LADY LAKE, Fla. - Pulling blue tarps over the houses that still had walls, neighbors, jail inmates and National Guard troops picked up amid rain showers Saturday from dead-of-night thunderstorms that chewed through the middle of Florida, killing at least 20 people.

The victims ranged from a 92-year-old man to 17-year-old Brittany May, killed by a falling tree that crushed her bedroom.

President Bush designated four central Florida counties as disaster areas, releasing millions of dollars in aid for recovery and individual assistance.

"It makes you sick to your stomach for what we saw," David Paulison, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said after touring the area Saturday morning with Gov. Charlie Crist.

Forecasters said Saturday that at least three tornadoes, with winds possibly as high as 165 mph, hit between 3 and 4 a.m. Friday, when few people were awake to hear tornado warnings on radio and TV.

The cleanup task was daunting Saturday as showers soaked roofless homes, and piles of twisted aluminum siding, bricks, belongings, tree limbs and lumber. Power lines were down and traffic signals out in many areas.

Neighbors helped Sherry Reeves, 48, sort through her belongings and patch a big hole in her roof. Reeves was amazed that her home wasn't leveled like hundreds of others in this area about 50 miles north of Orlando.

"The Good Lord slipped and missed, or luck of the draw," she said.

The governor, handling the first natural disaster since he took office, said some stricken areas looked like "the surface of the moon." Crist canceled plans to attend Sunday's Super Bowl in Miami to stay in central Florida.

Crist praised the residents and charitable groups who pitched in to help clean up. Neighboring Marion County sent a group of low-risk inmates, dressed in green-and-white striped jail clothes. Some religious groups served food to rescue workers and victims, while about 40 National Guard members distributed blankets, food and water.

"This is not just government. This is people helping people and doing what's right," Crist said at a news conference with Paulison, U.S. Sens. Bill Nelson and Mel Martinez and other officials.

Paulison said his agency, criticized for inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina and other disasters, had housing trailers, water trucks and other aid already on the way. Bush's disaster declaration for Lake, Sumter, Seminole and Volusia counties also frees up loans and other assistance to individuals.

Tate Tapscott, 38, who lives in an area called Cooter Lake, went looking for neighbors after the storm and found a father and son dead, buried under debris.

"He was still holding on to his son," Tapscott said.

Lake County Sheriff Gary Borders said Saturday he did not expect to find any more fatalities. "We think that everyone is accounted for," Borders said.

Retired school bus driver Jamie Wright had fled South Florida a year ago to escape hurricanes, looking for a peaceful life farther north. Wright, 55, and her boyfriend Donald Lamond, 49, operators of a produce stand, were killed in their bed.

"We survived Hurricane Andrew in Homestead and it looked just like this," her son, Bryan McKiness, said as he collected mementos from the wreckage of his mother's home. "Mom said she'd had enough of hurricanes so she moved here. … She was enjoying the good life."

The National Weather Service sent teams to study the damage for clues to the intensity and path of the thunderstorms that hit the area. Dave Sharp, a meteorologist with the weather service's office in Melbourne, said they suspected the region was struck by more than one tornado.

The main damage occurred along a 70-mile, west-to-east path with at least one break between Lady Lake and Paisley.

The wind picked up one tractor-trailer rig and slammed it down on top of another one. A church built to withstand a Category 4 hurricane was destroyed.

"To me it sounded like a mountain coming down," said Denise Anderson, 52.

Associated Press reporters Kelli Kennedy, Brian Skoloff and Ron Word in Lake County and Suzette Laboy, Adrian Sainz, Sarah Larimer, Laura Wides-Munoz and Curt Anderson in Miami contributed to this report.

WWII veteran's heart-wrenching diary stolen in burglary

ORANGEVALE, Calif. (AP) - Ben Waldron carried his weathered gray journal to treacherous places, at times hiding it under banana leaves, buried in dirt and inside a prison latrine.

The diary is a daily log of executions, slave labor and beatings that dismembered some of Waldron's organs and left him unable to have children. But the book survived, along with its author, to tell the story of his 3.5 years of captivity under the Japanese after the capture of Corregidor in the Philippines during World War II.

Yet when Waldron, 84, and his wife, Gerri, returned home from a luncheon for prisoner-of-war veterans, they found their front door wide open and jewelry, papers and military medals scattered on the floor.

Waldron's only concern was the journal he kept locked in a security box under his bed. It was gone.

"It's not just any thing. I need to keep it," the U.S. Army corporal and former anti-aircraft gunner said Friday.

He wrote in the journal nightly after trading a doctor 12 cigarettes to get it in 1942.

