Easter has to be a “spring break” but the Mayor of New York City thinks adding Muslim holidays to the school calendar is perfectly fine.
New York Mayor Bill deBlasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina announced Wednesday that all schools will close for the Muslim holidays of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha.
“We are committed to having a school calendar that reflects and honors the extraordinary diversity of our students,” said Farina.
This is the same school district that is in court to prohibit Christian churches from being able to rent facilities while allowing all other groups to rent them.
“We’re here today to make good on a promise to our Muslim brothers and sisters that a holiday of supreme importance to the Muslim community will be recognized in our school calendar so that children can honor the holiday without missing school,” the mayor said.
The mayor claimed it’s about supporting families.
“Families are the fabric of our city. They’re the core of our city,” the mayor said. “All families deserve respect. Every kind of family deserves respect, and that’s what we’re noting today.”
Three New York residents have been arrested in connection with support and attempts to join ISIS.
The three men, two with Uzebkistan citizenship and the other Kazakhstan, wanted to “wage jihad” and one said he would attempt to kill the President if he was ordered to do so by ISIS leadership.
The men were identified in the complaint as Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, 24, a resident of Brooklyn and a citizen of Uzbekistan; Akhror Saidakhmetov, 19, a resident of Brooklyn and a citizen of Kazakhstan; and Abror Habibov, 30, a resident of Brooklyn and a citizen of Uzbekistan.
The men were focused upon by federal authorities after making online statements supporting ISIS and calling for others to join with them to support ISIS. They also posted online in foreign message boards attempting to recruit new ISIS members.
One was arrested at JFK Airport trying to board a plane to Turkey. The other two men had place tickets for travel to the region within the next month.
The group also had plans to conduct domestic terror attacks if they could not make it to join ISIS in Syria.
“We will vigorously prosecute those who attempt to travel to Syria to wage violent jihad on behalf of ISIL and those who support them,” U.S. Attorney Loretta E. Lynch said in a statement. “Anyone who threatens our citizens and our allies, here or abroad, will face the full force of American justice.”
A Christian who was ticked for posting a sign on his truck that quoted Scripture is reporting the prosecutor handling the case refuses to drop it because of the New York protests against police.
“The prosecutor stated that he was not going to drop the case because he wanted to respect the authority of police,” Luis Zapata, whose defense attorney spoke with the prosecution last week, told Christian News Network on Wednesday. “Especially with the events with the police officers in New York City—the protests and the negative view of the officers—he was going to stand by the officer.”
Zapata has been posting scripture on his truck for two years until last August. He said that he felt God telling him to share the gospel with the word and to place a sign on his truck about the Lord’s return.
Police officer Mark Van Wormer began to harass Zapata when he was parked near an abortion clinic for a protest with other Christians. Van Wormer told Zapata to take his signs down or he would be ticketed. Zapata moved the truck at the officer’s approval and then was later ticketed by Van Wormer at the new location.
Zapata said the tickets are part of a harassment campaign by the police against the Christians who protest the clinic.
“I feel that the city of Englewood got together with the abortion mill to try to drive us out of there by giving us petty citations,” he said.
The administration of New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio is continuing a fight to keep Christians from being able to hold meetings in public schools as other taxpayers of the city are permitted to do.
The case of Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education has been in the court system for 17 years. The Board of Education refused to allow the group to meet inside a school saying that allowing a church to meet in school facilities was a violation of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court refused to hear the case. However, in 2012 a U.S. District Judge issued a permanent injunction allowing the group to hold services inside a school saying the school was violating the Free Exercise clause of the Constitution in their denial.
The city appealed that decision, getting the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to rule 2-1 that it was Constitutional to discriminate against Christian groups and other religions. That ruling is now before the Supreme Court.
“The department’s decision to make public schools available to religious organizations for a wide range of activities, but not for worship services or as a house of worship, is constitutional,” the city stated in a brief to the Supreme Court. “The policy does not prohibit, limit, or burden any religious practice; does not entangle the government in matters of religion; and does not impair petitioners’ ability to speak freely.”
The Alliance Defending Freedom is asking the court to uphold the Constitutional right for Christians to use the facilities like any other taxpayer.
“Churches meeting in New York City public schools for worship services have fed the poor and needy, assisted in rehabilitating drug addicts and gang members, helped rebuild marriages and families, and provided for the disabled,” said ADF Senior Counsel David Cortman. “The churches have also helped the public schools themselves by volunteering to paint the interiors of inner-city schools; donating computers, musical instruments, and air conditioners; and providing effective after-school programs to help all students with their studies.”
A New York woman has announced that she is going to marry her biological father after two years of dating according to New York Magazine.
The 18 year old woman says that her father, who had left her life when she was a toddler, reconnected with her when she was 17 and still in high school.
“We didn’t know what was going on, but admitted that we had strong feelings for each other,” the woman told New York Magazine. “We discussed whether it was wrong and then we kissed. And then we made out, and then we made love for the first time. That was when I lost my virginity.”
“I didn’t regret it at all. I was happy for once in my life,” she stated. “We fell deeply in love.”
The couple plans to move from New York to New Jersey where adult incest is not illegal. They say that while the father’s side of the family knows about the incestuous relationship, the girl’s mother and her side of the family do not know about it. They plan to tell them after they move to New Jersey.
