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CHICAGO (WLS) -- A father was killed in front of his children on the Fourth of July in a tragic fireworks accident on Chicago's Southwest Side. Around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, 42-year-old David Griffin was lighting fireworks in an alley in the 2500-block of West 54th Street in the city's Gage Park neighborhood. His wife said he was with his young children at the time. When he went to check on a firework that didn't seem to be firing, it blew up in his face as it shot into the air, police and fire officials said.

New Year's firecrackers left at least one man dead and 380 others injured, and caused a fire that gutted 1,000 shanties in the Philippines despite rain and a government warning campaign, officials said Friday. A drunken man lit a dynamite-like firecracker called "Goodbye Philippines" and embraced it in Manila as it exploded, ripping his jaw and killing him, Health Secretary Janet Garin announced. Fire officials said a rocket lit by revelers set an abandoned hut ablaze, sparking a fire that razed about 1,000 shanties in Manila's Tondo slum district and displacing several thousand families. Many superstitious Filipinos usher in the...

"FBI: Man Flew Into LaGuardia With Firecracker" "Passenger Taken Into Custody After Device Found Wedged Between Seats On Piedmont Airlines Flight Into LaGuardia" NEW YORK (CBS) SNIPPET: "A passenger who flew into LaGuardia Airport on Sunday night was questioned by FBI agents after allegedly boarding the flight with an explosive device in his possession, CBS 2 has learned. Officials confirmed Monday that a crew member on board Piedmont Airlines flight 4126, originating from Baltimore Washington International Airport, was cleaning the plane after it landed in New York around 7:30 p.m. when he found a large firecracker-like device wedged between two...

FBI: Man Flew Into NYC From BWI With Firecracker Passenger Taken Into Custody After Explosive Device Found Wedged Between Two Seats On Piedmont Airlines Flight Into LaGuardia NEW YORK (CBS) ― A passenger who flew into LaGuardia Airport on Sunday night was questioned by FBI agents after allegedly boarding the flight with an explosive device in his possession, CBS 2 has learned. Officials confirmed Monday that a crew member on board Piedmont Airlines flight 4126 was cleaning the plane after it landed in New York around 7:30 p.m. when he found a large firecracker-like device wedged between two seats. Port...

LONDON - A 22-year-old man suffered internal injuries after lighting a small firecracker he had inserted into his buttocks, paramedics said Thursday. The incident took place Sunday, when Britain celebrated Bonfire Night, traditionally marked with fireworks to celebrate the Guy Fawkes? gunpowder plot to blow up Parliament in the 17th century. The man suffered burns and other unspecified internal injuries in the incident in Sunderland, 275 miles north of London.

As Americans prepare to celebrate the Fourth of July, safety nannies will be urging a national ban on the sale and use of consumer fireworks. Citing injuries to children as the primary concern, a report in the July issue of Pediatrics will reiterate the American Academy of Pediatrics long-standing call for a consumer fireworks ban. It’s no coincidence that the study is being released the day before our July 4 holiday. But before we allow the nannies to trample over our recreational – not to mention our civil – liberties on the holiday intended to celebrate liberty itself, let’s consider...

Hyperactive like the rest of her breed, the Jack Russell terrier named Kaylee would chase anything thrown her way. And to the horror of adults and children at a family July Fourth picnic, she did just that when a powerful firecracker was thrown into her yard. She chased it down and was killed outright when it went off. "I lost a family member," Joseph P. Kolinoski, 26, wrote in a statement to a Martin County sheriff's deputy. Kolinoski said the family was celebrating in their yard when his wife's uncle drove by and threw the powerful firecracker about 5:30 p.m....

STUART, Fla. -- Hyperactive like the rest of her breed, the Jack Russell terrier named Kaylee would chase anything thrown her way. And to the horror of adults and children at a family July 4th picnic, she did just that when a powerful firecracker was thrown into her yard. She chased it down and was killed outright when it went off. "I lost a family member," Joseph P. Kolinoski, 26, wrote in a statement to a Martin County Sheriff's Deputy. Kolinoski said the family was celebrating in their yard when his wife's uncle drove by and threw the powerful firecracker...

Vandals Attack, Cause Tanker To Overturn In Atlanta The driver of a tanker carrying 7,500 gallons diesel fuel inadvertently flipped his truck trying to avoid a hail of rocks and lit fireworks, police said. Apparently, people were throwing chunks of concrete at and setting off fireworks toward the truck as it traveled eastbound along Donald Lee Holloway Parkway, the former Bankhead Highway, just a mile west of Interstate 285, witnesses said. The driver – whose name has not been released – swerved out of harm’s way, but ended up flipping the tanker. The tanker flipped completely over while careening down...

Girl injured by firecracker at fireworks-safety event A 14-year-old girl from Olney blew three fingers off of one of her hands yesterday after a firecracker she found at a fireworks-safety demonstration at the Philadelphia Museum of Art exploded. She was playing with the device, police said. The girl, whose name was not released, was taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where she was listed in stable condition. The explosion happened in the early evening hours, sometime before 8 p.m., police said. The girl was at the museum with her family. Police are still investigating the case.

Doctors in Australia have urged people to not to attempt Jackass style stunts after a man burnt his genitals in a firecracker accident. The 26-year-old Australian man suffered a fractured pelvis and severe burns when a firecracker exploded between the cheeks of his buttocks. The incident has left the man, from Illawarra, New South Wales, incontinent and unable to have sex and he is expected to remain in hospital for several months. Dr Robert McCurdie, who operated on the man when he was taken to Wollongong Hospital, likened the man's condition to "a war injury". Dr McCurdie said he believed...

My husband heard on Bill Cunningham talk radio in Cincinnati that a war protestor inserted a firecracker in his penis and threatened to light it. Has anyone heard of this bazaar incident? I have to find this unusual story for my Bulldog Bulletin.

Police closed the Kaaawa Post Office and a restaurant next door for about three hours yesterday as the police bomb squad recovered what was later determined to be a large, commercial firecracker. The device, about the size of a roll of nickels, had a cigarette attached that had burned out before reaching the fuse. It was on a classified newspaper rack in a corridor between the post office and Moani's Country Kitchen, said Alika Anixt, who found the object at about 9 a.m. "First, it was, like, it was flipped over so you couldn't see the cigarette or the fuse...