Evening Edition

“Today there is no return to war,” Kiir said, speaking in the grounds of the presidential state house in the southern regional capital Juba. “There is no substitute for peaceful coexistence.

“Fellow compatriots, we are left only with a few hours to make the most vital and extremely important decision of our lifetime.

“We still resist the occupier, by military resistance, and all the means of resistance,” Sadr said in the shrine city, where he returned on Wednesday after about four years of self-imposed exile.

According to an AFP photographer, about 20,000 people turned out to hear Sadr speak, waving a forest of Iraqi flags and pictures of the cleric.

Germany’s agriculture ministry moved to calm concerns over food safety with test results showing acceptable levels of dioxin, a potentially cancer-causing chemical compound, in poultry and meat.

The European Commission said South Korea had become the first country to suspend imports of German pork, and accused Seoul of overreacting.

The French government meanwhile refused to confirm reports that the three managers were supplying details of the company’s electric cars to China.

Renault number two Patrick Pelata told Saturday’s Le Monde daily that the inquiry that led to the suspensions had concluded that the carmaker was faced with “an organised system of collecting economic, technological and strategic information to serve foreign interests”.

Palm-sized WheeMe massagers made by Israel-based startup DreamBots were in a newly established CES robotics zone with creations ranging from therapeutic mechanical seals to playful lifelike baby dinosaurs.

“It gives you a nice tickling feeling,” Karen Slutzky of DreamBots said as a WheeMe maneuvered independently on the back of a woman laying on a massage table at CES, which ends Sunday.

The US Department of Justice has been pursuing a criminal investigation into the leak of hundreds of thousands of secret US frontline military reports and diplomatic cables.

WikiLeaks said it suspected similar requests had been sent to Google and Facebook, and that they may have quietly complied with the requests without notifying members.

In his first speech since his homecoming Wednesday after years of self-imposed exile in Iran, the one-time firebrand burnished his anti-U.S. credentials and urged supporters to give Iraq’s new government led by Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki a chance.

“We are still fighters,” said Sadr, who led two uprisings against the U.S. military after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and has called for an earlier U.S. withdrawal than the agreed deadline of the end of this year.

The December 14 subpoena obtained by the Department of Justice and published by online magazine Salon.com on Friday said the records sought from the microblogging website were “relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation.”

It ordered Twitter to provide account information on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army intelligence analyst suspected of leaking Pentagon documents made public last year by WikiLeaks.

The disappointing jobs growth figure reported by the Labor Department on Friday suggested the Federal Reserve would likely stay the course with its effort to support the world’s biggest economy with the purchase of $600 billion in government bonds.

The department’s survey of nonfarm employers showed payrolls increased 103,000 last month, below economists’ expectations for 175,000. Private hiring rose 113,000, while government employment fell 10,000.

The attacks cast a shadow over celebrations in other parts of the south — attended by Hollywood star George Clooney and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter — of the countdown to Sunday’s vote on whether the oil-producing region should secede.

The reports were a reminder of the deep rifts in the undeveloped south, which has been plagued by ethnic killings, rival militias and cattle rustling raids.

Backed by a magistrate judge’s court order from Dec. 14, the newly disclosed documents sent to Twitter Inc. by the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria, Va., demand details about the accounts of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Pfc. Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence analyst who’s in custody and suspected of supplying WikiLeaks with classified information.

The others whose Twitter accounts are targeted in the prosecutors’ demand are Birgitta Jonsdottir, an Icelandic parliamentarian and one-time WikiLeaks collaborator; Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp; and U.S. programmer Jacob Appelbaum. Gonggrijp and Appelbaum have worked with WikiLeaks in the past.

The Barack Obama of 2011 is a chief executive who confronts enormous challenges, chief among them the economy, as he starts building a re-election campaign far different from the juggernaut of optimism and trajectory that vaulted him to the White House.

He’s the incumbent facing the daunting task of convincing a nation burdened by high unemployment that he has delivered change, made the right moves and earned the chance to continue the job.

