The AP sold use of its Twitter feed and made a restaurant receipt ad deal to increase revenue after losing members.

The White House crushed the dreams of thousands of Star Wars fans yesterday when they officially rejected a petition to start building a Death Star by 2016. The petition wasn't quite as successful as the idiotic one to deport Piers Morgan, but it did garner over 34,000 signatures, 9,000 more than necessary to receive an official response from the White House. So, good to their word, the White House responded yesterday via on a post on their website; in the post, resident nerd Paul Shawcross (official title: Chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget) gave some matter-of-fact reasons why a Death Star would be a bad idea for the country/universe in general:

In case you were worried, David Gregory won't face charges for holding an illegal gun clip on Meet the Press.

The only abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi came one step closer to closure today. Last year, the state passed an ordinance requiring all of the doctors working at the Jackson Women's Health Organization to have hospital admission privileges in order to continue operating. The deadline to comply with the order came earlier this week; only one of the four doctors currently employed at the clinic has admitting privileges.

Both David Bowie and Justin Timberlake, you may recall, announced (or coyly hinted at; it still might just be a Myspace party) the release of new music earlier this week, which is very exciting.

Spain is in the midst of prolonged and devastating financial crisis. Its economy lost roughly 800,000 jobs last year, more than half of under-25-year-olds are unemployed, and the total unemployment rate is at 26% and growing. So you can imagine how bleak and hopeless people waiting (and working) in one of their umemployment offices might feel.

I have been profiled my entire life as innocent. When disruptive in class, I was told that I was eccentric, that I needed to work on my focus. Growing up, I looked for fights and conflicts yet I never fit the profile of a juvenile delinquent. The chip on my shoulder never signified a thug; I was just a kid with a bad temper who needed to mature and grow out of it.

Yes, the flu season is really bad this year. No, it's not entirely due to "people use too much Purell nowadays" or whining about what's probably just a cold, either. The CDC reports that more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from "flu-related complications" every year. Sometimes, especially in the winter, people will use the word "flu" to describe any condition they want, but this is not the flu's fault and you should not blame it.

According to the NYPD, a 45-year-old man set a massive fire above a Pinkberry yogurt shop in Manhattan's Nolita neighborhood Thursday night, leaving one dead and several injured. Police believe the man, Wei Chu Wu, started the fire after fighting with his child's mother, who lives on the building's second floor.

Lance Armstrong will confess to doping during a 90-minute interview with Oprah set to air Thursday.

If you have always dreamed of killing giant snakes but found yourself hampered by a lack of funds, worry no more: Florida state officials are ready to pay anyone willing to help rid them of wild Burmese pythons, no snake hunting experience needed.

On Friday, conservancy workers in New York's Central Park discovered a fully loaded, ready-to-fire 18th century cannon during a routine cleaning. Upon finding the ammunition after removing the cannon's plug, the park workers called 911, who sent in a bomb squad.

Aaron Swartz, a programmer and Internet activist who co-founded a company that would eventually grow into Reddit, committed suicide Friday in New York City, according to The Tech and Boing Boing. Swartz's attorney confirmed the news to The Tech early Saturday morning.

"I set out to write a memoir that was a love letter to a man I was deeply in love with, a man who challenged me in myriad ways, a man who changed my life profoundly, a man I respected and honored greatly at the time," Alisa Valdes wrote on her blog on Wednesday. She was talking about her book The Feminist and the Cowboy: An Unlikely Love Story. "[W]hat I actually wrote was a handbook for women on how to fall in love with a manipulative, controlling, abusive narcissist. [...] I feel I owe it to my loyal readers and fans to be truthful now. It is the decent thing to do."

The head of firearms training company who took to YouTube and Facebook this week to threaten a murderous response to any attempt on the Obama administration's part to "ban assault rifles and impose stricter gun control" has had his handgun carry permit suspended by the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security for presenting "material likelihood of risk of harm to the public."

Did you know that the Girl Scouts, America's rag-tag crème puff children's militia, are rolling out a new cookie this year?

Ladies and gentlemen, prepare your sympathies: when Mariah Carey was 19, someone (probably Tommy Mottola) drilled into her head that her left side is her "bad side." She has struggled with this affliction of knowledge ever since. She said she was doing better with it ("I don't care anymore," she lied in 2009), but then someone went and put her on the right in this setup for an American Idol promo interview on Wednesday.

A deaf man in Burlington, North Carolina, was stabbed multiple times after his sign-language conversation with another deaf man was mistaken for gang signs.

When Alexis Wineman was diagnosed with borderline Asperger Syndrome at age 11, she thought the answer to "what was wrong with me" came too late.

As it turns out, Jackie Chan is not very grateful to the country that helped him roundhouse kick his way into an estimated $130 million fortune. Speaking on a television show in Hong Kong, Chan had some harsh words for the good ol' U. S. of A.