Around the world

FIGHTING EASES: Fighting in Chechnya's capital subsided Saturday with the pullout of many rebel gunmen, but Grozny's streets still echoed with sporadic shooting and a dozen more deaths were reported. Government forces backed by armored personnel carriers removed mines and dug fresh trenches before nightfall, cautiously reasserting their control as the fighting diminished following a rebel assault that began Wednesday.STOLEN: Lithuania's National Security Department has acknowledged that a nuclear container that disappeared four years ago from the Igna-lina nuclear power plant was stolen, a news report said Saturday. A security official told the Interfax news agency that a zirconium tube that had contained uranium was discovered Friday 31/2 miles from the plant. Ignalina plant managers admitted in 1993 that a container of nuclear material disappeared the previous year but insisted that it had been misplaced.

Across the nation

COMPETENT: A doctor accused of setting her home in Olathe, Kan., on fire and watching as two of her children died in the blaze was ruled competent to stand trial Friday. Defense attorneys said they requested the mental competency evaluation for Dr. Debora Green, 44, because she could face the death penalty if convicted. Johnson County District Judge Peter Ruddick said he based his decision on confidential reports by psychologists.

ARRAIGNED: A Seattle man who fled to Brazil after a fire at his parents' frozen-food warehouse killed four firefighters in 1995 was finally arraigned Friday on first-degree murder and arson charges. Martin Pang's lawyer objected to the murder charges, saying they weren't allowed under an extradition agreement with Brazil, and declined to enter a plea for Pang on those counts.

In Washington

FIRE: An overheated humidifier started a small fire at the White House on Saturday afternoon. The blaze was quickly extinguished, and neither President Clinton nor his wife, Hillary, nor daughter Chelsea was in the mansion. An electrician doing some maintenance work in the mansion's third-floor family quarters extinguished the flames, said a spokesman.

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