While clubbing in London last night, Rihanna was injured when a man "enraged" by her reunion with King Scumbag Chris Brown threw a bottle of Lucozade (think British Gatorade) at her. She fell to the ground and cut her leg, but was otherwise unhurt.

The assailant wasn't identified. Rihanna's choice to get back together with her dickwad ex may be difficult to swallow, but (duh) that doesn't make this guy any less of an asshole.

Angry that a survivor of domestic violence is returning to her abuser? How 'bout we just throw a little more violence her way, see how that goes?

[Image via Getty]

Iceland could (but probably won't) become the first Western democracy to censor Internet porn. Halla Gunnarsdóttir, an adviser to the interior minister, explains the country's anti-smut rationale to The Guardian:

"We are a progressive, liberal society when it comes to nudity, to sexual relations, so our approach is not anti-sex but anti-violence. This is about children and gender equality, not about limiting free speech..."

This is Iceland, after all. Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir is the first openly lesbian government head in the world. It's already illegal to print and distribute porn within the country, and since 2010, strip clubs have been prohibited as well.

Research indicates that, on average, Icelanders first see online porn at age 11, including sexual content of an "increasingly violent" nature. In the U.S.—where the online porn industry makes nearly $3 billion annually—children can now enjoy access to RedTube from within the womb.

According to interior minister Ögmundur Jónasson and his supporters, the ban would specifically censor "violent" and "hateful" pornography—an admirable idea in the abstract. But as Justice Potter Stewart famously said of hardcore porn in a Supreme Court obscenity case, "I know it when I see it." We're not in waters any less murky here. There's certainly some disturbing shit out there (graphic images of children are another would-be target of the Icelandic ban), but would this mean... no spanking? No biting? No consensual BDSM? Would Iceland's porn consumption be limited to lovey-dovey candlelit cunnilingus?

Logistically, the only reason this idea is remotely feasible is because Iceland is adorably pocket-sized: 322,000 residents share a Kentucky-sized island more than a thousand miles off the coast of Europe. It's both small and removed enough that it could be possible (to a certain extent) to jam traffic to offending websites—essentially stretching a cyber-condom over the country. Icelandic credit cards could also be blocked from use on porn sites, which seems worthwhile, because I've never seen a e-boob that I didn't pay for.

Unsurprisingly, concerns about censorship and restricted access have largely dominated this debate. Parliament member Birgitta Jonsdottir sets the odds of a porn ban passing at "near zero."

[Image via Shutterstock]

Turns out "gun raffle" isn't just a folksy term for Russian roulette. The New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police will give away a gun a day in May, with the proceeds from ticket sales to defray the cost of police cadet training. In North Dakota, a youth hockey league will raffle off 200 guns as a fundraiser next month.

The Associated Press reports that these events (and others like them) have attracted a storm of criticism from gun control advocates across the country.

Both were organized long before the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown last December, but for many, they're nevertheless far from timely. Three of the New Hampshire raffle's guns would be banned under legislation recently introduced in the Senate.

John Rosenthal, director of Stop Gun Violence, claims that gun raffles are "insane" and "criminally irresponsible." He spoke to the AP:

"In 33 states - including Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont - the winner of this AR-15 can turn around the same day and sell it to anyone without an ID or background check," Rosenthal said. "They should cancel their raffle and give away a nice mountain bike or snowmobile."

In fairness, it's not like these fundraisers plan to load guns into a T-shirt cannon and head to the nearest major sporting event. According to the rules of the New Hampshire drawing, any winner must be legally eligible to own such a gun and submit to any required background checks. (That Police Chiefs' raffle, by the way, is already sold out—all 1000 tickets have been purchased.)

But aside from issues of pure legality, Jonathan Lowy of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence argues that these events "trivialize the seriousness of firearms." After all, aren't raffle prizes usually more along the lines of a bucket of gourmet popcorn or free movie tickets?

[Image via Shutterstock]

Last week, Maker's Mark faced a public backlash after announcing they would lower the alcohol content of their whiskey to meet increased demand with a limited supply (read: they think you can't handle your liquor and it's starting to get really embarrassing for all of us). They changed their minds in a Facebook post this afternoon:

...effective immediately, we are reversing our decision to lower the ABV of Maker's Mark, and resuming production at 45% alcohol by volume (90 proof). Just like we've made it since the very beginning.

