ISRAELI POLICE THWART POSSIBLE BOMBING

Israeli police thwartpossible bombing
LATRUN JUNCTION, Israel -- With sirens wailing and blue lights flashing, Israeli police chased a van with explosives on a main highway Tuesday and captured a group of Palestinians who defense officials say planned a major bombing ahead of national elections. Israel's parliamentary election is set for Tuesday. Palestinian attacks have altered the outcome of past balloting. After chasing down the group halfway from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, jittery security forces extended a closure on the West Bank and Gaza through election day. AP Television News video showed the 10 Palestinians removed from the van at gunpoint, stripped to their underwear, and forced to lie face down in a field next to the highway, arms extended. Sappers took away a 15-pound bomb, concealed in a bag.
Spring snowstorm
INDIANAPOLIS -- The spring snowstorm that buried parts of Nebraska under more than 2 feet of snow swept through the Ohio Valley on Tuesday, shutting down schools and making travel tough for voters headed for the polls for Illinois' primary election. As much as 2 inches of snow an hour fell in some areas of Illinois and Indiana, and wind gusted to 40 mph, weather officials said. "Our weather's terrible. The highways are terrible. It's not the highway department's fault -- they just can't keep up with it," said Morgan County, Ill., Sheriff's Deputy Trevor Lahey. He answered more than 50 calls Tuesday morning about cars in ditches west of Springfield. In Colorado, Interstate 70 reopened early Tuesday after its eastbound lanes between Denver and the Kansas line were shut down for nearly 18 hours because of heavy snow. Interstate 80 also reopened Tuesday across Nebraska.
Cold War-era stockpilefound in Brooklyn Bridge
NEW YORK -- Workers inspecting the structural foundations of the Brooklyn Bridge uncovered a Cold War-era trove of basic provisions that were stockpiled amid fears of a nuclear attack. The stash, discovered in a vault under an entrance ramp, includes water drums, canisters of calorie-packed crackers, paper blankets, medical supplies and drugs that were used to treat shock. The estimated 350,000 Civil Defense All-Purpose Survival Crackers are apparently still intact, said Joseph Vaccaro, a supervisor at the city Transportation Department. The metal water drums, each labeled "reuse as a commode," did not fare as well -- they're now empty. "We find stuff all the time, but what's sort of eerie about this is that this is a bridge that thousands of people go over each day," Transportation Commissioner Iris Weinshall said. "They walk over it, cars go over it, and this stuff was just sitting there." Fallout shelters were common during the 1950s, but most were dismantled.
Sex charges dropped
TAMPA, Fla. -- Prosecutors in one Florida county decided Tuesday to drop charges against a former Tampa teacher accused of having sex with a 14-year-old middle school pupil. The decision, announced hours after a judge rejected a plea deal for Debra Lafave, means the accuser won't have to testify. Lafave's sentence in another county for having sex with the same boy still stands. Prosecutors and defense attorneys had urged the judge to accept the deal for the sake of the boy involved. A psychiatrist who examined the teenager told the judge at a previous hearing that the boy suffered extreme anxiety from the media coverage of the case and does not want to testify. Marion County Circuit Judge Hale Stancil, however, said the lack of prison time for Lafave under the plea deal "shocks the conscience of this court," and he rejected it.
Internet-linked suicidesare on the rise in Japan
CHICHIBU, Japan -- The dirt is still black with charcoal on the mountain road where police found six bodies slumped inside a van, a stove still smoking inside -- another in a spate of group suicides officials believe can be traced to the Internet. Although few Web sites advertise themselves as suicide sites, a search for the words "Shall we die together?" in Japanese turns up pages of links to chat rooms spilling over with death wishes and ideas on how best to commit suicide. The five men and one woman, all in their 20s and from six different prefectures across Japan, likely met over the Internet before dying together in a forested area 50 miles northwest of Tokyo, authorities said. Internet suicide pacts have occurred since at least the late 1990s in a number of countries, but they have been most common in Japan, where the suicide rate is among the industrialized world's highest. A record 91 people died in 34 Internet-linked suicide cases last year, up from 55 people in 19 cases in 2004, according to the latest figures from the National Police Agency. The number of Internet suicide pacts has almost tripled from 2003, when the agency started keeping records.
Associated Press