Ruling party leads Ukraine vote

Ukraine's ruling party holds a solid, early lead in parliamentary election results posted Monday in a contest seen as a test for democracy in the former Soviet republic.

President Viktor Yanukovich's Party of Regions took 35.4% of the vote in a field of five parties expected to hold seats in parliament, according to the Central Electoral Commission. The United Opposition coalition, organized by jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and her allies, followed with 21.7%.

The election website says about 41% of the ballots have been counted.

The Communist Party held third with 15%.

Two parties that coordinated with United Opposition had strong showings as well. Running fourth, with 12.9%, was the Udar ("Punch") party of heavyweight boxing champ Vitali Klitchko. And the Svoboda ("Freedom") party was fifth with 8.1%, according to the commission.

Ukraine has become increasingly isolated under Yanukovich, with Western observers accusing his ruling party of corruption, political persecution and a drift towards authoritarianism. Those concerns are embodied in the treatment of Tymoshenko, who is serving a seven-year sentence for abuse of power after what the United States and European Union have both called a politically motivated show trial.

Tymoshenko pleaded with Ukrainians to oppose what she called the country's "mafia regime" in a video her lawyer smuggled out of her lockup in September.

"This is really a moment of truth for Ukraine, and it's really a point where the international community has to name these events by their true names," her daughter, Evgenia Tymoshenko, told CNN before the vote.

No turnout figures were immediately available, but voting appeared light in a country where many have become disillusioned with politics.

Even from prison, Tymoshenko persuaded the country's usually divided opposition to unite for the vote. Eight parties joined forces to produce the United Opposition coalition, while Udar and Svoboda agreed to strategically withdraw candidates to avoid splitting the anti-Yanukovich vote.

While the opposition was expected to run strongly in Kiev, the Party of Regions has a strong base in eastern Ukraine.

Yurii Miroshnychenko, Yanukovich's official representative in parliament, said closed-circuit television cameras were installed in every polling station and thousands of Ukrainian and international observers were present to watch the balloting. But international observers have expressed concern about the use of government resources by Party of Regions candidates, the almost-complete absence of independent media coverage, and the intimidation of opposition activists. And United Opposition was already raising alarms Sunday afternoon about fraud at the polls.

"The campaign was very tough, extremely tough. Intimidation, they purchased the voters, they intimidated the members of the election commissions," Yatsenyuk said. "So they did their utmost with a an iron fist to do something to win the elections, but look at the results of the exit polls. They didn't succeed."

World Series MVP Sandoval makes clutch play with glove to limit damage from Cabrera’s HR

World Series MVP Pablo Sandoval used his feet, glove and arm — not his bat — to make a clutch play that helped the San Francisco Giants beat the Detroit Tigers 4-3 in 10 innings Sunday night to finish off a sweep.

The third baseman charged Quintin Berry’s bunt — barely avoided colliding with pitcher Matt Cain — with one man on base and made an off-balance throw to get the speedy Berry out at first for the second out of the third inning.

 “I called it late,” Sandoval said. “But (Cain) got out of the way so quickly, so we made the play easy.”

Two pitches later, Miguel Cabrera hit a two-run, go-ahead homer that would’ve been a three-run shot that could’ve decided the game without an extra inning if Sandoval hadn’t thrown Berry out.

“It ended up being real big,” said Cain, who had to hurdle over part of Sandoval to stay out of his way. “It was huge for Pablo to make an unbelievable play like that. It’s one of the reasons we call him ‘Kung Fu Panda.’”

PRODUCTIVE PEN: Jeremy Affeldt was first. Then Santiago Casilla came on and got the ball to Sergio Romo, who closed it out for San Francisco.

When Matt Cain was unable to finish off the Detroit Tigers, his buddies in the bullpen took over.

Affeldt, Casilla and Romo combined for three scoreless innings in relief of Cain, striking out seven in all to help the Giants seal their sweep of the Tigers.

Romo struck out the side in the 10th inning, including Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera for the final out, for his fourth save of the postseason.

“He’s a guy you want out there,” San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy said. “He’s not afraid and commands the ball so well. Really, I know this is a play on words, he saved us all year.”

Romo became the first pitcher to save at least three games in the World Series since John Wetteland did it for the New York Yankees in 1996.

Casilla hit Omar Infante, breaking his left hand, in the ninth, but bounced back by getting Gerald Laird to hit into a fielder’s choice and got the win.

