Evening Edition

Leaders of the rebellion against Moamer Kadhafi said the pledges — mainly from Kuwait and Qatar — were “a good start” and outlined plans for a new constitution and elections within eight months if the Libyan strongman quits.

A fund agreed Thursday will initially receive international donations, while the blocked assets — estimated to be worth 60 billion dollars (40 billion euros) in Europe and the United States — will be used to finance it at a later date.

And as President Bashar al-Assad’s regime arrested 300 people on another front in Damascus, the United Nations said it was sending a team to access the situation in the southern flashpoint town of Daraa.

Dozens of armoured vehicles, including tanks and troops reinforcements, were deployed meanwhile near the Mediterranean coastal town of Banias, an activist told AFP, contacted by telephone.

Activists, meanwhile, vowed a “Day of Defiance” on Friday to press a seven-week-old anti-regime campaign in which 607 people have died, according to human rights groups, while 8,000 people have been jailed or gone missing.

Dozens of armoured vehicles, including tanks, and troops reinforcements were deployed on Thursday near the Mediterranean coastal town of Banias, an activist told AFP, contacted by telephone.

The attack, which also wounded at least 75 policemen, was the worst in Iraq in more than a month, and pushed security chiefs to install new checkpoints, tighten access to key roads and restrict movement between provinces.

The bombing left a two-metre (six-foot) crater and badly damaged the police station in the centre of the mainly Shiite city of Hilla, capital of Babil province, in addition to several nearby houses and shops, just days after US special forces killed bin Laden in Pakistan.

The talks came as Republicans demand more steep spending caps before they will agree to the White House’s request to lift the 14.29 trillion dollar borrowing ceiling, which will be reached on May 16.

After two hours of talks, the two sides left the presidential guesthouse Blair House, as expected with no deal to announce, but making hopeful, if noncomittal, statements.

Now living in a school gymnasium with hundreds of other disaster victims, the 17-year-old believed his chance of making the national high school baseball tournament had been snatched away by huge waves that left Yamadamachi in ruins.

But the teenager said his team was now determined to show the disaster had not destroyed their hopes of playing at the Koshien Stadium, Japan’s biggest ball park where the legendary Babe Ruth played an exhibition game in 1934.

“The monetary policy stance is still very accommodative, we will continue to monitor very closely all developments” concerning prices, ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet told a press briefing in the Finnish capital.

He spoke after the bank’s governing council held its benchmark lending rate at 1.25 percent, and pointedly did not use the accepted code word “vigilant” to describe its stance.

The biggest US automaker said it was solidly on the profit track after a massive government bailout that allowed it to emerge from bankruptcy reorganization in 2009.

“We are on plan,” GM chairman and chief executive Dan Akerson said in a statement.

Ministers from an anti-Gaddafi coalition called the Libya contact group, including the United States, France, Britain and Italy, as well as Qatar, Kuwait and Jordan, agreed in Rome to set up a fund to help the rebels, who are desperately short of cash.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington would seek to unlock some of the $30 billion of Libyan state funds frozen in the United States to help the rebel movement.

Soldiers also raided homes across the country as President Bashar al-Assad grappled with the most serious challenge of his 11-year authoritarian rule.

Assad had ordered the army to enter Deraa, where demonstrations calling for more freedoms and later for his overthrow started in March, 10 days ago.

In New York, President Barack Obama met firefighters and visited Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan to offer comfort to a city still scarred by the September 11, 2001, attacks masterminded by bin Laden that killed nearly 3,000 people.

He said the killing of bin Laden by a U.S. commando team in Pakistan on Monday “sent a message around the world, but also sent a message here back home, that when we say we will never forget, we mean what we say.

There, the agents determined that the courier would make contact with one of the world’s most wanted men, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, who had succeeded September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Muhammad as al Qaeda operations chief a few months earlier.

Agents from Pakistan’s powerful and mysterious Inter-Services Intelligence agency, known as the ISI, raided a house but failed to find al-Libbi, a senior Pakistani intelligence official told Reuters this week.

