We’re not in … Brooklyn anymore? A tornado was spotted on Saturday morning, and a second struck in the evening off the beach at Coney Island and the Rockaways in Brooklyn, New York. Brooklyn’s last major tornado was in 2010, when hundreds of trees fell and delayed thousands of people’s commutes. A tornado watch has been issued for all of New York City until 11 p.m., and severe thunderstorms are wreaking havoc throughout the Northeast on Saturday, with thousands losing power. The storm has also caused the postponement of the U.S. Open men's final until Monday.

Andy Murray is getting a second shot at winning the U.S. Open after losing to Roger Federer four years ago. The Scottish tennis star beat Tomas Berdych in the semifinals Saturday and will compete for the title against the winner of the second semifinal, either Novak Djokovic or Devid Ferrer, in the final—which has been delayed due to storms until Monday. Murray came close to his first big title in Wimbledon this year, but didn’t end up on top, though he made up for it by winning gold at the London Olympics.

At least 77 are dead in Syria after government forces used shelling and air raids to bombard Aleppo on Saturday. Fighting also burst pipes responsible for delivering water to several hundered thousand people in the country, leaving certain areas with no drinking water. Across the country Saturday, 148 people are believed to have been killed. Aleppo has become the main battleground in the Syrian civil war, as rebels and troops fight for control.

A 2.5-mile-high column of ash and gas spewing from the San Cristobal volcano in Nicaragua on Saturday forced 3,000 people in surrounding areas to flee. Soldiers were sent to help the evacuations proceed smoothly. The country has been on alert since an earthquake hit nearby Costa Rica, and the geological institute says there is a lot of activity in the volcano. “We do not rule out anything, but call for calm,” said director Javier Mejia.

Sen. John McCain has harsh words for the way Barack Obama is dealing with Iran’s nuclear threat, saying, “It’s almost like watching a train wreck.” He also had a subtle critique for his party, telling the Associated Press he was “disappointed” with the notable absence of national-security discussions at last week’s Republican National Convention. “It’s the job of presidents and candidates to lead and articulate their vision for America’s role in the world,” McCain said. On Friday he addressed a forum in Italy and called for more aide for Syria and more pressure against Iran.

After weeks of anti-China protests, pro-democracy politicians in Hong Kong are expected to get a boost in the upcoming election this weekend. The civil discontent sparked from plans for mandatory Chinese patriotism lesson in schools, since Hong Kong is semiautonomous from the mainland and has more freedoms for the press and demonstrators. Forty of the 70 legislative council seats are going to be decided during this election, and many voters are hoping reforms could come with this set of candidates. The results will be announced Monday.

First he owned Obamacare, next birther attacks? At a stop on the campaign trail in Orlando on Saturday, Obama poked fun at the birther conspiracy theories that have plagued his presidency. An adult told the president that a young boy at their table in a local sports bar was born in Hawaii. “You were born in Hawaii? You have a birth certificate?” Obama joked, to laughter from the table. Mitt Romney recently came under fire after making a birther joke during a rally, which the Obama campaign jumped at, saying, “America doesn’t need a birther in chief.”

French investigators traveled to Britain on Saturday to search the home of a British couple found murdered in the French Alps, while medical officials said the couple’s 7-year-old daughter remains in a medically induced coma. Saad al-Hilli, 50, his wife, Iqbal, and a woman believed to be Iqbal’s 74-year-old mother were shot dead in their car, while the couple’s 7-year-old daughter was found unconscious near the car and their 4-year-old daughter was found alive underneath the bodies. A fourth victim, a bicyclist named Sylvain Mollier, was found shot in the head nearby.

Kim Ki-duk, the South Korean director of Pieta, serenaded the audience at the Venice Film Festival with a short Korean song instead of an acceptance speech. Kim won the award for best film at the festival Saturday for his tale of a cruel debt collector who meets a woman claiming to be his mother. Best director went to Paul Thomas Anderson, who’s film The Master also saw a shared best actor award for leading men Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

He’s just being Jason. Police in Los Angeles have arrested a man found trespassing while allegedly attempting to break into the home of 19-year-old Miley Cyrus early Saturday morning. The man, identified as Jason Luis Rivera, was holding “a pair of nail clipper–like scissors,” and, according to video from the scene, wearing a heart-shaped ornament made of rope. Rivera first attempted to enter the home through the front door—posing as one of Cyrus’s friends. But after being denied entrance, he began “throwing himself” against an outside wall, at which point the police were called.

