The Morning News

Over a billion people are expected to join in Internet voting that will nominate 77 semifinalists for the top natural wonders, which will share in the glory already enjoyed by the seven man-made wonders chosen 18 months ago.

“We are calling on people all over the world to actively show their appreciation for our … natural world by joining together to celebrate the most extraordinary sites on our planet,” said Tia Viering, spokeswoman of the New 7 Wonders campaign.

The 74-year-old’s body was found Monday night on railway tracks at Blaubeuren in southwestern Germany, prosecutors in nearby Ulm said in a statement. They described the death as a “railway accident” and said there was no evidence that anyone else was to blame.

His family, which had reported Merckle missing after he failed to return home Monday, issued a brief statement saying he took his own life. A person close to the investigation, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the media, said Merckle left a suicide note. Its contents were not divulged.

Two protesters were arrested and at least two more were issued citations, police said.

“It’s our property. It’s our church. It belongs to the Archdiocese of New Orleans,” said The Very Rev. Michael Jacques, a member of the archdiocese’s Council of Deans.

Vice President-elect Joe Biden also branded it a mistake for Obama not to discuss the decision in advance with the incoming Senate Intelligence Committee chair, Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

But despite rumblings of criticism about Panetta’s lack of intelligence experience, his confirmation is not expected to draw strong opposition.

“I can play a role in helping to reshape the Republican Party’s message and focus on 21st century solutions to 21st century problems,” Bush told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “Not running does not preclude me from being involved in these things and I will be.”

Bush seriously considered a run after Martinez said last month he wouldn’t seek a second term. Bush spoke with senators, supporters and family, including his brother, President George W. Bush, and his father, former President George Bush.

In Apple’s final appearance at the Macworld trade show, Apple’s top marketing executive, Philip Schiller, said Tuesday that iTunes song prices will come in three tiers: 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29. Record companies will choose the prices, which marks a significant change, since Apple previously made all songs sell for 99 cents.

Apple gave the record labels that flexibility on pricing as it got them to agree to sell all songs free of “digital rights management,” or DRM, technology that limits people’s ability to copy songs or move them to multiple computers. Apple had been offering a limited selection of songs without DRM, but by the end of this quarter, the company said, all 10 million songs in its library will be available that way.

The largest U.S. aluminum producer said it imposed a global salary and hiring freeze as it seeks to cope with what Chief Executive Officer Klaus Kleinfeld called “extraordinary times.”

The cuts, the third in as many months, come less than a week before Alcoa is scheduled to report its fourth-quarter results. Alcoa said it would take almost $1 billion in charges in the quarter. Analysts expect the company to post a 1-cent per-share loss, according to Reuters Estimates,.

The New York Times reported on Tuesday that another lawyer for Madoff, Ira Sorkin, disavowed his earlier statements that Madoff was cooperating with prosecutors and the FBI in their investigations.

“We’re cooperating with the government investigations,” Madoff lawyer Daniel Horwitz told Reuters. “What we have been saying consistently is that we are cooperating with the government.” Horwitz declined to provide further details.

If Congress supports the amount Gates estimates is needed, total spending on the wars will hit $927.7 billion since 2001.

In a three-page letter dated December 31, Gates told House of Representatives Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha that the military needed $69.7 billion in extra funds in fiscal 2009 to fund operations, replace equipment lost or worn out in the wars and replenish supplies.

Russia accused its former Soviet neighbor of stealing about 15 percent the gas it ships across Ukraine to European states.

“Ukraine has stolen gas not from Russia, but from consumers who have bought the product and paid for it,” Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in televised remarks late on Tuesday.

Toyota Motor Corp said it would shut all of its Japanese production for 11 days and petrochemical group LyondellBasell’s U.S. operations filed for bankruptcy, adding to the steady flow of bad news.

The financial turmoil that has worsened in recent months also prompted German billionaire Adolf Merckle to commit suicide, his family said, as that nation’s fifth richest man sank into despair over huge losses suffered by his companies.

Sixteen U.S. states and the District of Columbia do not send out their absentee ballots early enough to allow those serving in conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan to fill them out and return them before their voting deadline, the Pew Center on the States found.

Another six states force soldiers, sailors and marines to return their ballots by fax or e-mail to meet the deadline, risking the privacy and security of their vote.

