Bill Chappell

As with many elite industrial designers, you know his work even if you don't know his name. Decades after Kenji Ekuan created Kikkoman's iconic soy sauce bottles with their red caps, he designed Japan's Komachi bullet train, in a career driven by a desire to make good design accessible to ...

Alabama has become the 37th state to recognize same-sex marriage, after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request that would have extended the state's ban Monday. But the state's chief justice says probate courts don't have to follow federal rulings on the issue.

Update at 9:15 a.m. ET: Supreme Court ...

An American woman taken hostage by the self-declared Islamic State has died after Jordanian warplanes attacked the building where she was being held in Syria, the extremist group says.

The claim was announced on Twitter and reported by the the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadi activity. NPR is ...

In a unanimous ruling, Canada's Supreme Court struck down the country's law that bans doctor-assisted suicide Friday. The court said the law denies people the right "to make decisions concerning their bodily integrity and medical care" and leaves them "to endure intolerable suffering."

The ruling includes several provisions:

• Patients ...

Health officials in Illinois are trying to find the source of a measles infection, after five babies were diagnosed with the contagious respiratory disease in a Chicago suburb. Saying that more cases are likely, a health official warns, "The cat is out of the bag."

Because the Illinois patients are ...

Within seconds of takeoff, the TransAsia plane that went down in a dramatic and deadly crash in Taipei Wednesday was already in trouble. Investigators say the turboprop plane's right engine lost thrust 37 seconds into the flight, and that the left one failed to restart not long afterwards.

The full ...

Repeated air strikes on the self-described Islamic State are "the beginning of our retaliation" for the extremist group's brutal killing of a captured pilot, Jordan's foreign minister says.

Nasser Judeh made the remark on CNN, adding that Jordan will continue to target ISIS fighters and facilities in both Iraq ...

For the first time, Harvard University is banning sexual relationships between faculty and undergraduates, strengthening language in its policies on sexual misconduct. The change comes as the school examines its rules and undergoes a federal review.

Last year, Harvard was among dozens of schools the Department of Education said ...

Responding to criticism over a scandal involving a bombing cover-up and a prosecutor's death, Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will write letters to Mia Farrow and Martina Navratilova, who tweeted about the case this week.

In recent days, both Farrow and Navratilova have tweeted about the scandal revolving around ...

A prominent cleric in the Al-Qaida in Yemen organization was among those killed in a drone strike this weekend, the group says. Sheik Harith al-Nadhari was among those who praised the recent attack on French magazine Charlie Hebdo.

From the AP:

"A statement posted Thursday on a Twitter account ...

London Mayor Boris Johnson's ambitious plan to reshape how the city handles cyclist traffic got final approval Wednesday, clearing the way for the spread of segregated bike lanes and dedicated traffic signals. Johnson plans to create a network for cyclists that rivals the city's transit system.

"The board of Transport ...

He started out in golf as a caddy, earning handfuls of change as a boy. Decades later, Charlie Sifford was named to the World Golf Hall of Fame, after a career marked by talent, character and the drive to change his sport. Sifford, the first black golfer to hold a ...

Nearly 20 years after an earlier proposed merger was rejected by U.S. regulators, Staples says it is acquiring Office Depot for $6.3 billion. Combined, the two office supply giants would have annual sales of some $39 billion.

"Staples began discussions to acquire Office Depot in September 2014," the companies said ...

Responding to a horrific video that shows one of its pilots being burned alive, Jordan has executed two jihadists, including a prisoner whose freedom had been sought by the self-declared Islamic State militant group. The father of Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh is calling for revenge.

In Jordan, reactions to the pilot's ...

To mark 80 years of Monopoly, game maker Hasbro has tucked real money into 80 game sets to be sold in France. The amount of cash in the boxes varies; only one set will come with a full complement of 20,580 euros.

Finding the money will be a challenge. Hasbro ...

Financial ratings service Standard & Poor's will pay almost $1.38 billion to settle charges that it took part in a scheme in which investors lost billions of dollars after putting money into securities whose credit ratings didn't reflect their true risk.

Under the settlement, S&P parent company McGraw Hill Financial ...

The conflict that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s included widespread killing, rape and torture, says the International Court of Justice in The Hague. But the court said Tuesday that the acts can't be deemed genocide, something both Croatia and Serbia have claimed in filings against each ...

Britain could become the first country in the world to legalize a controversial procedure that uses DNA from three people to produce an embryo, as a way to cut out inherited DNA that can cause serious health problems in children.

While the in vitro technique is often referred to by ...

One of the Taliban officials who were released last year in exchange for the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has raised U.S. officials' suspicions that he might attempt to reconnect with the group.

The exchange of five men who had been detained at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay for ...

It would be perfectly normal to think of archery as a sport defined by accuracy. But a Danish man who says he researched archery's historic methods is arguing for speed and agility, as well: Lars Andersen has released a video in which he fires three arrows in 0.6 seconds.

In ...