Diplomat says minuscule fallout reaches Calif.

Government experts in the United States are keeping a close eye on any radioactive particles that could travel from Japan, and they may already be seeing trace amounts.

A diplomat who has access to radiation tracking by the U.N.'s Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization told The Associated Press in Vienna that initial readings show tiny amounts of radiation have reached California. But it's not dangerous in any way - "about a billion times beneath levels that would be health threatening," the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the organization does not make its findings public.

U.S. government experts also insist there's no threat to public health from the plume, but they are still closely monitoring the situation with detection monitors deployed along the West Coast.

The new California reading came from a measuring station of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, and the monitor was apparently located in Sacramento.

"Radiation is one of those words that get everybody scared, like `plague,'" said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, director of public health for Los Angeles County. "But we're 5,000 miles away."

The amount of any fallout that wafts across the Pacific Ocean to the U.S. coast will be so diluted that it will not pose any health risk, officials say. Wind, rain and salt spray will help clean the air over the vast ocean between Japan and the United States.

Nuclear experts say the main elements released are radioactive cesium and iodine. They can combine with the salt in sea water to become cesium chloride and sodium iodide, which are common and abundant elements and would readily dilute in the wide expanse of the Pacific, according to Steven Reese, director of the Radiation Center at Oregon State.

"It is certainly not a threat in terms of human health" added William H. Miller, a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Missouri.

UN condemns mortar attack on Ivory Coast market

The United Nations on Friday condemned a mortar attack on a market that killed at least 25 people in Ivory Coast and said it could be a crime against humanity.

The U.N. blamed forces loyal to incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo, whose refusal to cede power has sparked a growing political crisis. They said in a statement that Thursday's attack sent at least six 81 mm mortar shells into an Abidjan neighborhood. The UN said at least 40 people also were wounded.

Shells fell without warning on a market in front of the mayor's office in Abobo, a district held by fighters loyal to the internationally recognized president, Alassane Ouattara. At one market stall, an elderly woman lost both her legs, a witness said.

Earlier in the day, pro-Ouattara fighters ambushed a police station in the Adjame district of Abidjan, though it was unclear whether anyone was killed.

Rights group Amnesty International on Friday condemned the attack.

"To launch an attack of this kind that kills and injures a large number of people who are not posing an immediate threat is completely unacceptable," said Veronique Aubert, the group's Africa deputy director.

Abidjan, Ivory Coast's biggest city, has for weeks seen daily battles that have left hundreds dead. Fighting was initially confined to pro-Ouattara neighborhoods but has now spread across the city, breaking out in different locations each day.

Texas teen's mom charged, boyfriend searched

Police say a Texas woman whose 13-year-old daughter is missing lied about the whereabouts of her boyfriend, who was previously named a person of interest in Hailey Darlene Dunn's disappearance.

Billie Jean Dunn was in court in Colorado City Friday on charges of misdemeanor hindering prosecution, possession of a dangerous drug and giving a false report to an officer.

Officers arrested Dunn Thursday night when officers found Shawn Adkins at her home after she denied he was there.

Dunn reported Hailey as missing Dec 28.

Mitchell County Sheriff Patrick Toombs says officers did not arrest Adkins and declined to explain why they were looking for him.

Dunn is being held on $6,500 bond and has declined to have an attorney appointed.

Pakistan to boycott Afghan meeting over deadly U.S. strike

Pakistan told the United States Friday it would not attend a meeting on Afghanistan later this month, angered by a U.S. missile strike that killed 41 people and drew rare condemnation from the country's powerful military chief.

Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir lodged a strong protest with U.S. ambassador Cameron Munter who was summoned to the foreign office a day after the attack in the Datta Khel region of North Waziristan, a spokeswoman said.

"Ambassador Munter was also conveyed that under the current circumstances, Pakistan would not be able to participate in the trilateral meeting between Afghanistan-Pakistan-U.S.," the spokeswoman said in a statement

"It was evident that the fundamentals of our relations need to be revisited. Pakistan should not be taken for granted nor treated as a client state," the statement said.

