Coast Guard suspends search for missing URI students
After an intense two-day search for three University of Rhode Island students who disappeared in Narragansett Bay, the Coast Guard formally suspended its search Tuesday evening.
Daniel Donahue, Geoffrey Wilkes and Fandia Sod Shloul have not been seen since early Monday morning, when they took a rowboat ride near the Bonnet Shores home where they had been attending a party, the Providence Journal reported Tuesday evening.
A Rhode Island official told the Journal the disappearances launched "the largest marine search effort in Rhode Island waters in the last 15 years" and involved over 175 people.
Boats will continue patrolling the waters today, but the search is now being called a recovery effort instead of a rescue effort.
Former Taliban spokesman, now at Yale, comes under fire
Yale University has recently come under fire for admitting a former spokesman for the Taliban.
Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, the Taliban's former deputy foreign secretary, was admitted to the university last year as a special student and plans to apply as a regular student this spring, the Hartford Courant reported March 9.
Hashemi appeared on the cover of the New York Times magazine three weeks ago and has been attacked by the media since. The Courant reported that Fox News called Hashemi the "Ivy League terrorist" and a Wall Street Journal columnist compared him to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
Yale alum and former Army Capt. Flagg Youngblood criticized the university for welcoming a former enemy of the United States while at the same time blocking Reserve Officers' Training Corps training on campus.
According to a March 14 press release from the conservative Young America's Foundation, Yale Director of Public Affairs Helanie Klasky justified Hashemi's admission, saying universities "must strive to increase understanding, especially of the most difficult issues that face the nation and the world."
