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NEW YORK (Reuters) - When food writer Jess Thomson moved to Seattle, Washington, she expected to find the adventuresome cooking for which the city is famous. But she admits to being pleasantly surprised by the rich diversity of the rest of the state.

The 150 recipes in her book "Dishing Up Washington" attempt to capture the authentic regional flavors of the entire state, from Seattle to Spokane, Yakima to Walla Walla.

"It is a total food heaven," said Thomson, cookbook author, recipe developer and food blogger. "I knew it would be delicious but I'm not sure I knew how much would be available here and how constantly I would be bombarded with really great food."

She spoke to Reuters about discovering the distinctive foods of Washington and the state's climate and locavore tradition.

Q: Is this your first cookbook?

A: "This is my fourth cookbook; three in my name, one that I ghostwrote."

Q: Did you write the recipes for this book?

A: "The book is a little bit unique because it is about 60 percent recipes that I've written inspired by the state's ingredients and about 40 percent recipes by chefs, farmers and artisans from all over the state."

Q: What was your purpose with this book?

A: "I wanted to show not just best restaurants but ingredients that drive those restaurants -- what it's like to run a potato farm and the simple potato soup the farmer's mother makes, which is super warming, super delicious but not high-falutin chef-y approach that I think many Seattle chefs might have taken ... I wanted to show the guy who grows saffron on the Olympic peninsula, and the tomato grower in northeastern Washington. She doesn't have a restaurant but she's important to the state because she grows these really fantastic tomatoes."

Q: How would you characterize the cuisine of Washington State?

A: "It's adventuresome coastal cooking that depends heavily on local ingredients."

Q: Which ingredients are typical of the state?

A: "Stone fruits like peaches and cherries are huge here; tree fruits like apples and pears; fish and shellfish, mainly crab, oysters, mussels, and salmon. Then there's really great dairy and cheese, mostly from the northwestern part of the state. The state is also well known for larger crops like grapes, wheat and beef."

Q: How does Seattle's famously rainy climate affect the cuisine?

A: "The state is sort of divided by the Cascade Mountains into two distinct climates: the wet half towards the west and the drier half towards the east ... (But) there's a giant misconception about the rain here. Boston gets more rain than Seattle, but Seattle gets it almost every day of the week in winter. From a food perspective this is a very good climate for growing. Drought is not really an issue here. On the eastern side drought is an issue but many areas there get more than 300 days of sunshine in a year, so the growing season is very long and the conditions are great."

Q: What accounts for the strong locavore tradition?

A: "Because it's available. Farmers' markets near me are open the year round. In February maybe I can't buy cherries but I can buy great kale, radicchio and hazelnuts. I think it's such a vibrant community because the weather allows us to get food year round. The food world doesn't shut down from November to April here."

Q: Who is your book aimed at?

A: "I wanted to make it approachable for people cooking anywhere. The chef recipes are a little more complicated and difficult. The recipes that I've written are much simpler ... This book also an edible tour guide to the state. People tell me they're using it as a travel guide, keeping it in their car as a way of deciding what restaurants to go to in Seattle and the state."

Northwest Crab Chowder

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 yellow onion, finely chopped

4 stalks celery, cut into quarter-inch slices

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh thyme

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes (about 7 medium), cut into half-inch chunks

2 cups whole milk

1 cup heavy cream

1 (15-ounce) can fish broth

1 (8-ounce) bottle clam juice

1.5 pounds Dungeness crabmeat, chopped

6 servings

1. Melt the butter in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add the onions, celery, and thyme. Salt and pepper to taste, and cook, stirring, until the vegetables start to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the potatoes, milk, cream, fish broth and clam juice. Bring the soup to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are soft, about 10 minutes.

2. Transfer about 2 cups of the vegetables to a food processor or a blender, blend until smooth, and return to the pot. Stir in the crabmeat, cook for 5 minutes longer, and salt and pepper to taste. Serve piping hot.

(Editing by Patricia Reaney and Doina Chiacu)

(This story corrects spelling of Thomson in slug, headline and throughout)

When BlackBerry set out to design the phones that would take the company into the next decade, it faced a big challenge. The flagship device of the new BlackBerry 10 platform needed to simultaneously satisfy what today's customers want in a smartphone while at the same time stay true to the essence of BlackBerry -- which, if the company's market over the last few years is any indication, customers didn't want.

The man tasked with redesigning BlackBerry phones was Todd Wood, the company's senior vice president of design. Leading industrial design at BlackBerry since 2006, Wood is a veteran of industrial design, previously doing design work for Nokia and, before that, Nortel. Mashable sat down with Wood this week while he was in town for the BlackBerry 10 launch.

