Hungary's Toxic Red Sludge Reaches Danube

The toxic red sludge that burst out of a metals plant reservoir and inundated three villages reached the mighty Danube on Thursday, but a Hungarian emergency official said no immediate damage was evident on Europe's second-longest river.

The European Union and environmental officials had feared an environmental catastrophe affecting half a dozen nations if the red sludge, a waste product of making aluminum, contaminated the 1,775-mile long Danube.

The reservoir break Monday disgorged a toxic torrent into local creeks that flow into waterways connected to the Danube. Creeks in Kolontar, the closest town to the spill site, were swollen ochre red Wednesday and villagers said they were devoid of fish. Kolontar is 45 miles south of the Danube.

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Military And Scientists Find New Suspects In Dying Beehives

In the past few years, bee colonies around the United States have just been dying. And what has been killing them off has been a mystery. But now a collaboration between civilian and military researchers may shed new light on "colony collapse disorder," or CCD.

In a paper published today in the online journal PLoS One, researchers at the University of Montana and at the Army’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center joined forces to address a problem neither could have solved on their own.They found that a virus and a fungus work together in hives with CCD. From the New York Times report.

Research at the University of California, San Francisco, had already identified the fungus as part of the problem. And several RNA-based viruses had been detected as well. But the Army/Montana team, using a new software system developed by the military for analyzing proteins, uncovered a new DNA-based virus, and established a linkage to the fungus, called N. ceranae.

"Our mission is to have detection capability to protect the people in the field from anything biological," said Charles H. Wick, a microbiologist at Edgewood. Bees, Wick said, proved to be a perfect opportunity to see what the Army's analytic software tool could do. "We brought it to bear on this bee question, which is how we field-tested it," he said.

The Army software system — an advance itself in the growing field of protein research, or proteomics — is designed to test and identify biological agents in circumstances where commanders might have no idea what sort of threat they face. The system searches out the unique proteins in a sample, then identifies a virus or other microscopic life form based on the proteins it is known to contain. The power of that idea in military or bee defense is immense, researchers say, in that it allows them to use what they already know to find something they did not even know they were looking for.

The scientists were careful to say they don't know if the virus and fungus combo causes CCD, just that the two weren't found in colonies without CCD and were found in colonies with it.

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Former intel officers: No end in sight to terror war

Washington (CNN) -- Watching the worst terrorist attack in the nation's history on a TV at CIA headquarters was like a punch in the stomach for Gary Schroen.

The 35-year veteran of the CIA had just entered the agency's retirement program when planes struck the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

Schroen's career had been spent mostly overseas as a covert officer in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. Now in his late 60s, he felt he was going to miss what could be the agency's biggest battle in a land he knew well.

Two days later he was at the forefront, summoned back to duty to lead the first U.S. team into Afghanistan. His mission: Hook up with the opposition Northern Alliance, help beat back the Taliban army and, as he was instructed by his CIA boss, "Find [Osama] bin Laden, kill him and bring his head back to the United States in a box on dry ice."

Schroen said it was clear "the gloves were off, that this was a war, and we were going to get the guys who did this terrible deed."

The original end game seemed pretty straightforward -- destroy al Qaeda and eliminate the Taliban.

But nine years later, current and former intelligence officials tell CNN a battle targeted primarily in one region has spread to a worldwide fight with no end in sight.

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Florida's 3 Senate Candidates Debate Midterm Issues

Among the Senate races this midterm election season, Florida has been fascinating — in part, because it's a three-way contest.

Polls show Republican Marco Rubio as the frontrunner with Democrat Kendrick Meek trailing. In the middle, both in the polls and in politics, is Gov. Charlie Crist.

The three candidates met in a debate in Orlando Wednesday night.

A year ago, few would have predicted a three-way Senate race — probably not even Crist, the independent candidate. At that time, Crist was a Republican, a sitting governor and the frontrunner for his party's Senate nomination.

Since then: Former Florida House speaker Rubio's campaign caught fire with Republican activists and the Tea Party. Crist dropped out of the Republican primary and the Republican Party.

During the debate, Crist continued to try to walk a narrow path — that of a moderate with no party affiliation.

"It's abundantly clear to me that there's an extreme right faction in the Republican party," Crist said. "I'm the only candidate who can both win in November and crash that Tea Party in Washington.

To do that though, Crist has to do well among Democrats, Republicans and Independents. This week, Crist launched a new ad attacking Rubio for his proposal to raise the Social Security retirement age, forcing people to "work longer, get by on less."

Rubio fired back, saying Crist was twisting the facts. Rubio said his proposal to raise the retirement age to 70 wouldn't affect anyone currently over 55.

"One of those seniors, Governor Crist, that's out there, is my mother," Rubio began. "She's 80 years old this month. She depends on Social Security. It is her primary source of income. And for you to suggest that I would somehow advocate ideas that would harm her is outrageous, and a blatant untruth."

Rubio has been on the campaign trail for a year and a-half — steadily honing his anti-Washington message.

Democratic candidate Rep. Kendrick Meek, an African American from South Florida, also has worked hard on the stump. He's lined up the support of most of the state's labor unions and has brought in top Democrats like Joe Biden, Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

Up until now, his campaign mostly focused its fire on Crist, reminding voters there's only one real Democrat in the race. But during the debate, Meek took aim at Rubio.

"You want to be elected to move a national ideology for the conservative right," Meek charged. "I'm not on board that train. I'm on board the train of tying to resolve the issues here in Florida."

On most issues, it's clear where Meek and Rubio stand. On healthcare, Meek is for the Obama plan; Rubio wants to repeal it.

On stimulus, Meek is for it; Rubio against it — even the billions of federal dollars that saved jobs in Florida.

Crist, meanwhile tries to split it down the middle. That leads to charges that he flip-flops. Or as Meek put it, Crist "stands on a wet paper box. You don't know where he is."

But in the lively debate, moderated by ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Crist worked to portray himself as the calm, clear voice.

"These two guys (Rubio and Meeks) are going at each other because one's the Republican right, one's the Democratic left," Crist said. "What's true, is there are good things both parties can present to the future of our country."

On healthcare, Crist has taken a particularly twisted path, saying at various times that he would have voted both for and against it. Asked to clarify, he said he's against it, and thinks it needs to be fixed. There are parts of the healthcare law that are good, he said, and parts that need to be changed.

Rubio's position is a bit less nuanced.

"This healthcare bill's a disaster," Rubio charged. "Just in the last two weeks, we've learned the following things: These child-only policies are being dropped. We've learned that low-wage, part-time workers are now going to lose their coverage. We've learned that seniors are starting to get dropped out of Medicare advantage. We've learned the premiums are going to go up. In fact, this bill has broken every promise that was made when Kendrick Meek and Charlie Crist supported it."

Meek accused both Rubio and Crist of playing political games with an issue that affects many Floridians deeply. With some passion, he said that while they were talking about rolling back parts of the plan, 3,500 Floridians lose healthcare each week.

"When you have a family member in the hospital, looking up at popcorn ceiling and they're sick, and the insurance company cut their coverage, then you need a United States senator that's going to stand in the gap," Meek said.

The three men will meet in at least two more debates — the next one in two weeks.

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