U.S. National News

Tropical Storm Hanna set to soak US East Coast

Local resident H.M. Poole holds his hat in the stiff breeze during a squall in Wrightsville Beach, N.C., Friday, Sept. 5, 2008. Wrightsville Beach officials have declared a state of emergency with the landfall of Tropical Storm Hanna expected early Saturday. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)
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AP - 4 minutes ago

HOLDEN BEACH, N.C. - Beach vacationers in the Carolinas packed up and headed inland Friday as Tropical Storm Hanna cruised steadily toward the coast, while others decided to ride out the fast-moving storm that had only a slight chance to become a small hurricane before crashing ashore overnight.

  • Sheriff's deputies hold Isaac Zamora as he appears in Skagit County district court Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2008, in Mount Vernon, Wash. Zamora is accused in a shooting and stabbing rampage Tuesday that left six people dead and four wounded. Judge David Svaren prohibited photographers from showing Zamora's face during his brief appearance. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
    Gunman's rampage shows pitfalls for mentally ill AP - Fri Sep 5, 6:44 AM ET

    SEATTLE - Isaac Zamora's mother begged him to get help when he was released from jail a month ago. State and federal laws prevented her from doing much more for the man who has now been arrested after a shooting spree in rural northwest Washington that left six people dead and four wounded.

  • Margaret Castaneda from the Aztec dance group ''tlaloc'', participates in an immigrant rally durring the final day of the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, Aug. 28, 2008, in Denver. (AP Photo/The Rocky Mountain News, Javier Manzano)
    San Francisco delays rollout of ID card program AP - Fri Sep 5, 6:03 AM ET

    SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco is delaying a controversial program that would provide identification cards to all residents regardless of legal status.

  • Remains of 3 sailors from Pearl Harbor identified AP - Fri Sep 5, 5:08 AM ET

    PORTLAND, Ore. - Two-thirds of a century ago, Kathleen Wyman drove her brother to California to join the Navy. From there, he shipped out to the USS Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor.

  • Hundreds of New Orleans area evacuees from Hurricane Gustav fill the floor of the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex in Birmingham, Ala., on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2008. The federal government says it will reimburse the hotel expenses of some of the nearly 2 million evacuees, but the news that the hotel costs might be reimbursed was too late for people who have been spending nights at public shelters. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)
    FEMA to cover hotel costs for some Gustav evacuees AP - Thu Sep 4, 11:50 PM ET

    NEW ORLEANS - Victims of Hurricane Gustav who can't return to their homes over the next month because of storm damage or power outages can have their hotel costs covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, officials said Thursday.

  • Robert Dweck and his Shih Tzu mix, Gracie, pose at Gallery Deja Vu, an antiques shop on South Beach that he manages, Aug. 29, 2008 in Miami Beach, Fla. Dweck, 56, is a registered Democrat who supported Hillary Clinton but has been hesitant to commit to Obama. McCain's pick of Palin makes Dweck question the senator's decision-making. 'I think that he acted in haste,' he said. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)
    Americans get to know once-obscure Alaska governor AP - Thu Sep 4, 6:40 PM ET

    Doug Watts, a painter from Phoenix, watched in spite of himself. There was Sarah Palin on television, and he found himself mesmerized.

  • Judge sentences Jonesboro shooter to 4 years AP - Thu Sep 4, 7:44 PM ET

    FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - A man who as a teen helped shoot and kill five people in a schoolyard ambush was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison on an unrelated federal weapons charge.

  • Inmates at Campbell pre-release facility watch television in the day room Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2008, in Columbia, S.C. The big switch to digital TV has prisons across the county scrambling to keep prisoners from losing access to broadcast television.(AP Photo/Mary Ann Chastain)
    Prisons scramble to make digital TV switch AP - Thu Sep 4, 4:10 PM ET

    COLUMBIA, S.C. - The big switch to digital TV has prison officials scrambling to keep one of the most important peacekeeping tools in prisons across the nation — broadcast television.

  • Woman dubbed Al-Qaida backer skips NY arraignment AP - Thu Sep 4, 6:06 PM ET

    NEW YORK - An American-educated Pakistani woman who's been labeled an al-Qaida supporter refused to appear in federal court Thursday to answer charges that she tried to kill U.S. soldiers and FBI agents after they detained her this summer in Afghanistan.

  • This image provided by NOAA was taken at 12:01 a.m. EDT Friday Sept. 5, 2008. Tropical Storm Hanna can be seen chugging just east of the Bahamas headed toward the Atlantic coast, where it could bring high winds and rain from South Carolina to Maine. At 11 p.m. EDT, its center was 540 miles south of Wilmington, N.C., and was moving northwest at 14 mph with maximum sustained winds near 65 mph. Rain and wind from Hanna could start as early as Friday night in the South, where some residents shuttered houses and stocked up on food and sandbags, coastal parks closed, and schools canceled events and changed sports schedules. Tropical storm watches and warnings were issued from Georgia to near Atlantic City, N.J. (AP Photo/NOAA) .
    Southeast braces for Hanna as Ike strengthens AP - Fri Sep 5, 4:03 AM ET

    WILMINGTON, N.C. - Some Southeastern states declared emergencies and officials urged residents to head inland Thursday as Tropical Storm Hanna headed toward the Atlantic coast, where it could bring high winds and rain from South Carolina to Maine.

