ABC NEWS: A suburban Pennsylvania woman known by the alias “Jihad Jane” has been arrested and charged with trying to recruit Islamic fighters and for plotting to assassinate a Swedish cartoonist who made fun of the Prophet Mohammed, according to a federal indictment unsealed today. Colleen R. LaRose, 46, of Montgomery, Pa., described by neighbors as an average “housewife,” is better known to federal authorities as “Fatima Rose” or “Jihad Jane.” The indictment, obtained by ABC News, charges LaRose with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to kill in a foreign country. She is also accused of making false statements to a government official and of attempted identity theft, a passport she allegedly stole with the intention of giving to an Islamic fighter. The court papers claim that LaRose reached out through the Internet to jihadist groups saying she was “desperate to do something to help” suffering Muslim people, and that she desired to become a martyr. She stated in her e-mails “that her physical appearance would allow her to ‘blend in with many people’ which ‘may be a way to achieve what is in my heart,’” the indictment states.   MORE

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT: The indictment further charges that LaRose and her unindicted co-conspirators used the Internet to establish relationships with one another and to communicate regarding their plans, which included martyring themselves, soliciting funds for terrorists, soliciting passports and avoiding travel restrictions (through the collection of passports and through marriage) in order to wage violent jihad. The indictment further charges that LaRose stole another individual’s U.S. passport and transferred or attempted to transfer it in an effort to facilitate an act of international terrorism. In addition, according to the indictment, LaRose received a direct order to kill a citizen and resident of Sweden, and to do so in a way that would frighten “the whole Kufar [non-believer] world.” The indictment further charges that LaRose agreed to carry out her murder assignment, and that she and her co-conspirators discussed that her appearance and American citizenship would help her blend in while carrying out her plans. If convicted of the charges against her, LaRose faces a potential sentence of life in prison and a $1 million fine. MORE

CNN: Irish police arrested seven people Tuesday suspected of plotting to commit a murder abroad, they announced. Irish media reports said the target was Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who drew a cartoon of the Muslim prophet Mohammed with the body of a dog in 2007, prompting al Qaeda to offer $100,000 to anyone who killed him — plus an extra $50,000 if the killer slits his throat. MORE

THE GUARDIAN: Lars Vilks, the Swedish artist at the centre of an alleged assassination attempt, was put under police protection in 2007 when al-Qaida offered a reward for his “slaughter”. Vilks’s depiction of the prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog in a series of drawings prompted the terrorist group to put a $100,000 bounty on his head. The sketches had sparked a furious reaction from Muslim groups and countries including Pakistan and Iran. Some Islamic traditions consider it blasphemous to make or show an image of the prophet, and Vilks’s drawings were regarded as especially derogatory as dogs are a symbol of filth for many Muslims. MORE

ASSOCIATED PRESS: The alleged target of the murder conspiracy, Swedish artist Lars Vilks, told The Associated Press he believed that the Irish arrests are linked to two telephone death threats he received in January over one of his drawings published in a Swedish newspaper in August 2007. Vilks said in a telephone interview he received those threats shortly after Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard — who also faced extremist Muslim death threats for his 2005 depictions of Muhammad — was threatened when a Somali man wielding an ax broke into his home in Denmark on Jan. 1. Westergaard locked himself in a room and called police, who shot and wounded the attacker. MORE

WIKIPEDIA: The Lars Vilks Muhammad drawings controversy began in July 2007 with a series of drawings by Swedish artist Lars Vilks which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad as a roundabout dog (a form of street installation in Sweden). Several art galleries in Sweden declined to show the drawings, citing security concerns and fear of violence. The controversy gained international attention after the Örebro-based regional newspaper Nerikes Allehanda published one of the drawings on 18 August to illustrate an editorial on self-censorship and freedom of religion.^[1] While several other leading Swedish newspapers had published the drawings already, this particular publication led to protests from Muslims in Sweden as well as official condemnations from several foreign governments including Iran,^[2] Pakistan,^[3] Afghanistan,^[4] Egypt,^[5] and Jordan,^[6] as well as by the inter-governmental Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).^[7] The controversy occurred about a year and a half after the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy in Denmark in early 2006. MORE

POLITICS DAILY: On his daily radio and television shows last week, Fox News personality Glenn Beck set out to convince his audience that “social justice,” the term many Christian churches use to describe their efforts to address poverty and human rights, is a “code word” for communism and Nazism. Beck urged Christians to discuss the term with their priests and to leave their churches if leaders would not reconsider their emphasis on social justice. MORE

GLENN BECK: I’m begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words ’social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes.

