But it's not the government that's charging.

An unidentified man pulls up in a large SUV, usually brandishing an AK-47, and accepts an envelope of cash without saying a word. Jose and nine other drivers who pay the extortionists estimate that it amounts to more than $500 a year to park on public property. During Christmas, the cabbies dish out another $500 each in holiday "bonuses."

Meanwhile, Jose pays the city $30 a year for his taxi license.

"Who do you think is really in charge here?" Jose asked me.

It is an interesting question, one I have been trying to answer since I arrived here a year ago as a correspondent for The Associated Press. Is the government in charge? The drug traffickers? The gangs? This curious capital of 1.3 million people is a lawless place, but it does seem to have its own set of unwritten rules for living with the daily dangers.

Jose, who did not want his last name used for fear of reprisals, says his extortionists are from "18th Street," a powerful gang that started in U.S. prisons. The taxi drivers don't bother to report the crime, he says, because they suspect police are involved in the racket. In the first six months of 2012, 51 taxi drivers were killed in Tegucigalpa most of them, Jose's colleagues believe, for failing to pay extortionists.

When I moved to Tegucigalpa last March several friends back home in Spain wanted to know why. The big story was in Egypt, Libya and Syria; what was I planning to do on the other side of the globe? "Bear witness," I said, "to the most violent place in the world, to a country in crisis."

I am the only foreign correspondent here, with no press pack to consult on questions of security, or to rely on for safety in numbers. I fall back on instincts honed in war zones, but they are not always sufficient when you are covering a failing state.

When you are in the trenches of Libya, you generally know where the shooting comes from. But in Honduras, you never know where danger lurks.

Three weeks after I arrived, I attended a ceremony in the capital where U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Brownfield delivered 30 motorcycles to President Porfirio Lobo to help Honduras fight crime. A neighborhood leader, however, had complained to me that the narcos had bribed some police officers to look the other way. I asked the officials if they weren't afraid the motorcycles would end up in the hands of the bad guys.

I got no answer. Instead a Honduran reporter wrapped his arm around my shoulder and whispered, "We don't ask questions like that here." If I wanted to survive in Honduras, he said, "Keep a low profile."

More than two dozen Honduran journalists have been killed in the last two years. Some reporters carry weapons to protect themselves, others use the armed guards that President Lobo offered after a prominent Honduran radio journalist was assassinated last May reportedly in retaliation for a government crackdown on cartels.

It is not hard to become a fatality. A few months ago, I interviewed a lawyer, Antonio Trejo, who was defending the peasants of Aguan Valley in a land dispute against agribusiness tycoon Miguel Facusse, one of the most powerful men in the country. Trejo had warned repeatedly that he would be killed for helping the campesinos. Two days after I interviewed him, he was shot six times as he was leaving church by two men on a motorcycle.

In August, I took a walk on a Sunday with a couple of friends in a sad dilapidated park one of only two in the city. I got a call on my iPhone. I stepped away from friends and began to walk as I talked, as you would in a normal city, a normal park. Suddenly two teenagers approached me, asking first for a cigarette, then for the phone. I hung up, put the phone in my pocket and shouted over to my friends, who helped me chase the young men away once we realized they weren't armed.

But I learned my lesson. Unwritten rule: Do not walk around talking on an iPhone, which costs about three times a monthly salary in Honduras. And forget the park.

Like most Hondurans who can afford it, my family and I live behind high gated walls with a guard out front. After the park episode, I gave up my morning ritual of newspapers and espresso at an outdoor cafe. I don't go out at night.

In the daytime, I use trusted drivers like Jose to guide me through Tegucigalpa's chaotic streets, past its barbed-wire fences, mounds of garbage and packs of dogs. I keep the tinted windows up, thedoors locked, and we don't stop at the lights, so we won't get carjacked.

