Eight year sentence for Alaskan terrorist

An Alaskan man was sentenced Monday to eight years in prison for compiling a hit list of 20 "enemies of Islam." He and his British wife converted to Islam a few years ago and are the first people in Alaska to be charged under the Patriot Act. The people on the list included people in the military and the media.

The shoe-bomber that wasn't

Pakistani officials are now playing down a major terrorism alert at the Karachi airport after learning a man they feared to be a shoe bomber was actually just wearing battery-powered massage shoes.

Pakistani officials explained, "These days, everyone is very nervous."

| Sara Shepherd

Child care facilities are a free-for-all

That is, if they are run by religious organizations. The law requires it. Below is the beginning of the Associated Press story.

A Missouri board reluctantly voted Thursday to rescind health and safety rules for hundreds of child care centers run by religious organizations because state law prohibits state regulation of such facilities.

Regulations that prohibit caregivers from being drunk or on drugs or posing a threat to children are among those that could be rescinded after the change is published in the Missouri Register and opened to a public comment period.

|Meredith Rodriguez

Fans try selling/buying MJ tickets inexchange for "adult fun"

Movieline.com reported that a spate of Craigslist ads sprouted up by people soliciting or offering sex in exchange for tickets to the Michael Jackson memorial at the Staples Center earlier this week.

One person was willing to give his extra ticket to “that special someone” who’d be “willing to join me Monday night and be open to some adult fun” before this morning’s solemn festivities. (PS: “You must be outgoing and busty.”)

Hat-tip to Tim P

| Bob Cronkleton

Impasse at World Trade Center site escalating

 

A private developer is threatening to go to an arbitrator unless he and the port authority can come to an agreement on how much each of them should pay for planned office towers to be built at the site.

|Meredith Rodriguez

School is no haven for many kids

Eighty-six percent of schools report one crime per year. About 1.7 million students ages 12 to 18 have been victim of a crime at school. Eight percent have been threatened or injured with a weapon within the last year. Twenty-two percent have had drugs made available to them at school.

All according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.

|Meredith Rodriguez