Oregonians check out sex offenders online

Oregonians check out sex offenders online

SALEM, Ore. -- Forget MySpace. Oregonians have a new favorite Web site: a database of predatory sex offenders. A day after the launch, the state police reported Friday the site had logged more than a million page views, and the number was climbing sharply. The site has a searchable database that provides about 700 names, addresses, physical descriptions, pictures and conditions of release of high-risk sex offenders. Users can search by name, city, county, address or ZIP code. Oregon was one of two states without such a site, the other being South Dakota.

Las Vegas, N.M., severely cuts back water use

LAS VEGAS -- The drought in this community is now so severe that water isn't provided with restaurant meals unless a diner requests it, and then it's served in a paper cup. Car washes operate only two days each week. The hotel pools are empty. Las Vegas relies almost entirely on surface water. Melting snowpack and rainfall collects to form the Gallinas River, and 98 percent of the water for the town's 18,000 residents is stored in two reservoirs in the mountains above town. But it wasn't a snowy winter this year, and city reserves have dropped to 50 percent of capacity.

Hard work begins for N.J. flood victims

TRENTON, N.J. -- Some residents of cities and towns flooded by the Delaware River struggled to clean up debris Saturday but many others were still waiting to return to their homes. Thousands of New Jersey residents were evacuated on Wednesday and Thursday, joining thousands of others who fled rising water across the river in Pennsylvania and upstream in New York state following a record rain storm. At least 20 deaths in four states were blamed on the deluge. People still out of their homes were waiting for local and state inspectors to give them the go-ahead, said Capt. Jerome Hatfield of New Jersey's Office of Emergency Management.

Car bomb kills 66 people in Iraq Shiite district

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A huge car bomb exploded Saturday at a bustling outdoor market in a Shiite district of Baghdad, killing at least 66 people and injuring about 100 in the deadliest attack since the new national unity government took office six weeks ago. Shortly before the midmorning blast, gunmen seized a female Sunni legislator at a checkpoint in a Shiite area of the capital.

Israeli warplanes strike P.M.'s office in Gaza

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Israeli aircraft fired missiles at the Palestinian prime minister's office late Saturday, just hours after a Palestinian official said the soldier whose abduction sent Israeli troops into the Gaza Strip is alive and in stable condition. A Hamas militant was killed in another Israeli airstrike. Witnesses said two missiles hit the Gaza City office of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas early Sunday, leaving one bystander slightly injured and setting the empty building on fire. The Israeli army confirmed it attacked Haniyeh's office.

-- From wire reports