Another chapter is closed in the long, strange tale of the Elmo sex scandal. Kevin Clash, the puppeteer and voice behind Sesame Street's beloved red monster, has been cleared of three charges of improper sexual relations with teenage boys.

At least it is, according to his good friend James Franco's paint brush. That's not a euphemism. (Or is it?)

Rich: I always recall Grand Central Terminal fondly because it's old and feels that way, like an elderly neighbor who's going to give you a butterscotch candy without any threat of poison or violation. But the reality of it is that it's a diarrhea explosion of people and sounds and diarrhea smells.

Black smoke billows from burning tires at a checkpoint following an attack by Ukrainian troops outside Slovyansk, Ukraine, on Thursday. Russian President Vladimir Putin decried what he described as a "punitive operation." Image via Mika Velikovskiy/AP.

A Florida elementary school has agreed to stop its longstanding policy of giving kids Mountain Dew as brain fuel before the state's most important standardized test.

So... conservatives are distancing themselves from that grumpy racist Nevada rancher after his "negroes" rant, right? Not the dim-witted self-important overpaid violent maniac who compared him to Gandhi and Thoreau and now compares him to the dead guys at the Alamo in a new non-apology. But other conservatives, sure.

The one and only Shirley MacLaine, actress, reincarnated harem girl from a Turkish pasha, and devotee of New Age philosophy, turns 80 today. Happy birthday! We concur with an attendee of one of MacLaine's seminars in 1987: "'Astral,' says a lady in the lox line. 'That's what Shirley is, astral!'"

Good news for sleazeball celebrity photographer Terry Richardson: He didn't do at least one of the sketchy, sexually harassing things he's been accused of. A Facebook message offering a model a high-profile shoot in exchange for sex actually originated from a fake account.

The United States Marines don't half-ass anything. Not even bizarre misguided protests in front of state capitols.

People's Most Beautiful Person of 2014 is Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o, unfortunately for news anchors around the U.S., who have no idea how to pronounce her last name. Jimmy Kimmel didn't even need to trick anyone to get this montage of stuttering local newsreaders.

Today, the Maryland Transportation Authority added a platform to its Bay Bridge traffic-camera gantry, so ospreys may nest there without blocking the cameras. At noon four days a week, a camera will pivot to show the ospreys for 15 minutes. The ospreys appear to find the MDTA's terms of surrender acceptable.

Madelynn Taylor, 74, served six years in the Navy. Madelynn Taylor grew up with the woman she would eventually marry in Oregon, in 1995. Madelynn Taylor is welcome to be buried in the veterans' cemetery in Idaho, where she now lives. But not with her now-deceased spouse, thanks to an anti-gay state law.

Simon Ostrovsky, the Vice News journalist captured in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday, was just released. He told a BBC reporter that he's "free and safe" and on his way to Donetsk, Ukraine.

Some years ago, journalist Bill Carter found arsenic in his family's garden. It was there because of local copper mines. That prompted him to delve into the hidden dangers of copper—"the metal that runs modern civilization." He will be here to answer your questions, below.

Funny, the way he pronounces it, it almost doesn't sound like "negro" at all. It sounds like... hmm...

A New Jersey hotel bartender who works three jobs was stunned when a customer left her a $1,000 tip out of concern for her dog.

Administrators at the Department of Veterans Affairs' hospital in Phoenix used an off-the-books paper system to hide a backlog of thousands of sick veterans who needed health care, and at least 40 vets died while waiting for the facility to take them.

Instagram's #TransformationTuesday is a hashtag where people share their before-and-after gym progress photos or post baby pictures alongside present-day selfies. And now it's also apparently a hashtag for breaking up in public.

Huffpo reporter Dave Jamieson wondered why so many of his Amazon Prime packages were being delivered not by UPS or Fedex, but by "independent" courier drivers. The answer says a lot about the dark side of our delivery-dependent future.