Our cousins at Gizmodo wisely summed up why the planned dilution wouldn't matter much anyway. Nevertheless, I can think of at least one way to celebrate.

[Image via AP]

Early Saturday morning, a trio of thieves made off with $2 million in jewelry from a Jacob & Co. case in the lobby of Manhattan's Four Seasons Hotel. Although the New York Post insists on identifying the robbers as "slick," this wasn't exactly Ocean's Three.

With a getaway car in wait, two men approached a jewelry case in the lobby, broke the glass, and voilà: free fancy stuff.

This could be the best slash worst heist movie ever made. "We're going to need an expert: an expert at smashing glass. Then, get me a guy who can grab jewelry. I want the best in the business! And did I mention that both need to be very good at running away very fast? Finally, we'll need a third man—someone with a valid New York driver's license."

Says the Post:

They struck up a conversation with a hotel staffer about the Jacob & Co. case while concealing a sledgehammer, sources said.

"No—I'm just really, really, really, extremely happy to see you" is roughly how one imagines that exchange went.

Their task was made even simpler by what the Post calls a "shocking amount of faulty surveillance cameras" in the lobby. Though the Four Seasons may be one of the finest hotels in New York City, this is approximately what would happen if somebody robbed Fawlty Towers.

The supporting cast is equally fascinating. Jacob Arabo, owner of Jacob & Co., has designed jewelry for Madonna, Diddy, and other superstar clients—though his career was briefly interrupted in 2008 by a two-year imprisonment for his ties to a cocaine-smuggling and money-laundering ring. Arabo also goes by "Jacob the Jeweler," and—in "rap circles"—the "King of Bling."

And then there's Neil.

"I can't tell you nothing about nothing," said a man named Neil, who identified himself as hotel security.

I'll take that development deal in cash, Hollywood.

[Image via Getty]

Oscar winner Forest Whitaker was wrongly accused of shoplifting and subjected to a humiliating pat down at a Morningside Heights deli on Friday morning.

If West Side Story were written today, "Officer Krupke" would contain at least a verse and a half about stop-and-frisk, the NYPD's favorite pastime. But in this case, no cops were called—Whitaker was publicly frisked by a Milano Deli employee, in what seems to be an instance of blatant discrimination.

Is it possible that the man had just Netflixed The Last King of Scotland and thought the brilliant actor was, in fact, the reprehensible Idi Amin himself? On second thought—nope, just blatant discrimination. Gothamist spoke with a regular deli patron who was present for the incident with Whitaker. She claims to have witnessed previous negative treatment of black customers by the store's employees, as well having heard staff spout "racist crap."

Classy as always, Whitaker (who came into the store to buy a yogurt—any forensic scientist worth his weight in old-timey fingerprint powder knows that yogurt and crime do not mix) agreed to the employee's request not to involve the authorities out of fear of losing his job. Good luck with that one, buddy.

[Image via Getty]

A study published yesterday in The New Zealand Medical Journal suggests that you—yes, you—should fart on airplanes. Congratulations.

Though I wanted very badly to believe that flatulence might have aerodynamic benefits—does it generate lift?—the real issue is that you shouldn't not pass gas: high altitudes increase the gas content in the digestive system (potentially resulting in discomfort and bloating), so disregard the risk of embarrassment and go for it.

Nowadays everything is cancer this, cancer that, so why don't we divert all our NSF funding to the burgeoning research field of "in-flight flatulence?" Then again, such choice quotes as this one would sound 90% less improbably charming and sophisticated if spoken by an American:

"On the one hand, if the pilot restrains a fart, all the drawbacks previously mentioned, including impaired concentration, may affect his abilities to control the plane," they said. "On the other hand, if he lets go of the fart, his co-pilot may be affected by its odour, which again reduces safety onboard the flight."

I have many questions, not least of which is what is being served for dinner on this hypothetical flight.

The authors also recommend that seat cushions should contain charcoal, which can neutralize unpleasant smells—adding that it could be included in "trousers" as well. But then, according to the New York Daily News, their argument takes a slightly sinister turn:

The scientists also brought up the approach of restricting airplane access from flatus-prone individuals but acknowledged it was politically incorrect and less practical.

