Evening Edition

World powers ramped up the pressure on his regime, as the United States urged the international community at a meeting in Geneva to work together on further steps to end a brutal crackdown that has cost more than 1,000 lives.

Faced with the threat of massacres or a wave of refugees on their Mediterranean flank, senior Western officials openly weighed military options.

“The people of Libya have made themselves clear: it is time for Kadhafi to go — now, without further violence or delay,” US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the UN Human Rights Council.

“We all need to work together on further steps to hold the Kadhafi government accountable, provide humanitarian assistance to those in need and support the Libyan people as they pursue a transition to democracy.”

Protest leaders established a transitional “national council” in several eastern and western cities seized from the Kadhafi regime and called on the army to help them take the capital Tripoli.

The United States said, meanwhile, it was prepared to offer “any kind of assistance” to Libyans seeking to overthrow Kadhafi as his opponents piece together a transitional body comprising representatives from the liberated cities.

The UN refugee agency said almost 100,000 migrant workers, mostly from Egypt and Tunisia, have fled Libya in the past week and many remain stranded at the Libya-Tunisia border as Libyan customs officers deserted their posts on Sunday.

“We call upon the international community to respond quickly and generously to enable these governments to cope with this humanitarian emergency,” said Antonio Guterres, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Kadhafi showed his ability to lash out from his Tripoli lair when Libyan air force planes attacked ammunition depots in two separate locations south of opposition-held second city Benghazi on Monday.

Fighter jets bombed an ammunition stores in the eastern town of Adjabiya, around 100 kilometres (62 miles) south of the city, a witness told AFP by telephone. Two planes also attacked a munitions dump at Rajma, just south of the city, a military reservist said.

As the UN Human Rights Council met in Geneva over a deadly crackdown by Kadhafi’s forces on anti-regime protests and the ensuing humanitarian crisis, the International Criminal Court said it would probe possible crimes against humanity committed in Libya.

The European Union said it was making contact with Libyans seeking to overthrow Kadhafi’s regime, a day after Washington said it was ready to assist the pro-democracy protesters who have overrun key cities and now control vast swathes of the oil-rich North African state.

The European Union, moving quickly to avoid a descent into civil war and further bloodshed in Libya, said it had imposed an asset freeze and visa ban on Kadhafi and 25 others accused of brutalising civilians.

In line with a UN resolution adopted Saturday, the 27-nation bloc banned the supply to Libya of arms, ammunition and related material.

Security forces again clashed with protesters in Tunis demanding the removal of some ministers of Ghannouchi’s interim government before the premier announced his resignation.

“The acts of violence and looting, the unrest and the fires on Habib Bourguiba avenue in Tunis on Saturday have left five people dead,” said a ministry statement quoted by TAP news agency.

The two had been under house arrest after judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani said earlier this month they had committed “treason” and MPs demanded they be hanged.

“Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, and their wives, have been arrested and were transferred to the Heshmatiyeh prison of Tehran,” Mousavi’s website Kaleme.com reported.

The experts and an officer from the UN peacekeeping mission had gone to Yamoussoukro airport following reports that three attack helicopters from Belarus had been sent to Gbagbo’s forces in breach of a UN embargo decided in 2004, the source said.

The group “were forced to withdraw when fired upon,” the source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Consumer spending edged up a seasonally adjusted 0.2 percent in January, the weakest pace since June, the US Commerce Department reported.

And adjusted for inflation, consumer spending — which accounts for about two-thirds of US economic output — actually fell for the first time in a year, by 0.1 percent from the previous year.

In the day/night match in New Delhi, the Netherlands, who pushed England close in their opener, were handed a sobering reminder of their place in cricket’s pecking order, conceding 330-8 and then slumping to 115 all out.

Opener Chris Gayle top-scored for the West Indies with 80 and Kieron Pollard smashed four sixes in the third quickest 50 in World Cup history in a devastating cameo, ending up with 60 in just 27 balls.

