HARTFORD, Conn. (AP & staff) — Tens of thousands of Connecticut residents awoke Monday as part of an unenviable fraternity: people entering their second week without power after an early-season storm that hammered the Northeast with wet, heavy snow.

The power failures, the legacy of the storm Oct. 29 and 30, were largely an unpleasant memory by Sunday night for most of the 3 million who lost power at the height of the storm. But in Connecticut, about 50,000 homes and businesses remained without electricity by Monday morning, nine days after the storm. In Massachusetts, 100 customers remained without power, and New Jersey utilities said everyone was back on line.

Connecticut Light & Power, the state’s largest utility, announced Sunday night that it would miss its goal of restoring power to 99 percent of its 1.2 million customers by midnight. Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey apologized, saying that power might not be restored to everyone until Wednesday. About 6,000 of the outages were new and unrelated to the snowstorm, he said.

Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has called the delays unacceptable and said the state is keeping its legal options open in case there are grounds for recourse in the courts once the circumstances are examined.

He has launched an independent probe of the utility’s response to the storm outages amid numerous customer complaints, including from South Windsor fire officials, who accuse CL&P of jeopardizing safety by failing to ensure emergency trucks had access to local roads.

“We much as we want to support and be supportive of CL&P, it’s clear that for the last several days, they have failed to meet their own imposed goals on a day by day basis,” Malloy said Sunday.

Attorney General George Jepsen is participating in the probe to ensure that the state, in Malloy’s words, “preserves its legal options on behalf of itself and on behalf of Connecticut utility customers.”

Jepsen cautioned Sunday that it was too early to know whether grounds might exist for any court action. U.S. Sens. Joe Lieberman and Richard Blumenthal also put out calls for thorough reviews of CL&P’s preparedness before the storm and its response afterward, with Blumenthal describing the situation as a “historic breakdown of power and public trust.”

Some people who were slogging through their eighth day Sunday without power said they would be pleasantly surprised to see their power restored Sunday night or early Monday, but they weren’t optimistic.

“We’re disappointed, discouraged, tired, but I don’t know what else you can really say, you know,” said Chet Matczak of Simsbury, an especially hard-hit suburb. “A lot of this is just the luck of the draw.”

In Somers, a northern Connecticut town on the Massachusetts border, First Selectman Lisa Pellegrini said a team of highly supervised crews of minimum-security inmates from nearby state prisons had been dispatched to clear town property of trees, limbs and other debris so power restoration could move more quickly.

She said Butler, the utility president, called her personally on Saturday to apologize — which she appreciated, but which did not give her confidence that they would have most of their power restored by Sunday night.

“(Butler) asked me how I was doing, and I said, ‘Pretty lousy, but I think you’re having a worse day than I am,’” Pellegrini said.

Indeed, CL&P and Butler have fielded criticism for days from many public officials and residents over a perceived lack of preparation for the storm’s aftermath, particularly since the utilities had an unintended dry run when the remnants of Hurricane Irene swept through the region and knocked out power two months ago.

Some people still without power by Sunday afternoon were turning to Facebook, Twitter and email to express their frustration. A few were especially unsympathetic to Butler, who also has been without power since his generator quit last week at his home in one of the hardest-hit towns west of Hartford.

One person’s reaction, posted Sunday on Facebook with a picture of Butler, read: “”Rumors that my gold-plated residential backup generator runs on the refined tears of orphan children are totally unfounded.”

Over the weekend, some towns that canceled classes all last week were preparing to reopen their schools Monday. Others in harder-hit municipalities were reviewing tree damage on bus routes, outage maps in their neighborhoods and other factors to decide whether they would be ready to reopen Monday.

Some districts also already have decided to trim their winter vacations to recoup some lost days.

Malloy said that Tuesday’s Connecticut general election remained on track but that some municipalities might consolidate voting at locations with electricity if other polling places remained in the dark.

Results from Sunday’s poll were released early Monday for individual candidates in the neighborhood council elections but the government did not immediately provide a breakdown by political party.

Candidates from two major parties backed by the central government in China won 124 of 336 contested seats while the two biggest pro-democracy parties lost ground, garnering only 53 seats, the parties said.

While district councilors wield little power, analysts say the outcome could foreshadow a tougher struggle for pro-democracy candidates in legislative elections next year, which could make it harder to move toward a fuller democracy.

“If the democrats are losing the elections they kind of lose their legitimacy in terms of the whole democracy movement, so it will be a more difficult fight for them,” said Ma Ngok, a political scientist at Chinese University of Hong Kong.

About 1.2 million, or 41.4 percent of the 2.9 million people registered to vote, casting ballots for 839 candidates in Sunday’s election, higher than the 38.5 percent in the last district council elections in 2007. Another 76 candidates were returned unopposed.

The big winner was the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, which won 100 seats while the Federation of Trade Unions won 24. In the pro-democracy camp, the Democratic party won 46 contested seats while the Civic Party won seven.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, is a special administrative region of China with its own political system and a high degree of autonomy. Hong Kong’s mini-constitution promises eventual democracy and Western-style civil liberties commonly denied in the mainland.

The current 60-member Legislative Council is half-elected and half chosen by professional and business sectors, many of whom are loyal to Beijing. Next year, the legislature will add 10 more elected seats under a set of limited changes that were approved last year with the help of the Democratic Party.

The deal fractured the democratic camp, with some hardline lawmakers calling it a betrayal and forming their own small parties, which may have split Sunday’s vote and driven some voters to pro-Beijing candidates.

Italy’s borrowing rates spiked on Monday to their highest levels since the country adopted the euro. Markets fear that Italy’s debts are too large to be handled by an international bailout.

Monday is a quiet day for economic and earnings reports in the U.S. The Federal Reserve will report in the afternoon on how much consumers borrowed in September.

