TULUM, Mexico — Tens of thousands of tourists fled the beaches of the Mayan Riviera on Monday as monstrous Hurricane Dean roared toward the ancient ruins and modern oil installations of the Yucatan Peninsula.

Mexico's state oil company, Petroleos de Mexico, said it was evacuating all of its more than 14,000 offshore workers in the southern Gulf of Mexico, which includes the giant Cantarell oil field.

Cancun seemed likely to be spared a direct hit, but visitors abandoned its swank hotels to swarm outbound flights. Officials evacuated more rustic lodgings farther south, where Dean — which has killed at least 12 people across the Caribbean — was expected to smash ashore early Tuesday.

Dean already had winds of 150 mph as it brushed past the Cayman Islands on Monday, but the U.S. National Hurricane Center said the storm could grow even stronger — into a giant Category 5 hurricane — before striking Mexico. At 5 p.m. EDT, Dean was centered 230 miles east-southeast of Mexico's stunning seaside ruins of Tulum.

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U.S. MILITARY LOOKS TO REDUCE ROLE IN IRAQ

WASHINGTON — U.S. military officials are narrowing the range of Iraq strategy options and appear to be focusing on reducing the U.S. combat role in 2008 while increasing training of Iraqi forces, a senior military official said on Monday.

The military has not yet developed a plan for a substantial withdrawal of forces next year. But officials are laying the groundwork for possible overtures to Turkey and Jordan on using their territory to move some troops and equipment out of Iraq, the official said. The main exit would remain Kuwait, but additional routes would make it easier and more secure for U.S. troops leaving western and northern Iraq.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because internal deliberations are ongoing, emphasized that the discussions do not prejudge decisions yet to be made by President Bush. Those decisions include how long to maintain the current U.S. troop buildup and when to make the transition to a larger Iraqi combat role.

It is widely anticipated that the five extra Army brigades that were sent to the Baghdad area this year will be withdrawn by late next summer. But it is far less clear whether the Bush administration will follow that immediately with additional drawdowns, as many Democrats in Congress are advocating.

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HOTEL MAGNATE LEONA HELMSLEY DIES AT 87

NEW YORK — Leona Helmsley, the cutthroat hotel magnate whose title as the "queen of mean" was sealed during a tax evasion case in which she was quoted as snarling "only little people pay taxes," died Monday at age 87. Helmsley died of heart failure at her summer home in Greenwich, Conn., said her publicist, Howard Rubenstein.

Already experienced in real estate before her marriage, Helmsley helped her husband run a $5 billion empire that included managing the Empire State Building. She became a household name in 1989 when she was tried for tax evasion. The sensational trial included testimony from disgruntled employees who said she terrorized both the menial and the executive help at her homes and hotels.

That image of Helmsley as the "queen of mean" was sealed when a former housekeeper testified that she heard Helmsley say: "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."

Helmsley denied having said it, but the words followed her for the rest of her life.

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ROADSIDE BOMB KILLS GOVERNOR IN IRAQ

BAGHDAD — A roadside bomb killed a governor in southern Iraq on Monday, the second provincial boss assassinated in nine days and a likely prelude to an even more brutal contest among rival Shiite militias battling for control of some of Iraq's main oil regions.

Iraqi police blamed the attack on the powerful Mahdi Army, whose fighters are nominally loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr but have recently splintered as breakaway factions set their own course.

The showdowns in southern Iraq — pitting Mahdi groups against the mainstream Shiite group in parliament — could intensify as the British forces overseeing the south gradually withdraw in the coming months.

Meanwhile, a range of initiatives, both political and diplomatic, reached a near dizzying pace as the Sept. 15 deadline approached for the Bush administration to report to Congress on its Iraq policies.

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OFFICIAL SAYS MINERS MAY NOT BE FOUND

HUNTINGTON, Utah — A mine company attorney said Monday that safety experts believe drilling a bigger hole and sending a rescue capsule into the coal mine where six men have been trapped for two weeks is impossible because the mountain is too unstable.

"It's an unsafe activity," Murray Energy Corp. lawyer Chris Van Bever said, commenting a day after relatives of the six miners pleaded for rescue efforts to continue.

