NEWARK, N.J. – An airport security guard who was overheard saying he had "cut a hole in a fence to be able to shoot" Barack Obama pleaded not guilty Thursday to making terroristic threats against the president.
John Brek appeared via video feed from the Essex County Jail, where he has been held since his arrest Tuesday night. Clad in an orange prison jumpsuit, the 55-year-old Brek didn't speak during the hearing but had his plea entered by his attorney, Moses Rambarran.
Municipal Judge Amilkar Velez-Lopez rejected the state's request to raise Brek's bail to $500,000, and instead raised it from $100,000 to $200,000.
Brek also pleaded not guilty to possession of hollow point bullets, which is prohibited in New Jersey, and to receiving stolen property for allegedly having a stolen gun among the more than 40 firearms recovered from his residence Tuesday. The bail on those charges remained at $20,000.
"We really have to take these matters seriously," Velez-Lopez said. "He had a very real possibility of carrying out those threats. He would have been in close proximity to the president."
Rambarran said his client "knows he has some serious challenges against him and knows he must go through legal channels to get himself vindicated."
He said Brek's arrest raises constitutional issues.
"In the United States of America, we are allowed to make offensive, distasteful, repugnant statements," he said. "These are not prosecutable as a crime."
An airline worker standing at a coffee cart at Newark Liberty International Airport on Tuesday afternoon heard Brek saying he "cut a hole in a fence to be able to shoot" Obama, according to the arrest warrant.
Obama arrived in Newark late Wednesday afternoon to appear at a campaign rally for Gov. Jon S. Corzine.
Brek is employed by a private security firm.
Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow said no weapons were found in the area where he worked. She did not comment on whether investigators found the hole in the fence that Brek referenced, but said Brek's comments were overheard "in the vicinity" of an area where the presidential entourage was to pass through the next day.

WASHINGTON – Federal investigators are scrambling to determine what happened aboard a Northwest Airlines jetliner whose crew flew 150 miles past its destination while air traffic controllers, other pilots and even a flight attendant back in the cabin tried to get their attention.
Investigators don't know whether the pilots may have fallen asleep, but National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Keith Holloway said Friday that fatigue and cockpit distraction will be looked into.
The plane's flight recorders were brought to Washington Friday, but the cockpit voice recorder is an older model that contains only the last 30 minutes of conversation. That makes the investigation more difficult since that time would be taken up by the flight back to Minneapolis — the intended destination — and the landing there Wednesday night.
Flight 188's recorders were delivered to the NTSB's Washington office. The pilots, both temporarily suspended, are to be interviewed by investigators next week. The airline, acquired last year by Delta Air Lines, is also investigating.
The crew told authorities they were distracted during a heated discussion over airline policy, the NTSB said.
Wednesday night, the airliner with more than 140 passengers aboard zoomed past Minneapolis at 37,000 feet at what was supposed to be the end of a flight from San Diego. Worried about who was actually at the controls, officials asked the crew to prove who they were by executing turns after they finally were contacted.
On the ground, police and FBI agents prepared for the worst, and the Air National Guard put fighter jets on alert at two locations as the drama unfolded.
Pilots from two other planes in the vicinity were finally able to reach the pilots using a different radio frequency, a controllers union spokesman said. A flight attendant in the cabin also was able to contact them by intercom, said a source close to the investigation who wasn't authorized to talk publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
By that time, the Airbus A320 was over Eau Claire, Wis., and the pilots had been out of communication with air traffic controllers for over an hour. They turned back and landed safely in Minneapolis, the plane's scheduled destination.
The plane passed over Minneapolis at 37,000 feet just before 8 p.m. local time. Contact with controllers wasn't established until 14 minutes later, NTSB said.
Air traffic controllers in Denver had been in contact with the pilots as they flew over the Rockies, FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said. But as the plane got closer to Minneapolis, she said, "the Denver center tried to contact the flight but couldn't get anyone."
Denver controllers notified their counterparts in Minneapolis, who also tried to reach the crew without success, Brown said.
Officials suspect Flight 188's radio might still have been tuned to a frequency used by Denver controllers even though the plane had flown beyond their reach, said Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Union. Controllers worked throughout the incident with the pilots of other planes, asking them to try to raise Flight 188 using the Denver frequency, he said
That was unsuccessful until two pilots working with Minneapolis controllers finally got through just before the plane turned around, Church said. Minneapolis controllers don't have the capability of using the Denver frequency, but pilots do, he said.
After re-establishing contact with the plane, controllers asked the pilot in charge to execute a series of turns to show he was in control of the aircraft, Church said.
"Controllers have a heightened sense of vigilance when we're not able to talk to an aircraft. That's the reality post-9/11," he said.
Passenger Lonnie Heidtke said he didn't notice anything unusual before the landing except that the plane was late.
The flight attendants "did say there was a delay and we'd have to orbit or something to that effect before we got back. They really didn't say we overflew Minneapolis. ... They implied it was just a business-as-usual delay," said Heidtke, a consultant with a supercomputer consulting company based in Bloomington, Minn.

