Rikki Wills, 25, was one of the five drum majors who led Champion's funeral march, escorting his casket during the funeral.

Champion, 26, was a member of the college's famed "Marching 100" band when he collapsed and died Nov. 19, 2011 on a bus parked outside an Orlando, Fla., hotel after a football game.

The death was ruled a homicide and Champion's torso was covered with bruises that were inflicted during a brutal hazing ritual that contributed to his death, according to investigators.

Wills was sentenced to one year of "community control"--a formal name for house arrest--and five years of state probation.

In May, Wills pleaded no contest to felony hazing resulting in death and his attorney said he has "owned up to what his part was."

"He acknowledges that he was on the bus and he basically did a pull-through basically trying to help Robert stay on his feet and continue to the back of the bus as fast as possible so he didn't get struck," Wills' attorney William Hancock told ABCNews.com today after the sentencing.

"He felt he was doing everything he could to protect him," Hancock said.

Over 2,000 pages of evidence from the investigation into Champion's death were released by the Florida District Attorney's Office in May 2012, which delivered a blow-by-blow of the events from the night of Champion's death.

Champion endured a lethal pummeling down the aisle of a pitch-black bus that rocked from the force of the violence inside, according to the documents.

Champion struggled, with a female band member holding him back to prolong the punishment, through a gauntlet of band mates who used their fists, feet, straps and sticks to pound him into unconsciousness.

"Rikki felt that he had done everything he possibly could to talk Robert out of doing this and was acutely surprised when Robert participated in the hazing," Hancock said.

He added that he believes FAMU is more to blame than the students who participated in the hazing ritual.

"I really think the blame falls greater on the institution that perpetuated the hazing than the participants, but he certainly owned up to his personal responsibility," Hancock said.

Champion's parents traveled to Orange County, Fla., for the hearing from their home in Georgia. The Champion family's attorney was not immediately available for comment.

Thirteen FAMU band members were charged in relation to Champion's death.

The first defendant sentenced in Champion's death was, 24, who got two years of probation and 200 hours of community service in October 2012.

"The judge had stated that your part in Robert's death was really minimal, but you and I know that's not true," Champion's mother Pamela Champion told Jones in court. "It will always be there haunting you. We both know that."

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO ministers agreed on Tuesday to strengthen the organization's cyber defenses but differed about how much NATO should do to protect smaller allies from potentially devastating hacking attacks.

Last year, NATO dealt with over 2,500 "significant cases" of cyber attacks on its systems, NATO's chief, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said at the alliance's first in-depth review of cyber defence, a meeting that showed how the issue has risen to the top of the security agenda.

"We are all closely connected, so an attack on one ally, if it is not dealt with quickly and effectively, can affect us all. Cyber defence is only as effective as the weakest link in the chain. By working together we strengthen the chain," Rasmussen told a news conference.

The Pentagon accused China last month of using cyber espionage to modernise its military, which Beijing denied. The Washington Post said last week that Chinese hackers had gained access to designs of more than two dozen major U.S. weapons systems.

Defence ministers from the 28 allies agreed that NATO's cyber defence capability should be fully operational by October, extending NATO protection to all of the dozens of computer networks owned and operated by the alliance, Rasmussen said.

They have also agreed to establish rapid reaction teams to help protect NATO's own systems.

NATO members agree that the organisation's priority must be to defend NATO's own computer networks, since these are the systems used to coordinate military operations among the allies.

ALERTED

But there is disagreement about how the alliance should respond to requests for help from members that come under cyber attack.

Smaller countries with limited resources are keen to take advantage of NATO's cyber defence capabilities and Rasmussen believes NATO should have a capacity to help.

But larger members, such as the United States, Britain, France and Germany, disagree. Since they spend large sums on cyber defence at home, they are reluctant to divert money to NATO activities that will largely benefit others.

"NATO must not replace the will of individual members to defend themselves in cyber(space) as in other areas," one NATO diplomat said.

