Briefcase

Turkish authorities detained three Iranians found with a briefcase containing a sophisticated booby-trap device, police said Tuesday. They said the Iranians--two men and a woman--were seized at Ankara airport on Saturday as they tried to avoid passing the case through an X-ray machine on their way to board a plane to Turkish north Cyprus.

Reporting from Sacramento -- A California lawmaker who has been a vocal advocate for gun rights was detained by police Wednesday at Ontario International Airport after attempting to take a loaded gun onto an airplane. Tim Donnelly, a Republican from San Bernardino and the Assembly's lone tea party member, was headed for a Sacramento-bound flight to attend the opening of the new legislative year. Authorities said screeners at the security checkpoint discovered a loaded .45-caliber Colt Mark IV pistol and an ammunition magazine with an additional five rounds in his carry-on luggage.

A briefcase packed with explosives went off at the Beirut Airport passenger terminal today, killing six people and wounding 73 others, police said. The airport, reopened earlier this week after a five-day strike, was teeming with travelers when the bomb went off at 3:58 p.m. Police said most of the dead and wounded were Lebanese and other Arabs and were airport employees or people who had come to see relatives off on flights.

A blast outside India's Delhi High Court on Wednesday morning that authorities said resulted from a terror attack killed at least 11 people and injured dozens,the biggest to hit the Indian capital since a series of market blasts detonated three years ago, killing 25. U.K. Bansal, special home secretary, told local media that early suspicion pointed to a device hidden in a briefcase. Court proceedings were suspended, the complex evacuated and India's capital placed on high alert. Several news organizations reported receiving an email allegedly from Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami (HUJI)

Recently my young son's school wisely canceled a field trip to the local post office that had been arranged before Sept. 11 and the anthrax scare. Only then did I fully grasp how my life is changing in tiny particulars, like hesitating to open my mail and avoiding the post office. I thought: Hold on, I've been here before. Specifically, in England, where for 20 years I lived cheek by jowl, in the center of London, with calculated political terrorism committed by the Irish Republican Army.

Thirteen years ago, I was returning to Australia from a film festival in Sorrento, Italy, where Fred Schepisi's film of my novel "The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith" had been shown. In those days Australia wasn't quite the glamour destination it is now. There were only two flights a week from Los Angeles to Sydney. Between planes, my publisher got me to do some book promotion, and I found myself staying in the splendid Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Among my luggage was a briefcase with a sprung hinge, caused by packing in too much film festival bumf.

For months, a mysterious vandal has been slapping hundreds of "Who Is John Scott?" stickers on buses around Los Angeles. Authorities expected the vandalism to be the work of teenage "slap taggers," who hit buses, street signs and light poles with stickers advertising shoes, skateboards, music bands and sometime their own hand-drawn monikers. But the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's anti-graffiti detail got a surprise when it finally tracked down the man allegedly behind "Who Is John Scott?"

Torrance police were searching Friday for a would-be bank robber who pulled a gun on a Security Pacific Bank manager in a Del Amo Fashion Center parking garage Friday morning, handcuffed a briefcase to her wrist and warned that a bomb inside would explode if she did not return quickly with cash. Lt. Wally Murker said bank manager Pamela Sellars was told that she, her family and bank employees would be harmed if she did not return within 10 minutes. Upon entering the bank, Murker said Sellars had employees call police, who arrived at the bank, unlocked the handcuffs and removed the briefcase.

A briefcase packed with explosives blew up in a crowded passenger terminal at Beirut's airport, killing six people, including the woman who carried it, and wounding 73 others, including a number of children, police said. The blast occurred a day after the airport reopened following a five-day general strike that had paralyzed the nation's air traffic.

Bomb threats at a Los Angeles hotel and church turned out to be duds. Sheriff's deputies evacuated a six-block stretch of Sunset Boulevard after a bomb threat was phoned in to the Hyatt House at 8401 Sunset Blvd. But deputies found only a 14-inch-long envelope with wires coming out of it that turned out to be harmless.

U.S. flights delayed three hours or more have declined dramatically over the last year, with the latest report showing a drop from 82 flights in April 2009 to only four this April. Airline representatives say the industry has been working to reduce such delays for some time. But critics wonder. Passenger rights activists believe the decline has something to do with the new fines imposed by the Obama administration against airlines that leave passengers sitting on a tarmac for three hours or more.

