Someone performed Internet searches for "neck breaking" and "household weapons" on the home computer of a Florida mother charged with killing her missing 3-year-old daughter, according to court documents released Wednesday.

The Orange County State Attorney's office released almost 800 pages of discovery documents in the case of 22-year-old Casey Anthony, who has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and other charges in the June disappearance of her daughter Caylee.

In mid-March, someone used the Anthonys' home laptop to search Google and Wikipedia for peroxide, shovels, acetone, alcohol and chloroform. Traces of chloroform, which is used to induce unconsciousness and also a component of human decomposition, were found in the trunk of Casey Anthony's car during forensic testing, the documents say.

Caylee has not been seen since June, but she wasn't reported missing until a month later. The child's grandmother first called authorities in July to say she hadn't seen Caylee for a month and her daughter's car smelled like death.

Anthony told authorities she had left her daughter with a baby sitter in June and the two were gone when she returned from work. Documents traced the unsuccessful efforts of investigators to find the woman.

Anthony says she spent the next month trying to find her daughter and didn't call authorities because she was scared. Investigators say they have poked several holes in her story.

Other information depicted in the documents includes:

- Text messages in which Casey writes, "I am the dumbest person and the worst mother. Honestly hate myself," and calls Caylee a "little snothead."

- In an instant-message exchange with a boyfriend who calls Caylee an expletive for wanting more lunch, Casey responds, "Ha. Ha." She follows with "I'm pretty vicious."

In a later exchange, Casey writes, "You know what you're getting into with me, and I'm sorry, Caylee has to come first."

- E-mails from Rick Pleasa, brother of Casey's mother Cindy, in which he calls her support of Casey "ignorant and intolerable" and suggests she get psychiatric help.

"I would believe in the tooth fairy or ET or Santa before I trusted and believed in Casey," he also wrote.

- Interviews with more than a dozen friends and relatives of Casey who said they never met the babysitter who was supposedly staying with the child.

Todd Black, a spokesman for Casey Anthony's attorney Jose Baez, said the standard procedure for defense attorneys was to review discovery documents for a few days before commenting.

Later Wednesday, Circuit Judge Stan Strickland denied a prosecutor's request for a wide-ranging gag order. Strickland ruled the state did not prove that national TV appearances by Baez and other comments in the media would sufficiently prejudice the jury pool.

"Even with a gag order the publicity and media attention would continue unabated," Strickland wrote in his opinion.

Strickland said attorneys on both sides already are bound to a Florida Bar statute prohibiting comments that are false or would otherwise taint the jury pool.

Police bolstered security in subways and trains Wednesday after the government warned that al-Qaida suicide bombers were contemplating an attack on New York's mass-transit systems during the holiday season. An internal memo obtained by The Associated Press says the FBI has received a "plausible but unsubstantiated" report that al-Qaida terrorists in late September may have discussed attacking the subway system.

The internal bulletin says al-Qaida terrorists "in late September may have discussed targeting transit systems in and around New York City. These discussions reportedly involved the use of suicide bombers or explosives placed on subway/passenger rail systems," according to the document.

"We have no specific details to confirm that this plot has developed beyond aspirational planning, but we are issuing this warning out of concern that such an attack could possibly be conducted during the forthcoming holiday season," according to the warning dated Tuesday.

A person briefed on the matter, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the intelligence-gathering work, said the threat may also be directed at the passenger rail lines running through New York, such as Amtrak and the Long Island Rail Road, which are particularly busy with Thanksgiving holiday travelers.

A federal law enforcement official said there's no indication that anyone involved in the planning is in the United States. That official also spoke on condition of anonymity because it involved intelligence-gathering.

While law enforcement stepped up patrols around subways and trains, many commuters around the city were unfazed by the news and had not even heard of the threat.

"If you get scared that means they win," commuter Omid Sima said on the platform of the subway below Rockefeller Center. "There's always been terror warnings. I can't change my life because of that."

