CAIRO - Police fired tear gas at dozens of stone-throwing protesters in Cairo on Sunday in a fourth day of street violence that has killed at least 41 people and compounded the political challenges facing President Mohamed Morsi.
The most deadly clashes flared up in Port Said where 32 people were killed on Saturday alone. That violence was provoked by a court verdict sentencing 21 people, mostly from the city, to death for their role in a deadly stadium disaster last year.
But protests have been going in cities across Egypt since Thursday led by opponents of Morsi and his Islamist allies. Demonstrations were initially timed to mark Friday's second anniversary of the uprising that overthrew Hosni Mubarak.
Opponents say Morsi has betrayed the goals of the revolt.
The army, Egypt's interim rulers until Morsi's election June, were sent back onto the streets to restore order in Port Said and Suez, another port city on the Suez Canal where at least eight people have been killed in clashes with police.
Although scuffles continued on Sunday morning in Cairo, there was no immediate sign of the kind of deadly escalation of previous days in the capital or elsewhere.
The spasm of violence adds to the daunting task facing Morsi as he tries to fix a beleaguered economy and cool tempers before a parliamentary election expected in the next few months which is supposed to cement Egypt's transition to democracy.