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NEW YORK (AP) Their race was called off,merely marathoners were still on the migrate in New York aboard Sunday.

Hundreds of runners wearing marathon shirts and backpacks full of supplies took the ferry to hard-hit Staten Island and ran to stricken neighborhoods to assistance Thousands of others poured into Central Park to put in 26.two miles after the last-minute cancellation of the world's largest marathon as of Superstorm Sandy.

"A lot of folk just wanted to finish what they started," said Lance Svendsen, who organized an choice marathon called Run Anyway. By 8:45 a.m., his group had sent off five waves of runners from the marathon's lawful finish line, which had never additionally been taken down. "It namely astonishing My suspect namely nearly 600 people have left so distant"

Italians stretched en masse resemble the Plaza Hotel. The Germans started from Columbus Circle. Everyone plunged into the park to chase their own marathon Some ran around the park clockwise, some counterclockwise,catching over startled dog walkers with a rebel of color.

It was a throwback to the original New York City Marathon in 1970, which was run ragtag with 127 folk and stayed entirely amid Central Park This duration some dropped off clothes and additional supplies for storm victims.

This year's runners all are guaranteed entry into next year's marathon merely not everyone could be sure namely accident would come.

"I'm in the naval and I could be deployed," said Ruben Arredondo, 36, of Los Angeles, who showed up outside the park along 6:45 a.m. to increase a group called the Replacement Marathon, which had been organized online equitable hours ahead.

The a m surge surprised even some participants and their fans. Tracey Busch, of New Jersey, was approximate the finish line with a small cowbell in each hand,clapping aboard passing runners who weaved amongst the crowd of organizers, tourists and medium.

"It was kind of eerie for initially there was not one and afterwards suddenly there was everyone," said Busch, who had arrived around 7 a.m.

Runners refueled at hot dog stands and dodged cyclists and strolling tourists.

"This namely the peerless power of running," said Vincent Laiz, 37, who came from Spain. Seconds after his impromptu and international team counted down the seconds, in German, to eight a.m., whooped and set off.

Some,favor a crew from Bermuda, hadn't entirely shaken the sorrow of the cancellation. "It's favor while you ascertain out namely Santa Claus isn't real," said Spencer Conway, 30, who had turned his country's flag into a cape.

Many runners found a way to volunteer as storm victims.

Instead of running his first marathon, Akil Defour of Brooklyn climbed 20 flights of stairs in a structure without power alternatively heat in Far Rockaway, Queens, to convey water, blankets and peanut butter sandwiches.

"I knew I wanted to volunteer later they canceled the marathon," said Defour, 30, who put in five hours of work with his running team"We decided it would be easier for us athletes to go up and down the buildings."

On Staten Island, where the marathon lesson begins, the runners with backpacks emerged from the ferry for a quick emotional briefing.

"The devastation and abuse you are about to wander into," said Staten Island resident Jonscott Turco, who paused, almost teary. "It's beautiful extraordinary. The only entity I can arrange you for is they're still finding folk remains."

The landscape worsened as they approached the waterfront. Shuttered gas stations. Long gas lines, with folk asleep in their cars.

One man honked and yelled, "There's not marathon! Go kin But folk standing outdoor one deli yelled encouragement: "Thank you, ladies!" ''God namely good-looking"

Near the water, there were no traffic lights and distant accessory sirens. Houses looked favor they had been sacked. Furniture was in front yards, washing machines, TVs.

But an man came out of his family and asked whether the runners had flashlights, and they did. At again house, a home wearing face masks asked for batteries and sweatshirts. They said, "God bless you." The man said, "Let me take your picture"

Mary Wittenberg, the president of the New York Road Runners, which organizes the marathon, helped transfer edible to a Staten Island home whose house was heavily damaged. "There are so many surplus agony in our community who absence our collective, undivided attention and always the resources we can mobilize the NYRR said in a statement Sunday.

For runner Hana Abdo, the scene was striking When she pedestal out the marathon had been canceled, "I was almost in tears as I've been teaching as two years," she said.

"But what namely two years of my life to somebody's plenary life?"

