Talks Bisexuality Evan Rachel Wood Wears Lingerie Photo

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Talks Bisexuality Evan Rachel Wood Wears Lingerie Photo. Even a nude Evan Rachel Wood has hidden secrets.

The 23 year old actress (reluctantly) took her clothes off for an extended love scene in his new HBO mini-series, "Mildred Pierce," but the network's makeup artists thought it best to make sure they cover up her tattoos. So as viewers got a peek at Wood's elegant physique, they missed her unique ink; as Wood tells Esquire, she has tattoos inspired by the likes of hero David Bowie, author Shel Silverstein and ex fiance Marilyn Manson.

Speaking of Manson, talk of her ex leads to another revelation: she's into androgyny, and dates both men and women. And when she does, she takes on different roles.

"Yeah, I'm more kind of like the guy when it comes to girls. I'm the dominant one," she said. "I'm opening the doors, I'm buying dinner. Yeah, I'm romantic."

Death count climbs South recovering from storms

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Death count climbs South recovering from storms. At least 45 people died from tornadoes, thunderstorms, flooding and hail across the southern United States over the weekend, and officials said the death toll may rise as the cleanup continues.

The nasty storms killed 22 people in North Carolina, seven each in Arkansas and Alabama, five in Virginia, two in Oklahoma and one each in Mississippi and Tennessee, according to state emergency officials.

Some forecasters expect another round of severe weather to hit the central Plains and the Mississippi and Ohio valleys on Tuesday.

"Beginning late today and tonight, a small area from eastern Kansas to western Kentucky could have a few localized gusty storms before a more widespread severe weather threat unfolds," metrologist Bill Deger of Accuweather.com said.

The Midwest is expected to get a mix of snow and rain around the Great Lakes, according to the Weather Channel, and flood warnings were in effect along and near the Ohio River in Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois, the National Weather Service reported.

In Chicago, a dusting of snow fell overnight after temperatures dipped to freezing or below. Temperatures were in the high 30s on Monday, slowing the melting of the spring snow.

North Carolina accounted for the bulk of casualties and property losses from the weekend weather, with 22 people killed and about 130 others injured. Significant damage was reported in at least 26 counties and power outages affected more than 200,000 people.

The storms began in Oklahoma on Thursday, then moved through the South and hit the East Coast by Saturday. There were 241 tornadoes reported, with 50 confirmed.

Seven people died as a result of the storms in Alabama, seven died in Arkansas, and Mississippi and Tennessee each reported one death.

Two people were killed in Oklahoma when a tornado flattened buildings. Virginia's Office of the Medical Examiner has confirmed five weather-related deaths and was examining others to determine if the storms were the cause of death.

National Weather Service forecasters say northern New Jersey saw some minor flooding on Monday, but that worse is yet to come. They say that flooding on the Passaic River, near Little Falls, could crest at the major flood stage this evening.

"If you had asked me last week, I would have said never," said Henry Underhill, business administrator of Little Falls. He said the river has risen 5 feet in the last two days. He said it's possible that roads in the residential area near the river would have to be closed, and depending on how high the river rises, it may flood homes too.

The storm over the weekend dumped 3.12 inches of rain on the Philadelphia area, according to the weather service.

While the many other parts of the country were suffering from storms and flooding, a severe drought has led to unprecedented wildfires in the Southwest.

Texas Governor Rick Perry has requested a Major Disaster Declaration for the entire state, as brush fires which have burned more than 1.5 million areas continued on Monday.

The fires have been whipped by 60-miles-per-hour wind gusts and fueled by brush dried out by record low humidity.

"We've got real strong winds, real dry air, real low humidities, couple all that with dry fuels, which we have a lot of, and the fires are running pretty hard," Marq Webb of the Texas Forest Service said on Monday.

So far a total of 7,800 separate fires have destroyed 244 homes, including ten homes in southwest Austin which were destroyed Sunday.

Marriage Prince William ready for next phase

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Marriage Prince William ready for next phase. When Prince William was born, Britons rejoiced at the sight of him in his mother's arms. He was heralded as a king in waiting who would take the Windsor dynasty into the next generation and the next century.

When Princess Diana died, and William and his younger brother Prince Harry trudged behind her funeral cortege, much of that outpouring of grief was transformed into affection for the young princes, with many around the world hoping the boys could somehow transcend their loss and find happiness.

