Django Unchained is on pace to become Quentin Tarantino's highest grossing movie in North America.

I think I have made my stance on birds fairly clear. With a few exceptions, birds are not to be trusted; it is not normal to have such soft, vulnerable bodies bookended with slashing beaks and razor-sharp claws. It is as unnatural as an armed marshmallow.

According to Politico, President Obama will nominate former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense on Monday. For those dreading the current, post-fiscal cliff lull in political bickering, the announcement will come as great news; Hagel has already faced criticism for anti-gay remarks in 1998, an interview in which he discussed the "Jewish lobby" in 2007, and for breaking ranks with Republicans during the Iraq War.

A bank robber who broke out of downtown Chicago's federal jail in an "old man" disguise has been recaptured. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, 38-year-old Kenneth Conley was arrested Friday while dressed as an elderly man wearing "sunglasses, a beret, an overcoat" and hobbling with "a cane."

The Church of England will now allow "celibate gay men" to become bishops; women and non-celibate gay men still barred.

If you'd forgotten your drunken or embarassing tweets from 2010, bad news: the Library of Congress is reportedly weeks away from finishing their project to archive the roughly 170 billion tweets sent between Twitter's founding in 2006 and April 2010, when the initiative was announced. Why are they archiving your tweets? All in the name of science and research.

There is not a detail in the story of France's Orson Welles Gérard Depardieu's apparently-real move to Russia to avoid higher taxes that will not delight you. After President François Hollande attempted to make good on his campaign pledge to increase taxes on the wealthy, Depardieu announced plans to leave France for Russia's 13% flat tax and his new best friend Vladimir Putin.

Early New Year's Eve, police in Brazil's Alagoas state thwarted a potential jailbreak when they captured a cat attempting to smuggle various escape tools into a medium-security prison. According to Google's probably very accurate translation of the State of Alagoas' official statement on the matter, the small black and white cat was found with " two saws, two drills for concrete, a headset, a memory card, a cell phone, three batteries and a mobile phone charger" taped around its stomach.

Earlier this week, a 24-year-old Tampa-area resident named Cameron Mohammed was walking with his girlfriend into Walmart at around 3 a.m. when the two were approached from behind by a 25-year-old named Daniel Quinnell. Quinnell allegedly yelled racial epithets at the two, then fired 20 shots at Mohammed with a pellet gun — pictured above — striking him multiple times in the head and neck. Mohammed was armed, too — but with a real .45 caliber pistol. He chose not to shoot.

An Indian millionare ruined a perfectly good gold shirt with Swarovski crystals, which are basically rhinestones.

New York's Journal News has hired armed security guards after receiving a barrage of criticism over its recent decision to publish interactive maps with the names and addresses of licensed gun owners.

Sometimes the New York Times profiles people that are genuine monsters of upper-class naiveté and privilege — like, say, the parents that have their kids flown to summer camp on private jets or The Ivy Plus Society. But sometimes the NYT does stories on well-meaning people whose lives end up looking really inane in print, like the non-married spouses who fret about the ridiculous names and phrases they call each other.

It's hard to believe that only yesterday io9 introduced us to "Vomiting Larry,", the mannequin-like robot designed to vomit on command "not just forcefully, but in an anatomically accurate fashion." In some ways it feels like old Larry's been with us for years, teaching us all how to vomit correctly. But he's not just a novelty vomiting robot; he's here to help scientists stop the spread of the stomach flu:

Vittorio Missoni was one of six people aboard a plane that has been reported missing off the coast of Venezuela. Missoni — as you could have guessed — runs the famed Italian fashion house Missoni along with his siblings Luca and Angela, neither of whom was on the plane.

How could a Forbes article that opened with "university professors have a lot less stress than most of us" go so wrong?

Say what you will about Rick Ross, but the man knows how to construct a character and then live out that lifestyle. His Instagram feed — username "richforever" — is an unending succession of expensive sneakers, cars, jewelry and courtside seats to basketball games, but he may have reached his zenith this morning when he posted the above photo. He is wearing a fur coat and holding what appears to be a baby leopard. His hat says "Kings." The caption for the photo is "Come & $uck a D-ck 4 a Millionaire. #TwoKings." That seems to present a problem, considering the presence of the wild cat, but I'm sure he'll figure it out.

The first comedian-founded atheist church in England is set to hold its first monthly service tomorrow. Pippa Evans (a "musical improv comedian") and Sanderson Jones (just a regular talking comedian) came up with the idea together.

There are as many roads to penury as there are paupers to follow them. As a writer, I always tried to see my own journey as material for nostalgic anecdotes to be delivered during acceptance speeches at some national awards galas. I like to imagine my struggles as leisurely, rather loopy jaunts.

This month was supposed to represent some sort of closure for Aurora, Colo., with the Cinemark that was the site of last summer's mass shooting set to reopen on Jan. 17 in a ceremony attended by the town's mayor and the state's governor. Instead it could also be marked by tragedy: police believe a gunman there is currently holding three or four hostages in a town house.

For the better part of the past 48 hours, 21-year-old New York rapper Azealia Banks (best known for her 2011 viral hit "212") has been holding the attention of her Twitter followers hostage. First it was a Twitter beef with fellow 21-year-old hip-hop up-and-comer Angel Haze, which resulted in a swapping of dis tracks. And then, last night, she really had people freaking out when, during a spat with Perez Hilton resulting from his #TeamAngelHaze status, she called him a "messy faggot":