The United States had proposed the trilateral meeting in Brussels on March 26 to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, according to the statement.

Earlier, Pakistan army chief General Ashfaq Kayani in a rare public display of displeasure with the United States condemned the drone strike as "unjustifiable and intolerable."

Chile, US diplomats sign nuclear energy accord

Chile and the U.S. signed a nuclear energy accord Friday, despite fears of radiation spreading in Japan after a devastating earthquake and tsunami severely damaged some of its nuclear reactors.

A day earlier, White House officials wouldn't even confirm the long-awaited signing, which was supposed to be a high-profile moment in President Barack Obama's visit with Chilean President Sebastian Pinera on Monday.

The accord was signed by U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff and Chilean Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno.

Chile's mining and energy minister, Laurence Golborne, inked a similar accord with France last month. But with Japan's disaster still developing, he and Pinera left this signature to the foreign minister and stressed that it focuses on training nuclear engineers, not building reactors. They say Chileans need to be educated about nuclear power before deciding whether to use it.

Many Chileans are against nuclear power, and environmental groups plan to protest Obama's visit. Acknowledging the debate during the signing ceremony, Golborne denied that the accord is an inevitable step toward building reactors, and said any decision would be made after Pinera leaves office in 2014.

Pinera said Thursday that Obama's visit would include a working meeting, and that "we have many accords that are important for Chile to sign." In addition to energy, he said they include efforts to bring more U.S. English teachers to Chile, and "matters of democracy and human rights, not just in Chile but in the rest of Latin America."

Groupon's ambitious plan to change how and when we eat

Groupon is fervently preparing for its most ambitious venture yet: the launch of a new mobile application that the company hopes will change when and how society chooses to eat, shop and play.

The application, known as Groupon Now, is remarkably and elegantly simple, yet it's a radical departure from Groupon's current deal-a-day business model. When a user opens up the smartphone app, he or she will be presented with just two buttons: "I'm hungry" and "I'm bored."

Clicking either button will open up a list of time-specific daily deals, based on his or her location.

The familiar $10 coupons for $20 worth of food are still there, but they're not one-time offers. Instead, businesses can choose when they want these deals to be available.

Say a restaurant is incredibly busy on Saturdays but could use more business on Wednesdays. With Groupon Now, that business can fill its seats during slow business days using time-specific deals.

That's the beauty of Groupon Now: local businesses have never really had a simple way to manage their perishable inventory, especially labor and food. Why waste those resources during slow periods when you can bring savings-savvy consumers through the doors with a highly targeted Groupon deal?

"For merchants, the daily deal is like teeth whitening, and Groupon Now is like brushing your teeth. It can be an everyday thing to keep your business going," Groupon founder and CEO Andrew Mason told Bloomberg Businessweek in an extensive interview on the new product.

The daily deals company has been on a tear recently -- in fact it is the fastest growing company in history -- but it faces stiff competition from companies with increasing muscle.

Egypt gets first taste of a free vote in decades

Forty million Egyptians get their first taste of a free vote in decades when a package of constitutional amendments sponsored by Egypt's ruling military goes to a nationwide vote on Saturday.

The referendum is the first major test of the country's transition to democracy after a popular uprising overthrew President Hosni Mubarak's authoritarian rule.

The amendments drawn up by a panel of military-appointed legal scholars are intended to bring just enough change to the current constitution - which the military suspended after coming to power - to ensure that upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections are free and fair.

They would open the elections to independent and opposition candidates and restore full judicial supervision of votes, a measure seen as key to preventing fraud.

They would also limit presidents to two four-year terms, and curtail 30-year-old emergency laws that give police near-unlimited powers.

A "yes" vote would allow parliamentary and presidential elections to be held before the end of the year.

