Grim day for would-be China travelers.

Item 1: is everywhere, but yes, Carry-On Only traveling is going to be really difficult for a while, which is a real pain in the expletive.

Long lines are forming at Logan International Airport this morning as a foiled terrorism plot in the United Kingdom forced flight cancellations and new airport security measures.

Today, British police said they arrested 21 people in connection with the alleged plan to attack aircraft bound for the United States.

Passengers at Logan greeted the news with calm acceptance.

... Massport spokesman Phil Orlandella says there could be delays on just about all flights - overseas and domestic - because of stricter security measures being put in place.

To quote a saying we coined in our post-anthrax newsroom: "Those darned terrorists!" (And check out this "Ooops!" story from Tuesday.)

Item 2: ...is even grimmer (but of course not given nearly as much media attention). A storm nastier than Katrina is, right now, grinding across southeastern China. Around 1,500,000 people have been "relocated," but that's not nearly enough.

Yes, Ghuangzhou is in southeastern China. More south than this, but still.

Super Typhoon Saomai, the strongest to threaten China in over 50 years, slammed into the southeast coast on Thursday killing at least two people, injuring over 80 and forcing more than 1.5 million from their homes.

Saomai, one of three storms to hit East Asia in the past few days, made landfall in Zhejiang province at 0925 GMT, hitting Cangnan county just after officials there declared a state of emergency, Xinhua news agency said.

It has battered down over 1,000 houses, plunged almost all the county into darkness and knocked out nearly half of local communication links. Over 80 people are injured, the report said, quoting local sources.

Neighboring Fujian province, also affected, has reported two deaths in the city of Fuding and 12 people missing at sea after two Taiwanese boats capsized at sea near the city's harbor and a Fujianese fishing boat hit a reef, Xinhua said.

... Much of south China has been repeatedly battered by typhoons and tropical storms this year. Hundreds have been killed by rainstorms, mudslides and floods.

Tropical storm Bilis killed more than 600 in China last month and typhoon Prapiroon killed about 80 last week.

I've never heard of adoptions from Zhejiang, but I met a charming young lady from Fujian in our adoption group last April. If, you know, you need some kind of specific tie to the area to make sense of what's going on.

Item 3: ...is more for people like me who occasionally think about going back to China to teach English.

AAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

It's a new twist on globalization: For decades, Chinese made their way to the West, often illegally, to end up doing dangerous, low-paying jobs in sweatshop conditions. Now some foreigners drawn by China's growth and hunger for English lessons are landing in the schoolhouse version of the sweatshop.

In one case, an American ended up dead. Darren Russell, 35, from Calabasas, Calif., died under mysterious circumstances days after a dispute caused him to quit his teaching job in the southern city of Guangzhou. "I'm so scared. I need to get out of here," Russell said in a message left on his father's cell phone hours before his death in what Chinese authorities said was a traffic accident.