World

Hurricane Rita Hit Texas-Louisiana

Wayne Moore - Sep 24, 2005 / 6:57 am | Story: 12412

With howling winds and driving rain, Hurricane Rita made landfall at 3:30 a.m. ET Saturday on the extreme southwest coast of Louisiana near Sabine Pass, Texas. The hurricane slammed the Gulf Coast as a Category 3 storm, with winds of 120 mph. Damage was reported in the pre-dawn hours along the region from Galveston, Texas, to Lake Charles, Louisiana.CNN
Sheets of rain from Hurricane Rita drenched parts of New Orleans on Saturday, straining an already damaged levee system and threatening to spread flooding throughout the devastated but largely abandoned city. The rain was periodic but heavy, coming down in waves that lasted a few minutes before letting up.CTV
The day after at least 24 elderly evacuees were caught in a deadly fire aboard a Dallas-bound charter bus, there are reports the vehicle's operator had a history of safety problems. According to the Houston Chronicle on Saturday, the bus that exploded on Interstate 45 a day earlier did not have valid registration.CTV
Group of Seven finance officials promised Friday to cushion the impact of surging energy prices and pushed a debt-relief plan for poor countries. At their annual meeting, the officials said energy prices that rose after hurricane Katrina and then went up again in anticipation of a second huge U.S. storm have increased risks to the global economic outlook.Globe And Mail
Soldiers in the U.S. Army's elite 82nd Airborne Division vented their frustration by systematically torturing Iraqi detainees from 2003 into 2004, hitting them with baseball bats and dousing them with chemicals, a U.S. rights group alleges in a new report. The Human Rights Watch report, issued Friday, was compiled from interviews with a captain and two sergeants who served in a battalion of the 82nd Airborne that was stationed at a military base called Mercury near Fallujah, the insurgent stronghold retaken by U.S. forces last year.Globe And Mail
Vice President Dick Cheney is undergoing surgery after doctors found aneurysms during his annual physical examination this summer. The vice president, who arrived at George Washington University Hospital earlier Saturday, is expected to be in surgery till noon, and will remain the hospital over the weekend.CNN
An Australian surfer survived a shark attack by repeatedly punching a small shark he first thought was a seal, the second incident of its kind this month, local radio reported on Saturday. Brad Satchell, 44, was surfing about 120 meters (390 feet) offshore at the popular Scarborough beach in Perth, capital of Western Australia state, on Friday when he was attacked.CNN