Hurricane Track Turns to the Right

Hurricane Rita is throwing a bit of a curve.
The huge storm has made a sharper-than-expected turn to the right. It's now on a course that could spare Houston and nearby Galveston, Texas, a direct hit.

Forecasters predict it will come ashore late Friday or early Saturday somewhere along a 350-mile stretch of the Texas and Louisiana coast. The area is marked by Port Arthur, Texas, near the midpoint.

At last report, Rita was about 350 miles southeast of Galveston and was moving at near ten miles-per-hour. Its winds were near 145 miles-per-hour, 30 miles-per-hour weaker than earlier today.

Rita's course is taking it toward the country's biggest concentration of oil refineries, and closer to New Orleans, which is still devastated by Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans is under a tropical storm warning.