Rasmussen said one option may be to use NATO's rapid reaction teams to help countries that come under cyber attack.

Another could be for one NATO member to use its own cyber capabilities to help another ally, Rasmussen said, likening this to the decision by the United States, Germany and the Netherlands to send Patriot anti-missile systems to Turkey this year.

NATO was alerted to the threat of cyber attacks in 2007, when Estonia's Internet network was paralysed by an electronic attack that Estonia blamed on Russia. The incident prompted NATO to review its readiness to defend against cyber warfare.

(Reporting by Adrian Croft; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Hannah Warren has been unable to breathe, eat, drink or swallow on her own since she was born in South Korea in 2010. Until the operation at a central Illinois hospital, she had spent her entire life in a hospital in Seoul. Doctors there told her parents there was no hope and they expected her to die.

The stem cells came from Hannah's bone marrow, extracted with a special needle inserted into her hip bone. They were seeded in a lab onto a plastic scaffold, where it took less than a week for them to multiply and create a new windpipe.

About the size of a 3-inch tube of penne pasta, it was implanted April 9 in a nine-hour procedure.

Early signs indicate the windpipe is working, Hannah's doctors announced Tuesday, although she is still on a ventilator. They believe she will eventually be able to live at home and lead a normal life.

"We feel like she's reborn," said Hannah's father, Darryl Warren.

"They hope that she can do everything that a normal child can do but it's going to take time. This is a brand new road that all of us are on," he said in a telephone interview. "This is her only chance but she's got a fantastic one and an unbelievable one."

Warren choked up and his wife, Lee Young-mi, was teary-eyed at a hospital news conference Tuesday. Hannah did not attend because she is still recovering from the surgery. She developed an infection after the operation but now is acting like a healthy 2-year-old, her doctors said.

Warren said he hopes the family can bring Hannah home for the first time in a month or so. Hannah turns 3 in August.

"It's going to be amazing for us to finally be together as a family of four," he said. The couple has an older daughter.

Only about one in 50,000 children worldwide are born with the windpipe defect. The stem-cell technique has been used to make other body parts besides windpipes and holds promise for treating other birth defects and childhood diseases, her doctors said.

The operation brought together an Italian surgeon based in Sweden who pioneered the technique, a pediatric surgeon at Children's Hospital of Illinois in Peoria who met Hannah's family while on a business trip to South Korea, and Hannah born to a Newfoundland man and Korean woman who married after he moved to that country to teach English.

Hannah's parents had read about Dr. Paolo Macchiarini's success using stem-cell based tracheas but couldn't afford to pay for the operation at his center, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. So Dr. Mark Holterman helped the family arrange to have the procedure at his Peoria hospital, bringing in Macchiarini to lead the operation. Children's Hospital waived the cost, likely hundreds of thousands of dollars, Holterman said.

Part of OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, the Roman Catholic hospital considers the operation part of their mission to provide charity care, but also views it as a way to champion a type of stem-cell therapy that doesn't involve human embryos, the surgeons said. The Catholic church opposes using stem cells derived from human embryos in research or treatment.

Macchiarini has been involved in 14 previous windpipe operations using patients' own stem cells five using man-made scaffolds like Hannah's but in adults; and nine using scaffolds made from cadaver windpipes, including one in a 10-year-old British boy.

He said only one patient died, a 30-year-old man from Abingdon, Md., who had the operation in November 2011 to treat late-stage cancer of the windpipe. He died about four months later of uncertain causes, Macchiarini said.

Similar methods have been used to grow bladders, urethras and last year a girl in Sweden got a lab-made vein using her own stem cells and a cadaver vein.

Scientists hope to eventually use the method to create solid organs, including kidneys and livers, said Dr. Anthony Atala, director of Wake Forest University's Institute for Regenerative Medicine. He said the operation on Hannah Warren "is really showing that the technique is workable."

