A new report says NYC has 50,000 homeless people in shelters each night, up 61% since Bloomberg took office.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is "clinging to Christ and to life" after being stricken with a "severe" new infection.

A Batman wannabe who captured the world's inner comic-book nerd has had his cowl lifted by British media — revealing a 39-year-old takeaway delivery man who was helping his burglar pal pull a prank on police.

Amid talk of new sanctions and continued U.S.-South Korea joint military drills, North Korea has vowed to cancel the 1953 Korean War cease-fire. North Korea's Korean People's Army Supreme Command issued a statement earlier today, as reports came that Washington and North Korean ally Beijing approved a draft of punishing new sanctions in response to North Korea's latest nuclear test.

Chicago and Minneapolis are bracing themselves for over 10 inches of snow as a major winter storm—the season's last, let's hope—gears up to blanket the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic, and possibly even hit New York and Boston. The storm, currently hovering around the Great Lakes, has already started snowing over Minnesota, and will dump nearly a foot on Midwestern cities over the course of Tuesday and Tuesday night, before heading southeast toward West Virginia, Virginia and D.C., where six to 15 inches of wet, heavy snow could knock out power. From there, meteorologists believe it could swing back up northwards instead of on out to sea, leaving New York City with six inches and Boston with as many as 12. Snowplows were deployed in Chicago early this morning. Cancellations at O'Hare are likely. In D.C. they're calling it "Snowquester"; on the Weather Channel they're calling it "Saturn." We will be calling it neither of those things. [Chicago Tribune | AccuWeather | Weather.com | Boston Globe]

Budget negotiations at the U.N. are probably boring, drawn-out affairs, and as such, delegates apparently have a tradition of having a drink or two before the meetings begin. But according to Joseph Torsella, the U.S. ambassador for management and reform at the United Nations, certain delegates have been showing up completely wasted to recent negotiations.

Julio Acevedo, the man the NYPD says is responsible for Sunday's tragic hit-and-run, was charged with a DUI last month.

Marco McMillian, the openly gay Mississippi mayoral candidate whose body was pulled from a Mississippi River levee last week, was mutilated either before or after his death, according to new information released by his family.

Here's a mashup that, on paper, seems like a terrible idea. And yet, it works. Who knew early 90s industrial rock meshed so well with last year's biggest pop song? And with the news that Nine Inch Nails are going on tour this summer, maybe we can look forward to an opening act from Carly Rae?

Harrison Ford will co-star in Anchorman 2 before reprising his role as Han Solo in the new Star Wars sequel.

There are a lot of surreal moments in this North Korean news report about Dennis Rodman's recent visit to the famine-ridden country. The first two and a half minutes or so is one long standing, cheering ovation for Kim Jong Un and his new best friend Dennis Rodman. Literally thousands of people, cheering non-stop. Then, of course, the report pans to three Harlem Globetrotters, who perform some basketball tricks for the still cheering crowd. That's followed by seven minutes of highlights from a not-very-impressive basketball game. The game ends with Kim Jong Un receiving his very own Globetrotters jersey, and then it's off to some sort State dinner for Un and Rodman and the hilariously still-in-uniform Globetrotters. There were also some very enthusiastic hugs between the new BFFs.

A sexagenarian has been arrested for allegedly pulling a gun on Wal-Mart staffers after they wouldn't accept her coupon.

There is just so much to like about this wonderfully atypical press junket interview between Mila Kunis and BBC Radio 1 personality Chris Stark (which was ostensibly to promote Kunis's appearance in Oz the Great and Powerful): Lad points, Jägerbombs, Lad bombs, Mila Kunis, Sir Dosser, The Convict, Chango the Beast, Mila Kunis, Watford Football Club, the Boys, Nando's, Mila Kunis, Steak and Ale Pie, "neck a pint," Dicko, Mila Kunis, drop trou, Baywatch, Mila Kunis, Mila Kunis.

For months now, right-wing blog The Daily Caller has been pushing the salacious story of New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez and his taste for underage Dominican prostitutes—based largely on a video interview with two young Dominican woman who said they'd been paid for sex with the senator. The story wasicked up by every right-wing blogger and pundit in creation—and connected with another, less sexy scandal involving Menendez and a major donor, Salomon Melgen—gaining enough momentum to be mentioned more than once (albeit hedged) in The New York Times.

Ciara's "Body Party," the umpteenth effort to launch the singer's upcoming One Woman Army album, is something sex jams by people other than Prince and R. Kelly rarely are: legitimately clever in concept. Based on a sample of the opening of beloved 1996 bass anthem "My Boo," "Body Party" achieves an extremely modern atmosphere in its open nostalgia. The "Boo" foundation also gives "Party" a dance-music element without killing the sex vibe, another extremely modern choice. Ciara's flirtation with the melody of "My Boo" ("Boy you should know that...") and her boyfriend Future's adlibs are just right, weirdly tasteful for a song called "Body Party."

Jamie Lynn Spears is engaged and her big-ass diamond has a little fuzzy on it in this photo. Mind your jewels, Jamie.

Children: scaled-down versions of adults with shriller voices and less expensive jewelry. Their bodies are going through a lot of strange changes and they're starting to feel all different types of ways about friends..and enemies. Sometimes the boys trip over their too-big feet and land square in the arms of a girl who is a little bit taller than them (but won't be for long). When this happens, a love connection is made.

As part of an ad campaign for Niels Arden Oplev's upcoming neo-noir thriller crime film Dead Man Down, NYC-based marketing firm Thinkmodo decided to see what New Yorkers would do if they happened to stumbled onto a crime in progress — namely, a murder.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average recorded its second-highest close ever today. The good times are back.

It's nice work if you can quit it. An article from yesterday's New York Times goes into the shameful and mysterious phenomenon that is New York University's bloated financial gifts to people who willingly resign from the school. There was, for instance, Jacob Lew, a former NYU executive vice president (and the new Treasury Secretary), who got almost $700,000 after leaving NYU and joining Citigroup in 2006. After Lew came Harold Koplewicz, the psychiatrist who quit the NYU Medical Center on his own accord and yet was still paid a $1.2 million lump sum in the 2009-10 fiscal year.