The News in 2 Minutes

From The Associated Press

Humberto dumps heavy rain in Texas
BEAUMONT, Texas—Humberto, the first hurricane to hit the U.S. in two years, sneaked up on south Texas and Louisiana overnight and crashed ashore Thursday with heavy rains and 85 mph winds, killing at least one person.

The system rapidly became a Category 1 hurricane, then weakened to a tropical storm by midmorning and bore into central Louisiana. Roads were flooded and power was knocked out, but the greatest concern was heavy rain falling in areas already inundated by a wet summer.

Humberto wasn’t even a tropical storm until Wednesday afternoon, strengthening from a tropical depression with 35 mph winds to a hurricane with 85 mph winds in just 18 hours, senior hurricane specialist James Franklin said at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

“To put this development in perspective _ no tropical cyclone in the historical record has ever reached this intensity at a faster rate near landfall. It would be nice to know, someday, why this happened,” Franklin said.

Oil hits $80 a barrel for the first time
NEW YORK—Oil prices finished above $80 a barrel for the first time Thursday and gasoline prices rose as refiners reported production problems after Hurricane Humberto hit Texas.

Oil first traded over $80 a barrel on Wednesday after the Energy Department reported declines in crude and gasoline inventories and a drop in refinery activity, but ended the day below that psychologically important mark.

Thursday, Humberto added to the supply concerns by cutting power to several refineries in the Port Arthur, Texas, area. Another tropical system gaining strength in the Atlantic also supported prices.

Light, sweet crude for October delivery finished at a record $80.09, up 18 cents on the New York Mercantile Exchange and above the previous record close of $79.91 set a day earlier.

Despite the gains, oil is still well below inflation-adjusted highs hit in early 1980. Depending on the adjustment, a $38 barrel of oil in 1980 would be worth $96 to $101 or more today.

Bomb attack kills sheik who challenged al-Qaida
BAGHDAD—The leading figure in the Sunni tribal revolt against al-Qaida was killed by a bomb only 10 days after President George W. Bush hailed his courage in the fight against terror. The assassination was a sharp blow to one of the few success stories in U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq.

Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, head of the Anbar Awakening Council, died when a roadside bomb exploded about 3:30 p.m. near his home just west of Ramadi as he was returning from a visit to his farm, police Col. Tareq Youssef and the sheik’s associates said. Two of his bodyguards and his driver were also killed.

Moments later a car bomb exploded nearby but caused no casualties. Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said the car bomb was intended as a backup in case Abu Risha had escaped the first blast.

No group claimed responsibility for the assassination, but it was widely assumed to have been carried out by al-Qaida.

Giuliani: Clinton smeared Petraeus
ATLANTA—Republican presidential contender Rudy Giuliani on Thursday accused Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton of participating in “character assassination” for questioning Gen. David Petraeus about his assessment of progress in Iraq.

Clinton, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was one of several Democrats and some Republicans who expressed skepticism with President George W. Bush’s top military general’s more positive outlook on Iraq than recent independent reviews.

Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker told Congress Iraq remains largely dysfunctional but said violence in recent months had decreased since the influx of 30,000 additional troops earlier this year.

“The reports that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief,” Clinton said Tuesday.

Campaigning in Georgia, Giuliani assailed Clinton for the second straight day and tried to link her to a newspaper ad from the liberal anti-war group MoveOn critical of Petraeus. The ad accused Petraeus of “cooking the books” for the White House. “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?” it asked, playing off his name.

MoveOn is an independent organization.

“We believe unlike Hillary Clinton that General Petraeus is telling the truth,” Giuliani said.

Dubai structure tallest in world
DUBAI—The world’s tallest building, still under construction in the booming Gulf emirate of Dubai, has become the world’s tallest free-standing structure, its developers said Thursday.

The Burj Dubai tower is now 555 metres (1,831.5 feet) tall and has surpassed the 553-metre- (1,824.9-feet) CN Tower in Toronto, Canada, which held the record for the world’s tallest free-standing structure since 1976, developers Emaar Properties said in a statement.

The skyscraper, being built by South Korea’s Samsung and set for completion at the end of next year, is one of several mega projects taking shape in Dubai, which is part of the United Arab Emirates.

The statement did not reveal the tower’s final projected height or its final number of storeys, which Emaar has kept secret since launching the project in January 2004.

The developer announced in July that Burj Dubai, Arabic for Dubai Tower, had exceeded Taiwan’s Taipei 101 which is 508 metres (1,676.4 feet) tall, to become the tallest building in the world.