I vary my routes. I try not to fall victim to the permanent sense of danger that hangs over the capital, where the conversation is invariably about whose relative was just killed, or what atrocity happened on the corner. Yet I constantly check the rear and side mirrors of Jose's car for approaching motorcycles. Honduras has the world's highest murder rate, and paid gunmen almost always travel by motorcycle to make a quick getaway through impossible traffic.

The violence is a stark contrast to the friendly feel of a land where many have a Caribbean attitude about life, happy and easygoing. Once you leave the cities, the landscape is amazing wild, healthy, and savage, from the waterfalls of La Tigra National park, just half an hour from the capital, to the islands of the Caribbean and the world's second largest coral reef.

___

Our babysitter, Wendy, sells Avon products door-to-door to make extra money after her child's father disappeared on his clandestine journey to the U.S. to find work.

Last month, she was on her way to deposit her Avon earnings in the bank when a robber pointed a knife at her waist and told her to hand over the cash. He took 5,000 lempiras about $250 which was everything she had earned, including the money she owed Avon.

Again last week, Wendy encountered thieves, this time as she left my house about 7:30 p.m. Half a block away, she passed a group of basketball players just as three gunmen threw them up against a wall, stealing their money and phones. "They looked like police," she said of the gunmen.

Two days later, a neighbor in her poor barrio of ramshackle huts and dirt roads was robbed by an armed drug addict. The neighbor escaped, went home for his own gun and returned to kill the drug addict. "Police thanked him for the favor," Wendy said.

___

My best friend here is a man named German who studied art and opened a tattoo parlor with a business partner. They were talented and developed a good clientele, particularly among youths looking to leave the street gangs and get rid of the signature tattoos. German learned how to convert numbers such as 18 into pirate ships, and to turn other gang symbols into random designs. He saw this as a kind of social service, removing a stigma from the skin of a gangster who wanted to return to civilian life, and he asked to borrow a camera of mine to take pictures of their work.

Some days later, German's partner was walking home when a black car drew near. He tried to run until the front-seat passenger screamed at him to halt. "Get in and put this on," the man said, handing him a black hood.

They took him to a dark room where they removed the hood and claimed he spied on them. They tortured him for several hours before letting him go, with a broken rib.

My friend closed his shop and moved to a new house. He knows they are looking for him.

German comes from a family of means. Here, violence is democratic.

___

Honduran officials receive aid from the U.S. to fight the trafficking of cocaine headed for the U.S. market. The country has 640 kilometers (400 miles) of northern Caribbean coastline, with plenty of tree cover and great uninhabited stretches for moving drugs. It is flanked by the port town of Puerto Lempira in the east and San Pedro Sula in the west.

While Hondurans blame their police for much of the crime, police say they are overwhelmed and outgunned by the drug traffickers and criminals. AP photographer Esteban Felix and I decided to see this for ourselves, and rode with police in San Pedro Sula, the country's largest and wealthiest city.

In one night, we saw the bodies of two bus drivers who had been killed for refusing to pay a cut to gangs, a police officer executed on a highway with a single shot to the head, and three people shot dead in a pool hall for what was described as "a settling of accounts."

The hospital emergency room looked like a scene out of a civil war, with mop-wielding orderlies failing to keep up with the blood pooling on the floor.

The owner of the bus company urged his employees to remove the drivers' bodies and collect the fares from the bloodied bus before police did. Once again, I made the mistake of asking a question, this time of the owner of the bus company. He turned in anger and ordered me not to publish what I had seen, while asking me repeatedly, "Where are you staying?"

Needless to say, I did not stay the night in San Pedro Sula.

I returned to the capital, which, despite the violence, has become my home. My two-year-old daughter can say Tegucigalpa which is not easy. And every time she sees the flag, she waves and says "Honduras," as she was taught in her preschool.

Somehow, we already belong to this country. After 10 months living here, I have learned the rules of survival. If Jose pays his weekly extortion fee, chances are he'll survive.

And since I'm usually sitting in the passenger seat, chances are so will I.

