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U.S. East Coast braces for Earl

MIAMI, Sept. 2 (UPI) -- Hurricane Earl intensified Thursday, prompting warnings and watches along the U.S. East Coast into Canada, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

Earl, with winds of 145 mph, was 410 miles south of Cape Hatteras, N.C., and 870 miles south-southwest of Nantucket, Mass., moving north-northwest at 18 mph, the center said in its 5 a.m. (EDT) advisory.

Hurricane and tropical storm watches and warnings overlapped along the coast from North Carolina to Maine and into Nova Scotia, Canada.

Earl was expected to turn due north Thursday and pick up speed Friday, the NHC said. On its projected track, Earl's center was expected to pass near North Carolina's Outer Banks Thursday night and approach southeastern New England Friday night.

The Category 4 hurricane was expected to start losing some of its punch Thursday, however.

North Carolina braced for tropical storm-force winds Thursday afternoon and hurricane-force winds at night. Tropical storm-force winds were forecast to reach the Virginia coast to New Jersey late Thursday or early Friday, the center said.

A dangerous storm surge will raise water levels anywhere from 1 foot to 5 feet, depending on the area, the center said. Dangerous surf and rip currents were forecast from the Bahamas and along the East Coast through Friday.

Two to 4 inches of rain was forecast for portions of eastern North Carolina, including the Outer Banks, the center said. Up to 2 inches of rain was possible along the Mid-Atlantic coast.

North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue declared a state of emergency as did Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell.

President Barack Obama also declared a state of emergency for portions of North Carolina.

Along coastal North Carolina, teams of rescuers, National Guardsmen and repairmen were standing by, The (Raleigh) News and Observer reported. Residents and visitors were evacuated to safer areas in anticipation of Earl's passage near the Outer Banks.

Federal Emergency Management Agency officials said supplies of food, drinking water and generators were sent to Fort Bragg, N.C., just in case. The American Red Cross said 31 trucks were en route, equipped to feed people following a disaster. The Salvation Army was making similar preparations.

"It's been a long couple of days, to be honest with you," said Tommy Hutcherson, who remained on Ocracoke Island Wednesday to run the Variety Store despite a mandatory evacuation order. "It'll be nice when we get hunkered down and go ahead and see what's going to happen, and get it over with."

Mideast leaders talk peace at White House

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama welcomed key players in the latest round of Middle East peace talks to a White House dinner in Washington.

Speaking Wednesday to an audience that included Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdullah II, Obama said the leaders were heirs to "statesmen who saw the world as it was but also imagined the world as it should be."

"It is their work that we carry on," he said. "Now, like each of them, we must ask, do we have the wisdom and the courage to walk the path of peace?"

Netanyahu said Israel's goal in the talks is not "a brief interlude between two wars."

"We seek a peace that will end the conflict between us once and for all," he said.

"But every peace begins with leaders," the Israeli leader said. "President Abbas, you are my partner in peace. And it is up to us, with the help of our friends, to conclude the agonizing conflict between our peoples and to afford them a new beginning."

Abbas promised the Palestinian Authority "will spare no effort and will work diligently and tirelessly to ensure that these new negotiations achieve their goals and objectives in dealing with all of the issues: Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, border security, water, as well as the release of all our prisoners -- in order to achieve peace."

Earlier Wednesday, in a Rose Garden statement before the working dinner -- which also included U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Quartet representative Tony Blair -- Obama urged Israelis and Palestinians to "seize the opportunity" and forge a lasting peace agreement.

Formal direct talks were set to get under way Thursday, the first face-to-face negotiations in two years.

"Our goal is a two-state solution that ends the conflict and ensures the rights of Israelis and Palestinians," Obama said following a round of bilateral meetings with peace summit participants.

Obama criticized nations that say they want peace in the Middle East but have been unwilling to push the peace process forward.

"Too much blood has been shed, too many lives have been lost, too many hearts have been broken," Obama said.

Earlier, following talks with Netanyahu, Obama forcefully condemned as "senseless slaughter" Tuesday's drive-by shooting in Hebron that left four Israelis dead.

"I want everybody to be very clear," he said. "The United States is going to be unwavering in support of Israel's security and we are going to push back against these kinds of terrorist activities. And so the message should go out to Hamas and everybody else who is taking credit for these heinous crimes that this is not going to stop us from not only ensuring a secure Israel but also securing a longer lasting peace with the people throughout the region."

Obama called his meeting with Netanyahu "very productive" and said after meeting with Abbas that "progress" is being made.

Among the many obstacles to success of the talks is the Sept. 26 expiration of a 10-month moratorium on construction at West Bank settlements. Palestinians view it as a roadblock to statehood. The status of Jerusalem is also in question.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israel's Haaretz newspaper his country is ready to cede parts of Jerusalem in a peace deal. Barak said Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods would be included in a Palestinian state.

Suspect: 'Planet does not need humans'

SILVER SPRING, Md., Sept. 2 (UPI) -- James J. Lee, identified as the gunman killed by police at the Discovery Channel in Maryland, had a history of environmental extremism, online posts indicate.

The 43-year-old Lee also had an obsession with the Discovery Channel, viewing the television company as an agent of environmental harm, The Washington Post reported.

Lee, who was shot as he held hostages Wednesday, was arrested in 2008 for throwing money in a protest outside the cable channel's headquarters in Silver Spring, Md.

"We are running out of time to save this planet and the Discovery Channel is a big part of the problem," Lee wrote in an ad he bought the same year in a free newspaper owned by the Post. "Instead of showing successful solutions, their broadcast programs seem to be doing the opposite."

Lee entered the Discovery Channel's headquarters building just before 2 p.m. EDT with a handgun, and with what he said was a bomb taped to his chest, and took three employees hostage, police said.

Three hours later, he was shot and killed because police said he was becoming more agitated and had pointed the gun at one of his captives. The hostages were not injured.

In writings posted on the Internet, Lee talked of the importance of saving animals.

"The planet does not need humans," he said.

CBS News said Lee wrote on the Save the Planet Web site: "Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed. Broadcast this message until the pollution in the planet is reversed and the human population goes down! This is your obligation."

Three strikes law in play in fraud case

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 2 (UPI) -- Prosecutors in Los Angeles say they hope to use California's three-strikes law against a man who already has two convictions for mortgage fraud.

If they succeed, Timothy Barnett, 47, could become the first person to receive a life sentence under the law for non-violent crimes, the Los Angeles Times reports. Stan Goldman, a Loyola Law School professor who opposes the three strikes law, told the newspaper he has never heard of a non-violent felon being targeted.

"This law was intended to deal with serious and violent felons and lock them up forever," Goldman said. "If this guy's guilty, he's a pretty despicable and dangerous character. But he hasn't killed anybody."

Deputy District Attorney Max Huntsman, who heads the real estate fraud unit in Los Angeles County, said he believes the use of the law is appropriate.

"Mr. Barnett, if he did the things he's charged with, is a horrible danger to the community," Huntsman said. "He has an ability to make people trust him and he uses it to steal their biggest asset, their home, and that's horrible."

Prosecutors are taking advantage of a technicality. In the cases that sent Barnett to prison in the 1990s, he talked to his victims in their homes, enticing them to commit a felony, which made his actions burglary under California law, prosecutors said.