'Brutal' Heat Wave Bakes Pacific Northwest

Texas also set its own record for hottest July

(AP) - Sweltering may have reached a new record last month, as Oklahoma racked up the country's highest monthly average temperature ever. That's the highest average temperature, for any month, for any state, associate Oklahoma state climatologist Gary McManus said. According to automated weather recording instruments, the state's average for July was 89.1 degrees. That tops an average of 88.1 set in July 1954, McManus said. More»

79-year-old reported it missing two days before death

(NEWSER) - Somebody took a lot more than just an air conditioner from an elderly Texas woman. Two days after the 79-year-old reported her $2,500 unit stolen from the back of her home, she died of heat exhaustion, reports the Christian Post . It was the fourth time she had had her A/C unit stolen. More»

Microsoft co-founder commits most of his fortune to philanthropy

(NEWSER) - Looks as though Bill Gates' billionaire challenge is paying off: Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has pledged to give away most of his $13 billion fortune. He made the vow public a month after Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett urged the world's richest to give away at least half of their wealth. Allen, the 37th-richest person in the world on the most recent Forbes list, hopes to "spur other people to give," a rep tells the Seattle Times . More»

Air conditioning breaks, windows don't open

(NEWSER) - The high technology of a modern German train whose windows don't open backfired badly yesterday when the air conditioning broke on 3 trains, sending temperatures inside the trains to 122 degrees and forcing the evacuation of more than 1,000 Deutsche Bahn passengers. One of the trains lost its air conditioning so far from a station that by the time passengers were able to exit, 8 had to be hospitalized for heat exhaustion and another 44 needed medical treatment. More»

Daily Beast ranks America's pot-loving locales

(NEWSER) - In honor of today's date, 4/20—and the pot-steeped lore of those numbers—the Daily Beast has ranked the nation's 40 "highest cities," where weed culture reigns supreme. To read the full list and see how it was compiled, click here . The top 10:

1. Eureka, California
2. Tallahassee, Florida
3. Manhattan
4. Boston
5. San Francisco