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the collection of DNA swabs from suspects on arrest -- and Britain, where police held samples of almost 7 million people, more than 10 percent of the population, until a court-ordered about-face saw the incineration of a chunk of the database.
• The expanding trove of DNA in official hands has alarmed privacy campaigners, and some scientists. Recent leaks about U.S. surveillance programs by former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden have made people realize their online information and electronic communications may not be as secure as they thought. Could the same be true of the information we hold within our genes? DNA samples that can help solve robberies and murders could also, in theory, be used to track down our relatives, scan us for susceptibility to disease, or monitor our movements.
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Head of Amnesty International's Russia office plans to meet Snowden
• MOSCOW (AP) -- Two prominent Russian human rights officials say they plan to meet on Friday with Edward Snowden, the leaker of U.S. National Security Agency secrets, after receiving an invitation calling them to Moscow's Sheremetyevo international airport.
• Snowden is believed to have been stuck in the airport's transit zone since arriving from Hong Kong on June 23, as he negotiates for asylum in another country.
• Sergei Nikitin, head of Amnesty International's Russia office, told The Associated Press he will go to the meeting, but declined to give details. Tatiana Lokshina, deputy head of the Russian office of Human Rights Watch, was quoted by the news agency Interfax as saying she also would go.
• On Facebook, Lokshina posted the text of an e-mail purportedly from Snowden that she received Thursday. The text says Snowden wants to make "a brief statement and discussion regarding the next steps forward in my situation."
• It does not directly address the offers of asylum that Snowden has received from Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua, though it expresses gratitude for asylum offers and says "I hope to travel to each of them." It accuses the United States of "an unlawful campaign ... to deny my right to seek and enjoy this asylum."
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With scaled-back farm bill passed, House GOP turns to cutting food stamp program
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- House approval of a scaled-back farm bill is setting up what could be an even bigger fight over food stamps and the role of domestic food (Continued on page 29)
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