• In just 13 seconds, a viral clip from the latest "Scooby-Doo" movie, released on streaming services this week, settled decades of speculation and fan debate. Velma Dinkley is gay -- undoubtedly, unambiguously gay. The scene, clipped from "Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!" and shared on Twitter, starts with Velma as she's always been depicted: the short brunette bob and bangs, the black horned glasses, that iconic uniform: a bulky orange turtleneck and maroon pleated skirt. She strides past her fellow sleuths, Daphne Blake and Fred Jones, a box of Scooby snacks in hand to give to the eponymous Great Dane. But mid-sentence, she trails off. A lush orchestral arrangement starts playing. A series of captions pops up, highlighting features of the woman standing in front of her, the costume-designing crime boss Coco Diablo: "Obviously brilliant!" "Incredible glasses!" "Amazing turtleneck!" "Loves animals!" Velma exhibits all the telltale signs of cartoon swooning. She blushes. Her eyeglasses fog. "Jinkiiiiees," she sighs. In a later scene, Velma professes her thirst for Diablo outright to her best friend. "I'm crushing big-time, Daphne. What do I do? What do I say?" Trinity Wheeler, an 18-year-old student from Ontario, Canada, was the first person to share a clip from the new film online, adding the caption: "OMG LESBIAN VELMA FINALLY." About 48 hours later, her video had been played more than 5.5 million times and received more than 200,000 likes. For those who've followed the long-running animated franchise, it was probably no surprise that Velma is a lesbian. Fans have heralded her as a queer icon, and previous Scooby-Doo writers and producers have tried to depict her as such for at least 20 years -- although one writer, James Gunn, has said that in the early aughts he met pushback from franchise owner Warner Bros., which "just kept watering it down." Audie Harrison, director of the new film, told NPR this week that Warner Bros. was "very supportive of this direction for Velma's character from day one." "It honestly did not occur to [me] that we were doing something so groundbreaking until right now," Harrison said. "I just set out to have fun with the comedy of an awkward teenage crush."

• Mexican actor Pablo Lyle was convicted in Florida this week of fatally punching a man during a road-rage confrontation. A jury in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court found Lyle, 35, guilty of manslaughter, according to court records, and he faces up to 15 years in prison. Lyle has claimed he acted in self-defense and was trying to protect his children in March 2019 when he punched Juan Ricardo Hernandez, 63, in a confrontation at a Miami intersection. Hernandez suffered a traumatic brain injury and died four days later at a hospital. Lyle has starred in several Televisa telenovelas and a Netflix crime show called "Yankee."

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