Bill becomes a hurricane

Bill becomes a hurricane

MIAMI — Bill became a major hurricane far out in the Atlantic on Tuesday, with winds whipping near 125 mph.

The National Hurricane Center said people in the Leeward Islands should monitor Bill’s progress.

Hurricane hunter planes found that Bill, the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, had strengthened to a Category 3 storm Tuesday night.

The most significant threat the storm seemed to pose was to Bermuda, which it could pass in three or four days, Todd Kimberlain, a forecaster at the center, said.

Officials: Pot growers started Calif. wildfire

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — Investigators said Tuesday they believe marijuana growers with possible ties to Mexican drug cartels caused an 88,650-acre wildfire in northern Santa Barbara County, and there are many more pot farms hidden in remote areas around the nation.

U.S. Forest Service Special Agent Russ Arthur said an unspecified “cooking device” left at an encampment by suspected drug traffickers sparked the blaze Aug. 8 that has scorched more than 137 square miles of brush and timber and briefly threatened two dozen ranches and homes.

About 30,000 marijuana plants and an AK-47 assault rifle were found near the origin of the blaze in a remote canyon in Los Padres National Forest, authorities said at a news conference.

Charged with hate crime

BALTIMORE — Three white men shouting racial slurs beat a 76-year-old black man while he was fishing in a river early Tuesday, said Baltimore police, who were investigating the attack as a hate crime.

The assailants also stole the man’s sport-utility vehicle, said Anthony Guglielmi, a police spokesman. Police caught up with the vehicle and arrested 28-year-old Calvin E. Lockner. The other two men eluded capture, Guglielmi said.

The victim was taken to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was in serious but stable condition, Guglielmi said. Police said they were withholding the victim’s name for his protection.

Late Tuesday, police said Lockner was charged with a hate crime, attempted murder, first-degree assault and carjacking. During his interview with detectives, Lockner “admitted he does not like African-American people,” Guglielmi said.

Mother, boyfriend indicted in death of 8-year-old boy

BOISE, Idaho — The mother of an 8-year-old boy found dead in an Idaho canal and her live-in boyfriend have been indicted on first-degree murder charges by an Ada County grand jury.

Thirty-year-old Melissa Jenkins and her boyfriend, 36-year-old Daniel Ehrlick Jr., were arrested Tuesday in the death of Jenkins’ son, Robert Manwill. The two also face charges on accusations that they failed to report the boy’s death.

Robert was missing for more than a week before his body was found floating in the canal Aug. 3. No cause of death has been released, but police said evidence showed the death was not accidental.

Gay-bar raid aftermath

FORT WORTH, Texas — The Fort Worth police chief said Tuesday that he is revising bar inspection policies in the wake of a raid on a gay bar that left one customer seriously injured and several officers facing allegations of wrongdoing.

Chief Jeff Halstead told the city council that problems happened at the Rainbow Lounge in the early morning hours of June 28 because the department’s bar-inspection policy lacked specific guidelines, which he said was why no policies were violated.

He said a revised policy should be in place by Sept. 1.

The department also is trying to mend its relationship with the gay community by having meetings, appointing an officer as a liaison and providing more diversity training to officers, Halstead said.

American heads home

BANGKOK — An American man imprisoned in Myanmar for sneaking into the opposition leader’s compound but released with the help of a visiting U.S. senator headed home on a flight Tuesday after two days of health checks in Thailand.

John Yettaw, 53, of Falcon, Mo., was detained in Myanmar for three months after he swam across a lake and made an unauthorized visit to the home of detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

He was sentenced last week to seven years in prison, but U.S. Sen. Jim Webb met the country’s military leaders and won his early release Sunday. Yettaw, who is in poor health, flew to Thailand later Sunday and spent two days undergoing tests in Bangkok hospitals.

Associated Press