In Washington, the Justice Department has agreed to a $98,000 settlement with a group of six Muslim, Arab and South Asian men who were rounded up after the September 11 attacks and held in federal custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. As part of the settlement, the director of the Bureau of Prisons wrote a letter to the men acknowledging that they were “held in excessively restrictive and unduly harsh conditions of confinement.” The letter also admitted that a number of the men were physically and verbally abused by officers at the jail. The agreement settles a lawsuit brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights.