Consider the sweet potato. The nation’s obsession with low-and-no-carb everything has often left the potato maligned as a starch to be avoided. But the Boston Globe says the sweet potato is a different beast. Loaded with “a whopping dose of beta-carotene,” the tuber packs a serious amount of vitamins, enough to make its substantial amount of carbohydrates a good bet.

How much medical testing is too much? With middle age comes the bombardment of recommendations for health screenings says the LA Times: Mammograms. Colonoscopies, Stress Tests. All of it can be quite stressful and some of it-quite a bit of it, actually—is unnecessary. The problem with over-screening, according to health experts, is that it often leads to over-treatment.

Osama bin Laden is dead. Killed by US forces in Pakistan, the most wanted man in the world was buried at sea yesterday reports the New York Times. President Obama revealed the news in a late-night press conference last night, an announcement that set off an “extraordinary outpouring of emotion” all over the country. VIDEO FRONT-PAGE ROUNDUP

“I feel good.” That’s what James Brown’s daughter had to say after she won a small-claims lawsuit against the Godfather of Soul’s longtime tailor reports the Cleveland Plain-Dealer. Deanna Brown Thomas was suing to get custody of a silver cape the Cleveland couple, who produced all of Brown’s stage outfits, had made for him before his death.

On the front page of the Denver Post this morning is a 59-year-old man who’s been in solitary confinement for 28 years, the longest of any federal prisoner in the US penal system. His lawyers have submitted a 64-page brief, as part of a civil-rights lawsuit, that details his conditions over the years. The suit claims his punishment violates the Eighth Amendment, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment.

Andrew Kessler has opened a book store. That’s book, not books. The New York Times says the store has only one book in stock, 3000 copies of Kessler’s recently-published account of NASA’s 2008 Phoenix Mars Lander mission.  The store’s sole mission? To sell his book. Perhaps because he’s out of things to read, Kessler has had time to coin a new word—he calls himself “the Monobookist.”

America will soon lose one of its most famous citizens says the New York Post. In an upcoming issue, Superman will renounce his US citizenship. The iconic superhero says that, after riding out a wave of negative publicity over his recent intervention in Iran, “‘truth, justice and the American way’—it’s not enough anymore.”

Boston Globe columnist Joan Wickersham addresses a “delicate problem” in today’s paper: the case of the dud pet. In Wickersham’s very funny column, the dud in question is a cat: “The dud pet is the one you just can’t bond with. Your relationship is like a plane that taxis and taxis and never quite lifts off the runway. You try. You feed her and stroke her and talk to her. You do your duty, but you never feel the love.”

He’s kind of like Robin Hood—if Robin Hood were a homeless man from Florida and rode a bus instead of a horse. The St. Petersburg Times says after a homeless man robbed a bank and left with an undisclosed amount of money, he hopped on a bus and started handed out his booty to strangers.

When it comes to drinking water there are really only two options: safe to drink or not safe to drink. Unless, of course, you’re the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. Or claim to be. Then a third category—most likely safe—comes into play. The Wall Street Journal says stickers advertising the “may be safe” status have popped up next to public drinking fountains, apparently in opposition to a controversial plan to drill natural gas upstate.

Talk about being a good neighbor. The New York Times says there’s no sprawling refugee camp in the Tunisian town where Libyans have fled to escape Ghadafi’s forces. That’s because most of the refugees have been welcomed into the homes of their Tunisian neighbors. Says a UN spokesman for the High Commission on Refugees: “It’s the first time I’ve seen such an impressive response.”

Lara Logan will break her silence on “60 Minutes” this Sunday. But today, the CBS News correspondent gave Brian Stelter of the New York Times a preview interview, discussing publicly for the first time the attack she endured while covering the protests in Tahir Square earlier this year. Logan says the attack involved 200 or 300 men, who, “for an extended period of time, raped me with their hands.”

The rash of tornadoes and storms that tore up the South has a new destination says the Birmingham News: the record books. The “terrifying, live-on-TV tornado” plus the other storms that ravaged the region made Wednesday the “deadliest tornado day” in Alabama since March 21, 1932; it also set an informal record as the “most YouTubed, most shared on Facebook, most watched live by computer and on TV.” SEE FRONT PAGE ROUND-UP

Try to knock this one off. Kate Middleton’s dress was finally revealed as she walked down the aisle this morning. And the LA Times says not only does the Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen gown show Kate’s “deep admiration for British heritage,” it would be a doozy to try and replicate.

Springtime babies are at a greater risk for developing anorexia says the New York Post. A new study conducted by scientists at Oxford University has found, after studying the birth dates of almost 1300 anorexic patients, that most of their birthdays fell in the spring months, from March to June. One hypothesis is that a mother’s lack of vitamin D, due to the long winter months, has something to do with developing the disorder.

