Nation/world digest 06/23/06

U.S. gets access to bank records in terror fight

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government gained sweeping access to international banking records as part of a secret program to choke off financial support for terrorism, officials said Thursday. Treasury Department officials said they used broad subpoenas to collect the financial records from an international system known as Swift. Stuart Levey, Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, called the subpoenas "a legal and proper use of our authorities." Under the program, which started shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, U.S. counterterrorism analysts could query Swift's massive financial data base looking for information on activities by suspected terrorists, a Treasury Department official said. They would do so by plugging in a specific name or names, the official said. The program involved both the CIA and the Treasury Department.

25 in Mosul gunned down in gangland style

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- At least 25 people have been executed gangland-style in Iraq's third-largest city this week, with residents gunned down in ones and twos and bodies found scattered throughout the northern city of Mosul. Police said they were not sure if the attacks were carried out by the Sunni Arab-led insurgency, common criminals or sectarian death squads. Increasing numbers of Iraqi deaths over the past months have been attributed to revenge killings carried out by Shiite-backed militia organizations or Sunni Arabs who have banded together in retribution.

Jury seated in Andrea Yates retrial

HOUSTON -- A jury was seated Thursday to hear the second trial of Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who claims she was insane when she drowned her five young children in a bathtub in 2001. Opening statements in the case were scheduled to begin Monday. As in her first trial, Yates, 41, has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity. Prosecutors maintain that Yates does not fit the insanity definition.

San Jose mayor indicted on six counts, office says

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Mayor Ron Gonzales was indicted by a county grand jury Thursday on six counts, his office said, but the allegations were not immediately clear. Prosecutors have said they were investigating whether Gonzales committed any crime by negotiating a trash hauling contract with Norcal Waste Systems that cost taxpayers an additional $11.25 million in labor costs. Gonzales and aide Joe Guerra each posted $50,000 bond Thursday morning and were scheduled to appear Monday in Santa Clara County Superior Court, the mayor's office said.

-- From wire reports