It should have been another good weekend for Herman Cain. It wasn't.

As NPR and just about every other news outlet report about the milestone that United Nations experts estimate the world passed today — a population of 7 billion people — there's this from the BBC:

Italy needs the backing of Europe's bailout fund. But Italy's a huge economy — much, much bigger than Greece, Portugal, and Ireland combined. And the Europeans don't want to put enough money into their bailout fund to back Italy.

So they're getting creative.

The rest of Europe is likely offer investors insurance that will pay back the first 20 percent of any losses on new Italian bonds.

Good morning.

Our early headlines were:

-- Reporter: Herman Cain Story Based On Documentation, Dozens Of Sources

-- No Treat: About Two Million Still Without Power In Northeast

The morning's other major stories include:

That unusually early winter storm that struck the Northeast over the weekend, dumping up to 30 inches of wet heavy snow in some places, has left millions of customers without electricity because snapped limbs and falling trees brought down power lines across New England.

"I have never sexually harassed anyone," Republican presidential contender Herman Cain told Fox News Channel this morning. The former business executive said he was "falsely accused" of harassment "while I was at the National Restaurant Association" in the early 1990s.

Cain, appearing on Fox just after 11:20 a.m. ET, said that if the restaurant association, where he served as CEO from late-1996 to mid-1999, paid any accusers to settle such claims, "I wasn't even aware of it and I hope it wasn't for much."

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne.

David Huyette ended up holding the home-run ball that won Game Six of the World Series for the St. Louis Cardinals. It could have been worth thousands, but Huyette returned the historic ball, saying it was "the honorable thing to do." He was rewarded with another baseball, an autographed bat and tickets to Game Seven.

At 10 p.m. on Monday, NBC anchor Brian Williams will do something that hasn't been done in nearly 20 years: launch a new network TV newsmagazine.

Hosted live from NBC's Rockefeller Center headquarters — thus the name, Rock Center — it's an ambitious attempt to showcase both Williams' serious news skills and his signature dry wit. And if it's going to succeed, he and NBC may have to reinvent the newsmagazine for a new age.