The first report, that 50 or so graves had been disturbed at the historic Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill. — the final resting place of civil rights icon Emmett Till, and the singer Dinah Washington — was grotesque. But by week's end, the macabre tally had grown: Nearly 300 graves, possibly more, were destroyed in an apparent grave-resale scheme that took in an as yet unknown amount of money. Now, questions remain as to how this scandal happened ...

A Cook County cemetery where hundreds of graves were dug up and allegedly resold has been declared a crime scene, meaning that relatives of people believed buried there will not be allowed to visit for several days, an official said Friday. "It would be the height of irresponsibility for me to invite people in, to raise expectations and then crash them," Cook County Sheriff Thomas J. Dart told reporters in a news conference held at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, ...

Four people face felony charges after authorities discovered that hundreds of graves were dug up and allegedly resold at a historic African-American cemetery near Chicago, Illinois, authorities said Thursday. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said the four would resell the plots in Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, excavate the graves, dump the remains and pocket the cash. "This was not done in a very, very delicate way, folks," he told reporters at a news conference Thursday. "They would excavate a ...

Michael Jackson's music sales keep soaring as fans purchased more than 800,000 of his albums last week, Billboard magazine said. Jackson's albums hold all 10 top positions on Billboard's top pop catalog albums chart, according Nielsen SoundScan sales data released Wednesday. That feat broke a record Jackson set last week when he had eight albums on that chart. Jackson's albums are not eligible for the Billboard 200 chart, which is for newer albums. Jackson's "Number Ones" ...

In the last 50 years, people with mental problems have spent untold millions of hours in therapists' offices, and millions more reading self-help books, trying to turn negative thoughts like "I never do anything right" into positive ones: "I can succeed." For many people — including well-educated, highly trained therapists, for whom "cognitive restructuring" is a central goal — the very definition of psychotherapy is the process of changing self-defeating attitudes into constructive ones. But was Norman Vincent Peale ...

Oil analysts are jittery this week following comments on Sunday by Vice President Joe Biden that were widely interpreted as a green light to Israel to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. Many in the industry have long viewed such an attack as a prelude to a nightmare in global energy markets: Iran retaliating by sinking oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, blocking the route by which most Persian Gulf oil travels to world markets. "We will be in deep, ...

At the end of the year, governments from around the world will meet in Copenhagen hopefully to hammer out a new treaty — the successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012 — to reduce global greenhouse-gas emissions. Their lack of time aside, diplomats face a very large, very immovable hurdle on the way to a new Kyoto. Developed countries like the U.S., which refused to ratify the original treaty, are responsible for most of the CO2 in ...

Thousands of Han residents armed with clubs poured onto the streets of Urumqi Tuesday afternoon, raising the risk of further racial violence in this western Chinese city. Just two days ago, the Xinjiang capital was thrown into chaos when protests by more than 1000 members of the Uighur minority turned into a riot. Sunday's events left 156 people dead and more than 1,000 injured, the deadliest outburst of public violence in China since People's Liberation Army soldiers killed several ...

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 ...

North Korea is great at scaring its neighbors. The isolated dictatorship carries a real nuclear threat, and tested its latest device this May in an underground bunker. Tensions in East Asia heightened this week after Pyongyang threatened "a fire shower of nuclear retaliation" if the U.S. or its allies in the region attempted any provocative action when trying to curb North Korea's missile program. Even those with historically warmer ties to the pariah state, such as Russia and China, ...