Evening Edition

“We will return,” said Benin President Boni Yayi, standing alongside a smiling Gbagbo after around two hours of talks aimed at ending his deadly stand-off with the man the world says is president, Alassane Ouattara.

Yayi and the presidents of Sierra Leone and Cape Verde were in Ivory Coast’s commercial capital Abidjan as mediators for the regional bloc ECOWAS for the second time in a week in a bid to end the bitter crisis.

A smiling Gbagbo welcomed Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the African Union’s envoy, and three regional presidents tasked with ending his deadly standoff with the man the world says is president, Alassane Ouattara.

Presidents Ernest Koroma of Sierra Leone, Boni Yayi of Benin and Pedro Pires of Cape Verde are representing the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) which has said it is prepared to send troops into Ivory Coast.

Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the African Union’s envoy, was in Abidjan alongside three regional presidents also tasked with ending a stand-off between Gbagbo and the man the world says is president, Alassane Ouattara.

“It is necessary to give Mr Gbagbo the necessary sweets to make it easy for him to step down,” said Ibrahim Ben Kargbo, the information minister of Sierra Leone, whose leader is a member of the West African presidential troika.

The unrest came as police in Egypt went on high alert and beefed up church security for Christmas, which Copts celebrate on January 7, as investigators hunted the perpetrators of the Alexandria church bombing.

Tensions spilled over again late on Monday as protesters in a northern Cairo neighbourhood threw rocks at police who tried to block a march by thousands of Copts.

Police in France and the Austria, meanwhile, beefed up security for Coptic churches in their countries after threats.

Egyptian security cancelled leave for senior officers and tightened surveillance of airports and ports to prevent suspects from leaving the country, as new checkpoints were set up across the nation.

The Circulating Tumor Cell (CTC) microchip technology, which inventors describe as a “liquid biopsy,” has been touted as a revolutionary approach to diagnosing cancer since it was first developed several years ago by doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital.

It works by detecting cancer cells that have detached from a tumor and are circulating at very low levels in the blood.

The New York Times, citing sources familiar with the deal, reported Monday that Goldman had invested 450 million dollars in Facebook and Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian investment firm that has already sunk about half a billion dollars into Facebook, invested 50 million dollars.

Facebook and Goldman, one of Wall Street’s most prestigious investment banks, declined to comment on the report.

The revenue figure was a 57.8 percent increase over 2009, cementing the former Portuguese colony as the world’s biggest gaming hub, thanks largely to the millions of mainland Chinese punters who descend on it each year.

But the governments of China and its special region of Macau are growing worried about the vast sums of money flowing into the city’s economy and have already imposed several restrictions to try and cap its runaway growth.

The settlement was far less costly to Bank of America than many analysts had feared. Investors have been pressing banks to buy back bad mortgages, in a battle over who will bear the brunt of losses from the mortgage crisis.

But if Bank of America is paying Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac less than many had expected, that means the taxpayer-supported mortgage finance companies are receiving less money than expected, which could further hurt their weak balance sheets.

Prosecutors accuse Winifred Jiau of selling inside information about publicly traded companies, including computer chipmakers Marvell Technology Group Ltd and Nvidia Corp to hedge funds, including the founder of a New York fund that prosecutors did not identify.

Federal prosecutors in New York are also involved in talks that could lead to a possible “disposition” of charges filed against a former executive with expert network firm Primary Global Research.

Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s U.S.-backed government lost its majority in parliament Sunday when the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) bolted to the opposition due to government fuel price policies it said were “unbearable” for Pakistanis.

Gilani’s government could fall if the divided opposition decides to pursue a no-confidence vote. Zardari’s backing on Monday suggested that president would not bow to any opposition pressure and push Gilani to seek a vote in parliament himself.

But the long whiteboard on the opposite wall is a reminder that this room was never meant to be an office at all.

A year ago, Kwek’s office was a classroom filled with first graders. Today, the superintendent of South Whittier School District looks out of his windows into an empty schoolyard.

Friday’s employment report is expected to show the pace of payroll growth accelerated last month after a disappointing showing in November. However, consumers’ assessment of the job market deteriorated in December, according to the Conference Board’s latest consumer confidence survey.

This disconnect is symptomatic of the state of the labor market. Yes, it is recovering, but at a pace that can hardly keep up with population growth, let alone quickly bring down the 9.8 percent unemployment rate.

Republicans, who will take control of the House of Representatives this week, are demanding spending cuts to curb the $1.3 trillion budget deficit and several have said they would oppose a higher debt ceiling if Obama does not agree to a range of painful cuts.

White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee accused Republicans of “playing chicken” with the nation’s financial credibility.

Rousseff, 63, wasted no time in addressing several issues that could threaten Brazil’s remarkable run of prosperity, including a recent burst of government spending that has, in turn, fueled a potentially dangerous rise in inflation.

