Teen girls aged 15 to 19 accounted for the largest number (409,531) of the 1.5 million reported chlamydia and gonorrhea cases in the United States in 2008, followed by women aged 20 to 24, according to an annual federal report released Monday. Of the almost 19 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases that occur each year in the United States, almost half are among those aged 15 to 24 years.

Read More in: The Decline of the U.S.

An 11-year-old boy killed a bear at point-blank range last Wednesday night after it wouldn't leave his family's porch. The boy was at his home near Driggs with his younger sisters and after seeing the bear on the front porch and not being able to get it to leave, the boy retrieved a gun and killed the animal.

Some folks in this dying Mississippi River town would rather take their chances with suspected terrorists in their backyard than watch their neighbors continue to move away in despair over the lack of jobs. News that the federal government may buy the nearly empty Thomson Correctional Center and use the maximum-security state prison to house Guantanamo Bay detainees has given people in Thomson hope that things might be about to turn around in this woeful town of 450.

International inspectors who gained access to Iran's newly revealed underground nuclear enrichment plant voiced strong suspicions in a report on Monday that the country was concealing other atomic facilities. In unusually tough language, the International Atomic Energy Agency appeared highly skeptical that Iran would have built the enrichment plant without also constructing a variety of other facilities that would give it an alternative way to produce nuclear fuel if its main centers were bombed.

Read More in: Weapons Proliferation

What a surprise -- that someone who shouts "Allahu Akbar" (the "God is great" jihadist battle cry) as he is shooting up a room of American soldiers might have Islamist motives. It certainly was a surprise to the mainstream media, which spent the weekend after the Fort Hood massacre playing down Nidal Hasan's religious beliefs.

Read More in: The Rise of Islam

He was on a train in San Francisco, about to be shipped off, when he noticed a volunteer with the Salvation Army waving on the platform. "And asking if anyone would like a New Testament for their pocket," remembers Roush. Later, "Schrapnel hit in the trench, I felt a thud in my chest and I looked down and my field jacket had a slash in it. And I thought 'oh no.' Slowly I pulled the New Testament out of my shirt pocket and here were two holes in it and it didn't go through. The cover of the bible stopped it."

Alcohol consumption in Israel has been on the rise for two decades now. The especially worrisome trend is the fact that the age of people who consume alcohol is gradually declining – 75 percent of boys and 25 percent of girls in elementary school drink over the weekend at home, or during the week while celebrating outside the house. The overall level of alcohol consumption in Israel is not high compared to developed countries. The world leader in this respect is Russia, where per capita consumption is estimated at 40 vodka bottles per year.

North and South Korea said their naval forces clashed Tuesday in disputed waters, and each blamed the other for what is the first such violent incident in seven years. South Korean Rear Adm. Lee Ki Sik said the nation's forces issued three verbal warnings to a ship from the Communist north once it had crossed a demarcation line late Tuesday morning. The South Koreans then fired a warning shot, but when the North Korean vessel continued southward, the South Koreans opened fire. Lee said the North Koreans returned fire before heading back, their ship damaged in the exchange.

Read More in: The Rise of the Far East

A new national report card on educational innovation contends that principals in Maryland and the District of Columbia face too many barriers to ousting bad teachers. The study examined survey data from the National Center for Education Statistics on obstacles principals face when they try to get rid of "poor-performing or incompetent" teachers. More often than peers nationwide, principals in Maryland and the District reported that personnel policies, paperwork and teachers unions were barriers to teacher removal, according to the study.

Read More in: The Decline of the U.S.

The Army psychiatrist believed to have killed 13 people at Fort Hood warned a roomful of senior Army physicians a year and a half ago that to avoid "adverse events," the military should allow Muslim soldiers to be released as conscientious objectors instead of fighting in wars against other Muslims. Hasan spent six years at Walter Reed as an intern, resident and fellow beginning in 2003. He was transferred to Fort Hood as a practicing psychiatrist in July and was set to leave soon for Afghanistan. According to a relative, he had asked not to be deployed. It is not known whether he ever sought conscientious-objector status.

Read More in: The Rise of Islam

Lawmakers are calling on Americans to storm the Capitol on Thursday in an "Emergency House Call on Congress" to stop the House from passing the Democrats' health-care bill THIS WEEK. A group of legislators will be holding an emergency town-hall meeting outside the Capitol at noon to protest the health-care bill set to hit the House floor. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has indicated that a vote on the bill could take place as soon as Thursday.

Read More in: The Decline of the U.S.

The National Security Agency, whose job it is to protect national security systems, will soon break ground on a data center in Utah that's budgeted to cost $1.5 billion. The NSA is building the facility to provide intelligence and warnings related to cybersecurity threats, cybersecurity support to defense and civilian agency networks, and technical assistance to the Department of Homeland Security, according to a transcript of remarks by Glenn Gaffney, deputy director of national intelligence for collection, who is responsible for oversight of cyber intelligence activities in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.