For years, U.S. judges have used the separation of church and state to shield religious employers of all faiths from labor laws and most employee lawsuits.
The nation's third schoolhouse atrocity in less than a week, the one in Nickel Mines, Pa., took place in a community as different from everyday America as horse-drawn buggies are from SUVs. How could it happen there, in rural farmland among the peace-loving Amish for whom the injunction "be ye not conformed to this world" is much more than a fine notion?
As the Amish community of Lancaster County, Pa., prepares private funerals after the very public deaths of five girls in a one-room schoolhouse Monday, experts on school violence and politicians are questioning what to make of a rash of similar incidents in the past few weeks.
Whispers Homepage blurb: Yes, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's wife really does hand out hankies to those who read her tearjerker book about daughters and their dads.
AP - North Korea said Monday it had performed its first nuclear weapons test, an underground explosion that defied international warnings but was hailed by the communist nation as a "great leap forward" for its people.
AP - Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., confronted then-Rep. Mark Foley about his Internet communications with teenagers as early as 2000, according to a newspaper report.
AP - Less than a week after the Food and Drug Administration lifted its warning on fresh spinach grown in California's Salinas Valley, a popular brand of lettuce grown there was recalled Sunday over concerns about E. coli contamination.
• North Korea claims first-ever nuclear test • U.S. checking reports but believes them to be true • China decries "brazen" development • Geologists record 4.2 magnitude quake in area
The head of the Republican House campaign committee has apologized for not catching Rep. Mark Foley in an alleged lie about his Internet exchanges with teen pages. He also reiterated his assertion that he told House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Illinois, about Foley's behavior in the spring.