While the surprise jump in initial claims for unemployment benefits was blamed on factors ranging from spring break layoffs to the introduction of an emergency benefits program, economists said it corroborated reports this week indicating a loss of momentum in job creation.

New claims for state jobless benefits rose 43,000 to 474,000, the highest since mid-August, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists had expected claims to fall.

Republicans edged toward a White House plan that would cut some spending now and set long-term deficit reduction targets, but said more difficult decisions on taxes and healthcare spending would have to wait until after the 2012 election.

A top Republican lawmaker, Paul Ryan, said there would be no immediate “grand slam” agreement on tackling the budget deficit, expected to reach $1.4 trillion this year and a major worry for Americans and investors.

GM’s first-quarter profit topped expectations on Thursday, driven by a recovery in the U.S. market on the back of strong demand for more fuel-efficient cars like the Chevrolet Cruze.

Analysts, however, raised concerns that GM was not able to match rival Ford Motor Co’s ability to boost both volumes and prices, and GM’s shares fell as much as 4.7 percent.

Trichet did not use the phrase “strong vigilance” at a news conference which followed the ECB’s decision to leave rates at 1.25 percent, after raising them in April to end two years of crisis-induced loose policy.

In the past, the ECB regularly used the phrase to signal a hike was only a month away and Trichet did so in March, a month before the central bank raised rates from the record low 1 percent at which they had been held since May 2009.

The May 6 market plunge confused and panicked investors, outraged politicians, and shamed regulators and exchanges who had no answers. The next day, President Barack Obama promised that U.S. authorities would do what was needed to prevent it from happening again.

Yet a year later, little has changed — suggesting that while the flash crash was historic, it was not transformative.

High radiation levels inside the building have prevented staff from entering to start installing a new cooling system to finally bring the plant under control, a process plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) has said may take all year.

The magnitude 9.0 quake and massive tsunami that followed on killed about 14,800 people, left some 11,000 missing and destroyed tens of thousands of homes.

The two-meter tall stack is a power supply system, a machine designed to ensure a smooth, uninterrupted flow of electricity to computer servers and medical equipment.

The design isn’t entirely original. The company’s engineers, working in stark white laboratories at the heart of China’s Pearl River Delta, spent three years pulling apart rivals’ products and imitating them.

With Democrats in control of the upper chamber of Congress and President Barack Obama able to defend Dodd-Frank with his veto pen, efforts by Republicans to water down and postpone the reforms seemed unlikely to succeed, analysts said.

That is not stopping Republicans from pressing their rollback agenda, however, especially in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In Rome, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the best way to protect Libya’s people is to get Gadhafi to leave power. “This is the outcome we are seeking,” she told representatives from 22 nations and organizations.

Gadhafi has tried to crush an 11-week-old armed rebellion against his rule, including by shelling rebel positions, particularly in the western part of the country that largely remains under his control. Rebels hold most of eastern Libya.

Twenty-two nations and international organizations met in Rome to figure out how to help the Libyan rebels, who say they need up to $3 billion in the coming months for military salaries, food, medicine and other basic supplies.

Clinton said the Obama administration, working with Congress, wants “to tap some portion of those assets owned by Gadhafi and the Libyan government in the United States, so we can make those funds available to help the Libyan people.”

The siege on Daraa – the southern city where Syria’s six-week-old uprising began – lasted 11 days with President Bashar Assad unleashing tanks and snipers to crush dissent there. Syria’s state-run media said the military had “carried out its mission in detaining terrorists” and restored calm in Daraa.

Still, an activist who has been giving The Associated Press updates from Daraa cast doubt on the army claim. The activist, who left Daraa early Thursday, said residents were reporting that tanks and troops were still in the city.

The conviction of former Interior Minister Habib el-Adly marked the start of a broad reckoning with the legacy of Mubarak’s three-decade authoritarian rule, which was brought to an end on Feb. 11 by a popular uprising.

