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Kamala Harris reacts to Jussie Smollett arrest: 'Sad, frustrated, and disappointed'

Sen. Kamala Harris, who once labeled the Jussie Smollet attack claim an "attempted modern day lynching," spoke out on Thursday after Smollett was charged and arrested with disorderly conduct for allegedly filing a false police report.

The California lawmaker tweeted a statement expressing her sadness, frustration, and disappointment on the same day Smollett, who’s been released from jail, appeared before Cook County Judge John Fitzgerald Lyke Jr.

“When anyone makes false claims to police, it not only diverts resources away from serious investigations but it makes it more difficult for other victims of crime to come forward,” Harris wrote.

CHICAGO POLICE BLAST JUSSIE SMOLLETT ‘PHONY ATTACK’: ‘BOGUS POLICE REPORTS CAUSE REAL HARM’

Smollett, who is openly gay and black, reported that on Jan. 29 he was attacked by two masked men as he was walking home from a Subway restaurant. He claimed that the men shouted racial and anti-gay slurs at him, poured a substance on him, threw a rope around his neck and shouted, "This is MAGA country!"

Harris tweeted on the matter following the alleged assault, likening it to a lynching.

“No one should have to fear for their life because of their sexuality or color of their skin,” she tweeted on Jan. 29 while describing Smollett as “one of the kindest, most gentle human beings I know.”

Continuing her statement Thursday, the lawmaker cited FBI statistics while claiming that more and more hate crimes were occurring in the U.S.

SHARPTON, AT MEETING WITH KAMALA HARRIS, SAYS SMOLLETT SHOULD FACE ‘MAXIMUM’ PUNISHMENT IF ALLEGATIONS TRUE

“Part of the tragedy of this situation is that it distracts from the truth, and has been seized by some who would like to dismiss and downplay the very real problems that we must address. We should not allow that,” she wrote, vowing to stand up against racism and homophobia.

“We must always confront hate directly, and we must always seek justice,” she continued. “That is what I will keep fighting for.”

Earlier this week, Harris appeared to be caught off guard when a female reporter asked her whether she wanted to amend her Jan. 29 tweet amid developments in the case.

"Which tweet? What tweet?" Harris asked. As the reporter specified the tweet to which she was referring, Harris appeared to look around for a campaign staffer before responding.

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"OK, so, I will say this about that case," she said Monday. "I think that the facts are still unfolding, and, um, I’m very, um, concerned about obviously, the initial, um, allegation that he made about what might have happened.

"And it’s something we should all take seriously whenever anyone, um, alleges that kind of behavior, but there should be an investigation," Harris added. "And I think that once the investigation has concluded then we can all comment, but I’m not going to comment until I know the outcome of the investigation."

Smollet's legal representatives have denied all claims against the actor.

Fox News’ Sasha Savitsky, Samuel Chamberlain and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Grassley ‘Accepts’ Trump Might Remove Lee Francis Cissna

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told CNN on Wednesday he has urged President Donald Trump to keep Lee Francis Cissna in his position as the top official at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, but would "accept" his decision not to.

"I know the president's goals on immigration are the same as mine, pretty much the same as mine I would say, and that the president's gotta have people in place who will do his job, and since his goals are the same as mine, I'm gonna have to accept it," Grassley said.

Trump's ousting of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen over the weekend has some Republicans concerned about the direction of the department and illegal immigration in the U.S. as the number of immigrants crossing the border continues to rise.

Grassley on Tuesday told The Washington Post he was "very, very concerned" Cissna could be the next to go.

"One, those are good public servants," Grassley said. "Secondly, besides the personal connection I have with them and the qualifications they have, they are the intellectual basis for what the president wants to accomplish in immigration.

"The president has to have some stability and particularly with the number one issue that he's made for his campaign, throughout his two and a half years of presidency. He's pulling the rug out from the very people that are trying to help him accomplish his goal."

Source: NewsMax America

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Chilean nuns find ‘relief’ in Pope’s recognition of Church abuse

The former nun Yolanda Tondreaux speaks during an interview with Reuters in Talca
The former nun Yolanda Tondreaux speaks during an interview with Reuters in Talca, Chile February 15, 2019. Picture taken February 15, 2019. REUTERS/Matias Medel NO RESALES NO ARCHIVE.

