Attackers stormed a federal prison in Nigeria with heavy gunfire and explosives, killing one guard and freeing 119 inmates in a new assault demonstrating the continued instability in the nation, an official said Thursday.

"The invaders came at about 7.15 p.m. (1:30 p.m. ET) yesterday and we suspected they used explosives to bring down the gate of the prison and the roof of the gate and thereafter set free 119 inmates," prison authorities spokesman Hadiza Aminu told Reuters.

The government said an investigation had begun into the attack in Koton-Karifi, a town in Kogi state just south of Nigeria's capital of Abuja.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the prison attack, nor did authorities say they had any suspects immediately in mind.

If you're in Starbucks and notice a nondescript individual paying for their coffee with cash - watch out.

According to the FBI you might have found evidence of a terrorist plot.

A series of fliers distributed to companies around the United States by the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Assistance appear to give workers and business owners exactly this advice.

The fliers, as highlighted by the miscellania blog BoingBoing, are intended to help various businesses from hobby shop owners to car rental services identify suspicious people who might be involved in terrorist activity.

This video sheds light into the nature of love, relationships, the "New Age" movement, reality-creation, quantum physics, objectivity vs. subjectivity and how it all relates to the topics of "conspiracy theories", psychopathy, and the importance of esoteric self-work.

Big rigs with bombs are secretly cruising the interstate near you. But how safe are they from terrorists or accidents?

"Is that it?" My wife leans forward in the passenger seat of our sensible hatchback and points ahead to an 18-wheeler that's hauling ass toward us on a low-country stretch of South Carolina's Highway 125. We've been heading west from I-95 toward the Savannah River Site nuclear facility on the Georgia-South Carolina border, in search of nuke truckers. At first the mysterious big rig resembles a commercial gas tanker, but the cab is pristine-looking and there's a simple blue-on-white license plate: US GOVERNMENT. It blows by too quickly to determine whether it's part of the little-known US fleet tasked with transporting some of the most sensitive cargo in existence.

As you weave through interstate traffic, you're unlikely to notice another plain-looking Peterbilt tractor-trailer rolling along in the right-hand lane. The government plates and array of antennas jutting from the cab's roof would hardly register. You'd have no idea that inside the cab an armed federal agent operates a host of electronic countermeasures to keep outsiders from accessing his heavily armored cargo: a nuclear warhead with enough destructive power to level downtown San Francisco.

That's the way the Office of Secure Transportation (OST) wants it. At a cost of $250 million a year, nearly 600 couriers employed by this secretive agency within the US Department of Energy use some of the nation's busiest roads to move America's radioactive material wherever it needs to go - from a variety of labs, reactors and military bases, to the nation's Pantex bomb-assembly plant in Amarillo, Texas, to the Savannah River facility. Most of the shipments are bombs or weapon components; some are radioactive metals for research or fuel for Navy ships and submarines. The shipments are on the move about once a week.

A mother in Hoke County complains her daughter was forced to eat a school lunch because a government inspector determined her home-made lunch did not meet nutrition requirements. In fact, all of the students in the NC Pre-K program classroom at West Hoke Elementary School in Raeford had to accept a school lunch in addition to their lunches brought from home.

NC Pre-K (before this year known as More at Four) is a state-funded education program designed to "enhance school readiness" for four year-olds.

The mother, who doesn't wish to be identified at this time, says she made her daughter a lunch that contained a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, apple juice and potato chips. A state inspector assessing the pre-K program at the school said the girl also needed a vegetable, so the inspector ordered a full school lunch tray for her. While the four-year-old was still allowed to eat her home lunch, the girl was forced to take a helping of chicken nuggets, milk, a fruit and a vegetable to supplement her sack lunch.

The mother says the girl was so intimidated by the inspection process that she was too scared to eat all of her homemade lunch. The girl ate only the chicken nuggets provided to her by the school, so she still didn't eat a vegetable.

A solo mum who wants to study so she can get off welfare says she has had to turn to prostitution to pay for childcare and transport to the course.

Tania Wysocki, a 38-year-old mother of two preschoolers at Paerata near Pukekohe, advertised herself on a website two weeks ago in a last-ditch effort to raise the money she needs for childcare when she starts a veterinary nursing course at Unitec in Mt Albert next week.

