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Note: Photo included. SNIPPET: "MEXICO CITY – The deputy police chief in the northern Mexican border city of Nogales was killed along with his bodyguard, Sonora state police said Friday. Adalberto Padilla and bodyguard Ivan Sepulveda were shot Thursday night while traveling in a police vehicle. The assailants were described as men inside an SUV who opened fire with AK-47 assault rifles, the weapon of choice for Mexico’s drug cartels. A 16-year-old bystander was wounded during the attack in the city just across the border from Nogales, Arizona." SNIPPET: "In other drug-related violence, a local police chief and his brother...

Police cleared media and passengers away from the entrance of Charles de Gaulle airport's terminal 2 on Monday. They then blew up a suspicious package. Media are standing by at the airport for news on the missing Airbus and its 228 passengers and crew presumed to have crashed in the Atlantic. Air France says lightning and strong turbulence could have downed the plane en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris early on Monday. If so, it would be the worst air disaster caused by lightning, according to the Aviation Safety Network. Most experts say however, that such a strike...

PARIS (AP) - Somewhere in the world, there's a navy blue suitcase with a small pack of explosives tucked in its side pocket. Four days after police at Charles de Gaulle Airport slipped some plastic explosives into a random passenger's bag as part of an exercise for sniffer dogs, it is still missing - and authorities are stumped and embarrassed. Police have sought to minimize public concern by insisting there's nothing to worry about: the explosives had no detonator and are unlikely to pose a danger. But that does little to diminish the fact that the French airport security has...

PARIS, FRANCE -- Police at Paris' top airport lost track of a passenger's bag in which plastic explosives were placed to train bomb-sniffing dogs, police said Saturday. Warned that the bag may have gotten on any of nearly 90 flights from Charles de Gaulle, authorities searched planes arriving in Los Angeles and New York. French police said the explosives were harmless and there was no chance of their going off because no detonators were connected to them. More than 300 passengers were evacuated and their luggage searched Friday when their Air France flight from Charles de Gaulle landed in Los...

PARIS - Police at Paris' top airport lost track of a passenger's bag in which plastic explosives were placed to train bomb-sniffing dogs, police said Saturday. Warned that the bag may have gotten on any of nearly 90 flights from Charles de Gaulle, authorities searched planes upon arrival in Los Angeles and New York. French police said the explosives were harmless and there was no chance of their going off, since no detonators were connected to them. More than 300 passengers were evacuated and their luggage searched when their Air France flight from Charles de Gaulle arrived in Los Angeles...

Plastic explosives were mistakenly loaded onto a plane at a Paris airport after security officials lost track of it during an exercise, police say. Around 150 grams (about five ounces) of explosive were slipped into the bag of a passenger during sniffer dog training at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. The bag ended up on one of 90 flights leaving at the time, and police are now trying to track it down. They stress the explosive is "no more dangerous than a bar of chocolate". But airlines, airports and police forces around the world have been alerted. It was a...

PARIS -- Police at Paris' top airport lost track of a passenger's bag in which plastic explosives were placed to train bomb-sniffing dogs, police said Saturday. Warned that the bag may have gotten on any of nearly 90 flights from Charles de Gaulle, authorities searched planes upon arrival in Los Angeles and New York. French police said the explosives were harmless and there was no chance of their going off, since no detonators were connected to them. More than 300 passengers were evacuated and their luggage searched when their Air France flight from Charles de Gaulle arrived in Los Angeles...

BOBIGNY, France - A French court Wednesday convicted the in-laws of a Paris airport baggage handler after they planted explosives and weapons in his car in an attempt to make him look like a terrorist. The suburban Paris court Wednesday ordered five-month prison terms for Ahmed and Fatiah Bechiri and three accomplices. All were convicted of plotting against Abderazak Besseghir, who worked at Charles de Gaulle airport. Besseghir spent nearly 10 days in jail before he was cleared. He said he had been framed by the family of his late wife, Louisa, who died in a fire last summer. The...

Section of year-old concrete concourse at Paris airport dropped, killing at least four people Construction problems with supports of the vaulted concrete concourse that partially collapsed early on May 23 at the year-old Terminal 2E at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport will likely be a focus of investigations into the cause of the failure, which killed at least four people. Roughly 30 meters of the unusual freestanding vault enclosing the 650-m- long elevated concourse dropped several meters off its bearings with little warning. On evidence available at press time, an independent structural specialist suggested faulty concrete bents. "It looks like...