___

Associated Press writer Melissa Murphy contributed.
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MONTREAL - Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney says the so-called monetary scarp looming over U.S. lawmakers is the most imminent threat facing the Canadian economy.

Carney, speaking among Montreal, said the latent fallout from political gridlock on a solution that would extend U.S.tax cuts plus spending beyond the present year namely a colossal hazard plus"almost immediate hazard to the domestic economy.

"It could well have implications as policy here among Canada,yet the comely news namely that Canadian authorities have flexibility as either the minister of finance and I outlined."

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty plus Carney either pledged Wednesday to take action apt support the economy whether a impact from the U.S.alternatively Europe, threatened to once again plunge the nation into recession.

Discussion surrounding the all-important monetary precipice has heightened since Tuesday's U.S. election resulted among a second term for Democratic President Barack Obama, as well as a Republican-dominated lower house.

The ideological split among lawmakers but threatened to wreak destruction aboard the American economy last year when the chancellor plus Congress could not accede aboard a handle apt rise the country's debt ceiling, which resulted surrounded a debt rating downgrade plus a mall sell off.

Economists bell that unless the two sides co-operate on a present budget arrangement soon,nearly $600 billion among tax cuts plus spending will abolish abruptly, robbing the U.S. economy of about four percentage points among growth.

Flaherty has said that would move the U.S. into recession swiftly plus the Canadian economy would be sure to follow.

He added Wednesday that all his colleagues by the G20 meeting of leading economic powers last weekend amid Mexico expressed concern nearly how U.S. policy-makers would deal with the threat.

Economists perspective avoiding the fiscal scarp as a no-brainer since its repercussions are so nipping,yet either sides have been unwilling apt migrate off core positions Democrats insist aboard impose hikes as the rich which the Republicans have at present refused apt consider.
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Video: Heat thermography screenings can offer early breast cancer detection 2:42

LONDON (AP) Breast cancer screening for women over 50 saves lives, an independent panel in Britain has concluded, confirming findings in U.S. and other studies.

But that screening comes with a cost: The review found that for every life saved, roughly three other women were overdiagnosed, meaning they were unnecessarily treated for a cancer that would never have threatened their lives.

The expert panel was commissioned by Cancer Research U.K. and Britain's department of health and analyzed evidence from 11 trials in Canada, Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S.

In Britain, mammograms are usually offered to women aged 50 to 70 every three years as part of the state-funded breast cancer screening program.

Scientists said the British program saves about 1,300 women every year from dying of breast cancer while about 4,000 women are overdiagnosed. By that term, experts mean women treated for cancers that grow too slowly to ever put their lives at risk. This is different from another screening problem: false alarms, which occur when suspicious mammograms lead to biopsies and follow-up tests to rule out cancers that were not present. The study did not look at the false alarm rate.

"It's clear that screening saves lives," said Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research U.K. "But some cancers will be treated that would never have caused any harm and unfortunately, we can't yet tell which cancers are harmful and which are not."

Each year, more than 300,000 women aged 50 to 52 are offered a mammogram through the British program. During the next 20 years of screening every three years, 1 percent of them will get unnecessary treatment such as chemotherapy, surgery or radiation for a breast cancer that wouldn't ever be dangerous. The review was published online Tuesday in the Lancet journal.

Some critics said the review was a step in the right direction.

"Cancer charities and public health authorities have been misleading women for the past two decades by giving too rosy a picture of the benefits," said Karsten Jorgensen, a researcher at the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen who has previously published papers on overdiagnosis.

"It's important they have at least acknowledged screening causes substantial harms," he said, adding that countries should now re-evaluate their own breast cancer programs.

In the U.S., a government-appointed task force of experts recommends women at average risk of cancer get mammograms every two years starting at age 50. But the American Cancer Society and other groups advise women to get annual mammograms starting at age 40.

In recent years, the British breast screening program has been slammed for focusing on the benefits of mammograms and downplaying the risks.

Maggie Wilcox, a breast cancer survivor and member of the expert panel, said the current information on mammograms given to British women was inadequate.

"I went into (screening) blindly without knowing about the possibility of overdiagnosis," said Wilcox, 70, who had a mastectomy several years ago. "I just thought, 'it's good for you, so you do it.'"

