Long reviled by Democrats, John Boehner is now getting some hate from his own party. Yes, the tearful and fearless leader of the Republicans in the House is learning the hard way that having a complete disregard for economic principles isn't beneficial to your popularity.

In a new poll released Friday by Rasmussen Reports, Boehner was given the lowest approval rating of any Congressional leader. Yes, he's even more unpopular than the perennial band geek of Congress, Nancy Pelosi.

According to the Huffington Post, "Fifty-one percent of likely voters rated Boehner unfavorably, giving him a net favorability rating of negative 20."

49 percent of people polled said that they viewed Vice President Joe Biden favorably, which made him the only legislator with a net positive rating in the poll. It's worth nothing that as Vice President, Biden is the president of the Senate and only is allowed to vote in rare circumstances.

Boehner has definitely appeared weak during these fiscal cliff debates. It's time for him to either step up to the plate and his wreak his special brand of conservative havoc or just give up and move on to the next one already. Like spray tan, indecisiveness, isn't a good look for the Speaker of the House.

Nate Silver is now saying that Boehner must win the support of at least some liberal Democrats to get some version of his plan go through. This is going to be a pretty hard thing to do considering that he couldn't even get enough Conservative votes to make his plan pass on Thursday night. These are dark times in the life of John Boehner.

Huffington Post [Image via AP]

If there is one thing that brings joy to my heart, it is charting the growth of newly invented genres. You can argue over whether trend pieces about "new adult" fiction or "baby boomer" literature are describing truly original developments or ginned-up marketing terms with no relation to measurable changes in book-buying practices (in fact, our very own Katie Baker has already done so in a very neat analysis). But at a certain point the distinction becomes meaningless; talk about "new adult" fiction long enough and Amazon will eventually dedicate a department to it.

I for one welcome these developments: there is always more room at the genre table. Ten years ago the only hip-hopera mainstream America knew was Carmen; now there is an embarrassment of riches, hip-hoperatically speaking. The important thing to do is compare them and declare a winner, so that each generation remains always at the other's throat.

Can this new genre be pegged to the success of young adult literature?

Coming of old age:

A new genre is born, a pendant to Young Adult literature, with one difference: Baby Boomer novels address "coming of old age" issues just as Young Adult novels are concerned with just coming of age.

New adult:

They've labeled this category "new adult" - which some winkingly describe as Harry Potter meets "50 Shades of Grey" - and say it is aimed at 18-to-25-year-olds, the age group right above young adult.

Boomer lit isn't "just like" coming of age literature: it's better. Point Boomers.

Is the market growing? Extra points for vagueness.

Coming of old age:

With a huge and growing market of some 70 million boomers - technically, all those born between 1946 and 1964 - Hollywood was the first to notice the change in its audience.

New adult:

Although most booksellers PW spoke to had not heard the term "new adult," there are some who are recognizing the growing swath of books that are sort of young adult, but not really.

"There are some...but not really." Masterfully opaque. Point new adults!

Can you draw unsubstantiated comparisons with existing media properties?

Coming of old age:

Recent Baby Boomer movies, such as RED, Hope Springs, or The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, have all been smashing successes.

Yet most movies are based on books and perhaps, historically, the first book that led to a hugely successful movie, was Louis Begley's About Schmidt in 2002. The movie was only loosely based on the novel, but Jack Nicholson's star performance made it memorable. And it certainly opened the way to the new Baby Boomer genre.

New adult:

The goal is to retain young readers who have loyally worked their way through series like Harry Potter, "The Hunger Games" and "Twilight."

Coming of old age goes for a reach, dropping unrelated movie titles and a 10-year-old film in the same breath, but Harry Potter/Hunger Games/Twilight makes for an unbeatable hat trick. Point new adults.

Is it sexy? Make it sexy.

Coming of old age:

Now boomers have moved on. They are 50+, still vigorous and dynamic, and their interests have also changed. Fiction needs to follow them and provide protagonists who deal with issues of concern to baby boomers.

New adults:

In the "Twilight" books, for instance, readers are kept out of the bedroom when Bella and Edward, the endlessly yearning lead characters, finally consummate their relationship.

Providing more mature material, publishers reason, is a good way to maintain devotion to books among the teenagers who are scooping up young-adult fiction and making it the most popular category in literature, with a crossover readership that is also attracting millions of adults.

Coming of age starts out promising with "vigorous" and "dynamic" but fails to follow through with specifics. A "still sexual" or "unapologetically frank" could have tipped the scales, but this is another point for new adults.

