Toulouse

French investigators Thursday were trying to establish whether a gunman killed by police after a 32-hour siege had accomplices still at large or was a lone assassin acting out his own bitter agenda. They also want to determine how Mohamed Merah, 23, amassed an arsenal of weapons while reportedly under surveillance by France's intelligence services after he spent time with Islamic extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Merah, who police say confessed to gunning down seven people in a nine-day rampage and told them he was linked to a fringe Al Qaeda group, died late Thursday morning with a shot to the head after battling the French equivalent of a SWAT team.

PARIS - The older brother of a French militant who killed seven people early this year before being shot to death by police has spoken out against his family in a new book, condemning what he describes as a childhood of hatred, anti-Semitism and violence. Abdelghani Merah, 36, is the brother of Mohamed Merah, 23, who in the name of Islamic extremism shot to death three Jewish children, a rabbi and three soldiers in and around Toulouse in March. The killings have come to be seen here as part of a broader threat of home-grown terrorism.

A standoff with a gunman deemed France's public enemy No. 1 after he claimed responsibility for three shootings that left seven people dead entered its second day Thursday as heavily armed police tried to extricate the suspect from a barricaded apartment in Toulouse. Elite SWAT-style officers had cordoned off the four-story building and spent more than 24 hours trying to persuade 23-year-old Mohamed Merah to surrender after he boasted of a 10-day terrorist rampage that left three Jewish children, a rabbi and three French paratroopers dead.

French investigators Thursday were trying to establish whether a gunman killed by police after a 32-hour siege had accomplices still at large or was a lone assassin acting out his own bitter agenda. They also want to determine how Mohamed Merah, 23, amassed an arsenal of weapons while reportedly under surveillance by France's intelligence services after he spent time with Islamic extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Merah, who police say confessed to gunning down seven people in a nine-day rampage and told them he was linked to a fringe Al Qaeda group, died late Thursday morning with a shot to the head after battling the French equivalent of a SWAT team.

Hundreds of people were evacuated from southern France and the Pyrenees Mountains over the weekend, after violent rains and snowstorms caused flooding and a bus accident that left at least one person dead Sunday. Rains had mostly stopped Sunday, but hundreds of homes were left without electricity. France's national power company, EDF, was working to restore power to 700 homes in the southeastern Rhone-Alps region.

Airbus, the world's largest maker of commercial aircraft, received 79% fewer orders in September compared with a year earlier amid a slowdown in demand from airlines. Customers signed contracts last month for 29 planes, compared with 141 orders a year earlier. Orders from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30 fell 13% to 737 aircraft, Toulouse, France-based Airbus said. Airbus has a full-year order target of 850 aircraft. Chief Executive Tom Enders said July 12 that as much as 27% of Airbus' backlog might be lost if airlines cancel contracts.

FRANCE From L'Equipe, on the ticket scandals: "In this affair where everything is messed up [the swindlers, the black market, tour operators, federations, etc.], one thing seems evident: Despite the numbers cited here or there, no one knows how many supporters were really fleeced. "[Thursday] it was 15,000 tickets and more than 3 million francs that were stolen in Paris from an American tour operator. Tomorrow, it will surely be something else. . . .

Jean-Baptiste Doumeng, an outspoken Communist who amassed a fortune trading French agriculture products with Eastern Bloc nations, has died at his home in southwestern France, his company reported last week. France's "Red billionaire" was 68. Doumeng joined the French Communist Party as a teen-age farm boy and remained a staunch supporter while building an agribusiness empire, selling massive quantities of subsidized European Economic Community surplus foodstuffs abroad.

Jean-Baptiste Doumeng, an outspoken Communist who amassed a fortune trading French agriculture products with Eastern Bloc nations, has died at his home in southwestern France, his company reported last week. France's "red billionaire" was 68. Doumeng joined the French Communist Party as a teen-age farm boy and remained a staunch supporter while building an agribusiness empire, selling massive quantities of subsidized European Economic Community surplus foodstuffs abroad.

