Weapons Seizures

Colombia's Defense Ministry said Wednesday night that it had recovered uranium that officials have alleged leftist rebels might have acquired to make a "dirty bomb." In a statement, the ministry said informants last week brought military intelligence officers a chemical sample, which tests found to be "degraded uranium." On Wednesday night, officials were at the site a few miles south of Bogota to recover the source of the sample, a cache weighing up to 66 pounds.

Firefighters responding to a house fire in a Norco neighborhood were greeted with a dangerous surprise: gunfire. Lots of it. Authorities on Thursday found a cache containing more than 1 million rounds of ammunition and 75 firearms, ranging from small handguns to assault rifles, throughout the burning home and in a shaft and tunnel under the garage. The firefighters realized the stockpile was inside when rounds started going off. No injuries were reported.

A federal crackdown on the illegal sale of F-14 fighter jet parts to Iran led to the seizure of four privately owned military aircraft in San Bernardino County this week, after one jet owner surfaced in a sting operation to thwart the sale of an F-14 cockpit canopy, authorities said. As military technicians dismantled the fighters Wednesday at airports in Chino and Victorville, federal officials said the investigation was continuing and no criminal charges had yet been filed.

A Boyle Heights day-care facility also housed a large cache of drugs, weapons and money, Los Angeles police said Wednesday. LAPD Lt. Paul Vernon said officers raided the duplex in the 800 block of Esperanza Street about 11 p.m. Tuesday and found 14 kilos of cocaine, 50 pounds of marijuana, a stash of firearms and $300,000 cash. "We found more in the house than we expected. Once inside we found the city permit for a day-care facility posted on the wall," said Vernon.

A Cuban exile arrested on suspicion of stashing more than 1,000 guns in his Upland home told federal authorities that the weapons were for a quasi-military group bent on overthrowing President Fidel Castro, but police officials said that may be a cover story for a black-market gun ring.

A Cuban exile who said he stashed nearly 1,400 machine guns, grenades and rifles in his Upland home to help a paramilitary group overthrow President Fidel Castro was indicted this week on federal weapons charges, officials announced Friday. Robert Ferro, 61, faces five felony counts for allegedly storing the weapons, some of which were unregistered. Each count carries up to 10 years in prison. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office said additional charges could be filed.

Robert Ferro, the Upland man arrested last month for allegedly possessing more than 1,500 guns and explosive devices inside his home, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a five-count federal indictment of illegally storing weapons. Ferro, 61, is a Cuban exile who has said he stashed the weapons to help a paramilitary group overthrow President Fidel Castro. A U.S. District judge scheduled Ferro's trial for July 11 in Riverside.

Security screeners at Los Angeles County's 48 court buildings last year confiscated 53,302 knives, 24,783 scissors, 21,014 razors, 8,208 pairs of handcuffs and 114 stun guns -- enough to equip a small army. Those figures form one of the more interesting -- and unsettling -- statistical categories in the latest Los Angeles County Superior Court annual report. The review found that the number of banned weapons seized jumped to 245,868 from 199,015 two years earlier.

It was a photo that foiled a yearlong bid Wednesday to craft a final Protestant-Catholic power-sharing accord for Northern Ireland, although British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, held out hope that public pressure might yet push the two sides to a settlement.

Holding a TEC-9 handgun, county Supervisor Mike Antonovich announced Friday an expansion of a Probation Department program to disarm gang members. Over the next six months, probation officers will target Palmdale, Lancaster, Chatsworth and Altadena, searching probationers suspected of illegally possessing weapons.