Evening Edition

With the eyes of Europe on his debt-ridden nation, Prime Minister Brian Cowen said his four-year package of cuts and tax increases would restore shattered confidence, calling it a signpost on the road to recovery.

“We can and we will pull through this as we have in the past,” Cowen told a news conference.

Both public and private sector workers joined the one-day strike, which follows similar stoppages in countries such as Greece and France, as governments are forced into unpopular cost-cutting programmes.

The head of the main UGT union, Joao Proenca, said, “It is the biggest strike ever staged,” after workers ranging from teachers, train drivers and firemen to doctors and entertainers all walked out.

The efforts of the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to shore up the debt-laden Irish economy were called into question as the euro sank to a two-month low, dipping under 1.34 dollars.

As anger at Cowen and the Irish government grew at home, Portugal — tipped to be the next eurozone economy to need a bailout — was bracing for a general strike on Wednesday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel stood by the Irish rescue but repeated her hard line that big changes were needed in the eurozone, and analysts wondered if Germany might eventually want to abandon the single currency.

Portugal, regarded in financial markets as possibly the third eurozone country after Greece and Ireland to need a rescue, faced nationwide protests against ever deeper budget rigour to correct public finances.

Police said there was now no chance of finding anyone alive, confirming the country’s worst mining accident in nearly a century. Prime Minister John Key called it a “national tragedy” and said flags would fly at half-mast.

“Where this morning we held on to hope, we must now make way for sorrow,” Key said. “Today, all New Zealanders grieve for these men. We are a nation in mourning.”

On day 12 of the showpiece multi-sports event, dominant table-toppers China made the Guangzhou Games its most successful ever in terms of total medals.

Li Caixia’s gold and Li Ling’s silver in the women’s pole vault were the 343rd and 344th for the hosts, surpassing the previous record of 342 that China won in Beijing in 1990.

Painting a gloomy picture of the short-term fate of the world’s largest economy, minutes from the Fed’s November meeting estimated growth would be around half a percentage point less than expected this year and in 2011.

At the meeting, members of the Fed’s top policy-setting panel slashed already anemic growth predictions to 2.4-2.5 percent this year and 3.0-3.6 percent in the next.

The main opponent of President Hamid Karzai swiftly claimed that his supporters had won more than 90 seats in the 249-member chamber as analysts said the head of state’s support base in the new parliament would weaken.

The Independent Election Commission (IEC) declared the vote a “major success,” but disqualified another three people who won seats according to preliminary results and delayed certified results from one troubled province.

The five-Test series gets underway on Thursday with England chasing their first victory at the Brisbane Gabba fortress since Mike Gatting’s team last prevailed on their way to the tourists’ last Australian series victory in 1986/87.

Strauss said his team was well prepared from three tour leadup games in Australian conditions and was ready to lay down a marker in the all-important first match against Ricky Ponting’s under pressure home team.

As tempers flared across Europe over the financial and social cost of rescuing Ireland, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said politicians must show financial markets who is in charge and make investors share in the risk of future debt crises.

Officials tried to soothe fears that Ireland’s crisis would spread to Portugal, where workers staged a general strike on Wednesday, and beyond to bigger euro zone economies.

After Ireland’s decision to seek assistance from the EU and IMF, investors are turning their attention to other financially weak euro zone nations like Portugal.

Any wavering in the Socialist government’s commitment to austerity measures could push up Portugal’s borrowing costs in the same vicious spiral that forced Dublin and before it Athens to seek rescues. A Reuters poll showed a majority of economists expect Portugal to seek a bailout.

The state’s ownership of Bank of Ireland could rise to near 80 percent from 36 percent now under the bailout, put at up to 85 billion euros ($114 billion), and Allied Irish Banks could join Anglo Irish Bank in being fully nationalized.

The European Union and International Monetary Fund (IMF) have agreed to provide external assistance to Ireland to shore up its banks and give them access to cheaper state funding.

“Have politicians got the courage to make those who earn money share in the risk as well? Or is dealing in government debt the only business in the world economy that involves no risk?” Merkel said in a speech to the German parliament.

