Members of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority staged a noisy protest outside the White House Thursday, demanding that Mubarak work for justice at home instead of between Israelis and Palestinians.

The protesters cited the drive-by killing of Coptic Christian worshippers after their Christmas Eve service and the burning of Christian homes and churches. They also said Egyptian Muslims kidnap Coptic Christian girls and force them to convert to Islam.

Christianity predates Islam by centuries and is still the faith of about ten percent of Egyptians, but Coptic Christians say they routinely face oppression by Egypt’s Muslim majority.

Capt. Dale Goetz was among five soldiers killed by an improvised bomb on Monday. Officials say he had hitched a ride on a resupply convoy.

The 43-year-old Goetz is survived by his wife and three young sons.

He listed his hometown as White, S.D., and once served there as pastor of First Baptist Church, according to the Argus-Leader of Sioux Falls.

Goetz and Staff Sgt. Christopher Stout, who was killed in Afghanistan in July, are the first chaplain and chaplain’s assistant to die in combat since 1970.

The Rev. Ivey Belch of Ocracoke Assembly of God says he and the island’s Methodist minister were on the same ferry to the mainland, and they joked that other islanders could view their departure as ominous.

Belch says people have asked how he can pray that the storm will miss Ocracoke, but evacuate anyway.

He responds that while the Bible says faith is believing what you can’t see, “stupidity is staying when you’re seeing, and not believing it.”

Alec Hill says that won’t change, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling against the Christian Legal Society. The justices ruled that a law school in San Francisco can deny recognition to a CLS chapter that won’t let non-Christians or gays become leaders, even though any student can join.

Hill says InterVarsity Christian Fellowship welcomes students regardless of their faith. But if those students were to elect a non-Christian chapter leader, Hill says InterVarsity would have to suspend its affiliation with that chapter.

He hopes campus recognition won’t be an issue this school year, so that IVCF can extend the same welcome as other student groups to incoming freshmen.

Capt. Ludovic Foyou  says the 34-year-old Stout was the first chaplain’s assistant to die in combat in 40 years.

The Army says Stout was killed in action while repelling an insurgent attack on an Afghan police compound in Kandahar. He’s survived by his wife and children.

Capt. Foyou offered his condolences, and recalled that he and Stout sometimes prayed together as they ministered to troops in the

82nd Airborne Division.

Hundreds of nuns, bishops and volunteers attended a Mass in Calcutta, where she founded the Missionaries of Charity to care for the poor and homeless.

School children, tourists and volunteers, some carrying bunches of flowers or candles, gathered at her grave.

Sister Mary Prema, the nun who now heads the order, says Mother Teresa’s life and work “continue to be an inspiration for the young and the old, the rich and the poor, from all walks of life, religions and nations.”

Special feasts to feed the poor, a festival of films on her life and work, the launch of a new train called the Mother Express, and interfaith prayer meetings are among the centennial events planned.