ACOZO.COM: December 2013

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Teen mob overruns New York mall
12/30/2013 1:34:59 PM

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Over 300 teens stormed a Brooklyn mall causing chaos
Mall employees were terrified as teens banged on store doors
The disturbance drove down post-Christmas sales

(CNN) -- Imagine the chaos of Black Friday -- but worse.

Every shopper's nightmare was lived out on Thursday when a horde of rowdy teens stampeded through a New York mall -- screaming, wreaking havoc and banging on shop doors.

"Things are back to normal with more police around," Joli Chen, a worker at a beauty supply store, said Saturday. "But the other day was crazy. Black Friday was normal compared to that. They were making trouble."

Flash mobs have been known to descend on malls across the country, singing, dancing and even accompanying couples getting engaged. But the Brooklyn flash mob isn't the first to turn ugly.

In the summer of 2012, a Walmart in Jacksonville, Florida, was mobbed by 300 people who entered the store and destroyed the security system, according to CNN affiliate WJXT.

Police said the group destroyed an electronic anti-shoplifting security scanner that cost about $1,500, WJXT reported. The massive crowd descended on the store after a party that was broken up nearby. No arrests were made.

In New York, Chen and others described a flash mob of more than 300 teens who, at first, started gathering at Brooklyn's Kings Plaza Shopping Center before erupting in a frenzy of yelling, running, shoving and pounding on doors. Many stores were forced to shut down on the busy shopping day after Christmas.

"They tried to scare us," Chen said. "They were cursing at us. The police tried to keep them moving but there were so many. And there are so many entrances, they kept coming back in."

On Friday, the mall turned away unaccompanied minors. On Saturday, Chen said, teens were allowed to shop again.

A New York police spokesman confirmed that more than 300 rowdy teens overran the Kings Plaza mall the day after Christmas.

At about 6 p.m., groups roamed the mall banging on glass storefronts while cursing and screaming at people, mall employee Rickie Liu told CNN.

Reports of damage were unclear, but some teens picked up a glass container filled with candy and shattered it on the floor, the owner of a candy kiosk told CNN affiliate WCBS.

The rambunctious crowd turned what is usually a quiet mall into a terrifying place, said mall employee Charmaine Chen.

Many stores were forced to shutter their gates on a busy day. Liu said she received a call from mall security advising store employees to lock store doors for their own safety.

Shop owner Kenny Pak received a call from security telling him there were teens fighting and causing a commotion.

Police arrived after mall security called for backup at around 9 p.m., said a New York police spokesman. Officers eventually escorted nearly the disorderly teens out of the mall.

The coordinated chaos lasted about two hours, according to Liu, and ruined expected good sales.

Her shop didn't even reach $100 in business by 6 p.m., Liu said.

Police said there were no arrests made or complaints filed with the authorities about damage or assaults.

Police were reviewing mall security video as part of their investigation.

FBI seeks suspect who shot cops

4 arrests made in fatal New Jersey mall carjacking

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Doubt cast on al Qaeda Benghazi link

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Doubt cast on al Qaeda Benghazi link
12/29/2013 9:15:15 AM

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

New York Times article says competing storylines about 2012 Benghazi attack likely are both wrong
The report says contrary to GOP assertions, al Qaeda was probably not involved in the attack
The article suggests independent Libyan militias played a key role instead
Report: Anti-Muslim video may have sparked the violence, but not solely, as suggested by Obama administration

(CNN) -- A New York Times report on the September 11, 2012, attack that killed four Americans -- including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens -- in Benghazi, Libya, calls into question much of what Republicans accusing the Obama administration of a cover-up have said about the incident.

The three main points of contention have been whether the attack was planned, whether it was sparked by an anti-Muslim video, and whether al Qaeda was involved.

However, the Times says, the administration's version, focusing on outrage over the inflammatory video, and first delivered by then-ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice on Sunday morning talk shows five days later, isn't exactly right, either.

"The reality in Benghazi was different, and murkier, than either of those story lines suggests. Benghazi was not infiltrated by Al Qaeda, but nonetheless contained grave local threats to American interests. The attack does not appear to have been meticulously planned, but neither was it spontaneous or without warning signs," according to David D. Kirkpatrick's article in the Times.

It's a conclusion that CNN has drawn in its previous reporting.

The attack at the Benghazi diplomatic compound has become a political flashpoint in a long-running battle between the White House and Republicans, who accuse the Obama administration of not bolstering security before the attack, of botching the response to it and of misleading the public for political gain less than two months before the November election.

The GOP suggests the administration removed specific terror references and stuck to the explanation advanced by Rice -- later proved untrue -- that the attack was the result of spontaneous demonstrations over the U.S.-produced film "Innocence of Muslims," which contained scenes some Muslims considered blasphemous.

The White House and its allies in Congress have said any confusion and conflicting information in the early hours and days after the assault stemmed from the "fog of war," not any deliberate effort to mislead the public.