“This is about the primacy of politics, this is about the limits of the markets,” said the chancellor, acknowledging that her insistence on this issue was making markets nervous.

Around 1,000 trained nurses and at least 100 more doctors were urgently needed to control the epidemic, which has struck the impoverished Caribbean nation months after a destructive earthquake.

The outbreak has killed more than 1,400 Haitians in five weeks and the death toll is climbing by dozens each day.

“I am determined to be more generous than the courts would be…” said Kenneth Feinberg of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility on a conference call as the program stopped taking emergency claims and started work on final settlements.

He warned that Gulf Coast people and businesses who decline to settle and refuse to give BP and its contractors a release from future risk of lawsuits might end up getting less money.

Most nations have few hopes for the meeting of environment ministers from November 29 to December 10 in the Caribbean resort of Cancun after U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders failed to agree a treaty at last year’s U.N. Copenhagen summit.

Sights are lower for Cancun, which will test the ability of the United Nations to reconcile the interests of China and the United States, the top greenhouse gas emitters, and those of 192 other nations in a 21st century world order. All have a veto.

“Even though SAP may appeal the judgment, the huge amount should be negative for the stock price and, will weaken SAP’s position in the U.S.,” said Jacques Abramowicz, analyst at Silvia Quandt research.

“Oracle will use the decision as a marketing tool, wielding the moral cudgel every time new contracts are negotiated,” he added.

The credibility of the result will weigh heavily on U.S. President Barack Obama’s review of his Afghanistan war strategy, due next month, amid rising violence and sagging public support, especially after a fraud-marred presidential election last year.

Consistent allegations of vote fraud in both polls have raised questions about the credibility of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government at a time when U.S. and NATO officials have been re-examining their long-term commitment in Afghanistan.

The miners were trapped in the 2.3 km (1.4 mile) main tunnel of the Pike River Coal mine last Friday night when methane gas caused a massive explosion in the mountain on New Zealand’s south island. Two other miners narrowly escaped by running out of the mine.

“Today all New Zealanders grieve for these men. We are a nation in mourning,” said Prime Minister John Key said in an address to the nation in which he announced an inquiry would be held into the disaster. “New Zealand is a small country…where we are our brothers keepers. To lose so many brothers at once strikes an agonizing blow.”

Airline shares were lower on Tuesday along with the broader market as the Thanksgiving travel crush accelerated. Airline shares closed 1.97 percent lower at $48.25 on the ARCA Air line Index.

Airlines expect to carry 24 million people over the 12-day period that ends early next week, a slight increase over last year.

Investigators most likely swooped down on the funds Monday in Connecticut and Massachusetts because they had a major concern that subpoenas for information would not be properly obeyed, lawyers and investigators said.

The raids served another purpose: warning the broader financial industry that a serious prosecution effort was underway.

Beijing’s growing impatience, though seldom expressed openly, could set back trade, transit and economic cooperation deals for which Taiwan has looked to Beijing since 2008 for help in advancing its $416 billion economy.

“There’s definitely a sense of urgency to get this thing going,” said Raymond Wu, managing director of Taipei-based political risk consultancy e-telligence.

Amid it all, analysts were deeply skeptical about the future – saying even the desperate efforts of governments, the European Union and the International Monetary might not be enough to prevent countries from defaulting or banks from going under.

The Irish Stock Exchange saw a bloodbath in bank stocks as investors pushed the panic button and bond traders were betting that it would only be a matter of time before Portugal and possibly Spain would be the next countries begging for outside help.

But Pelosi’s mandate is diverging from the president’s at a critical time, with potentially damaging consequences for Obama’s ability to cut deals with Republicans in the new Congress.

Their partnership is strained after an election in which Pelosi and many Democrats feel the White House failed them by muddling the party’s message and being too slow to provide cover for incumbents who cast tough votes for Obama’s marquee initiatives.

One option under consideration is to go to two threat levels instead of five: elevated and imminent. When the threat level would change to imminent under the new model, government officials would be expected to be as specific as possible in describing the threat without jeopardizing national security. And an imminent threat would not last longer than a week, meaning the public wouldn’t see a consistently high and ambiguous threat level.