So it's no surprise that William now an earnest Royal Air Force helicopter search and rescue pilot enjoys the public's goodwill as he prepares to marry Kate Middleton and begin the next phase of a journey that is expected to see him follow his grandmother and his father to the throne.

With the April 29 nuptials at Westminster Abbey fast approaching, William has few enemies and many admirers. Some here are tired of the royals, of course, and certainly there is anti-monarchist sentiment among those who would prefer Britain be a republic, but there are few who harbor an open dislike for William, who seems genuinely enchanted with his bride-to-be.

Britain's intense feelings for Diana spilled over onto William who bears a resemblance to his mother and now envelops Middleton. William has made clear he wants to honor the memory of Diana as much as possible during the wedding, a desire symbolized by his giving Middleton his mother's diamond-and-sapphire engagement ring.

But for someone who has been in the public eye literally since his first days on Earth, when he was photographed in his mother's arms as they left St. Mary's Hospital, little is really known about William, who at times seems to want nothing more than to be allowed to live a normal, sane, pleasurable life with the woman he loves.

In a 2003 interview to mark his 21st birthday, one of the few to which he's agreed, the young prince said that he saw becoming king as his destiny.

"All these questions about ... do you want to be king? It's not a question of wanting to be, it's something I was born into and it's my duty," William said. "Sometimes I do get anxious about it, but I don't really worry a lot."

Patrick Jephson, who was Diana's private secretary, said Diana had told William when he was young that being king would give him a chance to help people in need.

"She told him he had been born to fulfill a duty, that it would be a heavy burden, but that it would also be an opportunity to use his enormous influence for the good of those less fortunate than himself," he said.

No one knows how William really feels about his own wedding being turned into a global media event. Many royal experts believe he secretly yearns to get married in a small country church, with a handful of friends and family present. And he's under constant scrutiny by the small cottage industry of writers, photographers and hangers-on who crank out a living by acting as if they know everything about the Windsors.

He has made no public pronouncements about how he sees the future of the British monarchy. Does he want the royal household to downsize, jettison much of the pomp, be more like the "bicycle monarchs" of Scandinavia and the Netherlands?

And he has not spoken about the traumas that might have been caused by the messy divorce between his parents, Diana and Prince Charles.

He did say, in a 2007 interview, that he thinks of his late mother constantly.

"Not a day goes by when I don't think about it once in the day," William said of the 1997 car crash that claimed Diana's life.

William has built a trusted inner circle of friends and confidants, mostly school chums or military mates, and unburdens himself only in their company, with the strict understanding that if they talk about him, or about Middleton, they will be exiled.

He is a private person in a very public position, and it is widely assumed that he is at the very least suspicious of the tabloid press and the paparazzi because of the role they played in hounding his late mother in the difficult years before her death.

William was educated at elite schools, including Eton College, and he has taken his fair share of posh vacations at the world's most exclusive retreats. But he seems less distant than most of the senior British royals, including his father, Charles, and his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II.

Some believe this is partly because of the way he talks. In a country where accents still give clear indications of social status, experts say William sounds somewhat posh but not excessively so.

"William's accent is less hidebound and old-fashioned," said professor and columnist Roy Greenslade. "Charles still has the accent of the aristocracy while William has much more of a middle-class accent."

William, 28, also seems to have the likable quality of being able to laugh at himself. He often seems bemused by the more absurd trappings of royal life as when he recently showed his pancake-flipping abilities in Northern Ireland but he does not belittle the interest of the crowds at charity events that give him a chance to introduce his fiancee to the public.

To some degree, William was able to enjoy a typical student life at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, where he met and fell in love with Middleton. The news media had agreed to give him some distance during his university years, giving him space to date several women without being tailed by photographers, and, crucially, he was able to develop his relationship with Middleton out of the public eye.

By the time they emerged in public as a couple, they had an easy way with each other, suggesting that the years of privacy had paid off.

There was one crisis in his freshman year when William wanted to drop out of university, but his father and Middleton persuaded him to stay. He did manage to move off-campus, and the fact that his private house had to be bombproofed and protected by discreet security guards only emphasized his stature as a king-in-waiting that set him apart from fellow students.

