The Obama administration is changing some rules about how people can repay their student loans based on their income, to make that debt repayment somewhat less onerous for people whose incomes are low. Which is good. But not as good as it could be. As in many operations of our society, the lower class is helped less than the middle and upper classes. This happens often in the system of government we have designed. It is not a good system.

Restrictions that have kept Cuban islanders landlocked for half a century have been mostly lifted according to a foreign ministry statement in the Central Committee's official newspaper, Granma.

Republican VP nominee Paul Ryan was heavily criticized yesterday for a recent photo op at a soup kitchen that didn't involve helping any actual poor people.

Everyone can stop worrying: debate expert President Barack Obama has finally weighed in on the Nicki Minaj-Mariah Carey American Idol feud. During an interview with something called "The Yo Show," the president said the following:

Time's Mark Halperin has made himself useful for once by obtaining, and publishing, a copy of the 21-page memorandum of understanding that the Obama and Romney campaigns negotiated with the Commission on Presidential Debates establishing the rules governing this month's presidential and vice presidential face-offs. The upshot: Both campaigns are terrified at anything even remotely spontaneous happening.

Ladies. There is something seriously wrong with your eyebrows.

Romney and Obama aren't going to have much to talk about in Tuesday night's town hall-style debate, as cardboard circle manufacturer Pizza Hut has rescinded its request to have an attendee ask either candidate "Sausage or Pepperoni?" during the live telecast.

Out of nowhere, Tan Mom has competition for Worst Tan: competitor number 49 at the Arnold Classic Europe bodybuilding competition, who appears to have self-tanned only his body. Here's the full shot:

After Paul Ryan spent Saturday morning at a town hall meeting in Ohio's Youngstown State University once again blaming President Obama for the shuttering of GM plant that closed before he took office, his campaign decided to show off their candidate's compassionate side with a detour to a soup kitchen in Canfield.

Considering the hyped-up, half-assed shit the TSA forces you to go through before your typical flight, making a bomb-related joke at the airport probably isn't the best move. But, according to the AP, flier Peter Friesema didn't let a thing like common sense get in the way of potential comedy gold and apparently made a wisecrack about having a bomb in his bag. Things went about as well as you'd expect: authorities shutdown Anchorage's Ted Stevens International Airport for three hours hours early Sunday morning as police searched for the non-existent bomb.

Arlen Specter, a five-term senator from Pennsylvania, has just died, the AP reports. A Republican since 1965, he switched party affiliations in 2009 and ran as a Democrat, losing in the primary to Joe Sestak. After his defeat, Specter continued to teach law at the University of Pennsylvania, where last year he was named by the National Jurist one of the "23 professors to take before you die." He was 82.

Russell Crowe is divorcing his wife Danielle Spencer after nine years of marriage. The couple, who met over 20 years ago on a film set, have two children together.

There's nothing more American than comparing a vice-presidential candidate's physical appearance to a children's cartoon character. And Paul Ryan's just got one of those faces that makes everyone wonder "who does he remind me of?" Sometimes the similarities are obvious and sometimes they require picturing a former child actor copulating with a small, carnivorous rodent, but they're all right, every last one of them.

Call it the meth lab that wasn't there: during a recent narcotics raid in Billings, Montana, a member of a police SWAT team dropped a flash grenade at the bedside of a sleeping 12-year-old girl, sending her to the hospital with second-degree burns and knocking out part of her bedroom wall.

In an attempt to erase the phrase "dying with dignity" from our collective memory, two of America's most embarrassing states have recently subjected innocent citizens to the kind of death traditionally reserved for the girlfriends of comic book characters.

Wendy's, the restaurant where dreams come true if, in your dreams, burgers are square, has just released an image of its new logo, the first update to the chain's design in almost thirty years.

Well, oh boy, everyone turn on your televisions, they've announced the Nobel Peace Prize. Silence, please. And the winner is: "The European Union." Man, the Nobel Peace Prize has really "jumped the snark."

This is "Mexican Drug Blood," a regular feature on the deadly Mexican drug wars. Here, the story behind the murder of Zeta cartel boss Heriberto Lazcano.

The bloody and endless Mexican Drug War, which exists largely due to America's unwinnable "War on Drugs," is having a predictable salutary effect: increased mass torture, by police. From the LAT:

Speaking with The Columbus Dispatch yesterday, presidential nominee Mitt Romney reiterated his vow to repeal Obamacare and put in place a system that relies mostly on having people go to the emergency room when they need medical attention.