On Monday, federal investigators announced that wreckage found over the weekend, 15,000 beneath the surface of the sea, had been identified as that of El Faro, the cargo ship that went missing during Hurricane Joaquin last month.

Next time you're in the Bahamas, be safe and hire a pigeon carrier or something: according to a new report from Glenn Greenwald's The Intercept, the NSA is secretly recording and storing every single cell phone call made on the islands.

This morning the "eye wall" of Hurricane Irene reached land just east of Cape Lookout in North Carolina—sweeping away dunes, flooding beaches, destroying a pier in kinda-nearby Atlantic Beach, and causing power outages. The old girl's not as strong as we thought she'd be, though! The latest, with updates below.

And with a sputter and whir Top Chef: Tippity Tippity to the Tip Tip Top and You Don't Stop All Stiggity Star edition came to a close. As is often the case, it came down to a duel between pride and prejudice, head and heart, sense and sensibility, eggs and bacon, and a boring schmo and a human cankle.

A recently released Wikileaks cable reveals how Anna Nicole Smith scandalized an island nation: "Not since Category 4 Hurricane Betsy made landfall in 1965 has one woman done as much damage in Nassau," reads the previously classified diplomatic cable. Wow!

One of the greatest fugitives of our time, 19-year-old Colton Harris-Moore, the "Barefoot Bandit," has reportedly been arrested in the Bahamas, where he is said to have crash landed a small plane. A two year odyssey has ended. (Updated)

Let's say you were a 19-year-old suspected thief, part-time airplane hijacker and Facebook icon who just tore through the Pacific northwest and the upper midwest. Where do you go next? How about... the Bahamas?

Mitch Winehouse thinks Amy's rack was worth the rumored $56,000 cost of silicone. Salman Rushdie scores another PYT. Obama Girl is mauled by a light fixture at that one ubiquitous press junket in Jamaica. Welcome to Thursday's gossip!