valley these days: Microsoft, Yahoo, and Amazon.com have all signed up with a prominent lawyer to challenge rival Google's settlement with authors and publishers. Like Microsoft in the 1990s, Google's prominence has made it the envy and target of other companies in the industry. A Google spokesman told the Wall Street Journal that Google Books makes the market more competitive. Library and trade groups say that Google's program, which scans books off library shelves and permits users to search for phrases in those works, is an abuse of copyright laws and violates the property of authors and publishers. The lawyer for the new coalition, Peter Brantley, said his group would "develop public statements and documents" to show how Google's digital book settlement violated anti-trust laws.

The painting is a chimera of 1980s culture: a portrait of Michael Jackson painted by Andy Warhol to commemorate the Thriller album's record-breaking sales. The painting was auctioned by the Vered Gallery on New York's Long Island this week for an undisclosed amount, although one report said the price was in excess of $1 million (the starting bid was $800,000.) That would be evidence of the art market's collapse, as the average price for a Warhol in recent years has been $17 million, while the most paid at auction for a Warhol was $71 million for "Car Crash." The most paid for a Warhold portrait was $28 million for a take on Marilyn Monroe, dubbed "Lemon Marilyn."

The archivists sorting through Andy Warhol's hoarder-like store of possessions have found everything from crusty wedding cake and old soup cans to $17,000 in cash and a drawer of gems worth $1 million. But some things are priceless. The Telegraph reports that somewhere inside the 610 cardboard boxes, the filing cabinets, and the shipping container, researchers have found a photograph that puts Jackie Kennedy Onassis' wild side on full display. The nude picture is a shot of Onassis skinny-dipping, and includes the inscription "For Andy, with enduring affection, Jackie Montauk," a reference to Warhol's beachfront estate in Montauk, Long Island.

Barack Obama will leave for a week on Martha's Vineyard Sunday, but it is unlikely to be a restful break for the president as both parties battle over health care and he faces the challenge of increasing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan. One former presidential adviser told Reuters that presidents are never really off the job, even when on vacation. "Their 'vacations' do not disconnect them with the presidency. Nor, for that matter, do they look an awful lot like our vacations," said Stephen Hess, now of the Brookings Institute. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said that the president's efforts to achieve health-care reform will continue through the week. "Obviously, we'll have some scheduling updates for you throughout the week on events that may or may not be added on health care," Gibbs said this week. But he added, "Obviously, there will be a certain point in which the president will largely be down enjoying his vacation."