  • McGreevey's ex offers to drop claim if he pays up AP - Thu Sep 4, 8:17 PM ET

    TRENTON, N.J. - A lawyer for former Gov. James McGreevey's ex-wife said Thursday she will drop a charge that she was duped into marrying him if he agrees to pay her $109,000 a judge says he owes.

  • In a June 2, 2008 file photo, Imam Mohammad Qatanani, center, acknowledges supporters from the steps of a federal building in Newark, N.J., during a lunch break in his deportation trial. A federal immigration judge in Newark, N.J. ruled Thursday, Sept. 4, 2008, that Mohammad Qatanani, the spiritual leader of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, can remain in the U.S.(AP Photo/Mike Derer, File)
    Terror claims against NJ Muslim leader rejected AP - Thu Sep 4, 7:14 PM ET

    NEWARK, N.J. - An influential New Jersey Muslim leader accused by some federal officials of having terrorist ties but praised by others as being an important ally won his fight to gain permanent U.S. residency Thursday.

  • Intruders shot after Texas couple wrests shotgun AP - Thu Sep 4, 6:03 PM ET

    BLUE MOUND, Texas - When two gunmen smashed through the glass front door of her suburban Fort Worth home, Kellie Hoehn didn't think twice.

  • Documents held in Los Angeles priest abuse cases AP - Thu Sep 4, 4:22 PM ET

    LOS ANGELES - The departure of a key figure in a record $660 million clergy sexual abuse settlement has endangered part of the deal that some plaintiffs consider more important than the money: the promise by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles to allow the release of accused priests' confidential files.

  • The Olympic cauldron is lit at the National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest, amid haze and smog after rainfall in Beijing, August 10, 2008. Rain fell on Beijing on Sunday, cooling oven-like temperatures for the second day of the Olympic Games and raising hopes that the thick haze clogging the Chinese capital might finally clear. REUTERS/Joe Chan (CHINA)
    Asian soot, smog may boost global warming in US AP - Thu Sep 4, 6:06 PM ET

    WASHINGTON - Smog, soot and other particles like the kind often seen hanging over Beijing add to global warming and may raise summer temperatures in the American heartland by three degrees in about 50 years, says a new federal science report released Thursday.

  • A Louisiana National Guard Chinook helicopter drops sand bags into a 150 feet breach in the levee at Pointe Celeste, threatening to inundate some of the same homes that were devastated during hurricane Katrina in the Plaquemines Parish south of New Orleans Wednesday Sept. 3, 2008. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)
    New Orleans residents returning home after Gustav AP - Thu Sep 4, 1:59 PM ET

    NEW ORLEANS - City and state officials tried to hold them off, but New Orleans residents would have none of it. After Hurricane Gustav brushed by the city, they wanted back in, and now.

Crimes and Trials News

  • Condemned man's hearing moved to before execution AP - Thu Sep 4, 11:15 PM ET

    HOUSTON - A judge on Thursday moved a hearing date for a condemned inmate so that it's no longer scheduled for after his execution, giving his lawyers the chance to argue while he's still alive that the conviction was unfair because the judge was allegedly having an affair with a prosecutor.

  • Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (L) stands with his attorney Juan Mateo in Wayne County Circuit Court as he accepts a plea agreement and resigns from office in Detroit, Michigan September 4, 2008. (Rebecca Cook/Reuters)
    Detroit mayor pleads guilty, to leave office Reuters - Thu Sep 4, 9:34 PM ET

    DETROIT (Reuters) - Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick pleaded guilty on Thursday to obstruction of justice in a plea agreement that forces him from office and caps a scandal that had threatened to spill over into the U.S. presidential campaign in a key battleground state.

  • This image provided by the Santa Monica, Calif., Police Department shows Michael Thomas Gargiulo, an air conditioning repairman who pleaded not guilty Thursday Sept. 4, 2008, to the stabbing deaths of two women, including a former girlfriend of actor Ashton Kutcher. (AP Photo/Santa Monica Police Department)
    Repairman denies killing actor's former girlfriend AP - Thu Sep 4, 7:36 PM ET

    LOS ANGELES - An air conditioning repairman pleaded not guilty Thursday to the stabbing deaths of two women, including a former girlfriend of actor Ashton Kutcher.

  • Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff leaves the courthouse in Miami August 18, 2005. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)
    Lobbyist Abramoff gets 4 more years in prison Reuters - Thu Sep 4, 6:17 PM ET

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff was sentenced on Thursday to serve four more years in prison in a corruption scandal that rocked Washington's power elite and helped Republicans lose control of Congress.

  • Woman dubbed Al-Qaida backer skips NY arraignment AP - Thu Sep 4, 6:06 PM ET

    NEW YORK - An American-educated Pakistani woman who's been labeled an al-Qaida supporter refused to appear in federal court Thursday to answer charges that she tried to kill U.S. soldiers and FBI agents after they detained her this summer in Afghanistan.