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WASHINGTON – Newly released documents show the FBI interviewed a naked, chained terror suspect back in 2002 as the bureau struggled with the CIA over how to treat high-value prisoners.

Details of the interrogation were contained in documents released late Friday as part of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, and Judicial Watch.

As the CIA began to use harsh interrogation techniques against captured terror suspects, the FBI became wary of the legality of the methods, which ranged from forced nudity to waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning. As a result, FBI agents were ordered not to participate in such harsh interrogations.

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And if you don’t look too closely, you’re likely to zip right past the focus of a hotly contested Supreme Court battle.

A federal judge has ordered the Mojave Cross, a war memorial erected by a veterans group 75 years ago, to be covered. It’s boxed in plywood.

The issue is less about what the cross symbolizes and more about where it sits: In the middle of the Mojave National Preserve, which is government land.

The high court on Wednesday will consider whether the display violates the First Amendment’s provision for a separation of church and state. Video Watch details of the cross case »

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Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus unveiled a summary of the legislation after months of contentious negotiations conducted against the backdrop of often heated town hall forums across the country.

The proposal would cost $774 billion over 10 years while reducing the federal deficit by $49 billion in that period, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Baucus, a Montana Democrat, put the price tag at $856 billion. Finance Committee aides attributed the different totals to accounting methods rather than any variation in the final overall costs.

The plan would require all Americans to have health insurance, but lacks a government-run public health insurance option favored by most Democrats and President Obama. The CBO review estimated the proposal would leave 25 million people uninsured by 2019 — about a third of them illegal immigrants — compared to 46 million people currently without health coverage.

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The project will bring together more than 15,000 employees now scattered in 35 offices in the region, placing them on a 176-acre campus strewn with historic buildings in a long-neglected corner of Washington, five miles from the Capitol building.

Department leaders hope the $3.4 billion consolidation will help the department fulfill its core mission — protecting the homeland — in ways big and small.

“It will help us hold meetings,” Secretary Janet Napolitano said. “It will help us build that culture of ‘One DHS.’”

At the groundbreaking, political leaders shoveled dirt with care, but pitched historical references and metaphors with abandon.

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U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the National Park Service has “reached agreements with all the landowners needed” to establish the permanent memorial for the 40 people killed in the terrorist hijacking nearly eight years ago.

Salazar said the government will pay the landowners approximately $9.5 million.

One of several airliners hijacked on September 11, 2001, by terrorists who intended to use them as flying bombs, United Airlines Flight 93 went down near Shanksville, in western Pennsylvania.

Salazar described the negotiations as cordial, with landowners wanting “to walk away saying we’ve done it for the right reasons.”

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WASHINGTON – The White House is being forced to acknowledge the wide gap between its once-upbeat predictions about the economy and today’s bleak landscape.

The administration’s annual midsummer budget update is sure to show higher deficits and unemployment and slower growth than projected in President Barack Obama’s budget in February and update in May, and that could complicate his efforts to get his signature health care and global-warming proposals through Congress.

The release of the update — usually scheduled for mid-July — has been put off until the middle of next month, giving rise to speculation the White House is delaying the bad news at least until Congress leaves town on its August 7 summer recess.

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WASHINGTON – Sen. Daniel K. Inouye’s staff contacted federal regulators last fall to ask about the bailout application of an ailing Hawaii bank that he had helped to establish and where he has invested the bulk of his personal wealth.

The bank, Central Pacific Financial, was an unlikely candidate for a program designed by the Treasury Department to bolster healthy banks. The firm’s losses were depleting its capital reserves. Its primary regulator, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., already had decided that it didn’t meet the criteria for receiving a favorable recommendation and had forwarded the application to a council that reviewed marginal cases, according to agency documents.

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She was sworn after she was confirmed by the Senate in a 65-31 vote.

The timely vote puts Sebelius in office as the Obama administration is up against its first public health outbreak.

She steps into the role as swine flu numbers climb worldwide. As of Tuesday morning, at least 90 cases had been confirmed, including 50 in the United States.

Until her confirmation, the White House, which declared a public health emergency Sunday, was dealing with its first crisis without a secretary. But the administration said it was equipped to handle the situation.

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WASHINGTON – Raise federal gasoline taxes to help pay for road projects?

Not during a recession, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has said.

Then how about moving toward a system that finances highway construction by charging motorists by the mile?

When LaHood suggested last week that be considered among other potential financing schemes, he got bushwhacked by the White House

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WASHINGTON – Mexican drug cartels are shipping more than massive quantities of drugs north of the border. Increasingly, they’re also exporting bloody mayhem.

Seeking to stem the growing influence of the Sinaloa cartel within the United States, federal agents arrested more than 50 suspects in raids Tuesday night and Wednesday morning at different ends of the country. The raids capped a 21-month operation by the Drug Enforcement Administration that rounded up 755 suspects and seized more than $59 million in criminal proceeds.