Evening Edition

ABIDJAN (AFP) – Heavy artillery fire and explosions shook downtown Abidjan Saturday on the third day of a fierce battle for the city, as rival forces were accused of massacring hundreds in western Ivory Coast.

Cornered, but clinging on, strongman Laurent Gbagbo brushed off calls by world leaders to step down amid an offensive by troops backing the internationally recognised president Alassane Ouattara in Abidjan.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese officials grappling on Sunday to end the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl were focusing on a crack in a concrete pit that was leaking radiation into the ocean from a crippled reactor.

Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said it had found a crack in the pit at its No.2 reactor in Fukushima, generating readings 1,000 millisieverts of radiation per hour in the air inside the pit.

KABUL, Afghanistan – Anger over the burning of the Muslim holy book at a Florida church fueled a second day of deadly violence half a world away in Afghanistan, where demonstrators set cars and shops ablaze Saturday in a riot that killed nine protesters, officials said.

The church’s desecration of the Quran nearly two weeks ago has outraged millions of Muslims and others worldwide, fueling anti-American sentiment that is further straining ties between the Afghan government and the West.

BREGA, Libya (AFP) – NATO voiced concern on Saturday about reports of civilian deaths in a coalition air strike near Brega as rebels claimed victory in the battle for the key Libyan oil town.

The chief rebel spokesman told reporters that coalition warplanes had killed 13 people, four of them civilians, in an air raid some 15 kilometres east of Brega on Friday.

After facing grumbling and uneasiness amid reports it sent covert intelligence operatives into Libya, now the Obama administration is being criticized by some lawmakers for pulling back specialized U.S. gunships as it turns over command of the Libya no-fly zone to NATO.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen explained the evolving U.S. military role in Libya at grueling back-to-back hearings before House and Senate lawmakers Thursday. Air strikes over Libya have lessened over the past three days, apparently due to bad weather.

CAIRO – An anti-terrorist unit from the United Arab Emirates has wrested control of a ship from pirates in the Arabian Sea, state-run media reported Saturday.

EAST OF BREGA, Libya (Reuters) – A NATO-led air strike killed 13 Libyan rebels in a “regrettable incident,” a rebel spokesman said on Saturday, in an increasingly chaotic battle with Muammar Gaddafi’s forces over the oil town of Brega.

Despite the deaths on Friday night, the rebel leadership called for continued air strikes against Gaddafi’s forces, who have reversed a rebel advance on the coastal road linking their eastern stronghold with western Libya.

SANAA (Reuters) – Yemen’s opposition proposed a transition plan on Saturday which would see President Ali Abdullah Saleh hand power to a vice president while steps are taken toward a national unity government and new elections.

As protests continued across the country calling for Saleh to step down, opposition officials said Saleh had yet to respond to the five-point plan.

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast – With most of the country now controlled by his opponent, and with both his home and the presidential palace surrounded, Ivory Coast’s strongman Laurent Gbagbo on Saturday issued a final call to arms, fighting to defend his 10-year grip on power.

Plagued by mass defections inside his ranks including that of his top commander, Gbagbo appeared defeated just hours earlier.

BELFAST (AFP) – A Catholic policeman was killed Saturday in Omagh, the scene of Northern Ireland’s worst terror atrocity, in a car bomb attack at his home that will cause jitters about the delicate peace process.

The victim, aged 25, had only finished his training to become a police officer three weeks ago, a local politician, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

SYDNEY (AFP) – Devastating floods could cost Australia up to $8.3 billion in lost coal production, new estimates show — a sharp increase on earlier projected losses.

The huge deluge that swamped coal-producing Queensland state in January caused significant damage, halting mine production and cutting key transport infrastructure, the Treasury said in its latest economic round-up released on Saturday.

CARACAS, Venezuela – Three months after the death of former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez, his embalmed body is still in limbo – kept in cold storage in a Miami mortuary while his relatives battle in court over where he should be buried.

The feud has exposed bitter divisions between the family of former first lady Blanca Rodriguez in Caracas and the family of Perez’s longtime mistress Cecilia Matos, with whom he shared the last three decades of his life.

ATLANTA – As costs to house state inmates have soared in recent years, many conservatives are reconsidering a tough-on-crime era that has led to stiffer sentences, overcrowded prisons and bloated corrections budgets.

Ongoing budget deficits and steep drops in tax revenue in most states are forcing the issue, with law-and-order Republican governors and state legislators beginning to overhaul years of policies that were designed to lock up more criminals and put them away for longer periods of time.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Southwest Airlines said it expected to cancel 300 flights scheduled for Saturday to allow inspections of 79 aircraft from its Boeing 737 fleet, after one of its planes made an emergency landing with a gaping hole in the fuselage.

