The mother of Jose Pimentel, the alleged "lone wolf" terrorist the NYPD happily trotted out before the cameras yesterday, has apologized to the city just as neighbors are starting to show up for the obligatory "never saw it coming" quotes. "I want to apologize to the city," Carmen Sosa told reporters today. "I love New York and I’ve been here since 1987. I’m very disappointed by what my son is doing." more ›

[UPDATES BELOW] NBC reports that NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and Manhattan DA Cy Vance are scheduled to make an announcement at 7:30 p.m. tonight—the announcement is "likely terrorism related." MSNBC's Meg Robertson reports that it's "confirmed" that the announced is terrorism related. We'll update this post as we learn more information. more ›

Yesterday the FBI arrested Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, 20, a student from Saudi Arabia majoring in business at South Plains College in Lubbock, Texas, and charged him with trying to detonate a weapon of mass destruction at a number of targets, including NYC. Investigators say Aldawsari sent himself an email with a link to real-time traffic cameras in NYC, and he allegedly sent himself an e-mail titled "Tyrant’s House," in which he listed the Dallas address for former President George W. Bush. Aldawsari is not believed to be associated with Al-Qaeda, but allegedly wrote in his journal that he wanted to create a new terrorist group that he would lead. more ›

As NYC is beefing up security on the subway's "ring of steel" in September, the Port Authority is looking to protect the PATH tunnels. According to the Post, contractors are "toiling in the cloak of darkness" for the "hush-hush project" to install flood-prevention gates and bomb-proof metal plates, and they're being pressured to get it done before the WTC memorial opens next year. more ›

Here's a lesson to anyone thinking about setting off a crude explosive device: Even if no one is injured, the Manhattan DA's office wants you to know you're going to prison. Nineteen-year-old Kyle Shaw, who at age 17 set off an explosive outside an Upper East Side Starbucks in May 2009, was officially sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison as part of a plea deal. Manhattan assistant DA Christopher Ryan said, "Any one considering setting off a bomb in New York City should know they will be caught. You will be pursued by the best detectives in the world, and you will be found, and you will be brought to justice." more ›

Around 11:45 a.m. today, we received word that the bomb squad was requested at Marble Cemetery, located at 2nd Avenue and 2nd Street in Manhattan. Over the past hour we've received reports that a device was found after aviation was requested to "check the rooftops on the block—it is now being evaluated. We'll update when we receive more details about the ongoing investigation... hopefully someone just left their SLR there during Open House NY. more ›

A homeless man tried to hold up the Chase bank at the corner of West 72nd Street and Columbus Avenue yesterday—and the Post says he was "brandishing an old television remote control, demanding money and claiming he had a bomb." Which freaked the bank's employees out enough for them to head to the building's roof. more ›

A 75-year-old man on a flight from Chicago to Long Island was arrested after telling a flight attendant there was a bomb in his carry-on luggage. When the plane landed at MacArthur Airport, a flight attendant asked Draco Slaughter about a bag on an empty seat near him. Slaughter said the bag was his and "there was a bomb in it." However, a police investigation found no explosive devices in Slaughter's luggage, and he was arrested for first-degree falsely reporting an incident. more ›

Yesterday, Jersey City authorities were able to defuse a homemade bomb in a vacated pizzeria on Palisade Avenue. Jersey City Deputy Police Chief Peter Nalbach said the bomb was "very rudimentary... If you watched 'MacGyver' as a kid you could probably figure out how to do it. But if it had gone off, there would have been major destruction." And police arrested the building's landlord, who allegedly was trying to set up the pizzeria tenant! more ›

About 24-hours after the Times Square terror scare, firefighters and the NYPD bomb squad rushed to a storefront at 1133 Broadway after getting calls from people who thought they saw a bomb inside. What they found, however, was an art display that included a fog machine, a fake time bomb and vials of liquid (turns out it was perfume) that looked like pipe bombs. more ›

Today the White House confirmed that President Obama placed congratulatory phone calls to the two street vendors who first reported the suspicious vehicle packed with explosives in Times Square Saturday. Obama also rang the mounted police officer and his partner who immediately started the evacuation. At press time, we're still waiting for Obama to call some of the websites who first informed the public about the incident. more ›

