New York Schools will start observing Muslim holidays
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio will officially announce Wednesday that the city's public schools will observe the two major Muslim holidays. The schools will be off for one day during Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha.According to a 2008 Columbia University study, 10 percent of New York's public school students are Muslim.In a Twitter post...Netanyahu warns U.S. against Iran nuclear deal
WASHINGTON — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned President Obama on Tuesday against accepting a nuclear deal with Iran that would be a "countdown to a potential nuclear nightmare" by a country that "will always be an enemy of America."Obama said Israeli Netanyahu did not offer any real alternative amid the ongoing...Republicans propose declaring Idaho a ‘Christian state’
SALMON, Idaho — Members of a county Republican Party are to take up a measure on Tuesday evening that would declare the state a Christian one to bolster what the proposal calls the "Judeo-Christian bedrock of the founding of the United States." The resolution to be voted on by the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee is...
U.S. justices show support for Muslim woman denied job due to head scarf
February 27th, 20150 WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, a majority of U.S. Supreme Court justices signaled support for a Muslim woman who filed a lawsuit after she was denied a job at an Abercrombie & Fitch Co clothing store in Oklahoma because she wore a head scarf for religious reasons. The nine justices heard a one-hour argument in an appeal brought by...University of Mass. backtracks on excluding Iranian engineering students
BOSTON — A university said on Wednesday it had reversed a decision to stop admitting Iranian students into its science and engineering programs after consulting with State Department officials and its own attorneys. The University of Massachusetts at Amherst early this month said it would stop admitting Iranian students into those...Obama: Strikes against extremists abroad not a war on Islam
WASHINGTON — “Muslim Americans across our country are worried and afraid,” President Obama wrote in a new op-ed to tout the “countering violent extremism” summit in Washington this week that focuses almost exclusively on homegrown Islamic terrorism. By and large, Obama’s Los Angeles Times op-ed detailed his...Suspected arson burns down Houston mosque
HOUSTON — A homeless man has been arrested and charged with arson for a fire that destroyed a building at an Islamic institute in Houston, fire officials said on Monday. The blaze early on Friday at the Quba Islamic Institute destroyed one of three buildings there, but no one was injured. Fire officials said Darryl Ferguson, 55,...U.S. creates new agency to lead cyber threat tracking
U.S. Department of Homeland Security employees work during a guided media tour inside the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center in Arlington, Virginia.WASHINGTON — Calling the destructive cyberattack on Sony Pictures "a game changer", a top White House official on Tuesday announced a new intelligence unit to...
White House calls climate change greater threat to country than terrorism
February 13th, 20150 White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest.WASHINGTON — According to the Washington Times, White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Americans no longer face the same threat of attack that they did prior to Sept. 11, 2001, crediting the administration's efforts to degrade organizations such as al Qaeda. Earnest said...Obama asks Congress to authorize war on “Islamic State”
President Barack Obama is flanked by Vice President Joe Biden (L) and Secretary of State John Kerry (R) as he delivers a statement on legislation sent to Congress.WASHINGTON — President Obama on Wednesday sent Congress his long-awaited formal request to authorize military force against "Islamic State," meeting swift resistance from...ADC, AAI and CPAO to demand Boehner cancels Netanyahu’s speech
WASHINGTON — Last week Representatives Keith Ellison (D-MINN), Steve Cohen (D-TN), and Maxine Waters (D-CA) authored a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner (OH-8), voicing their disapproval of his invitation to Israeli PM Netanyahu to speak before a joint session of Congress on March 3. Media networks and political...House votes to repeal and eventually replace Obamacare
WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives added another notch to its lengthy record of Obamacare repeal votes on Tuesday by approving a measure that would scrap the healthcare law and direct oversight committees to come up with a replacement. Defying a White House veto threat, lawmakers voted 239-186 on a measure to eliminate...Ebola virus sent out of high-security lab was likely dead
CHICAGO — An internal investigation of an Ebola incident at a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention laboratory in December found that samples sent to a lower-security lab were "unlikely" to have contained live virus and posed no threat to staff, the CDC said on Wednesday. The close call followed mishaps involving anthrax...California man arraigned in threats to Muslim civil rights group
SAN DIEGO — A San Diego-area man accused of placing a threatening phone call to one office of a Muslim civil rights group and sending a threatening message to another pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to hate crimes charges. The case against John David Weissinger stems from a profanity-laced phone message received by a staff member...Dearborn Heights teen wins first place in national essay contest
DEARBORN HEIGHTS — Zeina Condon, a 17-year-old Lebanese American senior at Dearborn High School, won first place in the Voice of Democracy essay contest. The annual contest is hosted by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, a national organization for war veterans. This year’s topic focused on why veterans are important to the nation’s......
