The brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings may have been headed for New York to party after the attack, the New York police commissioner said Wednesday.

“There was some information that they may have been intent on coming to New York, but not to continue doing what they’re doing,” Kelly told reporters at police headquarters. “The information that we received said something about a party, or having a party.”

A man authorities say was carjacked by the brothers has told investigators he believes one of the brothers said “Manhattan” before he escaped, but investigators have cautioned that it may have been a language mixup because the brothers were speaking with Russian dialects.

The surviving brother has told investigators that the pair acted alone, were inspired by an al Qaeda propaganda magazine, and plotted the bombing to defend Islam after the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, federal law enforcement officials told NBC News.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed early Friday after a shootout with police in the Boston suburbs. His younger brother and alleged accomplice, Dzhokhar, is in fair condition at a Boston hospital. The brothers killed a campus patrol officer and carjacked an SUV before the shootout, authorities have said.

Homemade explosives and one semi-automatic handgun believed to belong to the brothers were recovered by investigators, officials said. The gun’s serial number was obliterated, but Massachusetts state police were working to reveal the number.

Slideshow: Aftermath and reaction following Boston bombings

Cj Gunther / EPA

Heightened security, empty streets, and memorials mark the the days after the Boston Marathon bombings.

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Cambridge police, meanwhile, released a booking photo of Tamerlan Tsarnaev from a 2009 domestic violence arrest during which he was accused of assaulting his girlfriend.

In a closed-door session on Wednesday, members of the House Intelligence Committee were briefed by the FBI and other federal agencies on the ongoing investigation. Among the issues discussed is what federal authorities knew about Tamerlan Tsarnaev's trip to Russia as well as a timeline on his radicalization. 

Also, according to an interview with Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Mich., the ranking member on the committee, it was learned that the device used to trigger the explosives was a remote control for a toy, not a cellphone as thought earlier.

Nine days after the twin blasts near the marathon finish line, authorities early Wednesday reopened the section of Boylston Street in central Boston where the first bomb went off.

The site of the explosion has been paved with fresh cement and is surrounded by orange construction cones but opened to foot traffic. People stopped to pay respects and take photos.

“The people of Boston are strong like cement. Strong people. They get together when it’s needed,” said Robert Bibias, a city masonry worker who early Wednesday cemented over what had been a blood-stained crime scene.

Thousands of people, including police from all over the country, gathered at the baseball stadium of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a memorial service for Sean Collier, the campus patrol officer who authorities said was shot to death by the Tsarnaev brothers before the carjacking and shootout.

With police snipers holding positions atop nearby buildings, Vice President Joe Biden called the perpetrators of the marathon bombing “twisted, perverted, cowardly, knockoff jihadis.”

“The irony is, we read about these events, we experience them, but the truth is, on every frontier, terrorism as a weapon is losing,” he said. “It is not gaining adherents.”

Tamerlan Tsarnaev is seen in a booking photo from a 2009 arrest in Cambridge, Mass.

The vice president went on: “We will not hunker down. We will not be intimidated.”

His wife, Dr. Jill Biden, visited Boylston Street on Wednesday.

Private funerals were held Tuesday for Collier and for Martin Richard, the 8-year-old boy killed near the finish line. Two other people were killed at the marathon, and more than 200 were injured, including 39 who were still hospitalized Wednesday.

In Russia, the brothers’ aunt said that a Boston-area mosque has refused to hold a funeral for Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

American authorities have told the family that they can have Tsarnaev’s body, and an uncle approached the mosque to request a burial and funeral but was declined, said the aunt, Patimat Suleimanova.

She said that she did not know the name of the mosque but that it was one the family attended. A mosque in Cambridge, Mass., has said that Tsarnaev attended and occasionally caused disruptions and that mosque leaders threatened to kick him out.

A spokesman for the Cambridge mosque, Yusufi Vali, said the mosque had not heard from the family.