Despite such restrictions, he has followed his mother's advice and tried to connect with people from all walks of life, traveling the world on his "gap year" before university and doing charity work in London, as well as Africa and Chile.

William has largely avoided scandal, not easy in a country where tabloid reporters pay for incriminating information, and sometimes even hack into voicemail messages. He was criticized, however, after landing his military helicopter at Middleton's parents' house, which was seen as taking advantage of his royal status.

Still, he must have made a spectacular entrance.

The biggest magic show ever North Korea stages

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The biggest magic show ever North Korea stages. Amid a burst of fireworks and a haze of smoke, a burly showman in a white sequined suit and gold lame cape appears with a flourish. Over the next 45 minutes, he appears to make a Pyongyang bus levitate and wriggles free from a box sent crashing to the stage through a ring of fire.

This is magic North Korean-style performed in a show touted as the country's biggest ever and mounted in a city where good, old-fashioned illusion, a dancing bear and a dose of slapstick comedy can still command the biggest crowds of the year.

The country's love for magic is a legacy of the circus traditions they inherited decades ago, during an era of Soviet influence.

North Korean founder Kim Il Sung ordered the creation of the Pyongyang Circus in 1952 in the middle of the Korean War. The tradition of highly technical stagecraft including the Arirang mass games, where 100,000 performers move in sync in a feat that has come to embody North Korean discipline and regimentation still dazzles in a country where high-tech entertainment is scarce.

"They love magic shows, together with the circus," said Tony Namkung, a scholar who often serves as a liaison between North Korea and the U.S. and other governments. "Like so many other things, it harkens back to a pre-electronic past when things were much simpler."

In fact, North Koreans so love magic that two diplomats dispatched to the United Nations had a special request in 1995 of their American hosts: They wanted to go to Las Vegas to see David Copperfield.

Wowed by the world-famous illusionist, the diplomats were determined to bring Copperfield to Pyongyang. But politics and finances trumped entertainment, and plans to bring the American magician to a nation still technically at war with the United States vanished in the haze of diplomatic tensions.

Undeterred, North Korea has kept putting on shows of its own, and it unveiled a massive one Monday at the capital's May Day Stadium. It was designed by Kim Chol, dubbed the "David Copperfield of North Korea," and will include seven performances in all.

The show stars Ri Thai Gum, a beefy showman with the extravagant flair — and physique — of a pro wrestler and the skills of Houdini. He whips off his white suit with silver-sequinned lapels to reveal a tank top and then straps on a gold-appliqued cummerbund onto his hefty waist.

The event was a highlight in a week of festivities surrounding Kim Il Sung's April 15 birthday. Many of the women turned out in festive traditional Korean dresses reserved for special occasions, sparkles sprinkled into their hair and wearing fur-lined vests to keep warm in the spring chill. Outside, pink and yellow lights illuminated a fountain as music played to crowds enjoying an evening out.

An advertisement boasts that the show features "aircraft and a large bus appearing and then suddenly disappearing, elephants and other heavy animals appearing mysteriously, a motorcyclist performing fantastic skills, magicians floating in the air as if in a gravity-free space."

And it does, adding in a healthy dose of slapstick comedy.

The tricks are simple crowd pleasers: A Pyongyang city bus filled with waving passengers appears to levitate and then disappear; an acrobat seems to float through a magical skyscape of clouds.

There's the classic magician's assistant dressed in traditional Korean dress who gets into a box and reappears halfway across the stadium.

In another trick, a man goes into a box but after a wave of the Korean Houdini's hand, out comes a girl in a short, spangly miniskirt with a prancing baby bear on a leash bowing hello to the audience

The highlight involves a helicopter and a ring of fire that aim to have the clapping audience, mostly Koreans and a smattering of tourists and foreign dancers and musicians visiting the city for an arts festival, on edge.

"I thought it was great. The quality of the tricks that they pulled off was really high," said Chris Andrews, a tourist from Sydney, Australia. "That bear trick I thought was one of the coolest things I've ever seen."

Current leader Kim Jong Il is said to have inherited his father's love of the circus and is thought to be the one to push to bring Copperfield to North Korea.

Copperfield's stage manager once called North Korea's staging technology "among the most sophisticated in the world," according to Namkung.

