SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - The doughnut stand’s exterior was plastic and studded with incandescent lights. It had its own humming generators. And the cold water for sale came in plastic bottles.

But unlike most of the hundreds of vendors at the Illinois State Fair, The Donut Family was in contention for the fair’s first-ever Green Vendor Award.

Why? It served its fare in paper.

At an institution where recycling became a possibility only a year ago, a vendor doing business without plastic foam is as green as it gets.

It’s the same across the country, as state and county fair organizers promote “going green” this summer but many are having difficulty following through.

“It’s a learning curve,” said Marla Calico, a director at the International Association of Fairs and Expositions, which represents state and county fairs in the United States and Canada. “A lot of it depends upon the fair’s community.”

Fairs in California and Washington are ahead of the curve, installing solar panels to generate electricity and converting used cooking oil into biofuel. Others, like Missouri, are introducing recycling bins for the first time.

The Illinois State Fair began setting up recycling bins for plastic bottles last year. But those are still scarce, compared with trash cans.

This year, the state Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity set up kiosks throughout the grounds promoting conservation. They have calculators where people can enter numbers to determine their impact on the Earth and learn how to minimize it.

“It’s a good way to attract families so that they can learn about, you know, small steps they can take to reduce their carbon footprint,” said Marcelyn Love, a spokeswoman for the department.

But organizers say the fair itself cannot cut back on energy use, or at least not by much. Vendors need electricity. Barns need to be cooled. If you don’t refrigerate display shelves, award-winning pies grow mold.

“There’s only so much you can reduce,” said fair director Amy Bliefnick. “We’ve tried to replace light bulbs. We can probably encourage more recyclable materials with our vendors.”

And there’s an image to maintain.

“Because we’re a fair, we like things bright and shiny, lights running and colorful,” said Susan Lavoie, vice president of the Eastern States Exposition, or the Big E, a multistate fair for New England.

Only recently have fairs like the Big E begun asking vendors to turn off lights when they’re done for the night.

“A lot of them used to just leave them running all night because it looks nice,” Lavoie said.

“Definitely we pull a lot of wattage,” said Sue Gooding, spokeswoman for the State Fair of Texas. “The rides that come in, when you’re talking about the types and sizes of exhibit buildings that we have, it is a massive undertaking.”

In California, a solar panel was installed this year that generated enough electricity to run amplifiers for an outdoor concert at Marin County’s fair. Organizers of that fair touted their event as the “greenest county fair on Earth.”

“We still had to use regular electricity to work the fans, the misters, to keep all the animals cool,” said Clara Franco, publicist for the Marin County fair. “It’s hard to go completely green. But that’s not to say that little things can’t be done here or there.”

There are hurdles, especially concerning the crowds.

The Big E provides recycling for vendors this year, but it doesn’t put out recycling bins for fairgoers — instead, workers pick out aluminum and glass from the trash.

“We found that to work better because the public doesn’t necessarily know the different bins,” Lavoie said.

Craig Perkins, director of The Energy Coalition, a nonprofit that promotes efficient energy use, says that if fairs are serious about going green they need to make better energy use and waste management a part of all their activities.

“The most important element is if they’re really taking it seriously, or if they’re just paying lip service,” he said.

There are big financial elements that can make fair organizers take conservation seriously — it costs Illinois more than $165,000 to haul away the fair trash, 37 tons a day for 10 days.

“Things are different now,” said Bliefnick, the Illinois State Fair director. “That’s our goal, though, is to change with the times.”

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On the Net:

Illinois State Fair: http://www.illinoisstatefair.info/

The Big E: http://www.thebige.com/

State Fair of Texas: http://www.bigtex.com/

BROOKLYN, Mich. - Carl Edwards looked in his mirrors and saw the guy he had to beat.

With two laps remaining and one final restart coming up in Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Michigan International Speedway, Kyle Busch — the only driver that Edwards trails in the points — was right on his rear bumper.

Edwards said he thought about the race last month at Chicagoland Speedway when Busch passed two-time reigning Cup champion Jimmie Johnson after a late-race restart for one of his season-high eight victories.

“I just didn’t want to have to go through the pain, so I just did everything I could to have the best restart I could, and it worked out great,” Edward said after racing away to his fifth win of the season.

And Edwards hopes that’s just a preview of what’s coming up in the Chase for the championship.

“We’re winning races,” Edwards said. “We’re gearing up for the Chase. I’m feeling stronger than ever. We’re here to win championships. That’s what we’re shooting for.”

