Scott Bur, an associate professor at Gustavus Adolphus College, says he is overwhelmed by the attention to detail

It could be mistaken for a Turner Prize installation, but the gleaming aluminium office is in fact the latest prank pulled on a chemistry professor.

Students of Scott Bur, an associate professor at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, covered his entire office in kitchen foil when he was on holiday.

When he returned he found that everything – even individual pens – had been wrapped in foil.

Bur said elaborate pranks were a yearly tradition. Previously students have turned his office into a pirate ship, while last year they draped it in pink.

The professor said he was overwhelmed by the attention to detail.

"Every book was individually wrapped. Not only was a box of Kleenex wrapped, but an individual tissue was wrapped and put back in the box for effect. It's like nothing I've ever experienced before."

One student said it took 10, 200-foot rolls of foil to complete their task.

Sean Smith spent five weeks embedded first with a US helicopter ambulance crew and then with US marines

US bank accused of repeatedly making misleading statement and improper disclosures before bailout

The US bank Citigroup is to pay a $75m (£48m) fine for hiding $40bn of sub-prime mortgage exposure from shareholders during the months leading up to the financial crisis which left it dependent on a vast government bailout to avert bankruptcy.

Charges laid yesterday by the Securities and Exchange Commission accuse Citigroup of repeatedly making misleading statements and improper disclosures in its quarterly earnings releases during 2007. At the time, Citigroup claimed its exposure to high-risk sub-prime mortgages was no more than $13bn when in fact, according to the SEC, it was more than $50bn.

"The rules of financial disclosure are simple," said Robert Khuzami, director of enforcement at the SEC. "If you choose to speak, speak in full and not in half-truths."

Citigroup has agreed to a fine to settle the charges "without admitting or denying" wrongdoing. In an unusual move, two senior executives are paying individual penalties – Gary Crittenden, who was Citigroup's chief financial officer at the time but has since left, will pay $100,000 and Arthur Tildesley, a former head of investor relations who remains on staff, is being fined $80,000.

Details of plot emerge in file among US military intelligence documents published by WikiLeaks website

It may be one of the more audacious terrorist plots to be hatched in Afghanistan, but it was certainly not the most original. The same al-Qaida masterminds behind 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington planned to commit a similar attack in the capital of the country that once harboured them, according to a file among US military intelligence documents published this week by the WikiLeaks website.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's second in command, is said to have given the order for a team of 22 to board one or more planes at Kabul airport, hijack the aircraft and steer them toward a number of "important objectives".

The targets were to include Hamid Karzai's presidential palace, Nato headquarters, the British and US embassies and the Ariana hotel – the whole which the CIA rented and used as its station in Kabul.

The details of the plot have emerged as the leak of secret intelligence continues to create controversy in Kabul and Washington owing to the large number of references alleging that Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), supported the Taliban in Afghanistan.

• Thousands visiting wrong headstones in Virginia
• Senator in charge attacked for lack of explanation

The families of thousands of dead American soldiers may have been mourning at the wrong graves for years, it was revealed yesterday, as more than 6,000 headstones at Arlington cemetery may have been mixed up.

There was outrage among families, the American Legion and others last month when the number of graves that had been misnamed was thought to be 211. The higher figure was revealed yesterday at a Senate investigation into how there could be so much confusion over the headstones at the US national military cemetery.

Senator Claire McCaskill, who is heading the Senate committee conducting the inquiry, said: "We now know that the problems with graves at Arlington may be far more extensive than previously acknowledged. At a conservative estimate, 4,900 to 6,600 graves may be unmarked, improperly marked, or mislabeled on the cemetery's maps."

Arlington, just across the river from Washington, is one of the most revered and emotional sites in the US, having been used for members of the military since the civil war. There are an estimated 300,000 graves, including those of John F Kennedy and his two brothers, Robert and Edward.

Fresh graves are being dug regularly for the dead from Afghanistan and Iraq.

National Wildlife Federation says catalogue of oil industry accidents proves BP disaster in Gulf of Mexico is not a one-off

The oil industry has been responsible for thousands of fires, explosions, and leaks over the last decade, killing dozens of people and destroying wildlife and the environment across America, according to a report published today.