Namkung, who took the North Korean diplomats to Vegas and later brought a Copperfield delegation to Pyongyang to discuss a visit, recalled that the time was ripe to bring a big American star to the North Korean capital.

The U.S. and North Korea had just signed an agreement for Pyongyang to freeze its nuclear power plants and to replace them with light water reactors less prone to weapons proliferation as part of a plan to normalize relations between the longtime enemies.

There were high hopes that Copperfield's show — to be broadcast live on state TV in North Korea — could pave the way for a new era in relations between the bitter wartime foes. And in a symbolic show of support for reunification, Copperfield agreed to travel through the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas and perform for the South Koreans as well.

"This was right after the 'agreed framework' signing at a time when it looked as if the two nations would go down an entirely new path, and the atmosphere in Pyongyang was giddy," said Namkung, who also serves as a consultant to The Associated Press.

Copperfield himself was game, promising to make the city's iconic Juche Tower disappear, just as he did the Great Wall of China and the Statue of Liberty.

So seriously did the North Koreans take Copperfield's visit that they staged a private viewing of the circus for his production team's visit to Pyongyang and promised to give the illusionist a vast suite once used by former President Jimmy Carter on his visit in 1994, Namkung recalled.

But the State Department thought it was too early to back the venture, and the plan eventually foundered over how to finance the trip.

Asian Unicorn Nature reserve set aside for rare

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Asian Unicorn Nature reserve set aside for rare. A nature reserve has been set aside in central Vietnam for the critically endangered saola, raising hope for the antelope like species' survival, a wildlife official said Monday.

The saola looks like a small deer or antelope with two horns, but is locally known as an Asian "unicorn." They are thought to number from a few dozen to a few hundred, and are threatened by poachers wanting its horns. The conservation group WWF says none has survived in captivity.

The land set aside last week in the central province of Quang Nam is rich in bio-diversity and home to an estimated 50 to 60 saolas, said Pham Thanh Lam, director of the Forest Bureau in the province.

"For ethnic minority people, hunting is a way of earning their living," Lam said. "They would not spare the saola, so it's necessary to create conditions for them to earn their living to minimize hunting for wild animals including saola."

Saola, described as a primitive member of the bovine family which includes cattle, sheep and antelopes, was discovered in the forests in central Vietnam in 1992.

"If no reserve activities are launched now, the danger of the saolas' extinction is clear," he said.

The efforts to protect the species will incude education campaigns and jobs, including patrolling the nature reserve, that provide stable income, Lam said.

The reserve of 15,800 hectares (39,000 acres) is in the Annamite mountains along the Laos border. Another reserve is in neighboring Thua Thien Hue province

As the 2012 presidential campaign starts a Barack Obama report card

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As the 2012 presidential campaign starts a Barack Obama report card. As President Obama begins his reelection campaign, he faces an array of obstacles. The unifying theme that helped him win the 2008 election is a faint memory. Even if the economy grows briskly over the next 18 months, the unemployment rate is likely to remain above 8 percent on Election Day.

Consider this a preliminary report card regarding some of the president's challenges.

Political Identity: C. Who is this guy, and where does he want to take the country? Obama's hope-and-change platform in 2008 allowed people to fill in whatever details they wanted. This strategy served a little-known candidate, but it's untenable for an incumbent. Americans know that Obama has a vision 70 percent do, according to an April 9-10 CNN/Opinion Research poll of 824 adults.

But there are several obstacles for Obama. One is the bizarre birther phenomenon, which cuts both ways: It paints Republicans as crazy to independent voters; but it also provides an avenue for some voters to express views that might otherwise be taboo to discuss, perhaps about his race or his religion.

Separate from the birther constellation is a cluster of beliefs with fairly high magnitude. Obama's style is conciliatory and concessional. Even liberals don't seem to know precisely where Obama wants to lead them. It's not a question of goals; it's a question of guts. Where will he fight? Perhaps his new deficit-cutting plan will show the way. This grade, incidentally, is given without reference to his potential opponents. Throw a Republican with an identity crisis into this mix and Obama's grade rises.

Campaign Team: A. Obama's reelection team is experienced, trusted, and not riven by the usual infighting that besets campaigns. It's true that they're cocky, but after any number of near-death experiences with health care and other issues, their hubris is a bit more muted. It must here be noted that several potential GOP opponents notably Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney are putting together A list campaign teams too.