She wrote to Prime Minister John Key two days after Christmas saying she could see no other way to do the course, which she hopes will help her get off the domestic purposes benefit (DPB). Mr Key's office passed the letter on to Social Development Minister Paula Bennett, who has yet to respond.

Work and Income's Pukekohe office told Ms Wysocki in writing that she could get only nine hours a week of subsidised childcare for the fulltime course, plus a one-off $500 loan towards the weekly $72.20 cost of a 10-trip student train pass from Pukekohe to Mt Albert.

She may need at least 36 hours. "We regret the delay but she will be able to begin the academic year with the correct childcare subsidies," Ms Evans said.

But the subsidy will cover only part of Ms Wysocki's childcare fees, and the $500 loan falls far short of her transport costs for a year, so studying will still cost her about $113 a week more out of her own pocket than staying at home on the benefit.

Yesterday, after Herald inquiries, Auckland regional social development commissioner Isabel Evans said Ms Wysocki had now provided further information and was actually entitled to up to 50 hours a week of subsidised childcare.

Washington - A Texas family farm has won a temporary restraining order to block TransCanada Corp. from building the Keystone XL pipeline through its property, accusing the company of dealing in bad faith and withholding vital information about the project.

Lawyers for TransCanada and the Crawford Family Farm in northeastern Texas's Lamar County are now set to square off at a hearing Friday that could determine whether to approve the Calgary-based company's petition to condemn the property under eminent domain laws.

"We don't think they have negotiated in good faith," said attorney John Pieratt, who represents farm manager Julia Trigg Crawford.

"They just want to build the thing without us having our day in court."

At issue is TransCanada's effort to gain a right-of-way easement allowing it to build the future Keystone XL pipeline across the Crawford farm.

A few years back Grits posed the question, "Is babysitting while white reasonable suspicion for police questioning?" after my granddaughter and I were detained and questioned at length in my neighborhood on suspicion of some nefarious deed (it was never quite clear what). In that incident, the police were pretty clear I was stopped solely because Ty, like her mother (who came to live with my wife and me when she was a child) is black, while I'm an almost stereotypical looking white Texas redneck. At the time, Grits was amazed that three squad cars were dispatched to question me for walking down the street with a child of a different race, detaining me for no good reason and scaring the bejeezus out of then-two-year old Ty.

Last night, though, Ty and I got the full jump-out-boys treatment, making our earlier interaction with Austin PD seem downright quaint. It could only have been more ridiculous if they'd actually arrested me, which for a while there didn't seem out of the question. (This is a personal tale much more than a policy analysis, so if you're only interested in the latter, don't bother to read further.)

Kuwait issued Monday a blanket ban on smoking in public places including hotels, restaurants and cafes.

Commerce and Industry Minister Amani Buresli ordered the ban upon recommendations from Health Ministry.

Minister Buresli said the ban covers all forms of smoking including water pipe.

The minister asked restaurants, cafes and entertainment places to allocate well-isolated places for smokers.

Inspectors will monitor all public places to ensure full respect for the new rules, Buresli said.

She also warned that the ministry will take puntive and legal actions against violators of the ban.

The Ministry of Health also banned smoking in shopping malls, schools, universities, hospitals, airports, government offices, sports clubs, libraries, recreational places and other public places.

The two ministries urged all Kuwaiti citizens and foreign residents to help enforce the ban that aims to protect public health.

2/13/2012 update: This story has led to new legislation being introduced in the U.S. Senate.

Women passengers complain that TSA agents are targeting them for extra screening.

The Transportation Security Administration has a policy to randomly select people for extra screening, but some female passengers are complaining. They believe there is nothing "random" about the way they were picked.

A Dallas woman says TSA agents repeatedly asked her to step back into a body scanning machine at DFW International Airport. "I feel like I was totally exposed," said Ellen Terrell, who is a wife and mother. "They wanted a nice good look."

When Ellen Terrell and her husband, Charlie, flew out of DFW Airport several months ago, Terrell says she was surprised by a question a female TSA agent asked her. "She says to me, 'Do you play tennis?' And I said, 'Why?' She said, 'You just have such a cute figure.'"

Terrell says she walked into the body scanner which creates an image that a TSA agent in another room reviews. Terrell says she tried to leave, but the female agent stopped her. "She says, 'Wait, we didn't get it,'" recalls Terrell, who claims the TSA agent sent her back a second time and even a third. But that wasn't good enough.