February 19, 2019

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Three former Chilean nuns who claim to have been sexually abused over two decades ago by priests in their religious order have hailed comments by Pope Francis earlier this month in which he recognized the abuse of nuns in the Catholic Church.

The three nuns, who had been members of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan order in the Chilean city of Molina, 130 miles south of Santiago, told Reuters in an interview on Friday that they were embraced and fondled during the 1990s and 2000s by several priests who had since died.

The three, Yolanda Tondreaux, Eliana Macias and Marcela Quitral, told Reuters TV they had reported the abuse to their mother superior but were told either that they were lying or had provoked the abuse and were threatened with being forced to leave the convent.

Earlier this month, Pope Francis, whose papacy has been marked by efforts to quell a global crisis over sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy, said he was committed to stopping the abuse of nuns by priests and bishops, some of which had amounted to “sexual slavery.”

“There have been priests and even bishops who have done this. I think it is still going on because something does not stop just because you have become aware of it,” he said.

This week, the Pope summoned bishops from around the world to a Vatican summit to develop a unified response on how to protect children from sexual abuse by clergy. He said he would take similar action to confront abuse of nuns in the Church.

Tondreaux told Reuters at her home in the city of Talca that the Pope’s provided “relief” that he “has broached this issue, that abuse exists of any kind – sexual, power, psychological, by priests, by bishops and by their superiors.”

Quitral, speaking alongside her, added: “I told the mother superior many times about the fathers who were abusing nuns. She said that we were to blame, that we had provoked them.”

In December last year, the Vatican sent a delegation to investigate abuse claims made against the Good Samaritan order.

A spokesman for the Talca prosecutor’s office confirmed that complaints had been filed against priests and a mother superior of the order for alleged sexual abuse and cover-up. He said the investigation remained open and no charges had yet been brought.

The Good Samaritan order declined to comment.

(Reporting by Reuters TV; Writing by Aislinn Laing; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Source: OANN

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Trump signs proclamation recognizing Israeli sovereignty over Golan Heights

With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu standing by his side, President Trump on Monday signed a proclamation officially recognizing the contested Golan Heights region as part of Israel – marking another unprecedented move by Trump in strengthening U.S.-Israeli relations.

“This was a long time in the making and it should have taken place many years ago,” Trump sign before signing the proclamation.

Trump’s proclamation came just days after he tweeted his support for recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

UN'S SCATHING REPORTS STOKE US CONCERNS ABOUT ANTI-ISRAEL BIAS 

Netanyahu, who has previously accused Iran of attempting to set up a terrorist network to target Israel from the Golan Heights, praised Trump for his proclamation – calling the move “historic” and “invaluable” to the defense of the Jewish state.

“It was so important for me to come here and thank you,” Netanyahu said to Trump. “Israel has never had a better friend than you.”

The Israeli leader added: “Israel has seized the high ground which has proved invaluable to our defense.”

The Golan Heights is a large plateau that sits in a disputed area along the border with Syria. It has been occupied by Israel since it was seized from Syria in 1967. Israel contends the region is a critical buffer zone between the nation and the conflicts throughout the Middle East as Syria’s eight-year civil war has at times come close to the Golan boundary.

While the U.S. has historically attempted to remain impartial in the conflict over the Golan Heights -- which Israel captured from Syria in 1967 during the Six-Day War -- the Trump administration already has strengthened ties to Israel on other fronts. In 2017, Trump broke with decades of U.S. policy on Jerusalem and recognized the city as Israel’s capital, while a recent State Department report human rights bucked tradition and used the phrase “Israeli-controlled,” rather than “Israeli-occupied,” to describe the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza.

NETANYAHU CUTS SHORT WASHINGTON TRIP, MOBILIZES MILITARY AFTER GAZA ROCKET ATTACK WOUNDS 7

While appearing aside Trump during the press conference on the proclamation, Netanyahu is cutting his trip to Washington short following an early-morning rocket attack from the Gaza Strip that slammed into a house in central Israel and wounded seven people.

Netanyahu held emergency consultations with military officials back in Israel and canceled a planned address to the AIPAC pro-Israel lobby group and meetings with congressional leaders. The Israeli military announced earlier on Monday that it has started striking the Islamic militant group Hamas in Gaza after the rocket attack.

“Israel will not tolerate this, I will not tolerate this,” the Israeli leader said. “Israel is responding forcefully to this wanton aggression.”

