Germany's railway operator plans to deploy mini drones to catch vandals who deface its trains with graffiti, with the aerial vehicles shooting thermal images of its train depots at night.

Deutsche Bahn plans to soon start testing the vehicles which have four helicopter-style rotors and can shoot high-resolution pictures.

"We are going to use this technology in problem areas, where taggers are most active," a spokesman who asked not to be named told AFP.

A Prince William County man says he was suspected by Walmart security of possibly kidnapping his three young daughters -- all because they aren't the same race.


Joseph, who doesn't want his family's last name revealed, and his wife Keana are an interracial couple. They have been married for nearly 10 years and have three daughters: a 4-year-old and 2-year-old twins.

On Thursday evening, Joseph took all three girls to the Walmart in Potomac Mills in Woodbridge to cash a check. He says they weren't there long, but spent a few extra minutes in the parking lot while he buckled the girls in and then made a phone call.

Joseph says he then went to up his wife, Keana, and as they were arriving home, they were shocked to find a Prince William County police officer waiting for them.

"He asks us very sincerely, 'Hey, I was sent here by Walmart security. I just need to make sure that the children that you have are your own,'" Joseph says.

A CSX freight train derailed Tuesday afternoon in the Rosedale area, damaging nearby buildings, shutting down US Route 40 and causing a loud explosion that could be felt several miles away.Authorities in Baltimore County said the 15-car train struck a commercial truck near the 7500 block of Lake Drive, veering off the tracks near an industrial park. Initial reports were that no one was hurt, but County Executive Kevin Kamenetz later said the driver of the trailer was extricated and taken to Maryland Shock Trauma center in serious but stable condition.The National Transportation Safety Board announced at around 4 p.m. that it was sending a "go-team" that includes rail and hazmat investigators.


Baltimore County spokeswoman Elise Armacost said the train was carrying unknown chemicals but said the smoke did not include toxic inhalants. Still, a 20-block area around the accident was evacuated. "The evacuation would be much more significant if there were toxic chemicals," said Baltimore County Fire Chief John J. Hohman. He said he expected the fire to burn into the night, and firefighters were huddling with CSX officials about how best to attack the blaze.

Only two people were aboard the train, and they were uninjured, Armacost said.

MTA spokesman Terry Owens said the agency did not expect any disruption of service on the Penn Line between Baltimore and Perryville, which operates on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor. Minor delays were possible on the CSX-owned Camden Line between Washington and Baltimore's Camden Station, as CSX shuffles previously scheduled freight trains.

Authorities say Marine from Camp Lejeune was killed and a sheriff wounded after a central Texas gunbattle with police ended a shooting spree that left one other person dead and five injured.

The suspected gunman was identified as Esteban J. Smith, 23, who was stationed at the Marine Corps base in North Carolina, the Texas Department of Public Safety said in a statement Monday.

He was declared dead following a shootout with authorities in Concho County, the department said.

Master Sgt. Jonathan Cress at Camp Lejeune, said Monday that the Marine was wanted for questioning in a homicide in nearby Jacksonville, N.C.

Concho County Sheriff Richard Doane was being treated for non-life threatening injuries at Shannon Medical Center in San Angelo, Texas, Department of Public Safety spokesman Tom Vinger said in a written statement.

The events began around 4:30 a.m. Sunday when shots were fired on a vehicle in the Eden area, leaving a woman injured and hospitalized in San Angelo, the department said. She was reported to have suffered non-life threatening injuries.

A short time later, two people were wounded when they were fired upon as they sat in their vehicle at a convenience store in Brady, in McCulloch County. They were treated and released.

Chinese firefighters have rescued a newborn boy from a sewer pipe below a squat toilet, sawing out an L-shaped section and then delicately dismantling it to free the cocooned baby, who greeted the rescuers with cries.

A tenant heard the baby's sounds in the public restroom of a residential building in Zhejiang province in eastern China on Saturday and notified authorities, according to the state-run news site Zhejiang News. A video of the two-hour rescue that followed was broadcast widely on Chinese news programs and websites late Monday and Tuesday.

Another Memorial Day. Another war. Yes, let's honor those who died in the nation's many wars. But if we do not want to keep adding to the soldiers' graves, let's also ask why they died.

We know our political leaders will speak solemnly to the nation while the flags are unfurled and the bugles blow, and they will say, as they always do, "They gave their lives for their country."

