This is a breaking story, so stay tuned.  Details are sketchy. Here’s what we know so far.  West Virginia State Police and U.S. Secret Service agents shut down part of interstate 68 in West Virginia following an alert of a 42-year-old male heading to Washington DC to carry out a threat against President Trump and the Pentagon.

State police, ATF and FBI officers responded. A 42-year old male has been apprehended.  I-68 is now re-opened. A vehicle search revealed a firearm and explosive powder.

W-VA – […] State Police Captain Shallon Oglesby said the shutdown came after a routine traffic stop at about 10:30 a.m. Wednesday for speeding along the eastbound lanes.
The trooper determined that the stop would require an “in-depth investigation” leading to the shutdown, Oglesby said.
State Police and Preston officials would not confirm reports that the incident involves explosives.

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Everything about last year’s headline story just two-weeks before the mid-term election was weird; including the refusal of the FBI to state what ‘specifically’ was the material suspect Cesar Sayoc was accused of using to create his Acme looking pipe bombs.
[Full Indictment Here]
You might remember: FBI Director Christopher Wray outlined during his remarks that the devices consisted of PVC pipe, clocks, batteries, wiring and “energetic material that can become combustible when subjected to heat or friction”.
The FBI director went out of his way to state: “these were not hoax devices.”  The DOJ then moved to seal all court filings and the case against the nut continued behind the curtain of ‘national security’.  Suspect Cesar Sayoc was scheduled to go on trial this summer on charges relating to the pipe bombs.  However, today he entered a guilty plea before a federal judge in New York.

(Via Washington Post) Cesar Sayoc, the Florida man accused of mailing explosive devices to more than a dozen politicians and media figures who have been critical of President Trump, pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court.

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A crazed Senegalese migrant kidnapped a bus loaded with 51 middle-school-aged students near Milan Italy.  The suspect attempted to burn the bus with the students inside, but fortunately police were able to rescue the children as the fire started.

One of the children was able to hide their cell phone and call for help.  An alarming story and rescue that was caught on video by a passing motorist.

(Via Daily Mail)  A Senegalese man abducted 51 children when he hijacked an Italian school bus and set the vehicle alight in a protest over migrant deaths in the Mediterranean.

Ousseynou Sy, originally Senegalese but with Italian citizenship, stopped the bus he was driving, with two classes of high school students on board.

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(DOJ-NSD ) A federal grand jury sitting in Albuquerque, New Mexico returned a superseding indictment on March 13 charging Jany Leveille, 36, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 40, Hujrah Wahhaj, 38, Subhanah Wahhaj, 36, and Lucas Morton, 41, with federal offenses related to terrorism, kidnapping and firearms violations.

All of the defendants are currently in custody awaiting trial.

The announcement was made by Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers for the National Security Division, U.S. Attorney John C. Anderson for the District of New Mexico, Assistant Director Michael McGarrity of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division and Special Agent in Charge James Langenberg of the FBI’s Albuquerque Field Office.

These defendants were previously charged by indictment on Sept. 11, 2018, with a conspiracy relating to the possession of firearms and ammunition by an alien illegally and unlawfully in the United States.  The original indictment also charged Leveille with possessing firearms and ammunition as an alien illegally and unlawfully in the United States.
The superseding indictment charges all of the defendants with participating in a conspiracy from October 2017 to August 2018 to provide material support and resources, including currency, training, weapons, and personnel, knowing and intending that they were to be used in preparation for and in carrying out attacks to kill officers and employees of the United States, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2339A.
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Chairman Lindsey Graham appears on late-night-interuptus to discuss his Senate Judiciary investigation into allegations of FISA abuse, etc.

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Erick Jamal Hendricks (38) of Charlotte, North Carolina, (pictured left) was sentenced to 15 years in prison for attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State.
Last year a jury in Akron Ohio convicted Hendricks after he recruited a guy named Amir Al-Ghazi to carry out a terrorist attack in the U.S.  Hendricks sentencing was today.
At Hendricks instruction another terrorist named Al-Ghazi attempted to purchase an AK-47 to carry out an attack.
Al-Ghazi was stopped by undercover federal law enforcement after it was discovered that he had pledged allegiance to ISIS in social media and made statements expressing interest in conducting attacks in the U.S.
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Earlier today President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Dover Air Force Base to participate in a solemn tribute to fallen Americans.  President Trump saluted the casket carrying civilian contractor Scott A. Wirtz of St. Louis, Missouri, as his body was carried from a C-17 military aircraft into a waiting van.

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Scott Wirtz and three other Americans were killed in a suicide bombing Wednesday in the northern Syrian town of Manbij.  He was assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency as an operations support specialist.
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Earlier today President Trump, Vice-President Pence and Acting Defense Secretary Shanahan delivered remarks to a pentagon audience surrounding the current missile defense review.

[Transcript] The Pentagon – Arlington, Virginia – 11:25 A.M. EST
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Acting Secretary Shanahan, Secretary Mark Esper, Secretary Wilson, distinguished members of Congress, members of the Joint Chiefs, the leadership of the Armed Forces of the United States, and to all of you who wear the uniform of the United States of America. It is my honor to be with you here today at the Pentagon as our President unveils his vision for our renewed commitment to American missile defense.
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CTH has some new readers, so against the backdrop of the UniParty in Washington DC jumping into action to criticize President Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria; perhaps a little factual historic refresher is in order….

On September 30th 2016 the New York Times quietly released a leaked audio recording of Secretary John Kerry meeting with multiple factions associated within Syria.
The 40-minute discussion took place on the sidelines of a United Nations General Assembly in New York. The meeting took place at the Dutch Mission to the United Nations on Sept. 22nd 2016:

[…] Kerry’s off-record conversation was apparently with two dozen ‘Syrian civilians’, all from US backed opposition-linked NGO’s in education and medical groups supposedly working in ‘rebel-held’ (aka terrorist-held) areas in Syria.
This opposition conclave also included ‘rescue workers’ which can only be ambassadors from the White Helmets, a pseudo NGO which serves as Washington and London’s primary PR front in pursuit of a “No Fly Zone’ in Syria, and it’s being bankrolled by the US, UK, EU and other coalition states to the tune of well over $100 million (so far). (link)

When you listen to the audio recording (embedded below) it becomes immediately obvious what was going on in 2014, 2015 and 2016 as an outcome of policy from the White House. In addition, you discover why this jaw-dropping 2016 leak/story was buried by the U.S. media and how it connects to the prior 4 years of perplexing U.S. mid-east policy.
This evidence within this single story would/should forever remove any credibility toward the U.S. foreign policy under President Obama. It also destroys the credibility of a large number of well known republicans, and explains how the prior action placed President Trump into a precarious position requiring a careful approach.
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A known individual on a “terror watch list” opened fire at a Christmas Market in Strasbourg France.

[Via NBC] Two people are dead and at least 11 injured in a shooting Tuesday night in the French city of Strasbourg, with police searching for a suspect who is on a terrorist watch list.

The shooting took place around 8 p.m. near a Christmas market in the French-German border city of Strasbourg that attracts millions of tourists every year.

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