Remnants of TS Nicole batter East Coast
NEW YORK, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- Tropical Storm Nicole may have dissipated quickly, but her effects may linger for several days along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard, forecasters said Thursday.
Flood warnings were in effect Thursday for parts of the Carolinas and southeastern Virginia, while flood watch advisories were posted from eastern South Carolina to central and eastern parts of New York, Vermont and New Hampshire, CNN reported.
Tropical Storm Nicole intensified just enough to become the 14th named storm of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season.
Nicole was deadly in Jamaica, dumping at least 8 inches of rain in parts of the country and being blamed for two deaths, CNN said.
Some areas were under 4-5 feet of water, Ronald Jackson, director general of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management, told CNN Wednesday. About 30 roads were affected and an undetermined number of residents were displaced, Jackson said.
House adjourns after passing funding bill
WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- The U.S. House adjourned Thursday after passing a stopgap funding bill to keep the federal government running while they run to keep their seats.
The continuing resolution was approved 228-194 shortly after midnight, The Hill reported. The Senate passed the measure Wednesday on a 69-30 vote.
The vote ended a shortened pre-election legislative session dominated by a bill neither chamber acted on -- a proposal that would extend the tax cuts enacted during former President George W. Bush's administration and set to expire at the end of the year.
Before adjourning for the final time ahead of the Nov. 2 midterm elections, the House passed bills that would extend healthcare benefits to first responders at Ground Zero in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, and would confront Chinese currency manipulation. Lawmakers also approved the Intelligence Authorization Act and dozens of non-controversial measures, the Washington publication reported.
Legislative business left unfinished sets up what one Democratic senator has called the "mother of all lame-duck" session after the elections, when Congress must address the expiring tax cuts and an omnibus appropriation bill, among other measures.
Both houses are scheduled to return Nov. 15.
Recovered body may be Rutgers freshman
PISCATAWAY, N.J., Sept. 30 (UPI) -- New York police say a body pulled from the Hudson River may be a university student who jumped to his death after his gay encounter was posted on the Internet.
The New York Police Department's Harbor Unit pulled the body of a young man from the river Wednesday, saying they believe it is Tyler Clementi, a freshman on Rutgers' Piscataway, N.J., campus, the New York Post reported Thursday.
Just minutes before he leaped to his death Sept. 22, Clementi posted on Facebook: "Jumping off the gw bridge. sorry."
Police arrested Clementi's roommate, Dharun Ravi, and another freshman Molly Wei, on invasion of privacy charges. Ravi, 18, was arrested Tuesday and freed on $25,000 bail, while Wei, 18, was arrested Monday and released without bail.
"I can tell you that whatever state he was in, he had it in reserve for a very long time," Robert Righthand, friends with Clementi since grade school, told the Post. "You never thought he was depressed. You just thought he was quiet."
Officials said Ravi activated the Web camera on his computer Sept. 19 and went to Wei's room, where they remotely accessed the feed and saw Clementi engaged in a "sexual encounter" with another man.
Tony-winning Broadway lyricist Joe DiPietro, whose music Clementi played in a theater run of "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change," ripped Ravi and Wei.
"What kind of creepy kids would record someone in the privacy of their home and then post it for some sort of intended public humiliation?" DiPietro said. "As a gay man, and a graduate of Rutgers, class of '84, my heart breaks for this young man."
Friends of Ravi and Wei, who went to the same high school, said they probably played a practical joke that went wrong, the Post said.
South, North Korean talks stalled
SEOUL, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- A meeting between North and South Korea over the sinking of a South Korean warship produced no satisfactory results for either country, officials said.
Officials from both countries met in the truce village of Panmunjom, in what was the first military contact since the March sinking, which killed 46 sailors, Xinhua News Agency reported.
The 2-hour meeting Thursday ended with South Korea demanding the North admit, apologize for, and pay damages in the ship's sinking. North Korea said it did not sink the vessel.
Political observers said North Korea's offer earlier this month to resume military talks with South Korea might be a sign it wants to reduce tension between the two countries.
At the meeting, South Korea also asked Pyongyang to "immediately stop its military threats and aggressive behaviors at maritime borders," the report said.
The talks coincided with the 5-day joint anti-submarine exercises by Seoul and the United States in the Yellow Sea, near a disputed border where the South Korean ship was allegedly torpedoed.
About 1,700 military personnel are participating in the exercise, which mobilized U.S. destroyers, submarines and patrol planes, the report said.
The meeting ended with no concessions from either side, and they did not say when they would meet again, Xinhua said.
U.N. report: Afghan opium production drops
KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- Opium production in Afghanistan dropped by nearly half during the past year, a United Nations report indicated.
The steep drop is due largely to a plant infection that drastically reduced yields, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crimes said.
However, the U.N. agency said production likely wouldn't remain low, with rising prices tempting farmers to grow more poppies, the BBC reported Thursday.
Afghanistan produces 90 percent of the world's opium, the main ingredient in heroin.
The 2010 Afghan Opium Survey indicated production this year was about 3,600 tons, a 48 percent decline from 6,900 tons in 2009.
"This is good news but there is no room for false optimism; the market may again become lucrative for poppy crop growers so we have to monitor the situation closely," said Yury Fedotov, the U.N. agency's executive director.
The report indicated the price of opium rose from $64 per kilogram in 2009 to $169 per kilogram this year, fueling concern that the higher prices could lure farmers back into poppy cultivation, the BBC said.
Most of the poppies are grown in the uneasy southern and western provinces, the report said.
"These regions are dominated by insurgency and organized crime networks," Fedotov said. "This underscores the link between opium poppy cultivation and insecurity in Afghanistan."
