Evening Edition

The death toll from Monday’s disaster meanwhile rose to seven, officials said, and one person was still missing.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who declared a state of emergency in three counties earlier this week, insisted there remained little risk of the pollution running into the Danube, Europe’s second-longest river.

Mohammad Omar, who was governor of Kunduz, one of the regions of northern Afghanistan most troubled by Taliban insurgents, was killed by a bomb in the town of Taluqan in his home province of Takhar.

“We have 20 people martyred and 15 others injured. The dead include the governor,” interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP, updating an initial death toll of 15 given by police.

The 54-year-old writer and university professor was honoured “for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China,” Norwegian Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said in his announcement.

“The Norwegian Nobel Committee has long believed that there is a close connection between human rights and peace,” he added.

“The decision to stay proceedings must be reversed,” judge Sang-Hyun Song, president of the court’s appeals chamber, said in The Hague.

Lubanga, 49, went on trial in January 2009 accused of using children under the age of 15 to fight for his militia during the five-year civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo which ended in 2003.

Government payrolls fell by a larger than anticipated 159,000, reflecting both a continued drop in the number of temporary jobs for the 2010 census and job losses in local government, the Labor Department said.

The census program is winding down, and after the departure of 77,000 temporary census workers in September, about 6,000 remain on the payroll, the department said.

Finance ministers and central bankers from the G20 met in the US capital hoping to ease a fierce debate between the rich and developing world over currency policies which are seen as skewing trade.

But there was little sign of consensus, as the United States again complained that China was not moving quickly enough to let its currency rise to a fair market value, while Beijing flatly rejected suggestions of rapid reform.

European champion Andy Turner, meanwhile, led an English clean sweep of the men’s 110m hurdles.

Kenya came to New Delhi with a strong middle and long distance team and after their men failed to land the 5,000m title, their women were determined to reassert their dominance.

The decision by Jones, a tall, former Marine, which had been expected, comes at a time of rising US challenges abroad, including heightened terror threats and Iran’s nuclear defiance, and came a month before Obama tours Asia.

Jones will become the first high-profile member of Obama’s foreign and national security brain trust to leave, following the departures of several top-level economic advisors in recent months.

An investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee found that the government had failed to vet or manage those hired to provide security under contracts worth billions of dollars, with disastrous results.

“Our reliance on private security contractors in Afghanistan has too often empowered local warlords and powerbrokers who operate outside the Afghan government?s control and act against coalition interests,” said committee chairman Carl Levin.

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority confirmed that Blackberry services are now compliant with the UAE’s regulatory framework, in a statement on the official WAM news agency.

“BlackBerry services will carry on as usual and will not be suspended on October 11,” the statement said.

Interior Minister Sandor Pinter told a news conference that the spill had not affected the drinking water supply so far and government spokeswoman Anna Nagy said the food chain was safe.

“Let’s not even consider the pollution that got into the Danube as real pollution now, as the material that got into the river has pH levels of below 9, which, considering the (large volume of) water, will dilute in a few kilometers,” Pinter said.

BofA, the largest U.S. mortgage servicer, is the first U.S. bank to institute a nationwide moratorium on foreclosures, expanding on a 23-state suspension announced last week while it conducts a review of its procedures.

Disclosures that some big U.S. mortgage processors filed false affidavits in thousands of foreclosure cases is drawing fresh scrutiny to an industry already in the sights of regulators and lawmakers for its role in the financial crisis.

The prize shines a spotlight on human rights in China at a time when it is starting to play a leading role on the global stage as a result of its growing economic might.

“We have to speak when others cannot speak,” Norwegian Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland told Reuters. “As China is rising, we should have the right to criticize.”

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said he hoped to sign the budget package as soon as Friday evening, but critics fear his successor, to be elected on November 2, will immediately face a new shortfall as rosy revenue assumptions prove unfounded.

That’s a familiar story for California, which has seen its revenue plunge in recent years due to recession, as well as turmoil in financial and housing markets.

The dollar tumbled to a 15-year low against the yen as investors concluded that Friday’s weak jobs data meant the U.S. central bank at its November 2-3 meeting was almost certain to pump hundreds of billions of new dollars into the economy.

The employment report was the last before the November 2 mid-term Congressional elections and was a blow for President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party, trailing in opinion polls.

Although Abbott argued that its drug was safe, Food and Drug Administration officials said on Friday available data highlighting the Meridia’s heart risks raised serious questions about its use.

“Meridia’s continued availability is not justified when you compare the very modest weight loss that people achieve on this drug to their risk of heart attack or stroke,” John Jenkins, director of FDA’s Office of New Drugs, said in a statement.

China, which has rebuffed calls from the West to let its currency rise faster, allowed the yuan to firm on Friday to its highest against the dollar since a revaluation in July 2005.

Traders said Beijing may be making some concessions ahead of International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings this weekend. But they said any further rise would be limited so as not to harm its exports.

