Misleading NYT Headline

Yesterday, the New York Times ran a story with the title Penalty Phase Opens With Image of Boston Marathon Bomber Making Obscene Gesture.

The title gives the impression that suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev walked into the courtroom at the sentencing phase of his trial and flashed the jury the middle finger.

After further reading, though, it becomes clear that this did not happen.

The jury was shown a video of suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from July 2013, three months after the bombing, when he was being arraigned.  Mr. Tsarnaev was alone in a holding cell in the video, wearing prison orange, when he walked up to a surveillance camera and angrily showed his middle finger.

The video image was the government’s opening move in the sentencing phase of Mr. Tsarnaev’s trial, which began Tuesday.

The previous phase of the trial was to establish guilt.  Mr. Tsarnaev is now in the sentencing phase of the trial, and may get the death penalty.

Video Shows Egyptian In Libya Becoming A Suicide Bomber

A four-minute video shows a young man identified as Mosa’ab el Mohager in the back of a car, driving near the outskirts of Benghazi.

It ends with a shot of a distant explosion, which was supposedly the explosion of the young man carrying out a “martyrdom operation” in the name of the local Libyan branch of ISIS.

“We, unfortunately, are likely to see more and more of these tapes,” said Khaled Masouri, a 27-year-old Egyptian teacher who recently returned to Cairo from a year-long teaching project in Libya. “There are many Egyptians flocking to these jihadi groups.”

Thousands of Egyptians are estimated to be fighting with ISIS in Iraq and Syria, states BuzzFeed.

Egypt’s military has openly bombed ISIS targets in Libya.

However, Egyptian officials fear that thousands more Egyptioans could join the ISIS militants that it’s attacking, in a country that it shares a long, porous border with.

More here

Female Suicide Bomber Kills 10 In Nigerian Bus Station

A female suicide bomber blew herself up at a crowded bus station in the northeast Nigerian city of Damaturu on Sunday.  It was in a region that is frequently attacked by Islamist militants.  It killed 10 people and wounding 30, police said.

Witness Adamu Muhammad said he heard a loud blast and people at an area called Damaturu Motor Park and things “descended into panic.”

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, which bore the hallmarks of Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram.  Boko Haram’s use of female suicide bombers has been a new trend over the past year.

The attack comes hours after members of the Boko Haram lunched an attack in the city of Gombe.  That attack was pushed back.