Tough Times: What to Do When You Feel Everything Is Falling Apart

In tough times when it feels like everything is falling apart, we look for meaning. We are often dragged down to our rock-bottom and search for ways to climb back up; to get back to what we know matters most - our health, well-being and happiness, our family and friends, and making a difference where a difference needs to be made. The problem is that we are so frequently beat up by the negativity in the world, and the pressures we put on ourselves, that we don't have a clue about where to start. Yet, the simple truth is that pulling your bootstraps up and getting back on track to living a full and happy life starts with you!

How can you pull out of being a victim and get back to living a full and happy life?

First, establish what is and is not important in your life. Love, family, relationship, purpose, and compassion - these are what's important. What is not important is the car you drive, where you live, or the balance of your savings account! Money and things can't hug us. Only people can.

Second, get committed to taking care of you first. Being a forward and positive thinker requires you to have your batteries charged. To shake off negativity and be ready to take the world on, you have got to be mentally and physically rested, and you won't be if you aren't taking care of yourself. You ask, "What about my family? What about my boss/employees?" Taking the time to take care of you first, will give you the energy and passion you need to take care of others in your life. Think about it: When are you most productive? When you are happy and rested or when you are worn out and feeling down in the dumps?

Third, have a written plan for where you want to go and how you are going to get there. Without a written plan that spells out where you want to go, what you want to achieve, or the difference you want to make on this planet (and the dates by when you will make it all happen) you won't get there, or you will be so tired when you do get there that you won't be able to enjoy it!

Fourth, build an accountability team. We are all creatures of habit, and without a team holding us accountable for taking care of ourselves first we easily slip back into old habits. Ask your team - your spouse/significant other, siblings, children, co-workers - to hold you accountable for taking care of you and for following your plan.

Fifth, be in action in your own behalf. If you see something you don't like, you have got to be willing to 1) do something about it or 2) stop complaining. Remember: the only way a mouse in the house gets away with cleaning out the pantry is when the owner shrugs their shoulders and says: "There isn't anything I can do!"

Pulling up your bootstraps and creating happiness, is really nothing more than making a choice to get off the ground, move forward positively, and create your own happiness. If there were a happy pill, I would give it to every single person on the planet. Yet, there is something about the sometimes elusive nature of happiness and contentment that makes me think happiness is just that much more "happy" when we actually choose it, appreciate it and work for it.

So, choose to take care of you. Choose to be positive even when the world around you is being negative. Choose to be in action! You, your family, your business/employees/co-workers, your neighbors, and the world in general need people who will stand up and choose happiness! What do you choose?

A well-known executive business coach, Clay Nelson is no ordinary, fly-by night, new-to-the-game coach! Clay Nelson has been coaching executives for over 30 years. Coaching from the core fact that growing people is the key to growing any business, Clay has helped countless business executives and their teams come together to not just improve their businesses, but to improve their lives. Clay's personal life experience, years of coaching, and his natural abilities to motivate, teach, and develop leaders is what makes him stand apart as a leader in the field... committed to making a difference wherever a difference needs to be made.

Clay Nelson is also a well-regarded motivational and educational speaker, providing outstanding programs customized to the audiences he is speaking with. Able to speak on any number of topics within his noted specialties, Clay Nelson is known for moving audiences from the status quo to action as they create the businesses and lives they say they want to have.

For more information go to: http://www.claynelsonlifebalance.com/

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Proposing pay freeze, Obama aims to seize initiative on economy - Los Angeles Times

 President Obama aimed to undercut Republicans, who had been preparing their own proposal to cut federal pay next year. (Pool Photo, Getty Images / November 29, 2010)
President Obama's proposal on Monday to freeze federal workers' pay was an unexpected announcement that represented the first in a series of White House moves to seize the initiative from Republicans on the economy.
The preemptive move was timed to precede a White House meeting Tuesday with congressional leaders on the subject of expiring George W. Bush-era tax cuts, and came just days before a final report from Obama's fiscal commission on how to shrink the federal deficit.
"The hard truth is that getting this deficit under control is going to require broad sacrifice," Obama said from the White House. "And that sacrifice must be shared by the employees of the federal government."
By proposing the two-year freeze, Obama sought to stake his own claim to the argument that government must make tough decisions. A senior administration official said Obama's proposal is part of a larger plan to draw Republicans into an overdue conversation about deficits.
The move would save about $5 billion over two years, the White House said — a substantial sum, though a mere sliver of the $1.3-trillion federal deficit.
Republicans gained dozens of seats in the House and Senate in part by targeting what they characterized as out-of-control federal spending.
Federal workers became a favorite campaign target of Republicans, who argued that the Washington payroll had swelled as private workers nationwide suffered job losses during the recession. Republicans have pressed for even steeper cuts to federal workers' pay.
"As the recent election made clear, Americans are fed up with a government that spends too much, borrows too much and grows too much," said Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the incoming House majority leader. "With so many Americans tightening their belts, Washington must do the same."
But Obama, by echoing a GOP theme in an effort to undercut Republicans, has angered many of his allies who complained that by cutting federal workers' pay, Obama was giving up something for nothing.
"No one is served by our government participating in a 'race to the bottom' in wages," said Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO. "The president talked about the need for shared sacrifice, but there's nothing shared about Wall Street and CEOs making record profits and bonuses while working people bear the brunt."
The freeze, which would not apply to military personnel or postal workers, would affect about 2 million employees. Congressional approval would be needed for the proposal to take effect.
Excluding military and postal workers, there are about 250,000 federal employees in the Washington area and 150,000 in California, which has the highest concentration outside Washington, according to Office of Personnel Management figures.
Republicans, who had been preparing their own plan to slash federal pay and the workforce next year, said the proposal was long overdue. But some of the president's allies chided him for taking a symbolic step that they said would do little to affect the trajectory of federal spending, but would harm household budgets.
Congress reconvenes this week for a lame-duck session to confront a series of crucial deadlines. The Bush-era tax cuts lapse at the end of the year, and unemployment benefits will be cut off starting Wednesday, leaving up to 2 million jobless Americans without aid through the holidays.
Lawmakers are at a stalemate over the tax cuts. Republicans want to extend them to all households, including those with incomes above $250,000 annually, despite the $700-billion additional cost.
In Tuesday's meeting with congressional leaders, Obama will continue to push for making permanent only the tax cuts on those households earning below $250,000 annually.
"We simply cannot afford to borrow $700 billion to extend the tax cuts of those who make $1 million or $1 billion a year, or make in excess of $250,000 a year," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said. "We can't have an honest discussion about our debts and our deficits without understanding what those decisions mean in the short term and in the long term."
The pay cut proposal, along with Obama's embrace of earmark reform — another Republican priority to limit the special projects lawmakers designate for their home states, which is scheduled for a Senate vote Tuesday — is the kind of budget-cutting that deficit hawks see as more style than substance.
"Whether in earmark reform or freezing the pay of federal workers, the debate hasn't moved on to the big issues that need to be confronted," said Robert Bixby, executive director of the nonpartisan Concord Coalition, which advocates deficit reduction.
Even Obama's allies on Capitol Hill reacted with concern. Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), the House majority leader, delicately critiqued the president's proposal.
"Because meaningful deficit reduction cannot be achieved through a piecemeal approach to trimming federal spending, I am hopeful that the administration will propose a comprehensive and serious program for deficit reduction that recognizes the need for a comprehensive approach," he said.
The president froze salaries for all senior White House officials upon taking office. In last year's budget, he proposed extending that freeze to other top political appointees.
In the White House meeting on tax cuts, aides say they are not expecting agreement, but rather view the session as the first of several meetings on the subject.
In a telling change to the schedule, the get-together originally scheduled as a dinner is now set to be a more abbreviated business meeting in the morning.
"One of the most important things the president can do is send a message to the American people that he will not be the obstacle to bipartisan politics," said William Galston, a former Clinton administration official who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "He wins by taking the first step."
lisa.mascaro@latimes.com
cparsons@latimes.com
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Wall Street Falls After Ireland Receives a Bailout - New York Times