Separate clashes in the disputed border region of Abyei were also reported, but officials from the south and north gave widely varying accounts of the fighting, ranging from one wounded to nine dead.

The weeklong referendum begins Sunday and is likely to see Africa’s largest country split in two. In order for the referendum to pass, a simple majority must vote for independence and 60 percent of the 3.9 million registered voters must cast ballots.

Humble, self-effacing and dressed for safari, the Hollywood star and former Sexiest Man Alive was in the scruffy, straw-hut capital of Southern Sudan on Saturday to draw attention to the region’s weeklong independence referendum.

The vote, which begins Sunday, is likely to create the world’s newest nation. Clooney is working to help the region avoid a backslide toward war.

The young Shiite cleric once blamed for some of the country’s worst sectarian violence also told his followers that such bloodshed would no longer be tolerated and appealed to them to show unity in the face of the country’s many problems.

The 35-minute speech in the Shiite holy city of Najaf was a public debut for the young cleric after nearly four years in voluntary exile in neighboring Iran, and it seemed at times like a combination of a rock concert and religious sermon. After walking out to a podium draped in black cloth, al-Sadr had to wait almost a full five minutes for the rapturous crowd of around 20,000 people to quiet down enough for him to speak.

The fiery package found Friday, which was addressed to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, followed two packages that ignited Thursday in Maryland state government mailrooms. It halted government mail until bomb-sniffing dogs could sweep the D.C. facility.

Mail processing resumed Saturday morning after a meeting with workers, the local postmaster and the workers’ union.

Under the plan, decided in the White House’s Afghanistan war review last month, the U.S. will offer more military, intelligence and economic support. The Obama administration also plans to intensify efforts to forge a regional peace despite frustration that Pakistani officials aren’t doing enough to fight terrorist groups in the country’s tribal areas, according to the report.

The decision is set to be delivered by Vice President Joe Biden during a visit to Pakistan next week, the Post said, citing unidentified administration officials. Biden is expected to meet with military chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani and other top government leaders.

The eight-part series drew criticism during its production from figures such as former Kennedy administration aide Theodore Sorensen, who attacked the scripts as inaccurate. The role of producer Joel Surnow, a political conservative, also drew suspicion from fans of the Kennedy family.

“We have concluded this dramatic interpretation is not a fit for the History brand,” the network said in a statement late Friday. The decision was first reported Friday by the Hollywood Reporter.

During Gates’ visit to Beijing, coming a week before Chinese President Hu Jintao’s state visit to Washington, the defense chief plans to make the case for regular face-to-face discussions among U.S. and Chinese military leaders that are routine for presidents and diplomats.

Gates will see Hu and senior Chinese military leaders after a particularly rocky year in which China expanded its military reach and firepower, quarreled with U.S. allies over Pacific territory and broke off the few flimsy military ties it had allowed with the United States.

It’s impossible to walk the floor at this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show without stumbling across a multitude of keyboard-less touch-screen computers expected to hit the market in the coming months. With Apple estimated to have sold more than 13 million iPads last year alone, the competition is clearly for second place, but even that prize is worth pursuing.

Technology research firm Gartner Inc. expects that 55 million tablet computers will be shipped this year, most of them still iPads, but there will be room for rivals to vie for sales of the remaining 10 million to 15 million devices.

The real action is in states, where Republicans are using federal courts and governors’ offices to lead the assault against Obama’s signature domestic achievement, a law aimed at covering nearly all Americans.

In a post-election bow to tea partiers by the new GOP House majority, Republican lawmakers are undertaking an effort to repeal the health care law in full knowledge that the Democratic Senate will stop them from doing so.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced plans Friday to lower the recommended level of fluoride in drinking water for the first time in nearly 50 years, based on a fresh review of the science.

The announcement is likely to renew the battle over fluoridation, even though the addition of fluoride to drinking water is considered one of the greatest public health successes of the 20th century. The U.S. prevalence of decay in at least one tooth among teens has declined from about 90 percent to 60 percent.

