WASHINGTON — The officer who arrested Sen. Larry Craig in a police undercover operation at an airport men's room accused the senator of lying to him during an interrogation afterward, according to an audiotape of the arrest.

On the tape, released Thursday by the Minneapolis Airport Police, the Idaho Republican senator, in turn, accuses the officer of soliciting him for sex.

"I'm not gay. I don't do these kinds of things," Craig told Sgt. Dave Karsnia minutes after the two men met in a men's room at the airport on June 11.

"You shouldn't be out to entrap people," Craig told the officer. "I don't want you to take me to jail."

Karsnia replied that Craig wouldn't be going to jail as long as he cooperates.

Report: Va. Tech could have saved lives by notifying students faster; parent calls for firings

RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Tech's president, facing calls for his ouster, defended his university's response to the nation's deadliest school shooting, saying Thursday that officials couldn't have known the gunman would attack twice.

"Nobody can say for certain what would have happened if different decisions were made," President Charles Steger said. "The crime was unprecedented in its cunning and murderous results."

A state-appointed panel that investigated the April 16 massacre at the Blacksburg campus released a report late Wednesday criticizing Virginia Tech officials, saying they could have saved lives if they had acted more quickly to warn students about the first shootings that morning at a dormitory and that a killer was on the loose.

Instead, it took administrators more than two hours to send students and staff an e-mail warning. The shooter had time to leave the dormitory, mail a videotaped confession and manifesto to NBC News, then return to campus and enter a classroom building, chain the doors shut and kill 31 more people, including himself.

"Warning the students, faculty and staff might have made a difference," the panel in its report. "The earlier and clearer the warning, the more chance an individual had of surviving."

Report citing little political progress in Iraq draws criticism from White House, Pentagon

WASHINGTON — An independent assessment concluding that Iraq has made little political progress in recess months despite an influx of U.S. troops drew fierce pushback from the White House on Thursday and provided fresh ammunition for Democrats who want to bring troops home.

The political wrangling came days before the report was to be officially released and while most lawmakers were still out of town for the August recess, reflecting the high stakes involved for both sides in the Iraq war debate. President Bush, who planned to meet Friday at the Pentagon with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is nearing a decision on a way forward in Iraq while Congress planned another round of votes this fall to end the war.

"It is clear that every objective expert keeps providing the American public with the same facts: that the president's flawed Iraq strategy is failing to deliver what it needs to — a political solution for Iraq," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

In a draft report circulated this week, the Government Accountability Office concluded that at least 13 of the 18 political and security goals for the Iraqi government have not been met. Administration officials swiftly objected to several of the findings and dismissed the report as unrealistically harsh because it assigned pass-or-fail grades to each benchmark, with little nuance.

GAO officials briefed congressional staff on their findings behind closed doors, promising the aides an unvarnished assessment of Iraq when an unclassified version of the report is publicly released on Sept. 4.

U.N. weapons inspectors find potentially hazardous phosgene chemical in office

UNITED NATIONS — U.N. weapons inspectors discovered a potentially hazardous chemical warfare agent that was taken from an Iraqi chemical weapons facility 11 years ago and mistakenly stored in their offices in the heart of midtown Manhattan all that time, officials said Thursday.

The material, identified in inventory files as phosgene — a chemical substance used in World War I weapons — was discovered Aug. 24. It was only identified on Wednesday because it was marked simply with an inventory number, and officials had to check the many records in their vast archives, said Ewen Buchanan, a spokesman for the U.N. inspection agency.

A team of hazardous materials experts from the FBI and the New York City police went to the office on Manhattan's east side, about a block north of U.N. headquarters, on Thursday with two steel containers to remove the materials and take them to a military facility outside New York for disposal, officials said.

While the disposal team was in UNMOVIC's sixth-floor office, its small staff was evacuated along with other tenants from that floor, Buchanan said.

When the material was discovered in a shipping container last week, Buchanan said U.N. experts followed their established procedure in dealing with unknown material — putting the material in double zip-locked plastic bags, and securing it in a safe in a room that is double-locked.

Myanmar hunts protest leaders; U.S. officials urge U.N. action

YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar's ruling junta on Thursday hunted pro-democracy activists it blames for spearheading ongoing protests against rising fuel prices, a rare wave of dissent in the tightly controlled country.

Jailed opponents of the military regime launched a hunger strike to demand medical treatment for a colleague injured during one of the protests, fellow activists said.

Despite a crackdown on demonstrators, about 20 people marched against the price hike in the town of Kyaukpadaung, about 285 miles northwest of Yangon, activists said. The protesters were jeered by pro-junta crowd, and leaders were ushered into a meeting with the township chairman, who advised them of a ban on gatherings of more than five people before letting them go.

"We told the chairman that we are marching to express the economic hardship due to the fuel price hike and also demanded that all political prisoners be released," said protester Myint Lwin. "We are peacefully expressing our civil rights."

In Yangon, the country's largest city and its commercial center, truckloads of young, tough-looking enforcers hired by the government and directed by plainclothes security officials were parked at key points, ready to pounce on anyone suspected of trying to spark unrest.

Taliban free last South Korean hostages, vow more abductions

JANDA, Afghanistan — Taliban militants released the last seven South Korean hostages on Thursday under a deal with the government in Seoul, ending a six-week drama that the insurgents claimed as a "great victory for our holy warriors."

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi vowed to abduct more foreigners, reinforcing fears that South Korea's decision to negotiate directly with the militants would embolden them.

"We will do the same thing with the other allies in Afghanistan, because we found this way to be successful," he told the Associated Press via cell phone from an undisclosed location.

The seven hostages were handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross in two separate exchanges close to the central Afghan city of Ghazni, Red Cross officials and an Associated Press reporter said. The freed hostages did not speak to reporters.

The final three released — two women and a man — were handed over by armed men on a main road in Janda district after apparently walking through the desert for some distance. Covered in dust, they were quickly bundled into a Red Cross vehicle and driven away.

Ohio high school student suspended for tricking rival fans into insulting themselves

HILLIARD, Ohio — A high school student who tricked football fans from a crosstown rival into holding up signs that together spelled out, "We Suck," was suspended for the prank, students said.

Kyle Garchar, a senior at Hilliard Davidson High School in suburban Columbus, said he spent about 20 hours over three days plotting the trick, which was captured on video and posted on the video-sharing Web site YouTube. He said he was inspired by a similar prank pulled by Yale students in 2004, when Harvard fans were duped into holding up cards with the same message.

At the end of the video, Garchar wryly thanks the 800 Hilliard Darby High School supporters who raised the cards at the start of the third quarter during last Friday's football game.

"It couldn't have been done without you," reads the closing frame of the video.

Garchar, 17, created a grid to plan how the message would be spelled out once fans in three sections held up either a black or white piece of construction paper.

Post-YouTube: New Web sites try to recreate TV experience on your PC

NEW YORK — Watching video online in small, fuzzy boxes is heading the way of rabbit ears.

Some highly anticipated Web sites are being modeled on making the experience of watching video online more like watching television. These sites rely on software that enlarges the interface so that it fills your computer screen — from edge to edge.

This new wave of applications is led by Joost and includes VeohTV and Babelgum. Though all are in beta (testing) phases, the hype has been mounting — leading many to claim the next big advance in online video is imminent.

"The distribution problem is starting to get solved by many different people, but the experience of online video is still very poor," said Veoh founder Dmitry Shapiro. "Companies like Veoh and Joost are trying to create a more TV-like experience for viewers."