“There were some reports out there that we had rejected his burial, and — or the family had reached out to us, rather. And to our knowledge, you know, the family has not reached out to us,” he said on the MSNBC program “Andrea Mitchell Reports.”

The mosque, run by the Islamic Society of Boston, has also said that congregants have been questioned by the FBI. The mosque did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday from NBC News.

Earlier this week, Imam Talal Eid of the Islamic Institute of Boston, a separate institution, told The Huffington Post: “I would not be willing to do a funeral for him. This is a person who deliberately killed people. There is no room for him as a Muslim.”

NBC News' Adrienne Mong, Alastair Jamieson, Bill Dedman and Matthew DeLuca contributed to this report.

Related:

• Full coverage of the Boston Marathon tragedy
• Wife of dead bombing suspect in 'absolute shock'
• FBI quizzes members of mosque suspect attended

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 24, 2013 7:14 AM EDT

Slideshow: The life and times of Margaret Thatcher

John Minihan / Getty Images

A pioneer for her sex, Margaret Thatcher was prime minister of the United Kingdom for almost 12 years. Take a look back at her life and career.

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LONDON - Police were on standby for street violence after protesters pledged to "celebrate" the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with a party at the scene of a 1990 riot against one of her most unpopular policies.

Senior police officers have already launched an operation to prevent disorder surrounding her televised funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral on Wednesday, which is due to be attended by Britain’s queen and world leaders. Every living former U.S. president is invited.

With tight security around the official event, protest groups have threatened to gather on Saturday in London’s Trafalgar Square, where thousands rioted in March 1990 in protest against the introduction of the Poll Tax – a despised local government tax system that proved to be one of the main triggers of Thatcher’s political downfall in November that year.

Class War, which posted details of the event on Twitter, told the London Evening Standard that protesters planned to install an effigy of Thatcher on a vacant plinth in the square, which will then be toppled in a moment that a spokesman said would be a moment of “liberation and cathartic retribution.”

On Facebook, a group called “Maggie's good riddance party” called on demonstrators to gather at the funeral, with some attendees planning to turn their backs on Thatcher’s casket as it was taken through the streets. 

Thatcher, the country’s longest serving prime minister in a century and the first woman to hold the job, died on Monday after suffering a stroke at the age of 87.

She is both revered and reviled in Britain, where her free market reforms led a national economic resurgence but also created pockets of deep social deprivation in areas where former state-run industries such as coal mines and steel works were shut down or sold off with the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

Steve Eason / Hulton Archive via Getty Images, file

Police and demonstrators clash in London's Trafalgar Square during rioting, which arose from a demonstration against the Poll Tax March 31, 1990.

Within hours of her death, there were violent scenes at celebratory parties, prompting much introspection in Britain about how to mark with the passing of an important but controversial national figure.

At her own request, she will not have an official state funeral - a decision that appeared to acknowledge that a government-funded event would be controversial and unpopular – and insisted there should be no military fly-past.

However, Wednesday’s ceremony is shaping up to the grandest of its kind since the funeral of wartime leader Winston Churchill in 1964.

Although groups cheering Thatcher’s death are in a minority, police are monitoring social media to gather intelligence on the scale and nature of any protests.

"Some say Margaret Thatcher is a divisive figure, but that's part of the tapestry of policing these events,” Metropolitan Police Commander Christine Jones told the Daily Telegraph. “If people come to London to cause trouble and commit crime we will deal with you.”

In a statement, she added: “The right to protest is one that must be upheld, however, we will work to do that whilst balancing the rights of those who wish to pay their respects and those who wish to travel about London as usual.”

The force is using its experience from handling the London Olympics in July to deal with the event. Blanket stop-and-search powers are expected to be introduced in the run up to the funeral.

The force also has a Fixated Threat Assessment Centre, which monitors disturbed individuals are obsessed with public figures.

Saturday’s protest is being supported by other groups such as the All London Anarchist Revolutionary Mob, the London Evening Standard reported.

