A man was able to get on a flight from Atlanta to Chicago with a loaded semi-automatic handgun without being detected by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials.
According to Blake Alford, the man who accidentally brought the gun on the flight, the incident took place on November 5th- less than a week after a Russian flight was was reportedly bombed out of the sky by ISIS.
“How could the TSA not have spotted it?” Alford, 67, told the Daily Mail Online. “Especially as it was just a few days after the Russian plane blew up.”
Alford told the Daily Mail that he didn’t realize that he had taken his gun- a Ruger .380 semi-automatic pistol on the flight until he pulled it out of his backpack after arriving at this destination.
“If we find that standard procedures were not adhered to, we will retrain employees as necessary to ensure compliance with standard operating procedures. When our employees fail to meet standards, we hold them appropriately accountable,” the TSA said in a statement obtained by the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
The incident is sure to raise eyebrows across the security community, especially in light of the events of the terror attacks in Paris last Friday.
WATCH: Man brings loaded gun on flight and TSA didn’t know.
H/T: WFLA
Cover Photo Credit: David Rosen/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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Millennial From Miami Among Those Killed In Bangladesh Terror Attack
Miami native Abinta Kabir was among the 20 killed in a terror attack in Dhaka, Bangladesh yesterday.
Kabir was killed in the attack at the Holey Artisan Bakery, a popular upscale destination that was full of foreigners at the time of the incident.
Kabir was a rising sophomore at Emory University and was one of two students killed from that institution in the attack.
Faraaz Hossain was the other Emory student killed.
“Abinta, who was from Miami, was a rising sophomore at Emory’s Oxford College,” A Facebook statement from Emory read. “Faraaz, who was from Dhaka, was a 2016 graduate of Oxford College and a student at the university’s Goizueta Business School.
“The Emory community mourns this tragic and senseless loss of two members of our university family. Our thoughts and prayers go out on behalf of Faraaz and Abinta and their families and friends for strength and peace at this unspeakably sad time.”
The Indian Government also said that one of its nationals with ties to an American college was killed in the attack.
Tarishi Jain was studying at the University of California Berkley according to the Indian Government.
According to the New York Daily News, Kabir was killed by terrorists in the bakery after she was unable to recite certain Quranic verses.
From the Daily News:
“Kabir’s cousin said the 18-year-old, who was born in Bangladesh, traveled to Dkaha earlier this week and planned to spend part of her summer vacation visiting family and friends.
She went to the café after Iftar, an evening meal Muslims eat during the month of Ramadan, to meet up with friends, Afsara Adiba said in a Facebook post.
“But she didn’t (come) back alive!” Adina wrote. “I just don’t get it she and the other people were innocent.””
This is a developing story. Stay with RISE NEWS.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in public affairs. You can write for us.
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Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain Is The Biggest Badass In American History
The Civil War is inarguably full of badasses.
From generals like Ulysses S. Grant to spies and medics like Harriet Tubman and Clara Barton, they’re spread out all over the battlefields, like coffee cups in a college library during Finals Week.
“Come with me if you want to live.” Photo Credit: Keith Rowley/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
With all these candidates, it’s hard to say any one of them is the bravest or most accomplished.
But this isn’t about any quantifiable accomplishment.
It’s about fancy battle shenanigans that would look awesome if they were adapted into a movie (which they were).
It’s about explosions and bloodshed and battle-lust and glory.
Which brings us to our biggest badass of American history: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.
Pictured: Chamberlain’s drink of choice. Photo Credit: Jon Roberts/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
This dude was a college professor from Maine who heard there was a war going on, so he saddled up and volunteered to join the Union army.
Said Union army was only too happy to get him, and made him lieutenant colonel, which is a phrase that usually refers to people who’ve had at least some experience with military strategy, with the exception of our man Joshua.
Luckily, Chamberlain was a fast learner, and after scanning every military work he could get his hands on and going through a steeper-than-Everest learning curve, he was all set to be second-in-command of the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment.
Fast-forward to the Battle of Gettysburg.
While the Union forces were suffering setbacks, Confederate soldiers attacked their left flank.
The 20th Maine happened to be at the far left, next to a small hill called, appropriately, Little Round Top.
They hold position, and after a period of harsh fighting, Chamberlain orders a bayonet charge on the Confederates.
