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Cars drive down the US 1 highway in Key Largo, Florida as Hurricane Ike approaches September 6, 2008. The densely populated Miami-Fort Lauderdale area in south Florida was not out of the line of fire from Hurricane Ike, a Category 2 hurricane, and visitors were ordered to flee the vulnerable Florida Keys island chain from Saturday. REUTERS/Carlos Barria (UNITED STATES)

Hurricane Ike at Cat 4; packs winds of 135 mph

2 hours, 22 minutes ago

MIAMI - The National Hurricane Center in Miami says Hurricane Ike has intensified to a dangerous Category 4 storm with winds sustained at 135 mph.

  • Kentucky works to keep embattled institution open Sat Sep 6, 1:09 PM ET

    SOMERSET, Ky. - Physically, Deron Dickerson was a 38-year-old man. Mentally, he was a toddler who needed constant supervision.

  • Crystal Dillman, the fiancee Luis Ramirez, is moved to tears as members of Latina show their support for the couple outside the Schuylkill County Courthouse, in Pottsville, Pa., Monday, Aug. 18, 2008. A preliminary hearings was held for three suspects charged in the beating death of Luis Ramirez, a 25-year-old Mexican immigrant who was severely beaten on July 12, in Shenandoah, Pa. Latina is a Chicago-based grass roots organization working to defend Latino immigrant rights. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
    4th Pa. teen charged in killing of immigrant Sat Sep 6, 12:15 PM ET

    POTTSVILLE, Pa. - Authorities in Pennsylvania say a fourth teenager has been charged in the fatal beating of a Mexican immigrant.

  • This undated file photo shows civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, left, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman, right, who disappeared near Philadelphia, Miss., June 21,1964. The three civil rights workers were abducted, killed and buried in an earthen dam in rural Neshoba County. In 2005, Edgar Ray Killen was convicted of three counts of manslaughter for orchestrating the killings. (AP Photo/FBI,File)
    FBI's civil rights initiative: no trials yet Sat Sep 6, 3:23 PM ET

    WASHINGTON - Flanked by officials from the NAACP and the Southern Poverty Law Center, FBI Director Robert Mueller last year announced with considerable fanfare a new partnership between his agency and civil rights organizations.

  • A homeless man occupies the doorway of the vacant 'Scores' gentleman's club on New York City's West Side, Saturday, Sept. 6, 2008. New York State authorities closed the club in the spring of 2008 after a police raid resulted in several dancers working at the club being charged with prostitution and it's unlikely that the state liquor board will allow the remaining 'Scores' on Manhattan's East Side to continue operating. (AP Photo/Cameron Bloch)
    Don't take it off — end near for NYC smut palace Sat Sep 6, 2:12 PM ET

    NEW YORK - The end may be near for Scores, the legendary strip club that has attracted celebrities while withstanding Mafia infiltration, FBI raids and ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani's crusade against smut.

  • Crash with suspect's SUV kills Philly officer 56 minutes ago

    PHILADELPHIA - A 16-year-old in a stolen vehicle smashed into a police car during a chase, killing one of two officers in the cruiser, authorities said Saturday.

  • Ralph McClintock holds news clippings in Jericho, Vt., Thursday, Sept. 4, 2008. When McClintock boarded the USS Pueblo in early January 1968, he was planning for a three-week mission collecting electronic intelligence off the coast of North Korea in the Sea of Japan. Instead, the 24-year-old communications technician from Milton, Mass., found himself a prisoner of war and a pawn in the Cold War sideshow. Next week, 40 of the 69 surviving crew members of the Pueblo will hold their every-other year reunion at the Inn at Essex. There will be exhibits and speakers by experts on U.S.-Korean relations.(AP Photo/Toby Talbot)
    40 years after capture, USS Pueblo crew reunites 33 minutes ago

    JERICHO, Vt. - Ralph McClintock expected only a three-week mission when he boarded the USS Pueblo in January 1968.

  • House explosion kills 2 in Chicago suburb 1 hour, 17 minutes ago

    FRANKFORT, Ill. - An explosion destroyed a house early Saturday and the bodies of the elderly couple who occupied the home were found in the wreckage, authorities said. Seven other homes were destroyed.

  • 7 years on, Sept. 11 is so far and yet so close Sat Sep 6, 2:47 PM ET

    It is not a tidy anniversary this year. Seven years between that awful day and this Sept. 11, the terrorist attacks linger somewhere between the immediate, a conscious part of our days, and the comfortable remove of the distant past. No longer yesterday and not yet history.

  • High-resolution satellite launched in California 2 hours, 55 minutes ago

    VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. - A super-sharp Earth-imaging satellite has been launched into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the Central California coast.

