Snakes on a car (The Newsroom)

First there were Snakes on a Plane; then there were Snakes on a Train (can you say "straight to DVD"?) Now ... you guessed it: Snakes on a car.

That's what the Fisher family from Memphis, Tennessee found slithering on the windshield of their SUV -- while they were driving. The sneaky serpent had snuck into the engine and decided to show himself once things got too hot under the hood.

The Fishers caught it all on video and posted it to YouTube, where, predictably, animal lovers blasted the couple for not stopping. But all's well that ends well: Hitchy McHitchhiker eventually slithered off the car and to safety.

LIFE slideshow: John Glenn, unpublished photos (The Newsroom)

No person alive has been more closely associated, for so long, with America's triumphs in space during the late '50s and early '60s than Ohio native John Glenn. Here, on the occasion of his 90th birthday (July 18), LIFE.com presents unpublished photos of the first American to orbit the earth; the decorated Marine Corps veteran (WWII and Korea); and the earnest, novice politician, taken by LIFE photographers during one of the most thrilling, inspiring, nerve-wracking eras in the nation's history: the Space Race.

Hank Walker/TIME & LIFE Pictures

Second Act: Swimmer Diana Nyad (The Newsroom)

Open water swimmer Diana Nyad is back in Key West, Florida , continuing her quest to be the first person to make a 103-mile swim from Havana, Cuba to Florida without a shark cage. A Yahoo! News team recently accompanied Nyad on a grueling 9-hour training swim, shooting an episode of the award-winning show Second Act from aboard her escort vessel. Nyad, who is 61 and swims around 1.5 miles an hour,  is waiting for favorable water temperatures and ocean wind speeds to attempt the 60-hour crossing.  Hurricanes and delays with Cuban visas prevented her from trying the swim last summer.  Click here to see the video.

Yahoo! News

What’s next for America’s aspiring astronauts? (The Newsroom)

Click image to view photos of space travel's past, present and future. (AFP)

The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis is seen with from the International Space Station. REUTERS/NASA TV/Handout

(This report is the third and final in a Yahoo! News series on the shutdown of the space shuttle program.)

When Atlantis lands at Cape Canaveral on Thursday, back from the very last mission to the International Space Station, 20-year-old Amanda Premer will be getting ready to move to Houston.  The fourth-year aerospace engineering major is headed to Johnson Space Center's Cooperative Education program, where she will be alternating her last semesters at Wichita State University with three "work tours" at the NASA site. She hopes to secure a full-time job with NASA.

"I want to be an astronaut," said Premer, who has spent the last four summers working at the Cosmosphere space camp in Hutchinson, Kan. "Even though NASA doesn't have anything lined up to follow the shuttle program, the world's always going to need astronauts. And I'd like to be one of them."

As NASA's 30-year space shuttle program draws to a close, the next generation of aspiring astronauts and talented aerospace engineers must rely on international vehicles to fly up to the ISS, and depend on private industry to create the next best rocket. They are entering a new, nebulous era of American spaceflight, but are fervent in their desire to carry the torch lit by their predecessors during the Apollo era.

"The shuttle is old. Amazing, but old," said Sara Gurnett, who is three semesters away from earning a degree in professional aeronautics from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz., and also works summers as a counselor for the Cosmosphere. "So it's not disappointing to me that it's retiring."

She hopes to join the U.S. Navy's Officer Candidate School after graduation, and eventually become an astronaut pilot. "I want to one day be able to fly the most exotic thing out there," said Gurnett, who keeps her pilot license, along with her scuba certification, literally in her back pocket.  "That used to be the space shuttle, but now, who knows what it'll be. … It'll probably be built by private industry."

President Obama thinks so too. Atlantis' crew deposited on the ISS an American flag that flew on the first shuttle mission, and when Obama spoke to the crew last week before it returned to Earth, he challenged the commercial space industry to "capture the flag."

Shortly afterward, California-based company SpaceX posted via Twitter: "SpaceX commencing flag capturing sequence…"

Founded by engineer-entrepreneur Elon Musk (of PayPal and Tesla fame), SpaceX made history in November when it became the first private company to launch a spacecraft into orbit and guide it safely back to Earth. It plans to send that same spacecraft to the ISS by the end of this year. Fueling this effort will be the company's cadre of bright young engineers—the average age at SpaceX is early 30s.