Knowing what she knows now about the problem of overtreatment, Wilcox says she still would have chosen to get screened. "But I would have wanted to know enough to make an informed choice for myself."

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CHICAGO (AP) A little-noticed tax break for investor-owned hospitals that was tucked into a deal last spring aimed at saving the Illinois Medicaid program from collapse will cost the cash-strapped state at least $10 million a year in lost revenue, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

Hospital industry officials say the tax credit recognizes the free care they provide to the uninsured. But some state officials were puzzled about how for-profit hospitals were able to land a major tax break in the intense closed-door negotiations at a time Springfield was grappling with a dire financial crisis.

"I think we were surprised that it survived," said Mike Klemens, the since-retired manager of policy and communication for the state Department of Revenue. "We couldn't imagine the Legislature would be enacting something that would reduce their income tax revenue. We were shut out of the talks at the end."

The AP's review looked at how the provision got into the largest piece of legislation that passed the General Assembly last spring and its financial impact, which wasn't made public at the time.

After extensive wheeling and dealing, Gov. Pat Quinn in June signed a package of $2.7 billion in cuts and tax increases he said was needed to save the state's bloated program for funding health care to the poor and disabled.

Thousands of working parents lost Medicaid coverage because of the cuts. Taxes on cigarettes went up. And hospitals faced tougher rules for when they must provide free care to poor patients who don't qualify for Medicaid.

The leader of an Illinois fiscal watchdog group called the Legislature's tax giveaway without a public cost estimate "unforgivable" and an example of how politics gets in the way of Illinois resolving its core problems.

"They can't afford to be giving away tax revenue at all" with an accumulated deficit of $8 billion, said Ralph Martire, executive director of the bipartisan Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. "When they've got a hole of that magnitude in their existing budget, they're giving a tax credit to certain investors. That's saying we'd rather spend that $10 million to subsidize the income of these mostly affluent investors than use that $10 million to pay for the core services we directly fund."

Highly involved in crafting the deal and seeing it through was A.J. Wilhelmi, who left the Illinois Senate in February to take a leadership post with IHA, the hospital lobbying group. His name is still listed as a legislative sponsor of the bill that included the tax break.

"It's good public policy to support the charitable activities of investor-owned hospitals. We want to encourage hospitals to continue to provide free and discounted care," Wilhelmi said in support of the tax credit.

Wilhelmi told the AP that the hospital association estimated the tax break would cost "up to $15 million a year," a number that was shared verbally during the negotiations but wasn't divulged to the public.

"It was certainly discussed in those meetings," Wilhelmi said. "Was this issue brought up in every session? I don't think that's the case."

Although some insiders knew about the $15 million a year estimate from the hospital group, there was never a request for an official analysis of the impact on the state budget, according to the Illinois Department of Revenue.

There are 28 investor-owned hospitals in Illinois today, most owned by health systems that operate nationally like Nashville-based Vanguard Health Systems. Vanguard will reap an estimated $5.5 million annually because of the tax break, according to the AP analysis.

A spokesman for the Quinn administration confirmed that $15 million was the high end of the hospital association's estimate. The figure was given without any documentation, said spokesman Mike Claffey.

The AP analysis was based on public records of property taxes and charity care. The law works like this: For-profit hospitals will be able to offset their Illinois income tax by the amount of their local property taxes, or the amount of free and discounted care they provide to the poor, whichever is less.

If that number is more than the hospital's income tax liability and for many hospitals it will be the hospital will be able to sell all or part of their tax credit to other businesses, according to the Department of Revenue. Hospitals also will be allowed to carry forward any excess credit and apply it to their tax liability for five tax years.

When Quinn signed the bill, he said he hoped it would result in more charity care. The tax credit, the governor hoped, would be an incentive for hospitals to do more for the poor.

Many of these hospitals already provide more charity care than they pay in property taxes, according to the AP analysis, although a few specialty hospitals report they provide none. Wilhelmi said the tax break possibly could motivate those hospitals to provide at least some free care.

A Tennessee-based hospital company will get the bulk of the tax credit.