“Miners will be coming down from the north, Wapping printers, steel workers - it will be a big crowd. We are talking thousands,” Class War founder Ian Bone told the newspaper.

 “It has been planned for years, always for the first Saturday after her death, and it is in the right place, where the Poll Tax riots were taking place.”

Jones added that dealing with threats of disorder was “part of the normal daily business of London.”

“We deal with more than 3,500 protests or facilitated events a year so this is nothing new,” she added.

Police are also liaising with Britain’s intelligence agencies amid speculation the funeral could be targeted by Irish Republican terrorists – although the overall terror threat level remained unchanged.

Thatcher was targeted by an Irish Republican Army bomb in 1984 in retaliation for her tough stance on the organization, and saw two close political friends killed in terrorist attacks.

Meanwhile, opponents are doing their best to get the "Wizard of Oz" song "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" to the top of Britain’s version of the Billboard Hot 100. Midweek sales already have it in the Top 5 in the wake of a Facebook campaign.

That means the BBC will have to play the song during its chart show on Sunday. Conservative politicians have called on the broadcaster to not give it airtime. 

The BBC says its chart show is a factual account of what the British public has been buying and they will make a decision about whether to play the song when the final chart positions are clear on Sunday.

NBC News' Duncan Golestani contributed to this report.

Related:

'Iron Lady' Margaret Thatcher, who led conservative resurgence in Britain, dies at 87

Debate over funeral for 'loved, hated' former PM Thatcher divides Britain

'Wizard of Oz' song hits UK charts after Margaret Thatcher's death

Nasser Shiyoukhi / AP

Palestinian security forces carry the body of Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh, center, during his funeral in the West Bank city of Hebron on Thursday, April 4, 2013.

ANABTA, West Bank -- Thousands of mourners turned out on Thursday for the funerals of three Palestinians, including two teenagers killed by Israeli army gunfire in some of the worst violence in the occupied West Bank in years.

The upsurge in unrest was triggered on Tuesday by the death of Maysara Abu Hamdeya, a 64-year-old prisoner serving a life term in an Israeli jail and suffering from cancer.

Palestinian officials accused Israel of delaying treatment for Hamdeya and gave him full military honors at a funeral on Thursday in Hebron, where masked gunmen fired into the air as his body arrived at a mosque in the divided West Bank city.

In the wave of disturbances that followed his death, four Palestinian youths threw firebombs at an Israeli checkpoint near Tulkarm in the northern West Bank on Wednesday, the army said.

Soldiers returned fire and killed two teenagers from the nearby town of Anabta -- Amer Nassar, 17, and Naji Belbisi, 18.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Israel's use of lethal force showed that it wanted to "provoke chaos" in the Palestinian Territories and avoid any moves toward a peace deal.

Bernat Armangue / AP

Palestinian nurses hold posters with the picture of Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh with Arabic that reads, "Captive martyr brigade, Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh, the captive movement martyr, died on April 2, 2013," outside the morgue of a hospital in Hebron on Thursday.

The wave of violence erupted two weeks after U.S. President Barack Obama paid his first official visit to the region, urging the Israelis and the Palestinians to resume long-stalled peace talks but offering no initiative to break the deadlock.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to travel to Jerusalem again next week to review the stalemate.

First airstrike since truce
The United Nations office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Israeli forces had killed nine Palestinians, most of them in clashes in the West Bank, so far this year, compared with three in the same period in 2012.

The bodies of Nassar and Belbisi, their blood-stained faces clearly visible, were carried on stretchers through the packed streets of Anabta, held aloft by uniformed members of the Palestinian security forces.

"O martyrs rest, rest. We will continue the struggle," the crowds chanted as the lifeless teenagers passed by.

Israeli officials urged Palestinian leaders to push for calm, and dismissed suggestions that a third uprising, or Intifada, was brewing in the West Bank -- territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and which is now home to more than 340,000 Jewish settlers.