Critics are using social networks and full-page ads in newspapers to argue that the entire constitution must be scrapped and a new one drawn up to guarantee that Egypt is spared future dictators. Egypt has been ruled by men of military backgrounds since 1952 and the current constitution outlines a system that puts overwhelming power in the hands of the president.

Bayer drops plan for toxic MIC production in W.Va.

Bayer CropScience said Friday it was abandoning plans to resume production in West Virginia of a toxic chemical that killed thousands of people in Bhopal, India, in 1984.

Bayer issued a release the same morning as the latest court hearing in a lawsuit by residents seeking to stop the company from restarting the unit that produces methyl isocyanate, or MIC

The company said in a news release that it will decommission the MIC unit and associated production units.

The plant in Institute is the only one in the nation that still stores MIC in large volumes. The chemical is used to make Temik, an insecticide.

Bayer said it could no longer expect to produce Temik in time for this year's growing season because of delays in restarting the MIC unit, which had been closed for renovations.

Residents had filed a lawsuit to halt the unit's restart. Bayer had argued that it already had significantly reduced the risks of an accident, slashing its MIC stockpile by 80 percent and eliminating all aboveground storage.

Adobe caves in to Apple -- fewer blank spots on i-devices?

For decades -- dating back to the 1980s -- Apple and Adobe Systems have had a deeply troubled relationship. The most recent phase of their ongoing struggle has been over whether Flash (Adobe's hugely popular proprietary format for adding animation, video, and interactivity to web pages) would run on Apple mobile devices.

Apple has always resisted putting Flash on the iPhone, because Flash has performed notoriously poorly on Macintosh computers.

But these days internet access is swiftly going mobile, and Apple's iPhone holds the most interactivity- and video-hungry portion of the smartphone market.

Apple does offer a mobile app that re-encodes YouTube Flash videos to play on the iPhone, but in general Flash elements won't play on Apple mobile devices. So Adobe has been trying hard to get Apple to support Flash on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

It looks like Adobe has finally lost this battle.

Last week Adobe Systems released Wallaby -- an experimental new drag-and-drop tool for developers that converts Flash files into HTML5.

Billy Ray Cyrus withdraws divorce filing

Billy Ray Cyrus is trying to save his marriage.

He withdrew his divorce filing last Friday in Williamson County Court in Tennessee. His attorney and the judge signed an order withdrawing the divorce papers. It says he and his wife of 17 years, Tish, are attempting to reconcile.

Cyrus told ABC's "The View" that for the first time in a long time his entire family is communicating with each other, and that things are really the best they've ever been.

He released a joint statement with Tish in October announcing the split. They have three children together, including pop-star Miley Cyrus, and two from Tish's previous marriage.

Is Twitter dividing the happy from the unhappy?

Anyone who thought that social media was going to usher in a utopian era of communication without borders is going to have their faith badly shaken by a new study from Cornell University.

On Twitter, it seems, there are already at least two walled-off nations: happy people and unhappy people.

And never the twain shall tweet.

The Cornell study, spotted by New Scientist magazine, tracked 102,000 Twitter users and analyzed the 129 million tweets they sent and received during a six-month period.

It examined the words they used using what the authors call "standard techniques from psychology" to rate their sense of self-fulfillment -- an important measure, in the burgeoning field of happiness studies, known as subjective well-being or SWB.

Facebook 'Likes' more profitable than tweets

If event registration site Eventbrite's experience is any indication, social media marketers looking for monetary returns on their efforts might get more value from Facebook than Twitter.

The company announced Wednesday that an average tweet about an event drove 80 cents in ticket sales during the past six months, whereas an average Facebook Like drove $1.34.

The study, which used in-house social analytics tools to track ticket sales on the site, was a continuation of a similar analysis the company released in October after analyzing data from a 12-week period.

That study also indicated Facebook drove more sales for Eventbrite than Twitter, although the difference between the two networks' sales per post was greater at that point than throughout the entire six-month period (the "value" of tweets increased).

