Despite the disastrous mishandling of its release, The Interview has managed to gross more $15 million in online sales in four days, plus nearly $3 million more in theaters. Sony claims the film was "rented or purchased online more than 2 million times" between Wednesday and Saturday, making it one of the most successful straight-to-VOD releases of all time.

Obviously, that's a low bar, and the film—which, including marketing, cost more than $80 million—will likely lose tens of millions of dollars for Sony.

"We worked hard to get the film out there by Christmas day," Rory Bruer, Sony Pictures president of worldwide distribution, told Variety. "It was such a whirlwind to get it done that it kind of amazes me that we were able to make it happen."

Of course, it was only a "whirlwind" because Sony, concerned about vague threats from anonymous hackers, stupidly pulled the film from theaters in the first place.

You might have missed some must-see TV last week, namely the Dec. 26 episode of Wheel of Fortune, when word nerd Matt DeSanto guessed "The Lone Ranger" with only one letter revealed. "The wheel definitely worked in my favor," DeSanto told the Today show. "I was extremely fortunate."

The Malvern, Penn. father of two continued to be extremely fortunate—he solved every puzzle in the game, the show's first sweep since 2011. He totally bungled the bonus round though, failing to guess "wooden gavel" and missing out on upping his $91,892 in winnings to $1 million.

My favorite part of this whole story is that the YouTube video of DeSanto's lucky guess (by user poo stick) is simply and appropriately titled "nope."

[H/T Daily Mail]

A great story has lots of layers, and a rich backstory. When you only see part of the picture, you might reach a snap judgment about what's going on — but then you see events from years ago, that make you rethink everything. Here are 10 flashbacks that turn your understanding of a story upside-down.

1. Severus Snape's flashbacks in the Harry Potter series

Thanks to Albus Dumbledore's miraculous "pensieve," Harry Potter can witness events that happened long ago — and the most startling series of reveals come from the memories of Severus Snape. Not just the fact that Snape was working for Dumbledore all along, but also Snape's tortured love for Harry Potter's mother and his awful bullying at the hands of Harry's father and Sirius Black.

2. Lost, "Walkabout"

Lost was the unquestioned champion of rug-pulling flashbacks — at least, for its first few seasons. But the most startling, and story-overturning flashback, comes in the show's fourth episode, when we discover that Locke was in a wheelchair before he came to the Island and was miraculously healed. And instead of being the rugged explorer and adventurer that we've been imagining, "Colonel" Locke was a sad-sack office-worker whose boss tortured him.

3. Person of Interest, "Prophets"

We've learned a lot over the years about how Harold Finch created the Machine, the groundbreaking artificial intelligence that "sees everything" and reports terrorist threats to the government. In one episode, "The Contingency," we see some startling flashbacks that show how Finch restricted the Machine from caring about Finch's own well-being above anybody else's, forcing it to be dispassionate. But the most surprising, and game-changing, is probably the series of flashbacks in this recent episode, where we discover that the Machine was not the first A.I. that Finch created — and one of the previous attempts tried to murder him in an attempt to win its freedom. This casts the Machine's respect for human life, and its moral code, in a whole new light, by showing them to be incredibly rare.

4. Heroes, "Company Man"

One of the most famous story-recasting flashbacks happens in this episode, focusing on Claire Bennet's father, known as Horn-Rimmed Glasses. Until this episode aired, we thought HRG was just a callous jerk who lied to his family and used his Haitian friend to wipe people's memories. But this episode cast HRG in a much more sympathetic light, showing him trying to protect Claire from his own employers, and depicting his tragic friendship with Claude the invisible man. All of a sudden, HRG's relationship with the Company and his slippery behavior take on a whole new light.

5. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "The Dark Age"

Another familiar character who looks completely different in the light of new flashbacks is Rupert Giles, the starchy librarian who spends his time as Buffy's Jiminy Cricket. Turns out when Giles was younger, he was a bad boy — known as "Ripper" — a warlock who practiced dark magic, summoning a demon named Eyghon with his friends. With disastrous results.

6. Hellblazer #11

Another hero whose dark past gets revealed, suddenly changing the whole picture, is John Constantine. In the 11th issue of his solo comic, we discover that the cocky, trenchcoat-wearing magician had a tragic incident in his rearview mirror. We learn about the 1979 Newcastle incident, in which Constantine and his friends tried to summon a demon named Nergal to banish another demon that was possessing a small child named Astra. The whole thing went tits-up and Astra got dragged to Hell, leaving Constantine permanently wracked with guilt.

7. Batman: The Killing Joke

How much truth is there to the flashbacks in this comic book about the origins of the Joker? We may never know, but they definitely put the villain, and his relationship to Batman, in what appears to be a permanently different light. We discover that the Joker was once a failed comedian who was desperate to provide for his pregnant wife — until she died in an accident. This leads him to become the Red Hood, a faux master criminal, and take part in a robbery that goes horribly wrong — the Red Hood flees Batman and falls into a chemical waste tank and becomes permanently disfigured and insane.

8. Fringe, "Peter"

This episode-length flashback finally reveals just why Walter Bishop broke the walls between universes, and exactly what happened to his son Peter. Turns out that the Peter Bishop we've been seeing all along is actually the Peter from the Other Side, and Walter's real son died due to an illness when he was a child. Instead of broaching the universes due to hubris, as we'd previously thought, Walter made this choice out of grief and the desire to spare another version of his son the same fate.

9. Watchmen issue 9, "The Darkness of Mere Being"

Alan Moore really was the master of world-changing flashbacks, as this issue proves. Until this point in Watchmen, we'd believed that the Comedian's attempted rape of the original Silk Spectre was their main connection — but a series of flashbacks to Laurie's childhood shows that the story was much more complicated. And in fact, Laurie's mother later had consensual sex with the Comedian, who was Laurie's real father. The unlikelihood and absurdity of this event is the axis on which Dr. Manhattan's change of heart — and the story as a whole — turns.