The strike came at a sensitive time for both sides. Netanyahu, locked in a tight race for re-election, came under heavy criticism from his rivals Monday and faced tough pressure to strike back at Hamas.

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Hamas, meanwhile, is facing perhaps its toughest test since seizing control of Gaza 12 years ago. An Israel-Egyptian blockade, imposed to weaken Hamas, combined with sanctions by the rival Palestinian Authority and mismanagement by the Hamas government have all fueled an economic crisis.

Hamas has been leading weekly protests along the Israeli border for the past year in hopes of easing the blockade, but the demonstrations, in which some 190 people have been killed by Israeli fire, have done little to improve conditions.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Trump Signs Executive Order to Protect Free Speech on College Campuses

President Trump on Thursday signed an Executive Order protecting Free Speech on college campuses.

“We’re here to take historic action to defend American students and American values,” Trump said, at the White House East Room while joined on stage by student activists. “They’ve been under siege.”

“Under the guise of speech codes and safe spaces and trigger warnings, these universities have tried to restrict free thought, impose total conformity and shut down the voices of great young Americans,” the president explained.

“Even as universities have received billions and billions of dollars from taxpayers, many have become increasingly hostile to free speech and the First Amendment,” Trump said.

“All of that changes starting right now,” he declared to applause. “We’re talking about billions and billions of dollars.”

“Taxpayer dollars should not subsidize anti-First Amendment institutions, and that’s exactly what they are ‘anti-First Amendment,” he added, saying, “Universities that want taxpayer dollars should promote free speech, not silence free speech.”

“To every student and young person here today and watching, don’t let anyone stop you from doing what you know is right, from asking questions, from challenging the powerful, or from speaking your mind, that’s the primary reason we’re here right now,” Trump said. “Never, ever quit. Never give in, and never back down. Keep standing up for your values, for your classmates, and for your country.”

Trump had declared he would address free speech protections on college campuses during his speech at CPAC last month, where he brought conservative student activist Hayden Williams on stage after he was filmed being punched at the University of California-Berkeley.

While protecting the First Amendment at colleges across America is a good first step, it remains to be seen how Trump will address Big Tech censorship on social media.


Tune in to Infowars’ 50-Hour Save the First Amendment Broadcast:

Source: InfoWars

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Brazil city burying eight victims of school attack

People attend a funeral of the victims killed in a shooting at Raul Brasil school, in Suzano
Family, friends and students attend the collective funeral of the victims killed in a shooting at Raul Brasil School in Suzano, Brazil March 14, 2019. REUTERS/Amanda Perobelli

March 14, 2019

By Sergio Queiroz and Pablo Garcia

SUZANO, Brazil (Reuters) – Stunned family members on Thursday prepared to bury the eight victims of a school shooting in Brazil, along with the two attackers who carried out the violence, and grappled to understand why the bloodshed took place.

A collective wake for six of the victims was held in a large sports arena in this city on the eastern outskirts of metropolitan Sao Paulo. Lines of mourners snaked outside the building, while inside, grief-stricken family members hugged and cried over caskets holding the teenagers killed.

The attack has shocked Brazil, a country with the world’s highest number of murders but where school shootings are relatively rare. The rampage has raised tough questions about just how to deal with a wave of violence that helped pave the way for the election of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.

A total of 10 people, including the two attackers, were killed on Wednesday, Sao Paulo police said. The students who died were boys, mostly between 15 and 16-years-old. The assailants were aged 17 and 25, and carried out the attack with one .38 caliber pistol, a crossbow, as well as with hatchets and knives.

Another 10 people, mostly school children, were shot or cut, and several are in serious condition, police said.

The two attackers committed suicide as police closed in on them inside the school, authorities said.

“This is all too sad. These things happen because of a lack of love, a lack of God,” said mourner Solange Cardoso, as she stood outside the arena. “Suzano is in mourning. I am here to stand with the families, just like many of the people who are out here today.”

Investigators told Reuters the attack was inspired by the 1999 Columbine massacre in the United States.

Before entering the Raul Brasil school in Suzano near Sao Paulo, the two former pupils shot and killed the younger assailant’s uncle, who owned a car rental agency where they stole a vehicle.

An amateur video aired by Globo TV showed children screaming, running and begging for their lives as loud shots were heard.

Children climbed and jumped over a wall that surrounds the school building, then sprinted down streets, screaming for help, security-camera footage from homes nearby showed.

