Police are investigating whether Ivaylo Ivanov, who assembled an arsenal of pipe bombs and weapons in an apartment owned by his room-mate, a Columbia AIDS researcher, was planning to bomb synagogues around New York City. This latest turn in the investigation follows the discovery that the man was responsible last fall for painting some 23 swastikas in Brooklyn Heights that set off a round of anti-Semitic hate crimes around the city.

Ivanov claims that he had been building the bombs to use while fishing, because blowing up explosives in the water can stun fish and make it easier to catch them. How comforting to hear, as the editors of the New York Sun note, that “the police are not taking that story at face value.”