WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- In the scrappy and often violent brand of rugby played at my school in South London, a "hospital pass" was a throw of the ball to a player when the opposition forwards were bearing down on him, guaranteeing him a bone-crushing place at the bottom of a pile of heavyset teenagers with big boots.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 (UPI) -- The background of President-elect Obama's pick to head the Department of Homeland Security will reveal a lot about how his nascent administration views the future of the troubled agency, according to Washington insiders.

LOS ANGELES, March 12 (UPI) -- Hollywood's Warner Bros. studio reportedly plans to break the seventh and last "Harry Potter" book up into two movies.

BURBANK, Calif., Nov. 16 (UPI) -- British film stars Jim Broadbent and Helen McCrory have joined the cast of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, at a meeting Friday, promised a plan for countering the threat of homemade bombs in the United States.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- President Bush’s homeland security adviser Fran Townsend says there will be no major changes to the administration’s controversial border and identity programs as a result of the White House’s new National Strategy for Homeland Security.

WASHINGTON, July 6 (UPI) -- Experts see cracks in Congress' plan to improve security by requiring passports for all U.S. citizens re-entering the country.

BURBANK, Calif., March 23 (UPI) -- Daniel, Rupert and Emma will reunite as Harry, Ron and Hermione in the last two "Harry Potter" films, Warner Bros. Pictures said Friday in Burbank, Calif.

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- Warner Bros. Pictures has bought the film rights to the fantasy novel, "Here, There Be Dragons," prior to the U.S. release of the children's book next week.