According to a report published by nonprofit online newspaper the Washington Free Beacon, the hacker, possibly using stolen username and password credentials, accessed the National Inventory of Dams (NID) and siezed information not normally available to the public.

The NID database contains comprehensive information about 79,000 dams throughout the US, including the estimated number of deaths there would be if a given dam failed.

“The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is aware that access to the National Inventory of Dams (NID), to include sensitive fields of information not generally available to the public, was given to an unauthorized individual in January 2013 who was subsequently determined to not to have proper level of access for the information,” Army Corps of Engineers spokesperson Pete Pierce told the Washington Free Beacon.

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Bae, also known as Pae Jun Ho, is accused of attempting to "topple" North Korea, according to state-run media. He has supposedly admitted the charges.

"The Supreme Court sentenced him to 15 years of compulsory labour for this crime," North Korea's official news agency announced Thursday.

Bae, 44, was detained in the northeast city of Rason on Nov. 3 after entering North Korea on a tourist visa.

According to reports, he is a Korean-American who runs a travel company and was in the country to lead a tour group. A devout Christian, he had made several previous trips to North Korea to do humanitarian work, friends told the Associated Press.

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Some New Zealand parents were getting so creative devising unique names for their newborns that the country's Department of Internal Affairs has stepped in to stop the shenanigans.

New Zealand released an official list of rejected names on Wednesday that includes "4Real," "Mafia No Fear" and "Anal." Other gems — like "." and "*" — didn't even bother with the alphabet. All of the names on the list were at some point proposed by parents, soon to be rejected by the government, which deemed the names too offensive.

In some cases, parents appeared to have lost any inspiration for coming up with a moniker for their offspring, naming the family's latest addition simply "2nd", "3rd" or "5th."

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So this week, reporters and Korea watchers are pouring ink over what could happen to Bae and how he got himself in the knotty situation. Was he caught handing out Bibles in a country nervous about foreign Christian influences? Will he go to prison for life? Get the death penalty?

And the big-picture questions. Will Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter make a visit to secure his release? Will Bae be used as a bargaining chip in nuclear negotiations?

The problem is, in the strange absence of any specific statement from North Korean media, we really have no idea why Bae is being put on trial. On Saturday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) only said this:

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The already-rampant poaching trade — fueled by high ivory demand from Asia and responsible for the slaughter of between 20,000 and 30,000 elephants a year in Africa — has been further exacerbated by the ousting of President Francois Bozizé last month, Reuters reported.

"The situation is really quite dangerous," Bas Huijbregts, the World Wildlife Fund's head of policy in the region, told Reuters.

The World Wildlife Fund, which has been working on conservation projects in the CAR since the 1980s, reported that the poaching is occurring in protected areas like the Dzanga-Sangha, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Although it did not offer exact numbers, the WWF said in their statement that "initial reports indicate [the slaughter] may be extensive" and that poachers were openly selling elephant meat in local markets.

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Syukri says he now suffers from short-term memory loss, pointing to a zigzag scar beneath a shock of thick, black hair.

“I didn’t feel anything,” he said, recalling the lengthy interrogations. “It felt like I was already dead.”

His story is one of thousands involving kidnap, torture, rape and murder at the hands of the Indonesian military, which some victims here say was aided by US oil giant ExxonMobil.

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As more cases appear, the death toll rises and so does the fear. But are the fears founded?

GlobalPost talked to Dr. Neil Fishman, associate chief medical officer at the University of Pennsylvania Health System, about where to focus efforts to quell the outbreak, how the press is handling the news and just how likely it is that humans will one day transfer the virus to other humans.

GlobalPost: The current flu strain has been found in disparate areas of China. How does the wide spread of cases affect efforts to combat the virus?

Dr. Neil Fishman: There’s two critical things that are promising. One is that the virus has not been isolated in migratory birds. It’s only been found in chickens, ducks and pigeons in live poultry markets, so that makes it potentially easier to manage.

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Astronomers claim that the water was delivered by comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which collided with the planet in 1994.

A European Space Agency mission, along with NASA, found that there was more water closer to Jupiter's southern hemisphere where the comet struck than its northern hemisphere.

The water is particularly concentrated where the comet entered the planet's atmosphere.

Water at the bottom layers of its atmosphere is easily explainable but upper level atmosphere water was not until now.

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Yet the mother of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects has not returned to the United States from the Russian republic of Dagestan to bury the oldest boy or to care for the youngest — despite her claims they are innocent.

The reason could be Zubeidat Tsarnaeva’s own legal problems: she could be arrested on an outstanding warrant for shoplifting if she sets foot on US soil.

An official from the Natick District Court told ABC News that Tsarnaeva — her last name is slightly different from her sons' because in Russian, all female names end in "a" — failed to appear in court on Oct. 25 to face charges she stole $1,600 worth of designer clothing from a department store.

