Evening Edition

While airports worked to clear the massive backlog of flights, frustration at the paralysis turned to anger as reports emerged of ambulances failing to reach critical patients, in one case leading a woman to lose her baby.

“Clearly, the response was unacceptable,” speaker Christine Quinn told a special session of the city council, giving voice to hundreds of complaints from New York residents.

Three regional heads of state had flown to Ivory Coast on Tuesday to warn Gbagbo to hand over power to his rival Alassane Ouattara or face military action, but left without a clear answer, promising to return next week.

“We are still talking,” said Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, chairman of the regional bloc ECOWAS and leader of its military powerhouse. “People are negotiating. We are discussing. That is why they (envoys) are going back.”

The leaders of Benin, Cape Verde and Sierra Leone met Gbagbo in the Abidjan official residence where he is clinging to power, surrounded by a circle of hardline advisers determined to resist a barrage of global pressure.

Presidents Boni Yayi of Benin, Ernest Koroma of Sierra Leone and Pedro Pires of Cape Verde then drove under armed UN escort to the hotel where Ouatarra’s shadow government is holed up surrounded by peacekeeping troops.

After three regional heads of state wrapped up a mission to the troubled nation, it emerged that armed forces chiefs from across the troubled region were meeting in Nigeria to draw up their strategy for a troop deployment.

A senior diplomat said the meeting in the Nigerian capital Abuja was about “the military planning … and the logistics” of any eventual operation.

A third bomber was shot dead before setting off his explosives belt in the attack targeting Lieutenant Colonel Shamil Ahmed Oglah, who commanded the operation last week against an Al-Qaeda affiliate, a police officer said.

The early morning bombings killed Oglah and three other policemen, an interior ministry source said, and destroyed most of the police station in the Qabr al-Binat area of western Mosul, according to the officer.

The holders’ biggest win over Australia since 1956 put them an unbeatable 2-1 up with one to play, almost a quarter of a century after Mike Gatting’s team claimed the series 2-1 in 1986-87 in England’s last triumph in Australia.

Australia’s humiliation was complete when Ben Hilfenhaus was the last man out before lunch on the fourth morning at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, caught behind off Tim Bresnan for a duck after Ryan Harris was unable to bat because of an ankle injury.

A statement posted on Zhao Lianhai’s blog, apparently written by the 38-year-old himself, said he was being treated in hospital and did not want to have contact with anyone anymore.

Zhao — whose child was one of 300,000 made ill by milk tainted with the industrial chemical melamine in 2008, during a scandal that saw at least six babies die — was sentenced to two and a half years in prison in November.

“We will not deny our southern brothers their decision, and we will help them to build their state, because we want a secure and stable state … if there are troubles, these troubles will come to us,” Bashir said in a live speech on state television.

Speaking to thousands of supporters in Gezira state, Sudan’s bread basket southeast of Khartoum, Bashir said he would be “the first to recognise the south” if it chooses secession in a free and fair vote on January 9.

Many New Yorkers, especially from the boroughs outside Manhattan, are outraged that their neighborhoods remain buried under snow two days after the storm dumped 20 inches on the city. Bloomberg, who has consistently ruled out running for the U.S. presidency despite frequent speculation about his political aspirations, is getting hit with the blame.

“This is a mayor who prided himself on his ability as a manager. If we were grading him on his response to the snowstorm, he would get an ‘F,'” Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. said on Wednesday.

China, which produces about 97 percent of the global supply of rare earth minerals, cut its export quotas by 35 percent for the first half of 2011 versus a year ago, saying it wanted to preserve ample reserves. It also cautioned that it has not decided on the quotas for the second half of the year.

The little-known class of 17 related elements is used in numerous electronic devices and clean energy technology.

Winifred Jiau is at least the sixth person arrested since U.S. authorities raided three hedge funds last month, ratcheting up the pressure on the industry in their more than two-year-old probe.

Primary Global Research LLC, an “expert network” firm that linked investors such as hedge funds with industry experts, in a statement said it used Jiau as a consultant from September 2006 to December 2008, when “the relationship was ended.”

