U.S. airport screeners missed explosives
WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 (UPI) -- Security screeners at 15 U.S. airports missed weapons and explosives being smuggled aboard aircraft by undercover agents, USA Today reported Thursday.
Extracts of a classified report made to Congress by the Department of Homeland Security said the tests were conducted between July and November of last year.
"The performance was poor," said Clark Ervin, the department's inspector general, in releasing a less detailed version.
Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of a House aviation subcommittee, said the results on weapons were "bad enough," but the results on explosives were "absolutely horrendous."
Ervin's full report blamed poor training and management of the screeners, who work for the Transportation Security Administration, a division of Homeland Security. It also cited the need for better equipment and technology.
TSA officials said improvements have been made since the tests, including walk-through explosive-detection machines, are now being tested at five airports. Airport screeners recently were given more authority to conduct "pat-downs" of passengers to detect explosives hidden under clothing.
Crude explosive found on Sydney aircraft
SYDNEY, Sept. 23 (UPI) -- Australian investigators said a crude explosive found aboard a Virgin Blue Boeing 737 at Sydney's airport was likely a prank, the BBC reported Thursday.
A baggage handler found the device Monday in the cargo hold of the plane when it landed in Sydney after an internal flight from the state of Queensland.
He then breached security procedures by carrying it into the terminal, the report said.
The device was a cardboard roll stuffed with explosive that had a fireworks sparkler stuck in it.
"It was clearly placed there by somebody who had access to the airfield," said David Huttner, the airline's commercial operations chief.
In the run-up to next month's election in which national security is a key issue, federal Transport Minister John Anderson played down the discovery.
"I am relatively confident that if this had been a serious nasty, our security arrangements would have picked it up. The judgment was formed that this was a hoax," Anderson told Australian radio.
Florida Court throws out 'Terri's Law'
TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Sept. 23 (UPI) -- The Florida Supreme Court threw out a state law Thursday that saved the life of a Tampa woman who has been in a permanent vegetative state for 14 years.
The law, known as "Terri's Law," for Terri Schiavo, 40, gave Gov. Jeb Bush the authority last year to re-insert her feeding tube which had been removed to allow her to die.
Her husband Michael Schiavo, has said that was what his wife would have wanted. Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, disagreed and insisted there was still hope for her although the courts had ruled otherwise.
Thursday's ruling in Tallahassee said the law violated the concept of separation of powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government, CNN reported.
"The continuing vitality of our system of separation of powers precludes the other two branches from nullifying the judicial branch's final order," the ruling said.
The decision was not a surprise to legal experts, but it could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Haiti's death toll could surpass 2,000
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Sept. 23 (UPI) -- Haiti's death toll from flooding caused by tropical storm Jeanne could easily top 2,000 according to a Haitian civil defense official.
More than 1,000 bodies have already been recovered and 711 victims identified. However, more than 1,000 people still remain missing and are presumed dead.
Civil Defense spokesman Dieufort Deslorges said that with the help of U.N. peacekeepers in the country, Haitians have begun the arduous process of burying the dead.
Earlier this week, Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue expressed concerns that victims' bodies -- many of which were lying in the streets and outside makeshift morgues -- would causes widespread disease and sickness.
Many of the victims are buried in mass graves to hasten the process. "There is a high risk of an epidemic due to the decomposition of corpses," said Latortue as justification for the mass burials.
Flood waters from Jeanne devastated the northern port city of Gonaives and surrounding areas over the weekend, leaving an estimated 175,000 people without food or clean drinking water.
Haiti is still reeling from May floods in the south that killed an estimated 3,000 people.
On Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for international support for Haiti.
Stubborn tropical systems vex southeast
MIAMI, Sept. 23 (UPI) -- Ivan was about to make a second landfall on the United States in Texas Thursday while Hurricane Jeanne headed toward the Bahamas and Florida.
At 11 a.m. EDT, Ivan, which raked the Florida Panhandle and parts of Alabama last week, was located at latitude 29.2 north, longitude 92.7 west with winds of 60 mph.
It was expected to make a rainy landfall later in the day between Morgan City, La., and Sargent, Texas, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
Jeanne, already responsible for more than 1,000 deaths in Haiti, was located near latitude 25.6 north, longitude 69.7 west, or about 465 miles east of Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas.
It was headed west at 5 mph, carrying winds of 105 mph, and threatened to roar through the Bahamas and hit Florida's east-central coast this weekend.
Further out, Hurricane Karl strengthened into a major hurricane overnight with winds of 125 mph about 1,150 miles southwest of the Azores.
At 11 a.m., Tropical Storm Lisa had sustained winds of 50 mph, moving westward about 1,180 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands.