"There's all this incredible energy happening in the private sector," said Garrett Reisman, a former astronaut who rode on Atlantis' penultimate trip to the ISS last year, but recently hung up his spacesuit to join SpaceX as a senior engineer. "We have a great mix of these senior guys and these young guys who are the best and the brightest."

One of those young guys is 26-year-old Matt McKeown , who sat in mission control during SpaceX's historic launch last year. A lead propulsion engineer, he gave the iconic "go/no-go" cues from the propulsion standpoint.

"It's definitely a challenge for us young engineers because we've never done this before," said McKeown, who joined SpaceX after earning a master's degree—and a 3.9 GPA—in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan in 2008. "But we know we have to make progress or we're not going to have jobs!  That's a great motivator."

McKeown started building model rockets in elementary school, and he continued to build them throughout junior high and high school. In college, he set his sights a little higher and co-founded the Michigan Aeronautical Science Association, an organization specifically designed to construct space vehicles.  He received a $10,000 scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, which was founded by the six surviving astronauts of Project Mercury, NASA's first major undertaking. The foundation rewards college students who excel in the sciences.

"Ever since I was 5, I knew I wanted to be an engineer," said McKeown, who was inspired by shuttle technology. "Now I'm working on vehicles that will take manned spaceflight to the next level. … I hope that will inspire people."

Sara Gurnett believes that renewing public interest in space exploration is the key to continued funding and support.

"We have to get parents interested in space, and then they'll inspire their kids," she said. "Some kids see these things as faraway dreams and they don't feel like they're good enough. … But they could really do this one day!"

Aerospace engineer Doug Hofmann, 30, was inspired to pursue a career in space by his father, a retired Army lieutenant colonel with a strong interest in the space program. (In 1985, the elder Hofmann, then a seventh-grade teacher, was a finalist for the ill-fated Challenger mission.)

"I grew up wanting to be an astronaut," said Hofmann, who knew his best chances were to become an engineer or a military fighter pilot. "My dad told me I was more apt for research than the military."

From then on, Hofmann relentlessly pursued the space field and took every opportunity to get advice from former astronauts. Sally Ride, the first American woman to enter space, and one of Hofmann's professors at the University of California, San Diego, convinced him to go to Caltech for graduate school rather than MIT. He went on to earn both a master's and PhD in materials science.

Hofmann is now working in what he calls his dream job, designing new materials for spacecraft at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  He hopes the job will bring him one step closer to becoming an astronaut (he currently has funding for research projects on the ISS).

In the meantime, he's trying to pass on the wonder and excitement for all things space to his 5-month-old son: "When I was in Washington, D.C., I got the autographs of three astronauts for my son.  When he's older he'll appreciate them."

Though many view the end of the shuttle program as an end to American spaceflight, this new generation of aspiring astronauts, engineers and space enthusiasts are excited as ever for the future, and hope that they can leave their mark, much as their predecessors from Apollo and the shuttle missions did. Whether it's by hitching a ride on another country's vehicle or inaugurating a shiny new ride built by commercial industry, they will continue to explore the great unknown, and stake their flag to inspire the next generation.

More specifically, according to Gurnett: "Space travel to the moon, Mars and beyond: That's the legacy I want my generation to leave."

LIFE slideshow: Druids, mystery, faith, myth (The Newsroom)

In early October, 2010, the ancient pagan tradition of Druidry was, for the first time, formally classed as a religion in Britain. The legal significance of this new status for those who today call themselves Druids is considerable: they can, for instance, receive exemptions from taxes on donations. The spiritual significance, meanwhile -- of having one's religion recognized on a par with, say, the Church of England after years of living on the very margins of Europe's great faiths -- can hardly be overstated.

Keystone/Getty Images

Ryan’s shrewd budget payday (The Newsroom)

When House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan unveiled the GOP blueprint for cutting government spending, he asked Americans to make sacrifices on everything from Medicare to education, while preserving lucrative tax subsidies for the booming oil, mining and energy industries.

