Evidence That Syria Used Chemical Weapons Is Stacking Up
After a report last week presented some startling evidence that Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons against his own people, a follow up this week only bolsters the case.
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On Thursday, the president plans to deliver a speech focusing drone attacks and military detention — a pretty sweeping agenda for a simple policy speech, one that might signal a sea change in America's counterterrorism efforts, and Obama's foreign policy legacy.
After a report last week presented some startling evidence that Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons against his own people, a follow up this week only bolsters the case.
An official with the Library of Congress says a widely cited but poorly sourced report his office did on Iran's intelligence ministry has been pulled from circulation.
For the last six days the Brattli Tunnel in northern Norway has been closed. The culprit? A 27-ton truckload of a burning brown goat cheese called Brunost and the toxic gasses that emerge when you light the stuff on fire.
Many questions still remain about the disastrous Algerian hostage situation, including the biggest question of all: How did all those people die?
Our newest harrowing tale takes us to Madrid, where one woman fainted and somersaulted below... except she got saved in the nick of time — and there's video of the whole thing.
Voters are out in force for the national elections, and while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition was expected to retain power, high turnout is leading to chatter of a coming surprise. What will change?
Andrew Ross Sorkin on the myths of Davos, Elizabeth Economy on polluted Chinese water, John Cassidy on Obama's liberal agenda, Ruth Margalit on Israel's left, and William Pesek on Lew's strong dollar.
Prince Harry may have humble-bragged his way home from Afghanistan, all full of war stories and gunned-down insurgents, but the Taliban isn't having any of it.
Okay, maybe economist Gareth Morgan doesn't really want to exterminate cats. But he does want owners to keep their felines indoors for the rest of their lives and not replace them they die, because he believes cats will kill off New Zealand's native wildlife.
A series of three car bombs situated around the city of Baghdad exploded one right after another on Tuesday—right on the heels of a string of suicide attacks claiming 30 lives last week. This isn't going to make people feel better either: al Qaeda may be involved.
Russia's "Emergencies Ministry" has reportedly sent two airplanes to Lebanon, so that it can evacuate more than 100 Russian citizens who have fled Syria
Thanks to an unusual, unrelenting and contagious cancer, the global population of tasmanian devils is declining at an alarming rate, and the only way to save them seems to be removing the animals from their eponymous island.
For many lucky young Syrians, their country's civil war is so routine that they've forgotten what life was like before it started and so confusing that they're not sure what they believe in any more.
After a five-month tour of duty, Prince Harry is heading home from combat — with a little bragging on his way out of Afghanistan.
We got word on Friday that an American had died in the Algeria hostage situation, but now the AP reports, by way of a U.S. administration official, that two more Americans were killed in the standoff.
Paul Krugman on recapping Obama's first-term successes, Simon Johnson on Bernanke's successor, Jason Burke on al-Qaeda's non-resurgence, Alan Johnson on Israeli elections, and Penn Bullock on stand-your-ground laws.
With news of yet another pair of horrific incidents, the recent spate of gangs attacking and raping women on buses in India is now a trend.
It's the day after the Algerian hostage situation ended, and cleanup crews are still searching for anything that could help them piece together what exactly happened inside the gas facility that was occupied by Al Queda-linked terrorists for four days. What they're finding inside: more bodies.
Unless you want to get the crap kicked out of you by every member of his crew. And, as one unlucky would-be assassin found out Saturday, the leader of Bulgaria's Turkish party rolls deep. Oh, did we mention the whole thing was caught on tape?
After one final assault from the Algerian military, the standoff with militant Islamic attackers at a gas plant is finally over. The military moved in to end the conflict after the hostage takers set part of the facility on fire -- and the whole place was rigged to explode.
The AP has now identified the dead American hostage, by way of unnamed U.S. officials, as Frederick Buttaccio of Katy, Texas, a Houston suburb. It was unclear how he died, though his body has been recovered and his family notified.
Howard Kurtz on the media and Manti Te'o, Paul Krugman on the deficit non-crisis, Jill Lepore on Roe v. Wade at 40, Mimi Whitefield on Cuba's travel restrictions, and Molly Redden on Teddy Turner.
The Algerian military says it's searching the premises after a confusing day, leaving the rest of us to figure out what the French operation in Mali has to do with possibly hundreds of people fending for their lives, complete with escaping hostages (some of them American) who may have had explosives strapped to their chests, plus helicopters, a U.S. drone, angry Brits, and more.