In addition to each individual Facebook Like driving more sales than an individual tweet, the study also revealed cumulative activity on Facebook was greater than activity on Twitter for Eventbrite. People shared Eventbrite events on Facebook almost four times as often as they did on Twitter. The company attributes this disparity to Facebook's wider reach and greater emphasis on real-world ties.

It's important to note that only a very small percentage of site visitors shared event pages on either network. Just 1% of people who landed on an event page shared it with their friends; 10% of people who had purchased a ticket did the same.

4 New York Times journalists found in Libya

Four New York Times journalists who were reported missing while covering the Libya conflict have been found, the newspaper said Friday.

The Times reported on its website that the four were captured by forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi and will be released Friday.

The Times said his son, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, gave the information to Christiane Amanpour in an ABC News interview. A Times spokeswoman said the newspaper had no immediate comment.

Libyan government officials told the U.S. State Department on Thursday evening that all four would be released.

They had last been in contact with editors on Tuesday from the northern port city of Ajdabiya where they were covering the retreat of rebels.

The journalists are Anthony Shadid, The Times' Beirut bureau chief and a two-time Pulitzer-prize winning foreign correspondent; two photographers, Tyler Hicks and Lynsey Addario, who have extensive experience in war zones; and a reporter and videographer, Stephen Farrell, who in 2009 was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan and was rescued by British commandos.

The journalists and their families could not immediately be reached for comment.

Shadid had worked previously for The Associated Press, Washington Post and Boston Globe. He won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting in 2004 and 2010 for his coverage of Iraq.

Yemeni snipers open fire on protesters, kill 40

Yemeni government snipers firing from rooftops and houses shot into a crowd of tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Friday, killing at least 40 people and injuring hundreds demanding the ouster of the autocratic president.

The protest in the central square was the largest yet in the popular uprising that began a month ago - and the harsh government response marked a new level of brutality from the security forces of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a key - if uneasy - ally in the U.S. campaign against al-Qaida who has ruled Yemen for 30 years.

Saleh declared a nationwide state of emergency hours after the shootings in the capital, formally giving the security forces a freer hand to confront the demonstrators. There was no word on how long the emergency laws would remain in place.

Dozens of enraged protesters stormed several buildings that were the source of the gunfire, detaining 10 people including paid thugs who they said would be handed over to judicial authorities.

Demonstrators have camped out in squares across Yemen for over a month to demand that Saleh leave office. Security forces and pro-government thugs have used live fire, rubber bullets, tear gas, sticks, knives and rocks to suppress them. The protesters say they won't go until Saleh does.

"They want to scare and terrorize us. They want to drag us into a cycle of violence - to make the revolution meaningless," said Jamal Anaam, a 40-year-old activist camping out in the square that the protesters call "Taghyir Square" - Arabic for "Change."

"They want to repeat the Libyan experiment, but we refuse to be dragged into violence no matter what the price," he said.

Obama signs bill funding govt through April 8

President Barack Obama has signed a second short-term spending bill to keep the government running, this time through April 8, giving lawmakers more time to agree on a package of spending cuts Republicans are demanding.

Obama signed the bill Friday at the White House before he heads out on a five-day tour of Latin America.

Administration officials have met with top aides to Republican House Speaker John Boehner (BAY-'nuhr) and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to discuss budget cuts that would be included in a bill to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

The House has passed a bill with $61 billion in spending cuts, but it doesn't have enough votes to clear the Senate. Obama also has threatened to veto it.

Optometrists: Nintendo 3DS could ID vision issues

U.S. eye specialists are welcoming the Nintendo 3DS game device, dismissing the manufacturer's warnings that its 3-D screen shouldn't be used by children 6 or younger because it may harm their immature vision.

On the contrary, the optometrists say, it's a good idea to get your kids to try the 3-D screen, especially if they're younger than 6. It won't do any harm, they say, and it could help catch vision disorders that have to be caught early to be fixed.

"The 3DS could be a godsend for identifying kids under 6 who need vision therapy," said Michael Duenas, associate director for health sciences and policy for the American Optometric Association.

