In 2018, Cuba will have one less Castro in power. President Raúl Castro accepted his new five-year term on Sunday, but announced that it would be his last. The 81-year-old leader added that he wants to create a two-term limit and age cutoff for political offices. The country has been led by Fidel and Raúl Castro since 1959. Raúl called it a moment of “historic transendence.” He named his successor as Miguel Diaz-Canel, a rising political star.

Argo didn’t just win Best Picture—it was announced by the all-time best presenting team: Jack Nicholson and a surprise (albeit remote) appearance by the one and only Michelle Obama. A panicked Ben Affleck made a mile-a-minute speech thanking “everyone on the movie, in the movie, who had anything to do with the movie.” Earlier, a very gracious Ang Lee took home the Best Director Oscar for Life of Pi, a surprise win over Steven Spielberg. “Thank you, movie God,” Lee said in his speech. Before, a leather-tie clad Quentin Tarantino made a lively speech accepting the award for Best Original Screenplay for Django Unchained.

The odds were ever in her favor. Taking a little tumble on the way to the stage, the always-endearing Jennifer Lawrence accepted the Oscar for Best Actress for her volatile role in Silver Linings Playbook. Ending with a quick, “Happy birthday, Emmanuelle!” and departing from the stage with no stumbles. Daniel Day-Lewis took home his third Oscar for Best Actor, this time for his role in Lincoln. “I had actually committed to play Margaret Thatcher and Meryl was Stephen’s first choice for Lincoln,” he joked. “And I’d like to see that version.”

The Vatican took a break from chastising the media for “defamatory” reports in order to honor Pope Benedict XVI’s final Sunday blessing. Massive crowds gathered in St. Peters Square to listen to as he delivered his final “Angelus,” a Christian devotional prayer dedicated to the birth and death of Christ. Speaking from his apartment window above the square, Benedict thanked the crowd for their “affection” and promised them that he would be taking up a life of prayer, in order to "be able to continue serving the church." The Vatican was seething Saturday over rumors that a secret cross-dressing gay sex scandal was behind Benedict’s resignation, calling the false reports an attempt to influence the upcoming election of his successor.

Unsurprisingly, singing powerhouse Adele snagged the award for Best Original Song for her moving “Skyfall.” The teary performer made a short speech and so did her cowriter Paul Epworth, who praised her, saying, “I’d like to thank Adele for being the best person I've ever worked with.” The first big award of the night went to a very deserving Christoph Waltz for his role in Django Unchained. A shaken Waltz gratefully accepted the Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, thanking director Quentin Tarantino. The next major win was for the directors of Searching for Sugarman, for Best Documentary Feature. "Rodriguez isn't here tonight because he didn't want to take any of the credit for himself," they said of the film's main character.

Just hours after three suicide bombs rocked Afghanistan on Sunday, a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai announced that the Afghan leader is giving American special forces in Wardak two weeks to exit the province. The decision, announced during a meeting of the National Security Council, stems from allegations that forces there were teaming with Afghans to torture and abuse other Afghan prisoners. The news casts a new negative light on the war in Afghanistan just two weeks after President Obama awarded the prestigious Medal of Honor to a former Army staff sergeant for his work there.

It really was a crazy day at the races. After a huge crash left dozens injured, the 2013 Daytona 500 has a winner: Jimmie Johnson. But most of the attention seems focused on racing’s woman of the hour, Danica Patrick, who took eighth place. Last week, Patrick became the first woman to win the pole for a Spring Cup Series race. In that spirit, Grand Marshal James Franco even had a strange order to kick things off this morning: “Drivers—and Danica—start your engines!”

Add another to the books. On Sunday, as Pope Benedict XVI delivered his last public blessing, allegations of abuse were leveled against Britian’s most senior Roman Catholic cleric. Cardinal Keith O’Brien, head of the church in Scotland, is being accused of partaking in “inappropriate” and “intimate” behavior by three current and one former priest, according to a report published on The Observer's website. The anonymous priests allege that much of the abuse was conducted after night prayers or during counseling sessions. O'Brien is one of the church's most outspoken anti-homosexual figures and is due to retire next month.

He's just hanging out with everyone these days. Former golf legend turned “sex addict” Tiger Woods was seen for the first time in “years” with his former wife, Elin Nordegren, this weekend. The pair were spotted at an event in Jupiter, Florida, thought to be a youth sports experience that their son and daughter were participating in. Eyewitnesses say the pair spent roughly 30 minutes talking, before quickly disappearing once the cameras appeared. The status of the relationship between the two is unclear.