By the end of next year, the Transportation Security Administration hopes to have nearly 1,000 full-body scanners to screen passengers at airports across the country. Two are already operational at Los Angeles International Airport. But a group of doctors and professors from UC San Francisco are raising new concerns about the safety of the technology in one type of full-body scanner built by Torrance-based Rapiscan Inc. To reveal weapons hidden under a traveler's clothes, the scanner relies on "backscatter technology," which uses the ricochets from low-level X-rays to create what looks like a nude image of the person.

The Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull, whose name no one can seem to pronounce (it's ay-yah-FYAH-lah-yer-kuhl ), made a pronounced impact on business travel last month. More than 80% of the 234 businesses worldwide surveyed by the National Business Travelers Assn. said they had employees either stranded or delayed because the volcano's eruption grounded thousands of flights into and out of Europe. In all, more than 310,000 business travelers were stuck away from home, costing each company an average of nearly $200,000 in unexpected travel expenses, according to the survey released last month.

At a time when passenger airplanes are increasingly empty because of falling demand, American Airlines has found a profitable way to fill its aircraft and executive lounges. The carrier has opened its gates, cabins and cockpits to Hollywood. George Clooney's upcoming movie "Up in the Air" is the story of a corporate downsizing consultant -- a hired executioner -- who flies across the country, laying off workers in his own warm yet efficient way. In the process, he works to meet his self-imposed goal of collecting 10 million frequent-flier miles.

For months, a mysterious vandal has been slapping hundreds of "Who Is John Scott?" stickers on buses around Los Angeles. Authorities expected the vandalism to be the work of teenage "slap taggers," who hit buses, street signs and light poles with stickers advertising shoes, skateboards, music bands and sometime their own hand-drawn monikers. But the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's anti-graffiti detail got a surprise when it finally tracked down the man allegedly behind "Who Is John Scott?"

Brazilian military officials announced Saturday that they had found two bodies and some debris from the Paris-bound Air France flight that disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean with 228 passengers and crew aboard. Two male bodies, a leather briefcase containing an Air France boarding pass, a numbered blue seat and a nylon backpack were fished out of the ocean about 400 miles northeast of the Fernando de Noronha archipelago off Brazil's northern coast, Col.

With the American Bar Assn. split over abortion, this week figured to be a rough one for ABA President L. Stanley Chauvin Jr. but he didn't figure just how rough. Last Sunday, the Louisville, Ky., lawyer flew here to prepare for the upcoming meeting, carrying a briefcase containing $55,000 in $100 bills. The money belonged to an unidentified client, he said, and "was escrowed with me" concerning a civil matter. Checking into the Hyatt Regency Hotel, he put the briefcase in a safe-deposit box.

The head of the Philippine commission investigating alleged corruption in the regime of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos was robbed of his briefcase, which contained copies of papers related to the inquiry, police reported Friday. Jovito R. Salonga, his wife, Lydia, and their daughter, Victoria, were in a Korean restaurant in midtown Thursday night when a man pointed out five $1 bills under a table, Sgt. Raymond O'Donnell said.

Kenneth Kahn, a Los Angeles criminal defense attorney who had a side career as a briefcase-toting comic in a double-breasted suit who irreverently poked fun at the legal system, has died. He was 66. Kahn, a Santa Monica resident, died Wednesday in a hospital in Cuzco, Peru, after suffering massive internal injuries in a fall while climbing the mountain above the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu alone, according to information provided to Bob Mazza, Kahn's public relations consultant.

Police are searching for a convicted felon with a record of police battery who fled his own fraud trial Tuesday. Mark Thomas Georgantas, 46, of Tustin was found guilty of using stolen credit card information to buy parts and make payments for his fireplace product business, Fire on Ice. Orange County prosecutors said he skipped out on the ninth day of his trial under the guise of using the restroom. Though he vanished Tuesday, he was convicted in absentia the next day. In January 2006, Georgantas was arrested in a Costa Mesa hotel lobby on a probation violation in another business fraud case, prosecutors said.