SALT LAKE CITY — Becky Lockhart, the first woman to serve as Utah House speaker, was honored Thursday as a role model, a wife and mother, and a caring colleague who loved lawmaking.

“Utah is a better place because Becky Lockhart served here and contributed so much to all of us,” Gov. Gary Herbert said during a memorial service at the state Capitol, where more than 1,000 people, including many state officials, gathered to remember her.

Lockhart, 46, died at home Saturday after a brief battle with a fatal and extremely rare neurodegenerative brain disease known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease or CJD.

Her daughter, Emily Britton, spoke of how Lockhart brought her three children “along on her dream,” letting them spend a day with her at the Legislature throughout her 16 years in office.

“My mom understood the best way to teach her children how to love their state and love their country was to involve us,” Britton said, describing their shared days during legislative sessions as “just as exciting as our birthdays.”

Britton, who met her future husband when both were legislative interns, recalled “girl talk” with her mother about the romance at the speaker’s dais. Britton said she, her sister Hannah and her brother Stephen, now on an LDS Church mission, “are children of the Utah House.”

Lockhart’s successor, House Speaker-elect Greg Hughes, R-Draper, said while he learned much from her, “of all the things she has taught me, she left me unprepared for a day like this. She’s still our speaker.”

Legislative leaders had planned to pay tribute to Lockhart, who did not run for re-election, on the opening day of the 2015 Legislature on Monday and present her with a painting of the state Capitol.

Lockhart wouldn’t want lawmakers to dwell on her passing, he said.

“She didn’t have a lot of time for a lot of moping and a lot of feeling sorry, maybe for her, for ourselves,” Hughes said. “She would tell us to get to work, tell us to get going. That’s what I want to remember.”

Elder D. Todd Christofferson, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said “there’s no question Becky Lockhart’s life was one of depth and accomplishment,” both politically and personally.

“She’s a wonderful example of the civic engagement that is the lifeblood of democracy and of a life well lived in the service of others,” Elder Christofferson said, describing the loss of someone so young as seeming “to come from a particularly bitter measure of sorrow.”

The Most Rev. John C. Wester of the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City offered the invocation, citing Lockhart’s “example of strength in leadership, selflessness in public service, devotion to family, trust in God’s providence, inspiration to women and gratitude for a life fully lived.”

Those who worked closely with Lockhart on Capitol Hill recalled both her toughness and her tenderness.

Catherine Dupont, associate general counsel to the Legislature, said Lockhart could be tough on those who crossed her politically but also compassionate, shedding tears and giving hugs.

“She loved her fellow legislators, and she took time out for that human touch,” Dupont said.

One of Lockhart’s lasting legacies, she said, should be the realization that “woman can have a family, can be intelligent and can step forward and run for office and serve her community.”

Former House Minority Leader David Litvack, who retired from the Legislature several years ago, said Lockhart made him feel valued as a Democrat and as a member of the Jewish faith.

Litvack thanked her on behalf of his own daughter, “and so many daughters out there, for leading the way.”

House Majority Whip-elect Francis Gibson, R-Mapleton, called Lockhart a “master of making you feel you were all that mattered at that very moment,” whether as a political mentor or a parent or wife to Stan Lockhart, the former Utah GOP chairman.

“She had the courage and a strong resolve to do what was right. When opposition arose, she would stand tall,” knowing she was on solid ground, Gibson said. “The word ‘no’ was a word she saw only as a temporary setback.”

Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, one of Lockhart’s closest friends, said a participant at a women’s legislative leadership conference she spoke at called her a “beacon of light” who took pride in women political leaders regardless of their political affiliation.

Herbert said it is “too simple” to describe Lockhart as only an example to women. “She was an example to all of us,” the governor said, praising her willingness to engage rather than “sit on the sidelines and complain.”

Lockhart’s funeral will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at the LDS stake center at 300 N. 900 East in Provo and is expected to be attended by members of Utah’s congressional delegation.

On Wednesday, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, paid tribute to Lockhart from the floor of the U.S. Senate. Lee said he “affectionately and admiringly referred to Speaker Lockhart as the Iron Lady of Utah” for possessing many of the same qualities as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

The woman whose story of economic recovery was showcased by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address is a former Democratic campaign staffer and has been used by Obama for political events in the past.

Rebekah Erler has been presented by the White House as a woman who was discovered by the president after she wrote to him last March about her economic hardships. She was showcased in the speech as proof that middle class Americans are coming forward to say that Obama’s policies are working.

Unmentioned in the White House bio of Erler is that she is a former Democratic campaign operative, working as a field organizer for Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash.).

This also wasn’t the first time the White House used the former Democratic campaign staffer as a political prop. Obama spent a “day in the life” of Erler in June so that he could have “an opportunity to communicate directly with the people he’s working for every day.”

Reuters revealed Erler’s Democratic affiliations following that June event, and the Minnesota Republican Party attacked Obama for being “so out of touch with reality that he thinks a former Democrat campaign staffer speaks for every Minnesotan.”

Obama used Erler as an example that the economy is getting better. Here is the part of Obama’s speech regarding Erler. Her political work goes unmentioned:

Seven years ago, Rebekah and Ben Erler of Minneapolis were newlyweds. She waited tables. He worked construction. Their first child, Jack, was on the way.

They were young and in love in America, and it doesn’t get much better than that.

“If only we had known,” Rebekah wrote to me last spring, “what was about to happen to the housing and construction market.”