"The term 'Third Intifada' is meant to describe a general breakdown and uprising ... There are no powers there pushing for a third Intifada or general uprising," senior defense official Amos Gilad told Israel Radio.

Underscoring the potential for more violence, the Israeli army said that for a third straight day, a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip struck southern Israel on Thursday. No casualties or damage were reported.

Following initial rocket fire on Tuesday, Israeli jets carried out their first airstrike on Gaza since a truce ended several days of fighting in November.

Alaa Badarneh / EPA

Palestinian women mourn during the funeral of Amer Nassar and Naji Balbisi in Anabta village near the West Bank city of Tulkarem on Thursday.

An al Qaeda-linked group, Magles Shoura al-Mujahadeen, claimed responsibility for rocket attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday, saying it was responding to the death of Hamdeya.

Israel says Gaza's ruling Hamas movement bears overall responsibility for any rocket fire and has urged Egypt, which helped broker the November truce, to use its influence with the Islamist group.

"The Egyptians are very active. Dialogue with them is constant and their interest is in keeping stability and preventing firing, violence and terrorism," Gilad said.

For the second time this year, the death of a Palestinian prisoner has sparked widespread anti-Israeli disturbances.

In February, Arafat Jaradat, 30, died after an interrogation session. Palestinian officials said he had been tortured, an allegation Israel denied.

Palestinians say Hamdeya complained of feeling sick last August, but was only discovered to be suffering from cancer in January. They say he did not receive adequate treatment and should have been released because of the gravity of the illness.

Israelis said Hamdeya, serving a life term for attempted murder after sending a suicide bomber to a Jerusalem cafe, was a heavy smoker and had received adequate care.

Related:

'Not welcome': Disappointment greets Obama on West Bank visit

Slideshow: Israel and Gaza - 8 days of violence in November 2012

Israel and Hamas agree to Gaza ceasefire

Alexander Joe / AFP - Getty Images

Pallbearers carry the coffin of the late South African model Reeva Steenkamp into the crematorium building in Port Elizabeth Tuesday.

The funeral of model and law-school graduate Reeva Steenkamp – slain by her boyfriend Oscar Pistorius – was held in South Africa Tuesday.

As a magistrate ruled he would be prosecuted for premeditated murder, family and friends of Steenkamp spoke of their grief.

Pistorius’ lawyers have admitted he shot Steenkamp while she was in a small, locked bathroom, but claim he thought she was an intruder.

Adam Steenkamp, Reeva’s brother, spoke to reporters after the service at a 90-seat chapel in Port Elizabeth, where Steenkamp grew up.

Alexander Joe / AFP - Getty Images

A mourner at model Reeva Steenkamp's funeral holds the ceremony program Tuesday.

“There’s a space missing inside all the people that she knew,” he said.

“Everyone is sad understandably, but at certain points we were smiling whilst remembering Reeva because we only have good memories of her,” he added.

'He's a danger'
Reeva’s uncle Mike Steenkamp thanks people who had sent message of support, saying he had been “amazed” that people were “so touched by Reeva’s passing away.”

A cousin, Sharon, said that Reeva’s “love is in our hearts.”

Referring to the bail hearing Tuesday, one mourner, Gavin Venter, an ex-jockey who worked for Reeva's father, told Reuters that Pistorius should remain in jail.

"Without a doubt. He's a danger to the public. He'll be a danger to witnesses. He must stay in jail. He's already shown how dangerous he can be for what he did to Reeva," he said.

Her mother, June Steenkamp, said in an interview with The Times of Johannesburg, that her bubbly, blonde daughter was "the most beautiful person who ever lived."

"Why my little girl?" she said.

"All we have is this horrendous death to deal with ... to get to grips with," she added. "All we want are answers ... answers as to why this had to happen, why our beautiful daughter had to die like this."

Reuters contributed to this report.

