Friday is a "sun day" of sorts for the 205 students at Bellingham Christian School, a small, private, nondenominational Christian school in Bellingham, Wash., about 90 miles north of Seattle.

"SCHOOL CANCELLED DUE TO GREAT WEATHER! WAHOOO!" the school's website announced Thursday night. "Yeah! It's a Sun Day today and everyone gets the day off from school."

Principal Bob Sampson said he wanted to give students some time to re-energize and enjoy the weather, adding that he wanted to re-create the excitement snow days get among the kids. He began teasing the possibility of giving the day off earlier in the week.

"In a world that's got a lot hard things going, it's fun to create a moment of joy," Sampson said.

The forecast for Western Washington calls for a weekend of sunshine, with highs hitting the low 80s in some parts of the region on Sunday.

The sun day was also made possible because there weren't any days off because of snow this school year.

"Kids just love the anticipation of sitting around see if school is canceled when it snows," he said. "You know, we haven't had any snow days, so I thought 'how fun would it be to create that anticipation for kids when it's nice out?'"

Sampson surveyed parents to make sure the day off wouldn't cause any hardships and floated the idea with the school board before canceling school, he said. The 22 staff members will also get the day off, he added.

Sampson and another staff member will be at the school bright and early, though, to welcome any students who didn't get the notice.

The principal asked students to take pictures of what they do on their sunny day off. He plans to show the pictures at an assembly Monday.

It's not the first time the school has given students the day off because of sunshine. The last time was two years ago.

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - While Brazil struggles to finish its stadiums in time for the 2014 World Cup, Twitter is already working to cash in on what the U.S. company's head of revenue, Adam Bain, sees as a potentially huge business opportunity.

Robust consumer spending, growth potential from still-low Internet penetration and fast adoption of smart phones have turned this nation of 194 million people into an attractive market for Twitter and other online giants.

With soccer's World Cup rapidly approaching and the 2016 Olympics around the corner, Brazil stands out as the kind of opportunity a company under pressure to monetize its 200 million-strong user base doesn't want to miss.

"You think about the next 10 years in Brazil and it is really going to be amazing from a business perspective," Bain, Twitter's global president of revenue, said in an interview on a visit to Sao Paulo this week.

"Brazil is the largest opportunity we see in Latin America and frankly across all of the other markets," the executive said. "That's why we are here building and we will continue to invest in this market in a big way."

The World Cup and the Olympics are meant to showcase Brazil's status as an emerging economic power. But with just a year left before the opening match, Latin America's biggest economy is struggling to finish new stadiums and put in place key infrastructure such as G4 mobile networks.

For Twitter, the international sports events are also crucial. The San Francisco-based company saw record levels of traffic during the 2012 London Olympics and launched a model of integration with TV that company executives like Bain think may be a substantial part of its monetizing strategy.

Twitter makes money through its "promoted tweets" or advertisement posts that users receive in their tweet feeds. The company is expected to generate nearly $600 million in revenues this year, according to the research firm eMarketer.

Bain, the man in charge of turning Twitters' huge user base into money, came to Brazil to talk to businesses that are starting to lay out their strategies for the World Cup and the Olympics.

"Some of our most strategic deals that we have signed with marketers, which are global deals that we have signed over multiple years, many of them include work that they want to do here in Brazil during the World Cup and the Olympics," he said.

The challenge is not so much explaining to marketers why they have to incorporate the microblogging platform into their marketing strategies as it is to show them how to do it.

BRAZIL, A NO-BRAINER

Twitter is one of the latest U.S. Internet companies to land in Brazil, an emerging market that has embraced social media with almost religious zeal.

Just six months ago the company hired a former Yahoo! executive to lead the charge and the sense of work in progress is apparent in the impersonal, half-empty rental office Twitter occupies in Sao Paulo's financial district.

