Evening Edition

ABIDJAN (AFP) – The French army took over Ivory Coast’s main airport Sunday as the battle for Abidjan raged into a fourth day and rival leaders blamed each other for chilling massacres in the west.

The French Licorne (Unicorn) force took control of the airport in the main city Abidjan and Paris reinforced its troops in the city with 300 men as more than 1,500 foreigners sought refuge at a French military camp amid violence and looting in the city.

NEAR BREGA, Libya (AFP) – The oil town of Brega saw heavy fighting on Sunday as rebel forces advanced only to fall back again after being ambushed by forces loyal to Moamer Kadhafi, who was hit by another defection.

Former foreign minister and UN General Assembly president Ali Treiki became the latest official to abandon Kadhafi, after the flight to Britain of foreign minister and regime stalwart Mussa Kussa earlier in the week.

BENGHAZI, Libya – Libyan rebels want to install a parliamentary democracy in place of longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi, one of their top leaders said Sunday, dismissing Western fears that their movement could be hijacked by Islamic extremists.

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast – The United Nations mission in Ivory Coast began moving some 200 employees out of the main city Sunday after repeated attacks on its headquarters, as fighters loyal to the internationally recognized president prepared for a battle to oust the incumbent leader.

TOKYO – Engineers pinned their hopes on chemicals, sawdust and shredded newspaper to stop highly radioactive water pouring into the ocean from Japan’s tsunami-ravaged nuclear plant Sunday as officials said it will take several months to bring the crisis under control, the first time they have provided a timetable.

ISLAMABAD (AFP) – Two suicide bomb attacks outside a shrine in the central Pakistani province of Punjab on Sunday killed 41 people, a police officer told AFP from the scene of the blasts.

The bombers struck outside the shrine of the 13th century Sufi saint Ahmed Sultan, popularly known as Sakhi Sarwar, in Dera Ghazi Khan district.

Hundreds of worshippers had gathered at the shrine for a religious ceremony when the attacks took place.

JALALABAD, Afghanistan – Demonstrators battled police in southern Afghanistan’s main city on Sunday and took to the streets in the turbulent east for the first time as Western pleas failed to halt a third day of rage over a Florida pastor’s burning of the Quran.

SENDAI, Japan (AFP) – Workers at Japan’s crippled nuclear plant Sunday struggled to stop a radioactive water leak into the Pacific, as the government warned the facility may spread contamination for months.

Along the tsunami-ravaged coast, 25,000 Japanese and US military and rescue crew completed a massive three-day search for bodies, more than three weeks after the catastrophe struck.

ATHENS (AFP) – Greece braced for the possibility of fresh austerity measures after Sunday newspapers reported its public deficit for 2010 was far greater than previously estimated.

Both Kathimerini and Eleftheros Typos newspapers said the deficit for 2010 was 10.6 percent of gross domestic product, which would be 1.1 percent more than the 9.5 percent previously thought.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Transocean Ltd. has given its executives pay raises, bonuses and stock options after the company’s “best year” for safety, despite a deadly oil platform explosion and massive leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Standard & Poor’s 500 index is poised to hit its highest mark in nearly three years this week after more signs of life from the jobs market, but think twice before betting the house.

Many investors are coming to the view that the U.S. employment situation has turned a corner, but the risks that sent stocks cascading between mid-February and mid-March are as real as ever.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Citigroup Inc and Capital One Financial Corp were part of a large data breach that exposed the names and e-mail addresses of many large companies’ customers, including those at some of the nation’s largest banks.

The online marketer Epsilon, a unit of Alliance Data Systems Corp, said on Friday that a person outside the company hacked into some of its clients’ customer files. The vendor sends more than 40 billion e-mail ads and offers annually, usually to people who register for a company’s website or give their e-mail addresses while shopping.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Lawmakers clashed on Sunday over where to slash spending to avoid next week’s potential government shutdown and over the Republicans’ 2012 budget plan to cut more than $4 trillion over the next decade.

The main author of the Republican proposal, expected to be unveiled on Tuesday, said it would cap spending, lower corporate tax rates and change the federal Medicare and Medicaid health programs for the retired and the poor.

WASHINGTON – Sometimes in politics and legislation, whether you win is less important than how you win.

That’s the dilemma facing House Speaker John Boehner as he tries to round up the votes to pass a fast-approaching spending compromise and avert a partial government shutdown by week’s end.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Wisconsin voters head to the polls on Tuesday for the first time since Republicans approved controversial restrictions on the union rights of public workers that Democrats and their supporters vowed to reverse.

Little noticed most years, the election of a Wisconsin state Supreme Court judge has become a proxy fight over collective bargaining restrictions approved last month.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla (Reuters) – National safety inspectors have found evidence of “widespread cracking” and fatigue on the fuselage of a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 that made an emergency landing in Arizona with a hole in the cabin, a government official said on Sunday.

“Was the aircraft well maintained and should it have been maintained better? That is exactly why we are here, to look at why this problem occurred,” National Transportation Safety Board Member Robert Sumwalt said at a press conference broadcast from Yuma, Arizona via Internet streaming.

DENVER (Reuters) – An out-of-control wildfire has charred 2,000 acres, destroyed at least one house and forced the evacuations of 336 homes in a mountain canyon west of Fort Collins, Colorado, fire officials said on Sunday.

More than 200 firefighting ground crews are battling the blaze about 65 miles northwest of Denver, Nick Christensen, spokesman for Larimer County, Colorado told reporters at a mid-morning briefing.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The National Transportation Safety Board will conduct a review of the safety system governing the discount tour bus industry in the wake of last month’s deadly Bronx bus crash that killed 15 passengers, authorities announced on Sunday.

New York Senator Charles Schumer and Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez compared the bus review, expected to take six months, to one that resulted in mandatory airline safety changes after the 2009 crash of a commuter plane in Buffalo killed all 49 passengers and crew aboard.

NEW YORK – When child welfare worker Kelly Mares investigates an abuse case, she doesn’t know what’s going to greet her on the other side of the door. A ferocious dog. Or a gun. Or a meth lab, or angry parents who lash out violently.

She takes those risks willingly, she says, because she believes in protecting the city’s most vulnerable. But she’s not willing to risk going to jail. After two of her co-workers were charged with criminally negligent homicide in the death of a 4-year-old Brooklyn girl under their care, she’s rethinking her career.

PARIS (AFP) – Mangroves, which have declined by up to half over the last 50 years, are an important bulkhead against climate change, a study released on Sunday has shown for the first time.

Destruction of these tropical coastal woodlands accounts for about 10 percent of carbon dioxide emissions from deforestation, the second largest source of CO2 after fossil fuel combustion, the study found.

HOUSTON – When the options boil down to winning or heading home, nobody’s better than Kemba and Connecticut.

Kemba Walker scored 18 points Saturday night to lift UConn to its 10th straight victory since finishing off a .500 Big East regular season, a 56-55 win over cold-shooting Kentucky that moved the Huskies a victory away from their third, and most improbable, NCAA title.

HOUSTON – “We’re not done yet! Unfinished business, baby!”

That was the rallying cry from the Butler Bulldogs, who are headed back to the title game, not as lovable underdogs but a team intent on making up for last year’s heartbreak.

Maybe this time that final, riveting shot will go in.

Maybe this time Butler won’t need it.

JEREZ, Spain (AFP) – Spanish world champion Jorge Lorenzo of Yamaha won the Spanish Grand Prix, the second leg of the world championship, here on Sunday after seeing off compatriot Dani Pedrosa and American Nicky Hayden.

“It has been one of my most patient races,” said Lorenzo. “It’s a great victory, which we needed and I feel so good.