The White House had no comment when CNN requested a response to the Times article.

After reading it, Obama's former national security spokesman Tommy Vietor unleashed a series of tweets, including these, condemning Republicans who've spent more than a year lambasting and investigating the Beghazi incident:

-- "If Rs spent 1/50th as much time as @ddknyt learning what really happened in #Benhazi, we could have avoided months of disgusting demagoguery."

-- "Republicans inflated the role of al Qaeda in #Bengazi to attack Obama's CT record. They were wrong, and handed our enemy a propaganda win."

-- "Credit to @ddknyt but also disconcerting that his #Benghazi article offered more insight into what happened than all Congressional hearings."

The Times' article, which includes interviews with several Libyan militia leaders who helped bring down Col. Moammar Gadhafi's dictatorship in 2012, says no evidence supports speculation about al Qaeda's involvement in the Benghazi attack. To the contrary, the Times reports that the diverse and fractured opposition militias, many of whom were at least somewhat friendly toward U.S. interests, most likely contributed to the attack.

That dovetails with the findings of the State Department investigative panel report on Benghazi.

"The Benghazi attacks also took place in a context in which the global terrorism threat as most often represented by al Qaeda (AQ) is fragmenting and increasingly devolving to local affiliates and other actors who share many of AQ's aims, including violent anti-Americanism, without necessarily being organized or operated under direct AQ command and control," the report said.

The Times report zeroes in on militia leader Abu Khattala as well as the like-minded Islamist militia Ansar al Sharia.

In a recent interview with CNN's Arwa Damon, Khattala acknowledged being at the Benghazi mission after the attack but denied any involvement.

Damon spent two hours interviewing Khattala at a coffee shop at a well-known hotel in Benghazi. He allowed Damon to use an audio recorder to tape the conversation, but refused to appear on camera.

Khattala's narrative of the events that night was sometimes unclear and, at times, seemed to be contradictory, Damon said.

He admitted to being at the compound the night of the attack, but denied any involvement in the violence.

Asked about allegations he may have masterminded the attack, Khattala and two of the men he brought with him to the interview "burst out laughing," Damon said.

Khattala told CNN that he had not been questioned by either Libyan authorities or the FBI.

The militia leader was one of those whom U.S. prosecutors charged in the attacks, as CNN first reported.

Ansar al Sharia is more a label than an organization, one that's been adopted by conservative Salafist groups across the Arab world. The name means, simply, "Partisans of Islamic Law."

In Benghazi, Ansar al Sharia was one of many groups that filled the vacuum of authority following the overthrow of Gadhafi.

The group's central belief is that all authority is derived from the Prophet Mohammed, that democracy is un-Islamic and that other branches of Islam, such as the Sufi, are heretical.

There do not appear to be organizational links between Ansar al Sharia and al Qaeda, but there is solidarity.

Among the group's Benghazi membership is Mohammed al-Zahawi, who fought to overthrow Gadhafi and praised al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri in a BBC interview. He said al Qaeda's statements "help galvanize the Muslim nation, maintain its dignity and pride."

A different Ansar al Sharia is affiliated with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen, and budding franchises are said to exist in Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt.

CNN's Tim Lister, Paul Cruickshank and Evan Perez contributed to this report.

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26 Palestinian prisoners to be freed

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26 Palestinian prisoners to be freed
12/29/2013 4:21:17 PM

Palestinians raise national flags and hold posters to show their support for prisoners held in Israeli jails on December 28.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

The prisoners will be released Monday or Tuesday, Israeli prime minister's office says
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry return to the region later in the week
Prisoners "have served sentences of 19-28 years," according to Israeli statement
Israel pledged to carry out the release in peace talks that started in the summer

(CNN) -- Israel announced Saturday that it will release 26 Palestinian prisoners over the next two days in a step aimed at "resuming the diplomatic process," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement.

The Palestinian prisoners will be released Monday or Tuesday in advance of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's return to the region later in the week in hopes of advancing the peace process.

Israel pledged to carry out the release in peace talks started last summer.

Kerry heading to Jerusalem, Ramallah next week

"In the wake of the Government's 28 July 2013 decision to resume the diplomatic process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and authorize a ministerial team on the release of prisoners during the negotiations, the release of 26 Palestinian prisoners was authorized this evening," the statement from Netanyahu's office said.

The statement said the prisoners "perpetrated offenses prior to the Oslo accords and have served sentences of 19-28 years."

A list of the prisoners' names was to be published Saturday night on Israel's Prison Service website.

The release is expected at least 48 hours after the list is published.

"At the discussion, it was emphasized that if any of those to be released resume hostile activity they will be returned to serve the remainder of their sentences," the statement said.