Passengers aboard Southwest Flight 812 from Phoenix to Sacramento on Friday heard a loud noise and the hole appeared suddenly at about mid cabin, forcing the pilot to land at a military base in Yuma, Arizona.

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) – While the nuclear crisis in Japan unfolds a continent away, Mormon-dominated communities in the western United States say the disaster overseas is bringing close to home a lesson about preparing for the worst.

Emergency planning and the long-term storage of food, water and medical supplies are central practices by the 14 million worldwide members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

MIAMI (Reuters) – An American Christian preacher who caused an international uproar last year by threatening to burn the Koran has put himself back in the spotlight after incinerating Islam’s holy book — again with deadly consequences.

Thousands of protesters in northern Afghanistan, enraged over news that the Florida pastor Terry Jones had overseen a torching of the Koran, stormed a United Nations compound on Friday, killing at least seven U.N. staff.

By CCorrie Maclaggan – Sat Apr 2, 10:20 am ET

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – University of Texas junior Sonia Escot was studying at her usual first-floor spot at a campus library on that morning last September when a fellow student walked in with an AK-47.

“If that shooter had wanted to shoot, I would have been one of the first,” said Escot, 21, who does not like to study anymore at that library. Gunman Colton Tooley, 19, killed himself on the sixth floor after running through campus firing his weapon, injuring no one.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Out-of-date food has been found lingering in public school cafeterias across Massachusetts, sent from warehouses up to six weeks past “use by” dates, the state department of education said on Friday.

Roughly a dozen schools reported expired food shipments or sought guidance on an inconsistent system for dating food, said JC Considine, spokesman for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

PORTLAND, Ore. – Just feet from a methadone clinic at a grimy crossroads in far east Portland, Ore., transit officials and police are hoping a touch of class will chase off the vagrants, vandals and ne’er-do-wells that loiter near a busy transit stop.

Since November, the regional transit department has approved the playing of classical music in an effort to ward off the kind of crimes that happen when people just hang around.

WASHINGTON/BERLIN (Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund on Saturday denied a report in German magazine Der Spiegel that it was privately pressing Greece to restructure its debt.

“As we have said consistently, the IMF supports the Greek government’s position of no debt restructuring and its determination to fully service its debt obligations. Any reports claiming otherwise are wrong,” an IMF spokeswoman told Reuters.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Senate subcommittee is nearing completion of a long-awaited report on the role Wall Street banks played in creating complex securities that fueled the meltdown of the housing market, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which has been in the works for months, will include potentially embarrassing emails and internal communications from investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank AG, the Journal said.

MUMBAI (AFP) – Gautam Gambhir made 97 and skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni smashed an unbeaten 91 off 79 balls as India won the World Cup for the first time since 1983 with a six-wicket victory over Sri Lanka on Saturday.

Sri Lanka, who won the toss and elected to bat in the day-night final, rode on Mahela Jayawardene’s 103 not out off 88 balls to pile up 274-6 in their 50 overs.

KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. – Shrieking with every shot, Victoria Azarenka won the Sony Ericsson Open for the second time by beating Maria Sharapova, 6-1, 6-4.

The No. 8-seeded Azarenka was the steadier player Saturday and swept nine consecutive games to take charge. Sharapova committed 43 unforced errors, held serve only once and came up short with a late comeback bid.

CHICAGO – Pinch-hitter Blake DeWitt delivered a two-out, two-run double that capped a five-run eighth inning Saturday as the Chicago Cubs rallied past the Pittsburgh Pirates 5-3.

Chicago’s comeback against relievers Evan Meek and Chris Resop was aided by a costly error on Pirates first baseman Lyle Overbay.

NEW YORK – Two massage therapists who say the New York Jets blacklisted them for objecting to randy text messages from former quarterback Brett Favre are overplaying their ties to the team, the Jets say in court documents.

Shannon O’Toole and Christina Scavo worked for the team on a combined total of five days over two years, team officials say. The team wasn’t told about the women’s concerns and simply took its massage business elsewhere when its training facility moved in 2008, Jets officials, lawyers and another massage therapist say in court filings.

HOUSTON – So much for VCU and Connecticut being worn out by their heavy workloads.

UConn won five games in five nights to claim the Big East title, while Virginia Commonwealth is the first team to win five games to get to the Final Four. Yet neither has shown any ill effects from playing so many games in such short spans.

INDIANAPOLIS – Connecticut senior Maya Moore is the first three-time winner of Wade Trophy, the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association announced Saturday.

The WBCA and the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport presented the award to the outstanding player in NCAA Division I.

INDIANAPOLIS – Maya Moore is The Associated Press player of the year for the second time in three seasons after leading Connecticut to another spectacular year.