There's a sex scandal brewing in China, and the photos associated with it may just be the cheesiest in the history of online scandals.  More than 100 photos of three men and two women having sex went viral on China's microblogging service Sina Weibo earlier this month, International Business Times' Amethyst Tate reports. The men among the lovers allegedly include a Communist party secretary of a county in the Anhui Province, his deputy secretary, and a party youth leader at Hefei University.

Wang Minsheng, the highest ranked official accused of being part of the orgy, denied that he was in the photos. First he said the pictures were all photoshopped by someone trying to slander him
secretaries, they said according to Offbeat China.

Wang Yu, a college youth leader, is the only one to admit fault, saying he and his wife are in the photos. (No word on which ones they are.) The two were both subsequently kicked out of the Communist Party and fired from their jobs. The identity of the other men and women in the photo are still unknown. Wang Yu told officials that the other two men were strangers, not the accused party leaders.

The real hilarity is in the sex photos themselves. The tamest one features three apparently naked, pale-skinned men and two women with black camisoles. Two of them are holding up v-for-victory (or peace) signs:

The fivesome then takes rowdier and rowdier photos. That is, rowdy with dashes of friendly v-for-victory hand signs and cheesy grins thrown in. (NSFW pictures from Chinese news sites here and here.) After this group shot, another group picture is taken, only without the black camisoles. From there, things get... Well, explicit.

Credit where credit is due: Americans' latest social media-based political sex scandal only featured one measly photo of the clothed crotch of Anthony Weiner. More than 100 photos documenting an entire sex party is a sort of treasure mine as far as these things go, and somehow together feel more ridiculous than just filming the whole thing.

 In the wake of the shocking news that Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds were secretly married over the weekend, the nation's best and most intrepid reporters have been seeking out old loves of the couple to get their shattered reaction. So far they've gotten Lively's former longtime boyfriend and Gossip Giggles costar Penn Badgley, who says, unconvincingly, that he is happy for Lively. He told reporters in Toronto, "I'm happy for her. Genuinely happy." Oooh, Penn. Shouldn't have added that "Genuinely happy." That makes it seem a bit too belabored, you doth protest too much, y'know? "I'm happy for her. Genuinely happy. So f-cking happy. So happy I could spit in someone's eye. So genuinely happy that I think I might just go home and put on 'Losing My Religion' an sit in a ball on the floor and soul scream for a while. So perfectly, truly happy for her that I might take a long walk off a short pier, go swim out to China or somewhere, disappear like Robinson Crusoe, live a new life, a new pure perfect life where hearts don't get broken, because everything is good and I am blissfully alone, on my little island of wonders. That's how happy I am for Blake and her wedding." Poor Penn! Poor damaged soul. [Us Weekly]

Meanwhile, Ryan Lochte isn't sweatin' it. Yeah for some reason he was asked how he feels about Blake Lively getting married, I guess because he said a little while ago that he has a crush on her, and he's takin' it pretty well. "I just heard about [the wedding]. I didn't even know she had a boyfriend until someone told me after I said I had a crush on her. That's great for them. I just want to congratulate them and wish them the best." Aw, good kid, good kid. And hey, thinks are lookin' up already. Not only did he get to meet and hang out with Paris Hilton recently, who he says is very pretty, but he was also seen chatting up 81-year-old model Carmen Dell’Orefice at a Fashion Week event. Yes the octogenarian was giving Lochte tips on modeling and fashion. Lochte in turn asked her questions like "Did they have electricity when you were a little girl?" and "What was the war like?" The two got along famously and probably Dell'Orefice (quite a name...) will manage to seduce him back to her apartment, where Lochte will stand and say, "Hey, this smell's like my gramma's house." [People, Page Six]

Prince William and his chestnut bride Kate Middleton have arrived in Singapore, where they will tour on behalf of the Queen and her Diamond Jubilee. They spent an afternoon going to the Botanic Gardens, where famous orchids are kept, one kind of orchid named after William's late mother, Princess Diana. The couple now has an orchid named after them too, the Vanda William Catherine, which has "white petals with purple-red spots and a purple lip." Yes, white like their skin, the purple lips relate to their blue blood, and of course the purple-red spots are their nipples. Yeah, it's a little weird, but that's what it is. After doing some glad-handing at the flower hut, a tired Wills and Kate returned to their hotel, the Raffles, to get some rest. Kate murmured to William about the pretty flowers they'd seen as she drifted off to sleep, while a worried William stared at the ceiling, the world "nipples" playing luridly over and over and over again in his head. [People]

