A "hot plate" keeping food warm in a kitchen overnight apparently started a fire that killed seven children in two-story house in Brooklyn early Saturday, New York City's fire commissioner said.

The four boys and three girls, siblings ranging in age from 5 to 15, were in upstairs bedrooms when the fire swept up from the first floor shortly after midnight in Brooklyn's south-central Midwood section, New York Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said.

The children's 45-year-old mother and one of her daughters -- a 14-year-old, police say -- also were upstairs but jumped out of windows to escape; they were in critical condition at a hospital, being treated for burns and smoke inhalation, Nigro said.

--snip--

Nigro was asked why food was being warmed overnight.

"I believe it's the Sabbath, and people keep food warm that way. They don't have to operate a stove," Nigro answered.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/21/us/brooklyn-fire-children-killed/index.html

--snip--

Then there were the grey areas.

A patient named Brian had beaten his mother to death with a baseball bat, believing her to be possessed by the Devil. Brian was a Pentecostal Christian. He'd been doing well in treatment, but one of his obstacles was that he still believed his mother had been possessed - only now, he conceded that the killing was a pointless act, given that the Devil can't be killed.

Brian presented a dilemma for the hospital. They viewed some of his beliefs as a kind of psychosis - and yet they were also part of a worldview shared by millions of mentally healthy people.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31962182

Death threat rebuked at council

An expletive-laced, anonymously written letter to a Klamath Falls city councilwoman for her outspokenness on a free speech issue, got the attention of the city council Monday night.

The address on the envelope was handwritten, with no return address, but Councilwoman Trish Seiler said, at first, the letter she received Feb. 14 didn’t stand out from the rest of her mail … until she opened it. “I didn’t recognize the handwriting,” Seiler said about the envelope. “It was just like any letter one might get.”

The 400-word, typewritten letter was littered with bigoted remarks, name-calling and racial slurs. It concluded by calling for her beheading by overseas terrorists.

Seiler read a statement, declaring she wouldn’t be intimidated by the letter, copies of which she provided to the Herald and News and to the police department.

--snip--

The person claims “Christian morality” formed what is now the United States, and then wrote, “Maybe we could have the privilege of seeing your wonderful Muslims behead your (expletive) ugly (expletive)!!!”

http://www.heraldandnews.com/email_blast/death-threat-rebuked-at-council/article_25191884-c23b-11e4-81f5-3f3404213e63.html