A Kansas man is jailed on charges that he planned to detonate a car bomb at the Fort Riley military base for ISIS.
John T. Booker, Jr., who calls himself Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, had unknowingly been receiving false bomb material from FBI operatives according to NBC News. Booker faces charges of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, one count of attempting to damage property and one count of attempting to provide material support to ISIS.
“I want to assure the public there was never any breach of Fort Riley Military Base, nor was the safety or the security of the base or its personnel ever at risk,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Eric Jackson was quoted as saying in a statement.
“As alleged in the complaint, John Booker attempted to attack U.S. military personnel on U.S. soil purportedly in the name of (ISIS),” Fox News quoted Assistant Attorney General John Carlin as saying. “Thanks to the efforts of the law enforcement community, we were able to safely disrupt this threat to the brave men and women who serve our country. Protecting American lives by identifying and bringing to justice those who wish to harm U.S. citizens remains the National Security Division’s number one priority.”
A grand jury will consider the case next week.
Booker told an FBI informant that he wanted to kill Americans and engage in violent jihad on behalf of ISIS. Imam Omar Hazim of the Islamic Center of Topeka told the FBI Booker had bipolar disorder according to the Associated Press.
Kansas is the first state to ban the abortion process where they dismember babies during their removal.
Govenror Sam Brownback signed the SB95 law Tuesday banning dilation and evacuation abortions. The Senate approved the bill 31-9 while the House passed the law 98-26.
The law says it will now be illegal to “knowingly dismembering a living unborn child and extracting such unborn child one piece at a time from the uterus through the use of clamps, grasping forceps, tongs, scissors or similar instruments that, through the convergence of two rigid levers, slice, crush or grasp a portion of the unborn child’s body in order to cut or rip it off.”
The process, which is common in second trimester abortions, stops the child’s heart and then the child is removed from the uterus in pieces.
Pro-abortion groups like Trust Women and Planned Parenthood said they’re considering lawsuits to block the law.
Missouri, Oklahoma and South Carolina are considering similar legislation.
A new report from the Anti-Defamation League shows that anti-Semitic attacks in the United States jumped 21 percent in the last year.
The shocking statistics counter a ten year decline in attacks on Jews.
Abraham Foxman of the ADL says that “The United States still continues to be unique in history” when it comes to being a safe place for Jews. However, the rise in incidents raises concern because 40 percent of the world’s Jews live in the U.S.
“It’s still different here than anywhere else, but don’t take anything for granted, and be concerned,” Foxman said.
The ADL researchers say that the rise is likely connected to the 50-day war where Islamic terrorists were attacking Israel. Some of the incidents that were quoted in the report include vandals painting “Jews are killing innocent children” on a gate of a Jewish summer camp and spray painting “God Bless Gaza” on a synagogue in Massachusetts.
2014 also included a fatal shooting outside a Jewish Community Center in Overland Park, Kansas by an avowed anti-Semite.
The largest earthquake to shake Kansas since a series of small quakes began to shake the state last year struck Wednesday.
The 4.8 magnitude quake struck about 25 miles southwest of Wichita around 3:40 p.m. local time. The quake followed a 2.6 magnitude quake on Tuesday.
Sharon Watson of Kansas Emergency Management said only minor damage was reported throughout the region. One home reportedly had its foundation cracked by an uprooted tree.
Oklahoma officials reported no damage.
Kansas has recorded more than 90 earthquakes since 2013 according to the Kansas Geological Survey.
The city of Overland Park, Kansas has learned a very expensive lesson about violating the religious freedom of Christians.
The city has paid $50,000 in legal fees after a court ruled the violated the rights of Christians who were handing out materials about their soccer camp at a city-owned soccer complex. The city had banned Victory Through Jesus Sports Ministries from handing out flyers on the sidewalk. The U.S. District Court ruled that there was no difference between those sidewalks and any other public sidewalk.
Gordon Hunjak of Victory Through Jesus Sports Ministries filed suit after they were threatened with arrest for continuing to hand out the materials. The city then passed a law saying that the soccer park and surrounding area was “a non-public forum.”
The city’s defense to the court was that they were trying to control litter and the flow of pedestrian traffic into the facility. The court said if that was really the case, the response of the city was excessive.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented Hunjak, said in a statement that the case should warn other cities that it is important to respect the religious freedom of citizens.
A series of major tornadoes broke out across the south and Midwest Sunday night leaving at least 18 dead.
Officials in Arkansas say a tornado that at one point had a base half a mile wide ripped through Little Rock suburbs Vilonia and Mayflower. The mayor of Vilonia told FoxNews that the tornado essentially obliterated his town’s downtown business district.
Authorities say the tornado first touched down around 7 p.m. and caused destruction along an 80-mile path. A brand new intermediate school built with $14 million in taxpayer dollars and scheduled to open in the fall was destroyed.
“We’re probably going to have to start all over again,” Vilonia Schools Superintendent Frank Mitchell said.
Arkansas officials said that a tornado struck on Interstate 40 destroying cars and leaving tractor trailers in twisted heaps.
Another twister destroyed most of Quapaw, Oklahoma and left one person dead before turning into Kansas and destroying over 70 homes in Baxter Springs.
The anti-Christian group Americans United for Separation of Church and State says a cross on the top of an elementary school is a horrific violation of the Constitution.
The AUSCS says that a small concrete cross on the top of Spearville Elementary School in Spearville, Kansas offends an unknown person in the town. The group routinely uses anonymous people as the basis for their claims against any Christian emblem or symbol being seen in a public place.
The Dodge City Globe obtained a letter from the group that said the “school’s cross display violates the constitutional prohibition against government action that ‘conveys or attempts to convey a message that religion or a particular belief is favored or preferred’.”
The USD 381 Board of Education told the Globe that they won’t be taking any action until the group files a lawsuit.
The building used for Spearville Elementary was a Catholic school until the Dodge City Diocese to the local school district in 1975. Because the building was constructed in 1925, it’s possible that the building could be considered a historical landmark in the town.
A Kansas man is under arrest after plotting to blow up Wichita Mid-Continent Airport.
Terry Loewen, an aviation tech at the airport, reportedly spent months planning the attack to destroy the airport. The plot involved using his access card to drive a vehicle loaded with explosives to a terminal and then planned to die in the attack.
FBI agents arrested Loewen was arrested early Friday morning while trying to gain access to a tarmac with the vehicle he thought was loaded with explosives. Authorities said that the car had been filled with fake explosives and the public was never in danger.
He faces life in prison on federal charges including attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.
Loewen was under investigation since summer after making statements he wanted to commit an act of violent jihad against the United States.
Blizzard conditions again descended on the midsection of the country Monday, bringing hurricane-force winds to the Texas Panhandle, closing highways in Texas and Oklahoma and putting already snow-covered parts of Kansas on high alert as the day progressed. Continue reading →