REVEREND JAMES MARTIN: Social justice is an essential part of Catholic teaching. It’s part of being a Catholic. So Glenn Beck is, in essence, saying “Leave the Catholic church.” But Glenn Beck is saying something else: “Leave Christianity.” Again and again in the Gospels, Jesus mentions our responsibility to care for the poor, to work on their behalf, to stand with them. In fact, when asked how his followers would be judged he doesn’t say that it will be based on where you worship, or how you pray, or how often you go to church, or even what political party you believe in. He says something quite different: It depends on how you treat the poor. In the Gospel of Matthew (25) he tells his surprised disciples, that when you are meeting the poor, you are meeting him. They protest. “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” But our responsibility to care for “the least of these” does not end with simple charity. Giving someone a handout is an important part of the Christian message. But so is advocating for them. It is not enough simply to help the poor, one must address the structures that keep them that way. Standing up for the rights of the poor is not being a Nazi, it’s being Christian. And Communist, as Mr. Beck suggests? It’s hard not to think of the retort of the great apostle of social justice, Dom Helder Camara, archbishop of Recife, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” The attack on social justice is the tack of those who wish to ignore the concerns the poor and ignore the social structures that foster poverty. MORE

BY MIKE WOLVERTON SPORTS GUY With less than a week to go before the NCAA Tournament field is announced, lets take a look at how the local basketball programs are positioned. [The NIT, CBI and CIT are secondary, tertiary and gawd-awful tournaments, respectively, for teams that don’t make the NCAA Tournament].

LaSalle

The Explorers will miss the Atlantic 10 Tournament after finishing 13^th in the conference. Only the top 12 make the field. Saturday’s loss to Saint Joe’s sealed their fate.

Season Highlight: Um, lets see…snapping their 8-game losing streak by beating UMass? Or maybe the 19-point pasting of Penn.

NCAA Chances: 0%

NIT Chances: 0%

CBI/CIT Chances: 0%

Temple

The Owls ended on a 7-game win streak and will take the #1 seed in to the Atlantic 10 Tourney. A balanced squad that hangs its hat on defense, Temple has allowed more than 60 points in regulation only once in the last 10 games.

Season Highlight: December’s 10-point win over Villanova.

NCAA Chances: 100%

Seed range: Winning the A-10 Tournament will probably net the Owls a 3-seed. An early exit could see them drop as far as a #6.

Saint Joseph’s

A win over LaSalle Saturday got the Hawks into the Atlantic 10 Tournament field, which only guarantees that they will finish the year with 20 losses (Saint Joe’s is currently 11-19). They’ll likely be put out of their misery on Tuesday against the #5 team in the conference, Rhode Island. It would take four wins on the trot to get the Hawks into the NCAA field.

Season Highlight: Beating Boston College in November to move to 3-0.

NCAA Chances: 1%

NIT Chances: 0%

CBI/CIT Chances: 0%

Villanova

Four losses in their final six games dropped Nova from a national Top 5 ranking to fourth place in a stacked Big East. Scottie Reynolds and the Wildcats have great tourney experience after their Final Four appearance last year. They’ll try to use the Big East Tournament to regain their momentum.

Season Highlight: The first 21 games (20-1).

NCAA Chances: 100%

Seed range: Nova is fading, but a strong showing in New York this week could vault them as high as a #2. More likely is a 3- or 4-seed, while a flop in the Big East Tourney could find them as low as a 5.

Drexel

A decent season for the Dragons (11-7 in conference) ended with a first-round loss to James Madison in the Colonial Athletic Association Tournament.

Season Highlight: Beating both Northeastern and George Mason as part of five wins out of six in January/February.

NCAA Chances: 0%

NIT Chances:  0%

CBI/CIT Chances: 5%…you never know

Penn

Strangely the Quakers’ season isn’t over yet, as they have a makeup game with Princeton on Tuesday. But that will be the end, as there is no Ivy League Tournament. Penn won only one game out of conference (at Maryland-Baltimore County) in going 6-21.

Season Highlight: Whenever the last game ends. Or maybe a 15-point win against Ivy champ Cornell.

