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The storm, with maximum sustained winds of 70 miles (110 kilometers) per hour, was 355 miles southeast of Brownsville, Texas, heading northwest at 12 mph, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said just before 10 a.m. Houston time.

“Strengthening is forecast during the next 36 hours or so before landfall and Alex is likely to become a hurricane later today,” the advisory said.

Brownsville began giving residents sandbags last night. Texas Governor Rick Perry declared 19 counties a disaster to free up resources and activated 2,500 National Guard troops, eight helicopters and three aircraft in advance of the season’s first storm.

It turns out, however, the biggest safety issue you face while flying could be the food served by the airlines.

More than half a billion meals are made by some of the largest airline food kitchens in the United States. A recent analysis by some of Food and Drug Administration inspection records found that food preparation in some of these kitchens is a recipe for disaster.

Violations include roaches, mice, unsanitary conditions and no place for employees to wash their hands.

“Volume always leads to problems,” said Brian Buckley of the Institute of Culinary Education. “Obviously there’s not a lot of accountability.”

But on Monday, federal prosecutors accused 11 people of being part of a Russian espionage ring, living under false names and deep cover in a patient scheme to penetrate what one coded message called American “policy making circles.”

An F.B.I. investigation that began at least seven years ago culminated with the arrest on Sunday of 10 people in Yonkers, Boston and northern Virginia.

On Tuesday, an 11th accused member of the ring was arrested around 9 a.m. at an airport in Cyprus while trying to leave for Budapest, a police offical said. The suspect, a Canadian citizen, was released on bail and was expected to face an extradition hearing within a month.

“We are holding his passport until plans are made for his extradition,” said the official, who was not identified because he is not allowed to speak publicly about the case.

The documents detailed what the authorities called the “Illegals Program,” an ambitious, long-term effort by the S.V.R., one of the successors to the Soviet K.G.B., to plant Russian spies in the United States to gather information and recruit more agents.

The suspects were directed to gather information on nuclear weapons, American policy toward Iran, C.I.A. leadership, Congressional politics and many other topics, prosecutors say. The Russian spies made contact with a former high-ranking American national security official and a nuclear weapons researcher, among others. But the charges did not include espionage, and it was unclear what secrets the suspected spy ring — which included five couples — actually managed to collect.

The 48-year-old man’s identity has not been released.

“There are no signs of foul play,” said Michele Nicholson, spokeswoman for the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office. “I don’t think there was anything suspicious about it.”

A spokeswoman at Mobile’s Unified Command said the death was not related to the oil cleanup. The Port St. Lucie man had a heart attack. He was discovered at 4:05 p.m. by a coworker after he did not show up to work. He was contracted through the Parsons Corporation.

The death marks the third reported death of a person involved in the response.

Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the National Incident Commander for the Deepwater BP Oil Spill response, reported two deaths on June 23.

RBS credit chief Andrew Roberts said the edge is just around the corner for the European banking industry and the economies of Europe and the US.

“Surely risks associated with us being wrong are low, i.e. rates stay where they are,” Roberts wrote in a research note.

“But risks associated with us being right are 10 percent returns in (10-year US Treasurys) and at the same time that equities/commodities will collapse far beyond what even some equity bears anticipate.”

As a result Roberts is advising investors to get into maximum long-duration bonds in safe-haven markets.

The latest data from the CPB Netherlands Bureau shows that world trade slid 1.7% in May, with the biggest fall in Asia. The Baltic Dry Index measuring freight rates on bulk goods has dropped 40% in a month.”

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$2,5 trillion hasn’t done the trick, and neither will $5 trillion. Money velocity is way down and so is M3 broad money supply. How would Bernanke turn that around? The money simply isn’t going anywhere. Except into a deep dark void. It’s disappearing faster than Bernanke can print.

But the advisory was not lifted for Gulf Islands National Seashore’s Fort Pickens beach, immediately west of Pensacola Beach or Johnson Beach on Perdido Key.

And hours after the Pensacola Beach advisory was lifted, the health department asked for state approval to issue an oil-impact advisory that leaves the decision to swim in the Gulf of Mexico up to the discretion of individual beachgoers.

The signs would be posted on 41 of the 43 miles of Escambia County beaches — from the Florida-Alabama line to just west of Portofino Beach — impacted by oil.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency plans to put decontamination stations along the beach, possibly as early as this weekend.

These moves send conflicting signals about how safe it is to swim in the Gulf of Mexico as the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill broadens.

Dr. John Lanza, director of Escambia County Health Department, said the reason for leaving the decision up to beachgoers on whether to swim is because the oil situation on the beach is “very dynamic.”

“We have a situation that changes from one hour to the next, from one tide to the next, from wave to wave, from one wind direction to another,” he said.

Lanza said this ever-changing environment is something “we’re going to face for weeks or months in the future.”

The oil impact signs would be posted indefinitely and warn beachgoers that oil has washed up on the beaches. But the impact advisory would not prohibit people from going swimming as the health advisory for Pensacola Beach issued from Wednesday to Friday morning did.

Similar to the health advisory, the impact advisory would warn beachgoers to avoid touching oily product on the beach and in the water, and it would advise them leaving the beach and seeking medical help if they experience respiratory problems.

So far, 400 people have sought medical care for upper or lower respiratory problems, headaches, nausea, and eye irritation after trips to Escambia County beaches, Lanza said.

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Swimmers who did venture into the water questioned whether it was really safe to wade, swim and play in the Gulf, especially when they had to walk through a line of tar balls and stay clear of skimmers scooping up oil just 25 and 50 feet from the shore.

“I only went into the water up to my ankles. That’s as far as I wanted to go,” said Joe Chambers, 28, of West Pensacola as he scrubbed off oily residue from himself and his son, Ethan, 4, in the public showers at Casino Beach. “It doesn’t smell like the beach. It smells like a gas station. There are no fish in the water. There’s nothing alive in the water. I don’t know how public officials can just look at the water and make a call to reopen it for swimming.”

Carol Doster of Grand Isle, Miss., said her son Dallas, 12, was frightened by the oil that streaked his legs and arms after a five-minute swim in the Gulf on Friday. “It won’t rub off,” Doster said.