USA

Newsweek took a "good first step" by retracting its story that US investigators found evidence interrogators at Guantánamo Bay desecrated the Koran, but the White House said Monday it wants the magazine to do more to repair damage caused by the article. Newsweek should try to set the record straight by "clearly explaining what happened and how they got it wrong, particularly to the Muslim world" said White House press secretary Scott McClellan. Protests in Afghanistan, where more than a dozen people died and scores were injured in rioting, and demonstrations elsewhere in the Muslim world, were blamed on the article.

British MP George Galloway told Congress Tuesday he rejected charges he profited from the UN's oil-for-food program and complained he was being treated unfairly by a Senate committee. Galloway was a witness before the committee that is examining how ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein used oil to reward politicians, particularly from Russia, France and Britain, instead of for humanitarian relief under the now-defunct program.

A small group of Democratic senators, who've been meeting with Republicans also eager to avoid a showdown over President Bush's stalled judicial nominees, floated a proposal Tuesday to clear the way for confirmation of some of the blocked appointees. Under the proposal, Republicans would pledge no change through 2006 in the Senate's rules that allow filibusters against judicial nominees. For their part, Democrats would commit not to block votes on Bush's Supreme Court or appeals court nominees during the same period, except in extreme circumstances.

President Bush hailed biodiesel as "one of our nation's most promising alternative fuel sources" Monday while touring a biodiesel refinery in West Point, Va., that makes fuel from soybeans. Production of relatively clean-burning fuel has increased 60-fold to 30 million gallons last year, according to the industry.

Spc. Sabrina Harman was found guilty Monday for her role in the mistreatment of Iraqi inmates in late 2003. A sentence hearing was set to begin Tuesday at Fort Hood, Texas. Harman appeared in several of the most notorious photos taken at Abu Ghraib and took others. Also on Monday, Spc. Joseph Darby, who blew the whistle on the scandal, received a special John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage award.

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