[More from Mashable: Here s a Mysterious Image From BlackBerry s Super Bowl Ad]

Wood speaks with the same thoughtfulness of other design leaders, such as Apple's Jony Ive, but with none of the showiness. He's been with BlackBerry (formerly Research In Motion) for long enough to see its fortunes rise and fall. As he describes the Z10, you feel that he's heard enough praise and criticism about BlackBerry's products that it all just bounces off.

SEE ALSO: The First BlackBerry 10 Phone Is Exceptional, But Perplexing

[More from Mashable: Don t Hold Your Breath for More BlackBerry Tablets]

When I bring up the BlackBerry Storm -- the company's previous (failed) attempt to create a touchscreen phone -- Wood doesn't bristle or even acknowledge the disaster it was. He simply describes certain design elements that a similar to the BlackBerry Z10, BlackBerry's new flagship phone. And he makes them sound kind of cool.

"There's still the 'waterfall' that was pronounced on Storm -- these flowing surfaces," Wood says as he points to the top and bottom of the Z10, which are ever-so-slightly sloped. "We've brought that with the margins [on the Z10], but it's very subtle. There are some principles that we carry forward, but nothing's been cut and pasted."

As CEO Thorsten Heins described at the launch, BlackBerry faced a decision three years ago: adopt someone else's mobile OS or go it alone. It opted for the latter, acquiring QNX software in 2010 and adapting it to build first the PlayBook, then BlackBerry 10.

Completely switching mobile platforms was risky and extremely challenging, but it was also a huge design opportunity, says Wood.

"We were starting the platform from scratch. We wanted to build on the design DNA [BlackBerry] had, and we wanted to keep certain attributes -- the fit to face, fit to hand -- the general comfort of the device, the build quality of the device."

No Home Button Key decisions about the device itself depended on how the software worked. There's no home button on the Z10, for example -- a user controls basic functions (like switching between apps) via gestures, such as swiping up from the edge of the screen.

Much of the design was influenced by the need for easy, one-handed operation.

"How can you design a system where you could multitask more elegantly?" Wood asks, rhetorically. "It's not unlike shuffling cards. And we started to realize you can really do that with one hand and one thumb.

"Almost every phone has a UI paradigm of 'You go home to go somewhere else.' Here you can flow from app to app."

Soft Touch Backside The phone has a semi-rubberized back, a material that BlackBerry refers to as "soft touch." The company has used it before -- in the trim of the latest Bold smartphone, for example. But in the Z10, Wood's team added a perforated pattern.

"Soft touch is a special coating that we use," he explains. "It provides grip, and it's very silky. What we did was add some microtexture to it, which is something that you don't notice until you pick the phone up and run your hand across it. It's a nice subtlety."

Button Shapes If you've ever thought the physical buttons on Samsung's phones felt cheap, or the iPhone's too bland, you'll appreciate RIM's contoured buttons for volume and media playback. The volume buttons have a slight notch on one side, and the play/pause button has a small upraised piece -- all detectable by touch.

"We wanted to keep them really precise and clean," says Wood. "We sculpted the keys so it's always really apparent without looking, almost like braille, exactly where you are."

Font Wood also played a role in choosing the system font for BlackBerry 10, which is called Slate. Designed by Canadian Rod McDonald (who also designed the font for Maclean's, one of Canada's top national news magazines), BlackBerry chose Slate for its legibility, Wood says.

"Slate really works for screen and print, so we decided to adopt it. When you have such a high-res display, you get really accurate letterforms. When you have a really great font design, that improves productivity. You're not squinting, and letters are not misinterpreted."

The Q10 Of course, Wood also led the team that designed the Q10, the BlackBerry 10 phone with a physical QWERTY keyboard, coming about a month after the Z10 debuts. Although the Q10 borrows more design DNA from the BlackBerry of old, BB10 afforded some big departures as well.

For starters, the Q10's keyboard is straight whereas most previous BlackBerry phone keyboards had a curve to them -- which even led to the company calling one of its product lines the Curve.

"That is a big change," Wood says of straightening out the keyboard for the Q10. "It was very logical, but also it signals 'This is different.' And there's no performance tradeoff with it being straight -- we've measured it."

Besides being straight, the keyboard is larger than the ones on previous BlackBerry phones.