Dow futures lost 48 points, or 0.4 percent, to 11,895 two hours before the opening bell. S&P 500 futures fell 7, or 0.5 percent, to 1,244. Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 8, or 0.4 percent, to 2,342.

However, Dish’s subscriber losses translated into higher net income for the quarter, as it avoided the short-term cost of getting new subscribers set up with dishes and set-top boxes.

The Englewood, Colo., company said its net income climbed 30 percent to $319.1 million, or 71 cents per share, in the three months that ended Sept. 30. That’s up from $244.9 million, or 55 cents per share, a year ago.

Analysts polled by FactSet were on average expecting earnings of 74 cents per share.

Revenue rose 12 percent to $3.6 billion from $3.2 billion a year ago, chiefly because of the acquisition of the Blockbuster video-store chain in April. Analysts were on average expecting revenue of $3.64 billion.

Dish shares were down 20 cents at $23.28 in premarket trading.

The period was the first full quarter of results for Blockbuster after the acquisition. The division essentially broke even on $347 million in revenue.

Dish lost a net 111,000 subscribers in the quarter. That was mainly because fewer new subscribers signed up, rather than accelerated losses. But the loss rate is still high, something the company blames on competitor’s aggressive promotions.

DirecTV Group Inc. last week reported adding a record 327,000 subscribers in the third quarter, greatly helped by its exclusive NFL Sunday Ticket.

Dish ended the quarter with 13.9 million subscribers, the same number it had two years ago. That makes it the third-largest provider of paid TV signals to U.S. households. DirecTV had 19.8 million, making it second only to Comcast Corp. as a pay-TV provider.

Berlusconi is meeting with his children and close confidantes at his villa near Milan. The Monday lunch is a long-standing tradition in the Berlusconi family, but it comes as pressure builds from markets and from within his own party for the 75-year-old media mogul to resign.

BREAKING NEWS UPDATE:

ROME (AP & staff) — Italy’s borrowing rates spiked to a euro-era high on Monday, piling the pressure on Premier Silvio Berlusconi to resign and make way for a new government that could more forcefully push through economic reforms.

Italy is the new focus of the eurozone debt crisis, as its debts are huge, its growth is slow, and its economy too large to bail out. Investors want the government to urgently pass measures to boost growth and cut debt, but Berlusconi’s majority is weakening by the day.

The ultimate fear is that Italy might need to ask for an international bailout to handle its enormous euro1.9 trillion ($2.6 trillion) debt. That is too expensive for Europe to do, and could trigger a default that would break up the 17-nation eurozone and drag down the global economy.

During a G-20 summit in France last week, Berlusconi asked the International Monetary Fund to monitor the country’s reform efforts, a humiliating step for such a large economy.

Berlusconi was meeting Monday with his children and close confidantes at his villa near Milan for lunch. The ANSA news agency quoted him as telling aides that such speculation about his departure is “without foundation.”

The yield on the country’s 10-year bonds jumped another 0.33 of a percentage point on Monday to 6.58 percent, its highest level since the euro was established in 1999 and closer to the 7 percent threshold that forced Ireland and Portugal to accept bailouts.

There is growing concern that Berlusconi is the problem because he no longer commands enough loyalty among lawmakers to ensure the quick reforms that European and international financial officials say Rome must achieve to avoid a dramatic debt crisis like that bringing Greece to its knees.

His coalition government has suffered defections and the possibility of early elections is growing.

Public administration minister Renato Brunetta, a Berlusconi loyalist, acknowledged Monday on TV that the government has a “numbers problem” in parliament and if a majority is lacking then “everybody goes home.”

Interior Minister Roberto Maroni agreed, adding “it is useless to persist.”

But Berlusconi has remained defiant, insisting Sunday he still commands enough support in Parliament to enact urgently needed measures to save Italy from financial disaster.

“We maintain that there are no alternatives to our government until 2013,” when elections are due, Berlusconi told a political gathering by audio hookup.

This week brings the first in a string of votes in Parliament on reforms and other stopgap measures to lower Italy’s debt — now at 120 percent of GDP — and revive the dormant economy, the eurozone’s third-largest.

If Berlusconi’s forces lose upcoming votes in parliament, the Italian president, who has repeatedly called on Berlusconi to take decisive steps immediately to rescue the nation, could intervene and rule that it is time for a new government. But only the loss of a confidence vote can force a government to resign.

The new reform measures include a plan to sell government assets, which is expected to raise euro5 billion ($6.9 billion) a year over the next three years; and tax breaks to encourage employment for the young and to get women back into the work force in a country where youth unemployment is 29 percent and just 48 percent of women have jobs. The legislation would also allow stores to stay open on Sundays and open up closed professions.

Berlusconi has also pledged to raise the retirement age to 67 for all workers to match European trends, despite the fierce resistance of his allies in the Northern League.

The leader of Italy’s largest labor confederation, meanwhile, is predicting 2012 will be a “terrifying” year for the economy even if the beleaguered Berlusconi leaves power soon.

CGIL leader Susanna Camusso on Monday also slammed Berlusconi’s anti-crisis plan as containing virtually nothing to spark economic growth.

It’s not clear how much the anonymous accusations will hurt Cain, a former pizza executive and past head of the National Restaurant Association. It’s possible the matter will be largely forgotten in a few weeks.

But for now, it has heightened intra-party tensions, with Texas Gov. Rick Perry briefly having to deny that his campaign leaked damaging information, before Cain dropped that charge. And the controversy continued to dominate headlines Friday, when former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney made a detailed speech on spending and Medicare in Washington.

The focus on Cain seemed to freeze the campaign into place for a full week, when Perry was hoping to make progress in positioning himself as the top alternative to Romney.