On June 2, 1942, his 20th birthday, he wrote an imaginary scene in which he "baked" himself a birthday cake, using pretend sugar and eggs to create a cake that he swore tasted just like home.

In his last entry, dated Feb. 9, 1945, he wrote, "Lots of air raids, have to hide diary, don't know how long, the end is close."

Waldron based 1989 book, "Corregidor, From Paradise to Hell" on what he wrote in the diary decades earlier.

Waldron, who has suffered years of heart problems, is showing early signs of Alzheimer's disease, according to his wife.

"Money, jewelry, nothing else seems to matter. … He just wants to get his diary back."

Las Vegas casino employees killed in manhole mishap

LAS VEGAS (AP) - A casino worker was killed and another was injured as they tried to save a co-worker who had fallen through an open manhole on Friday and become trapped, authorities said. The trapped man also died.

Clark County Fire Department spokesman Scott Allison said the men probably died from inhaling methane produced by the waste inside the sewer line at The Orleans hotel-casino west of the Las Vegas Strip.

A third co-worker, who assisted in the rescue attempt and also fell into the sewer, was injured and taken to University Medical Center.

The names of the three men, who worked as building engineers, were not released.

The accident occurred as the workers were cutting into a blocked pipe near the parking lot next to the casino. One of the workers cut about halfway through a section of the pipe near the opening to an 8-foot-deep hole when liquid burst from it, causing him to drop the saw. When he leaned to catch the tool, he fell through the 6-foot diameter manhole and into the waste below, Allison said.

The two nearby co-workers entered the hole to help him but also became trapped. Firefighters found the three men stacked on top of each other, Allison said.

Nearly an hour passed before firefighters were able to remove the survivor from the sewer. The two others were found dead, Allison said.

Rob Stillwell, spokesman for Boyd Gaming, which owns The Orleans, said the company would provide counseling to employees who were grieving over the accident.

Colombia mine explosion kills 3, traps 28 with toxic gases

SARDINATA, Colombia (AP) - An explosion tore through a coal mine in remote northeast Colombia on Saturday, killing at least three miners and trapping 28 more in tunnels filled with deadly gases, a rescue official said.

With family members looking on, rescue crews pulled out on stretchers the bodies of three miners found near the entrance to one of two tunnels where the miners were believed trapped.

Fernando Rosales, director of civil defense in Norte de Santander state, said emergency crews have not yet been able to enter the mine. He said hopes of finding any miners alive was "discouraging" because of the extensive damage and the trapped gases.

"There is a lot of gas inside and we're in the process of trying to get it out to see if rescue crews can go inside," Rosales told The Associated Press from outside the mine.

The morning explosion in the remote hamlet of San Roque, 255 miles northeast of Bogota, was caused by "some spark and the gas that was inside" the mine, Rosales said.

Norte de Santander, where the mine is located, is one of Colombia's most violent states, an area overrun by leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary groups who often battle each other for control of lucrative drug smuggling routes across the border with Venezuela.

Many mines in this Andean nation are makeshift affairs with few or no safety procedures.

In January 2006, three self-employed coal miners - a 60-year-old father and his two sons - died at a mine in the same region after inhaling poisonous gases.

Other mine disasters in Colombia have been the result of landslides and erosion.

In 2001, at least 37 gold miners were killed after a hillside gave way and swept over them at a strip mine 120 miles west of Bogota.

Mississippi River reopened after barge fire

VICKSBURG, Miss. (AP) - The Mississippi River reopened to traffic a day after a burning barge shut it down, the U.S. Coast Guard said Saturday.

Traffic began moving through the area on Friday night, said Coast Guard public affairs officer Lt. Leon McClain.

The barge, which was carrying crude oil, hit the Mississippi River railroad bridge in Vicksburg on Thursday night and burst into flames. The fire was put out on Friday and the barge's remaining oil transferred to empty tank barges, McClain said.

Robbie Wilbur, spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, said Saturday that a cleanup crew would be back on Monday to clean up oil that had made it to shore.

The barge was one of four being pushed south by a vessel owned by Mandeville, La.-based Florida Marine Transportation.

Company spokesman Brian O'Daniels said in a statement that crude oil sprayed onto the top of the vessel after it struck the bridge, and was ignited by a spark.

Florida storms kill all 18 endangered whooping cranes led south by ultralight planes

MILWAUKEE (AP) - All 18 endangered young whooping cranes that were led south from Wisconsin last fall as part of a project to create a second migratory flock of the birds were killed in storms in Florida, a spokesman said.

