People

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Terror and the moderate imam

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Three San Diego men appeared in federal court on Wednesday, charged with aiding the terrorist organization Al-Shabaab. You can read details of the indictment at Courthouse News Service. Al-Shabaab is an Islamic insurgent group that is active in Somalia. It’s officially linked to Al Qaeda, has an arm just for targeting Jews, and has been involved in everything from embassy bombings to attempts on the life of a Dutch cartoonist who drew images of Muhammad.


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'Faith' is now a dirty word?

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A few months ago, Cathy Lynn Grossman spotted American Public Radio Krista Tippett’s transition from “Speaking of Faith” to “Kristen Tippett on Being.” Apparently Tippett’s name was a bigger draw than “faith,” or something like that. Now Tippett is plugging her show on CNN’s Belief blog.


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Symbolic details behind the Metro story

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I was on the Washington, D.C., Metro today (my normal commute is by rail from Baltimore) and, as you would imagine, things were a bit tense. Maybe I am wrong, but I think there was more security out than normal.


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Teasing out terror ties

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News broke this week that Farooque Ahmed had been arrested in connection with an alleged plot to bomb Metro stations here in Washington, D.C. The first draft of the story I read didn’t mention anything about religion but the mentioned ties to al-Qaeda and Pakistan suggested it might become a part of the story. When the breaking news story was updated by the Washington Post, we got:


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Religious voices: Beck, Colbert & Leibowitz

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This morning, I received my annual email from The Jewish Daily Forward, announcing the “Forward 50,” the newspaper’s list of the year’s 50 women and men who have made a “significant impact on the Jewish story in the past year.”


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Juan gets cut off short -- again

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So Juan Williams gave a lecture — on the legacy of Justice Thurgood Marshall — at the University of Maryland School of Law, where he received a standing ovation from a pack of lawyers from Baltimore. That, my friends, is not a Fox News crowd.


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The ghosts (of babies) on Facebook

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Before I jump into the heart of this piece, let me clearly state that I know it is possible to write an accurate, powerful and even emotional story about the following issue while leaving religious and moral issues completely out of the mix. After all, the Washington Post just published exactly that kind of news report.


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