Society's Child
The government has warned airlines that terrorists are considering surgically implanting explosives into people in an attempt to circumvent screening procedures, according to U.S. officials.
There is no indication of an immediate plot, but the new information could lead to additional screening procedures at the nation's airports. Existing scanners would not necessarily detect bombs implanted under a person's skin, experts said.
While the information suggests such a threat would come from overseas rather than domestic groups, federal officials are ordering precautions both in the U.S. and abroad, the official said.

A 50-year-old woman is in custody accused of delivering an envelope filled with mysterious white powder to the Toronto offices shared by interim federal Liberal leader Bob Rae and Ontario provincial representative Glen Murray.
The powder, which arrived at the building at about 2 p.m., caused itching, sneezing and coughing amongst building employees. "It was a non-toxic but noxious substance, people in the office had respiratory symptoms and redness but it was nothing poisonous," said a spokesperson for Mr. Murray.
The building was briefly evacuated and the immediate area was blocked off by police. While emergency crews clad in HazMat suits removed the package, affected employees were treated onsite. Officials soon reported that the powder was "innocuous."
The woman, whose motivation is not known, was apprehended soon after.

La Toya Jackson book signing for Starting Over, Barnes & Noble Booksellers, The Grove, Los Angeles, California.
Michael Jackson's sister made the bizarre allegation during an appearance on CBS's The Talk where she was promoting her new autobiography Starting Over.
It tells of the abuse she allegedly suffered at the hands of her ex-husband and manager Jack Gordon, who she says also 'hated and despised' her legendary entertainer brother.

The Rev. William Miller began peddling his end-of-the-world prediction in the 1820s based on a series of elaborate charts such as this one called "Chronological Chart of the Visions of Daniel and John."
They weren't celebrating the Fourth of July. They were waiting for the end of the world.
These happy campers were the followers of a 19th-century version of the Rev. Harold Camping, the Rapture predictor.
The views of the Rapture reverend, broadcast over his multi-million-dollar radio, TV, satellite and website empire, would move those Cincinnatians to say: Been there. Done that.

Evan Gould with Gould Construction shows off handfuls of the rich peat moss that the company hauled in from the Ziegler Reservoir excavation site in Snowmass Village. The company started out with 6,000 cubic yards for sale to gardeners, and still has 4,500 cubic yards available at its location south of Glenwood Springs.
Glenwood Springs-based Gould Construction is selling peat soil excavated from the construction site, which became one of the world's largest fossil finds last fall after the preserved bones of numerous prehistoric mammals were discovered.
Before the find, Gould, which was the initial contractor on the construction site, was in charge of excavating and disposing of the material, explained Evan Gould, trucking supervisor and safety director for the company.
Most of that "material" was rich, black high-elevation peat moss. The deeper layers of the reservoir site ended up holding a virtual motherlode of ice age fossils. Thousands have since been removed and preserved by scientists working with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
Rather than simply get rid of the dirt that was part of Gould's initial work, the company decided to make the peat moss available for sale to local gardeners and landscapers.
"This stuff is great for flower beds, gardens, any place where you want to grow things," Evan Gould said. "If you like to buy locally, and buy all-organic stuff that you know exactly where it came from, this is the best."
Phoenix, Arizona - The Federal Aviation Administration released dramatic audio recordings Tuesday between air traffic controllers and pilots aboard Southwest Airlines flight 812.
The two sides worked together on April 1 to get the plane on the ground after a six-foot hole ripped open in the fuselage .
The recordings indicate Southwest Flight 812 started out just like any other.
But a few minutes in to the Phoenix to Sacramento flight, the pilot declares an emergency.
"We lost the cabin," the pilot can be heard saying.
The roof of the Boeing 737 had ripped open, leaving a gaping hole.
"Apparently we've got a hole in the fuselage in the back of the airplane," the pilot says to air traffic controllers.
The plane quickly descended from 36,000 feet to just 10,000 feet as the pilot tries to figure out where to land.

More than 100 potentially lethal oil and gas spills took place on rigs in the North Sea in 2009 and 2010.
Serious spills of oil and gas from North Sea platforms are occurring at the rate of one a week, undermining oil companies' claims to be doing everything possible to improve the safety of rigs.
Shell has emerged as one of the top offenders despite promising to clean up its act five years ago after a large accident in which two oil workers died.
Documents obtained by the Guardian record leaks voluntarily declared by the oil companies to the safety regulator, the Health and Safety Executive(HSE), in a database set up after the Piper Alpha disaster of 6 July 1988 which killed 167 workers. They reveal for the first time the names of companies that have caused more than 100 potentially lethal and largely unpublicised oil and gas spills in the North Sea in 2009 and 2010.

ExxonMobil clean-up crews work to collect oil from along side the Yellowstone river in Montana. Flooding is preventing them reaching the broken pipeline.
Clean-up crews have yet to reach the break in the 12-inch pipeline because of historic flooding on the river, which is projected to peak on Tuesday.
Montana's governor, Brian Schweitzer, who was due to visit areas near the spill site on Tuesday, has called for a safety inspection of all pipelines crossing the state and a review of the company's emergency response plans.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has denied once again the city's request for aid for people recovering from the May 22 tornado.
The aid, which would help pay for things like cars ruined by the tornado and even the replacement of a person's home if it was not covered by insurance, was deemed unnecessary for the area's recovery, according to a letter from a top FEMA official that arrived Friday. Gov. Mark Dayton had requested the aid after the tornado blew through densely populated neighborhoods from St. Louis Park to Blaine, destroying dozens of houses, primarily in north Minneapolis.
Rumours about these pedophile networks are not uncommon. The Casa Pia case in Portugal, the Dutroux case in Belgium, the Franklin affair in the USA and the Zandvoort affair in the Netherlands to name but a few - in all these cases there have been allegations of cover-ups and involvement of people in high societal standing, and investigations seldom lead to a satisfactory result - the Portuguese Casa Pia scandal, where politicians and a national tv-show host were actually convicted, being the proverbial black swan.
Noemi, in this documentary, claims to have met Marc Dutroux, the Belgian pedophile who was convicted for kidnapping and killing several girls in the late 1990's, through her father. If this is true, it is explosive evidence of the case reaching beyond national borders, something that has always been suspected by researchers.
The two girls and the boy's stories are horrible beyond imagination - not only involving abuse, but also child-murders, infant sacrifices and instances of cannibalism. It's tempting to dismiss their stories as the product of imagination, given the trauma they have been through, but it should be stated that these testimonies are very similar to what the "X-witnesses" in the Dutroux affair claimed.
There is an excellent book: Les dossiers X: Ce que la Belgique ne devait pas savoir sur l'affaire Dutroux (the X-files: what Belgium wasn't allowed to know about the Dutroux affair) in which three investigative journalists research the story of Regina Louf, aka witness "X-1". She was the first to come forward with her story. Many believed her but then the press instigated a character assassination. The writers of this book however, not only find many credible details in her story, about never resolved murders of young girls in Belgium, but they also show beyond a doubt the whole investigation into the case was deliberately derailed by Belgian Justice.







Comment: Amos M. Gunsberg, Beyond Insanity