As the crisis worsened, Ben’s business dried up, so he took what jobs he could find, even if they kept him on the road for long stretches of time. Rebekah took out student loans, enrolled in community college, and retrained for a new career. They sacrificed for each other. And slowly, it paid off. They bought their first home. They had a second son, Henry. Rebekah got a better job, and then a raise. Ben is back in construction – and home for dinner every night.

“It is amazing,” Rebekah wrote, “what you can bounce back from when you have to…we are a strong, tight-knit family who has made it through some very, very hard times.”

America, Rebekah and Ben’s story is our story. They represent the millions who have worked hard, and scrimped, and sacrificed, and retooled. You are the reason I ran for this office. You’re the people I was thinking of six years ago today, in the darkest months of the crisis, when I stood on the steps of this Capitol and promised we would rebuild our economy on a new foundation. And it’s been your effort and resilience that has made it possible for our country to emerge stronger.

House Speaker John Boehner announced Wednesday he is inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress next month to discuss the threat from Iran, in a sharp rebuke to President Obama.

Such invitations typically are coordinated with the White House and State Department, but this one was not.

The House speaker’s office said Wednesday that Netanyahu is being invited to speak Feb. 11 before a joint session of Congress. The invitation follows President Obama’s vow Tuesday during his State of the Union address that he would veto bipartisan legislation to tee up more sanctions on Iran in case negotiations fail to get the rogue nation to curtail its nuclear enrichment program. A related bill also is being considered in a Senate committee hearing on Wednesday.

Boehner wants the Israeli leader to speak to the concerns regarding Iran.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu is a great friend of our country, and this invitation carries with it our unwavering commitment to the security and well-being of his people,” Boehner said in a statement. “In this time of challenge, I am asking the prime minister to address Congress on the grave threats radical Islam and Iran pose to our security and way of life.”

Critics of Obama and his foreign policy say the president has failed to keep close ties to Israel, a long-time U.S. ally and a key country in providing Middle East stability. Among their concerns is that the Obama administration has not done enough to curb Iran’s suspected pursuit of a nuclear weapon.

Boehner told members of the GOP House Conference on Wednesday morning: “The president warned us not to move ahead with sanctions on Iran, a state sponsor of terror. His exact message to us was: ‘Hold your fire.’ He expects us to stand idly by and do nothing while he cuts a bad deal with Iran. Two words: ‘Hell no’.”

He said: “Let’s send a clear message to the White House – and the world – about our commitment to Israel and our allies.”

The United States and five other world powers have reached a tentative deal with Iran. The countries are trying to reach a final deal by June 15.

If Netanyahu accepts the invitation, it would be his third appearance before a joint session of Congress and his second during Boehner’s speakership.

His previous addresses were in July 1996 and May 2011. Other Israeli prime ministers to address Congress include Ehud Olmert, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, according to Boehner’s office.

Fox News’ Mike Emanuel contributed to this report.

A defiant President Obama sketched a populist agenda for his final two years in office centered on free higher education, new worker protections and a sweeping tax plan that hikes rates on top earners to fund credits for the middle class – using his State of the Union address to set what could be a combative tone with the new, Republican-led Congress.

In the wake of big GOP gains in the midterm elections, Obama vowed Tuesday to defend signature accomplishments from his first six years in office. And he hammered the message that the economy, and the country, are bouncing back after the recession and two protracted wars.

“Tonight, we turn the page,” Obama declared, claiming: “The shadow of crisis has passed.”

The address reflected a president disinclined to cede ground in the wake of his party’s midterm losses. His speech was sprinkled with jabs at the “super-rich” and even the Keystone XL pipeline.

The president issued a broad veto threat aimed at Republican bills that would chip away at ObamaCare, financial regulations and his recent immigration actions.

“If a bill comes to my desk that tries to do any of these things, I will veto it,” Obama said.

In his address, Obama repeatedly touted what he called “middle-class economics” as the engine for growth, and used that argument to push his controversial new tax plan.

“Middle-class economics works. Expanding opportunity works. And these policies will continue to work, as long as politics don’t get in the way,” Obama said.

Obama, in his address, was promoting a series of programs he previewed in the weeks leading up to it.

Most controversial is a plan unveiled over the weekend imposing more than $300 billion in tax hikes over 10 years – including on investment and inheritance taxes for top earners – to fund tax credit expansions for the middle class. The funding also would pay for an initiative providing free community college for two years for students who keep up their grades.

While Republicans have questioned the mechanics of the college plan, they have declared his tax proposal a “non-starter” in the new GOP-led Congress.

Indeed, the president delivers his second-to-last State of the Union with a weakened political hand, after Republicans took control of the Senate and built a historic majority in the House in November.

Yet Obama has made clear he plans to play “offense” in his final two years, and his speech Tuesday sets the stage for that political and legislative battle. Already, the White House has issued a string of veto threats, some aimed at preserving legislation and executive actions he pushed in his first six years.

Both Republicans and Democrats are appealing to middle-class voters as they begin the new Congress. But Obama’s State of the Union address, thematically, promotes federal government protections and programs as key to their security, where Republicans are making a flat pitch for private-sector job creation.

Earlier in the day, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urged the president to look beyond “more tired tax hikes,” and instead strive for “responsible reforms that aim to balance the budget.”

He also sounded a middle-class message, but urged the president to boost workers with bipartisan jobs bills, including by backing efforts to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who was elected in November to an open Iowa seat, plans to deliver the official Republican response to Obama Tuesday night. In excerpts of her prepared remarks, the senator presents a markedly different picture of the economy, where Americans “agonize over stagnant wages and lost jobs.”

On the tax front, Ernst calls for simplifying America’s “outdated and loophole-ridden tax code” – not to finance more spending but improve the economy.

