The four-year investigation focused on allegations that 148 black men were tortured in Chicago police interrogation rooms in the 1970s and '80s. The men claimed detectives under the command of Lt. Jon Burge beat them, used electric shocks, played mock Russian roulette and started to smother at least one to elicit confessions.

No one has ever been charged, but Burge was fired after a police board found he had abused a suspect in custody. His attorney has said Burge never tortured anyone.

The report released Wednesday also faulted procedures followed by the Cook County State's Attorney's office and the police department at the time of the alleged abuse, saying they were "inadequate in some respects" but had since improved.

Mayor Richard M. Daley was the state's attorney during part of the period investigated.

Daley's office did not immediately return a call for comment Wednesday. A police spokeswoman also did not immediately return call seeking comment.

Boyle and Egan's report said they found three cases with enough evidence to seek an indictment, including the suspect whose abuse allegations led to Burge's firing.

That suspect, who was convicted of killing two police officers in 1982, claimed Burge and two detectives beat and tortured him with electric shocks.

"Regrettably, we have concluded that the statute of limitations would bar any prosecution of any offenses our investigation has disclosed," the prosecutors said. The statute of limitations on the allegations is three years.

Report could boost legal claims

The special prosecutors also said they believe there was abuse in other cases that they reviewed but that the evidence wasn't as strong.

Allegations had included officers playing mock Russian roulette with suspects with unloaded guns.

"Regrettably, we have concluded that the statute of limitations would bar any prosecution of any offenses our investigation has disclosed," the prosecutors said. The statute of limitations on the allegations is three years.

Several people who claimed to have been abused or tortured by Chicago detectives have filed civil lawsuits and the report could bolster their legal claims.

The allegations also have drawn attention from human rights groups.

In May, a United Nations anti-torture panel said the Chicago investigation needs to go farther than it has. They said the United States should ensure that law enforcement officials who mistreat suspects are punished.

There is an advert on American television that tells a simple story. The commercial, which is artfully depicted in beautiful pencilled animation, is seeking to promote an airline.

It begins with a young boy gazing in wonder at an jet plane flying high above. The boy then grows up, gets a job and marries. At each juncture in his busy life he looks up wistfully at the blue skies but is too preoccupied to act on his desire. Finally, as a grey-haired old man after his retirement, he again sees a plane in the sky above and finally hops on board, heading off to explore the world.

Now American advertisers are a canny bunch. They know their market. They have judged that this little tale is a heartwarming one. It is of a young boy's dream fulfilled. It will boost that airline's positive image. The story therefore is seen as resonating with Americans in a happy way.

But to European eyes (or at least to mine) this is not a happy story at all. It is heart-breaking tragedy. What is this man thinking? He has dreamed of travelling the world since he was a boy and only gets around to it when he's retired. Is he insane? What was keeping him busy all that time? The answer, of course: work.

There are few greater differences between America and Europe than attitudes to work.

The old saying that Americans live to work while Europeans work to live often rings true. There is a huge work ethic in America built on hard labour and sacrifice, and not too much in the way of leisure time, in which there is much to admire. But also very little to envy.

One brutal statistic sums it up: taken as a whole the average European gets about six weeks a year in holiday. The average American gets only two weeks. In America this difference is often mentioned by columnists and economists in celebratory terms.

They point gleefully to America's superior productivity rates and higher GNP. They see Europe as economically moribund. This is bizarre to the European mind. It's not so much a Transatlantic argument, as two entirely different conversations. Of course, work is good. But it is not all there is.

When did a productivity rate last get you a nice suntan? Given the choice between contributing a bit more to national GNP or spending an extra two weeks in southern Spain, which would you take? A little less work is a good thing.

But I believe that it is time for Americans take a break. Or more precisely several breaks. An extra two weeks holiday for all Americans would do the country a whole lot of good.

Firstly, I am sure a few economic output statistics would dip but not by a huge amount. I met a factory manager on a plane to Washington state once who had spent time in Germany and marvelled at how - despite so much more holiday - the workers there still completed their orders in the same time as their American colleagues.

