/
/
blog-heap o' links
from
2005-jul
Just random links galore. Latest on top.
Links load in a separate page.
Suggestions welcome.
SUN 2005-JUL-31
Extraterrestrial
apnews.myway.com/ ... 22:41:18
A couple short strips of fabric dangling from Discovery's belly may require an unprecedented repair by spacewalking astronauts, if engineers determine there's even a possibility that the problem could endanger the shuttle during descent...
Whiners
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:03:34
Author Terry Pratchett has complained that the status of Harry Potter author JK Rowling is being elevated "at the expense of other writers"...
Digital Culture
foxnews.com/ ... 22:38:05
Getting chipped means
having a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip implanted in your body.
The chip about the size of a large grain of rice lies dormant until a special scanner is passed within six inches of the implant. Then it emits a radio signal that beams a 16-digit number to the scanner. For security uses, that 16-digit number acts like an electronic key. For medical uses, the number is linked to medical records. Doctors to whom you've granted access emergency room doctors, for example can use the key to quickly get hold of your medical records. Who would want such a thing? That depends on how you ask...
military.com/ ... 08:43:12
Ollie North: These e-mailing, web-surfing, call-'em as you see-'em bloggers are the electronic equivalent of the pamphleteers who brought about our revolution. Today they "pass the word" faster than an official spokesman can draft a denial. They are the small "d" democrats of the new "news business" - and more believable to many than what is presented on the tube or in the paper.
World Without Borders
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:03:04
A convoy of Russian military vehicles has left the Black Sea port of Batumi, marking the start of the closure of Moscow's military bases in Georgia... There have been Russian garrisons in Georgia for more than two centuries...
Science Marches Onnnnnn
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:02:28
Just five weeks ago, Ronnie Moore could not do what most people take for granted - cough and clear his lungs. Now Moore, a quadriplegic, coughs by simply pressing a button on a control box on the tray of his wheelchair... Moore's
cough was the first performed electronically by a quadriplegic...
Violence
reuters.myway.com/ ... 22:42:06
A policeman fatally shot a U.S. tourist in increasingly violent northern Mexico in an apparent accident...
Disinformation Propaganda & Spin
drudgereport.com/ ... 22:40:48
Helen Thomas is plenty peeved at her longtime friend Albert Eisele, editor of THE HILL newspaper... Thomas said yesterday at the White House that her comments to Eisele were for his ears only.
"I'll never talk to a reporter again!" Thomas was overheard saying. "We were just talking -- I was ranting -- and he wrote about it. That isn't right. We all say stuff we don't want printed,"
Thomas said. But Eisele said that when he called Thomas, "I assume she knew that we were on the record..."
Digital Threat
post-gazette.com/ ... 14:58:03
Time to change the way we measure time, according to a U.S. government proposal
that businesses favor, astronomers abominate and Britain sees as a threat to its venerable standard, Greenwich Mean Time... Eliminating leap seconds will make sextants and sundials slowly become inaccurate, but supporters say that's OK now that the satellite-supported GPS can give exact longitude and latitude bearings to anyone with a receiver... Ending leap seconds would make the sun start rising later and later by the clock -- a few seconds later each decade. To compensate, the U.S. has proposed adding in a "leap hour" every 500 to 600 years...
wired.com/ ... 14:54:24
A vulnerability in many hotel television infrared systems
can allow a hacker to obtain guests' names and their room numbers from the billing system. It can also let someone read the e-mail of guests who use web mail through the TV, putting business travelers at risk of corporate espionage. And it can allow an intruder to add or delete charges on a hotel guest's bill or watch pornographic films and other premium content on their hotel TV without paying for it...
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 14:53:48
Over the past fortnight Israeli intelligence agents have noticed something distinctly odd happening on the internet.
One by one, Al-Qaedas affiliated websites have vanished until only a handful remain...
The Israelis detect the hand of British intelligence...
Natural Threat
kare11.com/ ... 14:51:30
A woman was severely injured after she was attacked by a black bear Friday evening in Carlton County [Minnesota]... Mary Lou Munn, 50, was found lying in her front yard in Holyoke Township at about 5:30 p.m. with several severe cuts to her leg, back, stomach and shoulder area... told sheriff's deputies she was walking in the woods by a nearby beaver pond when the attack occurred. She fought the bear with a small stick and her fists and her dog tried to help her, but the bear chased the dog off and continued attacking her... walked a quarter mile back to her home after the bear stopped attacking her and called police...
Missing
turnto10.com/ ... 22:48:29
Police said Sunday that a Connecticut boy who vanished during a Yankees game Saturday ran away...
guardian.co.uk/ ... 22:47:51
A volunteer group searching for a missing Alabama teenager dug through a landfill for a third day Sunday but found no clues, a spokesman for the group said.
newsday.com/ ... 09:01:18
A
13-year-old boy
from Stamford, Conn.,
who disappeared from a men's room
in Yankee Stadium,
has been found
in Queens... no information on how the boy had left Yankee stadium in the Bronx undetected and traveled to Queens... has no behavioral or mental problems and no history of running away...
London 2005-July
foxnews.com/ ... 22:33:19
British police arrested eight people Sunday in connection with the botched July 21 London transit bombings and also were reportedly investigating the attackers' ties to Saudi Arabia and Italy...
cbc.ca/ ... 14:50:15
The four suspected bombers arrested by British and Italian police are "dopey" and "not very bright" and will prove to be an intelligence gold mine, a former senior Scotland Yard officer said Saturday... The four, who he said drank, smoked dope and womanized, in contrast with the austere life of religiously motivated attackers, were susceptible to suggestion by their recruiters...
telegraph.co.uk/ ... 09:01:48
A Pakistani who
led a mass prayer ceremony for one of the London suicide bombers
at his ancestral village in the Punjab
has been arrested
as part of President Pervez Musharraf's anti-terrorism clampdown...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 08:44:52
With all those suspected of carrying out the two sets of attacks believed dead or in custody, investigators were working to unravel the strands of the two plots. Police were searching for those who may have recruited and directed the bombers, while also seeking links between the terror cells, one believed to be made up mostly of Pakistani Britons, the other mainly of East African immigrants to London. The Sunday Times reported that
investigators believed a third terror cell was still at large...
foxnews.com/ ... 08:43:49
ROME A suspect in the failed London transit bombings admitted Saturday to a role in the attack but said it was only intended to be an attention-grabbing strike, not a deadly one...
[ehhhnnn... hang 'im anyway :)]
Iraq
military.com/ ... 08:39:43
The Administration and the Pentagon wanted "free elections" in Iraq. They also wanted a secular form of government, which means a democracy with a parliamentarian form of National Assembly. Well, they got their elections, but will they get their secular form of government? I do not think so...
military.com/ ... 08:38:48
All that blood, sacrifice and billions of American taxpayer dollars went for naught because politicians hadn't worked out the endgame before Round One. And then their solution-without-honor was to lie their way out of a no-win war. Thirty-five years later, President Bush told the nation that Iraq had nine fully trained combat infantry battalions. Just as he was proclaiming the prowess of the Iraqi army, a major in the Iraqi Training Command told me that the soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, when committed to their first battle, threw down their weapons and ran. "Not sure where the president is getting his info, but we have only one battalion that's good-to-go," he said...
SAT 2005-JUL-30
Unclear on the Concept
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 23:34:21
Jimmy Carter, in Britain: "I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A...I wouldn't say it's the cause of terrorism, but it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts...What has happened at Guantanamo Bay ... does not represent the will of the American people.. I'm embarrassed about it, I think it's wrong. I think it does
give terrorists an unwarranted excuse to use the despicable means to hurt innocent people..."
Beatles - still with us
bloomberg.com/ ... 09:02:32
A
handwritten lyric of the Beatles song, "All You Need is Love," sold for a hammer price of 600,000 pounds ($1 million)
last night at a sale of John Lennon memorabilia in London's Hippodrome rock-music venue...
telegraph.co.uk/ ... 09:01:49
George Harrison's widow has overseen the remastering of the film and music of his
1971 Concert For Bangladesh into a high-definition DVD
, a vast project the former Beatle had to abandon when he became ill. Olivia Harrison said: "It's really stunning. It's been blown up from the original 16 mm to 70 mm. George wanted to get a full soundtrack. Now, you'll be watching a really beautiful film..."
Digital Future is Now
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:24:19
A scientist in the UK has
proposed that the unique pattern inside each individual's ear could be used as a biometric identifier.
..
[what I can't believe is that this hasn't been thought of years ago!]
"If you compare it with faces, the advantage of these is that they're both non-invasive biometrics - you don't have to make contact. But the disadvantage with faces is that they smile, they get old, you get wrinkles.. Your ear just carries on growing and it preserves its structure as you get older. "That makes it quite advantageous in terms of biometrics..."
