National / International News

Two sheep trapped in snow in Northern Ireland since the spring blizzard over three weeks ago have been found alive.

The genome of the coelacanth fish - a "living fossil" - is sequenced by scientists.

Protests over a razor-thin victory by Hugo Chávez's hand-picked successor left seven dead on Tuesday.

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Say I wanted to buy a Smith & Wesson M&P. That, according to Patrick Shearer, is "a small 9mm pistol. It's a low-capacity, seven-round magazine."

Shearer has one for sale. He lives in Northern Virginia, his wife is expecting a baby, and Shearer says he needs the extra cash.

Shearer could go to a gun show or a dealer, but he is using ARMSLIST, a site, he says, that's like Craigslist -- full of classified ads, but for guns. It's one of the biggest online marketplaces for firearms.

And like Craigslist, the people behind ARMSLIST are hands-off. They don't get involved in transactions, and they didn't respond to our request for an interview.

According to Roy Huntington, who edits American Handgunner Magazine, sites like ARMSLIST took off after eBay banned gun sales more than a decade ago.

"I don't have any numbers on it, but it's a huge presence in the marketplace," he says.

Innovators and entrepreneurs, Huntington says, go where the market is. There are sites for selling guns and trading guns. And there are online auction sites just for guns. It seems the convenience of the web is not just for books and clothes.

"I think in some limited sense online sales could make gun shows obsolete," Garen Wintemute says. He directs the Violence Prevention Research Program at U.C. Davis. He says that, at any given time, sites like ARMSLIST have tens of thousands of guns for sale.

"Online, I don't need to wander around the building looking for what I want," Wintemute says. "I can search for it specifically without leaving my chair."

And when Patrick Shearer finds someone who's interested in that Smith & Wesson pistol, that transaction will take place in private.

"Just like I would if I was going to sell something on Craigslist, we meet in a neutral spot that's convenient for both of us," he says.

Shearer says he does more than what Virginia law requires. He asks for two forms of ID, and he makes the buyer fill out a bill of sale. But, as with all online sales, no background check is required.

Find out how many background checks were adminstered in your state last year, and explore gun crime stats in our interactive map. View the map.

A police force's dealings with a mother who died on the same day her three children were found dead will not be investigated by a watchdog.

Antares is designed to ferry cargo to the International Space Station. The two-stage rocket, a milestone for commercial space flight, is scheduled to lift off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on Wednesday.

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Pressure cooker bombs have long been used in places such as Afghanistan and Pakistan because they are cheap, easy to build and inconspicuous. They rely on basic principles of physics to amplify their explosive power.

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The bombing of Boston's storied marathon struck at more than a crowded city street — it attacked a living reservoir of American heritage, culture and intellectualism.

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It should be easier for co-operative trusts to run schools, Labour Co-op MP Meg Munn says.

The first book printed in America is expected to fetch up to $30m (£20m) when it goes under the hammer in New York later this year.

When I look in the mirror, I tend to focus on the things I don’t like. The blemishes. My hair never looks quite right. 

But now, in a new video ad campaign (which you can see above), Dove is telling me I’m better looking than I think. And it’s not even directly peddling its products as it tells me I’m beautiful. 

In the video, Dove tries an unusual experiment. It hired a forensic artist – someone who normally sketches composites of criminals based on what witnesses tell him.

Dove asked the artist to draw women based on their descriptions of themselves. He can’t see the women. He’s separated from them by a curtain. Then, the artist draws the same women based on a stranger’s description of them.

There are startling differences between the two pictures. 

The sketches based on the women’s descriptions of themselves show chunkier, sadder women. Wrinkles and circles under eyes predominate. The pictures sketched from the strangers’ perspective show more open, relaxed and prettier faces.

So, maybe I’m being a little hard on myself?

Maybe a stranger wouldn’t notice the blemishes. Or the circles under my eyes from being up half the night with a sick child.

Will this make me use Dove soap? No. But it’s nice that they’re trying to break away from typical beauty product marketing campaigns, which are usually designed to make women feel bad about themselves, so they reach for products advertised as solutions to their supposed beauty problems.

Egyptian ex-President Hosni Mubarak is ordered back to prison from hospital and faces a retrial on 11 May over the killings of protesters in 2011.

The US is redeploying forces that were due to take part in joint military exercises in Morocco amid a disagreement over Western Sahara.

Unemployment rose by 70,000 to 2.56 million between December and February, the Office for National Statistics says.

Parents in some parts of England - including London - are finding out whether their children have got places at the schools they want.

Nigeria's president is establishing a committee to examine how to enter into dialogue with Boko Haram and bring in an amnesty for the Islamist insurgents.

Two sheep are found alive after they were trapped in heavy snow for more than three weeks by a spring blizzard in Northern Ireland.

Several Guantanamo Bay detainees are on a months-long hunger strike. But the U.S. may have bigger problems when it comes to detainee treatment. A bipartisan study says it's undeniable that the U.S. tortured people after 9/11. Host Michel Martin speaks with former Congressman Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, and one of the co-chairs of the study.

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Put away that old Rand McNally map — it's time for a new way to see what America really looks like.

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FBI images show a backpack and fragments of a pressure cooker which may be linked to the deadly attack on the Boston Marathon.