ARIZONA
Drought Hits Tribal Plant Rituals
The Associated Press
PHOENIX- As the gatherer of wild tobacco for the Hopi Indians' many religious ceremonies, Delfred Leslie had never really worried about where he would find the next crop.

CALIFORNIA
Director calls 'Signs' spiritual
CNN.com
LOS ANGELES -- M. Night Shyamalan says he wanted to include more emotion in his new film than there was in his hit "The Sixth Sense" and its followup, "Unbreakable."

ILLINOIS
Amish find license plate law a bit too fancy for their liking
Chicago Tribune
ARTHUR -- For more than a century, the horse-drawn buggies of the local Amish farmers have been a symbol of religious resistance to a contemporary way of life.

NEW YORK
Granny In Deep Voodoo
NY Post
She portrayed herself as a Bible-reading Christian who went to church regularly. But prosecutors call Josephine Gray - charged in the deaths of her first two husbands and another lover - a "black widow" after the venomous spider that kills its mates.

NORTH CAROLINA
Group asks judge to halt UNC reading requirement
The Associated Press
CHAPEL HILL -- A Christian organization suing the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to stop a reading requirement on Islam is asking a federal court to speed up the process.

PENNSYLVANIA
Circle watchers worry new film won't tell real story of circles
The Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA -- Charles R. Mallet has spent many nights camped out in fields of grain in the English countryside, trying to see the makers of the elaborate patterns, known as crop circles, that he believes are messages from some unearthly place.

Aryan Nation shares its message of hate
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
ULYSSES -- It has been a hard summer in Potter County, a gorgeous range of forested mountains and tidy, small towns along the Pennsylvania-New York border.

UTAH
State 'polygamy czar' angers sects
Deseret News
Some Salt Lake Valley polygamists are accusing the state attorney general's "polygamy czar" of funeral-crashing. Attorney General's Office investigator Ron Barton has attended at least two recent high-profile funerals for well-known members of Utah's polygamy hierarchy.

AFGHANISTAN
Afghans Believe a Giant Sleeping Buddha Escaped Taliban Demolition
The Chicago Tribune
"BAMIYAN -- When the Taliban blew up the two giant Buddhas of Bamiyan, people around the world gasped in outrage at the willful destruction of such a highly prized archeological site."

ENGLAND
Defendant rejects 'vampire' claims
BBC News
A teenager accused of stabbing to death an Anglesey pensioner has denied being obsessed by vampires and the quest for immortality. The 17-year-old, who cannot be named due to his age, is on trial for murdering Mabel Leyshon, 90, at her bungalow in Llanfairpwll.

JAPAN
Japanese cult guilty until proven innocent
New Zealand News
TOKYO -- On paper, at least, the life of Hiroshi Araki looks like something out of Franz Kafka. Whenever he steps outside his flat, at any time of the day or night, men with clipboards note the time he leaves, who he is with and which way he goes.

MEXICO
Papal Rites Revive Debate
Some criticize Catholic Church's treatment of indigenous Mexicans
The Associated Press
San Francisco Cajonos -- Three centuries ago, a group of Zapotecan Indians in this isolated mountain community killed two indigenous Catholics for trying to halt their ancient pagan rituals.

PAKISTAN
Pakistani Gets Death for Blasphemy
The Associated Press
LAHORE - A court sentenced a young Muslim to death Saturday for making derogatory statements about the Prophet Mohammed and Islam, police and court officials said.

SCOTLAND
Success predicted for Fringe psychic
The Scotsman
Saturn is sitting heavily on Frank Pilkington right now, it’s posterior spreading over his life and his small, significant place in history as the first psychic to perform stand-up at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

SWITZERLAND
Paranormal beliefs linked to brain chemistry
New Scientist
Whether or not you believe in the paranormal may depend entirely on your brain chemistry. People with high levels of dopamine are more likely to find significance in coincidences, and pick out meaning and patterns where there are none.

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