Planning Minister Miriam Belchior vowed that Rousseff would “listen carefully to the market’s concerns” on spending and then “take whatever measures we consider appropriate.”

Foreign military and civilian casualties are at record levels despite the presence of about 150,000 NATO-led troops, with 2010 the bloodiest year on record since the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001.

Ministry of the Interior spokesman Zemari Bashary said 2,447 Afghan police were wounded, while 5,225 insurgents were killed and 949 wounded. He said the government did not have a toll of insurgent casualties for 2009.

Hundreds of members of Egypt’s large Christian minority protested in Cairo and Alexandria, the northern city where the presumed suicide bomber detonated a device outside a church during a midnight service.

A security source said Egypt was holding seven people for questioning over Saturday’s bombing, which also wounded 97 people, and had released 10 others.

Though full repeal is a longshot – the House vote would be just the first, easiest step – they’ll follow up with dozens of attempts to hack away at what they derisively call “Obamacare.”

The strategy is not risk-free for the Republicans, who won’t have a replacement plan of their own ready by the time of the repeal vote. But they say there’s no time to lose.

The companies – they include Chevron USA Inc. and Shell Offshore Inc. – will be allowed to resume work at previously drilled wells, as long as they meet new policies and regulations, officials said.

“For those companies that were in the midst of operations at the time of the deepwater suspensions (last spring), today’s notification is a significant step toward resuming their permitted activity,” said Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.

The videos, released Sunday by a newspaper in this Navy port city, feature Capt. Owen Honors using gay slurs, pantomiming masturbation and staging suggestive shower scenes. They were played on the shipwide television system during weekly movie night when Honors was executive officer, or second in command, of the USS Enterprise. Honors has since become commander of the ship.

Over the weekend, the Navy at first downplayed the videos as “humorous skits,” then called them “not acceptable” and said they are under investigation.

The man who once was California’s most famous bachelor took the oath of office after being introduced by his wife of five years, former Gap Inc. executive Anne Gust Brown, inside Sacramento Memorial Auditorium.

She held a Bible that was her grandfather’s and was used during her wedding with Brown.

The investment implies that the company is worth $50 billion, according to the report – more than twice the market valuation of Yahoo Inc., though still well below its famous Silicon Valley rival, Google Inc.

The New York Times reported the investment over the weekend, citing unnamed people involved with the deal. Facebook and Goldman Sachs declined to comment Monday.

Scientists are investigating whether bad weather, fireworks or poison might have forced the birds out of the sky, or if a disoriented bird simply led the flock into the ground.

“We have a lot more questions,” said Karen Rowe, an ornithologist with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. She said there are documented cases of birds becoming confused and plunging to earth.

The renewed political turmoil bodes ill for military action against Muslim extremists that the U.S. believes is key to success in neighboring Afghanistan, analysts said. Pakistan’s powerful army could use the lack of political consensus to avoid operations that clash with its perceived strategic interests.

The crisis also all but guarantees that lawmakers will not make progress anytime soon on fixing Pakistan’s deep-seated problems in areas like education, health care and infrastructure that have contributed to economic decline and rising militancy.

Not in Pennsylvania, one of the states at the center of the gas rush.

There, the liquid that gushes from gas wells is only partially treated for substances that could be environmentally harmful, then dumped into rivers and streams from which communities get their drinking water.

That’s not an excuse to give up. Understanding how unhealthy behaviors become ingrained has scientists learning some tricks that may help good habits replace the bad.

“Why are bad habits stronger? You’re fighting against the power of an immediate reward,” says Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and an authority on the brain’s pleasure pathway.

Boston scientists who invented the test and health care giant Johnson & Johnson will announce Monday that they are joining forces to bring it to market. Four big cancer centers also will start studies using the experimental test this year.

Stray cancer cells in the blood mean that a tumor has spread or is likely to, many doctors believe. A test that can capture such cells has the potential to transform care for many types of cancer, especially breast, prostate, colon and lung.

The GOP is promising to use the new Congress that convenes Wednesday to cut spending, roll back President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul and prevent unelected bureaucrats from expanding the government’s role in society through regulations that tell people what they must or can’t do.

Passing their top priorities may be easier in the House, where Republicans hold a 241-194 majority. It will be harder in the Senate where Democrats still hold an edge, though smaller than the one Obama had during his first two years in the White House. But if the GOP agenda fails to change the lives of Americans, it could still prove to have a greater impact on next year’s elections.

Expectations in Africa spiked after the election of an American president with a Kenyan father. But midway through his term, Obama’s agenda for Africa has taken a backseat to other foreign policy goals, such as winding down the Iraq war, fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan and resetting relations with Russia.

Obama aides believe those issues are now on more solid footing, allowing the president to expand his international agenda. He will focus in Africa on good governance and supporting nations with strong democratic institutions.

Nope, they aren’t ashamed one bit.

