May 23, 2003 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania - This week Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge raised the terrorist threat level to Orange and told the House Select Committee on Homeland Security that the terrorist attack drills held in Seattle and Chicago two weeks ago showed there are definite problems in the nation's ability to respond. The exercises called TOPOFF2 because "top officials" participated - were the largest security drills the U. S. government has ever played out. Seattle emergency responders were challenged with a dirty bomb; in Chicago the scenario was a bioterrorist attack of pneumonic plague. The exercises lasted a week and involved dozens of federal, state and local emergency-response agencies.
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May 16, 2003 Halifax, Nova Scotia - For years, marine biologists have warned that many ocean creatures are facing elimination in the largest extinction event since the dinosaurs were hit by a big asteroid. Now comes a major ten-year-long study reported in Nature this week that concludes only 10% of big ocean fish are left, compared to their populations 50 years ago. In the tropics, the guitar fish and grouper are nearly gone; off the coast of Newfoundland, the cod, haddock and halibut have never replenished; and in the open oceans the magnificent large predators - sharks, bluefin tuna, gilfish, swordfish, marlin - that have dominated for so long are down to their lowest numbers on record.
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