“Perry has got 60 days to make his case,” said Republican consultant Mike McKenna. Every day that Cain stays at the top of the polls or otherwise dominates the news, he said, “it’s a day that Perry loses.”

Many people in the Republican establishment always assumed Cain would fade, much as Rep. Michele Bachmann did when Perry entered the race in August.

Many still feel that way, and they assume the slow, messy unwinding of the charges and counter-charges won’t help him.

“Fair or unfair, is anybody more likely to vote for Herman Cain as a result of these allegations? The answer is no,” said Phil Musser, a GOP strategist unaffiliated with any campaign. “He was starting to build a bridge into establishment support,” Musser said. “That bridge has largely been demolished.”

But the harassment allegations, which Cain strongly denies, seem to have rallied some people to his side.

LaDonna Ryggs, Republican Party chairwoman in Spartanburg County, S.C., sees no reason to back away from Cain.

“You give me some substance to the questions and then we can talk,” Ryggs said early last week. On Friday, after the weeklong parade of news, Ryggs said nothing had changed.

Many Democrats, meanwhile, are delighted. They say the focus on Cain supports their contention that the GOP base is outside the mainstream and eager to back unprepared candidates with unworkable policies. These Democrats hope the controversy and Cain’s die-hard supporters will raise voters’ doubts about the entire Republican field, including Romney, the GOP establishment’s favorite.

“Herman Cain’s rise says a lot more about how slow the Republican Party has been to coalesce behind Mitt Romney than anything else,” said Bill Burton, a former spokesman for President Barack Obama.

New York-based Democratic consultant Rebecca Kirszner Katz said Cain’s support is the latest evidence of the Republican base’s conservative nature.

“Sarah Palin showed that large segments of the tea party Republican base will overlook anything as long as a candidate is ideologically pure,” Katz said in an email. “The good news for Democrats is that Republican candidates are going so far to the extreme on social issues” including abortion and family planning.

In next year’s showdown with Obama, Katz said, GOP candidates “are going to have a hard time winning back the national electorate.”

Cain has never held public office or been a military hero. Americans in modern times have never elected a president without one of those credentials. Should he win the nomination, let alone the presidency, it probably would rank as a bigger political upset than Obama winning the presidency only four years after leaving the Illinois legislature.

Both men are black. But Cain faces more barriers in the heavily white Republican Party.

The spotlight on Cain also serves as a reminder that Romney has been unable to pull away from a less-than-overwhelming field. He has been stuck at about 25 percent in the Republican polls, and now he’s running about even with a candidate with big problems.

But some Republican insiders see Cain’s travails as a two-edged sword for Romney. The longer Cain dominates political headlines, the harder it is for Perry — who many see as having the most resources and skills to challenge Romney — to get his campaign back on track.

Some prominent Republicans seem to be losing patience with the Cain distractions. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a former party chairman, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “people need to know what the facts are.” He said Cain should “get those out as quickly as possible.”

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, another presidential contender, said on the same program: “it’s up to Herman Cain to get the information out, and get it out in total.”

Cain said on Saturday he would speak no more about the allegations.

Georgia Republican Party Chairwoman Sue Everhart said Cain probably needs to have his anonymous accusers released from their confidentiality agreements with the National Restaurant Association if he wants the matter to go away.

“I think he has to completely put it behind him or it will continue to be a problem,” Everhart said. “He’s got to do the housekeeping duties and clean this up.”

Everhart has often worked in politics with Cain, who lives in Atlanta.

“He always gives me a big hug,” she said. “Otherwise I’d think he was mad at me. He’s very outgoing, and sometimes people don’t like to be touched.”

When the now-notorious lobbyist was a rising star as Republicans expanded their power in Washington, a concerned senior partner in his firm warned against his win-at-all-costs approach to business. “At the rate you’re going,” the boss said, “you’re either going to be dead, disgraced or in jail in five years.”

Abramoff writes in his autobiography, out Monday, that the line rang in his ears for the next decade, including the 3 1/2 years he spent in a federal penitentiary paying for his bribery of public officials and other crimes before his release last year.

The 52-year-old’s name has become a synonym for Washington corruption. The influence-peddling schemes he masterminded ultimately resulted in conviction of 20 people and changed federal lobbying laws.

But Abramoff says the reforms aren’t tough enough to keep special-interest power in check and, from his insider perspective, he lays out what more needs to be done.

He writes in “Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Washington Corruption from America’s Most Notorious Lobbyist” that there still are plenty of corrupt lobbying practices that are perfectly legal.

Abramoff is now out of the lobbying business, but the father of five has returned to the home he shares with his wife in the Washington suburb of Silver Spring, Md., and is promoting the book, including an interview airing Sunday on CBS’ “60 Minutes.” Authorities have said in court filings they are looking into using the book proceeds to help repay a $23 million restitution order to his victims.

Abramoff became a lobbyist in 1994 after the Republican takeover of Congress, when firms were eager to hire help with conservative credentials. Abramoff was the former two-term chairman of the College Republican National Committee and executive director of President Ronald Reagan’s grassroots lobbying organization, Citizens for America, and rode the Republican bandwagon of power in the House.

He was especially close to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. He writes that the two bonded over their adherence to religion; Abramoff is an orthodox Jew, DeLay a born-again Christian. Abramoff got his clients to donate generously to DeLay, helping build the No. 2 House Republican’s power and giving himself an ally in a high office.

He built relationships with other congressional offices by collecting campaign cash for those who helped his clients. He charged high fees, but they were his ultimate undoing. He often charged $150,000 a month instead of an industry standard closer to $10,000 a month. It’s a practice he defends in his book because of the results he says he delivered.

The Washington Post in 2004 began a Pulitzer Prize-winning series investigating the tens of millions of dollars that American Indian tribal clients were paying Abramoff and his business partner, former DeLay spokesman Michael Scanlon, who provided grassroots organizing services.

