Evening Edition

In Washington, US President Barack Obama said the people of Egypt had spoken after history moved at a “blinding pace.”

News of the regime’s collapse whipped rapidly across Cairo, sparking an eruption of joy and joyous chants of “We the people have overthrown the regime!”

Many tens of thousands of citizens thronged Tahrir Square in the heart of the capital on Thursday, expecting to hear the 82-year-old strongman step down. Instead he delegated presidential power to Vice President Omar Suleiman.

Mubarak said he would remain nominally in charge until September, and vowed he would one day die in Egypt rather than seek exile, infuriating protesters.

Egypt’s army threw the 82-year-old strongman a lifeline, endorsing his plan to stay in office until September even as determined protesters marched on state television headquarters and the presidential palace.

Demonstrators sobbed as they conducted the weekly Muslim prayer in massed ranks in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the city plaza that has become a symbol and focal point of the revolt since it was occupied by protesters in late January.

Demonstrators sobbed as they conducted the weekly Muslim prayers in massed ranks in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. The preacher choked up as he gave the sermon and the crowd screamed “Leave! Leave!” at each mention of the hated president.

In a statement read out on state television a little earlier, the military said it would guarantee that Mubarak follow through with his promises to reform the constitution to ensure a fair presidential poll in September.

In a move likely to further inflame ties with Washington, which says the man has diplomatic immunity and should be released immediately, a judge in the eastern city of Lahore ordered Raymond Davis be held in prison for 14 days.

On January 27 he shot two Pakistani men and after his arrest told police he acted in self-defence because he feared they were trying to rob him.

Rounding off a three-day extradition hearing, lawyer Geoffrey Robertson claimed Sweden’s prime minister had made Assange “enemy number one” by criticising the boss of the whistleblowing website.

Fredrik Reinfeldt’s remarks on Tuesday that Assange lacked respect for women’s rights had shown “complete contempt for the presumption of innocence”, the lawyer told Belmarsh Magistrates Court in London.

In an effort to radically change course and fight off encroaching competition from RIM, Apple and Google, chief executive Stephen Elop said Windows Phone would now serve as Nokia’s primary smartphone platform.

Canadian Elop — a former Microsoft executive who in September became the first non-Finn to lead Nokia — also announced changes to Nokia’s executive board and “substantial” job cuts.

Kubica was racing in the Ronde di Andora rally in Italy at the weekend when he lost control at high speed on a bend and crashed into a church wall.

Surgeons battled for seven hours to save the functionality of his right hand and he is due to go under the knife again for surgery on his arm and foot.

Vice President Omar Suleiman said a military council would run the affairs of the Arab world’s most populous nation. A free and fair presidential election has been promised for September.

A speaker made the announcement in Cairo’s Tahrir Square where hundreds of thousands broke down in tears, celebrated and hugged each other chanting: “The people have brought down the regime.” Others shouted: “Allahu Akbar (God is great).

In a long-awaited move, the White House offered three big-picture options for overhauling a $10.6-trillion market that cratered in 2008, triggering a wave of home foreclosures and the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression.

All the alternatives sketched out in a 31-page “white paper” would unwind the troubled mortgage titans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and shrink the government’s market footprint, in order for private capital to step in.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who ran for the Republican nomination in 2008 and lost to John McCain, wasted little time in attacking the Democratic incumbent in remarks to the Conservative Political Action Conference.

“Let me make this very clear. If I decide to run for president, it won’t take me two years to wake up to the job crisis threatening America,” Romney said to cheers.

Shares of the world’s largest cellphone maker plunged 14 percent on fears the decision by new chief executive Stephen Elop to throw in the towel and use Microsoft’s Windows Phone software will hammer margins and weaken its position during a tumultuous transition.

The deal marks a potential breakthrough for Microsoft, which has flailed in mobile for years but should now get its software into upward of 30 million smartphones sold by Nokia every quarter. But its shares slid 1.5 percent as investors weighed the merits of teaming up with a weakened player.

Reuters reported on Wednesday that Weber planned to remove himself from consideration for the top ECB post held by Frenchman Jean-Claude Trichet and leave the Bundesbank early, but Friday’s statement was the first official confirmation.

“Bundesbank president Axel Weber told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that he would like to step down on April 30, 2011 at the end of his seventh year in office,” government spokesman Steffen Siebert told Reuters.

Despite their geographical proximity, political, economic and organizational challenges make any potential marriage between the HKEx and the Shanghai or Shenzhen stock exchanges difficult.

“If I am the Hong Kong exchange, I would be trying to approach the bigger U.S. stock exchanges like Nasdaq right now,” said Ronald Wan, managing director of the Hong Kong unit of China Merchants Securities.

“To the best of our knowledge I can confirm that we have no clients related in any way to the crimes mentioned by the American Treasury,” said Georges Zard Abou Jaoude, chairman and general manager of Lebanese Canadian Bank (LCB).

