DETROIT — Two men who had acquired high-powered weapons and practiced at gun ranges were scouting LGBTQ+ bars in suburban Detroit for a possible attack, authorities said Monday in filing terrorism-related charges against the pair.
Momed Ali, Majed Mahmoud and co-conspirators were inspired by Islamic State extremism, according to a 72-page criminal complaint unsealed in federal court. Investigators say a minor, identified only as Person 1, was deeply involved in the discussions.
“Our American heroes prevented a terror attack,” U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said on X.
The men, described as too young to drink alcohol, had looked at LGBTQ+ bars in Ferndale as a possible attack, according to the complaint.
FBI agents had surveilled the men for weeks, even using a camera on a pole outside a Dearborn house, according to the court filing. Investigators also got access to encrypted chats and other conversations.
FBI Director Kash Patel had announced arrests Friday, but no details were released at the time while agents searched a home in Dearborn and a storage unit in nearby Inkster.
The FBI said the men repeatedly referred to “pumpkins” in their conversations, a reference to a Halloween attack.
Ali and Mahmoud were charged with receiving and transferring guns and ammunition for terrorism. Mahmoud had recently bought more than 1,600 rounds of ammunition that could be used for AR-15-style rifles, and they practiced at gun ranges, the government alleged.
They will appear in court Monday for their initial appearance. Mahmoud’s lawyer, William Swor, declined to comment. Messages seeking comment from Ali’s lawyer, Amir Makled, were not immediately answered.
Over the weekend, Makled seemed to wave off the allegations, saying they were the result of “hysteria” and “fear-mongering.”
It’s the second case since May involving alleged plots in the Detroit area on behalf of the Islamic State. The FBI said it arrested a man who had spent months planning an attack against a U.S. Army site in Warren. Ammar Said has pleaded not guilty and remains in custody.
Nov. 3 (UPI) — Two men face federal charges for allegedly plotting a terror attack in Michigan over Halloween weekend, according to a criminal complaint unsealed.
On Friday, FBI Director Kash Patel stated the bureau “thwarted a potential terrorist attack.” Patel added that FBI agents arrested “multiple subjects in Michigan who were allegedly plotting a violent attack over Halloween weekend.”
Five suspects were arrested, two of whom — Mohmed Ali and Majed Mahmoud — were charged with multiple felonies in a 73-page criminal complaint in Michigan’s eastern federal judicial district.
Ali and Mahmoud were charged with receiving, transferring, attempting and conspiring to transfer firearms and ammunition.
In addition, the two suspects were charged with knowing and having reasonable cause to believe that the firearms and ammunition would be used to commit a federal terror crime.
The two allegedly purchased three AR-15-style rifles in August and September along with thousands of ammunition rounds and other firearm accessories, according to court documents.
Suspects referred to an attack by “brothers” in private WhatsApp messages on behalf of an Islamic extremist terror group.
FBI officials said the two “traveled together to scout potential target locations in Ferndale, Michigan” that included a number of known LGBTQ+ bars and clubs.
On Saturday, Ali was described as a 20-year-old U.S. citizen “with a lawful interest in recreational firearms.”
“There is no evidence whatsoever of a planned terror or ‘mass casualty’ plot,” said attorney Amir Makled, who represents Ali.
Two of the five arrested were released from custody.
Meanwhile, Ali and Mahmoud were due in court Monday.
On the night of September 24, 2025, Hollis Frazier-Herndon performed an acoustic rendition of his song “Eldest Child” for a sold-out crowd at USC’s Shrine Auditorium. During his croon of the lyrics, “Eldest child, eldest child, I know your momma and your daddy so goddamn proud. They don’t know me, no. They don’t know me now,” the artist known as 2hollis went from a fractured growl to a sweet silky falsetto to a full collapse into tears.
It was a moment of raw catharsis as well as a culmination. During a pre-show interview backstage, Hollis revealed the hidden meaning behind the lyrics. He said the figurative “momma and daddy” are actually his fans, whose expectations he’s glad he’s fulfilled, even though they “don’t actually know each other” in real life. Thus, a sold-out crowd enthusiastically singing back at him evoked an emotional release. In tandem with that though, is the fact that this was 2hollis’ first show in his hometown since his Altadena childhood house burned down in the January 2025 fires. The embrace from his extended community after he persevered through that tragedy and continued to ascend to musical stardom was palpable.
“I’m at a place now where I feel like, in a way, it’s sort of a phoenix situation,” Hollis said about his post-fire rise from the ashes. “The whole town burned down. It was terrible and insane. But it weirdly felt like that needed to happen [to make the new album what it is]. I don’t know, it’s hard seeing somewhere you grew up just be a deserted place.”