El-Adly was the first of about two dozen Mubarak-era Cabinet ministers and regime-linked businessmen to be found guilty. The others in custody include a former prime minister, the speakers of parliament’s two chambers and Mubarak’s two sons, all suspected of corruption.

Iraqi officials have been scrambling to show they’re in control of security in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death on Monday, but the uptick of bombings suggests that al-Qaida-linked groups in Iraq remain a threat despite the death of their ideological patron.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for this bombing or for another on Tuesday that killed nine people in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad. But the types of targets – Iraqi security forces and Shiite Muslims – indicate al-Qaida in Iraq’s involvement.

Both sides hinted at movement and Vice President Joe Biden reported progress from an initial negotiating session.

Spending cuts and increasing the amount of money the government can keep borrowing to pay its bills are “practically and politically connected,” Biden said at the start of budget meetings with lawmakers at Blair House, the guest residence across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.

Real estate mogul Donald Trump said Thursday he will not be the celebrity pace-car driver for the Indianapolis 500 on May 29, pulling out because it would be inappropriate” since “he may be announcing shortly his intention” to run for president.

Trump also said it would be impossible to fulfill the required practice sessions that occur during race week because of his busy schedule. A replacement driver is expected to be named later this month.

The assessment by a scientific body set up by the eight Arctic rim countries also warns that climate change may worsen the problem, by releasing mercury stored for thousands of years in permafrost or promoting chemical processes that transform the substance into a more toxic form.

“It is of particular concern that mercury levels are continuing to rise in some Arctic species in large areas of the Arctic,” despite emissions reductions in nearby regions like Europe, North America and Russia, the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, or AMAP, said.

“It is not always an easy relationship,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton acknowledged Thursday, but it is useful for both countries. “We are going to continue to cooperate between our governments, our militaries, our law enforcement agencies,” she said.

Yet the commando raid Monday on bin Laden’s comfortable house deep inside Pakistan exposes a stark truth that bodes ill for the decade-long U.S. strategy to coax greater cooperation from its wavering counterterrorism ally and bankroll its weak leaders: Pakistani officials tolerated or helped the biggest-ever mass murderer of Americans or were so inept that he lived for years right under their noses.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said workers connected ventilation and air filtration equipment in Unit 1 in an attempt to reduce radiation levels in the air inside the building.

The utility must lower radiation levels before it can proceed with the key step of replacing the cooling system that was knocked out by the March 11 quake and subsequent tsunami that left more than 25,000 people dead or missing along Japan’s northeastern coast.

That field includes at least six current or former governors, and three current or former House members. The Senate, an incubator for international affairs expertise, doesn’t have a single member running for president, although one former senator has taken steps toward a run.

The stunning news of bin Laden’s death has temporarily focused attention on foreign policy over domestic issues, and highlighted the lack of international experience in the prospective GOP field compared with the president, a Democrat who has spent more than two years overseeing two wars and, more recently, military action in Libya.

The People’s Action Party, with the son of Singapore founding father Lee Kwan Yew at the helm, is still expected to overwhelmingly win Saturday’s parliamentary election and remain in power for at least the next decade.

But more seats are being contested than ever before, by a new crop of well-educated opposition candidates. A gradual opening of traditional media alongside unfettered Internet debate has meant an increasingly substantial discussion of campaign issues, such as immigration and housing costs.

The motion, filed on behalf of 26 states, urges the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta to uphold a Florida federal judge’s ruling that the overhaul’s core requirement is unconstitutional. The judge, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, said Congress cannot require nearly all Americans to carry health insurance.

Allowing the law to go forward, the states argued in the 69-page filing, would set a troubling precedent that “would imperil individual liberty, render Congress’s other enumerated powers superfluous, and allow Congress to usurp the general police power reserved to the states.”

Donald “Tony” Young, 39, “took his act north” when he left behind his modest Georgia childhood and ingratiated himself with the equestrian set in Chester County, Pa., a federal judge said Thursday.