NCAA Chances: 0%

NIT Chances: 0%

CBI/CIT Chances: 0%

PHILLY DEALS: Sunoco Inc., the Philadelphia-based oil company, says it’s paying EquaTerra Inc., a Houston consulting firm, to recommend whether Sunoco should “outsource” information technology, accounting, personnel, and procurement jobs from its Center City headquarters, home to 750 of Sunoco’s 10,000 employees. “We have hired EquaTerra to advise us as we explore potentially outsourcing some functions,” Sunoco spokesman Thomas Golembeski told me yesterday. Workers learned Friday of the possible job moves. EquaTerra didn’t return calls for comment late yesterday. Sunoco expects EquaTerra to report later this year on which jobs could be profitably outsourced to cheap labor markets in Asia or elsewhere. MORE

ATTYTOOD: First of all…uh, Sunoco, could you please explain to me what you’ve been doing with the wads of extra cash that I’ve been forced to dole out at your service stations these last few years? Surely you didn’t lose that much on those discount cards from the Acme. And so now this is your gratitude for sevcral years of record profits – inflicting a hurting on the Philadelphia economy, and not just the people who’ll lose their office jobs in Center City but the guy who sold them coffee in the morning, and, yes, the service station owner who use to fuel up their morning commute to a job that’s about to disappear forever. Second of all, isn’t this the real problem in America today, and one that no one in Washington – or anywhere else — has a clue on how to solve? Free-market solutions? Give me a break — this is the free market in action. There’s not a Republican tax break in the world that would stop Sunoco from shipping those jobs to India or China or wherever, given the huge disparity in wages. MORE

STEPHEN A. SMITH: Allen Iverson is in trouble, folks, deep trouble. The combination of alcohol and gambling - and a once-promising career in tatters because of the first two - won’t culminate in anything short of disaster if help does not arrive in short order. If numerous NBA sources are telling the truth - and there’s no reason to believe they’d do otherwise in a situation of this magnitude - Iverson will either drink himself into oblivion or gamble his life away. Moore, ever the protector, would never admit as much, of course. But that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? Iverson’s wife, Tawanna, having hired some high-powered Atlanta attorney and filed for a divorce last week, does not help matters. Nor does it help that she’s already separated from her husband, with custody of their five kids and seeking both alimony and child support. When you consider Iverson’s well-known penchant for alcohol and his banishment from casinos in Detroit and Atlantic City, if disgust and sadness don’t come to mind, at least one question does: Where is Pat Croce when you need him? MORE

ALLEN IVERSON: To my fans: You all know that my life isn’t perfect. I am going through some very tough times right now, like I am sure that we all do from time to time. However, I will stand tall like always with “rhino” thick skin. Even though I have become used to hearing people say things about me that aren’t true, it still hurts. I encourage you to continue your ongoing support and I want you to trust that this is another obstacle in my life that, with God’s help I will overcome. God Bless You All. [via TWITTER]

President Barack Obama at Arcadia University by FIREFIGHTERSDAUGHTER

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER: After the event, Trisha Urban, 33, of Hamburg, hurried out to her car, in a race to get there before her daughter, Cora, 13 months, began to cry. “My husband died on the day she was born,” said Urban, who had been invited to attend by Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.). She and her husband, Andrew Urban, had insurance, she said, but when he was diagnosed with a heart condition and started needing regular medical care, their coverage was dropped. They struggled to keep paying the bills, but Andrew Urban decided to skip his last doctor’s appointment because they couldn’t pay for it. Less than a month later, on Feb. 5, 2009, Trisha Urban found her husband unconscious in their home as she went into labor. She was unable to revive him. “If he could have gone to the doctor,” she said, “it would have made a world of difference.” MORE

DNC: “It’s not surprising that the same insurance company executives who have recently jacked up already unaffordable premiums by as much as 60 percent on America’s families and small businesses while also denying care to those who need it most, are holed up in the posh Ritz-Carlton today plotting their strategy to kill reform.  They know that reform will make care more affordable and will ensure reliable coverage, but they also know that it could put a small dent in their record profits.  And they are desperate to protect their profits.  That’s why they and their Republican allies are going to say and do anything to mislead and scare the American public about reform including telling the most scurrilous lies and using the most despicable fear tactics. Today’s news that Anthem is going to hike rates in Virginia proves that the insurance industry feels they can continue to gouge the American people with impunity and highlights the need for reform now.  Because, while they are sipping tea at the Ritz, American families are feeling the pain of insurance company rate hikes and GOP obstruction.”

