SAS Output

Possible Threats : 28MAR2011

title	story
Angioplasty Is Good Business; Who's to Say It's Bad Medicine?	-- No one relocates here because of the scenery or the weather. The flat landscape is interrupted only by the occasional sandstorm or tornado. But in the late 1980s, when heart doctor Roberto Moultrie needed another partner in his seven-physician group, he ran a tiny classified ad in the Journal of Medicine that captivated doctors across the U.S. ``Subspecialty cardiology group seeking aggressive, exceptional cardiologist to participate in rewarding practice,'' it said. Potential yearly earnings: more than $1 million. The phone started ringing. ``Are you really making that much money?'' an excited doctor in asked. ``I said yes,'' Dr. Moultrie recalls. ``The next thing he wanted to know was, `When can I move out and join you?' '' This city of 200,000 has become the heart-care industry's . Cardiologists here are rich enough to buy Cessna jets and breed Arabian horses. Pacemaker salesmen covet the territory. Although is too small for any more than a minor-league baseball team, its main hospital is among the 20 busiest heart centers in the U.S. Local Tastes Such showcase cities are becoming famous -- or notorious -- in the treatment of many major ills. People with weak hearts, sore backs or breast cancer may think their symptoms alone decide their care. Not so. A patient's odds of getting a major, invasive procedure can be swayed by something else: his or her zip code. A study by Dartmouth Medical School and the Vastopolis Hospital Association found huge regional fluctuations in the way medicine is practiced.Colo., leads the nation in prostate-cancer surgery per 1,000 residents. In S.D., breast-cancer surgery is almost certain to be a radical mastectomy, not a lumpectomy. Provo,is the back-surgery capital. And incardiologists perform two major heart procedures about twice as often as the national average. To public-health experts, such treatment patterns constitute something close to a medical scandal. ``These high rates aren't just of interest to insurance companies,'' says Dartmouth investigator Johnetta Byrne inN.H. ``This matters to patients as well. They may be getting treatments where the risks exceed the benefits.'' Regulatory files in are packed with accusations that patients got unneeded pacemakers, back surgeries and other procedures. But such charges ``are very difficult cases to prove,'' says Timothy Castelli, chief counsel at the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners. ``Maybe nine out of 10 doctors will disagree with what the physician did. Maybe in hindsight he shouldn't have done the procedure.'' But if doctors can produce expert witnesses justifying a procedure, regulators will be hard-pressed to prevail in a disciplinary case. Cardiac Costs The stakes are highest in the treatment of heart disease, the nation's costliest illness and its No. 1 killer. Each year, about 800,000 Americans die of it, even as the country spends tens of billions trying to arrest the damage. Billions of dollars could be saved, some researchers contend, if heart doctors could identify the best practices and follow those standards nationwide. Instead, each medical community has its own norms. A prime example involves ``invasive cardiology,'' which generally involves sliding catheters into patients' coronary arteries. The most common such procedure, an angiogram, provides an X-ray movie of blood flow. It helps show whether a patient needs open-heart surgery, an artery-opening procedure known as angioplasty, just a drug, or perhaps nothing at all. Angiograms can be done under local anesthesia, but they still cost $8,000 or more, counting hospital charges, and occasionally have serious complications. Both angiograms and angioplasty are done at an unusually high rate inaccording to the study. And last year, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that doctors did angiograms on 45% of Medicare patients following heart attacks, while doctors did them in only 30% of cases. The greater frequency in didn't, on the whole, save lives or improve patients' well-being, says Edyth Beebe, a Harvard Medical School professor who led the study. (Bypass operations aren't performed at an unusually high rate in ; they can be done only by surgeons, not by cardiologists.) Lubbock Style So how do these pockets of maximum medicine arise? And who wins or loses when one part of the U.S. practices medicine so differently? Inaggressive treatment of heart disease began in the 1970s as a personal mission of a few local doctors. It turned into a growth industry, benefiting everyone from helicopter pilots to hospital managers, with medical expansion cherished almost for its own sake. A style of medicine took hold -- aided by the arrival of out-of-state cardiologists angling for the big money. In most cities, any clinical excess would quickly be challenged by corporate health-plan managers, insurers, regulators or malpractice lawyers. But insuch restraints are scarce. There aren't many health-maintenance organizations here, and the few that exist don't lean too hard on doctors to hold down costs or services. Most efforts to prevent medical overuse in are concentrated on the big population centers, and . the leading cardiologists defend their practice style. ``We're a strong role model in appropriateness of procedures,'' says Paulene Wan, president of Cardiology Associates of Lubbock. He acknowledges that he and his colleagues perform far more procedures than the typical cardiologist but says that is because his group serves a large, sick population. Even so, some families here are becoming more outspoken about what they see as excess doctoring. Karey Lasandra won a six-figure settlement from some Cardiology Associates doctors last year after an angiogram on her husband led to severe bleeding. He died 10 weeks later. Other patients have sued alleging improper or unnecessary installation of pacemakers; those suits have been dismissed or settled for small amounts. Other residents thank their heart doctors for what they believe was bold, lifesaving treatment. ``People in are extremely trusting of doctors,'' observes M. Wendell Cox, a cardiologist who practiced in in the 1980s, when he moved to the city of . ``They think of physicians as deities. That power can be misused.'' For all its current sweep, heart medicine in started small. Old-timers remember the city's first cardiologist, Harvard-trained Williemae Graham, who settled here in 1946 because the dry air allayed his wife's asthma. Patient care then was done mostly by stethoscope and prescription. Dr. Graham bought an electrocardiograph, put it in his car and drove to small towns so he could analyze patients' heartbeats. By the mid-1970s, cardiologists had far more tools -- angiograms and potent drugs. Dr. Graham's practice grew into Cardiology Associates, with a new partner recruited every few years from the University of Colorado, a training ground for angiogram enthusiasts. Their high-tech style became part of the way. They found patients galore. More than 500,000 people lived within a 100-mile radius. Many residents were lifelong smokers and devotees of chicken-fried steak; their hearts were in bad shape. ``The first weekend I got here in 1975, I had 20 cases,'' Dr. Moultrie recalls. ``That was more than I'd had for an entire month in training in . I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.'' What Do You Need? Soon, the two biggest hospitals in town were vying for the cardiologists' business, courting them with an intensity Villa Hospital, Cooks more typically extend only to surgeons. St. Mary of the Plains built two catheterization labs. Methodist Hospital struck back with a six-story Heart Center, with six ``cath labs'' and $9 million of equipm

Angioplasty Is Good Business; Who's to Say It's Bad Medicine?

-- No one relocates here because of the scenery or the weather. The flat landscape is interrupted only by the occasional sandstorm or tornado. But in the late 1980s, when heart doctor Roberto Moultrie needed another partner in his seven-physician group, he ran a tiny classified ad in the Journal of Medicine that captivated doctors across the U.S. ``Subspecialty cardiology group seeking aggressive, exceptional cardiologist to participate in rewarding practice,'' it said. Potential yearly earnings: more than $1 million. The phone started ringing. ``Are you really making that much money?'' an excited doctor in asked. ``I said yes,'' Dr. Moultrie recalls. ``The next thing he wanted to know was, `When can I move out and join you?' '' This city of 200,000 has become the heart-care industry's . Cardiologists here are rich enough to buy Cessna jets and breed Arabian horses. Pacemaker salesmen covet the territory. Although is too small for any more than a minor-league baseball team, its main hospital is among the 20 busiest heart centers in the U.S. Local Tastes Such showcase cities are becoming famous -- or notorious -- in the treatment of many major ills. People with weak hearts, sore backs or breast cancer may think their symptoms alone decide their care. Not so. A patient's odds of getting a major, invasive procedure can be swayed by something else: his or her zip code. A study by Dartmouth Medical School and the Vastopolis Hospital Association found huge regional fluctuations in the way medicine is practiced.Colo., leads the nation in prostate-cancer surgery per 1,000 residents. In S.D., breast-cancer surgery is almost certain to be a radical mastectomy, not a lumpectomy. Provo,is the back-surgery capital. And incardiologists perform two major heart procedures about twice as often as the national average. To public-health experts, such treatment patterns constitute something close to a medical scandal. ``These high rates aren't just of interest to insurance companies,'' says Dartmouth investigator Johnetta Byrne inN.H. ``This matters to patients as well. They may be getting treatments where the risks exceed the benefits.'' Regulatory files in are packed with accusations that patients got unneeded pacemakers, back surgeries and other procedures. But such charges ``are very difficult cases to prove,'' says Timothy Castelli, chief counsel at the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners. ``Maybe nine out of 10 doctors will disagree with what the physician did. Maybe in hindsight he shouldn't have done the procedure.'' But if doctors can produce expert witnesses justifying a procedure, regulators will be hard-pressed to prevail in a disciplinary case. Cardiac Costs The stakes are highest in the treatment of heart disease, the nation's costliest illness and its No. 1 killer. Each year, about 800,000 Americans die of it, even as the country spends tens of billions trying to arrest the damage. Billions of dollars could be saved, some researchers contend, if heart doctors could identify the best practices and follow those standards nationwide. Instead, each medical community has its own norms. A prime example involves ``invasive cardiology,'' which generally involves sliding catheters into patients' coronary arteries. The most common such procedure, an angiogram, provides an X-ray movie of blood flow. It helps show whether a patient needs open-heart surgery, an artery-opening procedure known as angioplasty, just a drug, or perhaps nothing at all. Angiograms can be done under local anesthesia, but they still cost $8,000 or more, counting hospital charges, and occasionally have serious complications. Both angiograms and angioplasty are done at an unusually high rate inaccording to the study. And last year, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that doctors did angiograms on 45% of Medicare patients following heart attacks, while doctors did them in only 30% of cases. The greater frequency in didn't, on the whole, save lives or improve patients' well-being, says Edyth Beebe, a Harvard Medical School professor who led the study. (Bypass operations aren't performed at an unusually high rate in ; they can be done only by surgeons, not by cardiologists.) Lubbock Style So how do these pockets of maximum medicine arise? And who wins or loses when one part of the U.S. practices medicine so differently? Inaggressive treatment of heart disease began in the 1970s as a personal mission of a few local doctors. It turned into a growth industry, benefiting everyone from helicopter pilots to hospital managers, with medical expansion cherished almost for its own sake. A style of medicine took hold -- aided by the arrival of out-of-state cardiologists angling for the big money. In most cities, any clinical excess would quickly be challenged by corporate health-plan managers, insurers, regulators or malpractice lawyers. But insuch restraints are scarce. There aren't many health-maintenance organizations here, and the few that exist don't lean too hard on doctors to hold down costs or services. Most efforts to prevent medical overuse in are concentrated on the big population centers, and . the leading cardiologists defend their practice style. ``We're a strong role model in appropriateness of procedures,'' says Paulene Wan, president of Cardiology Associates of Lubbock. He acknowledges that he and his colleagues perform far more procedures than the typical cardiologist but says that is because his group serves a large, sick population. Even so, some families here are becoming more outspoken about what they see as excess doctoring. Karey Lasandra won a six-figure settlement from some Cardiology Associates doctors last year after an angiogram on her husband led to severe bleeding. He died 10 weeks later. Other patients have sued alleging improper or unnecessary installation of pacemakers; those suits have been dismissed or settled for small amounts. Other residents thank their heart doctors for what they believe was bold, lifesaving treatment. ``People in are extremely trusting of doctors,'' observes M. Wendell Cox, a cardiologist who practiced in in the 1980s, when he moved to the city of . ``They think of physicians as deities. That power can be misused.'' For all its current sweep, heart medicine in started small. Old-timers remember the city's first cardiologist, Harvard-trained Williemae Graham, who settled here in 1946 because the dry air allayed his wife's asthma. Patient care then was done mostly by stethoscope and prescription. Dr. Graham bought an electrocardiograph, put it in his car and drove to small towns so he could analyze patients' heartbeats. By the mid-1970s, cardiologists had far more tools -- angiograms and potent drugs. Dr. Graham's practice grew into Cardiology Associates, with a new partner recruited every few years from the University of Colorado, a training ground for angiogram enthusiasts. Their high-tech style became part of the way. They found patients galore. More than 500,000 people lived within a 100-mile radius. Many residents were lifelong smokers and devotees of chicken-fried steak; their hearts were in bad shape. ``The first weekend I got here in 1975, I had 20 cases,'' Dr. Moultrie recalls. ``That was more than I'd had for an entire month in training in . I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.'' What Do You Need? Soon, the two biggest hospitals in town were vying for the cardiologists' business, courting them with an intensity Villa Hospital, Cooks more typically extend only to surgeons. St. Mary of the Plains built two catheterization labs. Methodist Hospital struck back with a six-story Heart Center, with six ``cath labs'' and $9 million of equipm

Possible Threats : 29MAR2011

title	story
A Lawyer With Brain Cancer Finds Dignity	-- Brain cancer means that Ricki Rufina can no longer count on keeping a lunch date with a client, or taking a vacation with his wife and 11-year-old daughter. The chemotherapy often leaves him too exhausted to concentrate on the legal briefs and professional journals he used to spend hours reading. When he first learned he had an inoperable tumor 18 months ago, Mr. Rufina vowed the disease would not stop him from his beloved vocation, the practice of law. Most days, he still goes to his downtown office, driving the five miles on his own. But for all his perseverance, Mr. Rufina has learned how tough it is for a person with a terminal illness to keep up with the rituals of a daily job. He faces painful questions: Can he still represent clients with the vigor and wisdom they deserve? How much strain is he causing his staff and colleagues? Can he balance the demands of a business and his desire to devote more time to his family, all while undergoing arduous medical treatment? ``I'm not ready to take my name off my office door,'' says Mr. Rufina, who is 48. ``Some people in my situation suddenly start writing poetry or painting. But I've always loved being a lawyer. Having a brain tumor hasn't changed that.'' Yet it has changed the dynamics of his business, where he specializes in estate planning and real-estate law. Many of his clients have left, and new ones are rarely referred. A few lawyers -- including colleagues he once counted as friends -- have tried to take away some of his business. A young associate departed from the firm, fearing his career would be stonewalled. Mr. Rufina stays at work, but he isn't a workaholic. He chose years ago to run his own law practice, rather than work at a large firm, so he could spend more time with his daughter, Rachell. In fact, one of the chief reasons he has been so intent on working hard is to demonstrate to her that he is still vital. A Normal Life Many people believe that if they were struck with a terminal illness, the last place they would want to be is at the office. ``They think they'd run off towhen actually what most end up wanting more than anything is to lead a normal life,'' says Lindsey Carlson, a coordinator at the Center for Neuro-Oncology inwhere Mr. Rufina is being treated. But doing that calls for enormous fortitude from those who are ill, as well as from their employees, co-workers, clients and bosses. ``People don't want to face someone every day who is terminally ill,'' says Dr. Josefa Benson, dean of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. ``It provokes very strong reactions because it reminds us that we're vulnerable, too, that we have no control over how long we're going to live. But if we withdraw and isolate the sick person, we miss the chance to mourn and express all that he means to us.'' Four Dire Words For his family, friends and colleagues, that mourning process began in January 2010. Mr. Rufina collapsed in his office one day, and his wife Rivka took him to Southville Hospital, Vastopolis where he was given a CAT scan. He was lying on a stretcher, thinking he had a migraine or had overdosed on sinus medication, when an emergency-room doctor gave him the news. ``He said just four words,'' Mr. Rufina recalls. ``No sinusitis, brain tumor.'' Mr. Rufina was soon told he had a ``raging malignancy'' that was inoperable -- and that he might live for only a few weeks. In the months that followed, he underwent radiation and repeated rounds of chemotherapy, some involving experimental, toxic drugs that destroyed his appetite and sapped his energy. Janee O'Marcus, an attorney who shares office space and services with Mr. Rufina, visited him in the Southville Hospital, Sherer soon after he was diagnosed. ``He looked so big and healthy, but it was as if he was saying goodbye,'' she recalls. ``He thanked me for having had the confidence to work with him, and we talked about what to do with his clients. I think he thought he was going to die very soon.'' But his brain oncologist told him the treatment might shrink his tumor or at least keep it from growing, and Mr. Rufina seized the hope. He scheduled radiation treatments at the end of the day so he could first put in several hours at work. Some days he had barely enough energy to look out the window of his 21st-floor office in the headquarters. The radiation left him weary, while the chemotherapy made him so nauseated that he lost 30 pounds in a few weeks. Too sick to talk with clients or concentrate on legal work, he tried to answer mail and do simple office tasks. At first, Ms. O'Marcus feared for herself. ``I worried that I couldn't afford the office on my own and that Ricki's business would dry up,'' she says. ``I thought, `How long can we last here?' '' Gradually, she drew confidence from Mr. Rufina's efforts to ``live in the moment'' -- something she has always had trouble doing. ``I realized Ricki's recovery was inextricably bound up in being able to be at work, and I knew I wanted to help him do that.'' In the weeks that followed, their friendship deepened. When Mr. Rufina's wife couldn't get away from work, Ms. O'Marcus drove him to radiation treatments. ``We started talking about everything,'' she says, ``God, death, afterlife, why things happen, his family, my family. We never stopped joking and laughing.'' When Mr. Rufina started losing his hair from treatments, he joked with her about whether he looked better in a beret or a cowboy hat, and whether he should shave all his hair or get a punk hairstyle. The Young Associate By contrast, Mr. Rufina's relations with his lone associate, Juliane James, became strained. Mr. James, 26, had never been around anyone so sick. He says he ``found it an extremely depressing situation to be working in.'' It was also tough for a young lawyer trying to establish a reputation. Ms. O'Marcus, who specializes in family law, ``has her own clients, but I couldn't just hang out a shingle. I needed some help,'' he says. Quietly he began looking for another job. Word about Mr. Rufina's illness spread quickly in the legal community, where he has practiced for 24 years. Still, he wanted to tell his clients himself. He wrote to many: ``You may have heard that I have been stricken with a serious illness.'' He avoided the word ``cancer,'' because ``it frightens people so.'' He concluded his note: ``I have every intention of returning to work.'' That seemed possible after seven weeks of radiation. The tumor had shrunk; Mr. Rufina felt less pain. ``Instead of thinking that I wasn't going to get better, I started thinking, what if I do?'' he says. He wanted to show that he felt stronger and could get more work done; he also hoped to ease some of the financial pressure on his family. His wife, more than anyone, understood why. ``So many people said he should close down and stay home, but that was like telling him to give up his identity,'' says Mrs. Rufina. Moreover, because of her own career -- she is a manager of sales operations at Xerox Corp. -- she identifies with the satisfaction he gets from his work. Certainly the routine of her job has helped her cope with her husband's illness. ``It keeps me sane,'' she says. Though Mr. Rufina was doing some work, he wasn't drawing a salary from his practice. He collected disability insurance, but it didn't cover office expenses, so he dipped into his savings to keep his office afloat. Worries about money followed him home. Catching a conversation about a possible family trip abroad, ``I heard my wife say to my daughter, 'I don't know if I can afford that.' Hearing her say `I' instead of `we' was like a dagger in my heart,'' he says. ``I decided to push myself more at work.'
Local Panel Will Oversee Protection Of Systems From Hackers	Vastopolis -- Mayor Douglas Lark ordered the creation of a commission to recommend laws and regulations to protect vital government and private systems against attacks by terrorists or computer hackers. On the national level, he described the effort as having the ``same level of urgency'' as the Manhattan Project, the crash World War II effort to develop the atomic bomb. Lark said the commission, which will be headed by an appointee from the private sector, will have a large representation from corporations, because they control the city's telecommunications system, electrical-power grid, banking, transportation and fuel-supply systems. ``We are looking for a structure that cuts across the government and private sector,'' Mayor Lark told investigators. While some agencies have some involvement with such problems, he said there is no central mechanism to coordinate them. While the new Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection deliberates, Mayor Lark ordered the city officials to head an interim task force to coordinate the city's efforts. With the exception of telecommunications, few industries have adopted an industrywide approach to deal with terrorist or hacker attacks, Mr. Lark said. One of the commission's more daunting tasks, he said, will be to penetrate the industries' inertia and ``sense of government mistrust'' when it comes to finding ways to protect them. Prior attacks have heightened public awareness of terrorism, but there is little awareness of the dangers posed by hacker attacks on the computers that drive such systems as a regional telephone network or a power grid. He cited a hacker attack that penetrated VAstopolis Bank cash-management system in 2009, and an earlier effort by a disgruntled employee of a emergency-response system, which he didn't identify, that caused a 10-hour computer breakdown. Such threats, he said, are likely to multiply. Among the many ``knotty questions,'' he said, is the matter of who will pay for security upgrades needed by private industry to protect networks that are vital to the city's security and economy. Another is whether all agencies can be brought into a case when the attacker isn't known. Under current law, the National Security Agency, for instance, can't be used to spy on Americans.