The NYPD is using at least $24 million of federal money to expand the "Ring of Steel" surveillance network to midtown. But would it have caught the SUV bomb that was parked on 45th Street in Times Square on Saturday? Yes and no, say those with familiarity with the high-tech plans. more ›

While the Pakistani Taliban claimed credit for the Times Square car bomb found last night, today the police said there's no evidence of any link so far. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said, "Although we have not yet determined whether the Times Square car bomb is linked to any specific terrorist organization, we are working very closely with the FBI through the Joint Terrorist Task Force on this case." more ›

Speaking at a 2:15 a.m. press conference about the crude bomb found in an SUV in Times Square last night, Mayor Bloomberg said, "We are very lucky... Thanks to alert New Yorkers and professional police officers we avoided what could have been a very deadly event." Inside a Nissan Pathfinder parked on West 45th Street near 7th Avenue, police found "two gasoline cans, three propane tanks, electrical wires, black powder, consumer grade fireworks and two clocks." While the bob was called "amateurish," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said, "I think the intent was to cause a significant ball of fire." more ›

Yesterday, Zarein Ahmedzay pleaded guilty to conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and other charges in connection with a foiled September 2009 plan to bomb NYC subways. The 25-year-old cabdriver from Queens told the judge that he, Najibullah Zazi and Adis Medunjanin went to an Al Qaeda camp in Pakistan, ready to join the Taliban. But Al Qaeda instead told them that they would be, Ahmedzay said, "more useful if we returned to New York City ... to conduct operations." He also said, "I personally believed that conducting an operation in the United States would be the best way to end the wars." more ›

A building can be the target of a hate crime, not just a person, or so ruled an appelate court in the case of man who threw Molotov Cocktails at a Bronx synagogue on the eve of Yom Kippur. Thirty-year-old Palestinian-American Mazin Assi is currently serving 5 to 15 for the crime he committed in 2000, with three other men. His lawyer said he should have been convicted only of attempted arson, but a judge decided the stricter charges apply. "It is self-evident that, although the target of the defendant's criminal conduct was a building, the true victims were the individuals of Jewish faith who were members of the synagogue,'' Judge Victoria Graffeo wrote in a ruling that "broadens the hate crimes act," according to the New York Law Journal. more ›

Despite invasive full body scanners popping up at our nation’s airports, Janet Napolitano says you’ll still have to take your shoes off to get through security. According to the Homeland Security Secretary, shoes are so impenetrable that they can’t be fully screened while they’re on your feet, reports the AP. Too bad these never caught on. During a live video chat session, she also spoke to the shortage of air marshals on domestic and international flights, and about incidents, like the Newark airport kisser, where non-passengers cause security meltdowns by entering unauthorized areas. She said that for now only ticketed travelers would be allowed in secure areas but that "It may be possible to change that as we move forward." more ›

A legless man in a wheelchair planted explosives in the 125th Street Metro-North station yesterday, according to police. Trains were rerouted and the Harlem station was evacuated while officers tried to make sure that the "pyrotechnic" device, which consisted of M-80 fireworks and shotgun shells, didn't detonate. more ›

As was expected, admitted terrorist plotter Najibullah Zazi implicated his high school pals in his planned attack on the New York subway system. Former classmates Adis Medunjanin and Zarein Ahmedzay were arraigned before a Brooklyn Federal Judge today on new charges [PDF] of plotting three coordinated bombings on rush hour subways in Manhattan. more ›

Now that Najibullah Zazi has admitted he planned to attack NY's subway system in federal court, his high school pals are likely to face additional charges when they take the stand tomorrow. When questioned today whether Zazi planned to carry out his attack with the help of two other suicide bombers, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly responded, "The information will be coming out, but I think that's fair to say, yes." Both Adis Medunjanin, originally from Bosnia and Zarein Ahmedzay, originally from Afghanistan, are already charged in connection with their friend's sojourn in a Pakistani Al Qaeda training camp, but now that Zazi is talking, it's unclear exactly what other accusations will be piled on. more ›