TRENTONIAN: Ed “NJ Weedman” Forchion is sparking a new kind of buzz these days, and he’s taking some heat for the way he’s used the likeness of President Obama. Forchion, who at one point or another ran for just about every elected office in New Jersey on a platform of marijuana legalization, is now running a medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles, and a poster for an upcoming party he’s hosting has gotten him in some hot bong water. Forchion, formerly of Willingboro, is set to host an “Obama One Year in Office Celebration” out in California, and the poster he’s using to promote the event includes a picture of Obama with a large joint hanging out of his mouth. Forchion is also pictured on the graphic, and he’s lighting the president’s joint. MORE

PREVIOUSLY: Last year, the NJ Weedman moved to Los Angeles. Last week, I reached him at the legal medical-marijuana dispensary he runs on Hollywood Boulevard. “In New Jersey, I got hassled, fired from my job, and attacked by police,” Forchion recalled by cell phone. “Out here, nobody bothers me. I’m becoming a celebrity.” Like the rest of Tinseltown, the Weedman wants to be a star. “I’m looking for great revolutionary people,” producer Bobby Razak explained in a break from filming a reality-TV pilot at Forchion’s pot shop. “Someone needs to show viewers what this guy is all about.” [via INQUIRER]

PHILADLEPHIA WEEKLY: Ed Forchion is no saint. If his arrest record were of the musical variety, it would be a double album or a boxed set. And yet in these warped through-the-looking-glass times we live in, where official truth more often than not turns out to be a lie, Ed Forchion, 38, is something of a role model. Forced by circumstance and his own lapse of judgement, this formerly apolitical Rastafarian trucker has become a radicalized constitutional warrior. He has dared to ask out loud, in a court of law no less, the question the estimated 80 million Americans who have tried marijuana have asked themselves in private: Why is it illegal?

With neither the money nor the justice it can buy, he has fought the law–in this case, the law that makes it a crime to pluck the leaves off a certain fragrant weed growing in the earth and smoke them for pleasure or medicinal use–and the law has called it a draw. Forchion did not pick this fight–he’s sort of the stoner analogue of the drunken underclassmen at a frat party who trips and spills his beer down the blouse of the homecoming queen and gets taken outside by the jocks for a good beat-down–but he did not run from it. And before it was over, he had lost pretty much everything he ever had except his phonebook-thick stack of court transcripts, which he pores over like a biblical scholar hunched over the Dead Sea Scrolls.

His name probably doesn’t ring a bell, but you may know him by his nickname: New Jersey Weedman. Or maybe by his antics: smoking a joint at the Liberty Bell, or on the floor of the New Jersey State Assembly or in the offices of Congressman Rob Andrews (D-N.J.). Or his quixotic bids for a congressional seat representing the Legalize Marijuana Party, a party of one–him. Or his well-publicized efforts to legally make his name and his web site (www.NJweedman.com) one and the same–a desperate prison-house bid to bring attention to the collateral damage of the War on Drugs. While most people probably mistook these acts of civil disobedience for giggle-worthy outtakes from a Cheech and Chong movie when they showed up on the evening news, they were in fact all part of kamikaze legal defense strategy that was, by all conventional standards of jurisprudence, crazy–but in the end proved to be crazy like a fox. MORE

RELATED: Gray is part of a growing national movement to rethink pot laws. From California, where lawmakers may outright legalize marijuana, to New Jersey, which implemented a medical use law Jan. 19, states are taking unprecedented steps to loosen marijuana restrictions. Advocates of legalizing marijuana say generational, political and cultural shifts have taken the USA to a unique moment in its history of drug prohibition that could topple 40 years of tough restrictions on both medicinal and recreational marijuana use. A Gallup Poll last October found 44% favor making marijuana legal, an eight-point jump since the question was asked in 2005. An ABC News-Washington Post poll in January found 81% favor making marijuana legal for medical use. MORE

INQUIRER: A 14-year-old Camden girl was charged with murder today in the grisly slayings of a man and a woman found buried last month in the backyard of a South Camden rowhouse. The girl was among a group of at least 10 people who beat and strangled Muriah Ashley Huff, 22, of Cinnaminson on Feb. 22, authorities said. Members of the same group also killed Huff’s boyfriend, Michael Hawkins, 23, of Mount Holly. Hawkins was bound and beaten for hours - until most of the bones in his face were broken - and then shot and stabbed repeatedly, said Jason Laughlin, spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office. The couple were buried before dawn Feb. 23 in one grave, Laughlin said. MORE

PREVIOUSLY:  Beaten, Bullet-Riddled Corpses Of Couple Dug Up In Camden Backyard

Hilarious social media playa spoof of Jay-Z’s “Empire State Of Mind” currently blowing up viral on an Internet near you.

