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howling winds early Wednesday before possibly crossing the country as a hurricane.
• The island's international airports prepared to close, cruise ships changed their itineraries and police ordered 48-hour curfews in major towns to keep people off the streets and deter looting as the late-season storm was expected to rake Jamaica from south to north at midday.
• The 18th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season was forecast to pass over or near Jamaica and then spin on into eastern Cuba by Wednesday evening. It was expected to pass west of the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, where pretrial hearings are being held for a suspect in the deadly 2000 attack on the destroyer USS Cole off Yemen.
• Across Jamaica, poor people in ramshackle shantytowns and moneyed residents in gated communities were jittery about Sandy's approach. Many sections of the debt-shackled country have crumbling infrastructure, and a lack of building codes has resulted in some middle-class homes and tin-roofed shacks being built close to steep embankments and gullies.
• Dangerous flash floods and mudslides set off by Sandy were a threat for the island of roughly 2.7 million inhabitants, Jamaica's meteorological service said.
• ___

• BOSTON (AP) -- Water from a leaking boiler collected just outside a room that was supposed to be sterile. Floor mats used by technicians were filled with dirt and debris. Drugs were shipped out before the company even confirmed they were sterile.
• State officials said Tuesday that they found these and other problems at the New England Compounding Center during a preliminary investigation into the company, linked to a deadly outbreak of meningitis.
• The probe can't yet conclusively prove what caused the outbreak, a top health official said. In the meantime, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said he wants to tighten oversight at similar companies, including with surprise inspections -- the first of which happened Tuesday.
• The state has also moved to permanently revoke the company's operating license, as well as the licenses of its top three pharmacists.
• "Those whose laboratory practices caused this outbreak should never practice

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