MIAMI – Forecasters say the first Atlantic hurricane of the season has made landfall in northeastern Mexico.

The Category 2 storm churning in the Gulf of Mexico has sustained winds of near 105 mph (155 kph). The National Hurricane Center says it made landfall about 10 p.m. EDT Wednesday at Soto La Marina along the coast.

The storm is far from the Gulf oil spill, but cleanup vessels were sidelined by the hurricane’s ripple effects. Six-foot waves churned up by the hurricane splattered beaches in Louisiana, Alabama and Florida with oil and tar balls.

Hurricane Alex flooded roads and forced thousands of people to evacuate fishing villages.

It is moving west at about 10 mph (17 kph). It is about 110 miles (165 kilometers) south of Brownsville, Texas.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

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GULF SHORES, Ala. – Word spread quickly that Jimmy Buffett was putting on a free show at his sister’s restaurant along the Alabama coast and he didn’t disappoint.

Buffett sang a few tunes at Lulu’s Wednesday night in Gulf Shores. His sister, Lucy Buffett, owns the restaurant. Hundreds showed up at Homeport Marina after word spread through Facebook and the local grapevine.

Buffett was supposed to play a free concert with other stars on the beach on Thursday to help bring in tourists back to coast that’s been stained by the massive Gulf oil spill.

But organizers had to cancel because of high surf from Hurricane Alex. The beach concert is now set for July 11.

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NEW ORLEANS – With hurricane-whipped waves pushing more oil onto the Gulf of Mexico‘s once-white beaches, the government pinned its latest cleanup hopes Wednesday on a huge new piece of equipment: the world’s largest oil-skimming vessel.

The Taiwanese-flagged former tanker named the “A Whale” is the length of 3 1/2 football fields and stands 10 stories high. It just emerged from an extensive retrofitting to prepare it specifically for the Gulf, where officials hope it will be able to suck up as much as 21 million gallons of oil-fouled water per day.

“It is absolutely gigantic. It’s unbelievable,” said Louisiana State University environmental sciences professor Ed Overton, who saw the ship last week in Norfolk, Va.

As the monstrous vessel made its way toward the Gulf Coast, large waves churned up by distant Hurricane Alex left Alabama beaches splattered with oil and tar balls the size of apples. The rough seas forced most smaller skimming boats into port for a second consecutive day, putting many cleanup crews at a standstill.

The ship looks like a typical tanker, but it takes in contaminated water through 12 vents on either side of the bow. The oil is then supposed to be separated from the water and transferred to another vessel. The water is channeled back into the sea.

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LOS ANGELES – A top county official called Wednesday for banning raves at the LA Memorial Coliseum after a 15-year-old girl died of a suspected drug overdose and dozens of people were injured at a weekend party that drew a crowd of 185,000.

The uproar over last weekend’s rave has grown by the day as new details emerge about the mayhem and drug abuse that filled the Coliseum in an event that featured carnival rides, light shows and appearances by techno star Moby and Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas.

Videos of the event show a generally peaceful crowd dancing to the music, but as evening falls the Coliseum’s football field becomes tightly packed with revelers. At one point, as people leap over a fence to move from the seating area to the field, one of the performers launches into an expletive-filled tirade from the stage, demanding that the crowd violently push them back.

Sasha Rodriguez was one of an estimated 185,000 people attending the 14th annual Electric Daisy Carnival when she collapsed. She died at a hospital Tuesday after being removed from life support, said Lt. Larry Dietz of the county coroner’s office.

She was treated for drug intoxication, but doctors won’t know the specific cause of her death until toxicology tests are completed.

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BEIJING (Reuters) –
The pace of Chinese manufacturing growth slowed in June as government steps to cool the red-hot property market and restrain bank lending combined with uncertainty over export prospects to dampen sentiment.

The official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) fell to 52.1 in June from 53.9 in May, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP) said on Thursday.

The reading was the lowest since February and was weaker than the median forecast of 53.1 in a Reuters poll of 10 economists.

It is the 16th straight month that the official PMI has stood above the threshold of 50 that demarcates expansion from contraction.

But Zhang Liqun, a government economist, said the survey pointed to what he described as a “steady slowdown” in the broader economy.

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