Scary Times

…secret group of fewer than 10 people — formed in April 2014 in North Dakota, Texas and Michigan — discovered that getting a license and then ordering enough materials to make a dirty bomb was strikingly simple in one of their three tries. Sellers were preparing shipments that together were enough to poison a city center when the operation was shut down.

The team’s members could have been anyone — a terrorist outfit, emissaries of a rival government, domestic extremists. In fact, they were undercover bureaucrats with the investigative arm of Congress.…

A JetBlue Airways flight attendant reportedly called the police right after landing at Los Angeles, as she didn’t appreciate being stared at by two Muslim female passengers. …Saturday evening, on JetBlue Airways flight B6487 which departed from Boston… and landed at Los Angeles International Airport… … one of the crew members thought that two women were recording a security procedure. …when the plane landed, authorities escorted the women off the plane and questioned them. The women explained that they were using a language translation app on their phone, and were released. …

So there's this guy in Arlington, Virginia who was walking around with his Confederate/Gadsden hybrid flag (it's basically a Confederate Battle flag with the Gadsden "Don't Tread on Me" snake in the middle). And, according to this, some "concerned citizen" (nosy neighbor is more like it) snapped a picture of the guy and then called 911 because the guy was "walking very deliberately" with his flag. He wasn't talking to anyone or harrassing anybody or trespassing on private property. Just - walking around with his flag. …

...A rapidly increasing stream of New Age believers – or esoterics, as locals call them – have descended in their camper van-loads on the usually picturesque and tranquil Pyrenean village of Bugarach. They believe that when apocalypse strikes on 21 December this year, the aliens waiting in their spacecraft inside Pic de Bugarach will save all the humans near by and beam them off to the next age.

As the cataclysmic date – which, according to eschatological beliefs and predicted astrological alignments, concludes a 5,125-year cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar – nears, the goings-on around the peak have become more bizarre and ritualistic....

the man supplied a Texas driver's license to police called to investigate a suspicious person report. But police say the man, who arrived on a flight from Dulles International Airport and was carrying a black duffel bag, couldn't get his birth date right on the first try. Investigators say he fled, tossing away a wallet containing counterfeit ID cards from states including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and Florida. The man was captured outside the airport

Oklahoma City Hall is open again after a suspicious package found outside the building was deemed safe. City officials said the package was found in a trash can on the south side of the building at 201 N Walker.