Affeldt gave up a leadoff walk in the eighth inning, then struck out the middle of Detroit’s lineup — Cabrera, Prince Fielder and Delmon Young — while pitching 1 2-3 innings.

While the bullpen gets credit for its performance, Affeldt dished some back to Cain.

“What an amazing job keeping us in the game seven innings so we didn’t need to use our ‘pen until late in the game,” Affeldt said.

RETURN TRIP: Manager Bruce Bochy guided San Francisco to the 2010 championship and to another title on Sunday night.

But long before that, he was a backup catcher for the San Diego Padres in the 1984 World Series.

“That was so long ago, but it is amazing how things come back around,” Bochy said.

In his only at-bat, he got a pinch-hit single in the ninth inning of Game 5 at Tiger Stadium, the day Detroit closed out the championship.

“I have great memories of being in the World Series, not real good ones on how it came out,” he said.

“But what a thrill for any player, and of course myself, when you get to the World Series for the first time. We had split in San Diego, then came here and they beat us here,” he said. “But great time for me, I got one at-bat, and I was thrilled that Dick Williams put me in there.”

HALL OF FAME PRAISE: Al Kaline played in an era of greats, from Ted Williams to Mickey Mantle to Reggie Jackson.

Yet the former Detroit standout says the top guy he watched was someone he never faced in a regular-season game.

Kaline, now 77 and a special assistant for the Tigers, was at AT&T Park in San Francisco earlier in the World Series. Willie Mays, at 81, took part in the first-ball ceremony honoring Giants stars before Game 1.

“Willie Mays was the best player I ever saw,” Kaline said. “I was lucky to see a lot of them. But Willie was something special.”

“To me, he was the poster boy for baseball. The way he played, his enthusiasm and his ability,” Kaline said of his fellow Hall of Famer.

The Tigers and Giants had never met in postseason play before this year, and there was no interleague play in their day. With Detroit working out in Florida and the Giants in Arizona, they didn’t see each other in spring training.

Mays made his first All-Star team in 1954 and Kaline was first picked a year later. They were then chosen in every summer showcase through 1967.

“That’s where I got to see him, and he was fun to watch. He could really play,” Kaline said.

Kaline, however, said he never got to spend much time with Mays.

“I see him at the Hall of Fame and like to stop by, shake his hand and just be who I am,” he said. “I’m not kidding myself. I was a good player. But he was great. There aren’t too many who were at his level.”

Hurricane Sandy turns in march toward East Coast

A superstorm that threatened 50 million people in the most heavily populated corridor in the nation started turning Monday, forecasters said.

Hurricane Sandy was expected to hook inland during the day, colliding with a wintry storm moving in from the west and cold air streaming down from the Arctic.

The National Hurricane Center said early Monday that the Category 1 hurricane has top sustained winds of 75 mph, with higher gusts. It is moving toward the north at 14 mph after moving northeast Sunday night. Hurricane-force winds extend up to 175 miles from the storm's center. Gale force winds were reported over coastal North Carolina, southeastern Virginia, the Delmarva Peninsula and coastal New Jersey.

Sandy is about 425 miles southeast of New York City and the center of the storm is expected to be near the mid-Atlantic coast on Monday night.

From Washington to Boston, big cities and small towns were buttoned up against the onslaught of Sandy, with forecasters warning that the New York area could get the worst of it — an 11-foot wall of water.

"The time for preparing and talking is about over," Federal Emergency Management Administrator Craig Fugate said Sunday as Hurricane Sandy made its way up the Atlantic on a collision course with two other weather systems that could turn it into one of the most fearsome storms on record in the U.S. "People need to be acting now."

Forecasters said the hurricane could blow ashore Monday night or early Tuesday along the New Jersey coast, then cut across into Pennsylvania and travel up through New York State on Wednesday.

Airlines canceled more than 7,200 flights and Amtrak began suspending train service across the Northeast. New York, Philadelphia, Washington and Baltimore moved to shut down their subways, buses and trains and said schools would be closed on Monday. Boston also called off school. And all non-essential government offices closed in the nation's capital.

The New York Stock Exchange said it will be shut down Monday, including electronic trading. Nasdaq is shutting the Nasdaq Stock Market and other U.S. exchanges and markets it owns, although its exchanges outside the U.S. will operate as scheduled.

As rain from the leading edges of the monster hurricane began to fall over the Northeast, hundreds of thousands of people from Maryland to Connecticut were ordered to evacuate low-lying coastal areas, including 375,000 in lower Manhattan and other parts of New York City, 50,000 in Delaware and 30,000 in Atlantic City, N.J., where the city's 12 casinos were forced to shut down for only the fourth time ever.

