Tropical Storm Gustav was expected to start growing into a powerful hurricane as it pulled away from Jamaica and headed toward the Cayman Islands on Friday.

Storms packing winds of up to 100 mph plowed through the Phoenix area, leaving tens of thousands without power, shutting down the airport and ripping the roof off a new college football facility.

Villagers were eating uncooked rice and flour mixed with polluted water in an eastern Indian state, officials said Friday, as hunger and diseases accompanied the worst floods in 50 years.

Just three years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans confronts a new threat from Gustav and a stark question: Will the partially rebuilt levees hold?

With Gustav showing no signs of veering off a track to slam into the Gulf Coast, authorities began laying the groundwork Thursday to get the sick, elderly and poor away from the shoreline.

People worried about the high cost of keeping warm this winter will draw little comfort from the Farmers' Almanac, which predicts below-average temperatures for most of the U.S.