But things have changed since rival Facebook got here a couple of years ago. Brazil's once hefty economic growth slowed down to a mere 0.9 percent in 2012 and mounting inflation is beginning to dent consumer confidence, dimming some of the enthusiasm over the Internet's potential here.

And yet Bain says opening an office in Brazil was a no-brainer. Even before setting foot here, the country was already Twitter's No. 3 market after the United States and Japan, with an estimated 40 million subscribers.

"The overall impact has potential to be huge," he said when asked when asked about the revenue Twitter expected from the World Cup and the Olympics, which he declined to estimate.

An Internet penetration rate of just 44 percent - half that of the United States - combined with soaring sales of smart phones to a booming middle class, make Brazil attractive in the long run for companies like Twitter and Facebook.

And, according to Bain, users in Brazil are responding better than others to advertisement in the form of "promoted tweets," with an engagement rate two or three times higher than the global average.

"The world's spotlight is going to move to Brazil in a very dramatic fashion and investment certainly follows with that."

(Reporting by Esteban Israel; Editing by Vicki Allen)

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - The Florida Senate sent Governor Rick Scott a package of capital-punishment reforms on Monday designed to prevent condemned killers from spending decades on Death Row, despite warnings that speeding up the legal appeals process could lead to innocent prisoners being executed.

The "Timely Justice Act" sets deadlines for condemned killers to file appeals, and for the state to proceed with issuing warrants after the Florida Supreme Court upholds death sentences.

It also sets competency standards for lawyers handling cases. To reduce the number of appeals alleging incompetent counsel, any attorney twice found to have provided "constitutionally deficient representation" will be suspended from handling death appeals for five years.

"Is swift justice fair justice?" asked Democratic party Senator Arthenia Joyner, a Tampa attorney who voted against the bill. "We have seen cases where, years later, convicted people were exonerated," she said.

"I don't see the reason for the swiftness, especially with DNA evidence that can exonerate," said Senator Maria Sachs, who is also an attorney and a Democrat.

But Republican Senator Rob Bradley said, "this is not about guilt or innocence, it's about timely justice." Frivolous appeals designed only for delay are not fair to victims and their families, he said.

The act also requires the state Supreme Court to make annual reports to the Legislature on how many capital appeals have been pending more than three years. Attorneys found to have provided incompetent counsel would also be reported to the Florida Bar.

"Only God can judge," Matt Gaetz, a Republican who sponsored the bill in the House of Representatives, said last week during House debate. "But we sure can set up the meeting."

The House passed Gaetz's bill 84-34 last week. Governor Scott, a conservative Republican, is expected to sign the changes into law.

Florida has 400 men and five women currently under death sentence, with the next execution set for May 29. Gaetz and backers of his bill said 155 have been on Death Row for more than 20 years and 10 have been there more than 35 years.

Staff analysis of Gaetz's bill said the average time between sentence and execution, since Florida resumed executions in 1979, has been 13 years. The state has carried out 75 warrants in that time, second only to Texas, which has executed 496 convicted killers since 1976.

Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., said 33 states currently have capital punishment, but Maryland is set to abolish it when that state's governor signs a repeal law this week. Five states have repealed the death penalty in the past six years, Dieter said.

"There's been a trend away from capital punishment," said Dieter. "The number of sentences imposed in the country has declined by 75 percent since 1990 and only nine states carried out an execution last year."

State Senator Darren Soto tried on Friday to raise the required jury vote from seven to 10 for death penalties. He said Florida is the only state allowing juries to recommend death by a simple majority of 7 to 5. He said Alabama is the only other state allowing non-unanimous death recommendations, which he said require 10 votes there.

(Editing by David Adams and Nick Zieminski)

- - -

Tigers 7, Braves 4

Omar Infante went 3-for-4 with a two-run homer and three RBIs to power host Detroit to its second straight victory over Atlanta.

Jhonny Peralta also had a two-run shot and Miguel Cabrera added a pair of hits and two RBIs to back 6 1/3 solid innings from Tigers starter Rick Porcello (1-2).

