FAY-LORIDA STORMS IN

Tropical Storm Fay soaks southwest Florida By MATT SEDENSKY, Associated Press Writer AUG 19,08

NAPLES, Fla. - Tropical Storm Fay moved inland Tuesday after making landfall in southwest Florida, bringing soaking rains and gusty winds but failing to reach the minimal hurricane status that had been predicted. Streets were largely deserted in the early morning hours in Naples. Rain swept across desolate streets that were littered with palm fronds and other minor debris, and there was street flooding in spots but no immediate reports of storm surge damage.Diana Eslick, an assistant manager at a 7-Eleven near the beach in Naples, said the storm hadn't disrupted her morning at work.So far it's going good. We have power and everything, she said. It's just been windy and rainy.The main thing she was preparing for was hungry surfers looking for food before they start taking advantage of Fay's waves.Farther up the coast, Lori Martini, 42, of South Tampa, went out on her 6-mile jog a little before 5a.m., as usual. She said she'd checked the forecast before heading out.I figure if the storm comes, I may not be able to (run) tomorrow, Martini said.At 8 a.m. EDT, the storm's center was located about 30 miles southeast of Fort Myers and was moving toward the northeast, with maximum winds of 60 mph expected to gradually weaken through the day.

Flooding remained a major concern as Fay heads up the Florida peninsula, with rainfall amounts forecast between 4 and 10 inches. The storm could also push tides 3 to 5 feet above normal and spawn tornadoes.Fay never achieved hurricane status, and most businesses opted to go without any shutters or other window protection. Of those that did, some plywood carried messages aimed at major storms from the past — Pop Off Charley and Oh Wilma! among them.With no major Florida hurricanes in the past two years, officials were worried complacency could cost lives as they repeatedly urged people across the state to take Fay seriously. But no storm-related deaths or injuries have been reported.Florida Power & Light reported nearly 33,000 homes without power in South Florida early Tuesday, the largest number in Collier County, where 12,500 were in the dark.After crossing the Florida Keys without causing major damage Monday, Fay lumbered ashore about 5 a.m. Tuesday at Cape Romano, just south of Naples, with sustained winds of about 60 mph. That's well below the hurricane threshold of 74 mph. Cape Romano is the same spot where Hurricane Wilma, a Category 3 storm, made landfall in October 2005.In the Tampa Bay area, Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough counties lifted evacuation orders affecting mobile home residents and others in vulnerable areas when the storm failed to reach hurricane status. But schools and government offices remained closed.I think we're going to all enjoy a nice summer day, said Sally Bishop, Pinellas County's emergency management director.Before landfall, Fay stirred unpleasant memories for many in and around Punta Gorda who rode out deadly Hurricane Charley in 2004.I am scared, said Monica Palanza, a Punta Gorda real estate agent who watched trees topple on her neighbors' homes when Charley reached Category 4 strength — the second-strongest level — just north of Punta Gorda. You can never be prepared enough.But others said they were relieved Fay, the sixth named storm of the Atlantic tropical storm season, was no Charley and took a wait-and-see attitude. After going through Charley, this doesn't seem nothing more than a gust of wind, said Jesse Gilmore, 34, who put up storm shutters Monday at a local business as a precaution. On Monday, as Fay headed toward the peninsula, schools and many businesses closed, even miles to the east in the Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas. Southwest Florida International Airport near Fort Myers operated normally Monday, but airlines postponed about 140 flights Tuesday until evening hours, spokeswoman Victoria Moreland said. Warnings to people to take precautions were issued as Fay spread rain and sent wind gusts of up to 51 mph over the Keys on Monday. Monroe County Mayor Mario Di Gennaro estimated 25,000 fled the Keys before Fay hit there Monday afternoon. The state took every step to make sure it was prepared. National Guard troops were at the ready and more were waiting in reserve, and 20 truckloads of tarps, 200 truckloads of water and 52 truckloads of food were available for distribution. As it moved though the Caribbean, Fay was blamed for at least 14 deaths in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, including two babies who were found in a river after a bus crash.

Associated Press Writers Brian Skoloff, Kelli Kennedy and Travis Reed in the Keys, Christine Armario in Tampa, Tamara Lush in Punta Gorda, Lisa Orkin Emmanuel in Miami, Bill Kaczor and Brendan Farrington in Tallahassee and Sarah Larimer in Orlando contributed to this story.

