The News in 2 Minutes

From The Associated Press

By air, boat and truck, search on for Ike victims

HOUSTON—Rescuers in boats, helicopters and high-water trucks set out across the flood-stricken Texas coast Saturday in a monumental effort to reach tens of thousands of people who stubbornly ignored warnings of “certain death” and tried to ride out Hurricane Ike.

The storm roared ashore hours before daybreak with 110 mph winds and towering waves, smashing houses, flooding thousands of homes, blowing out windows in Houston’s skyscrapers, and cutting off power to more than 3 million people, perhaps for weeks.

By evening, it appeared that Ike was not the single calamitous stroke that forecasters had feared. But the full extent of the damage — or even a rough sense of how many people may have perished — was still unclear, in part because many roads were impassable.

Some authorities feared that this could instead become a slow-motion disaster, with thousands of victims trapped in their homes, waiting for days to be rescued.

“We will be doing this probably for the next week or more. We hope it doesn’t turn into a recovery,” said Sheriff’s Sgt. Dennis Marlow in Orange County, where more than 300 people had to be rescued from flooded homes. He said that was only “a drop in the bucket” compared with the number still stranded.

By some estimates, more than 140,000 of the 1 million or so people who had been ordered to evacuate the coast as Ike drew near may have tried to tough it out. Many of them evidently realized the mistake too late, and pleaded with authorities in vain to save them overnight.

U.S. Wall Street race to try to save Lehman

NEW YORK—The field of possible buyers for Lehman Brothers narrowed Saturday, but the parties involved in the discussions over the wounded investment bank’s future were at loggerheads over how to finance the rescue.

An investment banking official said Bank of America Corp. and Britain’s Barclays Plc have emerged as the front runners for Lehman Brothers after a possible cash injection from its rival Wall Street banks and brokerages.

Top officials from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department and executives from several Wall Street banks met at the New York Fed’s downtown Manhattan headquarters Saturday for the second day in a row try to hash out a deal to rescue Lehman Brothers.

The financial world was watching. Failure could prompt skittish investors to unload shares of financial companies, a contagion that might affect stock markets at home and abroad when they reopen Monday.

Health officials find plague in Flagstaff fleas

FLAGSTAFF—Health officials in Coconino County say they’ve found plague in fleas trapped in the Flagstaff-area community of Doney Park.

The fleas were tested as part of normal monitoring in the area, where the plague is commonly found.

Last year, pets in Doney Park were quarantined after an outbreak in the local prairie dog population. A biologist at the Grand Canyon National Park died of the disease in November after doing a necropsy on an infected cougar.

Health department officials warn people to avoid exposure by not handling dead animals, treating pets for fleas, avoiding rodent burrows and using insect repellant. Plague symptoms include fever, chills, muscle pain and swollen lymph glands and begin from two to six days after exposure.

Death toll in Bolivia unrest reaches 18

LA PAZ, Bolivia—President Evo Morales on Saturday accused an opposition governor of using foreign thugs against government supporters in violence that has claimed at least 18 lives and prompted him to declare martial law in a breakaway province.

In a bid to defuse the bitter dispute over a new constitution and land reform that threatens to tear apart the poor Andean nation, Chile called for an emergency meeting of South American leaders on Monday.

“A larger tragedy has to be avoided,” said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a strong ally of Bolivia’s leftist president, confirming he would attend the meeting.