It's over: America's worst singer and Britain's worst comedian to divorce.

Newt Gingrich tears up discussing mother.

The scheduled end of the world next year will be excellent for Mexico's tourist industry.

Cancun to exploit vague legal verbiage to perform gay weddings, attract tourists.

The NYT on the fine line Obama walks on LGBT issues:

Mr. Obama's strategy, administration officials and gay-rights advocates said, reflects two conflicting forces. He recognizes that support for gay rights and same-sex marriage is growing, particularly among young voters.

But he is reluctant in an election year to be drawn into a culture-war issue — one that reliably helps Republicans turn out evangelical voters in their favor and that also strikes a particular nerve with religious black voters, a bedrock Obama constituency in battleground states like North Carolina and Florida.

The 10 best physics books of 2011.

Happy birthday, Patti Smith. Catch some vintage, savage Smithery AFTER THE JUMP …

The AP's big story on the plight of LGBT seniors:

Experts say many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender seniors fear discrimination, disrespect or worse by health care workers and residents of elder housing facilities — ultimately leading many back into the closet after years of being open.

That anxiety takes on new significance as the first of the 77 million baby boomers turns 65 this year. At least 1.5 million seniors are gay, a number expected to double by 2030, according to SAGE, the New York-based group Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders.

"Sista P" to return to Jamaican leadership after "landslide" election.

Neal Polack knew Christopher Hitchens better than anybody:

It was 1972, the height of our mutual virility. He and I went to a pub to celebrate his most recent intellectual victory over the establishment press. I intimated that sometimes women could be funny on purpose. Even back then, the thought enraged him. Hitchens threw a drink in my face, pressed a lit cigarette into my neck, and hit me over the head with a barstool. The next thing I knew, it was two days later and I was lying hogtied and naked beside the M5. Hitch had already severely damaged my reputation in a vicious essay in the Guardian. But that's how he operated, and that's why we loved him.

Need a New Year's resoluton? Presenting Paul Angelo, gay matchmaker and noted crazyperson, who suggests an "urgent" moratorium on anal intercourse. (HT: Michelangelo Signorile)