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SALT LAKE CITY – The president of the Mormon church was remembered Saturday as a “giant among men” who cared deeply for others and devoted his life to the work of his faith. • Click here to watch video. Thousands of people, including some who waited overnight, packed the conference …

LOS ANGELES – California parents who don’t have teaching credentials no longer can home school their children, according to a recent state appellate court ruling. “Parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children,” Justice H. Walter Croskey wrote in a Feb. 28 opinion for the 2nd …

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – State lawmakers are considering a ban on what is being called the new marijuana. Salvia divinorum is a hallucinogenic herb that’s inexpensive and easy to obtain. Florida state Rep. Mary Brandenburg has introduced a bill to make possession of salvia a felony punishable by up to five …

An anti-union group in Washington, D.C., is asking for nominations for “The 10 Worst Teachers” in America, so that it can offer them $10,000 each to quit their careers. The Center for Union Facts hopes that offering severance packages to poorly performing instructors will spark a debate on how hard …

NEW YORK – Dith Pran, the Cambodian-born journalist whose harrowing tale of enslavement and eventual escape from that country’s murderous Khmer Rouge revolutionaries in 1979 became the subject of the award-winning film “The Killing Fields,” died Sunday, his former colleague said. Dith, 65, died at a New Jersey hospital Sunday …

Delta, Colo. – A Delta high school English teacher punished a student who was late for class by ordering him to do push-ups and sit-ups and letting other students hit him when he failed to complete the exercise, police said Monday. Brian Havel, 22, faces charges of child abuse in …

NEW YORK – A leukemia patient in dire need of a bone marrow transplant has found a donor after Grammy Award-winning singer Rihanna publicized her case, People magazine reported. “The English language does not have words that are adequate to thank someone for working to save your life,” Lisa Gershowitz …

WASHINGTON – Democrats and human rights advocates criticized President Bush’s veto Saturday of a bill that would have banned the CIA from using simulated drowning and other coercive interrogation methods to gain information from suspected terrorists. Bush said such tactics have helped foil terrorist plots. His critics likened some methods …

WASHINGTON – Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will go to China next week, becoming the highest-ranking administration official to visit the country since Beijing’s harsh crackdown in Tibet. The Treasury Department said Thursday that Paulson will meet with Chinese leaders and follow up on an agreement the two countries reached last …

BEIJING – The no-tell motels in Beijing’s university districts pulsate with sex. Every weekend, lusty college couples make a beeline past greasy spoon restaurants and bootleg video game shops for the dim hotel lobbies to book three-hour blocks of privacy. Students fill half the simple but tidy rooms at the …