—From Poughkeepsie, NY.   DC: The Senate late last night blocked a House bill that would have ended the National Security Agency’s wholesale snooping into American phone records. The House had passed what they call the USA Freedom Act, which …

Box Office: North Korea is directly blaming President Obama for the release of the movie The Interview. A statement from North Korea’s National Defense Commission says, “U.S. President Obama is the chief culprit who forced the Sony Pictures Entertainment to …

Tighten Up: Punishing Russia for its continued involvement in the Ukraine crisis, President Obama yesterday imposed new and more severe sanctions on Russian banks, energy, and defense companies. “I’ve repeatedly made it clear that Russia must halt the flow of …

The Big Melt: An enormous portion of the West Antarctic ice sheet is melting and it may be irreversible, according to scientific reports released yesterday. Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at the University of California, Irvine said, “It has passed the …

  For a while when I played in a men’s hockey league in Los Angeles one of our regular opponents was an all-gay team called the Blades. That’s right, they were the gay Blades.   One night we played in …

Ukraine: Turnout appeared to be light today for a referendum on independence in eastern Ukraine, with many voters marking their ballots “yes.” The movement’s backers would create independent republics in Donetsk and Luhansk. The chairman of the election committee for …

Out: Missouri football star Michael Sam, a defensive end who’s expected to be an early round NFL draft pick, announced that he’s gay. He’s 6-2, 260 pounds and would be the first openly gay player in the NFL. But he’s …