Hannah had breathing difficulties at birth and Korean doctors soon discovered the missing windpipe. They reconfigured her esophagus so that a breathing tube could go down it from her mouth to her lungs. The esophagus normally runs behind the windpipe and carries food to the stomach.

Korean doctors said she couldn't live long with the tube and told her parents there was nothing more they could do.

Hannah outlived their expectations and has thrived despite the grim prognosis and other abnormalities including an undeveloped voice box that prevented her from speaking. Now that she has a windpipe and can breathe more normally, doctors expect the larynx to grow and function normally. She will work with speech therapists to help her learn to talk.

Holterman said Hannah will likely need a new windpipe in about five years, as she grows.

She breathes with help from a ventilator but no longer has a tube in her mouth that she'd lived with since shortly after birth, Holterman said. She's not yet able to eat normally, but doctors let her have her first taste ever of food a few licks on a lollipop. Her father said she already has discriminating taste and prefers chocolate Korean lollipops to the American kind.

"I asked her, 'Is it good?'" he said, "and she immediately nodded her head."

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Online:

Regenerative Medicine: http://1.usa.gov/13IWdrx

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Art experts are hoping strong interest from Asian buyers and a buoyant market, sparked by a record-breaking sale of contemporary art earlier this month, will boost two Latin American auctions in New York this week.

A bronze sculpture of a dancing couple by Colombian Fernando Botero and paintings by Mexican Alfredo Ramos Martinez, Chilean Roberto Matta and Brazilian Candido Portinari are expected to be the highlights of the sales at Christie's and Sotheby's.

Earlier this month the auction houses had blockbuster sales of Impressionist and contemporary art. Christie's contemporary art sale on May 15 hauled in $495 million - the highest of any art auction ever.

"Obviously the contemporary art sale was on a historical scale," said Virgilio Garza, Christie's Latin American art chief. "So we hope we continue with the level of energy that the market has."

Christie's estimates $24 million to $34 million in total Latin American sales on Wednesday and Thursday. If the upper limit is reached, it will top the peak of the auction house's sale of the region's art, set at $33.7 million in May 2008, months before the Wall Street crash.

Sotheby's expects about $20.7 million to $28.7 million in Latin American art sales on Tuesday and Wednesday.

"We saw $1.5 billion in Impressionist and contemporary art sold in barely two weeks in New York (this month)," said Axel Stein, Latin American art chief at Sotheby's. "That doesn't mean necessarily that manna will a rain on us directly, but it almost assures we won't have just normal or negative sales."

Top-priced works at each auction house include paintings by the late Ramos Martinez, whose art was collected by Hollywood luminaries after he moved to Los Angeles to find expert medical care for his daughter. Christie's see his circa 1930 work "Mujeres con Frutas" (Women with Fruit) fetching $1 million to $1.5 million.

Sotheby's has a pre-sale estimate of up to $1 million for his "La India de Floripondios," (Indian Woman with Daturas). In the painting with its trumpet-shaped flowers, Ramos Martinez evokes French painter Paul Cezanne's use of circles, cylinders and cones to create a composition, according to Stein.

The artist reserves flowing lines in the work for the woman's smooth brown face, framed by braided black hair.

Overall, both auction houses expect Asian demand to be a driver of the sales, following the May 23-26 Art Basel Hong Kong art fair where the Swiss Galerie Gmurzynska said it sold $3.5 million worth of Boteros, including $1.3 million for the 2012 painting "Quarteto," which went to a collector form Malaysia.

Christie's is offering Botero's 2000 bronze "Dancers," which could fetch up to $1 million. It portrays a heavily muscled nude man and woman, her left hand on his right shoulder.

Sotheby's single highest-priced lot is Matta's circa 1939 oil on canvas "Morphologie Psycologique," (Psychological Morphology). Among its innovative techniques is drip painting, prefiguring a technique used by American Jackson Pollock, who was a student of Matta's in New York in the 1940s.

Portinari's 1941 oil on canvas "Meninos Soltando Pipas" (Children Releasing Kites)," is expected to be the top-priced Brazilian art work. Christie's estimates it will sell for up to $1.2 million.

