LONDON, England - May 28, 2010 - Students in Manchester are having their thumbprints digitally transformed into electronic codes, which can then be recognized by a computer program.

Under the scheme, pupils swipe a bar code inside the book they want to borrow then press their thumb on to a scanner to authorize the loan. Books are returned in the same way.

LONDON, England - May 28, 2010 - Tasers are being used on elderly people and children, figures revealed on Friday.

Hundreds of teenagers and more than 40 pensioners have been fired at or threatened by police armed with the electric stun weapons.

Among those hit with a 50,000-volt shock were a frail 89-year-old man and a girl aged just 14.

The figures raised fears the weapons are being overused.

BALTIMORE, Maryland - May 28, 2010 - Carl D'Andre Johnson was an accomplished architect and religious man, his brother said, not the type of person who would challenge police and wind up dead after receiving a shock from an electronic stun-gun.

But Baltimore County police say Johnson got into a rumble with officers Thursday after crashing his Toyota pickup truck near a busy highway interchange, and continued fighting after being doused with pepper spray and receiving an initial hit from a Taser.

OSHKOSH, Wisconsin - May 26, 2010 - An Army veteran in Wisconsin will be allowed to display an American flag until Memorial Day, but the symbol honoring his service in Iraq and Kosovo must come down next Tuesday, his wife told FoxNews.com.

Dawn Price, 27, of Oshkosh, Wis., said she received a call from officials at Midwest Realty Management early Wednesday indicating that she and her husband, Charlie, would be allowed to continue flying the American flag they've had in their window for months through the holiday weekend. The couple had previously been told they had to remove the flag by Saturday or face eviction due to a company policy that bans the display of flags, banners and political or religious materials.

LONDON, England - May 26, 2010 - Researchers have found that implanted identity chips can pick up computer viruses.

Reading University's Mark Gasson conducted an experiment to show how radio frequency identification (RFID) chips could become electronically infected.

He explained to Rory Cellan-Jones the risks involved with the new technology including its effects on medical implants such as pacemakers.

Click here to watch video.

OTTAWA, Canada - May 25, 2010 - The Stephen Harper regime has been monitoring political messages online, and even correcting what it considers misinformation. One local expert says the government is taking things too far.

Under the pilot program the Harper government paid a media company $75,000 to monitor and respond to online postings about the east coast seal hunt.

UBC Computer Science professor and President of the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, Richard Rosenberg, says it seems unnecessary for the government to be going this far.  "The government has a lot of power, that it feels the need to monitor public bulletin boards, or places where people express views and then to respond to that, seems to me going beyond a reasonable action the government should be taking."

DETROIT, Michigan - May 25, 2010 - Detroit Mayor Dave Bing has banned reality television crews from tagging along with police after TV cameras accompanied officers on a raid in which a 7-year-old girl was shot dead.

Bing says he also has chided Police Chief Warren Evans for not telling him that he was permitting TV cameras on raids.