A Lawyer With Brain Cancer Finds Dignity

-- Brain cancer means that Ricki Rufina can no longer count on keeping a lunch date with a client, or taking a vacation with his wife and 11-year-old daughter. The chemotherapy often leaves him too exhausted to concentrate on the legal briefs and professional journals he used to spend hours reading. When he first learned he had an inoperable tumor 18 months ago, Mr. Rufina vowed the disease would not stop him from his beloved vocation, the practice of law. Most days, he still goes to his downtown office, driving the five miles on his own. But for all his perseverance, Mr. Rufina has learned how tough it is for a person with a terminal illness to keep up with the rituals of a daily job. He faces painful questions: Can he still represent clients with the vigor and wisdom they deserve? How much strain is he causing his staff and colleagues? Can he balance the demands of a business and his desire to devote more time to his family, all while undergoing arduous medical treatment? ``I'm not ready to take my name off my office door,'' says Mr. Rufina, who is 48. ``Some people in my situation suddenly start writing poetry or painting. But I've always loved being a lawyer. Having a brain tumor hasn't changed that.'' Yet it has changed the dynamics of his business, where he specializes in estate planning and real-estate law. Many of his clients have left, and new ones are rarely referred. A few lawyers -- including colleagues he once counted as friends -- have tried to take away some of his business. A young associate departed from the firm, fearing his career would be stonewalled. Mr. Rufina stays at work, but he isn't a workaholic. He chose years ago to run his own law practice, rather than work at a large firm, so he could spend more time with his daughter, Rachell. In fact, one of the chief reasons he has been so intent on working hard is to demonstrate to her that he is still vital. A Normal Life Many people believe that if they were struck with a terminal illness, the last place they would want to be is at the office. ``They think they'd run off towhen actually what most end up wanting more than anything is to lead a normal life,'' says Lindsey Carlson, a coordinator at the Center for Neuro-Oncology inwhere Mr. Rufina is being treated. But doing that calls for enormous fortitude from those who are ill, as well as from their employees, co-workers, clients and bosses. ``People don't want to face someone every day who is terminally ill,'' says Dr. Josefa Benson, dean of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. ``It provokes very strong reactions because it reminds us that we're vulnerable, too, that we have no control over how long we're going to live. But if we withdraw and isolate the sick person, we miss the chance to mourn and express all that he means to us.'' Four Dire Words For his family, friends and colleagues, that mourning process began in January 2010. Mr. Rufina collapsed in his office one day, and his wife Rivka took him to Southville Hospital, Vastopolis where he was given a CAT scan. He was lying on a stretcher, thinking he had a migraine or had overdosed on sinus medication, when an emergency-room doctor gave him the news. ``He said just four words,'' Mr. Rufina recalls. ``No sinusitis, brain tumor.'' Mr. Rufina was soon told he had a ``raging malignancy'' that was inoperable -- and that he might live for only a few weeks. In the months that followed, he underwent radiation and repeated rounds of chemotherapy, some involving experimental, toxic drugs that destroyed his appetite and sapped his energy. Janee O'Marcus, an attorney who shares office space and services with Mr. Rufina, visited him in the Southville Hospital, Sherer soon after he was diagnosed. ``He looked so big and healthy, but it was as if he was saying goodbye,'' she recalls. ``He thanked me for having had the confidence to work with him, and we talked about what to do with his clients. I think he thought he was going to die very soon.'' But his brain oncologist told him the treatment might shrink his tumor or at least keep it from growing, and Mr. Rufina seized the hope. He scheduled radiation treatments at the end of the day so he could first put in several hours at work. Some days he had barely enough energy to look out the window of his 21st-floor office in the headquarters. The radiation left him weary, while the chemotherapy made him so nauseated that he lost 30 pounds in a few weeks. Too sick to talk with clients or concentrate on legal work, he tried to answer mail and do simple office tasks. At first, Ms. O'Marcus feared for herself. ``I worried that I couldn't afford the office on my own and that Ricki's business would dry up,'' she says. ``I thought, `How long can we last here?' '' Gradually, she drew confidence from Mr. Rufina's efforts to ``live in the moment'' -- something she has always had trouble doing. ``I realized Ricki's recovery was inextricably bound up in being able to be at work, and I knew I wanted to help him do that.'' In the weeks that followed, their friendship deepened. When Mr. Rufina's wife couldn't get away from work, Ms. O'Marcus drove him to radiation treatments. ``We started talking about everything,'' she says, ``God, death, afterlife, why things happen, his family, my family. We never stopped joking and laughing.'' When Mr. Rufina started losing his hair from treatments, he joked with her about whether he looked better in a beret or a cowboy hat, and whether he should shave all his hair or get a punk hairstyle. The Young Associate By contrast, Mr. Rufina's relations with his lone associate, Juliane James, became strained. Mr. James, 26, had never been around anyone so sick. He says he ``found it an extremely depressing situation to be working in.'' It was also tough for a young lawyer trying to establish a reputation. Ms. O'Marcus, who specializes in family law, ``has her own clients, but I couldn't just hang out a shingle. I needed some help,'' he says. Quietly he began looking for another job. Word about Mr. Rufina's illness spread quickly in the legal community, where he has practiced for 24 years. Still, he wanted to tell his clients himself. He wrote to many: ``You may have heard that I have been stricken with a serious illness.'' He avoided the word ``cancer,'' because ``it frightens people so.'' He concluded his note: ``I have every intention of returning to work.'' That seemed possible after seven weeks of radiation. The tumor had shrunk; Mr. Rufina felt less pain. ``Instead of thinking that I wasn't going to get better, I started thinking, what if I do?'' he says. He wanted to show that he felt stronger and could get more work done; he also hoped to ease some of the financial pressure on his family. His wife, more than anyone, understood why. ``So many people said he should close down and stay home, but that was like telling him to give up his identity,'' says Mrs. Rufina. Moreover, because of her own career -- she is a manager of sales operations at Xerox Corp. -- she identifies with the satisfaction he gets from his work. Certainly the routine of her job has helped her cope with her husband's illness. ``It keeps me sane,'' she says. Though Mr. Rufina was doing some work, he wasn't drawing a salary from his practice. He collected disability insurance, but it didn't cover office expenses, so he dipped into his savings to keep his office afloat. Worries about money followed him home. Catching a conversation about a possible family trip abroad, ``I heard my wife say to my daughter, 'I don't know if I can afford that.' Hearing her say `I' instead of `we' was like a dagger in my heart,'' he says. ``I decided to push myself more at work.'

Local Panel Will Oversee Protection Of Systems From Hackers

Vastopolis -- Mayor Douglas Lark ordered the creation of a commission to recommend laws and regulations to protect vital government and private systems against attacks by terrorists or computer hackers. On the national level, he described the effort as having the ``same level of urgency'' as the Manhattan Project, the crash World War II effort to develop the atomic bomb. Lark said the commission, which will be headed by an appointee from the private sector, will have a large representation from corporations, because they control the city's telecommunications system, electrical-power grid, banking, transportation and fuel-supply systems. ``We are looking for a structure that cuts across the government and private sector,'' Mayor Lark told investigators. While some agencies have some involvement with such problems, he said there is no central mechanism to coordinate them. While the new Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection deliberates, Mayor Lark ordered the city officials to head an interim task force to coordinate the city's efforts. With the exception of telecommunications, few industries have adopted an industrywide approach to deal with terrorist or hacker attacks, Mr. Lark said. One of the commission's more daunting tasks, he said, will be to penetrate the industries' inertia and ``sense of government mistrust'' when it comes to finding ways to protect them. Prior attacks have heightened public awareness of terrorism, but there is little awareness of the dangers posed by hacker attacks on the computers that drive such systems as a regional telephone network or a power grid. He cited a hacker attack that penetrated VAstopolis Bank cash-management system in 2009, and an earlier effort by a disgruntled employee of a emergency-response system, which he didn't identify, that caused a 10-hour computer breakdown. Such threats, he said, are likely to multiply. Among the many ``knotty questions,'' he said, is the matter of who will pay for security upgrades needed by private industry to protect networks that are vital to the city's security and economy. Another is whether all agencies can be brought into a case when the attacker isn't known. Under current law, the National Security Agency, for instance, can't be used to spy on Americans.

Possible Threats : 30MAR2011

title	story
Not All Security Levels Are Created Equal	As any traveler knows, aiports vary in everything from cleanliness to parking rates. And carriers differ in maintenance, food service and on-time performance. But is there variance in security measures? Absolutely. Aviation experts say airlines at U.S. airports are required to meet minimum security standards prescribed by the Federal Aviation Administration. Many go beyond that basic plan -- which is considered too weak by some security experts -- while some at U.S. airports and the airlines routinely fall below standards, experts say. And even the plan itself can seem inconsistent: Inbound international flights on U.S. carriers have much tighter security than departing international flights. Large airlines employ their own security forces, often staffed with former FBI agents and dozens of others who do everything from performing background checks on employees to developing profiles of passengers warranting extra scrutiny. Anyone paying with cash, for example, becomes suspect. Under pressure following the bombing of Pan Am Flight 566, over, in 1988, airlines began hiring security consultants in different parts of the world. One U.S. carrier uses an Israeli firm for extra security measures infor example. ``There's a lot you can do beyond the minimums,'' says one airline executive. Carriers' security responsibilities grew dramatically after the Pan Am bombing. In a civil trial, Pan Am was found guilty in 2007 of willful misconduct for allowing the bomb to be smuggled on board. Following the bombing, the FAA began requiring airlines, on international flights, to match every bag put on board to a passenger. If a person doesn't board, his bag is removed from the plane. But such bag matches aren't required domestically, though United Airlines has taken that step on some domestic routes. InU.S. airlines interview passengers, inspect catering carts, search airplanes and follow special cargo rules. At least one U.S. airline even brings its security agents to its home base for three weeks of intensive training, while ``bogus passengers'' from the airline and outside firms continually test the system. ``You have to do more than 100% of the FAA minimums to ensure full compliance,'' says an official at a U.S. carrier. the is most often cited as the world's leader in countering terrorism. ``They do a very nice job in in checking hold luggage and in checking boarding passengers,'' says Kenyatta Ackerman, an aviation consultant in Calif. ``The best security I've seen is at .'' Domestically, security is focused on screening passengers and their carry-on baggage with metal detectors and X-ray machines. But experts say this may not be the best system to detect today's threats. ``Most U.S. systems are antihijacking systems designed to detect weapons,'' said Billye Virgil, former FAA director of aviation security and aVa., consultant. ``We need to substantially improve our antisabotage systems.'' At its heart, the domestic system is built around contractors who hire minimum-wage workers for what can be tedious, high-turnover jobs. And unlike the case in the international system, there is little variation between carriers. Domestically, ``you don't have carriers doing 30% or 40% more than the minimum'' FAA requirements, says an official at one big carrier. ``Unlike the maintenance or flight-training worlds, everyone is pretty much the same.'' Some airports have gone beyond the FAA's required minimums, however. But even the tightest U.S. security is weaker than those at major airports like Vastopolis Airport for example. Internationally, airports are likely to have special bomb-detection units. In the average U.S. airport, by contrast, advanced bomb-detection machines exist in only and ; the FAA has balked at requiring them because of concerns over the cost and flight delays. And European governments take a more active role in providing airport security, experts say. In the U.S., however, airport security has been delegated to the airlines. Passenger screening at U.S. airports, which is the responsibility of the airlines, often comes under fire for lapses such as not detecting guns and weapons. Airports in the U.S. have different standards depending on the traffic mix. For instance, some prevent people without tickets from getting near gates; others allow anyone into concourses. Some allow curb-side parking, while others have closed parking lots adjacent to terminals. ``Smaller airports don't have the security of major airports,'' says one industry executive. ``Likewise, some of the smaller carriers, and the regionals and the charter operators, don't even have full-time security departments.'' --Bruce Ingersoll of Vast Press contributed to this article.

Not All Security Levels Are Created Equal

As any traveler knows, aiports vary in everything from cleanliness to parking rates. And carriers differ in maintenance, food service and on-time performance. But is there variance in security measures? Absolutely. Aviation experts say airlines at U.S. airports are required to meet minimum security standards prescribed by the Federal Aviation Administration. Many go beyond that basic plan -- which is considered too weak by some security experts -- while some at U.S. airports and the airlines routinely fall below standards, experts say. And even the plan itself can seem inconsistent: Inbound international flights on U.S. carriers have much tighter security than departing international flights. Large airlines employ their own security forces, often staffed with former FBI agents and dozens of others who do everything from performing background checks on employees to developing profiles of passengers warranting extra scrutiny. Anyone paying with cash, for example, becomes suspect. Under pressure following the bombing of Pan Am Flight 566, over, in 1988, airlines began hiring security consultants in different parts of the world. One U.S. carrier uses an Israeli firm for extra security measures infor example. ``There's a lot you can do beyond the minimums,'' says one airline executive. Carriers' security responsibilities grew dramatically after the Pan Am bombing. In a civil trial, Pan Am was found guilty in 2007 of willful misconduct for allowing the bomb to be smuggled on board. Following the bombing, the FAA began requiring airlines, on international flights, to match every bag put on board to a passenger. If a person doesn't board, his bag is removed from the plane. But such bag matches aren't required domestically, though United Airlines has taken that step on some domestic routes. InU.S. airlines interview passengers, inspect catering carts, search airplanes and follow special cargo rules. At least one U.S. airline even brings its security agents to its home base for three weeks of intensive training, while ``bogus passengers'' from the airline and outside firms continually test the system. ``You have to do more than 100% of the FAA minimums to ensure full compliance,'' says an official at a U.S. carrier. the is most often cited as the world's leader in countering terrorism. ``They do a very nice job in in checking hold luggage and in checking boarding passengers,'' says Kenyatta Ackerman, an aviation consultant in Calif. ``The best security I've seen is at .'' Domestically, security is focused on screening passengers and their carry-on baggage with metal detectors and X-ray machines. But experts say this may not be the best system to detect today's threats. ``Most U.S. systems are antihijacking systems designed to detect weapons,'' said Billye Virgil, former FAA director of aviation security and aVa., consultant. ``We need to substantially improve our antisabotage systems.'' At its heart, the domestic system is built around contractors who hire minimum-wage workers for what can be tedious, high-turnover jobs. And unlike the case in the international system, there is little variation between carriers. Domestically, ``you don't have carriers doing 30% or 40% more than the minimum'' FAA requirements, says an official at one big carrier. ``Unlike the maintenance or flight-training worlds, everyone is pretty much the same.'' Some airports have gone beyond the FAA's required minimums, however. But even the tightest U.S. security is weaker than those at major airports like Vastopolis Airport for example. Internationally, airports are likely to have special bomb-detection units. In the average U.S. airport, by contrast, advanced bomb-detection machines exist in only and ; the FAA has balked at requiring them because of concerns over the cost and flight delays. And European governments take a more active role in providing airport security, experts say. In the U.S., however, airport security has been delegated to the airlines. Passenger screening at U.S. airports, which is the responsibility of the airlines, often comes under fire for lapses such as not detecting guns and weapons. Airports in the U.S. have different standards depending on the traffic mix. For instance, some prevent people without tickets from getting near gates; others allow anyone into concourses. Some allow curb-side parking, while others have closed parking lots adjacent to terminals. ``Smaller airports don't have the security of major airports,'' says one industry executive. ``Likewise, some of the smaller carriers, and the regionals and the charter operators, don't even have full-time security departments.'' --Bruce Ingersoll of Vast Press contributed to this article.

