A slim majority of Americans approve of President Barack Obama’s recent change to the administration’s rule that mandated religiously affiliated institutions offer free contraception coverage to their employees, according to a new poll Thursday.

More than half of American voters, 54 percent, said they approve of Obama’s plan to allow faith-affiliated employers to refrain from offering free birth control to employees while mandating that it be covered by insurers. Thirty-eight percent said they disapprove of the plan, a Quinnipiac survey found.

Approval for the tweak to the administration’s rule was higher among women, 56 percent of whom gave a thumbs up, compared with 52 percent of men. Democrats backed the change more than independents or Republicans — 75 percent of Dems said they like the administration’s compromise, compared with 56 percent of independent voters and only 32 percent of GOP-ers.

An overwhelming majority of voters, 71 percent, said they believe health insurance plans should cover birth control as preventive care for women, but they were narrowly split, 47 to 48 percent, on whether the government should require employers to provide workers insurance that covers birth control for free.

Darlene and Reginald Knight had one son. They wanted more children. Darlene was unable to conceive. They considered adoption, but knew no one in their African-American community who had adopted. Costs seemed daunting.

Then they realized through Bethany Christian Services and the Georgia foster care system that many black children needed homes. Their initial reluctance melted away. Recalling his own fatherless childhood in downtown Atlanta, Reginald says his “heart began to be right. I got on board when I saw the need.”

The hard truth is: More black children need a home, yet they are less likely than other racial and ethnic groups to be adopted by families of any race–especially by black families. In 2010, Bethany Christian Services made 1,950 placements, but not more than one out of 20 adopting families was African-American. Bethany’s Columbia, S.C., office currently has 34 active prospective adoptive families in the Domestic Infant Adoption Program, but only one is black.

Many black families are suspicious of a “system” they perceive as responsible for putting black kids in foster care in the first place. Some resent the scrutiny they must undergo to be approved for adoption. Even the fees involved in the adoption process can be interpreted as “buying babies.”

Change is possible. In Charlotte 16 years ago, Ruth Amerson started a nonprofit adoption group, Another Choice for Black Families. She says, “I don’t have to convince African-Americans of the rightness of adoption–just make them aware.”

The National Cathedral is still recovering from damage sustained during an earthquake last August, with new estimates suggesting officials will need more than $20 million to fully repair the landmark.

In a press release marking the six-month anniversary of the earthquake, the National Cathedral announced that it has already raised $2 million to carry out the first phase of the restoration, but the full project could take up to five years and millions of dollars more.

“The repair work, which includes intricate stone carving and detailed masonry, and will require significant scaffolding and large cranes to access the damaged areas, could be completed in five years if sufficient funds are raised immediately,” read the press release.

In addition to the $2 million donated specifically for repairs, the cathedral has also received over $5 million for its operating budget since the disaster.

The National Cathedral’s press contact, Richard Weinberg, explained that donations have come in from individuals and churches all across the country, as well as abroad.

“We’ve even received donations from Westminster Abbey and a very heartening donation from Christchurch Cathedral in New Zealand,” Weinberg told The Christian Post. Christchurch Cathedral suffered a series of devastating earthquakes throughout 2011 that led to the building’s partial demolition.

“It’s kind of silly season here. It’s an election year and you are looking for any leg up,” said the Rev. Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church in Orlando and a spiritual adviser who writes weekly devotionals — passages of scripture with explanations — for Obama and regularly prays with the president. “Anyone who knows him will not question his personal faith or devotion.”

Hunter spoke on a conference call with eight religious and nonprofit leaders organized by the Rev. Dr. Gary Gunderson, senior vice president of faith and health at Methodist LeBonheur Healthcare in Memphis, Tenn. Gunderson was in Washington, D.C., last week for a meeting about faith-based healthcare efforts and said tense public debates over Obama’s policies on religion and the president’s personal faith motivated him to host the discussion.

“The federal government’s relationship with faith-based groups is stronger than ever,” said the Rev. Peg Chemberlin, president emeritus of the National Council of Churches. “Religious freedom is respected” while government partnerships with faith-based groups are expanding, she said.

The defense came as Republican presidential contenders and conservative figures have publicly questioned the president’s faith. The Rev. Franklin Graham, son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, said he didn’t know whether Obama is Christian. Former Sen. Rick Santorum said Obama follows a “phony” theology not based on the Bible.

The faith-based office created under President George W. Bush has expanded during Obama’s presidency, broadening partnerships between the government and faith-based groups. The president’s recent decision to require employers’ insurance plans to cover contraception has stirred a debate about religious freedom, namely from Roman Catholic hospitals, universities and social service agencies. Lutherans and Southern Baptists have aligned themselves on the issue with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which opposes Obama’s rule.

Source: The Huffington Post | Jaweed Kaleem

The proposal will be presented at the SBC Annual Meeting in June, and I will support it.

Initially, I would have liked to see something more than an “informal name,” but I think the change will help in many local church situations (though for the foreseeable future, my church will still list itself as SBC, rather than GCB).

I understand this is a tough decision with many layers of complexity ranging from legal issues to public perceptions to historical accords, and this gives churches a choice. I might have made a different choice, but I will support this one.

I agree with the task force that the equity we have in the SBC name is helpful in many respects and whatever could be gained by changing the name of the denomination cannot measure up to what would be lost from our nearly 170-year history. However, there is also much negative baggage that comes with the name — some because of what we believe, but some because of how we act.

That history is what has brought us to this juncture. For example, and since the task force referenced it, the injustices condoned or perpetrated by those bearing the name “Southern Baptist” have brought distrust and discord in African-American communities. And I am glad the task force chose to address the issue head-on.

