BBC News: Guantanamo Bay hearings have resumed after five months, with five men appearing before a US military tribunal. The defendants, the most high profile of which is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who allegedly admitted to masterminding the 9/11 attacks, “are charged with conspiring with al-Qaeda, terrorism and one count of murder for each known victim of the 11 September attacks at the time the charges were filed.”
Salon: Steven Matthew Fernandes, an 18 year old “militia leader” arrested last month after reports of bomb-making and the amassing of an “arsenal of weapons”, planned “mass killings” and “bragged about plans to shoot people on the Las Vegas strip.”
Huffington Post: The leader of Focus on the Family, an organization “known for its vitriolic campaigns against gay rights”, has spoken of widening the group’s platform “to include everything from immigration reform to decreasing poverty and increasing adoptions and foster care opportunities.” Jim Daly has suggested that a previous fixation on homosexuality was a distraction from more important goals and appears to have softened his group’s public stance on the issue, whilst maintaining the private belief that homosexuality is sinful.
Metro.us: “New York groups want a federal hate crime probe into the alleged assault of a Muslim cabbie after charges were dropped against the banker accused of slashing him.”
The Oregonian: TriMet, Oregon’s largest transit agency, “said Monday it has no choice but to allow an inflammatory advertisement describing the foes of Israel as ‘savage’ to go up on buses and trains.”
Comment: Center for American Progress: Crosby Burns discusses the potential conflict between “religious freedom” and gay rights, pointing out that several organizations are “trying to use religion to discriminate against gay individuals, even when doing so is illegal under state law.”
