Gasoline prices have jumped above $3 a gallon in some parts of California and Hawaii, and may hit that level other parts of the country when the busy summer driving season approaches.

''It kills me,'' said Gloria Nunez, 53, as she filled her Ford Explorer SUV at a San Jose gas station. Nunez, a clerk for a communications company, has started working a couple hours of overtime each week to help soften the blow.

''All of a sudden you kind of have to watch your pennies,'' she said.

Analysts say drivers should brace for more increases in the coming weeks. Crude oil, which makes up about half the price of gasoline, is trading above $60 a barrel. Higher demand, refinery maintenance and fears about springtime shortages are also driving up prices, particularly on the West Coast.

''The West Coast will certainly be the wild, wild West this year,'' said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service. Extensive maintenance work at West Coast refineries has curtailed supplies and exacerbated the typical ''preseason rally'' spurred by jitters about tight supplies.

''In the rest of the country it's just petro-noia. They're worried that they won't have enough gasoline,'' Kloza said. ''But on the West Coast the concern might be warranted.''

However, analysts said it's unlikely other parts of the country would see $3 gasoline before summer without a major disruption in supply.

Average fuel prices are still below their historical highs -- most of which were set in 2006 -- but are inching higher weeks earlier than usual.

Wailuku, on the Hawaiian island of Maui, currently has the highest average price for a gallon of regular unleaded at about $3.20.

On the mainland, the title goes to San Francisco, where a gallon averages $3.10, a jump of about 34 cents from a month ago but still off the high of $3.36 set in May 2006, according to the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report for Wednesday.

The California cities of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Oakland are also all above $3 a gallon. Most other areas of the state are just a few cents away from cracking that milestone, and motorists say they're cutting back to save money.

''I take the bus,'' said Hector Esqueda, an 18-year-old justice administration student from Los Angeles who has stopped driving his gas-guzzling, older-model Lincoln Continental to save money. ''Other people are doing the same thing. The bus is packed.''

Nationwide, the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded is up about 32 cents from a month ago, to $2.50, according to the AAA report. That's more than 55 cents shy of the all-time high recorded in September 2005, after hurricanes Katrina and Rita damaged the Gulf of Mexico refinery infrastructure.

Part of the reason is rising demand. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said Wednesday that gasoline demand has averaged more than 9.1 million barrels per day over the past month, a 3.3 percent jump over the same period last year.

Oil prices jumped by more than $1 per barrel on Wednesday, settling at $61.82, after the agency also reported an unexpected drop in crude oil inventories as import levels reached their lowest point since 2005.

Across the country, drivers are grappling with how to manage the sudden spike.

Outside a Sunoco convenience store in downtown Philadelphia, T.J. Hawk, a 45-year-old retired Philadelphia police officer, recalled the good old days when it cost $5 to fill the tank.

These days, it takes at least $40 to fill his white Volvo. Most weeks, he only fills it three-quarters of the way to soften the hit to his wallet.

In Philadelphia, regular unleaded averaged about $2.57 a gallon early Wednesday morning, a 12 percent jump from a month ago but still well shy of the high of $3.358 a gallon set in September 2005.

Several customers at a Mobil station in St. Petersburg, Fla., were upset because there seemed to be no real reason for the price increase. Prices at the station range from $2.47 a gallon for regular to $2.69 for premium.

Lee Franc, a client manager from St. Petersburg, spent about $40 to put 16 gallons in her Toyota Highlander. She works at home and can go a week or two without filling up.

''Katrina, I can understand,'' Franc said. ''I didn't see a very good explanation this time. You hear so many excuses it gets to where you don't believe anything anymore.''

In Chicago, cab driver Nathan Michaels pays $25 each day to gas up his cab. That cost plus the $325 per week he pays to lease his cab makes it difficult to earn a living, even though he works six days a week.

He's been considering buying an SUV for personal use, but thinks with gas prices rising he'll start researching hybrid vehicles.

The rising gas prices also raise his anxiety in a more general way, he said. ''It contributes to an overall feeling of uncertainty about what's going on worldwide.''

"They lost track," said the official who like others interviewed late Thursday spoke on condition of anonymity because the report had not been released.

