Gas rationing expands as Sandy, Nor'easter effects linger

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Malaysia firm says high-tech farms can help poor

PULAU MANIS, Malaysia (AP) — For one Malaysian widow, moving to this experimental farming village represented hope for a brighter future for her seven children. Her new neighbor, also among the first to settle here, sought an easier life after years of low-paying, back-breaking plantation labor.

The corporation that built this rural community two years ago sees it as part charity, part test kitchen. The villagers — 80 families in all — live for free in low-cost bungalows and work on a high-tech hydroponic farm, a setup the company hopes to replicate elsewhere.

"We thought that we should do something different, instead of just donating money," said Tan Say Jim, managing director of Malaysian technology firm Iris Corp. "Even if we give you a little money, you'll still be poor. We wanted to really touch lives."

The government is now involved in a plan to build similar villages across this Southeast Asian country, where nearly one of 10 people in rural provinces lives below the official poverty line.

___

The idea for the village began at Iris, a company whose interests range from passport computer chips to agricultural equipment, much of which is in use at Kampung Pulau Manis and a second village set up this year.

Collaborating with a local Islamic bank for charity work, Iris executives brainstormed a plan to develop homes and a farm on 25 acres (10 hectares) of abandoned land that state authorities offered in Pulau Manis district, in eastern Pahang state.

Malaysia's government regularly encourages companies to conduct "corporate social responsibility" programs; in recent years, these ranged from oil-and-gas company BP helping to manage a sanctuary for endangered turtles to toothpaste manufacturer Colgate providing oral care travel kits to Muslim pilgrims bound for Saudi Arabia.

By early last year, families selected by Pahang's welfare and religious authorities left behind their cramped wooden shacks to move into three-bedroom, brick-and-mortar houses built in neat rows on bare land surrounded by vestiges of palm oil plantations. Grocery shops and a school are nearby, but it's nearly an hour's drive to the closest major town.

Iris also constructed plant nurseries where many villagers now tend to cabbage, tomatoes, rock melons, okra, lettuce and chili peppers. Iris sells the produce in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's largest city, as well as in neighboring Singapore.

Iris uses technology it calls the "autopot system." Each plant is in its own pot that regulates the delivery of water and nutrients, using less water than other farming methods. The company says it is "absolutely certain" the villages will be profitable from crop earnings and sustainable in the long term, though it was unable to provide specific projections.

___

Among the residents is Faizal Zulkifli, a thin, darkly tanned father of three. His bungalow is almost indistinguishable from his neighbors', with a rust-tainted motorcycle, papaya tree and a clothesline filled with sarongs and sweat pants in his front yard. His living room is sparsely furnished with a worn-out couch and a table topped with baby formula and fruits.

It's far from a luxurious existence, but it's better than what his family had when he worked on a palm oil plantation.

"I remember when we lived before in a house with no electricity, no tap water," he said, carrying his year-old son while taking a break from his work doing farm equipment maintenance.

He said his work is a cinch compared to his old job loading heavy bunches of palm oil fruits onto trucks.

Norlailawati Yusof feels much the same way. She used to work as a housemaid in another Pahang province, earning 15 ringgit ($5) a day. Now she makes three times that much working on Iris' farm.

Norlailawati, whose husband died of pneumonia several years ago, prunes vegetables planted neatly in mechanically irrigated pots inside a plastic-shaded, nylon-walled nursery. She says the morning heat and the menial chores rarely faze her, since she considers it a blessing to be earning a steady salary.

And her present working hours — seven hours a day, six days a week — feel less demanding, enabling her to devote more time to her children.

"I don't worry so much anymore," says Norlailawati, who wears a flowing Muslim headscarf and a loose-fitting dress while working. "I can afford to send my seven children to school."

___

A few months after the Pulau Manis village was completed, Iris began building a similar village about a half-hour drive away. Early this year, another 50 families moved into the second village, which features space for raising chickens and water tanks where thousands of freshwater fish are now bred.

