Merkel: Euro debt crisis will last 5 years or more

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel says Europe's sovereign debt crisis will last at least five more years.

Merkel says the continent is on the right path to overcome the crisis but "whoever thinks this can be fixed in one or two years is wrong."

Two years ago some heavily indebted European countries were dragged into the turmoil that first gripped global financial markets in 2007.

Greece in particular has been struggling with the austerity conditions imposed on it by countries such as Germany.

But Merkel told a regional meeting of her Christian Democratic Party on Saturday that the time had come for "a bit of strictness."

Otherwise, she says, Europe won't be able to attract international investment.

U.S. disaster relief in a race against freezing cold

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie motorcade drives through a Hurricane Sandy damaged area along Rt 35 in Bayhead, New Jersey, November 2, 2012 in this handout image courtesy of the governor's office. Picture taken November 2, 2012. REUTERS/New Jersey Governor's Office/Tim Larsen/Handout

Hurricane Sandy damage is seen in Brick, New Jersey, November 2, 2012 in this handout image courtesy of the governor's office. Picture taken November 2, 2012. REUTERS/New Jersey Governor's Office/Tim Larsen/Handout

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fuel supplies headed toward disaster zones in the U.S. Northeast on Saturday and a million customers regained electricity as near freezing temperatures threatened to add to the misery of coastal communities devastated by superstorm Sandy.

The power restorations relit the skyline in Lower Manhattan for the first time in nearly a week and allowed 80 percent of the New York City subway service to resume, but more than a million homes and businesses still lacked power, down from 3.5 million on Friday.

The power outages combined with a heating oil shortage meant some homes could go cold as unseasonably frigid weather sets in. Forecasters saw temperatures dipping into the upper 30s Fahrenheit (around 3 degrees Celsius) on Saturday night with freezing temperatures expected next week.

In Staten Island, the New York City borough whose half a million residents bore the brunt of Sandy, people tried to stay warm.

Tom Clark, 43, and family members were burning wood in a steel drum on their front yard. Clark said the family and their dogs planned to go stay at his mother-in-law's heated house.

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano visited Staten Island on Friday amid assertions by some angry residents that they had been ignored by emergency relief workers.

The weather forecast remains bleak. An aggressive early-season "Nor'easter" storm was expected to hit the battered New England coast next week with strong winds and heavy rain.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Saturday urged those without power and heat - especially the elderly and other vulnerable groups - to head to shelters where they could keep warm and receive food.

"Right now it's starting to really get cold," he said.

In New York and New Jersey, more than 18,000 people remained in shelters, Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate said.

BLOOMBERG CRITICIZES UTILITY

"There's no heating oil around," said Vincent Savino, the president of Statewide Oil and Heating, which usually supplies 2,000 buildings across New York City. "I don't know how much fuel we have left: maybe a day or two."

The post-storm chaos also threatened to jumble Tuesday's election, with President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney locked in a tight race.

The storm's death toll rose to at least 110 with nine more deaths reported in New Jersey on Saturday, raising the total in that state to 22. Bloomberg put the New York City death toll at 41.

Sandy killed 69 people in the Caribbean before turning north and hammering the U.S. Eastern Seaboard on Monday with 80 mile-per-hour (130-kph) winds and a record surge of seawater that swallowed oceanside communities in New Jersey and New York, and flooded streets and subway tunnels in New York City.

Bloomberg praised utility Consolidated Edison for making "significant progress" in restoring power to customers, but warned New Yorkers that it would be days before everyone had electricity again and fuel shortages ended.

But he had sharp words for the Long Island Power Authority, LIPA, which he said "has not acted aggressively enough" in its power restoration efforts, above all in the Rockaways, a beachfront community in the borough of Queens.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie ordered rationing that allows only half of all cars to buy gasoline each day.

"I was there (at the Jersey Shore) yesterday and I will tell you, it looked like we had been bombed," Christie said "There are homes in Bay Head on the beach that had been driven by the storm surge into the houses across the street."

Obama won praise for the federal storm response but the devastation was so widespread that angry storm victims continued to appear on television days after landfall. The storm damaged or destroyed thousands of homes and displaced voters, forcing election officials to improvise at early polling stations.

Christie ordered county clerks in New Jersey to open on Saturday and Sunday to accommodate early voters and ensure a "full, fair and transparent open voting process."

Tight gasoline supplies have tested the patience of drivers - fistfights have broken out in mile-long lines of cars - but a reopened New York Harbor meant fuel was reaching terminals.

To alleviate one of the country's worst fuel chain disruptions since the energy shortage in the 1970s, some 8 million gallons of gasoline and other petroleum products have been delivered since Friday, with much more expected this weekend, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said.

RUNNING ON EMPTY

Cuomo also announced the Defense Department would set up five mobile gas stations in the metropolitan area, providing people with up to 10 gallons of free gas. The New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs later said emergency personnel and first responder vehicles would have priority.

