What was supposed to be one of the holiest days on the Eastern Orthodox calendar looked more like a prelude to the Crusades in Jerusalem’s Old City as an estimated 10,000 Old City Christians and pilgrims from Russia, Greece and Armenia faced off with hundreds of Israeli soldiers and police on Holy Saturday.
Police set up barriers at all entrances to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where some Christians believe Jesus was buried. From sunrise on Holy Saturday, or the Sabbath of Light, pilgrims waited at police barriers for a chance to get into the church. Most never made it to the church plaza.
The overwhelming police presence was intended for crowd control and was partly in response to expected brawls between the 14 denominations in the church where relations are tenuous. A week earlier, Greeks and Armenians scuffled over rights to the tomb.
All the denominations came prepared--several laymen dressed as priests so they could have access to the church and defend their denominational territory. The Assyrian Orthodox contingent came to blows with police inside the church.
In stark contrast to the respect of evangelical Christian supporters of Israel who pilgrim to the Holy Land throughout the year, ...   more »

RENO (AP) — Scientists urged residents of northern Nevada's largest city to prepare for a bigger event as the area continued rumbling Saturday after the largest earthquake in a two-month-long series of temblors.
More than 100 aftershocks were recorded on the western edge of the city after a magnitude 4.7 quake hit Friday night, the strongest quake around Reno since one measuring 5.1 in 1953, said researchers at the seismological laboratory at the University of Nevada, Reno.
LOCAL COVERAGE: 'Reno Gazette-Journal' website
The latest quake swept store shelves clean, cracked walls in homes and dislodged rocks on hillsides, but there were no reports of injuries or widespread major damage.
Seismologists said the recent activity is unusual because the quakes started out small and continue to build in strength. The normal pattern is for a main quake followed by smaller aftershocks.
"A magnitude 6 quake wouldn't be a scientific surprise," John Anderson, director of the seismological lab, said Saturday. "We certainly hope residents are taking the threat seriously after last night."
But Anderson stressed there was no way to predict what would happen, and said the sequence of quakes also could end without a major one.
Reno's last major quake measured ...   more »

By
Bos Smith
Don't snap a photo of the Masjid At-Taqwa in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn unless you want to be hauled away by a group of angry Muslims in Islamic attire to the basement of the facility where a group of twenty "security guards" in karate suits will interrogate you.
This might sound preposterous.
But it happened on Saturday, April 24, at 3:00 in the afternoon.
Ali Kareem, the head of security for Siraj Wahaj's mosque, conducted the grilling. A small, muscular man with a wispy black beard that has been dyed red with henna, Kareem demanded to know the reason why a trio of kafirs had dared to photograph the building on a public street without securing his permission.
He further insisted on securing our identities and obtaining our motives for such a violation of Islamic space.
Being surrounded by a group of militant guards in a mosque basement from which there is no means of escape is not a comforting place to be for a Wall Street financier.
We tried to explain that we found the neighborhood with its halal meat vendors and food stores; Islamic dress shops, featuring the latest styles in burqas and hijabs; ...   more »

Influenza Opens Door for Superbug Infections, Health Experts Say
By DAN CHILDS
One is a viral illness responsible for an estimated 35,000 deaths every year. The other is a potentially deadly superbug, a horrifying legacy of antibiotic overuse that is now resistant to almost every treatment today's doctors can throw at it.
Even on their own, infection with either influenza or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) can lead to a grave situation. But now, health officials are keeping an eye out for an even more harrowing threat -- simultaneous infection with both diseases. And they say that, in children at least, these cases of co-incident infection appear to be on the rise.
So far, what the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has learned about the potential link between flu and MRSA in young patients is disturbing.
According to an official health advisory issued Jan. 30, between Oct. 1, 2006, and Sept. 30, 2007, the agency received a total of 73 reports of child deaths due to influenza. In 22 of these cases, the children were also infected with some form of the staph bug, mostly MRSA.
This compares with only three such cases of co-infection during the same period ...   more »

By Alasdair Palmer
One of the most terrifying possibilities the world faces is that al-Qa'eda, or some other Islamist group, gets hold of a nuclear bomb. Islamist terrorists are certainly trying to obtain one: Osama bin Laden has issued a document entitled "The Nuclear Bomb of Islam", which insists it is "the duty" of Muslims to acquire a nuclear bomb in order to use "as much force as possible to terrorise the enemies of God".
Con Coughlin: The real reason the Syrian base was destroyed
The Foreign Office's senior counter-terrorist official has "no doubt at all" that Islamist terrorists are actively seeking a nuclear device. "There are people" he adds dryly, "for whom exploding a nuclear bomb in a city would be a triumph for the cause."   
The more countries that have nuclear capabilities, the more likely it is they will end up in the wrong hands 
A 10 kiloton nuclear bomb would be a relatively small one by today's standards, but a 10 kiloton explosion in a city would mean that, from the centre of the blast for a distance of one third of a mile, every structure above ground level would be obliterated and every person would ...   more »

By: Kristi Piehl, Investigative Reporter; Justin Piehowski, Web Manager; Nicole Muehlhausen, Web Producer 
DETECTIVES: Chris Jenkins murder connects dozens around country  
Could there be a calculated, cross-country plot to kill young college men, including some in Minnesota? It seems a little hard to believe, but two New York detectives say they can prove it.
Now, they are revealing years of their evidence for the first time to 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS...
GO DEEPER INTO THE INVESTIGATION:
 THE JENKINS FILE: Rarely-seen documents related to the Chris Jenkins murder case
 Interactive Map of victims possibly linked by the investigation
 Visual timeline of the Jenkins murder case in Minneapolis
 Extended video clips of detectives discussing the case
 Kristi Piehl and John Mason talk about how the case has developed
 List of possible Minn. and Wisc. victims
 Kristi Piehl: How the story came about
 Listen to Kristi Piehl talk about the story on the KQRS Morning Show  
University of Minnesota college student Chris Jenkins was found in the Mississippi River in February of 2003.
Minneapolis Police began investigating the case, which also caught the attention of two retired NYPD detectives.
Turns out, Jenkins' death was the missing part of the puzzle for Kevin ...   more »