Like other mega boy bands that came before them, gang of twinks One Direction have a crazily devoted — and sometimes outright crazy — fanbase primarily made up of teenage girls. What makes 1D fandom fascinating is the underground community of slash fiction writers that has driven a wedge in what should be a monolithic force — a phenomenon detailed by Amanda Hess in Tomorrow magazine.

Rahmatolla Vahidipour, the owner of a boutique in Flatbush, was shot three times and killed on Friday night, and his death is being linked to two other Brooklyn murders. Vahidipour and the two other victims — Mohamed Gebeli, killed in July, and Isaac Kadare, killed in August — shared a few qualities: all three were killed in the small Brooklyn stores that they owned, were at least 59 years old and were shot by the same .22 caliber pistol. All three were also of Middle Eastern descent, and were killed around each store's closing time.

As the violence between Israel and Palestine headed into its fifth day last night, owner of various awful news properties Rupert Murdoch asked a very thought-provoking and interesting question about the media's coverage of the conflict.

Thanks to his penis, Gen. David Petraeus is the central figure in what is arguably the biggest political scandal of 2012, but he's no stranger to controversies. You may remember back in 2007, when MoveOn.org ran a full-page ad in the New York Times that asked, "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" This incredibly innocuous and obvious pun — and MoveOn's point-by-point criticism of Petraeus below the headline — naturally exploded in the world of haughty Republican dipshits.

Fighting between Israel and the Palestinian people entered its fourth day today, and eight Palestinians were killed by Israeli fighter jets targeting Hamas government compounds, tunnels and transformers. That brought the overall death toll to at least 45, with all but three of those being Palestinians.

I'm sure your grandfather (Pop) is very cool, what with him being your grandfather and all. I have some unfortunate news for you, though: your grandfather (Pop) is simply just not as cool as 72-year-old Liu Xianping, a Chinese grandfather who models for his granddaughter's online clothing store.

When we last checked in with Scott DesJarlais, the distinguished U.S. rep from Tennessee's 4th district pictured here with an un-aborted child, he had been recorded in 2000 pressuring his mistress into having an abortion. This was notable because DesJarlais — who was elected back in 2010 thanks to support from an antiquated movement called "the Tea Party" — is virulently anti-choice. Here, he says so on his website:

The Tumblr "Hello There, Racists" calls out teens that made racist tweets about Obama. An endless well, unfortunately.

In my final year of attending a Christian sports camp in rural Missouri, the year before I started high school, they began to offer an elective Bible study group for young Christians who wanted a chance to read in the afternoons instead of learn to water-ski. The leader was a very kind, very impassioned man with a bristling chestnut mustache. He spent an hour every day for three weeks drawing the geographic conditions that led to the Flood and charting out the life spans of the Patriarchs on an old whiteboard for a group of prepubescent Christian nerds. I thought he was the most compelling person in the world. He had everything I could possibly aspire to have: a masterful command of the Bible, a deep and abiding love of God, a pleasant speaking voice, a dry-erase marker, a captivated audience.

Breaking news on the Gomez-Bieber front: last night, Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber had dinner together at a Japanese restaurant in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, according to TMZ's highly-trained fleet of spies, the date did not go well, as Gomez allegedly ditched the date after less than 10 minutes. Our own spies in L.A. (just trust me), overheard the entire conversation:

Like the rest of you, I've been worried sick this week about the fate of Hostess' top executives. Will they leave their bankrupt company with the millions of dollars they deserve? If not, who will provide for their families as they hit the unemployment line? Thankfully, we can all have a happy, stress-free weekend: Hostess executives gave themselves raises up to 300 percent even as they were preparing to file for bankruptcy.

Gymnast, Olympic gold medalist and Meme of the Year creator McKayla Maroney visited the White House on Saturday morning along with the rest of the U.S. Women's gymnastics team. While in the Oval Office, the two did their best interpretation of the state of Ohio's feelings towards Mitt Romney for the entirety of the 2012 election.

A man was arrested at the Oakland airport for wearing a "strange watch" that may or may not have been part of a bomb.

Utah clearly has a thing with goats. First there was the mysterious Goat Man wandering the Utah wilderness, and now there's Voldemort, the paperboy-attacking pet goat.

Just over a week after being reelected as district attorney in Cortland County, Mark Suben held a press conference today to confess his past as a porn star in the 1970s, a charge he'd denied just a few weeks before the election. Suben, who's held the office since 2008, admitted to lying in the days before the election, saying he used "bad judgement."

As seapunk internet artist Yusuf Islam (neé Cat Stevens) says, it's a wild world. General Petraeus was schtupping his biographer for almost a year and we had no idea. Richard Nixon almost got away with Watergate. Ted Kennedy maybe probably killed a woman and was never charged. It's a lot to think about, and sometimes I wonder, what other remarkably fucked up shit is going on right now that I don't even know about? Well you all are somewhere out there, looking at the same moon as me, thinking the same thoughts, because you all were very concerned about uncovering the truth this week.

Do you have literally nothing to do this weekend, including organizing your receipts, or sleeping? Consider celebrating your carefree life by taking in a truly mediocre meteor shower, courtesy of Mother Nature's amateur hour.

There have been no shortage of sore losers in the aftermath of last week's presidential election, but Pinetop, Arizona, may be home to the sorest loser of them all.

The New York Times drew first blood in its war against the peroxide hairdo known as Guy Fieri. After Pete Wells wrote his now-viral review of Fieri's Times Square tourist-trap house-of-horrors restaurant, Guy's American Kitchen & Bar, Fieri fired back on national television.

"Why am I wearing floral-print pajamas? Nobody knows." The New York Times interviews Taylor Swift.