Evening Edition

Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi announced on state television that he had taken over as interim president, after a day of violent clashes between rock-throwing protesters and riot police in the streets of central Tunis.

“I call on Tunisians of all political persuasions and from all regions to demonstrate patriotism and unity,” Ghannouchi said in a solemn live address.

“I have understood you,” Ben Ali, who has ruled the North African country with an iron fist for the last 23 years, said during a state of the nation address.

The 74-year-old leader also admitted that he had mishandled a spreading wave of unrest and promised democratic reforms.

Only hours after the veteran leader vowed on state television that he would stand down in 2014 and prices of basic foodstuffs would be cut, his prime minister announced a clear-out of government and elections in six months.

Police fired volleys of tear gas to disperse thousands of demonstrators in the heart of the capital amid clashes between security forces and protestors, as authorities declared a state of emergency and a curfew across the country.

“No to Ben Ali, the uprising continues,” hundreds shouted in a march down the main boulevard in central Tunis, Avenue Bourguiba, while thousands more protesters took to the streets in other towns shouting “Ben Ali out”.

The crowd in the capital, which included lawyers in black robes, sang the national anthem, and also accused the president’s in-laws in the Trabelsi family of “looting the country”, AFP reporters said.

Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to beatify the Polish-born pope in the preliminary step to canonisation was immediately celebrated in his home country.

The archbishop of Krakow, Stanislaw Dziwisz, a longtime influential aide and friend to the late pope, spoke of his “great joy” on behalf of “the whole of Poland.”

It is the first time the work’s controversial creator has exhibited in Asia, a sure sign that the epicentre of the world’s art scene is shifting east — following the money.

Entitled “For Heaven’s Sake”, the work is a platinum cast of a human baby skull with more than 16,000 diamonds embedded in it. It is the first time the work has gone on display anywhere.

Jonathan dominated his main challenger, ex-vice president Atiku Abubakar, taking nearly 80 percent of the vote of party delegates that began Thursday evening and ended with a final tally early Friday.

However, Abubakar’s campaign alleged intimidation and rigging, and his electoral agents refused to sign off on the primary results. A statement said he was holding consultations on his next line of action.

Bin Hammam told Sky News in an interview that he was “unimpressed” by suggestions from FIFA President Sepp Blatter that the tournament could be moved to a winter time slot to avoid sweltering summer temperatures in Qatar.

He also took aim at remarks by UEFA President Michel Platini earlier this week that the 2022 tournament could be a “Gulf World Cup”, with matches taking place in several countries surrounding Qatar.

Gates was speaking in Japan on Friday, during a week-long Asia tour focused on the threat posed by nuclear-armed North Korea and the increasing military assertiveness in the region of Pyongyang’s only major ally China.

The Pentagon chief stressed that China’s President Hu Jintao, whom he met on Tuesday, was “in command and in charge” but also said there were signs that civilian leaders had been unaware of the J-20 jet’s test flight.

President Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali stepped aside after more than two decades in power and looked to have flown out of the country. His exact whereabouts were unclear.

Ben Ali’s prime minister told Tunisians he would steer the state until early elections. The streets of the capital were calm amid heavy security, but some analysts questioned whether the change of face at the top would satisfy the protesters.

JPMorgan executives said loan demand and trading profit could grow this year, boosting investor optimism that revenue for other major banks will recover.

The bank’s shares rose 2.2 percent to $45.42, their highest since April, and they were one of the biggest percentage gainers on the Dow Jones industrial average an hour before the close of the market.

Despite the small rise in retail sales in December, a key shopping month, sales for all of 2010 reversed two years of contraction with the biggest gain in more than a decade, according to data released on Friday.

“We are gathering momentum,” said Swiss Re chief economist Kurt Karl, adding that a three-month moving average of retail sales was “really strong.”

France’s domestic intelligence service DCRI was expected to be officially charged with the investigation late on Friday or on Monday, sources close to the matter said.

Renault on Thursday set the scene for a lengthy judicial process by lodging a complaint on counts of organized theft, aggravated breach of trust and passing intelligence to a foreign power, Paris prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin said.