Related:

Prosecution: Nothing to support claim Pistorius thought girlfriend was intruder

Mother of Pistorius' slain girlfriend: 'Why my little girl?'

Universalimagesgroup / Getty Images

Julia Pastrana, the "ugliest woman in the world," suffered from congenital hirsutism combined with gingival hyperplasia. Her manager displayed her in the U.S. as a circus attraction and the result of union between a woman and a bear.

MEXICO CITY -- The "ugliest woman in the world" was buried in her native northern Mexico on Tuesday, more than 150 years after her death and a tragic life spent exhibited as a freak of nature at circuses around the world.

Born in Mexico in 1834, Julia Pastrana suffered from hypertrichosis and gingival hyperplasia, diseases that gave her copious facial hair and a thick-set jaw. These features led to her being called a "bear woman" or "ape woman."

During the mid-1850s, Pastrana met Theodore Lent, a U.S. impresario who toured the singing and dancing Pastrana at freak shows across the United States and Europe before marrying her.

In 1860, Pastrana died in Moscow after giving birth to Lent's son, who inherited his mother's condition. The son died a few days later, and Lent then toured with the mother and son's embalmed remains. After changing hands over the ensuing decades, both bodies ended up at the University of Oslo in Norway.

Reuters

People stand next to the coffin containing the remains of Julia Pastrana in Sinaloa de Leyva on Tuesday.

"Imagine the aggression and cruelty of humankind she had to face, and how she overcame it. It's a very dignified story," said Mario Lopez, the governor of Sinaloa state who lobbied to have her remains repatriated to her home state for burial.

"When I heard about this Sinaloan woman, I said there's no way she can be left locked away in a warehouse somewhere," he said.

Crowds flocked to the small town of Sinaloa de Leyva on Tuesday to pay their respects to Pastrana, who was buried in a white coffin adorned with white roses.

"The mass was beautiful," said New York-based Mexican artist Laura Anderson Barbata, who has led a nearly decade-long campaign to have Pastrana returned to Mexico for a proper Catholic burial. "I was very moved. In all these years I've never felt so full of different emotions."

TUNIS, Tunisia -- Police and mourners clashed at the mass funeral on Friday of secular opposition leader Chokri Belaid, whose assassination has plunged Tunisia deeper into political crisis.

Braving chilly rain, at least 50,000 people turned out to honor Belaid in his home district of Jebel al-Jaloud in the capital, chanting anti-Islamist and anti-government slogans.

It was Tunisia's biggest funeral since the death of Habib Bourguiba, independence leader and first president, in 2000.

Violence erupted near the cemetery as police fired teargas at demonstrators who threw stones and set cars ablaze. Police also used teargas against protesters near the Interior Ministry, a frequent flashpoint for clashes in the Tunisian capital.

Tunisia, cradle of the Arab Spring uprisings, is riven by tensions between dominant Islamists and their secular opponents, and by frustration at the lack of social and economic progress since President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was ousted in January 2011.

Belaid's assassination has shocked a country that had hitherto experienced a relatively peaceful political transition.

"The people want a new revolution," shouted mourners in Tunis, who also sang the national anthem.

Crowds surged around an open army truck carrying Belaid's coffin, draped in a red and white Tunisian flag, as it traveled to the leafy Jallaz cemetery, as a security forces helicopter flew overhead.

EPA

Tunisian protesters run from teargas fired by police during protests Friday against the killing of opposition politician Chokri Belaid. Belaid's funeral drew tens of thousands of mourners and Tunis seethed with anger.

"Belaid, rest in peace, we will continue the struggle," mourners chanted, holding portraits of the politician killed near his home on Wednesday by a gunman who fled on a motorcycle.

Some demonstrators denounced Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of the ruling Islamist Ennahda party. "Ghannouchi, assassin, criminal," they chanted. "Tunisia is free, terrorism out."