Wall Street indexes fell on Monday, following the lead of European exchanges, as enthusiasm over a plan to bailout Ireland started to wane and traders began to worry about the problem spreading.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 93.35 points, or 0.83 percent, while the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index fell 8.22 points or 0.69 percent. The technology-heavy Nasdaq dropped 3.43 points, or 0.13 percent. On Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.2 percent, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 0.3 percent.

Shares on European exchanges lost their momentum in afternoon trading on Monday after initially opening higher. The Euro Stoxx 50 index, a barometer of euro zone blue chips, lost 1 percent, while the FTSE 100 index in London also dropped 0.7 percent. The CAC 40 in Paris was 0.81 lower, and the DAX in Frankfurt was down 0.11 percent.

The euro, which initially strengthened against the dollar, also slipped as traders began to worry whether other European countries would need some assistance.

“News that the Irish government were going to accept assistance with a debt bailout package certainly gave traders something to cheer about at the start of the week, but there seems to be a creeping realization that this won’t necessarily mark the end of the euro zone sovereign debt crisis,” Will Hedden, a sales trader at IG Index, told The Associated Press.

Ireland’s rescue package, which several European officials said would be worth 80 billion to 90 billion euros, or $109 billion to $123 billion, was made necessary by soaring borrowing costs for the Irish government and ebbing confidence in the country’s troubled banks. Just over six months ago, officials worked out a similar package to aid Greece amid fears that the problems of the euro-zone “periphery” could undermine the common currency.

Although the deal was inevitable, “there are still hurdles ahead for other countries, particularly next year,” Nick Stamenkovic, rate strategist at RIA Capital Markets, told Reuters. Those other countries include Portugal and Spain.

Ireland’s request spurred some concern among traders that Portugal and Spain may also need help in repaying their debts.

Bond prices reacted mildly to the Irish bailout news, which had been expected since last week. The Irish 10-year yield fell 18 basis points, but — at 7.73 percent — still carried a hefty premium to the comparable German bond, the European benchmark, which ticked up 2 basis points to 2.72 percent. The yield on Greek bonds was 11.5 percent.

The dollar fell against other major currencies in early trading in Europe, and then recovered lost ground in the afternoon. The euro, at $1.3672, and the British pound, at $1.5979, were both down slightly. The dollar slipped to 83.46 yen from 83.55 yen, and to $0.9893 Swiss francs from $0.9923 francs.

Asian shares were mostly stronger. The Tokyo benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average rose 0.9 percent. The main Sydney market index, the S.&P./ASX 200, rose 0.3 percent. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index fell 0.4 percent as the Shanghai composite index fell 0.2 percent.

Crude oil futures for January delivery rose 35 cents to $82.33 a barrel. Comex gold rose $8.90 to $1,361.20 an ounce.

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Obama pushes Senate to approve START treaty now, not later - Los Angeles Times

President Obama on Thursday called the new START treaty with Russia a "national security imperative," ramping up pressure on the Senate to ratify it during the lame-duck session.

Obama joined a meeting in the White House hosted by Vice President Biden that included former secretaries of State and Defense and the chair and ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to make his case.

He said it was a "gamble" to put off a Senate vote, as some Republicans have asked for, calling the treaty a "cornerstone of our relationship with Russia."

"This is not a matter that can be delayed," Obama said. "This is not about politics."

Sen. Jon Kyl, a Republican from Arizona, said earlier this week that he did not think a vote on the treaty could be supported "given the combination of other work Congress must do and the complex and unresolved issues related to START and modernization" of U.S. nuclear weapons systems.

Obama said Thursday that he was prepared "to go the extra mile" to address those concerns, adding that the treaty has been vetted with 18 hearings, multiple briefings and support from military leadership.

"The stakes for American national security are clear, and they are high," he said. "We can't jeopardize the progress that we've made in securing vulnerable nuclear materials, or in maintaining a strong sanctions regime against Iran."

Asked if he thought he could find the 67 votes in the Senate needed to ratify the treaty, Obama said he was confident.

"Keep in mind that every president since Ronald Reagan has presented an arms treaty with Russia and been able to get ratification," he said.

Sen. John Kerry, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, said earlier Thursday that Republicans "ought to be unbelievably happy with what the president has offered."

"In my judgment, this treaty ought to be able to win with significant votes," Kerry said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "We have to cross the divide here, and this is the first step to prove to the American people that we can work together and get something done."

mmemoli@tribune.com

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Terror Verdict Tests Obama's Strategy on Trials - New York Times

Ahmed Ghailani will face between 20 years and life in prison as a result of his conviction on one charge related to the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa. But because a jury acquitted him on more than 280 other charges — including every count of murder — critics of the Obama administration’s strategy on detainees said the verdict proved that civilian courts could not be trusted to handle the prosecution of Al Qaeda terrorists.

“This is a tragic wake-up call to the Obama Administration to immediately abandon its ill-advised plan to try Guantanamo terrorists” in federal civilian courts, said Representative Peter King, Republican of New York. “We must treat them as wartime enemies and try them in military commissions at Guantanamo.”

Adding political force of such criticism, Mr. King is set to become the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee in January, and he promised to use oversight hearings to pressure the administration over its handling of terrorism trials.

Several other soon-to-be-powerful Republican lawmakers — including Lamar Smith of Texas, in the incoming Judiciary Committee chairman — made similar statements denouncing the use of civilian courts to prosecute terrorism cases.

But the Obama administration rejected portrayals of the verdict as a disaster. In a statement, Matthew Miller, a Justice Department spokesman, said the administration was “pleased” that Mr. Ghailani would face a lengthy prison sentence because of his role in the embassy bombings.

Several officials were reluctant to speak openly about the case because Judge Kaplan has not yet handed down a sentence. But privately, several officials expressed frustration at the reasoning behind the criticism. Even if the sentence is just 20 years, it will be longer than most of the terms handed down by the military commission system to date, they said. And they noted that the reason some Guantánamo cases are hard to prosecute is that under the Bush administration, evidence was obtained by coercion, creating a problem for prosecutors regardless of the legal venue.

