Ratings-starved CNN is changing its focus, and that's cool. They hadn't been committed to straight news reporting for some time, but really hadn't fully made the leap into baseless sensationalism until just a few weeks ago when "flesh egg" Jeff Zucker took the reins. Their 24-hour coverage of the "shit cruise" was exemplary sensationalism, even going so far as to compare a group of inconvenienced vacation-ers to victims of Katrina.

After a three-decade residency at Vogue, contributing editor André Leon Talley is leaving the magazine. Beyond the masthead, you might recognize ALT from his Louis Vuitton-clad tennis practice in The September Issue, or simply for his glorious collection of capes.

When Pope Benedict XVI resigned earlier this week due to his advanced age, Catholics across the world seemed sure about one thing: The next guy has got to be younger. Along with that, he (or she?! no, no, definitely not she) should probably be able to confront the Church's history of child-molestation as well as appeal to growing Catholic demographics in poor countries. After the Pope steps down on February 28th, expect a quick deliberation between the cardinals, eager to have a new Pope by the Easter holiday. In that spirit, here's a quick rundown of the men-or-women-no-no-not-women-who-would-be-Pope:

Between the meteor (meteorite? meteoroid? meteorologist?) explosion over Russia and a close-flying asteroid that doesn't respect personal space, it wasn't a particularly relaxing Friday for the planet Earth. Things got even weirder last night when Bay Area residents spotted a mysterious fireball streaking across the sky.

Election-Svengali Nate Silver will stop blogging if he believes that his election forecasts begin to actually affect elections. According to a report in Politico (a site Silver has a pretty hilarious feud with), Silver spoke to an audience at Washington University about the statistical pitfalls of accruing such a large following:

The West Village's storied Magnolia Bakery was shuttered by the Health Department Thursday due to a mouse infestation. Spokespeople predicted the Bleecker Street shop would reopen today, but a call to the bakery has confirmed that it remains closed.

Ted Cruz, the freshman Senator from Texas, has not made nice with his new friends in the Senate, where decorum and comity are king, and the brash antics of the Tea Party a rude interruption to the ceaseless, genteel banter between the ruling parties.

Hilaria Thomas, wife and soon-to-be baby mama of Jack "Alec Baldwin" Donaghy, faces a lawsuit from a student injured in her Manhattan yoga class last month.

I was about to fold a pair of jacks when my little brother died. I was seated at a round table in the hospital waiting room with two cousins and my brother-in-law, taking a break from the prayer meeting my family had convened in the adjoining space. Not a very Christian way to avoid the assembly, in retrospect, but we were playing for artificial sweetener packets, so it wasn't really gambling. Besides, that level of deep and intense intercession is draining. I was exhausted, and I was losing, and then the room went weirdly quiet.

The Criterion Collection, sphinx-like purveyor of classic film, is streaming a ton of movies on Hulu this weekend.

Every issue, Us Weekly runs a feature called "25 Things You Don't Know About Me," in which a celebrity, ostensibly, writes up interesting 25 facts about themselves (and then an intern transliterates their incomprehensible hieroglyphics into human letters). Normally, these lists give readers a chance to learn 24 things they already knew about a celebrity (Zooey Deschanel started "a comedy website" called Hello Giggles) plus one weird, new fact (Zooey Deschanel hates papaya).

You had a nice Valentine's Day didn't you? Anyway we sensed that you were feeling too much love and how are you supposed to feel the highs without the lows? Exactly. So without further ado, here are some very low lows: the most bizarro emails you sent us this week.

The Associated Press reports that Christopher Dorner died from a single gunshot to the head, possibly self-inflicted.

Civil rights scion and disgraced former congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. was officially charged today with, among other things, conspiracy to misuse around three-quarters of a million dollars in campaign funds. According to papers filed in a Washington, D.C., U.S. District Court today, Jackson, who was still a congressman at the time, used donor money to buy everything from a $43,000 gold Rolex to cashmere capes—capes, plural—to nearly $20,000 of Michael Jackson memorabilia. The documents allege that Jackson and a co-conspirator used a campaign credit card to make $582,772.58 of purchases for personal use, and that Jackson debited another $60,000 directly out of the campaign's account.

For much of today, the people of Earth have had their gaze transfixed on the most majestic vaulted ceiling of all: the sky. At around 9:20 a.m. Friday (local time), a giant fireball crashed into Russia. At around 2:20 p.m. EST, an asteroid did not come close to hitting Earth even though, in a deep, dark corner of their hearts, everyone was hoping it would because life can just be so exhausting sometimes.

CNN certainly was the only one covering the plight of the Carnival cruise ship Triumph by land, air, and sea yesterday, but to what avail? Well thanks to CNN a mother was able to see her daughter whom she had not seen for several days (and wouldn't have anyway because said daughter was ON A CRUISE), another mother was able to speak to her indifferent son via cell phone, and several other humans were able to watch a floating toilet inch its way closer to Mobile, Alabama.

Authorities in New York state's Putnam County area believe there's a "serial cat killer" at large. Earlier this week, a seven-month-old feline named Blackfoot died in the Westchester Animal Hospital, after the brown-and-black Calico was found beaten and shot in the spine. A mile away from the site of Blackfoot's shooting, a cat head was found last August.

Last night, AMC debuted the series Freakshow, a reality show about the Venice Beach Freakshow. Its owner, former Grammy-winning producer Todd Ray (Santana, Korn), believes in reclaiming "freak" as a "positive word." "We're trying to bring it back, but we're trying to celebrate the differences," he told the tallest man in America, George Bell, who joined his crew.

The human resources department at Fox News has certainly been busy the last few weeks. After dumping former Bill Clinton campaign manager-cum-conservative blowhard Dick Morris and Real Housewife of Wasilla Sarah Palin, Fox has signed on a slate of brand new contributors to wax political on the news of the day. Let's get to know them.

After Osama bin Laden was assassinated in 2011, there was perhaps no more hotly sought after document on the planet than a hypothetical photograph of bin Laden's dead body, which had of course arrived at that sorry state as a result of the most tightly controlled and choreographed military operation in recent history. After some public hemming and hawing in response to an overwhelming cry for visual proof of the venture's success, the Obama White House acknowledged the existence of such photos but refused to release them in response to Freedom of Information Act requests from various parties. So one would imagine that, given the intense interest in the images and the high-profile litigation surrounding them, the CIA would conduct a rigorous accounting of each such image, its provenance, and current location, right? No, of course not. In fact, they just found some under the couch.