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China Central Television showed flames raging among tanks at the port in the northern city of Dalian, and state media described flames 30 meters high.

The cause of the initial blast was not clear. The Xinhua News Agency said it happened after a tanker uploaded oil at the port.

China National Radio said officials were considering the evacuation of about 600 homes nearby.

The pipelines are owned by China National Petroleum Corp., which is Asia’s biggest oil and gas producer by volume.

Dalian’s secretary general Xu Guochen told a news conference on Saturday morning that firefighters had turned off the valves on all oil tanks at the site.

The investigations found that the center — regarded by experts as the nation’s leader in the use of positron emission tomography, or PET, for psychiatric research — repeatedly violated Food and Drug Administration regulations over a four-year period.

“Failure to promptly correct these violations may result in legal action without further notice,” the agency wrote to Columbia in December 2008, citing lax internal quality control and sloppy procedures for formulating drug injections.

F.D.A. investigators returned in January 2010 and found that many of the center’s lab’s practices had not changed, and cited a long list of specific violations, including one instance in which the staff hid impurities from auditors by falsifying documents.

“They raided the place like it was a crime scene, seizing hard drives,” said one former lab worker, who requested anonymity because he feared reprisals from the university.

In a statement, the university said on Friday that it had conducted its own investigation of the lab at the request of the F.D.A. had and reported to the agency on July 6 that it found no evidence of harm to patients. The F.D.A. did not publicize its investigations; The New York Times learned of them from doctors who were familiar with the lab’s problems.

The office under fire, the Kreitchman PET Center, on West 168th Street in Manhattan, has attracted millions of dollars in research funds from the federal government and pharmaceutical companies to study drug actions and the biology of brain disorders, among other things.

Many of its studies focus on patients with disorders like schizophrenia and severe depression, who are especially vulnerable to poorly prepared imaging drugs because the compounds can act on brain receptors involved in their illness.

“We acknowledge serious shortcomings of quality control in the manufacturing process and record-keeping at this lab,” said David I. Hirsh, Columbia’s executive vice president for research. “That is why we are fundamentally reorganizing the lab’s management and operations in response to what the F.D.A. told us.”

To perform a PET scan, doctors must first inject patients with a radiotracer, a drug engineered to accumulate in the area of the body being studied and to emit low-level radiation detectable by a scanner.

The compounds are considered very safe. But because they degrade quickly, many laboratories produce them themselves, under protocols agreed upon with the F.D.A.

The agency regulates the allowable radiation levels and the purity of the drugs. If a drug contains too many impurities — unknown chemicals that may or may not be related to the tracer itself — then its effects in the body are unpredictable.

“There could be a patient safety issue, for one,” said Dr. Barry Siegel, chairman of the radioactive drug research committee at Washington University in St. Louis. “And there could be a scientific validity issue. If you’re exposing people to radiation and getting garbage data, then that becomes an ethical problem.”

That is particularly true when it comes to psychiatric research. Radiotracers that target receptors in the brain, as used in many of the Columbia studies, are more prone than other PET drugs to be biologically active — to affect mood or behavior, especially in those who already suffer from severe depression or other mental problems. “You have to have additional quality-assurance procedures if you’re using agents that bind receptors in brain,” said Dr. Dennis P. Swanson, chairman of the radiation safety commission at the University of Pittsburgh.

The F.D.A.’s latest investigation, which took place from Jan. 5 to Jan. 21, listed six categories of violations. It found that since 2007, “at least 10 batches” of drugs had been “released and injected into human subjects” with impurities that exceeded the level the lab had agreed to set. At least four injections “had impurity masses that more than doubled the maximum limit implemented.”

The report highlighted an equation that the lab routinely used, resulting in injections that exceeded the limit for acceptable impurities. The lab did not adequately check “the identity, strength and purity of each active ingredient prior to release” for injection into patients, the report said.

Agency investigators also found a forged document, a hard copy record that had been altered to hide a drug impurity that showed up clearly in the computer records.

“These are not the actions of a rogue, but instead are systematic forgeries condoned and approved by the lab director,” wrote one employee in a 2009 resignation letter addressed to Dr. Ronald L. Van Heertum, the PET center’s co-director at the time.