It is widely known that the founders of the convention split from the North for reasons that included the right to appoint slave-holding missionaries. That leaves a deep scar. Furthermore, the fact that many Southern Baptists were on the wrong side of those hoses in Birmingham, Ala., a century later also leaves a scar.

I’m grateful for the churches like that of committee member Dr. Ken Fentress, where sound Christian theology takes priority over cultural and political norms. This is, unfortunately, not always the case. For some, there is still deep sociological and racial tension, and the name “Southern Baptist” does nothing to dispel this.

There are, of course, many other issues caused by bad decisions and bad relationships. Some people don’t like the SBC because of what it stands for — and we can take the hits for that. But let’s be honest, much of this bad reputation has been earned by bad actions.

Thus, the new name isn’t the only — nor the most important — change needed. I’m speaking in Australia this month so I missed the task force’s presentation, but I understand Frank Page, Jimmy Draper, and others mentioned this very truth. Changing the name of the convention is useless if the people of the convention do not change as well. The key issue is not a name change, but a heart change.

I believe there are three needs facing the Southern Baptist Convention currently that new resurgences, name changes, and study groups can’t fix.

Source: Baptist Press

Doctors now have strong evidence that colonoscopies save lives, a finding that may encourage more people to get the dreaded tests to detect and prevent colon cancer.

A team at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York found that colonoscopies in which precancerous polyps, known as adenomas, are removed can cut the risk of dying from colon cancer by 53 percent. The study appears in the New England Journal of Medicine.

In theory, adenoma removal saves lives by preventing a tumor. Ann Zauber of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, chief author of the long-term evaluation of polyp removal, and her colleagues said their work demonstrates that.

“This study is showing both a reduction in colon cancer incidence and colon cancer deaths by removing the adenomas, and it’s a long-term effect” she said in a telephone interview. “This is reassuring for people to come in for screening.”

One in 20 Americans will develop colorectal cancer. About 140,000 cases are diagnosed in the United States each year, resulting in about 49,000 deaths, according to the National Cancer Institute. It is the third most common cancer worldwide.

Confirmation that colonoscopies save lives comes as researchers consider the value of popular screening tests, such as those for prostate cancer. At issue is whether such screening tests actually save lives or merely lead to diagnoses of more tumors that may pose little danger to a patient and trigger unnecessary treatment.

In standard colonoscopies, a tiny camera is threaded up through the rectum. The device has a little pair of clippers on the end to remove suspicious-looking growths so they can be tested to see if they might become cancerous.

Only about half of people recommended for colonoscopies get them, in part because the procedure is embarrassing, uncomfortable and can, in rare cases, cause injury.

The study’s conclusion is based on people who were sent for a colonoscopy between 1980 and 1990. The Zauber team compared the death rate in their study to the estimated death rate from a national cancer tracking effort known as the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program.

Over a period as long as 23 years, the rate from colorectal cancer among the 2,602 people who originally had adenomas removed was 53 percent lower than would be expected based on the rates seen in the government study. In all, 12 died from cancer in the removal group, while 25 had normally been expected to die of colorectal disease.

The lower rate includes the fact that 81 percent of the patients who had polyps removed continued to have periodic colonoscopies to check for growths.

Meanwhile, a separate study in the journal by a team in Spain suggests that a relatively inexpensive and non-invasive test that looks at stool samples is also highly effective at finding polyps, but has yet to show if it saves lives.

Taken together, the findings suggest the two methods could be used to identify more cases of colon cancer.

“An appealing concept would be to use colonoscopy as a triage screening test, offering it once for everybody at 60 years of age” and using it to classify people into high- and low-risk categories, Dr. Michael Bretthauer of Oslo University Hospital and Dr. Mette Kalager of Telemark Hospital, both in Norway, wrote in an editorial in the journal.

Low-risk people would not need further screening while those with adenomas would be evaluated regularly.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a government-backed agency, recommends screening for people age 50 to 75 years by one of three methods: a colonoscopy every 10 years; annual stool testing; or a less-thorough look into the colon (known as flexible sigmoidoscopy) every five years in conjunction with stool testing every two to three years.

The COLONPREV study, being conducted in Spain, is designed to compare 10-year death rates in two groups: volunteers who received a one-time colonoscopy and volunteers who are being screened every two years using fecal immunochemical testing (FIT), a form of blood stool testing. A positive FIT test led to a colonoscopy.

After the first round of testing, the researchers said, colorectal cancer was found in 30 people in the 26,703-member colonoscopy group and 33 in the 26,599-person FIT group.

But colonoscopy uncovered twice as many advanced adenomas, about 2 percent of the sample versus 1 percent.

The chief author of the Spanish study, Enrique Quintero of Hospital Universitario de Canarias, said it was encouraging that the cheaper fecal test “detected half the advanced adenomas just in the first round.”

The next round of FIT tests will uncover more growths, he predicted. Death rates will not be examined until the 10-year follow-up is completed in 2021.

Quintero and his team also found that the people assigned to the FIT group were more likely to participate in screening than those who were in line for a colonoscopy.

Yesterday, the Independent Publishers Group (IPG) announced that Amazon has removed all their Kindle editions from the site, totaling around 5,000 books.

According to Publishers Lunch, IPG’s president, Mark Suchomel, sent out an email alert yesterday stating, “I am disappointed to report that Amazon.com has failed to renew its agreement with IPG to sell Kindle titles.”

Independent Publishers Group was founded in 1971 and is the second biggest independent book distributor, representing around 400 publishers. According to their site, they were the first organization expressly created to represent titles from independent publishers. IPG first made its titles available as e-books in 2001.

Amazon turned off the buying button on the approximately 5,000 Kindle IPG titles because they refused to accept a revised set of terms regarding revenue from Amazon.

