As terrifying as they are, most videos from Japan's tsunami released so far were taken at the relatively reassuring level of a hovering helicopter or high-rise-mounted security camera. Here's video taken from a Sendai Airport terminal as the tsunami approaches and washes away cars in the parking lot directly below. It gives you a sense of just how quickly it moved. [via Graham Linehan]
Here are some new photos of the devastation following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. [Images via AP]
With rescue efforts underway following Friday's catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the nation is under a new threat from an explosion at a nuclear power plant. The prime minister has dispatched 50,000 soldiers to the country's north, in addition to navy ships and aircraft. Also, Japanese TV is reporting that 9,500 people are missing from one town.
A warm-ish March Friday can mean only one thing: It's time to kick off the big-ticket spring/summer movie season. This year we begin with aliens attacking Los Angeles. For the ladies, there's a sweet young girl beset upon by wolves and wolfish men.
Libyan rebels were pushed out of the oil town of Zawiyah today under a heavy assault by pro-Qaddafi forces on the ground and in the air. Things aren't looking too good for the rebels right now: They've lost a lot of momentum, and President Obama, though he's stuck with the "Qaddafi must go" line, has refused to offer any real support to rebel forces. All he would say in a press conference today was that when it comes to U.S. military actions, whether it's a no-fly zone or other options, you've got to balance costs versus benefits. And I don't take those decisions lightly."
A member of the activist collective Anonymous is claiming to be have emails and documents which prove "fraud" was committed by Bank of America employees, and the group says it'll release them on Monday. The member, who goes by the Twitter handle OperationLeakS, has already posted an internal email from the formerly Bank of America-owned Balboa Insurance Company.
The Japanese earthquake is having truly global effects. Rescue workers are searching for a California man who was washed into the sea by a tsunami when he was trying to take pictures of the incoming wave in northern California. Four others were swept off an Oregon beach earlier today, but managed to make it back to shore. The lesson for people living in beachfront communities on the West Coast? Stay inside and watch it on TV.
Police raided Charlie Sheen's house last night looking for weapons after he was seen brandishing a machete from his balcony earlier in the week. He claims it wasn't his and it belongs to the "guy [he] was having a meeting with." Sorry, Charlie, that excuse didn't work when my mom found my bong when I was in high school and it's not going to work now.
The number of cancer survivors has increased 20% in only six years. Finally, cancer is cured! According to numbers released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute, there were 9.1 million survivors in 2001. By 2007, the number of survivors had risen to 11.7 million. Impressive, as 40 years ago there were only three million.
Japan is still trying to account for the total damage from last night's devastating 8.9 magnitude earthquake and ensuing tsunami. The death toll is still rising, and, ominously, there may be a radiation leak at one of the country's largest nuclear reactors. Meanwhile on the other side of the Pacific, tsunami waves reached America's west coast today without taking much of a toll. The latest news updates are below.
Republican Iowa State Rep. Jeff Kaufmann, speaker pro tem of the Iowa State House, was caught joking on a hot mic that a proposal which would allow state residents to carry weapons in public without permission from a sheriff and without any training or a background check might better be called the "give-a-handgun-to-a-schizophrenic-bill."
While what comes before the @-symbol may include the letters and characters you picked out, what comes after it still says a whole lot about you. A new study breaks down the types of people that use different types of free email services.
Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee simply does not care for Google. It dominates the search engine field with near-monopoly power. More importantly, corrupt Barack Obama is friendly with some people at Google. And so Lee wants to conduct "vigorous" antitrust oversight into the corporation, like a socialist.
Here's a trailer for the live action/animation hybrid The Smurfs, which has swapped Jason Lee for Neil Patrick Harris and the Chipmunks for shiny blue Smurf creatures. "I just Smurfed in my mouth" is an actual line from the trailer. Is there more to be said about this picture? Probably not, no. I think we all just Smurfed in our mouths.
The Sahara Hotel and Casino, one of the anchors of old Las Vegas, where Sinatra sang and the Rat Pack played, is closing, due to money problems. It's been around since 1952. It's seen the entire rise and fall of the Las Vegas legend unfold, and its loss will be, in many ways, a sad sign of a once-great desert oasis kingdom returning, slowly, to the very sands from which it came.
The search for survivors continues in Japan following the worst earthquake in the country's history, and the monumental damage caused by the quake—and tsunami that followed—remains incalculable. Here are some photos of the scene on the ground from the past 24 hours. [Images via AP]
Do you know what today is, in addition to being a tragic day of global devastation? It's Rupert Murdoch's 80th birthday! No need to comment on any issues of karma. Born into a newspaper-owning family in Melbourne in 1931, Rupert parlayed a single small newspaper in Adelaide into a national—and then global—media powerhouse. Who among us can say we have not had our lives affected by Rupert and his properties? Every time you watch The Simpsons or Bill O'Reilly, read the Wall Street Journal or a London tabloid, or watch a rerun of Napoleon Dynamite, you are, in your own way, being touched by the News Corp empire. It's amazing and not a little bit scary.
The Maryland House of Delegates was going to hold its vote on legalizing same-sex marriage this afternoon after a dramatic legislative grind. But Democrats, true to their name, have managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The bill was sent back to committee following today's debate, effectively killing its chances for passage in this year's legislative session.
For all you looking for a tween-angle to the earthquake: The Twilight cast has been evacuated from their beachside set in Vancouver Island after a Tsunami advisory was issued for the West coast of Canada. According to People: "The actors are not believed to be in any danger, but for safety measures they apparently have been moved out of the region." The earthquake is not supposed to cause large waves on the Canadian coast.
