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Muslims tried to stop the bombing in Manchester. As usual.

After Monday's deadly bombing in Manchester, England, several commentators began invoking a familiar villain: ordinary Muslims who didn't speak out soon enough.

Among the first to cast blame was British journalist Piers Morgan, who tweeted his criticism a few days after the attack:

It's an unfortunately familiar refrain after a deadly terror incident.

Where were the Muslims? Why did they ignore the warning signs?If they only spoke out more, these attacks could be prevented, the thinking goes.


With the proliferation of terrorist attacks in the U.S. and U.K., it might seem like common sense to wonder. But putting the responsibility of preventing terrorist attacks on Muslims only reinforces the idea that all Muslims are complicit in acts of terror.

Not only is that divisive, it's been proven false — in case after case after case.

Photo by Ben Stansall/Getty Images.

Authorities were warned about Manchester bomber Salman Abedi — five times. And they refused (or were unable) to act.

That's according to a startling report in The Telegraph, which noted that several Muslim religious leaders, friends of Abedi, and fellow Muslims from his community came forward to tell law enforcement officials about the attacker's turn toward extremism.

"The missed opportunities to catch Abedi were beginning to mount up last night. The Telegraph has spoken to a community leader who said that Abedi was reported two years ago 'because he thought he was involved in extremism and terrorism'.

Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, said: "People in the community expressed concerns about the way this man was behaving and reported it in the right way using the right channels.

'They did not hear anything since.'"



The paper reports that in addition to the community leader, two of Abedi's friends reported him to a counterterrorism hotline twice — once in 2012 and once last year.

Contrary to popular belief, Muslims help law enforcement root out extremists all the time.

Mohammad Malik, an acquaintance of Omar Mateen, reported the Pulse nightclub shooter to the FBI two years before the attack after discovering he had been imbibing al-Qaeda propaganda videos.

In August 2015, Virginia resident Amani Ibrahim warned authorities about her son Ali, who was raising money for ISIS online.

Muslims are on the front lines of fighting extremism — and they are also its primary victims.

A London mosque holds a memorial service for bombing victims. Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images.

Law enforcement agencies from the FBI to the Los Angeles Police Department have reported deep and frequent cooperation with Muslim communities in terror investigations.

"I personally have been called by community members about several things, very significant things,” LAPD deputy chief Michael Downing told Reuters in 2015. "What we say to communities is that we don’t want you to profile humans, we want you to profile behavior."

As in Orlando, as in Virginia, and as in countless cases where attacks were successfully prevented, Muslims tried valiantly to stop another senseless outburst of violence.

In Manchester, it simply wasn't enough.  

All over the world, Muslims are offering their support, their ideas, and most critically, their help in fighting terror.

Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images.

We need to stop ignoring them, stop accusing them, and listen to what they have to say.

A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

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Representative Image from Canva

Let's not curse any more children with bad names, shall we?

Some parents have no trouble giving their children perfectly unique, very meaningful names that won’t go on to ruin their adulthood. But others…well…they get an A for effort, but might want to consider hiring a baby name professional.

Things of course get even more complicated when one parent becomes attached to a name that they’re partner finds completely off-putting. It almost always leads to a squabble, because the more one parent is against the name, the more the other parent will go to bat for it.

This seemed to be the case for one soon-to-be mom on the Reddit AITA forum recently. Apparently, she was second-guessing her vehement reaction to her husband’s, ahem, avant garde baby name for their daughter, which she called “the worst name ever.”

But honestly, when you hear this name, I think you’ll agree she was totally in the right.

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An English doctor named Edward Jenner took incredible risks to try to rid his world of smallpox. Because of his efforts and the efforts of scientists like him, the only thing between deadly diseases like the ones below and extinction are people who refuse to vaccinate their kids. Don't be that parent.

Unfortunately, because of the misinformation from the anti-vaccination movement, some of these diseases have trended up in a really bad way over the past several years.

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A beautiful cruise ship crossing the seas.

Going on a cruise can be an incredible getaway from the stresses of life on the mainland. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an element of danger when living on a ship 200-plus feet high, traveling up to 35 miles per hour and subject to the whims of the sea.

An average of about 19 people go overboard every year, and only around 28% survive. Cruise ship lawyer Spencer Aronfeld explained the phenomenon in a viral TikTok video, in which he also revealed the secret code the crew uses when tragedy happens.

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Joy

Kudos to the heroes who had 90 seconds to save lives in the Key Bridge collapse

The loss of 6 lives is tragic, but the dispatch recording shows it could have been so much worse.

Representative image by Gustavo Fring/Pexels

The workers who responded to the Dali's mayday call saved lives with their quick response.

As more details of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore emerge, it's becoming more apparent how much worse this catastrophe could have been.

Just minutes before 1:30am on March 26, shortly after leaving port in Baltimore Harbor, a cargo ship named Dali lost power and control of its steering, sending it careening into a structural pillar on Key Bridge. The crew of the Dali issued a mayday call at 1:26am to alert authorities of the power failure, giving responders crucial moments to prepare for a potential collision. Just 90 seconds later, the ship hit a pylon, triggering a total collapse of the 1.6-mile bridge into the Patapsco River.

Dispatch audio of those moments shows the calm professionalism and quick actions that limited the loss of life in an unexpected situation where every second counted.

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Joy

Yale's pep band had to miss the NCAA tournament. University of Idaho said, 'We got you.'

In an act of true sportsmanship, the Vandal band learned Yale's fight song, wore their gear and cheered them on.

Courtesy of University of Idaho

The Idaho Vandals answered the call when Yale needed a pep band.

Yale University and the University of Idaho could not be more different. Ivy League vs. state school. East Coast vs. Pacific Northwest. City vs. farm town. But in the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, extenuating circumstances brought them together as one, with the Bulldogs and the Vandals becoming the "Vandogs" for a weekend.

When Yale made it to the March Madness tournament, members of the school's pep band had already committed to other travel plans during spring break. They couldn't gather enough members to make the trek across the country to Spokane, Washington, so the Yale Bulldogs were left without their fight song unless other arrangements could be made.

When University of Idaho athletic band director Spencer Martin got wind of the need less than a week before Yale's game against Auburn, he sent out a message to his band members asking if anyone would be interested in stepping in. The response was a wave of immediate yeses, so Martin got to work arranging instruments and the students dedicated themselves to learning Yale's fight song and other traditional Yale pep songs.

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