14 Bodies Recovered after Texas Blast

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Photo Credit: gnislew

By Faith Karimi and Emanuella Grinberg. Two days after a massive fertilizer plant explosion leveled parts of a central Texas town and killed 14 people, residents moved into recovery mode Friday after investigators announced they had nearly finished search and rescue efforts.

The fiery explosion ripped through the heart of the close-knit town of West.

“It’s going to be a long recovery for this community,” Gov. Rick Perry said.

The death toll included the secretary, who was also a member of the volunteer fire department, said Mayor Tommy Muska.

In total, five West firefighters died battling the blaze, along with one Dallas firefighter and four emergency responders, the State Firemen’s and Fire Marshals’ Association of Texas said Thursday. Read more from this story HERE.

Texas town grieves for dead first-responders

BY Associated Press. Buck Uptmor didn’t have to go to West Fertilizer Co. when the fire started. He wasn’t a firefighter like his brother and cousin, who raced toward the plant. But a ranch of horses next to the flames needed to be moved to safety.

“He went to help a friend,” said Joyce Marek, Uptmor’s aunt. “And then it blew.”

Two days after the fertilizer facility exploded in a blinding fireball, authorities announced Friday that they had recovered 14 bodies, confirming for the first time an exact number of people killed. Grieving relatives filed into a church offering comfort for families, as volunteers nearby handed out food to those still unable to return to homes damaged by the massive blast.

Ten of the dead were first-responders — including five from the West Volunteer Fire Department and four emergency medics, West Mayor Tommy Muska said.

The dead included Uptmor and Joey Pustejovsky, the city secretary who doubled as a member of the West Volunteer Fire Department. A captain of the Dallas Fire Department who was off-duty at the time but responded to the fire to help also died. Read more from this story HERE.

Pentagon Reaches Deal on $10 Billion Arms Sale to Middle East Allies

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The Pentagon announced Friday that it has reached a preliminary agreement on a complex $10 billion arms deal with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, in what would represent the latest major weapons sale to U.S. allies in the Middle East.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will attempt to finalize the arms package next week when he is scheduled to visit the three countries. Ultimately, the deal will need the assent of Congress. Defense officials said they have kept lawmakers apprised of the negotiations and revealed basics of the agreement to lawmakers on Thursday.

Under terms of the deal, the United States would deliver V-22 Osprey transport aircraft, KC-135 refueling planes and anti-radiation missiles to Israel; about two dozen F-16 warplanes to the UAE; and advanced aircraft missiles to the Saudis and the Emiratis. News of the pact was first reported Friday by the New York Times.

U.S. officials indicated that the weapons are designed to boost each country’s military capabilities in the event of a conflict with Iran. “The common threats that we, the Israelis, Saudis and Emiratis, have are clear,” a senior defense official told reporters at the Pentagon on the condition of anonymity because the deal has not received final approval.

Read more from this story HERE.

Homosexual Marriage Amendment Could Harm Immigration Bill

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Gay-rights activists are concerned the Senate’s immigration reform proposal does not provide a path to citizenship for foreign-born partners of gay Americans, but changing the bill could jeopardize its future.

Same-sex marriages and civil unions are not recognized by the federal government, so the unions of an estimated 36,000 couples will not be considered legal under bill unless U.S. laws are changed – or the Supreme Court strikes down the Defense of Marriage Act, Politico reported Friday.

Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has made gay marriage rights a top priority in recent years, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activists expect him or Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin to introduce an amendment to the bill to address the issue.

But that could cause a split among the so-called Gang of Eight senators who wrote the bipartisan measure.

Read more from this story HERE.

Postmaster General: Postal Service Bailout Would Cost $58 Billion

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Photo Credit: Newsmax

A taxpayer bailout of the U.S. Postal Service would cost about $58 billion through 2017, which Congress could avoid by changing the agency’s business model, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said.

The service, which lost $15.9 billion last year, doesn’t want a bailout, and it would be “unnecessary,” Donahoe said today in prepared remarks for a speech at the National Press Club in Washington.

“It may shock you to learn that the Postal Service could be profitable today and for the long-term future; it just needs to operate differently,” he said. “I’m optimistic that Congress will pass a bill this year.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Why is the World Ignoring an Islamic Declaration of War on Christians?