"What allows us to get that extra size is we've replaced the home key, the back key and the send/end keys, since everything in BB10 is controlled by gestures and direct manipulation of the data. Without the curve, each key is the same size, and they're 3% larger."

The Red LED No BlackBerry phone would be complete without the trademark -- and at times notorious -- blinking red LED that indicates a message is waiting. Wood says the attribute is hard-wired into BlackBerry design at this point and at no point did the company consider ditching it.

"That's probably the strongest, most iconic element of the DNA we carry forward," he says. "It's origins were 'Let's save on battery life,' and it continues today. For us, we call it the spark, or the splat. It's a hallmark of BlackBerry it makes some people excited, and it makes some people neurotic, but it's up to end users to manage that."

How do you like the design of BlackBerry's new phones? Let us know in the comments.

BONUS: BlackBerry Z10 Review

Click here to view the gallery: BlackBerry Z10 Review

Lead image by Nina Frazier, Mashable

Images by Nina Frazier, Christina Warren and Pete Pachal, Mashable

This story originally published on Mashable here.

DALLAS (Reuters) - Grammy Award-winning country singer Randy Travis on Thursday pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated and was sentenced to two years probation for an incident in which Texas State Troopers found him lying naked near his crashed car.

Travis, 53, was ordered to serve at least 30 days at an in-patient alcohol treatment facility and was not charged for threatening the troopers who arrested him August 7 in Tioga, Texas, about 60 miles north of Dallas.

Travis' blood alcohol level was more than double the legal limit in Texas when he was arrested, authorities said.

The guilty plea to a Class A misdemeanor in Grayson County Court ends legal troubles Travis faced in connection with several incidents last year, his attorney Larry Friedman said.

"He is ready to put all this behind him and focus on his music and his fans," Friedman said. "He expects a trouble-free 2013."

Travis was also fined $2,000 and sentenced to 100 hours of community service. Travis will have to serve six months in jail if he fails to complete the probation terms.

Grayson County District Attorney Joe Brown called the sentence "appropriate" given Travis' level of intoxication and behavior during his arrest.

"We are all hopeful that Mr. Travis is on the road to recovery," Brown said in a statement.

In January, Travis pleaded no contest in a case in which police said he assaulted a man on August 23 in a church parking lot while trying to intervene in a disagreement between a woman, who is now his fianc e, and her estranged husband.

Travis is serving 90 days of deferred adjudication in that case, which means the charges could be dismissed if he successfully completes the requirements, Friedman said.

The singer filed a lawsuit recently in a Collin County District Court against the man he was charged with assaulting, claiming the altercation was an attempt to injure and embarrass him.

Travis, known for such hits as "Forever and Ever, Amen," was cited in February 2012 for public intoxication and paid a fine, Friedman said.

(Editing by David Bailey and Stacey Joyce)

CHICAGO (AP) Patrick Fitzgerald has prosecuted mobsters, terrorists, a White House aide and two Illinois governors.

On Thursday, the former top prosecutor got a crack at Socrates. Yes, that Socrates, the Greek philosopher.

Fitzgerald, one of the nation's highest profile federal prosecutors until he recently entered private practice, represented Athens in a do-over of the 399 B.C. trial of Socrates on charges of corrupting the ancient city's youth and disrespecting its gods.

Socrates' legal counsel at the mock trial in Chicago part of fundraising event for the National Hellenic Museum was no slouch himself.

It was Dan Webb, a high-priced lawyer who defended former Gov. George Ryan in a corruption case brought by Fitzgerald. Ryan eventually lost at a trial prosecuted by assistant attorneys working for Fitzgerald.

The result Thursday night? The jury an audience of more than 1,000 people found Socrates guilty, but spared him death by hemlock and fined him instead.

As U.S. Attorney in Chicago, Fitzgerald gained a reputation for getting defendants to plead out before trial. But he told The Associated Press by phone hours before Thursday's event that a last-minute plea deal with Socrates appeared to be out of reach.

"Socrates," he explained, "does not seem to be much of a compromiser."

In the 24 centuries since Socrates' trial and execution by poison hemlock, the prevailing sentiment has been that Athens railroaded the 70-year-old gadfly, who was fond of questioning bedrock Athenian assumptions about the world.

Fitzgerald, though, complained that the only extensive account of the trial is from Plato, a student and booster of Socrates.

"I don't think Athenians ever got a fair shake. Plato only gave one side of the story," he said.

Impiety was seen as an egregious crime in ancient Greece, he explained, because it was thought that an individual's disrespect of the gods could invite their wrath in the form of plagues and other calamities.

