See-through 'freedom bags' offered to Tube commutersA RANGE of see-through bags aimed at commuters left nervous by the London bombings was launched yesterday.
It is claimed the "freedom bags" will make passengers feel more at ease on the Tube, on buses and in public places.
The launch follows "noticeable distrust" towards people carrying rucksacks and large bags in enclosed spaces, according to the Assist Safety Project, which came up with the scheme.
The bags will help police carry out searches more q... (more)
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Brits happy to ditch civil libertiesThree out of four Brits would happily hand over their civil liberties in exchange for better security against terrorist attacks, according figures from pollsters ICM.
It is interesting to note that this is the same general public that rails against any attempts to make them drive more slowly, or with more care. This is in spite of the fact that in 2004, 671 pedestrians were killed in traffic accidents, and a further 2,550 people died in other road accidents.
The ICM... (more)
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Troops Raid Utah Rave With Guns & Gas“Camouflaged troops” descended in helicopters on a Utah canyon Sunday night to bust up a permitted and insured rave party.
A horrific video recording of the police and military violence against hundreds of dance kids can be found here. (Mirror site here, courtesy of Eric Huntington at Modern Fix magazine.)... (more)
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With Support Falling, Bush Attempts to Rally Country For Ongoing War in IraqWith support for the war in Iraq at an all-time low, President Bush will interrupt his five-week long vacation at his Crawford, Texas in an attempt to rally public support for the war.
According to published reports, Bush will attempt to compare the war in Iraq to other long conflicts like World War II which the United States fought for nearly four years.
Mr. Bush will also again invoke the September 11 attacks, claiming that the insurgents battling against American... (more)
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Dutch poultry sent indoors as bird flu approachesAll free-range commercial poultry in the Netherlands must be kept indoors from today, under a ban introduced to protect the country's fowl from avian flu, which is spreading towards Europe through migrating flocks.
The measure, which affects around 5 million of the 90 million chickens farmed in the Netherlands, is the first clear response from a European government to reports of spreading avian flu infections in Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Russia.
On Saturday, Russian ... (more)
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Another gas price highGasoline prices climbed to a new high, above $2.60 per gallon Monday, according to travel club AAA's daily fuel gauge report, extending more than a week of record-setting gains.
And the price climb is having an effect. According to a new survey, nearly eight out of 10 people saying high prices are making them think about buying a hybrid.
The nationwide average price for a gallon of regular unleaded hit $2.614, up from $2.601 Friday, according to AAA, the largest U.S... (more)
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Al-Qaeda eyes a 9/11 for satellitesExperts are warning that al-Qaeda has the desire -- and the knowledge -- to take out satellites. Dawn Rae Downton reports on the devastating impact such an attack would have on business, communications -- and the American military.
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In May, 1998, mortally wounded by contamination on a printed circuit board, Galaxy IV failed as it sat in geostationary orbit over the middle of the Western hemisphere. Ninety percent of the pagers in the U.S. and Canada -- 45 milli... (more)
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Iguanas now part of life in south FloridaAnimal control officers in south Florida have given up on ever controlling the number of iguanas that have bred and adapted to the life in the wild.
Most recently, 69-year-old Arlyne Reiter called Pompano Beach officials, hysterical after finding an iguana "as big as a newborn baby" in her toilet bowl.
"It was like Jurassic Park in my toilet," she told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
While it remains a mystery how the creature got into her... (more)
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Mum ends download fight Sylvia Price has given up her battle to prevent the record industry imposing a £4,000 fine after her daughter illegally downloaded music from the web. The 53-year-old, who lives in Springbank, Cheltenham, hired a solicitor to fight the case against the British Phonographic Industry but now says she can't afford to take it through the courts.
She has instead made a settlement offer of £2,500.
Mrs Price said: "They (the BPI) should have sent something to ... (more)
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Wal-Mart Could Be Transformed Into JailWhen Wal-Mart finishes building a new superstore on Lebanon's north end, the old one on the south end could wind up as a jail, housing convicts next to a community of upscale homes, Target 5's John London uncovered.
