Evening Edition

The company is already liable for billions in fines and compensation payouts in the wake of the massive oil spill unleashed in the Gulf of Mexico after a deadly explosion sank the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in April.

BP is also currently on criminal probation following a 373 million dollar plea deal reached in 2007 over a series of probes into an oil pipeline leak in Alaska, price fixing in the propane gas market and a deadly 2005 explosion at the Texas City refinery.

The unnamed patient became infected while hospitalised in Pakistan and died in June, a doctor from the Brussels hospital where he had been treated told Belgian media on Friday.

“He was involved in a car accident during a trip to Pakistan. He was hospitalised with a major leg injury and then repatriated to Belgium, but he was already infected,” the doctor said.

The emergencies ministry said that over 500 fires covering just under 65,000 hectares (160,000 acres) of land were still ablaze across Russia, down 15,000 hectares from the day earlier, in a crisis that has already left 54 dead.

Russian has sent thousands of firefighters to a nature reserve near the country’s top nuclear research centre in Sarov, a town still closed to foreigners as in Soviet times, and officials warned a fire was gaining in area.

The strong performance, bolstered by peers France and Britain, sent stock markets higher in early trade but the optimism faded, with traders cautious after another set of weak US data stoked fears the global economy faces growing problems.

With 2.2-percent growth between April and June, double the forecasts, Germany was “playing in a league of its own,” said Brussels-based ING economist Carsten Brzeski.

Mammoth tusks, intricately carved to depict anything from devotional Buddhist scenes and teeming wildlife to bizarre erotic fantasies, now make up most of the ivory for sale in the city.

The international trade in elephant ivory, with rare exceptions, has been outlawed since 1989 after populations of the African giants dropped from the millions in the mid-20th century to some 600,000 by the end of the 1980s.

On a year-on-year basis, Spanish Gross Domestic Product still shrank 0.2 percent but this was better than the contraction of 1.3 percent in the first quarter, the National Statistics Institute (INE) said in provisional data.

The figures were in line with estimates published last week by the Bank of Spain. The INE will release definitive figures on August 26.

The United Nations has appealed for 460 million dollars, saying 175 million has already been pledged, but that billions will be needed in the long term as the country struggles to rebuild infrastructure and replant crops.

“We need fast funding otherwise more people are going to die,” Maurizio Giuliano, spokesman for the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs, told AFP.

UN officials have warned that the extent of the losses to Pakistan’s infrastructure and economy will put the country back years.

The United States has increased its aid to 76 million dollars and said US Senator John Kerry will visit Pakistan next week to raise public awareness and drum up donations for a fractious ally where anti-US feeling runs high.

Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent much of the past 20 years in detention and is seen as the biggest threat to the junta, is barred from standing in the polls because she is a serving prisoner.

The election date, announced by state media, falls about a week before Suu Kyi’s current term of house arrest is due to expire on November 13.

After days of tracking by Canadian and US authorities, the navy and Canada Border Services Agency staff boarded the MV Sun Sea after the cargo ship appeared to veer from its expected destination in the Vancouver area, authorities said.

The HMCS Winnipeg “attempted to hail the Sun Sea several times and, after establishing communications, the vessel declared that it had refugees on board,” Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said, as quoted by public broadcaster CBC.

“Everybody is in agreement that we need to proceed with the relief well,” retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said. “The question is how to do it.”

The decision to continue with the relief well came as Alabama announced it was suing BP for the “catastrophic harm” that the spill had caused the state.

Alabama is the first state to sue BP for damage from the world’s worst offshore oil spill.

The decision stems from fear economic victims will be inadequately compensated and BP will shirk its financial responsibility, Attorney General Troy King said.

The floods, triggered by torrential monsoon downpours, have engulfed Pakistan’s Indus river basin, killing more than 1,600 people, forcing two million from their homes and disrupting the lives of 14 million people, or 8 percent of the population.

At a hospital in Mingora, the main town in Swat valley, an official who asked not to be named told Reuters one case of cholera was confirmed. A German humanitarian organization said there were also six suspected cases there.

Indian authorities, who met with RIM officials on Friday, also pledged to go after other companies — including Google and Skype — to protect the country from cyber-spying and attacks planned over the Internet.

RIM faces an August 31 deadline to give authorities the means to read email and instant messages sent over the BlackBerry. New Delhi says it will pull the plug if RIM won’t comply, threatening its future in the world’s fastest-growing telecoms market.

Dan Akerson, 61, a veteran private equity investor little known in the auto industry, replaces Whitacre as of September. Akerson had been appointed by the Obama administration as one of the directors meant to safeguard the government’s $50 billion financing to restructure GM.

Whitacre’s departure had been expected, but the timing of his announcement caught even insiders off guard, a day before the top automaker was expected to file the paperwork for a landmark stock offering just over a year after its emergence from bankruptcy.

