Australians

Australians are more religious than many people think, according to the Rev. Gary Bouma, an Anglican priest and lecturer at Monash University in Australia. In an article written for the Australian magazine Church and Nation, Bouma wrote, "It cannot be said that Australians are essentially secular and irreligious when about 58% claim to be religious persons; two-thirds pray, meditate or contemplate occasionally or more frequently, and only 4.5% claim to be atheists."

Roger Penske's team ran out the clock on Michael Andretti's team, giving the Indianapolis 500 pole to Ryan Briscoe . The Australian won it with a daring late-afternoon run and a four-lap average of 226.484 mph. Then Briscoe had to wait, watch and wonder whether anyone else could beat it. Canadian James Hinchcliffe nearly did. But after going 227.009 on a warmup lap, the man who had the No. 1 seeding in the pole shootout slowed...

Martin Iti, a 6-foot-11 Australian basketball player who spent the last three years crisscrossing the United States in search of a high school that suited him and his guardian, has enrolled at the Winchendon School in Winchendon, Mass., according to Richard Plank, the school's director of admissions. Iti will be classified as a junior. It will be his sixth school in four states since arriving in the United States in May 1998. Classes begin Sept. 10.

Australian Will Power held off a charging Simon Pagenaud to win the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach on Sunday, Power's second consecutive win in the Izod IndyCar Series. Pagenaud finished second, James Hinchcliffe was third and Tony Kanaan took fourth. With five laps left in the 85-lap race on Long Beach's seaside streets, Power was about five seconds ahead of Pagenaud. But Power was running low on fuel, and as he slowed slightly in the final laps to conserve fuel Pagenaud slashed his lead to less than one second.

Police shot and killed a man armed with explosives who took 10 Australians hostage on a tourist bus in northern China, the official New China News Agency reported. The news agency, citing local police, said a man identified as Xia Tao hijacked the bus in the popular tourist city of Xian. The agency said he was shot after a standoff lasting almost three hours. Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said the hijacker's motives were not known. "There is no indication this was particularly aimed at Australia or Australians," he told Australia's Nine Network television.

A man from Melbourne, Australia, who allegedly used an Internet blog to threaten violence at the Grove shopping mall has been arrested by authorities in Australia. The Victoria Police Force has charged Jarrad Willis, 20, with "creating a false belief," a violation of Australian law, Los Angeles Police Department officials said Friday. "The suspect did not have any operational capacity to carry out his threat," said LAPD Deputy Chief Michael Downing.

A security guard accused in the 1999 killing of an Australian missionary and his two sons in eastern India testified that he was responsible and that 11 other defendants are not guilty. Graham Staines, 58, and his sons were burned alive in their jeep in Manoharpur, 145 miles north of the city of Bhubaneshwar. The killings were part of a series of attacks on missionaries and Christian institutions attributed at the time to activists who claimed that poor Hindus were being coerced to convert.

As their nation's bicentennial approaches, Australians are searching their roots and many have found jailbirds among them. Genealogy has become a fad as the country gears up for the 1988 celebrations to mark the arrival of the first European settlers, which included what is known as the First Fleet--11 ships carrying 736 convicts from England. A few years ago many Australians were ashamed to admit blood links to the First Fleet. Now, it's fashionable.

Los Angeles' fourth-oldest newspaper, the 97-year-old B'nai B'rith Messenger, has been sold and major changes are planned for the weekly, its new owners said. The city's oldest Anglo-Jewish weekly was purchased by a group of Australian investors headed by real estate developer Joe Bobker. The paper was sold to Bobker by outgoing executive editor Rabbi Yale Butler and his Pittsburgh-based family. The Butlers had run the paper for 12 years.

He calls his head coach "mate" and lives to tell about it. He has a standing offer to buy beer for the entire citizenry of St. Louis. He hops like a kangaroo after sacking a quarterback. You would remember Colin Scotts if you met him. Somewhere between the story about driving a special car with square wheels and the one about his first experience with football pads, you'd have no choice.

