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Tropical Storm Edouard hits SE Texas

GALVESTON, Texas, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- Tropical Storm Edouard made landfall Tuesday morning in Texas south of the Louisiana border, packing 60 mph winds, U.S. forecasters reported.

At 10 a.m., the storm that formed Sunday over the Gulf of Mexico was 40 miles west of Port Arthur, Texas and about 45 miles north-northeast of Galveston, the National Hurricane Center in Miami reported.

The storm was expected to produce 3-5 inches of rain in some southwestern Louisiana coastal parishes and southeastern Texas and tropical storm force winds were extending outward up to 70 miles, the report said.

Weakening was forecast as the storm moved inland.

National Guard troops were mobilized Monday to help with food distribution, clean-up or search-and-rescue operations if needed, Capt. Adam Collett of the 72nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team in Houston told The Galveston County Daily News.

National Weather Service meteorologist Tim Destri told The (New Orleans) Times-Picauyne rainfall in Louisiana averaged 3 inches and tides were 1-2 feet above normal along the coast.

Bush arrives in S. Korea, meeting with Lee

SEOUL, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- U.S. President George Bush arrived in Seoul for talks with his South Korean counterpart on military, economic and diplomatic issues.

Discussions between Bush and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak also were expected to touch on the recently resumed U.S. beef imports, as well as North Korea's denuclearization, Yonhap News Agency reported.

Bush and Lee are expected to release a joint statement Wednesday that reaffirms their commitment to a forward-looking U.S.-South Korea alliance, South Korean government officials said.

Bush and the U.S. entourage stopped in Seoul en route to the Summer Olympics in Beijing.

The Korean National Police Agency said it deployed about 7,000 personnel along Bush's scheduled routes, with about 16,000 riot police standing by, Yonhap reported. South Korea's Presidential Security Service also mobilized a special security team in conjunction with local police and the U.S. Secret Service.

Gitmo visits taped, recorded, info shows

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- The United States may have videotaped and recorded foreign visitors' meetings with detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, documents indicate.

Foreign intelligence and law enforcement teams were told visits to their citizens at Guantanamo would be recorded and the United States could have hours of taped conversations between detainees and representatives of about three dozen countries, documents obtained by The Washington Post indicate.

Countries were subjected to the rules "to protect the interests and insure the safety of all concerned," U.S. State Department cables sent to foreign government delegations in 2002-03 indicate.

Although attorneys for the detainees sought such evidence, The Bush administration has denied the requests and hasn't indicated the tapes' existence, the Post reported Tuesday.

U.S. Navy Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, said videotaping visits by foreign delegations wasn't "standard operating procedure" but done to protect the detainees, the foreign officials and the United States. He also said visits were monitored for "intelligence-collection purposes."

Officials from governments that visited Guantanamo Bay detainees said they understood the sessions would be recorded.

"We knew for a while that all the interrogations and questioning was being recorded and that that was the routine," one Yemeni official told the Post.

Voter registration shifts from Republican

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- The number of registered Republican voters in the United States fell as registered Democrats rose since the last general election, voting experts said.

But, almost as often, people are registering to vote without declaring any party affiliation, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

While implications for the general election remain unclear, experts told the Times voting registration numbers may signal a movement away from the GOP that could affect local, state and national politics for several election cycles.

In battleground states such as Iowa and Nevada, state officials reported more registered Democrats than Republicans, a reversal from 2004. No state officials reported a similar switch to more registered Republicans than Democrats for the same period.

A dozen states report the number of voters registering as independent outpaced both Republicans and Democrats.

"This is very suggestive that there is a fundamental change going on in the electorate," Michael McDonald, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and political science associate professor at George Mason University who studies voting patterns, told the Times.

'Rockefeller' to Boston for arraignment

BOSTON, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- A mystery man calling himself Clark Rockefeller, charged with kidnapping his daughter, was set to be arraigned in a Boston court, officials said Tuesday.

Rockefeller, 48, was to be transported from Baltimore to Boston Municipal Court Tuesday or Wednesday, where he is to face charges he abducted his 7-year-old daughter, Reigh, during a supervised custody visit, aiming to change his identity and begin a new life with the child, the Boston Herald reported.

The man's true identity remains a mystery, but prosecutors say they want to throw the book at Rockefeller, who fathered Reigh "Snooks" Storrow Mills Boss with ex-wife Sandra Boss, a Boston socialite and London businesswoman. In divorce proceedings, Boss claimed she was deceived by the man, who said he was a blueblood descended from the famous wealthy family, the newspaper reported.

"Clearly, the defendant deliberately and with premeditation took his daughter from her legal guardian when he had no right to do so," Jake Wark, spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley, told the Herald.

Police say Rockefeller had purchased a townhome in Baltimore with the child in tow, allegedly telling a realtor his name was Chip Smith and saying he was a charter yacht captain.

Earthquake strikes Indonesia

JAKARTA, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- An earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale rocked eastern parts of Indonesia Tuesday but officials said no tsunami or casualties were reported.

The quake's epicenter was about 145 miles northwest of Saumlaki in Maluku province and 106 miles under the sea bed, reported Xinhua, China's state-run news agency.

"The quake had potential for tsunami but it did not occur and we did not issue the warning," a meteorologist with a local agency told Xinhua.