Firearms and Explosives

Many K-9s deployed overseas as part of a State Department program intended to help partner countries detect and prevent terror attacks suffer or die from neglect by their foreign handlers, according to a report from the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General.

Attorney General William Barr announced a new initiative Wednesday that would better enforce the U.S. gun background check system, coordinate state and federal gun cases and ensure prosecutors quickly update databases to show when a defendant can’t possess a firearm because of mental health issues.

Federal state and local investigators are working hard to try to figure out what led to the explosion and fire at the NuStar Energy facility in Crockett.

What led to the explosion and fire at the NuStar fuel storage facility? Still no answer. But local, state and federal investigators are trying to figure it out. Jodi Hernandez reports.

Authorities evacuated an elementary school in Montana on Tuesday after officials found what they thought were the remnants of a homemade bomb that exploded, but it turned out to be a plastic bottle filled with nuts and bolts left in the schoolyard. School officials in Helena made the discovery shortly before classes began at Rossiter Elementary School. They blocked off...

A bishop and a woman were shot and a suspect is in custody after a gunman opened fire during a wedding in Pelham, New Hampshire, on Saturday, authorities said.

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke’s recent vow to take away people’s AR-15 and AK-47 rifles raised one big question: How is it possible to round up the millions of such guns that exist in the United States? The number of AR-15 and AK-47s in the U.S. is estimated at a staggering 16 million, creating logistical challenges to take them out...

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke’s recent vow to take away people’s AR-15 and AK-47 rifles raised one big question: How is it possible to round up the millions of such guns that exist in the United States? The number of AR-15 and AK-47s in the U.S. is estimated at a staggering 16 million, creating logistical challenges to take them out...

When an explosion destroyed a building, killed a firefighter and injured seven more people Monday in Farmington, Maine, it battered a local fire department with a tight-knit “brotherhood” and family ties that run deep. Captain Michael Bell was killed in the blast, while his brother, Farmington Fire Chief Terry Bell, remained in critical condition Tuesday night. So did Captain Scott...

The U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday it was convening its highest level of investigation into the Labor Day disaster of a commercial dive boat that killed 34 people off the Southern California coast.

Authorities are now conducting a criminal probe into the fiery dive boat disaster that killed 34 off of the Southern California California coast on Labor Day, authorities said Monday.

Authorities served search warrants Sunday at the Southern California company that owned the scuba diving boat that caught fire and killed 34 people last week.

Most mass shooters in the U.S. acquired the weapons they used legally because there was nothing in their backgrounds to disqualify them, according to James Alan Fox, a criminologist with Northeastern University who has studied mass shootings for decades. But in several attacks in recent years gunmen acquired weapons as a result of mistakes, lack of follow-through or gaps in...

The remains of 18 of the 34 people who died in the Conception diving boat fire have been identified as search, recovery and salvage operations continue off the coast of Southern California. Preliminary examinations suggest the 34 people who died in the scuba diving boat fire off the California coast died from smoke inhalation, not burns.

A complex investigation into a Labor Day weekend dive boat trip that ended in tragedy off Southern California will likely include a detailed timeline of events and attempt to answer why no one below deck was able to escape the fast-moving fire that left 34 people dead.

Officials vowed to find what sparked the inferno aboard the dive boat Conception that killed 34 people in waters off Southern California but vital evidence may have gone down with the ship or drifted out to sea.

Lawmakers around the country are making a renewed push to ban high-capacity magazines that gunmen have used in many recent massacres, allowing them to inflict mass casualties at a startling rate before police can stop the carnage. Nine states have passed laws restricting magazine capacity to 10 to 15 bullets, and the Democratic-led U.S. House plans to consider a similar...

The suspected gunman in the deadly mass shooting at an El Paso Walmart earlier this month told police that the AK-style rifle he used in the attack came from Romania, according to an investigative report.

A congressional committee is sharpening their scrutiny of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, questioning the agency’s oversight of gun dealers who sell firearms involved in a large number of crimes, NBC News reported. The inquiry, which comes after back-to-back mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, has been welcomed by gun rights activists who have...

The Senate’s top Democrat said Sunday that the U.S. government should step up efforts to investigate the deaths of at least eight Americans in the Dominican Republic this year. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives should lend support to the FBI and local law enforcement, said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., noting the agency has offices in the Caribbean...