When Minnesota's Riverview Community Bank opened for business in 2004, founder Chuck Ripka claimed divine inspiration - that God had told him to "pastor the bank" and, in exchange, that He would "take care of the bottom line," leading Ripka to use "prayer" as a theme in the bank's promotions. In October 2009, Riverview became only the sixth bank in the state to be shut down by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Riverview acknowledged that it had invested aggressively in real estate.

Dr. Hulda Clark, 80, passed away in September of multiple myeloma, an advanced cancer of the plasma cells. Before she was stricken, she had authored three books touting her eccentric remedies as cures, first, for "all diseases," and then, especially, cancer. In her books "The Cure for All Cancers" and "The Cure for All Advanced Cancers," she urged those diagnosed to immediately stop chemotherapy and embrace her quixotic regimens, to subdue the "parasites" that cause cancer.

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