It rained on southern Louisiana Thursday night, May 12 — and that made fears along the lower Mississippi River rise as high as the Big Muddy's already dangerously swollen levels. The Mississippi grew to 43.4 ft., almost 20 ft. above its normal mark at Louisiana's capital, Baton Rouge, and even more rain is forecast for today. Heading into the weekend, state officials are faced with an ugly reality: the river keeps rising even though they've opened more than half the bays on a ...

Will Tiger catch Jack? As this year's Masters teed off on Thursday morning, what was once an easy question — of course Tiger Woods will break Jack Nicklaus' record for most wins at major tournaments, 18 — seems harder than ever to answer. Since Woods won the 2008 U.S. Open in superhero fashion, playing on a broken leg to beat Rocco Mediate in a playoff, he has failed to win a major. A torn anterior cruciate ...

. . . A priest forever, according to the order of Melchisedec. —the Rite of Ordination THE Vatican last week announced that all Catholic priests would henceforth be asked to make an annual public affirmation of their vows of celibacy and obedience. The day chosen for this oath was Holy Thursday—the feast day that, in Roman Catholic theology, commemorates Christ's founding of the priesthood. Obliquely, the decree was yet another negative answer from Rome to the Dutch Pastoral Council , ...

The Baathist regime that has ruled Syria for 48 years is on the ropes. Even President Bashar al-Assad himself seems to have been shocked by the level of violence used by Syria's security forces to suppress demonstrations that began a week ago, and on Thursday afternoon his office announced unprecedented concessions to popular demands. But the question of whether those concessions assuage protesters' concerns or prove to be too little too late may be answered on ...

A search was on Thursday night for nine people left missing after a Coast Guard plane collided with a Marine helicopter over the Pacific Ocean near Southern California, officials said.

Police looking for a missing 7-year-old Florida girl said Wednesday they have found the body of a child in a landfill in south Georgia, about an hour from the girl's home. Investigators haven't identified the body. The landfill is about 55 miles north of where Somer Thompson became separated from her schoolmates Monday on her way home from school in Orange Park, Florida, authorities said. "We hope and pray that it's not the body of Somer, but the garbage that ...

After scouring northern Colorado by foot and air, frantically chasing a now-infamous Mylar balloon for dozens of miles and interviewing his big brother over and over, local and federal authorities ended their search for 6-year-old Falcon Heene where it began -- at his house. He was in a box. In the attic. The whole time. "I played with my toys and took a nap," Falcon told a group of reporters outside his home Thursday afternoon. "He says he was hiding ...

A balloon that was set adrift by a 6-year-old boy from his parents' Colorado home was found empty, CNN affiliate KMGH said, citing a police report. The balloon landed south of Prospect Springs, near Colorado Springs. The boy was not inside the helium aircraft when it landed, KMGH reported. A sibling saw the boy get into the craft Thursday morning. Officials were concerned that the boy may have fallen out of it, an undersheriff said. Margie Martinez of the Weld ...

Landslides unleashed by tropical depression Parma across the Philippine province of Benguet have killed at least 122 people and left 31 missing, officials said Friday. Four people had been found alive in debris and at least 22 had been injured by landslides that started Thursday afternoon and continued all night, affecting several municipalities, said Elmer Foria, police senior superintendent. Parma, which had been downgraded from a typhoon, poured more rain onto sodden and already weakened ground. Flooding had ...

French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said Thursday he will not resign over his admission in a book that he paid to have sex with "boys" in Thailand. In an interview with French television network TF1, Mitterrand said he "absolutely condemn[s] sexual tourism, which is a disgrace, and ... pedophilia," in which he insisted he has never participated. The minister described his 2005 book, "The Bad Life," as a mix of autobiography and fiction. In one passage, published by the French ...