Evening Edition

In Paris, senior Libyan rebel leader Mahmud Jibril met President Nicolas Sarkozy to discuss the three-month-old conflict and the prospects for a transition.

At least 50 other people were wounded in the NATO attack on the eastern city of Brega that killed 11 imams, or prayer leaders, early on Friday, with five of them in critical condition, government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim said.

The resolution followed a 10-hour parliamentary session in which lawmakers debated the “situation arising from unilateral US action in Abbottabad”, the northern garrison town where Navy SEALs on May 2 shot dead the Al-Qaeda chief.

Pakistan has vowed to review intelligence cooperation after the embarrassing revelation that bin Laden had been living less than a mile from one of its military academies in Abbottabad, prompting claims of official collusion.

“The security forces, who had been encircling Tall Kalakh since the morning, fired machine guns. At least three people were killed and several were wounded” in the western town near the border with Lebanon, a witness said.

A hospital source across the border said a man named as Ali Basha, who was admitted to a Lebanese hospital earlier the same day after fleeing Syria with gunshot wounds, had died of his injuries.

The 70-year-old wife of ousted president Hosni Mubarak had been placed in intensive care on Friday after state television reported she suffered a heart attack when she was remanded in custody in a corruption probe.

“Her health is stable and she is currently under the police’s control,” Health Minister Ashram Hatem said, quoted by the official MENA news agency.

“This is a new Haiti, open for business now,” Martelly declared, standing before the ruins of the country’s presidential palace as thousands outside its wrought iron gates cheered him on.

Speaking in French and Creole, he pledged to restore security for investors, end political instability, and foster development “so we can emerge from our misery.”

A power outtage plunged the ceremony into darkness moments before the bald, onetime carnival singer was sworn in inside a building specially constructed as the temporary home of the country’s parliament.

“I swear before God and the nation to faithfully obey the constitution and the laws of the republic,” said Martelly, lit up by the flash of news cameras.

Before the first of the 25 finalists took the stage in Duesseldorf, Germany, hosts Stefan Raab, Anke Engelke and Judith Rakers performed a rocked-up version of last year’s winning song, Lena’s ueber-catchy “Satellite”.

Lena, 19, also took part and was due to return to the stage later as the German singer tries to become the first in Eurovision’s decades-long history to win two years running.

“I captured more energy than I used,” said pilot Andre Borschberg as he descended from the plane amid the applause of hundreds of people including Belgium’s Crown Prince Philippe, who had followed Solar Impulse’s long descent from a helicopter.

“I flew with the power of a scooter,” Borschberg added.

The 17-nation eurozone and the other 10 European Union states will hold a series of meetings alongside International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn during which a 78-billion-euro ($110 billion) rescue package for Portugal — like Greece mired in debt — is also expected to be voted through.

The European ministers are also set to recommend Italian central bank governor Mario Draghi as the successor to France’s Jean-Claude Trichet as president of the European Central Bank.

High fuel prices have dented Obama’s ratings in opinion polls and threaten to dampen the economic recovery that is critical to his re-election in 2012.

The president, a Democrat, has pushed for reducing U.S. oil consumption and expanding renewable energy sources while also encouraging domestic oil and gas production — an area Republicans want to expand dramatically.

NATO is bombing Libya as part of a U.N. mandate to protect civilians. Some NATO members say they will continue until Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who taunted the alliance as cowards whose bombs could not kill him, is forced out.

The nine imams were among 11 people killed in a strike on a guest house in the eastern city of Brega on Friday, the government said. The other two were buried elsewhere.

Protesters have been demonstrating across Yemen for months in an uprising against President Ali Abdullah Saleh inspired by movements that toppled the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia. A plan negotiated by neighbouring Gulf states for Saleh to step down fell through last month when he refused to sign.

The plain-clothes men, believed to be security officers, fired from rooftops at protesters demanding an end to more than three decades of Saleh’s rule in the poorest Arab country.

“Haiti was sleeping and today Haiti is waking up … that’s the mandate you gave me and, trust me, things will change,” the charismatic shaven-headed former entertainer said in his first speech after taking the presidential oath of office.

A big crowd roared approval of his words in Creole as they pressed against the railings of the crumbled white-domed presidential palace that was badly damaged in last year’s devastating earthquake that killed over 300,000 people.

The violence came a day after activists said at least six people were killed during nationwide protests which erupted in defiance of a military crackdown aimed a crushing opposition to the autocratic rule of President Bashar al-Assad.

One of the three who died had been evacuated to Lebanon from the border town of Tel Kelakh, where fleeing residents reported seeing soldiers and black-clad gunmen loyal to Assad, and said they heard the sound of machine gun fire.

U.S. counter-terrorism officials said Hassan Ghul is an al Qaeda operative who at one point carried messages between Iraqi insurgents who established an al Qaeda affiliate after U.S. troops overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein.