Who's buying more books?

Coming of old age:

Generation Y, readers born between 1979 and 1989, spent the most money on books in 2011, taking over the book-buying leadership from baby boomers, according to Bowker's just released 2012 U.S. Book Consumer Demographics & Buying Behaviors Annual Review.

New adults:

Generation Y spending more money on expensive titles for school or work than other age groups. Generation Y was the only age group whose spending was higher than its proportion of the overall population.

At first glance it seems that Millenials have clearly outstripped Boomers as a purchasing power bloc, but then Publisher's Weekly slips the old knife between the ribs: they're just buying more textbooks. Point Boomers.

Victors by a single point, the coming-of-old-age crowd can enjoy their victory in the wary knowledge that new adults are coming for them. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

Representative titles in the definitely-real New Adult genre include Hahaha what's money?? where did my dreams go, A Shot-by-Shot Recap of Every Show That Ever Aired On Nickelodeon Between 1987 and 1998, Recession Pies, and Kickin' It With Kidults. Kickin' It With Kidults is a four-thousand-page book that lists every person between the age of 23 and 27 living in America in order of how much they still owe in student loans. It will be sold exclusively in gelato shops.

Representative titles in the coming-of-old-age genre include My Marriage Isn't Very Good Anymore But Maybe I Expected Too Much, I Don't Know, It's Not Bad Really I Guess, Just Empty, I Will Never Be Able To Retire, Raising Kidults With Devices and a collection of printed-out TED talk transcripts called [Untitled Fixing Africa With Innovation Project].

[Image via AP]

A new California law that planned to put a stop to conversion therapy for gay minors was put on hold this week. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that the law could not take effect on January 1st, as was previously planned.

The thought behind stopping the ban stems from a concern about first amendment rights. Matthew Staver, a lawyer for the challengers of the law, told Anderson Cooper earlier this month that the ban on the specific type of therapy would limit therapists' right to practice medicine how they wanted.

The American Psychological Association writes on its website, "To date, there has been no scientifically adequate research to show that therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation (sometimes called reparative or conversion therapy) is safe or effective."

The law is the first of its kind in the United States.

[Image of Marcus Bachmann, whose clinic was found to be using gay conversion therapy techniques in 2011, via AP]

The pope met with his former butler today in order to pardon him for turning over embarrassing confidential Vatican papers to an Italian journalist. As official Church pardons go, it was "intense and personal," and was followed by the customary annual anti-gay Christmas address. But compared to other papal pardons, it barely merits notice:

Pope: Benedict XVI
Pardonee: Paolo Gabriele
Crime: Leaking private Vatican documents exposing "evil and corruption" to a journalist
Punishment: Imprisoned in Vatican jail for 18 months

Pope: Innocent III
Pardonee: John de Gray, Bishop of Norwich
Crime: being elected Archbishop of Canterbury over Stephen Langdon; allowing priests and deacons to marry
Punishment: Excommunication

Pope: Paul VI
Pardonee: Patriarch Michael Cerularius (d. 1059)
Crime: Refusing to meet with papal emissaries; addressing then-Pope Leo IX as "brother" and not "father
Punishment: Excommunication; Michael responded by excommunicating the pope in turn

Pope: Gregory VII
Pardonee: Boleslaw the Generous
Crime: Adultery
Punishment: Made to wander the earth as a silent beggar; performed manual labor as penance for a Benedictine monastery, according to legend

Pope: John Paul II
Pardonee: Mehmet Ali Ağca
Crime: Attempted murder
Punishment: Imprisoned in Italy for 19 years; deported to Turkey to serve another 10

What are your favorite historical papal pardons? Tell us in the comments.

[Image via AP]

There's more news this weekend of gun stores doing better business in the wake of the Newtown shootings.

The New York Times reports that gun stores all over the country can't keep up with the increased demand for firearms. Online retailers are seeing growth too: "On GunBroker.com, an Oracle .223 that normally retails for around $650 had been bid up to $1,175 with three days left in the auction."

And Walmart, America's largest gun retailer, said that some models were out of stock and that some stores had low inventory.

This gun buying boom is happening just as Mayors Against Illegal Guns, an advocacy group headed by Michael Bloomberg, found that millions of mental health records are missing from the national database that gun dealers use to run background checks on their buyers.

States were first required to submit these records to the database in the 1990's. But in 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that adding cases to the information bank was optional. Mayors Against Illegal Guns said that 19 states had fewer than 100 records filed.