Vanguard Health Systems Inc., which will reap an estimated $5.5 million annually in tax credits for its four Illinois hospitals, posted a profit of $57.3 million in fiscal 2012 after losses the previous two years, and its revenue rose 30 percent to nearly $6 billion, due partly to hospital acquisitions.

Sonja Vogel, a spokeswoman for Vanguard Health Chicago, sent AP an email statement that cited "significant challenges" investor-owned hospitals are facing in Illinois. She said the company had provided $6.45 million in charity care and paid more than $12 million in state and local taxes last year despite cuts in Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements and a state budget she called "unreliable."

Margaret Storey represents parents of medically fragile children who are fighting a $15 million reduction to part of the Medicaid program that helps them. Coincidentally that cut equals the hospital association's cost estimate for the tax credit.

"To know that tax credits were being given away at the same time these children's future with their families is being put at risk is just appalling," Storey said. "It makes you lose a little faith in your government when those kinds of deals get cut."

___

AP Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson can be reached at son.

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LEVITTOWN, Pa. (AP) A one-two punch of rain and high wind from a monster hybrid storm that started out as a hurricane battered Pennsylvania, leaving more than a million customers without power as officials began assessing the damage Tuesday.

The storm soaked Philadelphia and its suburbs Monday night, but forecasters said the worst was behind the state by daybreak Tuesday.

Gov. Tom Corbett said landlocked Pennsylvania managed to avoid the catastrophic damage seen in coastal communities but still faced serious challenges from the powerful winds and heavy rains that lashed the state.

"Anybody without electricity is probably not saying we dodged a bullet," he said.

The severity of the storm in Pennsylvania expressed itself through a set of increasingly worrisome numbers, from the hundreds of people who fled their homes in the southeastern part of the state to the power outages affecting more than 1.2 million customers by early Tuesday.

At least five deaths were attributed to the storm. They included an elderly Lancaster County man who fell from a tree he was trimming in advance of the approaching storm and a teen who struck a fallen tree while riding an ATV in Northampton County.

An 8-year-old boy died when a tree limb fell on him in Franklin Township, north of Montrose. In Berks County, a 62-year-old man died after a tree fell on top of a house in Pike Township near Boyertown. And in Somerset County, a woman died when the car she was riding in skidded off a snowy, slushy roadway and overturned into a pond.

PECO reported 585,000 without power in Philadelphia and nearby counties, a total which would fluctuate as residents awoke to find their service disrupted.

"This will still be multiple days," PECO spokesman Fred Maher said Tuesday morning. "We'll be able to get a lot of folks back up pretty quickly, but it'll take us several days to get everybody back to power."

About 3,000 repairmen from Ohio, Kentucky and Chicago were poised to help the state's utilities restore service.

PPL Corp. said the storm caused 395,000 outages in its service territory, enough to rank it among the top 3 or 4 in its history. Crews were out at daybreak taking stock of the damage, and the company planned to send up a chopper to do an aerial survey. A spokesman said power might not be fully restored for a week or more.

"From a weather standpoint, this is a much larger, more powerful and dynamic storm than Hurricane Irene last year," PPL spokesman Michael Wood said. "Outages just accumulated remarkably fast."

Between 2 and 6 inches of rain fell in eastern Pennsylvania, according to the National Weather Service. High winds were reported across the state with peak gusts of 81 mph reported in Allentown.

The storm snapped trees all over the state. Caution tape blocked both streets at one South Philadelphia intersection where splintered trees had landed on top of vehicles.

Downed trees and power lines and flooding forced a significant number of road closures across the eastern part of the state. PennDOT reopened Interstates 95 and 676 in the city and previously closed stretches of I-76 and 476 on Tuesday morning but reported much work still needed to be done.

High winds were so bad at one point PennDOT pulled its crews off the roads for a time for safety reasons, spokesman Charles Metzger said.

"As many trees as we're going after, we had more trees coming around our guys," he said.

Government offices, many courts and countless schools were shuttered on Monday and remained closed at least through Tuesday. US Airways canceled all flights Tuesday out of Philadelphia International Airport and the city's transit system was preparing to assess damage before making a decision on restarting service.