The painting was done during a stage of Portinari's career, in the late 1930s and early 1940s, that showed children playing leap frog or chasing kites and balloons, according to Christie's.

(Reporting by Walker Simon; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Bill Trott)

John Malkovich frolics to the music of Mozart in "The Giacomo Variations," a playful, frothy production which was envisioned as "a chamber opera play" by its creators. Written and directed by Michael Sturminger, the lighthearted work is being briefly presented by the Cherry Orchard Festival at New York City Center.

Reading aloud from his memoirs, legendary Venetian seducer Giacomo Casanova (Malkovich, languid and sardonic) looks back at some of his most memorable 18th-century liasons. Now elderly and pondering the meaning of his existence, he supervises the enactment of his memories through a series of lively vignettes based on well-known duets and arias by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Madcap liasons and mischievous flirtations are based on opera scenes first created by Mozart and one of his librettists, Lorenzo Da Ponte, primarily from "Cosi Fan Tutte," ''Le Nozze di Figaro" and "Don Giovanni." The musical concept is by Martin Haselbock, who conducts the Orchester Wiener Akademie with distinction.

As the famously roguish Casanova, Malkovich bears an imperious and occasionally self-mocking air, whether eloquently philosophizing, wading into the action himself, or merely watching his younger self carouse.

Youthful opera singers Sophie Klussmann and Daniel Schmutzhard perform multiple roles, although Kirsten Blaise substituted for Klussman with great comedic flair and lovely singing in a recent performance. Baritone Schmutzhard brings robust vigor to the youthful Casanova. Ingeborga Dapkunaite brings a delicate maturity and sense of mystery to her primary role as a former acquaintance of Casanova who chides him for past misdeeds.

Or maybe that's not what she's doing. But the plot doesn't really matter; it's enough that the atmosphere is suffused with sensuality and amusement.

Sumptuous costumes and set design by Renate Martin and Andreas Donhauser give a rich look to the production. Beautiful dresses and billowy layers of underclothing often litter the stage, casually discarded in the same way that the fickle Casanova left behind so many women after his conquests.

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Online:

http://www.nycitycenter.org

Germany's state-owned KfW bank will provide about 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) at low interest rates to its Spanish counterpart, the ICO, which can then use it to provide several times that amount in cheap loans to smaller companies.

The move is aimed at easing a credit crunch that is afflicting much of southern Europe, where small and medium-sized firms are struggling to access affordable loans that would allow them to expand their business.

Top ECB officials and several EU leaders have described the lack of access to credit in heavily indebted countries as one of the most pressing issues to deal with as the continent tries to emerge from recession.

The European Central Bank's benchmark interest rate is currently at a record low 0.5 percent, but banks are not passing on that low rate to companies because their own finances are strained. Firms in countries that have been hit hard by the 17-nation eurozone's debt crisis like Spain, Portugal and Greece still struggle to get affordable financing.

Germany, on the other hand, enjoys a top-notch AAA rating that investors see as a safe haven. It can therefore borrow money at rock-bottom interest rates.

The German initiative dubbed "bilateral aid with rapid impact" reflects growing impatience in Berlin about the slow progress by the EU in freeing up existing funds to assist hard-hit countries.

The initiative could also be extended to other countries, such as Portugal, German Deputy Finance Minister Steffen Kampeter said in the document obtained by The Associated Press.

The loan facility for Spain foresees Germany's KfW bank granting its Spanish state-owned counterpart, ICO, a ten-year 800 million euros loan. The total liability including interest rates is estimated at 1 billion euros, according to the finance ministry document. In addition, KfW is in talks to support two existing ICO company lending programs with another 100 million euros each.

The ICO last year lent 11.5 billion euros to some 160,000 Spanish companies, according to its website. It typically offers retail banks low-interest loans that the private sector institutions then offer clients as part of a wider loan package, thus multiplying the effect of the ICO's financing.