The Big Apple's tightly packed passenger trains and subway cars have long been a source of concern for police officers - and a tempting target for would-be terrorists - but there is often disagreement as to how seriously authorities should take specific intelligence reports.

The city has more than 450 subway stations that handle millions of commuters every day.

A Pakistani immigrant was arrested and convicted for a scheme to blow up the subway station at Herald Square in 2004. There was also a planned cyanide attack on the subways by al-Qaida operatives that authorities say was called off in 2002; another aborted al-Qaida plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge in 2003; and a plot to bomb underwater train tunnels to flood lower Manhattan, which was broken up in 2006 by several arrests overseas.

Three years ago, authorities weighed reports that bombers might try to use baby strollers to bring explosives into city trains. Many security officials later concluded that was a false alarm.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said they have received an unsubstantiated report and as a result have "deployed additional resources in the mass transit system."

While federal agencies regularly issue all sorts of advisory warnings, the language of this one is particularly blunt.

Intelligence and homeland security officials are working with local authorities to try to corroborate the information "and will continue to investigate every possible lead," the memo says.

Rep. Peter King, the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, said authorities "have very real specifics as to who it is and where the conversation took place and who conducted it."

"It certainly involves suicide bombing attacks on the mass transit system in and around New York and it's plausible, but there's no evidence yet that it's in the process of being carried out," King said.

Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said the warning was issued "out of an abundance of caution going into this holiday season."

No changes are being made to the nation's threat level, or for transit systems at this time, he said.

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko confirmed only that his agency and the Homeland Security Department issued a bulletin Tuesday night to state and local authorities, and the information is being reviewed.

The 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, which ends Sunday, seemed to strike the United States and Cuba as if on redial, setting at least five weather records for persistence and repeatedly striking the same areas.

"It was pretty relentless in a large number of big strikes," said Georgia Tech atmospheric sciences professor Judith Curry. "We just didn't have the huge monster where a lot of people lost their lives, but we had a lot of damage, a lot of damage."

Data on death and damage are still being calculated, but the insurance industry recorded at least $10.6 billion in losses this hurricane season. That includes $8.1 billion in insured damage from Hurricane Ike, which ranked as the seventh most expensive catastrophe in the United States history, according to Mike Barry of the Insurance Information Institute in New York.

Three records showed the hurricane season's relentlessness. Six consecutive named storms - Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike - struck the U.S. mainland, something that had not been seen in recorded history. It's also the first time a major hurricane, those with winds of at least 111 mph, formed in five consecutive months, July through November. And Bertha spun about for 17 days, making it the longest lived storm in July.

Two records involve storms hitting the same places repeatedly. Rain-heavy Fay was the only storm to hit the same state - Florida - four times, leaving heavy flood damage in its wake. A record three major hurricanes smacked Cuba: Gustav, Ike and Paloma.

Upper air currents helped storms get bigger and focused them into a few places - Cuba and the U.S. Gulf Coast - said Gerry Bell, the top hurricane forecaster at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center. Five of the six storms that hit the United States this season struck the Gulf Coast.

And that repeat-tracking of storms to the same place - and with it increased likelihood of landfall - is typical of years when the hurricane season is on overdrive, like this year, Bell said.

This year wasn't the busiest ever. It merely tied for the fourth most named storms in history with 16. The 2005 season shattered all records with 28 tropical storms and hurricanes.

The 2008 season was busy largely because of the natural cycles of high and low storm activity that last anywhere from 25 to 40 years.

"This one started in 1995. Based on the historical record, we're right in the middle of an active era," Bell said.

An average season has 11 named storms, six of which become hurricanes. This year there were eight hurricanes, of which five - Bertha, Gustav, Ike, Omar and Paloma - became major hurricanes.

Three of those - Gustav, Ike and Paloma - made "extreme" Category 4, where winds have to be at least 131 mph. "That's a lot," Bell said. "But it's typical of a very active season such as what we saw."

Curry said this year's large number of Category 4 storms indicates a "signal" of global warming. But Bell said the science is not quite clear on that.