It turns out a constituency within his own personal investments stood to benefit from those tax breaks, Newsweek and The Daily Beast have learned.

The financial disclosure report Ryan filed with Congress last month and made public this week shows he and his wife, Janna, own stakes in four family companies that lease land in Texas and Oklahoma to the very energy companies that benefit from the tax subsidies in Ryan's budget plan.

Ryan's father-in-law, Daniel Little, who runs the companies, told Newsweek and The Daily Beast that the family companies are currently leasing the land for mining and drilling to energy giants such as Chesapeake Energy, Devon, and XTO Energy, a recently acquired subsidiary of ExxonMobil.

Some of these firms would be eligible for portions of the $45 billion in energy tax breaks and subsidies over 10 years protected in the Wisconsin lawmaker's proposed budget. "Those [energy developing companies] benefit a lot from these subsidies," explained Russ Harding, an energy policy analyst with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, when presented with the situation, without reference to Ryan. "Without those, they're going to be less profitable."

To ethics watchdogs, Ryan's effort to extend the tax breaks creates the potential appearance of a conflict of interest.

"To ethics watchdogs, Ryan's effort to extend the tax breaks creates the potential appearance of a conflict of interest. "

"Sure, senior citizens should have to pay more for health care, but landholders like [Ryan] who lease property to big oil companies, well, their government subsidies must be protected at all costs," says Melanie Sloan, the director of the nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "It smacks of hypocrisy."

Ryan's office says the congressman wasn't thinking about himself or the oil companies that lease his land when he drafted the budget blueprint that extended the energy tax breaks. "These are properties that Congressman Ryan married into," spokesman Kevin Seifert said. "It's not something he has a lot of control over."

Nonetheless, the properties have been a lucrative investment for Ryan and his wife, earning them as much as $117,000 last year, and $60,000 the year before, his personal financial disclosure reports show. Overall, Ryan, 41, listed assets worth between $590,000 and $2.5 million, putting him in the top third of the richest members of the House.

Ryan and his wife reported owning minority stakes ranging from nearly 1 percent to 10 percent in the following four family companies: Ava O Limited Company, which holds mining and mineral rights; Blondie and Brownie, which holds gravel rights; Red River Pine Company, which holds timber rights; and Little Land Company, an oil and gas corporation.

While Ryan's stake in the oil and gas firm was his smallest at 0.8 percent, it was listed as one of his most valuable assets, generating as much as $50,000 of his income last year, the report shows.

Aside from the land-lease income, Ryan could also personally benefit from the package of subsidies and incentives he has fought to protect. According to a report from the Joint Committee on Taxation, Ryan himself would be eligible to recover money from the government for investments the four family companies might make in such things as machines and maintenance if they didn't pan out on the properties and failed to generate revenue.

Stephen Comstock, a tax analyst with the American Petroleum Institute, says the provision and several others like it would be protected under Ryan's budget.

Rep. Dan Boren, a Democrat from Oklahoma who has announced his retirement next year, also owns stakes in three of the four same companies as Ryan. The two lawmakers are related through marriage. Boren is the first cousin of Ryan's wife.

Boren aligned with his party and voted no on Ryan's budget. But a month prior, Boren voted with Republicans (and only 12 other Democrats) to oppose an amendment that would have financially constrained major oil companies.

In a written statement, Boren told Newsweek and The Daily Beast, "It should come as no surprise the way I voted because the oil and gas industry is the largest private employer in Oklahoma."

In addition to the tax breaks, Ryan's family has benefited in recent years from another form or federal largesse—farm subsidies. Federal records show his father-in-law and great-aunt have collected more than $50,000 in agriculture subsidies on lands owned by the family.

Ryan's budget had proposed cutting $30 billion in farm subsidies over the next 10 years, although some conservatives criticized the number for being too low.

Long a star among young conservatives who admired his commitment to fiscal discipline, Ryan soared onto the national political scene earlier this year, when Republicans chose the youthful, handsome lawmaker to give the nationally televised response to President Obama's State of the Union address.

Ryan then opened the floodgates of criticism a few months later, when he submitted his "Path to Prosperity" plan to slash $6.2 trillion in federal spending over the next decade, going further than the president or other major politicians in the scope of his cuts.