The work, "HIM" by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, has drawn many visitors since it was installed last month. It is visible only from a distance, and the artist doesn't make explicit what Hitler is praying for, but the broader point, organizers say, is to make people reflect on the nature of evil.

In any case, some are angered by the statue's presence in such a sensitive site.

One Jewish advocacy group, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, this week called the statue's placement "a senseless provocation which insults the memory of the Nazis' Jewish victims."

"As far as the Jews were concerned, Hitler's only 'prayer' was that they be wiped off the face of the earth," the group's Israel director, Efraim Zuroff, said in a statement.

However, many others are praising the artwork, saying it has a strong emotional impact. And organizers defend putting it on display in the former ghetto.

Fabio Cavallucci, director of the Center for Contemporary Art, which oversaw the installation, said, "There is no intention from the side of the artist or the center to insult Jewish memory."

"It's an artwork that tries to speak about the situation of hidden evil everywhere," he said.

The Warsaw ghetto was an area of the city which the Nazis sealed off after they invaded Poland. They forced Jews to live in cramped, inhuman conditions there as they awaited deportation to death camps. Many died from hunger or disease or were shot by the Germans before they could be transported to the camps.

The Hitler installation is just one object in a retrospective of Cattelan's work titled "Amen," a show that explores life, death, good and evil. The other works are on display at the center itself, which is housed in the Ujazdowski Castle.

The Hitler representation is visible from a hole in a wooden gate across town on Prozna Street. Viewers only see the back of the small figure praying in a courtyard. Because of its small size, it appears to be a harmless schoolboy.

"Every criminal was once a tender, innocent and defenseless child," the center said in a commentary on the work.

Poland's chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, said he was consulted on the installation's placement ahead of time and did not oppose it because he saw value in the artist's attempt to try to raise moral questions by provoking viewers.

He said he was reassured by curators who told him there was no intention of rehabilitating Hitler but rather of showing that evil can present itself in the guise of a "sweet praying child."

"I felt there could be educational value to it," said Schudrich, who also wrote an introduction to the exhibition's catalogue in which he says art can "force us to face the evil of the world."

On Friday, a stream of people walked by to view the work, and many praised it.

"It had a big emotional impact on me. It's provocative, but it's not offensive," said Zofia Jablonska, a 30-year-old lawyer. "Having him pray in the place where he would kill people this was the best place to put it."

Cattelan caused controversy in Warsaw in 2000 when another gallery showed his work "La Nona Ora" or "The Ninth Hour" which depicts the late Pope John Paul II being crushed by a meteorite. That offended many in Poland, which is both deeply Catholic and was John Paul's homeland.

Some flights headed for New York, Philadelphia and Newark, New Jersey, experienced delays averaging one to four hours due to the inclement weather, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

About 1,300 U.S. flights had been canceled on Wednesday, according to FlightAware.com. Several airlines waived ticket change fees for affected customers.

All four runways at Philadelphia International Airport were open on Wednesday, but that didn't prevent cancellation of physical therapist Mindy Bartscherer's flight to Minneapolis.

She and her son Zachary Bartscherer, 24, a lobbyist from Washington D.C., had planned to visit family but instead waited forlornly in the baggage claim area for a ride back home. They expected to return to the airport early on Thursday to try again.

"We were going to have dinner and see my 2-year-old niece," Mindy Bartscherer said of their thwarted plans for Wednesday night.

The National Weather Service issued blizzard and winter storm warnings in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, as well as much of the Northeast, and cautioned that the wintry weather would create "treacherous" driving conditions.

More than six inches of snow might fall in those regions, while the area from western New York up into central Maine could get from 12 to 18 inches, the NWS said.

As of Wednesday morning, Bloomington, Indiana, already had nearly a foot of snow and Indianapolis had about seven inches, according to AccuWeather.com.

Severe thunderstorms and widespread rain were expected from southeast Virginia to Florida, the NWS said, and the eastern counties in North Carolina and South Carolina were under tornado watches or warnings for much of the day.

