2 more gator victims found

The bodies of two women, both apparently killed by alligators, were found Sunday less than a week after a similar death in a state that had seen just 17 confirmed fatal attacks by the animals in the previous 58 years.

A 23-year-old woman staying at a secluded cabin near Lake George was attacked while snorkeling at a lakeside recreation area, said Marion County Fire-Rescue Capt. Joe Amigliore. “The people she was staying with came around and found her inside the gator’s mouth,” Amigliore said. “They jumped into the water and somehow pulled her out of the gator’s mouth.”

The woman, whose name was not released, was pronounced dead at the scene.

In Pinellas County, the death of another woman whose body was found early Sunday in a canal 20 miles north of St. Petersburg also was blamed on an alligator, authorities said.

Judy W. Cooper’s body had been in the water for about three days, authorities said.

Washington

Cheetah cubs get new homes

Four cheetah cubs from the first litter ever born at the National Zoo are heading to animal parks in Wisconsin and New Jersey. The cubs were born in November 2004.

The two male cheetahs, Damara and Askari, will leave this month for the Milwaukee County Zoo. The two females, Imara and Hatim, will be sent to the Cape May County Park & Zoo this spring. The cubs are being moved as part of a species survival plan agreement among North American zoos that is intended to build a self-sustaining population of captive animals.

The National Zoo has nine other cheetahs on display, including five born in April 2005.

Augusta, Maine

Floods plague New England

Kayakers paddled down the streets of York Beach, where much of downtown was blocked off with police tape and firefighters in a boat shut off propane tanks. Water was high enough to cover an outdoor trampoline in Kennebunk, and powerful enough to wash an embankment out from under train tracks in Milton, N.H.

That’s just a small sample of the damage parts of New England took thanks to a heavy, weekend-long rain spell. It flooded or washed away dozens of roads, overflowed dams and forced hundreds of people in southern Maine, northeastern Massachusetts and much of New Hampshire from their homes.

Forecasters said the rain, which began Friday in many areas, could total 12 to 15 inches in southern New Hampshire by the time the storm passed today.

The National Weather Service said 5.12 inches of rain fell Saturday in Concord, N.H., 3 1/2 times the previous record for the date. Boston had picked up 6.34 inches of rain in 30 hours by Sunday morning, and Andover, Mass., collected 9.8 inches over the same period.

Eastern Massachusetts was forecast to get another 5 inches of rain by Tuesday.

Compiled from wire reports