The ceremony in St Peter’s Square marking the last step before sainthood is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of people, harkening back to the funeral of the charismatic pope in 2005, one of the biggest media events of the new century.

His coffin will be moved beforehand from its present location in the Vatican crypts and placed under an altar in a chapel in St Peter’s Basilica so more people can pay homage.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ comments are likely to add to tensions over political and economic quarrels between the two superpowers just days before Chinese President Hu Jintao visits the United States.

President Barack Obama hosts Hu for a state visit on January 19. U.S. officials say Obama will raise geopolitical problems such as Iran and North Korea as well as trade issues that bedevil ties between the world’s two biggest economies.

But in a sign of how fearful they are about upsetting Beijing and damaging their access to one of the world’s biggest export growth markets, they won’t talk about it in public.

In the middle of last year several top executives were reported to have criticized China’s domestic policies, in particular its lack of laws to protect intellectual property and its protectionist stance against foreign companies.

Beijing confirmed this week it had held its first test flight of the J-20 stealth fighter jet, surprising many in the international community who had underestimated China’s ability to develop technology to one day rival the United States.

Was the timing of the launch meant to coincide with Gates’ visit and, if so, why; and was Chinese President Hu Jintao genuinely unaware of the flight, signaling a worrying lack of communication between China’s military and its civilian leaders?

The moves, which follow executive changes announced last week, come just before the firm releases its fourth quarter financial results.

Greg Fleming, 47, a former Merrill Lynch president who already led Morgan Stanley’s asset management business, will also become president of global wealth management. Gorman had previously worked with Fleming at Merrill Lynch, where he had run the giant brokerage division

However, a surge in exports to their highest level in two years, which included record sales to China, helped narrow the U.S. trade deficit in November, an encouraging sign for fourth-quarter economic growth.

The data on Thursday marked one step forward and two steps back for an economy that appeared to gain a bit more momentum toward the end of last year.

Tunisians buoyant over Ben Ali’s ouster immediately worried, however, about what’s next: the caretaker leadership of the prime minister who took control, and the role of the army in the transition.

The upheaval took place after weeks of escalating unrest fueled partly by social media and cell phones, as thousands of demonstrators from all walks of life rejected Ben Ali’s promises of change and mobbed the capital of Tunis to demand his ouster in the country’s largest demonstrations in generations.

His successor heard their call. On Friday, in the fastest process on record, Pope Benedict XVI set May 1 as the date for John Paul’s beatification – a key step toward Catholicism’s highest honor and a major morale boost for a church reeling from the clerical sex abuse scandal.

He set the date after declaring that a French nun’s recovery from Parkinson’s disease was the miracle needed for John Paul to be beatified. A second miracle is needed to be canonized a saint.

Though thousands of women have been involved in the fights in Iraq and Afghanistan, they have done so while serving in combat support roles – as medics, logistics officers and so on – because defense policy prohibits women from being assigned to any unit smaller than a brigade whose primary mission is direct combat on the ground. On Friday, a special panel was meeting to polish the final draft of a report that recommends the policy be eliminated “to create a level playing field for all qualified service members.”

If it were approved by the Defense Department, it would be yet another sizeable social change in a force that in the last year has seen policy changes to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly for the first time in the military and to allow Navy women to serve on submarines for the first time.

The nonprofit group Park51 said Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is set to start a national speaking tour Saturday and spends much of his time out of the country, didn’t have enough time to spend on the center.

The group announced it had named a new senior adviser to help lead religious programing: Shaykh Abdallah Adhami, a scholar with an architecture degree known for his lectures on gender relations.

The Labor Department said Friday the Consumer Price Index rose 0.5 percent in December, the largest increase in 18 months. About 80 percent of the increase was due to an 8.5 percent rise in the gasoline index, also the sharpest increase in 18 months. Food prices ticked up 0.1 percent in December.

High unemployment and a weak economy are keeping prices in check. Retailers and manufacturers are reluctant, for now, to pass on the rising costs of raw materials to consumers, for fear of scaring them away.