The cranes were being kept in an enclosure at the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge near Crystal River, Fla., when violent storms moved in Thursday night, said Joe Duff, co-founder of Operation Migration, the organization coordinating the project.

The area of the enclosure was unreachable by workers at night, and all the birds were found dead, Duff said.

"It's very traumatic to the whole team who put so much time and effort into these birds," he said Saturday.

He speculated that a strong storm surge drew the tide in and overwhelmed the birds, or they were electrocuted from lightning strikes reported in the area. The official cause of the deaths was not immediately known.

The thunderstorms and at least one tornado that hit central Florida caused widespread damage and killed at least 20 people.

For the past six years, whooping cranes hatched in captivity have been raised at the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin by workers who wear crane-like costumes to keep the birds wary of humans.

Ultralight aircraft are used to teach new groups of young cranes the migration route to Florida. Then the birds migrate north in the spring and south in the fall on their own.

Duff described the loss as an "unavoidable disaster" for the whooping cranes project. Ironically, for the first time in six years, an entire group of young birds reared at the Necedah refuge had made it to the Florida refuge without the loss of a single crane.

The various groups and agencies working on the project had seen the size of the flock grow to 81 birds with the latest arrivals, but the loss of the young cranes drops the total back to 63, and there may have been additional losses.

Operation Migration is part of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership. Partnership officials and Duff said the work would continue. Chicks are expected to hatch in two months, he said.

The whooping crane, the tallest bird in North America, was near extinction in 1941, with only about 20 left.

The other wild whooping crane flock in North America has about 200 birds and migrates from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast. A non-migratory flock in Florida has about 60 birds.

On the Net:

Operation Migration: http://operationmigration.org/index.html

Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership: http://www.bringbackthecranes.org

Dog of Vermont couple who died in murder-suicide awarded to shooter's family

NEWPORT, Vt. (AP) - A custody fight over a golden retriever that belonged to an estranged couple who died in a murder-suicide has apparently ended with a judge awarding the dog to the family of the man police said killed his estranged girlfriend.

Judge Thomas Devine said in Friday's ruling that Jon Chichester of East Haven was the clear owner of the dog. On Nov. 5, Chichester repeatedly shot Carole Anne Lozinski, then shot himself, police said.

Both Chichester, 33, and Lozinski, 32, had loved and cared for the dog, the judge found, but Chichester took possession of the 6-year-old Mickey when the couple split up in September. Chichester bought and paid for the dog and his license, while Lozinski had paid recent veterinary bills, the judge found.

"It is only human for many to approach this controversy with the view that equity demands at least some small recompense to the estate of the victim in the form of an award of this beloved animal," Devine said. But animals, "even beloved pets, have the status of property under Vermont law," he ruled.

After the couple split up, they met periodically so Lozinski could exercise Mickey. On the day of the shootings, Lozinski told a friend she had planned to tell Chichester she didn't want to meet any more, police said.

Since the shootings in Lyndon, about 40 miles south of the Canadian border, the dog has been in the care of the town's animal control officer.

Funeral held in Arkansas for Bill Clinton's stepfather

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. (AP) - Bill Clinton and his family joined hundreds of mourners Saturday for the funeral of his stepfather, the man who the former president said brought his mother the "most secure, stable years she ever had."

Richard Kelley, a retired salesman, died Wednesday at his home at age 91 after a long battle with colon and liver cancer.

"He didn't wuss out at the end. It was all done with grace and love," Clinton told more than 600 people at First United Methodist Church, describing his stepfather's final moments. "I am very thankful to him for many things, but most of all for giving our mother the 12 most secure, stable years she ever had."

Clinton attended with his wife, U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, and their daughter, Chelsea, who read an Irish benediction during the funeral service.

The Rev. John Miles, who performed the wedding ceremony for Kelley and Clinton's mother, Virginia, in 1982, conducted the service.

Kelley ran a food brokerage business for many years in Little Rock before retiring in 1992. He met Clinton's mother at a horse racing track. It was his second marriage and her fourth.

At the time, Clinton was preparing for a campaign to regain the Arkansas governor's office.

In recalling Kelley's devotion to his spouse, the former president also remembered the warning he gave Kelley before they married.

"I said, 'You know you'll never be able to get any insurance again. You're already 66 and she's been a widow three times," the former president said.

Lara Farrar said her grandfather was full of life and a bit of a pack rat. She joked about the collection of hotel shampoo bottles, peanuts and ketchup packets he took from the hospital shortly before he died.

"He truly was the embodiment of living life to the fullest," she said.

The Kelleys were married 12 years before she died Jan. 6, 1994, after a battle with breast cancer. After her death, he promoted his wife's autobiography, "Leading With My Heart," appearing on national television and autographing books.