In an interview with paidcontent.org, Suchomel said, “We’re offering [the e-book sales terms] we offered last week, and somehow they think it’s not quite good enough.”

A president refusing to give up power despite advancing age and legal limits. An opposition crying foul. Young men in the streets throwing rocks at the police while choking on tear gas.

That situation, repeated all too frequently at election time in Africa’s western bulge, was not supposed to happen in Senegal, a rare part of the continent where free voting has occurred since the late 19th century.

Yet for the past month, some of the normally placid downtown streets in this windswept seaside capital have turned chaotic. Airwaves and front pages have filled with thunderous denunciations of a “constitutional coup d’état.” And some worry that an election scheduled for Sunday may lead to something worse than the usual inauguration at the whitewashed presidential palace downtown.

On Thursday, as more protests were planned, Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s former president and the head of an African Union observation mission, met with opposition leaders to discuss Senegal’s election difficulties.

At the center of the storm is President Abdoulaye Wade, who is officially 85 but probably older, as proper birth records were not kept by the French colonial authorities. Mr. Wade, a French-trained lawyer with degrees in economics and mathematics, is among the world’s oldest leaders, and he is determined not to retire anytime soon.

Seeking what his opponents consider an illegal third term, Mr. Wade mocks the critics as lacking the vigor he displays, while regularly haranguing diplomats and other visitors for hours about the finer points of the country’s laws, principles of economics and his aesthetic theories.

Opponents sputter in rage against what they regard as the elderly president’s upending of the long respect for law displayed in this impoverished but proud country of 12.5 million, which is dependent on foreign aid, fishing, peanuts and phosphate. Senegal was the first to send an African to the French National Assembly in 1914 and one of the rare African countries never to have had a military coup.

Those who have worked for Mr. Wade suggest that the electoral conflict is rooted in his penchant for frequently shuffling his cabinet (he has had nearly 200 ministers, said one of his six former prime ministers, Macky Sall), tinkering with his country’s Constitution and revising his grandiose, often unrealized development plans.

Thousands of Afghan protesters are out on the streets in two eastern provinces in new rallies over the burning of Qurans at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan.

About 100 people also rallying in the capital Kabul on Friday.

Apologies by President Barack Obama and Afghan and U.S. officials have failed so far to quiet the Afghan people’s outrage over the incident. The U.S.-led military coalition says the Qurans and other Islamic texts were sent to a burn pit by mistake.

Afghan police in Khost, the provincial capital of Khost province, say an estimated 4,000 protesters are marching toward the governor’s compound.

And in the eastern part of Nangarhar province, thousands are shouting “Death to America!” and burning a cardboard picture of Obama.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – NATO’s top military commander said Friday that an investigation into this week’s Quran burnings at a U.S. base in Afghanistan is pushing ahead and called on Afghans to be patient and exercise restraint.

U.S. Gen. John Allen’s call came as Afghan security forces were put on high alert to deal with expected demonstrations around the country after Friday prayers.

“Working together with the Afghan leadership is the only way for us to correct this major error and ensure that it never happens again,” Allen said in a statement.

He called on everyone around Afghanistan “to exercise patience and restraint as we continue to gather the facts.”

The U.S.-led military coalition says the Muslim holy books were sent by mistake on Feb. 19 to a garbage burn pit at Bagram Air Field, near the capital, and that the case is under investigation. The explanation and multiple apologies from U.S. officials have yet to calm outrage over the incident, which has also heightened tension between international troops and their Afghan partners.

The country has been wracked by three days of violence that has claimed 13 lives, including two U.S. soldiers over the burnings of the Muslim holy book.

The level and intensity of any demonstrations Friday will also test whether Thursday’s apology by President Barack Obama to the Afghan people over the incident will have any impact.

Afghans have so far ignored an appeal by President Hamid Karzai and other officials for calm.

On Thursday, thousands of protesters, some shouting “Long live Islam!” and “Death to America!” staged demonstrations across Afghanistan for a third day. Protesters climbed the walls of a U.S. base in the east of the country, threw stones inside and adorned an outside wall with the Taliban’s trademark white flag.

The protests sparked clashes with Afghan security forces that left at least five demonstrators dead. A Norwegian soldier was wounded by a hand grenade hurled into a coalition compound.

On Wednesday, six people died in similar protests in Kabul and three other provinces.

The unrest started Tuesday, when Afghan workers at the sprawling American base north of Kabul noticed that Qurans and other Islamic texts were in the trash that coalition troops dumped into a pit where garbage is burned. Some Afghan workers burned their fingers as they tried to salvage some of the books. Afghan government officials said initial reports indicated four Qurans were burned.

The materials had been taken from a library at Parwan Detention Facility, which adjoins the base, because they contained extremist messages or inscriptions. Writing inside a Quran is forbidden in the Islamic faith, and it is unclear whether the handwritten messages were found in the holy book or other reading materials.

A military official said it appeared that detainees at the prison were exchanging messages by making notations in the texts.

A delegation of Afghan religious leaders, lawmakers and government representatives visited Bagram as part of the investigation. They issued a statement late Thursday calling for an end to protests and accused insurgents of infiltrating the gatherings to foment violence. They said they expected those responsible for the Quran burning to be prosecuted through the U.S. military court system.

Afghan authorities said demonstrations were staged inside the capital and in seven of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.

The deadliest was held outside an American base in the Khogyani district of Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan. Two protesters were killed by Afghan police and an Afghan soldier turned his gun on American troops, killing two.

The Postal Service has been losing billions of dollars each year as email chips away at mail volumes and as it faces massive annual payments to the federal government.

Postal officials said in September they would study more than 250 of the 461 processing sites for possible consolidation with other facilities as part of a series of cost-cutting steps. They also announced plans to end next-day delivery to cut back on overnight work.