An outside safety expert and a miners' union official also spoke out Monday against reopening the mine to production.

Van Bever said there had been no decision yet to call off the rescue effort. Decisions about drilling a rescue hole and continuing with other rescue activities were being made jointly by federal and company officials in consultation with mining experts, he said.

The capsule had been considered a last option since three rescue workers were killed and six others injured Thursday as they tried to tunnel through rubble-filled mine passageways.

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WEB'S 'OBAMA GIRL' UPSETS OBAMA'S DAUGHTER

SALEM, N.H. — Obama girl has upset Obama's girls. The Web video of a scantily clad actress pledging her affection for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has been a hit online, but not in his own home. Obama says his 6-year-old daughter Sasha has noticed news coverage of the video.

"Sasha asked Mommy about it," Obama said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press. "She said, 'Daddy already has a wife' or something like that."

"I Got A Crush On Obama" stars an aspiring model and actress named Amber Lee Ettinger, aka Obama Girl. Her song, which has lines like "Universal healthcare reform, it makes me warm," has gotten more than 3 million hits and nearly 10,000 comments since being posted two months ago on YouTube, the online video-sharing site.

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PAIN MEDICINE USE HAS NEARLY DOUBLED

WASHINGTON — Retail sales of five leading painkillers nearly doubled over the last eight years, reflecting a surge in use by patients nationwide who are living in a world of pain, according to a new Associated Press analysis of federal drug prescription data.

The analysis reveals that oxycodone usage is migrating out of Appalachia to areas such as Columbus, Ohio, and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and significant numbers of codeine users are living in many suburban neighborhoods around the country.

The amount of five major painkillers sold at retail establishments rose 90 percent between 1997 and 2005, according to Drug Enforcement Administration figures.

More than 200,000 pounds of codeine, morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone and meperidine were purchased at retail stores during 2005, the most recent year represented in the data. That is enough to give more than 300 milligrams of painkillers to every person in the country.

Oxycodone, the chemical used in OxyContin, is responsible for most of the increase. Oxycodone use jumped nearly six-fold between 1997 and 2005. The drug gained notoriety as "hillbilly heroin," often bought and sold illegally in Appalachia. But its highest rates of sale now occur in places such as suburban St. Louis and Fort Lauderdale.

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STOCKS END MOSTLY HIGHER

NEW YORK — Stocks closed mostly higher Monday as investors appeared relieved that little bad news emerged about risky mortgages and shrinking credit markets. Still, many on Wall Street were still seeking safety, and pressed into shorter-term Treasurys.

The market endured back-and-forth trading following a rally Friday that came in response to the Federal Reserve's decision to lower its discount rate. The Fed said at the time it stood ready to make further moves to keep credit and stock market losses from hurting the economy, but because it stopped short of a cut in the more important federal funds rate, uncertainty lingered on Wall Street Monday about policymakers' intentions. The Fed is not scheduled to meet formally until Sept. 18, which means investors could remain jittery until then.

Brian Levitt, corporate economist at OppenheimerFunds Inc., said the Fed's move, while helpful, won't erase all the market's unease.

"Fed action certainly doesn't make unsound credit sound. It allows some confidence for the higher quality deals to get done. It's more psychological. It provides confidence that the Fed will be a stopgap and a lender of last resort."

Treasury bonds, which have rallied in recent weeks as investors fled to safe-haven securities, continued their move higher Monday. Because bond prices move opposite their yields, the yields on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell to 4.63 percent from 4.68 late Friday, while the shorter-duration notes saw yields fall sharply as some investors wagered that the Fed might be forced to lower interest rates and therefore avoided longer-duration notes.

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KRISTEN BELL SIGNS ON FOR 'HEROES' STINT

DETROIT — Kristen Bell is going from solving mysteries to being a part of one. The 27-year-old actress, who starred for three seasons as teenage detective Veronica Mars on the now-canceled show of the same name, will appear in a multi-episode arc on NBC's "Heroes" this fall.

"This was not easy to pull off. But since we're an ensemble show, with many arcs playing out through the year, we found a way to jump into a small window in her schedule," Tim Kring, the show's executive producer and creator, said in a statement Monday.