Tag Archives: Terrorism

New Zealand shooting shocks world

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By MCKENZIE STOUTE

Last Friday, a terrorist attacked a New Zealand mosque, leaving 49 dead, marking this as worst mass killing in New Zealand history.

During the attack the terrorist live streamed the shooting to Facebook and Twitter using a helmet camera.

The suspected gunman was an advocate of white supremacy, and had a hatred for immigrants, which fueled his decision to target the Mosque. The gunman wrote a manifesto which he posted on Facebook and stated, that he wanted to avenge attacks in Europe perpetrated by Muslims. The dead and wounded include individuals from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Jordan, and Turkey.

World leaders have spoken out about the attack, including President Trump

“My warmest sympathy and best wishes goes out to the people of New Zealand after the horrible massacre in the Mosques. 49 innocent people have so senselessly died, with so many more seriously injured. The U.S. stands by New Zealand for anything we can do. God bless all!” he stated.

This shooting comes at a surprise for New Zealand natives being, Mass shootings are extremely rare in New Zealand. The most well-known shooting is the Aramoana massacre that happened all the way back in 1990, when a man gunned down 13 people in a tiny seaside village. Immediately after this pas attack, The prime minister on Saturday vowed to tighten New Zealand’s gun laws.

Parkland shooter faces new charges

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By NOA ISRAEL

Nine months after accused Parkland shooter, Nikolas Cruz opened fire at his high school, he faces new charges after an altercation with a prison guard Wednesday morning.

Cruz is being held at the Fort Lauderdale jail, awaiting trial for the Feb. 14 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting that left 17 students and staff members dead and 17 others injured. He faces 34 counts of murder and attempted murder.

On Wednesday CNN reported that Cruz “now faces additional charges of assault, battery and use of an electric weapon on the guard,” after he allegedly attacked a Broward County officer. The report states, Sgt. Raymond Beltran, requested that Cruz not drag his feet while he walked to the dayroom. In response to this, Cruz attacked Beltran.

According to video surveillance of the incident, “Cruz flipped his middle finger, then rushed Beltran and struck him in the face, the report states. Cruz took the officer to the ground and struck the top of his head with fists […] and then took his stun gun,” CNN reported.

Cruz was escorted to the hearing by multiple officers on Wednesday morning. He remained silent with his head down for the duration, as the judge set another hearing for Friday and set a preliminary bond of $200,000 for battery on an officer.

In April, Cruz waived his right to a speedy trial and was entered into a not-guilty plea by the judge. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for the massacre in his trial set to begin in September 2019.

Media blanket-cover Pittsburgh shooting

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By ADAM SPECTOR

Last week, a shooter opened fire inside a synagogue in Pittsburgh on Oct. 27. Eleven persons were killed and six others were injured.

This has been described as the deadliest against the Jewish community in United States history.

Authorities say Robert Bowers, 46, was the man responsible for the shooting. No alternative suspects have been mentioned.

Just about every news source has covered this story. Most have been thorough and are making sure this matter is known across the country.

Although sources such as CBS, CNN, and ABC have done a good job of making this story a priority, they have given hate crimes in general somewhat of an overlook.

As mentioned last week according to WBAL-TV 11, “from vandalism to murder, a new report from Maryland State Police shows that Maryland is seeing more hate crimes.” In 2017, Maryland saw a 35 percent increase in hate crimes since 2016, despite this serious issue, very few sources seemed to cover it

In this day and age, a lot of things are unnecessarily made political, however, this situation has a fair reason to be made political.

Some people have connected this story and the increased level of hate crimes to Donald Trump’s anti-Mexican, anti-immigrant, and anti-Islam policies as well as his popularity among white supremacists.

Despite this somewhat logical connection, Vice President Mike Pence rejected the idea that President Donald Trump’s rhetoric contributed shooting in Pittsburgh.

“Look, everyone has their own style. And frankly, people on both side of the aisle use strong language about our political differences,” Pence said in an interview with NBC News “But I just don’t think you can connect it to threats or acts of violence… And I don’t think the American people connect it.”