Here's an item about Tavi Gevinson, that little girl who has that website, telling a fan at some sort of talk in New York that it is OK to like Taylor Swift and that you don't have to feel guilty about it. She said, "If you want to like Taylor Swift, I think you should and not feel bad. Because, ultimately, there are so many other things to feel bad about." Which Page Six praises as wise, but really isn't that wise. I mean, come on, I know she's a tiny child just struggling to comprehend the big wide world and so deserves some slack, but let's not call things wise that aren't that wise. You wanna like Taylor Swift? You go on with your bad self, child. See? I just said it too. It ain't that hard. A wise response to the question would have been something about how Taylor Swift's relationship with Conor Kennedy represents the downfall of polite American society and what that might mean for our precarious future. [Page Six]

"I remember sitting there in the dark, arguing with myself," Katherine Stone said of the nights several years ago when her baby simply would not go to sleep.

A women's health advocate and Babble blogger living in Atlanta, Ga., Stone hadn't slept through the night in months, and she was at her wits' end.

"It's torture," she said. "It's like, 'When is this ever going to end?'"

Inevitably, she found herself uncertain about whether to let her baby cry.

"If I go in too soon, will she not learn to self-soothe?" Stone recalled herself thinking. "If I go in too late, have I taught my baby that I'm not reliable? It was a nightmare."

Stone's story is a familiar one among many new parents. Nearly half of mothers with babies over six months of age report problems with their baby's sleep. This common problem not only leads to sleepless nights for parents, but it also doubles the risk that moms will suffer from feelings of depression.

Now, a new study released today in the journal Pediatrics suggests it is OK to let babies cry while trying to fall asleep -- a finding that may help settle a long-running debate among both parents and experts over whether allowing a baby to cry itself to sleep harms the child in the long run.

Australian researchers looked at 225 babies from seven months to 6 years of age to compare the difference between parents who were trained in sleep intervention techniques and those who were not. Specifically, researchers allowed parents in the sleep intervention group to choose one of two sleep training techniques to use with their baby. Parents who chose "controlled crying" responded to their infant's cry at increasing time intervals. Parents who chose "camping out," also called "adult fading," sat with their infant until they fell asleep, removing themselves earlier each night over three weeks.

Parents in the control group were not taught the sleep training techniques and instead provided their own routine care.

What the researchers found was that children and mothers in the sleep training group had improved sleep, and the mothers were less likely to experience depression and other emotional problems. These benefits lasted up to the time the babies turned 2.

Moreover, the study looked at various factors to determine whether harm was done to children in the sleep training group, including mental and behavioral health, sleep quality, stress, and relationship with their parents. They found no differences between children in the two groups, leading researchers to conclude that these sleep training techniques are safe to use.

"[P]arents can feel confident using, and health professionals can feel confident offering, behavioral techniques such as controlled comforting and camping out for managing infant sleep," the researchers write in the study.

In the world of the web trolls, this was an unqualified call to arms.

When Big Apple Pizza owner Scott Van Nuzer bear-hugged and hoisted President Obama off the ground during their brief meeting in Fort Pierce, Fla., Sunday, it wasn't only the (startled) press corps that took notice.

Earlier today, users flooded the rate and review website Yelp, sending Big Apple Pizza's overall rating in a tailspin.

"Talk about committing business suicide. After picking up Obama, your (sic) books are gonna be in the red pretty soon. Not too smart," wrote one commenter, who delivered his one star (out of five) rating from Cottonwood, Ariz., about 2,200 miles away.

But just as quickly as Big Apple's stars disappeared, they were back. The backlash to the backlash was delivered swiftly. By late afternoon, Van Nuzer's pizza spot was back up in the rankings, registering a full five stars.

Another user, this one checking in from Brooklyn, N.Y., 1,165 miles away, chirped: "Really, conservatards? You try to trash a man's business because he likes a different political candidate than you? What scum you all are. Go crawl back in your holes. SCOTT VAN DUZER IS MY HERO!"

Of the 229 comments listed on the page (30 of them "filtered," one removed for violating terms of service), only two were published pre-bear hug, the most recent coming in 2010.

The oldest review, the first posted on the Big Apple page, delivers a less partisan evaluation.

"Nice variety of food for lunch or dinner," Bob O. from hometown Fort Pierce wrote on Dec. 26, 2009. "Love the Pizza, wings, subs and the best strombolie in town. Great atmosphere in newly renovated dinning area, and flat screen TV's to enjoy sports. Family setting as Scott VanDuzer (sic), Fish and the rest of the staff make you feel right at home. 'Special People' and good food make for a local favorite."

