Iran Stocks Soar After Nuclear Framework Deal

Iranian stockbrokers monitor share prices at the Tehran Stock Exchange in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, April 5, 2015. The Tehran Stock Exchange has rallied after world powers clinched a nuclear framework agreement with Tehran, reflecting hopes that some crippling international sanctions could soon be lifted

TEHRAN, IRAN (AP) — The Tehran Stock Exchange has rallied after world powers clinched a nuclear framework agreement with Tehran, reflecting hopes that some crippling international sanctions could soon be lifted.

The official IRNA news agency says the Tehran Stock Exchange index rose 6.9 percent over two days. The agency says the index improved by 4,535 points to 70,261 on Sunday — the second working day of Iran's new year. It was the highest level in at least 18 months.

The framework deal announced Thursday envisions a final agreement that would pare back Iran's nuclear program for at least a decade in return for sanctions relief. Iran and six world powers, including the United States, hope to reach a final agreement by June 30.

Kenyan Attacker In College Killings Shows Security Challenge

Kenyan Christians pray as they join a morning service at Holy Family Basilica in Nairobi, Kenya, Sunday, April 5, 2015, during Easter Sunday when Christians celebrate the resurrection of their Lord, Jesus Christ, according to Scripture after his crucifixion on the cross. Special prayers were held Sunday for the victims of the recent Garissa University Attack, when Al-Shabab gunmen rampaged through the university in northeastern Kenya on Thursday, killing scores of people.

GARISSA, KENYA (AP) — One of the gunmen who slaughtered 148 people at a Kenyan university was identified Sunday as the law-school-educated son of a Kenyan government official, highlighting the inroads Islamic extremists have made in recruiting young people to carry out violent attacks in the country.

Abdirahim Mohammed Abdullahi, one of the Islamic extremists who attacked Garissa University College, was the son of a government chief in Mandera County which borders Somalia, Interior Ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka told The Associated Press.

The chief had reported his son missing last year and said he feared that he had gone to Somalia, said Njoka. All four attackers were killed by Kenyan security forces on Thursday, said police. Abdullahi graduated from the University of Nairobi with a law degree in 2013 and was viewed as a "brilliant upcoming lawyer," according to Njoka. It is not clear where he worked before he disappeared last year, Njoka said.

To prevent an escalation of Islamic radicalization in Kenya, it is important for parents to inform authorities if their children go missing or show tendencies of following violent extremism, said Njoka.

The four gunmen entered the Garissa campus on Thursday and slaughtered students. It took more than 12 hours to stop the attack by killing the gunmen. Somalia's al-Shabab Islamic militants claimed responsibility for the attack saying it was retribution for Kenya deploying troops to Somalia to fight the extremist rebels.

The news that one of the attackers was Kenyan highlights the challenges faced by the government in preventing extremist attacks. The danger comes not only from neighboring Somalia but also from within Kenya.

Kenyans make up the largest number if foreign fighters in al-Shabab, according to experts. Hundreds of Kenyan youths have trained with al-Shabab and then have returned to Kenya, posing a major security threat, according to former police chief Mathew Iteere.

Kenya's government has said another source of instability is the refugee camps with more than 423,000 Somali refugees. There are questions about the security response to the Garissa attack. Police waited for seven hours before sending a special tactical unit into Garissa college to fight the extremist gunmen, Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper reported Sunday. When the specially-trained police unit finally went into the college campus it took them only 30 minutes to kill the four al-Shabab gunmen and stop the siege, said the paper.

The newspaper's front page article questioned why the Interior Minister and police chief were flown to Garissa from Nairobi before the tactical team. Army barracks are just 500 meters (540 yards) from the college and military officers said they could handle the attack, said a police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. Only after three soldiers were killed did the army call in the police tactical unit, he said.

Before the attack on Garissa college, northeastern Kenya has had other attacks by al-Shabab in which Christians were separated from Muslims and then killed. Christian college students were also separated and killed. Christians are questioning whether they should stay in northeastern Kenya near the border with Somalia.

In the wake of the attack, grieving Christians prayed, sang and clapped at an Easter Sunday service at a Catholic church in Garissa. Security forces patrolled the perimeter of Our Lady of Consolation Church, which was attacked by militants almost three years ago. Grenades lobbed at the building sprayed shrapnel into the interior, injuring some worshippers. Another Garissa church was also attacked that day and 17 people were killed.

