AFP - Britain's famously unreliable weather struck again as London was drenched in torrential rain, a day after the city staggered through in the hottest June 12 ever recorded in the kingdom.

AFP - Flash floods caused by heavy rains have left at least 19 people dead and 31 others missing in southwest China.

AFP - Rebuilding Indonesia's quake-hit central Java will cost more than three billion dollars, with the scale of residential destruction rivalling that of the tsunami in Aceh.

AFP - Flash floods and mudslides triggered by heavy monsoon rains have killed eight people and displaced some 75,000 in India's northeastern states of Assam and Tripura.

AP - As Tropical Storm Alberto threatened to strengthen into the ninth hurricane in 22 months to affect Florida, former President Clinton predicted Monday that Republican environmental policies will lead to more severe storms.

AP - The nation's disaster response agency said Monday that evacuation buses and truckloads of food, water and ice were standing by for the year's first big tropical storm. But state officials across the Gulf Coast hadn't asked for any immediate help from Washington.

AP - The charter school movement, already bolstered after Hurricane Katrina devastated public schools in and around New Orleans, got another boost Monday: Federal officials announced a $23.9 million grant to create new charter schools in the state.