Explosives

The Orange County Sheriff's Department bomb squad Monday destroyed explosives found under shrubs on a hillside at O'Neill Regional Park. Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino said investigators were notified about 7:30 a.m. Monday that explosives were buried in the yard of a home on Via Taliana. He said investigators found empty holes there but no explosives. A resident of the home, however, said he had dug up explosives and placed them at the nearby park, Amormino said. The explosives were recovered and detonated in a containment cylinder.

DALLAS — If you're looking for quiet and unassuming, Jordan Burroughs might not be your man. Not that you would expect reticence from someone who spends his days grabbing people and throwing them to the ground. This is a guy who does not hesitate to proclaim himself the new "face of USA wrestling. " A guy who will be tweeting from the 2012 London Olympics under the name "alliseeisgold. " "Obviously, it rubs some people the wrong way," he said. "A lot of people mistake my confidence for cockiness.

An 18-year-old student accused of planning to bomb his high school was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and could face life in prison if convicted. Authorities allege that Ryan Schallenberger planned to detonate explosives in a suicide attack on his school in the small town of Chesterfield.

WASHINGTON - The crowded US Airways flight from Paris to Charlotte, N.C., had just reached the northeastern tip of Canada when one of the passengers, a French citizen who was born in Cameroon, handed a flight attendant a cryptic note that said she had something hidden inside her body. Alarmed that the woman could be carrying a surgically implanted bomb, the crew notified authorities. U.S. f ighter jets were scrambled, and the pilot was told to make an emergency landing in Bangor, Maine.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in two war-on-terrorism cases Tuesday -- one that tests whether American civilians can seek the help of American courts if they are held in Iraq, and the other to determine whether the man who plotted to bomb Los Angeles International Airport will serve his full 22-year prison term. In both cases, the justices sounded as though they would rule on the side of the Bush administration. The first case, Munaf vs.

A Valencia man faces charges in U. S. District Court today for allegedly possessing three unregistered, fully automatic firearms, found among a cache of weapons and military explosives in his home. The arraignment was postponed from Wednesday when disagreement arose whether Joseph Yohanna, 31, should be allowed to post bail, said Carole Levitsky, public affairs officer for the U. S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.

A 19-year-old Army private was charged Thursday with trying to board a Los Angeles-bound commercial flight with a small amount of explosive material he had taken from a training session. Federal authorities said there were no indications of terrorism. Pfc. Christopher Wey told investigators he found the half-ounce of the explosive C4 after being terminated from a training course at the Army's Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, court records said. No information was released about the cause of his termination.

Say what? A TWA jet was used for bomb training practice (Sept. 21)? Can this material detonate? Who inventoried explosives on and off the plane? Did they get it all? Why use real planes anyway? Wouldn't surplus out-of-service planes suffice? What did happen to Flight 800? What does the FBI know? Who investigates the FBI? What, me worry? STEVE CLOSE Montecito

Santa Monica police have arrested a 16-year-old boy they said was found with homemade explosives at his apartment. Officers were conducting a routine probation check about 7 p.m. Wednesday at the teen's home in the 1100 block of 12th Street near Wilshire Boulevard when they found a 3-inch PVC pipe bomb and firecrackers, including illegal M-80s, said Sgt. Rich Lewis of the Santa Monica Police Department. Information about the boy's probation was unavailable. Lewis said they also found a white powder, which the boy identified as ammonium nitrate, a substance commonly used to make explosives.

Authorities are trying to piece together how ? and why ? a 54-year-old Serbian emigre acquired large quantities of explosive ingredients that could be used to make the kind of bombs favored by terrorists, including insurgents trying to kill U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The work of a squad of local, state and federal explosives experts is being made more difficult because the one-story, stucco house in a leafy Escondido-area neighborhood where the material was found is considered too dangerous to reenter.

WASHINGTON - The FBI is analyzing a sophisticated explosive device, similar to the underwear bomb used in an attempt to blow up a passenger jet over Detroit in 2009, that U.S. officials believe was built by Al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen in an effort to target Western aircraft. U.S. officials said Monday that no one was captured by U.S. agencies as part of the operation. The officials emphasized that they found no sign of an active plot to use the new bomb design against U.S. aviation or U.S.-bound jetliners.

