USA

Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett did it, and AOL Time Warner's chief executive and financial officer were expected to meet Wednesday's deadline set by the Securities and Exchange Commission for personally certifying the accuracy of their financial statements, and restating them if necessary. Almost 700 multibillion-dollar companies were directed to do so in an effort to reassure investors after a string of accounting scandals. More than 300 had complied by Tuesday night.

Federal Reserve policymakers decided to hold short-term interest rates steady at a meeting Tuesday. But they suggested a possible future cut due to the slow pace of economic recovery. Eleven reductions last year already have key interest rates at 40-year lows. The Fed's next scheduled meeting is Sept. 24.

Enron, Avista Corp., and El Paso Electric Co. may have colluded to inflate prices during California's 2001 energy crisis, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) said in a preliminary report to Congress. If its investigation finds they did, FERC said, the companies and their affiliates may be forced to pay refunds and may lose their licenses to trade electricity. The failure to impose sanctions displeased California Gov. Gray Davis (D), who called the report a "whitewash." His state is seeking $9 billion for alleged overcharges.

The economy and trade were on the agenda as President Bush traveled to Milwaukee and Des Moines, Iowa. Bush was due to attend fund-raisers for Republican gubernatorial candidates in both states.

Jessica Cortez was reunited with her family, two days after disappearing during a visit to Echo Park in Los Angeles. Staffers at a health clinic in the city became suspicious when a well-dressed woman brought the barefoot, dirty, and disoriented four-year-old in for a checkup Tuesday, recognized her, and telephoned police. The suspect, identified as Patricia Cornejo, was detained on kidnapping charges.

Authorities in Abilene, Texas, meanwhile, were searching for an infant abducted from her mother's minivan in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Margarita Chavez had stepped away to return a shopping cart. She was dragged 30 feet by the kidnapper's car.

Texas was scheduled to execute Javier Suarez Medina, a Mexican national convicted of killing an undercover police officer. Mexico had sought to block the sentence, arguing that Suarez Medina wasn't told of his right to contact a consulate. Of 453 inmates on death row in Texas, more than two dozen are foreign nationals.