The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday designated LCB a “primary money-laundering concern,” claiming it was involved in a money-laundering and drug-trafficking operation with ties to Shi’ite militant group Hezbollah.

The Tea Party won its first big victory in Congress on Thursday, forcing House of Representatives Republican leaders to make deeper spending cuts than they planned and setting up a showdown with the White House and Democratic-led Senate.

Earlier in the week, Republican leaders suffered a series of setbacks in House floor votes after a rebellion by the Tea Party members who helped carry them to a majority in November’s elections.

Republicans have no obvious heir-apparent for 2012, leaving 11,000 conservatives at a conference to ponder a crowded field fighting for attention 21 months before the election.

Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives who is flirting with a run next year, declared that Republican victories in congressional elections last year were only the start. “2010 was the appetizer, 2012 is the entree,” he told the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Independent analysts warned, however, that a belief that Brazil and India are doing Washington’s bidding and are not truly aggrieved could make Beijing complacent and undermine fledgling ties between the emerging powers.

Increasingly widespread calls for a stronger yuan are awkward for China, which is accustomed to facing U.S. pressure over its tightly controlled exchange rate but has long tried to cast itself as the natural ally of other developing nations.

It could also run into hurdles in Washington as U.S. lawmakers and regulators consider whether they are prepared to allow the citadel of American capitalism to fall into foreign hands, although there has been virtually no public criticism in the United States as yet.

The companies said on Wednesday they are in “advanced talks” to join forces and create an exchange operator with unprecedented global reach and — most worrisome for regulators — a dominant grip on Europe’s lucrative derivatives markets.

“What is the difference between Mubarak and our lot? Nothing. Nothing at all. Resign. Resign you all. We have had enough of you,” Boris Nemtsov, an opposition leader, told the crowd, raising chants of “Putin resign!” and “Russia without Putin!”

Had the wave of revolution rippling across the Arab world reached as far as Russia? Was this the beginning of a people-power revolution like the one that toppled the Tunisian president and now threatened the Egyptian leader?

“We intend to make a fight,” Frank, senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, said in an interview as House Republicans agreed to pursue deep government spending cuts in the name of combating the soaring budget deficit, and pushed for a review of regulations.

“I’m worried that (committee Republicans) are complicit with the appropriators in underfunding the SEC and the CFTC. That’s the biggest problem,” Frank said.

Even as final bids rolled in, questions arose about whether a contract could be awarded under the temporary measure being used to fund the U.S. government through March 4 or a possible follow-on of a similar stop-gap budget bill.

Boeing, based in Chicago, declined to discuss any changes in its offer, which is based on a 767 jetliner, compared with the 8,000-page proposal it sent the Air Force on July 9, 2010.

Ecstatic protesters hoisted soldiers onto their shoulders and families posed for pictures in front of tanks in streets flooded with residents of the capital of 18 million people streaming out to celebrate. Strangers hugged strangers, some fell to kiss the ground, and others stood stunned in disbelief. Chants of “Hold your heads high, you’re Egyptian” roared with each burst of fireworks overhead.

“I’m 21 years old and this is the first time in my life I feel free,” an ebullient Abdul-Rahman Ayyash, born eight years after Mubarak came to power, said as he hugged fellow protesters in Tahrir, or Liberation, Square.

The telltale signs of a coup in the making began to surface soon after Mubarak ordered the army out on the streets to restore order after days of deadly clashes between protesters and security forces in Cairo and much of the rest of the Arab nation.

“This is in fact the military taking over power,” said political analyst Diaa Rashwan after Mubarak stepped down and left the reins of power to the armed forces. “It is direct involvement by the military in authority and to make Mubarak look like he has given up power.”

“This is one of those days that all of us would say we’ll never forget,” CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer said, in words that were soon echoed in a mid-afternoon speech by President Barack Obama.

A week ago, Blitzer’s colleague Anderson Cooper cowered in a Cairo hotel room with shades drawn for a live broadcast, following two days in which the Mubarak regime unleashed men to beat, intimidate and take into custody journalists who had entered Egypt to cover pro-democracy demonstrations. The climax of the 18-day revolution came suddenly on Friday, in a short speech by Vice President Omar Suleiman that Mubarak had resigned and turned power over to the military.

Even in Israel, which had watched Egypt’s 18-day uprising against Mubarak with some trepidation, a former Cabinet minister said Mubarak did the right thing. “The street won. There was nothing that could be done. It’s good that he did what he did,” former Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who knew Mubarak well and spoke to him just a day earlier, told Israel TV’s Channel 10.

The boisterous street celebrations erupted within moments of the dramatic announcement by Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman that Mubarak had stepped down. The success of Egypt’s protesters in ousting a longtime ruler came less than a month after a pro-democracy movement in Tunisia pushed dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali into exile in Saudi Arabia on Jan. 14.

