Evening Edition

But years of legal wrangles and probes lie ahead even after the well is killed, and myriad questions remain about the long-term effects of the massive oil spill on wildlife, the environment and the livelihoods of Gulf residents.

BP aims to start the “static kill” on Sunday or Monday, pumping heavy drilling mud and cement down through the cap at the top of the well that has sealed it for the past two weeks.

The comments by Hayward, who resigned Tuesday following his heavily criticised handling of the Gulf of Mexico disaster, drew renewed criticism from Washington as BP struggles to restore its reputation after the spillage.

“I don’t think that a lot of people in any country are feeling overly sorry for the former CEO of BP,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

Cheers broke out in the assembly as the ban was approved by 68 votes in favour to 55 against and nine abstentions, while supporters and opponents of the ban both held noisy rallies outside.

But while the vote delighted animal welfare campaigners, some observers saw the vote as much about Catalonia asserting its regional identity for nationalist reasons as an issue of animal rights.

Belgrade wants the UN General Assembly to call on both sides “to find mutually acceptable solutions for all outstanding issues through peaceful dialogue in the interest of peace, security and cooperation in the region.”

The draft resolution, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, makes no mention of reopening talks on the status of Kosovo, which Belgrade had previously insisted on.

The 308-114 vote in the House of Representatives set the stage for Obama to sign the legislation, which provides some 37 billion dollars to fund the conflict in Iraq and pay for his “surge” of 33,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

The House also beat back a blunt challenge to Obama’s war-fighting strategy, defeating a resolution calling for the removal of US forces from Pakistan by a crushing 38-372 margin.

The bomb exploded as the bus travelled on a highway through Nimroz province, provincial governor Ghulam Dastgir Azad and the interior ministry said.

Afghan officials blamed the attack on the Taliban, which is fighting to overthrow the Afghan government and evict nearly 150,000 foreign troops in a nine-year insurgency. The militant group denied involvement.

Incoming BP chief executive, Bob Dudley, said the company would stay involved with the cleanup process in the Gulf of Mexico long after the leaking well was plugged and expressed optimism the damaged environment would recover.

“It is possible that as early as Monday or Tuesday this well might be killed,” Dudley said on National Public Radio.

They help slow down hurricanes and filter pollution. As impenetrable to humans as a green wall, they shelter birds, fish and endangered mammals, and act as nurseries for commercial species like shrimp and crabs.

But let oil get into their roots and underground reproductive systems, and they can wither and die. If the grasses go, they could take parts of Louisiana’s fragile wetlands with them, which means thousands of acres (hectares) of productive and protective marsh could turn into open water.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said she would file an appeal to reinstate the provisions, which had popular support but were opposed by President Barack Obama and immigration and human rights groups.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton blocked several provisions including one that required a police officer to determine the immigration status of a person detained or arrested, if the officer believed the person was not in the country legally.

Despite the deadlock in Baghdad, the U.S. military has kept its withdrawal timetable on track. It is due to reduce the size of its forces in Iraq to 50,000 troops by August 31, when they will formally move to a more advisory role supporting Iraq’s security forces.

“By the end of 2011, all of America’s forces will leave Iraq, and its security will be wholly in the hands of its government and its people,” Biden told members of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, at a ceremony at Fort Drum in New York as he welcomed them home from Iraq.

The Commerce Department report on Wednesday on long-lasting manufactured goods, however, showed cash-flush businesses continued to invest in equipment. That implied underlying demand remained intact with firms exhibiting confidence in the moderate economic recovery.

“The bottom line is that the data show business investment had a very strong second quarter and, although the recovery in manufacturing may be losing a little momentum, it is hardly collapsing,” said Paul Ashworth, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics in Toronto.

In Kabul, the Afghan government accused the United States of ignoring Pakistan’s role in the Taliban insurgency as the fallout continued from Sunday’s unauthorized release of 91,000 classified U.S. military reports on the war.

Congress, controlled by Obama’s Democratic Party, took six months to give him the funding he sought to pay for the 30,000 extra troops he is sending to Afghanistan to try to break a resurgent Taliban in the nine-year-old war.

The world’s largest aerospace and defense company stood by its forecast for 2011 revenue improvements and reiterated expectations for a rebound in commercial orders.

The decline in Boeing shares pressured the Dow Jones industrial average. Government data showed an unexpected drop in new orders for durable goods — mainly aircraft — in June.

