A recent article in The New Republic has reignited a debate that will never die: Where do you have to grow up in order to rightfully claim to be "from" a city?

How many times has voter-identification fraud really happened in the United States? As many as 31 times out of 1 billion ballots cast since 2000, one law professor's new research shows. The incidents may account for up to 234 ballots, or 0.0000234 percent of all the voting in America.

The ostensible story behind this video is that a man heard his wife coming home in the middle of the night and recorded her "making grilled cheeses" by melting string cheese over a plateful of goldfish crackers while swigging wine and insisting she's not drunk.

Minutes ago, a jury found Theodore Wafer guilty of second-degree murder, and manslaughter in the killing of Renisha McBride after just over a day's worth of deliberation. McBride was 19 years old when Wafer shot and killed her on his porch last November. Wafer was remanded to Wayne County Jail to await sentencing.

Helen DeWitt, the author of the wonderful novels The Last Samurai and Lightning Rods (seriously! wonderful!), has an essay in the London Review of Books this week about her experience with a stalker. It's a sobering but necessary read.

Preserve is actress Blake Lively's "lifestyle" blog that "honors the future, while having a love affair with the past." Preserve is home to a fictional essay titled "Flower Beards: Summer's Hottest Trend? Or a Death Sentence? A Story By Sir Willups Brightslymoore," which is about a man being beaten to death. The target audience for Preserve is the ghost of Felicity, American Girl doll. Preserve is completing its third week of public existence. Preserve is the most disturbing site on the web.

In case you haven't heard, shit's getting worse in Iraq again. Islamic militants have expanded their control over territory, secured a dam that provides water and power to much of the country's north, and now threaten a religious minority with extinction. What the hell happened to the military forces America sent over in June?

The periodic calls for a Super Bowl Halftime show featuring "Weird Al" Yankovic are louder than ever this year, with a petition picking up nearly 65,000 signatures in a day, and still rising. 65,000 Weird Al fans could be wrong, but they're not. This is a pretty good idea.

Yesterday, Maureen McDonnell's former chief of staff, Mary-Shea Sutherland, testified in the federal corruption trial against McDonnell and her former-Virginia-governor husband Bob. Sutherland had some colorful things to say about the first lady.

It's been a bloody, bloody summer here in New York City. The death of Staten Island resident Eric Garner at the hands of NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo in July—Pantaleo used a chokehold to restrain an asthmatic Garner, which resulted in death—may be the most public and widespread incident of police brutality this year, but it hasn't been the only one. Rosan Miller, Jahmil-El Cuffee, Stephanie Maldonado, and Denise Stewart were all violently harassed and assaulted by NYPD officers within the last few weeks. And those are just the reported cases that caught media attention. On Tuesday, Internal Affairs announced an investigation into the department involving a case where four "officers repeatedly struck a shackled and handcuffed patient on a stretcher before the New York Fire Department EMTs intervened to end the beating."

Middlebrow culture jammer James Franco is very mad at us for writing up a New York Times story that all but said he’s dating his roommate and longtime actor pal Scott Haze. “GAWKER—always getting the cutting edge, homophobic scoop!!!” he wrote on Instagram. It was as if Franco had forgotten that he and Haze have spent the past month playing gay—or their towel-snapping version of it—in order to generate publicity for their new movie, Child of God.

According to a report from The New York Times, ISIS—the Sunni militant group gaining control of Iraq and Syria—has "appeared to capture" Iraq's biggest dam. If the report is true, the consequences could be disastrous:

Yellowstone National Park's largest natural hot spring—the third-biggest in the world—may be all kinds of screwed-up thanks to the crappy stick-and-rudder skills of a tourist who crashed a photo-taking drone into the "geothermal feature," the park said Wednesday.

"Has the 'Libertarian Moment' Finally Arrived?" the New York Times Magazine wonders today. More importantly: If Ron Paul is Nirvana, does that make Gary Johnson Soundgarden?

"Welcome to The Moviegoers,"—no—"an occasional new series in which the Op-Ed columnists"—no—"Frank Bruni and Ross Douthat"—no, and no—"banter"—no—"about movies,"—no—"pop culture,"—no—"television"—no—"and other real-world distractions."—no.

The best part of this clip from last night's finale of PBS' Sex in the Wild is when anatomist Dr. Joy S. Reidenberg, standing a few yards away from a dead beached sperm whale, shouts, "Can you see the penis?!" Penis ahoy!

One of the happiest moments in a Brazilian woman's life quickly turned into one of the worst when she reconnected with her biological mother and discovered she had a brother she had never known about. Unfortunately, she had also been married to him for seven years.

Apparently, the humble bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll, which can be purchased at most Midtown delis for a couple of bucks, does not meet the standards of Joseph Checkler's refined tastebuds.

Nearly the entire Wu-Tang Clan (R.I.P Ol' Dirty Bastard) appeared on the Daily Show last night to promote their 20th anniversary reunion album, A Better Tomorrow, setting up one of the most uncomfortable Jon Stewart interviews imaginable.