NEW ORLEANS National Guard troops stand ready, batteries and water bottles are selling briskly, and one small-town mayor has spent a sleepless night worrying. The New Orleans area is skittishly watching as a storm marches across the Caribbean on the eve of Hurricane Katrina's third anniversary.
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KINGSTON, Jamaica Tropical Storm Gustav surged toward hurricane force on Thursday as it drove toward Jamaica and aimed for the Cayman islands, prompting evacuations of tourists and offshore oil workers. In its wake, impoverished Haitians scrambled for food. Meanwhile, New Orleans kept nervous watch, three years after Katrina's destruction.
MIAMI The National Hurricane Center says Tropical Storm Hanna has formed northeast of the northern Leeward Islands in the Atlantic.
STAIRTOWN, Texas Fire officials say there's been an explosion at a natural gas plant in a town south of Austin, Texas, but no injuries have been reported.
DETROIT A former lawyer for Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has filed a lawsuit against the mayor claiming he's owed about $80,000 in fees stemming from his work after Kilpatrick's text-message scandal surfaced.
HOSCHTON, Ga. This small northeastern Georgia town's population boom is frightening. In a bid to break a world record for scarecrows and scare up some fun for the fall season, thousands of straw-stuffed newcomers are creeping across town.
BOISE, Idaho In the end, killer pedophile Joseph Edward Duncan III couldn't - or wouldn't - offer a reason why he should live.
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. One man appears determined to crash the party at the Playboy Mansion.
DES MOINES, Iowa One of the largest great ape research centers in North America needs more than $1 million to recover from damage suffered in Iowa's record June floods.
ST. LOUIS Savvy homebuyers and residents have long taken it upon themselves to do a little amateur sleuthing, checking on the quality of schools, crime rates and whether sex offenders live in the neighborhood.
HONOLULU Tanned, dirty and hungry, two men who spent three months crossing the Pacific on a raft made of plastic bottles to raise awareness of ocean debris finally stepped onto dry land.
NEW YORK The city is asking public school principals to consider giving math tests to kindergartners, a proposal that comes amid debate over the growing use of standardized tests nationwide.
MIAMI The National Hurricane Center says a new tropical depression has formed in the Atlantic.
MONTPELIER, Vt. Lawmakers have approved a round of budget cuts designed to respond to sagging state revenues. Among the results: Vermont's courthouses likely will close for a half day each week.
STONEWALL, Texas Former President Lyndon B. Johnson's family and admirers remembered his civil rights and education legacy during a celebration of the 100th anniversary of his birth and the opening of his Texas ranch office to the public.
LOS ANGELES The hundreds of taco trucks that dot Los Angeles County and dish out cheap fast-food dishes such as carnitas, quesadillas and carne asada will be allowed to conduct business from set locations, a judge determined, throwing out a law requiring that the trucks move every hour.
DETROIT Kwame Kilpatrick has been a master salesman, bargaining to bring improvements to Detroit and to prove to skeptics that the struggling city is worth the investment. But now the two-term mayor could be forced to negotiate a more personal deal, one that exchanges a dimming political future for his freedom.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. A majority of California voters oppose a ballot initiative to ban gay marriage, though they are evenly split on the practice itself, according to a poll released Wednesday.
Philomena Gotti
SAN FRANCISCO Pioneering lesbian rights activist Del Martin, who married her longtime partner in June on the first day that California's same-sex couples gained that right, died Wednesday. She was 87.