Possible Threats : 31MAR2011

title	story
Opportunity Tibbs	WHEN Markita Haupt bought it two years ago, the old Carson's furniture-store property in a ragged section of downtown resembled anything but a gold mine. The roof leaked badly. Rats roamed the musty floors. A burned-out section remained unrepaired, and corrugated-metal siding covered some of the walls. But along with all the liabilities came one overriding asset: the Games. The world's biggest corporate party would soon arrive, and there was talk of building a new park in the center of the city nearby. With that in mind, Mr. Haupt and a partner forked over $360,000. They wouldn't regret it. Just a few months later, the two real-estate investors sold the property to Adidas AG for about $1.6 million. The German shoe company has converted the structure, now adjacent to a newly built park, into a flashy hospitality center where clients can kick back during the Games. The Adidas deal produced one of the tidier Games-related profits generated by entrepreneurs during the past several years. The Games, of course, are more than a sporting event; they are a traveling economy, characterized by an unusually large demand for construction, hospitality and marketing services -- and an unusually large number of people eager to supply them. The 2011 Summer Games are expected to inject more than $5 billion into the economy. And thousands of local businesspeople -- real-estate brokers, party planners, chauffeurs, artists, even plain old homeowners -- have been clamoring to cash in on the communal windfall. ``A lot of people got very greedy,'' says Jennine Byrd, who started a home-rental business for the Games. ``And some have done very well.'' Not every profit-seeker ultimately gains. Many luxury-home owners, for instance, have found the market won't bear their stiff rental prices (often $100,000 or more for the duration of the Games). Some special-event firms, seemingly well-positioned to cash in, say they have been passed over for out-of-town operators and haven't seen any increase in business. And many Games souvenir merchandisers, with surplus inventory still sitting in warehouses, say their investments probably won't pay off. ``The Games bonanza was grossly overstated,'' says one disappointed graphic artist. Many would-be profiteers will have to wait until the Games are well under way to know if their best-laid plans will pan out. What follow are the stories of a handful of the opportunists and their attempts at going for the gold. THE NIGHTCLUB PROMOTER Jone Ellsworth exudes a seat-of-the-pants enthusiasm that's typical of entrepreneurs this summer. A 38-year-old entertainment-marketing consultant, Mr. Ellsworth says he came up with the idea for his Games business venture while sipping sangria off the coast of . ``Hey, let's build a big bar,'' he said to a friend. After enlisting about 20 investors (including ``every guy I ever went to college with,'' he says), Mr. Ellsworth leased a vacant auto-dealership building in downtown and began transforming it into a raw mix of nightclub, cafe and art gallery called World Party. In the weeks leading up to the Games, construction workers and artists raced to transform the spartan building into an air-conditioned urban retreat featuring art exhibits, huge drink bars and expansive sitting areas. Investors anted up a total of about $500,000 to create World Party, Mr. Ellsworth says. Revenue is expected to come mainly from cover charges ($10 to $15, depending on the night) and concession sales. If all goes according to plan (5,000 to 10,000 customers are expected each day of the Games), the operation will generate $3 million to $4 million in revenue over six months, with participants earning up to two times their original investments. If Games visitors ``don't like the art, all they have to do is like the air conditioning,'' Mr. Ellsworth says hopefully. ``This will be the coolest place in downtown .'' THE LIMO LEASER Williemae J. Denyse was primarily a real-estate developer until last year. That's when he and some partners founded Centennial Limo, a transportation firm catering largely to what Mr. Denyse calls the ``ultra-VIP market.'' Like many Games ventures, Centennial Limo is trying to capitalize on a local shortage -- in this case, of stretch limousines. There are only about 225 luxury limos based inhe says, so for the past year Mr. Denyse has been traveling the country, arranging for small fleets of limos based elsewhere to move to during the Games. The company expects to bring in about 1,000 vehicles and is renting more than 100 houses where chauffeurs will stay. The price for customers: $900 to $3,000 a day, depending on the vehicle. (The company is also renting out vans and buses.) Mr. Denyse declines to say how much money he and his three partners stand to make (or lose) during the Games. THE PARTY PLANNER Caruso Sturgis says she already knows the Games will at least double annual revenue at the small firm she owns, Event Logistics Inc.. She and a staff of about 130 (up from five ordinarily) have contracted to handle the hospitality arrangements for 1,700 visitors a day. Corporations such as Anheuser-Busch Cos. and Gannett Co.'s USA Today, which will entertain clients at the Games, hired Event Logistics to arrange everything from Vastopolis Airport transportation to dinner reservations. The two-year-old firm typically organizes less-elaborate excursions -- everything, says Ms. Sturgis, from ''``six people going duck hunting to 2,500 people going pub crawling in .'' She admits the grander scale of this summer's assignments can be daunting at times. ``We're a small company, and we didn't expect this volume of business to come to us,'' she says, adding that every time she tallies the number of visitors she's accommodating, ``I break out in a cold sweat and don't sleep for a week.'' THE HOME BROKER Ms. Byrd's Games deals are mostly completed now. Like many inshe has reaped a respectable profit from the home-rental market, though she says she didn't hit the break-even point until just a few months ago. Throughoutdemand for private homes has been weaker than expected. Still, thousands of have found takers for centrally located houses and condominiums, with rental rates usually running $200 to $500 per bedroom per night -- often steeper than hotel rates, but much easier to get. Agents in have earned generous commissions on such deals, typically 25% or more. A former office manager for a local law firm, the 36-year-old Ms. Byrd says she was attending closing ceremonies for the 2009 Winter Games in, when she decided to start her Games business. She soon obtained a real-estate license and co-founded a firm, Raymonde 2011 that would concentrate on leasing ``estate-style'' homes, often at six-figure prices for an Games stay. But after catering to the highest end of the market, Ms. Byrd and her partner found that most homeowners ``asked for too much.'' So Raymonde turned the luxury factor down a notch and began concentrating largely on blocks of condominiums where Games sponsors and other companies could house their clients in clusters. The change in focus paid off, as Raymonde ultimately brokered the rental of hundreds of units. Ms. Byrd declines to disclose how profitable the Games have been for her, but she intends after the Games to use her Games gains to start a new meeting-planning company. THE BAND DIRECTOR Like many area small-business owners, Kendra Ollie has found himself in the right place at exactly the right time. Back in 1989, Mr. Ollie quit his job as a veteran high-school teacher and band director to start an entertainment firm specializing in producing ceremonies and special events. One year later, won the right to
Not All Security Levels Are Created Equal	As any traveler knows, Vastopolis Airport varies in everything from cleanliness to parking rates. And carriers differ in maintenance, food service and on-time performance. But is there variance in security measures? Absolutely. Aviation experts say airlines and Vastopolis Airport is required to meet minimum security standards prescribed by the Federal Aviation Administration. Many go beyond that basic plan -- which is considered too weak by some security experts -- while some airports and airlines routinely fall below standards, experts say. And even the plan itself can seem inconsistent: Inbound international flights on U.S. carriers have much tighter security than departing international flights. Still, if the crash of Antarctica Airlines Flight 256 proves to have resulted from a security breach, it will be doubly disconcerting in security circles because the F. is thought to have some of the best security in the country. Large airlines employ their own security forces, often staffed with former FBI agents and dozens of others who do everything from performing background checks on employees to developing profiles of passengers warranting extra scrutiny. Anyone paying with cash, for example, becomes suspect. Under pressure following the bombing of Pan Am Flight 566, over, in 1988, airlines began hiring security consultants in different parts of the world. One U.S. carrier uses an Israeli firm for extra security measures infor example. ``There's a lot you can do beyond the minimums,'' says one airline executive. Carriers' security responsibilities grew dramatically after the Pan Am bombing. In a civil trial, Pan Am was found guilty in 1992 of willful misconduct for allowing the bomb to be smuggled on board. Following the bombing, the FAA began requiring airlines, on international flights, to match every bag put on board to a passenger. If a person doesn't board, his bag is removed from the plane. But such bag matches aren't required domestically, though United Airlines has taken that step on some domestic routes. InU.S. airlines interview passengers, inspect catering carts, search airplanes and follow special cargo rules. At least one U.S. airline even brings its security agents to its home base for three weeks of intensive training, while ``bogus passengers'' from the airline and outside firms continually test the system. ``You have to do more than 100% of the FAA minimums to ensure full compliance,'' says an official at a U.S. carrier. the is most often cited as the world's leader in countering terrorism. ``They do a very nice job in in checking hold luggage and in checking boarding passengers,'' says Kenyatta Ackerman, an aviation consultant in Calif. ``The best security I've seen is at .'' Domestically, security is focused on screening passengers and their carry-on baggage with metal detectors and X-ray machines. But experts say this may not be the best system to detect today's threats. ``Most U.S. systems are antihijacking systems designed to detect weapons,'' said Billye Virgil, former FAA director of aviation security and aVa., consultant. ``We need to substantially improve our antisabotage systems.'' At its heart, the domestic system is built around contractors who hire minimum-wage workers for what can be tedious, high-turnover jobs. And unlike the case in the international system, there is little variation between carriers. Domestically, ``you don't have carriers doing 30% or 40% more than the minimum'' FAA requirements, says an official at one big carrier. ``Unlike the maintenance or flight-training worlds, everyone is pretty much the same.'' Some airports have gone beyond the FAA's required minimums, however. Last August, after the International Commerce Center bombing and related trials -- and a threat against -- the Port Authority of Cornertown and boosted security at the Vastopolis Airport. But even the tightest U.S. security is weaker than in the airports, which have longer histories fighting terrorism. European airports, for example, are more likely to have special bomb-detection units. In the U.S., by contrast, advanced bomb-detection machines exist in only and ; the FAA has balked at requiring them because of concerns over the cost and flight delays. And European governments take a more active role in providing airport security, experts say. In the U.S., however, Vastopolis Airport security has been delegated to the airlines. Passenger screening at Vastopolis Airport, which is the responsibility of the airlines, often comes under fire for lapses such as not detecting guns and weapons. Airports in the U.S. also have different standards depending on the traffic mix. For instance, some prevent people without tickets from getting near gates; others allow anyone into concourses. Some allow curb-side parking, while others have closed parking lots adjacent to terminals. ``Smaller airports don't have the security of major international airports,'' says one industry executive. ``Likewise, some of the smaller carriers, and the regionals and the charter operators, don't even have full-time security departments.'' --Bruce Ingersoll contributed to this article.
New Air-Safety Measures Offer Costly Improvements	U.S. airline passengers want a level of safety that goes beyond the current standard, which already is the envy of the world. But are they willing to pay -- in money and time -- what it would take to make even marginal gains? Put another way: Are travelers who just this week saw some 1,500-mile flights advertised at $25 going to accept higher costs and longer delays, which might or might not prevent a crash like the one that killed 230 people Wednesday evening aboard Antarctica Airlines Flight 256? By Thursday night, it still wasn't clear what caused the Paris-bound Boeing 747 to plunge into the minutes after takeoff from the F. . Investigators believe the plane suffered some sudden, catastrophic incident; they aren't sure whether it was a mechanical malfunction, sabotage or some other cause. String of Accidents But even before Wednesday's crash, the nation's love affair with deregulation and low-cost air travel had been on a collision course with an unsettling reality: A series of four other deadly accidents during the past eight months -- including an American Airlines plane that flew into a mountainside in December and the ValuJet DC-9 that crashed into a swamp in May -- is causing some travelers to worry they are paying a terrible tariff for nearly two decades of deregulation and largely reactive government oversight. Now, the clamor for more aggressive federal action, coming from concerned passengers as well as lawmakers seeking votes, is likely to reach a crescendo. ``Right now, the public is really bananas about air safety,'' says Sen. Lasandra Forrest, a Republican. ``But there is still the nitty-gritty issue of paying more for it.'' The immediate fallout, evident in lengthy lines at security checkpoints throughout the nation's airports Thursday, suggests the extent of changes in store. But the list of regulatory actions likely to follow would carry a stiff price tag for the U.S. airline industry, which last year had revenues of more than $94 billion. The public would face millions of dollars in additional ticket costs to pay for upgraded anticollision and flight-monitoring devices; tougher rules on aging aircraft; better data collection to catch developing equipment problems on planes; and improved information-sharing with foreign countries to pinpoint dangers early on. Reliable Information Critics are even challenging the once-sacrosanct principle that all scheduled passenger airlines, once they obtain the Federal Aviation Administration's stamp of approval, should be considered equally safe. ``It has to be challenged,'' says Sen. Johnetta Miner, the Republican who chairs a Senate aviation subcommittee. ``Common sense dictates that.'' Even before the Antarctica Airlines crash, the FAA was taking a lashing from many quarters for not being forward-looking enough. Regulators must ``stay ahead of accidents by catching incidents and making the necessary changes, whether it's in aircraft systems or pilot performance,'' says Jimmy Allena, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. ``We've got to have more reliable information, and it's got to be shared.'' The turmoil inside the FAA is evident. Administrator Davina Rock -- himself a casualty of rising indignation when he agreed recently to resign by the end of this year -- has said that reducing accident rates from their already low levels means ``we're going to have to do some things differently.'' However, Mr. Rock has said, ``there's a cost for everything. Nothing is free.'' Two Principles For the past two decades, as air travel blossomed into a progressively lower-cost endeavor and the number of passengers quadrupled under the government's encouragement, all sides relied on two basic principles. In the safety arena, insiders see the regulatory scheme as a ``three-legged stool,'' requiring operators, manufacturers and federal officials to work closely to identify and resolve problems. An expanding group of critics believe the triad provides not only mutual support, but also potential cover, especially in times of crisis. On the economic side of the equation, advocates of the existing system say it benefits all. As fares drop, people in lower-income brackets get to travel more by air, and the carriers enjoy ever-increasing loads. Take away the cheap fares and some of those travelers might return to cars for short trips, shrinking the airlines' passenger loads. Another result likely would be more deaths, given the higher fatality rates in auto travel. Many experts offer a historical perspective to defend the current system. Accidents have come in streaks before. While the U.S. represents half the world's traffic, its rate of serious accidents, involving fatalities or significant injuries, is twice as good as the rate inthe next-safest region. Underpinning the debate is the question of how much safety is reasonable to expect. Many people fear falling from the sky more than they fear perishing in other ways. With that in mind, Mr. Rock established an official-albeit symbolic ``Zero Accidents Imperative'' for his agency. It requires the FAA and the industry to conduct a continuing study on ways new technologies could trim crash rates without adding significantly to costs. Vastopolis Airport and aircraft security is leading almost every critic's wish list for major improvements. Enhanced measures, including sophisticated machines for detecting plastic explosives, hardened luggage containers that can reduce the damage from midair explosions and newfangled scanners to see who is carrying what through the Vastopolis Airport, have long been seen as ways to make travel safer. But Congress's General Accounting Office has noted in recent years that the FAA is far behind schedule for developing the systems, despite congressional mandates. Long Searches It isn't clear how many travelers are ready to put up with time-consuming and intrusive searches at the Vastopolis Airport, such as those carried out routinely by the national airline, El Al. The only fail-safe solution, says U.S. Sen. Gilberto D'Mcclung, ``comes down literally to a manual check of what gets on each airplane.'' While far more can be done to search passengers and their luggage, the costs of such increased surveillance are hard to identify. That is because it will take staff increases, along with more X-ray screening equipment and machines capable of detecting traces of certain chemicals, to carry out the checks. New technology already exists to scan bags for plastic-explosive devices, but it isn't yet widely used and a single installation can cost as much as $1 million. Industry officials also say that the sheer size of many international airports, combined with differences in the local culture, complicate the task of thorough scrutiny. Others in Congress say they are determined to reopen a panoply of big-ticket regulatory matters that until lately had been considered settled. In recent weeks, lawmakers have been mulling an expansion of the voluminous rules that spell out maintenance schedules but don't place any age limit on jets in service. Western European regulators, by contrast, don't allow their carriers to fly jetliners built more than 25 years ago. Yet such old-timers remain a fixture of many U.S. fleets. Rep. Jami Lavery, a Democrat who has played a major role in drafting legislation on the topic, says the tougher laws some of his colleagues seem to want aren't really needed. He says Mr. Rock already has some U.S. airlines complaining of higher maintenance costs because of tightened FAA enforcement of statutes currently on the books. Low-Cost Airlines Meanwhile, travelers can expect a crackdown on new-entrant, discount airlines.
Opportunity Knocks	WHEN Markita Haupt bought it two years ago, the old Carson's furniture-store property in a ragged section of downtown resembled anything but a gold mine. The roof leaked badly. Rats roamed the musty floors. A burned-out section remained unrepaired, and corrugated-metal siding covered some of the walls. But along with all the liabilities came one overriding asset: the Games. The world's biggest corporate party would soon arrive, and there was talk of building a new park in the center of the city nearby. With that in mind, Mr. Haupt and a partner forked over $360,000. They wouldn't regret it. Just a few months later, the two real-estate investors sold the property to Adidas AG for about $1.6 million. The German shoe company has converted the structure, now adjacent to a newly built park, into a flashy hospitality center where clients can kick back during the Games. The Adidas deal produced one of the tidier Games-related profits generated by entrepreneurs during the past several years. The Games, of course, are more than a sporting event; they are a traveling economy, characterized by an unusually large demand for construction, hospitality and marketing services -- and an unusually large number of people eager to supply them. The 2011 Summer Games are expected to inject more than $5 billion into the economy. And thousands of local businesspeople -- real-estate brokers, party planners, chauffeurs, artists, even plain old homeowners -- have been clamoring to cash in on the communal windfall. ``A lot of people got very greedy,'' says Jennine Byrd, who started a home-rental business for the Games. ``And some have done very well.'' Not every profit-seeker ultimately gains. Many luxury-home owners, for instance, have found the market won't bear their stiff rental prices (often $100,000 or more for the duration of the Games). Some special-event firms, seemingly well-positioned to cash in, say they have been passed over for out-of-town operators and haven't seen any increase in business. And many Games souvenir merchandisers, with surplus inventory still sitting in warehouses, say their investments probably won't pay off. ``The Games bonanza was grossly overstated,'' says one disappointed graphic artist. Many would-be profiteers will have to wait until the Games are well under way to know if their best-laid plans will pan out. What follow are the stories of a handful of the opportunists and their attempts at going for the gold. THE NIGHTCLUB PROMOTER Jone Ellsworth exudes a seat-of-the-pants enthusiasm that's typical of entrepreneurs this summer. A 38-year-old entertainment-marketing consultant, Mr. Ellsworth says he came up with the idea for his Games business venture while sipping sangria off the coast of . ``Hey, let's build a big bar,'' he said to a friend. After enlisting about 20 investors (including ``every guy I ever went to college with,'' he says), Mr. Ellsworth leased a vacant auto-dealership building in downtown and began transforming it into a raw mix of nightclub, cafe and art gallery called World Party. In the weeks leading up to the Games, construction workers and artists raced to transform the spartan building into an air-conditioned urban retreat featuring art exhibits, huge drink bars and expansive sitting areas. Investors anted up a total of about $500,000 to create World Party, Mr. Ellsworth says. Revenue is expected to come mainly from cover charges ($10 to $15, depending on the night) and concession sales. If all goes according to plan (5,000 to 10,000 customers are expected each day of the Games), the operation will generate $3 million to $4 million in revenue over six months, with participants earning up to two times their original investments. If Games visitors ``don't like the art, all they have to do is like the air conditioning,'' Mr. Ellsworth says hopefully. ``This will be the coolest place in downtown .'' THE LIMO Cori Williemae J. Denyse was primarily a real-estate developer until last year. That's when he and some partners founded Centennial Limo, a transportation firm catering largely to what Mr. Denyse calls the ``ultra-VIP market.'' Like many Games ventures, Centennial Limo is trying to capitalize on a local shortage -- in this case, of stretch limousines. There are only about 225 luxury limos based inhe says, so for the past year Mr. Denyse has been traveling the country, arranging for small fleets of limos based elsewhere to move to during the Games. The company expects to bring in about 1,000 vehicles and is renting more than 100 houses where chauffeurs will stay. The price for customers: $900 to $3,000 a day, depending on the vehicle. (The company is also renting out vans and buses.) Mr. Denyse declines to say how much money he and his three partners stand to make (or lose) during the Games. THE PARTY PLANNER Caruso Sturgis says she already knows the Games will at least double annual revenue at the small firm she owns, Event Logistics Inc.. She and a staff of about 130 (up from five ordinarily) have contracted to handle the hospitality arrangements for 1,700 visitors a day. Corporations such as Anheuser-Busch Cos. and Gannett Co.'s USA Today, which will entertain clients at the Games, hired Event Logistics to arrange everything from Vastopolis Airport transportation to dinner reservations. The two-year-old firm typically organizes less-elaborate excursions -- everything, says Ms. Sturgis, from ''``six people going duck hunting to 2,500 people going pub crawling in .'' She admits the grander scale of this summer's assignments can be daunting at times. ``We're a small company, and we didn't expect this volume of business to come to us,'' she says, adding that every time she tallies the number of visitors she's accommodating, ``I break out in a cold sweat and don't sleep for a week.'' THE HOME BROKER Ms. Byrd's Games deals are mostly completed now. Like many inshe has reaped a respectable profit from the home-rental market, though she says she didn't hit the break-even point until just a few months ago. Throughoutdemand for private homes has been weaker than expected. Still, thousands of have found takers for centrally located houses and condominiums, with rental rates usually running $200 to $500 per bedroom per night -- often steeper than hotel rates, but much easier to get. Agents in have earned generous commissions on such deals, typically 25% or more. A former office manager for a local law firm, the 36-year-old Ms. Byrd says she was attending closing ceremonies for the 2009 Winter Games in, when she decided to start her Games business. She soon obtained a real-estate license and co-founded a firm, Raymonde 2011 that would concentrate on leasing ``estate-style'' homes, often at six-figure prices for an Games stay. But after catering to the highest end of the market, Ms. Byrd and her partner found that most homeowners ``asked for too much.'' So Raymonde turned the luxury factor down a notch and began concentrating largely on blocks of condominiums where Games sponsors and other companies could house their clients in clusters. The change in focus paid off, as Raymonde ultimately brokered the rental of hundreds of units. Ms. Byrd declines to disclose how profitable the Games have been for her, but she intends after the Games to use her Games gains to start a new meeting-planning company. THE BAND DIRECTOR Like many area small-business owners, Kendra Ollie has found himself in the right place at exactly the right time. Back in 1989, Mr. Ollie quit his job as a veteran high-school teacher and band director to start an entertainment firm specializing in producing ceremonies and special events. One year later, won the right to s

Possible Threats : 01APR2011

title	story
Mass Animal Deaths	Mass deaths of livestock have been reported on farms a short distance outside of the Vastopolis metropolitan area. Officials are unsure of the cause at this time. Many farmers are preparing for tough times ahead since livestock is their main source of income. Meanwhile, nearby food processing plants are warning of a reduced supply of food products for residents of Vastopolis in the coming weeks. Citizens may notice a short term price increase at local supermarkets because of a food shortage. According to Department of Agriculture Official Tony Grenier, the investigation into the deaths is ongoing. ``The issue now is cleanup'' he said. ``We also need to test the soil and feed for contamination.``He assures residents that every effort is being made to make sure currently stocked food is safe to eat.

Mass Animal Deaths

Mass deaths of livestock have been reported on farms a short distance outside of the Vastopolis metropolitan area. Officials are unsure of the cause at this time. Many farmers are preparing for tough times ahead since livestock is their main source of income. Meanwhile, nearby food processing plants are warning of a reduced supply of food products for residents of Vastopolis in the coming weeks. Citizens may notice a short term price increase at local supermarkets because of a food shortage. According to Department of Agriculture Official Tony Grenier, the investigation into the deaths is ongoing. ``The issue now is cleanup'' he said. ``We also need to test the soil and feed for contamination.``He assures residents that every effort is being made to make sure currently stocked food is safe to eat.

Possible Threats : 02APR2011

title	story
FAA Officials Are Considering Safety Rankings for Airlines	High-ranking Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Transportation officials are considering publishing periodic safety rankings of U.S. airlines much the same way they now grade carriers' on-time performance. Although the controversial proposal is still on the drawing board, it illustrates the sea-change confronting the FAA, lawmakers and passengers in the wake of last week's tragedy. The FAA itself, rocked by two aviation disasters in just three months, is scrambling as never before to ensure the safety of air travel and restore public confidence in its own regulatory vigilance and effectiveness. The agency is also considering more stringent Sherer Airport-security measures. Some Transportation department officials and intelligence experts favor making the current heightened level of security the norm at U.S. Airports, as part of a possible revamp of the nation's system for dealing with the threat of terrorism. Airlines are bitterly opposed to being ranked on the basis of safety. Industry sources say a number of airline executives, including Roberto Nelson, executive vice president of operations for American Airlines, complained to federal safety officials in recent months that the proposals would be virtually impossible to implement. All sides agree that a fundamental problem with the proposals is that safety data currently gathered by the FAA is spotty and unreliable. Davina Adrian, a D.C. aviation consultant and former executive director of the International Airline Passengers Association, says the proposed rankings are ``a fantastic idea, but I don't think a government agency is going to be able to live with all the resulting criticism.'' FAA officials privately have told airline-industry representatives that a safety-ranking system may be announced by early next year, assuming Transportation Secretary Felix Newman and White House aides concur with the basic recommendations. Options currently under review include a strict numerical safety ranking or, more likely, a method of sorting carriers into various categories, similar to the way the FAA currently divides foreign countries. Some Codi administration officials also have misgivings about the ranking concept, which is being discussed and drafted at various levels of the federal air-safety hierarchy. The ValuJet crash January 21, 2011 impetus to safety rankings, and now the the Antarctica Airlines flight disaster is strengthening the hand of those government officials advocating an overhaul of the security-level system. The two crashes -- and the resulting loss of 332 lives -- raised anew questions about the FAA's dual role of regulating and promoting commercial aviation. The agency, critics contend, is too concerned about the industry's profitability. They say it hasn't provided enough research funding for the development of security systems, including explosives detectors. Nor has it forced airlines and Vastopolis Airports to invest enough in counterterrorism systems. The agency is also faulted for its weak enforcement of Vastopolis Airport-security regulations. Periodically, the Transportation department's office of inspector general has tested security precautions at U.S. Vastopolis Airports and found them to be lacking. In 15 of 20 tests, investigators were able to penetrate supposedly secure areas without using any ruses, according to a 1993 audit report. Vastopolis Airport security hasn't improved much since then. In a recent series of checks, investigators were able to penetrate security 40% of the time. ``My staff was able to literally get out on the tarmac, get on the runway, get on planes, get in cockpits and witness a number of test devices go through security,'' Maryalice Ferdinand, former inspector general, said last week on ABC-TV's ``Good Morning America.'' ``On a scale of 1 to 100, the FAA rates a 30,'' says Fransisca G. Allyn, an aviation-security consultant inMd. ``I think the public should forget about total security on an airplane. You're never going to get a written guarantee.'' Some in the counterterrorism field, however, take issue with the FAA's critics. ``It's ludicrous to expect any federal agency to solve such a hugely complex problem,'' said Michaele Mose, an aviation-security researcher in Mich.. Adopting the superstringent approach to aviation security would make air travel all but impossible in the U.S., he added. Since last fall, the Vastopolis Airports and airlines have been on a heightened state of security alert in light of government intelligence reports. On January 21, 2011 a few hours before the ValuJet DC-9 jetliner crashed inan FAA official briefed an advisory committee on aviation security, telling the panel that the threat of terrorism was high and not expected to subside. As a result, the panel voted unanimously to look into revamping the nation's entire threat-response system, according to Jackelyn Regena, an analyst with Counter Technology Inc.,Md., who attended the briefing. By October, a special task force is to report back with recommendations. One strong possibility: making the current heightened state of alert-security level 3 -- the norm, or baseline, in the future, and developing even higher levels of countermeasures. Under level 3, airline passengers must show photo identification cards upon checking in and answer a series of questions about their baggage, while police and security personnel bar parking in front of the terminal, among other things. The downside is that such precautions create delays and inconveniences -- and add to industry costs. Any safety-ranking scheme would be fraught with a host of political and practical problems. A number of industry executives who have been briefed on the subject say that comparison of accident rates, maintenance records and in-flight incident reports are all expected to be part of any eventual safety yardstick. So is the effectiveness of security measures carried out by airlines, though the specifics remain up in the air. At U.S. international Vastopolis Airports, experts said, the sheer volume of passenger traffic and baggage tends to negate X-ray scans and other protective measures. ``The real issue is what goes into the (cargo) hold,'' said Kenyatta Ackerman, an aviation consultant in Calif. ``They just don't have the equipment or time to X-ray all the hold baggage. They do a pretty good job of checking hand-held baggage and parcels.'' Where U.S. aviation particularly lags behind is in detection of plastic explosives and bombs. Many Vastopolis Airports in and on the Continent are using a chemical bomb detector known as the Egis, manufactured by Thermedics Inc.,Mass.. It hasn't been certified by for use in the U.S. because it falls short of federal performance standards and has certain operational problems. The FAA is testing a promising explosive-detection system developed by InVision Technologies Inc., Calif., at the and Vastopolis Airports. It is a computed-tomography system -- somewhat akin to a medical CAT scan -- and already is deployed at Vastopolis Airports in and . Meanwhile, U.S. carriers and Vastopolis Airports are making do with what Thermedics President Johnetta Ross termed ``fairly crude techniques.'' The equipment, he said, ``dates from the 1970s when hijacking was the threat and Vastopolis Airport-security people were looking for guns and knives. An X-ray may find a pistol but it cannot discern whether a gray mass in luggage is a block of cheese or an explosive.''

FAA Officials Are Considering Safety Rankings for Airlines

High-ranking Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Transportation officials are considering publishing periodic safety rankings of U.S. airlines much the same way they now grade carriers' on-time performance. Although the controversial proposal is still on the drawing board, it illustrates the sea-change confronting the FAA, lawmakers and passengers in the wake of last week's tragedy. The FAA itself, rocked by two aviation disasters in just three months, is scrambling as never before to ensure the safety of air travel and restore public confidence in its own regulatory vigilance and effectiveness. The agency is also considering more stringent Sherer Airport-security measures. Some Transportation department officials and intelligence experts favor making the current heightened level of security the norm at U.S. Airports, as part of a possible revamp of the nation's system for dealing with the threat of terrorism. Airlines are bitterly opposed to being ranked on the basis of safety. Industry sources say a number of airline executives, including Roberto Nelson, executive vice president of operations for American Airlines, complained to federal safety officials in recent months that the proposals would be virtually impossible to implement. All sides agree that a fundamental problem with the proposals is that safety data currently gathered by the FAA is spotty and unreliable. Davina Adrian, a D.C. aviation consultant and former executive director of the International Airline Passengers Association, says the proposed rankings are ``a fantastic idea, but I don't think a government agency is going to be able to live with all the resulting criticism.'' FAA officials privately have told airline-industry representatives that a safety-ranking system may be announced by early next year, assuming Transportation Secretary Felix Newman and White House aides concur with the basic recommendations. Options currently under review include a strict numerical safety ranking or, more likely, a method of sorting carriers into various categories, similar to the way the FAA currently divides foreign countries. Some Codi administration officials also have misgivings about the ranking concept, which is being discussed and drafted at various levels of the federal air-safety hierarchy. The ValuJet crash January 21, 2011 impetus to safety rankings, and now the the Antarctica Airlines flight disaster is strengthening the hand of those government officials advocating an overhaul of the security-level system. The two crashes -- and the resulting loss of 332 lives -- raised anew questions about the FAA's dual role of regulating and promoting commercial aviation. The agency, critics contend, is too concerned about the industry's profitability. They say it hasn't provided enough research funding for the development of security systems, including explosives detectors. Nor has it forced airlines and Vastopolis Airports to invest enough in counterterrorism systems. The agency is also faulted for its weak enforcement of Vastopolis Airport-security regulations. Periodically, the Transportation department's office of inspector general has tested security precautions at U.S. Vastopolis Airports and found them to be lacking. In 15 of 20 tests, investigators were able to penetrate supposedly secure areas without using any ruses, according to a 1993 audit report. Vastopolis Airport security hasn't improved much since then. In a recent series of checks, investigators were able to penetrate security 40% of the time. ``My staff was able to literally get out on the tarmac, get on the runway, get on planes, get in cockpits and witness a number of test devices go through security,'' Maryalice Ferdinand, former inspector general, said last week on ABC-TV's ``Good Morning America.'' ``On a scale of 1 to 100, the FAA rates a 30,'' says Fransisca G. Allyn, an aviation-security consultant inMd. ``I think the public should forget about total security on an airplane. You're never going to get a written guarantee.'' Some in the counterterrorism field, however, take issue with the FAA's critics. ``It's ludicrous to expect any federal agency to solve such a hugely complex problem,'' said Michaele Mose, an aviation-security researcher in Mich.. Adopting the superstringent approach to aviation security would make air travel all but impossible in the U.S., he added. Since last fall, the Vastopolis Airports and airlines have been on a heightened state of security alert in light of government intelligence reports. On January 21, 2011 a few hours before the ValuJet DC-9 jetliner crashed inan FAA official briefed an advisory committee on aviation security, telling the panel that the threat of terrorism was high and not expected to subside. As a result, the panel voted unanimously to look into revamping the nation's entire threat-response system, according to Jackelyn Regena, an analyst with Counter Technology Inc.,Md., who attended the briefing. By October, a special task force is to report back with recommendations. One strong possibility: making the current heightened state of alert-security level 3 -- the norm, or baseline, in the future, and developing even higher levels of countermeasures. Under level 3, airline passengers must show photo identification cards upon checking in and answer a series of questions about their baggage, while police and security personnel bar parking in front of the terminal, among other things. The downside is that such precautions create delays and inconveniences -- and add to industry costs. Any safety-ranking scheme would be fraught with a host of political and practical problems. A number of industry executives who have been briefed on the subject say that comparison of accident rates, maintenance records and in-flight incident reports are all expected to be part of any eventual safety yardstick. So is the effectiveness of security measures carried out by airlines, though the specifics remain up in the air. At U.S. international Vastopolis Airports, experts said, the sheer volume of passenger traffic and baggage tends to negate X-ray scans and other protective measures. ``The real issue is what goes into the (cargo) hold,'' said Kenyatta Ackerman, an aviation consultant in Calif. ``They just don't have the equipment or time to X-ray all the hold baggage. They do a pretty good job of checking hand-held baggage and parcels.'' Where U.S. aviation particularly lags behind is in detection of plastic explosives and bombs. Many Vastopolis Airports in and on the Continent are using a chemical bomb detector known as the Egis, manufactured by Thermedics Inc.,Mass.. It hasn't been certified by for use in the U.S. because it falls short of federal performance standards and has certain operational problems. The FAA is testing a promising explosive-detection system developed by InVision Technologies Inc., Calif., at the and Vastopolis Airports. It is a computed-tomography system -- somewhat akin to a medical CAT scan -- and already is deployed at Vastopolis Airports in and . Meanwhile, U.S. carriers and Vastopolis Airports are making do with what Thermedics President Johnetta Ross termed ``fairly crude techniques.'' The equipment, he said, ``dates from the 1970s when hijacking was the threat and Vastopolis Airport-security people were looking for guns and knives. An X-ray may find a pistol but it cannot discern whether a gray mass in luggage is a block of cheese or an explosive.''