Although sources such as CBS, CNN and ABC have not covered the rise of hate crimes in the USA as much as they should have, they did make this story a priority.

Florida man arrested in mail bombs case

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By DAVE DOWNEY

The arrest came after authorities responded to two more devices on Friday — one in Florida, the other in New York — pushing the total number of packages found by law enforcement officials to 12. None have detonated, but all have put leaders on high alert as they worried about additional devices being delivered and potentially going off.

The coverage on this story has been top notch by all outlets, from the breaking story of the first package sent earlier this week all the way to finding the individual responsible late Friday morning.

Authorities haven’t yet released his name or any sort of motive as officials are continuing to work around the clock to iron out details and piece all of the story together.

All of the bomber’s targets have opposed piercingly with Trump at different times, and this news of dangerous packages popping up around the country aggravated the already full-throated political fights under two weeks before congressional elections.

Trump condemned the bombs on Wednesday before going on to blame the news media for the anger seen in American society.

He has also ruffled at commentators who have highlighted his rhetoric when discussing the explosive devices, tweeting shortly after 3 a.m. on Friday that CNN was “blaming me for the current spate of bombs.”

Iraqi police capture top IS members

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By IBRAHIM GRAY

Iraqi forces in coordination with U.S.-backed Syrian forces have captured five senior Islamic State group leaders, the U.S.-led coalition said Thursday in a statement.

The arrest was a “significant blow to Daesh,” U.S. Army Col. Ryan Dillon, coalition spokesman, said, using the Arabic acronym for the extremist group.IS fighters no longer control significant pockets of territory inside Iraq, but do maintain a grip inside Syria along Iraq’s border.

The U.S.-led coalition supported Iraqi ground forces and Syrian fighters known as the Syrian Democratic Forces in the more than three-year war against IS. After Iraqi forces retook the Iraqi city of Mosul from IS last summer, Syrian forces on the other side of the border claimed a series of swift victories, but the campaign was stalled recently when Turkey launched a cross-border raid into Syria’s north.

Earlier this month the coalition announced a drive to clear the final pockets of IS territory inside Syria. U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted about the anti-IS raid Thursday, saying those arrested were the “five most wanted” IS “leaders.”

Last year the Pentagon said that there were “some indicators” that IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was still alive a month after Russia claimed to have killed him in a strike near the Syrian city of Raqqa. None of the statements released Thursday from the president or the coalition named the IS fighters arrested. IS fighters swept into Iraq in the summer of 2014, taking control of nearly a third of the country. At the height of the group’s power their self-proclaimed caliphate stretched from the edges of Aleppo in Syria to just north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

Now, with the group’s physical caliphate largely destroyed, anti-IS operations are increasingly focused on targeting the extremists’ remaining leadership.

Can AI stop extremists on social media?

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By GRACE SMITH

A few days ago, the United Kingdom government unveiled a new, $843,834 (600,000 British pounds) technology that would detect and flag videos with extreme jihadist propaganda.

An image from Isis’s Dabiq propaganda magazine.

This is the first major step into improving the automated flagging of inappropriate videos which has become a major concern for both viewers and content creators.

This issue was first brought to light in 2016 which jihadist videos reached hundreds of thousand of views on YouTube.

At this point, the platform would trust viewers with flagging content, which would then go under individual review by YouTube employees. But since the content creation has spiked in recent years, the review process has become inefficient and has fallen to criticism.

In response, the program set up an imperfect algorithm which flagged anything relating to violent acts, tragic events, or inappropriate content in general. As a result, many news-focused pages lost their funding and creators became unable to speak on tragedies or even curse in videos without the risk of losing their income.

ASI Data Science’s new artificial intelligence has proven to accurately flag videos and has only flagged 0.005 percent non-IS related videos and major giants like Facebook and Google are meeting with the developers to see about implementing the technology onto their platforms.