Sunday's ceremony was laden with emotion for the several hundred members of Garissa's Christian minority, which is fearful following the attack by al-Shabab, a Somalia-based Islamic extremist group. "We just keep on praying that God can help us, to comfort us in this difficult time," said Dominick Odhiambo, a worshipper who said he planned to abandon his job as a plumber in Garissa and leave for his hometown because he was afraid.

"Thank you for coming, so many of you," Bishop Joseph Alessandro said to the congregation. He said some of those who died in Thursday's attack would have been at the service, and he read condolence messages from around the world.

Alessandro said there has been an increase in insecurity because of al-Shabab. "You don't know who they are. They could be your neighbors," he said. A heavy security presence only helps up to a point and more intelligence on the militants is needed, he said.

Al-Shabab warned Saturday that Kenyans will face more violent attacks. "No amount of precaution or safety measures will be able to guarantee your safety, thwart another attack or prevent another bloodbath," said al-Shabab.

Following the extremists' threats, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta vowed to take harsh measures against the Islamic militants. "We will fight terrorism to the end," said Kenyatta, who declared three days of national mourning in his nationally televised address.

Five people have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the Garissa attack, a Kenyan official said.

AP writer Tom Odula contributed to this report from Nairobi, Kenya.

KENYA: Extremists Vow More Attacks; President Responds

Unidentified Americans who appeared to be working with the forensics investigation, leave accompanied by bags containing some of the alleged attackers' clothes and after viewing their bodies, at the hospital morgue in Garissa, Kenya Saturday, April 4, 2015. Later authorities displayed the bodies of the alleged attackers involved in the killings at Garissa University College on the bed of a pickup truck that drove slowly past the crowd gathered in a large open area.

GARISSA, KENYA (AP) — Somalia's Islamic extremist group al-Shabab warned Saturday of more attacks in Kenya like the assault on Garissa University College that killed 148 people.

"Kenyan cities will run red with blood," said al-Shabab according to the SITE intelligence monitoring group. The Islamic militants said the attack on Garissa college was in retaliation for killings carried out by Kenyan troops fighting the rebels in Somalia.

"No amount of precaution or safety measures will be able to guarantee your safety, thwart another attack or prevent another bloodbath," said al-Shabab. Following the extremists' threats, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta vowed to take harsh measures against the Islamic militants.

In a nationally televised address, Kenyatta said his administration "shall respond in the severest ways possible" to the Garissa attack, which occurred Thursday when four gunmen entered a campus and slaughtered students. The military moved in hours later and the gunmen were killed.

"We will fight terrorism to the end," said Kenyatta. "I guarantee that my administration shall respond in the fiercest way possible." Kenyatta said the country's "security forces are pursuing the remaining accomplices. We will bring all of them to justice ... We are also in active pursuit of the mastermind (of the Garissa attack) and have placed a reward for his capture," said Kenyatta, who declared 3 days of national mourning.

Five people have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the Garissa attack, a Kenyan official said. Kenyan security agencies arrested three people trying to cross into Somalia, said Interior Ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka in a Twitter post. He said the three are associates of Mohamed Mohamud, also known as Dulyadin Gamadhere, a former teacher at a Kenyan Madrassa Islamic school who authorities say coordinated the Garissa attack. Kenyan authorities have put a $220,000 bounty for information leading to Gamadhere's arrest.

Two other suspects were arrested at Garissa college. A survivor of the killings at Garissa University College was found on Saturday, two days after the attack. Cynthia Cheroitich, 19, told The Associated Press from her hospital gurney that she hid in a wardrobe and covered herself with clothes, refusing to emerge even when some of her classmates came out of hiding when demanded by the gunmen.

She was rescued shortly before 10 a.m., according to Kenyan officials. Cheroitich said she didn't believe that rescuers urging her to come out of her hiding place were there to help, suspecting at first that they were militants.

"How do I know that you are the Kenyan police?" she said she asked them. Only when Kenyan security forces had one of her teachers appeal to her did she come out, she said. "I was just praying to my God," Cheroitich, a Christian, said of her ordeal.

Cheroitich appeared tired and thirsty, sipping on yoghurt and a soft drink, but otherwise seemed in good health. She said she drank body lotion because she was so thirsty and hungry while in hiding. Authorities displayed the bodies of the alleged attackers before about 2,000 people in a large open area in central Garissa. The bodies lay on the bed of a pickup truck that drove slowly past the crowd, which broke into a run in pursuit. Soldiers monitored the crowd. There was shouting and clouds of dust rose as the vehicle left the area.

Spectator Yusuf Mohamed applauded the display, saying authorities wanted to "win the hearts of the people" and clear any doubts that the attackers had been killed. Kenyan authorities initially said the attackers had been strapped with explosives that went off like bombs when they were shot, but investigators later said there were no suicide vests. The four bodies shown Saturday had wounds but were intact.