In a sign of trouble ahead for the Democrats, the poll found evidence of a sizable enthusiasm gap with Republicans more energized about voting in the elections.

Americans expressed deep unhappiness with the direction of the economy, which in the poll they identified overwhelmingly as the country’s top problem.

BP is replacing CEO Tony Hayward with Managing Director Robert Dudley, selling $30 billion in assets and setting aside $32.2 billion to cover the long-term cost of the spill. It’s also claiming a $9.88 billion tax credit in the second quarter based on the $32.2 billion charge.

BP executives were asked in a conference call Tuesday whether they had discussed the tax credit with U.S. authorities.

Robert Dudley, who will replace Tony Hayward on Oct. 1, promised changes in light of the environmental disaster. “There’s no question we are going to learn things from this investigation of the incident,” he told reporters by phone from London after the announcement was made.

One certain change is that BP will become smaller. It announced it will sell $30 billion in assets and has set aside $32.2 billion to cover costs from the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

Scientists caution that doesn’t mean the crude is gone. There’s still a lot of it in the Gulf, though no one is sure quite how much or exactly where it is.

“You know it didn’t just disappear,” said Ernst Peebles, a biological oceanographer at the University of South Florida. “We expect that is has been dispersed pretty far by now.”

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton shifts the immigration debate to the courts and sets up a lengthy legal battle that may not be decided until the Supreme Court weighs in. Republican Gov. Jan Brewer said the state will likely appeal the ruling and seek to get the judge’s order overturned.

But for now, opponents of the law have prevailed: The provisions that most angered opponents will not take effect, including sections that required officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws.

The Justice Department inspector general is investigating whether hundreds of agents cheated on the test. Some took the open-book test together, violating rules that they take it alone. Others finished the lengthy exam unusually quickly, current and former officials said.

The test was supposed to ensure that FBI agents understand new rules allowing them to conduct surveillance and open files on Americans without evidence of criminal wrongdoing. If agents can’t pass that test without cheating, civil liberties groups ask, how can they follow them?

Julian Assange didn’t say whether he meant he had no idea who leaked the documents or whether his organization simply could not be sure. But he did say the added layer of secrecy helps protect the site’s sources from spy agencies and hostile corporations.

“We never know the source of the leak,” he told journalists gathered at London’s Frontline Club late Tuesday. “Our whole system is designed such that we don’t have to keep that secret.”

The bloodsucking pests, which are not known to spread disease but can cause great mental anguish with their persistent and fast-growing infestations, have rapidly multiplied throughout New York and many other U.S. cities in recent years.

Health officials and pest control specialists nationwide report surges in sightings, bites and complaints. The Environmental Protection Agency hosted its first-ever bedbug summit last year.

The House, by voice vote, approved a bill reducing the disparities between mandatory crack and powder cocaine sentences, sending the measure to President Barack Obama for his signature. During his presidential campaign, Obama said that the wide gap in sentencing “cannot be justified and should be eliminated.”

The Senate passed the bill in March.

Sarkozy called a government meeting Wednesday after Gypsies clashed with police this month following the shooting death of a youth fleeing officers in the Loire Valley.

Sarkozy said those responsible for the clashes would be “severely punished” and ordered the government to expel all illegal Roma immigrants, almost all of whom have come from eastern Europe.

The talks between Rangel’s lawyer and the House ethics committee’s nonpartisan attorneys were confirmed by ethics Chairman Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif. Lofgren said she is not involved in the talks, and added that the committee’s lawmakers have always accepted the professional staff’s recommendations in previous plea bargains.

Rangel, a 40-year House veteran who is 80 years old, would have to admit to multiple, substantial ethics violations for any plea bargain to be accepted. Earlier negotiations broke down when Rangel would only admit to some allegations – not enough to satisfy the committee lawyers, according to people familiar with those talks who were not authorized to be quoted by name.

Cheers broke out in the local 135-seat legislature after the speaker announced the ban had passed 68-to-55 with nine abstentions. The ban will take effect in 2012 in the northeastern coastal region whose capital is Barcelona.

Catalonia is a powerful, wealthy area with its own language and culture and a large degree of self-rule. Many in Spain have seen the pressure here for a bullfighting ban as a further bid by Catalonia to stand out from the rest of the country.

Statistics obtained by The Associated Press show that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office was responsible for the deportations or forced departure of 26,146 immigrants since 2007.