With the reveal of this technology also came British government’s willingness to pass legislation to make this a mandatory part of online technology. Many social media sites have had major issues with violent, terrorist-focused pages and videos using them as a host and even as a place for group recruitment.

Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have worked to create blanket solutions but still come under fire for the inaccurate and ineffective results produced by algorithmic solutions.

UK man Shafi Mohammed Saleen, a prolific ISIS supporter, who was convicted of spreading terrorist group propaganda on Twitter.

‘Social media companies continue to get beat in part because they rely too heavily on technologists and technical detection to catch bad actors,’ says an expert at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in the use of the internet by terror groups.

As the popularity of social media continues to grow so does the untraveled “Wild West” of the internet and we continue to question how we should handle it. The improvement in AI recognition seems like a step in the right direction, especially with the compliance of internet giants like Facebook and Google.

Times reporter unveils Alt-Right mask

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By ALLIE SIMON

Emma Cott, a New York Times reporter, sat down with one of the primary leaders of the white supremacist group, the Alt-Right movement, and uncovered the key to their success.

Cott interviewed Elliot Kline, an Alt-Right leader who goes by the pseudonym Eli Mosley, after British fascist Oswald Mosley who tried to bring Nazism to England. Mosley made his transition from a Twitter-troll to a leader of the alt-right movement when he helped plan the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017. The rally ended in one fatality and more than a dozen wounded and was considered a success by the alt-right standards.

Eli Mosley, Facebook

Eli Mosley, one of the Alt-Right movement leaders.

At an Alt-Right member’s home in Alexandria, Va., Cott did an on-camera interview with Mosley in which he told her that there is a huge connection between the military and Alt-Right. He said that he served in Iraq and found it “boring.”

According to Mosley, lots of alt-right members served in the military and were “disillusioned with the American political system,” including himself.

Cott’s in-depth research following her sit-down with Mosley led her to ask questions. She contacted the Army for confirmation of Mosley’s deployment and to not much surprise, she found he had never actually been deployed. Cott’s strong reporting skills led her to conclude that Mosley’s identity in the Alt-Right movement was based on a lie.

Not only did Mosley lie about going to Iraq, but he refused to admit it was not an internal computer error that led the Army to tell Cott that he was never actually deployed.

Because Mosley’s position within the movement is to help bring people together who share a common goal of becoming so-called “activists” in the white supremacist community, he pretends to be apart of the target audience: veterans.

Cott pieced together the fraudulence within the alt-right movement by concluding that the movement is filled with “Holocaust deniers and pseudo-intellectuals who spout unsubstantiated theories about the science behind racial difference.”

Mosley’s trick of lying to gain entrance and ranking within the white supremacist community does not differ from the strategies of his fellow Neo-Nazis. Cott claims that alt-right is merely a place, “where a weekend warrior can pass himself off as a disillusioned veteran of war.” The interview is merely a spotlight on Mosley caught in a lie.

Lauer story dominates news cycle

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By EVAN ALDO

“Today” show co-host Matt Lauer was fired Wednesday due to inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace, an incident that “Today” executives said they learned about two days ago.

Lauer’s co-anchor, Savannah Guthrie, announced the news this morning on “Today.”

“This is a sad morning here at ‘Today’ and at NBC News,” Guthrie said before reading a statement from NBC News Chairman Andy Lack.

“Dear colleagues, on Monday night, we received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer,” Lack’s statement read. “It represented, after serious review, a clear violation of our company’s standards. As a result, we’ve decided to terminate his employment.”

The statement also said that this is the first complaint regarding Lauer’s behavior the company has received “in the over 20 years he’s been at NBC News.”

“All we can say is that we are heartbroken. I’m heartbroken for Matt. He is my dear, dear friend and my partner and he is beloved by many, many people here. And I’m heartbroken for the brave colleague who came forward to tell her story and any other women who have their own stories to tell,” said Guthrie.

