Miami – The two hurricanes in the open Atlantic both strengthened Sunday, but neither Gordon nor Helene posed a threat to land, forecasters said.
Helene’s top sustained winds intensified from 85 mph to 105 mph, making it a strong Category 2 hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Sunday afternoon, Helene was centered about 920 miles east- northeast of the northern Leeward Islands and moving northwest at 9 mph, forecasters said.
Gordon had been inching over the ocean at 3 mph but picked up speed Sunday, forecasters said. Its eye was centered about 1,430 miles west of the Azores and moving north-northeast near 14 mph.
It had top sustained winds near 80 mph, up slightly from earlier in the day.
The National Hurricane Center’s latest forecast for the season expects between seven and nine hurricanes, a slight reduction from earlier predictions. Scientists said last week that weak El Niño conditions had inhibited hurricane development by bringing higher ocean temperatures that increase crosswinds over the Caribbean. The winds can rip storms apart or stop them from forming.
ROGERS, Minn.
Tornado collapses house, killing girl, 10
A tornado swept through the Minnesota town of Rogers, killing a 10-year-old girl, damaging hundreds of homes and scattering debris across the city, officials said Sunday.
The girl was at a neighbor’s house with her 19-year-old brother when it collapsed about 10 p.m. Saturday, Police Chief Keith Oldfather said.
“The roof is in the basement,” Oldfather said after an aerial view of the damage Sunday morning. He said 200 to 300 homes were significantly damaged in Rogers, a town 26 miles northwest of Minneapolis.
Power lines were down, and at one point Xcel Energy reported 10,000 customers without power.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.
Space station readies for swap of visitors
The international space station’s three residents bade farewell to one set of houseguests Sunday and prepared for the arrival of more.
The send-off of space shuttle Atlantis’ six astronauts Sunday was the start of a week of heavy traffic at the space station.
A Russian Soyuz vehicle ferrying two new station crew members and the first female space tourist was set to launch overnight, followed by the departure of a Russian cargo ship from the station today.
The Soyuz was scheduled to arrive at the space station early Wednesday, and Atlantis was set to land at Kennedy Space Center in Florida later that day.
NASSAU, Bahamas
Second autopsy done on reality star’s son
A pathologist who gained fame as a critic of the government’s probe into John Kennedy’s assassination and as a consultant in the deaths of JonBenét Ramsey and Elvis Presley performed a second autopsy Sunday on the son of Anna Nicole Smith.
Cyril Wecht, a forensic pathologist from Pittsburgh, said before the exam that he would retrace the procedures of the local coroner’s office, which labeled 20-year-old Daniel Wayne Smith’s death “suspicious” because the cause was unclear.
Anna Nicole Smith’s Bahamian attorney, Michael Scott, said the reality-TV star had ordered the follow-up autopsy to end “media speculation surrounding the matter.”
Daniel Smith died Sept. 10 in a hospital room where the former Playboy model was recuperating from giving birth to a daughter three days earlier.
NANTES, France
City evacuated while WWII bomb defused
About 20,000 residents of Nantes, one of the largest cities on France’s Atlantic coast, were evacuated from their homes Sunday while experts defused an unexploded Allied bomb from World War II.
The 550-pound bomb was discovered during construction at a medical school in the center of Nantes. It was successfully defused and taken by truck to a military base, where it was to be fully neutralized.
