READ THE SECRET ' JESUS ' MESSAGES ON U.S MILITARY WEAPONS

Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the U.S. military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.
More PhotosThe sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.

U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious "Crusade" in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.

RUSSINA SPLUNGE INTO ICY WATER FOR EPIPHANY

MOSCOW, Jan 19 - Scantily clad Orthodox Christians braved freezing temperatures throughout Russia on Tuesday to immerse themselves in ice holes in rivers and lakes to celebrate the Epiphany religious holiday.
To Orthodox believers, water blessed by a priest on Epiphany has miraculous powers, a belief harking back to Christ's baptism in the River Jordan. Jumping into the water is optional, but is a popular ritual among the faithful.
Water blessed on Epiphany "never goes stale, sick people who touch it are healed, devils are driven out and people are given strength," Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, said Monday during a trip to Kazakhstan.
Around 30,000 people immersed themselves in ice holes in Moscow overnight, the RIA-Novosti state news agency reported, citing city police.
The emergency situations ministry said it had posted over 200 lifeguards at lakes and rivers around the Russian capital to help prevent tragedies.
Just after midnight on Tuesday morning, worshippers gathered at a golf club outside Moscow, braving temperatures of minus 25 Celsius (minus 13 Fahrenheit) to leap into an ice hole, an AFP journalist witnessed.
Around 200 people followed a priest in a candle-lit procession to a nearby river, their breath throwing up clouds of steam. They then stripped to swimming trunks or wore long white shirts to complete the ritual bathing.
The well-off worshippers had paid 3,500 rubles (119 dollars) for a holiday package that included felt boots and a shirt to wear during immersion, as well as a performance by a Cossack choir and a buffet afterwards.
Six percent of Russians were planning to jump into ice holes for Epiphany, according to a poll published Monday by the Levada Centre, the country's most respected polling firm.
A more cautious 48 percent planned to visit a church to collect water blessed by a priest, the poll said.
The holiday is a favourite with politicians, who reinforce their reputation as devout Russian Orthodox believers by jumping into the ice in previously announced photo opportunities.

OBAMA TO CHURCH : KEEP FAITH IN HARD TIMES

President Obama on Sunday recalled the work of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. as he urged those packing a Baptist church to take heart in hard times and celebrate progress, however small.
On the eve of the federal holiday marking King's birth, the first black president said he learned -- as did the civil rights leader -- to rely on his faith even as he felt the "sting of criticism" during his first year as president.
Mr. Obama pointed specifically to his attempts to move the country out of the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression while pressing for an overhaul of the health care system.
Speaking at the Vermont Avenue Baptist Church, founded in 1866 by former slaves, Mr. Obama called King and those who fought with him for civil rights the "Moses generation." He exhorted parishioners -- those he termed the "Joshua generation" -- to "get back to basics" as Americans faced the challenges of a "new age."
The president was headed to Boston in support of the Senate candidacy of state Attorney General Martha Coakley, who is in a tight race for the seat of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. Her defeat would upend the Democrat's 60-vote majority in the Senate, making it impossible to overcome a filibuster that could kill hard-fought health care legislation.
In his remarks at the Washington church, Mr. Obama reflected on the difficulties he has faced in pushing key elements of his legislative agenda through Congress and the periodic distractions that have arisen from remarks about his race.
Referring to the "post-racial" and "post-partisan" shift in the country that many observers predicted would flow from his inauguration a year ago, he said, "That didn't work out so well."
Mr. Obama was accompanied to the church by first lady Michelle Obama and their daughters, Sasha and Malia.
King himself spoke in 1956 at Vermont Avenue Baptist Church, located just over a mile north of the White House.
Then a 27-year-old preacher who was emerging as a prominent voice in the civil rights movement, King visited Washington shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court sided with a ruling that led to the end of racial segregation aboard city buses in Montgomery, Ala. King was one of the leaders of a bus boycott that lasted more than a year.
Monday is the first King holiday since Mr. Obama became president.

