USA

American International Group moved to pay its executives $165 million in bonuses the troubled insurance giant claimed it was contractually obligated to distribute by Sunday's deadline. During TV appearances, however, Larry Summers, the president's chief economic adviser, called the bonuses "outrageous," and Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the government should find out if they are legally recoverable. AIG has received $170 billion in federal bailout funds.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney says he deeply disagreed with George W. Bush's decision to not pardon "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's ex-chief of staff, he told CNN Sunday. Bush commuted Libby's sentence, but did not erase his conviction on perjury and obstruction of justice charges in outing CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.

US combat troops in Iraq will not "forsake" security operations even after a pullback to bases outside Baghdad and other cities, Brig. Gen. Frederick Rudesheim, a deputy commander for American forces in Baghdad, said Sunday. In carrying out the first step of a full withdrawal by 2011, he said troops would be positioned to stop militants in rural areas.

Bioterrorism expert Margaret Hamburg, the former New York City health commissioner, is President Obama's choice to head up the Food and Drug Administration, he said Saturday. The president also said he plans to create a special advisory group to consider ways of updating outmoded food safety laws.

The San Francisco Chronicle's largest union agreed to contract concessions Saturday that the publisher, the New York-based Hearst Corp., has called essential to the newspaper's survival.

States still have a long way to go in making government records accessible online, according to survey results released Sunday by a group of journalism organizations. The survey checked the availability of 20 kinds of records, including audit reports and hospital inspections. Texas is the only state with information online in all categories.

Coatesville, Pa., a steel town hit hard by a string of at least 46 arsons since February 2008, was struck by another deliberately set fire Saturday that badly damaged two homes, authorities said. Five people have been arrested in previous incidents.

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