Stubborn Calif. wildfire still burning


A forest firefighter runs down Lockwood Valley Road as flames burn through the brush after the fire jumped Lockwood Valley road in Ventura, Calif. on Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2006. The Day fire jumped 60-foot-wide bulldozer lines in Los Padres National Forest Monday night. Despite the renewed intensity, no homes had been lost to the Day Fire, which began on Labor Day and has burned more than 143,100 acres in wilderness some 70 miles northwest of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mike Meadows)


A huge tornado caused by the wind swept fire, just moments after the fire jumped Lockwood Valley Road, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2006, in Ventura, Calif. Firefighters Tuesday worked to protect hundreds of rural homes in the path of a stubborn wildfire that has burned for more than three weeks in mountainous Southern California forest lands. The Day fire jumped 60-foot-wide bulldozer lines in Los Padres National Forest Monday night. (AP Photo/Mike Meadows)


A forest firefighter turns away to protect himself from the intense heat as the Day Fire, jumps Lockwood Valley road in Ventura, Calif. on Tuesday Sept. 26, 2006. Despite the renewed intensity, no homes had been lost to the Day Fire, which began on Labor Day and has burned more than 143,100 acres in wilderness some 70 miles northwest of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mike Meadows)


(AP Photo/Mike Meadows)


A fence post burns as firefighters work to contain the Day Fire in the Los Padres National Forest in Ventura County, California September 26, 2006. REUTERS/Phil McCarten (UNITED STATES)


Firefighters work to contain the Day Fire in the Los Padres National Forest in Ventura County, California September 26, 2006. REUTERS/Phil McCarten (UNITED STATES)


A firefighter uses a bulldozer to cut a firebreak to contain the Day Fire in the Los Padres National Forest in Ventura County, California September 26, 2006. REUTERS/Phil McCarten (UNITED STATES)

LOCKWOOD VALLEY, Calif. - Officials urged residents in rural mountain communities to evacuate as they battled one of California's largest and longest-lasting wildfires.

Thick smoke turned the sky gray and purplish Tuesday as flames rolled through pines and juniper trees on slopes of Los Padres National Forest, where more than 3,800 firefighters have battled the blaze since it started on Labor Day.

"The problem is we've had extremely dry fuels," fire spokesman Dan Bastion said Wednesday. "Brush and trees will be ignited by the heat of the fire, so there's a domino effect going on."

"It was scary. I've never seen a wall of fire 200 feet high moving right at you and there's nothing you can do," he said. "It makes you believe in the Lord, I'll tell you."

The new fire activity was a surprise setback for firefighters. The blaze had been moving relatively slowly with the dying of weekend Santa Ana winds that had the potential to greatly spread flames but did not.

The blaze has burned more than 144,880 acres — 226 square miles — of wilderness. It was ignited by someone burning debris.

Firefighting costs have topped $45.5 million.

Typhoon Xangsane pounds Philippine capital


A fisherman runs from big waves after securing his boat at a fish port in Bulan in Sorsogon province located in the southern tip of the main Philippine island of Luzon, September 27, 2006, as Typhoon Xangsane slammed into the country, leaving thousands of ferry and airline passengers stranded.

MANILA, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Typhoon Xangsane lashed the Philippine capital on Thursday, grounding flights, halting vessels and closing schools and markets after triggering fatal flash floods in the centre of the country.

The storm, which brought heavy rain and winds of up to 160 km (99 miles) per hour, hit the central Philippines on Wednesday trapping nearly 3,500 ferry passengers and killing two people in a remote village after flood waters swept away dozens of houses.

Several central provinces were left without electricity and water as power lines crashed and many roads were left impassable due to uprooted trees, debris and flooding as Xangsane churned northwest towards Manila.

"It's like waking up from a nightmare," office of civil defense chief for the central Bicol region, Arnel Capili, told a radio station. "The first thing is to clear the national highway leading to Manila."

Disaster officials in the capital had raised the alert level ahead of Xangsane's arrival, the first typhoon to cross the city since 1995.

"We are asking the people to take extra precautions in the capital because we expect the eye of the storm to cross north of Manila before noon today," Nathaniel Cruz, chief forecaster, told local radio.

Worst is yet to come, US hurricane chief says

MIAMI, Aug 22 (Reuters) - If you thought the sight of the great American jazz city New Orleans flooded to the eaves -- its people trapped in attics or cowering on rooftops -- was the nightmare hurricane scenario, think again.

