Africa is not a country, and Africans generally do not live in trees or hunt game with spears. Nor do they all walk around in the nude among lions and zebras. African immigrants to the United States say cartoonish caricatures and a Western media penchant for reporting on Africa's disease, hunger and war -- rather than the continent's successes -- trivialize their cultures. They complain they have trouble dispelling the stereotypes once they arrive in the States. They concede, though, ...

Michael Jackson's single white glove was his trademark -- an iconic image for a performer whose career constantly set, then redefined, pop culture trends. But it also was an early effort to mask a skin condition that he would struggle with for the rest of his life, say some who were close to him. Actress Cicely Tyson, a friend of Jackson's, said the two shared a fashion designer in the 1980s. "All of a sudden, he said, 'I'm doing this ...

Floridians are generally not flummoxed by the variety of reptile species invading their state. Even when pythons started turning up on the peninsula in large numbers a few years ago, most residents laughed off the huge, not-native snakes as yet another imported nuisance, little worse than some condo developers. But that nonchalance vanished in a heartbeat last week when 2-year-old Shaiunna Hare was strangled to death in her crib by a 9-foot-long Burmese python kept as a pet, illegally, ...

In the wake of Michael Jackson's memorial service, the key question of how the pop superstar died remains unanswered, awaiting an official report from the Los Angeles County coroner. But other mysteries abound, particularly related to Jackson's appearance, which changed dramatically from his early adulthood. His features changed, and the color of his skin lightened significantly over the last two decades of his life. When the face of the most recognizable entertainer in the world faded to near ...

Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, a key architect of the U.S. war in Vietnam under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, has died at age 93, according to his family. McNamara was a member of Kennedy's inner circle during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the United States and the Soviet Union stood on the brink of nuclear war. But he became a public lightning rod for his management of the war in Vietnam, overseeing the ...

It was December, the start of a dreary Russian winter, and Barack Obama's face was staring down at pedestrians walking along Moscow's gray streets. But the photograph of the U.S. President wearing a black suit and a smile had nothing to do with his election win a month earlier. It was part of an ad for a chain of tanning salons called Sun People, which was using Obama's picture to promote the benefits of booking some time in their ...

The sexual revolution, part 2, has begun at last, according to a new study out of Australia. For one year, 55 men took an experimental birth-control drug. All of them had fertile partners; none of the women got pregnant. David Handelsman, the reproductive-health specialist who oversaw the study, says the men reported no serious side effects other than a slightly elevated libido, which some people pay good money for, after all. ...

Michael Jackson was an international superstar, and many in the black community herald him for breaking down racial barriers in the music industry. "Michael Jackson made culture accept a person of color way before Tiger Woods, way before Oprah Winfrey, way before Barack Obama," said the Rev. Al Sharpton. "Michael did with music what they later did in sports and in politics and in television. And no controversy will erase the historic impact." As the Jackson 5, Michael ...

The "King of Pop" had been topping music charts long before he ever pulled on that white-sequined glove, made the moonwalk a household move and sent screaming fans into a frenzy. But the spotlight that followed Michael Jackson, earned him headlines and made him a tabloid favorite as an adult, often had little to do with the artistry. While filming a commercial for Pepsi in 1984, a pyrotechnic accident set his hair ablaze, leaving him with second-degree burns on his ...

The tragedy of Michael Jackson's death at age 50, reportedly from cardiac arrest, pales in comparison to the tragedy of his life. To understand all that Jackson had and lost requires wiping away three decades of plastic surgeries that deformed him, erratic behavior that made his name synonymous with the warping powers of fame, and a 2005 trial for sexually abusing a child that, even though he was spared of any finding of wrongdoing, made him a pariah to ...