Canadian man charged in stabbing of airport officer in Flint
FLINT, Mich. (AP) — A police officer was stabbed in the neck at the Flint airport by a man with a knife Wednesday in what authorities are investigating as a possible act of terrorism.
The suspect was immediately taken into custody, and federal prosecutors hours later announced the Canadian man was charged with committing violence at an airport. They identified him as Amor Ftouhi of Quebec.
The criminal complaint says Ftouhi stabbed Lt. Jeff Neville with a large knife and declared “Allahu akbar,” the Arabic phrase for “God is great.” The FBI, which is leading the investigation, said Ftouhi said something similar to “you have killed people in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and we are all going to die.”
The FBI added in the criminal complaint that Ftouhi asked an officer who subdued him why he didn’t kill him.
Neville was in stable condition after initially being in critical condition.
IS destroys iconic al-Nuri mosque in Mosul
IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — The Islamic State group destroyed Mosul’s al-Nuri mosque and its iconic leaning minaret known as al-Hadba when fighters detonated explosives inside the structures Wednesday night, Iraq’s Ministry of Defense said.
The mosque — also known as Mosul’s Great Mosque — is where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a so-called Islamic caliphate in 2014 shortly after the city was overrun by the militants and was seen as a key symbolic prize in the fight for Iraq’s second largest city. The minaret that leaned like Italy’s Tower of Pisa stood for more than 840 years.
In a statement posted online after the Ministry of Defense statement, IS claimed an airstrike carried out by the United States destroyed the mosque and minaret.
The U.S.-led coalition rejected the IS claim.
A coalition spokesman, U.S. Army Col. Ryan Dillon, told The Associated Press that coalition aerial surveillance confirmed the mosque was destroyed, but he said a U.S. strike was not the cause.
Angry Dems turn against leaders after House election losses
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic Party divisions were on glaring display Wednesday as a special election loss in a wildly expensive Georgia House race left bitter lawmakers turning their anger on their own leaders.
“We as Democrats have to come to terms with the fact that we lost again,” said Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass. “Personally I think it’s time for a new generation of leadership in the party.”
The loss in Georgia followed similar disappointments in special House elections in Kansas and Montana, as well as in South Carolina Tuesday night. The Carolina outcome was closer than in Georgia but drew little national attention.
In the well-to-do Atlanta suburbs, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California was the focus of torrents of negative advertising in a House race that cost more than $50 million, the most expensive in history. Republican Karen Handel beat Democrat Jon Ossoff by about 5 percentage points.
Although the race was widely viewed as a referendum on President Donald Trump, he was rarely discussed by either candidate, and House Democrats were rattled that the attack ads casting the 77-year-old Pelosi as a San Francisco liberal proved so potent. Some expressed fears about the same tactic being used elsewhere as they aim to take back control of the House in next year’s midterms. Democrats need to pick up 24 House seats to retake the majority.
Boy killed by log in surf as tropical storm churns in Gulf
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A boy on an Alabama beach was struck and killed Wednesday by a log washed ashore by storm surge from Tropical Storm Cindy, which spun bands of severe weather ashore from the Florida panhandle to east Texas as it churned ever closer to the Gulf coast.
Baldwin County Sheriff’s Capt. Stephen Arthur said witnesses reported the 10-year-old boy from Missouri was standing outside a condominium in Fort Morgan when the log, carried in by a large wave, struck him. Arthur said the youth was vacationing with his family from the St. Louis area and that relatives and emergency workers tried to revive him. He wasn’t immediately identified.
It was the first known fatality from Cindy. The storm formed Tuesday and was expected to make landfall some time late Wednesday or early Thursday near the Louisiana-Texas line. The worst weather was on the east side of the storm. It included drenching rains that posed flash flood threats, strong tidal surges, waterspouts and reports of possible tornadoes.
The White House said President Donald Trump was briefed on the storm Wednesday by Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert.
Also Wednesday, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency, like his Alabama counterpart a day earlier. He was among authorities stressing that the storm’s danger wasn’t limited to the coast.
Thousands attend slain Muslim teen’s funeral in Virginia
STERLING, Va. (AP) — About 5,000 mourners attended Wednesday’s funeral of a Muslim girl whose beating death, blamed by police on a motorist’s road rage, has some people in her community fearing for their safety.
Some wearing Islamic robes, others in street clothes, they left their cars as traffic overflowed and walked more than a mile to reach her mosque.
Nabra Hassanen, 17, was remembered as a shining example of kindness and openness during the services.
“There is nothing like losing a child, especially in the way that we lost Nabra,” said Imam Mohamed Magid, the religious leader of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society. He stood before Hassanen’s coffin, covered by a black shroud decorated with quotes from the Quran.
Police said Hassanen was bludgeoned with a baseball bat early Sunday by a motorist who drove up to about 15 Muslim teenagers as they walked or bicycled along a road. Police said the driver became enraged after exchanging words with a boy in the group. A Hassanen family spokesman said the girls in the group were wearing Muslim headscarves and robes.
