POLITICS

Most high school football players who die from heat-related illness are overweight, in the first weeks of practice, and on the field in the morning, when the humidity is high and coaches take cooler temperatures for granted, researchers said on Thursday.

The Texas power grid operator has scrambled this week to meet soaring electricity demand in the face of a brutal heat wave, and residents of the second most populous U.S. state are one power plant shut-down away from rolling blackouts.

NASA is on the brim of launching a new solar-powered Juno spacecraft all the way to Jupiter. Juno is set to lift-off at 11:34 am Friday from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, atop an Atlas V rocket. It will take five years for the spacecraft to reach Jupiter.

What NASA planned in its post-shuttle space projects? Would more non-human space explorers be seen in the near future? After the shuttle fleet, astronomical science projects without human beings on board could come into U.S. space spotlight.

Child marriage, which steals the innocence of millions of girls worldwide and often condemns them to lives of poverty, ignorance and poor health, is one of the biggest obstacles to development, rights groups say.

More light was shed on the murder defendant Brandon McInerney's abusive childhood when his aunt testified on Thursday about the physical and verbal abuse that his father leveled at him.

Scientists on Thursday said that satellite images of Arctic sea ice show that it is melting at a near-record pace.

NASA scientists said on Thursday that new evidence indicates that highly salty water may flow on Mars during its summer, which also empowers the possibility of life on the planet. The reason behind the thought that life could be possible in Mars is that compared to ice, liquid water is more likely to sustain life, a fact that stresses the significance of the latest discovery.

Warren Jeffs conviction stems from a relationship he had with two of his young followers whom he took as brides in what the church calls "spiritual marriages."

Hayward Police said that the suspect or suspects in the 26-year-old missing nursing student Michelle Le are being narrowed down and are confident that an arrest will take place in the near future.

A Texas jury convicted Warren Jeffs, the controversial figure of a fundamentalist Moron church, on child sexual assault late Thursday, ending a case that sprang open when his compound was raided and more than 450 children were taken by the police in 2008.

Some busy Starbucks coffee shops in New York City have started blocking electrical outlets to discourage laptop users from hogging space, and to free up seats for other customers.

Jeffs made headlines in 2008 when police raided a Texas compound that housed his reclusive sect, taking away more than 450 children after the ordeal.

"As children begin preparing to return to school, it's important for parents and children to go over school bus safety tips together," says Susan Laurence, injury prevention coordinator, Trauma Services at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. "This will help ensure a safe, enjoyable start to the school year for everyone."

Jeffs offers three word closing statement

Eating healthier food can add almost 10 percent to the average American's food bill -- and that is just to boost a single nutrient like potassium.

"Nobody wants a woman who passes stools all the time and smells," whispered Farhiya Mohamed Farah, explaining why her husband divorced her when she was pregnant with their second child.

Reminding the nation of a nightmare not so long ago, a gunman was reportedly spotted near Virginia Tech University, the very stage of the worst campus shooting of U.S. history.The man was reported near Dietrick Hall, a dining facility steps away from the dorm where the first shooting took place in the 2007 shooting spree , which left 33 dead.

Demand for larger shoe sizes is growing among women -- but big-footed females are ashamed of stepping out in their shoes, according to a survey by British department store Debenhams.

Another alarming outbreak of drug-resistant salmonella, that has killed one person in California and sickened at least 76 others in 26 states since March, has lead meat giant Cargill Inc. to recall 36 million pounds of ground turkey. It is one of the largest meat recalls ever, according to the Agriculture Department.

Virginia Tech police lifted a campus lockdown five hours after three children reported a man with a gun at 9:09 a.m. Thursday. "There will continue to be a large police presence on campus today. Police have not received nor discovered additional information about a person possibly carrying a weapon beyond that reported this morning," the university said on its web site.

Lockdown alert issued at 9:30 am lifted at 2:30 pm

The images of the findings show flows lengthen and darken on rocky equator-facing slopes from late spring to early fall, and the seasonality, latitude distribution and brightness changes suggest a volatile material is involved, but there is no direct detection of one, NASA said.

Virginia Tech students took to Twitter in response to a campus lockdown announced Thursday, warning that a gunman had been spotted on campus.

Levi Aron, the Orthodox Jewish man accused of killing an 8-year-old boy on his way home from camp, is competent to stand trial, said a court evaluation released Thursday. Aron will participate in his own defense and understands that he is being charged with the dismemberment of Leiby Kletzky, defense lawyers said.

Researchers have found that the blood-sucking bats have specially evolved nerves they use to sense the heat of the veins of their next prey. These specialized nerves are located near the bats' nose.

Levi Aron, the man accused of killing and dismembering a Brooklyn boy Leiby Kletzky on July 11, has been found competent for trial and entered a not guilty plea at his arraignment Thursday morning.

A 17-year-old teenage boy is lucky to be alive after being buried on a California beach after a sand tunnel caved in. Matt Mina and his friends were digging a tunnel five to seven feet below the beach's surface when the incident occured. He screamed for help, but wasn't sure anyone could hear him.

The Virginia Tech campus was under lockdown, Thursday morning, after an alert posted on the official campus website warned that a gunman had been sighted in campus, bringing back memories of the 2007 shooting that left 33 dead.