Evening Edition

The militia, fighting an insurgency for nine years since being ousted from power, have threatened attacks to disrupt Saturday’s poll and called for a boycott, putting security forces on high alert.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for abducting Abdul Rahman Hayat, a candidate from eastern Lagman province, and an electoral official also blamed the other kidnappings on the Taliban, who have already killed three candidates.

The work still required to extract the miners was to take at least another six weeks, according to officials’ estimates.

The government official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said a T-130 drilling machine had broken through to a work area in the tunnel where the miners were holed up, opening a 30-centimeter (12-inch) hole in the roof.

“It is expected that the MC252 well will be completely sealed on Saturday,” after a relief well successfully intersected the shaft this week, the British energy giant said earlier.

The cementing “is expected to take a few hours,” a BP spokeswoman told AFP. The company said earlier that after cementing, “standard plugging and abandonment procedures for the relief well” will go ahead before it can be completely sealed.

Samsung said US wireless carriers AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon will sell the Galaxy Tab, which was unveiled at the IFA electronics trade fair in Berlin, Germany, in early September.

Samsung said the Galaxy Tab would be available in the United States in the “coming months” but did not provide pricing details of the touchscreen device seen as its answer to the iPad.

British fashion icons Vivienne Westwood, Paul Smith and Betty Jackson will feature in this season’s event alongside international brands Burberry Prorsum, Pringle of Scotland, and Mulberry, as well as London’s emerging young talent.

Hot on the heels of New York Fashion Week, the event — featuring 66 catwalk shows over six days — will attract the biggest ever turnout of international buyers, said organisers the British Fashion Council (BFC).

One in seven people lived below the poverty line in 2009 in the world’s richest nation, or on less than 22,000 dollars a year for a family of four.

That put the poverty rate at 14.3 percent, the highest level since 1994, said David Johnson, head of the US Census Bureau’s housing and household economic division.

The military court, whose decision must now be ratified by President Mahinda Rajapakse, found that Fonseka favoured an arms company run by his son-in-law, said the official, who asked not to be named.

He was charged on four counts of corrupt purchases for the military.

Three container loads of munitions being stored at a police station in Karadiyanaru, 235 miles (375 kilometres) from Colombo, exploded while some of it was being loaded in a truck by Chinese contractors.

Friday’s blast was the first major explosion in Sri Lanka since government forces ended its 37-year-year battle against Tamil Tiger rebels by wiping out the top guerrilla leadership in May last year.

Consumer prices rose 0.3 percent last month as food prices rebounded and energy costs marched higher, the Labor Department said on Friday. But core prices, which ignore volatile food and energy costs, were unexpectedly flat.

Bond traders pushed up prices for U.S. government debt on speculation the Federal Reserve would eventually have to resume large-scale debt purchases to spur the economy and keep the risk of a downward spiral in prices at bay.

Warren, a Harvard law professor and outspoken consumer advocate, will set up a powerful new consumer financial protection agency, a centerpiece of the sweeping regulatory overhaul Obama signed into law in July.

“From now on, consumers will … have a tough, independent watchdog whose job it is to stand up for their financial interests, for their families’ future,” Obama said in the White House Rose Garden with Warren at his side, as he highlighted her working-class roots as a janitor’s daughter.

She could of course be both, and has even inspired a rap song by the Main Street Brigade that praises “Sheriff Warren” because “she wants to expose the banks and all the greed.”

This is an example, depending on your point of view, of exactly what Wall Street is worried about or of Warren’s credibility with ordinary Americans on Main Street.

Palin speaks at the Iowa Republican Party’s Ronald Reagan Dinner in Des Moines, her influence among Tea Party activists strong after conservative candidates she backed won in Delaware and New Hampshire Senate primary races on Tuesday.

The former Alaska governor, who was Republican Senator John McCain’s vice presidential running mate in the 2008 campaign, remains coy about whether she will join what could be a long list of challengers to Democratic President Barack Obama.

BP denied the claim because it said there was ongoing litigation but in fact the energy giant was “playing games” with Alabama and other states on the Gulf of Mexico coast, King said in an interview.

“They (BP) said they wouldn’t discuss it (the claim) because there is litigation. They are playing games in my opinion. BP is taking advantage of the fact that states are in a budget crisis and they are doing a masterful job,” King said.

He also appointed a new foreign minister, conservative security expert Seiji Maehara, who faces tense ties with China over a territorial dispute and strains with ally the United States over a U.S. airbase.

A proponent of close U.S. ties, Maehara expressed concern over Beijing’s military buildup at his first news conference as foreign minister, underscoring Tokyo’s growing wariness about its giant neighbor’s intentions.

The strategy requires an autumn influx of voters willing to view the election as a choice between two imperfect parties – and imperfect candidates on each ballot line – rather than as a chance to slap the Washington establishment that the public seems to dislike so deeply.

But the Democrats admit the Republicans have a big emotional advantage with voters who are fed up with high unemployment, soaring deficits and what many see as an arrogant Congress and administration that rammed a revolutionary health care plan down their throats.

Sidestepping a Senate confirmation fight – for now – Obama stopped short of nominating Warren to actually head the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. Instead, his action will let the Harvard Law School professor and expert on bankruptcy move quickly to shape the bureau.

Senate Republicans view her as too critical of Wall Street and big banks. The business and banking community opposed Warren as director of the new bureau, contending she would make the agency too aggressive. Obama praised her highly.

