Evening Edition

Clashes erupted between youths and riot police in several towns Tuesday and shops in the city of Lyon were looted as workers and students came out in force around the country to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy’s unpopular reform.

Sarkozy refused to back down however and leading unions in some sectors including airports called for stoppages to continue on Wednesday, while oil refineries remained blocked, hit by a week of strikes.

Prime Minister David Cameron said 17,000 service personnel would go from the British Army, Royal Air Force and Royal Navy by 2015 — but vowed there would be “no cut whatsoever” to the level of support for forces in Afghanistan.

As part of eight percent cuts to the 37 billion pound (42 billion euro, 58 billion dollar) Ministry of Defence (MoD) budget, the Royal Navy’s flagship HMS Ark Royal aircraft carrier is also being scrapped immediately along with Britain’s fleet of Harrier jets.

The group of up to four militants broke into the parliament building in the Chechen capital Grozny early in the morning, sparking fears of a major hostage crisis before security forces moved in.

The dramatic raid was a major blow to Kremlin claims that stability has returned to Chechnya, after two wars since the collapse of the Soviet Union and years of Islamist and separatist-inspired unrest.

The high-speed ICE train made its first test trip all the way through the tunnel under the English Channel overnight and was welcomed at London’s St. Pancras station by German and British officials.

The German rail operator wants to run regular services from the heart of Europe to London within three years, taking advantage of European Union rules that open up rail competition.

Contador, a three-time winner of the coveted yellow jersey, is currently provisionally suspended after testing positive for trace amounts of the banned substance clenbuterol.

As the Spaniard awaits a decision regarding a possible sanction, race organisers gave a spectacular show of just what he could be missing next year.

After eight hours of negotiations in Luxembourg, seeking to deliver on promises to ensure the Greek debt crisis would never happen again, European Union president Herman Van Rompuy was also charged with negotiating treaty change for the bloc “by 2013.”

The initiatives were announced by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Deauville, France, at a summit with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

The EU’s executive arm unveiled proposals to increase the ability of Brussels to raise its own funds for the 2014-2020 budget to reduce contributions from cash-strapped governments.

The idea of a European tax has already met resistance from economic powerhouses Britain, France and Germany following a recession and debt crisis that forced governments to cut national budgets and raise taxes.

US President Barack Obama called it America’s worst ever environmental disaster and promised to keep the boot on BP until it had compensated claimants and cleaned up every last drop of oil.

But with the media focus now elsewhere and not so much visible damage, the clean-up has been dramatically scaled back and fishermen still desperately wait for checks as they peer into an uncertain future.

Refinery workers, airport staff, train drivers, teachers, postal workers and guards who supply cash machines went on strike and students set off rowdy protests in a day of action against plans to raise the minimum retirement age to 62 from 60.

At least a million protesters demonstrated in cities across France in the biggest and most persistent challenge to economic reforms anywhere in Europe, where governments are struggling to curb budget deficits and reduce debt mountains.

Shares of the largest mortgage servicers all fell in afternoon trading as the market digested moves by a group of investors that could force Bank of America to repurchase billions of dollars of loans.

A crisis over shoddy foreclosure paperwork has drawn attention to mortgage-related problems at banks, including a trend toward these so-called “putbacks” by holders of mortgage securities.

While Tuesday’s data was encouraging, housing starts remained at depressed levels and added to the case for more monetary stimulus to shore up the sluggish economic recovery.

The Federal Reserve appears almost certain to signal it will pump more money into the economy at its November 2-3 policy meeting through fresh purchases of government securities, but it is unclear how large the program will be.

Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, was not in the parliamentary compound in the Chechen capital Grozny when three rebels burst in at 8:45 a.m. (12:45 a.m. EDT), as deputies arrived for work.

One blew himself up and two others went on the rampage inside, spraying bullets and screaming “Allahu Akbar” (“God is Greatest”), a witness at the parliament building said.

The Obama administration has insisted it supports ending the policy, known as “don’t ask, don’t tell,” but urged the judge again to allow more time for a political remedy to the issue rather than a court-imposed one.

The administration has said it would otherwise seek a stay from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowing the ban on gays in the military to remain in effect pending appeal.

“It is not going to happen in this country.” Geithner told Silicon Valley business leaders of devaluing the dollar.

Geithner broke his silence on the dollar’s protracted slide ahead of this weekend’s meeting of finance leaders from the Group of 20 wealthy and emerging nations in South Korea, where rising tensions over Chinese and U.S. currency valuations are expected to take center stage.