All that is really known about Lauer’s misconduct is that an NBC staffer had complained about his behavior from throughout 2014, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Also, The New York Post reported an incident that occurred during the coverage of the 2016 Olympics in Rio.  However, no details from these incidents can be confirmed.

Lauer’s firing comes just days after “CBS This Morning” host Charlie Rose was canned for his behavior towards women, which included showering naked in front of them at his home.  This leaves “Good Morning America” host George Stephanopoulos as the only remaining male anchor of the top three network morning shows.

The news media have covered these stories extensively during the past few days. This story is currently on the front page of CNN, FOX, MSNBC and The New York Times.

Since NBC News fired Lauer without much of an investigation at all, what he was accused of doing must be severe. The network will likely lose ratings due to his absence since he was very popular.

Although I believe it is important for the news media to cover stories such as these, this is taking away a lot of attention from the fact that North Korea has successfully tested a ballistic missile that officially put the U.S. mainland within range of its nuclear weapons.

This is a very dangerous fact that should be the main topic of news for today. With its recent threats and other tests, North Korea is clearly not playing around.

The news media need to help convince citizens and governments that North Korea is a real threat.

A great tragedy can occur if America looks the other way on this issue.  If we are not careful, we will be on the verge World War III if North Korea decides to launch one of these missiles at the United States.

Media help spread incitement of terror

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By NATE DERRENBACHER

This week, another vehicular terror attack occurred in New York City, killing eight people. The suspect, identified as an Uzbekistan native, claimed allegiance to ISIS, the Islamic terrorist group that has lost some of its reign over the past few months.

Following any major attack in which people are intentionally killed, ISIS almost always claims responsibility, whether the attacker was really acting on behalf of ISIS or not. But the terror attack that occurred on Oct. 31 may have been different.

Law enforcement and investigators are claiming that they have found hundreds of pictures and material linked to ISIS on the suspect’s cellphone. This comes after ISIS released statements encouraging its supporters to carry out local attacks such as this one.

So, why are these types of attacks on the rise? Well, in short, the increased accessibility to ISIS and other terror inciting materials on the internet and mass media. People can now see and interact with terror inciting materials on a more regular basis and, as a result, can sometimes become desensitized to the to the scale of these horrific attacks.

The media have been covering this story with constant updates since ever since the initial reports of the attacks. Some news outlets continue to share images of the suspect, while others share pictures of the truck in which he carried out the attack and maps of where the attack happened.

This is not a story that is going away any time soon. Unfortunately, news outlets have had to continue to cover stories such as these, including a mass shooting in Las Vegas last month and the multiple vehicular attacks that have been carried out in London.

The accessibility to mass media has bridged the gap of reach for terrorist organizations, and as a result, the frequency of attacks has been on a steady rise.

The other fieldwork in Tongo Tongo

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By REGINA SÁNCHEZ JIMÉNEZ

It has been a month since the killing of four American and five Nigerien soldiers in the village of Tongo Tongo in Nigeria by terrorist groups of the region. The patrol, composed of 30 soldiers, was conducting a routine reconnaissance mission when the soldiers were entrusted other mission. They sought to capture one of the main targets of the U.S., in Niger, a man of the ISIS.

The patrol didn’t find its objective so it headed to the base. On the way, the soldiers were ambushed by a group of approximately 50 people and probably associated with ISIS. There were four victims of the U.S. Army, Sgts. Bryan C. Black, Jeremiah W. Johnson, Dustin M. Wright and La David T. Johnson.

This last death has created controversy because the body of the La David T. Johnson was recovered two days after the attack and a mile away from the crime scene. Also, Donald Trump’s condolences to the widow of the sergeant have been described as insensitive and disrespectful.

The American troops were sent to Niger in 2013 to help French Army to stop the rise of terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda, ISIS or Boko Haram. There are 800 American soldiers assigned to Niger.

The U.S. troops are not permitted direct action against the enemy. So, the Pentagon is investigating if there was any change in the mission entrusted.

While official sources try to clarify everything, a CNN reporter, Arwa Damon, has traveled to Tongo Tongo, to find the truth.

