SERIAL BOMBER STRIKES AGAIN.

AUSTIN, TEXAS• Emergency

teams were responding Tuesday night to another reported explosion in Texas’ capital, this one at a Goodwill store in the southern part of the city.

In a tweet, the Austin Police Department urged residents to avoid the area. Austin-Travis County EMS said there had been reports of at least one person injured, though it was not immediately clear how serious the injuries were.

It came as investigators who have pursued a suspected serial bomber terrorizing Austin for weeks uncovered what seemed like valuable new leads in the case.

Even before the report of the Goodwill blast, it had already been a busy day for authorities. Before dawn Tuesday, a bomb inside a package exploded around 1 a.m. as it passed along a conveyor belt at a FedEx shipping centre near San Antonio, causing minor injuries to a worker. The Austin Police Department, the FBI and other federal agencies confirmed that the package centre blast was related to four previous ones that killed two people and seriously injured four others.

That explosion occurred at a FedEx facility in Schertz, just northeast of San Antonio and about 60 miles (95 kilometres) southwest of Austin.

Later in the morning, police sent a bomb squad to a FedEx facility outside the Austin airport to check on a suspicious package that was reported around 6:20 a.m. Federal agencies and police later said that package had indeed contained an explosive that was successfully intercepted by authorities. They added that the intercepted package, too, was believed to be related to the other bombings.

Meanwhile, authorities also closed off an Austinarea FedEx store where they believe the bomb that exploded was shipped to the distribution centre. They roped off a large area around the shopping centre in the enclave of Sunset Valley and were collecting evidence, including surveillance camera footage.

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, a Republican from Austin who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said that investigators have obtained surveillance videos that “could possibly” show a suspect, but are still poring through video.

“I hope his biggest mistake was going through FedEx,” McCaul, who has spoken to federal investigators and Austin police Chief Brian Manley, said of the bomber in a phone interview.

He added that the person responsible for the bombings had previously been “very sophisticated in going around surveillance cameras.”

“They’ve got a couple of videos that could possibly be the person but they’re not sure at this point,” McCaul said.

In Washington, President Donald Trump said the assailant behind the bombing is “very sick.”