A new law in China requires that adult children visit their elderly parents "often," or risk being sued by them. Awww.

A 60-year-old woman undergoing dental implant surgery at a Swedish hospital learned the hard way that visits to the dentists never end well when the dental drill being used on her came loose and slid down her throat.

Remember when elegant British superstar Kate Winslet married a man who, like an idiot, changed his name to "Ned RocknRoll," and the whole world let out a collective, "Huh?" Today comes news that clarifies everything: Winslet's wedding gift, courtesy of RocknRoll's billionaire uncle, Richard Branson, is a trip to space. See? Doesn't this all make a lot more sense now?

What happens behind the scenes at Gawker? We know you ask yourselves this question every single hour of every single day, and we don't blame you. We are fascinating. Sometimes we order sandwiches for lunch, and sometimes we order burritos. Sometimes we listen to music while we blog, and sometimes we do not. Sometimes Max Read picks his nose, but not always. With all this in mind, we're sharing with you our official "behind the blog post" backstories for all of the posts you clicked the shit out of this year. Next up: Jay-Z explains who he is to an old lady, world goes awww.

Sure, the U.S. Congress is the butt of its fair share of jokes. People call it corrupt, out of touch, and a plague on the very concept of democracy. But give Congress its due: it's also incredibly unproductive.

Last night, Chicago suffered its 500th homicide this year, the first time that's happened since 2008. Awful milestone.

The Great Recession of the past several years took many things from America: our jobs. Our financial resources. Our pride. But as the economy returns to its former glory, we now face a new peril: our national supply of mansions is getting dangerously low.

Nick Stahl was arrested last night after LAPD vice officers working undercover allegedly caught him pleasuring himself inside a sex shop in Hollywood.

So you're making a sequel to the seminal porn film Semen Collection, but you just don't seem to have enough semen on hand to justify calling it a "collection." What do you do?

You're all too forthcoming with your BEST OF 2012 OR FIGHT ME ✌ Spotify playlists, but can you offer us something actually useful, like a working list of podcast episodes that were pretty great this year?

Our Cord Jefferson is over at The Awl with a wonderful year-end advice essay, "Don't Stop Running." Go read it.

There comes a time in every parent's life when he must thrust his child from the comforts of home into the cruel real world. For some people that means requiring your teenager to get a job for pocket money; for others, like the man in this video, that means hurling your youngster at full speed down a snowy hill with only shouts of "PIZZA, BRO! DO THE PIZZA!" to guide them.

At Gawker Media, we think commerce is a big part of our future. We're looking for a data wiz to join our commerce team and help us get there!

The Washington Post bills Ann Hornaday's essay on movies today ("I don't know where this national discussion will wind up," is her unproductive conclusion) on the front page of its website like so: "Have audiences had enough of guns, violence and blood at the movies? After the Newtown tragedy, will screen violence still be considered entertainment?"

The NYPD is still searching for the woman suspected of shoving a man in front of a Flushing-bound 7 train at the 40th Street station in Sunnyside.

Sometimes, instead of writing 40 words to go along with a viral Internet video, we write many words. Thousands of words, even. Since we do this somewhat frequently, those pieces can be easy to miss. With that in mind, we've collected our favorite Gawker longreads from 2012. No one's really working this week, so please print these out (just kidding, use your smart phone), kick back, and indulge.

Gawker Media sees a strong future for commerce on its properties. As such, we're looking for someone with an exceptional writing voice, a thing for shopping, and unmatched taste to lead commerce content for Jezebel.

A man being booked on domestic violence charges at the Gloucester Township police station in New Jersey this morning managed to shoot and injure three police officers before being killed when other officers in the area returned fire.

Little Payton has the word "apple" pretty down pat, but "banana" might take a while longer. In the meantime, the two-year-old should probably stick to doing what she does best: Initiating her mechanical dad's humor sequence.

George Zimmerman — who you may remember as the man who accosted and then shot a teen named Trayvon Martin for the crime of being black and wearing a hoodie — is in a bad place as the calendar slides towards 2013. Well, you knew that, but here's just one example of the pit that Zimmerman is currently in: he's being sued by a security firm that says he owes them $27,027 for services rendered. The response from Zimmerman and his attorney?