AP - Back in the day of chain gangs, Alabama passed a law that gave sheriffs $1.75 a day to feed each prisoner in their jails, and the sheriffs got to pocket anything that was left over. More than 80 years later, most Alabama counties still operate under this system, with the same $1.75-a-day allowance, and some sheriffs are actually making money on top of their salaries.
Reuters - Astronomers are baffled after
finding an exotic type of star called a pulsar apparently
locked in an elongated orbit around a star much like the sun --
an arrangement defying what had been known about such objects.
AP - President Bush failed to win the help he sought from Saudi Arabia to relieve skyrocketing American gas prices Friday, a setback for the former Texas oilman who took office predicting he would jawbone oil-producing nations to help the U.S.
AP - Republican Mike Huckabee responded to an offstage noise during his speech to the National Rifle Association by suggesting it was Barack Obama diving to the floor because someone had aimed a gun at him.
Reuters - Sigurdur Hjartarson is missing
a human penis. But he's not worried: four men have promised to
donate theirs to him when they die.
AP - Barack Obama laid into John McCain on Friday for advancing a tough-guy foreign policy that he called "naive and irresponsible," serving notice that he's ready to launch a full-throttle challenge to the Republican presidential contender on international relations in the general election campaign.
AP - It happens to all of us. You fall in love with someone's looks... but then he's not quite what you expected. Even, sometimes, if he's a cat.
AP - The California Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage will not be the last word.
AP - A powerful aftershock knocked out roads and communications in some of the most quake-ravaged parts of central China on Friday, as emergency crews rescued 163 people who had survived up to 100 improbable hours trapped in the ruins.
AP - For thoroughbred racehorses in Puerto Rico, success can be a matter of life and death. Many losers don't make it off the racetrack grounds alive.
AP - After their daughter was born, Bi Kaiwei and his wife, Meilin, decided to adhere to China's one-child policy and its slogan, "Have fewer kids, live better lives."
AP - The U.S. is its own worst enemy when it comes to the desperately important task of recruiting immigrants as spies, analysts and translators in the war on terror, new Americans are telling intelligence officials. The government's policies raise suspicions and fear in the immigrants' home countries and disturb potential recruits here who might otherwise want to help.
AP - When Texas child welfare authorities released statistics showing nearly 60 percent of the teen girls taken from a polygamist sect's ranch were pregnant or had children, they seemed to prove what was alleged all along: The sect commonly pushed girls into marriage and sex.
AP - Robert Mondavi, the vintner who built his career and helped an iconic Northern California industry blossom by insisting that Napa Valley wines can compete with the best in the world, died in the valley Friday. He was 94.
AP - Ellen DeGeneres and longtime girlfriend Portia de Rossi are jumping at the chance to get married.
Reuters - Listening to half an hour of
music each day may significantly lower your blood pressure,
according to research reported at the American Society of
Hypertension meeting in New Orleans this week.
AP - Construction on a huge reservoir meant to help restore the Everglades will be put on hold over a lawsuit brought by a group that fears the water could be diverted for other purposes.