“So let’s iron out loopholes to lower rates — and create jobs, not pay for more government spending,” she plans to say. “The president has already expressed some support for these kinds of ideas. We’re calling on him now to cooperate to pass them.”

Congressional Republicans on Sunday pummeled President Obama’s plan to increase taxes on America’s highest wage earners, dismissing the proposal as not serious and a “non-starter.”

The plan was released late Saturday by the White House and attempts to increase taxes on the top earners and others to pay for cuts for the middle class.

The president is scheduled to further explain the plan on Tuesday night in his State of the Union address.

“The notion … that in order for some people to do better, someone has to do worse is just not true,” Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “Raising taxes on people that are successful is not going to make people that are struggling more successful. … It would also be counter-productive.”

Among the other Obama proposals are increasing the investment tax rate, eliminating a tax break on inheritances, giving a tax credit to working families and expanding the child care tax credit — in total roughly $320 billion in tax hikes over the next 10 years.

The president also wants to impose a financial fee on some of the country’s largest financial firms. His full fiscal 2016 budget is scheduled to be released to the GOP-led Congress next month.

However, the centerpiece of the proposal is to increase to 28 percent the capital gains and dividends rate on couples making more than $500,000 a year. The top capital gains rate has already been raised from 15 percent to 23.8 percent during Obama’s presidency.

Rubio on Sunday also criticized Obama’s recent proposal to offer some Americans free community college tuition.

“I’m all for reforming our higher education system,” said Rubio, a potential 2016 presidential candidate. “In the 21st century, to have the skills you need for a middle-class job, you need higher education of some form or fashion. It may not be a four-year degree. The problem is he just wants to pour that additional money into the broken, existing system.”

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, called the plan “a non-starter.”

“We’re not just one good tax increase away from prosperity in this nation,” Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

He also argued that elected officials need to “quit spending this money that we don’t have.”

White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer appeared on Sunday talk shows to support the plan, which he argues is an effort to further stimulate economic recovery.

“Now that the economy’s in a stronger place than it’s been in a very long time, we need to double down on our efforts to deal with wage stagnation and declining economic mobility,” Pfeiffer told CBS.

He also said the “simple proposition,” or solution, is to ask the wealthy to pay a little more and invest more in the middle class.

Obama also got support from leading House Democrats, including Rep. Chris Van Hollen, Maryland, and Sander Levin, Michigan.

“It’s clear that President Obama and Democrats are focused on reducing the economic squeeze being felt by the middle class,” said Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee. “I’m pleased that pieces of this proposal overlap with the plan I recently outlined.”

Levin, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said the president’s proposals “focus right where we need to — creating opportunity for middle-class families and those struggling to join the middle class.”

The offices of GOP congressional leaders also criticized the plan.

A spokesman for Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the chamber’s Ways and Means Committee, which writes federal tax law, said the proposal was “not a serious plan.”

“We lift families up and grow the economy with a simpler, flatter tax code, not big tax increases to pay for more Washington spending,” said spokesman Brendan Buck.

Ryan said last week that he was focused on broader tax code reform and that his committee would not pass a tax increase to fund transportation infrastructure projects, amid talk Congress will pursue such an increase.

“It’s not surprising to see the president call for tax hikes, but now he’s asking Congress to reverse bipartisan tax relief that he signed into law,” a top staffer for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told The Hill newspaper.

FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.

President Obama told Senate Democrats in a private meeting that he plans to “play offense” against the new GOP-controlled Congress, showing little hesitation about clashing with Republicans for the next two years.

Congressional sources confirmed the comments, made Thursday during a summit in Baltimore, as Republican lawmakers held their own summit in Hershey, Pa.

The president, who already has issued a string of veto threats in the opening days of the 114th Congress, indicated he’s prepared to keep opposing legislation he finds objectionable.

This includes legislation with bipartisan support. Not only has Obama threatened to veto bipartisan legislation authorizing the Keystone XL oil pipeline, he reportedly threatened to veto legislation imposing additional Iran sanctions.

That bill is being written by Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez, of New Jersey, and Republican Sen. Mark Kirk, of Illinois. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., also indicated Thursday, at the GOP retreat, that Congress would seek to have a vote on any nuclear deal the U.S. and its allies strike with Iran.

Politico reported that Obama told Democrats in Baltimore he would oppose the Iran sanctions legislation. According to The New York Times, Menendez and Obama also traded “sharp words” over the issue at Thursday’s meeting. The Democratic senator reportedly warned the president that, if nuclear talks failed, sanctions could not be imposed quickly without additional congressional action.

Further, the president reportedly vowed Thursday to press ahead with more executive actions, despite a veritable uprising from congressional Republicans over that strategy.

Earlier this week, House Republicans voted to reverse his directives from last November sparing millions of illegal immigrants from deportation and offering them work permits.

Though Obama met with congressional leaders of both parties at the White House earlier this week, offering a brief show of bipartisanship, the first two weeks of the congressional session point to a turbulent two years ahead — particularly as the session runs into the start of the 2016 presidential campaign.

Obama has threatened to veto the immigration legislation and the Keystone legislation, in addition to a bill easing financial regulations and more.

Asked Thursday about the White House meeting with the president, House Speaker John Boehner said they had a “nice” and “polite” conversation.

“But I don’t know that we learned a whole lot,” he said.

Boehner said it’s “too early to tell” whether the dynamic has changed.

“I’m the guy born with the glass half-full. And I believe hope springs eternal,” he said. “The American people want us to find a way to address their concerns. That was the big message out of the elections. You hear it from our members on both sides of the Capitol. I’m hoping the president heard the same message.”

Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report.

The Department of Defense announced Wednesday that five Yemeni terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have been released. But despite concerns from lawmakers about the risks of sending anybody back to Yemen, four were released to Oman — which is right next door.

Yemen is back in the spotlight in the wake of the Paris terror attacks. One of the suspects traveled there in 2011 and met with the radical American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in the region, claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Though the administration technically has lifted a ban on sending Guantanamo detainees to Yemen, the U.S. traditionally has balked at repatriating prisoners back to the country, where the government is battling the Al Qaeda insurgency.

Still, four of the five prisoners — Al Khadr Abdallah Muhammad Al Yafi, Fadel Hussein Saleh Hentif, Abd Al-Rahman Abdullah Au Shabati, and Mohammed Ahmed Salam — are being sent to neighboring Oman.

The fifth, Akhmed Abdul Qadir, was transferred to Estonia. This marks the first time either country has accepted former Guantanamo prisoners for resettlement.

In a statement, the Defense Department said the transfers were “unanimously approved” by all agencies responsible for reviewing them.

“The United States coordinated with the Government of Oman to ensure these transfers took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures,” the DOD said.

But earlier this week, in the wake of the Paris terror attack, several Republican senators introduced legislation to clamp down on President Obama’s ability to transfer terror suspects out of the detention facility. These senators called for a “time out” on releasing more detainees after the Paris terror attacks.

The bill would prohibit transfers of terror suspects to foreign countries if there has been a confirmed case where an individual was transferred from Guantanamo and engaged in any terrorist activity. Any transfers to Yemen would be shut down for two years.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., called Yemen the “Wild West” for terrorists.

“It’s clear that we need a time out,” she said.

The newly transferred prisoners had been held for more than a dozen years. The men had been cleared for release since at least 2009.

All five were captured in Pakistan and detained by the U.S. as suspected Al Qaeda fighters. U.S. officials later determined it was no longer necessary to detain them but have struggled to find other countries willing to take them in. The men are all in their 30s and 40s, including one who was 17 when he was sent to Guantanamo.

The release of the five brings the number of detainees at Guantanamo Bay down to 122.

Obama has pushed to close the detention facility since his inauguration in 2009. However, opponents say that Guantanamo is the best location for terror suspects since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“Now is not the time to be emptying Guantanamo,” Ayotte said at a news conference hours before the latest transfers were announced, during which she warned of fresh terrorist threats.

The administration has been steadily transferring detainees cleared for movement to other countries. Five men who were held for a dozen years without charge at Guantanamo were sent to the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan for resettlement in late December.

Nearly 30 prisoners were resettled in third countries last year as part of Obama’s renewed push to close the detention center.

“We are committed to closing the detention facility. That’s our goal and we are working toward that goal,” said Ian Moss, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department on Guantanamo issues.

FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A sympathizer of the Islamic State terror group ISIS was arrested in Ohio on Wednesday after authorities learned that he was plotting a shooting and bombing attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Christopher Lee Cornell, 20, of Green Township, considered members of Congress as “enemies,” and planned to travel to Washington to kill employees and officers working in and around the U.S. Capitol, according to a criminal complaint. Authorities said he had two semi-automatic rifles and about 600 rounds of ammunition, and planned to build and detonate pipe bombs at and near the U.S. Capitol.

A Justice Department official, however, told Fox News that Cornell was “aspirational and not operational,” adding that the public was never in danger.

The investigation relied heavily on the use of a source, who the criminal complaint said began cooperating with authorities last fall to gain favorable treatment for his prosecution on an unrelated case.

The complaint adds that Cornell said he thought he was fulfilling the directives of the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, or ISIL.

“I believe that we should just wage jihad under our own orders and plan attacks and everything,” Cornell told the source, according to the papers. “I believe we should meet up and make our own group in alliance with the Islamic State and plan operations ourselves.”

Cornell was charged with the attempted killing of a U.S. government officer and possession of a firearm in furtherance of attempted crime of violence.

Along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Cincinnati Police Department, Colerain Police Department, Green Township Police Department and the U.S. Capitol Police were involved in the investigation.

Fox News’ Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report.

Feds order random searches at airports, after Al Qaeda publishes new bomb recipe on Internet

A terrorist group’s call for new attacks on U.S. airliners, an online “recipe” for detection-proof bombs and recent events in France and elsewhere have prompted federal authorities to order random searches of travelers and carry-on bags at U.S. airports.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson met with airline security officials to brief them about the elevated threat, which came in the latest issue of Al Qaeda’s Inspire magazine. The online publication provided a guide to making the explosives, getting through security and even instructed suicide bombers on where to sit on the plane.

“We have no specific, credible intelligence of an attack of the kind in Paris last week being planned by terrorist organizations in this country,” Johnson said in a statement. “But, the reasons for these measures should be self-evident to the public: the recent attacks in Paris, Ottawa, Sydney, and elsewhere, along with the recent public calls by terrorist organizations for attacks on Western objectives, including aircraft, military personnel, and government installations and civilian personnel.”

“[T]he reasons for these measures should be self-evident to the public: the recent attacks in Paris, Ottawa, Sydney, and elsewhere … ” – Jeh Johnson, DHS secretary

The Transportation Security Administration has already stepped up random searches of travelers and carry-on luggage in addition to the enhanced screening that was ordered this summer at key airports.

The bomb-making recipe, published last month in the most recent edition of Inspire, the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) English-language magazine, sent a chilling message to the West.

