Prying $8.5 billion from the cold, gray hands of banks for a foreclosure-abuse settlement sounds good. But that's about it. Only a handful of the cases fueling the federal deal ever were investigated. Worse, victimized homeowners will see less than half of that money—which will be spread out evenly with no regard for how much, or how little, someone actually suffered.

When a California teenager brought his shotgun to a high school classroom and fired at a pair of kids he counted as tormentors, he let the rest of his classmates go promised his teacher "I don't want to shoot you."

Joe Biden, leading the White House push for sane gun control, says executive orders might have to do if Congress fails to get its act together and pass meaningful reforms.

Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, super fancy but also super bedeviled, has qualified for a Federal Aviation Administration safety review after a series of "incidents," including a mid-air battery fire.

Syria's rebels, aided by Islamists, have seized an important air base in the northern part of the country—a victory that could help hasten the fall of Bashar al-Assad. It's among several developments this morning in the country's longtime civil war.

The immaculately groomed Hamid Karzai has come calling in Washington DC for talks about Afghanistan troop withdrawal timelines and ongoing negotiations with the Taliban.

Jay Rockefeller will quit the US Senate after 2014, handing his seat to Republicans in a state that prefers red and black (because of coal! not anarchism!) to liberal blue.

The sex-abuse toll by dead British TV host Jimmy Savile stands at 214 kids, according to a new report, with some of those crimes occurring in creepy places like hospitals. Savile, it turns out, could have been prosecuted while he was still alive.

A Social Security worker in trouble for his (apparently) wanton and willful office farting is squeaking by without punishment after his reprimand letter went public on the Smoking Gun and embarrassed his bosses.

Many poor Chinese already slave away in factories to make Apple products. Now, increasingly, their rich compatriots are purchasing the fruits of all that low-paid labor.

I sure as shit hope you didn't brave this morning's frost and ice and try driving to work/school/the library/your parole officer/jail/a diner/the DMV/the mall/a check-cashing office/your Narcotics Anonymous meeting/etc. Because it was awful.

A 5-year-old boy kidnapped by his grandparents in 1994 has turned up 19 years later fewer than 200 miles away—married, living under a new name, and with little apparent trauma from the ordeal.

BUT ONE CAN'T HELP BUT WONDER HOW DIFFERENTLY THINGS MIGHT HAVE ENDED IF CONRAD BAIN HAD BEEN STARRING AS THE KID'S UPPER EAST SIDE STEPFATHER.