World IN BRIEF : INDIA : At Least 491 Dead in Monsoon Floods

Soldiers used boats to rescue villagers huddled on rooftops in northern India, where monsoon floods have killed at least 491 people in three weeks and devastated the nation’s breadbasket. The floods are said to be the worst in five years in the states of Punjab and Haryana, an area that produces 80% of the nation’s food grains such as rice and wheat. At least 310 people have died there. Another 87 people have died in Himachal Pradesh, Jammu-Kashmir, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh states, and 94 have perished in the western state of Gujarat.