The bankruptcy of Detroit, America's greatest urban caricature, can be laid at the feet of the million-plus people who spent the past six decades fleeing the former fourth-largest city instead of fighting for it. (Also, Detroit has a $19 billion debt that its 700,000 taxpayers have no hope of paying back.)

Very conveniently, after demonstrations erupted all over the country, Russian authorities have dialed back on silencing a Vladimir Putin political foe facing corruption charges (corruption, also very conveniently, being the thing he most railed against Putin for).

A Massachusetts state cop peeved over Rolling Stone's cover of that fab-looking Tsarnaev boy decided to break the rules and release photos showing the moment Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured by police, with a sniper's dot painted on his forehead.

Inmates on hunger strike in California's prisons, battling a prison policy that isolates suspected gang members, say guards and officials are trying to shut the protest down by pumping cold air into cells, stealing legal documents, and banning lawyers.

That Texas-size abortion bill? It was signed by Governor Rick Perry.

Three aides working for Italy's ex-premier, Silvio Berlusconi, have been found guilty of finding him prostitutes for his now-infamous "bunga bunga" parties.

Good news! Art masterworks stolen from a Dutch museum might have been found. Bad news! Some might have been found in a Romanian woman's oven, in the form of ashes and nails.

Banks are as profitable as ever, and as unpopular in Congress as ever, and so maybe they won't be able to fight off a new round of regulations. I just reread that sentence and laughed.

Portland cops showed off their spiffy new license plate readers yesterday, and the ACLU of Oregon kindly pointed out why we should demand stricter rules about how all that collected data is used and stored.

PANIC! THIS MARTIAN VIRUS IS 10 TIMES LARGER THAN ANY ON EARTH! AND 94 PERCENT OF ITS GENES HAVE NEVER BEEN SEEN ON EARTH! CALL A BADASS DOCTOR NOW! TO KILL IT! KILL IT DEAD!