Barack and Michelle Obama have added their voices to the public grieving of Frankie Knuckles, the Chicago house pioneer who died last month at age 59. Knuckles' frequent production partner David Morales shared via Facebook a letter addressed to Knuckles' family and friends that the President and First Lady signed. It acknowledges Knuckles contribution to culture with high praise: "Frankie's work helped open minds and bring people together, blending genres to capture our attention and ignite our imaginations. He was a trailblazer in his field..."

The average U.S. CEO is paid 331 times as much as their average employee. A new Demos report finds that the fast food industry, currently the subject of vast protests, "has the greatest CEO-to-worker pay disparity in our economy, with ratios exceeding 1,000-to-1."

How do you really screw up a chart? This is how you really screw up a chart.

Last month, Russia seized Ukraine's combat dolphins. This week, the U.S. Navy was rumored to be deploying its own dolphins to the Black Sea. The Great Game seemed upon us once again: the warm-water game of cold war. But more likely, the American media just got played by a Kremlin mouthpiece.

Ah, Paris in springtime! Romance, confusion, possible capers, getting wasted and posing for photos with Charlie Sheen.

Simon Ostrovsky, an American correspondent for Vice News, was reportedly taken hostage on Tuesday in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk.

The state of Texas has strict rules about how to handle dangerous heat on pig farms; not so in their non-air-conditioned prisons, where 14 inmates have reportedly died of heat exposure since 2007. A new report says the state is doing nothing to address the issue.

As actress/guru/collection of abdominal muscles Gwyneth Paltrow works through a split with husband Chris Martin, her aspirational lifestyle brand appears to be consciously uncoupling with a whole lot of money.

Jonah Lehrer has a new blog, and Malcolm Gladwell likes it. According to Gawker's computerized plagiarism analysis, it includes two unoriginal statements: "It's a simple question with a complicated answer," and "At first glance, the answer seems obvious." So Lehrer's moved on to clichés now.

Eleven years ago today, we got Krauthammered. Never forget.

The osprey, Pandion haliaetus, is a bird of character. The ancient poets knew this, and the Maryland Transportation Authority is discovering it the hard way. Last week, a pair of ospreys decided to build their nest on a platform overlooking the approach to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, where the MDTA keeps a traffic camera.

The New York Times' new data-driven explainery site, The Upshot, currently estimates that Democrats have a 51 percent chance of retaining control of the Senate. Bold projection, or not-too-subtle "FU" to Nate Silver? Or both? It's definitely not neither.

Meet Brandon, a "pro basketball player," who was somehow roped into getting married on the RuPaul's Drag Race stage while wearing female drag (his wife was in a tux), all the while voicing his extreme discomfort with the situation and his teammates' potential responses. And then, during judging, when everyone onstage and sitting on the panel laughed at this discomfort, he left the stage to throw up.

Are you from Talladega? Do you like guns? But I repeat myself. The point is: Your conservative state representative likes guns. A lot. He's a big fan of big guns. With big barbecue smokers inside of them. Now, who are you voting for in November?

Senior Gawker columnist a dog takes on the difficult questions of canine substance abuse in a new column today. "I hate to tell you this, but once I had beer. Right in my bowl." A dog maintains a blog at dog.gawker.com.

An Oberlin professor has accused another professor of trying to murder him. In response, the alleged would-be murderer is suing his accuser for sullying his good name. Life in academia can be killer.

Michael Egan III and his mother take questions from the media during a news conference on Monday. Egan, who previously accused X-Men director Bryan Singer of sexually abusing him when he was a teen, has sued former TV programming executive Garth Ancier, accusing him of abuse when Egan was 17. Image via Nick Ut/AP.

Today, The Atlantic has published a long story by Roy Klabin in which Klabin writes about shadowing several drug dealers as they do business. But some of the numbers in his story do not seem to add up.

Meet Pancho the chihuahua. As you can see in the above video, Pancho is pretty good at yoga. Cobra pose, downward dog, various stretches: this little guy can do it all.

Human exclamation point Billy "On The Street" Eichner is sprinting through New York again, helping another celebrity friend ambush and delight unsuspecting pedestrians. And this time, it's Pitbull! No, it's not Pitbull! It's Amy Poehler!