Only Natural
gjsentinel.com/ ... 23:17:23
FORT COLLINS, Colo. Never mind officials voiding a
$50 ticket for indecent exposure
, or an explanation from county officials that a ranger who
issued the citation to the breast-feeding mother
was inexperienced. Dorian Ryan said she wants an apology for what she called a "humiliating and degrading" experience. "This isn't right. Women shouldn't be harassed for breast-feeding their children," Dorian Ryan said...
US Military
voanews.com/ ... 23:16:42
Uzbek officials have formally terminated an agreement allowing the United States to use an air base in southeastern Uzbekistan, ending a nearly four-year-old deal under which the United States was able to provide support for U.S. operations in Afghanistan. The termination follows criticism from the United States and other countries of Uzbek President Islam Karimov over the reported killing of hundreds of civilians by Uzbek security forces in May...
komotv.com/ ... 09:05:14
a Douglas SBD-5 Dauntless dive bomber. On Feb. 15,1945 it carried Ensign Matthew McFarland and Lt. Jesse Battenfeld to their deaths as they vanished on a routine flight from Sand Point Naval Air Station. The wreckage was found 7-months later but 60 years later the wreckage and the remains of the two men are still there. So for the first time in Washington state,
the same military teams that bring MIA remains home from Cambodia and Vietnam are in Cle Elum to bring these men home too...
Natural vs Transport
telegraphindia.com/ ... 09:04:16
Using a single inflatable tube as a lifeboat and sarees coiled into ropes, they saved over 150 people cowering on three public buses as floodwaters rose to 10 feet around them...
Justice?
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 08:49:12
Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was attacked by an unidentified man after questioning by the Iraqi special tribunal on Thursday, his lawyers say. The former president was attacked as he was leaving the courtroom, and there was an exchange of blows, his legal team said in a statement. However, a US military spokeswoman denied that any such incident happened...
World Without Borders
ap.tbo.com/ ... 08:48:26
ARKADELPHIA, Ark. - When immigration authorities raided a poultry plant and took away more than 100 employees to face deportation, some workers were able to call home and arrange care for their children. But about
30 children
, some as young as 3 months old, were
left behind with no parents after the arrests...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 00:13:38
Army Pvt.
Ernesto R. Guerra
, 20, of Long Beach, Calif., died July 29 in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries sustained on July 28 in Baghdad, Iraq, when his HMMWV was involved in an accident.
defenselink.mil/ ... 00:13:16
Marine Lance Cpl.
Christopher P. Lyons
, 24, of Shelby, Ohio, died July 28 when his unit came under attack by enemy small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades while conducting combat operations in Cykla, Iraq.
defenselink.mil/ ... 00:12:58
Army Spc.
Edward L. Myers
, 21, of St. Joseph, Mo., died July 27 in Samarra, Iraq, where his unit was conducting patrol operations and an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV.
defenselink.mil/ ... 00:12:41
Army Spc.
Jacques E. Brunson
, 30, of Americus, Ga.
Army Staff Sgt.
Carl R. Fuller
, 44, of Covington, Ga.
Army Sgt.
James O. Kinlow
, 35, of Thomson, Ga.
Army Sgt.
John F. Thomas
, 33, of Valdosta, Ga.
died on July 24, in Baghdad, Iraq, where an improvised explosive device detonated near their HMMWV while they were on patrol.
defenselink.mil/ ... 00:11:43
Marine Cpl.
Andre L. Williams
, 23, of Galloway, Ohio, died July 28, when his unit came under attack by enemy small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades while conducting combat operations in Cykla Village, Iraq.
defenselink.mil/ ... 00:11:24
Army Capt.
Benjamin D. Jansky
, 28, of Oshkosh, Wis., died July 27 in Al Taqaddum, Iraq, where his HMMWV was accidentally struck by another military vehicle.
Threats
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 23:35:20
Israel has drawn up a
battle plan to eradicate Osama bin Laden's terrorist network within a few years
a plan that is being studied by military and intelligence leaders by other nations involved in the war against Islamic terrorism, reports Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin... [link is an ad]
Missing
tuscaloosanews.com/ ... 23:36:16
Police and volunteers used heavy equipment, shovels and trained dogs to
pick through a landfill Saturday where a witness claims he saw men dumping the body of a blonde-haired woman
two days after U.S. teenager Natalee Holloway vanished...
newsday.com/ ... 23:18:48
A
13-year-old boy
from Stamford, Conn., was
missing Saturday afternoon
after he disappeared
from a men's room Friday night on his first trip to Yankee Stadium...
Police Riot
suntimes.com/ ... 23:16:20
The manufacturer of Taser stun guns vowed Friday to seek a court review of a ruling by the Cook County medical examiner's office that one of the company's devices caused the death of man in Chicago. The
medical examiner's office found the electrical shock from a Chicago Police sergeant's Taser was the primary cause of Ronald Hasse's Feb. 10 death
, the first ruling of its kind in the nation. Methamphetamine intoxication was listed as a contributing cause...
Industrial Threat
seattletimes.nwsource.com/ ... 09:06:29
Cement supplies are tight across much of the country...
The shortage has driven the price of cement, one of the primary ingredients in concrete, up about 12 percent nationwide in the last year... In Spokane, shortages forced hardware stores to ration bagged cement this spring, and some builders had to lay off workers for lack of raw material... The shortage, along with the tight supply of structural steel, has contributed to sharply rising construction costs...
Sex can be Dangerous
kutv.com/ ... 23:20:46
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah A mother is upset after a 14-year-old babysitter engaged in sexual conduct with her eight-year-old boy, and the
eight-year-old was charged with lewd conduct...
Salt Lake County District Attorney told her both the child and teenager were equal participants. But Mrs. Grosbeck didnt believe that. My son is eight, hes a little boy. He does not have the ability to participate on the same level as a fourteen-year-old,... Although the charges against her son were dropped, she is concerned that the same thing could happen to other victims of sexual abuse. I dont want parents to be afraid to go to the state agencies that are supposed to be protecting our children when things like this happen, out of fear that their children are going to be charged...
nydailynews.com/ ... 09:01:12
The Gramercy Park man, who blacked out during what appears on credit card bills to be a
$40,000 evening of Hefnerian debauchery,
says he was really the victim of eight gold-digging escorts. "The poor guy is embarrassed to death," said Kevin Claffey, attorney for Monfredo, 33. "The problem is, he doesn't remember a lot..."
London 2005-July
foxnews.com/ ... 08:45:09
A suspect in the attempted bombings of July 21 in London was reportedly cooperating with investigators on Saturday... providing information that led police to search the country for his contacts... Osman Hussain... a Briton with Ethiopian citizenship...
Transport Tragedy
ap.tbo.com/ ... 23:21:46
DODDRIDGE, Ark. -
A tour bus and a pickup truck collided Saturday
on a highway in southwest Arkansas,
injuring 31 people.
.. The bus was carrying members of a church youth group that was returning to Baton Rouge, La., from a trip to Tulsa, Okla...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:03:18
One train rear-ended another on the "California Screamin'" roller coaster at Disney's California Adventure theme park Friday night, slightly injuring 15 people...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:02:58
Two cars on a roller coaster at Disney's California Adventure theme park collided Friday evening, injuring 60 people...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:02:42
More than
20 vehicles collided Friday on an interstate in northeastern Nevada
after drivers were blinded by swirling dust and ash, killing at least four people and injuring a dozen others...
Violence
ap.tbo.com/ ... 08:48:37
A car bomb exploded Saturday near the National Theater in Baghdad, killing five people, including three policemen
ap.tbo.com/ ... 08:45:48
Two security contractors guarding a British consulate convoy in southern Iraq were killed Saturday by a roadside bomb...
two Iraqi children were seriously injured when a second device exploded five minutes after the convoy was targeted...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:01:56
Two bombs exploded Friday on highways in central Spain
after a warning was phoned in to a newspaper from the armed Basque separatist group ETA... a day after Spanish politicians expressed hope that the Irish Republican Army's announcement that it was laying down arms might encourage ETA to do likewise...
FRI 2005-JUL-29
Sex -- always attractive
cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ ... 23:59:10
A German company is looking to cash in on an expected boom in the sex trade during next year's soccer World Cup with
a 60-room brothel a walk away from Berlin's Olympic Stadium..
. Named after the virgin huntress of Greek mythology, the "Artemis" complex is due to open for business in September with whirlpool, sauna, cinema, buffet restaurant and a staff of 100 prostitutes...
Sportsmanship
ap.tbo.com/ ... 16:04:31
An umpire ordered players on a local Little League team to stop speaking Spanish
during a state tournament game this week, a decision the coach said demoralized the team and cost it the game...
Whoops!
foxnews.com/ ... 13:07:19
tried to rob a coffee shop in the same building as the FBI... Carl Spicocchi, head of the Toledo FBI office, was standing in line...
