Los Angeles

Cheney expresses displeasure with O’Neill

In a new book about the Bush administration, former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill describes Vice President Dick Cheney as a leader of a “Praetorian Guard” around the president, cutting him off from dissenting opinions.

In his first public comments on the book, “The Price of Loyalty,” by journalist Ron Suskind, Cheney described O’Neill as “a big disappointment.”

“I was a big advocate of his, without question. And it’s turned out to be a big disappointment,” Cheney said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times and USA Today.

Cheney has long had ties to O’Neill, having worked with him in the Nixon and Ford administrations. It was Cheney who recommended O’Neill for the job of Treasury secretary, and it was Cheney who in 2002 told O’Neill he was fired.

France

Muslim leader thought targeted in car bombing

A bomb destroyed the car of a regional administrator in Nantes on Sunday, and there were fears he was targeted because he is the first foreign-born and Muslim person to have the post. No one was injured in the blast.

The owner of the car, newly named Prefect Aissa Dermouche, was at home when the blast occurred. The car was parked nearby, authorities from the Loire-Atlantique region said.

Dermouche, 57, the director of a business school in Nantes, was named Wednesday to the post of prefect for France’s eastern Jura region. A prefect is the highest state representative of a French region.

His appointment came amid a heated debate over French affirmative action policies aimed at giving immigrants a better place in society. Dermouche was born in Algeria.

Officials said they were boosting security around Dermouche and his family.

Arizona

Negotiators seek release of prison guard hostages

Two state prison guards were taken hostage by inmates early Sunday in Buckeye, and negotiators were called in to try to defuse the situation.

One inmate attacked a guard shortly after 5 a.m. during breakfast preparations, then met up with another inmate in the prison yard and the two gained access to the officers’ tower, said Jim Robideau, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Corrections.

A male correctional officer taken hostage was injured, said Cam Hunter, a department spokeswoman.

Negotiation teams and officers from the Corrections Department, the Department of Public Safety and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office were at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Lewis.

The medium- to high-security prison, west of Phoenix in Buckeye, houses 4,400 inmates, most convicted of felonies such as manslaughter and aggravated assault.