Can we still use fingerprint logins in the age of mass biometric databases?.

In five minutes, a single person faked a fingerprint and broke into my phone. It was simple. All it took was some dental mold to take a cast, some play-dough to fill it, and then a little trial and error to line up the play-dough on the fingerprint reader. We did it twice with the same print: once on an iPhone 6 and once on a Galaxy S6 Edge. As hacks go, it ranks just a little harder than steaming open a letter.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called for better relations with the United States on Friday in a congratulatory message to President Barack Obama marking U.S. Independence Day.


Relations are at their lowest ebb in years, soured by disagreements over the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria and by differences on human rights and democracy. Both are veto-weilding members of the United Nations Security Council.

"The head of the Russian state expressed hope that ... ties between the two countries will develop successfully on the basis of pragmatism and equality despite difficulties and disagreements," the Kremlin said in a statement.

"Vladimir Putin also highlighted that Russia and the United States, as countries carrying exceptional responsibility for safeguarding international stability and security, should cooperate not only in the interests of their own nations but also the whole world," it said.

The United States has curbed its cooperation with Russia and imposed sanctions on some Russian firms and individuals over Moscow's role in Ukraine following Russia's annexation of the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine.

Washington has also threatened to impose more sanctions on Russia over what it regards as Moscow's support for a separatist rebellion in east Ukraine.

Moscow denies orchestrating the uprising and accuses Washington of trying to contain its former Cold War enemy to try to continue what Moscow regards as U.S. hegemony.

Russian President Putin speaks during a meeting of the Presidential Council on Inter-Ethnic Relations in the Kremlin.

If you've visited the National Museum of American History in the last century, you may have seen one of its most prized artifacts: The original star-spangled banner—the one that Americans raised at Fort McHenry to celebrate their victory over the British in the War of 1812.

It was the sight of this gigantic flag, sewn by Mary Pickersgill, that inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner."




And maybe you've heard about one of the biggest threats to the flag's longevity. Over the second half of the 20th century, the story goes, this national treasure's aging fabric was being infiltrated and deteriorated by tiny blue cotton microparticles—invisible-to-the-eye bits of denim that came from the jeans worn by tourists who visited the museum to admire the flag.

It's sort of romantic, this idea that little bits of blue jeans worn by the American people might be embedded in the flag itself, which is probably why so many people believed it.

"But it was never proven to be blue-jean dust," said Suzanne Thomassen-Krauss, chief conservator of the most recent Star-Spangled Banner Preservation Project. "It's been a persistent myth from the '70s. When we examined some of the fibrous debris of the flag, we did find blue cotton fibers. However, we found even more white cotton fibers, so it could have been from anything—not just blue jeans. And the amount of blue fibers compared to the white fibers was very, very low."


The more likely culprits of foreign fibers found on the flag, she says, are cleaning rags, mops, papers, and shirts.

The flag was also covered in particles of aluminum and calcium silicate, bits of gypsum board, cement, and concrete. When it was new, the star-spangled banner—this one has 15 stars and 15 stripes—spanned 30 feet by 40 feet and weighed some 50 pounds.

The Smithsonian has had the flag since 1907, and preservation efforts, all driven by technologies of the time, have evolved dramatically over the years. In the 1960s, the Smithsonian opted to put the flag in the only Smithsonian building that was air conditioned, thinking the cool temperature would help preserve the aging flag. But in the most extensive conservation project in the flag's history, conservationists like Thomassen-Krauss found that exhibits designed to protect the flag were in fact doing the opposite.

"Negative pressure inside the building meant we were sucking inside all the construction debris and pollution from outside," Thomassen-Krauss told me. So even after museum staffers placed the flag behind a protective screen in the 1980s—the screen would drop for one minute every half-hour so visitors could catch of glimpse of Old Glory—the flag itself was essentially acting as an air filter for all the dirt and dust that floated through the building.

"If you move air and it has particulates in it and it meets a resistance, it's going to deposit the material," Thomassen-Krauss told me. "Part of it was there was an environmental system designed for that space to keep the environment more stable around the flag, but in reality, because of the negative pressure, it was creating positive pressure behind the flag—kind of making the dirt move back and forth—so there was associated soiling."