The video posted on a British newspaper’s website is the latest blow to the flamboyant Galliano, 50, who was briefly detained last week for an alleged anti-Semitic rant, leading another woman to accuse him of a similar incident last year.

In a video posted on The Sun’s website, the visibly inebriated British designer tells a woman at a Paris cafe “I love Hitler” and adds: “People like you would be dead. Your mothers, your forefathers, would all be f(expletive) gassed.”

The show in the wealthy Swiss city, which opens to an expected 700,000 paying visitors on March 3 to 13, is traditionally neutral ground for the industry, attracting 260 exhibitors from 31 countries.

When top executives preview the event from Tuesday, car makers are again set to whip up an appetite for the big, powerful and glitzy, even if the engine under the bonnet seeks greener or thriftier credentials.

Van Rompuy was given a mandate by EU leaders at a February 4 summit to draft a competitivity pact that has been pushed by France and Germany in order to prevent any new debt crises from rocking the euro.

Several countries have criticised the plan as a German drive to impose its austere economic model on the rest of the eurozone nations.

Some 80 people are expected to testify about how babies were taken from political opponents and others, in a systematic plan ordered by the highest levels of Argentina’s brutal military dictatorship from 1976-1983.

Former rulers Jorge Videla, who headed a military junta from 1976 to 1981, and the last dictator of the military regime, Reynaldo Bignone (1982-1983), will appear before the court alongside six other former military leaders for the first hearing in a trial expected to last until the end of the year.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, lifting the lid on government plans for the financial year from April 1, scaled up spending for farmers, fertiliser subsidies, food programmes, education and rural employment.

“The country has carried for long enough the burden of hunger and malnutrition,” Mukherjee told parliament, saying the money earmarked for social spending would amount to 36 percent of the total budget.

With government forces massing to try to take back strategic coastal cities from rebels, the United States said it was moving U.S. naval and air forces closer to Libya.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said Washington was in talks with its NATO partners and other allies about military options. British Prime Minister David Cameron said his government would work to prepare for a “no-fly” zone in Libya to protect the people from attacks by Gaddafi’s forces.

The United Nations Security Council on Saturday imposed sanctions on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his family, and referred Libya’s crackdown on anti-government demonstrators to the ICC.

“We have to decide whether to open an investigation … and I hope we can move very fast. Within a few days,” ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told reporters in his offices in The Hague.

But some of the biggest handouts over the past two decades have gone to his own extended family, according to unpublished American diplomatic cables dating back to 1996.

The cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and reviewed by Reuters, provide remarkable insight into how much the vast royal welfare program has cost the country — not just financially but in terms of undermining social cohesion.

As lawmakers returned from a weeklong break, budget-cutting Republicans pressured President Barack Obama’s Democrats to accept a proposal to trim $4 billion over the next two weeks by eliminating programs that Obama has also targeted.

“This week, Democrats will have an opportunity to show that they’ve gotten the message,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said. “They can show they agree the time has come to change the status quo.”

The House of Representatives last weekend passed a bill to fund the government through September 30, the end of fiscal year 2011. But it includes spending cuts of about 14 percent, or $61.5 billion below current levels, and Obama and his fellow Democrats in Congress said they were against it.

Although the two parties still have room to negotiate, the fight over spending could lead to a shutdown of government operations and prompt Congress to refuse to allow the United States to borrow more money.

Other data Monday painted a bullish picture of the manufacturing sector, with a gauge of factory activity in the country’s Midwest hitting a 22-1/2 year high this month, which should help the economy weather rising oil prices and maintain its steady growth momentum.

The Commerce Department said spending rose 0.2 percent, the smallest increase in seven straight months of gains, after an upwardly revised 0.5 percent increase in December.

Though a new government looks likely to get its way on a reduced interest rate on its EU loans, with Brussels signaling this could be on the table, its demands for bondholders in Irish banks to shoulder more losses have little support in Europe.

“We have a common goal for Ireland to revive its growth dynamic and succeed in ensuring debt sustainability,” Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said on Monday.