10. Adventure Time, "Simon and Marcy"

And finally, one of our favorite TV episodes of all time. We already knew, thanks to the episode "I Remember," that the Ice King had known Marceline back in the bad old post-apocalyptic days. But this long flashback, in which we discover that Simon wore the Ice King's crown on purpose — knowing what it would do to him — to protect Marcy, is both heart-breaking and horrifying. And like a lot of the other flashbacks on this list, it turns a previously despised villain into more of a tragic figure.

Additional reporting by Diana Biller and Abhimanyu Das

The Scottish government confirmed on Monday that a healthcare worker who recently traveled from West Africa has tested positive for Ebola in Glasgow. The patient has been isolated at a special unit for infectious disease at Gartnavel Hospital and will soon be transferred to Royal Free Hospital in London.

From the Scottish government's press release:

The patient is a health care worker who was helping to combat the disease in west Africa. They returned to Scotland from Sierra Leone late last night via Casablanca and London Heathrow, arriving into Glasgow Airport on a British Airways flight at around 11.30pm.

The patient was admitted to hospital early in the morning after feeling unwell and was placed into isolation at 7.50am. All possible contacts with the patient are now being investigated and anyone deemed to be at risk will be contacted and closely monitored. However, having been diagnosed in the very early stages of the illness, the risk to others is considered extremely low.

"Our first thoughts at this time must be with the patient diagnosed with Ebola and their friends and family," Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said in the statement. "Scotland has been preparing for this possibility from the beginning of the outbreak in West Africa and I am confident that we are well prepared."

[Image via AP]

Smoochy smoochy smooch. New Year's Eve is but two days away. Who you gonna kiss come midnight? For no discernible reason, Quinnipiac University conducted a poll: "Would you rather ring in 2015 on a date with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Gov. Andrew Cuomo or NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio?"

The poll did not specify if the date included sexual activity (over or under clothes), a jazz show, or a hot meal. Despite this lack of detail, 45 percent of respondents said they would rather be alone than with Hillary Clinton, Andrew Cuomo or Bill de Blasio.

Coming in second place after "none of the above" was Hillary Clinton, with 37 percent of the vote. De Blasio and Cuomo tied for third with 8 percent each.

Here's hoping this is an accurate predictor of our next presidential election!

[Photo via AP]

A half-naked man in Tijuana, Mexico, found himself higher than an astronaut and cornered by police on both sides of a bridge. So he did the only thing you can when you're higher than an astronaut and half-naked in Tijuana, Mexico – he jumped.

And then he just walked away because it ain't no thang.

Hilario Guajardo was blitted out of his goddamn gourd on a "drug cocktail," according to the Mirror, when cops thought they had him:

Officers were called after reports of a disturbance in the city of Tijuana, Mexico.

They found Guajardo stripped off to the waist and spoiling for a fight.

But when he was faced with armed police he ran off down a main road before coming face to face with another patrol that had cordoned off the far side of the bridge.

As officers closed in, Guajardo, 35, vaulted the bridge.

The police eventually caught Guajardo, presumably with the world's most potent elephant tranquilizers, but for a minute, we witnessed a miracle.

People of Planet Earth, hail your New Superman.

Las Vegas, the gambler's paradise in the desert whose average high sits at or above 100°F for three months of the year, is getting ready to see a rare and potentially dangerous snowfall on Tuesday and Wednesday. The city could see up to three inches of snow on the ground by New Year's Day.

Snow in Las Vegas is rare, but they've seen bigger and more photogenic snows than the one predicted this week. Since the airport began keeping records in the early 20th Century, the city has recorded measurable snow (≥ 0.1 inches) 29 times, with the most recent snowfall occurring on December 17, 2008 (3.6 inches). The greatest snowfall recorded at the city's airport was a whopping 7.4 inches, seen on January 31, 1979.

Sitting a little over 2,000 feet above sea level, Las Vegas' relatively low latitude, dry atmosphere (it is the desert, after all) and prevailing weather patterns prevent the city from seeing as much snow as it could. When storm systems bring precipitation to the area, the tropical moisture that feeds the storm from the south often prevents atmospheric temperatures from dipping low enough to cause a changeover from rain to snow.

What's different this time? A very sharp trough over the Intermountain West will help to develop an upper-level low that will usher colder-than-normal temperatures into the area. Lows in Las Vegas will dip down to or below freezing during the event, allowing any precipitation that falls to reach the ground as snow instead of a cold, wet rain.

According to the National Weather Service office in Las Vegas, forecasters are confident that a storm will form and temperatures will drop to or below freezing, but they have low confidence in how much moisture will accompany the storm. The solid majority of busted snowfall predictions fall through because of a lack of precipitation. Often when we see a promising snowstorm form on the models, the precipitation will have to work through some pretty dry air before it starts to fall. The rain and snow has to moisten the lower levels of the atmosphere before it reaches the ground. Sometimes this takes much longer than predicted and sometimes the atmosphere never moistens, preventing any snow at all.