After 10 years of meticulous conservation work, the flag was put back on display in 2008—this time in a temperature controlled room with a high-tech filtration system that keeps tiny particles out.

"We're always limited by the technology that's available," said Thomassen-Krauss. For many years, the Smithsonian couldn't build a glass case big enough for the entire flag, so only a quarter of it was on display. Today, museum staffers considered using a giant pane of glass that has an electric current running through it, so that it can be made opaque or transparent. (Ultimately, they decided not to use it.) The high-efficiency particulate air filter in the room that houses the flag today wouldn't have been available to the conservationists before Thomassen-Krauss' time. "Twenty years ago you would have only found that on vacuum cleaners designed for hazmat conditions for cleanups. That would have been a very, very expensive piece of equipment for anyone to purchase."

"We hope the current exhibit is going to last at least a generation or many generations," she said. "But if something new comes out tomorrow, we'll consider it. Every time someone says, 'I think we can do better,' we try to incorporate new things. You try and anticipate what will happen in the future, but you can never know."

General Motors car owners have been complaining to dealers about defective ignition switches since 1997, years before the automaker launched the Chevrolet Cobalt and other small cars with faulty switches linked to at least 13 deaths.

GM did not recall the 1997 Malibu and 2000 Impala for switch-related issues until June 30, 2014, when 8.23 million GM vehicles were called back for "unintended ignition key rotation," which can turn the engine off while a vehicle is moving, cutting off power to steering, brakes and air bags.

GM this week expanded its recall of cars with switch issues by more than 8 million, but it did not indicate when it first learned of problems in cars including the 1997 Chevrolet Malibu and the 2000 Chevrolet Impala.

A Reuters review of a consumer complaints database maintained by U.S. safety regulators showed that GM dealers were told of switch-related defects almost as soon as the Malibu was put on the market, and that many could not fix the defects.

Early issues included keys that either stuck in the ignition or could be pulled out while the vehicle was running, as well as ignition switches that failed to start the engine or apparently caused the engine to stall.

In later years, some owners said their cars stalled while on the highway and one quoted a dealer as saying changing the switch could solve the problem.

In one of the earliest complaints filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a New Jersey woman in April 1997 said she had been "stranded seven times" when her new 1997 Malibu could not be started, while the key remained stuck in the ignition and could not be turned.

The ignition was replaced twice by her dealer, but the problem was not resolved.

"I cannot comprehend how three different... ignition cylinders can all be defective," she wrote.

A GM spokesman said he could not say what was known about the Impala issue nearly two decades ago and that GM had decided to make the recent recall after the most exhaustive safety review in company history.

GM advised dealers about ignition issues on both cars in 2001, sending so-called service bulletins, which generally describe customer issues and potential solutions.

But GM did not recall the 1997 Malibu and 2000 Impala for switch-related issues until Monday, when 8.23 million GM vehicles were called back for "unintended ignition key rotation," which can turn the engine off while a vehicle is moving, cutting off power to steering, brakes and air bags.

The condition is similar to an issue with ignition switches in 2.6 million other GM cars recalled earlier this year, including the Cobalt, which was sold from 2005-2010, and the Saturn Ion, which was sold from 2003-2007. GM has acknowledged 13 switch-related deaths in those cars. This week it tentatively linked three additional deaths to two crashes, one involving a 2003 Impala and the other a 2004 Impala.

GM this year has recalled a total of nearly 15 million cars with switch issues.

Owners of 2000 Impalas reported dozens of cases of engine stalling, which can be caused by a number of issues.

One owner in early 2011 wrote about the car "stalling at freeway speed and loosing the power steering and power brakes," noting that the local dealership "says to change the ignition switch sometimes helps."

Another Impala owner in mid-2005 said the "engine shuts down for no apparent reason -- almost like someone turned the ignition switch off." Another Impala owner in fall 2003 wrote the car "just shuts down as if the ignition was turned off."

Edward Snowden has done a lot of damage to the National Security Agency by disclosing dozens of its most sensitive internet surveillance programs—but there may be a lot more to come from someone following in his footsteps.

German public broadcaster Das Erste revealed yesterday the existence of a previously undisclosed NSA program called XKeyscore, which automatically logs the online identities of anyone who even searches the web for tools that might keep their activities anonymous. Experts who are familiar with Snowden’s leaked documents say that this information is from a new source.

