Virginia

New storms bring post-hurricane misery

The East Coast’s recovery from Isabel was dealt a setback Tuesday by another round of storms that caused renewed flooding, flattened trees that had withstood the hurricane and knocked out power to thousands of customers, some for the second time.

Severe storms, including at least one tornado, buffeted the area around Richmond with winds up to 100 mph, the weather service said.

No serious injuries were reported from the twister, part of a weather system that also caused damage in Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Isabel was blamed for at least 38 deaths, 23 of them in Virginia.

An additional 40,000 customers lost power in Virginia on Tuesday, some for the second time since Isabel struck last week. As of Tuesday evening, more than 500,000 customers in Virginia and North Carolina still were without power.

Puerto Rico

U.S. to close naval base

The United States will close its Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in eastern Puerto Rico within the next six months, the territory’s congressional delegate said Tuesday.

Congress and President Bush are expected to sign off on the closure by the end of next week, said Anibal Acevado Vila, the U.S. territory’s nonvoting congressional delegate. The Pentagon did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

The base’s closure comes after several years of protests against U.S. military exercises in Vieques, which ended with the Navy’s May 1 withdrawal from its bombing range on that tiny outlying island.

The United States set up Roosevelt Roads and the Vieques bombing range in the 1940s and used it to prepare for international conflicts from World War II to the war in Afghanistan.

Gov. Sila Calderon wanted Roosevelt Roads to remain open even after the end to Vieques military exercises. Roosevelt Roads injects an estimated $300 million a year into the U.S. Caribbean territory’s economy.

Washington, D.C.

Confirmation hearing for EPA post opens

Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, President Bush’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency, said after facing hostile questioning from Senate Democrats that he had decided to accept the nomination because he felt deeply about improving the environment in the United States.

“I have a passion to assure that the American people have a clean, safe and healthy place to live, and I have optimism that we can in fact increase the velocity of environmental progress in this country and do so without compromising our economic competitiveness,” Leavitt said immediately after a hearing on his confirmation.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is expected to vote next Wednesday on Leavitt’s confirmation, after the governor has replied to scores of written questions from the senators.

Chicago

Four plead not guilty in nightclub stampede

A nightclub owner and three other men were charged with manslaughter in a stampede that killed 21 people last winter — a tragedy prosecutors said was caused in part by the owners packing the place to five times its capacity.

E2 nightclub owner Dwain Kyles, his alleged partner Calvin Hollins Jr., party promoter Marco Flores and Hollins’ son, Calvin Hollins III, a club manager, pleaded innocent Tuesday. A grand jury handed up the sealed indictments last week.

Involuntary manslaughter involving multiple deaths carries up to 10 years in prison.

The Feb. 17 stampede at the E2 nightclub started after someone used pepper spray to break up a fight. Patrons fled for the doors, crushing each other on a narrow staircase.