"If you criticized the gods, then bad things happen to everyone," he said.

Among the judges presiding over the retrial was Richard Posner, who sits on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Among the jurors were several state luminaries, including the president of the Illinois Senate, John Cullerton.

The retrial wasn't meant to be a reenactment. It was meant to be a modern take on the famous case, meaning participating attorneys and judges won't don like togas or other period garb, Fitzgerald said gratefully.

"There are crimes against nature, too," he laughed. "That would be a crime against nature if we showed up in a togas."

___

Follow Michael Tarm's updates from the retrial at www.twitter.com/mtarm Follow Michael Tarm's updates from the retrial at www.twitter.com/mtarm

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) The suicide bomber who struck the U.S. Embassy in Ankara spent several years in prison on terrorism charges but was released on probation after being diagnosed with a hunger strike-related brain disorder, officials said Saturday.

The bomber, identified as 40-year-old leftist militant Ecevit Sanli, killed himself and a Turkish security guard on Friday, in what U.S. officials said was a terrorist attack. Sanli was armed with enough TNT to blow up a two-story building and also detonated a hand grenade, officials said.

Sanli had fled Turkey after he was released from jail in 2001, but managed to come back to the country "illegally," using a fake ID, Interior Muammer Guler said. It was not clear how long before the attack he returned to Turkey.

Sanli had been a member of the outlawed Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front, or DHKP-C, which has claimed responsibility for assassinations and bombings since the 1970s but has been relatively quiet in recent years. Compared to al-Qaida, it has not been seen as a strong terrorist threat.

Sanli's motives were still unclear. But some Turkish government officials have linked the attack to the arrest last month of dozens of suspected members of the group in a nationwide sweep.

Speculation has also abounded that the bombing was related to the perceived support of the U.S. for Turkey's harsh criticism of the regime in Syria, whose brutal civil war has forced tens of thousands of Syrian refugees to seek shelter in Turkey. But Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has denied that.

Officials said Sanli was arrested in 1997 for alleged involvement in attacks on Istanbul's police headquarters and a military guesthouse and jailed on charges of membership in the group.

While in prison awaiting trial, he took part in a major hunger strike that led to the deaths of dozens of inmates, according to a statement from the Ankara governor's office. The protesters opposed a maximum-security system in which prisoners were held in small cells instead of large wards.

Sanli was diagnosed with Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome and released on probation in 2001, following the introduction of legislation that allowed hunger strikers with the disorder to get appropriate treatment. The syndrome is a malnutrition-related brain illness that affects vision, muscle coordination and memory and that can cause hallucinations.

Sanli fled Turkey after his release and was wanted by Turkish authorities. He was convicted in absentia in 2002.

The U.S. flag at the embassy flew at half-staff on Saturday and already tight security was increased. Police sealed off a street in front of the security checkpoint where the explosion knocked a door off its hinges and littered the road with debris. Police vehicles were parked in streets surrounding the building.

The Ankara governor's office, citing the findings of a bomb squad that inspected the site, said Sanli had used 6 kilograms of TNT for the suicide attack and also detonated a hand grenade. That amount of TNT can demolish "a two-story reinforced building," according to Nihat Ali Ozcan, a terrorism expert at the Ankara-based Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey.

Officials had earlier said that the bomber detonated a suicide vest at the checkpoint on the outer perimeter of the compound.

The guard who was killed was standing outside the checkpoint. The U.S. ambassador on Saturday attended his funeral in a town just outside of Ankara.

A Turkish TV journalist was seriously wounded and two other guards had lighter wounds.

DHKP-C's forerunner, Devrimci Sol, or Revolutionary Left, was formed in 1978 as a Marxist group openly opposed to the United States and NATO. It has attacked Turkish, U.S. and other foreign targets since then, including two U.S. military contractors and a U.S. Air Force officer.

The group, designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and other European allies, changed its name to DHKP-C in 1994.

The attack came as NATO deployed six Patriot anti-missile systems to protect ally Turkey from a possible spillover from the civil war raging across the border in Syria. The United States, Netherlands and Germany are each providing two Patriot batteries.

Ozcan, the terrorism expert, said that the Syrian regime, which had backed terrorist groups in Turkey, including autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebels, during the Cold War era and through the 1990s, had recently revived ties with these groups.

As Turkey began to support the Syrian opposition, Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime began to try "rebuilding its ties with these organizations," Ozcan said.

Radikal newspaper reported that the DHKP-C had recently been taking an interest in "regional issues," reviving its anti-American stance and taking on "a more pro-Assad position."