The errors are outlined by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine in an audit to be released on Friday. The audit requirement was added to the Patriot Act by Congress over the objections of the Bush administration.

The FBI reported to Congress in 2005 that its agents had delivered a total of 9,254 national security letters seeking e-mail, telephone or financial information on 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal residents over the previous two years. That was the first year the Bush administration publicly disclosed how often it uses national security letters to obtain records. The numbers from previous years have been classified.

Fine's report, according to officials, says the numbers of national security letters, or NSLs, between 2003 and 2005 were underreported by 20 percent.

It was unclear late Thursday whether the omissions could be considered a criminal offense. One government official who read the report said it concluded the problems appeared to be unintentional and that FBI agents would probably face administrative sanctions instead of criminal charges.

The FBI has taken steps to correct some of the problems, the official said.

The Justice Department, already facing congressional criticism over its firing of eight U.S. attorneys, began notifying lawmakers of the audit's damning contents late Thursday. Justice spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said Attorney General Alberto Gonzales "commends the work of the inspector general in uncovering serious problems in the FBI's use of NSLs."

Gonzales has told FBI Director Robert S. Mueller "that these past mistakes will not be tolerated," Scolinos said in a statement early Friday. The attorney general also "has ordered the FBI and the department to restore accountability and to put in place safeguards to ensure greater oversight and controls over the use of national security letters," she said.

Mueller was to brief reporters on the audit Friday morning, and Gonzales was expected to answer questions about it at a privacy rights event in Washington several hours later.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee that oversees the FBI, called the reported findings "a profoundly disturbing breach of public trust."

"Somebody has a lot of explaining to do," said Schumer, D-N.Y.

Fine's audit also says the FBI failed to send follow-up subpoenas to telecommunications firms that were told to expect them, the officials said.

Those cases involved so-called exigent letters to alert the firms that subpoenas would be issued shortly to gather more information, the officials said. But in many examples, the subpoenas were never sent, the officials said.

The FBI has since caught up with those omissions, either with national security letters or subpoenas, one official said.

National security letters have been the subject of legal battles in two federal courts because recipients were barred from telling anyone about them.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Bush administration over what the watchdog group described as the security letter's gag on free speech.

Last May, a federal appeals judge in New York warned that government's ability to force companies to turn over information about its customers and keep quiet about it was probably unconstitutional.

"We come to celebrate a strategic partnership between the United States and Brazil ... A memorandum of understanding in the biofuels area was signed," Lula said. Lula said the agreement to promote the use of alternative fuels was important for mankind and should encourage other countries to diversify their energy sources.

Brazil and the United States would seek production partnerships with other countries in Central America, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa.

San Francisco-based law firm Gordon & Rees has opened a Denver office.

The office will be overseen by co-managing partners Scott Cook and Miles Scully, both litigators, and will focus primarily on commercial litigation initially, though there are plans to add health care and employment law, among other practice areas, within the first year.

The office also will include Amy Darby, a senior associate with experience in complex business disputes, class action matters and other general business litigation. Darby specializes in franchisee/franchisor disputes. She also has experience in trademark litigation, product liability and negligence claims.

The firm said the expansion into Denver was driven largely by clients.

"The firm has enjoyed strong relationships with a number of clients either domiciled in Colorado or with legal and business needs in the area so this was a natural extension for us," Dion Cominos, managing partner for Gordon & Rees, said in a press release. "We also see many viable possibilities for new business in Colorado and expect to grow our ranks there significantly over the near term.

Gordon & Reese has offices in 14 cities, including several in California, as well as in Portland, Oregon; Las Vegas; Phoenix; Dallas; Houston; New York; Uniondale, N.Y.; and Newark, N.J.

China accused the US of numerous human rights abuses on Thursday in its Human Rights Record of the US in 2006, the Chinese state response to US criticism in Tuesday's publication of the 2006 US State Department Country Reports. The Chinese report, its eighth consecutive annual rebuttal to the US report, cites news stories from around the world as examples of US rights abuses both within the US and in other countries. China said the US uses its strong military to trespass on the sovereignty of other countries and violate the rights of those countries' citizens, drawing from sources such as a John Hopkins University study that estimates more than 655,000 Iraqi deaths since the Iraq war began in early 2003, and US troop actions in Haditha and Mahmudiya .