Once on the ground, the plane was met by police and FBI agents. Passengers retrieving their luggage from overhead bins were asked by flight attendants sit down, Heidtke said. An airport police officer and a couple other people came on board and stood at the cockpit door, talking to the pilots, he said.

"I did jokingly call my wife and say, 'This is the first time I've seen the police meet the plane. Maybe they're going to arrest the pilots for being so late.' Maybe I was right," Heidtke said.

The pilots' explanation that they were distracted by shop talk "just doesn't make any sense," said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Va. "The pilots are saying they were involved in a heated conversation. Well, that was a very long conversation."

The FAA is updating rules governing how many hours commercial pilots may fly and remain on duty. The NTSB also cautioned government agencies this week about the risks of sleep apnea contributing to transportation accidents.

In January 2008, two pilots for go! airlines fell asleep for at least 18 minutes during a midmorning flight from Honolulu to Hilo, Hawaii. The plane passed its destination and was heading out over open ocean before controllers raised the pilots. The captain was later diagnosed with sleep apnea.

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AP Airlines Writer Joshua Freed and AP Writers Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis and Dave Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

FlightAware.com tracking of Northwest Flight 188: http://bit.ly/2QV9hX

National Transportation Safety Board http://www.ntsb.gov

CHICAGO – No punches were thrown. And neither bit off the other's ear.
Mutual praise and admiration dominated during a face-to-face meeting Friday between former world champion boxers Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield on a live episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
On June 28, 1997, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Tyson was disqualified after biting off part of Holyfield's right ear during their WBA heavyweight title fight.
A respectful Tyson shook hands with his former rival several times during their encounter Friday — which he said was his first chance to speak at length with Holyfield since the ear chomp that made worldwide headlines.
Tyson told Winfrey earlier that an initial apology after the incident was insincere. But when she asked what he wanted to say to Holyfield, Tyson stopped short of apologizing again. He instead poured on the praise.
"This is a beautiful guy," he said, holding Holyfield's arm affectionately for several seconds. "I just want you to know it's just been a pleasure ... being acquainted with you."
Asked by Winfrey if he was still missing part of his ear, Holyfield pointed to it and said, "Just a little bit."
Holyfield also had a confession of sorts to make: He himself has bitten others, during childhood roughhousing with his siblings as a way to get out of headlocks.
"You talk about biting," he said. "I'm the person that bit every brother in my family."
Holyfield said one reason he wanted to appear with Tyson on television was to demonstrate to youth caught up in violence that reconciliation is always possible.
"We can come together," he said. "We know you can come together."