“We spared no effort in simplifying the idea in such we made it ‘another meal prepared in the kitchen’ so that every determined Muslim can prepare,” states the magazine article, titled, “How to Build a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.”

Experts have said the bomb-making instructions are highly sophisticated and could pose a problem, especially in smaller airports that don’t employ high-tech body-imaging security devices. The terror network is constantly seeking new ways to get explosives onto planes, according to Ryan Mauro, a national security analyst at Clarion Project, a New York-based research institute that monitors the threat of terrorism.

“The chief Al-Qaeda bombmaker Ibrahim Al-Asiri is innovative in his designs and isn’t to be underestimated,” Mauro told FoxNews.com. “For Al Qaeda, it is still somewhat of a victory if they can get an explosive on an airliner or even just inside an airport, regardless of whether the device ignites properly.

“Counter-terrorism personnel mention him to me even more than they mention Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri,” he added.

AQAP was behind the failed “underwear bomb” attack on Christmas Day, 2009. In that case, Farouk Abdulmuttalab tried to take down a Michigan-bound plane in U.S. airspace, but the bomb did not detonate.

Last week the State Department updated its Worldwide Caution travel alert to all Americans abroad.

“Recent terrorist attacks, whether by those affiliated with terrorist entities, copycats, or individual perpetrators, serve as a reminder that U.S. citizens need to maintain a high level of vigilance and take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness,” the alert said.

Inspire magazine has previously published several “how-to” articles, including one on making bombs out of pressure cookers. That article ran prior to the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, in which two radicalized immigrants used two of the modified kitchen devices to kill three people and injure more than 200.

FoxNews.com

Muhammad will be back on the cover of the next edition of Charlie Hebdo, along with a message of forgiveness from surviving staffers at the French satirical magazine where 12 people were killed last week by a pair of Islamist brothers angered over the publication’s penchant for showing images of the prophet.

The decimated, but uncowed magazine upped its usual print run of 60,000 copies to 3 million for the magazine, due out Wednesday but released to the French newspaper Liberation. Fierce bidding on eBay had editions commanding as much as $500 following the outpouring of support for Charlie Hebdo, whose four top cartoonists were among the dozen killed. Editor-in-chief Gérard Biard said in a Tuesday radio interview the decision to run a cartoon if Muhammad holding a a “Je Suis Charlie” sign with the caption “Tout est pardonne,” or “All is forgiven,” and said the message was not that Muhammad was offering forgiveness, as some initially assumed.

“It is we who forgive, not Muhammad,” he told France Info.

“It is we who forgive, not Muhammad.” – Gérard Biard, editor in chief of Charlie Hebdo

Eight Charlie Hebdo staffers were killed in the attack, including the magazine’s editorial director, Stephane Charbonnier, who drew under the name “Charb.”

Biard said tomorrow’s issue is meant as both a memorial to fallen co-workers and proof that the magazine’s mission of irreverence has not been compromised.

“We needed to figure out how to continue laughing and making others laugh,” he said. “We wanted to analyze, say something about the events. This drawing made us laugh.

He continued: “We did not want masked men on the cover. We didn’t want more of that. That’s not us. We didn’t want to add to the gravity. It helps to be able to breathe a little.”

The cover was created by cartoonist Renald Luzier, who draws under the name “Luz,” and created what Biard called a “moving but not sad” work.

“Seen by Luz, Mohammed is much more sympathetic than even the Muslims see him. He’s a ‘nice little guy’ as Luz, puts it. Those assassins killed people who draw nice little guys. We wanted to show the ludicrousness of it.”

The New York Times reported late Monday that when Luz showed the drawing to staffers, he was greeted with laughter, applause and ironic shouts of “Allahu akbar!”

But one of Egypt’s top Islamic authorities has warned Charlie Hebdo against publishing the cartoon.

Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta, which is in charge of issuing religious edicts, on Tuesday called the planned cover an “unjustified provocation” for millions of Muslims who respect and love their prophet.

The statement said the cartoon is likely to cause a new wave of hatred in French and Western societies and called on the French government and others to reject “the racist act” by Charlie Hebdo.

Charlie Hebdo’s past caricatures of the Muslim prophet appear to have prompted last week’s attacks, part of the worst terrorist rampage in France in decades. A total of 12 people were killed at the newspaper’s offices by Said and Cherif Kouachi, French-born brothers who had trained with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Some witnesses reported that the attackers at the paper’s offices shouted “We have avenged the prophet.” Many Muslims believe all images of Muhammad are blasphemous.

French police said Monday that as many as six members of a terrorist cell involved in the attacks may still be at large.

France saw its biggest demonstrations in history Sunday as millions turned out to show unity and defend freedom of expression.

FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.

French police kill Paris massacre suspects, hostage-taking ally in separate raids

DEVELOPING: Sky News reports Paris police are hunting a second suspect who may have escaped hostage siege at kosher supermarket before police raid.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Near-simultaneous raids by French police Friday evening at locations 25 miles apart took out the Islamist brothers behind Wednesday’s massacre at a Paris satirical magazine, and a cop-killing crony who had seized hostages at a Paris grocery on their behalf, but also left at least four hostages dead, according to authorities and reports from the scene.

The lightning-quick strikes ended two tense, hours-long standoffs, one at a printing plant north of the city and the other at a kosher supermarket on Paris’ east side, where four hostages were killed and as many as four more were injured. A hostage held north of the city by the brothers, who killed 12 in a commando-style attack at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, was reportedly freed. The fast-moving developments, signaled by explosions and gunfire at a printing plant in Dammartin-en-Goele, followed by similar sounds at Hypercacher (Hyper Kosher), a Jewish supermarket in eastern Paris, brought to a climax a three-day terror ordeal and manhunt involving nearly 90,000 police and military personnel.

