United States Government Buildings

U.S. and Tanzanian officials broke ground Saturday for a new American Embassy, a year to the day after a powerful explosion ripped through the previous building, killing 11 people and injuring dozens. Investigators believe that the explosion was caused by a bomb planted by Islamic militants inside a refrigeration truck. The truck was parked outside the embassy compound in a residential neighborhood in the capital, Dar es Salaam.

As members of Congress scavenged for information after the Capitol was evacuated Sept. 11, some wandered nearby parks, tuning in news bulletins on battery-powered radios. Others gravitated to hastily assembled briefing rooms at the Capitol Police headquarters. But a small group of lawmakers, showing perhaps the best instincts of all, assembled at the doorstep of Rep. Porter J. Goss, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

The FBI in Ft. Myers, Fla., arrested the younger of two brothers wanted for questioning in the firebombing of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration office. The bombing caused $4 million in damage but no injuries, and came two days after the brothers were indicted on drug charges. John Lewis Ciganek, 22, was arrested on the drug charges. Authorities continued searching for Jeffrey A. Matthews, 23, formerly known as Jeff Ciganek.

In a visit meant to underscore the Bush administration's heightened concern about the California electricity crisis, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham met Thursday with Gov. Gray Davis in Sacramento to discuss federal energy conservation plans. "I think we have an approach that can result in significant savings," Abraham told Davis. The energy secretary said he was in California "to gauge what we can do to add to what California is already doing."

One of the eager conservative Republicans who swept into Washington on an anti-government tide last fall has been caught up in the far-reaching fallout surrounding the Oklahoma City bombing. Freshman Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Tex.) has been thrust into the limelight to explain how he received an anonymous fax about the bombing and his own links to anti-government militia groups.

Government investigators have put together a reconstruction of the moments before the Oklahoma City bombing, which indicates that the fuse attached to the bomb was lit inside the rental truck even before the Ryder vehicle came to a stop in front of the federal building. According to sources close to the case, the re-creation was done with the help of at least two video cameras located near the Alfred P.

A Pacoima man drove a stolen pickup truck through the glass doors of the Federal Building in Westwood on Thursday, narrowly missing people in the busy lobby. Russell Anthony Anzalone, 24, was immediately pulled from the truck by a building guard and arrested by FBI agents, whose offices are in the building. No injuries were reported in the lobby of the building on Wilshire Boulevard.

It took a terrorist's bomb to introduce America to the Oklahoma City Fire Department, an unsung force that has galvanized the nation with unflinching courage and down-home charm. But here in Oklahoma's capital, where a special sales tax generates $20 million a year for fire services, nobody is surprised that the men and women of the OCFD have emerged from the rubble as heroic figures in the public eye.

James D. Nichols, who is being held as a material witness in connection with the Oklahoma City bombing, once told a neighbor that Timothy J. McVeigh was testing homemade bombs and that it was possible to build one large enough to destroy a federal building, an FBI agent testified Tuesday. The FBI agent, Randal Farmer, said the conversation occurred after the neighbor visited the Nichols farm and smelled chemical fumes near a large shed. "My brother and an old Army buddy are out making bombs."

They do the dirty work, literally. On their hands, knees and sometimes their bellies, about 300 members of search and rescue teams brought in from around the country have gone about the grim and tedious task of sifting through the rubble of the federal building here, looking and listening for bomb survivors. "Our team hasn't found anybody alive yet," said Capt. Erik Heyer of the Phoenix search and rescue squad. "Just one would make us feel a lot better."

Employees at the Treasury Department were evacuated from the historic building next to the White House on Wednesday after workers complained of noxious fumes that were causing watery eyes, breathing difficulties and nausea. The fumes, described as smelling like diesel fuel, came from sewer pipes in a tunnel under Pennsylvania Avenue that connects the main Treasury building with an annex, said Alan Etter, a spokesman for the District of Columbia Fire Department.

The startling government report caught even the man who runs the place by surprise. Westwood's landmark Federal Building needs $75 million worth of repairs, the U.S. General Accounting Office disclosed in a new survey of government property. That didn't sound right to James D. Wharrie Jr., senior property manager at the well-maintained high-rise at 11000 Wilshire Blvd. True, work is underway on the 17-floor building's air-conditioning chillers.

Bill Gates' charitable foundation has pledged $10 million for what would be the biggest Capitol Hill construction project since the 19th century, a $265-million underground visitors center. "We think it's an incredibly important project, and we're proud to be a part of it," said Trevor Neilson, public affairs director for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation--the Seattle-based charity named after the Microsoft chairman and his wife.

People have lined up to get into the place for 111 years--ever since that gray winter day in 1889 when its first residents arrived after marching, military-style, 300 miles to get there. But old soldiers aren't the only ones these days who covet a spot at the 430-acre federal veterans center in West Los Angeles.

A picture of U.S. Ambassador John Kornblum in this week's issue of Der Spiegel, Germany's most influential weekly newsmagazine, shows him in a cowboy hat and sheriff's badge, blowing on the muzzle of a smoking gun. The photograph of the envoy as wannabe Wyatt Earp is from this year's Mardi Gras celebration in Cologne, where Kornblum served as master of ceremonies for the annual masquerade.

Almost all of the U.S. Commerce Department building will be reopened today after an electrical fire Friday that released dangerous chemical fumes and forced closure of the complex. "The Commerce Department is going to be open for everyone tomorrow, except those who report for work in the basement area," spokesman Morrie Goodman said Sunday. Goodman said fewer than 200 of the 3,600 people employed in the building work in the basement.

Why Oklahoma City? Although that remains one of most puzzling mysteries of last week's devastating car bomb attack, there is growing speculation here that the answer may lie with a low-key agent who heads the local field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He is the same agent who gained prominence two years ago when he served as the chief government spokesman during the long siege and fiery destruction of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Tex.

A federal Drug Enforcement Administration office in Ft. Myers, Fla., was destroyed by a firebomb Saturday, and authorities said they were studying recent drug-related indictments in an effort to identify suspects. Frank Shultz, a spokesman at DEA headquarters in Washington, said a pipe bomb was thrown through a window of the Ft. Myers field office shortly after 2 a.m., gutting the one-story structure. No one was injured.

U.S. and Tanzanian officials broke ground Saturday for a new American Embassy, a year to the day after a powerful explosion ripped through the previous building, killing 11 people and injuring dozens. Investigators believe that the explosion was caused by a bomb planted by Islamic militants inside a refrigeration truck. The truck was parked outside the embassy compound in a residential neighborhood in the capital, Dar es Salaam.

A writer who has advanced conspiracy theories about the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building surrendered Tuesday to face charges that he tried to influence a grand jury investigating the blast. Complaining that he is being persecuted for "speaking the truth," David Hoffman, 38, reported to the Oklahoma County Jail, three weeks after being indicted by the grand jury. Hoffman, who was released from jail later Tuesday, could get two years in prison if convicted on the misdemeanor charges.