It wasn't long before Malaysia's federal government took notice of both villages, which Iris says cost a total of 16 million ringgit ($5.2 million) to develop. Tan, the Iris executive, gave Prime Minister Najib Razak a tour of one of the villages.

Subsequently, government officials agreed to fund the construction of at least five more villages by Iris in various Malaysian states, each costing about 25 million ringgit ($8.2 million). The project is known in the Malay language as "Rimbunan Kasih," loosely translated as "Canopies of Love."

Each upcoming village will contain 100 houses and wide-ranging farm facilities, as well as community halls, places of worship and computer laboratories.

There will be other upgrades: The 1,000-square-foot (100-square-meter) houses will be better insulated and can be constructed faster, within 10 days instead of four weeks, with Iris using its own building panels made of Styrofoam and mineral compounds. Tan said it is "not unlike making a house out of Lego blocks."

Iris says the "Rimbunan Kasih" villages are environmentally friendly. It says construction of the houses requires no timber or concrete, and that its farm technology cuts waste. Water is recycled from fish tanks to the mechanically irrigated vegetable pots.

Najib is expected to launch the first village before the end of the year as part of efforts to bring better wages to rural regions, where official data show about 8.5 percent of Malaysians live in poverty. In rural parts of peninsular Malaysia, the government considers families earning less than 743 ringgit ($242) a month to be living in poverty.

The poverty rate is far lower than the 58 percent in 1970, but there has been little improvement since the 1990s. So far, villagers in the project have comprised the country's majority ethnic Malay Muslims as well as a small number of indigenous tribal people, all of whom make up the bulk of the country's rural poor.

___

Some see the project as a model for how the corporate sector can become more closely involved in Malaysia's anti-poverty efforts.

Tan hopes he can also drum up interest in other countries in Asia and Africa for such villages, as well as potentially build integrated farms in refugee camps.

Mohd Khanif Yusop, a professor specializing in agriculture and land management at Malaysia's Putra University, said the project must strike a balance between being cost-effective and producing lucrative crops.

"In spite of the costs of the hydroponic system, it's possible for you to market high-value crops at a high price," he said. "But then, if your lettuce is more expensive than the lettuce imported from China, then it won't be sustainable."

Tan acknowledges there have been problems: A few villagers were reprimanded for failing to show up for work, while another struggled with a drug addiction.

But residents of Pulau Manis and the second village in nearby Padang Rumbia district told The Associated Press they are happy with their new homes and feel safe. Villagers in Padang Rumbia are nurturing a sense of community by organizing soccer games and get-togethers to spruce up the neighborhood.

Asked how long he hopes to stay, Padang Rumbia resident Hanif Abdul Hamid grins and replies: "Until they kick me out. Why should I go anywhere else?"

Read More..

Siemens to sharpen its game with 6 billion euros of savings

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1 dead, 19 hurt near SAfrica Linkin Park concert

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A spokeswoman for the South African city of Cape Town says one person died after a scaffolding collapsed in high winds outside a Linkin Park concert, injuring 19 other people.

Kylie Hatton said Thursday a woman died after being taken to the hospital. She said 19 people were injured, with 12 hospitalized, after the temporary advertising structure collapsed outside the Cape Town Stadium. She said police are investigating.

The American rock band said in a statement: "We wish to express our deep sadness and concern for those injured and our heartfelt condolences to the family of the fan who died as a result of her injuries." The band said they had no relationship with the sponsor or entity responsible for the structure.

The band will perform in Johannesburg Nov. 10.

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Experts raise concerns over superhuman workplace

LONDON (AP) — Performance-boosting drugs, powered prostheses and wearable computers are coming to an office near you — but experts warned in a new report Wednesday that too little thought has been given to the implications of a superhuman workplace.

Academics from Britain's leading institutions say attention needs to be focused on the consequences of technology which may one day allow — or compel — humans to work better, longer and harder. Here's their list of upgrades that might make their way to campuses and cubicles in the next decade:

BRAIN BOOSTERS

Barbara Sahakian, a Cambridge neuropsychology professor, cited research suggesting that 16 percent of U.S. students already use "cognitive enhancers" such as Ritalin to help them handle their course loads. Pilots have long used amphetamines to stay alert. And at least one study has suggested that the drug modafinil could help reduce the number of accidents experienced by shift workers.