Porcello allowed three runs on five hits after lasting only two-thirds of an inning in his previous start.

Justin Upton clubbed his major league-leading 12th homer and Freddie Freeman had two hits and an RBI for the Braves, who tumbled to their sixth defeat in eight games. Kris Medlen (1-3) allowed five runs on a career-worst 10 hits in 5 1/3 innings.

- - -

Phillies 9, Mets 4

Domonic Brown belted a three-run homer to break open the game in the fifth inning and Ryan Howard knocked in a pair of runs as visiting Philadelphia rolled over New York.

Rookie Jonathan Pettibone (1-0) earned his first major-league victory in his second start, allowing three runs and seven hits over five innings.

John Mayberry Jr. also hit a solo homer in the five-run fifth while Michael Young collected three hits for the Phillies, who produced their season high in runs.

John Buck recorded his eighth homer and captain David Wright added a pair of hits and an RBI for New York, which lost for the eighth time in 11 games.

Mets starter Shaun Marcum (0-1) went four innings in his season debut, allowing three runs on five hits.

- - -

Nationals 6, Reds 3

Dan Haren turned in six solid innings and Bryce Harper homered as Washington won its third straight over visiting Cincinnati.

Haren (2-3) allowed two runs and six hits in his longest outing of the season and opened the scoring with an RBI single in the second.

Denard Span added two hits and an RBI and Ian Desmond drove in a run for the Nationals, who will try to complete the four-game series sweep on Sunday.

Choo Shin-soo homered but Mike Leake (1-1) only lasted three innings in the start for the Reds, allowing four runs (three earned) and six hits to suffer the loss.(Editing by Gene Cherry)

One day after hundreds of Buddhists armed with bricks stormed a clutch of Muslim villages in the closest explosion of sectarian violence yet to Myanmar's main city, Yangon, newly displaced Muslims combed through the wasteland of their wrecked lives. Unable to go home, they faced an uncertain future too fearful of more attacks even to leave.

"We ran into the fields and didn't carry anything with us," Hla Myint, a 47-year-old father of eight, said after the mobs overran his village.

Tears welling in his eyes, he added, "Now, we have nothing left."

Thet Lwin, a deputy commissioner of police for the region, put the casualty toll from Tuesday's assaults at one dead and nine injured. He said police have detained 18 attackers who destroyed 157 homes and shops and at least two mosques in the town of Okkan, 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Yangon, and three outlying villages.

The unrest was the first reported since late March, when similar Buddhist-led violence swept the town of Meikthila, further north in central Myanmar, killing at least 43 people. It underscored the failure of reformist President Thein Sein's government to curb increasing attacks on minority Muslims in a nation struggling to emerge from half a century of oppressive military rule.

Muslim residents said a mixture of local villagers and people from nearby areas were responsible for the attacks around Okkan. Police gave no details on who was behind the assaults. But a local politician from the pro-government National Union party, Myint Thein, said members of a Buddhist campaign called "969" were involved.

The movement, which urges Buddhists to shop only at Buddhist stores and avoid marrying, hiring or selling their homes or land to Muslims, is small but has spread rapidly in recent months, and human rights activists say it has helped fuel anti-Muslim violence.

Stickers and signs bearing the 969 emblem each digit enumerates virtues of the Lord Buddha, his teachings and the community of monks have been popping up on shops, taxis, and buses in numerous towns and cities, including Yangon.

Hla Myint said that after the March violence, residents of Okkan began conducting informal security patrols to protect the village. But nothing happened for weeks and authorities told them not to worry.

"Things happened unexpectedly," he told The Associated Press. "When the crowds came, they shouted things like 'Don't defend yourselves, we will only destroy the mosque, not your homes, we won't harm you.'"

They burned his village's mosque, whose corrugated iron roof lay crumpled on the ground between the building's charred walls, and "they destroyed our houses" anyway, he said.