Auburn released a statement Thursday night announcing the quarterback’s decision following his lone year as a major college starter. Newton led the Tigers to their first national title since 1957 and a 14-0 season with a 22-19 victory over Oregon on Monday night.

“This decision was difficult for me and my family,” Newton said, adding that he made it after talking to coach Gene Chizik and offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn.

Berlusconi dismissed the case as “absurd” and said the prosecutors were just jealous they weren’t invited to his home for dinner too; the teenager has said she dined at the premier’s Milan estate but didn’t have sex with him.

“At least my lawyers are happy,” Berlusconi quipped in an audio message to his supporters late Friday. “They’re sure that with me they’ll never be out of work.”

Saturday marks the deadline for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to approve most state plans aimed at curbing pollution from coal-fired power plants and industrial sources to improve visibility at 156 national parks and wilderness areas such as Shenandoah, Mount Rainier and the Grand Canyon.

But as of Thursday, the agency hadn’t approved any state plans – or come up with its own, as required.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton, among others, said schools in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina should find other ways to make up days lost after a winter storm coated the region in snow and ice, making roads treacherous. But educators, some facing mandatory furloughs, said they had scant options to make sure students were in classrooms for the number of days required by law.

In Rock Hill, S.C., for instance, three school days were canceled just a week after students returned from Christmas break. Some Georgia districts canceled class for an entire week.

Meanwhile, the United Nations’ anti-torture chief said Friday that he has asked the U.S. State Department to investigate Pfc. Bradley E. Manning’s treatment at a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va.

A spokesman at the Marine Corps base said he doesn’t expect any changes in the maximum-security, injury-prevention conditions under which Manning has been held since he was brought there July 29 from a detention facility in Kuwait. Military officials say the rules, which include confinement 23 hours a day in a single-bed cell, keep Manning safe and secure.

Attorneys for the East End Eruv Association have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit claiming officials in the town of Southampton and villages of Westhampton Beach and Quogue are intentionally infringing on their religious freedom by not allowing the placement of an “eruv.”

The eruv consists of small wooden strips called “lechis,” which are often placed on utility poles to create an invisible boundary that allows observant Jews within the eruv to perform manual labor, including pushing and carrying objects such as strollers and wheelchairs on the Sabbath or religious holidays like Yom Kippur.

The list of Republicans and Democrats who might be interested was already starting to take shape Thursday after Hutchison announced in a letter to supporters that she would not seek reelection when her term ends in 2012.

The state’s first female senator has occupied her seat for nearly two decades and, observers said, many Texas politicians have been biding their time for a chance to replace her.

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said Thursday he and other aides didn’t expect the president’s remarks at the school’s basketball arena to receive as much rousing applause as it did. Gibbs said the crowd’s response, at times cheering and shouting, was understandable.

“I think part of the grieving process is celebrating the lives of those that were lost, and celebrating the miracles of those that survived,” he said.

Initial reactions to that idea on Capitol Hill were not encouraging, especially from the Republican side. A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said House members may “sit where they choose.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had no comment on the suggestion, which was offered by Democratic Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., signaled he might be open to the idea but wanted more discussion. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., embraced it.

For years, families who live downwind from the sprawling Kettleman Hills landfill in Central California have been concerned that PCB contamination was linked to a rash of cleft palates and other birth abnormalities.

Chemical Waste Management Inc. announced the results of its long-awaited study showing instead that the level of PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, surrounding the dump was similar to contamination found in rural areas across the country, even in the remote wilderness.

Former Shenandoah Police Chief Matthew Nestor and two subordinates orchestrated a cover-up in the July 2008 beating death of 25-year-old Luis Ramirez in an effort to shield the teenage perpetrators, Justice Department prosecutor Myesha Braden said in her opening statement. One officer was dating the mother of one of the teens at the time, she said.

“Relationships are at the heart of why these three defendants covered up a malicious crime,” she said. “Relationships combined with privilege to overthrow the rule of law.”