LOS ANGELES -- Jackson Browne doesn't want John McCain running on anything fueled by his lyrics.

ROME -- Born 500 years too early to put her photo on an online dating site, this young woman tried a different matchmaking approach -- a portrait by Leonardo Da Vinci.

Martha Padgett gave birth to quadruplets in Riverside, Calif., in July, but she only did half the work. The other two babies were born to her partner, Karen Wesolowski, using Padgett's eggs and the same sperm donor, and whose two came along 22 hours after Padgett's two. The women carried two fertilized eggs each only because they had failed five times before with in-vitro fertilization and just wanted to improve the odds of having at least one child between them.

• "Someone's getting a new spinal cord tonight!" yelled Canadian tent-revival preacher Todd Bentley in July during his crusade in Lakeland, Fla. (also telecast on GodTV and the Internet), according to an Associated Press observer. Miracles are "popping like popcorn," he promised, punctuating each hands-on salvation with an Emeril-type "Bam!" His unorthodoxy extends to sometimes roughing up the afflicted, he admits, because that's what God tells him to do, e.g., kneeing a "cancer patient" in the stomach, banging a crippled woman's leg on a platform. Anyone in need of healing should, Bentley shouts often, "come and get some!"

Today is Sunday, Aug. 17, the 230th day of 2008. There are 136 days left in the year.

This classic Dave Barry column was originally published July 1, 2001.

What lies ahead for the European Union? This question is very much on the minds of concerned journalists looking for a way to take a tax-deductible vacation abroad. For this reason, I recently spent several weeks assessing the mood in a broad cross-section of Europe, ranging all the way from Paris, France, to several other parts of France.

CELEBRITIES BORN ON THIS DAY: Donnie Wahlberg, 39; Don McKellar, 45; Sean Penn, 48; Robert De Niro, 65

As it does with the death of a Jedi, the Force only grew stronger with Elvis Presley after his untimely passing on Aug. 15, 1977.

NEW YORK -- As the red light switched off and her program went into a commercial, Laura Ingraham's face dissolved from a smile into a frown -- then, a look of pure disgust.