But bioethicist Jackie Leach Scully of northern England's Newcastle University worries that the use of such drugs might focus on worker productivity over personal well-being.

"Being more alert for longer doesn't mean that you'll be less stressed by the job," she said. "It means that you'll be exposed to that stress for longer and be more awake while doing it."

WEARABLE COMPUTERS

The researchers also noted so-called "life-logging" devices like Nike Inc.'s distance-tracking shoes or wearable computers such as the eyeglasses being developed by Google Inc. The shoes can record your every step; the eyeglasses everything you see. Nigel Shadbolt, an expert in artificial Intelligence at southern England's University of Southampton, said such devices were as little as 15 years away from being able to record every sight, noise and movement over an entire human life.

So do you accept if your boss gives you one?

"What does that mean for employee accountability?" Shadbolt asked.

BIONIC LIMBS — AND BEYOND

The report also noted bionic limbs like the one used this week by amputee Zac Vawter to climb Chicago's Willis Tower or exoskeletons like the one used earlier this year by partially paralyzed London Marathon participant Claire Lomas. It also touched on the development of therapies aimed at sharpening eyesight or cochlear implants meant to enhance hearing.

Scully said any technology that could help disabled people re-enter the workforce should be welcomed but society needs to keep an eye out for unintended consequences.

"One of the things that we know about technology hitting society is that most of the consequences were not predicted ahead of time and a lot of things that we worry about ahead of time turn out not to be problems at all," she said. "We have very little idea of how these technologies will pan out."

THE PRESSURIZED WORKPLACE

The report was drawn up by scientists from The Academy of Medical Sciences, the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society.

"We're not talking science fiction here," said Genevra Richardson, the King's College law professor who oversaw the report. "These technologies could influence our ability to learn or perform tasks, they could influence our motivation, they could enable us to work in more extreme conditions or in old age, or they could facilitate our return to work after illness or disability .... Their use at work also raises serious ethical, political and economic questions."

Scully said workers may come under pressure to try a new memory-boosting drug or buy the latest wearable computer.

"In the context of a highly pressurized work environment, how free is the choice not to adopt such technologies?" she said.

Union representatives appeared taken aback by some of the experts' predictions. One expressed particular disquiet at the possibility raised by the report that long-distance truck drivers might be asked to take alertness drugs for safety reasons.

"We would be very, very against anything like that," said James Bower, a spokesman for Britain's United Road Transport Union. "We can't have a situation where a driver is told by his boss that he needs to put something in his body."

___

Online:

The report: http://royalsociety.org/policy/projects/human-enhancement

Raphael Satter can be reached on: http://raphae.li/twitter

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Obama faces familiar world of problems in second term

WASHINGTON (AP) — Now that his re-election is secured, President Barack Obama has a freer hand to deal with a world of familiar problems in fresh ways, from toughening America's approach to Iran and Syria while potentially engaging other repressive countries such as Cuba and North Korea and refocusing on moribund Middle East peace efforts.

The first tweaks in his Iran policy could come within weeks, officials said.

But a pressing task for Obama will be to assign a new team to carry out his national security agenda. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has announced her plans to retire but could stay a few weeks past January to help the administration as it reshuffles personnel. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is likely to depart shortly after her. CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus is expected to stay on.

The favorite to succeed Clinton, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, would face a difficult Senate confirmation process after her much-maligned explanations of the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, meaning she could land instead as Obama's national security adviser. That job that doesn't require the Senate's approval. Tom Donilon, who currently holds that position, and Chuck Hagel, a former Republican senator, are among the other contenders.

The chances of another early favorite, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, are hampered by Democrats' fear that Republican Scott Brown, who lost his Massachusetts Senate seat Tuesday, could win Kerry's seat in a race to replace him.

