Small bomb explodes at Hawaii high school
HILO, Hawaii – A small bomb exploded Thursday outside an auditorium at a Hawaii high school, prompting a brief campus lockdown but apparently causing no injuries, authorities said.
Police said two students, both 16-year-old boys, were in custody. It wasn’t clear if the device was meant to hurt anyone or if it was a prank.
The small device exploded at Hilo High School on the Big Island around 11:15 a.m. and was being described as a “bottle bomb,” Hawaii Department of Education spokesman Alex Da Silva said.
It went off on a walkway leading to the auditorium, he said. A class was in session in the auditorium, but nobody was near the explosion.
Nobody was allowed to leave or enter the campus during the lockdown, but police and fire officials gave an all-clear less than two hours later after finding no other devices on campus, Da Silva said. Classes resumed, and students were released at their normal time.
Air Force chief blames scandal on ‘stress, fear’
WASHINGTON – Top Air Force officials described a persistent culture of “undue stress and fear” that led 92 out of 550 members of the military’s nuclear missile corps to be involved in cheating on a monthly proficiency test on which they felt pressured to get perfect scores to get promoted.
Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said Thursday that at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, roughly half of the 183 missile launch officers have been implicated in the cheating.
The cheating scandal is the latest in an array of troubles that now have the attention of senior defense officials, including Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. The Associated Press began reporting about the issue nine months ago, revealing serious security lapses, low morale, burnout and other issues in the nuclear force. The Air Force recently announced the cheating scandal that grew out of a drug investigation.
Georgia governor takes blame for preparations
ATLANTA – Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal took responsibility Thursday for the poor storm preparations that led to an epic traffic jam in Atlanta and forced drivers to abandon their cars or sleep in them overnight when a storm dumped a couple of inches of snow.
Deal and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed have found themselves on the defensive ever since the snow started falling and commuters rushed home at the same time schools let out, causing gridlock across the metro Atlanta region.
“We did not make preparations early enough,” Deal said at a news conference, apologizing to drivers who were stranded and to parents of children forced to sleep at their school or on school buses.
“I’m not going to look for a scapegoat. I am the governor. The buck stops with me,” he said.
Meanwhile, police and the National Guard helped people retrieve their abandoned cars two days after the winter storm hit the Deep South.
Associated Press
