National news briefs

Swine flu protection could take months

ATLANTA (AP) — Health officials say it will likely take until Thanksgiving before a significant number of Americans who get the swine flu vaccine are protected.

Roughly 50 million doses of vaccine are expected to be available by mid-October. But health officials say most people will need two shots, spaced three weeks apart, and that it will take a week or two after the second dose before immunity kicks in. That's five or six weeks, in all.

RNA may be a key to honey bee deaths

WASHINGTON (AP) — Researchers have a new clue to the collapse of honey bee colonies across the country — damage to the bees' internal "factories" that produce proteins.

Theories about the cause of bee colony collapse have included viruses, mites, pesticides and fungi.

The new study of sick bees disclosed fragments of ribosomal RNA in their gut, an indication of damage to the ribosomes, which make proteins necessary for life, according to a study in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

RNA, which is made from DNA, is central to protein production. The sick bees suffered an unusually high number of infections with viruses that attack the ribosome, the researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported.

Homeland Security warns of fake e-mail

WASHINGTON (AP) — Homeland Security officials are warning that some e-mails purporting to be from the department's intelligence division were fake and contained malicious software.

The e-mails actually originated from Internet addresses in Latvia and Russia, according to a brief alert from the Homeland Security Department's counterintelligence unit, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press.

The Homeland Security Department has sent the warning to the Defense Department and state and local officials after receiving complaints about the e-mails since June. They included links embedded with malware known for stealing banking data protected passwords.

Test-preparation leader dies at 90

NEW YORK (AP) — The founder of Stanley H. Kaplan Educational Centers Ltd., the nation's first test preparation company, has died. He was 90.

Stanley H. Kaplan passed away from heart failure on Sunday at his home in New York City.