  • Ex-NJ politician headed to trial on fraud charges Sat Sep 6, 3:10 PM ET

    MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. - A former New Jersey lawmaker with a national reputation for pushing welfare reform is facing charges of using his political clout to land no-work government jobs as a way to boost his income and increase his pension benefits — from $28,000 a year to $81,000.

  • Police: Bomb scare on train in NJ was hoax Sat Sep 6, 12:07 PM ET

    NORTH BERGEN, N.J. - Authorities in New Jersey say a bomb scare involving a package on a freight train appears to have been a hoax.

  • These file photos provided by the Texas Attorney General's office show Darnell Hartsfield, left, and Romeo Pinkerton, who were indicted Thursday, Nov. 17, 2005, on capital murder charges in the 1983 murders of five people abducted from a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Kilgore, Texas. This week, Hartsfield, 47, goes on trial for his part in the notorious slayings. Hartsfield's cousin and co-defendant, Pinkerton, took a plea deal last year midway through his capital murder trial, accepting five life prison terms. (AP Photo/Texas Attorney General's Office)
    2nd trial starting for infamous Texas KFC murders Sat Sep 6, 7:10 AM ET

    HOUSTON - When Darnell Hartsfield saw the inside of a Texas prison cell for the first time in 1984, it was for an aggravated robbery he committed the previous year. But prosecutors contend the Tyler man was involved in a far more heinous crime just three days before his arrest for that September 1983 robbery.

  • Leyman and Jane Williams, of Georgia, pose outside their RV and primary home Wednesday, June 18, 2008, in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. The couple sold their house and bought the vehicle to live in. Despite high fuel prices and a sputtering economy that have hurt RV sales and caused many people to put the brakes on vacation plans, there have been plenty of the lumbering, gas-guzzling rigs looking for a spot to temporarily set down roots this year. (AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac)
    Yellowstone RV park full despite fuel costs Sat Sep 6, 6:50 AM ET

    YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. - In the heart of the park here on a recent warm day, all 358 spaces at the Fishing Bridge Recreational Vehicle Park were jammed with RVs and camping equipment.

  • Miraynda Castro, right, a freshman at Northern Illinois University, returns to her dorm after morning classes Thursday, Aug. 28, 2008 in DeKalb, Ill. As students return to campus nearly seven months after former NIU student opened fire in Cole Hall killing five students before turning the gun on himself, life goes on for many at NIU. But for other, beginning classes brings constant reminders of the Feb. 14 horrors. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
    Life goes on but fears remain at shooting campus Sat Sep 6, 2:07 PM ET

    DEKALB, Ill. - Her first week of classes at Northern Illinois University made it clear to freshman Miraynda Castro that she wasn't beginning her college career at just any campus.

  • Isaac Zamora's feet and hands are shackled as he appears in Skagit County district court Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2008, in Mount Vernon, Wash. Zamora is accused in a shooting and stabbing rampage Tuesday that left six people dead and four wounded. Judge David Svaren prohibited photographers from showing Zamora's face during his brief appearance. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
    Wash. rampage suspect in court: 'I kill for God' Sat Sep 6, 2:08 AM ET

    MOUNT VERNON, Wash. - "I kill for God. I listen to God," a man accused of a northwest Washington shooting rampage said Friday at a hearing where six charges of first-degree murder and four of first-degree assault were filed against him.

  • Minor earthquake rattles San Francisco Bay area Sat Sep 6, 12:39 AM ET

    SAN FRANCISCO - A minor earthquake rattled the San Francisco Bay area Friday night.

  • Eric McLean, left, and his attorney Bruce Poston listen during jury selection Wednesday morning, Sept. 3, 2008, in Judge Mary Beth Leibowitz's courtroom in Knoxville,Tenn., in the first-degree murder trial of Eric McLean. McLean is charged with the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Sean Powell outside the McLean home on March 10, 2007. McLean suspected Powell was having an affair with his wife, Erin, who taught at West High School, Powell's school. (AP Photo/Michael Patrick, Pool)
    Murder trial opens in Tenn. love triangle case Fri Sep 5, 7:10 PM ET

    KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - A prosecutor described a schoolteacher's husband as a jealous, calculating killer as trial opened Friday on charges he murdered his wife's teenage lover. But a defense lawyer told the jury that the defendant was a victim himself of a spouse who flaunted her infidelity.

  • Police: Suspect in Illinois bank standoff dead Fri Sep 5, 11:07 PM ET

    WHEATON, Ill. - A gunman who took a dozen hostages in a suburban Chicago bank after wresting a gun from a police officer Friday died after shooting himself in the head, police said.

  • Charges dismissed against cyclist in YouTube shove Fri Sep 5, 2:08 PM ET

    NEW YORK - A judge dismissed charges Friday against the bicyclist who was body-checked and knocked to the pavement by a police officer in a widely viewed YouTube video.