The administration said in a report that the government should withdraw its support for the mortgage market slowly, over five years or more. The report describes a path for winding down the troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

But rather than making a single recommendation, the administration offered Congress three scenarios and will let lawmakers shape the final policy.

Now the wireless industry is planning a future without them, or at least without many more of them. Instead, it’s looking at much smaller antennas, some tiny enough to hold in a hand. These could be placed on lampposts, utility poles and buildings – virtually anywhere with electrical and network connections.

If the technology overcomes some hurdles, it could upend the wireless industry and offer seamless service, with fewer dead spots and faster data speeds.

More surprising, patients who started rehab late – six months after their strokes – still improved. It’s long been thought that there was little to gain from rehab after half a year.

“We now have evidence, for the first time, that a prolonged course of therapy will have benefits,” said Dr. Jeffrey Saver, director of the stroke center at the University of California, Los Angeles. “For virtually everyone, we should be doing more intensive therapy than we are.”

In Maine, which has a more expansive bottle-redemption law than neighboring states, three people have been accused of illegally cashing in more than 100,000 out-of-state bottles and cans for deposits, the first time criminal charges have been filed in the state over bottle-refund fraud, a prosecutor said.

A couple that runs a Maine redemption center and a Massachusetts man were indicted this week for allegedly redeeming beverage containers in Maine that were bought in other states.

Nokia Corp., the world’s largest maker of mobile phones, said Friday it plans to use Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Phone software as the main platform for its smart phones in an effort to pull market share away from Apple’s iPhone and Android, Google’s software for phones and tablets.

The move marks a major strategy shift for Nokia, which has previously equipped devices with its own software. Analysts said the deal was a bigger win for Microsoft than Nokia, whose CEO Stephen Elop in a leaked memo this week compared his company to a burning oil platform with “more than one explosion … fueling a blazing fire around us.”

A former high-ranking southern army member who had previously rebelled against the southern regional government attacked the towns of Fangak and Dor in the Upper Nile state on Wednesday, breaking a January cease-fire, said Col. Philip Aguer, the army spokesman.

Aguer said 105 people were killed in the two towns: 39 civilians, 24 southern police and soldiers, and 42 of rebel commander George Athor’s men. AP attempted to reach Athor and his top aide for comment but the phone calls to the remote region did not go through.

The deficit increased 5.9 percent in December to $40.6 billion, the Commerce Department reported Friday.

U.S. exports of goods and services rose to $163 billion, a 1.8 percent gain and the best showing since July 2008. Sales of industrial machinery, civilian aircraft and autos and auto parts led the export gain.

The near collision last month of an American Airlines jet with 259 people aboard and two Air Force transport planes southeast of New York City, coupled with the rise in known errors, has raised concerns in Congress that safety may be eroding.

A US Airways plane carrying 95 people crossed paths with a small cargo plane in September, coming within 50 to 100 feet of each other while taking off from Minneapolis. A few months earlier a US Airways Airbus 319 intersected the path of another cargo plane during an aborted landing in Anchorage, Alaska.

Lee, a 46-year old Republican and married father, resigned his Buffalo-area seat Thursday after the gossip website Gawker published e-mails he sent to a woman he met on Craigslist, including a photo where he is shirtless and flexing a bicep. Lee released a statement apologizing to his family and constituents for letting them down.

Lee is hardly the first politician to engage in bad behavior. But many lately have come from the Empire State – from the densely packed, hyper-caffeinated New York City metropolitan area to the rural communities and industrial cities upstate.

The police claims and extended detention further inflamed tensions over the case between the U.S. and Pakistan, whose always-uneasy partnership is considered key to ending the war in Afghanistan.

The U.S. says the American, 36-year-old Raymond Allen Davis, shot two Pakistanis on Jan. 27 because they were trying to rob him in the eastern city of Lahore. Washington insists his detention is illegal under international agreements covering diplomats because he is a U.S. Embassy staffer, and American officials have begun curbing diplomatic contacts and threatening to cut off billions in aid to Pakistan if he is not freed.

The comment prompted a demand for a mistrial in the case of former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella, who is charged in a $2.8 million scheme to incarcerate youth offenders in privately owned detention centers. Kosik rejected the request and the trial continued.

Prosecutors allege that Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, received kickbacks from the builder of the PA Child Care detention center and a sister facility in western Pennsylvania, and extorted money from the private lockups’ owner.

“I love my church,” said District Attorney Seth Williams, himself a Catholic, “but I detest the criminal behavior of priests who abuse or allow the abuse of children.”

Williams announced charges Thursday against three priests, a parochial school teacher and Monsignor William Lynn, who as secretary of the clergy was one of the top officials in the Philadelphia Archdiocese from 1992 to 2004.