Corbett extended Tuesday's absentee ballot application deadline for a day or two for counties where the courthouses were closed Monday, Tuesday or both.

Two juveniles were injured in Levittown on Monday night, one of them seriously, when a tree fell on them while they were outside during the storm, said John D. Dougherty Jr., the county's director of emergency services. Fallen trees also slowed fire trucks responding to a house fire in Tinicum Township, he said, and the home burned to the ground; no one was injured.

Flooding, a major fear following last year's inundations, proved to be only a minor issue by Tuesday morning.

The biggest concern in Blair County was the Juniata River. County emergency management director Dan Boyles was optimistic Tuesday morning after it appeared the worst of the storm had passed.

"Water-wise, we're in great shape. No flooding whatsoever," Boyles said. "The Juniata held. ... Our only concern is the duration of the power outages."

The National Weather Service said breezy and rainy weather will persist through Tuesday, but wind gusts aren't likely to top 30 mph as the storm's center churns through central Pennsylvania. Snow associated with the hybrid storm hit upper elevations in western Pennsylvania, including 9 inches reported on Mount Davis, the highest point in the state.

The Red Cross set up 58 evacuation centers that could shelter 31,000 people. Hundreds of people were evacuated in the Philadelphia suburbs of Bensalem Township and Darby Borough, where officials feared overnight floods.

"I'm not going through this again," said Sheila Gladden, who left her home in Philadelphia's Eastwick neighborhood. "They're telling me this is going to be worse than (1999 Hurricane) Floyd because this is some superstorm. I'm not going back until the water's receded."

President Barack Obama signed an emergency declaration for Pennsylvania early Monday that will allow state officials to request federal funding and other storm assistance.

___

PECO is a subsidiary of Exelon Corp.

___

Associated Press writers Genaro C. Armas in State College, Pa., and Randy Pennell in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

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TOKYO - Tokyo is known for being densely populated and crowded. Living space is at a premium; hotel rooms are small or expensive or both.

Enter the capsule hotel, where a tube-like pod barely bigger than a coffin offers a bed for the night at low cost.

The capsule concept has been around for at least 30 years, starting out as lodging for businessmen working or partying late who missed the last train home and needed a cheap place to crash.

And judging from the dark suits and ties of the patrons entering and exiting the Capsule & Sauna Century Shibuya in Tokyo, the cramped beds remain largely a businessman's special. But budget travellers and other folks curious about a unique lodging experience use them too. So I decided to try it on a trip to Japan this fall, along with a visit to the hotel sauna.

At 5 foot 10 and 175 pounds (about 1.8 metres tall and 70 kilograms), I am almost exactly average size for an American. But in Japan, I felt oafishly big. In a sushi restaurant, I nearly knocked over all the patrons trying to squeeze past to my seat. On the metro, my heft encroached on to a second seat, often meaning the only open seat on the train was the one next to me. The pyjamas thoughtfully provided by some of the other hotels where I stayed left me feeling like a sausage.

The Century capsule hotel exacerbated this feeling. I felt cramped from the moment I checked in, when I traded street shoes for hotel slippers too small for my feet. The sole elevator serving 10 stories was slightly larger than an airplane bathroom. Speaking of bathrooms, each floor of the hotel has a shared bathroom with several stalls and urinals (no women were on the premises). In a seated position, my knees nearly touched the door to the stall.

Then there was the actual "room." I splurged on "Deluxe" accommodation for 4,000 yen (roughly $50). My tube was long enough for me to lie down with an inch or two to spare. I could sit up, barely. And there was enough space for my small daypack next to me.

The capsules line a darkened room, stacked in twos like bunk beds on the 10th floor of the hotel. With a potential 32 guests in one room more on lower floors it's quite crowded.

There is no room for luggage. Checking in, you get a key to a locker (think small ones at the gym) on the second floor. It's big enough to hang a suit and leave the contents of your pockets while you hit the shared sauna and bath.

I'm sure a therapist would brand me repressed based on my sporadic dreams of showing up to work or an important function in my pyjamas or birthday suit. But what about the opposite? In my trip to the sauna, I showed up clothed to a place where everyone else was naked.

