Jade Walker

Polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs is in critical condition after being rushed to a Texas hospital on Tuesday, a prison official said. The 55-year-old convicted child rapist grew so weakened by fasting that he had to be removed from his solitary prison cell for medical treatment.

Cleanup efforts have begun in communities that were devastated by Hurricane Irene over the weekend. Although trucks and supplies from the Federal Emergency Management Agency are en route, access to some areas has been cut off by floodwaters that washed out or damaged roads and bridges. “Irene was gonna land somewhere. We’re not Manhattan, our small streams quickly became big rivers,” Vermont Gov.

Before weakening to a tropical storm, the first hurricane of the season hit the Eastern seaboard with torrential rains, strong winds and floods. Hurricane Irene made landfall on Saturday in North Carolina, moved northward along the coast then slammed into Little Egg Inlet, N.J., as a Category 1 storm. Despite predictions, Irene then lost steam as it lumbered toward New England.

A suicide bomber dressed as an injured beggar attacked one of the largest Sunni mosques in Baghdad on Sunday, claiming the lives of at least 24 people. A member of Parliament was among the dead.

“Would you consider yourself a member of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community?” That’s what Elmhurst College recently asked prospective students on its application form. The private liberal arts school in suburban Chicago, which is affiliated with the United Church of Christ, is believed to be the first college in the US to ask the question.

A brazen attack on the United Nations’ offices in the Nigerian capital of Abuja claimed the lives of at least 18 people on Friday.

Much of eastern United States is getting ready for the arrival of Hurricane Irene. More than 50 million people live in the projected path of the Category 2 storm, which is expected to make landfall along North Carolina’s Outer Banks on Friday.

Eleven people perished Tuesday when a fire burned down a house near Brisbane, Australia. Search teams are trying to retrieve the victims’ bodies from the two-story house, but the process is proving most difficult due to the extensive damage caused by the fire. The intense blaze also destroyed two vehicles parked near the building. It is not known whether smoke alarms were fitted in the home. Read

The 5.8-magnitude earthquake that unnerved millions of people on the East Coast of the United States on Tuesday forced schools in three states to close and damaged several buildings and federal landmarks. At least four aftershocks followed the powerful quake, including a 3.4-magnitude tremblor that hit near the nation’s capital overnight.

The areas surrounding the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan may be uninhabitable for decades. That’s the word from the Japanese government after a survey found dangerously high levels of radioactive contamination.