INQUIRER: Taken aback by the intense criticism from political opponents and local officials of President Obama’s decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a civilian courtroom in New York, the City of Brotherly Love just may be the perfect location to transfer the trial of one of the masterminds behind the 9/11 attacks. Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, take note. Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell may be historical, but they’re old news. A terrorist trial, that’s history in the making and would deliver the biggest financial payoff since William Penn made the deal with the Lenape tribe. All Mayor Nutter has to do is invite the trial to the Philadelphia Convention Center. MORE

NEW YORKER: Now that Bloomberg, Kelly, and Schumer have withdrawn their support, the Justice Department is in retreat, and Holder is scrambling to find a venue for “the trial of the century.” Kate Martin, the Center for National Security Studies director, warns, “We can’t have a situation where political pressure forces the federal government to forgo criminal prosecution. That would mean the system is fundamentally broken.” MORE

PHAWKER: New York is a bunch of pussies. Bring it on. We’ll give him the Santa Claus treatment.

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Mark Linkous, the singer-songwriter who released his music under the band name Sparklehorse, has died after shooting himself in the chest in Tennessee. He was 47. Knoxville Police Department spokesman Darrell DeBusk said Linkous shot himself outside a friend’s house around 1:20 p.m. Saturday with his own rifle. DeBusk said Linkous was staying with friends and became upset after receiving a text message. DeBusk said Linkous left no suicide note behind. The North Carolina-based artist was moving to Knoxville and staying with two friends, who told police Linkous was drinking and became upset after texting with an unknown person. After saying he didn’t want to talk about what was upsetting him, the friends said Linkous went upstairs for a short time, then left the house through a back door. A witness saw Linkous sit down nearby, take out his rifle, place it against his chest and pull the trigger. MORE

PREVIOUSLY: He was dead once for two breathless minutes in 1996…

Miro Dance Theatre has set out this Spring to open up a creative laboratory. Blurring the line between chaos and creativity, the company is about to embark on an ambitious new edition to their Open Studio Series- The Miro Mash-Ups. Miro is joining forces with the rising Philadelphia rock band Toy Soldiers, a producer, and two new music composers to create a new dance and music work in four days each month in Miro Mash-Ups. The first one will be Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 6:30 p.m. All of Miro’s Open Studios take place at the Miro Studio at Girard College, 2101 South College Avenue. Admission is free and there will be food and beer available to audience members. RSVPs are recommended. For more information or to RSVP email Events@mirodancetheatre.org or go online to www.mirodancetheatre.org. MORE

TOY SOLDIERS: Love Ya Like Love Ya

President Barack Obama drumming up support for his health care reform legislation  at Arcadia University

WHITE HOUSE PRESS OFFICE: Leslie Banks introduced the President [at Arcadia University earlier today]. On February 11^th, Leslie wrote the President an e-mail expressing her frustration with the cost of health insurance. Leslie is a self-employed, single mother with type 2 diabetes, whose daughter is a sophomore in college at Temple University.  In January 2010, Leslie received a notice from her health insurance provider that her plan was being dropped. To keep the same benefits, the premiums for her and her daughter would more than double.  Leslie was told by the insurance company that there was an across the board premium hike and there was nothing she could do.  If she paid the same monthly premium amount as before, the deductible would increase from $500 to $5,000, and they would no longer have preventive care or prescription coverage.  Leslie is not eligible for the insurance company’s HMO due to her pre-existing condition.  Under health reform, Leslie and her daughter will have to access to affordable health insurance in the new health insurance exchange, including guaranteed benefits such as preventive care and prescription drugs as well as important consumer protections.  In addition, insurance companies will no longer be able to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and they will be held accountable to prevent insurance industry abuses.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Complete transcript of POTUS’s remarks after the jump.

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