“France has been struck directly in the heart of its capital, in a place where the spirit of liberty — and thus of resistance — breathed freely. – French President Francois Hollande

Cherif and Said Kouachi, the radicalized French-born slackers whose attack on Charlie Hebdo left two police officers among the dozen dead, were both killed in the first raid. The brothers, 32 and 34, respectively, are believed to have ties to Al Qaeda in Yemen, and military experts who viewed footage of their bloody, late-morning raid on Wednesday said they appeared to be well-trained terrorists. Charlie Hebdo had long angered Muslim radicals with its penchant for publishing cartoon images of Prophet Muhammed.

In Paris, police said Amedy Coulibaly, who is believed to have know the brothers and was suspected of killing Paris Police Officer Clarissa Jean-Philippe Thursday, as she attended to a routine traffic accident in the city, was killed in a raid moments later, ending his supermarket siege. Police had identified him and his longtime girlfriend, Hayat Boumeddiene, as suspects in the police killing, but her whereabouts were not immediately known.

Coulibaly, 33, and Cherif Kouachi were committed followers of convicted terror kingpin Djamel Beghal, according to Le Monde.

Earlier Friday, a French security official told the AP that shots were fired as the brothers stole a car in the town of Montagny Sainte Felicite in the early morning hours. French officials told Fox News that the suspects threw the car’s driver out at the side of the road. The driver, who recognized the suspects, then called police and alerted them to the suspects’ whereabouts.

On Thursday, U.S. government sources confirmed that Said Kouachi had traveled to Yemen in 2011 and had direct contact with an Al Qaeda training camp. The other brother, Cherif, had been convicted in France of terrorism charges in 2008 for trying to join up with fighters battling in Iraq. The sources also confirmed that both brothers, who had been orphaned as youngsters and spent years committing petty crimes and doing menial jobs, were on a U.S. no-fly list.

Fox News was told the investigators have made it a priority to determine whether he had contact with Al Qaeda in Yemen’s leadership, including a bomb maker and a former Guantanamo Bay detainee.

French President Francois Hollande called for tolerance after the country’s worst terrorist attack since 1961, in the middle of the conflict over Algerian independence from France.

“France has been struck directly in the heart of its capital, in a place where the spirit of liberty — and thus of resistance — breathed freely,” Hollande said.

Charlie Hebdo had long drawn threats for its depictions of Islam, although it also satirized other religions and political figures. The weekly paper had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, and a sketch of Islamic State’s leader was the last tweet sent out by the irreverent newspaper, minutes before the attack. Nothing has been tweeted since.

Eight journalists, two police officers, a maintenance worker and a visitor were killed in the attack.

Charlie Hebdo planned a special edition next week, produced in the offices of another paper. Editor Stephane Charbonnier, known as Charb, who was among those slain, “symbolized secularism … the combat against fundamentalism,” his companion, Jeannette Bougrab, said on BFM-TV.

“He was ready to die for his ideas,” she said.

Authorities around Europe have warned of the threat posed by the return of Western jihadis trained in warfare. France counts at least 1,200 citizens in the war zone in Syria — headed there, returned or dead. Both the Islamic State group and Al Qaeda have threatened France — home to Western Europe’s largest Muslim population.

The French suspect in a deadly 2014 attack on a Jewish museum in Belgium had returned from fighting with extremists in Syria; and the man who rampaged in southern France in 2012, killing three soldiers and four people at a Jewish school, received paramilitary training in Pakistan.

Fox News’ Greg Palkot, Catherine Herridge and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Black-clad gunmen shouting “Allahu Akbar!” stormed the Paris offices of a satirical publication known for lampooning Islam Wednesday, killing 12 and injuring as many as 15 before escaping, French officials said.

As many as three Kalashnikov-toting shooters were being sought following the 11:30 a.m. attack at Charlie Hebdo, the publication known for challenging Muslim terrorists with a 2011 caricature of Prophet Muhammed on its cover and which recently tweeted a cartoon of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Two policemen and several journalists – including the cartoonist behind the weekly publication’s provocative images, were among the dead.

“We’ve avenged the honor of the prophet!” the killers shouted, according to witnesses who spoke to Sky News. Other witnesses said the men shouted “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is great.” The gunmen spoke French without any accent, according to Le Monde.

“We’ve avenged the honor of the prophet!” – Gunmen who stormed Paris satirical newspaper

As the killers fled, they shot at arriving policemen. Video, believed to be cellphone footage, quickly emerged of the men getting out of a car and shooting a prone police officer in the head in cold blood as he begged for his life on the sidewalk, then getting back in and fleeing.

French President Francois Hollande branded the attack an act of terrorism and claimed that several other potential terror attacks had been thwarted “in recent weeks.” Hollande added that the publication had been threatened in the past and was already under police protection and surveillance.

“This is a terrorist attack, there is no doubt about it,” Hollande told reporters.

Officials said the men walked into the ground floor of the publication’s offices and began shooting before making their way up to the first floor. Cartoonist Corine Rey, aka “Coco,” told the weekly Humanité that she let the men inside the building of Charlie Hebdo after being ordered at gunpoint.

“They spoke perfect French,” said Rey, who said the rampage lased about five minutes. “They said they were Al Qaeda.”

Witnesses said the attack was carried out with military precision, with the gunmen demanding the names of those they encountered, indicating that they had specific targets in mind.

“It was a real butchery,” Rocco Contento, a spokesman for the Unité police union, told The Guardian.