It eventually was revealed that the two men were secretly kicking back profits to one another worth more than $20 million, and the Justice Department pursued felony charges.

Both pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with an investigation that would lead to the conviction of other lobbyists on Abramoff’s team, congressional figures including Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Ney and officials in the Bush administration.

Many of the lobbyists were convicted for winning favors for their clients after taking public officials out for meals at fancy restaurants and giving them tickets to sporting events and concerts. He ran his own restaurant on Pennsylvania Ave. between the Capitol and the White House that became a hangout for Ney and other Hill figures. Abramoff had skyboxes at all the Washington area venues and says the firm acted like Ticketmaster to Capitol Hill. The reform law passed in response makes it illegal for lobbyists to give those gifts.

But Abramoff dismisses the reforms as toothless. He says there are more effective ways to get powerbrokers to do a client’s bidding, particularly political contributions that he says should be banned from lobbyists or anyone receiving federal contracts or otherwise benefiting from public funds.

“As a lobbyist, I thought it only natural and right that my clients should reward those members who saved them such substantial sums with generous contributions. This quid pro quo became one of the hallmarks of our lobbying efforts,” Abramoff writes.

“What I did not consider then, and never considered until I was sitting in prison, was that contributions from parties with an interest in legislation are really nothing but bribes. Sure, it’s legal for the most part. Sure, everyone in Washington does it. Sure, it’s the way the system works. It’s one of Washington’s dirty little secrets — but it’s bribery just the same.”

Abramoff says term limits would prevent lawmakers from getting too close to special interests. He also says lawmakers and their staff should be banned for life from working for any organization that lobbies.

The movement of congressional figures to lobbying is pervasive in Washington. The Internet site LegiStorm tracks those who move from the Hill to K Street, where many lobbying firms have offices, and says there have been 493 already this year.

Abramoff said he would often get access inside congressional offices by suggesting to key staffers that they come work for him when they were finished with their congressional careers.

“Assuming the staffer had any interest in leaving Capitol Hill for K Street — and almost 90 percent of them do — I would own him and, consequentially, the entire office,” Abramoff writes. “No rules had been broken, at least not yet. No one even knew what was happening, but suddenly, every move that staffer made, he made with his future at my firm in mind. His paycheck may have been signed by the Congress, but he was already working for me.”

The exposure of the Abramoff scandal became the subject of congressional hearings where Abramoff repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment Constitutional protection against incriminating himself and did not respond to questions. He writes in the book that most of the senators who were vilifying him were hypocrites who had taken thousands from his clients and firms.

“I stared stone-faced at (former Colorado Republican Sen. Benjamin Nighthorse) Campbell as he hurled invectives at me,” Abramoff writes. “I wondered how he’d react if I reminded him about the $25,000 in campaign checks I delivered to him during our breakfast meeting at posh Capitol Hill eatery La Colline the morning of April 23, 2002. I’ll never forget that breakfast. After I handed him the envelope full of campaign contributions, he let me know that my clients would be treated well by his Indian Affairs Committee.”

Former North Dakota Democratic Sen. “Byron Dorgan railed against the ‘cesspool of greed’ surrounding my practice,” Abramoff writes. “I guess it wasn’t a cesspool when he had his hand out to take over $75,000 in campaign contributions from our team and clients.”

Dorgan said in response that he’s never met Abramoff or received a campaign contribution from him.

“It’s not surprising he writes a book that criticizes those of us who led the investigation that sent him to prison,” Dorgan wrote in an email to the AP. “The record of our investigation exposed his corrupt behavior. He bilked Indian tribes out of tens of millions of dollars and he should be forever ashamed.

Campbell did not respond to a request for comment.

That’s when Mitt Romney, for example, emerges a few steps removed from the deeply conservative drift of the pack. Sure, he says constitutional abortion rights should be overturned. But unlike Michele Bachmann and some others, he’s not up for clashing with the current Supreme Court over it. Yes, he wants to sweep away regulations that interfere with business. But unlike the slashers and burners, he wants the rules to be “updated and modern,” not thrown as a heap in the trash.

Altogether, it’s a familiar pattern on the cusp of party primaries. The candidates play to their ideological base so hard that true differences among them are blurred. The presumed favorite caters to the same crowd without getting locked into positions that might prove a disadvantage with the broader and more moderate electorate next fall.

That pattern results in an array of positions that sound good to the true believers but have little or no chance of becoming law. And it can produce flat-out contradictions.

Witness Herman Cain’s assertions that no abortions should be allowed — and that the government has no business telling a woman she can’t have one. Or the position of several candidates that gay marriage should be outlawed in the Constitution — and that states should be allowed to legalize or prohibit it individually, a right they would not have if the Constitution were so amended.

For all the me-too-isms of the campaign, some ideas stand well apart.

Cain is alone in bringing a national sales tax to the table with his catchy 9-9-9 plan to replace existing federal taxes with a 9 percent charge on personal income, businesses and purchases. Jon Huntsman wants federal authorities — yes, the ones empowered by all those regulations — to become even more aggressive on one aspect of the energy industry, breaking what he sees as an oil-company monopoly in the nation’s fuel-distribution network to let natural gas compete more favorably.

And Ron Paul, ever the libertarian, proposes an evisceration of government and a disengagement from military obligations abroad that no others approach.

A look at a sampling of issues, what the candidates share and where they differ:

___

Health Care:

They all want to try to repeal Obama’s overhaul and most propose long-held GOP ideas to make insurance and care more affordable. Expansion of tax-advantaged medical savings accounts, limits on medical lawsuits and deregulation in the insurance industry to let policies be sold across state lines are common threads. None would require people to obtain health insurance, although Romney did just that as Massachusetts governor and Newt Gingrich once supported the idea.