The two assailants spent more than a year planning their attack, investigators said.

A motive was not yet clear. The school is in a middle-class neighborhood and has about 1,000 students aged 11 to 16. One teacher told police that the younger attacker had been bullied while he was a student there.

The last major school shooting was in 2011, when 12 children were shot dead by a former pupil in Rio de Janeiro.

Gun laws are strict in Brazil, but it is not difficult to illegally purchase a weapon. Bolsonaro made relaxing gun control a cornerstone of his campaign last year.

(Reporting by Sergio Queiroz and Pablo Garcia in Suzano; Writing by Brad Brooks in Sao Paulo; Editing by Susan Thomas)

Source: OANN

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Twitter Bans User For Laughing At Rachel Maddow’s Tears Of Despair Over Mueller Report

As left-wing news outlets were forced to cover the completion of the Mueller report sans high-level indictments (Trump Jr., for example), Rachel Maddow had a grand-mal meltdown after having been forced by MSNBC to cancel a fishing trip and drive in to work on a Friday night. 

Maddow fought back tears as she reported on her own collapsing narrative, to which Twitter user ‘Karli Bonne’ (@kbq2251) posted a video of herself laughing at Maddow’s despair.

As the video began to go viral, Twitter suspended her account.

Bonne then tweeted the video from another account (@kbq225) which was quickly amplified by several people, including actor James Woods, who truly gives zero f*cks now that Hollywood has blacklisted him for being openly conservative.


The current internet monopoly system setup by Big Tech amounts to fascism. Gerald Celente joins Alex via Skype to explain that although the internet was designed to be free it no longer resembles it’s original state.

While Twitter’s ban of Karli may have backfired due to the Streisand effect (not the Streisand defect), reactions to Maddow’s meltdown have been hilarious.

Source: InfoWars

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Maria Butina, the Russian woman who was accused of being a secret agent for the Russian government, was sentenced to 18 months in prison Friday by a federal judge in Washington after pleading guilty last year to a conspiracy charge.

Butina, who has already served nine months behind bars, will get credit for time served and can possibly get credit for good behavior, the judge said. She will be removed from the U.S. promptly on completion of her time, the judge added, and returned to Russia.

MARIA BUTINA, ACCUSED RUSSIAN SPY, PLEADS GUILTY TO CONSPIRACY

An emotional and apologetic Butina said in court Friday she is “truly sorry” and regrets not registering as a foreign agent.

“I feel ashamed and embarrassed,” she said, adding that her “reputation is ruined.”

Butina has been jailed since her arrest in July 2018. She entered the court Friday wearing a dark green prison jumpsuit and spoke in clear English, with a slight Russian accent.

“Please accept my apologies,” Butina said.

Butina’s lawyer, Robert Driscoll, said after the sentencing they had hoped for a “better outcome,” but expressed a desire for Butina to be released to her family by the fall.

Prosecutors had claimed Butina used her contacts with the National Rifle Association and the National Prayer Breakfast to develop relationships with U.S. politicians and gather information for Russia.

Prosecutors also have said that Butina’s boyfriend, conservative political operative Paul Erickson, identified in court papers as “U.S. Person 1,” helped her establish ties with the NRA.

WHO IS MARIA BUTINA, THE RUSSIAN WOMAN ACCUSED OF SPYING ON US?

In their filings, prosecutors claim federal agents found Butina had contact information for people suspected of being employed by Russia’s Federal Security Services, or FSB, the successor intelligence agency to the KGB. Inside her home, they found notes referring to a potential job offer from the FSB, according to the documents.

Investigators recovered several emails and Twitter direct message conversations in which Butina referred to the need to keep her work secret and, in one instance, said it should be “incognito.” Prosecutors said Butina had contact with Russian intelligence officials and that the FBI photographed her dining with a diplomat suspected of being a Russian intelligence agent.

Fox News’ Jason Donner, Bill Mears, Greg Norman and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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An official Sri Lankan police Twitter account was deleted after it misidentified an American human rights activist as a suspect in the country’s Easter Sunday terrorist attacks.

On Thursday, police posted the names and photos of six people that they said were at-large suspects in the bombings that killed more than 250 people.

However, one of the names on the list was Muslim U.S. activist Amara Majeed, who quickly tweeted that she had been falsely identified.