Officials, however, are pointing to Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor, Obama's ambassador to China and Republican presidential candidate, and the State Department's current No. 2, William Burns.

Huntsman is still widely respected by the administration even if he'd hoped to unseat Obama. Choosing Huntsman would allow the president to claim bipartisanship while putting an Asia expert in the job at a time when the U.S. is focusing more attention on the world's most populous continent. Burns would be an option as caretaker secretary until postelection passions in Congress subside and a permanent replacement might face smoother confirmation. He is a career diplomat who has no political baggage and would be unlikely to stir significant opposition among lawmakers.

At the Pentagon, speculation about successors has been limited. Panetta's deputy, Ashton Carter, is seen as a possibility, along with Michele Flournoy, who served as Defense Department policy chief from 2009-12 and would be the first woman in the top job.

New Cabinet members will enter at a time of various global security challenges, from the Arab Spring to China's rapid economic and military expansion in Asia. But the president's escape from any future campaigning also offers unique diplomatic opportunities, which Obama himself hinted at in March when he told then-Russian president and current prime minister Dmitry Medvedev that he'd have "more flexibility" on thorny issues after the election.

Obama's immediate predecessors, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, used their second terms to launch major, though ultimately unsuccessful initiatives for an Israeli-Palestinian accord, an elusive goal that Obama also deeply desires. This summer he listed the lack of progress toward peace among the biggest disappointments of his presidency so far, suggesting another U.S. attempt in the offing.

Clinton's Camp David negotiations and Bush's Annapolis process became signature foreign policy priorities in 2000 and 2007. But the Israelis and the Palestinians remain as far apart as ever on the contours of an agreement, from the borders of their two separate states to issues related to refugees and resources.

Any Obama-led plan for the Middle East will be complicated by Israel's fears about the Iranian nuclear program, civil war in nearby Syria and the new reality of an Islamist-led Egypt having replaced America's most faithful Arab ally. Obama's difficult relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could also complicate the process.

With Iran, the president is holding out hope that crippling economic sanctions will force the Islamic republic's leaders to scale back its uranium enrichment activity. Iran insists its program is designed for energy and medical research purposes, even as many in the West fear the ultimate goal is to produce nuclear weapons. Obama has stressed the narrowing time frame for Tehran to negotiate a peaceful solution to the standoff, while pressing Israel to hold off on any plans for a pre-emptive strike.

Officials say the administration is likely to adjust its two-track approach to Iran — which offers Tehran rewards for coming clean on its nuclear program and harsher penalties for continued defiance — in the coming weeks. Details are still being debated. In the end, however, Obama may have to resort to a military strategy if Iran continues to enrich uranium at higher levels and nears production of weapons-grade material — a possible scenario he acknowledges.

"The clock is ticking. We're not going to allow Iran to perpetually engage in negotiations that lead nowhere," Obama said in his last foreign policy debate with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. "We have a sense of when they would get breakout capacity, which means that we would not be able to intervene in time to stop their nuclear program."

Syria's widening conflict is another concern. More than 36,000 people have died in the last 20 months, as a brutal crackdown on dissent by President Bashar Assad's regime has descended into a full-scale civil war. Obama has demanded Assad's departure, yet has ruled out military assistance to the rebels or American military actions such as airstrikes or enforcing a no-fly zone over Syria.

Last week, in a significant shift in policy, the secretary of state demanded a major shakeup in the opposition's ranks in the hopes of rallying Syrians behind the rebellion. However, Clinton's spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, reiterated Wednesday the administration still rejects the notion of providing weapons to anti-Assad fighters or any talk of armed intervention.

In other places, Obama's engagement efforts may get another look. After some success with a rapidly liberalizing Myanmar, there are hopes for democratic reforms and human rights advances in Cuba and North Korea, among others.

But short of a rapid change in attitude from these governments, Obama's options for a landmark breakthrough in U.S. diplomacy are limited. He won't be able to reach out to Havana until it frees the jailed U.S. contractor Alan Gross, while Pyongyang will have to denuclearize if it wants better relations with America — steps neither regime has shown a willingness to entertain. The recent re-election of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has halted chances for now of any rapprochement between Washington and Caracas.