None of the individual incidents catalogued by the National Wildlife Federation comes close in scale to BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst environmental disaster in America's history. But the thousands of lesser offshore spills, pipeline leaks, refinery fires and other accidents demolish the industry argument that BP's ruptured well was a one-off, and that the oil and gas business has grown safer, the report's authors said.

"These disasters make it clear that the BP disaster isn't a rare accident," said Tim Warman, who directs the global warming programme for NWF, which calls itself the country's largest conservation organisation. "These are daily occurrences. These are daily incidents of not paying attention."

Controversial legislative crack down on illegal workers could be reversed as early as next week at the court of appeal

Police in Arizona were thrown into confusion today when a controversial law cracking down on illegal immigration finally came into force, despite crucial parts being struck out at the last minute.

A ruling by a judge yesterday blocking two main elements of the law left police forces unsure how to react. Some officers said they would enact the parts that remained while others refused to have anything to do with it until the legal situation was clarified.

Latino groups staged protests throughout the state today against the law, which came into effect just after midnight yesterday.

The Arizona governor, Jan Brewer, was today planning to launch an appeal against the judge's ruling and to have the original law reinstated. That could be done by the court of appeal in San Francisco as early as next week.

She promised, if necessary, to take it all the way to the supreme court, though it would not be heard until the next session, beginning in October.

The row has highlighted the plight of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the US, of whom about half a million are thought to live in Arizona. Immigration is a matter for the federal government but the Arizona legislature took matters into its own hands by passing the legislation, which is opposed by the Obama administration.

Avis puts in $1.3m bid in effort to thwart $1.2bn deal struck by Herz in May

The global car rental industry is speeding into a hostile takeover battle as rivals Hertz and Avis tussle to snap up their lower cost US competitor, the Dollar Thrifty automotive group. Avis has slapped down a $1.3bn (£833m) bid in an attempt to thwart a deal struck in May under which Hertz agreed to buy the business for $1.2bn.

Based in Oklahoma, the Dollar Thrifty group was originally part of the Detroit-based carmaker Chrysler but became an independent entity in 1997. The Dollar brand is particularly strong in North America, but its Thrifty division has 983 locations in 75 countries, including Britain.

Analysts say surging second-hand car prices and a rebound in travel activity as the global economy recovers have made Dollar Thrifty attractive. A specialist in the leisure market, the company tends to target holidaymakers and rents out vehicles at cheaper rates than the Hertz or Avis brands. "Avis and Hertz are very similar in going after higher-end business clients," said Fred Lowrance, an analyst at Avondale Partners in Nashville. "Dollar Thrifty caters to leisure, price-conscious travellers."

Self-made Hollywood producer best known for adapting novels

Elliott Kastner, who has died of cancer aged 80, was the model of a film producer, working his way up from the mailroom at the William Morris Agency in New York to Los Angeles, where he joined another powerful talent agency, MCA, in 1959. He soon became vice-president of Universal Pictures, but after two years he risked everything to become an independent producer, a move that paid off.

This achievement required a certain amount of ruthlessness, and Kastner was relentless in his pursuit of getting what he wanted. Mostly he wanted to entice well-known playwrights and novelists to write screenplays, or gain the rights of those works whose authors were no longer around to cajole.

Kastner persuaded William Inge (Bus Riley's Back in Town, 1965), Iris Murdoch (A Severed Head, 1970), Edna O'Brien (Zee and Co, 1972) and Peter Shaffer (Equus, 1977) to adapt their works for the screen, and got others to deliver screenplays derived from Vladimir Nabokov (Laughter in the Dark, 1969), Henry James (The Nightcomers, 1971), and Raymond Chandler (The Long Goodbye in 1973, Farewell My Lovely in 1975 and The Big Sleep in 1978).

On his travels, Cameron made relations with Israel, Pakistan and Europe just that little bit harder. But he made a friend of Obama

If you're determined to tell it how it is, it's important to know it how it is – and on the evidence of his travels in foreign parts this week, it is uncertain whether David Cameron really does. Regarding Turkey and Europe, Israel and Gaza, and India and Pakistan, the inexperienced British prime minister's blunt interventions left a trail of overseas outrage as well as surprised approbation. Fans admired his plain talking. Critics said he plainly doesn't know what he's talking about – and risked damaging Britain's interests.