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe has said the agency needs to reduce $20 billion in annual costs by 2015. Moving processing away from the 223 centers would reduce operating costs by $2.6 billion annually, according to the Postal Service’s website.

That includes eliminating as many as 30,000 full-time jobs and 5,000 non-career positions, USPS spokesman Sue Brennan said. The agency has gotten rid of about 140,000 jobs in the last five years, mainly through attrition, but still had about 650,000 workers at the end of 2011, according to its first-quarter financial statement.

None of the facilities would close before mid-May due to a temporary moratorium announced in December that is intended to give Congress time to pass legislation to help overhaul the mail agency.

The Postal Service, which does not receive taxpayer funds, wants Congress to eliminate an annual payment to prefund retiree health benefits and let it end Saturday mail delivery.

The agency also wants to take over its health benefits from the federal government and to close thousands of post offices.

Lawmakers have been deeply divided on whether to allow facility closures, end the prefunding payment and other measures. Some lawmakers have praised the Postal Service for “rightsizing” its network, while others say the planned closings will hurt the agency’s business model.

“At a time when the Postal Service is competing against the instantaneous delivery of information from email and the Internet, slowing down mail delivery service will result in less business and less revenue,” said Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in a statement on Thursday.

Donahoe told lawmakers last week, in a letter announcing the agency’s five-year turnaround plan, that failing to take all of its planned cost-cutting actions could lead to annual losses of $18.2 billion by 2015.

Source: Reuters

The black Silicon Valley pioneer helped Hewlett-Packard design and build its first computers.

To today’s iPad generation, accustomed to lightweight portable computing power, the first computer Roy L. Clay Sr. helped build may seem like a relic.

When Clay, now 82, learned how to program computer code in 1956, Bill Gates was in diapers. Universities didn’t have computer science programs. And a computer stable enough to run for a full day without failing was the holy grail.

David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard Co., brought Clay on board in 1965 to build that computer.

Packard heard about Clay from a friend who had worked on the Manhattan Project, the United States’ answer to Germany’s nuclear-development program during World War II. In 1958 Clay was a computer programmer at what is now Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, turning the ethereal into something tangible: He wrote software that showed how particles of radiation would spread through the atmosphere after an atomic explosion.

What Packard had in mind were computers that would work with other instrumentation that HP built. He knew nothing about software.

“He trusted that to me,” Clay said.

Clay was born in Kinloch, the oldest African-American community incorporated in Missouri. He lived in a home with no indoor plumbing, a neighborhood with no streetlights, in an area with a tradition of police picking up black boys like Clay if they wandered outside of Kinloch after dark.

“Everybody cared,” Clay said of his hometown. His first teacher “inspired me to do well. By the time I left that little school, I thought I could learn to do anything.”

Over the years, I’ve talked about black relationships a lot. I keep coming back to it because relationships are the base of strength in our community. Marriage. Family.

In fact, the reason why the impact of slavery is still so real for us today is because of its decimation of our families.

I bring this up again because black marriage has been a topic much in the news lately – rumors about Kobe and Vanessa Bryant, the media rehashing of Whitney and Bobby Brown’s troubled union, the on and off divorce of Bishop Eddie and Vanessa Long, just to name a few. A good number of scholars have repeatedly talked about a marriage crisis in our community, with many people opting to remain single and increased divorce rates.

This has been a topic of real concern to me because if marriage and family are the basis of our strength, then what does it say about the health of our community?

But maybe scholars have been looking at the whole thing from the wrong perspective. In fact, some recent research suggests that we are. You see, the new research claims that the data commonly used by scholars and the media to support our current perceptions of a “marriage crisis” in the African-American community are skewed and misleading.

Two scholars, Howard University’s Dr. Ivory A. Toldson and Morehouse’s Dr. Bryant Marks, contend that the statistics about black relationships have been intentionally presented in a negative light.

After conducting an independent review of census data and national surveys, the two researchers painted a very different picture of marriage in the black community than we’re commonly led to believe. They have established that most black women do get married. While mainstream media frequently report that 42 percent of black women have never been married, double the number of white women who have never tied the knot, Toldson and Marks show that, among black women 35 and older, the percentage that have never been married drops to 25 percent, which means that a solid majority – or 75 percent – of black women get married before they turn 35.

In other words, folks, while the original numbers are still true, it’s the way these numbers are reported that provoke us to believe there’s a more extreme marriage crisis in our community.

  

Since the original data includes all black women 18 and older, once you raise the age to eliminate the younger women – we don’t expect to be married at such a young age anyway – we have much less of a crisis.

You with me, folks? I hope so, because this different way at looking at the same numbers shows us how easily one can create a crisis, as opposed to just an issue of which we should be aware. Media has the power to do this, and we should be vigilant because it can determine or skew how we see ourselves.

Oscar fever is in the air, and no one is feeling it more acutely than supporting-actress nominee Octavia Spencer.

“For the first time I thought about it last night. I had a freak-out moment, but I can’t really talk about it because I’ll freak out (more),” Spencer, clad in Tadashi Shoji, said at Essence magazine’s annual Black Women in Hollywood lunch Thursday at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

The star of The Help was honored at the event, along with fellow actresses Kerry Washington, Paula Patton, Pam Grier and Grey’s Anatomy creator/showrunner Shonda Rimes.

The event also paid tribute to Whitney Houston, who died Feb. 11, by playing her music throughout lunch. Jordin Sparks, Houston’s co-star in the upcoming film Sparkle, remembered Houston before performing a song from the film: “She went from being this unreachable supernova pop star to my co-star to my friend.”

