Legislative budget analysts raised their estimate of Arizona's midyear budget shortfall to nearly $2 billion, up from approximately $1.5 billion. The growing shortfall, roughly a fifth of the budget, prompted calls to cut spending, increase taxes and raid voter-mandated programs.

The Joint Legislative Budget Committee staff on Thursday cited the latest drops in tax collections, increased spending for safety-net programs and newly reduced expectations from some budget-balancing maneuvers as it boosted its shortfall estimate on the current state budget.

Other elements of the shortfall already included a nearly $500 million deficit carried over from the last fiscal year and about the same amount of budget savings lost when Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed parts of the budget on Sept. 4.

The budget has roughly $10.1 billion of state spending, including $1.1 billion funded by federal stimulus dollars. Before being augmented by the federal money, borrowing and other maneuvers, regular state tax collections provide only $6.4 billion.

Arizona's economy has been hit hard by the recession, and economists said Thursday the recovery will be slow and long.

A Guantanamo prisoner who held up a photo of President Barack Obama as a sign of hope at a war crimes court hearing last year said Wednesday he has lost faith that the American leader will be much different than his predecessor.

Ahmed al-Darbi, who told the court in December he hoped Obama would "earn back the legitimacy the United States has lost in the eyes of the world," said in a note passed to his lawyer that he is disappointed the Guantanamo prison remains open and the military court still holds hearings.

"I say to him now that he has gone astray," al-Darbi said.

Al-Darbi, 34, a Saudi who is charged with conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism, gave the note to his lawyer following a hearing at which a judge granted the Obama administration's request to delay all proceedings in his case for 60 days while the government completes a review of the system for prosecuting Guantanamo prisoners.

Obama is expected to shift some of the trials to civilian courts and has said he intends to close the prison in January. There are about 225 prisoners at the Guantanamo jail, which was created by President George W. Bush, and officials have not announced where they will be moved.

At the same time, Liz Cheney accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and congressional Democrats of seeking to politicize lingering arguments over how the Bush administration conducted the war against terrorism in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Asked directly on MSNBC whether her father directed the CIA not to keep Congress fully informed about the secret program, Cheney said, "This is a classified program and he doesn't talk about classified programs."

An official with direct knowledge of the program had said earlier that CIA Director Leon Panetta, according to notes he'd been given in the early months of the program, Cheney had told the CIA not to inform Congress of the specifics of the effort. Panetta canceled the program on June 23. Officials have said the program was aimed at going after officials of the terrorist network individually rather than through air attacks in an effort to limit civilian casualties.

Liz Cheney, a former principal deputy secretary of state for Mideast affairs during George W. Bush's presidency, is helping her father write his memoirs. She aggressively defended him in Tuesday's nationally broadcast interview while declining to say point-blank whether he had violated any law or rule.

"I've always preferred my idea of a commission of inquiry to look at all these issues," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Sunday.

Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., head of the intelligence committee, suggested that the George W. Bush administration broke the law by concealing a CIA counterterrorism program from Congress.

The Wall Street Journal, anonymously citing former intelligence officials, reported Monday the secret program was a plan to kill or capture al-Qaida operatives.

The Journal's sources said the plan, which was halted by CIA Director Leon Panetta, was an attempt to carry out a presidential finding authorized in 2001 by President George W. Bush.

The Journal said the agency spent money on planning and maybe some training, but it never became fully operational. The plan was highly classified and the CIA has refused to comment on it.

The assertion that Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the program kept secret from Congress came amid word that Attorney General Eric Holder is contemplating opening a criminal probe of possible CIA torture.

"There are no neat or easy answers here," Obama said in a speech in which he pledged anew to "clean up the mess at Guantanamo" that he said the nation had inherited from the Bush administration.

Obama conceded that some of the detainees would end up in U.S. prisons and insisted those facilities were tough enough to house even the most dangerous inmates.

Obama decried arguments used against his plans.

"We will be ill-served by the fear-mongering that emerges whenever we discuss this issue," he declared.

Speaking at the National Archives, Obama said he wouldn't do anything to endanger the American people.

Results for Tuesday's special election posted on the California's secretary of state's website showed more than 60 percent of voters rejected the five fiscal measures on the ballot.

A sixth measure barring pay increases for state officials amid deficits was approved by about 74 percent of the voters.

Surveys in recent weeks had found little support for the fiscal measures, and Schwarzenegger all but conceded defeat by joining President Obama in Washington on Tuesday for his announcement on auto emission rules instead of campaigning for the measures through election day.

The White House confirmed the meeting but said it did not indicate a finalization of the president's review process.

"I don't think we're at the point where the president says, `What do you think about these two people?'" White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told The Associated Press on Monday. "The president pledged very early on to consult broadly, and I think Wednesday's meeting does that."

Obama is to talk at the White House with Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee.

Don Stewart, a spokesman for McConnell, said the Republican leader hopes this is the start of the consultation process and that Obama "follows the lead of previous presidents and has many such meetings over the coming weeks before a nomination is announced."

The White House has ruled out that Obama will name his Supreme Court pick this week.

Souter is retiring in June, and Obama wants to have a nominee confirmed when the next Supreme Court session starts in October.