[Image via AP]

Since November's election, Mitt Romney has been leading a strange and relatively normal life. He's been spotted pumping his own gas, catching a showing of "Breaking Dawn", having turkey chili with an old foe, and watching a boxing match.

So why isn't Mitt Romney hiding out and getting fat and growing a neck beard like Al Gore did after the 2000 election? Well, it's because he never wanted to be president in the first place.

Romney's son, Tagg, spoke to The Boston Globe about his father's campaign and touched on his ambitions:

"He wanted to be president less than anyone I've met in my life. He had no desire to . . . run," said Tagg, who worked with his mother, Ann, to persuade his father to seek the presidency. "If he could have found someone else to take his place . . . he would have been ecstatic to step aside. He is a very private person who loves his family deeply and wants to be with them, but he has deep faith in God and he loves his country, but he doesn't love the attention."

Sounds about right judging by his electoral performance.

Tagg comes off as really earnest and smart in other points of the piece. He wanted his father's campaign to use a list he wrote that recounted moments of Mitt Romney's life where he helped people in need. Examples on the list apparently included "assisting a dying teenager in writing a will or quietly helping families in financial need." Mitt's failure to get personal with the American voter is one of the things that really did him in.

According to Tagg, his father's next move is going to be convincing Republilcan leaders to make ideological changes to the party based on what he learned from the campaign. This sounds like the most frustrating job in the entire world. "Having been through it, you know so much more than when you haven't," Tagg said.

Boston Globe [Image via AP]

This week's issue of Newsweek is special because it's the last one ever. Yes, as promised, after this issue the magazine is switching to an all digital format.

Newsweek just released the issue's cover. It's a minimalist shot of the old Newsweek Building in New York along with the hashtag #lastprintissue.

This is not a cool or self aware cover, this is lazy design.

Resting on the hashtag as a symbol of "digital is what took this thing down" is only kind of right. By employing a hashtag, Twitter's currency, as the central focus of the design, they're implying that Twitter was the Newsweek killer and its inevitable replacement.

A weak product filled with trollbait articles and an assortment of "freakish" covers did major damage to Newsweek. That's nothing Twitter could have ever done.

This cover could have spoken volumes about media history or perhaps showcased the legacy of Newsweek, but instead, they chose to promote a hashtag that no one will want to use. Tina's last fumble, everybody.

[Image via AP, Newsweek]

The trailer for future Academy Award winner Scary Movie 5 is finally here and it features the scene we've all been waiting for. Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen's "love scene." From the early looks of it, it doesn't look that romantic. Allegedly, Lilo was afraid of catching a disease from Sheen's mouth.

This is the smartest decision she has made in the last five years.

In the trailer, Lindsay shrieks while Charlie is being attacked by a ghost, but a quick cut away to a TV shows that her probation was overturned. According to TMZ, she believed that the TV would be showing a clip from her 2005 flop Herbie Fully Loaded. This would have been the first TV in the world to screen Herbie Fully Loaded, so this was a big deal for her.

TMZ also says that Lindsay signed onto the film with the privilege of having final approval on jokes about her. This change of material might break her contract.

Here's the trailer so you can judge for yourself.

[Image via Getty]

Here's a picture of Cory Booker reacting to Peggy Noonan on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos. This was his expression when he heard her say that video games were to blame for gun violence in America. It's the same look that TV viewers at home have been giving to Peggy Noonan for years. Major props to Cory Booker for putting it out there on national TV.

During the debate, the not-Gubernatiorial and probably-Senatorial candidate, talked about his own experience with guns.

I don't know if anybody here has seen anybody shot, I have. I don't know if anybody here has had to put their hand in somebody's chest and try to stop the bleeding so somebody doesn't die, I have. And the what frustrates me about this debate is it's a false debate, it's a false debate. This is a convenient trick to try to divide our country more. Most of us in America, including gun owners, agree on things that would stop the kind of carnage that's going on in cities all over America.

Booker, the Newark Mayor who's often hailed as a "Super Mayor," once saw someone get shot. He wants you to know. He wants you to know that he put his hand in a man's bloody chest cavity. Cory Booker is not afraid of your silly little guns and what they do to people.

[Image via @Jane_Roh]

In today's New York Times there's an article called "The Ultimate Amenity: Grandparents." It examines the lives of a few young New Yorkers who recently purchased apartments, not for themselves, but for their parents.