“I do not believe that this came from the Snowden documents,” wrote security expert Bruce Schneier, who had access them through his work with the Guardian. “I also don’t believe the TAO catalog came from the Snowden documents,” he said, referring to the “tailored access operations” that the NSA uses to gain access to certain priority targets. “I think there’s a second leaker out there.”

XKeyscore logs the IP address of anyone searching for “privacy-enhancing software tools” like the TOR Project, free software that can ensure online anonymity that is used by millions of people a day.

“The NSA is making a concerted effort to combat any and all anonymous spaces that remain on the internet,” wrote Lena Kampf, Jacob Appelbaum and John Goetz, who are all associated with the TOR Project. “Merely visiting privacy-related websites is enough for a user’s IP address to be logged into an NSA database.”

The IP addresses and any surveillance data gathered through XKeystroke is kept indefinitely. “This isn’t just metadata; this is ‘full take’ content that’s stored forever,” wrote Schneier, who called it “very disturbing.” Users may also be tagged for surveillance by receiving emails or reading news articles—like this one, for example—that discuss TOR and other privacy tools.

It’s scary stuff for anyone concerned about the scope of NSA surveillance—but the silver lining may be the suggestion that there is an NSA source out there besides Snowden who has decided that the public has a right to know what’s happening.

New NSA chief Michael Rogers told the New York Times in an interview last week that he was ultimately not that alarmed by long-term effects of the Snowden leaks. “You have not heard me as the director say, ‘Oh, my God, the sky is falling,’” he told the paper.  But if there are other leakers coming out of the woodwork, he might want to check again.

U.S. grounds entire F-35 fleet pending engine inspections-

Military personnel watch an F-35 Lightning II fighter jet as it taxis at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.

The U.S. military said it had grounded the entire fleet of 97 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets until completion of additional inspections of the warplane's single engine built by Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp.

The Pentagon's F-35 program office, Air Force and Navy issued directives on Thursday ordering the suspension of all F-35 flights after a June 23 fire on an Air Force F-35A jet at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

The Pentagon said U.S. and industry officials had not pinpointed the cause of the fire, which occurred as a pilot was preparing for takeoff. The pilot was not injured.

The incident is the latest to hit the Pentagon's costliest weapons program, the $398.6 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It followed an in-flight oil leak that triggered mandatory fleetwide inspections of the jets last month.

"Additional inspections of F-35 engines have been ordered, and return to flight will be determined based on inspection results and analysis of engineering data," the Defense Department said in a brief statement issued late on Thursday.

Pratt & Whitney said it was working closely with Air Force officials who are investigating the fire and are inspecting all engines in the fleet. Spokesman Jay DeFrank said it would be inappropriate to comment further since the incident was the subject of an investigation.

The Pentagon's F-35 program office has made determining the cause of the fire its highest priority and it is assessing the impact on flight tests, training and operations of the radar-evading warplane.

A person familiar with the situation said it was premature to rule in or out any quality problem or manufacturing defect.

Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera he wanted to discuss the F-35 problem when he visits the United States next week to tour U.S. bases and meet with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

"On my coming trip to the U.S. I plan to be reviewing troops and will have a chance to discuss the F-35 development on the ground," Onodera told a regular news conference. "I’d like to confirm the details of this accident."

Japan has ordered 42 of the single-engine stealth jets that will be assembled locally by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, maker of the World War II-era Zero fighter. Tokyo may order more F-35s when it decides the future of 100 of its older F-15s.

Australia and South Korea said there had been no change to their plans to buy the fighter jets. Australia plans to buy 58 of the fighters and South Korea intends to buy 40.

"To date the JSF aircraft has accrued 15,000 flight hours While the F135 engine has successfully completed nearly 32,000 hours of testing," a spokesman for Australia's Defense Minister David Johnston said.

"Single engine fighters are operated by many air forces and Defense remains confident the F-35 JSF will be reliable and safe."

Reuters reported on Wednesday that U.S. and British authorities were preparing directives ordering a mandatory engine inspection estimated to take about 90 minutes.

British officials remained part of the discussions with U.S. officials and concurred with the U.S. recommendation to ground the jets, pending further inspection results, the F-35 program office said.

