Honduras

The man who replaced President Manuel Zelaya in a coup said Thursday that he would be willing to hold elections ahead of schedule if that would ease the standoff, which has left Honduras badly isolated. The offer from Roberto Micheletti came on the eve of a high-level visit by a delegation of the Organization of American States aimed at sealing Zelaya's return to office -- or deciding on sanctions to punish the impoverished nation.

Conor Casey scored two second-half goals Saturday night and Landon Donovan added a third as the United States rallied to defeat Honduras, 3-2, to earn a place in soccer's 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Casey can pack his bag right now. The 28-year-old from Dover, N.H., almost certainly will be going along. At the World Cup, Casey can rub shoulders with players from the likes of defending world champion Italy and former champion Germany, not to mention Chile, Denmark, the Ivory Coast and Serbia.

Honduras' ousted president and the officials who exiled him have agreed to try to resolve their conflict through a U.S.-endorsed mediator, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Tuesday. Signaling an expanding U.S. effort, Clinton said the two sides had agreed to talks supervised by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, who was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1987 for his efforts to broker peace accords in Central America.

The Honduran president said Thursday that he would ignore a high court ruling ordering him to reinstate the military chief he had fired, escalating a showdown that has threatened the leftist leader's hold on power. President Manuel Zelaya's plan to hold a referendum Sunday on changing the constitution has pitted him against the country's top courts, the attorney general, military leaders and even his own party, all of whom say the vote is illegal.

A Miami-bound jetliner Friday overshot a runway, raced onto a busy street and slammed into an embankment in the Honduran capital, killing the pilot, two passengers and a motorist. Eighty-one people were injured, including the former head of Honduras' armed forces, Gen. Daniel Lopez Carballo. The Grupo TACA Airbus 320 was trying to land with 124 people on board when it overshot the runway.

Honduran and U.S. authorities seized at least 4.6 tons of cocaine on a boat in the Caribbean Sea and arrested six of the vessel's crew members. Honduran Navy Cmdr. Juan Pablo Rodriguez said Saturday that the cocaine was found on the Honduran-flagged Eclipse about 100 miles off the Honduran coast, in a joint operation with the U.S. Coast Guard. The area is near the Nicaraguan border. Rodriguez said the officials were still searching the boat.

Honduras will take temporary control of foreign-owned oil storage terminals in an attempt to drive down fuel prices, President Manuel Zelaya said. Zelaya ordered the move after failing to reach a deal with ExxonMobil, Chevron and a local company to rent the terminals. "It is not a nationalization, it's a temporary use of the storage tanks," he said. Honduras produces no crude, has no refinery and is heavily dependent on Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron for its fuel supplies.

A top Honduran police commander and his bodyguard were killed by gunmen thought to be linked to drug traffickers smuggling cocaine along the country's isolated Atlantic coast, authorities said. Operations chief Rigoberto Aceituno, Honduras' fourth-highest-ranking policeman, was killed Saturday outside his home in the capital, Tegucigalpa, when gunmen opened fire from a car, said Security Ministry spokesman Miguel Martinez.

Thousands of Hondurans, Nicaraguans and Salvadorans in Southern California and across the United States who are here under temporary protected status have been granted an 18-month extension, officials said. Hondurans and Nicaraguans who received protected status after Hurricane Mitch devastated their countries with floods and mudslides in 1998 were due to return home after July 5.

President Manuel Zelaya has ordered private radio and TV stations to broadcast interviews and conversations with government officials to counteract what he called unfair coverage of his administration. Zelaya said all 500 radio stations and 100 television stations would be required to simultaneously air the reports two hours a day for 10 consecutive days. Broadcasters said the transmissions were to start late Monday.