Lindsay Lohan is suddenly getting all political on us—or on Twitter, rather. The actress voiced her opinion on tax reform in 140 characters Friday, responding to a tweet from President Obama that claimed he’d cut taxes “for those who need it: middle-class, families, small businesses.” LiLo then fired off a somewhat befuddling tweet, urging President Obama “to cut them for those listed on Forbes as ‘millionaires’ if they are not, you must consider that.” While it’s hard to tell why Lohan is suddenly so fired up on the subject, Forbes’s dig at her last week for spending $46,000 at Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont might have something to do with it. Or perhaps she’s suggesting Forbes’s celebrity-listed “millionaires” should receive tax cuts if they’re not millionaires after all, in which case Forbes should take the hint and recalculate Lohan’s net worth.

Although job growth numbers for August were disappointing, not all the news on the economy is bad: on Friday, the stock market edged up, ending at multiyear highs on hopes that the Federal Reserve will pump more money into the sluggish economy next week. The Dow Jones industrial average added 14.64 points (or 1 percent) to its total 13306.64, its highest close since 2007, while S&P closed at its highest point since 2008. Friday’s weak jobs numbers amped up expectations that the Fed will announce it will buy new bond purchases. In Europe, central bank chief Mario Daghi unveiled a plan Thursday to buy short-term bonds from euro countries to request help—the most ambitious plan yet to save the troubled currency.

The excitement couldn't last forever. The unlimited bond-buying plan announced by the European Central Bank on Thursday to much fanfare is already meeting with criticism. Political and media reactions in the crucial country of Germany were scathing, some even accusing the bank of forcing debt on euro-zone members. Meanwhile, the two main beneficiaries of the plan, Spain and Italy, seem reluctant to ask for help—even if eventually they have no choice but to seek aid, fearing domestic reactions to the economic strings attached to any money they receive from the bank.

Britain, France and Germany are advocating the EU place new sanctions against Iran in light of its developing nuclear program. Leaders of all three countries said talks were not working and action is now needed to stop the country from possibly creating weapons and violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran claims their program is for civilian use authorized in the treaty, but has refused to comply with UN inspectors and is rumored to be enlarging its nuclear capacity. "This is not something for next year, we are talking about next weeks," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told Reuters. Canada recently closed its embassy in Iran and expelled the country’s diplomats from its soil.

American audiences weren’t the only ones charmed by Michelle Obama’s speech on the first night of the Democratic National Convention. Apparently, the Chinese are just as excited by the electrifying first lady. The country’s popular social networking site, Sina Weibo, showed the speech shared more than 20,000 times, with comments calling it inspiring and moving. One user wrote: “I’m not an American, so why, when I’ve finished listening to this speech, do I have such an urge to cry?” And that, Barack, is how it’s done.

Now that convention season has come and gone, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are taking their campaigns on the road for the remaining 58 days until election day. There will be four debates, multiple state appearances, and millions spent on a flurry of new attack ads. Surveys are showing that only one in 10 voters is actually open to switching parties, but that isn’t stopping the new media and appearance barrage. For now, the two candidates remain virtually tied in nationwide polls, with Obama showing a slight lead in Florida and New Hampshire. Both campaigns say they will be focusing heavily on base voter turnout.

Immigration statistics are coming out just in time to inform the presidential candidates' calculations on the controversial issue. During the 2011 fiscal year, U.S. authorities deported 391,953 foreign-born people, according to numbers released Friday by the Office of Immigration Statistics. Ninety-three percent of those deported came from just four countries: Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The deportations includes a record-high number of 188,000 individuals convicted of crimes in the United States. The figures are down slightly for the 2012 fiscal year: with one month left, the U.S. has deported approximately 366,000 undocumented civilians.

A teenager in a Cleveland suburb survived an accidental trip down a sewage pipe on Tuesday and is doing fine. The 14-year-old was riding his bike with a friend in their town of Parma, Ohio, when he fell into a flooded area and was sucked away through a drain pipe two feet in diameter. He was carried into a storm sewer under the street and traveled 1,500 feet before firefighters were able to rescue him, opening six manhole covers in the chase. No word on how bad the victim smelled after the rescue.