The report also cited alleged Geneva Convention violations, including the detention and alleged torture of prisoners both in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. On the situation within the US, the Chinese report looked at racial and gender inequality, overcrowding in the prison system, poverty, post September 11 government surveillance, political corruption including discussion of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and the crime rate in general. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged that the US has an imperfect human rights record when introducing the State Department's report Tuesday, saying "We do not issue these reports because we think ourselves perfect, but rather because we know ourselves to be deeply imperfect, like all human beings and the endeavors that they make. Our democratic system of governance is accountable, but it is not infallible. We are nonetheless guided by enduring ideals: the inalienable rights of humankind and the principles of democracy toward which all people and all governments must continue striving. And that includes us here in America."

The US State Department report on China was just as detailed as the Chinese response, saying that China's human rights record has been steadily declining over the years. The US report looked at China's restrictions on press and speech, Internet censorship, governmental corruption, racial and gender discrimination, and limitations on religious freedom, including the state crackdown on Falun Gong.

Khadr was only 15 years old when he allegedly trained with and fought alongside al Queda fighters in Afghanistan. His father, Ahmad Khadr, was a close associate of Osama bin Laden and other senior al Queda leaders. Omar Khadr is accused of planting mines to blow up US convoys and throwing a grenade that killed a US Green Beret. His charges were renewed last month. Earlier this week the US Supreme Court rejected his request to expedite his challenge of the 2006 Military Commissions Act.

Texas Ranger Sgt. Brian Burzynski speaks to members of a Joint Committee on the Operation and Management of the Texas Youth Commission Thursday, March 8, 2007, in Austin, Texas. Burzynski is one of the first law authorities to investigate allegations of sexual abuse at the West Texas State School.
   
Echoing the words of so many others, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said of U.S. troops: They don't have the luxury of passing the buck to somebody else. They step forward and they step up.

"I promised each one of those victims that I would do everything in my power to ensure that justice would not fail them, the Rangers would not fail them," Brian Burzynski told a legislative committee Thursday, his voice quivering. "I can only imagine what the students think about the Ranger who was unable to bring them justice."

Recent discussions of the agency's budget brought Burzynski's investigation to the Legislature's attention, and an internal investigation confirmed his findings and determined top officials knew of the abuse but did nothing to stop it.

This week, state leaders dispatched law enforcement officials to all 22 state youth facilities and the commission's headquarters to investigate as the sexual abuse scandal became public.

The Texas attorney general's office opened an investigation and aimed to bring the case before a grand jury by May. Lawmakers urged them to hurry.

The legislative committee Burzynski testified before, set up to look into the scandal, also gave the Texas Youth Commission Board of Directors a vote of no confidence during its first meeting Thursday after board members refused to resign.

"You're responsible for 5,000 children that are incarcerated and they're God's children," said state Rep. Jim McReynolds. "I read (investigation reports) last night 'til I wanted to vomit."

Lawmakers are trying to determine who knew that inmates had accused top officials of molesting them, when they knew about it and why they didn't stop the abuse and expose it.

During the often tear-filled testimony, members of the board claimed they didn't know about many of the allegations and didn't have time in their meetings to categorically address reports of abuse.

"I've never been involved in anything where you had to follow up on a case that was done by a Texas Ranger or by a police department or was turned over to a district attorney," said Board Chairman Donald Bethel. "We didn't know anything about that."

Bethel insisted that the board did the best it could with the information it had.

"I don't think anyone else would have done different than what this board did," Bethel said.

Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat who leads the committee, told the five board members they should all resign: "I think you ought to do the state and the young people of Texas a service by getting out of the way and letting someone else lead."

Investigators on Thursday converged on a halfway house in San Antonio after getting a tip that the superintendent had been shredding documents. Executive Director Ed Owens had previously ordered that no document be destroyed at any of the facilities.

"They conducted a search of her office, vehicle and residence with her consent and they seized state-issued computers as well as a shredder and its contents," said Ted Royer, a spokesman for Gov. Rick Perry. "She was immediately escorted off the facilities and Ed Owens has ordered that she be suspended immediately while this investigation moves forward."