The detective in charge of the British investigation into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, regularly asked the French police whether they had uncovered anything suspicious, an inquest heard today.

Detective Superintendent Jeffrey Rees enquired “periodically” whether French investigators had found any suspicious circumstances surrounding the crash that killed Diana and her lover, Dodi Fayed, but did not constantly press the matter.

Thames Valley police’s Assistant Chief Constable Nick Gargan told the inquest that the question as to whether the crash was suspicious was a key theme of the investigation.

Gargan acted as an intermediary between Rees and French detectives when working as a police liaison officer based at the British Embassy in Paris.

Michael Mansfield QC, acting for Dodi’s father, Mohamed Al Fayed, asked Gargan whether Rees “was constantly asking whether in fact the French had found anything suspicious” about the crash. “That is what he says in a statement he made,” the barrister added.

Gargan said: “I don’t remember it being a specific point he would bring up without fail, but I do remember that it was a question that he would ask periodically.

“It was a theme of the investigation that people would be asking whether this was suspicious.”

Mansfield also asked whether Rees was told about a meeting at New Scotland Yard on September 18 1997 at which Diana’s solicitor alleged she had feared she would be killed in a car crash.

Gargan replied: “I’m not absolutely sure, but I don’t think I was given that information.”

He was also asked why Rees - a member of Scotland Yard’s serious crime squad - was put in charge of the British side of the inquiry.

Gargan said: “Everybody involved in this had a sense that it was a momentous investigation.

“It was a real moment in history, and I think everybody decided they were going to put their best people on it.”

Diana, Dodi and their driver, Henri Paul, died following the crash in the Pont d’Alma underpass in Paris in the early hours of August 31 1997.

The Duke of Edinburgh’s private secretary, Brigadier Sir Miles Hunt-Davis, is due to give evidence later today.

August 9, 2007 — U.S. stocks continued their recovery from a three-week rout after Cisco Systems raised its sales forecast and speculation increased that banks and homebuilders may have weathered the worst of the subprime mortgage shakeout.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 153.56 points, or 1.1 percent, to 13,657.86 and the Nasdaq composite index soared 51.38, or 2 percent, to 2,612.98, its biggest advance since October. The S&P 500 index added 20.78, or 1.4 percent, to 1,497.49.

Financial bigs Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley rose after a Citi Investment Research analyst recommended buying the shares.

Elsewhere, Pulte Homes pushed a gauge of construction companies to its biggest advance in four years. And Cisco, the world’s largest maker of computer-networking equipment, climbed to a six-year high after saying demand for Internet gear increased.

(12-13) 01:08 PST Seattle (AP) —

Some of the nation’s largest retailers and grocery chains sold milk labeled “organic” that was not truly organic, recently filed lawsuits allege.

The federal complaints focus on the sale of milk from Boulder, Colo.-based Aurora Organic Dairy, which recently agreed to change its practices after the U.S. Department of Agriculture found more than a dozen violations of organic standards.

The lawsuits allege that Costco Wholesale Corp., Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp., Safeway Inc. and Wild Oats Markets Inc. sold Aurora’s milk under their own in-house brand names.

The brands include Costco’s Kirkland and Target’s Archer Farms, and the milk was sold in cartons marked “USDA organic,” typically with pictures of pastures or other bucolic scenes, the lawsuits allege.

“That’s not even close to the reality of where this milk was coming from,” said Steve Berman, a Seattle lawyer whose firm is among those suing. “These cows are all penned in factory-confinement conditions.”

Aurora denies selling non-organic milk.

The lawsuits seek class-action status on behalf of people who bought the milk and ask for their money back as well as punitive damages and attorneys’ fees.

Several of the companies declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment, but Target, of Minneapolis, said it stands behind Aurora’s organic milk.

“This lawsuit is inconsistent with the fact that the USDA has reviewed and confirmed the organic certification of Aurora dairy farms and its products,” the company said in a statement.

Consumers typically pay more for organic food because they believe it is free of hormones or pesticides and produced with greater respect for the environment.

Large corporate players insist they can farm organically on a large scale, while sustainable family farms complain that such operations are not really organic and contribute to surpluses that drive down prices, making it harder for them to compete.

Aurora is one of the nation’s largest dairies certified organic by the USDA.

After a progressive farm-policy organization complained about Aurora’s operations, the USDA found more than a dozen “willful violations” of the 1990 Organic Foods Production Act from 2003-06. Among them: that cows had little access to pasture, that Aurora moved its cows back and forth between conventional and organic farms, and that it sold milk as organic that did not meet federal standards.

Aurora agreed to change some of its practices in a settlement with the USDA this summer, and it has reduced the number of cows at its Platteville, Colo., facility from 4,000 to about 975, said company spokeswoman Sonja Tuitele. But it was allowed to keep its organic certification and was put on probation for a year.

Over the past 18 months, the company has also renovated its Platteville operation to increase its pastureland from 325 to 400 acres and make other improvements, Tuitele said.

“Any lawsuits claiming the milk we were selling was not organic have no merit,” she said.

Aurora itself has been sued by some consumers, but lawsuits filed in federal court in Denver, Seattle, Minneapolis and San Francisco in the last two weeks are the first to accuse the retailers of misleading their customers.

Target said in its statement that “it is disappointing that these types of lawsuits are attempting to override the USDA and regulate the organic industry and retailers with their own beliefs of what constitutes an organic product.”

But Mark Kastel, co-founder of the Cornucopia Institute in Wisconsin, said the USDA should have revoked Aurora’s certification. The Cornucopia Institute is not involved in the lawsuits but investigated Aurora and brought it to the USDA’s attention.

Kastel said Cornucopia repeatedly told the companies now under fire about Aurora’s practices.

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On the Net:

«www.auroraorganic.com»

«www.cornucopia.org»

«www.usda.gov»

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BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) Д The government wants more money from a man who served more than four years in prison and forfeited nearly $4 million in a massive farm fraud case.

Duane Huber was released from prison last month and the Farm Service Agency, which runs federal farm programs, is trying to collect money it says Huber got illegally from farm program benefits.

Huber, a former Wimbledon farmer and insurance agent, was convicted in November 2002 of operating five sham farms in the 1990s. He was convicted on 19 charges, including conspiracy to defraud the government, and sent to a minimum-security prison in Duluth, Minn., in July 2003. He was also ordered to forfeit about $3.9 million, which he repaid.

Doug Johnson, Huber’s son-in-law, said the government is being unfair because Huber already paid back the nearly $4 million.

But Bryan Olschlager, a Farm Service Agency compliance director in Fargo, said Huber and a farm partnership owe farm program benefits from 1995 through 2000.

U.S. District Judge Rodney Webb did not order Huber to repay money to the FSA, but he did not bar the agency from trying to collect it through administrative action, Olschlager said.