By Isla Binnie FLORENCE, Italy (Reuters) – Researchers opened a centuries-old Florence tomb on Friday in a search for remains that could confirm the identity of the woman whose enigmatic smile Leonardo da Vinci immortalized in the “Mona Lisa”, one of the world’s most famous...
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Researchers open centuries-old tomb in search of Mona Lisa’s identity
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Why is Gibraltar a British territory?
SPAIN is protesting to Britain again about a certain rocky outcrop at the neck of the Mediterranean. Gibraltar, a 2.6 square mile (6.7 square kilometre) peninsula that is home to about 30,000 people, is a British territory to which Spain has long laid… [Marmoset in Rock of Gibraltar....
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Two confirmed dead, others missing in Connecticut after plane crashes into houses
Two people were confirmed dead and others feared missing after a twin-engine light aircraft crashed into two houses in the US state of Connecticut. The Rockwell International Turbo Commander 690B crashed on approach into Tweed New Haven Airport before noon (1600 GMT), the Federal Aviation...
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NOAA’s updated forecast calls for busy hurricane season
NOAA’s Updated Forecast Calls for Busy Hurricane Season (via Climate Central) By Andrew Freedman Follow @afreedma Despite a quiet start to August, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is still forecasting a very active Atlantic hurricane season, the agency said Thursday. The...
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The real Elysium: Send your dead loved one into space for $2K
If you want to go to space, you can go to school, study hard, get good grades, work for a few years, then wheedle your way into NASA and apply to be an astronaut. Or you can be a celebrity or a millionaire and sign…
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Xenophobic Australian quits election race after Islam gaffe
A candidate for Australia’s anti-immigration One Nation party dropped out of the election race Saturday after a blundering interview in which she referred to Islam as a country. Stephanie Banister, 27, had been campaigning for just 48 hours when she gave the interview to the Seven Network...
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Android nears 80 percent market share as iOS plummets
SOFTWARE DEVELOPER Google’s Android mobile operating system now accounts for almost 80 percent of the global smartphone market while Apple’s slice has shrunk to 13 percent, the latest numbers from market research firm International Data Corp (IDC) have…
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GOP Rep. to ‘birther princess’: ‘I don’t even give a sh*t’ about Obama’s birth certificate
Freshman Republican congressman from Oklahoma Rep. Markwayne Mullin rebuked a so-called “birther princess” at a town hall meeting on Thursday, calling the question of President Barack Obama’s true citizenship a “dead issue” and saying “I don’t even give a...
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Maddow slams Bob ‘Gov. Ultrasound’ McDonnell’s emergency PR tour
On Friday night’s edition of “The Rachel Maddow Show,” host Rachel Maddow slammed Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R)’s efforts to shore up his flagging image by going on a state wide PR junket. McDonnell and his administration have been reeling in recent weeks from a series of...
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Filipino farmers destroy genetically modified ‘Golden Rice’ crops
A group of activist farmers in the Philippines stormed a government research facility and destroyed an area of genetically modified rice crops the size of 10 football fields. According to New Scientist, the farmers say that genetically modified organism (GMO) foods have not been established to be...
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Bryan Fischer praises Russia: You’re not homophobic, you’re ‘homo-realistic’
On Friday, Voice of Russia Radio presented an interview with homosexuality “expert” and Christian radio host Bryan Fischer, who praised that country’s campaign of violence and intimidation against LGBT people. The far-right minister said that Russia’s attitude towards LGBT...
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‘Deep Throat’ owners fight on: ‘We’re sending a cease and desist to iTunes’
Hours earlier, a New York judge had refused to grant his injunction against Harvey Weinstein to halt the release of the movie “Lovelace.” The judge — an 83-year old veteran of the bench, first appointed by Nixon — was concerned that blocking the “Deep Throat” biopic would fall afoul of the First...
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Poland is getting fracked
In recent years, the fiercely independent people of Poland have found themselves caught up in the global hunt for natural resources. In this case, it’s natural gas, and the chemical fracking that companies are using to…
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Hispanic GOP strategist smacks down Steve King: Get therapy for your ‘melon fixation’
Hispanic Republican strategist Ana Navarro blasted Rep. Steve King (R-IA) on Sunday and suggested that he might want to “get some therapy for his melon fixation” after the congressman said that many undocumented immigrants had “calves the size of cantaloupes” because they...
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Larry Kudlow wonders if Pope Francis understands freedom
CNBC host Larry Kudlow isn’t confident that Pope Francis understand freedom. During a segment last week, the advocate of laissez-faire capitalism questioned some of the Pope’s comments on the economy. “Pope John Paul II, I think, had a much more market friendly approach to all of...
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Birtherism bites Cruz: Trump says he’s ‘perhaps not’ eligible to run for president
The country’s most prominent Republican birther says that one of his party’s early frontrunners for the 2016 presidential nomination may “perhaps not” be eligible to run if he was born in Canada. In an interview that aired on Sunday, ABC’s Jonathan Karl reminded...
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Fed up with homosexuality, religious family takes ‘leap of faith’ and gets lost at sea
An Arizona family fed up with abortion, homosexuality, taxes and the “state-controlled church” will fly back home Sunday after being lost at sea for months. Hannah Gastonguay told the Associated Press she and her husband “decided to take a leap of faith and see where God led...
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Nelson Mandela making ‘a slow but steady improvement’
Nelson Mandela is making “slow but steady” progress back to health, although he remains critically ill, the office of the South African president said Sunday. The 95-year-old former president and anti-apartheid icon has been in hospital for more than two months with a recurring lung...
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A Texan tragedy: Plenty of oil, but no water
Beverly McGuire saw the warning signs before the town well went dry: sand in the toilet bowl, the sputter of air in the tap, a pump working overtime to no effect. But it still did not prepare her for the night last month when she turned on the tap and discovered the tiny town where she had made her...
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Gohmert: Opposition to Obamacare is ‘how we got to the Constitution’
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) on Sunday asserted that the Republican obsession with repealing President Barack Obama’s health care reform law and threatening to shut down the government if it was not defunded was the same process that the country used to create a Constitution. ABC News host...
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