Homeland Security

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican-controlled House panel moved Thursday to protect the Department of Homeland Security from the big cuts facing other domestic agencies under the party's budget slashing plan.

The move came as the Appropriations Committee leadership privately circulated plans to drastically reduce spending for labor, education and health programs, foreign and housing aid, the Environmental Protection Agency and transportation.

Just miles from New York City’s hallowed Ground Zero, an Internet server in New Jersey hosts a Jihadist leader’s website that instructs supporters of al-Qaida to use explosive devices against western civilians, along with blueprints showing how to build the bombs.

Another website, hosted on a server located in Miami, provides Hezbollah – designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department – a platform for its television website al-Manar.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman says failures by national security agencies tainted investigations into the Boston bombing plotters — and says the scheme could have been discovered beforehand.

Lieberman testified Thursday at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on the attacks. He says it would hard, but not impossible, for law enforcement to uncover the bombing plot before the Tsarnaev  brothers allegedly set off two blasts that killed three people and injured more than 100 people last month.

Dias Kadyrbayev was driving back to his apartment when he got a call from a college buddy. A clearly anxious Robel Phillipos told him authorities had released photos of the alleged Boston Marathon bombers — and one of them looked very familiar.

When he got home, Kadrybayev turned on the television to see a shaggy-haired Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, his friend, classmate and, by then, one of the most wanted men in the world.