The bodies of many of those killed in Garissa have been transported to the capital, Nairobi, where grieving family members gathered to view the remains. Thirteen buses left Garissa Saturday afternoon carrying hundreds of students who survived the attack. The buses, under armed escort, took the survivors to their home areas, said officials. Three of the buses arrived in the capital Nairobi at night.

Odula contributed to this report from Nairobi.

Ethnic Tensions Between Israeli Jews Fuels Netanyahu's Victory

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu election campaign poster lying among ballot papers at his party's election headquarters in Tel Aviv. Israel's visceral election campaign has exposed a rift that many here thought had long subsided _ the deep-seated schism between Jews of European and Middle Eastern descent. Mizrahi, or Middle Eastern, Jews heavily backed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, while Ashkenazi, or European, Jews mostly identified with the opposition Zionist Union. The Hebrew on the photo reads: "Choosing Prime Minister, only Likud only Netanyahu"

ROSH HA'AYIN, ISRAEL (AP) — Israel's visceral election campaign has exposed a rift that many here thought had long subsided — the deep-seated schism between Jews of European and Middle Eastern descent.

Mizrahi, or Middle Eastern, Jews heavily backed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party, while Ashkenazi, or European, Jews mostly identified with the opposition Zionist Union. That dynamic has been going on for a while but passions have run particularly high this time, with jarring results. Since Netanyahu's win, the sides have been exchanging insults that have not been heard in public in a generation — with the Mizrahi voters accused of being primitive and Ashkenazi voters viewed as elitist.

The dispute goes back to Israel's earliest days of independence. Arriving from Arabic-speaking countries in the Middle East and North Africa after Israel's establishment in 1948, many Mizrahi immigrants were sent to shantytown transit camps and largely sidelined by the European leaders of the founding Labor Party.

They found their political savior in Likud's Menachem Begin — even though he was himself of Polish Jewish descent. With consummate skill the longtime opposition leader cultivated an outsiders' alliance that appealed to their sense of deprivation — and with massive Mizrahi backing he swept to power in 1977 to break nearly 30 years of Labor rule.

The exact population breakdown is hard to calculate because intermarriage is now quite common. But Mizrahi or part-Mizrahi Jews make up roughly half of Israel's Jewish population. They have long complained of discrimination by the European-descended elite that traditionally dominated government, military and business institutions.

The complaints have diminished, as has some of the domination, but gaps remain. There has never been a Mizrahi prime minister, for example. Mizrahim far outnumber Ashkenazim in prison — and are far outnumbered in academia.

They also account for many more poor people — and yet the poorest towns, where they predominate, tend to support Likud and forgive it the capitalist policies than have often not served their economic interests.

"Our parents and grandparents have voted only Likud since the upheaval" of 1977, said Malkiram Bashari, who traces his roots to Yemen. The prospect of voting for Labor? "It's too hard. There is just too much baggage there," said Bashari, 52.

Such sentiments are nothing less than mind-boggling for affluent Ashkenazi voters — who cannot grasp why Mizrahim would support Likud in an election when the country's high cost of living was supposedly a central issue.

They also often argue that Netanyahu's hard-line policies toward the Palestinians prevent a peace agreement that would bring on an economic boom that would benefit Mizrahim. Yet voting patterns from this month's election indicate that Netanyahu largely owes his re-election to the last-minute mobilization of Likud's Mizrahi supporters.

Many had pledged to turn their back on Likud to protest its economic policies or because of disdain for Netanyahu's lengthy rule and perceived decadent lifestyle. But when the moment of truth arrived — and after Netanyahu sparked turnout by warning of Arab voters coming out in "droves" — poorer, heavily Mizrahi "development towns" voted en masse once more for Likud over the Zionist Union, Labor's modern-day incarnation.

In Sderot, for example, a border town with Gaza that has been battered by both rockets and unemployment and has long complained of government neglect, Likud earned 43 percent of the vote, to the Zionist Union's 7 percent.

"The politics of identity are stronger than any economic interest," said Gideon Rahat of Jerusalem's Hebrew University and the Israel Democracy Institute. He said the ethnic vote goes both ways and helps explain why even the wealthiest Ashkenazim continue to vote Labor — which favors high taxes on the rich — rather than the more capitalist Likud.

