Author: Sunfire

RT

An 18-year-old man, reportedly supporting ISIS, was shot dead after stabbing two police officers in Melbourne, Australia, a day after the Islamic State commanded Muslims to kill ‘unbelievers’ in countries from the coalition fighting the extremist group.

The young man had been on the radar of Australian counter-terrorism forces for months before the incident, police say. He also recently had his passport canceled on security grounds.   Continue reading “Australian ‘terror suspect’ shot dead after stabbing 2 police officers”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Anti-addiction activists are calling for the Food and Drug Administration’s top official to step down, saying the agency’s policies have contributed to a national epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse.

In a letter released Wednesday, more than a dozen groups ask the Obama administration’s top health official to replace FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg, who has led the agency since 2009. The FDA has been under fire from public health advocates, politicians and law enforcement officials since last October, when it approved a powerful new painkiller called Zohydro against the recommendation of its own medical advisers.   Continue reading “Anti-addiction groups call for new FDA chief”

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AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — A Jordanian court on Wednesday acquitted radical Muslim preacher Abu Qatada — known for his fiery pro-al-Qaida speeches — of involvement in a plot to target Israeli and American tourists and Western diplomats in Jordan more than a decade ago.

The ruling capped a lengthy legal odyssey for the 53-year-old cleric who has been described as a onetime lieutenant to Osama bin Laden, but in recent months emerged as a harsh critic of the Islamic State militant group. Abu Qatada was deported from Britain to Jordan last year, after years of fighting extradition.   Continue reading “Jordan acquits radical cleric of terrorism charges”

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CANADENSIS, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania state police are defending themselves against complaints that they have unfairly denied residents access to their homes during the manhunt for a suspected killer.

The massive search for 31-year-old Eric Frein, who is charged with killing one trooper and wounding another, has resulted in frequent unannounced and indefinite roadblocks in the village of Canadensis. Some people have ended up sleeping in their cars because their neighborhoods were cordoned off.   Continue reading “Residents chafe over search for ambush suspect”

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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — The man who killed two former co-workers and then himself at a UPS shipping center Tuesday had told some people that he was having problems at work but never suggested the situation might turn violent, his pastor said.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to release the information, identified the shooter as Joe Tesney of suburban Trussville. Tesney and his wife have two children, and they’ve been members at NorthPark Baptist Church since 2003, said the church’s pastor, Bill Wilks.   Continue reading “Pastor: UPS gunman was ‘troubled’ over work”

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ARVADA, Colo. (AP) — Hundreds of students walked out of classrooms around suburban Denver on Tuesday in protest over a conservative-led school board proposal to focus history education on topics that promote citizenship, patriotism and respect for authority, providing a show of civil disobedience that the new standards would aim to downplay.

The youth protest in the state’s second-largest school district follows a sick-out from teachers that shut down two high schools in the politically and economically diverse area that has become a key political battleground.   Continue reading “Denver area students walk out of school in protest”

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NEW YORK (AP) — Defiant to the end, Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for acting as the voice of al-Qaida after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, telling a judge that there would be a price to pay for trying to “bury me alive.”

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith — the highest-ranking al-Qaida figure to face trial on U.S. soil since the attacks — quoted from the Quran, praised Allah and suggested his case would prompt a backlash in the Muslim world.   Continue reading “Ex-al-Qaida spokesman gets life prison term in NY”

RT

Despite campaigning on a platform that endorsed having “a nuclear-free world” in the not so distant future, United States President Barack Obama is overseeing an administration that’s aim has taken another path, the New York Times reported this week.

On Sunday, journalists William Broad and David Sanger wrote for the Times that a half-decade of “political deals and geopolitical crises” have thrown a wrench in the works of Pres. Obama’s pre-White House plans, as a result eviscerating his previously stated intentions of putting America’s — and ideally the world’s — nuclear programs on ice.   Continue reading “‘Anti-nuclear’ Obama plans to spend $1 trillion on nukes”

RT

An Al-Qaeda splinter group has kidnapped a French citizen and announced it will execute him if Paris doesn’t stop its military action against the Islamic State in Iraq. France has confirmed the incident, but says it will not change the nation’s position.

In a video that appeared on social media, a masked member of a group calling itself Jund al-Khilafah, or Soldiers of the Caliphate, warns French President Francois Hollande that the hostage will be executed unless France ends its airstrikes and other military actions against ISIS.   Continue reading “Algerian jihadists kidnap Frenchman following ISIS calls to attack Westerners”

RT

Eight civilians, three of them children, have been killed in the US-led air strikes on Al-Qaeda Nusra front positions, Reuters reported, citing Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.   Continue reading “8 civilians, incl. 3 kids, killed in US-led strikes on Syria – monitor”

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NEW YORK (AP) — A day after over 100,000 people marched to warn that climate change is destroying the Earth, more than 1,000 activists blocked parts of Broadway in Manhattan’s financial district in a sit-in to protest what they see as corporate and economic institutions’ role in the climate crisis.