The 8-year-old alert system, with its rainbow of colors – from green, signifying a low threat, to red, meaning severe – has become a fixture in airports, government buildings and on newscasts.

Officials said the documents may contain everything from accounts of compromising conversations with political dissidents and friendly politicians to disclosures of activities that could result in the expulsion of U.S. diplomats from foreign postings.

U.S. diplomatic outposts around the world have begun notifying other governments that WikiLeaks may release these documents in the next few days.

Wednesday’s massive explosion deep inside the mine on New Zealand’s South Island came five days after the men were caught underground by a similar blast. Even in the unlikely event that any had survived the first one, police said none could have lived through the second.

“The blast was prolific,” said police superintendent Gary Knowles, in charge of the rescue operation, “just as severe as the first blast.”

The arrest of Don Ching Trang Chu of Somerset, N.J., came when investigators realized he was heading to Taiwan on Sunday. He made the trip frequently, but authorities were apparently concerned that he was traveling ahead of what are expected to be multiple arrests in the probe and after he had been interviewed by FBI agents on Sunday.

Three hedge funds with offices in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts were raided Monday in the investigation, and on Tuesday, prominent mutual fund company Janus Capital Group said it had been subpoenaed. There was no indication Chu had dealt with those companies.

Either way, Bristol has something to brag about if talk at the Palin dinner table turns toward vote-getting ability. Just like her mom, Sarah, and her campaign for the vice presidency two years ago, however, Bristol fell short at the end. She finished third to champion Jennifer Grey of “Dirty Dancing” fame during the ABC competition’s two-hour finale Tuesday. Runner-up was Disney Channel star Kyle Massey.

Palin’s march, shimmy and cha-cha to the finals put “Dancing With the Stars,” of all programs, into the nation’s political cauldron. Clearly, Bristol drew support from many people who admire her mother, who frequently appeared in the show’s studio audience to root for her daughter. Bristol said Tuesday that if she won, “it would be like giving a big middle finger to people who hate my mom and hate me.”

A jury on Tuesday ordered SAP to pay $1.3 billion – more than half of its total profit last year – for a subsidiary’s skullduggery in stealing a stockpile of software and customer-support documents from password-protected Oracle websites.

The German software company was caught off guard by the size of the verdict. It had only set aside $160 million for anticipated damages, and already paid $120 million of that to Oracle’s lawyers.

Among the one in five Americans who plan to pay for most of their holiday season expenses with credit cards, 84 percent say they plan to pay the bills in full as soon as they arrive, up nine points over last year and 18 points since 2008.

“Unfortunately, you have to be disciplined,” said letter carrier Shelton Rhodes of Aurora, Colo., who plans to keep his holiday spending at last year’s levels. “Otherwise, you get sticker shock when January comes by” and the credit card bills appear.

Several orthodox Catholics said they would only accept a more formal papal pronouncement. Others insisted that journalists were purposely misrepresenting Benedict’s comments. Some questioned whether the papal spokesman, the Rev. Frederico Lombardi, accurately quoted the pope.

Bishops and the experts who advise them were scrambling to make sense of the news.

That’s because a cornerstone of an expected legal challenge to his status as a Chicagoan – a challenge that, if successful, would knock him off the February ballot and out of the city’s mayor’s race – is that when Emanuel rented his house he broke the rule that a candidate must live in the city a full year before the election.

“He doesn’t have a house. … He’s not a resident if (he’s) renting the house,” said Burt Odelson, a Chicago election attorney who said he’s filing a challenge against Emanuel with the city’s Board of Election Commissioners as early as Friday on behalf of several “objectors” who he would not name.

Attorneys for Murkowski said her seat will be vacant and Alaska will have only one senator if she’s not seated on time.

“There are numerous critical issues facing our nation and Alaskans deserve to have full representation in the United States Senate,” attorney Scott M. Kendall wrote in a motion to intervene in the lawsuit.

Spc. Adam Winfield of Cape Coral, Fla., is one of five soldiers charged in the deaths of three civilians during patrols in Kandahar Province this year.

