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1960s songbird Joan Baez had a treehouse built -- without walls -- 20 feet high in an oak tree behind her Woodside home because she wanted to sleep with birds. The folksinging legend, who once performed the civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome" before a half-million people at Woodstock, fell from that treehouse Wednesday as she climbed down from the platform.

A man wearing nothing but pink socks was seen running down 35th Avenue early Thursday morning. Clayton Thornburg, 24, an inmate at Sheriff Arpaio's Durango Jail, was in the jailhouse recreation yard when he decided to jump the fence to freedom. He scaled over five barbed wire fences, three of which were 15 feet tall. "It's a little unusual," Sheriff Joe Arpaio said. "I think you can imagine this guy running down the street with no clothes on...where was he gonna go?" He was found stripped of his black and white strip uniform as well as the infamous pink...

The clues were there when police responded to a theft call at Wal-Mart around 6 a.m. Wednesday. A man was seen running into the darkness after leaving the rear door with a shopping cart full of merchandise. Just before the man left the store, investigators found an unoccupied vehicle behind the building at 2700 W. State St. The engine was running. But the suspect was nowhere to be found. Police might have gotten answer later when they got a call about a man trapped inside a refuse truck. The man had to be freed from the BFI trash-hauling truck after...

Top Cop Calls Women For Appointments, Meets Them In Hotel Rooms For Sex Busts GREEN TREE, Pa. -- Recent actions by the Green Tree police chief during undercover prostitution stings are coming under scrutiny. Chief Andrew Lisiecki said in court papers that he got naked with a suspected prostitute in an effort to make an arrest earlier this month. According to the criminal complaint, Lisiecki was working a prostitution detail and responded to an online ad by a woman calling herself "Island Hottie." Green Tree Police Department Green Tree Police Department According to the criminal complaint, the two met at...

Martena Clinton drove to the Congressional Black Caucus dinner at the Washington Convention Center on Saturday with high expectations. A friend had arranged a ticket, and Clinton wore a special diamond pendant over her black dress. She parked in a handicapped spot close to the intersection of 9th Street and Mount Vernon Place and glanced in the mirror. She decided the diamond pendant didn't go with her dress, took it off and put it in a console. This Story * John Kelly's Washington: Parking karma's gonna get you * Her Lexus, lost in the nexus of D.C. security * Your...

TRENDING: Legislator resigns after 'dead Palin' comment Posted: August 12th, 2010 02:15 PM ET From CNN Political Producer Peter Hamby (CNN) - A New Hampshire state legislator resigned his office Thursday after becoming the second Democrat in as many days to speculate about Sarah Palin's death on Facebook. State Rep. Timothy Horrigan made the remarks Wednesday night in a thread discussing the Alaska plane crash that killed former Sen. Ted Stevens. "Well a dead Palin wd be even more dangerous than a live one...she is all about her myth & if she was dead she cldn't commit any more gaffes,"...

HARLOTTE, N.C. -- A secularist billboard on the Billy Graham Parkway was vandalized over the weekend. The billboard, which was paid for by the The North Carolina Secular Association, shows an American flag and the words "One Nation, Indivisible." Over the weekend, someone spray-painted the words “under God” on the billboard. Police were notified and are reviewing surveillance video from a nearby gas station, according to the NC Secular Association. Will Warren, a spokesman for the Charlotte Atheists and Agnostics, the local ad sponsor, said they have asked the billboard company to repair or replace the billboard this week. "We...

Video producer was on one of six vessels involved in raid PORTLAND, Maine — A Maine video producer recalled hearing shots amid the chaos that broke out as Israeli troops raided the aid flotilla he was on that was attempting to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Scott Hamann of South Portland arrived in Maine late Friday night, five days after the flotilla was intercepted by Israeli troops, resulting in the deaths of nine pro-Palestinian activists. In a phone interview with The Associated Press, Hamann said troops that landed on the boat he was on fired high-powered paintball guns and threw...

Jason Levin, the Portland man who caused a ruckus over his plans to "infiltrate" Tea Party protests in an aim to discredit them, teaches in a Beaverton middle school and now faces an investigation by the Teacher Standards and Practices Commission. Melody Hanson, the commission's director of professional practices, said Wednesday that the agency opened an investigation because "there was enough concern that there was some neglect of duty" on the part of Levin.

