Tropical storm

MANILA, Philippines -- Pounding rain from a tropical storm swelled rivers and sent walls of water crushing into two southern Philippine cities in the thick of night, killing at least 436 people, many caught in their beds, officials said Saturday.

VERACRUZ, Mexico — Seven of 10 oil workers missing in the Gulf of Mexico were found alive Sunday, according to Mexico’s state oil company, three days after evacuating their disabled rig in a tropical storm and escaping in an enclosed life raft.

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — As the leftovers from Tropical Storm Lee brought welcome wet weather to farmers in the Southeast, many areas of the East Coast were getting soaked Wednesday, bringing new concerns about flooding.

SAUCIER, Miss. -- While Lee's winds have lost some of their punch, forecasters warn that its slow-moving rain clouds pose a worse flooding threat to inland areas with hills or mountains in the coming days.

Flash flood watches and warnings were in effect across a swath of the Southeast early Monday, stretching from the lower Mississippi Valley, eastward to the Florida Panhandle and the southern Appalachians, according to the Hydrometeorological Predication Center.

ATLANTA -- The tropical depression designated, for now, with the unlucky number 13, is parked in neutral just off the Gulf Coast, where meteorologists say it is likely to gain strength in the coming days, becoming a named storm or hurricane and creating flooding that could become the next billion-dollar disaster for the U.S.

As of Friday morning, Tropical Depression 13 was about 210 miles southwest of the mouth of the Mississippi River and creeping toward the coast at about 1 mph, with the center expected to approach the Louisiana coast over the weekend, the National Hurricane Center reported.

NEWFANE, Vt. — As emergency airlift operations brought ready-to-eat meals and water to Vermont residents left isolated and desperate, states along the Eastern Seaboard continued to be battered by the after effects of Irene, the destructive hurricane turned tropical storm.