Calif. residents urged to heed evacuation orders

Calif. residents urged to heed evacuation orders

DAVENPORT, Calif. — California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger urged residents to heed mandatory evacuation orders Saturday as 6,800 firefighters battled to control nearly a dozen blazes across the parched state.

Schwarzenegger met with firefighters at the Lockheed Fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains, a day after the governor returned to the state from attending the funeral of his mother-in-law, Eunice Shriver.

The Lockheed Fire has blackened close to 8 square miles of remote wilderness since Wednesday and prompted mandatory evacuations of the mountain communities of Swanton and Bonny Doon, which have about 2,400 residents and several wineries.

The fire spread slightly overnight, but crews gained some ground when the winds died down, said CalFire spokeswoman Julie Hutchinson.

But an offshore wind was expected to blow into the area later Saturday, bringing hotter temperatures, dropping the humidity and drying out the trees and brush.

Senator gains release of American in Myanmar

YANGON, Myanmar — Stung by international outrage over the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s ruling generals agreed Saturday to hand an American prisoner involved in her case to a visiting U.S. senator.

Sen. Jim Webb was also granted an unprecedented meeting with the junta chief and was allowed to talk with Suu Kyi, the first foreign official permitted to see the Nobel laureate since she was sentenced to 18 more months of house arrest Tuesday.

American John Yettaw, who was sentenced to seven years of hard labor for swimming uninvited to Suu Kyi’s lakeside house in Yangon, will be deported today, Webb said in a statement from his Washington office.

41 die in fire at wedding

KUWAIT CITY — A fire at a wedding tent Saturday has killed at least 41 women and children and injured 76 others, authorities said.

The official Kuwait News Agency quotes the fire department chief, Brig. Gen. Jassem al-Mansouri, as saying 41 bodies have been recovered from the scene in Jahra, a tribal area west of Kuwait City. KUNA said 76 people have been hospitalized with burns.

Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Mohammed al-Saber said the cause of the fire has not been determined, and authorities were having difficulty evacuating the injured because of relatives and onlookers flooding the scene.

Wedding parties in this conservative oil-rich country are separate for men and women. Children attend the women’s party.

Tropical storm Bill forms

MIAMI — Tropical Storm Bill formed in the far eastern Atlantic on Saturday, and the government of the Netherland Antilles issued a tropical storm watch for St. Maarten, Saba and St. Eustatius because of Tropical Storm Ana.

The National Hurricane Center said Saturday evening that Ana had maximum sustained winds near 40 mph and was moving west near 17 mph. It was about 805 miles east-southeast of the Leeward Islands.

Indian superstar detained

ROSEMONT, Ill. — Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan is downplaying being questioned at a New Jersey airport.

Press Trust of India news agency reported that Kahn said he was detained for two hours because his name came up on a computer alert list at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. U.S. customs officials say Khan was questioned as part of a routine process.

Asked to comment on what happened, Khan told reporters at an Indian festival in suburban Chicago, “I think it’s a procedure that needs to be followed, but an unfortunate procedure.”

He also said he does not want an apology from the U.S. government.

Khan is in the U.S. to promote his new film, “My Name is Khan,” which is about racial profiling.

Khan, 44, has acted in more than 70 films and has consistently topped popularity rankings in India for the past several years.

Trying to avert rail strike

OAKLAND, Calif. — Management of the San Francisco Bay area’s commuter rail system and the union representing its train operators and station agents returned to the bargaining table Saturday, hoping to prevent a strike that threatened to clog bridges and maroon thousands of commuters when the workweek begins.

Leaders of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 announced earlier in the week that they would strike Monday after Bay Area Rapid Transit’s board of directors imposed work terms that the union says amount to a 7 percent pay cut.

Two other BART unions already have approved new contracts.

Associated Press