Break out the hobo cake, Americans: the official unemployment rate has fallen to a mere 8.8%. Two hundred and sixteen thousand more of you have jobs now! The down side: you're still paupers.

Hey now wait a minute. Why would the National Republican Senatorial Committee produce a campaign ad supporting Barack Obama... unless... Oh, right, it's April 1 and everyone tells lies all day. Then again, this video appears to have been uploaded on March 31, so maybe the NRSC really does want Obama to win in 2012. That would be nuts. You can watch the ad and decide. Obama rides a unicorn over a rainbow and suggests boosting oil imports from Brazil, though not in the same shot.

American idiot Meghan McCain has writed another column for the Daily Beast, which routinely passes along her Blackberried thoughts unedited, this time featuring a nontraditional spelling for the name of her father's campaign manager. Would you edit John Ashbery?

It's Gaga's party, and she'll make Glambert cry if she wants to. Lindsay Lohan swears she wasn't drunk when she fell outside a bar in New York. Brangelina goes on a mini-vacation. It's TGIFriday gossip.

Apparently three Oscar-nominated actors will be coming out on Monday and talking about their gay-related movie project. This starlet thinks she's the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe and this fashion designer has a hemorrhoid problem. Or maybe these are all April Fools jokes.

It is with great sadness that we learned today that Sbarro Inc., purveyors of the very finest room-temperature pizza and congealed ziti known to mankind, are preparing to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The chain is $365 million in debt, and lawyers are working feverishly to hammer out a restructuring deal that would spare the legendary dough emporiums from extinction.

Here's the trailer to The Hangover 2, the sequel to, you guessed it, The Hangover. And, we hate to say it, but those of you hoping for a radical change in the direction of the series are gonna be disappointed.

College grade point averages are inversely affected by the amount of alcohol a student drinks. That much you suspected. But your hunch has now been confirmed by the American College Personnel Association, who interviewed 14,000 frosh at 167 schools on their partying and homework habits.

Is it possible to assign a dollar value to a specific person? Duh, yes, Rutgers University just did it: Jersey Shore's Snooki is worth $32,000 and Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison is worth $30,000.

The internet is agog and aghast today at news that Russian billionaire Yuri Milner has paid $100 million for an estate up in Silicon Valley's Los Altos Hills, making it the largest single-family property transaction in U.S. history. (Has anyone made the Lap Giraffes joke yet? Probably.) We know you've got questions, and we've got answers. Here's everything you want to know about the house that makes Candy Spelling's place look like a cramped studio apartment.

The protracted and contentious negotiations between AMC and Lionsgate (the network and studio that produce Mad Men) and Matthew Weiner (the Great Architect of its Womanizing Universe) have finally been resolved, bringing to an end a nail-biting waiting period to rival even that of Joan Holloway's own in a sterile OB/GYN reception room. And the news is good!

Here's an internet leak that could well spark yet another revolution — a Dance Dance Revolution. For a brief moment back in December 2009, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange let down his famously icy walls, and became one with the music at an empty Reykjavík discotheque.

It's April 1st, the day when every office jokester and petty prankster thinks up some gags at your expense that they think will be hilarious. Well, not this year, jackass. Here's a guide on how not to fall for anything.

Toronto alt weekly NOW accompanied a story about Mayor Rob Ford's "naked ambition" with nearly-nude photo illustrations of the politician. (Ford's opponents Other politicians are portrayed as nearly-nude bodybuilders.) The morning the issue came out, the Toronto Star reports, the mayor's office launched a campaign to "remove and dispose":

Yesterday we reported that the STD test database was breached at the private clinic that serves the porn industry, exposing the real names and test results of thousands of performers. The clinic, AIM Medical Associates, now says it's investigating the breach.

Ecko, a clothing brand that was cool roughly a decade ago, has announced the greatest deal in fashion: get a tattoo ("must be permanent, not temporary") of the Ecko logo, and get 20% off your Ecko purchases for life.

National Tea Party groups had planned to make a statement to lawmakers today with a well-publicized rally on Capitol Hill. Hordes of attendees were going to demand that wavering Republican members of Congress not compromise halfway with Democrats on a budget deal. A compromise for $33 billion in cuts instead of the Republicans' maximalist proposal of $61 billion, Tea Party folks believe, would be a betrayal of promises made during the 2010 election. So the Tea Party held its big important rally this afternoon as planned — but it only drew "perhaps a couple hundred" attendees. C'mon, Tea Party! Get your act together, or go extinct.

Everyone's favorite cult comedy actor is saddling up for yet another television show. Will this one stick? Let's hope so. Also today: Arnold Schwarzenegger announces his next move, TV actors leave and join pilots, and John Travolta is so gangsta.

The deadly cobra that's been missing from the Bronx Zoo for the past five days is terrorizing a middle school! No, actually, it has been found "alive and well," according to Bronx Zoo director Jim Breheny. It was in the reptile house the whole time. That was anti-climactic.

New theory: Lindsay Lohan is not an alcoholic, but a misunderstood klutz with a penchant for unstable footwear. A supposedly sober Lindsay put the "dive" in Lower East Side's Motor City Bar last night. New York, meet your newest resident. [Images via Getty]