World in brief

Grace spins to life, takes aim at Texas

HOUSTON - Tropical Storm Grace formed Saturday in the Gulf of Mexico and was forecast to hit Texas' central coast today, but meteorologists said they did not expect it to be severe.

At the same time, Hurricane Fabian was gathering strength far out in the Atlantic but was still several days from land.

Tropical Storm Grace triggered a tropical storm warning over a 220-mile stretch of Texas coast, from Corpus Christi to High Island, midway between Galveston and Port Arthur.

"As far as storms go, it is probably going to be a minimal tropical storm," National Weather Service meteorologist Charles Roeseler said Saturday. But he added that it could produce 12 inches of rain.

At 11 p.m., the storm had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph. It was centered near latitude 25.5 N and longitude 94.5 W, or about 210 miles southeast of Corpus Christi. It was moving west-northwest at about 10 mph.

In the Atlantic, Fabian strengthened with its maximum sustained winds increasing to 125 mph, up from 75 mph on Friday when it became the third hurricane of the Atlantic season.

At 11 p.m., Fabian was near latitude 17.7 N, longitude 50.8 W or about 710 miles east of the Lesser Antilles and moving west-northwest at 13 mph, forecasters said. Fabian was expected to curve north and head somewhere between Puerto Rico and Bermuda over the next five days.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Torrential rains burst river banks, sweeping away at least eight people and destroying flimsy riverside shacks in Haiti's west-coast city of St. Marc, officials said Saturday.

About 200 people fled their homes and were taking refuge in government offices and a high school, said Gerald Joseph with Haiti's civil defense.

As waters from Friday's storm subsided, the bodies of eight victims, apparently drowned, were found Saturday morning in the city 40 miles west of Port-au-Prince, Joseph told Radio Vision 2000.

NEW DELHI - Police patrolling New Delhi's main railway station on Saturday found an abandoned bag packed with a huge amount of explosives, police said.

The bag contained 150 sticks of gelatin explosives weighing 47 pounds. The platform was cordoned off and a bomb disposal team brought in.

Hours after the bags were found, two suspected Islamic militants were killed in a gun battle with police in the Indian capital, authorities said. It was not immediately clear whether the gunfight was related to the other incident.

New Delhi has been on alert since twin bomb blasts in Bombay, the country's financial hub, killed 52 people and injured 150 people on Monday.

India has blamed those blasts on the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, an Islamic militant organization based in the Pakistan-controlled portion of Kashmir.

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