Car bomber targets New York’s Times Square

Police in the US found an “amateurish” but potentially powerful bomb in a smoking sport utility vehicle in New York’s Times Square, then cleared the streets of thousands of tourists milling through the landmark district so they could dismantle it, authorities said today.

“We avoided what we could have been a very deadly event,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. “It certainly could have exploded and had a pretty big fire and a decent amount of explosive impact.”