NO! NOT POSSIBLE! NOT POSSIBLE! Via Uproxx .

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SWEET SASSY MOLASSY!

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You've earned that victory lap!

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Too cute...must bail...

ESPN / Via thebiglead.com

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Because the Russian alphabet is different than the English one.

Ryan Pierse / Getty

In case you didn't know, the Russian alphabet isn't the same as the English alphabet, which means the order of the Parade of Nations is going to be a little different this year because it will be in Russian alphabetical order. So to help you understand when your favorite team is up, here is the order in which the nations will be entering the arena:

Greece
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Albania
Andorra
Argentina
Armenia
British Virgin Islands
Belarus
Belgium
Bermuda
Bulgaria
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brazil
Macedonia
Great Britain
Hungary
Venezuela
Virgin Islands
Germany
Hong Kong
Georgia
Denmark
Dominica
Zimbabwe
Israel
Iran
Ireland
Iceland
Spain
Italy
Kazakhstan
Cayman Islands
Canada
Cyprus
Kyrgyzstan
China
Latvia
Lebanon
Lithuania
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Malta
Morocco
Mexico
Moldova
Monaco
Mongolia
Independent Participants
Nepal
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Pakistan
Paraguay
Peru
Poland
Portugal
Republic of Korea
Romania
San-Marino
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
United States of America
Tajikistan
Thailand
Chinese Tapei
Timor-Liste
Togo
Tonga
Turkey
Uzbekistan
Ukraine
Philippines
Finland
France
Croatia
Montenegro
Czech Republic
Chile
Switzerland
Sweden
Estonia
Jamaica
Japan
Russia

Yankees star will likely accept season-long penalty by MLB

AP Photo/David Karp, file

Alex Rodriguez has dropped his lawsuit against Major League Baseball and the players' association to overturn his season-long suspension, according to multiple reports. Rodriguez's attorneys filed notices of dismissal Friday in federal court in Manhattan.

In statements made from their official Twitter accounts, the MLB and MLBPA said they were pleased with Rodriguez's decision.

Via Twitter: @MLB

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The Olympics are off to an amazing start.

When this guy came in with the strong fist pump.

When his co-star got down with his bad self.

When this guy sang his heart out.

When we saw the pure joy on this guy's face.

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The colors represent the five Olympic rings and have nothing to do with LGBT pride.

During the opening ceremony's parade of nations, many athletes wore gloves with multicolored fingers, including the entire Greek Olympic team.

Quinn Rooney / Getty Images

The colors on the gloves' fingers represent the five colors of the Olympic rings. (The colors of the rainbow are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.)

sochi2014.com

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As criticism over Sochi approached fever pitch, Friday’s opening ceremony celebrated all the best Russia has to offer.

David Gray / Reuters

When the fifth Olympic ring failed to unfurl at the Sochi Winter Games' opening ceremony on Friday like a crumpled, stillborn star, it seemed a physical manifestation of the embarrassments that plagued Russia throughout the run-up — the unfinished sites, terrorism fears, and unjustifiable costs; the crackdown on LGBT rights, political opposition, and the free media. A designer tweeted a mockup of the failed ring as an asterisk leading to a footnote: "We didn't steal it, we just didn't manage to build it on time." State TV sheepishly cut to a shot from a rehearsal.

Despite the hitch, however, the ceremony was a delightful embodiment redolent of the rich history, cultural depth, and boundless, madcap charm that have always enticed foreigners to Russia. The show's director, state TV impresario Konstantin Ernst, said he wanted to show the world an "expression of love for our homeland" on behalf of "real Russians, untainted by decades of propaganda and the cold war."

That, judging by the ceremony, meant a Russia that was unabashedly European. The only Russian leader to make an appearance was its great modernizer, Peter the Great, who was shown storming across the sea to found St. Petersburg, Russia's first consciously European city. Dancers from the Bolshoi Theater acted out the ballroom scene from War and Peace. Russia's modernist art scene, arguably the most advanced in the world before it was quashed by Stalin's socialist realism, featured heavily, too, with names like Chagall and Eistenstein prominent in the run-through of the Cyrillic alphabet and the early Soviet period an homage to the Suprematism of Kazimir Malevich.

Like so many of the best Russian exports, it was often impenetrably quirky, too. A bizarre dreamlike sequence among cupolas in psychedelic colors ended with a girl ascending into the sky clinging to a balloon. Giant and terrifying mascots lumbered across the stage, including an apparently stoned bear. Nods to famous Russians like Grigory Mendeleev, inventor of the periodic table of elements, and helicopter designer Igor Sikorsky were accompanied by wilfully obscure references to Soviet children's' books and stilyagi, the short-lived hipster movement that sprung up after Stalin's death in 1953.