Leadership: C. Americans are not sure about Obama's leadership skills. A small majority see him as a leader, a number that has been in steady decline since he was elected, according to a Gallup poll of 1027 adults that was conducted March 25-27. Fewer than half think he can manage the government (see CNN/OPR poll).

One version of the case posits that Obama has spent way too much time blaming predecessors even as he continued Bush policies, from TARP to Guantanamo Bay. His leadership skills tie into his political identity. He seems rudderless at times. His advisers will say that Obama wants to fix problems and is a pragmatist, and that external events have made it all but impossible to chart a straight course and follow it. That may be true, but the challenge is to convince the American people that this style of governing is the right one.

(Meet Obama's new climate chief)

Attributes and Values: A. Americans like Obama; they trust that he wants the best for them even if they don't quite know what that is; they see him as honest, on their side, and likable (see Gallup). This will be a significant asset. It helped carry President Bush to reelection in 2004.

Organization: A. Regardless of whether there's a drop-off in volunteer intensity early on, there's no question that Obama's reelection operation will be formidable and well-funded enough to compete with whatever Republicans are able to construct. This includes outside groups who will try to chip away at Obama in battleground states. Democrats will have well-financed vehicles of their own.

Position Relative to His Opposition: B. The Republican field is unleavened at best. The all-but-declared Republican candidates (Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty) all have significant, if resolvable, flaws. Some of those thought to be considering the race from Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to Donald Trump threaten to pull the GOP off its rails. Dark-horse challenges could make the field rougher, especially Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana.

(Is Donald Trump late-night TV's new punching bag?)

Domestic Issues: C. The House Republican embrace of transforming Medicare under the plan put forward by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is a godsend to the Obama team. Social issues don't seem to matter, as Obama himself noted on Thursday night. But Obama still faces formidable challenges. The economy, while moving in the right direction, is still sputtering. And one shouldn't underestimate the GOP's ability to portray Obama as a tax-raiser even if he is only proposing to restore higher income tax rates on wealthier earners. Keep an eye on the housing market and on gas prices as well as on personal income growth per capita a favorite statistic used by the Bushies to determine economic satisfaction. Obama is performing at roughly the Bill Clinton level in the comparable time period on questions about which political agent Americans trust more to handle domestic problems. (See CNN/USA Today/Gallup Trends data.)

(Where do the GOP 2012 hopefuls stand on the environment?)

Foreign issues: B. He continues the Bush war in Afghanistan and drew down the one in Iraq while joining one against Libya. There's no crowning achievement like a Middle East peace deal. Guantanamo Bay remains open. Independents liked Obama because he promised to repair America's relationship with the world and raise its standing. He has done that. He will remind independents of this. It will probably work. Obama's proposed defense cuts are going to be troubling to voters in the industrial Midwest and the Intermountain West.

Relations With Party Base: B. This is a hard one to grade. There are several different Democratic bases and they don't seem to overlap. The progressive elites, those who follow politics around the clock and have venues to broadcast their views, think Obama has abandoned core Democratic principles. Rank-and-file Democrats seem to be modestly influenced by these complaints. Republican elites have more influence over their base than Democratic elites, for a variety of reasons.

Among Democrats, Obama's job approval is about 5 percentage points away from where he needs to be. Three-fourths of self-identified liberals approve of Obama's performance to date. He needs these numbers to be higher. Liberal white Democrats and African-Americans are solid Obama supporters. But Obama's approval rating has dropped significantly among Latino voters (73 percent when he was elected; 54 percent now, according to Gallup), and slightly among younger voters (ages 18 to 29) who were hardest hit by the economic sluggishness. While 55 percent among this group is stronger than it was half a year ago, according to a huge Institute of Politics poll released last week, it needs to be higher. Still, in the absence of a Republican foil, these are generally sufficient numbers for the president. At this point in 1995, more than 4 in 10 Democrats wanted a primary challenger for Bill Clinton; fewer than 2 in 10 do for Obama.

On Obama healthcare case Supreme Court takes no action

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On Obama healthcare case Supreme Court takes no action. The Supreme Court took no action Monday on a request to speed up a ruling on President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul law, his signature domestic accomplishment that has provoked a fierce political battle.