Aeroports de Paris (ADP), the state authority in charge of Roissy Charles de Gaulle Airport have removed all mention of the tragedy-struck Terminal 2E from their website within a day of the disaster. see www.adp.fr The authority's website has no news of the disaster but what is extraordinary is their revision of maps of the airport to make it look as if there never was a 2E. At left the upper of the two maps is the ADP map which for Terminal 2 shows halls A, B, C, D, and F. But no E! It is still shown clearly in...

PARIS (Reuters) - New cracks have appeared at a Paris airport terminal, a day after part of the roof collapsed, and the airport's head has vowed to tear the terminal down if an investigation finds it is unsafe. Terminal 2E at Charles de Gaulle airport has been closed to passengers since Sunday's accident killed four people, but workers spotted the cracks as they cleared the rubble. "A certain number of cracks were observed in a second zone that is identical in design to the area where the roof collapsed," Rene Brun, director of operations at the airport, told reporters on...

ROISSY,France (AP) -- The vaulted roof of the new, showcase terminal at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport - touted as a jewel of design, safety and comfort - collapsed early Sunday, killing at least five people and forcing authorities to revisit problems that preceded the fanfare opening of Terminal 2E less than a year ago. There were some cracking sounds and some dust, and then tons of concrete, steel and glass came crashing down on a waiting area inside the gleaming terminal. The 98-foot section of roof fell just before 7 a.m. as passengers were starting to arrive. Officials said...

<p>PARIS, France -- At least five people were killed and three others injured when a massive section of a vaulted ceiling collapsed at a new passenger terminal at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport, officials said.</p> <p>Slabs of concrete and metal came crashing down from the ceiling onto a seated waiting area at about 7 a.m. Sunday (0500 GMT/1 a.m. ET).</p>

PARIS (Reuters) - Four people have been killed and more than 10 hurt when part of a roof collapsed in a departure lounge at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle international airport near Paris, LCI television has reported. Airport officials did not immediately confirm the death toll on Sunday. A fire official said there appeared to have been deaths but was unable to give details.

nothing follows

The Associated Press 2/2/04 7:13 PM WASHINGTON (AP) -- Terror threats that led to cancellation of one domestic and six trans-Atlantic flights have passed, and the government has no plans to ground more planes, officials said Monday. No arrests were made nor weapons seized in relation to the cancellations, and law enforcement officials acknowledged they are unsure whether the steps taken disrupted attacks. But Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and other Bush administration officials said the cancellations were warranted because of the "specific information on when and what flights" the al-Qaida organization had planned to target. "We didn't quite have...

Intelligence indicating that al Qaeda terrorists are seeking to release a chemical or biological agent aboard an airliner, or transport a radiological device in cargo, prompted the cancellation of six international flights scheduled for today and tomorrow, senior administration officials familiar with the reports said yesterday. The possibilities, as described by three intelligence officials, include releasing an undetectable biological agent such as smallpox or anthrax aboard a plane that passengers would then unknowingly spread; releasing a chemical agent to debilitate the passengers and crew so the plane could be hijacked, and sneaking a radiological device aboard a plane inside a...

<p>Officials say it may never be known if a terror attack was prevented. CNN's Kelli Arena reports. WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In the past 48 hours, the United States has received new intelligence that suggests a threat of possible terrorist attacks against the United States using aircraft, government officials told CNN on Friday.</p>

LONDON (AP) - British Airways (BAB) and Air France on Saturday announced the cancellation of seven flights to and from the United States because of security concerns. BA canceled four flights between Heathrow Airport and Washington on Sunday and Monday and one from Heathrow to Miami on Sunday. Air France canceled two Paris-to-Washington flights. There are no plans to raise the terror alert in the United States because of the latest threats, Homeland Security Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said. "We remain concerned about al-Qaida's desire to target aviation, especially international aviation," said Roehrkasse said. "The U.S. intelligence community continues to...

British Airways and Air France have cancelled a number of US flights amid fears al-Qaeda may be targeting them. Flights BA 223 from London Heathrow to Washington on Sunday and Monday are hit as well as return flights BA 222. A BA flight to Miami on Sunday was also grounded on security advice, as were four Air France flights. The US Department of Homeland Security said that it remained "concerned about al-Qaeda's desire to target aviation, especially international aviation". "The US intelligence community continues to gather specific credible threat information on international flights," it added. US officials said they had...