Evening Edition

But a separate study cautioned that extinction of mammals had been overestimated and suggested some mammal species thought to have been wiped out may yet be rediscovered.

Stephen Hopper, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London, said the report on plant loss was the most accurate mapping yet of the threat to the planet’s estimated 380,000 plant species.

In Europe on Tuesday long-term yields on Irish and Portuguese sovereign bonds soared to the highest levels since 1997 and sent fresh warning signals about overspending and public debt in the eurozone.

“While the underlying macro picture in the eurozone looks increasingly resilient and reassuring, the risk of accidents in financial and sovereign debt markets remains uncomfortably high, with Ireland and Portugal in the limelight,” Unicredit economist Marco Annunziata said.

Kim Jong-Un was named one of two vice-chairmen of its powerful central military commission and a member of its core institution the central committee, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

On Monday the 68-year-old leader had appointed his son a four-star general, a move seen as the first official confirmation that Jong-Un has been picked as eventual leader of the impoverished but nuclear-armed nation.

Amid mounting anger that economic powers are pouring money into currency markets to make exports cheaper at the expense of rivals, Strauss-Kahn insisted the potential impact of an all-out currency war should give countries pause.

“I don’t feel today that there is a big risk of a currency war. But that’s part of the downside risk,” Strauss-Kahn told reporters in Washington.

“Philosophically, finding slowness again is essential. We need to take a small, homeopathic dose of it every day, to come back to a life rhythm that is more bearable,” the 61-year-old Italian told AFP in an interview in Rome.

Slow Food, whose symbol is a red snail, promotes food that is “good at a sensory level,” but also aims to educate people about traditional and wholesome means of production and defend biodiversity in the food supply.

Australia, one of the countries that had slammed the village last week, said organisers were working hard to improve the state of facilities just five days before the start of the event.

“It’s pretty good,” Lynsey Armitage, a member of the Australian lawn bowls team, told reporters. “I’ve been here for the last two days. I feel completely safe and secure.”

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar meanwhile told the bipartisan commission that the spill had bolstered a drive to reform federal regulations for offshore drilling, promising that lessons were learnt.

In an ominous sign for Gulf residents, however, oceanographer Ian MacDonald told the probe that while much of the oil was dispersed, evaporated or removed by burning and skimming, the “remaining fraction — over 50 percent of the total discharge — is a highly durable material that resists further dissipation.”

Advanced trials of the RTS,S vaccine against falciparum malaria, the deadliest strain of the disease, are under way in seven African countries and going “very well,” said GlaxoSmithKline researcher Joe Cohen, who has been working on developing the vaccine for over 20 years.

“We believe we’ll have the first data coming out of the trials in 2012, and, to make a long story short, we could have the first implementation in Africa between 2015 and 2016,” he told AFP.

The sacking — one of Medvedev’s boldest moves since coming to power in 2008 — came after the mayor was lambasted by the Kremlin for his aloof handling of the summer wildfire crisis that blanketed Moscow in smog.

A decree, published on the Kremlin web site, ordered Luzhkov, 74, to be “dismissed from the position of Moscow mayor because he has lost the confidence of the Russian president.”

The World Health Organisation, UNAIDS, and the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF said in a joint report that the target of universal access — defined as access for 80 percent of the HIV positive population — to prevention, treatment and care was within “clear reach” for “a good number of countries.”

“Nevertheless, this report also demonstrates that, on a global scale, targets for universal access to HIV prevention, treatment and care will not be met by 2010,” the report said.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and five other top regulators are due to testify to the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday about how they intend to put in place a broad-ranging regulatory overhaul that was approved after rancorous debate just two months ago.

Republicans are keen to paint the regulatory reform as a big government takeover of private industry that will jeopardize the economic recovery by driving up borrowing costs for consumer and businesses.

Kim Jong-un, believed to have been born in 1983 or 1984 and given his first public title on Tuesday as an army general, was also made a Central Committee member at the first party conference in 30 years, state news agency KCNA said.

The party meeting, where KCNA said Kim Jong-il was in attendance, also made the leader’s sister and her husband members of the political bureau and elevated long-time loyal family aides to its supreme leadership body.

Portman, budget director and U.S. trade representative in Bush’s administration, leads Democrat Lee Fisher 50 percent to 37 percent barely more than one month before the November 2 congressional election.

Portman has pulled away from his rival — he led Fisher by 7 percentage points in an early August survey — in a race dominated by voter worries about the economy and stubbornly high unemployment. They are vying for the seat or retiring Republican Senator George Voinovich.

“You’ve got to ask yourselves, ‘What direction do I want this country to go in?'” Obama said at a campaign-style event in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Obama is on a four-state tour this week looking to drum up support from young voters who helped send him to the White House two years ago and who may be crucial in helping Democrats hold on to their congressional majorities on November 2.

Senator Sherrod Brown told reporters he saw strong bipartisan support for currency legislation that the House of Representatives is expected to approve on Wednesday.

However, it is unlikely the Senate will vote on such a bill before lawmakers recess in coming days to go home to campaign, the Ohio Democrat said.

Luzhkov, 74, a pillar of the ruling United Russia party, had ruled the capital since 1992, but angered Medvedev by suggesting the country needed a stronger and more decisive leader. The remark seen as favoring the prime minister, Vladimir Putin.

Putin offered support for Medvedev’s decision, suggesting the mayor had overstepped the mark by challenging the Kremlin. But he also praised Luzhkov and made clear that he himself would help choose a successor.

The survey by pollster Datafolha showed Rousseff’s voter support fell to 46 percent from 49 percent a week ago, leaving her with 51 percent of valid votes — just above the threshold she needs to win the election in the first round on Sunday.

The poll was the clearest sign yet that corruption allegations that prompted Rousseff’s successor as President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s chief of staff to resign are eroding the frontrunner’s commanding lead and increasing the chances of a runoff vote on October 31.

Speaking at the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly, Foreign Minister Nyan Win insisted that the vote in the country formerly known as Burma will be “inclusive” — even though Nobel Peace Prize laureate and democratic icon Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners are not allowed to run.

“Whatever the challenges facing us, we are committed to do our best for the successful holding of the free and fair general elections for the best interest of the country and its people,” Win told the 192-nation assembly.

Clearly frustrated by Republicans’ energy – and his own party’s lack of enthusiasm – President Barack Obama scolded fellow Democrats even as he rallied them Tuesday in an effort to save the party from big GOP gains in the crucial midterm elections. In the final month of campaigning, he’s trying to re-energize young voters, despondent liberals and other Democrats whose excitement over his election has dissipated.

“It is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines,” the president declared in a Rolling Stone magazine interview. He said that supposed supporters who are “sitting on their hands complaining” are irresponsible because the consequences of Republican congressional victories could be dashed Democratic plans.

“People need to shake off this lethargy. People need to buck up,” Obama told Rolling Stone in an interview to be published Friday. The president told Democrats that making change happen is hard and “if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren’t serious in the first place.”

The midterm elections are in five weeks and polling shows that Republicans, out of power at the White House and on Capitol Hill, have a much more excited base of supporters than Democrats. Obama, campaigning this week in four states, is in a sprint to restore the voter passion that helped him win office.

The eroding views were revealed Tuesday by two separate surveys, one that found everyday Americans are increasingly pessimistic about jobs and another that found CEOs have grimmer predictions about upcoming sales.

“The economy is stuck in an unvirtuous cycle,” said Mark Vitner, an economist at Wells Fargo. “Consumers are waiting for more jobs to be created, and businesses are waiting for consumers.”

The rift is important politically because proceedings in October could generate negative headlines for Democrats. Trials after the election would likely keep the Democrats’ ethics record in the background in midterm campaigns largely fought over economic issues.

The split shatters anew the image of the committee as a panel where members of both parties work together to investigate allegations of ethical wrongdoing.

The announcement of Kim Jong Un’s ascension to the party’s Central Committee and military commission came a day after news that Kim Jong Il had made him a four-star general – a major promotion that appeared to set into motion a plan to eventually put the little-known, Swiss-schooled 20-something at the helm of the communist country.

Kim Jong Il has led the nation with absolute authority since taking over in 1994 upon the death of his father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung, in the communist world’s first father-to-son transfer of power.

The long recession technically ended in mid-2009, economists say, but U.S. Census data released Tuesday show the painful, lingering effects. The annual survey covers all of last year, when unemployment skyrocketed to 10 percent, and the jobless rate is still a stubbornly high 9.6 percent.

The figures also show that Americans on average have been spending about 36 fewer minutes in the office per week and are stuck in traffic a bit less than they had been. But that is hardly good news, either. The reason is largely that people have lost jobs or are scraping by with part-time work.

Emanuel, widely expected to announce a decision about his candidacy within days, recently called the tenants renting his home on Chicago’s North Side and asked them to move out so he could move back in, spokesman and close friend Rick Jasculca said Tuesday.

But the couple said no. They extended their lease until next year just days before Mayor Richard Daley announced he wouldn’t seek re-election, Jasculca said, and told Emanuel they don’t want to leave.

The money was pledged by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in March for use this year in rebuilding. The U.S. has already spent more than $1.1 billion on post-quake relief, but without long-term funds, the reconstruction of the wrecked capital cannot begin.

With just a week to go before fiscal 2010 ends, the money is still tied up in Washington. At fault: bureaucracy, disorganization and a lack of urgency, The Associated Press learned in interviews with officials in the State Department, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the White House and the U.N. Office of the Special Envoy. One senator has held up a key authorization bill because of a $5 million provision he says will be wasteful.

