“NEPA take light!” It’s a popular phrase used by Nigerians when the lights go out. The country’s now-defunct National Electric Power Authority wasn’t the only energy company that struggled to provide reliable power to its citizens. Access to consistent electricity is a widespread problem in Africa, and the U.S. has identified the crisis as one of its…

A 21-year-old man reportedly sabotaged his own attempt to rob a gas station in Stockton, Calif., last week by accidentally shooting himself in the leg, KCRA reports. Donnello Knowles allegedly went on a robbery spree the night of Jan. 21, reportedly participating in three different robberies at a nail salon, a Subway restaurant and a…

Don Thompson, the 51-year-old CEO of McDonald’s, is stepping down on March 1, according to CNBC. The transition comes amid reports that the “world’s biggest restaurant chain” is trying to revamp its U.S. operations after closing out a financial period that was “tumultuous,” the financial news site explained. “McDonald’s stock is nearly flat during Thompson’s tenure…

Cory Batey and Brandon Vandenburg, two former Vanderbilt University football players, were found guilty Tuesday of raping an unconscious student in 2013, the New York Daily News reports. A Tennessee jury convicted the former student-athletes on all “five counts of rape and two counts of aggravated sexual battery,” the news site explains. A total of…

First lady Michelle Obama chose to forgo wearing a headscarf at an event Tuesday to commemorate the death of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah during her and the president’s trip to that country, the Associated Press reports. Her decision is not that controversial, since foreign women can opt out of the Islamic tradition. But according to AP,…

On Monday, law-enforcement officials weighed in on an arrest in August that was captured on video and said that the force Pittsburgh police used against a man staying in a halfway house was “justified,” WPXI reports. Lonnie Jenkins was staying at the Renewal Halfway House in Pittsburgh after he was released from prison on drug…

Jermonte Fletcher, an Ohio man wanted by federal authorities for allegedly distributing cocaine, was shot dead Tuesday morning by U.S. marshals, the New York Daily News reports. The shooting, which happened a little after 8 a.m., is being investigated by authorities. Law enforcement told WBNS-TV that Fletcher was a member of a gang called the…

Nine African-American men—one posthumously—are expected to have their criminal records wiped clean of a trespassing conviction they got in 1961 when they staged a sit-in at a whites-only lunch counter in South Carolina, the Associated Press reports. On Wednesday a South Carolina prosecutor will ask a judge “to vacate the arrests and convictions” of the group known…

Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer, was found guilty Monday of leaking classified information to a New York Times reporter, the Associated Press reports.  The top-secret information included details about a U.S. mission to compromise Iran’s nuclear program. A Virginia jury convicted Sterling, 47, “of all nine counts he faced in federal court,” AP explained. The…

Yale’s president, dean and chief of police, in an email to the campus community Monday, described how even though Charles Blow’s son—a junior at Yale—fit the description of a burglary suspect at the time he was detained, the fact that the officer drew his weapon during the incident “requires a careful review.”  “For this reason, the…