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Los Angeles police have arrested two elderly women on mail fraud charges for allegedly luring two homeless men into a life-insurance scam. The men turned up dead in still- unresolved hit and run cases; the women were $2.2 million richer after collecting their life insurance policies.

Georgia lawmakers are expected to pass a bill authorizing a Bible literacy class in public high schools. The class, "History and Literature of the Old and New Testament," will be taught with the Bible as the text. The bill does not require that schools teach the course, or that students take it. Emily Kopp of Georgia Public Broadcasting reports.

The new season of The Sopranos opens on Sunday, bringing the world of Tony and Carmela, Christopher and Paulie Walnuts back to dens around the country. The show's last previous episode aired in the summer of 2004.

The FBI says it has positively identified the remains of Thomas Fox, a peace activist from Virginia who was taken hostage in November in Iraq. The fate of three of Fox's colleagues is not known. Fox was helping families of prisoners held by U.S. forces when he was abducted.

American combat deaths in Iraq have been declining since late last year. Iraqi security forces now appear to be bearing the brunt of violence in the country. The decline was especially significant in February, when 55 American service personnel were killed, compared to 96 in October. More than 2,300 American military personnel have died supporting operations in Iraq.

Peter Dinklage plays a defense attorney in the new Sidney Lumet-directed film Find Me Guilty, starring Vin Diesel as a member of the Lucchese crime family who represents himself on trial. Dinklage, a person of short stature, is perhaps best known for his award-winning film The Station Agent.

Convicted sniper Lee Boyd Malvo is cross-examined by his former partner and mentor John Allen Muhammad, who is on trial in Maryland on six murder charges. Malvo discussed his role in the sniper shootings that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area four years ago. Muhammad is acting as his own attorney.

Scientists recently discovered a freshly laid bald eagle egg on an island off the southern California coast. If a chick emerges a few weeks from now, it would be the first successful bald eagle nesting on the northern Channel Islands in more than 50 years.

Hodge-podge is a word that comes from a rotten pot. It's derived from a term for mixed-up Scottish stew. Hodge-podge is also another in a long line of english reduplications, like the word honky-tonk.

U.S. and British troops free three Christian peace activists in rural Iraq without firing a shot, ending a four-month hostage drama in which a fourth activist in the group, American Tom Fox, was shot to death and dumped on a Baghdad street.