The wet and snowy conditions follow a major winter storm system that swept through the southern United States on Tuesday, spawning tornadoes in several states and causing the deaths of at least five people in weather-related road accidents.

Twisters struck in Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana, flattening houses and causing injuries, according to the weather service. The storm also dumped record snowfalls in North Texas and Arkansas.

Nearly 200,000 homes and businesses remained without electricity in Arkansas and Alabama on Wednesday.

Damage assessments were conducted in the 11 Alabama counties that reported varying degrees of property destruction from Tuesday's storms.

The city of Mobile appeared to be hardest hit, with damage to as many as 100 structures, including the historic Trinity Episcopal Church, according to the Alabama Emergency Management Agency.

Governor Phil Bryant declared a state of emergency in Mississippi, where a dozen counties reported damage and more than 25 people were injured on Tuesday.

The severe holiday weather also contributed to a 21-vehicle pile-up that shut Interstate 40 in downtown Oklahoma City on Tuesday and caused power outages for tens of thousands of residents.

A Texas man died after an accident involving a toppled tree in the road, and icy roads contributed to the deaths of four people in auto crashes in Oklahoma and Arkansas, according to police.

About 1,000 people spent the night on cots at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport after some 400 flights were canceled there on Tuesday due to weather, said Cynthia Vega, media relations manager at the airport.

On Wednesday morning, some 50 more flights were canceled, she said.

"We're hoping to get passengers back on track," Vega said. "It's probably going to be a little hectic at the airport."

(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins; Additional reporting by Corrie MacLaggan, Eileen O'Grady, Steve Olafson and Dave Warner; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Gunna Dickson)

Holders Europe have a slender 4 1/2-3 1/2 lead ahead of Sunday's eight singles matches at the Empire Country Club in Brunei with Jose Maria Olazabal's side needing four more points to win the annual contest loosely based on the Ryder Cup model.

Asia have won the Royal Trophy only once, in 2009, with Europe winning the four other editions. A fifth win looked odds on after Olazabal's side had taken three-point lead from the opening foursomes but Asia had other ideas on the second day.

India's Jeev Milkha Singh rolled in a four-foot putt on the 18th as he and Kiradech Aphibarnrat of Thailand scored a fighting half in their match against Olazabal and Spanish compatriot Miguel Angel Jimenez in the opening game of the day.

Singh's putt also drew a welcome response from the crowd on his 41st birthday.

"It was nice to hear the crowd singing happy birthday. They might not have bothered if I had missed on 18," the Indian said in a television interview.

Jimenez and Olazabal, who was nursing what appeared to be a neck injury throughout the round, both narrowly missed makeable putts on the last to claim the win.

Despite the pain, Olazabal, who grimaced after hitting shots and had his caddie help stretch out his shoulders and neck during the round, will lead off the singles against South Korean Bae Sang-moon on Sunday.

South Korean Kim Kyung-tae then rolled in a four-footer on the 17th as he and compatriot Yang Yong-eun claimed a topsy-turvy 2&1 win over Spain's Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano and Swede Henrik Stenson.

The Korean duo were five up through nine holes but the Europeans closed the deficit and trailed by only one with three to play before Kim's pinpoint approach to the par-four 17th set up a birdie and Asia's first win of the sixth edition.

Bae could have added the second win for Asia shortly after but he missed his birdie effort on the 18th to half the match with Belgian Nicolas Colsaerts and German playing partner Marcel Siem.

Bae and Chinese partner Wu Ashun would have had two putts for the win but European Ryder Cup winner Colsaerts rolled in a 14ft effort on the final green to set up the half.

Japanese duo Ryo Ishikawa and Yoshinori Fujimoto then sealed a come-from-behind 3&1 win over Italian brothers Edoardo and Francesco Molinari to make it Asia's day and give them hope of winning the trophy.

"The whole team knows we have to play our very best golf to win, but we have given ourselves a good chance," Wu said. (Reporting by Patrick Johnston in Singapore; Editing by John O'Brien)

Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba made the announcement Thursday at the party's Mangaung conference, being held in the city also known as Bloemfontein.