The piece features subjects like "two brothers in their 30s who helped buy a $505,000 Lincoln Towers co-op for their retired parents," an Upper West Sider that spent two years and $899,000 searching for an apartment suitable for his mother, and Barbara Yastine who splurged $875,000 for a "sun-filled co-op with a terrace." And one can't forget Melissa Sawyer and her husband, Eric Kaplan, who foot the monthly $3,300 rent on her mother's brand new Jersey City apartment.

Esther Rein, Ms. Yastine's agent, provides the piece's money quote: "The win-win is to have the grandparents live close, but not live with." Because there's nothing worse than having old people smell in your apartment.

It all comes through without using the phrase "helicopter parents" or identifying the reason for the trend as "lazy 30-somethings who can't take care of their new children by themselves." This should be applauded.

The biggest reason that these kids want to live so close to their parents is to get rid of the need for a nanny. If you're a successful young person with child, there's now no reason to let your kid ruin your career — just buy your mom a nanny's quarters down the street and you're good to go apparently.

After reading the article, I asked my mom (hypothetically) if she wanted me to buy her an apartment so that we could live closer to each other. She said yes of course and then explained to me that she thinks this is a return to a way things used to be. "People used to stay close together because they didn't want to break up their families," my mom said.

And thinking about it for a bit, it would be kind of fun to have your mom at arm's length to help you do stuff that you don't want to do.

She then accurately described answering questions for me "just like that new movie with Seth Rogan and Barbra Streisand, but on the Internet" and said that we wouldn't even have to go on a roadtrip. That would be way too close for comfort.

New York Times [Image via Getty]

Considering 2012 was the hottest year on record pretty much anywhere, this should come as no surprise but: over the past 50 years, temperatures in West Antarctica have risen almost twice as much as scientists previously believed. According to a new paper released by Nature Geoscience, the average annual temperature at the Byrd research center in central West Antarctica has increased by 4.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1958, which is not only twice as much as previous estimates but also three times the average change worldwide, making the area "one of the fastest-warming regions on earth."

As you might expect, this doesn't bode well for the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (or, in scientist talk, WAIS), which is now facing danger from two directions.

"The fact that temperatures are rising in the summer means there's a prospect of WAIS not only being melted from the bottom as we know it is today, but in the future it looks probable that it will be melting from the top as well," said Dr. Bromwich, one of the paper's authors.

Bromwich was sure to emphasize that the warming is, as it stands now, not enough to immediately accelerate the decay of WAIS. "We're talking decades into the future, I think," Dr. Bromwich said.

But if you feel like panicking, there's this: NBC News points out that West Antarctica contains enough ice to raise sea levels by 11 feet if it ever entirely melts. Even at the current pace, sea levels are rising at a frightening pace.

Low-lying nations from Bangladesh to Tuvalu are especially vulnerable to sea level rise, as are coastal cities from London to Buenos Aires. Sea levels have risen by about 20 centimeters (8 inches) in the past century. 

The United Nations panel of climate experts projects that sea levels will rise by between 18 and 59 cms (7-24 inches) this century, and by more if a thaw of Greenland and Antarctica accelerates, due to global warming caused by human activities.

Meanwhile, a certain unprofitable conservative magazine is soliciting donations to battle "global-warming extremists going all-out to silence critics." A worthwhile cause if there ever was one.

[Image via AP]

Here's some happy news for germaphobes: your belly button, or "umbilicus" as scientists call it, is absolutely filthy, with over 2,000 different types of bacteria living in it. As ABC News puts it, this "means you have more kinds of bacteria in your belly button than there are different kinds of ants or birds in North America."

Even more exciting is the fact that everyone's gross navel is unique; not one common type of bacteria was found in the 60 belly buttons sampled and most strands were "rare and occurred in just one individual."

For your average person, this might come as a disgusting surprise, but belly button experts are pretty blasé.

"I don't find it alarming," said Dr. William Schaffner, an expert in infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn.  "We knew belly buttons weren't sterile."

At least one scientist, Dr. Gregory Poland of the Mayo Clinic, is hoping the findings shed light on one of society's most dangerous and "current" trends: navel piercings.

"The current fad of women piercing their umbilicus has led to many case reports of infections," Poland said. "And with today's multiple drug-resistant bacteria, it can lead to disasters."

That's right, faddish women; your cool piercings might one day kill us all.