"It must be achieved to rapidly solve companies' acute financing problems, because then many small and medium-sized firms, who have a solid business model and good growth outlook, will be able to secure their existence and start expanding employment again," the document dated Friday read.

Analysts said the program is a step in the right direction, but cautioned it might not be big enough to make a significant difference.

"Of course this is more a drop in the ocean," said Commerzbank analyst Christoph Weil. "But it's better than nothing."

"Spain is still in a protracted recession: For companies it's important that their sales and profit outlook improve, only then will they consider new credit-financed investments," he added.

Germany's Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble will brief Parliament's budget committee on the initiative Wednesday. It was expected to have wide cross-party support.

"It is good news that the government finally actively supports the program countries to overcome the credit crunch," said Priska Hinz, the opposition Greens' ranking member on the committee. "One can only hope that this change of heart doesn't come much too late," she added.

Spain, the eurozone's fourth-largest economy, is mired in recession, with an unemployment rate of about 27 percent and almost every other person aged under 25 out of work.

Germany is currently also assisting Portugal, which is in the middle of a recession coupled with high unemployment, to set up a state-owned bank modeled on KfW to prop up lending to the private sector as a first step before possibly also granting it a bilateral loan facility.

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Follow Juergen Baetz on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/jbaetz

Protesters marched along major streets in the capital, Addis Ababa, shouting "We need freedom," and "We need justice." The peaceful rally was the first major demonstration since 2005 post-election unrest when security forces killed hundreds of protesters.

The protest is the first show of disapproval against Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn's government. Hailemariam succeeded former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi who died Aug. 20.

Communications Minister Bereket Simon responded to the demonstration by denying, to The Associated Press, that Ethiopia is holding political prisoners.

But demonstrators held pictures of jailed journalists, activists, political leaders and even covers of banned newspapers.

The New-York based Committee to Protect Journalists in a December report listed Ethiopia as the eighth worst jailer of journalists in the world with six journalists in prison. Last year 49 Ethiopian journalists were in exile and 72 newspapers had been closed under Meles, said the committee. Muluken Tesfahun of the private weekly Ethio-Mehedar has been detained since May 4 for covering evictions near the construction of a massive hydroelectric dam that is raising tensions with Nile-dependent Egypt, said the CPJ.

After Meles died, the International Crisis Group had cautioned that the new government would find it difficult to contain public discontent in the absence of "any meaningful domestic political opposition."

In 2012 polls, the ruling party won over 99 percent of all regional and federal parliament seats. There is only a single opposition member in the 547 seat federal parliament.

Yacob Hailemariam, a former United Nations prosecutor, was among those who addressed the protesters at the close of the rally.

"In the 21st century when the rest of the world is freely exercising its rights . here in Ethiopia the daily news is 'this person got arrested'. 'that person received a life sentence'.this has to end," said Yacob in his speech.

Yacob was among scholars who led a popular opposition grouping in 2005 election when the ruling party lost key cities including the capital's city council. The country's electoral board declared the ruling party Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front as a winner on national poll tally. Protests broke out across the country and Yacob and his colleagues were jailed for several months before he was pardoned in 2007.

"They say the youth has worn out . I disagree. Once again the youth has to be a force change and it should take over to lead (an) opposition group to end the ruling party's dictatorship that has turned the country into a hell for us ... we can repeat 2005," shouted Yacob.

Many of the protesters on Sunday were Muslims who have been protesting alleged government interference in their religion.

Some Muslims activists who had been leading criticism of the government are currently in prison on terrorism charges.

"I don't care about politics . I don't care if they (the ruling party) rule forever but I would die for my religion," said a young protester who would only identify himself as Ahmed. "I am here to demand the release of our representatives . we won't stop until they are free," said Ahmed.

Protesters vowed to return to the streets in three months' time "unless the government releases journalists, activists, and Muslim leaders and annul unconstitutional legislations."

