A husband and wife who found a dog sitter for their new puppies, but left their 9-year-old son home to care for his younger autistic brother while they celebrated the new year in Las Vegas, were arrested Wednesday, police said.

The home of the late singer Johnny Cash has been purchased by another singer with a distinctive voice. Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees and his wife, Linda, bought the house for an undisclosed amount, an attorney for the Cash family said Wednesday.

Researchers at a Missouri university have identified the largest known prime number, officials said Tuesday...The number that the team found is 9.1 million digits long. It is a Mersenne prime known as M30402457 — that's 2 to the 30,402,457th power minus 1. Mersenne primes are a special category expressed as 2 to the "p" power minus 1, in which "p" also is a prime number.

A South Korean man was in critical condition after setting himself on fire Wednesday in a courtroom where he was sentenced to a $300 fine for disturbing the peace, a court official and an emergency room physician said.

Lindsay Lohan, who was hospitalized in Miami this week for an asthma attack, tells Vanity Fair in an interview that she has dabbled in drugs and battled bulimia.

The disgraced former pop star Gary Glitter has paid £2,275 to the families of two Vietnamese girls he is accused of sexually assaulting after they agreed to write to the authorities asking that the case be dropped, his lawyer said yesterday.

Hollywood is planning a new sequel to adventure flick "Ocean's Eleven," with star George Clooney set to reprise his role as a charismatic thief in "Ocean's Thirteen," the entertainment press said.

Children who see their mothers physically abused may often suffer their own emotional and behavioral problems in response, new study findings show. The study, according to the researchers, adds to evidence that witnessing violence in the home can have serious consequences for children's mental health and ability to function in daily life...They found that mothers who said they'd been seriously abused by their partner -- beaten, choked or threatened with a weapon -- generally reported more emotional and behavioral problems in their 4- to 14-year-old children.

Mountains of debris, collapsing houses, a weather-ravaged stadium: It's yours for $35 a person -- $28 for kids. Gray Line New Orleans began a bus tour Wednesday of the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina, and demand was high enough that the company added a third tour on the first day.

Some whale species sing in different dialects depending on where they're from, a new study shows.

Police in a Vancouver suburb reminded residents on Tuesday it was not a good idea to play with a loaded gun while using the bathroom, after a man accidentally shot himself. A 21-year-old North Vancouver man was facing numerous weapons charges after he shot off one of his fingers while apparently playing with a gun on New Year's Day, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Tropical Storm Zeta finally started weakening Wednesday and was expected to turn into a tropical depression Thursday, forecasters said. Zeta developed Friday, about a month after the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season officially ended. It tied a record for the latest developing storm since record keeping began in 1851. Though Zeta appeared to be breaking down, the skimpy history of January storms makes it hard to predict, said Eric Blake, a meteorologist at the hurricane center.

Florida cops nabbed groom-to-be Lonnie Causey, 62, minutes before his wedding Friday — charging him with ignoring a judge's order prohibiting contact with the bride, according to the Orlando Sentinel. In August, French called police to tell them the man ready to pledge his love for her, in sickness and in health, had shot a gun at her head after having too much to drink.