CNN's Michael Schwartz in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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Michael Schumacher 'slightly improves' overnight

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Michael Schumacher 'slightly improves' overnight
12/31/2013 10:49:56 AM

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Michael Schumacher is showing a slight improvement, his doctors say
He underwent surgery Monday night which relieved pressure on his brain
It's too soon to speculate on his prognosis, head anesthesiologist says
Schumacher suffered severe head trauma in a skiing accident in the French Alps

(CNN) -- Former Formula 1 driver Michael Schumacher, who suffered a serious head injury in a skiing accident, is showing a "slight improvement" in his condition, doctors said Tuesday.

Doctors carried out a surgical intervention Monday night on Schumacher which allowed for some pressure to be removed in his brain in a way that was "gradual and effective," anesthesiologist Jean-Francois Payen at the University Hospital Center of Grenoble, France, said.

The surgery, which took about two hours, involved the removal of a large hematoma, he said, adding that Schmacher's family were consulted before it went ahead.

Payen said that despite the improvement seen, Schumacher was still considered to be in a critical condition.

He said it was too soon to speculate on his prognosis. "There is still a long way to go," he said.

Schumacher, the most successful driver in Formula 1 history, suffered severe head trauma in a skiing accident in Meribel, in the French Alps, Sunday. He remains in a medically induced coma.

The accident happened while he was off-piste (on unmarked slopes) in the mountains between Georges Bauduis Piste and La Biche Piste, resort director Christophe Gernignon-Lecomte said. The driver was wearing a helmet at the time.

Schumacher, who turns 45 Friday, won a record seven world titles in his spectacular Formula 1 career and "also holds nearly every scoring record in the book by a considerable margin," according to the motorsport's official website.

He dominated the competition for the best part of a decade, winning five world championships in a row between 2000 and 2004.

Schumacher suffered serious injury once during his career in the high-speed sport, breaking his leg in a crash at the British Grand Prix in 1999.

CNN's Jethro Mullen and Gary Morley contributed to this report.

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Russia vows tough response to terror attacks

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Russia vows tough response to terror attacks
12/30/2013 7:19:20 PM

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

NEW: U.S. legislator says spectators will face tight Olympics security
Russia's foreign ministry vowed a continued "tough" offensive against terrorism
Two terrorist bombings hit Volgograd, killing more than 30 people
The attacks raised concerns about security at the Olympics in February

(CNN) -- Another suspected suicide bombing struck the southern Russian city of Volgograd on Monday, killing at least 14 people and further highlighting Russia's security challenges as it prepares to host the Winter Olympics in less than six weeks.

The explosion hit a trolleybus near a busy market during the morning rush hour, a day after a blast at Volgograd's main train station killed 17 people and wounded at least 35.

Vladmir Markin, a spokesman for the country's federal investigation agency, told the state-run news agency RIA Novosti that both explosions were terrorist attacks.

"This strike, which was cynically planned for the period of preparations for New Year's celebrations, is one more attempt by terrorists to open a domestic front, sow panic and chaos, and trigger religious strife and conflicts in Russian society," said a statement Monday by Russia's Foreign Affairs Ministry.

"We will not back down and will continue our tough and consistent offensive" against terrorists, the ministry's statement said, adding that such an enemy "can only be stopped by joint efforts" involving the international community.

The approaching Olympics

No one claimed responsibility for the Volgograd blasts, but they occurred several months after the leader of a Chechen separatist group pledged violence to disrupt the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics that begin on February 7.

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach condemned the bombings as "a despicable attack on innocent people.

"The entire international movement joins me in utterly condemning this cowardly act," Bach said in a statement, adding that he wrote Russian President Vladimir Putin to express condolences as well as "our confidence in the Russian authorities to deliver safe and secure Games in Sochi."

Meanwhile, the United States offered its "full support to the Russian government in security preparations for the Sochi Olympic Games," National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in a statement.

"We would welcome the opportunity for closer cooperation for the safety of the athletes, spectators, and other participants," Hayden said.

Volgograd is a major rail hub in southern Russia and a main transit point for people traveling by train to Sochi on the Black Sea, just over 400 miles (645 kilometers) to the southwest. Each day, thousands of passengers use the station in the city once called Stalingrad.

Two blasts in two days

Video footage from the scene Monday showed the twisted shell of a blue trolleybus, with debris spread around it. The impact of the blast blew out the roof of the bus, as well as windows of several nearby houses.

At least 28 people were reported to be wounded, with several in serious condition, including one 6-month-old child, RIA Novosti reported.

Based on the footage, the blast appeared to have occurred in the back half of the bus. The federal investigation agency said it believes the explosion was set off by a male suicide bomber.

Investigators said the train station blast Sunday also appeared to have been caused by a suicide bomber.

Markin told RIA Novosti that DNA testing will be carried out on the remains of the station bomber, who used the equivalent of 22 pounds (10 kilograms) of TNT in a device containing shrapnel. Investigators said they also found an unexploded grenade at the scene.

Video taken from an outside security camera showed a huge fireball inside what appears to be the main entrance of the three-story stone building, followed by a steady trail of smoke coming out of shattered windows.

