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Emergency crews worked through the night and into the morning Tuesday, trying to find survivors of a massive, mile-wide tornado that touched down in Oklahoma, killing a feared 91 people and flattening neighborhoods whole.

Most of the damage appears to be in the suburb of Moore, where at least 20 of those who died are said to be children. Oklahoma resident David Massey posted several powerful videos of damage from the tornado using the video sharing app Vine.

Israeli and Syrian forces have exchanged fire across the cease-fire line in the occupied Golan Heights. Syria said it destroyed a vehicle that crossed the line overnight, and Israel acknowledged returning fire. While sporadic gunfire from Syria’s civil war has spilled over into Israel on occasion, this marks the first time that Syria has admitted to intentionally firing on Israeli forces.

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As expected, Obama urged Myanmar’s president Thein Sein to tame anti-Muslim violence in his troubled country during an historic visit. But the White House also acknowledged what Myanmar observers have noticed for a while: diplomats (including Obama) are more often using the word “Myanmar” though official policy favors “Burma,” a colonial title that (to some) signifies a stance against the military rulers who switched the name more than 20 years ago.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Would-be grooms in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh are posting photos of themselves with their home’s toilet to woo brides. Millions of poor and rural Indians still defecate under the open sky because their homes and sometimes even their villages lack facilities. The local administration has made the picture of the groom along with the toilet a mandatory requirement for getting registered for mass marriage ceremonies and available benefits.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to push the United States to act on Syria when he meets President Barack Obama at the White House on Thursday.

WATCH LIVE at 12 p.m.

Lawmakers ready with “pointed” questions for US Attorney General Eric Holder on AP phone probe and IRS controversy.

WATCH LIVE

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To catch a spy. Step one: tackle him. Next, show off his “spy kit” of wigs and sunglasses. Release some embarrassing photos of the spy looking unhappy. And then kick him out of the country.

This has been the rough course of events since Russia announced it had caught an alleged CIA spy following a sting operation. It all seems torn from the Cold War era, with Russian state television broadcasting the moment Ryan Christopher Fogle, officially an American diplomat, was jumped by agents.

Russia has accused Fogle of trying to recruit an officer of the Russian secret service, while one report says the suspected agent was likely seeking information about the Boston bombing suspects.

The spy scandal comes as relations between Moscow and Washington appear to be warming, with plans to step up security cooperation. Maybe not any more — the US Ambassador to Russia has been summoned.

Elsewhere in the diplomatic world, Taiwan is recalling its envoy to the Philippines amid a row over the killing of a fisherman — and a lame apology.

The fisherman, Hung Shih-cheng, was shot by the Philippine coast guard last week in the disputed Bashi Strait. Taiwan slammed an apology from the Philippines as insincere and too informal. Say it like you mean it, Manila!

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Cyclone Mahasen is coming. Bangladesh has ordered the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people from low-lying areas, while neighboring Myanmar says it will moveroughly 166,000 people before the cyclonic storm hits early Thursday.

So far, Mahasen is classified as the lowest-level category one on a one-to-five scale, with winds up to 55 miles per hour. But even as a category one storm it could unleash a storm surge of up to seven feet high, and affect millions of people living in low-lying coastal and river areas.

France slips into recession. Hit by sluggish growth, record unemployment and low consumer confidence, France has returned to recession. The country’s gross domestic product contracted 0.2 percent in the first quarter of this year, official figures show. 

This is France’s second recession in four years, with a recession defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. Times are tough across the eurozone, with nine EU members now in recession, according to separate figures. Germany’s economy grew by just 0.1 percent in the quarter.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Death and taxes. As the saying goes, these are the only two certainties in life. We at GlobalPost live by a third certainty: The world is a weird and wondrous place.

But who says taxes and weirdness can’t overlap? From extra charges on flavored vodka in the US to beards in Russia, check out the top six wackiest taxes we’ve found around the world.