Former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Ross Wilson, speculated that the masterminds of the embassy bombing may have been partly motivated by U.S.-Turkish policy on Syria.

"A successful attack would embarrass the Turkish government and security forces, and it would have struck at the United States, which is widely if wrongly thought to have manipulated the Erdogan government into breaking with Bashar al-Assad and supporting efforts to remove him from power," Wilson, director of the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center at the Washington-based Atlantic Council, wrote in an analysis.

"That might rekindle public support for the group. Alas for DHPK/C, this seems unlikely," he wrote.

Howard Eissenstat, a Turkey expert at St. Lawrence University in the United States, said the bombing showed that a "relatively isolated and obscure group" still has the capacity to cause havoc.

"They really fall outside of our comfortable narratives," Eissenstat wrote in an email to The Associated Press. "And they do seem to have been left in an ideological time warp. There is something distinctly cult-like about them."

The attack drew quick condemnation from Turkey, the U.S., Britain and other nations, and officials from both Turkey and the U.S. pledged to work together to fight terrorism.

It was the second deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic post in five months. On Sept. 11, 2012, terrorists attacked a U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, killing U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. The attackers in Libya were suspected to have ties to Islamist extremists, and one is in custody in Egypt.

U.S. diplomatic facilities in Turkey have been targeted previously by terrorists. In 2008, an attack blamed on al-Qaida-affiliated militants outside the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul left three assailants and three policemen dead.

______

Associated Press writers Ezgi Akin and Burhan Ozbilici and Christopher Torchia in Istanbul contributed to this report.

The new BlackBerry Z10 smartphone won't be out for weeks, but you can already get your hands on it via eBay for about $1,500.

BlackBerry -- the company formerly known as Research In Motion (RIM) -- announced the new smartphone at an event earlier this week and handed out samples to guests and members of the press in attendance. It didn't take long for the Z10, which could potentially turn around the struggling company, to pop up on eBay.

[More from Mashable: BlackBerry s Secret Weapon: Women]



One page notes "this particular device was given to all attendees of the Jan. 30, 2013 product launch."

[More from Mashable: Don t Hold Your Breath for More BlackBerry Tablets]

BlackBerry didn't tell attendees what they can or can't do with the device, which comes unlocked, according to the listing, and without a SIM card.

Four units are currently being sold on eBay, with bids starting at $800 and rising quickly. The auction for the one going for $1,500, which has eight bids so far, will end this afternoon.

Images by Mashable and via eBay, eBay

BONUS: BlackBerry Z10 Is Exceptional, But Perplexing

Click here to view the gallery: BlackBerry Z10 Review

This story originally published on Mashable here.

The iPad has proven to be an especially useful communication tool for young people with autism. It provides a way to express themselves through words and images; it can be used to teach them about everyday scenarios and give them more independence. It's also far less bulky than some communication devices of the past.

Autism Spectrum Disorders are developmental disabilities that affect about one in every 88 children, and one in 54 boys.

[More from Mashable: 10 Essential Tools for the Lean Web Developer]

Jonathan Izak's 12-year-old autistic brother inspired him to develop the AutisMate app for iPad. His brother, Oriel, is mostly nonverbal and used to struggle to communicate, sometimes throwing tantrums when he was unable to get his point across, Izak tells Mashable.

At 7 years old, Oriel had to wear a heavy communication device around his neck, which further set him apart from other children at school. Now, Oriel carries an iPad and uses the app his brother developed to communicate and learn new behaviors like how to act in specific social situations.

[More from Mashable: Tablet Shipments Hit Record Levels While Apple s Market Share Declines]

With AutisMate, parents or caretakers take and upload photos of their child's bedroom, the kitchen, his or her school to the app. When the app launches, the iPad's GPS will know where the user is and allows them to tap pictures of their surrounding environment. The child can tap the refrigerator, for instance, to express that he or she is hungry.



Izak says these visual tools for communication don't become a permanent crutch but rather promote speech and communication.

It's not uncommon for children with autism to be nonverbal and need the iPad to communicate. AutismSpeaks.org says it's estimated that 25% of people with autism are completely nonverbal.

Izak explains that, for someone with autism, the unknowns in life can be scary, so to prepare that person for the world, apps like AutisMate show scenes of how to do everyday things like go to a restaurant or the doctor's office.

Parents, caretakers and doctors know early intervention with autism is a key factor to increasing their child's likelihood of communicating, which is probably why most autism apps focus on children. iPad apps to help children with autism develop their communication skills are part of a rapidly growing market and have proved to be effective tools. Check out some of the apps we found and others recommended to us. Let us know if you know of any other useful apps for people with autism.