When I rode the elevator to the shower and bath area on the third floor, I wore the snug hotel-supplied boxers and robe. The elevator let out into an empty room with cubbies, stacked towels and sinks and mirrors. To get to the bath and sauna, you need to slide open a giant steamed-up glass door. On the other side is no-clothes land. I blithely entered clothed, to the consternation of the men inside.

So I went back, ditched the clothes in a cubby and re-entered. But what next? Two large baths and a series of hand shower hoses with small stools reminiscent of hair-cutting stations at a salon were in the outer sauna area and a door led to the dry sauna.

After a ridiculous, pantomimed, naked conversation with a local, I showered, seated at one of the wash stations. Then I went into the sauna. I've never been in a sauna with a TV before. Nice touch, though the programming seemed to be a Japanese combination of game show and infomercial for a weight loss program, probably aimed at me.

When my body core temperature neared critical, I went out to the bath. First the cold, which nearly sent me into shock. Then the hot, much better, but quite crowded. Another wash off at the showering station and I figured it was time to turn in.

Climbing into the capsule takes a bit of manoeuvring. I kept imagining climbing into a torpedo tube on a submarine, but fortunately no one fired me out.

The TV mounted in the ceiling offered more game shows and an adult channel, along with headphones to better listen. A dimmable light and built-in alarm clock rounded out the amenities.

I closed the blind at my feet and conked out. With a few dozen other people coming into the room through the night and clambering into their own capsules, it made for a less-than-stellar night's rest.

Really, a capsule hotel seems just like a youth hostel, but with a tad bit more privacy. Rather than open bunk beds in a common room, you get a little enclosed pod in a common room. The sauna and shared baths were clean and refreshing, but the heavy smoking in many common areas was less so.

All in all, I'd say a capsule hotel is worth a visit just to say you've done it. But don't expect a restful night. And depending on your size, you might emerge feeling like a giant.

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SAN CRISTOBAL CUCHO, Guatemala (AP) The 10 members of the Vasquez family were found together under the rubble of the rock quarry that had been their livelihood, some in a desperate final embrace, others clinging to the faintest of dying pulses.

As Guatemala tried to recover Thursday from a 7.4-magnitude quake, the country mourned a disaster that killed at least 52 people; left thousands of others without homes, electricity or water; and emotionally devastated one small town by wiping out almost an entire family seeing the first signs of success in a tireless effort to claw itself out of poverty.

Neighbors filed past 10 wooden caskets lined up in two rows in the Vasquez living room, remembering a family reduced to a single survivor, the eldest son about to graduate with an accounting degree.

Justo Vasquez, a man known for his ferocious work ethic and dedication to his seven children, was with nearly all his closest relations Wednesday at a local quarry hacking out a white rock that is pulverized to make cinder blocks for construction.

When the quake struck, thousands of pounds of earth calved off from the wall above the pit, burying the 44-year-old and almost everyone he loved: his wife, Ofelia Gomez, 43; their daughters Daisy, 14, Gisely, 8, and Merly, 6; and their sons Aldiner, 12, Delbis, 5, and Dibel, 3. Their nephews Ulises and Aldo Vasquez, both 12, also died.

Only the oldest son, Ivan, 19, survived. He had stayed in the house when the rest of his family went to the quarry, taking care of some last-minute details to receive his accounting degree the first in his family to have a professional career. His father had been saving for a party to celebrate his Nov. 23 graduation.

"He died working," said Antonia Lopez, a sister-in-law of the father, Justo Vasquez. "He was fighting for his kids."

Dozens of villagers in the humble town of San Cristobal Cucho ran to dig the family after Guatemala's biggest quake in 36 years. When they uncovered some of the children, one body still warm, two with pulses, they were in the arms of their father, who had tried to shield them.

"We have never seen a tragedy like this. The whole town is sad," said brother Romulo Vasquez, whose 12-year old son, Ulises, also died at the quarry.

The death toll was expected to rise as 22 people remained missing, President Otto Perez Molina said at a news conference. Forty people were killed in San Marcos state, where San Cristobal Cucho is, 11 died in the neighboring state of Quetzaltenango and one was killed in Solola state, also in the western part of the country.

