<http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2270&u=/krwashbureau/20050228/ts_krwashbureau/_bc_lighterban_wa_1&printer=1> Yahoo! Lighters to be banned on airline flights 2 hours, 27 minutes ago By Kimberly Morrison, Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - Airline passengers will have to ditch their lighters or lose them to airport security screeners when a new ban on lighters takes effect in April. * Federated to buy May for billion in stock * Black farmers go to Congress for help * Hussein relative captured in Syria * Park City man held in 17-year killing spree * Egypt moves to hold free elections Echo Company Knight Ridder Special Report (at philly.com) The ban reflects Congress' fear that lighters could be used to ignite bombs on planes or otherwise damage or destroy them. The Transportation Security Administration until now had banned all but butane lighters and said each passenger could carry no more than two. TSA's new ruling extends the ban to all butane lighters, effective April 14. Proponents of the ban, including Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record), D-N.D., cited the case of convicted "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, who tried but failed to light explosives in his shoes with matches. Had Reid been using a lighter, he might have brought down the plane, Dorgan said. Reid was sentenced to life in prison in 2003. The butane lighter ban is expected to streamline security procedures, because in the past screeners had to distinguish between butane lighters and types that were banned. The Department of Transportation bans lighters in checked baggage, so passengers wanting to keep them have few options aside from returning to their cars to stow lighters or handing them off to non-fliers. The U.S. Postal Service considers lighters to be hazardous material and will not mail them. Passengers can continue to carry up to four books of matches, but that, too, is under reconsideration, said TSA spokeswoman Amy Von Walter. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'