Click here to view the gallery: Autism Apps

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, UrsaHoogle

This story originally published on Mashable here.

MIDLAND CITY, Ala. (AP) After four anxious days, only the slimmest of details has come to light in a police standoff with an Alabama man who is accused of holding a 5-year-old boy hostage in a bunker, a sign of just how delicate the negotiations are.

Police have used a ventilation pipe to the underground bunker to talk to the man and deliver the boy medication for his emotional disorders, but they have not revealed how often they are in touch or what the conversations have been about. And authorities waited until Friday four days after the siege began to confirm what was widely known in this age of instant communication: The man accused of killing a school bus driver and abducting the boy Tuesday was 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes, a Vietnam-era veteran who was known to neighbors as a menacing figure.

While much of what is going on inside the bunker remains a mystery, local officials who have spoken to police or the boy's family have described a small room with food, electricity and a TV. And while the boy has his medication, an official also said he has been crying for his parents.

Meanwhile, Midland City residents held out hope that the standoff would end safely and mourned for the slain bus driver and his family. Candlelight vigils have been held nightly at a gazebo in front of City Hall. Residents prayed, sang songs such as "Amazing Grace" and nailed homemade wooden crosses on the gazebo's railings alongside signs that read: "We are praying for you."

"We're doing any little thing that helps show support for him," said 15-year-old Taylor Edwards said.

Former hostage negotiators said authorities must be cautious and patient as long as they are confident that the boy is unharmed. Ex-FBI hostage negotiator Clint Van Zandt advised against any drastic measures such as cutting the electricity or putting sleep gas inside the bunker because it could agitate Dykes.

The negotiator should try to ease Dykes' anxieties over what will happen when the standoff ends, and refer to both the boy and Dykes by their first names, he said.

"I want to give him a reason to come out," Van Zandt said, "and my reason is, 'You didn't mean that to happen. It was unintentional. It could have happened to anyone. It was an accident. People have accidents, Jimmy Lee. It's not that big a thing. You and I can work that out.'"

Police seemed to be following that pattern. At a brief news conference to release a photo of Dykes, they brushed off any questions about possible charges.

"It's way too early for that," said Kevin Cook, a spokesman for the Alabama state troopers.

The shelter is about 4 feet underground, with about 6-by-8 feet of floor space and there is a PVC pipe that negotiators were speaking through.

One of Dykes' next-door neighbors said he spent two or three months constructing the bunker, digging several feet into the ground and then building a structure of lumber and plywood, which he covered with sand and dirt.

Neighbor Michael Creel said Dykes put the plastic pipe underground from the bunker to the end of his driveway so he can hear if anyone drives up to his gate. When Dykes finished the shelter a year or so ago, he in invited Creel to see it and he did.

"He was bragging about it. He said, 'Come check it out," Creel said.

He said he believes Dykes' goal with the standoff is a chance to publicize his political beliefs.

"I believe he wants to rant and rave about politics and government," Creel said. "He's very concerned about his property. He doesn't want his stuff messed with."

Midland City Mayor Virgil Skipper said he has been briefed by law enforcement agents and has visited with the boy's parents.

"He's crying for his parents," he said. "They are holding up good. They are praying and asking all of us to pray with them."

State Rep. Steve Clouse, who represents the Midland City area, said he visited the boy's mother and she is "hanging on by a thread." Clouse said the mother told him that the boy has Asperger's syndrome as well as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.

Dr. Nadine Kaslow, a family therapist and psychiatry professor at Emory University in Atlanta, said the boy's emotional troubles might make things even more difficult for him.

"They have less way to make sense of things," she said of children with Asperger's and ADHD. "He may be less able to even interact with the person who's holding him hostage than another child might be, and he's less able, for example, to imagine friends that might be there waiting for him, to remember the good things, positive times. Also, he may be more likely to be frightened and overwhelmed and confused by the situation."

The normally quiet red-clay road leading to the bunker was busy Friday with more than a dozen police cars and trucks, a fire truck, a helicopter, officers from multiple agencies and news media near Midland City, a town with a population of 2,300 that's about 100 miles southeast of Montgomery.

Police vehicles have come and gone steadily for hours from the command post, a small church nearby.

Dykes was known around the neighborhood as a menacing figure who neighbors said once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to shoot children for setting foot on his property and patrolled his yard at night with a flashlight and a firearm.