US Attorney General Eric Holder described the leak which prompted the investigation into the Associated Press’ phone records as one of the most threatening he’d seen since he took up his post in 1976.

“That is not hyperbole,” Holder said. “It put the American people at risk.”

LONDON, UK — In the deepening investigation of the Boston Marathon bombings, federal officials have reportedly found copies of the Al Qaeda magazine Inspire and other extremist materials on a computer belonging to Katherine Russell, the widow of suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

If these reports are true, and if this case took place in the UK, no other evidence would be needed to arrest and prosecute Russell, 24.

Simply having a copy of Inspire — or any other materials deemed “likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism” — is a crime here.

Under Section 58 of the UK’s Terrorism Act, a 2000 law granting sweeping powers to law enforcement, it is a criminal offense to download, copy or otherwise possess Inspire. Same goes for bomb-making instructions, extremist speeches, or any number of materials that in the United States are protected under the First Amendment.

No other evidence of terrorist activity, or intention to engage in it, is necessary to prosecute under the UK statute, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

Reading this can get you 10 years in prison

Photo courtesy of AFP/Getty Images

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Kidnap in Pakistan. Former Pakistani prime minister Yousef Raza Gilani says his son has been abducted. Ali Haider, a candidate representing the center-left party PPP in this weekend’s polls, was apparently seized by unknown gunmen during one of his final election rallies.

Gilani is in no doubt that his son’s political opponents are behind the attack, though the Pakistani Taliban have also threatened to do anything within their power to disrupt the campaign and vote. Sounds dangerous? Sounds confusing? Never fear, GlobalPost’s new blog is here to bring you Pakistan inside out.

Not again. At least eight people are dead after a fire broke out at a garment factory in Bangladesh. Thankfully for most of the workers employed at the multi-story building in an industrial district in the capital, Dhaka, they had already clocked off before the blaze began.

It could have been so much worse. It has been so much worse. This morning emergency services confirmed that the death toll from last month’s factory collapse has now risen above 900, making it by far the deadliest industrial disaster Bangladesh has ever known.How do we make sure it stops there?

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Blowing the whistle on Benghazi. A veteran US diplomat stationed in Libya when the consulate in Benghazi was attacked last September gave his version of events yesterday at a packed-out hearing on Capitol Hill. It was the first time an American official who was on the ground at the time had testified publicly, and it may have had the White House wishing that he hadn’t.

Gregory Hicks, deputy chief of mission in Tripoli at the time, gave an account that suggested terrorist involvement was clear from the start, and claimed that he’d had since been punished for asking why some in the administration said otherwise. As lawmakers concluded yesterday: “The hearing is now closed, but the investigation is not over.”

What if missiles aren’t the most dangerous thing in North Korea? A medical NGO has warned that the country faces a potential epidemic of drug-resistant tuberculosis, a powerful new strain of the disease that has plagued impoverished North Koreans for years. And contagion knows no borders: if the outbreak continues to grow, South Korea and China could be at risk too.

North Korean patients’ access to drugs is limited to say the least, due in no small part to Western sanctions that cut off key pharmaceutical supplies. Aid groups are appealing to donors and governments to allow medical cooperation, before TB gains any more ground.

Knowledge can be dangerous. US officials investigating the Boston Marathon bombings reportedly found copies of the Al Qaeda magazine Inspire on a computer belonging to Katherine Russell, the widow of suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev. If these reports are true, and if this case took place in the UK, no other evidence would be needed to arrest and prosecute her.

Under the UK’s 2000 terrorism act, simply having a copy of Inspire – or any other materials deemed “likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism” – is illegal. GlobalPost reports on what it means when information is a crime.

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Volcanos, eh. You just about get the hang of pronouncing one of them when another one erupts. This time it’s the Paluweh volcano on one of Indonesia’s islands, which NASA has captured mid-spew from space.  

See the photo here. We like it ‘cos it looks awesome, there’s no one around, and it’s a lot easier to say than “Popocatépetl.”

