Blog Heap of Links for the day 21 May 2009

President Barack Obama sees his secretary of defense just about every day, but he still flubbed Robert Gates' name on Thursday. Gates was in the crowd for Obama's national security speech. Pointing him out, the president said "William Gates" was on hand. Perhaps Obama was thinking of Bill Gates, the Microsoft billionaire.

Four New York men were arrested Wednesday in connection with an alleged plot to blow up area Jewish centers and military targets. The plot, however, was foiled by undercover agents. Raids by the FBI-NYPD Joint Terrorist Task Force in the Bronx captured the suspected ringleader and three followers in what law enforcement sources are calling a homegrown terrorist plot.

Report: widespread abuse of Irish children in Catholic Church-run institutions The government did little as Generations of children were abused, according to the nearly decade-long investigation. Counseling centers report a surge in callers since the report's release.

Law enforcement computers were struck by a Mystery computer virus Thursday, forcing the FBI and the U.S. Marshals to shut down part of their networks as a precaution.

Federal prosecutors have charged 147 members of a predominantly Latino street gang that has long ruled the streets of Hawaiian Gardens, a city of 14,000 east of Long Beach, with making racial attacks on African-Americans and drug dealing. Prosecutors said the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens gang, with approximately 1,000 members and associates, carried out racially motivated shootings to enforce its territory and to intimidate black residents.

A former U.S. Army private received a life sentence with no parole Thursday for raping an Iraqi teenager and killing her and her family. Prosecutors sought the death penalty for Steven Green, but jurors in federal court in Kentucky were unable to agree on the sentence.... killings took place in March 2006. Investigators Green and other soldiers broke into Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi's house in Mahmudiya. Others in the group testified Green killed the teen's parents and sister and shot her in the head. Four other soldiers pleaded guilty and were sentenced to prison.

The same day Dick Cheney delivered a major speech on the battle against terrorism, a new national poll suggests that favorable opinions of the former vice president are on the rise.