Nation/World Briefly: Oklahoma tornadoes kill at least five people

Published 10:13 pm Monday, May 10, 2010

NORMAN, Okla. — Tornadoes ripped through parts of the Southern Plains on Monday in an outbreak of violent weather that killed five people in Oklahoma and injured dozens of others as cars went flying off highways, mobile homes flipped over and baseball-size hail came crashing through windshields.

Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management spokesman Jerry Lojka said two people were killed in Oklahoma City and three were killed in Cleveland County, south of the city. Oklahoma City officials said the fatalities there involved a young boy who was hit by debris in his home and a man whose recreational vehicle flipped over on top of him. Details on the Cleveland County deaths weren’t immediately available.

Officials reported that at least 58 others were injured — two of them critically — in the daylong onslaught throughout Oklahoma. In some neighborhoods in Oklahoma City, emergency workers were going door to door to make sure everyone was accounted for.

The storms were part of a violent weather system that also spawned twisters in Kansas.

Power was out to more than 37,000 homes and businesses in Oklahoma.

Washington: Acid-reducing drugs could increase bone breaks

The widely used family of acid-reducing drugs that includes Prilosec, Nexium and Protonix increases the risk of bone fractures by about 25 percent and can more than double the risk of contracting the troublesome bacterium Clostridium difficile, new studies released Monday confirm. The increased risk is not thought to be caused by the drugs themselves, but by the sharply reduced levels of acid in the stomach and intestinal tract, which make the organs a more hospitable environment for infectious agents such as C. difficile and that can impair the uptake of the calcium required for strong bones. The study was conducted in part by the University of Washington.

Michigan: Militia members to remain in jail for now

Nine Midwestern militia members accused of conspiring against the government must stay locked up while prosecutors challenge an order that would release them until trial, a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Monday. Members of the Michigan-based group, called Hutaree, are charged with conspiracy to commit sedition, or rebellion, against the government and the attempted use of weapons of mass destruction. They have been in custody since late March.

U.K.: Brown to resign as prime minister by September

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a dramatic bid to keep his beleaguered Labour Party in power after it was punished in elections last week, announcing he will resign by September at the latest even if the Liberal Democrats — being wooed by the Conservatives — decide to join his party in government. No other party won outright in the elections either, resulting in the first “hung Parliament” since 1974 and triggering a frantic scramble between Brown’s Labour and the main opposition Conservatives to broker a coalition — or at least an informal partnership — with the Liberal Democrats.

Serbia: Mass grave found

A mass grave has been discovered in Serbia believed to contain the bodies of 250 ethnic Albanians who were killed in Kosovo during the 1998-99 Serbian crackdown on separatists, officials said Monday. It is the sixth mass grave that has been found in Serbia since 2001.

Russia: Mine deaths hit 32

Rescuers plunged into the dangerous rubble of Russia’s largest coal mine Monday in search of 58 trapped miners, but the head of the rescue operation said hope was dimming for finding them still alive in the city-sized maze of black and smoky tunnels deep underground. The official death toll stood at 32 after rescuers recovered 20 more bodies from the mine, in the Siberian city of Mezhdurechensk, that was shattered by two explosions over the weekend.

Iran: EU wants to give nuke talks another chance

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said Monday she was ready to give direct talks with Iran another chance, while warning that U.N. sanctions against its nuclear program — which Iran says is for peaceful purposes – could be adopted “very rapidly.” She said the international community is still following a “twin track” approach with Iran, meaning that it is open to dialogue while at the same time preparing for stronger sanctions if no positive signals came from Teheran.

From Herald news services