Expecting more bodies, a makeshift morgue is planned
Herald-Tribune

CHARLOTTE COUNTY -- With 10 deaths from Hurricane Charley confirmed and more expected, officials are establishing a 25-member mortuary team and a makeshift morgue.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has set up a command center that includes two large white trailers at the Best Western hotel across the Peace River off U.S. 41.

Members of the FEMA team were preparing a gurney covered with blankets and placing them in a van, but it was unclear whether any bodies had arrived at the command center Saturday night.

Stunned Southwest Florida residents, government leaders and emergency workers surveyed the devastating damage from Hurricane Charley today, seeing the huge swath of crumpled mobile homes, ripped roofs and demolished businesses left behind by the powerful storm.

"We do have dead; we don't know how many," Charlotte County Emergency Management Director Wayne Sallade said at a press conference earlier in the day. "We have taken a crushing blow in Charlotte County. We have met our (Hurricane) Andrew, and we will win."

Sallade said the county had confirmed 10 deaths so far. “Not hundreds. I would hope that it would be limited to dozens, if that,” Sallade said of the possible death toll. Charlotte County deputies were standing guard over bodies because the area was inaccessible to ambulances.

Sky High - New York Terror Drill Today
New York Post

August 14, 2004 -- The skies above Manhattan will be filled with military and police air power today as authorities stage a secret sky-high anti-terror training drill in preparation for the GOP convention.

The practice run, dubbed the "Republican National Convention Airspace Exercise," will begin at 6 p.m. and involve the combined forces of the military, the Coast Guard and the NYPD, according to a memo obtained by The Post.

The drill will test how fast air defenses can scramble and coordinate a response to a 9/11-type terrorist air attack.

The aircraft participating in the drill will include F-15 Eagle fighter jets from NORAD, Coast Guard Dolphin helicopters and Bell helicopters from the NYPD. The choppers will zoom as low as 3,500 feet in synchronized operations over the city.

The aircraft will respond to a mock report of an unknown airborne attack at Madison Square Garden.

The high-flying jets will be first on the scene, then NYPD and Coast Guard helicopters will arrive to survey the venue at a lower altitude.

By yesterday afternoon, the agencies involved had not officially told New Yorkers they may spot fighter planes while the drill is going on overhead.

New Pentagon Plan Takes Aim at Terror at Home
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Plans to shoot down threatening planes and to seize weapons of mass destruction on the high seas long before they reach U.S. shores are part of the military's first full homeland defense strategy due to be finalized next month, a senior Pentagon official said.

Overhauling a domestic defense structure that was designed for the Cold War and failed to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked aircraft attacks, Pentagon officials are designing an air, sea and land strategy to counter threats from other states as well as the new dangers of international terrorism.

"It's the first comprehensive homeland defense strategy in the history of our nation," Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense Paul McHale told Reuters.

"On the date of the Sept. 11 attacks, the concept of homeland defense as we know it today really did not exist," he said in a Thursday interview, adding it had become "the highest strategic goal of transnational terrorists to attack the United States on our own soil."

Since the 2001 attacks, the Pentagon has refined its homeland defense strategy on land, sea and in the air -- including plans to shoot down planes in case of an emergency. On Sept. 11, orders to shoot down the hijacked airliners did not reach fighter jets until the last plane had crashed.

McHale said he expected to present the new, formal homeland defense strategy to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for review by Sept. 15.

ACLU has hotline for Arabs, Muslims visited by FBI
Chicago Sun Times

Illinois' ACLU chapter launched a telephone hotline Thursday for Arabs and Muslims who may be questioned by the FBI in the coming weeks.

Under orders from FBI Director Robert Mueller and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, the FBI stepped up questioning earlier this summer as part of a counterterrorism effort. That effort is designed to gather intelligence, seek assistance and search for contacts in large Arab and Muslim communities across the nation, said Joe Parris, a spokesman for the FBI's national press office in Washington, D.C.

"We aren't dragging them downtown and shining bright lights in their faces," Parris said. "But the FBI has the right to knock on their doors, asking for information."

This is to be the third round of questioning the FBI has geared up for: The first came after Sept. 11, 2001, and the second, smaller series was before the war in Iraq in 2003.

These voluntary interrogations, which have been called "dragnet-like" by the state's ACLU office, have not yet hit Chicago.

The FBI's Chicago field office, which continues to wait for a lead from Washington, hasn't questioned any suspected persons, said Cynthia Yates, the bureau's spokeswoman for Chicago.

IF A 10-kiloton nuclear weapon, a midget even smaller than the one that destroyed Hiroshima, exploded in Times Square, the fireball would reach tens of millions of degrees Celsius.

It would vaporise or destroy the theatre district, Madison Square Garden, the Empire State Building, Grand Central Terminal and Carnegie Hall (along with me and my building). The blast would partly destroy a much larger area, including the United Nations. On a weekday, some 500,000 people would be killed.

Could this happen? Unfortunately, it could - and many experts believe that such an attack, somewhere, is likely.

The Aspen Strategy Group, a bipartisan assortment of policy mavens, focused on nuclear risks at its annual meeting here last week, and the consensus was twofold: the danger of nuclear terrorism is much greater than the public believes, and the United States government hasn't done nearly enough to reduce it.

Iranian judo star shuns bout with Israeli
Washington Post

Athens, Greece, Aug. 13 (UPI) -- World judo champion Arash Miresmaeili withdrew from the Olympics Friday rather than meet an Israeli opponent in the first round.

Miresmaeili has twice won the world title in the under 66 kilogram class.

When the judo draw was announced Thursday night, Miresmaeili discovered he would meet Israel's Ahud Vaks.

Iranian team officials said Miresmaeili did not want to fight against Israelis because he supported the Palestinian cause.