hamas threatening to invade egypt again

Egypt has sent 1,200 extra security personnel to the border area with Gaza, officials say.

The Egyptians fear another breach of the frontier by Palestinians trying to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

A senior member of Hamas, which controls Gaza, threatened on Tuesday to repeat a breach of the border with Egypt earlier this year.






food prices rise... chaos ensuing

Gunfire in Haiti. Riots in Cameroon. A government crisis in the Philippines. The effects of skyrocketing food prices have reached every corner of the globe. Now, the World Bank has called for world leaders to take action before it is too late.

The scenes in Haiti have been dramatic. Gunfire on the streets in the capital Port-au-Prince; thousands parading through the streets; and 9,000 United Nations peacekeepers powerless to stop the violence and the widespread looting. Five people have been killed in the violence since last Thursday, according to unofficial reports. Even an impassioned plea by the Caribbean country's President Rene Preval on Wednesday failed to restore order.

"The solution is not to go around destroying stores," he said. "I'm giving you orders to stop."






sex temple

ELDORADO, Texas (AP) — Agents searching a 1,700-acre polygamist compound in West Texas found a bed in the soaring limestone temple and prosecutors believe it was used for male members to have sex with their underage wives after sect-recognized unions.

The discovery was revealed Wednesday as troopers completed their weeklong search of the grounds of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, said spokeswoman Tela Mange.

The temple "contains an area where there is a bed where males over the age of 17 engage in sexual activity with female children under the age of 17," according to an affidavit quoting a confidential informant who had been providing information to the Schleicher County sheriff for years.






saving whales

North Atlantic right whales have always been noisy animals—and now that racket may save their lives.

Scientists have engineered a high-tech system of submerged listening posts stretching across 55 miles (88 kilometers) of Massachusetts Bay that can detect the sounds of the critically endangered animals.

The network is designed to protect the whales from deadly collisions in the busy shipping lanes that run through Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. About a third of all right whale deaths worldwide are attributed to ship collisions






how earthquakes stop

Every earthquake starts small. Beginning at one point, it extends outward, causing tremors in and around its path. At some point, though, all earthquakes stop. So what brings this mighty process to a halt?

That’s an important question, because the duration of an earthquake helps determine how much damage it will do. Will the tremor be of mild magnitude—say, a magnitude 4 on the Richter scale, the kind that occur all over the world every day—or a 9, which happens no more than once a decade on average?






scientists using performance enhancing drugs

April 9, 2008 -- One in five Nature readers -- mostly scientists -- say they up their mental performance with drugs such as Ritalin, Provigil, and Inderal.

The online poll from the British science magazine didn't ask readers how they felt about professional athletes using drugs to enhance their physical performance. But when asked how they felt about professional thinkers using drugs to enhance their cognitive performance, nearly 80% said it should be allowed.

While only a fifth of the poll's 1,400 respondents admitted to drug use to improve concentration, nearly two-thirds said they knew of a colleague who did. And if there were "a normal risk of mild side effects," nearly 70% of the scientists said they'd boost their brain power by taking a "cognitive-enhancing drug."






the thread of zombie computers

SAN FRANCISCO -- Gangs of thousands of zombie home computers grinding out spam, committing fraud and overpowering websites are the most vexing net threat today, according to law enforcement and security professionals.

Today's botnet herders have hundreds of thousands of computers at their command and use technically sophisticated ways to hide their headquarters, making it easy for them to make millions from spam and credit card theft. They can also be used to direct floods of fake traffic at a targeted website in order to bring down a rival, extract protection money or less frequently, used to make a political point in the case of attacks on Estonia and the Church of Scientology.






virginia teacher was running escort service

A social studies teacher resigned her position Wednesday as new information surfaced that shows she was involved with operating an escort service while on staff at Kellam High School.

One day earlier, Michelle Droelle told The Virginian-Pilot she got out of the business before she began teaching two years ago. But The Pilot has discovered escort service ad contracts signed by Droelle during the current school year – including one dated March 12, 2008.