And that is supposed to satisfy the families of the dead, supposed to satisfy all of us whose children and grandchildren may be called upon to serve in future wars.

Washington - Police departments and federal agencies across the country are using a type of polygraph despite evidence of a technical problem that could label truthful people as liars or the guilty as innocent, McClatchy has found.

As a result, innocent people might have been labeled criminal suspects, faced greater scrutiny while on probation or lost out on jobs. Or, just as alarming, spies and criminals may have escaped detection.

The technical glitch produced errors in the computerized measurements of sweat in one of the most popular polygraphs, the LX4000. Although polygraphers first noticed the problem a decade ago, many government agencies hadn't known about the risk of inaccurate measurements until McClatchy recently raised questions about it.

The manufacturer, Lafayette Instrument Co. Inc., described the phenomenon as "occasional" and "minor," but it couldn't say exactly how often it occurs. Even after one federal agency became concerned and stopped using the measurement and a veteran polygrapher at another witnessed it repeatedly change test results, the extent and the source of the problem weren't independently studied nor openly debated. In the meantime, tens of thousands of Americans were polygraphed on the LX4000.

The controversy casts new doubt on the reliability and usefulness of polygraphs, which are popularly known as lie detectors and whose tests are banned for use as evidence by most U.S. courts. Scientists have long questioned whether polygraphers can accurately identify liars by interpreting measurements of blood pressure, sweat activity and respiration. But polygraphers themselves say they rely on the measurements to be accurate for their daily, high-stakes decisions about people's lives.

Speaking at a festival in the U.K., Google's executive chairman offers that the things teens do now will stay with them forever, by way of the Web. He also suggested some people are sharing too much online.

It must be peculiar for children of the Internet age.

They are the first to have a complete record of their whole lives. They are the first who'll be able to offer concrete proof of every one of their days, friends, and actions.

Eric Schmidt worries, however, that they'll be the first who'll never be allowed to forget their mistakes.

As the Telegraph reports, Schmidt spoke Saturday at the Hay Festival in the U.K. and offered some sobering thoughts for those addled by online life.

He said: "There are situations in life that it's better that they don't exist. Especially if there is stuff you did when you were a teenager. Teenagers are now in an adult world online."

Some days, you could hardly describe most of what happens online as "adult." Still, Schmidt says he believes the online world has gone too far in forcing teens to never forget.

In bygone times, he said, they were punished, but allowed to grow beyond youthful indiscretions.

An Italian prosecutor has launched an investigation into how Facebook allowed the publication of insults and bullying posts aimed at a teenager, who later leapt to her death from her third floor bedroom window.

Carolina Picchio, 14, from Novara in northern Italy, committed suicide in January after a gang of boys circulated video on Facebook of her appearing drunk and dishevelled in the bathroom at a party.

The group, aged between 15 and 17, were said to be friends of Miss Picchio's ex-boyfriend. He had allegedly insulted her on Facebook when she left him days earlier, although he claims to have later apologised.

"Isn't what you have done to me enough? You have made me pay too many times," Miss Picchio wrote in a note to the boy which was found in her room by investigators.

Before taking her life, she wrote on Facebook: "Forgive me if I am not strong. I cannot take it any longer."

The Italian Parent's Association has already filed a criminal complaint in Rome directly against Facebook for allegedly having a role in the instigation of Miss Picchio's suicide.

"This is the first time a parent's group has filed such a complaint against Facebook in Europe," said director Antonio Affinita. "Italian law forbids minors under 18 signing contracts, yet Facebook is effectively entering into a contract with minors regarding their privacy, without their parents knowing."

Francesco Saluzzo, the Novara prosecutor, said he did not rule out placing Facebook staff under investigation.

Mr Saluzzo told The Daily Telegraph he was probing how the videos had stayed online "for days", even after Miss Picchio's friends requested their removal.

"There is a procedure for asking for the removal of messages that break rules," he said. "This is an open investigation without named suspects, as yet. Facebook itself is not under investigation. But we could theoretically investigate employees of Facebook who failed to respond to these requests."

A secret court in the UK has put some people behind bars just for trying to take care of their own relatives. One woman whose father was pronounced 'mentally ill' was locked away. But since the hearings are behind closed doors, it's hard to know why.