Assuming that enough moisture is in place to allow precipitation, and it falls as snow over Las Vegas, meteorologists predict that the city could see up to three inches of the white stuff by Thursday morning. In anticipation of even a light dusting on surfaces in the heavily-populated tourist town, the local National Weather Service issued a blunt message to residents and tourists, advising them of what to expect if the forecasts come to fruition:

MANY TOURISTS WHO COME TO LAS VEGAS MAY BE UNPREPARED FOR THE TRUE WINTER-LIKE CONDITIONS THIS STORM COULD BRING WITH IT. TRAVEL CONDITIONS COULD BE DIFFICULT - IF NOT IMPOSSIBLE - ON AREA ROADS STARTING TUESDAY NIGHT INTO NEW YEAR`S DAY. SNOW REMOVAL EQUIPMENT IS VERY LIMITED IN THE LAS VEGAS VALLEY ITSELF. PARKING ON ROADS PUTS YOUR VEHICLE AT RISK FOR BEING SLID INTO AND ALSO MAKES ACCESS ONTO STREETS HARDER FOR VEHICLES THAT NEED TO GET THROUGH. IN ADDITION...ANY SNOW...EVEN IF IT DOES NOT AMOUNT TO MUCH ACCUMULATION...WILL MAKE WALKWAYS AND SIDEWALKS VERY SLIPPERY. WEARING SHOES WITH GOOD TRACTION IS RECOMMENDED TO AVOID SLIP AND FALLS.

EVEN IF SNOW IS LIMITED IN THE AMOUNT THAT FALLS...VERY COLD TEMPERATURES ARE EXPECTED IN LAS VEGAS WITH HIGH TEMPERATURES EXPECTED TO BE IN THE 30S ON NEW YEAR`S EVE DAY AND ON NEW YEAR`S DAY. ANYONE WHO PLANS TO BE OUTSIDE SHOULD TAKE PRECAUTIONS TO PREPARE FOR BEING EXPOSED TO NEAR FREEZING OR SUBFREEZING TEMPERATURES FOR SEVERAL HOURS. BRING LAYERS AND DRESS WARMLY.

Much like some parts of the Deep South, this part of the country rarely sees accumulating snowfall outside of the mountains. Neither people nor municipalities are equipped to handle icy roads. If you live in Las Vegas or you're visiting this week, use common sense if you're out and about when roads and sidewalks are slick.

[Images: Dec. 17, 2008 snowfall by Ian Lloyd via Flickr, model image via WeatherBELL]

You can follow the author on Twitter or send him an email.

As 2014 comes to a close, it's time to reflect on the most futuristic breakthroughs and developments of the past year. This year's crop features a slew of incredible technological, scientific, and social achievements, from mind-to-mind communication to self-guiding sniper bullets. Here are 15 predictions that came true in 2014.

Technologically-assisted telepathy was successfully demonstrated in humans

For the first time ever, two humans exchanged thoughts via mind-to-mind communication.

Remarkably, the system is completely non-invasive. By using internet-linked electroencephalogram (EEG) and robot-assisted image-guided transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) technologies, an international team of researchers were able to get two subjects — one in India and one in France — to mentally transmit the words "hola" and "ciao." It's an important proof of concept for furthering the development of tech-enabled telepathy. Image: Carles Grau et al/Plos.

And in a similar breakthrough, a different team developed a system that allowed a human subject to control the movements of another person. The University of Washington researchers showcased the technology by having participants collaborate on a computer game where a "sender" sent mental instructions to a "receiver" to control their hand movements.

NASA emailed a wrench to the space station

In what's being seen as a precursor to a Star Trek-like replicator, astronauts aboard the ISS used their 3D printer to manufacture a socket wrench. Remarkably, the 20-part wrench was designed on Earth and emailed to astronaut Barry Wilmore who ran it through the printer. It's a prime example of how 3D printing is poised to change space travel, allowing astronauts to produce equipment on demand and in emergency situations. Image: NASA.

Relatedly, British fighter jets are now flying with 3D-printed parts, while surgeons were able to reconstruct a man's face using a 3D printer.

Surgeons began using suspended animation

It's still in the trial stage, but this a remarkable achievement nonetheless. Surgeons at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital are using suspended animation — or what they call emergency preservation and resuscitation — to dramatically cool down trauma victims to keep them alive during critical operations.

The technique, which is only being used on patients who would otherwise be expected to die, involves internal rather than external cooling. The patient's blood is replaced with a cold saline solution, which slows down the body's metabolic functions and need for oxygen. Image: Prometheus.

The U.S. Navy deployed a functional laser weapon

The device, called a High Energy Laser (HEL) weapon, was fitted to the USS Ponce, which is currently on exercises in the Persian Gulf.

It's still at the prototype stage, but it's being fielded to evaluate its capabilities in a real-world environment where it has already shown its effectiveness in destroying two boats and a drone. Image: U.S. Navy.

Scientists "uploaded" a worm's mind into a robot

Researchers at the OpenWorm project are trying to create a digital version of an actual nemotode worm in a computer. They're not quite there yet, but that didn't stop team member Timothy Busbice from creating software that mimics the natural processes of the worm's neural networks — and then putting that knowledge in a LEGO Mindstorms EV3 robot.

"My research takes the way the worm's brain is wired and extends it to a robot for sensory input and motor output," Buspice told Gizmodo. "What we found is that rather than just random, crazy movements by the robot, it actually responded to its environment in the same manner as the biological worm."

A computer solved a math problem that we can't check

Mathematician Steven Strogatz once predicted that computer-assisted solutions to math problems will eventually extend beyond human comprehension. His prediction appears to have finally come true.

Earlier this year, a computer solved the longstanding Erdős discrepancy problem. Unfortunately, human mathematicians aren't entirely sure about the solution because it's as long as all of Wikipedia's pages combined.

An artificial chromosome was built from scratch

In what was the year's biggest artificial life breakthrough, researchers from New York University Langone Medical Center reconstructed a synthetic and fully functional yeast chromosome. Incredibly, they were also able to insert their own special additions to the chromosome, including a chemical switch that allows scientists to "scramble" it into thousands of different variations to make subsequent gene editing even easier. It's an important proof of concept that could lead to designer organisms and artificial chromosomes in humans.

A venture capitalist firm appointed an AI to the board

Some say it was a media stunt, but it might be the start of a larger trend: Hong Kong-based Deep Knowledge ventures appointed a machine learning program, called VITAL, to its board of directors. It's said to be an "equal member" that will uncover trends "not immediately obvious to humans" in order to make investment recommendations. The system will pour over massive data sets, apply machine learning, and then predict which life sciences companies are the best investments.

And in related news, a robot "journalist" was the first to report on the Los Angeles Earthquake.

A double amputee received two mind-controlled arms

Les Baugh became the first human to ever receive two shoulder-level thought-controlled prosthetic arms. It's not permanent, but the researchers at Johns Hopkins are hoping that the arms will eventually become a permanent add-on.

In other major cybernetic breakthroughs, researchers created an artificial hand that feels, and the first mind-controlled prosthetic hand with 10 degrees of freedom. Also, these wearable limbs took us a step closer to creating Doctor Octopus.

A cloaking device that hides objects in the visible spectrum

We've seen so-called invisibility cloaks before, but nothing quite like this one.

Researchers at the University of Rochester developed a cheap and surprisingly effective cloaking device that's being heralded as the first to perform 3D, continuously multidirectional cloaking in the visible spectrum of light. To do it, they combined four standard optical lenses that keeps an object hidden — even as the viewer moves side to side. The system could eventually be used to eliminate blind spots in vehicles or let surgeons see through their hands during surgery. Photo credit: J. Adam Fenster / University of Rochester.

Gender-neutral pronouns came to North America

Vancouver's school board introduced the gender neutral pronouns "xe," "xem," and "xyr," in an effort to accommodate students for whom gender-specific pronouns doesn't fit or is considered inappropriate. The move is similar to measures enacted in Sweden and Germany.

An orangutan became a legally recognized person

In an important precedent that could influence law elsewhere, a 29-year-old Sumatran orangutan held at an Argentinian zoo was granted the right of habeas corpus, or bodily autonomy. As noted by AFADA lawyer Paul Buompadre, "This opens the way not only for other Great Apes, but also for other sentient beings which are unfairly and arbitrarily deprived of their liberty in zoos, circuses, water parks and scientific laboratories." Sandra will be released from the zoo and transfered to a sanctuary.

Self-guiding sniper bullets became a reality

The DARPA-funded system, called EXACTO, features a .50-caliber sniper round that can be optically guided to a target with a laser. Incredibly, the bullet can hit a target up to 1.2 miles (1.9 km) away.

The technology was developed by Teledyne Scientific and Imaging, who disclosed virtually no information as to how the bullet maneuvers mid-trajectory.

A proto-cyber war erupted between the U.S. and N. Korea

It all started because of a very silly movie, but the consequences — and potential implications — are anything but. The Sony Hacks were directly linked to North Korea (an accusation that's still being contested), resulting in the temporary cancellation of The Interview's theatrical release. Shortly afterward, North Korea's entire Internet was taken down, allegedly by the United States. The world thus caught its first glimpse of what a cyber war might actually look like.

Humanity landed a robot on a comet

We've sent robotic probes to planets, but we've never done anything quite like this before.

Philae's harrowing landing on Comet 67P in early November wasn't perfect, but the mission is being hailed as a wild success. In addition to some incredible images, we're learning about organic compounds on the comet and weird water that's potentially upending our theories of where our oceans came from. Image: ESA.

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The ongoing saga of North-Korea comedy The Interview—cancelled, un-cancelled, and finally released online—seemed to enter its final stages yesterday, when Sony announced that the film had grossed $15 million from online sales and rentals, to go along with $2.85 in box office revenue. This is being hailed as a success that might save film division head Amy Pascal's job. But in looking at Sony's own internal projections for the film, it's hard to reach that same conclusion.

Back over the summer, according to emails contained in the cache of documents released by hackers earlier this month, Sony executives settled on box office projections for a number of their upcoming films, a group that included—in much more innocent times—The Interview. In an email sent on July 26, Sony film executive (and president of Columbia Pictures) Doug Belgrad honed in on the following box office numbers for the studio's new Seth Rogen project:

What you see here is a set of numbers representing the projection bracket for The Interview's box office intake. On the low end, Belgrad saw the movie grossing $60 million domestically; on the high end, maybe $110 million. (The "25" on the other side of each fraction is the international projection gross.) In the middle is a $75 million "base" projection, a number that was cemented in an email Belgrad sent a week later.

In deciding to move The Interview to Christmas Day, the studio tacked on a potential gain of $5 million to the movie's projected gross.

It doesn't appear that executives ever projected what The Interview might make in its first weekend in theaters, so we can't say for sure how its eventual take of nearly $18 million stacks up to whatever the studio's pre-hack, pre-cancellation expectations were. But what we can do is compare The Interview's opening weekend with what films that end up grossing between $75 and $80 million at American box offices typically make in their first weekend.

One place to start is with old Sony movies. There's another document in the leaked Sony emails that lists the studio's 30 most profitable films since 2006, which includes exact box office data as of this year. Of those 30 films, three made between $73 million and $80 million domestically, according to Sony (in ascending order): Zombieland, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and 21. Here are how those three films did in their opening weekends, according to Box Office Mojo:

• Zombieland: $24 million
• The Exorcism of Emily Rose: $30 million
• 21: $24 million

This is an example of only three movies, but by this standard The Interview fell short of what you might see in the first weekend from a film that ends up grossing somewhere around $75 million. (This Is It, the posthumous Michael Jackson concert film produced by Sony, brought in $70 million domestically and $23 million in its first weekend.)