For years, as Mizrahi Jews made inroads throughout Israeli society, the rift with the Ashkenazim took a back seat to the conflicts between Arabs and Jews, and between secular and religious Jews. But the ethnic genie was let out of the bottle at a pre-election left-wing rally in Tel Aviv, where Ashkenazi artist Yair Garbuz complained about a "handful of amulet kissers that have taken over the country." Other condescending remarks, including a Facebook post by leftist writer Alona Kimhi that referred to right-wing voters as "Neanderthals" and suggested they "drink cyanide," sparked further outrage.

The Shas party, which caters to religious Mizrahi Jews, tapped into the controversial comments and launched a campaign provocatively titled: "A Mizrahi votes for a Mizrahi." The bitterness continued after the vote. The nadir came during a TV morning show, when a radical professor known for his online tirades against Mizrahi immigration lashed out at a fellow panelist that "nothing bad would have happened had your parents been left to rot in Morocco."

Nehemia Shtrasler, a columnist for the liberal Haaretz daily newspaper and an Ashkenazi Jew, said the left's historic discrimination of Mizrahim had come back to bite it. "It wasn't the diplomatic-security issue that won the election," he wrote. "It was all about ethnicity, and revenge was served up cold at the ballot box."

Netanyahu, whose hard-line rhetoric taps into Mizrahi disdain for the Arabs who mistreated them in their countries of origin, "speaks not only fluent English, but also fluent Mizrahi," wrote Avi Issacharoff in the Times of Israel website.

In Rosh Ha'ayin, a former dusty town now on the outskirts of the greater Tel Aviv metropolis, these sentiments ring true. "Bibi knows our mess. He is good for us," said 32-year-old Shalom Tairy, who runs a hummus restaurant in the Yemenite neighborhood of Shabazi, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname.

"He knows how to talk. He knows how to make every 'fool' not feel like a 'fool' and raise his morale," Tairy added. Sitting next door, drinking Turkish coffee and smoking cigarettes at a local convenience store, the neighborhood elders say Shabazi has always been a Likud stronghold and that is how it will remain.

They angrily recalled how Mizrahim were denied good jobs, passed over for promotions in the military and police, beaten in school and prevented a good education. They insisted that Israel's founding father David Ben-Gurion didn't even want them to come.

"We should be regarded like Holocaust survivors," said Uri Barzilai, 60. "We were treated like third-rate citizens and we still feel damaged."

Follow Aron Heller on Twitter at www.twitter.com/aronhellerap

State Lacks Evidence, Frees Man After 30 Years On Death Row

Anthony Ray Hinton talks with the media after walking out of the Jefferson County jail, a free man, Friday, April 3, 2015, in Birmingham, Ala. Hinton spent nearly 30 years on Alabama's death row, and was set free Friday after prosecutors told a judge they won't re-try him for the 1985 slayings of two fast-food managers.

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA (AP) — A man who spent nearly 30 years on Alabama's death row walked free Friday hours after prosecutors acknowledged that the only evidence they had against him couldn't prove he committed the crime.

Ray Hinton was 29 when he was arrested for two 1985 killings. Freed at age 58, with grey hair and a beard, he was embraced by his sobbing sisters, who said "thank you Jesus," as they wrapped their arms around him outside the Jefferson County Jail.

Hinton had won a new trial last year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that his trial counsel was inadequate. Prosecutors on Wednesday moved to drop the case after new ballistics tests contradicted those done three decades ago. Experts couldn't match crime scene bullets to a gun found in Hinton's home.

"I shouldn't have sat on death row for 30 years. All they had to do was test the gun," Hinton said. The state of Alabama offered no immediate apology. "When you think you are high and mighty and you are above the law, you don't have to answer to nobody. But I got news for them, everybody who played a part in sending me to death row, you will answer to God," Hinton said. "They just didn't take me from my family and friends. They had every intention of executing me for something I didn't do," Hinton said.

Hinton was arrested in 1985 for the murders of two Birmingham fast-food restaurant managers after the survivor of a third restaurant robbery identified Hinton as the gunman. Prosecution experts said at the trial that bullets recovered at all three crime scenes matched Hinton's mother's .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. He was convicted despite an alibi: He had been at work inside a locked warehouse 15 minutes away during the third shooting.

"The only thing we've ever had to connect him to the two crimes here in Birmingham was the bullets matching the gun that was recovered from his home," Chief Deputy District Attorney John R. Bowers, Jr. told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that Hinton had "constitutionally deficient" representation at trial because his defense lawyer wrongly thought he had only $1,000 to hire a ballistics expert to rebut the state's case. The only expert willing to take the job at that price struggled so much under cross-examination that jurors chuckled at his responses.

Attorney Bryan Stevenson, who directs Alabama's Equal Justice Initiative, called it "a case study" in what is wrong with the judicial system. He said the trial was tainted by racial bias and that Hinton, an impoverished African-American man, did not have access to a better defense.

"We have a system that doesn't do the right thing when the right thing is apparent. Prosecutors should have done these tests years ago," Stevenson said. The independent experts Stevenson hired to re-examine this evidence after taking on Hinton's case in 1999 "were quite unequivocal that this gun was not connected to these crimes," he said. "That's the real shame to me. What happened this week to get Mr. Hinton released could have happened at least 15 years ago."

Stevenson then tried in vain for years to persuade the state of Alabama to re-examine the evidence. The bullets only got a new look as prosecutors and defense lawyers tangled over a possible retrial following the Supreme Court ruling.

The result: Three forensics experts could not positively conclude whether the bullets were fired from Hinton's revolver, or whether they came from the same gun at all, according to the state's request to dismiss the case against Hinton. Bowers said the "bullets were so badly mutilated that they did not have the necessary microscopic markings to make a conclusive determination."

Asked how the state's conclusions could be so different this time, Bowers said they put the same question to the experts, who said test standards have become more "conservative." "Some things back then that experts would be willing to attest to, they would not be willing to attest to now. They would need more now," he Bowers said.

The science of bullet matching remains the same as it was 30 years ago, even though microscopes have improved since then: A gun is test-fired and the bullet is compared with a slug from the crime scene. Problems can result mainly through human error, or when analysts aren't qualified, said Pete Gagliardi, a former ATF special agent in charge and vice president of Forensic Technology Inc.

Hinton was one of the longest-serving inmates on Alabama's death row, and is one of the longest-serving inmates to be released in the United States. But Stevenson said there are many others behind bars who were convicted "based on bad science."

"We've allowed too many people to assert things in court that are not credible or reliable, painted over with this kind of scientific expertise which means there could be a lot of wrongful convictions," Stevenson said.

Hinton left the jail for a cemetery, planning to put flowers on the grave of his mother, who died in 2002. After that comes the adjustment to the modern world after spending nearly half of his life in solitary confinement.

"The world is a very different place than in what 30 years ago. There was no internet. There was no email. I gave him an iPhone this morning. He's completely mystified by that," Stevenson said.

Associated Press Writer Sadie Gurman in Denver contributed to this story.

In Shadow Of Boko Haram, Cameroon Combats Extremism At Home

A family of refugees that fled their homes due to violence from the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram sit inside a refugee camp in Minawao, Cameroon. With radical Islamic insurgents on its doorstep, Cameroon is trying to head off unrest at home by quelling any signs of the extremism that has roiled neighboring Nigeria. In recent months, Cameroon has arrested dozens of imams and their followers accused of promoting radical ideology and collaborating with Nigeria’s Boko Haram militants.

YAOUNDE, CAMEROON (AP) — With radical Islamic insurgents on its doorstep, Cameroon is trying to head off unrest at home by quelling any signs of the extremism that has roiled neighboring Nigeria.

In recent months, Cameroon has arrested dozens of imams and their followers accused of promoting radical ideology and collaborating with Nigeria's Boko Haram militants. But the country is also mobilizing soft power. The government sponsored a conference this week where Islamic and Christian leaders discussed promoting religious tolerance. Earlier this month, Cameroon announced $8 million in grants for young people who start businesses in the north, the country's poorest region and the one where most Muslims live.

Boko Haram insurgents have been fighting the Nigerian government for six years in the hopes of creating an Islamic state. With their own security threatened, Cameroon, Chad and Niger are now attacking the militants inside Nigeria.

Military operations alone cannot defeat Boko Haram, says Bridgit Ndemba, a sociologist at the University of Yaounde, in the capital. "As far as ideology is concerned, fighting it will take a lot of time because we cannot fight ideology with war weapons," she said.

Cameroon — where about 20 percent of the population is Muslim, 40 percent is Christian and the rest hold indigenous beliefs — has a long history of tolerance. But Ndemba says high youth unemployment and poverty in Cameroon's north could leave young people vulnerable to recruitment.

Already the influence of Boko Haram can be felt in Cameroon. Some mosques in the northern regions are calling for Shariah law, according to Souleyman Abba, a cleric and member of Cameroon's Islamic Cultural Association, which helped organize the conference. Muslim students and clerics are offered scholarships to study in Arab countries, raising fears they may return with extremist beliefs.

