200 students trapped in collapsed school
PETIONVILLE, Haiti, Nov. 8 (UPI) -- Haitian rescue workers Saturday were frantically trying to reach nearly 200 children trapped in the rubble of a collapsed school, local media reported.
CNN said the Haiti Press Network reported that by midnight Friday, at least 200 of the 700 children present at the school when it collapsed were still buried inside the wreckage.
At least 50 children were confirmed dead in the catastrophe in Petionville, Haiti, near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.
"We are looking at major casualties here," Alex Claudon, a Red Cross official on the scene, told CNN.
Haitian President Rene Preval and Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis toured the disaster area Friday, with local media reporting that Preval said he saw and heard the trapped children crying for help himself.
The Haiti Press Network also reported that a member of the country's parliament is questioning whether the rebuilt school, the College La Promesse Evangelique, was over its student capacity, reportedly calling it not quite solid," CNN said.
Hurricane Paloma bears down on Cuba
HAVANA, Nov. 8 (UPI) -- Hurricane Paloma, heading toward Cuba, is packing sustained winds of 135 mph and has been upgraded to Category 4 status, meteorologists said Saturday.
Accuweater.com forecasters said Paloma was expected to make landfall late Saturday night or early Sunday morning along the south-central coast of Cuba. Rain and strong winds were already pounding the Cayman Islands Saturday as officials urged residents to stay off the streets and evacuated some low-lying coastal regions.
"Before Paloma gets to Cuba, there will be some upper level wind sheer that will take away some of its energy, but it is still likely to be Category 3," said AccuWeather.com senior meteorologist Michael Sager. "The storm will run perpendicular to the island and it will remain over land for about 12 hours. It's likely to have become more disorganized by the time the storm passes on to the Bahamas."
At 4 a.m. Saturday, the storm's center was 40 miles southwest of Little Cayman and about 75 miles east of Grand Cayman and was moving in a northeasterly direction, CNN reported.
Demand high for Obama inauguration tix
CHICAGO, Nov. 8 (UPI) -- Staffers for Illinois' congressional delegation say demand from voters for tickets to U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration is overwhelming.
Constituents say Obama's Jan. 20 inauguration in Washington will be a historic event and they are pouring in requests for tickets to the events by the thousands, officials told the Chicago Tribune Saturday.
"Constituents want to be in Washington and witness history," Kenneth Edmonds, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr, D-Ill., told the newspaper. "No one should be surprised. It's a reflection of the extraordinary enthusiasm President Obama's candidacy has unleashed."
"It's crazy," added Sharon Jenkins, a spokeswoman for Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill. "We're in a unique moment in U.S. history. Every day under Obama's administration is a first, and people want to be a part of it."
Inauguration event tickets are free and are distributed through members of the incoming Congress, the Tribune said. The ceremonies include a morning worship service, the procession to the Capitol, the swearing-in ceremony, an address from Obama, a parade and various inaugural balls.
Minn. Senate recount could take weeks
ST. PAUL, Minn., Nov. 8 (UPI) -- The U.S. Senate race in Minnesota between Republican incumbent Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken may be undecided for weeks, officials said Friday.
Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said the recount should be completed in the middle of December, The New York Times reported. That result can still be challenged.
Late Friday, Coleman was ahead of Franken by only 239 votes. Under state law, any margin less than .5 percent of the vote total triggers an automatic recount.
Franken, a former "Saturday Night Live" writer and performer, said he is not throwing in the towel.
"This is the closest race in Minnesota history, the closest Senate race and the closest race anywhere in the country. This is just part of the process to make sure every vote is counted," Franken said in an interview on Minnesota Public Radio. "Candidates don't get to decide when an election's over -- voters do."
In Georgia, Sen. Saxby Chambliss will have to defend his seat again in a runoff with Democrat Jim Martin because he failed to win 50 percent of the total vote. In Alaska, the race between Sen. Ted Stevens and Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich is still undecided.
Wright: Obama's win 'incredibly powerful'
EVANSTON, Ill., Nov. 8 (UPI) -- Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's former Chicago pastor, says Obama's election Tuesday was "incredibly powerful."
Wright, whose fiery sermons at his former church, Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, were used by Obama's opponents against him, largely stuck to uncontroversial topics in his first speech since the election, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
Wright appeared Friday at Northwestern University at the invitation of a black students club, saying, "I come here today, three days after the incredibly powerful election of the nation's first African-American president."
Wright exhorted students to remember the struggle black students faced in the 1960s, saying, ""We need to teach our children to take everything … that we learn here, take it out there," the Chicago Tribune reported.
Wright retired from Trinity before the election, before Obama severed his 20-year relationship with the church when controversial clips of Wright's fiery past sermons surfaced on the Internet and were seized upon by the campaign of Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
Three bodies found in elderly woman's home
EVANSTON, Ill., Nov. 8 (UPI) -- Police in the leafy Chicago suburb of Evanston, Ill., say they have found a 90-year-old woman living with the bodies of three dead siblings in her house.
The bodies, two of which were described as skeletons and another as badly decomposed, were identified as brothers and sisters of the unidentified woman, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
They were identified as Anita Bernstorff, born in 1910, Frank Bernstorff, born in 1920 and Elaine Bernstorff, born in 1916. The dates of their deaths were to be determined by the Cook County Medical Examiner.
Police told the Sun-Times that Anita Bernstorff was last seen alive in May 2008, Frank Bernstorff was last seen alive in April 2003 and Elaine Bernstorff was last seen alive in the early 1980s. Authorities believe all died of natural causes but have yet to determine why the surviving siblings never reported any of the deaths.
Neighbor Caroline Carlton told the newspaper she saw the 90-year-old on Halloween passing out candy, but added she had never been inside the house.
