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One of the five self-described anarchists arrested last week for attempting to blow up a local bridge signed the lease for a West Side warehouse where about a dozen members of the Occupy Cleveland group live. In a one-hour recording of a Friday evening general assembly meeting of the group posted on its website, occupy leaders expressed concern about Anthony Hayne's name being on the lease, which strengthens his link to the group.... "If this gets into the media, it would be a disaster."

The paid informant who helped orchestrate the FBI sting that resulted in the arrest of five anarchists for allegedly plotting to blow up an Ohio bridge is a convicted felon who was arrested on bad check and theft charges in the midst of his cooperation with federal investigators, The Smoking Gun has learned.Shaquille Azir, 39, was named in a pair of felony indictments filed in January in Cuyahoga County, according to court records. Azir, who TSG has identified as the informant in the federal bombing case, is accused in the indictments of passing bad checks on July 25, 2011 and...

URGENT: Five people described as anarchists were arrested Monday in a Cleveland-area park for allegedly trying to blow up a bridge, sources tell Fox News.

Five "self-proclaimed anarchists" have been arrested after a months-long sting operation, charged with plotting to blow up a bridge in the Cleveland area, the FBI announced today. CBS News senior correspondent John Miller reports the group had been involved in a series of escalating plots that ended with their arrest last night by FBI agents. The sting operation supplied the anarchists with what they thought were "explosives" and bomb-making materials. At no time during the case was the public in danger, the FBI said.

GIG HARBOR — Tacoma Narrows Bridge tolls were always going to increase. Bond payments were set up that way. The questions are when and how much. Preliminary answers from a workshop Wednesday night are July 1 and a lot. Department of Transportation experts kicked off the toll-raising process by updating the bridge's citizen advisory committee with the latest traffic and revenue numbers. They also provided four toll scenarios. In them, the electronic rate would jump from $2.75 to $4.25 or $4.50, the manual rate from $4 to $5.50 or $6, and the photo tolling rate from $5.50 to $7 or...

Key Bridge, 14th St. bridge among 215 D.C. area spans rated structurally deficientBy Ashley Halsey III, Published: October 19 Two hundred fifteen bridges in the Washington region are structurally deficient, including three of the five major bridges that cross the Potomac River into Washington, according to a report released Wednesday. The group Transportation for America said the Key Bridge, the Memorial Bridge and the 14th Street bridge all need immediate repair. More than 215,000 vehicles cross them on an average day. The 14th Street bridge is scheduled to undergo a complete overhaul in the next four years. **SNIP** “There are...

MIRS has reported that all 12 Democrats in the state senate — only four of whom are from Detroit — will vote “yes” on a controversial Detroit-Windsor bridge, but only if the deal includes a wish list of “community benefits” being written by Sen. Tupac Hunter, D-Detroit. What are these “community benefits”? The fancy labels like “employment training and related facilities;” “housing;” “economic development;” “green development initiatives;” and more sound nice, but the benefits of these programs are, at the very best, uncertain. Here’s what is certain: For the political system’s foot soldiers, these programs translate into jobs with the...

NEW YORK (AP) -- New York City police say about 500 protesters have been arrested after they swarmed the Brooklyn Bridge and shut down a lane of traffic for several hours. Police say some demonstrators spilled onto the roadway Saturday night after being told to stay on the pedestrian pathway. They face disorderly conduct and other charges. The lane has since reopened. Occupy Wall Street demonstrators are railing against corporate greed, global warming and social inequality, among other grievances. The group has been camped near the Financial District for two weeks and clashed with police on earlier occasions. Earlier Saturday,...

Interesting scene happening right now. Protesters are taking over the Brooklyn Bridge. They appear to be confronting police, and several have been arrested Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/occupy-wall-street-on-the-brooklyn-bridge-2011-10#ixzz1ZZIwwExI

You know all those rusting bridges that President Obama wants to spend billions more dollars repairing to allegedly stimulate the economy? He's headed out to one today which he's described as a "bridge that needs repair between Ohio and Kentucky that's on one of the busiest trucking routes in North America." It is on a busy trucking route, spanning the Ohio River between Covington, Ky., and Cincinnati. It's the Brent Spence Bridge. It doesn't really need repairs. It's got decades of good life left in its steel spans. It's just overloaded. The bridge was built to handle 85,000 cars and...