A small band of clever people make fake headlines - Australia...5 min. video

Joseph P. Kennedy II said today he regrets not seeking the U.S. Senate seat vacated by his uncle, but the former congressman has no plans to run against U.S. Sen.-elect Scott Brown in 2012. Kennedy, who was in Brighton today delivering heating oil for his nonprofit Citizens Energy, was asked whether Brown’s victory made him regret his decision not to run to succeed his uncle, the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. “The thought has crossed my mind,” Kennedy said with a chuckle yesterday. “Maybe that wasn’t the greatest decision I ever made.”

SYDNEY (AFP) – A high-tech protest boat sank without trace on Friday after a dangerous collision with a Japanese whaling ship, as Australia protested to Tokyo over its fleet's alleged tactics. Peter Hammarstedt, first officer of the Sea Shepherd group's "Bob Barker" ship, said the celebrated "Ady Gil" was abandoned overnight after a tow line snapped en route to an Antarctic research base.

A downtown protest of the climate change talks in Copenhagen became a victim of Wednesday's snowstorm. "Not many people showed up because of the blizzard conditions," said organizer Clea Major, an international studies student at the University of Utah. It didn't take long for the six friends to pack up a bullhorn and posters they'd planned to use for their "scream-in," an outlet for their frustration about the failure of the Copenhagen climate talks earlier this month to curb the pollution blamed for climate change.

NEW YORK (Dec. 18) -- A career criminal massacred three members of a family in their apartment but fell to his death when he tripped over his own baggy pants.

President Obama reportedly was re luctant to attend the final day of the UN's Copenhagen climate-change summit unless it was front-end wired to be a major political success. But he went anyway, was twice humiliated in public by the Chinese premier and then finally settled for what the White House hailed as a "meaningful agreement." Really? A top aide admitted that the deal was basically just "an important first step" that was "not sufficient to combat the threat of climate change." Then Obama himself dropped the other shoe: The agreement contains no specific commitments on carbon emissions, only pledges that...

Barack Obama emerged from the chaotic final hours of the Copenhagen summit last night having salvaged an agreement for action on global warming – and his own reputation as a politician who can bridge the most challenging of political divides. After 15 hours of negotiations, an exhausted looking Obama said he managed to secure a deal on climate change incorporating America's three main goals of emissions cuts, financial aid for the poorest countries, and a measure of accountability for emissions pledges from developing countries. Obama's hectic day of negotiations began immediately on his arrival in Copenhagen, when he encountered what...

Chet Baker was a leading jazz musician in the 1950s, playing trumpet and providing vocals. Baker died in 1988, yet he is about to add a new claim to fame as the lead plaintiff in possibly the largest copyright infringement case in Canadian history.  His estate, which still owns the copyright in more than 50 of his works, is part of a massive class-action lawsuit that has been underway for the past year. As my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes, the infringer has effectively already admitted owing at least $50 million and the full claim...

FORT HOOD, Texas — The attorney for the Army psychiatrist accused of killing fellow soldiers at Fort Hood says doctors have told the soldier he may be paralyzed from the waist down. Attorney John Galligan told The Associated Press on Friday that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan told him that he has no feeling in his legs and doctors say the condition may be permanent. Galligan says Hasan also told him he had extreme pain in his hands. Hasan was shot by police officers responding to last week's shootings at Fort Hood. Galligan spoke with him Thursday in the intensive care...

The New York Times News Service will lay off at least 25 editorial employees next year and will move the editing of the service to a Florida newspaper owned by The New York Times Company, the newspaper and the Newspaper Guild said Thursday... The plan for the news service calls for The Gainesville Sun, whose newsroom is not unionized and has lower salaries, to take over editing and page design. Ms. McNulty said new jobs would be created at The Sun to handle the work.

The Young and the Jobless The minimum wage hike has driven the wages of teen employees down to $0.00. Yesterday's September labor market report was lousy by any measure, with 263,000 lost jobs and the jobless rate climbing to 9.8%. But for one group of Americans it was especially awful: the least skilled, especially young workers. Washington will deny the reality, and the media won't make the connection, but one reason for these job losses is the rising minimum wage. Earlier this year, economist David Neumark of the University of California, Irvine, wrote on these pages that the 70-cent-an-hour increase...