WASHINGTON — President Bush defended his administration's methods of detaining and questioning terrorism suspects on Friday, saying both are successful and lawful.

"When we find somebody who may have information regarding a potential attack on America, you bet we're going to detain them, and you bet we're going to question them," he said during a hastily called Oval Office appearance. "The American people expect us to find out information, actionable intelligence so we can help protect them. That's our job."

Bush volunteered his thoughts on a report on two secret 2005 memos that authorized extreme interrogation tactics against terror suspects. "This government does not torture people," the president said.

Meanwhile, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., demanded a copy of a third Justice Department memo justifying military interrogations of terror suspects held outside the United States.

In a letter to Attorney General-nominee Michael Mukasey, Levin wrote that two years ago he requested — and was denied — the March 14, 2003, legal opinion. Levin asked if Mukasey would agree to release the opinion if the Senate confirms him as attorney general, and cited what he described as a history of the Justice Department stonewalling Congress.

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Rice orders new security rules for embassy convoys in Iraq

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ordered federal agents on Friday to ride with Blackwater USA escorts of U.S. diplomatic convoys in Baghdad to tighten oversight after a shooting in which private guards are accused of killing 13 Iraqi civilians.

She also ordered video cameras installed in Blackwater vehicles.

The steps will require the State Department to deploy dozens of additional in-house Diplomatic Security agents to accompany Blackwater guards and are the first in a series of moves Rice is expected to take to boost control of contractors the agency relies on to protect diplomats in Iraq.

They are aimed at "putting in place more robust assets to make sure that the management, reporting and accountability function works as best as it possibly can," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

The measures, which also include recording radio traffic between the embassy and diplomatic convoys and improving communications between those vehicles and U.S. military units in the vicinity, were implemented amid intense criticism of the department's security practices in Iraq and Blackwater's role.

They also come as Iraqis and U.S. lawmakers are clamoring for clarification of the now nebulous jurisdiction and authority under which the State Department's private security guards work.

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Pakistan's high court muddies political waters

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan can go ahead with its presidential election, but the winner can't be declared — at least not for a while, the country's Supreme Court said Friday.

It said the results of Saturday's ballot could not become official until it decided whether President Gen. Pervez Musharraf was eligible to stand for re-election while retaining his dual post as chief of the army.

The surprise decision cast Pakistan into political confusion by leaving open the possibility that the high court could still derail the U.S.-allied Musharraf's bid for a new five-year term even if, as expected, he easily won the voting by national and provincial lawmakers.

That brought new doubts about his future and his pledges to end eight years of military rule, restore democracy and redouble efforts to fight surging Islamic militancy. And it rekindled speculation that Musharraf might resort to martial law to hold on to the presidency.

"Pakistan will be in a state of political limbo for quite some time," analyst Talat Masood said.

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Topps going out of business after beef recall

NEWARK, N.J. — Topps Meat Co. on Friday said it was closing its business, six days after it was forced to issue the second-largest beef recall in U.S. history and 67 years after it first opened its doors.

The decision will cost 87 people their jobs, Topps said.

On Sept. 25 Topps began recalling frozen hamburger patties that may have been contaminated with the potentially fatal E. coli bacteria strain O157:H7. The recall eventually ballooned to 21.7 million pounds of ground beef.

Thirty people in eight states had E. coli infections matching the strain found in the Topps patties, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. None have died.

"This is tragic for all concerned," said Topps chief operating officer Anthony D'Urso, a member of the family that founded the company in 1940.

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Democratic hopeful Edwards raps Sen. Clinton

DES MOINES, Iowa — Democrat John Edwards said Friday the top strategist for presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton has ties to the controversial Blackwater security firm, and warned against installing "a group of corporate Democrats" to replace the Bush White House.

Edwards suggested similarities between Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, and the Republican president.

"George Bush has been a perfect example of cronyism because Blackwater has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republicans and to President Bush," he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"I also saw this morning that Sen. Clinton's primary adviser, Mark Penn, who is like her Karl Rove, his firm is representing Blackwater."

