Hanford High School – Two Arrested In Pipe Bomb Explosion – Hanford California

A pipe bomb exploded behind the auto shop at Hanford High School shortly after noon today. The explosion sent debris flying for 30 feet, but no one was injured.

After the incident, the school was placed on lockdown as a precautionary measure, and students were sent home at the end of the school day.

Police and ATF officials are investigating the incident, trying to find out who planted the bomb on the school campus.

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Nuclear Gauge Likely Stolen In Philadelphia

Philadelphia police said they are seeking to recover a portable nuclear gauge that was reported stolen Friday.

The device was apparently stolen from the truck bed of a construction vehicle on the 500 block of Dickinson Street, although the complainant’s truck had also recently been in the communities of Hatfield and Glenside in Montgomery County.

Police said the gauge contains small amounts of radioactive material and is used for measuring the density of soil at construction sites. It is enclosed in a bright-yellow case with an exterior decal of three triangular shapes surrounding a small circle — the universal symbol for radioactive contents.

When the gauge is in its yellow plastic case (pictured above), it does not pose any threat or harm. The container should not be opened, however, because the device inside consists of a shielding container with a plunger-type handle protruding from the top.

As long as the source elements of the gauge are in the shielded position, the gauge does not present a hazard to the public, police said. But any attempt to tamper with the device or handle the source would subject the person doing so to potentially dangerous radioactive exposure.

A similar theft occurred in March 2007. In that case, the case was found and a piece of the device was missing, but it was later recovered.

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Semi Truck Plows Into Chicago Train Station, 2 Dead, Several Injured

A fire department spokesman two people are dead and more than a dozen others injured after a tractor trailer crashed into the stairwell of a Chicago Transit Authority station during rush hour.

Spokesman Larry Langford says the two women killed Friday apparently were walking near the Cermak-Chinatown Red Line elevated train station on the city’s South Side when the collision occurred. They were dead at the scene, Fire Department spokeswoman Eve Rodriguez said.

Eighteen people were transported to area hospitals, Rodriguez said. Seven adults and four children were in critical condition, five adults were in stable condition and two adults were in good condition.

Rodriguez did not know the driver’s condition, or whether the driver was injured.

Witnesses say the truck didn’t appear to slow down before it plowed into the station.

Chicago police say the accident happened about 5:20 p.m.

WBBM reports the tractor trailer truck crashed into the north stairwell of the station, where an escalator carries passengers up to the elevated platform. The crash appears to have caused extensive damage. The truck remains jammed underneath the tracks.

“We’re working right now to get into the wreckage to find out if there are any more victims in there, triage anyone we find and deal with the medical situation,” said Fire department spokesperson Larry Langford. “And also we’re dealing with the structural integrity of the CTA platforms and the glass walls and whatnot that are around the station.”

“It’s going to take a little time to get to anyone that’s in there, but we’re moving as fast as we can,” Langford added.

Witness Maury said, “I was standing across the street from the entrance to the CTA elevated trains on Cermak, for the Cermak/Chinatown stop. Then, as I looked back towards the entrance of the train station, I saw this tractor trailer truck, and I think the company name is Xtra, he either was coming off the Dan Ryan Expressway or the Stevenson, headed north and you’re supposed to make the left on Cermak. He just, like he was out of control, went straight ahead to the base of where the escalator is to the train station.”

Authorities are still trying to confirm the cause of the accident.

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Interpol Says Terror Attack At Olympic Games Possible

The head of Interpol said on Friday that there is a “real possibility” that the Beijing Olympics will be targeted by terrorists or that anti-China groups could attack athletes.

China, whose Communist rulers value stability above all else, have come down hard on anyone they fear could upset the Games, from people protesting against the demolition of their houses for venues to the country’s sometimes restless ethnic minorities.

“An attempted act of terrorism is a real possibility and a real concern that all Olympic host countries have shared in recent years,” Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble told the opening of the International Conference on Security Cooperation in Beijing. “Recent Tibet-related protests have introduced significant additional complications to the normal security considerations for a major international event like these Olympics.” The international leg of the Olympic torch relay has been dogged by pro-Tibet and anti-China protests, following unrest in Tibet last month in which China says about 20 people died.

“In light of recent events, all countries whose athletes will participate and whose citizens will attend the Beijing Olympics must be prepared for the possibility that the groups and individuals responsible for the violence during the global torch relay could carry out their protests at the actual Games,” Noble, the police organisation’s chief full-time official, said.

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UK Police Say 3 Terror Suspects Have Been Arrested in London

Scotland Yard says it has arrested three terror suspects in London.

Britain’s Metropolitan police say the three men are aged 24, 25, and 23. They say they were arrested at separate addresses Wednesday morning by officers from the force’s Counter Terrorism Command.

Police said in a statement Friday that the men remain in custody at a central London police station.

The men have not been identified. Authorities in Britain do not usually name suspects until they are charged.

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Pipe Bomb Explodes at Fed Ex Building In San Diego

A pipe bomb exploded at a Federal Express building in Webster early this morning. The bomb blew up just before 2 a.m. at the building on 47th Avenue near Federal Boulevard and broke the glass front door and set off the alarm, San Diego police said.

The fire department found a second bomb in the parking lot and detonated it, police said.
An employee at the business was unhurt. He told investigators he thought some boxes had fallen over.

