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Employees of closed businesses have "bills to pay, children to feed, presents to gift and they're going to lose their homes." More than 150 businesses plan to reopen this week in defiance of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s coronavirus shutdown. The businesses have organized as the Reopen Minnesota Coalition. This group has created a Facebook page and GoFundMe to raise awareness and money for business owners who will likely face legal consequences for their actions. Rural businesses involved in the effort plan to open Wednesday, Dec. 16, while metro businesses will open two days later on Friday. Walz’s current shutdown order...

As protesters took to the streets of Detroit Friday, the police chief released a video of the fatal shooting of a 20-year-old man by a police officer earlier that day, saying it shows the use of force was justified. Police Chief James Craig released the police dash cam video seven hours after the shooting of Hakim Littleton, which had spurred angry demonstrations in the area almost immediately after. Chaos broke out in the west-side neighborhood of San Juan near McNichols Road. More than 100 people began yelling at police and throwing bricks and bottles at them because of what they...

In a 2009 email recently declassified and released by Citizens United, longtime Hillary Clinton aide and confidante Huma Abedin told a Clinton Foundation executive that there was an unspecified “disaster” involving the then-Secretary of State. ‘Where are you,” read the subject line of an email from the foundation’s Doug Band. “I’m with her, we had a disaster,” Abedin emailed back. “U?”(continued)

Stalemate in Legislature Has New York Near Its Last Dollar DANNY HAKIM November 26, 2009 ALBANY — New York State is running out of cash. Without a budget deal, New York will be left with just $36 million in the bank by the end of December, according to current projections. And the money will last that long, officials say, only if the state chooses to fully exhaust its emergency reserves by tapping several billions dollars worth of temporary loans from its rainy-day fund and short-term investments. For weeks, Gov. David A. Paterson has invoked the shrinking amount of available cash...

Sources close to Iraqi Shi'ite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim say the cleric has died. Hakim was being treated for lung cancer at a hospital in Iran, and those close to the man said his health was deteriorating. A family member and an aide to Hakim, speaking on the condition of anonymity, separately told reporters Wednesday that he had suffered a setback. Hakim was known for his close links with Iran, and he led the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, one of Iraq's most powerful Shi'ite groups. In June, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani visited Hakim in Tehran, where the ailing cleric was...

January 22, 2009 Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/January/09-crm-060.html Foreign National Sentenced to Five Years in Prison for Smuggling East Africans to the United States WASHINGTON – A Ghanian man was sentenced today in the District of Columbia for his role in smuggling East Africans into the United States, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division Rita M. Glavin, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeffrey A. Taylor and Acting Assistant Secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) John Torres announced. Mohammed Kamel Ibrahim, a/k/a Hakim, 27, a native of Ghana and naturalized citizen of Mexico,...

Hakim to join Iraqis on Eid-ul-Fitr Tehran, Oct 6, 2007 IRNA Leader of Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council Abdel Aziz al Hakim will join people on Eid-ul-Fitr (Feast of Fast Breaking) as radiotherapy on him has finished. "The fifth week of radiotherapy on the SIIC head has come to an end in Tehran and he will return to Iraq in the next few days," said Hakim's son, Seyed Mohsen, in an interview with IRNA. He said result of medical tests and examinations show that his father has gained full recovery. Hakim has been under medical treatment and hospitalized periodically in Tehran...

(CBS/AP) TRENTON The founders of a Trenton mosque have sued in Superior Court in Mercer County to have their religious leader removed, claiming he is trying to make the congregation more fundamentalist. The suit, filed by the International Muslim Brotherhood Inc., the mosque’s owner, as well as three founding members, claims that Imam Sabur Abdul Hakim has recently adopted stricter views of Islam and is planning to beam in lectures by satellite from a conservative sect in Saudi Arabia. The suit also alleges that Hakim began changing religious practices at the Masjid As-Saffat mosque three years ago and appointed his...

The biggest Iraq-related news comes from Texas today: The Washington Post drops a bombshell, learning that one of the most powerful men in Iraq is facing lung cancer, and has traveled to Houston for treatment. 'Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), the largest party in the Iraqi parliament, is in the United States on treatment for lung cancer, Robin Wright reports in the Post. “In a reflection of Hakim's stature, President Bush authorized immediate transportation to get Hakim from Iraq to the United States, an administration source said yesterday. Vice President Cheney played a role...

Iraq's most powerful Shi'ite party will make key changes to its platform, party officials said on Friday, in a move that will increasingly align it with Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. The changes could distance the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) from neighbouring Shi'ite Iran, where the party was formed in the 1980s to oppose the late President Saddam Hussein. Under the new platform, the party would get its guidance from the Shi'ite religious establishment as before, but more from Sistani, SCIRI officials said. That would mark a shift from SCIRI's current platform,...

