88: Number of executions carried out in Saudi Arabia so far this year, already surpassing the total number in 2014; Amnesty International called the increase under Saudi’s new King Salman a “macabre spike”.
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Knowing your limits, after Molly Schuyler, a 120-pound mother of four, won a Texas eating competition by wolfing down 13 pounds of steak in four minutes, 18 seconds. Schuyler said she had room for more steak but got sick of the taste.
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The five most popular names for baby girls in 2014 were (in order) Emma, Olivia, Sophia, Isabella, and Ava, according to the U.S. Social Security Administration. For boys, the most popular were Noah, Liam, Mason, Jacob, and William.
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The Department of Defense has 562,000 military bases and facilities located around the world, which collectively cover 24.7 million acres—nearly the size of Virginia. Much of that space is now unused, but Congress has barred the Pentagon from conducting a detailed assessment out of fear that bases in home districts would be closed.
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Neopagans in Iceland are erecting a temple dedicated to the Norse gods Thor, Odin, and Frigg for the first time in over 1,000 years. The temple will be built by the Asatru movement, which was founded in the 1970s to revive the ancient religion and now has more than 2,000 followers ina coutnry with just 320,000 people. Hilmar Orn Flilmarsson, Asatru’s […]
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A Polish prisoner triggered a crackdown on other inmates after he posted a photo of a large Cannabis plant that he’d grown in his cell. To boast about his green thumb, Dozy Zendarski took a selfie with the plant using a smuggled smartphone and posted it to Facebook. When it went viral, prison officials searched the entire jail and seized numerous phones and other banned items from […]
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The typical worker is three times more likely to die during leisure time than on the job.
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Amateur astronomers can now put their observations to good use through the new Asteroid Data Hunter app. The software, which works on almost any Windows or Mac computer, is a collaborative effort between NASA and Planetary Resources, a company that hopes to mine asteroids for their mineral wealth. NASA is interested in asteroids because of potential threats to Earth. App […]
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“We can’t end terrorism any more than we can end crime in general. But I look forward to the day when an act of terrorism by self proclaimed Muslims will be universally dismissed as nothing more than a criminal attack of a thuggish political organization wearing an ill fitting Muslim mask. To get to that point, we will need to […]
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A Middle Eastern company has unveiled a fetching new line of Lycra leotards for racing camels to improve their performance on the track. Camel racing is popular across the Arab world, and Abu Dhabi based firm Al-Shibla says its compression suits can give an animal an edge by boosting blood flow to muscles. But the company is also pitching its […]
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