Free Republic

Mina’s World, the West Philadelphia coffee shop that drew local and national attention as a community-oriented and LGBTQ inclusive space, has closed. “We don’t have enough money to continue operating,” read the message posted Friday on Mina’s Instagram. “The People’s Fridge will stay in place for this moment — if we are asked to move it we find another host in West Philly. “Thank you for the opportunity to serve you in the ways we were able to.” *SNIP* In recent weeks, evidently a dispute had arisen between some of Mina’s employees and the cafe’s owners. Sonam Parikh and Kate...

MERIWETHER COUNTY, Ga. - An elderly woman who was beaten and burned inside her Meriwether County home has died weeks after the attack, the county's coroner confirmed to Channel 2 Action News. Dorothy Dow, 83, was lying in her bed when three men and a woman kicked in her back door and attacked her in early August, according to police. "These suspects began to demand money from Miss Dow. She pleaded with them that she didn't have any money. They began to brutally beat her,” Sheriff Chuck Smith said. The family said Dow’s right and left arms were broken, and...

Saudi Arabia firmly rejected Iran’s criticism of its handling of the Haj pilgrimage Saturday after Tehran demanded an inquiry into the Mina stampede. “I believe the Iranians should know better than to play politics with a tragedy that has befallen people who were performing their most sacred religious duty,” Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said, according to AFP. Al-Jubeir, delivering remarks along US Secretary of State John Kerry, insisted that Saudi Arabia was on top of the situation. “The Kingdom has had a long history of spending tremendous resources to care for the pilgrimage to ensure that the pilgrims who come...

A visiting Pakistani-American radio journalist has commended Saudi Arabia for the successful organization of this year’s Haj. Qamar Abbas Jafri of Voice of America’s Urdu Service described Saudi efforts “as a job well done.” Jafri was among 200 international journalists invited by the Ministry of Culture and Information to perform Haj and report on it. “I performed Haj and did a number of reports from the holy sites,” he told Arab News on Friday before heading back to Washington, D.C. “I am really impressed; it is a wonderful experience to be here.” Jafri said this was his second Haj. “I...

Arab American pilgrims from the Metro Detroit area where attacked and assaulted, for what appears to be sectarian reasons, on Wednesday, Oct. 16, while performing the rituals of Hajj in Mina, Saudi Arabia. Mina is a town near Mecca, where pilgrims sleep in tents and stone three pillars, representing the satan, with seven pebbles, on the last day of Hajj. The Saudi government has built thousand of air-conditioned tents to accommodate pilgrims, during this ritual. A known female community leader said that when the local group entered Tent Section 40, an area designated for American, European and Australian Muslims, a...

MAKKAH, January 18 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – More than two million pilgrims started Tuesday, January 18, flocking into Mina, an arid valley near the holy city of Makkah, in the first day of the hajj rituals. Chanting “labbaik Allahumma Labbaik” (Here I am Allah, answering your call) in the early morning hours, Muslim pilgrims moved easily on foot or by buses from Makkah to Mina, the Saudi news agency reported. The journey proceeded with calm and without major incident amid pleasant weather conditions. The pilgrims will continue to stream through a mountain to Mina, some two miles outside Makkah,...

The high-resolution QuickBird satellite images of the tsunami impact on Sri Lanka are just a few of the images on the Digital Globe web site that made me stop and say "Wow!" For example, check out the images on the links below: