On this day in 1971, singer Jim Morrison is found dead in a bathtub in Paris. Morrison, 27, was taking a sabbatical from his hit rock band, The Doors, when he died of heart failure, likely caused by a drug overdose. Rumors abounded that Morrison, tired of fame, had faked his own death.

Morrison, the son of a navy officer, was born in Florida but moved frequently as a child. He studied filmmaking at UCLA, where he met Ray Manzarek, who suggested they set some of Morrison's poems to music. With Robbie Krieger on guitar and John Densmore on drums, they formed The Doors. Morrison christened the band after Aldous Huxley's book on psychedelic drugs, The Doors of Perception, which drew its name from a poem by William Blake.

The band began playing in 1965; by 1966, they were the house band at famous Los Angeles nightclub Whiskey-a-Go-Go. They were abruptly fired four months into the job after playing a controversial song, but the band had already landed a record contract with Elektra. Their first album, The Doors (1967), topped the charts, as did a shortened version of their 6-minute 50-second track "Light My Fire." The band's subsequent album, Strange Days (1967), hit No. 3 on the charts, and Waiting for the Sun (1968) hit No. 1.

Morrison, who cultivated a dark, untamed image, was arrested several times for obscenity and indecency. Concert halls became reluctant to book the unpredictable group, and The Doors' appearances were sporadic after 1968. However, their albums continued to sell. Morrison was idolized by some as a modern-day Dionysus; others saw him as a world-class buffoon and bad poet with a drinking problem.

Morrison began to turn his attention to other creative endeavors in the late 1960s, publishing books of poetry and directing a film. He moved to Paris in 1971 after the release of L.A. Woman. Few people other than Morrison's wife and an anonymous French doctor saw Morrison's body after he died, leading to speculation that he had faked his own death. He became more famous than ever posthumously. The Doors released a few more albums without him but had lost their energy. However, the original band's early music only became more popular over time and underwent a revival in the 1980s. In 1989, a new book of Morrison's poems was published, and filmmaker Oliver Stone profiled Morrison and the band in the successful 1991 film The Doors. On the 20th anniversary of his death, nearly a thousand fans mobbed the cemetery where he was buried.

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The uncle of a young Vermont girl found dead could face the death penalty on federal kidnapping charges connected with the case, prosecutors said Thursday.

U.S. Attorney Thomas Anderson said Michael Jacques will be charged with kidnapping in connection with the death of his niece, 12-year-old Brooke Bennett.

"Today is a tragic day for Vermont," Anderson said. "Our thoughts and our prayers are with the Bennett family and the people of Randolph, Vt."

Click here for photos.

Jacques, 42, is expected to be in federal court some time next week. The kidnapping charge can carry a sentence of death or life in prison. Michael Desautels, the federal public defender representing Jacques, did not immediately return calls Thursday morning.

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Supporters of a proposed ban on race-based affirmative action said Thursday that they've turned in enough signatures to get the measure on the ballots in Nebraska and Arizona.

But the fight isn't over in either state, with opponents of the ban vowing to challenge the validity of some signatures to the petition that has ignited controversy across the country.

A coalition of opponents based in Michigan filed a lawsuit Monday, accusing Arizona petitioners of committing voter fraud and violating election law by using deceptively worded pitches to convince people to sign.

And a group opposing the measure in Nebraska plans to go to the secretary of state with video and footage that appears to show circulators leaving petitions unattended and filling in information for signers. Both are illegal and could invalidate signatures.

"There's a significant difference between submitted signatures and valid signatures," said David Kramer, head of Nebraskans United, which opposes the measure. "We'll wait to see the outcome of that process before litigation."

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Employers cut payrolls by 62,000 in June, the sixth straight month of nationwide job losses, underscoring the economy's fragile state. The unemployment rate held steady at 5.5%.

The Labor Department's new report Thursday showed continued caution on the part of employers who are chafing under zooming energy prices and are uncertain about how long the economy will be stuck in a sluggish mode, reflecting fallout from housing, credit and financial troubles.

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Oil prices neared $146 a barrel Thursday for the first time ever on reports of declining U.S. stockpiles and the threat of conflict with Iran.

Comments by Saudi Arabia's oil minister suggesting his country had no immediate plans to boost production also lifted prices.

