Evening Edition

The horror unleashed in New York and Washington traumatized the public and sparked a “war on terror” that would stretch the legal system, send American soldiers to die in Muslim lands and eventually drain US global power.

In anguished days of mourning after September 11, the phrase “everything has changed” seemed on everyone’s lips as the country united, then went to war, starting with bin Laden’s Afghan lair.

Slowing global expansion, the plunge in US stock markets after Standard & Poor’s cut the country’s credit rating, and political pressure on the government to cut spending rather than stimulate growth are all putting the brakes on the world’s largest economy, they say.

Mostly negative data — though with a few bright spots — has reinforced feelings that the recovery from the 2008-2009 recession is in trouble.

The agency also said the deterioration of the economy or the failure of a special congressional committee to slash fiscal deficits could lead to a reassessment of the rating and a possible cut by the end of the year.

“The affirmation of the US ‘AAA’ sovereign rating reflects the fact that the key pillars of US’s exceptional creditworthiness remain intact: its pivotal role in the global financial system and the flexible, diversified and wealthy economy that provides its revenue base,” Fitch Ratings said.

Reeling from one of the bleakest patches of his crisis-strewn presidency, Obama boarded his new $1.1 million Secret Service armored bus for a three-day, three-state bus trip at a time of deep national gloom over the economy.

He sketched the framework of his 2012 reelection campaign, slammed Republicans for blocking his job creation plans, criticized billionaire tax breaks and defended his health care law, which is reviled by conservatives.

Ryan Rhodes, a leader of the group in Iowa, took on Obama during an open-air town hall meeting, which marked a moment of new intensity in the president’s campaign for a second term.

Rhodes shouted out that the president’s calls for more civility in politics had little chance of coming to pass after “your vice president is calling people like me, a Tea Party member, a ‘terrorist.'”

Reeling from one of the bleakest patches of his crisis-strewn presidency, Obama on Monday boarded his new $1.1 million Secret Service armored bus for a three-day, three-state bus trip at a time of deep national gloom over the economy.

He pressed the flesh, parried a question from a conservative Tea Party activist, hugged children, stopped at a sandwich bar and bought pumpkin pie, energized by his escape from the febrile politics of Washington.

Campaigning in the heartland state of Iowa, Perry warned Monday that he would view attempts by Bernanke to boost the US economy before the November 2012 elections as “almost treasonous” and invoked the specter of mob justice.

“If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I don’t know what y’all would do to him in Iowa — but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas,” Perry told supporters at a backyard get-together.

Under heavy pressure to restore confidence in the euro zone following a dramatic market slump, President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel stopped short of increasing the bloc’s rescue fund but vowed to stand side-by-side in defending the euro and laid the groundwork for a future fiscal union.

Their message was that the focus should be on further economic integration rather than signing bailout cheques, and suggested that straying from euro zone rules and fiscal targets would no longer be tolerated.

Efforts to stem the spreading European debt crisis have so far been ineffective, a major reason for the equity market’s declines in recent weeks. Stocks were unable to rally on Tuesday despite positive U.S. earnings and Fitch Ratings’ decision to keep the AAA credit rating for the United States.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy detailed plans for closer euro zone integration but they did not include boosting the size of the euro zone’s rescue fund or sales of euro bonds.

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and German Chancellor Angela Merkel unveiled wide-reaching plans for closer euro zone integration, including deficit limits and biannual summits. But they stopped short of increasing the bloc’s rescue fund and said joint euro bonds could only be a longer-term option.

The highly anticipated proposals, which included a tax on financial transactions, failed to shore up investor sentiment that already was shaken by poor German gross domestic product data reported earlier in the session.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick also said it was time to push a free trade agenda, warning against rising protectionism as nations seek to solve their debt crisis.

“This is really at a stage where you still have sovereign governments having to make decisions in Europe,” Zoellick told reporters in the Australian capital Canberra on Tuesday.

Fitch also kept a stable outlook on its U.S. AAA rating, less than two weeks after S&P downgraded the United States to AA-plus with a negative outlook.

The agency said, however, that it will revisit its decision at the end of the year. It threatened to slap a negative outlook on the rating at that time if lawmakers fail to implement the $2.1 trillion in savings that were agreed earlier this month or if the economy deteriorates significantly.

The claims put new pressure on James Murdoch, who runs News Corp’s European operations, and further hurt his chances of succeeding his father, Rupert, as chief executive.

In a letter written four years ago in an appeal against his dismissal from the tabloid, former royal reporter Clive Goodman said the practice of hacking was openly discussed until the then-editor Andy Coulson banned any reference to it.

After 41 years of supreme power in his oil-rich desert state 69-year-old Gaddafi was isolated in the capital Tripoli, with reinvigorated rebel forces closing in from the West and South.

Libya’s rebel National Transitional Council (NTC), recognized by many of the NATO nations whose air power is supporting their assault, denied any kind of negotiation with Gaddafi to resolve the six-month-old conflict.

Obama announced steps to boost hiring in farm communities, his latest effort to fight an unemployment rate which has stuck at over 9 percent despite earlier White House job initiatives.

Speaking in the key election state of Iowa, Democrat Obama portrayed Republicans as blocking progress on the economy.

Taiwan’s HTC and Korea’s Samsung Electronics have sold millions of mobile devices running on the free Android system, catapulting Google to the top slot in the booming global mobile software market.

But the acquisition of Motorola could turn Google from a partner to a competitor for more than 30 other Android-handset companies.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell, the euro slid against the dollar and key European markets edged down in off-hour trading after Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the results of their emergency talks in Paris.

Sarkozy called for a “new economic government” for Europe that would meet at least twice a year with European Union President Herman Van Rompuy as its head, but he offered few other details or indications that the body would have real power.

The president pulled into this northeastern Iowa town with some modest announcements of federal support, include targeting loans to rural small businesses and recruitment of more doctors for small rural hospitals. But he seemed more intent on getting some guidance himself, and presenting himself as president who does not think Washington knows best.

“I’m looking forward to hearing from you about what else we can do to jumpstart the economy here,” Obama told the farmers, business owners and others gathered at Northeast Iowa Community College for an economic forum put together by the White House. The president even took part in breakout sessions.

The losses, measured over the past year by a special task force assembled by Gen. David Petraeus, underscore the challenges the U.S. and its international partners face in overcoming corruption in Afghanistan. A central part of the Obama administration’s strategy has been to award U.S.-financed contracts to Afghan businesses to help improve quality of life and stoke the country’s economy.

But until Task Force 2010 began its investigation, there was little visibility into the connections these companies and their vast network of subcontractors had with insurgents and criminals, what military officials call “malign actors.”

In a rare joint appearance at the National Defense University, Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made their case for limiting their budgets’ exposure to the political battles in Congress over identifying additional ways of reduce future government spending.

Panetta said the Pentagon is prepared to make $350 billion in cuts over the next 10 years, as agreed by Congress. But he warned of dangers to the national defense if bigger reductions are required.

After all, it was only days earlier that the 350-year-old artwork worth $250,000 was swiped from the lobby of a seaside hotel.

The 11-by-6-inch pen-and-ink drawing was found in an unlocked public area of an Encino church Monday evening after a caller recognized it from news accounts of its weekend theft, said Los Angeles County sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore.