Wright Research Corporation, the city's largest employer, has announced a new licensable technology to bake information into plastic packaging and other products. Scanners will distinguish between ten different plastic materials, allowing automatic sorting for recycling. Other information can be imbedded, too.

"We see this as a major revenue stream, as municipalities across the developed world adopt aggressive recycling programs to deal with the growing landfill problem," a company spokesman said.

Privacy advocates raised concerns about intrusive, unauthorized data collection. "They're talking about imbedding prescription information in pharmaceutical containers. Somebody with a device no bigger than a PDA could scan your garbage and know you're being treated for depression, or cancer," a spokesman for HandsOffMyInfo (HOMI) stated.

Those concerns aside, the process promises to revolutionize trash disposal. "We can sort by color, by shape, by chemical makeup and date. We can know how long people take to throw things away. We can learn a great deal about people's behavior and attitudes by tracking this material flowing through their lives," the spokesman said.

"Baked In" information persists for almost as long as the material itself. "It needn't be purely commercial information, either," the spokesman said. "News of the day, poetry,

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An Eastern European leader survived an assassination attempt last month, it was revealed yesterday. The leader was unharmed, but the assassin escaped arrest. A continent-wide dragnet failed to apprehend the suspect, who was masked, but is believed to be a man due to his stature and dress.

Assassination attempts have been on the rise, statisticians report. 25% greater than last year, they threaten public officials at all levels. A city financial supervisor was wounded in the buttocks last month in the city, in another failed targeting. That culprit also vanished.

Rumors that the terrorist Morpheus is behind some of the assassination attempts are untrue. Morpheus was killed in Southern Asia late last year. Authorities say there may be a "copycat" hoping to divert scrutiny to the more famous, but deceased, outlaw.

A website, Assassination Nation, catalogs assassination attempts. "Somebody out there fancies themselves 'the garbageman,' " the site states. "And he's going to 'take out the trash' to 'places of disposal,' no matter what it takes." Such "trash talk" is unusual in espionage and even terrorist circles, experts say, which may indicate the messages may be a hoax, or the assassin an independent actor without any state or organizational affiliation.

Andres Bonifacieao

This Is More Interesting Than It Sounds

A standard reportorial activity is to do a "ride-along" in a police cruiser. Interesting things happen. Personalities emerge. It's a sure-fire story that always works.

What I did this week was a ride-along of a different sort. I rode with LeVar. He's a garbageman. Excuse me, sanitary engineer. That always sounds like a guy who designs new shapes for feminine care products, or is it just me?

LeVar loves his job. "The money's great, it keeps my upper-body muscles conditioned, which the ladies love. And I'm done by noon. Afternoons are free for whatever I want."

Of course, his day starts at four AM, but he says he likes the city at night. "This city never sleeps," he says. "I love the moonlight, which often seems slightly green to me. I call it the green world. And there are more people about than you might expect. Some very curvaceous babes, let me tell you."

Strange people, too. "This freaked me out. I was forking up a dumpster, which I do a hundred times a day. Once it's up, I see this guy in a trench coat, just standing there behind it. Staring at me. And he's wearing a mask right outta that movie, Eyes Wide Shut. We just looked at each other while the dumpster emptied, then I put it down".

But the mystery doesn't stop there. "I've seen him five, six times since.

Never moves, always lurking around dumpsters or trash cans. I've shouted at him a couple of times, you know, 'who are you?,' but he just stands there or walks away."

Garbage enthusiast? Stalker? I checked with my contacts down at the city law enforcement agency, and they've gotten reports of old Corelware-face, too, but none involving lawbreaking. In a city of

He's so easygoing, I hesitate to ask the obligatory question. But I do: has he ever found a body? "Just once, but it's a strange story. Down the street, I saw some people fighting. You know how big Martial Arts are in this city. They were kicking and flipping like squirrels on coke. One went down, and the others walked away. There's a dumpster right nearby, so I go in the truck and fork it up.

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