Digital Culture
today.reuters.com/ ... 16:05:21
Imagine being able to pay for a song on the jukebox, buy a bag of groceries or gain admission to a sports arena by simply waving your phone by a machine. With consumers in Asia and Europe already using their mobile phones to pay for soda and parking fees, the long discussed concept of the wireless wallet could be slowly creeping closer to reality in the United States...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:43:51
The US authorities have charged eight people in connection with the illegal trading of copyrighted films, music, games and software over the net... said they were key members of online piracy networks...
History - still with us
ap.tbo.com/ ... 16:04:58
The nephew of Barry Goldwater
, the right-wing U.S. senator who was the 1964 Republican presidential nominee, said Friday that he
is running for governor of Arizona...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:38:34
A 1,700-year-old carved marble head of Emperor Constantine has been found in a sewer in central Rome... Archaeologists found the 60cm (2ft) head while clearing an ancient drainage system in the ruins of the Roman Forum...
But is it Art?
washingtonpost.com/ ... 08:57:10
Scores of naked or scantily clad people wandered the museum, lured by an offer of free entry to "The Naked Truth," a new exhibition of early 1900s erotic art, if they showed up wearing just a swimsuit _ or nothing at all...
Culture
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:36:32
a new collection of stylish yet discreet glasses this fall for women attending funerals. "They do not want too flashy or gaudy glasses. The point is that they should be a bit subdued, but still elegant..."
thesun.co.uk/ ... 08:56:31
MICHAEL Jacksons new album sold just 8,000 copies in its first week in the US... even beaten by 1970s star Carly Simons new CD Moonlight which sold 58,000 copies...
Beatles - still with us
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:48:24
The John Lennon tunic which inspired the Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover has sold at auction for £100,000...
A handwritten manuscript of All You Need Is Love sold for £600,000... was retrieved from the stage floor directly after the Beatles' final live TV performance in 1967...
piano from Lennon's New York apartment fetched £140,000...
watercolours painted by the musician aged 11 were bought for £70,000 - twice their estimated price...
Extraterrestrial
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:42:07
Astronomers have found a
large object in the Solar System's outer reaches
... never comes closer to the Sun than Neptune and spends most of its time much further out than Pluto... one of the largest objects ever found in the outer Solar System and is almost certainly made of ice and rock...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:46:53
Nasa officials have said they now believe
at least one shard of protective foam might have hit a wing of the Discovery space shuttle.
.. But they said they were confident the craft would make a safe return... new photographic evidence appeared to suggest an impact with one of the wings...
Discovery's docking with the ISS was completed at 0718 EDT
(1218 BST; 1118 GMT) above the South Pacific just west of Chile. The ISS crew, American John Phillips and Russian Sergei Krikalev, warmly greeted Discovery's seven-member team, led by Commander Eileen Collins. Work was immediately started to allow the 15 tonnes of supplies ferried up by the shuttle to be moved across to the station...
Current
washtimes.com/ ... 00:38:56
A teenage pianist claims a competition director who rushed onstage and shut the keyboard cover on his fingers ruined his Carnegie Hall debut... saying he was "humiliated" by her alleged behavior during his June 12 recital at New York's revered concert hall... told him at the last minute he would have to play a Beethoven piece instead of the Chopin he had prepared for the concert. As he started to play the Beethoven piece anyway...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 00:36:32
SAN FRANCISCO -- Patients at a state mental hospital overdosed on illegal drugs, were improperly restrained for hours on end and were forced to spend 12 hours in soiled diapers, according to a scathing report issued by the U.S. Justice Department. The report said the problems were among "widespread and systematic deficiencies" at Napa State Hospital, including suicide and inadequate medical care. Some patients were bathed only every two to four weeks...
washtimes.com/ ... 00:35:46
A Kansas woman has filed a lawsuit seeking damages for severe burns on her rear end caused by chemicals used to clean a toilet at a Denny's Restaurant... St. Louis-area Denny's... "...nerves were injured that create a sensation of pain 24 hours a day..."
Transport Future
msnbc.msn.com/ ... 13:16:47
When you wonder about the future of electronics in the car, look no further than the automobile industrys own plans. Over the rest of this decade, manufacturers will begin to outfit their new models with 42 volt batteries, rather than 12. What are those 42 volts going to power? Well, just about anything you can imagineand much of it is already on sale... radar-powered collision avoidance... satellite radio... factory-installed units like the 14 speaker, 11 channel, 330-watt Mark Levinson surround sound system for Lexus... motorized LCD cleverly slides out of the dashboard and pivots up for video viewing... rear-view camera... wireless infrared headphone transmitters... navigation system... NavTraffic system, which monitors real-time traffic conditions and then chooses routes to avoid traffic congestion...
Cryptozoology
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 01:28:02
David Coltman, a wildlife geneticist at the University of Alberta, says the sample found earlier this month made a 100 percent match with a large mammal, but something more commonplace than the legendary sasquatch. "We are quite sure we are absolutely certain, in fact that this hair sample comes from a bison and not from a new species of primate..."
Only Natural
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:44:52
Authorities in India are racing against time to prevent epidemics as the death toll from a monsoon reaches 700 in the region around Mumbai (Bombay). Rescue efforts are continuing amid concerns that large amounts of debris and animal carcasses might lead to outbreaks of disease. Officials says it is unlikely that many more people will be found alive... heaviest recorded in a single day in India: more than 65cm (26 inches)...
Digital Threat
worldtribune.com/ ... 23:59:48
A U.S. company has begun marketing a
stealth micro-unmanned aerial vehicle
that can blend in with its surroundings. The micro-UAV, dubbed CyberBug, weighs less than a kilogram and was designed for both military and security surveillance. The battery-powered UAV can fly undetected into a hostile environment, land on rocks or trees and relay video images and voice...
People Die
sfgate.com/ ... 16:02:48
One man was killed and seven people were injured when lightning struck a group of Boy Scouts
who had taken shelter from a summer storm in Sequoia National Park... The group of five adults and seven scouts had sought refuge Thursday afternoon by setting up two tarps... a bolt of lightning hit one of the tarps directly, killing an adult instantly, and injuring seven others. Two were seriously hurt, and survived only because the rest of the troop was able to administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation continuously for an hour...
London 2005-July
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 23:57:50
the siege of North Kensington... dramatic events unfolding in front of the live cameras of rolling news television...
foxnews.com/ ... 13:03:18
All four men suspected of trying to plant bombs in London's transit system on July 21 are now in police custody
in London and Rome, several media outlets reported Friday... Two... were picked up in west London following raids by heavily armed police... Italian police in Rome arrested Osman Hussain, a naturalized British citizen from Somalia...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:37:59
One of the London bombing suspects is believed to have been arrested in a raid in West London, as police carry out a number of armed operations... At least two properties are believed to have been raided... Police have also arrested two women at Liverpool Street station...
foxnews.com/ ... 01:30:54
Authorities in Zambia detained Haroon Rashid Aswat in connection with the July 7 London bombings... British citizen of Indian descent... may have been in South Africa in the weeks leading up to the deadly attacks... U.S. officials said about 20 calls were placed from Aswat's cellphone to some of the men in the attacks... was also an unindicted co-conspirator in the case of a 1999 plot to start up a terrorist training camp in Bly, Ore...
Violence
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:35:01
Pakistani troops acting on a tip raided an Islamic school in a remote northwestern tribal region near Afghanistan, sparking a
shootout that left one militant dead and netted three others...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:34:39
Insurgents killed two Marines
with guns and rocket-propelled grenades in western Iraq, prompting U.S. jets to pound insurgent positions with high-tech bombs...
the Philippine Embassy in Baghdad has relocated its employees to Amman, Jordan...
newsnet5.com/ ... 09:05:15
AMHERST, Ohio -- Three Amherst teenagers are accused of holding a 10-year-old Elyria boy against his will... hog-tied the child with a telephone cord and threatened him with a shotgun and a bow and arrow...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 08:56:46
A suicide bomber has blown himself up among a group of Iraqi army recruits, killing at least 25 people and wounding 35...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:42:53
NUEVO LAREDO
, Mexico - A group of armed men arriving in several vehicles used machine guns, grenades and even a rocket launcher to attack a home in this violent Mexican border city Thursday night, authorities said. People inside the house are believed to have returned fire with powerful weapons of their own, triggering a
massive shootout... police said no one was injured and that no arrests had been made...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:41:52
CRATER LAKE, Ore. -
A camper brandished a club and threatened to kill two park rangers, then was shot dead by one of them
... answered a call about a domestic disturbance... tried to talk to the man, he became increasingly hostile and wandered around the campsite despite orders to stay still... "Still brandishing the club, still ignoring warnings to stop, he directly approached the rangers and threatened to kill them..." came within 10 feet of one of the rangers, the ranger used pepper spray, but the man didn't stop, and the second ranger shot him twice...
