by Rabbi Shraga Simmons
Everybody knows you can't eat bread during Passover. But what's the deal with not eating rice and beans, too?
The Torah instructs a Jew not to eat (or even possess) chametz during all seven days of Passover (Exodus 13:3).
"Chametz" is defined as any of the five grains -- wheat, spelt, barley, oats, and rye -- which has come into contact with water for more than 18 minutes. This is a serious Torah prohibition, and for that reason we take extra protective measures on Passover to prevent any mistakes.
Which brings us to the category of prohibited Passover food called "kitniyot." Sometimes referred to generically as "legumes," this includes rice, corn, soy beans, string beans, peas, lentils, mustard, sesame seeds and poppy seeds. Even though kitniyot cannot technically become chametz, Ashkenazi Jews do not eat them on Passover. Why?
The Smak (Rabbi Yitzchak of Korbol) explains that products of kitniyot appear like chametz products. For example, it can be hard to distinguish between rice flour (kitniyot) and wheat flour (chametz). Therefore, to prevent confusion, all kitniyot was prohibited.
The Beit Yosef (Rabbi Yosef Karo, 16th century, Israel) notes that since regular grains may become mixed together ...   more »

Largest terror op in 3 years was to 'execute mass killings and abductions'
By Aaron Klein
JAFFA, Israel – Hamas used two seized U.S. military vehicles to carry out a large-scale attack this weekend against a major Israeli border crossing, Hamas leaders told WND. 
The vehicles were captured when Hamas last June took complete control of the Gaza Strip, overtaking all U.S.-backed security compounds in the territory associated with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party. The U.S. provided Fatah with weapons, vehicles and large sums of financial and military aid.
Israeli defense officials called yesterday's border attack the largest, most sophisticated Hamas terrorist operation since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. 
"We utilized two American armored Jeep vehicles in the heroic operation at Kerem Shalom," said Abu Abdullah, who is considered one of the most important operational members of Hamas' so-called military wing. "We obtained the vehicles last June."
Muhammad Abdel-Al, the spokesperson and a leader of the Hamas-allied Popular Resistance Committees terrorist organization which participated in this weekend's attack, confirmed two American vehicles were utilized. 
Abdel-Al added, "We warned you we would obtain all the weapons the Zionists and Americans gave to your puppets in Fatah. It is ...   more »

By Chris Mitchell
CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - What's the greatest danger to world stability? Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu believes it's the possibility of a nuclear Iran.
"Our central policy must be that Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons."
Is Netanyahu's assessment of the Iranian threat accurate? Click play to watch Pat Robertson's analysis following CBN News Reporter Chris Mitchell's report.
Netanyahu addressed a group of foreign journalists and warned of the danger Iran poses.
"The militant Shiites in Iran are openly racing and openly boasting that they're racing to develop nuclear weapons with the explicit, announced goal of wiping Israel from the face of the earth."
JERUSALEM DATELINE:
Echoes of Hitler
But he also warned a nuclear Iran poses a danger not just to Israel.
"This is not merely a local problem but a global problem. Obviously if Iran possesses nuclear weapons, everything we've been talking about will pale in comparison because the power to extend power, to threaten, to realize the threats, to make good on the threats would be on a level that we have not seen, nor can we readily imagine," Netanyahu said.
But how do you stop Iran? Netanyahu advocates financial ...   more »

Friday: Carter in Syria to Meet Assad and Mashaal
Jimmy Carter met Friday with Syrian President Bashar Assad before holding talks with Hamas' exiled political chief Khaled Mashaal.
Carter's meetings with Hamas have drawn sharp criticism from Israelis, U.S. officials. Washington lists Hamas as a terrorist group.
Ynet reported, that former President Carter met Friday with the exiled leader of Hamas and the group's deputy chief, men the US government has labeled as global terrorists and Israel accuses of masterminding suicide bombings and kidnappings.
Friday: 5.2 earthquake rocks large region of Midwest - AP
WEST SALEM, Ill. (AP) — Residents across the Midwest were awakened Friday by a 5.2 magnitude earthquake that rattled skyscrapers in Chicago's Loop and homes in Cincinnati but appeared to cause no major injuries or damage.
The earthquake struck southern Illinois about six miles north of Mount Carmel, at 4:37 a.m., violently shaking people from their beds, swaying Chicago skyscrapers and vibrating the earth as far east as Georgia.
It was felt in such distant cities as Milwaukee, Des Moines, Iowa, and Atlanta, nearly 400 miles to the southeast.
The strongest quake produced in recent history by the Wabash area was a magnitude 5.3 in southern ...   more »

Baghdad locale, slated to be completed in 2007, to be largest of its kind
The Associated Press
updated 4:45 p.m. CT, Fri., April. 14, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The fortress-like compound rising beside the Tigris River here will be the largest of its kind in the world, the size of Vatican City, with the population of a small town, its own defense force, self-contained power and water, and a precarious perch at the heart of Iraq’s turbulent future.
The new U.S. Embassy also seems as cloaked in secrecy as the ministate in Rome.
“We can’t talk about it. Security reasons,” Roberta Rossi, a spokeswoman at the current embassy, said when asked for information about the project.
A British tabloid even told readers the location was being kept secret — news that would surprise Baghdadis who for months have watched the forest of construction cranes at work across the winding Tigris, at the very center of their city and within easy mortar range of anti-U.S. forces in the capital, though fewer explode there these days.
The embassy complex — 21 buildings on 104 acres, according to a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report — is taking shape on riverside parkland in ...   more »

