New York City

On Friday, at noon, U.N. negotiators revealed the final text of the Durban III declaration that will be adopted by all heads of state attending the "anti-racism" event in New York on September 22, 2011.

At the U.N. in New York, diplomats have been putting the finishing touches on a new “anti-racism” declaration set to be adopted by over a hundred world leaders at the annual opening of the General Assembly.

The ROTC is booming, writes the Los Angeles Times. Not only have several elite schools ended their Vietnam-era bans on the program – with Yale, most recently, establishing the only Naval ROTC program in the entire state of Connecticut on its campus – participation has increased by 27 percent nationwide over the last four years.

Cheryl Miller, at the American Enterprise Institute, has written an informative report on ROTC, titled "A Case Study of ROTC in New York City." Here are some of the reports key findings:

The Obama administration made two announcements today: The first was that the president would seek reelection in 2012; the second was that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be tried by a military commission (instead of in New York City in a federal court). KSM is considered (by himself, experts, and authorities) the mastermind behind 9/11.

For the last five years, Nick Sprayregen has been fighting for his property rights in New York City's Manhattanville. A small business owner in West Harlem, Sprayregen owns a local self-storage chain. In 2005, nearby Columbia University decided that it wanted to expand its campus, so it began consolidating land in the neighborhood. Columbia procured for itself a number of properties and then decided that it wanted Sprayregen's land, too.

Politico reports:

Will the scheme to locate a multi-story megamosque near Ground Zero be doomed by disaffection between Sharif El-Gamal, the head of Soho Properties, Inc., purchaser of the land for the building, and Feisal Abdul Rauf, the “spiritual guide” of the Cordoba Initiative and American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA)?

Ground Zero, New York City

A little rain was not enough of a deterrent to keep thousands of protesters of the Ground Zero mosque off of the streets Sunday. The protesters turned out en masse to voice their objections to the proposed construction of an Islamic cultural center, which would include a mosque, at this site of the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.

Former Democratic New York City mayor Ed Koch tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD that he supports the legal right to build mosque near Ground Zero but believes the mosque is "insensitive" to 9/11 survivors and their families.

Since a proposal to construct a 15-story mosque and community center two blocks from Ground Zero was announced last year, the project has been a focus of widening protests. To be named Cordoba House, the project would require demolition of two buildings at 45-47 Park Place and Broadway that were damaged on 9/11. They would be replaced by a glass and steel 100,000-square-foot structure with a new address, 45-51 Park Place. 

Last week, the details of the plot to bomb New York City subways in 2009 expanded dramatically. We learned that the NYC plot was connected to two others, in the UK and Norway, and that all three can be traced back to senior al Qaeda leadership in northern Pakistan.