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OT: I Love NYC, it's stories like this that make me miss that cityBag Of Human Remains Found Inside Brooklyn Subway Tunnel
A bag containing human remains was found in a Brooklyn subway tunnel early Thursday, and investigators are now trying to determine their identity and how they got there.
Police say a transit worker doing a routine inspection at the Nostrand Avenue station around 3:00 this morning found a plastic bag on the tracks with human remains in it. The remains were found about 300 feet from the station.
NYPD officials say the remains included two human legs, severed just below the torso.
Investigators don't know if they belong to a man or woman, and police and the Medical Examiner?s office are still trying to identify the body parts.
Service on the A and C line was disrupted for about three hours while police conducted an investigation. Service returned to normal in time for the morning rush."
NY1: NY Living
Cigarette lighter ban on flights delayedLaw set to take effect Tuesday, but TSA says it's under review
I can just see it now, you get off the plane and now you have to pay for a lighter or matches in the airport. Only $10 dollars a book of matches.Passengers still can carry butane lighters aboard commercial aircraft this week despite a law banning them that was scheduled to take effect Tuesday.
The Intelligence Reform Act, passed by Congress and signed by President Bush in December, orders the Transportation Security Administration to ban butane lighters within 60 days of the legislation's enactment, which would have been February 15.
But the TSA on Monday said that the ban 'is currently under review,' declining all other comment.
Lawmakers voting to ban butane lighters cited the case of Richard Reid, a Briton who tried unsuccessfully to ignite a shoe bomb while on a flight from Paris, France, to Miami, Florida, in December 2001. The flight, with nearly 200 people aboard, was diverted to Boston, Massachusetts. Reid was sentenced to life in prison.
Members of Congress said that Reid's attempts to ignite the bomb may have been undetected if he had used an odorless lighter instead of a match.
Some ridiculed TSA rules that allow passengers to carry on two butane lighters and four books of matches. Torch-style lighters are prohibited.
At a hearing last summer before the law's passage, Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson said the TSA is concerned about prohibiting items that it cannot detect.
'There is a concern that we just simply do not create rules that inconvenience the public but do not enhance our security capability. So that's what we're weighing,' Hutchinson said.
Unswayed, Congress passed the law banning butane lighters and ordered the TSA to review its list of prohibited items and adjust it as the agency sees fit.
The TSA also may be considering banning matches.
One airline passenger group said it supports the ban of lighters and matches, provided that passengers who mistakenly bring the items to airport checkpoints are handled appropriately.
"Most of our members thought that they [lighters] probably weren't allowed to begin with," said David Stempler of the Air Travelers Association.
"Basically we support the banning of lighters and matches. The hesitation has to do with the ability to detect [the items]. There may be a lot of inadvertent carriage of these items. How's the enforcement going to be managed?"
He added, "We'd like it to go into effect sooner rather than later. The government has its processes. We just don't want them to drag their feet too long."
Watch out America! Missile defense system fails test.Do some GLG20's need to save us like in "Spies Like Us"?A test of the U.S. missile defense system failed Monday when an interceptor missile did not launch from its island base in the Pacific Ocean, the military said. It was the second failure in months for the experimental program.
A statement from the Missile Defense Agency said the cause of the failure was under investigation.
A spokesman for the agency, Rick Lehner, said the early indications was that there was a malfunction with the ground support equipment at the test range on Kwajalein Island in the Marshall Islands, not with the missile interceptor itself.
If verified, that would be a relief for program officials because it would mean no new problems had been discovered with the missile. Previous failures of these high-profile, $85 million (euro 65.55 million) test launches have been regarded as significant setbacks by critics of the program.
In Monday's test, the interceptor missile was to target a mock ICBM fired from Kodiak Island, Alaska. The target missile launched at 1:22 a.m. Monday EST (0622GMT) without any problems, but the interceptor did not launch.
The previous test, on December 15, failed under almost identical circumstances. The target missile launched, but the interceptor did not. Military officials later blamed that failure on fault-tolerance software that was oversensitive to small errors in the flow of data between the missile and a flight computer. The software shut down the launch; officials said they would decrease the sensitivity in future launches.
Before the December 15 launch, it had been two years since a test. The program had gone five-for-eight in previous attempts to intercept a target.
No date for the next test has been announced. It is unclear how continued test failures would affect two experimental interceptor bases in Alaska and California.
Those two bases, Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, are positioned to oppose the threat of attack from North Korea. Both are still classified as experimental but, officials say, they could fire interceptors in an emergency.
The Pentagon has not declared those bases "operational," but officials say they would work anyway once certain mechanical blocks are removed from the interceptors themselves. Six interceptors are at the Alaska site, with two more in California as a backup. Up to 10 more will go into silos in Alaska this year, officials say. story
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Lifeguard Luke relaxes in his Match.com Love Bubble on Feb. 10. He's waiting for a dream girl to send him an e-mail that will coax him out for a Feb. 14 Valentine's Day date.
T-Mobile showcases first Windows-based 3G phoneT-Mobile has launched the first 3G phone that works on the Windows Mobile platform.
At this week's 3GSM World Congress in Cannes, T-Mobile showcased MDA IV, a smartphone that delivers 3G data connection speeds and supports slower 2.5G data access when 3G is not in range.
The MDA IV also integrates with Wi-Fi networks and includes Bluetooth short-range wireless connectivity to link with other devices. The phone comes with a keyboard and an integrated camera.
T-Mobile said the phone would be available commercially sometime this year. Its appearance will be a much needed boost for Microsoft, which has seen its Windows Mobile platform struggle against rival Symbian in commercial 2.5G and 3G handsets.
Microsoft is keen to get phone manufacturers behind its mobile platform and at the 3GSM conference announced that manufacturer Flextronics had launched its Peabody mobile operating system, built around Windows Mobile and supporting various mobile applications.
In addition, Microsoft has launched its Microsoft Connected Services Framework, which enables operators to deliver services across multiple networks and a range of device types.
BT is one of the operators that will use the platform for some of its services."
