TECOLUTLA, Mexico— A sprawling Hurricane Dean slammed into Mexico for the second time in as many days Wednesday and quickly stretched across to the Pacific Ocean, then weakened as it drenched the central mountains with rain that flooded houses along the coast.

Coming ashore with top sustained winds of 100 mph, Dean's center hit the tourism and fishing town of Tecolutla shortly after civil defense workers loaded the last evacuees onto army trucks and headed to inland shelters.

There was no escaping the wide storm's hurricane-force winds, which lashed at a 60-mile stretch of the coast in Veracruz state.

"You can practically feel the winds, they're so strong," Maria del Pilar Garcia said by telephone from inside the hotel she manages in Tuxpan, a town some 40 miles north of where Dean made landfall. "I hope this passes quickly and the rivers don't overflow."

Sounds of crashing metal prompted farmer Moises Aguilar to take a dangerous risk in Monte Gordo, 20 miles down the coast from Tecolutla. At the height of the storm, he dashed outside his house, about 300 yards from the sea, and struggled against the wind as his neighbor's roof ripped apart.

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Bush says he supports Iraq's al-Maliki

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — President Bush, scrambling to show he still backs embattled Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, offered him a fresh endorsement on Wednesday, calling him "a good guy, good man with a difficult job."

"I support him," Bush said a day after he acknowledged frustration with the Iraqi leader's inability to bridge political divisions in his country. "It's not up to the politicians in Washington, D.C., to say whether he will remain in his position. It is up to the Iraqi people who now live in a democracy and not a dictatorship."

Bush's validation of al-Maliki, inserted at the last minute into his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, stole the spotlight from Bush's attempt to buttress support for the war by likening today's fight against extremism to past conflicts in Japan, Korea and Vietnam.

The president's speech — and another one like it next Tuesday — are intended to set the stage for a crucial report next month on the progress of the fighting and steps toward political reconciliation in Iraq. Democrats in Congress and some Republicans are pressing to start the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Arguing that the buildup of U.S. forces was showing results, Bush said, "Our troops are seeing this progress that is being made on the ground. And as they take the initiative from the enemy, they have a question: `Will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from under them just as they're gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq?"'

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Hundreds displaced by northern Ohio flood waters

FINDLAY, Ohio — Firefighters and a volunteer armada navigated boats through streets awash in waist-deep water Wednesday, plucking neighbors and pets from porches as flooding that has swamped the Upper Midwest and Plains settled in Ohio.

The water forced at least 500 people to flee their homes in several northern Ohio towns. Rising water forced authorities to move about 130 inmates at the county jail in Findlay to a regional prison.

Many neighborhood rescuers showed up with canoes and kayaks wanting to help during Findlay's worst flooding in nearly 100 years. Three men in a fishing boat ferried a mother and her 2-week-old daughter along with the family dogs.

"That was the catch of the day," said Angel Sanchez, the baby's neighbor.

Milk jugs, garbage bags and soda cans floated in the murky water. Tom Woods took his 8-foot fishing boat to help float out friends stranded in the neighborhood.

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Utah mine boss defends his handling of search efforts

HUNTINGTON, Utah — Lashing out at criticism he was abandoning six trapped coal miners, the mine chief promised Wednesday to keep searching through the weekend and punch yet another hole into "this evil mountain."

Bob Murray, the face of the rescue effort since the Aug. 6 cave-in, dropped from public view for a time after three men died trying to tunnel toward the miners, but he said he's always been focused on finding the six — dead or alive.

"I didn't desert anybody," Murray, the mine's co-owner, told The Associated Press. "I've been living on this mountain every day, living in a little trailer."

Later Wednesday, crews searching for the miners finished drilling a fifth hole into the Crandall Canyon Mine. Officials planned to bang on a drill bit and wait for a response, take air readings, and lower a microphone and camera, but said they expect the results to be the same as from the four previous tries: no sign of life.

Murray said a sixth exploratory hole would be drilled beginning Thursday if the latest attempt is unsuccessful. He said he might resume mining in other parts of the mine, but not in the area where the miners are trapped.

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Survey finds older people engage in sex until 70s, 80s

An unprecedented study of sex and seniors finds that many older people are surprisingly frisky — willing to do, and talk about, intimate acts that would make their grandchildren blush. That may be too much information for some folks, but it comes from the most comprehensive sex survey ever done among 57- to 85-year-olds in the United States.

Sex and interest in it do fall off when people are in their 70s, but more than a quarter of those up to age 85 reported having sex in the previous year. And the drop-off has a lot to do with health or lack of a partner, especially for women, the survey found.

The federally funded study, done by respected scientists and published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, overturns some stereotypical notions that physical pleasure is just a young person's game.

"Most people assume that people stop doing it after some vague age," said sex researcher Edward Laumann of the University of Chicago.

However, more than half of those aged 57 to 75 said they gave or received oral sex, as did about a third of 75- to 85-year-olds.

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Study finds Tyrannosaurus Rex could run up to 18 mph

LONDON — The Tyrannosaurus rex would have been able to outrun soccer star David Beckham, according to research published Wednesday by the Royal Society scientific academy.

Experts had argued previously that the 18-foot-tall T. rex's bulk would have meant it was a slow-moving scavenger, but new calculations using a supercomputer suggest the T. rex could run nearly 18 mph.

Scientists from the University of Manchester calculated the running speeds of five meat-eating dinosaurs that varied in size from a 6.6-pound Compsognathus to the 6.6-ton T. rex.

The fastest of the group was the Compsognathus, which could reach a top speed of 40 mph — 5 mph faster than the estimate for the fastest living animal on two legs, the ostrich, according to the study.

The Velociraptor, a 44-pound killer whose speed was a focus in the action movie "Jurassic Park," could run 24 mph, the team estimated.

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Foxy Brown jailed after probation is revoked

NEW YORK — Foxy Brown was hauled off to jail Wednesday after a judge revoked her probation. The 27-year-old rapper was accused of violating the terms of her release after she was arrested earlier this month on charges she smacked her neighbor with her cell phone. Authorities said Brown also skipped her anger management classes and traveled out of the city without permission.

"She has an air of entitlement about her," city Department of Probation lawyer Matilde Leo said at a hearing in Manhattan Criminal Court. "Probation is a privilege, not a right. ... She has finally abused that privilege to the point of no return."

Judge Melissa Jackson ordered Brown jailed until her next hearing on Sept. 7.

Brown, whose real name is Inga Marchand, was on probation for attacking two manicurists at a nail salon in 2004. She was arrested Aug. 14 on charges of assaulting Arlene Raymond, 25, on July 30 after the pair got into a fight over Brown blasting her car stereo near her home in Brooklyn.