Anyone who has suffered from back pain knows that when the throbbing gets bad enough, you'll try anything to find relief — heating pads, acupuncture, pain relievers, physical therapy, even poking yourself with toothpicks. What? Yes, toothpicks. Researchers at the Group Health Center for Health Studies in Seattle found that "fake" acupuncture using toothpicks instead of needles was as effective as the traditional Chinese healing method for relieving back pain. Daniel Cherkin, a senior investigator at the ...

When it comes to making important changes in interest rates, the big-time bankers of New York, Chicago and San Francisco have recently taken a back seat to Philadelphia's John R. Bunting, the controversial chief of the First Pennsylvania Banking & Trust Co. On two occasions in 1968 and 1970, Bunting was the first to cut the prime rate, and other bankers quickly followed. Last week, ignoring pleas and pressure from the Nixon Administration, Bunting acted again. This time he hiked the prime, from 5% to 5%. ...

We know what the birth of a revolution looks like: A student stands before a tank. A fruit seller sets himself on fire. A line of monks link arms in a human chain. Crowds surge, soldiers fire, gusts of rage pull down the monuments of tyrants, and maybe, sometimes, justice rises from the flames. But sometimes freedom and opportunity slip in through the back door, when a quieter subversion of the status quo unleashes change that is just as ...

Four teenagers were arraigned Thursday on charges connected to the alleged gang rape of a 15-year-old girl on a high school campus after a homecoming dance.All of those arraigned are due back in court on November 5. Another adult was arrested in connection with the October 24 attack, but has a different court date than the others. Police said as many as 10 people were involved in the assault in a dimly lit back alley at the school, while another ...

If any pill has been shown undeniably to work in clinical trials, it is the sugar pill, along with its close cousin, the sham treatment. The placebo, as such inert and cost-free remedies are known, can relieve depression as well as Prozac, ease discomfort as well as acupuncture and reduce disability and back pain as well as a widely used vertebral surgery that costs up to $5,000. That the effect of bogus treatments is real has long been known, ...

Football legend Diego Maradona had his earrings seized by Italian authorities Friday to help pay off his back taxes, according to media reports. The current coach of Argentina's national team was staying at a clinic in northern Italy in a bid to lose weight when finance police swooped, Reuters.com reported. The jewelry was said to be worth €4,000 ($5,888). Italian tax authorities say he owes the country €31 million ($45 million) in back taxes from when he played for top ...

The foster father of a missing California boy with cerebral palsy says he left the child alone near his car before the child vanished five days ago from a shoe store parking lot. Louis Ross told HLN's Nancy Grace that he left 5-year-old Hassani Campbell outside his BMW for two to five minutes Monday afternoon. Ross said he went to the front door of the store to ask his fiancee, Jennifer Campbell, who works there, to open the back door. ...

At least 38 people are feared dead in landslides and heavy rains in two hilly hamlets of northern India, authorities said Saturday. The Irishman, returning to form ahead of the defense of his PGA Championship title, leads by one shot at the World Golf Championships event following a one-under-par 69 in the second round on Friday. Harrington, who will be paired with world No. 1 Tiger Woods and 2002 PGA winner Rich Beem in golf's fourth major of the season ...

John Spieker stood on the back porch of his newly rented Bailey, Colorado, home, thankful for his Good Samaritan landlord and worried that his previous home, parked in the driveway, wouldn't get him to work the next day. His 1977 Toyota Dolphin camper, which Spieker rescued from a salvage yard, had carried him, his wife, Katie, and 4-month-old son, Jacob, from Florida to Colorado earlier this summer, a cross-country sojourn in search of work. He was uncertain it could ...

Moby describes himself as "a 43-year-old bald guy who likes to make music in his bedroom." If people like the music, that's OK, he says. And if not, that's OK, too. "I'm at my happiest when I'm working on music for myself," he says. "The moment I start thinking about market forces or radio play things start to go wrong. If I try to craft a radio-friendly pop song I end up with garbage." Moby, who calls his alter-ego ...