Perez said powerful 7.4-magnitude quake, felt as far as Mexico City 600 miles away, affected as many as 1.2 million Guatemalans. A little more than 700 people were in shelters, with most opting to stay with family or friends, he added.

There were 70 aftershocks in the first 24 hours after the quake, some as strong as magnitude 5.1, Perez said. Damaged homes are among the biggest problems the country will face in the coming days.

Life was returning to normal in the quake-stricken area Thursday afternoon electricity and mobile phone service had returned to many neighborhoods, cafes and banks reopened and several main thoroughfares filled with their weekly street markets.

But life remained stopped in the Vasquezes' home in San Cristobal Cucho, a town of some 15,000 people so high in the mountains that clouds swirl through the streets.

The streets were packed around the Vasquezes' small yellow-and-red, cinderblock-and-adobe house. Inside, neighbors gathered around the 10 wooden caskets with open lids, pressing against each other to see the faces of the dead and pay their last respects. Wood smoke bathed the memorial as more than a dozen women in the back of the house cooked rice, beans, corn and eggs to feed the crowd.

The Vasquezes were the only ones to die in San Cristobal Cucho. Like the rest of several thousand people in town, the Vasquez family was humble, the parents without much education. Most of the people in the town are subsistence farmers or sell things on the streets and in the markets.

The oldest son, Ivan, was too distraught to speak or even stay at the house among the mourners.

"He was a very good father, he was a very good neighbor," said Antonia Lopez, who was among the many paying respects.

Guatemalans fearing aftershocks huddled in the streets of the nearby city San Marcos, the most affected area. Others crowded inside its hospital, the only building in town left with electricity.

More than 90 rescue workers continued to dig with backhoes at a half-ton mound of sand at a second quarry that buried seven people.

"We started rescue work very early," said Julio Cesar Fuentes of the municipal fire department. "The objective is our hope to find people who were buried."

But they uncovered only more dead. One man was called to the quarry to identify his dead father. When he climbed into the sand pit and recognized the clothing, the son collapsed onto the shoulders of firefighters, crying: "Papa, Papa, Papa."

He and his father were not identified to the news media because other relatives had not been notified of the death.

Volunteers carrying boxes of medical supplies began arriving in the area in western Guatemala late Wednesday.

The quake, which was 20 miles deep, was centered 15 miles off the coastal town of Champerico and 100 miles southwest of Guatemala City. It was the strongest earthquake to hit Guatemala since a 1976 temblor that killed 23,000.

Perez said more than 2,000 soldiers were deployed to help with the disaster. A plane had made at least two trips to carry relief teams to the area. The U.S. State Department said it was sending some $50,000 in immediate disaster relief, including clean water, fuel and blankets. It also said it had offered U.S. helicopters if needed.

___

Associated Press writer Ruiz-Goiriena in Guatemala City contributed to this report.

___

Romina Ruiz-Goiriena on Twitter: sAP

Michael Weissenstein on Twitter: ssenstein

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CALGARY - Doug Shedden will handle head coaching duties for the Canadian team at the Spengler Cup next month.

Shedden, 51, served as an assistant coach for Canada at the tournament over the last three years. He is currently the head coach of EV Zug in the Swiss A League, a position he has held since 2008.

The former NHL player was head coach of Finland's national team in 2007-08 and guided the squad to a bronze medal at the 2008 IIHF world championship in Halifax.

Chris McSorley will serve as an assistant coach at the Dec. 26-31 tournament in Davos, Switzerland. He has been the head coach of Geneve-Servette in the Swiss A League since 2001.

"We are extremely pleased with the experience of our coaches that will lead Team Canada at the Spengler Cup this year," said Brad Pascall, Hockey Canada's vice-president of hockey operations/national teams. "Doug brings great international experience to the position as head coach and knows this event well, and Chris has a vast knowledge of the Swiss League and has done a great job with Geneve-Servette in making them into one of the strongest and most consistent teams in Europe."

As a player, Shedden recorded 325 points over 416 games with Pittsburgh, Detroit and Toronto from 1981 to 1991.

