Evening Edition

Alassane Ouattara’s call came after regional bloc ECOWAS said it was prepared to use military force as a last resort to oust Gbagbo who retains control of the army and continues to defy international calls to step down.

“If he persists, it’s up to ECOWAS to take the necessary measures and those measures can include legitimate force,” Ouattara told journalists at the Abidjan hotel where he has for weeks been besieged by Gbagbo forces.

Alassane Ouattara, besieged by Gbagbo troops since the world said he won a November presidential run-off, told Europe 1 radio that violence allegedly carried out by Liberian mercenaries on his rival’s behalf left Gbagbo with blood on his hands.

“Many Ivorians have been killed by the mercenaries and militia of Laurent Gbagbo,” Ouattara said in the interview with the French radio station recorded Wednesday from his blockaded hotel headquarters in Abidjan.

Security officials said at least 70,000 officers and conscripts were deployed across the country to secure churches as Copts attended Christmas Eve mass.

Police said one primitive explosive device — a tin can filled with fire crackers, nails and bolts, but with no detonator — was found in a church in the southern city of Minya.

As police released a sketch of the suspected bomber, security officials said at least 70,000 officers and conscripts would fan out across the country to secure churches as Copts attend Christmas Eve mass.

Drivers would be banned from parking their cars in front of churches, which would be tightly monitored by explosive detection teams and police officers, the official said.

“Everything appears to be on track for the region’s 2,638 polling centres, which are scheduled to open at 8 am (0500 GMT) on January 9,” said David Gressly, head of the United Nations Mission to Sudan in the south.

“The many sceptics who never thought southern Sudan would be ready to hold its referendum by next Sunday were proven wrong,” he told reporters in the regional capital Juba.

Renault and its Japanese partner Nissan have staked their future on electric vehicles and plan to launch several models by 2014 to meet the rapidly rising demand for more environmentally-friendly methods of transport.

They forecast that electric cars will make up 10 percent of the market by 2020 and are pumping 200 million euros a year in their electric programmes, while other major carmakers are also investing heavily in the sector.

Obama chose William Daley, commerce secretary under Bill Clinton, as his new chief of staff, pursuing a staff shake-up that signals a potential change in course in response to his Democrats’ November 2 elections rout.

Daley, 62, is seen as a centrist powerbroker and has strong ties to the US business community, with which the president has had a rocky relationship, and has strongly backed efforts to expand international trade.

“The contracts with Daimler and VW will be more than five billion dollars,” the source told AFP on Thursday.

Germany’s foreign ministry had said earlier that contracts would be signed after a meeting between Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang and Deputy Chancellor Guido Westerwelle, without giving more details.

Li told Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero during a meeting in Madrid on Wednesday that China “was willing to buy as much Spanish debt as its Greek and Portuguese debt holdings combined, that is some six billion euros ($7.9 billion),” it said.

The newspaper could not confirm the figure with Li but spoke to China’ Vice Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng who said that any transaction would be determined according to the date and size of any public debt issue.

Blamed for a disastrous boycott of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine in Britain, the study was retracted by The Lancet last year and its senior author disgraced, after the country’s longest-running hearing, for conflict of interest and unethical treatment of patients.

But the BMJ, taking the affair further, on Thursday branded the paper a crafted attempt to deceive, among the gravest of charges in medical research.

“In respect of the national political leadership, and this house, and the whole nation, I restore the old petroleum prices,” Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) premier Yousuf Raza Gilani told the lower house of parliament.

“There was a consensus among the entire political leadership and parliamentary leaders that petroleum prices of December 31 should be restored.”

The grinning policeman, who confessed to murdering Salman Taseer for his progressive views, has been hailed a hero by the powerful religious right, highlighting how deep the conservative grip on the nuclear-armed country.

Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri was showered with rose petals for a second day as he arrived at an anti-terror court in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, more than seven hours after media first gathered in anticipation of the event.

President Barack Obama’s Democrats were expected to join Republicans to pass a bill to slice five percent from House expenses, a 35-million-dollar drop in the roughly 3.6-trillion-dollar bucket of annual US government outlays.

Republicans also planned to read aloud from the US Constitution — but omit sections later amended, such as the original language defining black slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of apportioning congressional seats.

Geithner said the federal government may hit by March 31 the ceiling on the amount of debt it is legally allowed to issue, and urged Congress to raise it by then to avoid pushing the United States into default.

“Even a short-term or limited default would have catastrophic economic consequences that would last for decades,” Geithner said in a letter to U.S. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 18,000 to a seasonally adjusted 409,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday, above economists’ expectations for 400,000.

The data falls outside the survey period for the government’s closely watched employment report for December, which on Friday is expected to show nonfarm payrolls jumped 175,000 after November’s surprisingly small 39,000 gain.

Obama said he hoped Daley would help energize the economy. Reducing America’s 9.8 percent jobless rate is Obama’s biggest challenge ahead of his 2012 re-election bid.

