It took 400 deaths in a collapsed sweatshop factory complex in Bangladesh, but Western companies who sell cheap clothing—like Benetton and Gap and the Children's Place—might finally be paying some attention to the horrific conditions padding their comfortable profit margins. Disney, for the record, is reminding everyone that it started to bolt Bangladesh months ago after a terrible fire killed only several score factory workers.

Investigators knew pretty early that the Elvis impersonator first accused of mailing ricin to the president had probably been framed. But they kept him in jail for several more days, refusing requests to release him or show evidence, apparently while building a case against the new suspect.

A zero-tolerance policy means a teenager who loused up a dumb "science project"—mixing household chemicals to see what would happen—was expelled from her high school and now faces felony charges for bringing a weapon to school.

Poachers have murdered the final few rhinoceroses in Mozambique—after bribing poorly paid rangers at a wildlife preserve for access.

Call Stacy Keanan! Retired Pope Benedict XVI, with his feet on the ground, is moving back to the Vatican City, presumably to help current Pope Francis I, who has his head in the clouds, raise a spirited teenage girl under the watchful eyes of a sassy judge and football's Dick Butkus. Or maybe because his health is failing and he's dying. Maybe that, too.

Middle East peace might be the only referendum (in Israel) more divisive than water fluoridation.

The last time this many people died in Iraq in one month—712 in April—George W. Bush was president and the United States still had tens upon tens of thousands of troops "peacekeeping" in the place.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's college friends, according to cops who brought them in, figured out he was the Boston bombing suspect in the white hat even before news broke he and his brother were in a gunfight with cops in Watertown, and the friends promptly set about disposing of evidence like a backpack with gunpowder and his laptop.

Some right-wing chum: The government releases pictures of three Benghazi suspects.

An American running a tourism business in China is facing 15 years in a North Korean gulag in light of "hostile acts" against the government—a move that comes, coincidentally, just when Kim Jong Un finds himself scrambling for a bargaining chip in a tense back-and-forth with the United States.

Barack Obama's administration, turns out, isn't so comfortable with the idea that women might get the morning-after birth control pill over the counter. Officials are appealing a judge's order making them.

May Day was tame in Portland. It was decidedly not tame in Seattle, according to our chums up at the Stranger.

The county budget, after a long death march, is in better than it's been in years. And certainly better than Portland's...

Reports dropped yesterday detail the final hours of the Clackamas Town Center shooter and provide a wrenching blow-by-blow of how the would-be massacre during the holiday shopping season unfolded.

One if by head, two if by feet—three points for Portland? The Timbers welcome New England tonight for a matchup between a blossoming PTFC offense and a piecemeal NE defense. While the Timbers' attack appears more dangerous by the match, the Revolution can barely stand up a back-line, with New England's new formation and stretch their franchise-best unbeaten streak to seven games? Check back at 7:30 tonight for some High-Pitched Live Blog Action!

OH, AND THE REJECTED HEADLINE FOR OUR NONCONTROVERSIAL FLUORIDATION ENDORSEMENT? IT WAS "LESS FILLINGS, TASTES GREAT."