The following stories are brought to you by the good folks on the News4 assignment desk:
BUSINESS LEADERS: BAG THAT TAX PROPOSAL
The D.C. Council will hold a hearing tomorrow on a bill proposed by Councilman Tommy Wells (Ward 6) that would exact a 5-cent tax on every distributed paper or plastic bag in the city. This is the sort of tax that a city would only consider if it was really, really broke, and indeed it is. The opposition to the tax is being led by an unlikely pairing of interests: Big Business, and local poor community groups. Because you do NOT mess with Plastic, got it? (NBCWashington.com)
PIGEONS SMUGGLE CELL PHONES
Police say inmates are using carrier pigeons to smuggle cellphones onto a prison farm in southeastern Brazil. Police inspector Celso Soramiglio says that guards at a prison near the city of Sorocaba caught a pigeon last Wednesday with components of a small cellphone inside a bag tied to one of its legs. (USA Today)
PROOF SARCASM DOESN'T WORK IN EMAIL
The coach of a soccer team for 6- and 7-year-old girls has resigned after receiving criticism for a season-opening e-mail sent to parents. Michael Kinahan wrote in his resignation letter to the board of the Scituate Youth Soccer League that people failed to see the humor in his e-mail, in which he said "losing is for losers" and encouraged parents to feed their daughters "undercooked red meat." (MSNBC)
LIVE BLOGGING THE CONFICKER VIRUS
The Conficker worm is stirring on some infected computers in Asia where it's April 1, but so far the activity is very tame, security researchers say. "We've seen activity in honeypot machines in Asia... They're generating the 50,000 list of (potential) domains to contact," said Paul Ferguson, an advanced threats researcher for Trend Micro. The latest variant of the worm, Conficker.C, was set to activate on April 1, which for some of the infected machines will happen at local time and for others it will be GMT, depending on whether the machines are turned on and connected to the Internet, he said. (CNET)