The TSA's No-Fly List just got a lot longer.

[Image via Shutterstock]

Just when you thought the Boy Scouts of America had a monopoly on organizational misbehavior, CBS Los Angeles discovered a video showing more than 13,000 boxes of unsold, unexpired Girl Scout cookies knowingly trashed last May. How many innocent Thin Mints have to die to satisfy your corporate greed?

In the footage, a bulldozer destroys a mountain of cookie cases as a worker excitedly yells, "Goodbye, Girl Scout cookies!" CBS LA's sources claim that the practice of dumping leftover Girl Scout cookies in this way is far from uncommon.

Reporter David Goldstein determined that the cookies in question were originally ordered by the San Gorgonio Girl Scout Council in Redlands, CA. In an interview, a council representative blames this waste on ABC Bakery, their supplier. If cookies are over-ordered, 1% can be returned to ABC Bakery for a refund—these 13,200 boxes represent that 1%.

It would be naïve to think that large-scale waste isn't a reality on the assembly lines and in the warehouses of major food conglomerates, but this is the gee-dee Girl Scouts, a service organization in which charity is supposed to be a priority.

Girl Scouts of the USA expressed regret over this incident, but explained that they had "no national policy" on what becomes of unsold cookies. Maybe it's time they enact one—especially considering that ABC is one of only two commercial producers of Girl Scout cookies in the United States.

Lest we forget, the Girl Scout Promise and Law resolve to "help people at all times" and "use resources wisely." My fourth-grade Girl Scout troop's tyrannical leader forced us to rake her (able-bodied) mother's lawn for our "community service"—this is a true story—but I have much higher expectations (and esteem) for the organization as a whole.

[Image via spirit of america / Shutterstock]

After a three-decade residency at Vogue, contributing editor André Leon Talley is leaving the magazine. Beyond the masthead, you might recognize ALT from his Louis Vuitton-clad tennis practice in The September Issue, or simply for his glorious collection of capes.

Talley recently signed on with former NBC co-chair Ben Silverman's production company to create a late-night talk show. Rumor has it that Vogue's distaste for the squawking, hideously gauche machine that is the—what do you call it?—television box played a role in his departure.

André is no stranger to TV, having already made the rounds on America's Next Top Model and Entertainment Tonight. And if his conversation with Beasts of the Southern Wild's adorable Quvenzhané Wallis is any indication, he has potential as a chat show host. (I, for one, would also support a switch from late night's standard desk-and-couch setup to ALT's conducting all interviews while hiding behind an armchair.)

Vogue chief Anna Wintour's distaste for television is well documented, as when she turned down a partnership with Project Runway. Although Citizen Wintour bristled at "cheapening" her magazine's brand, the show proved a cash cow for Elle.

Regardless, this is said to be an amicable split, with more Talley-Vogue collaborations on the horizon.

[Image via Getty]

Between the meteor (meteorite? meteoroid? meteorologist?) explosion over Russia and a close-flying asteroid that doesn't respect personal space, it wasn't a particularly relaxing Friday for the planet Earth. Things got even weirder last night when Bay Area residents spotted a mysterious fireball streaking across the sky.

I have seen this episode of The Twilight Zone, and I do not care for how it ends. But USA Today is quick to point out that San Francisco's so-called "sporadic meteor" was simply an astronomic coincidence:

No connections have been made between the California fireball and the meteorite that struck Russia on Friday or the asteroid that passed within 17,200 miles of Earth.

Sure. And none of this anything to do with these swarms of locusts, or the dead rising from their graves.

The West Village's storied Magnolia Bakery was shuttered by the Health Department Thursday due to a mouse infestation. Spokespeople predicted the Bleecker Street shop would reopen today, but a call to the bakery has confirmed that it remains closed.

Magnolia PR rep Sara Gramling explained that the mice were confined to the bakery's basement, where they had been driven as a result of flooding from Hurricane Sandy. Now that's brilliant spin: making your store's rodent problem sound like a FEMA storm shelter.

In recent years, Magnolia has established franchise locations on such distant shores as Los Angeles, Qatar, and even the Upper East Side. But it's this, the original Magnolia, that has become a New York landmark and Sex and the City bus tour mainstay.