With just three races remaining until the start of the 10-race Chase, Edwards closed the gap on series leader Busch with his second victory in the last three races. Edwards also completed a rare weekend sweep on the 2-mile Michigan oval, adding the win in the 3M Performance 400 to a victory Saturday in the Nationwide Series event.

While the 23-year-old Busch has had a great season, winning eight times and building a big lead in the regular-season points, Edwards, who turned 29 on Friday, has kept the youngster in sight.

When the 12-man Chase begins next month at New Hampshire, all of the eligible drivers will be seeded, with 10 bonus points added to their base total of 5,000 for each victory. Edwards lost one 10-point bonus because of a penalty early in the season, but would still be just 40 points behind Busch if the Chase began next week.

“The greatest part is we didn’t give up more bonus points to Kyle,” Edwards said. “He’s just so strong. Every time I win and he finishes second that’s really a 20-point spread for us. That’s what we have to keep doing, is to try and win the next three events and go into this Chase on even ground.”

Busch knows he has a battle on his hands.

“Carl’s right there,” he said. “He has been all year. Yeah, it’s a 20-point swing. We’ve got to live with it. Hopefully, we can make it up someplace else.”

Busch was just ahead of Edwards when they pitted under caution on lap 180 of the 200-lap event, but Edwards won the race out of the pits.

David Ragan and June Michigan winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. had stayed on track and were running 1-2, but Edwards easily passed them on the restart on lap 183 to retake the lead, then held off Busch on two more restarts, including the final one with just four miles remaining.

The victory gave Roush Fenway Racing co-owner Jack Roush his 19th overall victory and 11th Cup win — tying the Wood Brothers for the record — at the Michigan track, just down the road from his headquarters in Livonia, Mich.

Edwards became only the second driver to win both races on the same weekend at Michigan. Former Roush driver Mark Martin did it in 1993.

“The key was my crew today,” Edwards said. “My guys did an unbelievable job getting me off pit road.”

Edwards was pulling away at the end, building a lead of nearly 1.5 seconds before Denny Hamlin’s blown engine brought out the seventh and final caution flag of the day on lap 195. That moved Busch right up to the rear bumper of Edwards’ Ford as the green flag waved for the final time for the start of lap 199, but it wasn’t close as Edwards pulled out to a 15 car-length victory.

“(This was) very important,” said Bob Osborne, Edwards’ crew chief. “What we’re doing here is a little bit of practicing for the Chase and trying to get those 10 points to catch that 18 car. … Carl Edwards did a great job. The pit crew did a great job.”

“It just came down to when he beat us off of pit road,” Busch said. “That was it for us. We just didn’t quite have the car capable enough of being able to beat those guys. We were good on that one run, that one set of tires. But that was pretty much what we had.”

Roush Fenway took four of the top five spots with Ragan holding on to finish third, followed by teammates Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth, who bounced off the wall passing Martin, now driving a Chevrolet for Dale Earnhardt Inc., on the last lap.

Earnhardt Jr., who appeared to have one of the strongest cars in the early going, bounced off the wall in heavy traffic moments after being passed by Edwards on the late restart. He pitted and wound up finishing 23rd.

Earnhardt held onto fourth place in the standings, but several other drivers took a big hit in the race for the Chase. Kasey Kahne, who finished 40th with an engine failure, fell to 11th and Hamlin, who wound up 39th, dropped to 12th, the final spot in the Chase, just 26 points ahead of both Clint Bowyer and Ragan, tied for 13th.

Two-time reigning Cup champion Jimmie Johnson and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon, a four-time series champion, also had a tough day.

The two were involved in a three-wide bumping incident with two-time Cup champion Tony Stewart. Johnson had to pit immediately with a cut tire, lost a lap and wound up 17th after spinning through the grass on the final lap. The damage to Gordon’s car from the bump showed up a few laps later when he cut a tire and hit the wall, sending him to the garage for repairs. He finished 42nd.

Johnson remained third in the standings, but Gordon fell from sixth to ninth, 82 points in front of Bowyer and Ragan.

• Tonight: Partly cloudy skies. Low near 65F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
• Tomorrow: Mainly sunny. High 89F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph.
• Tomorrow night: Clear skies. Low 66F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
• Tuesday: Mainly sunny. High 88F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph.
• Wednesday: Mainly sunny. Highs in the upper 80s and lows in the mid 60s.
• Thursday: Abundant sunshine. Highs in the upper 80s and lows in the mid 60s.