But Communications Minister Bereket denied that the government is holding political prisoners. "There are no political prisoners. There are only people who have been charged with criminal offenses," said Bereket to AP.

"We don't have any qualms about the protesters exercising their rights but when you see the character of the demands, calls to give up the trials and release persons who are behind bars, convicted of criminal offenses . it is both unethical and unacceptable. Also, the government cannot interfere and release people suspected of criminal offenses . we will have to wait until the courts give verdicts," added Bereket.

The minister said the government will not have "any problem" with future demonstrations. He however expressed concerns about what he called a fusion of politics and religion.

ST PETERSBURG, Russia, May 31 (Reuters) - Tokyo's 2020 Olympic bid has been labelled as the safe choice in contrast to rivals Istanbul and Madrid but for city governor Naoki Inose, this is not a drawback.

"Safe choices are the most important ones," Inose told Reuters in an interview on Friday. "It is only once every four years that athletes can reach glory and honour."

The safe tag has been used to describe a solid bid by Tokyo that may appear to be lacking some of the excitement of the other two concepts but which could carry less risk.

Istanbul, making its fifth bid in the last six elections, has played up its plans to become the first city in a Muslim majority nation to host the Games, sitting on the crossroads of Europe and Asia.

Madrid, bidding for the third straight time despite economic problems in Spain, has highlighted the country's sporting successes in recent years and the large number of world-class venues already in place.

The International Olympic Committee will elect the winning host at its session in Buenos Aires in September.

Inose said broadcasters, the IOC and local organisers were putting a huge effort into staging the Games with safety of delivery being the number one priority.

SMOOTH WORK

"In order for these people to work smoothly, safety is a prerequisite. Otherwise the Games may face a turning point," said the outspoken politician through a translator.

"There has to be safety and security for the Games. It is inevitable that the scale and size of the Games will expand going forward in terms of spectators and viewers," he said.

Inose, who last month had to apologise for "inappropriate" comments he had made on Istanbul and Islamic countries in an interview, said Tokyo's already existing Games fund of $4.5 billion underlined the importance of that security.

"It is there, sitting in the bank," he said, adding that a winning Tokyo bid would mean a multi-billion market for the Games.

"We have a time zone reach where we can cover roughly half the world's population," he said.

A key aspect of the Tokyo bid is that many of its venues have already been constructed. Tokyo planners also emphasise the compactness of its offer, with 85 percent of the venues located within an 8 km (5 mile) radius of the Olympic Village.

Inose said having consecutive winter and summer Games in Asia, with South Korea's Pyeongchang hosting the 2018 winter Olympics, was not an obstacle.

"It has been decided. There is nothing I can do," he said.

"But they are totally unrelated," he said, citing examples of past consecutive Games, winter and summer, held on the same continent. (Editing by Mark Meadows)

RELATED:

For 20 years, Charleston has been an island of modest gun restrictions in a very pro-gun rights state. But its gun laws — including a ban on guns in city parks, pools and recreation centers — are now likely to be rolled back, the latest victory in a long-standing push to deny cities the power to regulate guns.

RELATED:

Since the 1980s, the National Rifle Association and other groups have led ato get state legislatures to limit local control over gun regulations. These "preemption" laws block cities from enacting their own gun policies, effectively requiring cities with higher rates of gun violence to have the same gun regulations as smaller towns.

RELATED:

Before 1981, when an Illinois town banned the possession of handguns, just a handful of states had preemption laws on the books. Today,block cities from making gun laws, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Even Illinois, which has long allowed its cities to pass gun control measures, islocal restrictions on concealed handguns and ban any future local regulation of assault weapons.

RELATED:

Gun rights advocates argue that allowing cities to have their own gun laws creates an impossible situation for law-abiding gun owners, who cannot be expected to read ordinances for every town they might pass through.

RELATED:

The preemption campaign has racked up so many victories nationwide, it's now focusing on holdouts like Charleston, population 51,000.

