Free Republic

Prayer Book Turns Aside Shooting-Spree Bullet By TAMARA EL-KHOURY Capital News Service WHEATON - The first bullet fired in a shooting spree that killed five people in Montgomery County Wednesday and Thursday, narrowly missed Ann Chapman, who was working at Michaels arts and crafts store in Northgate Shopping Center. It's a miracle no one was hurt after the bullet cut a dime-size hole in the display window, nicked a light fixture, pierced two posterboard signs and hit a metal rack holding rows of mini-books at 5:20 p.m. Wednesday. But the amazing thing is what the bullet stopped next to, the...

Report Links Charity To an al Qaeda Front By GLENN R. SIMPSON Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL A Saudi-backed charity with offices in Virginia is tied to Islamic extremists and has disbursed large sums of unaccounted-for cash and trafficked in fraudulent identification documents, a Bosnian government probe has found. The report summarizing the inquiry doesn't accuse the Taibah International Aid Association of financing terror but suggests that its actions are consistent with doing so and links it to an alleged al Qaeda front. Taibah is run in the U.S. by a prominent Muslim activist who heads a mosque...

Suspected Terrorist Arrested In Florida Iqbal Munawar Arrested In Alleged Immigration Scheme UPDATED: 3:25 p.m. EDT September 14, 2002 MIAMI -- Iqbal Munawar, who was on the FBI's list of suspected terrorists, was jailed as he tried to fly from Miami to Tampa, Fla., Friday morning. Munawar and two other men have been charged with smuggling illegal aliens from the Middle East into the United States on airplanes through Miami International Airport and John F. Kennedy Airport. The suspects are accused of making more than $100,000 in the smuggling operation, selling more than 1,000 false visas to illegal immigrants. Miami-Dade...

Since this is Washington Post, excerpts only Following a tip from U.S. naval intelligence officers, Italian authorities last month seized a ship carrying 15 suspected terrorists off the island of Sicily, Italian officials said today. The men, identified by Italian authorities as Pakistanis, were charged today with "association" to commit terrorist acts. "We are certain that these people are part of a terrorist organization and we are almost certain that the organization is al Qaeda," said Santi Giuffre, police chief of Caltanissetta, where the group is being held." "Officials here said the decision to board the ship last month was...

WITH summer comes the annual ritual of the Hollywood blockbuster, aimed primarily at teenagers, and with the blockbuster comes the annual ritual of complaining about it. Critics usually focuses on the thin plots, the lame jokes, the lack of characterization and the bombast of special effects. As they see it, many films now use an aesthetic sleight-of-hand that substitutes volume, speed, size and other neurological overloads for the more traditional satisfactions of entertainment, allowing viewers to expend a minimal amount of emotional energy. These are faux movies, and are about the only kind most teenagers respond to. They are also...

July 12, 2002, 6:00 p.m. Free Joel Mowbray! A wild afternoon at the State Department. By NRO Staff Would that the State Department were as tough on the Saudis. NRO contributor Joel Mowbray was detained this afternoon at the State Department after an acrimonious exchange with top Foggy Bottom press flack Richard Boucher. Mowbray had challenged Boucher on his account of events at State this week, which had to fire its longest-serving career diplomat in response to the congressional uproar created by Mowbray's reporting on the "Visa Express" program (the program gives the Saudis easy access to U.S. visas —...

April 9, 2002 Four Indicted in New York for Supporting Terrorism By REUTERS Filed at 5:14 p.m. ET NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. lawyer for the Muslim cleric imprisoned for plotting the 1993 World Trade Center bombing has been indicted with three others for aiding an Egyptian-based ''global terrorist group,'' U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said on Tuesday. Lynne Stewart, 62, whose clients include famed Mafia turncoat Salvatore ``Sammy the Bull'' Gravano, was named in charges alleging she provided material support to the Islamic Group, or IG. Prosecutors allege that Stewart passed messages to and from bomb plot mastermind...

"Engage and Destroy Any Casino Riverboats" Tom Burch, a member of the Kentucky State legislature and strong supporter of legal riverboat gambling in the state proposed the following resolution as a way of improving the environment for gambling in the Bluegrass state: A RESOLUTION encouraging the purchase and vigorous use of the USS Louisville 688 VLS Class submarine. WHEREAS, in the past few years the scourge of the casino riverboat has been an increasingly significant presence on the Ohio River; and WHEREAS, the Ohio River borders the Commonwealth of Kentucky; and WHEREAS, the siren song of payola issuing from the...

COPS RIP SCAM SUSPECT By LAURA ITALIANO Daniel Djoro’s first flight to New York, five months ago, was hosted by the Red Cross, which swallowed his sob story of losing a "brother" on Sept. 11. But his second flight to New York was hosted by the NYPD - which flew him in from Lansing, Mich., yesterday in time to be charged with scamming the charity out of more than a quarter-million dollars. "He’s a scumbag," said Lt. Steve Mitchell, spokesman for the Lansing Police Department. "We’re glad to get rid of him. He’s still claiming up and down that he...

Wednesday, March 27, 2002 Ground Zero tour group border bust By TOM GODFREY, TORONTO SUN Two Toronto men have been charged for allegedly trying to smuggle 10 Malaysian nationals into the U.S. disguised as a tour group going to visit Ground Zero. "These people were posing as a tour group in an attempt to enter the U.S.," said Winston Barrus, deputy district director of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Barrus said the group was intercepted March 9, packed in two minivans at a Thousand Islands border crossing. Police said the Malaysians arrived in Canada as visitors and are...

