he millionaires' club in the U.S. grew by 16 percent in 2009, following a 27 percent decline in 2008. Families with a net worth of at least $1 million, excluding primary residences, rose to 7.8 million in 2009, an increase from 6.7 million a year earlier, according to a survey of high- net-worth U.S. households conducted by Spectrem Group. "With the markets trending upwards, we expected an increase," George H. Walper Jr., president of Spectrem Group, said in a telephone interview. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index increased 24 percent in 2009 and has risen 68 percent over the past 12 months.

Theirs was a whirlwind New York City Christmas, but while true love is timeless, vacations are not. Sadly, it came time for one of the lovebirds to fly home to California, and the other, Haisong Jiang - love-struck as if Cupid hit him not with an arrow, but with a two-by-four to the head - saw his beloved to the security line at Newark Liberty International Airport.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. told law students Tuesday that he found it "very troubling" to be surrounded by loudly cheering critics at President Obama's State of the Union address, saying it was reason enough for the justices not to attend the annual speech to Congress.

A Pennsylvania woman has been charged with plotting to kill a Swedish man and trying to recruit fighters via the Internet to commit violent attacks overseas, the U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday.

One of the oddities of the health-care reform debate is that we tend to despise insurers for two contradictory things.

It's protest season again in Washington. Demonstrators gathered in Washington on Tuesday to show their support for President Obama's health care plan.

Former Rep. Eric Massa, who resigned from Congress amid sexual harassment allegations, acknowledged Tuesday groping a staffer but denied it was sexual.

Look for your tubes: those tube-based potato chips are having a recall. A Pringles recall was announced on Tuesday, based on that old, familiar risk: salmonella.

Legislation extending unemployment insurance for the long-term jobless faces a key test vote in the Senate, its momentum helped by about 60 popular tax breaks for individuals and businesses that expired at the end of last year.

Edgar Wayburn, 103, a physician and five-time Sierra Club president who is credited with protecting more wilderness and parkland than any other American citizen, died March 5 at his home in San Francisco. No cause of death was reported.

As a volunteer conservationist for more than 50 years, he was a behind-the-scenes force for wilderness protection who never earned the widespread renown of contemporaries such as the outspoken environmental activist David Brower and photographer Ansel Adams.

A shooting at an Ohio State University campus maintenance building left one employee dead and two others wounded, the university said Tuesday.

Greece's debt crisis may lead to slower U.S. growth, a rising dollar and turmoil in credit markets that may make it more difficult for cash-strapped states such as California to borrow.

The Energizer Bunny keeps going and going, but he picked up a nasty Trojan along the way.

The Ulster Unionist Party has confirmed it will reject the deal brokered to stabilise Northern Ireland's power-sharing government when a crunch Assembly vote is held Tuesday.

This March 1, 2003 file picture shows Khalid Sheik Mohammed, shortly after his capture during a raid in Pakistan.

Gov. Ted Strickland on Monday postponed the execution of a convicted killer who managed to take an overdose of pills in his death row cell and was found unconscious just hours before he was to be driven to his execution.

Karl Rove, often described as President George W. Bush's brain, defended the former president in a new book against claims that he lied to the American public in order to invade Iraq in 2003.

The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will review whether the anti-gay protests at funerals of American soldiers are protected by the First Amendment. The case is brought by a Maryland father whose son's 2006 funeral was picketed by members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan. Westboro pastor Fred Phelps contends that the deaths of American soldiers are punishment for the nation's tolerance for homosexuality .

A gunman this morning shot a father and son who run a North Dallas financial services company, then turned his weapon on himself, police said. The father and son, 63 and 39 respectively, were taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where they were in stable condition. .