The city of Los Angeles' "Summer Lights" program, which keeps public parks lit up at night in order to discourage gang violence, is having... mixed results. "A 15-year-old girl was shot in the back and a 19-year-old man was shot in the hand [in an apparent gang shooting] as they were leaving a Summer Night Lights event" this morning. Oh. God. It's just too much. It's like some horrible, horrible movie. "A man was shot in the face near a South Los Angeles park after the lights were turned out last week. It provided all-too-real drama for actors Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena, who were on scene at the time while on a police ride-along to prepare for an upcoming movie."

Whenever the thermometer creeps north of 90 degrees in NYC, you can be sure an intrepid wire photographer is going to head out and start snapping pictures of kids playing in fountains and people lounging in their underwear on park benches. Since it's so damn hot, here are some of the best "damn, it's hot" photos we could find.

Did you know beer wasn't officially classified as alcoholic in Russia until yesterday? The country's president, Dmitry Medvedev, just signed a bill to make it so. Apparently, until now, any beverage with less than 10% alcohol was considered a "foodstuff."

While America struggles to get out of its current economic shit-pit, its desperate citizens are resorting to interesting methods of relieving their financial stress. Namely they're buying lots of sex toys and getting off like crazy.

Wendi Deng deserves credit for containing husband Rupert Murdoch's worst impulses. Not only did her fearsome bodyguarding distract the world from hubby's hacking scandal, it's now clear that she preserved a friendship with Google that Murdoch tried to explode.

Fish lead! Sperm coats! Bald hair! Tall cancer! Dissolving tobacco! Tortoise leg! Calorie counts! Lung damage! And the fatalistic approach to our own mortality! It's your Thursday Health Watch, where we watch your heath—soberly!

If I were an annoying New York doorman or the guy at the bodega who tries to make lames jokes all the time, I'd ask, "Is it hot enough out there for you?" But I won't do that. I'll just show you pictures of the street melting into a giant sink hole.

Public Policy Polling dove into the surreal with its latest survey, asking voters, "If God exists, do you approve or disapprove of its performance?" She—that's she—scores a 52% approval rating, with 9% disapproving.

Blotchy Gong Show revivalist and CNN host Piers Morgan came off looking good in his confrontation with a British MP who accused him—falsely, as it turns out—on Tuesday of having confessed in his memoir to phone hacking while he was editor of the Daily Mirror. So we decided to catalog all the other—far more credible—indications that hacking went on under his nose during his tabloid days and...not so good! Let's have a look.

The uncontrollable band of gay political glitterbombers that have been destroying the very fabric of good, American manners have pulled off their most daring feat yet: glitterbombing the reparative therapy clinic of famous Dr. Marcus "Pray the Gay Away" Bachmann. En masse, and in costumes!

Mark Anthony Richardson II was sentenced to three years in prison yesterday for pretending he was autistic and fooling two women into caring for him at their homes and changing his diaper repeatedly. What did they even charge him with?

Every time we try to look away from 51-year-old Lost actor Doug Hutchison and 16-year-old country singer Courtney Stodden, their freakshow antics suck us back in. In a new E! interview, they pass a Yorkie back and forth, rubbing noses and giggling about Courtney losing her virginity. "He's a tiger," Courtney teases, moving in for a hug. "You're so bad," Doug replies, burying his face in her chest.

The strange case of activist Aaron Swartz—who faces 35 years in prison for downloading a ton of academic articles—is predictably shaping up to be a rallying call for information freedom supporters. One guy just dumped 18,592 journal articles on The Pirate Bay in solidarity.

Here's a trailer for Dream House, a horror movie that somehow managed to snag Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, and Naomi Watts for its three lead roles. It seems to be your standard-issue creepy house with a twist movie, the twist this time being that maybe the people who live in the house are actually the ghosts.

Look to your left. Look to your right. Both of those people are in jail. And so are you, because of something you did while drunk. This is because so many people are binge drinking now, I bet.

The traditional opening credits for Mad Men are all angst and existential brooding over ominous music, but what if the theme song were more like something you'd listen to at a swinging '60s cocktail party? Now we know what it would be like.

Gwyneth's children are members of the tribe. Lindsay Lohan's so-called assault victim sues. Paris Hilton storms out of an interview. Jennifer Aniston introduces her boyfriend to her dad. Thursday gossip is a question of faith.

It takes a lot to have a noteworthy New York City subway fight video these days—you're competing with the spaghetti fight and the berserk naked wig-out and everything else.

Swiss pilot Konrad Schmidt was angry at his mother for divorcing his father. So, he decided to try to kill her by flying a small plane into her house. That's bad enough, but did he really have to end his life with a pun?

This TV star needs to lose some pounds before her big wedding day. This singer is trying to start a feud. This cooking star is having a family feud. And this TV star is feuding with his costars. At least our blushing bride's only fighting the battle of the bulge.