Summary: Lt. Col. Victor Garcia, deputy commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division deployed in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, says he expects the Taliban to “come back at us hard” in their spring offensive. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 8, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that deputy national security adviser John Brennan told NBC’s David Gregory on “Meet the Press” that politicians were using national security to score political points and that he was exasperated with partisan political football over counterterrorism professionals’ handling of failed airline bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

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Summary: Minnesota Somali gangs known in recent years for armed robberies, burglaries, and even killings of fellow East Africans have evolved into more lucrative criminal enterprises — including sex trafficking and credit card fraud — and are proliferating their crimes from Minneapolis to other parts of the United States. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 7, 2010, Aubrey Immelman featured the controversial “Focus on the Family” anti-abortion TV spot featuring football star Tim Tebow and his mother Pam, aired during the 2010 Super Bowl.

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Summary: British Prime Minister David Cameron has criticized his country’s longstanding policy of multiculturalism, saying it was an outright failure and partly to blame for fostering Islamist extremism. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 6, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that nearly 3,000 pages of e-mails that Todd Palin, husband of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, exchanged with state officials had been released to MSNBC.com and NBC News by the state of Alaska under its public records law. The e-mails draw a picture of a Palin administration where the governor’s husband got involved in a judicial appointment, monitored contract negotiations with public employee unions, received background checks on a corporate CEO, added his approval or disapproval to state board appointments, and passed financial information marked “confidential” from his oil company employer to a state attorney.

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Summary: Arizona’s new immigration law, which allows law enforcement officers to stop people and demand proof of legal immigration status, is having a ripple effect across the nation as state legislatures in at least 15 states introduce legislation closely modeled on Arizona’s law. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 5, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the U.S. was preparing a major attack on the Taliban to reverse their gains in the Kandahar region of southern Afghanistan, that militants were being squeezed in their Pakistan sanctuaries, and that the Afghan government was trying to draw them into peace talks. Meanwhile, in Iraq, a bomb on a parked motorcycle exploded on the outskirts of the holy city of Karbala, killing at least 20 Shiite pilgrims and wounding 110.

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Summary: Weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, compiled from U.S. Department of Defense news releases and iCasualties.org. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 4, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that three U.S. special operations soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in northwest Pakistan, drawing unwanted attention to a U.S. program for intelligence gathering and training Pakistani Frontier Corps paramilitary forces to fight the Taliban and al-Qaida — a little-publicized mission because of local opposition to American boots on the ground in Pakistan.

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Summary: More than 20,000 Yemenis filled the streets of Sanaa for a “day of rage” rally, demanding a change in government and saying President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s offer to step down in 2013 was not enough. The protest movement in the Middle East and North Africa also appears to be gaining momentum in Jordan, Syria, and Algeria. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 3, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, at a political forum in Rochester, Minn., made the wild claim that President Obama’s health reform proposals, beyond being “the crown jewel of socialism,” could lead to “gangster government” and “absolute abject corruption,” with people terrified to speak out against the government for fear of being blacklisted for denial of health care.

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Summary: Heavy gunfire reverberated in central Cairo as supporters and foes of embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak continued to face off at Tahrir Square, where chunks of concrete and Molotov cocktails were employed as weapons in the escalating crisis. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 2, 2010, Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

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Summary: The Government Accountability Office reports that just 32 miles of the nearly 4,000-mile U.S. border with Canada is adequately secured, according to an assessment by the Border Patrol. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 1, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that a female suicide bomber walking among Shiite pilgrims in northern Baghdad detonated an explosives belt, killing at least 54 people and wounding around 117.

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