The 48-year-old Brent Spence Bridge spanning the Ohio River near Cincinnati isn't much to look at. But for President Obama, it's become a rallying cry for his $477 billion jobs plan. He referred to it in his Sept. 8 speech to Congress, saying "there's a bridge that needs repair between Ohio and Kentucky that's on one of the busiest trucking routes in North America." And on Thursday he plans to use Brent Spence as the backdrop for another pitch for his jobs bill, which includes $27 billion in "immediate" highway spending. But while local officials are delighted with Obama's attention,...

CINCINNATI, OH (FOX19) - A traffic advisory has been issued for Thursday, September 22, 2011. The right northbound lane (bottom deck) and the left southbound lane (upper deck) of the Brent Spence Bridge and the 4th Street Entrance Ramp (northbound) will be closed. Long delays are possible. Motorists are advised to use alternate routes if traveling through the area.

The president promotes his jobs bill with a project that is not shovel-ready. In an effort to highlight the need for the American Jobs Act, which would provide billions in new infrastructure funding, the president will deliver a speech within sight of a “functionally obsolete” bridge on the Ohio River. Though the president disavowed “political grandstanding” in an address to Congress earlier this month, even the communications staff at the White House could not deny the political motives behind the visit. “This was on a long list, but it was notable because it connects . . . Ohio and Kentucky,”...

(CNN) -- Two bodies dangling from a pedestrian bridge in the border town of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, created an image as gruesome as any in the four years of the country's offensive against the drug cartels. A man and a woman, both in their early 20s, were left hanging like cuts of meat. The woman was hogtied and disemboweled, her intestines protruding from three deep cuts on her abdomen. She was then hung from the bridge by her feet and hands, topless. The bloodied man was suspended next to her by his hands, his right shoulder severed so deeply you...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels ordered the immediate closure of the Sherman Minton Bridge on Friday evening. Transportation officials in Kentucky and Indiana were informed Friday of the discovery of two cracks in the load-carrying element of the bridge on Thursday. Officials with the Indiana Department of Transportation said the crack is in an arch support over the Ohio River. There are two archways on the bridge; the crack was found on the underside of the roadway, near the archway closest to the Ohio River. Officials called the cracks incredibly serious and potentially catastrophic. "I would not have...

Almost a dozen New England towns were rendered virtual islands Monday as floodwaters from the remnants of Hurricane Irene reshaped parts of Vermont and upstate New York, turning placid rivers into raging torrents and some streets into treacherous mud bogs. Hundreds of roads remained closed, dozens of bridges were gone and entire towns were cut off from assistance in the worst flooding some areas have seen in a century. A day earlier, Irene dumped up to 11 inches on parts of Vermont and more than 13 inches on some areas of New York — a deluge that quickly overwhelmed waterways,...

Egypt and Saudi Arabia want to construct a giant bridge to accommodate road and rail traffic across the Gulf of Aqaba, Der Spiegel reports. Egyptian officials say the project, under discussion since 1988, has been approved. Egypt's interim Prime Minister Essam Sharaf of the ruling junta has reportedly put General Abdul Aziz, chairman of the Arab Road Association, in charge of overseeing the project. The Gulf of Aqaba runs along the eastern edge of the Sinai Peninsula. Plans call for the 32-kilometer (20-mile) bridge to cross the narrow Strait of Tiran from Ras Nasrani, near the Egyptian resort of Sharm...

Safety fears have been raised over the newly opened cross-sea bridge, the world's longest, that links Qingdao City in east China to the island of Huangdao. There is concern that the tight schedule ahead of the official opening left important work undone or incomplete. Several gaps were found in the crash barriers on the 42.5 kilometer Jiaozhou Bay Bridge, while bolts inserted to fasten the barriers were found to be loose or uncovered, China Central Television reported Monday. CCTV said that workers were tightening bolts that could easily have been loosened by hand on the bridge, which has seen nearly...

China has opened the world's longest cross-sea bridge - which stretches five miles further than the distance between Dover and Calais. The Jiaozhou Bay bridge is 26.4 miles long and links China's eastern port city of Qingdao to the offshore island Huangdao. The road bridge, which is 110ft wide and is the longest of its kind, cost nearly £1billion to build.

At a sprawling manufacturing complex here, hundreds of Chinese laborers are now completing work on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Next month, the last four of more than two dozen giant steel modules — each with a roadbed segment about half the size of a football field — will be loaded onto a huge ship and transported 6,500 miles to Oakland. There, they will be assembled to fit into the eastern span of the new Bay Bridge. The project is part of China’s continual move up the global economic value chain — from cheap toys to Apple iPads to commercial...