In a turnaround for the Pentagon, the U.S. has agreed to help French troops deploy to the west African nation, where the French military is currently trying to push back on the ground against a growing faction of militants.
A dangerous standoff is taking place at a gas facility in the Sahara Desert, where Islamic militants are holding dozens of oil company employees hostage, and Algerian soldiers have attempted to free them.
Despite the ongoing and controversial efforts of their lawyers to paint the alleged attackers as victims, it looks like swift justice will hammer down on the men accused of gang-raping a woman on a bus in New Delhi — and there's already been a prison fight.
Dana Milbank on kids being used in the gun debate, Fred Kaplan on Mali, Jonathan Mahler on Lance Armstrong, Slavoj Žižek on European elites, and Ricky Sekhon on playing bin Laden in Zero Dark Thirty.
A new poll conducted by The New York Times and CBS News says that one of the most popular initiatives being pushed by gun control advocates is pretty popular among gun owners too.
The anti-corruption official charged with arresting Pakistan's prime minister on bribery charges is refusing to obey a Supreme Court order to do so, setting off another showdown between the courts and the executive branch.
A group of al-Qaeda militants snuck over the border from Mali into Algeria on Wednesday morning and claims to have taken 41 hostages from a gas production facility, including seven Americans. The situation appears to have become larger and more serious than previously imagined.
The latest evidence that the international elephant poaching trade hasn't gotten any better was revealed late Tuesday, hiding underneath a container of precious stones on its way from Tanzania to Indonesia.
Things just keep getting bleaker for the two Pussy Riot members still in prison. Today, Maria Alyokhina asked a Russian court to defer her sentence until her 5-year-old becomes a teenager. They denied her plea at an emotional hearing, sending her straight back to jail.
Debra Saunders on the White House press corps, Maureen Dowd on President Standoffish, Simon Jenkins on EU membership, Karin Klein on the right to die, and Mark Mills on California's fracking goldmine.
The Islamic militant group holding a French intelligence agent for last three years says he survived the botched rescue attempt made by his countrymen, but that they have decided to kill him anyway in retaliation.
Two people were killed after a helicopter crashed into a construction crane and fell to the street in Central London this morning.
Tesco, the United Kingdom's largest retailer, just pulled two frozen beef burger products, after Irish regulators found a large percentage of the patties contained horse meat.
In a classified leak that could signal a crossing of President Obama's "red line," a report surfaced Tuesday evening that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his military forces used poison gas in a deadly attack last month.
This may come as a surprise to twits on this side of the pond who think of British people as a foul-mouthed, rabble-rousing, constantly cursing lot, but until now it was illegal to use 'insulting' language in Britain.
The emotional divide between increasingly ugly new accusations and apparently unflinching politicians expanded on Tuesday, as thousands of protestors took to the Indian state of Goa over reports that seven-year-old girl was raped in a school restroom.
With more and more defectors heading south, the North Korean regime spent $1.66 million on over 16,000 border-security cameras in the first 11 months of 2012, as it continues to build a spy network on its own citizens.
Alan, the adorable dachshund who became a social media celebrity, was killed in a revolving door accident at Vogue House, the London home of Tatler magazine.
Jeffrey Toobin on Obama's gay marriage stance, David A. Bell on France's domestic malaise, Matthew Yglesias on dueling hedge-fund managers, Dana Milbank on Obama's new bad-cop routine, and Mark Frazier on an aging China.
Things are growing tense in the Pakistani capital on Tuesday as the Supreme Court ordered the arrest of the nation's prime minister, even as thousands of demonstrators descended on Parliament looking to bring down the government.
In his first media appearance since visiting President Obama in Washington, Hamid Karzai announced that the United States had agreed to give his country a fleet of drones.
The United Nations wants to remind everyone that while the world was busy worrying about North Korea's terrible nuclear missiles they were ignoring North Korea's even more terrible human rights abuses.
The former Prime Minister of Italy argued (not so persuasively) that he would be too busy campaigning to pay attention to a child prostitution trial. A judge on Monday thought otherwise.
Antonio Villaraigosa on immigration reform, George Packer on Southern Republicans, Jennifer Welsh on France's intervention in Mali, Chris Cillizza on the Senate losing its lions, and Gary Younge on Obama's Iraq amnesia.
France continued its attack on Islamist rebels in northern Mali today as the nation suddenly finds itself taking the lead in the war against al Qaeda terrorists in Africa.
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