"We were told to get the heck out. I was going to stay, but it's better to be safe than sorry," said Hugh Phillips, who was one of the first in line when a Red Cross shelter in Lewes, Del., opened at noon.

"I think this one's going to do us in," said Mark Palazzolo, who boarded up his bait-and-tackle shop in Point Pleasant Beach, N.J., with the same wood he used in past storms, crossing out the names of Hurricanes Isaac and Irene and spray-painting "Sandy" next to them. "I got a call from a friend of mine from Florida last night who said, 'Mark, get out! If it's not the storm, it'll be the aftermath. People are going to be fighting in the streets over gasoline and food.'"

However, CBS News correspondent Chip Reid reports, some, like Ocean City, Md., surfer Brian Dean, said they have decided to stay.

"We've got everything pretty well situated, bunkered down, generators, [we'll] hang out, ride it out. We rode out Irene last year, it wasn't that bad," he said.

Authorities warned that the nation's biggest city could get hit with a surge of seawater that could swamp parts of lower Manhattan, flood subway tunnels and cripple the network of electrical and communications lines that are vital to the nation's financial center.

Sandy was blamed for 65 deaths in the Caribbean before it began traveling northward, parallel to the Eastern Seaboard.

Forecasters said the combination of it with the storm from the west and the cold air from the Arctic could bring close to a foot of rain in places, a potentially lethal storm surge of 4 to 11 feet across much of the region, and punishing winds that could cause widespread power outages that last for days. The storm could also dump up to 2 feet of snow in Kentucky, North Carolina and West Virginia.

Louis Uccellini, environmental prediction chief for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told The Associated Press that given Sandy's east-to-west track into New Jersey, the worst of the storm surge could be just to the north, in New York City, on Long Island and in northern New Jersey.

Forecasters said that because of giant waves and high tides made worse by a full moon, the metropolitan area of about 20 million people could get hit with an 11-foot wall of water. Reid reports from Ocean City that sea levels could rise 8 feet above normal - enough to flood much of the city.

"This is the worst-case scenario," Uccellini said.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned: "If you don't evacuate, you are not only endangering your life, you are also endangering the lives of the first responders who are going in to rescue you. This is a serious and dangerous storm."

New Jersey's famously blunt Gov. Chris Christie was less polite: "Don't be stupid. Get out."

New York called off school Monday for the city's 1.1 million students and shut down all train, bus and subway service Sunday night. More than 5 million riders a day depend on the transit system.

Officials also postponed Monday's reopening of the Statue of Liberty, which had been closed for a year for $30 million in renovations. The United Nations said it would close Monday and canceled all meetings at its headquarters.

In Washington, President Obama promised the government would "respond big and respond fast" after the storm hits.

"My message to the governors as well as to the mayors is anything they need, we will be there, and we will cut through red tape. We are not going to get bogged down with a lot of rules," he said.

Analysis: U.S. presidential race is all about Ohio - or is it?

Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney both have clear paths to the 270 electoral votes needed for victory - and they don't all go through Ohio, the state that both sides have long viewed as key to capturing the White House.

Obama still has a slight electoral map advantage fueled by his slim lead in Ohio, but Romney has steadily closed the gap or moved slightly ahead in some other battleground states. Eight states remain relative toss-ups.

Both candidates can construct multiple winning scenarios, with or without Ohio. And it's now possible that the tipping point could emerge from another battleground, such as Colorado, where Obama and Romney are deadlocked in the polls.

"At this point, there are probably more electoral map scenarios than there are undecided voters," said Lee Miringoff, a pollster at Marist College, which is conducting surveys in key swing states.

"In a 50-50 race ... everything and everywhere is going to matter," he said.

National polls show the race is a virtual dead heat, but Obama still has a lead of at least 4 percentage points in states that account for 237 electoral votes, according to averages compiled by RealClearPolitics. Romney has a lead of at least that size in states that represent 201 electoral votes.

That gives Obama slightly more leeway in the fight for the remaining 95 electoral votes available in the eight toss-up states, all won by Obama in the 2008 election - Colorado (9 electoral votes), Florida (29), Iowa (6), Nevada (6), New Hampshire (4), Ohio (18), Virginia (13) and Wisconsin (10).

Obama is clinging to slight poll leads - which typically are less than the polls' margins of error - in five of those states with a combined 44 electoral votes: Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and Wisconsin. That would be enough to put him over the top.