SNIPPET: "WASHINGTON – Some of the first information gleaned from Osama bin Laden's compound indicates al-Qaida considered attacking U.S. trains on the upcoming anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. But counterterrorism officials say they believe the planning never got beyond the initial phase and have no recent intelligence pointing to an active plot for such an attack. As of February 2010, the terror organization was considering plans to attack the U.S. on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. One idea outlined in handwritten notes was to tamper with an unspecified U.S. rail track so that a train would fall...

SNIPPET: "CHESTER, Pa. (CBS) – Chester police are urging vigilance after they found an improvised explosive device, this afternoon, near Amtrak and Septa railroad tracks and the Commodore Barry Bridge. 

 Police say the device consisted of two bottles with a yellow liquid inside. They say one had a timer and wires attached by duct tape."

Effort for Liberal Balance to G.O.P. Groups BeginsBy MICHAEL LUO Published: November 23, 2010 In what may prove a significant development for the 2012 elections, David Brock, a prominent Democratic political operative, says he has amassed $4 million in pledges over the last few weeks and is moving quickly to hire a staff to set up what he hopes will become a permanent liberal counterweight over the airwaves to the Republican-leaning outside groups that spent so heavily on this year’s midterm elections. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, a former Maryland lieutenant governor and the eldest of Robert F. Kennedy’s 11 children, has...

The Plymouth Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis closed Friday as a precaution, pending further investigation after a routine inspection discovered corrosion on cables that run through the bridge.

Someone wondered on Twitter, "Brooklyn Bridge closed to pedestrian and cycle traffic; cops refuse to say why. Why?" Well, it's also closed to vehicular traffic in both directions—apparently there are two suspicious packages, one in each direction!

Royal Gorge Bridge Colorado America's highest suspension bridge may be breathtaking for some, but those scared of heights may be left gasping for air as they stare straight down nearly 90 stories at the Arkansas River below. Completed in 1929, the bridge didn't have stabilizing wind cables until 1982. Where: Royal Gorge, Colorado, over the Arkansas River. Stats: 969 feet above the gorge; 1,260 feet long.... Mackinac Bridge Michigan Some drivers get so nervous about crossing this five-mile-long bridge that they don't even go. And this happens so often that the Mackinac Bridge Authority will drive your car or motorcycle...

NEW DELHI – A footbridge being built near the main stadium for the Commonwealth Games collapsed Tuesday, injuring 23 construction workers and putting the event in further jeopardy less than two weeks before the opening ceremony. The accident was the latest setback to New Delhi's troubled preparations for the games, which bring together more than 7,000 athletes and officials from the 71 countries and territories in the commonwealth every four years.

REYNOSA — At least six people are reportedly dead after several vehicles exploded during an apparent shootout Tuesday evening. Gunfire and explosions erupted about 5 p.m. Tuesday along the highway between Monterrey and Reynosa on the city’s far west side, near the Anzalduas International Bridge, sources said. Apparently slain in the battle were two Mexican army soldiers and four suspected drug cartel members who were burned to death inside an SUV. A woman was also reportedly shot in the rear end and was rushed to an area hospital for surgery, a source said. The apparent explosions along the Reynosa-Monterrey highway...

ACAPULCO, Mexico -- The dismembered bodies of two men were hung from a bridge Tuesday on a highway leading to Acapulco, the second such discovery in three days in a region where two drug lords are fighting for control of their divided cartel. The men were hung from their feet at the entrance of Chilpancingo, the city nearest to Acapulco along the highway connecting the Pacific coast resort to Mexico's capital, according to police in the state of Guerrero, where Acapulco is located. Their arms had been cut off, and a message was left threatening extortionists, kidnappers, police and the...

The bodies of the four young men were discovered early on Sunday, hung upside down by their feet from a bridge near a wealthy area of Cuernavaca, a leafy city about an hour outside Mexico City, where many of the nation's elite own homes. The victims' genitals, index fingers and heads had been cut off, according to a statement from the attorney general's office in Morelos state, which includes Cuernavaca. Their heads and genitals were found nearby, along with a handmade sign, the statement said. "This will happen to everyone that helps the traitor Edgar Valdes," the placard read, referring...

