HELSINKI -- When it comes to maintaining cordial cross-border relations, a good way to start is by not placing the president of your nearest neighbor on an official list of malefactors, which is what Finland did, but then right quickly undid to keep from pissing off the 600-pound bear that...

In the early 1990s, my dad, who never served in the armed forces, had a strongly held opinion about gays in the military. He told me, "If I'm in a foxhole, I don't want the guy next to me looking at my butt." I replied, "Dad, I've seen your butt...

EAST MIDLANDS -- In case you missed it, archaeologists announced last month that they had confirmed the discovery of the remains of England's King Richard III, unearthed by workers in 2012 from beneath a parking lot in Leicester.

Dick Trois, you'll recall, was slain at the Battle of...

"People in Norway have a spiritual relationship with fire," said Rune Moeklebust, a producer with Norway state broadcaster NRK. "Fire is the reason we're here. If there was no firewood we couldn't live in Norway. We'd Freeze."

Actually, Norway has a lovely climate, if you're a moose. Moeklebust's point is...

SANTO ANTONIO da PLATINA, Brazil - Welcome to Brazil. Here's your amulet and electrified umbrella.

Those of you planning a getaway to someplace not beset by the winter's discontent might want to scratch Brazil off your list of destinations. It seems that while Nature dumps her frozen fury...

A cat walked into a Brazilian prison carrying a cell phone, a saw and other assorted hardware and by "cat" I don't mean as in, "He's a groovy cat." I mean as in "Hey! There's a fur-bearing, mouse-chasing, milk-lapping pussy gato walking into that prison with a saw."

Warning: Rant ahead.

So you know how like, when the phone rings and your wife's all like, "Just answer it," and you're like, "You get it," and she's all like, "Dude!" and you're like, "All right."

Of course you don't. You use English in your home. Not so my family....

Southeast San Diego is a historically black neighborhood that today includes a majority Latino population with growing subgroups of refugees and asylum seekers from North Africa and the Middle East, along with pockets of ethnic Samoans and Southeast Asians. It could be described as a diverse, working-class neighborhood. It could...

POLAND -- Says me: sex and barbecue don't mix. Adolescent, nubile girl parts have no relation to or bearing upon the quality of an angus burger topped with pulled pork and spicy sauce. The twain don't meet, and if you go to the drive-through and order yourself a Memphis BBQ...

INDIANAPOLIS – While stumping at a VFW hall in the capital of Indiana this afternoon, Republican Vice Presidential candidate and emerging heart-throb Paul Ryan inadvertently left his Iphone on a lectern and departed in a motorcade destined for the Indianapolis airport.

I'm not making this up: Discount Gun Sales, the Seattle-based online superstore for all your mail-order firearm needs, has for sale on its website a Walther P-22 pistol with a polymer frame and custom Cerakote bright pink slide, a deadly accessory offered to the consumer public in recognition...

I recently referred to the women's 10-meter air rifle competition in London as "girls shooting BB guns 33 feet" and a friend of mine who happens to teach air rifle target shooting pointed out to me that my derision aside, air rifle competitors shoot $3,000 weapons at targets...

So a friend of mine said to me the other day, "I have no doubt he's well-intentioned, but Obama is spending us into the poor house." I hear such things often from friends and acquaintances and rather than choose to run with a different crowd I try to listen to...

Evidently the message the GOP wants to run on in the waning months of this campaign season is this: Don't raise taxes on job creators or else you won't get any new jobs. I try to consider both sides in any argument before passing judgment, so I decided...

PRETORIA -- If you haven't already heard, South Africa's Oscar Pistorius is about to set an historical precedent that will mark not only a moment of personal triumph, but a milestone in human achievement. Pistorius, born without tibias and fitted with two below-knee prosthetics, will run in the...

GENEVA -- Scientists from CERN, The European Organization for Nuclear Research, in a build-up to what promises to be the biggest story since Anderson Cooper shattered the hopes of the remaining half-dozen Catholic school girls in America who didn't already know, have announced that they have something to...

NEW YORK - In a metropolitan area with the world's second largest Jewish population, residents and visitors have endured a spate of recent anti-semitism not seen in a major American city since Mel Gibson went to rehab, a variety of Jew-baiting that's strange by any standard.

CNN's Jeanne...

BRÅVIKEN BAY, Sweden -- A worker at the Kolmården Wildlife Park in Sweden's Östergötland district was killed on Sunday by a pack of wolves. Kolmården, the largest wildlife park in the Nordic region, located 150 kilometers south of Stockholm, attracts some 500,000 visitors each year to its attractions that include...

Y'all tweeters with an urge to wax poetic might like to know that the Arizona Department of Transportation has invited folks to submit haikus to call attention to the risk posed by summer storms known as haboobs -- fiendish gales that can turn day into night under a blanket of...

MADRID -- The Spanish parliament took action over the weekend to address the country's fiscal woes, passing a bill introduced by the opposition that lifts a longstanding ban on the advertising of sexual services. According to a report from UPI, the legislation lifts "the ban on brothels, escort...