A college football prospect gunned down in his own yard, a young convenience store clerk killed over a pack of cigarettes, a young woman murdered in front of her parents in a popular tourist area of San Francisco.

Last week, the zoning board in Bayonne, New Jersey-just across New York Harbor from Sunset Park, Brooklyn-voted to deny a variance to Muslim residents who wanted to convert a warehouse into a mosque. The hearing had been moved to Bayonne High School, to accommodate a large crowd, and wound up lasting six hours.