Russia's security challenge

In July, Doku Umarov, the leader of the Chechen group Caucasus Emirate, released a video statement in which he vowed to unleash "maximum force" to disrupt the games at Sochi.

The U.S. State Department considers the Caucasus Emirate a foreign terrorist group and has authorized a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the location of Umarov.

The State Department said Umarov organized a suicide bombing outside the Chechen Interior Ministry in May 2009.

His group also claimed responsibility for the 2011 bombing of Domodedovo Airport in Moscow that killed 36 people, the 2010 bombings of the Moscow subway that killed 40 and the 2009 bombing of the high-speed Nevsky Express train in which 28 people died.

In October, a bomber blew up a passenger bus in Volgograd, killing six people and wounding more than 30 others. Russian media reported that a female Islamist suicide bomber from the Russian region of Dagestan was responsible for that attack.

"Most of the militants responsible for terrorist attacks in Russia over the last decade -- including female suicide bombers who have taken part in 20 attacks claiming at least 780 lives since June 2000 -- have come from Dagestan," RIA Novosti reported Monday.

The two young men behind the Boston Marathon bombings lived briefly in Dagestan before coming to the United States, and one of them visited the area the year before the attack.

"Radical Islamist groups tied to the war against the Russian state now have much deeper roots, and are far more active, in Dagestan than in Chechnya," Rajan Menon, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, wrote in a CNN.com column.

What might be behind the attacks?

Putin has maintained that the Sochi games will be safe and security will be tight. Visitors to Sochi and the surrounding area are subjected to rigorous security checks, and vehicle license plates are monitored.

"This will probably be one of the most difficult Olympics to actually go as a spectator and watch the Games because of the myriad layers of security," Republican Rep. Michael Grimm of New York told CNN on Monday.

Other parts of Russia

However, the Volgograd explosions showed the challenge that Russian authorities face in policing the rest of the country amid ongoing unrest in the North Caucasus. That region includes Chechnya, where Russia fought two wars against separatist movements, and Dagestan.

With tight security around Sochi itself, terrorists are believed to be focusing on other parts of the North Caucasus and southern Russia.

RIA Novosti reported a car bomb killed three people on Friday in Pyatigorsk in southern Russia, about 160 miles (270 kilometers) east of Sochi.

"Rarely do you actually have a terrorist group come out and say, 'We're going to try and disrupt these games,'" CNN national security analyst Fran Townsend said Monday. "When al Qaeda-related affinity groups make these sort of statements, you've got to take them at their word."

The fact that the bombers are targeting transportation is "not lost on Olympic Committee organizers and security officials," she added.

Athletes are "most vulnerable" when moving between the Olympic Village and the sites of their events, she said.

Townsend, who coordinated with Greek officials before the Olympics in Athens in 2004, said security officials all over the world will be asking Russia for detailed information about these attacks, including whether there were any indications or warnings.

They'll also ask about what information Russian intelligence has on the capabilities of terrorist groups to pull off further attacks.

CNN's Josh Levs, Alla Eshcheko, Diana Magnay and Grigory Kravtsov contributed to this report.

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Colorado marijuana sales to start

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Colorado marijuana sales to start
12/31/2013 6:50:14 AM

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Marijuana will be sold like alcohol in Colorado, to those age 21 and older
Residents can buy up to an ounce, and out-of-staters can buy a quarter ounce
Colorado becomes the first state in the nation to open recreational pot stores
It's also the first in the world where pot will be regulated from seed to sale

Denver (CNN) -- Colorado will begin allowing recreational marijuana sales on January 1 to anyone age 21 or over.

Residents will be able to buy marijuana like alcohol -- except the cannabis purchase is limited to an ounce, which is substantial enough to cost about $200 or more.

It's a big moment: Colorado will become the first state in the nation to open recreational pot stores and become the first place in the world where marijuana will be regulated from seed to sale. Pot, by the way, is the third most popular recreational drug in America, after alcohol and tobacco, according to the marijuana reform group NORML.

Retail pot: Would you buy?

Here are 10 things to know about what will be a closely watched landmark law.

How can this be?

Voters wanted this. And the law is now in the Colorado constitution after 55% of voters said yes to legalizing recreational marijuana.

Colorado wasn't the only state to OK this in November 2012. Voters in Washington also said yes, but that state won't open marijuana retail outlets until later in 2014.

Why?

There are the usual "legalize it" arguments about how pot is less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco and how legalization would save taxpayers $10 billion yearly on enforcing the prohibition.

Then there's the reality we all know: There will be a tax bonanza to public treasuries.

Retail weed will have a 25% state tax -- plus the usual state sales tax of 2.9% -- making recreational pot one of the most heavily taxed consumer products in Colorado. Some communities are adding even more taxes to the product.

The additional revenue will initially amount to $67 million a year, with $27.5 million of it designated to build schools, state tax officials say.

So why bother with separate medical marijuana?

Because buyers of medical pot won't face the additional taxes.

Medicinal weed in Colorado still requires a physician's recommendation, and the dispensaries will be separate outlets from the recreational pot retailers.

