Nation and world briefs Sept. 10

| New Mexican wire services

9/9/2008 -

Hurricane Ike takes aim at Texas

McALLEN, Texas — With Hurricane Ike steaming into the Gulf of Mexico, Texas emergency officials Tuesday stood ready to order 1 million people evacuated from the impoverished Rio Grande Valley and tried to convince tens of thousands of illegal immigrants they have less to fear from the Border Patrol than from the storm.

Emergency planning officials were meeting all day to decide if and when to announce a mandatory evacuation for coastal counties close to the Mexican border.

With forecasts showing Ike blowing ashore this weekend, authorities lined up nearly 1,000 buses in case they are needed to move out the many poor and elderly people who have no cars.

On Tuesday, Ike roared across Cuba, ravaging homes, killing at least four people and forcing 1.2 million to evacuate.

OPEC to curb overproduction

VIENNA, Austria — The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
is oil ministers have decided to curb overproduction by more than 500,000 barrels.

The move is a compromise meant to avoid new turmoil in oil markets while at the same time reflecting OPEC attempts to prevent prices from falling too far.

Suit filed over cuts to 'indicator species'

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Environmentalists on Tuesday sued the Bush administration over what they charge are efforts to boost Sierra Nevada logging by undercutting a key early warning system that guards bellwether species.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco contends a policy shift by the U.S. Forest Service in December abandons its stewardship responsibilities by slashing the list of 60 or so "indicator species" to 13.

Among those hit are the Sierra bighorn sheep, the endangered California condor and the Northern goshawk, a raptor species. Eleven threatened or endangered species were removed from the list, including the Central Valley spring run Chinook salmon and the Lahontan cutthroat trout.

Prosecutors: Reduce Abramoff's sentence

Imprisoned Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff won't be in federal court in Miami today, but he will finally see his 70-month sentence reduced after serving almost two years behind bars in the SunCruz Casinos fraud case.

Federal prosecutors have recommended cutting to 45 months Abramoff's prison term, imposed after his conviction for his and a New York businessman's fraudulent purchase of the South Florida fleet of gambling ships.

Abramoff, 49, earned the sentence reduction not so much for his cooperation in the SunCruz case but for assisting Justice Department prosecutors "to varying degrees" in the investigation of corruption in the nation's capital, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward Nucci.

Meatpacking plant owners charged with using child labor

DES MOINES, Iowa — The owner and managers of the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant were charged Tuesday with more than 9,000 misdemeanors alleging they hired minors and had children younger than 16 handle dangerous equipment such as circular saws and meat grinders.

Two employees were also charged in federal court. The state and federal charges are the first against operators of the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa, where nearly 400 illegal immigrant workers were arrested in May in one of the largest immigration raids in U.S. history.

The complaint filed by the Iowa Attorney General's Office said the violations involved 32 illegal-immigrant children under age 18, including seven who were younger than 16. Aside from handling dangerous equipment, the complaint says, children were exposed to dangerous chemicals such as chlorine solutions and dry ice.

The Attorney General's Office said the violations occurred from Sept. 9, 2007, to May 12, 2008, when the plant was raided by immigration agents.

Charged are the company itself, Agriprocessors Inc.; plant owner Abraham Aaron Rubashkin; former plant manager Sholom Rubashkin; human resources manager Elizabeth Billmeyer; and Laura Althouse and Karina Freund, managers in the company's human resources division.

Each defendant faces 9,311 counts — one for each day a particular violation is alleged for each worker.