Bomb attempt a screw-up: Obama

On Obama’s first full day back from his Hawaii vacation,he faced the challenge of spotlighting national security — suddenly pushed to the top of his agenda — while not looking distracted from other pressing public concerns like reducing double-digit US unemployment.

“We have to do better and we will do better. And we will do it quickly,” Obama said after a two-hour meeting with his national security team to discuss what he has called “human and systemic failures” in the Christmas Day incident.

Obama used his sharpest language behind closed doors,telling more than two dozen security chiefs gathered in the Situation Room,“This was a screw-up that could have been disastrous,” according to the White House.

“We dodged a bullet but just barely,” the White House quoted him as telling the security chiefs. “It was averted by brave individuals not because the system worked,and that is not acceptable.”

Passengers and crew subdued the Nigerian bomb suspect as he tried to detonate explosives sewn into his underwear.

US spy agencies and the State Department had information about the man,23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab but never collated the information to put him on a no-fly list.

Suspicious luggage in US delays flights

FRESNO: Seemingly suspicious pieces of luggage delayed flights at two airports,prompting evacuations in Minneapolis and closing a California airport where authorities discovered what turned out to be soft drink bottles filled with honey. When Transportation Security Administration officials opened the bag,they found bottles filled with an amber liquid,he said.

Slovak admitted with explosives

BRATISLAVAL: A failed airport security test ended up with a Slovak man unwittingly carrying hidden explosives in his luggage on a flight to Dublin,Slovak officials admitted Wednesday — a mistake that enraged Irish authorities and shocked aviation experts worldwide. The Slovaks blamed the incident on “a silly and unprofessional mistake.”