Hurricane Dolly nearing Texas coast
MIAMI, July 23 (UPI) -- Hurricane Dolly was 65 miles from the southern Texas coast over the Gulf of Mexico early Wednesday with sustained winds near 85 mph, forecasters said.
The storm strengthened overnight and was expected to strengthen further before making landfall Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center in Miami reported.
The system was moving northwest near 8 mph and hurricane-force winds extended 25 miles from the eye, while tropical storm-force winds reached out up to 140 miles, the forecasters said.
"Dolly is expected to produce total rainfall accumulations of 6 to 10 inches, with isolated amounts of 15 inches over portions of south Texas and northeastern Mexico over the next few days," the report said.
Isolated tornadoes were possible over southern Texas and forecasters warned of coastal storm surge flooding 4 to 6 feet above normal tide levels along with dangerous battering waves.
Mexico also issued a hurricane warning from Rio San Fernando north to the U.S. border.
Obama pledges continued support for Israel
JERUSALEM, July 23 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., pledged to maintain strong U.S.-Israeli relations if he were elected U.S. president as he met with Israeli leaders Wednesday.
Obama, the likely Democratic Party presidential candidate, also was to travel to the West Bank to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mamoud Abbas as part of his weeklong trip to the Middle East and Europe.
"The most important idea for me to reaffirm is the historic and special relationship between the United States and Israel," Obama said when he arrived in Jerusalem, The New York Times reported.
Aides to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in a statement the Israeli leader and Obama discussed "all the relevant issues" and "future challenges facing Israel and the region," including Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and Iran's nuclear program.
Obama also met with Israeli President Shimon Peres and opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu. His itinerary included a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Netanyahu said in a statement he and Obama "agreed that the primacy of preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power is clear and this should guide our mutual policies" and that Obama assured him he would "never seek in any way to compromise Israel's security."
Appeal denied to fertilizer bomb planners
LONDON, July 23 (UPI) -- A three-judge panel Wednesday rejected the appeal of five men who received life sentences for plotting a series of fertilizer bomb attacks in Britain.
Criticisms about the trial judge's handling of the case were raised on appeal, but Lord Chief Justice Igor Judge said, "The many and varied criticisms of the summing-up are unfounded," The Guardian reported.
Judge said the trial judge exercised care in his approach to the "unenviable task of summarizing the evidence ... in the course of this mammoth trial."
Omar Khyam, Waheed Mahmood and Jawad Akbar from Crawley in West Sussex, Anthony Garcia of Barkingside in east London and Salahuddin Amin of Luton in Bedfordshire were found guilty last year of conspiracy to cause explosions likely to endanger life, the British newspaper reported.
The men were convicted of plotting to bomb public places such as the Ministry of Sound nightclub in London and the Bluewater shopping center in Kent by using fertilizer bombs.
The panel did reduce the minimum sentences several men were told at trial they had to serve.
British soldier killed in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan, July 23 (UPI) -- A bomb struck a military vehicle in Afghanistan's Helmand province, killing a British soldier and injuring two others, the defense ministry said Wednesday.
The incident in Kajaki brought to 111 the number of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan, Sky News reported. The dead soldier was serving with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, attached to 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment.
Separately, Xinhua, quoting a coalition statement, reported several militants were killed Tuesday by coalition forces in an operation to disrupt militant activities in the central Afghan province of Wardak.
In another encounter Sunday, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said coalition forces killed Mullah Sheikh, a high-level Taliban commander, and two of his followers near Musa Qala in the southern Helmand province.
The report said the Mullah and his followers were responsible for directing frequent attacks against the Afghan people, Afghan National Security Force and ISAF forces in the province,
"We have removed yet another Taliban enemy leader who will no longer threaten the peace and security of Afghanistan," said ISAF spokesman British navy Capt. Mike Finney.
Judge orders release of Rosenbergs info
NEW YORK, July 23 (UPI) -- A federal judge in New York has released secret grand jury testimony in the 1950s spying case against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
The Rosenbergs were executed in 1953 after being found guilty of passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. Some historians have had doubts about the strength of the evidence, especially against Ethel Rosenberg, and sought the release of the grand jury transcripts, CNN reported.
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ordered most of the transcripts released at the request of such Cold War historians as the National Security Archive, the American Historical Association and the Georgetown University Law Center.
Hellerstein, however, kept some of transcripts sealed because witnesses who are alive objected to the request or because some witnesses couldn't be found.
The judge urged U.S. attorneys to find the remaining witnesses, saying, "Time is precious to those who research. The public interest is best satisfied by the prompt and proper release of information," CNN reported.
