What a South Florida family of psychics did for 20 years was criminal fraud, federal prosecutors say. But the Marks family's defense team says it was something very different — religion, free speech and a sincere belief in spiritual healing.

Hundreds of barefoot Filipinos marched on roads, carrying heavy wooden crosses and whipping their backs until they bled on Thursday in an annual gory religious ritual as the mainly Catholic Philippines observed near the end of the Lenten season.

Bali knows how to party. But what’s more, the Island of the Gods knows how to bring people together to have a good time and be healthy while rallying behind important causes.

A new study suggests that eating chocolate can help you stay thin. Researchers at the University of California-San Diego found that people who frequently eat chocolate have lower body-mass indexes than people who don’t. Other evidence indicates that chocolate can also ward off strokes, heart attacks, and diabetes. So here are 11 reasons to indulge in some s’mores this summer (no word yet on the health benefits of marshmallows) …

This year Yuri Knorozov would have turned 80. The Russian scientist proved false the hypothesis that the Maya script is impossible to decipher. The Moscow based Center of Mesoamerican Studies is named after him. The interest in Knorozov's personality is stirred by the predictions of the 2012 end of the word that was supposedly written in the Maya calendar.