Gulf Coast prepares for onslaught of Gustav

Gulf Coast prepares for onslaught of Gustav

NEW ORLEANS — With Gustav approaching hurricane strength and showing no signs of veering off a track to slam into the Gulf Coast, authorities across the region began laying the groundwork Thursday to get the sick, elderly and poor away from the shoreline.

The first batch of 700 buses that could ferry residents inland were being sent to a staging area near New Orleans, and officials in Mississippi were trying to decide when to move Katrina-battered residents along the coast who were still living in temporary homes, including trailers vulnerable to high wind.

The planning for a potential evacuation is part of a massive outline drafted after Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore three years ago today, flooding 80 percent of New Orleans and stranding thousands who couldn’t get out in time.

Gustav left 67 people dead in Hispaniola, including 59 in Haiti and eight in the Dominican Republic.

Quake hits off coast

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — A strong earthquake struck off Canada’s west coast early Thursday near Vancouver Island.

The magnitude-6.1 quake hit at 5:37 a.m. Its epicenter was 97 miles west of Port Hardy and 293 miles west northwest of Vancouver, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It struck at a depth of 6.2 miles.

The quake was the latest in a series of coastal tremors since Monday. Two quakes rattled the area Wednesday, both with magnitudes of around 5. There have been 18 quakes in the region this week.

Seismologists said the tremors are occurring in a “seismically active” region, and they are too far offshore to be felt on land and too small to generate a tsunami.

Abortion law upheld

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s Supreme Court upheld the capital’s abortion law Thursday, setting a precedent for the rest of the country that could inspire other Latin American cities.

Mexico City is one of the few places in Latin America that allows abortion without limitations in the first trimester, although abortion rights groups complain most doctors still refuse to do the procedure.

Within minutes of the 8-3 vote in favor of the law, abortion rights groups were thinking of ways to expand the decision to other parts of Mexico and even Latin America, where abortion is virtually unheard of.

Kidnapped U.S. girl freed

GUATEMALA CITY — A 3-year-old U.S. girl kidnapped in Guatemala was freed on Thursday after police raided the home where she was being held and killed five suspects in a gunbattle, authorities said.

Police said the girl was not harmed in the shootout, which occurred after they traced her abductors to the home in the outskirts of the capital.

The U.S. Embassy could not immediately confirm the girl’s name or hometown. She was kidnapped on Wednesday when she was being taken to child care, Donaldo said.

Some sexual assaults to bring tougher penalties

SAN FRANCISCO — A sexual assault that leaves a victim pregnant may be punished more severely than one that did not result in pregnancy, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday.

The state court said a pregnancy may be considered “great bodily injury.”

“We conclude that here, based solely on the evidence of the pregnancy, the jury could reasonably have found that 13-year-old K. suffered a significant or substantial physical injury,” wrote Justice Joyce L. Kennard for the court.

The court ruled in the Santa Clara County case of Gary W. Cross, who repeatedly had sexual intercourse with his 13-year-old stepdaughter while her mother worked.

Ex-Marine acquitted of killing Iraqi detainees

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — A former Marine accused of killing unarmed Iraqi detainees was acquitted of voluntary manslaughter Thursday in a first-of-its-kind federal trial that ended with some of the jurors shaking hands and hugging the defendant and his sobbing mother.

The jury took less than six hours to find Jose Luis Nazario Jr. not guilty of charges that he killed or caused others to kill four unarmed detainees on Nov. 9, 2004, in Fallujah, Iraq, during some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

Thursday’s verdict marks the first time a civilian jury has determined whether the alleged actions of a former military service member in combat violated the law of war.

Combined dispatches