Nation briefly
Published 9:00 pm Sunday, December 4, 2005
Epsilon regained hurricane strength Sunday in the open Atlantic, surprising experts but still posing no threat to land. The 26th named storm of a record-breaking hurricane season had top sustained winds near 75 mph Sunday night, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
California: Gas falls average 11 cents
Retail gas prices have continued to drop across the country, falling an additional 11 cents in the past two weeks, according to a survey released Sunday in Camarillo by Trilby Lundberg, who publishes the semimonthly Lundberg Survey of 7,000 gas stations around the country. Self-serve regular averaged $2.13 a gallon nationwide. Midgrade cost $2.24, and the price for premium was $2.33, according to Lundberg.
D.C.: Rice replies on torture issue
During her trip to Europe this week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will tell allies the U.S. does not transport suspected terrorists around the globe to be tortured, the president’s national security adviser said Sunday. European governments have expressed outrage over reports of secret CIA prisons where terrorism detainees may have been mistreated. The Bush administration has refused to address the question of whether it operated secret sites that may be illegal under European law.
Red Cross reaches out to minorities
The American Red Cross has launched an aggressive effort to reach out to racial and ethnic minorities in response to criticism that it treated them callously during the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. The organization has begun various initiatives to increase the diversity of the staff at its headquarters and 800 chapters and draw more minority volunteers. Its faith-based initiative is designed to recruit and train volunteers in religious organizations, particularly churches with high concentrations of blacks, Hispanics and Asians, officials said.
New Jersey: Bear hunt begins
New Jersey hunters take to the woods today for a controversial season aimed at thinning the state’s growing population of black bears, whose hungry foraging has frightened suburban residents. Up to 5,000 hunters were expected to take part in the six-day hunt, restricted to an area of about 1,600 square miles in the state’s northwest corner.
From Herald news services