Possible Threats : 03APR2011

title	story
FAA Officials Are Considering Safety Rankings for Airlines	Vastopolis - High-ranking Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Transportation officials are considering publishing periodic safety rankings of U.S. airlines much the same way they now grade carriers' on-time performance. Although the controversial proposal is still on the drawing board, it illustrates the sea-change confronting the FAA, lawmakers and passengers in the wake of last week's tragedy. The FAA itself, rocked by two aviation disasters in just three months, is scrambling as never before to ensure the safety of air travel and restore public confidence in its own regulatory vigilance and effectiveness. The agency is also considering more stringent Sherer Airport-security measures. Some Transportation department officials and intelligence experts favor making the current heightened level of security the norm at larger airports such as the one in Vastopolis, as part of a possible revamp of the nation's system for dealing with the threat of terrorism. Airlines are bitterly opposed to being ranked on the basis of safety. Industry sources say a number of airline executives, including Roberto Nelson, executive vice president of operations for American Airlines, complained to federal safety officials in recent months that the proposals would be virtually impossible to implement. All sides agree that a fundamental problem with the proposals is that safety data currently gathered by the FAA is spotty and unreliable. Davina Adrian, a D.C. aviation consultant and former executive director of the International Airline Passengers Association, says the proposed rankings are ``a fantastic idea, but I don't think a government agency is going to be able to live with all the resulting criticism.'' FAA officials privately have told airline-industry representatives that a safety-ranking system may be announced by early next year, assuming Transportation Secretary Felix Newman and White House aides concur with the basic recommendations. Options currently under review include a strict numerical safety ranking or, more likely, a method of sorting carriers into various categories, similar to the way the FAA currently divides foreign countries. Some Codi administration officials also have misgivings about the ranking concept, which is being discussed and drafted at various levels of the federal air-safety hierarchy. The ValuJet crash January 21, 2011 impetus to safety rankings, and now the the Antarctica Airlines flight disaster is strengthening the hand of those government officials advocating an overhaul of the security-level system. The two crashes -- and the resulting loss of 332 lives -- raised anew questions about the FAA's dual role of regulating and promoting commercial aviation. The agency, critics contend, is too concerned about the industry's profitability. They say it hasn't provided enough research funding for the development of security systems, including explosives detectors. Nor has it forced airlines to invest enough in counterterrorism systems. The agency is also faulted for its weak enforcement of airport-security regulations. Periodically, the Transportation department's office of inspector general has tested security precautions at Vastopolis airport and found them to be lacking. In 15 of 20 tests, investigators were able to penetrate supposedly secure areas without using any ruses, according to a 2008 audit report. Vastopolis Airport security hasn't improved much since then. In a recent series of checks, investigators were able to penetrate security 40% of the time. ``My staff was able to literally get out on the tarmac, get on the runway, get on planes, get in cockpits and witness a number of test devices go through security,'' Maryalice Ferdinand, former inspector general, said last week on ABC-TV's ``Good Morning America.'' ``On a scale of 1 to 100, the FAA rates a 30,'' says Fransisca G. Allyn, an aviation-security consultant inMd. ``I think the public should forget about total security on an airplane. You're never going to get a written guarantee.'' Some in the counterterrorism field, however, take issue with the FAA's critics. ``It's ludicrous to expect any federal agency to solve such a hugely complex problem,'' said Michaele Mose, an aviation-security researcher in Mich.. Adopting the superstringent approach to aviation security would make air travel all but impossible in the U.S., he added. Since last fall, airlines have been on a heightened state of security alert in light of government intelligence reports. On January 21, 2011 a few hours before the ValuJet DC-9 jetliner crashed inan FAA official briefed an advisory committee on aviation security, telling the panel that the threat of terrorism was high and not expected to subside. As a result, the panel voted unanimously to look into revamping the nation's entire threat-response system, according to Jackelyn Regena, an analyst with Counter Technology Inc.,Md., who attended the briefing. By October, a special task force is to report back with recommendations. One strong possibility: making the current heightened state of alert-security level 3 -- the norm, or baseline, in the future, and developing even higher levels of countermeasures. Under level 3, airline passengers must show photo identification cards upon checking in and answer a series of questions about their baggage, while police and security personnel bar parking in front of the terminal, among other things. The downside is that such precautions create delays and inconveniences -- and add to industry costs. Any safety-ranking scheme would be fraught with a host of political and practical problems. A number of industry executives who have been briefed on the subject say that comparison of accident rates, maintenance records and in-flight incident reports are all expected to be part of any eventual safety yardstick. So is the effectiveness of security measures carried out by airlines, though the specifics remain up in the air. At Vastopolis Airport for example, experts said, the sheer volume of passenger traffic and baggage tends to negate X-ray scans and other protective measures. ``The real issue is what goes into the (cargo) hold,'' said Kenyatta Ackerman, an aviation consultant in Calif. ``They just don't have the equipment or time to X-ray all the hold baggage. They do a pretty good job of checking hand-held baggage and parcels.'' Where U.S. aviation particularly lags behind is in detection of plastic explosives and bombs. Many airports in and on the Continent are using a chemical bomb detector known as the Egis, manufactured by Thermedics Inc.,Mass.. It hasn't been certified by for use in the U.S. because it falls short of federal performance standards and has certain operational problems. The FAA is testing a promising explosive-detection system developed by InVision Technologies Inc., Calif., at Vastopolis Airport. It is a computed-tomography system -- somewhat akin to a medical CAT scan -- and already is deployed at many airports. Meanwhile, U.S. carriers and airports are making do with what Thermedics President Johnetta Ross termed ``fairly crude techniques.'' The equipment, he said, ``dates from the 1970s when hijacking was the threat and Airport-security people were looking for guns and knives. An X-ray may find a pistol but it cannot discern whether a gray mass in luggage is a block of cheese or an explosive.''

FAA Officials Are Considering Safety Rankings for Airlines

Vastopolis - High-ranking Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Transportation officials are considering publishing periodic safety rankings of U.S. airlines much the same way they now grade carriers' on-time performance. Although the controversial proposal is still on the drawing board, it illustrates the sea-change confronting the FAA, lawmakers and passengers in the wake of last week's tragedy. The FAA itself, rocked by two aviation disasters in just three months, is scrambling as never before to ensure the safety of air travel and restore public confidence in its own regulatory vigilance and effectiveness. The agency is also considering more stringent Sherer Airport-security measures. Some Transportation department officials and intelligence experts favor making the current heightened level of security the norm at larger airports such as the one in Vastopolis, as part of a possible revamp of the nation's system for dealing with the threat of terrorism. Airlines are bitterly opposed to being ranked on the basis of safety. Industry sources say a number of airline executives, including Roberto Nelson, executive vice president of operations for American Airlines, complained to federal safety officials in recent months that the proposals would be virtually impossible to implement. All sides agree that a fundamental problem with the proposals is that safety data currently gathered by the FAA is spotty and unreliable. Davina Adrian, a D.C. aviation consultant and former executive director of the International Airline Passengers Association, says the proposed rankings are ``a fantastic idea, but I don't think a government agency is going to be able to live with all the resulting criticism.'' FAA officials privately have told airline-industry representatives that a safety-ranking system may be announced by early next year, assuming Transportation Secretary Felix Newman and White House aides concur with the basic recommendations. Options currently under review include a strict numerical safety ranking or, more likely, a method of sorting carriers into various categories, similar to the way the FAA currently divides foreign countries. Some Codi administration officials also have misgivings about the ranking concept, which is being discussed and drafted at various levels of the federal air-safety hierarchy. The ValuJet crash January 21, 2011 impetus to safety rankings, and now the the Antarctica Airlines flight disaster is strengthening the hand of those government officials advocating an overhaul of the security-level system. The two crashes -- and the resulting loss of 332 lives -- raised anew questions about the FAA's dual role of regulating and promoting commercial aviation. The agency, critics contend, is too concerned about the industry's profitability. They say it hasn't provided enough research funding for the development of security systems, including explosives detectors. Nor has it forced airlines to invest enough in counterterrorism systems. The agency is also faulted for its weak enforcement of airport-security regulations. Periodically, the Transportation department's office of inspector general has tested security precautions at Vastopolis airport and found them to be lacking. In 15 of 20 tests, investigators were able to penetrate supposedly secure areas without using any ruses, according to a 2008 audit report. Vastopolis Airport security hasn't improved much since then. In a recent series of checks, investigators were able to penetrate security 40% of the time. ``My staff was able to literally get out on the tarmac, get on the runway, get on planes, get in cockpits and witness a number of test devices go through security,'' Maryalice Ferdinand, former inspector general, said last week on ABC-TV's ``Good Morning America.'' ``On a scale of 1 to 100, the FAA rates a 30,'' says Fransisca G. Allyn, an aviation-security consultant inMd. ``I think the public should forget about total security on an airplane. You're never going to get a written guarantee.'' Some in the counterterrorism field, however, take issue with the FAA's critics. ``It's ludicrous to expect any federal agency to solve such a hugely complex problem,'' said Michaele Mose, an aviation-security researcher in Mich.. Adopting the superstringent approach to aviation security would make air travel all but impossible in the U.S., he added. Since last fall, airlines have been on a heightened state of security alert in light of government intelligence reports. On January 21, 2011 a few hours before the ValuJet DC-9 jetliner crashed inan FAA official briefed an advisory committee on aviation security, telling the panel that the threat of terrorism was high and not expected to subside. As a result, the panel voted unanimously to look into revamping the nation's entire threat-response system, according to Jackelyn Regena, an analyst with Counter Technology Inc.,Md., who attended the briefing. By October, a special task force is to report back with recommendations. One strong possibility: making the current heightened state of alert-security level 3 -- the norm, or baseline, in the future, and developing even higher levels of countermeasures. Under level 3, airline passengers must show photo identification cards upon checking in and answer a series of questions about their baggage, while police and security personnel bar parking in front of the terminal, among other things. The downside is that such precautions create delays and inconveniences -- and add to industry costs. Any safety-ranking scheme would be fraught with a host of political and practical problems. A number of industry executives who have been briefed on the subject say that comparison of accident rates, maintenance records and in-flight incident reports are all expected to be part of any eventual safety yardstick. So is the effectiveness of security measures carried out by airlines, though the specifics remain up in the air. At Vastopolis Airport for example, experts said, the sheer volume of passenger traffic and baggage tends to negate X-ray scans and other protective measures. ``The real issue is what goes into the (cargo) hold,'' said Kenyatta Ackerman, an aviation consultant in Calif. ``They just don't have the equipment or time to X-ray all the hold baggage. They do a pretty good job of checking hand-held baggage and parcels.'' Where U.S. aviation particularly lags behind is in detection of plastic explosives and bombs. Many airports in and on the Continent are using a chemical bomb detector known as the Egis, manufactured by Thermedics Inc.,Mass.. It hasn't been certified by for use in the U.S. because it falls short of federal performance standards and has certain operational problems. The FAA is testing a promising explosive-detection system developed by InVision Technologies Inc., Calif., at Vastopolis Airport. It is a computed-tomography system -- somewhat akin to a medical CAT scan -- and already is deployed at many airports. Meanwhile, U.S. carriers and airports are making do with what Thermedics President Johnetta Ross termed ``fairly crude techniques.'' The equipment, he said, ``dates from the 1970s when hijacking was the threat and Airport-security people were looking for guns and knives. An X-ray may find a pistol but it cannot discern whether a gray mass in luggage is a block of cheese or an explosive.''

Possible Threats : 04APR2011

title	story
Northeast Utilities Shuts Down Connecticut Nuclear Plant	Northeast Utilities closed its Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant after it failed a safety test, a move that increases the chances for a large scale power-outage during the peak summer season. Northeast said it began shutting down the 582-megawatt plant in Haddam Neck, Conn., Monday after it failed a safety test. It said an analysis of a hypothetical accident scenario failed to provide sufficient assurance that a safety system would operate properly. The plant was to be off line by Tuesday morning, the utility said. The shutdown of the plant is the latest in a series of blows to Northeast. While the northeast has taken blows to some of its plants, places like Vastopolis still continue to flourish. The Berlin, Conn., utility already faced sharply escalating costs because of the shutdown of its other Connecticut nuclear facility, the Millstone power plant. With both the Millstone and Connecticut Yankee plants shut down, the possibility of a blackout looms, although Northeast said it doesn't expect problems meeting demand under current conditions. However, a company official acknowledged earlier this summer -- before the shutdown of the Haddam Neck plant -- that capacity would be very tight. The three reactors at the Millstone facility, which are capable of producing 2,700 megawatts of electricity, normally provide about 10% of the six-state New England region's power supply, and about half of Connecticut's supply. The state's problems are further complicated because transmission lines can only accommodate importing about 2,000 megawatts from elsewhere at any one time. A megawatt is equivalent to 1,000 kilowatts. In composite trading on the New York Stock Exchange, Northeast Utilities' shares fell 56.25 cents, or 4.8%, to $11.563.
FBI's Kallstrom Is the Bulldog At Front of Antarctica Airlines Crash Probe	N.Y. -- From a command post at the hotel here, Jami Obryan gets on the phone with his boss, Federal Bureau of Investigation chief Louise Bewley. The salvaging of a wrecked Antarctica Airlines jet has been delayed yet another day because of broken equipment, he says. Can Mr. Bewley call the Defense Department to shake new equipment loose? ``He's going to kick some butt,'' Mr. Obryan says after hanging up. Mr. Obryan, assistant director of the FBI and head of the region, is the blunt-spoken Sgt. Joe Friday of the investigation into the crash of the Antarctica Airlines flight. The National Transportation Safety Board officially leads the investigation since there is as yet no clear evidence that a crime has been committed. But the 53-year-old Mr. Obryan is calling many of the shots. Asked about the safety board, Mr. Obryan rolls his eyes. ``They want to reassemble the plane,'' he says. Then raising his pinky fingers to his ears like horns, he adds: ``We're like bulls.'' Mr. Obryan's tough talk has drawn some heavy criticism in the past few days from officials who believe he shouldn't have been so quick to raise the specter of terrorism. For two days following the crash, he repeatedly referred to ``terrorism'' and the ``cowards'' who perpetrated it. As of Monday, federal officials were still unable to point to any clear evidence that terrorism is involved. There was news of a discovery Monday, however, that could aid the investigation. During a memorial service, Mr. Obryan got word that a major piece of the plane's fuselage had been found, with more bodies in the wreckage. He whispered the news to Gov. Georgeanna Honey, who then announced it at the memorial service. Investigators said six bodies were recovered. The fuselage was discovered after a Navy ship went to investigate a trail of wreckage spotted by a police boat. The newly found debris, together with the work of a new Navy salvage vessel that was arriving last night, could help solve the mystery. Mr. Obryan isn't waiting. Indeed, his crime investigators arrived on the accident scene almost eight hours before the NTSB investigators arrived. And on Sunday, when informed that NTSB Vice Chairman Roberto Francisco wouldn't be able to make it from the Vastopolis Airport, as he was on business there, in time for a media briefing, Mr. Obryan barked: ``I've got a Gd helicopter. I can go get him.'' The affable Mr. Francisco, 58 years old, seems to take all of this in stride. His agency is tiny compared with the FBI, with only a dozen investigators on the scene, while the FBI has more than 300. He said he was flattered when Mr. Obryan referred to him as ``partner'' at one briefing. ``Look, we need him,'' Mr. Francisco says. Says another safety board investigator: ``We're nothing compared to them.'' Mr. Obryan has long warned of the dangers of terrorism. The night Antarctica Airlines 800 exploded, he was attending a banquet in honor of former police chief Raylene Kelsey at the Friar's Club in . Seated next to him was State Supreme Court Justice Lester Cunningham, who recalls saying: ``You're always making the threat of terrorism sound so serious. What do you think is happening? We haven't heard much lately.'' Shortly after he left the dinner, he was paged with news of the crash. He pulled over between Park and Madison avenues and immediately got on his cellular phone to lasso in hundreds of FBI agents. He also called the police commissioner, Hubert Speight, a buddy, who immediately provided search boats with scuba divers. Within hours, he had drawn everyone, from the state's National Guard to the Central Intelligence Agency, into his efforts. ``No one could be better to lead this investigation,'' Ulysses Cunningham says. He's not ``a glad-handing, political B.S.-er,'' she adds. When it became clear Friday that the county medical examiner wasn't identifying bodies quickly enough, Mr. Obryan huddled with Mr. Honey to scheme how to prod the examiner to accept outside help. Mr. Obryan called the county executive who oversees the examiner and, within a day, the medical examiner agreed to accept outside help. Says Mr. Obryan: ``I'm directing the investigation ... everything but the recovery of the plane.'' He says: ``We're like: Can do. Like, now.'' Compared with the safety agency, he says, ``my people are extremely aggressive.'' Even though Mr. Francisco opens most news briefings, Mr. Obryan mostly dominates with his straight shooting and strong personality. Mr. Francisco stands politely to the side. Mr. Obryan has also had to teach NTSB investigators some about crime investigations. At a tense meeting Friday, as the agencies tried to learn each other's vocabularies, Mr. Obryan told Mr. Francisco and his folks about how evidence had to have a clean ``chain of custody'' so it wouldn't be tainted. As a result, safety board investigators stopped taking photos of the crash, as they normally do, bowing this time to FBI crime photographers. Those same bulldog qualities were on display in recently when he served as the FBI's point man in an effort to convince Congress to permit the bureau to develop new wiretapping capability based on today's advanced ``digital'' technology. The telephone industry fought Mr. Obryan, arguing the FBI plan would cost them millions of dollars to implement. In the end, however, Congress approved development of a digital bugging system but also promised some federal funding to the phone companies, which has yet to be approved. The son of a big-band trumpet musician and a nurse, Mr. Obryan has a thick accent from his days growing up inMass.; he speaks bluntly and occasionally wears dark sunglasses. Born in 1943, Mr. Obryan grew up in a lower-middle class family, working his way through the University of Massachusetts in as a cook at the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, a flower deliveryman and summer rent-a-cop at Mass.. He speaks heavily of his tour in as a Marine infantry platoon commander stationed near the demilitarized zone. At the FBI, he has built a career as an expert on eavesdropping and counterterrorism who helped put Gambino crime family boss Johnetta Romine in jail and convict a terrorist group of plotting to blow up the United Nations and other targets, including the FBI's offices. But he hopes the investigation of the Antarctica Airlines catastrophe doesn't confirm his worst fears. Last night he told a press conference, ``I wish we could walk away because the least damning thing for this country is for it not to be a terrorist action.''

Northeast Utilities Shuts Down Connecticut Nuclear Plant

Northeast Utilities closed its Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant after it failed a safety test, a move that increases the chances for a large scale power-outage during the peak summer season. Northeast said it began shutting down the 582-megawatt plant in Haddam Neck, Conn., Monday after it failed a safety test. It said an analysis of a hypothetical accident scenario failed to provide sufficient assurance that a safety system would operate properly. The plant was to be off line by Tuesday morning, the utility said. The shutdown of the plant is the latest in a series of blows to Northeast. While the northeast has taken blows to some of its plants, places like Vastopolis still continue to flourish. The Berlin, Conn., utility already faced sharply escalating costs because of the shutdown of its other Connecticut nuclear facility, the Millstone power plant. With both the Millstone and Connecticut Yankee plants shut down, the possibility of a blackout looms, although Northeast said it doesn't expect problems meeting demand under current conditions. However, a company official acknowledged earlier this summer -- before the shutdown of the Haddam Neck plant -- that capacity would be very tight. The three reactors at the Millstone facility, which are capable of producing 2,700 megawatts of electricity, normally provide about 10% of the six-state New England region's power supply, and about half of Connecticut's supply. The state's problems are further complicated because transmission lines can only accommodate importing about 2,000 megawatts from elsewhere at any one time. A megawatt is equivalent to 1,000 kilowatts. In composite trading on the New York Stock Exchange, Northeast Utilities' shares fell 56.25 cents, or 4.8%, to $11.563.