SOUTH INDIA FLOODS AFFECT MILLIONS, KILLS ATLEAST 222 ; PRAY FOR THESE STATES

Days of torrential rain in southern India have left vast tracts of land devastated and displaced million of people, officials said Monday as the death toll from flooding rose to 222.
In Karnataka, the worst-hit of two Indian states, 172 people have been reported dead and more than 50,000 are staying in relief camps, according to government spokesman R.V. Jagdish. Hundreds of thousands more have sought shelter in the homes of friends and relatives.
Meanwhile, in neighboring Andhra Pradesh, state chief minister K. Rosaiah said 50 people have been reported dead and around 1.5 million have been displaced and were sheltering in 100 relief camps.
“We have never experience anything like this before. It is the worst flooding in 100 years,” reported Ambrose Christy, south zonal manager for anti-poverty group Caritas India. “The situation could become even more severe as the rains get worst. If the Krishna River bursts its banks, millions more will be forced from their homes and a huge area of land will be underwater.”
With scores of villages in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka submerged by the floods, whole villages have already been forced to seek shelter in crowded government-run relief camps.
Caritas Internationalis, a confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development and social service groups, estimated that over 2.5 million people have been forced from their homes due to heavy rains and flooding in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
World Vision, meanwhile, reported that the South India floods have destroyed crops and impacted some 20 million people, with scores of villages cut off.
“What is needed is a massive coordinated response involving the federal and central governments, and local and international NGOs to make sure food aid gets through," commented Dr. Jayakumar Christian, National Director for World Vision India.
World Vision is hoping to raise $2 million to ramp up its response to meet the immediate needs of 100,000 flood survivors who have been driven from their homes into relief camps.
"Rates of malnourishment are already extremely high in India. Almost half of all under-fives are malnourished and these droughts and floods are pushing families to the very edge,” Christian stated.
According to the World Vision leader, the organization is witnessing its development work and efforts to combat poverty set back by years.
"India is now entering a period of severe food vulnerability," he reported.

ITALIAN SCIENTISTS REPRODUCES ' SHROUD OF TURIN '

ROME – An Italian scientist says he has reproduced the Shroud of Turin, a feat that he says proves definitively that the linen some Christians revere as Jesus Christ's burial cloth is a medieval fake.
The shroud, measuring 14 feet, 4 inches by 3 feet, 7 inches bears the image, eerily reversed like a photographic negative, of a crucified man some believers say is Christ.
"We have shown that is possible to reproduce something which has the same characteristics as the Shroud," Luigi Garlaschelli, who is due to illustrate the results at a conference on the para-normal this weekend in northern Italy, said on Monday.
A professor of organic chemistry at the University of Pavia, Garlaschelli made available to Reuters the paper he will deliver and the accompanying comparative photographs.
The Shroud of Turin shows the back and front of a bearded man with long hair, his arms crossed on his chest, while the entire cloth is marked by what appears to be rivulets of blood from wounds in the wrists, feet and side.
Carbon dating tests by laboratories in Oxford, Zurich and Tucson, Arizona in 1988 caused a sensation by dating it from between 1260 and 1390. Sceptics said it was a hoax, possibly made to attract the profitable medieval pilgrimage business.
But scientists have thus far been at a loss to explain how the image was left on the cloth.
Garlaschelli reproduced the full-sized shroud using materials and techniques that were available in the middle ages.
They placed a linen sheet flat over a volunteer and then rubbed it with a pigment containing traces of acid. A mask was used for the face.

PIGMENT, BLOODSTAINS AND SCORCHES
The pigment was then artificially aged by heating the cloth in an oven and washing it, a process which removed it from the surface but left a fuzzy, half-tone image similar to that on the Shroud. He believes the pigment on the original Shroud faded naturally over the centuries.
They then added blood stains, burn holes, scorches and water stains to achieve the final effect.
The Catholic Church does not claim the Shroud is authentic nor that it is a matter of faith, but says it should be a powerful reminder of Christ's passion.
One of Christianity's most disputed relics, it is locked away at Turin Cathedral in Italy and rarely exhibited. It was last on display in 2000 and is due to be shown again next year.
Garlaschelli expects people to contest his findings.
"If they don't want to believe carbon dating done by some of the world's best laboratories they certainly won't believe me," he said.
The accuracy of the 1988 tests was challenged by some hard-core believers who said restorations of the Shroud in past centuries had contaminated the results.
The history of the Shroud is long and controversial.
After surfacing in the Middle East and France, it was brought by Italy's former royal family, the Savoys, to their seat in Turin in 1578. In 1983 ex-King Umberto II bequeathed it to the late Pope John Paul.
The Shroud narrowly escaped destruction in 1997 when a fire ravaged the Guarini Chapel of the Turin cathedral where it is held. The cloth was saved by a fireman who risked his life.
Garlaschelli received funding for his work by an Italian association of atheists and agnostics but said it had no effect on his results.
"Money has no odor," he said. "This was done scientifically. If the Church wants to fund me in the future, here I am."

BIBLE VERSES BANNED FROM Ga. SCHOOL FOOTBALL FIELD

FORT OGLETHORPE— The Warriors of Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High took the field on Friday night without any Bible verses written on the cheerleaders' banner. Instead, the football team ran through a banner that read "This is Big Red Country" before each bent on a knee to pray on the field of Tommy Cash Stadium.
The spirited display comes after the school district banned the banners last week over concerns they were unconstitutional and could provoke a lawsuit, angering many in the deeply religious north Georgia town of Fort Oglethorpe.
"I'm just kind of unnerved about it," said 18-year-old Cassandra Cooksey, a recent graduate who often prayed with her fellow marching band members before football games. "It seems like the majority of people in our community want this and they don't have a problem with it, so I think they should be allowed to have the signs if they want to."
The move has galvanized the community. Hundreds of people attended a rally this week supporting the signs, which included messages such as: "Commit to the Lord, whatever you do, and your plans will succeed." Many students attended class Friday wearing shirts with Bible verses and painted their cars with messages that read: "Warriors for Christ."
During the game, several other messages were visible in the packed stadium. Some people stood with signs that read "You Can't Silence Us" and some young men had Bible verses painted on their chests.
"When you get a whole bunch of teenagers mad, this is what happens. We stand up for what believe in," 16-year-old Shelby Rouse said over the roar of a pre-game pep rally.
Cheerleader Taylor Guinn said she is disappointed about the banning of the signs on the football field and believed there was nothing wrong with displaying them.
"It's done good because it brought a lot of glory to God," the 17-year-old senior said.
Players at the 900-student school began running through the Biblical banners shortly after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and school Principal Jerry Ransom said he enthusiastically supported it then. But Catoosa County schools Superintendent Denia Reese banned the practice after a parent complained.
Reese said the school board's attorney advised her the signs violated federal law because they were being displayed by the cheerleaders during a school-sponsored event.
"I regret that the cheerleaders cannot display their signs in the football stadium without violating the First Amendment," Reese said in a statement. "I rely on reading the Bible daily, and I would never deny our students the opportunity to express their religious beliefs."
The Anti-Defamation League, a human rights group, sent a letter to Reese commending the ban.
"There are legal ways for students to have religious observation in a school context and there are illegal ways, and we believe Reese is correct that the football game crosses a line," said Bill Nigut, the group's southeast regional director.
Tom Rogeberg, a spokesman of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, said he can understand banning cheerleaders on the field from displaying religious banners. But he said spectators in the stands must be able to continue expressing their beliefs freely as they did in Fort Oglethorpe on Friday.
"It's been long seen at sporting events with banners like John 3:16 being put up by fans," Rogeberg said.