Engineers’ assessment is that traffic will require more capacity by 2030PORTLAND — An eight-lane bridge across the Columbia River would be too small to accommodate future traffic demand unless there is a major increase in the number of drivers deciding to take the bus or avoiding rush hour altogether, according to an engineering firm hired by the city of Portland to consider a smaller Interstate 5 bridge. Concerned about the mammoth size of the 10-lane Columbia River Crossing currently being proposed, the city wanted to look at a slimmer version. The engineering firm delivered its assessment Friday during a meeting...

n the depths of northeastern India, in one of the wettest places on earth, bridges aren't built - they're grown. The southern Khasi and Jaintia hills are humid and warm, crisscrossed by swift-flowing rivers and mountain streams. On the slopes of these hills, a species of Indian rubber tree with an incredibly strong root system thrives and flourishes. The Ficus elastica produces a series of secondary roots from higher up its trunk and can comfortably perch atop huge boulders along the riverbanks, or even in the middle of the rivers themselves. The War-Khasis, a tribe in Meghalaya, long ago noticed...

Port Authority cops who staff the agency’s bridges and tunnels were read harrowing details of a terrorist threat today advising them to be on the lookout for a fuel-filled tanker meant to explode prior to a secondary blast designed to decimate any first responders, The Post has learned. The chilling warning was read at roll call for four police commands – cops assigned to the Holland and Lincoln Tunnel; the George Washington Bridge; and also the Staten Island command, which incorporates the Bayonne and Goethals Bridge and the Outerbridge Crossing, a source said.

A high school student from California is dead after falling 30 metres from a viewing platform into a rocky canyon at the Capilano Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver. The teenage boy reportedly fell from a viewing platform on the west side of the canyon at around 7 p.m. Sunday. Rescue crews were able to reach the boy quickly, but he was not alive by the time they arrived, according to RCMP Inspector Davis Wendell. "Emergency responders attended the scene and undertook a very difficult high-angle rescue attempt. Unfortunately the male in question had fallen to his death," said Wendell. It...

Spit-o-cracy is threatening the safety of Howrah bridge with the daily onslaught of gutkha spat out by pedestrians corroding the protective hoods at the base of its pillars. Officials of Calcutta Port Trust, the custodian of the 67-year-old bridge that bears the weight of over a lakh vehicles every day, said the commuters’ collective spit power had reduced the thickness of the steel hoods protecting the pillars from six to three millimetre since 2007. “Gutkha contains highly corrosive elements that erode even steel. A safety audit is now being planned to find out the effect of constant spitting and...

Vice President Biden Visits Brooklyn Bridge To Highlight Recovery ActBy: NY1 News Updated 6/02/2010 07:21 PM Vice President Joe Biden visited the city Wednesday to help mark the start of the Brooklyn Bridge rehabilitation project – which is partially funded by the economic recovery act. Biden discussed the $508 million makeover alongside Mayor Michael Bloomberg on the Manhattan-side of the bridge. The project, which should be completed by 2014, involves repainting the bridge and expanding approach ramps to improve traffic flow. About 150 jobs will be created by this project, including 44 pre-existing jobs. "Here's the deal. This and the...

This item will not be filed under "Mother's Day Role-Modeling Behavior." In this story, it's hard to figure out what's more outrageous: The willful defacement of property -- in this case, a brand-new $5 million pedestrian bridge by an alleged adult in her mid-40s who is the mother of a teenaged son -- or the near non-reaction to wanton vandalism perpetrated in broad daylight by her and others on what is supposed to be a source of pride in Detroit. Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2010/05/09/detroit-free-copy-editor-blogger-vandalizes-new-bridge#ixzz0nZ6trVtl

<p>I don't see this below, so I thought I'd post. The Triborough Bridge here in NYC has been closed because an abandoned rental truck, smelling of gas, has been found on the bridge. Who knows - may be nothing, but I thought it was worth the post.</p>

Note: Photo incuded. PHOTO CAPTION: "Police say these jeans were blown off Joseph Brice of Clarkston when a homemade explosive device he made went off Sunday." SNIPPET: "CLARKSTON - A Clarkston man was in critical condition Monday at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane after an explosion Sunday afternoon. Police said 20-year-old Joseph Brice was experimenting with explosives about a mile west of Red Wolf Bridge when his homemade bomb exploded prematurely."

Chesapeake, Va. - An empty freight train crashed through a safety barrier at a raised drawbridge in Chesapeake this morning and the locomotive remains dangling over the Intercoastal Waterway. A spokesman from the U.S. Coast Guard said the train spilled an estimated 1,700 gallons of diesel fuel into the water. The Coast Guard has closed the waterway while the spill is cleaned up. Lt. Cmdr Robert Gore said crews are using about 2,000 feet of containment booms to contain the fuel. Once the fuel is cleaned up the next problem will be getting the engine back on the tracks. Crews...