The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed a lower court judge’s ruling invalidating two mortgage foreclosure sales because the banks, in their capacity as trustees for mortgage securities, did not prove that they actually owned the mortgages at the time of foreclosure.

The decision, which highlights the failure of financial firms to adhere to the rules that govern mortgage-backed securities, is likely to lead more borrowers to sue bank servicers and trustees for wrongful foreclosures. It’s unclear what the ruling means for people who were forced from their homes after defaulting on their loans or for those who purchased houses in foreclosure sales.

Their “Free Ward Bird” campaign has ignited support among townsfolk and strangers. Libertarian and tea party websites decry his fate: at least three years in prison. Protests and vigils are tweeted on Twitter and trumpeted on Facebook pages devoted to his case. Backers raise funds with $15 Italian buffet suppers and alt-bluegrass music and dancing.

Bird, married and the father of four children, hangs his hope for freedom on a pardon by Democratic Gov. John Lynch.

On a cold winter evening in Big Prairie, a rural hunting town, the 10-year-old boy picked up the rifle and shot his mother, 46-year-old Deborah McVay, in the head, authorities say. Relatives said mother and son had been arguing over chores: He didn’t want to carry firewood into the house.

The notion of a 10-year-old boy keeping a stash of weapons in his bedroom is a jolting one to some Americans, but not so in Big Prairie, where the sound of gunshots ricocheting through the air is familiar – even comforting. Here, children learn to fire guns as easily as they learn to ride bicycles.

The outgoing Board of Supervisors on Friday voted 10-1 to appoint City Administrator Edwin Lee as interim mayor to serve until the November mayoral election.

To make the appointment official, Lee also must be approved by the new board of supervisors when it convenes for the first time Tuesday – a hurdle he is expected to clear with ease if the seven carry-over members don’t change their votes.

Today, as mobile technology puts computers in our pockets, Latinos and blacks are more likely than the general population to access the Web by cellular phones, and they use their phones more often to do more things.

But now some see a new “digital divide” emerging with Latinos and blacks being challenged by more, not less, access to technology. It’s tough to fill out a job application on a cell phone, for example. Researchers have noticed signs of segregation online that perpetuate divisions in the physical world. And blacks and Latinos may be using their increased Web access more for entertainment than empowerment.

In the swirl of civil rights protests in 1960s-era Berkeley, the daughter of a black father from Jamaica and a mother from India was among the second class of students tapped to help desegregate the city’s elementary schools.

“Growing up in that environment, the heroes were the architects of the civil rights movement,” Harris told The Associated Press.

The shortened slang term for a computer or smart phone application was picked by the linguists group as the word that best sums up the country’s preoccupation last year.

“Nom” – a chat-, tweet-, and text-friendly syllable that connotes “yummy food” – was the runner-up. It derives from the Sesame Street character’s sound as he devours his favorite food.

Hundreds marked the soldiers’ return during a joyous celebration in a plane hangar at Fort Campbell filled with homemade signs, balloons and music. The homecoming was especially poignant because the 101st Airborne Division lost 105 soldiers in 2010, accounting for about 1 in 5 American deaths in Afghanistan. The losses equal the death toll of its 2005-2006 Iraq deployment, tying for most divisional deaths in a year since Vietnam.

Maj. Gen. Frank Wiercinski, senior commander at Fort Campbell during the deployment, said Friday’s arrival of troops from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team marks the beginning of the return of about 17,000 of the division’s soldiers from Afghanistan.

The Texas Forensic Science Commission invited the fire experts to testify amid the Innocence Project’s insistence that Willingham was convicted with faulty evidence and wrongly executed for setting a 1991 fire that killed his three daughters – a 2-year-old and 1-year-old twins. The New York-based organization specializes in wrongful conviction cases.

Prosecutors in Corsicana, about 60 miles south of Dallas, have insisted Willingham’s conviction and execution were proper, and the State Fire Marshal’s Office has stood behind the arson finding.