After years of denials, Landis – stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title because of doping – admitted in May to using performance-enhancing drugs and accused others, including former teammate and seven-time Tour winner Lance Armstrong, of doping. Armstrong has vehemently denied the accusations and his attorney has described Landis as a “serial liar.”

Landis, speaking at an Australian conference on the eve of the road cycling world championships, said Tuesday that until more people come forward, cycling will continue to have a problem with drug cheats.

The downbeat report, released Tuesday, raises more fears about the tenuous U.S. economic recovery. It also further underscores the disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street; consumers’ confidence fell further even as stocks rebounded in September.

The Conference Board, based in New York, said its monthly Consumer Confidence Index now stands at 48.5, down from the revised 53.2 in August. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters were expecting 52.5.

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city index released Tuesday ticked up in July from June. But the gain is merely temporary, analysts say. They see home values taking a dive in many major markets well into next year.

That’s because the peak home-buying season is now ending after a dismal summer. The hardest-hit markets, already battered by foreclosures, are bracing for a bigger wave of homes sold at foreclosure or through short sales. A short sale is when a lender lets a homeowner sell for less than the mortgage is worth.

So when a House panel on immigration combined them on purpose last week with testimony from Stephen Colbert (kohl-BEHR’) and his “truthy” alter ego, debate broke out on the proper roles of the many celebrities – from Angelina Jolie to Bono to Elmo – who advocate in Washington.

In Colbert’s appearance, there was profit to be made from the public, taxpayer-funded forum on one of the nation’s weightiest issues, the plight of migrant workers. Immigrant advocates won national news coverage; Colbert helped generate material for his show; politicians scored live coverage of themselves during a brutal election year; and the media bagged a widely viewed story.

Now, the state’s first lethal injection attempt since then is running dangerously close to another execution night mess.

The problem with Morales in 2006 was a failure to find medical professionals to assist with the execution.

The San Mateo County coroner’s office confirmed James Emil Franco, 58, died Monday morning at a San Francisco hospital. An autopsy was scheduled for Tuesday to determine cause of death.

Franco rented a second-floor room in Jose Alvarado’s home, and the two had developed a bond, the homeowner told the San Francisco Chronicle.

The aspiring high school math teacher is a member of the inaugural class of the Ozarks Teacher Corps, a group of southwest Missouri teachers in training who receive $4,000 annual scholarships in exchange for a three-year commitment to work in rural school districts after graduation.

Having grown up in a town with fewer than 3,000 residents, a place where your homeroom instructor is just as likely to be sitting in the same church pew come Sunday, the 21-year-old newlywed knows that small-town teachers are not just educators but also neighbors and role models.

They called it “Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered From Alcoholism.”

Sales were dismal at first, but interest picked up in 1941 with help from a story in The Saturday Evening Post and grew into a recovery revolution for everybody from over-eaters and the over-sexed to gamblers and shopaholics.

United Teachers Los Angeles also has asked school administrators to join with them in the request to the newspaper, which published the ratings last month, union president AJ Duffy said.

The body of 39-year-old Rigoberto Ruelas Jr., a fifth-grade teacher at Miramonte Elementary School, was found Sunday at the foot of a remote forest bridge in what appears to be a suicide.

Education reformers have long called for U.S. kids to log more time in the classroom so they can catch up with their peers elsewhere in the world, but resistance from leisure-loving teenagers isn’t the only reason there is no mass movement to keep schoolchildren in their seats.

Such a change could cost cash-strapped state governments and local school districts billions of dollars, strip teachers of a time-honored perk of their profession, and irk officials in states that already bridle at federal intrusion into their traditional control over education.

Board’s airship, a modern model of an aircraft that is a throwback to the 1930s era of aviation, gives her a clear and steady view of the sea giants.

“The great thing about moving slowly and low – we fly 1,000 feet above the ground and our cruising speed is 40 miles per hour – is that you really get to see the world, you really do get to see the places you’re in,” Board said.

About 150 people protested in Minneapolis, with signs reading: “Stop FBI harassment. Opposing war is not a crime.” Roughly 120 people marched in Chicago, chanting, “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! FBI raids have got to go!”

Search warrants had indicated investigators were looking for connections between the activists and radical groups in Colombia and the Middle East. Activists interviewed by The Associated Press scoffed at the suggestion that they might have provided material support to terrorism, and denied contributing money to terrorists.

Cpl. Jeremy Morlock of Wasilla, Alaska, is among five Stryker soldiers charged with premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit premeditated murder. In interviews with Army investigators, he described a plot led by Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs to randomly kill civilians for sport while on patrol in Kandahar Province.

Prosecutors have also alleged that members of the platoon mutilated Afghan corpses and even collected fingers and other body parts, and that some posed for photos with Afghan corpses. Morlock talked about how they threw a grenade at a civilian to “wax him.”