9/11 link to militant in plot in Europe

9/11 link to militant in plot in Europe

HAMBURG, Germany

The Islamic militant whose disclosures under U.S. interrogation in Afghanistan triggered Europe’s terror alert is an old friend of a man convicted in the 9/11 attacks and, as the strikes were being planned, frequented the same mosque where the Hamburg-based plotters often met, officials say.

Hamburg security officials in August shuttered the Taiba mosque, known until two years ago as al-Quds, because of fears it was becoming a magnet for homegrown extremists who, unlike foreigners, could not be expelled from the country.

Toxicity of sludge flow declines

KOLONTAR, Hungary

The concentration of toxic heavy metals where Hungary’s massive red-sludge spill entered the Danube has dropped to the level allowed in drinking water, authorities said Friday, easing fears that Europe’s second-longest river would be significantly polluted.

Monday’s reservoir break at an alumina plant dumped up to 184 million gallons of sludge onto three villages, government officials said, not much less in a few hours than the 200 million gallons the blown-out BP oil well gushed into the Gulf of Mexico over several months.

Policeman arrested in several shootings

LYNWOOD, Ill.

Authorities said Friday they arrested a small-town police officer in a series of apparently random shootings along the Illinois-Indiana border that left one man dead and two wounded.

The case has unnerved residents in the rural towns since the shootings began earlier this week. Investigators said a disheveled man approached his victims with strange questions, asking about honeybees or construction material, before pulling out a gun.

Brian Dorian, 37, was arrested on a murder warrant and held on $2.5 million bail, said Chuck Pelkie, a spokesman for the Will County state’s attorney’s office.

Order lets girl with piercing into class

RALEIGH, N.C.

A federal judge ordered a North Carolina school to admit a 14-year-old high school student suspended for wearing a nose piercing she says is part of her religion, and the teenager headed to science class Friday afternoon.

U.S. District Judge Malcolm Howard on Friday ordered the Johnston County schools to suspend enforcement of their dress code for Ariana Iacono and allow her to return to school immediately. The judge ruled that the girl and her mother are likely to prevail in the lawsuit filed on their behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union.

National security adviser is quitting

WASHINGTON

Gen. James Jones, the gruff-talking military man President Barack Obama drafted as his national security adviser, announced Friday he was quitting after a tenure marked by ambitious foreign policy changes and undercurrents of corrosive turf battles.

Jones will be replaced by his chief deputy, Tom Donilon, a former Democratic political operative and lobbyist who in many ways already is the day-to-day leader of the White House national security operation.

Escape shaft nears Chilean miners

SAN JOSE MINE, Chile

Drillers neared the lower reaches of a gold-and-copper mine where 33 men have been trapped for more than two months, preparing Friday for a breakthrough that would unleash a national outpouring of joy.

Engineers had just the last 128 feet of rock to carve through and were working carefully to keep the T130 drill from jamming or punching through with too much force, Mining Minister Laurence Golborne said.

Associated Press