RABUOR, Kenya - Loyce Mbewa-Ong’udi was late. Family and friends milled around her parents’ house in the green hills overlooking Lake Victoria, waiting for the daughter from America to return home.At last the taxi bounced over the ruts and made a sharp turn into the compound of small brick and stucco houses. Loyce sprang out to a shower of greetings in the Luo language, hugs, helping hands for 12 enormous suitcases crammed with anti-AIDS medicines, asthma inhalers, storybooks, pencils and sharpeners, recycled eyeglasses.

The supplies were for the Rabuor Village Project, which Loyce runs. In the crowd, she sought the woman who started it all: her mother, Rosemell Ong’udi.

This is the story of a village, spurred by two extraordinary women, rising from the depths of the AIDS epidemic to build a future for itself. In 10 years, with hardly any international aid, this poor farming community has founded a nursery school and feeding program, a pharmacy, a youth group and income-generating projects. The work touches more than 10,000 people in 10 villages and keeps growing.

But it’s not just a list of projects; it’s a change of heart. Rabuor’s work embodies what experts consider the most effective approach to development: “community-owned” programs in which residents, not just donors, set the priorities, and change comes from the bottom up.

District Commissioner Godfrey Kigochi, senior Kenya government official for Kisumu West, says he wishes he had a project like this in every village. Organizations that give money or lend expertise to the Rabuor project — Slum Doctors, Lift Kids, Pangea, Architects Without Borders — say the group is unique for its pragmatism and deep community roots. Rev. Charles Ong’injo, who blessed the work from the start, is helping other congregations launch similar projects.

Kenya’s AIDS rate has fallen since the 1990s, and far more people today are willing to go for testing and treatment. Still, about 14 percent of the district’s 160,000 people are infected, double the national rate.

The Rabuor project is about a lot more than AIDS prevention: It’s about people learning that they can better their own lives. Loyce, 52, bounds into a meeting and revs up the team, with the energy of the field hockey and track competitor she used to be.

Rosemell, 69, tall and sturdy, brings a quiet wisdom instead. She speaks in a girlish voice, and her laugh rumbles soft and low.

She began back in the 1990s, when AIDS was ripping the heart out of almost every family here. Yet people barely whispered about it because prostitutes and truckers were the early conduits of the disease.

Rosemell didn’t talk about AIDS either, but she talked about the orphans it left behind. She recalls that the children were “very bad in their bodies” because they didn’t have enough food.

She grew up without a father, helped raise her siblings, sometimes went without food herself. In 1998 she began giving the kids food from her own home. Then she turned to a women’s group she had founded to see “what we can do for these children, now we are their mothers and fathers.”

Worried about the orphans, Rosemell cut short a visit in 2001 to Loyce in Seattle. On her return, she asked Ong’injo if the women could use a room at the Rabuor church. She asked her husband, Wesley, a retired school headmaster, for money to hire a teacher. The women launched a nursery school.

When Loyce visited her childhood home months later, she saw how much had changed.

“I had a first-class community and village to bring me up. Everything a child could dream of, I had it,” she says. “People rarely died. The first one I knew, I was 18.”

But in Rabuor so many were dying that villagers spent much of their time and resources on funerals. Loyce, who once worked for the World Bank and the Gates Foundation, looked for a way to help.

She sent her salary. She asked people in her Seattle church to contribute. Then she and supporters founded Rabuor Village Project in 2003 as a nonprofit under U.S. law. The money trickling in helped buy land, build classrooms and hire teachers.

AIDS hit the Ong’udi family directly. Rosemell and Wesley — parents of 10, grandparents of 19 — buried two of their children, in 2004 and 2007, AIDS victims who each left behind a healthy child. Another of their children is HIV-positive but taking AIDS drugs.

But people were not ready to discuss AIDS; their focus was on feeding their families.

The first step was to increase crops, starting with corn. Next came projects to earn income, keep children in school and train adults in agriculture, nutrition, vocational skills. Conditions still remain basic: no running water, no electrical service, no cars, but a few cell phones.

Loyce, who calls her mother the Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr. of Rabuor, credits Rosemell’s political savvy for finding patrons. Ong’injo says the church’s backing shields the work from corrupt politicians. Rosemell’s son Kennedy helps navigate bureaucracy and politics as assistant chief.