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A south Georgia teenager is charged with child cruelty after an online video showed a young man launching a baby several feet across a room.

The video posted on YouTube shows the teenage boy putting a baby on one side of a large, inflatable pillow on the floor.

The boy then jumps on the pillow and the baby flies several feet across the room before landing on the floor and crying.

The 16-year-old Lee County boy was arrested Tuesday after a school teacher saw the video and called the sheriff's office. The boy's name was not released because of his age.

The boy has been charged with a felony count of cruelty to children as well as a misdemeanor count of the same charge.

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You may have thought it was big news Tuesday when the administration reported to Congress that Iraq has made satisfactory progress on 15 of 18 political benchmarks set by the U.S.

Just last year, there was progress on only eight of those benchmarks and war critics have repeatedly cited the lack of political progress in arguing against the troop surge.

But the Media Research Center says there was not a word about the report on the "CBS Evening News," "NBC Nightly News" or ABC's "World News Tonight." The New York Times also ignored the story. The Washington Post relegated its coverage to page eight.

This is how the Associated Press began its story on the report: "No matter who is elected president in November, his foreign policy team will have to deal with... the slow pace with which the government in Baghdad operates."

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Senator John McCain's presidential campaign has gone through its second shake-up in a year as McCain, responding to Republican concerns that his candidacy was faltering, put Steve Schmidt in charge of day-to-day operations and abandoned an effort to have the campaign run by 11 regional managers, the senator's aides said Wednesday.

Schmidt is a veteran of President George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign and he worked closely with Karl Rove, who was Bush's political adviser. His installation at McCain's headquarters represented a sharp diminishment of the responsibilities of Rick Davis, who has been McCain's campaign manager since the last shake-up nearly a year ago.

McCain's advisers said that Davis would continue to hold the position of campaign manager, but that Schmidt had taken over every major operation where McCain has shown signs of struggling: communications, scheduling and basic political strategy.

The shift was approved by McCain after several of his aides, including Schmidt, warned him about 10 days ago that he was in danger of losing the presidential election unless he revamped his campaign operation, according to two officials close to the campaign.

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Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama received a discounted interest rate on a $1.32 million loan which he used to buy his Chicago home. The Washington Post reports that in 2005, the freshman senator secured an interest rate of 5.625 percent on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage from Northern Trust.

The Post reports that the average interest rate in Chicago at the time was closer to six percent, and that Obama may have saved more than $300 a month.

A statement from Northern Trust says Obama's deal was "consistent with Northern Trust rates at the time." Obama Spokesman Ben LaBolt says the rate was adjusted down because of a competing offer from another lender.

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The U.S. Court of Appeals has upheld a South Dakota law requiring doctors to provide pregnant women who want an abortion with a written statement that says, "Abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being."

Cybercast News reports South Dakota Republican Governor Mike Rounds and Attorney General Larry Long represented the state and provided evidence that a fetus is "whole, separate, unique and living."

The court said that Planned Parenthood — which filed the suit to have the law struck down — submitted no evidence to oppose that conclusion. Pro-life organizations are praising the ruling, but Planned Parenthood says women should be able to make health care decisions "free from political interference."

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The body of a missing 12-year-old whose uncle allegedly planned to force her into a sex ring the day she disappeared was found Wednesday in Randolph, not far from his house.

State Police Director Col. James Baker said Brooke Bennett's body was found about 4:45 p.m. and her family had been notified.

The uncle, Michael Jacques, has been in custody since Sunday on charges of aggravated sexual assault against a different underage girl. He has pleaded not guilty. Police Sgt. Tara Thomas said he would be charged in federal court with kidnapping.

Brooke was last seen alive with Jacques at a convenience store a week ago.

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Call him the short arm of the law.

Police in Dillon, a small South Carolina town near the North Carolina border, say a 13-year-old with an interest in law enforcement twice stole a police cruiser and took it out to do some patrolling.

The boy's mother saw him bring the car home both times but didn't see anything wrong with the joyrides, Police Sgt. Jason Turner said.

The boy, who was charged with larceny and second-degree burglary, was not identified because of his age. He remained in Department of Juvenile Justice custody Wednesday.

His mother, Patricia Gillespie, was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. She was released on $5,000 bond. A phone listing for her could not be found.

