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The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Saturday searched the Illinois headquarters of a national COVID-19 testing company that is under federal and state investigation. "The FBI was conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity in Rolling Meadows yesterday," Siobhan Johnson, a spokesperson for the FBI's Chicago office, said to USA Today on Sunday. The test company, known as the Center for COVID Control, has received over $124 million from the federal government as reimbursement for COVID-19 testing. The company once operated over 300 locations in 26 states and gathered over 80,000 COVID-19 tests daily.

Congress's new Democratic majority is expanding its review of the Bush administration's push for broad executive power, as the Senate is set to look into how the Pentagon has increased its covert intelligence operations. Lawmakers plan to study whether the Pentagon obtained the proper authorization for covert operations and notified Congress as required under the law. The inquiry will also explore whether the Pentagon engaged in activities that legally are the responsibility of the Central Intelligence Agency. The hearings, to be conducted by the Senate Intelligence Committee beginning March 1, stem from concerns of some lawmakers, particularly Democrats, about an...

Former Iran President Hashemi Rafsanjani on Friday urged the United States to exclude the Islamic country from its so-called "axis of evil" and warned Washington not to treat Iran the same way it has Iraq and Afghanistan. President Bush "made a strategic mistake. He should exclude Iran from the circle (axis of evil) that he has made," Rafsanjani told the crowd in Tehran during Friday's prayer ceremony.

Cairo, Egypt - Islamists belonging to the militant group Ansar al-Sunna (Protectors of the faith) published a statement Monday condemning Pope Benedict XVI's remarks on Islam and Prophet Mohammed. The group, in their angry internet statement, called the Pope 'the devil's courier' and said that his statements prove that 'their (Christians) war (against Muslims) is entirely in the name of the cross, a crusade.' In his speech, the Catholic Pope had quoted a medieval text written by a 14th century Christian emperor who described some of Prophet Mohammed's teachings, elements of the Muslim faith, as 'evil and inhumane.' The extremist...

A notorious Muslim extremist told a demonstration in London yesterday that the Pope should face execution. Anjem Choudary said those who insulted Islam would be "subject to capital punishment". His remarks came during a protest outside Westminster Cathedral on a day that worldwide anger among Muslim hardliners towards Pope Benedict XVI appeared to deepen. The pontiff yesterday apologised for causing offence during a lecture last week. Quoting a medieval emperor, his words were taken to mean that he called the prophet Mohammed "evil and inhuman". He insisted he was "deeply sorry" but his humbling words did not go far enough...

Twisted young British parents planned to sacrifice their precious baby in the evil cause of jihad by mass murder. Fanatical terror suspect Abdula Ahmed Ali, 25, and his wife, Cossor, 23, are among those being interrogated by police as suspects in the massive plot to attack trans-Atlantic flights in midair. What the outwardly normal couple had secretly plotted is almost too horrifying to consider, cops said. The Alis planned to use 6-month-old son Zain's baby bottle as a liquid bomb, blowing themselves and their child up, along with hundreds of others aboard the flight. [snip] To their stunned friends and...

HIZBALLAH, EXPANDING RELGIOUS WARFARE: ISRAELIS KILLING INDISCRIMINATELY BECAUSE 'YAHWEH' IS "RACIST GOD" JERUSALEM-JULY 28 2006[10:30 AM] By Michael Widlanski Hizballah's television station Al-Manar launched an unusually anti-Semitic attack on Israel a few minutes ago, when a featured commentator claimed that Jews were instructed to kill women and children. "What does their Torah say: it says kill all men, women and children and even animals," said the Hizballah commentator, Ghassan Matar, identified as a former member of the Lebanese parliament. "That is what their Israeli Zionist god, their racist god 'Yahweh' orders them," sneered Matar, the gray-haired commentator, gesturing broadly with...

Two items: [1] From Laurie Mylroie's "Iraq News" Newsletter - Tue, 17 May 2005 20:03:39 -0400 Subject: Michael Rubin, Prior Isikoff Use of Faulty Source From the list of Michael Rubin, previously at DoD and now at AEI (May 17, 2005): This was not the first time Michael Isikoff has used faulty or fabricated sources. In reporting the myth that Doug Feith’s office created its own intelligence unit, he relied on Karen Kwiatkowski, who associated with the Lyndon LaRouche movement. Kwiatkowski said on tape that she was Isikoff’s chief source. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s Report on the U.S....

On May 13, 2004, Senator Edward Kennedy berated Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz at the Senate Armed Services Committee, condemning "disaster after disaster" in U.S. Iraq policy. Well before the Abu Ghraib revelations, Kennedy has sought to transform Iraqi freedom from a philosophical and strategic issue into a partisan debate, without regard either to reality or result. On April 6, Kennedy called Iraq "George Bush's Vietnam." On March 5, 2004, Senator Edward Kennedy, speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations, took the president to task for allegedly exaggerating the threat posed by Iraq: "The evidence so far leads to...