Around 300 police stood guard Wednesday in the area, which was quiet. Debris from trashed shops in Okkan spilled into dirt roadsides. The town's market was crowded, but Muslims were absent.

It was not immediately clear what would happen to the newly displaced in Okkan. Some were taking refuge in the few houses that were not razed; others simply sat in the open, under the shade of trees.

Several Muslims said they didn't feel safe, but would not leave because they feared more attacks elsewhere. They wondered how they would survive and get food.

Hla Aung, a 39-year-old Muslim who lost his home in the violence, said police did nothing to protect him echoing reports of idle security forces in Meikhtila and elsewhere. "They didn't help us. They did not do anything. That's why it's really difficult to trust them."

Aung Myint, 46, who lives in a predominantly Buddhist area nearby that was undamaged, said several men from his village were beaten after they tried to convince the attackers to stop. "We didn't dare to help them because we were worried for our own security," he said.

Stopping the spread of sectarian violence has proven a major challenge for Thein Sein's government since it erupted in western Rakhine state last year. Human rights groups have recently accused his administration of failing to crack down on Buddhist extremists as violence has spread closer to Yangon, at times overwhelming riot police who have stood by as machete-wielding crowds attacked Muslims and their property.

Last week, New York-based Human Rights Watch accused authorities in Rakhine state including Buddhist monks, local politicians and government officials, and state security forces of fomenting an organized campaign of "ethnic cleansing" against a Muslim minority known as the Rohingya. Hundreds of people were killed there, and some 125,000 people, mostly Muslims, remain displaced with large swathes of the state effectively segregated along sectarian lines.

On Monday, a government-appointed commission investigating the Rakhine violence issued proposals to ease tensions there including doubling the number of security forces in the volatile region and introducing family planning programs to stem population growth among minority Muslims.

Muslims account for about 4 percent of the nation's roughly 60 million people. About one third of the nation's population consists of ethnic minority groups, and most have waged wars against the government for autonomy.

___

Pitman reported from Bangkok. Associated Press video journalist Raul Gallego Abellan in Okkan contributed to this report.

The Unification Ministry in Seoul said 43 South Koreans began departing from Kaesong late Monday night and arrived in the South just past midnight after officials arranged vehicles to carry them across the border.

But it wasn't immediately known when the wage negotiations would take place and the remaining seven South Koreans would return home.

The departure of the last South Koreans would empty out the jointly run complex, located just across the border in the North Korean town of Kaesong, for the first time since it opened in 2004 and possibly lead to the permanent closure of the last symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.

Amid high tensions, North Korea suspended operations at Kaesong in early April, withdrawing all of its 53,000 workers and barring South Korean factory managers and trucks with supplies from entering the complex. It was the most significant action taken by North Korea as it sought to show its anger over South Korean-U.S. military drills and U.N. sanctions imposed over Pyongyang's February nuclear test, its third.

North Korea's accompanying torrent of warlike rhetoric included threats to launch nuclear strikes on the U.S., although it has recently shown some tentative signs of willingness to talk.

The U.S.-South Korean drills, which North Korea calls war preparations, ended Tuesday, the United States Forces Korea said.

Kurt Campbell, the former top U.S. diplomat for Asia, told reporters at a forum in Seoul that there was substantial concern with the way Pyongyang has treated what was supposed to be a venue to improve inter-Korean relations.

But he said what has happened at Kaesong wasn't a watershed moment like the shelling of a front-line South Korean island or the sinking of a South Korean warship, two attacks that killed 50 South Koreans in 2010. Pyongyang denies involvement in the sinking.

South Korea began withdrawing its remaining nationals from Kaesong on Saturday, citing a shortage of food and medicine for them, after North Korea rejected an offer to hold talks on the complex.

Kaesong, which combines South Korean knowhow and technology with cheap North Korean labor, is the last remaining cooperation project between the Koreas. The Korean Peninsula officially remains at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

Other collaborative programs, including tours from South Korea to a scenic North Korean mountain, have been stalled in recent years because of confrontation between the rival Koreas.

