Even the most stable brain operates just a millimeter from madness. In such a finely tuned cognitive engine, only a small part must start to sputter before the whole machine comes crashing down. When that happens, reason and function come undone, rarely as dramatically as in the neurochemical storm that is obsessive-compulsive disorder. Say you leave work at 6 p.m. for what should be a 12-minute drive home. Say just as you're pulling onto the street, a child on a ...

The arrest warrant used to detain filmmaker Roman Polanski in Switzerland was valid, the Swiss Justice Ministry said Tuesday, making clear it will fight the director's appeal against his detention over a 1977 sex case. Polanski, 76, is challenging his detention on other grounds as well. Swiss courts will have the final say on whether the warrant is valid and whether the director will be granted bail while he fights his extradition to the United States. The Academy Award-winning ...

"I did lose my way many times," said Robert Towne in a recent interview. "It took an ungodly amount of time to work on it -- it was 10 months of solid work, and before that, there were several months of letting it gel enough to write it." The process was worth it to Towne, however -- he walked away with an Oscar for best original screenplay, the only one the film received in a year mostly overrun by ...

Roman Polanski is regarded as one of the finest directors of his generation, winning an Oscar for "The Pianist" and nominations for "Tess" and "Rosemary's Baby," but he is probably as equally well known for his own tumultuous life. Polanski, who was arrested Saturday in Switzerland on a U.S. arrest warrant stemming from a decades-old sex charge, had lived in France for decades to avoid being arrested if he enters the United States. The 76-year-old declined to collect his ...

Jim Nicholson could've just handed over the cash. Instead, he gave the would-be robber a run for his money -- and paid for it.

In the largest U.S. military operation since Falluja in Iraq, thousands of U.S. Marines recently poured into southern Afghanistan in a bid to turn the war around, win over the Afghan people and push out the Taliban. Operation Khanjar, or Strike of the Sword, began in the dark morning hours of July 2nd, with thousands of U.S. Marines leading an effort to clear and hold villages and districts that were under Taliban control in Helmand province. "We put about 4,000 ...

Amidst the tranquility of a fishing trip at the Rose River Farm in Madison County, a wounded warrior says he almost feels "semi-normal again." The amputee is one of about 1,000 servicemen and veterans who have reaped the benefits of the therapeutic art of fly-fishing, with the help of retired Navy Capt. Ed Nicholson. "The demons of war, you just don't set them aside," says Nicholson, 67. "But once you get out on the river, the serenity is ...