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Hasan said conscious, talking

SAN ANTONIO, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the suspect in last week's mass shooting at the Army's Fort Hood in Texas, is conscious and talking, a hospital spokesman says.

Dewey Mitchell, a spokesman for Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, told CNN Monday that Hasan -- listed in critical but stable condition after being shot several times after the attack at Fort Hood -- has begun talking after being removed from a ventilator.

Mitchell, however, was unable to tell reporters whether Hasan has been speaking with Army investigators who are looking into incident in which 13 people were killed and 42 others wounded last Thursday.

The update came after investigators said they were appealing for help from the public and service members, the U.S. broadcaster said.

"The Fort Hood office of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command is seeking any military or civilian personnel who may have left the scene ... with gunshot damage such as damaged privately owned vehicles, personnel clothing, etc.," investigators said in a written statement.

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U.S. split on race relations improvement

PRINCETON, N.J., Nov. 9 (UPI) -- People are divided about whether race relations have improved since U.S. President Barack Obama took office, results of a Gallup Poll released Monday indicated.

Forty-one percent of respondents said they thought race relations had improved since Obama's win, 35 percent said race relations haven't change and 22 percent they've gotten worse, results indicated.

Fifty-three percent of blacks and 39 percent of whites said they thought relations improved overall, but only 11 percent of blacks and 7 percent of whites said they thought relations improved a lot, the Princeton, N.J., polling agency said.

Gallup said Americans' outlook on the Obama presidency's impact on relations was optimistic. Sixty-one percent, nearly as high as the 70 percent seen in November 2008, said they believed believe U.S. race relations would improve in the future because of Obama's presidency.

Results were based on nationwide telephone interviews with 1,521 national adults conducted Oct. 16-19, including an oversample of 408 blacks. Overall results had a margin of error of 3 percent.

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Pakistan rejects nuclear weapons article

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- The Pakistani Foreign Ministry dismissed as "totally baseless" a report in The New Yorker about the United States offering to protect its nuclear weapons.

Calling the article "utterly misleading and totally baseless," the ministry said it was "nothing more than a concoction to tarnish the image of Pakistan and create misgivings among its people," CNN reported Monday.

The New Yorker magazine article by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said U.S. President Barack Obama's administration, which has a covert team ready to fly to Pakistan, has been working on "highly sensitive understandings" with Pakistan's military to let the military provide "added security for the Pakistani arsenal in case of a crisis."

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said Hersh had made "several false and highly irresponsible claims by quoting anonymous and unverifiable sources," CNN reported.

Saying its strategic assets are safe and secure, the ministry said Pakistan does not need foreign assistance and that as a sovereign state, it will not "allow any country to have direct or indirect access to its nuclear and strategic facilities."

In a telephone conversation with CNN, Hersh dismissed the Pakistani accusations, saying current U.S. plans call for separating the warheads from the mechanisms used to set them off instead of removing the warheads. Hersh also said that by securing the Pakistani nukes, U.S. officials also hope neighboring India would be convinced to pull its troops from the borders so the Pakistani military can turn more of its attention to fighting the Taliban and al-Qaida on its borders with Afghanistan.

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Now a tropical storm, Ida eyes Gulf Coast

MIAMI, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Hurricane warnings and watches along the U.S. Gulf Coast were canceled Monday as weather officials downgraded Ida from a hurricane to a tropical storm.

A tropical storm warning was in effect from Grand Isle, La., to the Aucilla River in Florida, and includes New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency Sunday, saying Hurricane Ida "threatens the safety and security of those citizens" along the state's southeastern coastline, CNN reported Monday. Residents in Florida were asked to have disaster plans in place by Florida's Division of Emergency Management.

At mid-morning Monday, Ida's center was about 185 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River and about 285 miles southwest of Pensacola, Fla., the center said.

Ida was on a northwesterly track, moving at about 17 mph, and expected to shift northeast during the next 24 hours, NHC forecasters said. On its projected track, Ida was expected to make landfall along the northern Gulf Coast Tuesday before turning east.

Ida-generated rains could dump up 3-6 inches of precipitation through Wednesday from the central and eastern Gulf Coast into the eastern portions of the Tennessee Valley, southern Appalachians and other points in the southeastern United States, the hurricane center said.

The center also warned that a storm tide could raise water 3 to 5 feet above ground level near and to the east of where Ida's center will make nightfall.

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Iran charges 3 U.S. hikers with spying

TEHRAN, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- The three U.S. people arrested in July while hiking near the Iran-Iraq border have been charged with espionage, Iranian judicial officials said Monday.

Iranian officials claim Shane Michael Bauer, 27, Joshua Felix Fattal, 27, and Sarah Emily Shourd, 31, were arrested July 31 as they were traveling on Syrian and Iraqi visas and crossed the border illegally, Iran's government-supported Press TV reported.

Families of the detainees said Bauer, Fattal and Shourd accidentally crossed the border into Iran while hiking in an area of northern Iraq.

Tehran Prosecutor-General Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi said the three entered the country to carry out acts of espionage.

"They are charged with espionage. Investigations into the case of the three are under way," Iran's state-run Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Jafari-Dolatabadi as saying.

The prosecutor said a final decision about the U.S. citizens would be announced soon.

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2 U.S. chopper pilots killed in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Two U.S. Army pilots were killed during a hard helicopter landing in Iraq's Salah ad Din province, military officials said Monday.

The Multi-National Corps Iraq said in a statement that the names of the dead soldiers were being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense.

It added that the incident was under investigation.