How much recreational weed can I buy?

If you are 21 or older, you can buy up to an ounce at a licensed store, as long as you have a Colorado ID. People from outside Colorado can buy a quarter ounce.

Only a handful of stores, however, are expected to open on January 1, and Denver will be home to many of them, according to the Denver Post and the weekly Denver Westword. In fact, there are concerns that supplies will be sold out on the first day, with so few stores having passed the lengthy licensing process so far. About 160 retailers are still seeking licenses statewide.

Users can also share an ounce of cannabis with a friend as long as no money is exchanged.

Where can I light up?

You won't be allowed to smoke pot in public and, in fact, can't even smoke in the pot shop or other establishments governed by the state's Clean Indoor Air Act.

That leaves the smoking to private properties, with the owner's permission.

Communities and counties can still choose not to allow recreational marijuana stores in their local jurisdictions, and a good many towns have, such as Colorado Springs and Greeley.

Meanwhile, ski resorts are concerned about scofflaws lighting up while on the slopes, with smoke intruding on family settings.

Can I grow my own?

Yes, you can grow up to six plants in your home, but the pot patch must be enclosed and locked.

Can the underage get busted for pot?

Yes, it's illegal to possess and use marijuana if you're under 21, but the city of Denver this month decriminalized pot for people between ages 18 and 21. The city would keep the fines -- but remove the jail time -- for being caught with an ounce or less. The potential jail time had been up to a year.

Youths under age 18 could be sent to a juvenile assessment center, instead of jail. The measure ensures kids "don't have to live into adulthood with mistakes they might have made when they were 19," Councilman Albus Brooks said in a Denver Post article.

What about DUI?

A motorist in Colorado can be ticketed for impaired driving if his or her blood shows more than 5 nanograms of active THC, the active constituent of marijuana, NORML says on its website.

Some users will fall below that level three hours after consuming pot, but "some people will still be well above 5 ng," NORML says. "Do recognize that the effects of alcohol and marijuana together may be more than the sum of their parts."

Some analysts describe impairment as a guessing game, depending on the person.

"Is Colorado's marijuana DUI rule flawless? Far from it. But as the state's policymakers have come to realize, the world's first legal pot rules aren't going to be perfect. They just have to be good enough. Good enough to keep the feds away, good enough to keep marijuana stakeholders happy, good enough to keep Coloradans from worrying they've made a horrible mistake," University of Denver law professor Sam Kamin and writer Joel Warner wrote in Slate this month.

And what about the feds?

It's always been a murky relationship between the feds and those states with laws authorizing medical -- and now recreational -- marijuana. Federal law says the drug's possession, manufacture, and sale is illegal, punishable by up to life in prison, and its mass cultivation is a sensitive subject among growers, experts say.

But in August, the U.S. Justice Department said it won't challenge Colorado or other states with laws legalizing recreational marijuana. Instead, federal officials will focus on serious trafficking and keeping the drug away from children.

Does this confuse you?

It should, one legal analyst says.

"They should be confused," attorney Alan Dershowitz said. "The federal government still takes the position technically that you're violating federal law if you're complying with the state law. But the Obama administration, I believe, has recently has taken a turn on its approach to drug enforcement."

Can I giggle?

Let the jokes and puns begin -- stoned or not.

Even Colorado NORML is being cheeky about it, posting online a list of what's allowable under the new recreational pot law.

It's called "Doobie-DOs."

CNN's Miguel Marquez, Ana Cabrera and Sara Weisfeldt contributed to this report.

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Egypt arrests 3 Al Jazeera journalists

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CNN.com delivers up-to-the-minute news and information on the latest top stories, weather, entertainment, politics and more.

Egypt arrests 3 Al Jazeera journalists
12/30/2013 8:38:06 AM

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

NEW: Four Al Jazeera journalists were arrested, the network said
NEW: Al Jazeera calls the arrests "arbitrary," slams "harassment" of network
The Egyptian government says at least one journalist met with Muslim Brotherhood members
The government recently declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization

(CNN) -- Egyptian security forces have arrested four Al Jazeera journalists, with the government saying at least one of them met with members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

Correspondent Peter Greste, Bureau Chief Mohamed Fahmy, producer Baher Mohamed and cameraman Mohamed Fawzy were taken into custody Sunday evening in Cairo, the network said.

The Egyptian Interior Ministry said on its Facebook page that security forces arrested a Muslim Brotherhood member and an Australian journalist at a Cairo hotel. Greste, an Australian, previously worked for CNN, Reuters and the BBC.

The ministry said the Muslim Brotherhood member used the hotel to meet with other members and as a media center to broadcast damaging news about the government for Al Jazeera.

The network demanded the journalists be released.

Calling the arrests arbitrary, Al Jazeera said the network "has been subject to harassment by Egyptian security forces," including having its equipment confiscated and offices raided, despite the network not being banned from working in Egypt.