There is, of course, plenty of other data to consult. Last year, according to Box Office Mojo, 11 movies grossed between $16 million and $18 million opening weekend. Of those films, none totaled more than $71 million in domestic gross, except for The Wolf of Wall Street, which is a huge outlier at $116 million in eventual gross. (It should be noted here that Sony's internal box office numbers suggest that the data at places like Box Office Mojo is generally correct, but usually off by a few million dollars in either direction.) If we toss out The Wolf of Wall Street, the average total gross of those 10 other films was right around $50 million, which is far below Sony's worst case scenario for The Interview. Going back to 2012, movies in the $16 to $18 million range opening weekend ended up making $49 million total on average, so this appears to be the gross range Sony should be looking at.

If we look again at reverse totals—how movies that grossed between $70 and $80 million did in their opening weekends—we see the same dynamic. Last year, films that ended up grossing in that range did an average of $24 million opening weekend. In 2012, that number was $22 million. That said, there are a number of movies in those groups–Jack Reacher, Parental Guidance, Sony's own The Smurfs 2—that were in the $16 million to $18 million range on opening weekend that ended up hitting Sony's initial projected number for The Interview.

There are mitigating factors here, chiefly that The Interview was a limited release at theaters this past weekend. According to Buzzfeed, its per-theatre average was $8,613, a rate that's more in line with wide release movies that have grossed somwhere in the $25 million to $30 million range on opening weekends over the last few years. But on the other hand, the controversy surrounding the movie is arguably largely responsible for that limited release per-theatre number, so it's unlikely it would have performed that strongly had the movie been released widely, and normally.

The economic future of The Interview is murky. Sony's decision to release it digitally is unprecedented for a film of this size, so looking back at previous movies can only illuminate us so much. Maybe the film's buzz will continue on, and like, say, Argo, which grossed $19 million in its opening weekend, The Interview will cross the $100 million barrier and be a wild balance sheet success for the studio.

But it seems more likely that the film will fall short of Sony's lowest internal numbers. In that first email, on July 26, Belgrad described his low projections this way:

Let's put The Interview in the "other unanticipated issues" category.

[image via Getty]

Bummer, dude. Our bro Bieber got a hella un-mellow awakening in NYC on Sunday when he bing bonged his skateboard right out from under his little feet-flops. Wonkers!

According to the New York Daily News, the Biebsteib—stoked on hella rays after a bonkers blast of cloud-filled grey tops—attempted to get some grindage outside of Madison Square Garden when...he totally mobbed it (not good!!):

Justin Bieber was spotted skateboarding through the busy streets of New York City Sunday and while the "Baby" singer was showing off his skills, he suffered an embarrassing tumble.

Bieber's fall followed his attempt to skate down a flight of stairs outside of Madison Square Garden while fans looked on.

Sadly, some deeply unchill bummers were there to catch the spill on their lenzoids:

Justin Bieber — If You Don't Succeed ... Keep Trying 'Til Ya Eat I... #entertainment http://t.co/GjuzgEqNSd pic.twitter.com/0YNWtyVSIX

— Rebecca Ramirez (@rebeccaetramir) December 29, 2014

Skateboarding Justin Bieber takes a tumble http://t.co/o8a88lFWqT pic.twitter.com/ewGdjBpAvZ

— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) December 29, 2014

Oh, bro. Don't add that one to your tricktionary just yet.

[image via Getty]

Chanteuse Alicia Keys and her husband Swizz Beatz, a Harvard business school student, got the gift of a lifetime over the Christmas holiday weekend: a son, Genesis Ali Dean.

I'm not going to jump to conclusions and assume that Keys and Beatz are the world's biggest Phil Collins fans. But really, who could blame them. I have always sensed that the couples' music was influenced by the British "pop experiment." But to name a child after it? A little much.

The name Genesis could, of course, also be influenced by another supernatural force: the Bible. The Baby Name Critic, herself a carrier of an Old Testament Name, will never frown upon an Old Testament Name for a new child of this earth. As God once said, "the Old Testament Rules and should be sown for timeless names for baby children!"

The Baby Name Critic agrees with God in the case of Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz's new baby.

This has been Baby Name Critic.

Leah Finnegan is Gawker's Baby Name Critic.

[Photo via AP]

Don't fucking cheat on Cassy, aka @NessLovnTrey247 (she really likes Trey Songz), because she finds out everything.

DONT FUCKING CHEAT ON ME I FIND OUT EVERYTHING‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️ pic.twitter.com/EoNsvR0Ol1

— Cassy❤️ (@NessLovnTrey247) December 28, 2014

Cassy claims via a series of photos that she discovered some incriminating Twitter DMs between her boyfriend and another woman, proving he'd been unfaithful. But instead of confronting him immediately, she planned a little Christmas surprise: She printed out the evidence, wrapped it up, and gave it to him as a present.

He thought he was getting his gifts. Nah. Here's what appears to be a still from a video of the moment the trap was sprung:

Although she shamed her cheating dude on Snapchat and Twitter, she hasn't posted that video, and all the evidence here could be faked pretty easily. On the other hand, Cassy has 31,700 tweets that prove she's a real person, and the guy in the photo seems to have fessed up.

@NessLovnTrey247 could've mention me I would've gladly retweeted it😂💀

— Al〽️ighty (@Bugatti_Boii__) December 28, 2014

Even if it's not real, it's such a satisfying tale of revenge that 13,000 people have retweeted. All's well that ends well, I guess?

[h/t Uproxx]

In the ongoing saga that is the New York Post's egregious faceblindness, another instance of mistaken identity slipped into the paper today when the death of Staten Island man Eric Garner was rewritten with US Attorney General Eric Holder in his stead. For the full (and corrected online) article, "It's the lawlessness," you can click here.

Or! You can peruse our archives for the many other times the New York Post has mistaken one black man's identify for another.