France said it would fly aid to the opposition-controlled eastern half of the country. The European Union imposed an arms embargo and other sanctions, following the lead of the U.S. and the U.N. The EU was also considering the creation of a no-fly zone over Libya. And the U.S. and Europe were freezing billions in Libya’s foreign assets.

“Gadhafi has lost the legitimacy to govern, and it is time for him to go without further violence or delay,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said. “No option is off the table. That of course includes a no-fly zone,” she added. British Prime Minister David Cameron told lawmakers: “We do not in any way rule out the use of military assets” to deal with Gadhafi’s regime.

Europe, which buys most of Libya’s oil exports, outlined fresh sanctions to force the dictator to stop attacks on civilians and step down after 42 years of iron-fisted rule. The European Union issued travel bans and an asset freeze against senior Libyan officials, and ordered an arms embargo on the country.

Germany proposed a 60-day economic embargo to prevent Gadhafi from using oil and other revenues to repress his people.

The assurances by Shukri Ghanem, the head of the state-run National Oil Co. and Libya’s de facto oil minister, came as uncertainty swirled about the state of the OPEC member’s production and who was actually in control of the brunt of the nation’s oil. Libya sits atop Africa’s largest proven reserves.

The country is the only member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries so far seriously affected by the protests roiling the Arab world, and unrest there has sent shudders through global oil markets.

Gasoline prices rose 4 percent last week to a national average of $3.29 per gallon. That’s the highest level ever for this time of year, when prices are typically low. And with unrest in the Middle East and North Africa lifting the price of oil to the $100-a-barrel range, analysts say pump prices are likely headed higher.

Bryon Gongaware, an owner of The Floral Trunk and Gifts in White Bear Lake, Minn., didn’t raise his $7 flower delivery charge when gas prices spiked in 2008, and he doesn’t plan to do so this time, either.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle’s call essentially amounted to an economic embargo and ranks among the toughest proposal yet aimed at forcing Gadhafi to stem attacks on his opponents and leave power after 42 years in control of his country. He spoke as doubts emerged about the feasibility of another central idea to punish Gadhafi, a no-fly zone that would prevent him from launching aerial attacks.

“We must do everything so this murder ends,” Westerwelle told reporters. “We must do everything to ensure that no money is going into the hands of the Libyan dictator’s family, that they don’t have any opportunity to hire new foreign soldiers to repress their people with.”

During the 18-day pro-democracy uprising, unconfirmed reports that Mubarak and his family might have amassed billions, or even tens of billions of dollars over their three decades in power, fueled protesters already enraged over massive corruption and poverty in Egypt. Mubarak, the top ruling party leaders and other cronies, as well as the powerful military have all profited richly from the corrupt system.

Mubarak was forced out of the president’s office on Feb. 11 by military leaders, who have promised to meet many of the protesters’ demands. He is now believed to be living in seclusion with his family in Sharm el-Sheikh. The attorney general had already frozen the assets of the ousted president, his wife, two sons and their wives on Feb. 20.

He also told them not to vilify their own states’ public workers while struggling with spending cuts.

Hosting governors of both parties on his own turf, Obama offered them what they often request: more flexibility as they cope with painful budget dilemmas. Declaring that he would “go to bat for whatever works,” Obama supported letting states propose their own health care plans by 2014 – three years faster than the current law allows.

It’s far too early to know if this scientific first will prove to be a cure, or even a new treatment. The research was only meant to show that, so far, it seems feasible and safe.

The concept was based on the astonishing case of an AIDS patient who seems to be cured after getting blood cells from a donor with natural immunity to HIV nearly four years ago in Berlin. Researchers are seeking a more practical way to achieve similar immunity using patients’ own blood cells.

The Pentagon has poured millions of dollars into the development of tiny drones inspired by biology, each equipped with video and audio equipment that can record sights and sounds.

They could be used to spy, but also to locate people inside earthquake-crumpled buildings and detect hazardous chemical leaks.

Many remember what happened more than two years ago when House conservatives bolted from their Republican president and leadership to defeat a $700 billion rescue bill for the nation’s financial system. The Dow Jones industrials plunged 777 points, the most ever for a single day. Lawmakers had second thoughts, and four days later 58 of them, including 25 Republicans, switched sides to pass it.

