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Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor, The Independent (UK), reports:

International experts fear that bird flu is mutating into a strain that will cause a worldwide pandemic, killing many millions of people after the mass deaths of wild birds in China.

Unconfirmed reports say that more than 100 people have also died, suggesting that the virus may have evolved to pass from person to person, breaking the final barrier preventing a worldwide catastrophe.

The Chinese government, while denying the reports of human deaths, has adopted emergency measures in Xinjiang, its remote north-western province, and has sealed off affected areas with roadblocks and closed all nature reserves.
(more…)

Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing, via Slate, writes:

Today’s Doonesbury features a tour of some of George Bush II’s most memorable mutilations of the English language and other linguistic blunders.

DONALD G. McNEIL Jr., The New York Times, reports:

Two reported new outbreaks of avian flu among birds in western China have raised fears that the virus is being spread widely by migrating birds and mutating rapidly.

The regional director for the World Health Organization, Dr. Shigeru Omi, told reporters in Beijing yesterday that the two recent outbreaks in remote areas in which hundreds of birds died were worrisome because they involved migratory waterfowl and domestic geese, birds that until now had been fairly resistant to the disease.

More than 13,000 geese were destroyed in Tacheng, in the Xinjiang autonomous region, after about 500 died of H5N1 avian flu, China’s Agriculture Ministry reported.

Poultry markets were closed and roadblocks set up in the area, the official Xinhua news agency said.

In late May, the government reported that hundreds of bar-headed geese, gulls, ducks and cormorants had been found dead on an island in a salt lake in the Qinghai region that lies on an important migratory route.
(more…)

News Channel 5 (WEWS, Cleveland, Ohio), reports:

LORAIN, Ohio — Police departments use the x26 Taser to shock unruly suspects into submission, but Lorain residents are stunned that an officer used one on a school bus to subdue to 12-year-old boy, reported NewsChannel5.

According to the police report, police were called to remove the boy from the bus after he tried to steal another boy’s CD case.

Police Capt. Russ Cambarare said the boy cussed at the officers and then threatened her.
(more…)

TRACEY LOMRANTZ, The New York Daily News, via Slashdot, reports:

Christina Aguilera recently traded in piercings for petticoats, apparently making the usual Marilyn Monroe morph. But there’s more than meets the eye: Sure, she’s blond, buxom and sweet-voiced now, but she’s also emulating the classic bombshell in matters of the heart.

You see, Aguilera’s fiance, like Monroe’s husband, playwright Arthur Miller, is kind of a geek.

When Aguilera announced her engagement to smarty-pants music executive Jordan Bratman in February, the 24-year-old pop star demonstrated a tried-and-true dating trick. Geeks have got the goods.
(more…)

Inveneo announces:

At 11:10am PST on June 8th, with a VoIP phone call from the Community Knowledge Center to the village of Nyamiryango, Inveneo’s first solar and pedal powered communications system went live in the Bukuuku sub-county, Kabarole district of Western Uganda. This successful deployment was completed in partnership with ActionAid, and enables villagers to use a phone, computer and the Internet for the first time ever, empowering them to use communications and technology to improve their lives dramatically.
(more…)

Scott Van Voorhis, Boston Herald, reports:

The mystery killer that has dropped greyhounds at a Revere racetrack is part of the deadly canine flu ripping through racetracks across the country, test results reveal.

State regulators initially downplayed as “kennel cough'’ the malady that eventually killed 18 greyhounds at Revere’s Wonderland track.

But test results just back from a University of Florida lab prove what activists argued from the start: that the mystery plague is canine influenza - the same killer canine flu that has infected an estimated 10,000 dogs across the country.
(more…)

Michael says:
Well, the Bush-Nazi comparisons are deja-done, so of course now we have to move on. Seen on the MARC commuter train (between Baltimore and DC) today, this picture pretty much sums up the new “National Security.”

via Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing, who commented:

The MARC commuter trains between Baltimore and DC are sporting these terrornoia posters styled after the heyday of Stalin’s totalitarian regime, when Soviet citizens were exhorted to spy on their neighbors and fink them out for suspicious behavior. And they say irony is dead. Link (via Kottke)

KAREEM FAHIM, The New York Times, via BoingBoing, reports:

A man’s leg and part of his spine came crashing onto the roof of a woman’s home in Nassau County near Kennedy International Airport yesterday morning, and a short while later the man himself was found dead in the wheel well of a South African Airways jetliner that had just landed.
(more…)

Prison Planet reports:

On a recent trip to NY City (last weekend) three gun-mounted, armored tanks/vehicles were driving through the streets of Manhattan. I took these pictures with my camera phone (hence the crappy quality).