LONDON, December 2 (IranMania) - Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a top Iraqi Shiite leader with close ties to Iran, will meet with President Bush next week, the White House confirmed, CNN reported. Al-Hakim leads the powerful Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, a rival group to the political movement led by firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. US National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the meeting was set for Monday. "President Bush looks forward to an exchange of views and a discussion of important issues facing Iraq today," Johndroe said. Also, a senior administration official said Bush will...

A SUSPECTED al Qaeda leader, accused of being involved in September 11 and planning the 2004 Madrid train bombings, has been imprisoned in a secret US jail for the past year, Spain's El Pais newspaper reported today. Mustafa Setmarian, 48, a Syrian with Spanish citizenship, was captured in Pakistan in October 2005 and is held in a prison operated by the US Central Intelligence Agency, Pakistani and European security service officials told El Pais. A spokesman for the US embassy in Spain declined to comment on the report. Setmarian's 2005 capture was reported in May of this year after the...

A Shiite Muslim political leader said Friday that rumors were circulating of an impending coup attempt against the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and warned that "we will not allow it." A new government would mean "canceling the constitution, canceling the results of the elections and going back to square one . . . and we will not accept that," he said. Amiri is also a top official in the Badr Organization, the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is the leading member of a coalition of Shiite political parties governing...

Sunni Arabs gain American backing in negotiations to form a new government.BAGHDAD – One month after Iraq's Dec. 15 election, a shift is afoot that will probably weaken Shiite political clout as the country's factions enter serious negotiations to form a new government. Increasingly, the US is throwing its weight in Iraq behind Sunni Arabs, about 20 percent of the country, to ensure they are part of a new coalition government. Analysts say the US is convinced reconciliation with Sunni Arabs will help stop the insurgency. There is also an American unease with the growing influence of Iran on Iraq's...

The next vote in Iraq is the Oct. 15 referendum on the nation's constitution, but the political elite is already turning its attention to the general elections scheduled for December. Most Iraqi politicians now expect the constitution to be approved; fears have faded that Sunni Arabs might manage to vote it down. The optimism rises from several developments. First, as more and more Sunni Arabs read the proposed text, now widely distributed, they realize it is not as bad as some of their self-styled leaders claimed. The latest suicide-killer attacks have also come as a wake-up call to Sunnis not...

...The dilemma is that most of Iraq's oil wealth is found in areas claimed by Shiites and Kurds. And some leading Iraqi ethnic politicians have been asserting a right to keep all the oil revenue in their regions. Kurdish chieftain Massoud Barzani wants to control the northern city of Kirkuk, while Shiite politician Abdul Aziz al-Hakim is pushing for nearly complete control of the oil fields in the south. Thus strong regional governments, if allowed too much control over oil, risk leaving an Iraq with a rump Sunni province, and could create the perception of a legitimate grievance where none...

Here we go again. With the start of the Iraqi campaign season, doomsters are back with predictions of disaster for the newly liberated nation. Some claim the election could be a prelude to civil war. Others warn that the nation's Shiite majority might, in a moment of madness, choose an Iranian-style theocracy. Still others point to the Kurdish show of disaffection as a sign the multi-ethnic country may well be heading for disintegration, and that the coming elections could speed up the process. Yet most doomsters are the same people who opposed first the liberation of Iraq, and then the...

The American army stopped Friday one of the closest collaborators of the leader radical Shiite Moqtada Sadr whereas it had just left the mosque of Koufa where its head pronounced his sermon, affirmed the office of Sadr in a communiqué. "Mohammad Tabtabaï Hakim and its bodyguard were stopped by the American forces and their driver was killed whereas they left Koufa by a minor road to regain Najaf after the prayer of Friday ", specified the official statement.

Iraqis attack US date for hand-over By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor (Filed: 27/11/2003) Powerful Shi'ite leaders yesterday criticised America's plan to hand power to an interim Iraqi government next summer. They warned of "real problems" unless it was revised. Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, brother of a prominent Shi'ite leader assassinated in August, complained that the plan does not envisage elections until next March, relegates the United Nations to a secondary role and does not protect Iraq's Islamic identity. Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim He said the misgivings were shared by Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shi'ite religious leader. Mr Hakim added:...

Leaders of Iraq's interim Governing Council joined U.S. officials and Middle Eastern immigrants at a memorial service in Northern Virginia last night that reflected rising demands by Iraqis for a quicker turnover of power by U.S. occupation authorities. "We need to build our own security and our own government. We will work with the coalition . . . but they need to hurry," said the council's temporary president, Ahmed Chalabi, speaking in Arabic to an audience that included Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz. His comments were translated into English for a reporter. The service was in honor of Ayatollah...