Droelle, 33, voluntarily resigned, school officials said.







273,000+ stranded

April 10 (Bloomberg) -- AMR Corp.'s American Airlines scrubbed 933 more flights today, adding to 1,550 already canceled this week, as it continued aircraft wiring repairs and groundings that have stranded more than 273,000 passengers.

American said it had ``no choice'' in parking its 300 Boeing Co. MD-80 jets, which make up nearly half its fleet, after the planes again failed to meet a U.S. safety order. The carrier expects further cancellations tomorrow and April 12 before all of its MD-80s are back in service late that day.

Federal Aviation Administration whistleblower complaints that spurred a safety audit at 117 airlines and caused at least four carriers to ground planes sent a wake-up call to regulators and an industry that had grown complacent about maintenance, a former top safety official said.






carter to meet with terrorist leader

Former president Jimmy Carter plans to meet next week in Damascus with Khaled Meshal, the head of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, in a direct rebuke of the Bush administration's campaign to isolate it.

The disclosure of Carter's plans by the Arabic-language newspaper al-Hayat and subsequent confirmation by sources familiar with his itinerary instantly placed the campaigns of Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) in a political bind.

The campaign of Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican nominee, was quick to blast Carter's plans and called on both Obama and Clinton to condemn the meeting with what the State Department lists as a terrorist group.






facebook sex

A woman says she is a Facebook sex addict and has slept with 50 men she met through the networking site.

Laura Michaels, 23, set up a group called "I Need Sex" on the site.

She invited men to contact her and those whose picture she liked, she met up with.






god particle coming?

British physicist Peter Higgs - with the help of the US$2 billion Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - aims to study the origins of life by studying particles. The LHC, built 100m beneath the French-Swiss border at CERN, is due to be in operation in June.

The scientist specifically wants to uncover the existence of what has been called the Higgs boson – named after the theory he proposed over 40 years ago. The hypothetical Higgs boson, dubbed by some as the ‘God particle’, is fundamental to understanding the Universe but has not yet been detected. This particle would fill a missing element in explaining how subatomic particles — such as quarks and electrons — have weight.






eggs are dangerous... again

Middle-aged men who ate seven or more eggs a week had a higher risk of earlier death, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.

Men with diabetes who ate any eggs at all raised their risk of death during a 20-year period studied, according to the study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The study adds to an ever-growing body of evidence, much of it contradictory, about how safe eggs are to eat. It did not examine what about the eggs might affect the risk of death.






ron paul lone dissenter on china and tibet

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution Wednesday calling on China to end its crackdown on Tibet and release Tibetans imprisoned for "nonviolent" demonstrations.

The vote was 413-1. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who has not dropped out of the presidential race, was the lone congressman voting against it.

The resolution passed just hours before runners were to carry the Olympic torch on a six-mile route around San Francisco Bay.






be careful the next time you ask for another pillow

This seems the right time to broach the subject of a concierge’s limits. I am told they won’t do anything illegal. Drugs are out, as are hookers, though of course they’ve been asked. Just in case you need to know, there’s a coded way to ask for a prostitute. You phone the concierge and say: “Can I have another pillow?” This is embarrassing, because my wife is quite partial to an extra pillow. Which means I’ve often called down and asked for a prostitute to help her sleep. Having said that, they’ve only ever sent a pillow. Which is probably for the best.

