The Task Force for Mass Critical Care has issued a list of recommendations aimed at maximizing critical care services during a pandemic or other mass emergency. Their suggestions include increasing critical care capacity and independent delivery times, therapeutics and interventions, and a hierarchy of patient situations to be used in triage decision-making.

The Task Force report was created to help develop a guide for preparedness, not as a policy mandate, according to Chest , the medical journal for the American College of Chest Physicians where the recommendations were published this week.

Tallahassee, Florida - A man walks into a scuba shop and asks to buy a dozen diver propulsion vehicles without saying what they're for, or apparently knowing much about the sport of diving.

A woman shows up repeatedly at a feed store with unusually large orders for fertilizer, a potential component for a homemade bomb.

Suspicious business owners now have a new communication network, "BusinessSafe," to report their concerns to the proper authorities, Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey announced Wednesday.

AUSTRALIA is poorly placed to cope with a major natural disaster such as Hurricane Katrina or the Asian tsunami, a former head of Emergency Management Australia says.

In a paper to be published today, David Templeman, the former director-general of EMA, and Anthony Bergin, a researcher with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, warn that the focus on terrorism in recent years has overshadowed the risk of extreme natural catastrophes.

There are serious doubts that the health system could cope with a disaster involving mass casualties and there is a lack of clear leadership arrangements to co-ordinate responses by federal, state and local emergency services, they say.