Democrats pounced on the depth of cuts, including the virtual elimination of Medicare for retirees who are not yet 55.

Ryan's Medicare program also drove a wedge through his own party. When former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, now a presidential candidate, referred to the idea as "right-wing social engineering," the blowback was so severe that Gingrich had to immediately apologize to Ryan.

Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.

Daniel Stone is Newsweek's White House correspondent. He also covers national energy and environmental policy.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.

LIFE slideshow: NASA envisions alien worlds (The Newsroom)

For decades, NASA has delighted stargazers with pictures taken by astronauts, telescopes, and rovers across the galaxy -- photographic glimpses of real planets, moons, stars, and other heavenly bodies. When illustrators, meanwhile, stretch their imaginations -- giving shape and color to what, say, a sunrise on another world -- their work offers brilliant notions of what vistas beyond our tiny corner of space might look like. Captured by a camera or, as in this gallery, envisioned by artists, the far reaches of space continue to humble and amaze.

NASA/ JPL-Caltech

Strawberry, chocolate, vanilla … cicada? (The Newsroom)

If you're an adventurous diner, you might want to get yourself over to Sparky's Homemade Ice Cream in Columbia, Mo., to see if they have any leftover cicada ice cream. Yes, cicada as in the BUG. As in BUG ice cream.

Sparky's employees are allowed to get a little crazy when it comes to new ice cream flavors, so they may have been inspired by all the 13-year cicada corpses lying about after they emerged last month.

Boiled, then coated in chocolate, the crunchy buggers taste like nuts, apparently. (You know what else tastes like nuts? NUTS.) The shop discontinued the "flavor" after the Health Department advised them to quit serving bugs-n-cream.

Recession spurs Web drifters, entrepreneurs to create own jobs (The Newsroom)

The U.S. economy is slowly climbing its way out of the worst recession since the Great Depression. But unlike the 1930s, some of today's financially strapped families can use modern technology to take matters into their own hands and create their own opportunities online.

That's what Tori Redmond-Mize did to keep her family off the streets in Dixon, Mo., and work her way to financial stability. A snowball of events coinciding with the worst of the recession beginning in 2007 left her family nearly homeless. They found out their new house had lead paint, her husband lost his job as a manager at an animal shelter, his back issues worsened and they could no longer pay the bills. In one day she went from being a stay-at-home mom to planning how to become the breadwinner and only source of income for her family.

After two years struggling to keep a roof over their heads and their finances afloat, the pressure and stress finally took its toll. Redmond-Mize had a breakdown and ended up in the hospital, adding more medical bills that they would not be able to pay. After a virtual stranger read about their desperate situation on Redmond-Mize's blog, he offered to let her family stay with him in his Missouri countryside home where they now live.

"What was going through my mind was, 'this woman is in terrible trouble'…I felt that if someone didn't take the load off Tori's shoulders, it would result in true madness or suicide," said Jim Corey, 71, a retired technical engineer. "So I invited her and her family to move into my basement apartment."

They finally had a solid roof over their heads, but with a disabled husband and young children to take care of, Redmond-Mize couldn't afford to work away from home — so she turned to technology and the online market to make ends meet, starting her own Web content company.

"The only way to make it through the recession and the hard economic times is to take a cue from the Great Depression," Redmond-Mize said. "You had people who were drifters and they would stop at farms and work for food, or for a place to stay for the night. You had a lot of that back then and now you can do the same thing, only you don't have to travel around to do it."

Redmond-Mize believes this new kind of virtual wanderer can not only survive online but find real prosperity. She isn't the only one who has been proactive in making her own success despite the poor state of the economy. This has been a growing trend over the past few years, and those in the do-it-yourself Web market say there is much more opportunity to be mined.

With the latest unemployment rate at 8.8 percent, the slowly recovering job market means many Americans will still have to find new ways to reboot their lives like Redmond-Mize. Recent data from the Kauffman Foundation, an organization dedicated to funding and supporting entrepreneurs, suggest people have been doing just that.

"In 2010, 0.34 percent of the adult population, or 340 out of 100,000 adults, created a new business each month, representing approximately 565,000 new businesses per month. This total rate of business creation increased from 0.30 percent in 2007," the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity said.