Turner said residents called police Sunday to say they'd seen the boy driving a police car. He said the boy also took the cruiser the previous Sunday and drove it around before returning it to the station. No one noticed it was missing.

The boy apparently watched someone enter a code to get into the department, then used it to get in and take the keys to the cruiser, Turner said.

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A former Missouri radio reporter has been found guilty of killing his wife by poisoning her with antifreeze.

A jury in Middlesex Superior Court convicted James Keown of first-degree murder Wednesday. They deliberated less than two days.

Keown faces an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole.

Prosecutors said Keown was deeply in debt and killed his 31-year-old wife, Julie, in hopes of cashing in her $250,000 life insurance policy. Julie Keown died in September 2004 of a lethal dose of ethylene glycol, a chemical found in antifreeze.

Authorities said James Keown spiked his wife's Gatorade with antifreeze while the couple lived in Waltham. After the killing, Keown returned to Missouri, where he worked at a radio station.

Keown's lawyer told the jury Julie Keown could have committed suicide or accidentally ingested the chemical.

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Hackers broke into Citibank's network of ATMs inside 7-Eleven stores and stole customers' PIN codes, according to recent court filings that revealed a disturbing security hole in the most sensitive part of a banking record.

The scam netted the alleged identity thieves millions of dollars.

But more importantly for consumers, it indicates criminals were able to access PINs — the numeric passwords that theoretically are among the most closely guarded elements of banking transactions — by attacking the back-end computers responsible for approving the cash withdrawals.

• Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Cybersecurity Center.

The case against three people in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York highlights a significant problem.

Hackers are targeting the ATM system's infrastructure, which is increasingly built on Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system and allows machines to be remotely diagnosed and repaired over the Internet.

And despite industry standards that call for protecting PINs with strong encryption — which means encoding them to cloak them to outsiders — some ATM operators apparently aren't properly doing that.

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The American broadcast industry is rocked, realigned and blasted into a new orbit, yet again, by Rush Limbaugh, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

In what is being described as an unprecedented radio contract, Limbaugh will keep his syndicated show on-the-air and e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e through 2016 with CLEAR CHANNEL and PREMIERE RADIO.

Already host of the most lucrative hours since radio's inception, Limbaugh's total package is valued north of $400 million, according to media insiders.

The NEW YORK TIMES will claim this weekend that Limbaugh, marking 20 years this summer as a national host, has secured a 9-figure signing bonus for the new deal, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE.

In its controversial profile, the TIMES reports that Limbaugh is buying a new G550 jet and is making an estimated $38 million a year.

While newspapers and traditional broadcast media are experiencing declining revenues, Limbaugh's golden microphone has turned diamond-laced:

Earnings now pace him ahead of the annual salaries for network news anchors: Katie Couric, Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer — combined!

The deal represents a stunning triumph over the establishment by an outsider who connected with and captured the spirit of the nations heartland.

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The nation's busiest airport dueled with gun rights advocates Tuesday over whether a new Georgia state law allows visitors to carry firearms at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

City officials in charge of the airport declared it a "gun-free zone" when a law allowing people to carry guns on public transit and other places took effect Tuesday. Gun rights supporters, including a state legislator who helped pass the law, quickly filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the designation.

"My message is simple: Leave your firearms at home," airport general manager Ben DeCosta told reporters at a news conference.

Atlanta officials said anyone carrying a gun at the airport could be arrested and charged with a misdemeanor.

The new state law allows people with a concealed weapons permit to carry guns into restaurants, state parks and on public transportation.

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Muslims in the Scottish district of Tayside are outraged by the appearance of a wide-eyed, 6-week-old puppy on postcards distributed by the local police force, according to the Daily Mail.

Postcards showing police dog-in-training Rebel, a German shepherd born in early December, are causing a furor among the region’s Muslims who believe dogs are "ritually unclean," the Daily Mail reports.

The cute cards were meant to notify locals of a new telephone number for non-emergency phone calls but instead have become a flashpoint for a clash of cultures. Shopkeepers are refusing to display the offending ad and a Dundee city councilor is calling for an investigation.

"My concern was that it's not welcomed by all communities, with the dog on the cards," said Dundee councilor Mohammed Asif, according to the report.

The Tayside police force said the police puppy, the force’s "newest recruit," was not intended to cause offense.

 LA TIMES to cut jobs, newsroom, pages...

BIG SUR EVACUATED