Jobs, who has not addressed investors on an earnings call for two years, lashed out at competitors Google Inc and Research in Motion and dismissed the smaller tablets made by rivals such including Samsung and Dell.

“The current crop of 7-inch tablets are going to be DOA, dead on arrival,” Jobs told analysts on the conference call. “Their manufacturers will learn the painful lesson that their tablets are too small.”

WikiLeaks, which in July released some 70,000 U.S. documents on the Afghanistan war, is expected soon to post on its website as many as 500,000 classified leaked U.S. documents from the Iraq war. The U.S. government in July condemned the release of the initial leaked documents, which painted a grim picture of the war in Afghanistan that began in 2001.

Pentagon spokesman Colonel David Lapan said the U.S. military is “absolutely” urging WikiLeaks to “return the stolen documents to the United States government and … not publish them.” Lapan also appealed to the news media.

The World Bank buttressed the argument made by China and others that U.S. policies are sending a wave of cash flowing into higher-yielding emerging markets, undermining their export competitiveness and pumping up inflation and asset bubbles.

“We are seeing an effort by developing East Asia to deal with the large amounts of liquidity driven in very large part by the monetary policy easing in the United States,” Vikram Nehru, the bank’s chief economist for Asia-Pacific, told reporters in Tokyo.

An Iranian representative joined a meeting in Rome of almost 50 officials from the international contact group on Afghanistan to discuss progress in the transfer of security responsibility to Afghan forces.

“The story here is very simple. This is the first time the Iranians have attended this meeting,” Holbrooke told a news conference, adding that Washington saw no objection to the presence of its long-time foe at the talks.

Some gay activist groups were planning to send people to enlist at recruiting stations to test the Pentagon’s Tuesday announcement.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in California whose ruling last week brought the 17-year policy the closest yet to being overturned was likely to reject the government’s latest effort to halt her order telling the military to stop enforcing the law.

“Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?” O’Donnell asked while Democrat Chris Coons, an attorney, sat a few feet away.

Coons responded that O’Donnell’s question “reveals her fundamental misunderstanding of what our Constitution is. … The First Amendment establishes a separation.”

Republican Jeff Perry is making a serious bid to take over a seat held by Democrats for nearly 40 years – and it’s just one of nearly 100 seats across the country that now appear under at least some threat of slipping away from the majority party and giving control of the U.S. House to the GOP.

At least 75 House seats – the vast majority held by Democrats – are at serious risk of changing hands, and roughly 25 more where Democrats were assumed to have the upper hand have tightened in recent weeks, raising the possibility that some could flip to the Republicans as well.

The league announced Tuesday that the Pittsburgh Steelers’ James Harrison was docked $75,000 while the New England Patriots’ Brandon Meriweather and the Atlanta Falcons’ Dunta Robinson will lose $50,000 each.

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said the league wanted to give players fair warning before it begins suspensions for flagrant hits. He says a memo will go out to teams Wednesday about the changes in disciplinary action.

Hundreds of flights were canceled and desperate drivers searched for gas as oil refinery strikes and blockages emptied the pumps at nearly a third of the nation’s gas stations.

A series of nationwide protests against the bill since early September have been largely peaceful. But Tuesday’s clashes, notably just outside Paris and in the southeastern city of Lyon, revived memories of student unrest in 2006 that forced the government to abandon another highly unpopular labor bill.

The bank also announced a change in its consumer banking strategy to focus on providing customers with incentives to do more business with the bank instead of generating revenue through penalty fees such as overdraft charges. The bank is already starting to implement some changes, and has cut overdraft fees on small amounts that customers charge to their debit cards.

“Customer scores have improved, complaint volumes are down,” CEO Brian Moynihan said on a conference call with analysts to discuss earnings.

The $250 check is meant to make up for a second year without a cost-of-living increase due to low inflation.

President Barack Obama has urged Congress to approve the $250 payment. House and Senate Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid say they will bring up the legislation when lawmakers return for the lame-duck session in November. In the meantime, Democrats are using the proposal to augment their campaign pitch that Republicans would undermine Social Security.

The ace of October overpowered the New York Yankees again, striking out 13 and sending the Texas Rangers to an 8-0 victory Monday night for a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven AL championship series.

Josh Hamilton hit an early two-run homer off Andy Pettitte and started a six-run outburst in the ninth with a leadoff double. Lee allowed only two singles in eight innings and became the first pitcher to reach double digits in strikeouts three times in one postseason.