Tropical Storm Fay hits Florida AUG 19,08

MIAMI (AFP) - Tropical Storm Fay hit Florida with severe winds and drenching rains early Tuesday, but it did not strengthen into the potentially devastating hurricane residents had been dreading. The Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Fay, which claimed dozens of lives around the Caribbean over the weekend, should begin to weaken now that it was over land.But it could roar back to life once it heads out over open water, as some computer models predict it could.The biggest concern now, officials said, was that the weather system could spawn tornadoes and severe flooding across the Sunshine State.At 5:00 am (0900 GMT) Fay was located about 55 miles (90 kilometers) south of Fort Myers according to the NHC, with top winds of 60 miles (95 kilometers) per hour.The storm, moving at a pace of about nine miles (15 kilometers) per hour was expected to decrease in speed and turn to the north sometime on Wednesday, the NHC said.In the Caribbean over the weekend, Fay left a trail of death and destruction, particularly in Haiti, where a truck carrying around 60 passengers plunged into a swollen river.In Florida meanwhile, authorities ordered the evacuation of tourists and closed schools in the Keys and counties to the north. In Key West, four shelters were set up in case residents were also forced to abandon their homes and flights were canceled.And some 500 national guard members have been deployed across the state, with another 8,500 available if needed, officials said.

But not everybody was hunkering down for the storm.

Hundreds of surfers thronged Miami beaches to ride the huge swells the storm was serving up.We have amazing waves today, something not seen very often on this beaches. It's a perfect day, Australian Miami resident Martin Bain told AFP before charging off into the water with a bunch of friends.Key West Mayor Morgan McPherson told Fox News television late Monday that while Fay was far from the strongest possible storm, it could still cause serious injury or loss of life. He urged residents to take the threat seriously.Have you ever been hit by a coconut? Well, those things are worse than bullets. They do not travel at high velocities very often, but, when they do, they make a big hole, McPherson said.Not only that. We have branches that can take (off) somebody's arm.McPherson said he was dismayed to see many residents out in the inclement weather.We have our police officers out there, McPherson said.My greatest concern is that our public safety officers will end up getting injured because somebody is not using their brains.Although far from Fay's eye, Miami was expected to get hit by tornados and flooding as the storm brushes by the state. There were already reports of power outages in homes affecting about 2,000 people. Crude oil prices fell Monday as Fay's path appeared likely to bypass oil and gas production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. Royal Dutch Shell said it had evacuated 425 staff from the Gulf of Mexico but added that no more workers would leave as Fay appeared likely to miss its energy installations. Fay is the sixth named storm of this year's Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30.

THATS OUR KING JESUS, BY HIS STRIPES WE ARE HEALED. AND BY PRAYER AND FASTING. GOD CREATED EVERY ONE OF US, HE KNOWS WHATS WRONG WITH US AND IF HE WANTS TO HEAL US INSTANTLY HE WILL FOR HIS CREDIT AND IF HE WANTS US TO GO THROUGH IT, WE WILL GO THROUGHT IT. BUT JESUS (GOD) IS IN CONTROL JUST REMEMBER THAT.

Many think God's intervention can revive the dying By LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer Tue Aug 19, 1:36 AM ET

CHICAGO - When it comes to saving lives, God trumps doctors for many Americans.

An eye-opening survey reveals widespread belief that divine intervention can revive dying patients. And, researchers said, doctors need to be prepared to deal with families who are waiting for a miracle.More than half of randomly surveyed adults — 57 percent — said God's intervention could save a family member even if physicians declared treatment would be futile. And nearly three-quarters said patients have a right to demand such treatment.When asked to imagine their own relatives being gravely ill or injured, nearly 20 percent of doctors and other medical workers said God could reverse a hopeless outcome.Sensitivity to this belief will promote development of a trusting relationship with patients and their families, according to researchers. That trust, they said, is needed to help doctors explain objective, overwhelming scientific evidence showing that continued treatment would be worthless.

Pat Loder, a Milford, Mich., woman whose two young children were killed in a 1991 car crash, said she clung to a belief that God would intervene when things looked hopeless.When you're a parent and you're standing over the body of your child who you think is dying ... you have to have that belief, Loder said.While doctors should be prepared to deal with those beliefs, they also shouldn't sugarcoat the truth about a patient's condition, Loder said.Being honest in a sensitive way helps family members make excruciating decisions about whether to let dying patients linger, or allow doctors to turn off life-prolonging equipment so that organs can be donated, Loder said.Loder was driving when a speeding motorcycle slammed into the family's car. Both children were rushed unconscious to hospitals, and Loder says she believes doctors did everything they could. They were not able to revive her 5-year-old son; soon after her 8-year-old daughter was declared brain dead.She said her beliefs about divine intervention have changed.I have become more of a realist, she said. I know that none of us are immune from anything.Loder was not involved in the survey, which appears in Monday's Archives of Surgery.It involved 1,000 U.S. adults randomly selected to answer questions by telephone about their views on end-of-life medical care. They were surveyed in 2005, along with 774 doctors, nurses and other medical workers who responded to mailed questions.Survey questions mostly dealt with untimely deaths from trauma such as accidents and violence. These deaths are often particularly tough on relatives because they are more unexpected than deaths from lingering illnesses such as cancer, and the patients tend to be younger.Dr. Lenworth Jacobs, a University of Connecticut surgery professor and trauma chief at Hartford Hospital, was the lead author.

