Chatter: One million Brazilians protest

NEED TO KNOW

It's hard to ignore one million Brazilians. President Dilma Rousseff couldn't, and has cancelled a planned trip to Japan to stay home and deal with what are proving to be persistent nationwide protests.

Brazil's government had hoped that a few concessions — including the mayors of Rio and Sao Paulo backtracking on bus far hikes, and Rousseff indicating that she's prepared to listen to protesters' disparate list of grievances — would calm the country down. Not so much: if anything the movement has intensified in the past 24 hours, with more than 1 million people reported at rallies in 100 different cities.

From Spain to Syria. Spanish police have arrested eight people they suspect of recruiting wannabe jihadists to fight in Syria and elsewhere. The group, all Spanish citizens based in Spain's North African territory of Ceuta, are believed to have ties with Al Qaeda.

They are accused of sending dozens of people, some of them less than 18 years old, to join militant training camps or carry out suicide attacks. Spain's government called their capture a "hard blow" against international terrorism.

WANT TO KNOW

The terrorist who wasn't. A Jewish Israeli man suffered from a fatal case of wrong time, wrong place, wrong language this morning when security guards manning Jerusalem's Western Wall decided he was a threat, and shot him dead. Their suspicions were apparently aroused when he shouted "Allah hu akbar" — "God is great," in Arabic — and reached his hands into his pockets.

No weapon was found on the man's body, police said, "nothing." An investigation has been opened.

No news, good news. If North Korea's government had its way, the world would know nothing about what really happens within the secretive country's borders. Journalism is essentially forbidden, and those who dare ask hard questions do so at the risk of torture and imprisonment. 

News does nonetheless get out — much of it thanks to the hard and risky work performed by two determined editors who were former sympathizers of the regime. GlobalPost profiles the people telling Kim Jong Un's "secrets."

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Crushin' on Beckham. Chinese soccer fans really like David Beckham. No, we mean they really like him. So much so that they'd claw their way over fellow fans' heads just to take a snap of the former England captain and leading innovator in the field of facial hair. 

At least seven people were injured yesterday at a university stadium in Shanghai when Beckham's presence caused a stampede. Proof, if proof were needed, that all those underwear ads are a danger to public health.