Rosemell is stepping back, because she doesn’t want the work to be seen just as “Ong’udi’s thing.” The new “chair lady” of the 100-member Karateng Rabuor Women’s Group is Yuanita Ong’udi (not a relative). Projects include sunflowers for cooking oil, goats whose milk feeds the children, a donated truck they rent out and, always, help for the poorest.

The nursery school serves two hot meals and a hearty snack every day to 160 students. The Rabuor project pays 25 salaries, including four teachers, four cooks, a nurse and two pharmacists — people who volunteered before there was money for salaries. Community health workers survey 10 villages.

The youth group was born out of a meeting between Loyce and 150 angry youths in 2005, who felt the Rabuor project wasn’t helping them. The group now runs a beekeeping project, raises chickens and makes bricks. In a cultural breakthrough, young men and women teach school and adult groups about HIV prevention, AIDS testing and treatment, including condom use, abstinence, responsible sexuality and reduced mother-to-child transmission.

Dawnson Owuor, project manager, says the projects interconnect. For example, the youths rent land from the women’s group for their brickwork; when the women’s group builds a classroom, it buys bricks from the youths. The projects also help many of the 60 families who fled here during the violence after Kenya’s disputed presidential elections in December.

In Seattle, Loyce is the only person the project pays; the team relies on volunteers, including Carol Kinney, a nutritionist who conducted a feeding survey in Rabuor. Treasurer David Anstine, another volunteer, says money sent to Kenya rose from about $39,000 in 2005 to $165,000 in 2007.

Loyce is driven and admits to driving others. Early on, she chided people for wallowing in misery, as if they were saying, “I love the face of poverty. Darling poverty, live with me forever.”

But Loyce doesn’t own land or live here, and she recognizes the project can only succeed if villagers are involved. Kigochi, the district commissioner, says too many anti-AIDS groups offer training in hotels, at high cost; the Rabuor group works in the villages and “everyone appreciates it.”

Loyce’s work comes on top of full-time studies to complete a master’s degree in public administration, and she’s raising a daughter alone. She says she’s energized by “something in the children’s faces.” Collins Otieno is inspired by U.S. presidential contender Barack Obama, whose father came from this region. And Brenda Amoke, an orphan, greets her with news of high school success: “Mommy, I’m No. 1.”

In May, Rabuor registered an organization called Village by Village to link existing groups and expand into other communities. In June, Loyce launched a project, with Rotary Clubs, to pump drinking water to the village and for a vocational training center to teach tailoring, metalwork and computer skills.

This is not utopia. People work together, but they often disagree, sometimes sharply and publicly. For example, Owuor is excited about the expansion and about involving more men. But Kennedy Ong’udi, Rosemell’s son, fears the changes will distract from caring for orphans and widows, empowering women and girls. And Rosemell is concerned that too big a role for men may turn the projects toward personal gain. As she puts it, “Men have many pockets.”

The competing views are a sign of subsistence farmers becoming active citizens, of women speaking up. They are part of why people here believe their work will last, while many development projects collapse once the donors leave.

Loyce plans to find leaders like her mother in other communities and show them what a poor village can do. Her first day back in Rabuor, Loyce told a youth meeting she was proud to see so many girls and high school graduates.

She told them to plan what they want to do, then tell her how the Rabuor project can help.

Then she left so that they could be the ones to build their dreams.

___

On the Net:

http://www.rabuorvillageproject.org/

GREENSBORO, N.C. - Carl Pettersson joined the Wyndham Championship’s board of directors to bring a player’s perspective to its setup. He backed the move to Sedgefield Country Club because he figured the traditional-style course would attract a larger audience.

Golf News

Wyndham’s cross-town move works out for Pettersson

AP - 49 minutes agoGREENSBORO, N.C. - Carl Pettersson joined the Wyndham Championship’s board of directors to bring a player’s perspective to its setup. He backed the move to Sedgefield Country Club because he figured the traditional-style course would attract a larger audience.

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• 

  Funk wins JELD-WEN Tradition AP - Sun Aug 17, 9:18 PM ETSUNRIVER, Ore. - Even with a widening lead in the final found of the JELD-WEN Tradition, Fred Funk pretended he was trailing.

• 

  Hull wins Canadian Open for 1st LPGA Tour victory AP - Sun Aug 17, 8:52 PM ETOTTAWA - Australia’s Katherine Hull won the Canadian Women’s Open on Sunday for her first LPGA Tour title, taking advantage of Yani Tseng’s final-round meltdown for a one-stroke victory at Ottawa Hunt.