Prosecutors said he willingly participated in the final killing, but his lawyer, Eric Montalvo, has argued that Winfield feared he’d be killed by one of his co-defendants if he didn’t follow an order to shoot at the victim.

Audi’s flagship four door isn’t just longer, wider and more powerful than before. Its new exterior styling is arguably the most distinctive and sporty of any executive-level luxury sedan on the market.

The 2011 A8’s well-crafted interior also has features any tech-savvy business person will love, such as a touch pad where a driver can, with a finger, write letters and numbers that are recognized by the onboard computer as a phone number or a destination. The idea is to keep driver eyes on the road ahead and not down on some knob or onboard menu.

Along this Brooklyn outpost’s ocean edge – the heart of much community life here – locals are talking about the betrayal they feel after the arrest of 17 people, mostly Brighton Beach residents, on charges that they faked stories of Holocaust survival to profit from money meant for survivors of Nazi persecution.

“I cannot imagine that someone would lie like that; it’s a terrible crime,” says Klara Rakhlin, 72, her bright makeup stark against her black, coiffed hair as she speaks in Russian. “I lost my family in a concentration camp, and it’s disgusting that people would get compensation although they haven’t suffered.”

The nation’s top forensic veterinarian, Merck was one of the few specialists trained in processing crime scenes involving animals. Her job at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals involves helping prosecutors build court cases, and she saw there weren’t nearly enough vets and other professionals with those skills.

The 46-year-old Merck is trying to change that, co-founding a first-of-its-kind veterinary forensic science training program at the University of Florida. She and scientists from the university’s renowned human forensics lab are sharing their expertise with animal-cruelty investigators, police and veterinarians who come from around the world.

Owners of a 25-acre farm in Westport, Mass., the Battles are among a small but growing number of farmers raising breeds of turkey with bloodlines that date back centuries yet are quite different – in size, taste and price – from the vast majority of birds sold at today’s supermarkets.

Known as “heritage” turkeys, their survival may well hinge on Americans’ willingness to create a market for them by putting them on their Thanksgiving tables.

TSA officers report being punched, kicked and shoved during pat-downs, and say one woman headbutted a screener who was searching her laptop. They are being called molesters and ordered not to touch “my junk.” And while they know the new searches are more invasive, officers want Thanksgiving travelers to keep in mind they are just doing their jobs to make flying safe.

“We just want the public to understand that we’re not perverts, we’re not sexual assailants,” said McCoy, who heads a local TSA union for Illinois and Wisconsin.

But they caution that no drug alone can address social factors blamed for the persistence of the epidemic. And they say concerns remain about who will pay for the costly treatment.

A study released Tuesday showed that daily doses of a drug called Truvada, already used to treat HIV infection, cut the risk of new infections among healthy gay men.

The 52-year-old clergyman was arrested Nov. 18 at his suburban Dallas home and jailed on $700,000 bond. In April, he was named in a lawsuit filed by the boy’s family, who accused Fiala of molesting the youth, including twice forcing him to have sex at gunpoint.

The abuse allegedly took place in 2007 and 2008, when Fiala was a priest at the Sacred Heart of Mary Parish in the West Texas community of Rocksprings, a rural enclave known for sheep and goat herding.

Sommermeyer would not have it any other way.

Lost in the frenzy over new airport inspections is the fact that 94 percent of holiday travelers will reach their destination by road this year. For some, a snarled freeway and $3-a-gallon gasoline is a welcome respite from the madness of air travel.

State Education commissioner David Steiner is not required to follow the panel’s advice in deciding whether to grant the waiver, nor is he required to consider public opinion.

“I will weigh their advice and insight as I consider the decision before me,” Steiner said in a statement.

The Rev. Geraldo Pinero endorses several so-called multilevel marketing companies on Facebook, blogs and other online posts that include his real name, photo and parish address.

The 46-year-old pastor also appears, sans religious collar, wearing a sweater or velvet blazer and talking about his goal of earning “extra income on the side.” He promises recruits they can make thousands of dollars a month selling candles or life coaching or other services.