Emma Stone and Viola Davis presented Spencer with the award for breakthrough performance. “Your heart is just as big as your talent,” Davis told Spencer. “It’s been a privilege being on this journey with you.”

In accepting the award, Spencer teared up several times when speaking about her friendship with Stone and Davis. “I got to get off that, because it gets me emotional,” she said.

And then she started joking.

“You would not believe that Paula Patton and I have the same trainer. I think he’s spending a lot more time with you, Paula! … I’m sorry; I’m trying to keep myself from crying.”

The tired New York Knicks and point guard Jeremy Lin ran into the buzzsaw Thursday that is the Miami Heat.

The Heat chewed up and spit out the Knicks and won 102-88.

Chris Bosh led the Heat with 25 points. Guard Dwyane Wade, who is playing at a high level after struggling with leg and feet injuries earlier in the season, had 22. And LeBron James continued his dominating year with 20 points, nine rebounds and eight assists.

“We just played maybe arguably the best team in the NBA – or playing the best right this moment,” Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni said. “They set a bar we have to get up to. We’ve got a lot of things to improve in a month, and we’ll see if we get there.”

Bit by bit, Miami stretched the lead in the second half and sailed into the All-Star break on an eight-game winning streak — all by double-digit margins — and with the league’s best record at 27-7. It’s the Heat’s best franchise start for 34 games.

The Heat also got a typically workmanlike effort from center Joel Anthony: no points, six rebounds, five blocks and outstanding defense.

“Joel Anthony is one of the cornerstones to what we do,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra. “It’s why we liked him when he probably wouldn’t fit on a lot of teams, and I say that affectionately because we value what he brings. He covers ground. He does a lot of things that don’t show up in the box score.”

Lin struggled, shooting 1 of 11, and finished with eight points and eight turnovers, his most inefficient game as a starter. He and the Knicks looked spent on the second night of a back-to-back. It was also their fifth game in seven days.

“We have to be able to stop him, in a sense, before we worry about the other guys,” Wade said. “He’s a player, we understand that. It was just trying not to let him see the floor because he can pick you apart.”

D’Antoni wasn’t surprised Lin had a tough time against one of the league’s most versatile defenses. The Heat have size, length and speed at several positions.

“They’re one of the best pick-and-roll defenders,” D’Antoni said. “They come at you real quick. The first time you see it, speed is overwhelming. It took him a while to adjust and he didn’t have the legs it looked like. He played last night, and it happens.”

It was the first time the Heat faced Lin. In Miami’s 99-89 win against the Knicks on Jan. 27, he did not play.

Miami impressed Lin.

“They did a great job of making me uncomfortable,” Lin said. “We’re a no-excuse team, so fatigue really doesn’t matter. … It was the speed and the athleticism. Credit to them. … I can’t remember another game where it was hard just to take dribbles.”

“Mostafa’s ultimate goal was the annihilation of Israel,” the agency quoted Fatemeh Bolouri Kashani as saying Tuesday.

Bolouri Kashani also underlined that her spouse “loved any resistance figure in his life who was willing to fight the Zionist regime and supported the rights of the oppressed Palestinian nation.”

The report belies attempts by Iran to claim that its nuclear program is not military in nature.

Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan is described as “a chemistry professor and a deputy director of commerce at Natanz uranium enrichment facility.”

Fars says he was killed by Mossad agents, who used a method of attack similar to that used against Iranian nuclear scientist Massoud Ali Mohammadi in January 2010, as well as scientists Fereidoun Abbassi Davani and Majid Shahriari. Abbasi Davani survived the attack, but Shahriari died. Yet another Iranian scientist, Dariush Rezaeinejad, was assassinated by the same method in July of 2011. 

Source: Israel National News

“Our phone is ringing off the hook with people saying they should have their refund by now,” said Mark Daly, franchise owner of several Jackson-Hewitt Tax Service outlets in South Florida.

“There’s no rhyme or reason why some returns are being quickly processed and others not,” Daly added. “We’ve had hundreds and hundreds of complaints.”

“The IRS is experiencing delays this year in sending refunds,” said H&R spokesman Gene King in a statement sent Thursday to the Sun Sentinel. “Based on current IRS guidance, most refunds are now issued from the IRS in 10 to 21 days.”

Last month, the IRS said there would be a week delay for the earliest filers because of a computer snafu in getting up a system to find identity theft before refund checks were actually issued.

The federal agency said those people filing after Jan. 26 would not have delays.

But the agency continued to have a slower response partly because they had a backlog from the earliest cases being delayed, tax preparers said.

In a statement, the IRS said  it successfully opened the filing season and “refunds have been issued to millions of taxpayers.  When the IRS announced the opening of the 2012 filing season, it advised taxpayers who electronically file and select direct deposit that they could see their refunds in 10 to 21 days. Some taxpayers are getting refunds much faster, but at this time taxpayers should expect refunds to be issued as indicated in the original IRS guidelines.”

Source: Orlando Sun Sentinel | Donna Gehrke-White

Sharpton’s visit to the civil rights icon’s hometown also was a preview of his scheduled march and rally next month. The rally will start in Selma, Ala., which was the scene of “Bloody Sunday,” the seminal event that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The five-day event ending in Montgomery will also feature Congressman John Lewis — who was badly beaten at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.

At a news conference at the headquarters for his organization, the National Action Network, Sharpton, Martin Luther King III and Southern Christian Leadership Conference President Isaac Newton Farris Jr. discussed the event and their opposition to laws addressing early voting and government-issued identification as an eligibility requirement to cast a ballot — which they say are aimed at voter suppression, especially for poor and minority voters.

Sharpton said he will announce plans for his organization, the National Action Network, to pursue legal challenges to such laws in several states.

