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sis-stricken southern neighbor, Greece.
• With its colorful floats and masked revelers, the festival -- said to be 14 centuries old and date from pagan times -- has grown in popularity over the last decade. It attracts thousands of visitors to St. Vasilij Day celebrations on Jan. 13, welcoming in the New Year according to the Julian calendar.
• "We have had (masks of) Muslims, priests, world leaders, terrorists," said Mayor Pero Ilieski, adding that people shouldn't be offended by the outré themes: "It is only a carnival, so it is something that is not real."
• ___

• Those airport scanners with their all-too revealing body images will soon be going away.
• The Transportation Security Administration says the scanners that used a low-dose X-ray will be gone by June because the company that makes them can't fix the privacy issues. The other airport body scanners, which produce a generic outline instead of a naked image, are staying.
• The government rapidly stepped up its use of body scanners after a man snuck explosives onto a flight bound for Detroit on Christmas day in 2009.
• At first, both types of scanners showed travelers naked. The idea was that security workers could spot both metallic objects like guns as well as non-metallic items such as plastic explosives. The scanners also showed every other detail of the passenger's body, too.
• The TSA defended the scanners, saying the images couldn't be stored and were seen only by a security worker who didn't interact with the passenger. But the scans still raised privacy concerns. Congress ordered that the scanners either produce a more generic image or be removed by June.
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• The number of older people hospitalized with the flu has risen sharply, prompting federal officials to take unusual steps to make more flu medicines available and to urge wider use of them as soon as symptoms appear.
• The U.S. is about halfway through this flu season, and "it's shaping up to be a

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