AL Qaeda Leader's Computer Seized by Ankur Purao

An Al Qaeda leader’s computer was seized by Afghan Commandos and American Special Operations in a mountain town near the Afghan border last week. They were conducting a night raid on what was believed to be one of the Al Qaeda leader’s house. They nabbed their target, a man named Abu Bara al-Kuwaiti. Both countries say that they came away from that raid with an even larger prize, a laptop almost as valuable as Osama Bin-Laden’s!

The laptop had dozens of files, though the government can’t release the exact number. The documents contained details, and schematics of Taliban and Al Qaeda strongholds. Also, more importantly it has hundreds upon hundreds of names of Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives by rank. This means that the U.S. can now carry out many more preemptive missile strikes against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. They also ow who controls these terror organizations and there is no doubt that the US and Afghan forces will plan to target them as well.

Political Scandal in Argentia by Ankur Purao

An Argentine prosecutor was murdered in his home just before presenting evidence to a court that he said was going to prove that the Argentinian President was behind a bombing that killed 85 at a Jewish Center in Argentina. Alberto Nisman was found dead in his bathroom with a gun beside him. At first the case looked like suicide, but as forensics experts dug deeper they found evidence that pointed towards murder.

Their first piece of evidence showed the DNA of someone other than that of Alberto Nisman, though the DNA has not been identified yet. Their second piece of evidence was that all of his belongings that were related to the prosecution were gone. Third, On his hands there was no gun residue which would have been left by the type of gun that was used to kill him. Though there was no trace of anyone entering his apartment.

Even with the government denying involvement, and doing everything in their power to stop the investigation, bits and pieces of the case have still been uncovered. They say that the Argentine President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, cut a deal with Iran for cheaper oil to cut down their 7 billion dollar energy deficit. In return, Argentina would not interfere with anything they did in Argentina. Going back to the bombing the bomb residue was from a bomb made in Iran. The government is now accusing Alberto Nisman of trying to create a coup. I personally think that Alberto Nisman was telling the truth. But, after all it could be either way, and it is your decision to chose your own opinion.

Cuba-US Relations by Ankur Purao

On February 10th, 2015, Cuba released 53 United States citizens and military personnel. This is just the beginning of new relations between the US and Cuba. The trade embargo limiting Cuban imports, and exports from america has also been lifted. On Friday, Barack Obama announced that it was time to lift the trade and travel embargo, and regulations from cuba. He said that he was ushering in a new era of trade and hopes that the US and Cuba can set their differences apart and help each other.

Today the Former military dictator of Cuba, Fidel Castro, who has been unseen and unheard from since Cuba and the U.S. announced normalization of relations between the two countries, broke his silence, giving his half-hearted support to the new relationship negotiations.

Charlie Hebdo Terrorist Attack by Taran Samarth

A French satirical paper called Charlie Hebdo has been the target of attacks for a long time. Charlie often features cartoons lampooning national leaders, and most controversially, the Prophet Mohammed, a figure in the Islamic religion. Just a few years ago, the former HQ of Charlie Hebdo was firebombed by terrorists.

On January 7th, two gunmen entered the offices of Charlie Hebdo and killed 12, among them cartoonists, an economist, and police officers. The two gunmen were brothers, Said and Cherif Kouachi. Both were radicalized from visits to AQAP(Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) over the previous years. Within the coming hours, another terrorist, Amedy Coulibaly, shot and killed a female police officer. As a manhunt ensued across Paris, Coulibaly took hostages in a Kosher market and killed four.

Many hostages were rescued by police after Coulibaly was gunned down, but a female accomplice who is also Coulibaly's wife, Hayat Boumeddiene, escaped before the attacks and was last seen at passport control in Spain as she headed to Turkey. An international arrest warrant has been filed for Boumeddiene who is believed to be in Syria. These attacks have united and divided the French people and have sparked panic across the European continent and the world.

