■ United States
Storm lashes Florida
Tropical Storm Alberto, the first Atlantic hurricane of 2006, slammed into the north-west coast of Florida yesterday where thousands of residents had received the order to evacuate. With sustained winds reaching 110kph, the National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane warning along Florida's Gulf Coast on Monday. Florida Governor Jeb Bush ordered thousands of residents in low-lying areas to evacuate their homes and make their way to shelters. The eye of the storm was expected to make landfall after dawn yesterday near Florida's Big Bend, where the peninsula meets the panhandle of the state on the Gulf of Mexico.
■ United States
Head-on collision
Two police officers patrolling a beach near Oxnard, south of Los Angeles, in a sports utility vehicle ran over and killed a sunbather, authorities said. The officers did not immediately realize they ran over the woman and continued driving, police Commander Tom Chronister said in a statement. The officers, who were not immediately identified, had stopped on a small dune to watch a swimmer whom they believed to be in distress. When they saw the swimmer was fine, they drove over the dune and apparently over the woman's head, authorities said on Monday.
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