By celebrating the Russia we know and love, however, the ceremony also reminded us of how often Putin's Russia falls short of that ideal. Its aesthetic and apolitical tour through Russia's past, especially its tactful omission of World War II, came as a great relief given how aggressively the Kremlin uses its monochromatic interpretation of history as a nationalist wedge. Its European bent was a stark contrast from Russia's hostile tone towards the West, which Russian officials seeking to redefine Russia as a bulwark of conservative values routinely accuse of fomenting unrest and forcibly introducing gay marriage in the post-Soviet sphere.

And, in the end, Ernst's impeccable style could only do so much when Russia's substance is determined elsewhere. The Olympic charter limited Putin to a single sentence of boilerplate comments, but the ceremony's finale was undoubtedly his. Olympic flag-bearers included Russia's two most rabidly-pro Putin cultural figures, film director Nikita Mikhalkov and conductor Valery Gergiev, as well as a state TV reporter, Anastasia Popova, known for her favorable coverage of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Four of the athletes who carried the Olympic flame are also lawmakers who voted to ban "gay propaganda" and adoptions of Russian orphans by Americans, Putin's signature brazen anti-Western moves since returning as president in 2012.

These are Putin's Games: the Russia Sochi will present to the world is ultimately up to him. His country still has so much for him to draw on to please everyone. One hopes he sees it that way, too.

“I would not use a gay dating app in Russia or the Middle East [or other places with anti-gay laws] … on my phone,” said a security expert.

iPhone App Store

WASHINGTON — When Internet security experts took a close look at Hunters BBS, a Russian-owned hook-up app, they were alarmed.

The security was so rudimentary that anyone with basic computer skills would be able to get access to basic user information within a couple of minutes. Messages, photos, and location information were being transmitted to Russian servers unencrypted.

The timing of the discovery, a few days before the launch of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, made it even more disconcerting. The games earned a reputation as a prime hook-up opportunity during the 2012 games in London, when it became a running joke that an outage of Grindr's network was caused by heavy use, though the company denied that was the cause. But Russia is a different story. Its anti-LGBT legislation, widespread government snooping, and proliferation of vigilante thugs can make it dangerous terrain for online cruising.

BuzzFeed first approached security experts about Hunter BBS after its CEO, Dmitry Tsyvinski, issued a press release on Monday saying that the system had been hacked. The experts detected serious vulnerabilities beyond what Tsyvinski had reported, and asked BuzzFeed to hold this story to give the company time to patch their system, a task that they estimated could take a week of full-time programming. But within 17 hours, Tsyvinski sent a message saying it was fixed, although the app had still not been updated in the iPhone App Store nor in Google Play. The holes in Hunters BBS system remain, and exchanges with Tsyvinski raise doubt as to whether his company knows how to fix them or has the capacity or commitment to doing so.

Hunters is a relatively small app in the hook-up app market; it claims a global user base of 1.2 million, but outside experts say it probably has a user base of well under 150,000 based on publicly available information. Even with larger apps, users don't have a good way of knowing who they're trusting with their personal data — G-rated and X-rated pictures, private conversations, GPS coordinates — or what steps companies are taking to protect them from snooping. This is a concern even in countries where LGBT people are relatively safe. In places like Russia, the worries are far more serious.

"I would not use a gay dating app in Russia or the Middle East [or other places with anti-gay laws]…on my phone," said one of the security experts who evaluated Hunters BBS. The expert asked to be kept anonymous because he did not want his company associated with a report that might expose the system's users to be targeted by hackers.

Tsyvinski claimed a cyber attack had deleted the profiles of 72,000 users, blocked access to users around Sochi, and sent thousands of users a message in English that they would be arrested under Russia's law against homosexual propaganda. None of these claims could be independently verified, however, and the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, which is monitoring internet activity around the Sochi games, found no evidence that the app was blocked. And the law banning "gay propaganda" is technically an administrative offense, punishable by fines, not by arrest. But whether it was a hoax or not, it was clear that users were taking a serious risk by trusting the application with their data.

Even the major players among hook-up apps have shown vulnerability among users in the past. In 2011, a hacker in Sydney, Australia found a vulnerability in Grindr, which now claims more than seven million users worldwide. The hacker compiled a website that listed screennames, passwords, and Grindr contacts for around 100,000 people before Grindr took legal action to shut it down and patched its system.