Of U.S. households worth $1 million or more, 55 percent are concerned they will not have enough assets to maintain their lifestyles, said Spectrem Group, a consulting firm specializing in the affluent and retirement markets.

Ninety percent fear a prolonged downturn, it said.

President Iajuddin Ahmed gave the oath at the presidential palace here in a ceremony broadcast live on television, as thousands of supporters gathered outside and around giant screens set up around the capital.

Sheikh Hasina, 61, was greeted with rapturous applause as she entered the palace and took the oath in front of some 1,000 foreign diplomats, government officials and members of parliament.

Chief of staff General Bosco Ntaganda said in a statement released on Monday that Nkunda had been dismissed as leader of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) for “poor leadership” and “bad governance”.

But another top officer, Seraphin Mirindi, told AFP that Nkunda was still head of the rebel movement, which would meet Tuesday to discuss Ntaganda’s fate.

S&P’s estimate is based the value of its Global Broad Market Indices, comprised of 46 major stock indexes around the world.

Emerging market indexes fell 54.72 percent and developed markets dropped 42.72 percent for the year, according to S&P.

A team of international astronomers, with the aid of ten telescopes spread out between Hawaii, the Caribbean and the northeastern United States, determined that the Milky Way is rotating at a speed of 161,000 kilometers (100,000 miles) per hour faster than previously thought.

That increase in speed increases the Milky Way’s mass by 50 percent, said Mark Reid, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in research presented at the American Astronomical Society meeting this week in Long Beach, California.

The trio of “marine national monuments” span a total of 195,274 square miles (505,757 square kilometers) and include the Mariana Trench and northern Mariana Islands, the Rose Atoll in American Samoa and a chain of remote islands in the Central Pacific.

“The monuments will prohibit resource destruction or extraction, waste dumping and commercial fishing,” Bush said in a speech.

“We have information about auctions that took place just before and during World War II at which it is known that Jewish people were forced to sell items,” association director Siebe Weide told AFP.

Other pieces were stolen, and yet more were seized after being left behind by fleeing Jews.

The religiously themed mini-White House – which required the razing of three brick ranches – is now up for sale, facing foreclosure this week if the builder, an Iranian-born entrepreneur, can’t get a $9.88 million selling price.

New York finance blogger Rolfe Winkler calls it a “delicious story” rife with symbolism about overheated real estate and leveraged dreams that sparked the biggest national real estate slump since the Great Depression.

Seeking the right balance is a difficult test for policymakers, since the economy has downshifted sharply since September.

To some extent, a tightening of credit simply reflects the reality of cooler economic times. But economists generally say the credit markets also face an abnormal squeeze now – one that justifies many of the extraordinary actions that the Federal Reserve and Treasury have taken in recent months. The latest example came last week, as the Treasury Department decided to rescue GMAC to prevent a freeze-up in the auto-loan market.

An Iraqi lieutenant questioned three men found in the house about their brother: Was he home? No. Where was he? Syria. When did he leave? A year ago.

There were questions Loftis wanted asked, facts that needed to be clarified to determine whether they were lying. But under a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that took effect hours earlier on New Year’s Day, Loftis could only make suggestions and recommendations to Iraqi troops.

Leaders are particularly anxious about how the cooling economy, and the accompanying loss of jobs, will affect social order.

“The present situation of maintaining national security and social stability is grave,” Public Security Minister Meng Jianzhu warned leading officers in Beijing, official state media reported Tuesday.

The U.N. now keeps its international Somalia staff members in Kenya to shield them from the risk of attacks and kidnappings. In 2008, at least 13 aid workers were killed in Somalia, which has not had an effective government since 1991.

“It is very difficult to address (the) Somali situation from Nairobi (the Kenyan capital). I think it is even negative,” the envoy, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, said during a news conference in Nairobi, Kenya. “We should have a Green Zone, if necessary, in Somalia.”

The Sea Shepherd group has said its anti-whaling ship, the Steve Irwin, has left pursuit of Japan’s whaling fleet after chasing it for 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) and is now headed to port to refuel. It suggested on its Web site it will seek a port call in Australia, but has not provided further details.

Japan, which considers the actions of the Steve Irwin to be tantamount to piracy, reacted Tuesday by saying it will ask countries where the ship might make port calls to refuse it entry.