The new handheld game device is already available in Japan and goes on sale in the U.S. on March 27 for $250. It has two screens like the DS machines it is designed to replace. The top screen can show 3-D images, without the need for special glasses, though only new games will be in 3-D. A pair of cameras on the 3DS can be used to take 3-D pictures.

Suspect in '96 killing may be extradited to France

It remains one of Ireland's great unsolved murders. But now, 14 years on, France may be about to get to the bottom of it.

Irish authorities on Friday agreed to extradite Ian Bailey, the only suspect ever identified in the murder of French filmmaker Sophie Toscan du Plantier, to France - a legal first for Ireland. Never before has an Irish resident faced extradition abroad to face charges for a crime committed in Ireland.

High Court Justice Micheal Peart gave Bailey's lawyers until Tuesday to decide whether to seek an appeal to the Irish Supreme Court.

Bailey, 53, an English freelance journalist who resettled in rural County Cork in 1991, denies beating to death Toscan du Plantier, 39, outside her Cork holiday home on the night of Dec. 22-23, 1996. He has previously been arrested twice on suspicion of her murder, but never charged.

France opened its own investigation after Ireland's state prosecutors decided that, despite a 2,000-page police file, they lacked sufficient forensic and witness evidence to charge Bailey. France issued an extradition warrant for Bailey in February 2010.

Most legal experts had expected Ireland to reject the warrant, given its unusual nature and Ireland's track record for refusing most extradition requests.

In his 54-page judgment Peart said Bailey faced no risk of an unfair trial in France.

US tells Gadhafi to pull back from east Libya

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says now that the U.N. has approved possible military action, the world is waiting to see whether Moammar Gadhafi's forces begin to retreat from opposition-controlled areas in east Libya.

Clinton tells reporters in Washington that the U.S. isn't impressed by the Libyan government's claim of a cease-fire, saying "we would have to see action on the ground - and that is not yet at all clear."

Clinton said Friday that the first goal of international action is to end the violence in Libya.

She said: "We have to see a very clear set of decisions" by Gadhafi's forces. She says that means forces must pull "a significant distance away from the east." That's where Gadhafi's forces are fighting rebels seeking his ouster.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says Moammar Gadhafi has left the world no choice but to threaten military action against him.

Clinton, giving the first U.S. explanation of new U.N. authority for action against Libya, says the goal remains to get rid of Gadhafi. She says Gadhafi has refused repeated calls to stop killing civilians.

As for Friday's news that Libya would observe a cease-fire, Clinton says the U.S. will only be impressed with action, not words.

Spanish doctor charged in doping investigation

A prosecutor has brought the first formal charges against Eufemiano Fuentes and four others in Spain's long-running Operation Puerto doping scandal.

Judicial official Jose Manuel Garcia says it is up to a judge to decide whether to order a trial.

However, Garcia says he expected the doctor and the other suspects, including former cycling team owner Manolo Saiz, to stand trial in the case. The case began with police raids in May 2006 that netted steroids and blood equipment.

Fuentes also has been implicated in the Spanish Civil Guard's ongoing Operation Galgo investigation into doping in Spanish athletics.

Operation Puerto implicated more than 50 cyclists, including Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich and Alejandro Valverde.

Hall of Fame to honor 'Talkin' Baseball' composer

As a minor league pitcher, Dennis Minogue hardly had Hall of Fame talent. Once he changed his tune - and name - and forever linked Willie, Mickey and the Duke, he earned his spot in Cooperstown.

The Hall will honor "Talkin' Baseball" composer and singer Terry Cashman this summer as part of induction weekend, 30 years after his song became a ballpark favorite.

Funny thing, the popular refrain almost included another player.

"I kept trying to fit Joe DiMaggio into the song and it wasn't working," Cashman told The Associated Press this week.

Once he dropped Joe D, the most familiar verse flowed rather easily.

"It just came into my head that way," Cashman said. "I sat down and wrote the whole thing in 20 minutes."