Vermont's attorney general said Friday that the state will join Connecticut and New York in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman. He says that DOMA discriminates against same-sex couples and deprives them of the federal benefits given to straight couples. Vermont, New York and Connecticut (all states where gay marriage is legal) have all filed a brief in a case where a woman paid $350,000 in estate taxes when her same-sex partner died.

Looks like the Cold War is finally over. At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Russia on Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the White House wishes to normalize trade operations with Russia by ending Cold War–era legislation that limits economic interaction between the countries. Clinton claims the U.S. Congress is working to get legislation passed this month to terminate the application of the 1974 Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which severely limits U.S. companies' ability to trade with Russia. At the summit, Vladimir Putin also campaigned for better ties, saying that working against protectionism will improve the global economy.

Does this mean “if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” is inaccurate? Former Los Angeles deputy district attorney Christopher Darden said at a panel on Thursday that he believes O.J. Simpson's lawyer, the late Johnnie Cochran, tampered with a crucial piece of evidence at Simpson's murder trial: the infamous glove. "I think Johnnie tore the lining" so the glove wouldn't fit over Simpson's fingers, Darden said at the "Trials and Errors" panel co-sponsored by Pace Law School and the Forum on Law, Culture & Society at Fordham Law School. Simpson is currently serving up to 33 years in prison for a 2007 armed robbery. Asked why he didn't report the suspected tampering, Darden claimed he didn't want to take a "whiny-little-snitch approach to life."

A 14-year-old suicide bomber attacked NATO headquarters on Saturday in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, killing six civilians and wounding five, including children. No soldiers were struck. The teenage attacker was wearing a vest packed with explosives, and rode up to the building on a bike before detonating. Although the Taliban claimed initial responsibility for the attack, they say the bomber was a 28-year-old and the target was the CIA's Kabul offices. The latest attack highlights militants' abilities to strike even the most secure parts of the Afghan capital, worrying officials.

Egypt's military spokesman said on Saturday that in the army's campaign against fighters in the Sinai Peninsula, the army has killed 32 "criminal elements", arrested 38, and destroyed 31 tunnels along its border with Gaza. The offensive, called "Operation Sinai," began August 7, a few days after 16 Egyptian soldiers were killed at a border post. Although Israeli authorities are expected to be uncomfortable about an operation so close to the border, Egyptian officials said the deployment "is not a violation of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel."

There goes Santa's workshop. Researchers at the Norwegian Polar Institute report that Arctic sea ice is becoming increasingly thinner and more at risk. The scientists, who monitor the annual summer thaw, say floating ice levels are at their lowest since monitoring began more than 30 years ago. And since the annual melt usually ends around mid-September, there's still a week or so left before temperatures once more drop below freezing. "It's a greater change than we could imagine 20 years ago, even 10 years ago," said Kim Holmén, the director of the institute.

Three national tracking polls that came out Friday reveal that the Democratic National Convention may have given President Obama a nudge forward. A poll conducted by Ipsos shows Obama with a three-point gain, ultimately giving him a two-point lead. While Rasmussen's still has Obama behind, he did gain two points overall. In Gallup's poll, where Obama had been ahead by one point, his lead jumped to three post-convention—although a minority of interviews took place then, suggesting that the boost may be more than just the result of temporarily increased excitement. But that enthusiasm didn’t necessarily mean convention viewers: Obama’s big speech drew 35.7 million viewers, which was more than Mitt Romney’s speech but less than the 38.3 million who tuned in to watch him in 2008.

Get ready, Biden. Paul Ryan will begin preparations on Sunday for the much-anticipated debate with Vice President Joe Biden in October. The plan is to go over debate topics and questions with advisers, but not in a mock-debate format. Biden may be known for his gaffes, but the GOP isn’t taking this lightly. “Vice President Joe Biden served over 30 years in the United States Senate, he’s run for president twice, and has served as vice president for the past four years. He is one of the most experienced debaters in American political life, and we definitely don’t take the challenge lightly,” said one of Romney’s aides who is traveling with Ryan.