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• On Wednesday evening, he was home with his wife and three children when a storm began to rage.
• "I looked out the window and thought, 'It doesn't look good,'" he said.
• He gathered his family into a hall closet as a savage tornado roared over his

neighborhood. All he could hear above the storm's din was the sound of every window in his home shattering.
• ___

• BEIRUT (AP) -- A six-member U.N. team led by a former Syrian planning minister is drawing up a comprehensive postwar reconstruction plan even as the country's civil war rages on with no apparent end in sight.
• A joint U.S.-Russian push to bring together Syria's political opposition and representatives of President Bashar Assad's regime to negotiate a peaceful transition has given their work new urgency.
• In a rare interview, the U.S.-educated economist, Abdullah al-Dardari, told The Associated Press that more than two years of fighting have cost Syria at least $60 billion and caused the vital oil industry to crumble. A quarter of all homes have been destroyed or severely damaged, and much of the medical system is in ruins.
• Now, he says, the Syrians have to be ready to rebuild when the fighting ends. He says his team has been overwhelmed with requests for a reconstruction plan to support the U.S.-Russian initiative on the off chance it succeeds.
• "I see a glimmer of hope," said al-Dardari, who now works for a Beirut-based U.N. development agency. "There appears to be more readiness for a political compromise by different groups in the opposition and by officials in the government."
• ___

• Japanese goods are getting more affordable. For consumers worldwide -- and for Japan's economy -- it's welcome news.
• Credit Japan's drive to pump cash into its economy to stimulate growth. The extra money flooding its financial system is helping shrink the value of the yen. A U.S. dollar now buys about 100 yen. Last fall, it bought fewer than 80.

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