On the day before the release of his fourth album, “star,” in April, 2hollis posted a picture of a burnt-edged tarot card with the same title. He added a message explaining that the star card was the only thing he and his mother found intact when they returned to Altadena to assess the damage. It was also later reported by 032c Magazine that atop a tall hill behind Hollis’ family property existed a wooden and metal star statue filled with lightbulbs that would glow at night. That star, which Hollis and his childhood friends would hike up to, also burned. The album “star,” 2hollis’ best version of his signature crystalline hardstyle EDM, meets grimy rage trap, meets velvet emo pop punk, emerged directly and impactfully from the remains of the roaring flames.
At the end of the full throttle album opener “flash,” Hollis said he added recorded sounds of the wind chimes from his Altadena home porch, triggered by the Santa Ana winds in the lead up to the fire. You can also hear faint gusts and flame sounds emerge sparsely throughout the project. He let the weather itself dictate the type of immersive experience the album could be, even as it also chronicles his layered chase for notoriety and glory.
“There are a lot of self-reflective moments, and it is very personal and emotional, but it’s also like one big party,” he explained. “I feel like, in a f—ed up kind of way, that’s what a fire is, too. It’s so big and full of visceral anger and emotion and almost a sad kind of wave. But then, also, it’s lit.”
2hollis is a visual thinker, thus he envisions scenes and uses optical inspiration to craft his imaginative rave-like soundscapes. Grammy-winning producer Finneas, during a recent interview with Spotify, recalled a time in the studio with 2hollis when he described a sound he was trying to capture as “a crystal with a pretty face on it.” This is a regular practice. Backstage, he described the process of juxtaposing an RL Grime-esque intense trap drop with a synth piano inspired by the movement and presence of a porcelain Chinese lucky cat he kept in his bedroom studio at the Altadena house. This was for his song “burn” from “star,” a scorcher which also happened to be the last song recorded in his home before the flames hit.
For 2hollis’ most openly psyche’d song on the album, “tell me,” where he professes lyrics like, “Everybody I don’t know tryna know me these days I don’t even know who I am,” his mental visual for the ending electro drop is illuminating. “I always imagined heavy rain there and lightning shining on someone’s face,” Hollis said about a perhaps heroic moment linked to the fire. “And it’s also like a face-off. Maybe me versus my ego on a rainy war field at the end of ‘Squid Game.’”
2hollis often creates outlandish alternate worlds he hopes to thrust his listening audience into. “I think there’s become this thing with a lot of artists where they feel the need to be relatable,” he proclaimed questioningly. “That’s cool, but I want [to present] the fantasy of, ‘Let me listen and pretend I’m not me for a few minutes.” In a time of constantly looming shaky ground, Hollis presents escapism as mindful.
2hollis
(Sandra Jamaleddine)
2hollis, at times, appears in tandem with a white tiger. The animal bears the name of his first album and appears on stage at his shows as a large figurine that roars vehemently behind him during song transitions. As much as it feels a part of his fantastical sonic world, it is also deeply tied to his personal story.
On a follow-up call from backstage at a later show in Detroit, Hollis recalled a period of debilitating psychosis he experienced at 18 years old. He mediated and prayed to Archangels as an attempt to pull himself back together. When he invoked the spirit of the Angel Metatron, he would picture a white tiger destroying all the darkness and “demonic shit” around him. “It was wild and sounds insane, but it really helped me come out of it,” he said.
The more one speaks to Hollis, the more one realizes he embodies the Shakespearean line “All the world’s a stage.” Even in the most wholesome times in his life, as a little league baseball player and school theater kid, he would get a similar “butterfly in the stomach feeling” from the performance of it all. But by that same token, he is also someone who values solitude and garnered his appreciation for it from Altadena itself.
Hollis describes it as a place of “untouched, unscathed innocence.” A place where he could walk his dog up to the star behind his home, meditate, and look at the city of LA in the distance. “I go back there all the time even though there’s nothing there anymore,” Hollis said from Detroit about his home’s unending pull. “It’s just comforting to be there by myself. The energy that was there before didn’t die.”
That far-gone youthful time alone is where Hollis dreamed of the world he’s in now. He said, if he could, he’d say to that wide-eyed yet apprehensive kid, “Dude, you’re doing it, you were right, you knew. Now it’s beautifully harmoniously coming together.” On “tell me” 2hollis raps that he’s equal parts scared of “press,” “death,” and “judgment.” But now, with overwhelming chaos in his rearview, he proclaims, “I’m running headfirst into everything. I’m not dying. I’m not scared of sh—.”
CHICAGO — Federal immigration officers in the Chicago area will be required to wear body cameras, a judge said Thursday after seeing tear gas and other aggressive steps used against protesters.
