Russia: Holiday

MOSCOW — Tens of thousands of people took part in Moscow street rallies and concerts Wednesday on a new national holiday that the Kremlin tried to portray as a celebration of Russia's ethnic diversity.

The Moscow rallies were peaceful, police said, but a nationalist march of a few hundred people on the outskirts of St. Petersburg turned violent when six people tried to protest. Nationalists attacked the protesters, kicking some of them as they lay on the ground. Riot police moved in to break up the rally and pull the protesters to safety.

The Kremlin introduced National Unity Day in 2005 to replace the traditional Nov. 7 celebration of the 1917 Revolution that brought the Bolsheviks to power.

But the new holiday was quickly seized upon by extreme nationalists and white supremacists, as well as by Russian Orthodox Christian fundamentalists and monarchists.

Britain: New rules

LONDON — Drain the moat, tear down the duck house, fire the housekeeper. British lawmakers face strict new allowance rules following a scandal over their outrageous expense claims.

The rules published Wednesday will ban legislators from using expenses to fund swank second homes and outlaw the use of taxpayers' money to employ family members as staff.

Christopher Kelly, an ex-civil servant, said an advisory committee he leads has drafted a new regime "shorn of the special features which gave scope for exploitation."

Party leaders have promised to adopt all his recommendations, despite some protests from legislators.

Honduras: Elections

TEGUCIGALPA — Ousted President Manuel Zelaya is asking the Obama administration why, after pressing for his reinstatement, it now says it will recognize upcoming Honduran elections even if he isn't returned to power first.

In a letter sent to the U.S. State Department on Wednesday, Zelaya asked Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton "to clarify to the Honduran people if the position condemning the coup d'etat has been changed or modified."

His request came after Washington's top envoy to Latin America, Thomas Shannon, told CNN en Espanol that Washington will recognize the Nov. 29 elections even if the Honduran Congress decides against returning Zelaya to power.

Mexico: Killings

CIUDAD JUAREZ — A gang of gunmen killed an off-duty U.S. airman and five other people early Wednesday at a bar in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, authorities said.

Four other men were killed outside an elementary school in another part of town, raising to 30 the number of homicides in Ciudad Juarez in just four days.

There was no immediate information on a motive for the early morning attack at the Amadeus bar, which also left a seventh person wounded, said Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for prosecutors in northern Chihuahua state. But the methods bore the hallmarks of attacks by drug cartels.

Staff Sgt. David Booher, assigned to the medical unit of the 49th Fighter Wing at Holloman Air Force outside Alamogordo, N.M., about 90 miles north of Ciudad Juarez, was among those killed.