August 24th, 20200
WASHINGTON, D.C. (REUTERS) — More than two-dozen former Republican U.S. lawmakers, including former Senator Jeff Flake, endorsed Democrat Joe Biden for president on Monday, the first day of the Republican National Convention, in the latest rebuke of President Trump by members of his own party.
The 27 former members...
August 17th, 20200WASHINGTON, D.C. (REUTERS) — On Monday President Trump denied trying to undermine the Postal Service’s ability to handle a flood of mail-in ballots ahead of the November election, as Democrats prepared to move against changes his administration has set in motion.
“No, we’re not tampering,” Trump said in an interview with...
November 17th, 20190WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Bureau of Investigations released its Hate Crime Statistics 2018 report this week.
The report is the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program’s latest compilation about bias motivated incidents throughout the nation. The 2018 data was submitted by 16,039 law enforcement agencies that provided...
July 28th, 20190WASHINGTON, D.C. - FBI Director Christopher Wray said Tuesday that the agency has made about 100 domestic terrorism-related arrests since October, and the majority were tied to White supremacy.
”I will say that a majority of the domestic terrorism cases that we’ve investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call...
January 27th, 20190BLOOMINGTON, Minnesota - Two men have pleaded guilty in federal court to bombing a Minnesota mosque and attempting to bomb a women's health clinic in Illinois. Prosecutors say the two men and another man accused in the case were part of an Illinois militia group that called itself "White Rabbits."
The U.S. Justice Department last year...
January 17th, 20190ST. LOUIS, MO — An American-born Iran-based journalist has been detained inside U.S. territories without charge. On Sunday January 13, the FBI took into custody American-born journalist and anchor Marzieh Hashemi, born Melanie Franklin, upon her arrival at St. Louis Lambert International Airport, according to her family and...
November 25th, 20180WASHINGTON — Hate crimes in the United States in 2017 saw the largest increase — to more than 7,000 — since a period immediately after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, new FBI data said Tuesday.
The 2017 data is the latest uniform crime reporting compilation of bias-motivated incidents from more than 16,100 U.S. law...
September 21st, 20180PORTLAND, OR. — On Thursday, Sept. 20, a federal appeals court revived a Muslim American man’s lawsuit accusing the U.S. government of improperly keeping him on its “no-fly list” for about six years. He said the government placed him on the list to coerce him into becoming an FBI informant.
Reversing a lower court ruling, the...
July 30th, 20180WASHINGTON, D.C. — There were nearly twice as many hate crimes against Arab Americans in 2015 and 2016 than were reported by the FBI, underscoring the shortcomings of official statistics at a time of rising hate crime in the country, according to a comprehensive report on hate crime by the Arab American Institute in Washington.
Using...
July 28th, 20180DETROIT — On Tuesday, July 24, a Dearborn man was charged in an unsealed indictment with providing material support to ISIS after being captured on an ISIS battlefield.
Ibraheem Musaibli, 28, was taken into custody by coalition-backed forces this month while attempting to escape the Middle Euphrates River Valley in northern Syria,...
July 28th, 20180NEW YORK— An Arab American immigrant will play a leading role in the upcoming CBS series “FBI”, created by Dick Wolf — best known for the “Law and Order” franchise.
Zeeko Zaki, who plays Agent Omar Adom Zidan in the show, emigrated from Egypt at just 1 month old in 1990. He grew up primarily outside of Philadelphia in...
July 28th, 20180DETROIT — The FBI celebrated 110 years of public service on Thursday, July 26, and reflected on its history and the changes it’s experienced in the digital age.
Even before the FBI’s official founding, a special agent was assigned to conduct investigations in Detroit for the Department of Justice. By 1911 there was an official...
May 2nd, 20180DETROIT - On Thursday, May 3, 2018, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Detroit Police Department, Wayne State University Police Department, and Wayne County Sheriff’s Office along with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Michigan State Police, Detroit Fire Department, United States Attorney’s Office and...
April 13th, 20180DEARBORN – FBI agents conducted a raid April 12 on Detroit Visiting Physicians, a clinic owned by Dr. Fares Yasin, removing boxes of evidence.
Yasin has been accused of overprescribing opioids as well as other drugs.
