Jury to begin deliberations in Travolta extortion trial

A jury will likely begin deliberations Wednesday in the trial of two people accused of attempting to extort $25 million from actor John Travolta. All closing arguments ended Tuesday at the trial in Nassau, Bahamas, and the judge is to instruct the jury Wednesday morning before it begins deliberations.

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Two great white sharks tagged off Massachusetts coast

The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries has tagged two great white sharks off Cape Cod in an area where shark sightings have been reported, state officials said Sunday. The first tagging Saturday marked the first time a great white shark had been successfully tagged in the Atlantic Ocean, the division said in a statement.

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John Kerry: Back in the Hunt

On a hot August afternoon in 2008, Ted Kennedy took John Kerry sailing on his 50-ft. schooner, the Mya.It was a perfect day on the water, sunny with the occasional cotton-ball cloud riding the strong winds over the family compound in Hyannis Port, Mass. With the Mya’s blue hull moving at a good clip, Kennedy turned to his old friend with reminiscences of failed campaigns past: Kennedy’s bid for the presidency in 1980 and Kerry’s in 2004.

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The Cost of Raising Kids

This is the time of year — second only to December, maybe — when we’re reminded how much kids cost. It’s nice when states suspend their sales tax for a week of back-to-school shopping, but it doesn’t change the fact that somehow we have to start over in September: new sneakers, new notebooks, maybe a new lunch box, because SpongeBob is so last season.

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Muslim women uncover myths about the hijab

Rowaida Abdelaziz doesn’t want your pity. She doesn’t want your frosty public stares; the whispers behind her back; the lament that she’s been degraded by her father. What the Muslim high school senior wants you to understand is that she doesn’t wear the hijab, the head scarf worn by Muslim women, because she is submissive

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Manson’s lasting legacy: ‘Live freaky, die freaky’

Forty years ago, a group of young people led by a charismatic, 5-foot-2-inch ex-con named Charles Manson set out on a murderous spree in Los Angeles, California. They planned to spark an apocalyptic race war that Manson called "Helter Skelter," after a song by the Beatles. Over two nights in August 1969, the killers took the lives of seven people, inflicting 169 stab wounds and seven .22-caliber gunshot wounds.

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Florida Looks at New Ideas for Battling Hurricanes

Hurricane season is two months old and not a single named storm has popped onto the radar. If that makes people complacent, it only makes weather watchers worry even more about what is to come. Officials and insurers are concerned about the ramifications of a “Big One,” and Florida, the most ravaged of states, is looking at several novel approaches to riding out the storms — or even preventing them altogether

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