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FLINT, Mich. (NewsNation) — Public schools in Flint are enforcing a policy banning backpacks, including those made of clear plastic material, amid concerns over firearms, weapons and threats. The Flint Board of Education voted 7-0 to ban backpacks for the remainder of the school year. The new policy allows small purses for personal items, clear plastic bags for gym clothes and lunchboxes “within reason.” They’ll also be subject to searches. Flint Community Schools Superintendent Kevelin Jones said, “Things have changed,” and it’s the only way to move forward. “For the most part, the majority of our families are putting in...

The attorneys for President Donald Trump are now spilling the beans on some of the issues with the FBI raid of his home and the search warrant. Trump attorney Alina Habba appeared on Fox News with Jesse Watters. She said that they had been cooperating with the National Archives over the records and that this was completely “unconstitutional.” “Our country should be terrified—I am terrified,” Habba exclaimed. She said the FBI went in when he wasn’t even there, and then told his attorneys to leave, that they couldn’t watch or be there. “That doesn’t sound good to me,” she declared....

The options for back-to-school shoppers are endless just weeks before school actually starts. OfficeMax in Dallas is giving parents another option to consider: bulletproof backpacks. Two different bulletproof backpacks by Guard Dog were on the shelves at the Haskell location in Dallas. The Pro-Shield Smart backpack boasts a Level III-A protection. The manual shows it's been tested against a .44 Magnum and a 9mm and passed a test with no bullet penetrations through the backpack. WFAA also put the backpack to the firing test at the Garland Public Shooting Range with John Coulton, who has been an NRA Certified Instructor...

Swiss concert promoter ABC Productions has banned backpacks from all its concerts in Switzerland in response to the terror attack at the Manchester Arena concert venue two weeks ago. Twenty-two people were killed and many more injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the end of an Ariana Grande concert in the northern UK city on May 22nd. In a statement, ABC Productions said it is “aware of its great responsibility in safety matters.” “As a consequence of the tragic events in the Manchester Arena as well as the constantly changing demands of touring safety and artist management,...

It’s common knowledge that certain types of organic waste can be harnessed as energy sources, with UK firm 2OC even recently turning huge greaseballs found in the country’s sewers into power for local homes. Now Argentina’s INTA governmental research body has developed cow backpacks that trap the methane they produce in order to turn it into green energy. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, methane accounts for nine percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in the US, and the agriculture sector is the primary source of these emissions. Recognizing that methane released into the atmosphere is damaging to the environment,...

In what might be Medium‘s first widespread Twitter moment, music writer Michele Catalano used the platform to blog details of an unexpected visit to her home yesterday, from six men she identifies as members of the “joint terrorism task force.” Catalano asserts that the visit was likely prompted by her husband searching for the term “backpacks” in close conjunction with her searching for the term “pressure cookers” and her son reading the news. Or something. Turns out the visit was prompted by the searches, but not in the way most speculation asserted – by a law enforcement-initiated, NSA-enabled dragnet...

Michele Catalano was looking for information online about pressure cookers. Her husband, in the same time frame, was Googling backpacks. Wednesday morning, six men from a joint terrorism task force showed up at their house to see if they were terrorists. Which prompts the question: How'd the government know what they were Googling?

And That’s Not Even the Scariest Part of the Story, Professional writer Michele Catalano searched online Tuesday for information on pressure cookers while (at around the same time) her husband was Googling backpacks. The next morning, she claims they got a visit from a joint terrorism task force. “The composition of such task forces depend on the region of the country,” Philip Bump writes in The Atlantic, “but, as we outlined after the Boston bombings, include a variety of federal agencies. Among them: the FBI and Homeland Security.” Catalano describes the scene: [T]hey were peppering my husband with questions. Where...

It was a confluence of magnificent proportions that led six agents from the joint terrorism task force to knock on my door Wednesday morning. Little did we know our seemingly innocent, if curious to a fault, Googling of certain things was creating a perfect storm of terrorism profiling. Because somewhere out there, someone was watching. Someone whose job it is to piece together the things people do on the internet raised the red flag when they saw our search history. Most of it was innocent enough. I had researched pressure cookers. My husband was looking for a backpack. And maybe...

Michele Catalano was looking for information online about pressure cookers. Her husband, in the same time frame, was Googling backpacks. Wednesday morning, six men from a joint terrorism task force showed up at their house to see if they were terrorists. Which prompts the question: How'd the government know what they were Googling?

Police source: 2 Russian nationals pulled over in Niagara Falls; 4 suspicious backpacks in the car, robot & bomb techs on scene.FBI is aware of the situation in Niagara Falls, they (sic) joint terrorism task force is working with NYSP.