The arrests occurred the day before the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a report saying Egypt, Syria and Iraq have become the deadliest countries for journalists. Seventy journalists were killed in 2013, with six of those deaths in Egypt, the CPJ said.

Egypt's current round of political turmoil began when former President Mohamed Morsy was removed from office in a July 3 coup.

Last week, the military-backed government declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. Police and members of the Muslim Brotherhood have clashed in the streets since then.

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Xinjiang police shoot 8 dead at station

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CNN.com delivers up-to-the-minute news and information on the latest top stories, weather, entertainment, politics and more.

Xinjiang police shoot 8 dead at station
12/31/2013 12:10:19 AM

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Police officers shoot and kill eight people and arrest one other, authorities say
The people attacked a police station in the volatile region of Xinjiang, they say
The region is beset by unrest involving the Uyghur ethnic group

(CNN) -- Police shot and killed eight people who attacked a police station in Xinjiang, a restive region in northwestern China, authorities said Monday.

Nine people armed with knives threw explosives at the building and set police cars on fire, the Xinjiang government said on its official news website. One of the people was taken into custody, the statement said, describing the attackers as "thugs."

The violence took place around 6:30 a.m. in Yarkant County in western Xinjiang and is under investigation, authorities said.

It's the latest outbreak of deadly unrest in Xinjiang, a large, resource-rich region that is home to the Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking, predominantly Muslim ethnic group.

Earlier this month, a clash in the region left 14 Uyghurs and two police officers dead, authorities said. Chinese officials said the two police officers came under attack as they were trying to apprehend suspects.

The arrival in Xinjiang of waves of Han Chinese people over the decades has fueled tensions with the Uyghurs. Chinese authorities have cracked down heavily on violence involving Uyghurs, deepening resentment.

The government statement about Monday's clash didn't specify the ethnicity of the people who fought with police.

The details of violent encounters in Xinjiang often remain murky. Uyghur diaspora groups, like the World Uyghur Congress, have criticized the Chinese government for the lack of transparency over such events.

Chinese authorities have blamed Uyghurs for a vehicle attack in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in October that killed five people -- including the three in the vehicle -- and wounded 40 others.

Xinjiang's worst violence in decades took place in July 2009, when rioting in the capital, Urumqi, between Uyghurs and Han Chinese killed some 200 people and injured 1,700. That unrest was followed by a crackdown by security forces.

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Mexican coastal highway collapses

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CNN.com delivers up-to-the-minute news and information on the latest top stories, weather, entertainment, politics and more.

Mexican coastal highway collapses
12/29/2013 7:34:34 PM

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Road is a coastal highway that runs between Tijuana and Ensenada
Driver escapes before cement truck rolls into the ocean
Officials don't know why road collapsed

Editor's note: See a photo gallery of the collapse at CNNMexico.com.

(CNN) -- Part of a picturesque toll highway that tourists use to travel between the Mexican towns of Ensenada and Tijuana collapsed this weekend, civil protection officials in Mexico said.

One of the holes created by the landslide was more than 40 feet deep and stretched 200 feet long.

A cement truck was stuck when the ground started shifting, but the driver made it out safely, officials told CNNMexico. The truck ended up tumbling into the Pacific Ocean, which is just west of the road.

Officials say it may take as long as a year to repair the damage. Building a temporary road is one option being considered, authorities said. For now, motorists will use a nearby free road.

It is unclear what caused the landslide.

According to the United States Geological Survey, a magnitude-4.6 earthquake centered about 60 miles southeast of Ensenada struck on December 19, but the events might not be connected. On the Facebook page of the Baja California Civil Protection services, officials said the road is not in an area where there is a fault line.

The damage occurred about 60 miles from Mexico's border with the United States.

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Rapper Doe B shot dead at nightclub

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CNN.com delivers up-to-the-minute news and information on the latest top stories, weather, entertainment, politics and more.

Rapper Doe B shot dead at nightclub
12/30/2013 10:12:12 AM

Rapper Doe B is seen in this concert poster promoting a recent performance.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Bullets sprayed the crowd at a club in Montgomery
The police are still searching for the shooter
The Centennial Hill Bar and Grill had been a thorn in the side of the city
The mayor shut it down after the shooting

(CNN) -- Bullets riddled a crowd at an Alabama nightclub over the weekend, according to police.

Rapper Doe B, 22, was killed, police said. So was Kimberle Johnson, 21. The barrage wounded six more people at the Centennial Hill Bar and Grill in Montgomery early Saturday.

Security guards at the club couldn't stop the shooting. Police are searching for suspects and asking for tips on Facebook to help them make arrests.

The mayor vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Doe B and gunshot wounds

Doe B was born Glenn Thomas, and is from Montgomery, his manager Frank White said.

Thomas had recently been on tour.

Colorful placards announcing his performances marked the path of his December concert rounds through his state and to Atlanta. He then returned to the club in his home town, where his life was taken.