It has been 28 long days since the attacks in Paris and now those in France begin to question Charlie's lampooning of religious figures. Moments of silence were held across French schools and in one, a 8 year old boy yelled, "I am with the terrorists!". The boy was then taken to the police station. Hundreds of complaints from students echoed across the nation as the question debating the ethicality of continuously satirizing the Prophet and other religious figures arose.

Many Muslim citizens are shocked by this national tragedy yet do feel that the magazine has gone too far. This divide doesn't remain in France, however. In Germany, anti-Islam and anti-Semitic protests were held with many upset over Chancellor Angela Merkel's immigration policies. Europe continues to recover from the deadly attacks with amped up security all across the continent as they hope another attack will never happen.

Boston Bomber Trial Begins by Taran Samarth

April 15th, 2013. A date etched into the memories and hearts of many people including three families who will never see a loved one again. Lu Lingzi, 23, Krystle Campbell, 29, and Martin Richard, 8 years old, were lost on that April day.

Two pressure cooker bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon at about 2:50 PM on April 15th, 2013, killing 3 and injuring an estimated 264. The suspects, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, brothers, fled the scene. They then killed a MIT police officer, Sean Collier, who was pronounced dead at a local hospital. The duo then carjacked a Mercedes-Benz and kidnapped the owner of the car, forcing him to use his ATM cards to get $800 in cash.

After midnight on April 19th, a Watertown, Mass. police officer(Watertown the focus area of the search at the time) identified the two brothers in two cars. A gunfight then ensued, injuring a transit officer and killing Tamerlan, the elder, after being shot and "dragged by [a] motor vehicle". Dzhokhar escaped on car, and then on foot. A manhunt would continue, shutting the bustling metro area of Boston into a standstill, until Dzhokhar was found in a boat behind a Watertown resident's boat.

Today, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is located in a confinement cell and will face trial in the coming weeks. Massachusetts, a state that outlawed the death penalty in 1982, still allows the death penalty to be brought back in certain cases, but the decision must be made by a judge. Judge George O'Toole decided that Tsarnaev "betrayed the United States" and therefore will face the death penalty.

Jury selection continues through several rounds, but the final jury will be required to consider the death penalty as a possibility, ruling out many people including supporters of civil rights organizations like the ACLU. A verdict is expected in several months.

35 Car Pile-Up in New Hampshire by Owen Isham

In Ashland, a town in New Hampshire, there was an approximate 35-car pile up including a tractor trailer.  The crash occurred when, after a sunny early morning, there was a sudden snow squall with white out conditions, and patches of black ice.  There was a lot of extra traffic, which was expected to be skiers headed to one of the 22 ski resorts in the area.  

There were nine people who were hospitalized after the crash.  Six of them left the hospital that day, and one person is still in critical condition.  The first 911 calls about a car crash came in at 9:45 am.  Many people reported a sunny morning, turning to sudden white out, and icy conditions.  Many also reported coming to a complete stop, and seeing other cars sliding past them.

One car got wedged under the tractor trailer, and then caught fire, which spread to some of the other cars.  In one car that caught fire there was a mother and three children.  They all made it out okay.

That pile up, however, is dwarfed by a massive 193 car pileup on Interstate 94 in Michigan.  This crash involved multiple tractor trailers, including an oil tanker, and a truck carrying fireworks that lit during the crash.  There was one fatality, and 23 people hospitalized including two of the firefighters who responded to the crash.

It took place in Kalamazoo County, Michigan.  There was heavy snow, pounding 35 mph winds, and low visibility causing the crash.  A video depicts multiple crashed cars and trucks, as well as cars crashing sending snow flying through there, and one even ricocheting off a tractor trailer and flying off the road.  Many stranded drivers had to go to a nearby school for shelter to get out of the well below 0-degree windchill.

Weather and crashes like this have caused roads across the country to close down, even major Interstates.  It’s crashes like this that should be a reminder for people to be prepared for bad weather, and if they think it’s too dangerous to go out, stay in.