Possible plea deal reported in driver's license scam PITTSBURGH (AP) - A fired Pennsylvania driver's license examiner charged with selling bogus licenses to 20 Middle Eastern men could receive a reduced sentence because he cooperated with authorities after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Teitelbaum told a federal judge Friday that his office would accept a sentence of 18 to 24 months in prison for Robert Ferrari, 57, of Turtle Creek, as part of a possible plea-bargain. "On Sept. 23, the FBI appealed to him as an American and he made a full statement," Ferrari's attorney Bruce ...

FBI checking 5 in illegal-license cases for possible al-Qaida links By LENNY SAVINO Knight Ridder Newspapers MEMPHIS, Tenn. - The FBI is investigating whether four New York men and one from Tennessee who are in custody here for illegally purchasing Tennessee driver's licenses may be members of an al-Qaida terrorist cell that helped survey New York's World Trade Center for the Sept. 11 hijackers. When one of the men, Sakhera "Rocky" Hammad, was arrested, FBI agents found a security pass from the Trade Center dated Sept. 5. Agents also have learned that Hammad drove from New York to Memphis on ...

FORKS -- Chatting in Spanish, young men with copper-colored skin stand 10 deep in line at the Tesoro gas station and convenience store, waiting to buy their Cokes, chips and other goodies that will sustain them through another hard day. A harried clerk rings them up as fast as she can, but the line grows. "It's like this for three or four hours every morning," says another employee, scrambling to make more coffee. In this logging town hit hard by cuts traceable to environmental protection, hundreds of workers still fan out into the woods each morning. At day's end, they ...

Drug, sex romp in airplane bathroom fuels panic BY JOHN MARZULLI AND BILL HUTCHINSON New York Daily News NEW YORK - (KRT) - A randy, drug-fueled romp in a New York-bound jet's rest room sparked a midair terror scare that sent a pair of F-16 fighter jets scrambling, authorities revealed Tuesday. But the red alert aboard American Airlines Flight 101 from London on Friday gave way to red faces when authorities discovered all the fuss was over two amorous British men. Police said the passengers, whose names were not released, admitted smoking crack cocaine and having sex in the cramped ...

Feds fear license examiner is dead Woman's co-defendants tied to 9/11, judge told By Tom Bailey Jr. baileytom@gomemphis.com A missing Tennessee driver's license examiner charged with conspiring to provide licenses fraudulently was probably the victim of a "most unusual and suspicious" death, a federal prosecutor said Monday. Asst. U.S. Atty. Tim Di Scenza also raised the possibility in court that Katherine Smith's five codefendants are involved in terrorism against the United States, citing "connections" to Sept. 11 and the World Trade Center. A defense attorney, however, protested that the only reason the prosecutor raised the issue of terrorism is that ...

I bleeped out the expletives. An instructive article but definitely barf alert material. For almost as long as I can remember, I’ve heard disgruntled people in the art world say of a work of art that greatly distressed or disgusted them: "It’s a piece of s--t." I may have indulged in such an indelicate metaphor myself from time to time, but never before in print. There is, after all, no shortage of disgusting things to be encountered on the art scene nowadays, and over time the vocabulary of disgust tends to reduce itself to a few elementary—or should I say ...

January 28, 2002 A Symbionese Family Reunion By TIM FINDLEY FALLON, Nev. One more time, state and federal authorities seem determined to reassemble the Symbionese Liberation Army. At this 26th- year reunion, the aging soldiers of the S.L.A. will face trial for the murder of Myrna Opsahl during a 1975 bank robbery in Carmichael, Calif. Patricia Hearst, in her 1982 book "Every Secret Thing," accused Emily Harris of killing Mrs. Opsahl, and of saying later that "it really doesn't matter" and "she was a bourgeois pig anyway." Now Mrs. Opsahl's son Jon says those two comments kept the family pushing ...

While reading a Kmart thread, I saw a post about an anti-Rosie boycott. This is distressing to me because, quite frankly, there are a whole slew of boycotts out there and I have no idea that they are going on. Why, my hard earned money could be paying for some liberals champagne wishes and caviar dreams. I am making a general appeal that people post current conservative boycotts to this thread as a public service so that we have a semi-current list. I'll start: Disney Boycott started by Southern Baptists in ??? (Optional) started because of objectionable content/anti-family behavior (Optional) ...

Since this is WP, excerpts: So, what's in the cards for Washington? According to highly placed management sources, there are two scenarios in which the Washington area ends up with a team. If everything turns out exactly as Selig and his owners prefer, a team would relocate to Washington for the 2003 season. That team would almost certainly be the Florida Marlins. John Henry, a lodge member in good standing, was unhappy as the Marlins owner. Taxpayers wouldn't build him a few stadium. So, baseball put together a Good-Old-Boys group, with Henry at its head, to buy the Red Sox. ...

Coast Guard Helps Boy With Wish TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - An 8-year-old boy had a single wish for the set of toy boats he built to carry a message for the victims of Sept. 11 - he wanted them to sail out to sea as far as possible. The Coast Guard decided to help Justin Clark complete his project, carrying his 16 boats into the Gulf of Mexico on a routine two- to five-day patrol mission Monday. "We'd be going out anyway, so we might as well help Justin out," said Petty Officer Robert Suddarth in St. Petersburg. "It doesn't ...