Columbia’s internal audit concluded that this and other charges had “sufficient substance to warrant an investigation,” according to documents obtained by The Times. Among the charges was one that the lab replaced a compound it was testing for the drug maker Eli Lilly with one it was testing for Novartis — and did not mention the switch in its report to Eli Lilly.

Neither Dr. Van Heertum, a radiologist, nor his former co-director, Dr. J. John Mann, a psychiatrist, returned calls seeking comment on Friday.

In his statement, Dr. Hirsh said, “When manufacturing resumes under new leadership, it will meet the strictest standards and best practices for ensuring the quality” of the PET drugs.

His order supports President Barack Obama’s plan to have 1,200 National Guard troops assist with federal border protection, customs and immigration agents.

The move comes amid a national debate over an Arizona law that directs police to conduct immigration checks when they are questioning people about possible legal violations. There must be a “reasonable suspicion” the person is in the country illegally.

Obama asked California to deploy 224 Guard members for as long as a year, but California National Guard spokesman Lt. Patrick Bagley said as many as 260 soldiers and airmen will head to the border by Oct. 1.

The higher number is because California has more members qualified to perform the specific duties needed to support federal border protection, customs and immigration agents, Bagley said. The number and assignments resulted from talks with officials in other states and the federal government.

The California soldiers and airmen — all of whom have volunteered for the mission — will be selected by mid-August. They will get up to three weeks of training in August or September, expanding on routine training they already receive.

California is responsible for its entire border with Mexico, but Bagley said the Guard members will be assigned to specific locations as needed based on discussions with federal officials.

The Diplomatic Security Bureau at State sent out a notice Thursday to all department employees warning them to protect classified information and reject inquiries from the press when the new web feature goes live.

“The Washington Post plans to publish a website listing all agencies and contractors believed to conduct Top Secret work on behalf of the U.S. Government,” the notice reads. “The website provides a graphic representation pinpointing the location of firms conducting Top Secret work, describing the type of work they perform, and identifying many facilities where such work is done.”

According to the notice, the Post used only open-source information to compile its site. However, if some of that open-source information turns out to have been classified, its publication by the Post doesn’t change that classification, the State Department emphasized.

“All Department personnel should remain aware of their responsibility to protect classified and other sensitive information, such as the Department’s relationships with contract firms, other U.S. Government agencies, and foreign governments,” the notice says.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley confirmed the authenticity of the e-mail and said it went out to all State Department employees in the Washington, DC area, 14,574 people.

The Washington Post declined requests for comment.

Here’s the full notice:

Office of Origin: DS/EX

Announcement Number: 2010_07_059

Date of Announcement: July 15, 2010

________________________________

Notification of Major Media Outlet Story On Monday July 19, the Washington Post plans to publish a website listing all agencies and contractors believed to conduct Top Secret work on behalf of the U.S. Government. The website provides a graphic representation pinpointing the location of firms conducting Top Secret work, describing the type of work they perform, and identifying many facilities where such work is done.

Although the Washington Post acquired the information from open sources, all Department personnel should remain aware of their responsibility to protect classified and other sensitive information, such as the Department’s relationships with contract firms, other U.S. Government agencies, and foreign governments. Employees are reminded that they must neither confirm nor deny information contained in this, or any, media publication, and that the publication of this website and supporting articles does not constitute a change to the level of classification of any information duly classified in accordance with Executive Order 13526.

In the unlikely event you are contacted for comment, please forward any request for information to the Bureau of Public Affairs, Press Relations Office at (202) 647-2492.

UPDATE: The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder publishes a related memo by Art House, the communications director of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which appears to be just as worried as the State Department about the Post’s reporting. Excerpt:

It might be helpful as you prepare for publication to draw up a list of accomplishments and examples of success to offer in response to inquiries to balance the coverage and add points that deserve to be mentioned. In media discussions, we will seek to garner support for the Intelligence Community and its members by offering examples of agile, integrated activity that has enhanced performance. We will want to minimize damage caused by unauthorized disclosure of sensitive and classified information.

It also describes ODNI’s expections for the Washington Post series:

Themes

While we can’t predict specific content, we anticipate the following themes:

The intelligence enterprise has undergone exponential growth and has become unmanageable with overlapping authorities and a heavily outsourced contractor workforce.

The IC and the DoD have wasted significant time and resources, especially in the areas of counterterrorism and counterintelligence.

The intelligence enterprise has taken its eyes off its post-9/11 mission and is spending its energy on competitive and redundant programs.

