For four days, a prolific car arsonist had Los Angeles car-owners posting up all night like nervous cowboys guarding their cattle from wolves. A suspect was arrested today; he might be mad at America for deporting his mom.

This actress and her musician boyfriend can't decide if they should keep the pregnancy (and the headlines) or get rid of it. This actor got engaged and is hoping a magazine will pay to announce it. All of this, and the answers to your favorite blind items revealed.

Ancient Australian fertility god Rupert Murdoch has joined Twitter, and so far he is really bad at it. Not that it has stopped the news media from exhaustively covering his Twitter exploits—which so far include scrubbing a Tweet off of his timeline after it apparently offended people—and for getting completely hoaxed by a fake Wendi Deng account.

Every country rings in the new year in their own special way, but mostly they all involve fireworks and cheering. Here is a collection of midnight in a handful of cities around the globe.

If you're like us, you spent a lot of time this year reading words. But which words were the best words? (Not "amazeballs," for sure.) Here, each Gawker staffer recommends the best things he or she read this year—books, articles, blogs, comics and more.

After spending Christmas apart and being spotted in public without their wedding rings, Russell Brand made it official and filed for divorce from pop singer Katy Perry. He proposed to her on New Year's Eve 2009, so it's about exactly two years since they got engaged and a year since their October 2010 marriage.

Forget SOPA. The biggest online intellectual property story last week was the shutdown of a website offering downloads of the cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, which shook the burgeoning "brony" community to its core.

Bronies (bro+pony) are adult male fans of the new series launched in 2010 based on the classic ‘80s My Little Pony toy that [spoiler] your mom secretly threw out your collection of when you went to college.

If you think bronyism sounds like something only a serious pervert living in his mother's basement would be into, you're only about 30% correct. To address your immediate question: it's not ironic. It's nerdy guys who genuinely enjoy an animated series about ponies. The show has a legitimate appeal to older audiences—high production values, snappy dialog, and a heartwarming message. But the online fan culture of bronies grew out of 4chan, so they have a computer nerd vestigial tail of Mountain Dew, anime appreciation, chronic virginity, and cyberbullying.

Bronies have their own news sites, fan forums, and even a healthy amount of fan art of ponies doing unspeakable sexual acts on Tumblr. They've had real life meet-ups, and an upcoming BronyCon in New York will feature appearances by voice actors from the show.

We love that we have such wonderful, wacky, and wild commenters, and we love that you guys disagree, argue, and have intense conversations. But some people need to know how to fight fair.

Tacoma Community College music instructor Kevin Gausepohl has some unconventional ideas about vocal instruction. But let's not dismiss them out of hand.

It's almost New Year's Eve and you're going to go to a party and everyone is going to ask, "What is your New Year's Resolution?" Don't say "quit smoking," "lose weight," or "get a new job," because all of those are bound to fail. Here's a list of some nice easy ones that are all related to pop culture that you can tell people you're working on. They're fun and easy and everyone will think you're fantastic for having them.

Today on Franzia Presents Today, Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb were talking about what life was like before Hoda met her boyfriend Jay and Kathie Lee referred to the time as "Before Jay. BJ." I'm blushing for you, Hoda.

The year-end listicle is a stressful affair. It's important: You are defining a moment in history. It's hard: You have to remember stuff that happened twelve whole months ago, which is multiple millennia in internet years. Finally, it has a strict deadline: If you procrastinate, then the work you've done will be rendered completely irrelevant at the stroke of midnight on January 1st.

We've got two options here: (1) A person sobs remembering times with his mother, who struggled with bipolar disorder and depression and died of cancer in 2003, or (2) Newt Gingrich does a very Newt Gingrich thing in trying to save his campaign by crying a couple of days before voting starts. Or (3), some sort of comibination. We've got three options here! You decide.

Every year Lake Superior State University bans a bunch of words and phrases from the English language for good. They just released their list today and, I must say, it is amazing. Oh wait, we can't say "amazing" anymore.

Everyone who is not a savvy financial professional would be well-advised to pursue a single investing strategy: buy and hold. That means, whatever you do, do not try to "trade" stock and mutual funds, as if you know what you're doing. Because you don't. Millions of Americans grasp this concept. At least two of their elected representatives do not.

This actress' husband cheated in the craziest way possible: with her famous mother's husband. This British star has an online gay lover and this Hollywood couple is getting separated. This is the only thing that has nothing to do with closet cases.

This is not just a list of media people we don't like. Nor is it just a list of media people who had a bad year. This is a list of media people who—abundant evidence shows—should not be in the media, any more. Give it up. Try something else. (We'll even make a suggestion.) You've given it a shot. It's not working any more. The media is not for you.

Here you see (an extremely uncooperative) Carlos Fabara, an NYPD sergeant of 14 years experience, being hauled off a Greyhound bus and arrested, for being drunk. Too drunk to ride a Greyhound bus? Think about that. A helpful Youtube commenter explains: "yeah so before the video was taken, he and his friend were stumbling drunk and slurring when they boarded (too early) and refused to get off when they were asked to wait outside with the other ticketed customers. Plus, the driver was on a short fuse after [a man was kicked off for smoking cigarettes in the bathroom], so things just escalated really quickly. they weren't doing anything in particular, but they also weren't cooperating. not really sure if they deserved to get arrested, but the one officer did."

As promised, the island nations of Samoa and Tokelau will jump 24 hours into the future tonight, when the international date line is revised to facilitate Samoan trade with Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. (American Samoa will stay on Hawaii's side of the line.) When 18,600 Samoans and 1,500 Tokelauans go to bed tonight, it will be a Thursday. When they awake, it will be Saturday.

In 2011, we watched as tech villains found creative new ways to violate our privacy. They misappropriated our social networking profiles, stalked us through our phones, and plucked secrets from our wifi networks. To help you better prepare for 2012's inevitable privacy attacks, we enumerate below the most worrisome threats you should monitor in the coming year.