This increase in entrepreneurialism is partly due to people in a similar situation to Redmond-Mize, according to the foundation's website. After finding no viable job opportunities in her town, she shifted to online work. She wrote freelance articles and worked odd online contract jobs, but the income just wasn't enough. The economy wasn't showing much improvement and freelance rates were static. So she and fellow freelancer, Chrisa Williams, began talking about starting their own content company using a more gracious pay scale for contributors.

"We saw so many people working for content companies and we both have worked for different content companies that were pulling in really big profits and not paying their writers what they're worth and it just kind of bothered us and we wanted to try and find a way around that," Redmond-Mize said.

In a matter of weeks, the pair launched Element Content, a company made up of a network of writers that creates online copy like corporate newsletters, marketing articles, and pay-per-click ads for businesses and other contractors.

Redmond-Mize began actively networking with her online community, finding mentors and researching what it would take to grow her new endeavor. But she is far from alone in venturing into the world of small online entrepreneurialism.

Dr. John H. Vanston, founder and chairman of Technology Futures, Inc., has been studying technology and business trends for more than 30 years. He identifies the increasing number of people working from home as a growing economic force in his new book, "Minitrends: How Innovators & Entrepreneurs Discover & Profit from Business & Technology Trends."

His book spotlights specific "minitrends" and trains people how to recognize them and take advantage of related job opportunities. Vanston defines minitrends as trends that are just beginning to emerge, have potential to become significantly important in two to five years and are not yet widely recognized or appreciated.

With the insecure employment environment, "people are going to have to look for jobs…that are independent and to do what they have to, to really create the jobs themselves," he said.

For those who are part of this trend, like Clint Nelsen, co-founder and director of Startup Weekend, it can be hard to keep up with the demand.

Startup Weekend is a non-profit organization that puts on "54-hour events" around the world where people with entrepreneurial ideas come together to network, build products and launch startups over the course of a weekend.

"Especially when we were a team of two, demand was our biggest problem," Nelsen said. "Too many emails were coming in every day from people saying things like, 'Hey, I'm in Auckland, New Zealand. Let's do a Startup Weekend here.'"

Since 2009 Nelsen and Marc Nager have hired more staffers to help keep up with the volume of requests.

Startup Weekend is part of a growing community of organizations dedicated to facilitating startups and entrepreneurial growth like Lean Startup Machine, MassChallenge, TechStars and the Small Business Administration.

Despite the amount of resources available to those who want to start their own small businesses, it's not a failsafe approach to financial stability. Entrepreneurial success rates tend to be low, and it takes a high level of energy and commitment to turn a profit.

Startup Weekend says about 36 percent of its startups are still "going strong" after three months. "Of the 36 percent roughly 10 percent go on to either get acceptance into an accelerator or incubator, or go on to see some sort of funding or investments," said Maris McEdward, the organization's communications manager.

"Building a startup is just as much about building a product as it is about managing your energy and emotion," Nelsen said. "Sometimes if you hit a low, it's just impossible to see the light at the end of the tunnel to continue going on. You need to structure the whole project keeping revenue in mind, and also your own human emotions."

But Redmond-Mize still has hope. She is optimistic that her business model will provide a sustainable fair-pay model for freelance writers — and provide stable income for her family. She hopes it will inspire others to adopt a similar approach of interconnected self-employment.

"I've just thought back on all the people who believed in me and thought, if other people had that, and could see that when you pay it forward, the impact goes much farther than just the person you helped," Redmond-Mize said.

Click here to see readers' first-person accounts of turning to the Web as a result of the recession.

For more business news follow Torrey AndersonSchoepe on Twitter @YahooReporterTA and connect with Yahoo! News on Facebook and Twitter!

Burgers, McRibs, and a Ban on Happiness: Buzz Week in Review (The Newsroom)

The election? What election? This week was all about fast food, baby. There was the return of the McRib sandwich (cause for celebration in blue and red states), a ban on Happy Meal toys in the City by the Bay, and a curious study that calls into question the legend of the non-decomposing burger. Strap on your feedbag, kids -- it's time for the Buzz Week in Review.

