Lebanon County, Pennsylvania A 14-year old boy was helping with the lawn work at his house when he saw a piece of metal sticking out of the dirt. The boy gave the item a kick and loosened it from the ground. To his surprise, the item was a munition. He quickly told his parents who called the police to report the find. The police responded with a state police bomb squad. The nearby highway was closed as the bomb squad responded. The bomb squad identified the munition as a 60 mm training mortar. The bomb squad safely removed the item from the property for proper disposal.

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Press release submitted by: Isabel Jackson, email: IsabelJ@UXOGlobal.com, phone: (970) 292-2030.

UXO Global has been providing meaningful, effective and sustainable training for the UXO community since Sept 2009. We consistently produce highly trained and capable UXO Tech I's. Several Program Managers and USACE Representatives have singled out our graduates as being "exceptionally well trained and qualified."

We are pleased to announce that we have gone digital. All of our courseware is now distributed on HP TouchPads. Students are able to highlight, draw and take notes digitally while following along with the class. At the end of each term, each student receives a copy of their note filled courseware on a JumpDrive. This allows for easier referencing when out on a job site.

UXO Global is proud to recognize our Honor Graduates from classes thus far in 2012. These graduates achieved the highest GPA among their peers and have been formally recognized as the "Honor Graduate".

• Class 01-2012 - D. Ashley Rice
• Class 03-2012 - William Zdrojewski
• Class 04-2012 - Joshua Liscombe
• Class 06-2012 - Marc Huck
• Class 07-2012 - Class starts on July 23rd.

UXO Global is proud of its Instructor Staff; both past and present. UXO Global has been privileged to have some of the industry's leading professionals working with us and is excited to recognize our current staff.

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Ware, Massachusetts The Massachusetts State Fire Marshal's Office has temporarily suspended Pyrotecnico from deploying additional fireworks after officials received reports of more than a dozen unexploded firework shells left in parks across the state from July 4th fireworks shows. Officials reported that eight unexploded shells were found in Ware and more than one shell each in Stoughton, Waltham, Worcester, and Wilmington after the fireworks show performed by Pyrotecnico.

The finds included reports of unexploded fireworks being set-off by grounds maintenance crews who inadvertently ran over the unexpended fireworks with lawn tractors. A local bomb squad responded to fireworks found on a baseball field at another site.

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Quincy, Washington A worker at the ConAgra food processing plant made an startling discovery, a military munition in a bin of potatoes. The worker alerted management who in turn called the police to report the find. Police responded with technical support provided by the Richland Police Department bomb squad.

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In this article we examine an explosives safety issue associated with older blasting caps known as the copper azide effect. Early designs (1918-1955) of blasting caps included copper shells filled with lead azide. When moisture comes into contact lead azide, a reaction occurs and hydrazoic acid is formed. Hydrazoic acid is gas at room temperature that is highly toxic and explosive. When in contact with copper, highly sensitive copper azides are formed. Copper azide is more impact sensitive, less friction sensitive, and orders of magnitude more static sensitive than lead azide. Further hydrolysis and oxidation creates what is known as explosive salts.

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Colorado Springs, Colorado A jogger running in a residential area discovered a mortar round near a wooded area in the Meridian Estates subdivision. The jogger called the police to report the find. The El Paso County Sheriff's Office responded with the Colorado Springs Bomb squad.

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Lansing, Kansas The fireworks show at the Kenneth Bernard Community Park hosted close to 3,500 spectators on the 4th of July. After the show, volunteers helped cleanup the park including searching for unexpended fireworks for disposal by the fireworks crew.

During the cleanup and disposal operations, one of the volunteers, a 44-year old man, was fatally wounded when a firework exploded near him. The incident allegedly occurred during one of the disposal operations. Details of the accident are under investigation and the park remains closed while police search the area for additional evidence.