She described the landscape to make it easier to understand how the ambush was held. In her article, she describes her purpose as “looking for answers to the many questions that continue to churn around the attack”. She talked with first-hand sources, another great journalist’s practice.

As she was exposed, she didn’t have enough time to investigate deeper. But everything she told gives us clues of how could be the battle.

While the government could be interested in hiding part of the truth, a great practice of a journalist, as carry out fieldwork and talk with first-hand sources, allows us to know more about the situation in Tongo Tongo.

It’s important that journalists don’t wait in their offices to write stories from just an official statement. Journalists have to be suspect of everything, find out the truth themselves, never confine themselves to official sources and try to have a first-hand story to tell their audience.

8 killed in New York City truck attack

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By EVAN ALDO

Police and witnesses say a man deliberately drove a rented truck onto a busy bicycle path near the World Trade Center in Manhattan which killed eight people and injured at least 12 others.

The man later got out of the truck waved around a fake gun before being shot by police.  He was wounded and taken into custody.

“This was an act of terror, and a particularly cowardly act of terror aimed at innocent civilians.  It was a very painful day in our city,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio.

This was the deadliest act of terror in New York City since 9/11.

The suspect was identified by law enforcement as Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, a 29-year-old truck driver from New Jersey and Florida.  He immigrated to the U.S. from Uzbekistan in 2010.

A federal law enforcement source said a note had been found inside the truck that was in reference to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Saipov does not appear to have an extensive criminal background, according to the FBI and the NYPD.  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the attack appeared to be a “lone wolf” incident with no links to a wider terrorist plot.

The incident occurred at West Street and Chambers Street at 3:05 p.m.  The truck drove down a bike path for about four blocks and stuck cyclists and pedestrians before moving back into traffic lanes and striking a school bus.

The media should pay very close attention to the fact that this attack occurred without the use of any firearms.  Lately the media has been giving a lot of attention towards the possibly of banning firearms to increase safety.  However, I believe that they do not realize that there are many other ways that criminals commit murder.

This incident shows that even without a gun, a person can murder multiple people at the same time.  Firearms aided the police in this situation.  They wound the man with their firearms and stop him from creating anymore havoc.

If firearms are banned, I believe that terrorists will find other ways commit mass murder.  As seen in Nice, France last year, a trunk ran over and killed 86 people.  This was more than the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history last month that killed 58 people.

Media should report these facts accordingly and point out the fact that this incident shows banning guns will not solve the occurrence of mass murders.

Manhattan attack leaves eight dead

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By BEN EZZY

Eight people were killed and 11 injured Tuesday in Manhattan after a driver ran them over in his pickup truck. The lone driver then ended the rampage after crashing into a school bus and shouting “Allahu akbar” as he ran around the road with a pellet gun and a paintball gun. He was later identified as 29-year-old Sayfullow Saipov, after being shot by police in the abdomen.

Investigations following the incident have revealed that Saipov spent weeks planning the attack and that it was tied to directives he received from the Islamic State. The instructions were to carry out an attack with a truck and leave a note behind that praised the group and its philosophies. Crime scene investigators found an assortment of knives around the truck, along with a note as described.

As the story has developed and more information has become available, news media outlets have done a good job handling and dispersing the material in a way that keeps details from becoming confusing. This is a sensitive topic and, in organizing information for readers, this has allowed for order in the face of chaos.

The New York Times, for example, has published several pieces on the attack, including angles relating to the potential motivation behind the attack, the state of affairs as they stand, and what is happening in the aftermath of the incident. The newspaper also published one story online that was simply a list of facts that “we know” and “we don’t know” at this point. In doing so, readers can quickly understand where the story is and how it is developing.

Other outlets, like CNN, placed an emphasis on the use of images and video to complement the written articles. A slideshow that is part of the latest CNN article allows readers to visualize with the current situation is like. There are also links to “related articles,” which give viewers a complete picture of what is happening and what the effects will be for the people of Manhattan and the United States at large.

