World in brief

Hundreds flee storm in Mexico

SANCHEZ MAGALLANES, Mexico - Tropical Storm Larry hit the southern coast of the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday, forcing hundreds of people to flee to shelters, while a second storm strengthened to a hurricane and threatened Mexico's Pacific coast.

Mexico braced for three storms along its coasts this weekend. Tropical Storm Larry was considered the most dangerous, but officials were also watching Olaf, which strengthened to a hurricane Sunday.

Olaf was moving parallel to the Pacific coast 145 miles south of Manzanillo, but a change of course could bring the hurricane onshore, the National Hurricane Center in Miami warned.

A second hurricane, Nora, was churning far off the southern tip of Baja California in the Pacific and was expected to weaken as it moves closer to land.

KATE: Hurricane Kate was still churning out in the Atlantic, far from land, but it weakened, with winds dropping from 115 mph to 90 mph Sunday. Kate was expected to continue weakening as it moves closer to Newfoundland in eastern Canada sometime Tuesday.

At 5 p.m., Kate was near latitude 31.9 N, longitude 56.5 W, or about 485 miles east of Bermuda. It was moving northward at about 10 mph.

VATICAN CITY - Days after some cardinals gave dire descriptions of his health, Pope John Paul II led a long and lively ceremony Sunday to give the church three new saints, capping the appearance with a spin in a "popemobile" around St. Peter's Square to wave to tens of thousands of cheering well-wishers.

The 83-year-old pontiff, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, held up throughout his 21/2 hours in the public's eye, although near the end of the canonization Mass he began heavily slurring his words and let German Cardinal Walter Kasper read three paragraphs in German.

John Paul declared three missionaries to be saints: Daniele Comboni, an Italian; Arnold Janssen, a German; and Josef Freinademetz, an Austrian.

UNITED NATIONS - About a sixth of the world's population - nearly 1-billion people - live in slums, and that number could double by 2030 if developed nations don't reverse course and start giving the issue serious attention, according to a United Nations report.

The U.N. Human Settlements Program's report, released Saturday, is the first ever to assess slums and examine how widespread they are. Its main concern is the developing nations in Asia and Africa because the migration from rural areas to cities in Europe and the Americas has largely played out.

The report's main finding is stark: Almost half the world's urban population lives in slums. Asia has the largest number of slum dwellers overall, with 554-million, while sub-Saharan Africa has the largest percentage of its urban population living in slums, about 71 percent.

The report says that the worldwide number of slum dwellers increased by 36 percent in the 1990s to 923-million people. At its current pace, the number could double to 2-billion by 2030.

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