Blog Heap of Links for the day 25 April 2015

Police in the northeastern Spanish region of Catalonia have arrested eleven members of a jihadist cell that was planning to behead a random person in Barcelona. …was actively recruiting jihadists for the Islamic State … also accused of planning to bomb public and private buildings in Catalonia, including a Jewish bookstore in Barcelona.…

The al Qaeda captors of now-slain hostage Warren Weinstein pocketed $250,000 in ransom money from his family in 2012, before reneging on the secret deal… captors even continued to negotiate with the intermediary for weeks after the 73-year-old American aid worker was accidentally killed in a US drone strike in January… [and the Obama administration knew but did not tell them]

After calls for an investigation from at least two advocacy groups, the Justice Department’s civil rights division will “monitor” an Arkansas gun range that declared itself a “Muslim-free zone” last fall.…

["Monitor." Synonym in the Justice Dept for "harass."]

…Carson, who will likely run for president, had been scheduled to appear in June at the annual Southern Baptist Pastors Conference in Columbus, Ohio. But a group of young ministers, known as Baptist21, raised concerns… mostly Calvinist preachers objected to the beliefs of Carson’s booming Seventh-day Adventist Church - including the claim that worshiping on Sunday is sin and the idea that sinners who are barred from heaven will be annihilated rather than sent to hell. They also objected to a statement made on Easter by Carson that Jews, Christians, and Muslims are all God’s children.…

At least 876 people are known to have died in a powerful earthquake in Nepal, with many more feared trapped under rubble, officials say. The 7.8 magnitude quake struck an area between the capital, Kathmandu, and the city of Pokhara… Tremors were felt across the region, with further loss of life in India, Bangladesh, Tibet and on Mount Everest.…

A giant reservoir of magma and hot rock beneath the Yellowstone supervolcano has been found and imaged. The newly found reservoir lies 12-28 miles below the surface, and is four-and-a-half times larger than the shallower, hot melted rock zone that powers current Yellowstone geysers and caused the caldera's last eruption some 70,000 years ago.…

Surgeons have found and removed an embryonic twin, complete with hair bone and teeth, from deep in the brain of a PhD computer science student.

Yamini Karanam 26, had been experiencing health problems for some time, including trouble with concentrating and reading, and eventually walking.

Editorial graphics and news links for today.

Vic decides what's worth addressing and what's not, starting here today.

"…On this day in 1898 the US declared war on Spain beginning the Spanish-American war.…"