Although the concierge doesn’t arrange extra pillows, call girls do find their way into the bar. Only last week, Richard tells me, a cleaner discovered a guest and someone who wasn’t his wife at it in the restaurant toilet.










april 10th in history

879 - Louis III becomes King of the Western Franks.
1500 - Ludovico Sforza is captured by the Swiss troops at Novara and handed over to the French.
1606 - The Charter of the Virginia Company of London was established by royal charter by James I of England with the purpose of establishing colonial settlements in North America.
1710 - The first law regulating copyright is issued in Great Britain.
1741 - War of the Austrian Succession: Prussia defeats Austria in the Battle of Mollwitz.
1790 - United States Patent system established
1815 - Mount Tambora eruption covers several islands with ash in Indonesia.
1816 - The U.S. government approved the creation of a Second Bank of the United States.
1821 - Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople is hanged by the Turks from the main gate of the Patriarchate and his body is thrown into the Bosphorus.
1826 - The 10,500 inhabitants of the Greek town Messolonghi start leaving the town after a year's siege by Turkish forces. Very few of them survive.
1856 - Theta Chi Fraternity Founded at Norwich University
1857 - The Sepoy Mutiny popularly known as the "Revolt of 1857" broke out in Meerut, India as part of the Indian independence movement.
1864 - Archduke Maximilian of Habsburg is elected emperor of Mexico.
1865 - American Civil War: A day after his surrender to Union forces, Confederate General Robert E. Lee addresses his troops for the last time.
1865 - The last photograph of Abraham Lincoln alive was taken.
1866 - The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is founded in New York City by Henry Bergh.
1868 - At Arogee in Abyssinia, British and Indian forces defeat an army of Emperor Theodore. While 700 Ethiopians are killed and many more injured, only two die from the British/ Indian troops.
1869 - José Martí founds the Cuban Revolutionary Party.
1896 - Spiridon Louis wins the marathon of the first Olympic Games.
1906 - The Four Million, O. Henry's second short story collection, is published.
1912 - The RMS Titanic leaves port in Southampton, England for her first and only voyage.
1916 - The Professional Golfers Association of America (PGA) is created in New York City.
1919 - Mexican Revolution leader Emiliano Zapata is ambushed and shot dead by government forces in Morelos.
1924 - The first train robbery is reported in Greece outside the city of Larissa.
1925 - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is first published in New York, New York by Charles Scribner's Sons.
1933 - New Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps is created.
1938 - Édouard Daladier becomes Prime Minister of France.
1941 - World War II: The Axis Powers in Europe establish the Independent State of Croatia from occupied Yugoslavia with Ante Pavelić's Ustase fascist insurgents in power.
1944 - Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler escape from Birkenau death camp.
1944 - Henry Ford II is named executive vice president of Ford Motor Company.
1953 - The first 3D film is released in New York.
1957 - The Suez Canal is reopened for all shipping after being closed for three months.
1959 - Akihito, future Emperor of Japan, weds Michiko.
1963 - The submarine USS Thresher is lost at sea, with all hands (129 officers, crewmen and civilian technicians).
1964 - The Polo Grounds are demolished.
1968 - Shipwreck of the Wahine outside Wellington harbour.
1970 - Paul McCartney announces that he's leaving The Beatles.
1971 - Ping Pong Diplomacy: In an attempt to thaw relations with the United States, the People's Republic of China hosts the U.S. table tennis team for a weeklong visit.
1972 - 20 days after he was kidnapped in Buenos Aires, Oberdan Sallustro is executed by communist guerrillas.
1972 - Vietnam War: For the first time since November 1967 American B-52 bombers reportedly begin bombing North Vietnam.
1973 - A British Vanguard turboprop crashes during a snowstorm at Basel, Switzerland killing 104.
1978 - Volkswagen becomes only the second non-American automobile manufacturer to build cars in the United States (after Rolls-Royce), opening a plant in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.
1979 - On "Terrible Tuesday", a tornado lands in Wichita Falls, Texas killing 42 people. (see Red River Valley Tornado Outbreak).
1991 - Italian ferry Moby Prince collides with an oil tanker in dense fog off Livorno, Italy killing 140.
1991 - A rare tropical storm develops in the Southern Hemisphere near Angola; the first to be documented by satellites.
1998 - The Belfast Agreement is signed.
2006 - Hundreds of thousands protest H.R. 4437 (aka the "Sensenbrenner Bill") in cities across the United States.