Briefly . . . NATION/WORLD

Don't trash photos of torture,

Gitmo prisoner's lawyer says

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A lawyer for a Guantanamo prisoner has urged U.S. authorities to preserve CIA photos that would prove his client was tortured when the spy agency allegedly sent him to Morocco for questioning about al Qaeda links.

The request is urgent because of the disclosure that the CIA destroyed videotaped interrogations of two suspected terrorists now held at Guantanamo, lawyer Clive Stafford Smith said.

Stafford Smith alleges Binyam Mohamed was abused during 18 months in captivity in Morocco, where he was flown after he was captured in Pakistan in 2002.

He was later transferred to a CIA-run prison in Afghanistan and then to the U.S. base in Guantanamo, Cuba.

The lawyer said any evidence the U.S. has for holding Mohamed, one of five British residents still imprisoned at Guantanamo, came through "medieval" torture in Morocco.

* Congress summoned CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden to Capitol Hill to explain his agency's destruction of the interrogation tapes. Hayden is to testify in a closed session today before the Senate Intelligence Committee, and tomorrow before the House Intelligence Committee.

It's winter in nation's middle; power out for 600,000-plus

OKLAHOMA CITY - A wintry storm caked the center of the nation with a thick layer of ice yesterday, blacking out more than 600,000 homes and businesses, and more icy weather was on the way. At least 17 deaths in Oklahoma and Missouri were blamed on the conditions, with 15 people killed on slick highways.

A state of emergency was declared for all of Oklahoma, where the sound of branches snapping under the weight of the ice echoed through Oklahoma City. "You can hear them falling everywhere," Lonnie Compton said yesterday as he shoveled ice off his driveway.

The National Weather Service posted ice and winter storm warnings for parts of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois. Missouri declared an emergency on Sunday and put the National Guard on alert.

Oklahoma utilities said a half-million customers were blacked out as power lines snapped under the weight of ice and falling tree branches, the biggest power outage in state history.

"If you do the math, probably one out of three Oklahomans has no electricity at this point," said Gil Broyles, a spokesman for Oklahoma Gas & Electric, the state's largest utility.

Utilities in Missouri said more than 100,000 homes and business had no power there.

A 'family' attraction in Vegas:

Museum of city's founders

LAS VEGAS - Las Vegas is building a museum about some of its founding fathers and most influential figures - guys with names like Bugsy, Lefty and Lansky.

The mob museum will stand as acknowledgment of the major role mobsters played in developing Las Vegas into the gambling capital of America and giving the city its rakish glamour during the 1940s and '50s.

"Let's be brutally honest, warts and all. This is more than legend. It's fact," said Mayor Oscar Goodman, a former Philadelphian and defense attorney whose clients once included mobsters Meyer Lansky and Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro. "This is something that differentiates us from other cities."

The project has gained the support of the FBI and is guided by a retired FBI agent. They say they are involved because you can't tell the stories of Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, his banker, Lansky, casino boss Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal and others without telling the story of the lawmen who pursued them.

Evel Knievel is remembered

as an all-American daredevil

BUTTE, Mont. - Mourners remembered daredevil Evel Knievel yesterday as a red, white and blue American icon who made a spiritual leap of faith long after his death-defying motorcycle jumps.

"He's forever in flight now. He doesn't have to come back down; he doesn't have to land," said actor Matthew McConaughey, who became friends with Knievel and hosted a History Channel program on the stuntman.

The Rev. Robert H. Schuller of California's Crystal Cathedral officiated at the service, held in the daredevil's hometown, and talked about Knievel's baptism this year.

Robbie Knievel, who followed his father into the family business, disputed claims that he had eclipsed Evel in the world of extreme sports. "I am not the greatest daredevil in the world. I am the son of the greatest daredevil in the world," he said.

Six reasons he's going to jail

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A man who lied about being the father of sextuplets so he and his wife could solicit donations was sentenced yesterday to three years in prison for violating probation.

Kris Everson, 35, and his wife, Sarah, 46, had been sentenced in August 2006 to four years probation after each pleaded guilty to one count of felony stealing by deceit. But warrants for the couple were issued after they failed to pay restitution and missed several probation violation hearings. *

- Daily News wire services