The lightning rod was invented by Benjamin Franklin. In 1746 Franklin saw a public demonstration of static electricity in Europe and began to speculate whether or not lightning discharges in the sky could be related to static electricity. He decided to...

A lightning rod, (USA) or "lightning conductor," (UK) is a single component in a lightning protection system. In addition to rods placed at regular intervals on the highest portions of a structure, a lightning protection system typically includes a...

A Navy helicopter struck a power line during a training flight and crashed in a rugged area of the northern Nevada desert, killing all five crew members, the Navy said Tuesday.Navy investigators were on the scene early Tuesday to recover the bodies.The SH-60F helicopter, flying...

Peter Bart reports in today's L.A. editions of Variety that Viacom chief Sumner Redstone's relationship with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen is going south. According to his report-which relies on unnamed sources-the duo could walk in 15 months if their relationship with Mr. Redstone,...

A judge has dismissed a lawsuit against the social networking Web site MySpace filed by the family of a 13-year-old girl who says she was sexually assaulted by a 19-year-old man she met online.The $30 million lawsuit accused the site of having no measures to...

Thousands of people waving red-and-yellow Spanish flags protested in Madrid Saturday against a court ruling that shortened the prison sentence for one of the Basque separatist group ETA's most notorious killers.The crowd screamed "murderer, murderer, murderer" and accused the Socialist government of being soft on...