Five Months Later, Weathermen Realize the Name 'Sandy' Is Too Sad to Re-Use
The World Meteorological Organization announced the retirement after deciding that the name was, well, "inappropriate."
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Guatemalan dictator José Efraín Ríos Montt, convicted of committing acts of genocide earlier this month, will not be headed to prison. For the time being he'll return to house arrest, after the country's highest court ordered a restart to his trial.
The World Meteorological Organization announced the retirement after deciding that the name was, well, "inappropriate."
After several weeks of rising tensions and ever present threats of violence, both North and South Korea might finally be ready to start slowly backing away from each other with firing any shots.
After mastering the art of drones (by way of Photoshop) and the science of sending a monkey (that was not real) into space, the latest breakthrough out of Iran is a "time machine." The only thing stopping production, apparently, is the fear that China will make millions of crappy versions of it.
The British Prime Minister's office has released the list of dignataires invited to next week's funeral for Margaret Thatcher, a roster of guests that includes the Queen and every living U.S. president.
An edited version of Quentin Tarantino's latest revenge-murder fest, Django Unchained, was supposed to open in China today, but was yanked from all its theaters—in some cases, even after the opening credits had already started rolling.
Uruguay became the second predominantly Roman Catholic country to legalize gay marriage on Wednesday night, sending cheers through the streets of Monte Video. Stateside, the mood remains sober.
Like any other discovery involving ancient dinosaurs, Wednesday's announcement presents a very important question: What does this have to do with re-making Jurassic Park, and more than just in 3-D? The authors of a new study published in Nature aren't too optimistic.
The total reported impact of this still very mysterious strain has grown to eight deaths and 24 infected people, but the bird flu might just be a lot worse than China is letting on — and it wouldn't be the first time the country's health officials have "covered up" a major disease threat.
Because North Korea is nothing if not considerate, their state media warned any foreigners on the peninsula today that they might want to go home soon—unless want to take their chances of surviving "a merciless sacred retaliatory" thermonuclear war.
North Korean workers didn't show up for work at the Kaesong factory complex Tuesday. Don't be jealous, though. This puts the future of the factory site and one of the country's biggest economic sources in jeopardy.
That whole secret report on gay sex and bribery and the Pope aside, the Catholic Church is known for being fairly uptight when it comes to doing the deed. So you might be surprised to learn that new IP logs and DVD titles reveal a mysterious Vatican City resident with a taste for leather. Sexy leather.
Plenty of politicians make enemies in their lives, but few have inspired as much vitriol from their critics as Margaret Thatcher. It's a hate that survived her exile from power, her late decline into dementia, and more than two decades of the passage of time. And it had no problem showing its face Monday as news of her death spread across the word.
Thieves in the German town of Bad Hersfeld spirited away some 5.5 tons of the chocolate-hazelnut spread over the weekend. But if you can trick one of the top schools in the United States into paying $2,500 per week for Nutella, perhaps everyone should get in the chocolate topping business.
Margaret Thatcher, the first woman to ever serve as prime minister of the United Kingdom, has died at the age of 87. This is the story of a respected, controversial life as reactions arrive from across the globe.
Amid confusion over a South Korean statement about a possible nuclear test, North Korea has dropped a smaller bombshell on the peninsula, announcing they will effectively shutdown their joint-industrial complex near the border.
In the past week or so, police in Gaza City are cracking down on what they believe is a scourge of sacrilegious young men based on some pretty questionable criteria: fancy hair styles and fashionable pants.
A South Korean newspaper is reporting that North Korean troops are scurrying around the site where it tested a nuclear bomb on February 12, its third ever. All signs point to a fourth, and the timing couldn't be worse.
To ring in this year's Holocaust Memorial Day, the classy hackers at Anonymous took down a bunch of Israeli government websites on Sunday and say they caused over $3 billion in damage.
Ikea's having trouble with their meat products again. Months after pulling the product from their stores, the company admitting this weekend that a batch of its moose lasagna contained trace amounts of pork.
Chinese President Xi Jinping used his first speech since taking over to indirectly call out North Korea for being so prickly lately. He never mentioned the country by name, but it's pretty clear who he was referring to.
Amid all of the very real threats of war and stuff from North Korea, you'd think American intelligence officers want as much video footage of the enemy as possible. Well, here is one video featuring North Korean exercises and Kim Jong-Un holding a gun, and we'll say this: they certainly get points for presentation.
Reportedly facing pressure from U.N. security council allies, the U.S. is considering jumping into the Syrian conflict.
The nuclear negotiations between Iran and the western power brokers appeared to be achieving something. But when the parties emerged from the final meeting of two days worth of talks, nothing had changed and everything had fallen apart.