The 28th Annual Film Independent Spirit Awards, an irreverent precursor to the Oscars, delivered its usual “eff you” to Hollywood with roaring delight. Host Andy Samberg began the daytime lunch, set under an enormous tent on Santa Monica Beach, by literally shouting to Hollywood: “Fuck you.” “This is our Oscars, and even if we were invited, which I was not, we will not be going,” Samberg quipped. The Perks of Being a Wallflower was awarded First Feature, Jennifer Lawrence crowned Best Female Lead in Silver Linings Playbook, and John Hawkes given Best Male Lead in The Sessions.

The shaved head was definitely worth it. “It came true!” Anne Hathaway said upon accepting the Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Her performance in Les Misérables made her a shoo-in for the prize, beating other frontrunners Sally Fields and Helen Hunt.

If you give Kanye a microphone, he’s going to want an epic rant to go with it. While on stage in London performing his new song “Clique” Saturday night, the singer launched into a 10-minute tirade, bashing everything from corporate sponsorships to Justin Timberlake. West specifically lashed out at Timberlake and Jay-Z’s new single, “Suit and Tie,” saying, “I ain’t fucking with that...” But his blow to Jay-Z's new jam, wasn't without a reminder to the audience that he's “got love for Hov.” The slam to Timberlake and Jay-Z came just one day after they announced official plans to go on tour. Jealous of their new BFF status, Kanye? Well, so are we.

She wears Wu, she rocks bangs, and…does the Dougie? On Friday night’s edition of ‘Late Night With Jimmy Fallon’ First Lady Michelle Obama performed an extraordinary interpretation of the “Evolution of Mom Dancing” alongside a drag-clad Jimmy. The dance evolved from the “Go Shopping, Get Groceries” move to "Just The Hands Part of Single Ladies," and finally to the famous “Dougie.” The dance moves were in part to promote Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move!” fitness initiative, and in part to prove that she is now, officially, the coolest First Lady of all time.  

Voters began casting their ballots at 8 a.m. Italian time Sunday, in one of the most suspenseful elections the euro zone has seen in years. The country as a whole is desperate for a leader to help lift it—and the entire euro zone—out of financial crisis. But with names like “comedian” Beppe Grillo on the ballot, many are skeptical about its success. Italy has survived without a democratically elected leader since late 2011, when former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was pressured to resign after a myriad of scandals were exposed.

Here's an argument against intervention. A new report in France says that the threat of domestic terrorism has increased since the nation intervened in Mali. France's investigative judge says that some citizens of black African ancestry are more likely to wage a jihad in the country. Previously, France was weary of residents of North African ancestry, but that has now expanded to include people who hail from Mali, Senegal, Nigeria, and Niger. There has also been an increase in French passport holders traveling to Mali—some of whom are known to be fighting with militants, against the French forces.

Move over, Google—Firefox has come to play. Barcelona-based nonprofit Mozilla, the brains behind Firefox, announced plans to launch an enitrely new phone-operating system this summer. Phone companies have already shown their interest in seeing a "third eco-system," with the potential to rival Apple's iOS and Google's Android. According to Mozilla, 13 phone companies across the globe have already locked into the Firefox phone plan, including Sprint Nextel. Still, the venture will be no easy task. Officials at IDC estimate that together Google and Apple carry 91 percent of smartphone sales. If the third time really is a charm, Firefox might just get lucky. The new phones are set to debut this summer in cities around the world.

Afghanistan awoke to a series of early-morning attacks on Sunday, as insurgents set off three suicide bombs in separate outlying provinces. Officials stopped a fourth attack, shooting and killing a man in a sport-utility vehicle thought to be carrying explosives. In the deadliest of the attacks, a car bomb exploded near a state intelligence site, killing two guards and wounding three others. Although the death toll from the three attacks was low, they illustrate the continued unrest inside the nation. A spokesman for the group, Zabiullah Mujahid, confirmed that they were behind the three successful bombings.