Discontent with Obama and his fellow Democrats in Congress as the economy struggles and the deficit soars has energized some conservatives, including the Tea Party movement, and boosted Republican chances of winning the House of Representatives and perhaps even the Senate.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday for Ohio confirmed national surveys showing Republicans with a big advantage in enthusiasm, with 75 percent of registered Republicans in the battleground state certain they would vote, compared with 52 percent of Democrats.

As HP’s general counsel, Holston’s office helped direct the investigation into a sexual harassment claim against Hurd that was brought to the board’s attention in June this year.

Although the probe, carried out with outside counsel, deemed the sex harassment charge without merit, it nonetheless set the wheels in motion for Hurd’s departure because it found that he had allegedly falsified expense reports to cover a relationship with a female marketing consultant.

The United States, Britain and human rights groups have said the elections would be illegitimate if the military junta denies a role to thousands of political opponents now in prison, including detained Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

The election takes place about a week before Suu Kyi is expected to be freed from house arrest on November 13.

The government’s point man on the crisis said Friday that the blown-out well is not securely plugged to his satisfaction and that the drilling of the relief well – long regarded as the only way to ensure that the hole at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico never leaks oil again – must go forward.

“The relief well will be finished,” said retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen. “We will kill the well.”

Let’s face it: There is no easy or imminent fix for the flagging recovery.

The sluggish economic summer wore on Friday with news that Americans spent less at most retail stores in July. Earlier this month came word that the trade deficit is ballooning and companies are not adding jobs fast enough to bring down unemployment.

The new law will pay for the hiring of 1,000 more Border Patrol agents to be deployed at critical areas, as well as more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. It provides for new communications equipment and greater use of unmanned surveillance drones. The Justice Department gets more money to help catch drug dealers and human traffickers.

But the bill fell short by the standards Obama has set for dealing with the immigration problem. In a speech last month Obama reiterated his commitment to a comprehensive approach that would secure the border but also address the 11 million illegal immigrants already in the country.

Campaigning as a family-values conservative, Ben Quayle first denied then admitted that he wrote for a sex-steeped Arizona website.

The racy website’s founder, Nik Richie, said Quayle used the alias “Brock Landers,” the name of a character from the 1997 movie “Boogie Nights” about porn stars in California, and wrote lines such as: “my moral compass is so broken I can barely find the parking lot.” The website, now known as TheDirty.com, recently reposted the 2007 entries.

Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker on Thursday rejected a request to delay his decision barring Proposition 8 from taking effect until high courts can take up an appeal lodged by its supporters. One of the reasons, the judge said, is he’s not sure the proponents have the authority to appeal since they would not be affected by or responsible for implementing his ruling.

By contrast, same-sex couples are being denied their constitutional rights every day they are prohibited from marrying, Walker said.

Kuchar ran off three straight birdies on the back nine to get to 8 under Friday. That gave him a two-stroke lead, though half the field hadn’t even made it onto the course by mid-afternoon after fog delayed resumption of the first round by almost three hours.

Bryce Molder and 19-year-old Noh Seung-yul were doing their part to hold up the season’s tradition of unknowns making big runs at the majors, both getting to 6 under. Dustin Johnson, best known for his meltdown at Pebble Beach, was also at 6 under.

A busy month for car dealerships and higher gas prices lifted overall retail sales 0.4 percent last month, the Commerce Department said Friday. It was the first overall gain in three months.

Still, most retailers reported declines. Excluding autos and gasoline sales – which accounted for one-fourth of the July figures – retail sales fell 0.1 percent last month. Sales were down 1 percent at department stores and also dropped at specialty clothing stores, furniture stores, hardware stores and appliance stores.

The government confirmed that there were 490 people aboard the ship, the MV Sun Sea, and that the ship had declared them to be refugees. But Canada forced them to dock at a military base, saying there were concerns that Tamil extremists could be on board.

Gary Anandasangaree, a lawyer with the Canadian Tamil Congress, was on the scene as the boat arrived and said he couldn’t believe how a ship just 194 feet long (59 meters) could be carrying so many people.

With midterm elections three months away and no trial date scheduled by the House Ethics Committee, Waters – like her House colleague Charles Rangel of New York – made her case in the court of public opinion.

“I have not violated any House rules,” the senior member of the House Financial Services Committee told a news conference that included a power-point presentation of the documents.

The 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, which were coordinated with satellite and cell phones, helped prompt a sweeping security review of telecommunications ahead of the Commonwealth Games – a major sporting event to be held in New Delhi in October.

Some analysts say more anonymous technologies – like the basic Nokia phones used by 10 gunmen who rampaged through Mumbai in November 2008, leaving 166 dead – and Gmail are more likely to be used to plan terror attacks than BlackBerry devices, which require reliable identity proof and contact information.

