New York Post

PUERTO ESCONDIDO, Mexico -- Hurricane Agatha made history as the strongest hurricane ever recorded to come ashore in May during the eastern Pacific hurricane center, making landfall on a sparsely populated stretch of small beach towns and fishing villages in southern Mexico. The storm came ashore in Oaxaca state Monday afternoon as a strong Category 2 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph (165kph), then it quickly lost power as it moved inland over the mountainous interior. Agatha was downgraded to a tropical storm late Monday, its sustained winds down to 70 mph (110 kph). The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the storm should dissipate overnight, but warned that the system’s heavy rains still posed a threat of dangerous flash floods for Mexico's southern states. Torrential rains and howling winds whipped palm trees and drove tourists and residents into shelters. Oaxaca state's civil defense agency showed families hustling into a shelter in Pochutla and a rock

BEIRUT -- An aging Japanese militant who spent more than a decade in an Israeli prison for his part in a deadly attack on Tel Aviv’s airport showed up in Beirut on Monday at an event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the attack. Kozo Okamoto, 74, served 12 years in an Israeli lockup for a May 30, 1972 attack on the international airport outside Tel Aviv that was thought to be carried out by members of the Japanese Red Army guerrilla group. Twenty-six people were killed, including Christian pilgrims. Okamoto was freed in 1985 in a prisoner exchange between Israel and Palestinian guerrillas and has since gained political asylum in Lebanon where he has been living quietly for decades. The ceremony at a Beirut cemetery where many Palestinian militants are buried was organized by a radical Palestinian faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. It was attended by a few dozen people and officials from Lebanese and Palestinian factions including Lebanon’s Hezbollah. The p