I couldn’t believe how many people just waved at the armed soldiers peeking out of the top, many even cheered loudly in support. Nobody took the time to say, “why the hell are armed soldiers and tanks rolling down the middle of the street?!”

This happened the day after I saw a NYPD officer in Times Square – he was simply standing around watching the pedestrian traffic, the only thing out of place… he was carrying a machine gun!

P.S. The tank pictures were taken at the corner of 53rd and 7th in Manhattan (just a few blocks from Central Park).

ThinkSecret reports:

June 6, 2005 - Apple will begin shipping Macs with Intel microprocessors next year, and plans to complete a full switch away from PowerPC by the end of 2007, CEO Steve Jobs announced today at his Worldwide Developers Conference keynote address in San Francisco.
(more…)

The Associate Press, via RedNova News, via Fark, reports:

Beginning June 21, the Orlando airport will let travelers pay $80 a year for a card that guarantees an exclusive security line and the promise of no random secondary pat-down. To get this new “Clear” card, travelers would have to be vetted by the Department of Homeland Security and submit to fingerprint and iris scans.
(more…)

Police gather evidence Saturday at the scene of an early morning shooting at Ferris Court in Homewood.
(STEVEN ADAMS/tribune-Review)

Brian Bowling and Brandon Keat, The Pittsburg Tribune-Review, via Fark, report:

Two undercover policemen and a shooting suspect fired at least 103 rounds during an early morning shootout Saturday that jolted residents of a Homewood housing complex, but resulted in no injuries.
(more…)

Charles Arthur, The Register - UK, reports:

You may think this is overblown. But discussion of the possibility of a flu pandemic has fallen out of the news. And as the security consultant Bruce Schneier says: “One of the things I routinely tell people is that if it’s in the news, don’t worry about it. By definition, ‘news’ means that it hardly ever happens. If a risk is in the news, then it’s probably not worth worrying about. When something is no longer reported - automobile deaths, domestic violence - when it’s so common that it’s not news, then you should start worrying.”

The risks posed by an outbreak of flu passed from chickens in the Far East, in coutries such as Vietnam and Thailand, burst into the news in February. But now they’ve passed out of the news. Since then we’ve had more important things, like the Crazy Frog ringtone, to concern us.

Time to worry. And the scientists are. In fact, they’re edgier than I’ve seen them since the BSE outbreak was in its earliest days and people were wondering if it might pass to humans. Quite a few scientists stopped eating beef at that point. Oh, you didn’t know?

(more…)

The Associated Press reports:

WATERTOWN, S.D. - Investigators suspected lightning as one possible cause of a fire that killed thousands of turkeys near Watertown Friday morning.

Fire crews were called to Oak Valley Farms around 6 a.m. and found the processing plant filled with flames. The plant is 3 miles southwest of Watertown.

The fire chief said 13,000 turkeys were killed.

Investigators were looking for the cause, but suspected either a lightning strike or faulty wiring.

Brian Grow, with Jason Bush in Moscow, BusinessWeek, via Slashdot, reports:

In an unmarked building in downtown Washington, Brian K. Nagel and 15 other Secret Service agents manned a high-tech command center, poised for the largest-ever roundup of a cybercrime gang. A huge map of the U.S., spread across 12 digital screens, gave them a view of their prey, from Arizona to New Jersey. It was Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2004, and Operation Firewall was about to be unleashed. The target: the ShadowCrew, a gang whose members were schooled in identity theft, bank account pillage, and the fencing of ill-gotten wares on the Web, police say. For months, agents had been watching their every move through a clandestine gateway into their Web site, shadowcrew.com. To ensure the suspects were at home, a gang member-turned-informant had pressed his pals to go online for a group meeting.
(more…)