The Pentagon said preparations were continuing for F-35 jets to participate in two UK air shows later this month, but a final decision would be made early next week. The fire has already derailed plans for an F-35 jet to fly by a naming ceremony for Britain's new aircraft carrier on Friday.

The Royal International Air Tattoo (RITA) kicks off July 11 followed by the Farnborough International Air Show starting on July 14.

One person was killed and three others severely injured when a truck trailer carrying fireworks for a Fourth of July celebration at a central Texas high school exploded on Thursday as workers prepared the show, a fire official said.

This photo from video provided by WFAA-TV in Dallas shows the aftermath of a fireworks explosion in Comanche, Texas, Thursday, July 3, 2014.

The person who was killed had experience handling fireworks and was licensed, said Marcus Nettleton of the Comanche Volunteer Fire Department. The victim was not immediately identified.

The injured were local residents who were setting up the Fourth of July fireworks display at the Comanche High School football stadium.



Crews were unloading tubes containing fireworks from the trailer when it exploded, setting two vehicles on fire, Nettleton said.

The state's fire marshal and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were investigating the cause of the accident.The fireworks display at the school, about 120 miles (200 km) southwest of Dallas, was canceled, local officials said.

Raw video from Chopper 5 shows the scene of a fireworks accident that left one person dead and four injured in Comanche, Texas on July 3, 2014.

President Vladimir Putin has been slammed for arming rebels and fanning flames of separatism in eastern Ukraine. But there is strong evidence recently that it's just the opposite: He now wants to bring about a truce.


To do so, however, Putin must face down nationalists at home pressuring him to send in troops to support the rebels occupying town halls and border posts and fighting government forces in eastern Ukraine after the new Ukrainian president ended a mainly one-sided cease-fire.

Putin's strategic aims have not changed: He wants to keep Ukraine at least partly in Russia's orbit and prevent it from joining NATO.

But he is also mindful of Russia's other global relationships, and he needs to move carefully to avoid more sanctions from the European Union and the United States.

His solution? Try to negotiate a truce in Ukraine while securing some long-term levers over Ukraine.

The Russian leader scored a measure of success last month when the new Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, declared a cease-fire that some rebels accepted. While the truce was frequently broken and failed to persuade the rebels to disarm, it set the stage for consultations involving a former Ukrainian president, the Russian ambassador, European officials and insurgent leaders.

The two rounds of peace talks didn't produce any visible results, and Poroshenko canceled the truce on Monday evening. But they brought together the warring parties for the first time, an important success for Putin. The Kiev government had previously resisted his calls to sit down with the rebels, whom they brand as "terrorists."

On Wednesday, the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine called for restarting the talks in an attempt to reach an agreement on a new cease-fire that would be respected by both warring sides.

Leonid Kuchma, a former Ukrainian president who has represented the government in the talks, is well-known to Putin, who dealt closely with him for years. Another man at the table was Kuchma's former chief of staff, Viktor Medvedchuk, who lives in Russia and has close personal ties to Putin.

Putin's ultimate goal is to get Kiev to appoint a Kremlin-friendly figure like Medvedchuk as a regional boss in eastern Ukraine, and see him nurture close ties with Moscow. That may not be immediately achievable, but other steps, like Poroshenko's promise to increase the power of provincial authorities, could increase Russia's sway in eastern Ukraine.

But Putin will need to offer something in return, and his options are limited. Issuing a direct call for the rebels to lay down their arms would sound like a betrayal of their cause and shatter his carefully nurtured image of a tough leader who is ready to stand up to the West.

Many of the rebels, driven by their hatred of a Kiev government that they despise as a "fascist junta," could also be reluctant to disarm.

And Poroshenko, for his part, is facing strong public pressure for a quick military victory, meaning it would be political suicide for him to heed Russian calls to extend the cease-fire and withdraw his troops from the east.

When the mutiny in the east began in mid-April following Russia's annexation of Crimea, some Kremlin strategists might have thought that they could keep the tensions on a slow burner to wring concessions from the Kiev government. But as the battles intensified and the death toll climbed into the hundreds, the anger it has generated is making it increasingly difficult to de-escalate the crisis.

Hawkish members of Putin's inner circle have become increasingly demanding, and there are increasing signs of discord at the top of the Russian leadership. Even if Putin did try to soften his stance, it is far from clear that his lieutenants would carry out his orders.