Many Republicans paid a huge political price, losing re-election last year as furious tea partyers made how lawmakers voted on the bank bailout the single biggest litmus test of their conservatism.

With the union rights proposal stuck in a legislative stalemate thanks to runaway Senate Democrats, the Republican governor planned to forge ahead with the Tuesday release of his two-year spending plan that will include major cuts to schools and local governments to help close a projected $3.6 billion budget shortfall.

Walker says his collective bargaining measure would free local governments from having to bargain with public employee unions as they deal with the cuts he’ll outline Tuesday. Schools last week started putting teachers on notice that their contracts may not be renewed for next year given the budget uncertainty.

Jorge Videla and Reynaldo Bignone are accused in 34 cases of infants who were taken from mothers held in Argentina’s largest clandestine torture and detention centers, the Navy Mechanics School in Buenos Aires and the Campo de Mayo army base northwest of the city.

Also on trial are five military figures and a doctor who attended to the detainees.

But the results couldn’t have been more traditional, with “The King’s Speech” – a prestigious, impeccably made historical film that cries out “Oscar” with every fiber in its being – winning best picture and three other prizes over more daring, contemporary contenders like “The Social Network” and “Black Swan.”

They also couldn’t have been more predictable. Front-runners in other major categories throughout this long and repetitive awards season also took home trophies from Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre Sunday night: best-actor Colin Firth for “The King’s Speech,” best-actress Natalie Portman for “Black Swan,” and supporting actors Christian Bale and Melissa Leo, both for “The Fighter.” “King’s Speech” director Tom Hooper, who’d already won the Directors Guild Award – an excellent predictor of Oscar success.

Some people may be using the additional money to pay down holiday credit card bills or higher gas prices, analysts said. And harsh weather may have deterred some people from shopping in January.

Personal finance experts say the real test of the tax cuts impact will come this spring, when the Easter holiday sales begin.

Complicating matters, some say, is a fear that employers will shut them out of choice assignments if they draw attention to the problem.

Female journalists say the threat of sexual violence is commonplace in the world’s trouble spots, where the combination of conflict and conservative cultural norms often creates a tense and unpleasant working environment. Trouble can begin with an opportune grope and deteriorate into physical assault or worse.

The Senate is taking up the Patent Reform Act, which would significantly overhaul a 1952 law and, supporters say, bring the patent system in line with 21st century technology of biogenetics and artificial intelligence. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, hails it as “an important step toward maintaining our global competitive edge.”

Congress has been trying for well over a decade to rewrite patent law, only to be thwarted by the many interested parties – multinational corporations and small-scale inventors, pharmaceuticals and Silicon Valley companies – pulling in different directions. Prospects for passing a bill now, however, are promising.

Maj. Gen. John Campbell, commander of NATO coalition forces in eastern Afghanistan, said he has been repositioning some of his troops since last August to make them more effective in the region that borders Pakistan. The area has seen an upsurge in violence and is a main route for insurgents infiltrating into Afghanistan from safe havens in Pakistan’s lawless tribal regions.

The realignment of troops will allow more force to be used against insurgents and shore up security along a key trade route from Pakistan to the Afghan capital.

The 38-year-old collector, dealer and lecturer – whose displays and presentations on venomous snakes have led him to exotic animal shows and even scout meetings – has not been charged in the man’s death.

However, Tennessee wildlife authorities found him traveling with a collection of serpents and filed 48 misdemeanor charges that could send him to jail.

The forecast from Minnesota Management and Budget officials showed the shortfall for the coming two-year budget was down from an earlier projection of $6.2 billion. State economist Tom Stinson attributed the improvement to federal action that helped the economy, including a payroll tax cut and delay in a capital gains tax hike.

