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Good Friday 2011 falls on the 22 April. Good Friday is a sanctified occasion for Christians as Christ was crucified on this day.
On this specific day, people solemnly follow rituals which include signing hymns, chanting prayers, reading Good Friday sermons.
Good Friday (also popularly known as Great Friday or Holy Friday) is observed during Holy Week on the Friday just three days before Easter Sunday. It is a religious holiday observed traditionally to remember the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ. Followers of Christianity across the globe on this day relive the crucial moments when son of God (Jesus Christ) was arrested, crucified and put to death which ultimately brought salvation to human race.
Every year, Christians gather at the churches on Good Friday to mourn the death and crucifixion of Lord Jesus. They take out procession depicting the Way of the Cross while singing Good Friday songs and hymns.
The church bells remain hushed on this day to grieve the penance and death of Christ. The statues and pictures at churches are blanketed with black clothes to mark the day as distressing. Many people wear black clothes to mark the significance of Good Friday. Good Friday sermons and passages from the Bible are read out to the mass to relive the importance of the day. Moreover, liturgical services are carried out that consist of paying admiration to the holy cross, reading the stories of Christ from St. John Gospel and more.

Good Friday.

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Prince William and Kate Middleton shared a string of steamy encounters: in an American television movie about their romance.
The couple, played by Nico Evers-Swindell and Camilla Luddington, were seen kissing passionately in the rain, sneaking in and out of one another’s rooms at university and lying in bed together.
And in a re-enactment of the moment William watched Kate strut the catwalk at a charity fashion show, the Prince declared: “She’s hot.”
The two-hour TV movie, entitled William and Kate, charted the lives of the future King and Queen of England from the time they met at St. Andrews University.
Luddington and Evers-Swindell were seen exchanging longing glances as they were paired together to work on an art project and their relationship blossomed from there.
The movie featured key scenes from their past – including the moment Kate modelled a sheer dress at a charity fashion show and the time the couple kissed in public during a skiing holiday in Klosters.
The final scenes of the dramatisation, which aired in the United States on TV network Lifetime, showed William proposing to Kate in front of a beautiful sunset in Kenya.

Kate Middleton and Prince William.

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Putnam, Conn. Jesus’ return to Jerusalem was celebrated in music Sunday by the members of several local church choirs during the Congregational Church of Putnam’s 82nd annual Palm Sunday Concert of Sacred Music.
For Christians, Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week, which culminates with recognition of Jesus’ death on Good Friday and resurrection on Easter Sunday.
It is a time of triumph and joy, and the music presented downtown on Sunday reflected that.
“It is the beginning of Jesus’ turn to Jerusalem, and it’s a time when we empty ourselves of the kinds of things Jesus let go of on his way to the cross” – said the Rev. Tom Meyer, pastor of the Congregational Church of Putnam. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to examine our lives and see where we are headed as Christians.”
More than 100 musicians, singers and onlookers gathered in the church Sunday afternoon, where they were treated to a wide range of music, from old-timey numbers like ‘I’ll Fly Away’ to ‘Festival Toccata,’ a pipe organ piece by late 19th- and early 20th-century English composer Percy Fletcher.
Listeners also heard ‘Hosanna I Would Shout Today,’ composed by Dorothy VanAndel Frisch, a pianist from Woodstock, who performed the piece for the second time Sunday with a choir made up of members of several of the churches that were part of the afternoon’s performances.
“I wrote it for this Palm Sunday for my parish” – VanAndel Frisch said. She said the piece is also a semifinalist in the annual Sorel Organization Choral Competition, held in New York City next month.

Holy Week.

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Bijan Pakzad – an Iranian American designer of jewelry – fragrances and luxury menswear who ran a Beverly Hills boutique and was renowned as clothier to some of the world’s most powerful men, died Saturday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles – his family said.
Pakzad was 67 – his family said.
He suffered a stroke while working Thursday and was rushed to the hospital but never recovered – said his son (Nicolas Bijan Pakzad, 19). He said his father once named a fragrance DNA in honor of his three children, Daniela, Nicolas and Alexandra.
“He’s dressed over 40,000 clients” – Nicolas Pakzad said, including Presidents Carter, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama. “We have a picture of all five living presidents wearing his suits.” He said his father recently traveled to Washington, D.C., for an event honoring George H.W. Bush, whom he counted as a friend.

