# Posted 5:32 PM by Patrick Belton  

EXPLOSION AT YALE: Several moments ago, it was reported that there was an explosion at the Yale Law School, which according to the FBI's terrorism task force and the city of New Haven took place in the mail room.

We nervously pray that all of our friends there are all right.

UPDATE 1: A good friend of mine writes in to say that the word on the street (literally) is that thankfully so far it seems that no students were hurt. Smoke is rising from the building; and someone saw a wall to the alumni reading room collapse, and a few classroom doors were reportedly blown out - but buildings can be rebuilt....

UPDATE 2: Reports continue to be that no students or faculty were hurt in the blast. Thankfully, the building seems to have been mostly empty because of exams period. The AP, CNN, and New Haven's NBC affiliate are continually updating their stories, but the New Haven Register is at the moment doing the best job at putting breaking details up. One student on the ground floor by the main staircase reported seeing a "fireball" blow down the stairs.

UPDATE 3: A Yale spokeswoman is confirming that no students were injured. She also is reporting that the blast took place in a classroom, not in the mail room as previously reported. Some reports are indicating that part of one floor may have collapsed. There will be a press conference at 6:30 to announce what is known so far. Channel 30 is broadcasting it live here.

UPDATE 4: Linda Lorrimer and Mayor DeStefano, speaking at the press conference, said that although a number of students and day-care children were in the building at the time of the explosion, no one indeed was hurt, and Yale so far expects the explosion was indeed caused by a bomb. According to the press conference, damage occured in two classrooms; one wall fell in, and it is asserted that the damage was "not structural, it was minimal," with water damage, but no windows blown out. (Glenn heard that one of the classrooms was number 127, but I think he heard the news coverage talking about 127 Wall Street.) The law school will be moved temporarily to another part of campus. There will be a second press conference at 10:00 pm.

UPDATE 5: Fisking time. Nearly every story on this subject has included between one and all of the following gems: that (1) President Bush was in New London, which is in Connecticut. Yale is in New Haven, which is also in...Connecticut. Suspicious? Actually, no. (2) President Bush attended Yale....but not the law school. (President Clinton, on the other hand, did attend the law school....but is no longer president). (3) Barbara Bush is a junior in Yale College....which, once again, is not the law school. (4) Yale is a top university with over 5,000 students (true: it has 10,000 students. 10,000 is indeed more than 5,000.) (5) The Unabomber seriously injured Yale professor David J. Gelernter in June 1993, but once again, not in the law school. The networks' swift detective work pans out at the fact that the Unabomber is...in jail, since 1998. Sorry folks, keep trying.

UPDATE 6: Lilly Malcolm from Kitchen Cabinet adds this wonderful point to the list o' fiskings:

Our early reaction to the bombing is that the news coverage, and the mayor's comments, seemed very uninformed. The NBC TV station here was showing a shot of the city skyline, with "smoke" supposedly rising out of the law school -- but anybody who knows anything about New Haven would know that wasn't even the law school building. They were showing a shot of steam coming off of the power plant across the street!

She also says that the wall that bit the dust in the alumni lounge was the one with Bork's portrait. Sigh. Who was it who said that conservatives always get the short end at the Yale Law School?

AND FINAL ROUND-UP: The AP's final update of the story for the night is reporting that the fallen wall was in actuality simply a partition which fell over, and the "fallen floor" consisted merely of fallen ceiling tiles, although on the other hand a Yale Office of Public Affairs statement referred to the damage as "considerable" to the classroom and the alumni lounge. (And CNN for its part finally got right the number of students who attend Yale.) Connecticut police are announcing that it will take two or three days to go through the building for evidence, during which time it will be closed. Police are currently suspecting a pipe bomb, and Joint Terrorism Task Force staffers are saying on background that they haven't seen any likely indicators to suggest international terrorism.

But most importantly, everyone's okay - and we're all really, really grateful for that.

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