Today, the app uses "basic security," Grindr CEO Joel Simkhai told BuzzFeed in an interview in November, declining to clarify further. But the app still operates over networks that can easily be monitored.

"Quite frankly, a lot of the [data] goes through WiFi networks and cellular networks — we can't control those," Simkhai said. "The Russian government has a lot of control [of communications] there [and] this is the post-NSA age where we would now realize that everything is very much available, particularly to government."

Hornet, a Seattle-based app that launched in 2011, has highlighted its security protocols in its marketing and has expanded in many countries with laws against homosexuality, including Egypt and Dubai. It is one of the most popular hook-up apps in Russia, claiming 100,000 daily users in Moscow alone.

"We use SSL protocols, which is the same encryption that the banks use," said Sean Howell, the CEO of Hornet. "The NSA has the keys to that, but aside from that it's very difficult to break this."

There are steps users can take for extra precaution. They can use virtual private networks (VPNs), which can reroute data through servers in other countries that may be more secure. One security expert suggested only using apps on a computer through a program that emulates a cell phone — that way, no one can identify users by figuring out their phone numbers.

But even if users take steps to protect data, there is still the chance that someone can hack a device if it is lost or stolen. Even more simply, and more relevant to Russia, users could be entrapped by someone else posing as another user.

Hate groups like Occupy Pedophilia have used social networks to lure gay men into meeting for what they think is a date, only to be kidnapped and humiliated in videos posted online. This has mostly been done through the Russian equivalent to Facebook, VKontakte, but hate groups could easily use hook-up apps the same way.

"I'm afraid they're going to target my users the way they target users on VK," Howell said, referring to VKontakte. The Hornet app sends out messages in Russian warning users to always meet in public, and it even randomly skews location data in the country so that location information can't be used to pinpoint users' locations.

Governments with anti-gay regimes sometimes take steps to block hook-up apps, as recently happened to Grindr in Turkey, but the technology they use to shut these apps down is usually relatively easy to circumvent by using a VPN.

In some countries, governments use apps for low-tech entrapment schemes to arrest gay men.

Scott Long, founding director of Human Rights Watch's LGBT program who is now a visiting fellow at the Harvard Law School, recently documented the story of an Egyptian who was arrested while working in Saudi Arabia. He went to meet someone with whom he'd connected through an online chatroom, and was met by police officers instead. He was given 150 lashes and spent two years in a jail cell with several other prisoners convicted of homosexuality — many of whom were arrested through apps including Hornet, Palringo, U4Bear, and WhosHere.

"All you need is [a] government that takes the issue seriously and wants to track down queers, or you need blackmailers with some level of technological skills … [these apps] will get hacked, it's inevitable," said Long. "The problem is that users really do feel safe."

But that sense of safety is what makes these apps so important in countries where LGBT people are embattled, said Hornet's Howell. These apps are about more than sex in countries where it is the only safe space many gay men can access. They provide a support system for people who would otherwise be isolated, and even prepares them to come out and assert their right to exist.

"We're not an apolitical company," Howell said. "What our apps do in some countries is incredible — it speeds up gay life 30 or 40 years."

Correction: This story incorrectly identified the name of the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab. It is Citizen Lab, not Community Lab.

“While what it means to be a family hasn’t changed, what a family looks like has.”

During the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, American automaker Chevrolet debuted two ads that included LGBT couples and families.

One ad featured real couples via social media, like Francis and Cassius, whose wedding video has been on Vimeo since Sept., 2012.

Chevrolet / Via youtube.com

The ad also highlighted openly gay scientific prodigy Jack Andraka, who developed a breakthrough test for pancreatic cancer.

Chevrolet / Via youtube.com

The second ad focused more on families.

Chevrolet / Via youtube.com

"While what it means to be a family hasn’t changed," said the narrator, "what a family looks like has."

Chevrolet / Via youtube.com

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“Whoa…I made finals at the Olympics!!!”, he’d tweeted just hours before taking first place.

Getty

Until this morning, the biggest story from Team USA snowboarding in Sochi was about an American who WASN'T competing: Shaun White dropped out the slopestyle event just before the Olympics started. And as White stepped aside, Sage Kotsenburg stepped up: the 20-year-old from Park City, Utah won the United States' first gold medal at Sochi in an upset, finishing ahead of favorites Mark McMorris and Maxence Parrott of Canada.

Observers were surprised when McMorris only received 88 points for his second run — 5 points short of passing Kotsenburg — despite landing several difficult moves.