The former media executive mockingly teased a throng of angry parents who were shouting at her. A recent poll pegged her approval rating at 21 percent. And opponents are keeping a legal fight alive to block her appointment as schools chancellor because she has no experience as an educator.

“This has not been a good opening round for her,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.

Stevens was convicted on counts of lying on financial disclosure forms about gifts, including renovations of his Alaska home, which was investigated by the FBI. But a federal judge later tossed the case, finding prosecutors withheld evidence at trial.

The release comes six months after Stevens’ death in a plane crash in Alaska, the state he represented for 40 years in the U.S. Senate. It includes documents detailing threats made against Stevens during his time in office, complaints against Stevens that seemingly went nowhere, and apparently unfounded allegations of drug use or purchase.

• Abramoff was sentenced in September 2008 to four years in prison on charges of mail fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion. Since pleading guilty in 2006, the once-powerful lobbyist has cooperated with the federal investigation of influence-peddling in Washington. He was sentenced to a six-year prison sentence in a criminal case out of Florida, where he pleaded guilty in January 2006 to charges of conspiracy, honest services fraud and tax evasion in the purchase of gambling cruise boats. He was released to a halfway house in June 2010, then home confinement and worked at a pizzeria until late last year.

• David Safavian, the former chief procurement officer in the administration of President George W. Bush, was sentenced in October 2009 to a year in prison after being found guilty in a retrial in December 2008 for lying to investigators about his relationship with Abramoff, who provided gifts in return for information from Safavian about government property the lobbyist wanted to acquire. Safavian’s 2006 conviction on similar charges was overturned on appeal. The U.S. Court of Appeals heard arguments in his appeal of his second set of convictions on Oct 22.

A band attached to its leg showed the bird to be the second-oldest bald eagle documented in Alaska and one of the oldest in the country.

“It would be, based on the bird-banding record that I’ve seen, one of the top 10 oldest birds ever recorded,” said Robin Corcoran, a wildlife biologist from the Kodiak Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Marine archaeologists scouring remote atolls 600 miles northwest of Honolulu have found the wreck site of Pollard’s second vessel – the Two Brothers – which went down in 1823.

Most of the wooden Nantucket whaling ship disintegrated in Hawaii’s warm waters in the nearly two centuries since. But researchers found several harpoons, a hook used to strip whales of their blubber, and try pots or large cauldrons whalers used to turn whale blubber into oil. Corals have grown around and on top of many of the objects, swallowing them into the reef.

The Food Safety and Modernization Act is best known for sections that aim to prevent foodborne illnesses, allow the Food and Drug Administration to order recalls and make it easier to trace contaminated food to its source. But the law also protects workers at food companies regulated by the FDA from being fired, demoted or denied promotions or raises if they speak up about what they think are violations.

Protections mean little if the workers covered by them don’t know they exist, so the Government Accountability Project, a non-profit whistleblowing organization that supported the new safeguards, was sponsoring a conference Friday in Washington to raise awareness. Lawyers, activists and government officials were expected to attend.

But in this rural Midwestern state, politically relevant on the national level mostly for hosting the first caucuses of each presidential election, redistricting is less about politics and more about nonpartisan fairness.

That could be about to change.

The old rules, dating back to the Reagan administration, designated certain animal species that must be protected to assure ecosystems are healthy. However, the system became the basis of numerous lawsuits that sharply cut back logging to protect habitat for fish and wildlife.

The new rules call for monitoring a broader range of species, including plants, while giving forest supervisors greater discretion to decide what science to apply and which species to protect, depending on local conditions.

Walker, a Republican who took office in January, said no one should be surprised by the move he will ask the GOP-controlled Legislature to approve next week given that he’s talked about doing it for two months.

“This is not a shock,” he said. “The shock would be if we didn’t go forward with this.”

Rep. Christopher Lee fell from power this week with a velocity seldom seen in the annals of Washington sex scandals, a blinking red caution sign for those who need one that the speed and reach of the Internet can crash a political career in the time it takes to push a button.

The now-famous photo of a shirtless Lee, R-N.Y., moved across cyberspace at 2:33 p.m. EST Wednesday, for just about anyone who wanted to see it. Three hours later, Lee resigned.

The lawsuit claims the federal government has failed to protect Arizona from an “invasion” of illegal immigrants. It seeks increased reimbursements and extra safeguards, such as additional border fences.

Brewer’s court filing serves as a countersuit in the federal government’s legal challenge to Arizona’s new enforcement immigration law. The U.S. Justice Department is seeking to invalidate the law.

But Kaine, the Democratic National Committee chairman who has previously disavowed interest in the Senate seat, has been silent since Webb’s Wednesday bombshell. That leaves a gathering field of potential candidates on the sideline awaiting word from Kaine.

“He’s at the top of the list and I would very strongly encourage him to run,” said Brian J. Moran, head of the Democratic Party of Virginia.