US works to take in exiled Cubans

US works to take in exiled Cubans

HAVANA

Washington is working on a plan to bring the vast majority of exiled Cuban political prisoners from Spain to the United States and has already processed the first case, a senior State Department official told The Associated Press on Monday.

Nearly all of some 39 former prisoners who are already in Spain, along with more than 100 family members, are likely to accept the offer, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the program publicly.

4 NATO soldiers die in Afghan blasts

KABUL

Three explosions just minutes apart rocked Kandahar on Monday night, killing up to four Afghan police officers in the nation’s largest city in the south.

Three NATO service members also were killed by bombings in southern Afghanista,n and an insurgent attack killed another in the east, raising the coalition’s death toll to 11 in the first four days of October. The nationalities of the dead were not disclosed.

‘I’m not a witch,’ candidate says in ad

DOVER, Del.

In her first campaign ad since winning the GOP primary, Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell assures voters: “I’m not a witch.”

O’Donnell’s been dealing with questions about witchcraft since a 1999 confession on a late-night talk show surfaced that she had dabbled in it as a teenager.

The ad begins running statewide today. It opens with O’Donnell looking into the camera and immediately telling voters that she’s not a witch.

She goes on to say that nobody’s perfect and suggests that she’s just like everybody else or, in her words: “I’m you.”

Cops: Man shoots 6 others, kills self

GAINESVILLE, Fla.

A gunman killed himself Monday afternoon after he fatally shot a person and wounded five others around Gainesville, police said.

The gunman shot himself in his red pickup truck after he drove through the neighborhood picking off victims, Gainesville police Cpl. Tscharna Senn said at a Monday night news conference. Police refused to confirm the identity of the shooter, victims or give a motive.

26 die in flooding in Indonesia

WASIOR, Indonesia

Days of torrential rain triggered landslides and flash floods in eastern Indonesia, killing at least 26 people and destroying hundreds of homes, officials and witnesses said today.

Residents in Wasior, a village in a hilly corner of West Papua province, combed the mud in search of missing relatives.

Decky Amnir, head of the local Disaster Management Agency, said at least 26 people were killed, and more than 60 were sent to hospitals with injuries.

Some had to be evacuated by helicopter, he said.

Man, 81, charged with murder

SANTA ANA, Calif.

Authorities say an 81-year-old man has been charged with the murder of his 94-year-old roommate at a rehabilitation center where the two were recovering from hip surgeries.

Prosecutors said Monday that William McDougall became angry with 94-year-old Manh Van Nguyen, who was singing in their room in Vietnamese at the Palm Terrace Health Care Center in Laguna Woods.

McDougall is accused of taking a metal rod from the closet Friday and hitting Nguyen multiple times on the head. Nguyen died at a hospital.

Associated Press