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Meet your new favorite U.S. Olympian.

Twitter: @JohnnyQuinnUSA

Alex Livesey / Getty

This morning, U.S. bobsledder Johnny Quinn found himself in a bit of a predicament, after taking a shower Quinn's bathroom sealed shut. The member of the USA-2 four man sled was trapped in his bathroom without a phone and no way to signal for help. So, instead of waiting for someone to discover him locked in his bathroom, the former professional football player took matters into his own hands — Quinn lowered his shoulder and drove right through his bathroom door.

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“As in many countries in the world, in Russia, you need permission before staging a protest. We understand this was the reason that they were temporarily detained,” said an IOC spokeswoman.

LGBT activist Elena Kostyuchenko being arrested in Moscow on Friday during a protest in Red Square.

facebook.com / Via facebook.com

The International Olympic Committee has said Russia was acting in accordance with its laws when police detained 14 protesters in Moscow and St Petersburg on the day of the Olympic opening ceremonies. Some of those held in Moscow report being beaten while in police custody.

"We understand that the protesters were quickly released," Emmanuelle Moreau, the IOC's head of media relations, said in an email to BuzzFeed. "As in many countries in the world, in Russia, you need permission before staging a protest. We understand this was the reason that they were temporarily detained."

Four LGBT activists were arrested Friday afternoon in St. Petersburg while taking a picture holding a banner that read, "Discrimination is incompatible with the Olympic Movement." It was not even a real protest, said Anastasia Smirnova, one of those arrested, but rather intended as a private commemoration of the start of the games.

As the opening ceremonies began at 8 p.m. that evening, police descended on 10 LGBT activists in Moscow's Red Square as they sang the national anthem while holding rainbow flags. Two Swedish nationals in the group were quickly released, but the rest were held for several hours during which some were reportedly kicked, choked, and threatened with sexual violence.

The speed of the police response in both cases made organizers believe police may have been tapping their phones to monitor their movements.

Russian police arrested at least 61 protestors nationwide on Friday — some protesting for causes other than LGBT rights — according to a count by the New York Times.

Fifteen-year-old Yulia Lipnitskaya’s routine in the short program portion of the team figure skating competition was basically flawless.

During the women's short program portion of the figure skating team competition this afternoon, 15-year-old Russian wunderkind Yulia Lipnitskaya wowed fans and judges with a beautiful and nearly perfect routine that left us speechless.

vine.co

There isn't much else to say except watch and enjoy.

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U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Javier Soriano / Getty

Snowboard slopestyle was introduced this year for the first time as an Olympic event and it turns out that Team USA is pretty darn good at it. On Saturday, Sage Kotsenburg surprised everyone by capturing gold in the men's event, earning the first medal of the Olympics.

And less than 24 hours later, Jamie Anderson — who was the favorite coming in — won gold in the women's event, giving Team USA two gold medals in the inaugural Olympics for the sport.

Cameron Spencer / Getty

On her last run, Anderson nailed two 720s, earning a score of 95.25 and bumping her up from fifth place to first.

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The rumor that the technical specialist reportedly responsible for the fail was stabbed to death was — surprise, surprise — untrue.

So yesterday this story began to circulate around the Internet.

Via dailycurrant.com

While the mishap was undoubtedly embarrassing, those sharing the story (over 16,000 times on Facebook and Twitter thus far), hadn't spotted that it originated on The Daily Currant — which is a satirical news site.

It's previously fooled social media users with this story, among others.

Via dailycurrant.com

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Serving their country in more ways than one.

Streeter Lecka / Getty Images

Alex Livesey / Getty Images

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Ireen Wüst of the Netherlands, one of six out LGBT Olympians competing in Sochi, placed first in the 3,000 meters.

Ireen Wüst skates to first place.

Marko Djurica / Reuters

Ireen Wüst, a speedskater from the Netherlands, won first place Sunday in the 3,000-meter competition in Sochi, defeating the defending champion from Czech Republic. She is one of few out LGBT olympians competing in Sochi.

Wüst finished in just 4 minutes, 0.34 seconds — just ahead of Martina Sablikova, the defending champ. Sablikova took silver after stopping the timer at 4 minutes, 1.95 seconds, while Russia's Olga Graf won the bronze medal, finishing in 4 minutes, 3.47 seconds. Graf's medal is the first in the games for Russia, the host nation.

Wüst, 27, won her first gold medal at the age of 19 in the same event during the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, becoming the youngest Dutch Winter Olympic champion. In 2010, she won gold in the the women's 1,500-meter race in Vancouver, Canada.