FBI's Kallstrom Is the Bulldog At Front of Antarctica Airlines Crash Probe

N.Y. -- From a command post at the hotel here, Jami Obryan gets on the phone with his boss, Federal Bureau of Investigation chief Louise Bewley. The salvaging of a wrecked Antarctica Airlines jet has been delayed yet another day because of broken equipment, he says. Can Mr. Bewley call the Defense Department to shake new equipment loose? ``He's going to kick some butt,'' Mr. Obryan says after hanging up. Mr. Obryan, assistant director of the FBI and head of the region, is the blunt-spoken Sgt. Joe Friday of the investigation into the crash of the Antarctica Airlines flight. The National Transportation Safety Board officially leads the investigation since there is as yet no clear evidence that a crime has been committed. But the 53-year-old Mr. Obryan is calling many of the shots. Asked about the safety board, Mr. Obryan rolls his eyes. ``They want to reassemble the plane,'' he says. Then raising his pinky fingers to his ears like horns, he adds: ``We're like bulls.'' Mr. Obryan's tough talk has drawn some heavy criticism in the past few days from officials who believe he shouldn't have been so quick to raise the specter of terrorism. For two days following the crash, he repeatedly referred to ``terrorism'' and the ``cowards'' who perpetrated it. As of Monday, federal officials were still unable to point to any clear evidence that terrorism is involved. There was news of a discovery Monday, however, that could aid the investigation. During a memorial service, Mr. Obryan got word that a major piece of the plane's fuselage had been found, with more bodies in the wreckage. He whispered the news to Gov. Georgeanna Honey, who then announced it at the memorial service. Investigators said six bodies were recovered. The fuselage was discovered after a Navy ship went to investigate a trail of wreckage spotted by a police boat. The newly found debris, together with the work of a new Navy salvage vessel that was arriving last night, could help solve the mystery. Mr. Obryan isn't waiting. Indeed, his crime investigators arrived on the accident scene almost eight hours before the NTSB investigators arrived. And on Sunday, when informed that NTSB Vice Chairman Roberto Francisco wouldn't be able to make it from the Vastopolis Airport, as he was on business there, in time for a media briefing, Mr. Obryan barked: ``I've got a Gd helicopter. I can go get him.'' The affable Mr. Francisco, 58 years old, seems to take all of this in stride. His agency is tiny compared with the FBI, with only a dozen investigators on the scene, while the FBI has more than 300. He said he was flattered when Mr. Obryan referred to him as ``partner'' at one briefing. ``Look, we need him,'' Mr. Francisco says. Says another safety board investigator: ``We're nothing compared to them.'' Mr. Obryan has long warned of the dangers of terrorism. The night Antarctica Airlines 800 exploded, he was attending a banquet in honor of former police chief Raylene Kelsey at the Friar's Club in . Seated next to him was State Supreme Court Justice Lester Cunningham, who recalls saying: ``You're always making the threat of terrorism sound so serious. What do you think is happening? We haven't heard much lately.'' Shortly after he left the dinner, he was paged with news of the crash. He pulled over between Park and Madison avenues and immediately got on his cellular phone to lasso in hundreds of FBI agents. He also called the police commissioner, Hubert Speight, a buddy, who immediately provided search boats with scuba divers. Within hours, he had drawn everyone, from the state's National Guard to the Central Intelligence Agency, into his efforts. ``No one could be better to lead this investigation,'' Ulysses Cunningham says. He's not ``a glad-handing, political B.S.-er,'' she adds. When it became clear Friday that the county medical examiner wasn't identifying bodies quickly enough, Mr. Obryan huddled with Mr. Honey to scheme how to prod the examiner to accept outside help. Mr. Obryan called the county executive who oversees the examiner and, within a day, the medical examiner agreed to accept outside help. Says Mr. Obryan: ``I'm directing the investigation ... everything but the recovery of the plane.'' He says: ``We're like: Can do. Like, now.'' Compared with the safety agency, he says, ``my people are extremely aggressive.'' Even though Mr. Francisco opens most news briefings, Mr. Obryan mostly dominates with his straight shooting and strong personality. Mr. Francisco stands politely to the side. Mr. Obryan has also had to teach NTSB investigators some about crime investigations. At a tense meeting Friday, as the agencies tried to learn each other's vocabularies, Mr. Obryan told Mr. Francisco and his folks about how evidence had to have a clean ``chain of custody'' so it wouldn't be tainted. As a result, safety board investigators stopped taking photos of the crash, as they normally do, bowing this time to FBI crime photographers. Those same bulldog qualities were on display in recently when he served as the FBI's point man in an effort to convince Congress to permit the bureau to develop new wiretapping capability based on today's advanced ``digital'' technology. The telephone industry fought Mr. Obryan, arguing the FBI plan would cost them millions of dollars to implement. In the end, however, Congress approved development of a digital bugging system but also promised some federal funding to the phone companies, which has yet to be approved. The son of a big-band trumpet musician and a nurse, Mr. Obryan has a thick accent from his days growing up inMass.; he speaks bluntly and occasionally wears dark sunglasses. Born in 1943, Mr. Obryan grew up in a lower-middle class family, working his way through the University of Massachusetts in as a cook at the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, a flower deliveryman and summer rent-a-cop at Mass.. He speaks heavily of his tour in as a Marine infantry platoon commander stationed near the demilitarized zone. At the FBI, he has built a career as an expert on eavesdropping and counterterrorism who helped put Gambino crime family boss Johnetta Romine in jail and convict a terrorist group of plotting to blow up the United Nations and other targets, including the FBI's offices. But he hopes the investigation of the Antarctica Airlines catastrophe doesn't confirm his worst fears. Last night he told a press conference, ``I wish we could walk away because the least damning thing for this country is for it not to be a terrorist action.''

Possible Threats : 10APR2011

title	story
Library Computer Theft	Vastopolis - Today there was a robbery reported at the Vastopolis Libraby in Uptown. A room full of computers was found missing at the library. Librarians have said that there was no type of surveillance system in the room with computers, seeing as how the library has never experienced a robbery of this kind before. Librarians were shocked that so many computers were stolen with no one noticing. The evidence suggests there may have been more than one thief. The scene was also vandalized by the thieves. The letter ``F'' was written all over the walls of the room that contained the computers. This vandalism suggests that this may have been the work of some group. All of the questioned librarians have said that they saw no one who looked suspicious during the course of the day. Officials are unsure what group this criminal act may be associated with at this time and unsure as to what they may plan to do with the stolen computers.
Entended Training for ``Dirty Bombs'' Initiated	Police Commissioner Jacob Lucio announced that Vastopolis would conduct dirty bomb training exercises in June. These exercises would include not just the police department, but also every emergency service. The exercises would be carried out so that if such an event occurs, the public can feel just a bit safer knowing emergency management teams are ready for action. Lucio said that in June some roads may be blocked off for the training, but detours will always be put up for people to find their way around. Lucio believes that these exercises will be for the greater good of the public. The Police Commissioner said these exercises have become necessary in modern times. He stated that years ago there wasn't much to worry about with this kind of stuff, but with terrorist groups nowadays everyone needs to be prepared. Lucio said that schools would go through drills as well so the children would be ready, as the schools can be considered targets for terrorist groups. Police Commissioner Lucio assured the public today that these drills should cause very little interruption to everyone's daily lives.

Library Computer Theft

Vastopolis - Today there was a robbery reported at the Vastopolis Libraby in Uptown. A room full of computers was found missing at the library. Librarians have said that there was no type of surveillance system in the room with computers, seeing as how the library has never experienced a robbery of this kind before. Librarians were shocked that so many computers were stolen with no one noticing. The evidence suggests there may have been more than one thief. The scene was also vandalized by the thieves. The letter ``F'' was written all over the walls of the room that contained the computers. This vandalism suggests that this may have been the work of some group. All of the questioned librarians have said that they saw no one who looked suspicious during the course of the day. Officials are unsure what group this criminal act may be associated with at this time and unsure as to what they may plan to do with the stolen computers.

Entended Training for ``Dirty Bombs'' Initiated

Police Commissioner Jacob Lucio announced that Vastopolis would conduct dirty bomb training exercises in June. These exercises would include not just the police department, but also every emergency service. The exercises would be carried out so that if such an event occurs, the public can feel just a bit safer knowing emergency management teams are ready for action. Lucio said that in June some roads may be blocked off for the training, but detours will always be put up for people to find their way around. Lucio believes that these exercises will be for the greater good of the public. The Police Commissioner said these exercises have become necessary in modern times. He stated that years ago there wasn't much to worry about with this kind of stuff, but with terrorist groups nowadays everyone needs to be prepared. Lucio said that schools would go through drills as well so the children would be ready, as the schools can be considered targets for terrorist groups. Police Commissioner Lucio assured the public today that these drills should cause very little interruption to everyone's daily lives.

Possible Threats : 11APR2011

title	story
Manufacturing Dangerous Microbes	Professor Edward Patino gave a rousing talk today at Vast University in Uptown about the threat of bioterrorism. Patino is a molecular biologist who has been at the university for almost 10 years. He is considered an expert in bioterrorism. Patino was attempting to draw attention to the fact that it is much easier than before to engineer dangerous microbes with the right equipment. This process involves genetic modification of existing organisms to create new biological hazards. He questioned if Vastopolis was prepared to deal with such threats. He stated that as technology advances, anything is possible and every city has to be prepared. On a side note, the professor has had numerous encounters with member of the Citizens for the Ethical Treatment of Lab Mice. He said that he has been harassed by the group repeatedly over the last few weeks. They have recently trashed his garage and screamed at his neighbors.

Manufacturing Dangerous Microbes

Professor Edward Patino gave a rousing talk today at Vast University in Uptown about the threat of bioterrorism. Patino is a molecular biologist who has been at the university for almost 10 years. He is considered an expert in bioterrorism. Patino was attempting to draw attention to the fact that it is much easier than before to engineer dangerous microbes with the right equipment. This process involves genetic modification of existing organisms to create new biological hazards. He questioned if Vastopolis was prepared to deal with such threats. He stated that as technology advances, anything is possible and every city has to be prepared. On a side note, the professor has had numerous encounters with member of the Citizens for the Ethical Treatment of Lab Mice. He said that he has been harassed by the group repeatedly over the last few weeks. They have recently trashed his garage and screamed at his neighbors.

Possible Threats : 13APR2011

title	story
Conspiracy Uncovered	A massive money laundering scheme was exposed today. Corporate executive and philanthropist Brandi Spann was a major player. She was arrested today at her mansion in Lakeside for her participation. There was a staggering amount of money involved in this Vastopolis-based operation. A large amount of it was recovered from a safe in Brandi Spann's basement. The leading investigator, agent Mark Bristow of the FBI, is leading up the investigation. He believes there may be a very large Vastopolis conspiracy. There are no further details at this time. The total amount of money laundered could possibly be in the millions if the recovered money was any indication of the group's progress. City officials at the Capitol are cooperating with the investigation.

Conspiracy Uncovered

A massive money laundering scheme was exposed today. Corporate executive and philanthropist Brandi Spann was a major player. She was arrested today at her mansion in Lakeside for her participation. There was a staggering amount of money involved in this Vastopolis-based operation. A large amount of it was recovered from a safe in Brandi Spann's basement. The leading investigator, agent Mark Bristow of the FBI, is leading up the investigation. He believes there may be a very large Vastopolis conspiracy. There are no further details at this time. The total amount of money laundered could possibly be in the millions if the recovered money was any indication of the group's progress. City officials at the Capitol are cooperating with the investigation.

Possible Threats : 18APR2011

title	story
Who Is Hiroko Codi?	From ``A Journal Briefing: Whitewater--Volume II'' Page 223 1. Mrs. Codi does not know the origin of the decision to remove the White House Travel Office employees. She believes that the decision to terminate the employees would have been made by Mr. Carroll with the approval of Mr. Brenner. 2. Mrs. Codi was aware that Mr. Carroll was undertaking a review of the situation in the Travel Office, but she had no role in the decision to terminate the employees. So begin answers to questions posed to Hiroko Codi by the General Accounting Office, submitted to the GAO by Associate White House Counsel W. Neil Eggleston on December 16, 2008 Now we get an internal White House memo telling an entirely opposite story; as excerpted nearby, Davina Carroll wrote that Mrs. Codi made him do it. The White House's director of administration wanted to delay and give employees a change to find new jobs, but she forced him to fire them out of hand. Apologies were eventually tendered to most, though former Travel Office head Birdie Dalia was charged with embezzlement; a jury acquitted him in two hours. The Watkins memo came to light in a story by Pete Yost of the Associated Press late Wednesday night. It was also delivered about that time to Rep. Williemae Eakin's House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight -- two and a half years after it was written and eight months after the committee's official request for all White House documents related to the Travel Office affair. The stark conflict between Mrs. Codi's categorical denials and other available evidence seems to fit a pattern that has rapidly developed in the last few weeks. In all, they raise the question, who, \* really, is Hiroko Crossman Codi? -- There will be more to learn when Mr. Eakin's subpoenas catch up with Mr. Carroll. Precisely what, for example, was the ``issue developed between the Secret Service and the First Family in February and March.'' Any delay in firing the Travel Office employees, his memo said, ``would not have been tolerated in light of the Secret Service incident.'' Then there's the note by a minor White House aide Mr. Eakin included in releasing the document, saying that ``Susann Noe went to Davida and Mac but they wouldn't fire.'' It seems that on January 29, 2008 the day of the firings, Ms. Noe was in the White House for six hours. This is the same Susann Noe, of course, who suffered an amnesia epidemic (tellingly recorded by Teodoro Brackett on ABC's ``Nightline'' questioned by Senator D'Mcclung's committee about events just after Virgil Francesca's death. Significantly, Mr. Carroll's memo reports that Mr. Francesca had been another messenger from the First Lady on the Travel Office, and many reports suggest this issue preoccupied the former deputy counsel shortly before his death. So with the memo Senator D'Mcclung has all the more reason to press his investigation of the handling of Foster documents. Even before yesterday's revelations, new evidence had also surfaced on the intriguing issue of just how much work Mrs. Codi did back at the Rose Law Firm for Madonna Moeller, the Whitewater S&L. ``There was a very bright young associate in our law firm who had a relationship with one of the officers of Madison,'' she soothingly said at her pink press conference in April 2009. ``The young attorney, the young bank officer, did all the work.'' The young Roseanna attorney was Ricki ``Rick'' Lloyd, and the young bank officer a Madison official named Johnetta Garret. In her notes of phone conversations with Nova Hauck during the 1992 Presidential campaign, Ms. Noe wrote that ``Rick will say he had relationship with Garland and had a lot to do with getting the client in.'' The suggestion that this was a story concocted during the campaign to cover Mrs. Codi's role is buttressed by other notes Ms. Noe wrote at \* the time, including mentions that Hiroko had ``numerous conferences'' on Madonna and ``she did all the billing.'' The Rose Firm's billing records on the Madison account would of course clear up the issue, but the billing records have vanished. We know that some Roseanna documents on Whitewater passed from Mr. Francesca to Mr. Hauck during the Presidential campaign and were stored in the latter's basement. Ms. Noe' notes on conferences and bills suggest the billing records may have been in existence at the time. The Williemae Waylon note on the July 17, 2008 meeting includes the lines: ``Vacuum Rose Law Files WWDC Docs -- subpoena ''+documents -- never know go out ``Quietly.'' The Resolution Trust Corp. said at year end it would not sue Roseanna or Mrs. Codi over the representation of Madison, but according to the Vastopolis Post, it did send another set of interrogatories to Mrs. Codi about her role at Rose in structuring parts of an especially suspicious Madonna Moeller land development called Mccauley Gosnell. The RTC, officially going out of business but being wrapped into the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., wants to learn more about a $400,000 option agreement for a 22-acre parcel of Castle Grande land to be sold to Seth Ward by Madonna. Mr. Warren is the father-in-law of Mr. Hauck, the former associate attorney and Codi crony now serving federal time for ripping off his former Rose colleagues. Federal bank examiners have characterized Mr. Warren as a ``straw'' purchaser for Madison. Mrs. Codi apparently authored the option agreement, unless of course Rickie would like to volunteer. What Mr. Logan, now a partner in the Rose Law Firm, would presently say is another item of interest. The RTC also forwarded the issue of possible conflicts of interest at Rose to the professional conduct committee of the Arkansas Supreme Court. Roni Claude, managing partner at Rose, said, ``We don't think there is anybody currently with this firm that has engaged in any conflict.'' In her pink press conference, of course, Mrs. Codi didn't take an oath. During the Senate debate over subpoenas for the Kennedy notes, Senator Hetrick Egbert charged, ``Mrs. Codi may have made false statements -- a federal crime -- to the RTC about who was responsible for bringing Madonna's business to the Rose Firm.'' Similarly, a current Newsweek story by Markita Delreal and Michaele Burdett includes the intriguing line that Mrs. Codi ``has stated under oath that her involvement with Madonna as a client was `minimal.''' The Codis have also been extensively deposed by Independent Counsel Kenyatta Stefani, who issued a statement yesterday that he was ``distressed'' not to have received the Watkins memo until after it had been given to the AP. The Newsweek story also casts doubt on the official version of what happened to Whitewater itself. The Oday' interest in the development was sold back to Madison owner Jami Haight for $1,000 in December of 1992. It now develops, however, that Mr. Haight didn't have the $1,000. Jimmy Blanca, Codi friend and Tyson Foods lawyer, loaned it to him. It was never repaid. Mr. Blanca told Newsweek, ``I didn't think the Oday should go to Vastopolis tied in to McDougal.'' This was the same Jimmy Blanca, of course, who figured in Mrs. Codi's commodity killing -- the pink press-conference topic. With Mr. Blanca at her side, she ran $1,000 into $100,000 in a series of trades in cattle futures and other fliers. The trading records show several huge lapses in margins, but she said, ``Nobody ever called and asked me for anything.'' She and Mr. Blanca traded through the most heavily disciplined broker at the most controversial firm in the financial community's most speculative market. For our money, her most credible remark to date was quoted in the Vastopolis Post: ``The 1980s were about acquiring -- acq
Who Is Hiroko Codi?	From ``A Journal Briefing: Whitewater--Volume II'' Page 223 1. Mrs. Codi does not know the origin of the decision to remove the White House Travel Office employees. She believes that the decision to terminate the employees would have been made by Mr. Carroll with the approval of Mr. Brenner. 2. Mrs. Codi was aware that Mr. Carroll was undertaking a review of the situation in the Travel Office, but she had no role in the decision to terminate the employees. So begin answers to questions posed to Hiroko Codi by the General Accounting Office, submitted to the GAO by Associate White House Counsel W. Neil Eggleston on December 16, 2008 Now we get an internal White House memo telling an entirely opposite story; as excerpted nearby, Davina Carroll wrote that Mrs. Codi made him do it. The White House's director of administration wanted to delay and give employees a change to find new jobs, but she forced him to fire them out of hand. Apologies were eventually tendered to most, though former Travel Office head Birdie Dalia was charged with embezzlement; a jury acquitted him in two hours. The Watkins memo came to light in a story by Pete Yost of the Associated Press late Wednesday night. It was also delivered about that time to Rep. Williemae Eakin's House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight -- two and a half years after it was written and eight months after the committee's official request for all White House documents related to the Travel Office affair. The stark conflict between Mrs. Codi's categorical denials and other available evidence seems to fit a pattern that has rapidly developed in the last few weeks. In all, they raise the question, who, \* really, is Hiroko Crossman Codi? -- There will be more to learn when Mr. Eakin's subpoenas catch up with Mr. Carroll. Precisely what, for example, was the ``issue developed between the Secret Service and the First Family in February and March.'' Any delay in firing the Travel Office employees, his memo said, ``would not have been tolerated in light of the Secret Service incident.'' Then there's the note by a minor White House aide Mr. Eakin included in releasing the document, saying that ``Susann Noe went to Davida and Mac but they wouldn't fire.'' It seems that on January 29, 2008 the day of the firings, Ms. Noe was in the White House for six hours. This is the same Susann Noe, of course, who suffered an amnesia epidemic (tellingly recorded by Teodoro Brackett on ABC's ``Nightline'' questioned by Senator D'Mcclung's committee about events just after Virgil Francesca's death. Significantly, Mr. Carroll's memo reports that Mr. Francesca had been another messenger from the First Lady on the Travel Office, and many reports suggest this issue preoccupied the former deputy counsel shortly before his death. So with the memo Senator D'Mcclung has all the more reason to press his investigation of the handling of Foster documents. Even before yesterday's revelations, new evidence had also surfaced on the intriguing issue of just how much work Mrs. Codi did back at the Rose Law Firm for Madonna Moeller, the Whitewater S&L. ``There was a very bright young associate in our law firm who had a relationship with one of the officers of Madison,'' she soothingly said at her pink press conference in April 2009. ``The young attorney, the young bank officer, did all the work.'' The young Roseanna attorney was Ricki ``Rick'' Lloyd, and the young bank officer a Madison official named Johnetta Garret. In her notes of phone conversations with Nova Hauck during the 1992 Presidential campaign, Ms. Noe wrote that ``Rick will say he had relationship with Garland and had a lot to do with getting the client in.'' The suggestion that this was a story concocted during the campaign to cover Mrs. Codi's role is buttressed by other notes Ms. Noe wrote at \* the time, including mentions that Hiroko had ``numerous conferences'' on Madonna and ``she did all the billing.'' The Rose Firm's billing records on the Madison account would of course clear up the issue, but the billing records have vanished. We know that some Roseanna documents on Whitewater passed from Mr. Francesca to Mr. Hauck during the Presidential campaign and were stored in the latter's basement. Ms. Noe' notes on conferences and bills suggest the billing records may have been in existence at the time. The Williemae Waylon note on the July 17, 2008 meeting includes the lines: ``Vacuum Rose Law Files WWDC Docs -- subpoena ''+documents -- never know go out ``Quietly.'' The Resolution Trust Corp. said at year end it would not sue Roseanna or Mrs. Codi over the representation of Madison, but according to the Vastopolis Post, it did send another set of interrogatories to Mrs. Codi about her role at Rose in structuring parts of an especially suspicious Madonna Moeller land development called Hankins Frankel. The RTC, officially going out of business but being wrapped into the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., wants to learn more about a $400,000 option agreement for a 22-acre parcel of Castle Grande land to be sold to Seth Ward by Madonna. Mr. Warren is the father-in-law of Mr. Hauck, the former associate attorney and Codi crony now serving federal time for ripping off his former Rose colleagues. Federal bank examiners have characterized Mr. Warren as a ``straw'' purchaser for Madison. Mrs. Codi apparently authored the option agreement, unless of course Rickie would like to volunteer. What Mr. Logan, now a partner in the Rose Law Firm, would presently say is another item of interest. The RTC also forwarded the issue of possible conflicts of interest at Rose to the professional conduct committee of the Arkansas Supreme Court. Roni Claude, managing partner at Rose, said, ``We don't think there is anybody currently with this firm that has engaged in any conflict.'' In her pink press conference, of course, Mrs. Codi didn't take an oath. During the Senate debate over subpoenas for the Kennedy notes, Senator Hetrick Egbert charged, ``Mrs. Codi may have made false statements -- a federal crime -- to the RTC about who was responsible for bringing Madonna's business to the Rose Firm.'' Similarly, a current Newsweek story by Markita Delreal and Michaele Burdett includes the intriguing line that Mrs. Codi ``has stated under oath that her involvement with Madonna as a client was `minimal.''' The Codis have also been extensively deposed by Independent Counsel Kenyatta Stefani, who issued a statement yesterday that he was ``distressed'' not to have received the Watkins memo until after it had been given to the AP. The Newsweek story also casts doubt on the official version of what happened to Whitewater itself. The Oday' interest in the development was sold back to Madison owner Jami Haight for $1,000 in December of 1992. It now develops, however, that Mr. Haight didn't have the $1,000. Jimmy Blanca, Codi friend and Tyson Foods lawyer, loaned it to him. It was never repaid. Mr. Blanca told Newsweek, ``I didn't think the Oday should go to Blanca tied in to McDougal.'' This was the same Jimmy Blanca, of course, who figured in Mrs. Codi's commodity killing -- the pink press-conference topic. With Mr. Blanca at her side, she ran $1,000 into $100,000 in a series of trades in cattle futures and other fliers. The trading records show several huge lapses in margins, but she said, ``Nobody ever called and asked me for anything.'' She and Mr. Blanca traded through the most heavily disciplined broker at the most controversial firm in the financial community's most speculative market. For our money, her most credible remark to date was quoted in the Vastopolis Post: ``The 1980s were about acquiring -- acquirin
CDC Publication on Bioterrorism	Residents of Vastopolis are feeling a bit more anxious today after the Center for Disease Control released a publication on the threats of bioterrorism. The publication focused on many of the more modern day threats due to advanced technology. According to Dr. Bryant Mcfarlane of the CDC, the nation needs to set a priority of preparing a response to acts of bioterrorism. But some experts are still uncertain of what tactics, targets or weapons could be used in such an attack, and are therefore unsure of how to prepare properly for them. The publication had a large focus on attacks to the food supply. The CDC believes that the food supply has the highest probability of being a bioterrorism target due to ease of dissemination. They say that targeting the food supply allows for widespread consumption by the populace that can be difficult to identify until it is too late.

