Funeral set for slain Ga. officer Sunday afternoon

Authorities planned to close streets expecting a large turnout Sunday afternoon for the funeral of a slain Georgia police officer whose shooting death prompted a wide manhunt for a suspect who allegedly held hostages before surrendering.

Jamie Hood, 33, was being held without bond, charged with Tuesday's fatal shooting of Athens-Clarke County police officer Elmer "Buddy" Christian and the wounding of another officer, authorities said.

Hood was arrested late Friday after authorities say he allegedly held nine hostages.

As Hood was being taken into custody late Friday, he told WXIA-TV reporter Doug Richards in a brief videotaped interview, "I regret killing that officer." The NBC affiliate in Atlanta aired the interview Saturday night.

When Richards asked him what he meant, a handcuffed Hood said on tape, "That officer. That innocent officer. I regret that ..." Asked for more details, Hood said, "You know, they killed my brother. They were going to kill me."

Hood's brother was killed by an Athens police officer in 2001 while Hood was serving a prison sentence for armed robbery.

Athens, the community that's home to the University of Georgia, was convulsed by the shootings last Tuesday about three miles from that campus. Local news reports have said Sunday's funeral and procession to a cemetery burial could draw thousands.

Christian, 34, was an 8-year veteran of the Athens police department, married and with two young children.

Police announced special parking and street closing plans starting at 11 a.m., about two hours before the planned service.

Police had been searching for Hood since Tuesday, when Christian was shot and killed.

Vettel wins season-opening F1 Australian GP

Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel opened his Formula One title defense by driving a flawless race, outpacing McLaren's Lewis Hamilton to win the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on Sunday.

Starting from the pole, Vettel maintained his lead after the first turn and had already opened a gap of more than 2 seconds over Hamilton following the first lap and the German's lead was never seriously threatened.

Vettel, who employed a two-stop strategy on the new Pirelli tires, made his first pit stop to change to softer rubber in the 14th lap, emerging in third place ahead of McLaren's Jenson Button. He regained the lead two laps later when Hamilton made a tire change and never looked back, winning by more than 22 seconds.

"Very cool," he radioed to his team after taking the checkered flag. "Excellent car. Excellent stops."

The 23-year-old Vettel became the youngest F1 champion last year, finishing third in the season-ending Abu Dhabi GP to edge Fernando Alonso by four points.

"The car was quick but also reliable and that is the key," Vettel said. "It's the first time I have finished the Australian GP as well, so I am very, very happy."

"With Lewis dropping off later in the race, there was no pressure, so I was able to control it," Vettel added.

Renault's Vitaly Petrov was a surprise third, claiming his first-ever podium finish with a strong showing.

State elections crucial test for Germany's Merkel

Eight million Germans are voting in a closely watched state election that could see Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party lose power in southern Baden-Wuerttemberg for the first time in almost six decades.

Recent polls suggest Merkel's Christian Democrats are poised to lose Sunday's ballot by a narrow margin, with the opposition Social Democrats and Greens scoring about 24 percent each and forming a coalition government in the state.

The Christian Democrats are forecast to secure about 38 percent of the vote, with their current coalition partner, the pro-business Free Democrats, just 5 percent.

Merkel's party has held power in the region around Stuttgart - one of Germany's industrial powerhouses that is home to companies such as Daimler AG - since 1953.

Radiation inside Japan nuclear plant rises sharply

Japanese officials reported a huge jump in radioactivity - levels 10 million times the norm - in water in one reactor unit at a tsunami-damaged nuclear plant Sunday, forcing workers to evacuate and again delaying efforts to control the leaking complex.

Radiation in the air, meanwhile, measured 1,000 millisieverts per hour - four times the limit deemed safe by the government, Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Takashi Kurita said.

Word of the startling jump in radioactivity in Unit 2 came as TEPCO struggled to pump contaminated water from four troubled reactor units at the overheated Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, 140 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo. The reading was so high that the worker measuring the levels fled before taking a second reading, officials said.

Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency had warned Saturday that radioactivity inside the units was rising quickly and that extracting the radioactive water was a priority.

The discovery over the last three days of radioactive water in several units at the six-unit complex has been a major setback in the urgent mission to get the plant's crucial cooling system back up and operating more than two weeks after a massive earthquake and tsunami.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano acknowledged emergency workers still needed to figure out the source of the radioactive water, but insisted the situation had stabilized - at least partially.

"We have somewhat prevented the situation from turning worse," Edano told reporters Sunday evening. "But the prospects are not improving in a straight line and we've expected twists and turns. The contaminated water is one of them and we'll continue to repair the damage."

The magnitude-9 quake off Japan's northeast coast on March 11 triggered a tsunami that barreled onshore and disabled the Fukushima plant, complicating a humanitarian disaster that has killed well over 10,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.

Israeli airstrike kills 2 Gaza militants

Israeli aircraft struck a Palestinian rocket squad in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing two militants as the military prepared to activate a new defense system to shoot down incoming rockets.

Islamic Jihad, a militant group that frequently attacks Israel, confirmed two members were killed in the airstrike, while a third was critically wounded. The group did not specify whether they were in the process of launching rockets.

Gaza militants, including Islamic Jihad and the territory's Hamas rulers, had said over the weekend that they would halt their fire if Israel did. It was not clear whether they were reneging on that pledge or whether the air strike hit a rogue group of militants ignoring the cease-fire overture.

A spokesman for Gaza's Hamas-run interior ministry, Ihab Ghussein, accused Israel of seeking to perpetuate the violence.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had "no interest" in escalating things.

"But we won't hesitate to employ the might of the military against those who would attack our citizens," Netanyahu added in remarks at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting.

Weeks of stepped-up rocket and mortar attacks have drawn fears of renewed war and led to new calls in Israel for the military to deploy the $200 million Iron Dome anti-rocket system.

The Israeli military said the system should begin operating on Sunday near Beersheba, southern Israel's largest city. A second anti-missile battery will be deployed in another large southern city, Ashdod, the military added, without specifying an exact date.