The burger that wouldn't die

There is a legend. The legend of McDonald's burgers that don't decompose. For years, it's been accepted as a disturbing fact. But a new study conducted by a curious consumer shows that it's not just meat from Mickey D's that stays oddly "fresh." The study put several different burgers of the same size (but from different places) next to each other and then left them alone. None of the burgers rotted, which led the experimenter to conclude that "there's nothing that strange about a McDonald's burger not rotting." Score one public relations point for Ronald and company.

The McRib returns

The McRib sandwich returned to the Golden Arches this week, and the Web went wild. The pressed pork sandwich cut to look like a stack of ribs usually comes around once a year (kind of like a very unhealthy Santa) to select restaurants. This year, the McRib is everywhere for six artery-clogging weeks. Web searches on the mythical sandwich soared over 600% during the week, and related lookups on "mcrib coupons" and "mcrib fat content" also hit new highs. For the record, one sandwich contains 26 grams of fat. We're just saying.

A happiness ban in San Francisco

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a prelimary ban on toys in McDonald's Happy Meals. The decision still needs to pass a final vote. In the meantime, the searches on the proposed ban are soaring. Lookups on "happy meal ban," "mcdonald's happy meal toy ban," and "san francisco bans happy meals" all roared like a hungry belly. Not surprisingly, McDonald's is not a fan of the decision, claiming that the ban is not something parents want. Hey, at least Mom and Dad can have a McRib while junior pouts, right?

Also buzzing this week...

The San Francisco Giants won the World Series.

The Space Shuttle launch was delayed (again).

Nick Lachey proposed to Vanessa Minnillo. (She said yes.)

Fast-food news fuels hungry Web searches (The Newsroom)

By Claudine Zap

Fast-food chains made big news this week — and saw big searches on the Web. Check out tasty new and nixed offerings, as well as the return of an elusive sandwich with a huge fan base. Dig in.

BK brings on free coffee
Here's some news that should give you a jolt: Burger King is handing out free cups of coffee every Friday in November. Word of the good news sent searches for "burger king free coffee" buzzing up Yahoo!

Customers who stop by the fast-food chain during breakfast hours will get a 12-ounce cup of joe on the house. The company hopes to take a bite out of the morning-meal competition with its new breakfast menu and Seattle's Best Coffee.

Patrons will also be treated to coupons for a free iced coffee drink on a future visit. BK says it expects to giveaway between 2 million and 4 million cups of coffee during the promotion. Bottoms up!

San Francisco bans Happy Meal toys
Sorry, kids: Turns out a happy meal is not a healthy meal, at least according to the standards of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. The board approved a preliminary ban that would strip toys from fast-food meals loaded with calories, salt, sugar, and fat.

News of the fast-food change caused a feeding frenzy on Yahoo! for "happy meal ban," "san francisco bans happy meals," and "mcdonalds happy meal toys."

The ban has its critics — San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom for one, McDonald's for another. But the ban backers argue that the legislation aims to give parents a fair shot when convincing junior to go for the healthy — or at least healthier — choice without being tempted by a Shrek toy. A report from the Federal Trade Commision ranked food marketing to kids under 12 — the prime target for Happy Meals — as an $870 million business.

A McDonald's franchise owner accused the ordinance of taking the happy out of their meals. Other critics pointed out that the ban would be bad for business: What would stop Happy Meal fans from driving to the next town over to get their fix. McDonald's denounced the decision as one that parents did not want. And a dietitian weighed in on an admirable effort, but ultimately not one that will cure the epidemic of child obesity. If the final vote is approved next week, the ban would begin in December 2011.

McDonald's McRib is back
The porky, fatty, salty McRib sandwich, a delicacy that teases its fans with only occasional appearances at select restaurants, is back. But get out your napkins and your fork and knife, because the appearance of the mythic sammy won't last long.

The fast-foodie favorite has 300 groups on Facebook and has seen a feeding frenzy on Yahoo! searches on the Web. Hungry lookups included "mcdonalds mcrib sandwich," "mcrib locator," and "mcrib nutrition facts."