Bijan Pakzad.

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Most people know the Sunday before Easter as Palm Sunday, but it is also called Passion Sunday in acknowledgement of the Passion (meaning the suffering and death) of Jesus. The gospels describe Palm or Passion Sunday as what is called the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, riding on the back of a donkey, with crowds shouting his praise and waving branches.
Palm Sunday begins in celebration and ends in a darker note, boding the coming arrest, trial and execution of Jesus.
Palm or Passion Sunday ushers Christians into Holy Week and is the encapsulation of Lent, said the Rev. Kermit Culver, pastor at Legacy United Methodist Church in Bismarck: “the fickleness of people, who cheered Jesus on his entry into Jerusalem and less than a week later, called for his head.”
Five pastors from four United Methodist churches in Bismarck and Mandan are planning their first Palm Sunday walk and invite the community to join them this Sunday, Palm Sunday.
Pastors Perry Schnabel of Calvary United Methodist, Ray Baker and Rick Fossum of McCabe United Methodist, Culver, and Steve Johnson of Mandan United Methodist, have organized the walk, which is open to youth, families and anyone who wants to participate.
A large wooden cross will be carried at the head of the procession and walkers are invited to ‘follow the cross,’ Culver said.

Palm Sunday.

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Looking to celebrate ‘Record Store Day’?
This is a holiday that is celebrated internationally and is observed on the third Saturday of April each year. The purpose of this holiday is to celebrate the art of music. Fans, artists and over 700 independently owned record stores in the United States as well as other record stores from across the world come together on this day.
The official founding of this day was in 2007 by Eric Levin, Michael Kurtz, Carrie Colliton, Amy Dorfman, Don Van Cleave and Brian Poehner. Hundreds of artist participate in the day. Some make special appearances and performances. Others go all out on ‘Record Store Day’ and meet their fans and issue special vinyl and CD releases to mark the occasion.
Just a couple of the artists that are celebrating this day are Flaming Lips and Radiohead. Flaming Lips celebrate ‘Record Store Day’ with vinyl releases. Radiohead released a new single. What are you doing for this holiday?

Record Store Day 2008.

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Catherine Zeta-Jones (41) was hospitalized for five days at the Silver Hill Hospital, Connecticut, last week and treated for bipolar disorder II. With bipolar disorder II the individual experiences depression and one or more episodes of hypomania. But no severe mania, which occurs in bipolar disorder I.
Hypomania is less severe than mania, but similar. The patient has an elevated mood, raised activity, sleeps less, has feelings of grandiosity, and racing thoughts. However, symptoms are not severe enough to cause considerable distress or disabling enough to impair one’s work, social life or family life like manic episodes do.
Put simply, those with bipolar disorder I have extreme mood swings, while those with bipolar disorder II have mood swings, but less severe ones.
A spokesman for the Welsh Hollywood actress said that after dealing with the stress of the past year, Catherine Zeta-Jones decided to check into the hospital for a short stay to treat her disorder. The spokesman added: “She’s feeling great and looking forward to starting work this week on her two upcoming films.”.
Dealing with the illness of her husband, Michael Douglas, over the last year has been extremely stressful. In 2010 Michael Douglas told a TV audience that he had been diagnosed with stage four throat cancer. In January 2011 he announced that the tumor had gone and that he believed he was beating the disease.

Catherine Zeta-Jones.