Romney and Gingrich would, though, prohibit insurers from dropping or denying coverage to sick people, a key protection under Obama’s law, and they are among several candidates who would subsidize premiums through tax breaks or other means. No one lays out a fully developed plan marching the nation toward universal coverage; the priority is to get rid of “Obamacare.” Paul proposes an unfettered free-market system that he hopes would see doctors treating the needy for free.

___

Immigration:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry says the popular Republican campaign proposal to stretch a fence all along the 1,900-mile U.S.-Mexico border is “idiocy.” He joins others in wanting more border agents. Most of the candidates say they support the fence, although some sound half-hearted about it. Huntsman, for one, says a fence might be needed but it “to some extent repulses me.” The Republican field mostly opposes giving education benefits or other social services to the children of illegal immigrants; Perry defends Texas’s record of doing so.

___

Education:

Bachmann and Paul want to eliminate the Education Department; Gingrich and Rick Santorum would shrink it. Romney once supported closing the department but says he came to see the value of the federal government in “holding down the interests of the teachers’ unions.” The education overhaul of Republican President George W. Bush has no defenders in the field even though some supported it at the time.

___

Regulations:

Cutting regulations is a core economic plank of the candidates, especially environmental and energy rules that might constrain development. Some would go further than others. Paul would get rid of most of them — along with nearly half the federal government. Like his rivals, Romney would seek the repeal of the law toughening financial-industry regulations after the meltdown in that sector. But: “We don’t want to tell the world that Republicans are against all regulation. No, regulation is necessary to make a free market work. But it has to be updated and modern.”

___

Global warming:

Huntsman might be alone among the candidates in accepting the scientific evidence that humans contribute to global warming. Or, he might not be alone.

Romney declared earlier this year that “I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that.” But he since said, “My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet.”

Paul, too, has equivocated. In 2008, he said “human activity probably does play a role” in global warming and part of the solution should be to stop subsidizing the oil industry and let prices rise until the free market turns to alternate energy sources. Now he calls the science on manmade global warming a “hoax.” That puts him in line with Cain (“poppycock”), Santorum (“junk science”) and Perry (“scientific theory that has not been proven”), among others.

___

Taxes:

Two optional flat taxes are in the mix: Perry proposes 20 percent on income for those who want an alternative to the current system; Gingrich proposes 15 percent. Both would preserve mortgage-interest and charitable deductions. Romney works within the existing tax code in proposing that no one with adjusted gross income under $200,000 should be taxed on interest, dividends or capital gains. Apart from Paul, who wants to eliminate the income tax and much of the government, no one has stepped further from the tax code than Cain with his 9 percent rates. Contenders agree that Bush-era tax cuts should continue to be extended, corporate taxes should be substantially lowered and the estate tax eliminated.

___

Abortion:

Romney says: “I would live within the law, within the Constitution as I understand it, without creating a constitutional crisis. But I do believe Roe v. Wade should be reversed to allow states to make that decision.” His bottom line appears to be that states should decide on the legality of abortion. That means the Supreme Court decision affirming abortion rights would have to be overturned by a future court made up of however many justices he could nominate and get confirmed as president. That position is a considerable step short of seeking a constitutional abortion ban, which would allow for no such leeway by the states. But his position on abortion has changed over the years and still does not seem set in stone.

Bachmann, in contrast, has strongly backed state “personhood” initiatives that, if made law, would almost certainly be confronted with a constitutional challenge and she has spoken of using other means, including federal legislation, to try to take on the status quo on abortion.

Perry, too, has modified his position. He now supports a constitutional abortion ban after saying states should decide their own laws on such issues.

Europe’s markets and government, however, remained cautious that the power deal would resolve the country’s political turmoil and alleviate concerns over Greece’s membership of the euro.

Socialist Prime Minister George Papandreou and conservative leader Antonis Samaras are to hold fresh talks to hammer out the composition of the new 15-week government, which will be tasked with passing the euro130 billion ($179 billion) package from the country’s international creditors before elections.

Former European Central Bank vice president Lucas Papademos is being tipped as the most likely new head of the government that would serve until a Feb. 19 general election.

Officials in Greece’s two main political parties have confirmed that the 64-year-old former central banker is a candidate though there’s no indication yet he would want the job, for however short a period.

None of the people being considered have been announced publicly.

Papandreou and Samaras agreed on the interim coalition late Sunday under mounting international pressure for cross-party acceptance of the deal following a week of turmoil in the markets as investors fretted over a disorderly Greek default and the country’s possible exit from the euro.

As part of the deal, Papandreou agreed to step down halfway through his four-year term. Elected after a landslide victory a little over two years ago, Papandreou’s stock took a big battering last week after his call for a referendum on Greece’s latest rescue package, that was agreed less than two weeks ago.

Though the referendum pledge was pulled after Greece’s main conservative opposition said it agreed to the broad outlines of the rescue deal, markets remain in a jittery state, especially as the country needs the next batch of bailout cash within weeks to pay off debts.

“There are cool-headed people in both parties,” Justice Minister Miltiadis Papaioannou told private Antenna television. “This was not a card game; it was about keeping the country on its feet.”

Senior conservative officials conceded they had come under strong pressure from European Union officials before withdrawing their demand for an immediate general election.”

All European markets have opened sharply lower Monday, though shares on the Athens Stock Exchange bucked the trend, trading 2 percent higher.

European governments also remained cautious as they awaited developments on the composition of Greece’s new government. Finance ministers from the 17 eurozone countries are due to meet later in Brussels, and will be awaiting an update from Greece’s Evangelos Venizelos.

“What is clear is that the European partners are becoming more and more intransigent with Greece and they will want evidence of concrete advances on Monday evening,” said Silvio Peruzzo, an analyst at Royal Bank of Scotland.