He was in the Navy from 1964 to 1969 and served some time in Japan, according to military records.

Authorities said Dykes boarded a stopped school bus filled with children on Tuesday afternoon and demanded two boys between 6 and 8 years old. When the driver tried to block his way, the gunman shot him several times and took the 5-year-old boy.

The bus driver, Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, was hailed by locals as a hero who gave his life to protect the pupils on his bus.

Dykes had been scheduled to appear in court Wednesday to answer charges he shot at his neighbors in a dispute last month over a speed bump. Neighbor Claudia Davis said he yelled and fired shots at her and her family over damage Dykes claimed their pickup truck did to a makeshift speed bump in the dirt road. No one was hurt.

Davis' son, James Davis Jr., believed Tuesday's shooting was connected to the court date. "I believe he thought I was going to be in court and he was going to get more charges than the menacing, which he deserved, and he had a bunch of stuff to hide and that's why he did it."

Creel said his father and Dykes are friends. Creel said that after Dykes' arrest, Dykes wrote a 2- to 3-page letter that at least in part addressed the menacing case and that he shared with Greg Creel.

Michael Creel said he hasn't seen the letter but that his father has. The younger Creel said his father told him that Dykes said he had sent the letter to the local media, politicians and Alabama's governor.

Michael Creel said police on Friday took the copy of the letter from the Creels' home. Reached for comment, Greg Creel confirmed the existence of the letter but declined further comment and said he was cooperating with police.

A neighbor directly across the street, Brock Parrish, said Dykes usually wore overalls and glasses and his posture was hunched-over. He said Dykes usually drove a run-down "creeper" van with some of the windows covered in aluminum foil.

Parrish often saw him digging in his yard, as if he were preparing to lay down a driveway or building foundation. He lived in a small camping trailer and patrolled his lawn at night, walking from corner to corner with a flashlight and a long gun. Parrish described the weapon as an assault rifle, while another neighbor said it was a shotgun. Michael Creel said Dykes has five weapons he knows of, but he's not aware of him having an assault weapon. Authorities have not disclosed what firearms Dykes might have in his possession.

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Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington; Phillip Rawls in Midland City; Bob Johnson in Montgomery, Ala., and AP researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell this week expressed firm support for a guest worker program to help bring in more low-skilled workers for farm labor and other industries.In an exclusive interview with Yahoo News, the Kentucky Republican said any legislation pushed by the Senate Gang of Eight must include such a provision. We need a good guest worker program. The one we have now is not working very well, McConnell told Chief Washington Correspondent Olivier Knox, noting it was difficult for farmers to harvest crops without such low-wage assistance. "So there s a practical reality to needing a guest worker program, and I m sure that will be a part of the final bill. McConnell s comments are significant given that a guest worker program, which would allow an employer to sponsor a non-U.S. citizen as an employee for labor purposes, has been opposed by labor unions and others who see it as a threat to low wage U.S. workers.McConnell did not endorse any of the principles the bipartisan Senate group has outlined, including an eventual path to citizenship for millions currently living illegally in the U.S. He emphasized instead that the group is moving Congress in a "direction" toward reform."I think there s a bipartisan desire to do something important here, a feeling that our immigration system is broken it certainly is," McConnell said.McConnell spoke to Knox about a range of subjects in the 20-minute interview, from President Barack Obama's State of the Union address to what he thinks of Vice President Joe Biden to a potential political challenge from Ashley Judd to how the Kentucky senator likes his bourbon.McConnell said he is skeptical about whether to pass new gun restrictions in the wake of the school shootings in Newtown, Conn., and elsewhere.Calling himself a strong Second Amendment supporter, McConnell cast doubt on the government's ability to help prevent gun violence by enacting gun reform."These school shootings are just horrendous. It absolutely shocks and appalls everybody in the country," McConnell said. "The question is: What can the government do about insane people doing horrendous things? It's a very complex question."McConnell declined to say whether he supports expanded background checks for prospective gun buyers -- something Obama has championed.The president has made gun safety restrictions a signature issue for his second term following the Newtown shooting. The president chose Biden to head up the task force to help craft legislative proposals to stem gun violence and gather input from a range of special interest groups, the public, advocates and others.Biden, a 36-year veteran of the Senate from Delaware, has been a key negotiator for the president on Capitol Hill.McConnell notably helped reach a New Year's Eve deal to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff by reaching out to Biden."What is it that former Senator Biden brings to the table in a negotiation like this that the president himself doesn't?" Knox asked.McConnell joked that Biden wasn't "freelancing," suggesting Obama was well aware of what the vice president was doing in the negotiations with McConnell.McConnell suggested Obama had recently missed a major opportunity to unite lawmakers behind his agenda."I was disappointed in the inaugural speech, which was very much on the far left," McConnell said. "I hope that the president will use the State of the Union to move back to the political center so we can do some important things for the American people."Knox told McConnell that many Yahoo readers had said on Facebook and Twitter that they were interested in McConnell's reaction to a widely reported comment he made in 2010, when he said his No. 1 goal was to make Obama a "one-term president."McConnell said he made those comments before the 2012 race, as any active Republican would," but that he was willing to work with Obama now that he has been re-elected to a second term.McConnell claimed Wednesday that the president's plan to use the government to help boost the economy was a failure and that the economy has been "tepid for four straight years.""Most of what he's done hasn't worked," McConnell said.That claim conflicts with data showing that under Obama the economy has added jobs and corporate profits have grown, and with other positive factors that show an economy in a slow but gradual recovery despite a slight contraction in the gross domestic product in the fourth quarter of 2012.McConnell acknowledged he may face a tough primary challenge in 2014, in part because he has been at odds with tea party members in his state and because those in Senate leadership roles in both parties are juicy targets for defeat.Could that mean a Sen. Ashley Judd, who is considering running for the Democratic nomination in Kentucky?"Who I actually end up running against either in the primary or the general will be determined in 2014 and we'll take a look at it then," McConnell said.One thing McConnell was eager to discuss: bourbon, the drink his home state is known for."The best way to drink it, in my opinion, is to make a Manhattan, which is a combination of bourbon and other unknown substances, McConnell said. Drop a couple of cherries on top of it, make sure there's ice there, and it's a terrific drink around Christmastime, which I frequently offer to my guests."