At the National Hurricane Center one thing is clear. Meteorologist and spokesman Dennis Feltgen said: "We're glad it's over."

Early this month, when it looked like same-sex marriage was on the rocks in California, gay rights activists summed up their angst about the upcoming Proposition 8 vote with four wistful words: What would Harvey do?

Harvey was Harvey Milk, the late San Francisco supervisor and subject of "Milk," the film that opened this week about the pioneering gay politician assassinated along with Mayor George Moscone 30 years ago Thursday.

There are parallels between the gay rights battle of Milk's time and today. Defeating a ballot measure - a ban on openly gay teachers in public schools - was the apex of Milk's short career. And now, with passage of California's ban on gay marriage, activists re-examining Milk's legacy are questioning whether an outsized political leader could have made the difference this time.

"Harvey Milk came from a politics of real discomfort. There was a righteous rage that was motivating him and the people he was working with," said Rafael Mandelman, president of a local gay Democratic club renamed for Milk. "Maybe the community got too comfortable."

Even in Milk's day, California was the center of a national fight pitting gays seeking expanded rights against conservatives espousing traditional values. In both cases, proponents of the ballot measures warned that schoolchildren would be taught a gay "agenda" if the initiatives failed.

The gay community corralled support from high-profile Democrats - President Jimmy Carter three decades ago and presidential candidate Barack Obama this year - and Republicans alike. In persuading Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to come out against Proposition 8, gay leaders reminded him that another actor-turned-politician, Ronald Reagan, opposed the gay teacher ban in 1978.

Milk's contemporaries say the campaign against the marriage ban lacked a fiery figurehead to challenge gays to demand equality. When he was not debating state Sen. John Briggs, the Orange County lawmaker who sponsored the gay teacher ban, Milk rallied potential volunteers with a cry: "Come out, come out wherever you are!"

The Election Night triumph Milk celebrated 20 days before his death "shows you that an ideal - well-organized and well-articulated - can go a long, long way," said Tory Hartmann, a Democratic activist in the 1970s. "It just takes one person."

In contrast, some activists have criticized the No on 8 campaign for being too reactive, failing to mobilize ethnic and churchgoing Democratic voters, and keeping gay couples out of advertisements.

David Mixner, who co-managed the campaign against the teachers ban, said same-sex couples might still have the right to wed in California if today's leaders had been less polite.

"It wasn't that Harvey was universally loved back then," Mixner said. "He was a hard-core player and at times he was difficult to love, but ... damn, did I respect him."

A new generation of activists is using the film's release as a rallying point. The organizers of the nationwide protests against Proposition 8's passage held this month are calling on same-sex marriage supporters to fill movie theaters on Dec. 5 to show their financial clout.

Along with "Milk," the story of the boyish gay martyr who is regarded as the Martin Luther King Jr. of the gay civil rights struggle has inspired documentaries, a Broadway play and namesakes as varied as a New York City high school for gay teenagers and a grove of trees in Israel.

Days before the Nov. 27, 1978, assassinations, county Supervisor Dan White had resigned from the board. He blamed Milk and Moscone when the mayor refused to reappoint him. White, a former police officer, sneaked through a window at City Hall to avoid a metal detector and shot both men.

After a jury convicted White of manslaughter instead of murder, thousands rioted in protest. White served about three years in prison, was released, then committed suicide.

To this day, it remains a matter of dispute whether White targeted Milk because he was gay.

"This had nothing to do with sexual orientation. It had to do with getting back his position," said U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who was president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1978 and replaced Moscone as mayor. "Dan White was a troubled man under a lot of pressure."

Feinstein found Milk's body.

The memories are so raw that she is skipping the chance to see herself portrayed in the movie. Feinstein also declined to attend the dedication Tuesday of a job training center on an old Treasure Island military base renamed in Milk's honor.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former Mayor Willie Brown, U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee and others unveiled a bronze sculpture of Milk outside the building, which is believed to be the first federal structure named for an openly gay person.