MIAMI, June 2 (Reuters) – The 2010 Atlantic hurricane
season will be even more active than feared, leading U.S.
forecasters said on Wednesday as they predicted 10 hurricanes,
five of them major, with a 76 percent likelihood that a major
hurricane would hit the U.S. coastline.

The outlook from the Colorado State University team follows
predictions by U.S. government scientists for an intense season
that could disrupt efforts to contain a huge Gulf of Mexico oil
spill and also batter earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

MIAMI (Reuters) – The Carib Indian god of evil, Hurican, gave its name to the word “hurricane,” and the 2010 hurricane season that started on Tuesday is shaping up to be a monster of potential malignancy.

Hurricanes are feared every year because of the whirling destruction they inflict on human life, property, crops and industry from the Caribbean to the U.S. southeast Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico. The annual hurricane season begins on June 1 and runs through November 30.

MIAMI, June 1 (Reuters) – The Carib Indian god of evil,
Hurican, gave its name to the word “hurricane,” and the 2010
hurricane season that started on Tuesday is shaping up to be a
monster of potential malignancy.

Hurricanes are feared every year because of the whirling
destruction they inflict on human life, property, crops and
industry from the Caribbean to the U.S. southeast Atlantic
coast and the Gulf of Mexico. The annual hurricane season
begins on June 1 and runs through Nov. 30.

MIAMI (Reuters) – The United States and Cuba, close neighbors but ideological foes, are talking about the potential risks from a huge Gulf of Mexico oil spill that forecasters say could be carried to Cuban shores by strong ocean currents.

The oil gushing from a blown out seabed well owned by London-based BP Plc in U.S. waters already has affected some parts of the U.S. Gulf Coast shoreline in what officials fear will inflict an ecological and economic catastrophe.

MIAMI (Reuters) – Florida’s $60 billion-a-year tourism industry is already losing millions of dollars as a result of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, even though no confirmed oil contamination from it has yet hit the state’s beaches, a top tourism marketing official said on Tuesday.

“Even without touching the ground, it’s causing significant economic hardship in the state already,” Will Seccombe, chief marketing officer of the state tourism marketing board, VISIT FLORIDA, told Reuters, estimating this at millions of dollars of lost visitor-related business.

MIAMI (Reuters) – Florida Governor Charlie Crist is poised to announce he will run as an independent for the Senate in the November congressional elections, in a race that spotlights the ideological rift in the Republican Party.

Media reports said Crist, 53, elected as a Republican governor in 2006, would announce his nonaffiliated Senate bid on Thursday. It was a widely anticipated move because he is far behind rival Marco Rubio in the race for the Republican nomination.

MIAMI, April 28 (Reuters) – Florida Governor Charlie Crist
is poised to announce he will run as an independent for the
U.S. Senate in the November congressional elections, in a race
that spotlights the ideological rift in the Republican Party.

U.S. media reports said Crist, 53, elected as a Republican
governor in 2006, would announce his non-affiliated Senate bid
on Thursday. It was a widely anticipated move because he is far
behind rival Marco Rubio in the race for the Republican
nomination.

MIAMI (Reuters) – The U.S. Coast Guard is scrambling to prevent a giant slick from an oil rig blowout from reaching the U.S. Gulf of Mexico shoreline, Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad W. Allen said on Wednesday.

“This is potentially a very serious issue … We are under no illusion of the risk that’s involved here,” Allen said.

MIAMI (Reuters) – Antigua and Barbuda’s former top financial regulator was ordered on Monday to be extradited to the United States to face charges he assisted accused Texas financier Allen Stanford in an alleged $7 billion fraud, a spokesperson for the Antigua attorney general’s office said.

The United States sought the extradition of Leroy King, former head of Antigua and Barbuda’s Financial Services Regulatory Commission, after federal prosecutors last year announced criminal charges against him of fraud, conspiracy, obstructing justice and conspiracy to launder money.

MIAMI (Reuters) – Four Cuban American lawyers and a Miami-based television station have launched a campaign to identify and publicly name Cuban state security agents and pro-government militants who attack dissidents on the island.

Called “Cuba, Repression ID,” the project that began this week solicits public support from the Cuban exile community in the United States and also from people inside Cuba to identify, through photographs and film footage, individuals seen beating or harassing unarmed critics of Cuba’s communist government.