Mason Clutter, the counsel of the Rule of Law Program at the Constitution Project, a bipartisan nonprofit group that supports civilian trials for Guantánamo detainees, also noted that Mr. Ghailani will have far fewer arguments to make in appealing his conviction than he would have if he had been tried by a military commission.

“The system worked here,” she said. “I don’t think we judge success based on the number of convictions that were received. I think we judge success based on fair prosecutions consistent with the Constitution and the rule of law.”

Ms. Clutter also noted that most of the usual arguments that proponents of military tribunals make about the risk of civilian trials — like extreme security costs, grandstanding by the defendant, and the disclosure of classified information — did not happen in the Ghailani case.

Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, said late Wednesday that his office would seek a life sentence for Mr. Ghailani.

The jury did not explain its verdict, which seemed contradictory: it convicted Mr. Ghailani of conspiring to blow up the buildings, but acquitted him of conspiring to murder the people inside the buildings. Some legal observers speculated that it might have been a brokered deal among the jury, after signs this week that one of the 12 members had been holding out for a different result than the other 11.

Moreover, many observers attributed any weakness to the prosecution’s case to the fact that the Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the trial, refused to allow prosecutors to introduce testimony from an important witness apparently because investigators discovered the man’s existence after interrogators used abusive and coercive techniques on Mr. Ghailani.

Much of the criticism of the verdict was premised on the idea that such evidence would have been admissible in a commission trial. Mr. Smith, for example, pointed to the exclusion of that evidence as undercutting the idea that foreign terrorists “can be adequately tried in civilian courts.”

“The judge in this case, applying constitutional and legal standards to which all U.S. citizens are entitled, threw out important evidence,” he said. “The result is that the jury acquitted on all but one conspiracy count.”

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Rep. Charles Rangel walks out of his own ethics hearing - Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — The long-awaited congressional ethics hearing for New York Rep. Charles Rangel proceeded without him Monday morning after the Harlem Democrat walked out of the proceeding, saying he did not have legal representation.

In a tense exchange with members of a subcommittee of the House ethics panel, Rangel complained that the two-year investigation into whether he had failed to report sources of income, among the 13 alleged violations, caused him to rack up a legal tab of nearly $2 million. His lawyers warned the hearing could cost another $1 million. After he was unable to convince them that he would be able to pay, they withdrew as his representatives earlier this fall, Rangel said.

Rangel said he had not had time to raise money through a legal defense fund to hire new attorneys. He said it was not fair to ask him to continue without representation just so the committee could finish the hearing before the end of the current lame-duck session of Congress.

"Can you tell me under what theory of fairness would dictate that I be denied due process, that I be denied an attorney?" Rangel asked.

"I don't think it's fair that I participate in any type of proceeding if, in fact, what you are basically telling me, that the political calendar will not allow you enough time to allow me to get a lawyer at this crucial point in my life," he added. "Fifty years of public service is on the line. I truly believe that I'm not being treated fairly."

"There's a lot of pain that I feel. … I love this Congress. I love this country. I think I'm entitled to more than is being suggested."

After his statement, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the chair of the ethics committee, noted that it was Rangel's responsibility to retain counsel and sought to proceed with the hearing. Blake Chisam, the panel's chief counsel, moved to introduce more than 500 exhibits collected over the course of the 21-month-old investigation.

Rangel then said he would have to leave.

"I object to the proceeding and, with all due respect, since I don't have counsel to advise me, I'm going to have to excuse myself," he said, "because I have no idea what this man has put together."

At that point, the panel then moved into executive session to consider a motion by Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) to delay the proceeding. Rangel left, trailed by a crowd of camera-toting media.

After about 30 minutes, the subcommittee returned, and Lofgren said the proceedings would continue without the New York congressman.

Lofgren said the subcommittee had provided Rangel with advice about how to pay his legal fees on four different occasions over the last two years. Several members of the panel then chastised the law firm that had been representing Rangel, Zuckerman Spaeder, for withdrawing as his representatives.

"It's an astonishing display of professional irresponsibility, in my view," said Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.)

Rangel's absence from his own ethics hearing is the latest twist in what has been a humbling experience for the veteran lawmaker. After rising through Congress to assume the chairmanship of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, Rangel stepped down from that post earlier this year as the ethics committee examined his financial dealings.

In July, he was charged with 13 House ethics violations. He is accused of using one of his four rent-controlled apartments in New York as a campaign office, using his congressional office to solicit corporate contributions for a public-affairs school established in his name, failing to report rental and investment income on his disclosure forms and failing to pay property taxes on a Caribbean rental property.

Ethics staff were not certain he would show up Monday for the start of the hearing, but he arrived promptly at 9:01 a.m., dressed nattily in a dark gray suit accented by wide-striped tie and red pocket square. He shook hands with supporters and then took his place at the respondent's table, paging through a thick white binder.

Several minutes later, the eight-member adjudicatory subcommittee filed in, grim-faced. Rangel nodded somberly to his colleagues as they took their seats at the horseshoe-shaped desk behind him.

In an opening statement, Rep. Michael McCaul (R- Texas) noted the "rare and historic" nature of the hearing, the first of its kind since 2002.

"Let me be clear: No member of this committee asked for this assignment," he said. "Sitting in judgment of a fellow member and colleague is a very difficult thing for all of us to do."

matea.gold@latimes.com

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Aung San Suu Kyi speaks to joyous crowds in Myanmar - Los Angeles Times