“I have this morning been FALSELY identified by the Sri Lankan government as one of the ISIS terrorists that committed the Easter attacks in Sri Lanka. What a thing to wake up to!” she wrote.

SRI LANKA AUTHORITIES SAY EASTER ATTACK LEADER KILLED IN ONE OF NINE HOTEL BOMBINGS

She wrote in a follow-up tweet that the claim was “obviously completely false” and asked social media users to “please stop implicating and associating me with these horrific attacks.”

“And next time, be more diligent about releasing such information that has the potential to deeply violate someone’s family and community,” she continued.

Later, she wrote an update saying police apologized for wrongly mistaking her as a suspect.

Police said in a statement: “However, although one of the released images was identified as one Abdul Cader Fathima Khadhiya in the information provided by the CID, the CID has now informed that a) the individual whose image was labeled as Abdul Cader Fathima Khadiya is not in fact Abdul Cader Fathima Khadiya b) the individual pictured is not wanted for questioning c) Abdul Cader Fathima is the correct name of the suspect wanted by the CID.”

On Friday, the account, @SriLankaPolice2 was deleted with no explanation. Police did not release more information regarding the mistake.

Majeed, who founded “The Hijab Project” when she was 16 years old, told the Baltimore Sun that it was hurtful to be linked to the attacks.

“Sri Lanka is my motherland,” the Brown University student said. “It’s very painful to be associated with [the bombings].”

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Mohamed Zahran, the suspected leader of the attacks which targeted six hotels and churches, killed himself in a suicide bombing at the Shangri-La hotel. Police also said they had arrested the second-in-command of the group, called National Towheed Jamaat. Catholic churches in Sri Lanka canceled all Sunday Masses until further notice over concerns that they remain a top target of Islamic State-linked extremists.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Easter Sunday, in Colombo
FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, five days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Catholic churches and luxury hotels across the island on Easter Sunday, in Colombo, Sri Lanka April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam

KATTANKUDY, Sri Lanka (Reuters) – Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran was 12 years old when he began his studies at the Jamiathul Falah Arabic College. He was a nobody, with no claim to scholarship other than ambition.

Zahran and his four brothers and sisters squeezed into a two-room house with their parents in a small seaside town in eastern Sri Lanka; their father was a poor man who sold packets of food on the street and had a reputation for being a petty thief.

“His father didn’t do much,” recalled the school’s vice principal, S.M. Aliyar, laughing out loud.

The boy surprised the school with his sharp mind. For three years, Zahran practiced memorizing the Koran. Next came his studies in Islamic law. But the more he learned, the more Zahran argued that his teachers were too liberal in their reading of the holy book.

“He was against our teaching and the way we interpreted the Koran – he wanted his radical Islam,” said Aliyar. “So we kicked him out.”

Aliyar, now 73 with a long white beard, remembers the day Zahran left in 2005. “His father came and asked, ‘Where can he go?’.”

The school would hear again of Mohamed Zahran. And the world now knows his name. The Sri Lankan government has identified him as the ringleader of a group that carried out a series of Easter Sunday suicide bombings in the country on April 21.

The blasts killed more than 250 people in churches and luxury hotels, one of the deadliest-ever such attacks in South Asia. There were nine suicide bombers who blew apart men, women and children as they sat to pray or ate breakfast.

Most of the attackers were well-educated and from wealthy families, with some having been abroad to study, according to Sri Lankan officials.

That description does not, however, fit their alleged leader, a man said to be in his early 30s, who authorities say died in the slaughter. Zahran was different.

INTELLIGENCE FAILINGS

Sri Lanka’s national leadership has come under heavy criticism for failing to heed warnings from Indian intelligence services – at least three in April alone – that an attack was pending. But Zahran’s path from provincial troublemaker to alleged jihadist mastermind was marked by years of missed or ignored signals that the man with a thick beard and paunch was dangerous.

His increasingly militant brand of Islam was allowed to grow inside a marginalized minority community – barely 10 percent of the country’s roughly 20 million people are Muslim – against a backdrop of a dysfunctional developing nation.

The top official at the nation’s defense ministry resigned on Thursday, saying that some institutions under his charge had failed.

For much of his adult life, Zahran, 33, courted controversy inside the Muslim community itself.

In the internet age, that problem did not stay local. Zahran released online videos calling for jihad and threatening bloodshed.