U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis said she was a “little startled” after seeing TV images of clashes between agents and the public during President Donald Trump’s administration’s immigration crackdown.
“I live in Chicago if folks haven’t noticed,” she said. “And I’m not blind, right?”
Community efforts to oppose U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have ramped up in the nation’s third-largest city, where neighborhood groups have assembled to monitor ICE activity and film incidents involving agents. More than 1,000 immigrants have been arrested since September.
Separately, the Trump administration has tried to deploy National Guard troops, but the strategy was halted last week by a different judge.
Ellis last week said agents in the area must wear badges, and she banned them from using certain riot control techniques against peaceful protesters and journalists.
“I’m having concerns about my order being followed,” the judge said.
“I am adding that all agents who are operating in Operation Midway Blitz are to wear body-worn cameras, and they are to be on,” Ellis said, referring to the government’s name for the crackdown.
U.S. Justice Department attorney Sean Skedzielewski laid blame with “one-sided and selectively edited media reports.” He also said it wouldn’t be possible to immediately distribute cameras.
“I understand that. I would not be expecting agents to wear body-worn cameras they do not have,” Ellis said, adding that the details could be worked out later.
She said the field director of the enforcement effort must appear in court Monday.
In 2024, Immigration and Customs Enforcement began deploying about 1,600 body cameras to agents assigned to Enforcement and Removal Operations.
At the time, officials said they would be provided to agents in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington, Buffalo, New York and Detroit. Other Homeland Security Department agencies require some agents to wear cameras. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has released body-camera video when force has been used by its agents or officers.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agriculture specialists encountered potentially disease ridden bushmeat twice within one week at Detroit Metropolitan Airport late last month, U.S. officials said Wednesday. Photo courtesy of U.S. Customs and Border Protection
Aug. 20 (UPI) — U.S. border officials in Michigan stumbled on multiple discoveries of likely disease-ridden African bushmeat within a week’s time.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents found two different passengers twice within a week in late July at Michigan’s Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Both the unidentified were from Togo and Gabon, respectively.
“These recent bushmeat interceptions are significant in bringing attention to the illegal importation of bushmeat through our ports of entry,” Detroit Metropolitan’s Port Director Fadia Pastilong said in a statement.
Bushmeat refers to wild animals often in the form of bats, non-human primates and cane rats from certain regions that, according to U.S. health officials, pose “significant communicable disease risk.”
The border agency pointed specifically to how the incidents showcase how it works with partner agencies to prevent disease outbreaks.
Border officials in Detroit added that while rodent-type bushmeat finds were sporadic as it is, the recently-located primate interceptions, they said, were “much rarer.”
“We routinely find various agriculture items and oddities,” stated Marty C. Raybon, Detroit’s director of field operations.
The Togan native from west Africa carried around 11 ponds of rodent meat. However, both travelers also had undeclared so-called “agriculture items.”
Raybon noted other similar finds include live giant snails, animal skulls and other “exotic food items.”
The unnamed traveler from central Africa in Gabon only two days later yielded some 52 pounds primate meat falsely declared as antelope.
U.S. officials noted how the tradition also expands risk of disease spreading.
“Ebola, mpox, and other emerging diseases can have catastrophic consequences if they enter human populations,” they stated.
They added it’s also illegal to import bushmeat into the Untied States.
Last year in February a CBP K9 beagle agent named Buddey sniffed out dehydrated monkey remains from the Democratic Republic of Congo at Boston’s Logan Airport the traveler claimed was “dried fish.”
The illegal African bushmeat ultimately was turned over to CDC specialists for final disposition.
Meanwhile, the two unidentified African traveler were fined $300 each for the “undeclared agriculture items” in their attempt to bring their native “bushmeat” to U.S. shores.
ATLANTA — Detroit safety Morice Norris was attended to for about 20 minutes and taken off the field in an ambulance during the Lions’ preseason game Friday night against Atlanta, with the game ending with 6:31 to go after the players let the clock run.
Norris was hurt with 14:50 to go trying to tackle Nathan Carter.
“We’re just praying for Mo and ask that everybody prays for him,” said Lions coach Dan Campbell, who said he had “positive information” from hospital.
“He’s breathing. He’s talking. He has some movement,” Campbell added.
When play resumed, Falcons quarterback Emory Jones took a snap and then held the ball as players from both teams stood at the line of scrimmage and the clock continued to run. Finally, with 6:31 left, an official announced the game had been suspended “per New York.”
The Lions led 17-10 when played was stopped.
Campbell and Falcons coach Raheem Morris made the decision to not finish the game.
