A judge has ordered mediation in the case of a teen girl who says her family threatened to kill her for converting from Islam to Christianity. The 17-year-old girl, Rifqa Bary, ran away from her family in Columbus, Ohio, in July and took refuge in the home of the Rev. Blake Lorenz with the Global Revolution Church in Orlando, Florida. Bary's parents want her back home. At a court hearing Thursday in Orlando, the girl's parents denied all the allegations ...

Call it a lesson in contemporary political discourse. Educators across America found themselves at the center of a political storm this week as conservatives exploded in anger over President Obama's plans to give a speech to the country's schoolchildren. A stunned White House insisted the address, planned for Tuesday, and accompanying suggested lesson plans are meant simply to encourage students to study hard and stay in school. But some parents said they aren't buying it. They said they're convinced the ...

A Florida jury has recommended that a plumber who kidnapped, raped and murdered a police detective's daughter be executed for his crimes. Michael King, 38, showed no reaction Friday afternoon as the jury's 12-0 recommendation of death was announced in Sarasota. Jurors deliberated for nearly three hours. King was convicted a week ago of first-degree murder and related offenses in the January 17, 2008, death of Denise Lee, a 21-year-old mother of two boys. Nathan Lee ...

The light at the end of the recession tunnel is distant and dim for the nation's cities, according to a survey by the National League of Cities. While optimistic federal officials hint at an economic turnaround, city finance officers say the picture remains bleak for city governments. This is chiefly because a top source of municipal income -- property tax revenue -- tends to lag behind changes in the market. Because cities typically phase in property tax assessments, the full ...

The father of a baby born with his heart protruding from his chest has told CNN about the 1100 km train journey he made to save his son's life. Chander Majhi, 24, became a father last week but he had to leave his wife behind in hospital and make a train journey from a remote region along India's border with Nepal to the capital New Delhi. His son was born with his heart protruding from his chest, an ...

Dark, grainy surveillance camera images from inside the home of a slain Florida couple show the moments before their deaths as gunmen dressed in black storm their house. The images, taken at the home of Byrd and Melanie Billings, were shown Thursday to representatives from several news organizations. The Beulah, Florida, couple, known for adopting special-needs children, were shot to death in their home July 9. Seven men are charged with first-degree murder and home invasion robbery in their deaths, ...

How exactly does it feel to hit a serve at 150 m.p.h.? Gerardo Valero, MEXICO CITY It's better hitting it than having someone hit it against you. But I'll take a slow one that wins me the point as opposed to a faster one that doesn't. You definitely had your chances of winning against Roger Federer at this year's Wimbledon final. What do you think are the things that cost you the match Andrea Kim NORTHBROOK, ILL. I ...

NASA on Thursday put off the planned launch of the space shuttle Discovery for a third time to give engineers more time to study tests on a liquid hydrogen valve, the space agency announced. The shuttle's liftoff -- originally set for Tuesday -- has been put off until 11:59 p.m. Friday, mission managers said. Two scheduled launch times were put off Tuesday, one due to bad weather and the other when a hydrogen valve failed to show up as closed ...

The art of portraiture, once reserved for the rich, the royal and the holy, has found a new mass appeal online. Some avid social-network users are commissioning artists to create small digital images to represent themselves in the online world. Other Internet-savvy people use automated computer programs and Web sites to generate posterized likenesses of themselves. Matt Held, a 38-year-old painter in Brooklyn, New York, has gained Internet celebrity for painting peoples' Facebook photos and then giving them to his ...

— A federal study of mercury contamination released Wednesday found the toxic substance in every fish tested at nearly 300 streams across the country, a finding that underscores how widespread mercury pollution has become. The study by the U.S. Geological Survey is the most comprehensive look to date at mercury in the nation's streams. From 1998 to 2005, scientists collected and tested more than a thousand fish from 291 streams nationwide. While all fish ...