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  Harrington hopes majors lead to increased confidence AP - Sun Aug 17, 2:44 PM ETTRYON, N.C. - There’s little doubt Padraig Harrington’s victories at the British Open and PGA Championships mark him as one of the world’s best golfers.

• Luke Donald has surgery, out for the year AP - Tue Aug 12, 11:12 AM ETNEW YORK - Luke Donald has undergone surgery on his left wrist and will miss the remainder of the season, officially ending any hopes of playing on the Ryder Cup team for Europe.

• 

  Jack Nicklaus picking Team USA to win Ryder Cup AP - Mon Aug 11, 5:14 PM ETSELLERSBURG, Ind. - Jack Nicklaus isn’t worried about Tiger Woods’ absence hurting Team USA’s chances of winning the Ryder Cup next month at Valhalla in Louisville.

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  Harrington fills Tiger void with PGA win AP - Mon Aug 11, 6:15 AM ETBLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. - Everyone wondered who would fill the void with Tiger Woods recuperating and out of the last two majors.

• 

  PGA capping off a tough year in the majors AP - Sat Aug 9, 11:57 AM ETBLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. - Justin Leonard is among 11 players who have made the cut in all four majors this year, but he holds one dubious distinction among such a select group.

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  Even with his game in decline, Daly still a draw AP - Tue Aug 5, 4:47 AM ETBLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. - Kids reached out to touch him. Grown men shouted his name. Women smiled and begged for an autograph.

• 

  Singh finds range on short putts, wins Bridgestone AP - Mon Aug 4, 4:11 AM ETAKRON, Ohio - After hitting his golf ball more than 17 miles over four days at Firestone Country Club, Vijay Singh agonized over the final 42 inches.

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  Annika Sorenstam salutes fans but has no regrets AP - Sun Aug 3, 5:28 PM ETSUNNINGDALE, England - Huddled under an umbrella in the pouring rain, Annika Sorenstam walked up to the 18th green in the final round of her final major to take the cheers from the fans. A sign on the scoreboard said: “Annika, you will be missed.”

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  Wie misses cut; McLachlin’s 62 ties record at Reno AP - Fri Aug 1, 6:39 PM ETRENO, Nev. - Michelle Wie failed in her eighth attempt to make the cut on the PGA Tour, shooting a second-round 80 at the Legends Reno-Tahoe Open Friday. Parker McLachlin tied the course record with a 62 to take the lead into the clubhouse at 14-under par.

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  Wie ignores critics before PGA tournament AP - Fri Jul 25, 9:26 PM ETRENO, Nev. - Michelle Wie is set to play against the men on the PGA Tour again, and doesn’t care that some people think it’s a bad idea.

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  Rudy Giuliani’s son sues Duke over golf dismissal AP - Fri Jul 25, 2:41 AM ETDURHAM, N.C. - The son of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani is suing Duke University, claiming he was wrongfully kicked off the golf team.

• Stadler aces shortest Open hole and wins wine AP - Thu Jul 24, 6:52 AM ETTROON, Scotland - Craig Stadler has aced the shortest hole in British Open golf, the Postage Stamp at Troon, and earned a prize of 123 bottles of wine — one for every yard.

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  Wie DQ’d from State Farm over scorecard mishap AP - Sat Jul 19, 5:06 PM ETSPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Michelle Wie finished the third round of the State Farm Classic alone in second on Saturday — then was disqualified for failing to immediately sign her scorecard a day earlier.

SONORA, Calif. - A man was rescued from an abandoned gold mine Sunday after tumbling more than 100 feet and spending two nights at the bottom of the dark shaft, authorities said.

A search-and-rescue team pulled Darvis Lee Jr., 34, from the mine around 6 a.m. after lowering a rescue worker and a mesh basket into the chasm, the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Department said. He was treated at a hospital for back and leg injuries and released.

Lee, of Sonora, fell down the 100-foot shaft while exploring the mine Friday night. Authorities were contacted Saturday after a friend who went with him realized Lee had not returned home.

His rescue was briefly delayed while authorities waited for a search team to arrive from Los Angeles, about 300 miles to the southeast, with the right equipment and experience for the job. In the meantime, local authorities lowered Lee a helmet, food and water.

Lying in the back of a pickup truck, Lee apologized.

