Video Recordings

China has moved to restrict videos online, allowing only state-controlled sites to post any -- including ones shared by users -- and requiring Internet providers to delete and report certain content. It wasn't immediately clear how the new rules would affect YouTube and other providers that host websites based in other countries that are accessible from China. A spokesman for YouTube, based in San Bruno, Calif.

More than two years before the CIA destroyed interrogation videotapes, top officials were urged to preserve them by a senior lawmaker who warned that disposing of the recordings would "reflect badly on the agency." The warning came in a February 2003 letter from Rep. Jane Harman of Venice, then the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

An American Al Qaeda militant urged fighters to meet President Bush with bombs when he visits the Middle East, according to a video posted Sunday on the Internet. Adam Gadahn, who was raised in Orange County, also tore up his U.S. passport in the nearly hourlong tape. The video came three days before Bush is scheduled to arrive for a weeklong trip in the region to push for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. "Now we direct an urgent call to our militant brothers . . .

A senior House Republican said information gathered by the House Intelligence Committee indicated that a high-ranking CIA official ordered the destruction of videotapes depicting agency interrogation sessions even though he was directed not to do so. The remark by Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) contradicts previous accounts that suggested that Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., the CIA official who ordered the tapes destroyed, was never instructed to preserve them.

Orange County sheriff's deputies repeatedly shocked a handcuffed prisoner with a Taser, even after he had been strapped into a restraint chair, slammed him onto the floor with a "knee drop" and appeared to hit him in the head while he sat passively on a bench, jail videotapes show.

A federal judge said Thursday that CIA interrogation videotapes may have been relevant to a case he's presiding over, and he gave the Bush administration three weeks to explain why they were destroyed in 2005 and say whether other evidence was destroyed. Several judges are considering wading into the dispute over the videos, but U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts was the first to demand a written report on the matter.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday that it was investigating a Chino-based supplier of meat to the National School Lunch Program after release of a video showing slaughterhouse workers using inhumane and illegal practices on weak and sick cows.

PHOENIX -- In the latest example that Congress is keeping a focused eye on the NFL, a senior senator said Friday that he wants the league to explain why it destroyed the videotapes from a cheating scandal involving the New England Patriots. "I do believe that it is a matter of importance," Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said at a news conference, the same day his comments on the matter appeared in the New York Times.

When the wife of a popular sportscaster grabbed the microphone at a pre-Olympics reception and blabbed about her husband's infidelity, the inevitable happened. An audience member with a cellphone captured the whole embarrassing episode, including the mortified husband trying to hush his wife and security guards fluttering about helplessly, and posted footage worthy of "The Jerry Springer Show" on Tudou.com, a Chinese clone of YouTube.

China has eased new Internet controls that had limited video-sharing to state companies, saying private competitors already operating in the fast-growing arena may continue. Any new video-sharing companies must comply with the rules, which took effect last week, the government said Tuesday. The rules appeared to be aimed at extending China's Web censorship as the Beijing Olympics approach and at preventing the distribution of unflattering videos.