John Boehner, the orange in a necktie who had recently emerged as the relative voice of sanity in a budget battle that’s been stalled out by his Republican party’s far right wing, will leave Congress and resign as Speaker of the House in October. The New York Times broke the news, citing aides in Boehner’s office.

A 28-year-old Saudi prince was arrested Thursday after a neighbor reportedly spotted a bleeding woman, screaming for help, trying to escape his $37 million Beverly Hills compound.

[Corn-eating voice]:

“I can’t get it,” Avery says, “I can’t get it.”

The world’s biggest carbon emitter is expected to announce plans to finally implement a program to put a price on pollution. At the White House on Friday, Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to introduce a long-awaited national cap-and-trade program to be implemented in the country in 2017.

A man who was “whipping his hand around” as though it were a gun was shot and killed by Baltimore County Police, authorities said Thursday. The man, whose name has not yet been released, was shot three times by police after trying to use a fake prescription to buy cough syrup at a pharmacy, the Guardian reports.

A pig and a dog were found wandering through wilderness of a Florida suburb this week, without a care in the world except one another.

The Mayor of Lewiston, Maine, has figured out the answer to society’s ills, and it comes in the form of public shaming.

Just a few hours ago, Senate Democrats (and some Republicans) blocked an attempt to deny federal funding to Planned Parenthood, which could help avoid a government shutdown that is scheduled for October 1, al-Jazeera reports.

Just as the Pope was touching down in New York City on Thursday, Donald Trump was peeking his feathered head over a railing to a rousing chorus of boos.

To honor the pontiff’s visit to the United States this week, New York pizza chef Tony Salihaj worked for hours—days maybe, who knows—recreating Pope Francis’s face with cheese and sauce for a special papal pizza.

“So many of you have commented on how much you enjoy seeing photos of my pets. Most recently, I was asked to share an update on my beautiful cats, my seal point Himalayan, Bartok, and my dominant calico Persians, Princess Peony and Empress Tang. As you will see, all three cats are doing very well, and are enjoying this transition to cooler autumn weather.”

A “Ride the Ducks” land-water tour vehicle—usually known for careening around major cities in a zany manner while tour groups blow duck whistles at pedestrians—met with disaster when it collided with a charter tour bus around 11 a.m. Thursday on Seattle’s Aurora Bridge. There were 50 injuries—12 of them critical—and four fatalities.

According to a new poll, 72%(!) of Americans “think their country isn’t as great as it once was.” Really? When was America greater?

What shape is the internet? Noah Veltman of the WNYC data news team collected a slew of representations from publicly available patent drawings to find out. If America’s intrepid inventors are to believed, the internet is sometimes a web, but mostly, it’s a cloud.

The Phi Gamma Delta fraternity at James Madison University did not wait one second of this new school year to start preying on “hot” freshman girls, according to a disturbing new rush guide that’s currently circulating on campus. The guide, sent to us by a tipster, includes the name, room number, and a 1-10 hotness ranking of several freshman girls in a particular dorm, so that potential new bros can find them and bring them to FIJI parties.

One D.C. woman is surely hell-bound after CNN’s livefeed caught audio of her discussing a desire to throw her shoe at Pope Francis’s head before his address to Congress Thursday.

Two members of the nonprofit Brooklyn Bridge Park board—which voted to approve the construction of a controversial view-blocking luxury condo building in the park—“were among the first to buy condos” in the building, DNAinfo reports.

Years from now, I imagine, Kim Davis will dig through her dresser and find a powder-blue, stretchy long-sleeved shirt staring back at her. And she’ll remember wearing it as she walked out of the jailhouse to Eye of the Tiger, thrusting her arms in the air in a fog of ecclesiastical bliss, as dozens of people clapped their hands...for her. They were all clapping for her. Was that the best day of my life? she’ll wonder and the question will leave her cold, because maybe it was.

At least 717 people were killed and another 863 were injured in a stampede this morning at a Hajj pilgrimage near the Islamic holy city of Mecca. The incident, which the BBC reports is the deadliest at the Hajj in 25 years, comes just 13 days after a crane collapsed into Mecca’s Grand Mosque, killing 109.