"In its prolonged romp through the (eighteen-) '80s and '90s, Paris scarcely knew what it was excited about," wrote cultural historian Roger Shattuck in his book "The Banquet Years," published in 1955. "Was it a liberation? A revolution? A victory? A last fling? A first debauch? Amid the externals of funerals and fashions, the city knew only that it was having a good time and making a superb spectacle of itself."

A standoff with a gunman deemed France's public enemy No. 1 after he claimed responsibility for three shootings that left seven people dead entered its second day Thursday as heavily armed police tried to extricate the suspect from a barricaded apartment in Toulouse. Elite SWAT-style officers had cordoned off the four-story building and spent more than 24 hours trying to persuade 23-year-old Mohamed Merah to surrender after he boasted of a 10-day terrorist rampage that left three Jewish children, a rabbi and three French paratroopers dead.

Three members of a French parachute regiment were gunned down Thursday in a busy town center in southwestern France by an assassin on a scooter. It was the second drive-by shooting of French soldiers in less than a week, leading investigators to fear military personnel were being targeted. The three soldiers, all in uniforms, were standing by a bank ATM machine in the town of Montauban when the gunman opened fire shortly after 2 p.m. Two of the men, 24 and 26 years old, were killed instantly; the third, age 28, was in critical condition in a hospital Thursday night.

Airbus, the world's largest maker of commercial aircraft, received 79% fewer orders in September compared with a year earlier amid a slowdown in demand from airlines. Customers signed contracts last month for 29 planes, compared with 141 orders a year earlier. Orders from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30 fell 13% to 737 aircraft, Toulouse, France-based Airbus said. Airbus has a full-year order target of 850 aircraft. Chief Executive Tom Enders said July 12 that as much as 27% of Airbus' backlog might be lost if airlines cancel contracts.

A review of what happened Saturday and a look at what to expect in today's stage: Saturday's stage: A 107.2-mile, mostly flat ride from Figeac to Toulouse, the final part of which took place in heavy rain. Winner: Mark Cavendish of Britain and Team Columbia won his second stage in four days. Teammate Gerald Ciolek of Germany was second, with Jimmy Casper of France third.

IN the last years of the 19th century, Montmartre, a poor Paris neighborhood high on a hill, burst into a frenzy of popular song and dance, creative art and decadent high jinks -- a frenzy with wonderful imagery that still lingers in our minds. We owe most of those images to the works of the diminutive and doomed artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Toulouse-Lautrec was a painter and lithographer of extraordinary appeal.

FIRST there was Citrus, Michel Richard's seminal French-California restaurant on Melrose. Then came Citronelle in Santa Barbara, and Citronelle in Washington, D.C. After Richard left California to move East several years ago, he focused his attention on Citronelle there, turning it into one of the capital's great restaurants. Meanwhile the Santa Barbara restaurant languished. But now, for the first time in 10 years, it has a new chef.

Tal Ronnen, a chef aiming to bring veganism to the masses, opens "plant-based" restaurant Crossroads on Melrose Avenue on Thursday. The menu at Crossroads, Ronnen's first L.A. restaurant, features his vegan, Mediterranean-influenced small plates in a chandeliered, wood-floored dining room designed by Studio Collective. Ronnen, author of "The Conscious Cook," teamed with entertainment and hospitality veterans Steve Bing and Parnell F. Delcham to open the white-tablecloth, all-vegetable restaurant in the former Phillipe Chow space at the corner of Sweetzer Avenue.

Wearing a black gown topped with a provocative pink-and-white-print bodice, pianist Brigitte Engerer, arrived on the Royce Hall stage Wednesday looking stunning. She played stunningly, too, though her concerto was all-too-familiar. As soloist with the touring Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, Engerer brought to Saint-Saens' G-minor Concerto all the strength, evenness of technique and machine-gun rapidity it needs.

Hundreds of people were evacuated from southern France and the Pyrenees Mountains over the weekend, after violent rains and snowstorms caused flooding and a bus accident that left at least one person dead Sunday. Rains had mostly stopped Sunday, but hundreds of homes were left without electricity. France's national power company, EDF, was working to restore power to 700 homes in the southeastern Rhone-Alps region.