Jail overcrowding is so bad and so expensive that Warren County leaders are considering every option. That includes soon-to-be-vacant big-box businesses like the Wal-Mart on state Route 48 in Lebanon.
That came as a no-sale to Tara Brake, who lives in ... (more)
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Pilot spots big swath of marijuana growing near sheriff's facilityOne of the largest marijuana crops seized in Orange County, Calif., was discovered within sight of the county sheriff's communications center, tucked under trees in a rural area.
On Friday, sheriff's officers began digging up the stash - an estimated 2,000 marijuana plants worth an estimated $500,000, sheriff's spokesman Jon Fleischman said.
A sheriff's helicopter pilot on routine patrol spotted the field Thursday afternoon. The plants - some as tall as 10 feet - co... (more)
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Firms Hit by ID Theft Find Way to Cash In on VictimsElizabeth Rosen was plenty angry when ChoicePoint Inc. sent her a form letter acknowledging that crooks might have perused some of her most sensitive personal and financial data.
But the Hollywood nurse was flabbergasted when the company, one of the nation's largest collectors of consumer records, also offered to sell her some of the same information so she could see what might have been compromised.
Rosen was among the 150,000 people whose records were released to ... (more)
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2005 deadly for U.S. in AfghanistanThis year has been the deadliest for the U.S. military in Afghanistan since 2001, with more violence expected as the election approaches.
Of the 181 soldiers who have died in the country since the United States launched its invasion in October 2001, 65 have been killed this year, the New York Times reported. Four died Sunday when a bomb hit a military vehicle.
Afghani security officials say the pace of insurgent attacks on both U.S. and Afghan forces is increasing, ... (more)
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Brazilians to probe Menezes caseTwo senior Brazilian officials have visited Scotland Yard to discuss the investigation into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.
The 27-year-old Brazilian was killed by police at Stockwell Tube station on 22 July after officers wrongly linked him to the attempted bombings a day before.
Leaks from the Independent Police Complaints Commission have cast doubt on claims Mr Menezes resisted arrest.
His mother has said action must be taken against the M... (more)
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Al-Qaida Sarin Plot on Parliament FoiledScotland Yard believes it thwarted an al-Qaida sarin gas attack on the British Parliament, according to an internal police document.
The plot to unleash the deadly nerve gas on the House of Commons was hatched last year and uncovered through decoded e-mails on computers seized from terror suspects in Britain and Pakistan, the Sunday Times reported, citing the police memo it obtained.
Police and the secret service identified an al-Qaida cell that had carried out ext... (more)
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Blair backs Scotland Yard chiefThe head of Scotland Yard has the support of Prime Minister Tony Blair, despite criticism for the way he handled the shooting of an innocent man.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair admitted Saturday he did not know his officers had killed an innocent man until 24 hours after the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in the Stockwell Tube last month, the London Telegraph reported.
A Downing Street spokesman said Blair had "full confidence" in the police com... (more)
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Nominee once argued for national ID cardsSupreme Court nominee John Roberts made clear in his days as a Reagan administration lawyer that he did not share the traditional conservative fear of the U.S. government creating national identification cards for American citizens.
Rather, when faced with what he called "the real threat to our social fabric posed by uncontrolled immigration," Roberts urged his superiors to switch course and support national ID cards.
"I yield to no one in the area of commitment to ... (more)
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Soldier 'instructed' to abuse Abu Ghraib prisonersOne of the US soldiers convicted of mistreating prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison says his superiors made it clear those incarcerated were to be abused.
Sergeant Javal Davis was sentenced to six months in jail after admitting to having deliberately stepped on the hands and feet of handcuffed prisoners.
In an interview aired on Channel 7, Sgt Davis said he was instructed to make life as unpleasant as possible for those he was guarding.