Mechanical Disaster
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:43:55
TEXAS CITY, Texas - An explosion shook nearby homes Thursday at a BP oil refinery where 15 people were killed during a deadly blast in March... All BP employees had been accounted for...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:40:13
FORT WORTH, Texas - A series of
explosions rocked a chemical plant Thursday
and set off a raging fire, injuring four people and sending up a pillar of black smoke that could be seen 30 miles away... Valley Solvents & Chemicals plant...
Peace 3000
voanews.com/ ... 00:34:14
A council of Muslim scholars in the United States has issued a religious ruling, or fatwa, against terrorism and extremism
. The Muslim scholars released the ruling during a press conference in Washington, saying that Islam condemns terrorism, religious radicalism and the use of violence...
Natural Threat
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:24:36
BOMBAY, India -
A stampede set off by rumors of a dam burst killed at least 15 people
, including seven children, in a Bombay shantytown after record-breaking monsoon rains... More than 25 people were injured... late Thursday in the Nehru Nagar slum in northern Bombay...
Threats
abc.net.au/ ... 23:54:49
America's ABC network has broadcast an
interview with Russia's most wanted Chechen militant, Shamil Basayev.
.. first face-to-face meeting with a journalist in years... The Russian Government is outraged. The Foreign Ministry has summoned the United States's senior diplomat to tell him of its strong indignation...
cbsnews.com/ ... 13:08:07
A study of rats links
low doses of aspartame
-- the sweetener in NutraSweet, Equal, and thousands of consumer products --
to leukemia and lymphoma...
drudgereport.com/ ... 00:37:22
Veteran wire reporter
Helen Thomas... "The day Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I'll kill myself,"
she told the HILL. "All we need is one more liar..."
adnki.com/ ... 00:25:19
The 14-year-old
son of controversial film director
Theo van Gogh, slain by an Islamic extremist last November, is said to have been
threatened and assaulted by Moroccan teenagers in Amsterdam
and insulted by his classmates. The allegations were made during an interview the boy's grandparents gave to the Dutch television channel Nova...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:23:29
A Yemeni cleric who claimed to have ties with Osama Bin Laden has been sentenced to 75 years in prison in New York... At a meeting with two FBI informants in Germany, he was recorded promising to funnel more than $2m (£1.1m) to Hamas. He was arrested by German police in January 2003 and extradited to the US. For each of five counts, Moayad received 15-year sentences, each to be served consecutively. He was also fined $1.25m in a federal court... convicted of conspiring to support al-Qaeda and Hamas, supporting the Palestinian group and attempting to support al-Qaeda... will be sentenced in September...
Transport Tragedy
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:37:20
AVON, Conn. (AP) -
A fiery accident involving about a dozen vehicles
, including a commercial bus, shut down a highway here Friday... WVIT-TV reported multiple deaths, but Lt. Christina Barrow with the Avon Police Department could not confirm that...
recordonline.com/ ... 08:56:01
Seconds before the gray Toyota Corolla would smash into a dump truck and kill all six of its young passengers, at least two drivers called 911 to report a car speeding east on Route 17B in a westbound lane... By the time police could respond to the 911 calls, the six young people from the Camp Atlanta Dance Camp in South Fallsburg were dead inside the pile of twisted, sheared metal and crushed glass that was their car. The 1994 Corolla had fishtailed into oncoming traffic and slid into the bottom of the truck. The car's engine ended up in the truck's chassis... The bodies were mangled so badly, [Sheriff] couldn't tell if the six passengers in the five-passenger car were wearing seat belts... The accident, which sheriff's Sgt. Don Prince described as "the worst I've seen in 35 years," was even more horrific because family and friends of the victims saw the aftermath...
nytimes.com/ ... 08:53:46
On Wednesday afternoon, five campers and a counselor were killed instantly when their car veered into traffic on a rural highway and was flattened by a county dump truck. The crash, on State Route 17B, a two-lane highway in the foothills, left behind the wreckage of a Toyota Corolla. It also left investigators in the local sheriff's office wondering why the driver, Irina Mironova, a counselor, was even behind the wheel. Her license had been suspended by the authorities in Florida...
in.today.reuters.com/ ... 00:21:49
"The toll has risen to 10 and 49 people have been injured," Rajendra Singh, additional divisional railway manager, told Reuters in Lucknow... "We still can't say if it was a bomb that exploded in the toilet of an unreserved coach," Uttar Pradesh police chief Yashpal Singh said. "It could be that somebody was carrying an explosive..." In a separate incident, Yadav said 20 home-made bombs were found on another train in a lawless part of eastern India, and four people had been arrested...
THU 2005-JUL-28
Yuck!
cnn.com/ ... 14:31:32
OLATHE, Kansas -- A high school student convicted of battery for vomiting on his Spanish teacher has been ordered to spend the next four months cleaning up after people who throw up in police cars...
Digital Supernatural
stuff.co.nz/ ... 14:31:13
Parishioners at St. Peter's church in Acerra said they had witnessed the plaster statue's legs turn flesh coloured and move "as though she were walking toward us". One man told reporters last week that he had filmed the "miracle" on his mobile phone.
Hundreds of pilgrims have since converged every day on the southern Italian town of 40,000 bearing video cameras and cellular telephones in a bid to capture the miracle themselves...
Sex -- always attractive
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 14:15:21
In order to promote its chicken fries, the fast-food chain created "CoqRoq.com," which features a fictitious rock band wearing chicken heads. In the photo gallery section of its site, Polaroid-style pictures of young women appeared with captions that read, "Groupies Love the Coq" and
"groupies love Coq..
." Burger King has yanked some...
Whoops!
today.reuters.com/ ... 14:03:48
An escaped convict was caught by police in Brussels when he
tried to steal the handbag of an off-duty policewoman
...
Culture
ap.tbo.com/ ... 14:01:37
A man who compared a woman's anatomy to a carburetor won an annual contest that celebrates the worst writing in the English language...
comparing a woman's breasts to "small knurled caps of the oil dampeners..."
Prehistory - still with us
today.reuters.com/ ... 14:00:00
Unhatched dinosaur eggs dating back 190 million years carried fully developed embryos that would have been born clumsy and helpless... suggests even the earliest dinosaurs tended carefully to their young. It also raises questions about how the giant four-legged dinosaurs called sauropods evolved. "These animals do not have any teeth, and since they are ready to hatch, that is strange," said Robert Reisz of the University of Toronto at Mississauga in Canada, who led the study. "The only explanation for that is they must have been fed by the mother. That would be oldest evidence of parental care in the fossil record," Reisz added in a telephone interview...
Beatles - still with us
today.reuters.com/ ... 13:59:00
A handwritten
song lyric used by John Lennon
and found on the floor of a television studio in 1967 is
set to fetch 500,000-600,000 pounds ($870,000-$1.04 million) at an auction
Thursday...
Music industry is dead
contactmusic.com/ ... 13:57:54
Legendary BEATLES producer GEORGE MARTIN disapproves of modern technology because now anyone can make a record in the comfort of their own home... fears the advent of mp3 players will dumb down the music industry...
Movies are dead
wired.com/ ... 13:55:42
Representatives of Hollywood's top movie studios say they have agreed on technical specifications that will make it easier to distribute and display movies digitally. Digital Cinema Initiatives, the industry consortium created in 2002 to unite studios, theater owners and tech manufacturers in planning the shift to digital, released version 1.0 of its requirements and specifications for digital cinema Wednesday...
forbes.com/ ... 13:55:21
Tech executieves from every studio were congratulating each other Wednesday on the news that, after three years of work, digital cinema isn't their problem anymore... Digital Cinema Initiativethe intra-studio consortium founded in March 2002 to create a single standard for quality and security of digitally projected pictureshas completed its work... the onus for making digital cinema a reality now falls squarely on the shoulders of those putting together a $3 billion plan to fund its rollout...
Lasting Contributions
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:24:36
George Wallace
, an actor whose career spanned 50 years and was best known as
Commando Cody
in the film serial "Radar Men from the Moon," has died. He was 88... starring role in the 1952 motion picture serial "Radar Men from the Moon." He played Commander Cody, a scientist who wore a leather jacket, a bullet-shaped, silver helmet and an atomic-powered rocket pack... also made more than 125 TV guest appearances, ranging from "Hopalong Cassidy" to "Joan of Arcadia..."
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:22:55
Danny Simon
, a comedy writer who together with his brother, Neil, wrote for such classic 1950s television series as "Your Show of Shows," died of complications from a stroke. He was 86... also [wrote] for "The Jackie Gleason Show," "The Red Buttons Show" and "The Phil Silvers Show..." collaborated with such writers as Mel Brooks, Larry Gelbart, Sheldon Keller, Mel Tolkin and later
Woody Allen, who once said, "Everything I learned about comedy, I learned from Danny Simon..."