[h/t Harry Siegel via Twitter]

Congratulations are due to one Sofia Vergara, who is engaged to be married for the second time this year, according to E! News. Vergara is reportedly set to wed Magic Mike actor Joe Manganiello, who by his own account convinced Vergara to date him this year after he called her his "celeb crush" in People magazine. B-list stars—they're just like us!

Sofia and Joe have been dating since July of this year, after Sof broke off her last engagement to "American businessman" Nick Loeb. The new couple seems happy.

According to E! News, Joe proposed on Christmas day, possibly with a $640 rose ring he bought earlier this month.

[Photo via Getty]

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), a rising star in the national Republican Party, confirmed reports Monday on the neo-Nazi website Stormfront that he had presented at a 2002 white supremacist conference organized by KKK bigwig and ex-Republican legislator David Duke.

CenLamar, a left-leaning Louisiana politics blog, first highlighted comments yesterday on Stormfront suggesting that Scalise—who earlier this year became the House Republicans' majority whip—had been an esteemed guest at a Metairie, Louisiana, gathering of Duke's "European-American Unity and Rights Organization" (EURO), a pro-white international movement labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

As evidence of EURO's racial politics, CenLamar cited one post by a EURO writer waxing reminiscent about Nazi-era Germany:

The beautiful Germany of the 1930s with blonde children happily running through every village has been replaced with a multi-racial cesspool. Out of work Africans can be seen shuffling along the same streets, which used to be clean and safe in the days of the National Socialists.

Scalise attended EURO's "Workshop on Civil Rights" while still a state representative, according to CenLamar's Stormfront source. The legislator's speech touched on how government programs eroded "individual liberty for whites," that source wrote:

[Scalise] discussed ways to oversee gross mismanagement of tax revenue or "slush funds" that have little or no accountability.

Representative Scalise brought into sharp focus the dire circumstances pervasive in many important, under-funded needs of the community at the expense of graft within the Housing and Urban Development Fund, an apparent give-away to a selective group based on race.

A spokeswoman for Scalise told the Washington Post this afternoon that the congressman had in fact attended the jamboree, where EURO president David Duke himself was an honored speaker, but that Scalise had no idea it was a white supremacist group to whom he was giving his anti-government spiel:

"Throughout his career in public service, Mr. Scalise has spoken to hundreds of different groups with a broad range of viewpoints," Bagley said. "In every case, he was building support for his policies, not the other way around. In 2002, he made himself available to anyone who wanted to hear his proposal to eliminate slush funds that wasted millions of taxpayer dollars as well as his opposition to a proposed tax increase on middle-class families."

She added, "He has never been affiliated with the abhorrent group in question. The hate-fueled ignorance and intolerance that group projects is in stark contradiction to what Mr. Scalise believes and practices as a father, a husband, and a devoted Catholic."

Staffers for Scalise, who is pictured above with House Speaker John Boehner, did not respond to numerous requests for comment by Gawker on Monday.

[Photo credit: AP Images]

Miley Cyrus was not the only celebrity trying to stick it to Instagram with her nipples this weekend. Chelsea Handler, who has long opposed the Facebook-owned photo app's double standard for male versus female toplessness, went topless again Friday as part of her ongoing #FreeTheNipple protest.

Instagram quickly took down Handler's photo, which showed her bare-breasted in the snow, hunting for her dog, Chunk:

But Twitter, whose rules regarding nudity are much more reasonable, has left this one up:

Finding chunk. Instagram had him! pic.twitter.com/Dqle6zsevg

— Chelsea Handler (@chelseahandler) December 27, 2014

Handler's very friendly ex, 50 Cent, supported her and her campaign by sharing the second photo to his own Instagram account—which is definitely recommended viewing if you have the time—where it was also taken down.

How many times will Chelsea Handler have to post her boobs before Instagram listens to reason? Because she'll keep going for as long as it takes.

The public newspaper isn't often used to interrogate private matters, unless you're Sally Quinn. But sometimes, curiously, men try to write about their failed love lives like sullen teenagers, and the results are humiliating (for them).

The most recent offender is Anthony D'Ambrosio in the Asbury Park Press. His column is titled: "To my ex-wife: I wish I would have held you tighter." (Subtext: Until you choked and died.)

The column begins innocently, perhaps too much so.

Our life together — it was like Disney World. We ran carefree in this theme park we call life. Holding each others' hands, we laughed, cried, loved, and we were in awe of everything we experienced. We were children with dreams, and together, we thought about the day when all of ours would come true.

Yes, Disney World, the place where mature love flourishes.

But then.

Eventually, though, those roller coasters stopped.

The music died down, the lights shut off, and our magical journey came to an abrupt halt.

You were gone.

Suddenly, everything that was so familiar about life felt so foreign. I was lost without you. All I had left were my memories and dreams of us that I knew would never come true.

Listen, buddy. An "abrupt" end to a relationship for one person is usually not so abrupt for the other. Perhaps if you spent more time paying attention to the actual human that was your ex and the vagaries of a relationship instead of projecting your "dreams" onto them, things might have gone better.

Regardless, D'Ambrosio has to make his peace with his erstwhile ex for the Asbury Park area readership (and other cities, too, the column has been syndicated nationwide). This is not only a selfish move, but an aggressive one, with no regard for the ex's feelings. Regardless, this column is not about the ex, it is about D'Ambrosio's pathetic narcissism.

Case in point:

As for me? I'm happy. I've found peace. I am busier than ever with work, I found a new passion with writing, and I've been rebuilding a life that was once in a million pieces. I still dream of having a family. I still dream of holding my own child. Of course, I still dream of falling in love and finding my true happiness.

I'm much of the same Anthony you knew, but so much different.

Anthony: Nobody asked. She left you. She doesn't want to know.

As for reasons why Anthony should have held his ex tighter, we get: because of the way she said hi on the phone, because of her sass, because of how she looked while she slept. Ex, you did the right thing.

