Biologists see a boom in alligator population

Biologists see a boomin alligator population
ON LAKE OKEECHOBEE, Fla. -- To the unaided eye, the swamp seems to sleep at night. But hit it with a spotlight and alligators suddenly appear everywhere. The biologists begin to count. In three hours, from just a pair of airboats, they find 754 gators in one small section of Lake Okeechobee, one of Florida's most concentrated gator habitats. The data becomes part of the state's annual alligator count, used to set the number of hunting permits issued in coming years. More hunters are expected this season after three separate fatal attacks earlier this month. Even with rampant development and loss of wetlands, officials estimate there are more than one million alligators in Florida -- a miraculous comeback for a species that was approaching extinction 40 years ago. State officials and environmentalists attribute the population growth to strict federal regulations on sales of alligator products like skin and meat, along with tight limits on hunting and trapping.
Katrina victim found
NEW ORLEANS -- Less than a week before the next hurricane season starts, firefighters still searching for those missing after Hurricane Katrina have found another body.
A DNA test will be needed to identify the body; the only certainty is that it was an adult male, said John Gagliano, chief coroner's investigator in New Orleans.
It was found Saturday in the rear laundry room of a house in Mid-City, where most houses are raised several feet but floods still reached the attached mailboxes, nearly chest-high.
More overdose deaths
DETROIT -- Three more people in Wayne County have died from what authorities suspect is a combination of heroin or cocaine and fentanyl, a prescription painkiller. The deaths, which occurred Friday night or Saturday morning, bring the county's total of overdose deaths thought to have been caused by the mixture to 44 since May 18.
Cruise passenger missing
NEW YORK -- A passenger was spotted jumping overboard from a cruise ship returning from the British Virgin Islands, but no sign of the person was found after searching half a day, officials said Sunday. Carnival Cruise Lines said in a statement that its Carnival Legend vessel was on route from Tortola just after 1 a.m. Saturday when the passenger was reported overboard. U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Mike Lutz said a C-130 airplane crew was sent to help with the search but didn't provide other details.
President re-elected
BOGOTA, Colombia -- Law-and-order President Alvaro Uribe was re-elected in a landslide Sunday in Colombia's most peaceful elections in more than a decade, strengthening the U.S. ally's mandate to crack down on armed groups and drug traffickers. The Harvard-educated Uribe's win marks the first time in more than a century that an incumbent Colombian leader has been elected to a second term and bucks a trend of leftist leaders taking office across South America in recent years. With 85 percent of ballots counted, the conservative Uribe scored a stronger than expected 62 percent of the vote, according to official results. He easily surpassed the 50 percent needed to win in the first round and exceeded pre-election expectations.
Targets hit in Lebanon
JERUSALEM -- Israeli military aircraft, responding to rocket fire from Lebanon, struck targets there Sunday, and Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah militiamen engaged in several hours of cross-border fighting, leaving at least two gunmen in Lebanon dead and one Israeli soldier seriously injured. A U.N. peacekeeping unit in southern Lebanon intervened at the request of the Lebanese government and brokered a cease-fire between the two sides Sunday evening.
4 killed in gunbattle
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Suspected Taliban fighters detonated a roadside bomb near an Afghan police patrol Sunday, sparking an hourlong gunbattle that killed four militants, police said. Four police officers were wounded by the bombing that opened the clash between police and "dozens" of militants in central Afghanistan's Ghazni Province, said Abdul Rehman Surjung, the regional police chief. No police were killed in the fighting, which took place 75 miles southwest of Kabul, the capital, he said.
'Wind' wins at Cannes
CANNES, France -- British director Ken Loach's "The Wind That Shakes the Barley," a saga set amid Ireland's struggle for independence in the early 1920s, won top honors Sunday in an unanimous vote at the Cannes Film Festival. It was the first time veteran filmmaker Loach won the main prize after seven earlier entries in the main competition at the world's most prestigious film festival.
Associated Press