He said trauma treatment advances have allowed patients who previously would have died at the scene to survive longer. That shift means hospital trauma specialists are much more heavily engaged in the death process, he said.Jacobs said he frequently meets people who think God will save their dying loved one and who want medical procedures to continue. You can't say, That's nonsense. You have to respect that and try to show them X-rays, CAT scans and other medical evidence indicating death is imminent, he said. Relatives need to know that it's not that you don't want a miracle to happen, it's just that is not going to happen today with this patient, he said. Families occasionally persist and hospitals have gone to court seeking to stop medical treatment doctors believe is futile, but such cases are quite rare.

Dr. Michael Sise, trauma medical director at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego, called the study a great contribution to one of the most intense issues doctors face. Sise, a Catholic doctor working in a Catholic hospital, said miracles don't happen when medical evidence shows death is near. That's just not a realistic situation, he said. Sise recalled a teenager severely injured in a gang beating who died soon afterward at his hospital. The mother absolutely did not want to withdraw medical equipment despite the severity of her child's brain injuries, which ensured the child would never wake up, Sise said. The mom was playing religious tapes in the room, and obviously was very focused on looking for a miracle.Claudia McCormick, a nurse and trauma program director at Duke University Hospital, said she also has never seen that kind of miracle. But her niece's recovery after being hit by a boat while inner-tubing earlier this year came close. The boat backed into her and its propeller caught her in the side of the head. She had no pulse when they pulled her out of the water, McCormick said. Doctors at the hospital where she was airlifted said it really doesn't look good. And while it never reached the point where withdrawing lifesaving equipment was discussed, McCormick recalled one of her doctors saying later: God has plans for this child. I never thought she'd be here.

Like many hospitals, Duke uses a team approach to help relatives deal with dying trauma victims, enlisting social workers, grief counselors and chaplains to work with doctors and nurses. If the family still says, We just can't shut that machine off, then, you know what, we can't shut that machine off, McCormick said. Sometimes, she said, you might have a family that's having a hard time and it might take another day, and that's OK.On the Net: Archives of Surgery: http://www.archsurg.com

Small Russian convoy leaves key Georgian city AUG 19,08

RUISI, Georgia - A small column of Russian tanks and armored vehicles has left the strategically key Georgian city of Gori and an officer says they are headed back to Russia. The column, which also included what appeared to be a mobile rocket-launcher, passed the village of Ruisi, outside Gori on the road to South Ossetia on Tuesday afternoon.Col. Igor Konoshenkov, a Russian military officer on the scene, told The Associated Press that the unit was headed for South Ossetia and ultimately back to Russia.Konoshenkov said the movement was part of the Russian pullback mandated by the cease-fire.It requires both sides to return troops to the positions they held before the Aug. 7 outbreak of heavy fighting in South Ossetia, a Russian-backed separatist region of Georgia.THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

IGOETI, Georgia (AP) — Russia and Georgia on Tuesday exchanged prisoners captured during their brief war, a move that may reduce tensions and, Georgia hopes, hasten the promised withdrawal of Russian troops.Georgian Security Council head Alexander Lomaia said the swap removes any pretext for Russians to hold positions in Igoeti. The village is the closest that Russian forces have advanced to the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, about 30 miles away.Yet as NATO foreign ministers prepared to hold an emergency meeting in Brussels over a unified response to Russia's invasion of its tiny neighbor, there still was no sign of the Russian troop pullout from Georgia that was supposed to have begun Monday.A Russian defense official indicated Tuesday that a complete withdrawal from Georgia proper was not imminent.Rear units, as well as second- and third-echelon units are being pulled back first. The vanguard units will be pulled back at the final stage, Col. Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for Russia's land forces, was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.Tuesday's prisoner exchange, witnessed by Lomaia and Russian Maj. Gen. Vyacheslav Borisov, included 15 Georgians and five Russians, Lomaia said.It went smoothly, he said.