The report gives the strongest indication of the involvement of Pakistani authorities in the attack, which killed 166 people, paralyzed India’s business capital and froze peace efforts between Pakistan and India.

Under questioning by Indian officials, David Headley painted a detailed picture of how intertwined Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency was with the Lashkar-e-Taiba group accused of carrying out the attack, according to the report.

Outlining the first defense review since 1998 – intended both to sweep away strategies crafted before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. and to help clear the country’s crippling national debt – Cameron said 17,000 troops, a fleet of jets and an aging aircraft carrier would all be sacrificed.

Cameron’s government has hinted for months that the cuts would be severe – and sweeping. Communities around the country watched the announcement nervously, worried about jobs and the impact on local communities in a time of economic hardship.

In an informal survey, 35 researchers who study the Gulf lowered their rating of its ecological health by several points, compared to their assessment before the BP well gushed millions of gallons of oil. But the drop in grade wasn’t dramatic. On a scale of 0 to 100, the overall average grade for the oiled Gulf was 65 – down from 71 before the spill.

This reflects scientists’ views that the spilled 172 million gallons of oil further eroded what was already a beleaguered body of water – tainted for years by farm runoff from the Mississippi River, overfishing, and oil from smaller spills and natural seepage.

Most Democrats are trying to avoid campaigning on what should have been the party’s signature issue, but the lonely bunch who’ve stuck their necks out may finally be hitting on a message. Some are using constituents to vouch for specific benefits that only recently took effect, changes whose poll-tested popularity isn’t in question.

The argument won’t stop on Nov. 2. Democrats will have to keep defending the health care law in the next Congress and on into the 2012 presidential and congressional campaign. And they badly need to find their voice with a message that can connect with middle-class voters.

Bank of America said Monday that it plans to resume seizing more than 100,000 homes in 23 states next week. It said it has a legal right to foreclose despite accusations that documents used in the process were flawed.

Ally Financial Inc’s GMAC Mortgage unit is also resuming foreclosures once documents are fixed. Gina Proia, a spokeswoman for Ally, said that “as we review the affected files and take any remediation needed, the foreclosure process then resumes.”

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that several popular Facebook applications have been transmitting users’ personal identifying information to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies. Facebook said it is working to fix the problem, and was quick to point out that the leaks were not intentional, but a consequence of basic Web mechanisms.

“In most cases, developers did not intend to pass this information, but did so because of the technical details of how browsers work,” said Mike Vernal, a Facebook engineer, in a blog post Monday.

The Stokeses enrolled their sons as Scouts at Christ Covenant Church, a Presbyterian congregation about 10 miles from Charlotte, then expressed interest in volunteering as leaders. Church officials were initially thrilled earlier this month, the Stokeses said, until they saw on the couple’s application forms that they belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

After two Scout meetings, the Stokeses were told their sons, 6 and 8 years old, could remain in their packs, but the parents couldn’t serve as leaders.

“What happened to me shouldn’t happen to any judge,” Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller told The Associated Press during an interview at her courthouse office.

Keller, 57, was absolved last week of wrongdoing, ending a legal fracas that began after she infamously ordered the court shut at 5 p.m. on Sept. 25, 2007, which lawyers for condemned killer Michael Richard said blocked them from filing a last-minute appeal. Richard was executed that night for the rape and slaying of a Houston-area nurse who had seven children.

Gwinnett County Public Schools snagged the Broad Prize for Urban Education, an award the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation gives annually to urban districts that show the most gains in student performance and closing minority achievement gaps.

It’s the second year in a row the 150,000-student district was nominated for the prize announced Tuesday.

The 83 cyclists were among dozens arrested for mostly minor infractions during the “Critical Mass” rides between 2004 and 2006. The arrests largely stopped in 2007, the year a group of riders filed a civil rights lawsuit, although police continue to monitor cyclists and write tickets for traffic infractions.

The caravans on the final Friday of every month routinely drew hundreds of bike enthusiasts who pedaled the unfriendly streets of Manhattan in a pack – and were then systematically pursued by police who said the processions were illegal and unsafe.

U.S. Attorney Jerry E. Martin of Nashville said his office would not sit by while mosque opponents raise questions in court about whether Islam is a recognized religion. Martin said in a statement that to suggest otherwise “is quite simply ridiculous.”

Martin’s office filed a brief saying as much in a state lawsuit brought by mosque opponents against Rutherford County for granting permission for construction of the building.