One evening, startling news circulated: all the officers in the division were being ordered to assemble in the huge amphitheatre at the far end of the beach.

NEWYORKER: Rat Beach

Myspace, for example, announced startling news earlier this month.

FORBES: Twitter to Reach 500M Registered Users on Wednesday. Just Another Day in the Life of the Social Media Fun House

Perhaps the most startling news of all is that little of this enormous contribution to culture would have existed if Kazan had not testified, in 1952, as a friendly witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

NEWYORKER: Method Man

This had to be startling news to the president, because if the truth about his relationship with a subordinate employee were known, the civil rights case against him would be strengthened and it might have totally changed the outcome.

CNN

The startling news that Germany is repatriating its gold reserves from the United States and France has got precious metals speculators worried that this is the first major sign that trust between central banks across the globe could be deteriorating.

FORBES: The Germans Want Their Gold Reserves Back in Germany

At the SIFMA securities industry conference in New York this week, Joe Lanza, the president of Dow Jones Financial Markets, had a startling bit of news.

FORBES: Journalism, of a Sort, is Alive and Well in Financial Services

The, that's right in essence, the Palace were enormously alarmed that, that you know, Sophie had sounded off in this incautious way that she had and so an arrangement was made that she would provide the News of the World with a startling, scorching interview which she did and all was fine.

BBC: News Online

The good news is that the human brain has a startling capacity to change.

CNN: Make your 'rainy brain' sunnier

Like the aliens browsing through refuse for weaponry and food, the film trawls for visual tactics of every kind, from news footage to clips from security cameras, and the result is something new: a startling, redoubtable thriller constructed on the cheap from a decaying world.

NEWYORKER: District 9