A BP spokesman said there no longer was a need to use mud in tandem with the cement because pressure from the well wasn’t an issue.

BP expects the well to be completely sealed on Saturday. The government had previously said it expected the well to be declared dead by Sunday, but on Friday the Coast Guard indicated the culmination was likely to be Saturday.

The companies expect the $3 billion stock swap to close in the next two weeks after tying up loose ends. Regulators in the U.S. and Europe have already signaled approval.

At both companies, the vote for the deal topped 98 percent.

How many Afghans ignore this intimidation campaign and turn out at the polls will be one measure of whether the vote is considered a success.

The elections – the first since a fraud-ridden presidential poll a year ago – are seen both as a test of the Afghan government’s commitment to rooting out corruption and as a measure of the strength of the insurgency.

Households failed even to run in place during the April-June quarter as sinking stock prices eroded wealth. Stocks have since rebounded. But based on last quarter’s data, household net worth would have to rise 23 percent to revisit its pre-recession peak.

Net worth – the value of assets like homes and investments, minus debts like mortgages and credit cards – fell 2.7 percent last quarter, or $1.5 trillion, the Federal Reserve said Friday. It now stands at $53.5 trillion.

Colbert, host of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” and his arch enemy on the network plan to hold opposing political rallies on the National Mall just before the November elections.

Stewart interrupted his regular fake newscast Thursday night to announce a “Rally to Restore Sanity” on Oct. 30. He said it’s for people too busy with their normal lives to go to other political rallies.

Consumer prices edged up 0.3 percent in August, matching the July increase, the Labor Department said Friday. Core inflation, which excludes food and energy, showed no increase in August.

The 2007-2009 recession and the weak recovery since have banished inflation as an immediate threat. Sluggish demand is preventing most businesses from raising prices and high unemployment is keeping a lid on wage pressures.

The National Weather Service sought Friday to determine whether the fury of wind and rain that hit the previous evening was a tornado. City officials said the storm hopped across New York Harbor from Staten Island and barreled uninterrupted from Park Slope in Brooklyn all the way to the Bayside neighborhood in Queens.

Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe estimated the storm destroyed more than 1,000 trees. He said forestry experts were finding damage patterns consistent with twisting winds, rather than more typical sideways winds.

Akhmed Zakayev faces charges of murder, kidnapping and terrorism.

Zakayev, who was granted asylum in Britain years ago, maintains the accusations are trumped up and defiantly told Radio Free Europe the day before his arrest that he was in Poland “absolutely legally” and would not hide from authorities. The Kremlin casts the dapper activist as a dangerous guerrilla mastermind.

Endorsements by the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee have helped propel a number of upstart Republican contenders to victory in recent primaries, including a double win Tuesday in Delaware and New Hampshire. Her cable TV show makes its debut in November.

But first Iowa.

Four of them gathered to mourn the one who was missing – Jacqueline Greig, 44, who was killed with her 13-year-old daughter Janessa in a natural gas pipeline blast that tore through their house and destroyed almost 40 homes in their neighborhood.

“She had integrity, poise. She wanted to set a good example, and that is what she did,” said Monica Medina-Campos, one of those friends.

At a news conference Friday, Calumet County District Attorney Ken Kratz offered a “sincere and heartfelt apology not only to the young woman but to everyone who has been so deeply affected by this lack of judgment.”

But Kratz left without taking questions and didn’t respond to calls for his resignation. He said only he would consider taking personal time off work as the court calendar will allow.

This was to have been the season to honor the late Ernest C. Withers for his historic work, with his photos displayed at a museum bearing his name.

All that has been overshadowed by The Commercial Appeal newspaper revealing he was an informant who regularly tipped authorities about civil rights leaders, many of whom trusted him so completely that he was allowed to sit in on their most sensitive meetings.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Perry also embraced the two newly elected Republicans backed by the tea party movement in Delaware and New York – candidates that many establishment Republicans have shunned.

Perry has made Washington a whipping post in his campaign for an unprecedented third term, and he hasn’t always limited his ire to Democrats. The longest serving governor in Texas history has often been mentioned as a 2012 presidential or vice-presidential contender even though he insists he’s not interested.

It’s the latest test for Georgia’s justice system, which has come under scrutiny in recent years. The state’s new public defender program has had funding trouble ever since it spent $3 million in 2008 defending Brian Nichols, the man convicted of killing a judge, court reporter, sheriff’s deputy and federal agent during a 2005 rampage at an Atlanta courthouse. And the Georgia Supreme Court has been criticized for not reviewing death penalty appeals closely enough.

In this case, Jamie Ryan Weis, who is accused of killing a 73-year-old woman, argues there was a “complete breakdown” in the system when he sat in jail without an attorney for more than two years. The U.S. Supreme Court could decide after a closed-door conference Sept. 27 whether it wants to intervene.

Chief David Brown released copies of the video when he announced that three officers would face criminal charges. Brown also asked the FBI to launch a civil rights investigation and met with the man injured by officers, along with his father and pastor.

Police said there were no reports of unrest or protests Thursday, a day after the video was released, and a civil rights leader acknowledged that was in part due to Brown.

U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan’s decision not to rush a ruling in the case against Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani after a three-day hearing in Manhattan left prosecutors scrambling to configure their case with and without the testimony of Hussein Abebe, who said he sold Ghailani explosives.

The judge said he might not rule until after opening statements, scheduled for Oct. 4.