Even at the conference itself, there was friction. Modibo Moustapha Issa, an imam, told the conference that it was wrong to invite Christians to discuss religion because they are nonbelievers.

Japanese Police Arrest Suspect In US Embassy Bomb Threat

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy delivers opening remarks during the JFK International Symposium at Waseda University in Tokyo. News reports say Japanese police have arrested a man for allegedly making bomb threats against the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, and say he is also a possible suspect in death threats against the U.S. ambassador.

TOKYO, JAPAN (AP) — Japanese police said they arrested a man on Thursday accused of making bomb threats against the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, and media reports said he is also a possible suspect in recent death threats against Ambassador Caroline Kennedy.

Tokyo police arrested Mitsuyoshi Kamiya, a resident of the southern island of Okinawa, for making the bomb threats from a pay phone in downtown Okinawa, a police spokesman said. He said the suspect also threatened to bomb Camp Schwab, a U.S. military base on the island.

Kamiya admitted to police that he made the bomb threats, but his motive was not immediately known, the police spokesman said. He did not provide any other details about Kamiya. Public broadcaster NHK said police also suspect Kamiya made phone calls threatening to kill Kennedy and the U.S. consul general on Okinawa.

The island is home to about half of the 50,000 American troops in Japan, and residents have frequently complained about crime, noise and other issues related to the U.S. bases. The U.S. government wants to relocate one base, the Marine Corps Futenma air station, to another area of Okinawa, but many people want it moved completely off the island.

In three phone calls in March, Kamiya used threatening phrases in English such as "Bomb Camp Schwab" and "Bomb the embassy" which forced the embassy to increase its security, the police spokesman said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists who are not members of the police press club, which is largely limited to Japanese media.

The mass-circulation Yomiuri newspaper said police had been secretly following the suspect. It said the embassy had received about 30 threatening calls since last month, including those threatening to kill Kennedy and the consul general.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed to reporters in Washington on Thursday that Japanese police had arrested a 52-year-old person from Okinawa for making threatening phone calls against the embassy, not just related to the ambassador. She said the Japanese government is leading the investigation.

Kennedy, the daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy, arrived in Tokyo in November 2013 as the first woman to serve as U.S. ambassador to Japan. She visited Okinawa in February last year in an attempt to win support for the base relocation plan, and pledged that Washington would do its best to reduce the burden of its heavy troop presence there.

Earlier this month, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea, Mark Lippert, was slashed in the face and wrist by an anti-U.S. activist in Seoul and was hospitalized for several days.

Homegrown, Gourmet Pot On The Rise In Mexico

Homero Fernandez warms a pipe with one hand as he holds in the other a small amount of marijuana which he'll introduce into the heated tube and cover, as he demonstrates different varieties of marijuana in Mexico City. Fernandez, a 29-year-old event promoter, teamed up with about a dozen people to form a pot club. "It comes out much cheaper than paying for even regular pot ... and the quality is much higher," said Fernandez. "What gets produced is exclusively for us. Nothing more, and it doesn't get sold outside" the club

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Once upon a time, Mexican marijuana was the gold standard for U.S. pot smokers. But in the new world of legal markets and gourmet weed, aficionados here are looking to the United States and Europe for the good stuff.

Instead of Acapulco Gold, Mexican smokers want strains like Liberty Haze and Moby Dick — either importing high-potency boutique pot from the United States, or growing it here in secret gardens that use techniques perfected abroad.

It's a small but growing market in a country where marijuana is largely illegal, unlike the U.S. states of Colorado and Washington that have legalized recreational use, and others where medicinal pot is available.

A text message will bring a Mexico City dealer to the customer's doorstep with a menu of high-end buds for sale at the swipe of a credit card through a smartphone reader. Hydroponic shops have sprung up that supply equipment to those who want to cultivate potent strains in sophisticated home-grown operations. Some even are setting up pot cooperatives to share costs like high electrical bills and swap what they grow with each other.

"I know people who are architects, executives, lawyers ... who went to the United States or Europe," said Antoine Robbe, the 35-year-old, French-born proprietor of Hydrocultivos, one of the shops. They say, "'Man, why don't we have this in my country?'"

So far, reports of U.S.-grown marijuana making its way south have been only anecdotal but enough to raise concern, according to Alejandro Mohar, a Mexican physician and member of the U.N. International Narcotics Control Board.

A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration official told NPR in December that Mexican cartel operatives were smuggling in high-end U.S. marijuana to sell to wealthy customers, though there's no sign so far of a massive southward trade. The DEA declined to comment further in response to a request from the AP.

