WASHINGTON -- The former No. 3 official at the CIA pleaded guilty yesterday to defrauding the government, closing an investigation that linked the nation's pre-eminent spy service to the corruption scandal involving former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif.

Kyle Dustin "Dusty" Foggo, the agency's onetime executive director, became one of the highest-ranking officials in CIA history to be convicted of criminal charges.

The deal allowed Mr. Foggo to admit guilt to a single fraud charge, wiping out 27 additional counts that included money laundering and conspiracy. Mr. Foggo, 53, faces up to 20 years in custody and a $250,000 fine, but prosecutors indicated that they would recommend he serve no more than 37 months.

Mr. Foggo was accused of directing an estimated $100 million in business to a longtime friend, Brent Wilkes, who is serving a 12-year sentence after being convicted of bribing Mr. Cunningham.

WASHINGTON -- Americans should hold modest expectations about how much can be accomplished through military action and remain skeptical about the benefit to the armed services of technological improvements, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday.

In an address to students and faculty at National Defense University, he said the Pentagon had erred by favoring complex weapons systems that take years to develop. Instead, he said, the military should look for the "75 percent solution," favoring less advanced technologies that could make an immediate difference in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The comments amounted to a critique of a military theory called "effects-based operations," which contends in part that the government can craft military interventions to have a predictable impact.

"Look askance at idealized, triumphalist or ethnocentric notions of future conflict that aspire to upend the immutable principles of war: where the enemy is killed, but our troops and innocent civilians are spared," he said.

LUSBY, Md. -- A woman accused of abusing one of her three daughters was ordered held without bond yesterday morning after police investigating the case found human remains in the woman's basement freezer, authorities said.

Renee Bowman, 43 admitted to beating her 7-year-old daughter with a "hard-heeled shoe" and later told Calvert County authorities, who found the freezer with human remains, that they were "of her two other adopted daughters," according to a news release from the Calvert County Sheriff's Office.

Ms. Bowman told police that the remains had been in the freezer since she moved in in February.

NEW YORK -- The New York Sun is shutting down after running out of money, ending a six-year run in which the newspaper provided an alternative conservative voice in the city's crowded media market.

Today's edition will be the paper's last, newspaper spokesman Michael Moi said yesterday. He declined to elaborate.

On Sept. 4, editor Seth Lipsky announced the paper had endured "substantial" losses and would close at the end of the month without an infusion of cash.