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WASHINGTON — The Senate voted 75-22 on Friday to pass a major government funding bill to keep a slew of agencies afloat through September, defusing fears of a partial shutdown and sending the legislation to President Joe Biden to become law. The 1,050-page measure is a collection of six appropriations bills negotiated by Schumer, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Biden and top appropriators in both parties and chambers. It funds the departments of Justice, Commerce, Agriculture, Transportation and many other parts of the government, after leaders split federal funding into two packages. It passed the House on Wednesday by a...

Saudi Arabia on Thursday halted travel to the holiest sites in Islam over coronavirus fears just months ahead of the annual Hajj pilgrimage, as the Middle East recorded more than 220 confirmed cases. The extraordinary decision by Saudi Arabia prevents foreigners from reaching the holy city of Mecca and the Kaaba, the cube-shaped structure the world's 1.8 billion Muslims pray towards five times a day. It also said travel was suspended to Prophet Muhammad's mosque in Medina

Police in New York Tuesday announced the arrest of four suspects in an alleged terror plot. They described the plan to attack a group of Muslims in central New York state as serious and real. Brian Colaneri, 20; Vincent Vetromile, 19; Andrew Crysel, 18; and a 16-year-old suspect whose name is being withheld, were arrested Friday in the town Greece. "If they had carried out this plot, which every indication is that they were going to, people would've died," said Chief Patrick Phelan. Investigators said the suspects, who knew each other from the Boy Scouts, were targeting Islamberg, a rural...

The campaign to keep Britain in the European Union appeared to regain the upper hand on Monday, putting the pound on track for its biggest one-day gain in more than seven years and buoying the UK stock market. Campaigning for the June 23 referendum resumed on Sunday after a three-day suspension following the killing of lawmaker Jo Cox, and three opinion polls at the weekend showed the "Remain" camp gaining momentum. Sterling rose by as much as 2.4 percent against the dollar on Monday, heading for its biggest one-day rise since December 2008, while Britain's FTSE-100 shares index jumped 3...

Two men are thought to have been preparing an attack in the centre of Ankara where crowds gather to celebrate the New Year. Police seized a suicide vest armed with a bomb, an explosive device fortified with ball bearings and metal sticks and placed inside a backpack, as well as bomb-making equipment Turkish police have detained two suspected Islamic State militants believed to be planning suicide attacks during New Year celebrations in central Ankara, officials said. The two men were detained in a raid on a house in the low-income Mamak neighbourhood of Ankara. Police seized a suicide vest armed...

Police say they have stopped a "highly dangerous" group who planned to kill the Pope and praised the Paris terror attacks Four people have been arrested over alleged threats made by jihadists to kill Pope Franics. The arrests, made in Italy and Kosovo, were conducted by anti-terror police who had been monitory a "highly dangerous group" on social media. All four were Kosovan nationals said to have links to Syria. Police said threats had been made warning Pope Francis "would be the last Pope".

Neurosurgeon Ben Carson should withdraw from the presidential race for his comments that a Muslim shouldn't be president a prominent Muslim-American group said Sunday. "I think his remarks should be repudiated by everyone on the political spectrum and that he should withdraw," Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation's largest Islamic advocacy group, told the Washington Examiner on Sunday. Carson, who is third in the Washington Examiner's presidential power rankings, spoke on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday and said that he wouldn't "advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation."

A new report says authorities foiled an alleged plot against the pope that was set to take place while he was visiting the U.S.ABC News reported Tuesday that the FBI “quietly” stopped a would-be ISIS-related attack last month. In the alleged plot, the suspect, who was a minor, was inspired by the terrorist group over social media to carry out the crime.“The minor was inspired by [ISIS] and sought to conduct a detailed homeland attack which included multiple attackers, firearms, and multiple explosives, targeting a foreign dignitary at a high-profile event,” read a joint intelligence bulletin by the FBI and...

The speaker of the German parliament on Wednesday said the slaughter of indigenous Namibians a century ago constituted a “genocide” that stemmed from a “race war”. Norbert Lammert, writing in a guest column for news weekly Die Zeit, said the Herero and Nama peoples had been systematically targeted for massacre by German imperial troops. “Using today’s standards of international law, the crushing of the Herero revolt was genocide,” he wrote. …

A federal court ruled yesterday that a Sikh college student must be allowed to enroll in Army ROTC without shaving his beard, cutting his hair, or removing his turban. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson acted in the case of Hofstra University student Iknoor Singh, who had been barred by the U.S. Army from enrolling in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program because of his religious practices. The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) is a college-based program for training commissioned officers of the United States Armed Forces.

