You might not remember Trakr the dog, but even after his death, he’s still making headlines. Trakr was the hero dog that located the last survivor amid the smoking rubble at Ground Zero. Five puppies were cloned from Trakr’s DNA after his search and rescue handler, James Symington, won the opportunity in an essay contest. Symington says the puppies look identical to Trakr, even down to the minute details. He plans to train the puppies to be rescue dogs if they have the same abilities as Trakr. “Few dogs are born with exceptional abilities – Trakr was one of those dogs,” he said in a statement released by BioArts International, the California company that arranged the cloning procedure. [People]

I’ve never been a fan of cloning, but I guess if it’s for a good cause like this—[Or cloning my dog Lucca.—Editor]—then it’s OK. I just wonder if the puppies will have any health complications or will even survive their first year, though.

After 9/11, airports became a place where every traveler is a terror suspect. In an effort to combat terror threats, some airports have turned into virtual high-tech strip joints. You might not have realized it, but the Transportation Security Administration has been testing 40 “whole-body imaging” machines at 19 airports. Critics say the machines, which cost a whopping $170,000, perform a “virtual strip search” and produce “naked” pictures of travelers. Now, protestors have started a national campaign to suspend use of the technology until privacy safeguards are set. “We don’t have the policy to hold [the TSA] to what they say. They’re writing their own rule book at this point,” said Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

A German entrepreneur is applying for a federal trademark to use the Freedom Tower to market a line of condoms. His proposed slogan is “Freedom Tower: Make Love Not War.” Clearly this guy lacks originality; he stole his product name from the main building in the new World Center Complex that has yet to be completed, and he borrowed the tagline from the ‘60s anti-war movement. Relatives of Sept. 11 victims are understandably upset, and the Port Authority, who owns the Freedom Tower, is scrambling to block his use of the name. If he needs to find an alternate name for his line of condoms, he should check our list of phallic-shaped buildings—doesn’t “Big Ben Condoms” have a nice ring to it? [NY Post]