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Photo Credit: Human Events

While it is easy to confuse the recent jihadi attack on Egypt’s St. Mark Cathedral in Cairo as just more of the usual, this attack has great symbolic significance, and in many ways bodes great evil for Egypt’s millions of Christians.

Consider some facts: St. Mark Cathedral—named after the author of the Gospel of the same name who brought Christianity to Egypt some 600 years before Amr bin al-As brought Islam by the sword—is not simply “just another” Coptic church to be attacked and/or set aflame by a Muslim mob (see my forthcoming book, Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians, for a comprehensive idea of past and present Muslim attacks on Coptic churches). Instead, it is considered the most sacred building for millions of Christians around the world—above and beyond the many millions of Copts in and out of Egypt. As the only apostolic see in the entire continent of Africa, its significance and evangelizing mission extends to the whole continent, including nations such as Sudan, Ethiopia, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria, to name just a few. As an apostolic see—the actual seat of an apostle of Christ—the cathedral further possesses historical significance for Christianity in general.

In short, Muslim mobs—aided and abetted by the state of Egypt under Muslim Brotherhood tutelage—did not merely attack yet one more Coptic church, but rather committed an act of war against all Christianity. Such an open attack on a Christian center which holds symbolic and historic significance for all Christians—St. Mark, whose relics are in the cathedral and who authored one of the four Gospels of the Bible, belongs to all Christians not just Copts—was an open attack on a universally acknowledged Christian shrine. It was precisely these sorts of attacks on Eastern and Orthodox churches—including the destruction of the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem in 1009—that presaged the way for the crusades (back when Christianity was not utterly fragmented and disunited as it is today).

Put differently, this jihadi attack on St. Mark Cathedral is no different for Copts than a jihadi attack on the Vatican would be for Catholics. Or, to maintain the analogy, but from the other side, it would be no different than a “crusader” attack on the Grand Mosque of Mecca for Muslims.

While one can only imagine how the world’s Muslims would react to a “Christian/Western” assault on their most sacred of shrines, “post-Christian” Western leaders, as usual, stand idly by (not unlike Egyptian state security, which stood idly by as the Muslim mob opened fire on the cathedral).

Read more from this story HERE.

North Korean CHILDREN Being Trained as Soldiers

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Photo Credit: Joseph A Ferris III

North Korea’s newest batch of future soldiers — scrawny 11-year-olds with freshly shaved heads — punch the air as they practice taekwondo on the grounds of the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School. Students and teachers here say they’re studying harder these days to prepare for a fight.

Across the country, banners, slogans and artwork have been redrawn to focus on fighting “the imperialist Americans and their traitorous followers,” a reference to South Korea. Slogans on improving North Korea’s economy had dominated since 2009, but anti-American propaganda has re-emerged over the past year, particularly following U.S.-led censure of North Korea’s decision to launch a long-range rocket and test a nuclear bomb.

At the military school, where students work on desktop computers without Internet access and practice their English with chants such as “The respected Marshal Kim Jong Un is our father,” classwork is infused with conflict.

“Because of the present situation, I am trying to study harder, because I really think that’s how I can get my revenge on the American imperialists: by getting top marks in class,” one student, Jo Chung Hyok, told The Associated Press.

“It’s my revolutionary duty,” Jo said. “I’m working extra hard to get top marks in military subjects like tactics and shooting.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Dozens Infected With Hepatitis, AIDS from Oklahoma Dental Practice

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Blood tests conducted on patients treated at an Oklahoma oral surgery practice that has been closed over health concerns show that 57 have hepatitis C, three have hepatitis B and as many as three have HIV, the virus than can lead to AIDS, officials said on Thursday.

Health officials said it will take more investigation – including interviews with each patient and blood tests of the remaining patients – before they can determine whether the viruses were contracted at the dental offices, an extremely rare occurrence.

“Now the real disease detective work goes into effect,” state health department spokeswoman Leslea Bennet-Webb said.

