The days of ubiquitous yellow bracelets feel like a distant memory. In a statement to the press, Lance Armstrong said he is stepping down as chairman of his cancer-fighting charity, Livestrong, so the group can focus on its mission. The announcement comes on the heels of the USADA’s 1,000-page dossier in which more than 26 people—including 15 cyclists—implicated themselves in a doping ring in order to prove Armstrong was the ring leader. Armstrong will remain on the charity’s 15-person board. Also on Wednesday, Nike Inc. announced it would terminate its contract with Armstrong, saying in a statement that there is “seemingly insurmountable evidence” that he “participated in doping and misled Nike for more than a decade.” 

Who knew things could get so heated on Long Island? Early polls showed that a majority of viewers believed that an aggressive President Obama won Tuesday night’s debate at Hofstra University—although whether that victory will translate into a difference in polls is still unclear. A CNN poll of registered voters showed that 46 percent of viewers gave Obama an edge, while only 39 percent believed Mitt Romney had carried the debate. An instant CBS News poll found that 37 percent of voters thought Obama won, 30 percent thought Romney was the victor, and 33 percent called it a tie. Overall, Obama has managed to stop the bleeding after his first outing in Denver, and it appears the president has a 2-point lead in the race overall.

Federal agents on Tuesday raided the Massachusetts lab that has been linked to a deadly meningitis outbreak that has so far killed 16 and sickened more than 200. U.S. Food and Drug Administration agents and local police searched the New England Compounding Center, or NECC, in the Boston suburb of Framingham, which has been accused of breaking federal laws in dealing with controlled substances. Nearly 14,000 people nationwide are considered at risk for meningitis after they received steroid injections shipped from 76 facilities in 26 states. Federal agents allege the injections were made at the NECC facility. NECC officials said the raid was “unnecessary.”

George Zimmerman’s trial for the second-degree murder of Trayvon Martin will begin on June 10, a Florida judge ruled on Wednesday morning. Attorneys in the case estimated it would last about three weeks. Zimmerman confessed to shooting and killing the 17-year-old in March, claiming he was using Florida’s controversial Stand Your Ground law to defend himself against the black teenager. The lack of immediate charges against Zimmerman—who is Hispanic—led to a national outcry both in support and against him, and authorities eventually charged Zimmerman, 29, with second-degree murder. His wife, Shellie Zimmerman, 25, has been charged with perjury.

If anyone knows anything about having “binders full of women,” it’s the backwards-hat-wearing, iron-pumping heartthrob that is Paul Ryan. The congressman defended Romney’s viral debate comment, saying that all Mitt meant was that, as governor, he just wanted to hire “qualified women” for his administration. Ryan also said—while probably hoping that everyone in America would just stop giggling for two seconds—that Romney’s point was clear. He also thinks Romney “won the debate.”

Looks like hacking was pretty lucrative for Rebekah Brooks. The onetime trusted deputy of Rupert Murdoch reportedly received an $11.3 million severance package when she resigned in disgrace last year, sources familiar to her agreement said Tuesday. The former chief executive of News International, the British wing of Murdoch’s News Corp., Brooks resigned last year amid questions about her alleged involvement with hacking at the tabloid News of the World, which Murdoch shut down shortly before Brooks quit. A former News of the World employee reportedly leaked the details of Brooks’s severance package, saying his former co-workers are “as angry as the general public” over the scandal. Brooks faces trial next year over criminal charges in relation to the scandal.

Battery-maker A123 Systems filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Tuesday, despite having received a $249 million grant from the U.S. government. The move was unexpected, especially since the company had been in talks for a rescue deal with Chinese auto-parts supplier Wanxiang Group for $465 million, although A123 said that deal had fallen through. The company has agreed to sell its automotive operations, including two facilities in Michigan, for $125 million to Johnson Controls Inc. Makers of lithium-ion batteries, A123 has been touted as part of the Obama administration’s green-energy initiatives.

