National / International News

The restaurant's slogan is "taste worth dying for!" Its menu includes "Flatliner Fries" and a burger that packs about 10,000 calories. John Alleman had been its "unofficial spokesman" for more than a year.

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One of the biggest private employers in Wales delivers a boost by beginning production at its new £185m blast furnace in Port Talbot.

One of the biggest private employers in Wales has started production at its new £185m blast furnace in Port Talbot.

Survivalist used to be just another way of saying right-wing extremist who either hated the government, thought the world would end...or both.

But then Hurricane Katrina hit, the economy collapsed, and Superstorm Sandy devastated New York City and New Jersey.

“People are feeling anxiety about the economy, the threat of pandemics, you name it," says Jim Rawles who runs the website SurvivalBlog. “Preparedness has become big business.”

Sales have only continued to grow at the Ready Store, an online firm that sells emergency preparedness supplies.

“The most expensive thing we sell is a year supply of food. It’s about $3,500,” says marketing director Jonathan Dick.

Dick estimates consumers spend half a billion dollars a year on things like water storage tanks, shelters, battery-powered radios and of course food rations.

And then there are all the trade shows, like the Self Reliance Expo, run by Ron Douglas, an entrepreneur in Colorado. Douglas says visitors can attend a broad array of classes.

“Soap-making, candle-making, I think we have bread-baking...full-on gardening classes. Raising rabbits,” he says.

Douglas -- who charges $10 for a two-day pass to the Expo -- says he’s seen his crowds swell from several thousand a few years ago, to more than 10,000 these days. You don’t have to tell him that this self-reliance industry is becoming more mainstream, he sees it.

“You’ll see a guy sitting three in dreadlocks and flip-flops and two seats down is a camoed-out guy, and two seats down from him is a mother with a stroller,” he says.

When it comes to marketing though, Jonathan Dick at the Ready Store says the industry still has some work to do.

“If you start shopping around, you’ll notice there is a lot of doom and gloom out there. And frankly, I think it’s a lot of people trying to get people to buy stuff by making them afraid,” he says.

Dick says in a way, loading up on solar panels, extra food and equipment isn’t much different than an insurance policy that customers -- hopefully -- won’t ever need.

But if they do...

Thank goodness I got married in olden times -- when the big decision was not whether to make your wedding website password-protected. When the words "page view" and "unique visitors" were not wedding lingo. When you didn't have to brand your own love story.

Have you clicked on one of these sites? Forgive me, but some are more entertaining than the wedding itself. There are polls asking guests to vote on the first dance; pop-up tabs making it easy to pin photos on Pinterest; credits naming the bride's hairstylist; links to PayPal for "honeyfund" contributions; and breaking news tidbits from the couple's trip to register at Target, perhaps, or a dress update.

And pity the couple who didn't "meet cute," as they say in Hollywood. Because the centerpiece is almost always the blow-by-blow account -- or in some cases, the blow-by-blow video -- detailing the proposal or the "how we met" story.

The sites are so popular that a new form of wedding entertainment has emerged: mocking others' websites. As one 30-something on the wedding circuit told me, "if I don't already know how you met, why am I going to your wedding?"

Here's another issue not faced by the mother-of-the-bride generation: what to name the website. With more than two million weddings a year, not every Michael and Jessica (the most popular names of the 1980s) can get their top choice.

But if you choose a URL that celebrates your special love and doesn't include your names, forgetful guests may end up at the site of some other Mike and Jessica, reading their adorable story -- or even worse, clicking the link for their Bed, Bath & Beyond registry.

Sure, some sites are tacky. But they do cut down on calls. As one bride confessed, before she got her site running, her aunts called endlessly with questions. Now? She simply directs them to her FAQ page.

Five children are taken to hospital and 36 people are rescued after a chair-lift derails at the Lecht Ski Centre in Aberdeenshire.

The rebels say they captured war planes and bombs in taking the air base. The rebels have been targeting the bases in an attempt to prevent the Syrian army from resupplying troops in the north.

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Netflix is teaming up with DreamWorks to create its first original cartoon series. The new Netflix cartoon will be based on the DreamWorks movie, Turbo, about a snail who becomes super fast through a freak accident, and dreams of becoming a race car driver.

Netflix spokesman Joris Evers says, with the Turbo series, Netflix is shifting more of its focus to kids.

“Last year alone our members streamed more than two billion hours of kids content," says Evers.

Why is kids programming so attractive? It might have something to do with monster hits like Sponge Bob, which generates billions -- making money on and off the screen.

Stuart Levine, TV and features editor at Variety, says a popular show can spawn its own product line.

“You know, the DVD's and the toys and the pillows," he explains,  "and that’s what makes it such a huge hit for both the network and the studio.”

Plus, Levine says, children's shows don’t cost much to make, and a hit like Sponge Bob, can run forever.  

Edinburgh City Council has paid £27m to contractors for statutory building repairs to private homes which it has not recouped from residents.

A couple started a house fire which killed their six children in "a plan that went horribly wrong", a court has been told.

The regulations for some of the government's back-to-work schemes are unlawful, the Court of Appeal has ruled, quashing them with immediate effect.

There's a certain magic that comes with reading a good story. Even one that's not about a magical time. Which is to say, the last five years in this economy.

Novelist Jess Walter has a new collection of short stories out about people and the lives they've lived the past five years. "We Live in Water," it's called.

"We are in the midst of a recovery but when I look around my neighborhood I see what I think are yard sales, and then I look closely and I see it's everyone's funiture on the lawn because they have been evicted," says Walter. "So I do think we have left a lot of people underwater as we come out of this -- more than we even realize."

His collection is full of tragic characters -- the homeless, the drug-addicted and those who have lost everything to gambling debts. But it is not without humor. "I look in those lives for moments of redemption and light and humor," he says. "That's the thing that always draws me to a story is humor and, thankfully, you don't need to make $80,000 a year to have a sense of humor."

Stations in at least two states had their emergency broadcast systems broken into. "Bodies of the dead" were said to be rising from their graves. Funny? Dangerous? Both?

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An interim agreement is reached in the row over Welsh language musicians' royalty payments, BBC Cymru Wales has announced.

Consumers are increasingly being marketed seafood with labels that are supposed to certify that it's good for the environment. We asked about consumers' seafood eating habits and whether they prefer to buy "sustainably caught" fish.

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Consumers are increasingly being marketed seafood with labels that are supposed to certify that it's good for the environment. We asked about consumers' seafood eating habits and whether they prefer to buy "sustainably caught" fish.

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North Korea's military ambitions pose a "serious threat" to the US, outgoing Defence Secretary Leon Panetta says, after Pyongyang's third nuclear test.

Real Madrid boss Jose Mourinho says his next club will be English but a move to Manchester United is unlikely.

What might North Korea's nuclear test reveal, asks Jonathan Marcus

Lions coach Warren Gatland believes selecting too many English players for the Australia tour could bring extra pressure.