“He possesses a deep understanding of how jobs are created and how to grow our economy,” Obama said at the White House.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated overturning the reform signed by Obama last year would add about $230 billion to the deficit by 2021 and result in 32 million fewer people having health insurance.

That was a blow to Republican campaign promises to slash the federal budget deficit.

The short-term deployments were ordered by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and come months before President Barack Obama plans to start withdrawing U.S. forces in July from the unpopular war against the Taliban.

“This will allow us to keep our momentum,” said Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell. The troops would mainly be deployed in southern Afghanistan, he said, where fighting is the fiercest.

A post-Christmas blizzard made things worse for some retailers, and companies ranging from department store operator Macy’s Inc and discounter Target Corp to teen clothing store American Eagle Outfitters were among those whose results fell far short of Wall Street’s forecasts.

“The turbulence is here to stay,” said David Bassuk, a managing director at consulting firm AlixPartners. “The consumer is still very sensitive to even slight fluctuations in prices — the consumer is still looking for deals.”

The United Nations’ food agency (FAO) said on Wednesday that food prices hit a record high last month, above 2008 levels when riots broke out in countries as far afield as Egypt, Cameroon and Haiti.

In Asia, official data and analyst estimates both pointed to inflationary pressures. Chilli prices have increased fivefold in Thailand in the last year and Indonesia’s president called for households to plant food in their own gardens.

Gibbs, 39, a fierce defender of the president at White House news briefings, told reporters he will leave in early February.

A successor to Gibbs is expected to be named within the next couple of weeks. The short list includes Vice President Joe Biden’s top spokesman, Jay Carney, and two of Gibbs’ deputies, Bill Burton and Josh Earnest.

The Republican takeover sets up potentially fierce battles in the coming months with President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats on spending, debt and healthcare.

Republican John Boehner, from a working class Ohio family of 12 children, was elected House speaker in the new Congress and warned of “hard work and tough decisions” on the economy as the United States recovers slowly from its worst recession since the 1930s.

At church gates around the country, police and church staff checked the IDs of those entering the services – and their wrists, where many Egyptian Christians bear the tattoo of a cross.

Al-Qaida in Iraq had threatened Christians in Iraq and Egypt in the weeks leading up to the holidays and Saturday’s deadly bombing. Militant websites have even posted names and addresses of churches in Egypt to target, raising fears of a follow-up attack on celebrations of the Orthodox Christmas, which Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority marks on Friday.

In a nod to the tea partiers who put the Republicans in power, GOP lawmakers took time out from their campaign to change the way government works to read the document upon which the government was founded. Democrats went along but pointedly questioned the Republicans’ insistence on omitting sections that show how the Constitution has changed over time – such as one that classified a slave as three-fifths of a person.

Approved in 1787 and in operation since 1789, the Constitution has long been a subject of both reverence and wrangling. This was the first time it had been read in its entirety on the House floor, a gesture to the tea party activists who contend it has been ignored as Washington has stretched the limits of federal power.

“Few Americans can boast the breadth of experience that Bill brings to this job,” Obama told reporters in the East Room as Daley, 62, stood at his side.

“But most of all, I know Bill to be somebody who cares deeply about this country, believes in its promise, and considers no calling higher and more important than serving the American people,” the president said.

Speaking at a hotel guarded by U.N. peacekeepers, Alassane Ouattara told The Associated Press on Thursday that Laurent Gbagbo would try to flee if the regional bloc of West African states, the Economic Community of West African States or ECOWAS, sent in troops to oust him.

“I know Mr. Gbagbo,” Ouattara said on the lawn of the lagoonside hotel. “If he sees that ECOWAS troops are coming to capture him, believe me he will start running away. I know him well. He does not have the courage to face those type of situations.”

The reports don’t blame a single person or group responsible for the series of mistakes. That means in the end no one may go to prison for the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

BP, Transocean and Halliburton should survive thanks to their financial arsenal, though charges would take another chink out of their armor.

Ted Williams, whose deep, velvety radio voice and touching story prompted an outpouring of sympathy and job offers from across the country, has become an overnight sensation.

He’s America’s hottest – and most improbable – star.

Carona was indicted in 2008 on federal charges of conspiracy, mail fraud and witness tampering in a sweeping public corruption case that grabbed headlines and included sordid allegations of marital infidelity, pay-to-play schemes, cronyism and money laundering.

The veteran lawman was acquitted of all but one count of witness tampering in 2009 and sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison. During the sentencing hearing, the judge gave him a public tongue-lashing for holding a celebratory press conference outside the courthouse and declaring his innocence despite the conviction.

House Speaker John Boehner brushed off the Congressional Budget Office analysis as emboldened Republicans, now in the majority, issued their own report arguing that Obama’s coverage expansion would cost jobs and increase budget deficits.

