Big waves pound Bermuda as Hurricane Igor approaches
HAMILTON, Bermuda (AP) — Big waves are pounding Bermuda’s beaches while islanders rush to board up windows, fill sandbags and stock up on water, food and other supplies before Hurricane Igor’s expected arrival late Sunday.
In Mexico, people are cleaning up from flooding and wind damage caused by the now dissipated Hurricane Karl. Officials said Saturday that at least seven people were killed after the storm came ashore the previous day.
Igor weakened overnight and was downgraded to a Category 1 hurricane, and had maximum sustained winds of 85 mph at 5 a.m. EDT Sunday. The hurricane was starting to bring strong winds and rain to the Atlantic island, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
With the storm expected to pass over or very close to Bermuda late Sunday or early Monday, officials warned that its pounding rains and driving winds could be deadly.
“This storm will be a long and punishing one,” Public Safety Minister David Burch said.
Bodies of 6 abducted police found slain in Mexican state this weekend
ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — The bodies of six kidnapped police officers, most of them dismembered, were found Sunday in a ravine in the Mexican state of Guerrero, oficials said, bringing the death toll from a mass abduction of policemen to eight.
Fernando Monreal Leyva, director of State Investigative Police, said one survivor of the massacre was located in this coastal state known for beach resorts that has become a drug cartel battleground.
Two other bodies were found on Saturday, accounting for all nine officers who disappeared Friday after going to identify a body in the community of El Revelado, located about 165 miles south of Mexico City.
Montana Republican policy: Make homosexuality illegal
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — At a time when gays have been gaining victories across the country, the Republican Party in Montana still wants to make homosexuality illegal.
The party adopted an official platform in June that keeps a long-held position in support of making homosexual acts illegal, a policy adopted after the Montana Supreme Court struck down such laws in 1997.
The fact that it’s still the official party policy more than 12 years later, despite a tidal shift in public attitudes since then and the party’s own pledge of support for individual freedoms, has exasperated some GOP members.
“I looked at that and said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,'” state Sen. John Brueggeman, R-Polson, said last week. “Should it get taken out? Absolutely. Does anybody think we should be arresting homosexual people? If you take that stand, you really probably shouldn’t be in the Republican Party.”
Blown-out BP well finally killed at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico
(AP) – The well is dead. Finally.
A permanent cement plug sealed BP’s well nearly 2.5 miles below the sea floor in the Gulf of Mexico, five agonizing months after an explosion sank a drilling rig and led to the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the federal government’s point man on the disaster, said Sunday BP’s well “is effectively dead” and posed no further threat to the Gulf. Allen said a pressure test to ensure the cement plug would hold was completed at 5:54 a.m. CDT.
The gusher was contained in mid-July after a temporary cap was successfully fitted atop the well. Mud and cement were later pushed down through the top of the well, allowing the cap to be removed.
But the well could not be declared dead until a relief well was drilled so the ruptured well could be sealed from the bottom, ensuring it never causes a problem again. The relief well intersected the blown-out well Thursday, and crews started pumping in the cement on Friday.
The April 20 blast killed 11 workers, and 206 million gallons of oil spewed.
Pastorek: Inspector general to oversee $1.88B FEMA grant
(AP) — Louisiana Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek says an inspector general will be appointed to monitor the spending of $1.8 billion in federal funding awarded for a citywide school construction project.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency grant was awarded last month shortly before the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
Pastorek said the inspector general will be an employee of the Recovery School District’s construction division and will be picked by RSD Superintendent Paul Vallas, according to a report in The Times-Picayune.