The answer was simple common sense: if you give someone 48 weeks to do a job and then 4 weeks holiday, the job gets done in 48 weeks. If you give someone 50 weeks to do the same job, and two weeks holiday, then the job takes 50 weeks.

Secondly, at a time of huge American concern about outsourcing jobs abroad, an extra two weeks of holiday for American workers would give a massive boost to America's leisure and service industries. It would be boom time for resorts across America. Perversely, taking a holiday could create jobs.

Thirdly, and finally, it would be good for the rest of the world. America is just too big and too many people live in the wide open spaces in the middle to make going abroad easy. In London if you fly two hours you can probably end up in a dozen different countries. In Ohio, you will barely make it to New York.

With just two weeks holiday to spend (with some days used up letting in the gas man or visiting relatives) it becomes difficult to spend the time and effort to get anywhere outside North America. That leads to an inevitable lack of interest and knowledge about much of the world that can feed into politics. Before he became President, George W Bush had never been to Europe. This not to say Americans wouldn't love to find out more about the rest of us, it is just that on two weeks leave they don't get much of a chance.

This is what leads many Europeans to look in bafflement as Americans visit their shores in frenetic bursts, snapping pictures and ticking off as many countries as they can. Europeans tend to slip into an easy anti-American prejudice when they see this behaviour. But the truth is that if you've flown all the way from Ohio, and only have five days to 'do Europe' on your one holiday that year then of course you are going to try and pack in as much as you can.

So, with an extra two weeks off, Americans could relax. They could travel more often, more widely and much more slowly. They would get to know the world a bit better. The rest of the world would get to know them better too. Everyone would be happier. In troubled times like these how could that be a bad thing?

In an eight-hour shift, Officer Cappello has had calls about an assault, a man shot in the leg on a housing estate, a car slamming into the side of a city bus, a domestic disturbance and a couple of suspected break-ins. "It's the heat," she says.

Last week, Washington's police chief, Charles Ramsey, declared a "crime emergency" after the city registered its 14th murder since July 1, and a spate of violent robberies around Washington's most famous monuments on the Mall. As well as the steep rise in homicides, robberies are up 14% and armed assaults 18%.

When we arrive at the address given out on the radio, the officer who made the call has already got a man in handcuffs and on his knees with his face pressed into the side of a battered blue sedan. It is a sweltering night, but he is wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt. He is babbling: "I'm a man under fire."

Officer Cappello begins searching his pockets and pulls out a knife. Another man sits on a chair in the pool of light cast by a takeaway shop. One hand clutches the right side of his face; the other rests on his white cane.

When the first patrol car pulled up, the man in the grey sweatshirt had the blind man in a tight grip, and was pummelling his head. No one at the takeaway, or the liquor shop two doors down, knows why, and the blind man does not say.

By now there are eight police officers gathered around the takeaway and a man in a white t-shirt waiting at the bus stop begins screaming: "Break my fingers like you just said you would. Beat me like you said you would." He lunges at an officer, and gets taken down. Officer Cappello finishes patting down the assault suspect. She unthreads the laces of his black boots, and stands him up. He wets himself. Officers bundle him into the waiting police wagon with the man in the white t-shirt.

This time it was an assault but it could well have been a murder. Twelve of the 14 murder victims so far this month were African-American males, shot dead in poor areas of the city rarely visited by tourists. The other two were an African-American woman and Alan Senitt, the Jewish activist.

Senitt, 27, had his throat slashed as he walked a female friend home from the cinema in the early hours of July 9. His friend was sexually assaulted. The Briton had been planning to spend the summer working for a Democratic presidential hopeful, the former governor of Virginia Mark Warner.

There was nothing to suggest it would be unsafe to walk his friend home. Georgetown, with its genteel rows of houses, tucked-away mansions and smart shops, is one of the richest neighbourhoods in Washington.

