There are so many important things to watch these days. Let’s start with the Minutemen (search) in Arizona. Boy, are the folks in D.C. feeling the heat. Why? Because the so-called “vigilantes” are truly law-abiding citizens who want their government to enforce the law. What a shocking concept. The talk …

WASHINGTON – Growing at a rate of about 900 inmates each week between mid-2003 and mid-2004, the nation’s prisons and jails held 2.1 million people, or one in every 138 U.S. residents, the government reported Sunday. By last June 30, there were 48,000 more inmates, or 2.3 percent, more than …

WOODLAND, Calif. – A morgue assistant accused of stealing body parts from a medical school so he could practice dissections at home was sentenced to more than two years in prison. David Lawrence Beale (search), 47, was arrested in 2003 after more than 150 pounds of decomposing body parts, including …

An antibiotic is getting attention for its possible protective effects against brain disease linked to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. In a study in The Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers report that the antibiotic minocycline helped curb brain inflammation and protect brain tissue in monkeys with an …

Beware of flying frozen sausages. An Englishman learned that the hard way Monday afternoon, according to British wire services. “He was driving his car when the offending item came through his open window and hit him on the nose,” an ambulance-service spokesman told reporters. The unnamed man, 46, had left …

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI (search) held the first general audience of his new pontificate Wednesday, pledging to work for reconciliation and peace. He also referred to Europe’s Christian roots in what is expected to be a major theme of his papacy. The pope touched on the issues as …

SEATTLE – Shares of Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) rose Friday after the world’s largest software maker reported a third-quarter profit that nearly doubled from a year ago, despite sales that fell short of Wall Street forecasts due to leaner licensing business and a sharp drop in the dollar’s value. Microsoft shares …

LANCASTER, S.C. – Former televangelist Tammy Faye Messner (search) says losing her trademark eyelashes during her struggle with cancer was a liberating experience. “I realized I wasn’t just eyelashes,” said Tammy Faye, adding she glued on false ones. “A person is more than just what you look like on the …

SRINAGAR, India – Two suspected Islamic militants launched an attack Wednesday against the biggest India-Pakistan peace gesture in decades, storming a guesthouse holding more than two dozen passengers of the first bus across divided Kashmir (search), police and witnesses said. Both attackers were killed and at least three people were …

HOUSTON – Democrats, who often ignored Rep. Tom DeLay’s (search) Republican-leaning district, see a political opening in 2006 now that the House Majority leader faces ethics questions and dismay over his intervention in the Terri Schiavo (search) case. Democratic activists in the suburban Houston district have been composing a wish …