Since Felipe Calderon took office in late 2006 and launched an assault on drug cartels, somewhere in the neighborhood of 60,000 people have died violently in that nation's drug war. It is not going well, in any sense.

Today is the 33rd anniversary of the disappearance of Etan Patz, the six-year-old New Yorker whose abduction in 1979 helped usher in a new age of terror and suspicion for American parents. Though Etan was declared legally dead in 2001, his case has never been solved. Yesterday, after three decades of false leads and a menagerie of suspects, the NYPD announced that a New Jersey man named Pedro Hernandez had confessed to strangling Patz and dumping his body somewhere in Manhattan. It's unclear at this point whether Hernandez's confession will hold water, if he acted alone, or if he is just a confused publicity seeker. Here's a look back at the case.

Eight new gay groping claims, two scrotum assaults, and one anus attack later, John Travolta's masseur-gate is in full swing—not that you'd know if you only got your news from The New York Times, which has yet to file a report on the megawatt star accused of manhandling nearly enough service industry employees to field a baseball team.

After decades of rumored gay bath house orgies and Scientology "cures," John Travolta's sex life is back in the news with sexual battery charges from a pair of male masseurs. Running parallel to the story of John Travolta's rise to fame is the story of his allegedly gay penis' rise to infamy. Now presenting John Travolta: A Portrait of the Actor as the Sum of His Gay Rumors.

LINSANITY! is sweeping the nation, and you're still fairly certain that that's not even a word. That's OK; it's not, really. But every now and then, a figure from the sports world emerges, words are invented (remember Tebowing?), and the athlete in question very quickly becomes impossible to ignore—even for non sports fans. This month, the unavoidable sports guy is Jeremy Lin, a 23-year-old Harvard grad and NBA player.

Last night, a young British woman who goes by M.I.A. flipped the bird to 111 million Americans. Revenge for the Revolutionary War? Punk rock gesture? Involuntary muscle spasm? And who was that woman, anyway? We answer all your questions.

Well so, if you couldn't tell I went to summer camp. It is my favorite place in the world because that is where I met all my favorite people in the world. More than that though, most of the things I hold to be true in this world, I learned from my camp friends. And one of those is the Muffled Tailpipe.

To the Windy City, where a man's painful dilemma may redeem itself by serving as a teaching experience for us all. The Chicago Tribune reports the harrowing nightmare of friendship gone awry: "A 24-year-old man is hospitalized after being stabbed outside of a Wrigleyville dance bar early this morning by a man who seemingly was about to give the victim a hug."

After Demi Moore's recent whip-it fiasco, it's become apparent that some of you do not know how to use whip-its. If we are anything here at Gawker, we are educators first and foremost. So while I wish Demi a speedy recovery, it is important that you all stop doing whip-its (not to be confused with my favorite butthole relaxant and room odorizer, Poppers) the wrong way. There is a right way to do them and I am here to teach you how. Also, don't be a goober; you should know what a whip-it is and how to do it by now.

Mitt Romney's tax returns are out, and so we've learned the truth: Mitt Romney is a rich person. Hadn't you always suspected? And because the first thing you want to be reading this Tuesday in January is a description of tax forms, here's your guide to Romney, his taxes, and the political effects thereof.

Today, some of the best websites on the internet—and Reddit—are blacked-out to protest SOPA. But you think "SOPA" is what an Italian tourist says when asking for the cleaning supplies aisle at an American convenience store. Here's a guide for those of you whose brains shut down when thinking about tech stuff, but still want to know what the hell everyone's tweeting about.

Everybody is talking about Tim Tebow. Except for you. Who is Tim Tebow? you're asking yourself, after spending 10 minutes nodding silently while coworkers discussed his game this weekend against the Patriots. (What sport is this? you are probably also asking. For the record: football.) It's okay, non sports fan: here is your exclusive guide to Tim Tebow.

You might have seen your friends posting about it on Facebook and Twitter, read about it in Entertainment Weekly, or even read the scathing things we had to say about, but absolutely everyone is talking about Downton Abbey. For all the uninitiated here is what you need to know about the British import.

For months now the hottest ticket in New York is to experimental theater "experience" Sleep No More. (Well, the hottest ticket has been Book of Mormon but this is a close second.) Maybe part of the reason is people know the show is full of nudity, an orgy, and other sexy goings on. Well, I figured out how you can get the most (ahem) bang for your buck and see all the nudity.

In the next decade, President Obama wants to raise America's college graduation rate to 60%. Currently, just over 40% of Americans aged 25-34 have college degrees. That means a lot of new college students will have to be added to the system, and soon. In fact, there is no hope of this being achieved.

Sometimes—as freedom fighters from George Washington to Che Guevara would affirm—the words and deeds of a person become so intolerable the it becomes necessary to write a scathing takedown of them, on the internet. This is our world.

Hating the New York Times Style section is a grand tradition. But what is it exactly that makes this America's most loathsome newspaper section? We analyze some of yesterday's Style articles in order to find the answer.

After much, much anticipation among media nerds, the New York Times has finally released the details of its online paywall. Which is coming to take your money very, very soon!

Slate, a website perpetually stuck in the interrogative case, provides an artfully useless Explainer column: Q: "Is there a reason so many murderers use their middle names?" A: "It seems to be a coincidence." Jared Lee Loughner's language conspiracy: disproved.

This video, explaining everything you need to know about a career in journalism, is being passed around the office at the New York Times. You'll see why. Would you like to write about pork belly futures, for a trade magazine?