In the Nation
Carcinogen taints 2 L.A. reservoirs
LOS ANGELES - Two reservoirs that supply drinking water to parts of the nation's second-largest city have been shut down and will be drained because a rare sunlight-fueled chemical reaction tainted them with a cancer-causing chemical, utility officials said.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power plans to drain 600 million gallons from the open-air reservoirs early next year, department spokesman Joseph Ramallo said in a statement.
The two reservoirs supply only about one-third of 1 percent of the city's annual water consumption, or about the amount the entire city consumes in a day, Ramallo said. The chemical, bromate, is dangerous only after long-term consumption, officials stressed.
- AP
Growing elk herd targeted in Colo.
DENVER - The elk population that roams and sometimes rampages through the delicate landscape of Rocky Mountain National Park is out of control and will be reduced through a program that will use sharpshooters to cull the herd, park officials said.
The plan, which is expected to receive final approval by the National Park Service in January, would involve killing up to 200 of the animals each year, beginning in 2009.
The herd, believed to be descended from a tiny transplant community brought down from Wyoming during World War I, has become a major tourist attraction - and a severe problem for park managers. The animals, which can weigh up to 700 pounds for a full-grown bull, feed on fragile aspen and willow stands.
-N.Y. Times News Service
Katrina victims get FEMA break
NEW ORLEANS - The Federal Emergency Management Agency has changed its policy and will provide some reimbursement for homeowners who spent their own money to elevate hurricane-damaged houses above flood level.
Previously, FEMA had not paid for flood protection work that was already finished or under way because studies tied to federal aid - environmental, risk, cost - had not been conducted first.
Tens of thousands of homeowners in Louisiana and Mississippi had faced having to pay the full cost of raising their houses after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita simply because they rebuilt faster than the bureaucracy worked. There was no immediate indication how soon people will get the federal money.
- AP
Elsewhere:
A Bosnian refugee
who gained citizenship in Canada has been accused by U.S. authorities of being a war criminal. An immigration judge in Tacoma, Wash., has ordered Bozo Jozepovic, 41, deported to Canada and barred permanently from the United States.
The honeymoons are
over for a 26-year-old Florida woman who authorities say was married at least 10 times. Eunice Lopez has been charged with bigamy, accused of marrying 10 men between 2002 and 2006 without divorcing any of them, federal immigration authorities say.
A passenger handcuffed
after a car chase with police in Columbia, S.C., tried to save a sheriff's deputy who suffered a fatal heart attack moments after arresting him, authorities said.