Lying

The gray-and-green warehouse in suburban Concord seems an unlikely headquarters for a statewide detective operation, and the fact checkers at work there insist they are not mercilessly probing the lives of California's teenagers. Still, there is an element of hard-boiled sleuthing in the University of California's unusual attempt to ensure that its 98,000 freshman applicants tell the truth about themselves and their extracurricular activities.

What to say about British comedian Ricky Gervais' new work, "The Invention of Lying." Ah, yes . . . brilliant really, hmmm . . . sorry, lying. The film, which stars Gervais and was co-written and co-directed by Gervais with co-conspirator Matthew Robinson, does have its moments -- most of them courtesy of Gervais and his very specific brand of self-deprecating, always equivocating comedy -- just not nearly enough of them. And then there's the fact that apparently no one realized this was to be an actual movie rather than a 15-minute bit nestled within one of Gervais' routines, which are usually quite brilliant . . . not lying.

Former Peregrine Systems Inc. President Gary Lee Lenz, whose fraud trial ended in a deadlocked jury, pleaded guilty Tuesday to making false statements in a case that charged him with helping destroy the once-$4.7-billion company. Lenz entered the plea before U.S. District Judge Thomas Whelan in San Diego. Lenz, 60, faces as many as five years in prison and a fine of $250,000. "Mr. Lenz wants to put this behind him," Lenz's attorney, Thomas Bienert, said after the hearing.

The 80-year-old leader of a megachurch pleaded guilty Wednesday to lying under oath about his sexual affairs and was sentenced to 10 years' probation. Archbishop Earl Paulk, who has been in ill health, was also fined $1,000 on a single felony count. The charges stem from a 2006 deposition Paulk gave in a lawsuit against him, his brother Don and the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit at Chapel Hill Harvester Church by former church employee Mona Brewer, who said she was coerced into an affair.

The British government acknowledged Thursday that it had been misled when it pledged to Parliament that British territory had never been used for controversial CIA flights transporting terrorism suspects, after the U.S. revealed that two such flights occurred in 2002. The revelations sparked an outcry in Parliament, which had long voiced suspicions that the much-criticized and highly secretive rendition flights had refueled in British territories.

Prosecutors considered trying to indict Eliot Spitzer for official misconduct for his role in the so-called Choppergate affair but decided not to after the former New York governor resigned in a prostitution scandal, according to a report released Friday by Albany Dist. Atty. David Soares. The highly anticipated report was an about-face from one Soares' office released in September clearing Spitzer of any wrongdoing.

In a strong rebuke by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the agency proposing a toll road through San Onofre State Beach has been accused of making false and misleading statements in an appeal to federal officials. Col. Thomas H.

For two years, authorities said, a mother subjected her son to what veteran detectives described as shocking, ritualistic abuse. The 5-year-old was hung by his hands and wrists from a door jamb and beaten with some sort of leash or chain, police said. He was routinely denied food and water, burned with cigarettes on his body and genitals, and left to sit in his own urine and feces. In the past few weeks, his hands were held to a hot stove, according to Capt.

An internal investigation by the CIA found that agency officials engaged in a cover-up to hide agency negligence in the downing of a private airplane over Peru in 2001 as part of a mistaken attack on an aircraft suspected of carrying illegal narcotics. Excerpts of an internal CIA report released Thursday accuse agency officials of lying to members of Congress and withholding crucial information from criminal investigators and senior Bush administration officials.

Alberto R. Gonzales misled Congress when as White House counsel he claimed that the CIA had approved information that ended up in the 2003 State of the Union speech about Iraq's alleged effort to buy uranium for its nuclear weapons program, a House Democrat said Thursday. In a memo to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, panel Chairman Henry A.