Chicago-Bound Bombs Trigger Security Alerts

Authorities in Dubai and England intercepted apparent mail bombs addressed to Chicago-area Jewish institutions, triggering a worldwide terror alert. Both were found aboard cargo planes, and both were mailed from Yemen. As a result of those scares, cargo planes at airports in the US, including Newark and Philadelphia, also were searched, and officials said no explosives were found in this country. (President Obama called it a "credible terrorist threat.")

This afternoon, an Emirate Airlines passenger jet carrying cargo from Yemen was escorted from the Canadian border to New York City by two military fighter jets as a precautionary measure. US officials said they were increasingly confident that the packages were part of a plot by Yemen's al-Qaeda branch, the same group responsible for an attempted bombing of a US-bound airliner last Christmas. (More suspicious package stories.)