"I was le... (more)
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Police in Pittsburgh attack anti-recruitment protesters with tasers, dogs and pepper sprayTwo women protesting the war in Iraq were taken to a hospital Saturday after police broke up an unauthorized march involving about five dozen people on a busy one-way street near an Army recruiting station.
David Meieran, who helped organize the protest, accused police of “inappropriate and excessive force.”
Sgt. Clint Winkler, a supervisor on duty, told The Associated Press that one woman who would not leave was subdued with a Taser. He also confirmed t... (more)
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Russian Regional Head Proposes 21-Year Reign for PutinThe head of the Russian internal republic of Mari El, Leonid Markelov, has called for a legislative extension of the presidential term in Russia.
“The head of state in this country should be able to be elected not twice in a row but three times, and an individual presidential term should not be limited to four years but to at least five and a maximum of seven years,” Interfax news agency quoted Markelov as saying.
The president of Mari El proposed a chan... (more)
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Four sue over passenger dataFour Alaskans have filed suit against the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA), seeking to prevent the agency deleting personal records that were obtained during a passenger-screening programme. The TSA has denied that it holds records on Anchorage-based Bill Beck and Sally Huntley (both travel agents) and John Davis and Charles Beckley, but the Alaskans want the agency to check more thoroughly.
According to reports the four are keen to see whether any information relat... (more)
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Valley tech firms try to block state RFID banSilicon Valley tech companies have launched an 11th-hour bid to stop state legislation that they say would slow the development of RFID -- the technology that uses computer chips to send information over radio frequencies.
These chips are being placed in smaller and smaller spaces, and the technology for reading them has gotten better, too. In fact, it's become so good that critics are raising privacy concerns over the security of the data. The biggest fears are that criminals cou... (more)
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Police look at cameraThat famous lyric by rock group “The Police” — the one that goes “I’ll be watching you” — may soon have a very literal interpretation in Oshkosh when the airplanes come buzzing into town.
There are no specific concerns or threats, but the Winnebago County police and the Department of Homeland Security have a new $25,000 set of high-tech peepers on order, one intended to zero in on potential terrorism threats at Wittman Regional Airport.... (more)
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Firms warned to take a 'Big Brother attitude' to e-mailsBUSINESS information consultancy Croner today urged firms to take a "Big Brother attitude" when monitoring employee e-mails, given that 35 per cent of all outbound office e-mail is unrelated to work.
The group said e-mails are increasingly being used by employees to bully, harass and air prejudices against colleagues.
Croner warned that e-mails can be used as evidence against employers in many tribunal cases. Too many employers are unaware of this fact, are too comp... (more)
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US spies N Korea nuke activityA US spy satellite has found that North Korea reactivated its nuclear reactor last month after it spotted vapour coming out of the reactor's boiler, a Japanese daily said on Sunday.
The reactivation of the Yongbyon nuclear complex came just before six-nation talks aimed at halting the North's nuclear drive began in Beijing in late July, the Asahi Shimbun daily said, quoting unnamed diplomatic sources.
The topic of the reactivated reactor had been discussed during th... (more)
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Hubble scans for Moon base locationsPlanetary scientists are using the Hubble Space Telescope to scout out sites for potential human bases on the Moon.
Previous missions have observed the Moon at a range of wavelengths. But none have boasted Hubble's sharp resolution at ultraviolet wavelengths - it can identify spectral features just 50 metres across over swathes of lunar terrain.
"We're trying to ascertain the potential of ultraviolet spectra for indicating lunar resources," says Bruce Hapke, a plane... (more)
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Google tool watches as you workGoogle's desktop search software is being overhauled to become a digital helper that reacts to what users do.
The move is likely to intensify competition between Google and rivals Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL.
The revamped software will suggest web links, personal documents and images that might be relevant to whatever someone is doing with their computer.
The tool also automatically subscribes to feeds from weblogs and news sites that a user visits.
... (more)
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