The McRib isn't the first sandwich to capture followers on the Web: Back in April the KFC Double Down, a breadless option held together by two slabs of fried chicken, stuffed with bacon and two kinds of cheese, was a hit, at least on Yahoo!: "kfc double down," "kfc double down sandwich," and "kfc double down calories" all saw large gains.

While it looks like the Double Down is here to stay, the McRib's limited availability keeps demand for the elusive menu item high. Maybe part of the fun is the chase? If that's so, die-hard fans will not like to hear this: In an effort to hook a new generation on the McRib, McDonald's will be serving the boneless pork patty nationwide. If you're worried it's too much of a good thing, take heart: It's only here for a month.

I’m your Number One Fan (The Newsroom)

A meat suit. Legions of fans she calls "Little Monsters." More crazy outfits than Imelda Marcos has shoes. Now Lady Gaga can add "topic of a college course" to her ever-growing list of accomplishments. Fans can now take an actual, for-credit, college course on the Monster herself: The University of South Carolina is offering a class called "Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame," taught by her Number One Fan -- in South Carolina, at least -- Professor Mathieu Deflem.

Take lots of notes, Little Monsters.

The McRib Returns (The Newsroom)

It's like running through a field of four-leaf clovers. It's like finding a unicorn chillin' at the fountain of youth. It's like a hundred Christmases slathered in barbecue sauce. It's the return of the McDonald's McRib sandwich. And, to many people, it's an event to get excited about.

The McRib phenomenon is something special in fast food. It's an incredibly popular pork sandwich (cut to look like a short stack of ribs) that only appears once every so often. Despite fans clamoring for it to become a full-time member of the McDonald's menu, the folks at the Golden Arches unleash its pork-flavored fury only once in a while. That time is now.

In times past, the McRib has appeared just once a year at select restaurants. This caused devoted (or maybe cheerfully addicted) disciples of the sandwich to drive hundreds of miles out of their way to acquire this beast of a meal. It was as much about the pursuit as it was the taste.

This year is different. The McRib (which contains 26 grams of fat, FYI), will appear at every Mickey D's for six weeks. Why is it so popular? An excellent article from Sharon Bernstein quotes one Brian Goodman, 27, of Grand Forks, N.D., talking about his devotion to the sandwich: "I am a huge fan of the McRib, and I am glad to have it back," he said. "I just happen to find this really gross, deformed pork patty to be delicious." That pretty much says it all.

The sandwich was lampooned during an episode of "The Simpsons" in which Homer drove all over the country to different Krusty Burger restaurants in search of a McRib-type sandwich. Once the Simpsons makes fun of you, you know you've become part of pop culture.

McDonald's spokeswoman Tara Hayes told AFP that the McRib's limited availability "helps to keep fans passionate about the product." Only a sandwich "so delicious, so special, so elusive, and so legendary could create such a widespread affection among its fans," Hayes said, pointing out the last time it had been offered in all restaurants nationwide was in 1994.

Indeed, the McRib's cult following is something that many acknowledge, but few can explain. There may be basic psychology at play -- people want it all the time because they can only get it every so often. It's like a sandwich that plays hard to get.

Plenty of people are pulling out all the stops to nab one (or 12) for themselves. Web searches on "mcrib mcdonald's" are up over 1,000% and related lookups on "mcrib locator" are also through the roof. Just remember to chew before you swallow.

- Mike Krumboltz writes for Yahoo!.

2010 North Carolina's 8th District race: Larry Kissell has tough competition vs. Harold Johnson (The Newsroom)

By Christopher Berenger, Associated Content

Republican Harold Johnson pleased Republican leaders by besting primary opponent Tim D'Annunzio, a well-funded but off-message millionaire. Their odds of defeating Larry Kissell, a candidate who lost to former Rep. Robin Hayes by a tiny percentage in 2006 and who still had a close win when President Obama helped many down-state tickets during the 2008 presidential race, are mixed. This is a mid-term in a tough economy, meaning Democrats are disadvantaged in swing districts; all the same, Kissell is slightly favored to win.

Candidates for North Carolina's 8th Congressional District (two-year term)
(This district includes all or portions of Hoke, Cabarrus, Stanly, Montgomery, Union, Mecklenburg, Anson, Richmond and Scotland counties, as well as the cities of Albemarle, Concord and Laurinburg. See a boundary map here.)