“I walked in there, and I fell. It was dark, and I didn’t know when I was going to stop,” he told the Union Democrat newspaper. “I’m so sorry; I’m so sorry.”

___

Information from The Union Democrat: http://www.uniondemocrat.com/

SINGAPORE - Oil prices rose Monday in Asia on concerns that Tropical Storm Fay may disrupt oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

Light, sweet crude for September delivery rose 56 cents to $114.33 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midafternoon in Singapore. The contract fell $1.24 on Friday to settle at $113.77 a barrel.

“There could be some supply disruption issues there so the market is watching this closely,” said Mark Pervan, senior commodity strategist at ANZ Bank in Melbourne.

Fay, the sixth storm of the 2008 Atlantic season, was slowing down early Monday and moving erratically, but forecasters still expected it to strengthen slowly to a hurricane. Fay has already killed at least five people after battering Haiti and the Dominican Republic with weekend torrential rains and floods.

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has evacuated about 360 staff from the Gulf of Mexico over the past two days.

At 300 GMT, Fay was centered about 275 kilometers (170 miles) southeast of Havana and 375 kilometers (235 miles) south-southeast of Key West, Florida, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

It had maximum sustained winds near 85 kph (50 mph) and was moving west-northwest at 17 kph (10 mph).

Forecasters expected the storm to begin moving more to the northwest later on Monday. Current models show the storm moving up the western coast of Florida, although forecasters still didn’t know exactly where it will make landfall.

So far during this year’s hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean, no storm has significantly damaged oil installations in the Gulf.

“The market will probably get through this hurricane news pretty quickly,” Pervan said.

A weaker dollar also supported oil prices. The euro strengthened to $1.4732 on Monday and the dollar was steady above 110 yen.

A falling dollar typically pushes oil prices higher as investors buy crude and other commodities as hedges against inflation.

A forecast from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries on Friday of lower global oil demand growth helped to keep prices from rising higher.

In its monthly oil report, the organization forecast world appetite for oil this year would grow by 1 million barrels a day, a reduction of 30,000 barrels a day from its previous forecast for demand growth for 2008. It also said growth for 2009 will be 900,000 barrels a day, which it said would be the lowest growth in world demand since 2002.

Demand growth from the major industrialized countries will actually decline, OPEC said, with non-OECD countries accounting for all oil demand growth next year.

“It’s another signal that conditions are easing,” Pervan said.

In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures fell 0.37 cent to $3.1154 a gallon (3.8 liters) while gasoline prices gained 0.48 cent to $2.865 a gallon. Natural gas futures fell 13.7 cents to $7.955 per 1,000 cubic feet.

PHOENIX - When Cedar Hemmings and his small party returned from a Grand Canyon hike to the spot where they had tied their rafts, they found that a flash flood had left them stranded. We were basically stuck up the canyon without or rafts,” he said. “We had no supplies, no food and very little water, we lost everything.”Hemmings and his group were airlifted out of the scenic gorge by helicopter Sunday, as were about 170 other people who were endangered by floodwaters created by days of heavy rains which at one point breached an earthen dam.

No injuries were reported, but dozens of people were spending the night at an American Red Cross evacuation center set up in the Hualapai Tribal Gymnasium in Peach Springs, Ariz..

Rescuers worked throughout Sunday to locate campers and Supai Village residents and safely transport them to the top of the canyon. About 400 Havasupai tribe members live in the village.

Rescuers will evaluate weather conditions and the level of floodwaters Monday morning to decide whether they can safely resume air evacuations, said Grand Canyon National Park spokeswoman Maureen Oltrogge.

Some individuals who were believed to be in the canyon at the time of the flooding are unaccounted for, according to a park service news release.

There were no confirmed reports of damage in Supai, which is on high ground, said Gerry Blair, a spokesman for the Coconino County Sheriff’s Department. Many residents and campers chose to stay there, he said.

“We’re not as concerned about it as we initially were,” he said.

Still, a flash flood warning remained in effect, and search and rescue teams planned to stay in the village overnight as a precaution.

Some hiking trails and footbridges were washed out after the dam breach about 45 miles from Supai, park officials said. Some trees were uprooted, the National Weather Service said.

The Redlands Earthen Dam broke about 6 a.m. Sunday, park officials said. The dam breaching was only one factor in the flooding, Blair said. The dam isn’t a “huge, significant” structure, he said.