In Afghanistan, the president will seek to stick to NATO's 2014 withdrawal date for most international troops, a central campaign promise. His administration has been trying unsuccessfully to jump-start peace negotiations between President Hamid Karzai's Western-backed government and the Taliban. The so-called reconciliation effort relies heavily on America's frustrating and unreliable ally Pakistan, where extremist groups such as al-Qaida and the Haqqani network will continue to face U.S. drone attacks.

Behind all the diplomatic efforts are larger questions of American geopolitical strategy. Obama had initial success improving U.S. relations with Russia, getting a nuclear arms-reduction pact in 2011, but has since seen America's former Cold War foe frustrate U.S. missile defense plans and hopes of an international consensus on Syria. The president has continued to trumpet the benefits of his Russia "reset" policy but may take a firmer stance against Moscow if it refuses to show compromise.

For economic reasons, China policy is less likely to change. The world's two biggest economies are deeply interdependent and, despite lingering disagreements over Beijing's currency exchange rates and intellectual property infringement, neither side will want to do anything that threatens a trade war and jeopardizes China's booming growth or America's still-fragile jobs recovery.

___

Associated Press writers Donna Cassata, Robert Burns and Kimberly Dozier contributed to this report.

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China calls Bo Xilai scandal a profound lesson

BEIJING (AP) — China is calling the scandal surrounding disgraced politician Bo Xilai a profound lesson for the ruling Communist Party as delegates gather for a key leadership congress.

Congress spokesman Cai Mingzhao told a news conference Wednesday on the eve of the congress' opening that the party's handling of Bo's case underlines the leadership's resolve to uphold integrity and prosecute corruption no matter how high ranking the culprits.

Bo had been one of China's highest-profile politicians and a candidate for higher office when he fell from grace amid a scandal over his wife's involvement in the murder of a British businessman. Bo dropped from view and in September was expelled from the party and sent for prosecution on charges including corruption and interference in his wife's case.

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Move over, Obama; Twitter had a big night too

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Quiet media night explodes suddenly, Rove protests

NEW YORK (AP) — Careful media coverage of a close presidential election Tuesday exploded so suddenly Tuesday that it left the bizarre spectacle of Fox News Channel analyst Karl Rove, a major fundraiser for Republican Mitt Romney, publicly questioning his network's declaration that President Barack Obama had been re-elected.

ABC News was also frantically trying to repair a power outage that left much of its set inoperable precisely at the time the election was being decided.

For several hours, election coverage resembled the run-up to a Super Bowl, with plenty of talk signifying little. Then NBC News, at 11:12 p.m. ET, was the first to declare Obama had won by virtue of winning the battleground state of Ohio. "He remains president of the United States for a second term," said anchor Brian Williams.

Other networks followed suit, including Fox five minutes later. But Rove, the former top political aide to President George W. Bush whose on-air presence on Fox this campaign raised some eyebrows because of his prominent role supporting Romney, suggested the call was premature.

"We've got to be careful about calling things when we have like 991 votes separating the candidates and a quarter of the vote left to count ... I'd be very cautious about intruding in this process," said Rove, a behind-the-scenes player in the wild 2000 election between Bush and Al Gore that took weeks to decide. (Gore was on TV Tuesday, too, as anchor of Current TV's election coverage).

It left Rove's colleagues struggling for words.

"That's awkward," said co-anchor Megyn Kelly. She then went backstage to interview on camera two men who were part of Fox's team in charge of making election calls. They had concluded that based on the precincts where votes were left to be counted, Romney couldn't beat Obama.

Later, Rove tried to make light of the encounter. "This is not a cage match," he said. "This is a light intellectual discussion."

As the evening had progressed for Fox and it became clear that Romney, the clear favorite of most of its audience, would find it hard to win, commentators like Sarah Palin and Peggy Noonan looked stricken.

