Nation & world digest || Shroud of Turin goes on display

Shroud of Turin goes on display

TURIN, Italy

The long linen with the faded image of a bearded man is the object of centuries-old fascination and wonderment and closely kept under wrap. Starting today and for six weeks both the curious and those convinced the Turin Shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ can have a brief look.

By late Friday, 1.5 million people had reserved their three-to-five-minute chance to gaze at the cloth, which is kept in a bulletproof, climate-controlled case.

Law: Mothers must have place to pump

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.

Working mothers who are breast-feeding and need to express their milk must have break times and a private location — not a bathroom — to do so in the workplace, according to a little-noticed provision of the new health-care law.

The law, which applies to working mothers who need to pump their milk for their breast-feeding babies, is part of the health-care law signed by President Barack Obama on March 23.

Rep. Stupak plans to leave Congress

MARQUETTE, Mich.

Rep. Bart Stupak will step down at the end of his term this year, saying Friday that he’s exhausted from the grind of covering the second-largest congressional district east of the Mississippi.

Stupak was targeted for defeat by anti-health-care-reform groups and right-to-life organizations as betraying them when he and seven other anti-abortion Democrats swung their support behind the bill last month. But he said Friday that had nothing to do with his decision.

Instead, he said, he has considered leaving before each of his recent congressional runs — each of which he has won easily.

Fort Hood suspect to be isolated in jail

BELTON, Texas

The Army psychiatrist charged in the deadly shooting spree at Fort Hood will be kept isolated from all other inmates at the jail where he was transferred early Friday, the local sheriff said.

Maj. Nidal Hasan was airlifted from a San Antonio military hospital to the Bell County Jail in Belton about 4 a.m. Friday. He had been at the military hospital since shortly after the Nov. 5 shooting spree that left him paralyzed.

Hasan is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder.

Death toll rises in Brazilian landslides

RIO DE JANEIRO

The death toll from landslides and floods in and around Rio de Janeiro this week reached 205 on Friday and was expected to rise as searchers continued looking for bodies in an operation expected to last through the weekend, authorities said.

Crews have pulled 27 bodies from the debris so far at the hardest-hit site in Niteroi, next to Rio.

Crowds mourn Kyrgyz victims

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan

As a crowd of thousands mourned the Kyrgyz protesters shot dead by police, many expressed hope Friday that the bloody revolt would bring a better government to the impoverished Central Asian nation. Some said they were counting on Russia’s help.

Flights, meanwhile, resumed at the U.S. base just outside the capital after being halted Wednesday during the uprising.

Combined dispatches