In Mexico City, several people said they have seen freezer-size bags of marijuana here labeled as being for medicinal use in Los Angeles. Mexico allows people to carry up to 5 grams of pot for personal use but bans sale and growing. Historically, there has been little social tolerance for pot use, with "marijuanos" stigmatized as slackers or supporters of the deadly drug trade.

Mexico growers say their home-cultivation phenomenon is removed from the grisly narco-wars that have wracked the country. In fact, growing and swapping among themselves, they contend, allows them to avoid supporting the cartels.

"I'm not a narco, dude. I just like to smoke," said Daniel, a goateed 32-year-old living in the bohemian Roma neighborhood. He spoke on condition that his last name not be used because, he said, his home-grow operation is "super-illegal" despite being for personal use only.

Mexican law provides for prison sentences of up to 25 years for people convicted of producing, trafficking or selling drugs. Home growers say they are forming cooperatives to share the costs of the indoor-gardening gear and high electric bills and swap harvests with each other, many building their club model with skills first imported by foreigners.

Last year, Homero Fernandez, a 29-year-old event promoter, teamed up with about a dozen people to form a pot club, each paying about $200 to buy a hydroponic grow kit now tended to by one of the members.

Today the club has about 50 to 60 plants that produce enough sativa buds to satisfy the members, some of them heavy smokers, who are able to purchase an ounce of high-end pot for between $95 and $130, less than half of what they'd pay a dealer.

The end result is pot with around 15 to 20 percent THC, the high-generating component of marijuana, compared to 3 to 8 percent in the Mexican "brick weed" more commonly sold here and north of the border. Some people are also producing concentrates with 60 to 99.6 percent THC, the strongest of which are too powerful to be smoked in a pipe or joint.

"It comes out much cheaper than paying for even regular pot ... and the quality is much higher," said Fernandez, who wore his Ray-Ban shades indoors and sported a white T-shirt emblazoned with the letters "THC." ''What gets produced is exclusively for us. Nothing more, and it doesn't get sold outside" the club.

The market for gourmet weed is still minuscule next to the multibillion-dollar marijuana export trade dominated by the cartels. According to DEA statistics, seizures along the border last year accounted for more than 2.2 million pounds (1 million kilograms) of pot.

The hydroponic shops don't sell seeds or pot and thus stay on the right side of the law. Like others, Daniel ordered seeds online from a company in Spain, opting for a U.K-originated strain known as Exodus Cheese. The precious cargo arrived by mail nine days later in envelopes resembling teabags inside a tiny, discreetly labeled tin.

Just as seeds increasingly are crossing borders, Fernandez said, wider acceptance abroad is reshaping attitudes in Mexico. "The United States, with this boom of regularization and this boom of legal marijuana, all that arrives here and has an impact on cannabis culture."

Associated Press writer Alberto Arce in Mexico City contributed.

Peter Orsi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Peter_Orsi

Maine Teacher Wins $1 Million Global Teacher Prize In Dubai

Nancie Atwell, a teacher from Southport, Maine, U.S., center, throws a kiss as she poses with former President of the United States Bill Clinton, left, and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, prime minister of the U.A.E. and Ruler of Dubai, after she won the $1 million Global Teacher Prize in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, March 15, 2015. Atwell has been teaching since 1973 and founded the Center for Teaching and Learning in Southport.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An English teacher from rural Maine won the $1 million Global Teacher Prize on Sunday after 42 years of work as an innovator and pioneer in teaching literature.

Nancie Atwell plans to donate the full amount to the Center for Teaching and Learning which she founded in 1990 in Edgecomb, Maine as a nonprofit demonstration school created for the purpose of developing and disseminating teaching methods. The school says 97 percent of its graduates have gone on to university.

Atwell said that winning the award is a valedictory for her life's work, but that her true validation comes from the responses of students. "I really find that I'm validated every day just by the experiences I have with children in the classroom," she told The Associated Press after receiving the award.

Atwell was selected from a pool of 1,300 applicants from 127 countries. The top 10 finalists, which included two other teachers from the U.S. and others from Afghanistan, India, Haiti, Cambodia, Malaysia, Kenya, and the U.K., were flown to Dubai, United Arab Emirates for the ceremony. The winner was announced on stage by Sunny Varkey, founder of the non-profit Varkey Foundation that focuses on education issues and founder of the for-profit GEMS Education company that has more than 130 schools around the world.

The award was created to be the largest prize of its kind and to serve as a sort-of Nobel Prize for one exceptional teacher each year. After Atwell won the award, a young boy no older than 11 with a book bag strapped to his back waited patiently with his mother for a photograph with the winning teacher.

