Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld, perfect Chinese daughter of tiger mom Amy Chua, gave the valedictory speech at her high school graduation. Mostly she just talked about her mom.

A Pennsylvania court on Monday upheld an animal cruelty conviction for a dog groomer, Holly Crawford, who sold "goth" kittens with piercings on eBay, for $100 a piece.

Women "in large swaths of the U.S." aren't living as long as they were just a generation ago, according to experts who study these things. Maybe the women in these "large swaths" should move to other swaths where women live longer. (Quitting smoking and avoiding obesity are also recommended strategies.) [Image NatalieMaynor/via Flickr.]

The notorious meat dress Lady Gaga wore to the MTV Video Music Awards is going on display at the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame this summer. Wait, it hasn't rotted yet? Will it have a special refrigerated case?

A man died of hypothermia Sunday at Bonnaroo, the annual hippie-flavored music festival in Tennessee. It was the second death of the fest. On Thursday, the opening day of the event, a young woman was found dead in her tent.

New get rich quick scheme: A researcher has found that when a kid hears a song that is likely to become popular, a brain scan will show the reward center of their brain going nuts. Whoa. That is crazy.

Fans of reality TV flop Sarah Palin apparently hacked the Twitter account of a research company that's helping MSNBC release thousands of her emails. We're just impressed that they know how to plug the computer thingy into the wall.

Here's one way to quiet a small but steady pro-democracy movement: Pardon one-sixth of your citizens for everything from traffic tickets to protesting. That's what Jordan's King Abdullah II has done. And here's his back up plan.

Sarah Burge has been dubbed "The Human Barbie" for spending more than $800,000 on plastic surgery. Now the 50-year-old is back in the news for presenting her seven-year-old daughter with a boob job voucher worth $10,000. Happy birthday?

You know who can't wait for Muammar Qaddafi to be gone? Ok, besides many Libyans. Bankers and other war profiteers: "The potential is huge," one banker told Time. Destruction breeds opportunity! These guys know exactly what they're doing.

A whopping 16.4 million people watched Oprah's final episode, besting even the prime-time competition for the week, but her highest-rated show remains "Why I Love Older Women" from 1993. And that, ladies and gentlemen, will be her legacy.

After a post on the blog A Gay Girl in Damascus claimed its author, Amina Arraf, had been abducted by Syrian security forces, questions arose about her true identity. A widely-used photograph has turned out to be someone else.

When Zimbabwe's aging strongman Robert Mugabe called dibs on a toilet at a trade fair he meant it. A police officer who used it without permission now sits in detention for unauthorized crapping. The officer has asked for leniency.

Former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn was formally charged today in the State Supreme Court in Manhattan for allegedly attempting to rape a hotel maid last month. He pleaded "Not Guilty." The next hearing will be July 18th, so the stage is set for the perfect midsummer media shit-storm.

In March, doctors and nurses in "key US ally" Bahrain were being assaulted by government troops for treating injured pro-democracy protesters. And today, 47 doctors and nurses were arraigned on charges that they tried to topple the government.

Flight attendants on a Qantas domestic flight in Australia found five baby rats just hanging out in a nest in the cabin today. The flight was grounded so that airline staff could kill the nasty little stowaways.

The deadly E. coli outbreak in Germany could become a legal battle with Spanish authorities threatening to sue Hamburg officials for blaming Spanish cucumbers, which was proven false. The cucumber slur has cost Spain an estimated 200 million euros.

The next historical landmark that Sarah Palin will visit on her Roadkill Tour 2k11 will be... Donald Trump's apartment, in New York City's Trump Tower! This is the famous site where the Founding Fathers "fired Gary Busey" in 1785.

The family of Hamza Ali al-Khateeb, a 13-year-old Syrian boy tortured and mutilated by President Bashar Assad's forces, has posted a video of his corpse online that shows "cuts, gashes...burns...bullet wounds...jaw and kneecaps shattered...and his penis chopped off." [NY Times]

Despite going all out fascist with campaign posters, Silvio Berlusconi's "center-right" coalition lost mayoral races to commies in Milan and Naples in what he called a "slap in the face." Well, at least he's still got his raging libido.