Format

The Washington Post may run a series of three articles, the first being an overview, the second focused on the large number of contractors supporting the intelligence enterprise, and the third looking at a specific community (the Fort Meade/BWI Airport area) that has expanded in part due to Intelligence Community growth.

The Washington Post is expected to work with Public Broadcasting Service’s Frontline program to add a television component to this work, and will also present an interactive web site demonstrating growth of the intelligence enterprise and inviting comment and dialogue. The Post advises that “links” between individual contractors and specific agencies have been deleted, although the Post will still cite contractors and their locations.

UPDATE #2: An administration official responds to The Cable to comment on the Post series, which the administration is portraying as less than meets the eye.

“A lot of this is explainable. You want some redundancy in the Intelligence Community and you’re going to have some waste. These are things we’ve been aware of and in some instances we agree are troubling. However, it’s something we’ve been working on for a year and a half. It’s something we’ve been on top of,” the official said.

Carmelo Vasquez Guerra, a Venezuelan, was the DC9’s pilot who was said to have “escaped” from the airport while his airplane was being seized, and four other members of his crew were arrested.

He was later taken into custody by Mexican authorities, and charged with flying an airplane packed with 128 identical suitcases filled with cocaine.

Getting caught with 5.5 tons of cocaine would seem to call for some serious jail time. Reporters in Mexico assumed he’d been sent to prison for, like… forever.

So imagine reporter Francisco Gomez of Mexico City’s El Universal surprise when he made a startling discovery: Carmelo Vasquez Guerra—amazingly and inexplicably—had been released from prison less than two years after being arrested.

The shocking news was delivered via an international headline stating that a pilot named Carmelo Vasquez Guerra had been arrested in the West African nation of Guinea Bissau on a twin-engine Gulfstream II carrying… what else? 550 kilos—a half-ton— of cocaine.

The date of Vasquez’s West African arrest was July 13, 2008.

Mexican authorities had nabbed Carmelo Vasquez Guerra, Gomez learned, not long after authorities discovered him missing from the DC9.

How was it he was out of jail, less than two years later, Reporter Francisco Gomez asked.

Authorities in Mexico refused to discuss Vasquez Guerra’s release with reporter Gomez.

But news about Carmelo kept coming, and kept getting worse. Gomez discovered that Mexico was not the only country to arrest Vasquez Guerra for the presumably major offense of flying box-car sized loads of cocaine, only to let him go.

It’s happened in three. Caught and released under mysterious and unexplained circumstances. in Mexico, in Guinea Bissau, and in Mali, home of Timbuktu.

“If this country has been misled, if this committee, this Congress, has been misled by pretext into a war in which thousands of young men have died, and many more thousands have been crippled for life, and out of which their country has lost prestige, moral position in the world, the consequences are very great,” Senator Albert Gore Sr. of Tennessee, the father of the future vice president, said in March 1968 in a closed session of the Foreign Relations Committee.

…

Robert J. Hanyok, a retired National Security Agency historian, said Wednesday in an interview that “there were doubts, but nobody wanted to follow up on the doubts,” perhaps because “they felt they’d gone too far down the road.”

Mr. Hanyok concluded in 2001 that N.S.A. officers had deliberately falsified intercepted communications in the incident to make it look like the attack on Aug. 4, 1964, had occurred, although he said they acted not out of political motives but to cover up earlier errors.

But as CBS 2 HD found out taking it could end up costing you big-time.

“As far as I knew it was a piece of garbage sitting on the curb,” Paul Lawrence said.

But what Lawrence didn’t know when he decided to pick up a discarded air conditioner sitting on the sidewalk in Middle Village, Queens is that once trash hits the curb, it’s technically city property.

And he was breaking the law.

“There was a lady here. I asked the lady can I take the air conditioner. She said go ahead take it. It’s garbage,” Lawrence said.

But not only was he fined $2,000 by a sanitation officer who watched him do it, the car he was driving was impounded.

And its owner — Lawrence’s Aunt, 73-year-old Margaret Colavita, was also slapped with a $2,000 fine.

“I said what is this and she said well we have to serve you with this. You’re the owner of the car and it says I gave him permission,” Colavita said.

Department of Sanitation officials said it’s not always illegal to pick up something from the street. It’s only when you’re driving a vehicle that the law gets triggered.