NATION BRIEFS

NATIONWIDE: More waterboarding claimed

Human Rights Watch said it has uncovered evidence of a wider use of waterboarding than previously acknowledged by the CIA, in a report Thursday detailing treatment of detainees at U.S.-run lockups abroad after 9/11. The accounts by two former Libyan detainees who said they underwent simulated drowning emerge only days after the Justice Department closed its investigation of the CIA's use of severe interrogation methods. Any new instances of waterboarding, however, would go beyond the three that the CIA has said were authorized.

CALIFORNIA: Third victim of hantavirus

A West Virginian is the third person to die of a rodent-borne illness linked to tent cabins at Yosemite National Park that has stricken eight people in all, health officials said Thursday. Dr. Rahul Gupta, director of the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department, declined to give specifics about the West Virginia victim, citing the family's wish to grieve in private. Two deaths were in California and Pennsylvania.

TEXAS: 85-mph OKd for toll road

The state Transportation Commission has approved an 85-mph limit, the highest in the country, for a 41-mile toll road east of the crowded Interstate 35 corridor between Austin and San Antonio. Most U.S. highways top out at 75 mph. Some in rural West Texas and Utah have 80-mph limits.