Dayton immediately dropped his call for a 3-year surtax on incomes starting at $500,000, which would have raised $918 million in the upcoming budget period. The Democratic governor said he was fulfilling a promise to avoid imposing the nation’s highest tax rate. Still in play, though, is his call for a new permanent top income tax bracket of 10.95 percent, just a hair under Hawaii’s top-in-the-nation rate of 11 percent.

Tim DeChristopher, 29, has pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court to felony counts of interfering with and making false representations at a government auction.

Lawyers questioned a pool of more than 50 potential jurors Monday afternoon in preparation for opening statements scheduled the next day.

In a letter to the state Democratic Party and the governor, the Democrats railed against Cuomo’s budget policies, calling them “neither balanced nor well-conceived” and warning that they would hurt children and the elderly.

The group said Cuomo was not exemplifying what a “new Democrat” should be. The governor started using the term at last year’s Democratic convention to describe a pragmatic official in hard fiscal times.

Members of the Holocaust Survivors’ Foundation USA want Obama and Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson to push legislation that would force companies such as Germany’s Allianz SE and Italy’s Assicurazioni Generali to disclose lists of pre-World War II policies. The bill would also give survivors the right to sue the insurers in U.S. courts to satisfy their claims.

“We were stripped of everything our families owned, and only a fraction has been restored,” said 84-year-old Joe Sachs, a native of Poland who survived several concentration camps.

National leaders have pledged to avoid a repeat of the 2008 competition that prompted Iowa to hold caucuses on Jan. 3 amid drawn-out disputes with Florida and Michigan. But a spokesman for Republican Gov. Terry Branstad and others said Iowa will move up its Feb. 6 caucuses if Florida sticks with a Jan. 31 primary.

“If Florida continues to stay where they are, we’ll move up just as we have in the past,” said Branstad spokesman Tim Albrecht. “Iowa will move up and we will work with New Hampshire.”

U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton Tucker on Friday denied a motion from church attorneys who had sought dismissal of the case by arguing U.S. courts do not have jurisdiction.

Michael Hennigan, an attorney for the archdiocese, said the case has no merit and would ultimately be dismissed.

Photo analysis has confirmed that the highly endangered western Pacific gray whale dubbed Flex – one of only 130 remaining – was photographed in 2008 off Canada’s Vancouver Island and was assumed to be part of the eastern gray whale population.

U.S and Russian researchers started tracking the male whale Oct. 4 when they tagged him with a satellite tracker off Sakhalin Island, Russia, as part of research into where the animals spend winters.

Susan Wheeler Fisk is ready with a resounding carpe diem! She enrolled in Latin I online with her 18-year-old senior to get him over the hump.

“This is a brand new subject for me,” said the former preschool teacher in Estes Park, Colo. “It’s online, so there’s no teacher. He said he didn’t want a tutor, but he just needed to get his arms around the subject in a way that seemed like a tutor wouldn’t offer anyway.”

They apparently don’t feel the terror that residents of upscale Laguna Beach describe upon pulling out of their driveways and nearly ramming into them.

The surge in high-speed downhill skateboarding in this free-spirited seaside enclave has sparked a fierce debate over what place the exhilarating but perilous sport has on fantastically steep inclines that take residents to their hilltop homes.

That scene unfolded in March 2003, a year and a half after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. One of the four planes hijacked in 2001 took off from Dulles. “I could only assume that they thought I was a terrorist,” Abdullah al-Kidd recalled in an interview with The Associated Press.

Al-Kidd called his airport arrest “one of the most, if not the most, humiliating experiences of my life.”

The almond industry has hired Gao as its ambassador in China, and its effort is just one of many California nut growers are making to capture new markets in developing countries. U.S. farm exports reached an all-time high of $115.8 billion last year, and experts say developing nations such as China and India have huge potential for future growth.

China surpassed Canada to emerge as the top market for U.S. agricultural exports last year with $17.5 billion in sales, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“There’s uncertainty around that,” economist Don Norman said of the “shockingly high” job loss number he extrapolated using a study sponsored by the oil and natural gas industry’s American Petroleum Institute and covering just 11 states.

“Even if the numbers are half of that, the number is huge,” he said.