The justices were scheduled on Friday to consider the state of Virginia's appeal seeking to invoke a rarely used procedure to bypass the normal appeals process and speed up a Supreme Court ruling on the law's constitutionality.

Legal and financial analysts expected the justices to reject the request.

In orders released on Monday, the Supreme Court took no action in the case. The court did not grant Virginia's request, nor did it deny it, as the Obama administration has urged.

The justices often take no action in a high-profile case when they want more time to consider it. The justices could consider the healthcare law again at a private conference on April 23.
[ For complete coverage of politics and policy, go to Yahoo! Politics ]

Several federal trial judges around the nation have upheld the law but others declared it unconstitutional on the grounds Congress overstepped its authority in requiring that Americans start buying health insurance in 2014 or pay a penalty.

He much richer than Mitt Romney Donald Trump says

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He much richer than Mitt Romney Donald Trump says. Donald Trump has been capturing significant attention for slamming the president. It seems now he's broadening his reach, turning his offensive game toward his potential GOP challengers.

This weekend, the real estate mogul began pitting his riches and business acumen against those of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. (Though Trump's net worth continues to be the source of much mystery and speculation.)

In an interview with CNN's Candy Crowley Sunday, Trump called the former presidential candidate a "small businessman" though Romney built Bain Capital into one of the largest private equity firms in the world. He also suggested Romney didn't create companies (even though he did).

"I'm a much bigger businessman and have a much, much bigger net worth. I mean, my net worth is many, many, many times Mitt Romney," Trump said. He later added: "I built a very big net worth and I'd like to put that ability … to work for this country. So I don't do it for myself. I'd be doing it for this country.

Japan reactors too high for workers Radiation near

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Japan reactors too high for workers Radiation near. A pair of thin robots on treads sent to explore buildings inside Japan's crippled nuclear reactor came back Monday with disheartening news: Radiation levels are far too high for repair crews to go inside.

Nevertheless, officials remained hopeful they can stick to their freshly minted "roadmap" for cleaning up the radiation leak and stabilizing the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant by year's end so they can begin returning tens of thousands of evacuees to their homes.

"Even I had expected high radioactivity in those areas. I'm sure (plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co.) and other experts have factored in those figures when they compiled the roadmap," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.

Officials said Monday that radiation had spiked in a water tank in Unit 2 and contaminated water was discovered in other areas of the plant. They also described in detail for the first time the damage to fuel in three troubled reactors, saying pellets had melted.

That damage — sometimes referred to as a partial meltdown — had already been widely assumed, but the confirmation, along with the continued release of radiation from other areas, serves to underscore how difficult and how long the cleanup process will be. In fact, government officials themselves have acknowledged that there are still many setbacks that could crop up to slow down their timeline.

Angry at the slow response to the nuclear crisis and to the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that caused it, lawmakers tore into Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

"You should be bowing your head in apology. You clearly have no leadership at all," Masashi Waki, a lawmaker from the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, shouted at Kan.

"I am sincerely apologizing for what has happened," Kan said, stressing the government was doing all it could to handle the unprecedented disasters.

TEPCO's president, Masataka Shimizu, appeared ill at ease as lawmakers heckled and taunted him.

Workers have not been able to enter the reactor buildings at the stricken plant since the first days after the cooling systems were wrecked by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that left more than 27,000 people dead or missing. Hydrogen explosions in both buildings in the first few days destroyed their roofs and scattered radioactive debris.

On Sunday, a plant worker opened an outer door to one of the buildings and two Packbots, which resemble drafting lamps on tank-like treads, entered. After the worker closed the door, one robot opened an inner door and both rolled inside to take readings for temperature, pressure and radioactivity. They later entered a second building.

The robots reported radioactivity readings of up to 49 millisieverts per hour inside Unit 1 and up to 57 inside Unit 3, levels too high for workers to realistically enter.

"It's a harsh environment for humans to work inside," said Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

Japanese authorities more than doubled the legal limit for nuclear workers since the crisis began to 250 millisieverts a year. Workers in the U.S. nuclear industry are allowed an upper limit of 50 millisieverts per year. Doctors say radiation sickness sets in at 1,000 millisieverts and includes nausea and vomiting.

