USA - The United States has accumulated over $70 trillion in unreported debt, an amount nearly six times the declared figure, according to a new study by University of California-San Diego economics Professor James Hamilton.
WASHINGTON, USA - As hundreds of commuters emerged from Amtrak and commuter trains at Union Station on a recent morning, an armed squad of men and women dressed in bulletproof vests made their way through the crowds.
ARGENTINA - Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has restated her country's demand for sovereignty of the Falkland Islands. Speaking at a United Nations Security Council meeting in New York, Ms Fernandez called on Britain to negotiate the archipelago's future.
USA - Officials say liquid is 'ingenious' and 'undetectable'; NYT report US embassy closures result of intercepted electronic communications between Al-Qaida leaders, but sources say other streams of intel also led to closures.
MIDDLE EAST - This weekend’s closing of US embassies in the Muslim world and the British embassy in Yemen combined with the warning to Americans about overseas travel is another reminder that the Islamist terrorist threat has not gone away.
USA - Will rapidly rising interest rates rip through the US financial system like a giant lawnmower blade? Yes, the US economy survived much higher interest rates in the past, but at that time there were not hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of interest rate derivatives hanging over our financial system like a Sword of Damocles.
USA - Computers that meddle with our thoughts, memories and brains might not be far off, The New York Times' Nick Bilton reports. There are already thought-controlled gadgets and smart phone apps. But recently, a group of scientists at MIT took brain-computer interactions to a whole new level.
UK - The rise of the so-called “silver splitter” is set out in an official study showing that the number of people over 60 getting divorced has risen by three quarters in just 20 years. For centuries couples getting married have promised to be faithful “till death us do part”.
UK - Mr Hain, who led negotiations aimed at resolving the situation while a minister in Tony Blair's government, said a sovereignty deal would end the current difficulties being faced by Gibraltarians in the dispute with their Spanish neighbours.
NASA - Something big is about to happen on the sun. According to measurements from NASA-supported observatories, the sun's vast magnetic field is about to flip. "It looks like we're no more than 3 to 4 months away from a complete field reversal," says solar physicist Todd Hoeksema of Stanford University. "This change will have ripple effects throughout the solar system."
UK - George Osborne has been accused of "patronising" stay-at-home mothers after saying that they have made a "lifestyle choice" and should not receive childcare vouchers.
USA - The earth barely missed taking a massive solar punch in the teeth two weeks ago, an "electromagnetic pulse" [EMP] so big that it could have knocked out power, cars and iPhones throughout the United States.
RUSSIA/CHINA - Russian-Chinese anti-terror drills are in full swing with the latter's tanks and gunships training at a military range in the Urals. It comes less than a month after joint naval drills, the largest of their kind China has participated in to date.
UK - Britain's long-running political civil war over Europe is as much about symbols as it is about substance. So advisers to Prime Minister David Cameron are looking for one or two symbolic trophies he can claim in a renegotiation of the European Union's treaty before he asks Britons to support continued membership in a referendum promised for 2017.
UK - Nick Herbert, who resigned from his job in the Ministry of Justice in last September's reshuffle, said a “fear of the unknown” was fuelling the concern. He has raised the alarm about possible shale oil and gas fracking in his Arundel and South Downs constituency.