The polls are now open in Wisconsin for the big event: Six recall elections targeting incumbent Republican state senators, in a backlash against Gov. Scott Walker's anti-public employee union law and other budget decisions, with the potential for control of the state Senate to be flipped to the Democrats after just seven months of one-party GOP government.

Faux hippy Wal-Mart and parking lot realness headquarters Whole Foods is happy to sell you 11 billion varieties of hummus, but don't get the wrong idea, wingnuts: Whole Foods is just as scared of Muslims as you! Really!

So Michele Bachmann kept her campaign promise about not voting to raise the debt ceiling. She voted against everything, however Tea Partyish — including Cut, Cap and Balance — that would have raised it one farthing's worth. And now, in a spectacularly brazen dismemberment of factual truth, she's blaming S&P's decision to downgrade U.S. debt on the fact that the debt ceiling was raised at all.

[Photo via Getty]

In a case of life imitating art, Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, who played the drugland hitwoman of the same name HBO's The Wire, plead guilty to conspiracy to distribute heroin today to avoid going to trial.

Nafissatou Diallo, the hotel maid who says disgraced French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn raped her, launched a civil lawsuit today.

Kenneth Moreno, the NYPD officer acquitted in May of charges that he raped a drunk woman in her West Village apartment, has been sentenced to a year in prison for "official misconduct." Not for rape, though.

Leaders of the House of Representatives will finally end the chamber's 200-year-old child slavery practice, also known as the page program, due to "advances in technology" that have reduced the chamber's need for young child sex slaves.

To be completely honest with you, the day at the stock market did not go well. The Dow was down 634 points. Which is, we have to tell you, not good. It's actually the sixth largest one-day drop in history.

Death-loving prayer overlord Rick Perry is getting ready to launch a presidential campaign, it appears! And in his first act as a kinda-maybe frontrunner, he plans to screw over Tim Pawlenty and/or Michele Bachmann in Iowa.

Joe McGinniss, the journalist who briefly lived next door to the Palins, reports that Track Palin's wife Britta Hanson has given birth to her child, a girl named Kyla Grace Palin. As predicted, the birth was a bit earlier than abstinence advocates may have expected—three months after the Track and Britta's well-publicized wedding, and a couple weeks shy of the due date on Britta's rumored baby registry. [JoeMcGinniss]

In your untraceable Monday media column: News Corp's board meeting approaches, Current TV gets a new president, the backlash to The New Yorker's Bin Laden story, the NYT's online beta testing site, and newspapers are stolen.

Here's a big of news to get the cranks all hot and bothered: The atheists are taking over America's military! Specifically for one day on one base, Fort Bragg, next spring, for an "atheism concert." Take that, God.

After Saudi Arabia demanded that Bashar al-Assad "stop the killing machine" in Syria and recalled its ambassador, Kuwait has followed suit, although with much softer language: "We have decided to recall our ambassador from Syria for consultations."

Unsurprisingly, Asian and European stock markets are down today after Standard and Poor's downgraded the U.S. credit rating. Also, you probably should have listened to Glenn Beck.

Every day, celebrities across the world are followed and photographed by the omnipresent paparazzi, often to entertaining results. From Jennifer Lopez in Cancun to the Glee cast in Los Angeles to Lady Gaga and Emma Stone in New York, here are some of the more amusing shots from the past week.

Looking for something to loathe? How about the brown marmorated stink bug? Last year, this species invaded the Mid-Atlantic states and caused millions of dollars of damage to our fruit and veggie crops. This year they're poised to do even more damage.

In a new Q&A with the New York Times, former South Carolina governor and recent New York City subway passenger Mark Sanford talks about some of his favorite pastimes, aside from hiking through Appalachia with his Argentinean soulmate.

Being overshadowed by a minivan in the eyes of one's father would wound the pride of even the strongest of men. Sadly, such is the lot of Anthony Roho, who's been forced to compete with a Nissan Quest for his father's affections—and for far too long, it seems.

How about that economy, amirite? Yesterday it's crashing to hell, and then today there's a decent jobs report and rather than crashing some more, the markets simply "gyrated," which is considered preferable.