Pop Winans

Pop Winans, Sr., the patriarch of the Grammy Award-winning gospel group The Winans, died Wednesday at a hospice center in Nashville, Tenn. He was 76. His offspring included four sons who became the biggest male gospel quartet of the 1980s; children Bebe and Cece Winans, who were successful as a duo and as solo artists, and a third generation of grandchildren who also have been successful, most notably the Winans Phase II.

"Pop" Winans was born David Glenn on April 20, 1934 in Detroit. He was raised in the Mack Avenue Church of God in Christ, where his grandfather Isaiah Winans was the pastor. His affection for quartet singing remained with him and is evident in the success of his sons, including the Rev. Marvin Winans, pastor of Detroit’s Perfecting Church.

Winans family patriarch David “Pop” Winans passed away April 8th in Nashville. A heart attack and stroke last October forced the gospel star in a hospice, the AP reports. Winans was 76. In 1999, Winans was nominated for a Grammy for his solo CD "Uncensored." He and his wife Delores, known as Mom Winans, were nominated for their CD "Mom & Pop Winans" in 1989. She was at his bedside when he died, the statement said.

Kaboni Savage

Kaboni Savage, described by a federal prosecutor as the leader of "perhaps the most violent drug gang ever seen in the city of Philadelphia," was charged in a sweeping racketeering indictment yesterday that listed 12 murders, including a North Philadelphia firebombing in which six people, four of them children, were killed.

Savage, a onetime professional boxer serving a 30-year sentence for drug trafficking, could be sentenced to death if convicted of the most serious charges. His court-appointed attorney, Christopher Warren, said yesterday that his client denied the allegations, which have been swirling around him since his trial in 2005. Three top associates also named in the 26-count indictment face possible death sentences if convicted.

The indictment alleges that Savage, from prison, ordered two of those associates, Lamont Lewis and Robert Merritt, to firebomb the home of Marcella Coleman in the 3200 block of North Sixth Street in October 2004. Early on Oct. 9, 2004, authorities allege, Lewis and Merritt carried out the attack. The fire killed Marcella Coleman, 54; her niece Tameka Nash, 34; Nash's daughter, Khadijah, 10; Eugene Coleman's 15-month-old son, Damir Jenkins; Marcella Coleman's grandson, Tajh Porchea, 12; and a family friend, Sean Rodriguez, 15.

U.S. Attorney Laurie Magid, detailing the charges in the case yesterday, quoted from secretly recorded conversations in which Savage allegedly threatened to kill relatives of those who might testify against him and joked about the firebombing. In all, the indictment alleges that 12 murders were carried out as part of the Kaboni Savage Organization's drug trafficking operation. The victims allegedly included rival drug dealers, potential cooperating witnesses, and the family members of witnesses.

Good Friday

A rainy Good Friday looms over portions of Northern Luzon and Mindanao as two weather disturbances continue to threaten the regions with rains and thunderstorms. In its 5 p.m. bulletin, the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) said a diffused tail end of a cold front continues to affect the northern portion of Luzon, while an easterly wave continues to affect Mindanao.

We do celebrate Easter in a secular fashion, with eggs, chocolate rabbits and so on, but the time for that is Easter Sunday, which comes with its own public holiday the following day. "Celebrating" Good Friday would be inappropriate in religious as well as secular terms -- although that didn't stop The Australian last year headlining a Good Friday report with "Aussie Christians celebrate Easter". Theology is not our strong point.

Each year, religious figures find something to criticise as "desecration" of the day. This year it was Tabcorp opening for business; a couple of years ago it was a plan to play an evening football game. But what's remarkable is how little of this sort of thing there is. Other public holidays -- Australia Day, Queen's Birthday, Labour Day, even Anzac Day -- seem to cope with far more social activity than Good Friday.