CATONSVILLE, Md. — President Barack Obama paid his first visit to a U.S. mosque on Wednesday, but he chose one that has ties with controversial teachers and leaders, including one who has preached that homosexuality is immoral and "something which we despise."
A former leader of the mosque, Imam Mohamad Adam el-Sheikh, has been tied to an al-Qaeda front group, and left the Baltimore mosque to lead the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia, where radical American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki had preached, Fox News reported Monday. Al-Awlaki went on to Yemen, where he recruited for a branch of al-Qaeda before he was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2011.
STATE HOUSE — Supreme Judicial Court Justice Robert Cordy plans to retire in August, the court announced Wednesday, creating the first opportunity for Gov. Charlie Baker to make an appointment to the state's highest court.
