Storms batter Texas with wind and hail

GAINESVILLE, Texas -- Storms battered eastern Texas with wind up to 100 mph and hail the size of baseballs, damaging buildings and slamming parked airplanes into one another at an airport. "When you have winds from 80 to 100 mph it can do damage similar to that of a tornado," said Jesse Moore, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "That can do some very, very big damage." No major injuries were reported in the storms late Friday and early Saturday, authorities said. Hundreds of homes and businesses were damaged, and some areas still lacked power Saturday afternoon, said Kay Lunnon, spokeswoman for the city of Gainesville, near the Oklahoma border.

Movie promo confused with bomb in L.A.

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. -- A newspaper promotion for Tom Cruise's upcoming "Mission: Impossible III" got off to an explosive start when a county arson squad blew up a news rack, thinking it contained a bomb. The confusion: the Los Angeles Times rack was fitted with a digital musical device designed to play the "Mission: Impossible" theme song when the door was opened. But in some cases, the red plastic boxes with protruding wires were jarred loose and dropped onto the stack of newspapers inside, alarming customers. Sheriff's officials said they rendered the news rack in this suburb 35 miles north of downtown Los Angeles "safe" after being called to the scene by a concerned individual who thought he'd seen a bomb.

-- From wire reports