Yesterday accused terrorist Najibulllah Zazi pleaded guilty, describing his motives and plot in detail. His confession confirmed much of what investigators suspected, but the candor with which Zazi describes his negative feelings towards the U.S.—his "unapologetic, matter-of-fact manner"—was surprising. "I would sacrifice myself to bring attention to what the United States military was doing to civilian in Afghanistan by sacrificing my soul for the sake of saving other souls," Zazi explained to the judge. more ›

On Staten Island a young Najibullah Zazi-in-training was caught with homemade bombs under his winter coat, and officials want him and all the other bomb hobbyists out there to know that's not OK. "I made it," John McCloskey told cops. "I'll show it to you. I'm going to prank my friend with it." The 19-year-old didn't need a Qaeda camp for his explosive project; he says video tutorials showed him how to make a bomb out of wire, nails, metal and gunpowder, reports the Staten Island Advance. At his arraignment today, McCloskey will be charged with first-degree criminal possession. “Although this defendant claims that the [device] he manufactured was intended as a prank and not to be used, this was clearly a dangerous situation with the capacity to injure many people,” said DA Daniel Donovan in a press release. “There is nothing humorous about attempting to manufacture a bomb." more ›

The FBI has gone after school pals of alleged terrorist bomber Najibullah Zazi, and today sources revealed they have his uncle too. They arrested Naqib Jaji secretly on a single felony charge (the exact nature of the crime remains undisclosed) and arraigned him in Brooklyn two weeks ago, reported the NY Post. Jaji—Zazi's uncle by marriage—gave the accused Qaeda plotter a warm bed and hot meals when he first moved from Queens to Denver and later said it was "impossible" his nephew was a terrorist. But Jaji maligned his house guest too: “He’s very greedy,” he told the Denver Post back in September when the case was just getting underway. “He lived with me for six months and never gave me a penny.” more ›

Reports started coming across the wire earlier this morning that a flight out of LaGuardia Airport was being diverted to Philadelphia due to a bomb scare involving a passenger "who has wires strapped to his head and fingers." Turns out, there wasn't really a bomb on board, instead the plane was diverted because "an orthodox Jewish male put on customary 'tefilin' (sic) straps for his morning prayers." more ›

The first of several charges have been filed against Adis Medunjanin, 25, a Queens College graduate who allegedly traveled to Pakistan in 2008 with subway bomb suspect Najibullah Zazi. Today federal prosecutor James P. Loonam told a judge that while in Pakistan, Medunjanin attended an Al Qaeda training camp and conspired to kill American service members in Afghanistan. Loonam's office expects to seek additional charges against Medunjanin, who has not (yet) been charged with participating in Zazi's alleged subway bomb plot. more ›

The MIT- and Brandeis-educated neuroscientist accused of attempted murder for shooting at U.S. personnel in Afghanistan was thrown out of court just 90 minutes into her trial when she interrupted testimony with a rant. Aafia Siddiqui — who has already been reprimanded for her courtroom etiquette and once urged a judge to use genetic tests to make sure her jurors wouldn't be Jews — shouted: "I was never planning to bomb [New York]. You are lying." more ›

This week 17-year-old Jason Barry, who we can only imagine is a disgruntled PC user, has been busted after threatening to blow the Staten Island Apple Store to bits. The NY Post reports that he typed a letter and signed it with his friend's dad's name on Monday, leaving it in the store, and warning that he would bomb the shop with C4 on January 17th. more ›

Newark Liberty International Airport is going to be the first airport in the region to be equipped with full body x-ray scanners that allow security officers to see hidden contraband — and everything else beneath passengers' clothing. The plan to install the costly and invasive anti-terrorism devices comes after a man attempted to blow up an airplane as it landed in Detroit on Christmas with explosives stitched into his underwear. more ›

A Manhattan Federal Court judge did double duty as the fashion police yesterday, when he ordered a groovy balloon artist who's suing police to go change out of his tie-dyed T-shirt, tie-dyed patchwork overalls, and far-out multicolored sneakers. Russian immigrant Alexander "Sasha" Alhovsky, 40, was in the court room during jury selection for the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages over claims that the NYPD used excessive force when he was taken into custody in June 2006, on suspicion of planting a fake bomb inside an UES Starbucks three days earlier. more ›