Monday’s demonstration was planned as a more confrontational sequel to Sunday’s march, with many participants Monday deliberately risking arrest by obstructing traffic in the heart of the nation’s financial capital. Over 100 people, including a person wearing a white polar bear suit, were arrested Monday night after they refused to leave Broadway near Wall Street, police said. Most of the arrests were for disorderly conduct.   Continue reading “100 arrested at Wall Street climate crisis sit-in”

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NEW DELHI (AP) — With homegrown technology and a remarkably low budget of about $75 million, India was on course to become the first nation to conduct a successful Mars mission on its first try.

If the Mars Orbiter Mission, affectionately nicknamed MOM, settles into orbit on Wednesday morning as planned, India will join the U.S., European Space Agency and the former Soviet Union in the elite club of Martian explorers.   Continue reading “Indian spacecraft on course to enter Mars’ orbit”

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JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli special forces stormed a West Bank hideout early on Tuesday and killed two Palestinians suspected in the June abduction and slaying of three Israeli teenagers, a gruesome attack that had triggered a chain of events that led to the war in Gaza this summer.

The deaths of the two suspects, identified by the Israeli military as well-known Hamas militants, ended one of the largest manhunts conducted by the Israeli security forces. Eyal Yifrah, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Fraenkel, a 16-year-old with dual Israeli-American citizenship, were abducted on June 12 while hitchhiking home in the West Bank and killed soon afterward.   Continue reading “Hamas suspects in slaying of Israeli teens killed”

RT

A one-year-old baby has been rescued from a hot, parked car by a woman who broke the windshield, crawled into the car and unlocked the door. The woman ignored warnings from security guards and the apprehension of onlookers.

“I don’t care if I get arrested, I’m going to save this baby,” Angela Radtke said, as quoted by local media outlet KENS 5.   Continue reading “Texas woman breaks windshield to save baby from hot car”

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NEW YORK (AP) — Tens of thousands of activists walked through Manhattan on Sunday, warning that climate change is destroying the Earth — in stride with demonstrators around the world who urged policymakers to take quick action.

Starting along Central Park West, most came on foot, others with bicycles and walkers, and some even in wheelchairs. Many wore costumes and marched to drumbeats. One woman played the accordion. But their message was not entertaining:   Continue reading “Global marches draw attention to climate change”

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PARIS (AP) — France’s top security official says militants from the Islamic State group have threatened to kill civilians in the coalition of countries arrayed against the extremists.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve says he is confident in the country’s security. Cazeneuve said Monday “this threat to kill civilians, added to the execution of hostages and to the massacres, is yet another demonstration of the barbarism of these terrorists, justifying our fight without truce or pause.”   Continue reading “France: IS has threatened coalition civilians”

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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — There has only been one prosecution under the Emmett Till Act, even though the law was passed with the promise of $135 million for police work and an army of federal agents to investigate unsolved killings from the civil rights era. Some deaths aren’t even under review because of a quirk in the law.

Still, proponents are laying the groundwork to extend and expand the act in hopes it’s not too late for some families to get justice. In nearly six years since the signing of the law, named for a black Chicago teenager killed after flirting with a white woman in Mississippi in 1955, only one person has been prosecuted: A former Alabama trooper who pleaded guilty in 2010 to killing a black protester in 1965.   Continue reading “Backers seek expansion of civil rights death law”

Mail.com

A man authorities believe is the last person seen with a University of Virginia student before she disappeared is being sought on arrest warrants charging him with reckless driving.

But they say they also want to talk to him about the missing teen.

Virginia State Police issued warrants for Jesse Matthew on a charge of misdemeanor reckless driving, Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy Longo said at a news conference Sunday. Matthew has not been charged in the disappearance of 18-year-old Hannah Graham, who was last seen early on Sept. 13 in Charlottesville.   Continue reading “Man seen with missing UVa student being sought”

RT

A provocative ad campaign featuring anti-Islamic messages is to run on one hundred New York City buses and two subway stations beginning next week. Costing $100,000, it equates Hamas with Islamic State militants for ‘education purposes.’

The campaign is based on a provocative premise: “Hamas is ISIS”, “Hamas is CAIR in America,” “Islamic Jew Hatred: It’s in the Quran.”    Continue reading “Hamas = ISIS? Anti-Islamic ad campaign to run on NYC buses”