Germany’s vice chancellor Philipp Roesler again warned Greece not to delay in pushing through reforms.

“The Greeks themselves have the choice: reforms in the eurozone or no reforms, and out. There is no third way,” he told the popular German daily Bild

Frustrated with Greece’s protracted political disagreements, the country’s creditors have threatened to withhold the next critical euro8 billion ($11 billion) loan installment until the new debt deal is formally approved in Greece.

Greece is surviving on a euro110 billion ($150 billion) rescue-loan program from eurozone partners and the International Monetary Fund. The new government’s main task is to push through the second euro130 billion deal, that involves private creditors agreeing to cancel 50 percent of their Greek debt.

Punishing austerity imposed in exchange for the rescue loans, brought Papandreou’s government to its knees. Its efforts to keep the country solvent have prompted violent protests, crippling strikes and a sharp decline in living standards for most Greeks.

“I don’t expect anything,” Athens resident Stavros Stournaras said for the new political agreement. “When people truly go hungry and there’s an uprising, then things will change.”

The official said that heavy fighting between government forces and al-Qaida-linked militants continued until the early hours of Monday. He said several members of the security forces were injured, but he did not say how many.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

Security has collapsed across the Arab world’s poorest country during the nine-month popular uprising seeking to oust President Ali Abdullah Saleh. This has allowed militants to seize entire towns in the country’s rebellious south.

A state-run newspaper criticized the outpouring and warned it could be illegal.

The donation campaign — also in the form of wire transfers and cash stuffed in envelopes or wrapped around fruit that is thrown into his yard — is rare for Chinese dissidents because of the threat of retaliation that comes with supporting high-profile government critics.

Nearly 20,000 people have sent more than 5.3 million yuan ($840,000), Ai said, since he announced a week ago that the Beijing tax bureau was demanding that he pay 15 million yuan ($2.4 million) in back taxes and fines.

“This shows that a group of people who want to express their views are using their money to cast their votes,” Ai told The Associated Press. “It shows that in the Internet age, society will have its own judgment and its own values. People are using these methods to re-examine the accusation that I evaded taxes.”

Ai, an internationally acclaimed conceptual artist, was detained for nearly three months earlier this year amid an overall crackdown on dissent, setting off concern well beyond the arts circles and civil rights community in which he is well-known. The detention and subsequent claims of tax evasion have been interpreted by activists as a way to punish him for his often-outspoken criticism of the authoritarian government.

Ai said that he would not treat the money from supporters as donations, but as loans that he would repay.

Liu Yanping, a volunteer at Ai’s Beijing Fake Cultural Development Ltd. design company, said many of the donations have been accompanied by messages of support, including “Brother, let me be your creditor,” and “The whole family has been mobilized, everyone will be creditors,” Liu said. Other messages were poetic: “Walk toward the light, the darkness will pass,” wrote one supporter.

One donor, feminist scholar Ai Xiaoming, described her donation as “a form of support as well as an appeal.” She declined to reveal the size of her contribution.

“Everyone can clearly see how the whole process of accusing Ai Weiwei of tax evasion has not been transparent or fair,” said Ai, who is based in the southern city of Guangzhou.

Ai the artist has demanded that police return the account books police seized from his studio when they detained him and that they allow him to meet with his former office manager and accountant.

Calls to the local tax bureau rang unanswered. In a commentary Monday, the state-run Global Times cited unnamed experts as saying Ai could be suspected of “illegal fundraising.” It also said the movement did not represent the larger Chinese population.

“It is absolutely normal for a certain number of people to show their support for him with donations. But these people are an extremely small number when compared with China’s total population,” said the commentary that was published in both the newspaper’s Chinese and English editions. “Ai’s political preference along with his supporters’ cannot stand for the mainstream public, which is opposed to radical and confrontational political stances.”

The newspaper also asked if Ai really needed to borrow money to pay off the tax bill. The internationally known artist has shown his work in London, New York and Berlin and has earned huge sums selling his work at auctions and through galleries.

“Yes, I am very wealthy, but this is a separate issue,” Ai said of the newspaper’s criticism. “I have said that I will repay every cent of the loans. One person’s innocence is tied together to a country’s innocence. I’m not doing this to profit myself.”

Ortega, the incumbent and heavy favorite, had 66 percent of the votes compared to 25 percent for his nearest challenger, Fabio Gadea. Conservative Arnoldo Aleman, a former president, was a distant third with 7 percent.

The result came with roughly 7 percent of the votes counted, but electoral council President Roberto Rivas said a quick count representative of the entire vote gave Ortega a large advantage as well. The methodology of the quick count was not immediately available, however.

The ruling Sandinista party declared victory and caravans of thousands of supporters flooded the streets shouting “Daniel! Daniel!”

International election observers reported problems with access to voting stations and with one national group of observers, Let’s Have Democracy, reporting 600 complaints of voting irregularities, a handful of injuries in protests and 30 arrests.

The head of the Organization of American States observer mission, Dante Caputo, said its observers were been denied access to 10 polling stations, which would account for 20 percent of the statistical material they had planned to collect for their analysis.

“They have prevented our people from being there at the precise moment they should have been there and that is not remediable and will affect our ability to do our jobs,” Caputo said. “We are navigating without radar.”

The European Union said some of its teams also had problems but that they eventually were resolved and they were allowed access, according Luis Yanis, head of the mission.

The Ortega government, meanwhile, reported smooth voting in 90 percent of the country.

“We have seen a civil day of voting,” Rivas said during a news conference, emphasizing the lack of violence and calling it the cleanest Nicaraguan election had had observed in recent years.

Gadea, who went into election day trailing Ortega in the polls by 18 points, thanked voters in a brief press conference for coming out en masse.

