Some of my default windows 8 metro (modern UI) apps don't work properly, the apps are the Weather and the News apps.

when I open them, I only get the loading screen, that is, the big colorful screen with the logo in the center, and the "loading" spinning dots. They just keep like that forever and never actually open.

There are no error messages or anything.

The strange this is that the live tiles for those apps DO work and show current information. current weather for my location (saved before they started failing) and current news.

Both apps did work well in the past, and every other default windows 8 app I've tried work well (both live tiles and the app itself). Every other non-default apps that I've downloaded still work correctly, so the problem so far is only with those two apps. (weather and news).

I really don't know since when exactly they started to fail because I really don't use them (or any metro app) that often, so I can't recall if I did something like installing some other app, either metro or regular, or messed with some drivers, etc.

they simply don't open now, but they DID work before.

any ideas?