Trump skips White House Correspondents’ dinner in D.C. for rally in Washington, MI
May 4th, 20180 WASHINGTON, MI — While the First Amendment and award-winning journalism were being honored at the White House Correspondents Association's annual dinner in Washington, D.C. on April 28, President Trump held a speaking event at Total Sports Park in Washington, Michigan. It was the second year in a row the president skipped the...
Supreme Court appears ready to uphold Trump’s travel ban
April 27th, 20180 WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Supreme Court's conservative majority appeared poised to hand President Trump a huge legal victory, signaling on Wednesday it was likely to uphold his contentious travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries. Conservative justices including Chief Justice John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy, a frequent...
Supreme Court curbs human rights claims against companies
April 27th, 20180 WASHINGTON, D.C. — Foreign corporations cannot be sued in American courts for human rights abuses committed overseas, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday, refusing to revive a lawsuit claiming Jordan-based Arab Bank helped finance militant attacks in Israel and the Palestinian territories. The 5-4 decision ended a lawsuit by some...
Pentagon: Man linked to 9/11 attacks captured in Syria
April 23rd, 20180 WASHINGTON, D.C. — A man linked to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, who was said to have praised "violent jihad", was captured in Syria by U.S.-backed forces more than a month ago, the Pentagon said on Thursday. "We can confirm that Mohammad Haydar Zammar, a Syrian-born German national, was captured more than a month...
Arab American actor lands role on HBO’s ‘Westworld’
April 23rd, 20180 LOS ANGELES — Boualem Hassaine has always loved acting. He would stand in front of the mirror and practice as a child for hours. All that practice has led to roles in "American Sniper", "The Accountant" and most recently, HBO's "Westworld." Hassaine, who primarily grew up in Algeria, now lives in Litchfield Park, Arizona, a suburb...
Dr. Maya Hammoud first Muslim appointed as president of national OB-GYN education association
April 23rd, 20180 NATIONAL HARBOR, MD — As the nation's communities become more diverse, so do the health needs of its women. The Association of Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics (APGO)— which sets educational objectives for medical students across the nation and focuses on women's health— knows that all too well. So, the APGO appointed...
Trump’s Muslim travel ban faces U.S. Supreme Court showdown
April 22nd, 20180 WASHINGTON - The ultimate showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court over President Trump’s immigration policies and in particular the “Muslim Travel Ban” is set for Wednesday when the justices hear a challenge to the lawfulness of Trump’s travel ban executive order targeting people from several Muslim-majority countries. The case...
Starbucks to close 8,000 U.S. stores on 5/29 for racial-bias training
April 17th, 20180 Starbucks Corp will close 8,000 company-owned U.S. cafes for the afternoon on May 29 to train nearly 175,000 on how to prevent racial discrimination in its stores. Starbucks’ roughly 6,000 licensed cafes will remain open. Starbucks said it would make training materials available to the employees of those stores, who are employed by...
U.S. launches crackdown on sexual harassment in housing
April 13th, 20180 WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Trump administration is launching an initiative on Thursday to crack down on sexual harassment of women by landlords and encourage victims to come forward for help from the Justice Department and Department of Housing and Urban Development. The two departments will create a task force to combat sexual...
NYPD settles Muslim surveillance lawsuit for $1 million
April 13th, 20180 NEW YORK CITY — Last Thursday, a group of Muslim owned-businesses, mosques, individuals, and student groups reached a settlement with the New York Police Department (NYPD) in a federal lawsuit challenging the discriminatory surveillance of American Muslims in New Jersey. Filed in 2012 in federal court in New Jersey, in Hassan v....
Sagging school funding fuels teacher protests
April 6th, 20180 CHICAGO — Teacher demonstrations are likely to spread as more educators hit the streets to take on states that they claim are choosing tax cuts over the education of students in elementary and secondary public schools. Protests have erupted in states with some of the lowest teacher salaries in the nation, leading to multi-day job...
NY attorney general probing Brooklyn police shooting death
April 6th, 20180 NEW YORK — The New York attorney general’s office is investigating the fatal shooting by police of an unarmed Black man who pointed a metal pipe at officers in Brooklyn in the latest such killing to prompt street protests. The death of Saheed Vassell on Wednesday was one of a string of fatal shootings of unarmed Black men by...
Hollywood executives back Netflix over anti-Israel ‘Fauda’ boycott
April 6th, 20180 LOS ANGELES — More than 50 Hollywood executives have thrown their support behind Netflix, which is facing a campaign by a Palestinian-led movement to drop Israeli television series “Fauda” from its streaming platform. In a letter on Tuesday to Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos, the executives from record labels and...
