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Parts of Antarctica have recently been warming much faster than the rest of the Earth, according to scientists in the U.K. They believe this degree of warming is greater than it has been for nearly two thousand years. The scientists, from the British Antarctic Survey, reported their findings in the magazine Science.

At Amundsen-Scott base at the South Pole annual air temperatures have actually cooled since 1958. On the Antarctic peninsula, though, they have warmed since reliable records began in the 1950s.

Trends in annual air temperature for 1950-98 show three areas of especially rapid regional warming: northwestern North America and the Beaufort Sea; an area around the Siberian plateau; and the Antarctic peninsula and the adjoining Bellingshausen Sea. read more

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As of 7:00PM EDT, the IRS Service Center in Covington, Kentucky that had been locked down earlier because of a suspicious substance found in an envelope, had been reopened. The material was found not to be dangerous.

At approximately 3:00 PM the 3,500-employee IRS office was placed under a full lockdown, as hazardous materials experts investigated a suspicious sticky substance in an envelope that was handled by several people.

Emergency workers brought one woman wearing a blue business suit out of the building and began scrubbing her down in a large black tub. They then removed her clothes, wrapped her twice in plastic and took her to a nearby hospital for further decontamination and observation.
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In a letter to House and Senate leaders today, President Bush stated that the US would deploy ground forces in connection with the war on terrorism. He added, in an interview after the letter was sent, “Whether or not we are going to put troops on the ground (in Afghanistan), I’m not going to tell you.”

British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon was somewhat more forthcoming. “As far as any ground operations are concerned, clearly we are preparing plans to allow us to look at that as an option,” he said on Tuesday.
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State and local health officials have closed the American Media Inc. building where a 63-year-old Florida man who died of anthrax worked, after a sample from the building and from another employee showed the presence of the bacterium that causes anthrax. The second man, Ernesto Blanca, who has tested positive for the anthrax bacteria, may never develop symptoms of full-blown anthrax, because it was caught in time and he is being given antibiotics. Anthrax spores were found in his nasal passages and on his computer keyboard.
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