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Hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, is the spiritual high point of many Muslims' lives, an event that some say changes them forever and fills them with an inexpressible joy.

WASHINGTON - Civil liberties advocates caution that mandatory vaccinations, forced quarantines and restricted interstate travel would not only endanger individual rights but also would be unlikely to prevent disease in the event of a severe H1N1 outbreak.

Car insurance by the tankful?

Not quite, but California moved a step closer last month to pay-as-you-drive policies that could allow motorists to buy insurance like they do gasoline -- a little at a time.

ELDORADO, Texas - A DNA expert did the math to show jurors Monday that altering calculations to determine paternity would barely change results of tests indicating polygamist sect member Raymond Merril Jessop fathered a child with a 16-year-old.

Budget-cutting changes to California's In-Home Supportive Services program began Monday, affecting thousands of low-income seniors and disabled people and their caregivers.

Budget-related legislation requires the Department of Social Services to cut $82.1 million in program costs this year.

Q: Does a federal lawsuit stop the cuts and program changes?

WATONGA, Okla. - Eugene Blackbear, leaning on a wooden walking cane, takes a seat not far from the family's sacred sweat lodge on a small acreage south of here. His son-in-law, Malcolm Whitebird, stokes the flames of a bonfire built around a pyramid of stones.

The year before a souring economy caused endowments to fall, jobs to be cut and pay to be frozen, presidents of major private research universities across the country had an extraordinary year for pay increases.

When Yosemite National Park-bound visitors emerge from their cars at Half Dome View for a first glimpse of distant splendors, they probably pay no attention to the scattering of boulders on their right.

BETHESDA, Md. - A yellow ribbon -- ceramic to withstand the passage of time -- still hangs from the old oak tree in L. Bruce Laingen's front yard, a 30-year-old reminder of the Minnesota farm boy's ordeal as the highest-ranking diplomat among 52 U.S. Embassy workers held hostage in Iran for 444 days.

They may be kept with the best of intentions, but exotic pets can create havoc at home and in nature.

Sometimes they turn on their owners, as happened to Kelly Ann Walz, 37, of Saylorsburg, Pa., who was mauled to death Oct. 4 by a 350-pound black bear while cleaning its cage.