Two US congressmen reviewing contingency plans of five major oil companies in the event of another spill say they are nearly identical – and are all unprepared.

Embattled car maker Toyota is recalling 600,000 Sienna minivans sold in the US over fears of rusty spare tyre cables snapping.

The chief executive of the giant investment bank whose collapse set off a panic which led to the US economic rescue package took home more than €222m since 2000, he told the US Congress.

US Congress has heard that Lehman Brothers, days away from becoming the largest bankruptcy in US history, was pleading for a US rescue on one hand while steering millions in dollars to departing executives on the other.

Ex-US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top former Pentagon officials today denied any cover-up and rejected personal responsibility for the military’s bungled response to Army Ranger Pat Tillman’s friendly-fire death in Afghanistan.

Pat Tillman’s brother accused the US military today of “intentional falsehoods” and “deliberate and careful misrepresentations” in portraying the American professional American football star’s death in Afghanistan as the result of heroic engagement with the enemy instead of friendly fire.

Ex-CIA agent Valerie Plame told a House of Representatives committee that White House and State Department officials “carelessly and recklessly” revealed her secret identity.

The US Federal Reserve sent record payouts of more than $12 billion in cash to Baghdad on giant pallets aboard military planes shortly before the United States gave control back to Iraqis.

TENS of millions of dollars have been wasted in Iraq reconstruction aid, some of it on an Olympic-sized swimming pool ordered by Iraqi officials for a police academy that has yet to be used, investigators say.

The US government wasted tens of millions of dollars in Iraq reconstruction aid, including scores of unaccounted-for weapons and a never-used camp for housing police trainers with an Olympic-size swimming pool, investigators say.

A powerful US Senate committee is to hold hearings this month about why banned weapons have not been found yet in Iraq, it was reported today.