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BBC MUNDO RADIO
Police keep watch in Times Square. Photo: Getty Images
Bomb-making materials have been removed from a parked car in New York's Times Square, including propane tanks and a clock suspected to be a timing device.
Thousands of people were evacuated out of "the Crossroads of the World" after a mounted police officer noticed smoke coming from the sport utility vehicle at 8.30am (AEST) today.
Top police spokesman Paul Browne said investigators later removed gasoline and explosive powders from the vehicle.
Police are investigating a report that someone was seen running from the vehicle at some point and are reviewing security videotapes, Brown said, adding the Nissan Pathfinder's license plates did not match the car's registration.
Meanwhile, the White House says President Barack Obama had been briefed on the apparent car bomb.
In a statement, the administration said the president, who attended an annual dinner for White House news correspondents on Saturday night, praised the quick response by the New York Police Department.
Obama has also directed his homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, to advise New York officials that the federal government is prepared to provide support.
After the apparent bomb was discovered, police evacuated several residential and commercial buildings and cleared the streets of people.
Officers were also deployed around the area with heavy weapons on empty streets in the heart of midtown Manhattan that normally teems with thousands of theatregoers and tourists.
Shelly Carlisle, of Portland, Oregon, said police crowded into her Broadway theatre after the curtain closed on Next to Normal, a show on the same block where the sport utility vehicle was found.
"At the end of the show, the police came in. We were told we had to leave," Carlisle said.
"They said there was a bomb scare."
The car was parked on 45th Street, and the block was closed between Seventh and Eighth avenues as a precaution, police said.
FBI agents are on the scene with the New York Police Department, and the matter is being taken seriously, said Paul Bresson, head of the FBI's public affairs office at bureau headquarters in Washington.
In December, a van without licence plates parked in Times Square led police to block off part of the area for about two hours. A police robot examined the vehicle.
Clothes, racks and scarves were found inside.
AP
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