The inquiry, by the Senate Armed Service Committee, found private security forces were often poorly trained and supervised by their companies and inadequately overseen by Defense Department contract managers.

“All too often our reliance on private security contractors in Afghanistan has empowered warlords, powerbrokers operating outside Afghan government control,” Democratic Senator Carl Levin said in releasing the report.

The move, along with another decision on foreclosures by PNC Financial Services Inc., adds to growing concerns that mortgage lenders have been evicting homeowners using flawed court papers, without verifying the information in them.

Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America Corp., the nation’s largest bank, said Friday it would no longer complete foreclosures in all 50 states as it reviews documents used to process foreclosures. That applies to homes that the bank takes back itself and those that it transfers to investors such as mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Obama hailed Jones, a lifelong military man before his White House post, as a “dedicated public servant and a friend to me.” The president turned over the job to Donilon, a workhorse figure in the White House who brings to the job a long background of Democratic politics and diplomacy.

The president said that Jones, from the start, had planned to leave within two years. The move comes just one week after Obama lost his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who quit to run for Chicago mayor. Other significant staff changes are likely as Obama’s term nears its midterm mark.

In naming Liu, the Norwegian-based committee honored his more than two decades of advocacy for human rights and peaceful democratic change – from the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989 to a manifesto for political reform that he co-authored in 2008 and which led to his latest jail term.

President Barack Obama, last year’s peace prize winner, called for Liu’s immediate release.

Monday’s reservoir break at an alumina plant dumped up to 700,000 cubic meters (184 million gallons) of sludge onto three villages, government officials said, not much less in a few hours than the 200 million gallons the blown-out BP oil well gushed into the Gulf of Mexico over several months.

The red sludge devastated creeks and rivers near the spill site and entered the Danube on Thursday, moving downstream toward Croatia, Serbia and Romania. Monitors were taking samples every few hours Friday to measure damage from the spill but the sheer volume of water in the mighty Danube appeared to be blunting the red sludge’s immediate impact.

A wounded survivor said he believed a suicide bomber praying to the right of the governor carried out the attack, which wounded 35 people and took place in Taluqan, the capital of Takhar province.

The death of Mohammad Omar, the governor of neighboring Kunduz province, came just days after he publicly warned of escalating threats from Taliban and foreign fighters across the north. If steps aren’t taken to counter them, Afghan and coalition forces will face “disaster,” he said.

U.S. District Judge Malcolm Howard on Friday ordered the Johnston County schools to suspend enforcement of their dress code for Ariana Iacono and allow her to return to school immediately. The judge ruled that the girl and her mother are likely to prevail in the lawsuit filed on their behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union.

“We are thrilled that Ariana can return to her studies,” her mother, Nikki Iacono, said in a statement released by the ACLU. “Ariana was an honor roll student in middle school, and she is eager to get back to her classes and continue with her education as soon as possible.”

LaHood met with Christie for nearly an hour at the New Jersey Statehouse on Friday. LaHood issued a statement shortly afterward saying that the Republican governor has agreed to review options for the tunnel into Manhattan.

LaHood says a small group of U.S. and New Jersey transportation officials will review the options and report back to Christie within two weeks.

With polls showing Republicans increasingly well-positioned to seize control of the House, the Democrats are planning TV ad blitzes to shore up their best-positioned incumbents and a handful of challengers in races they believe they can still win.

At the same time, they’re scaling back advertising plans to help a number of lawmakers including Reps. Betsy Markey of Colorado, Harry Teague of New Mexico and Steve Driehaus and Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio. They’ve also cut back on ad campaigns to defend Democratic-held open seats in Indiana and Kansas.

Friday’s unemployment report – the last major economic news before the midterms – showed the nation continued to lose jobs last month, reinforcing the bleak reality that it probably will be not months but years before the jobless rate returns to pre-recession levels below 6 percent.

With nearly 15 million Americans still without work, that tightens the pressure on Democrats ahead of the Nov. 2 elections. And it also casts a dark shadow well into the 2012 election season and beyond.

Engineers were carving through the last 128 feet (39 meters) of rock, taking care to keep the T130 drill from jamming or punching through with too much force, Mining Minister Laurence Golborne said.

“We are very close,” Golborne said. “It would be very complicated if after all the work we have done … you lose the hole. We have to be very careful and do it in a controlled way.”

The last-minute decision ended more than two months of brinksmanship with the Canadian company that makes the smart phones, a tool popular both with businesspeople and gadget-loving consumers in this Gulf federation.

The ban on e-mail, messaging and Web services – which the government threatened to impose over security concerns – was due to take effect Monday.

But the university says the evidence does not support the NCAA allegation that coach Jim Calhoun – who has won two national titles with the Huskies – failed to promote an atmosphere for compliance.