A group of businessmen with factories in Kaesong sought to visit North Korea on Tuesday but could not because Pyongyang didn't approve the trip, the Unification Ministry said.

__

Hyung-jin Kim reported from Seoul. AP writers Sam Kim and Foster Klug contributed to this report from Seoul.

Spike Albrecht of Michigan and Luke Hancock of Louisville came off their respective benches and each made all four of their 3-point attempts Monday night, as the Wolverines took a 38-37 lead after a breakneck first half in the national title game.

Albrecht had 17 points at halftime and still hasn't missed in nine attempts from beyond the arc during the NCAA tournament.

Hancock, who led Louisville with 20 points in its semifinal victory, had 16 at halftime of this one.

Albrecht, a freshman who averages less than eight minutes and two points a game because he plays behind AP Player of the Year Trey Burke, was 6 of 7 overall from the floor.

Burke scored seven points over the first 2:44 for the Wolverines to match his entire output from Saturday night's semifinal. But he drew his second foul with 11:09 and coach John Beilein replaced him with Albrecht.

Good call. The freshman from Crown Point, Ind., hasn't missed a 3-pointer since March 3. Before this game, he had only scored 67 points all season.

Meanwhile, Hancock made all four of his 3-pointers to start a 14-1 run for Louisville that briefly gave the Cardinals a one-point lead after they trailed by 12. Michigan's Glenn Robinson III made two free throws with 2 seconds left to give the Wolverines the lead at the half.

The Cardinals (34-5) have won four games this season after trailing by 10 or more, including Saturday night's semifinals, when they beat Wichita State 72-68 after also falling behind by 12.

It was a scintillating opening to the final act of a season that has been more of a grind, with scoring at its lowest (67.49 points per team) since 1951-52 and shooting at its worst (43.3 percent) since 1964-65.

The 131.2-points-per-game average during March Madness is the lowest since the 3-point line was brought to the game in 1987, though the teams were on pace to easily surpass that after the first half.

"Look at the story lines out there," Beilein said during a quick interview at halftime. "It's going to be one of the best games ever."

Watching from the stands were all five members of the Fab Five, the brash group of sophomores who led Michigan (31-7) to the final in 1993 the program's last appearance at the Final Four.

That included Chris Webber, who infamously called a timeout the Wolverines didn't have at the end of Michigan's 77-71 loss to North Carolina in the 1993 final. He has had very little to do with his alma mater in recent years, but was seen getting out of his car and heading into the Georgia Dome shortly before tip-off.

Top-seeded Louisville is trying to bring its first title back to the state of Kentucky's "other" school since 1986. Sitting on the bench with the Cardinals is sophomore guard Kevin Ware, the team's inspiration since snapping his tibia in the regional final last weekend.

Cardinals coach Rick Pitino is working the sideline hours after being chosen for the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame. Pitino is trying to become the first coach to lead two programs to national championships. He took Kentucky to the title in 1996.

Russ Smith, the Louisville team leader who Pitino has nicknamed "Russdiculous" for some of his wild and wildly effective antics on the court, scores 18.9 points a game for the Cardinals during the season but has picked up the scoring in the tournament, averaging 25 in the five Louisville wins.

The Cardinals are playing without their main reserve, Ware, who broke his leg in the regional final against Duke. Needing a pickup without Ware, Hancock led the scoring against Wichita State. And rarely used walk-on Tim Henderson made two key 3-pointers during the comeback.

"The other night, we were not going to play in the championship game unless a walk-on steps up and makes a play to give us momentum," Pitino said in a pregame interview.

Michigan topped Syracuse 61-56 on Saturday despite an off night from Burke, who finished with only seven points on 1-for-8 shooting.

Burke, a sophomore, seriously considered leaving for the NBA after last season but decided he had unfinished business left in Ann Arbor. He picked up the AP Player of the Year award, among others, and is now one victory away from the ultimate prize in college hoops.

