Parcel Bombs Explode At 2 Embassies In Rome

Rome's mayor said investigators were following up on what he called international leads and police were checking all embassies in the city after packages blew up at the Chilean and Swiss embassies, wounding at least two people. The blasts come amid growing concerns in Europe over possible holiday season terrorist attacks.

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After Dump, What Happens To Electronic Waste?

Many people will receive a new computer or cell phone this holiday season — and throw out their old equipment. And when old TVs and computers end up in landfills, the toxic metals and flame retardants they contain can cause environmental problems.

Yet even recycling your e-waste, as it's called, does not always mean you're doing the right thing.

"The dirty little secret is that when you take [your electronic waste] to a recycler, instead of throwing it in a trashcan, about 80 percent of that material, very quickly, finds itself on a container ship going to a country like China, Nigeria, India, Vietnam, Pakistan — where very dirty things happen to it," says Jim Puckett, the executive director of the Basel Action Network, which works to keep toxic waste out of the environment.

Recyclers can make money from selling scavenged metal from electronic equipment, says Puckett, but the process to retrieve usable metals is typically extremely toxic. Workers who remove the metals often have no protective equipment and breathe in high levels of toxic chemicals, which are then released into the atmosphere. And most of the countries where the processing takes place — China, India, Ghana, Pakistan — do not have regulations in place to protect workers or prevent the primitive recycling operations.

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For Some Investigators, BP Oil Spill Is Just Beginning

It's been nearly eight months since the Deepwater Horizon tragedy killed 11 workers and spilled millions of gallons of oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Since April, federal agencies have launched a series of separate investigations and this week the U.S. Chemical Safety Board held its first round of public hearings. Host Scott Simon talks with NPR's Jeff Brady about the continuing investigations into the causes of the BP oil spill.

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Earthquake Near Japan Triggers Tsunami Warning

A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.4 has struck in the Pacific Ocean, triggering a tsunami warning off the southern coast of Japan.

Japan's Meteorological Agency said the quake occurred about 80 miles off the southern coast of Chichi Island in the Pacific Ocean. The offshore quake struck at around 2:20 a.m. local time.

The U.S. Geological Survey also put the quake's magnitude at 7.4.

The Japanese agency issued a tsunami alert of up to 6 feet for nearby islands and warnings of milder tsunami for the southern coasts on the main Japanese island.

A minor swelling of waves of about 1 foot was observed on the island's shorelines about 40 minutes after the quake, the agency said. The island is about 600 miles south of Tokyo.

The agency later downgraded the tsunami alert on the island to a warning and said only smaller waves of up to 1.5 feet were predicted. But the agency's seismology official Hirofumi Yokoyama said island residents should use caution for "several more hours'' given the size of the quake's magnitude.

There was no immediate report of any damage or injuries.

"It shook quite violently. I'm sure everyone was scared,'' said Kenji Komura, principal at a high school on the island. He rushed to school, where about 20 students gathered to take refuge. Despite the shaking, nothing fell on the floor or got damaged at school, Komura said.

About 170 people evacuated to several community centers and school buildings on the Chichi and nearby Haha islands, public broadcaster NHK said. Tomoo Yamawaki, a fisheries cooperative official on the Chichi island, said he has observed no significant swelling of the waves so far.

"We've taken all fishing boats on the island off coast to protect them from the tsunami,'' said Yamawaki, who is in charge of community tsunami broadcast, told NHK. "We haven't observed any significant change in the waves, but we urge all residents to immediately evacuate to a safer place.''

Japan is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries. In 1995, a magnitude-7.2 quake in the western port city of Kobe killed 6,400 people.

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