BORN-AGAIN CHRISTIAN GAVIN MACLEOD STARS IN NEW FAITH BASED FILM ' THE SECRETS OF JONATHAN SPERRY '

As Murray Slaughter, he wrote for airhead anchor Ted Baxter on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" for seven years. As Merrill Stubing, he captained the "Love Boat" for nearly a decade after that. Today, iconic TV actor Gavin Macleod says "I know who my admiral is," referring to his faith in God.
Macleod, 78, is a born again Christian now piloting a career in the Christian film industry, and starring in the movie "The Secrets of Jonathan Perry," which opens this weekend.
"I've worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood, Cary Grant, Tony Curtis, Gregory Peck, Mary Tyler Moore," he told FOX News in an exclusive interview. "[But] the biggest honor I have ever had was to play the role of Jonathan Sperry in this simple but special film."
The film is about three 12-year old boys who are best buddies in the summer of 1970. One of them mows the lawn for an elderly widower named Jonathan Sperry. The two develop a unique friendship as Sperry employs Biblical teachings to help the boy and his friends deal with a bully, a secret crush, and other life challenges.
"The film is about forgiveness," Macleod says. "Forgiveness is one of the greatest tools God has given us."
The movie was written by twins Dave and Rich Christiano; Rich also produced and directed. They're part of the new breed of grassroots Christian filmmakers that include the Kendrick brothers, makers of the surprise box office hit "Fireproof."
Instead of complaining to Hollywood about the films it produces, Rich Christiano says it's time for Christians to put their money where their mouths are. Sperry has no big-name distributor, so Christiano, who worked with Mcleod on the 2002 film "Time Changer," is marketing directly to churches, a technique also adopted by the Kendrick brothers.
The film has a staggered release starting September 18, showing in 118 theaters. Openings are scheduled through November 2009 with a total of 240 theaters onboard so far. Each one is sponsored by a church or group of church members. They advance $2,000 to get the film into the theater. The church will make their investment back if the film grosses $4,500. The movie's web page www.sperrymovie.com links to a site about sponsorship.
Christiano is betting on success in targeted theaters bringing additional theaters into the fold. Hee says theater owners are already calling him because people who want to see the film are calling them, wondering why the film isn’t showing in their communities.
The key to getting churches on board is having a well-known actor to star. Like Kirk Cameron, who starred in "Fireproof," "Sperry’s" Gavin Macleod is a true believer. Christian audiences know the actor is saying lines he personally believes.
It brings "authenticity and validation" to the film, says Mark Dupre, associate pastor at Christ Community Church in Brockport, New York — one of the churches sponsoring a theater showing. Dupre, who also teaches film at Rochester Institute of Technology, says having a strong Christian like Gavin Macleod play the lead is a built in marketing hook, "the equivalent of having the acting genius of a Meryl Streep in secular movie. Captain Stubing is someone America just loved."
Macleod charts his religious conversion back to September 15, 1984, seven years into the popular TV series "Love Boat." His mother had a serious medical condition and was scheduled for surgery. That morning he woke up and prayed to Jesus to "give my mother more time."
Unknown to Macleod, his then ex-wife Patty, who he hadn’t seen in two years, had gotten involved in a Christian women’s prayer group. She’d been praying that her husband would come back to her. Right after Macleod said the prayer to save his mother, he called Patty and asked "can we see each other?" The two repaired their relationship and were remarried in 1985. Gavin’s mother lived several more years.
From the moment he said his prayer, Mcleod says the change was immediate. "My castmates knew I was different. I was hearing with different ears and seeing with different eyes."
After "Love Boat" ended in 1987, Macleod became the spokesperson for Princess Cruises, a job he still holds today. He’s turned down several TV roles because he’s not interested in doing series work again. His passion now is for his faith and the lives he can touch. "The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry" allows him to be captain of his new calling.