Tornadoes barrel across Midwest, Southeast
MADISONVILLE, Ky.-Tornadoes barreled across the Midwest and portions of the Southeast, knocking out electricity and damaging buildings in several states. The storms killed at least one person.
Meteorologists said a cold front moving east collided with warm, unstable air to produce severe thunderstorms and funnel clouds across Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Tennessee. Tornadoes also were spotted in Indiana and Illinois.
In some areas, the roofs of homes were caved in, walls were blown out and entire buildings were blown off foundations. Some water pipes sticking from the ground gushed water.
Rice: N. Korea nuclear intentions unclear
BUSAN, South Korea-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says North Korea has not followed through on promises to drop its nuclear weapons program and needs to bring “a different attitude” to the next round of international talks.
North Korea agreed in September to dismantle its existing nuclear weapons and renounce new ones, in exchange for a package of economic incentives and diplomatic assurances. Since then, however, the secretive communist regime has seemed to pull back from those pledges.
“I think the jury is out on whether the North Koreans are … prepared to do what they need to do, which is to get serious,” Rice told reporters Wednesday after meetings with other members of a six-way international negotiating team on North Korea.
Teen returns to Pennsylvania to face murder charges
LANCASTER, Pa.-An 18-year-old man accused of killing his girlfriend’s parents and fleeing with her to Indiana is back in Pennsylvania to face murder and kidnapping charges.
His 14-year-old girlfriend, Kara Beth Borden, was returned home on a separate plane. She was not under arrest.
Indiana police captured David Ludwig on Monday after the car he was driving slammed into a tree during a chase. He is suspected of shooting Kara’s parents, both 50, in their Lititz home early Sunday after an argument over the teens’ relationship.
Warwick Township Chief Richard F. Garipoli Jr. said Kara will be considered a victim in the case-rather than a willing participant-“until I hear otherwise.”
“Kara’s upset. She’s crying. She’s a 14-year-old child and we seem to forget that,” Garipoli said. “She’s devastated. So it’s important that we do put her back with her family where she belongs.”
C-sections in U.S. are at all-time high
ATLANTA-The rate of Caesarean sections in the U.S. has climbed to an all-time high, despite efforts by public health authorities to bring down the number of such deliveries, the government said Tuesday.
Nearly 1.2 million C-sections were performed in 2004, accounting for 29.1 percent of all births that year, the National Center for Health Statistics reported. That is up from 27.5 percent in 2003 and 20.7 in 1996.
The increase is attributed to fears of malpractice lawsuits if a vaginal delivery goes wrong, the preferences of mothers and physicians, and the risks of attempting vaginal births after Caesareans.
The C-section rate increased for all births, even those that involved healthy, first-time pregnancies with a full-term, single child. In 2000, the government announced a national public health goal of reducing the C-section rate for such births to 15 percent by 2010, but the actual rate now is about 24 percent and rising.
The government also reported that more than a half-million infants were born preterm-at less than 37 weeks’ gestation-in 2004, which is another record. And the proportion of infants with a low birth weight rose to 8.1 percent in 2004, from 7.9 percent the year before.