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A teenager in Philadelphia has been arrested and charged for plotting what authorities have called a “catastrophic terrorist attack.” The 17-year-old boy was arrested by SWAT forces on August 11, following an investigation FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. The teen is accused of being in contact with Katibat al Tawhid wal Jihad, an extremist Islamist group affiliated with Al Qaeda. Katibat al Tawhid wal Jihad was officially designated as a terrorist organization by the US State Department in 2022. He received instructions from the group on the construction of IEDs and purchased materials used to make explosives as well as...

The $US2000 debit cards issued after Hurricane Katrina to victims so they could buy emergency supplies were used in some cases to pay for gambling, pornographic movies, and tattoos, according to two government reports that detail grotesque fraud and mismanagement in which hundreds of millions of dollars were squandered. The Federal Emergency Management Agency's oversight of cash payments was so flawed, the agency made "millions of dollars of payments" to applicants with bogus addresses, names, or Social Security numbers. New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin challenged the assumption that these expenditures were fraudulent. “The purpose of the aid was to try...

NEW ORLEANS -- Battered by Hurricane Katrina, Tulane University announced a major downsizing that will eliminate the jobs of a third of its medical-school faculty, do away with 22 programs of study and suspend eight sports. "We are determined to find opportunity in the face of adversity," said Tulane President Scott S. Cowen, who in recent weeks has been visiting displaced Tulane students around the country to encourage them to return to the school next year. Tulane officials said the restructuring is necessary because of $200 million in storm recovery costs this year and a "significant" budget shortfall projected for...

Inside Hurricane Katrina []Tuesday, November 1, 2005, at 9P August 29, 2005: Hurricane Katrina, a category four hurricane, hits land and storms across Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana leaving in her wake a trail of devastation. Now, in this two-hour special, the National Geographic Channel will take viewers onan in depth examination of Katrina and uncovers the decisions and circumstances that impacted countless Gulf of Mexico residents. Why were so many people left in the path of the storm and why was the response so delayed? Also airs: Wednesday, November 2, 12A Wednesday, November 2, 8:00P NOPD after KarinaPremieres Tuesday, November...

NYT - "Anyone who cares about responsible budgeting and the health of America's rivers and wetlands should pay attention to a bill now before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. The bill would shovel $17 billion at the Army Corps of Engineers for flood control and other water-related projects -- this at a time when President Bush is asking for major cuts in Medicaid and other important domestic programs. Among these projects is a $2.7 billion boondoggle on the Mississippi River that has twice flunked inspection by the National Academy of Sciences."

I'm known to write occasionally that the rest of America doesn't understand the South. Now comes some clear and convincing evidence. As fate would have it, InsiderAdvantage, the company that I lead, just this week purchased the long-established Washington, D.C.-based Southern Political Report. Hastings Wyman, a widely respected political reporter in Washington, will continue to edit the publication. But as Hurricane Katrina approached, we were in the last stages of creating a daily web-based version of the report. Immediately, we called on all the resources of the Southern Political Report, including its vast network of contacts, many of whom live...

Orange County School Superintendent Ron Blocker announced Wednesday that the school district is running out of gas, according to a Local 6 News report. The pipelines out of New Orleans that supply the district with diesel fuel have no power and the suppliers have canceled the shipments. So, the school district estimates it has enough gas to bus students to and from school through Friday, Local 6 News reported. If another shipment of fuel does not come before Friday buses will not be able to run. "Parents, as early as next week, will have to drive their children to school,"...

<p>CAIRO — Terrorists are still active in Afghanistan and have sleeper cells in the United States waiting to strike out, President Hosni Mubarak said in an interview in which he called for extreme vigilance and close international cooperation against the scourge.</p>

EL AVIV — American and Israeli intelligence officials have concluded that Yasir Arafat has forged a new alliance with Iran that involves Iranian shipments of heavy weapons and millions of dollars to Palestinian groups that are waging guerrilla war against Israel.The partnership, officials said, was arranged in a clandestine meeting in Moscow last May between two top aides to Mr. Arafat and Iranian government officials. The meeting took place while Mr. Arafat was visiting President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, according to senior Israeli security officials who declined to describe the precise nature of their information.The new alignment is significant...

TEHRAN, April 27 (Xinhuanet) -- Iran on Saturday called on the United Nations to expel Israel from the world body because of its violation of the U.N. resolutions, cruel acts and massive massacres of the Palestinians in the occupied territories, the official IRNA news agency reported. Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi was quoted as saying that the expulsion of the Israeli regime from the United Nations should be put on the U.N. agenda. A human catastrophe is taking place in Palestine, Asefi said, calling for all Muslim countries and international organizations to put pressure on the Israeli regime...