That’s about a quarter of the national total of 115,841 sent out of the U.S. by officers in 64 law enforcement agencies deputized to help enforce immigration laws, some since 2006, under the so-called 287(g) program.

U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy in Missoula, Mont., ruled that the current environmental assessment is inadequate in light of federal biologists’ findings that fire retardant that lands in creeks and on rare plants jeopardize the survival of endangered species and their habitat.

Molloy did not restrict the use of fire retardant this summer, but in a sternly written order gave the Forest Service until the end of 2011 to do a tougher environmental impact statement. He warned the agency could be found in contempt for failing to meet the deadline and refused to hear further arguments on the issue.

Carman Lapointe-Young won approval from the General Assembly to become the undersecretary-general for oversight. She will be given the huge task of trying to quickly fix an agency that her predecessor says is in disarray.

The Manitoba native was appointed to the non-renewable, five-year term as head of the U.N.’s Office of Internal Oversight Services by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, whose leadership was severely criticized in an end-of-assignment memo by outgoing OIOS head Inga-Britt Ahlenius of Sweden.

Retired Judge Judith Kaye, tasked by state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo with examining Paterson’s role in the assault case, said the Democratic governor’s actions did not constitute witness tampering.

However, she criticized him for failing to inquire about what actually happened that night beyond the account of his friend and aide David Johnson, and she wrote that he also didn’t try to confirm a report that an order of protection was issued.

A new study estimates the number of Amish has increased nearly 10 percent in the past two years alone, to a total population of 249,000, compared with about 227,000 in 2008. That figure was just 124,000 in 1992. Nearly all Amish descended from a group of about 5,000 in the early 20th century.

The study by the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pa., found that about two-thirds of Amish still live in the traditional strongholds of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, but that they continue to spread west, particularly into the Midwestern corn belt.

BMW’s entry model, the 1-Series, is a 14.3-foot-long, two-door, four-passenger subcompact car that’s smaller than a Toyota Camry. But it’s the 2010 1-Series – not the bigger, five-passenger Camry sedan – that comes only with six-cylinder engines rather than a fuel-thrifty four banger.

No wonder the 1-Series has a lower gasoline mileage rating – just 18 miles per gallon in city driving and 25 mpg on the highway for the test model – than the Camry. This is akin to the fuel economy rating of some sport utility vehicles, such as the 2010 Lexus RX 350 with two-wheel drive.

She asks: “Have you heard of the female condom?” Then, to show how it works, she picks up her demonstration kit – a condom and anatomical models.

It’s a seemingly awkward conversation to have on a city street, but Cotton isn’t embarrassed. She’s part of a citywide effort to promote female condoms in the hope they can help stop the spread of HIV in Washington, which has one of the highest infection rates in the country.

Then, authorities say, they beat him unconscious, with the camera rolling.

Days later, the 47-year-old father of four was dead – but not before the video had been circulated among teenagers in Summit, N.J., authorities say. And not before a nurse in the emergency room where he was taken the night of July 17 was accused of pilfering several hundred dollars from his wallet.

Justices on Tuesday unanimously said Jeffs should get a new trial because state attorneys overreached in their argument that performing the marriage of a 14-year-old girl to her 19-year-old cousin amounted to facilitating a rape.

Utah officials now have two weeks to seek a rehearing before the state’s high court and then a month to decide if they’ll retry the 54-year-old head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on charges of first-degree felony rape as an accomplice.

The U.S. Forest Service said Tuesday it was barring entry to caves on service-owned land in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas and South Dakota because of white-nose syndrome, which has killed nearly a million bats in the eastern and southern U.S. and is spreading west.

The agency said it took the action to help prevent humans from inadvertently spreading the disease.

Eight passengers and a train operator were killed in June 2009 when a Metrorail train rear-ended a second train stopped near the Fort Totten station on the city’s northeastern outskirts.

As expected, the NTSB concluded that the collision occurred because Metro’s signaling system failed to detect the stopped train and automatically slow the approaching train down.

Marc-Andre Bernier, Parks Canada’s head of underwater archaeology, said the HMS Investigator, abandoned in the ice in 1853, was found in shallow water in Mercy Bay along the northern coast of Banks Island in Canada’s western Arctic.

“The ship is standing upright in very good condition. It’s standing in about 11 meters (36 feet) of water,” he said. “This is definitely of the utmost importance. This is the ship that sailed the last leg of the Northwest Passage.”