Police fired teargas to disperse anti-government protesters throwing stones and gasoline bombs in the southern mining town of Gafsa, a stronghold of support for Belaid, witnesses said.

Crowds there had chanted "The people want the fall of the regime," a slogan first used against Ben Ali.

Cradle of revolt
In Sidi Bouzid, the southern town where the revolt against the ousted strongman began, about 10,000 marched to mourn Belaid and shout slogans against Ennahda and the government.

Banks, factories and some shops were closed in Tunis and other cities in response to a strike called by unions in protest at Belaid's killing, but buses were running normally.

Tunis Air suspended all its flights because of the strikes, a spokesman for the national airline said. Airport sources in Cairo said EgyptAir had canceled two flights to Tunisia after staff at Tunis airport joined the general strike.

Anis Mili / Reuters

Soldiers help mourners carry the coffin of slain opposition leader Chokri Belaid during his funeral procession Friday in Tunis, Tunisia.

After Belaid's assassination, Prime Minister Hamdi Jebali, an Islamist, said he would dissolve the government and form a cabinet of technocrats to rule until elections could be held.

But his own Ennahda party and its secular coalition partners complained they had not been consulted, casting doubt over the status of the government and compounding political uncertainty.

No one has claimed responsibility for the killing of Belaid, a lawyer and secular opposition figure.

His family have blamed Ennahda but the party has denied any hand in the shooting. Crowds have attacked several Ennahda party offices in Tunis and other cities in the past two days.

"Hope still exists in Tunisia," Fatma Saidan, a noted Tunisian actor, told Reuters at Belaid's funeral. "We will continue to struggle against extremism and political violence."

While Belaid had only a modest political following, his criticism of Ennahda policies spoke for many Tunisians who fear religious radicals are bent on snuffing out freedoms won in the first of the revolts that rippled through the Arab world.

Secular groups have accused the Islamist-led government of a lax response to attacks by ultra-orthodox Salafi Islamists on cinemas, theaters and bars in recent months.

Related:

PhotoBlog: Mourning amid the teargas in Tunisia

Gianluigi Guercia / AFP - Getty Images

Egyptian activists carry the coffin of Gaber Salah, an activist who died overnight after he was critically injured in clashes with police last week, during his funeral in Tahrir Square on Nov. 26.

Hussein Tallal / AP

Egyptians carry the body of Gaber Salah during his funeral procession in Cairo on Nov. 26.

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Ahmed Jadallah / Reuters

A mourner wearing chains attends the funeral of youth activist Gaber Salah.

Khaled Elfiqi / EPA

Egyptian protesters react during the funeral of Gaber Salah.

Ahmed Jadallah / Reuters

A masked protester during clashes with police in Tahrir Square on Nov. 26.

Ahmed Jadallah / Reuters

Mourners attend the funeral of activist Gaber Salah in Cairo.

Ahmed Abdel Fattah / AP

The tents of activists in Tahrir Square on Nov. 26.

Related content:

• Egypt's Morsi holds crisis talks over power grab
• PhotoBlog: 'Get out!' Egypt protesters demand downfall of Morsi regime
• More than 60 injured in Egypt clashes

Dar Yasin / AP

Kashmiri villagers grieve during the funeral procession of Shabir Ahmed Mir, a suspected militant of Lashkar-e-Taiba, in Chingam, some 37 miles south of Srinagar, India, on Nov. 14, 2012.

Thousands of people turned out for the funeral of a suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba militant in Indian Kashmir on Wednesday. Shabir Ahmed Mir was killed in a gunbattle with government forces in the restive region on Tuesday, according to police. 

-- The Associated Press

Dar Yasin / AP

Kashmiri villagers pray by the body of Shabir Ahmed Mir on Nov. 14, 2012.

Dar Yasin / AP

Shabir Ahmed Mir's mother holds a glass of milk as she clings to the bed carrying the body of her son during his funeral procession on Nov. 14, 2012.

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