In a second-grade homework assignment, Stephen J. Dunning wrote about his future in a passage that would be as brief as it was portentous. He wanted to go to college and he wanted to become a United States Marine. His father, Robert, who flew helicopters in the Marine Corps, hadn't stopped to consider its meaning. But after his son's death at age 31 on Oct. 27 in Afghanistan's Helmand province, the elder Dunning said those words, accompanied by a crayon self-portrait on the faded page, took on new, touching significance.

The superhero extravaganza "The Avengers"marks the first of many movies that will feature motorcycles racing onto the big screen this summer. Not only will Captain America helm a Harley-Davidsonin the big-budget Marvel movie, but one of the leads of "Men in Black" will time-travel to 1969 on board an "Easy Rider"-esque chopper. A circus bear will even throw a furry leg over a Ducati in the animated feature "Madagascar 3. " Motorcycles have long played a part in the movies, but as summer films become more explosive and adventure oriented, two wheels are playing a larger role.

Five men who called themselves anarchists were preparing to commemorate May Day, the international workers holiday, by taking violent political action. They planted what they thought were demolition charges on a bridge crossing the Cuyahoga Valley National Park south of downtown Cleveland and drove to a spot several miles away. There, they punched in the code that they thought would detonate the explosives, federal officials allege. But nothing happened. Instead, law enforcement officers from a variety of agencies including the FBI arrested the five Monday night, charging them with conspiracy and trying to bomb property used in interstate commerce.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Turban bombs had become too obvious. So the two men who apparently set out Saturday to assassinate Kandahar's governor looked to their footwear instead. The assailants used the unusual tactic of concealing weapons and explosives in their boots to make their way past police checkpoints and into the governor's heavily guarded compound in the city of Kandahar, leading to a gun battle that left them and two Afghan police officers dead, a provincial spokesman said.

BEIRUT - United Nations monitors on Thursday visited the scene of an explosion in the Syrian city of Hama that antigovernment activists said had killed 70 people, many of them women and children. Homes in the Mashaa al-Tayyar neighborhood were targeted Wednesday, they said, by rockets or shells fired by forces loyal to President Bashar Assad. State media blamed the explosion on a "terrorist group" that accidentally set off an explosive in a house used to make bombs. Sixteen people died and 12 were injured, the report said.

A tractor-trailer carrying explosives, including dynamite and a mixture of ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel, overturned early Wednesday, and about 30 people living in this Atlanta suburb were evacuated. No fire or injuries were reported, police said. The truck belonged to an explosives manufacturing company called Explosives Technology International in Whitesburg, authorities said.

California 70 through the northern Sierra town of Quincy has reopened after being closed for 10 hours while authorities removed a cache of explosives and fireworks. More than 500 sticks of dynamite and several pounds of explosive chemicals were found Thursday under a mobile home one block from the Plumas County Courthouse. The downtown area was evacuated until a bomb squad could remove and detonate the explosives. Sheriff's deputies estimated the explosives could have caused damage up to half a mile away.

DALLAS — On Jan. 1, 2011, Caron Butler went down because of a ruptured right patella tendon at Milwaukee when he played for the Dallas Mavericks, his season ending after knee surgery four days later. Nearly a year after the injury, Butler played in his first regular-season game, this time as a Clipper when they played at Golden State on Dec. 25. With the 2011-12 regular season winding down, Butler said he's just starting to get his knee right after the serious injury.

A series of explosions and shootings struck Iraq on Tuesday, leaving scores dead and injured a week before a major Arab summit in Baghdad aimed at showcasing the nation's stability after the U.S. military withdrawal. Starting shortly after dawn, at least 20 bombs exploded at 13 sites, from Baghdad to the northern city of Kirkuk to the southern cities of Hillah and Karbala. The nationwide death toll was at least 46, with more than 200 injured, the Associated Press reported. At least two car bombs exploded near the heavily fortified Green Zone, where next week's Arab League summit is scheduled to take place.