Fifty years after King’s assassination, U.S. civil rights leaders lament Trump’s rise
April 6th, 20180 MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A half century after the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leaders say they are fearful President Trump could reverse progress made on civil rights in the United States since King’s death. The racism that King’s leadership helped subdue has returned, said E. Lynn Brown, a former associate...
States, cities sue U.S. to block 2020 Census citizenship question
April 6th, 20180 NEW YORK — A group of states and cities sued the Trump administration to stop it from asking people filling out 2020 census forms whether they are citizens. The lawsuit by 17 states, Washington D.C. and six cities challenged what they called last week’s “unconstitutional and arbitrary” decision by the Department of Commerce,......
Shooter attacked YouTube for filtering her videos
April 4th, 20180 SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — An Iranian-born woman who blogged about surviving in a world filled with “injustice and diseases” opened fire at YouTube’s California headquarters because she was angry at a site she believed was suppressing her videos, police said on Wednesday. In a series of Persian and English-language online...
Woman wounds three at YouTube HQ before killing herself
April 3rd, 20180 SAN BRUNO, Calif. — A woman opened fire at YouTube’s headquarters near San Francisco on Tuesday, wounding at least three people before taking her own life, as employees of the video website scrambled into the surrounding streets for safety. Police did not release any further information on the suspect or comment on her possible......
Protests erupt as family buries police shooting victim Stephon Clark
March 30th, 20180 Sacramento, CA — Scores of Black Lives Matter activists protested in Sacramento on Thursday after the funeral of an unarmed black man who was shot dead by police in the latest such killing to spark street demonstrations in the United States. More than 100 protesters gathered outside the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office...
U.S. gymnastics doctor’s boss at Michigan State charged with sex crime
March 29th, 20180 DETROIT ― A former Michigan State University dean, who supervised the doctor at the center of the USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal, was himself charged on Tuesday with criminal sexual conduct involving medical school students. A student at the College of Osteopathic Medicine accused William Strampel, 70, of forcible sexual contact,...
Saudi Arabia must face U.S. lawsuits over Sept. 11 attacks
March 29th, 20180 NEW YORK — A federal judge on Wednesday rejected Saudi Arabia’s bid to dismiss lawsuits claiming that it helped plan the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and should pay billions of dollars in damages to victims. U.S. District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan said the plaintiffs’ allegations “narrowly articulate a reasonable basis”...
Orlando nightclub shooter’s father was FBI informant, widow’s attorney says
March 26th, 20180 ORLANDO, Fla. — A widow on trial for aiding her late husband, the gunman who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, should have a mistrial declared, defense lawyers said, arguing that prosecutors withheld access to important evidence that the shooter’s father had been an FBI informant. Seddique Mateen, father of gunman......
Prosecutor: Kansas militia members wanted to kill Muslims with weapon of mass destruction
March 23rd, 20180 WICHITA, Kan. - Three men charged with plotting to bomb an apartment complex in western Kansas, where Muslim immigrants from Somalia lived and had a mosque, wanted to kill as many as possible and send a message they were not welcome in the United States, a prosecutor said on Thursday. Prosecutors charged Curtis Allen, Gavin Wright and...
Trump’s red-carpet reception for Saudi crown prince: Give us your money!
March 23rd, 20180 WASHINGTON — President Trump gave a warm welcome to Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday and credited U.S. defense sales to the Saudis with boosting American jobs, even as Riyadh's involvement in Yemen's civil war faced criticism. In the Oval Office, Trump and the crown prince praised the strength of U.S.-Saudi......
Texas serial bomber made video confession before blowing himself up
March 23rd, 20180 PFLUGERVILLE, TX — The serial bomber whose deadly attacks terrorized Austin, Texas, for weeks left a 25-minute video "confession" on a cell phone found after he blew himself up on Wednesday as officers closed in to make an arrest, police said. Mark Conditt, 23, an unemployed man from the suburb of Pflugerville, detailed how he made...
Two wounded in Maryland school shooting, student gunman killed
March 23rd, 20180 GREAT MILLS, MD — A 17-year-old boy opened fire at a Maryland high school on Tuesday in an attack that left two fellow students wounded, then died after a gunfight with a police officer posted there, amid a renewed national debate over gun violence in schools. The shooting in St. Mary's County, about 70 miles south of Washington,......