Lana Del Rey claimed the title of British GQ's "Woman of the Year" and got naked for the cover of the risque issue.

Wearing nothing but diamond and sapphire jewelry and bright red lipstick, Del Rey poses nude for the cover of British GQ's "15th Annual Men of the Year Awards Special Issue."

The magazine has been criticized for sexism in the wake of the release. Tinie Tempah, Robbie Williams, Mad Men actor John Slattery and James Corden each appear clothed on alternate covers. Del Rey, the sole female, is the only one who appears disrobed.

"Objectification is complicated—I don't have a problem with a naked lady here and there per se, but when ALL YOUR LADIES ARE NAKED, those of us ladies with clothes on start to wonder why you even keep us around," wrote Jezebel's Lindy West. "Like, you're just going to have one lady...and she has to be naked?"

While Del Rey's nude British GQ photo shoot will surely attract viewers (and critics), her winning "Woman of the Year" has a lot more to do with her rocketing career than it does with her naked body. British GQ explains:

    Having provoked equal amounts of debate and outrage throughout an incredible year, she fufills one of the key requirements for any good pop star: she gets talked about. Following the all-conquering "Video Games" and her number one debut album Born To Die, Del Rey signed to NEXT models, wrote the best song on Cheryl Cole's last album, teamed up with ASAP Rocky and has acted as a muse and model to Mulberry, Jaguar and H&M. Truly 2013 is hers for the taking.

Del Rey, born Lizzie Grant, has surely come a long way from her days growing up in Lake Placid, N.Y. At 18 years old, the self-proclaimed "gangsta Nancy Sinatra" moved to New York City to pursue her dreams, singing at open mike nights and moving into a trailer park in New Jersey, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Emma Watson is living out another fantasy – the life of a high school kid that she missed out on growing up in the Harry Potter fold.

For her first major film role since leaving the world of Potter behind, Watson chose "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," in which she plays an American teen who's part of a clique of hip outsiders at a Pittsburgh school.

The 22-year-old British actress said it gave her a taste of a whole different life considering her cloistered upbringing on the set of the Potter franchise, in which she was cast as bookish young hero Hermione Granger at age 9.

"It felt pretty exotic to me. It really did. It was a very voyeuristic experience," Watson said in an interview Sunday at the Toronto International Film Festival, where "Perks" played ahead of its U.S. theatrical release Sept. 21. "Getting to go to Friday night football and Olive Garden, school dances and all of that stuff. That was really another world to me."

She's rich and world-famous because of the eight "Harry Potter" films, and Watson shares Hermione's studiousness, spending a couple of years at Brown University years before launching into a busy post-"Potter" film schedule.

Yet for all the worldliness that comes with her Hollywood experience, Watson said that growing up in a bubble of celebrity has left her feeling like a kid when it comes to many things.

"There are some parts of me that feel very old, and then there are other parts of me that are, like, I have a sense of my own arrested development," Watson said. "There are some parts of me right now that are probably going through adolescence."

Her work ethic is fairly grown-up, though. While attending Brown and working on last year's "Harry Potter" finale, Watson squeezed in a small role in the Marilyn Monroe drama "My Week with Marilyn."

After "Perks," she co-starred in Sofia Coppola's 2013 release "The Bling Ring," playing one of a group of celebrity-obsessed Los Angeles teens who burgle the homes of Hollywood stars. Watson also has a cameo role in Seth Rogen's upcoming comedy "The End of the World," playing a version of herself alongside other stars coping with the apocalypse during a party at James Franco's place.

Watson came to Toronto for the "Perks" premiere on a break from her next project, co-starring with Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly and Anthony Hopkins in director Darren Aronofsky's biblical epic "Noah." She heads back to work Tuesday on that film, which also features her "Perks" co-star Logan Lerman.

Adapted by director Stephen Chbosky from his own novel, "Perks" casts Lerman as a deeply troubled high school freshman who falls in with a crowd of smart, nurturing seniors dealing with plenty of issues of their own. Watson's Sam becomes his dream girl, an old soul with a dark past herself earlier in her teen years.

After a decade as Hermione, Watson aims to give "Harry Potter" fans a taste of what she can do outside the world of witches and wizards.

No, this isn't a remake of Madonna's rom-com "Who's That Girl?" (1987), it's "The Hunger Games" star Jennifer Lawrence, vamping it up for last night's Toronto International Film Festival premiere of her buzzy new film, "Silver Linings Playbook."