Get out those hammers! The Commerce Department announced on Wednesday that U.S. builders broke ground on 872,000 single-family homes and apartments in September—the fastest rate since July 2008. The number represents an increase of 15 percent from August. Construction activity is now 82.5 percent above the recession low of April 2009, though it is still well below the 1.5 million rate that indicates a healthy market. Each new home built creates an average of three jobs and creates about $90,000 in tax revenue.

Hours before the presidential rumble was set to begin at Tuesday night’s debate, an earthquake hit the coast of the U.S. No, not that coast. Surprisingly, the 4.6 magnitude quake was centered in southern Maine, about three miles west of Hollis Center, but also rattled, to varying degrees, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. According to the Maine Emergency Management Agency, there are currently no reports of damage.

October in New York just isn’t the same without Derek Jeter. The Detroit Tigers beat the Yankees 2–1 on Tuesday night, taking a 3–0 lead in the series and putting the Tigers just one game away from the World Series. The Yankees will place one of their best pitchers, C.C. Sabathia, to face the Tigers’ Max Scherzer in Wednesday night’s game in Detroit. Yankees manager Joe Girardi dramatically reshuffled the lineup Tuesday night, benching Alex Rodriguez and Nick Swisher for Eric Chavez and Brett Gardner, who, combined, went 0–7 at bat, and Chavez caused the error that led to the Tigers’ second run.

Tragedy strikes again in Colorado. Authorities are searching for a suspected arsonist after five bodies were found inside a smoldering Denver bar early Wednesday morning. Police Chief Robert White said the call alerting authorities that Fero’s Bar and Grill on Colorado Boulevard was ablaze came just before 2 a.m. on Wednesday, and firefighters battling the flames discovered the bodies of four women and one man, all of whom were pronounced dead on the scene. “It appears there was some trauma to the bodies—it also appears to be an arson,” said White. The victims have yet to be identified.

He’s not back, baby. Despite an aggressive publicity tour in support of it, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s new memoir Total Recall underwhelmed in its first week of release. Nielsen Bookscan reports that the former governator’s book moved just 21,000 copies in its debut, far below the benchmark set by recent blockbusters like a Navy SEAL’s account of the Bin Laden mission in No Easy Day, which sold 253,000 copies in its first week, and J.K. Rowling’s A Casual Vacancy, which moved 375,000 in its first six days. Perhaps Schwarzenegger is just collateral damage from a sluggish fall for celebrity memoirs, as Neil Young, Penny Marshall, and Andrew McCarthy’s new books have all struggled with sales.

The week of mourning for Cambodian King Norodom began on Wednesday as the monarch’s body was returned to Phnom Penh. The 89-year-old Norodom Sihanouk died Monday in Beijing, and as many as 100,000 are expected to line the coffin’s route from the airport to the royal palace. Sihanouk became king in 1941 while still a teenager, and led Cambodia to independence from France in 1953 and remained in power despite years of political and social turmoil in his country and his ill-fated decision to back the violent Khmer Rouge in its early years. Sihanouk’s body will remain at the palace for three months for people to pay their respects before his funeral and cremation.

This isn’t usually the border with reported shootings. A Canadian border officer was wounded in her booth Tuesday afternoon by a motorist traveling from Blaine, Wash. The motorist was found dead at the scene, from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. Canadian officials closed the border crossing immediately after the shootings, and Royal Canadian Mounted Police are investigating the incident. About 60 vehicles were stranded on the Canadian side of the border, and officials urged motorists to use a different crossing. The injured border patrol agent was airlifted to a hospital, but no other details were known about her condition.

It’s no Big Bird, but it looks like the meme of the Hofstra University debate was Mitt Romney’s comment that women’s groups had brought him “binders full of women” when he sought to find qualified women to hire. The comment went viral: it was the third-most searched phrase on Google, a Tumblr called bindersfullofwomen.tumblr.com had already sprung up, the topic was trending on Twitter, and a Facebook page dedicated to the comment had nearly 200,000 likes.