It’s tough to play favorites when it comes to the members of One Direction. There’s Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson — also known as the cute one, the cute one, the cute one, the cute one and the cute one.

On this day — May 25, 1977, the Wednesday before the Memorial Day weekend — "Star Wars" opened in theaters and changed the pop cultural landscape.

To borrow the words of a Washington, D.C. resident whose Cleveland Park neighborhood was overrun that summer with "Star Wars" fans, waiting in line over and over to see Luke, Han and Leia at the Uptown Theater: "It’s ... it’s an invasion." (Read this whole Washington Post article about the neighborhood consternation back in ‘77. The quotes in it are a riot: "I told my wife, ‘Hey, some clown is blocking the driveway.' The funny thing is that it turned out to be a friend of my wife whose car was blocking the drive, a person who had just graduated from clown school.")

It’s graduation season, which means commencement speakers trying so hard to be funny and memorable — and usually failing. (Remember your college grad address? Thought not.) Colleges fight for VIP speakers because they make headlines with their Life Lessons. And so we present the The Reliable Source’s annual, all-purpose keynote address (with input from our colleague Jenna Johnson) stitched together from the best lines of Commencement 2012.

You could kick off your Memorial Day weekend and the unofficial start of summer the way you usually do: by eating seven consecutive hot dogs off the grill, then jumping into a swimming pool and timing how long it takes your stomach to start cramping.

Jon Goldwater was riding his New York commuter train, just two weeks into his new job as co-chief executive of Archie Comics, when a fellow passenger tossed off a remark that blindsided him. The fresh executive had an Archie folder on his lap, Goldwater recounts, "when a woman sitting near me turned and said: ‘They still make those?!’ "

"Chernobyl Diaries" is old wine in a new bottle.

Not that you can’t catch a buzz off old wine. Set in an abandoned Ukrainian town next to the infamous Chernobyl nuclear power plant, site of the catastrophic 1986 explosion, the horror film is moderately spooky, visually stylish and tinged with mystery. What — or who — is haunting Pripyat, the former home to thousands of Chernobyl workers who fled after the disaster?

At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the glamorous gowns worn by female celebrities have been spiced up a bit with thigh-high slits, a style made infamous by Angelina Jolie and her right leg at the Academy Awards.

About 22 million people caught the crowning of the latest white guy with guitar to be crowned "American Idol" winner Wednesday night — about 7 million fewer viewers than last May. The plunge was similar among 18-49 year olds who are the currency of Fox’s ad sales.

CAIRO — The first day of Egypt’s landmark presidential election Wednesday was hailed as largely free of fraud and violence, as voters endured long lines and blistering heat to elect a leader after three decades of autocratic rule.

Phillip Phillips becomes the fifth consecutive super-safe white guy with guitar to win "American Idol." Here’s how it happens:

The finale opens at the Nokia Theater in downtown Los Angeles, with the Idolette finalists in a group sing of "Runaway Baby" by Bruno Mars. They’re all dressed in white suits, like this is a vision of heaven, the "Idol" Afterlife. Joshua Ledet tries a split, but falls over; someone behind him helps him off the stage.

CBS can call itself the country’s most-watched network for the ninth time in the past 10 years.

The network won the 2011-12 television season, which ended Wednesday, by averaging nearly 12 million viewers each week. That’s about 3 million more viewers than closest competitor Fox, the largest margin of victory of any network in more than two decades.

About 17.8 million people tuned in Tuesday night to see football player Donald Driver and his partner Peta Murgatroyd waltz off with the hideous-yet-coveted Mirror Ball Trophy on "Dancing With the Stars,

"RIP Robin Gibb" — what does that even mean on Twitter? Monica Hesse dissects the showy phenomenon of social media mourning: "When celebrities die, we become more aware of our ephemeral existence. Everyone dies, even a Bee Gee, and bleating out tweets is so much less about the musicians than it is about us. In one way or another, it always is."

• More trouble for Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Ball Tour in Asia: The pop star managed to insult fans in Thailand with a tweet Wednesday night: "I just landed in Bangkok baby! Ready for 50,000 screaming Thai monsters. I wanna get lost in a lady market and buy fake Rolex." Unclear if mentioning the ladies or the knockoffs was more offensive, but some fans are calling for a boycott of her concert Friday, reports the Associated Press. "Welcome to the land of counterfeit products, love," Thai fan Nont Armarttasn posted on Facebook. "I’m sure there are plenty of fake Gaga CDs, too."

When photographer Richard Misrach and his wife trimmed back the vegetation that pressed up against their new home perched atop a steep Berkeley hill, a stunning view met them. Across the way, the Golden Gate Bridge in miniature rested, toothpick-like in its delicacy. For the next three years, Misrach found relaxation in capturing the beauty of the bridge with his 8-by-10 camera.

With the upcoming Summer Olympics in London falling on the 100th anniversary of the 1912 games in Stockholm, where the legendary Jim Thorpe won, then lost, then posthumously won again two gold medals, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian opened a new exhibit Friday morning to honor Native olympians.

Tom and Gary are having a party in D.C. this weekend. It’s gonna be a rager. You’re totally invited.

You don’t have to know Tom and Gary to come to this shindig, though, because no one else will really know them either. They’re two sunglass-wearing dudes who claim to be from the future, if by "the future" they mean Canada (and they have an ironic fashion sense firmly rooted in the 1980s, to boot). They are the ultimate party animals — currently on an eight-city American party tour which will stop in D.C. Saturday night to gather people up for a boombox blasting bacchanale in the streets.

When does summer really start? Technically, the 2012 summer solstice arrives at 7:09 p.m. on June 20. But some local music fans might argue that it begins tonight at 8 p.m. when Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts kicks off its summer concert season.

Reeve Lindbergh, the youngest child of Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was in Washington Thursday night to celebrate the publication of "Against Wind and Tide" (Pantheon, $27.95), a new collection of letters and diary entries by her late mother.