Before leaving the locker room, Beilein gave his team a pep talk: "You play with poise, play with confidence, you do all those things today and we're going to have one heck of a celebration," he said.

Armstrong was banned for life and stripped of his seven Tour de France titles by the International Cycling Union (UCI) in October after USADA found that he had taken performance enhancing drugs throughout his career.

The USADA report into Armstrong's doping also alleged that the UCI had not done everything in their power to catch the former rider, who later admitted to cheating.

The UCI pledged to look into the past and set up an independent commission to investigate the allegations, only to disband it weeks later in favor of a broader "truth and reconciliation process" that has yet to start.

Speaking before a French Senate committee investigating doping on Thursday, Tygart, the man behind Armstrong's fall, repeated the accusations and said that the UCI was trying to "play a stall game".

In reply to Tygart, the UCI said on Friday that USADA and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) were also to blame for the dismantling of the independent commission.

"It's all very well Mr Tygart talking about cooperation, but let's not forget that the Independent Commission was only disbanded because of USADA's and WADA's point-blank refusal to cooperate with it," the UCI said in a statement.

"Simply, the UCI was left with no choice but to close it down; it made no sense to go forward without the participation of these two bodies."

The Swiss-based body also suggested others had been to blame for the failure to catch Armstrong sooner.

"One can only assume that their refusal to cooperate with the Independent Commission was due to their fear that their own shortcomings would be exposed," the statement said.

"After all, USADA and WADA also tested Armstrong over many years and also failed to catch him. It was only with the benefit of the US Federal Investigation that USADA was finally able to gain evidence of Armstrong's doping."

(Writing by Gregory Blachier; Editing by Patrick Johnston)

ISLA NEGRA, Chile (Reuters) - The body of Chilean Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda, dead nearly four decades, was exhumed on Monday after his former driver said the poet was poisoned under Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship.

Neruda, famed for his passionate love poems and staunch communist views, is presumed to have died from prostate cancer on September 23, 1973.

But Manuel Araya, who was Neruda's chauffer during the ailing writer's last few months, says agents of the dictatorship took advantage of his illness to inject poison into his stomach while he was bedridden at the Santa Maria clinic in Santiago.

"We're hoping for a positive result because Neruda was assassinated. Pinochet made an error when he ordered Neruda be killed," said Araya. Results are expected in coming months.

Neruda was a supporter of socialist President Salvador Allende, who was toppled in a military coup on September 11, 1973, nearly two weeks before the poet's death at age 69. Around 3,000 people are thought to have been killed by the brutal 17-year-long dictatorship that ensued.

Neruda was buried in his coastal home of Isla Negra beside his third wife, Matilde Urrutia.

His remains will be brought to Santiago for analysis. Some samples could be sent to laboratories abroad.

Ricardo Eliecer Neftali Reyes Basoalto, better known by his pen name Pablo Neruda, was a larger-than-life fixture in Chile's literary and political scene.

While best known for his collection "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair," published in 1924, Neruda was also an important political activist during a turbulent time in Chile.

He organized a ship to bring about 2,000 Spanish refugees fleeing the civil war there to Chile in 1939, campaigned for Allende and was ambassador to France during the socialist's presidency.

The Andean country's intelligentsia frequently congregated in Isla Negra, as well as in his Santiago home "La Chascona" - so named for his then-mistress Urrutia's messy red hair - and La Sebastiana, his ship-themed home in the port town of Valparaiso.

Democratically elected Allende committed suicide in the presidential palace as it was under attack by the military, experts confirmed last year, amid accusations he had been murdered during the coup.

Chilean courts are also investigating the death of ex-President Eduardo Frei Montalva, who is presumed to have died in 1982 of an infection after a hernia operation. Some say he was poisoned by Pinochet's agents.

(Reporting By Rodrigo Garrido; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Eric Beech)

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