Lawrence looked nothing like the stunner who made everyone say, "Who's THAT girl?" while walking the 2011 Academy Awards Red Carpet (above right), when she was nominated for her lead role in "Winter's Bone" (2010). On that red carpet, then 20-year-old Lawrence stole many a headline while rocking a Fancisco Costa designed Calvin Klein Collection gown that made Jessica Rabbit look frumpy.

In Toronto, Lawrence's look was… well, different. In fact, she's nearly unrecognizable! We're not saying she doesn't look amazing and elegant in her mostly-crimson, somewhat gothic, strapless Christian Dior Haute Couture gown and Dior black shoes, but Lawrence does look significantly more severe. The pencil-straight auburn hair stands out in sharp contrast to her easy, breezy, carefree blonde waves we've gotten used to. And the dark makeup and fingernails gravely accentuate the striking difference.

Perhaps Lawrence's new dramatic look is an early marketing push to land her an Oscar? There is certainly plenty of Oscar worthy buzz surrounding the quirky dramedy "Silver Linings Playbook," directed by David O. Russell and co-starring Bradley Cooper and Robert DeNiro. Lawrence and Cooper play two messed up, over medicated, therapy magnets who come together in hopes of finding some sanity in this crazy world, or at least some good company.

The Hollywood Reporter gushed over the film, especially over Lawrence and Cooper's obvious synergy: "The chemistry between Cooper and Lawrence makes them a delight to watch, their spiky rapport failing to conceal a mutual attraction."

Deadline notes the film "will almost certainly put stars Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro all in major contention for acting nominations. In fact, in what has previously looked like a pretty weak field for lead actress this year, Lawrence leaps to the front of the pack with a revelatory performance that seemed to knock most observers out."

 Russian opposition punk band Pussy Riot have released a new video in which they set fire to a portrait of President Vladimir Putin in a stunt likely to anger the Kremlin.

Three of the band's members - Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich - were last month given two-year jail sentences each after storming the altar of Moscow's main cathedral and staging a "punk prayer", calling on the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Putin.

Their jail sentences - for the crime of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred - drew sharp international criticism with opposition groups saying the case was part of a Kremlin crackdown on dissent.

In August, the all-female collective said that two other band members who had taken part in the same cathedral protest had fled the country - the whereabouts of the roughly dozen other members who did not take part in the stunt is unknown.

In the new video, which was released on the Internet and featured three anonymous band members who were performing on behalf of their jailed friends, women donning balaclavas - the band's trademark -
are shown abseiling down the facade of an abandoned or under construction building.

A giant white banner depicting a guitar-wielding woman in a red miniskirt with the caption "Pussy Riot" is unfurled on the building's facade and, beneath it, smaller cardboard portraits of Putin and of Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, are shown hanging.

"We've been fighting for the right to sing, to think, to criticise. To be musicians and artists, ready to do everything to change our country, no matter the risks. We go on with our musical fight in Russia and our country is dominated by an evil man," female voices, speaking in English, exclaim in turns.

A MUM and daughter are about to go head to head  in the Miss Plus Size  International beauty pageant for bigger women.

Here, single mum of four and tea shop owner Michelle, 41, and budding  baker  Bianca, 23, from Charlton, south-east London, talk to JENNIFER  TIPPETT.


Michelle says

“FOR us, this is the ultimate mother-and-daughter experience — and to both  make the final after 400 ladies from around the world entered is a real  honour.

“We both really want to win and that’s great.

“And we’re the only mum-and-daughter BBW (Big Beautiful Women) team competing  in pageants globally.

“It just shows that us full-figured girls from south-east London can set the  standard and show the rest of the world how it’s done.

“I don’t consider either of us large. We’re in the middle.

“We’ve never dieted and I don’t consider it necessary.

“Sometimes we over-indulge on special occasions but who doesn’t?

“I have taught all my children the value of healthy food.

“We don’t sit around stuffing our faces. Everyone assumes because we are big  that we are lazy, which is just not true.

“It’s about time people appreciated that big women are part of society.

“As mum and daughter, we represent different ages and different sizes.

To be fair, a dancer doing their thing in public doesn't need any props to get noticed, but Scheinbert insists "it's not about the nudity."

"Now [pole dancing] is about acrobatics and trying to compete with somebody," Scheinbert said. "It's like playing H-O-R-S-E. One person does a move and another person tries to top it."

Andrew Katzander, founder of PoleRiders, a group of pole-based performance artists, believes that the activity is starting to become more mainstream and differentiated.

"There's a lot of dancers that have stayed with the whole high-heels and sexy moves, and others who have moved toward the gymnastic and athletic side of it," Katzander said. "Others are moving towards the more dance side of it."