Bill Chappell

China says U.S. charges against five Chinese military officials for allegedly hacking into American computers amount to hypocrisy, citing U.S. surveillance and wiretapping. The country's foreign ministry summoned the American ambassador Monday night to complain about the charges.

"From 'WikiLeaks' to the 'Snowden' case, U.S. hypocrisy and double standards regarding ...

Federal authorities say a recall has been issued for 1.8 million pounds of ground beef that was shipped for use in restaurants. Detroit company Wolverine Packing issued the recall Monday; the Department of Agriculture says the beef may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7.

The USDA categorizes the recall ...

The Supreme Court has accepted a case pitting the Department of Homeland Security against a former air marshal, setting up a debate over the imperatives of government secrecy and the public's safety.

The ex-marshal, Robert MacLean, says he was fired from his job with the Transportation Security Administration after ...

AT&T's plan to buy DirecTV for $48.5 billion is the latest tectonic shift in the media industry, with many viewing the deal as a response to the pending merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

Among business analysts and consumer advocates, response to the AT&T-DirecTV deal is mixed. ...

Apologizing for a rescue operation that saved only a fraction of the passengers on a ferry that sank last month, South Korea's president said she plans to dismantle the country's coast guard and reform its emergency and safety systems.

President Park Geun-hye announced the shakeup in a televised address to ...

The cat that saved a young boy from an attacking dog became an Internet star this week. Next week, we'll see how Tara the cat does on the ball field: She's been asked to throw out a ceremonial first pitch at a local minor league baseball game.

We wrote about ...

Parliamentary elections in the world's largest democracy ended on Friday. The election took six weeks; more than 800 million citizens were eligible to vote.

Photos from the election make it clear that, as NPR's Julie McCarthy reported earlier this week, an election that massive requires a lot of logistical ...

Many of us have stories about old couches — particularly ones we had in college, or shortly after. But not many stories are like the one three roommates in New Paltz, N.Y., can now tell.

After the trio realized their beat-up couch was stuffed with more than $40,000, they decided ...

The Department of Transportation is ordering General Motors to pay a record $35 million civil penalty for its handling of a recall of more than 2 million vehicles for ignition switch problems. The government says GM violated federal safety laws.

The fine is part of a "consent decree" that's being ...

This post was updated at 8:45 p.m. ET

A 57-year-old man was charged with arson in one of 10 wildfires that have swept through San Diego County this week, burning more than 30 square miles and causing millions of dollars in damage.

The Associated Press reports that Alberto Serrato pleaded ...

With an expensive communication satellite as its payload, a Russian Proton-M rocket broke apart during its third stage last night. The unmanned rocket failed at an altitude of 100 miles — video of the launch showed it flaring across the night sky.

The failure occurred about nine minutes after takeoff ...

In a historic result, opposition leader Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist party are celebrating a resounding win in India's elections Friday, after ousting the Congress party that has long dominated politics in the world's largest democracy.

As of Friday afternoon, the tally kept by India's NDTV showed Modi's ...

In our "Weekly Innovation" blog series, we explore an interesting idea, design or product that you may not have heard of yet. Do you have an innovation to share? Submit it with this form.

The Skylock can let you share your bike with others — and it'll send you ...

New rules for how Internet traffic is governed were officially unveiled and approved for public comment following a 3-2 vote Thursday by members of the Federal Communications Commission.

The Associated Press notes that the new rules "could set standards for Internet providers who wish to create ...

A family's story of how their cat ran off a dog that had attacked their young son is making waves far beyond Bakersfield, Calif., as the incident was captured in a dramatic video. Surveillance cameras caught the dog viciously biting Jeremy Triantafilo and dragging him — before the family cat ...

The death toll in the coal mine explosion in Turkey keeps rising, and anger over the incident has spread around the country. Thousands of people staged protests after a speech from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in which he suggested such accidents are unavoidable.

Officials say at least 282 mine ...

Crude oil geysered high into the air in northeast Los Angeles early Thursday morning, creating a spill that fire officials say was knee-deep in some spots. The spill happened in an industrial section of Atwater Village, causing the evacuation of a nearby strip club.

Update at 8:10 a.m. ET: Oil ...

Two kindergartners were seriously hurt after the "bounce house" they were playing in was sent high into the air by a strong gust of wind Monday in upstate New York. Both children needed to be hospitalized after falling out of the inflatable playhouse.

The boys, ages 5 and 6, fell ...

Fire officials in San Diego are hoping they've seen the worst of a wildfire that has burned 1,550 acres. They also say they'll get to the bottom of an odd message in an alert that stated, "fire in your pants."

The blaze caused evacuation calls to go out to residents, ...