Relations between Kabul and Islamabad, both U.S. allies but troubled by border disputes in the past, have improved in recent months with the arrival of the new government in Pakistan.

In the past, Afghan officials have often accused elements in Pakistani state agencies of helping the Taliban, ousted from power in Kabul but retaining sanctuaries in the tribal areas along the rugged Afghan-Pakistan border.

Men and boys marched with blood streaming down their faces after cutting their scalps, part of the ritual of mourning for the death of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, slain in the 7th century battle of Kerbala.

Many wore green or red costumes, dressing as the followers of Hussein and his enemy Yazid for re-enactments of the battle, streaming into a Baghdad shrine to the beat of drums.

The state has charged Jestina Mukoko, who leads a local rights group, and the other activists with recruiting or trying to recruit people for military training to topple President Robert Mugabe’s government.

The arrests have raised tensions in Zimbabwe, where Mugabe and the opposition are locked in a long dispute over allocation of cabinet posts under the power-sharing agreement, seen as the best chance of easing a deep economic crisis.

The unusually stark report in this week’s Outlook (Liaowang) Magazine, issued by the official Xinhua news agency, said faltering growth could spark anger among millions of migrant workers and university graduates left jobless.

“Without doubt, now we’re entering a peak period for mass incidents,” a senior Xinhua reporter, Huang Huo, told the magazine, using the official euphemism for riots and protests.

The newspaper said all criminal investigations would now be handled by public prosecutors, who answer to the justice ministry, causing concern among magistrates who said this could expose the criminal justice system to political influence.

Sarkozy’s office confirmed that he would make a keynote speech to judges Wednesday but declined to give details.

The four ships escorted were Chinese merchant vessels, including one from Hong Kong, Xinhua news agency said in a dispatch filed from aboard the destroyer Wuhan.

The naval task force, deploying two destroyers and a supply ship, marks China’s first potential combat mission beyond its territorial waters in centuries.

The gaffe was the latest blow to Prime Minister Taro Aso, whose approval rating has slumped to 20 percent as voters question his handling of the financial crisis in the world’s second largest economy.

Tetsushi Sakamoto, the vice minister for internal affairs and a lawmaker from Aso’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), on Tuesday apologised for his comments about homeless people who spent the New Year period in a Tokyo park.

The countries involved include Greece , Austria , Turkey , Germany , Romania and Bulgaria , according to statements by energy officials and news accounts.

If Russia , which supplies the gas, and the former Soviet republic, through whose territory it transits, don’t come to terms soon, there could be serious consequences for Europe in the middle of winter. About a quarter of Europe’s natural gas comes from Russia , and some 80 percent of that amount transits Ukraine .

However, the domestic economic meltdown has reached even here. The National Guardsmen who serve with the Marines of the 3rd Battalion , 8th Marine Corps Regiment , based here, say they fear that their jobs won’t be there when they return.

With uncertainty at home, some are doing what they once considered unthinkable: extending their tours. They say that they’d rather tackle a resurging Taliban than a struggling economy.

About 4.5 million Americans are collecting jobless benefits, a 26-year high, so the Web sites and phone systems now commonly used to file for benefits are being tested like never before.

Even those that are holding up under the strain are in many cases leaving filers on the line for hours, or kissing them off with an “all circuits are busy” message. Agencies have been scrambling to hire hundreds more workers to handle the calls.

Just as some scofflaws keep an eye out for black-and-white patrol cars, gardeners have learned to spot the white Toyota Priuses driven by Los Angeles water cops out to fight waste as California struggles with an extended drought.

“They get to scattering when they see us,” said Department of Water and Power officer Alonzo Ballengar. “I don’t know what they call me, but I’m sure they have names.”

With consumers reeling from a recession, job uncertainty, tighter credit and falling stock portfolios, discount giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc could be one of the only retailers to post a rise in December sales at established stores, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Widespread after-Christmas sales illustrated how much inventory retailers still had on their shelves, and analysts caution that there is little on the horizon to spur consumers to start shopping again in the first part of 2009.

The ratings on about $2.4 billion of unlimited and limited tax debt were cut to “BB” from “BBB” and “BBB-minus,” respectively, S&P said.

The “BB” rating is two notches into junk territory and will make it considerably more expensive for the city to issue debt as investors demand a premium to compensate for higher risk.

