An American is one of two journalists killed in Syria this morning as security forces lay siege to the city of Homs. Reporter Marie Colvin with Britain's Sunday Times and her photographer Remy Ochlik were killed. The Reuters news agency reports the two were inside a house hit by shelling and rockets.

Xavier Alvarez has lied about playing for the Detroit Red Wings, being secretly married to a Mexican actress, getting wounded multiple times during combat as a Marine, and receiving the Medal of Honor. For many, this list of tall tales may seem laughable. However, under the Stolen Valor Act of 2005, his lies about his military record could land him in jail for a year. On Wednesday the Supreme Court is set to hear his case and determine whether or not Americans should be imprisoned for things they say rather than actions they commit.

At present, there are nearly 7,000 languages being spoken worldwide. However, due to ageing populations and globalization's English-only emphasis, a language dies out every 14 days. At this rate, nearly half the world's languages will vanish in 100 years. Very often, these languages are lost without any record: no clues about pronunciation, let alone grammar or vocabulary. 

American journalist Marie Colvin has reportedly been killed in Syria along with Rémi Ochlik of France. Colvin wore a black eye patch after she lost an eye to shrapnel while reporting from Sri Lanka in 2001. But that didn't stop from venturing back into Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, to cover the uprising of the Arab people. That's what eventually took her to Homs in Syria, where she lost her life. Yesterday, she filed her last dispatch from the embattled city.

It's no secret that Google and Facebook are tracking and selling their users' information for marketing purposes. However, it may come as a surprise that campaigns have been successfully using microtargeting since 2004 to change election outcomes. Political parties extract data from internet users, then sort them into smaller and smaller segments based on demographic and browsing histories, targeting messages that directly relate to what they've been doing online. These segments are so precise that people within the same household will get different ads.

On May 5, 1993, the bodies of three 8-year-old boys were found murdered by a creek in West Memphis, Arkansas. One month later, teenagers Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley were arrested and later convicted of brutally raping, mutilating and killing the boys. After spending 18 years in prison, they were released after entering Alford pleas, a controversial plea in which defendants plead guilty while maintaining their innocence. The "Paradise Lost" trilogy has traced all of the case's developments.

The White House is rolling out an ambitious plan to overhaul the corporate tax code. President Obama wants to cut the corporate tax rate down to 28 percent from 35 percent. However, the new rule would close loopholes and popular eliminate subsidies currently enjoyed by American corporations. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will unveil the plan later today.

For the first time in nearly a month, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich will share a stage in Arizona, at a Republican presidential debate hosted at the Mesa Center of the Arts on Wednesday. The latest poll numbers from CNN have Romney in the lead with the support of 36 percent, and Santorum coming in at a close second with 32 percent of likely voters. While Romney's lead is far from decisive, many Arizona voters have yet to make up their minds.

Whether through hours of rote memorization or mnemonic devices, there's no real "secret" behind making or keeping a memory. Conversely, the best way to forget something painful has been a source of endless cliche and conjecture — until now. New developments in the understanding of the brain have made it possible to help trauma patients erase specific memories. When a memory is formed, new linkages are held together by PKM-zeta. To undo these connections, the enzyme only needs to be blocked.

Greece has once again narrowly avoided defaulting on their $172 billion debt by agreeing to more austerity measures and selling off profits to euro zone countries. However, it's unlikely this development will ease the dire situation of its population: nearly 20,000 Greeks are homeless and 21 percent are unemployed. Stateside, there were signs of recovery when on Tuesday the Dow hit 13,000 for the first time since 2008. But if the last four years have proved nothing else, it's that what happens across the globe can directly impact a market at home.

In Afghanistan this morning more than 1,000 protesters are gathering to protest the burning of Korans and Islamic holy books at the Bagram military base. This has triggered a second day of anti-American demonstrations. Crowds clashed with security forces furious about the way Islamic holy books at the base were destroyed.

Abigail Fisher, a white student from Sugarland, Texas, sued the University of Texas after she failed to receive admission. In "Fisher v. Texas," she claims she was turned down even though her application was just as strong as minority students who got in. Sometime in the fall, this case will be heard by the Supreme Court, the first affirmative action case heard in nearly a decade. With more conservative justices on the bench, the case could overturn the 2003 ruling that allows universities to take race into account during admissions as long as they didn't quantify their process.