A fight over books depicting sex and homosexuality has riled up a small Wisconsin city, cost some library board members their positions and prompted a call for a public book burning. The battle has stirred much of West Bend, a city of roughly 30,000 people about 35 miles north of Milwaukee. Residents have sparred for months on blogs, airwaves and at meetings, including one where a man told the city's library director he should be tarred and feathered. The row ...

Children's lives are at risk in swimming pools across the country as government agencies waffle on how to enforce a new federal law, child safety advocates say. The law requires new drain covers on pool filtration systems. The covers prevent children from being caught in the suction, disemboweled and completely eviscerated -- "turning your insides basically into your outsides," said Alan Korn, public policy director of Safe Kids USA, a Washington-based nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing injuries to children. But ...

While many now recognize the scientific explanation for a solar eclipse, the phenomenon is still marked with tradition and sometimes suspicion in Hindu-majority India. The "exceptionally long" eclipse that will cross half the planet Wednesday will be able to be seen by virtually all of the population of China and India. For beggars in India, the occasion means an extra day of receiving alms and food. The panhandler in Sandeep Jaggi's neighborhood normally visits the block every week on Tuesdays ...

It takes seven minutes to execute a death row inmate, according to the state of Texas. At that rate, Mike Graczyk has spent about 40 hours of his life watching men -- and a few women -- die. Graczyk, a correspondent for The Associated Press, is believed to hold a macabre record. He's almost certainly watched more executions than anyone else in the United States. "I can't possibly imagine there's been someone present at more than Mike," said Michelle Lyons, ...

The special effects exploded too early while Michael Jackson filmed a Pepsi commercial in 1984 and his hair caught on fire, causing burns to his scalp. Jackson blamed that incident for his addiction to pain medication, which was "initially prescribed to cede excruciating pain that I was suffering after recent reconstructive surgery on my scalp," he said in 1993 in a video statement. Whether through fire, scaling liquid, electricity or other source, burns are extraordinarily painful, said ...

A few weeks before 13-year-old Jonathan King killed himself, he told his parents that his teachers had put him in "time-out." "We thought that meant go sit in the corner and be quiet for a few minutes," Tina King said, tears washing her face as she remembered the child she called "our baby ... a good kid." But time-out in the boy's north Georgia special education school was spent in something akin to a prison cell -- a concrete room ...

The president of The Valley Swim Club on Friday strongly denied charges of racism after his club canceled the swimming privileges of a nearby day care center whose children are predominantly African-American. "It was never our intention to offend anyone," said John Duesler. "This thing has been blown out of proportion." Duesler said his club -- which he called "very diverse" -- invited camps in the Philadelphia area to use his facility because of the number of pools in the ...

The most striking statement at Michael Jackson's memorial service was not his daughter Paris' tremulous and wrenching goodbye. It was not Berry Gordy's declaring Jackson "the greatest entertainer that ever lived," nor was it the Rev. Al Sharpton's assertion that Jackson's fame made a generation of white kids comfortable with electing a black President. It came before the encomiums and music began, after Motown singer Smokey Robinson took the stage, read testimonials from Diana Ross and Nelson Mandela, walked ...

U.S. President Obama and Pope Benedict XVI discussed current affairs, the Catholic Church's teachings and abortion as they met for the first time Friday, according to the White House and the Vatican. The president also handed the pontiff a letter from Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, who was diagnosed with brain cancer last year, and asked that the pontiff pray for the senator, Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough said. Kennedy, 77, a Democrat, received the diagnosis after suffering a seizure ...

Shweta Gupta knows exactly what kind of groom she wants: he should be educated, well settled and live in a good location --- one that must be in India. Love may be recession proof in India, but arranged marriages are not. One of the casualties of the global economic slowdown is the Non Resident Indian (NRI) groom. They were once considered premium marriage material. After all, these were the men who had typically studied hard, gotten top jobs in the ...