Allstate, the largest publicly traded U.S. home and auto insurer, alleged it suffered “significant losses” after Countrywide misled it into believing the securities were safe, and the quality of home loans backing them was high.

The lawsuit also names several former Countrywide officials as defendants, including longtime Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo. Countrywide was the largest U.S. mortgage lender before Bank of America bought it in July 2008.

The regulators said one reason for the increase in foreclosures is that banks have “exhausted” options for keeping many delinquent borrowers in their homes through programs such as loan modifications.

Newly-initiated foreclosures increased to 382,000 in the third quarter, a 31.2 percent jump over the previous quarter and a 3.7 percent rise from the same quarter a year ago, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) said in a quarterly mortgage report.

Gbagbo’s government, meanwhile, remained defiant in the face of international pressure to cede power, saying it would sever ties with any country that recognized envoys named by rival presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara — a powerful sign he was not about to quit.

“The government would like to make it known that in the light of such decisions, it reserves the right to apply reciprocity in ending the missions of their ambassadors in Ivory Coast,” the government’s spokesman said in a statement on national television on Tuesday.

The boomers took a running dive into adolescence and went on to redefine work and family, but getting old is making them nervous.

Now, forty-three percent say they don’t expect to be able to depend on Medicare forever, while only 20 percent think their Medicare is secure. The rest have mixed feelings.

As al-Jabouri slept Wednesday morning on a couch in his office, three men wearing police uniforms over vests laden with explosives slipped through an opening in the blast walls surrounding the compound where his building stood, police said.

Police manning one of at least four observation towers surrounding the compound shot one of the attackers in a yard and his vest exploded. Under the cover of that blast, police said, the other two suicide bombers charged about 100 yards (90 meters) and made it into al-Jabouri’s single-story building.

The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to protect the identity of a client who has been questioned as part of the probe. The case, which has been assigned to two federal prosecutors and two FBI agents in Delaware, has not been brought before a grand jury.

Matt Moran, O’Donnell’s former campaign manager, did not immediately respond Wednesday to questions from The AP. He said earlier this month that the campaign had not been contacted about any investigation and criticized what he called “lies and false-attack rumors.”

The lift had been cleared for operations following high winds that shut it down earlier in the day. Sugarloaf resort said Wednesday that about 20 minutes after the lift reopened, two maintenance workers were dispatched to one of its towers, where they saw the cable out of place. They couldn’t fix it and were preparing to shut down the lift when the cable derailed.

State investigators say high wind contributed to the accident Tuesday but didn’t rule out other factors.

The league said Wednesday that Commissioner Roger Goodell “could not conclude” that Favre violated the league’s personal conduct policy based on the evidence currently available to him.

“The forensic analysis could not establish that Favre sent the objectionable photographs to Sterger,” the statement said. “The review found no evidence to contradict the statements of both Favre and Sterger that they never met in person, nor was there anything to suggest that Sterger engaged in any inappropriate conduct.”

Cleanup, government fines, lawsuits, legal fees and damage claims will likely exceed the $40 billion that BP has publicly estimated, according to an Associated Press analysis. But they’ll be far below the highest estimates made over the summer by legal experts and prominent Wall Street banks, such as Goldman Sachs, which said costs could near $200 billion.

BP will survive the worst oil spill in U.S. history for several key reasons: it has little debt; its global businesses are forecast to generate $26 billion next year in cash flow from operations; the environmental impact of the spill isn’t as bad as feared; and the government seems unlikely to ban BP from Gulf drilling. To bolster its finances, BP has cut its dividend, issued debt and sold more than $21 billion in assets.

And a huge factor was the pending retirement of a lone senator – North Dakota’s Byron Dorgan.

After years of trying, Congress passed several landmark bills for Indians, including laws overhauling tribal health care and law enforcement and settling a 15-year legal battle over lost royalties for mismanaged Indian lands.

The confession was published in a Belgian newspaper Wednesday and confirmed by the organization the priest founded, deepening a sex-abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church in the country. After a spate of accusations this year, the church in September published the harrowing accounts of more than 100 victims of clerical sex abuse, some as young as 2 when they were assaulted.