Cashman said he was inspired to write the song by a picture of all four great center fielders walking across the field at Shea Stadium during an Old-Timers' Day. He liked the photo so much, in fact, he bought the rights to use it.

The 69-year-old Cashman also was stirred by the memory of debates he had on the street corners of New York in the 1950s over which of the three future Hall of Famers was best. Being a Giants fan, Mays was his guy. Cashman said, however, that's not why Willie's name came first in the song - it simply sounded better that way.

Judge hearing lawsuit to block Wisconsin union law

A Wisconsin judge is hearing arguments on whether to block the state's new and contentious collective bargaining law from taking effect.

Dane County's district attorney filed a lawsuit contending a legislative committee that broke a stalemate that had kept the law in limbo for weeks met without the 24-hour notice required by Wisconsin's open meetings law. The Republican-controlled Legislature passed the measure and Gov. Scott Walker signed it last week.

The law can't take effect until it's formally published, and the Democratic secretary of state says he plans to wait the full 10 days allowed to publish it March 25.

District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, a Democrat, wants Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi (SOO'-mee) to grant an emergency order blocking publication of the law. The hearing was under way Friday.

BA worker jailed for 30 years for plane bomb plot

A British judge sentenced a former British Airways computer specialist to 30 years in jail Friday for plotting with U.S.-born extremist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki to kill hundreds of people by blowing up a U.S.-bound plane.

Rajib Karim, a 31-year-old from Bangladesh, was convicted last month of four counts of engaging in preparation for terrorist attacks. He had already pleaded guilty to five other terrorism offenses, but denied plotting an attack in Britain.

Calling the offenses "of the utmost gravity," Justice David Calvert-Smith recommended in his sentencing that Karim be automatically deported from Britain after completing his sentence.

Prosecutors had argued that Karim used his position at the airline to conspire with al-Awlaki, a notorious U.S.-born radical preacher associated with al-Qaida and thought to be hiding in Yemen. At one point, encouraged by al-Awlaki, he applied for training as a flight attendant, they said.

While Calvert-Smith noted that he considered Karim more "of a follower than a leader," the judge said Karim "worked incessantly to further terrorist purposes" despite his quiet lifestyle.

"You are and were a committed jihadist," the judge told Karim at London's Woolwich Crown Court.

Karim was arrested at his BA desk in the northern English city of Newcastle in February 2010. He pleaded guilty to helping produce a terrorist group's video, fundraising and volunteering for terror abroad - but insisted he never planned an attack in Britain.

The Bangladeshi national, who studied electronic engineering at a university in Manchester between 1998 and 2002 and has a British wife, returned to Britain in 2006 and joined BA the following year.

Libya offers cease-fire after UN no-fly zone vote

Libya declared an immediate cease-fire Friday, trying to fend off international military intervention after the U.N. authorized a no-fly zone and "all necessary measures" to prevent the regime from striking its own people. A rebel spokesman said Moammar Gadhafi's forces were still shelling two cities.

The cease-fire announcement by the Libyan foreign minister followed a fierce government attack on Misrata, the last rebel-held city in the western half of the country. A doctor said at least six people were killed.

Mustafa Gheriani, a spokesman for the rebels, said the attacks continued well past the announcement.

"He's bombing Misrata and Adjadbiya from 7 a.m. this morning until now. How can you trust him?" Gheriani said.

The U.N. Security Council resolution, which was passed late Thursday after weeks of deliberation, set the stage for airstrikes, a no-fly zone and other military measures short of a ground invasion. Britain announced that it would send fighter jets, Italy offered the use of its bases, and France was making plans to deploy planes. The U.S. had yet to announce its role. NATO also held an emergency meeting.

With the international community mobilizing, Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa said the government would cease fire in line with the resolution, although he criticized the authorization of international military action, calling it a violation of Libya's sovereignty.

