AWOL soldier Pvt. Nasser Jason Abdo was taken into custody today by Killeen Police Department after someone called in to report a “suspicious” individual near Ft. Hood, a military installation that became the site of a mass shooting in November of 2009.

Abdo had been found in possession of weapons, including firearms and bomb-making equipment. A spokesperson for Ft. Campbell, where Abdo had been stationed prior to going AWOL, said the soldier was also being investigated for child pornography discovered on his government computer.

Who: Brian Williams, interviewed by Jeff Greenfield
What: “In the News with Jeff Greenfield – Brian Williams”
Where: 92^nd St. Y
When: April 18, 2010
Thumbs: Up

Here’s a new, scary development in yesterday’s attempted terrorist attack on Northwest airlines flight by 23-year-old Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab: he may have had ties to Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, according to an AFP report via Politico’s Playbook. Peter Hoekstra, the most senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, has a theory.

As front-page newspaper advertisements have gained popularity among cash-strapped papers, they’ve brought in a lot of money, but they pose the question of whether light-hearted ads belong next to hard news. Case-in-point: one daily advertised wine and spirits with a rabbit surrounded by balloons the day after the Fort Hood shootings.

Dave Miller, the deputy managing editor of the Killeen Daily Herald, the hometown paper for Fort Hood, provides a voice of reason and a reminder that not every media outlet in the country is solely interested in extreme headlines, during what had to be the most chaotic news event in the paper’s history.

More confusion has arisen surrounding the events at Fort Hood last Thursday. Today the NYT is running an A-1 story about an eyewitness account that throws into question Sgt. Kimberly Munley’s role in taking down shooter Nadil Hasan during last week’s deadly rampage:

It looks like yesterday’s Glenn Beck show, during which Beck labeled Nadil Hasan a “Muslim, extremist, terrorist. End of story” may just have been an early sign of what’s to come. This week’s Time takes a similar, if not quite as strident tone, managing to slip a question mark in at end of the ‘terrorist’ label.

Well, having his appendix removed last week definitely didn’t dull Glenn Beck’s propensity for incendiary opening segments (though he does look a bit trimmer). Beck was on a tear tonight, about a number of things including who the media chooses to label extremists and who they don’t. Namely alleged Ft. Hood shooter Nadil Hasan, whom Beck more or less verbally tried and convicted in the first ten minutes of his show.

As we noticed last night, much of cable news was curiously occupied with taped programming yesterday evening in the midst of giant weekend news. Both the House passage of a health care bill and a live Fort Hood press conference occurred Saturday night, but CNN and MSNBC were locked in with pre-taped shows and thus missed a few big moments.

Military blog ROFASIX has published a 1,500-word, first person account of the massacre at Fort Hood, as allegedly delivered by a soldier who not only watched the horrific events unfold, but was shot at. Though details about the source are scarce, the graphic story speaks for itself as he describes the carnage with an affecting specificity that is truly haunting.

In the wake of the tragic shootings in Fort Hood, millions of Americans scrambled to follow what was going on — and encountered misinformation and rumors at every corner, including TV, blogs, and Twitter. Could Twitter’s new list feature give news consumers better information when stories like this break?

Yesterday afternoon’s tragic shooting at Fort Hood saw the cable news networks cover the story wall-to-wall, and continue coverage into prime time. That’s when there began to be some separation.

Here are five things we learned last night from cable news coverage of the shooting.

You can expect a lot of the media focus on the Fort Hood shooting rampage to shift to this woman in the next few days. Sgt. Kimberly Munley is the civilian police officer who arrived on the scene yesterday — she had apparently been outside directing traffic — and shot alleged shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan four times. Munley, herself was wounded in the exchange, but is reportedly in stable condition. More details after the jump.

At least seven people have been killed and at least 20 wounded in a mass shooting at a Texas military base by what officials believe was carried out by two gunmen. One gunman is reported to be in custody and a search is on for a second shooter, officials said. The shooting took place at Fort Hood in Texas, the largest U.S. military installation in the world. CNN, Fox News and MSNBC have all gone wall-to-wall in their coverage as this dramatic story unfolds.