CAMP ADDER – The Rutbah Bridge, a key link between Iraq and Jordan damaged by terrorist attack, is now operational again thanks to a dedicated group of Soldiers here.Bravo Company, 141st Brigade Support Battalion, 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team has worked on the Rutbah Bridge on Main Service Route Mobile near Camp Adder for two years. The bridge recently reopened well ahead of schedule thanks to the hard work of the dedicated Soldiers involved. 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team photo. The exceptional efforts of Bravo Company, 141st Brigade Support Battalion, 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team in opening the bridge benefits...

Less than a mile downstream from one of the nation's best-known engineering marvels, the Hoover Dam, a second is taking shape. A soaring 1,900-foot span across the gorge created by the Colorado River on the Arizona-Nevada border should be completed this fall, eliminating much of a sometimes hourlong bottleneck as traffic creeps over the dam on the key route between Phoenix and Las Vegas. When it is scheduled to open in November, motorists will cross the longest bridge of its kind in the western hemisphere, with towering concrete columns that rise above a twin rib arch beneath them. "It's pretty...

Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said THIS about Ted Kennedy's Senate seat...“Why would you hand the keys to the car back to the same guys whose policies drove the economy into the ditch and then walked away from the scene of the accident?”

MUQDADIYAH – U.S. and Iraqi Soldiers are collaborating on a bridge and road project to span the Diyala River, connecting villages here to the thriving city markets. While the nearest market is tantalizingly within view just across the river, farmers here currently have no way to cross the flow. They must travel 24 miles around the river to reach the market, the place to sell crops, livestock and purchase food and supplies for their families. For farmers on foot herding livestock, roads leading up to the new bridge will be expansive for this purpose. "The bridge and road will allow...

With much fanfare and celebration - by Chinese steelworkers and Caltrans officials alike - the first steel pieces of the new Bay Bridge suspension span were prepared to ship out of Shanghai on Tuesday - more than a year late but in time to meet a Dec. 31 deadline that officials hope will keep construction on schedule for a 2013 opening. "It's momentous," said Ken Terpstra, Caltrans' project manager for the Bay Bridge, from Shanghai where workers staged a ceremony complete with daytime fireworks. "It was a hard, challenging road, but they're ready to go." The first shipment, delayed by...

China today announced it had begun construction of the world's longest sea bridge – barely 18 months after opening the current record-holder. The Y-shaped link between Hong Kong, Macau and China will be around 50km (31 miles) long in total, 35km of which will span the sea, said the state news agency Xinhua. Due to be completed by 2015, the 73bn yuan (£6.75bn) cost of the bridge will be shared by the authorities in the three territories.

NANGARHAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan, Dec. 11, 2009 – Task Force Mountain Warrior servicemembers and Afghan contractors are working to replace a bridge across the Saracha River here. International Security Assistance Force servicemembers assemble the new Saracha Bridge in Afghanistan’s Nangahar province, Dec. 7, 2009. The Afghan government, along with Afghan and international servicemembers, are working together to complete the bridge. U.S. Army photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. After flash flooding destroyed the bridge along Highway 1 Aug. 31, Afghan contractors immediately built dirt bypasses and moved concrete to support the footers and piers of the bridge. In September, a...

<p>A truck driver died early today after losing control on the Bay Bridge S-curve at high speed and plummeting 200 feet below to Yerba Buena Island, the most serious collision yet since the new detour was installed, the California Highway Patrol said.</p>

Two more workers died overnight after a bridge under construction in the Pyrenees principality of Andorra collapsed, bringing the death toll to five, the government said Sunday. Six other workers were recovering in hospital after the concrete structure of the road bridge gave way around midday Saturday near the Dos Valires tunnel in the Massana valley in northwest Andorra. Emergency teams worked throughout the night to rescue a man who was trapped up to the waist in rubble, but he died shortly after being pulled from the debris in the early hours on Sunday, according to a government spokesman. The...

Note: The following text is a quote: Hamilton Man Sentenced to 30 Months' Imprisonment for Threatening to Bomb Cincinnati Airport and Other Cincinnati-Area Landmarks CINCINNATI—Frederick D. Purvis, 43, of Hamilton, was sentenced in United States District Court here today to 30 months' imprisonment for a series of messages he sent in November, 2008 in which he threatened to blow up seven Cincinnati-area landmarks including the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. He was also sentenced to serve six years of supervised release after his prison term. Carter M. Stewart, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, James A. Zerhusen, United...