Bugging

Argentines, who have been avidly following intrigues swirling around President Carlos Saul Menem, have a new puzzle to mull over: Who planted hidden microphones that were found in the president's office and his official residence? Newspapers reported Sunday that microphones have been found in Casa Rosada, the presidential office building. Quoting Menem's staff, the reports said Menem's phones also were tapped.

Bed bugs have re-emerged as an urban blight in the past several years, forcing people out of homes, resisting chemical pesticides and evading other removal tactics. But researchers are building bug-catchers inspired by an age-old folk remedy to this “ancient scourge”: kidney bean leaves. Their experiments, described in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, tested the home-grown solution and even made synthetic leaves that could help scientists devise an easy, environmentally friendly method of trapping bugs before they establish a full invasion.

The Vatican threatened to reconsider Pope John Paul II's visit to Cuba after a bugging device was discovered in a parish house where he is scheduled to stay, a Spanish newspaper reported Saturday. Vatican aides found the hidden microphone in October as they prepared for the pontiff's Jan. 21-25 visit to the Caribbean nation, El Pais newspaper quoted unidentified Vatican officials as saying. The newspaper did not give the location of the house.

Disney's frenetic live-action/animated comedy "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" was the second-highest-grossing film of 1988, earning more than $156 million. The comedy won three Academy Awards and transformed its lead, British actor Bob Hoskins, into a bona fide Hollywood star. But more importantly, the film marked the first time beloved animated characters from rival studios - such as Disney's Mickey Mouse and Warner Bros.' Bugs Bunny - appeared together. The traditionally hand-drawn animated film heralded a renewed appreciation of the Golden Age of animation and spawned the modern-era of animation, especially at Disney.

Illicit eavesdropping by the government on private conversations, once a fact of daily life in South Korea, is decreasing, but such activity by private citizens is on the rise, the International Rights League of Korea is charging.

The FBI will investigate the bugging of PTL's headquarters, an agent said Monday. The FBI wants to know if anything illegal was done by whoever bugged the ministry's executive offices in Fort Mill, S.C., said Agent Charlie Sheppard, who called the investigation routine. The offices had been bugged since they were built in the 1970s, said Harry Hargrave, PTL's chief operating officer. Hargrave was appointed to the post after PTL founder Jim Bakker turned the ministry over to the Rev.

Former Czechoslovak opposition figures--some of them now in the government--are still being monitored through electronic devices, a Socialist Party newspaper reported Friday. Stanislav Devaty, former spokesman for the human rights group Charter 77, found a new bugging device in his apartment several days ago and sent a letter of inquiry to non-Communist Interior Minister Richard Sacher.

The rumor mill at Cerritos College has at last gained recognition from the office of President Fred Gaskin. Responding to widespread fears that virtually every phone on campus is bugged with a built-in listening device, Gaskin has ordered a formal investigation to finally put the suspicion to rest.

The executive offices of the scandal-rocked PTL ministry were bugged and some documents are missing, the ministry said Friday as it began laying off 200 employees to deal with a debt now calculated at $65 million. "Who bugged the building? We don't know," said Harry Hargrave, who was appointed PTL's chief financial officer a month after founder Jim Bakker turned the ministry over to the Rev. Jerry Falwell on March 19.

Former Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger, completing a five-month security examination ordered by Secretary of State George P. Shultz, has recommended demolition of the top three floors of the unfinished eight-story, $196-million U.S. Embassy in Moscow, which U.S. officials say is "honeycombed" with Soviet bugging devices.

NEW YORK -- You've heard of snakes on a plane, but roaches on a bus? Passengers on a Greyhound bus headed to New York City on Friday may have wished for deadly vipers to slither up the aisles, as they did in the 2006 movie "Snakes on a Plane," instead of the bugs that began crawling over them shortly after they had left Atlantic City, N.J. The creepy stowaways began making their appearance about 15 minutes into the trip, forcing the driver to...

You know the Hugh Jackman rumor: The married, muscled actor is supposedly gay, according to - well, according to your friend who has a friend who is certain he's gay. Jackman sang a different tune to the Hollywood Reporter in an article published Wednesday that goes into detail about the actor's life, weight, work, friends and more. It also mentions the gay rumors. Turns out the person most upset by the rumors is Jackman's wife of 16 years, Deborra-Lee Furness. "Just recently, it bugs her," he told the mag, explaining that she uses the Internet more than he does.

WASHINGTON - Bugged by motorists jabbering away on the phone while driving? Perhaps you should look into the car mirror. Though most drivers say cellphone-using motorists pose a danger, more than two-thirds admit to having talked on a hand-held or hands-free phone from behind the wheel at least once within the previous month,  according to a survey by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. Nearly a third said they had done so regularly. The survey shows a “do as I say, not as I do" attitude that underscores the need to better educate motorists on the risks of distracted driving, “especially given that most Americans believe this problem is becoming worse," the foundation said.

California hasn't suffered from the flu as much as some other parts of the country have, with their hospital ERs clogged with patients struggling with fevers, breathing problems and other symptoms typical of influenza. But as public health officials wait to see whether influenza will strike hard here, they've already noticed record levels of infections with respiratory syncytial virus , or RSV - another virus that impacts the respiratory system, and which can be particularly dangerous in young children.

It's lunchtime at Punch Productions, Dustin Hoffman's company, and the Brentwood office is a hive of activity. As young female assistants scurry around offering up salads and beverages, Hoffman - in a blue button-down shirt, gray cords, running shoes and a pedometer - putters around, explaining his company's logo (it's based on the large-nosed Italian commedia dell'arte character Punchinello) and joking with a photographer ("You know why I look so good: extraordinary plastic surgery and a penile reduction.

I told myself I had only come to look at the surf, but who was I kidding? Powerful head-high waves reeled off the rock jetty that marks the northern end of Manhattan Beach's El Porto surf break. A light but steady drizzle had fallen hours earlier; now an offshore breeze groomed the sea like corduroy. In my car, perched along the bluff, I gazed longingly at the half a dozen surfers circling in the lineup, all jockeying to latch onto a feathering wave. Wave riders in L.A. welcome winter storms, which open a narrow window of good surf created by strong swells, favorable winds and new sandbars.

An FBI bug in the office of Philadelphia Mayor John Street was there only two weeks before it was discovered in the midst of his reelection campaign, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The judge who approved the device allowed FBI agents to listen only to conversations from a short list of visitors, the paper said, citing unidentified sources. The FBI and the U.S.

A Cincinnati TV station fired a reporter, suspended two managers and apologized for making secret recordings of courtroom proceedings during an investigation of possible loafing or overstaffing in county courts. Thomas Crush, presiding judge of the Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, said he and the 13 other judges were satisfied with WKRC-TV's action and considered the case closed.

BioWatch, the Homeland Security-led effort to provide early warning if biological pathogens are released against the American people, has fallen into disfavor in some corners. The Times produced a series of highly critical articles, and the editorial board has chimed in , suggesting that the program be "squashed. " But calls to bag BioWatch, while well intentioned, are frankly ill-advised. Yes, BioWatch is far from perfect. The program has problems and needs to improve.

It's possible that not every problem has a technological solution. That will come as a shock to U.S. policymakers, who since the 9/11 terrorist attacks have invested in multiple technologies to protect us from evildoers. Some have been a success, while others - such as enhanced surveillance techniques or airport scanners that can peer through clothing - are often seen as unacceptable invasions of privacy. And then there are ideas that simply don't work or are impractical, such as scanning every shipping container entering U.S. ports for nuclear weapons.