Your Thursday news...
-Police are investigating a "serious" security breach after a civil servant lost top-secret documents containing the latest intelligence on al-Qaeda. The unnamed Cabinet Office employee apparently breached strict security rules when he left the papers on the seat of a train. A fellow passenger spotted the envelope containing the files and gave it to the BBC, who handed them to the police.
-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has narrowly won a House of Commons vote on extending the maximum time police can hold terror suspects to 42 days. The 42-day proposal was passed by 315 to 306.
-Google co-founder Sergey Brin has made a $5 million down payment to book a seat on a future orbital space flight, a U.S. space tourism company has said. Space Adventures says it is planning the first private space flight to the International Space Station in 2011 in a deal with the Russian space agency.
-Residents of the Midwest desperately shored up levees holding back rising rivers on Wednesday, while others abandoned their homes to the flood waters.
