Congressman admits posting lewd photo

A new York Democrat congressman, Anthony Weiner, has confessed that he sent a photo of himself in his underpants to a young woman and admitted to "inappropriate" exchanges with six women before and after getting married. He apologised for earlier lying but said he would not resign.

A conservative website that last week started the furore over the photo sent from Mr Weiner's Twitter account posted new photos yesterday, purportedly from a second woman who said she had received shirtless photos of the congressman. At a news conference, Mr Weiner described the initial underpants photo as a joke and a "hugely regrettable mistake".

The scandal is an embarrassing distraction for the Democrats as they look ahead to the 2012 congressional and presidential races. US House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi yesterday called for an ethics panel probe into Mr Weiner's conduct.

Mr Weiner, who recently married an aide to the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, is one of the more prolific tweeters in Congress and has more than 60,000 followers, a number that has grown in the past week.

He had earlier claimed his Twitter account was hacked and that he had hired a lawyer and a private security firm to investigate the incident. But he could not say for sure if the photo was of him.