The suspects in Senitt's murder had set out that evening saying they wanted to cut someone, police said. Two adult males, a juvenile and a woman were arrested within hours of the killing, in bloodstained clothing and carrying Senitt's identification papers. The men are suspects in at least two previous such attacks.

Mr Ramsey's emergency declaration, announced shortly after Senitt's murder, led to the beefing up of patrols around national landmarks.

For those Washingtonians whose live in a clearly defined quadrant of the city that is mainly white and affluent, Senitt's killing exposed a vulnerability. But it was, say some, a warning that a city known to outsiders for its monuments and harbours has some of the cruellest inequality in America.

Last January, a veteran journalist from the New York Times, David Rosenbaum, was beaten by robbers as he took an after-dinner stroll around his own upper-class neighbourhood in Washington DC. His treatment by ambulance attendants and emergency room personnel, who left him on a gurney for an hour without medical care, exposed a callous and shambolic emergency system. Rosenbaum died from his injuries.

William Chambliss, a sociology professor at George Washington University, notes that crime rates, in Washington as in other American cities, are cyclical. A few years of declining incidents will be followed by a few years of increased crime. But he believes Senitt's murder is a product of other forces. Over the past 25 years, as the gulf between rich and poor has widened, the divisions between rich and poor, black and white, in Washington have grown more acute.

A property boom has turned the city into the third most expensive in America - good news for homeowners, but a blow to the 19% of Washingtonians living below the poverty line. (The national rate is 13%.)

In a city that is 60% black, African-American students have the lowest performance levels in the country; overall 37% of Washingtonians cannot read well enough to fill out a job application. Four percent carry the HIV virus - a higher rate of infection than any other American city. Mr Chambliss argues that such divisions find an outlet in violent crime. "It creates an anger and a callousness towards those people who benefit from society," he says. "There is a parallel with terrorism where the upper-class white people become the enemy just as the western infidels become the enemy of Islam. I see this as a pattern that could be the beginning of a very serious change in crime, and where it is committed, and how it is committed."

For a city that is the custodian of America's heritage, the prospect of a migration in violent crime to the Mall or Georgetown is disturbing. Hours after Washington's police chief declared his determination to make the streets safe again, two groups of tourists were robbed at gunpoint near the Washington monument by men wearing dark clothes and ski masks.

"Summertime just gets crazy," says Officer Cappello. "I just don't know what it is."

Just look at the conversation he is having with world leaders at the G-8 summit. Mikes picked up the causal talk between the world leaders. Forget that Bush appears to have three sandwiches in his mouth while talking. Forget that he calls out to the Prime Minister of Britain as if he is Flounder in "Animal House." Forget that he uses profanity. I don't give a shit about those things.

I thought it was ridiculous that people made fun of George H. W, Bush for vomiting on the Japanese Prime Minister. What was he going to do? He had to puke, so he puked. It happens to the best of us, and more importantly, has nothing to do with his intelligence or how capable he is as a leader.

But his son's verbal vomit does have a lot to do with his ability to lead this country and the world. What I found to be the most damning is the least quoted part of Bush's comments. As you read this transcript, remember that this is not a small child talking, but the President of the United States of America:

The camera is focused elsewhere and it is not clear whom Bush is talking to, but possibly Chinese President Hu Jintao, a guest at the summit.

Bush: "Gotta go home. Got something to do tonight. Go to the airport, get on the airplane and go home. How about you? Where are you going? Home?

Bush: "This is your neighborhood. It doesn't take you long to get home. How long does it take you to get home?"

Reply is inaudible.

Bush: "Eight hours? Me too. Russia's a big country and you're a big country."

At this point, the president seems to bring someone else into the conversation.

Bush: "It takes him eight hours to fly home."

He turns his attention to a server.

Bush: "No, Diet Coke, Diet Coke."

He turns back to whomever he was talking with.

Bush: "It takes him eight hours to fly home. Eight hours. Russia's big and so is China."

Russia's big and so is China??????? This guys sounds like a third grader. Do you know anyone who would have a conversation like this with their neighbor, let alone a business associate, let alone a world leader? Who's proud to know that Russia is big and so is China?

Can anyone now credibly claim that Bush is secretly working on a master plan behind the scenes and that he's just playing cowboy for the cameras? I hope the master plan doesn't involve figuring out how long it takes to get to China.

If someone is this ignorant, they're usually embarrassed and try not to talk much. But this guy is so dumb he has no idea how dumb he is. This sounds like a conversation you might have with a child, a mentally challenged child. Johnny, do you know how big Russia is? How about China?

This would all be unfortunate if George was your dentist, or worse yet, your accountant. But he is the leader of the free world. This man makes life or death decisions every day. If you say you're not scared about that, you're lying.

Would you let him do the books for your business? Would you trust your company in his hands for eight years? (No matter how Republican you are, you know you just said no to that question.) Would you trust him to be your kids' guidance counselor and take his advice seriously? If your kids were in the Army and he was their field commander, would you feel good about putting their lives in his hands?

Come on, no one is crazy enough to say yes to that. Yet, he has all of our lives in his hands. The emperor has no clothes. The emperor has no clothes. It's about time someone in the mainstream media said it.

In the old empires, there would be a lot of marriages between the royal families. And from time to time, these inter-family marriages would produce a mentally challenged son who would inherit the throne. This would set the empire back for hundreds of years. I'm not saying anything, I'm just saying. Russia is big and so is China.

The Democrats for a long time have felt embarrassed about pointing out the obvious. The emperor has no brain. This is what I can't understand about the Democrats, they're always playing patty cakes while the Republicans are ripping their face off. John Kerry should have stood at the lectern during the debates and pointed to George Bush and said, "The leader of this country has to be the best and the brightest. If any of you think that he is the best and the brightest America has to offer, go ahead and vote for him!"

The theory is that people would be turned off by that. The theory assumes that people are also idiots and they love their cohorts. That is simply not true. Everyone understands that they have a friend they'd like to go fishing with and a friend they can trust to look after their affairs - and they're not necessarily the same guy. And that your fishing buddy might not be a great choice for President of the United States of America.

Kerry should have embarrassed Bush, made people feel sorry for him. It would have hurt in the short run and given him a temporary downward blip in the numbers, but in the end, when people went into that voting booth, they would have felt pity for Bush - in that scenario, Kerry wins easily. Nobody votes for someone they pity.

Unfortunately, right now we are in the position of being pitied by the rest of the world. We have third grader for a President. And worse yet, the Vice President has him convinced he is the second coming of Winston Churchill. Scared yet?

The ignorance, the boorishness, the embarrassing behavior were all on display at this year's G8 Summit, which concluded Monday. Between the president's stuffing a roll in his mouth to his use of "shit" in an exchange with Tony Blair to his witless banter with world leaders to his more-than-awkward surprise "massage" of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, our dumb president has never been dumber or more embarrassing. Or, for that matter, more AWOL when the world needs our leadership most. But that's alright, his defenders will say, he's just being himself, being authentic. Great. Our president is an authentic jackass.

It was the "shit" heard 'round the world. In fact, it drew top billing with many news outlets at a time when the world appears to be unravelling as we speak. Bush, who, like Blair, didn't know their conversation was being recorded, called the British prime minister over at the luncheon that closed the summit. "Blair," Bush asked, "what are you doing? You leaving?" When Blair shifted the conversation to trade negotiations, Bush shifted it back, thanking Blair for a sweater he gave the president as a gift, most likely for his recent birthday. Then, the conversation shifted to the Middle East. After a brief exchange, and while continuing to talk with his mouth full of what appeared to be a roll, the president said, "See, the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit, and it's over."

While using profanity and speaking with your mouth full are by no means nothing new - just ask my girlfriend, who could tell you both have been a part of my daily repertoire for years - I'm not the president. I'm not this nation's top ambassador to the rest of the planet. I'm not the public face of the United States of America. I'm just an average American and a blogger. I write things about people ranging from morons like Brad Stine and Ann Coulter to role models like Edward R. Murrow and Al Gore. I don't have my finger on the nuclear (or the "nucular") trigger. I don't travel in Air Force One, nor do I have a Secret Service detail. And I don't attend summits where I'm expected to, at the bare minimum, act like I've been there before. But Bush is all of these things; I'd just love to be able to dress him up and take him out without him embarrassing himself - or us.