Outside the bakery, morale is low. The New York Post spoke with would-be patron Dave Harshbarger: "I can't believe I came all the way from Pittsburgh for a rat-cake!"

Get your facts straight, Dave. You came all the way from Pittsburgh for a mouse-cake.

[Image via Getty]

Hilaria Thomas, wife and soon-to-be baby mama of Jack "Alec Baldwin" Donaghy, faces a lawsuit from a student injured in her Manhattan yoga class last month.

Plaintiff Spencer Wolff alleges that he suffered physically and emotionally after Thomas forced him "to perform a dangerous activity at a wall." Yoga, you see, generally consists of performing dangerous activities on floors.

Thanks to Wolff's comedically fancy pedigree, this reads like the New York Times wedding announcement version of a civil action. Currently a student at Yale, Wolff hopes to add a PhD to his gotta-catch-'em-all collection of degrees from Harvard, Columbia Law School, and the Sorbonne. A filmmaker and (one-time, anyway) Huffington Post contributor, he has also written a novel—which is, delightfully, available in full online. Gawker Book Club, start your engines.

From the novel's abstract:

Part comédie humaine...part epic tale of hope and perseverance, Resettlement is also a personal meditation on surviving trauma.

Sounds like something else he's gone through recently.

UPDATE: Commenter nyc1234, who claims to be a friend of Spencer's, provides a description of the injury (which sounds legitimately horrifying):

I know Spencer, basically what happened is that the yoga class was over crowded, he was forced to be right up against a large window in the 6th floor studio. In the class they were doing handstands, in the overcrowded studio he was thrown off balance and instead of crashing into the person in front of him he went to the side to avoid hitting anyone, his leg went through the window which was not safety glass, it shattered and he impaled his leg on a huge shard of glass, slicing through the muscle to the bone in a number of places, basically shredding the muscles in his leg and now he has to go through a lot of physical therapy to regain movement in his foot. Having large non-safety glass windows in a 6th floor studio that is overcrowded with people doing things like handstands is pretty insane, if he had gone through with more force he could have fallen out completely

[Image via Getty]

While you were sleeping, getting ready for work, or—most likely—doing anything besides being a protestor or a cop, United States Park Police entered the Occupy DC encampment at McPherson Square in riot gear at 5:30 this morning.

Earlier this week, a federal judge ruled in favor of enforcing a ban on camping in the city's parks. The police claim they do not plan to evict anyone; according to the The Washington Post, "officials will check the tents for sleeping gear and leave."

Some protestors complied with the National Park Service's deadline, which required them to break camp by noon on Monday. Those that remained set up an enormous blue tarp, the Tent of Dreams, which sounds more like a Cirque du Soleil knockoff than anything I've ever heard in my entire life. Protestors have now removed the tent. (It is, as yet, unknown whether they had the chance to perform any fanciful circus acrobatics inside before doing so.)

Last weekend, more than 400 Occupy Oakland protestors were arrested when violence broke out between demonstrators and law enforcement. So far, the raid on the DC camp has been peaceful: here's hoping it stays that way.

(Image via Getty)

Yesterday, the U.S. attorney's office put an end to a two-year investigation into Lance Armstrong's potential performance-enhancing drug use. After surviving testicular cancer, Armstrong won the Tour de France seven years in a row between 1999 and 2005 (or, as we called it in 2003, the Tour de Freedom).

For skeptics, this won't come as welcome news. Former teammates Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis—most recently known for engaging Armstrong in an awkward bathroom encounter at a fancy-pants Aspen restaurant and a barrage of surreal Twitter trolling—publicly accused the cyclist of doping. (For detailed coverage of previous evidence levied against Armstrong, check in with Sports Illustrated and our cousins at Deadspin.)

But Lance, America's favorite one-testicled athlete and favorite non-astronaut Armstrong, sounds understandably psyched in a press statement released last night:

"It is the right decision and I commend them for reaching it. I look forward to continuing my life as a father, a competitor and an advocate in the fight against cancer without this distraction."

Armstrong's lawyer Mark Fabiani claims that Armstrong, who has never failed a drug screening, is the "most tested athlete in the history of sports." We'll have to see about that—it's not clear if Fabiani counted paternity tests.

(Image via Getty)

The Huffington Post, your favorite blog network slash mass content grave, will debut a streaming online video channel this summer. Wrote Ariana Huffington on her blog Thursday:

The network will be built around segments spotlighting the biggest, hottest, most engaging stories HuffPost is covering at any given moment and using them as the jumping-off points for conversations, commentary, and comedy. These segments will be as long — or as short — as they need to be. We won't be limited by the usual time constraints of TV.

The HuffPo Streaming Network will be run by a staff of 100, with founding editor Roy Sekoff at the helm. Sekoff described the network's content as a "never-ending talk show," though I'm not sure if "never-ending talk show" is a selling point or one of Dante's circles of Hell.

Huffington has promised 12 hours of live, original programming per day at the project's start, with that figure ramping up to 16 in 2013. Knowing Ariana's gift for self-promotion, it's likely that at least 8 of those 16 hours will be a personal video blog. Just saying: the YouTube username lonelyentrepreneur15 is up for grabs.

This announcement comes soon after Huffington's January launch of a French edition of the site, (wonderfully) called Le Huffington Post. A year ago tomorrow, the HuffPo was purchased by AOL. Since then, their viral propagation has been seemingly unstoppable—that's "viral" in the old-fashioned sense, like herpes.

(Image via Getty)

Sexy Parisian movie posters featuring Oscar contender Jean Dujardin, star of The Artist, have journalists worried that he may have compromised his wholesome appeal and apparent legitimacy as a dramatic actor. Could this photo cost him Best Actor?

The images—of Dujardin holding a pair of spread female legs—have been called offensive to women by some, and called nothing at all by others, because they are too busy staring into his beautiful, beautiful eyes and beautiful, beautiful stubble. The ads promote Dujardin's upcoming Les Infideles ("The Players"), a satire about philandering husbands. CBS News reports that, in response to media backlash in France, the posters are being taken down. (Don't know what to do with them? Contact me.)

But, lest we forget, as new as fans of Serious Oscar-Worthy Films are to Dujardin, he is equally new to Serious Oscar-Worthy Films. Dujardin is famous for in France for comedy: as the bumbling, hammy lead in the OSS 117 franchise, a secret agent spoof that's a lot more Austin Powers than Tinker Tailor.

It's unclear whether Dujardin's poster will actually have a negative effect on his reputation with the Academy voters—bad publicity is, after all, still publicity—but odds are that it'll soon be forgotten in favor of a new instance of the full-moon loopiness that descends on Hollywood during Oscar season. Remember that last year gave us the otherwise brilliant Melisso Leo's bizarro campaign in support of her Supporting Actress nomination for The Fighter. What's For Your Consideration is generally a whole mess of crazy.

I, for one, am not complaining. Jean Dujardin, you make me wish I took French in high school. Google Translate's lack of dirty words is making my fan mail hard to write.

(Images via Getty and Mars Distribution)

As Gawker's self-styled Foreign Correspondent—I'm expecting an engraved ivory deskplate via International FedEx any minute now—I'll start you off with news from Great Britain, a country so great it tells you so right in its name. (I'm all for taking a red pen to the Constitution and refashioning ourselves as the Awesome United States.)

Princess-in-law Pippa Middleton has rekindled a romance with an ex-boyfriend. He may be loaded, but George Percy's £315 million is the least interesting part of his inheritance. The Sun reports that his family's vast 100,000-acre estate "includes Alnwick Castle, movie setting for Harry Potter's wizard school."

Damn. Mind you, it "includes" Hogwarts. (Pro Tip: 42% of UK citizens are wizards.) What else does it "include?" The nation of Monaco?

Get it, girl. Despite the media's obsessive attention to the Royal Family—and the Extended Royal Family, and Facebook friends of the Royal Family, and anyone who thinks they might have once seen a member of the Royal Family at the supermarket—Pippa has remained poised, even in the face of hard-hitting journalistic inquiries into her no-pants grown-up all-night sleepovers with her last boyfriend. Plus, her butt is awesome. Take note, other sisters of female celebrities.

Best of luck, Pippa, but if this doesn't work out, please rebound with someone who owns a TARDIS.

(Image via Getty)