“The attempt to discourage voting and create difficulties has failed,” said Gadea of the Liberal Independent Party. “No one or nothing will alter the will of the people.”

Since returning to power in 2007, the 65-year-old Ortega has boosted his popularity in Central America’s poorest country with a combination of pork-barrel populism and support for the free-market economy he once opposed.

He seeks a third term — his second consecutive one — after the Sandinista majority on the Supreme Court overruled the term limits set by the Nicaraguan constitution.

His opponents fear that if he wins more than 50 percent of the vote, it will allow him to change the constitution to run in perpetuity.

The independent Let’s Have Democracy reported problems in various municipalities located between 50 and 70 miles outside of the capital of Managua. Besides injuries and arrests, observers reported a polling place set on fire, election officials obstructing voters from opposing parties and protests by voters who didn’t receive their credentials.

The sporadic incidents didn’t seem widespread enough to throw the official results into question. But it was unclear whether the OAS would question the results because of lack of access to polling stations.

Claims of widespread fraud in the 2008 municipal elections led Washington to cancel $62 million in development aid.

Nicaragua’s 2006 election drew more than 18,000 observers. This time election observation is much more difficult and local observers were denied credentials. The OAS and the European Union negotiated access to Sunday’s vote, but the Georgia-based Carter Center decided not to observe because of the restrictions.

Ortega led the Sandinista movement that overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979, and withstood a concerted effort by the U.S. government, which viewed him as a Soviet-backed threat, to oust him through a rebel force called the Contras.

The fiery, mustachioed leftist ruled through a junta, then was elected in 1984 but was defeated after one term in 1990. After two more failed runs, he softened his rhetoric, took a free-market stance, and regained the presidency in the 2006 election.

If the left seemed to be rolling in Nicaragua on Sunday, a right-wing former general promising to get tough on rampant crime won presidential elections in the fellow Central American nation of Guatemala.

Otto Perez Molina of the conservative Patriotic Party won 55 percent of the vote, topping tycoon-turned-political populist Manuel Baldizon of the Democratic Freedom Revival party, who had 45 percent.

Perez, 61, is the first former military leader elected president in Guatemala in the 25 years after the end of brutal military rule. While that concerns some international groups, Guatemala has a young population, and many don’t remember the war.

Witnesses say hundreds of villages were obliterated by the army’s scorched-earth policy. Perez has said there were no massacres or genocide. He has never been charged with any atrocities and was one of the army’s chief representatives in negotiating the 1996 peace accords.

Outgoing center-left President Alvaro Colom, who can’t run for re-election, urged both sides to respect the results.

More than half of Guatemalans live in poverty in a nation 14 million overrun by organized crime and Mexican drug cartels. The country has one of the highest murder rates in the world, a product of gang and cartel violence, along with the legacy of its 1960-1996 civil war in which the army, police and paramilitary are blamed for killed the vast majority of 200,000 victims — most of whom were Mayan.

“Right now, we’ve been given the ultimatum, and our answer is that’s not acceptable to us,” union president Derek Fisher said.

But the next proposal promises to be worse, surely moving players and owners even further apart and threatening to destroy the season.

Early Sunday morning, the league said it offered players up to 51 percent of basketball-related income — a figure the union insists is fiction. Regardless, it will drop to 47 percent Wednesday if players don’t accept the current offer by the league-imposed deadline.

No agreement by the deadline likely will trigger more calls to disband the union and take on the league in court, a battle that would take months.

“It’s fair to say that there are some who believe a vote to decertify is a vote to end the season,” said a person familiar with the owners’ thinking who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks. “The owners are hopeful that the players have a chance to vote on what is on the table, what’s proposed now, because no one knows what happens next.”

Players don’t seem eager to act quickly.

“These are professional basketball players, the finest athletes in the world. How do you think they feel about threats? How do you think they feel about efforts at intimidation?” attorney Jeffrey Kessler said.

Fisher and Kessler said the league’s time-sensitive deal — Stern refused to call it an ultimatum — came near the conclusion of Saturday’s talks.

At a charity basketball game in Portland, Ore., on Sunday night, Kevin Durant expressed frustration with the stalemate.

“Sickening, man, just sickening,” the Oklahoma City star said. “Us, as players, we sacrificed, we gave up money, we did what we had to do, now it’s up to the owners, and it looks like they’re not going to give in. At this point now, it’s starting to get bad, because we’ve done all we can do, I think. They’re trying to pressure us and back us in a corner. If they’re going to do that, it’s not fair. We’re going to stand firm.”

The sides had hoped they could complete a deal this weekend with the help of federal mediator George Cohen. He released a statement Sunday commending the parties for “their willingness to examine solutions to their current dispute” and offering to assist in the future.

Although the revenue gap has narrowed, the sides are at a standstill on the system issues players insist are just as important.

The union believes the league’s proposals to increase luxury tax penalties, and eliminate or reduce some spending options, essentially would prevent the biggest-spending teams from being free agent options. A “repeater tax” would further punish teams that were taxpayers a fourth time in a five-year span, and players fear the penalty that awaits teams who receive money from the tax pool but suddenly take on salary and go into the tax would discourage spending.

“The big story here is they want it all,” Kessler said. “They want the system where taxpayers will never be in the marketplace, and that for repeat taxpayers it’s going to be like a hard salary cap. And those deals are not acceptable for players today; it’s not acceptable for future generations of players. I said, this is an example of they want a win, win, win, win. We wanted to compromise. They’re not giving the players a lot of choice.”

Though each side claimed credit for economic moves, it appears there was little to no progress.

Stern said the league proposed a band where players could earn anywhere from 49 percent to 51 percent of BRI, based on revenue growth. Union officials said there was almost no way they could get to the ceiling, leaving them right at the 50-50 split owners have said they wouldn’t go past.

