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London (CNN) -- New information has emerged from an intelligence operation about the possibility of an attack being planned in or near London, with subway stations and airports of particular concern to officials, a British security source told CNN Thursday. CNN understands that the intelligence operation concerns a possible Mumbai-style attack, the source said. The action is not connected to terrorism arrests last month in Stoke, Cardiff and London, the source said.

Governor Deval Patrick, even as he decried partisanship in Washington, said today that Republican opposition to President Obama’s agenda has become so obstinate that it “is almost at the level of sedition.” The Democratic governor, who is close to the president, made the comments at a forum at Suffolk Law School's Rappaport Center, where he was asked by an audience member about partisan battling in Congress.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain raised its international terrorism threat level to 'severe' -- its second highest level of terror alert -- from 'substantial' on Friday, Home Secretary (interior minister) Alan Johnson said. "The Joint Terrorism Analysis Center has today raised the threat to the UK from international terrorism from substantial to severe. This means that a terrorist attack is highly likely, but I should stress that there is no intelligence to suggest than an attack is imminent," he said in a statement. "JTAC keeps the threat level under constant review and makes its judgments based on a broad range of...

At least four people have been killed in two separate explosions at luxury hotels in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, say reports. The country's Metro TV reported that one blast hit the Ritz-Carlton and the other, the Marriott Hotel. Television footage showed the facade of one of the hotels had been torn off by the blast. The BBC's Karishma Vaswani, outside the Marriott, said ambulances are present and security is extremely tight. South Jakarta police Col Firman Bundi said the four who died were foreigners, reported AP. "There were explosions heard from two separate places, one the JW Marriott, the other...

Source: Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health Date: August 30, 2007 Cocaine Use Related To Level Of Education Achieved Science Daily — The decreased use of cocaine in the United States over the last 20 years mostly occurred among the highly educated, while cocaine use among non-high school graduates remained constant, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The study authors suspect that the inverse relationship between cocaine use and education is related to access to health warnings and resources. They also concluded that the emerging disparity highlights the need...

Ice sheet complexity leaves sea level rise uncertain 13:41 16 March 2007 NewScientist.com news service Catherine Brahic Ice shed from the giant sheets covering Antarctica and Greenland is responsible for just 12% of the current rate of global sea level rise, according to a new review. The authors emphasise that it is now clear that the ice caps are losing ice faster than it is being replenished by snowfall. But exactly why this is happening remains unknown, making it difficult to predict the extent of future sea level rises. The remaining 88% of the current rise is due to the...

8/7/2006 - RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFPN) -- They gave something that they can never get back, and a group here does its best to ensure these heroes smoothly move on to the next phase of their lives. Palace HART -- Helping Airmen Recover Together -- is a program that assists Airmen injured in operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. Many of them have amputations and other handicaps. The program assists them in staying on active duty, if possible, but it also helps injured veterans transition to life in the civilian world. The program started in 2004. "Place HART...

Melting Ice Threatens Sea-Level Rise By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, Associated Press Writer 19 minutes ago WASHINGTON - The Earth is already shaking beneath melting ice as rising temperatures threaten to shrink polar glaciers and raise sea levels around the world. By the end of this century, Arctic readings could rise to levels not seen in 130,000 years — when the oceans were several feet higher than now, according to new research appearing in Friday's issue of the journal Science. Even now, giant glaciers lubricated by melting water have begun causing earthquakes in Greenland as they lurch toward the ocean, other...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Despite progress in fighting terrorism, the threat today may be greater than ever before because the available weapons are far more dangerous, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday. "The enemy - while weakened and under great pressure - is still capable of global reach, still possesses the determination to kill more Americans - and still trying to do so with increasingly powerful weapons," Rumsfeld said at the National Press Club. The U.S. strategy, he said, includes doing everything possible to prevent the enemy from gaining weapons of mass destruction, improving homeland defense and intelligence gathering and...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25, 2006 – The number of U.S. troops serving in Iraq has decreased to around 138,000, which was the level deployed there last summer, a Defense Department military spokesman said here today. "We have come back down to the troop level that we were at back in the summer of '05," said Army Lt. Col. Barry Venable. U.S. troop levels in Iraq were temporarily boosted last year from around 138,000 to about 160,000 troops to provide extra security for the Oct. 15 constitutional referendum and the Dec. 15 nationwide elections. Those extra troops "have cycled out and we're...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12, 2005 – The senior U.S. military commander in Iraq will likely conduct a force-level assessment sometime after the Dec. 15 elections, a senior defense department official said here today. However, chief DoD spokesman Lawrence Di Rita cautioned Pentagon reporters that Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., commander of Multinational Force Iraq, may not provide a recommendation for Iraq force-level changes along with his assessment. "I would expect fully that he'll come back and give an assessment of where he thinks he is," Di Rita said. "I don't know - I simply don't - whether that will include...

