DETROIT – Hundreds of Detroit teachers stayed home Wednesday, forcing more than 50 schools to close in what school officials described as a sick-out to protest a temporary pay cut. The teachers are upset because some principals are getting raises while they are giving up five days of pay to …

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Parents can sue a doctor if a genetic screening misses a severe or fatal condition that would have caused them to seek an abortion, a divided state Supreme Court ruled Friday. The 4-3 decision limited such lawsuits to costs associated with a pregnancy and the birth of …

LONDON – The popular Atkins diet could be linked to a life-threatening complication which one woman who claimed to be following it developed, according to doctors who published a case report on it Friday in a British medical journal. The Atkins diet calls for restricting carbohydrates to achieve weight loss, …

WASHINGTON – The nation’s best-selling cancer drug has won federal approval as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis patients for whom other, older drugs don’t work, Genentech Inc. and Biogen Idec Inc. said Wednesday. The Food and Drug Administration action comes more than eight years after the agency initially approved Rituxan …

CHICAGO – A new exhibit at The Field Museum examines life in everything from the Precambrian to the Quaternary periods, but it’s opening during a period when the theory of evolution is under attack by supporters of so-called “intelligent design.” Museum officials say that the timeliness is a coincidence — …

MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan – Pakistan’s army retaliated with helicopter gunships and artillery after pro-Taliban tribesmen clashed with security forces Saturday near the Afghan border. At least 49 people were killed in the fighting, a spokesman said. Anger has been stirring among the tribesmen since a military strike on a suspected …

NEW YORK – Teenage golfer Michelle Wie couldn’t believe she played golf with one of her role models, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s the secretary of state. They put me in charge of driving her around” in a golf cart, Wie told Time …

AMARILLO, Texas – Two wildfires erupted in this dry and windy Texas Panhandle city Thursday, destroying three homes, threatening about 40 others and prompting evacuation warnings, Texas Forest Service officials said. There were no immediate reports of injuries. About 400 acres were burning, though exact estimates were difficult because wind …

This is a partial transcript from “The O’Reilly Factor,” August 17, 2006, that has been edited for clarity. Watch “The O’Reilly Factor” weeknights at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET and listen to the “Radio Factor!” BILL O’REILLY, HOST: “Personal story” segment tonight, in 1999, the Ramsey family hired two …

LOS ANGELES – Republican Sen. Conrad Burns, whose re-election campaign is pressing for tighter immigration controls, referred to his house painter as “a nice little Guatemalan man” and suggested that worker as well as employees of a roofing company he hired might be in the country illegally. “The other day, …