■ Tropical storm weakens
Tropical Storm Kiko weakened further as it inched out to sea and away from the Pacific coast on Sunday. Kiko moved well offshore and was expected to weaken to a tropical depression yesterday, forecasters at the US National Hurricane Center said. Above normal tides and battering waves along the coast were expected to subside early yesterday. On Sunday evening the storm packed maximum sustained winds of near 75kph. Kiko was heading west-northwest at 6kph and was centered about 415km south-southeast of Cabo San Lucas.
■ UNITED STATES
Kid Rock arrested after brawl
Musician Kid Rock was arrested early on Sunday after a brawl at a restaurant and spent about 12 hours in jail before being released, police said. He stopped at the Waffle House restaurant shortly after 5am after his performance at The Tabernacle in Atlanta, authorities said. "He and five members of his entourage were involved in a fight with a male customer inside the Waffle House," said Mekka Parish, a spokeswoman for the DeKalb County Police Department. The customer recognized a female with Kid Rock's party and exchanged words with her, Parish said. At some point the customer punched out a restaurant window, she said.
■ UNITED STATES
Amish killed in auto accident
A van carrying Amish on an interstate highway veered out of control, overturned and ejected most of its passengers, killing five people and injuring 11, authorities said. Two adults and three children were killed when the southbound van veered onto the grassy median, flipped over and came to rest in the northbound lanes of the highway about 80km northeast of Indianapolis, Indiana, State Police Sergeant Rod Russell said. No other vehicles were involved in the crash, he said. Amish people generally shun modern conveniences but sometimes enlist non-Amish as drivers.
■ UNITED STATES
Cabbies angry over rule
Taxi drivers in New York are angry about a new rule requiring the installation of global positioning systems and credit card machines in cabs were planning a second one-day strike in six weeks yesterday. The city was preparing for the strike by the Taxi Workers Alliance by instituting a contingency plan that lets drivers pick up multiple passengers and charge zone-based fares. The touch-screen monitors let passengers pay by credit card, check on news stories and map their taxi's current location. The alliance opposes the technology, saying the 5 percent surcharge on each credit card transaction amounts to a wage cut and the GPS device allows cab companies to track drivers.
■ UNITED STATES
Card game leads to murderer
A prison card game gave police the tip they needed to arrest a man in a killing that occurred nearly three years ago, authorities said on Saturday. In July, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement gave nearly 93,000 state inmates playing cards that highlight 104 of the state's most troubling unsolved homicide and missing-persons cases. On Friday, police arrested Derrick Hamilton after an inmate tipped them off about the 2004 killing of James Foote, who was found dead with a gunshot wound to his chest. Foote's picture and the details of his death were featured on a card. An inmate told authorities Hamilton had bragged about killing Foote, WINK-TV in Fort Myers reported.
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