The state Department of Transportation abandoned the Trans Texas Corridor, the centerpiece of Gov. Rick Perry’s long-range transportation plan, after objections from communities and farm groups along the planned route, which would have involved seizing large swaths of private property.

In 2002, Perry unveiled an ambitious plan to build 4,000 miles of transport corridors a quarter mile wide, which would include room for high-voltage power lines, commuter and freight rail lines, and five road lanes in each direction.

The judge scheduled jury selection to begin on January 29 of next year after the five defendants formally entered a not guilty plea to the charges over the shooting that also injured 20 Iraqis.

The five men are charged with 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 counts of attempt to commit manslaughter and one weapons violation count over the shooting that outraged Iraqis.

A survey of Americans aged 45 and older conducted for the AARP, an influential advocacy group for people over 50, found many had suffered savings and investment losses, are having trouble paying for essentials such as food, gas and medicine and are planning to postpone retirement.

“The economic downturn last year hit our members hard,” AARP CEO Bill Novelli told reporters.

The ruling, handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans on Tuesday, said the lower court erred when applying federal sentencing guidelines, so the former executive could now receive a shorter sentence.

Skilling, who was convicted along with former Chairman Kenneth Lay in May 2006 on conspiracy and fraud changes, is serving a 24-year term at a minimum security prison in Colorado. His lawyers could not immediately be reached for comment.

Art values dropped in October when the U.S.-born economic meltdown engulfed the world and several art auctions fell far short of low pre-sale estimates, compelling rivals Sotheby’s and Christie’s to take a more cautious approach.

But encouraged by Old Master auctions in London in December — where Sotheby’s hit high expectations with a $20 million sale and Christie’s fell shy of low estimates, reaping $30 million — the auctioneers hope the genre will remain stable.

The FBI said on Monday it had launched one of the largest hiring blitzes in its 100-year history involving 2,100 professional staff vacancies and 850 special agents aimed at filling its most critical vacancies.

The agency, which seeks to protect the United States from terrorist attack, fight crime and catch spies, among other duties, said it currently has more than 12,800 agents and about 18,400 other employees.

With prescription drugs playing a key role, average annual out-of-pocket medical costs — those not covered by health insurance — rose from $427 per American in 1996 to $741 in 2005, researchers wrote in the journal Health Affairs.

Adjusting for inflation, that translated to 39 percent more in out-of-pocket spending per person over that time, according to Kathryn Paez of Maryland-based health research organization Social & Scientific Systems Inc. and colleagues.

The median sales price — in which half the sales prices were higher and half were lower — of an existing Manhattan apartment fell 3.6 percent to $732,500, according to the Prudential Douglas Elliman Manhattan Fourth Quarter Market Overview.

“You could say it started the second week of September when Lehman (Brothers) filed for bankruptcy,” said Dottie Herman, chief executive of Prudential Douglas Elliman, one of the United States’ largest real estate companies.

The California Supreme Court ruled that the 2.4-million-member national church, and not a local parish in that state, owns a church building and the land on which it sits, property which members of the congregation said belonged to them when they left the church.

St. James parish in Newport Beach split from the church in 2004, a year after the national church consecrated Gene Robinson of New Hampshire as the first bishop known to be in an openly gay relationship in more than four centuries of Anglican church history.

They said many young people who use social networking sites such as News Corp’s MySpace do not realize how public they are and may be opening themselves to risks, but the sites may also offer a new way to identify and help troubled teens.

“We found the majority of teenagers who have a MySpace account are displaying risky behaviors in a public way that is accessible to a general audience,” said Dr. Dimitri Christakis of Seattle Children’s Research Institute, whose studies appear in the journal Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine.

The 6.1 percent rate of growth over 2006 was the lowest since 1998, mostly because growth in spending on drugs slowed, the team at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found.

Cheaper generic drugs and worries about drug safety helped slow spending growth but the numbers kept the United States far ahead of all other countries on health spending.

Haidong Wang of the University of Washington in Seattle and Samuel Preston of the University of Pennsylvania said their calculations showed that by 2035 a man’s odds of surviving from age 50 to age 85 will be 22.5 percent greater than projected, and a woman’s odds more than 7 percent greater.

This could affect the Social Security Administration’s budget, which now calculates that by 2034, 74 million Americans over the age of 65 will be living, compared to 38.6 million now.