Varkey said that the award is aimed at fostering that kind of admiration for teachers and to say "to a celebrity-obsessed world that teachers are important and worthy of respect." Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who is honorary chair of the Varkey Foundation, were also on-hand to give Atwell the award.

Atwell has received numerous other awards throughout her life for her innovative approach to teaching. She has authored nine books about teaching, including "In The Middle," which sold more than half a million copies.

"The other recognition I've received has been content-area specific," she said. "This is global... this is really an award for a body of work, for a lifetime of teaching." Hundreds of teachers have visited her center in Maine over the years to learn its writing-reading practices.

Her school's eighth grade students read an average of 40 books per year, compared to the national average of about 10. They also write extensively, and many of her students have gone on to become published authors.

All of her students choose the subjects they write about and the books they read. The school's website boasts that there is "never a raised voice or standardized test," but that there are tens of thousands of books and time to read from among them every day.

"If we want them to be highly literate, we have to value the power of stories and self-expression," she said, explaining her approach. "Anything else is a false choice. Anything else will be an exercise that gets kids good at doing exercises."

This is the first year for the Global Teacher Prize to be awarded, though the Varkey Foundation plans it to be an annual event. Experts, including other teachers and school administrators, shortlisted the top 50 finalists and a prize committee helped select the top 10. The winner was then selected by a group of more than 60 people that included CEO's, investors, professors, journalists and public figures such as Oscar Award-winning actor Kevin Spacey and Grammy Award-winning artist Esperanza Spalding.

Online:

Global Teacher Prize http://www.globalteacherprize.org/

Center for Teaching and Learning http://c-t-l.org/

Israeli Leader Netanyahu: Foreign Powers Want To Push Me Out

A worker hangs an election campaign billboard of Benjamin Netanyahu, Likud party leader and Israel's Prime Minister. Polls show that Prime Minister Netanyahu's nationalist Likud Party is running slightly behind the Isaac Herzog’s Labor Party, rebranded the Zionist Union in a bid for nationalist votes

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's prime minister is accusing foreign governments of trying to topple him from power.

Benjamin Netanyahu tells Israel's Army Radio Sunday that foreign powers have spent millions of dollars as part of an orchestrated campaign against him. He did not indicate which governments he was referring to, but said they were colluding with the media and leftist groups in a "just not Bibi" campaign, referring to himself by his popular nickname. He said these foreign powers do not have Israelis' interests in mind and just want weak leadership that will capitulate to their demands

Netanyahu is trailing the opposition Zionist Union two days before the national election. After shunning the media for much of his tenure, Netanyahu has been on a media blitz lately to try and close the gap.

Netanyahu Tells AIPAC That US-Israel Alliance Strong

 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gestures while speaking at the 2015 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference in Washington, Monday, March 2, 2015.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Monday that despite recent differences with the Obama administration over a looming nuclear deal with Iran the alliance between his country and the Unites States was "stronger than ever."

Kicking off a charged visit to Washington that has sparked criticism both in the U.S. and Israel, Netanyahu told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that "reports of the demise of the Israeli-U.S. relationship are not just premature, they are just wrong."

The centerpiece of his trip is an address to Congress Tuesday, which came at the invitation of congressional Republicans and was not coordinated with the White House. As a result, Netanyahu's already tense relationship with President Barack Obama reached a new low and included some of the harshest attacks against him to date.

The Israeli leader is deeply suspicious of Obama's efforts to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran, fearing the U.S. and its negotiating partners are prepared to leave Tehran on the cusp of developing a nuclear weapon. Netanyahu stressed he would speak clearly before Congress about the threat a nuclear Iran would pose to Israel and the world.

"First, let me clarify what is not the purpose of that speech. My speech is not intended to show any disrespect to President Obama or the esteemed office that he holds. I have great respect for both," he said, receiving a standing ovation from more than 15.000 pro-Israel supporters.

Noting Israel's proximity to Iran, Netanyahu said his country's situation was more dire than that of the United States. "American leaders worry about the security of their country," he said. "Israeli leaders worry about the survival of their country."

Showing a graphic he said depicted Iran's training, arming and dispatching of terrorists on five continents, Netanyahu said their "tentacles of terror" reached across the world. "This is what Iran is doing now — without nuclear weapons. Imagine what Iran would do with nuclear weapons. And this same Iran vows to annihilate Israel. If it develops nuclear weapons, it would have the means to achieve that goal," he said. "And as prime minister of Israel, I have a moral obligation to speak up in the face of these dangers while there is still time to avert them."