It was not the first time he had been shot, Billboard Magazine reported. His eye was wounded in a previous shooting, and he wore an eye patch that had become his trademark.

On the cover of his new album Baby Jesus, a baby is pictured dressed like Doe B with the eye patch and with additional bullet wounds on the left arm.

Tough turf

The venue got a reputation with city officials after a shooting there last year, which local media reported. Back then it was called the Rose Supper Club, but it changed its name after the violence.

Some people vented their rage at the club over Doe B's killing Saturday in all caps on the venue's old, pre-name-change Facebook page.

"Y'all SHOULD BE CHARGED WITH MURDER," wrote Brandon King.

Montgomery's mayor shut the club down. The city had given Centennial Hill repeated warnings, Todd Strange said in a statement.

"I believe it is not a matter of 'if,' but 'when' the next tragic incident occurs at this business," he said. "That is unacceptable, and that is why we have ordered the business to be closed effective immediately."

Music of sorrow

Doe B's musician friends and compatriots poured out their hearts on Twitter.

"He was just getting started.... The future was so bright... I would have told you thank you. Rest in peace," manager White posted.

"Clubs keep lettin guns in the club as if that's not where we as artists work. We got families to go home to, f--- is wrong with y'all," said artist Machine Gun Kelly.

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Would NSA spying have stopped 9/11?

CNN.com - Top Stories

CNN.com delivers up-to-the-minute news and information on the latest top stories, weather, entertainment, politics and more.

Would NSA spying have stopped 9/11?
12/30/2013 3:10:58 PM

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

NSA and defenders say its bulk surveillance could prevent another 9/11
Peter Bergen: True story of 9/11 wasn't a failure to have enough intelligence data
He says the Bush administration failed to connect the dots, but they were plentiful
Bergen: U.S. officials often fail to properly interpret or share the data the government collects

Editor's note: Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, a director at the New America Foundation and the author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden -- From 9/11 to Abbottabad" which this article draws upon.

(CNN) -- The Obama administration has framed its defense of the controversial bulk collection of all American phone records as necessary to prevent a future 9/11.

During a House Intelligence Committee hearing on June 18, NSA director Gen. Keith Alexander said, "Let me start by saying that I would much rather be here today debating this point than trying to explain how we failed to prevent another 9/11."

This closely mirrors talking points by the National Security Agency about how to defend the program.

Peter Bergen

In the talking points, NSA officials are encouraged to use "sound bites that resonate," specifically, "I much prefer to be here today explain these programs, than explaining another 9/11 event that we were not able to prevent."

On Friday in New York, Judge William H. Pauley III ruled that NSA's bulk collection of American telephone records is lawful. He cited Alexander's testimony and quoted him saying, "We couldn't connect the dots because we didn't have the dots."

But is it really the case that the U.S. intelligence community didn't have the dots in the lead up to 9/11? Hardly.

In fact, the intelligence community provided repeated strategic warning in the summer of 9/11 that al Qaeda was planning a large-scale attacks on American interests.

Here is a representative sampling of the CIA threat reporting that was distributed to Bush administration officials during the spring and summer of 2001:

-- CIA, "Bin Ladin Planning Multiple Operations," April 20
-- CIA, "Bin Ladin Attacks May Be Imminent," June 23
-- CIA, "Planning for Bin Ladin Attacks Continues, Despite Delays," July 2
-- CIA, "Threat of Impending al Qaeda Attack to Continue Indefinitely," August 3

The failure to respond adequately to these warnings was a policy failure by the Bush administration, not an intelligence failure by the U.S. intelligence community.

A case of missed opportunities

The CIA itself also had its own spectacular failure in the run up to 9/11, which wasn't a failure to collect intelligence, but a failure of information sharing. The CIA had quite a bit of information about two of the hijackers and their presence in the United States before 9/11, which the agency didn't share with other government agencies until it was too late to do anything about it.

The government missed multiple opportunities to catch al Qaeda hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar when he was living in San Diego for a year and a half in the run up to 9/11, not because it lacked access to all Americans phone records but because it didn't share the information it already possessed about the soon-to-be hijacker within other branches of the government.

The missed opportunities in the al-Mihdhar case are well-documented. The CIA failed to "watch-list" al-Mihdhar and another suspected al Qaeda terrorist, Nawaf al-Hazmi, whom the agency had been tracking since they attended an al Qaeda summit in Malaysia on January 5, 2000.

The failure to put Mihdhar and Hamzi on a watch list meant that immigration and law enforcement authorities were not alerted to their presence when they entered the United States under their real names. Ten days after the meeting in Malaysia, on January 15, 2000, al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar flew into Los Angeles.

The CIA also did not alert the FBI about the identities of the suspected terrorists so that the bureau could look for them once they were inside the United States.

An investigation by the CIA inspector general -- published in unclassified form in 2007 -- found that this was not the oversight of a couple of agency employees but rather that a large number of CIA officers and analysts had dropped the ball. Some 50 to 60 agency employees read cables about the two al Qaeda suspects without taking any action.

