The results of a huge, seven-year study in rural South Africa are in, and god damn: by giving antiretroviral drugs daily to 100,000 people in Kwazulu-Natal, researchers were able to raise the entire region's life expectancy by more than a decade. From the LA Times:
According to a document found by the Associated Press in Timbuktu, members of al-Qaeda in North Africa were in possession of a fairly detailed instruction manual for avoiding drone attacks. The document, which includes an easy-to-use list, is a copy of a paper reportedly penned by Abdallah bin Muhammad, a senior commander of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. It was apparently left behind by the North African group as they fled French troops last month.
When a maintenance worker at L.A.'s Cecil Hotel opened the hotel's rooftop water tank to investigate low water pressure, he found something unexpected: a dead body. Investigators believe the remains of Elisa Lam had been inside the tank since January 31, when the 21-year-old was last seen. As police work to determine if her death was the result of foul play or "a very, very strange accident," the LA County Department of Public Health is investigating a more urgent matter: the potentially contaminated water, which hotel residents had, for several weeks, used to bathe in and brush their teeth.
Last August, the NYPD announced they'd partnered with Microsoft to create an elaborate city-wide spying/surveillance program, called the Domain Awareness System. The program provides the department with access to over 3,000 public and private security cameras, information that's then instantly cross-referenced with criminal and terrorist databases, 911 call histories, license plate scanning machines, and radiation monitors.
Goldschläger incarnate Lindsay Lohan has allegedly learned the hard way that, like dolls' hair and a child's limbs, expensive beaded frippery doesn't just grow back once you cut it off. She reportedly returned a borrowed floor length designer gown in "tatters," its bottom half roughly hacked off with scissors.
With a narrow 5-4 vote, Puerto Rico's Supreme Court continues to ban gay couples from adopting children. The vote weighed in on an individual case, involving an unnamed woman who attempted to adopt the child of her partner. Her partner had had in-vitro fertilization to conceive the child.
The Navy SEAL made famous for shooting Osama bin Laden in the face and then complaining about US-government negligence in an Esquire article published earlier this month is now under Pentagon investigation, according to The Hill's defense blog DEFCON Hill.
The BBC was forced to issue a formal apology today on behalf of one of its radio stations — BBC Radio 6 Music — after it played the Jimi Hendrix song "Hey Joe" immediately following a news report on the murder trial of Oscar Pistorius.
Lady with a baby inside her Kate Middleton officially debuted the rounded abdominal area of a gestating female, caused by the rapid growth and development of a tiny cluster of cells into a sassy baby with attitude — her "baby bump" — for the first time Tuesday, and everyone rejoiced that a human, at long last, was pregnant.
Legendary music mogul Clive Davis, whose impact on pop music and pop culture in general has been felt for the past five decades, reveals in his new memoir that he has been in a "strong monogamous relationship" with a man for the past seven years.
Marco Rubio's infamous and awkward sip of water was, as we predicted, the only thing anyone remembered from his State of the Union response. But as it turns out, Rubio's case of dry mouth made for good business. Reclaim America, Rubio's hilariously named political action committee, has sold over 4,000 Rubio water bottles in the past week. At the reasonable price of $25 (or, if you're feeling generous, even more!) per bottle, the gimmick helped the PAC raise $119,200 as of Monday morning.
Hours after her sister sat behind President Obama during his speech in Chicago on Friday, 18-year-old Janay McFarlane was killed by a gunshot wound to the head. If this sounds familiar, it's because it is; not three weeks ago, 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton was killed by stray gunfire in Chicago, just days after performing at Obama's second inauguration. MacFarlane's 14-year old sister Destiny is a student at Hyde Park Career Academy, the school Obama visited on Friday to speak about Chicago's gun violence.
Last week, Maker's Mark faced a public backlash after announcing they would lower the alcohol content of their whiskey to meet increased demand with a limited supply (read: they think you can't handle your liquor and it's starting to get really embarrassing for all of us). They changed their minds in a Facebook post this afternoon:
Civil rights scion and disgraced former congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. was officially charged today with, among other things, conspiracy to misuse around three-quarters of a million dollars in campaign funds. According to papers filed in a Washington, D.C., U.S. District Court today, Jackson, who was still a congressman at the time, used donor money to buy everything from a $43,000 gold Rolex to cashmere capes—capes, plural—to nearly $20,000 of Michael Jackson memorabilia. The documents allege that Jackson and a co-conspirator used a campaign credit card to make $582,772.58 of purchases for personal use, and that Jackson debited another $60,000 directly out of the campaign's account.
After Osama bin Laden was assassinated in 2011, there was perhaps no more hotly sought after document on the planet than a hypothetical photograph of bin Laden's dead body, which had of course arrived at that sorry state as a result of the most tightly controlled and choreographed military operation in recent history. After some public hemming and hawing in response to an overwhelming cry for visual proof of the venture's success, the Obama White House acknowledged the existence of such photos but refused to release them in response to Freedom of Information Act requests from various parties. So one would imagine that, given the intense interest in the images and the high-profile litigation surrounding them, the CIA would conduct a rigorous accounting of each such image, its provenance, and current location, right? No, of course not. In fact, they just found some under the couch.
After a meteorite crashed into Russia early this morning, you may have thought we'd reached our terrifying, Deep Impact-esque space shit quota for the week. Well, you'd be wrong because an asteroid is set to bypass the Earth today.
According to a new study by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, prison sentences handed out to black men in the past seven years have been almost 20% longer than sentences given to white men for the same crimes. From the WSJ:
At least one meteorite crashed into Russia earlier today, causing several giant explosions and forcing schools and offices to be evacuated. The meteorite reportedly landed in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia, where witnesses said the explosions shattered the windows of nearby buildings and disrupted cell phone service. There were over 400 injuries (Update: now upgraded to 950), and damage was reported in six cities. Information is still coming in and we'll update accordingly, but for now check out the amazing videos and photos from the scene. (We'll be updating with new video and photo throughout the day, so check back for new stuff.)
Randi Zuckerberg is writing two books — one to guide you, and one to guide your children.
