Business Loans

A 27-year-old Afghanistan citizen living in Oklahoma City faces charges after he allegedly conspired to conduct a terrorist attack on behalf of ISIS in the U.S. on Election Day. The Department of Justice says Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi wanted to target large groups of Americans on Election Day. The FBI added that Tawhedi’s underage co-conspirator is his wife’s younger brother. Sen. James Lankford told KOCO 5 that he spoke with the FBI throughout the investigation and monthslong effort to stop the Election Day terror plot. A big part of the case was a digital trail, as court documents have pictures of Tawhedi’s social media accounts and chilling text conversations. “We’re a year and a day past when terrorists crossed over a border, killed 1,200 people and took hundreds of hostages,” Lankford told KOCO 5 on Tuesday. The U.S. senator was in Oklahoma City to attend a memorial event for local Jews in remembrance of Hamas’ surprise attack on Oct. 7, 2023, in Israel. Lankford provided details of the arrest of Tawhedi, along with his juvenile co-conspirator. “An individual here in OKC that has been connecting with ISIS overseas, planning and preparing, providing resources and funding to carry out a terrorist attack here in the United States,” Lankford said. Charging documents from the DOJ highlight digital messaging conversations Tawhedi had with a man who used the alias “Abdul Malik” on the messaging app Telegram. In part of the conversation, Tawhedi said, “Brother, our house was sold today. We’ll receive the money by the 15th of October next month. After that, we’ll begin our duty, God willing, with the help of God, we will get ready for the election day.” “He had looked at several locations. I’ll let the FBI bring out all the details and prosecution as it goes through, but he had planned to carry out an act of terrorism,” Lankford said. “He had already bought the weapons and ammunition for it. He had already started the training process to carry it out.” The court documents also detail how federal agents agreed to meet with Tawhedi and his juvenile co-conspirator at a rural location to buy AK-47 rifles and ammunition. “The FBI and OKC Field Office, their quick, speedy and excellent work in this has been the difference in being able to save a lot of lives with it. We owe a lot of gratitude to them,” Lankford said. The senator, however, encouraged Oklahomans to remember this is not a reflection on the Afghan community in the state. “There are a lot of brave Afghans that fought against acts of terrorism in their country that are living as refugees in ours. So, this one Afghan is not a depiction of all Afghans that are in our state,” Lankford said. Authorities estimated Tawhedi has been in the U.S. since 2021.

The New Orleans City Council discussed Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s 2025 budget on how the city should spend $1.8 billion. The mayor said the proposal aims to combat aid disappearing from the pandemic and rising costs.How the budget process works is the mayor and CAO present the proposed budget, but the City Council will debate it and could even reshape the budget in the coming weeks. One of the concerns starting from Day 1 is the cuts to Safety and Permits and Code Enforcement.According to the mayor’s initial budget proposal presentation, Safety and Permits’ budget is getting lowered by 45% and Code Enforcement by 45%.”Safety and Permits and Code Enforcement check all of those boxes, and you see that they have a 40% or 45% reduction in their budget that sends up a lot of red flags,” said City Council budget chair Joe Giarrusso. Giarrusso says it’s something they will be taking up Friday because the numbers aren’t adding up.”Code Enforcement side, Cassie they’re really doing a good job right now,” said Giarrusso. “So we want them to continue to really do the work that they are doing. In the Safety and Permit side, it’s about those efficiencies, making sure things are running very smoothly.”After reaching out to the mayor’s office, WDSU Investigates was told the numbers in the presentation were not accurate as there was missing data when it was put together. The office said it would only be a 4% and 5% decrease. Statement from the city: “The 2025 Executive Budget presentation (which noted a 40% reduction) only included General Fund and Priority Multi-Year Project appropriations for Departments, not all funding sources. Both Safety and Permits and Code Enforcement receive significant funding from Special Funds, namely the Interim Short Term Rental Fund and the Housing and Environmental Improvement Fund which were not included in the comparison made in the presentation. “The $3.7M in general fund and priority multi-year project reductions for Safety and Permits are due to a (1) reduction in one-time funding ($2M for staff augmentation), (2) a reduction of $100K for central adjudication related expenses (moved to another cost center in CAO), and (3) $331,038 for lease payments (moved to another cost center in Property Management). The remaining general fund reduction in Safety and Permits is related to general fund positions being moved to special funds. The positions have not been removed from the budget, just changed to a different, non-general fund funding source.”The Administration remains committed to funding all infrastructure, public safety, and operational departments, including Safety and Permits and Code Enforcement, and this will remain our priority.”However, in order to provide a fiscally responsible Executive Budget to the Council at this period in the year, departments citywide had to absorb some amount of reduction based on previous year spending (meaning, not all departments spend their entire budget each year). Importantly, we have told all departments to work with us throughout the year to make sure that these reductions do not negatively impact or reduce their operations, especially those operational and public safety departments (specifically Safety and Permits and Code Enforcement). Notably, requests by safety and permits and code enforcement for hires, historically and currently, have and will be approved. The same will continue in 2025.”When considering all funds, Safety and Permits and Code Enforcement budgets were reduced 6.03% and 5.13% respectively from 2024. However, to reiterate, should these agencies need additional funding, it will be provided as it would be with public safety agencies. Both Departments were also granted staffing increases in 2025, with 29 new positions in Safety and Permits and 24 in Code Enforcement.”This comes as controversy surrounds Cantrell and CAO Montano after inspector Randy Farrell was indicted. That indictment alleges he gave Cantrell and Montano Saints and LSU football tickets to influence the leaders to fire a Safety and Permits employee who was investigating Farrel.This was even alluded to in the budget presentations with the mayor calling the indictment allegations accusations and Montano stating this is a challenging time for him, but he is committed to the budget. On Friday, the budget hearing for Safety and Permits and Code Enforcement will take place. Dec. 1 is when the council will have to approve the final budget.