In the Nation

BOULDER, Colo. - Prosecutors cleared JonBenet Ramsey's parents and brother yesterday in the Dec. 26, 1996, killing of the 6-year-old beauty queen and apologized to the Ramseys for putting them under a cloud of suspicion for more than a decade.

Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy said new DNA tests pointed to an "unexplained third party." She wrote to JonBenet's father, John: "To the extent that we may have contributed in any way to the public perception that you might have been involved in this crime, I am deeply sorry."

For years, tabloids and crime shows went after John and Patsy Ramsey, and news reports also cast suspicion on their son, Burke, who was 9 when his sister was killed. Lacy's predecessor, Alex Hunter, said in 1997 that the parents were under an "umbrella of suspicion."

John Ramsey, who now lives in Michigan, said yesterday that he was hopeful the killer would be found based on DNA evidence. Patsy Ramsey died in 2006 of ovarian cancer.

- AP

A military judge tried yesterday to dissuade alleged Sept. 11 conspirators at Guantanamo from serving as their own attorneys by warning they would not see classified evidence against them before trial.

U.S. Marine Corps Col. Ralph Kohlmann made the disclosure in separate hearings at the Cuba base with Saudi Mustafa Hawsawi and Pakistani Ammar al-Baluchi, who are accused of conspiring to help the hijackers in the 2001 attacks. Convictions could carry the death penalty.

Five detainees in the case have refused Pentagon-approved lawyers with top-secret clearances and said they would defend themselves. Kohlmann is conducting individual hearings with the detainees to make certain each freely rebuffed his Pentagon attorney in favor of self-representation.

- McClatchy Newspapers

NEW YORK - Editors at the New York Times have run a lengthy correction after learning that a recent front-page photo of a crying Zimbabwean baby with casts on his feet misrepresented his injuries.

The caption on the June 26 photo said the boy sustained his injuries from state-sponsored violence in Zimbabwe. But the Times said subsequent reporting determined that the boy actually had club feet - a congenital birth defect that can turn feet inward.

Editors said the mother later acknowledged she had exaggerated his injuries because she could not afford surgery. According to the Times, doctors say recent X-rays showed no broken bones.

- AP

Former Rep. Joseph McDade

(R., Pa.), 76, who represented a northeastern district from 1963 to 1999, is mentally incompetent to stand trial for allegedly exposing himself at a Florida resort last year, a state judge has ruled. His attorney said he has Parkinson's disease and was taking medication then that left him unable to remember what happened.

More federal dollars

would be dedicated to fighting major wildfires under legislation the House passed yesterday.