National News

Work was begun on 0.8 percent more single-family homes in January than had been started the month before, the Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development say.

Apple said today that the computers of some of its employees were attacked by hackers, who used the same vulnerability to access computers at Facebook.

“It sounded like thunder, but it felt like an earthquake,” Tracey Truitt, a lawyer who was working in a nearby building, tells the Kansas City Star about an explosion Tuesday evening that leveled a restaurant in the city’s Country Club Plaza.

Investigators trying to piece together a motive in December’s killings in Newtown, Conn., believe that 20-year-old shooter Adam Lanza may have been inspired by a similar 2011 massacre in Norway.

In a heist right out of movies such as The Italian Job, eight masked gunman drove on to the tarmac at Brussels’ international airport Monday night, sped to a plane being loaded with diamonds and made off with about $50 million worth of the precious stones, authorities say.

“Hundreds of investigations convince us” that the Chinese government is at least aware of, and likely sponsoring, cyber thieves who have stolen massive amounts of information from companies around the world, including American defense contractors, a U.S. security firm reported Tuesday.

Every month, the government sends out about 5 million checks to Americans who receive federal benefits. On March 1, the Treasury Department is making those paper checks a thing of the past.

The two hulking rocks hurtling toward Earth today seem to have caught Congress’ attention: Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas, is calling for a Congressional hearing on what we can do to protect our planet from asteroids.

There’s been another horrifying bombing in Quetta, Pakistan; reports say at least 47 people are dead after an explosive device went off in a crowded marketplace. At least 130 people are hurt, notes Reuters. Photos from the scene show heavy smoke rising over buildings.

Nuclear waste is leaking out of a tank in one of the most contaminated nuclear waste sites in the U.S.