USA

The consumer price index, compiled from a survey of households, rose 0.2 percent last month, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. The increase occurred as higher prices for shelter, food, natural gas, and medical care overrode the drop in gasoline prices.

Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward reported in Wednesday's editions that he told investigators under oath that a senior Bush administration official had identified Valerie Plame to him as a CIA analyst a month before her name was revealed publicly.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it hopes to pressure about 53,000 families still staying in hotel rooms since hurricanes Katrina and Rita to find longer-term housing by cutting off payment of hotel bills during the next two months.

A 15-year, bison-hunting ban was lifted Tuesday in Montana. Under tighter rules, licensed hunters began thinning a bison population near Yellowstone National Park that has grown to about 4,900 animals.

A severe weather system that killed at least two people as it spawned funnel clouds and scattered tornadoes in portions of the Midwest and Southeast moved into the Northeast Wednesday. The collision of a cold front with warm, unstable air was expected to bring damaging winds to Pennsylvania, New York, and Maryland.

Antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan, whose soldier son was killed in Iraq, said she's prepared to be arrested upon resuming protests near President Bush's Crawford, Texas. ranch at Thanksgiving. Since a 26-day vigil in August, a county ordinance was passed to ban roadside camping there. On Wednesday in Washington, Sheehan protested her Sept. 26 arrest and those of other protesters outside the White House.

Cuban-born Manny Diaz (I) easily won a second term as mayor of Miami in an election delayed two weeks by hurricane Wilma.