Charleston's current gun restrictions include a three-day waiting period to buy a handgun, and a limit of one handgun purchase per month, as well as bans on guns on publicly owned property, such as parks and pools.

West Virginia Delegate Patrick Lane crafted an amendment to an unrelated state bill, now passed, that will likely force Charleston to erase those restrictions.

"Crime could happen anyplace. You obviously want to be able to defend yourself and your family if something happens," Lane said, when asked why anyone would want to bring a gun to a public pool.

The NRA did not respond to requests for comment, but its website calls Charleston's restrictions "misguided" and "unreasonable." Its site has closely tracked the progress of the repeal of the ordinances, which it states "would havewhatsoever on Charleston." The site hascriticized Charleston's Republican mayor for " against this pro-gun reform."

It's not clear what effect the spread of preemption has had on public safety. "It's very hard to determine what causes crime to go up and down, because there are so many variables," said Laura Cutilletta, a senior attorney at the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

But in Charleston, Police Chief Brent Webster says he's worried about losing the city's current restrictions, in particular the law banning guns at city pools, concerts and sporting events.

"You will have some citizens say, 'I can do that now, so I'm going to do that,'" Webster said. "I am greatly concerned."

"When they're diving off the diving board, is that [gun] going to be in a book bag? Is that going to be lying under their towel and an eight-year-old kid is walking through the pool area and picks it up?"

Two of the city's former police chiefs also say they're worried about losing the ban on guns in public places that attract kids.

"That has nothing to do with the Second Amendment right. It has to do with public safety," former Chief Dallas Staples said.

Charleston's mayor, Danny Jones, who's fought to keep the gun restrictions, said the city now has no choice but to do what the state legislature wants and roll them back. The state legislature packaged the rollback requirement with a popular measure giving Charleston more leeway in how it raises taxes.

"I'm still reeling from all this, because it's going to affect us in a very negative way," Jonesafter the law passed.

Keith Morgan, president of the West Virginia Citizen's Defense League, a gun rights group, said the group been pushing for an end to Charleston's ordinances for years, and that the change would protect law-abiding gun owners from a "minefield" of conflicting local laws.

Lane, the West Virginia delegate, also said that gun-owning commuters were put at risk as they traveled through different cities with different rules.

But neither Lane nor Morgan could cite an example of a gun owner being prosecuted for accidentally breaking the law during their commute, or by accidentally wandering into a city park. When Morgan himself once showed up at the Charleston Civic Center with a gun, he said, he was simply asked to leave, and he did. In lawsuits the West Virginia Citizen's Defense League filed against gun ordinances in Charleston and Martinsburg, the plaintiffs cited their fear of potential prosecution.

The main burden of Charleston's laws for gun owners has been the inconvenience of waiting three days to purchase a handgun, and only being able to buy one handgun at a time — something that can be particularly troublesome "if you're buying a present for your family and there happens to be a Christmas sale at the retailer," Lane said.

Former Charleston law enforcement officers say the handgun restrictions, passed in 1993, helped the city tamp down on the drugs-for-guns trade that was rampant at the time. But since then, gun stores have sprung up right at the city's borders, said Steve Walker, a former Charleston police officer and now president of the West Virginia branch of the Fraternal Order of Police.

"Honestly, I don't know whether with them repealing it, it is going to help them or hurt them," Walker said of the handgun restrictions.

State legislators said that city officials are overplaying their fears.

"I don't see everyone with a concealed carry permit deciding to go to a pool and carry a gun," said Democrat Mark Hunt, a state delegate, "So what if they do? They're law-abiding citizens."

Charleston's mayor said he has a plan if somebody brings a gun poolside: "We're going to close down the pool."

TOKYO (Reuters) - Banks have failed, the yen has fallen and Japan's economy has collapsed, leading to political turmoil. Its great ally, the United States, abandons it. Then comes the final straw: an attack by North Korean guerrillas posing as Korean tourists.

