The Americas

News from North, Central and South America

Edward Kennedy taken to hospital

US Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy is taken to hospital with stroke-like symptoms.
Read more [BBC Americas]

Bush meets Palestinian president

US President George W Bush meets Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at talks with Arab leaders in Egypt.
Read more [BBC Americas]

Upstate NY fort to commemorate anniversary of 1758 battle

TICONDEROGA, N.Y. -- Before the Civil War and Antietam, the bloodiest battle fought on American soil was here, on a narrow but strategically vital strip of land between Lake Champlain and Lake George.
Read more [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

US prez race front and center at astrology convention

DENVER -- Picking a winner of the presidential contest is front and center at what's being billed as the largest astrologers' convention in years.
Read more [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

Marine who died after cross-state chase wrote of war stress

TUCSON, Ariz. -- Last month, Marine Staff Sgt. Travis N. "T-Bo" Twiggs went to the White House with a group of Iraq war veterans called the Wounded Warriors Regiment and met the president.
Read more [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

2 rail cars overturn in La., residents evacuated

LAFAYETTE, La. -- Six rail cars have derailed in southern Louisiana, with two cars leaking hydrochloric acid and forcing police to evacuate thousands of residents within a 1-mile radius of the accident.
Read more [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

2 rail cars overturn in Louisiana, leak hydrochloric acid

Two rail cars have jumped the track and overturned in southern Louisiana, leaking hydrochloric acid and forcing police to evacuate thousands of residents within a 1-mile of the accident.

Read more [LA Times National News]

NAACP picks young activist as its new president

The NAACP board of directors has chosen Ben Jealous, a 35-year-old former news executive and lifelong activist, as the organization's next president and the youngest in its 99-year history.
Read more [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

Carnival ride collapses in California; 24 injured

ANGELS CAMP, Calif. -- State investigators were trying to determine what caused a spinning carnival ride at a county fair to collapse and injure all 24 people aboard.
Read more [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

Police find 3 decomposing bodies inside NJ home

TRENTON, N.J. -- Police found three decomposing bodies with multiple stab wounds inside a northern New Jersey home Friday night, a prosecutor said.
Read more [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

Winning Mega Millions ticket sold near Cincinnati

CLEVELAND -- A lucky lottery player who stopped into a suburban Cincinnati liquor store has a Mega Millions ticket worth $196 million.
Read more [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

Olympian Montgomery gets 46 months for check fraud

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- Olympian Tim Montgomery had everything he ever wanted. Once known as the "world's fastest man," Montgomery won a silver medal in the 400 relay at the 1996 Olympics and gold in the same event in 2000. In 2002, he set a record of 9.78 seconds in the 100-meter dash.
Read more [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

TV's Ellen to wed actress partner

TV show host Ellen DeGeneres is to marry Portia de Rossi after California lifted its ban on same-sex ceremonies.
Read more [BBC Americas]

Artist covers old gas station with huge blanket

DEWITT, N.Y. -- Jennifer Marsh was sick of paying high gas prices and bothered by the abandoned gas station that was an eyesore on the drive to her studio each day.
Read more [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

Texas sinkhole becomes a lake, home to alligator

DAISETTA, Texas -- The giant Texas sinkhole that formed last week is now a lake big enough to become the home of an alligator.
Read more [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

Van jumps curb in NYC; trolley crashes in LA

NEW YORK -- An out-of-control van jumped a curb and barreled into bystanders near the entrance to a crowded subway station Friday, killing the driver and hurting seven people, authorities said.
Read more [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

Chemist gets life for killing husband in acid vat

FRESNO, Calif. -- A biochemist was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Friday for killing her estranged husband by knocking him out and stuffing him into a vat of acid, possibly while he was still alive.
Read more [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

Texas minister charged in Internet sex sting

BRYAN, Texas -- A minister from a Dallas-area Baptist megachurch was caught in an Internet sex sting and charged with online solicitation of a minor, police said Friday.
Read more [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

El Niño might have helped Magellan voyage

Researchers speculate that calm conditions in the Pacific altered the route of his ships, which became the first to circle the globe.

El Niño, the weather phenomenon that has puzzled climate scientists in recent decades, might have assisted the first trip around the world nearly 500 years ago.

Read more [LA Times National News]

Barack Obama blasts back at President Bush, John McCain

A day after the president's 'appeasement' comments, Obama accuses the Republicans of strengthening America's enemies in the Middle East and using 'fear-mongering' to silence critics.

In a day of intense verbal sparring, Sen. Barack Obama angrily accused President Bush and Sen. John McCain on Friday of strengthening America's enemies in the Middle East and relying on "fear-mongering" to silence critics of their policies.

Read more [LA Times National News]

Trying to mend fences with the NRA, McCain attacks Democrats

Many 'gunnies' at the group's conference remain suspicious that he will not advance their agenda; some predict the Republican will not win an endorsement.

