HONOLULU (AP) _ Tsunami waves spawned by a massive earthquake in Japan have hit Hawaii.   The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center says Kauai was the first island hit early Friday by the tsunami, which was quickly sweeping through the Hawaiian Island chain. Officials predicted Hawaii would experience waves up to 6 feet (2 meters).   Residents in coastal areas of Hawaii were evacuated to refuge areas

 TOKYO (AP) _ Japan ordered thousands of residents near a nuclear power plant to evacuate on Friday following a massive earthquake that caused a problem in the plant's cooling system.   Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the Fukushima No. 1 power plant was not leaking radiation. The plant is in Onahama city, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo.   Japan's nuclear safety agency

     TAIPEI (AFP) - Taiwanese authorities said Friday that minor tsunamis set off by a massive quake in Japan reached the island's coastline without causing any damage.   Waves around 10 centimetres (four inches) high hit Taiwan's east and northeast coasts in the evening, the central weather bureau said.   The bureau later lifted the tsunami warning, saying it did not expect more and bigger waves.

     WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President Barack Obama on Friday offered his "condolences" to the people of Japan and said his country stood ready to help them after a massive earthquake and tsunami.   "(First Lady) Michelle (Obama) and I send our deepest condolences to the people of Japan, particularly those who have lost loved ones in the earthquake and tsunamis," he said in a statement.   "The Unite

TOKYO (AFP) - The death toll from the massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake that hit Japan on Friday, causing huge tsunamis along its Pacific coast, has reached 19, press reports said.The dead included a 67-year-old man crushed by a wall and an elderly woman killed by a fallen roof, both in the wider Tokyo area, press reports said.Three were crushed to death when their houses collapsed in Ibaraki prefe

     TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese shares plunged 1.72 percent on Friday, falling sharply in the closing minutes of trade after the country was hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami.   The Nikkei index of the Tokyo Stock Exchange fell 179.95 points to 10,254.43. The Topix index of all first section shares tumbled 1.7 percent, or15.33 points, to 915.51.   The market was already weighed down before the e

JAKARTA (AFP) ― A strong 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck off the Indonesian resort island of Bali early Friday but was located too deep to generate a tsunami in the Indian Ocean, seismologists said.The tremor hit at 1:08 a.m. and was centered 261 kilometers northeast of Bali’s capital Denpasar at a depth of 510 kilometers, the U.S. Geological Survey said.The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawai

   Taiwan's central weather bureau on Friday warned people living on its east and northeast coasts to be on guard for tsunamis set off by a major quake off Japan.  The Philippines also warned people living on its entire east coast to be on alert for the possibility of tsunamis after a major quake off Japan, the government's seismology agency   Russia's emergency ministry issued a tsunami warning F

Student sperm donation has drawn controversy in China and debate has been raised as to whether it is moral to do so. College students make up about 90 percent of sperm donors in China, Chinese news reports said Thursday.An official at a sperm bank in Guangdong, southern part of the South China Sea, said that about 2,000 students donated sperm last year, making up 95 percent of all donors. “It is h