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WASHINGTON (AP) -- If the uninsured were a political lobbying group, they'd have more members than AARP. The National Mall couldn't hold them if they decided to march on Washington....

One of the Spanish militant group Eta's top leaders is arrested in Paris carrying a Magnum revolver and false ID, reports say.

Some Catholics in the U-S are seeking Vatican help in the fight to keep their churches open. A group of parishioners delivered a letter asking the Vatican to intervene in local bishops' decisions to close churches in eight cities, including Boston, New Orleans, and New York. The letter claims more than 1,000 Catholic churches [...]

Death Metal writes with this excerpt from a story about COBOL's influence as it approaches 50 years in existence: 'According to David Stephenson, the UK manager for the software provider Micro Focus, 'some 70% to 80% of UK plc business transactions are still based on COBOL.' ... Mike Gilpin, from the market research company Forrester, says that the company's most recent related survey found that 32% of enterprises say they still use COBOL for development or maintenance. ... A lot of this maintenance and development takes place on IBM products. The company's software group director of product delivery and strategy, Charles Chu, says that he doesn't think 'legacy' is pejorative. 'Business constantly evolves,' he adds, 'but there are 250bn lines of COBOL code working well worldwide. Why would companies replace systems that are working well?'' of this story at Slashdot.

Ohio senior citizens become the oldest group of women to ever go through the Jewish right of passage of Bat Mitzvah.

Egyptian mediators trying to break the deadlock in talks on a Palestinian government of national unity have told rival groups to cooperate on reconstructing Gaza as a first step.

Microsoft and Yahoo in discussions about a tie-up as they lose market share to rival rampant GoogleMicrosoft and Yahoo are in talks over a possible search engine partnership less than a year after Bill Gates' software group failed in a $44bn (£21.3bn) takeover attempt on the internet company.Although there is no suggestion that Microsoft's failed bid will be resurrected, the two companies are believed to be discussing ways they can link up to combat the growing power of their chief rival, Google.Quoting sources close to the discussions, the authoritative Dow Jones All Things Digital blog said that 'the talks between the pair are preliminary and wide-ranging'.The talks come more than a year after Microsoft launched its audacious and drawn-out attempt to buy its Silicon ­Valley rival. The episode ended with the $44bn bid being rejected, but led to Yahoo's chief executive Jerry Yang stepping down from the role.His replacement, Carol Bartz, arrived in January and cleaned out much of Yahoo'

A group backed by the Culinary Workers Union is asking a state judge to force city officials to let voters decide whether Las Vegas needs a new city hall. The Las Vegas Taxpayer Accountability Committee lost a bid earlier this week for a similar order from...

The 3-year-old technology incubation group will move from a "broad and comprehensive" focus to one more narrowly tailored toward a few subject areas.

A MULTI-MILLION-dollar sports sponsorship announced by Strathfield Group this week has angered sacked staff of the troubled retailer, who are still awaiting redundancy payouts.