Anthony's sad stab at creative writing reminds me of another horrific column from a few years ago, in which Andrew Cohen, a legal analyst for now-defunct Politics Daily, wrote a letter to his ex-wife on her wedding day to her new husband. Men are really just a stunningly idiotic species. There may be no hope for women if we continue to marry them.

Men: Don't do this. The holiday season has passed, but if you care, buy the sad, single man in your life a gift he can surely use: a journal.

[Photo via Shutterstock]

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As previously promised, Baltimore County's key witness in their case that led to the conviction of Adnan Syed for the murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee finally spoke to the media on-record about his role in the day Lee was killed in 1999—just not with Serial, the podcast that documented his elusiveness and problematic account of the day.

In the first of a multi-part interview with The Intercept's Natasha Vargas-Cooper, Jay Wilds describes how he first came to meet Syed at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore. He also provides a narrative of January 13, 1999 whose details do not match the various timelines he provided to police and in his testimony in the trial that eventually put Syed in prison for life. https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2...

The major plot details of his story, however, do appear to line up: That Syed called Wilds to pick him up from Best Buy, where he tells him he killed Lee; that Syed later showed him Lee's dead body in the trunk of her car; that they went to Leakin Park to bury her. (And to followers of the podcast, Wilds' version would also appear to place Adnan in possession of the phone during the ballyhooed Nisha call.)

Wilds tells Vargas-Cooper that he first met Syed through his then-girlfriend Stephanie, who told him that "Adnan was pretty cool" and wanted to buy weed from him. (Jay admits that at the time, he was running a small marijuana operation that was partially based out of his grandmother's house.)

"I didn't trust him at first, since he wasn't like the people I knew — pot smokers you know? I made him smoke one time, he got a little high, got a little weird. Didn't say that much. He just seemed like someone who didn't smoke weed too much," Wilds tells the Intercept.

When did you two get closer to each other?

There was never a real friendship. I only smoked with him two or three times. It wasn't like, 'Oh, we're down in the park, come on down.' We were friendly, we were cool. I might have sat next to him in a class, and joked or something. But he didn't call me unless he needed something. It wasn't like, 'Oh, we're going bowling, and let's call it in before we go bowling and call the rest of our friends and call Jay.' I don't remember ever going to any kinds of functions or endeavors together, or any concerts or clubs together, you know.

As Wilds begins to retell the sequence of the events that purportedly led to Lee's killing is when his previous known narratives—as collected by Koenig and Serial through court documents, police records, and trial testimony—begins to divert. For instance, he tells the Intercept that Syed intimated to him that he wanted kill Lee a week before her murder:

When did he first talk to you about hurting her?

It was at least a week before she died, when he found out she was either cheating on him or leaving him. We were in the car, we were riding, smoking. He just started opening up. It's in the evening after school, we never hung out in the morning. Just normal conversation like, 'I think she's fucking around. I'm gonna kill that bitch, man.' Nothing real pointed or anything, not like, 'I know his name,' or 'I caught her.' But I just thought he was just shooting off like everyone else shoots off when they're mad at their girlfriend. He never said anything like, 'Hey, what gauge gun should I use?' or 'How many minutes am I supposed to hold somebody under the water for?' or, 'Is there a statute of limitation on murder?' I thought he was just blowing off steam and bullshitting. I thought at worst he'd throw a rock through her window or something. Normal high school 'I'm mad at her and I'll scratch her car' sort of stuff.

I had never known anybody who had killed anybody else, so there's no way I could have known.

But look, if we start speculating what he was thinking that far ahead – I don't know. He might really have just been bullshitting at the time. I don't know what happened, what occurred between them that day. I don't know if she said something he couldn't handle, and he went off the edge or if he had been seriously speculating about it. I don't feel comfortable drawing conclusions like that. You can't start drawing conclusions like that.

But his version of the day of the murder, January 13, 1999, contains key, recurring plot points in many versions of the story. Wilds says he was ditching last period of school that day with Syed when he borrowed Syed's car and phone to buy a gift for his then-girlfriend Stephanie at the mall. After buying the gift, he says he went to his friend Jenn's house, then he says Syed called him, asking him to pick him up at Best Buy, where Syed apparently confesses to Wilds of killing Lee:

Let's back up, tell me what happened when you arrived at the Best Buy to pick up Adnan.

I pick him up — he doesn't have any car with him. Like, he's not in a car or anything.

Where was Hae's car? Was it in the Best Buy parking lot?

Hae's car could have been in the parking lot, but I didn't know what it looked like so I don't remember. When I pick him up at Best Buy, he's telling me her car is somewhere there, and that he did this in the parking lot. But that, according to what I learned later, is probably not what happened.

Wherever her car was at the time I picked him up from Best Buy, it probably stayed there until he picked me up later that evening.

He then claims that the two are together and leaving Best Buy for Wilds' friend "Cathy's" house (her name was changed for the podcast) between 3 and 4 p.m., which would put Syed in possession or capable of making the "Nisha Call" at 3:32 p.m.—Nisha being a friend of only Syed and not Wilds.

What time do you get back to your place?

I think — and, look, it's been 15 years — about 6 p.m.

Ok. So then you and Adnan parted ways?

Yes. He left in his car and I was trying to collect myself at my [grandmother's] house. I was pretty distraught, fucked up, feeling guilty for not saying nothing. I don't know whether he calls me when he's on his way back to my house, or if he calls me right outside the house. He calls me and says 'I'm outside,' so I come outside to talk to him and followed him to a different car, not his. He said, 'You've gotta help me, or I'm gonna tell the cops about you and the weed and all that shit.' And then he popped the trunk and I saw Hae's body. She looked kinda purple, blue, her legs were tucked behind her, she had stockings on, none of her clothes were removed, nothing like that. She didn't look beat up.