New Jersey enacted a new criminal code in 1979 that left the section planned for incest blank. Before that passage, incest was a crime with a maximum of 15 years in prison. Legal marriage between adult relatives is still illegal, so the “wedding” will have no legal standing.
“I just don’t understand why I’m judged for being happy. We are two adults who brought each other out of dark places. People need to research incest and GSA because they don’t get it and I don’t think they understand how often it happens,” the woman said to the magazine.
Several media watchdogs say the story could be a hoax because the woman is not identified by name.
A group of anti-Christianists is attacking a Christian Good News Club being held at an elementary school in New York with what they call the “Better News Club.”
“The organization was created first as an alternative to the Good News Club, a Christian evangelical group who enters public schools to proselytize to children and, according to their own materials, declares them all sinners in need of salvation,” the website for the group outlines.
The anti-Christianists say the Good News Club is “a form of psychological abuse, akin to telling small children they’re flawed or evil, and must subscribe to a dogma in order to avoid eternal punishment.”
Child Evangelism Fellowship sponsors the Good News Club meeting at Fairbanks Elementary School in Churchville, New York. The children in the Club must have permission of their parents to attend meetings.
“Our ministry is dedicated to helping children in 150 countries around the world to know God and learn from the Bible,” the group says on their permission slip.
“Listen, the message of the gospel, the teaching of the core Christian tenets of the Christian faith that have been taught for 2,000 years in the Bible is what we’re teaching,” CEF Vice President of Ministries Moises Esteves told local television station KOIN. “There’s nothing new here.”
The New York City Police Department, already on alert because of the murder of officers by black residents over the Eric Garner situation, is on highest alert because of threats from Islamic terrorist group ISIS.
ISIS has called for Muslims within America to “strike police” and after last week’s Paris terror attacks officials are seriously considering the threat.
“Do not let the battle pass you by wherever you may be,” ISIS spokesman Abu Mohamad Al-Adnani declared in an online video. “Strike their police, security and intelligence members, as well as their treacherous agents. [For those] who don’t have an improvised explosive device or a bullet, [you] can smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car.”
The NYPD’s deputy commissioner for counterterrorism told CBS’s “Face The Nation” that the announcement was a renewal of a call ISIS made in September for attacks on police.
The NYPD sent an e-mail memo to all police.
“If you are assigned to a fixed post, do not sit together in the RMP [police car],” the e-mail, obtained by The New York Post, read. “At least one officer must stand outside the vehicle at all times. Pay attention to your surroundings. Officers must pay close attention to approaching vehicles . . . Pay close attention to people as they approach. Look for their hands.”
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said that the ISIS cyber attacks and threats are “severely disturbing.”
Officials with a New York town are targeting a church for an outreach to their community.
A code enforcement officer for the city told First Presbyterian Church that a “glee camp” they hosted at a building they own. A cease-and-desist order was issued in July saying that the church’s camp was a violation of zoning because they were operating a commercial action in a residential zone.
“Cease operating a summer glee camp @100/camper in a residential district. This is not an allowable use here,” the order said.
“I believe this action is a misguided and discriminatory act on the city’s part that not only harms the church’s ability to carry out its religious mission in the community, but also threatens a chilling effect upon other faith organizations similarly situated in residential areas throughout the city,” Pastor Eileen Winter said in a deposition.
The church charges $100 per camper but the money goes entirely to offset the church’s costs to put on the camp. The church makes no money on the camp and some years even loses money.
Hiram Sasser of the Liberty Institute says that the city is in violation of the Religious Land Use Act.
A Queens, New York man was arrested after he was overheard talking about killing police. A witness called the NYPD after hearing 38-year-old Elvin Payamps talking in a TD Bank line about having guns at his house to commit the crime.
“I’m going to kill another cop. We should do it before Christmas. The cop should have been white that was killed. I always have a gun on me,” the witness said Payamps told a friend on a phone call.
The witness called 911 but Payamps left before police arrived at the bank. He was found getting into a car near the bank. After finding marijuana in the car, he was arrested.
“They should have killed two white cops instead of the Hispanic and Asian if the guy really wanted to send a message,” Payamps allegedly told police after his arrest.
At Payamps home, officers found a 9mm pistol and a 12-gauge shotgun with serial numbers scratched off them. He also had two bulletproof vests and a set of brass knuckles.
He is being held on $500,000 bail.
Police praised the witness for reporting the threat. They called on all New Yorkers to take seriously anyone who talks about killing police officers in the wake of the murder of two officers by someone seeking retribution for Eric Garner and the events of Ferguson, MO.
A man who was protesting and seeking revenge for Michael Brown and Eric Garner ambushed two police officers in their cruiser on Saturday, shooting them before killing himself after he was trapped in a subway.
Ismaaiyl Abdulla Brinsley walked up from behind the cruiser containing Officers Wenjin Liu and Raphael Ramos, dropped into a shooting stance at the passenger side window and opened fire. The officers did not even have time to pull their weapons before they were fatally struck.
NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton told reporters at a press conference that the gunman had shot his ex-girlfriend in Baltimore in the morning before driving to New York.
Brinsley had posted online that he was going to be “putting wings on pigs” today. He added “They take 1 of ours. Let’s take 2 of theirs. #ShootThePolice #RIPEricGardner #RIPMikeBrown”
His last post said “This may be my final post. I’m putting pigs in a blanket.”
Baltimore police were alerted by the ex-girlfriend’s mother of the murderer’s intentions but the message did not reach the NYPD until after the killing.