After the blasts, Islamic State claimed credit and posted a video of Zahran, clutching an assault rifle, standing before the group’s black flag and pledging allegiance to its leader.

The precise relationship between Zahran and Islamic State is not yet known. An official with India’s security services, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that during a raid on a suspected Islamic State cell by the National Investigation Agency earlier this year officers found copies of Zahran’s videos. The operation was in the state of Tamil Nadu, just across a thin strait of ocean from Sri Lanka.

“LIKE A SPOILED CHILD”

Back in 2005, Zahran was looking to make his way in the world. His hometown of Kattankudy is some seven hours’ drive from Colombo on the other side of the island nation, past the countless palm trees, roadside Buddha statues, cashew hawkers and an occasional lumbering elephant in the bush. It is a town of about 40,000 people, a dot on the eastern coast with no clear future for an impoverished young man who’d just been expelled.

Zahran joined a mosque in 2006, the Dharul Athar, and gained a place on its management committee. But within three years they’d had a falling out.

“He wanted to speak more independently, without taking advice from elders,” said the mosque’s imam, or spiritual leader, M.T.M. Fawaz.

Also, the young man was more conservative, Fawaz said, objecting, for instance, to women wearing bangles or earrings.

“The rest of us come together as community leaders but Zahran wanted to speak for himself,” said Fawaz, a man with broad shoulders lounging with a group of friends in a back office of the mosque after evening prayers. “He was a black sheep who broke free.”

Mohamed Yusuf Mohamed Thaufeek, a friend who met Zahran at school and later became an adherent of his, said the problems revolved around Zahran’s habit of misquoting Islamic scriptures.

The mosque’s committee banned him from preaching for three months in 2009. Zahran stormed off.

“We treated him like a spoiled child, a very narrow-minded person who was always causing some trouble,” said the head of the committee, Mohamed Ismail Mohamed Naushad, a timber supplier who shook his head at the memory.

Now on his own, Zahran began to collect a group of followers who met in what Fawaz described as “a hut”.

At about that time, Zahran, then 23, married a young girl from a small town outside the capital of Colombo and brought his bride back to Kattankudy, according to his sister, Mathaniya.

“I didn’t have much of a connection with her – she was 14,” she said.

Despite being “a bit rough-edged”, Zahran was a skilled speaker and others his age were drawn to his speeches and Koranic lessons, said Thaufeek. He traveled the countryside at times, giving his version of religious instruction as he went.

Also, Zahran had found a popular target: the town’s Sufi population, who practice a form of Islam often described a mystical, but which to conservatives is heresy.

Tensions in the area went back some years. In 2004, there was a grenade attack on a Sufi mosque and in 2006 several homes of Sufis were set afire. Announcements boomed from surrounding mosques at the time calling for a Sufi spiritual leader to be killed, said Sahlan Khalil Rahman, secretary of a trust that oversees a group of Sufi mosques.

He blamed followers of the fundamentalist Wahhabi strain of Islam that some locals say became more popular after funding from Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Wahhabism, flowed to mosques in Kattankudy.

It was, Rahman said, an effort “to convert Sufis into Wahhabis through this terrorism”. Rahman handed over a photograph album showing charred homes, bullet holes sprayed across an office wall and a shrine’s casket upended.

ONLINE RADICAL

It was an ideal backdrop for Zahran’s bellicose delivery and apparent sense of religious destiny.

He began holding rallies, bellowing insults through loudspeakers that reverberated inside the Sufis’ house of worship as they tried to pray.

In 2012, Zahran started a mosque of his own. The Sufis were alarmed and, Rahman said, passed on complaints to both local law enforcement and eventually national government offices. No action was taken.

The then-officer in charge of Kattankudy police, Ariyabandhu Wedagedara, said in a telephone interview that he couldn’t arrest people simply because of theological differences.

     “The problem at the time was between followers of different Islamic sects – Zahran was not a major troublemaker, but he and followers of other sects, including the Sufis, were at loggerheads,” Wedagedara said.

Zahran found another megaphone: the internet. His Facebook page was taken down after the bombings, but Muslims in the area said his video clips had previously achieved notoriety.

His speeches went from denouncing Sufis to “kafirs”, or non-believers, in general. Zahran’s sister, Mathaniya, said in an interview that she thought “his ideas became more radical from listening to Islamic State views on the Internet”.

