Rebels

So many parents and alumni of St. Denis Catholic School in Havertown supported merging with friendly CYO rival Annunciation B.V.M., the marriage should have gone off without a hitch. Instead, parishioners hoping to embrace the past and future in a name were told the regional school would honor the late Cardinal John Foley. The decision was, in their pastor's words, "nonnegotiable. " Children voted on a mascot, only to have their choices (Cardinals, Falcons, or Phoenixes)

Leftist rebels early today attacked the residence of President Alfredo Cristiani, dynamited power stations and attacked strategic targets in the capital in what appeared to be their biggest such action since a huge November offensive. Cristiani was unhurt in the attack, armed forces spokesman Maj. Mauricio Chavez Caceres told Reuters. Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front rebels attacked the residence with rifle-fire during a series of attacks in the exclusive Escalon area in the northwest of San Salvador.

TRIPOLI, Libya - In a fiery broadcast from hiding, Moammar Gadhafi warned yesterday that loyalist tribes in his main strongholds were armed and preparing for battle, a show of defiance hours after rebels extended a deadline for the surrender of the fugitive leader's hometown. The rebels, who have been moving troops toward remaining Gadhafi bastions across Libya, had shifted the deadline for the town of Sirte in hopes of avoiding the bloodshed that met their attack on Tripoli. "We want to save our fighters and not lose a single one in battles with Gadhafi's forces," said Mohammed al-Rajali, a spokesman for the rebel leadership in the eastern city of Benghazi.

MISRATA, Libya - From east and west, working with NATO air strikes, rebels battled forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi on Sunday at flash points along the Mediterranean coast, rebel commanders reported. The government said their victory claims were "wishful reporting. " Insurgents had reported fighting street by street to retake the Mediterranean port city of Zawiya, 18 miles west of Tripoli, a prize that would put them within striking distance of the capital and cut off one of Gadhafi's last supply routes from Tunisia.

No college basketball team talks more trash or is more audacious at strutting its stuff. If the Nevada-Las Vegas Runnin' Rebels played football instead of hoops, they would be, well, the University of Miami. The most accurate gauge of the pressure UNLV must have felt during an unusually close 62-54 victory over Georgetown yesterday was not so much its 37.9 percent shooting or 11 turnovers, but the lack of celebratory antics for which the Rebels are notorious. In fact, nary a high-five was exchanged until Larry Johnson and Anderson Hunt slapped palms moments before Hunt's two free throws gave UNLV a 62-52 lead with 15.8 seconds remaining in the second-round game of the NCAA Tournament's West Regional.

If Nevada-Las Vegas has a vulnerable side, as people were beginning to suggest after the first three rounds of the NCAA Tournament, it certainly didn't show Saturday. After taking it easy against their first three opponents, the unbeaten defending champions treated the West Regional final like business and humbled Seton Hall, 77-65. As the final seconds mercifully ticked off the scoreboard clock, some of the UNLV faithful unfurled a banner behind coach Jerry Tarkanian's bench that read, "UNLV: University of No Losses Just Victories.

MISRATA, Libya - Libyan rebels Monday broke out toward Tripoli from the opposition-held port of Misrata 140 miles to the east, cracking a government siege as fighters across the country mounted a resurgence in their four-month-old revolt against Moammar Gadhafi. The rebels gained a diplomatic boost as well when the visiting the German foreign minister declared that the nascent opposition government was "the legitimate representative of the Libyan people. " Guido Westerwelle was visiting Benghazi, the capital of the rebel-held east, to open a liaison office and hand over medical supplies.

Discretion would not seem to be part of Chuck Person's game. This, after all, is the senior non-star from Auburn who keeps insisting he is better than Maryland's Len Bias, a bit of hyperbole that has only served to convince people his mind is on vacation and his mouth is working overtime. And yet, when the semifinals of the NCAA West Regional gave him a chance to prove his boldness forevermore, Person headed in the opposite direction for as long as he could. He sized up the combined 445 pounds that Armon "The Hammer" Gilliam and Eldridge Hudson were throwing around beneath the basket for Nevada-Las Vegas last night and said, "I'll take the perimeter game.

BENGHAZI, Libya - Libyan rebels on Monday rejected an African Union proposal for a cease-fire, insisting that Moammar Gadhafi must leave power as part of any diplomatic solution. The opposition council's announcement after talks with an African Union delegation in the rebel-held city of Benghazi quashed hopes for an early end to the nearly two-month-old conflict. South African President Jacob Zuma had said late Sunday after meeting with Gadhafi in Tripoli, the capital, that Libya's leader had endorsed an African Union "road map for peace.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - In his first interview since December, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad insisted Tuesday that his regime is fighting back against foreign mercenaries who want to overthrow him, not innocent Syrians aspiring for democracy in a yearlong uprising. The interview with Russian TV showed Assad is still standing his ground, despite widespread international condemnation over his deadly crackdown on dissent. "There are foreign mercenaries, some of them still alive," Assad said in an interview broadcast Wednesday on Russian state news channel Rossiya-24.

LEIDSCHENDAM, Netherlands - Former Liberian President Charles Taylor became the first head of state since World War II to be convicted by an international war-crimes court, a historic verdict that sends a message that tyrants worldwide will be tracked down and brought to justice. The warlord-turned-president was found guilty Thursday of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for arming Sierra Leone rebels in exchange for "blood diamonds" mined by slave laborers and smuggled across the border.

DJEMA, Central African Republic - An Internet campaign that has gone viral aims to capture the notorious rebel leader Joseph Kony, but Ugandan foot soldiers who have spent years searching for the man are starting to ask a question their top commanders prefer to ignore: Is it possible he is dead? Ugandan army officials say the Lord's Resistance Army leader is alive and hiding somewhere within the Central African Republic. Rank-and-file soldiers, however, say intelligence on Kony is so limited that if he dies, or is already dead, his foes might never know and could wind up chasing a ghost through this vast Central Africa jungle.

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan - Taliban militants armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades battled their way into a prison in northwest Pakistan on Sunday, freeing close to 400 prisoners, including at least 20 described by police as "very dangerous" insurgents, authorities and the militants said. The raid by more than 100 fighters was a dramatic display of the strength of the insurgency gripping the nuclear-armed country. The escaped prisoners may now rejoin the fight, giving momentum and a propaganda boost to a movement that has killed thousands of Pakistani officials and ordinary citizens since 2007.

BAMAKO, Mali - Mali's new interim civilian president took office Thursday, vowing to keep the chaotic country intact even after rebels declared an independent state in the north following a military coup three weeks ago. Hours after handing over power to Dioncounda Traore, the junta also released about a dozen politicians who had been detained since the coup, including the country's foreign minister. Traore, who heads the country's national assembly, is to serve as Mali's president for 40 days following an agreement between West African regional mediators and the leader of the junta that seized power last month.

BEIRUT - A U.N.-brokered plan to stop the bloodshed in Syria effectively collapsed Sunday after President Bashar al-Assad's government raised new, last-minute demands that the country's largest rebel group swiftly rejected. The truce plan, devised by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, was supposed to go into effect on Tuesday, with a withdrawal of Syrian forces from population centers, followed within 48 hours by a cease-fire by both sides in the uprising against four decades of repressive rule by the Assad family.

BAMAKO, Mali - Under intense pressure from the nations bordering Mali, the junior officer who seized control of the country in a coup last month signed an accord, agreeing late Friday to return the country to constitutional rule. The announcement was made only hours after separatist rebels in the country's north declared their independence. Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo emerged from his office inside the military barracks that has served the de facto seat of government for the last 16 days, ever since he and his men stormed the presidential palace, reversing over two decades of democratic rule.

BAMAKO, Mali - The rebel group that recently seized control of Mali's remote north in a maneuver that effectively partitioned the country in two announced a cease-fire Thursday, saying it had reached its military goal. Moussa Ag Assarid, a spokesman for the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad, said the group was declaring the cease-fire to allow humanitarian aid to resume in the north, where shops were looted. In Ivory Coast, the military chiefs of the nations bordering Mali met Thursday to hash out their plan for a military intervention.

ISTANBUL, Turkey - A coalition of at least 70 countries pledged several million dollars a month and communications equipment Sunday for Syrian rebels and opposition activists, signaling deeper involvement in the conflict amid a growing belief that diplomacy and sanctions alone cannot end the regime's repression. The shift by the United States and its Western and Arab allies toward seeking to sway the military balance in Syria, where heavily armed regime forces overmatch rebels, carries regional risks because the crisis there increasingly resembles a proxy conflict that could exacerbate sectarian tensions.

BAMAKO, Mali - Mali's U.S.-trained coup leader said Saturday that he was in control of the country, had no fears of a countercoup, and wanted peace talks with the rebels whose northern rebellion was the trigger that led him to oust a democratically elected president. Capt. Amadou Sanogo, who appeared exhausted, his voice hoarse, stressed the importance of unity for the West African nation in an exclusive interview with the Associated Press at Kati garrison outside Bamako, the capital.