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The situation in New York and New Jersey has been developing mostly after hours, and quickly. Below, a timeline of events that will be updated as more news emerges.
Saturday, Sept. 17
9:30 a.m.: A bomb hidden in a trash can explodes in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, near the location of the Semper Five Marine Corps Charity 5K race. The explosion causes no injuries, a stroke of luck attributed to the fact that the start of the race had been delayed due to registration problems. The bomb is described as three pipe bomb–type devices wired together; according to federal law enforcement authorities, only one of them went off.
8:31 p.m.: An explosion in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood sends 29 people to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The cause of the explosion is not immediately known, but authorities focus their attention on a dumpster near the corner of 23rd Street and 6th Avenue.
9:10 p.m.: Donald Trump seizes on the incident, telling a crowd at a campaign appearance in Colorado Springs that “a bomb went off in New York.” “Nobody knows exactly what’s going on,” Trump says, “but, boy we are really in a time. We better get very tough, folks.”
11 p.m.: New York Mayor Bill de Blasio calls the explosion “an intentional act” but stops short of calling it terrorism, saying “there is no specific and credible threat to New York City from any terror organization.” He also notes there is no evidence that the bomb in Chelsea was related to the explosion in Seaside Heights. The mayor is joined during the news conference by NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill, who officially started his job earlier in the day, following the resignation of Bill Bratton.*
Shortly after the press conference: A pressure cooker with wires coming out of it and a cellphone connected to it with duct tape is discovered on 27th Street, about four blocks away from where the bomb exploded in Chelsea. A photo of the device circulates on social media.
Sunday, Sept. 18
2:23 a.m.: The device that had been discovered on 27th Street is safely removed.
8:30 p.m.: Two men coming out of a restaurant near a train station in Elizabeth, New Jersey, find a backpack sitting on top of a garbage can and take it. After walking with the extremely heavy bag for about 1,000 feet, the men put it down, and notice wires protruding from it. At around 8:45 p.m., they alerted the Elizabeth Police Department.
10:30 p.m.: Late Sunday night, two law enforcement officials said that investigators stopped a car on the Belt Parkway near the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and took five people to an FBI office in Manhattan for questioning in the bombing investigation. One of the officials said that all or most of them may have been from the same family and that they may have been on their way to the airport.
Monday, Sept. 19
12:30 a.m.: After the FBI takes over the scene in Elizabeth, two robots are used to determine the backpack contains five explosives. One of the explosives goes off accidentally—but luckily causes no injuries—before the other four are secured.
Around 7:30 a.m.: The FBI releases a photo of a 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami from Elizabeth, New Jersey, saying he is “wanted for questioning” in connection with the Chelsea bombing. He is described as a United States citizen of Afghan descent. Officials later tell CNN that it is believed Rahami is the man seen in surveillance videos taken near the scene of the Chelsea bombing and the location of the pressure cooker device discovered on 27th Street.
7:55 a.m.: New Yorkers receive a notification on their cellphones asking them to be on alert for Rahami. The alert instructs recipients to check media for the suspect’s photo.
9:41 a.m.: The FBI says Rahami is wanted not only in connection with the explosion in Chelsea, but the one in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, as well.
11:24 a.m.: Rahami has been taken into custody, according to the New York Times. The paper says it remains unclear whether law enforcement is pursuing any other suspects. NBC News reports that Rahami was captured in Linden, New Jersey, after a shootout with police.
*Correction, Sept. 19, 2016: This post originally misspelled NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill’s last name.
Read more from Slate on the bombings in Manhattan and New Jersey.