In one undated video, Zahran, in a white tunic and standing in front of an image of flames, boomed in a loud voice: “You will not have time to pick up the remains of blown-up bodies. We’ll keep sending those insulting Allah to hell.”

“HARD TO TAKE”

Zahran spoke in Tamil, making his words available to young Muslims clicking on their cellphones in Kattankudy and other towns like it during a period when, in both 2014 and 2018, reports and images spread of Sinhalese Buddhists rioting against Muslims in Sri Lanka.

In 2017, Zahran’s confrontations boiled over. At a rally near a Sufi community, his followers came wielding swords. At least one man was hacked and hospitalized. The police arrested several people connected to Zahran, including his father and one of his brothers. Zahran slipped away from public view.

That December, the mosque Zahran founded released a public notice disowning him. Thaufeek, his friend from school, is now the head. He counted the places that Zahran had been driven away from – his school, the Dharul Athar mosque and then, “we ourselves kicked him out, which would have been hard for him to take”.

The next year, a group of Buddha statues was vandalized in the town of Mawanella, about five hours drive from Kattankudy. There, in the lush mountains of Sri Lanka’s interior, Zahran had taken up temporary residence.

“He was preaching to kill people,” said A.G.M. Anees, who has served as an imam at a small mosque in the area for a decade. “This is not Islam, this is violence.”

Zahran went into hiding once more.

On the Thursday morning before the Easter Sunday bombings, Zahran’s sister-in-law knocked on the door of a neighbor who did seamstress work near Kattankudy. She handed over a parcel of fabric and asked for it to be sewn into a tunic by the end of the day.

“She said she was going on a family trip,” said the neighbor, M.H. Sithi Nazlya.

Zahran’s sister says that her parents turned off their cellphones on the Friday. On Sunday, when she visited their home, they were gone.

She does not know if Zahran arranged for them to be taken somewhere safe. Or why he would have carried out the bombing.

But now in Kattankudy, and in many other places, people are talking about Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran.

(Reporting by Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam; Additional reporting by Sanjeev Miglani, Shihar Aneez and Alasdair Pal; Editing by John Chalmers and Alex Richardson)

Source: OANN

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Joe Biden may have just stepped into the 2020 ring, but he’s wasted no time in throwing punches at President Trump.

Former Vice President Biden appeared on “The View” Friday in his first interview since officially announcing he is running for the White House on Thursday.

After batting away a softball opening question from host Joy Behar about why he took so long to enter the race, the ex-VP delivered what is likely to be his campaign’s major message.

Asked about the comment in his announcement that a battle is underway for “the soul of this nation,” Biden replied: “What I mean by that is we are not — this is not who we are the way we’re treating people. It’s not who we are as a nation when we’re talking about things like the reason for your problem is the other.

JOE BIDEN’S SENIOR ADVISER IN 2016: ‘WE DON’T NEED WHITE PEOPLE LEADING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY RIGHT NOW’

“It really is what I said and I really mean it and I wrote an article at the time in “The Atlantic” magazine when Charlottesville happened. This is not who we are. It’s about decency, honor, including everyone. The idea to compare these racists and not condemn them. Neo-Nazis — I don’t ever remember that happening in an administration in well over 100 years.

“I found myself thinking — by the way I travel around the world a lot as vice president and since then I have as well. The rest of the world — I mean, they look at us like my god — what happened to America?”

Behar then asked Biden how he plans to win over “blue-collar voters, a group that Trump won.”

“By making the case that we have to restore dignity to work. Think about this. The way we treat ordinary hard-working Americans who are middle class and working class people fighting to get in the middle class is we treat them like they’re a means to an end as opposed to an ends to themselves,” Biden said.

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“Go out. When’s the last time we went out and thanked the guy who kept the sewer from overflowing into your basement. What about the woman up on a bucket reconnecting a connection?

“Think about what we don’t do guys. It’s all been about dividing. There’s a real opportunity, incredible opportunity if we just treat each other with more decency.

“My dad had an expression. He said, ‘Joey, a job is about more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity, it’s about your place in the community, it’s about your place in society and your self-worth. It’s about being able to look your kid in the eye and say it’s going to be okay and mean it.’

“Think about how many people can’t do that today. This president has done nothing to help that group.”

BIDEN VOWS THAT ‘AMERICA IS COMING BACK,’ SPARKING ‘MAGA’ COMPARISONS

Biden’s appearance came after President Trump took a swipe at him in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday night.

