Mark Memmott

Warning that "the security threat level in Yemen is extremely high," the State Department is urging any Americans in that country to "depart immediately."

The ominous advisory follows the "temporary shutdowns of 19 American diplomatic posts across the Middle East and Africa," The Associated Press reminds ...

It was 1987 when a black teenager, Tawana Brawley, said she had been raped and kidnapped by a group of white men in Dutchess County, N.Y.

Her story of being attacked, scrawled with racial slurs, smeared with feces and left beside a road wrapped in a plastic bag made front ...

Today's the day San Diego Mayor Bob Filner, who's now been accused by 10 women of sexual harassment, is to start two weeks of treatment at a behavior counseling clinic.

Even though the Democratic mayor will be at an undisclosed location, he apparently won't be completely out of touch. According ...

His second job will be at a pre-school.

As a student.

Four-year-old Bobby Tufts was re-elected "mayor" over the weekend in the tiny northern Minnesota community of Dorset. We say "mayor" because Dorset doesn't really have a government. It doesn't even have many people — "22 to 28, depending on ...

The young woman killed Saturday when a car plowed through the crowded boardwalk in Venice Beach, Calif., was an Italian honeymooner.

Alice Gruppioni, 32, was there with her new husband, Christian Casadei. He was among the 11 people injured by the speeding vehicle. They were married on July ...

The Obama administration's weekend decision to close diplomatic posts from Central Asia through the Middle East and into North Africa has led to applause from "rattled lawmakers in both parties," The Washington Post writes.

They're praising the administration's response to what lawmakers say is some of the most ...

(We most recently updated this post at 6:48 p.m. ET.)

New York Yankees' slugger Alex Rodriguez, one of baseball's brightest stars and its highest-paid player, will be suspended through the 2014 regular season because he violated parts of baseball's Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program, the league said today.

David Niven's been dead for 30 years, so he can't be behind this:

"A Bosnian from the 'Pink Panther' gang of international jewel thieves escaped from a Swiss prison in a dramatic break-out involving a fellow inmate and two armed accomplices, police said Friday." (Agence ...

Sam Simon, who helped create The Simpsons and continues to earn "tens of millions" of dollars each year from royalties generated by the show, is dying from colon cancer.

Doctors say he has less than six months to live.

Here's the part of his story we especially want to pass ...

"The United States would not seek the death penalty for Mr. Snowden should he return to the United States," Attorney General Eric Holder has told his Russian counterpart in a letter about the "NSA leaker" who remains in legal limbo at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport.

Edward Snowden, ...

(We updated the top of this post at 12:40 p.m. ET.)

The man who held three young women against their will in his Cleveland home for about a decade, who fathered a child by one of them and forced another to have abortions, and who is the face of

Feel free to complete the joke in the comments thread (and we bet you can do better than this guy).

Yes, a black bear walked into a bar in Estes Park, Colo., last week, as Denver's CBS4 News reports. A man who saw the bear go ...

Good morning.

Our early headlines:

-- Report: Feds Have Asked Web Firms For Users' Passwords.

-- San Diego Mayor Must Go, His Party Says; Accuser Count At 7.

-- Lincoln Memorial Closed After Being Splattered With Paint.

-- Call Clouseau! 'Pink Panther' ...

"The chamber of the Lincoln Memorial is shut down Friday morning because of vandalism. U.S. Park Police tell WTOP the Lincoln statue and the floor inside the memorial was splattered with green paint," the radio station reported. "They think the vandalism occurred at about 1:30 a.m."

Update at 3:07 p.m. ET. Entering Treatment Clinic:

The besieged San Diego Mayor Bob Filner will not resign, but during a press conference, just minutes ago, said he "must take responsibility" for his actions and will therefore be entering a "behavior consulting counseling clinic," beginning August 5.

Filner has been ...

"The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders," CNET News is reporting.

It adds that:

"If the government is able to determine a person's password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the ...

Three of the station's staffers who were at work when KTVU-TV of Oakland broadcast obviously bogus and incredibly offensive names of what it said were the pilots of Asiana Flight 214 have been dismissed and more departures may soon follow. That's according to reports from Bay Area media blogger ...

"Natural gas has stopped flowing to a drilling rig on fire in the Gulf of Mexico," NPR's Jeff Brady tells our Newscast Desk.

As he reports:

"A drilling crew lost control of the well on Tuesday, then gas escaping from the well caught fire. No one was injured, ...

"Virginia Johnson, one half of the famed Masters and Johnson research team on human sexual behavior, has died at the age of 88, her son, Scott, tells St. Louis Public Radio."

The station adds that "Johnson was a resident of The Altenheim [a retirement home] in St. Louis, ...

The city of Detroit may be on the skids financially, but one of its traditional "big three" automakers just scored a big win.

For the first time since it began making such comparisons between sedans in 1992, Consumer Reports magazine has given its top rating to a model ...