The ACN Morning Report -- April 10 2013

North Korea's Imminent Threat -- Germany/Japan United Against North Korea -- Quake Strikes Iran -- North Korea Closes China Border -- Cuba Sends American Children Home -- TX Student Stabs 14 -- McConnell Office Bugged? -- Detecting A Nuclear Test -- The Smell Of Semen Is In The Air

US: NORTH KOREA COULD LAUNCH MISSILE TEST AT ANY TIME

Photo: EPA

The Obama administration calculates it's likely North Korea may test fire mobile ballistic missiles at any time, based on the most recent intelligence showing Pyongyang probably has completed launch preparations, a US official told CNN Tuesday.

According to the official, a test launch could happen without North Korea issuing a standard notice to commercial aviation and maritime shipping warning them to stay away from the missile's path.

GERMANY GIVES SUPPORT TO JAPAN AGAINST NORTH KOREA

Wikipedia

THE HAGUE —

Japan can count on German solidarity in the face of escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said on Tuesday, as North Korea stepped up its saber-rattling.

“There is a clear message from the government of our country… that Japan can count on solidarity and other peaceful countries can count on that solidarity,” Westerwelle told journalists in The Hague.

QUAKE HITS NEAR IRAN CITY OF BUSHEHR, 37 DEAD

Reuters

A powerful earthquake struck close to Iran's only nuclear power station on Tuesday, killing 37 people and injuring 850 as it destroyed homes and devastated two small villages, Iranian media reported.

The 6.3 magnitude quake totally destroyed one village, a Red Crescent official told the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA), but the nearby Bushehr nuclear plant was undamaged, according to Iranian officials and the Russian company that built it.

NORTH KOREA CLOSES CHINA BORDERS TO TOURISTS

AFP

The biggest border crossing between North Korea and China has been closed to tourist groups, a Chinese official says, as nuclear tensions mounted, but business travel was allowed to continue.

"Travel agencies are not allowed to take tourist groups to go there, since the North Korean government is now asking foreign people to leave," the official at the Dandong Border Office said.

CUBA SENDS AMERICAN COUPLES' CHILDREN BACK TO U.S.

HAVANACuba on Tuesday said it would hand over to the United States a Florida couple who allegedly kidnapped their two young sons from the mother's parents and fled by boat to Havana.

U.S. diplomats in Havana said in a statement early Wednesday that the two children had left Cuba and "are safely on their way home." The statement did not mention whether the parents had left for the U.S.

TEXAS COLLEGE STUDENT STABS, WOUNDS 14

Reuters

(Reuters) - A community college student who said he had fantasized since childhood about stabbing people to death went on a slashing spree at his Houston campus on Tuesday, wounding at least 14 people, two of them critically, before bystanders subdued him, police said.

The suspect, identified as Lone Star College student Dylan Quick, 20, was charged with three counts of aggravated assault stemming from the rampage, carried out with a weapon described by the Harris County Sheriff's Department as a "razor-type knife."

McConnell Says Foes Bugged Office

POLITICO

U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell accused political opponents of bugging his campaign headquarters after a recording of a private meeting with his aides was posted on Mother Jones magazine’s website.

During the Feb. 2 strategy session in Louisville, the Kentucky Republican and his aides discussed ways to attack potential Democratic adversaries in the 2014 campaign, including actress Ashley Judd, according to the audio recording. Judd said last month she wouldn’t challenge McConnell.

HOW TO DETECT A NUCLEAR BOMB ON YOUR PHONE

WWW.FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

When Mita bought her new iPhone, she had opted-in to the "citizen-scientist" program. Her smartphone was continually monitoring and storing data from built-in motion sensors, from the GPS receiver, and from the newly developed MEMS Krypton and CO₂ gas sensors. Yes, buying the new "green" iPhone had cost a bit more, but Mita wanted to do something to support the new carbon emissions treaty and the president's vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. Only 10 percent of smartphone buyers had chosen this more expensive option, but that still amounted to hundreds of thousands of verification sensors in Mita's country alone.

YOUR STREET PROBABLY SMELLS LIKE SEMEN RIGHT NOW

www.theawl.com

In a mild April night some years ago, I walked past a college dorm in New Haven and smelled something I couldn’t place. It reminded me vaguely of swimming pools. Was it chlorine? I sniffed again, more deeply than before. Suddenly I knew exactly what it was and hurried away, internally berating an unseen teenage boy. A few evenings later, in the same spot, I smelled it again. Filled with a sense of moral outrage I looked around, I looked up, and identified the culprit: A tree.

More precisely, a Callery Pear, or Pyrus calleryana, a deciduous tree that’s common throughout North America. It blossoms in early spring and produces beautiful, five-petaled white flowers—that smell like semen.