Even if he loses Ohio, Obama could still get to 270 electoral votes - and clinch the election - by winning Colorado instead. Obama won Colorado by 9 percentage points in 2008, aided by support from young and suburban voters and the growing Hispanic vote, but he is virtually tied with Romney there now.

Romney's path is tougher without Ohio, but still possible.

The former Massachusetts governor has a slight lead over Obama in Florida and has pulled even with the president in Virginia. If Romney sweeps those two states and adds Colorado, he would still need to win Iowa, New Hampshire and Wisconsin to capture the White House.

NEVADA SLIPPING AWAY FROM ROMNEY?

Of the eight toss-up states, Nevada appears the least competitive, with analysts and some strategists in both parties saying it is moving toward Obama.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll on Thursday gave Obama a 3-point edge in Nevada, and the last six public polls have shown Obama ahead.

Romney appears to have an advantage in Florida, where six of the last seven public polls have shown him with a small lead. RealClearPolitics puts Romney's average lead at 1.8 percentage points, within most polls' margin of error but symbolic of a trend toward the Republican, analysts say.

"Once an incumbent loses a grip on the race, it's very hard to get it back," said Florida-based pollster Brad Coker of Mason-Dixon. "Florida is gone for Obama, from what I'm seeing on the ground here. The map seems to be expanding for Romney and shrinking for Obama."

The multiple electoral scenarios have sparked speculation about alternative outcomes such as a 269-269 tie in electoral votes, which would leave the presidency to a vote by the Republican-led House of Representatives.

Another possibility: one candidate wins the nationwide popular vote, while the other wins the electoral vote - and walks away with the presidency.

The most heavily contested prize remains Ohio, and both campaigns are concentrating their time and resources there. Obama has an average lead in polls there of 1.9 percentage points, according to RealClearPolitics. Six of the last nine public polls showed Obama with a slight edge.

The other three showed a tie, including a poll released on Sunday by the Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper and the Ohio News Organization.

"The electoral map tilts slightly to Obama, but only because Ohio is so important and that's one state where he has kept a very small lead," said Thomas Riehle, a pollster at the market research firm YouGov, which also is surveying swing states.

"The polling is so much closer than it was in 2000 or any other close election year, so everything is hard to predict," he said.

'AN ILLUSION OF VOLATILITY'

Romney's poll gains since his strong performance in the first debate on October 3 have been powered by growing voter confidence in his ability to handle the economy, an increase in his favorability ratings and gains among women and independents.

But Romney's early and mid-October momentum seems to have slowed or stopped since Obama's strong performances in the final two debates. National tracking polls have ebbed and flowed in a narrow range during the past week, with Romney keeping a slight lead in most.

But in a Reuters/Ipsos national online tracking poll on Sunday, Obama opened a slight lead on Romney, 49 percent to 46 percent, among likely voters.

On the state level, Romney's surge put him slightly ahead in Florida and Virginia, but has not been enough for him to overtake Obama in the Midwestern battlegrounds of Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin.

Those three states alone, added to the states where Obama already has solid leads, would be enough for the president to win with 271 electoral votes.

"There is an illusion of volatility that is created when you have 90 public polls coming out every day," Obama senior adviser David Axelrod told reporters last week. "The fact of the matter is, this race has been remarkably stable over a long period of time."

Obama's support level falls short of the magic 50 percent mark in most national and swing state polls, a danger sign for an incumbent who is well known to voters and therefore could be unlikely to win the support of a majority of those who make late decisions.

The close race has put a premium on each campaign's ability to identify and turn out their voters, and Obama's camp has trumpeted its edge in early voting in swing states and its effort to get both frequent and sporadic voters to the polls.

It is unclear how Hurricane Sandy will affect early voting along the East Coast - particularly in Virginia. Bob McDonnell, Virginia's Republican governor and a Romney supporter, has vowed to extend early voting hours and restore power quickly to voting facilities in the event of outages.

Obama's Democrats have made early voting a focus of their campaign and represent a majority of those casting ballots before Election Day.

But Romney's campaign says early voting among Republicans in the toss-up states is running ahead of the party's pace in 2008, when Obama defeated Republican John McCain. In Ohio, Republicans are out-performing their share of registered voters in absentee ballot requests and early votes, the campaign said.

"The battleground state polls are all very close, although many are still tipping slightly Obama's way," Miringoff said. "It's still very much a flip of the coin situation."