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4A – Daily News – Friday, September 3, 2010 WORLD BRIEFING East Coast braces for a pounding from Earl BUXTON, N.C. (AP) — The last ferry left for the mainland and coastal resi- dents hunkered down at home as Hurricane Earl closed in with 115 mph winds Thursday on North Carolina’s dangerously exposed Outer Banks, the first and potentially most destructive stop on the storm’s projected journey up the Eastern Seaboard. The hurricane’s leading edge brought on-and-off light rain in the afternoon to the long ribbon of barrier islands, which were expect- ed to get the brunt of the storm around midnight. Earl’s arrival could mark the start of at least 24 hours of stormy, windy weather along the East Coast. Dur- ing its march up the Atlantic, it could snarl trav- elers’ Labor Day weekend plans and strike a second forceful blow to the vaca- tion homes and cottages on Long Island, Nantucket Island and Cape Cod. It was unclear exactly how close Earl’s center and its strongest winds would get to land. But Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate said people shouldn’t wait for the next forecast to act. ‘‘This is a day of action. Conditions are going to deteriorate rapidly,’’ he said. No sign of oil leak after Gulf platform fire NEW ORLEANS, La. (AP) — The Coast Guard that — sometimes with U.S. officials present, other times not. Retailers report solid sales gains is saying there are no immediate signs of a spill from an oil platform fire in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast. All 13 crew members were rescued from the water in the second such disaster in the Gulf in less than five months. The Coast Guard ini- tially reported an oil sheen a mile long and 100 feet wide had begun to spread from the site of the fire, about 200 miles west of the site of BP’s massive spill. But officials said at a Thursday afternoon news conference that boats at the platform have not seen any oil sheen. Early sign of peace promise WASHINGTON (AP) — In an early sign of promise, Israeli and Palestinian leaders pledged Thursday in a cordial first round of talks to keep meeting at regular intervals, aiming to nail down a framework for overcoming deep dis- putes and achieving last- ing peace within a year. As their facilitator-in- chief, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged Israeli Prime Min- ister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestin- ian President Mahmoud Abbas to rise above the suspicion and skepticism that has blocked peace efforts for decades. ‘‘By being here today, you each have taken an important step toward freeing your peoples from the shackles of a history we cannot change,’’ she said. The eventual aim is the creation of a sover- eign Palestinian state beside a secure Israel. Thursday’s results, in the first face-to-face peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians in nearly two years, were modest — and acknowl- edged as such by all sides. There was no detailed negotiation on any substantive issue, according to George Mitchell, the administra- tion’s special envoy for Mideast peace, who held months of preparatory talks and was a partici- pant in most of the day’s discussions. Netanyahu and Abbas will meet again on Sept. 14 and 15 in the Middle East, probably at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik, with Clinton and Mitchell attending. The two also agreed to meet roughly every two weeks after for August NEW YORK (AP) — This year’s back-to- school season isn’t as big a bust for retailers as they feared — or as last year’s — but it’s not great either. Americans are spend- ing only when the item and price are just right, according to August reports from major chains released Thurs- day that showed shop- pers bought a little more than a year ago. Analysts expect stores will need to keep discounting to get shop- pers to spend this fall and for the holiday sea- son while they grapple with job worries and tight credit. ‘‘It’s a glimmer of hope that the numbers are coming in ahead of low expectations,’’ said Ken Perkins, president of research firm Retail- Metrics. ‘‘But the back- to-school shopping sea- son isn’t anything to get excited about. It means that Santa may not be dumping a huge lump of coal, but it sets up a very promotional holi- day season.’’ Retailers that cau- tiously primed for a comeback five months ago as sales improved have been scaling back their hopes and making some tweaks to their merchandise again, ana- lysts said. And stores will face more difficult comparisons starting this month because con- sumer spending had started rising by last September. Engineers remove cap that stopped oil gusher NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Engineers removed a temporary cap Thursday that stopped oil from gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s blown- out well in mid-July. No more oil was expected to leak into the sea, but crews were standing by with collection vessels just in case. The cap was removed as a prelude to raising the massive piece of equip- ment underneath that failed to prevent the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. The government wants to replace the failed blowout preventer first to deal with any pressure that is caused when a relief well BP has been drilling intersects the blown-out well. Once that intersection occurs sometime after Labor Day, BP is expect- ed to use mud and cement to plug the blown-out well for good from the bottom. The April 20 rig explo- sion killed 11 workers and led to 206 million gallons of oil spewing from BP’s well. BP was leasing the rig from owner Transocean Ltd. Goats rescued after 2 days on thin ledge HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Two young goats wan- dered onto the thin ledge of a railroad bridge and spent nearly two days high above the ground until rescuers in a tower- ing cherry picker plucked them from their perch, hungry but safe. The rescue occurred Wednesday 60 feet above a little-trafficked rural roadway in southern Montana between Billings and Roundup, after a caller told the Rim- rock Humane Society the goats were stranded on the 6-inch ledge. The young female ani- mals weighing 25 and 35 pounds mostly stayed on the angled ledge, even though there was a wider surface area on a pillar just a few feet away. ‘‘The whole time, we thought they were going to fall off,’’ said Sandy Church, humane society president. ‘‘These guys are just babies.’’ Church said it wasn’t clear how the nimble- footed animals got into the predicament, but she speculated they wandered onto the ledge at night then froze after the sun rose and they discovered where they were. Woods takes out $54 m mortgage on Fla. estate JUPITER ISLAND, Fla. (AP) — Fresh off his divorce, Tiger Woods has taken out a $54.5 million mortgage on his Florida waterfront estate. Mortgage documents filed last month in Martin County show Woods will make payments to an enti- ty called JRD Florida Ventures LLC. That is a Virginia company whose registered agent is an attorney with the firm that represented Woods’ ex- wife, Elin Nordegren, in their divorce. No details of the divorce settlement have been made public. The documents say Woods will pay the mortgage in full by January 2016. The mortgage’s exis- tence was previously reported by several media outlets. Attorneys for Woods and his ex-wife declined comment Thurs- day. Woods and Nordegren divorced Aug. 23 and mortage papers were dated Aug. 25. Continued by Popular Demand! “PRIVATE PARTY” CLASSIFIED ADS FREE Through September 30! Sell your stuff! Boats/Autos too! Certain restrictions apply Call Daily News Classified For details! run FREE online at www.redbluffdailynews.com through September Ask about our discount rates for frequent Rental advertisers. D NEWSAILY RED BLUFF TEHAMACOUNTY Classified 527-2151 “We like to move it, move it!” Your Classified ads Rental Real Estate Advertisers: