It’s his party, and he’ll make it small if he wants to. President Obama’s election-night rally will be held at Chicago’s McCormick Place, the Chicago Tribune reports, a venue that will accommodate a significantly smaller celebration than his 2008 event in Grant Park, which drew an estimated 240,000 people. Because it’s an indoor location, McCormick Place will also allow for tighter security. The venue was used to host the NATO summit in May, successfully carrying out what Homeland Security called a “national special security event.” Obama will return to Chicago Oct. 25 for early voting.

George McGovern, the former senator who lost one of the most lopsided presidential races in modern history, is “no longer responsive” and “is nearing the end,” according to his family Wednesday night. Admitted to hospice two days ago, the 90-year-old McGovern has been dealing with several ailments “that have worsened over recent months,” the family  said in a statement. McGovern represented South Dakota in the Senate from 1963 to 1981, but is probably best known for losing the 1972 presidential election to Richard Nixon, carrying only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks, is accusing the United States of torturing people. “Many can kill people under the name of national security, and torture people under the name of national security,” he said Wednesday during a pretrial hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The judge allowed Mohammed to speak during the hearing, and to wear a military camo vest. Mohammed compared the 9/11 victims to the “millions” killed around the world by the U.S. military, and added that in the U.S., “the president can throw someone in the sea in the name of national security.”  Mohammed is on trial with four other men for allegedly planning the 9/11 attacks.

Syrian rebels have acquired advanced portable antiaircraft weapons that were smuggled into the war-torn country from Turkey and occasionally Lebanon. The missiles have been used to shoot down government helicopters and fighter jets, according to rebels and regional officials. “Northern Syria is awash with advanced antitank and antiaircraft weapons. The situation has changed very quickly,” a Syrian weapons coordinator said. The U.S. government is opposed to the weapons filtering into Syria because of fears they could end up in the hands of dangerous militia for use against Western countries. For rebel fighters, the new weapons could be the boost they need to fight against the more sophisticated state forces.

The man arrested for reportedly trying to blow up a car of fake explosives outside the Federal Reserve building in Manhattan Wednesday said he wanted to “destroy America.” Quazi Mohammad Reswanul Ahsan Nafis, who claims to have al-Qaeda links, was arrested after attempting to detonate the bomb. “I just want something big. Something very big. Very, very, very, very big, that will shake the whole country,” he had told his supposed accomplices, who were actually undercover FBI agents. Nafis is facing charges of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to provide material support to al-Qaeda. He is being held without bail.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg isn’t satisfied with regional influence—he’s going national. Donating $10 million to $50 million of his own money, Bloomberg is creating a super PAC to fund centralist candidates across the country who support his three signature policies: legalizing same-sex marriage, enacting tougher gun laws, and overhauling the education system. The NYC mayor has expressed frustration with the superficiality of the presidential race, and wants to exert his influence on a larger scale. Called Independence USA PAC, some money has already been slated for candidates in California, Colorado, and Louisiana, and is also expected to back same-sex marriage legislation in Maine and Washington.

Call it  a voiceover-announcer stimulus package. Obama’s campaign and outside supporters have now spent about $352 million on ads, while Romney and his supporters have purchased $455 million in ad buys. Obama’s campaign alone is one ad away from having spent $300 million, while Romney’s camp is behind him at $164 million. Almost all the other big spenders are paying for pro-Romney ad slots, including two Karl Rove-backed groups, which have spent $124 million. Half of the ad money is going to swing states such as Florida, Ohio, and Virginia.

Get ready for the newest (and potentially creepiest) anti-aging fad: injections of young blood. A new study by a Stanford University scientist found that the brains of older mice were rejuvenated—and memory increased—when their bodies were injected with blood from younger mice. After the injections, the number of stem cells in their brains also showed an increase, along with a 20 percent rise in brain-cell connections, which are linked to memory. The lead scientist on the study said that the technique might one day be used to reverse signs of aging in humans, such as slowed memory and Alzheimer’s.

The Reddit moderator who was outed by Gawker for distributing sexually explicit and offensive content will defend himself in an interview Thursday night on CNN. In leaked segments, “Violentacrez,” aka Michael Brutsch, tells CNN’s Drew Griffin he is “to some degree apologizing” for his actions as moderator of “Jailbait,” which features suggestive images of underage girls. Brutsch says he never distributed “overt or real child porn,” only “mature teenagers with their clothes on” and that “the biggest thrill” of the job was scoring “meaningless Internet points.” He also insists none of the content distributed on these forums was his own.

Looks like we can’t eat food off the floor anymore.  Researchers in a study co-funded by Clorox at San Diego State University have found that germs can in fact attach themselves to food within five seconds.  The ‘five second rule, aka, the popular belief that it is safe to consume dropped food if it has been picked up within five seconds—-was invalidated when researchers deposited baby carrots onto various surfaces.  Germs were able to affix themselves onto the carrots within five seconds of contact. There is no word so far on whether it has been replaced by the “four second rule.”

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.

A 20-year-old Afghan was beheaded after refusing to sleep with a man who was not her husband, provincial police told the Agence France-Presse. The young woman’s mother-in-law, father-in-law, husband, and alleged killer have all been arrested in connection with the killing. According to local police chief Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada, the young woman's mother-in-law tried to make her engage in prostitution multiple times before allegedly luring a man in to kill her. The story comes amid international outcry over the Taliban shooting of Pakistani teen Malala Yousafzai.

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 rate of violent crime in the U.S. increased last year for the first time since 1993, the Justice Department said Wednesday. The increase was attributed to a 22 percent jump in assaults. The statistics include 3.9 million simple assaults without a weapon and resulted in relatively minor injuries. The category serious violent crime, which includes rape, sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault, had a statistically insignificant increase to 1.8 million. In the more violent category, the number of white and Hispanic victims increased, and there were more young men victims—but not young women.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.”

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.

While some Boy Scouts are groomed to be upstanding citizens, others are subjected to a different kind of “grooming.” It’s a term psychologists use to describe a pattern of molestation by the thousands of men expelled from the Boy Scouts of America for sexual abuse. There’s no single profile of a predator, but an analysis by the Los Angeles Times of nearly 1,900 confidential files between 1970 and 1991 found many molesters gradually seduced young boys by luring them with gifts and favors or indulging them in naughty behavior (i.e., allowing them to drive cars, drink alcohol, or look at pornography). These men used tactics seen in convicted child molesters, testing physical boundaries during group showers, sleepovers, and one-on-one activities.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Daily Telegraph reports that the publisher of The Guardian and The Observer is “seriously discussing” ending the newspapers' print editions and moving entirely online. Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger apparently wants to continue developing the digital-only U.S. edition before getting rid of the print edition. But trustees of the Scott Trust, which owns the newspapers, are reportedly worried that there is not enough cash on hand to keep printing the newspapers. The Guardian disputes the report, posting, “At some point the economics may work out in favor of going digital only. At present, that just isn’t the case.”

It seems Obama’s debate bounce has yet to kick in. Mitt Romney leads among likely voters, according to a new Gallup poll. The poll found that Romney would take about 51 percent of the vote, compared to 45 percent for Obama. The seven-day rolling average has had Romney ahead for much of October, but his position has strengthened as the month has gone on. Gallup deems likely voters to be those most likely to vote based on their responses to questions about current voting intentions, thought given to the election, and past voting behavior.

Flavor Flav, former member of the trailblazing rap group Public Enemy and connoisseur of oversized clock necklaces, was arrested in Las Vegas Wednesday for assault. Flav, whose real name is, shockingly, William Jonathan Drayton, Jr., was booked on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and misdemeanor domestic violence after Las Vegas police received a call at 3:30 a.m. from a woman claiming that her fiancé, allegedly Mr. Flav/Drayton, was threatening a 17-year-old with a knife. She also claimed that the former Flavor of Love Casanova had assaulted her.

The first debate had Big Bird. The second debate had “binders full of women.” The Twitter-seizing, meme-sparking line came from Romney, who said that as part of an effort to appoint more women to leadership posts when he was governor of Massachusetts, he “went to a number of women’s groups and said, ‘Can you help us find folks,’ and they brought us whole binders full of women.” It turns out his recollection of events is only partly true. The binders did exist, according to a fact check by David Bernstein at The Phoenix, but they were given to him by outside activists and not at his request—important, as Romney used the anecdote to trump his own efforts to recruit more women.