The area got 3 to 6 inches of rain Friday and Saturday and about 2 inches more on Sunday, said Daryl Onton, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Flagstaff.

“That’s all it took — just a few days of very heavy thunderstorms,” he said.

Supai is about 75 miles west of the Grand Canyon Village, a popular tourist area on the South Rim.

The flooding came on a weekend during the busy summer tourist season, when thousands of visitors a day flock to the canyon.

In 2001, flooding near Supai swept a 2-year-old boy and his parents to their deaths while they were hiking.

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KEY WEST, Fla. - While some Key West businesses began putting up hurricane shutters in preparation for Tropical Storm Fay, tourists and residents still strolled lazily through town.Some even seemed jaded as they talked about the impending storm, which threatened to strengthen to a hurricane.

“We’ve seen worse than this in Omaha,” said Diego Sainz, who was visiting from Nebraska with his wife and friends. They had intended to leave Sunday but couldn’t get a flight out.

Farther east in Marathon, Joseph Kirby listened to classical music while he leisurely packed up patio furniture and made sure no projectiles were lying around his mobile home. In the 14 years 70-year-old Kirby has lived in the Keys, he said he’s only evacuated twice and said Tropical Storm Fay is nothing to worry about.

“It’s so hard to leave. You have to worry about break ins. If you’re here, you can keep an eye on things,” said Kirby, who gassed up both his cars and said he will leave if Fay strengthens to more than a Category 2 hurricane.

Traffic leaving Key West and the Lower Keys on Sunday afternoon was light but steady as the sky darkened with storm clouds and the National Weather Service issued watches and warnings.

A hurricane watch was in effect for most of the Keys and along Florida’s west coast to Tarpon Springs.

A tropical storm warning was in effect for the Florida Keys from Ocean Reef to Key West. A hurricane watch was in effect for most of the Keys and along Florida’s west coast to Tarpon Springs. A tropical storm watch was in effect for the southeast coast of Florida from Ocean Reef north to Jupiter Inlet.

Authorities said traffic was heavier in the Upper Keys, where the 110-mile, mostly two-lane highway that runs through the island chain meets the mainland. The Florida Highway Patrol sent in extra troopers to help and tolls were suspended on parts of the northbound turnpike.

Fay could start pelting parts of the Keys and South Florida late Monday or early Tuesday as a strong tropical storm or minimal hurricane. Aside from wind damage, most of the islands sit at sea level and could face some limited flooding from Fay’s storm surge.

Officials in the Keys and elsewhere planned to open shelters and encouraged or ordered people who live in low-lying areas and on boats to evacuate. Schools in the Keys were to be closed Monday and Tuesday.

Keys officials earlier Sunday had issued a mandatory evacuation order for visitors and asked those who had not yet arrived to postpone their trips. Officials said hotels and businesses won’t be forced to remove visitors, but they should use common sense.

Fay, the sixth storm of the 2008 Atlantic season, was expected to strengthen to a hurricane by the time its center crossed Cuba and began approaching the Keys. Fay has already killed at least five people after battering Haiti and the Dominican Republic with weekend torrential rains and floods.

At 2 a.m. EDT Monday, the storm’s center was located about 180 miles south-southeast of Key West and was moving toward the northwest near 13 mph. Maximum sustained wind speeds were near 50 mph. Forecasters expected the storm to begin moving to the north soon.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain was briefed Sunday on the storm by emergency officials after flying into Orlando for campaign events. A Monday fundraiser in Miami was canceled as a precaution.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist declared a state of emergency Saturday as an emergency operations center opened in Tallahassee. He urged Floridians “to remain calm, remain vigilant” and said 9,000 Florida National Guard troops were available, but only 500 were on active duty Sunday.

Maria Perez, 50, of Key West, prayed at a town shrine known as The Grotto, where an etching on a stone reads, “As long as the Grotto stands, Key West will never again experience the full brunt of a hurricane.” It was built in 1922 by nuns outside a Roman Catholic church, three years after a catastrophic storm. So far, the 86-year-old invocation has worked.

“I pray not to have the storm,” Perez said. “I am not afraid.”

Key West was last seriously affected by a hurricane in 2005, when Category 3 Wilma sped past. The town escaped widespread wind damage, but a storm surge flooded hundreds of homes and some businesses. The deadliest storm to hit the island was a Category 4 hurricane in 1919 that killed up to 900 people, many of them offshore on ships that sank.