What would you do if your child came home from school with bedbugs? Freak out? Well, one south-central Kentucky school is trying to avoid that problem by temporarily banning backpacks, lunchboxes and other items after finding bedbugs in a school building. A half-dozen of the bloodsucking pests were spotted recently at Salem Elementary School in Russell County. WKYT-TV reports they were found on the floor of a classroom and on one student's backpack. Though the bugs can cause itchy bites, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says bedbugs are not known to transmit or spread diseases. The bugs hide in dark...

CAMP LIBERTY – U.S. Soldiers here recently delivered nearly 2,400 backpacks full of school supplies to needy Iraqi children at learning centers located throughout their area of operations. “It’s good to get out here and help the kids out,” said 1st Lt. Matt Sawdy, 1st platoon, Company C, 1st Battalion 38th Infantry Regiment, 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. “As a father, it makes you feel good.” Sawdy and his men met their Iraqi counterparts in one school’s courtyard, where they examined piles of bright pink backpacks. Before long, teachers from the school led their eager students into...

“FBI raids Denver home in suspect Al-Qaeda plot: ABC” (AFP) – 1 hour ago WASHINGTON — SNIPPET: “About a dozen agents arrived at the home of Najibullah Zazi, 24, and one confirmed to ABC a search warrant was being executed. “Zazi’s travels to New York last weekend triggered a round of highly publicized raids in the New York area,” the ABC report said adding that “authorities told members of Congress the raids had helped to disrupt a plot to carry out a major attack on New York.” Authorities said they found 14 new black backpacks in the New York raids,...

Fearful of a Madrid-style subway train bombing, authorities are poised to make more raids to seize bomb-making materials at locations in Queens, sources said Wednesday. The FBI's elite Hostage Rescue Team arrived in New York in anticipation of the offensive to thwart a Denver-based terror cell with ties to Al Qaeda, police sources told the Daily News. Another source said an earlier raid uncovered nine backpacks and cell phones, raising memories of the March 2004 bombings in Madrid. A series of terrorist bombs detonated aboard commuter trains killed 191 people. The source said authorities feared a potential attack on the...

It’s back-to-school time so load up with those pencils, notebooks, rulers and, of course, a bullet-deflecting backpack, if you buy the pitch of the security accessory’s Danvers inventors. Dads Mike Pelonzi, 43, and Joe Curran, 42, dreamed up the bullet-proof backpack, which also blunts knife attacks, to protect their own children after witnessing the Columbine massacre in 1999. “It was after seeing what happened in Columbine that we started thinking about this. I’m a parent and so is Joe and we wanted a way of keeping kids safe at school and this is what we came up with,” said Pelonzi,...

Wissahickon High will join other institutions this fall in permitting only clear or mesh bags in the hallways. It has come to this in the quest for safe schools: Cloth backpacks, for decades a fixture in the lives of most high school students, will be banned from the hallways of Montgomery County's Wissahickon High School starting this fall. If students walking between classes want to use a backpack, it must be made of clear plastic or mesh so its contents can be seen at a glance. Cloth backpacks can be carried into the school in the morning but must be...

Montgomery County school officials announced yesterday that they are temporarily banning outside groups such as parent-teacher associations and the Boy Scouts from distributing fliers about activities and events in student backpacks. The decision comes less than a week after a federal appeals court ruled that the school system's policy for flier distribution was unconstitutional because it gave educators unlimited power to approve or reject materials. The case is the outgrowth of a dispute between the school system and Child Evangelism Fellowship of Maryland. The group filed suit in 2001 after the school system denied its request to distribute fliers about...

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., Sept. 8, 2005 – Military families received free back-to-school supplies at Mary Fay Pendleton Elementary School here Aug. 24, thanks to a donation from a local business. The donation came just in time - five days before students returned to Camp Pendleton’s schools for the 2005-2006 school year. Camp Pendleton’s Office Depot donated 725 backpacks filled with school supplies to Mary Fay Camp Pendleton Elementary students. In addition to the backpacks, the school received office chairs, two pallets of paper, four pallets of cardboard tubes, 10 cases of toilet paper and 10 cases of facial tissue. Office...

WASHINGTON, July 17, 2005 – Two American soldiers in Iraq were killed by improvised explosive devices July 16. Another two soldiers were wounded. In the first incident, a soldier assigned to the 155th Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), died July 16 of wounds received July 15 from a car-bomb attack. The incident reportedly occurred during combat operations near Iskandariyah. Also on July 16, at about 4:00 p.m. in the Kirkuk province, an IED killed one Task Force Liberty soldier and wounded two other soldiers. The two wounded soldiers were taken to a coalition forces medical treatment facility....