The activist and cable television show host also said Thursday that for the first time since those rights were achieved, there is an organized movement to overturn the gains of the 1960s.

“It could literally cost this election, but also others,” Sharpton said. “This could permanently undermine the minority vote, which would defeat the whole purpose of the Voting Rights Act.”

Sharpton said that like King and others during the civil rights movement, today’s activists need to bring national attention to the issue in dramatic fashion as a catalyst for change.

“Legislators should not be allowed to operate in the dark,” Sharpton said. “It’s more difficult to do evil, insidious things with the spotlight on them.”

It was an absence of national concern and awareness that cleared the way for Georgia’s voter ID law in 2006, Sharpton said. He said the law — which has been approved by the Department of Justice — was a model for other states.

Source: The AP

San Diego megachurch pastor Miles McPherson is calling on Christians to move beyond their church walls to go to the least holy places and help those in deep spiritual need.

The former NFL player, who overcame cocaine addiction in 1984 after accepting Jesus, is known for leading his church in community outreaches. He spearheads a movement called “Do Something” that saw more than 100 different ministries and his church members contributing more than 600,000 hours of community services in 2009.

McPherson shared at the National Religious Broadcasters convention earlier this week about how churches can mobilize their congregations to put their faith into action and why it is biblically important to do so. Referencing the story of Jesus healing ten lepers in Luke 17, McPherson stressed that there are still plenty of “lepers” around us, in every city, such as prostitutes, alcoholics, homeless, and children in foster care.

“All this information is known. Everything is around you,” the pastor of one of the fastest growing churches in the U.S. said, noting the bars, strip clubs, escort agencies and abortion clinics someone would pass driving through San Diego.

Church members should not turn away when seeing those spiritually troubled around them, said McPherson. In all these places, “there are spiritual forces of wickedness that are there, hoping that you just keep on going,” he said.

The pastor, whose church was founded in 2000 but has already expanded to 12,000 members, is currently behind initiatives involving youth ministries that go out of the church and into troubled places like bars and strip clubs to evangelize. One of them is a ministry involving exclusively women who go to strip clubs to pass out Bibles and spread the word about the Rock Church. The technique works, McPherson assures, as the all-female team has even encountered its own church member on one occasion.

The fire, which was reported shortly after midnight at Zoar United Methodist Church on Zoar Church Road near Snellville, had already been doused by the building’s sprinkler system when firefighters arrived, Gwinnett fire Capt. Tommy Rutledge said.

“This is a prime example of the effectiveness of fire sprinklers inside buildings,” Rutledge said. “The small fire caused minimal smoke and water damage to the kitchen area.”

Rutledge said that according to investigators, “it appears that someone forced entry inside the back of the building and intentionally set a fire.”

He said there were also signs of “slight vandalism” inside the gymnasium as well.

Source: Atlanta Journal Constitution | Mike Morris 

Dear Franklin Graham:

Your father once remarked, “Being a Christian is more than just an instantaneous conversion; it is like a daily process whereby you grow to be more and more like Christ.” Your Tuesday Morning Joe appearance, other than demonstrating that you’re not your father, was unsettling at best.

I shouldn’t be surprised that you implied that President Obama is a Muslim, but I still am. You said, “All I know is that under Obama, President Obama, the Muslims of the world — he seems to be more concerned about them than the Christians that are being murdered in the Muslim countries.”

You spoke about the Arab Spring. You asserted that ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak protected Christians. (Even though Muslims and Christians occupied Tahrir Square together.) If Obama cared only about Muslims, he probably would have left Egypt alone. But since Obama cares about human rights, not only religious affiliation, he pushed for Mubarak’s expulsion.

The real issue, however, comes in your comment, “People like Mubarak, he was a dictator, but he kept the peace with Israel.” Just say it: you want to protect Israel. This is about neither Obama’s faith nor Islam.

You maintain that Obama doesn’t care about Christians, but don’t forget about the recent contraception battle waged on Capitol Hill. In the end, the president fixed the mandate in light of concerns voiced by Christians. And a deal was brokered by — you guessed it — a Baptist.

Granted, any person can help out a Christian or two here and there and still not be a Christian. The cognitive dissonance arises when you’re willing to sacrifice people’s lives, snuff out democracy and slander the commander-in-chief because you support Israel.

Your politics reveal much about your theology. You were willing to allow an oppressive dictator to stay in power to protect Israel. You’re also willing to use your faith as a weapon in the fight for greater support of Israel.

Gay marriage is all but legalized in the state of Maryland after the legislature gave its final OK Thursday to the law that’s being sent to the governor, who said he expects to sign it sometime this week.

The state Senate voted 25-22 for the law. The vote comes less than a week after the House of Delegates barely passed the measure.

Maryland will become the eighth state to allow gay marriage when Gov. Martin O’Malley– who sponsored the bill — signs the legislation. The Democrat made the measure a priority this session after it stalled last year.

Six states allow gay couples to wed — Connecticut, New Hampshire, Iowa, Massachusetts, New York and Vermont — as well as the Washington capital district. The governor of Washington signed a bill this month that would make that state the seventh.

Opponents in Maryland have vowed to bring the measure to referendum in November. They will need to gather at least 55,726 valid signatures of Maryland voters to put it on the ballot and can begin collecting names now that the bill has passed both chambers.

Some churches and clergy members have spoken out against the bill, saying it threatens religious freedoms and violates their tradition of defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

“The enormous public outcry that this legislation has generated — voiced by Marylanders that span political, racial, social and religious backgrounds — demonstrates a clear need to take this issue to a vote of the people,” Maryland Catholic Conference spokeswoman Kathy Dempsey said in a statement. “Every time this issue has been brought to a statewide vote, the people have upheld traditional marriage.”

