They invited him to a party. They told him to bring the alcohol, which he did. And when he showed up for this promised bash in the Bronx, they proceeded to mercilessly beat, torture and sodomize the man they had invited overbecause he was gay. They also savagely beat two teenage boys, one whom admitted having sex with the man. And then they tried to scrub away any sign of the horrors they inflicted. Seven of the accused attackers have been arrested. Two remain at large. This is the world we still live in.

Meanwhile, in Portland, a mother is accusing police of not taking seriously enough a series of violent and sexual threats sent via text message to her teenage son. We know what bullying can lead to. Police say they are investigating ...

A drill has finally reached the 33 miners trapped some 2,050 feet below ground in Chile. The effort took months, and required help from sources including the likes of NASA. But compared to what lies ahead in the high-pressure rescue effort—when the men have to be lifted through a narrow, rocky shaft with scant inches of clearance on any side—officials are calling it the easy part.

Napster genius and Facebook co-founder Sean Parker "likes" marijuana legalization. Parker and another co-founder, Dustin Moskovitz, have contributed a total of $170,000 to California's dope-taxation ballot measure, Proposition 19. Most of the financial backing for the measure comes from California's famed pot-growing "college," Oaksterdam University.

Its citizens have hardly a bite to eat, but that doesn't mean North Korea doesn't know how to throw one hell of a party when it needs to. The occasion? The coronation of Kim Jong Il's son as his successor. And it's all being staged for foreign journalists.

[Insert joke about inflexibility here.]
A Southern Baptist preacher speaks the obvious: Yoga is not Christianity. No shit. But he also says Christians should avoid it. (Not that evangelicals can't stretch: Witness how some attempt to condemn abortion but celebrate capital punishment. Or complain about religious discrimination but think its OK to keep the gays from marrying. Or the fact that they can cite the Bible to justify anything they want, even if they don't always know what the fuck the Bible actually says. Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera.)

Space oddity: Planet Earth's only set of astronaut twins might finally make their way into space at the same time. Which means they'll have to take a break from surreptitiously sleeping with one another's wives and other twins shit that twins get to do.