A farmer sits on his parched land in the village of Gauribidanur in India’s southern Karnataka state on May 26, as a brutal heat wave continued to blister the country, claiming at least 1,100 lives and causing roads to melt in New Delhi. Pre-monsoon showers were forecast to soon provide relief to the south, where temperatures in some areas neared […]
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“In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.” – Margaret Thatcher
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Italy and Switzerland have agreed to redraw their border because global warming is melting the Alpine glaciers that mark their respective boundaries. The border had been fixed since 1861.
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. . . painless budget cuts, after 14-year-old Suvir Mirchandani of Pittsburgh calculated that government agencies could save $370 million a year in ink and paper costs by printing all documents in the thinner Garamond typeface instead of Times New Roman.
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PENNSYLVANIA Longest-running gas station (since 1909) RHODE ISLAND First U.S. circus performance SOUTH CAROLINA Largest sculpture garden (more than 1,400 works) SOUTH DAKOTA Most well-rested state TENNESSEE First self-service grocery store TEXAS Largest bat colony UTAH Highest per capita consumption of Jell-0 VERMONT Highest percentage of cat owners
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A New Zealand man who was bitten by a shark calmly stitched up his own wounds, then joined his friends at the pub while still bleeding and drank a beer before heading to the hospital. James Grant was spearfishing when the shark clamped down on his leg. “[| thought], ‘Bugger, now I have to try and get this thing off,’ “he said. […]
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88: Number of executions carried out in Saudi Arabia so far this year, already surpassing the total number in 2014; Amnesty International called the increase under Saudi’s new King Salman a “macabre spike”.
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A California man has paid off a $14,000 property-tax bill using only dollar bills and loose change. Larry Gasper says he wasn’t deliberately trying to inconvenience county officials with the unorthodox payment, which he transported to county offices in a wheelbarrow—causing the clerks’ jaws to drop. It’s just that he’s very short of money, and had to scrape up the […]
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The oldest person in the world, JeraleanTalley of Michigan, turned 116 last week. The two oldest persons ever known to science, Sarah Knauss of Pennsylvania and Jeanne Calment of France, reached 119 and 122, respectively.
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Shiite death squads have killed more than a dozen young Iraqis over the past month for wearing Western-style emo clothes. The Interior Ministry singled out the emo subculture—made up of youths who listen to Western emo music and wear tight jeans and long hair— last month, branding it “devil worshiping” and calling on the “moral police” to stamp it out. […]
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