CHICAGO (AP) Patrick Fitzgerald has prosecuted mobsters, terrorists, a White House aide and two Illinois governors.

On Thursday, the former top prosecutor got a crack at Socrates. Yes, that Socrates, the Greek philosopher.

Fitzgerald, one of the nation's highest profile federal prosecutors until he recently entered private practice, represented Athens in a do-over of the 399 B.C. trial of Socrates on charges of corrupting the ancient city's youth and disrespecting its gods.

Socrates' legal counsel at the mock trial in Chicago part of a fundraising event for the National Hellenic Museum was no slouch himself.

It was Dan Webb, a high-priced lawyer who defended former Gov. George Ryan in a corruption case brought by Fitzgerald. Ryan eventually lost at a trial prosecuted by assistant attorneys working for Fitzgerald.

The result Thursday night? Jurors an audience of around 1,000 people found Socrates guilty by a narrow vote. They spared the philosopher death by hemlock, however, and called for a fine instead.

As U.S. Attorney in Chicago, Fitzgerald gained a reputation for getting defendants to plead out before trial. But he told The Associated Press by phone hours before Thursday's event that a last-minute plea deal with Socrates was out of reach.

"Socrates," he explained, "does not seem to be much of a compromiser."

In the 24 centuries since Socrates' trial and execution by poison hemlock, the prevailing sentiment has been that Athens railroaded the 70-year-old gadfly, who was fond of questioning bedrock Athenian assumptions about the world.

Fitzgerald, though, complained that the only extensive account of the trial is from Plato, a student and booster of Socrates.

"I don't think Athenians ever got a fair shake. Plato only gave one side of the story," he said.

Impiety was seen as an egregious crime in ancient Greece, Fitzgerald's co-counsel told jurors Thursday night, because it was thought that an individual's disrespect of the gods could invite their wrath in the form of plagues that would devastate the entire city.

"He dissed Zeus ... He called the Moon dirt," said Pat Collins, another former prosecutor representing Athens. "Messing with the gods brings real harm ... The gods have a memory, and they carry a grudge"

One judge presiding over the retrial was Richard Posner, who sits on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Socrates was "a crank" who "encouraged the brats of Athens," he said, but wasn't a threat to society.

In that vein, another of the presiding judges said he could only see fit to impose a minimal fine in light of the jury's decision Thursday night.

"I'd fine him two bucks and let it go at that," said William Bauer, another federal judge.

The retrial wasn't meant to be a reenactment and so participating attorneys and judges weren't required to don togas or other period garb, Fitzgerald said gratefully earlier in the day.

"There are crimes against nature, too," he laughed. "That would be a crime against nature if we showed up in a togas."

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Follow Michael Tarm at www.twitter.com/mtarm.