AP - The nation's top nuclear weapons design lab has laid off hundreds of workers, raising concerns about a brain drain and stirring fears that some of these highly specialized scientists will sell their expertise to foreign governments, perhaps hostile ones.

AP - A World War II veteran who received the nation's highest military honor when he was only 17 is in the fight of his life, battling cancer, his biographer said.

AP - Call it poetic justice: More than two dozen young people who broke into Robert Frost's former home for a beer party and trashed the place are being required to take classes in his poetry as part of their punishment.

AP - Dr. John Sampson has spent most of his career studying brain tumors. And if diagnosed with the kind of cancer now faced by Sen. Edward Kennedy, he'd pick Duke University colleague Allan Friedman for a doctor.

AP - NASA's newest spacecraft got down and dirty on Mars, taking its first practice scoop of Martian soil ahead of the actual dig expected later this week, scientists said Monday.

AP - The head of the U.N. plans to urge world leaders Tuesday to help bring down soaring food prices by immediately suspending or eliminating many price controls and other agricultural trade restrictions.

AP - As she lay on her side listening to the whine of a drill boring into her skull, Mindy Wanatick took comfort in a vision still within her grasp. There, taped on her outstretched arm, were pictures of her baby son, Casey, and her husband, Jason.

AP - Dr. John Sampson has spent most of his career studying brain tumors. And if diagnosed with the kind of cancer now faced by Sen. Edward Kennedy, he'd pick Duke University colleague Allan Friedman for a doctor.

AP - Bravery in the face of cancer? Sen. Edward M. Kennedy has given it new meaning. Few things require as much courage as being wide awake and aware, lying perfectly still for hours, while surgeons methodically slice out bits of your brain.

AP - A reputed Ku Klux Klan member serving three life sentences for his role in the 1964 abduction and killings of two black Mississippi teenagers should not have been convicted because the statute of limitations had expired, his lawyer argued Monday.