The swap began when two Russian military helicopters landed in Igoeti. Two people in stretchers were unloaded and handed over to Georgian officials.Georgian ambulances later brought two people to the scene and took them to the Russian helicopters. One was on a gurney.Russian troops last week drove Georgian forces out of the Russian-backed separatist region of South Ossetia, where Georgia on Aug. 7 launched a heavy artillery barrage.At NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pushed NATO allies to step up political and military ties with Georgia and to consider scaling back high-level meetings and military cooperation with Russia if its military does not abandon positions across Georgia.Rice said the U.S. supports a permanent NATO-Georgia Commission that would solidify ties between the western alliance and the Black Sea nation, and supports increasing training for the Georgian military. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on arrival that the allies must ensure Russia does not learn the wrong lessons from the events of the last two weeks. Force cannot be the basis for the demarcation of new lines around Russia.NATO was also expected to discuss support to efforts to send in an international monitoring mission being set up by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a security grouping that includes Russia, Georgia and western nations. Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, whose country holds the OSCE presidency, said Russia had agreed on a plan that would send 20 unarmed military observers there, besides nine already in place. The total could later go up to 100, the OSCE says. The United Nations has estimated the fighting displaced more than 158,000 people. U.N. refugee chief Antonio Guterres arrived in Tbilisi on Tuesday to meet with government representatives to discuss the plight of tens of thousands of South Ossetians uprooted by Georgia's conflict with Russia. Guterres will then travel to Moscow to meet with Russian officials, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokesman Andrej Mahecic said. Mahecic told journalists in Geneva that UNHCR, like other aid agencies, has not been able to reach the civilian population in much of South Ossetia because of security issues there. The area is now controlled by Russia. We have seen media reports indicating that people are being shot at while trying to leave the area, he said. With Western leaders anxiously watching for a withdrawal and puzzling over how to punish Moscow for what they called a disproportionate reaction to the Georgian offensive, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev defended Russia's actions and warned against any aggression. Anyone who tries anything like that will face a crushing response, he said Monday. On the ground, the lack of troop movement raised questions about whether Russia was fulfilling its part of the cease-fire meant to end the short but intense war that has stoked tension between a resurgent Russia and the West. Russian troops restricted access to Gori, where most shops were shut and people milled around on the central square with its statue of the Soviet dictator and native son Josef Stalin. The city is a cold place now. People are fearful, said Nona Khizanishvili, 44, who fled Gori a week ago for an outlying village and returned Monday, trying to reach her son in Tbilisi. Four Russian armored personnel carriers, each carrying about 15 men, rolled Monday afternoon from Gori to Igoeti, a crossroads town even closer to Tbilisi. Georgia's Rustavi-2 television showed footage of a Russian armored vehicle smashing through a group of Georgian police cars barricading the road to Gori on Monday. One of the cars was dragged along the street by the Russian armor. Georgian police stood by without raising their guns. Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said Russian forces had blown up the runway at a base in the western city of Senaki on Monday. There was no confirmation from Russian military officials. Russian troops and tanks have controlled a wide swath of Georgia for days, including the country's main east-west highway where Gori sits. The Russian presence essentially cuts the small Caucasus Mountains nation in half.

It also threatens pro-Western President Mikhail Saakashvili's efforts to keep his country from falling apart after the war bolstered the chances of South Ossetia and another Russian-backed separatist region, Abkhazia, of remaining free of Georgian rule. According to the European Union-brokered peace plan signed by both Medvedev and Saakashvili, both sides are to pull forces back to the positions they held before the fighting broke out. But the deputy chief of the Russian general staff, Col.-Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, said the Russian troops were pulling back to South Ossetia and a security zone defined by a 1999 agreement of the joint control commission. The commission had been nominally in charge of South Ossetia's status since it split from Georgia in the early 1990s. Georgian and Russian officials could not immediately clarify the dimensions of the security zone, but Georgian government documents suggest it extends more than four miles into Georgia beyond the administrative border of South Ossetia. French President Nicolas Sarkozy — who brokered the cease-fire deal — has said the operations it permits by Russian peacekeepers until an international mechanism is in place cannot be conducted beyond the immediate proximity of South Ossetia.Associated Press writers David Nowak, Jim Heintz and Steve Gutterman in Moscow and Bela Szandelszky in Senaki, Georgia, contributed to this report.

NATO mulls closer ties with Georgia By PAUL AMES, Associated Press Writer
AUG 19,08

BRUSSELS, Belgium - NATO was set to send a strong signal of support for Georgia, as the United States urged allies Tuesday to boost military ties with the former Soviet republic on Russia's southern border. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was backing the setting up of a permanent NATO-Georgia Commission to solidify ties between the Western alliance and Georgia. Diplomats said Washington also supports increasing training for the Georgian military.At the same time, NATO foreign ministers were discussing possibly scaling back high-level meetings and military cooperation with Russia if it does not abandon crucial positions across Georgia.