Benoit Bringer, a journalist from the agency Premieres Lignes Tele, whose offices are next door, told the Telegraph he took refuge on the building’s roof.

“Three policemen arrived by push bike, but they left naturally as the attackers were armed,” he said.

The publication’s offices are in the trendy 11th arrondissement of Paris, which includes posh restaurants and retail shops. It is one of the most densely populated districts in all of Europe and is home to a large, mostly Algerian, Muslim community. Schools in the area were closed and newspaper offices, shopping centers, museums and stations were placed under police protection.

Charlie Hebdo first gained notoriety in 2006, when it reprinted a dozen cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that appeared in Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, in defiance of Islam’s forbidding of any image attempting to portray its most important prophet. Its offices were firebombed in 2011 after a spoof issue featuring a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad on its cover. Nearly a year later, the magazine published crude Muhammad caricatures, drawing denunciations around the Muslim world. One of the dead in Wednesday’s attack was satirical cartoonist Stephane Charbonnier, the publication’s editorial director and the artist behind the caricatures that offended jihadists. He was the subject of a fatwah, and there is a Facebook page called “Execute Stephane Charbonnier.”

Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre, spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor,told The Associated Press another cartoonist known by the pen name Cabu was killed. A police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation, said one of the two police officers killed was one assigned as Charbonnier’s bodyguard after prior death threats against him.

Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has faced death threats after several newspapers published his images of Muhammad, recently presented Charlie Hebdo with his “Gold Dog” prize, said the attack, in spite of security for Charlie Hebdo staffers, shows it is “impossible to guard [them] when it comes to attackers armed to the teeth.”

“The publication [of the Muhammed cartoons] happened a few years back in time and one could imagine that it would have been forgotten, but it is not,” he told Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. “There are obviously people who take their time and wait for the right moment.”

President Obama condemned the attack and vowed to help France bring the killers to justice.

“France is America’s oldest ally, and has stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States in the fight against terrorists who threaten our shared security and the world,” Obama said in a statement. “Time and again, the French people have stood up for the universal values that generations of our people have defended. France, and the great city of Paris where this outrageous attack took place, offer the world a timeless example that will endure well beyond the hateful vision of these killers.  We are in touch with French officials and I have directed my Administration to provide any assistance needed to help bring these terrorists to justice.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron also condemned the attack and vowed solidarity with France.

“The murders in Paris are sickening,” Cameron said. “We stand with the French people in the fight against terror and defending the freedom of the press.”

FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Cops across the country are mad. Mad as hell. Mad because some of America’s leaders have reinforced for months the dreadful lie that black people in America should fear the police. That cops are dangerous. That cops are racists.

Cops are mad because for all the sympathy shown for the lives of recent victims of police conduct — tragic and exceptional as they are — none was shown for the men and women who go to work each day to protect us from bad and often dangerous people.

None, that is, until two New York City cops were murdered in Brooklyn four days before Christmas. Until then, there was not a word of understanding for the tough situations cops respond to every day. Not a word about the risks they take with their lives, particularly those who work on the streets of our most dangerous neighborhoods.

“This is personal to me,” Mayor Bill de Blasio told the nation after the Eric Garner grand-jury decision was announced. De Blasio went on to describe the fears he and his wife, Chirlane, have for their biracial son’s safety: “So, I’ve had to worry over the years, Chirlane’s had to worry: Was Dante safe each night? There’s so many families in this city who feel that each and every night. Is my child safe? And not just from some of the painful realities of crime and violence in some of our neighborhoods, but are they safe from the very people they want to have faith in, as their protectors? That’s the reality.”

That’s why cops are mad. Because the narrative being pushed by Mayor de Blasio, Attorney General Holder, President Obama, and many civil-rights leaders is personal. Very personal. And the narrative is awful, because it’s incomplete — and untrue. Cops are essentially thrown into the same category as street thugs and gang members. As if cops were killing young black men at anywhere near the rate that young black men are killing each other in America’s biggest cities.

And three of these men — de Blasio, Holder, and Obama — lead the two biggest police forces in America: the NYPD and the FBI.

New York cops are mad at Mayor de Blasio in particular because he failed to mention that 2013 ended with the lowest number of fatal shootings by the police in 40 years in their city. Only eight people died from police gunfire, with a police force of over 30,000. And all of the victims were armed with either a gun or a cutting instrument. But none of those leaders bothered to report these narrative-busting facts — nor did the media.

And no one bothered to mention that New York City is on track in 2014 to have the fewest murders in 50 years. As of the beginning of December, there had been 290. That’s down from 2,200 in the early 1990s. The majority of lives saved were black, because the overwhelming majority of murder victims in the city are black. Do the math. Tens of thousands of black lives have been saved in the past two decades by cops in New York, but Mayor de Blasio couldn’t manage to share that fact in his heartfelt speech.

Mayor de Blasio, Attorney General Holder, and President Obama could have noted that in 2013 there were 6,261 black murder victims in the United States. Almost all were killed by black civilians, and not a single one of those deaths triggered mass-media hysteria or mass protests.

“Why are you killing us?” a protester recently asked Sergeant Harry Dilworth, a black cop from Ferguson, Mo. Dilworth told a New York Times reporter that he responded by naming three names, and asked the protester if he had heard of any of them. The protester hadn’t. Dilworth told him they were black men recently killed in St. Louis by other black men. “We’re not killing you; you’re killing yourselves,” Dilworth told the man.

Indeed, the worst kind of racism is the kind the media exhibit every day, because they seem to care about dead black people only when they are killed by white people. Or a “white Hispanic,” in the case of Trayvon Martin.