Top-ranked Victoria Azarenka lost for the first time this year when she was beaten by Marion Bartoli , 6-3, 6-3, in Wednesday night's quarterfinals of the Sony Ericsson Open at Key Biscayne, Fla. Azarenka had won 26 consecutive matches, a streak that began at the start of this year. Her start was the best on the women's tour since Martina Hingis was 37-0 to begin 1997. Azarenka had won her four previous tournaments this year, including the Australian Open for her first Grand Slam title.

Left for dead near the summit of Mt. Everest, Australian adventurer Lincoln Hall survived the night alone, without supplies, in temperatures well below zero. And then he got lucky. As dawn broke, one of the last teams of climbers to ascend the mountain in 2006 encountered Hall sitting cross-legged near a ledge with a precipitous drop. His first words were, "I imagine you are surprised to see me here. " The team abandoned its own summit attempt to rescue Hall, whose wife and two sons had already been told he was dead.

While the majority of attention in pro tennis is devoted to the top men's trio of Novak Djokovic , Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer , there is close competition for the top spot on the women's side, too. Tuesday in Indian Wells, No. 1 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus and No. 2 Maria Sharapova of Russia (by way of Bradenton, Fla., and Manhattan Beach, Calif.) advanced to the quarterfinals of the BNP Paribas Open. That brought a rematch of their recent Australian Open final, won by Azarenka, a step closer.

Maria Sharapova is fond of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells. Even if she has won it only once in her first nine tries, even though she's suffered some of her most lopsided career defeats here. "It was one of my first big pro tournaments," Sharapova said Wednesday. " I won my first round and then I played Monica Seles for my only time. She was seeded, I thought I played extremely well and then I looked at the score line and it was bad. It was pathetic. " The score was 6-0, 6-2 in favor of Seles and even now, Sharapova said, looking at that score is painful.

Victoria Azarenka, the No. 1 female tennis player in the world and winner of the most recent major tournament, the Australian Open, is being gentle with a pupil. She is filming a promotional spot last week at the Mulholland Tennis Club and good-naturedly giving a simple tennis lesson to a novice. "Bend your arm," Azarenka says. "Knees low. Reach for it. " As tennis balls spray everywhere, Azarenka fetches them, laughing. "Yes, I am the real coach now. I'm picking up the balls.

Apple's lawsuit against Samsung in Australia expanded Friday from three claims of patent infringement claims to 278, according to reports. The suit also grew from Apple singling out just one device -- Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 -- as a patent infringer to a total of 10 devices that are allegedly breaking the law, according the news sites of The Australian and TheNextWeb . The staggering expansion caught Samsung off guard, according...

If UCLA really is more than two touchdowns better than Arizona State, as oddsmakers would have us believe, the most interesting aspect of tonight's game at the Rose Bowl might be the punting of Arizona State's Brad Williams. Maybe it will be, anyway. Williams, a native of Perth, Australia, is probably the most unorthodox punter in college football. He grew up playing Australian rules football--described by a Mesa (Ariz.

David Hicks, an Australian captured among Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, was expected to be handed over soon to the U.S. military by the Northern Alliance, but his future was undecided, the Australian government said Friday. Atty. Gen. Daryl Williams said the hand-over would ensure that Hicks, 26, was held in a safe location. In addition, Australian authorities would have access to interview the captive, Williams said.

The Australian Open begins Monday in Melbourne (Sunday in the U.S.) and the injury scorecard is already cluttered before the season's first major. Serena Williams has already hurt her ankle and Venus Williams didn't make the trip to Australia as she deals with an autoimmune disorder that she disclosed at the 2011 U.S. Open. Roger Federer has been spotted clutching at his achy back. Rafael Nadal has been seen using a bag with wheels to cart around his tennis gear instead of slinging one over a sore shoulder.

Tennis star Venus Williams has withdrawn from the Australian Open, more than four months after announcing that she has Sjogren's syndrome . "After several months of training and treatment, I am making steady progress to top competitive form," the 31-year-old wrote on her website Monday. "My diet and fitness regimen have allowed me to make great strides in terms of my health and I am very close to being able to return to WTA competition. " Williams finished, "I have every intention to return to the circuit in February.