In October, after supporters of 85-year-old Francois Houtart began working to nominate him for the Nobel, a woman contacted the nonprofit organization he founded and said the priest had abused her brother 40 years ago, according to its director, Bernard Duterme.

Firefighters said they could not tell the ages or genders of those who died Tuesday in the city’s deadliest blaze in decades because their bodies were so badly burned. A 23-year-old man who escaped told the American Red Cross he could not get back in to help his friends because of the smoke, agency volunteer Thomas Butler said. The group had been burning debris to keep warm, with temperatures below freezing, authorities said.

A group of young people sitting on the steps of an abandoned house near the warehouse said the dead included three women and five men.

Even as the 15-nation regional bloc ECOWAS gave Gbagbo more time, though, defense officials from member states gathered in Nigeria.

ECOWAS had vowed to use force to wrest Gbagbo from the presidential palace if he did not agree on Tuesday to step aside for Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognized winner of last month’s election. The presidents of Sierra Leone, Benin and Cape Verde delivered the ultimatum on ECOWAS’ behalf, hoping to escort Gbagbo into exile. He refused to budge.

A leader of one of the disgruntled parties, however, reiterated demands that the prime minister quit or be fired.

The political turmoil threatens to distract Pakistani lawmakers from tackling the nation’s serious challenges, including a struggling economy and an Islamist insurgency that is also affecting a U.S.-led war in neighboring Afghanistan.

Abercrombie was a friend of Obama’s parents and knew him as a child, and is deeply troubled by the effort to cast doubt on the president’s citizenship.

The newly elected governor will ask the state attorney general’s office about what can be done to put an end to questions about Obama’s birth documentation from Aug. 4, 1961, spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz said Tuesday.

“I’m sorry, but try as I might, I could never, ever do this on my own,” said the New York City comedian who’s struggling to finish a book. “I wish I could, but I just don’t have the discipline.”

Nainan’s practice of cutting off the Internet twice a day for two hours is one example of how Americans are trying to control their impulses using technology that steps in to enforce good behavior.

New for 2011, the five-seat Juke looks bigger than it is and has oddball front styling. Round headlights can be mistaken for fog lamps and turn signal lights are positioned so high by the hood they can be seen from the front seat.

The only engine in the relatively lightweight Juke is Nissan’s first-in-the-United-States direct-injection, turbocharged four cylinder that generates an impressive 188 horsepower and uses premium gasoline.

The majestic beasts are a hot commodity these days, as consumer demand for healthy meat has sent prices soaring. But although bison are what one rancher calls “a self-care animal,” most farmers are struggling to increase their herds and keep up with demand.

Bison grow slower than other livestock, and a heifer can’t have her first calf until she’s 3, said Dave Carter, executive director of the National Bison Association in Westminster, Colo. Beef cows can have calves at 2. Also, many producers are finding heifers more valuable for breeding than eating, which means fewer bison going to market – at least temporarily, he said.

“I thought I could make it,” the retired sanitation worker said ruefully.

Farrell, 55, was trying to deliver the newspaper to the rows of suburban-style homes where the snow drifts piled higher than Christmas decorations. The basic service of newspaper delivery was one of many that have eluded his neighbors in Howard Beach since a snowstorm dropped 20 inches on the city. He hadn’t seen many in Queens for two days, he said.

Richardson’s office received 809 e-mails and letters in the survey that ended Sunday. Some 430 argued for a pardon and 379 opposed it.

The website was created in mid-December after Albuquerque attorney Randi McGinn petitioned for a pardon, contending New Mexico Territorial Gov. Lew Wallace promised one in return for the Kid’s testimony in a murder case against three men.

This January, the statutes will kick in just as freshly elected governors and legislators arrive for work. And if new GOP majorities succeed in getting legislation repealed, the result may be sudden U-turns on issues that were only recently debated.

Before the November election, Democrats controlled legislatures in 27 states, with Republicans in charge of just 14. But after the nationwide Republican sweep, the GOP will soon control 26, the Democrats only 17. Control of others is split between the parties. The election also increased the number of Republican governors from 23 to 26.