Addressing a news conference televised live, Gigaba said: "There shouldn't be from here, forthwith, any expectation that the ANC will move out of here and start deciding who and where we are going to start nationalizing."

There have been calls from the ANC's youth league for the mines to be nationalized as the only way to equitably share the country's rich resources. There also has been recent unrest, wildcat strikes and violence at the nation's mines, one of the country's main economic engines.

David Lee Csicsko, a Chicago mosaic artist who specializes in public installations, designed the annual display in the corridor leading to the East Room and the State Dining Room, both areas that are elaborately decorated at the beginning of each holiday season.

The White House decorations, which included Csicsko's work and a tree featuring holiday cards by children of service members from around the world, were unveiled to reporters and dozens of school children by first lady Michelle Obama Wednesday. As many as 90,000 people will view the decorations throughout the season.

Csicsko, 55, was told his selection was based on the large-scale art glass installation he created for a chapel at the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.

The tradition of decorating the White House for Christmas started with first lady Caroline Harrison in 1889 with an indoor tree lit by candles and her own decorations. Since then, the display tradition has remained the first lady's responsibility and has evolved to incorporate issues of particular interest to the women in charge.

Jacqueline Kennedy solicited artwork from the disabled and seniors for a "Nutcracker" theme in 1962. Nancy Reagan commissioned decorations from a drug treatment organization in Washington. Hillary Clinton invited artisans from the National Needlework Association and Council of Fashion Designers of America to create a "Santa's Workshop" motif in 1997, while Laura Bush emphasized animals for "All Creatures Great and Small," her choice for 2002.

Csicsko says he has long been drawn to public spaces that serve as sanctuaries amid dense urban areas, beginning with the Catholic church he attended while growing up in Hammond, Indiana.

"The church seemed very vibrant and an oasis for me," he said.

CELEBRATORY SIMPLICITY

His work at the White House, a combination of stained glass windows, outdoor sculpture and ornamental topiaries, references America's folk art past, from the colonial period through early last century.

Created with over 40 pieces of cut glass each, the four large stained-glass windows that line the corridor of the East Room and overlook the first lady's garden use ornamental emblems from different eras an eagle, open pineapple, acorns that Csicsko says are meant to present a simplicity worthy of the American Shakers while remaining celebratory.

"The idea was trying to create something universal, so no matter how feel about the holidays, you could see these and smile," he said.

Two decorative Christmas trees Csicsko sculpted from wood are on display in the garden. Inside the State Dining Room, where the White House's annual 400-pound (180-kg) gingerbread house is on display each year, Csicsko created four planter boxes housing topiary trees that are each decorated with round ceramic tiles colored to match the room's draperies and featuring iconic American images such as the soaring eagle.

Nancie Mills Pipgras, editor of the online magazine "Mosaic Art Now," says she was not surprised Csicsko was chosen for the White House considering "his work is a people magnet."

"The White House is the people's house and his work speaks to people universally," she said.

Csicsko is under White House orders to not reveal the budget for the decorations, but he says the process involved contracting with artisan friends in several states to manufacture the elements.

He says he has not yet met President Obama or Michelle Obama, but did have "a quiet moment" with Bo, their dog, who was roaming the corridor.

"I have this feeling I went from being a Chicago artist to becoming an American artist, this crossing over to a bigger place," he said.

(Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Eric Walsh)

Conoco has said it is selling less profitable overseas assets so the U.S. oil company can focus on growing its lower-cost domestic shale oil and natural gas business.

Oando Energy, which is focused on oil exploration and production in Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea, said it paid $435 million in cash to ConocoPhillips when it signed the deal.

The deal, expected to close by mid-2013, includes Conoco's interest in onshore and offshore properties in Nigeria that produced 43,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day through October, the companies said.

Earlier this week, Conoco announced the sale of its Algerian business to Indonesia's state-run oil company Pertamina for around $1.75 billion.