The robots, made by Bedford, Massachusetts, company iRobot, which also makes the Roomba vacuum cleaner, explored Unit 2 on Monday, but TEPCO officials had yet to analyze that data.

The radioactivity must be reduced, possibly with the removal of contaminated debris and stagnant water, before repair crews would be allowed inside, said NISA official Masataka Yoshizawa.

Sturdier robots can remove some of the debris, but workers are needed to test the integrity of the equipment and carry out electrical repairs needed to restore the cooling systems as called for in the road map, Yoshizawa said.

"What robots can do is limited, so eventually, people must enter the buildings," TEPCO official Takeshi Makigami said.

The robots, along with remote-controlled miniature drones, have enabled TEPCO to photograph and take measurements of conditions in and around the plant while minimizing workers' exposure to radiation and other hazards.

Separately, readings from a water tank attached to the spent fuel pool in Unit 2 showed a severe spike in radiation that NISA officials said might have been caused by the escape of radioactive vapor from a nearby containment vessel. They said, however, the possibility of damage to spent fuel rods could not be ruled out.

NISA also sent a report to the government watchdog Nuclear Safety Commission, saying that some fuel pellets and rods in the reactors in Units 1, 2 and 3 had become overheated and melted, the first time it had provided details of the damage to the fuel. Nishiyama said the agency can only say "more than 3 percent" of the fuel rods have melted. That figure had previously been given as the minimum core damage suspected.

A pool of stagnant radioactive water was also discovered in the basement of Unit 4.

With evacuees' ordeal stretching into the long-term, some began moving out of school gymnasiums into temporary housing. Hundreds who have not found apartments or relatives to take them in began filling up inns at hot springs.

"The government has asked us to be ready to take in as many as 200 evacuees for the next four months at least," said Masaki Hata, whose family has run the Yoshikawaya Hot Springs Inn on the outskirts of Fukushima for seven generations.

Twisters pound South At least 44 dead

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Twisters pound South At least 44 dead. Lowe's store manager Michael Hollowell had heard the tornado warnings but his first clue that the danger was outside his front door came when he saw his staff running toward the back of the home improvement store.

More than 100 employees and customers screamed in near unison when the steel roof curled off overhead Saturday. The store was becoming part of the wreckage left by a ferocious storm system bristling with killer twisters that ripped through the South.

"You could hear all the steel ripping. People screaming in fear for their lives," Hollowell told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Those in the store did not become part of the death toll that totaled at least 44 across six states, and officials said quick action by Hollowell and his employees helped them all make it out alive in Sanford, about 40 miles south of Raleigh.

In all of Lee County, where Sanford is located, officials said there was just one confirmed fatality during the storm, which claimed at least 21 lives statewide, damaged hundreds of homes and left a swath of destruction unmatched by any spring storm since the mid-1980s.

In Raleigh early Monday, authorities were blocking access to a mobile home park of about 200 homes where three children were killed. Officials planned to assess conditions after sunrise before deciding whether to allow residents to return home.

Power lines and trees still covered nearby roads. Where roads were clear, there were massive piles of debris that had been pushed to the side of the street.

Gov. Beverly Perdue said Monday morning on NBC's "Today" show that she'd never seen anything like the devastation, saying it appeared that homes had been handled like paper doll houses. Search-and-rescue teams were still operating all over the eastern part of the state, and federal officials were beginning their damage assessments, she said.

"The good news is that the tornados have left and things are brighter today in North Carolina," Perdue said.

The violent weather began Thursday in Oklahoma, where two people died, before cutting across the Deep South on Friday and hitting North Carolina and Virginia on Saturday. Authorities said seven people died in Arkansas; seven in Alabama; six in Virginia; and one in Mississippi. North Carolina's state emergency management agency said it had reports of 23 fatalities from Saturday's storms, but local officials confirmed only 21 deaths to The Associated Press.

An apparent tornado passed near a Virginia nuclear power plant, knocking down power lines. Dominion Virginia Power said backup sources including diesel generators kept electricity going to maintain both units at its Surry Power Station. The tornado didn't hit the two nuclear units, which are designed to withstand weather, earthquakes and hurricanes, the company said.

More than 240 tornadoes were reported from the storm system, including 62 in North Carolina, but the National Weather Service's final numbers could be lower because some tornadoes may have been reported more than once.

