Housing a single inmate in a New York City jail for one year costs more than four years of tuition at Harvard University.

With nine hours remaining until the midnight deadline, the Senate just voted 54-46 to reject the House budget proposal that would have delayed Obamacare for a year. The bill now returns to the House.

There are terrible vacation plans, and then there are deadly ones. A tipster recently forwarded us a promotional email from the Chinese travel agency Taedong Travel, copied below, hawking “the first Christmas tour of North Korea,” costing approximately $1,000 (€740) for five days and four nights in the capital city of Pyongyang. “You can now join local North Koreans for a Christmas and New Year to remember!” the pitch promises. “Will you be visited by Santa Claus, enjoy Ginseng flavoured Turkey or listen to familiar Christmas carols?”

Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz has seen his star ascend among right-wing activists after his hours-log speech against Obamacare. But did you know that much of his campaign money is coming from a pot-smoking gay billionaire?

federal government shutdown: Death ritual conducted by rich American men at an enormous, ornate temple on a hill.

Earlier this year, helium-voiced rapper Danny Brown received oral sex onstage at a show in Minneapolis. Brown later bragged about it on Twitter, but he also tweeted his sticker-book-rapper tourmate Kitty's essay for Vice describing the incident as assault. This sounded like bullshit. It turns out that it was.

One McDonald's franchisee in California looking to promote the company's new bone-in chicken wings ended up making the limited-time menu item look like shit.

Terry Duffy is the president of a financial exchange. Prototypical finance dude, right? That's where you're wrong. Terry Duffy must be a comedian. I mean, just look at this shit he wrote in the Wall Street Journal Op-ed/ Comedy section today.

The City University of New York has relocated David Petraeus’s fall seminar, titled “Are We on the Threshold of the North American Decade?”, to a more fortified campus building, under “increased” security, which will allow the former CIA chief to avoid a growing contingent of student protestors, six of whom were beaten and jailed by the New York City Police Department after last week’s demonstration.

When Christian Lunsford of Moore, Oklahoma, received a call from the county jail last month he didn't answer it. It was obvious that his father was in trouble with the law. Again.

Inside Job director Charles Ferguson, who in July announced his and CNN’s plans to film a documentary about ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s career, has completely scrapped plans for the film, citing the lack of Clinton acolytes (and enemies) who wanted to cooperate with the production. Writing for The Huffington Post’s Media vertical, Ferguson explains why:

Feel like watching a six-minute video of a motorcycle gang chasing a black SUV through New York City before the gang surrounds the car and smashes in its windows? Sure you do.

There was never any doubt that Breaking Bad cared about its viewers. The show's most impressive feat to me was its devotion to clarity, no matter how complicated its character dynamics or intricate its plot developments. Breaking Bad explained everything and then re-explained it. Jumps in logic were extremely rare and when they were employed—Jesse's a-ha ricin moment from earlier this season, in which he deduced way too much given way too little information, and wielded his hunch like a weapon—they sent the plot forward with too much velocity to upset anyone but nitpickers.

Gawker's Max Rivlin-Nadler goes deep on Americorps for The Nation: "AmeriCorps is at once a real opportunity and a symptom of austerity. Its members are either being offered a pathway to a career—or they’re being used to lower the cost of social services for a government devoted to budget-cutting. Or, more likely, both."

Two trains collided this morning at Chicago’s Blue Line Station in Forest Park. At least 33 people were hospitalized, though none of the injuries were serious.

A West Virginia man and his stepdaughter were taken into custody earlier this month and charged with seven counts of felony incest despite both being above the legal age of consent and having not a drop of shared blood between them.

Grumpy Cat, the cat who looks grumpy, is on the cover of this week's New York magazine, advertising a profile. The "estimated value" of Grumpy Cat, Ltd., the Grumpy Cat company, is $1 million.

A My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fan who says he was fired from his job over his affinity for the popular animated show has sparked significant discussion concerning the legality of his alleged termination.

David Karp, the quirky weirdo who built—and sold—the blogging service Tumblr, is rich. But is he actually good at what he does? And what does he do, anyway, besides fly remote-controlled helicopters around?