LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Unions suspended their nationwide strike on Monday, hours after Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan partially reinstated subsidies to keep gasoline prices low and deployed soldiers in the streets to halt widening demonstrations.

Union leaders described their decision as a victory for labor, allowing its leaders to guide the country’s policy on fuel subsidies in the future while having gas prices drop to about $2.27 a gallon (60 cents a liter).

However, many protesters joined the demonstrations with hopes of seeing gas return to its previous price of about $1.70 per gallon (45 cents per liter), while also speaking out against a culture of government corruption in Africa’s most populous nation. Deploying soldiers to the street stopped demonstrators from gathering on Monday. At one point they fired over the heads of protesters to disperse them. But the deployment of troops in a nation with a history of military coups did nothing to cool the populist rage that swept the country in recent days.

“This is a clear case of intolerance and shutting of the democratic space against the people of Nigeria which must be condemned by all democracy-loving people around the world,” read a statement from the Save Nigeria Group, which has organized massive demonstrations in Lagos.

The Nigeria Labor Congress and the Trade Union Congress told journalists on Monday in Nigeria’s capital Abuja they applauded the government’s recent promise to explore corruption in the country’s oil sector. They described the six-day strike a success.

“We are sure that no government or institution will take Nigerians for granted again,” said Abdulwaheed Omar, the president of the Nigeria Labor Congress.

But while Jonathan offered an olive branch to unions with the gas price relief, he used military power to make sure no one protested against the government Monday. In a rare display of military might, soldiers took over major highways and road junctions throughout Lagos, home to 15 million people, and Kano, Nigeria’s second-largest city.

In an early Monday morning address aired on state-run television, Jonathan warned that provocateurs were using the gas-price protest to cause instability.

“It has become clear to government and all well-meaning Nigerians that other interests beyond the implementation of the deregulation policy have hijacked the protest. … These same interests seek to promote discord, anarchy and insecurity to the detriment of public peace,” Jonathan said.

Labor organizers had urged workers to stay home on Monday after Jonathan appealed to them over the possibility of insecurity in the country. At the Lagos headquarters of the Nigeria Labor Congress, some 50 protesters gathered anyway. Lawyer Bamidele Aturu led the crowd in chants and cheers, comparing the president to military rulers of the past who used soldiers to suppress dissent.

“It’s very clear the revolution has begun!” Aturu shouted. However, those gathered looked warily at passing pickup trucks filled with soldiers.

On Monday, hundreds of people started marching toward Lagos’ Ojota neighborhood, where tens of thousands of protesters had gathered in recent days. However, soldiers had already taken positions there overnight, waving away would-be demonstrators. Two military armored personnel carriers were parked near an empty stage.

The crowd passed soldiers who slung their assault rifles over their shoulders, allowing them to pass. But as they drew closer to Ojota, around 20 soldiers arrived in two pickup trucks to cut them off, bayonets affixed to their assault rifles. They told the protesters to go back and some of them began to turn around.

Soldiers fired into the air and tear gassed the crowd to disperse it, leaving protesters running through the stinging gas as gunshots echoed down the highway.

Meanwhile, authorities also targeted some foreign media outlets in Lagos. Officers of the State Security Service, Nigeria’s secret police, raided an office compound Monday used by the BBC and CNN, witnesses said. Marilyn Ogar, a secret police spokeswoman, said she had no information about the raid.

The strike began Jan. 9, paralyzing the nation of more than 160 million people. Tens of thousands of people protested in cities across Nigeria. At least 10 people were killed. Red Cross volunteers have treated more than 600 people injured in protests since the strike began, officials said.

Though an oil workers association threatened to cut Nigeria’s production of 2.4 million barrels of crude a day, they held off on shutdown onshore and offshore oil fields. Such a shutdown could have shaken oil futures, as Nigeria is the fifth-largest crude supplier to the U.S.

An offshore rig being run for a Chevron Corp. subsidiary near Nigeria’s oil-rich southern delta caught fire and officials tried to account for all the workers there, the oil company said. Chevron spokesman Scott Walker said the fire started early Monday morning. There was no indication that the fire was related to Nigeria’s unrest.

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Associated Press writer Bashir Adigun and Lekan Oyekanmi in Abuja, Nigeria; Ibrahim Garba in Kano, Nigeria; and Yinka Ibukun in Lagos contributed to this report.

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Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Motorists have reported a sharp-dressed pig running loose on a highway just outside of Pittsburgh. State troopers also spotted the animal but failed to catch it before it scurried off into the woods.

The pig is wearing a scarf. The sightings were reported between 8:30 a.m. and 9 a.m. Wednesday just west of the city on Interstate 376, known locally as the Parkway West.

State troopers from the nearby barracks in Findlay Township spotted the pig, but couldn’t catch up to it.

Police say the pig appeared to be a baby and confirmed it was wearing a scarf. Police don’t know why that is or who may own the animal.

LONDON (AP) — A private funeral service for Bee Gees star Robin Gibb will take place next week, with a public memorial service planned for later in the year.

In a statement issued Wednesday on behalf of Gibb’s family, his relatives confirmed that a service for “close family and friends” would take place on June 8.

No details about the location of the funeral have been disclosed.

The Gibb family requested that mourners offer donations, rather than flowers, to two children’s charities on the Isle of Man, where Gibb was born.

Gibb, a founder of the Bee Gees with his two late brothers, died on May 20 after a long battle with cancer at the age of 62.

Plans have not yet been confirmed for a planned public memorial service.

NEW YORK (AP) — Andie MacDowell will be a pioneer for the Hallmark Channel, starring in the network’s first prime-time series.

Hallmark said Wednesday that MacDowell will portray municipal court Judge Olivia Lockhart in “Cedar Grove.” It will start with a two-hour movie airing later this year and continue with a 13-episode series early in 2013.

The new series is based on books by author Debbie Macomber. Movie adaptations of Macomber’s books have been among the top-rated programs that Hallmark has shown over the past three years.

MacDowell’s movie credits include “sex, lies and videotape,” ”Groundhog Day” and “Four Weddings and a Funeral.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — A gauge of Americans who signed contracts to buy homes fell in April from nearly a two-year high in the previous month.

The decline was the biggest in a year. Still, sales are well ahead of last year’s level for the same month, suggesting the housing market is improving slowly.

The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that its index of sales agreements dropped to 95.5, down from March’s reading of 101.1.

A reading of 100 is considered healthy. One year ago, the level was 83.5.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A massive wildfire in southwestern New Mexico’s Gila National Forest is now the largest fire in state history.

Fire officials said Wednesday the erratic fire has grown to more than 170,000 acres, surpassing a blaze last year that burned 156,593 acres in New Mexico and threatened the nation’s premier nuclear facility.

The Gila forest fire is also the largest currently burning in the country.

Fire information officer Jerry Perry says about 1,200 firefighters from around the state were in the isolated region to battle the growing blaze. He says they face low humidity and shifting winds in their firefighting efforts.

Perry says parts of southern New Mexico could expect to see smoke from the fire, which has destroyed a dozen homes.