Alcohol Was Involved
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:58:24
Students from the Information Technology University in Copenhagen are trying to help by releasing what they are calling the world's first open source beer recipe. It is called Vores Oel, or Our Beer, and the recipe is proving to be a worldwide hit...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:17:23
Two women who took turns steering a disabled vehicle that crashed into a parked car now face drunken-driving charges... [one] was pushing the disabled car, while [the other] steered from the passenger seat... moving the car into a parking lot at a motel... the women had a blood-alcohol levels of 0.17 percent, more than twice the state's legal limit to drive... Authorities said they were operating the vehicle while intoxicated even though the car's engine wasn't running. A prosecutor acknowledged the charges could be difficult to prosecute in court...
Digital Culture
suntimes.com/ ... 13:54:06
They are likely to share links, photos, music and video files by instant message. Between IMs, they play games online. Nearly half have cell phones to keep in touch with home and friends. They text message their friends. They think e-mail is something used to talk to "old people." Welcome to the technology-enhanced world of the typical American teen. A survey released Wednesday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that
nearly nine in 10 teens (87 percent) are Internet users
. That's 21 million teens ages 12 to 17, up from 73 percent five years ago...
news.yahoo.com/ ... 09:07:02
Brice Mellen is a whiz at video games such as "Mortal Kombat." In that regard, the 17-year-old isn't much different from so many others his age. Except for one thing: He's blind... honed his video game skills over the years through patient and not-so-patient playing, memorizing key joystick operations and moves in certain games, asking lots of questions and paying particular attention to audio cues. He worked his way up from games such as "Space Invaders" and "Asteroid," onto the modern combat games...
Extraterrestrial
seacoastonline.com/ ... 14:23:46
EXETER... What the retired Navy chief petty officer said he saw last Wednesday could only be classified as a UFO, an unidentified flying object... bright and sunny afternoon, about 3:15 p.m., and David was outside... saw a large cigar-shaped object hovering in the sky... windows were equally spaced around the object, however he didnt see anyone or anything inside. The size of the object was enormous. By comparison, he said, consider what an ultralight plane would look like next to a Boeing 747. He said it was about the size of two USS Nimitz aircraft carriers... initial instinct was that the object was moving at about 100 knots, but something that big shouldnt be able to stay in the air if its going that slow... began changing colors from a bright silver to an orange-ish red. A strange cloud of red and orange flames began surrounding the object, and before he knew it the object stretched out like a rubber band. It grew to about twice its original size, and then it was gone. The entire incident lasted about 10 minutes... The Exeter area is no stranger to UFO sightings. In 1965, two Exeter police officers and hitchhiker Norman Muscarello, who was with them, gained national attention after seeing a UFO hovering over Route 101 in Kensington. The sighting was documented in a book called "The Incident at Exeter." And then there was the incident involving Barney and Betty Hill, a husband and wife from Portsmouth who claimed to have been abducted by aliens. The couple was driving from a vacation in Canada in 1961 when they saw a UFO...
news.yahoo.com/ ... 09:01:08
NASA said Wednesday that the mysterious object that came flying off the shuttle Discovery's fuel tank during liftoff was a sizable chunk of foam insulation the very thing that doomed Columbia... this time, fortunately, it didn't hit the spacecraft... also said that a chipped thermal tile on Discovery's belly does not appear to be a danger...
voanews.com/ ... 08:54:43
The U.S. space shuttle
Discovery has docked with the International Space Station
, but it will be the last time a shuttle visits the outpost for a while. The space agency
NASA is grounding the shuttle fleet
because a large piece of insulating foam broke off Discovery's external fuel tank during Tuesday's launch...
Only Natural
apnews.myway.com/ ... 14:17:08
BOMBAY, India - Rescuers searched for survivors buried under debris Thursday and rushed aid to villages cut off by
record-breaking rains that have paralyzed Bombay
and its surrounding state and killed more than 500 people this week. Officials said 273 people have died in Bombay since Tuesday...
Justice?
apnews.myway.com/ ... 13:57:00
The sentence itself was fairly straightforward: An Algerian man received 22 years for plotting to bomb the Los Angeles airport on the eve of the millennium. It was what the judge said in imposing the term that raised eyebrows. U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour said the successful prosecution of Ahmed Ressam should serve not only as a warning to terrorists, but as a statement to the Bush administration about its terrorism-fighting tactics. "
We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, detain the defendant indefinitely as an enemy combatant or deny the defendant the right to counsel... The message to the world from today's sentencing is that our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set our nation apart...
"
World Without Borders
bloomberg.com/ ... 13:53:00
The
U.S. House of Representatives approved the Central American Free Trade Agreement
early today, overcoming objections by unions, sugar producers and textile makers in what was the most contentious trade fight in Congress in more than a decade...
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 09:57:05
This week, the Army, Air Force and Navy announced an increase in the number of reservists on active duty in support of the partial mobilization, while the Marine Corps and Coast Guard numbers decreased. The net collective result is
442 more reservists mobilized
than last week...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 09:56:35
Army Staff Sgt.
Michael W. Schafer
, 25, of Spring Hill, Fla., died July 25 in Oruzgan, Afghanistan, when he was shot by enemy forces while on a quick reaction force mission.
defenselink.mil/ ... 09:56:10
Army Spc.
Adam J. Harting
, 21, of Portage, Ind., died July 25 in Samarra, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Bradley Fighting Vehicle...
defenselink.mil/ ... 09:54:57
Army Sgt.
Christopher J. Taylor
, 22, of Opelika, Ala., died July 24 in Balad, Iraq, when he was hit by mortar rounds while he was exiting a bunker.
defenselink.mil/ ... 09:54:36
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today the remains of two servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
Air Force Col.
James W. Lewis
of Marshall, Texas
Air Force Maj.
Arthur D. Baker
of San Antonio, Texas
On April 7, 1965, Lewis and Baker led a flight of four B-57B Canberra aircraft on an interdiction mission over Xiangkhoang Province, Laos. After their B-57 initiated an attack run into heavy clouds, Lewis radioed his plane was outbound away from the target. There was no further radio or visual contact with the crew, and search and rescue missions failed to yield any evidence of the two men or their aircraft. Although the cause of the crash is unknown, enemy fire and bad weather are believed to be contributing factors.
But is it Art?
www2.ljworld.com/ ... 14:29:44
Lawrence KS... Fortunately for Ezekiel Rubottom, theres no law against keeping your severed foot in a bucket on the front porch... police gave him back his left foot, which he began storing in a five-gallon bucket of formaldehyde on the porch at 627 Conn. after it was amputated three weeks ago. Police seized the foot Saturday, thinking it could have been evidence of a crime, but returned it after verifying Rubottom was the rightful owner. Its cool. Its all good, Rubottom said. Now Ive got my foot back. Thats all I wanted....
post-gazette.com/ ... 14:27:20
in an unusual effort to improve observational and analytical skills, the New York Police Department is bringing newly promoted officers, including sergeants, captains and uniformed executives, to the Frick to examine paintings...
Disturbing Family Patterns
wireservice.wired.com/ ... 14:24:10
FALLS CHURCH, Va. -- A mother was under arrest Wednesday on child endangerment and other charges after authorities said she abandoned her 4-year-old son on the Capital Beltway, then struck him with her car when he tried to get back in...
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 14:19:41
The ordeal is finally over, but for the past year, a North Carolina family has been torn apart after state
officials claimed family photos of a father kissing his baby's belly button were some kind of child abuse...
Police Riot
wral.com/ ... 14:17:58
Marie Venezia, 73, lives by herself in her Raleigh home. Last Tuesday night, a Raleigh police officer knocked on her door and asked her about damage to a neighbor's fence. "I said 'I don't know what you want me to say. I don't know who it was.' He said, 'You know who it was.' I said, "I don't know who it was." He said you do," she said. "And at that point, I began to wonder if this guy really was a policeman because I didn't think officers acted like that." Venezia told the officer she was going to call 911 to confirm who he was. "He said, 'Don't close that door.' I said I am going to close it and then I went and called 911," she said. When Venezia came back, the officer charged her with misdemeanor obstructing and delaying, issuing her a ticket...
Transport Tragedy
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:19:38
An explosion Thursday on a passenger train in northern India killed two people Thursday and injured at least 20 others...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:19:19
GARY, Ind. - Rescuers searched the Grand Calumet River Thursday for a 2-year-old girl who flew out a car window and plunged 40 feet into the water when her mother lost control of her truck... [a woman] driving behind the truck... said she immediately dialed 911 on her cellular phone, but the dispatcher accused her of placing a phony emergency call. "She kept saying 'Quit playing around,'" Bethley said. "I said, 'I'm not playing, the baby is in the water.'..." toddler was moving after she struck the water...