So the president said "shit" and couldn't hold a conversation without stuffing his face. We've all done it. But what's as concerning to me, if not more, was the manner by which the president spoke with his fellow world leaders in an unguarded moment caught on tape. Hint: Like an idiot. When asked by someone, most likely an aide, something about whether or not the president wanted a prepared statement to close the meeting, Bush replied, "No. Just gonna make it up. I'm not going to talk too damn long like the rest of them. Some of these guys talk too long." Then, the president shifted his conversation to, quite likely though the exchange wasn't on camera, Chinese President Hu Jintao. "Gotta go home," Bush said. "Got something to do tonight. Go to the airport, get on the airplane and go home. How about you? Where are you going? Home?" Continuing, Bush added, "This is your neighborhood. It doesn't take you long to get home. How long does it take you to get home?"

Though the reply was inaudible, Bush then said, "Eight hours? Me too. Russia's a big country and you're a big country." As the Washington Post indicates, it's at this point that the president apparently brought someone else into the exchange. "It takes him eight hours to fly home," Bush said, telling a server that he wanted a Diet Coke. "It takes him eight hours to fly home. Eight hours. Russia's big and so is China." Russia's big and so is China? Just gonna make it up? Is he, as Cenk Uygur said, a third grader? Do you feel a lot safer knowing that you voted for a man whose idea of tableside conversation is asking world leaders how long their ride home is and marveling at the size of their countries?

When he wasn't showing his grasp of global geography, the president was busy doing things that would normally trigger a workplace sexual harassment workshop. Cameras captured the president walking behind Merkel and giving her an impromptu shoulder massage. Her look, which mirrors the look of any unsuspecting female in a bar when a drunk gets touchy-feely, was priceless. Bush's look, coincidentally, matched the look of that drunk. I mean, what the fuck? Somehow, I don't see former presidents Bush or Clinton doing this with Helmut Kohl. Nor, also, do I see either Bush or Clinton asking their secretary of state for permission to use the restroom, as this president has in the past. But a massage? Seriously? I know these summits can be tiring, tedious affairs, but does that fact warrant our president acting like the office letch? I doubt it.

Let's face facts: Our president is dumb. He doesn't know what he's talking about. He doesn't know how to act in public. And it's always been that way. It's been more than 70 years since "... the only thing we have to fear is fear itself". More than 40 since "... ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country." And, in that time, we've gone from the measured words of true statesmen to "Russia's big and so is China." Let me be the latest to ask: What the hell happened? When did flipping pancakes, taking hunting trips or throwing a football become more important for our presidential candidates than knowing what the hell they were doing? More specifically, when did we, as Americans, decide that that was what we wanted out of our presidents?

I'd sure like to know, because, as I've said before, "Isn't it a tad insane that we care more about whether we can have a beer with our president than whether we think he can save us from a fucking disaster or actually knows the difference between his asshole and a hole in the ground when it comes to foreign policy?" Who cares if the president would be a great guy to have a drink with? Hell, this one isn't even supposed to have a drink. Or, maybe he's not supposed to but he has, which would go a long way to explaining Bush's behavior at the G8 Summit. Either way, he was an embarrassment. And he always has been.

The girl was leaving a park at about 12:55 p.m. with her 7-year-old brother when a man grabbed her from behind, pulled her to the ground and raped her, police said. Their mother had left them alone for a few minutes to return home and turn off the kitchen stove.

A man playing basketball nearby said he heard the screams and ran to the scene. A motorist who witnessed it began honking her horn and dialed 911. The perpetrator got up and ran away.

Proffitt said police believe they recovered the man's shirt, which he apparently stripped off as he ran away, but they don't know his identity. People in the middle-class neighborhood say he may be a transient.