Candidate: Larry Kissell

Party: Democrat

Political experience: Kissell was elected to the U.S. House in North Carolina's 8th District in 2008. He serves on the House Agriculture Committee and House Armed Services Committee.

Professional experience: Kissell had a 27-year career in textiles and was a social studies teacher for seven years before becoming a U.S House representative.

Key issues: Kissell has introduced legislation that brought more than $1 billion in funding for the district and $1 million for a USDA Human Nutrition Center at the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis. He's introduced tax deductions for teachers paying out-of-pocket costs on classroom supplies.

In discussing his accomplishments on his website, he says he's also added amendments that call for commodity-trading boards to have greater diversity -- including farmers, ranchers, and grain elevator operators.

Endorsements: Veterans' Vision and the North Carolina AFL-CIO support Kissell.

Chances of maintaining his seat: Funding won't decide the race alone, as Kissell's advantage is only somewhat better than his opponent's, according to fund-raising data on OpenSecrets.org. Both candidates have spent roughly the same amount of money so far on the race, and Kissell has a fair amount more than Johnson. Kissell has $292,993 while Johnson has $81,730. But Kissell is likely to keep his seat this election.

Candidate: Harold Johnson

Party: Republican

Political experience: Johnson has no political experience.

Professional experience: Johnson is a Marine veteran and former TV and radio journalist. He was a four-time Emmy-winner as Mid-South's Sportscaster of the Year.

Key issues: Johnson wants to stop illegal immigration immediately by any means necessary -- a physical fence, a virtual fence, more border patrol officers or National Guard, he says. He is against amnesty and immigration reform.

Based on what he says on his website, Johnson wants to make energy independence for this country a major part of his future legislative agenda. He feels the Gulf oil spill offers lessons on energy independence, such as working on new technologies and renewable-energy sources. However, he is opposed to cap and trade legislation that he calls a job-killer.

Endorsements: Johnson has been endorsed by former North Carolina Gov. James G. Martin, NASCAR Champion Darrell Waltrip, representatives Walter Jones, Virginia Foxx, Howard Coble, Sue Myrick, Patrick McHenry and former Rep. Robin Hayes.

Chances of unseating Larry Kissell: While it will likely be a close election, Johnson got through a bruising primary with a runoff and Kissell had no real difficulty with his primary. While Kissell is a definite target for the GOP, they may choose to spend extra advertising dollars in a more certain market.

Key Differences between Harold Johnson and Larry Kissell

Jobs: Johnson suggests that since Kissell took office, the district has lost 25,000 jobs. He says the only way to improve the economy is to reduce bureaucratic red tape, cut taxes and streamline regulations. He would lower the corporate tax from 35 percent to 25 percent. Kissell defends his record by saying he introduced an act to require the sale of TARP-related assets to be applied to the national debt. He added amendments to legislation that would require national security and TSA purchases to be American-made.

Defense and the military: Kissell says he has added amendments to legislation that helped give a contract to a defense company in the district and requires evaluation of the Pope Airfield in preparation to protect against BRAC. He also backed amendments to require the Department of Defense to consider the overall cost of a weapon systems' life-cycle. Johnson says the system of homeland defense isn't working, and that the borders aren't secure enough. He wants the U.S. attorney general to transfer the 9/11 conspirators and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be bomber of Northwest Flight 253 in 2009, to military custody for a military tribunal.

North Carolina's 8th U.S. Congressional District

Location: North Carolina's 8th District is located in the southern part of the state along the South Carolina border. It borders Charlotte on the west and Fayetteville on the eastern tip of the district.

2008 results: Kissell received 55 percent of the vote to Republican Robin Hayes' 45 percent.

Demographics: According to the U.S. Census, 57.7 percent of the district is white, 27.6 percent black, 9.2 percent Hispanic, 1.8 percent Asian, and 1.5 percent American Indian and Alaska Native.

The Cook Partisan Index gives the North Carolina 8th District a rating of R+2, awarding a slight edge to Republican candidates in this district. 

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Caption: North Carolina's 8th Congressional District
Credit: NationalAtlas.gov
Copyright: NationalAtlas.gov