UNITED STATES
Man pleads guilty to IS plot
A man charged with plotting to help the Islamic State (IS) group pleaded guilty on Thursday to conspiracy charges, including a plot to behead conservative blogger Pamela Geller. Nicholas Rovinski, of Warwick, Rhode Island, admitted he conspired with two Massachusetts men to kill Geller and attempted to recruit others to carry out additional violent attacks in the US. The plots were never carried out. A plea agreement between Rovinski, 25, and federal prosecutors calls for a sentence of between 15 and 22 years. Judge William Young set sentencing for March next year. Rovinski, who has cerebral palsy and walks with a limp, answered softly when asked by the judge why he decided to plead guilty instead of going to trial. “I feel that in the interest of myself and the people of the United States I should pay for the crimes that I have committed,” he said. Prosecutors said Rovinski plotted with David Wright, of Everett, and Wright’s uncle Usaamah Rahim, of Boston, to kill Geller, who angered Muslims when she organized a Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, in May. The contest ended in gunfire, with two Muslim gunmen shot to death by police. Assistant US Attorney Stephanie Siegmann said Rovinski told authorities after his arrest that he, Wright and Rahim had agreed to kill Geller, who is from New York. Siegmann said Rahim later told Wright he wanted to go after “those boys in blue,” a reference to police.
UNITED STATES
Storm causes severe flooding
More than 60 people had to be rescued on boats because of flooding in parts of North Carolina on Thursday as the remnants of Tropical Storm Julia lingered off the Atlantic Coast with days of rain. Schools in North Carolina and Virginia also canceled classes as localized flooding blocked roads and inundated parking lots. North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency for 11 counties, saying the state had not seen flooding so severe since Hurricane Floyd in 1999. The hardest hit area of North Carolina appeared to be around Bertie County in the northeastern part of the state. McCrory said five swift water rescue teams helped people who were stranded. A medical evacuation bus was also sent to help evacuate a nursing home with 52 residents. The 67,000-student school district of Virginia Beach canceled classes for a second day because of “widespread flooding.” McCrory said that between 12cm and 30cm of rain fell over eastern North Carolina. The National Weather Service reports that about 46cm of rain has fallen in some parts of Virginia’s Hampton Roads region. What is left of Tropical Storm Julia has been spinning off the coast. It was expected to move out to sea yesterday.
MEXICO
FBI-wanted fugitive detained
Prosecutors say they have detained one of the FBI’s 10 most-wanted fugitives, a Mexican sought for kidnapping, rape and homicide charges in Chicago, Illinois. The federal attorney general’s office on Thursday said that Fidel Urbina was detained on a US extradition warrant in a tiny hamlet named El Polvo in a remote part of the border state of Chihuahua. According to the FBI wanted poster, “Urbina is wanted for allegedly beating and raping a woman in March of 1998. While out on bond, he also allegedly beat, raped and strangled a second woman to death in October of 1998. Her body was later found in the trunk of a vehicle that had been burned.”
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
The death toll from a shooting in western Afghanistan rose to 11 on Saturday, after gunmen targeted civilians at a picnic spot in Herat, the provincial authority said. Bullet marks were visible on a wall of the Sayed Mohammad Agha Shia shrine, while bloodstains marked a blanket abandoned at the scene. “Eleven people have been recorded dead and eight others wounded from Friday’s incident, with the condition of two of the wounded reported as critical,” Herat’s information office said in a statement. The update raises a toll of seven killed provided on Friday by the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs
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