Last year, Burger King Japan brought back its bizarre Kuro Burger—a black burger with black sauce and black cheese—for the third year in a row. I ate it, and it tasted slightly better than it looked (not saying much). The Kuro Burger is coming back again this year, but BK Japan is also trying out a new freakshow sandwich: The AKA (Red) Samurai burger, featuring a blood-red bun and cheese, and red ANGRY sauce.

A recent story in the Wall Street Journal (subscription only) touches on a new breed of startups that aim to make eating in the future an easier, healthier, and more vegetarian experience for you. Hold up, techies! What about those of us who still want to eat delicious meat?

If there's anything Alice Cooper loves, it's eyeliner. A close second for the 66-year-old musician are burgers that are about half the size of regular burgers, the kind that many call "sliders." So it was an honor for Cooper when he was inducted into White Castle's Craver Hall of Fame on Monday.

Burger King today announced that it will serve its burgers for breakfast now, as part of their new corporate philosophy, "Why try harder than absolutely necessary when the American people want nothing more than to eat themselves into oblivion to erase the pain of being locked into this zombie-like existence?"

Sonic, a fast food chain that differentiates itself by delivering garbage directly to your parked car, plans to expand into every last empty lot in the United States of America.

A new season is dawning, and with it, a new craving in America's soul. A craving for sustenance. A new kind of sustenance. Or, more accurately, a "comically large quantity of McDonald's food items" kind of sustenance.

As bloody political turmoil continues to rain down violence and chaos in Egypt, things are pretty crazy in the Western Hemisphere, too, where everyone wants a cronut. Some people are so desperate to put a cronut in their mouths and chew it and swallow it, they're even buying off-brand: a croissant dusted with cinnamon sugar—that's a cronut; a Pillsbury popover drizzed with simple syrup—that's a cronut; a Big Mac container that says "CRONUT" in marker with water sprinkled over it—that's a cronut. Now Canadian news outlets are reporting that at least 12 people suffered stomach pain, vomiting, and diarrhea after consuming so-called "cronut burgers" at the Canadian National Exhibition, an annual fair in Toronto.

Where to begin? This training video for cooks-in-training at Wendy's in the '80s features not only a hard-rockin' theme song, but an actual scene where a burger cook-in-training gets sucked into a television and rapped to about how to best cook a burger.

Chef Chris Shepherd, owner of fancy-shmancy Texas eatery Underbelly, swears he'd never heard of In-N-Out Burger's world-famous Double Double before he came up with his own UB Double Double.

As Europe's horse-meat scandal widens to include what seems like every single food product on the continent, South Africa is ready to get in on the fun too: according to an academic study, South African meat processors been mislabeling their meat projects, adding donkey, goat, and water buffalo meat to their "beef" burgers and sausages.

Canada's National Post and the AP note a photograph, posted to link-sharing website Reddit, of failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney visiting a McDonald's sometime yesterday. "Mitt Romney loves his McDonald's and has said so on many occasions," the article reads.

Much-anticipated Wahlberg brother burger shop Wahlburgers is now open for business. Specialties include Wahlburgers for grownups, Smahlburgers for kids, and Stray Dogs for people who want to make hotdog penis jokes.

Americans are not the sort of slobs who are satisfied with simply consuming a drab, tasteless burger in a hobo-infested fast food restaurant hastily rebranded as a "cafe." Americans are the sort of slobs who want their burgers fast—but casual. Americans want a slightly wider selection of toppings available on their burgers, and they want to consume those burgers in a very slightly more attractive setting than a Burger King bathroom. Americans demand this!

Oh man, the Washington Post has caught hypocrite Michelle Obama red-handed, stuffing her hypocrite face with hypocrite hamburgers and shakes and fries at a diner. Why isn't she eating organic free-range slime and hippie grain dirt or whatever the hell she forces children to eat in school, hmm? Hypocrite. Fraud!

The hottest new restaurant in Waco, Texas is a local burger joint called Fat Ho Burgers. The owner, 23-year-old Lakita Evans, is just trying to bring her sense of humour to the table, but the neighboring restaurant the Gospel cafe is not getting the joke.

McDonald's (formerly "The United States Department of Health") has plans for Japan. Big plans. Idaho big. With a hash brown on top.

Hey, you know what America needs? More novelty fast food sandwiches! Unwilling to be outdone by Sonic, which unveiled their new Footlong Quarter Pound Coney earlier this month, Carl's Jr. is testing Footlong Cheeseburgers at their Santa Ana, California locations.

In January, Carl Karcher, the founder of the fast food chain Carl's Jr., died at the age of 90. In February, Lovie Yancey, the founder of Fatburger, died at the age of 96. And just yesterday, Al Copeland, the founder of Popeyes Fried Chicken, died at the age of 64. Which is not bad for a man with a lifetime diet of fried chicken! Does this mean that 2008 is a deadly year for our beloved fast food entrepreneurs? No, it means that fast food will keep you alive well past the expected time of your demise. Honor their memories with greasy meat. [Tabloid Baby]

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