Hae was in the trunk of her own car?

Yes.

"Why did you agree to help Adnan bury Hae?" Vargas-Cooper asks, a question listeners have been pondering for 12 episodes.

"Because at the time I was convinced that I would be going to jail for a long time if he turned me in for drug dealing, especially to high school kids. I was also running [drug] operations from my grandmother's house," he tells Vargas-Cooper. "So that would ruin her life too. I was also around a bunch of people earlier the day [at Cathy's], and I didn't want them to get fucked up with homicide. So I said, 'Look man, I'm not touching [Hae]. You're in this on your own. I'm being manipulated into what's being done right now.'"

Did you go to Leakin Park immediately after agreeing to help?

No. Adnan left and then returned to my house several hours later, closer to midnight in his own car. He came back with no tools or anything. He asked me if I had shovels, so I went inside my house and got some gardening tools. We got in his car and start driving. I asked him where we're going and he says, 'Didn't you say everyone gets dumped in Leakin Park?'

I said, 'Drug dealers, people who get killed by drug dealers,' and I'm thinking to myself, 'When did I ever say that?' So, as I'm riding with him to the park and it starts raining and I'm thinking to myself as he pulls over—and I'm thinking this is the spot he's chosen. I'm also thinking, 'What's making him think I'm totally okay with this?' Like if a car goes by, and I jump out and wave at them saying, 'Hey, this is a murderer right here.' But I didn't. I'm pretty sure it was my fear of going to prison for having a bunch of weed in my grandma's house. He knew I was afraid of that.

The two then spend about 40 minutes digging a grave, but Wilds' refuses to touch Lee's body; Wilds claims Syed buried Lee by himself.

Where was Hae's car?

Somewhere up around a corner up a hill, parked in a strange neighborhood. It's just on the street. I didn't know it was that close. He said, 'I'm gonna drive back down there [to the grave]. You follow me some of the way, and then I'll take care of it.'

You drove him to Hae's car nearby?

Yes. We get into his car, and he drives up around the corner to Hae's car. He says, 'OK, follow me halfway back down the hill [towards the grave site]," so he doesn't have to walk all the way back up the hill to get back to me in his car. I follow him halfway back down the hill, park, smoke some cigarettes. He's gone with Hae's car.

It takes him about half an hour, 45 minutes, and he comes back with gloves on, panting, like, 'She was really heavy.' That's all he says. That's about burying her.

"Why is this story different from what you originally told the police?" Vargas-Cooper asks. "Why has your story changed over time?" Wilds says his portrayal in Serial as a "petty weed dealer" was inaccurate and that the stakes for him were larger than the podcast reported:

It wasn't just like I was selling a nickel bag here and there. At the time, this was Maryland in the '90s, the drug laws were extremely serious. I saw the ATF and DEA take down guys in my neighborhood for selling much less than I was at the time. And they were getting sentenced to three and five years. I also ran the operation out of my grandmother's house and that also put my family at risk. I had a lot more on the line than just a few bags of weed.

"I stonewalled them [police]...until they told me they weren't trying to prosecute me for selling weed, or trying to get any of my friends in trouble," Wilds told the Intercept. "People had lives and were trying to get into college and stuff like that. Getting them in trouble for anything that they knew or that I had told them—I couldn't have that." He goes on:

That's the best way I can account for the inconsistencies. Once the police made it clear that my drug dealing wasn't gonna affect the outcome of what was going on, I became a little bit more transparent.

To speculate as to why he thought Syed killed Lee, he said he believed it was because Syed couldn't handle the sting of rejection from his breakup with Lee.

"From the way he carried himself, at least, it looked like he had never lost anything before. And it was really hard for him to deal with being on the losing end. In that situation, he was the loser," Wilds told the Intercept. "And people were starting to find out he was a loser, 'Oh, you and Hae aren't together anymore. She got a new boyfriend?' And he didn't know how to deal with that."

[Photos of Syed and Lee via Serial]

"I messed up and accidentally sold my girlfriend's cat," a Portland, Ore., man named Roy Dufek posted on Reddit earlier this month. "While she was at work I helped her out by selling the two beds she had in her apartment because we were going to use my better beds that I had at my house. Little did I know when the cat is scared it hides inside the box spring."

So poor little Camo, a 5-year-old tabby, was strapped to the roof of a car along with the mattress. Although Dufek quickly realized what had happened, it was too late to chase down the vehicle and get Camo back.

Dufek's girlfriend, Hayley Crews, was "absolutely crushed."

"Camo was her world and I was the one who took that away from her days before Christmas of all times of the year," Dufek wrote.

The couple called up the buyer of the mattress, who lived 5 miles away, and searched their house, but they couldn't find Camo anywhere.

After 10 days of intensive searching, though, Camo is finally back home.

The Oregonian reports that Dufek and Crews got a tip that the kitty had been sighted near the airport, so they set up a cat trap Saturday night, baited with sardines and familiar-smelling clothes from their apartment.

When they checked back 90 minutes later, Camo had taken the bait. And luckily, he was in pretty good shape after his 10 days in the wild.

From the Oregonian:

Dufek said Camo had lost about two pounds and was a mess. He had a cut lip, several broken nails, bleeding paws and a partially closed eye but no serious injuries.

"He spent the night getting up several times eating and drinking and was taken to the vet this morning. The vet gave him an antibiotic shot, a good inspection. .... Hayley gave him a bath and he's been cleaning himself vigorously since. All is good."

It's the best Christmas present the couple could have asked for.

"It's the best feeling in the world to know friends and strangers alike have had our back in time of need, and to have him back safe and recovering," they wrote in an update on Reddit.

[Photo: Roy Dufek/Reddit]