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Tamerlan Tsarnaev arrived in Russia in January 2012 and left six months later to return to his home in Boston.

Family members report him visiting his father and other relatives in the Caucasus region of Dagestan and he is thought to have traveled to neighboring Chechnya, the family's ancestral homeland.

Beyond that, reports of his movements are murky.

The surviving accused bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, has reportedly told investigators he and his brother acted alone in planning the attack and planting the devices that killed three people and injured over 200 close the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Tamerlan is believed to be the plot’s instigator.

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Now, redditors along with the site's leadership, posted an apology to the family of  still-missing Brown University student, Sunil Tripathi.

"We want to take this opportunity to apologize publicly for the pain they have had to endure," the statement said.

"We hope that this painful event will be channeled into something positive and the increased awareness will lead to Sunil's quick and safe return home."

Reddit's "findthebostonbombers" thread drew a lot of criticism for jumping to conclusions after hearing fragments of information on a police scanner.

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Although it’s generally believed the Russian government asked the FBI in 2011 to investigate Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the elder of the two suspects, for alleged Islamic radicalism, Russian law enforcement and security agencies are remaining tight-lipped about the US probe now reportedly focused on the 26-year-old’s six-month trip to the region early last year.

Some experts say Moscow’s muted response is rooted in the authorities’ belief that they have little to gain from cooperating, especially in the sphere of domestic terrorism, which the Kremlin has long considered to be largely under control.

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Now there's hope of new riches beneath the area's sandy heathland.

The Campine is one of dozens of regions across Europe believed to be sitting on significant reserves of shale gas — the underground fuel that has revolutionized energy supply in the United States over the past decade.

"The potential in Europe could be huge," says Professor Richard Davies, a specialist at Britain's Durham University and advisor to the industry. "We've got all the right sort of rocks."

Shale gas now accounts for more than 20 percent of US natural gas production, up from barely 1 percent in 2000. By the 2030s, it's share is expected to be over 50 percent.

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Hospitals and clinics should be vigilant for people exhibiting flu-like symptoms who have traveled from China, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The CDC also issued on Thursday “interim guidance” regarding the use of antiviral drugs in treating the disease.

There is no vaccine available for this strain of H7N9 avian flu, the CDC said, although it cautioned that the measures it is taking are routine.

While there is little evidence the disease is easily transmitted from poultry to humans, experts are watching the new strain closely because of its sudden arrival.

Because the strain is considered “novel,” or non-human, the threat of pandemic remains high should the disease mutate and spread between people.

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"Genuine dialog is possible only at the phase where the DPRK has acquired nuclear deterrent enough to defuse the US threat of nuclear war unless the US rolls back its hostile policy," the North's foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the state news agency, KCNA.

The statement came after a series of escalating threats against both the US and its neighbor, South Korea.

President Barack Obama said in an interview Tuesday that it is likely that North Korea will display more "provocative behavior" but that it would not be rewarded.

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State-run Press TV is reporting that at least 40 people were killed in the quake, which hit in Sistan and Baluchistan province on the border with Pakistan.

Pakistani officials told Reuters that at least five people died in Pakistan, reportedly a family whose house collapsed on top of them, while hundreds of buildings were damaged.

One Iranian official said it was the biggest tremor to hit the country in 40 years, and "we are expecting hundreds of dead."

Iran's Seismological Center measured the quake at 7.5 on the Richter scale, though the US Geological Survey put it higher, at 7.8. It struck at a depth of 9.4 miles, according to the USGS.

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In the hours since the two explosions rocked the streets of Boston, messages of love and support have saturated the internet — but these inspiring and compassionate posts were not universal.

In fact, the commentary streaming across the Twitter feed of the Westboro Baptist Church was both hostile and hateful.

The Westboro Baptist Church, based in Topeka, Kansas, is a small, virulently homophobic, anti-Semitic hate group that regularly stages protests or pickets institutions and individuals they think support homosexuality or otherwise subvert what they believe is God’s law.

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"Today we can say that we had a fair electoral triumph," said Maduro, 50, after the results were announced.

About 78 percent of Venezuela's nearly 19 million eligible voters cast ballots Sunday, The New York Times reported.

After election authorities announced the result, Maduro's supporters celebrated outside Miraflores presidential palace, although the party drew nowhere near as large a crowd as past socialist victories.

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Not just any domestic help will do.

Discreet, impeccably elegant and as comfortable typing on a Blackberry as uncorking a champagne bottle, the image of British butlers makes them requisite status symbols on par with Ferraris in the garage — and they’re being exported to the houses and private yachts of the planet’s uber-wealthy in droves.

The demand is giving new life to a once-dying profession. Britain had 30,000 working butlers in the 1930s, according to the International Guild of Professional Butlers. By the 1980s, as the aristocratic estates portrayed in shows such as “Downton Abbey” faded into history, there were barely 100.

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