Bill Chappell

People felt two small but noticeable earthquakes in the Dallas area Tuesday, with reports of shaking buildings and flickering lights. Some residents said they felt nothing; some worried about fracking; others joked about it all.

The first quake was measured at 3.5 magnitude, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, and ...

Because life isn't all political drama and misdeeds, we bring you a video of the young panda Bao Bao frolicking in the snow at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.

The zoo posted the video this afternoon, noting that the 16-month-old Bao Bao "was quite the little snow panda. She ...

Three dominating pitchers and one resilient fan favorite are heading to Cooperstown, as Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio were named to Baseball's Hall of Fame Tuesday.

The strong class marks the first time in 60 years that baseball writers have chosen four players from the same ...

Days before he was scheduled to die, inmate Frank Van Den Bleeken has been told he won't be allowed to die from an assisted suicide, despite his request. Last fall, a court approved a deal that would have allowed him to end his life.

The planned euthanasia was called off ...

Officials in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston and Washington have been awaiting a decision from the U.S. Olympic Committee on which of the four will be the American entry to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. Their wait may come to an end this week.

The U.S. Olympic Committee announced ...

Driven by higher tuition fees and tighter state funds, America's public colleges now get more money from their students than from all state sources. That's according to a report by the Government Accountability Office, which says tuition revenue reached 25 percent of the colleges' total in 2012.

The numbers are ...

The price for a barrel of U.S. oil benchmark West Texas Intermediate fell below $50 Monday, matching levels seen in the spring of 2009. The drop is linked to both OPEC's boosted production and a stronger dollar.

Oil's latest fall came along with a dip on Wall Street, as the ...

Provocative Japanese artist Megumi Igarashi, who has been arrested twice this year on charges related to her design for a kayak that incorporates a 3-D model of her genitals, has been indicted on charges that she distributed "obscene" data.

The case has attracted wide attention, both for its unique circumstances ...

The parents of Antonio Martin say their son was killed by police in Berkeley, Mo., last night. And while he had had problems, it "doesn't make any sense for them to kill my son like this," Toni Martin-Green tells the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She added, "I am trying to ...

One thing's for sure: Nikki Bollerman believes in her school and the kids who go there. How else to explain Bollerman, 26, giving a $150,000 windfall to the Boston area public charter school where she teaches third grade?

The story comes to us from member station WBUR, which reports ...

In what his staff is calling a precautionary measure, former President George H.W. Bush was taken to a hospital in Houston by ambulance Tuesday night after experiencing shortness of breath.

Bush, 90, is being kept at Houston Methodist Hospital for observation, his staff says.

"Bush spent nearly two months in ...

Updated at 12 p.m. ET

Protests over a police killing have returned to the St. Louis area, after a Berkeley, Mo., police officer shot and killed an 18-year-old black man Tuesday night. The authorities say he was armed; the shooting took place shortly after 11 p.m. outside a gas station ...

If you're looking for a new car or SUV, it should be easier to find a safe one from the current models: The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says the number of vehicles winning its two safety awards jumped from 39 to 71 for the 2015 model year.

The rise ...

Anna Stoehr became an Internet celebrity at age 113, when she owned up to fibbing on her Facebook account so she could join the social network. It was an unpredictable turn of events for Stoehr, who was born before the Wright brothers took their historic first flight. She died ...

Rep. Michael Grimm, the New York Republican who won re-election despite being indicted on 20 criminal counts related to a restaurant he owns, pleaded guilty to one charge of felony tax evasion Tuesday. He'll be sentenced in June; calls for him to leave Congress began Tuesday morning.

Grimm, a former ...

A man who led a group that beheaded a French journalist has been killed in an attack by Algeria's military. Abdelmalek Gouri had been a wanted criminal in Algeria for nearly 20 years. His Islamic State splinter group claimed responsibility for killing hiker Herve Gourdel in September.

Gouri, a former ...

The U.S. economy grew at a surprisingly fast 5 percent annual rate in the third quarter of 2014, up sharply from the 3.9 percent of the last revision. The figure blew past the consensus estimate of 4.3 percent put forth by economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

It's the fastest the ...

In what may be a first, an appeals court in Argentina has recognized a nonhuman as having basic legal rights. A Buenos Aires judge ruled in favor of advocates who are calling for more freedom for a 28-year-old orangutan who was born in a zoo.

The advocacy group filed a ...

Hundreds of people who entered the U.S. without documentation as children lined up to seek licenses in Arizona on Monday, days after the Supreme Court declined to support the state's ban on issuing licenses to young immigrants brought to the U.S. by their parents.

More than 22,000 "dreamers" are ...

Updated at 3:55 p.m. ET

Joe Cocker, the raspy-voiced British singer famous for hit songs such as "Feelin' Alright" and "Up Where We Belong," has died at age 70, his management agency tells NPR. Cocker died Monday of lung cancer.

"Joe Cocker is a legendary artist of rock and blues ...