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line prices in 18 months just as the last heavy driving weekend of the summer approaches.
• As Hurricane Isaac swamps the nation's oil and gas hub along the Gulf Coast, it's delivering sharply higher pump prices to storm-battered residents of Louisiana and Mississippi -- and also to unsuspecting drivers up north in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.
• The national average price of a gallon of gas jumped almost five cents Wednesday to $3.80, the highest ever for this date. Prices are expected to continue to climb through Labor Day weekend, the end of the summer driving season.
• "The national average will keep ticking higher, and it's going to be noticeable," says Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst at Gasbuddy.com
• The wide storm shut down several refineries along the Gulf Coast and others are operating at reduced rates. In all, about 1.3 million barrels per day of refining capacity is affected. So, it's no surprise that drivers in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida saw gas prices rise by a dime or more in the past week.
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• EL PASO, Texas (AP) -- The embalmed body of actor Sherman Hemsley, who became famous for his role as television's George Jefferson, will be kept in refrigeration at an El Paso funeral home until a local court rules on the validity of his will.
• In the will Hemsley signed six weeks before dying of lung cancer July 24 he named Flora Enchinton, 56, whom he called a "beloved partner," as sole beneficiary of his estate, which is estimated in court documents to be more than $50,000.
• The will is being contested by Richard Thornton, of Philadelphia, who claims to be Hemsley's brother and says the will might not have been made by the actor.
• Enchinton told The Associated Press on Wednesday that she had been friends with Hemsley and had been his manager for more than 20 years. Over the time she, Hemsley and Hemsley's friend Kenny Johnston, 76, lived together, she said he never mentioned any relatives.
• "Some people come out of the woodwork -- they think Sherman, they think money," Enchinton said. "But the fact it that I did not know Sherman when he was in the limelight. I met them when they (Hemsley and Johnston) came running from Los Angeles with not one penny, when there was nothing but struggle."
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