Aung San Suu Kyi arrives at the National League for Democracy (NLD) headquarters in Yangon. (Getty Images / November 14, 2010)Reporting from Yangon, Myanmar — A day after her release from detention, opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi met dozens of ambassadors, hundreds of journalists and thousands of Burmese citizens Sunday, underscoring the importance of dialogue, strength and determination in the battle for democracy in Myanmar.
As the jubilant crowd swelled in front of the headquarters of her disbanded National League for Democracy party, traffic ground to a halt, and people perched in trees, on fences and on vehicle roofs for a look at their charismatic leader.
Her eventual appearance at noon in the doorway of the ramshackle building electrified the audience. "I understand what the people want; they want democracy," she said to a roar from the crowd. "You must make your voices heard. Only then can we take action."
Suu Kyi, 65, had been detained by the military-led government for 15 of the last 21 years. She was freed days after a controversial parliamentary election in which the pro-junta Union Solidarity and Development party garnered about 80% of parliamentary seats. Suu Kyi boycotted the election, a decision some members of her party disagreed with and fielded candidates under the banner of another party.
During her 45-minute speech and a separate meeting with some two dozen ambassadors Sunday, she stressed her willingness to speak with all political parties, reach out to the country's many ethnic groups and open a dialogue with the military government.
"I am prepared to talk with anyone," she said.
The junta imposed no restrictions on her release, she told diplomats, and she planned to travel around Myanmar and go overseas once she'd caught up on her business in Yangon.
On Saturday, Norway's Nobel committee invited Suu Kyi to make a belated acceptance speech for the prize she won 19 years ago but was unable to pick up because she was under house arrest. The committee said it would ask Myanmar for an assurance she'd be let back in if she made the trip.
Suu Kyi told reporters she would reconsider her support of economic sanctions against Myanmar if asked to by the Burmese people. The country faces U.S. and European Union sanctions for its human-rights record, with some 2,100 political prisoners still in detention.
"The U.S. position is that [sanctions] can be put on the table," said Larry Dinger, the de facto U.S. ambassador to Myanmar. "She was very clear she'd like the international community to have one voice and work with the government here, acknowledging that the differences are great but they need to be bridged."
Suu Kyi has come under some criticism domestically for her support of sanctions, which have put tens of thousands of mostly female textile workers out of jobs even as the military and its associates grow rich trading with China and neighboring Southeast Asian nations.
In the intense heat of the midday assembly, a monk fainted and many in the crowd covered their heads with makeshift newspaper hats, watched over by scores of undercover security people busy recording its attendees on camera. But the uniformed police stayed away, and there was no overt intimidation in a country ruled by the military for the last 48 years.
Suu Kyi, dressed in a green blouse and patterned longyi, the traditional sarong worn here by men and women, urged the crowd to engage politically and get fired up. At one point, as part of the crowd started pushing, masses of people chanted, "Be disciplined!" at the offenders.
The crowd's size and enthusiasm laid to rest any concerns that Suu Kyi would be sidelined politically after years out of public view. "I'm so happy to see her," said Bo Gyi, 67, a retired civil servant. "In fact, I was crying. I've waited so many years for this moment."
Suu Kyi offered few specifics. Asked what her next political move was, she said: "We're moving all the time," and about the political landscape, she quipped: "I don't see a landscape. Look outside, all you see are people."
But she slammed the junta for alleged vote fraud in the Nov. 7 parliamentary election. Democracy must be inclusive, she told supporters, not some system controlled by one man, an obvious reference to the powerful senior general Than Shwe, 78.
Asked whether her popularity and speeches threatened the military regime, she deflected with a joke. "I don't look so threatening, do I?" she said.
Party officials said they were heartened by the huge turnout. "They very much love the lady," said Nyan Win, spokesman of the party forced to disband after it decided to boycott the election. "It shows that the people of Burma don't like the junta."
Giving her showcase speech at the decaying headquarters building signaled her desire to reinvigorate the party that saw its landslide electoral victory in 1990 negated by military leaders intent on maintaining their grip on power.
Although the ruling generals may have let Suu Kyi out in hopes of burnishing their tarnished image or to try to convince outsiders that they follow the rules and laws, some worry that she could land back in detention on some pretext in the future, as she has before.
"We don't care much" if she's rearrested, said U Win Tin, a party leader, who has spent 18 years of his life in prison for crossing the regime. "She needs to meet people and help those in need, and the government may not like it. At the same time, she's very careful. She's well versed in this."
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Bomb Kills 8 on Violent Day in Afghanistan - New York Times

KABUL, Afghanistan — Eight people were killed Saturday by a bomb hidden in a motorcycle that was parked in a crowded bazaar in northern Kunduz Province, according to the Afghan police.

It was one in a series of violent episodes around Afghanistan on Saturday.

In Kunduz, six Taliban insurgents were killed in a joint NATO and Afghan operation in the Goor Tepa area, provincial officials said. And in eastern Nangarhar Province, eight Taliban insurgents were killed in an unsuccessful attack on the NATO airbase in the provincial capital of Jalalabad, Afghan officials said.

Three NATO soldiers were killed in an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan, according to a statement from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, which did not release additional details.

The provincial police chief of Kunduz, Abdul Rahman Said Khaili, blamed the Taliban for the motorcycle bombing and said the attack killed six civilians and two Arbakai militiamen, members of local self-defense forces established in villages, in the Imam Sahib District. Twenty civilians, some of them children, were wounded, he said.

Last week, a Taliban ambush in the same district took the lives of four Arbakai militiamen, the police chief said.

The attack on the Jalalabad airbase, a joint NATO-Afghan facility, involved seven insurgents who wore Afghan army uniforms that concealed suicide vests and carried a variety of light and heavy weapons, as they tried to breach the perimeter of the base, said Col. Zhafor, the spokesman for the Nangarhar Province police, who like many Afghans uses only one name.

He said the attack was repulsed and the attackers killed by NATO helicopter gunships. The bodies of all eight insurgents were recovered, Colonel Zhafor said.

A statement from ISAF put the number of attackers killed at six, and said only two suicide vests were recovered.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, interviewed by cellphone, claimed that 14 suicide bombers succeeded in entering the base and killed 30 foreign service members, but that claim appeared to be exaggerated. The fighting was over by early morning, according to local witnesses.

It was the third unsuccessful Taliban attack on the airfield in the past year.

Afghan employees of The New York Times contributed reporting from Kunduz and Nangarhar Provinces.

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Disabled cruise ship just outside San Diego as passengers wait - Los Angeles Times

Tug boats pull the disabled cruise ship Carnival Splendor toward San Diego. (Associated Press)

If the tides and tugs cooperate, the slow voyage of the disabled cruise ship Carnival Splendor should end within a few hours Thursday with the big ship docking in San Diego and the 72-hour odyssey at sea of 3,299 paying passengers concluding.

[Updated at 7:52 a.m.: The ship has entered San Diego Harbor, but officials say it could be several hours until passengers and crew disembark.]

At 6 a.m., the ship was reported to be 5 miles off the coast and traveling at a half-knot, waiting for the final part of the ad hoc trip. But maneuvering the powerless 952-foot, 113,000-ton vessel will not be a speedy process, officials said.

The Port District estimates that the ship will dock at the Cruise Ship Terminal between 11 a.m. and noon and that disembarking the passengers will take several hours.

A chagrined Carnival Cruise Lines, along with apologizing profusely, has arranged hotel rooms and ground and air transportation for the passengers, who were without air-conditioning, hot food and hot water for showers since a fire Monday morning knocked out most systems on the ship.

The ship will remain in San Diego for repairs before returning to its home port of Long Beach, company officials said.

So far, no injuries or medical complications have been reported among passengers or the 1,167 crew members. The U.S. Coast Guard sent food and health technicians to the ship; the U.S. Navy airlifted 70,000 tons of food and other supplies, paid for by the cruise line.

The main complaints of passengers have been the long lines for food and those hours on Monday when the flush toilets were not working. Bands and magicians continued to entertain passengers; free drinks were available; and passengers had bottled water and canned goods, including fruit, pudding, and that all-purpose meal, Spam.

Carnival has promised a full refund, reimbursement for travel expenses and a free cruise of comparable value. With the ship set for repairs, a Nov. 14 cruise from Long Beach to the Mexican Riviera has been canceled.

That cruise, and the one interrupted by fire, was to have included stops in Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas.

The fire occurred as the ship was about 150 miles southwest of San Diego.

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Obama, in Indonesia, Criticizes Israel on Housing - New York Times

“This kind of activity is never helpful when it comes to peace negotiations, and I’m concerned that we’re not seeing each side make the extra effort involved to get a breakthrough,” Mr. Obama said during a joint news conference with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono here. He added, “Each of these incremental steps end up breaking trust.”

