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Tropical storm forms off Southeast coast
CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Tropical Storm Cristobal churned off the Southeast seaboard after it formed Saturday, the first storm to threaten the U.S. this hurricane season, forecasters said.
The storm strengthened from a tropical depression, generating maximum sustained winds of about 45 mph as it promised to bring much-needed rains to the parched eastern Carolinas.
At 5 p.m. EDT, the center of the storm was about 125 miles east of Charleston and about 205 miles southwest of Cape Hatteras, N.C. The National Hurricane Center said Cristobal was moving northeast at about 7 mph.
Although the center of the storm was forecast to remain off the coast through the weekend, tropical storm warnings were in effect from the South Santee River in South Carolina to the North Carolina-Virginia state line, including Pamlico Sound.
Woman in W.Pa. baby mystery eviscerated
PITTSBURGH -- An autopsy on a woman's body found in an apartment linked to a mystery newborn baby found that the woman was partially eviscerated and her uterus was cut open, authorities said Saturday.
The body was found Friday in an apartment of another woman who showed up at a hospital with a newborn she falsely claimed was hers.
Investigators were trying to determine the woman's identity, how she died and whether she was the mother of the baby that Andrea Curry-Demus allegedly told police she bought for $1,000.
The victim appeared to have been dead for about two days before she was found, Allegheny County Medical Examiner Karl Williams said in a statement.
The woman's hands and feet were bound with duct tape, and her face was covered with a plastic material that had also been secured with duct tape. A placenta was recovered at the apartment.
Work begins at site of Houston crane collapse
HOUSTON -- Federal officials started their investigation Saturday in the collapse of one of the nation's largest mobile cranes, which toppled at a Houston oil refinery, killing four workers and injuring seven others.
The 30-story-tall crane, capable of lifting 1 million pounds, crashed to the ground Friday at a LyondellBasell refinery in southeast Houston.
Representatives of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration began their formal accident investigation Saturday morning, said David Roznowski, a spokesman for the LyondellBasell refinery. OSHA investigators are working with the refinery, a subcontractor and the project manager.
"It really is too early to say what happened," Roznowski told The Associated Press on Saturday. "With the formal incident investigation, that's where we will start to get answers, but it's going to take time. We want to make sure no stone is left unturned and that this kind of thing doesn't happen again."
The owner of the crane, Deep South Crane & Rigging of Baton Rouge, La., plans to work with the federal investigators looking into what is the latest in a series of fatal accidents involving cranes around the country.
Bush says Congress could ease gas prices
CRAWFORD, Texas -- Responding to Americans' anger over gas prices and the housing bust, President Bush is stepping up pressure on Congress to open up offshore oil exploration and work to restore confidence in the housing finance industry.
"This is a challenging time for families across our nation," Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address. "I know many families are worried about rising prices at the pump and declining home values."
Bush recently lifted an executive ban on offshore oil drilling. He said it's Congress' turn to act.
"The only thing now standing between the American people and the vast oil resources of the Outer Continental Shelf is action from the United States Congress," he said.
Putrid whale carcass parts stink up Oahu
HONOLULU -- Getting the rotting corpse of a dead sperm whale off Oahu's North Shore was only the start of the problem.
Then residents had to deal with the smell of decomposing whale when big chunks of the 12-ton carcass fell off a truck carrying giant whale bones to Hawaii Pacific University.
"The smell just lingers," said Richard Kurosu, who lives near a corner in Kaneohe where several whale parts littered the road for more than two hours.
The bulk of the blubbery mass was moved to a pit near Kahuku Point, where it was buried. But the university wanted the bones to teach students about the marine mammal.
The whale's journey across the island caused traffic jams Thursday and annoyed residents. Workers needed a chain saw to cut some of the bones down to a size where volunteers could lift them back onto a truck.
The dead whale, an adult about 65 feet long, was first spotted June 29 off Kaneohe. It then washed up to a hard-to-access location on the North Shore, where sharks fed on the remains. The cause of its death had not been determined.
Kristi West, assistant professor at Hawaii Pacific, said the whale bones, including the seven-foot skull bone, would be great teaching tools.
"It's such a spectacular animal," West said.
Sperm whales are an endangered species, and their bones are generally not available.
Bees swarm motorists on N.J. Turnpike
CHERRY HILL, N.J. -- Drivers on the New Jersey Turnpike have to cope every day with traffic jams, pollution and even the occasional deer.
They ran into a new obstacle Saturday as thousands of honeybees swarmed around their vehicles.
Turnpike Authority spokesman Joseph Orlando said the swarm came from a beekeeper's beehive that apparently fell beside the highway in Cherry Hill.
The Turnpike Authority was looking for a beekeeper to deal with the problem. |
