ISTANBUL -- The heaviest rainfall in at least eight decades sent flash floods barreling across a major highway and into busy business districts in Turkey's largest city on Wednesday, trapping factory workers and truck drivers in their vehicles and drowning at least 20 people.
Waters 6 feet high in some places flooded hundreds of homes and offices and cut off the TEM highway, which connects central Istanbul to the sprawling city's main airport and goes on to Greece and Bulgaria.
Rescue crews in helicopters pulled people off rooftops in Ikitelli, a district of media offices and corporate headquarters about 13 miles from the Bosporus strait, which divides the European and Asian parts of Turkey.
Turkey's meteorology institute said about 5.2 inches of rain fell in the area.
Bomber visited in hospital
TRIPOLI, Libya -- The ailing Lockerbie bomber looked weak and pale, sitting in a wheelchair, as he was visited by a group of African parliamentarians Wednesday in a rare appearance in the hospital where he is being treated for prostate cancer.
Abdel Baset al-Megrahi appeared for only five minutes and did not speak during the visit in the Tripoli Medical Center. Dressed in a hospital gown, he wore a surgical mask over his mouth and nose and a traditional embroidered cap. A line from an IV bottle was hooked into his hand.
Al-Megrahi was freed from a Scottish prison last month on compassionate grounds because doctors said he was dying of his cancer. The release outraged the United States and many relatives of the 270 people killed in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland -- and their anger was further fanned by the warm welcome al-Megrahi received when he arrived home in Libya.
Al-Megrahi was the only person convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, which killed all 259 people on board -- mostly Americans -- and 11 people on the ground.
GOP letter asks Sanford to quit
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Sixty-one South Carolina House Republicans asked Gov. Mark Sanford to resign Wednesday, questioning his ability to lead the state since his unannounced summertime trip to see a mistress in Argentina and investigations of his state and private travel that followed.
"Your decision to abandon our state for five days, with no defined order of succession and with no known way to contact you, is inexcusable," said a letter from the lawmakers signed by House Majority Leader Kenny Bingham.
The letter, which listed the names of 59 other lawmakers, came a day after the House speaker issued a similar call. Any move to impeach the GOP governor would begin in the House, which has 72 Republicans, 51 Democrats and one empty seat. Bingham's office said an additional member joined the effort after the letter landed on Sanford's desk.
Better Hubble 'back in action'
WASHINGTON -- A refurbished Hubble Space Telescope is showing Earth the sharpest photos yet of cosmic beauty, complete with heavenly glows.
NASA on Wednesday unveiled the first deep space photos taken by Hubble since its billion dollar repair mission last spring. That work included installing two new cameras, other science instruments and replacing broken parts.
"Hubble is back in action. Together, NASA and Hubble are opening new vistas on the universe," astronomer and frequent Hubble user Heidi Hammel said.
The 10 images of galaxies and nebulas -- clouds of stellar gas and dust -- are sharper than previous photos taken of the same places by Hubble before its fifth and final upgrade. Some have brilliant glows of light that give them halos that to some people can appear heavenly.
Spending on candidates eyed
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court signaled Wednesday it may let businesses and unions spend freely to help their favored political candidates in time for next year's elections.
In a case that began with a movie attacking Hillary Rodham Clinton, newly seated Justice Sonia Sotomayor jumped right into the questioning. She appeared skeptical about taking the far-reaching step of lifting the ban, a move urged on the court by a lawyer for a group that made the 90-minute movie that sought to undermine Clinton's presidential ambitions.
The focus of the case will be on whether two conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, are willing to overrule earlier decisions that had upheld the restrictions.
More than half the states, including California, Washington and Virginia, allow corporations to make independent campaign expenditures.
-- From wire reports