"This was the referendum that Mitt Romney wanted on Barack Obama," said Huffington Post's Howard Fineman on MSNBC. "And guess what? Barack Obama won the referendum. And that's pretty darned emphatic."

Much of ABC's New York election studio was left powerless for about 20 minutes at the height of Tuesday's coverage. The network didn't inform viewers, and tried to compensate by taking anchors Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos away from their desks, and cutting away to crowd shots at Times Square.

Sawyer's relaxed, folksy delivery in her first presidential election night as anchor drew considerable social media attention. The rock group They Might Be Giants tweeted: "and Diane Sawyer declares tonight's winner is ... chardonnay!"

Sawyer and Stephanopoulos were a new election anchor team for ABC, and Scott Pelley led the CBS coverage. Of the three anchors for the biggest broadcast networks, only NBC's Williams was a returnee from 2008.

But it was a far different media world anyway. 2012 was notable for the vast array of outlets that an interested consumer could command to create their own media experience on multiple screens. Web sites offered deep drill-downs in data and social media hosted raucous conversations.

"If you started a drinking game with the words 'exit poll' in it, please stop now. You will die!" tweeted TV critic Tim Goodman.

Obama's Twitter account tweeted a picture of the president hugging First Lady Michelle Obama, and within 45 minutes it was retweeted more than 300,000 times.

Earlier in the evening, journalists took special care not to rely too heavily on exit polls. Perhaps they remembered how misleading exit polls in 2004 led TV networks astray then or perhaps, in CBS' Bob Schieffer's words, its results this year were too contradictory.

News outlets carefully parsed information and sometimes used the same facts for contradictory conclusions.

Fox News analyst Brit Hume noted an exit poll finding that 42 percent of voters said Superstorm Sandy was an important factor in their vote, suggesting that was a positive for Obama since he was widely considered to have been effective in his response. With the same information, the web site Politico headlined: "Exit Survey: Sandy Not a Factor."

There was a certain amount of vamping time, too. Glenn Beck's online network, The Blaze, had a blackboard straight out of the 1960s as a tote board. Beck killed time on the air by asking for cookie dough ice cream from the on-set food bar.

"Waffle cone, please," Beck said.

When Sawyer asked David Muir for the latest news from the Romney campaign, he reported the family had pasta for dinner and the candidate indulged in his favorite peanut butter and honey sandwich.

The media personality with perhaps the most on the line was Nate Silver of The New York Times, whose FiveThirtyEight blog was sought out by 20 percent of the people who visited the newspaper's website on Monday. He has used statistical data throughout the campaign to predict an Obama victory and by Tuesday, had forecast a 90.9 percent chance that Obama would win.

After Obama's victory became clear, Gavin Purcell, producer of "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon," tweeted that "Nate Silver is the only white male winning tonight." CNN's Piers Morgan tweeted Silver an invitation to appear on his show Wednesday.

___

Television Writers Frazier Moore in New York and Lynn Elber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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'We remain more than a collection of red states and blue states'

President Barack Obama handily defeated Gov. Mitt Romney and won himself a second term on Tuesday after a bitter and historically expensive race that was primarily fought in just a handful of battleground states. Obama beat Romney after nabbing almost every one of the 12 crucial battleground states.

The Romney campaign's last-ditch attempt to put blue-leaning Midwestern swing states in play failed as Obama's Midwestern firewall sent the president back to the White House for four more years. Obama picked up the swing states of New Hampshire, Michigan, New Mexico, Iowa, Virginia, Wisconsin, Colorado, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Ohio. Of the swing states, Romney picked up only North Carolina. Florida is still too close to call, but even if Romney wins the state, Obama still beat him in the Electoral College vote. The popular vote will most likely be narrower than the president's decisive Electoral College victory.

In a sweeping victory speech early Wednesday morning, Obama thanked every American who voted, and vowed to work with leaders from both parties to tackle the country's challenges.

"Our economy is recovering, a decade of war is ending, a long campaign is now over," he told a crowd of cheering supporters in Chicago. "And whether I earned your vote or not, I have listened to you, I have learned from you and you have made me a better president." Obama added he has "never been more hopeful about America. ... We're not as divided as our politics suggest. We remain more than a collection of blue states and red states."

