ST. LOUIS

Torrential rain worsens floods

More torrential rain worsened flooding in the Midwest, spawning high water that swept away an Iowa teenager, caused a traffic nightmare near one of the nation’s busiest airports and threatened to swamp a Missouri town for the fifth time in less than a decade.

More than 3 inches of rain fell over much of eastern Iowa and northern Illinois Monday night and Tuesday morning, and some areas got up to 5 inches of rain, National Weather Service meteorologist Mark Fuchs said.

MIAMI

First tropical storm develops

The season’s first tropical depression blossomed into Tropical Storm Arthur on Tuesday as it slogged north along the coast of Central Florida.

The storm, with tropical force winds extending about 45 miles, was headed northwest at 2 mph and could strengthen into the season’s first Atlantic hurricane later Thursday when it reaches the Carolinas, said National Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen.

LOUISVILLE, Ky.

Gay marriage ban ends

A federal judge in Kentucky struck down the state’s ban on gay marriage on Tuesday, though the ruling was temporarily put on hold, and it was not immediately clear when same-sex couples could be issued marriage licenses.

U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn in Louisville concluded that the state’s prohibition on same-sex couples being wed violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

LOS ANGELES

NASA scrubs rocket launch

NASA scrubbed the launch of a Delta II rocket Tuesday, 46 seconds before it was to carry the agency’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 satellite into orbit.

The launch has been tentatively rescheduled for Wednesday..

– From news service reports

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