Mr. Obama arrived here Tuesday afternoon from New Delhi on a long-awaited visit that is now being cut short by a cloud of volcanic ash headed toward Jakarta. The ash is expected to interfere with air travel on Wednesday, forcing the president to leave several hours ahead of his scheduled departure for Seoul, where he will attend the G-20 conference of world leaders.

Indonesia, where Mr. Obama lived between the ages of 6 and 10 with his mother and step-father, is the second country Mr. Obama is visiting on a 10-day, four-nation Asian tour, and his trip here seems to be star-crossed. Mr. Obama has twice canceled visits at the last minute so he could deal with problems at home. Now Mother Nature has upended his schedule in more ways than one. He planned to visit a mosque and deliver a formal address on Wednesday; the speech is still on, officials said, but the mosque visit appears up in the air. Even his press conference was rearranged, with an intense thunderstorm forcing it inside.

While Mr. Obama received a hometown hero’s welcome — even the Indonesian press corps clapped and cheered when Air Force One touched down — he said he was here “to focus not on the past but on the future,” and, with the exception of offering some personal reflections at the press conference, his time here has been all business. The plight of the Palestinians is a big issue in Indonesia, so much so that President Yudhoyono mentioned it in his opening remarks, saying he had told Mr. Obama that “we need a resolution on Palestine and Israel in a permanent sustainable manner.”

And from the perspective of the United States, Israel’s announcement was ill-timed. It came just as Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was heading to United States for the annual convention of the Jewish Federations of North America. On Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu met with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and he was expected to meet Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton later this week.

Mr. Obama is making outreach to the Muslim world a major theme of his brief visit to Indonesia. He closed his remarks at Tuesday’s press conference with the Muslim greeting “Salaam Aleikhem,” and said he intends to reshape American relations with Muslim nations so they are not “focused solely on security issues” but rather on expanded cooperation across a broad range of areas, from science to education. Aides say the speech he planned to give Wednesday at the University of Indonesia — and still hopes to give, albeit earlier than expected — will build on one he delivered in Cairo last year, in which he called for “a new beginning” with the Muslim world.

At Tuesday’s press conference, Mr. Obama was asked to assess his progress thus far. “I think it’s an incomplete project,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

The last time President Obama was in this island nation, in 1992, he holed up in a rented beachside hut in Bali, where he swam each morning and spent afternoons writing “Dreams From My Father,” the memoir that later became a best-seller. In it, he shared memories of his life here as a boy, “running barefoot along a paddy field, with my feet sinking into the cool, wet mud, part of a chain of other brown boys chasing after a tattered kite.”

When Air Force One touched down here in a typical Southeast Asia afternoon thunderstorm, a huge cheer went up inside the State Palace complex — not from ordinary Indonesians, but from the local press corps, watching on television. “Finally, he arrived!” exulted Glenn Jos, a local television cameraman. After descending the steps of his plane, Mr. Obama, in dark suit, accompanied by his wife Michelle, walked the red carpet that had been laid out for him and stepped into his big black Cadillac limousine. He poked his head out the door to give a short wave. “Yes!” Indonesian reporters shouted.

On Tuesday, the president spoke of how the country has changed since he first arrived here in 1967. “It’s a little disorienting,” he said, noting that when he first came, there was one tall building in downtown Jakarta — a building that has now been eclipsed by many modern skyscrapers — and people got around in “little taxis, but you stood in the back and it was very crowded” or on bicycle rickshaws.

“Now,” Mr. Obama said, “as president I can’t even see all the traffic because they block all the streets.”

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Switzerland: US Disputes Criticism of Its Record on Human Rights - New York Times

A challenge to President Obama to cure Alzheimer’s.

Following their paths for a hint of how the next Congress will act.

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Democrats Outrun by a 2-Year GOP Comeback Plan - New York Times

“If the goal of the majority is to govern, what is the purpose of the minority?” one slide asked.

“The purpose of the minority,” came the answer, “is to become the majority.”

The presentation was the product of a strategy session held 11 days before Mr. Obama’s inauguration, when top Republican leaders in the House of Representatives began devising an early blueprint for what they would accomplish in Tuesday’s election: their comeback.

How they did it is the story of one of the most remarkable Congressional campaigns in more than a half-century, characterized by careful plotting by Republicans, miscalculations by Democrats and a new political dynamic with forces out of both parties’ control. The unpredictable Tea Party movement, the torrent of corporate money from outside interests and an electorate with deep discontent helped shift the balance of power in Washington.

The White House struggled to keep Democrats in line, with a misplaced confidence in the power of the coalition that propelled Mr. Obama into office. Republicans capitalized on backlash to the ambitious agenda Mr. Obama and his party pursued, which fueled unrestricted and often anonymous contributions to conservative groups, some advised by a nemesis Democrats thought they had shaken, Karl Rove. That money so strengthened the Republican assault across the country that an exasperated Democratic party strategist likened it to “nuclear Whac-a-Mole.”

Most of all, Republican leaders had the foresight to imagine the possibility of winning again. Even now, they believe they could have taken back the Senate if they had just managed to block at least two Tea Party candidates who proved unelectable.

At that Republican retreat in January 2009, gathering inside a historic inn in Annapolis, Md., the group — led by Representatives John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader, and Eric Cantor of Virginia, the whip — did not tolerate the hand-wringing that consumed so many Republicans that dark winter.

Instead, they walked through a by-the-numbers picture of Democratic vulnerability that had been lost in the excitement over Mr. Obama’s election. Some 83 Democrats held seats in districts that once supported President George W. Bush; more than two dozen won their last elections by wafer-thin margins, according to a Republican document provided to The New York Times.

In their quest to reach a majority, the Republican leaders imposed tough party discipline, warning incumbents that the party would no longer act as a “welfare state” for those who were lax fund-raisers. They began an aggressive recruiting effort for top-flight candidates in districts that seemed to be virtually owned by some of the longest-serving Democrats in the House. And they were keenly aware of the anti-establishment mood, rarely engaging with Tea Party challengers, as Senate leaders did, fearful that any efforts to influence primary races could backfire.

They also tried to push Democrats into retirement, using what was described in the presentation as “guerilla tactics” like chasing Democratic members down with video cameras and pressing them to explain votes or positions. (One target, Representative Bob Etheridge of North Carolina, had to apologize for manhandling one of his inquisitors in a clip memorialized on YouTube. Only this week did Republican strategists acknowledge they were behind the episode.)

Improbably, Mr. Boehner’s team turned the notion that Republicans could not afford to be the “Party of No” — or, in his words, the party of “Hell no” — on its ear, successfully portraying it as a virtue in the face of Mr. Obama’s legislative priorities. But even that team never predicted the sort of victory they experienced Tuesday night.

“I remember people laughing at me back when they thought Republicans were a lot like dinosaurs,” Representative Pete Sessions, the Texan who leads the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in an interview. “Our mission statement was to retire Nancy Pelosi. That was the whole mission statement.”