The Canadian roster will be announced in mid-December. The team will be made up of pros playing in Switzerland and may include American Hockey League players on loan from NHL teams.

Canada has appeared in nine of the last 12 championship games at the Spengler Cup, winning the tournament in 2002, 2003 and 2007.

The Spengler Cup has been held annually since 1923. It is the oldest professional international hockey tournament in the world.

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China's next leader keeps Iowa close to his heart By Moni Basu, November 8, 2012 -- Updated 2058 GMT (0458 HKT) Xi Jinping visited Iowa in 1985 and returned earlier this year to Muscatine to visit "old friends"On his first trip to Iowa, Xi learned about agriculture techniques from farmersHe considers his Iowa friends the best of America

() -- The man destined to become leader of the world's most populous nation will sit in the halls of power in Beijing, but a part of him remains in the American heartland.

Xi Jinping's visit to the United States last February included expected stops in Washington and trade meetings in California. Even an NBA game. But the part Xi, 59, looked most forward to was an evening in Muscatine, Iowa.

He wanted to visit "old friends" he'd met on a trip to Iowa almost 30 years ago.

Rewind to a time when Mikhail Gorbachev was ascending to the leadership of the Soviet Communist Party, Terry Anderson was taken hostage in Lebanon and Tiananmen Square was just another place in Beijing. Xi arrived in Muscatine for two weeks in April 1985 with a Chinese delegation looking into farming technology.

The next leader of the powerful communist state -- he is expected to take the helm early next year -- got a first-hand look at how American capitalists do agriculture.

Doyle Tubandt, president of Muscatine Foods Corp., recalled how Xi discussed globalization, its scope then unimaginable to many Americans.

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Tubandt marveled at today's global economy. His own company now exports food and pet products to China.

Back then, he escorted Xi on a tour of a corn processing plant. At times, the language barrier was hard to overcome. How do you translate words such as centrifuge? Tubandt gestured heavily and drew drawings in the sand to explain things to his Chinese visitor.

He kept a tin of black tea that Xi presented to him as a memento of the visit. After all these ears, the tin is preserved half full.

Tubandt was one of 14 people invited to a private dinner with Xi at the circa 1866 Victorian home of Sara Lande in February. They had all met Xi on his first trip.

Then, Xi had dined on Iowa beef and corn. Lande decided to go up a notch on elegance for China's next leader. Her menu boasted tenderloin, spring rolls and bacon-wrapped scallops.

"You were the first group of Americans I came into contact with," Xi told his Iowa friends. "To me, you are America."

Xi's visit was a big deal for Muscatine, a small eastern Iowa town known for farming, the largest Heinz plant outside of Pittsburgh and factories that used to spit out billions of mother-of-pearl buttons. That was before the refinement of plastic.

As Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad put it: This is the biggest thing to hit Muscatine since Pope John Paul II's visit in 1979.

Branstad, who also met Xi in 1985, was invited to the dinner hosted by Lande.

"We consider you a great friend of Iowa," Branstad told Xi, according to The Muscatine Journal. "We are so appreciative you chose to come to Muscatine and to Iowa."

Xi also visited a farm near Maxwell, Iowa, in February, and while in the state, he and other Chinese officials signed a five-year cooperation deal with Washington on food security, food safety and sustainable agriculture.

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Chris Steinbach, the Journal's editor, told that he had received thousands of e-mails from journalists around the world who were curious about Xi's visit.

"It's obviously a pretty big deal," Steinbach said. "You never know what will come as a result of this kitchen-table diplomacy."

That kind of one-on-one relationship made an impression on Xi on his first trip to Iowa.

"When you get the opportunity to meet somebody in their home or in a private setting, you get to know them differently than at a state dinner," Steinbach said. "Clearly that worked on Mr. Xi when he was here 27 years ago."

Now, as China's ruling Communist Party convenes its 18th National Congress, the world wonders what course the global power will chart under new leadership. What will the future bring for America's relationship with the Asian giant?

In Iowa, some people know this: that sometimes, it pays to sit on a couch, in front of a blazing fire and build a bridge to friendship. And that even after Xi assumes China's top post, he will keep Muscatine close to his heart.

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