At least 1,000 drivers queued up at the Freeport Armory in Long Island, only to be told the gasoline would not arrive for at least eight hours more, one driver said.

"There's just so many people getting very frustrated. People don't know what to do," said Lauren Popkoff, 49, a history teacher who had been in line for four hours.

Bloomberg said the fuel shortages would be easing soon.

According to the U.S. Energy Informational Administration the number of dry stations in the New York metropolitan area plunged to 38 percent on Saturday from 67 percent on Friday. The U.S. Department of Energy confirmed on Saturday that most filling stations in the metro area had fuel.

New York City gave its overstretched police by canceling Sunday's marathon, a popular annual race that had become a lightning rod for critics concerned it was a diversion of resources.

People are also worried about crime. In one hard-hit Queens neighborhood, a garage full of debris stood open with a sign next to it reading: "LOOTERS WILL BE CRUCIFIED - GOD HELP YOU."

Obama visited FEMA headquarters in Washington for a briefing before heading to the Midwest on Saturday for a final weekend of campaigning. He told officials to cut through government "red tape" to help storm-hit areas.

The Obama administration directed the purchase of up to 12 million gallons (45 million liters) of unleaded fuel and 10 million gallons of diesel, to be trucked to New York and New Jersey.

The government also waived rules that barred foreign-flagged ships from taking gasoline, diesel and other products from the Gulf of Mexico to Northeast ports.

Consolidated Edison, battling what it called the worst natural disaster in the company's 180-year history, restored electricity to many Manhattan neighborhoods, though some 11,000 customers on the island were without service.

The company said 270,000 customers in New York City and Westchester County still had no power, down from nearly a million who were cut off by the storm.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaus throughout the U.S. Northeast; Writing by Daniel Trotta and Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Vicki Allen)

New York nanny arrested in slayings of two young children

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York nanny suspected of slaying two young children of a Manhattan couple last month in their luxury apartment was arrested on Saturday and charged with murder in their stabbing deaths, New York's deputy police commissioner said.

The nanny, Yoselyn Ortega, was arrested over the deaths of 6-year-old Lucia Krim and her toddler brother Leo, who had been days shy of his second birthday, following a bedside interview at New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center.

The children's mother, Marina Krim, found her son and older daughter stabbed to death in the bathtub as she returned home on October 25 from a swimming lesson with a third child, 3-year-old Nessie, who was unharmed, police have said.

The nanny, who remains hospitalized and under guard, then began stabbing herself in front of the children's mother in the apartment on Manhattan's affluent Upper West Side.

"No longer intubated and recuperating from what appeared to be wounds she inflicted on herself at the crime scene, Ortega agreed to talk to New York City detectives this afternoon," Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne said in a statement.

"After the interview, at 6:06 p.m. today, Ortega was formally arrested and charged with murdering both children."

He said that Ortega, 50, was charged with two counts of first degree murder and two counts of second degree murder over the killings, which sent shock waves through the city.

Ortega, who had been employed by the Krim family for two years before the killings, lived with her son and sister near the Krims' apartment off Central Park and has been a naturalized U.S. citizen for a decade, police said.

She was apparently referred to the Krims by another family, police have said.

On the evening of the killings, Marina Krim had entered the apartment with her middle child after Ortega failed to meet them as planned at a local dance studio with the two other children.

Krim saw that the apartment was dark and returned to the lobby to ask the doorman if the nanny and kids had gone out, police said. The doorman said no, and she returned to the apartment and went into the bathroom, where she found the children.

Kevin Krim, the children's father and an executive with CNBC, had been heading home from a business trip, He was met by police at the airport and notified of the killings, police said.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Writing By Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Peter Cooney and Eric Walsh)

US Air Force struggles with aging fleet

In this Aug. 14, 2012 photo, a U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker sits on the tarmac at Kadena Air Base on Japan's southwestern island of Okinawa. For decades, the U.S. Air Force has grown accustomed to such superlatives as unrivaled and unbeatable. Now some of its key aircraft are being described with terms like decrepit. (AP Photo/Greg Baker)

TOKYO (AP) — For decades, the U.S. Air Force has grown accustomed to such superlatives as unrivaled and unbeatable. These days, some of its key combat aircraft are being described with terms like geriatric, or decrepit.

The aging of the U.S. Air Force, a long-simmering topic in defense circles, made a brief appearance in the presidential debates when Republican nominee Mitt Romney cited it as evidence of the decline of U.S. military readiness. His contention that the Navy is the smallest it's been since 1917 got more attention, thanks to President Barack Obama's quip that the Navy also has fewer "horses and bayonets."

But analysts say the Air Force has a real problem, and it will almost certainly get worse no matter who wins Tuesday's election. It was created in part by a lack of urgency in the post-Cold War era, and by design glitches and cost overruns that have delayed attempts to build next-generation aircraft.