Some of those officers knew that one of the al Qaeda suspects had a visa for the United States, and by March 2001, some knew that the other suspect had flown to Los Angeles.

The soon-to-be hijackers would not have been difficult to find in California if their names had been known to law enforcement. Under their real names, they rented an apartment, got driver's licenses, opened bank accounts, purchased a car and took flight lessons. Al-Mihdhar even listed his name in the local phone directory.

It was only on August 24, 2001, as a result of questions raised by a CIA officer on assignment at the FBI, that the two al Qaeda suspects were watch-listed and their names communicated to the bureau. Even then, the FBI sent out only a "routine" notice requesting an investigation of al-Mihdhar. Nothing substantive came of this request.

A month later, al-Hamzi and al-Mihdhar were two of the hijackers on American Airlines Flight 77 that plunged into the Pentagon, killing 189 people.

The CIA inspector general's report concluded that "informing the FBI and good operational follow-through by CIA and FBI might have resulted in surveillance of both al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi. Surveillance, in turn, would have had the potential to yield information on flight training, financing, and links to others who were complicit in the 9/11 attacks."

It's about the sharing

These multiple missed opportunities challenge the administration's claims that the NSA's bulk phone data surveillance program could have prevented the 9/11 attacks. The key problem was one of information sharing, not the lack of information.

Obama administration officials who defend the NSA bulk collection of phone records program cite the failure to detect al-Mihdhar's presence in San Diego before 9/11 as a reason to justify the program.

Then-FBI Director Robert Mueller argued before the House Judiciary Committee on June 13 that bulk collection of telephone records might have prevented 9/11.

"Before 9/11, there was an individual by the name of Khalid al-Mihdhar, who came to be one of the principal hijackers. He was being tracked by the intelligence agencies in the Far East. They lost track of him. At the same time, the intelligence agencies had identified an al Qaeda safe house in Yemen.

"They understood that that al Qaeda safe house had a telephone number, but they could not know who was calling into that particular safe house. We came to find out afterwards that the person who had called into that safe house was al-Mihdhar, who was in the United States in San Diego. If we had had this program in place at the time, we would have been able to identify that particular telephone number in San Diego."

As documented above, however, the government missed multiple opportunities to catch al-Mihdhar, and the failure was one of information sharing inside the U.S. intelligence community. Since we can't run history backward, all we can say with certainty is that it is an indisputable fact that the proper sharing of intelligence by the CIA with other agencies about al-Mihdhar may well have derailed the 9/11 plot. And it is merely an untestable hypothesis that if the NSA bulk phone collection program had been in place at the time that it might have helped to find the soon-to-be-hijackers in San Diego.

Indeed, the overall problem for U.S. counterterrorism officials is not that they don't gather enough information from the bulk surveillance of American phone data but that they don't sufficiently understand or widely share the information they already possess that is derived from conventional law enforcement and intelligence techniques.

An unfortunate pattern of cases

What was true of the two 9/11 hijackers living in San Diego was also the unfortunate pattern we have seen in several other significant terrorism cases:

-- Chicago resident David Coleman Headley was central to the planning of the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people. Yet, following the 9/11 attacks, U.S. authorities received plausible tips regarding Headley's associations with militant groups at least five times from his family members, friends and acquaintances. These multiple tips were never followed up in an effective fashion.

-- Maj. Nidal Hasan, a military psychiatrist, killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. Yet intelligence agencies had intercepted multiple e-mails between Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born cleric living in Yemen who was notorious for his ties to militants. The e-mails included a discussion of the permissibility in Islam of killing U.S. soldiers. Counterterrorism investigators didn't follow up on these e-mails, believing they were somehow consistent with Hasan's job as a military psychiatrist.

-- Carlos Bledsoe, a convert to Islam, fatally shot a soldier at a Little Rock, Arkansas, military recruiting office in 2009. Shortly before the attack, Bledsoe had traveled to Yemen. As a result, Bledsoe was under investigation by the FBI yet he was still able to buy the weapons he needed for his deadly attack when he was back in the United States.

-- Nigerian Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab attempted to blow up Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009 with an "underwear bomb." Luckily, the bomb failed to explode. Yet, a few weeks before the botched attack, AbdulMutallab's father contacted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria with concerns that his son had become radicalized and might be planning something. This information wasn't further investigated.

AbdulMutallab had been recruited by al Qaeda's branch in Yemen for the mission

The White House's review of the underwear bomb plot concluded that there was sufficient information known to the U.S. government to determine that AbdulMutallab was likely working for al Qaeda in Yemen and that the group was looking to expand its attacks beyond Yemen. Yet AbdulMutallab was allowed to board a plane bound for the United States without any question.

All of these serious terrorism cases argue not for the gathering of ever vaster troves of information but simply for a better understanding of the information the government has already collected and that are derived from conventional law enforcement and intelligence methods.

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Would NSA spying have stopped 9/11?