☆ Profile

AP Network News. I’m Ed Donahue.

The World Health Organization is warning that epidemics could kill as many people as the earthquakes and tidal waves did in southern Asia. The death toll’s expected to rise. It’s now at about 44,000. Planes are being loaded to send relief supplies to remote areas. Relief officials were already warning about possible cholera epidemics and malaria. Deputy White House press secretary Trent Duffy says US contributions are headed toward South Asia.
— A dozen C-130s from the Pacific Command that are hauling in relief supplies as we speak, including food, water, blankets, emergency shelter. When you name it, it’s on its way.
Mike Casey in Jakarta reports one Indonesian town was particularly hard hit by the earthquake and tsunami.
— The town of Milago, we’re getting reports out of there that it was effectively erased. A quarter of the nearly 40,000 people are expected dead, and rescue work’s the same. They still haven’t reached that. So we don’t even know the extent of the dead.
In Sri Lanka, a train was tossed off the tracks by a tsunami. As many as 1,000 people are dead or missing, and in the US, a fund has been set up in San Francisco for victims from Sri Lanka. This man has a family there. He talks about the Karuna Trust.
— That’s a non-profit organization personally known to most of the Sri Lankans here. So we can assure that the funds will be transferred to the needy people, and it will go through the right channels.
The website is KarunaLanka.org.

An explosion flattened a small building near Minnesota’s Twin Cities. At least one survivor was pulled from the rubble. A search is going on for anyone who might have been inside.

The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund is calling for better protection for police officers. The office, the fund’s CEO Craig Floyd says work is being done to help officers.
— Better training our officers. We’re giving them bullet resistant vests. Those vests have saved the lives of nearly 3,000 officers over the past 30 years.
The group’s announced that 154 officers were killed in the line of duty in 2004.

This is AP Network News.

NASA says improvements have been made to fuel tanks on space shuttles. The changes will prevent the falling debris problem that destroyed space shuttle Columbia. Sandy Coleman is NASA’s external tank project manager.
— Everyone feels really good about the quality of the work that had been accomplished here, and the redesigns that have been made. We all know that this tank is going to be safe. And so it’s a great accomplishment.
The changes in the external tank add less than 150 pounds in weight. Redesign of the external tank was considered to be a key and critical part of NASA’s effort to return the shuttle to space.

FBI director Robert Mueller named Willie Hulon to lead the agency’s counter-terrorism division. He’s the sixth person to hold the high-profile job since the 9/11 attacks. Hulon has been a senior counter-terrorism official since April. He was cleared of any wrongdoing in February, and an internal probe found he had been falsely accused of leaking sensitive information.