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By PATRICK WALTERS
COLLINGDALE -- A series of explosions at a welding supply company on Wednesday injured 5 people -- one critically -- forced evacuations and sent thick black smoke billowing over the area.
The explosions at Scully Welding Supply occurred around 1 p.m. in an industrial area about seven miles southwest of Philadelphia, Delaware County spokesman Bill Lovejoy said. Buildings in a 3,000-foot radius were evacuated, many until the six-alarm fire was brought under control shortly after 6 p.m., he said.
Officials spent hours pouring water on large propane tanks to cool them, Lovejoy said. County Emergency Services Director Ed Truitt said officials also had been concerned about the danger the flames posed to a nearby oxygen supply company.
"If that building were to be breached, that could make life real interesting down there," he said.
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By JESSE J. HOLLAND and MATTHEW LEE
WASHINGTON -- U.S. officials on Wednesday charged the leader of Pakistan's Taliban with planning violent attacks against American forces in Afghanistan, including last year's suicide bombing that killed seven CIA employees.
The Justice Department unsealed criminal charges against Hakimullah Mehsud, the self-proclaimed emir of the Pakistani Taliban, in federal court in Washington. Mehsud in charged with conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens abroad and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction -- or explosives -- against U.S. citizens abroad.
The charges stem from a December 2009 bombing in which seven CIA employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer were killed. A suicide bomber detonated explosives at a CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan.
The charges were part of a broader U.S. move Wednesday to punish the Pakistani Taliban. The State Department added Mehsud's group, known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban or TTP, to the government's international terrorism blacklist. In addition to the CIA bombing, Pakistan's Taliban has been blamed for the failed May 1 car bombing in New York's Times Square.
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By ROBERT BURNS
WASHINGTON -- Struggling to break decades of hostility, President Barack Obama convened an ambitious new round of Mideast peace talks Wednesday and told Israeli and Palestinian leaders they faced a fleeting chance to settle deep differences.
"This moment of opportunity may not soon come again," Obama said at the White House before hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the first face-to-face peace talks in nearly two years. "They cannot afford to let it slip away."
Obama sought to temper expectations, noting that it had taken his administration this long just to get the two sides back to the bargaining table for talks aimed at creating a sovereign Palestinian state beside a secure Israel.
"The hard work is only beginning," Obama said, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and special Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell at his side. "Neither success nor failure is inevitable. But this much we know: If we do not make the attempt, then failure is guaranteed. If both sides do not commit to these talks in earnest, then long-standing conflict will only continue to fester and consume another generation, and this we simply cannot allow."
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N.M. National Guard deploys to border
National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Jamison Herrera said Wednesday the troops have been training side by side with Border Patrol agents for about two weeks, and began their mission this week to support the Border Patrol and other law enforcement agencies along southern edge of the state.
In May, President Barack Obama announced a plan to deploy 1,200 National Guard members to the international border in response to increasing concerns about border violence.
Gov. Bill Richardson said violence along the New Mexico-Mexico border is a major concern.
Guard members will not make arrests, but rather will do intelligence work and early entry identification, Herrera said.
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