Putin's economic adviser, Sergei Glazyev, has made a series of bellicose statements, including his recent proposal to send Russian military jets to protect the rebels in eastern Ukraine from government air raids. The Kremlin disavowed his words, saying Glazyev was expressing his private opinion.

Other Russian hawks could be working quietly behind the scenes, orchestrating covert assistance to the rebels. At the border Wednesday, Associated Press journalists saw fresh tracks — a sign that military vehicles had crossed from Russia into Ukraine.

The extent of Russian involvement in the rebellion remains murky. Ukraine and the West say Russia has fomented the insurgency with troops and weapons, including tanks and rocket launchers. Moscow has denied sending any soldiers or military equipment and insisted that Russians fighting in the east are private citizens.

If heavy weapons have crossed the border from Russia into Ukraine as the U.S. says, they haven't made any significant impact on the ground, where the Ukrainian military enjoys massive military superiority over the rebels.

AP journalists in the east have seen a few armored vehicles that the insurgents said they seized from the government, but those could do little to the hundreds of tanks, self-propelled howitzers and rocket launchers that the Ukrainian military has deployed.

Rebel leaders have pleaded with the Kremlin for military assistance, and some prominent Russian nationalists have publicly taunted Putin for cowardice. Such criticism could resonate with the broader Russian public, which has been heavily influenced by Russian state television's characterization of the Kiev government as a "fascist junta" that is killing Russian-speakers.

While the Kremlin has recently moved to tone down the rhetoric in the news media, many Russians — full of patriotic fervor after the annexation of Crimea in March — expect Putin to take resolute action.

In a sense, Putin has become a hostage of his own game of raising the stakes and fiery rhetoric, and it could be hard for him to soften his posture toward Ukraine without eroding his power.

As fears rise over warnings of new explosives able to slip by standard airport security checks, eyes are turning to southern Yemen and one man in particular: master Al-Qaeda bombmaker Ibrahim al-Asiri.



As fears rise over warnings of new explosives able to slip by standard airport security checks, eyes are turning to southern Yemen and one man in particular: master Al-Qaeda bombmaker Ibrahim al-Asiri.

Washington has warned that travellers flying to the United States from Europe and the Middle East are to face tighter airport checks after intelligence pointed to the new threat.

Officials have declined to say if a specific plot had been uncovered.

But experts say that if anyone could be behind the threat it's al-Asiri, a 32-year-old Saudi believed to be hiding out with Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen's restive southern provinces.

Asiri, a one-time chemistry student also known as Abu Saleh, is on several most-wanted lists and has survived repeated attempts to kill him with US drones.

He specialises in building hard-to-detect non-metallic explosives, often using Pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN, and chemical detonators.

He is reported to have been involved in making a bomb for the failed 2009 Christmas Day plot to blow up a US-bound airliner and an attempt to send parcel bombs containing PETN hidden in printer ink cartridges from Yemen to Chicago in 2010.

He is also believed to have designed a bomb used by his brother Abdullah, who died in a failed suicide attack on Saudi Arabia's deputy interior minister in 2009.

- 'Never the same thing twice' -

French criminologist Christophe Naudin, an expert on aviation security, said it was only intelligence, not traditional security checks, that prevented the Chicago-bound parcel bombs from reaching their targets.

"They went through all the checks and were only discovered because the Saudi secret services had an agent inside AQAP who was able to give them the flight number, route and even the parcel numbers," he told AFP.

"Without that human intelligence, they would have gone off."

In the Christmas Day plot a Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, attempted to set off plastic explosives sewn to his underwear on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

He failed to detonate the explosives, was subdued by a passenger and is now serving a life sentence in the United States.

Asiri has refined his methods with every attempt and has been described by CIA director John Brennan as "a very dangerous individual, clearly somebody who has a fair amount of training and experience."

"The great danger with Asiri is that he never tries the same thing twice," Naudin said.

"He learns from each of his failures and tries new things. With only 100 grams of PETN you can't necessarily destroy a plane, but it can be very dangerous."


Some intelligence reports have even suggested that Asiri, working with a Syrian doctor, has been attempting to perfect surgically implanted explosive devices that would be virtually undetectable.