Precise details of the mysterious Ghul’s role in al Qaeda and the circumstances of his arrest are murky. But five U.S. officials familiar with Ghul’s role in the epic hunt for bin Laden said he gave up what turned out to be vital information about an al Qaeda courier who eventually led U.S. intelligence to bin Laden’s fortified hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Spencer Barasch, former head of enforcement for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in Fort Worth, Texas, is being probed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Federal Bureau of Investigation, SEC enforcement director Robert Khuzami and SEC Inspector General David Kotz told lawmakers on Friday.

The criminal probe follows SEC internal findings that Barasch made numerous requests after he left the SEC to represent Stanford and was turned down each time.

According to a report to be released on Friday, between 2006 and 2010 there were 219 former SEC employees who filed letters with the agency indicating their intent to represent a client with business before the commission.

In all, those former officials advised firms on SEC business nearly 800 times, according to an advance copy of the report seen by Reuters.

The gardener at his boarding school, an Auschwitz survivor, beat him black and blue after hearing he was the grandson of Rudolf Hoess, commandant of the death camp synonymous with the Holocaust.

“He beat me, because he projected on me all the horror he went through,” Rainer Hoess said, with a shrug and a helpless smile. “Once a Hoess, always a Hoess. Whether you’re the grandfather or the grandson – guilty is guilty.”

The water spit out slowly at first, then began gushing like a waterfall as it headed to swamp as much as 3,000 square miles of Cajun countryside known for small farms and fish camps. Some places could wind up under as much as 25 feet of water.

Opening the Morganza spillway diverts water away from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and the numerous oil refineries and chemical plants along the lower reaches of the Mississippi.

Obama said Saturday that the measures “make good sense” and will help reduce U.S. consumption of imported oil in the long term. But he acknowledged anew that they won’t help to immediately bring down gasoline prices topping $4 a gallon in many parts of the country, and an oil industry analyst agreed.

“There is practically nothing that Washington can do that would materially change the price of fuel in this country,” said Raymond James analyst Pavel Molchanov, noting that the United States produces about 5 percent of the world’s petroleum while consuming about 20 percent. “Given that imbalance, there is simply no policy shift that could plausibly come from the federal government that can significantly change that dynamic.”

But the Republican lawmaker has no opponent. His would-be rivals, it seems, are waiting for the Legislature to complete the once-every-decade process of redrawing political boundaries before they decide whether to challenge him in 2012.

Similar phantom campaigns are unfolding in other states where district lines and potential candidates have been slow to emerge. States are in the midst of drawing new political maps for congressional and legislative districts based on the 2010 census. The uncertainty surrounding the final lines is delaying candidates from jumping in to races on the ballot in November 2012.

Unlike other teenagers, Deck’s account became a sensation. Deck, under the handle (at)OMGFacts, tweeted random bits of celebrity gossip and quirky trivia. In less than a year, he had attracted more than 300,000 followers.

Now Deck, 17, is suing a business partner who promised to take OMG Facts to the next level, but who the Northern California teen says deceived him into turning over the rights to his creation.

As the event prepares to celebrate its centennial Sunday, organizers are hoping a new zero-tolerance alcohol policy will help usher in a more responsible, sponsor-friendly era.

But many participants are planning a different kind of birthday party.

Huckabee, winner of the Iowa Republican caucus in 2008, planned to announce Saturday night whether he would explore a bid for the GOP presidential nomination. In an e-mail to his advisers Friday, Huckabee promised that “things will get even crazier” after he speaks.

Still, his advisers said he was unlikely to run. Ed Rollins, who chaired Huckabee’s bid four years ago, said Huckabee has seemed more reluctant about running and said the fact he didn’t know what Huckabee would say was a sign he was likely to forgo running for president in 2012.

But less than two weeks before the May 24 vote, polls show a competitive contest between Republican Jane Corwin, 47, and Democrat Kathy Hochul, 52, in what’s become the first electoral test of GOP budget policies. The race also has drawn an avalanche of spending by interest groups, as well as both national parties.

“Jane Corwin said she would vote for the 2012 Republican budget that would essentially end Medicare,” says a TV ad for Hochul, underscoring the degree to which the national debate in Washington is framing this race.

The 50-year-old performer known to Haitians as “Sweet Micky” was swept to power in a March 20 presidential runoff by Haitians tired of past leaders who failed to provide even basic services, such as decent roads, water and electricity in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country.

Martelly was sworn in during a power outage in front of dozens of dignitaries including former U.S. President Bill Clinton, the U.N.’s special envoy to Haiti, and Edmond Mulet, head of the U.N. mission that has maintained order in Haiti since 2004. Also present was Desi Bouterse, the president of Suriname who is on trial for the 1982 executions of 15 political opponents.

