The ninth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, Tropical Storm Irene, formed Sunday but posed no immediate threat to land, forecasters said. Early Sunday evening, Irene was about 1,100 miles east-northeast of the northern Leeward Islands, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, with sustained winds of 40 mph. The center’s five-day projection indicates the storm will make a turn to the north, bringing it east of Bermuda.
Sex offenders banned from shelters
Sex offenders under state supervision who are not allowed near children are banned from public hurricane shelters in Florida under a new policy that allows them to weather the storms in prison instead. The policy was created to keep sex offenders and predators away from children, said Robby Cunningham, spokesman for the Department of Corrections. Offenders who go to a prison will stay in areas such as visitor or meeting rooms, he said.
Illinois: Justice slams death penalty
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens sharply condemned the country’s death penalty system in a Saturday speech to the American Bar Association in Chicago. Noting evidence of “serious flaws,” Stevens said DNA evidence has shown “that a substantial number of death sentences have been imposed erroneously.”
California: Archbishop subpoenaed
Archbishop William Levada, soon to be the highest ranking American at the Vatican, was welcomed to his final Sunday Mass in San Francisco by thousands of admiring parishioners, a few critics and a subpoena compelling him to testify about sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. Levada was handed the subpoena – requiring him to give a deposition Aug. 12 concerning sex abuse allegations against priests in the Portland, Ore., Archdiocese, where he was archbishop from 1986 to 1995 – minutes before he began the procession to the altar at St. Mary’s Cathedral.
D.C.: Protection from monkeypox
Some people infected in the monkeypox outbreak in 2003 were protected by previous smallpox vaccinations, a finding that could be of a benefit in the event of a bioterror attack, a new study by Oregon Health &Science University suggests. The 2003 outbreak of monkeypox, a related illness, sickened 72 people in several Midwestern states, but there were no deaths.
From Herald news services
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