Yahoo! News: Top Stories
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                  as of Fri, 23 Sep 2005 12:10:12 GMT

    Rita Sparks Exodus From Texas, La. Coasts (AP)

AP - Hurricane Rita roared toward the Texas and Louisiana coasts early
 Friday, a major Category 4 storm that spurred a traffic-snarled exodus
 toward higher ground and fears it could cripple the heart of the
 nation's petrochemical industry.

    Bus Carrying Evacuees Explodes Near Dallas (AP)

AP - A bus filled with Hurricane Rita evacuees caught fire early Friday
 on gridlocked Interstate 45, killing at least one person and injuring
 others.

    Hurricane Dumps Rain on New Orleans (AP)

AP - A steady downpour fell on New Orleans as Hurricane Rita lashed the
 coast, turning dust to mud, forcing engineers to hurriedly shore up
 broken levees and interrupting the city's search for its dead.

    Spotlight Turns to Next Court Nominee (AP)

AP - Republicans and Democrats alike are looking beyond John Roberts'
 virtually certain confirmation as the nation's 17th chief justice to
 President Bush's next nominee to the Supreme Court, expecting a quick
 announcement from the White House and a much tougher confirmation
 fight.

    Nazi hunter Wiesenthal buried in Israel (Reuters)

Reuters - Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal was buried in Israel on Friday,
 eulogized as a concentration camp survivor who refused to let the
 horrors of the Holocaust go unpunished or ever be forgotten.

    Powerful Cleric Backs Iraq Constitution (AP)

AP - The Iraqi government's campaign to win support for the country's
 new constitution has won the critical backing of the most influential
 Shiite religious leader, less than a month before a national referendum
 on the draft charter.

    House OKs Faith as Head Start Hiring Issue (AP)

AP - Churches and other religious groups are allowed to receive federal
 money to provide preschool to poor children. Now, the House says, they
 should be allowed to hire based on religion.

    Oil Prices Slip As Hurricane Rita Weakens (AP)

AP - Crude oil prices fell Friday for a second consecutive day and
 gasoline futures prices slipped as traders gauged news that Hurricane
 Rita had weakened, implying that damaged to refinery capacity in the
 Gulf could be less severe than originally feared.

    More Colleges Offering Video Game Courses (AP)

AP - More and more, video game-related courses are being offered in
 colleges around the country in response to the digital media industry's
 appetite for skilled workers and the tastes of a new generation of
 students raised on Game Boy and Xbox.

    White Sox Inch Toward Historic Collapse (AP)

AP - The Chicago White Sox are creeping closer to completing the biggest
 collapse in major league history. Travis Hafner hit his sixth home run
 in five games and Coco Crisp added a two-run drive that led the
 Cleveland Indians over the Kansas City Royals 11-6 on Thursday night,
 moving the Indians within 1 1/2 games of the first-place White Sox in
 the AL Central.

    Gulf Coast braces for Rita (Reuters)

Reuters - Residents along hundreds of miles of the Gulf of Mexico coast
 braced on Friday for the arrival of Hurricane Rita, which threatened
 heavily populated stretches of Texas, already storm-battered Louisiana
 and the heart of the U.S. oil industry.

    Russia shields Iran from UN action (Reuters)

Reuters - Russia wants to water down an IAEA resolution that would have
 cleared the way for reporting Iran to the U.N. Security Council over
 its suspected ambition to build nuclear bombs, EU diplomats said on
 Friday.

    Rita could herald record hurricane year - WMO (Reuters)

Reuters - Hurricane Rita, bearing down on the Gulf of Mexico coast, will
 wreak extensive damage and could herald a record number of ferocious
 storms over the Atlantic this year, the United Nations top expert
 warned on Friday.

    Man arrested at Manchester airport after alert (Reuters)

Reuters - British police used a stun gun to arrest a man carrying a
 suspicious package near an aircraft at Manchester airport on Friday,
 prompting the temporary closure of the northern England airport.

    IEA says on alert ahead of Rita, to meet Saturday (Reuters)

Reuters - The International Energy Agency is on alert ahead of Hurricane
 Rita and will meet on Saturday to assess the impact of the storm on the
 United States, the IEA's executive director Claude Mandil said on
 Friday.

    Sony's Restructuring Plan Brings Praise, Skepticism (Los Angeles
     Times)

Los Angeles Times - TOKYO -- Sony Corp. Chief Executive Howard Stringer
 on Thursday called on the ailing electronics and entertainment giant to
 "be like the Russians defending Moscow against Napoleon" as he unveiled
 a broad restructuring plan.

    Bush, Rove Press Congress on Illegal-Worker Proposal (Los Angeles
     Times)

Los Angeles Times - WASHINGTON -- White House political strategist Karl
 Rove is offering lawmakers new details of an administration-backed
 guest worker program that would temporarily legalize the status of
 millions of illegal workers, according to Republicans who have attended
 the meetings.

    Dumping of Homeless Suspected Downtown (Los Angeles Times)

Los Angeles Times - For decades, it's been an enduring urban tale about
 downtown Los Angeles, often talked about but never proved: Police
 departments wanting to get rid of society's lost and neglected -- the
 homeless, mentally ill and criminals -- simply drove through downtown
 and dumped them in skid row.

    7 Airbus Jets Had Landing Gear Trouble (Los Angeles Times)

Los Angeles Times - The problems with JetBlue Flight 292 marked at least
 the seventh time that the front landing gear of an Airbus jet has
 locked at a 90-degree angle, forcing pilots to land commercial
 airliners under emergency conditions, according to federal records.

    King/Drew Fix-It Firm Is Faulted (Los Angeles Times)

Los Angeles Times - The consulting firm brought in to fix years of
 mismanagement at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center has
 routinely inflated its own expenses by double-billing airfares and
 charging Los Angeles County for first-class travel and trips unrelated
 to the hospital, the firm's records show.
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