Three fourths of all Australians have a problem with gambling. Although the country only has 22 million people — fewer than the entire state of Texas — Aussies spend nearly $12 billion a year on poker machines alone. “Many Australians enjoy an occasional flutter,” says a government website. “However for some, gambling can be highly…

Faith and family are so tightly linked in American society that “even some of society’s least religious people find religion to be important in their private lives,” says researcher Elaine Howard Ecklund from Rice University. Despite their personal non-belief, reports the website Futurity, a surprising number of atheist scientist parents told Ecklund that they often…

If 30 years ago precocious little Drew Barrymore stole your heart in E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, then you are going to be delighted this Christmas with a dynamo of a 7-year-old actress, Maggie Elizabeth Jones. In what may be the surprise feel-good movie of the season, We Bought a Zoo, this delightful, 3-foot-10, Atlanta soccer player…

Ho, ho, ho, that’s him — the jolly ol’ elf himself at a Dallas intersection, where he startled motorists by pulling two passengers out of a crashed vehicle shortly before it exploded into flame. Then Santa stuck around to direct traffic around the flaming car. It turns out it wasn’t Santa himself, but one of…

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