Port City

When Jo Ann Koch moved to Long Beach in 1962 from her tiny hometown of Rockford, Iowa, she was far from alone. The port city was dubbed "Iowa by the Sea," and drew tens of thousands of her Midwest compatriots to its annual Iowa picnics. Everyone in Southern California back then seemed to be from somewhere else. While this perception was more trope than truth, more residents did come from out of state than were born here, going back to the region's bean field and cattle ranch days.

Giovanni Trecroce, the deputy mayor of this port city, was shot to death early Thursday as he arrived home after a late-night City Council meeting, police said.

The expolsion of two sticks of dynamite rocked the northern Lenanese port city of Tripoli on Friday, causing slight damage but no casualties, police said.

Kidnapers holding U.S. Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins said in a statement today that they have sentenced him to death as a spy for Israel. "We have issued the irrevocable sentence to execute this American spy," said the typewritten statement in Arabic signed by the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth and delivered to the Beirut newspaper An Nahar. Higgins, 43, of Danville, Ky., was head of a 76-man observer group attached to the U.N.

Islamist forces were poised to take over Somalia's strategic southern port city of Kismayo after the warlord in charge of the region fled, witnesses and officials said. Witnesses said that the city was calm and that there was no sign it had been seized by the Conservative Council of Islamic Courts, whose advances since June have challenged the authority of the militarily weak interim government, backed by the West and regional power Ethiopia.

A strike by militant Sunni Muslims who threatened to kill anyone who defied them shut down the port city of Karachi on Sunday. Seven people were killed in drive-by shootings. The strike was called to protest the slaying of eight Sunni worshipers at a mosque Dec. 8. The militant Sunni group Soldiers of the Friends of the Prophet blamed militant Shiite Muslim rivals for the violence.