Mechanical Disaster
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:12:22
Ten people were confirmed dead with several still missing Thursday from a massive fire on an oil platform in India's biggest oil field. Ships and helicopters rescued more than 350 survivors...
People Die
today.reuters.com/ ... 14:03:05
A dead woman lying in her casket was hit by a stray bullet during a wake in Rio de Janeiro and mourners fled in panic... bullet, fired in a shootout between a drug gang and police in a slum adjacent to the cemetery... The bullet was not removed before burial...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 09:07:46
A 63-year-old man died a day after emergency workers found him at his home in such squalid conditions that maggots were eating his flesh... was lying in his own feces on a pile of debris and "had open wounds with maggots eating on the flesh..."
Natural Threat
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:14:22
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - A 13-year-old girl was bitten on the hand by a shark as she waded in shallow water in the Atlantic Ocean... a cut on the back of her left hand and had bite marks near her wrist...
On Saturday, a 61-year-old surfer suffered minor injuries when he was bitten on his right foot while paddling about 20 yards from shore...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:13:11
BOWLING GREEN, Va... The Boy Scouts marched onto the field singing, plopping down in the grass to wait for President Bush. But hours later, the news that Bush couldn't make it was drowned out by sirens and shouts as hundreds fell ill because of the blistering heat...
sportfishingmag.com/ ... 09:04:05
While on a fishing trip over the Fourth of July weekend in Panama, 18-year old Stephen Schultz was injured when a 600-pound Marlin he was reeling in leapt into the boat, striking him in the head and chest... [VIDEO]
Digital Threat
wired.com/ ... 14:20:38
A bug discovered in an operating system that runs the majority of the world's computer networks would, if exploited, allow an attacker to bring down the nation's critical infrastructure, a computer security researcher said Wednesday against threat of a lawsuit... The security hole in Cisco IOS, the company's "infrastructure operating system" that controls its routers, was patched by Cisco in April, Lynn said, and the flawed version is no longer available for download. But Cisco didn't want the information disclosed until next year when a new version of the operating system would be out of beta testing and ready for distribution...
news.telegraph.co.uk/ ... 09:00:12
A Briton facing extradition to America for perpetrating "the biggest computer hack of all time" left a message criticising American foreign policy on an army computer... accused of accessing 97 US government computers, causing damage estimated at $700,000 (£370,000)... deleted files that shut down more than 2,000 computers in the US army's military district of Washington for 24 hours "significantly disrupting governmental function"... One allegation is that he deleted files and logs from computers at the US Naval Weapons Station Earle at a critical time after the Twin Towers attacks, rendering the base's network of 300 computers inoperable...
Violence
newsday.com/ ... 14:19:03
An Islamic militant who set up the initial meeting between Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and his kidnappers has been arrested in eastern Pakistan...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:13:33
Roadside bombs killed two American soldiers in northern Baghdad and ignited a train carrying fuel in the south of Iraq's capital, killing two Iraqis and wounding six others...
local10.com/ ... 08:57:32
Suspended Miami Commissioner Art Teele fatally shot himself in the head in the lobby of the Miami Herald building late Wednesday afternoon. Teele survived... Teele told the security guard to give a message to Herald columnist Jim DeFede... About two hours later, at 7:50 p.m., Teele was declared dead... Defede was fired just hours after Teele's death because he allegedly recorded a phone conversation with Teele without the politician's permission... The former commissioner faced a series of troubles over the past few years, including federal charges for money laundering and mail and wire fraud... could have faced up to 20 years in prison...
London 2005-July
ap.tbo.com/ ... 14:02:07
London's police chief said Thursday said he was
concerned that images of unexploded bombs
seized in connection with the attacks on London had been leaked to the media. The images, obtained by ABC News, were splashed across newspaper front pages in Britain Thursday, despite a Metropolitan Police appeal urging the media "in the strongest possible terms" not to run them...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:08:13
London Transport and mobile firms are warning people about an e-mail spreading rapidly containing inaccurate safety information... claims that passengers on the London Tube system can contact emergency services via a satellite signal from their mobiles underground. Mobiles do not work in the London Underground, and satellite signals cannot reach there either...
news.ft.com/ ... 09:05:49
Ian Blair, Londons police chief, warned that more bomber cells could strike after police arrested nine men under anti-terrorism laws early on Thursday morning in south London...
abcnews.go.com/ ... 09:04:30
Photos of captured bombs
abcnews.go.com/ ... 08:59:07
The plot for the July 7 transit bombings in London, which killed 56 people, may have been much larger than previously known... an additional 12 bombs and four improvised detonators were found in the trunk of a car believed to be rented by suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer... "I believe that the explosives left in that car were left there for a second strike," said Bob Ayers, a London-based terrorism consultant with expertise in demolition. "But the Metropolitan Police responded so quickly, they were able to get to the car and take control of the car before the second team could get the explosives and leave..." "When you put the X-ray machine on it [the bomb], you see what is bulging on the sides of the bottle are nails many, many nails... And the nails are put there so that when the bomb goes off, the nails will tear tissue and kill people in the area. Bombs don't kill by concussion. Small bombs, they kill by the blast effects of fragments of glass or metal, and this is designed to kill people..."
nytimes.com/ ... 08:54:07
British police arrested nine men in raids in south London today in connection with the aborted bomb attacks on the capital on July 21. The arrests, in Tooting in south London, came a day after the seizure in Birmingham of Yassin Hassan Omar, 24, a Somali man suspected of being one of the four men who took part in the attacks... Three other men were arrested Wednesday in a second house in Birmingham...
Threats
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 14:18:47
A new guide on the Internet offers help for terrorist-wannabes looking to join the struggle in Iraq...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:52:30
Leading figures have been giving their reaction to the IRA's statement that it has formally ordered an end to its armed campaign and will pursue exclusively peaceful political means... Mr Blair said it was a "step of unparalleled magnitude"...
bloomberg.com/ ... 08:43:45
The Irish Republican Army today said it will end its 36-year armed campaign
and use political means to achieve the goal of a united Ireland. The leadership told members to ``dump arms'' as part of the move...
WED 2005-JUL-27
Broadcast is Dead
cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ ... 12:16:34
The creator of Emmy-winning legal drama "Boston Legal" said Tuesday he's concerned about the amount of commercial time on primetime TV shows and raised the possibility of working in cable in the future...
Supernatural Equality
ap.tbo.com/ ... 12:15:36
The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has elected a woman president - the first female chief executive ever for the 770,000-member Protestant denomination... The Rev. Sharon E. Watkins, senior pastor at Disciples Christian Church in Bartlesville, Okla., won overwhelmingly support Tuesday from the 3,000 delegates attending the denomination's General Assembly...
Yuck!
today.reuters.com/ ... 09:04:35
A British plumber was fined and given a community service order Tuesday after being captured on hidden cameras urinating into a vase in a customer's attic and pouring the contents into the central heating system...
Whoops!
today.reuters.com/ ... 08:45:21
A German man's severed finger traveled 60 kilometers by rail after its owner trapped his hand in the door trying to board a train at the last minute... Passengers traveling from Freiburg to Cologne Sunday noticed the finger lying on the carriage floor and alerted police... Doctors said they were confident they could reattach the finger to its 34-year-old owner...
Sex can be Dangerous
today.reuters.com/ ... 08:44:37
A British couple who headed out to sea in a dinghy for an amorous liaison sparked a major rescue operation when their cries of passion were mistaken for someone in trouble...
Digital Culture
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 08:43:38
Japanese scientists have unveiled the most human-looking robot yet devised - a "female" android called Repliee Q1. She has flexible silicone for skin rather than hard plastic, and a number of sensors and motors to allow her to turn and react in a human-like manner. She can flutter her eyelids and move her hands like a human. She even appears to breathe...
Extraterrestrial
ap.tbo.com/ ... 12:13:15
NASA said Wednesday that a
chipped thermal tile on Discovery's belly does not appear to be a serious problem...
nytimes.com/ ... 08:32:19
Now that the Discovery is in orbit, the examination begins. Its 12½-day mission will be the most photographed in the history of the shuttle program, with all eyes on the craft to see if it suffered the kind of damage from blastoff debris that brought down the Columbia in February 2003...
Only Natural
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:16:15
Monsoon rains
are continuing to cause havoc
in India's Maharashtra state
where the official death toll has now risen to nearly 100...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 12:12:41
Mexico's Volcano of Fire staged a spectacular, predawn explosion Wednesday, shooting incandescent rock, ash and steam up to 2,700 meters (8,858 feet) into the air over western Mexico... eruption sent ash raining down on nearby communities, but officials had no reports of major damage...
today.reuters.com/ ... 08:44:51
Wining and dining is the best way for men to woo women, scientists said Tuesday...
sg.news.yahoo.com/ ... 08:31:23
Floods and landslides killed at least 99 people in western India on Wednesday, with many more more feared dead after a wall of mud flattened a village. Thousands of people were evacuated and tens of thousands more were stranded as floodwaters raged throughout the financial capital, Bombay, bringing road, air and rail links to a halt...