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Ship meets land. Doesn’t go well. At least five people are dead after a container ship smashed into a control tower in the port of Genoa, northern Italy.

The inaptly named Jolly Nero seems to have suffered an engine failure and swung out of control as it was leaving the docks late last night – just as a shift change was taking place in the port control tower. The tower was almost entirely destroyed and several people are still missing, feared trapped either under the rubble or in the water around the docks. Costa Concordia, take two? Police say they’re investigating.

The rebels are leaving. Kurdish militants have begun withdrawing from Turkey after 30 years of armed struggle that have cost more than 40,000 lives. Under a historic peace deal signed last month, armed members of the PKK rebel group will trek out of Turkey and into their safe havens in the mountains of Iraq. In turn, Turkish authorities will draft a new constitution that is expected to enshrine rights for minorities, including Kurds.

For both sides, the stakes are high. But will the peace hold?

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Going inside the gulags. The United Nations has named the panel that will lead the first ever UN investigation into human rights in North Korea. Three international experts on abuses and war crimes will be responsible for establishing whether Pyongyang has, as defectors say, imprisoned, tortured and executed thousands of its own people. 

North Korea’s leaders have, to no one’s surprise, refused to cooperate with the inquiry. Not so their alleged victims: just hours after they were appointed, the UN team say they were inundated with requests from people wishing to testify.

The secrets of Seymour Avenue. Police in Cleveland, Ohio, are hoping to get some answers from the men accused of kidnapping and imprisoning three young women in a suburban home, undetected, for 10 long years. Authorities have until tonight to file charges against brothers Ariel, Pedro and Onil Castro, thought to be the only people – apart from the victims – who know what went on inside 2207 Seymour Avenue.

The suspects aren’t the only ones who owe answers. Amid reports of years of suspicious activity at the house, many are demanding to know how the police missed what was right in their backyard.

A not-so-perfect crime. Remember the Brussels diamond heist? You know, the one where thieves drove onto an airport runway and broke into the hold of a plane to nab $50 million of uncut diamonds? And got away with it?

Yeah, about that. Police today arrested 31 people in Belgium, Switzerland and France in connection with the robbery. Wads of money and some of the stones have been recovered. Prosecutors say the thieves, who stood to go down in history for one of the biggest heists ever seen, were “professionals.” Just not professional enough.

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French fries. Cheese curds. Gravy. You might want to eat poutine, Canada’s own comfort food, but surely only someone seriously addicted – and incapacitated – would want to drink it. And yet. That’s precisely what Jones Soda is offering you, for a limited time only, the chance to do. Oh yes, their poutine-flavored pop isn’t just liquid – it’s fizzy.

Taste testers say it’s not “quite so instantly repulsive that I had to spit it out” (the brand’s next advertising slogan, surely), but pretty appalling nonetheless. Only available in Canada, you say? Fine by us.

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Ready, aim, don’t fire. North Korea has moved two mid-range missiles away from its eastern seaboard, signalling that it’s not planning on firing them at South Korean or US targets any time soon.

North Korea’s military moved the weapons there last month, at the height of the neighborly dispute. Since then, Pyongyang has toned down the war talk in favor of non-military threats, including imprisoning a US national and pulling its workers out of a joint North-South industrial complex. Just enough to ensure that South Korean President Park Geun Hye and President Barack Obama still have plenty to complain about at their summit in Washington later today.

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The longest decade. Three young women have been found imprisoned in a house in Cleveland, ten years after each separately went missing. Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michele Knight finally managed to escape yesterday, after attracting the attention of a neighbor. Police say the women, all in their 20s, are now in hospital and as well as can be expected.

Three brothers have been arrested, including the home owner. They have 10 years’ worth of questions to answer.

Where’s the world’s worst place to be a mother? According to UK charity Save the Children, it’s the Democratic Republic of Congo. A woman or girl in the DRC has a one-in-30 chance of dying from maternal causes, compared to a one-in-12,200 risk in the world’s safest spot, Finland.

