Muslims are the fastest growing religious group, a new study from the Pew Research Center shows. By 2050, the Muslim population will come very close to the number of Christians, each making up one-third of the world’s population.
Masked gunmen stormed a university in Garissa, a town in northeastern Kenya before dawn this morning. The gunmen singled out non-Muslims and took hostages, in the end killing 147, officials say. A spokesman for Somalia’s al-Shabab militant group claimed responsibility for the attack. Out of 815 students, 587 were rescued and 79 were injured.
In a strange, somewhat belated take on a charity-driven internet craze from several months ago, Russian celebrities are pouring bottles of kefir, a type of fermented milk, on their heads for the greater good.
As the hive mind of the TV-watching public excitedly awaits the new season of AMC’s meticulously crafted hit, Mad Men, it must also prepare itself for a sad reality: The seventh season, which debuts April 5, will be the show’s last.
No donuts. No spaghetti. Not even a blade of wheat in the field.
Easter is a big deal in Italy. But in some parts of the country, revelers celebrate more than just the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The traditional Easter processions in southern Italy pay visits to the homes of mafia bosses, bowing the statues of saints they carry in salute. This year, church authorities say basta!
As many as half of all Syrian children are not enrolled in school, and in some places the rate is as low as 6%. The gaping holes in their education could cost the country as much as 5.4% of its GDP annually (or $2.18 billion) in the long-term and create an environment that’s ripe for further unrest, warns a new report from rights group, Save The Children.
Russian president Vladimir Putin once warned that the global internet was a “CIA project.” But during a meeting with startups in his residence outside Moscow on March 27, Putin seemed to warm up to the idea of the internet somewhat, as the entrepreneurs patiently explained to the world leader that it could help him get a cheaper hotel rate, order a tow truck, or even rent a breadmaker.
Democratic Ohio State representative Teresa Fedor got so frustrated during a debate on abortion in the lower chamber of the state’s legislature that she stood up and revealed that she had been raped and terminated the resulting pregnancy.
We are updating this developing news post as more information becomes available.
California is now in the fourth year of an extreme drought. The effect of the rising temperatures and diminishing precipitation is clearly visible in the shrinking snowpack of the state’s most famous peak—Yosemite’s Half Dome. The National Weather Service tweeted a compilation of images taken by the Yosemite Conservancy Half Dome web cam:
Giving new meaning to reality TV, Ukrainian police clad all in black barged in on a live-televised government cabinet meeting and arrested two senior officials on charges of corruption.
A year after Ebola began raging through Western Africa, officials are tentatively forecasting an end to the outbreak by as early as August. “We have been running away from giving any specific date, but I am pretty sure myself that it will be gone by the summer,” Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the head of the UN Ebola response team, told the BBC.
The right emerged victorious in Sunday’s local French elections, with former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s center-right party UMP sweeping the vote with 32.5%, and the far-right National Front (FN) coming in second with 26%. The ruling Socialist Party came in third with 22% of the vote.
As global temperatures rise due to manmade climate change, the Arctic ice sheet is shrinking, and is now the smallest it’s ever been.
Authorities are investigating the death of a black man after his body was found hanging from a tree in Clairborne County, Mississippi.
Kremlin apparatchiks are not glued to their laptops binge-watching House of Cards, the Russian government said Thursday. And unlike US president Barack Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t watch the political drama.
Pharrell Williams, big hat aficionado and author of impossibly catchy songs, worries that a verdict forcing him to pay millions of dollars for copyright infringement will be a “handicap” for creators, blurring the line between inspiration and rip-off.
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party swept yesterday’s election, defying expectations. With 99.5% of the votes counted, the party picked up 29 to 30 seats—plenty to command a ruling coalition in the 120-seat Knesset. This was after polling at 20 just three days before the election.
Exit polls show Likud, the right wing party of prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, in a dead-heat with the center-left Zionist Union of Isaac Herzog, each likely to get 27 seats in the parliament.
Starbucks, the coffee chain that everyone loves to hate, launched a new campaign to spark dialogue about race. The idea, promoted by CEO Howard Schultz, is that a Starbucks barista will write “race together” on your mid-morning paper cup of latte and engage you in a conversation about race relations.
There are lots of reasons why employing more women to run companies is a good idea. Greater gender diversity on boards, for example, helps with managing risk, growing revenue and increasing innovation.
Israelis head to the polls today, capping an election season where women candidates have played a crucial role. They form a substantial chunk of most of the party lists, and for the Zionist Union—an alliance between the Labor and Hatnua parties that is narrowly leading in the polls—women occupy four out of ten of the top spots. It’s a sign of a changing political scene.
Cherish your AM cup of joe? Well, enjoy it while it lasts. Coffee is among the most vulnerable crops to the effects of global warming, the US government said last week.