Every day, and especially of late, it seems we get new word of North Korea's latest provocation, but little is said about South Korea's role in this international standoff. Is is possible the neighboring nation (and United States) is deliberately pushing Kim Jong-un's buttons?
Even before he was elected, people have been asking what the new Pope intended to do. Now that he's answered them, they still don't just want more statements and apologies — they want action.
The U.S. drone war remains cloaked in secrecy, and as a result, questions swirl around it. Who exactly can be targeted? When can a U.S. citizen be killed? Another, perhaps less frequently asked question: What happens when innocent civilians are killed in drone strikes?
Six people are dead from the H7N9 strain. The number of infected has grown to to 14. A new scare just hit Hong Kong. The U.S. has begun early research for a vaccine. And now China has slaughtered 20,000 chickens, ducks, geese, and pigeons to try and cut off the health risk at the source. So: Is it time to panic yet?
The situation on the Korean peninsula is not getting any better today, as the North continues to posture as though it's ready to start a war.
A new report helps explain why Pakistan has resisted international pressure to crack down on Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the world's most dangerous militant organizations, after it killed 166 people in Mumbai — six U.S. citizens included — and came close to sparking conflict between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India.
It's easy to take North Korea's constant proclamations of war with a grain or heap or silo of salt. But when intercepted internal communications reveal that they're planning to launch a mobile ballistic missile? Well, maybe we should take that a little more seriously.
As they say, one small step for world peace, one giant leap for Photoshop.
A number of sources have told South Korea's Yonhap news agency that North Korea just moved its mid-range Musudan missile to the east coast of the country. That's towards the United States.
Parisiens did a funny thing on Wednesday. As spring flowers started to peek above the soil and the sun rode higher in the sky, a number of the city dwellers flocked to greet their newest lawnmowers: a group of shaggy black sheep.
After deleting the tweet in an attempt to cover up their mistake, the United States Embassy in Cairo is dealing with a second round of backlash for tweeting a to a Daily Show segment criticizing the Egyptian government.
The U.S. is deploying a new missile defense system in Guam to protect American forces from any potential North Korean attacks. It's the latest move in the ongoing chess battle between the Western powers and North Korea, and Chuck Hagel promises he's takings "seriously." But is he, really?
Satellite imagery in a Human Rights Watch report documents the extent of destruction following religious violence in Burma last month — at least 800 buildings, mostly homes, burned to the ground.
A fire broke out at a five-star hotel in the capital of Chechnya on Wednesday, damaging nearly every floor of the 35-story building — including an apartment owned by French tax-dodger Gerard Depardieu.
Any reader of George Eliot is familiar with Britain's class system, by which Britons sort themselves, either ironically or seriously, into rigidly-defined castes, based on things like education, type of employment, and wealth. In order to sort out the confusion inherent to such a system, the BBC wrote an interactive calculator to determine which class you belong to.
China's air pollution problem — which contributed to 1.2 million deaths in the country in 2010 — has gotten sharply worse in 2013. And the threat isn't contained to China. But things are still as ugly as ever in Beijing.
Every day hundreds of South Korean workers make their way across a special border crossing to work at a North Korean industrial complex that is jointly run by both nations. But not today.
When the obscure airline Samoa Air announced on Tuesday that it would begin charging passengers by how much they weighed, you had to wonder: Would such a practice ever catch on at, say, American Airlines? Could it? Think not of the emotions. Think of the logistics.
About 90 million Americans believe aliens exist. Some 66 million of us think aliens landed at Roswell in 1948. These are the things you learn when there's a lull in political news and pollsters get to ask whatever questions they want.
In the latest round of back-and-forth provocations, North Korea announced today it would restart its nuclear program and will no longer hide the fact that its planning to use it to make bombs.
It would have been hard to predict that one of the events that most clearly articulated the line between the Tea Party and other conservatives on economic issues would be the failure of two banks on a Mediterranean island.
Ian Crouch on Kevin Ware's injury, Paul Krugman on California's absent crisis, Michael Brendan Dougherty on the golden era of baseball, Kurt Schlichter on losing the gay marriage battle, and Mary McConnell on homeschooling.
Two men from Shanghai have died from a new strain of bird flu in the last month, sparking rumors that it might be related to the "pig soup" that has taken over local rivers.
North Korea ratcheted up its vague but unending threats against the United States, South Korea and other Western nations with another twist as when Kim Jong-Un called a rare party meeting. Apparently in response, the U.S. Air Force sent a fresh batch of the radar-dodging F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jets.
Nothing ruins a nice Easter weekend worse than an oil spill and a deadly accident at a nuclear power plant. Just ask the people of Arkansas. That's how they spent their holiday.
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