Two Americans Arrested after Failed Coup Attempt by Ankur Purao

On January 5, 2015, just over a week ago there was an attempted coup in the small West African country of Gambia. Involved in the coup were two American citizens. Criminal charges are being held against two United States citizens, accused in federal court of helping to finance, lead and arm the plotters. The Justice Department, in Washington said that the American defendants, both of Gambian descent, were in federal custody. They also have been charged with conspiring to violate the Neutrality Act, a very infrequently used law that prohibits Americans from fighting, or plotting against a nation at peace with the United States.

On Wednesday the defendants were identified as Cherno Njie, a 57 year old man, from Austin, Texas. The other man was Papa Faal, 46, is from Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, though, it is not clear whether they had lawyers or whether other Americans were also under investigation in the case.

December 15th Sydney Terrorist Attack by Ankur Purao

On December 15th, 2014, Australian Police stormed a cafe in which 17 hostages were being held at gunpoint by Man Haron Monis, a self-proclaimed Islamic extremist.

This event took place at the Lindt Chocolate Cafe, a cafe in the heart of Sydney, in Australia. The armed man took control of the Lindt Chocolate Cafe on Martin Place in central Sydney around 9:45 a.m., effectively trapping employees and customers inside. He had also held up a black flag with white Arabic script, similar to those used by ISIS in other continents such as Syria, and Iran.

Also during the day, five people fled the cafe, including two employees, but it was not clear whether the Haron Man Monis had allowed them to leave or they had escaped on their own.

Haron Man Monis was declared dead at the scene, New South Wales Deputy Commissioner Catherine Burn said. After police stormed the cafe, Tori Johnson, a manager of the store, was killed, according to Lindt Chocolate Cafe Australia. The other hostage who was killed was identified as attorney and mother of three Katrina Dawson, 38, according to the New South Wales Bar Association. Six people at the scene were treated for injuries.

South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said that the decision to enter the premises came after they heard gunshots coming from inside the Lindt Cafe. The Commissioner also confirmed that, in total, Monis had been holding seventeen people hostage, though up to twelve of those individuals had been able to get out of the store before police began their assault. The Australian counter-terrorism police said on the Wednesday after the standoff they arrested two men in Sydney, eight days after a hour siege in the central city cafe which ended with the deaths of two hostages and a gunman with radical Islamist sympathies. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott had said on Tuesday that security officials intercepted a heightened level of "terrorist chatter" in the aftermath of the Sydney cafe siege, but there were no specific threats of attacks.

A 20-year-old man was charged with being in possession of documents designed to facilitate a terrorist attack, and a 21-year-old was charged with breaching a control order, police said. The documents had mentioned potential government targets but were not directed at the prime minister, Australian Police Deputy Commissioner Michael Phelan told a media conference in Sydney.

Australia, a staunch ally of the United States and its action against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, is on high alert for attacks by sympathizers of the radical group and from home-grown militants returning from fighting in the Middle East. Police said they had now arrested and charged 11 people with terrorism-related offenses since launching massive raids in Sydney and Brisbane in September, soon after raising the terror threat to high, or red alert for the first time.

Saving African Elephants by Catherine Wang and Joella Asbury

People in Africa, and other countries are getting worried about the elephants in Africa. They are afraid that the African elephants are going to go extinct. Have you ever seen those great, majestic animals? You may think that they are ugly and, well, altogether wrinkly, but they really are smart and amazing.

There are two main reasons the African Elephants are getting endangered.  First, there are a lot of rules against poaching wild animals (including the elephants), and in Africa, they probably don’t have the resources to keep an ‘endangered animal’ area for the animals that are seriously endangered. This makes it very easy for the poachers to poach the animals. This causes a large problem for wildlife, and people.