PARIS – Over the years, the chief sommelier had forgotten they were there. And when the four bottles of 1875 Armagnac Vieux were finally unearthed from the labyrinthine wine cellar this week, they were covered in a black fungus that looked like matted cat fur.
The landmark Tour d'Argent restaurant, which dates back to 1582, is cleaning out its 450,000-bottle wine cellar, considered one of the best and biggest in the world. It is putting 18,000 bottles up for auction in December, an event that has captured the imagination of French wine lovers.
The restaurant is selling mostly wine but also some very old spirits, like three bottles of a Clos du Griffier cognac from 1788, the year before the French Revolution, as well as the ancient Armagnac, valued at euro400-500 ($595-$743) a bottle. The fuzzy fungus is nothing to worry about — it thrives on the fumes of such spirits and is easily wiped away.
The restaurant wants to cut down on wines it has in multiple to vary and modernize its selection.
"You'll probably see, we've got too many bottles," jokes chief sommelier David Ridgway.
Unlocking a padlocked iron gate, the tuxedo-clad sommelier ushered visitors into the restaurant's underworld, where bottles are stacked floor to ceiling in a succession of caverns. Though everything is registered in a computer, there are occasional surprises, like the 1875 Armagnac, which Ridgway came across while looking for something else.
The wine cellar of the Left Bank restaurant, known for pressed duck and spectacular views of Notre Dame, is a part of its history. A sign marks the spot where a brick wall was built in 1940 to hide the best bottles during the Nazi occupation in World War II.
Visitors are offered sheepskin blankets for the chill: 14 degrees Celsius (57.2 Fahrenheit) this week, but dipping to 12 degrees Celsius (53.6 Fahrenheit) in winter.
"I like the wine to live a little bit of the seasons, even though it's temperature-controlled," said Ridgway, a Briton who has overseen the restaurant's wine menu since the early 1980s.
Times have changed since then, Ridgway says. Expensive jewelry or clothes no longer indicate what diners will pay for wine, and it's not taboo now for people to say what they want to spend. Still, he has to tread carefully: Propose a wine too inexpensive and some "people feel we have looked down on them, almost."
Estimated prices at the Dec. 7-8 sale by French auctioneer Piasa start at euro10 ($15) a bottle and go up to euro2,500-euro3,000 ($3,716-$4,459) for each 1788 Cognac, one of which will go to charity.
Among wines on sale are Chateau Lafite Rothschild (1970, 1982, 1997), Cheval Blanc (1928, 1949, 1966) and Chateau Margaux (1970, 1990). The total sale is expected to bring in around euro1 million ($1.5 million).
Buyers can rest assured the bottles aren't counterfeit — a major problem in the industry — because the restaurant bought them directly from vintners. As for the restaurant, the timing of the auction is right even as Europe struggles amid a global economic crisis.
"I'm sure there are some amazing treasures in that cellar, and it's a good time to sell because the wine auction market has really come storming back" after tanking during the early months of the financial crisis, said Michael Steinberger, Slate's wine columnist and author of "Au Revoir to All That: Food, Wine, and the End of France."
The restaurant, a family business, was once the summit of French gastronomy, attracting royalty, politicians and film stars. Each duck served comes with a certificate: U.S. President John F. Kennedy ate duck No. 245,200, while Mick Jagger feasted on No. 531,147 and Princess Grace of Monaco savored No. 496,516.
But recent years have brought setbacks. Longtime owner Claude Terrail died in 2006, and his 29-year-old son Andre now runs it. The restaurant, where a prix fixe lunch menu costs euro65 ($97) and a tasting menu at dinner goes for euro160 ($238), long held three Michelin stars but is now down to one.
The economic crisis has affected the restaurant's finances only "a bit," Terrail said, in part because of its name and diverse international clientele. While the kitchen was recently updated, the wine sale may fund more extensive renovations down the line.
The restaurant's name means "The Silver Tower" in French, and all the bottles for sale are stamped with the restaurant's insignia, a tiny tower.

On the Web:

http://www.piasa.auction.fr/UK/