Good morning. The U.S. is now warning health officials to be on the alert for a scary new virus—a deadly cousin of SARS that's already killed eight and infected 14.

Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, who for many years took great glee in voicing anti-American sentiments, died this week at the age of 58, following a long battle with "an unspecified cancer in the pelvic region." Just before he died, Venezuelan vice president Nicholas Maduro ejected two U.S. diplomats from the country and vaguely charged them with infecting Chavez with cancer, saying he was "attacked with this illness."

A secret operation sometime last week has brought Osama bin Laden's son-in-law to New York, where he will appear this morning under heavy security in a New York federal courtroom. There, the former high-school teacher will answer charges of conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens as a key member of al Qaeda's inner circle.

Michael Bloomberg hates sugary drinks (but not coffee), has issues with the homeless, and has a history of making sexist remarks in public. But who cares about that. His most egregious mistake as New York's mayor (and the world's 13th richest person) is admitting to not liking movie trailers, which, as others have correctly noted, are often the best part of trips to the multiplex (especially when you're seeing Les Misérables, as Bloomberg had before this interview with M Magazine).

In an op-ed published Thursday evening in the Washington Post, former president Bill Clinton announced his opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act, which he signed into law in 1996. Clinton defended his initial support of the bill, saying that, when it was passed, there were no states that recognized same-sex marriage. At the time, Clinton said the bill seemed like the best option to prevent a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Tanned leather belt Anthony Bourdain is a person who probably has good taste and is sometimes witty, but he is not a person from whom we would appreciate sex advice. Nonetheless, he has doled out some sex tips in a recent column for Cosmo in order to promote his new CNN show Parts Unknown, which now has a weird double-entendre vibe to its name.

Crap purveyor Wal-Mart has been trying for years to build itself a store in New York City, one of the few places in America that doesn't already have 666 Wal-Mart locations. The company's had a surprisingly hard time of it, what with all the angry union members and grumbling liberals around here.

Roger Ailes is the pallid, smirking, ultra-rich white guy who sits atop the unrepentant lie factory that is Fox News. A new book about Ailes, Roger Ailes: Off Camera, is due out this month, and Vanity Fair has an excerpt. Off Camera was written by Zev Chafets—the man behind a cheerleading 2010 Rush Limbaugh biography—and has been viewed as a would-be preemptive strike against another Ailes biography coming out this year, from New York contributing editor Gabe Sherman, The Loudest Voice in the Room: Fox News and the Making of America.

Taylor Swift made the world's head tilt sideways like a dog's yesterday, when she suggested that comedians Amy Poehler and Tina Fey would find themselves roasting in hell for all eternity for the sin of making a joke about her at the Golden Globes.

Flirting with strangers is nerve-wracking. You don't want your flirts to come across as boring, but walking the tightrope between "intriguing" and "crazy" can be perilous. Even seasoned pros occasionally skew toward the latter. Take Cuba Gooding, Jr., for example. On Monday, he told a lady at a party that his name was Dick McWilly AND that he'd just gotten out of jail AND that he'd had sex with a leprechaun.

Big week for Israel: First came news about Palestinian only buses and now an exciting announcement about a Hebrew edition of Playboy. The English-language edition of the magazine has been available in the holy land for years, but this version will include Israeli models and articles by Israeli writers. Owner, publisher, and probably all-around excellent person Daniel Pomerantz has big plans for the venture.

On Tuesday, Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton was tottering around a "fishing heritage center" in the middle of nowhere (technically: the coast of nowhere), all pregnant, probably singing Britney Spears' 2000 single "Lucky" over and over in her head and wondering if she wouldn't have been happier with Tristan after all.

Remember last week when IKEA recalled some meatballs for containing horsemeat, even though horse is a kind of meat, so technically they were still balls of meat, i.e. "meatballs"? Today the Swedish furniture behemoth recalled some almond cakes after tests revealed they contained a bacteria normally found in poop.

Amid talk of new sanctions and continued U.S.-South Korea joint military drills, North Korea has vowed to cancel the 1953 Korean War cease-fire. North Korea's Korean People's Army Supreme Command issued a statement earlier today, as reports came that Washington and North Korean ally Beijing approved a draft of punishing new sanctions in response to North Korea's latest nuclear test.

Budget negotiations at the U.N. are probably boring, drawn-out affairs, and as such, delegates apparently have a tradition of having a drink or two before the meetings begin. But according to Joseph Torsella, the U.S. ambassador for management and reform at the United Nations, certain delegates have been showing up completely wasted to recent negotiations.

Here's a mashup that, on paper, seems like a terrible idea. And yet, it works. Who knew early 90s industrial rock meshed so well with last year's biggest pop song? And with the news that Nine Inch Nails are going on tour this summer, maybe we can look forward to an opening act from Carly Rae?

Justin Bieber may have had a pretty lousy birthday, but one of his Twitter followers is having a really lousy month — and it's all because of him.

Keith Olbermann, famed observer of reckless drivers and occasional Gawker emailer, is reportedly testing the waters at ESPN, the station he left in 1997 in a typically bridge-burning/napalming fashion. Several times over the last year, the former Current and MSNBC host reached out to ESPN president John Skipper with friendly "Gee, I would love to have dinner" emails, and finally, some time a few months ago, the two dined together at New York's Four Seasons restaurant:

The perpetual motion machine of Lindsay Lohan's legal saga groaned on this week as Lohan's new judge decried Lohan's new lawyer as "incompetent," and unfit to practice law in California. We also found out that Lindsay wants to become a motivational speaker.

Working in journalism is, like life, harder for women than it is for men, what with the patriarchy and all. This point was driven home this week by Marin Cogan's New Republic story on the various sexual harassment-themed indignities of being a female reporter in Washington, and by the "Said to Lady Journos" Tumblr, which chronicles fun on-the-job remarks like, "Are you lost, little girl?"