Blizzard pounds U.S. northeast
A man walks out of an ocean front house covered in ice during a winter blizzard in Marshfield, Massachusetts January 27.BOSTON — A blizzard swept past New York City and struck hardest at some 4.5 million people around Boston, dropping nearly three feet of snow in areas and triggering high tides that breached a seawall and forced...Professor sues school for dismissing him over anti-Israeli remarks
CHICAGO — A professor who lost a University of Illinois job offer over anti-Israel Twitter messages has sued the university's board of trustees and key administrators to try to get that job. Steven Salaita filed his lawsuit Thursday, January 29 in Chicago. The suit asks the court for an order letting him go to work at the University......
One in five U.S. children now rely on food stamps
WASHINGTON — The number of children in the United States relying on food stamps for a meal spiked to 16 million last year, according federal data, signaling a lopsided economic recovery in which lower income families are still lagging behind. The roughly one in five children who received food stamps in 2014 surpassed pre-recession...
Spy agency employee was flying drone that crashed at White House
January 30th, 20150 U.S. President Barack Obama walks with Saudi Arabia's King Salman (C) at Erga Palace in Riyadh January 27.WASHINGTON — An employee of a U.S. spy agency has confessed to operating a small drone that crashed on the grounds of the White House, the latest in a series of incidents that raised questions about the president's security. A...U.S. top court rules for Muslim inmate over prison beard ban
Arkansas inmate Gregory Holt.WASHINGTON — An Arkansas policy prohibiting inmates from having beards violated the religious rights of a prisoner who had wanted to grow one in accordance with his Muslim beliefs, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday. The justices, on a 9-0 vote in a closely watched case involving prisoner...U.S. tributes, protests mark MLK Day
NEW YORK — Tributes to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. were held across the United States on Monday, with observers linking the federal holiday to a rallying cry in recent protests over police brutality: "Black lives matter." King's 1960s dream of racial equality was being viewed through a lens focused on the deaths of......
Obama strikes defiant tone with Republicans in big speech
WASHINGTON — President Obama struck a defiant tone for his dealings with the new Republican-led Congress on Tuesday, calling on his opponents to raise taxes on the rich and threatening to veto legislation that would challenge his key decisions. Dogged by an ailing economy since the start of his presidency six years ago, Obama...Justice Department preparing to clear Ferguson officer
Darren Wilson.WASHINGTON — The U.S. Justice Department is about to close the investigation into the shooting death of an unarmed Black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, and clear the White police officer involved of any civil rights charges, The New York Times reported this week. The newspaper quoted law enforcement officials as saying......
U.S. appeals court hears case on NYC police surveillance of Muslims
PHILADELPHIA — Civil rights groups asked a panel of federal judges on Tuesday to overturn a lower court's ruling that there was nothing harmful in New York City police conducting surveillance on Muslims in neighboring New Jersey without suspicion of a crime. The hearing came days after the deadly attacks in Paris by Islamist gunmen,...Obama seeks enhanced cybersecurity following Twitter hack
WASHINGTON — President Obama sent a bill to Congress on Tuesday to strengthen U.S. cybersecurity laws to protect government, businesses and consumers while protecting privacy, after recent hacking attacks against Sony Picture, Home Depot Inc, Target Corp and on Monday the federal government itself on Twitter. "We've got to stay......