The New York Times features a clever alarm clock for kids in its tech section today. Basically, the clock has an image of sun or a moon, depending on the time of day.  But here’s the cool part: you determine the time of a day as the parent. So if you’ve got a kid who’s waking up at 5:30 am in the summer because the sun is up, you can (within reason) try to push them to sleep a little later by delaying the appearance of the sun until, say, 7:00 am.

“If there was a Nobel peace prize for cocktails,” writes the Sun Sentinel, “the margarita would win, hands down.” While the cocktail is synonymous in most minds with Mexico, the Sentinel reminds its readers that the Cinco de Mayo staple would not exist without the French.

Researchers at the University of Florida have released the first-ever list of the ten riskiest combinations of foods and “illness-causing microorganisms.” They say their goal was not to “freak people out,” but rather to point out the most common food-poisoning culprits so people can become savvier shoppers. The Gainesville Sun says together, the combinations are responsible for 3.9 million illnesses, 30,000 hospitalizations and 765 deaths each year in the US.

“I just like to look at pretty girls naked.” That was the excuse offered up by a man charged with video-taping several women who frequented his “self-service tanning business,” run out of a barn behind his house. The Gainesville Sun says the man charged $2 for twenty minutes of tan time, which, perhaps, should’ve been an indication that things weren’t up to code. The barn might’ve been a clue too. VIDEO

San Diego is home to the Padres and the Chargers but did you know it’s also home to a different breed of professional athlete? The San Diego Union-Tribune says its city is a “hotbed for top-notch jumping dogs,” the most famous of which is Smoke, a 4-year-old retriever, who is the reigning world champion in dock jumping. VIDEO

If you love to cook, you’ll want to check out the series of monthly Master Class columns the LA Times kicks off in its food section today. The paper asked four famous chefs to write articles detailing some of the tricks they’ve learned from their years in the kitchen. Thomas Keller is up first, with tips on how to salt and season your food.

If they’re “free,” then why do they cost so much? The Wall Street Journal‘s Scott McCartney explains why frequent-flier tickets cost so much these days. In addition to taxes, international airlines charge fuel surcharges on frequent-flier awards, a practice that US airlines have, so far, avoided. That means a British Airways ticket from London to New York bought with 50,000 miles will still cost you $566.50 in cash.

Midwesterners are inured to cold winters, bad floods and tornado season. But today, they’ll pretend to face an unlikely threat—an earthquake—in a region-wide preparedness drill. The Chicago Tribune talks to several geologists about the possibility of a big quake hitting the heartland, all who dismissed the idea as “silly.”

You may have babyproofed your home but have you babyproofed your marriage? Several studies say that the arrival of a couple’s first child usually corresponds with a dip in the satisfaction they get from their relationship. Most of the ill will, says the Wall Street Journal, has to do with “marital minefields such as divvying up baby-related responsibilities, money issues and expectations for sex and social lives.”

It’s known as the Greatest Two Minutes in Sports, but for Tom Durkin, it’s two minutes too long. The New York Times says Durkin, who has called the Kentucky Derby 13 times, declined to sign his contract with NBC this year because the job has given him “debilitating anxiety.”

Vinny Gorgeous says stop smoochin’.  The latest revelation to come out of Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous” Basciano’s capital murder and racketeering trial is classic. The New York Post says the mob boss had specific instructions for his underlings: “we don’t kiss in public no more.” Why? Because “the government’s taking pictures.”

If you’re not on the sick-of-it-already side of the fence, you’ll enjoy the great graphic the New York Post put together in anticipation of the royal wedding tomorrow. Apparently, Prince William and his best man will leave Clarence House—where Prince Charles lives—at 5:10 am, our time. Dad and Camilla will follow shortly. The Queen is next, scheduled to depart for Westminster Abbey at 5:40 am.

Next time you’re eating out, avoid ordering the armadillo. According to the New York Times, researchers now believe that the armored mammals can cause leprosy in humans. It joins a list of other diseases—the flu, H.I.V./AIDS and SARS—that have jumped from animal to human.

A jury in Washington has dismissed theft charges against a man accused of stealing, wait for it, a 99-cent hot dog. The Spokane Spokesman-Review says it took about five minutes for the “baffled jury” to come to their decision. Figuring in the cost of a trial, that hot dog turned out to cost taxpayers a whole lot more than just a dollar. Hope it was good.

For more than a year, officials in Colorado have been mulling a name change for Mesa State College. Rocky Mountain University was floated as a possibility. University of Western Colorado was another. But as negotiations became increasingly hostile, the Denver Post says school officials turned to a Venn diagram to decide on the new name, Colorado Mesa University.