“Raheem Morris is a class act,” Campbell said. “He’s the ultimate class act. We agreed it just didn’t feel right to finish that game.”
Lions quarterback Kyle Allen said the decision to not finish the game was easy to make.
“I don’t think anyone on that sideline wanted to play,” Allen said. “We weren’t part of that decision but you could look in anyone’s eyes and see that.”
Stevie Nicks has postponed several upcoming tour dates after fracturing her shoulder.
“Due to a recent injury resulting in a fractured shoulder that will require recovery time, Stevie Nicks’ scheduled concerts in August and September will be rescheduled,” the Fleetwood Mac singer announced over the weekend.
The affected shows include all her August and September shows, which include Detroit, Brooklyn and Florida dates. Those dates have been rescheduled for later in the fall and winter.
Nicks’ shows scheduled for October are still on as planned, including Portland, Sacramento and Las Vegas.
“Stevie looks forward to seeing everyone soon and apologizes to the fans for this inconvenience,” the statement continued.
Nicks recently delighted Fleetwood Mac fans by reaching enough of a detente with her on-and-off bandmate Lindsey Buckingham to reissue their beloved 1973 collaborative LP “Buckingham Nicks,” their only album together before joining Fleetwood Mac. That LP is out Sept. 19.
Holland praised Hiller and looked ahead to their new partnership Thursday during the Hall of Fame hockey executive’s introductory news conference at the Kings’ training complex. Holland is returning to the NHL after a one-year absence, taking over as the replacement for Rob Blake.
The 69-year-old former GM of the Detroit Red Wings and the Edmonton Oilers immediately made it clear he isn’t in Los Angeles to blow up a team that has made four straight playoff appearances, only to lose to the Oilers in the first round every spring. Holland won’t make an immediate change behind the Kings’ bench — or even in the front office, where he plans to retain the assistant GMs and hockey executives who worked for Blake.
“Jim is going to be the coach,” Holland said. “Jim Hiller did a fabulous job in leading the team to 105 points. They were good defensively. They were good on special teams. The team played hard. I thought three weeks ago that this was a team that had the potential, the ability to go on a long playoff run. He’ll be a better coach next year for the experience that he went through this year.”
Holland and Hiller spent two hours in discussion Wednesday, the GM said. Hiller, who replaced the fired Todd McLellan in February 2024, was an assistant coach to Mike Babcock in Detroit a decade ago while Holland was the Wings’ general manager.
The Kings tied the franchise records for victories (48) and points (105) this season under Hiller, only to lose four straight playoff games to Edmonton after going up 2-0. Los Angeles is a consistent playoff team with star power and solid depth, but Holland knows his job is to get the Kings off this franchise plateau.
“I’m hoping to add something to it, maybe a little different idea,” Holland said. “I’m looking forward to getting going. … I understand that this is a marketplace that’s really competitive. You talk about all the competition for the entertainment dollar, so it’s important that you win and you compete. Got to find a way to make the team a little bit different, a little bit better. I think the experiences they’ve been through here will benefit us down the road.”
Blake left the team less than two weeks ago, according to Kings president Luc Robitaille. Holland called the Kings “a legitimate Stanley Cup contender” this season, and he praised Blake for his rebuilding job.
The Kings’ search quickly zeroed in on Holland, who spent the past year working in the NHL’s hockey operations division after he left the Oilers by mutual consent. Robitaille said the Kings are “very fortunate” to hire Holland.
“He knows the path of what it takes to get to the championship,” Robitaille said. “That’s a hard thing to do, and that’s a hard thing to learn. His experience, what he’s done over the course of his career, is very important for this franchise to get to that next level.”
Holland won one Stanley Cup as an assistant GM in Detroit and three more during his 22 years as the Wings’ general manager. In 2019 he moved on to Edmonton, which made the playoffs in all five years of his tenure and even advanced to Game 7 of last year’s Stanley Cup Final before falling to Florida.
Holland said he wasn’t sure whether he would return to a front office after he left Edmonton, but he’s ready. He spent the winter watching games every night at home in British Columbia when he wasn’t working alongside NHL director of hockey operations Colin Campbell.
“I’m excited to be back in the saddle,” Holland said. “I’ve got a lot of energy. I had an opportunity this past winter to get my batteries re-juiced.”
Holland called Los Angeles “one of the great sports cities in all the world,” and he is already getting to know the breadth of the city in a way he never did as a visitor: He spent the past two nights in a hotel in Manhattan Beach, the beautiful seaside enclave where most of the Kings’ players and executives live.
“My wife is excited, and my grandkids are really excited,” Holland said. “Let me tell you, they’re looking forward to coming to L.A., watching some Kings games and going to Disneyland.”