Agents also raided Yasin’s home and six cars before visiting the Michigan Ave. clinic.
“There'd be lines...
March 26th, 20180ORLANDO, Fla. — A widow on trial for aiding her late husband, the gunman who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, should have a mistrial declared, defense lawyers said, arguing that prosecutors withheld access to important evidence that the shooter’s father had been an FBI informant.
Seddique Mateen, father of gunman...
March 23rd, 20180WICHITA, Kan. - Three men charged with plotting to bomb an apartment complex in western Kansas, where Muslim immigrants from Somalia lived and had a mosque, wanted to kill as many as possible and send a message they were not welcome in the United States, a prosecutor said on Thursday.
Prosecutors charged Curtis Allen, Gavin Wright and...
March 23rd, 20180STAFFORD, VA — The Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Academy graduated the first Arab American law enforcement executive.
On March 16, Mike Jaafar, chief of operations of the Wayne County Sheriff's Office, graduated from the FBI's National Academy, a professional course of study for U.S. and international law enforcement...
March 16th, 20180On Monday evening, I sat next to two women who are social workers in Dearborn schools and mothers to college students. We were at a community workshop held by the Dearborn Police Department, titled “Defending Against Hate Crimes and Domestic Terror Acts, and Law Enforcement and Mental Health Intervention.” Part of a Department of...
February 19th, 20180PARKLAND, Fla. - Stunned by the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history, students mobilized across the country on Sunday to organize rallies and a national march in support of stronger gun laws, challenging politicians they say have failed to protect them.
Students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a former student...
February 9th, 20180WASHINGTON — A Saudi man who attended flight school in Oklahoma was charged on Tuesday with visa fraud for allegedly having lied about attending an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in 2000, the U.S. Justice Department said.
A federal grand jury returned a three-count indictment against Naif Abdulaziz M. Alfallaj, 34, after his...
January 26th, 20180DEARBORN — "Unparalleled" leadership, community outreach and the ability to fight crime are what local Arab Americans will miss about FBI Special Agent in Charge David Gelios.
Those qualities are why former FBI Director James Comey named Gelios head of the Detroit division in September 2015, and what has helped Gelios form deep...
January 11th, 20180TROY — A transition in leadership is taking place at both the FBI's Detroit office and in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan.
David Gelios, special agent in charge of the FBI's Detroit office, is retiring on Jan. 31 to take a private sector job in San Diego.
Gelios, who turns 57 in September, would...
January 5th, 20180Here's our 2017 year-in-review of the most important news and developments as reported by The Arab American News locally, nationally and internationally.
Community and local
1. Former Dearborn City Clerk Kathy Buda was convicted on embezzlement charges, after clerk office employees reported suspicions she was stealing cash from fees...
December 15th, 20170DETROIT — Hates crimes reported to police in Michigan went up 29 percent last year, according to data released on November 13 by the FBI. The increase saw a spike from 309 reported crimes to 399.
"Hate crimes are happening more often than actually reported," said Rashida Tlaib, a former state representative now working with the...
November 17th, 20170DEARBORN HEIGHTS — The Dearborn Heights Police Department is conducting a joint investigation with the FBI and other local law enforcement agencies after finding threats to houses of worship and an abandoned firearm in a bag.
None of the religious institutions threatened are located in Dearborn Heights, but in other cities;...
November 17th, 20173DEARBORN — Amid a recent spike in threats against places of worship, officials and mosques in Metro Detroit are tightening security and bashing a new gun legislation that passed in the Michigan Senate last week.
It was tense at the Michigan Capitol on Wednesday, Nov. 8, when the Senate passed in a 25-12 vote a bill allowing the...
November 5th, 20170SUTHERLAND SPRINGS- A gunman entered a church in a small town in southeast Texas on Sunday and began firing, resulting in many fatalities and injuries, a county commissioner told Reuters.
The gunman was killed several miles from the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, about 40 miles (65 km) east of San Antonio, said Guadalupe...
October 26th, 20170WASHINGTON ― The U.S. government has broadened an interpretation of which citizens can be subject to physical or digital surveillance to include “homegrown violent extremists,” according to official documents seen by Reuters.
The change last year to a Department of Defense manual on procedures governing its intelligence activities...
