Try, try, and try again.

According to Metro.co.uk, a 34-year old Serbian man has sent 5,000 messages to women on Facebook looking for a girlfriend. The bad news is that nobody is interested. Predrag Jovanovic told Huffington Post: "I got only 15 responses and they were all negative. All 15 politely refused to be my girlfriend, while the rest of them simply ignored me. When someone ignores you that is the worst thing of all".

(Facebook.com/predrag.jovanovic)

Persistent Jovanovic vows his quest will continue, claiming he has "little other choice." He explains why he initially started looking for love online: "It is so very hard to meet women face to face these days. Those who go to bars or clubs are usually attached, those you meet perhaps by chance in the street don't want to know because they paint you as a weirdo if you try to talk to them."

If messaging 5,000 random women out of the blue on Facebook isn't working, perhaps Jovanovic should try another website. Probably a dating website, where he could message other people who are actually looking for love.

Here's something you don't see every day (or night): A giant panda walking through the deserted streets of a town in southwest China. Closed-circuit television captured the bear as it ambled down the road late one night, seemingly enjoying having the streets all to herself. Experts who viewed the footage believe the animal is about 2 years old, and say that pandas are commonly found in this area. —Catherine Garcia

A long-term substitute Spanish teacher in Columbus, Ohio, was sentenced to 90 days in jail after showing students the explicit film The ABCs of Death, featuring graphic violence and sex.

Sheila Kearns, 58, was found guilty of four counts of disseminating matter harmful to juveniles. Kearns — who doesn't even speak Spanish — showed The ABCs of Death to students on April 11, 2013, and two classmates testified that they found it extremely disturbing. "This is what happens when you put a teacher in a class that she cannot teach," Judge Charles A. Schneider said, according to The Columbus Dispatch.

The excuse Kearns came up with further infuriated Schneider: Kearns claimed that she didn't watch the movie before putting it on, and had no idea what it was about (the title didn't give her a clue?). She said that the entire day, her back was turned to the television, and she never once turned around to see what was on the screen. Schneider didn't fall for it, calling her claim "unconscionable. There's no way you'll persuade me that's what happened."

On Thursday night's Late Night, Jada Pinkett Smith talked about working with hot topless men on Magic Mike XXL, and told Seth Meyers that the film finally made her understand that thing about men having two separate, competing command centers. "For the first time in my life, that other head below started talking to me: Procreate, procreate, procreate, procreate," she said. "My top head was, like, 'Jada, there is not a Will Smith on this set, you can't procreate with nobody!'" That whole day of filming, she added, "I felt really bad for guys."

That led to Pinkett Smith talking about how she enjoys watching her husband's on-screen sex scenes. As with her use of "procreate," she got the message across using family-safe language. "When I'm with Will, I get to experience him physically," Pinkett Smith explained, "but very rarely do I get to see what he looks like when he's in the game." Meyers kept his head, but at the end he conceded that "this is the hottest interview I've ever done." And yet, somehow, it's safe for work. —Peter Weber

It's been 20 years since the U.N. women's conference in Beijing, where 189 countries adopted a platform for action to achieve equality for women, but Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka says that no country on earth has reached gender equality.

The executive director of UN Women said that while there has been some progress — mostly in women’s health and girls’ education — violence against women and a lack of women in decision-making roles are "global phenomena" that make equality difficult. "The sheer scale of the use of rape that we've seen post-Beijing, I think that tells us that the women's bodies are viewed not as something to respect, but as something that men have the right to control and to abuse," she told The Associated Press. Leaders across the world need to start speaking out "very strongly and very openly" against sexual violence and the denial of women's rights, she added.

The platform for action from the Beijing conference called for the end of discrimination against women and the closing of the gender gap in health, human rights, employment, education, and other areas. Today, there are less than 20 female heads of state and government and the percentage of women lawmakers has only increased by 11 percent over the past two decades. "We just don't have critical mass to say that post-Beijing women have reached a tipping point in their representation," Mlambo-Ngcuka told AP. Next week, the Commission on the Status of Women will meet to revisit the Beijing platform.