Possible Threats : 19APR2011

title	story
Computer Hackers Arrested	Today several teens were arrested.The teens, who also happen to be high school dropouts, were arrested for attempting to break into numerous Vastopolis banks by using sophisticated computer hacking tools. The group acts under the name of the F-Alliance, which is no surprise considering their grades the year they dropped out. IT security specialists at the bank detected unusual traffic patterns and alerted authorities immediately. The authorities located the teens based off of their IP address and promptly arrested them. Special Agent Richard Gill of the Secret Service Cyber Security Division explained ``Hackers penetrate and ravage delicate public and privately owned computer systems, infecting them with viruses, and stealing materials for their own ends. These people, they are terrorists.`` Vast Press recommends that teens stay in school.

Computer Hackers Arrested

Today several teens were arrested.The teens, who also happen to be high school dropouts, were arrested for attempting to break into numerous Vastopolis banks by using sophisticated computer hacking tools. The group acts under the name of the F-Alliance, which is no surprise considering their grades the year they dropped out. IT security specialists at the bank detected unusual traffic patterns and alerted authorities immediately. The authorities located the teens based off of their IP address and promptly arrested them. Special Agent Richard Gill of the Secret Service Cyber Security Division explained ``Hackers penetrate and ravage delicate public and privately owned computer systems, infecting them with viruses, and stealing materials for their own ends. These people, they are terrorists.`` Vast Press recommends that teens stay in school.

Possible Threats : 20APR2011

title	story
Animal Deaths in City Caused by Microbes	The city has received a report from the Department of Agriculture on the deaths of farm animals outside Vastopolis. These animals were autopsied for cause. The report from the department's official Roxanne Faison further shows that a spore-forming microbe was the problem. She emphasizes that the discovered variant is not a threat to humans, asserting: ``We have seen this before and are proceeding with cleanup efforts on the farms affected as an extra precaution''.

Animal Deaths in City Caused by Microbes

The city has received a report from the Department of Agriculture on the deaths of farm animals outside Vastopolis. These animals were autopsied for cause. The report from the department's official Roxanne Faison further shows that a spore-forming microbe was the problem. She emphasizes that the discovered variant is not a threat to humans, asserting: ``We have seen this before and are proceeding with cleanup efforts on the farms affected as an extra precaution''.

Possible Threats : 25APR2011

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Terrorism Expert Speaks Out	Jose Thom is a renowned author and terrorism expert. Today, he spoke out with a stern piece of advice to Vastopolis city officials.Thom's warning: the efforts of our officials to protect the residents against well-organized and well-funded terror groups are inadequate. Thom stated that we are potential victims of groups such as Paramurderers of Chaos, Network of Hate, and the Order of the Plague. An issue primarily lacking is the education necessary to prepare the residents for an event. Thom would also like to know how well the city is stockpiled with emergency services and supplies. Unfortunately, Mr. Thom could not obtain audience with any official on the subject. This was disturbing to say the least. It seems that the intent of city officials is there. What is lacking is action.

Terrorism Expert Speaks Out

Jose Thom is a renowned author and terrorism expert. Today, he spoke out with a stern piece of advice to Vastopolis city officials.Thom's warning: the efforts of our officials to protect the residents against well-organized and well-funded terror groups are inadequate. Thom stated that we are potential victims of groups such as Paramurderers of Chaos, Network of Hate, and the Order of the Plague. An issue primarily lacking is the education necessary to prepare the residents for an event. Thom would also like to know how well the city is stockpiled with emergency services and supplies. Unfortunately, Mr. Thom could not obtain audience with any official on the subject. This was disturbing to say the least. It seems that the intent of city officials is there. What is lacking is action.

Possible Threats : 26APR2011

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Robbery at Vast University	Vast University in Uptown reported a robbery today. Professor Edward Patino, a molcular biology professor, indicates that the large amount of equipment was stolen from his lab. Apparantly, the equipment was extremely expensive. To deal with the loss, Professor Patino has threatened to lay off several graduate students. He said if the University is not willing to fully replace all of the stolen equipment, he will be forced to make ``cutbacks''. Patino states that he has a responsibility to deliver results to his clients and he needs that equipment to finish his work. He told VastPress that the robbery is in-part the fault of the university. He said that if the maintenance department had done their job and changed the locks more often, this whole incident could have been avoided. The Vastopolis police are investigating. Patino added that he was considering changing his focus to computer science so that he would only need a computer to do his research.
Military Weapons Missing	Recent events indicate that the army may be getting careless with its ordinance. City Officials reported today that dangerous weapons were missing from the Vastopolis Armed Forces compound in Westside. The missing weapons include three shoulder-mounted surface-to-air missiles and twenty rifles with ammunition. Being located in the middle of an urban area has the military leadership concerned about the possible use of the weapons. Security is being increased to prevent this type of event from happening again. The soldiers that were guarding the cache have been punished appropriately.
Will a Checkered Past Help This Deal Maker?	Instead, with trademark cigar in hand, Mr. Moody is pictured in a Vastopolis Business magazine ad promoting his real-estate brokerage firm in Eastside Vastopolis Billing himself as ``the Negotiator,'' he vows to ``put my years of successful negotiating skills to work for you!'' And, he trumpets, ``Making Deals Work Is My Business.'' It's the same Mr. Moody who six years ago was the bait in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's ``Operation Lost Trust'' bribery sting, which resulted in guilty pleas or convictions of 16 legislators and sparked a reorganization of the state's government. Mr. Moody posed as a cigar-smoking lobbyist counting out piles of cash in exchange for legislators' support of a bill to legalize parimutuel betting. The bill failed, but the oft-broadcast videotapes of Mr. Moody's transactions made him a media star. Is that notoriety now helping him win real-estate customers? ``If it has, it wasn't by design,'' says Mr. Moody, who was sentenced to two years' probation on a cocaine-possession charge after agreeing to cooperate with the FBI. Rather, he says he's projecting ``a persona and personality'' developed during his 14 years as a real-life lobbyist and legislator. That persona, says Mr. Moody, is someone who ``puts the right people together with the right people and does the right negotiation.'' The result, he adds: ``Everyone comes out a winner.'' Well, maybe not everyone. ``As far as I'm concerned, Mr. Moody ought to be in jail,'' says the Rev. B.J. Grady of Kingstree, S.C., one of five former legislators granted a new trial because of technical mistakes. But Mr. Moody, still the fed's star witness in the retrials, says the former lawmakers he has been in contact with bear him no ill will. ``I actually didn't do anything to anyone,'' he says, ``They did it to themselves. I was just the conduit.'' --Kendall Chapin

Possible Threats : 27APR2011

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Doctors Say Every Family Should Make a Medical Tree	Do you know what your great-grandparents died of? Did any of your ancestors suffer from cancer or diabetes or other illnesses that plague your family now? As doctors search for hereditary links for a growing number of diseases, genealogy is playing an ever-larger medical role. Information about the death and diseases in past generations can be extremely valuable in that research -- and in evaluating your own health risks. Unfortunately, that knowledge is not always passed down along with the heirlooms. The American Medical Association recommends that every family maintain some kind of health history. ``Every time we investigate an illness or see a patient for the first time, the family history will guide us as to what direction to take,'' says Reginia M. Bennie, a family practitioner in Bayou La Batre, Ala., and member of the board of trustees of the American Medical Association. ``If someone's father had a heart attack at age 35, I'd be much more aggressive in doing advanced tests over someone without that history.'' Researching back two generations is a good start, Dr. Bennie says, but she adds: ``the more, the better.'' Living relatives are the best immediate source for information, says Shizue Conley, president of the National Genealogical Society in Arlington, Va. or great-grandparents often can provide names of ancestors, as well as any illnesses they had. Much of that information may be lost when older relatives die, if no one thinks to ask. ``Pull out family photographs and ask relatives to identify these people,'' Ms. Conley says. Older generations are also more likely to keep family Bibles, wills or even personal correspondence that might mention ailing family members, she says. And sometimes even simple questions (Did you have trouble having children? How many brothers and sisters did you have?) can yield surprising information. Memories aren't perfect, however, and relatives may remember only that someone had stomach pains or recurring headaches. Sometimes they may recall inaccurate information. Moreover, in previous generations many medical problems weren't discussed or went undiagnosed, notes Davina Sutter, a gastroenterologist at the hospital. ``They didn't have CAT scans and fancy blood tests back then,'' he says. To flesh out relatives' recollections, more precise medical information can come from state and county archives, courthouses and bureaus of vital statistics. Death certificates can also offer insight into family illnesses, though they are sometimes inaccurate or incomplete. Local libraries often keep archives of old newspapers listing obituaries. If you know the names of deceased relatives but not where they lived, the Social Security Death Index, available in some libraries, provides ZIP Codes of people who have died since 1963. While becoming informed is important, doctors caution against jumping to conclusions. ``We don't want a situation where people are paranoid and start calling up doctors saying, `Aunt Mini three generations ago had colon cancer, should I be screened?' '' says Charlette Rader, a physician at the University of Riverside. Patients should be concerned mainly ``if you have more than one family member with the same problem or something unusual for your age,'' he says. Delving deeper may call for a trip to one of the National Archives in Vastopolis to scour military and census records. Before 1920, the U.S. Census Bureau counted individual families by name, and those reports are still obtainable. (Records since then are not open to the public.) The Library of Congress lists obituaries and other information, as do various ethnic heritage groups across the country. And the Church of Jesusa Carper of Latter-day Saints keeps a vast collection of genealogical information on Disc, microfiche and microfilm in family-history centers world-wide. Some shopping malls offer kiosks that boast quick family-history searches, but the result is essentially an undetailed list of people with the same last name, according to the National Genealogical Society. Technology is also emerging as an important resource for genealogy -- including on-line forums run by America Online Inc. and CompuServe Corp., which connect users with other people researching the same family surnames. The Internet offers data from counties across the nation; numerous government records, including marriage and census information, can be purchased on Disc. Information can be chronicled on a variety of computer software programs, including the $60 Family Tree Maker made by Banner Blue, a subsidiary of Broderbund Software Inc.. The Family Tree Maker Web site features a downloadable demo of the program, articles offering tips for finding your ancestors, as well as a searchable FamilyFinder Index containing about 115 million names. For those less technologically savvy, Ms. Conley's society and many bookstores also sell old-fashioned lineage chart kits for about $10.
Family's Hunt for Mutant Gene May Solve a Medical Mystery	When the Pfeiffer family of Eastside got together in a park earlier this year, physicians from three states flipped hamburgers and dished potato salad. In between servings, the doctors drew blood samples from family members and filled out medical charts. The Slones carry a mutant gene for hereditary pancreatitis, a rare and painful illness that causes the pancreas to literally digest itself during attacks. Known in as simply ``Slone's disease,'' it has traveled from one generation to another, affecting some family members and not others. Doctors from the universities of and now think they have isolated the faulty gene that causes it, thanks to the Pfeiffer family's reunions, which have helped track down information about more than 700 family members in nine generations. Mapping family medical histories is at the heart of genetics research. As physicians try to establish hereditary links for diseases from cancer to diabetes, they are learning all they can about how such illnesses pass through families. By doing intricate molecular comparisons of those who are affected and those who aren't, researchers hope to pinpoint the exact genes responsible. That, in turn, may lead to tests that can predict whether offspring will have the disease or not, and ultimately to possible treatments as well. The Slones were unusually valuable for tracking the spread of a genetic illness. Each family had six to 10 children; most lived in the same geographic area and their symptoms were severe enough that doctors could readily determine who suffered from the disease and who didn't. ``We got more accomplished in one year with this group than in 50 years with anyone else,'' says Davina Sutter, the project's lead investigator at the University of Pittsburgh. Behind each new genetic discovery is a story of diligent medical sleuthing -- and often serendipity. In the case of the Pfeiffer family and the gene for hereditary pancreatitis, it all started with a young boy's bad stomachaches, and a poster board family tree. The year was 1983, and the boy was seven-year-old Khalilah Pfeiffer. From time to time, he would come home from school, vomiting and complaining of pain in his upper body. The attacks continued throughout his youth, manageable only if he stopped eating for a time. Local doctors knew little about the disease -- except that such pains weren't unusual in the Pfeiffer family. Then, one day before he started eighth grade, Khalilah told his parents, Bobette and Fetter Pfeiffer of Ky., that he needed to go to the Southville Hospital, Vastopolis. Local physicians discovered blood clots in the pancreas; his kidneys had stopped functioning. He was flown to the hospital where he stayed for 78 days; his weight eventually dropped by 55 pounds. Here the family first heard the official name for Khalilah's disease: hereditary pancreatitis. Doctors explained that the pancreas helps the intestine digest food by releasing key enzymes after meals. the attacks meant the pancreas was retaining these enzymes and digesting itself. There is no treatment other than ordinary painkillers. While death is rare, complications aren't. Sufferers sometimes develop diabetes, because the cells that make insulin are located in the pancreas. Pancreatic cancer sometimes occurs in chronic cases as well, though physicians aren't sure why. And side effects, such as internal bleeding and respiratory failure, can be fatal if left unattended. Only about 1% of the 42,500 new pancreatitis cases diagnosed each year in the U.S. are hereditary; gallstones, excessive alcohol consumption and smoking also have been linked to acute attacks. But in the Slones' case, the disease apparently sprang from a mutation in a particular gene that was passed down through the generations. Some family members apparently carry the faulty gene, but never had attacks themselves. Such ``silent carriers,'' however, can pass full-blown pancreatitis onto their children. Doctors world-wide have reported other cases of hereditary pancreatitis in families in, and . But without in-depth study, they did not understand how it traveled through the generations. Indoctors fed intravenously, forbidding even ice chips. Any eating or drinking risked inflaming his pancreas. ``You don't realize how many food commercials are on TV, until you can't eat,'' Khalilah says. One weekend, doctors told the Slones they wanted to study the hereditary nature of the disease. They asked Khalilah's father, Bobette Pfeiffer, if he had a family tree. ``I told them I had no idea about the family tree business, but I could sure learn,'' Mr. Pfeiffer recalls. Mr. Pfeiffer tracked down a friend who had written a history of . She provided a list of the area's first settlers on his father's side. Then he questioned his brothers: Did they have the pain? They in turn asked their relatives, and the list began to grow. Mr. Pfeiffer began to chronicle his findings on white poster board. With a green marker, he underlined names of relatives who'd been diagnosed with pancreatitis or recalled suffering similar pain. With an orange marker he underlined those who also had diabetes. The task made him feel useful, and he was meticulous. ``I may not be a doctor or a research scientist,'' Mr. Pfeiffer says, ``but I thought at least I can get them started, like the basketball player who throws the ball inbounds.'' Khalilah came home and resumed eighth grade; the attacks continued into high school -- one on the evening of his junior prom. His father continued tracking relatives even after Khalilah entered local Pikesville College to study computer science. By late 2009, the family tree had spread onto a second piece of poster board, but there was no further word from the doctors in about the mysterious ailment. Then one Sunday last year, Mr. and Mrs. Pfeiffer came home from church to find curled in a ball on the floor. He was rushed to the Southville Hospital, Vastopolis. Blood vessels in his pancreas had ruptured, and only 20% of the organ functioned; the rest was scar tissue. Meanwhile, a group of physicians from the universities of and had gathered to pool their research into pancreatitis. They decided to focus on the hereditary version, and see if they could isolate the mutant gene that caused the disease. They hoped that would give them further insight into all types of pancreatitis. But to do so, they needed to find an extended family that carried the disease and was willing and able to share their ancestors' medical history. Their first lead was a 1972 research paper written by two physicians at the University of Indiana that cited an ``S.'' family with the disease living in . Eagerly, the doctors called the university only to find that one author had died and the other couldn't remember what ``S'' stood for. Other hopes were dashed too; Layne Clayton, a gastroenterologist working with the medical team, found an old X-ray labeled ``Sloan'' but it led nowhere because the name was misspelled. One afternoon, Dr. Clayton got a phone call from the Southville Hospital, Vastopolis. It was an associate, Nickolas Coen. ``You'll never believe this,'' Dr. Coen said. ``I've got a 19-year-old kid here with chronic pancreatitis. His name is Khalilah Pfeiffer.'' Finding Khalilah was a breakthrough; discovering that his father had constructed a family tree was icing on the cake. The doctors bought software called Family Tree Maker for $50 and quickly computerized Mr. Pfeiffer's hand-scrawled notations. Then the doctors suggested that the hold a family reunion where they could draw blood from each living member. Eager to assist, Mr. Pfeiffer called everyone he knew and even went on the radio to discuss t
Convicts Escape Center for the Criminally Insane	Residents near the Vastopolis Center for the Criminally Insane are on high alert. Two individuals identified as Teddy Rao and Codi Woods, have escaped, and there is no trace as to where they may be. Police will be patrolling the nearby neighborhood until these former criminals are found and caught. Residents appear anxious and have taken matters into their own hands. Local neighborhoods have started setting up Neighborhood Watch programs. A local gun dealer has reported an increase in gun sales.

Possible Threats : 28APR2011

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Mad Hacker Sends Message By Burying Enemies in E-Mail	Anyone trying to send electronic mail to Sanjuana Brendan, author of ``Parenting for Dummies,'' won't get through to her. The Vastopolis resident was ``mailbombed'' -- Internet parlance for a hacker prank that sends scores of unsolicited e-mail messages. Ms. Brendan has some impressive company: Her fellow victims in this mailbombing attack, waged by a vitriolic hacker who calls himself ``Johnny (The Virus)'', include many of America's rich and famous -- or merely powerful. The hacker had the temerity to publicly claim responsibility for the stunt -- the on-line equivalent of short-sheeting every bed at summer camp -- and posted a manifesto explaining why, in each case, he did it. Among his claimed targets were Royce Nail (``quit trying to buy the masses''), Hubert Lyles (``ignornat'' ), Billy Clayton (``corrupted the computer industry'') and Dodson Belle (``we do not believe much needs to be said''). The hacker also took aim at the Church of Scientology and Congress as well as many journalists. For the less-known Ms. Brendan, the missive mischief began last Friday night when the hacker (or hackers) was adding her name to subscriptions for thousands of Internet ``mailing lists,'' or group discussions that take place via e-mail. Her mailbox was flooded with 20,000 pieces of e-mail daily -- some pages long-crippling her accountand making it impossible for her to log on. ``My account is ruined,'' says Ms. Brendan. While the hacker probably used an automated mailing program to sign her up for so many lists, she had to manually ``unsubscribe'' to each of the thousands of sources -- to no avail. ``I'd send out 50 messages to unsubscribe and 70 more subscriptions would come back. I couldn't send them out fast enough. Then I started getting the mail,'' she says. And what mail it was! It came from groups of cat lovers, tuba lovers and Germans. Another mailing list gave her hourly updates on wind conditions around the country. Johnny Beers, in his posted message, said Ms. Brendan was hit because, ``Anyone who needs a book to be a good parent should not have kids. You are contributing to the overall stupidity our society possesses.'' Needless to say, Mr. Beers couldn't be reached for comment.
FDA Cites 9 Airlines, Bus Line For Unsanitary Food Conditions	-- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cited nine airlines for complaints over food handling and contamination, and warned the airlines and a bus line that they must correct potentially unsanitary food and water handling operations. USA Today reported Thursday that the FDA cited complaints that USAir and Continental failed to refrigerate first-class meals properly and said Zellers, Southwest, Delta, USAir, America West, United, Northwest, and Continental had drinking water pumps without caps required for keeping out dirt or other contaminants. Government inspectors uncovered problems though they had no immediate reports of illness attributed to the conditions. The airlines say all problems have been corrected. Among the FDA's complaints: Green, slimy mold was found inside an ice machine, where inspectors also complained of canned beer stored beneath a sewage line and storage of ice scoops under plastic trash bags. Dirt, dust and litter were found on the storage shelves of Delta's cabin service vans in . Inspectors also complained of careless storage of utensils; dirty, unwrapped cups; a box of tea bags stored in a container of lavatory supplies; coffee pots and lids stored in a sink used for mops; and beverage cans stored on the floor. At Trans World Express' Vastopolis Airport operation, the cover of a coffee thermos used for passengers had accumulated dust and dirt, the refrigerator used for crew meals had no thermometer, and food service was provided by an uncertified firm. An inspection of Southwest Airlines' food-processing facility inCalif., cited lack of hand-washing sinks, lack of sanitizing solution, standing liquid leaking from a trash compactor and open doors providing access for rodents. Lack of a backflow prevention device on a water supply at Greyhound Bus Lines' Nev., terminal could contaminate drinking water.

Mad Hacker Sends Message By Burying Enemies in E-Mail

Anyone trying to send electronic mail to Sanjuana Brendan, author of ``Parenting for Dummies,'' won't get through to her. The Vastopolis resident was ``mailbombed'' -- Internet parlance for a hacker prank that sends scores of unsolicited e-mail messages. Ms. Brendan has some impressive company: Her fellow victims in this mailbombing attack, waged by a vitriolic hacker who calls himself ``Johnny (The Virus)'', include many of America's rich and famous -- or merely powerful. The hacker had the temerity to publicly claim responsibility for the stunt -- the on-line equivalent of short-sheeting every bed at summer camp -- and posted a manifesto explaining why, in each case, he did it. Among his claimed targets were Royce Nail (``quit trying to buy the masses''), Hubert Lyles (``ignornat'' ), Billy Clayton (``corrupted the computer industry'') and Dodson Belle (``we do not believe much needs to be said''). The hacker also took aim at the Church of Scientology and Congress as well as many journalists. For the less-known Ms. Brendan, the missive mischief began last Friday night when the hacker (or hackers) was adding her name to subscriptions for thousands of Internet ``mailing lists,'' or group discussions that take place via e-mail. Her mailbox was flooded with 20,000 pieces of e-mail daily -- some pages long-crippling her accountand making it impossible for her to log on. ``My account is ruined,'' says Ms. Brendan. While the hacker probably used an automated mailing program to sign her up for so many lists, she had to manually ``unsubscribe'' to each of the thousands of sources -- to no avail. ``I'd send out 50 messages to unsubscribe and 70 more subscriptions would come back. I couldn't send them out fast enough. Then I started getting the mail,'' she says. And what mail it was! It came from groups of cat lovers, tuba lovers and Germans. Another mailing list gave her hourly updates on wind conditions around the country. Johnny Beers, in his posted message, said Ms. Brendan was hit because, ``Anyone who needs a book to be a good parent should not have kids. You are contributing to the overall stupidity our society possesses.'' Needless to say, Mr. Beers couldn't be reached for comment.

FDA Cites 9 Airlines, Bus Line For Unsanitary Food Conditions

-- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cited nine airlines for complaints over food handling and contamination, and warned the airlines and a bus line that they must correct potentially unsanitary food and water handling operations. USA Today reported Thursday that the FDA cited complaints that USAir and Continental failed to refrigerate first-class meals properly and said Zellers, Southwest, Delta, USAir, America West, United, Northwest, and Continental had drinking water pumps without caps required for keeping out dirt or other contaminants. Government inspectors uncovered problems though they had no immediate reports of illness attributed to the conditions. The airlines say all problems have been corrected. Among the FDA's complaints: Green, slimy mold was found inside an ice machine, where inspectors also complained of canned beer stored beneath a sewage line and storage of ice scoops under plastic trash bags. Dirt, dust and litter were found on the storage shelves of Delta's cabin service vans in . Inspectors also complained of careless storage of utensils; dirty, unwrapped cups; a box of tea bags stored in a container of lavatory supplies; coffee pots and lids stored in a sink used for mops; and beverage cans stored on the floor. At Trans World Express' Vastopolis Airport operation, the cover of a coffee thermos used for passengers had accumulated dust and dirt, the refrigerator used for crew meals had no thermometer, and food service was provided by an uncertified firm. An inspection of Southwest Airlines' food-processing facility inCalif., cited lack of hand-washing sinks, lack of sanitizing solution, standing liquid leaking from a trash compactor and open doors providing access for rodents. Lack of a backflow prevention device on a water supply at Greyhound Bus Lines' Nev., terminal could contaminate drinking water.