"From the Fatherland, With Love", by veteran Japanese novelist Ryu Murakami, chronicles the political fumbling that is the Japanese government's response and the eventual counterattack by a motley group of homeless, psychotic misfits using largely homemade weapons.

The book is written at least partly from the point of view of the North Koreans, echoing this year's Pulitzer prize-winning novel: "The Orphan Master's Son," by Adam Johnson.

Murakami, 61, who has played in rock bands and dabbled in filmmaking, is often referred to as the "enfant terrible" of Japanese literature for the dark, satiric lens he turns on Japanese society. He spoke with Reuters about his book.

Q: You've said before that all your books start from a "seed," what was the seed for this one?

A: After the end of the bubble economy, Japan - economically, politically and socially - has had a sense of being stalled. Many seriously unsettled misfits have emerged and there are crimes as a result. There hasn't been anything big like terrorism yet, but I wondered about a group of dangerous young people getting together and doing something. On top of that, I'd had (in mind) a vague story about the North Korean High Command invading a Japanese city, Fukuoka. I started feeling that I'd like to write about those misfits facing off with the North Koreans.

Q: And from there?

A: I'd thought as far as North Korea attacking, but if the real North Korean army came, it would just turn into an ordinary war. There was a Hollywood movie just at that time with Michael Caine, and they were trying to kidnap Churchill. German soldiers dressed in English uniforms and pretending to be English military, and that became a hint for me. If you have a group of soldiers who are basically set up as rebels, that allows the government to disown them - and that intrigued me. It wouldn't become a war. If it became a war, it would just turn into a war novel. I also thought the Japanese government would end up in a very tight spot this way.

Q: North Korea, as it has shown up in novels like "The Orphan Master's Son", is really still an unknown country. How did you manage to come up with the North Korean characters?

A: I read a lot of books. A lot of books. There's also North Korean movies that most people can't see - but there's one store in Tokyo that sells those movies. I must have seen 10 movies or so. As a result, I got a pretty good idea of peoples' lives. Scenes of Pyongyang and the countryside show up in the news, and of course I also spoke with refugees from North Korea in the South. They'd always been asked about their escapes, apparently - how and why - but instead I asked about their lives, where they lived, please draw a map of the towns, diagram your houses, and so on. They all thought I was a spy.

Q: Does the fact that the misfits fight back instead of the government to repel these invaders symbolize something?

A: In principle, governments and companies are supposed to guide their organization in a certain direction and have an image of what that direction is. The basic reason Japan's government is dysfunctional is that they don't really seem to understand which direction they should move in.

In most novels, if it was just entertainment, somebody like James Bond emerges and fights everybody. I didn't want to write that kind of book, I wanted the irony of these homeless and really rather strange misfits ending up doing the fighting.

Q: Was envisioning North Korea the hardest part?

A: The North Korean High Command are the ones that tell all the stories, that made things very difficult ... They tell all the stories as if they're the only main characters. But of course there are plenty of things all people have in common - taking care of their parents, falling in love. We all have basic things in common - that we're sad if our mother dies, it hurts if you break a bone, your own son and daughter are unbelievably dear to you. So I wrote based on that, and on the movies that showed a special North Korean way of thought.

Q: Can anybody outside of North Korea understand it? Perhaps the only way is through literature.

A: Nobody really knows the truth there...The thing I think of most vividly is something that happened when the commandos, pretending to be Korean tourists, checked into the hotel. One of them touches some tissues sitting there. It's the softest thing he's ever touched in his life. There's nothing like that in North Korea. First of all they were surprised that Japan had the skills to make something like this, but then they also realized that they would never lose to people who were so soft as to use fluffy paper like this. The tissue paper is a very simple symbol that shows the distance and difference between the two countries. And when I wrote that, it was a hint to me of how to enter the minds of the commandos. I figured that would allow me to really figure out how they thought.

Q: By using this kind of device in literature, you can actually approach close to the truth.

A: Yes. It's all a question of imagination.

(Reporting by Elaine Lies, editing by Paul Casciato)