NATO is awaiting Russia's promised military pullout after a brief war with the ex-Soviet republic — a conflict that has exacerbated tensions between Moscow and the West.But as the NATO meeting began on Tuesday, Russia's military held onto crucial positions across Georgia.NATO was expected to restate its commitment to eventually offer alliance membership to Georgia — despite Russia's fierce opposition.We said (Georgia) would eventually become a member of NATO alongside Ukraine, and that's certainly the position that we will be advocating today, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said.Meanwhile, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said Russia had agreed to allow 20 more international military monitors in and around Georgia's disputed region of South Ossetia.Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, who currently holds the OSCE chairmanship, said the plan calls for the observers to be sent immediately to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. Georgia still must approve the plan.The organization already has nine observers based in South Ossetia, as part of its 200-member mission in Georgia. But it wants eventually to have 100 military monitors to help oversee a cease-fire in the Georgian conflict zone, Stubb said.We need to open the door to get the military monitors in now, he said. Stubb was also attending the NATO meeting, though Finland is not a member of the alliance.The 56-nation OSCE has been engaged in promoting a peaceful settlement to tensions in Georgia's breakaway region since the end of a separatist war in the early 1990s left the region with de facto independence and strong ties with Russia. The OSCE has a 200-member observer mission in Georgia, but wants to bolster its presence to help monitor a cease-fire in the Georgian conflict zone.Associated Press Writers Matthew Lee, Slobodan Lekic and Robert Wielaard contributed to this report.

Oil falls as storm threat eases By PABLO GORONDI, Associated Press Writer AUG 19,08

Oil prices briefly dropped below $112 a barrel Tuesday, extending the previous session's decline as Tropical Storm Fay avoided oil-producing infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico. By midday in Europe, light, sweet crude for September delivery was down 54 cents at $112.33 after falling as low as $111.78 barrel earlier in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.The contract fell 90 cents Monday to settle at $112.87 a barrel after the threat of Tropical Storm Fay eased. That was the first time crude ended below $113 since May 1.In London, October Brent crude fell 91 cents to $111.03 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

Analysts said oil prices are likely to remain under pressure amid concerns that a global economic slowdown may further dampen world oil demand. But intermittent supply concerns due to the hurricane season and ongoing conflicts such as that between Russia and Georgia are likely to halt any sharp slide in pricing.Continuing worries about a U.S. economy slowdown, which may spread to the euro zone and perhaps also Asia are weighing down on oil pricing, said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with consultancy Purvin & Gertz in Singapore.In the near term, there will be a lot of downward pressure but I don't foresee a fast collapse of pricing to $100 dollars a barrel or below. There is still strong support at US$110 a barrel level because of supply side issues, he said.Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix in Switzerland, however, said it was too early to assert that oil prices had reached a bottom, especially since there is a clear lack of buying momentum.Regarding oil fundamentals, Jakob said it was worth keeping an eye on how China's import of oil products will develop after the buildup of stocks for the Beijing Olympics. Reports of lower demand there could put further downward pressure on prices.Fay, the sixth named storm of the 2008 Atlantic season, swept over the Florida Keys on Monday after being blamed for at least 14 deaths in Haiti and the Dominican Republic as it moved though the Caribbean. Fay was expected to become a hurricane before curling up Florida's western coast and hitting the state's mainland sometime Tuesday.Royal Dutch Shell PLC has evacuated 425 oil workers from the Gulf of Mexico as a precaution but said it will redeploy them if the storm remains on its current track. So far during this year's hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean, no storm has significantly damaged oil installations in the Gulf.A bearish forecast on Friday from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries of lower global oil demand growth also helped to push down oil prices.In its monthly report, OPEC forecast that the world's daily appetite for oil this year would grow by 1 million barrels, a reduction of 30,000 barrels a day from its previous estimate. It predicted growth for 2009 will be 900,000 barrels a day, the lowest growth in world demand since 2002.Analysts said uncertainty over the conflict between Russia and Georgia will support oil pricing. Russia has begun withdrawing troops, but U.S. officials said Moscow has positioned missile launchers in the separatist South Ossetia province.Oil market traders were also keeping an eye on possible tensions in Pakistan after President Pervez Musharraf announced his resignation Monday.In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures fell 1.38 cents to $3.0710 a gallon, while gasoline prices lost 1.85 cents to $2.7967 a gallon. Natural gas futures fell 5.8 cents to $7.830 per 1,000 cubic feet.Associated Press writer Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, contributed to this report.