Italian schools to teach about news

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By VICTOR GUZMAN BERGER

Italiian high school students will receive journalism classes to prevent been caught by Jihadist terrorist groups through Facebook, Google, Twitter and Instagram

The Italian Ministry of Education has designed a program to teach high school student journalism techniques so they can distinguish real news from fake news.

Italian security services have found that extreme fanatic terrorist groups, as the Jihadists and others, are intervening real news from well-known media sources and
manipulating and distorting the information to capture innocent followers for their terrorist actions in diverse countries in Europe and the United States.

This initiative shows the crucial role of news media and social media today, around the globe, not exclusively for information purposes but in domestic and international states’ security. For more about this, go to
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/migrants-italy-europe.html.

12 persons dead in terror attacks in Iran

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By ISAIAH TAYLOR

​At around 10:30 in the morning on Wednesday, six armed terrorists attacked the Iranian Parliament building and the tomb of the 1979 revolutionary, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

All six of the attackers were killed in the attack, two at the mausoleum and four at the Parliament building in Tehran. Twelve deaths have been confirmed, only one of which taking place at the shrine, and 46 people were injured.

​The attacks on the two locations happened almost simultaneously and lasted for hours. Due to this, many people believe that it must have been planned long in advance, Randa Slim, an analyst at the Middle East Institute in Washington, being one of them. “[This group] must have had a network inside the country … an infrastructure that took time to develop,” she stated.

The Islamic State group took credit for the attacks, posting a video with footage from the inside of the building. They also warned of further attacks against Iran. President Trump had visited the Middle East and met with a leader of Saudi Arabia, Iran’s rival, just a week before the terrorist attacks on Iran, leading Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to accuse the United States of being allied with the attackers.

Not helping this accusation, President Trump issued a statement after the attacks taking a jab at Tehran. He said, “states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.”

However, the White House had also issued a sincerer and more sympathetic statement. Saudi Arabia had also responded to Iran, their Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir stated that he was not sure who was responsible for the terrorism, and that his country condemned the attacks.

It is likely that Iran will have increased public support and calls for tougher action in the aftermath of the attacks. But, despite the terrorism that rocked the country, there would be ‘no effect’ according to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Suicide bombing outside Manchester

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By NEYDJA PETITHOMME

At 10:30 p.m. Manchester time, families and friends gathered together to enjoy a time of music and fun at the Ariana Grande “Dangerous Woman Tour.” According to British authorities, during the time of the concert, an armed man committed suicide while detonating a bomb outside Manchester Arena near the ticketing booth, leaving 22 casualties, 60 injured, and others traumatized, scared, and confused.

The night of the explosion, I was coming back from the gym. Following my usual nightly routine, before doing anything else, I tuned into MSNBC in order to get updates on the latest news before eating and then heading to bed. As I began to watch breaking news, my mouth dropped. I was shell-shocked, lost for words. I could not process the information.

The first thing that came into mind, “Why would anyone in their right mind decide to bomb mothers, fathers, and children who are just enjoying themselves, at an Ariana Grande concert?” Andy Holey, waiting to pick his wife and daughter, flew 30 feet from the doors, when the explosion occurred. His first thought was to find his family. When he couldn’t find them, he then proceeded to searching through the bodies for them. He was lucky enough to find his loved ones alive.

Grande responded in a Tweet just five hours after the bombing, “From the bottom of my heart, i am so so sorry.” Grande cancelled her remaining 36 shows.

This was a difficult decision for the Grande team to make. This allowed me to feel that Grande is a caring person, who genuinely cares for the safety of her fans.

Manchester bombing inquiry continues

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By ISAIAH TAYLOR

All around the world, news of the Manchester bombing is taking precedence as everyone tries to comfort the affected as well as explain the appalling attack.

On Monday, May 22, thousands of fans attended an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester arena. When the concert ended and the fans were leaving, they were greeted by a loud explosion and debris flying through the air.