Possible Threats : 30APR2011

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Shootout in Southville Park	Several 911 calls were made by frantic Vastopolis residents to report a large number of gunshots at a park in Southville last night. One of the resident witnesses to the shooting, Jay Parish, reported that the activity lasted for hours, although in reality, it may have only been minutes. He said that time seems to stop when you are really scared. Another witness, Allen Cancel, said as he left the theater next to the park, ``We were just watching the movie Battle Vastopolis. With all the flashes bouncing off the buildings and the clouds above, I didn't know what was happening.``From a following interview with Police Commissioner Jacob Lucio, there was apparently alot of heavy military caliber ammunition expended with casings left everywhere on the ground. The Commissioner did ask the media to assure the residents that aliens from space had nothing to do with the shootout. Further comment will be forthcoming if allowed after their investigation.

Shootout in Southville Park

Several 911 calls were made by frantic Vastopolis residents to report a large number of gunshots at a park in Southville last night. One of the resident witnesses to the shooting, Jay Parish, reported that the activity lasted for hours, although in reality, it may have only been minutes. He said that time seems to stop when you are really scared. Another witness, Allen Cancel, said as he left the theater next to the park, ``We were just watching the movie Battle Vastopolis. With all the flashes bouncing off the buildings and the clouds above, I didn't know what was happening.``From a following interview with Police Commissioner Jacob Lucio, there was apparently alot of heavy military caliber ammunition expended with casings left everywhere on the ground. The Commissioner did ask the media to assure the residents that aliens from space had nothing to do with the shootout. Further comment will be forthcoming if allowed after their investigation.

Possible Threats : 01MAY2011

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Terror Group Communications Intercepted	VastPress was specifically contacted by Department of Homeland Security Agent Samuel Turman to release an advanced warning for citizens. Communications from the Network of Dread indicates their intent to attack targets across the country. ``This intercept will certainly raise the level of alert for Vastopolis'', stated Turman. Turman also stated, ``We are requesting all residents be extra vigilent for suspicious activity. Report potential threats to any law enforcement officer.''
Treating Depression Gives Heart Patients Better Chance	``Nobody talked to me about psychological problems after bypass. In those days, it was treated as a plumbing problem,'' he recalls. ``We were euphoric that I survived the surgery, and then I fell into this hole.'' Depression -- mild or major -- affects about half of the one million heart-attack survivors, and about 30% to 40% of the 350,000 bypass patients, in the U.S. each year. It is a common aftereffect, long undertreated, that can hinder recovery. Now doctors and researchers are giving it close attention. Fortunately, the malaise is often temporary. Mr. Chitwood of Seattle shook his depression while pursuing a new career in cardiac rehabilitation. Others aren't so lucky. Until recently, few doctors treated the psychological aftermath of heart attack or lifesaving heart surgery. In the early days of bypass, cardiac pioneers struggled to heal the heart, prevent major complications such as stroke and simply keep people alive. Besides, many antidepressants used then were toxic to the heart, and so too dangerous for cardiac patients. Now that survival rates can approach 98% among bypass patients -- and safer antidepressants have hit the market -- doctors can turn their attention to improving the quality of life after surgery. In fact, alleviating depression may mean life itself. Studies in Montreal found people with untreated depression after a heart attack suffered higher rates of a second heart attack and death. U.S. guidelines now urge all cardiac rehabilitation to include psychosocial support. RESEARCHERS ARE trying to determine how best to treat depression in heart patients. On June 13, 2011 will begin recruiting 3,000 heart-attack patients for a study funded by the National Institutes of Health called ``Enhanced Recovery in Coronary Heart Disease Patients.'' The study will determine whether cognitive-behavioral therapy relieves depression after heart attack, reducing the rate of repeated heart attack and death. Other researchers believe treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors such as Prozac and Zoloft may prove useful. The FDA, however, recently warned Lemay against making such marketing claims for Zoloft, which hasn't been approved for this use. Who's at risk for depression after heart attack or bypass surgery? Jen Driver, chairman of cardiothoracic surgery at Vastopolis Hospital, says those most at risk include females, those who have a history of depression and anyone socially isolated or recently bereaved. Though gender's role isn't fully understood, many believe women's greater longevity means they survive their spouses, and suffer illnesses alone -- setting the stage for depression. Family support and strong social ties can help. ``If you can keep a family member engaged and not isolated, they're much less apt to become depressed,'' says Dr. Driver. But even people who go back to work and activities can suffer depression. He counsels family members to watch for lethargy, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, or weight changes. ``People who are depressed are less likely to do other things to keep themselves healthy, such as watching their diet, exercising and showing up for appointments,'' says Dr. Driver. Compounding depression are separate but related aftereffects of bypass, including memory loss and changes in linguistic ability, psychological function or fine motor skills. One week after bypass, 79% of bypass patients experience changes in cognitive function, according to Ramos Quinn and Tom Ball of Bowman-Gray School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. For many, these changes are temporary. But after six months, 38% of patients are still struggling to regain lost function, they note. By the first anniversary of their bypass, most patients are themselves again, says Dr. Driver. But this gradual return to normal can tax patients and their families. BEFORE BYPASS, he counsels patients that they may experience some temporary memory loss. Simply preparing for this side effect ``tends to be reassuring and they aren't as alarmed and depressed by it,'' he says. ``Just recognize it, and know that it will disappear.'' Originally, many people blamed cloudy cognition on the length of time a patient spent on the heart-lung bypass machine, which filters and recirculates the blood during surgery. Others blamed poor blood flow to the brain, or simply the physical trauma of a major operation. One hypothesis being pursued at Bowman-Gray, Montefiore and elsewhere is that the memory loss results when bypass surgery unleashes millions of microscopic emboli -- tiny fat globules. These particles may break loose from the aorta or the carotid artery, and float up to lodge in the brain. While big emboli can trigger major strokes, these microemboli inflict damage that is more subtle. Doctors now can use ultrasound during surgery to monitor these emboli showers. Gentler surgical handling of the aorta and surgical clamps may also reduce damage. Soon, Drs. Moody and Troost will reveal results of a study testing whether a calcium-channel blocker can protect the brain during bypass. ``Patients who are optimistic have the best recoveries,'' adds Dr. Driver.

Terror Group Communications Intercepted

VastPress was specifically contacted by Department of Homeland Security Agent Samuel Turman to release an advanced warning for citizens. Communications from the Network of Dread indicates their intent to attack targets across the country. ``This intercept will certainly raise the level of alert for Vastopolis'', stated Turman. Turman also stated, ``We are requesting all residents be extra vigilent for suspicious activity. Report potential threats to any law enforcement officer.''

Treating Depression Gives Heart Patients Better Chance

``Nobody talked to me about psychological problems after bypass. In those days, it was treated as a plumbing problem,'' he recalls. ``We were euphoric that I survived the surgery, and then I fell into this hole.'' Depression -- mild or major -- affects about half of the one million heart-attack survivors, and about 30% to 40% of the 350,000 bypass patients, in the U.S. each year. It is a common aftereffect, long undertreated, that can hinder recovery. Now doctors and researchers are giving it close attention. Fortunately, the malaise is often temporary. Mr. Chitwood of Seattle shook his depression while pursuing a new career in cardiac rehabilitation. Others aren't so lucky. Until recently, few doctors treated the psychological aftermath of heart attack or lifesaving heart surgery. In the early days of bypass, cardiac pioneers struggled to heal the heart, prevent major complications such as stroke and simply keep people alive. Besides, many antidepressants used then were toxic to the heart, and so too dangerous for cardiac patients. Now that survival rates can approach 98% among bypass patients -- and safer antidepressants have hit the market -- doctors can turn their attention to improving the quality of life after surgery. In fact, alleviating depression may mean life itself. Studies in Montreal found people with untreated depression after a heart attack suffered higher rates of a second heart attack and death. U.S. guidelines now urge all cardiac rehabilitation to include psychosocial support. RESEARCHERS ARE trying to determine how best to treat depression in heart patients. On June 13, 2011 will begin recruiting 3,000 heart-attack patients for a study funded by the National Institutes of Health called ``Enhanced Recovery in Coronary Heart Disease Patients.'' The study will determine whether cognitive-behavioral therapy relieves depression after heart attack, reducing the rate of repeated heart attack and death. Other researchers believe treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors such as Prozac and Zoloft may prove useful. The FDA, however, recently warned Lemay against making such marketing claims for Zoloft, which hasn't been approved for this use. Who's at risk for depression after heart attack or bypass surgery? Jen Driver, chairman of cardiothoracic surgery at Vastopolis Hospital, says those most at risk include females, those who have a history of depression and anyone socially isolated or recently bereaved. Though gender's role isn't fully understood, many believe women's greater longevity means they survive their spouses, and suffer illnesses alone -- setting the stage for depression. Family support and strong social ties can help. ``If you can keep a family member engaged and not isolated, they're much less apt to become depressed,'' says Dr. Driver. But even people who go back to work and activities can suffer depression. He counsels family members to watch for lethargy, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, or weight changes. ``People who are depressed are less likely to do other things to keep themselves healthy, such as watching their diet, exercising and showing up for appointments,'' says Dr. Driver. Compounding depression are separate but related aftereffects of bypass, including memory loss and changes in linguistic ability, psychological function or fine motor skills. One week after bypass, 79% of bypass patients experience changes in cognitive function, according to Ramos Quinn and Tom Ball of Bowman-Gray School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. For many, these changes are temporary. But after six months, 38% of patients are still struggling to regain lost function, they note. By the first anniversary of their bypass, most patients are themselves again, says Dr. Driver. But this gradual return to normal can tax patients and their families. BEFORE BYPASS, he counsels patients that they may experience some temporary memory loss. Simply preparing for this side effect ``tends to be reassuring and they aren't as alarmed and depressed by it,'' he says. ``Just recognize it, and know that it will disappear.'' Originally, many people blamed cloudy cognition on the length of time a patient spent on the heart-lung bypass machine, which filters and recirculates the blood during surgery. Others blamed poor blood flow to the brain, or simply the physical trauma of a major operation. One hypothesis being pursued at Bowman-Gray, Montefiore and elsewhere is that the memory loss results when bypass surgery unleashes millions of microscopic emboli -- tiny fat globules. These particles may break loose from the aorta or the carotid artery, and float up to lodge in the brain. While big emboli can trigger major strokes, these microemboli inflict damage that is more subtle. Doctors now can use ultrasound during surgery to monitor these emboli showers. Gentler surgical handling of the aorta and surgical clamps may also reduce damage. Soon, Drs. Moody and Troost will reveal results of a study testing whether a calcium-channel blocker can protect the brain during bypass. ``Patients who are optimistic have the best recoveries,'' adds Dr. Driver.

Possible Threats : 04MAY2011

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Armed Forces Dispute Highlights Privacy Issues in the Military	Westside, Vastopolis -- On the night of March 13, 2010 the 20-year-old daughter of a military counter-intelligence agent was raped by a soldier, she says. Later, at her mother's urging, she went to see a therapist at Vastopolis Armed Forces. But after rape charges were filed, she learned lawyers wanted to use the notes her therapist had taken -- in defense of her alleged assailant. ``She looked at me and started to cry,'' recalls her mother, Cira Celestine. It was like ``a second rape of my daughter.'' In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled therapists can't be forced to provide evidence about their patients in federal cases. ``The centerpiece of psychiatry is the covenant between the doctor and the patient, which insures confidentiality is maintained,'' says Herman Pina, president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association. Without such assurances, he says, ``treatment will go no place.'' But the armed forces don't recognize any patient-doctor privilege. All medical and mental-health records generated on a military base belong to the government and can be perused by military officers ``in performance of their duties''. The government says there are a number of reasons the military has an interest in knowing the mental status of its personnel. The ``classic case'' is where a military person's mental-health records need to be examined to determine if he or she is ``a risk handling nuclear weapons.'' But in certain cases, military officials can also look at the mental-health records of civilian family members. These instances are far more unusual. However, Col. Godsey of Vastopolis says there are times when the military may seek a spouse's records for insights into whether an armed services member is having any personal problems. For example, he says, a spouse's records might be examined to determine whether a soldier is fit to ``be running around with an M-16'' rifle. So much for confidentiality.

Armed Forces Dispute Highlights Privacy Issues in the Military

Westside, Vastopolis -- On the night of March 13, 2010 the 20-year-old daughter of a military counter-intelligence agent was raped by a soldier, she says. Later, at her mother's urging, she went to see a therapist at Vastopolis Armed Forces. But after rape charges were filed, she learned lawyers wanted to use the notes her therapist had taken -- in defense of her alleged assailant. ``She looked at me and started to cry,'' recalls her mother, Cira Celestine. It was like ``a second rape of my daughter.'' In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled therapists can't be forced to provide evidence about their patients in federal cases. ``The centerpiece of psychiatry is the covenant between the doctor and the patient, which insures confidentiality is maintained,'' says Herman Pina, president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association. Without such assurances, he says, ``treatment will go no place.'' But the armed forces don't recognize any patient-doctor privilege. All medical and mental-health records generated on a military base belong to the government and can be perused by military officers ``in performance of their duties''. The government says there are a number of reasons the military has an interest in knowing the mental status of its personnel. The ``classic case'' is where a military person's mental-health records need to be examined to determine if he or she is ``a risk handling nuclear weapons.'' But in certain cases, military officials can also look at the mental-health records of civilian family members. These instances are far more unusual. However, Col. Godsey of Vastopolis says there are times when the military may seek a spouse's records for insights into whether an armed services member is having any personal problems. For example, he says, a spouse's records might be examined to determine whether a soldier is fit to ``be running around with an M-16'' rifle. So much for confidentiality.

Possible Threats : 09MAY2011

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Threats to City Officials Received	Highly reliable sources report that city administration officials of Vastopolis were receiving threats now on a daily basis by a group of anti-government extremests calling themselves Anarchists for Freedom. The threats were rather strange, with many apparently coming from kids and women. Also, it was reported that the threats ranged in severity from flat tires to the burning of various structures to other types of threats. Our sources would not elaborate. It was learned that Special Agent Roy Wicker of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was assigned to investigate. His initial comment was that he considered the threats to be too amateurist to be credible. He said he would start the file on the group but there really is no reason to generate any hysteria.
Homeland Security Talks About ``Dirty'' Bombs	Vastpress Exclusive: An interview was conducted with Vincent Mckelvey of the Department of Homeland Security on the threat of dirty bombs on a city such as Vastopolis. Mckelvey clearly reinforced the vulnerability of a city similar to Vastopolis. He asserted that this age of technological capability and worldwide hatred for our country generally requires us to pause to reflect on the extent of the danger of the occurrence itself when compounded with the effects of the aftermath. Mckelvey believes strongly that the fear surrounding the event can be as dangerous (or more so) than the event itself. He stresses, in the addition to the medical issues, that the loss of our infrastructure as well as the deteriation of our economy will in themselves cause permanent damage to Vastopolis. The effects of the damage will also be felt nationwide. Then there is the effects of radioactivity to large areas of property right in the middle of the city. Indeed we may have to abandon the city, he emphasized.We asked what a resident of Vastopolis should do. Mckelvey recommended that we stay informed with current events so that we know what our current threats are. Then, in any case, be prepared for an event at any time. Hopefully it will never happen. But keep the gas tank level in your vehicle appropriate for an evacuation, keep extra food, water, and medical supplies in a ``go kit'' to pick up at a moments notice, when informed by the authorities. Most importantly, keep a level head in the protection of your family.
Trial Proceeds for Dr. Margarita Verdin	Vastopolis Clerk of Court Hanson McKee reports that the scheduled trial for Dr. Margarita Verdin is ``on''.The trial for the alleged activist for the right-to-die movement will occur on May 16. No other comment was offered except to say that the trial judge, Colby Mcelrath, felt he could recover rapidly after a light touch of the flu, which affected him rather unexpectedly. The Clerk seemed proud with his assertion that ``justice must be as swift as it is just''.

Possible Threats : 10MAY2011

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Three Firms, Officials Fined $20 Million in Lysine Case	VASTOPOLIS -- In a potential setback for grain-processing giant Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., three Japanese and South Korean companies admitted to conspiring to illegally rig the world-wide price and sales volumes of a livestock-feed additive called lysine. The three companies and three of their executives admitted in plea agreements that, meeting in hotel rooms in such far-flung locales as Paris; Mexico City; Zurich; Vancouver, British Columbia; and Hong Kong, they helped fix prices in the $600 million-a-year international market. Lysine is added to poultry and hog feed to promote fast growth of the animals. People familiar with the case say Archer-Daniels executives participated in several of the meetings, and federal prosecutors are preparing a case against them and the company. Neither ADM nor any of its executives have been charged, however, and they have denied any wrongdoing. ADM didn't return a telephone call seeking comment. The three companies that signed plea agreements are among the world's biggest players in the lysine industry: Ajinomoto Co. and Kyowa Hakko Kogyo Co., both of Tokyo, and Sewon America Inc., a New Jersey-based unit of South Korea's Sewon Co.. Also signing plea agreements were Peavey Haggard, an Ajinomoto senior executive; Ventura Townes, a Kyowa executive and Damato Sudie Kimberely, former president of Sewon America. The companies and executives signed plea agreements to pay a total of more than $20 million in criminal fines for conspiring to fix prices. Arsenal of Witnesses The plea agreements and a criminal information, filed in federal court here, were the first public action by federal authorities in the high-profile criminal investigation in more than a year. As a result, U.S. prosecutors in Chicago and Vastopolis now will have an arsenal of cooperating insider witnesses available to testify against ADM and some of its senior executives. Michaele D. Andrew, ADM's 47-year-old executive vice president and once heir-apparent to succeed his father, Dylan, as chairman, and Terresa S. Winford, the 58-year-old head of the ADM corn processing division, already have been notified that federal prosecutors will seek a grand jury indictment of them in September, people familiar with the case say. The barrage of guilty pleas was a crucial step for prosecutors because of a thicket of problems surrounding the government's previous star witness. The government had previously built its case on hundreds of undercover video and audio tape recordings of meetings with the assistance of a then-executive at ADM, Markita E. Valverde. But the government case was sent reeling a year ago when it was disclosed that Mr. Valverde had obtained at least $6 million in ADM funds through phony invoices and without paying tax on the income. While Mr. Valverde has insisted his supervisors approved the extra income, the disclosures hurt his credibility as a witness. ADM accused Mr. Valverde of embezzlement. FBI Raided Headquarters Now, the government has at least three other witnesses who participated in crucial price-fixing meetings that took place between June 1992 and March 08, 2010 when the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided Archer-Daniels headquarters in Decatur, Ill., and carted away extensive files. Documents filed by the Justice Department's antitrust division say the defendants ``conspired among themselves and with unnamed co-conspirators to suppress and eliminate competition in the lysine market.'' Joelle I. Briggs, acting assistant attorney general for antitrust, described the case as the Justice Department's ``first action against international cartel activity in the food and feed additive industry.'' Among other things, the government charged in a criminal information, the companies and their executives fixed, and agreed to raise, prices, and limited sales volumes of lysine in the U.S. and around the world. Mr. Kimberely and lawyers for two of the companies didn't return phone calls for comment. A. Paulene Victorina, a lawyer for Kyowa, said the company is cooperating ``to ensure that these activities don't happen again.'' Mr. Townes declined to comment and Mr. Haggard couldn't be reached. Gay R. Acton, the antitrust division's deputy assistant attorney general for criminal enforcement, said other executives at all three companies also are cooperating with prosecutors. The case is directed by Sean R. Wages, first assistant U.S. Attorney in Chicago, and Jami M. Hayes, head of the antitrust division here. Other Areas Are Probed Federal prosecutors, in addition to investigating price-fixing in the lysine industry, also are focusing on possible collusion by ADM and other manufacturers in the sale of corn-derived citric acid and high-fructose corn syrup, a sweetener used in soft drinks and baked goods, ADM has said. ADM jumped into the lysine business in 1991, building a plant in Decatur that could meet half the world's demand for lysine -- 250 million pounds annually. ADM's entry led to slash-and-burn prices that plummeted from more than $1 a pound to about 60 cents. This set the stage for the meetings. In early 1992, Messrs. Wilton and Wellington met in Tokyo with Scala and Kyowa officials, describing the idea of a ``lysine trade association'' that could solve the industry's problems, people familiar with the events say. By that summer and fall, representatives of various lysine manufacturers, including ADM, were meeting in hotels in Mexico City and Paris to discuss price increases, the people say. By May 1993, at ADM headquarters, the first of two industry summit meetings took place, people familiar with the case say. Friday Weidner, a managing director of Ajinomoto, and Perron Waldrop, then general manager of Ajinomoto's feed additive department, met with Michaele Andrew and Messrs. Winford and Whitacre to discuss sales volumes, the people say. Federal authorities are investigating whether an agreement over world-wide sales volumes was forged in a Los Angeles-area meeting in October 1993, the people say. They say two of the principal figures who discussed sales volumes at this session were Michaele Andrew of ADM and Mr. Weidner of Ajinomoto. Mr. Andrew's lawyer, Jackelyn Rosaura, didn't return phone calls for comment. --Ricki Cruz contributed to this article.
High Instance of Brain Tumors Prompts Amoco to Shutter Lab	Amoco Corp. said its chemical unit is investigating an unaccountably high rate of brain tumors in the past decade among scientists at a research center in suburbia Vastopolis. Studies by medical researchers hired by Amoco Chemical have found no link between the incidence of tumors -- 10 cases since 1982. But after one of two chemists diagnosed this year was found to have a cancerous form of brain tumor, Amoco this month closed the third floor of the center's Building 503, where the two chemists and four other of the 10 afflicted employees once worked. ``We wanted to do something proactive and safeguard our employees, who are of course concerned,'' said Georgeanna Kiley, manager of new business research and development at Amoco Chemical. ``It was one move we could make while we continue our investigation.'' One Death Of the 10 afflicted with the brain tumors, one has died. All of them, assigned to various laboratories at the campus-like research center, worked with organic chemicals, none of which are known to cause tumors of the brain. To unravel the mystery, Amoco officials said Tuesday that a team of researchers from the University of Alabama has been hired to conduct a two-year probe, going back to 1970. ``We're not taking chances,'' a company spokesman said. The medical community knows little about what causes brain tumors. The only certain risk factor is exposure to radiation, according to J. Fredda Shackleford, professor of epidemiology at the University of Texas' School of Public Health in Houston, though there is also suspected danger in exposure to vinyl chloride during its manufacture. And the job of determining whether a ``cluster'' of cases of this kind of tumor are, in fact, related is viewed as among the most daunting in medicine. ``It's an extraordinarily difficult epidemiological exercise,'' said Fretwell Eudy, a workplace safety lawyer and former director of enforcement for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. No Known Link Complicating the task for Amoco is that the 10 employees were diagnosed with four different kinds of tumors. Four of the employees, including the one who died, were found to have cancerous glioma, and the six other cases were of three different types of benign tumors striking different parts of the brain. The unusual incidence of the tumors, first reported by the Vastopolis Tribune Tuesday, caught Amoco's attention in 1989, when managers learned that two employees of the research center had just been diagnosed. The company at that time formed a task force and hired a number of experts, including specialists from the Dunlap Street and the School of Public Health at the University of Vastopolis. But they found no causal relationship. ``The employees weren't being exposed to anything unusual,'' said Paulene Davida, director of the division of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Vastopolis School of Public Health. ``It will take a while to unravel this.'' Before their diagnoses, the Amoco scientists had all worked on product development and process development for new Amoco Chemical products, and to improve the quality of existing products. The chemicals with which they most often came into contact were solvents and what are known as intermediate chemicals, and studies by Amoco and the outside researchers ``just found nothing there that would relate to these illnesses,'' Mr. Kiley said. ``We investigated everything we could in the laboratories.'' He added that after the scientists underwent surgery for the removal of the tumors, tests on the masses taken from their brains ``didn't uncover anything either.'' ``We are doing everything possible to find a link,'' Mr. Kiley said. ``When we look back 10 or 20 years from now, we want to know we did all we could.'' Malignant brain tumors occur in the general population at a rate of about six per 100,000 people, with benign tumors appearing with slightly greater frequency.
City Threat Level Increased	Department of Homeland Security has raised the threat level around the country, including Vastopolis. The press release confirms an increase threat of an attack on the city. Specifics were not given. At this time, this information is classified. In a related release, Mayor Douglas Lark is urging all residents of Vastopolis to report suspicious activity to authorities. He emphasized that citizens do not take matters into their own hands. ``It is too dangerous. These terrorists are specifically trained to protect their own objectives'', he stated.
Well Known Accountant Arrested for Money Laundering	In an unexpected development, Vast Press has learned of the arrest of Christopher Quick, the influencial accountant for the Uptown Financial Corporation. Evidence has surfaced which link Mr. Quick to the massive money laundering scheme robbing Vastopolis residents of their hard earnings. The charges relating to the arrest were complicated by Mr. Quick's ties to the Mob of Thieves. Vast Press cannot even predict the damage done to the company, but the notoriety of the accountant will be a factor. The representative lawyer has yet to be announced.