Max Mayfield, director of the U.S. National Hurricane Center, says there's plenty of potential for a storm worse than Hurricane Katrina which killed 1,339 people along the U.S. Gulf coast and caused some $80 billion in damage last August.

"People think we have seen the worst. We haven't," Mayfield told Reuters in an interview at the fortress-like hurricane center in Florida.

"I think the day is coming. I think eventually we're going to have a very powerful hurricane in a major metropolitan area worse than what we saw in Katrina and it's going to be a mega-disaster. With lots of lost lives," Mayfield said.

"I don't know whether that's going to be this year or five years from now or a hundred years from now. But as long as we continue to develop the coastline like we are, we're setting up for disaster."

Government accused of blocking hurricane report

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration has blocked the release of a report that suggests global warming is contributing to the frequency and strength of hurricanes, the journal Nature reported Tuesday.

The possibility that warming conditions may cause storms to become stronger has generated debate among climate and weather experts, particularly in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

A series of studies over the past year or so have shown an increase in the power of hurricanes in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a strengthening that many storm experts say is tied to rising sea-surface temperatures.

Just two weeks ago, researchers said that most of the increase in ocean temperature that feeds more intense hurricanes is a result of human-induced global warming, a study one researcher said "closes the loop" between climate change and powerful storms like Katrina.

Not all agree, however, with opponents arguing that many other factors affect storms, which can increase and decrease in cycles.

The possibility of global warming affecting hurricanes is politically sensitive because the administration has resisted proposals to restrict release of gases that can cause warming conditions.

In February, a NASA political appointee who worked in the space agency's public relations department resigned after reportedly trying to restrict access to Jim Hansen, a NASA climate scientist who has been active in global warming research.

Family sickened by spinach sues processing co.

TOLEDO, Ohio - Five family members who said they were sickened after eating fresh spinach filed a lawsuit Tuesday against a processing company investigators are examining in their search for the source of the tainted greens.

The lawsuit in U.S. District Court seeks at least $100,000 in damages from Natural Selection Foods LLC.

Roger Drummond and Laura Snider, of Bowling Green, said they and their three children became ill in late August and early September after eating packages of organic spinach salad.

A Brief History of Infinity: Space and the Universe

Human beings have trouble with infinity - yet infinity is a surprisingly human subject.

Philosophers and mathematicians have gone insane contemplating its nature and complexity - yet it is a concept routinely used by schoolchildren.

Presented by the renowned astronomer Heather Couper, these programmes take the listener on a journey with an endless audio horizon and feature contributions from musicians who write endless music; science fiction authors, who create infinite worlds and timeless beings; theologians; Buddhist lamas; astro-physicists and mathematicians.

It is infinity... in a nutshell.

Locust plague encircles Mexico's Cancun resort

MEXICO CITY, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Clouds of locusts have descended around the Mexican beach resort of Cancun, destroying corn crops and worrying officials in a region still recovering from the devastating fury of last year's Hurricane Wilma.

Traveling in dark fogs, locusts are grasshoppers that have entered a swarming phase, capable of covering large distances and rapidly stripping fields of vegetation.

"Imagine, they fly in the form of a flock. Imagine the width of a street," government official Martin Rodriguez said on Tuesday, describing the fields around Cancun on the Yucatan Peninsula.

Towns have formed pesticide-armed brigades and are winning the war against the 3-week-old plague that has left tourist areas unharmed, authorities said.

Squads wait until night when the flying insects are roosting on plants to blast them. They carry motorized backpack pumps to shoot chemicals in a crusade that has affected from 2,000 to 2,500 acres (800 to 1,000 hectares) of farm land.

"It is a war, effectively," said German Parra, a senior agriculture official in the Gulf state of Quintana Roo, home of tourist resorts Cancun and Playa del Carmen.

Locusts, which typically come to the region in four-year cycles, are most famous as one of the 10 biblical plagues of Egypt. "We hope that God will take pity on us and help us," said Parra with a laugh.

Eruption of Alaska volcano possible

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Vents on Alaska's Fourpeaked Mountain have been spewing volcanic gases and experts at the Alaska Volcano Observatory say an eruption is possible.

Peter Cervelli, a geophysicist for the U.S. Geological Survey and the observatory, said it is hard to predict if or when an eruption will occur but "nothing is imminent."

According to the observatory's Web page, an explosive eruption could occur in the coming days to weeks. Volcanic activity could be ash plumes exceeding 33,000 feet above sea level, with lava flows, or it could be nothing.