Dynamite

Amid renewed anxiety about air travel and tough new regulations about what passengers may bring on planes, at least seven U.S. flights were involved in security incidents Friday. In one case, a stick of dynamite was found to have been aboard a flight. The series of events, safety consultants and others said, reflected heightened emotions and appropriately tightened security in the wake of an alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners that was thwarted this month by British authorities.

A Moreno Valley man has been arrested on suspicion of the theft early this month of 500 pounds of dynamite from a mining company near Big Bear City, authorities said. Joshua Lee Gawn, 33, was arrested Friday evening by Riverside County sheriffs' deputies after a brief pursuit in Romoland. Gawn is being held in the Riverside County Jail on a vehicle theft charge and on several outstanding warrants.

Federal agents said Friday that they were searching for a Moreno Valley man in the recent theft of 500 pounds of dynamite from the Gold Mountain Mine Co. in Big Bear City. Joshua Lee Gawn, 33, a convicted burglar, could still be in the area, officials said. Gawn became a suspect after searches of his apartment and his parents' home, as well as interviews with witnesses, said John E. D'Angelo, resident agent in charge with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Thirty-six sticks of dynamite were found in a stolen pickup in Moreno Valley on Sunday, federal officials said. They were among the 686 sticks stolen from a small gold mining operation near Big Bear City this month. In addition to the dynamite, weighing about 500 pounds, a 30-pound bag of potentially explosive ammonium nitrate, fuel oil and mining equipment were also stolen.

About half of the 500 pounds of dynamite stolen from a Big Bear gold mine last week turned up in two plastic tubs in front of a Riverside fire station Wednesday, forcing the lockdown of a nearby elementary school and evacuation of about a dozen homes.

A quarter-ton of dynamite and a 30-pound bag of potentially explosive ammonium nitrate were stolen last week from a small gold-mining operation on forestland near Big Bear City, authorities said Tuesday. Gold Mountain Mine Co. reported that 686 dynamite sticks weighing about 500 pounds were stolen, along with the ammonium nitrate, fuel oil and mining equipment, according to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Laker Coach Phil Jackson has devoted plenty of time to tweaking the referees, Dallas Maverick owner Mark Cuban, and the referees again (and again) for good measure. He turned his attention to another target: TV. The Lakers have played the second game of TNT's Thursday night doubleheader eight times this season. They are almost always late nights -- the second game of the doubleheader often starts later than expected, and the TV timeouts are excruciatingly long.

There's enough tsunami trash in this Indonesian city to make a three-story-high pile covering 30 football fields. In Sri Lanka, the volume of waste dumped in lagoons and waterways is more than twice what was generated by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, by U.N. estimate. The environmental devastation in the worst-hit countries is immense, yet experts say it is secondary to what humans had already managed to inflict before the giant waves struck Dec. 26, 2004.