Twenty-two people have been confirmed dead and more than 100 others were injured. Those killed in the horrific event range in age from eight years to 51. As of Thursday, May 25, eight men have been arrested as they are believed to have been connected to the attack. The attacker, Salman Abedi, was determined to have been killed when the bomb went off.

Many have shown their support for the victims of the attack, having a moment of silence in St. Ann’s Square in Manchester as well as donating more than 80 percent of the £2 million goal on a fundraising page created by Manchester Evening News, which equates to more than $2.5 million.

Tensions were high after the terrorist attack and a brief hostility occurred after U.S. broadcasters reported information that had apparently been leaked from British officials. The British police temporarily began to withhold information about the investigation from United States agencies, but this only lasted until Thursday evening.

President Trump responded with a statement during meetings with leaders of NATO that promised to launch an investigation of the leaks and punish those responsible “to the fullest extent of the law.”

New information also points to the likelihood that the Manchester bombing was planned at least a year in advance, as receipts show that Abedi opened a bank account and purchased items to make the explosive dating back 12 months. A flat was rented in Manchester as well and it is believed to have been the site of the bomb’s creation.

Currently, the investigation is ongoing as officials believe that conspirators of the attack may still be at large. The motive behind the attack is also still being determined. Many believe that it was a premeditated action with a clear plan to target young children.

This is supported by the idea that ISIS plans to terrorize Western women, children, and elders as theirs were killed. I am hopeful that this new low encourages officials even more to find and disarm ISIS, and other terrorist organizations that harm the safety of the worlds’ citizens before more innocent lives are taken.

New York City blast raises questions

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By FRANCESCA CIUFFO

On Saturday, Sept. 18 at 8:30 p.m., one of New York City’s most popular neighborhoods, Chelsea, was rocked when a bomb exploded.

The first blast was believed to be the result of a home-made, pressure-cooker, flip phone and Christmas lights. Another bomb that looked similar to this was found on 27th Street but did not detonate. Officials say that these bombs were intentional and appeared designed to create maximum chaos and deaths.

These bombs were filled “fragmentation materials.” The bomb that exploded at 23rd  Street was packed with small bearings. The bomb that did not explode appeared to be filled with the same materials.

On Saturday morning, a bombing took place in New Jersey at a marathon for marines. In New Jersey, three pipe bombs were tied together, placed in a trash can and also employed a flip phone as a timing mechanism.

“There is no evidence of an international terrorism connection with this incident,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Sunday, but many experts believe it could be international terrorism.

Experts proved that the explosive material was similar to a compound called tannerite. Tannerite is made by combining ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder and has hardly been used in improvised bombing strategies in the United States. An expert on unplanned explosive devices used by terrorists worldwide said that a device constructed as intricate as this one indicates a higher-than-average competence than what people in the United States can create.

Ahmad Khan Rahami, a 28-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, was charged for the Saturday night blast in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, an explosion in Seaside Park on Saturday morning and a foiled bomb attack Sunday night near a train station in Elizabeth, NJ.

Rahamj’s most recent address is in Elizabeth, NJ. This city is where investigators discovered five skeptical devices, one which exploded near a train station on Sunday night.

Rahami had been on the radar of federal agents two years ago, when his father told the police that he suspected his son to be involved in terrorism. They checked him for almost two months and said that he was not a terrorist. Now, the FBI says he is a terrorist. After Rahami was captured during a shootout on Monday, the police found a notebook with a bullet hole in it. The notebook expressed jihadist beliefs, and wrote of killing the “unbelievers.” It also praised Anwar al-Awlaki, once Al Qaeda’s leading propagandist who died in a drone strike in Yemen.

Rahami is linked to 10 explosive devices found in the region. The investigation of whether he worked alone, or was part of a terrorist organization is still ongoing. They believe he worked alone.

It is important for the news media to cover stories like this because terrorism and public safety are huge topics today. The United States is going through a period of time that terrorist attacks are happening at least once every few months. Bombings are important for the news media to cover because the public wants to know what is going on and if people are safe or were killed because of these attacks.

