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Bridges Protected, Laws Passed to Secure U.S.
SACRAMENTO, California, Nov 2 (News Agencies) - California officials said Thursday they are beefing up security at the state's suspension bridges after receiving a threat to destroy one of them, news agencies reported Friday.
"We believe there is a credible threat that there will be an effort made between November 2nd and November 7th to destroy one of those bridges," Gov. Gray Davis said, quoted by CNN. The National Guard has been authorized to assign troops to protect the bridges, he said.
Davis said he had received "credible" information that major bridges in the state - including the Golden Gate Bridge - could be targeted for attack.
He said that information "from several different sources" spoke of a possible attempt to blow up the bridges during the rush hour between November 2nd and 7th, BBC's online news service reported.
Security was tightened at all four bridges, but Gray's spokesman later said that the governor had only learned of "a possible threat to bridges in the Western states".
Davis mentioned the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges in San Francisco, the Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles and the Coronado Bridge in San Diego as being under threat.
But the governor's spokesman, Steve Maviglio, said these had merely been examples of the sorts of bridges to which the threat could apply.
There are no plans to close the bridges.
A spokeswoman at the U.S. Justice Department in Washington said the warning was one of many that FBI officials had issued around the country since the deadly September 11 attacks, adding that there was no specific reason to give this one more weight.
Meanwhile, the U.S. House of Representatives late Thursday broke an impasse over airport security legislation, passing a Republican-backed bill that calls for federal oversight of private security screening companies, according to CNN.
Passage came after the defeat of a Democratic-supported bid to make airport security screeners federal employees.
The defeated bill was identical to a bill passed unanimously by the Senate last month. House-Senate conferees will now meet to iron out differences between the bills and then send the measure on to President George W. Bush for approval.
There has been broad criticism of lax airport security in the U.S., following the
hijackings, which enabled the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Under the planned airport security law, the government will be in charge of training screeners, air marshals will fly on commercial flights and cockpit doors will be secure, said BBC.
Now the House and Senate versions of the legislation will go to a committee stage for further discussion.
But some congressmen fear that vital security moves could be delayed.
"My greatest fear is that if it goes to a conference, it never comes out," said House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt, quoted by BBC.
In another move designed to strengthen U.S. laws, President Bush has proposed making it a crime to buy, build or acquire biological weapons for terrorist attacks, BBC reported.
As well as proposing to make trading in biological weapons for terrorist attacks a crime, President Bush also recommended that the United Nations should devise a means to investigate suspected biological warfare attacks.
The move - a proposed strengthening of the 1972 U.N. Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention - appears to be a reversal of policy for the White House, which was reluctant to back international treaties before September 11, according to BBC.
It came as the U.S. Food and Drug Agency (FDA) announced that four of its mailrooms in Washington had tested positive for anthrax during preliminary tests.
If confirmed the finding would make the FDA the latest branch of the U.S. Government to be affected by anthrax.
The disease has also been discovered at a mail processing facility in Kansas City, Missouri - the first incidence in the Midwest.
The bacteria has already hit postal facilities in New Jersey, New York and Washington, and traces of anthrax in several federal buildings have interrupted the work of the U.S.'s executive, legislative and judicial
branches of government.
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