Those precious Scandinavians, with their reputations for probity and craftsmanship and good working order. Do not be fooled. Behind the veil of Scandinavian tidiness lies a region rife with DEBT ADDICTS.

Fox News anchor Howard Kurtz has repeatedly claimed, most famously during a live interrogation on CNN, that his relationship with Fox News contributor Lauren Ashburn amounted to a “limited venture” for which the MediaBuzz host was compensated on a piecemeal “freelance basis.” Confidential documents obtained by Gawker, however, tell a dramatically different story.

An early version of the New York Times's coverage of yesterday's movie-theater slaying included this analysis: "The killing underscored the increased debate about when to use smartphones in public." The story was later revised.

Acclaimed molecular gastronomy chef Grant Achatz caused a stir over the weekend when he took to his Twitter account to ask his followers if a ban on babies was in order at his three-Michelin-starred Chicago eatery Alinea.

Los Angeles-based video artist Zach King has made a name for himself with his "quick cut"-style Vines, even making it to the semi-official Best Vines of 2013 compilation clip. But until recently, his work wasn't compiled into a single video.

Pope Francis, the Supreme Pontiff of the Holy Catholic Church, Bishop of Rome, and Gawker hero, has a bitchin' hog. A 1,585cc Harley-Davidson Dyna Super Glide, to be precise. And it can be yours, because he wants to sell it to help feed hungry poors or something.

A shooting has been reported at Berrendo Middle School in Roswell, New Mexico. The school was put on lockdown and the shooter apprehended. Two students were injured and sent to the hospital, but no deaths have been reported.

[Tennis fans protect themselves from the sun during a first round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, on Tuesday. Image via Aaron Favila/AP.]

Daniel Villegas was 16 years old when he confessed to the 1993 drive-by shooting murders of two teens in El Paso. In 1995, he was sentenced to life in prison. Now, he's about to go free.

A 22-year-old man suffered an erection for seven weeks after a mountain bike crash. The hard-on finally subsided after two weeks of medical treatment in a hospital.

Sorry, everybody: Edward Snowden's trove of government docs does not prove conclusively "that Washington is secretly run by a malevolent race of extraterrestrials known as 'Tall Whites'—who also, by the way, engineered Hitler's rise to power." But take heart! The truth is out there.

This probably doesn't bode well for the international community's upcoming Iran settlement talks, unless Bill Walton and Charles Barkley are mediating. Which would be fun, until the nuclear holocaust started.

People google a lot of dumb shit over the course of a given day. Just ask Casey Anthony.

Andrew Meyer caught viral fame in 2007 when, as a University of Florida student journalist, he tried to question then-Sen. John Kerry at an event and ended up tased by campus cops, despite his dudely entreaties for them not to do it. Guess what? Now he's on the press freedom beat!

Billions of dollars of legal costs related to endless findings of wrongdoing cost JPMorgan Chase only 27 cents per share in the fourth quarter. The company's profits fell to a mere $5.28 billion in the past three months. The bank is no doubt severely chastened by the serious consequences for its misdeeds.

A doctor convicted of selling at least seven newborns to human traffickers was sentenced to death on Tuesday.

The ragtag Self-Defense Council of Michoacán is riding around in bullet-riddled, bomb-charred pickups as the group fights to seize control of Apatzingán, a city in Mexico's Tierra Caliente valley, from control of a major drug cartel. And the Mexican government wants to stop them.

Pope Francis, addressing diplomats in the Vatican's annual "State of the World" remarks, denounced abortion as "horrific," "frightful," and "a symptom of throwaway culture." BBC News speculates that conservative clergy in Rome had been clamoring behind the scenes for such a condemnation since Pope Francis' election in March.

Mikhail Kalashnikov, small arms designer of the infamous AK-47 assault rifle, died just before Christmas, at age 94. And it's just now come to light that the honorary Russian general repented for his contribution to modern warfare in a letter sent to Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church in May 2012.