By Paul Willis for CNN
LONDON , England (CNN) -- Derek is compiling a survival guide on how to cope after the total collapse of society. It is, as you can imagine, a big job.
Already he has 58.8 gigabytes of material stored on his computer, he tells me impressively.
Derek (this is not his real name -- he says he doesn't want me to use his real name "for obvious reasons" that he never gets round to explaining) considers himself a survivalist.
The survivalist movement grew up in America in the 1960s. Encouraged by Cold War era government's calls to build nuclear fallout shelters, and concerns over currency devaluation, individuals and groups began to take steps to prepare themselves against the worst.
Many survivalists in the U.S. relocate to the northwestern state of Idaho, stockpiling food, and quite often guns and ammunition, and learning how to be self-sufficient in order to survive or "disappear."
To those who have heard of it at all, survivalism is sometimes associated with extremist views. In the U.S., the movement has occasionally been hijacked by far-right groups attracted by its rejection of much of government and its fierce defense of the right to bear ...   more »

Scrap metal thieves are becoming increasingly audacious, with some even stealing from cemeteries and memorials. Now some 1,000 bronze plaques have gone missing from the former concentration camp at Theresienstadt.
Jan Munk, director of the Theresienstadt memorial site, with one of the damaged monuments.
Semi-precious metal, as it happens, is everywhere. It can be found on church roofs; copper pipes run through many a house wall; and wiring is almost ubiquitous. Scrap metal thieves, though, have recently discovered a valuable new source of copper: Cemeteries and memorials.
This week, a particularly audacious bandit apparently made off with over 1,000 bronze plaques from the Holocaust memorial Theresienstadt just outside of Prague. The plaques were emblazoned with the names of prisoners who died at the Nazi concentration camp there -- and Czech police said this week that many of them had been discovered at a scrap yard in northern Czech Republic.
The theft, said Czech Culture Minister Vaclav Jehlicka, "has disgraced the memory of World War II victims irrespective of whether it was committed on the basis of a pervert ideology or purely for gain of money." Damage is estimated to be about 1 million koruna, or about €40,000 ($63,600).
Jehlicka said ...   more »

By Philip Pullella
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pope Benedict, marking the third anniversary of his election, urged the U.S. Catholic Church on Saturday to overcome its divisions and seek "purification" and the truth following its sexual abuse scandal.
Benedict began the penultimate day of his first U.S. papal visit with a solemn Mass in New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Gothic church completed in 1879 with the pennies of immigrants and known as the center of American Catholicism.
The pope rode down New York's usually bustling Fifth Avenue, a section of which was eerily deserted and sealed off by security agents, in a black limousine and emerged wearing a fur-fringed white cape.
He was welcomed on the steps of the great cathedral by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who earlier in an address inside the church joked about being Jewish.
"Pope Benedict could not have picked a better time to come to New York -- a beautiful spring weekend, the 200th anniversary of the archdiocese of New York, and on top of that it's Passover," Bloomberg said.
The Mass reflected New York's ethnic mix, with prayers in Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, German and Akan, a group of languages from West ...   more »

By George Thomas
CBNNews.com - ROME, Italy - In this predominantly Catholic nation, the devil is gaining a foothold.
"There is a greater openness towards the devil," says Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican's Chief Exorcist.
In fact, Rome has been called the most satanized city in Italy.
"Satanism and the occult are in fashion," declares Father Pedro Barrajón, a Catholic priest who serves in Rome.
Devil's Diabolical Influence
There are an estimated 800 satanic cults operating in the country, with more than 600,000 followers. And according to Silvano Lilli, an evangelical pastor in Rome, their numbers are growing.
"The devil's diabolical influence is growing in so many areas of our society," says Lilli."He needs to be driven out."
Leading the battle to drive the devil out of Italy is 82-year-old Father Gabriele Amorth.
"This is the room where I do my exorcisms," says Father Amorth pointing to a small room.
Devil vs. The Vatican
Not too far from the Vatican, Father Amorth uses the practice of exorcism to drive out the devil from possessed souls.
"If a person is not violent I let them sit in this armchair, and I do the exorcism here. If they are violent I lay ...   more »

Global civil unrest over skyrocketing food prices gives us an unpleasant glimpse at what human nature can do.
Watching civil unrest and riots spreading nation to nation like a communicable disease raises some important questions. We do ourselves no favors by ignoring them.
Rising energy and food prices are hitting pocketbooks worldwide. Developing countries-which tend to be the most populous-are hurt worst, as staple foods grow too expensive or too scarce. Global grain supplies are dangerously low. Exporting nations, out of self-preservation, are getting stingy and turning the export spigot way down.
The resulting hunger pangs are being felt around the world. Why? Because they're turning up on our television screens-in the form of angry protests, which are turning into violent food riots and social breakdown. Several Africa nations, including Egypt, Ivory Coast and Cameroon, have had citizens killed in riots. There is talk the government in Bangladesh could be toppled over soaring food prices. Unrest is breaking out in Central Asia, Southeast Asia and South America. In the Philippines, armed soldiers stand watch over rice distribution. Closer to home, demonstrations have seized Mexico and Haiti. The World Bank's president estimates that 33 nations are at risk of "conflict and ...   more »

By JOSH GERSTEIN
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing. Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.
At a Costco Warehouse in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday, shoppers grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy.
"Where's the rice?" an engineer from Palo Alto, Calif., Yajun Liu, said. "You should be able to buy something like rice. This is ridiculous."
The bustling store in the heart of Silicon Valley usually sells four or five varieties of rice to a clientele largely of Asian immigrants, but only about half a pallet of Indian-grown Basmati rice was left in stock. A 20-pound bag was selling for $15.99.
"You can't eat this every day. It's too heavy," a health care executive from Palo Alto, Sharad Patel, grumbled as his son loaded two sacks of the Basmati into a shopping cart. "We only ...   more »