TSA to allow small scissors, tools on planes

WASHINGTON -- Airline passengers will be allowed to carry small scissors and tools onto planes, reversing a rule that led to confiscation of thousands of sharp objects since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, a Homeland Security Department official said Wednesday. Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley on Friday will announce changes to the list of items prohibited in carry-on luggage and to the airport screening process, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan has yet to be announced. Though the new list of prohibited items hasn't been finalized, certain sharp objects won't be on it, the official said, including scissors less than 4 inches long and wrenches and screwdrivers less than 7 inches long.

Pharmacists disciplined over morning-after pill

ST. LOUIS -- Walgreen Co. said it has put four Illinois pharmacists in the St. Louis area on unpaid leave for refusing to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception in violation of a state rule. The four cited religious or moral objections to filling prescriptions for the morning-after pill and "have said they would like to maintain their right to refuse to dispense, and in Illinois that is not an option," Walgreen spokeswoman Tiffani Bruce said.

Two Saudi women elected to chamber of commerce

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Two businesswomen have become Saudi Arabia's first female elected officials, a historic step in a deeply conservative country where women are largely barred from public life. Saudi officials said Wednesday that Lama al-Sulaiman and Nashwa Taher had won election to the board of Jiddah's chamber of commerce. The chamber's weekend elections were the first in Saudi Arabia in which women were allowed to run and vote.

-- From wire reports

Saturn's moon Titan has dramatic weather

PARIS -- Saturn's planet-size moon Titan has dramatic weather, with turbulent high-altitude winds, periodic floods of liquid methane and possibly lightning, scientists said Wednesday in describing a world that may look like Earth before life developed. The European Space Agency's probe landed on Titan in January, uncovering some mysteries of the methane-rich globe -- the only moon in the solar system known to have a thick atmosphere. Scientists presented detailed results of months of study in the online edition of the journal Nature and at a news conference in Paris. Titan, located 740 million miles from Earth, has long intrigued researchers because it is surrounded by a thick blanket of nitrogen and methane. Until recently, scientists believed the most likely explanation for the methane was the presence of a methane-rich sea of hydrocarbons.