USA
Hundreds of search-and-rescue workers were scouring demolished neighborhoods for missing persons along the Gulf Coast Sunday, as President Bush arrived to survey the damage from hurricane Ivan to Alabama and to Florida's Panhandle. The number of deaths blamed on the storm that came ashore last Thursday with 130 mph winds, was 46. More than 1 million people were still without power across 13 states Sunday, and in Pensacola, Fla., people waited in cars or on foot for hours to receive necessities from National Guard troops. Fragile barrier islands from eastern Louisiana to the Panhandle were drowned. Forecasters said it was too soon to tell if hurricane Jeanne, which has killed at least nine people in the Caribbean, would hit the US.
Today in Houston, almost three year's since Enron's dramatic collapse, an obscure 1999 deal to sell power-generating barges in Nigeria will be the focus of the first criminal trial against former employees of the disgraced company. The case does not involve top executives. But as the first of three pending trials, it could shed light on how the Justice Department plans to seek convictions against Enron's former top brass.
By an overwhelming margin, Louisiana voters approved a amendment to their constitution Saturday banning same-sex marriages and civil unions, one of almost a dozen such measures on state ballots this year. The measure received about 78 percent of the vote.
The Pentagon said dozens of detainees at the US military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had been transferred and taken into custody by Pakistan. No other details were disclosed.
Deidre Downs, Miss Alabama, was crowned Miss America Saturday night in Atlantic City, N.J., at the conclusion of a spiced-up telecast that featured a head-to-head talent competition with eventual runner-up, Jennifer Dupont of Louisiana.
With a 392-foot solo homer in San Francisco Friday, Giants slugger Barry Bonds joined Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth as only the third player in history to hit 700 career home runs. Bonds added another Saturday, but trails Aaron (755) and Ruth (714) on the all-time list.
