NEW YORK -- The Rev. Al Sharpton on Saturday threatened to sue conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh for writing in a column that the civil rights leader played a role in two New York race riots.
In a column published by the Wall Street Journal on Saturday about his derailed bid to become part-owner of the St. Louis Rams, he accuses Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson of making comments that helped get him booted from a group that was trying to buy the NFL team.
Limbaugh derided Sharpton as having played "a leading role in the 1991 Crown Heights riot" and the "1995 Freddie's Fashion Mart riot."
Those comments prompted a quick retort from Sharpton, who called both allegations false.
Hurricane Rick now Category 5
MIAMI -- Forecasters say Hurricane Rick is the strongest hurricane in the eastern north Pacific Ocean in more than a decade.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Rick turned into an "extremely dangerous" Category 5 storm on Saturday with sustained winds reaching 180 mph.
At 11 p.m. EDT Saturday, the storm's center was located about 295 miles south-southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico.
Forecasters say Rick should stay offshore for several days, then curve east over cooler waters and approach the Baja California Peninsula, perhaps as a Category 2 hurricane, at midweek.
Hurricane Linda in September 1997 was the strongest eastern north Pacific storm with maximum 185 mph winds.
America eating lots of peanuts
WASHINGTON -- Go figure: Food makers processed more peanuts over the past year than nearly any other time on record despite a national salmonella outbreak blamed for killing nine people and scaring consumers away from peanut products for months.
Peanut farmers who once feared $1 billion in losses are chalking up their good fortune to a bad economy that has more people reaching for peanut butter as a cheap lunch.
Agriculture Department numbers back up the theory. Peanuts processed for snacks -- items such as sandwich crackers that were heavily recalled during the outbreak -- were slightly down for the accounting year ending July 31. But peanuts used for peanut butter set an all-time record at 1.1 billion pounds.
Filipinos urged to flee storm
MANILA, Philippines -- Police went door-to-door urging residents to leave landslide-ravaged areas of the northern Philippines on Saturday in a "pre-emptive evacuation" as a new typhoon loomed after recent back-to-back storms killed more than 750 people, officials said.
Forecasters said Typhoon Lupit had intensified overnight and by late Saturday was packing winds of 87 mile per hour and gusts of up to 106 mph.
The Philippines is still recovering from Tropical Storm Ketsana in late September, which triggered the worst flooding in Manila in over 40 years, and the Oct. 3 strike of Typhoon Parma, which lingered for a week. The two storms killed 773 people and affected more than 7 million.
-- Associated Press
