Storm whips north Florida; Georgia likely to bear brunt
Jacksonville, Fla. – The center of Tropical Storm Tammy came ashore in northern Florida on Wednesday after skirting the coast and sending heavy rain and gusty winds toward Georgia and the Carolinas.
The storm’s center came ashore near Mayport, home to a major naval station about 15 miles east of Jacksonville. But much of the worst weather remained offshore, the National Hurricane Center said.
By late evening, the storm had 50-mph winds and was moving northwest at about 14 mph. Tammy was expected to move farther inland.
“We’ll probably see most of the brunt of the storm hitting the southeastern coast of Georgia,” meteorologist Chris Sisko said. “They’ll get some pretty squally weather.”
Tammy formed just off Florida’s east coast early Wednesday, dropping rain into northern Florida and soaking parts of Georgia and South Carolina. A tropical-storm warning was in effect from Fernandina Beach north to the Santee River in South Carolina.
Tropical-storm winds extended outward up to 260 miles.
Tammy was expected to dump 3 to 5 inches of rain over southeastern Georgia, eastern South Carolina and southeastern North Carolina, with maximum amounts of 8 to 10 inches.
Tammy is the 19th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1 and ends Nov. 30.
TIFTON, Ga.
3 charged in deaths of 6 immigrants
Three people were charged with murdering six immigrant farmworkers in a series of robberies by a gang wielding baseball bats and guns.
Authorities said the robbers preyed on immigrants because they often carry large sums of cash for lack of the documents needed to open bank accounts.
Stacy Bernard Sims, 19, Jamie Underwood, 27, and Jennifer Wilson, 26, were ordered held without bail Wednesday on six counts of murder in the string of attacks that took place Friday at four trailer parks. Victims were beaten and shot.
“It’s tragic and sad,” said Sheriff Gary Vowell. “Even though these heinous acts were committed in our Hispanic community, it’s affected our whole community.”
About 20 home invasions aimed at Hispanics have occurred within the past three months in Tift County and two adjoining counties.
Thousands of Hispanic farmworkers pick crops across southern Georgia.
BOSTON
Two guilty in slayings during 1991 gang war
Two men were convicted Wednesday in the execution-style slayings of five people in a Chinatown social club nearly 15 years ago.
Police said the killings appeared to be part of a dispute between rival gangs vying for control of Chinatown’s gambling rackets.
Nam The Tham and Siny Van Tran were found guilty of five counts of first-degree murder and face a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.
Prosecutors said Tham and Tran were among three gunmen who burst into a basement gambling parlor before dawn in January 1991 and shot six people in the head at close range. One victim survived and became the prosecution’s star witness.
Tham and Tran, Vietnamese raised in China, were fugitives for almost 10 years. They were arrested in China in 1999 on unrelated charges, then extradited to the United States in 2001. The third alleged gunman has never been found.
BERLIN
German parties agree to leadership summit
Germany’s two biggest political parties moved closer to sharing power Wednesday when Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and conservative challenger Angela Merkel agreed to hold a summit over which of them will lead the country.
Both indicated they had made progress in their search to build a new government to end Germany’s leadership crisis, set off when no party won a majority in Sept. 18 parliamentary elections.
Schroeder said the sounding-out talks Wednesday had shown “there is a basis for a ‘grand coalition”‘ – a union of his left-of-center Social Democrats and Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union.
Schroeder said the summit would be held “very, very soon.”
QUETTA, Afghanistan
Taliban militia chief hiding, detainee says
A detained Taliban spokesman has told his interrogators that the militia’s fugitive chief, Mullah Mohammed Omar, is hiding in Afghanistan and is in contact with top commanders, an intelligence official said Wednesday.
Mullah Hakim Latifi, who has often claimed responsibility on behalf of the Taliban for attacks on U.S.-led coalition forces, was arrested earlier this week in Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said.
Latifi was not a prominent figure in the Taliban while it was in power in Afghanistan, only becoming a media contact after the ouster of the movement in a U.S.-led war in 2001. His exact ties to the Taliban leadership are not known.
TORONTO
Nursing-home illness death toll rises to 16
A deadly outbreak of a respiratory illness at a nursing home for the elderly has claimed six more lives, raising the death toll to 16, health officials said Wednesday.
The cause of the outbreak at the Seven Oaks Home for the Aged remains unknown, although officials insisted the situation was under control. Thirty-eight people remained hospitalized with the illness, and officials fear many of them are too frail to fully recover. Another 88 residents, employees and visitors have been affected.
Public-health officials have said it may never be possible to determine the exact type of bug responsible for the rash of illnesses, but they have ruled out influenza, avian flu, SARS and Legionnaire’s disease.