That mustache tho. Photo Credit: NightThree/ Wikimedia. Photo Credit:
They run down the hill, the entire line swinging nonstop, until finally Chamberlain gets to the guy leading the assault.
He orders the Confederate officer to surrender, and the officer whips out a pistol and shoots him in the face.
And actually misses, but Chamberlain doesn’t even flinch, just puts his sword to the guy’s throat until he gets an official surrender.
They take 101 Confederate soldiers prisoner.
Chamberlain gets a Medal of Honor for this, and goes on to top that at Petersburg.
And that’s saying a lot considering that he probably saved the Union from defeat at Gettysburg and therefore the country from splitting in two.
Unfortunately, there’s no Medal of Superhonor, but if there was, he’d totally have earned it.
If you imagine a storm with bullets instead of raindrops, that might look something like Petersburg – Chamberlain’s directing the action, the bullets are flying, and all of a sudden a Confederate bullet tears through his side, crushing his hipbones and ripping into his bladder and urethra.
So Chamberlain’s suffered what’s basically a mortal wound, by the standards back then (and also, probably, by our standards, just from the sheer pain factor).
Surprisingly, his first thought isn’t “oh, jeez, I’m gonna die,” but, rather, “dying right now would be bad for morale, so I’m just gonna walk it off.”
Which he does.
He uses his saber as a crutch to stay upright, while blood is POURING from his vitals, and continues to direct the assault.
He holds himself up by spit and stamina until he can’t anymore, and he collapses, and when the surgeons get to the field he yells at them to go and save his men instead.
Now that’s badassery.
But, of course, the surgeons don’t take orders from commanding officers, so they go ahead and treat his wounds anyway.
He survives, continues to survive for a bunch of other battles, literally getting his horse shot out from under him a few times, and goes on to preside over the surrender at Appomattox.
Proving that he’s a gallant winner as well as a badass, he orders his men to stand at attention and carry arms in a show of respect for their defeated countrymen.
A general would later call him “one of the knightliest soldiers of the Federal Army.”
Now here’s the part where it gets gross.
The Wikipedia article states that he suffered from complications due to his wounds in the Battle of Petersburg, but that doesn’t even begin to describe how much it just. Sucked.
To get shot in the Civil War era and have to live with a hole in your bladder burning like the fires of hell for decades.
He had to wear a Civil War era catheter, which was like a modern-day catheter except ten times worse.
…not fun. Photo Credit: Wellcome Image/ Wikimedia
Because sanitation at the time was not exactly the greatest, his wounds got infected, and left him in what he described as “unspeakable agony” for almost fifty years.
Still, he kept going, running for governor of Maine and getting elected with the support of the Republican Party – this was back when the Republicans were the guys up north – giving speeches at soldiers’ reunions, and even helping to found the Maine Institution for the Blind.
His later years lacked the glory and excitement of his battlefield, but were at least as commendable, if not more so.
At 85, in 1914, he died as he lived – a major badass.
Moment of silence for this BAMF
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in the world. You can write for us.
Cover Photo Credit: Library of Congress/ Wikimedia Commons
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NY Times Op-Ed Suggets Sunny Isles Beach Russians Could Be Key To Mueller Investigation
What’s News With This Story:
– In a much talked about op-ed in the New York Times, the founders of Fusion GPS defended their investigation into Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential campaign.
-The founders of the research firm and authors of the piece, Glenn R. Simpson and Peter Fritsch pushed back against what they saw as Congressional Republican efforts to “chase rabbits” instead of going after the “bear”- President Donald Trump.
–They said that in Congressional testimony, they informed members of Congress that they were concerned by the level of Russian involvement in the election.
-Here’s the point that should draw attention to those in South Florida: “We told Congress that from Manhattan to Sunny Isles Beach, Fla., and from Toronto to Panama, we found widespread evidence that Mr. Trump and his organization had worked with a wide array of dubious Russians in arrangements that often raised questions about money laundering. Likewise, those deals don’t seem to interest Congress.”
–Sunny Isles Beach has become an area in recent years where scores of Russian families live.
–There is also the Trump International Beach Resort located in Sunny Isles Beach.
Read Another Story:
This Millennial Haitian-American Activist Is Not Backing Down From A Fight With Trump
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Cover Photo Credit: Leandro Neumann Ciuffo
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