“I think we are calling him ‘Sleepy Joe’ ’cause I’ve known him for a while. Is he a pretty sleepy guy? He won’t be able to deal with [Chinese] President Xi, I will tell you. That’s a different level of energy and, frankly, intelligence. So I sort refer to him as ‘Sleepy Joe.’ A lot of people wanted me to change the word ‘sleepy’ to something else that rhymes with it,” Trump told host Sean Hannity. “I thought it was too nasty.

“He’s not going to be able to do the job.”

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Biden officially announced his candidacy in a video Thursday morning, going directly after Trump.

“If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation, who we are, and I cannot stand by and watch that happen,” Biden said in the video.

Source: Fox News Politics

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A Wells Fargo logo is seen in New York City
FILE PHOTO: A Wells Fargo logo is seen in New York City, U.S. January 10, 2017. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith

April 26, 2019

By Jessica DiNapoli and Imani Moise

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wells Fargo & Co’s board has retained executive search firm Spencer Stuart to hunt for a new chief executive, ideally a woman who can tackle its regulatory and public perception issues, two people familiar with the matter said.

Wells Fargo’s ambition to become the only major U.S. bank with a female CEO underscores the need to restore its image with a wide range of constituents, including customers, shareholders, regulators and politicians, after it became mired in a scandal in 2016 for opening potentially millions of unauthorized accounts.

Former CEO Tim Sloan left abruptly last month, becoming the second CEO to leave the bank in the scandal’s fallout.

The board plans to approach Citigroup Inc’s Latin America chief Jane Fraser, one of the sources said. During Fraser’s 15-year tenure at Citigroup, she has gained experience running consumer and commercial businesses as well as its private bank.

Fraser could not be immediately reached for comment.

The board also discussed approaching JPMorgan Chase & Co’s Marianne Lake, but after the bank named her to run JPMorgan’s consumer lending business last week, that option became less viable, the source added. The board wants someone who can convince regulators, employees, investors and customers that the bank has fixed problems underpinning the sales scandal, the sources said.

The bank’s board feels that choosing a woman might please lawmakers in Washington who have been critical not only of Wells Fargo’s misbehavior, but of the broader banking industry for a lack of diversity and gender equality, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

It also believes that such a move could bolster Wells Fargo’s image with the households of customers where women play a leading role in managing finances, one of the sources added.

The new CEO will also have to resolve litigation and regulatory matters. There are 14 outstanding consent orders with government entities, as well as probes by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Labor and the Department of Justice.

To be sure, Spencer Stuart will approach and consider several male candidates for the CEO job as well, one of the sources said. The top priority is to find an external candidate who can navigate the bank’s regulatory issues, the source added.

Finding an outsider who meets all those qualifications and wants the job will be difficult, the sources said. There are few people with the necessary experience, even fewer of those who are women, and it is not clear if any of the obvious candidates would be open to taking the role.

The sources asked not to be identified because Wells Fargo’s board deliberations are confidential.

Spokespeople for Wells Fargo and Spencer Stuart declined to comment.

Wells Fargo’s board has not made any public statements about its requirements for a new CEO, beyond Chair Betsy Duke saying the job should attract the “top talent in banking.”

The board wants to complete the search within the next three to six months, one of the sources said.

STALLED SHARES

After Sloan’s ouster, Wells Fargo’s board appointed Allen Parker, who had been general counsel, as interim CEO. The board has said it is looking for an external candidate as a permanent replacement. It is not clear whether Parker will stay at the bank.

Others whose names have been mentioned by analysts, recruiters and industry sources as perspective CEO candidates include Alphabet Inc finance chief Ruth Porat and Bank of America Corp’s chief technology officer Cathy Bessant.

Wells Fargo shares have stalled since Sloan’s departure on March 29th, while the KBW Bank index has rallied more than 7 percent.

Wells Fargo would be “the best stock on earth to buy” if it had the right CEO, said Greg Donaldson, chairman of Donaldson Capital Management in Indiana.

Donaldson held about 50,000 Wells Fargo shares, but sold the stake last year as problems mounted. The CEO change could convince him to re-invest, depending on who it is, he told Reuters.

“It would be very smart for them to get a woman,” he said.

(Reporting by Jessica DiNapoli and Imani Moise in New York; Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra, Greg Roumeliotis and Susan Thomas)

Source: OANN

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