Hurricane Omar swirls in Caribbean

San Juan, Puerto Rico

Hurricane Omar

swirls in Caribbean

Tropical storm Omar strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane late Tuesday and drenched islands in the southeastern Caribbean, downing trees and blowing off a school's roof as it headed for the U.S. Virgin Islands as well as Puerto Rico's Vieques and Culebra islands. Hurricane warnings were also in place for St. Martin, the British Virgin Islands, St. Kitts and Nevis and other islands.

Officials in Puerto Rico, already soaked from several days of rain, warned residents to prepare for a lot more and medical authorities appealed for blood donations for possible casualties.

Seoul, South Korea

Nuclear monitors

back in N. Korea

North Korea allowed United Nations monitors back into their main nuclear site Tuesday, but it was unclear whether they had fulfilled a pledge to resume disabling the facilities in line with a six-nation deal.

A diplomat in Vienna familiar with the International Atomic Energy Agency's work at the site said the agency's three-member team had resumed, including reapplying seals the North had ordered taken off and remounting agency cameras.

Two months ago, North Korea stopped disabling the Yongbyon nuclear facility. It was angry over U.S. demands that it accept a plan to verify its accounting of nuclear programs as a condition to remove it from a blacklist of countries accused of sponsoring terrorism. The U.S. announced Saturday that North Korea was dropped from the list.

Tijuana, Mexico

Latest violence

claims eight lives

Eight people died in overnight violence in the Mexican border city of Tijuana.

The state prosecutor's office said three teenagers were gunned down in the street. A few blocks away, officials found more than 40 shell casings and the bullet-riddled body of a man. In another part of the city, gunmen opened fire on a car, killing two men.

Assailants attacked another car before dawn Tuesday, injuring a police officer and killing his relative. A few hours later, the body of a man was found near city hall, his head covered with a plastic bag.

Officials blame warring cells of the Arellano-Felix drug gang for a wave of homicides in Tijuana.

Seoul, South Korea

N. Korean sentenced

in spying case

A North Korean woman accused in a sensational espionage case involving sex and poisoned needles was sentenced Wednesday by a South Korean court to five years in prison.

Won Jeong Hwa was arrested in July on charges of passing classified information to the North, including the locations of key military installations, lists of North Korean defectors and personal information on South Korean military officers.

Canberra, Australia

Computer blamed

for plane's plunge

A faulty computer unit likely caused a Qantas jetliner to experience two terrifying midair plunges within minutes last week, an Australian investigator said Tuesday.

More than 40 people were injured when the Airbus A330-300 briefly nose-dived twice during a flight from Singapore to the western Australian city of Perth last Tuesday.

Julian Walsh, chief air investigator at the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, said an initial investigation indicated the cause was a computer unit that detects through sensors the angle of the plane against the airstream.

He said one of the plane's three such units malfunctioned and sent the wrong data to the main flight computers.

Seattle Times news services