Meanwhile, survivors recalled miraculous escapes.

In the Bladen County community of Ammon, about 70 miles south of Raleigh, Audrey McKoy and her husband Milton saw a tornado bearing down on them over the tops of the pine trees that surround the seven or eight mobile homes that make up their neighborhood. He glanced at a nearby farm and saw the winds lifting pigs and other animals in the sky.

"It looked just like 'The Wizard of Oz,'" Audrey said.

They took shelter in their laundry room, and after emerging once the storm had passed, were disoriented for a moment. The twister had turned their mobile home around and they were standing in their backyard.

Milton found three bodies in their neighborhood, including 92-year-old Marchester Avery and his 50-year-old son, Tony, who died in adjacent mobile homes. He stopped his wife from coming over to see.

"You don't want to look at this," he told her.

The storms crushed trailer parks and brought life in the center of the state's second-largest city to a virtual standstill. It was the worst outbreak in the state since 22 twisters in 1984 killed 42 people.

Perdue planned to tour hard-hit areas in three counties Monday. The devastation she saw Sunday left her near tears, she said. The storm pummeled bustling cities and remote rural communities. One of Perdue's stops was downtown Raleigh, where fallen trees blocked major thoroughfares and damage to the Shaw University campus forced it to cancel the remainder of its spring semester.

Perdue said she'd been in contact with President Barack Obama, who pledged his support, and that federal emergency management workers were already on the ground.

"We have in North Carolina a tremendous relationship with our federal partners, and have been through this so many times," she said. "That's not a good thing. That's a bad thing."

One place Perdue was scheduled to visit was Bertie County, where storms were deadliest. At least 11 residents died, Bertie County Manager Zee Lamb said, including three members of the same family.

Jean Burkett lived near Roy and Barbara Lafferty and Barbara's mother, Helen White, in Colerain. Burkett and Barbara Lafferty graduated from high school together in 1964 and had always been neighbors. On Sunday, at her relatively untouched home, Burkett pointed out a row of four or five about 400 yards away that had been demolished. The Laffertys and Helen White died in their home.

"The neighborhood has lost some mighty fine neighbors," Burkett said. "It's the worst thing we've ever seen."

The conditions that allowed for the storm occur on the Great Plains maybe twice a year, but they almost never happen in North Carolina, according to Scott Sharp, a weather service meteorologist in Raleigh.

The atmosphere was unstable Saturday, which allows air to rise and fall quickly, creating winds of hurricane strength or greater. There was also plenty of moisture in the air, which fuels violent storms. Shear winds at different heights, moving in different directions, created the spin needed to create tornadoes, Sharp said.

Many of the deaths across the state occurred in mobile homes like the ones in Ammon. The three deaths in Raleigh were in a mobile home park about five miles north of downtown, which was still closed off to residents early Monday.

Census data from 2007, the latest available, estimates 14.5 percent of residences in North Carolina are mobile homes, the seventh highest percentage in the nation and well over the U.S. average of 6.7 percent.

North Carolina officials tallied more than 130 serious injuries, 65 homes destroyed and another 600 significantly damaged by Sunday evening, according to state public safety spokeswoman Julia Jarema. Officials expect those totals to climb as damage assessments continue.

Back at the Lowe's store, Joseph Rosser and his 13-year-old daughter, Hannah, had pulled their Chevrolet Colorado pickup off the road Saturday, seeking shelter. Instead, the store's exterior concrete toppled, crushing the truck's cab with both inside.

"I really didn't see much because I had a pillow over my face to protect my head and I heard my dad tell me it was going to be OK," Hannah said. "And then all of a sudden, I just heard a loud boom.

"My dad was lying there, telling me he was going to die," said Hannah, her midsection wrapped in a back brace. "He sounded very hoarse like he couldn't breathe. He was crying and was hurt really bad."

She crawled out the truck's shattered back window and ran around the parking lot calling for help, because her cell phone wouldn't work. Both Rossers are recovering from their injuries.

While the death toll may climb and while it will be weeks before final damage assessments are completed, residents and officials alike are looking to make repairs and start building what was lost.

Aleta Tootle and four other people sheltered in a closet in her Bertie County home, emerging with only a few scratches after the rest of the building was ripped to shreds. Surveying the wreckage Sunday, she said there was only one thing left to do.