CORRECTION: Wüst has described herself as bisexual. A previous version of this post incorrectly stated her sexual identity and was brought to our attention by sharp-eyed commenters.

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Marcus Smart’s frustration boils over in confrontation with Texas Tech’s “Number One Fan.”

Oklahoma State guard Marcus Smart shoved a fan near the end of the Cowboys’ 65-61 loss at Texas Tech on Saturday.

AP Photo/Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Tori Eichberger

With little more than six seconds left in the game, Smart fouled Red Raiders forward Jaye Crockett on a dunk attempt and stumbled out of bounds behind the baseline. As Smart was being helped up, he appeared to exchange words with a fan before shoving the man with both hands. The fan, wearing a black Texas Tech shirt, stumbled but didn't fall. Smart was then led away by his teammates.

ESPN / Via YouTube

Smart pointed back in the fan's direction as he was led to the bench and assessed a technical foul. He sat on the bench until the final buzzer. According to ESPN, Smart later told coaches that the fan used an unidentified racial slur.

AP Photo/Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Tori Eichberger

The fan was later identified as Jeff Orr, who was profiled on Texas Tech's website in 2010 and identified as the program’s “Number One Fan.” Orr once traveled over 30,000 miles in a season to see Texas Tech play. He was also caught on camera directing this gesture at Texas A&M player Bryan Davis during a game in 2010.

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Alexey Sobolev really made the most of his trip to Sochi.

Twitter: @krasnodar_ka

Mike Blake / Reuters

The Sochi Winter Olympics might be over for Russia's Alexey Sobolev, but he won't be leaving Sochi without a few souvenirs. The 22-year-old snowboarder didn't qualify for yesterday's slopestyle finals after finishing 12th in the semifinals so he didn't have a chance for a medal.

But at least he had some fun -- Sobolev decided to print his cell phone number on his helmet during qualifications.

Predictably, he got bombarded with text messages -- to the point where it almost broke his iPhone. Sobolev received over 2,000 texts, some of encouragement from USA and Canada and others that were a tad more...salacious. He says he's received dozens of nude pictures in the past 24 hours.

As he told a USA Today reporter, "I've got a collection of pictures. It's really boring in the Olympic Village, you know?"

This isn't the first time Sobelev garnered national attention during the Olympics for something that has nothing to do with competing. He also made waves for his snowboard itself, which appears to be a tribute to Pussy Riot, the dissident Russian punk collective known for performing in ski masks.

For those who reached out to the snowboarder, Sobelev admitted he plans on giving some of his new fans a call.

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The idiot’s guide to the Winter Olympics’ most photogenic sport.

Mark Reis/Colorado Springs Gazette / MCT

Mike Blake / Reuters

Mark Leffingwell/Usa Today Sports

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The former Mizzou defensive end has already come out to league officials, insiders tell BuzzFeed.

Twitter: @MikeSamFootball

Former University of Missouri star Michael Sam, thought to be one of the top defensive end prospects in the upcoming NFL draft, has informed a circle of advisers that he's gay and plans to become the league's first out gay player.

Sam finished his senior season as the SEC's co-Defensive Player of the Year and made a number of All-American teams. He figures to be drafted somewhere in the first three rounds in May, according to most league analysts.

If Sam is drafted and then makes an NFL roster, he will be responsible for breaking a barrier that many — even out gay former NFL player Esera Tuaolo — never thought would happen in his lifetime.

"This is what everybody has been waiting for," Tuaolo told BuzzFeed Sunday night. "Now it's time for the NFL, the owners and each team to either put up and shut up."

The news of Sam's plans was first reported by the New York Times Sunday evening, and Sam soon thereafter took to his new Twitter account to share his thoughts about the moment:

"I just want to make sure I could tell my story the way I want to tell it," said Sam said in an interview with the Times, the first time he's spoken to the media about his orientation. "I just want to own my truth."

At the University of Missouri, Sam revealed his sexual orientation to his college teammates and friends long before deciding to tell national media outlets.

"This is less of a coming out story than a welcoming people in story," said Patrick Burke of the You Can Play! Project, which worked with Sam prior to today's news. "He's been out on campus for a couple of years."

Perhaps not-so-coincidentally, Missouri's athletic department recorded a "You Can Play" commercial — which emphasizes the school's support for LGBT athletes — last fall and sent a version of it to Burke and his staffers.

"We didn't know why it was sent to us," Burke said. "Now we get it. The best athlete they had on campus was gay."

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