The residents of El Monte, Calif., can swim safely once again. Fourteen lifeguards fired from a Southern California pool for making a parody video of Psy’s "Gangnam Style" in city-issued swimsuits will get their jobs back, reports the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. After news of their termination in September, the lifeguards’ Facebook page garnered local and global support. In early October, 300 resolute citizens packed into a council meeting demanding the decision to fire them be revoked. Set in motion by Mayor Andre Quintero, the recommendation to rehire all 14 was approved in a 3-2 vote by the city council.

Well that’s a little belated. Megan Fox announced the  Sept. 27 birth of her first child, Noah Shannon Green on Facebook Wednesday. The actress, who is best known for her work in Michael Bay’s Transformers series, took to her Facebook page to gush about her bundle of joy. “We are humbled to have the opportunity to call ourselves the parents of this beautiful soul and I am forever grateful to God for allowing me to know this kind of boundless, immaculate love,” Fox wrote. This is her first child with husband Brian Austin Green, who has a 10-year-old son from a prior relationship.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who claimed to be the “mastermind” behind the September 11 attacks, wore a camouflage vest during a pretrial hearing in Guantánamo on Wednesday. Mohammed believes himself to be a prisoner of war, and said he wanted the same right to wear a uniform as Japanese and German troops who faced charges for war crimes after World War II had. He'd been denied the right during his May 5 arraignment, but Army Col. James Pohl granted the request on Tuesday. However, Pohl did prohibit Mohammed from wearing any items taken from U.S. military uniforms.

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.” 

Malala Yousafzai, the 14-year-old Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban last week, is no longer in a coma, New York Times reporter Adam Ellick  said on Facebook on Wednesday. According to Ellick, Yousafzai is responding well to treatment and has a good chance of fully recovering, although she is not fully conscious yet. Yousafzai is being treated in a Birmingham combat hospital that has treated every single British casualty of both of the wars of the past decade. Yousafzai was shot by the Taliban in Pakistan’s Swat Valley after she called for more education for girls on her BBC blog.

Bye-bye, Pluto! Hello, Alpha Centauri Bb! The universe just got a little more crowded with astronomers’ recent discovery of a new alien planet just outside of our solar system. Scorching hot Alpha Centauri Bb is about the same size as Earth and is a member of the three-star Alpha Centauri system, just 4.3 light years from us. It is possible that the zone can be habitable. However, it will be some time until space exploration of the latest addition to the universe can begin—new technologies must be developed first.

It turns out daily vitamins may do more than just keep your bones strong and boost your immune system. Taking multivitamins may also reduce your risk of cancer, researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health announced on Wednesday. The clinical trial that followed 15,000 male doctors for more than a decade showed that the incident rate of cancer was a roughly 8 percent less among those taking vitamins than those ingesting a placebo. “It would be a big mistake for people to go out and take a multivitamin instead of quitting smoking or doing other things that we have a higher suspicion play a bigger role, like eating a good diet and getting exercise,” the study’s lead author cautioned.

Michael Bloomberg is ready to put his money where his mouth is. Following last night's debate, the New York City Mayor called both candidates' explanations for civilian access to AK-47s "gibberish." Now, Bloomberg is set to donate between $10 and $15 million to the campaigns of six to 12 anti-gun candidates in elections across the country. Bloomberg has provided a variety of candidates with hefty sums of money before, but this summer's movie theater shooting in Colorado turned his focus back to one of his greatest passions: cracking the NRA's political influence. 

A sting operation in New York City led to the successful arrest Wednesday of a man who was reportedly planning to attack the Federal Reserve building in lower Manhattan, blocks from the World Trade Center site. Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, 21, drove a van that he thought was loaded with explosives and parked it in front of the building, where the FBI and NYPD were waiting to take him into custody. There was never any danger to citizens, officials assure, since “explosives” in the van were inert. Nafis claims to have ties to al Qaeda, and has been ordered held without bail.