Experts have warned that Al-Qaeda may be seeking to carry out spectacular attacks as it faces competition for leadership of the global jihadist movement from the Islamic State (IS), the extremist group that has seized control of parts of Iraq and Syria.

Some reports have also suggested that Asiri may have switched allegiance to IS and could be preparing an attack on its behalf.

Belo Horizonte,Brazil overpass under construction,"World Cup project",collapses and kills two and 19 are injured.

An overpass in Brazil that was part of the World Cup infrastructure plan has collapsed onto vehicles below.


The overpass in Cup host city Belo Horizonte collapsed Thursday afternoon. Local news media quote firefighters on the scene as saying at least two persons has died and another 19 are injured.

Live TV images showed what appeared to be a school bus and other vehicles trapped under the rubble.

It's not immediately clear if people are trapped inside those vehicles.

Calls to Belo Horizonte's fire department were not immediately returned.

Is there a typo in founding document?

There's a heated scholarly debate about a curious period that may or may not extend our rights beyond "the pursuit of happiness."

The portion of the Declaration of Independence in question.

Here's some fun news for the Fourth of July: America might be reading an important passage of the Declaration of Independence all wrong. A scholar's argument that an authoritative transcription of the Declaration contains a period that isn't actually in the original document has convinced the National Archives to re-examine their presentation of the document. That's according to a well-timed New York Times story on the controversy, which could change how we read the passage beginning "We hold these truths to be self-evident."

First, let's pinpoint what's in question here. The official transcription from the National Archives reads (emphasis ours):

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

See that period? According to Princeton professor Danielle Allen, it's not actually in the original document. If she's right, then the individual rights of "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" would share a sentence with what follows:

"— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Allen, speaking to the Times, argues that Thomas Jefferson intended to emphasize the second part of this passage — the role of the government — equally with the individual rights in the first part. Instead, with the period in place, there's an implied hierarchy. So you can begin to see how one little punctuation mark's presence or absence could become the subject of heated debate among those who have strong opinions about the role of government as it concerns individual liberty. Although the punctuation mark is still very much up for debate among experts, Allen has convinced several scholars that she might be on to something. The National Archives told the Times that they "want to take advantage of this possible new discovery" and find a way to re-examine the incredibly fragile original Declaration of Independence.

And that brings us to why it's so difficult to get to the bottom of this question. The handful of facsimiles that are considered early, authoritative copies of the original document differ on the presence of the period, although Allen argues that the bulk of those early copies — including the "Rough Draft" of the document — support her conclusions. So the original document could be the only thing that could put this line of questioning to rest. But the 1776 original, stored in a complex preservation system along with the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, is in really, really bad shape. It's more or less illegible. The National Archive will try to use new imaging technology to get a clearer picture of the mark in question, but it's not guaranteed to be conclusive.

If it does turn out that Allen is right, however, it would hardly be the first time a founding document has contained an error or a revision. The Constitution is basically full of small errors, for instance. And in 2010, the Library of Congress announced that it had discovered evidence of a big correction Jefferson himself made to the rough draft of the Declaration: Jefferson initially wrote the word "subjects" at one point, but later smudged out the word and wrote a different one in its place: "citizens."

In this handout provided by NASA from the the Earth-orbiting International Space Station, weather system Arthur travels up the East Coast of the United States in the Atlantic Ocean near Florida on July 2, 2014 in space.

Hurricane Arthur gained strength in the Atlantic on Thursday and threatened to strike near the North Carolina coast on Independence Day, prompting thousands of vacationers and residents to leave parts of the state's popular but flood-prone Outer Banks.

Nichole Specht, 27, and Ryan Witman, 28, had pre-loaded their Honda CRV and left Hatteras Island at 3:30 a.m. Thursday, beating the expected traffic jam. The island was under an evacuation order, with no traffic allowed in. Officials asked an estimated 35,000 residents and travelers to leave through North Carolina Highway 12, the only road on and off Hatteras.

Specht and Witman found the road wide open for their return home to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Specht said her parents left their rental later, at 5 a.m., and also found clear sailing.

Check your local forecast

"We were just saying we were really, really lucky this year that the weather was so great, and then this," Specht said as she ended a two-week vacation that included scouting sites for the couple's wedding next year.