BERLIN — German authorities conducted raids across the country on Wednesday, seizing explosives and arresting four people accused of founding a right-wing extremist group to attack mosques and housing for asylum seekers. Police arrested three men and a woman accused of leading the group during raids by some 250 investigators on homes in Saxony and four other states, the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

French experts re-examining evidence have confirmed their earlier conclusion that the 2004 death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was not the result of poisoning, a prosecutor told AFP Monday. The prosecutor for the western Paris suburb of Nanterre said the experts found there was no foul play in Arafat’s death, which sparked immediate and enduring conspiracy rumors. […] Arafat died aged 75 on November 11, 2004 at the Percy de Clamart hospital, close to Paris. He had been admitted there at the end of October that year after developing stomach pains while at his headquarters in the West Bank city...

With the arrival of approximately two million people from around the world in Saudi Arabia for the annual hajj pilgrimage, there are a group of pilgrims who were not welcomed. The Saudi government has banned the entry of travelers from three countries currently dealing with the Ebola epidemic: Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. The decision to reject visa requests from these countries has affected 7,400 people, according to the Associated Press. Hospitals in Saudi Arabia are also preparing in the event of an outbreak by setting up isolation and surgery units as well as dispatching medical staff to airports. Despite...

Saudi Arabia has announced it will be rejecting pilgrims from Ebola-stricken nations who want to observe the annual Hajj in Mecca. This is to reduce risks of the virus getting into the Muslim country. Hospitals and relative medical institutions have reportedly been alerted to prepare in case the Ebola springs up at one of the pilgrims already within the country. Over 22,000 general practitioners have also been tapped to deal with the pilgrims should any medical emergency arise. Visas to pilgrims from those countries will not be entertained, the Saudi government said, according to the same report.

Reuters accidentally published a pre-written obituary for George Soros on Thursday afternoon, declaring that the business titan had died at the ripe old age of "XXX." Soros is alive and 82 years old, as a spokesperson confirmed to Quartz soon after. The obituary recapped Soros' years as an investor and financier, while detailing his massive wealth, which is estimated to be $19 billion in total. New agencies frequently write framework obituaries for aging, prominent citizens years ahead of their eventual deaths, so it's likely that someone at Reuters simply hit "publish" by accident. But that still didn't stop the false...

<p>As the 150th anniversary of the Civil War continues to be commemorated, progenies of those who fought in the bitter battles between the North and South have converged to remember the sacrifices on both sides.</p> <p>But tucked inside an exhibit in Frederick, Maryland is a two-page document from Robert E. Lee – found wrapped around a case of cigars – that could have changed the course of the entire war, and led to victory for the Union.</p>

The Supreme Court ruled today that six states cannot, for now, try to limit emissions of greenhouse gases under federal common law. The court ruled 8-0 -- Justice Sonia Sotomayor was recused -- that the Clean Air Act and the Obama administration's efforts to regulate emissions had displaced the states' federal common law argument. But the court split, 4-4, on the potentially key issue of whether federal courts even had jurisdiction to hear the claims. The split means the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' finding that it did have jurisdiction stands, although that conclusion would not apply to other...

WASHINGTON, May 10, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) will today ask the FBI to investigate as a possible hate crime an incident in Louisiana in which a mosque was vandalized with pork. [Muslims are prohibited from consuming pork products and bigots often use pigs or pork to offend Muslim sensibilities.]

AMHERST, N.Y. (AP) -- Muslim leaders are upset that a homeowner who lives next door to a newly opened mosque has posted a sign on his front lawn that reads "Bomb Making Next Driveway." Michael Heick lives along a heavily traveled road in the town of Amherst, a Buffalo suburb. The next driveway on the same side of the road is the entrance to the Jaffarya Center.

As a recent controversy in California makes clear, protests targeting radical Islam are a double-edged sword and must be carried out with discipline. Done right, they expose Islamists and their work to much-needed public scrutiny; done wrong, they play into the hands of Islamists eager to silence all critics by characterizing Muslims as victims of vast prejudice and aggression. On February 13, hundreds gathered on the lawn of the Yorba Linda Community Center to protest a fundraiser for ICNA Relief, a social services arm of the Islamic Circle of North America, which has ties to jihadists overseas. Not surprisingly, two...