Players added they were the ones who were willing to reduce their guarantee down to 51 percent, with 1 percent of that going into a fund for retired player benefits, a move one person familiar with their thinking said was made in hopes of “preserving some of a system that’s already being gutted.”

Stern said he believed he could get owners to pass the current proposal, even though some hard-liners would prefer a 53-47 split in their favor immediately. That would be in the next proposal, along with a call for a flex salary cap, which players rejected in June before the lockout began.

But Stern said they’re ready to go with the one that was put on the table Sunday.

“Well, they certainly would come closer than our current system,” he said. “They’re, I think, the best we could do at this time. So we’re prepared to live by them if they’re accepted by the players.”

With the union unwilling to take the latest proposal to its members for a vote, both sides also must be prepared to live with the real possibility of the loss of more games and possibly the season.

Five plays after a sure scoring strike tipped off his fingers, the Baltimore rookie receiver held onto a 26-yard touchdown pass from Joe Flacco with 8 seconds remaining to lift the Ravens past the Pittsburgh Steelers 23-20 on Sunday night.

“For him to keep coming back to me, that meant a lot,” Smith said.

Smith also was flagged for a costly penalty on the game’s first play, negating Ray Rice’s long touchdown run. But he capped Baltimore’s game-winning 92-yard drive by beating William Gay down the right sideline as the Ravens (6-2) snapped Pittsburgh’s four-game winning streak.

Flacco finished with 300 yards passing and Baltimore swept the season series from the rival Steelers (6-3) for the first time since 2006.

“Don’t be fooled, we’ll see them again in January,” Baltimore linebacker Terrell Suggs said. “This is the only team in the world that can play like we play and match us blow for blow.”

The Steelers appeared to be in control after rallying from a 10-point deficit to take a 20-16 lead with less than 5 minutes to go when Ben Roethlisberger hit Mike Wallace for a 25-yard score.

Pittsburgh’s defense held once and the Steelers moved in range for Shaun Suisham to attempt a 47-yard field goal that could have pushed their lead to seven.

A delay of game penalty, however, pushed Pittsburgh back five yards and the Steelers opted to punt.

“I accept responsibility for that,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said. “There was some hesitation on my part.”

Flacco, who fumbled midway through the fourth quarter to set up Roethlisberger’s strike to Wallace, atoned during a brilliant 13-play drive.

He converted a fourth-and-1 at the Pittsburgh 49 with less than a minute to go to keep Baltimore’s hopes alive and Smith made up for a drop with the biggest play of his young career.

The Steelers got the ball back with 8 seconds left but Antonio Brown fumbled a lateral from Wallace and the Ravens poured onto the Heinz Field turf in celebration.

It was sweet vindication for the Ravens, who watched two of their three previous seasons end on the same field.

With one dramatic play, Baltimore ended Pittsburgh’s surge and moved into a tie with Cincinnati atop the AFC North.

Flacco, who had come under fire from his teammates for inconsistent play, completed 28 of 47 passes and kept his head late after spending much of the second half trying to avoid Pittsburgh linebacker James Harrison.

The All-Pro sacked Flacco three times in his first game back after missing a month with a fractured orbital bone around his right eye, but Pittsburgh’s pass rush disappeared on Baltimore’s final drive.

The Steelers trailed by 10 going into the fourth quarter but put together an impressive rally. Rashard Mendenhall scored from 1 yard out to pull Pittsburgh within 16-13 and Harrison swatted the ball out of Flacco’s hand on Baltimore’s next possession.

Gay recovered and Roethlisberger put the Steelers in front when he rolled right to avoid pressure and threw in the direction of Brown. Wallace streaked in front of his teammate for the score and Pittsburgh appeared to be on its way to avenging a 28-point loss to the Ravens in the season opener.

Roethlisberger finished with 330 yards passing to become the first Pittsburgh quarterback to top 300 in three consecutive games, but the Steelers’ defense couldn’t contain Flacco at the end.

Pittsburgh vowed it was a better team than the one the Ravens routed in the opener, a whipping so decisive Suggs joked he “owned” Roethlisberger after sacking him three times.

Suggs backed off his claim — a little anyway — in the run-up to the rematch, saying “no man owns another, but if any one man can take Roethlisberger down, it’s me” during the week.

Suggs did just that, only he did it with his head, not his hands. The All-Pro outside linebacker picked off Roethlisberger’s pass in the third quarter to preserve a 9-6 Baltimore lead. A dozen plays later, Rice darted in from 4 yards out to put the Ravens up 16-6.

Yet the NFL’s best defense couldn’t make it hold up, though for once Flacco bailed the defense out in a relationship that’s often been vice versa.

The Steelers spent the last two months slowly recovering from the beatdown in the opener and appeared to be back to their old selves during an emphatic 25-17 win over New England a week ago, their fourth straight victory.

The Ravens have been more of a mixed bag, solid one game, so-so the next. They needed a furious rally to get past Arizona a week ago to avoid their second straight loss, perhaps because they were caught looking ahead.

The Ravens had a 76-yard touchdown run by Rice on the game’s first play wiped out by a holding penalty on Smith. The reprieve seemed to wake up Pittsburgh’s defense, and the two teams settled into the kind of hard-hitting defensive struggle that’s become the hallmark of one of the league’s fiercest rivalries.

The Steelers lost wide receiver Hines Ward in the second quarter when he went down with a stinger after getting hit by Ray Lewis, leaving Pittsburgh with just three healthy wideouts for the rest of the game.

Pittsburgh’s Ryan Clark was flagged for unnecessary roughness on Baltimore’s final drive of the first half after drilling Baltimore’s Ed Dickson. The penalty helped the Ravens get close enough for Billy Cundiff to drill a season-long 51-yard field goal as time expired to put the Ravens up 9-6 at the break.