In a report released Friday, the school acknowledges its basketball staff made impermissible telephone calls and text messages as cited by the NCAA in a May report that followed a 15-month investigation. It also admits it improperly provided free game tickets to high school coaches and others.

The remarks were the first official comment about the future of Kim Jong Un, who just last week made his public debut.

Yang Hyong Sop, a top official in North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, referred to the 20-something Kim as “the young general” during an exclusive interview with APTN.

The two clips were apparently shot by cell phones and have been circulating on the Internet. The footage is grainy and shows no time stamps, and part of the army inquiry’s mission is to determine whether those shown in uniform were actually soldiers, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s statement said.

“It is not expected of a professional army to engage in excesses against the people whom it is trying to guard against the scourge of terrorism,” the general said, though he cautioned that militants had in the past posed as soldiers.

The most rampant layoffs of teachers and other local government workers in nearly three decades more than offset weak hiring in the private sector in September, resulting in a net loss of 95,000 jobs. Unemployment remained stuck at 9.6 percent.

The jobless rate has now been at or above 9.5 percent for 14 straight months, the longest stretch since the Great Depression.

Sherrod’s pleas reached Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s e-mail account soon after he ordered her dismissed from the department because of supposed racist remarks she made earlier in the year. He initially stuck by his decision despite her warnings that he didn’t have the full story.

Agriculture Department officials asked Sherrod to leave her job as Georgia’s director of rural development July 19 after comments she made in March were misconstrued as racist. She later received numerous apologies from the administration, including from President Barack Obama himself, and Vilsack asked her to return.

Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee which issued the report, said Thursday that he is worried the U.S. is unknowingly fostering the growth of Taliban-linked militias and posing a threat to U.S. and coalition troops at a time when Kabul is struggling to recruit its own soldiers and police officers.

The investigation follows a separate congressional inquiry in June that concluded trucking contractors pay tens of millions of dollars a year to local warlords for convoy protection.

With President Barack Obama in town this week to stump for Democrats in the key midterm campaigns for U.S. Senate and governor, Emanuel kept a low profile after days of shaking hands and posing for pictures in front of TV cameras. His campaign said the former White House chief of staff did not want to be a distraction.

Less than a month ahead of the November elections, the race to replace Mayor Richard M. Daley has thrown a wild card into the other campaigns. The mayoral vote isn’t until February, but candidates already are competing for funds, news coverage and other attention, especially in Chicago’s big media market.

Those involved say the search could be a boon for Missouri’s quest to draw in Civil War buffs as the 150th anniversary of the divisive conflict between the North and South fast approaches. Led by forensic archaeologist Doug Scott, they hope to find bullets, pieces of horse harnesses and other evidence from the 1863 Battle of Marshall – a skirmish that happened 147 years ago next Wednesday.

Missouri’s place in the war is undeniable: The state trails only Virginia and Tennessee in the number of Civil War battles fought. Those states, along with Pennsylvania, have been savvy in erecting battlefield monuments that lure thousands of visitors each year, boosting their tourism revenues.

It’s a claim made by a charter school leader in the education documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman,'” which places much of the blame for bad schools nationwide on union rules that protect incompetent teachers.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced on national television last week that he would overhaul the way city teachers are granted tenure, linking their advancement to improving student test scores.

The first troops began their mission on Aug. 30, and no member of the media has been allowed to see firsthand what they’ve been doing. Border Patrol agents are set to take reporters to one of several sites in southern Arizona on Friday where the troops are acting as what the agency calls “extra eyes and ears.”

The troops have no arrest power, and the guns they carry are only for self-defense. Their mission is to remain at “strategic locations” and look for and report any suspected illegal immigrants to the Border Patrol, whose agents make the arrest.

The furor began Wednesday when an attorney with a reputation for fighting free speech battles stayed silent as everyone else recited the patriotic oath. The lawyer was jailed.

A day later, Judge Talmadge Littlejohn continued to ask those in his courtroom to say the pledge.

The sermon by Boyd K. Packer, president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, came Sunday during the 180th semiannual general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City.

In his remarks Packer said some would argue that gays “were pre-set and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn tendencies toward the impure and unnatural. Not so! Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone?”

While many states are wrestling with billion-dollar budget deficits, Colorado voters are being asked to adopt ballot initiatives that would ban borrowing for public works, cut the income tax and slash local property taxes.

The net effect, once fully implemented, would cost the state $2.1 billion in revenue annually and still require an additional $1.6 billion in spending on public education, according to an analysis by the independent Colorado Legislative Council.

Washington-based Refugees International said researchers visiting Haiti found that few of the roughly 1,300 camps they studied had International Organization for Migration-appointed officials to turn to for help and protection and are unable to communicate or coordinate with the international humanitarian community.

“The people of Haiti are still living in a state of emergency, with a humanitarian response that appears paralyzed,” the Refugees International report said. “Gang leaders or land owners are intimidating the displaced. Sexual, domestic, and gang violence in and around the camps is rising.”