Borrowed Playbook

They may not have liked Rahm Emanuel’s policies, but they envied his tactics.

The Republican leaders had watched and studied Mr. Emanuel, the former White House chief of staff and congressman who engineered the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006, and they had his playbook in mind as they plotted a course to win back their own majority.

The first step was recruiting candidates, a task that fell to Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, one of three self-titled Young Guns of the House.

Mr. McCarthy, who often saw Mr. Emanuel during workouts at the House gymnasium, admired his aggressive political style and adopted his approach by persuading Republicans to challenge Democrats who seemed far less vulnerable at the time.

A top recruit came in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, where Sean Duffy, a county prosecutor and former reality show star on MTV’s “Real World,” agreed to take on Representative David R. Obey, who had won 21 straight races and was elected two years before Mr. Duffy was born.

Over the last two election cycles, Democrats had gained 55 seats in the House, many in districts deep into Republican territory. And that is where the Republican leaders began, hoping to cut that daunting number by forcing out longtime Democratic incumbents.

They ran advertisements in their districts, hoping to scare them into retirement, given that even Democrats knew that the Congressional campaign of 2010 would be difficult. Only twice in the last 75 years has a president’s party not lost seats in an off-year election.

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San Diego-to-Tijuana drug tunnel uncovered; 25 tons of pot seized - Los Angeles Times

A U.S. customs agent crawls through an 1,800-foot-long tunnel linking drug warehouses in San Diego and Tijuana. Officials estimate a Mexican cartel had been smuggling marijuana through the tunnel for about a month. (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement / November 2, 2010)

Federal authorities discovered a tunnel linking drug warehouses in San Diego and Tijuana that led to the seizure of more than 25 tons of marijuana, one of the largest-ever drug seizures in San Diego, officials said.

The 1,800-foot transnational passageway — roughly equivalent to six football fields in length — isn't the longest or the most sophisticated ever built, but it is one of the few instances in which authorities were able to seize drugs on both sides of the border.

The scale of the operation pointed to the work of a major Mexican drug cartel, authorities said, and comes two weeks after Mexican authorities discovered a record 134 tons of marijuana in an industrial area near Tijuana. Officials don't know if there is a connection between the two events, but called this week's discovery another significant blow against organized crime groups.

Authorities estimated the drugs' worth at more than $20 million.

"I can promise you there are some very unhappy people in the cartel," said John Morton, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which leads the multi-agency San Diego Tunnel Task Force.

The investigation was triggered Tuesday afternoon when task force agents patrolling the light industrial area near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry followed a tractor trailer that was acting suspiciously, Morton said.

The truck was stopped at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint in Temecula, where agents found about 10 tons of marijuana stuffed in the 53-foot trailer. Two people in the truck, a husband and wife whose identities were not disclosed, were arrested. Agents later raided the warehouse from which the vehicle had departed and discovered another 10 to 15 tons of dope, the bales wrapped in cellophane and on pallets, as if ready for shipping.

Inside a storage closet they found a 3-foot by 4-foot tunnel opening cut into the subfloor. The passageway, featuring lighting, ventilation and a rail system, descends about 20 feet below ground and goes under Via de la Amistadand another warehouse before continuing under the border fence into Mexico.

Mexican soldiers on Wednesday raided a warehouse south of the border and found about 4 tons of marijuana, according to the Mexican military. U.S. authorities wouldn't disclose how the Mexican entry point was found, but agents in past cases have located openings by traversing the entire length of the tunnel.

In this case, such a crossing would have been extremely difficult. Officials said the tunnel was only 4 feet high by 3 feet wide. The toil and financing required for such an undertaking was further evidence that above-ground enforcement efforts are forcing cartels to extreme measures to get their drugs across the border, officials said.

The tunnel is one of the few unearthed in recent years that was fully operational. Authorities estimate operators had been smuggling drugs through it for less than one month. About 75 tunnels along the U.S.-Mexico border have been unearthed in the last four years, most of them in various states of construction.

The operation was also notable because of the quick response by Mexican authorities. In past cases, their less-than-prompt actions have allowed tunnel operators in Mexico to clear out the drugs. This time they reacted immediately, which authorities said reflects the much-improved levels of cooperation from security forces in Tijuana, which are led by army Gen. Alfonso Duarte Mugica.

"The Mexicans moved as quickly as we did," Morton said. "It was an example of the coordination needed to be successful."

There were no arrests in either warehouse, and it's unclear who owned the drugs or whether the owners of the facilities were involved. The investigation is ongoing, authorities said.

richard.marosi@latimes.com

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Shift in Washington Stirs Economic Jitters Abroad - New York Times

PARIS — As Republicans prepare to assert new authority in the U.S. Congress following the midterm elections Tuesday, the United States’ allies overseas are concerned that the political upheaval in Washington may pose fresh challenges to the global economy.

Despite pledges to curb government spending and the huge U.S. budget deficit, Republicans are expected to address anxiety over unemployment and flagging growth by pushing hardest for an extension of the income tax cuts for everyone, including the rich that were passed during the presidency of George W. Bush — a move that would add to the deficit and, by extension, further weaken the U.S. dollar.

“The rest of the world, including Asia, is looking at the United States and seeing no real effective policy measures in bringing the economy back on track,” said Bart Van Ark, the chief economist at the Conference Board, which measures U.S. economic indicators. “That is making the U.S. lose its legitimacy in the global economic community as a leader in terms of providing solutions.”

Maintaining taxes at their current relatively low rates could help lift consumer spending in the United States, while a cheaper dollar would make U.S. exports more competitive. But analysts said those fixes would be only temporary and would be unlikely to reverse the waning of America’s economic might at a time when emerging markets have eclipsed industrial nations as the major drivers of the global economy.

A weaker dollar might also dampen a recovery in European countries that have adopted harsh austerity measures under pressure from financial markets to rein in their excessive debts.

After the administration of President Barack Obama pushed through costly changes to health care and to the financial system, voters signaled that they want U.S. government spending curtailed. Representative John A. Boehner, a Republican from Ohio and most likely the next speaker of the House, reiterated a pledge Tuesday to reduce the size of government, create jobs and change the way that Congress does business.

But that is no easy task: Voters also want to keep expensive entitlements and are hoping Republicans can reverse cuts to the Medicare program and extend the expiring Bush tax cuts so that taxes do not rise in a weakened economy at the end of the year.

But those moves, if enacted into law, would make it harder, not easier, to keep commitments to curb the national debt and the budget deficit. Yet they probably would not create as many jobs as would equally costly spending on big initiatives like infrastructure projects, analysts said.

From the perspective of those outside the United States, “Republican claims to fiscal probity are a little difficult to buy into,” said Simon Tilford, the chief economist at the Center for European Reform in London. “What they’re advocating would probably increase the deficit rather than effect the dramatic reduction which they claim they want to bring about.”

There is also the risk that Congress, which will be divided next year between Republican control of the House and a fragile Democratic majority in the Senate, will dissolve into gridlock. That would leave the task of supporting a U.S. economic recovery almost entirely to the Federal Reserve.