Forecasters expect Arthur to speed up to a Category 2 storm and pass over or near the Outer Banks — a 200-mile string of narrow barrier islands with about 57,000 permanent residents — early Friday, bringing rain, heavy winds, storm surge and dangerous rip currents. Category 2 hurricanes pack winds of more than 96 mph.

Before the storm hit, tourism officials had expected 250,000 people to travel to the Outer Banks for the holiday weekend. Gov. Pat McCrory sought to strike a balance between a stern warning to vacationers and optimism that part of the busy weekend could be salvaged.

On Wednesday, he warned people: "Don't put your stupid hat on."

But the next day, even as the storm gathered strength, he said: "Of course, this holiday weekend, the July 4th weekend, is one of the biggest weekends for coastal tourism in the state, and we anticipate a beautiful weekend after the Tropical Storm Arthur or the Hurricane Arthur is out of North Carolina."


Some visitors stayed put, hopeful the fast-moving storm would follow predictions to pass through by Friday afternoon. About 20 miles north of the only bridge off Hatteras, Sean Fitzgerald and his 5-year-old son, Cade, enjoyed a sunny morning lounging in beach chairs in the town of Kill Devil Hills.

The sand was dotted with tourists. A handful of surfers took to the water. Like all areas north of Oregon Inlet, Kill Devils Hills wasn't under an evacuation. Fitzgerald said he saw no need to disrupt his family's vacation.

"I plan to sit on the beach as long as the sun is here," then head out for a seafood dinner, said Fitzgerald, 44, of Fairfax, Virginia.

Those who don't evacuate the islands should prepare for possibly getting stuck for several days without food, water or power, National Hurricane Center forecaster Stacy Stewart said Thursday.

"We want the public to take this system very seriously, go ahead and start their preparations because time is beginning to run out," he said.

Arthur, the first named storm of the Atlantic season, prompted a hurricane warning for much of the North Carolina coast. Tropical storm warnings were in effect for coastal areas in South Carolina and Virginia. On the Outer Banks' Ocracoke Island, accessible only by ferry, a voluntary evacuation was underway. Officials said ferry service would end at 5 p.m.

Before sunset Wednesday on Highway 12, a long line of cars, trailers and recreational vehicles formed a steady stream of traffic. The road has been sliced apart twice in recent years as storms cut temporary channels from the ocean to the sound. N.C. 12 is easily blocked by sand and water.

Officials called the evacuation for Hatteras Island residents and visitors mandatory, but some residents were likely to stay, as in past storms.

Mike Rabe of Virginia Beach, Virginia, planned to remain in his Outer Banks beach home the entire weekend. He and his wife, Jan, stowed lawn furniture and anything else that could be tossed about by winds, then planned to help a neighbor.

"I'm going to ride it out," Rabe, 53, said.

The holiday weekend was not expected to be a complete loss on the Outer Banks. Forecasters said the storm would move through quickly with the worst of the weather near Cape Hatteras about dawn Friday. Then it was expected to clear. The National Hurricane Center predicted Arthur would start to weaken Friday night.

Farther north, the annual Boston Pops Fourth of July concert and fireworks show was moved up a day because of potential heavy rain ahead of Hurricane Arthur. Organizers and public safety officials said the celebration was rescheduled for Thursday, which appeared to be the best of two potential bad weather days. Other cities along the East Coast warned of weather condition and potentially life-threatening rip currents.

Late Thursday morning, Arthur was about 260 miles (415 kilometers) southwest of Cape Hatteras and moving north around 14 mph (22 kph) with maximum sustained winds of 90 mph (150 kph).

If Arthur makes landfall in the U.S. on Friday, it would be the first hurricane to do so on July Fourth, according to National Hurricane Center research that goes back to the 1850s.

This photo provided by Roberto Danino shows emergency personnel near a section of the facade inside an underpass of the Brooklyn Bridge after it had collapsed, Wednesday, July 2, 2014, in the Brooklyn borough of New York.

Authorities say a section of the facade inside an underpass of the Brooklyn Bridge has collapsed, injuring five people.

It happened just before 8 p.m. Wednesday in Brooklyn during a passing thunder shower.

A fire department spokesman says the collapse involved a roughly 25-foot wide section of the facade.

All of the injuries were minor. It wasn't immediately known who was hurt.

Department of Buildings inspectors are investigating.


There is no word on what caused the collapse.