<br> vs. <p>

Tidy modifies the following code samples:

<br clear=all>         or
<br clear="all" />     or
<br clear="all"></br>to the following:

<br clear="all" />

on my Windows 98 box, while reporting:

Tidy (vers 13th January 2000) Parsing "snow.html"
line 20 column 6 - Warning: trimming empty <p>

Re-running Tidy results in the same warning message for each instance of
the Tidied br element.

Question 1.  Why does Tidy report an empty <p> and not an empty <br>?

Question 2.  Is there a better, or more preferred, way to do this?

The following code represents a basic repetitive pattern on my pages.
Minor variations might include two images rather than one, or several
paragraphs rather than one.  In all cases the <br> element is reported
by Tidy.


    <h3>The Training Area</h3>="right" hspace="15" vspace="5"
    src="overview.jpg" alt="The simulator area" width="226"
    height="160" /></a>    <p>Blah, blah, blah.</p>    <br clear="all" />

If this subject has been previously discussed, I apologize.  Please just
point me in the right direction.

Thanks,
Jim
jima@gvn.net