Without a healthier U.S. economy, the shift in the economic balance of power toward emerging market nations is expected to continue. Even if U.S. growth were to remain at current levels, analysts said, faster-growing markets like China, Brazil and India are now the primary drivers of the global economy, a trend underscored in a report by the International Monetary Fund last month.

It is unclear just how much the lame-duck Congress still controlled by Democrats can push through before the new Republican-led House takes over. But the pressure is now on the Obama administration to cut a deal on taxes before the end of the year, even though there is no consensus on where to cut spending, analysts said.

Moreover, if the current income tax rates are extended for the wealthy as well as for middle class taxpayers for the next few years, the action could add an estimated one to two percentage points to the deficit as a share of overall economic activity, according to Klaus Deutsch, a senior economist with Deutsche Bank Research in Berlin.

“So the need to adopt a more comprehensive fiscal adjustment package within the next two to three years becomes even more important,” he said.

If Washington ends up adding to the deficit rather than reducing it, one result could be a further weakening of the U.S. dollar against the euro, the pound and other floating currencies. The dollar has slumped more than 15 percent against the euro alone since June on concerns about the U.S. fiscal situation and on expectations that the Federal Reserve will announce new efforts Wednesday to pump more money into the weakened economy by buying Treasury securities, a process known as quantitative easing.

In times of full employment, a bigger deficit can be offset by tighter monetary policy and higher interest rates, said C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “But now with rates at zero and the Fed about to embark on a quantitative expansion, that will mean a bigger deficit and a weaker dollar, and that’s the set of issues that would set off the biggest alarm overseas — especially among the Europeans.”

In the European Union — the world’s largest economic bloc — there is concern that a weaker dollar would make it harder to pursue an export-led recovery at a time when countries like Britain, Greece and Ireland have embraced austerity in an effort to straighten out their finances.

Even if the dollar continues to weaken, helping U.S. exporters, most political and economic experts expect lawmakers from both parties to keep up pressure on China to strengthen its currency. That would make it even harder for the Obama administration to support a more cooperative approach toward bringing the Chinese currency more into line with that country’s strong economic fundamentals.

U.S. manufacturers have long complained that China is keeping the renminbi artificially weak, making it harder for U.S. exports to compete in the global marketplace.

The currency issue is part of a larger skirmish over trade, said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a Harvard University economist and a former I.M.F. chief economist.

“If the Chinese were to give a little, that would buy a lot of time on trade policy,” he said. “Asians especially are extremely nervous about seeing the U.S. slap a tariff on Chinese imports or some such aggressive approach, not only because Republicans are taking the House, but because the economy is very weak.”

Until the dust settles, however, “unpredictability is the word of the day,” Mr. Rogoff added. “We have a powerful and volatile new force,” he added. The “rest of world will be worried about that.”

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In Alaska, 'Write-In' Leads, Giving Murkowski Hope - New York Times

“They said you can’t do it, you can’t win a write-in campaign, not in Alaska, not anywhere,” Ms. Murkowski told supporters here late Tuesday night as “Write-In Votes” led in the vote count. “Do they know Alaska?”

“No!” the response came roaring back from the crowd.

At the same time, Robert Campbell, Mr. Miller’s campaign manager said: “We’re pretty confident Senator Murkowski’s going to get some of the write-in votes. It’s also possible Spiderman will get some, too.”

It may be weeks before all those write-in ballots are manually opened and read and it is known whether Ms. Murkowski pulled off the upset of the night. If Ms. Murkowski succeeds, her victory will be counted pretty much everywhere as a loss for Ms. Palin, a leading light of the Tea Party movement who will have failed to put her chosen candidate, Mr. Miller, over the top in her home state.

The outcome of the race here will not affect the balance of power in the United States Senate. The Democrats will keep enough seats to maintain control whatever happens, and it appeared on Wednesday that Scott McAdams, the Democrat in the race here, would most likely not be in the running.

But, as the denouement of the latest chapter in a family feud between the Murkowskis and the Palins, the drama playing out in Alaska continued to attract national attention.

The Murkowski campaign had used unconventional means to wage her unconventional campaign — from wristbands to homespun jingles and omnipresent advertisements showing how to spell her name. Now lawyers from both Republican campaigns are standing by to contest ballots. The only standard that Alaskan voting authorities have announced is the ability to determine “voter intent.”

As the lead for “Write-In Votes” expanded through the night, Ms. Murkowski was swarmed. She grinned. She laughed. She hugged. She pumped her fists. She embraced her husband and two teenage sons, one of whom wore a campaign T-shirt that said, “Too legit to quit.”

On the eve of the election, the Murkowski campaign sent out an e-mail noting that the San Francisco Giants had just won the World Series — and that the last time the team had won the series was in 1954, the same year Strom Thurmond became the first senator — and the only, so far — to win election as a write-in.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting, the write-in category had 41 percent of the vote compared with 34 percent for Mr. Miller. Mr. McAdams had 24 percent of the vote.

Ms. Murkowski’s campaign staff had said earlier that if the write-in category won about 40 percent of the vote, they would feel confident that the senator would ultimately win — and survive any legal challenges that might be brought by her opponents. It could be weeks before the state verifies the names entered as write-in votes. Thousands of absentee ballots and other ballots remain to be counted.

“We’re very happy with the position we’re in,” said Kevin Sweeney, Ms. Murkowski’s campaign manager.

Mr. Miller told his supporters that the race was not over, then left his election party with his family relatively early in the night. He did not appear at the Egan Center in downtown Anchorage, where candidates of various parties traditionally meet after their individual parties to watch results and do television interviews. His campaign said he would wait for all ballots to be counted and verified.

Elections officials have said that they would not verify names entered by write-in votes until Nov. 18, after the two-week window during which absentee ballots are accepted. As much as 10 percent of the ballots cast could be absentee. Absentee ballots must be postmarked by Election Day.

Mr. Miller suffered from a string of setbacks in the final weeks of the campaign, including revelations that he had been disciplined in a previous job for using government computers for political purposes and then lying about it. At one point, security guards he had hired for a campaign event handcuffed a reporter who tried to ask Mr. Miller about the disciplinary action.

Ms. Palin headlined a rally for Mr. Miller last week but she offered no comment about the race Tuesday night on her customary platforms, Twitter and Facebook. She spent the evening in New York, working for Fox News, while voters in her home state appeared to ignore her emphatic appeals to oust Ms. Murkowski.

The strong showing by the senator was also measure of vindication for her father, Frank H. Murkowski, who was among those celebrating.

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City Room: At Long Last, the Day Is Here! Run to the Polls! - New York Times

And now, the only poll that counts.

After months of being on the receiving end of countless television commercials, mailers and automated phone calls, voters in the New York region finally get their chance on Tuesday to tell a host of candidates for federal and state offices what they really think.

Most of the attention, locally, will focus on New York and Connecticut. Up for grabs are openings for the governor’s mansions in Albany and Hartford, as well as for two United States Senate seats in New York, and one in Connecticut. Every single seat in the House of Representatives is also being contested, in what political analysts say could be an early indicator of just how well Republicans will fare across the country.