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The serial killer who dumped his victim’s bodies in the thick brush along several miles of New York’s breathtaking beachfront may have dismembered several of them – law enforcement authorities have told ABC News.
The grisly twist was the latest revelation as police continued to uncover the murderous path carved along Long Island beaches by at least one killer.
Investigators have determined that bones found Monday were human, bringing the body count to nine and possibly 10 victims. It’s still not clear whether a skull found alone Monday was part of victim number 9 or would be victim number 10.
The bodies were strung out over a 3,5 mile stretch of beach with five of the bodies spaced out about 500 feet apart – police said.
The possibility that some of the skeletal remains were dismembered came as police were considering clear cutting the thick brush that has made seaching the area difficult. Police fear that when the brush starts blooming in the coming weeks the search would become even more difficult. Police divers are also preparing to dive in order to search bay waters for more bodies.
Searchers have used cadaver dogs, horses and fire truck aerial ladders to scour the thick vegetation for victims.
Faced today with slashing rains and swampy ground, a helicopter was used for today’s dragnet.
While at least several of the victims appear to have been killed and dumped by a serial killer, authorities had not yet ruled out the possibility that more than one killer was responsible for the growing pile of human remains, which included those of a child.

Search for Shannan Gilbert.

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Fifty years ago today, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to experience outer space.
Beforehand, he wrote a poignant letter to his wife, telling her to remarry if he didn’t survive. But his last conversation before liftoff, according to secret recordings only now released by Russia, was decidedly less sentimental, peppered with swears and talk about … sausage.
At the height of the Cold War, Gagarin’s feat as the first man in space was heralded as a victory for the Soviet Union and a humiliation for America. It spurred tit-for-tat one-upmanship that pushed NASA to put a man on the moon eight years later. Gagarin (then 27) became a national hero, and details of his flight and even his personal life were considered Soviet state secrets for decades. Until now.
Russia released more than 700 pages of never before seen material linked to Gagarin’s life and times this week, ahead of today’s 50th anniversary. Among the documents are transcripts of radio transmissions that recorded Gagarin’s final words before taking flight. In such a serious and historic moment, the exchanges between Gagarin and Soviet technicians – who later acknowledged that they feared for his life – were surprisingly calm and even funny.
One of the last things Gagarin did before liftoff was check his supply of food. His flight planners were concerned about him having enough to eat after his voyage, once he’d landed in barren fields near the Volga River (450 miles from Moscow). They joked about his food supply over a radio transmission, once the hatch on his Vostok space capsule was shut.

Yuri Gagarin.

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Albert Pujols’s recent appearance on 60 Minutes did a fine job of illuminating, among other things, just how frequently every team in Major League Baseball passed up on the best player of the last 10 years – 12 times or more, generally speaking. For those of you who haven’t been reveling in the St. Louis Cardinals’ good fortune ever since, it’s worthwhile to show just how much teams missed by not choosing him in the first 12 rounds of the 1999 MLB Draft.
Let’s start backwards and work our way up – with the 401st pick of the 1999 draft, just one ahead of Albert Pujols, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim selected Alfredo Amezaga, strictly for assonance purposes. Amezaga was actually a fine pick for a 13th-rounder—he was a decent utility-man prospect for a while and hung around as a super-sub for several years with the Florida Marlins. He’s one of five players to spend any time in the Major Leagues from that round.
The first-rounders that year, meanwhile… well, Josh Hamilton, who went Number 1 overall to the Tampa Bay [Devil] Rays, was one of the best prospects of the last 20 years, but we all know his circuitous route to last year’s MVP Award. Josh Beckett (Number 2) was another superprospect who took a while to come into his own. This was actually a fine first round—it also produced Barry Zito (9), Ben Sheets (10), Brett Myers (12), Jason Jennings (16), and Alex Rios (19).
Of course, it also produced 16 players who never caught a whiff of the Major Leagues, including the Cardinals’ first-rounder, pitching prospect Chance Caple. The Cardinals managed to take 15 players before they reached Pujols, and only Chris Duncan (46th overall) and Coco Crisp (222) spent significant time in the Major Leagues. After Pujols the draft was even more barren, producing only memory-holed reliever Mike Crudale and folk hero Bo Hart.

Albert Pujols.

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