Evening Edition

ABIDJAN (AFP) – Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo hunkered down in a bunker at his home Tuesday and tried to negotiate an exit deal after being cornered by his rival’s forces, as his own troops silenced their weapons.

Having resisted calls to cede power to internationally recognised president Alassane Ouattara for four months, Gbagbo was now trying to strike a deal to quit, according to former colonial power France.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama warned on Tuesday that a federal government shutdown would seriously disrupt the U.S. economy, after Republican and Democratic leaders failed to make headway on a budget deal.

With the clock ticking toward a government shutdown on Friday, Obama said he would call negotiators from both parties back to the White House if necessary to break an impasse.

TRIPOLI (AFP) – Libya’s government said Tuesday it is ready to negotiate reforms but only provided Moamer Kadhafi is not forced out, as loyalists troops pushed rebel fighters back from the key oil port of Brega.

NATO-led air strikes have destroyed 30 percent of the regime’s military capacity since the UN-backed bombing campaign started on March 19, an alliance commander said, even as the rebels suffered their first significant loss of territory in almost a week.

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Western powers have destroyed nearly a third of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s military since launching air strikes last month but NATO said it was forced to change bombing tactics because of human shields.

The besieged city of Misrata, the only big population center in western Libya where a revolt against Gaddafi has not been crushed and which faces army tanks and snipers, is now the priority for NATO air strikes.

PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) – Haiti’s next president Michel Martelly promised a “new era” for Haiti on Tuesday, but a host of troubles lies ahead and his landslide election win is looking like the easy part.

The 50-year-old former carnival entertainer and pop singer, known as “Sweet Micky” or Tet Kale (Bald Head), lit up the campaign, seizing the mantle of change and capturing the imagination of Haiti’s frustrated urban youth.

TOKYO (Reuters) – The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant said it had reduced the flow of highly radioactive water out of a reactor, a possible sign of progress in an almost month-long battle to contain the world’s biggest nuclear disaster in quarter of a century.

TOKYO (AFP) – India banned all food imports from Japan Tuesday, the first country to impose a blanket block over radiation from a stricken nuclear plant, as shares in its operator plunged to an all-time low.

With workers pumping toxic water from the Fukushima atomic plant into the Pacific Ocean for a second day Japan imposed a legal limit for radioactive iodine in fish, adding it would look at widening tests to cover a larger area.

SANAA (Reuters) – Yemen’s president urged the opposition to join talks in Saudi Arabia to try to end weeks of turmoil and violence in which at least three more people were killed on Tuesday.

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Hackers are following prey onto smartphones and social networking hotspots, according to reports released Tuesday by a pair of computer security firms.

Cyber criminals are also ramping up the sophistication and frequency of attacks on business and government networks, one of the companies, Symantec, said in the latest volume of its Internet Security Threat Report.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Federal Reserve is planning how to end years of ultra-loose monetary policy in the face of a building US recovery and looming inflation fears, minutes from the latest policy meeting show.

Amid concern that sustained unrest in oil producing nations might spark entrenched inflation, minutes from the Fed’s March meeting show members discussed ending long-standing policies, including ultra-low interest rates.

WASHINGTON – Raising the pressure for a budget deal, President Barack Obama on Tuesday rejected a Republican stopgap proposal to extend government operations for a week while negotiators try to hammer out an agreement on spending cuts for the rest of the year.

“We are now at the point where there is no excuse to extend this further,” Obama said following a White House meeting with congressional leaders.

HADDONFIELD, N.J. – U.S. Rep. Rush Holt is pushing the Obama administration to halt deportation proceedings against the same-sex spouses of U.S. citizens.

The Democrat wrote a letter to the federal Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday to make the request on behalf of a couple who live in his central New Jersey district. An estimated 36,000 bi-national same-sex couples are in the U.S., and all have reason to be worried if deportations are not stopped, the couple’s lawyer says.

BREGA, Libya – Libyan government forces unleashed a withering bombardment of rebels outside a key oil town Tuesday as an Obama administration envoy met with the opposition leadership in its de facto capital, a possible step toward diplomatic recognition.

NATO said nearly a third of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s heavy weapons have been destroyed. But the alliance said Gadhafi’s forces had changed tactics in the besieged western city of Misrata by moving tanks and other heavy equipment to civilian areas to prevent pilots from targeting them.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas – The U.S. Supreme Court blocked the first scheduled execution of a Texas death row inmate using a new drug cocktail on Tuesday, although the proposed lethal mix was not mentioned in the court’s decision to reconsider the merits of the condemned man’s appeal.

QUITO, Ecuador – Ecuador said Tuesday it is expelling the U.S. ambassador over a diplomatic cable divulged by WikiLeaks that accuses a newly retired police chief of a long history of corruption and speculates that President Rafael Correa was aware of it.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – After monitoring a small piece of space junk for 11 hours, NASA determined it posed no danger Tuesday to the International Space Station and its three residents.

