Japan executes its death row inmates only hours after the prisoner has been informed that they are about to be hanged, Danielle Wiener-Bronner over at The Atlantic writes.

Not to be outdone by China, Iran claims it has sent a second monkey into space.

Has anyone seen one of these giftcards around New York City? This Tumblr, run by someone called King Bozo, documents cards given to people in coffee shops, subway trains, and book stores around the city. The cards end up being strangely funny, strangely pretty, or just strange.

How much classified information did Edward Snowden take with him when he left the country? We don't even know.

A Michigan man was fired last month after he left his position greeting customers at the entrance to a store and rushed with a fire extinguisher to put out a car fire in the parking lot.

I am in the kitchen of the house I grew up in, holding a head of cabbage stable on the cutting board with both hands, while my mother thrusts a cleaver into it, slicing it in half. The leaves are densely packed in a squiggle of translucent white and green. She hands the knife to me, instructing me to cut the cabbage into thin shreds. When my slices are too coarse, she thwaps the back of my hand with a wet soup spoon and tells me to cut them finer.

New Yorkers beware: The writhing mass of douche that is SantaCon is happening right now. Don't engage with them. Don't approach them. And whatever you do, don't sit on their laps.

A spacecraft launched by China has landed on the moon, the first "soft landing" a man-made object has made on the moon since 1976.

Dozens of journalists have been arrested in Egypt since 2011. "People should appreciate every moment they live in freedom," says a jailed reporter.

A year ago today, a gunman took the lives of 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School, including 20 children. Today, the town of Newtown, Connecticut is holding a day of private remembrance, the most public event being the ringing of church bells across the state to mark the lives taken.

Even though the lottery is a cruel predator, nobody won the $425 million Mega Millions jackpot last night, raising the prize to $550 million for Tuesday's drawing.

When customers unfairly rant about poor service on Facebook, most companies just turn the other cheek. But one Washington business decided to respond in full to one irate client's accusations — and was rewarded with a hefty return on investment.

Buzzfeed CEO Jonah Peretti just unveiled the prize for meeting the company's traffic goal: every employee was gifted with a drawing of a cat by his friend, "post-conceptual" artist Cory Arcangel. The previous traffic prize was an iPad mini.

When Beyoncé walks, she tells us, she walks with a vengeance. When she enters the room, she commands every eyeball and ear her way. And what an entrance it was, the release of her surprise fifth album, the consistently dazzling BEYONCÉ, which landed on iTunes without previous announcement last night.

As the mystery surrounding the Mandela memorial's "fake" sign language interpreter deepens, at least one question has finally been answered: What the hell Thamsanqa Jantjie was actually signing.

ABC News and The New York Times have known since 2007 that Robert Levinson, the ex-FBI agent who was kidnapped in Iran, was not, as the U.S. government and his family claimed, an independent businessman: He was working for the CIA. The Times’ report today discloses this timeline; ABC News’ report does not—but a source at the network confirmed to Gawker that ABC reporters discovered the CIA connection in 2007 as well. At the request of the government and Levinson’s family, however, both outlets repeatedly stated, without any caveats, that Levinson was on a “business trip” when he was captured. A review of their coverage indicates that ABC News did so at least 7 times, and the Times at least 3 times.

With Fox News airing its grievances over the erection of Festivus poles in the state capitols of both Florida and Wisconsin, it's only right that man whose father invented the holiday be allowed to have his say.

Because every movie you don't care about has already been recycled at least once, Paramount has decided to begin rebooting the ones you actually do care about — starting with The Naked Gun.

Two students were injured this afternoon during a shooting at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado. The gunman, who was a student at the school, is dead, reportedly from a self-inflicted gunshot.

A 60-year-old man who was sentenced to five years in jail after getting caught in bed with an 11-year-old girl has had his conviction tossed out after his victim told the court she was in love with him.