The ripped-from-the-headlines plot of last night's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit was inspired by Chris Brown's 2009 assault of his on-again-off-again girlfriend Rihanna. Disingenuously, the episode opened with a disclaimer: "The following story is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event." Perhaps…

Katie Holmes and Suri Cruise (is it sans the Cruise yet? Who can know?) were hit by a steaming, simmering New York City-summer pile of garbage yesterday as they were leaving Chelsea Piers after a day of more mandatory normalcy.

Public transportation in New York is about to get even better and demonstrably worse all at the same time. While the TLC is cutting down on cabbies honking their horns, the MTA is ditching the trash cans in subway stops. Man, this is going to get messy.

An 83-year-old Upper East Side woman is up in arms because a rude sanitation worker fined her $100 for throwing a bag of newspapers in one of those green trash cans that can be found on so many New York street corners. But did she do something wrong?

[One of the suites at the new Beach Garbage Hotel in Madrid, Spain, which was made entirely out of trash and constructed to draw attention to pollution in the world's oceans. A picture of the hotel's exterior below.]

[A child wades through an alley clogged with trash in Naples today. There are 10,000 tons of garbage on city streets, and the EU is threatening to intervene if Italy can't solve its chronic trash problem. Image via AP]

[Meet Julio Camara, Mexico City's one and only sewage diver. Camara makes less than $500 a month to dive into sewers to clear blockages and repair infrastructure. Think of him next time you complain about your job. Pic via AP.]

The Way We Live Now: Absolutely fabulous, thank you very much! When you said "we," you were referring to well-timed Ford investors and university presidents, correct? Oh, you mean everyone. They're all in the garbage business, one way or another.