Looming budget cuts limit the force's ability to correct itself, they argue, as China's rise as a world power heightens its need to improve. And though the world's most formidable air force never had much use for bayonets, it's got more than its share of warhorses.

___

IKE'S LEGACY — THE KC-135 STRATOTANKER

The U.S. probably couldn't have fought the air wars over Iraq, Afghanistan and Libyawithout the KC-135 Stratotanker, the Air Force's main aerial refueler, which allows fighter jets to remain airborne on long flights.

America has President Dwight Eisenhower to thank for that.

The KC-135 came into service during Eisenhower's watch in 1956. The newest of the roughly 400 Stratotankers in service started flying nearly half a century ago, in 1964.

"We are in unknown territory," said Lt. Col. Brian Zoellner, who has been flying the KC-135 for 15 years and is head of operations for 909th Air Refueling Squadron at Kadena Air Baseon Japan's southwestern island of Okinawa. "The unknown is at what point does the KC-135 become unusable."

The KC-46A refueling tanker is being developed as a replacement, but probably won't start delivery for another five years. If Congress has its way, some Stratotankers could still be taking off well into the 2040s.

THAT '70s SHOW — THE F-15, F-16 AND A-10

The F-15, America's workhorse warplane since the Vietnam War, was designed to have a service life of about 5,000 flight hours. The Air Force has more than tripled that, to 18,000 hours.

The F-16, another key fighter, has been in use since 1979. The Air Force began retiring the oldest ones two years ago.

Another '70s-era fighter is the A-10 Thunderbolt, which provides close air support for ground troops. It's now being rewinged because its old ones were riddled with cracks. The General Accounting Office estimates the cost of upgrading and refurbishing the aircraft will be $2.25 billion through 2013.

The Air Force is revamping its fighter fleet with the stealthy F-22 Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, but production of the F-22 was cut short after its price tag swelled to nearly half a billion dollars a pop. Delays and escalating costs have also dogged the F-35, which is now the most expensive Department of Defense procurement program ever.

SPY PLANES FROM THE '50s — THE U-2

The fabled U-2 "Dragon Lady" spy plane is still being used to keep watch over North Koreaand other hot spots. The first U-2 flew in 1955, and the legendary Skunk Works aircraft became a household name for its role in the Cuban missile crisis, not to mention the propaganda bonanza the Soviet Union got by shooting one down in 1960 and capturing its CIA pilot, Francis Gary Powers.

Many analysts argue the unmanned Global Hawk could do the job more effectively, but Congress has nixed that idea for now. More than $1.7 billion has been invested in upgrading the U-2.

MAJOR KONG'S FAVORITE BOMBER — THE B-52

Iconic, yes. State-of-the-art, no. The venerable B-52, remembered by movie fans for its starring role in the 1964 Cold War comedy "Dr. Strangelove," remains the backbone of the Air Force's strategic bomber force. It dates back to 1954 and was already losing its edge by the end of the Vietnam War, but nearly 100 B-52s remain in service.

The Air Force developed the B-1 in the 1970s as the B-52's replacement. President Jimmy Carter killed it, President Ronald Reagan brought it back, and none have been delivered since 1988.

Next up was the stealth B-2 Spirit, which first flew in 1989. Because only 21 were built, they ended up costing a prohibitive $2 billion each. The Air Force is now hoping to upgrade with what it calls the Long Range Strike Bomber, but it's not clear when it will be ready.

___

To be sure, all of these aircraft have undergone massive overhauls and updates, and most experts agree the U.S. Air Force remains the best-equipped in the world. Its aircraft aren't likely to soon start falling out of the sky, either, thanks to intensive, and expensive, maintenance.

Zoellner, the KC-135 pilot, bristled at the idea his Stratotankers aren't safe. He said they "fly like a champ."

But Loren Thompson, of the Lexington Institute, a conservative think tank, said the graying Air Force is evidence of how Washington has failed to keep its eye on the ball.

"The reason the fleet is so decrepit is because for the first 10 years after the Cold War ended, policymakers thought the United States was in an era of extended peace," he said. "Then it spent the next 10 years fighting an enemy with no air force and no air defenses. So air power was neglected for 20 years, and today the Air Force reflects that fact."

Former Air Force Col. Robert Haffa, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, added that although ground forces were the primary concern in Iraq and Afghanistan, air power will be a key to future security requirements as the United States turns its attention to the Pacific and a strengthening China.

Unlike America's more recent adversaries, China has a credible air force that could conceivably strike U.S. bases in the region, requiring a deterrent force that is based farther away, out of range. America's bases in Japan — and possibly Guam — also are within striking distance of a North Korean missile attack.

"As the nation looks to increased focus in the Pacific, these long-range strike platforms will be especially important," Haffa said. "Planes like the B-52 simply cannot survive."

Iran builds advanced drone: news report