Evening Edition

The Anglo-Dutch oil giant reported a 15-percent jump in net profit to 4.39 billion dollars (3.38 billion euros) in the second quarter to June as it slashed costs and raised output.

Shell’s performance contrasts with that of BP, which on Tuesday posted a second-quarter loss of 16.9 billion dollars — the biggest-ever quarterly loss for a British company — after the devastating Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

But years of legal wrangles and probes lie ahead and myriad questions remain about the long-term effects of the massive oil spill on wildlife, the environment and the livelihoods of Gulf residents.

US officials were anxious not to sound too optimistic ahead of next week’s crucial operations and cautioned that a mountain of work lay ahead to clean up oiled shorelines and pick up some 20 million feet (3,800 miles) of boom.

Demonstrators angrily denounced the law, even though a judge has temporarily stripped it of key powers allowing police to spot check the immigration status of all suspects.

Civil rights groups were urging state schools, town and city governments and local police departments not to comply with the law, and began a march from a church to the courthouse and the offices of tough county sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Commuters and tourists infuriated by heavy traffic and often overcrowded, unreliable public transport finally have a two-wheeled alternative, similar to schemes already in place in Paris, Shanghai and dozens of cities worldwide.

From Friday, they can pick up one of 6,000 bicycles from 400 docking stations in central London — including at the British Museum and Buckingham Palace — then pedal to their destination and drop it off, all for a small fee.

The Brazilian was at the wrong end of a controversial demand to pull over and let Alonso overtake and go on to claim victory in Germany last weekend.

When asked at the Hungaroring circuit ahead of Friday’s first free practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix what would happen if he was faced with the same situation, he replied, “I will win.

Pakistan’s ambassador to Britain accused Cameron of “damaging the prospects of regional peace” while the foreign ministry in Islamabad reminded him of the nation’s commitment and sacrifices in the fight against terror.

Cameron’s trip to India was meant to showcase his new foreign policy based on commercial interests, but the minefield of India-Pakistan relations and regional security risked overshadowing his pitch for investment and open trade.

In experiments on rabbits, the researchers coaxed the animals’ stem cells to rebuild the bone and cartilage of a missing leg joint, according to a study published on Thursday.

“This is the first time an entire joint surface was regenerated with return of functions including weight bearing and locomotion,” lead researcher Jeremy Mao, a professor at Columbia University Medical Center, said in a statement.

Cameron was to hold talks in New Delhi with top officials including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and attend a summit on expanding economic relations between Britain and its former colony — now one of the world’s fastest growing economies.

In a two-day trip seen as a test of Cameron’s new focus on business in Britain’s foreign policy, manufacturing groups BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce used the first day to unveil two defence deals worth a combined one billion dollars.

Attorneys hoping to lead the legal fight against BP are set to descend on Boise, Idaho, to address a special judicial panel considering how to bring order to the hundreds of civil lawsuits spawned by the spill after a rig explosion on April 20.

“There will be more lawyers in that courtroom than exist in the entire city of Boise put together,” Mark Lanier, a Houston-based lawyer who plans to attend the hearing, joked this week. “It’s going to be a circus.

Even as a kid, “Bobby” as he was then known “was completely unflappable,” remembers Charles Brent, Dudley’s hometown friend in southern Mississippi in the 1960s.

If he tried out for a sports team and got cut, he kept his emotions in check. “Nothing got him upset,” said Brent, now a neurosurgeon. “He was often on the bad end of an injustice — where someone was selected instead of him. I never saw him get angry or raise his voice. Or disappointed.”

Hispanic and labor activists, delighted by Wednesday’s last minute ruling, pushed ahead with protests in central Phoenix, chanting, banging drums and blocking a street to challenge the law’s remaining measures aimed at illegal immigrants.

Tensions over the law inflamed a national debate over immigration, which has festered for decades and promises to play into the elections in November, when President Barack Obama’s Democrats are fighting to retain control of Congress.

Unemployment was the main culprit driving foreclosure actions on more than 1.6 million properties, the company said.

“We’re not going to see meaningful, sustainable home price appreciation while we’re seeing 75 percent of the markets have increases in foreclosures,” RealtyTrac senior vice president Rick Sharga said in an interview.

The deficit is 22 percent of the $85 billion general fund budget the governor signed last July for the fiscal year that ended in June, highlighting how the steep drop in California’s revenue due to recession, the housing slump, financial market turmoil and high unemployment have slashed its all-important personal income tax collection.

In the declaration, Schwarzenegger ordered three days off without pay per month beginning in August for tens of thousands of state employees to preserve the state’s cash to pay its debt, and for essential services.

