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Police say taking fingerprints in the field will allow them to work more efficiently and safely. But the ACLU North Carolina in Raleigh worries that the device may allow officers to violate privacy rights.

The ACLU is concerned about what will become of fingerprint scans that are sent to other databases, such as the National Crime Information Center.

Some 42.9 million people collected food stamps last month, up 1.2% from the prior month and 16.2% higher than the same time a year ago, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The backlog of cases from taxpayers seeking to lower property-tax bills of more than $100,000 shot up to 14,236 this year from an annual average of about 6,000 during the past decade. The backlog of smaller claims was at 28,558 at the end of September, eight times higher than a decade ago, according to records at the tribunal, a Lansing-based administrative court.

From Los Angeles to Atlantic City, the New Jersey gambling resort that had its credit rating lowered three levels by Moody’s Investors Service last month, property owners are filing protests to lower their taxes after real-estate values plunged. The disputes over billions in taxes come as municipalities are already cutting services such as police protection and may depress revenue further as communities try to recover from the longest recession since the 1930s. In Michigan, Governor-elect Rick Snyder has warned that hundreds of towns face financial crises.

Epidemiologist Renaud Piarroux conducted research in Haiti on behalf of the French and Haitian governments.

Sources who saw the report said it had evidence the outbreak was caused by river contamination by Nepalese troops.

The UN said it had neither accepted nor dismissed the findings. The Nepalese army condemned the study as unfounded.

The cholera epidemic has killed 2120 people, and nearly 100,000 cases have been treated, according to the Haitian government.

The report by Mr Piarroux found that the source of the outbreak was a Nepalese peacekeeping base, whose toilets contaminated the Artibonite river, according to a copy seen by the Associated Press news agency.

The river was the main focus of the outbreak when it began in October, but cholera has since spread throughout the country.

The UN mission in Haiti, Minustah, said there was “no conclusive evidence” that UN peacekeepers were the source of the epidemic.

Minustah said the report by the French expert was “one report among many,” but it was taking it “very seriously”.

A spokesman for the Nepalese army told the French news agency AFP the report’s conclusion was “hypothetical”.

“We strongly condemn the making of such allegations with no firm evidence or facts,” said Raminda Chhetri, speaking in the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu.

Many Haitians have blamed the Nepalese peacekeepers for bringing cholera to the country, and there have been violent demonstrations against them.
Imported strain

The strain of cholera had already been matched to one from South Asia, although it is present in other Latin American countries.

In an interview last week, Mr Piarroux said it was clear cholera had been introduced to Haiti, which had not seen an outbreak of the disease for more than a century.

“It started in the centre of the country, not by the sea, nor in the refugee camps. The epidemic can’t be of local origin. That’s to say, it was imported,” he told the French news agency, AFP.

UN peacekeepers have been in Haiti since 2004 to help restore political stability after years of unrest.

The U.S. central bank uses inflation data that relies too heavily on housing prices, Rogers told the Reuters 2011 Investment Outlook Summit, and he criticized the Fed’s $600 billion bond-buying program.

Rogers, who rose to prominence after co-founding the now defunct Quantum Fund with billionaire investor George Soros some four decades ago, said he was betting against U.S. Treasuries. “I expect interest rates in the U.S. to go much, much, much higher over the next few years,” he said.

The core personal consumption expenditure index, which removes food and energy costs, is the Fed’s favored measure of inflation and was flat in October for the second straight month.

“Everybody in this room knows prices are going up for everything,” Rogers told the Reuters Summit.

Bank of America is accused of depriving local organizations of millions of dollars by engaging in illegal behavior when investing the proceeds of municipal bond sales.

Prosecutors say Serbian-born George Jakubec quietly packed the home with the largest amount of homemade explosives ever found in one location in the U.S. and was running a virtual bomb-making factory in his suburban neighborhood. How the alleged bank robber obtained the chemicals and what he planned to do with them remain mysteries.

Now authorities face the risky task of getting rid of the explosives. The property is so dangerous and volatile that that they have no choice but to burn the home to the ground this week in a highly controlled operation involving dozens of firefighters, scientists and hazardous material and pollution experts.