Modern Family Life
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 09:06:07
A 22-year-old Nebraska man who married the 13-year-old girl he got pregnant is now facing criminal charges for illegally having sex with her... could get 50 years in prison... even though he married the girl, who is now 14, with her parents' blessing... "The idea ... is repugnant to me," Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning told the Associated Press. "These people made the decision to send their ... 14-year-old daughter to Kansas to marry a pedophile." He said the marriage is valid, thanks to the "ridiculous" Kansas law, "but it doesn't matter. I'm not going to stand by while a grown man ... has a relationship with a 13-year-old now 14-year-old girl..."
[Let's see... the "pedophile" is obeying the law and the Attorney General is going to ignore it...?]
Disinformation Propaganda & Spin
iht.com/ ... 08:36:32
The Bush administration is retooling its slogan for the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, pushing the idea that the long-term struggle is as much an ideological battle as a military mission, according to senior administration and military officials. In recent speeches and news conferences, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the country's top military officer have spoken of "a global struggle against violent extremism" rather than "the global war on terror," which had been the catchphrase of choice...
Threats
business.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 08:33:25
THE battle to block the $6 billion (£3.5 billion) merger between the New York Stock Exchange and Archipelago has taken a chilling twist with a leading opponent of the deal receiving a death threat. The FBI is investigating the threat left for William Higgins, chairman of the NYSE Equity Members Association, in a voicemail message last week. In a brief but angry tirade, the man, whom the FBI believe is an NSYE member, implied that Mr Higginss car could be booby-trapped if he did not end his campaign against the merger...
Current
washingtonpost.com/ ... 08:32:45
Aruban firefighters were draining a lake Tuesday in the search for an Alabama teenager who vanished nearly two months ago while vacationing in the island...
Violence
ap.tbo.com/ ... 12:12:12
A sex offender who had been sought for a week in the near-fatal stabbing of his 12-year-old daughter was
arrested early Wednesday
...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 12:11:28
JENIN... Israeli troops on Wednesday
killed a Palestinian stone-thrower
during an arrest raid that
caught a wanted Islamic Jihad militant
in this West Bank town... The troops, backed by tanks and bulldozers, entered Jenin around midday and surrounded the home of a wanted Islamic Jihad militant... a group of youths began throwing stones at the soldiers from a nearby building, troops opened fire, hitting an 18-year-old stone-thrower in the head... The Israeli army said it fired at Palestinian gunmen after troops were attacked by gunfire and explosives that left two soldiers wounded...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 12:09:54
A man convicted in a 1988 triple-murder was
executed early Wednesday by lethal injection
... His final statement was, "Everybody has to die sometime." It also included an expletive and ended with, "let's get on with the killing..."
ap.tbo.com/ ... 12:08:39
Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed in an Internet posting Wednesday that it has
killed two Algerian diplomats
kidnapped in Iraq
washingtonpost.com/ ... 08:39:34
A woman who was upset over being searched bodily at an airport was convicted Tuesday of assaulting a security screener by grabbing the federal officer's breasts... faces up to a year in federal prison and $100,000 in fines... claimed she acted in self-defense. "I said, 'What are you doing? No one's done that to me before,'" she said. "And she kept going ... for what felt like an interminably long time..."
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 08:30:57
Egyptian security sources say they have identified a man suspected of being one of the bombers who carried out last week's attacks in Sharm al-Sheikh...
London 2005-July
washingtonpost.com/ ... 08:42:28
A prime suspect wanted for last week's attempted London bombings had served a jail sentence for knifepoint robberies and grew to hate the British system after his conviction... Muktar Said Ibrahim, 27, whom police say planted a bomb on a bus in last week's attempted attacks, was jailed for 5 years in 1996 for mugging people when he was part of a teenage gang... "He was very bitter about getting five years (in jail)," the Sun quoted an unnamed associate as saying. "He was never the same person after..."
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 08:41:39
THE fugitive bombers who bungled their attacks on Londons transport system last week returned to their secret cache of explosives to rearm themselves for another assault, Scotland Yard believes... bungled their attacks... returned to their secret cache of explosives to rearm themselves for another assault... returned to their secret cache of explosives to rearm themselves for another assault... were seen by a neighbour at the ninth-floor flat in New Southgate, North London, that they were using as a bomb factory... some of the suspects made a second trip the next day to the flat where police yesterday found chemicals and bombmaking materials...
today.reuters.com/ ... 08:30:19
Police arrested four men in central England on Wednesday while hunting for men wanted in last week's failed London bomb attacks, and local media said one of the men was a suspected bomber...
TUE 2005-JUL-26
Theory of Education
today.reuters.com/ ... 14:31:28
Australian educational authorities are investigating claims that noisy school children had had their mouths taped shut to keep them quiet... a Catholic primary school at Wollongong, about 50 miles south of Sydney...
Whoops!
today.reuters.com/ ... 14:30:01
A Texas man was arrested on Monday after
calling police to complain about the theft of his marijuana
... along with a plasma screen television... [after police found] several marijuana plants growing under heat lamps in the apartment, four grams of harvested marijuana and a tablet of ecstasy...
Transport
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:43:33
German lorry drivers were shocked to find themselves sharing the autobahn with an 80-year-old in a wheelchair... an electric chair capable of speeds of 6-10 km/h (4-6mph)... he had wanted to do a little shopping... at a service area up the road from his home...
cbs2chicago.com/ ... 14:26:54
An Illinois Department of Transportation helicopter crashed Tuesday morning along the side of Interstate 294 in suburban Chicago, but no one was killed...
History Digitally
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:22:33
The Forma Urbis, or Severan Marble Plan, is a giant map of the city of Rome constructed around AD200 by the Emperor Septimius... The rediscovery of some of the pieces during the Renaissance ignited an interest in reconstructing the map... scientists at America's Stanford University have joined Italian archaeologists in the capital's Museum of Roman Civilisation with a multi-disciplinary and hi-tech approach... Stanford team has digitally scanned all 1,182 surviving pieces of the Plan and constructed a range of computer programmes which use algorithms to try to fit the pieces together...
Supernatural Consequences
news.independent.co.uk/ ... 09:47:38
Thousands of Roman Catholic faithful queued outside a church near Naples yesterday after the congregation reported watching a statue of the Madonna "miraculously" moving in front of them. Dozens of parishioners at the modern church of San Pietro in the town of Acerra, on the northern outskirts of Naples, recounted seeing the simple plaster and marble statue of the Virgin Mary "become flesh" and move her legs "as if she wanted to approach us"...
sptimes.com/ ... 09:47:10
St. Petersburg resident is the victim of a bad decision by a very big and important movie maker. Universal Studios used Jenkins' number in the 2003 Jim Carrey hit, Bruce Almighty. In fiction, it was supposed to be God's phone number. In reality, Universal thought it was nobody's phone number. Universal was wrong... Five or six times a week, week in and week out, stretching now into year in and year out, somebody calls Dawn Jenkins' cell phone and asks to speak to God... after the movie came out... she was getting 15 to 20 calls an hour... calls have decreased, but not disappeared... Telephone companies and state and federal agencies that issue personal numbers... set aside numerical combinations that are not to be issued to anyone. It is specifically done so that movie makers, television producers and novelists can use official-sounding numbers without legal ramification... "The dummy phone numbers are the most noticeable to movie and TV viewers paying attention, and they do pay attention... They all have 555 prefixes. Producers hate them because they think it limits their creativity. And maybe it does, but it also limits their liability..."
Jenkins... plans to keep her number... a custom number that spells out the name of her jewelry business. "I'm not giving it up for anybody.. Not even for God..."
Broadcast is Dead
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:25:24
TV Guide is slashing the circulation it guarantees advertisers by about two-thirds and relaunching itself as a large format magazine with far fewer TV listings and more emphasis on lifestyle and entertainment... as it struggles to remain relevant in an age where many TV viewers get their listings from on-screen guides...
Extraterrestrial
news.yahoo.com/ ... 13:52:00
Discovery and seven astronauts blasted into orbit Tuesday... Video showed what appeared to be
a large piece of debris flying off the external fuel tank two minutes into the flight.
The object did not seem to hit the orbiter. Footage also showed what might have been at least two light-colored objects flying off Discovery as the shuttle cleared the launch pad...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:15:11
The crew of the space shuttle Discovery have entered the orbiter and the hatch closed behind them ready for lift-off... external tank has been filled with cryogenic propellants, with no hint of the fuel sensor glitch that scrubbed an earlier launch attempt... Lift-off is scheduled for 1039 local time.. from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida...
Digital Culture
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:45:29
The House of Representatives voting 355 to 21 for a federal investigation to determine if the companies behind San Andreas intentionally deceived the industry's ratings board...