The world’s largest online retailer and leading e-reader seller also revealed its third generation Kindle, some 21 percent smaller and 15 percent lighter than the previous version, but still priced at $189.

Amazon does not give sales figures for the Kindle, but said last week that its growth rate tripled after it cut its price on the device from $259 and said e-books were outselling hardcover books. Apple has said it sold more than 3 million iPads, starting at $499, since the product was introduced in April.

The so-called static kill can begin when crews finish work on drilling the relief well 50 miles offshore that is needed for a permanent fix.

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said crews would drop in casing for the relief well later Thursday, and that could speed up work on the static kill, though he did not say how much. He previously said it would begin late Sunday or early Monday.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration told Enbridge Energy Partners Chairman Terry McGill in a Jan. 21 letter that its corrosion monitoring in Line 6B, the line that ruptured, did not comply with federal regulations.

According to the warning, Enbridge was implementing an alternate way of monitoring corrosion in the pipeline, and had detailed to regulators the steps it was taking to track corrosion in the meantime.

They also said a temporary cap on the busted well is holding firm and there is very little oil sheen on the water’s surface 100 days after the rig explosion that triggered the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government’s oil spill chief, said during a news conference in New Orleans that officials are taking every precaution as they move toward a permanent fix.

Sherrod was forced to resign last week as director of rural development in Georgia after Andrew Breitbart posted the edited video online. In the full video, Sherrod, who is black, spoke to a local NAACP group about racial reconciliation and overcoming her initial reluctance to help a white farmer.

Speaking Thursday at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, Sherrod said she would definitely sue over the video that took her remarks out of context. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has since offered Sherrod a new job in the department. She has not decided whether to accept.

The survey also found that Pakistanis have grown less fearful of extremists seizing control of their country, perhaps reflecting gains that government troops have made against militants since early 2009.

Most Pakistanis want improved relations with the United States, according to the poll. But most view the U.S. with suspicion, support for American involvement in the fight against extremists has declined, and nearly two-thirds want U.S. troops out of neighboring Afghanistan.

It was the bloodiest attack in a day that included the deaths of 23 Iraqi soldiers, policemen and other security forces across the country who were targeted by shootings and roadside bombs.

The mayhem serves as a stark warning that insurgents are trying to make a comeback three months after their two top leaders were killed in an airstrike on their safehouse, and as the U.S. military presence decreases day by day.

An investigation is under way, but with both sailors dead, U.S. authorities remained at a loss Thursday to explain what two junior enlisted men in noncombat jobs were doing driving alone in Logar province, where much of the countryside is not under government control.

“This is like a puzzle,” said Abdul Wali, deputy head of the governing council in Logar.

Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s critical role in the Afghan conflict was reinforced this month when the civilian government extended his term by three years. Kayani, 58, is known to be popular among U.S. and NATO generals who have sought to enlist his help in battling militants along the country’s border with Afghanistan.

So crucial is Kayani to the American war effort that when classified documents were posted by Wikileaks this week suggesting that Pakistani spies led by Kayani had colluded with the Taliban, the Obama administration didn’t utter a word of opprobrium against him publicly.

Republican Gov. Jan Brewer called U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton’s Wednesday’s decision halting the law “a bump in the road,” and the state appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Thursday.

Outside the state Capitol, hundreds of protesters began marching at dawn, gathering in front of the federal courthouse where Bolton issued her ruling on Wednesday. They marched on to the office of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has made a crackdown on illegal immigration one of his signature issues.

Missouri on Tuesday will become the first state to the test the popularity of President Barack Obama’s top policy accomplishment with a statewide ballot proposal attempting to reject its core mandate that most Americans have health insurance.

The legal effect of Missouri’s measure is questionable, because federal laws generally supersede those in states. But its expected passage could send an ominous political message to Democrats seeking to hang on to their congressional majority in this year’s midterm elections.

John Metzler, who ran the historic military burial ground for 19 years, said he accepts “full responsibility” for the problems.

But he also denied some of the findings by Army investigators and suggested cemetery employees and poor technology were to blame for remains that may have been misidentified or misplaced. He said the system used to track grave sites relied mostly on a complicated paper trail vulnerable to error.

The allegations – which include failure to report rental income from vacation property in the Dominican Republic and to report more than $600,000 in assets on his congressional financial disclosure statements – came as lawyers for Rangel and the House ethics committee worked on a plea deal.

One was struck, people familiar with the talks said, but Republicans indicated it was too late.