Officials cannot be more specific about the number of patients who tested positive for HIV because of the state’s confidentiality policy that restricts public disclosure of HIV cases involving fewer than three people, Bennet-Webb said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Boy Scouts Propose Admitting Homosexual Boys But Keeping Homosexual Adults Out

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Photo Credit: Reuters

The Boy Scouts of America on Friday proposed lifting a ban on gay scouts but maintaining a prohibition on gay adults from leading troops, a compromise that attempts to end a fight that has split the century-old American institution into bitter factions.

Reaction from scouting supporters ranged from outrage to limited approval. The biggest organization in scouts, the Mormon Church, said it was studying the proposal, leaving uncertain the outcome of a May vote by scout leaders that will set policy. Gay rights groups said continuing to bar gay adults was unacceptable, but they welcomed the change for youths.

“The general feeling is that this is a bad move,” which could precipitate a major crisis, A.J. Smith, president of the Association of Baptists for Scouting, wrote in a website post, attempting to summarize Baptists’ views. “This is about a concerted effort to bring down a cultural icon. We must brace ourselves for the long haul on this one.”

The scouts’ decision is a focal point of a heated gay rights debate in the United States, where polls show public opinion is fast moving toward greater acceptance and a core of social conservatives stridently oppose such change.

In the coming months, the Supreme Court will rule on whether to strike down parts of a federal law that defines marriage as the union between a man and a woman. In 2011, the military repealed a ban on openly gay soldiers.

Read more from this story HERE.

Russia Promised to Assist US Even Before Discovering Bombings' Chechen Connection

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Russian President Vladimir Putin offered his country’s help with the investigation into Monday’s attack in Boston even before Friday’s revelation that the two suspects are Chechen.

News reports said the two suspects are brothers of Chechen origin, but have lived in the United States for several years after immigrating legally. The news comes at a time of high tensions between the United States and Russia, which is reeling from the Obama administration’s decision to publicly blacklist 18 Russian officials last week and continues to support President Bashar Assad in Syria.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who was killed in a firefight with police, is believed to have been born in Russia near Chechnya. His brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, is still on the run and was born in Kyrgyzstan, much farther to the east near the border with China.

Read more from this story HERE.

Boston Bombing Marathon Suspect Dead, Another 'Armed and Dangerous,' both from Chechnya, Police Say (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

By ANTHONY CASTELLANO and LEE FERRAN. One suspect in this week’s deadly Boston Marathon bombing is dead while a second suspect is still at large and the subject of a massive overnight manhunt in Massachusetts, police said early this morning.

In a brief press conference, a local police official said the first suspect was killed after exchanging fire with police officers, during which multiple explosive devices were detonated. One officer was injured and is in critical condition. The man the FBI identified Thursday as Suspect 2 in photos released related to the Boston Marathon bombing investigation is on the loose and is armed and dangerous, police said. He is the target of an “active search by tactical teams.”

“We believe this is a terrorist, we believe this is a man that’s come here to kill people,” said Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis.

Police also released a new image of Suspect 2, which they said was taken from a local 7-11 in Cambridge, Mass., last night.

Watertown police have blocked off at least one town street and multiple police cars, ambulances and fire trucks are on the scene. Read more from this story HERE.

Boston Marathon bombing suspects are brothers of Chechen origin, say reports

The two suspects in Monday’s Boston Marathon bombing have been identified as men from Chechnya.

Earlier today they killed a police officer at the MIT campus, injured a transit officer in a firefight and threw explosive devices at police during their getaway attempt in a long night of violence that left one of them dead and another still at large Friday, authorities said.

A law enforcement intelligence bulletin obtained by the AP identified the surviving bomb suspect as 19-year-old Dzhokhar A Tsarnaev of Cambridge, Massachussets.

Two law enforcement officials told AP that Tsarnaev and the other suspect, who was not immediately identified, had been living legally in the US for at least one year.

Authorities say the suspects threw explosives from the car as police followed it into Watertown. The suspects and police exchanged gunfire and one of the suspects was critically injured and later died. Read more from this story HERE.

Editor’s Note: Fox is reporting in its live broadcast this morning that both individuals are brothers from Russia near Chechnya, who have been living in the Boston area with their family of six for the past year. Fox also reports that the brothers are registered to vote and must “obviously” be citizens.