Sen. John McCain, working to mend a frayed relationship with some of the Republican Party's most dedicated foot soldiers, went to the National Rifle Assn.'s annual conference here Friday to assure wary members he is a friend of the 2nd Amendment.

Read more [LA Times National News]

Bush's food crisis aid package now promotes genetically modified crops

Controversial language is added to the proposal. Opponents of bioengineered food say the White House wants U.S. agribusiness to reap rewards.

The Bush administration has added a controversial ingredient to the $770-million aid package it recently proposed to ease the world food crisis: language that would promote the use of genetically modified crops in food-deprived countries.

Read more [LA Times National News]

Shakira, other Latin American stars sing for their cause -- ALAS

MEXICO CITY -- Not so long ago, Latin American artists who spoke up for social causes often risked prison, exile or far worse.

Tax rebate exclusions draw controversy

A coalition is urging legislators to change rules that limit the checks to those who hold Social Security cards, which disqualifies some military personnel and legal immigrants.

As the rebate checks from Uncle Sam continue arriving in mailboxes, a provision limiting the benefit to Social Security cardholders is drawing controversy in California and around the nation.

Ted Nugent could be the NRA's rambunctious new Charlton Heston

With the recent passing of Charlton Heston, the National Rifle Assn. lost its biggest media gun. But rocker Ted Nugent -- the man known for once performing in a loincloth and for greeting concertgoers from the back of a bison named Chief -- is prepared to fill in for the elder statesman as popular culture's most outspoken proponent of the 2nd Amendment.

Read more [LA Times National News]

Defenders of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, 4 others ask Guantanamo judge to dismiss charges

They say tribunal legal advisor Thomas Hartmann -- who's been barred from a case against Osama bin Laden's driver -- acted unfairly and illegally to get KSM and his alleged co-conspirators prosecuted.

Military attorneys for confessed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators called Friday for the dismissal of the charges against the men, saying an Air Force general advising the tribunals applied "unlawful influence" to bring them to trial.

Read more [LA Times National News]

The invasion of the 'crazy Rasberrys'

In what sounds like a really low-budget horror film, voracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area, shorting out electrical boxes and messing up computers.

Read more [LA Times National News]

In Massachusetts, a test run for same-sex marriage

Many in the state welcome California's Supreme Court ruling this week.

For some, it is as simple as access to the vocabulary of marriage. "My wife" translates so much more readily to the general populace than "my partner," said Marcia Hams, who traded vows with Susan Shepherd days after Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage on May 17, 2004.

Read more [LA Times National News]

In prison for murder, pulling Vegas strings

Hoping for a new trial, an ex-cop hatched a plan to get money from his ailing grandmother's California house. FBI files say the goal was to bribe a judge. He could work the deal -- with a little help.

Among the inmates at the Clark County Detention Center in the summer of 2006 was a local celebrity, an ex-cop whose long fight to reverse his murder conviction still intrigued his hometown.

Read more [LA Times National News]

Razor-sharp concertina wire installed at U.S.-Mexico border

The U.S. says its use on an eventual 5-mile stretch of existing fence is to protect agents. But critics say it disregards immigrants' safety.

The U.S. Border Patrol is installing razor-sharp concertina wire atop border fencing between San Diego and Tijuana, marking a major shift in approach along a frequently violent stretch of the frontier.

Ill fugitive headed back to Md. years after escape

RALEIGH, N.C. -- An ailing 81-year-old North Carolina man who escaped from a Maryland prison 43 years ago was taken into custody Friday to face extradition, a move his attorneys decried as a waste of time because he is ill and aging.
Read more [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

Same-sex marriage ruling also victory for SF mayor

SAN FRANCISCO -- Hours before the California Supreme Court issued its decision on gay marriage, Mayor Gavin Newsom heard rumblings that the justices would uphold the state's ban.
Read more [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

Mexicans arrested at filthy 'drop house' in LA charged

LOS ANGELES -- Three Mexican men held dozens of illegal immigrants in a squalid "drop house" in South Los Angeles, where one woman was raped and others say they were threatened with sexual assault, authorities said Friday.
Read more [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

Calif. wine patriarch Robert Mondavi dies at 94

BERKELEY, Calif. -- Robert Mondavi, the vintner who built his career and helped an iconic Northern California industry blossom by insisting that Napa Valley wines can compete with the best in the world, died in the valley Friday. He was 94.
Read more [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

Alabama sheriffs feed inmates on $1.75 a day

- BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Back in the day of chain gangs, Alabama passed a law that gave sheriffs $1.75 a day to feed each prisoner in their jails, and the sheriffs got to pocket anything that was left over. More than 80 years later, most Alabama counties still operate under this system, with the same $1.75-a-day allowance, and some sheriffs are actually making money on top of their salaries.
Read more [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]