Today in viral videos: Russell Brand gets sympathetic, 50 (completely unscientific) ways to trick people into thinking you're smarter than you are, and summer treat from Disney.
There is a sad reality to the otherwise hilarious non-time machine "time machine" story that came out of Iran this week: It's making the otherwise legitimate Iranian scientific community look bad, even though it knows — just like you — that the inventor is a total quack.
Three boys have been arrested for assaulting a 15-year-old in California who hanged herself. If that sounds familiar, the arrests came one week after a 17-year-old in Canada hanged herself after an alleged attack by four boys at a party. There were photos. Indeed, if the combination of rape, victim-blaming, and a social media tornado from small towns to national outrage seems like something of a trend this year, perhaps this is the brutal new reality in age of Steubenville, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Don't look now, but the birthday of Kim Jong-un's grandfather is on Monday, and nothing would do more poetic justice to North Korea's warped version of history and its "unacceptable" war-mongering rhetoric than to drown one of its oldest enemies in a sea of nuclear flames. Which absurdity will win out?
The mother of George Zimmerman released a letter on the one-year anniversary of his "most unfortunate arrest" Thursday, claiming that Florida police took him into custody to "placate the masses"—and not because he shot and killed an unarmed 17-year-old buying some Skittles.
While Jay won't say who he's rapping about in his (timely) new song, here's a news analysis based on the recent Hova headlines on his trip to Cuba, his new sports agency, and more.
After mastering the art of drones (by way of Photoshop) and the science of sending a monkey (that was not real) into space, the latest breakthrough out of Iran is a "time machine." The only thing stopping production, apparently, is the fear that China will make millions of crappy versions of it.
Today in viral videos: the festival that turns Philly nightlife from terrible to pretty fun, Kim Jong-un with makeup, and the chillest seal in the world.
The NFL said that "half the league" would never get away with playing under the influence of the little blue pills, no matter what Seattle Seahawks All-Pro cornerback Richard Sherman says.
If you thought Virginia was weird, it's easier to pass a law through Montana's state legislature that allows citizens to eat their own roadkill than it is to strike down a law that made gay sex a felony punishable with up to 10 years in jail and a $50,000 fine.
New CNN president Jeff Zucker, as The Washington Post's Paul Farhi explains in a lengthy profile today, is a "hyper-competitive" but patient man who will try anything and everything to "blow up the place" and get you to watch the still struggling network without alienating the base — of viewers or advertisers.
MTV will cancel the show, a little over a week after of one the show's star cast members died of carbon monoxide poisoning. But does a network known for its questionable taste in reality TV owe it to the rest of the kids to keep the show on the air? That's what Buckwild's show runner is arguing, vehemently, as he vows to keep filming.
A treasury department letter shows the U.S. government fully, officially approved Beyoncé and Jay-Z's "educational exchange" trip to Cuba, but some politicians still aren't satisfied that they played by the government rules.
Today in viral videos: Beyoncé teases "Grown Woman" again, a raccoon pleases, and everything that's wrong with Les Miserables including Anne Hathaway.
All of the invite news leading up to DC's Nerd Prom can be a confusing batch of pomp and absurdity, so we'll be updating this handy, interactive, and officially unofficial guest list of media outlets and celebrities until that grandest of evenings is finally upon us.
As Washington runs to-and-fro on firearm legislation, student gun enthusiasts at some universities are taking matters into their own hands by showing their desire for concealed weapons on campus. Here's how the gun lobby inside actual schools is trying — and failing — to set an example, one empty holster at a time.
The total reported impact of this still very mysterious strain has grown to eight deaths and 24 infected people, but the bird flu might just be a lot worse than China is letting on — and it wouldn't be the first time the country's health officials have "covered up" a major disease threat.
The grand jury process has begun, and potential new civil suits against the adults who own the homes may shed light on what's next. But local law experts and an examination of testimony reveal that, well, the grown-ups in Steubenville might get off the hook — and the jagged puzzle of accountability may go unsolved.
"I like small penises," said no women interviewed for an actually scientific study released Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS. Yes, PNAS is a funny sounding acronym, and, yes, PNAS has found that size does matter — and that women prefer "showers" to "growers."
By the NRA's logic, one "detail" in the 225-page "report" that the gun lobby's National School Shield task force has now corrected should make the whole report just about useless. Yes, there are enough school shootings that last week's NRA-funded research findings managed to find a school shooting that never happened.
Thieves in the German town of Bad Hersfeld spirited away some 5.5 tons of the chocolate-hazelnut spread over the weekend. But if you can trick one of the top schools in the United States into paying $2,500 per week for Nutella, perhaps everyone should get in the chocolate topping business.
With a cache this massive (and thus far, not that shocking), what you find all depends on what you're searching for — like, say, the Russian predilection for soft rock.
Everyone can agree that it's sickening: Students at a Connecticut high school continue to blame the victim on social media, even as the star athletes and accused rapists sit in prison. But does blaming the problem with rape culture on the new problems of the Internet ignore the cruel way rape victims have been treated in the past? Torrington, it seems, is about to find out.