Leaders at the Human Rights Campaign, a group that joined a coalition of organizations to advocate for the bill, said they expect opponents will gather the required number of signatures.

Sen. Allan Kittleman, the only Senate Republican to vote in favor of the legislation, said he is proud of his decision and not concerned about political consequences down the road.

“You don’t worry about politics when you’re dealing with the civil rights issue of your generation,” said Kittleman, R-Howard, the son of the late Sen. Robert Kittleman, who was known for civil rights advocacy.

Gay marriage remains on hold in California after opponents petitioned a federal appeals court Tuesday to review a split decision by three of its judges that struck down a voter-approved measure that limited marriage to a man and woman.

Both the White House and the U.S. State Department issued statements Thursday, Feb. 23 demanding the immediate release of Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, who has been imprisoned in Iran since Oct. 2009.

Nadarkhani’s fate took a decisive turn for the worst on Feb. 21, when the American Center for Law and Justice announced that Iranian courts may have issued an execution order for Nadarkhani, who is currently imprisoned on charges of apostasy and attempting to evangelize Muslims.

On Feb. 22, Present Truth Ministries issued an emailed press release stating that Iranian courts did in fact issue the death order.

Today, the White House and the U.S. State Department offer support to Nadarkhani’s plight.

According to Jordan Sekulow, executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice, the statements released by the White House and the State Department confirm the belief that a death warrant for Nadarkhani has in fact been issued.

“The United States stands in solidarity with Pastor Nadarkhani, his family, and all those who seek to practice their religion without fear of persecution-a fundamental and universal human right,” the White House statement read.

The opposition stronghold was being destroyed “inch by inch,” by government forces, with collapsed walls and scorched buildings, according to accounts Thursday, while Western and Arab leaders hoped to silence the guns long enough to rush in relief aid.

The pressure for “humanitarian corridors” into the central Syrian city of Homs and other places caught in President Bashar Assad’s crushing attacks appeared to be part of shifts toward more aggressive steps against his regime after nearly a year of bloodshed and thousands of deaths in an anti-government uprising.

In back-to-back announcements, U.N.-appointed investigators in Geneva said a list for possible crimes against humanity prosecution reaches as high as Assad, and international envoys in London – including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton – made final touches to an expected demand for Assad to call a cease-fire within days to permit emergency shipments of food and medicine.

Washington and European allies remain publicly opposed to direct military intervention. But there have been growing signs that Western leaders could back efforts to open channels for supplies and weapons to the Syrian opposition, which includes breakaway soldiers from Assad’s military.

In a sign of the international divide, however, key Assad ally Russia said Moscow and Beijing remain opposed to any foreign interference in Syria. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev spoke by telephone with the president of the United Arab Emirates and emphasized that “foreign interference, attempts to assess the legitimacy of the leadership of a state from the outside, run counter to the norms of international law and are fraught with the threat of regional and global destabilization,” the Kremlin said.

“It is a deeply frustrating situation,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague told BBC radio ahead of the London talks. He said that the Assad regime “has continued to act seemingly with impunity.”

At least 16 people were killed across Syria, activists said. One group, the Local Coordination Committees, put the number at 40 with attacks ranging from mountain villages to areas near the capital of Damascus. The reason for the differing tolls was not immediately clear.

The most intense offensive, however, remained on beleaguered Homs, Syria’s third-largest city. Its defiance – amid hundreds of civilian casualties in the past weeks – has eroded Assad’s narrative that the uprising is the work of “armed thugs” and foreign plots.

Images posted online and accounts from activists and correspondents smuggled in – including two Western journalists killed Wednesday – also have stirred comparisons to sieges such as Misrata during last year’s Arab Spring revolt in Libya.

The epicenter – the Baba Amr neighborhood on the city’s southeast corner – is a collection of slum-like apartment blocks with peeling paint and neglected older homes. They draw in workers and fortune-seekers from across Syria to a place known as the “mother of the poor” because of its cheaper cost of living, compared with Damascus or Aleppo.

“They are blanketing Baba Amr with shells and snipers. They are destroying it street by street, inch by inch,” local activist Omar Shaker told The Associated Press.

Residents say 70 percent of the area is now uninhabitable in harsh winter weather with temperatures dipping close to freezing some nights. Walls have collapsed; windows are shattered from shells that fall as much as two-a-minute during some of the heaviest barrages.

Another Homs activist, Mulham al-Jundi, called the conditions “catastrophic” in parts of the city, spreading over a valley in central Syria just 18 miles (30 kilometers) from the Lebanese border. Long lines form at even rumors of bread, cans of food or fuel for heaters, he said.

“There simply isn’t enough to go around anymore,” said Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Syria’s state-run media pushed back with its own version: Running photos on the official news agency SANA that claim to show markets full of food in Homs. It called the claims about food shortages “fabricating lies.”

Activists give a very different view. Bodies are buried wherever people can find space, they say. The wounded are too scared to try to reach government-controlled hospitals in other parts of the city. Instead, they stagger into makeshift clinics in kitchens and offices, al-Jundi said.

He said clothing thread is now used after surgical sutures ran out. In some places, medics conduct operations by only the light of an office lamp. In the Bab Drieb neighborhood, volunteers get a crash course in basic first aid before being put to work.

“I saw a nurse teaching a couple of people what to do. They had no idea,” said al-Jundi. “It’s unbelievable and tragic.”

Homs – which is mostly Sunni – was an early flashpoint of dissent against Assad’s regime, which is led by the minority Alawite community, which has Shiite power Iran as its main patron.

In April, protesters gathered at the central Clock Square in Homs, bringing mattresses, food and water in hopes of emulating Cairo’s Tahrir Square during the Egyptian revolution. Homs had a reputation for tolerance between Syria’s religions and Muslim sects, said Mohammad Saleh, an opposition figure who fled the city, but Sunnis have increasingly felt pushed into an underclass status by Assad.