But Democrats seized on the CBO analysis, calling it a game changer in the battle for public opinion.

Confronting high unemployment and record deficits, governors are using their inaugural speeches to pledge fiscal austerity, job creation and a broad effort to rebuild public trust in state government.

Thirty-seven governors – 23 Republicans, 13 Democrats and one independent – were elected or re-elected in November. Most are being sworn in in January and are using the high-profile platform of the inaugural address to describe the perilous fiscal environment they face.

The exemptions include a bill to repeal last year’s health care legislation as well as GOP-backed proposals extending a series of tax cuts for upper income filers that are due to expire in two years, according to a tally several Senate Democrats unveiled at a news conference Thursday.

Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan assailed House Republicans for scrapping a Democratic rule aimed at making it more difficult to cut taxes or increase spending with borrowed money.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri announced Thursday that the Missouri Department of Corrections has a dwindling supply of sodium thiopental, and that what is on hand is nearing its expiration date. The ACLU uncovered that information through a freedom of information request.

Sodium thiopental is the first of three drugs used in executions, an anesthetic that renders the condemned inmate unconscious.

Their pledge to cut $100 billion from the budget in one year won’t be kept.

The first spending cut measure to come to the floor – imposing a 5 percent spending cut on lawmakers’ budgets for office expenses and staff salaries – is hardly in keeping with the promise to return spending back to pre-Obama levels. Such costs have risen by 14 percent since that time.

As Republicans prepare to take control of the House and exert more influence in the Senate, it’s clear that option No. 3 will soon wither. States will continue to face substantial deficits over the next few years, but they will have to get by with the end of stimulus spending and less financial help from the federal government. In recent interviews, top GOP lawmakers made clear it will be much less.

“We’ve got to put our fiscal house in order in Washington, D.C.,” said Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana. “It’s going to be essential that leaders at the state level roll their sleeves up, make the hard choices and put their fiscal health in order, as well.”

Many teachers aren’t showing up for work, often calling out sick. Several abruptly quit within the first few weeks of the school year. Administrators have had to scramble to find qualified substitutes and have withheld hundreds of student grades because of the teacher absences.

The progress that the city’s school board – and the Obama administration – had hoped for seems increasingly, and alarmingly, elusive.

“The people voted to end business as usual, and today we begin carrying out their instructions,” said newly elected House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, replacing Democrat Nancy Pelosi and transformed instantly into the nation’s most powerful Republican in a new era of divided government.

Both the House and the Senate convened at the constitutionally mandated hour of noon for a day of pageantry and bipartisan flourishes that contrasted sharply with the fierceness of the midterm elections that set the new roll of lawmakers.

Gerry Morris, a prominent Austin-based lawyer, told district court Judge Barbara Walther during a morning pretrial hearing that he would represent Jeffs as long as a trial on sexual assault charges set to begin Jan. 21 was pushed back to give him time to prepare.

But in a subsequent late-afternoon hearing, Morris said Jeffs had “discharged” him. He did not elaborate and said after the hearing that he could not comment.

The FBI has come under criticism over its repeated use of stings in which agents and informants walk a suspect through a carefully choreographed plot to carry out what they believe to be a real bomb attack, though the explosives are never real.

Nineteen-year-old Mohamed Osman Mohamud was arrested the day after Thanksgiving in Portland, Ore., after he allegedly tried to detonate a bomb. The bomb was not real and the whole plot had been created by the FBI.

The commission findings – the result of a probe requested by President Barack Obama after the April 20 rig explosion – described systemic problems within the offshore energy industry and government regulators who oversee it.

Poor decisions led to technical problems that the commission, and inquires by BP and Congress, have identified as contributing to the accident that killed 11 people and led to more than 200 million gallons of oil spewing from BP’s well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico.

“It’s still just me,” he told the House after departing Speaker Nancy Pelosi, dry-eyed, handed Boehner his outsized “gavel of choice.”

It is known to bug Boehner that he can’t keep it together at big moments, but apparently it runs in the family. At the moment Pelosi transferred power to her successor, at least six hankies had been deployed by Boehner’s proudly weeping family members watching from the gallery overhead.

Run by the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, the new center would be a significant step in streamlining targeting operations previously scattered among U.S. and battlefields abroad and giving elite military officials closer access to Washington decision-makers and counterterror experts, the officials said.

The center aims to speed the sharing of information and shorten the time between targeting and military action, said two current and two former U.S. officials briefed on the project. Those officials and others insisted on condition of anonymity to discuss the classified matters.

The lawmakers said the legislative proposals they want states to adopt won’t lead to deportations. They unveiled their proposals during a National Press Club news conference that occasionally turned raucous when protesters in the audience shouted criticisms and supporters of the lawmakers tried to outshout and remove the protesters.

Pennsylvania state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe said the proposals are a “calculated, strategic step” to force the issue into the courts.