Letter From Bill Keller on The Times's Banking Records Report  —  The following is a letter Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, has sent to readers who have written him about The Times's publication of information about the government's examination of international banking records:

Democrats Cite Report On Troop Cuts in Iraq  —  Pentagon Plan Like Theirs, Senators Say  —  Senate Democrats reacted angrily yesterday to a report that the U.S. commander in Iraq had privately presented a plan for significant troop reductions in the same week they came under attack …

Al-Jazeera, as American as Apple Pie  —  In a country's hinterlands, a distant region seldom visited by outsiders, a television crew investigates why so many residents are fleeing the area.  When local officials catch wind of the crew's presence, they begin interrogating people the journalists interviewed …

Family life faces State 'invasion'  —  Government surveillance of all children, including information on whether they eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, will be condemned tomorrow as a Big Brother system.  —  Experts say it is the biggest state intrusion in history into the role of parents.

Abbas to Hamas: You bear responsibility for soldier's fate  —  An intensive mediation effort got underway Sunday, as a number of states, including Egypt, tried to persuade Hamas military wing in the territories to release Corporal Gilad Shalit, abducted in a pre-dawn raid on his Israel Defense Forces post near the Gaza border.

Bizarre cult of Sears Tower 'plotter'  —  Paul Thompson, Miami, and Sarah Baxter, Washington  —  THE ringleader of the seven men accused of plotting to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago was a "Moses-like figure" who carried a crooked cane and wore a cape as he sought to recruit followers to a religious cult called the Seas of David.

Warren Buffett gives away his fortune  —  FORTUNE EXCLUSIVE: The world's second richest man - who's now worth $44 billion - tells editor-at-large Carol Loomis he will start giving away 85% of his wealth in July - most of it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Iraqi Qaeda-led group says Russian hostages killed  —  Source: Reuters  —  DUBAI, June 25 (Reuters) - An al Qaeda-led group posted video footage on the Internet on Sunday showing the killing of three men it said were Russian hostages seized in Iraq earlier this month.

Scalia twisted my words  —  Criminologist says his work was used to reach its opposite conclusion in {lt}i{gt}Hudson{lt}/i{gt}.  —  A FRIEND OF mine e-mailed me last week with some exciting news — the Supreme Court had cited one of my criminal justice policy books in an important, late-term decision.

Saddam's WMD  —  Why is our intelligence community holding back?  —  On Wednesday, at our request, the director of national intelligence declassified six "key points" from a National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) report on the recovery of chemical munitions in Iraq.

Afghan Leader Losing Support  —  KABUL, Afghanistan, June 25 — Many Afghans and some foreign supporters say they are losing faith in President Hamid Karzai's government, which is besieged by an escalating insurgency and endemic corruption and is unable to protect or administer large areas of the country.

Saddam's UN links to be aired in court  —  LINKS between Boutros Boutros Ghali, the former UN Secretary-General, and an alleged agent for Saddam Hussein will come under the spotlight when the first American trial of a major figure in the Oil-for-Food scandal gets under way today.