Jan 01 Pope Francis calls on the world to 'stop ourselves in this path of violence' Pope Francis greets the crowd from the window of the apostolic palace overlooking St. Peter's Square during his Angelus prayer on Jan. 1, 2014 in Vatican City. Photo by Filippo Monteforte/AFP/Getty Images With a new year comes Pope Francis'… Continue reading
Jan 01 Quiz: Test your knowledge of the new laws of 2014 By Joshua Barajas, Frank Bi In which state can you now go on a bar crawl using a "pedal pub"? Photo by Flickr user Sonja Stark More than 40,000 new laws were enacted in 2013, thousands of which took effect at the stroke of midnight,… Continue reading
Jan 01 Sotomayor delays birth control mandate for some religion-affiliated groups Hours before the start of 2014, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor granted an emergency stay, which blocks a birth control mandate for some groups under the Affordable Care Act. Video still by PBS NewsHour Only hours before it was… Continue reading
Dec 31 Study: Vitamin E may be key to slowing Alzheimer's Vitamin E may slow the progression of Alzheimer's. Photo by Flickr user Bradley Stemke. A recent study revealed a ray of hope in the effort to battle Alzheimer's disease. Researchers found that high doses of vitamin E may… Continue reading
Dec 31 An estimated 3,520 killed by U.S. drones Photo by John Moore/Getty Images. An estimated 3,520 people have been killed by American drones since 2002. 457 of those killed were civilians. Continue reading
Dec 31 Children beheaded in Central African Republic More than half of the residents of CAR's capital have sought housing at emergency shelters because of continued violence between rebel militias. Children have also been caught in the crossfires. Photo by Pascal Mounier/EU Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection… Continue reading
Dec 31 ACLU sues U.S. government on NSA spying The ACLU is suing the U.S. government in order to obtain information related to the NSA's surveillance data. Still by PBS NewsHour The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the United States government in an attempt to make… Continue reading
Dec 31 US stock market close 2013 on record highs PBS NewsHour screenshot U.S. stocks closed out this year with all three major indexes posting gains of more than 26 percent for the year. In 2013, the Dow gained 26.5 percent, its best year since 1995. The S&P… Continue reading
Dec 31 Putin vows to 'annihilate' terrorists after back-to-back bombings Photo by Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images Russian president Vladimir Putin promised the "complete annihilation" of terrorists during his New Year's Eve address to his country shaken by two deadly back-to-back bomb attacks in the southern Russia city of Volgograd. Continue reading
Dec 31 If you could put 10 things from 2013 in the Smithsonian, what would they be? When Richard Kurin's hefty book "The Smithsonian's History of America in 101 objects" landed on my desk this year, it made me wonder: What artifacts from 2013 would we want to keep as tangible fragments of history? My first thought… Continue reading