Week of Nov. 5, 2005; Vol. 168, No. 19 , p. 294 Volcanic Suppression: Major eruptions can reduce sea level Sid Perkins Large volcanic eruptions can temporarily cool Earth's climate and, a team of scientists now suggests, lower sea level worldwide. BLOWING ITS TOP. Ocean cooling following the June 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines caused sea level worldwide to temporarily drop about 5 millimeters. D. Harlow/U.S. Geological Survey The tiny particles of broken rock and droplets of condensed gases that a volcano ejects high into the atmosphere reflect sunlight into space. So, after an eruption, there's less...

The number of abortions in Minnesota last year dropped to the lowest level in 30 years, according to a report published Tuesday by the Minnesota Department of Health. Minnesota doctors performed about 13,800 abortions in 2004. Last year was the first time since 1975 that fewer than 14,000 abortions were done in the state. People from both sides of the debate and the Health Department said they were pleased with the record low, which follows a national trend of declining abortion numbers. Last year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control cited a number of possible factors for the national trend:...

The phrase, “Level Playing Field,” was coined in the 1980s, according to The Phrase Finder, to mean fair competition with no advantage to either side. Today, I hear this phrase used more often in politics—from both the Left and the Right. Somehow, I think this phrase has become contaminated, depending on one’s viewpoint or naiveté. Coming from the Right, this probably means “idealism.” Coming, though, from the Left, I suspect that it means that they want welfare from the USA, or they prefer to blame the USA for its capitalism and imperialism and look to either Socialism or Communism as...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

'Top level' al-Qa'eda suspect in Paris By Henry Samuel in Paris (Filed: 19/06/2004) French anti-terrorism magistrates are questioning an al-Qa'eda suspect described as one of the "highest level terrorist suspects to be caught in years". Said Arif, who experts believe to be a lieutenant of Iraq's most wanted terrorist leader, Abu Musab Zarqawi, was flown from Syria to Paris on Thursday night and placed under investigation in relation to a series of planned terrorist strikes in Paris. A spokesman for the French interior ministry described Arif as "highly mobile, with all the terrorist techniques taught in Afghanistan". He said France...

Iraq's electricity supply is finally restored to pre-war level By Jack Fairweather in Baghdad (Filed: 08/10/2003) After six months and an outlay of £80 million, Iraq's American-led administration said yesterday that it had finally restored the electricity supply to pre-war levels. The milestone is one the administration has been eager to reach after a summer of blackouts and deepening resentment among Iraqis over the time taken to restore basic services. Increasing the nation's power supply further is now at the centre of reconstruction efforts. On its success depend air conditioning and heating and revived oil and industrial production. By next...

Yes my friends it is time for my annual Left Wing College Entry! Unforunately I have reformatted my computer since the last entry and lost the ping list! Thats ok because I'm sure many of you will want to read this. Last year I had annual entries from a liberal college professor and ar argument I had with a girl on Iraq. This year to start things off I will post an argument with a girl. This argument was over guns. The poor girl was clearly outmatched. She thought she was a Conservative Republican and when I asked her why...

CIA review into level of threat By Toby Harnden in Washington (Filed: 23/05/2003) The CIA is conducting a review of intelligence gathered before the Iraq war, focusing particularly on the possibility that Saddam Hussein's capacity for using weapons of mass destruction was exaggerated. George Tenet, the CIA director, is overseeing the "after-action report", which was initially proposed last autumn by Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, who was suspicious that the threat presented by Saddam was being underplayed. There was an internal battle over intelligence within the Bush administration that pitted the Pentagon against the State Department and the CIA....

<p>About one in four children identified as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander is living below the poverty level, according to data released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau.</p> <p>The "Native Hawaiian/ Pacific Islander only" category also leads racial groups in percentage of individuals living in poverty — 21 percent — and in percentage of families living in poverty — 18.5 percent, according to the latest census numbers, collected in 1999.</p>