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In a TV director's film debut, jokes overwhelm the characters and plot. Though the cast includes such likable personalities as Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman, the runaway boys at the film's core subsist on rotisserie chicken, telegraphed situations and sour gags.

Farmers have been getting these government checks for years. Essentially, insurance allows farmers to lock in price guarantees — while taxpayers foot 60 percent of the premiums. Critics say such subsidies help the rich get richer and minimize risk so much, they incentivize farming on marginal lands.

Trips to war zones have become a signature for Sen. John McCain. While some senators use poster board displays on the Senate floor to make their points, McCain goes them one better and by posing in dangerous places alongside wary men with semiautomatic rifles.

A new gang caper film — populated by the likes of Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo and Michael Caine — makes promises it can't deliver. An FBI agent and and Interpol detective chase thieving magicians called the Four Horsemen, but a portentous tone and redundancy outweigh the action and flash.

Can you guess the Simpsons character whose first name is a Presidential middle name? In this game, Jonathan Coulton spices up the names of U.S. Presidents by "expanding" their middle names to include other famous people or characters.

We all know King Arthur's famous Knights of the Round Table, like Sir Lancelot, the Knight of the Lake. But do you know the Knight of Scales, Fangs and Coils: Sir Pent? In this game, host Ophira Eisenberg offers more descriptions of a word or phrase whose first syllable sounds like "Sir."

In honor of V.I.P. Dan Kennedy and his new novel American Spirit, puzzle guru John Chaneski cooks up a patriotic final round in which all the answers are phrases or titles that contain the word "America" or "American." America's got talent" — and yes, we mean you, brainy listeners.

Children's librarian Mara Alpert recommends 10 titles that will send youngsters off on brand-new adventures. In these books, kids will learn what baby animals do on their first day of life, what baseball games are like in Japan, and what happens when you read a poem from bottom to top.

Environmentalists are focusing on big corporations to prevent the destruction of rain forests cut down for paper products. With help from some unlikely characters, they've scored a success against one of the world's largest paper companies.

Pledge 51 creates applications for Nigeria's low-tech cellphones. The company thinks it could grow its business with help from foreign investors, but Nigeria's low GDP has made that difficult. If the country changes the way it calculates this figure, that could help Pledge 51 bring in new investment.