[Image via Shutterstock]

Michael Crapo, the unfortunately named Republican senator from Idaho, was arrested early Sunday morning in Alexandria, Virginia for drunk driving. After reportedly running a red light and failing multiple sobriety tests, Crapo was taken into custody and booked at the Alexandria jail. He was released at 5 a.m. on $1,000 bail.

Sunday evening, Crapo issued a statement:

I am deeply sorry for the actions that resulted in this circumstance. I made a mistake for which I apologize to my family, my Idaho constituents and any others who have put their trust in me. I accept total responsibility and will deal with whatever penalty comes my way in this matter. I will also undertake measures to ensure that this circumstance is never repeated.

Crapo is part of the "Gang of Eight," a bipartisan group tasked with saving us from the "fiscal cliff." He is also a bishop in the Mormon church. As BuzzFeed reports:

Crapo graudated from Brigham Young University, and served earlier in his life as a bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A Mormon whose religion forbids drinking, Crapo could face additional fallout in his home state, where about a quarter of the population - and a considerable portion of the donor class - consists of Latter-day Saints.

Crapo has said in past interviews that he doesn't drink.

And before you share your best "crap" joke in the comments, you should know this, from Wikipedia:

In his Senate bid, as in his House campaigns, his campaign signs had a macron placed over the "a" in his name (Crāpo) to indicate at the correct pronunciation ("Cray-poe").

Or, as the AP put it: "(KRAY'-poh)"

[Image via AP]

"6,600 Americans have currently signed the petition to deport me - meaning 311,993,400 clearly want me to stay," CNN personality Piers Morgan tweeted on Saturday in response to a We the People petition launched on Friday by pro-gun advocates who seek to ship Morgan back across the pond over his outspoken views in favor of more gun control in the aftermath of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

But the number of signatories has since quintupled, giving the electronic document enough support to elicit a response from the White House.

The petition reads:

British Citizen and CNN television host Piers Morgan is engaged in a hostile attack against the U.S. Constitution by targeting the Second Amendment. We demand that Mr. Morgan be deported immediately for his effort to undermine the Bill of Rights and for exploiting his position as a national network television host to stage attacks against the rights of American citizens.

Morgan spent most of the weekend laughing the petition off, tweeting at critics with grammar corrections and snarky one-liners. But as more conspicuous voices, such as that of British Donald Trump Alan Sugar, joined the rabble, Morgan's demeanor grew more somber.

"I am also a legal resident with the same USA Visa as you. But I keep my mouth shut here," Lord Sugar tweeted at Morgan. "Coward," Morgan responded.

Later, after pointing out the irony inherent in a petition ostensibly defending the 2nd Amendment while ignoring the 1st, Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto added fuel to the petitioners' bonfire by directing Morgan's attention to Kleindienst v. Mandel — a Supreme Court ruling that barring a foreign journalist from entering the country does not violate the 1st Amendment.

Within 24 hours of Taranto's contribution, the petition added a whopping 20,000 signatures, crossing the threshold necessary for an official White House response.

It's worth noting that while the White House has said it would respond to petitions with over 25,000 signatures, it is under no obligation to do so. In fact, a petition to grant the State of Texas the right to secede from the Union currently has over 120,000 signatures and zero White House responses.

[photo via AP]

While "gun advocates" are urging the government to deport Piers Morgan over his demand for stricter gun laws, reports are coming in that yet another egregious mass shooting event has taken place.

At least three firefighters were shot this morning while responding to a house fire in Webster, New York, according to local officials.

The blaze has now spread to two additional houses and a car with concern that it could spread even further, but firefighters are currently prohibited from tackling the fire as the gunman is still on the loose.

Webster Fire Marshal Rob Boutillier told reporters his crew will move in once the Monroe County Sheriff's Office confirms that it is safe to do so.

As for the health status of the injured firefighters, Boutillier said one was in satisfactory condition and all were being treated at a local hospital. No word yet on the condition of the two others.

Boutillier believes the homes currently engulfed in flames will be a total loss. It remains unclear whether they were occupied, but the Democrat and Chronicle reports that "many of the homes on that stretch of Lake Road are vacant."

UPDATE: Two of the firefighters shot at the scene of the Lake Road fire have died, according to Webster Police.

Two others were injured and are currently being treated at Strong Memorial Hospital. Their condition has not been released.

Webster's police chief told reporters that firefighters were permitted to resume their activities in the area after being given the all-clear by the SWAT team. There are early reports that more than one gunman may have been involved in the shooting.

