Hurricane Philippe and tropical storm Rita formed in the North
Atlantic on Sunday, making them the eighth hurricane and
seventeenth tropical storm of the season. The US National
Hurricane Center (NHC) expects Rita to become a full-fledged
hurricane this week, amid fears that it could affect areas hard-
hit by deadly Hurricane Katrina. Now in the southern Bahamas,
Rita is expected to continue moving west, with its most likely
course taking it between Cuba and southern Florida into the Gulf
of Mexico. Hurricane warnings were issued late on Sunday
afternoon for parts of Cuba and the Florida Keys. Current
projections by the NHC indicate the storm will intensify over
the Gulf and eventually hit southern Texas Saturday morning, but
the paths of hurricanes are notoriously hard to predict days in
advance. An obvious concern is if its path should bend north,
toward hurricane-shattered New Orleans and surrounding areas of
Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Philippe formed further to
the east of Rita and is following a