Storm fades off Honduras after downpours kill 12
Tegucigalpa, Honduras – Tropical Storm Gamma weakened into a tropical depression Sunday and drifted away from Honduras after torrential downpours lashed the Central American coast, killing 12 people, including a young family of four.
Gamma, the 24th named storm of an already record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season, was expected to bring steady rain to northern Honduras and central Cuba as it becomes less organized, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Gamma’s maximum sustained winds decreased to 35 mph – below the 39 mph to be considered a tropical storm, the hurricane center said. Its center was about 85 miles north of the Honduran city of Limon, and it was meandering north.
Forecasters said Gamma’s path over the next three days would carry it south of Jamaica by Wednesday, but forecasters said it might not even be a tropical cyclone by then.
Gamma had 45-mph winds and torrential downpours when it killed nine Hondurans and injured four others. Authorities were searching for 15 people reported missing.
Three other people were killed in a weather-related plane crash in Belize. The Belizean military identified two of them as U.S. citizens but offered no other details.
The Honduran government said the storm destroyed 48 homes and damaged 264, while forcing more than 11,000 people to evacuate.
DURHAM, N.C.
Four slain, 2 wounded in townhome gunfire
Four men were killed and two others wounded in a shooting Saturday night at a townhouse in an upscale Durham, N.C., neighborhood.
The victims’ names were not immediately released, but neighbors said they appeared to be young professionals or college students.
Police were called about shots fired shortly before 10 p.m. Saturday. They found one man sitting outside the home who had been shot and was bleeding from his face. Inside the townhouse, they found four men dead and another in critical condition.
Police had not made any arrests or determined a motive by Sunday afternoon. Three men were seen running from the area after the shootings.
HOUSTON
Jewish group votes to oppose court pick
The largest branch of North American Judaism voted Sunday to oppose Samuel Alito’s U.S. Supreme Court nomination.
More than 2,000 delegates of the Union for Reform Judaism adopted a resolution saying Alito would “shift the ideological balance of the Supreme Court on matters of core concern to the reform movement” on abortion rights, women’s rights, civil rights and the scope of federal power. The vote came at the closing session of the group’s biennial convention.
MOBILE, Ala.
Aruba-boycott call wins wide support
Three-quarters of Alabama residents back their governor’s call for an Aruba travel boycott to protest the island’s handling of the disappearance of teenager Natalee Holloway.
The poll released Sunday, conducted by the Mobile Register and the University of South Alabama, also found that seven out of 10 respondents would not travel to the Caribbean island even if they won a free trip.
Gov. Bob Riley proposed the boycott to protest the probe into the disappearance of Holloway, who went missing in May at the end of a Mountain Brook High School graduation trip.
TEHRAN
Bill barring atomic inspections advances
Raising the stakes before a key vote by the U.N. nuclear agency, Iranian lawmakers approved a bill Sunday requiring the government to block inspections of atomic facilities if the agency refers Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions.
The bill was favored by 183 of the 197 lawmakers present. The session was broadcast live on state-run radio four days before the International Atomic Energy Agency board considers referring Tehran to the Security Council for violating a nuclear arms-control treaty. The council could impose sanctions.
AMMAN, Jordan
Death of blast victim elevates toll to 60
A 19-year-old Jordanian died Sunday from a brain injury suffered in the Nov. 9 suicide bombing at the hotel where he worked, raising the death toll in the triple blasts to 60. The three bombers also died.
Ammar Shaker Judeh had been in a coma since an Iraqi blew himself up in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt, the official Petra news agency said.
“My beloved son is dead,” his mother, Zeinab Judeh, told The Associated Press, wailing. “The Iraqis killed him.”
Petra said Ammar Judeh, a waiter, was the eighth Hyatt employee to die in the blasts. Two others remained hospitalized.
The Grand Hyatt was one of three Amman hotels targeted by al-Qaeda’s Iraqi suicide bombers.
RABAT, Morocco
Former detainees among 17 arrested
Moroccan police have dismantled a terrorist network, arresting 17 people, including two former prisoners at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the official MAP news agency reported Sunday. At least some of the suspects were linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Brahim Benchekroun and Mohammed Mazouz – among five Moroccans freed from Guantanamo in August 2004 – were among the suspects. They were arrested Nov. 11 at their homes in connection with a probe into al-Qaeda.
NAIROBI, Kenya
Somali pirates free hijacked oil tanker
Somali pirates have released an oil tanker they hijacked a month ago on its way from the United Arab Emirates to South Africa, officials said Sunday.
It was not immediately clear whether a ransom was paid for the release of the Malta- registered vessel – the MT San Carlos – and its crew of 24.
