Canadian short story writer Alice Munro won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature this morning. Munro, 82, retired earlier this year, several months after publishing Dear Life, her 14^th story collection

The first thing you should know about Kanye West's manic episode on tonight's Jimmy Kimmel Live is that he had some shit in the left corner of his mouth for a large portion of it. That was very distracting, and made everything he said that much harder to take seriously.

In a bizarre and devastating press conference Wednesday, the father of the 9-year-old boy who snuck on a flight to Las Vegas this weekend sobbed and begged for assistance with his consistently troubled son. With his face totally covered by a hat and black hoodie, the unidentified father cried, “I’ve been asking for help. No one stepped up to help.”

According to the Tompkins County Sheriff’s Office, a man was seen handing out these fliers in the Town of Newfield and on the Cornell University campus in an attempt to recruit his very own “Nymph Squad Commune.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson has turned to Facebook—not Twitter—to express his regret for not first tweeting about “the hundred things” Gravity got right. In his almost-apology, he writes that the “right to be criticized on a scientific level is a high compliment indeed.”

According to police surveillance footage, a 33-year-old blind man walking alone in the Germantown section of Philadelphia was shoved, beaten, and robbed while witnesses walked by without intervening.

House Republicans are considering a brief increase on America's debt limit—"a few weeks or two months," according to the Associated Press—in order to avoid a national default. In other words, even if this idea moves forward, we'll be dealing with this shit all over again in a few weeks or two months.

The flesh-eating drug Krokodil made its horrifying United States debut two weeks ago in Arizona, but as many feared, its use has spread: there have now been three reports of the drug in a Chicago suburb.

A man armed with what appeared to be an “assault-type rifle” fired two dozen rounds at the Federal Building in Wheeling, West Virginia on Wednesday before he was shot and killed by police. One security guard was injured and reports now confirm the shooter was a retired Wheeling police officer.

When 20-year-old New York photographer Shay Horse dropped by his first Occupy Wall Street march on May 23rd, 2012, a friendly fellow protester approached him and started making small talk. "He just asked me what my name was, what my involvement was, pretty general stuff," Horse says. From then on, Horse ran into the protestor, whom he knew only knew as "Al," at practically every Occupy Wall Street event. He even invited him to his birthday party. But it turns out "Al" was actually an undercover cop, 32 year-old NYPD detective Wojciech Braszczok.

On Tuesday, the two most famous Kardashians who are not Kardashians, Kris and Bruce Jenner, formally announced their separation after 22 years of marriage.

On Monday Bill de Blasio, the Democratic candidate for New York City mayor, mourned the death of the former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, prominent Jewish activist, and avowed racist Ovadia Yosef—whom Jeffrey Goldberg called the “Israeli Ayatollah”—by praising Yosef’s “wisdom, charity and sensitivity” as “legendary.” According to The Yeshiva World, de Blasio (appearing in the video above) refused to back down during a Manhattan fundraiser on Wednesday.

The undercover NYPD officer arrested yesterday in connection with last week's motorcycle attack has been identified as Det. Wojciech Braszczok. The 10-year veteran was initially charged with criminal mischief, but on Wednesday prosecutors added a felony charge of gang assault.

Unlike the rest of his little dog friends, Thomas — Tom for short — doesn't much care for car rides.

We're now in week two of a government shutdown. What's happening?

A weatherman who apparently needed to be taught not to eat things you find on the floor learned that lesson the hilarious way today when he accidentally ate his own cat's vomit on live television.

GOP Rep. Phil Gingrey puts the shutdown into context by comparing Republican stubbornness to a Mel Gibson movie: "I mean, they seem to think that we will miss this opportunity for a 'Braveheart' moment to do the right thing for the American people, and that we'll back down for fear of losing the House..."

Banksy's new NYC piece today is on the Lower East Side. A website has popped up encouraging people to steal Banksy's pieces before the museums get em. And here you can read many famous graffiti writers explaining why people want to paint over Banksy.

Authorities in Florida arrested a Vero Beach woman last month after she allegedly stabbed her boyfriend in the eye for refusing her request to participate in a threesome with another woman.

Dick "Dick" Cheney, the Batman villainesque architect of a needless imperial war who is responsible for hundreds of thousands of needless human deaths, got together with some of his pals this week to chuckle about torture.