Whoever takes over for Jon Stewart at The Daily Show — and now we know it won't be Samantha Bee — will have plenty of opportunity to hire new talent. On Thursday, TBS announced that it has signed Bee for her own topical comedy show, as yet unnamed, that will allow her to "apply her smart and satirical point of view to current and relevant issues." TBS also recently poached Bee's husband, Jason Jones, for a scripted comedy series.

Jones and Bee will be executive producers on both shows, and TBS is talking up the "family affair" angle. "We actually have their kids coming in next week to pitch us animation," said Brett Weitz, TBS executive vice president of original programming, in a statement. Presumably TBS will leave the comedy writing to the pros.

The notoriously press-shy Harper Lee isn't one to mince words, and she let a pesky reporter know that his efforts to get her to talk were all in vain.

Over on AL.com, Connor Sheets admits that he basically stalked Lee for several days, trying to reach the author through her lawyer and publisher before actually going to her nursing home in Monroeville, Alabama. Despite the fact that she has been known to tell reporters asking for an interview "not just no, but hell no," Sheets said he finally decided to send her a two page letter on Feb. 5. He let her know that while he didn't expect a response, he was hoping she would "confirm that she is in fact lucid and fully in control of the destiny of Go Set a Watchman," her soon-to-be-released book.

Instead of answering this insulting question — did he seriously expect her to write back, "Why yes, I am completely lucid! Thanks so much for your concern about my mental faculties, random stranger!" — she returned the now-crumpled letter with a brief message scrawled on the bottom: "Go away! Harper Lee." Sounds like a fitting response to someone who just can't take a hint.

Sometimes you forget how deep Saturday Night Live's roots spread through American comedy. Conan O'Brien was a writer at SNL when a 23-year-old Adam Sandler joined the cast in 1990. On Thursday night's Conan, O'Brien asked if Sandler remembered those days, and Sandler mostly recalled being cocky, telling Lorne Michaels that he was going to be "the next Eddie Murphy," and a memorable staff dinner with actor Michael Keaton.

Then Sandler took over the questioning. "Hey Conan, do you remember [Chris] Farley's order when we would go out?" Conan remembered: "Chris Farley loved to eat, to a degree I've never seen since, by any human being." Sandler's recounting of his late friend's dining-out habits is still pretty shocking, and yet there's something kind of touching in watching him describe it. Watch below. —Peter Weber

An American helicopter mechanic is learning the hard way that the United Arab Emirates takes cyber-slander laws very seriously.

Ryan Pate worked in the United Arab Emirates at Global Aerospace Logistics (GAL), and was upset that the company would not let him extend his time off back home to see a doctor about a back injury. While in the U.S., he turned to Facebook and went on a rant, calling GAL "backstabbers" and using a racial slur against Arabs, the BBC reports. When he came back to the UAE to resign, he was summoned to the police station, where he was presented with screenshots of his Facebook post.

The authorities told him that GAL filed charges against him, saying he broke the country's laws against slander; in 2012, the UAE made it an offense to use the internet to say derogatory things about people and organizations. Pate's trial will start March 17, and he could face a hefty fine and up to five years in jail if convicted. 

Iraqi officials say that ISIS extremists have used heavy vehicles to demolish more ancient artifacts in Iraq, this time razing the Assyrian site of Nimrud.

Nimrud, 20 miles south of Mosul, is home to ruins dating back to the 13th century BC, Iraq's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said in a statement. Government officials have been worried about the site since ISIS took over large sections of the Nineveh province in 2014, the Los Angeles Times reports. The damage took place a week after ISIS released a video showing militants destroying priceless statues in Mosul's national museum.

A report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that the suicide rate for girls and young women between the ages of 10 and 24 is increasing, and at a pace faster than for males in the same age group.

Suicide rates since 2007 have been on the rise; there were 4,320 deaths that year, and 5,264 in 2013. Although the suicide rate for boys and young men is three times higher than the female rate for that age group, the increase for females has been steadier, The Associated Press reports. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among people 10-24 years old in the United States, and experts say more girls and young women are hanging themselves or using other forms of suffocation.