Unplugged metal detector delays flights in LA

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The discovery of an unplugged metal detector forced the evacuation of five terminals at Los Angeles International Airport early Thursday and delayed more than 300 flights, authorities said.

Hundreds of passengers from terminals No. 4 through 8 had to be rescreened at security checkpoints after authorities discovered at 6:30 a.m. that a metal detector was not working at Terminal 4, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jerry Snyder.

Passengers jammed the sidewalks outside the terminals and began the rescreening at about 8:20 a.m., LAX spokesman Harold Johnson said.

About 325 departing flights from several major airlines, including American, Delta, United and Continental were delayed, he said.

Pipe bursts in St. Louis municipal court

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A pipe burst in a storage room of the St. Louis municipal court building, spraying hot water onto evidence and possibly damaging hundreds of cases, authorities said.

Most of the material involved suspects already convicted, but the damage could be a problem in appeals, said St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce.

Wednesday’s water and steam damage also could hurt plans to review convictions made before DNA testing became readily available in the 1990s, she said.

Among the items are bed sheets and clothing containing blood, semen or other dried liquid evidence.

Joyce didn’t yet know how many cases were affected of how much evidence was ruined.
The pipe may have leaked for as long as six hours before it was fixed, authorities said.

Pledge of Allegiance sees revival in public schools

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Responding to the post-Sept. 11 burst of patriotism, state lawmakers around the country want to put the Pledge of Allegiance into more public schools.

Half the states now require the pledge as part of the school day, and half a dozen more recommend it, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. This year, bills to make the oath mandatory have been brought up in Connecticut, Illinois, Missouri, Minnesota, Colorado, Mississippi and Indiana.

A similar movement is under way to post the motto “In God We Trust” in schools. Michigan passed a law in December that makes it clear that the motto can be hung in schools. Florida, Utah, Arizona, Virginia, Louisiana and New Jersey are considering similar legislation.

500 hours of Nixon tapes released, available to public

COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — A few weeks before ordering an escalation of the Vietnam War, President Nixon matter-of-factly raised the idea of using a nuclear bomb. The notion was quickly shot down by national security adviser Henry Kissinger.

Nixon’s abrupt suggestion, buried in 500 hours of tapes released Thursday at the National Archives, came after Kissinger laid out a variety of options for stepping up the war effort, such as attacking power plants and docks, in an April 25, 1972, conversation in the Executive Office Building.

The conversations were in the archives’ largest-ever release of Nixon tapes. The material covers mostly the first six months of 1972, including everything from Nixon’s groundbreaking trip to China to the early days after the Watergate break-in.

With this release, historians and researchers for the first time are being allowed to use their own recording equipment to copy the Nixon tapes.

The public now can hear what was said before and after the infamous 18 1/2-minute gap in the Watergate tapes three days after the break-in, and hear the full context of the “smoking gun” snippet, which revealed that the president was interested in using the CIA to derail the FBI’s investigation of the break-in.

Cuban emigrants crash bus into Mexican embassy

HAVANA (AP) — About 20 Cubans hoping to emigrate crashed a bus into the Mexican Embassy’s gates and rushed into the building. Later, more than a dozen people shouting anti-Castro slogans stood on the roof and threatened to jump if police tried to get them.
The group, which remained in the embassy Thursday, hijacked the bus before storming the building the night before, Fidel Castro’s government said.

The government accused the U.S. government’s Radio Marti early Thursday of provoking the embassy occupation by repeatedly broadcasting statements by Mexican Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda.

In Mexico, Castaneda said his words had been twisted by “radicals” in Miami who “without doubt wanted to use, to distort, my declarations about the Mexican Cultural Institute” in that city.

Car bomb kills two, may be related to support of U.S.

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — A bomb blew up the car of the wife of a senior anti-terrorism official on Thursday, killing two passers-by.

The bombing apparently was meant to send a message to the Jordanian security leadership at a time when the government is supporting the U.S.-led campaign against international terrorism, a senior security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Mohammad Ali Abdul-Kader Shihadeh, 26, an Egyptian, and Badr Khader, 19, an Iraqi, were walking past the car at about 7:30 a.m. when it exploded, police said. Both men were killed instantly.

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