LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY "A lot of people are going to lose their homes today." Lisa Blake, San Diego fire captain, on the department's lack of resources to battle California's spreading wildfires Article, 1A
Cabs line up despite 2nd NYC taxi strike
NEW YORK - A second strike in six weeks by New York City cabbies did little to slow the city Monday, as familiar fleets of yellow cabs lined up as usual outside transportation hubs.
The cabdrivers called their second two-day walkout to protest new rules requiring installation of equipment that would let passengers watch TV, pay with credit cards and check their location using a global-positioning system.
The Taxi Workers Alliance, which called the strike and represents about a fifth of the city's 44,000 licensed cabdrivers, opposes the technology, saying the 5 percent surcharge on each credit-card transaction amounts to a wage cut and the GPS device allows cab companies to track drivers.
It wasn't immediately clear how many drivers were honoring the strike.
Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the alliance, said that 75 percent of all cabs were on strike. But the city said the vast majority of the city's taxi drivers were working.
Cabbie Jose Torres, who honored a two-day taxi strike last month, said he was working this time because he was afraid commuters would become accustomed to other means of transportation.
Rains far from quenching dry southeast
ATLANTA - Scattered showers moved through parts of Alabama, north Georgia and Tennessee on Monday, but it was far from breaking the drought that's gripped the region for months.
The system also brought more than 5 inches of rain to parts of New Orleans, flooding streets and threatening some homes and businesses. The rain caused traffic jams and forced police to close some roads.
The National Weather Service said there's a chance of showers and thunderstorms over north Georgia for the next five days, finally giving forecasters some good news to offer.
But climatologists say it will take more than a few scattered storms to pull the region out of a record drought.
Atlanta is almost 17 inches below normal rainfall for the year, and state officials warn that Lake Lanier, the north Georgia reservoir that supplies more than 3 million people with water, could be depleted within three months.
Almost one-third of the Southeast is covered by an "exceptional" drought - the worst drought category. The Atlanta area, with a population of 5 million, is smack in the middle of the affected region, which includes most of Tennessee, Alabama and the northern half of Georgia, as well as parts of North and South Carolina, Kentucky and Virginia.
Woman convicted in womb-ripping case
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A woman whose attorneys had argued that she was suffering from delusions when she killed an expectant mother, cut the baby from her womb and took the infant home was found guilty Monday.
Jurors convicted Lisa Montgomery, 39, of kidnapping resulting in death in the 2004 attack on 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett in Skidmore. Jurors deliberated for about four hours before rejecting Montgomery's insanity defense. Prosecutors said they plan to seek the death penalty.
Defense attorneys said Montgomery was suffering from pseudocyesis, which causes a woman to falsely believe she is pregnant and exhibit outward signs of pregnancy. They said she was a victim of severe mental illness whose delusion of being pregnant was being threatened, causing her to enter a dreamlike state when the killing took place.
Expected rain makes shuttle liftoff iffy
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA kept close watch on the weather on both sides of the Atlantic on Monday as Discovery's launch countdown entered its final hours with no major technical problems.
Rain was expected right around launch time and threatened to delay this morning's liftoff. At the overseas emergency landing sites, good weather was expected at one of the three locations, which was all NASA needed.
But while the outlook improved for Kennedy Space Center for Wednesday, bad weather was expected at all three emergency landing sites in Spain and France. NASA would postpone the launch if none of those locations was usable in the event of an engine or other serious problem during ascent.
Shuttle weather officer Kathy Winters said it will boil down to a matter of luck.
It's possible the rain and clouds will stay away until just after launch time.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 10/23/2007