[THEY CAN'T AGREE TO KEEP AN EYE ON TRADE WITH CHINA, BUT THEY CAN VOTE OVERWHELMINGLY TO GET INVOLVED WITH VIDEOGAMES...??]
theregister.co.uk/ ... 09:09:42
Microsoft is no longer providing updates to non-genuine versions of its Windows XP operating system. From today, the company has switched over to a full launch of its Windows Genuine Advantage Programme as part of its ongoing anti-piracy campaign... Users will now have to join the WGA authentication program if they want to receive software updates from the Microsoft Download Centre or from Windows Update. However, MS says it will still provide security patches for pirated systems, which will be available via Automatic Updates in Windows...
Cryptozoology
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:19:21
Canadian scientists are performing DNA tests on a tuft of hair said to come from a sasquatch...
World Without Borders
ap.tbo.com/ ... 14:24:37
Legislation to strengthen monitoring of Chinese trade practices was defeated in the House Tuesday, a victim of a larger political battle over passage of a free trade agreement with Central America. House Democrats, while agreeing on the need for safeguards against China's unfair trading, accused the Republican majority of trying to rush through the bill in order to secure wavering votes for the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which is expected to reach the House floor this week...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 14:12:58
A new study by a liberal Washington think tank puts the cost of forcibly removing most of the nation's estimated 10 million illegal immigrants at $41 billion a year, a sum that exceeds the annual budget of the Department of Homeland Security...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 09:29:11
Army Sgt.
Jason T. Palmerton
, 25, of Auburn, Neb., died on July 23 in Qal'eh-Yegaz, Afghanistan, where he came under enemy small arms fire while conducting a dismounted patrol.
defenselink.mil/ ... 09:28:48
Marine Sgt.
Bryan J. Opskar
, 32, of Princeton, Minn., died July 23 when his vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device while conducting combat operations near Ar Rutbah, Iraq...
Age is No Barrier
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:22:07
William Painter's record as the oldest man to reach the top of Mount Rainier has been broken - by William Painter. By making it to the 14,411-foot summit at age 82, the retired plutonium worker from the Hanford nuclear reservation beat the mark he set more than a year earlier...
Only Natural
montanasnews.com/ ... 19:47:13
Yesterday's earthquake rattled Montanans' nerves and came as a jarring reminder that earthquake damage is not covered by homeowners policies. State Auditor John Morrison is reminding Montanans that the time for homeowners to be sure they're covered is before a damaging quake hits, not after. "Montana is earthquake country," said Morrison. "We sit in one of the most seismically active regions in the lower 48 states. Folks should be prepared for earthquakes from a safety standpoint, and also from an insurance standpoint..."
greatfallstribune.com/ ... 19:46:29
Aftershocks rattled southwestern Montana early Tuesday following a 5.6 magnitude earthquake, but the rumbling did little damage and isnt likely an indication of a bigger event on the horizon... said
Waverly Person
, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey earthquake information center in Golden, Colo...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 14:23:38
Indonesian surgeons on Tuesday successfully separated 11-month-old girls who were conjoined at the chest and stomach...
nbc6.net/ ... 09:48:06
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- In one Florida household, a whole family is afraid of the toilet after a poisonous snake used it as a hiding place... [Woman] bitten by what appeared to have been a large water moccasin that had been hiding in the bowl in the middle of the night...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:17:04
Parts of the brain are temporarily "switched off" when we blink... even if light was still entering the eyes... could explain why people do not notice their own blinking, as it gave us an "uninterrupted view of the world"... A blink lasts for between 100 and 150 milliseconds. We automatically blink 10 to 15 times a minute... "Transiently suppressing the brain areas involved in visual awareness during blinks may be a neural mechanism for preventing the brain from becoming aware of the eyelid sweeping down over the pupil during a blink and the world going dark..."
London 2005-July
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 14:18:58
there have been no sightings of the four suicide bombers since they fled five days ago... Police believe that they are at a prearranged safe house in London and fear that they could be preparing more attacks...
People Die
today.reuters.com/ ... 14:30:44
A Croatian farmer was killed when a cow he was about to milk fell and crushed him...
yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ ... 14:15:30
Patrick Sherry, 29, of Bad Beat Revue, was performing at the Warehouse Club in Leeds on Wednesday evening as part of the Club NME tour when he fell and sustained fatal head injuries... tried to grab the lighting rig hanging from one of the venue's wooden beams before losing his grip and plunging to the solid wooden floor head first...
Disturbing Family Patterns
ananova.com/ ... 09:49:49
An Austrian couple with 12 children have split up - after the husband admitted he was gay... told [wife] he only made her pregnant so she had "something to do".... "I can't believe we had so many children together, my whole life has been a lie." She has now written a book "...no time to pray" about her ordeal...
Under Tyranny
suntimes.com/ ... 09:33:34
A chapter of Iraq's draft constitution obtained by The Associated Press gives Islam a major role in Iraqi civil law, raising concerns that women could lose rights in marriage, divorce and inheritance...
Natural Threat
washtimes.com/ ... 14:12:35
U.S. doctors said they have identified the patient who is the source of a mystery strain of human immunodeficiency virus that sent waves of alarm through the AIDS community last February... a virulent form of HIV -- the organism that causes AIDS -- that was resistant to virtually all drugs and caused a rapid destruction of the man's immune system... a patient in Connecticut who infected the New York man during anonymous rectal intercourse at a sex club in the city on Oct. 22, 2004... the alarm may have been overblown, because his patient now has a stable infection that is being controlled by two drugs...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:20:58
twin sons... 2 weeks old now... heart muscles too weak to pump the blood they need to survive... dilated cardiomyopathy... doctors say their chances of survival are good, but only if they receive heart transplants within the next three to six months... Their parents have only been able to hold each of the boys once since their births...
Violence
newscenter.ninn.org/ ... 14:28:21
MIAMI -- A 14-year-old boy has been charged in the killing of his 11-year-old sister Monday morning... had called police and said he saw two men running out of the house before finding his sister... dead in her bedroom... later confessed that he had killed his sister following an argument...
news.search.yahoo.com/ ... 13:52:30
Angry Afghan protestors throw stones at a U.S. military vehicle outside the main U.S. base in Bagram, north of Kabul, July 26, 2005. About 2,000 Afghans protested outside the main American base in Afghanistan on July 26 after the arrest of several villagers in what the U.S. military said was an anti-insurgent operation...
indystar.com/ ... 09:41:54
A 15-year-old boy was found dead earlier today, apparently killed by a person in a pick-up truck that had been egged by some teens... Another boy, 17, was shot in the leg but survived... Marion County sheriff's deputies say it was an apparent retaliation for a juvenile prank that got out of hand... eggs hit a motorist's truck... driver used his truck to chase the teens into a parking lot... someone started to shoot. About six or seven teens had been doing the egg-throwing...
alertnet.org/ ... 09:11:01
U.S. and Afghan forces killed up to 50 Taliban fighters in central Afghanistan, a provincial governor said on Tuesday... A major Taliban ammunition depot was destroyed and 25 guerrillas captured in the fighting late on Monday in Deh Rawud district of Uruzgan province...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 09:09:04
A Dutch court sentenced the killer of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh to life in prison Tuesday...
Big City Stories
suntimes.com/ ... 09:33:02
Chicago's lakefront would get a contender for the title of tallest building in the United States under a developer's plan devised in partnership with Santiago Calatrava, one of the world's foremost architects... the Fordham Spire, a hotel/condo tower at 346 E. North Water, where the Chicago River meets Lake Michigan and across Lake Shore Drive from Navy Pier... At 115 stories, the tower would be 1,458 feet to its roof, taller by eight feet than the roof of Sears Tower. But the Calatrava building would include a spire that, depending on structural details, would bring the building to around 2,000 feet...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 01:05:51
CHICAGO - Jurors were hurried out of a federal courtroom by U.S. marshals Monday as a former death row inmate, on trial for drug and weapons charges, suddenly turned on his own lawyers, pushing them and yelling that he was being framed. Other marshals wrestled the bellowing defendant out of court, and a nurse was called to put an ice pack on the ankle of defense attorney...
Threats
ap.tbo.com/ ... 14:25:12
A flight from Los Angeles to London was diverted to Boston early Tuesday because three Pakistani passengers were acting suspiciously, but nothing amiss was found and the three were released after questioning... "Some of the individuals were in first class and another was in coach," and they were walking between the two sections...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 09:39:55
Michael Graham, D.C. WMAL-AM late-morning call-in program... "The problem is not extremism... The problem is Islam... We are at war with a terrorist organization named Islam..." Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), asked the station to take disciplinary action... station executive.. said yesterday that Graham's comments were "amped up" but justified within the context of the program...
today.reuters.com/ ... 09:17:35
A United Airlines flight from Los Angeles to London was diverted to Boston aft