UPDATE 2: Police Chief Gerald Pickering has just announced that the gunman responsible for the shooting was found dead of an apparent gunshot wound outside one of the burning homes, and is believed to have set the fire himself in order to entrap the responders.

One of the two firefighters killed in the tragedy was a local police lieutenant; the two injured victims are an off-duty police officer from the town of Greece and a Rochester firefighter who volunteers in Webster.

At least four houses were damaged in the fire.

[photo via @ToddJClausen]

Take a deep breath and gaze directly into the eyes of Michael Jackson: the Prince of Pop, the King of Staring Contests.

This frightening image was taken in 2005, just four years before Jackson's untimely death and was only recently obtained by TMZ. There isn't much information listed on his ID: just that he is a man and does not have any restrictions. Did Michael Jackson have perfect pitch and perfect vision? Or did he lie about wearing contacts to the DMV?

It's a stark contrast to Jackson's photo ID taken in the 1980s, which was released by the FBI just after his death in 2009. That was the photo the FBI had of Jackson on file when it was investigating allegations of child sex abuse against him.

While the image is certainly a little scary, the bigger question is: for what in the hell did Michael Jackson even need a driver's license?

[Images via TMZ]

A New Jersey high school student was taken into police custody last week after he was turned in by a teacher for drawing pictures of weapons in his notebook.

Administrators at Cedar Creek High School in Galloway Township phoned police last Tuesday afternoon to complain about unnamed 16-year-old student who was allegedly exhibiting "concern-causing behavior."

A search of the teen's home turned up what police described as "electronic parts and several types of chemicals that when mixed together could cause an explosion." An exact list of chemicals found was not released.

The student was subsequently charged with possession of a weapon, an explosive device, and booked into Harborfields Detention Center.

This despite an admission by Police Chief Pat Moran later that day that "there was no indication [the student] was making a bomb, or using a bomb or detonating a bomb."

"He takes the parts and he builds things with them. Good things," his mother told a local Fox affilate. "I think this is fear because of what just happened in Connecticut."

Greater Egg Harbor Regional High School District Superintendent Steve Ciccariello commended the student's teacher for reporting his behavior to school officials. "In reality, we followed what we're trained to follow," Ciccariello said.

Cedar Creek is a magnet school which prides itself in offering students a "hands-on learning experience" in the fields of engineering and environmental science.

[image via Behance]

Come Christmas morning Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, will awake - not in his royal bed of roses, a traditional Christmas morning figgy pudding waiting on a silver serving tray by the bed - but upon the dirt floor in the straw hut his commoner in-laws call home. That's right, Bucklebury, the royals are coming to town.

Will and Kate, who's in a family way, will spend Christmas with party hat peddlers Carole and Michael Middleton.

Pippa, an aspiring broadcaster, recently divulged the secret Christmas rituals of the storied Middleton clan in a magazine article. From the AP:

"The Middletons' Christmas should be blissfully calm. We're good at keeping each other's spirits up," Pippa wrote in the most recent edition of Britain's Spectator magazine. She added that her father, Michael, liked to surprise the family with bizarre costumes.

"He buys a new costume each year and typically gets a bit carried away - a couple of Christmases ago, he appeared in an inflatable sumo outfit," she wrote.

The rest of Prince William's family will spend their holiday in Sandringham. An anonymous spokesman for William claims Bill and Kathy's absence was approved by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, but probably only because he threatened to never let the aging monarch see her demon grandchild.

[Image via AP]

23-year-old Dylan Smith of Belle Harbor, New York, who risked his life to save his Rockaway neighbors at the height of Hurricane Sandy, was found dead over the weekend after an apparent surfing accident off the coast of Puerto Rico.

Smith body was found floating in the waters near Maria's Beach where he had been vacationing. An attempt by a doctor to revive him was unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead.

A lifeguard by trade, Smith was honored as one of People magazine's Heroes of the Year for his act of bravery during the superstorm.

According to the publication, Smith and sales director Michael McDonnell saved a half-dozen trapped residents from a six-foot storm surge and a quick-moving gas fire with the aid of a homemade rope bridge and a surfboard.

Sadly, it was surfing that ultimately claimed the young man's life.

"The same sport — the sport of surfing — that he used to save all those people, it's so shocking that he perished that way," said FDNY Chief and family friend Michael Light.

"He was one of a kind," a neighbor told the New York Post. "We're going to miss him a lot."

Smith leaves behind a mother, a father, and a younger brother.

[photo via WNBC]