What’s interesting in the news today?

We’ll start with the good news…..

1. The man who helped save others from the Paris gunmen is being rewarded.

From TheIndependent  “The Malian national who was hailed as a hero for helping hostages to safety during the kosher supermarket siege in Paris is to be given French citizenship, French media have reported.

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2. Good Kitty!

From TheNYPost  “Eat your heart out, Lassie!

Masha, a long-haired tabby cat, saved the life of a baby abandoned in the streets of Russia — after she climbed into the box he was discarded in and kept him warm, health officials said.

“The baby had only been outside for a few hours and thanks to Masha … he was not damaged by the experience,” a hospital spokesman told Central European News.

The whiskered hero even meowed to get the attention of a passerby.

“She is very placid and friendly, so when I heard her meowing, I thought that perhaps she had injured herself,” said Obninsk city resident Irina Lavrova. “Normally she would have come and said hello to me. You can imagine my shock when I saw her lying in a box next to a baby.””

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3. Police have foiled another terrorist plot in Belgium.

From ABCNews  “Two suspects died in a gunfight as authorities searched locations they believe are tied to a terror plot in Belgium, an official said.

The deaths occurred after individuals at a location in Verviers, Belgium, opened fire on police with automatic weapons, Magistrate Eric Van der Sypt said. Besides the two suspects killed, a third was arrested, he said, adding that no police or civilians were injured.

A neighbor at the apparent site of the confrontation in Verviers, near the city of Liege, told ABC News he heard two explosions and dozens of gunshots over about five minutes, and that four or five police cars remained on the scene afterwards.”

“”These search warrants were executed in an investigation concerning several people who we think are an operational cell concerning certain people who came back from Syria,” Van der Sypt said. “During the investigation, we found that this group was about to commit terrorist attacks in Belgium.”

Operations were ongoing into the evening in multiple parts of Belgium, including in Molenbeek, Brussels and Vilvoorde, a federal police official told ABC News.”

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4. Islamic threats and terror training centers in the US? Yep. But don’t worry, our govt. says they’re watching them. I feel safer already… 🙄

From FoxNews  “Mauro discussed five top organizations linked to Islamic extremism that are located in the United States.

One such example is the hamlet of Islamberg in the Town of Hancock, New York. Located 145 northwest of New York City, the secluded community is home to an unknown number of Muslims inspired by Sufi cleric Sheikh Syed Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani. Mauro said the compound is spread across 60-70 acres. 

He showed O’Reilly a video given to him by a law enforcement source that shows members marching with rifles in apparent guerilla warfare training. As the group, Muslims of the Americas, is not designated as a foreign terrorist organization, they are able to operate in the United States with little more than FBI ‘monitoring’, Mauro said.

Another notable location is the Dar-al Hijrah mosque in the Seven Corners section of Falls Church, Va. The mosque was once led by Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen killed overseas after joining al Qaeda. The mosque, near Washington, D.C., is now led by an imam who Mauro noted has said ‘Muslims shall be first in line for the arms for jihad.”

Siraj Wahhaj, a radical imam whom O’Reilly discussed earlier this week, runs the Masjid At Taqwa mosque in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. Wahhaj will be speaking at an upcoming conference in Texas.  Mauro called him “one of the most radical imams in the country.” 

That last mosque in Brooklyn should sound familiar. It’s the one attended by the man who recently assassinated two NYC policemen before killing himself.

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5. Duke University must’ve had a moment of clarity.

From MSN  “Duke University has canceled its plan to use the tower of its chapel for a weekly, amplified call to prayer for Muslims.

In a release Thursday, the university said Muslims will instead gather on the quadrangle before heading into a room in the chapel for their weekly prayer service.

“Duke remains committed to fostering an inclusive, tolerant and welcoming campus for all of its students,” said Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations. “However, it was clear that what was conceived as an effort to unify was not having the intended effect.”

Under the canceled plan, members of the school’s Muslim Students Association would have recited the call lasting about three minutes from the bell tower. However, the plan drew the ire of evangelist Franklin Graham, the son of the Rev. Billy Graham, who urged Duke alumni to withhold support because of violence against Christians that he attributed to Muslims. He wrote on Facebook that the decision is playing out as “Christianity is being excluded from the public square.””

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