Commander Dmitry Kondratyev and his crew were prepared to climb into their attached Russian Soyuz capsule for shelter. But an hour before the closest approach, Mission Control radioed the good news. Additional tracking showed the 6-inch piece of debris would remain a safe distance from the orbiting complex.

PHOENIX – Boeing was surprised when a section of a Southwest jetliner’s fuselage ripped open in flight because the plane wasn’t old enough to be worrisome, a company official said Tuesday, as the airline cleared most of its older 737 planes to return to the skies.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Bahraini authorities on Tuesday deported two journalists working for the opposition’s main newspaper, their colleagues said. The government has accused Al Wasat newspaper of unethical coverage of the Shiite uprising against the Sunni rulers.

KINGSTON, Jamaica – Prime Minister Bruce Golding’s party reinforced its narrow parliamentary majority by winning a by-election called after a governing party lawmaker acknowledged he held U.S. citizenship in violation of constitutional rules.

Jamaica Labor Party candidate Everald Warmington coasted to victory in Monday’s election in southwest St. Catherine parish, capturing 64 percent of the vote, according to the island’s electoral office. His closest opponent trailed by 30 percentage points.

KHARTOUM (AFP) – An air strike on a car on Sudan’s Red Sea coast killed its two passengers and destroyed the vehicle on Tuesday evening, the head of the state assembly told AFP.

TORONTO (Reuters) – The Conservatives’ lead over the Liberals narrowed in a Canadian opinion poll released on Tuesday, ahead of the May 2 federal election.

The Nanos Research tracking poll of results over three days of surveys put support for the Conservatives at 39.8 percent, down from 42.3 percent in Monday’s survey. Support for the Liberals rose to 30.2 percent from 28.4 percent.

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) – Two workers shot to death on Monday while waiting to cross the border from Mexico into the United States were American citizens, the U.S. State Department said.

The two men were riding in a pickup truck and about to cross into California at the San Ysidro border crossing point when they were gunned down on Monday afternoon, local authorities said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Several New York City council members unveiled a bid on Tuesday to ban toy giveaways in fast-food restaurant meals for children, emulating a San Francisco city law that will be enforced later this year.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bank robberies in the United States take place most often in mid-morning, on Fridays and in southern and western states, according to government statistics released on Tuesday.

Robbers stole slightly more than $43 million last year nationwide in 5,546 robberies of commercial banks, credit unions and other financial institutions, according to the statistics released by the FBI.

ATLANTA (Reuters) – Severe storms blowing across the Southeast killed at least five people in Georgia early on Tuesday, and also were to blame for deaths in two other states, authorities said.

MADISON, Wisconsin (Reuters) – Democrats in the Wisconsin state Senate returned to the chamber for the first time in more than six weeks on Tuesday to help approve Republican Governor Scott Walker’s plan to close a gap in the state budget for the current fiscal year.

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – Absolutely no one likes a rat, a city official said on Tuesday, demanding $1.5 million be restored to the budget to be help control what he called Manhattan’s horrific rat problem.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The S&P 500 failed to break a key technical resistance level for a second day on Tuesday as low trading volume raised further questions about the market’s strength.

The broader market index closed slightly below 1,333, a closely watched level as it represents a doubling from the low reached in March 2009.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Divisions at the U.S. Federal Reserve over how soon to reverse course on monetary policy emerged more clearly last month, although the central bank appeared intent to complete a $600 billion bond-buying plan.

A few officials at the Fed’s March 15 policy-setting meeting thought a stronger economy could warrant tightening monetary conditions this year, although others believed the Fed could maintain its ultra-loose stance beyond 2011, minutes of the meeting released on Tuesday said.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – March sales at U.S. retail chains probably dropped modestly, held back by the combination of a later Easter and higher gasoline prices.

Analysts expect department stores such as Kohl’s Corp (KSS.N) to post the biggest declines after tallying huge gains a year earlier, when consumer demand picked up steam and shoppers bought spring clothing.

LISBON (Reuters) – Credit rating agency Moody’s cut Portugal’s sovereign debt by one notch on Tuesday, saying it believed an incoming government would need to seek financing support from the European Union as a matter of urgency.

Reuters) – The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sought information from Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) last year about the loan-loss reserves used to repurchase faulty home loans, company filings showed.

In an exchange of letters, the SEC had also asked the bank to explain its methodology of establishing repurchase reserves.

SANTA FE, N.M (Reuters) – Chile eaters in New Mexico will now know whether the beloved pepper is grown locally or flown in from China or India.

The New Mexico Chile Advertising Act — signed by Governor Susana Martinez on Tuesday — makes it illegal to advertise any product as a New Mexico chile unless the chile is grown in the state.

CANBERRA (AFP) – A bomb detection dog that spent a year lost in Afghanistan’s Taliban heartland Tuesday became only the second Australian military animal to receive the country’s most prestigious animal bravery award.