That difference is part of a much larger pattern: 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa score lowest for maternal health, child mortality, education and levels of women’s income and political status, while all the top three are Nordic countries. (The USA, by the way, is 30th.) Save the Children is calling for dedicated investment to end what it calls the “startling” disparity.  

Gangsters? Grenades? Turf wars? It’s not 1920s Chicago, it’s current-day Japan. Faced with a shrinking pot of spoils, five mafia syndicates are waging an unusually vicious gang battle in the coastal prefecture of Fukuoka, home to the largest number of organized crime groups in the country. Authorities’ attempts at a crackdown have been met with increasingly audacious fighting that’s sucking in police and, at times, innocents.

GlobalPost reports on Japan’s yakuza wars.

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Arachnophobia: it’s the only reasonable response. So the “black widow spiders eat the males after sex” thing is a myth, they say. They’re not as cannibal-ly like everyone thinks, they say. No – because they’re even cannibal-ier.

Researchers have discovered that it’s not just female spiders that kill and eat their mates, it’s the males too. And they do it before they’ve even got anywhere, simply because they don’t consider them an attractive mate. It’s almost enough to make tarantulas seem positively cute. Almost… except, y’know, not.

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Clue, the Syria edition. Was it the army in Homs with a nerve agent, or rebels in Aleppo with sarin gas? The allegations are flying in all directions, as a UN investigator claims to have evidence that suggests opposition forces are using the lethal poison sarin. Carla del Ponte, one of the investigators leading the UN’s inquiry into suspected war crimes in Syria, says her team does not have “incontrovertible proof” that that’s the case, only “strong, concrete suspicions.”

The problem with suspicions, however strong, is that they’re based on testimonies and interpretations rather than cold, hard evidence, which has so far proved elusive. As GlobalPost has learned, initial blood tests on victims of one suspected chemical weapons attack found no trace of sarin, while other explanations for their symptoms are eminently possible. Before we get to who, what and where, we need to tackle whether. 

Malaysian malaise. The government is urging voters to put their differences behind them after one of the closest elections in Malaysia’s history. Prime Minister Najib Razak and his ruling National Front coalition hung on to power despite their worst-ever poll result, and are now promising Malaysians a program of “national reconciliation.”

The opposition, however, claims that the incumbents stole the election from them. Their leader, Anwar Ibrahim, has called for a full investigation into what he alleges were widespread irregularities. The voting may be over, but the campaign isn’t.

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Not a bargaining chip, just a straight-up criminal: that’s Kenneth Bae for you, according to North Korea. The country’s secretive regime has denied that it’s keeping the US national prisoner in order to use him as a negotiating tool with Washington, and insists it has no plans to free him in exchange for a visit by a high-profile American.

As with most things North Korea says, no one’s quite sure whether to believe it. Analysts suspect the country is looking for a way to back up its recent war rhetoric without actually, y’know, going to war; unfortunately for Bae, keeping hold of him could be the way Pyongyang chooses to do it.

Neo-Nuremberg. Germany has begun the trial of a woman believed to be at the heart of a neo-Nazi terror cell responsible for at least 10 deaths. Beate Zschaepe is accused of plotting to murder immigrants as part of a racist killing spree that was allowed to continue for seven long years.

The closely watched trial is expected to make for uncomfortable viewing, not only because of the violent fascist underworld it exposes, but because of the questions it will raise about why it wasn’t exposed sooner.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Why honey, it’s just what I never wanted. One lucky bidder could soon be the proud owner of a electrocardiogram showing the beat of Neil Armstrong’s heart just before he made his historic moon landing in 1969.

The lot, part of an online auction of space memorabilia, is testimony to the astronaut’s cool head under pressure: Armstrong’s heartbeat, the read-out shows, stayed for the main impressively low, despite a few moments of worry as Apollo 11 began to run low on fuel. One small blip for man, one giant waste of money for whoever buys it.