The president wants to raise the minimum wage, Pete Seeger and Philip Seymour Hoffman pass away, and a criminal is sentenced to Gladwell

Photographic evidence of war crimes in Syria, ominous Ukrainian texting, and a South Korean tower of jawbones

Obama announces surveillance reforms, the Taliban bombs a Kabul restaurant, and Smartie snorting prompts nose-maggot panic

A Pakistani ninth-grader sacrifices himself to save his classmates, Chris Christie saves himself, and Cormac McCarthy’s ex-wife chooses an unconventional holster 

Factional warfare in the Middle East, a politician under indictment for genocide seeks peace in South Sudan, and an embarrassment of coldness in Minnesota

War and peacekeeping in South Sudan and the Central African Republic, a brief truce in the Syrian civil war, and bells hell in Manhattan

More NSA surveillance targets are revealed, violence in South Sudan, and claims of U.S. virgin births

The Ukrainian protests rage on, Nelson Mandela is buried, and China sends a Jade Rabbit into the Bay of Rainbows

“Our nation has lost a colossus”

Walmart celebrates Black Friday with protests and police reports, Amazon experiments with drone delivery, and Republicans salute the end of racism 

The countries and companies responsible for climate change, nuclear options in Congress and Iran, and the extinction of Darwin’s frog

Casualty counts and corruption in the Philippines, protest and repression in Russia, and the usual news from Toronto