Massive Bering Sea storm pounds Alaska
NOME, Alaska, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- One of the worst Bering Sea storms on record pounded Alaska Wednesday with high winds, blizzard conditions and coastal flooding, officials said.
The Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News said evacuations were ordered for many coastal communities Tuesday as the dangerous storm, described by weather officials as being of "record or near-record" magnitude rolled across the Bering Sea.
The National Weather Service said the Bering Strait, Seward Peninsula, Norton Sound and Yukon Delta areas were expected to take the brunt of the storm, which was expected to peak in Nome Wednesday evening.
"The wind will push large amounts of water into Norton Sound, raising sea levels seven to nine feet above normal," the weather service said in an advisory. "Over the Bering Strait coast and St. Lawrence Island, sustained winds are expected to reach 75 mph with gusts of 90 to 100 mph."
Intermittent power outages were reported in Nome and the Yukon-Kuskokwim villages of Hooper Bay and Tununuk.
CNN said The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Hydrometeorological Prediction Center reports the storm is generating waves as high as 40 feet in the Bering Sea.
Two Cain accusers may have news conference
ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich., Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Two women who say they were sexually harassed by Herman Cain have agreed to hold a joint news conference, the lawyer for one of the women said.
Attorney Joel P. Bennett, who represents federal employee Karen Kraushaar, 50, said he was planning the news conference with attorney Gloria Allred, who represents Sharon Bialek, 50, a Chicago homemaker, The Washington Post reported.
The Post said details of the joint appearance have not yet been worked out, but Politico said Bennett plans to hold the news conference even if other women who reportedly said they were harassed by the Republican presidential candidate do not come forward.
Bennett said he has not talked yet directly with Bialek or Allred, Politico reported.
E-mails show White House, lobbyists link
WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- E-mails released by U.S. House Republicans show Obama fundraiser George Kaiser discussed lobbying the White House on behalf of Solyndra.
Solyndra was a solar panel company that received federal funding and failed in August.
Kaiser was involved in e-mail correspondence with his business colleagues about an upcoming White House meeting to get the administration's help in selling Solyndra's solar panels, and in seeking a second Energy Department loan of $468 million, in addition to the $535 million loan the company received in 2009, The Washington Post reported.
Energy Department officials told the Post they considered the second application, but rejected it when Solyndra officials told them about the company's financial difficulties in October 2010.
The e-mails show Kaiser's associates discussed Solyndra with Obama administration officials who were in charge of distributing stimulus funding, the Post said.
BP to switch from cleanup to restoration
WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- BP will end active cleanup operations in the Deepwater Horizon gulf oil spill and turn its efforts to restoring areas damaged in the spill, U.S. officials said.
Under a plan approved by the U.S. Coast Guard that "provides the mechanisms for ceasing active cleanup operations," BP would instead focus on restoration of beaches and marshes, for which it has put aside $1 billion, Britain's The Guardian reported Wednesday.
Under the plan, the biggest effort would be reserved for the most popular, heavily visited beaches that were affected by the spill, while more oil would be tolerated on remote beaches.
BP will be responsible for cleaning up thick oil in coastal marshes unless it is decided it would be best to leave that to nature, officials said.
March in London protests tuition hikes
LONDON, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Thousands of students, watched by 4,000 police officers, marched through London on Wednesday to protest increases in university tuition.
The march was largely peaceful, The Guardian reported. Police arrested about 20 people.
The huge police presence may have kept the numbers down, the newspaper said. While organizers predicted about 10,000 people, only about 2,500 were on hand when the march started at noon in the Bloomsbury neighborhood.
In December, a big protest turned violent. A car carrying Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, was surrounded by angry students who chanted "off with their heads."
Police blocked the way Wednesday as marchers tried to head to St. Paul's Cathedral, the Financial Times reported. Occupy the London Stock Exchange protesters have been camped outside the cathedral for weeks.