Michael Unglo, 39, formerly of Etna in suburban Pittsburgh, committed suicide in May at a center in Stockbridge, Mass., according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by The Associated Press. He alleged he was molested in the early 1980s while an altar boy by a priest who was convicted of molesting another boy and later resigned.

The diocese decided to stop paying for Unglo’s treatment even though the diocese continued to pay for the priest’s health insurance and a monthly stipend, Alan Perer, attorney for Unglo’s estate, said Thursday at a news conference.

By the time prosecutors and defense attorneys were done, there had been no sharp-tongued Rahm Emanuel on the stand, squaring off with Blagojevich’s lawyers over the White House chief of staff’s talks with an adviser to the ousted governor about who to appoint to the Senate.

There was no Alexi Giannoulias, the current Illinois treasurer and Democratic candidate for Obama’s old seat, being asked about how he introduced a union official to a close Obama adviser that Blagojevich considered for the Senate seat.

The two new studies conclude that “hands-only” chest compression is enough to save a life. They are the largest and most rigorous yet to suggest that breathing into a victim’s mouth isn’t needed in most cases.

The American Heart Association has been promoting hands-only CPR for two years, though it’s not clear how much it’s caught on. The new studies should encourage dispatchers and bystanders to be more aggressive about using the simpler technique.

She now works in customer service for a major New York bank, and her experience reflects the findings of an Associated Press-Univision poll that examined the attitudes of Latino adults toward higher education. Despite strong belief in the value of a college diploma, Hispanics more often than not fall short of that goal.

The findings have broad implications not only for educators and parents, but for the economy.

The law restores Soviet-era powers to the Federal Security Service, the KGB’s main successor agency, a move that rights advocates fear could be used to stifle protests and intimidate the Kremlin’s political opponents. They also say the law’s obscure wording leaves it too open to local interpretation.

The agency, known by its initials FSB, can now issue warnings or detain people suspected of preparing to commit crimes against Russia’s security. Perpetrators face fines or up to 15 days of detention.

The latest quarterly AP Economy Survey shows economists have turned gloomier in the past three months. They foresee weaker growth and higher unemployment than they did before. As a result, the economists think the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates near zero until at least next spring.

Yet despite their expectation of slower growth, a majority of the 42 economists surveyed believe the recovery remains on track, raising hopes that the economy can avoid falling back into a “double-dip” recession.

Japan’s biggest consumer electronics maker said in a statement Thursday it will buy shares in the two companies through a public tender offer, aiming for a complete purchase by April 2011. Shares in the target companies soared while Panasonic tumbled.

Panasonic Corp. already owns 51 percent of Panasonic Electric Works Co., which has lighting, electric and housing operations, and owns 50.05 percent of Sanyo Electric Co., a money-losing unit with strong battery and solar panel businesses that Panasonic took over in December.

The trend is the latest sign that the nation’s foreclosure crisis is worsening as homeowners battling high unemployment, slow job growth and an uneven rebound in home prices continue to fall behind on their mortgage payments.

In all, 154 out of 206 metropolitan areas with at least 200,000 residents posted an annual increase in foreclosure activity between January and June, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

The Justice Department inspector general is investigating whether hundreds of agents cheated on the test. Some took the open-book test together, violating rules that they take it alone. Others finished the lengthy exam unusually quickly, current and former officials said.

The test was supposed to ensure that FBI agents understand new rules allowing them to conduct surveillance and open files on Americans without evidence of criminal wrongdoing. If agents can’t pass that test without cheating, civil liberties groups ask, how can they follow them?

Examiner Harold E. Moore determined that Officer Jeremy Massey was maintaining custody of 18-year-old Cornelius Gill while protecting himself as three others came toward him during the Nov. 11 arrest.

The arrest sparked outrage in racially charged Paris, about 90 miles northeast of Dallas, where the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panther Party led protests last year after murder charges were dropped against two white defendants accused of fatally striking a black man with a pickup truck.

Michael Moore wants to bring those theaters back. The Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker has a plan to refurbish or prop up downtown movie houses in his home state of Michigan – and eventually nationwide.

Such efforts have been made before. But Moore’s approach has a twist, modeled on the successful resurrection of the State Theatre in Traverse City, his adopted hometown in northern Michigan.

Four roadblocks stood between them and freedom.

What Zoltan Pfeiffer, a top political figure opposed to Soviet occupation, his wife and 5-year-old daughter did not know as they were whisked out of Hungary in 1947 was that their driver, James McCargar, was a covert agent for one of America’s most secretive espionage agencies, known simply as the Pond.

About five hours later, search dogs were on the ground.

Meanwhile, radio operators were already intercepting messages indicating the worst: One of their own was in enemy hands.