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Face Scans To Trial In Airports This Summer – UK

Airline passengers will be screened using automated facial recognition technology rather than being checked by passport officers in an attempt to improve security in British airports.

Unmanned security clearance gates will be trialled in airports from this summer, where scans will match a person’s face to the record held on computer chip in their biometric passports. Read more

Man Linked To al-Qaeda Able To Get Canadian Visa

A man suspected of having links to al-Qaeda managed to secure a visa to live in Canada and was later arrested at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, CBC’s French-language service Radio-Canada reported Thursday evening.

The man, who is of Pakistani descent, obtained a visa to temporarily reside in Canada from the High Commissioner in London, according to a secret document sent to federal Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day from Canada Border Services last July.

The note, obtained by Radio-Canada, does not reveal the identity of the man but says he is implicated in al-Qaeda’s mass destruction weapons program.

CBSA agents arrested the man on July 12, 2007, when he arrived in Toronto from Newcastle, England. While verifying his passport, they determined he had been flagged by Canadian authorities.

Customs agents interrogated the man. He then requested to be returned to England while renouncing his visa, but the pilot wouldn’t let him on the plane.

He spent one night in a Toronto detention centre before being deported back to England.

British authorities were alerted about his return, but it’s unclear where he is now.

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Operation Torch – Anti Terror Police Take To New York Subways

Operation Torch – Part of New York City’s new effort to better defend against terrorism will include the introduction of machine-gun toting NYPD “Torch Teams” in the city’s subways.

In addition to the automatic weapons, the teams will also be patrolling subways with bomb-sniffing dogs. They will be outfitted with body armor as well. Beginning Thursday they will board trains and patrol platforms in Penn Station, Rockefeller Center, and Times Square. Read more

Passengers Duct Tape Man To Seat After Struggle on LA-bound Jet

A group of passengers duct-taped a man to his seat after he attacked a United Airlines flight attendant during a trip from Hong Kong to Los Angeles, authorities said.

The Orange County man, apparently drunk, was wrestled to his seat by passengers after he attacked an attendant on United Airlines Flight 862. He was arrested when the plane landed in Los Angeles around 10 a.m. Wednesday.

His name was not immediately released and it was not immediately clear what triggered the attack, authorities said.

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16 Year Old Accused Of Plotting Attack On Indiana High School

A 16-year-old boy is accused of plotting an attack on his high school, prosecutors said Thursday, alleging that he discussed plans by e-mail with another person to carry out simultaneous “Columbine-like mass murders” in two states on Sept. 11, 2008.

Authorities detained the teen Tuesday on an initial charge of intimidation, St. Joseph County prosecutor Michael Dvorak said Thursday. His office was preparing charges of conspiracy to commit murder after authorities found more than 100 knives at his home, Dvorak said.

Authorities also found several illegal snakes at his home in Mishawaka, about 10 miles east of South Bend, Dvorak said. The boy was being held Thursday at a juvenile detention center.

A school officer investigating an unrelated threat at Penn High School discovered Internet postings in which the teen discussed his support for the Columbine shooters, Dvorak said, a reference to the 1999 massacre at a suburban Denver high school in which two students killed 12 classmates and a teacher before committing suicide.

School officials questioned the teen about his postings and learned he had exchanged e-mails Sunday with an unidentified person in which they discussed conducting “Columbine-like mass murders” at the same time on Sept. 11 at Penn and another location, Dvorak said.

Teresa Carroll, spokeswoman for the Penn-Harris-Madison School Corp., said the other location was in Ohio.

Dvorak declined to give any information about the person the teen corresponded with or what the person’s intended target may have been.

The pair also wrote about researching how to obtain weapons and make explosive devices. The teenager, a freshman, asked the other person to help him obtain a TEC-DC9 9mm pistol, stating it would be “awesome” if he could use the same weapon used in the Columbine shootings, Dvorak said.

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US Video To Link North Korea to Syrian Nuclear Reactor

The US government on Thursday will show lawmakers a video linking North Korea to a Syrian nuclear reactor the Israelis bombed in September, leading US newspapers said Thursday.

The New York Times and The Washington Post, citing unnamed senior officials said the video showed North Koreans inside the secret Syrian facility code-named Al Kibar. Read more

Six Suspects Will Be Tried a Third Time in Sears Tower Terror Plot

Federal prosecutors said Wednesday that they would try for a third time to convict six men accused of conspiring to destroy the Sears Tower in Chicago and join the ranks of Al Qaeda.

Judge Joan A. Lenard said the next trial would proceed in “the late fall or early winter.” Read more

Investigators Probing Suspected Chop Shop Find Pipe Bomb – Salt Lake City

State investigators acting on a tip about a “chop shop” operating out of a Glendale house got more than they bargained for Tuesday when they discovered a pipe bomb.

A half dozen homes were evacuated while a Salt Lake City police bomb squad and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents exploded the two-foot long metal pipe packed with fertilizer and rocket-propellant powder, said Charlie Roberts, spokesman for the Motor Vehicle Enforcement Division.

Two men living at the house were arrested. One was charged with nine felony counts, including possession of stolen vehicles, cocaine and an explosive device. Similar charges were pending on the other man, Roberts said.

Someone called to tip off state investigators about a suspected chop shop – where stolen vehicles are stripped down for parts – on the 1000 South block of Pueblo Street (1440 West), Roberts said.

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