Yesterday evening on highway I-94 in Michigan City, a 46-car pileup began after an unpredictable wave of lake-effect snow came onto the road, startling drivers and causing them to swerve into each other. The gust of precipitation, which is brother to the terrifying menace "thundersnow" and has been known to white out areas of the Midwest, fell onto the highway that connects Michigan to Montana. Three people have been pronounced dead.

Imagine working for an enormous global oil conglomerate. Now imagine you were trapped in a reply-all chain thousands of your coworkers—stretching across continents and timezones.

One quarter of the world's shark and ray species are in danger of going extinct in the next two decades. Mega congrats to humans for helping to defeat these killers!

One of the sad byproducts of the media conspiracy to ignore this week's pro-life conference in Washington was that we almost missed this new iPhone app for baby-savin'. If only we'd seen it on Wednesday, we could've told you how much it sucked sooner:

Yesterday's transit meltdown at Grand Central was caused by "human error," the MTA reported, after someone at Metro-North decided evening rush hour would be a good time to disconnect half the power supply to the railway's main control computers, for maintenance. A loose wire then disabled the other half.

Magnus Carlsen is the world's best chess player. Still, you think it would take him longer than 79 seconds to beat the world's second richest man.

The U.S. military is easing restrictions on facial hair, turbans, and other religious accoutrements. And man, are chauvinist super-patriots pissed!

One student was wounded in a shooting this afternoon at South Carolina State University. The campus is currently under lockdown as police hunt for the suspect.

Rick Wilson, the AP photographer whose work was bogarted by George Zimmerman for the Florida man's new awful painting, has hired an attorney and is contemplating legal action. "You just can't do that," he says. "You just can't take somebody else's work and make it your own."

Dennis "Slick" Lilly put on a prison guard's uniform and walked out of jail in December 1986, and that's the last the cops ever saw him alive. Despite being on the FBI's list of Most Wanted Criminals, Lilly was so slick that he disappeared into the life of a law-abiding small businessman in a woodsy town near Seattle.

With all the talk of his possible new project with Jerry Seinfeld, it's important not lose sight of Larry David's most defining characteristic: His ability to insult everyone he meets.

Twelve years ago yesterday, reporter Daniel Pearl was abducted in Pakistan, looking for 9/11 leads. He was ultimately beheaded on video by the jihadist lunatic he sought. Read Asra Nomani's touching tribute to Pearl—and her ultimate proof of his murderer's identity.

Rap Genius, the lyric-explanation site, made a lot of money for three guys from Yale. It is not, however, universally popular among actual rappers. Some rappers would prefer that their lyrics be written down correctly.

Yesterday, we told you about gun-control poster-boy George Zimmerman's latest foray into visual art: a Shepard Fairey-esque rendering of the woman who prosecuted Zimmerman for killing Trayvon Martin. He may have something else in common with Fairey: ripping off the Associated Press to make his masterpieces.

Jesse Ryan Loskarn, 35, the GOP Hill staffer and onetime Lamar Alexander chief of staff who was arrested last month on child pornography charges, has been found dead in Maryland of an apparent suicide.

Rough week for Rob Ford: First he was taped drunkenly jabbering in a Jamaican accent, then he got stuck in an elevator, and now this betrayal from his fellow Canadian Alex Trebek.

George Tsunis is rich. He raised a lot of money for Barack Obama and other Democrats. Barack Obama has nominated George Tsunis to be the U.S. ambassador to Norway. George Tsunis should have wiki'd Norway before testifying to the Senate.

Here's a story. On the afternoon of Friday, November 21, 2008, an email bearing the subject header "confidential information" turned up in Gawker's tips inbox. The sender's email address was "harveydent701@yahoo.com," a dummy account. The only text in the email itself was "please consider the attached information." Attached was a Microsoft Word document with the filename "MediaMogul.doc."

[Germany's Maria Hoefl-Riesch is airborne on her way to win an alpine ski World Cup women's downhill, in Cortina D'Ampezzo, Italy, on Friday. Image via Marco Trovati/AP.]