The Seahawks became the first NFL division winner with a losing record – that dates to 1933, folks – when they beat St. Louis 16-6 on Sunday night. At 7-9, they are NFC West champions, while two 10-6 clubs (Tampa Bay and the New York Giants) are out of the postseason.

The African heads of state traveled to Ivory Coast to give persuasion another chance before resorting to military intervention.

The presidents of Benin, Sierra Leone and Cape Verde also visited last week without result, and this time they were being joined by Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga. No developments were immediately announced.

Yet the once-irrepressible Favre never looked older or more fragile than in year No. 20. The magic of last season, and most of his brilliant career, never seemed farther away.

It had to end some time. And Favre says that time is now.

The European Union, China, Japan, South Korea and Israel are lobbying against requiring air shipments of lithium batteries and products containing them to meet hazardous cargo regulations, diplomatic and industry officials told The Associated Press.

At a minimum the proposal could cost hundreds of millions of dollars and disrupt the flow of products such as cellphones, laptops, medical devices, water meters and electric car batteries, among others, these governments say.

“We have only one thing in common,” said owner Ismail Houmani, a U.S. war veteran, pointing at a cigar in the fingers of Guevara, a Marxist rebel.

Cuba, however, believes the shop has too much common with its own famous cigar business. Cuba’s government-owned tobacco company is suing Houmani in federal court in Detroit, claiming the name of his four shops, La Casa De La Habana, is illegal because it’s too similar to its own franchised shops, known around the world as La Casa del Habano.

DNA test results that came back barely a week after Cornelius Dupree Jr. was paroled in July excluded him as the person who attacked a Dallas woman in 1979, prosecutors said Monday. Dupree was just 20 when he was sentenced to 75 years in prison in 1980.

Now 51, he has spent more time wrongly imprisoned than any DNA exoneree in Texas, which has freed 41 wrongly convicted inmates through DNA since 2001 – more than any other state.

The first weeks of the new year will be an early test of how the president will deal with a divided Congress, and whether he can build on the victories he secured during the final days of the lame-duck legislative session. And with a host of Republicans readying to run for his job, the administration will simultaneously be laying the groundwork for Obama’s re-election bid, which will be run out of Chicago.

Senior adviser David Axelrod plans to head to Chicago this month, with Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, David Plouffe, taking his place at the White House. More staff will follow Axelrod to Chicago, though aides have not yet been asked to commit to making the move.

No coat, no gloves? No prob!

These teens and tweens are chillin’ out, literally and figuratively, in their sweatshirts and kicks. Maybe a boy will accessorize with a baseball cap, and a girl might choose stylish boots – but nothing weatherproof, please! Some boys even wear shorts year-round, and many parents say they’ve given up the fight.

Within seconds, they have all bottles under $40 at their fingertips using an iPad supplied by their server.

“You can very quickly look through to see the price per bottle,” said Keith, a finance executive, as he scrolled through rows of selections. “You can read the wine tasting note, how long it has been aged.”

Presidents and political candidates have passed through, hoping to lure the Cuban-American vote. Journalists come with cameras and microphones, looking for an aging exile to comment on the latest news about the island’s communist government. Legendary singers and artists stop in for Cuban coffee.

Miami is the de facto capital of Cuban exiles, and Versailles is their prime meeting spot. The old men call themselves La Pena del Versailles. The Club of Versailles.

The rules that went into effect Saturday apply to tractors, construction vehicles and other so-called nonroad equipment. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says the vehicles are major sources of particulate-matter emissions – the stuff that makes smoke black and air difficult to breathe.

Federal air standards have been tightening since the mid-1990s. The 2011 regulations are the latest step, requiring that diesel engines built starting this year produce even fewer of the nitrous oxides that can cause acid rain.

The outgoing governor also granted clemency to a woman who killed her former pimp in a motel room when she was 16.

The moves come just hours before Schwarzenegger is scheduled to leave office on Monday.

Specter began and ended – for now – his political life as a Democrat and spent the intervening four decades as a Republican. But he sees himself as an independent who often bucked party leadership – ultimately ending his career.

“I have always agreed with Kennedy that sometimes party asks too much,” Specter said in his last news media interview in his Washington office on Dec. 23. “My tenure in the Senate was really as an independent and whichever, regardless of party label.”

Researchers are beginning the third and final year of testing lab-refined mating pheromones – scents emitted by male lampreys to attract females. They’re also working on a mixture with the stench of rotting lamprey flesh, which live ones detest, and another that smells of baby lampreys, which adults love. If proven effective, the chemicals will be deployed across the region to steer the aquatic vermin to where they can be trapped or killed.

Early results appear promising. Yet no one expects the lures and repellents to finally rid the lakes of the despised invader and enable fisheries managers in the U.S. and Canada to end a battle that has cost more than $400 million over five decades. Especially when a single spawning female lays up to 60,000 eggs.