Can you fill me in real quick? I haven't kept up with this thread. I'm not sure what I should be looking for????
Suspicious Substance Causes Scare at IRS
SNIPS: April 17, 2005 — A suspicious package was opened Sunday at the Fresno IRS center that forced dozens of people out of the building at Butler and Willow in Southeast Fresno.
10 IRS employees were taken to local hospitals, but their symptoms were improving as they were leaving by ambulance.
Officials were surprised that such a small amount of a white powdery substance could make so many sick. At this point, they don't know what that powdery substance inside an envelope really was.
Firefighters with masks and oxygen tanks escorted 10 IRS mail room employees from the building, where a very small amount of a white powdery substance was found inside an envelope.
"This is a large envelope, so there was a substance that was in there," says Rebeca Villalobos from the IRS. "People sit in very close proximity doing their work, so basically, we take all of the employees within 10 to 20 feet of that incident."
The workers then showered inside an orange decontamination tent and were taken to local hospitals. They complained of itchy watery eyes and runny noses.
Hazmat teams were sent inside the building to determine what the substance was.
150 other mail room employees were sent home.
IRS employees have seen similar incidents. Hazmat crews were there just last summer.
But, this latest scare comes during the tax return crunch. The IRS center takes 1040 forms from 11 different states.
Now, a small amount of powder could delay someone's refund check.
The IRS mail room was shut down for 3 1/2 hours, but did start up again at 5:00pm tonight.
Officials did not immediately know if there was a return address on the envelope or if there was a tax return or note inside.
They say take these cases extremely seriously and this latest case will be turned over to the FBI.
Previous Local IRS Incident
The last serious attack against a local IRS building happened in 1991.
Dean Harvey Hicks launched a mortar attack on the service center after failing two other times to bomb a west Los Angeles IRS office.
The FBI and Fresno police teamed up to catch Hicks and he's now serving a 20-year prison sentence.
IRS Big Business For Valley
All local tax returns, and those from 11 other states, go to a local processing center.
That creates local jobs. In fact, nearly 6,400 people work at the Fresno processing center right now.
About 3,000 of them work there permanently.
The agency tells Action News they've already handled more than 14 million tax returns, about half on paper and half electronically.
And, the big rush doesn't come until the U.S. Postal Service delivers Friday's mail, so they're expecting millions more.
http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/news/pr...irs_powder.html
From post 311
PERU, Maine -- Officials are scratching their heads after witnesses reported seeing a low-flying military plane in western Maine with a trailing plume of smoke.
State police said several people reported spotting a plane in trouble around the town of Peru at about 4 p.m. Saturday.
Officials said game wardens and police searched the area on ground and in the air for several hours but came up empty-handed.
Renzi mulls gubernatorial bid for 2010, discusses issues
Rick Renzi for governor of Arizona in 2010?
The Republican congressman who represents northern Arizona might try, he said during a Friday swing through Flagstaff.
"I'm worried about the number of mosques being built in Central America and Mexico," he said.
It's not every mosque, he said, but specifically a rise in radical Islamic fundamentalist mosques that worries him, he said.
http://www.azdailysun.com/non_sec/nav_includes/story.cfm?storyID=106922