They excite curiosity and interest in the body matter which follows. They hit home --- cut through verbose indirectness. The best ones are challenges, which are difficult to ignore, cannot be dismissed with a quick no or yes and without further reading.

The advertising network for casual game sites closes on a series B round of funding from Shasta Ventures and Accel Partners.

The Internet company hopes to attract people who want an e-mail address easier to call their own.

Handset giants are playing catch-up to Apple's design, but their software still lags badly.

Scientists claim they have cured advanced skin cancer for the first time using the patient's own cells cloned outside the body.

Security forces are reportedly massing in southern Iraq in preparation for an operation to drive out Shia militia groups.

The US Treasury Department freezes the US assets of two Venezuelan nationals for alleged links with Hezbollah.

Barack Obama's wife clarifies that she did not call her husband "pathetic" in a live television interview.

A truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza begins, despite a last minute flurry of cross-border attacks. Let's hope this one lasts longer.

Members of a Kurdish children's choir go on trial in Turkey for allegedly spreading rebel propaganda.