Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis is determined not to grant any marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Today (Sep. 1) she defied an order from the US Supreme Court, once again refusing to provide the necessary documentation to gay people in her county who want to get married.
This is a developing news story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
Migrants and refugees on their way to Germany, fleeing en masse from war-torn countries in the Middle East and Africa, received a warm welcome from an unexpected constituency this weekend: the country’s soccer fans.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
When Austrian authorities first discovered a truck filled with decomposing bodies abandoned on the hard shoulder of a highway near the Hungarian border on Thursday (Aug. 27), even the grimmest estimates put the death toll at 50. The latest examination now puts the number at 71, including three young boys and one girl.
The bodies of at least 20 migrants, some of them decomposing, were found today (Aug. 27) in an abandoned truck in Austria, on a highway near the Hungarian border.
James Holmes, whose rampage in a Colorado movie theater killed 12 people and wounded 70 in 2012, was formally sentenced to life in prison today (Aug. 26). He received 12 life sentences for each person he killed and 3,318 additional years for attempted murders and rigging his apartment with explosives.
When the Cornish blues rock band Wille and the Bandits were pumping gas 43 miles (70km) from the French port city of Calais on Sunday (Aug. 23), they felt their van shake. Band member Wille Edwards discovered two stowaway migrants hiding in the back.
As a Russian court sentenced Ukrainian director Oleg Sentsov to 20 years in prison, the filmmaker, along with his co-defendant Alexander Kolchenko, started defiantly singing their country’s national anthem:
Ferguson, Missouri is finally getting a much-needed overhaul of its troubled court system, which cops and judges were using to squeeze money out of the city’s largely poor residents.
Toronto police say they have unconfirmed reports of two suicides ”associated with the leak of Ashley Madison’s customers’ profiles.” Last week, hackers exposed more than 30 million email addresses and some credit card information from the database of the Canadian adultery dating site.
The Boston police department arrested two men last week who were allegedly threatening a violent attack on the Pokemon World Championships—an annual tournament where hundreds of video game and trading card players from more than 30 countries face off to win scholarship money and prizes, in front of thousands of spectators.
Macedonian police have fired tear gas at migrants who have gathered on the country’s border as the try to enter from Greece. The migrants, who have been arriving en masse and spent the night stuck at the border, tried to charge the police this morning (Aug. 21). At least five migrants were injured in the clashes.
The Turkish government is postponing the beginning of the school year by two weeks, in an attempt to give a boost the country’s crucial tourism industry.
Russia’s media regulator, Roskomnadzor, is threatening to ban Wikipedia due to an entry about that contains a recipe for charas, a form of hashish.
Donald Trump launched his presidential campaign by calling Mexicans “rapists and drug runners.” He has repeatedly called for building a wall between Mexico and the United States, and having Mexico pay for it. Trump even pledged he would never eat Oreo cookies again after learning that its parent company was moving operations to Mexico.
What to watch for today
E-cigarettes are around 95% less harmful than traditional tobacco cigarettes, according to a new study from Britain’s Department of Health. It is the first time public health officials have asserted that vaping, though not risk-free, definitively causes less harm than smoking.
Federal prosecutors are accusing Jared Fogle, the former spokesman for the Subway sandwich chain, of engaging in sexual acts with minors and acquiring child pornography, the Associated Press reports. Fogle has agreed to plead guilty to the charges, according to wire reports. He will also pay $1.4 million in restitution to 14 minor victims.
Thai police have released video footage of a man suspected of planting a backpack full of explosives that killed at least 22 people and injured 120 at a shrine in a busy Bangkok shopping district yesterday (Aug.17)
Russian authorities uncovered a criminal ring that produced $30 million worth of cheese, using products imported from abroad that were banned under the country’s recent sanctions against the West.
Norway’s $871 billion sovereign wealth fund said it would remove four Asian companies from its investment portfolio, citing the environmental damage they are causing by turning rain forests in Indonesia and Malaysia into palm oil plantations.
Former inmates at a privately-run Nashville jail say they were forced to work for free, making products for a business owned by the jail’s officials. The items, decorative plaques, “cornhole” lawn games, birdhouses and dog beds, made at the jail’s woodshop, were sold at a flea market and through a website, the Associated Press reports.
Purportedly “organic” orange juice in Singapore that is billed as ”suitable for the entire family” actually turns out to have significant levels of erectile dysfunction drugs, the country’s health officials warned today (Aug. 14).