In his speech, he offered clues to the policy goals of his second term, which included a deficit reduction plan that combines tax increases with spending cuts, a comprehensive overhaul of the nation's federal immigration laws and tax reform. He called on Republicans to join him in achieving those goals.

The battle for the White House between Obama and Romney divided the nation, causing, at times, bitter disputes between the parties. Obama urged his supporters to look beyond the fight of the past several months and defended the process of choosing a president.

"I know that political campaigns can sometimes seem small, even  silly," Obama said. "And that provides plenty of fodder for the cynics who tell us  that politics is nothing more than a contest of evils or the domain of  special interests. If you ever get the chance to talk to folks who  turned out to our rallies and along the rope lines of high school gyms,  or saw folks working late at campaign office or some tiny county a long way from home, you'll discover something else."

Romney conceded in Boston in a speech around 1 a.m. ET. "Like so many of you, Paul [Ryan] and I have left everything on the field. We have given our all to this campaign," Romney said. "I so wish that I had been able to fulfill your hopes to lead your country in another direction. But the nation chose another leader." Romney congratulated the president and his campaign on their victory.

The Obama victory marks an end to a years-long campaign that saw historic advertisement spending levels, countless rallies and speeches, and three much-watched debates.

The Romney campaign cast the election as a referendum on Obama's economic policies, frequently comparing him to former President Jimmy Carter and asking voters the Reagan-esque question of whether they are better off than they were four years ago. But the Obama campaign pushed back, blanketing key states such as Ohio early on with ads painting him as a multimillionaire more concerned with profits than people. The Obama campaign also aggressively attacked Romney on reproductive rights issues, tying Romney to a handful of Republican candidates who made controversial comments about rape and abortion.

The ads were one reason Romney faced a steep likeability problem for most of the race, until his expert performance at the first presidential debate in Denver in October. After that debate, and a near universal panning of Obama's performance, Romney caught up with Obama in national polls, and almost closed his favorability gap with the president. In polls, voters consistently gave him an edge over Obama on who would handle the economy better and create more jobs, even as they rated Obama higher on caring about the middle class.

But the president's Midwestern firewall—and the campaign's impressive grassroots operation—carried him through. Ohio tends to vote a bit more Republican than the nation as a whole, but Obama was able to stave off that trend and hold an edge there over Romney, perhaps due to the president's support of the auto bailout three years ago. Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, all but moved to Ohio in the last weeks of the campaign, trying and ultimately failing to erase Obama's lead there.

A shrinking electoral battleground this year meant that only 12 states were really seen as in play, and both candidates spent most of their time and money there. Though national polls showed the two candidates in a dead heat, Obama consistently held a lead in the states that mattered. That, and his campaign's much-touted get-out-the-vote efforts and overall ground game, may be what pushed Obama over the finish line.

Now, Obama heads back to office facing what will most likely be bitterly partisan negotiations over whether the Bush tax cuts should expire. The House will still be majority Republican, with Democrats maintaining their majority in the Senate.

The loss may provoke some soul searching in the Republican Party. This election was seen as a prime opportunity to unseat Obama, as polls showed Americans were unhappy with a sluggish economy, sky-high unemployment and a health care reform bill that remained widely unpopular. Romney took hardline positions on immigration, federal spending and taxes during the long Republican primary when he faced multiple challenges from the right. He later shifted to the center in tone on many of those issues, but it's possible the primary painted him into a too-conservative corner to appeal to moderates during the general election. The candidate also at times seemed unable to effectively counter Democratic attacks on his business experience and personal wealth.

"In the coming weeks and months I am looking forward to reaching out to leaders of both parties," Obama said.

He won't have much time to fulfill that promise. With tax hikes looming and a sequestration deal that will make enormous , automatic cuts in government funding, Congress and the White House must move quickly to find a compromise and put Obama's high-minded rhetoric into action.

Chris Moody contributed reporting from Chicago.

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