Only weeks before dying of AIDS-related causes at the age of 44, veteran AIDS activist Spencer Cox joyfully attended the screening of an Oscar-nominated documentary. Less than a month later, he was dead. What quickly followed was a ruthless debate over the cause of his death that still plagues the AIDS community today. Some have blamed “pill fatigue,” while others have bluntly deemed it a suicide. In The New York Times, Jacob Bernstein says the answer is more complicated. Cox, an integral part of the AIDS drug movement, shocked friends after his death when they discovered half-full pill bottles, some over six months old. The excess pills were proof he’d stopped following the drug regimen necessary to keep him alive. Still, calling Cox’s death a deliberate suicide is too simple, says Bernstein. Whether or not he wanted to die, we’ll never know. In the words of his dear friend fellow Act Up alumni Peter Stanley: “It was a life unraveling.”

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan received enthusiastic applause while denouncing Syria’s Bashar al-Assad at a government communications forum in the United Arab Emirates. Erdogan called Assad a “mute devil” for allowing crimes against his own people. “We will not remain silent in the face of the cruel dictator, the mute devil, who mercilessly carried out massacres against his own people, but who has remained silent and unresponsive toward those who have occupied his own territories for decades,” he said. The speech comes only hours before new U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s first official trip overseas

Following an incendiary article published in The New Yorker that describes Ted Cruz as “the next McCarthy,” the Texas senator spoke out—shockingly, to confirm that Harvard Law School contains communists. A spokesperson for Cruz, Catherine Frazier, told The Blaze Saturday that the 2010 Cruz speech the article refers to, in which critics claim he “castigated the Harvard Law School faculty” was 100 percent correct. “The Harvard Law School faculty included numerous self-described proponents of ‘critical legal studies’—a school of thought explicitly derived from Marxism—and they far outnumbered Republicans,” Frazier said.

An estimated 33 people were injured by flying debris Saturday when rookie driver Kyle Larson’s car barreled through the catch fence at the conclusion of the Nationwide NASCAR race in Daytona, Florida. The wreck, which occurred during the final lap of the race, stemmed from Regan Smith’s attempt keep his lead over Brad Keselowski. Videos captured of the crash show Larson’s car blasting through the catch fence and sending burning debris into the crowd. Larson walked away from the twisted vehicle unharmed. Despite the dangerous finale of yesterday’s race, officials say the long-awaited Daytona 500 scheduled for Sunday will go on uninhibited.

Carl Pistorius’s Twitter hackers did more than deliver false tweets Saturday—they shoved him into the spotlight. After his name swirled through the media this weekend, news broke Sunday that Carl, Oscar’s older brother, is also facing a murder charge. The Pistorius family lawyer, Kenny Oldwage, confirmed that he is being tried for homicide. Local South African media say the crash involved a woman motorcyclist who died in 2010 after being hit by the older Pistorius, who was “driving recklessly” in Vanderbijlpark, South Africa. Carl was scheduled to face trial last Thursday, while his younger brother Oscar attended his bail hearing for the death of his 30-year-old girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. Oscar Pistorius was released on $113,000 bail. His murder trial is set to resume June 4.

Obama's got millions of problem—Jay-Z is now one of them. In the New York Post, Phil Mushnick decries Mr. and Mrs. Obama's close allegiance to the “ex-con rapper,” who regularly writes songs “loaded” with hate for gays and praise for street violence. The problem, Musnick says, is not the president’s friendship with Jay-Z. It’s our failure to recognize it as an issue. Imagine if George W. Bush had forged such a relationship? Mushnick challenges. “It couldn’t have happened!” With the issue of guns alone, Jay-Z has written enough inflammatory lyrics to write a book. “I keep a banger in the ankle, one in the hip,” he writes. “I even got a gun in the hair in the bun of my bitch.” It’s an interesting point that raises some questions for Obama. But the president is never asked these things, Mushnick says, at least not “by a media that ignore in some presidents what they’d never allow in others.”

Cyril Myers, whose family late model Reeva Steenkamp resided with in Johannesburg, exposed new details about Oscar Pistorius. Myers, who is a commercial printer in South Africa, described Pistorius as “very moody.” While he admits that at the start of the relationship, he was charming, as the months dragged on he became “obsessed” with Steenkamp, and wouldn’t leave her alone. “[He was always] pestering her, phoning and phoning and phoning her.” In the final weeks of the two's relationship, Myers says the Olympic double amputee had become increasingly impatient and hasty—causing Steenkamp anxiety. "She told me he pushed her a bit into a corner. She felt caged in," Myers said. "I told her I would talk to him." When Myers got wind of Steenkamp’s death, he shattered the framed pictures he had hanging of Pistorius. “She was my little girl, and he shot her four times from behind a closed door. One shot may have been a mistake—but four times?”