Young went to work for a convenience store magnate soon after settling there in 1989, and three years later hung out his shingle – above one of the stores – as a financier running a firm called Acorn Capital. He gained the trust of a Campbell Soup heir, George Strawbridge Jr., and other wealthy investors who gave him millions of dollars. Before long, he had $90 million in tow, and was building his young family a palatial mansion with horse farm.

The planned explosions this week to ease the Mississippi River flooding threatening the town of Cairo, Ill., appear to have succeeded – but their effect on the farmland, where wheat, corn and soybeans are grown, could take months or even years to become clear. The Missouri Farm Bureau said the damage will likely exceed $100 million for this year alone.

“Where the breach is, water just roars through and scours the ground. It’s like pouring water in a sand pile. There is that deep crevice that’s created,” said John Hawkins, a spokesman for the Illinois Farm Bureau. “For some farmers, it could take a generation to recoup that area.”

Sharon Chanon Velazquez, 17, and two 18-year-olds, Flannery Mullins and Ashley Longe, were sentenced to less than a year of probation after they admitted to sufficient facts to misdemeanor charges in the bullying of Phoebe Prince, a freshman at South Hadley High School who hanged herself in January 2010.

Prosecutors said Prince, who had recently emigrated from Ireland, was hounded by five teens after she briefly dated two boys. Her death drew international attention and was among several high-profile teen suicides that prompted new laws aimed at cracking down on bullying in schools.

Police chief Nate Harper and Mayor Luke Ravenstahl announced the city’s findings and reinstatement decision Thursday, a day after the Justice Department closed its investigation without filing civil rights charges against officers Richard Ewing, Michael Saldutte and David Sisak for the injuries they inflicted on Jordan Miles.

“It has been determined there is insufficient evidence to prove or disprove the allegations made by Mr. Miles,” Harper said.

The FBI says Sandlin Matthews Smith of St. Johns County, Fla., was shot Wednesday in a field at Glass Mountain State Park near Orienta in northwest Oklahoma. FBI Agent Clayton Simmonds out of the Oklahoma City office says agents opened fire when Smith, 46, pulled out an AK-47 assault rifle as agents approached him.

The documents released Thursday say Smith recently pulled a gun on his niece and said he thought authorities were after him and “he was paranoid that everyone was a cop.”

But that changed two years ago, when the deep recession dampened festivities traditionally considered a rite of spring for horse lovers and an economic bonanza for local businesses.

Hotel rooms could be snatched up late into Derby week in 2009. Restaurant and bar tabs were down. Corporations cut back on sponsorships. Even fashion took a hit, as recycled Derby hats pulled out of closets were more in vogue.

The courtroom ploy was backed by activists looking for a legal soft spot to advance a cause that has stumbled in the face of stiff congressional opposition and a skeptical U.S. Supreme Court.

The goal is to have the atmosphere declared for the first time as a “public trust” deserving special protection. That’s a concept previously used to clean up polluted rivers and coastlines, although legal experts said they were uncertain it could be applied successfully to climate change.

Although many have blamed the epidemic on U.N. peacekeepers from South Asia working in Haiti, the report issued by the panel declined to point the finger at any single group for the outbreak, saying it was the result of a “confluence of circumstances.”

“The evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that the source of the Haiti cholera outbreak was due to contamination of the Meye Tributary of the Artibonite River with a pathogenic strain of current South Asian type Vibrio cholerae as a result of human activity,” the report said.

U.S. District Judge Lance Africk ruled that Travis McCabe deserves a second trial because the newly discovered evidence – a different copy of the report that McCabe is accused of doctoring – surfaced after his December 2010 convictions. Africk, who threw out those convictions Wednesday, said he believes the jury probably would have acquitted McCabe if it had been presented with the newly discovered narrative report.

“As this court instructed the jury prior to its deliberations, there are no winners or losers here. Only justice prevails,” Africk wrote.