The video game Grand Theft Auto IV made over $500 million in its first week of release, surpassing the record previously held by Microsoft's Halo 3 ($400 million).

The Church is going digital: the Vatican announced it will launch a Catholic social networking site similar to Facebook.

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The top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar, Shari Villarosa, says the death toll in the flooded country, currently estimated at 20,000, may actually be 100,000 or greater.

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There were 1.89 million drug-related arrests in 2006, a rise from the previous year despite an overall drop in crime. Four out of every 10 arrests were for marijuana possession – not selling – according to the F.B.I.

The New York Times profiles Chicago's CeaseFire, a group that tries to prevent revenge gang shootings by using former gang members to interrupt cycles of retaliation. (via metafilter)

Chicago rapper Common will join Batman Begins star Christian Bale in the cast of Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins.

An estimated 22,000 people are dead and another 41,000 are missing in Myanmar (also known as Burma), less than a week after tidal waves and floods caused by a cyclone battered the region. Myanmar is ruled by a military dictatorship that is refusing to allow international aid into the country.

The families of immigrants who have died while detained by the government are finding it difficult to get answers from the prisons and hospitals that housed their loved ones. The deaths of detained immigrants – including legal residents with criminal convictions, foreigners seeking political asylum and immigrants with expired visas – are not investigated by a government agency. Over 60 immigrants have died in federal custody between January 2004 and November 2007.