With aid slow to come Japanese fend for themselves

There may be no water, no power and no cell phone reception in this tsunami-struck town, but in the school that serves as a shelter, there are sizzling pans of fat, pink shrimp.

Relief supplies have only trickled into the long strip of northeast Japan demolished by a powerful earthquake and the wave it unleashed a week ago, leaving affected communities to fend for themselves.

Many have risen to the occasion.

No water for the toilets? No problem. Students in Karakuwa bring buckets of water from the school swimming pool to give survivors the dignity of a proper flush. In the kitchen, a giant rice cooker given to the school by a resident sits on a table, steam rising from the heaping mounds of rice inside.

"For a long time, in the countryside, even if you didn't have enough for yourself, you shared with others," said Noriko Sasaki, 63, as she sat on the ground outside another relief center in the town. "That is our culture. Even if they're not relatives, we feel as if they're sisters or brothers."

There are hardships - a junior high hardly offers the comforts of home - and while the sense of community runs all along the coast, not all survivors are as well off.

Blustery snow, fuel shortages and widespread damage to airports, roads and rails have hampered delivery of badly needed assistance to more than 450,000 homeless trying to stay fed and warm, often without electricity and running water in shelters cobbled together in schools and other public buildings.

More than 6,900 people are confirmed dead so far and another 10,700 are missing. The disaster also damaged a seaside nuclear power plant, which remains in crisis as workers struggle under dangerous conditions to prevent a meltdown and major radiation leaks.

In the flattened hamlet of Shizugawa, Koji Sato, a carpenter who usually builds homes, is making coffins.

He said he hasn't had time to really think about the hardship he's faced. "All I have been doing is making coffins."

In Hirota, helicopters have delivered some food, but not much. So far, the survivors have instant noodles, fruit and bread. Water comes from wells and mountain rivers. Companies and residents unaffected by the disaster have donated bedding and blankets.

Bystander foot chase nabs Detroit wallet thief

A teenager's attempt to snatch a wallet at a popular Detroit restaurant turned into a foot chase that included the attorney he tries to rob, another county official, eatery staff, bystanders and a street-corner saxophone player.

The Detroit News reports that Donn Fresard, chief of staff in the Wayne County prosecutor's office, was paying for his lunch at Fishbone's Rhythm Kitchen Cafe on Wednesday when the 14-year-old boy snatched the wallet and sprinted through a door.

Fresard, Wayne County Register of Deeds Bernard Youngblood and others gave chase. Outside, musician David Willis followed. Another man tackled the youth around the block. Willis says he joined in because he's tired of people in Detroit being put upon.

Police arrived just as the boy was caught. The wallet was found nearby.

Bahrain crackdown enrages Shiites across region

Shiite anger rose sharply around the Mideast on Friday as large crowds in Iran and Iraq cursed Bahrain's Sunni monarchy and its Saudi backers over a violent crackdown on protesters demanding more rights.

Thousands of Bahrainis gathered for the funeral of Ahmed Farhan, a 29-year-old demonstrator slain Tuesday in the town of Sitra hours after the king declared martial law in response to a month of escalating protests. Shiites account for 70 percent of the tiny island's half-million people but they are widely excluded from high-level posts and positions in the police and military.

At least three protesters and two policemen have been killed and hundreds of demonstrators wounded since the king's declaration, according to opposition groups and officials, driving the overall toll to at least 12. Sitra, the hub of Bahrain's oil industry, has been the site of the worst confrontations, said Ibrahim Youssef, a doctor at the main hospital in the town southwest of the capital, Manama.

A second funeral took place in the village of Karranah, a village west of the capital.

Amateur video footage of security forces shooting and beating protesters has spread across the internet and fueled fury in predominantly Shiite Iraq and in Iran, where a senior cleric on Friday urged Bahraini protesters to keep going until victory or death.

"Brothers and sisters" in Bahrain should "resist against the enemy until you die or win," Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati told worshippers at Friday prayers at Tehran University, a nationally televised forum seen as expressing the views of Iran's ruling Shiite clergy.