Newark terminal reopens after shutdown
NEWARK, N.J., Jan. 4 (UPI) -- A man who walked into a secure area prompted a five-hour shutdown of a terminal at Newark Liberty International Airport Sunday, officials said.
The Transportation Security Administration and airline officials said authorities were searching for the man and trying to identify him from surveillance video, The (Newark) Star-Ledger reported.
The TSA says reviewing video from airport cameras might help authorities retrace the man's steps -- and possibly determine if he went out of the secure area the wrong way and then went back or if he never went through screening.
"A male individual was observed walking the wrong way down an exit lane in Terminal C at Newark Liberty Airport," TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis said. "TSA was notified and we immediately halted screening at the security checkpoints in Terminal C and worked with the Port Authority to pull the surveillance tapes in the area to determine what transpired and see if we could identify the individual in question."
Davis said a security officer should have been at the exit lane.
"TSA is reviewing the circumstances to find out exactly what happened -- and will take any disciplinary action as necessary," the TSA spokeswoman said.
Rescreening of thousands of passengers, being called in groups of 25, began around 10:30 p.m., The Star-Ledger reported.
The shutdown had halted all flights departing from Terminal C, which mainly serves Continental Airlines, even those with passengers already aboard.
Police officers from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport, were assisting the TSA in the investigation, a Port Authority spokesman said.
The airport, about 15 miles from Manhattan, handles about 35 million passengers a year, making it among the nation's busiest.
Obama doll found hanging by rope
PLAINS, Ga., Jan. 4 (UPI) -- The U.S. Secret Service is investigating the hanging of a doll of President Obama by a rope from a sign in Plains, Ga., home of former President Jimmy Carter.
Several people said they saw the effigy hanging from a downtown building before it was removed, WTVM-TV, Columbia, Ga., reported Sunday.
"It's wrong with what they did to Obama but I'm not shocked by it," Plains resident Trevor Sims said. "It's a nice place to live but some people still out there don't like it (Obama's presidency)."
Store owners say the incident reflects badly on the home of the 39th president.
The Plains Police Department and the Sumter County Sheriff's Office were notified of the matter, the television station reported.
Kenya to deport Jamaican cleric
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- A Jamaican Islamic cleric arrested in Kenya will be deported because of alleged terror links, a government minister said Monday.
Kenyan Cabinet minister Otieno Kajwang said he has signed a deportation order for Sheik Abdullah al-Faisal, who will be deported to Jamaica after allegedly sneaking into Kenya through the Lunga Lunga border point from Tanzania, The Daily Nation reported.
Kajwang noted al-Faisal, who was arrested last week in Mombasa, is on an international terrorism watch list and would not have been allowed into the country if he had entered through Jomo Kenyatta International Airport or any other entry point linked to Kenya's "E-border" control system.
"I have already signed his deportation letter and he will be deported back to his country at the earliest opportunity," Kajwang told the newspaper. "The information we have is that he was arrested in Britain and jailed five years ago on terrorism-related charges. We are not deporting him because he is a Muslim."
Kenya has reportedly been criticized by he Muslim Human Rights Forum that Muslim clerics were being unfairly targeted.
Four U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Four U.S. soldiers died in a roadside explosion in Afghanistan, making them the first U.S. casualties of the war in the New Year, military officials said.
The four were killed Sunday in the violence-plagued southern region of the country but the location was not given, the Los Angeles Times reported. Their deaths come days after seven U.S. Central Intelligence Agency agents died in a suicide bomb attack.
A British soldier also was killed Sunday in a separate explosion also in the south.
Last month, U.S. President Barack Obama announced ordering an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan.
A Taliban commander told the BBC with more U.S. troops in Afghanistan, more of them would die.
Report: Five dead in missile firings
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Two missiles fired by a drone killed five people, three of them Arabs, in a village in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area, sources told Dawn newspaper.
The attack Sunday night in Mosaki village targeted a house, the report in Pakistan's English-language newspaper said.
Local people were quoted as saying the other two killed in the attack were the son and grandson of the owner of the residential compound.
