That "polar vortex" everyone east of the Rockies seems to be moaning about—even the people with heated homes and televisions and high-speed internet? It's come to visit America only because the jet stream that normally keeps it tightly confined to the Arctic forgot to eat its spinach and flopped down all over us. Think of it like a weather prolapse!

Everyone knows the FBI spied on peace activists more than 40 years ago and strutted around generally like a bunch of Yankee KGB agents. But the only reason we know that is because a bunch of activists broke into a small FBI field office in 1971 and stole the confidential documents proving it. Those now-gray-haired burglars, past the statute of limitations for a conviction, have decided the Age of Snowden made for a fine time to finally reveal themselves.

Senate Democrats are short three Republican votes in their push to advance legislation restoring cash payments for the long-term unemployed. The bill will still likely die in the House even if it gets past the Senate. But that's the point, putting the GOP on the hook for killing the thing.

Janet Yellen, thanks to yesterday's Senate confirmation, will be the first Democrat in more than 30 years to run the Federal Reserve. (She's also the first woman.) Yellen, beloved by economists, wasn't President Obama's first choice.

JPMorganChase yawned before taking out the giant cash bulge in its pocket and peeling off $1.7 billion more in federal fines—this time over its laxity in helping along the Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme.

Sectarian violence, with Sunni factions straining against Shiite rule, is boiling over in Iraq's faraway provinces now that the American troops that started the whole thing a decade ago have pulled out.

Syria's rebels have figured out they've spent more time killing each other than fighting the loyalist forces of dictator Bashar al-Assad. Some of them want to stop that.

In Germany, where a growing Muslim population has caused reactionary alarm over security threats, the government has begun building lessons on Islam into its public school curriculum—hoping they'll serve as an inoculation against radicalism.

Dennis Rodman is defending the silly parade of has-been basketball pros he's leading into North Korea. “I love my friend," he said of despot Kim Jong Un. "This is my friend.”

Run Run Shaw, billionaire Hong Kong movie producer, is the reason kung fu movies exist. He was knighted by the queen and yet beloved by China's communist rulers. He lived in a castle. He died in that castle today. He was 106.

A shotgun-wielding burglar was pushed down a flight of stairs and knocked unconscious during a struggle in St. Johns last night, the cops say.

Hempstalk, Portland's decade-old pot festival, isn't welcome in Waterfront Park this year, city officials have told organizers, citing pot-smoking and pot-eating—setting the stage for an angry permit appeal hearing in city hall late this week.

"THEY'RE SMOKING MARIJUANA... I'M NOT GOING TO TOLERATE THE POLICE DOING NOTHING ABOUT THIS.... IT'S ILLEGAL."