According to the Army Times, Veterans regional offices will be closed and "nobody will answer their phones beginning Tuesday morning as the government shutdown forces furloughs of 7,000 employees of the Veterans Benefits Administration." Support our troops, indeed.

The federal government might be shut down but Michigan lawmakers are hard at work protecting our right to a good value. Rep. David Knezek (D-Dearborn Heights) and Rep. Brandon Dillon (D-Grand Rapids) have written a proposal to amend the state Liquor Control Act to make sure that when a pint of beer is offered at a bar or restaurant, customers are getting an “honest pint.”

A London man called the London Fire Brigade to report that his penis was stuck in a toaster. While the firefighters were not given a sufficient explanation as to how his dick ended up in the appliance, they were able to safely extricate the organ.

Glen James, the homeless man who found a backpack containing over $40,000 in cash and traveler’s checks in front of a Boston Best Buy last month, has now received over $150,000 in donations. Thanks to the kindness of strangers, he’ll be moving into transitional housing in Cambridge this week.

A New Jersey man enjoys resembling Bill Cosby. "He is a big fan of Jell-O too."

A Georgia Tech fraternity will likely face discipline after one of its top members sent out a chapter-wide email advising brother on how to lure "rapebait" at parties.

Life in one Brooklyn neighborhood has turned into a treacherous, exhausting, Kafkaesque waking nightmare for residents due to the fact a cat is there, according to local reports.

A trucker group plans to intentionally slow the flow of traffic in the Washington, D.C., beltway's inner loop beginning this Friday in a rally being called "Truckers Ride for the Constitution." Those truckers then plan to march on Congress and put legislators in handcuffs. What could go wrong with this genius scheme?

There's a lot of heartbreak in this video:

Secretary of State John Kerry poses upon arrival for a gala dinner in Bali, Indonesia. What are his eyes telling you? Photo via AFP/Getty

The biggest question raised by Jennifer Senior's upsettingly entertaining interview with Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia in this week's New York magazine is the metaquestion: Why is Scalia running his mouth? What leads a sitting justice to keep building a public dossier of his crotchets and prejudices, rather than just delivering them from the bench, robed in the neutral authority of the law?

Cory Booker wants to be a senator so bad. But a string of disturbances—including Booker’s Twitter-flirting with a Portland stripper—have finally caught up to the ambitious Newark mayor: Booker’s lead over Republican Steve Lonegan, once as wide as the Hudson River, now sits between 12 and 3 percent. So Mike Bloomberg, having nothing better to do with his time or money, is bankrolling a pro-Booker ad campaign. Who said Cory Booker spent too much time in Manhattan?

This is one way to deal with an attempted robbery: Last month, a gunman walked into a deli in Long Island, fired a warning shot, and demanded cash. Instead of complying, the insane clerk chased the would-be robber from the store with a machete.

When the great recession struck in 2008, many companies desperate for help turned to Warren Buffett, the world's only well-liked rich guy. He spent the next few years spreading around tens of billions of dollars of investments in distressed companies. How's that working out for him?

If you live on the eastern seaboard, I hope you brought some boots to work. This storm, photographed and filtered by Anneke Jong, is descending on New York City right now, and there's a tornado watch in effect from D.C. north to Massachusetts.

While this government shutdown has seen its fair share of euphemisms, one man spent every day last week telling lawmakers exactly how he felt — and right to their faces, no less.

Why was an armed Johnny Carson weeping in a Los Angeles apartment? Because he found out football star and broadcaster Frank Gifford was fucking his wife.

Swino the feral pig was a happy drunk. An Australian boar who roamed free among the Pillbara wilds, he managed to live an undetected hobo's existence for years, sleeping under the stars and feasting on strangers' trash until one fateful evening, when Swino embarked on a bender few men could match. In one night, the hog stole 18 beers, rumbled with a cow, and swam a glorious victory lap in a nearby river, all for the benefit of bemused spectators.

"A lot of my hair stylists and my beauty team that I work with are gay so I hang out with gays a lot, and I just think they're absolutely thrilling and adorable and hilarious." - Britney Spears

A top Republican member of the House gathered a group of sympathetic reporters last Thursday to tell his party's side of the shutdown story, which involved an anecdote comparing the GOP to Confederate troops at the Battle of Gettysburg.