Authorities went into the home after Jakubec was arrested, but encountered a maze of floor-to-ceiling junk and explosives that included 13 unfinished shrapnel grenades.

Bomb experts pulled out about nine pounds of explosive material and detonated it, but they soon realized it was too dangerous to continue given the quantity of hazardous substances. A bomb-disposing robot was ruled out because of the obstacle of all the junk Jakubec hoarded.

That left only one option — burn the home down.

San Marcos Fire Chief Todd Newman acknowledges it is no small feat: Authorities have never dealt with destroying such a large quantity of dangerous material in the middle of a populated area, bordered by a busy eight-lane freeway.

“This is a truly unknown situation,” said Neal Langerman, the top scientist at the safety consulting firm, Advanced Chemical Safety in San Diego. “They’ve got a very good inventory of what’s in there. Do I anticipate something going wrong? No. But even in a controlled burn, things occasionally go wrong.”

He said the burning of the house would provide “an amazing textbook study” for bomb technicians in the future.

San Diego County authorities plan to burn the home Wednesday but need near perfect weather, with no rain, no fog, and only light winds blowing toward the east, away from the city. They have warned residents in the danger zone that they will be given less than 24 hours notice to evacuate their homes for a day, and that nearby Interstate 15, connecting the area to San Diego, will be closed.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a state of emergency, and hospitals will be on standby in case there is a rash of people getting sick, Newman said.

Some 40 experts on bombs and hazardous material from across the country and at least eight national laboratories are working on the preparations.

They have analyzed wind patterns to ensure the smoke will not float over homes beyond the scores that will be evacuated. They have studied how fast the chemicals can become neutralized under heat expected to reach 1800 degrees and estimate that could happen within 30 minutes, which means most of the toxins will not even escape the burning home, Newman said.

The county has installed 18 sensors that will measure the amount of chemicals in the smoke and send the data every two minutes to computers monitored by the fire and hazardous material departments.

Experts also have mapped how far the plume will travel and predict it will not go beyond Interstate 15. They calculate that if there is an explosion, it would probably throw the debris only about 60 feet.

“It certainly would not be a detonation that would level a neighborhood,” Newman said.

Crews are clearing brush, wood fences and other debris that could cause the blaze to spread beyond the property in a region hit by wildfires in recent years. They also are building a 16-foot-high fire-resistant wall with a metal frame between the property and the nearest home, which will be coated with a fire-resistant gel.

Firefighters, who will remain 300 feet away, are placing hose lines in the front and back yards and will have a remote-controlled hose aimed at the nearest neighbor’s home. Ambulances also will be parked nearby.

The Sheriff’s Bomb Squad will ignite the fire remotely with a sequenced series of incendiary devices, Newman said.

Air pollution control experts have installed a portable weather station on a nearby fire station that will tell them immediately when the weather shifts, while authorities observe the burn from helicopters overhead.

Afterward, officials will monitor the air and groundwater for toxins. Hazardous material crews will be brought in to remove the top layer of dirt on the half-acre property, possibly digging down as much as 6 inches.

“It’ll be a tedious process that will probably take a long time,” Newman said.

It also will be expensive, he said, although no one knows yet how much the price tag could run or who will pay for it. They could not be reached for comment.

Prosecutors said the chemicals in the house include hexamethylene triperoxide diamine (HMTD), erythritol tetranitrate (ETN), and pentaerythitol tetranitrate (PETN), which was used in the 2001 airliner shoe-bombing attempt. The home has been declared a public nuisance and therefore the county does not have to reimburse the owners, who were renting the house to Jakubec.

Authorities also found a grenade mold, a bag with pieces of metal, a jar with ball bearings, three wireless doorbells with remotes, molds of human faces, handguns and a blue Escondido police shirt, among other items, according to court records.

Jakubec, who is being held without bail, pleaded not guilty Monday to eight federal charges related to making destructive devices and robbing three local banks.

The federal grand jury alleges that Jakubec made nine detonators and 13 grenade hulls containing high explosives. They were discovered in the home after a gardener was injured in November in a blast that occurred when he stepped on chemical residue in the backyard, authorities said. Mario Garcia, 49, suffered eye, chest and arm injuries.