When white people get killed in a movie theater or a school by other white people, the media cover it, ad nauseam. But on the streets of our nation’s inner cities it’s Columbine every week — and the media yawn. And white America yawns, too. That’s a disgrace.

In 2013, 97 percent of all shooting victims in New York City were black or Hispanic and resided in low-income neighborhoods, and the shooters were almost exclusively black or Hispanic, according to NYPD statistics. That, our nation’s law-enforcement leaders could have explained, is why cops are involved in more altercations with minorities than with whites. That’s what gives the appearance of systemic racism.

The numbers are tragic, and they merit a big national dialogue about race and poverty — including a discussion of everything from the legacy of slavery and segregation, to our failing public schools and the 21st-century economy that is leaving poorly trained Americans further and further behind, to prison reform, with a focus on the groundbreaking work happening in red states like Texas and Georgia.

And, last, the elephant in the room: fatherlessness, which does more harm to minorities than perhaps all other social ills combined, and is an ever-growing social problem in white America too.

That’s why cops are mad. Because they are being blamed for problems they didn’t cause, and because not one of those leaders tried to exhibit any sympathy for cops. Given their empathetic powers — de Blasio nearly cried in his presser, and Obama conjured up an imaginary son in his talk with People magazine and then imagined the indignities that son would have experienced if he had actually existed — you would think that one of these men could have mustered a bit of emotion for cops and their families.

They could have asked us to imagine what it would be like to be the spouse of a cop working in New York City, or Detroit, or Los Angeles. Or some of the tough crime areas in white rural America.

What’s it like for the spouses and children of cops to watch their loved ones head off to work in dangerous neighborhoods, a gun in their holster and a bulletproof vest around their chest?

Most Americans have no idea what it’s like to be a cop — what cops worry about, what their families worry about. How easily a simple disturbance can get out of hand. How dangerous a domestic-violence case can turn. How tragically even a routine traffic stop can end.

What every cop I know tells me is this: What they worry about most is doing no harm to innocent people and getting home safe each night, and getting their partners home safe, too. And what they tell me over and over is this: What throws everything upside down is when the person being questioned or stopped doesn’t comply with the instructions of police — or, worse, when he or she resists — that’s when bad things happen. It doesn’t matter what the infraction is. When a citizen resists arrest, it is a danger signal. That’s when everything can head south.

And here’s something else that any of our leaders could have explained to the nation: Grand juries don’t often indict cops because cops are different. Citizens put cops in harm’s way, and when cops make mistakes or exercise bad judgment, we can’t criminalize those errors, any more than we can criminalize the bad decision of doctors. That’s what civil proceedings are for, and big monetary jury verdicts. Or there would be no cops. And no doctors.

When really bad cops — think of Abner Louima’s brutal treatment by sadistic cops in New York in 1997 — are dragged before grand juries, not only are they indicted, they are prosecuted and thrown in jail. And the folks happiest about it are cops.

That’s what any one of our leaders could have told the nation.

They could then have turned to the media and asked why it is that over 50 percent of Americans think crime rates have risen when in fact they have plummeted to historic lows. We know the answer, the leaders could have added: You people in the media hate good news. And you secretly liked seeing those flames in Ferguson, and were hoping for some in New York and other American cities, too, because it would have made for great ratings.

After saying all that, any one of them could have ended his press conference with a simple challenge: Ask Americans to spend a week with cops. Do ride-alongs in the toughest streets in town. Walk a mile in their shoes. You’ll learn that cops may not be who you think they are. You’ll probably come to respect them, and like them. A substantive outreach like that might go a long way toward healing a city.

Black people’s lives matter, a speech by any of those men could have ended. But cops’ lives matter, too.

Read more at the National Review.

N. Korea blames US for internet shutdown, hurls racist comment toward Obama–

North Korea called President Barack Obama “a monkey” and blamed the U.S. on Saturday for shutting down its Internet amid the hacking row over the comedy “The Interview.”

North Korea has denied involvement in a crippling cyberattack on Sony Pictures but has expressed fury over the comedy depicting an assassination of its leader Kim Jong Un. Sony Pictures initially called off the release citing threats of terror attacks against U.S. movie theaters. Obama criticized Sony’s decision, and the movie has opened this week.

On Saturday, the North’s powerful National Defense Commission, the country’s top governing body led by Kim, said that Obama was behind the release of “The Interview.” It described the movie as illegal, dishonest and reactionary.

“Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest,” an unidentified spokesman at the commission’s Policy Department said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

It wasn’t the first time North Korea has used crude insults against Obama and other top U.S. and South Korean officials. Earlier this year, the North called U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry a wolf with a “hideous” lantern jaw and South Korean President Park Geun-hye a prostitute. In May, the North’s news agency published a dispatch saying Obama has the “shape of a monkey.”

The defense commission also accused Washington for intermittent outages of North Korea websites this week, which happened after the U.S. had promised to respond to the Sony hack. The U.S. government has declined to say if it was behind the shutdown.

There was no immediate reaction from the White House on Saturday.

According to the North Korean commission’s spokesman, “the U.S., a big country, started disturbing the Internet operation of major media of the DPRK, not knowing shame like children playing a tag.” DPRK refers to the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The commission said the movie was the results of a hostile U.S. policy toward North Korea, and threatened the U.S. with unspecified consequences.

North Korea and the U.S. remain technically in a state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. The rivals also are locked in an international standoff over the North’s nuclear and missile programs and its alleged human rights abuses. The U.S. stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea as deterrence against North Korean aggression.

By Associated Press