Pelosi will attend fundraisers this month in Houston and Dallas, plus make a joint appearance Aug. 16 with President Barack Obama in Los Angeles. She recently headlined a fundraiser in Santa Fe for New Mexico’s three House Democrats, two of whom face tough Republican challengers who criticize their ties to the speaker.

That Aug. 3 event underscored the double-edged nature of Pelosi visits.

The RAND Corp. report being released Friday ticks off a crushing litany of problems in the Caribbean nation, many predating the Jan. 12 earthquake – unqualified government workers, general lawlessness, horrific prisons, incapable police, an onerous business climate.

But it was the post-earthquake landscape that shocked James Dobbins, a former U.S. special envoy to Haiti and director of the RAND International Security and Defense Policy Center.

The announcement renewed international calls for urgent changes allowing a free-and-fair vote. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy already announced it was boycotting the polls and other parties are wary of participating.

Friday’s brief election-date announcement by the Election Commission was carried on state TV and radio.

A national gay rights group is negotiating with Target officials, demanding that the firm balance the scale by making comparable donations to benefit candidates it favors. Meanwhile, the controversy is threatening to complicate Target’s business plans in other urban markets. Several city officials in San Francisco, one of the cities where Target hopes to expand, have begun criticizing the company.

“Target is receiving criticism and frustration from their customers because they are doing something wrong, and that should serve absolutely as an example for other companies,” said Ilyse Hogue, director of political advocacy for the liberal group MoveOn.org, which is pressing Target to formally renounce involvement in election campaigns.

That extraordinary disclosure, which laid bare classified military documents covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010, has angered U.S. officials, energized critics of the NATO-led campaign, and drawn the attention of the Taliban, which has promised to use the material to track down people it considers traitors.

The Pentagon says it believes it has identified the additional 15,000 classified documents, and said Thursday that their exposure would be even more damaging to the military than what has already been published.

Three states – Washington, New Mexico and Utah – allow illegal immigrants to get licenses because their laws do not require proof of citizenship or legal residency. An Associated Press analysis found that those states have seen a surge in immigrants seeking IDs in recent months, a trend experts attribute to crackdowns on illegal immigration in Arizona and elsewhere.

“It’s difficult being undocumented and not having an identification,” said Hernandez, of Puebla, Mexico. “You can use the Mexican ID, but people look down on it.” An American driver’s license is also a requirement for many jobs.

John Dunn, the water and pollution control director in the central Iowa city, said people must adopt “temporary lifestyle changes.”

“Water used for any purpose other than essential health and sanitation purposes is hampering our community-wide recovery and extending the amount of time until water is available for drinking,” Dunn said. “The use of water for nonessential purposes must stop.”

As required by Catholic church rules, the 75-year-old bishop sent a letter of resignation to the Vatican this week but will remain on the job until his resignation is formally recognized. In the meantime, devoted parishioners are celebrating his leadership and compassion while critics are glad to see him go.

McCormack’s tenure as the leader of New Hampshire’s 310,000 Catholics started in 1998 and turned tumultuous in early 2002 when the sex abuse scandal erupted in Boston. Victims and grass roots Catholic groups called on him to resign, citing his former position as a top aide to Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston, where he was in charge of investigating allegations of sexual misconduct by priests.

Patrick Joseph McCabe, 74, faces charges he sexually assaulted six boys in Ireland from 1973 to 1981. He turned himself in to federal authorities July 30 and is being held without bail.

His defense attorney, David Cohen, did not return calls for comment. Dublin authorities and archdiocese officials also declined comment, citing the ongoing investigation.

The legislation is a stopgap for long-term budget problems, letting states put off hard choices at a time of record federal deficits. While appetite for such cash infusions is wearing thin, some analysts say the latest package is essential to preserving the fragile economic recovery.

“What states are experiencing is the largest drop-off of revenues they’ve ever faced, so to suggest they shouldn’t get help overlooks the magnitude of the problem,” said Jon Shure of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington think tank. “State and local government is a huge driver of the economy, especially when the private sector is faltering. The last thing this economy needs is people not working.”

Denver-based Westwood College will begin paying admissions officials a fixed salary Aug. 21, part of a series of reforms adopted shortly after the report’s airing last week. Industry giant Apollo Group Inc.’s University of Phoenix already announced plans to do away with using admissions targets in paying recruiters.

Last week at a Senate hearing, the Government Accountability Office detailed how investigators posing as prospective students found deceptive and in some cases possibly illegal actions at 15 for-profit schools.

The now-suspended aide, David Johnson, did not enter a plea at his arraignment Thursday in Bronx Criminal Court and was released but ordered to stay away from his accuser, ex-girlfriend Sherr-una Booker. He had surrendered earlier in the day on charges of assault, menacing, harassment and criminal mischief, all misdemeanors.

Johnson, wearing a suit, did not comment outside court as he got into his attorney’s silver Mercedes, while Booker’s attorney said his client felt a step closer to getting justice.