Did your local polling place fare any better than during the primaries? Was it worse?

Political analysts caution that anything can happen, especially in a turbulent year dominated by anger and anxiety swirling around the economy. But here is what the electoral picture looks like as voters make their choices.

NEW YORK

Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, is facing Carl P. Paladino, a Buffalo real estate developer who is a Republican, with most polls showing Mr. Cuomo as a clear favorite. Mr. Cuomo has run a cautious, centrist campaign, and has benefited by avoiding the kinds of high-profile gaffes and provocative statements that Mr. Paladino, who touts himself as a straight talker, has made.

But two other Democrats aiming for Albany — State Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, who is running for attorney general, and Thomas P. DiNapoli, who is hoping to parlay his appointment as state comptroller into an electoral victory  — are facing much tougher races, according to recent polls. Their Republican opponents, respectively, are Daniel M. Donovan Jr., the Staten Island district attorney, and Harry J. Wilson, a former financier.

New Yorkers will also be voting for United States senator, but the state’s two Democratic lawmakers are expected to prevail over their Republican rivals. Senator Charles E. Schumer, who could become the next majority leader, is facing Jay Townsend, and Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, who is running statewide for the first time, is facing former Representative Joseph J. DioGuardi.

Democrats are girding for difficult battles in several Congressional districts, thanks in no small part to donations of more than $1 million from outside nonprofit groups. The most hotly contested fights involve Representative Scott Murphy against Chris Gibson in the Saratoga Springs region; Representative John Hall against Nan Hayworth in the suburbs north of New York City; Representative Michael Arcuri against Richard Hanna in central New York; and Representative Bill Owens against Matt Doheny in the northernmost part of the state.

Also worth watching is whether the State Senate, now controlled by Democrats, reverts to Republican control. And in New York City, one issue that played a major subtext in last year’s mayoral contest  — term limits — will be up for a formal vote, even though it will literally be on the back of the ballot.

CONNECTICUT

In the United States Senate race between Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the Democrat, and Linda E. McMahon, the Republican and a former pro wrestling executive, Mr. Blumenthal has never trailed in the polls, despite getting pummeled by more than $40 million worth of spending from Ms. McMahon.

The race to succeed the departing Gov. M. Jodi Rell between Dannel P. Malloy, a former mayor of Stamford who is a Democrat, and Thomas C. Foley, a wealthy businessman who is a Republican, has tightened in recent days. As a result, Mr. Malloy needs to do well in Democratic strongholds like Bridgeport and New Haven, or else he will join the long list of Democratic gubernatorial candidates who have lost since 1986.

Two young Democratic congressmen, viewed as rising stars after defeating two veteran moderate Republicans, are on the ropes against more conservative opponents this time. In the northwest, Representative Christopher S. Murphy, who ousted Nancy L. Johnson in 2006, is facing Sam S.F. Caligiuri, a state senator. And in the affluent southwest, Representative Jim Himes, who unseated Christopher Shays in 2008, is battling State Senator Dan Debicella.

NEW JERSEY

The most competitive Congressional race is in South Jersey, outside Philadelphia, where Representative John H. Adler, a freshman Democrat, is trying to fend off Jon Runyan, a political novice who is a former star of the Philadelphia Eagles football team. And though Mr. Runyan has stumbled (when asked during a recent debate to pick one recent Supreme Court decision with which he disagreed, he cited the Dred Scott decision from 1857), Mr. Adler has been hurt by reports that his campaign encouraged a faux Tea Party candidate to siphon votes away from Mr. Runyan.

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Japan Summons Envoy to Russia Over Islands Dispute - New York Times

TOKYO — A diplomatic clash between Japan and Russia over disputed islands heated up on Tuesday when Japan summoned home its ambassador to Moscow, a day after Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev angered Tokyo by visiting one of the islands.

Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara said the ambassador will come back to Tokyo to brief officials on Monday’s visit by Mr. Medvedev to one of the group of islands that was seized by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II.

Mr. Medvedev’s trip to Kunashiri, which sits at the southern end of the Russian-controlled Kurile island chain, was seen as a diplomatic snub in Tokyo, coming just weeks after Japan seemed to suffer a humiliating setback in a territorial dispute with another neighbor, China. In that standoff, Japanese prosecutors released a Chinese trawler captain who had been arrested near disputed islands after Beijing raised the pressure by detaining four Japanese businessmen and cutting off high-level talks.

On Tuesday, Mr. Maehara sought to play down the spat with Russia, saying that the ambassador, Masaharu Kono, was not being recalled in protest, but merely temporarily returning to Tokyo for discussions with his superiors.

The top government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku, also said that Prime Minister Naoto Kan will go forward with a planned meeting with Mr. Medvedev on the sidelines of a summit meeting next week of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Yokohama, Japan.

“We will say what we ought to say,” Mr. Maehara told reporters, “but our intention to aim for settling the territorial dispute with Russia and conclude a bilateral peace treaty to boost our two nations’ economic ties remains unchanged.”

Mr. Kan has tried unsuccessfully to hold a formal meeting with Chinese leaders since the standoff over the trawler captain in September. The arrest sparked anti-Japanese protests in China, while Beijing’s strong response prompted Japanese leaders to reassess their nation’s growing economic dependence on China.

On Tuesday in Beijing, a Chinese spokesman rebuffed an offer by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to mediate the dispute. The Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ma Zhaoxu, also criticized the Ms. Clinton for saying the islands, known as the Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese, fall under the protection of Washington’s security pact with Tokyo.

“The dispute over the islands with Japan is a matter between China and Japan,” Mr. Ma said in a statement, and the United States should “correct its wrongful stance immediately.”

Russia also appears keen to prevent its standoff with Japan from escalating as far as the China-Japan dispute. The Kremlin said Tuesday that Mr. Medvedev still plans to attend the APEC summit in Yokohama, and a Foreign Ministry spokesman told the Interfax news service that, “we don’t see a problem” with Tokyo’s calling back of its ambassador.

The dispute over the islands has divided Japan and Russia for more than a half century, preventing the two from signing a formal peace treaty to conclude World War II. Russia refers to the disputed islands as the southern Kuriles, while Japan calls them the Northern Territories.

Mr. Medvedev is the first Russian or Soviet leader to visit the islands, and he made it clear Russia had no plans to cede the mineral and fishery-rich territory despite Japanese demands. Japan had warned Mr. Medvedev that such a visit would aggravate bilateral relations, but Russia responded coolly to complaints from Tokyo.

“How many beautiful places there are in Russia!” wrote Mr. Medvedev in his Twitter blog, under a photograph he had taken from Kunashiri, known in Russian as Kunashir.

Japanese officials have expressed bafflement at Mr. Medvedev’s decision to visit the disputed island just days before the Yokohama summit that is aimed at building regional economic ties. But the visit may have been an effort by Mr. Medvedev to shore up his nationalist credentials ahead of Russia’s 2012 presidential election.

Ellen Barry contributed reporting from Moscow.

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