Video obtained of missing Chibok girls

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By VICTORIA DE CARDENAS

Tragedies in Africa rarely capture the attention of anyone in the U.S. But when women in Nigeria spoke out two years ago after terrorists kidnapped hundreds of girls from school, they stirred a sense of global outrage.

Two years later, #BringBackOurGirls social media campaign took off, but the girls from the town of Chibok are still missing and still causing outrage.

The captor, Boko Haram, forbids modern education, particularly for girls, and enslaves and sells women, forcing them to live by 7th century norm, according to CNN.

Before the anniversary of the capture, CNN obtained a video showing 15 of the more than 200 girls that remain in captivity from the mass abduction. It was sent by Boko Haram as “proof of life” in negotiations with the government.

While I applaud CNN for obtaining this video and sharing it with the parents of the girls, I have the issue that no other news station seems to be covering this as extensively as CNN.

If the social media campaign was so successful in shining light onto this tragedy, why aren’t other stories coming out of this video? It is a compelling video and reminds those who are here in the U.S. to continue to fight for human rights, but I do not see another major news network picking it up.

It upsets me to see these girls being taken against their will and choosing to be suicide bombers to get out of the situation they are in, but I have yet to see someone else cover this as headline news.

We as global citizens cannot be so oblivious to what is happening across the world and to prevent the oblivion it starts with news networks talking about the stories that matter and shape our everyday lives.

Deadliest terrorist group in world is?

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By BREANA ROSS
If you asked most Americans to name the deadliest terrorist group in the world, the response you would most likely receive would be, “ISIS, of course.” That response is actually wrong. ISIS is not the deadliest terrorist organization in the world.
Boko Haram, an African terrorist group, is the deadliest terrorist organization in the world. Americans are unaware of an issue that plagues millions of people. Why is that?
It is no secret that the news media is biased. That bias also extends to international news. ISIS is constantly in the news media because they attack the West. Boko Haram kills more people than ISIS, but most Americans have never even heard the name of the group because the group does not affect the West. But does the lack of attacks on western lives make the information any less valuable? Millions of lives lost is a problem, whether they’re westerners or not.
Boko Haram has appeared in the news media this week as a past story has resurfaced. Two years ago, gunmen associated with Boko Haram kidnapped hundreds of girls from a boarding school in Nigeria. For two years, the girls were not seen or heard. This week, a video, proving that some of the girls are still alive, surfaced and was shown to the families of the girls. The emotional meeting and viewing of the video caused the name of the terrorist group to make headlines, a rare occasion.
To me, the issue here is lack of education. There is no reason why news media should avoid covering Boko Haram when it is the deadliest terrorist organization in the world. Americans rely on the news media to educate the public on what’s important. At least being able to identify such a massive terrorist group is important, whether that group is here in the West or overseas.

Terror war: Florida soldiers get orders

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By MARIA LUIZA LAGO

An article in The Miami Herald indicated that 700 soldiers from the Florida National Guard are going to the Horn of Africa to be part of the U.S. military operations against extremists organizations. The article has much to offer in the matter of informing readers about what’s going on, but it does not go deeper on the matter of what this means to Florida or to the U.S military.

The article could focus on the soldiers that are going there; their stories, what they are expecting from this operation, whether they think it is a valuable cause or if they should first defend their own homes to then defend other countries.

The text is really straight-forward, there are other details about other U.S operations across Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa, but that is the deepest the article would go into.

There could be interviews with the former chief of the Florida National Guard or whoever is guiding this troops, because they are representing Florida and I think they should have a say on what will be our part on the mission and whether it will help the situation in Africa or not.

Other additional information like the terrorism that happens in the United States or even the extremists groups that surround the state of Florida (if there’s any) or around the nation could be cited, because readers might wonder why they are sending Floridians soldiers all the way to Africa instead of resolving their problems locally first.

The article describes basic information of the event, it focuses more on the military operation itself and on Florida National Guard, but it could be more explored in other aspects.