The Mega Millions jackpot is half a billion dollars. A cool half-billion. You could use that money, eh? Buy your castle and everything. Have you bought your Mega Millions ticket yet? Well, don't.

Your baby: it has some issues. Let's be real. Its baby skin is... not so perfect. Nothing you'd want to be seen in public with. Your baby's beauty reflects on you. The good news: your baby's hideousness is nothing that hundreds of dollars worth of beauty products can't temporarily fix.

While we were all frolicking, naked, in our kiddie pools during last week's crazy heat wave, the nation's maple farmers were shedding tears of sweet sadness: This year's tropical temperatures are devastating maple production. For the love of all things breakfast: start stockpiling maple syrup.

Earlier this week, University of Texas student Stephanie Eisner managed to outrage just about everybody with her editorial cartoon about the Trayvon Martin case. I mean, it was "controversial," which is a euphemism for "it was racist." Unintentionally, perhaps, but still. Dayum. Yesterday, Stephanie Eisner apologized. Today, she's already been canned.

As part of our ongoing project to catalog the 2012 presidential election from a metal point of view, we've been soliciting presidential endorsements from noteworthy American metal musicians. Today: In Defence.

Obamacare is dead and no one is happier than Stephen Colbert, and he did plenty of gloating on tonight's Colbert Report. That's right, no one in the world is gonna make Stephen Colbert eat any fucking broccoli.

On tonight's Daily Show, Jon Stewart examined the revelation that ground beef contains a substance called "pink slime," or "finely textured beef" as the beef PR people have put it. This is greatly troubling for Jon, especially considering that this stuff is too fake for McDonald's.

In January, 30-year-old Emily Leach won $1,000,000 on a scratch-off ticket she bought at a California Liquor & Tobacco store. She used the money to pay off medical bills she had incurred while receiving treatment for a pancreatic tumor. She bought her mom a dog. She exhibited the kind of exorbitant generosity normally reserved for cartoon billionaires and Mitt Romney, by handing out $100 bills to strangers.

Newly released security camera footage (video link) of George Zimmerman being led into the Sanford police station appears to contradict reports that he had been violently attacked prior to shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

Mississippi will be the least densely populated state following the Rapture, if the latest Gallup poll is any indication.

Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts goes on vacation next week and ABC/Disney has decided to trot out former Today Show queen Katie Couric to fill her slot. With all the rumored upheaval and turmoil at NBC's once untouchable morning program, some sources say this is a diabolical decision by an executive Disney goon squad done to further taunt Today and its flat ratings. The more reasonable assumption is that ABC/Disney will get a good sense of if Couric still has enough bubble-headed charisma to connect with morning audiences since her own talk show is set to premiere on ABC in September. A little early for pre-buzz, though, right?

The same bacteria strain that gives you strep throat (and scarlet fever – retro) might also cause you to develop obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), according to the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

After losing a Congressional race by 1,995 votes two years ago, Matt Doheny went back to his home in New York's 21st District to recharge. He asked long-time girlfriend Mary Reidy to marry him (she said yes, "of course") and announced he would re-challenge Democratic Rep. Bill Owens in 2012.

The fervent patriots over at E! Online took a bold stance against monarchical rule today, captioning an otherwise bland Windsor family update with an elegantly-scripted logo reading "Die Royals." [Update: The typo has been fixed and now reads "The Royals." Alles klar.]

Here's the bad thing about this apparently official video for Michael Shrieve's great "Transfer Station Blue" (and I promise, it's the only bad thing): it doesn't earn that big scoop of guitar (played by Michael's brother Kevin) that drops in around 1:43. The original, which you can listen to here, absolutely does, and is probably what makes it such an unbelievable piece of work: all that propulsive shimmering-city anime-dudes-on-future-motorcycles shit just drenched in the smoothiest, jazziest, funkiest guitar you've ever heard. I have no clue what this video is about, by the way. [via Dream Chimney]

At the end of last night's public showing of Kirk Cameron's documentary Monumental at New York's Regal Union Square Stadium 14, after a technical error had cut off Cameron's simulcast that concluded the event but before everyone left the still-dark theater, a voice rang out responding to what we had just watched:

This qualifies as a bit of a vague, not totally well-established-in-a-statistical-way trend; but the fact that it exists at all for one single person in America is, I believe, newsworthy. Families are taking out tens of thousands of dollars worth of loans in order to pay for private kindergarten for their whelps. That is some fucked up shit.

Emoticon-ridden macaroon recipe Zooey Deschanel may star in "low budget time-travel dramedy About Time," Variety reports.

"Musical Phenominal Whitney- The light of Christ shines upon Whitney Houston and she is new again and at peace," writes artist Jeffry Lynne Hawk. "I felt so moved to draw this picture of Whitney in the hands of Jesus to make a statement that God can forgive all those who turn to him. Whitney was once a beautiful song bird who lost her way, but will sing again for her Father in Heaven." This 18" x 24" pastel can be yours for only $300.00.

Have you noticed that sometimes Twitter says you're not following people when you... are? Welcome to the wacky world of the Twitter Unfollow Bug, which has been wreaking havoc on more than half of Twitter's 18 billion users (figures estimated). What can you do about the Twitter Unfollow Bug, if you are the kind of person who cares? (A nerd):