In a newspaper interview, he said he was content to promote the book for one reason: "I have fond memories of Virginia and I know she'd want me to do this."

Kelley also cherished the former president, referring to him as "my best friend."

Missouri man convicted of shoving cell phone down girlfriend's throat

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (AP) - A jury convicted a man of second-degree domestic assault on Saturday for shoving a cell phone down his girlfriend's throat.

Prosecutors said Marlon Brando Gill, 25, of Kansas City, forced the cell phone into Melinda Abell's mouth during an argument in December 2005. Gill denied the charge, claiming that she tried to swallow the phone to prevent him from finding out whom she had been calling.

Abell, 25, of Blue Springs, was rushed to a hospital where doctors removed the phone. Doctors said she nearly died of a blocked airway.

"I think he thought I'd been talking to other guys," Abell wrote in a statement to police after the incident. "If I didn't want him to see my phone, I would have just thrown it out the window and busted it."

It was Gill's second trial since his arrest more than a year ago. Jurors in July were unable to reach a verdict on a first-degree domestic assault charge, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Jurors could not agree on a sentence for Gill, which means that decision will be left up to a judge. The assault charge carries a sentence of up to seven years in prison.

Nevada governor urged to request public hearings on explosion

RENO, Nev. (AP) - A group of Nevada activists is pressing Gov. Jim Gibbons to request an environmental impact statement and public hearings on the federal government's plans for a 700-ton explosion on the Nevada desert.

More than two dozen activists marched a mile Saturday in Carson City from the Legislative Building to the Governor's Mansion, where they held a news conference to express concerns over the planned non-nuclear explosion at the Nevada Test Site.

The event was sponsored by "No New Mushroom Clouds Over Nevada, Or Anywhere!, a coalition of such groups as the Reno Anti-War Coaliton, the Sierra Interfaith Action for Peace and the Western Shoshone Defense Project.

"We don't think it's right that our new governor has been silent on the issue," said Lee Dazey, an event organizer. "We sent a letter to him January 22 and we haven't heard anything from him.

"We think he has a responsibility to clarify what his stance is given what his predecessor requested," Dazey added.

Before leaving office, former Gov. Kenny Guinn asked for a supplemental EIS on the test that would require public hearings. Both Gibbons and Guinn are Republicans.

Gibbons' communications director Brent Boynton did not return phone calls seeking comment Saturday.

The "Divine Strake" explosion, first scheduled for June 2006, was postponed indefinitely after Western Shoshone tribe members filed suit.

Critics fear radioactive material from decades of previous weapons tests will be loosened by the blast and scattered across Nevada and southern Utah. They call it a step toward developing "bunker buster" nuclear weapons.

Activists said they're puzzled that members of Nevada's congressional delegation have recently been silent on the issue, while top elected officials in Utah and Idaho have pressed for public hearings.

Since releasing a revised environmental assessment on the explosion in December, the government has held public "open houses" in Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and Saint George, Utah.

The EA claims that the level of radiation released would be below federal safety standards and the blast presents no public health hazards.

Dazey said a full EIS would provide more details about the explosion and ensure public hearings. The recent public meetings provided information but did not allow for public comment on the test, she said.

On the Net:

No New Mushroom Clouds Over Nevada, or Anywhere!: http://renopeace.org/nonewnukes.htm

Qantas flight returned to Australia after an engine failed and flames trailed from the jumbo jet

LOS ANGELES - A Los Angeles-bound Qantas flight carrying more than 270 passengers returned to Australia Saturday after an engine failed and flames trailed from the jumbo jet, it was reported.

Passengers endured 90 traumatic minutes in the skies over Sydney and reported hearing a loud bang, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Flight QF left Sydney at 11:35 a.m. (Australian time) with 274 passengers and developed problems within about 15 minutes, the newspaper reported.

Passenger Pedram Danae told the newspaper he heard a loud noise as flames trailed from one of the Boeing 747's engines. The plane landed at 1.20 p.m. and it was expected that the passengers would be kept at the airport until a replacement aircraft was ready at about 9 p.m.

"We heard a clunk and it didn't feel right," Danae said. "The plane swerved to the left and then to the right. "The pilot took a few left turns and no right turns and a few minutes later he explained one of the engines on the right-hand side was not working."

Passengers were told that while the aircraft could fly with three of four engines functioning, the pilot was going to make an early landing, the newspaper reported.

A Qantas spokesperson said the problem was like an engine surge, similar to a car backfiring. The pilot shut down the faulty engine and dumped the plane's fuel load so it could land.

-- North County Times wire services