The number of people on food stamps in the U.S. exceeds the total population of Argentina (43,024,374). And that's nothing new: As of November, 14.5 percent of the U.S. population was benefiting from the Supplemental Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps. 

According to the Department of Agriculture, and reported by CNSNews, the number of food stamp recipients has exceeded 46 million every month since Sept. 2011. There were 46,271,508 Americans on food stamps in Nov. 2014, a decrease of 206,170 participants from the previous month.

According to CNSNews, "Households on food stamps got an average benefit of $259.95 during the month, and total benefits for the month cost taxpayers $5,900,887,430." Teresa Mull

El Niño is showing no signs of weakening, prompting NASA to warn that the 1997-1998 El Niño might soon have a rival as the strongest ever on record. The weather phenomenon, which Discovery News reports brings about a shift in climate patterns caused by the "sloshing of warm ocean water from its normal home in the western tropical Pacific to the east," so ubiquitously affected the U.S. in the late '90s that it gained household name recognition.

NASA says that that this December's El Niño bears a "striking resemblance" to the "Granddaddy of El Niños" that was brewing in December of 1997. The winter of 1997-98 similarly produced "intense ice and snow storms, flooding, and even some unlikely tornado landings," and unrelenting rain in California that caused mudslides resulting in "hundreds of millions of dollars in damages."

Already in 2015, the weather phenomenon that occurs every two to seven years has caused some of the worst flooding in 50 years in Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. At least 13 people in the U.S. have died in floods caused by tornadoes and storms. In Africa, 31 million people are facing potential food shortages caused by droughts, and in the North Pole, temperatures are expected to be 50 degrees higher than usual. Becca Stanek

Comedian Bill Cosby, 78, is facing felony charges for aggravated indecent assault in a 2004 incident with a former Temple University employee, Andrea Constand, the Montgomery County District Attorney's office announced Wednesday. Constand, like many other accusers, claimed Cosby drugged her.

Over 50 women have accused Cosby of drugging or sexually assaulting them, although Cosby has denied all allegations and gone as far as to file defamation lawsuits against some of the accusers. While many women's cases have expired the statute of limitations, Pennsylvania law gives prosecutors up to 12 years for some sex crimes, meaning the clock is not yet up on Constand's case. This is the first time Cosby will face criminal charges stemming from the accusations. Jeva Lange

New York Knicks forward Cleanthony Early was leaving a Queens, New York, strip club with his girlfriend early Wednesday morning when his Uber was reportedly boxed in by three cars. Several men approached Early's car, pulled the athlete from the back seat, and held him up with semi-automatic weapons, the New York Daily News reports.

Early reportedly gave up his cash, gold jewelry, iPhone, and gold caps from his teeth before he was shot in the knee. Early was taken to Elmhurst Hospital where he is said to be in stable condition.

The 24-year-old is in his second season with the Knicks. Lauren Hansen

KaloBios Pharmaceuticals filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Tuesday, only shortly after firing their notorious "pharma bro" CEO Martin Shkreli. The company listed both its assets and liabilities in the range of $1 million to $10 million, Reuters reports.

Shkreli, who was also the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, was fired from KaloBios and resigned from Turing following allegations of securities fraud and conspiracy. Shkreli earned notoriety earlier this year after hiking the price of a life-saving AIDS and cancer drug from $13.50 to $750. Jeva Lange

Ethan Couch's downfall was a Domino's Pizza order.

A police report from the Jalisco state prosecutors' office reveals that the Texas teen fugitive, whose lawyers famously used the defense of "affluenza" — that his family's wealth left him unable to tell right from wrong — against 2013 drunken-driving manslaughter charges, was located after authorities were able to track a phone call made by him or his mother, Tonya Couch.

The Couches reportedly used one of their phones to order pizza to a room at a condominium in the Mexican beach resort city of Puerto Vallarta, leading to a U.S. Marshals Service agent alerting authorities of the phone's location. While the Couches were not at that location when authorities arrived, authorities were able to discover their new location that night and arrest the mother and son.

The Couches had fled to Mexico in early December to prevent Ethan from going to jail for violating his probation. Tonya is being charged with hindering apprehension and could face up to 10 years in prison. Ethan will be sent to juvenile lockup. Becca Stanek

When it comes to accepting the terms and conditions of products like iTunes, most people just tick the box saying they've read the fine print and move on, resigning themselves to the fact that they might have just signed over their firstborn child to Apple since, to be fair, who actually takes the time to read all of that?

But for artist R. Sikoryak, the iTunes terms and conditions posed a challenge, not just to read through the entire 20,000-word document but to illustrate it in panels, paying homage to different comic artists in a 94-page book, iTunes Terms and Conditions: The Graphic Novel. The text, naturally, is taken only from Apple's iTunes agreement, and features none other than Steve Jobs as the protagonist of the "story" — if you can call it that. "The text is anti-narrative. It doesn't lend itself to illustration," Sikoryak told Slate.

Unsurprisingly, spending so much time with the terms and agreement statement led Sikoryak to discover oddities in the document, such as a part "about terrorism and not creating weapons out of the things you discover." That being said: "A lot of people assume that there's something malicious in making them so long, that they're trying to prevent you from reading them. But I think it's just lawyers trying to cover [the company's] asses," Sikoryak explained. Your firstborn child is safe, after all.

Read more about the project at Slate, and take a look at iTunes Terms and Conditions: The Graphic Novel, published serially on Tumblr. Jeva Lange

The Senate Intelligence Committee wants to gain more insight into how U.S. intelligence agencies operate. But despite recent pledges from CIA Director John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper for increased transparency, the spy chiefs were quick to nix the Senate committee's provision requesting the disclosure of any "significant and credible information to suggest that the individual is unfit or unqualified,” calling it "too invasive." The current draft only requires chiefs to provide "information the Director determines appropriate."

The provision follows a report released last year that found "numerous CIA officers had serious documented personal and professional problems — including histories of violence and records of abusive treatment of others — that should have called into question their suitability to participate in the CIA's detention and interrogation program." One passage even went so far as to suggest that "managers seem to be selecting either problem, underperforming officers, new, totally inexperienced officers or whomever seems to be willing and able to deploy at any given time."

While Clapper and Brennan acknowledged problems, with Brennan saying the agency indeed "fell short when it came to holding individuals accountable for poor performance," the chiefs offered a number of reasons to avoid providing more information. Among those, The Washington Post reports, were the increased "bureaucratic workload," the invasiveness of the language, and the "undermining" of "the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government."

Read the full story at The Washington Post. Becca Stanek