Last night's apocalyptic explosion at a flaming Texas fertilizer plant has left an unknown number of people dead, including firefighters, and well more than 150 injured, with daylight revealing awful images of a town half-flattened in a blast heard and felt 45 miles away. High winds are now throwing around dangerous and suffocating clouds of ammonium nitrate. The plant's operators had filed an emergency report stating there was no risk to the public. Here's some video of the blast, if you haven't seen it yet.
Two men caught on video before bombs went off at the Boston Marathon have attracted the keen interest of investigators. Fresh updates on the attack's aftermath, for what it's worth, are here.
An Elvis impersonator was arrested on suspicion of mailing ricin-filled letters to the president and lawmakers. His biggest crime, if he's the guy, is thinking elected officials actually open their own mail.
A new strain of deadly bird flu is infecting humans who haven't come into contact with live birds. Just other people. Which is worrisome.
North Korea will talk to the United States if the United States promises to abstain from "nuclear war practice"—craftily ensuring we'll be woefully unprepared if and when a real one starts.
The former president of Pakistan, with the help of well-armed bodyguards, bolted from a courtroom where he had just been denied bail and ordered back in custody, and then sped away in a waiting vehicle.
A bipartisan pseudo-filibuster put down hopes for even a watered-down compromise on gun purchase background checks, and President Barack Obama got awfully and delightfully angry. That's okay. The bill was doomed from the start.
Chicagoland is drowning.
Pipsqueak students spotted fatal errors in the Excel files that underpin a right-wing-beloved study making harsh claims about government debt and lousy economic growth.
Wellesley College classily rebuffed a principal's bitter ploy to wreck the future of a West Virginia senior who publicly denounced her high school's Dark Ages policy on birth control.
Taking a look at Nick Fish's Fair Housing Action Plan after nearly two years, the Oregonian reports slow progress in putting the thing into place.
WHAT THIS SAYS HERE IS THAT THERE'S THIS SEAGULL WITH A HOLE IN ITS NECK THAT KEEPS ON RE-EATING THE FOOD FALLING OUT OF IT.