Today in viral videos: Kid President gets the White House tour he deserves, remembering Roger Ebert, and the best fake social media sites created by the television industry.
Because you probably didn't go to Wichita State, and because you'll probably find yourself talked out when it comes to Louisville's Kevin Ware, here's a (not particularly avid) fan's guide to the rest of the weekend in college hoops.
According to Brendon Ayanbadejo, the outspoken gay rights advocate and now former Baltimore Raven, there are at least three more gay players ready to speak out than previously believed. The Baltimore Sun sort of buries the lead, but there is a vague plan in place for as many as four players to announce publicly that they are gay, and on the same day.
Consider this a win for women's health advocates: U.S. District Judge Edward Korman has ruled that the U.S. government must make the "morning-after" pill available over the counter and available to all ages.
Six people are dead from the H7N9 strain. The number of infected has grown to to 14. A new scare just hit Hong Kong. The U.S. has begun early research for a vaccine. And now China has slaughtered 20,000 chickens, ducks, geese, and pigeons to try and cut off the health risk at the source. So: Is it time to panic yet?
The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that its longtime film critic Roger Ebert, whose long battle with cancer couldn't take him away from the words he loved so much, has passed away at the age of 70.
Even the Rutgers coach himself said after his termination that "There is no excuse — I was wrong." But that didn't stop Hannity and Malkin from making excuses and saying that the coach's treatment of his student-athletes wasn't that bad.
It's easy to take North Korea's constant proclamations of war with a grain or heap or silo of salt. But when intercepted internal communications reveal that they're planning to launch a mobile ballistic missile? Well, maybe we should take that a little more seriously.
As they say, one small step for world peace, one giant leap for Photoshop.
That faint sound you hear is Senate reporters from the AP, The New York Times, and beyond smacking their delete keys, rethinking their agenda setting aloud, and figuring out how we talk now, amidst a serious legislative discussion
Florida country radio morning-show hosts Val St. John and Scott Fish are currently serving indefinite suspensions and possibly worse over a successful April Fools' Day prank. They told their listeners that "dihydrogen monoxide" was coming out of their taps. Dihydrogen monoxide is water.
The National Rifle Association, the ongoing lobbying interests of which primarily exist for the promotion of buying more guns under the auspices of "safety," has apparently concluded that the way to keep schools safe is to bring more guns on campus, with its $1 million task force suggesting Tuesday that the government change laws surrounding gun-free zones and make the NRA's estimated $6.6 billion pipe dream a reality.
In order to get on the ballot as a Republican, doomed Democratic State Senator Malcolm Smith needed approval from GOP county chairs. He did not have that, and this morning he was arrested along with several others for allegedly bribing to pay off those chairs and trying to rig New York City's mayoral election.
Today in viral videos: The First Baller goes 2-for-22 at the White House Easter Egg Roll, Vampire Weekend meets Steve Buscemi, an epic sax-off, and a bulldog who is guaranteed to make your Monday.
It isn't exactly this year's finest film, or its most successful, or even the only disaster flick involving the destruction of the White House. But it might be the most controversial so far when it comes to crass remarks from moviegoers. Hollywood jingoism, it seems, has given way once again to social-media racism.
One of the most prominent cast members of MTV's reality show has been found dead along with his uncle and another unnamed person in a vehicle in Sissonville, West Virginia, the backdrop of the popular (if controversial) show.
Declaring that "the paparazzi guys... will be the last to know" about her retirement, legendary journalist Barbara Walters turned her non-denial denial of rumors about her retirement into a dismissal of rumors in general on The View Monday.
On Monday Elwin Wilson, a reformed Ku Klux Klansman, will be laid to rest. His life was notable for the hate therein — cross burnings, cantaloupe throwing, and, most famously, the beating of John Lewis — until around four years ago, when Wilson began apologizing, making his history, after he died last week, worth another look.
You didn't have to watch the Cardinals's reserve guard suffer one of the most gruesome leg injuries in college sports history Sunday, but surely you heard about the emotional news — now there's some good news.
A big week for gay rights in Washington was a big one for the entertainment world, too, and it looks like the NFL could have its first gay player come out of the closet in time for Week One of the new season. Here's a rundown of the locker rooms where the NFL's mystery man might feel welcome — and less so.
Today in viral videos: Balki Bronson Pinchot hijacks the forecast, Savannah Guthrie's middle finger that wasn't, a dopey wisdom teeth murderess, and more.
Sasha and Malia's trip to the Bahamas or Idaho or wherever they are is expensive, lavish, and depending on who you ask perhaps a bit wasteful—just like Bush daughters' trip to Argentina and the Carters, Fords, and Eisenhowers' trips to Europe, or any other First Family member moves with a full retinue of security.
This is the first time the world is hearing about Weezy's brush with death from the rapper himself, and his version of the hospitalization heard around the world cuts against what we were told at the time.
Old Congressman Donald Young has half-apologized for using the term "wetback" to describe Latino migrant workers, insisting that he knows "that this term is not used in the same way nowadays" — as if the term wasn't always considered a slur.
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