Second, there is a lot of habitat loss, and this makes it more difficult for the elephants to live there. This narrows the choices down to two for the elephants: stay and die out, or move to another habitat, and adapt. Sad, don’t you think?

You can make a change; stop killing, stop trafficking; and stop demand. Help do awareness campaigns, and you can make a change today!    

Mexico/United States Border Crisis by Ankur Purao

The ever-worsening United States-Mexico border crisis is at its peak. There are many potential threats when you are trying to cross the border into America, from newly commissioned drones, to corrupt police, to human smuggling gangs. Gangs demand anywhere from $500 to $3,500 to smuggle someone across the Mexican-American border. Many people enter the smuggling business either running the business from home, as a soloist, Or working for smuggling syndicates, and gangs with hopes of becoming the leader.

Most of the people fleeing Central America are children, with more than 50% of all refugees being children. These children usually pay around $4,000 to get smuggled across the border. People want to leave Central America mostly because of drugs, violence and political unrest. There were over 55,000 refugees this year alone who fled to America.

Now, unaccompanied refugees have begun riding the ‘Death Train’ from Mexico, to America. Many of the riders are children, even though the death rate is over 40%, the children are undeterred. Many of these children leave because of gang violence, and death threats if they don’t join a gang. These children are faced with the choice to die, of take the risk on the train, and many choose the train. First, you board a train, and must ride on the roof for four days, though many fall off during the journey, it still isn’t over. Then they must survive a three day trek through the desert without any food or water.

The easiest way to get into the United States is to wander up to the U.S. Port of Entry and look around for any shady character squatting on the sidewalk. Such people might offer you a fake California driver's license and a fake Social Security card for $400. With those, you may be able to walk straight through immigration, and into the United States. For a few hundred dollars more you might even be able to buy a fake passport. Another way to cross the border is to rent a real driver's license and real Social Security card, again for about $400, though this time you will be handed real documents, and the photo will be of someone who looks close enough to how you look to get you through. There will usually be a person on the other side of the border waiting for you. He will confront you, and you will hand the real documents back to him. They might even go far enough to hand you a real United States of America passport.

One of the major issues that the U.S. has encountered is that in a number of Central and South American islands and coastal areas, people have been trying to reach the United States by sneaking into the cargo hold of a boat leaving a local harbor, or sneaking on the boat. The United States has combated this problem by doing thorough searches of boats and documentations of the boats that are docking in US waters. If an illegal immigrant is found, then they are sent on the next boat back to their homeland. Some illegal immigrants try avoid this by jumping into the water, and swimming to shore. Many don’t make this journey though, because of the frigid water temperatures in some areas they get hypothermia, and sometimes die. In other cases they just don’t know how to swim, and end up drowning. Even if you make it to shore the chances of you not being seen are very slim.

With the dawn of the new age of technology the American Border Service and Patrol has been adapting. Instead of using people they have turned to using automated drones. These drones operate in both the air and on land. The United States’ new drones research program have created a number of multifunctional drones, with many ‘add ons’ to make the drone more efficient. The most advanced of these drones can take high resolution of people up to a half of a mile away making it much easier to stop illegal immigrants coming into the United States. I also said that there were drones on land. When you think of drones, you usually think air, but the term also applies for automated land vehicles. The more advanced of these can scan passports and other identification. If it is assaulted it also has a large arsenal of weapons that it may fight back with. But, it is programmed to only use force when necessary and not to be aggressive. Some of these robots speak multiple languages, and can carry out basic conversations, and even make jokes!

Along with the turmoil at the border, border states have had mixed feelings about the immigrants staying temporarily in their cities. At first, in states like Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, people were fine with the small flow of immigrants. But, as the flow steadily increased the people joined together in an uproar. First, they went to city council, but it was a legislative matter. So, they appealed directly to the president, but he has yet to address them with a response. Then, there was everything from peaceful protests to violent clashes. But, the locals have gotten used to it so there hasn’t been any injuries, or protests for the past couple months.