The nonbinding parliamentary resolution reflects the precarious state of the U.S.-Pakistani alliance, which is vital to the war effort in neighboring Afghanistan. The bin Laden raid has brought to the fore a longstanding dilemma that U.S. strikes that Washington says kill militants often are seen by Pakistanis as a violation of sovereignty with mostly civilian victims, exacerbating an already-high anti-American sentiment.

During a visit to Afghanistan, U.S. Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called on Pakistan to be a better partner in the fight against terrorists.

Both Medicare and Social Security are being hit by a double whammy: the long-anticipated wave of retiring baby boomers and weaker-than-expected tax receipts, according to the annual report by the trustees who oversee the programs.

The Medicare hospital insurance fund for seniors is now projected to run out of money in 2024, five years earlier than last year’s estimate. The Social Security trust funds are projected to be drained in 2036, one year earlier than the last estimate. Once the trust funds are exhausted, both programs can only collect enough money in payroll taxes to pay partial benefits, the report said.

The Libyan government gave one account of why the men had traveled from the capital to the eastern front; a cleric at the funeral who said he witnessed the attack in the oil town of Brega gave a different version.

And the government, apparently hoping to turn the funeral into an outpouring of support for Moammar Gadhafi, announced the time and place on state TV and over text messages. Only a few hundred men showed up, however, and few appeared to be family or friends of the dead. At least a dozen were soldiers.

The tax liens, which generally allow governments to seize assets or property to settle tax bills, ranged in size from a $195 property tax bill in the Atlanta suburbs to $1,969 in unpaid Missouri taxes. Most of the liens were paid shortly after tax authorities filed them.

One exception was in Pennsylvania, where Gingrich Holdings Inc. last week paid off a $1,599 lien for unpaid corporate income taxes just days before Gingrich formally announced he would run against Democratic incumbent Barack Obama. Gingrich spokesman Rick Tyler said Gingrich and his firms were unaware of most of the tax liens until being contacted this week by the AP.

It was a Valentine’s Day that went unmarked on his otherwise-detailed log, a reused calendar from the 1970s in which he had crossed out bygone dates and filled in the current year.

McDonald noted that he drove his blue 1997 GMC truck into the remote foothills of the Cascade Range on Feb. 7 and made camp, then woke up one day to find himself in the middle of a fast and heavy snowstorm.

And now, more bad news: It’s also lasting longer, prolonging the misery of the millions of people for whom spring is a punishment, not a pleasure.

Heavy snow and rain in some parts of the country have nourished a profusion of tree pollen, while a sudden shift to warm, sunny weather has made its release more robust. The deluges and, in some places, flooding have pumped up the volume on mold. Add in the wind, and the suffering skyrockets.

Only one thing was missing: the FBI.

The FBI’s glaring absence at the announcement and silence since then about the arrests of two men described by police as raving anti-Semites and would-be jihadists bent on attacking a synagogue raised questions Friday about the severity of the threat and the strength of the case.

The Bonneville Power Administration has more than enough electricity during a cold, wet spring that has created a big surge in river flows where hydroelectric dams are located. The agency responded by announcing its intentions to curtail wind power until the grid has more capacity, in a move likely to cost the industry millions of dollars.

The decision reflects an overlooked issue amid the push to add wind farms around the country: The capacity of power grids has not kept pace.

This year, five major proposals favored by abortion opponents cleared the GOP-dominated Legislature as members heeded a call from Brownback to create “a culture of life.” But Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, the target of much of lawmakers’ efforts, confirmed that it is consulting with attorneys over possible legal challenges

“Four or five anti-choice bills, as we would characterize them, is pretty significant,” said Tait Sye, a spokesman for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “It would be in the top tier of anti-choice legislatures, which is probably what Brownback wants.”

Cardinal Justin Rigali and his bishops “failed miserably at being open and transparent,” review board chairwoman Ana Maria Catanzaro wrote this week in the lay Catholic magazine Commonweal.

“What will it take for bishops to accept that their attitude of superiority and privilege only harms their image and the church’s?” Catanzaro wrote in an article titled “The Fog of Scandal.”

Santorum, formerly a Pennsylvania senator and now a presidential candidate touting family values, is only one of many political and spiritual figures drawn into the tale of Ensign’s sexual misconduct, political dealings and personal ruin that led to the senator’s resignation May 3 and a scathing Senate ethics committee report this week.

Many of those named in the report are only incidentally connected to the case. Others tried to help hush up Ensign’s unpleasantness with cash, advice or both. The list is a long one. It includes Ensign’s parents; Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Tim Coe, Ensign’s longtime spiritual advisor connected to the National Prayer Breakfast and the C Street townhouse where Ensign and other lawmakers lived while in Washington.