"It is the reason I continue to say we don't want to replace a group of corporate Republicans with a group of corporate Democrats," he said. Blackwater is a private security firm whose employees have been accused of using their weapons too aggressively against Iraqi civilians and police.

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Oral Roberts' son and daughter-in-law accused of improprieties

TULSA, Okla. — Twenty years ago, televangelist Oral Roberts said he was reading a spy novel when God appeared to him and told him to raise $8 million for Roberts' university, or else he would be "called home."

Now, his son, Oral Roberts University President Richard Roberts, says God is speaking again, telling him to deny lurid allegations in a lawsuit that threatens to engulf this 44-year-old Bible Belt college in scandal.

Richard Roberts is accused of illegal involvement in a local political campaign and lavish spending at donors' expense, including numerous home remodeling projects, use of the university jet for his daughter's senior trip to the Bahamas, and a red Mercedes convertible and a Lexus SUV for his wife, Lindsay.

She is accused of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on clothes, awarding nonacademic scholarships to friends of her children and sending scores of text messages on university-issued cell phones to people described in the lawsuit as "underage males."

At a chapel service this week on the 5,300-student campus known for its 60-foot-tall bronze sculpture of praying hands, Roberts said God told him: "We live in a litigious society. Anyone can get mad and file a lawsuit against another person whether they have a legitimate case or not. This lawsuit ... is about intimidation, blackmail and extortion."

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Scientists believe appendix's purpose is to produce, protect good germs

WASHINGTON — Some scientists think they have figured out the real job of the troublesome and seemingly useless appendix: It produces and protects good germs for your gut. That's the theory from surgeons and immunologists at Duke University Medical School, published online in a scientific journal this week.

For generations the appendix has been dismissed as superfluous. Doctors figured it had no function, surgeons removed them routinely, and people live fine without them.

And when infected the appendix can turn deadly. It gets inflamed quickly and some people die if it isn't removed in time. Two years ago, 321,000 Americans were hospitalized with appendicitis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The function of the appendix seems related to the massive amount of bacteria populating the human digestive system, according to the study in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. There are more bacteria than human cells in the typical body. Most of it is good and helps digest food.

But sometimes the flora of bacteria in the intestines die or are purged. Diseases such as cholera or amoebic dysentery would clear the gut of useful bacteria. The appendix's job is to reboot the digestive system in that case.

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Bruce Springsteen and wife sued over nixed horse sale

TRENTON, N.J. — Bruce Springsteen and his wife are being sued, accused of backing out of a contract to buy a horse worth $850,000 for their teenage daughter.

Olympic equestrian Todd Minikus filed the breach of contract lawsuit Thursday in Florida's Palm Beach County. It claims Springsteen and Patti Scialfa reneged on a deal to pay Minikus $650,000 for the horse, named Pavarotti, and give him their horse named Scarlett, worth $200,000.

The lawsuit says the couple, who live in Monmouth County and own Stone Hill Farm, put a $25,000 deposit on Pavarotti in July but later had second thoughts about whether the horse was right for their daughter Jessica.

Minikus, a former member of the U.S. Equestrian Team, claims the couple had a change of heart after he rode the 10-year-old gelding at the Pan American Games in Brazil. That event was held after the contract was signed but before the transaction was complete, he says.

Before the competition, Minikus described Pavarotti as the least experienced horse on his squad.

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Myanmar junta says hundreds of monks were detained

YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar's junta said Friday that hundreds of Buddhist monks were detained during its crackdown on pro-democracy activists and that it was hunting for four more clerics it described as ringleaders of the uprising.

The government insisted that most of the monks had already been freed, with only 109 still in custody, according to an official statement broadcast on state TV.

The junta's treatment of the Buddhist monks — who are revered in this deeply religious nation — is a key issue that could anger soldiers loyal to the military rulers.

Twenty-nine monks were suspected of being protest leaders and 25 of them were already in custody, state media said. It identified the monks still at large as U Kantiya, U Visaitta, U Awbatha and U Parthaka, but did not name their monasteries.

Demonstrations that began in mid-August over a fuel price increase swelled into Myanmar's largest anti-government protests in 19 years, inspired largely by thousands of monks coming out on the streets.