On Friday morning, walking through the Alberta area of Tuscaloosa, I saw a man sifting through the rubble of what used to be Affordable Mini Storage. He was going through the remains of his storage unit, searching for anything salvageable in the post-apocalyptic landscape of our home town. He picked up a toy from the debris, a still-sealed Ozzy Osbourne action figure and tossed it into his "save" pile. "At least he's in good shape, huh?" the ...

The tale sounded really too bizarre to be believed. The U.S. conniving at arms shipments to Iran? Sending a secret mission to palaver with the mullahs? Trying to keep the whole thing from Congress and most of the U.S. Government? And all over Iran, of all places! The country that held Americans hostage for 444 days beginning in 1979, the land whose fanatical leader, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, has never ceased to denounce America as the "Great Satan," the state widely ...

LCD Soundsystem knows how to throw a party. The dance rock brainchild of 41-year-old James Murphy has been shaking things up for over 10 years, first in the form of house parties 9:13 p.m. The first song, "Dance Yrself Clean," starts with a lone drum beat that doubles up on itself as Murphy mumbles the lyrics about how sick he is of the same thing happening every night. "Present company excluded," he says in the song. Nice ...

In the rolling countryside of southwestern Ohio, the leaves have begun to turn to brilliant reds, ochers and yellows. But in the Cincinnati suburb of South Greenhills, some ten miles east of the Department of Energy's Fernald nuclear weapons plant, Charles Zinser, 38, was preoccupied, unmindful of the glorious surroundings. Zinser recalled how beginning in 1984 he had rented a vegetable garden near the plant. He often took his two young sons along as he worked. Two years later, both ...

President Barack Obama said he's "surprised and deeply humbled" to receive the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize and will travel to Norway in December to accept the honor. But Obama's trademark grin was nowhere to be seen as he spoke of winning the prize in a six-minute address in the Rose Garden. His face seemed cloudy on a sunny fall day. "Let me be clear," he said. "I do not view it as a recognition of ...

Got the rain jackets? So what if it rains a lot in Seattle. As long as you've got good rain gear, you won't care, especially when there's so much to do and see. Where else can you take the kids to see guys throwing raw fish, introduce them to ferries (yes, parents commute to work via ferry) take a turn on a sailboat, learn all about rock music, science fiction and the creatures who inhabit the sea in ...

Like white picket fences and perfectly manicured lawns, garden gnomes — those colorful residents of front yards the world over — are icons of the suburban ideal: quaint, cheerful and totally inoffensive. But in Germany, one little gnome is stirring up big trouble. In a case that pits art against the country's anti-Nazi laws, prosecutors in the south German city of Nuremberg launched an investigation last week after a gnome giving the Hitler salute was put on display in ...

They headed to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow after news broke that Michael Jackson had died. And they're still coming. Young Russian fans, some of whom don't even speak English, bring homemade signs, pictures and drawings of Jackson, Russian religious icons, candles, teddy bears -- all signs of how much they loved the singer. "At first I couldn't believe it had happened," 23-year-old Zhenya Iordanskaya said. "I thought it was another rumor. My friend told me about it, and then ...

David and Ann Wherley were high school sweethearts who were king and queen of their high school prom in York, Pennsylvania. They were preparing to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary next month, but their lives were tragically cut short last week in the Metro train crash in Washington. A former commanding general of the District of Columbia National Guard, David Wherley was also the military man who, on September 11, 2001, deployed planes over Washington to protect the White House ...

Two key figures connected to the Taliban in Pakistan's Swat Valley were killed Saturday during a military convoy ambush, officials said. HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- Decorated D-Day veteran Lenny Lisovicz says the whispers are true. For 65 years my family had heard whispers that he and 220 men stormed Omaha Beach and that he and his captain later went AWOL in Paris, France. They heard he returned to combat and fought all the way to Germany and his courage was ...