Conoco's asset sales this year total $11 billion, the Houston-based company said.

"These were acts of domestic terrorism against Michigan citizens and we are charging them as such," said Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette of the case against Raulie Casteel, 43, of Wixom, Michigan, a small town about 35 miles northwest of Detroit.

Casteel also faces felony firearms charges. The terrorism charge, based on 21 attacks committed in mid-October, is punishable by life in prison.

Casteel was arrested on November 5 and was previously charged in Livingston and Oakland Counties.

He is accused of shooting at other vehicles in a four-county area in southeastern Michigan, mostly on or near Interstate 96. Only one person was injured.

The attorney general's office determined a terrorism charge was appropriate because Casteel terrified the public with multiple acts of violence, a spokeswoman said.

(Reporting By Mary Wisniewski; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)

Mraz's 2008 hit "I'm Yours" was the finale for Sunday night's concert before a crowd of about 50,000 people at the base of the famous hilltop Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, the country's biggest city.

Local artists, including a hip-hop singer, also played at the event organized by MTV in cooperation with U.S. and Australian government aid agencies and the anti-slavery organization Walk Free.

Myanmar is emerging from decades of isolation under a reformist elected government that took office last year after almost five decades of military rule. It has been one of the region's poorest countries, and its bad human rights record made it the target of political and economic sanctions by Western nations.

But democratic reforms initiated by President Thein Sein have led to the lifting of most sanctions, and the country is hopeful of a political and economic revival. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy opposition leader, was released from house arrest in late 2010 and won a seat in parliament last April.

Mraz called his top-billed appearance at the concert a "tremendous honor."

"I think the country is, at this time, downloading lots of new information from all around the world," he said. "I've always wanted my music to be here, (for) hope and celebration, peace, love and happiness. And so I'm delighted that my music can be a part of this big download that Myanmar is experiencing right now."

Organizers said Mraz was the first international artist to perform at an open-air, mass public concert in Myanmar. Jazz artists Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Charlie Byrd visited the country under U.S. government sponsorship in the 1970s, when it was still called Burma, but played at much smaller venues.

Many in the crowd queued for two hours before being admitted to the concert site. Yangon native Sann Oo, 31, wearing a white T-shirt with a sketch of Mraz, said he was pleased that Mraz had come and that there would be a broadcast of the event.

"His visit can promote the image of Myanmar, because people outside have been seeing the country as an insecure place, and poor," he said. "Now they can see how we look like from the concert. It also opens the potential for more concerts by foreign artists."

Mraz has a history of involvement with human rights and other social causes.

But there was some criticism of his visit by campaigners for Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya community, which has been the target of ethnic-based violence this year that has forced scores of thousands of people from their homes into makeshift refugees camps. They feel Myanmar's government has been complicit in the discrimination, and that Mraz's visit provides it cover with the image of being a defender of human rights.

Walk Free used the occasion of Sunday's concert to launch a campaign calling on the world's major corporations "to work together to end modern slavery by identifying, eradicating and preventing forced labor in their operations and supply chains." They are seeking to have the companies make a "zero tolerance for slavery pledge" by the end of March next year.

"While many think of slavery as a relic of history, experts estimate that there are currently 20.9 million people living under threat of violence, abuse and harsh penalties," the Australia-based group said in a statement. "Within this massive number, the majority of people more than 14.2 million are in a forced labor situation, used to source raw materials, and create products in sectors such as agriculture, construction, manufacturing and domestic work."

The Wildcats' only loss came at Baylor late in the season, when they had climbed to No. 1 in the BCS standings. They rebounded to beat Texas last Saturday to wrap up their first Big 12 title since 2003, when Snyder was still in his first tenure at Kansas State.

Snyder also won the award last season, when he led the Wildcats to the Cotton Bowl, and in 1998, when Kansas State came up just short of playing for a national championship. The only other three-time winner of the award is Oklahoma's Bob Stoops.