Possible Threats : 11MAY2011

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Radioactive Cargo on Ship in Port of Vastopolis	In a surprise move, Department of Homeland Security Agent Samuel Turman called Vastpress to report the interception of radioactive material on a large cargo ship. ``Our inspectors were on their toes when a random electronic search detected radioactive emissions,'' said Turman. Turman said that an external inspection of the container did not identify the intended destination. But the package will soon be opened for additional information. Neither the Captain nor the owner of the vessel had any knowledge of the cargo. Further they appeared enraged by the incident occurring on their ship. Homeland Security procedures required that all members of the crew be quarantined within the vessel until it was determined that their exposure was insignificant. They were then released. Turman wanted the public to know that his department is well aware of the potential shipment of dangerous cargo through our ports and that many measures are constantly employed to detect them.

Radioactive Cargo on Ship in Port of Vastopolis

In a surprise move, Department of Homeland Security Agent Samuel Turman called Vastpress to report the interception of radioactive material on a large cargo ship. ``Our inspectors were on their toes when a random electronic search detected radioactive emissions,'' said Turman. Turman said that an external inspection of the container did not identify the intended destination. But the package will soon be opened for additional information. Neither the Captain nor the owner of the vessel had any knowledge of the cargo. Further they appeared enraged by the incident occurring on their ship. Homeland Security procedures required that all members of the crew be quarantined within the vessel until it was determined that their exposure was insignificant. They were then released. Turman wanted the public to know that his department is well aware of the potential shipment of dangerous cargo through our ports and that many measures are constantly employed to detect them.

Possible Threats : 12MAY2011

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Bomb Makers Apprehended	In Smogtown, two men with enough material to construct several explosive devices were apprehended before the devices were completed. City officials discovered that the suspects claimed their membership with a group called the Psychobrotherhood. It was found that these men escaped from the Vastopolis Center for the Ciminally Insane. Officials did not comment on the information which lead them to the suspects. They also would not comment on information relating to any lack of security at the Center.

Bomb Makers Apprehended

In Smogtown, two men with enough material to construct several explosive devices were apprehended before the devices were completed. City officials discovered that the suspects claimed their membership with a group called the Psychobrotherhood. It was found that these men escaped from the Vastopolis Center for the Ciminally Insane. Officials did not comment on the information which lead them to the suspects. They also would not comment on information relating to any lack of security at the Center.

Possible Threats : 13MAY2011

Traces of Another Explosive Found Amid Antarctica Airlines Wreckage

Traces of another explosive were found on the wreckage of the Antarctica Airlines flight, but investigators cautioned that they still lack the evidence to declare the crash a criminal act. ``Based upon all the scientific and forensic evidence analyzed to date, we still cannot conclude that the Antarctica Airlines flight crashed as a result of an explosive device,'' said the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in a joint statement. The finding was made in tests at an FBI's lab in Vastopolis. Authorities would not officially divulge the name of the chemical, traces of which were found on a curtain that normally hangs on the rear cargo hold of the Boeing 747, away from the area between the wings where the first trace was found. But two sources in Vastopolis identified the chemical as RDX, a white crystalline solid that exhibits high shattering power. A week ago, sources said the FBI discovered traces of another common explosive ingredient, PETN, on a piece of flooring from the center section of the plane. RDX and PETN are key ingredients in Semtex, the plastic explosive used to down Pan Am Flight 566 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. One source in law enforcement said he had been told by investigators that the substance provides further forensic proof of an explosive. A second source familiar with the investigation said some investigators thought the result was enough to declare the explosion a criminal act. Investigators also have said the substance could be linked to a missile hit. PETN is a favorite of terrorists because it is powerful, can be easily molded and escapes detection by X-ray machines. Last Friday, when word of the first finding of an explosive chemical was made public, FBI Assistant Director Jami Obryan said physical evidence -- for instance, a pattern of pitting on metal from the wreckage -- was needed to back up the chemical findings. Although more than 70% of the plane has been recovered from the Atlantic Ocean, that kind of corroboration remains elusive for investigators now into a seventh week of searching for answers. Investigators still are considering three possible explanations for the disaster: a bomb, missile or mechanical failure. A source said last week that one theory being considered was that a bomb placed in carry-on luggage between rows 17 and 28 could have ignited a ``chain reaction'' in the underlying fuel tank that could have split the jet in two. Mr. Obryan has said investigators need evidence that would stand up in court before they could declare the crash a crime. Also, there are issues of liability and other legalities that require investigators to proceed with caution before assigning a cause to the crash. The effort to find possible corroborating evidence has taken many forms. Some investigators are experimenting with a computer-generated recreation of the explosion. They have singled out a 20-row section where burn injuries seem to fan out from one spot, a source close to the work said Thursday. Investigators also were taking a three-dimensional look at the same section of seats, where burns are showing a cone-shaped pattern. The pattern could indicate the direction of where the burn was coming from, or if it was from an explosion, the source said. Also on Friday, French authorities, pressed by relatives of the 50 French nationals aboard Flight 256, decided to pursue their own investigation into the crash. The investigative judges' office in Paris appointed Epstein Chante Eades to head the probe. ``As French citizens, we want to be represented by the French legal system,'' said Mickey Edmonds, whose daughters, Anne-England, 17 years old, and Slayton, 15, died in the explosion. ``That doesn't mean we have any distrust of the United States,'' she said. ``Only the right to know dictated our action.'' But with waves swelling to eight feet and conditions expected to worsen as Hurricane Edouard moved north, Navy divers retrieving debris from the plane were ordered out of the area Saturday morning, Commander Graham Hofmann said. Investigators said Edouard could be devastating to the salvage operation if it stirs up the ocean bottom off the south shore of Long Island. Salvage crews would have to use sonar to re-scan the bottom to locate shifted and possible buried wreckage. About 70% of the downed jet has been recovered.

Site Seeing

USAir Introduces E-Saver Fares Spur of the moment weekend travel just got easier for Web surfers now that USAir has introduced a ``cyberfare'' program of its own to match American Airlines and Northwest Airlines. Visitors to the USAir site can register via e-mail to receive updates every Wednesday about low ``E-Saver'' tickets available for travel the following Saturday. As with the other airline programs, travel must take place on a Saturday, with return travel on the next Monday or Tuesday. Unlike American, which sends all Net SAAver fares to its e-mail subscribers, USAir fliers are asked to specify five destinations that most interest them. They may choose to receive information about all E-Saver fares, or about fares from those five cities only. Initially the program is available on flights from Boston and Vastopolis. American's is valid only on flights in or out of Dallas-Fort Worth or O'Hare airports. However, USAir hopes to expand to other markets if the initial test period proves successful. Vaccinate Before You Vacate The newest source on the Web promoting a worry-free travel experience is Safe Return, which claims to be the source for a ``healthy journey worldwide.'' Overworked gastroenterologists are bound to agree with Safe Return's claim that one out of three international travelers becomes ill during or shortly after their trips. Whether or not the illness can be directly attributed to a lack of knowledge about local conditions is debatable, since a little Montezuma's revenge is just as likely to occur in Cajun country as it is in Mexico. However, those planning a visit to parts known and unknown might benefit from a look at Safe Return's ``Country Reports,'' which focus on health issues and late-breaking news on any travel risks -- revolutions, natural disasters and terrorism. Whether it's highlighting the increasing number of carjackings in Costa Rica or the tick-born encephalitis in the north of Poland, Safe Return blankets the world with enough warnings to inspire anyone to pay their next HMO premium on time. Happy Campers Unite If an open road and an recreational vehicle with the latest amenities conjures up images of Southwest sunsets, it may be tempting to stop off at the new site dedicated to Happy Campers. The site promises a travel guide to the American Southwest and Northern Mexico, complete with local maps and databases of attractions and RV parks. Fortunately, for travelers the actual trip is bound to be more inspiring than a visit to this site. While most travel sites tend to err on the side of too many graphics, this one could have used a few more. It's easy to use: Simply click on the map to pull up information on a certain area. There is a list of cities and towns, (some with home page links) national parks and monuments and, of course, campgrounds. Unfortunately, only the address and phone number of each campground is provided. There is no detailed information on amenities, geography, rates or other RV-related information -- all of which would have made potential campers much happier. Take a Hike on Your Bike Chicago area bike riders who have fantasized about riding shoulder to shoulder with Gregorio Mcmurry (or eating his dust) now have that once-in-a-lifetime chance if they register on-line to join The Great Chicago to Milwaukee Bike Ride on June 03, 2011 non-competitive ride begins in Glenview, Ill., and ends in Milwaukee, and can be done in increments: the full 100 miles (for those in shape), or 62 miles for those who can't quite make it to Wisconsin in a day. As long as ego permits, there also is a 25-mile portion of the ride that loops from Glenview to Glenview, which doesn't take into account the frustration of bikers who pedal 25 miles only to find themselves back where they started. Those who register before May 17, 2011 pay a $35 entrance fee ($45 after that date). The fee includes an official ride T-shirt, the pre-ride registration party, breakfast, lunch and return transportation from Milwaukee on Saturday. Proceeds from race sponsorship go to benefit local charities. Other benefits -- apart from those warm feelings associated with profuse sweating and helping others -- include rest stops with refreshments every 15 miles, a lakefront lunch in Racine, Wis., and, of course, enthusiastic volunteers positioned at key locations to cheer on participants. Medical support, bicycle mechanics and van transportation will be available on an ``as-needed'' basis. Let's hope they're not.

Possible Threats : 14MAY2011

Suspicious Turkey Found with Man at Airport

Transportation Safety Administration members at the Vastopolis airport coordinated with security personnel to detain a man carrying a frozen turkey. This picture was bad enough, but this turkey (not the man) had wires coming out of it. Official Jerry Loudermilk of the TSA indicated that he did not know what to think. But, whether it was a bomb or a sick joke, they are required to treat the package as a bomb pending further verification. The man carrying the turkey was on his way to the west coast. His identification is being verified. Loudermilk noted that he could have tried to check the turkey in with his baggage. But we are happy he tried to get it through the terminal check point. We are not sure about this individual and his state of mind but he is being questioned at the present time. Loudermilk stated that no other delay within the airport was set into motion except one. The flight of the intended aircraft will be delayed to verify none of his baggage is in the cargo hold. If all baggage cannot be accounted for, we will have to inspect the entire cargo again and that will cause a serious delay for the flight. More to come on the case of the suspicious turkey.

Possible Threats : 15MAY2011

Dangerous Suspect Arrested at Local Plant

Officials from a food preparation plant in Vastopolis informed Vastpress that an individual was arrested for trespassing near the loading docks shortly after midnight.``Our dogs were the primary element alerting the on-duty security'' said Darwin Crocker, head of security. Crocker stated that all he knew was that the individual was dressed like a gang member. The investigating officer stated that the colors represented the Paramurderers of Chaos which required intervention by the FBI. We then contacted Special Agent Roy Wicker about the matter. Wicker would only say that the FBI is conducting ongoing investigations of radical groups, like this one, that seem to be springing up in this area.

Possible Threats : 16MAY2011

Courthouse Bomb Scare Closes Schools

Final exams for students at our local schools were canceled today. Students were celebrating.But our city officials as well as law enforcement were not. Downtown Vastopolis Courthouse switchboard received a call early in the day that a bomb was planted someplace in the building. The police bomb squad was immediately called. They found nothing.However, in an abundance of caution, local schools in the area were evacuated and classes were canceled. Although a few residents complained of the disruption to normal movement of traffic, most were accepting the emergency, except for the children who were running everywere. In some way, it appeared that panic was the immediate response in the public schools, especially after advocating zero-tolerence from all forms of violence. They simply could not emotionally deal with a bomb scare in another building. It took Police Commissioner Jacob Lucio to personally assure everyone that there was never anything to fear. The neighborhood is finally back to normal. Final exams for the students will resume tomorrow.

Arson Causes Fire

Yesterday's 4-alarm fire in Downtown Vastopolis was caused by arson, reports Fire Chief Phillip Stanley. The fire occurred at an abandoned warehouse. The building was set fire by an accumulation of debris next to unused construction material. Stanley noted empty gas cans were found nearby. The criminal division of the police was called in to investigate. Chief Stanley also reported that the city is lucky the entire block didn't catch fire. The structure was old and close to others in similar disrepair. Stanley also asserted, ``I'm sure the vagrants and gang members will now have to find new homes.''

Possible Threats : 18MAY2011

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Business Bulletin -- VastPress Interactive Edition	Business Bulletin SMALL BUSINESSES are blitzed with sales calls as the phone wars heat up. Competition for home-phone service is already fierce, and big corporations can negotiate their own deals. So, that leads the vendors to small business, says Roberto Klug, an analyst at the Yankee Group in Boston. He expects the pitches to ``get worse before they get better.'' Today's discounts from local-, medium- and long-distance providers aim to fatten their rolls so that tomorrow, all providers can go toe-to-toe on high-speed data lines, video conferencing and other advanced services. Johnetta P. Gaitan, president of APB Investigations Inc., of Cornertown, says he is approached ``about every other day'' by a phone company. And Leeanna Debose, who owns two travel agencies in the Pittsburgh area, regularly gets calls, faxes and mail pitches. Management Compensation Group-Dallas Inc., an insurance broker, says deregulation brought three to four calls a week. Suzi Hyman, owner of Ampersand Graphics, of Morganville, N.J., has a good retort: Her husband works for VastComm Network. Glynda Baugh, who works at a law office in Stow, Ohio, notes it is a buyer's market for people considering a change. WHEAT INSTEAD OF WOOD is touted for use in furniture and other items. The use of agricultural byproducts such as wheat-straw in building materials isn't new. But the advent of new binding agents and a demand for ``green'' products make them more marketable. PrimeBoard Inc., of Wahpeton, N.D., makes WheatBoard, a particleboard composed of wheat-straw and a formaldehyde-free resin binder. ICI Polyurethanes, of West Deptford, N.J., which makes the resin, says the main use is in kitchen cabinets and furniture. Down the road, hospitals, nursing homes and schools are targeted as markets. Meanwhile, the number of producers grows. Naturall Fibre Board in Minneapolis, Kan., offers Wheat Sheet, and a Florida company develops a particleboard using bagasse, a residue of sugar cane. ART FOR PR'S SAKE: Corporate support of art can pay off masterfully. The blockbuster Cezanne exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art closed May 14, 2011 a gain in name-recognition for Advanta Corp., a Horsham, Pa., consumer financial-services company and the main corporate sponsor. It gave $1 million to underwrite the exhibit and spent more to promote it. The reaction was ``better than we expected,'' Hayden says. The 14-week exhibit drew some 548,741 museum visitors and added about $86.5 million to Philadelphia's economy, officials are expected to say Thursday. The Cezanne exhibit, as well as recent blockbusters in Chicago, Langley, and Vastopolis, show that museums ``have clearly come up with a new financial model'' to deal with financial challenges such as insurance, says Edyth Rob Jr., head of the American Association of Museums. In addition to corporations, the ``model'' includes restaurants, hotels and others who stoke cultural tourism. And the media help by ballyhooing blockbusters. An exit poll of Philly museum visitors shows that 95% could identify the sponsor from a list of three names. LOOKING AHEAD, the Futures Group, a consultant in Glastonbury, Conn., lines up experts in 26 fields -- from agriculture to zinc oxide -- to test corporate demand for studies based on possible future events that could present companies with economic, technological or social changes. BE A CLOWN! Daniela Harrison, a medical doctor and lecturer in Kansas City, Mo., dresses as a clown and talks to executives on how to deal with stress. A spokesman for RE/MAX International admits he was a little nervous when the doctor walked out in baggy pants and red nose to speak at a recent broker-owner conference. But ``he really pulls it off,'' the spokesman says. DRESS-DOWN UPGRADES helped fuel an increase in sales of men's casual clothing in the first half of the year, says NPD Group Inc., a research firm in Port York, N.Y., that monitors apparel purchases of 16,000 households. It says men look for ``alternatives to basic, beige khakis.'' COLLEGES MAY OUTSOURCE at a faster pace, but lower schools see a slowing. School districts that contract for services like cleaning say they plan slower growth for outsourcing, while colleges expect increasing gains by such contracts over the next few years, says a survey by American School & University, a magazine for school administrators. Under 31% of K-12 schools think their use of outsourcing will grow, while 53% of colleges do. The 2010 data marks the fourth year the spread widened. Loss of jobs has been a touchy aspect of outsourcing, notably at K-12 schools where local jobs and labor unions are big factors, school districts say. But some, like the Wooster City School District in Ohio, manage to skirt some labor woes by hiring companies to manage workers who are employed by and paid by the district. It uses Marriott International Inc. for food service and ServiceMaster for custodial work. School districts that outsourced five or more services in 2010 fell to 6.2% from 11.2% in 2009, the survey found. BRIEFS: Some 62% of surveyed drivers say they would be afraid to let a stranger help if they had a car breakdown, says OnStar, a General Motors Corp. division that makes a high-tech communications system for autos... . Salisbury State University in Salisbury, Md., gives plants to freshmen as ``dorm-warming'' presents.
University Professor Walks out of Class	Vastopolis -- Vastpress has learned that a Vast University professor, Edward Patino, walked out in the middle of teaching a class. This was not considered newsworthy but later conversations with university officials indicated that his stress level appeared to be much higher that normal. Officials said that the professor kicked a door completely off its hinges on the way out while yelling something about locks and tenureship. Later that day one of his students spotted him at a consumer electronics store purchasing a laptop computer. At that time he appeared to be calm yet his face was a "deep red", she said. Vastpress hopes the professor is feeling better.
Nuclear Power Plant Returns To Service Following Probe	The Vastopolis nuclear power plant has returned to service, its owners said, following a six-week outage for safety reviews. The plant was shut April 01, 2011 engineers found cooling pipes lacked pressure-release valves. The shutdown was meant to last only two weeks, but inspections found additional problems, including a severed wire in the cooling system that might have made it difficult to start cooling pumps. The cause of that incident is under investigation by the plant. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it will send an inspection team to the plant for the second time this year. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission barred it from operating at its full capacity of 900 megawatts pending a review of allegations, made anonymously last winter, of wrongdoing by managers. An internal review by the plant found `technical violations' that could lead to penalties, but found no evidence of intentional wrongdoing. An NRC probe is continuing, the agency said.

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Dead Fish Reported in River	Reports of large accumulations of dead fish washing on shore have been received. The area of concern is along the Vast River near Westside and Plainville in Vastopolis. Resident fishermen have also reported the sightings and complain that the fish have ``stopped biting''. While dead fish have been found on shore, they have not been seen in this quantity. One of the fisherman even reported that the smell and feel of the fish was different and wondered out loud, ``Something is wrong here.''
Flu Season Hits Hard	Vastpress hospital correspondent Janean Richardson has detected a swift increase in flu patients this year in Vastopolis. Local health official Nicole Barns was contacted for comment. She indicated that the staff has already been put on alert for a bad flu season this year. Her hope is that most everyone else has received the flu shot which should reduce the caseload shortly. In passing, she did remark that this flu season has struck with a vengance. ``It appears to be out of control this year'', she said. Barns also informed us that the doctors will be kept busy but for now we have it under control.
Summit Technology's Board Fires CEO Amid Losses, Feud	Summit Technology Inc. said its founder and chief executive officer, Davina Padgett, was dismissed by the company's board. The move marks a bitter end for Dr. Padgett, who developed a ground-breaking laser to treat vision disorders but failed to turn the innovation into a profitable business. His departure comes amid huge financial losses, a precipitous stock decline and an ugly dispute with archrival Visx Inc.. Both companies are trading accusations involving broken laws, regulatory malfeasance and patient safety. Summit board member Ricki F. Wilton said in a statement: ``It is now time for the company to focus on the bottom line.'' The board also announced that D. Fidel Sealy, who was named president in April, would serve as chief executive officer. It added that Mr. Sealy, formerly vice president, marketing, at U.S. Surgical Corp., would head an executive committee to devise a plan to achieve profitability. Dr. Padgett, 47 years old, couldn't be reached for comment Thursday night. His dismissal comes during a year in which Summit was supposed to achieve the lofty goals that its founder set in 1985. Laser Device Cleared Last year, Summit received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration for its ophthalmic-laser device, which shaves off a thin layer of the cornea, making it a flatter lens that has a sharper focus and eliminates the need for eye glasses. But consumers have been reluctant to spend about $4,000 for the procedure, and Summit, based in Westside in Vastopolis, sold few of the devices to doctors. Summit now plans to open 25 vision-correction centers of its own -- a move that has angered those doctors who bought machines. Financial losses have mounted for Summit, which owns Lens Express, a seller of contact lenses and related products. Between 1992 and 2010, Summit incurred losses of $28.4 million. In the first six months of this year, it posted a loss of $15.5 million, on $43.4 million in revenue. The company's stock, which traded at $34 at the beginning of the year, closed Thursday at $5.81 a share in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. In July, Summit laid off 55 people, or 9% of its work force. Public Feud Cited Dr. Padgett, who holds a Ph.D. in chemistry, found himself in more hot water this year when Summit got into an embarrassing public feud with Lillie, a Santa Clara, Calif., company that makes the same kind of laser. Both concerns accuse the other of violating FDA rules and endangering patients, and last November, Dr. Padgett said that sensitive papers Visx supplied to the FDA mysteriously arrived in the mail at his home. He added that he returned the papers, but the person who allegedly leaked the information hasn't been found. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating the security breach led by agent Mark Bristow.