A Western intelligence official said the Syrian military has the ability to “level Homs if it wanted to.” But the risks of backlash from Syria’s majority Sunnis – including many military officers – is far too great, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under briefing rules.

On Wednesday, shelling of Baba Amr killed American-born veteran war correspondent Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik.

They were among a group of journalists who had crossed into Syria illegally and were sharing accommodations with activists, raising speculation that government forces targeted the makeshift media center where they were staying. But opposition groups had previously described the shelling as indiscriminate. At least two other Western journalists were wounded on Wednesday.

A Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman offered condolences to the families of Colvin and Ochlik, but rejected any responsibility for their deaths. The spokesman urged foreign journalists to respect Syrian laws and not to sneak into the country.

Some Syrians held protests and vigils Wednesday night to honor Colvin and Ochlik.

“Remi Ochlik, Marie Colvin, we will not forget you,” read one banner held by protesters in the town of Qsour in Homs province.

Two other journalists were wounded. In a video posted on YouTube, one of those injured, Edith Bouvier of Le Figaro, said her leg is broken in two places and that she has received some medical treatment but now needs an operation. Bouvier said she was speaking Thursday and is calm throughout the more than six-minute video.

The U.N. estimates that 5,400 people have been killed in repression by the Assad regime against a popular uprising that began 11 months ago. That figure was given in January and has not been updated. Syrian activists put the death toll at more than 7,300. Overall figures cannot be independently confirmed because Syria keeps tight control on the media.

“Every minute counts,” Shaker said. “People will soon start to collapse from lack of sleep and shortages in food.”

The international struggle over how to end Syria’s crisis moves Friday to Tunisia. The meeting is expected to bring together more than 70 nations to look at ways to assist Assad’s opponents.

On the eve of the Tunisia meeting, the U.N. announced that former secretary-general Kofi Annan would be the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria. His mandate will be to try to end the violence and arrange a political transition.

The United States, Europe and Arab nations worked in London to draft a demand for Assad to impose a cease-fire with 72 hours to allow humanitarian convoys or face new punitive measures, likely to include toughened sanctions.

Officials at the London meeting said some nations have proposed creating protected corridors for humanitarian relief. It was unclear, however, whether it would receive full backing because it would almost certainly require military protection. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the ongoing discussions before the so-called “Friends of Syria” conference in Tunis.

Some Arab nations, such as Qatar, have urged consideration of direct military intervention similar to the NATO-led air campaign that helped end Moammar Gadhafi’s regime in Libya. Western powers have so far opposed trying to mobilize another military coalition for Syria.

More workable, officials said, would be a cease-fire such as the one proposed by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which is calling for a daily two-hour break in fighting to provide aid.

“The efforts that we are undertaking with the international community … are intended to demonstrate the Assad regime’s deepening isolation,” Clinton told reporters. “Our immediate focus is on increasing the pressure. We have got to find ways of getting food, medicine and other humanitarian assistance. Into affected areas. This takes time and it takes a lot of diplomacy.”

If Assad doesn’t comply, “we think that the pressure will continue to build. … I think that the strategy followed by the Syrians and their allies is one that can’t stand the test of legitimacy … for any length of time,” she said. “There will be increasingly capable opposition forces. They will from somewhere, somehow find the means to defend themselves as well as begin offensive measures.”

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the Obama administration still opposes military intervention but “obviously we’ll have to evaluate this as time goes on.”

In Geneva, a panel of U.N. human rights experts said the United Nations has a secret list of top Syrian officials who could face investigation for crimes against humanity. The U.N. experts indicated that the list goes as high as Assad.

Experts said the list appears mostly part of international pressures on Syria rather than a direct threat. Syria isn’t a member of the International Criminal Court so is outside its jurisdiction. Russia also would likely block any moves in the U.N. Security Council to refer the country to the Hague-based tribunal.

The European Union is expected next week to add seven Syrian government ministers to those already under sanctions that free assets and ban visas, said an EU official in Brussels. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of EU rules, said additional restrictions may be imposed on Syria’s central bank, on imports of precious metals from the country, and on cargo flights.

The EU had already sanctioned more than 70 Syrians and 19 organizations, and has banned imports of Syrian oil.

In Amman, Jordan, several dozen Syrians, mainly from Homs, protested at the U.S. Embassy and asked for Western military intervention. “Almighty God, destroy Bashar,” they chanted.

Source: The AP | BRIAN MURPHY and ZEINA KARAM 

Indianapolis police said the boy — identified as Juan Cardenas in several reports — went missing for a short period, presumably having wandered off from the supervision of childcare staff members at the Praise Fellowship Assembly of God. There, eight employees monitor between 30 and 45 children.

The child wasn’t discovered missing until his therapist arrived for a session and couldn’t find him. The daycare employees then found him floating in two-feet of water in the pool. He was transported in critical condition to St. Vincent’s Hospital where he was later declared dead.

Source: CBS Cleveland

During a Feb. 21 meeting, Parker told the Stonewall Democrats of Dallas that while she has the power to perform legal marriage ceremonies in her court, she will not.

“I use it as my opportunity to give them a lesson about marriage inequality in this state because I feel like I have to tell them why I’m turning them away,” Parker said. “So I usually will offer them something along the lines of, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t perform marriage ceremonies because we are in a state that does not have marriage equality, and until it does, I am not going to partially apply the law to one group of people that doesn’t apply to another group of people.’ And it’s kind of oxymoronic for me to perform ceremonies that can’t be performed for me, so I’m not going to do it.”

Source: NBC DFW