Ashoka Mukpo, the freelance NBC cameraman who contracted Ebola while filming a segment, was declared Ebola-free today a few hours after he took to Twitter to defend NBC's quarantine queen, Dr. Nancy Snyderman.
Do you want the good news or the good news? They're both made up by the Tonight Show writing staff, because even Jimmy Fallon couldn't fail to notice that everything that's really happening right now is basically terrible.
The Congressional Budget Office now says Obamacare will cost $104 billion less and cover millions more people than it previously estimated. Also, more employers are offering workers health coverage. Open-market-sustainable socialism is on the march, comrades!
When a 73-year-old man with dementia went missing from his Limington, Maine, home, the news team at local ABC affiliate WMTW did their part by traveling to the region to report on his disappearance.
Good news for sailors, shipping magnates and these women: pirate attacks are way down. In fact, there haven't been any successful hijackings by Somali pirates in nearly a year, according Donna Leigh Hopkins, a US diplomat and the head of the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia.
The Mayans may not have been too far off predicting the end of the world in just 15 days, because today the Mormon church announced that it is softening its stance on homosexuality.
A whole new generation of theme parties is about to be born, as The Hollywood Reporter announced Wednesday that camp classic Whatever Happened to Baby Jane will soon be remade by director Walter Hill.
On Tuesday, the FDA approved OraQuick, the first ever fully-private, over-the-counter HIV test. The test, which relies on a mouth swab and delivers results in 20-40 minutes, should be available in some 30,000 stores by October, according to an executive at OraSure, the company that manufactures OraQuick.
So, there's about a one-in-eight chance that sometime in the next decade the sun will unleash a massive solar fart and blow up the internet and all the computers, more or less:
A marriage equality bill is all but ensured to be passed in the Washington state legislature and will be signed into law by their governor, making it the seventh state in the country to allow gay men and lesbians to get married (well, to members of the same sex, that is). Congratulations, Seattle, you're about to get that much more self righteous.
Arianna Huffington, internet media mogul and legendary pooper, has "good news." She's launching a new Huffington Post vertical, called "HuffPost Good News":
Finally, an answer to the question "How do I not die?" No, the answer is not "don't be a fat slob." Be a fat slob! Hey, you only live once—and not for long, in some cases! Just run. Run, run, run. Never stop running, from that monster, The Reaper, He Who Is Called Death.
The gay dominos are falling! The Rhode Island State Senate passed a bill legalizing civil unions on Wednesday, sending the measure to Gov. Lincoln Chafee, who's expected to sign it. Next up: Man-quahog weddings (catered by Del's). [Providence Journal]
Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords made her first public appearance on Monday since being shot in the head in January, standing and waving to the crowd at a NASA awards ceremony held at Space Center Houston. She didn't speak publicly, but "appeared to chat with people sitting around her, and laughed" at the introduction of her husband's crew. As encouraging as the appearance might have been, Giffords' staff has been attempting to manage over-optimistic expectations; her doctors have said that it'll be at least a year before they have a sense of the extent of her recovery. [ABC News]
Connecticut became the 13th state to decriminalize marijuana on Tuesday with the passage of new legislation in the House of Representatives. Possession of less than a half-ounce of pot will garner you a $150 fine (one that increases with subsequent offenses); if you're under 21, you'll get a two-month suspension of your driver's license. Connecticut could save some $885,000 in court costs and attorney salaries, and make as much as $1.4 million in fines and fees, not to mention the obvious economic benefits for convenience stores. [Hartford Courant; image, of a Connecticut State Police officer removing a pot plant in 1996, via AP]
Gawker unveiled a snappy new version of its mobile site yesterday. You'll see it automatically if you visit Gawker on your smartphone, or you can direct your mobile browser to m.gawkerarchives.com. Coming soon: a customized version for the iPad!
The wretched anti-gay bill that's been bumming around Uganda's parliament since 2009 came perilously close to passage today, the last day of the country's legislative session. This, again, is the one that would jail for life those who participate in "homosexual acts," and also imprison landlords who rent rooms to known homosexuals. The original version of the bill mandated the death penalty for "active homosexuals living with HIV," but that has since been dropped. Still, kind of a rough bill! Good thing they decided to shelve it today.
This government budget crisis has produced at least one very welcome offshoot for Barack Obama: It gives him an excuse to cancel a family vacation to lame Colonial Williamsburg. Maybe that's been the goal all along?
One of the House Republicans' budget cuts that got the most attention while they were crafting their spending bill for the next six months was the elimination of all federal funding to Planned Parenthood. The organization, which provides women's health and family planning services up to and including scary abortions, was obviously a popular target for the Republicans to satisfy their base with. Go to any conservative protest, over health care reform, taxes, Mexicans, whatever, and the anti-abortion folks are always the last ones there, screaming and hollering deep into the night.
